the second in importance is as follows sovereignty may be defined to be the right of making laws in france the king really exercises a portion of the sovereign power since the laws have no weight
till he has given his assent to them he is moreover the executor of all they ordain the president is also the executor of the laws but he does not really co operate in their formation
since the refusal of his assent does not annul them he is therefore merely to be considered as the agent of the sovereign power but not only does the king of france exercise a portion of the sovereign power
he also contributes to the nomination of the legislature which exercises the other portion he has the privilege of appointing the members of one chamber and of dissolving the other at his pleasure
whereas the president of the united states has no share in the formation of the legislative body and cannot dissolve any part of it the king has the same right of bringing forward measures as the chambers a right which the president does not possess
the king is represented in each assembly by his ministers who explain his intentions support his opinions and maintain the principles of the government the president and his ministers are alike excluded from congress
so that his influence and his opinions can only penetrate indirectly into that great body the king of france is therefore on an equal footing with the legislature which can no more act without him than he can without it
the president exercises an authority inferior to and depending upon that of the legislature even in the exercise of the executive power properly so called the point upon which his position
seems to be most analogous to that of the king of france the president labors under several causes of inferiority the authority of the king in france has in the first place the advantage of duration over that of the president
and durability is one of the chief elements of strength nothing is either loved or feared but what is likely to endure the president of the united states is a magistrate elected for four years the king in france
in the exercise of the executive power the president of the united states is constantly subject to a jealous scrutiny he may make but he cannot conclude a treaty
but in fact it exists in america it acts by elections and decrees in france it proceeds by revolutions but notwithstanding the different constitutions of these two countries
public opinion is the predominant authority in both of them the fundamental principle of legislation a principle essentially republican is the same in both countries
although its consequences may be different and its results more or less extensive whence i am led to conclude that france with its king is nearer akin to a republic than the union with its president is to a monarchy
the contrast would have been rendered still more striking i have remarked that the authority of the president in the united states is only exercised within the limits of a partial sovereignty
i might have gone on to show that the power of the king's government in france exceeds its natural limits however extensive they may be and penetrates in a thousand different ways into the administration of private interests
amongst the examples of this influence may be quoted that which results from the great number of public functionaries who all derive their appointments from the government this number now exceeds all previous limits
the president has no opportunity of exercising his great prerogatives in the prerogatives he exercises he is weak if the executive government is feebler in america than in france the cause is more attributable
to the circumstances than to the laws of the country it is chiefly in its foreign relations that the executive power of a nation is called upon to exert its skill and its vigor
and those which it would carry into effect the president of the united states is the commander in chief of the army
composed of only six thousand men he commands the fleet but the fleet reckons but few sail he conducts the foreign relations of the union but the united states are a nation without neighbors
separated from the rest of the world by the ocean and too weak as yet to aim at the dominion of the seas they have no enemies and their interests rarely come into contact with those of any other nation of the globe
the practical part of a government must not be judged by the theory of its constitution the president of the united states is in the possession of almost royal prerogatives which he has no opportunity of exercising
which circumstances do not permit him to employ
there the executive government is constantly struggling against prodigious obstacles and exerting all its energies to repress them so that it increases by the extent of its achievements and by the importance of the events it controls
without modifying its constitution if the laws had made it as feeble and as circumscribed as it is in the union its influence would very soon become still more preponderant
it is an established axiom in europe that a constitutional king cannot persevere in a system of government which is opposed by the two other branches of the legislature
but several presidents of the united states have been known to lose the majority in the legislative body without being obliged to abandon the supreme power and without inflicting a serious evil upon society
i have heard this fact quoted as an instance of the independence and the power of the executive government in america a moment's reflection will convince us on the contrary that it is a proof of its extreme weakness
by the constitution because those duties are enormous a constitutional king in europe is not merely the executor of the law but the execution of its provisions devolves so completely upon him
that he has the power of paralyzing its influence if it opposes his designs he requires the assistance of the legislative assemblies to make the law but those assemblies stand in need of his aid to execute it
these two authorities cannot subsist without each other and the mechanism of government is stopped as soon as they are at variance in america the president cannot prevent any law from being passed nor can he evade the obligation of enforcing it
his sincere and zealous co operation is no doubt useful but it is not indispensable in the carrying on of public affairs all his important acts are directly or indirectly submitted to the legislature
and of his own free authority he can do but little it is therefore his weakness and not his power which enables him to remain in opposition to congress in europe harmony must reign between the crown and the other branches of the legislature
because a collision between them may prove serious in america this harmony is not indispensable because such a collision is impossible election of the president
this system possible in america because no powerful executive authority is required what circumstances are favorable to the elective system why the election of the president does not cause a deviation from the principles of the government
of a great people have been sufficiently exemplified by experience and by history
these dangers may be more or less formidable in proportion to the place which the executive power occupies and to the importance it possesses in the state
and they may vary according to the mode of election and the circumstances in which the electors are placed the most weighty argument against the election of a chief magistrate is
the more the ambition of the candidates is excited the more warmly are their interests espoused by a throng of partisans who hope to share the power when their patron has won the prize the dangers of the elective system increase therefore
in the exact ratio of the influence exercised by the executive power
the revolutions of poland were not solely attributable to the elective system in general but to the fact that the elected monarch was the sovereign of a powerful kingdom before we can discuss the absolute advantages of the elective system
we must make preliminary inquiries as to whether the geographical position the laws the habits the manners and the opinions of the people amongst whom it is to be introduced will admit of the establishment of a weak and dependent executive government
for to attempt to render the representative of the state a powerful sovereign and at the same time elective is in my opinion to entertain two incompatible designs to reduce hereditary royalty to the condition of an elective authority
gradually to diminish its prerogatives and to accustom the people to live without its protection nothing however is further from the designs of the republicans of europe than this course as many of them owe their hatred of tyranny
to the sufferings which they have personally undergone it is oppression and not the extent of the executive power which excites their hostility and they attack the former without perceiving how nearly it is connected with the latter
hitherto no citizen has shown any disposition to expose his honor and his life in order to become the president of the united states because the power of that office is temporary limited and subordinate
the prize of fortune must be great to encourage adventurers in so desperate a game
for the very simple reason that when he is at the head of the government he has but little power but little wealth and but little glory to share amongst his friends
to power the great advantage of hereditary monarchies is that as the private interest of a family is always intimately connected with the interests of the state the executive government is never suspended for a single instant
at least there is always some one to conduct them well or ill according to his capacity in elective states on the contrary the wheels of government cease to act as it were of their own accord at the approach of an election
and even for some time previous to that event the laws may indeed accelerate the operation of the election which may be conducted with such simplicity and rapidity that the seat of power will never be left vacant but notwithstanding these precautions
a break necessarily occurs in the minds of the people at the approach of an election the head of the executive government is wholly occupied by the coming struggle his future plans are doubtful he can undertake nothing new
i take no part i express no sentiment it appears to me just to leave to my successor the commencement of those measures which he will have to prosecute and for which he will be responsible
on the other hand the eyes of the nation are centred on a single point all are watching the gradual birth of so important an event
the more fatal is the term of suspense and a nation which is accustomed to the government or still more one used to the administrative protection of a powerful executive authority
if the share of power vested in the elected magistrate is small in rome the principles of the government underwent no variation although the consuls were changed every year because the senate which was an hereditary assembly
possessed the directing authority if the elective system were adopted in europe the condition of most of the monarchical states would be changed at every new election in america the president exercises a certain influence on state affairs but he does not conduct them
the preponderating power is vested in the representatives of the whole nation the political maxims of the country depend therefore on the mass of the people not on the president alone
and consequently in america the elective system has no very prejudicial influence on the fixed principles of the government but the want of fixed principles is an evil so inherent in the elective system
that it is still extremely perceptible in the narrow sphere to which the authority of the president extends the americans have admitted that the head of the executive power who has to bear the whole responsibility of the duties he is called upon to fulfil
mister quincy adams on his entry into office discharged the majority of the individuals who had been appointed by his predecessor and i am not aware that general jackson allowed a single removable functionary employed in the federal service
to retain his place beyond the first year which succeeded his election it is sometimes made a subject of complaint that in the constitutional monarchies of europe the fate of the humbler servants of an administration
depends upon that of the ministers but in elective governments this evil is far greater in a constitutional monarchy successive ministries are rapidly formed but as the principal representative of the executive power does not change
the spirit of innovation is kept within bounds the changes which take place are in the details rather than in the principles of the administrative system but to substitute one system for another as is done in america every four years by law
is to cause a sort of revolution as to the misfortunes which may fall upon individuals in consequence of this state of things it must be allowed that the uncertain situation of the public officers
that the public officer who loses his place may be deprived of the comforts of life
i remarked at the beginning of this chapter that the dangers of the elective system applied to the head of the state are augmented or decreased by the peculiar circumstances of the people which adopts it however the functions of the executive power may be restricted
it must always exercise a great influence upon the foreign policy of the country for a negotiation cannot be opened or successfully carried on otherwise than by a single agent the more precarious and the more perilous the position of a people becomes
the policy of the americans in relation to the whole world is exceedingly simple for it may almost be said that no country stands in need of them nor do they require the co operation of any other people
their independence is never threatened in their present condition therefore the functions of the executive power are no less limited by circumstances than by the laws and the president may frequently change his line of policy
without involving the state in difficulty or destruction whatever the prerogatives of the executive power may be the period which immediately precedes an election and the moment of its duration must always be considered as a national crisis
which is perilous in proportion to the internal embarrassments and the external dangers of the country few of the nations of europe could escape the calamities of anarchy or of conquest every time they might have to elect a new sovereign
in america society is so constituted that it can stand without assistance upon its own basis nothing is to be feared from the pressure of external dangers and the election of the president is a cause of agitation
but not of ruin mode of election
creation of a special electoral body separate votes of these electors case in which the house of representatives is called upon to choose the president results of the twelve elections which have taken place since the constitution has been established
besides the dangers which are inherent in the system many other difficulties may arise from the mode of election which may be obviated by the precaution of the legislator when a people met in arms on some public spot to choose its head
it was exposed to all the chances of civil war resulting from so martial a mode of proceeding besides the dangers of the elective system in itself the polish laws which subjected the election of the sovereign to the veto of a single individual
suggested the murder of that individual or prepared the way to anarchy in the examination of the institutions and the political as well as social condition of the united states
we are struck by the admirable harmony of the gifts of fortune and the efforts of man the nation possessed two of the main causes of internal peace it was a new country
america had no hostile neighbors to dread and the american legislators profiting by these favorable circumstances
which could without danger be made elective
and the rules which they laid down upon this point admirably correspond to the securities which the physical and political constitution of the country already afforded
their object was to find the mode of election which would best express the choice of the people with the least possible excitement and suspense it was admitted in the first place that the simple majority should be decisive
but the difficulty was to obtain this majority without an interval of delay which it was most important to avoid it rarely happens that an individual can at once collect the majority of the suffrages of a great people
and this difficulty is enhanced in a republic of confederate states where local influences are apt to preponderate
was to delegate the electoral powers of the nation to a body of representatives this mode of election rendered a majority more probable for the fewer the electors are the greater is the chance of their coming to a final decision
it also offered an additional probability of a judicious choice it then remained to be decided whether this right of election was to be entrusted to a legislative body
or whether an electoral assembly should be formed for the express purpose of proceeding to the nomination of a president the americans chose the latter alternative from a belief that the individuals who were returned to make the laws
were incompetent to represent the wishes of the nation in the election of its chief magistrate and that as they are chosen for more than a year the constituency they represent might have changed its opinion in that time
its members would for some time before the election
and the tricks of intrigue whereas the special electors would like a jury remain mixed up with the crowd till the day of action when they would appear for the sole purpose of giving their votes
had been entrusted in elective countries inevitably became the centres of passion and of cabal that they sometimes usurped an authority which did not belong to them and that their proceedings or the uncertainty which resulted from them
were sometimes prolonged so much as to endanger the welfare of the state it was determined that the electors should all vote upon the same day
as between their constituents in this case it was necessary to have recourse to one of three measures either to appoint new electors or to consult a second time those already appointed
to another authority the first two of these alternatives independently of the uncertainty of their results were likely to delay the final decision and to perpetuate an agitation which must always be accompanied with danger
the third expedient was therefore adopted and it was agreed that the votes should be transmitted sealed to the president of the senate
and the house of representatives if none of the candidates has a majority
are obliged to choose a citizen who has already been designated by a powerful minority of the special electors it is by this happy expedient that the respect which is due to the popular voice is combined with the utmost celerity of execution
but the decision of the question by the house of representatives does not necessarily offer an immediate solution of the difficulty for the majority of that assembly may still be doubtful
anxiety of the president calm which succeeds the agitation of the election
and what precautions were taken by the legislators to obviate its dangers
which is compatible with security the vast extent of the country and the dissemination of the inhabitants render a collision between parties less probable and less dangerous there than elsewhere
presented no real embarrassments to the nation nevertheless
the influence which he exercises on public business is no doubt feeble and indirect but the choice of the president which is of small importance to each individual citizen concerns the citizens collectively
and however trifling an interest may be it assumes a great degree of importance as soon as it becomes general
are sufficiently numerous to interest directly or indirectly several thousand electors in his success political parties in the united states are led to rally round an individual in order to acquire a more tangible shape in the eyes of the crowd
and the name of the candidate for the presidency is put forward as the symbol and personification of their theories for these reasons parties are strongly interested in gaining the election not so much with a view to the triumph of their principles under the auspices of the president elect
as to show by the majority which returned him the strength of the supporters of those principles for a long while before the appointed time is at hand the election becomes the most important and the all engrossing topic of discussion
the ardor of faction is redoubled and all the artificial passions which the imagination can create in the bosom of a happy and peaceful land are agitated and brought to light the president on the other hand is absorbed by the cares of self defence
he no longer governs for the interest of the state but for that of his re election he does homage to the majority and instead of checking its passions as his duty commands him to do he frequently courts its worst caprices
the citizens are divided into hostile camps each of which assumes the name of its favorite candidate
the end of every thought and every action the sole interest of the present as soon as the choice is determined this ardor is dispelled and as a calmer season returns the current of the state which had nearly broken its banks
antipater's navigation from rome to his father
upon antipater's writing to him that having done all that he was to do and this in the manner he was to do it he would suddenly come to him concealed his anger against him and wrote back to him and bid him not delay his journey lest any harm should befall himself in his absence
at the same time also he made some little complaint about his mother but promised that he would lay those complaints aside when he should return he withal expressed his entire affection for him as fearing lest he should have some suspicion of him and defer his journey to him
and lest while he lived at rome he should lay plots for the kingdom and moreover do somewhat against himself
now some of his friends advised him that he should tarry a while some where in expectation of further information but others advised him to sail home without delay for that if he were once come thither he would soon put an end to all accusations
and that nothing afforded any weight to his accusers at present but his absence
which herod had built at vast expenses in honor of caesar and called sebastus and now was antipater evidently in a miserable condition while nobody came to him nor saluted him as they did at his going away with good wishes of joyful acclamations
nor was there now any thing to hinder them from entertaining him on the contrary with bitter curses
being sent to succeed saturninus as president of syria and was come as an assessor to herod who had desired his advice in his present affairs and as they were sitting together antipater came upon them without knowing any thing of the matter so he came into the palace clothed in purple
the porters indeed received him in but excluded his friends and now he was in great disorder and presently understood the condition he was in while upon his going to salute his father he was repulsed by him who called him a murderer of his brethren and a plotter of destruction against himself
and besides these some slaves of antipater's mother who were taken up a little before antipater's coming and brought with them a written letter the sum of which was this that he should not come back because all was come to his father's knowledge
and that caesar was the only refuge he had left to prevent both his and her delivery into his father's hands then did antipater fall down at his father's feet and besought him not to prejudge his cause
so herod ordered him to be brought into the midst and then lamented himself about his children from whom he had suffered such great misfortunes and because antipater fell upon him in his old age
he also reckoned up what maintenance and what education he had given them and what seasonable supplies of wealth he had afforded them according to their own desires none of which favors had hindered them from contriving against him
and from bringing his very life into danger in order to gain his kingdom after an impious manner by taking away his life before the course of nature their father's wishes or justice required that that kingdom should come to them
and that he wondered what hopes could elevate antipater to such a pass as to be hardy enough to attempt such things
either in his illustrious dignity or in power and authority
he also objected to him the case of his brethren whom he had accused and if they were guilty he had imitated their example and if not he had brought him groundless accusations against his near relations for that he had been acquainted with all those things by him
and by nobody else and had done what was done by his approbation
and with the circumstances of his affairs
for that he had made provision for every thing that was fit to be foreseen beforehand as to giving him his wisest advice and whenever there was occasion for the labor of his own hands he had not grudged any such pains for him
and that there was no likelihood that a person who had the one half of that authority without any danger and with a good character should hunt after the whole with infamy and danger and this when it was doubtful whether he could obtain it or not
and when he saw the sad example of his brethren before him and was both the informer and the accuser against them at a time when they might not otherwise have been discovered
nay was the author of the punishment inflicted upon them when it appeared evidently that they were guilty of a wicked attempt against their father and that even the contentions there were in the king's family were indications that he had ever managed affairs out of the sincerest affection to his father and as to what he had done at rome
who yet was no more to be imposed upon than god himself of whose opinions his letters sent hither are sufficient evidence and that it was not reasonable to prefer the calumnies of such as proposed to raise disturbances before those letters the greatest part of which calumnies had been raised during his absence
while they greatly pitied antipater who by weeping and putting on a countenance suitable to his sad case made them commiserate the same
and it appeared plainly that herod himself was affected in his own mind although he was not willing it should be taken notice of then did nicolaus begin to prosecute what the king had begun and that with great bitterness and summed up all the evidence which arose from the tortures
or from the testimonies he principally and largely cried up the king's virtues which he had exhibited in the maintenance and education of his sons while he never could gain any advantage thereby but still fell from one misfortune to another
of antipater who although he had not only had great benefits bestowed on him by his father enough to tame his reason yet could not be more tamed than the most envenomed serpents whereas even those creatures admit of some mitigation and will not bite their benefactors
the informer as to what wicked actions they had done and the searcher out of the evidence against them and the author of the punishment they underwent upon their detection nor do we say this as accusing thee for being so zealous in thy anger against them
that by such outside hatred of their impiety thou mightest be believed a lover of thy father and mightest thereby get thee power enough to do mischief with the greatest impunity which design thy actions indeed demonstrate it is true thou tookest thy brethren off
because thou didst convict theft of their wicked designs but thou didst not yield up to justice those who were their partners and thereby didst make it evident to all men that thou madest a covenant with them against thy father when thou chosest to be the accuser of thy brethren
as desirous to gain to thyself alone this advantage of laying plots to kill thy father
but for certain thou didst not measure these things according to thy father's various disposition but according to thy own thoughts and inclinations and was desirous to take the part that remained away from thy too indulgent father and soughtest to destroy him with thy deeds
whom thou in words pretendedst to preserve nor wast thou content to be wicked thyself but thou filledst thy mother's head with thy devices and raised disturbances among thy brethren and hadst the boldness to call thy father a wild beast
while thou hadst thyself a mind more cruel than any serpent
and invitedst them to assist thee and guard thee and didst hedge thyself in on all sides by the artifices of both men and women against an old man
and here thou appearest after the tortures of free men of domestics of men and women which have been examined on thy account and after the informations of thy fellow conspirators as making haste to contradict the truth
that thou desirest to be put to the torture thyself while thou allegest that the tortures of those already examined thereby
but that thy tortures may be esteemed the discoverers of truth wilt not thou o varus deliver the king from the injuries of his kindred
while yet he is himself alone ready to carry off the kingdom immediately and appears to be the most bloody butcher to him of them all for thou art sensible that parricide is a general injury both to nature and to common life
and whatsoever she had prattled like a woman as also about the predictions and the sacrifices relating to the king and whatsoever antipater had done lasciviously in his cups and his amours among pheroras's women the examination upon torture
and whatsoever concerned the testimonies of the witnesses which were many and of various kinds some prepared beforehand and others were sudden answers which further declared and confirmed the foregoing evidence
for those men who were not acquainted with antipater's practices but had concealed them out of fear when they saw that he was exposed to the accusations of the former witnesses and that his great good fortune which had supported him hitherto
told all they knew of him and his ruin was now hastened
as by his gross and impudent and wicked contrivances and by his ill will to his father and his brethren while he had filled their house with disturbance and caused them to murder one another and was neither fair in his hatred nor kind in his friendship but just so far as served his own turn
now there were a great number who for a long time beforehand had seen all this and especially such as were naturally disposed to judge of matters by the rules of virtue because they were used to determine about affairs without passion but had been restrained from making any open complaints before
out of suspicion of any danger they were in but they spake what they knew because they thought such actions very wicked and that antipater deserved the greatest punishment and indeed not so much for herod's safety as on account of the man's own wickedness
if he had prepared any thing whereby it might appear that he was not guilty of the crimes he was accused of for that
so did he know that his father was in like manner desirous also to have him found entirely innocent but antipater fell down on his face and appealed to god and to all men for testimonials of his innocency desiring that god would declare by some evident signals that he had not laid any plot against his father
this being the usual method of all men destitute of virtue that when they set about any wicked undertakings they fall to work according to their own inclinations as if they believed that god was unconcerned in human affairs
but when once they are found out and are in danger of undergoing the punishment due to their crimes they endeavor to overthrow all the evidence against them by appealing to god which was the very thing which antipater now did for whereas he had done everything as if there were no god in the world
when he was on all sides distressed by justice and when he had no other advantage to expect from any legal proofs by which he might disprove the accusations laid against him he impudently abused the majesty of god and ascribed it to his power that he had been preserved hitherto
found that he had nothing to say besides his appeal to god and saw that there was no end of that he bid them bring the potion before the court that he might see what virtue still remained in it
and when it was brought and one that was condemned to die had drank it by varus's command he died presently then varus got up and departed out of the court and went away the day following to antioch where his usual residence was because that was the palace of the syrians
upon which herod laid his son in bonds but what were varus's discourses to herod was not known to the generality and upon what words it was that he went away
but when herod had bound his son he sent letters to rome to caesar about him and such messengers withal as should by word of mouth inform caesar of antipater's wickedness
i wish thee good success in thy affair these were the contents of this letter but the king made inquiry about the other letter also for it did not appear
he guessed that the letter might be within that doubling which accordingly proved to be true so they took out the letter and its contents were these acme to antipater i have written such a letter to thy father as thou desiredst me
and informed him that in compliance with his command she had both herself written to herod as if salome had laid a sudden plot entirely against him and had herself sent a copy of an epistle as coming from salome to her lady now acme was a jew by birth and a servant to julia caesar's wife
beating her breast and bidding him kill her if he could produce any credible testimony that she had acted in that manner herod also sent for his son and asked him about this matter and bid him contradict if he could and not suppress any thing he had to say for himself
and when he had not one word to say he asked him since he was every way caught in his villainy that he would make no further delay but discover his associates in these his wicked designs
but discovered nobody else hereupon herod was in such great grief that he was ready to send his son to rome to caesar there to give an account of these his wicked contrivances but he soon became afraid lest he might there by the assistance of his friends
escape the danger he was in so he kept him bound as before and sent more ambassadors and letters to rome to accuse his son
concerning the disease that herod fell into and the sedition which the jews raised thereupon
but sent as instructed beforehand what answers they were to make to the questions put to them they also carried the epistles with them but herod now fell into a distemper and made his will and bequeathed his kingdom to antipas his youngest son
and this out of that hatred to archclaus and philip which the calumnies of antipater had raised against them he also bequeathed a thousand talents to caesar and five hundred to julia caesar's wife to caesar's children and friends and freed men
he also distributed among his sons and their sons his money his revenues and his lands
and as he despaired of recovering for he was about the seventieth year of his age he grew fierce and indulged the bitterest anger upon all occasions the cause whereof was this that he thought himself despised and that the nation was pleased with his misfortunes
two of the most eloquent men among the jews and the most celebrated interpreters of the jewish laws and men well beloved by the people because of their education of their youth for all those that were studious of virtue frequented their lectures every day
these men when they found that the king's distemper was incurable excited the young men that they would pull down all those works which the king had erected contrary to the law of their fathers and thereby obtain the rewards which the law will confer on them for such actions of piety
for herod had caused such things to be made which were contrary to the law of which he was accused by judas and matthias for the king had erected over the great gate of the temple a large golden eagle of great value and had dedicated it to the temple
now the law forbids those that propose to live according to it
since that common calamity of dying cannot be avoided by our living so as to escape any such dangers that therefore it is a right thing for those who are in love with a virtuous conduct to wait for that fatal hour by such behavior as may carry them out of the world with praise and honor
and that this will alleviate death to a great degree thus to come at it by the performance of brave actions which bring us into danger of it and at the same time to leave that reputation behind them to their children and to all their relations whether they be men or women
did these men excite the young men to this action
this was an addition to the wise men's persuasions so in the very middle of the day they got upon the place they pulled down the eagle and cut it into pieces with axes while a great number of the people were in the temple
and now the king's captain upon hearing what the undertaking was and supposing it was a thing of a higher nature than it proved to be came up thither having a great band of soldiers with him such as was sufficient to put a stop to the multitude of those who pulled down what was dedicated to god
so he fell upon them unexpectedly and as they were upon this bold attempt in a foolish presumption rather than a cautious circumspection as is usual with the multitude
and while they were in disorder and incautious of what was for their advantage so he caught no fewer than forty of the young men who had the courage to stay behind when the rest ran away together with the authors of this bold attempt
who thought it an ignominious thing to retire upon his approach and led them to the king
yes said they what was contrived we contrived and what hath been performed we performed it and that with such a virtuous courage as becomes men for we have given our assistance to those things which were dedicated to the majesty of god and we have provided for what we have learned by hearing the law
and it ought not to be wondered at if we esteem those laws which moses had suggested to him and were taught him by god and which he wrote and left behind him more worthy of observation than thy commands accordingly
and thus they all said and their courage was still equal to their profession and equal to that with which they readily set about this undertaking
and when they were come he made them assemble in the theater and because he could not himself stand he lay upon a couch and enumerated the many labors that he had long endured on their account and his building of the temple and what a vast charge that was to him
that he had also adorned it with very valuable donations on which account he hoped that he had left himself a memorial and procured himself a reputation after his death he then cried out that these men had not abstained from affronting him even in his lifetime but that in the very day time
and in the sight of the multitude they had abused him to that degree as to fall upon what he had dedicated and in that way of abuse had pulled it down to the ground they pretended indeed that they did it to affront him but if any one consider the thing truly
he deprived matthias of the high priesthood as in part an occasion of this action and made joazar who was matthias's wife's brother high priest in his stead
and because he could not officiate himself on that account joseph the son of ellemus his kinsman assisted him in that sacred office but herod deprived this matthias of the high priesthood and burnt the other matthias who had raised the sedition with his companions alive and that very night
and this by god's judgment upon him for his sins for a fire glowed in him slowly which did not so much appear to the touch outwardly as it augmented his pains inwardly
his entrails were also ex ulcerated
an aqueous and transparent liquor also had settled itself about his feet and a like matter afflicted him at the bottom of his belly nay further
his privy member was putrefied and produced worms and when he sat upright he had a difficulty of breathing which was very loathsome on account of the stench of his breath and the quickness of its returns
he had also convulsions in all parts of his body which increased his strength to an insufferable degree it was said by those who pretended to divine and who were endued with wisdom to foretell such things
were also fit to drink which water runs into the lake called asphaltiris and when the physicians once thought fit to have him bathed in a vessel full of oil it was supposed that he was just dying
but upon the lamentable cries of his domestics he revived and having no longer the least hopes of recovering
and he also gave a great deal to their commanders and to his friends and came again to jericho where he grew so choleric that it brought him to do all things like a madman and though he were near his death he contrived the following wicked designs
he commanded that all the principal men of the entire jewish nation wheresoever they lived should be called to him accordingly they were a great number that came because the whole nation was called and all men heard of this call and death
was the penalty of such as should despise the epistles that were sent to call them and now the king was in a wild rage against them all the innocent as well as those that had afforded ground for accusations
i shall die in a little time so great are my pains which death ought to be cheerfully borne and to be welcomed by all men but what principally troubles me is this that i shall die without being lamented
and without such mourning as men usually expect at a king's death
but by those commands of his which savored of no humanity since he took care when he was departing out of this life that the whole nation should be put into mourning and indeed made desolate of their dearest kindred
when he gave order that one out of every family should be slain although they had done nothing that was unjust or that was against him nor were they accused of any other crimes while it is usual for those who have any regard to virtue to lay aside their hatred at such a time
which when they were read their purport was this that acme was slain by caesar out of his indignation at what hand she had in antipater's wicked practices
and that as to antipater himself caesar left it to herod to act as became a father and a king and either to banish him or to take away his life which he pleased when herod heard this he was some what better out of the pleasure he had from the contents of the letters
and was elevated at the death of acme and at the power that was given him over his son but as his pains were become very great he was now ready to faint for want of somewhat to eat
so he called for an apple and a knife for it was his custom formerly to pare the apple himself and soon afterwards to cut it and eat it when he had got the knife he looked about and had a mind to stab himself with it
whereupon a woeful lamentation echoed through the palace and a great tumult was made as if the king were dead upon which antipater who verily believed his father was deceased
grew bold in his discourse as hoping to be immediately and entirely released from his bonds and to take the kingdom into his hands without any more ado so he discoursed with the jailer about letting him go and in that case promised him great things both now and hereafter
as if that were the only thing now in question
and raised himself upon his elbow and sent for some of his guards and commanded them to kill antipater without tiny further delay and to do it presently and to bury him in an ignoble manner at hyrcania chapter eight
and to certain others five millions when he had done these things he died the fifth day after he had caused antipater to be slain having reigned since he had procured antigonus to be slain thirty four years
but above the consideration of what was right yet was he favored by fortune as much as any man ever was for from a private man he became a king and though he were encompassed with ten thousand dangers
he got clear of them all and continued his life till a very old age but then as to the affairs of his family and children in which indeed according to his own opinion he was also very fortunate because he was able to conquer his enemies
dismissed those that were shut up in the hippodrome and told them that the king ordered them to go away to their own lands and take care of their own affairs which was esteemed by the nation a great benefit and now the king's death was made public
and the first thing they did was they read herod's letter written to the soldiery thanking them for their fidelity and good will to him and exhorting them to afford his son archelaus whom he had appointed for their king like fidelity and good will
after which ptolemy who had the king's seal intrusted to him read the king's testament which was to be of force no otherwise than as it should stand when caesar had inspected it
so there was presently an acclamation made to archelaus as king and the soldiers came by bands and their commanders with them and promised the same good will to him and readiness to serve him which they had exhibited to herod
he had a diadem upon his head and above it a crown of gold he also had a scepter in his right hand about the bier were his sons and his numerous relations next to these was the soldiery distinguished according to their several countries and denominations
and they were put into the following order first of all went his guards then the band of thracians and after them the germans and next the band of galatians every one in their habiliments of war
and behind these marched the whole army in the same manner as they used to go out to war and as they used to be put in array by their muster masters and centurions these were followed by five hundred of his domestics carrying spices
for there by his own command he was to be buried
for so many days are appointed for it by the law of our fathers and when he had given a treat to the multitude and left off his motoring he went up into the temple he had also acclamations and praises given him
and returned them thanks that they did not remember the injuries his father had done them to his disadvantage
but that he should abstain at present from the name of king and that he should have the honor of that dignity if caesar should confirm and settle that testament which his father had made and that it was on this account that when the army would have put the diadem on him at jericho
he would not accept of that honor which is usually so much desired
although by his acceptance of the government he should not want the ability of rewarding their kindness to him and that it should be his endeavor as to all things wherein they were concerned to prove in every respect better than his father
by so much did they more highly commend him and made application to him for the grant of what they desired some made a clamor that he would ease them of some of their annual payments
but others desired him to release those that were put into prison by herod who were many and had been put there at several times others of them required that he would take away those taxes which had been severely laid upon what was publicly sold and bought
chapter six ships the cargo slave and the ocean greyhound are already differentiated by marked characteristics and in the twentieth century the divergence between the two types of vessels will become much accentuated
the object aimed at by the owners of cargo boats will be to secure the greatest possible economy of working combined with a moderately good rate of speed such as may ensure shippers against having to stand out of their capital locked up in the cargo for too long a period
and the possible applications of natural sources of energy will be keenly scrutinised with a view to turning any feasible plan to advantage the sailing ship and the economic and constructive lines upon which it is built and worked
will be carefully overhauled with a view to finding how its deficiencies may be supplemented and its good points turned to account one result of this renewed attention will be to confirm
even on the sailer if it is to hold its own against steam for mails and passengers on the other hand steam must more and more decidedly assert its supremacy
yet the mail packet of the twentieth century will be very different from packets which have made the running towards the close of the nineteenth she will carry little or no cargo excepting specie and goods of exceptionally high value in proportion to their weight and bulk
nearly all her below deck capacity indeed will be filled with machinery and fuel she will be in other respects more like a floating hotel than the old ideal of a ship her cellars so to speak being crammed with coal
and her upper stories fitted luxuriously for sitting and bed rooms and brilliant with the electric light but in size she will not necessarily be any larger than the nineteenth century type of mail steamer indeed the probability is that
on the average the twentieth century mail packets will be smaller being built for speed rather than for magnificence or carrying capacity the turbine engine will be the main factor in working the approaching revolution in mail steamer construction
the special reason for this will consist in the fact that only by its adoption can the conditions mentioned above be fulfilled with the ordinary reciprocating type of marine steam machinery it would be impossible to place in a steamer of moderate tonnage
engines of a size suitable to enable it to attain a very high rate of speed because the strain and vibration of the gigantic steel arms pulling and pushing the huge cranks to turn the shafting would knock the hull to pieces in a very short time
for this very reason in fact the marine architect and engineer have hitherto urged with considerable force of argument that high speed and large tonnage must go concomitantly
practically only a big steamer with the old type of marine engine could be a very fast one and for ocean traffic at any rate a smaller vessel must be regarded as out of the running
very large tonnage being thus made a prime necessity it followed that the space provided must be utilised and this need has tended to perpetuate the combination of mail and passenger traffic with cargo carrying
the first step towards the revolution was taken many years ago when the screw propeller was substituted for the paddle wheel the latter means of propulsion caused shock and vibration not only owing to the thrusts of the piston rod from the steam engine itself
a propeller which was entirely sunk in the water and therefore exercised its force not in shocks but in gentle constant pressure upon the fluid around it such as the windmill is for wind and the turbine water wheel for water was the screw propeller
although adapted not as a generator but as an application of power having made the work and stress continuous the next thing to be accomplished was to effect a similar reform in the engines supplying the power
this is accomplished in the turbine steam engine by causing the steam to play in strong jets continuously and steadily upon vanes which form virtually a number of small windmills
thus while the screw outside of the hull is applying the force continuously the steam in the inside is driving the shafting with equal evenness and regularity the steam turbine does not appear to have by any means reached finality in its form
such questions as the angle of impact which the jet should make with the surface of the vane and the size of the orifice through which the steam should be ejected being still debatable points but on one matter there is hardly any room for doubt
and that is that the best way to secure the benefit of the expansive power of steam is to permit it to escape from a pipe having a long series of orifices and to impinge upon a correspondingly numerous series of vanes or perhaps
upon a number of vanes arranged so that each one is long enough to receive the impact of many jets hitherto the steam supply pipe emitting the jet has been placed outside of the circle of the wheel
but the future form seems likely to be one in which the axis of the wheel is itself the pipe which contains the steam but which permits it to escape outwards to the circumference of the wheel the latter is in this form of turbine
made in the shape of a paddle wheel of very small circumference but considerable length the paddles being set at such an inclination as to obtain the greatest possible rotative impulse from the outward rushing steam
the pipe must be turned true at intervals to enable it to carry a number of diminutive wheels upon which these long vanes are mounted and a very strong connection must be made between these wheels and the shaft of the screw
but to the extraordinary rapidity with which the shaft rotates the twin screw with which the best and safest of modern steam ships are all fitted will soon develop into what may be called the twin stern
each screw requires a separate set of engines and the main object of the duplication is to lessen the risk of the vessel being left helpless in case of accident to one or other the advisability of placing each engine and shafting in a separate water tight compartment
it will be found best to build out a steel framework from each side of the stern for holding the bearings of each screw in connection with the twin water tight compartments holding the shafting and thus will be evolved what will practically represent a twin or double stern
in the case of the turbine steamer several of the forms of screw which were first proposed when that type of propeller was invented will again come up for examination notably the archimedean screw wound round a fairly long piece of shafting
the larger the circular area of this screw is the less will be the risk of smashing the water or of losing hold of it entirely in rough weather
with twin screws of the large archimedean type the propelling apparatus of a turbine steamer will if the screws are left open
in this way there is evolved a kind of compromise between the two principles of marine propulsion by a screw and by a jet of water thrown to sternward the water jet is already very successfully employed for the propulsion of steam lifeboats in which
owing to the danger of fouling the life saving and other tackle an open screw is objectionable the final extermination of the sailing ship is popularly expected as one of the first developments of the twentieth century in maritime traffic
steam which for oversea trade made its entrance cautiously in the shape of a mere auxiliary to sail power had taken up a much more self assertive position long before the close of the nineteenth century
and has driven its former ally almost out of the field in large departments of the shipping industry yet a curious and interesting counter movement is now taking place on the pacific coast of america
as well as among the south sea islands and in several other places where coal is exceptionally dear trading schooners and barques used in these localities are often fitted with petroleum oil engines which enable them to continue their voyages during calm
had the effect of enabling shippers to realise upon the goods carried more speedily than would have been possible under the old system of sail power alone it is already found that in the matter of economy of working including interest on cost of vessel and cargo
but the rate of speed which the best types of marine engines impart to this kind of vessel is strictly limited owing to considerations of the enormous increase of fuel consumption after passing the twelve or fourteen mile grade
for ocean greyhounds carrying mails and passengers the prime necessity of high speed has to a large extent obliterated any such separating line between waste and economy it is however a mistake to imagine that the cargo steamer of the future
will be in any sense a replica of the mail boat of to day the opposition presented by the water to the passage of a vessel increases by leaps and bounds as soon as the rate now adopted by the cargo steamer is passed
and shortly before noon she heard their voices in the hall mister francis who was presently introduced to her seemed a harmless kind of man she thought not interesting though he seemed in earnest about this bill
it was not until breakfast was nearly over that she understood who he was don't go mabel said her husband as she made a movement to rise you will like to hear about this i expect my wife knows all that i know he added
said oliver again why certainly then she heard that he had been a catholic priest a few months before and that mister snowford was in consultation with him as to the ceremonies in the abbey
she was conscious of a sudden interest as she heard this oh do talk she said i want to hear everything it seemed that mister francis had seen the new minister of public worship that morning
and had received a definite commission from him to take charge of the ceremonies on the first of october two dozen of his colleagues too were to be enrolled among the ceremoniarii at least temporarily
and after the event they were to be sent on a lecturing tour to organise the national worship throughout the country of course things would be somewhat sloppy at first said mister francis but by the new year it was hoped that all would be in order
at least in the cathedrals and principal towns it is important he said that this should be done as soon as possible it is very necessary to make a good impression there are thousands who have the instinct of worship
without knowing how to satisfy it that is perfectly true said oliver i have felt that for a long time i suppose it is the deepest instinct in man
as to the ceremonies went on the other with a slightly important air his eyes roved round a moment then he dived into his breast pocket and drew out a thin red covered book
here is the order of worship for the feast of paternity he said i have had it interleaved and have made a few notes he began to turn the pages and mabel with considerable excitement
drew her chair a little closer to listen that is right sir said the other now give us a little lecture mister francis closed the book on his finger pushed his plate aside and began to discourse
first he said we must remember that this ritual is based almost entirely upon that of the masons three quarters at least of the entire function will be occupied by that with that
beyond seeing that the insignia are ready in the vestries and properly put on the proper officials will conduct the rest i need not speak of that then the difficulties begin with the last quarter
he paused and with a glance of apology began arranging forks and glasses before him on the cloth now here he said we have the old sanctuary of the abbey
in the place of the reredos and communion table there will be erected the large altar of which the ritual speaks with the steps leading up to it from the floor behind the altar extending almost to the old shrine of the confessor
will stand the pedestal with the emblematic figure upon it and so far as i understand from the absence of directions each such figure will remain in place until the eve of the next quarterly feast what kind of figure
put in the girl francis glanced at her husband i understand that mister markenheim has been consulted he said he will design and execute them each is to represent its own feast
this for paternity he paused again yes mister francis this one i understand is to be the naked figure of a man
a kind of apollo or jupiter my dear put in oliver yes that seemed all right thought mabel mister francis's voice moved on hastily a new procession enters at this point
after the discourse he said it is this that will need special marshalling i suppose no rehearsal will be possible scarcely said oliver smiling the master of ceremonies sighed i feared not
then we must issue very precise printed instructions those who take part will withdraw i imagine during the hymn to the old chapel of saint faith that is what seems to me the best he indicated the chapel
here and here while the celebrant with the sacred ministers eh mister francis permitted a slight grimace to appear on his face he flushed a little the president of europe
he broke off ah that is the point will the president take part that is not made clear in the ritual we think so said oliver he is to be approached
well if not i suppose the minister of public worship will officiate he with his supporters pass straight up to the foot of the altar remember that the figure is still veiled and that the candles have been lighted during the approach of the procession
there follow the aspirations printed in the ritual with the responds these are sung by the choir and will be most impressive i think then the officiant ascends the altar alone and standing declaims the address as it is called
at the close of it at the point that is to say marked here with a star the thurifers will leave the chapel four in number one ascends the altar leaving the others swinging their thurifers at its foot
hands his to the officiant and retires upon the sounding of a bell the curtains are drawn back the officiant tenses the image in silence with four double swings
and as he ceases the choir sings the appointed antiphon he waved his hands the rest is easy he said we need not discuss that to mabel's mind even the previous ceremonies seemed easy enough
but she was undeceived you have no idea missus brand went on the ceremoniarius of the difficulties involved even in such a simple matter as this the stupidity of people is prodigious
mister francis looked at him doubtfully what is your opinion of the whole affair sir he said oliver paused a moment i think it is necessary he began
there would not be such a cry for worship if it was not a real need i think too yes i think that on the whole the ritual is impressive i do not see how it could be bettered yes oliver
put in his wife questioningly no there is nothing except except i hope the people will understand it mister francis broke in my dear sir
worship involves a touch of mystery you must remember that it was the lack of that that made empire day fail in the last century for myself i think it is admirable
but the main plan is magnificent it is simple impressive and above all it is unmistakable in its main lesson
i take it that it is homage offered to life said the other slowly life under four aspects maternity corresponds to christmas and the christian fable it is the feast of home love
faithfulness life itself is approached in spring teeming young passionate sustenance in midsummer abundance comfort plenty and the rest corresponding somewhat to the catholic corpus christi
and i suppose it will be the business of the speaker to explain all this i take it so it appears to me far more suggestive than the alternative plan citizenship labour and so forth these after all
are subordinate to life mister francis spoke with an extraordinary suppressed enthusiasm and the priestly look was more evident than ever it was plain that his heart at least demanded worship mabel clasped her hands suddenly
i think it is beautiful she said softly and and it is so real mister francis turned on her with a glow in his brown eyes ah yes madam
it is the vision of facts that no one can doubt and the incense declares the sole divinity of life as well as its mystery what of the figures put in oliver
a stone image is impossible of course it must be clay for the present
if the figures are approved they can then be executed in marble again mabel spoke with a soft gravity it seems to me she said that this is the last thing that we needed
it is so hard to keep our principles clear we must have a body for them some kind of expression she paused yes mabel i do not mean she went on
that some cannot live without it but many cannot the unimaginative need concrete images there must be some channel for their aspirations to flow through ah i cannot express myself
it will keep out all danger of superstition mister francis turned on him abruptly what do you think of the pope's new religious order sir
i think it is the worst step he ever took for himself i mean either it is a real effort in which case it will provoke immense indignation or it is a sham and will discredit him why do you ask
i was wondering whether any disturbance will be made in the abbey i should be sorry for the brawler a bell rang sharply from the row of telephone labels oliver rose and went to it
mabel watched him as he touched a button mentioned his name and put his ear to the opening it is snowford's secretary he said abruptly to the two expectant faces snowford wants to ah
i am sorry yes oh but that is better than nothing yes he is here indeed
he looked on the tube touched the button again and came back to them i am sorry he said the president will take no part at the feast but it is uncertain whether he will not be present
mister snowford wants to see us both at once mister francis markenheim is with him but though mabel was herself disappointed
victoria station still named after the great nineteenth century queen was neither more nor less busy than usual as he came into it half an hour later the vast platform
sunk now nearly two hundred feet below the ground level showed the double crowd of passengers entering and leaving town those on the extreme left towards whom percy began to descend in the open glazed lift
were by far the most numerous and the stream at the lift entrance made it necessary for him to move slowly he arrived at last walking in the soft light on the noiseless ribbed rubber
he stepped in and sat down he felt quiet now that he had actually started he had made his confession just in order to make certain of his own soul though scarcely expecting any definite danger
and sat now his grey suit and straw hat in no way distinguishing him as a priest for a general leave was given by the authorities to dress so for any adequate reason since the case was not imminent
father dolan had wired to him that he might fetch them if he wished from saint joseph's near the junction he had only the violet thread in his pocket such as was customary for sick calls he was sliding along peaceably enough
that they were already in the tunnel the stoppage might arise from many causes and he was not greatly excited nor did it seem that others in the carriage took it very seriously he could hear after a moment's silence the talking recommence beyond the partition
then there came echoed by the walls the sound of shouting from far away mingled with hoots and chords it grew louder the talking in the carriage stopped he heard a window thrown up
and the next instant a car tore past going back to the station although on the down line this must be looked into thought percy something certainly was happening so he got up and went across the empty compartment to the further window
again came the crying of voices again the signals and once more a car whirled past followed almost immediately by another there was a jerk a smooth movement percy staggered and fell into a seat
who paid absolutely no attention to his inquiries so he stood there aware that they knew no more than himself waiting for an explanation from some one it was disgraceful he told himself
ah there was no doubt that something had happened the instant he opened the door a great roar met his ears and as he sprang on to the platform and looked up at the end of the station he began to understand
from right to left of the huge interior across the platforms swelling every instant surged an enormous swaying roaring crowd the flight of steps twenty yards broad
the noise was indescribable the shouting of men the screaming of women the clang and hoot of the huge machines and three or four times the brazen cry of a trumpet as an emergency door was flung open overhead
and a small swirl of crowd poured through it towards the streets beyond but after one look percy looked no more at the people for there high up beneath the clock on the government signal board
flared out monstrous letters of fire telling in esperanto and english the message for which england had grown sick he read it a dozen times before he moved staring
as at a supernatural sight which might denote the triumph of either heaven or hell eastern convention dispersed peace not war universal brotherhood established
we wake up some morning with no idea that a great happiness is at hand and before night it has come and all the world is changed for us or we wake bright and cheerful with never a guess that clouds of sorrow are lowering in our sky to put all the sunshine out for a while and before noon
all is dark nothing whispers of either the joy or the grief no instinct bids us to delay or to hasten the opening of the letter or telegram or the lifting of the latch of the door at which stands the messenger of good or ill
and because it may be and often is happy tidings that come and joyful things which happen each fresh day as it dawns upon us is like an unread story full of possible interest and adventure
to be made ours as soon as we have cut the pages and begun to read nothing whispered to katy carr as she sat at the window mending a long rent in johnnie's school coat and saw missus ashe come in at the side gate and ring the office bell that the visit had any special significance for her
missus ashe often did come to the office to consult doctor carr amy might not be quite well katy thought or there might be a letter with something about walter in it or perhaps matters had gone wrong at the house where paperers and painters were still at work
so she went calmly on with her darning drawing the ravelling with which her needle was threaded carefully in and out and taking nice even stitches without one prophetic thrill or tremor while if only she could have looked through the two walls
and two doors which separated the room in which she sat from the office
for missus ashe was asking papa to let her do the very thing of all others that she most longed to do
i feel as if a change would do me good don't you think so yourself yes i do doctor carr admitted
but if you will let me have katy doctor carr it will settle all my difficulties
about a year i think my plans are rather vague as yet but my idea was to spend a few weeks in scotland and england first i have some cousins in london who will be good to us and an old friend of mine married a gentleman who lives on the isle of wight perhaps we might go there
then we could cross over to france and visit paris and a few other places and before it gets cold go down to nice and from there to italy katy would like to see italy don't you think so i dare say she would said doctor carr with a smile she would be a queer girl if she didn't
is one of the mediterranean squadron they will be in naples by and by and if we were there at the same time we should have ned to go about with and he would take us to the receptions on the frigate and all that which would be a nice chance for katy
then toward spring i should like to go to florence and venice and visit the italian lakes and switzerland in the early summer but all this depends on your letting katy go if you decide against it i shall give the whole thing up
coaxingly you will be kinder than that i will take the best possible care of her and do all i can to make her happy if only you will consent to lend her to me and i shall consider it such a favor and it is to cost you nothing you understand doctor she is to be my guest all through
now doctor carr please please i am sure you won't deny me when i have so set my heart upon having her missus ashe was very pretty and persuasive but still doctor carr hesitated
it seemed equally impossible to let her go at missus ashe's expense at the same time the chance was such a good one and missus ashe so much in earnest and so urgent that it was difficult to refuse point blank he finally consented to take time for consideration before making his decision
i will talk it over with katy he said the child ought to have a say in the matter and whatever we decide you must let me thank you in her name as well as my own for your great kindness in proposing it
doctor i'm not kind at all and i don't want to be thanked my desire to take katy with me to europe is purely selfish i am a lonely person she went on i have no mother or sister and no cousins of my own age my brother's profession keeps him at sea i scarcely ever see him
i have no one but a couple of old aunts too feeble in health to travel with me or to be counted on in case of any emergency you see i am a real case for pity missus ashe spoke gayly but her brown eyes were dim with tears as she ended her little appeal
doctor carr who was soft hearted where women were concerned was touched perhaps his face showed it for missus ashe added in a more hopeful tone but i won't tease any more i know you will not refuse me unless you think it right and necessary and she continued mischievously
i have great faith in katy as an ally i am pretty sure that she will say that she wants to go and indeed katy's cry of delight when the plan was proposed to her said that sufficiently without need of further explanation
to go to europe for a year with missus ashe and amy seemed simply too delightful to be true
doctor carr's objections his reluctance to part with her melted before the radiance of her satisfaction he had no idea that katy would care so much about it after all it was a great chance perhaps the only one of the sort that she would ever have missus ashe could well afford to give katy this treat he knew
that it was a favor to her as well as to katy this train of reasoning led to its natural results doctor carr began to waver in his mind but the first excitement over katy's second thoughts were more sober ones how could papa manage without her for a whole year she asked herself
he would miss her she well knew and might not the charge of the house be too much for clover the preserves were almost all made that was one comfort but there were the winter clothes to be seen to
which had been so bright a few minutes before strange to say it was that little pucker and the look of worry which decided doctor carr
she is only twenty one he reflected hardly out of childhood i don't want her to settle into an anxious drudging state and lose her youth with caring for us all she shall go though how we are to manage without her i don't see
little clover came gallantly to the fore when the first shock of surprise was over and she had relieved her mind with one long private cry over having to do without katy for a year then she wiped her eyes and began to revel unselfishly in the idea of her sister's having so great a treat
anything and everything seemed possible to secure it for her and she made light of all katy's many anxieties and apprehensions my dear child i know a flannel undershirt when i see one just as well as you do she declared tucks in johnnie's dress forsooth why of course
ripping out a tuck doesn't require any superhuman ingenuity give me your scissors and i'll show you at once quince marmalade debby can make that hers is about as good as yours and if it wasn't what should we care as long as you are ascending mont blanc
and hob nobbing with michael angelo and the crowned heads of europe i'll make the spiced peaches
don't worry about us we shall get on happily and easily in fact i shouldn't be surprised if i developed such a turn for housekeeping that when you come back the family refused to change
wouldn't that be fine and clover laughed merrily so katy darling cast that shadow from your brow and look as a girl ought to look who's going to europe why if it were i who were going i should simply stand on my head every moment of the time not a very convenient position for packing said katy smiling
i love missus ashe for inviting you so do i said katy soberly it was the kindest thing i can't think why she did it
and the nicest to have about you needn't say you're not for you are now katy don't waste another thought on such miserable things as pickles and undershirts we shall get along perfectly well i do assure you just fix your mind instead on the dome of saint peter's
or try to fancy how you'll feel the first time you step into a gondola or see the mediterranean there will be a moment i feel a forty horse power of housekeeping developing within me
and political economy all combined only a great deal more interesting we shall stick out all over with knowledge before you come back and this makes it a plain duty to go if it were only for our sakes with these zealous promises katy was forced to be content
indeed contentment was not difficult with such a prospect of delight before her when once her little anxieties had been laid aside the idea of the coming journey grew in pleasantness every moment night after night she and papa and the children pored over maps and made out schemes for travel and sight seeing
every one of which was likely to be discarded as soon as the real journey began but they didn't know that and it made no real difference such schemes are the preliminary joys of travel
katy learned a great deal while thus talking over what she was to see and do she read every scrap she could lay her hand on which related to rome or florence or venice or london the driest details had a charm for her now that she was likely to see the real places
she went about with scraps of paper in her pocket on which were written such things as these forum when built by whom built more than one what does cenacola mean
find out about saint catherine of siena
people always wish this when they are starting for europe
how they add to the charm of everything seen and enhance the ease of everything done all burnet took an interest in katy's plans and almost everybody had some sort of advice or help or some little gift to offer old missus worrett who though fatter than ever still retained the power of locomotion
drove in from conic section in her roomy carryall with the present of a rather obsolete copy of murray's guide in faded red covers which her father had used in his youth and which she was sure katy would find convenient also a bottle of brown's jamaica ginger in case of sea sickness
cecy sent a wonderful old gold and scarlet contrivance to hang on the wall of the stateroom there were pockets for watches and pockets for medicines and pockets for handkerchief and hairpins in short there were pockets for everything
a cake of soap and a hammer and tacks to nail the whole up with missus hall's gift was a warm and very pretty woollen wrapper of dark blue flannel with a pair of soft knitted slippers to match
old mister worrett sent a note of advice recommending katy to take a quinine pill every day that she was away never to stay out late because the dews over there were said to be unwholesome and on no account to drink a drop of water which had not been boiled
from cousin helen came a delightful travelling bag light and strong at once and fitted up with all manner of nice little conveniences miss inches sent a history of europe in five fat volumes which was so heavy that it had to be left at home
in fact a good many of katy's presents had to be left at home including a bronze paper weight in the shape of a griffin a large pair of brass screw candlesticks and an ormolu inkstand with a pen rest attached which weighed at least a pound and a half these katy laid aside to enjoy after her return
missus ashe and cousin helen had both warned her of the inconvenient consequences of weight in baggage and by their advice she had limited herself to a single trunk of moderate size besides a little flat valise for use in her stateroom clover's gift was a set of blank books for notes
journals et cetera in one of these katy made out a list of things i must see things i must do things i would like to see things i would like to do another she devoted to various good shopping addresses which had been given her
to stand in front of shop windows full of delightful things and not be able to buy any of them she was accordingly overpowered with surprise gratitude and the sense of sudden wealth when about a week before the start her father gave her three little thin strips of paper which he told her were circular notes
and worth a hundred dollars apiece he also gave her five english sovereigns those are for immediate use he said put the notes away carefully and don't lose them
and there will be fees but papa protested katy opening wide her candid eyes i didn't expect you to give me any money and i'm afraid you are giving me too much
her father only laughed
papa i should think not cried katy with unsophisticated horror one very interesting thing was to happen before they sailed the thought of which helped both katy and clover through the last hard days when the preparations were nearly complete and the family had leisure to feel dull and out of spirits
katy was to make rose red a visit rose had by no means been idle during the three years and a half which had elapsed since they all parted at hillsover and during which the girls had not seen her
in fact she had made more out of the time than any of the rest of them for she had been engaged for eighteen months had been married and was now keeping house near boston with a little rose of her own who she wrote to clover was a perfect angel and more delicious than words could say
while missus ashe and amy visited an old aunt in hingham to see rose in her own home and rose's husband and rose's baby was only next in interest to seeing europe
longwood september twentieth my dearest child your note made me dance with delight
it is too enchanting the whole of it i put it at the head of all the nice things that ever happened except my baby write the moment you get this by what train you expect to reach boston and when you roll into the station you will behold two forms one tall and stalwart the other short and fatsome waiting for you
they will be those of deniston and myself deniston is not beautiful but he is good and he is prepared to adore you the baby is both good and beautiful and you will adore her i am neither but you know all about me and i always did adore you and always shall
i am going out this moment to the butcher's to order a calf fatted for your special behoof and he shall be slain and made into cutlets the moment i hear from you
is somewhat queer as you might know my house would be but i think you will like it i saw silvery mary the other day and told her you were coming she is the same mouse as ever i shall ask her and some of the other girls to come out to lunch on one of your days
good by with a hundred and fifty kisses to clovy and the rest your loving rose red she never signs herself browne i observe said clover as she finished the letter oh rose red browne would sound too funny rose red she must stay till the end of the chapter
no other name could suit her half so well and i can't imagine her being called anything else what fun it will be to see her and little rose and deniston browne put in clover somehow i find it rather hard to take in the fact that there is a deniston browne observed katy
the last day came as last days will
he now proceeded to prepare and paste on two square cards labelled respectively hold and state room missus hall had told them that this was the correct thing to do
and katy and clover had taken a good many hours from their own preparations to help her
she stood so very still and said so very little that a bystander not acquainted with the circumstances might have dubbed her unfeeling while the fact was that she was feeling too much
the first bell rang katy kissed everybody quietly and went on board with her father her parting from him hardest of all took place in the midst of a crowd of people then he had to leave her and as the wheels began to revolve she went out on the side deck to have a last glimpse of the home faces
there they were elsie crying tumultuously with her head on papa's coat sleeve john laughing or trying to laugh with big tears running down her cheeks the while and brave little clover waving her handkerchief encouragingly but with a very sober look on her face
why had she said she would go what was all europe in comparison with what she was leaving life was so short how could she take a whole year out of it to spend away from the people she loved best
i also think she would have been heartily sorry a little later had she done so
gradually the dear faces faded into distance and after watching till the flutter of clover's handkerchief became an undistinguishable speck katy went to the cabin with a heavy heart
but there were missus ashe and amy inclined to be homesick also and in need of cheering and katy as she tried to brighten them gradually grew bright herself and recovered her hopeful spirits burnet pulled less strongly as it got farther away
and europe beckoned more brilliantly now that they were fairly embarked on their journey
chapter six the scream in the night for some moments i stood staring up into the darkness half expecting that shadowy figure to reappear descend the ladder and rejoin me then i shook myself together
the fact that our plot was really moving that swain was in the enemy's country so to speak gave the affair a finality which it had lacked before it was too late now to hesitate or turn back we must press forward
i felt as though after a long period of uncertainty war had been declared and the advance definitely begun
and sat down again upon the porch to wait now waiting is seldom a pleasant or an easy thing and i found it that night most unpleasant and uneasy for
before long doubts began to crowd upon me doubts of the wisdom of the course i had subscribed to it would have been wiser i told myself if it had been i and not swain who had gone to the rendezvous wiser still perhaps to have sought an interview openly
and to have made sure of the facts before seeming to encourage what might easily prove to be a girl's more or less romantic illusions a midnight interview savoured too much of melodrama to appeal to a middle aged lawyer like myself
however great its appeal might be to youthful lovers at any rate i would be certain that the need was very great before i consented to meddle further somewhat comforted by this resolution and by the thought that no real harm had as yet been done
i struck a match and looked at my watch it was half past eleven well whatever the story was swain was hearing it now and i should hear it before long and then i caught the hum of an approaching car and was momentarily blinded by the glare of acetylene lamps
hello lester called godfrey's voice i'll be back in a minute and he ran the car on toward the rear of the house i stood up with a gasp of thankfulness here was someone to confide in and advise with the stretch of lonely waiting was at an end
it had been a trying evening i think the warmth of my greeting surprised godfrey for he looked at me curiously sit down godfrey i said i've got something to tell you
well what are they i began at the beginning and related the day's adventures he listened without comment but i could see how his interest grew so young swain is over in those grounds now he said thoughtfully when i had finished
yes he's been there three quarters of an hour why do you suppose miss vaughan named so late an hour i don't know perhaps because she was afraid of being discovered earlier than that or perhaps merely because she's just a romantic girl
godfrey sat with his head bent in thought for a moment
at eleven thirty every night her father and the adept go up to the roof to remain there till midnight
he was on his feet now and his voice was quivering with excitement where are you going i asked up the ladder
if it doesn't he did not finish but hurried away among the trees in a moment we were at the ladder in another moment we were high among the leaves straining our eyes through the darkness i'm going to look at my watch said godfrey in a low voice
lean back and screen me i heard the flash of the match and saw a little glare of light against the nearest leaves then godfrey's voice spoke again
he said there was a tension in his voice which sent a shiver through me though i understood but dimly what it was he feared the stars were shining brightly and once i fancied that i saw the strange star appear among them
but when i closed my eyes for an instant and looked again it was gone slow minute followed minute and the hand with which i clutched the ladder began to tremble
the sight of that mysterious light had shaken me the night before but not half so deeply as its absence shook me now at last the suspense grew unendurable it must be long past midnight i whispered
we may as well go down he paused an instant longer to stare out into the darkness then descended quickly i followed and found him waiting a dark shadow he put his hand on my arm and stood a moment as though in indecision
for myself i felt as though an intolerable burden had been laid upon my shoulders well i asked at last what now we must see if swain has returned he answered if he has all right if he hasn't we'll have to go and look for him
what is it you fear godfrey i demanded do you think swain's in danger i don't know what i fear but there's something wrong over there this is the first night for a week that that light hasn't appeared still i pointed out
that may have nothing to do with swain
let us see if he is back and he turned toward the house but i held his arm if he's back i said he'll have taken the ladders down from the wall that's true and together we made our way forward among the trees
then we reached the wall and there was the dim white line of the ladder leaning against it without a word godfrey mounted it stood an instant at the top and then came down again the other ladder is still there he said and took off his cap and rubbed his head perplexedly
i could not see his face but i could guess how tense it was i had been with him in many trying situations but only once before had i seen him use that gesture
at an arbour in one corner of the grounds i answered then we'll start from there and take a quiet look for him wait here for me a minute he melted into the darkness and i stood holding on to the ladder as though in danger of falling
and staring at the top of the wall where i had last seen swain an hour and a half had passed since then a touch on the arm brought me around with a start here put this pistol in your pocket said godfrey's voice
yes i said and pressed it a ray of light shot toward the wall but i released the button instantly you'd better keep it in your hand he added ready for action no telling what we'll run across and now come ahead he put his foot on the ladder but i stopped him
look here godfrey i said do you realise that what we're about to do is pretty serious swain might have a legal excuse since the daughter of the house invited him to a meeting but if we go over the wall we're trespassers pure and simple
anybody who runs across us in the darkness has the right to shoot us down without asking any questions and we'd have no legal right to shoot back i could hear godfrey chuckling and i felt my cheeks redden you remind me of tartarin he said
the adventurer tartarin urging you on the lawyer tartarin holding you back my advice is to shake the lawyer lester he's out of his element here to night but if he's too strong for you why stay here and he started up the ladder
burning with vexation i started after him but suddenly he stopped listen he whispered i heard something rattle against the other side of the wall then a dark figure appeared on the coping i felt godfrey press me back and descended cautiously
a moment later something slid down the wall and i knew that the person at the top had lifted the other ladder over then the figure descended and then a distorted face stared into the circle of godfrey's torch for a breath i did not recognise it then i saw that it was swain's
i shall never forget the shock it gave me with its starting eyes and working mouth and smear of blood across the forehead godfrey i knew was also startled for the light flashed out for an instant and then flashed on again
what is it swain i cried and seized him by the arm but he shook me off roughly stand back he cried hoarsely who is it what do you want it's lester i said and godfrey flashed his torch into my face then back to swain's
but you're not alone no this is mister godfrey mister godfrey whose house we're staying at i explained ah said swain and put one hand to his head and leaned heavily against the ladder
i think we'd better go to the house godfrey suggested soothingly we all need a bracer then we can talk don't you think so mister swain swain nodded vacantly but i could see that he had not understood his face was still working and he seemed to be in pain
i want to wash he said thickly i cut my wrist on that damned glass and i'm blood all over and my head's wrong somehow his voice trailed off into an unintelligible mumble but he held one hand up into the circle of light
and he started toward the house wait swain called after him with unexpected vigour we must take down the ladders we mustn't leave them here why not if they're found they'll suspect they'll know he stopped stammering
and again his voice trailed away into a mumble as though beyond his control godfrey looked at him for a moment and i could guess at the surprise and suspicion in his eyes i myself was ill at ease for there was something in swain's face
a sort of vacant horror and dumb shrinking that filled me with a vague repulsion and then to see his jaw working as he tried to form articulate words
we'll take the ladders since you think it so important you take that one lester and i'll take this i stooped to raise the ladder to my shoulder when suddenly cutting the darkness like a knife came a scream so piercing
so vibrant with fear that i stood there crouching every muscle rigid again the scream came more poignant more terrible wrung from a woman's throat by the last extremity of horror and then a silence sickening and awful what was happening in that silence
i stood erect gaping suffocated rising as from a long submersion godfrey's finger had slipped from the button of his torch and we were in darkness but suddenly a dim figure hurled itself past us up the ladder
with a low cry godfrey snatched at it but his hand clutched only the empty air the next instant the figure poised itself on the coping of the wall and then plunged forward out of sight i heard the crash of breaking branches a scramble a patter of feet and all was still
and that's a twelve foot drop why the man's mad hand me that ladder lester he added for he was already at the top of the wall i lifted it as i had done once before that night and saw godfrey slide it over the wall
come on he said we must save him if we can and he too disappeared the next instant i was scrambling desperately after him
the honeyed word the offices of peaceful moments were in a large building in a street off madison avenue
they consisted of a sort of outer lair where pugsy maloney spent his time reading tales of life on the prairies and heading off undesirable visitors
a small room into which desirable but premature visitors were loosed to wait their turn for admission into the presence and a larger room beyond which was the editorial sanctum smith
returning from luncheon on the day following his announcement of the great change found both betty and pugsy waiting in the outer lair evidently with news of import mister smith began betty dey're in dere
said master maloney with his customary terseness who exactly asked smith de whole bunch of dem smith inspected pugsy through his eyeglass can you give me any particulars he asked patiently
you are well meaning but vague comrade maloney who are in there about steen of dem said pugsy mister asher said betty and mister philpotts and all the rest of them
she struggled for a moment but unable to resist the temptation added i told you so a faint smile appeared upon smith's face dey just butted in said master maloney resuming his narrative
i was sittin here readin me book when de foist of de guys blows in boy says he is de editor in nope i says i'll go in and wait says he
nix on de goin' in act
in he butts in about t'ree minutes along comes another gazebo boy says he is de editor in nope i says i'll wait says he lightin out for de door and in he butts
wit dat i sees de proposition's too fierce for muh i can't keep dese big husky guys out if dey bucks center like dat so when de rest of de bunch comes along i don't try to give dem de trun down i says
well gent i says it's up to youse de editor ain't in but if you feels lonesome push t'roo dere's plenty dere to keep youse company i can't be boddered and what more could you have said agreed smith approvingly tell me
did these gentlemen appear to be gay and light hearted or did they seem to be looking for someone with a hatchet dey was hoppin mad de whole bunch of dem dreadfully attested betty as i suspected said smith
these trifling contretemps are the penalties we pay for our high journalistic aims i fancy that with the aid of the diplomatic smile and the honeyed word i may manage to win out will you come and give me your moral support comrade brown
he opened the door of the inner room for betty and followed her in master maloney's statement that about steen visitors had arrived proved to be a little exaggerated there were five men in the room as smith entered every eye was turned upon him
to an outside spectator he would have seemed rather like a very well dressed daniel introduced into a den of singularly irritable lions five pairs of eyes were smoldering with a long nursed resentment
five brows were corrugated with wrathful lines such however was the simple majesty of smith's demeanor that for a moment there was dead silence not a word was spoken as he paced wrapped in thought to the editorial chair
stillness brooded over the room as he carefully dusted that piece of furniture and having done so to his satisfaction hitched up the knees of his trousers and sank gracefully into a sitting position this accomplished he looked up and started
he gazed round the room ha i am observed he murmured the words broke the spell instantly the five visitors burst simultaneously into speech are you the acting editor of this paper
i wish to have a word with you sir mister maloney i presume pardon me i should like a few moments conversation the start was good and even but the gentleman who said pardon me necessarily finished first with the rest nowhere
smith turned to him bowed and fixed him with a benevolent gaze through his eyeglass are you mister maloney may i ask enquired the favored one the others paused for the reply smith shook his head my name is smith
where is mister maloney smith looked across at betty who had seated herself in her place by the typewriter where did you tell me mister maloney had gone to miss brown ah well never mind is there anything i can do for you gentlemen
i am on the editorial staff of this paper then maybe said a small round gentleman who so far had done only chorus work you can tell me what all this means my name is waterman sir i am here on behalf of my wife whose name you doubtless know
correct me if i am wrong said smith but i should say it also was waterman luella granville waterman sir said the little man proudly my wife he went on
has received this extraordinary communication from a man signing himself p maloney we are both at a loss to make head or tail of it it seems reasonably clear to me said smith reading the letter
it's an outrage my wife has been a contributor to this journal since its foundation we are both intimate friends of mister renshaw to whom my wife's work has always given complete satisfaction and now without the slightest warning comes this peremptory dismissal from
p maloney who is p maloney where is mister renshaw the chorus burst forth it seemed that that was what they all wanted to know who was p maloney where was mister renshaw
i am the reverend edwin t philpott sir said a cadaverous looking man with light blue eyes and a melancholy face
smith nodded i know yours has always seemed to me work which the world will not willingly let die the reverend edwin's frosty face thawed into a bleak smile and yet continued smith
i gather that p maloney on the other hand actually wishes to hurry on its decease strange a man in a serge suit who had been lurking behind betty bobbed into the open
where's this fellow maloney p maloney that's the man we want to see i've been working for this paper without a break except when i had the grip for four years and now up comes this maloney fellow if you please and tells me in so many words that the paper's got no use for me
what does he mean by it that's what i want to know and that's what these gentlemen want to know see here i am addressing said smith asher's my name b henderson asher i write moments of mirth
a look almost of excitement came into smith's face such a look as a visitor to a foreign land might wear when confronted with some great national monument he stood up and shook mister asher reverently by the hand
gentlemen he said reseating himself this is a painful case the circumstances as you will admit when you have heard all are peculiar you have asked me where mister renshaw is i don't know
you don't know exclaimed mister asher nobody knows with luck you may find a black cat in a coal cellar on a moonless night but not mister renshaw shortly after i joined this journal he started out on a vacation
by his doctor's orders and left no address no letters were to be forwarded he was to enjoy complete rest who can say where he is now possibly racing down some rugged slope in the rockies with two grizzlies and a wildcat in earnest pursuit
possibly in the midst of florida everglades making a noise like a piece of meat in order to snare alligators who can tell silent consternation prevailed among his audience then do you mean to say demanded mister asher
that this fellow maloney's the boss here and that what he says goes smith bowed
a man of intensely masterful character he will brook no opposition i am powerless to sway him
he believes that radical changes are necessary in the policy of peaceful moments and he will carry them through if it snows doubtless he would gladly consider your work if it fitted in with his ideas a rapid fire impression of a glove fight
a spine shaking word picture of a railway smash or something on those lines would be welcomed but i have never heard of such a thing said mister waterman indignantly in this life said smith shaking his head
we must be prepared for every emergency we must distinguish between the unusual and the impossible it is unusual for the acting editor of a weekly paper to revolutionize its existing policy
and you have rashly ordered your life on the assumption that it is impossible you are unprepared the thing comes on you as a surprise the cry goes round new york comrades asher waterman philpotts and others have been taken unawares
they cannot cope with the situation but what is to be done cried mister asher nothing i fear except to wait it may be that when mister renshaw having dodged the bears and eluded the wildcat returns to his post
he should be back in about ten weeks ten weeks till then the only thing to do is to wait you may rely on me to keep a watchful eye on your interests when your thoughts tend to take a gloomy turn say to yourselves all is well
smith is keeping a watchful eye on our interests all the same i should like to see this p maloney said mister asher i shouldn't said smith i speak in your best interests p maloney is a man of the fiercest passions
he cannot brook interference if you should argue with him there is no knowing what might not happen he would be the first to regret any violent action when once he had cooled off but of course if you wish it i could arrange a meeting no
i think you are wise and now gentlemen as i have a good deal of work to get through
dear b believing only a portion of my former volume to be worthy a second edition that small portion i thought it as well to include in the present book as to republish by itself
i have therefore herein combined al aaraaf and tamerlane with other poems hitherto unprinted nor have i hesitated to insert from the minor poems now omitted whole lines and even passages to the end that being placed in a fairer light
and the trash shaken from them in which they were imbedded they may have some chance of being seen by posterity it has been said that a good critique on a poem may be written by one who is no poet himself this according to your idea and mine of poetry
i feel to be false the less poetical the critic the less just the critique and the converse on this account
i would be as much ashamed of the world's good opinion as proud of your own another than yourself might here observe shakespeare is in possession of the world's good opinion and yet shakespeare is the greatest of poets it appears then that the world judge correctly
why should you be ashamed of their favorable judgment the difficulty lies in the interpretation of the word judgment or opinion the opinion is the world's truly but
whose head that is to say his more exalted thought is too far above the fool to be seen or understood but whose feet by which i mean his everyday actions are sufficiently near to be discerned and by means of which that superiority is ascertained
this neighbor asserts that shakespeare is a great poet
you are aware of the great barrier in the path of an american writer
i say established for it is with literature as with law or empire an established name is an estate in tenure
besides one might suppose that books like their authors improve by travel their having crossed the sea is with us so great a distinction our antiquaries abandon time for distance our very fops glance from the binding to the bottom of the title page
where the mystic characters which spell london paris or genoa are precisely so many letters of recommendation i mentioned just now a vulgar error as regards criticism i think the notion that no poet can form a correct estimate of his own writings is another
i remarked before that in proportion to the poetical talent would be the justice of a critique upon poetry therefore a bad poet would i grant make a false critique and his self love would infallibly bias his little judgment in his favor but a poet
who is indeed a poet could not i think fail of making a just critique whatever should be deducted on the score of self love might be replaced on account of his intimate acquaintance with the subject in short we have more instances of false criticism
than of just where one's own writings are the test simply because we have more bad poets than good there are of course many objections to what i say milton is a great example of the contrary but his opinion with respect to the paradise regained
is by no means fairly ascertained by what trivial circumstances men are often led to assert what they do not really believe perhaps an inadvertent word has descended to posterity
but in fact the paradise regained is little if at all inferior to the paradise lost and is only supposed so to be because men do not like epics whatever they may say to the contrary and reading those of milton in their natural order
are too much wearied with the first to derive any pleasure from the second i dare say milton preferred comus to either if so justly as i am speaking of poetry it will not be amiss to touch slightly upon the most singular heresy in its modern history
the heresy of what is called very foolishly the lake school some years ago i might have been induced by an occasion like the present to attempt a formal refutation of their doctrine at present it would be a work of supererogation
the wise must bow to the wisdom of such men as coleridge and southey but being wise have laughed at poetical theories so prosaically exemplifled aristotle with singular assurance has declared poetry the most philosophical of all writings
he seems to think that the end of poetry is or should be instruction yet it is a truism that the end of our existence is happiness if so the end of every separate part of our existence everything connected with our existence should be still happiness
yet we see the above mentioned opinion implies precisely the reverse to proceed ceteris paribus he who pleases is of more importance to his fellow men than he who instructs since utility is happiness
and pleasure is the end already obtained which instruction is merely the means of obtaining i see no reason then why our metaphysical poets should plume themselves so much on the utility of their works unless indeed they refer to instruction with eternity in view
in such case i should no doubt be tempted to think of the devil in melmoth who labors indefatigably
to accomplish the destruction of one or two souls while any common devil would have demolished one or two thousand against the subtleties which would make poetry a study not a passion it becomes the metaphysician to reason but the poet to protest
yet wordsworth and coleridge are men in years the one imbued in contemplation from his childhood the other a giant in intellect and learning the diffidence then
that learning has little to do with the imagination intellect with the passions or age with poetry trifles like straws upon the surface flow he who would search for pearls must dive below
as regards the greater truths men oftener err by seeking them at the bottom than at the top truth lies in the huge abysses where wisdom is sought not in the palpable palaces where she is found the ancients were not always right in hiding
the goddess in a well witness the light which bacon has thrown upon philosophy witness the principles of our divine faith that moral mechanism by which the simplicity of a child may overbalance the wisdom of a man we see an instance of coleridge's liability to err in his
biographia literaria' professedly his literary life and opinions but in fact a treatise de omni scibili et quibusdam aliis he goes wrong by reason of his very profundity and of his error we have a natural type in the contemplation of a star
as to wordsworth i have no faith in him that he had in youth the feelings of a poet i believe for there are glimpses of extreme delicacy in his writings and delicacy is the poet's own kingdom his el dorado
but they have the appearance of a better day recollected and glimpses at best are little evidence of present poetic fire we know that a few straggling flowers spring up daily in the crevices of the glacier
he was to blame in wearing away his youth in contemplation with the end of poetizing in his manhood with the increase of his judgment the light which should make it apparent has faded away his judgment consequently is too correct this may not be understood
the long wordy discussions by which he tries to reason us into admiration of his poetry speak very little in his favor they are full of such assertions as this i have opened one of his volumes at random
and what was never done before indeed then it follows that in doing what is unworthy to be done or what has been done before no genius can be evinced yet the picking of pockets is an unworthy act pockets have been picked time immemorial and barrington the pickpocket in point of genius
the poet again in estimating the merit of certain poems
can surely be of little consequence yet in order to prove their worthlessness mister w has expended many pages in the controversy
but worse still that he may bear down every argument in favor of these poems he triumphantly drags forward a passage in his abomination with which he expects the reader to sympathize
this william wordsworth the author of peter bell has selected for his contempt
has to offer imprimis and now she's at the pony's tail and now she's at the pony's head on that side now and now on this and almost stifled with her bliss a few sad tears does betty shed
she pats the pony where or when she knows not happy betty foy oh johnny never mind the doctor secondly the dew was falling fast the stars began to blink i heard a voice it said drink
pretty creature drink and looking o'er the hedge
a snow white mountain lamb with a maiden at its side no other sheep was near the lamb was all alone and by a slender cord was tether'd to a stone now we have no doubt this is all true we will believe it indeed we will mister w
is it sympathy for the sheep you wish to excite i love a sheep from the bottom of my heart but there are occasions dear b there are occasions when even wordsworth is reasonable even stamboul it is said shall have an end
and the bee sophocles has transmitted to eternity a sore toe
what is poetry poetry that proteus like idea with as many appellations as the nine titled corcyra give me i demanded of a scholar some time ago give me a definition of poetry
and he proceeded to his library brought me a doctor johnson and overwhelmed me with a definition shade of the immortal shakespeare i imagine to myself the scowl of your spiritual eye upon the profanity of that scurrilous ursa major think of poetry dear b
think of all that is airy and fairy like and then of all that is hideous and unwieldy think of his huge bulk the elephant and then and then think of the tempest' the midsummer night's dream' prospero oberon and titania
being a poem only so far as this object is attained romance presenting perceptible images with definite poetry with indefinite sensations to which end music is an essential since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception
music when combined with a pleasurable idea is poetry music without the idea is simply music the idea wi thout the music is prose from its very definitiveness what was meant by the invective against him who had no music in his soul
i will now play the oedipus to the rattleborough enigma i will expound to you as i alone can the secret of the enginery that effected the rattleborough miracle the one the true the admitted the undisputed the indisputable miracle
which put a definite end to infidelity among the rattleburghers and converted to the orthodoxy of the grandames
occurred in the summer of eighteen mister barnabas shuttleworthy one of the wealthiest and most respectable citizens of the borough had been missing for several days under circumstances which gave rise to suspicion of foul play
mister shuttleworthy had set out from rattleborough very early one saturday morning on horseback with the avowed intention of proceeding to the city of about fifteen miles distant and of returning the night of the same day two hours after his departure however
the foremost and most energetic in instituting this search was the bosom friend of mister shuttleworthy a mister charles goodfellow or as he was universally called charley goodfellow or old charley goodfellow
now whether it is a marvellous coincidence or whether it is that the name itself has an imperceptible effect upon the character i have never yet been able to ascertain but the fact is unquestionable
honest good natured and frank hearted fellow with a rich clear voice that did you good to hear it and an eye that looked you always straight in the face as much as to say i have a clear conscience myself am afraid of no man
and thus all the hearty careless walking gentlemen of the stage are very certain to be called charles now old charley goodfellow although he had been in rattleborough not longer than six months or thereabouts
and although nobody knew any thing about him before he came to settle in the neighborhood had experienced no difficulty in the world in making the acquaintance of all the respectable people in the borough
and all this came of his having been christened charles and of his possessing in consequence
the two old gentlemen were next door neighbours and although mister shuttleworthy seldom if ever visited old charley and never was known to take a meal in his house still this did not prevent the two friends from being exceedingly intimate as i have just observed
for old charley never let a day pass without stepping in three or four times to see how his neighbour came on and very often he would stay to breakfast or tea and almost always to dinner and then the amount of wine that was made way with by the two cronies at a sitting
old charleys favorite beverage was chateau margaux and it appeared to do mister shuttleworthy's heart good to see the old fellow swallow it as he did quart after quart so that one day when the wine was in and the wit as a natural consequence somewhat out
he said to his crony as he slapped him upon the back i tell you what it is old charley you are by all odds the heartiest old fellow i ever came across in all my born days and since you love to guzzle the wine at that fashion
i'll be darned if i don't have to make thee a present of a big box of the chateau margaux od rot me mister shuttleworthy had a sad habit of swearing although he seldom went beyond od rot me or by gosh or by the jolly golly od rot me says he
so look out for it it will come to hand some of these fine days precisely when ye are looking for it the least i mention this little bit of liberality on the part of mister shuttleworthy just by way of showing you how very intimate an understanding existed between the two friends
well on the sunday morning in question when it came to be fairly understood that mister shuttleworthy had met with foul play i never saw any one so profoundly affected as old charley goodfellow when he first heard that the horse had come home without his master
and without his master's saddle bags and all bloody from a pistol shot
when he heard all this he turned as pale as if the missing man had been his own dear brother or father
or to concert upon any plan of action so that for a long time he endeavored to dissuade mister shuttleworthy's other friends from making a stir about the matter
or two to see if something wouldn't turn up or if mister shuttleworthy wouldn't come in the natural way and explain his reasons for sending his horse on before
in people who are labouring under any very poignant sorrow their powers of mind seem to be rendered torpid so that they have a horror of any thing like action and like nothing in the world so well as to lie quietly in bed and nurse their grief as the old ladies express it that is to say
ruminate over the trouble the people of rattleborough had indeed so high an opinion of the wisdom and discretion of old charley that the greater part of them felt disposed to agree with him and not make a stir in the business until something should turn up
as the honest old gentleman worded it and i believe that after all this would have been the general determination but for the very suspicious interference of mister shuttleworthy's nephew a young man of very dissipated habits and otherwise of rather bad character
this nephew whose name was pennifeather would listen to nothing like reason in the matter of lying quiet but insisted upon making immediate search for the corpse of the murdered man this was the expression he employed
and mister goodfellow acutely remarked at the time that it was a singular expression to say no more this remark of old charley's too had great effect upon the crowd and one of the party was heard to ask very impressively
how it happened that young mister pennifeather was so intimately cognizant of all the circumstances connected with his wealthy uncle's disappearance as to feel authorized to assert distinctly and unequivocally that his uncle was a murdered man
although this latter occurrence was indeed by no means a novelty for no good will had subsisted between the parties for the last three or four months
for some alleged excess of liberty that the latter had taken in the uncle's house of which the nephew was an inmate upon this occasion old charley is said to have behaved with exemplary moderation and christian charity he arose from the blow adjusted his clothes and
however these matters may be which have no reference to the point now at issue it is quite certain that the people of rattleborough principally through the persuasion of mister pennifeather came at length to the determination of dispersion over the adjacent country in search of the missing mister shuttleworthy
it was considered almost a matter of course that the seekers should disperse that is to say distribute themselves in parties for the more thorough examination of the region round about i forget however by what ingenious train of reasoning it was that
when i say no trace however
and many high compliments to old charley upon his sagacity and consideration as many of the burghers had brought spades with them supposing that they might possibly be called upon to disinter a corpse the drain was easily and speedily effected and no sooner was the bottom visible
than right in the middle of the mud that remained was discovered a black silk velvet waistcoat which nearly every one present immediately recognized as the property of mister pennifeather
and there were several persons among the party who had a distinct remembrance of its having been worn by its owner on the very morning of mister shuttleworthy's departure for the city while there were others again ready to testify upon oath if required
matters now wore a very serious aspect for mister pennifeather and it was observed as an indubitable confirmation of the suspicions which were excited against him that he grew exceedingly pale and when asked what he had to say for himself was utterly incapable of saying a word
hereupon the few friends his riotous mode of living had left him deserted him at once to a man and were even more clamorous than his ancient and avowed enemies for his instantaneous arrest
the heir of the worthy mister shuttleworthy for the insult which he the young gentleman had no doubt in the heat of passion thought proper to put upon him mister goodfellow he forgave him for it he said from the very bottom of his heart and for himself mister goodfellow
these are personages in the secret rose
the poems are not out of that book i have used them in this book more as principles of the mind than as actual personages it is probable that only students of the magical tradition will understand me when i say that
michael robartes is fire reflected in water and that hanrahan is fire blown by the wind
whose name is not merely the irish form of hugh but the irish for fire is fire burning by itself to put it in a different way hanrahan is the simplicity of an imagination too changeable to gather permanent possessions
or the adoration of the shepherds and michael robartes is the pride of the imagination brooding upon the greatness of its possessions or the adoration of the magi
mongan thinks of his past greatness
the rose has been for many centuries a symbol of spiritual love and supreme beauty the count goblet d'alviella thinks that it was once a symbol of the sun itself a principal symbol of the divine nature
is the western flower of life i have imagined it growing upon the tree of life i once stood beside a man in ireland when he saw it growing there in a vision that seemed to have rapt him out of his body he saw the garden of eden walled about
and on the top of a high mountain as in certain mediaeval diagrams and after passing the tree of knowledge on which grew fruit full of troubled faces and through whose branches flowed he was told sap that was human souls
he came to a tall dark tree with little bitter fruits and was shown a kind of stair or ladder going up through the tree and told to go up and near the top of the tree a beautiful woman like the goddess of life associated with the tree in assyria
my dark rosaleen and in mister aubrey de vere's the little black rose i do not know any evidence to prove whether this symbol came to ireland with mediaeval christianity or whether it has come down from celtic times
i have read somewhere that a stone engraved with a celtic god who holds what looks like a rose in one hand has been found somewhere in england but i cannot find the reference though i certainly made a note of it if the rose was really a symbol of ireland among the gaelic poets
or banba goddesses who gave their names to ireland or with some principal god or goddess for such symbols are not suddenly adopted or invented but come out of mythology i have made the seven lights the constellation of the bear
lament for the theft of the rose and i have made the dragon the constellation draco the guardian of the rose because these constellations move about the pole of the heavens the ancient tree of life in many countries
and are often associated with the tree of life in mythology it is this tree of life that i have put into the song of mongan under its common irish form of a hazel and because it had sometimes the stars for fruit i have hung upon it
or the tribes of the goddess danu but the poor called them and still sometimes call them
the people of the faery hills as these words are usually explained
they journey in whirling winds the winds that were called the dance of the daughters of herodias in the middle ages herodias doubtless taking the place of some old goddess when the country people see the leaves whirling on the road they bless themselves
they are almost always said to wear no covering upon their heads
and the great among them for they have great and simple go much upon horseback if any one becomes too much interested in them and sees them over much he loses all interest in ordinary things
i shall write a great deal elsewhere about such enchanted persons and can give but an example or two now a woman near gort in galway says there is a boy now of the cloran's but i wouldn't for the world let them think i spoke of him
it's two years since he came from america and since that time he never went to mass or to church or to fairs or to market or to stand on the cross roads or to hurling or to nothing and if any one comes into the house
not to see them and as to work he has the garden dug to bits and the whole place smeared with cow dung and such a crop as was never seen and the alders all plaited till they look grand one day he went as far as the chapel
but as soon as he got to the door he turned straight round again as if he hadn't power to pass it
one hears many stories of the kind and a man whose son is believed to go out riding among them at night tells me that he is careless about everything and lies in bed until it is late in the day a doctor believes this boy to be mad
those that are at times away as it is called know all things but are afraid to speak a countryman at kiltartan says there was one of the lydons john was away for seven years lying in his bed
but they were vexed at that and took away the power so that he never knew anything again no more than another this wisdom is the wisdom of the fools of the celtic stories that was above all the wisdom of the wise
lomna the fool of fiann had so great wisdom that his head cut from his body was still able to sing and prophesy and a writer in the encyclopaedia britannica writes that tristram in the oldest form of the tale of tristram and iseult drank wisdom
and madness the shadow of wisdom and not love out of the magic cup the great of the old times are among the tribes of danu and are kings and queens among them
and years after his death he appeared to a king in a forest and was a flaming man that he might lead him in the darkness when the king asked him who he was he said i am your candlestick i do not remember where i have read this story
and i have maybe half forgotten it
i have written about her in the wandering of usheen and he came back at last to bitterness and weariness knocknarea is in sligo
is buried in the cairn of stones upon it i have written of clooth na bare in the celtic twilight she went all over the world seeking a lake deep enough to drown her faery life of which she had grown weary leaping from hill to hill and setting up a cairn of stones wherever her feet lighted
on the top of the bird mountain in sligo i forget now where i heard this story but it may have been from a priest at collooney
he describes lough liath as a desolate moon shaped lake with made wells and sunken passages upon its borders and beset by marsh and heather and gray boulders and closes his flight of the eagle with a long rhapsody upon mountain and lake
because of the heroic tales and beautiful old myths that have hung about them always
and so changed him with her enchantments that though she had to free him because of the threats of the fiana his hair was ever afterwards as white as snow to this day the tribes of the goddess danu that are in the waters beckon to men and drown them in the waters
the white hair of fionn may be but another of the troubles of those that come to unearthly wisdom and earthly trouble and the threats and violence of the fiana against her a different form of the threats and violence the country people use to make the tribes of danu give up those that are away
herland by charlotte perkins stetson gilman
chapter one a not unnatural enterprise this is written from memory unfortunately if i could have brought with me the material i so carefully prepared this would be a very different story
whole books full of notes carefully copied records firsthand descriptions and the pictures that's the worst loss we had some bird's eyes of the cities and parks
and most important of all of the women themselves nobody will ever believe how they looked descriptions aren't any good when it comes to women and i never was good at descriptions anyhow but it's got to be done somehow
the rest of the world needs to know about that country i haven't said where it was for fear some self appointed missionaries or traders or land greedy expansionists will take it upon themselves to push in they will not be wanted i can tell them that
and will fare worse than we did if they do find it it began this way there were three of us classmates and friends terry o nicholson
jeff margrave and i vandyck jennings we had known each other years and years and in spite of our differences we had a good deal in common all of us were interested in science terry was rich enough to do as he pleased
his great aim was exploration he used to make all kinds of a row because there was nothing left to explore now only patchwork and filling in he said he filled in well enough he had a lot of talents great on mechanics and electricity
jeff margrave was born to be a poet a botanist or both but his folks persuaded him to be a doctor instead he was a good one for his age but his real interest was in what he loved to call the wonders of science
as for me sociology's my major you have to back that up with a lot of other sciences of course
they needed a doctor and that gave jeff an excuse for dropping his just opening practice they needed terry's experience his machine and his money and as for me i got in through terry's influence
the expedition was up among the thousand tributaries and enormous hinterland of a great river
savage dialects studied and all manner of strange flora and fauna expected but this story is not about that expedition that was only the merest starter for ours
my interest was first roused by talk among our guides i'm quick at languages know a good many and pick them up readily what with that and a really good interpreter we took with us i made out quite a few legends and folk myths of these scattered tribes
and as we got farther and farther upstream in a dark tangle of rivers lakes morasses and dense forests with here and there an unexpected long spur running out from the big mountains beyond i noticed that more and more of these savages had a story
about a strange and terrible woman land in the high distance up yonder over there way up was all the direction they could offer but their legends all agreed on the main point
that there was this strange country where no men lived only women and girl children none of them had ever seen it it was dangerous deadly they said for any man to go there
but there were tales of long ago when some brave investigator had seen it a big country big houses plenty people all women had no one else gone
but they never came back it was no place for men of that they seemed sure i told the boys about these stories and they laughed at them naturally i did myself i knew the stuff that savage dreams are made of
but when we had reached our farthest point just the day before we all had to turn around and start for home again as the best of expeditions must in time we three made a discovery the main encampment was on a spit of land running out into the main stream
or what we thought was the main stream
the same taste i happened to speak of that river to our last guide a rather superior fellow with quick bright eyes he told me that there was another river over there short river sweet water red and blue
so i showed him a red and blue pencil i carried and asked again yes he pointed to the river and then to the southwestward river good water red and blue
i told him terry blazed up at once ask him how far it is the man indicated a short journey i judged about two hours maybe three
let's go urged terry just us three maybe we can really find something may be cinnabar in it may be indigo jeff suggested with his lazy smile it was early yet we had just breakfasted
and leaving word that we'd be back before night we got away quietly not wishing to be thought too gullible if we failed and secretly hoping to have some nice little discovery all to ourselves it was a long two hours nearer three
there was a desperate tangle of wood and water and a swampy patch we never should have found our way across alone but there was one and i could see terry with compass and notebook marking directions and trying to place landmarks
we came after a while to a sort of marshy lake very big so that the circling forest looked quite low and dim across it our guide told us that boats could go from there to our camp but long way all day
the ground growing firmer as we advanced and presently we turned the corner of a wooded promontory and saw a quite different country a sudden view of mountains steep and bare one of those long easterly spurs terry said appraisingly
may be hundreds of miles from the range they crop out like that suddenly we left the lake and struck directly toward the cliffs we heard running water before we reached it and the guide pointed proudly to his river it was short
we could see where it poured down a narrow vertical cataract from an opening in the face of the cliff it was sweet water the guide drank eagerly and so did we that's snow water terry announced must come from way back in the hills
but as to being red and blue it was greenish in tint the guide seemed not at all surprised he hunted about a little and showed us a quiet marginal pool where there were smears of red along the border yes and of blue
terry got out his magnifying glass and squatted down to investigate chemicals of some sort i can't tell on the spot look to me like dyestuffs let's get nearer he urged up there by the fall
we scrambled along the steep banks and got close to the pool that foamed and boiled beneath the falling water here we searched the border and found traces of color beyond dispute more jeff suddenly held up an unlooked for trophy
it was only a rag a long raveled fragment of cloth but it was a well woven fabric with a pattern and of a clear scarlet that the water had not faded
woman country up there then we were interested
and pumped the man for further information he could tell us only what the others had a land of women no men babies but all girls no place for men dangerous some had gone to see none had come back
i could see terry's jaw set at that no place for men dangerous he looked as if he might shin up the waterfall on the spot but the guide would not hear of going up even if there had been any possible method of scaling that sheer cliff
and we had to get back to our party before night
but terry stopped in his tracks look here fellows he said this is our find let's not tell those cocky old professors let's go on home with em and then come back just us have a little expedition of our own we looked at him much impressed
of course we didn't believe the story
there is no such cloth made by any of these local tribes i announced examining those rags with great care somewhere up yonder they spin and weave and dye as well as we do that would mean a considerable civilization van
precious few people know anything about that and it's been minding its own business for a thousand years then there's montenegro splendid little state you could lose a dozen montenegroes up and down these great ranges we discussed it hotly all the way back to camp
but t o nicholson could fix up his big steam yacht load his specially made big motorboat aboard and tuck in a dissembled biplane without any more notice than a snip in the society column we had provisions and preventives and all manner of supplies
his previous experience stood him in good stead there it was a very complete little outfit
those natives can't get into it or hurt it or move it terry explained proudly we'll start our flier from the lake and leave the boat as a base to come back to if we come back i suggested cheerfully fraid the ladies will eat you he scoffed
you don't need to go if you don't want to terry remarked drily go you'll have to get an injunction to stop me both jeff and i were sure about that but
now we had no eavesdroppers we could loll and loaf in our deck chairs and talk and talk there was nothing else to do
we'll leave papers with our consul where the yacht stays terry planned
a punitive expedition i urged if the ladies do eat us we must make reprisals
yes but how will they get up asked jeff same way we do of course if three valuable american citizens are lost up there they will follow somehow to say nothing of the glittering attractions of that fair land let's call it feminisia
he broke off you're right terry once the story gets out the river will crawl with expeditions and the airships rise like a swarm of mosquitoes i laughed as i thought of it we've made a great mistake not to let mister yellow press in on this save us
what headlines not much said terry grimly this is our party we're going to find that place alone
if you do jeff asked mildly jeff was a tender soul i think he thought that country if there was one was just
well terry was popular among women even when there were other men around and it's not to be wondered at that he had pleasant dreams of what might happen i could see it in his eyes as he lay there
looking at the long blue rollers slipping by and fingering that impressive mustache of his but i thought then that i could form a far clearer idea of what was before us than either of them you're all off boys i insisted
you'll find it's built on a sort of matriarchal principle that's all
a sort of wedding call this is a condition known to have existed here's just a survival
danger enough terry and we'll have to be mighty careful women of that stage of culture are quite able to defend themselves and have no welcome for unseasonable visitors we talked and talked and with all my airs of sociological superiority
on the ocean voyage and the river voyage too admitting the improbability we'd begin solemnly and then launch out again they would fight among themselves terry insisted women always do
we mustn't look to find any sort of order and organization you're dead wrong jeff told him
oh cloth women have always been spinsters but there they stop you'll see we joked terry about his modest impression that he would be warmly received but he held his ground you'll see he insisted
couldn't risk it he asserted solemnly you might start a revolution
no you'll have to be beheaded or bowstrung or whatever the popular method of execution is you'd have to do it yourself remember grinned jeff no husky black slaves and mamelukes
eh van jeff's ideas and terry's were so far apart that sometimes it was all i could do to keep the peace between them jeff idealized women in the best southern style he was full of chivalry and sentiment and all that and he was a good boy
he lived up to his ideals you might say terry did too if you can call his views about women anything so polite as ideals i always liked terry he was a man's man very much so generous and brave and clever but
i don't think any of us in college days was quite pleased to have him with our sisters we weren't very stringent heavens no but terry was the limit later on why of course a man's life is his own
we held and asked no questions but barring a possible exception in favor of a not impossible wife or of his mother or of course the fair relatives of his friends terry's idea seemed to be that
it was really unpleasant sometimes to see the notions he had but i got out of patience with jeff too he had such rose colored halos on his womenfolks
and used to argue learnedly about the physiological limitations of the sex we were not in the least advanced on the woman question
so we joked and disputed and speculated and after an interminable journey we got to our old camping place at last
and it was navigable as far as the lake when we reached that and slid out on its broad glistening bosom with that high gray promontory running out toward us and the straight white fall clearly visible it began to be really exciting
so we got the big biplane together and loaded it with our scientifically compressed baggage the camera of course the glasses a supply of concentrated food our pockets were magazines of small necessities and we had our guns of course there was no knowing what might happen
with your tremendous speed we can reach that range and back all right then we can leave a sort of
and from what we could see of the sides and that icy ridge at the back end
but we were too high and going too fast to see much it appeared to be well forested about the edges but in the interior there were wide plains and everywhere parklike meadows and open places there were cities too that i insisted
and see the broad fair land at our pleasure semitropical
terry was studying the forest growth
our instruments measured it clearly we had not realized the long gentle rise from the coast perhaps
now for the folks i've had enough scenery so we sailed low crossing back and forth quartering the country as we went and studying it we saw i can't remember now how much of this we noted then and how much was supplemented by our later knowledge
but we could not help seeing this much even on that excited day a land in a state of perfect cultivation where even the forests looked as if they were cared for a land that looked like an enormous park
only it was even more evidently an enormous garden
i suggested but terry was silent we were approaching a village i confess that we paid small attention to the clean well built roads to the attractive architecture to the ordered beauty of the little town
we had our glasses out even terry
they heard our whirring screw they ran out of the houses they gathered in from the fields swift running light figures crowds of them we stared and stared until it was almost too late to catch the levers sweep off and rise again
and then we held our peace for a long run upward gosh said terry after a while only women there and children jeff urged excitedly
he refused to listen to jeff's suggestion that we examine the country further before we risked leaving our machine
and it was an excellent one a wide flat topped rock overlooking the lake and quite out of sight from the interior they won't find this in a hurry he asserted as we scrambled with the utmost difficulty down to safer footing come on boys there were some good lookers in that bunch of course
it was quite easy to see afterward that our best plan was to have studied the country more fully before we left our swooping airship and trusted ourselves to mere foot service but we were three young men
we had been talking about this country for over a year hardly believing that there was such a place and now we were in it
though some were terrified enough there was great beauty
rash advances not more than ten or fifteen miles we judged it from our landing rock to that last village for all our eagerness we thought it wise to keep to the woods and go carefully
even terry's ardor was held in check by his firm conviction that there were men to be met and we saw to it that each of us had a good stock of cartridges they may be scarce and they may be hidden away somewhere some kind of
for that matter they may live up in the mountains yonder and keep the women in this part of the country sort of a national harem but there are men somewhere didn't you see the babies we had all seen babies children big and little
first tie your camel and then trust in the lord jeff murmured so we all had our weapons in hand and stole cautiously through the forest terry studied it as we progressed talk of civilization
he cried softly in restrained enthusiasm i never saw a forest so petted even in
the rest splendid hardwood call this a forest it's a truck farm good thing to have a botanist on hand i agreed sure there are no medicinal ones or any for pure ornament as a matter of fact they were quite right
these towering trees were under as careful cultivation as so many cabbages in other conditions
and fruit gatherers but an airship is a conspicuous object and by no means quiet and women are cautious
a little happy sound instantly smothered we stood like so many pointers and then used our glasses swiftly carefully
there was a very large and beautiful tree in the glade we had just entered with thick wide spreading branches that sloped out in lapping fans like a beech or pine it was trimmed underneath some twenty feet up and stood there like a huge umbrella
with circling seats beneath look he pursued there are short stumps of branches left to climb on there's someone up that tree i believe we stole near cautiously
there among the boughs overhead was something more than one something that clung motionless close to the great trunk at first and then as one and all we started up the tree
separated into three swift moving figures and fled upward as we climbed we could catch glimpses of them scattering above us by the time we had reached about as far as three men together dared push they had left the main trunk and moved outward
each one balanced on a long branch that dipped and swayed beneath the weight we paused uncertain if we pursued further the boughs would break under the double burden we might shake them off perhaps but none of us was so inclined
in the soft dappled light of these high regions breathless with our rapid climb we rested awhile eagerly studying our objects of pursuit while they in turn with no more terror than a set of frolicsome children in a game of tag
on their precarious perches and frankly curiously stared at us girls whispered jeff under his breath
peaches added terry scarcely louder peacherinos apricot nectarines whew they were girls of course no boys could ever have shown that sparkling beauty and yet
none of us was certain at first we saw short hair hatless loose and shining a suit of some light firm stuff the closest of tunics and kneebreeches met by trim gaiters
as bright and smooth as parrots and as unaware of danger they swung there before us wholly at ease staring as we stared till first one and then all of them burst into peals of delighted laughter
then there was a torrent of soft talk tossed back and forth no savage sing song but clear musical fluent speech we met their laughter cordially and doffed our hats to them at which they laughed again
delightedly then terry wholly in his element made a polite speech with explanatory gestures and proceeded to introduce us with pointing finger mister jeff margrave he said clearly
i also tried to make an effective salute and nearly lost my balance
a fine chest he had too and introduced himself he was braced carefully for the occasion and achieved an excellent obeisance again they laughed delightedly and the one nearest me followed his tactics
she laid a firm delicate hand on her gold green jerkin ellador this was pleasant but we got no nearer we can't sit here and learn the language terry protested
he suggested by signs that we all go down together but again they shook their heads still merrily then ellador clearly indicated that we should go down pointing to each and all of us with unmistakable firmness and further
he produced from an inner pocket a little box of purple velvet that opened with a snap and out of it he drew a long sparkling thing
offered it first to one then to another holding it out as far as he could reach toward the girl nearest him he stood braced in the fork held firmly by one hand the other swinging his bright temptation reached far out along the bough
but not quite to his full stretch she was visibly moved i noted hesitated spoke to her companions they chattered softly together
then softly and slowly she drew nearer this was alima a tall long limbed lass well knit and evidently both strong and agile her eyes were splendid wide fearless
as free from suspicion as a child's who has never been rebuked her interest was more that of an intent boy playing a fascinating game than of a girl lured by an ornament the others moved a bit farther out holding firmly watching
terry's smile was irreproachable but i did not like the look in his eyes it was like a creature about to spring i could already see it happen the dropped necklace the sudden clutching hand the girl's sharp cry as he seized her and drew her in but it
didn't happen she made a timid reach with her right hand for the gay swinging thing he held it a little nearer then swift as light she seized it from him with her left and dropped on the instant to the bough below he made his snatch quite vainly
almost losing his position as his hand clutched only air and then with inconceivable rapidity the three bright creatures were gone they dropped from the ends of the big boughs to those below fairly pouring themselves off the tree
while we climbed downward as swiftly as we could we heard their vanishing gay laughter we saw them fleeting away in the wide open reaches of the forest and gave chase but we might as well have chased wild antelopes so we stopped at length somewhat breathless
my word the men of this country must be good sprinters inhabitants evidently arboreal i grimly suggested civilized and still arboreal peculiar people
they were perfectly friendly now we've scared them but it was no use grumbling and terry refused to admit any mistake nonsense he said they expected it women like to be run after
this direction and not far from the woods as i remember when we reached the edge of the open country we reconnoitered with our field glasses there it was about four miles off the same town we concluded unless as jeff ventured they all had pink houses
delighted i believe i've had the pleasure of meeting you at princess shtcherbatskaya's he said giving levin his hand yes i quite remember our meeting said levin and blushing crimson he turned away immediately and began talking to his brother
obviously without the slightest inclination to enter into conversation with levin but levin as he talked to his brother was continually looking round at vronsky
i certainly shall not under any circumstances answered the malignant gentleman this was nevyedovsky himself
well you find it exciting too said stepan arkadyevitch winking at vronsky it's something like a race one might bet on it yes it is keenly exciting said vronsky and once taking the thing up one's eager to see it through
it's a fight he said scowling and setting his powerful jaws
sees it all so clearly oh yes vronsky assented indifferently a silence followed during which vronsky since he had to look at something looked at levin at his feet at his uniform then at his face
and noticing his gloomy eyes fixed upon him he said in order to say something how is it that you living constantly in the country are not a justice of the peace
it's because i consider that the justice of the peace is a silly institution levin answered gloomily he had been all the time looking for an opportunity to enter into conversation with vronsky so as to smooth over his rudeness at their first meeting
i don't think so quite the contrary vronsky said with quiet surprise it's a plaything levin cut him short
the justice of the peace is over thirty miles from me for some matter of two roubles i should have to send a lawyer who costs me fifteen and he related how a peasant had stolen some flour from the miller
and when the miller told him of it had lodged a complaint for slander
oh this is such an original fellow said stepan arkadyevitch with his most soothing almond oil smile but come along i think they're voting and they separated i can't understand said sergey ivanovitch who had observed his brother's clumsiness
i can't understand how anyone can be so absolutely devoid of political tact that's where we russians are so deficient the marshal of the province is our opponent
and you beg him to stand count vronsky now i'm not making a friend of him he's asked me to dinner and i'm not going but he's one of our side why make an enemy of him then you ask nevyedovsky if he's going to stand that's not a thing to do
oh i don't understand it at all and it's all such nonsense levin answered gloomily you say it's all such nonsense but as soon as you have anything to do with it you make a muddle levin did not answer and they walked together into the big room
the marshal of the province though he was vaguely conscious in the air of some trap being prepared for him and though he had not been called upon by all to stand had still made up his mind to stand all was silence in the room
mihail stepanovitch snetkov would now be balloted for as marshal of the province the district marshals walked carrying plates on which were balls from their tables to the high table and the election began
put it in the right side whispered stepan arkadyevitch as with his brother levin followed the marshal of his district to the table but levin had forgotten by now the calculations that had been explained to him
and was afraid stepan arkadyevitch might be mistaken in saying the right side surely snetkov was the enemy as he went up he held the ball in his right hand but thinking he was wrong
just at the box he changed to the left hand and undoubtedly put the ball to the left an adept in the business standing at the box and seeing by the mere action of the elbow where each put his ball
scowled with annoyance it was no good for him to use his insight everything was still and the counting of the balls was heard then a single voice rose and proclaimed the numbers for and against
the marshal had been voted for by a considerable majority all was noise and eager movement towards the doors snetkov came in and the nobles thronged round him congratulating him
well now is it over levin asked sergey ivanovitch
replying for sergey ivanovitch with a smile some other candidate may receive more votes than the marshal levin had quite forgotten about that now he could only remember that there was some sort of trickery in it
but he was too bored to think what it was exactly he felt depressed and longed to get out of the crowd
and no one apparently needed him he quietly slipped away into the little room where the refreshments were and again had a great sense of comfort when he saw the waiters the little old waiter pressed him to have something and levin agreed
after eating a cutlet with beans and talking to the waiters of their former masters levin not wishing to go back to the hall
proceeded to walk through the galleries the galleries were full of fashionably dressed ladies leaning over the balustrade and trying not to lose a single word of what was being said below
with the ladies were sitting and standing smart lawyers high school teachers in spectacles and officers everywhere they were talking of the election and of how worried the marshal was
and how splendid the discussions had been in one group levin heard his brother's praises one lady was telling a lawyer
it's worth losing one's dinner he's exquisite so clear and distinct all of it there's not one of you in the law courts that speaks like that the only one is meidel and he's not so eloquent by a long way
finding a free place levin leaned over the balustrade and began looking and listening all the noblemen were sitting railed off behind barriers according to their districts
who shouted in a loud high voice
a dead silence followed and then a weak old voice was heard declined
petrovitch bol the voice began again declined a high boyish voice replied again it began and again declined
levin with his elbows on the balustrade looked and listened at first he wondered
he felt sad he made up his mind to go and went downstairs as he passed through the entry to the galleries he met a dejected high school boy walking up and down with tired looking eyes
on the stairs he met a couple a lady running quickly on her high heels and the jaunty deputy prosecutor i told you you weren't late the deputy prosecutor was saying at the moment when levin moved aside to let the lady pass
levin was on the stairs to the way out and was just feeling in his waistcoat pocket for the number of his overcoat when the secretary overtook him this way please konstantin dmitrievitch they are voting
the candidate who was being voted on was nevyedovsky who had so stoutly denied all idea of standing levin went up to the door of the room it was locked
the secretary knocked the door opened and levin was met by two red faced gentlemen who darted out
his face was dreadful looking from exhaustion and dismay i told you not to let any one out he cried to the doorkeeper i let someone in your excellency mercy on us and with a heavy sigh the marshal of the province walked with downcast head
to the high table in the middle of the room his legs staggering in his white trousers nevyedovsky had scored a higher majority as they had planned and he was the new marshal of the province many people were amused
many were in ecstasies many were disgusted and unhappy the former marshal of the province was in a state of despair which he could not conceal when nevyedovsky went out of the room the crowd thronged round him
and followed him enthusiastically just as they had followed the governor who had opened the meetings and just as they had followed snetkov
chapter twenty six in september levin moved to moscow for kitty's confinement he had spent a whole month in moscow with nothing to do when sergey ivanovitch who had property in the kashinsky province
made ready to set off to the elections he invited his brother who had a vote in the seleznevsky district to come with him levin had moreover to transact in kashin some extremely important business
relating to the wardship of land and to the receiving of certain redemption money for his sister who was abroad levin still hesitated but kitty who saw that he was bored in moscow and urged him to go on her own authority ordered him the proper nobleman's uniform
costing seven pounds and that seven pounds paid for the uniform was the chief cause that finally decided levin to go he went to kashin
levin had been six days in kashin visiting the assembly each day and busily engaged about his sister's business which still dragged on the district marshals of nobility were all occupied with the elections
and it was impossible to get the simplest thing done that depended upon the court of wardship
after long negotiations over the legal details the money was at last ready to be paid but the notary a most obliging person could not hand over the order because it must have the signature of the president and the president
was at the elections all these worrying negotiations this endless going from place to place and talking with pleasant and excellent people who quite saw the unpleasantness of the petitioner's position but were powerless to assist him all these efforts that yielded no result
one experiences in dreams when one tries to use physical force he felt this frequently as he talked to his most good natured solicitor this solicitor did it seemed everything possible and strained every nerve to get him out of his difficulties
go to so and so and so and so and the solicitor drew up a regular plan for getting round the fatal point that hindered everything but he would add immediately it'll mean some delay anyway but you might try it and levin did try and did go
everyone was kind and civil but the point evaded seemed to crop up again in the end and again to bar the way what was particularly trying was that levin could not make out with whom he was struggling to whose interest it was that his business should not be done
that no one seemed to know the solicitor certainly did not know
but with the hindrances that confronted him in his business no one could explain why they existed but levin had changed a good deal since his marriage
and that most likely it must be so and he tried not to fret in attending the elections too and taking part in them
not to fall foul of them but to comprehend as fully as he could the question which was so earnestly and ardently absorbing honest
since his marriage there had been revealed to levin so many new and serious aspects of life
seemed of no importance that in the question of the elections too he assumed and tried to find some serious significance sergey ivanovitch explained to him the meaning and object of the proposed revolution at the elections
the marshal of the province in whose hands the law had placed the control of so many important public functions the guardianship of wards the very department which was giving levin so much trouble just now
the disposal of large sums subscribed by the nobility of the province the high schools female male and military and popular instruction on the new model and finally the district council
the marshal of the province snetkov was a nobleman of the old school dissipating an immense fortune a good hearted man honest after his own fashion
but utterly without any comprehension of the needs of modern days he always took in every question the side of the nobility he was positively antagonistic to the spread of popular education and he succeeded
in giving a purely party character to the district council which ought by rights to be of such an immense importance what was needed was to put in his place a fresh capable perfectly modern man
of contemporary ideas and to frame their policy so as from the rights conferred upon the nobles not as the nobility but as an element of the district council
that could possibly be derived from them in the wealthy kashinsky province which always took the lead of other provinces in everything there was now such a preponderance of forces that this policy once carried through properly there
might serve as a model for other provinces for all russia
or better still nevyedovsky a former university professor a man of remarkable intelligence and a great friend of sergey ivanovitch the meeting was opened by the governor who made a speech to the nobles
urging them to elect the public functionaries not from regard for persons but for the service and welfare of their fatherland and hoping that the honorable nobility of the kashinsky province would as at all former elections
hold their duty as sacred and vindicate the exalted confidence of the monarch when he had finished with his speech the governor walked out of the hall and the noblemen noisily and eagerly some even enthusiastically
followed him and thronged round him while he put on his fur coat
levin anxious to see into everything and not to miss anything stood there too in the crowd and heard the governor say please tell marya ivanovna my wife is very sorry she couldn't come to the home
and thereupon the nobles in high good humor sorted out their fur coats and all drove off to the cathedral in the cathedral levin lifting his hand like the rest and repeating the words of the archdeacon swore with most terrible oaths
to do all the governor had hoped they would do church services always affected levin and as he uttered the words i kiss the cross and glanced round at the crowd of young and old men repeating the same he felt touched
and the female high school of no importance whatever as sergey ivanovitch explained and levin busy seeing after his own affairs did not attend the meetings
on the fourth day the auditing of the marshal's accounts took place at the high table of the marshal of the province and then there occurred the first skirmish between the new party and the old
that all was in order the marshal of the province got up thanked the nobility for their confidence and shed tears the nobles gave him a loud welcome and shook hands with him
that the committee had not verified the accounts considering such a verification an insult to the marshal of the province one of the members of the committee incautiously admitted this then a small gentleman very young looking but very malignant
began to say that it would probably be agreeable to the marshal of the province to give an account of his expenditures of the public moneys and that the misplaced delicacy of the members of the committee was depriving him of this moral satisfaction
then the members of the committee tried to withdraw their admission and sergey ivanovitch began to prove that they must logically admit either
and he developed this dilemma in detail sergey ivanovitch was answered by the spokesman of the opposite party
the discussion lasted a long time and ended in nothing levin was surprised that they should dispute upon this subject so long especially as
sergey ivanovitch answered oh no he's an honest man but those old fashioned methods of paternal family arrangements in the management of provincial affairs must be broken down
on the fifth day came the elections of the district marshals
whoso prefers either matrimony or other ordinance before the good of man and the plain exigence of charity let him profess papist or protestant or what he will he is no better than a pharisee j milton
vague imaginings of its castle its three mints its magnificent apsidal abbey the chief glory of south wessex its twelve churches its shrines chantries hospitals its gabled freestone mansions
all now ruthlessly swept away throw the visitor even against his will into a pensive melancholy which the stimulating atmosphere and limitless landscape around him can scarcely dispel the spot was the burial place of a king and a queen
knights and squires the bones of king edward the martyr carefully removed hither for holy preservation brought shaston a renown which made it the resort of pilgrims from every part of europe
with the destruction of the enormous abbey the whole place collapsed in a general ruin the martyr's bones met with the fate of the sacred pile that held them and not a stone is now left to tell where they lie
the natural picturesqueness and singularity of the town still remain but strange to say these qualities
are passed over in this and one of the queerest and quaintest spots in england stands virtually unvisited to day it has a unique position on the summit of a steep and imposing scarp rising on the north south and west sides of the borough
out of the deep alluvial vale of blackmoor the view from the castle green over three counties of verdant pasture south mid and nether wessex being as sudden a surprise to the unexpectant traveller's eyes
as the medicinal air is to his lungs
such is and such was the now world forgotten shaston or palladour its situation rendered water the great want of the town and within living memory horses donkeys and men may have been seen toiling up the winding ways to the top of the height
laden with tubs and barrels filled from the wells beneath the mountain and hawkers retailing their contents at the price of a halfpenny a bucketful this difficulty in the water supply together with two other odd facts
namely that the chief graveyard slopes up as steeply as a roof behind the church and that in former times the town passed through a curious period of corruption conventual and domestic
and where there were more wanton women than honest wives and maids it is also said that after the middle ages the inhabitants were too poor to pay their priests and hence were compelled to pull down their churches and refrain altogether from the public worship of god
a necessity which they bemoaned over their cups in the settles of their inns on sunday afternoons in those days the shastonians were apparently not without a sense of humour
it was the resting place and headquarters of the proprietors of wandering vans shows shooting galleries and other itinerant concerns
as strange wild birds are seen assembled on some lofty promontory meditatively pausing for longer flights or to return by the course they followed thither so here in this cliff town stood in stultified silence the yellow and green caravans
bearing names not local as if surprised by a change in the landscape so violent as to hinder their further progress and here they usually remained all the winter till they turned to seek again their old tracks in the following spring
it was to this breezy and whimsical spot that jude ascended from the nearest station for the first time in his life about four o'clock one afternoon and entering on the summit of the peak after a toilsome climb passed the first houses of the aerial town
and drew towards the school house the hour was too early the pupils were still in school humming small like a swarm of gnats
whence he regarded the spot which fate had made the home of all he loved best in the world in front of the schools which were extensive and stone built grew two enormous beeches with smooth mouse coloured trunks as such trees will only grow on chalk uplands
within the mullioned and transomed windows he could see the black brown and flaxen crowns of the scholars over the sills and to pass the time away he walked down to the level terrace where the abbey gardens once had spread his heart throbbing in spite of him
unwilling to enter till the children were dismissed he remained here till young voices could be heard in the open air and girls in white pinafores over red and blue frocks appeared dancing along the paths
subprioress and fifty nuns had demurely paced three centuries earlier retracing his steps he found that he had waited too long and that sue had gone out into the town at the heels of the last scholar
mister phillotson having been absent all the afternoon at a teachers meeting at shottsford jude went into the empty schoolroom and sat down the girl who was sweeping the floor having informed him that missus phillotson would be back again in a few minutes
a piano stood near actually the old piano that phillotson had possessed at marygreen and though the dark afternoon almost prevented him seeing the notes
jude touched them in his humble way and could not help modulating into the hymn which had so affected him in the previous week a figure moved behind him and thinking it was still the girl with the broom jude took no notice
till the person came close and laid her fingers lightly upon his bass hand the imposed hand was a little one he seemed to know and he turned don't stop said sue i like it i learnt it before i left melchester they used to play it in the training school
play it for me oh well i don't mind sue sat down and her rendering of the piece though not remarkable seemed divine as compared with his own she like him was evidently touched to her own surprise by the recalled air
and when she had finished and he moved his hand towards hers it met his own half way jude grasped it just as he had done before her marriage it is odd she said in a voice quite changed that i should care about that air because
she played on and suddenly turned round and by an unpremeditated instinct each clasped the other's hand again she uttered a forced little laugh as she relinquished his quickly how funny she said
i wonder what we both did that for i suppose because we are both alike as i said before not in our thoughts perhaps a little in our feelings and they rule thoughts
what you know him i went to see him
because we are not alike he said drily now we'll have some tea said sue shall we have it here instead of in my house it is no trouble to get the kettle and things brought in
i feel crushed into the earth by the weight of so many previous lives there spent in a new place like these schools there is only your own life to support
and when she returned followed by the maiden with tea they sat down by the same light assisted by the blue rays of a spirit lamp under the brass kettle on the stand this is one of your wedding presents to me she said signifying the latter yes
said jude the kettle of his gift sang with some satire in its note to his mind and to change the subject he said do you know of any good readable edition of the uncanonical books of the new testament you don't read them in the school i suppose oh dear no
yes there is one i am not familiar with it now though i was interested in it when my former friend was alive cowper's apocryphal gospels that sounds like what i want
he wondered if she talked of him to phillotson the gospel of nicodemus is very nice she went on to keep him from his jealous thoughts which she read clearly as she always did indeed when they talked on an indifferent subject as now
there was ever a second silent conversation passing between their emotions
it is quite like the genuine article all cut up into verses too so that it is like one of the other evangelists read in a dream when things are the same yet not the same
but jude do you take an interest in those questions still are you getting up apologetica yes i am reading divinity harder than ever she regarded him curiously why do you look at me like that said jude
we won't get on to that now she coaxed will you be carving out at that church again next week where you learnt the pretty hymn yes perhaps that will be very nice shall i come and see you there
no i didn't know that i thought you were
no i am not what have i done then i am sure i thought we two
sue i sometimes think you are a flirt said he abruptly there was a momentary pause till she suddenly jumped up and to his surprise he saw by the kettle flame that her face was flushed
i can't talk to you any longer jude she said the tragic contralto note having come back as of old it is getting too dark to stay together like this after playing morbid good friday tunes that make one feel what one shouldn't we mustn't sit and talk in this way any more
and how much i feel that i shouldn't have been provided with attractiveness unless it were meant to be exercised some women's love of being loved is insatiable and so often is their love of loving
i perceive i have said that in mere convention honestly i don't think i am sorry it does not matter either way sad to say as they had overdone the grasp of hands some time sooner she touched his fingers but lightly when he went out now
i have been thinking she continued
have to the real star patterns i am called missus richard phillotson living a calm wedded life with my counterpart of that name but i am not really missus richard phillotson but a woman tossed about
all alone with aberrant passions and unaccountable antipathies now you mustn't wait longer or you will lose the coach come and see me again you must come to the house then yes said jude when shall it be
to morrow week good bye good bye she stretched out her hand and stroked his forehead pitifully just once jude said good bye and went away into the darkness passing along bimport street
he thought he heard the wheels of the coach departing and truly enough when he reached the duke's arms in the market place the coach had gone
the last to melchester that night
his feet involuntarily took him through the venerable graveyard of trinity church with its avenues of limes in the direction of the schools again they were entirely in darkness she had said she lived over the way at old grove place
a house which he soon discovered from her description of its antiquity a glimmering candlelight shone from a front window the shutters being yet unclosed he could see the interior clearly the floor sinking a couple of steps below the road without
the latter being crossed by huge moulded beams only a little way above her head the mantelpiece was of the same heavy description carved with jacobean pilasters and scroll work
the centuries did indeed ponderously overhang a young wife who passed her time here she had opened a rosewood work box and was looking at a photograph having contemplated it a little while she pressed it against her bosom
and put it again in its place then becoming aware that she had not obscured the windows she came forward to do so candle in hand it was too dark for her to see jude without
but she had others he knew yet it was his surely he knew he should go to see her again according to her invitation
would have shunned such encounters if they doubted their own strength but he could not
however if god disposed not woman did the next morning but one brought him this note from her don't come next week on your own account don't we were too free under the influence of that morbid hymn and the twilight
think no more than you can help of susanna florence mary the disappointment was keen he knew her mood the look of her face when she subscribed herself at length thus
but whatever her mood he could not say she was wrong in her view he replied i acquiesce you are right it is a lesson in renunciation which i suppose i ought to learn at this season jude
he despatched the note on easter eve and there seemed a finality in their decisions but other forces and laws than theirs were in operation on easter monday morning he received a message from the widow edlin
the short cut was made to the village as he ascended on the other side a labouring man who had been watching his approach from a gate across the path moved uneasily and prepared to speak i can see in his face that she is dead said jude
poor aunt drusilla it was as he had supposed and missus edlin had sent out the man to break the news to him
and wondered if sue would come she had not written and that seemed to signify rather that she would come than that she would not having timed her by her only possible train he locked the door about mid day
and crossed the hollow field to the verge of the upland by the brown house where he stood and looked over the vast prospect northwards and over the nearer landscape in which alfredston stood
two miles behind it a jet of white steam was travelling from the left to the right of the picture there was a long time to wait even now till he would know if she had arrived
he did wait however and at last a small hired vehicle pulled up at the bottom of the hill and a person alighted the conveyance going back while the passenger began ascending the hill he knew her
and she looked so slender to day that it seemed as if she might be crushed in the intensity of a too passionate embrace such as it was not for him to give
and he knew that she had at that moment recognized him her face soon began a pensive smile which lasted till having descended a little way he met her i thought she began with nervous quickness
that it would be so sad to let you attend the funeral alone and so at the last moment i came dear faithful sue murmured jude
with the elusiveness of her curious double nature however sue did not stand still for any further greeting though it wanted some time to the burial
their progress to the church being almost at a trot the bustling undertaker having a more important funeral an hour later three miles off
sue and jude had gone side by side to the grave and now sat down to tea in the familiar house
yes particularly for members of our family
sue was silent is it wrong jude she said with a tentative tremor for a husband or wife to tell a third person that they are unhappy in their marriage if a marriage ceremony is a religious thing it is possibly wrong
but if it is only a sordid contract based on material convenience in householding rating and taxing and the inheritance of land and money by children making it necessary that the male parent should be known which it seems to be
why surely a person may say even proclaim upon the housetops that it hurts and grieves him or her i have said so anyhow to you presently she went on
are there many couples do you think where one dislikes the other for no definite fault yes i suppose if either cares for another person for instance but even apart from that
wouldn't the woman for example be very bad natured if she didn't like to live with her husband merely her voice undulated and he guessed things merely because she had a personal feeling against it a physical objection
a fastidiousness or whatever it may be called although she might respect and be grateful to him i am merely putting a case ought she to try to overcome her pruderies jude threw a troubled look at her
he said looking away it would be just one of those cases in which my experiences go contrary to my dogmas speaking as an order loving man which i hope i am though i fear i am not i should say yes
missus edlin has plenty of room if you don't like to stay here very well she said dubiously i didn't tell him i would come for certain
it is horrible how we are circumstanced sue horrible he said abruptly with his eyes bent to the floor no why i can't tell you all my part of the gloom your part is that you ought not to have married him
i saw it before you had done it but i thought i mustn't interfere i was wrong i ought to have but what makes you assume all this dear because
sue drew hers away that's absurd sue cried he after what we've been talking about
but i must tell him who richard oh
as it means nothing it may be bothering him needlessly
absolutely sure i have no feelings of love left in me that's news how has it come to be i've seen arabella she winced at the hit then said curiously
when did you see her when i was at christminster
i suppose you will live with her now of course just as you live with your husband
she looked at the window pots with the geraniums and cactuses withered for want of attention and through them at the outer distance till her eyes began to grow moist what is it said jude in a softened tone
why should you be so glad to go back to her if if what you used to say to me is still true i mean if it were true then of course it is not now
if i were unhappy it would be my fault my wickedness not that i should have a right to dislike him he is considerate to me in everything and he is very interesting from the amount of general knowledge he has acquired by reading everything that comes in his way
do you think jude that a man ought to marry a woman his own age or one younger than himself eighteen years as i am than he it depends upon what they feel for each other
which she did in a vanquished tone verging on tears i i think i must be equally honest with you as you have been with me perhaps you have seen what it is i want to say
that though i like mister phillotson as a friend i don't like him it is a torture to me to live with him as a husband there now i have let it out i couldn't help it although i have been pretending i am happy
she shakes down to with comfortable indifference in half a dozen years but that is much like saying that the amputation of a limb is no affliction since a person gets comfortably accustomed to the use of a wooden leg or arm in the course of time
what tortures me so much is the necessity of being responsive to this man whenever he wishes good as he is morally the dreadful contract to feel in a particular way in a matter whose essence is its voluntariness
i wish he would beat me or be faithless to me or do some open thing that i could talk about as a justification for feeling as i do but he does nothing except that he has grown a little cold since he has found out how i feel
oh i am very miserable i don't know what to do don't come near me jude because you mustn't don't don't but he had jumped up and put his face against hers or rather against her ear her face being inaccessible
i told you not to jude i know you did i only wish to console you it all arose through my being married before we met didn't it you would have been my wife sue wouldn't you if it hadn't been for that
and again questioned his devotional motto that all was for the best he retired to rest early but his sleep was fitful from the sense that sue was so near at hand
at some time near two o'clock when he was beginning to sleep more soundly he was aroused by a shrill squeak that had been familiar enough to him when he lived regularly at marygreen it was the cry of a rabbit caught in a gin
as was the little creature's habit it did not soon repeat its cry and probably would not do so more than once or twice but would remain bearing its torture till the morrow when the trapper would come and knock it on the head
he who in his childhood had saved the lives of the earthworms now began to picture the agonies of the rabbit from its lacerated leg if it were a bad catch by the hind leg
should a weak springed instrument enable it to escape it would die in the fields from the mortification of the limb if it were a good catch namely by the fore leg the bone would be broken and the limb nearly torn in two in attempts at an impossible escape
jude could rest no longer till he had put it out of its pain so dressing himself quickly he descended and by the light of the moon went across the green in the direction of the sound he reached the hedge bordering the widow's garden when he stood still
the faint click of the trap as dragged about by the writhing animal guided him now and reaching the spot he struck the rabbit on the back of the neck with the side of his palm and it stretched itself out dead
jude said a voice timidly sue's voice it is you is it not yes dear i haven't been able to sleep at all and then i heard the rabbit and couldn't help thinking of what it suffered till i felt i must come down and kill it
but i am so glad you got there first they ought not to be allowed to set these steel traps ought they jude had reached the window which was quite a low one so that she was visible down to her waist
i know you with your religious doctrines think that a married woman in trouble of a kind like mine commits a mortal sin in making a man the confidant of it as i did you i wish i hadn't now don't wish it dear he said
that may have been my view but my doctrines and i begin to part company i knew it i knew it and that's why i vowed i wouldn't disturb your belief but i am so glad to see you and oh i didn't mean to see you again
now the last tie between us aunt drusilla is dead jude seized her hand and kissed it there is a stronger one left he said i'll never care about my doctrines or my religion any more let them go
let me help you even if i do love you and even if you don't say it i know what you mean but i can't admit so much as that there guess what you like but don't press me to answer questions
i wish you were happy whatever i may be i can't be so few could enter into my feeling they would say twas my fanciful fastidiousness or something of that sort and condemn me
it is none of the natural tragedies of love that's love's usual tragedy in civilized life but a tragedy artificially manufactured for people who in a natural state would find relief in parting
but i have nobody and i must tell somebody jude before i married him i had never thought out fully what marriage meant even though i knew it was idiotic of me there is no excuse
i was old enough and i thought i was very experienced so i rushed on when i had got into that training school scrape with all the cock sureness of the fool that i was
i daresay it happens to lots of women only they submit and i kick
we have seen that we are driven to believe in the subsidence of those vast areas interspersed with low islands
and yet are constructed by animals requiring a foundation and that foundation to lie at no great depth let us then take an island surrounded by fringing reefs which offer no difficulty in their structure
we may safely infer from what is known of the conditions favourable to the growth of coral that the living masses bathed by the surf on the margin of the reef will soon regain the surface the water however will encroach little by little on the shore
the island becoming lower and smaller and the space between the inner edge of the reef and the beach proportionately broader a section of the reef and island in this state after a subsidence of several hundred feet is given by the dotted lines
this channel will be more or less deep according to the rate of subsidence to the amount of sediment accumulated in it and to the growth of the delicately branched corals which can live there
the section in this state resembles in every respect one drawn through an encircled island in fact it is a real section
the little architects having built up their great wall like mass as the whole sank down upon a basis formed of other corals and their consolidated fragments thus the difficulty on this head which appeared so great disappears
a great straight barrier like that of australia or new caledonia separated from the land by a wide and deep channel would evidently have been the result let us take our new encircling barrier reef of which the section is now represented by unbroken lines and which as i have said
is a real section through bolabola and let it go on subsiding as the barrier reef slowly sinks down the corals will go on vigorously growing upwards but as the island sinks the water will gain inch by inch on the shore
and finally the last and highest pinnacle disappearing
and an atoll is left and the land has been removed we can now perceive how it comes that
resemble them in general size form in the manner in which they are grouped together and in their arrangement in single or double lines for they may be called rude outline charts of the sunken islands over which they stand
which have so long excited the attention of voyagers as well as in the no less wonderful barrier reefs whether encircling small islands or stretching for hundreds of miles along the shores of a continent are simply explained
it must ever be to detect a movement the tendency of which is to hide under water the part affected nevertheless at keeling atoll i observed on all sides of the lagoon old cocoa nut trees undermined and falling and in one place the foundation posts of a shed
which the inhabitants asserted had stood seven years before just above high water mark but now was daily washed by every tide on inquiry i found that three earthquakes one of them severe had been felt here during the last ten years
at vanikoro the lagoon channel is remarkably deep scarcely any alluvial soil has accumulated at the foot of the lofty included mountains and remarkably few islets have been formed by the heaping of fragments and sand on the wall like barrier reef
these facts and some analogous ones led me to believe that this island must lately have subsided and the reef grown upwards here again earthquakes are frequent and very severe in the society archipelago on the other hand
where the lagoon channels are almost choked up where much low alluvial land has accumulated and where in some cases long islets have been formed on the barrier reefs facts all showing that the islands have not very lately subsided only feeble shocks are most rarely felt
in these coral formations where the land and water seem struggling for mastery it must be ever difficult to decide between the effects of a change in the set of the tides and of a slight subsidence that many of these reefs and atolls are subject to changes of some kind is certain
in other parts the corals are now flourishing on water washed reefs where holes made for graves attest the former existence of inhabited land it is difficult to believe in frequent changes in the tidal currents of an open ocean
whereas we have in the earthquakes recorded by the natives on some atolls and in the great fissures observed on other atolls plain evidence of changes and disturbances in progress in the subterranean regions
it is evident on our theory that coasts merely fringed by reefs cannot have subsided to any perceptible amount and therefore they must since the growth of their corals either have remained stationary or have been upheaved
not to reefs in general as implied by them but only to those of the fringing class my surprise however ceased when i afterwards found that by a strange chance all the several islands visited by these eminent naturalists
within a recent geological era
and to their likeness to each other in form size and other characters are explained on the theory of subsidence which theory we are independently forced to admit in the very areas in question from the necessity of finding bases for the corals within the requisite depth
but many details in structure and exceptional cases can thus also be simply explained i will give only a few instances in barrier reefs it has long been remarked with surprise that the passages through the reef exactly face
could injure the corals on the reef now every reef of the fringing class is breached by a narrow gateway
even if dry during the greater part of the year for the mud sand or gravel occasionally washed down kills the corals on which it is deposited consequently when an island thus fringed subsides though most of the narrow gateways will probably become closed by the
be converted either into a single wall like reef
and may be easily carried down to a depth whence they cannot spring up again
the great barrier of new caledonia is thus imperfect and broken in many parts hence after long subsidence this great reef would not produce one great atoll four hundred miles in length but a chain
if they did not as the whole sank downwards one atoll would be divided into two or more in the maldiva archipelago there are distinct atolls so related to each other in position and separated by channels either unfathomable or very deep
in such a manner that it is scarcely possible to say whether it ought strictly to be called three separate atolls or one great atoll not yet finally divided i will not enter on many more details but i must remark that the
curious structure of the northern maldiva atolls receives taking into consideration the free entrance of the sea through their broken margins a simple explanation in the upward and outward growth of the corals originally based both on small detached reefs in their lagoons
great sandy and generally concave disk rises abruptly from the unfathomable ocean with its central expanse studded and its edge symmetrically bordered with oval basins of coral rock just lipping the surface of the sea
and as by our theory the areas including atolls and barrier reefs are subsiding we ought occasionally to find reefs both dead and submerged in all reefs owing to the sediment being washed out of the lagoon channel to leeward
that side is least favourable to the long continued vigorous growth of the corals hence dead portions of reef not unfrequently occur on the leeward side and these though still retaining their proper wall like form
are now in several instances sunk several fathoms beneath the surface the chagos group appears from some cause possibly from the subsidence having been too rapid at present to be much less favourably circumstanced for the growth of reefs than formerly
one atoll has a portion of its marginal reef nine miles in length dead and submerged a second has only a few quite small living points which rise to the surface a third and fourth are entirely dead and submerged
to whom i am indebted for much invaluable information is of vast size namely
and seventy miles in another line and is in many respects eminently curious
as appears from the frequent presence of upraised organic remains whilst it has been slowly rising
as to have buried every mountain summit over wide ocean spaces now in this map we see that the reefs tinted pale and dark blue which have been produced by the same order of movement as a general rule manifestly stand near each other again we see
that the areas with the two blue tints are of wide extent and that they lie separate from extensive lines of coast coloured red both of which circumstances might naturally have been inferred on the theory of the nature of the reefs having been governed by the nature of the earth's movement
it deserves notice that in more than one instance where single red and blue circles approach near each other i can show that there have been oscillations of level
subsequently upheaved and on the other hand some of the pale blue or encircled islands are composed of coral rock which must have been uplifted to its present height before that subsidence took place during which the existing barrier reefs grew upwards
authors have noticed with surprise that although atolls are the commonest coral structures throughout some enormous oceanic tracts they are entirely absent in other seas as in the west indies we can now at once perceive the cause
and parts of the east indies these tracts are known to have been rising within the recent period the larger areas coloured red and blue are all elongated and between the two colours there is a degree of rude alternation as if the rising of one had balanced the sinking of the other
taking into consideration the proofs of recent elevation both on the fringed coasts and on some others for instance in south america where there are no reefs we are led to conclude that the great continents are for the most part rising areas and from the nature of the coral reefs
that the central parts of the great oceans are sinking areas the east indian archipelago the most broken land in the world is in most parts an area of elevation but surrounded and penetrated probably in more lines than one by narrow areas of subsidence
i have marked with vermilion spots all the many known active volcanos within the limits of this same map their entire absence from every one of the great subsiding areas coloured either pale or dark blue is most striking and not less so is the coincidence
of the chief volcanic chains with the parts coloured red which we are led to conclude have either long remained stationary or more generally have been recently upraised although a few of the vermilion spots occur within no great distance of single circles tinted blue
yet not one single active volcano is situated within several hundred miles of an archipelago
it is therefore a striking fact that in the friendly archipelago
two volcanos and perhaps more
on the other hand although most of the islands in the pacific which are encircled by barrier reefs are of volcanic origin often with the remnants of craters still distinguishable not one of them is known to have ever been in eruption
hence in these cases it would appear that volcanos burst forth into action and become extinguished on the same spots accordingly as elevatory or subsiding movements prevail there
numberless facts could be adduced to prove that upraised organic remains are common wherever there are active volcanos but until it could be shown that in areas of subsidence volcanos were either absent or inactive the inference however probable in itself
that their distribution depended on the rising or falling of the earth's surface
but now i think we may freely admit this important deduction taking a final view of the map and bearing in mind the statements made with respect to the upraised organic remains
we must feel astonished at the vastness of the areas which have suffered changes in level either downwards or upwards within a period not geologically remote it would appear also that the elevatory and subsiding movements follow nearly the same laws
where not a single peak of high land has been left above the level of the sea the sinking must have been immense in amount the sinking moreover whether continuous or recurrent with intervals sufficiently long for the corals again to bring up their living edifices to the surface
must necessarily have been extremely slow this conclusion is probably the most important one which can be deduced from the study of coral formations and it is one which it is difficult to imagine how otherwise could ever have been arrived at
nor can i quite pass over the probability of the former existence of large archipelagoes of lofty islands where now
chapter six the starlight the sunday was a bright sunday in autumn clear and cool when early in the morning sissy and rachael met to walk in the country as coketown cast ashes not only on its own head
but on the neighbourhoods tooafter the manner of those pious persons who do penance for their own sins by putting other people into sackclothit was customary for those who now and then thirsted for a draught of pure air which is not absolutely the most wicked among the vanities of life
though the green landscape was blotted here and there with heaps of coal it was green elsewhere and there were trees to see and there were larks singing though it was sunday and there were pleasant scents in the air and all was over arched by a bright blue sky
in the distance one way coketown showed as a black mist in another distance hills began to rise in a third there was a faint change in the light of the horizon where it shone upon the far off sea under their feet
the grass was fresh beautiful shadows of branches flickered upon it and speckled it hedgerows were luxuriant everything was at peace engines at pits mouths and lean old horses that had worn the circle of their daily labour into the ground were alike quiet
wheels had ceased for a short space to turn and the great wheel of earth seemed to revolve without the shocks and noises of another time they walked on across the fields and down the shady lanes
sometimes getting over a fragment of a fence so rotten that it dropped at a touch of the foot sometimes passing near a wreck of bricks and beams overgrown with grass marking the site of deserted works they followed paths and tracks however slight
the sun was high when they sat down to rest they had seen no one near or distant for a long time and the solitude remained unbroken it is so still here rachael and the way is so untrodden
that i think we must be the first who have been here all the summer as sissy said it her eyes were attracted by another of those rotten fragments of fence upon the ground she got up to look at it and yet i dont know
here are footsteps too o rachael she ran back and caught her round the neck rachael had already started up what is the matter i dont know there is a hat lying in the grass they went forward together
hat any blood upon it sissy faltered they were afraid to look but they did examine it
she had unclasped her hand and was in the act of stepping forward when rachael caught her in both arms with a scream that resounded over the wide landscape before them at their very feet
they sprang back and fell upon their knees each hiding her face upon the others neck
at first this and her terrific screams were all that could be got from rachael by any tears by any prayers by any representations by any means it was impossible to hush her and it was deadly necessary to hold her
rachael dear rachael good rachael for the love of heaven not these dreadful cries think of stephen think of stephen think of stephen by an earnest repetition of this entreaty poured out in all the agony of such a moment sissy at last brought her to be silent
and to look at her with a tearless face of stone rachael stephen may be living you wouldnt leave him lying maimed at the bottom of this dreadful place a moment if you could bring help to him no no no dont stir from here for his sake let me go and listen
she shuddered to approach the pit but she crept towards it on her hands and knees and called to him as loud as she could call she listened but no sound replied she called again and listened still no answering sound she did this twenty thirty times
she took a little clod of earth from the broken ground where he had stumbled and threw it in she could not hear it fall the wide prospect so beautiful in its stillness but a few minutes ago almost carried despair to her brave heart as she rose and looked all round her
she knew by rachaels face that she might trust her now and after standing for a moment to see her running wringing her hands as she ran she turned and went upon her own search she stopped at the hedge to tie her shawl there as a guide to the place
then threw her bonnet aside and ran as she had never run before run sissy run in heavens name dont stop for breath run run quickening herself by carrying such entreaties in her thoughts she ran from field to field and
lane to lane and place to place as she had never run before until she came to a shed by an engine house where two men lay in the shade asleep on straw first to wake them and next to tell them all so wild and breathless as she was what had brought her there were difficulties
but they no sooner understood her than their spirits were on fire like hers one of the men was in a drunken slumber but on his comrades shouting to him that a man had fallen down the old hell shaft he started out to a pool of dirty water put his head in it and came back sober
with these two men she ran to another half a mile further and with that one to another while they ran elsewhere then a horse was found and she got another man to ride for life or death to the railroad and send a message to louisa which she wrote and gave him
including the drunken man whom the news had sobered
when they came to the old hell shaft they found it as lonely as she had left it the men called and listened as she had done and examined the edge of the chasm and settled how it had happened and then sat down to wait until the implements they wanted should come up
every sound of insects in the air every stirring of the leaves every whisper among these men made sissy tremble for she thought it was a cry at the bottom of the pit but the wind blew idly over it and no sound arose to the surface and they sat upon the grass
but the expectation among the people that the man would be found alive was very slight indeed there being now people enough present to impede the work the sobered man put himself at the head of the rest or was put there by the general consent
and made a large ring round the old hell shaft and appointed men to keep it besides such volunteers as were accepted to work only sissy and rachael were at first permitted within this ring but later in the day when the message brought an express from coketown
mister gradgrind and louisa and mister bounderby and the whelp were also there
before a means of enabling two men to descend securely was rigged with poles and ropes difficulties had arisen in the construction of this machine simple as it was requisites had been found wanting and
that came as it was wont to come the signal was given and the windlass stopped with abundant rope to spare apparently so long an interval ensued with the men at the windlass standing idle that some women shrieked that another accident had happened but the surgeon who held the watch
and that only one was returning the rope came in tight and strained and ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass and all eyes were fastened on the pit the sobered man was brought up and leaped out briskly on the grass
that we donno how to get him up they all consulted together and looked anxiously at the surgeon as he asked some questions and shook his head on receiving the replies the sun was setting now and the red light in the evening sky touched every face there and caused it to be distinctly seen
in all its rapt suspense the consultation ended in the men returning to the windlass and the pitman going down again carrying the wine and some other small matters with him then the other man came up in the meantime under the surgeons directions some men brought a hurdle
on which others made a thick bed of spare clothes covered with loose straw while he himself contrived some bandages and slings from shawls and handkerchiefs as these were made they were hung upon an arm of the pitman who had last come up with instructions how to use them and as he stood
it appeared from the little this man said to those about him which was quickly repeated all over the circle that the lost man had fallen upon a mass of crumbled rubbish with which the pit was half choked up and that his fall had been further broken by some jagged earth at the side
of which he had swallowed crumbs and had likewise scooped up a little water in it now and then he had come straight away from his work on being written to
was worthy of its bad name to the last for though stephen could speak now he believed it would soon be found to have mangled the life out of him when all was ready this man still taking his last hurried charges from his comrades and the surgeon after the windlass had begun to lower him
at length the signal was given and all the ring leaned forward for now the rope came in tightened and strained to its utmost as it appeared and the men turned heavily and the windlass complained it was scarcely endurable to look at the rope and think of its giving way
but ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass safely and the connecting chains appeared and finally the bucket with the two men holding on at the sidesa sight to make the head swim and oppress the heartand tenderly supporting between them slung and tied within
the figure of a poor crushed human creature a low murmur of pity went round the throng and the women wept aloud as this form almost without form was moved very slowly from its iron deliverance
and laid upon the bed of straw at first
the best that he could do was to cover it that gently done he called to him rachael and sissy and at that time the pale worn patient face was seen looking up at the sky with the broken right hand lying bare on the outside of the covering garments
and said rachael she stooped down on the grass at his side and bent over him until her eyes were between his and the sky for he could not so much as turn them to look at her rachael my dear she took his hand he smiled again and said
fro first to last a muddle the spectre of his old look seemed to pass as he said the word
sons brothers dear to thousands an thousands an keeping em fro want and hunger
fro the men that works in pits in which they ha prayn and prayn the lawmakers for christs sake not to let their work be murder to em
see how we die an no need one way an anotherin
he faintly said it without any anger against any one merely as the truth thy little sister rachael thou hast not forgot her
and how she died young and misshapen awlung o sickly air as hadn no need to be an awlung o working peoples miserable homes a muddle aw a muddle louisa approached him but
he could not see her lying with his face turned up to the night sky
by my own fellow weavers and workin brothers so mistook if mister bounderby had ever knowd me rightif
till the muddle in my mind have cleared awa above a bit i hope if soom ha been wantin in unnerstanin me better
but in our judgments like as in our doins we mun bear and forbear in my pain an trouble lookin up yonder wi it shinin on me
than
seln louisa hearing what he said bent over him on the opposite side to rachael so that he could see her you ha heard he said after a few moments silence i ha not forgot you ledy yes stephen
i have heard you and your prayer is mine you ha a father will yo tak a message to him he is here said louisa with dread shall i bring him to you if yo please
louisa returned with her father standing hand in hand they both looked down upon the solemn countenance sir yo will clear me an mak my name good wi aw men this i leave to yo
surgeon being anxious for his removal those who had torches or lanterns prepared to go in front of the litter
while they were arranging how to go he said to rachael looking upward at the star
shinin on me down there in my trouble i thowt it were the star as guided to our saviours home i awmust think it be the very star they lifted him up and he was overjoyed to find that they were about to take him in the direction whither the star seemed
will soombody be pleased to coover my face they carried him very gently along the fields and down the lanes and over the wide landscape rachael always holding the hand in hers
very few whispers broke the mournful silence it was soon a funeral procession the star had shown him where to find the god of the poor and through humility and sorrow and forgiveness
in the land's end district is the little church town of zennor there is no village to speak of a few scattered farms and here and there a cluster of cottages the district is bleak
the soil does not lie deep over granite that peers through the surface on exposed spots where the furious gales from the ocean sweep the land if trees ever existed there they have been swept away by the blast
but the golden furze or gorse defies all winds and clothes the moorland with a robe of splendour and the heather flushes the slopes with crimson towards the decline of summer
and mantles them in soft warm brown in winter like the fur of an animal in zennor is a little church built of granite rude and simple of construction crouching low to avoid the gales
but with a tower that has defied the winds and the lashing rains because wholly devoid of sculptured detail which would have afforded the blasts something to lay hold of and eat away in zennor parish is one of the finest cromlechs in cornwall
a huge slab of unwrought stone like a table poised on the points of standing upright blocks as rude as the mass they sustain
near this monument of a hoar and indeed unknown antiquity lived an old woman by herself in a small cottage of one story in height
and pointed only with lime it was thatched with heather and possessed but a single chimney that rose but little above the apex of the roof
and had two slates set on the top to protect the rising smoke from being blown down the chimney into the cottage when the wind was from the west or from the east when however it drove from north or south
then the smoke must take care of itself on such occasions it was wont to find its way out of the door and little or none went up the chimney the only fuel burnt in this cottage was peat
taken from the surface and composed of undissolved roots such fuel gives flame which the other does not but on the other hand it does not throw out the same amount of heat nor does it last one half the time
the woman who lived in the cottage was called by the people of the neighbourhood aunt joanna what her family name was but few remembered nor did it concern herself much she had no relations at all
with the exception of a grand niece who was married to a small tradesman a wheelwright near the church but joanna and her great niece were not on speaking terms the girl had mortally offended the old woman by going to a dance at saint ives
against her express orders it was at this dance that she had met the wheelwright and this meeting and the treatment the girl had met with from her aunt for having gone to it had led to the marriage
for aunt joanna was very strict in her wesleyanism and bitterly hostile to all such carnal amusements as dancing and play acting of the latter there was none in that wild west cornish district
and no temptation ever afforded by a strolling company setting up its booth within reach of zennor but dancing though denounced still drew the more independent spirits together
rose penaluna had been with her great aunt after her mother's death she was a lively girl and when she heard of a dance at saint ives and had been asked to go to it although forbidden by aunt joanna
she stole from the cottage at night and found her way to saint ives her conduct was reprehensible certainly but that of aunt joanna was even more so
for when she discovered that the girl had left the house she barred her door and refused to allow rose to re enter it the poor girl had been obliged to take refuge the same night at the nearest farm and sleep in an outhouse
into service she did not go for when abraham hext the carpenter heard how she had been treated he at once proposed and in three weeks married her
since then no communication had taken place between the old woman and her grand niece as rose knew joanna was implacable in her resentments and considered that she had been acting aright in what she had done
the nearest farm to aunt joanna's cottage was occupied by the hockins one day elizabeth the farmer's wife saw the old woman outside the cottage as she was herself returning from market
and noticing how bent and feeble joanna was she halted and talked to her and gave her good advice see you now auntie
how can you get about an there's no knowin but you might be took bad in the night you ought to have some little lass wi you to mind you i don't want nobody thank the lord
and you can't get all you want tay and sugar and milk for yourself now it would be handy to have a little maid by you who should i have asked joanna well
she's a handy maid
she went indoors and shut the door
she passed the cottage but no joanna was about the door was not open and usually it was elizabeth spoke about this to her husband jabez said she i don't like the looks o this
i've kept my eye open and there be no auntie joanna hoppin about
no smoke issued from the chimney and the door was shut jabez knocked but there came no answer so he entered followed by his wife there was in the cottage but the kitchen with one bedroom at the side the hearth was cold
i reckon it's the old lady be down replied her husband and throwing open the bedroom door he said
there her be dead as a dried pilchard and in fact auntie joanna had died in the night after having so confidently affirmed her conviction that she would live to the age of a hundred and twenty seven whativer shall we do
asked missus hockin i reckon said her husband us had better take an inventory of what is here lest wicked rascals come in and steal anything and everything
don't be sure o that these be terrible wicked times said the husband and i sez sez i no harm is done in seein what the old creetur had got well surely acquiesced elizabeth there is no harm in that
in the bedroom was an old oak chest and this the farmer and his wife opened to their surprise they found in it a silver teapot and half a dozen silver spoons
exclaimed elizabeth hockin fancy her havin these and me only britannia metal i reckon she came of a good family said jabez leastwise i've heard as how she were once well off and look here exclaimed elizabeth
there's fine and beautiful linen underneath
but look here cried jabez
visitors from saint ives and penzance
and i could buy a cow i want another cruel bad ay we do terrible said elizabeth but just look to her bed
who'll get the silver taypot and spoons and the money inquired jabez her had no kin none but rose hext and her couldn't abide her
last words her said to me was that she'd have never naught to do wi the hexts they and all their belongings that was her last words the very last words her spoke to me or to anyone then said jabez
it's our moral dooty to abide by the wishes of aunt joanna
and as her expressed herself that strong why us as honest folks
and see that none of all her savings go to them darned and dratted hexts but who be they to go to then well we'll see fust
and provide that her be daycent buried them hexts be in a poor way and couldn't afford the expense and it do seem to me elizabeth
us is the closest neighbours
never charged her a penny thinking her couldn't afford it but her could
and it's butter i've let her have now and then in a liberal way
all zennor declared that the hockins were a most neighbourly and generous couple when it was known that they took upon themselves to defray the funeral expenses missus hext came to the farm and said that she was willing to do what she could but missus hockin replied
my good rose it's no good i seed your aunt when her was ailin and nigh on death and her laid it on me solemn as could be that we was to bury her and that she'd have nothin to do wi the hexts at no price rose sighed and went away
rose had not expected to receive anything from her aunt she had never been allowed to look at the treasures in the oak chest as far as she had been aware aunt joanna had been extremely poor but she remembered that the old woman had at one time befriended her
and she was ready to forgive the harsh treatment to which she had finally been subjected in fact she had repeatedly made overtures to her great aunt to be reconciled but these overtures had been always rejected
she was accordingly not surprised to learn from missus hockin that the old woman's last words had been as reported but although disowned and disinherited rose her husband and children dressed in black and were chief mourners at the funeral
now it had so happened that when it came to the laying out of aunt joanna missus hockin had looked at the beautiful linen sheets she had found in the oak chest with the object of furnishing the corpse with one as a winding sheet
it would really be a shame to spoil a pair and where else could she get such fine and beautiful old linen as was this so she put the sheets away and furnished for the purpose a clean but coarse and ragged sheet such as aunt joanna had in common use
that was good enough to moulder in the grave it would be positively sinful because wasteful to give up to corruption and the worm such fine white linen as aunt joanna had hoarded the funeral was conducted otherwise liberally
aunt joanna was given an elm and not a mean deal board coffin such as is provided for paupers and a handsome escutcheon of white metal was put on the lid moreover plenty of gin was drunk and cake and cheese eaten at the house
all at the expense of the hockins and the conversation among those who attended and ate and drank and wiped their eyes was rather anent the generosity of the hockins than of the virtues of the departed
mister and missus hockin heard this and their hearts swelled within them nothing so swells the heart as the consciousness of virtue being recognised
he'd have a neat stone erected above the grave with work on it at twopence a letter the name and the date of departure of aunt joanna
and her age and two lines of a favourite hymn of his all about earth being no dwelling place heaven being properly her home it was not often that elizabeth hockin cried but she did this day
she wept tears of sympathy with the deceased and happiness at the ovation accorded to herself and her husband at length as the short winter day closed in
the last of those who had attended the funeral and had returned to the farm to recruit and regale after it departed and the hockins were left to themselves
said jabez ay responded elizabeth and what a sight o people came here this here buryin of aunt joanna have set us up tremendous in the estimation of the neighbours i'd like to know who else would ha done it for a poor old creetur as is no relation ay
and it's a fine proverb i feels it in my insides
no it's virtue it's warmer nor gin a long sight gin gives a smouldering spark but a good conscience is a blaze of furze the farm of the hockins was small and hockin looked after his cattle himself
one maid was kept but no man in the house all were wont to retire early to bed neither hockin nor his wife had literary tastes and were not disposed to consume much oil so as to read at night
during the night at what time she did not know missus hockin awoke with a start and found that her husband was sitting up in bed listening there was a moon that night and no clouds in the sky
we'll do so but i hope it's not what missus hockin did not answer she and her husband crept from bed and treading on tiptoe across the room descended the stair
there was no door at the bottom but the staircase was boarded up at the side it opened into the kitchen they descended very softly and cautiously holding each other and when they reached the bottom
peered timorously into the apartment that served many purposes kitchen sitting room and dining place the moonlight poured in through the broad low window by it they saw a figure
there could be no mistaking it it was that of aunt joanna clothed in the tattered sheet that elizabeth hockin had allowed for her grave clothes
the old woman had taken one of the fine linen sheets out of the cupboard in which it had been placed and had spread it over the long table and was smoothing it down with her bony hands the hockins trembled not with cold
though it was mid winter but with terror they dared not advance and they felt powerless to retreat then they saw aunt joanna go to the cupboard open it and return with the silver spoons
she placed all six on the sheet and with a lean finger counted them she turned her face towards those who were watching her proceedings but it was in shadow
and they could not distinguish the features nor note the expression with which she regarded them presently she went back to the cupboard and returned with the silver teapot she stood at one end of the table
and now the reflection of the moon on the linen sheet was cast upon her face and they saw that she was moving her lips but no sound issued from them she thrust her hand into the teapot and drew forth the coins one by one
and rolled them along the table the hockins saw the glint of the metal and the shadow cast by each piece of money as it rolled the first coin lodged at the further left hand corner and the second rested near it
and so on the pieces were rolled and ranged themselves in order ten in a row then the next ten were run across the white cloth in the same manner and dropped over on their sides below the first row
there was no sleep for them that night in the gloom when the moon was concealed in the glare when it shone forth it was the same
was the supply inexhaustible it was not so but apparently the dead woman did not weary of counting the coins when all had been ranged
not till near daybreak did this sound cease and not till the maid sally had begun to stir in the inner bedchamber did hockin and his wife venture to rise
neither would suffer the servant girl to descend till they had been down to see in what condition the kitchen was they found that the table had been cleared the coins were all back in the teapot
and that and the spoons were where they had themselves placed them the sheet moreover was neatly folded and replaced where it had been before the hockins did not speak to one another of their experiences during the past night so long as they were in the house
curious us should ha dreamed alike i don't know that twere the gin made us dream and us both had gin so us dreamed the same thing twere more like real truth than dream observed elizabeth
but precisely the same sounds were heard on the following night
i reckon said hockin we'll bide in the porch and watch what happens if they be left there till mornin why we may carry em back wi an easy conscience we've spent some pounds over her buryin what have it come to
three pounds five and fourpence as i make it out
said elizabeth we must risk it when night had fallen murk the farmer and his wife crept from their house carrying the linen sheets the teapot and the silver spoons they did not start till late for fear of encountering any villagers on the way
and not till after the maid sally had gone to bed they fastened the farm door behind them the night was dark and stormy with scudding clouds so dense as to make deep night when they did not part and allow the moon to peer forth
they walked timorously and side by side looking about them as they proceeded and on reaching the churchyard gate they halted to pluck up courage before opening and venturing within
together they heaped the articles that had belonged to aunt joanna upon the fresh grave but as they did so the wind caught the linen and unfurled and flapped it and they were forced to place stones upon it to hold it down
then quaking with fear they retreated to the church porch and jabez uncorking the bottle first took a long pull himself and then presented it to his wife
and now down came a tearing rain driven by a blast from the atlantic howling among the gravestones and screaming in the battlements of the tower and its bell chamber windows
the night was so dark and the rain fell so heavily that they could see nothing for full half an hour but then the clouds were rent asunder and the moon glared white and ghastly over the churchyard elizabeth caught her husband by the arm and pointed
and this was seen groping about the grass till it laid hold of the teapot then it groped again and gathered up the spoons that flashed in the moonbeams next up came the second hand
and a long arm that stretched along the grave till it reached the other sheets at once on being raised these sheets were caught by the wind and flapped and fluttered like half hoisted sails
the hands retained them for a while till they bellied with the wind and then let them go and they were swept away by the blast across the churchyard over the wall and lodged in the carpenter's yard that adjoined among his timber
next the hands began to trifle with the teapot and to shake out some of the coins in a minute some silver pieces were flung with so true an aim that they fell clinking down on the floor of the porch
how many coins how much money was cast the couple were in no mood to estimate then they saw the hands collect the pillow cases and proceed to roll up the teapot and silver spoons in them and that done
the white bundle was cast into the air and caught by the wind and carried over the churchyard wall into the wheelwright's yard at once a curtain of vapour rushed across the face of the moon and again the graveyard was buried in darkness
half an hour elapsed before the moon shone out again then the hockins saw that nothing was stirring in the cemetery i reckon us may go now said jabez let us gather up what she chucked to us advised elizabeth
so the couple felt about the floor and collected a number of coins what they were they could not tell till they reached their home and had lighted a candle how much be it asked elizabeth
the fox ran straight from the covert through his well known haunts to impington park and as the hounds were astray there for two or three minutes
there was a general idea that he too had got up into a tree which would have amused the senator very much had the senator been there but neither had the country nor the pace been adapted to wheels
and the senator and the paragon were now returning along the road towards bragton the fox had tried his old earths at impington high wood and had then skulked back along the outside of the covert had not one of the whips seen him
a fact which if it could have been explained to the senator in all its bearings would greatly have added to his delight but dick viewed him and with many holloas
and much blowing of horns and prayers from captain glomax that gentlemen would only be so good as to hold their tongues and a full tongued volley of abuse from half the field against an unfortunate gentleman who rode
after the escaping fox before a hound was out of the covert they settled again to their business it was pretty to see the quiet ease and apparent nonchalance
among whom were especially to be named young hampton and the elder botsey and lord rufford and above all a dark visaged long whiskered sombre military man who had been in the carriage with lord rufford
this was the celebrated major caneback known to all the world as one of the dullest men and best riders across country that england had ever produced but he was not so dull but that he knew how to make use of his accomplishment
so as always to be able to get a mount on a friend's horses if a man wanted to make a horse or to try a horse or to sell a horse or to buy a horse he delighted to put major caneback up
the major was sympathetic and made his friend's horses and tried them and sold them then he would take his two bottles of wine of course from his friend's cellar and when asked about the day's sport would be oracular
rather slow quick spurt goodish thing regularly mulled and such like nevertheless it was a great thing to have major caneback with you to the list of those who rode well and quietly
who was in truth a good horseman and he had three things to do which it was difficult enough to combine he had a young horse which he would have liked to sell he had to coach kate masters on his pony and he desired to ride like major caneback
from impington park they went in a straight line to littleton gorse skirting certain small woods which the fox disdained to enter here the pace was very good and the country was all grass it was the very cream of the u r u
and could the senator have read the feelings of the dozen leading men in the run he would have owned that they were for the time satisfied with their amusement could he have read kate masters feelings he would have had to own that she was in an earthly paradise
when the pony paused at the big brook brought his four legs steadily down on the brink as though he were going to bathe then with a bend of his back leaped to the other side dropping his hind legs in and instantly recovering them
and when she saw that larry had waited just a moment for her watching to see what might be her fate she was in heaven wasn't it a big one larry she asked in her triumph he did go in behind those cats of things always do it somehow larry replied
darting forward again and keeping the major well in his eye the brook had stopped one or two and tidings came up that ned botsey had broken his horse's back the knowledge of the brook had sent some round by the road
captain glomax had got into it and came up afterwards wet through with temper by no means improved but the glory of the day had been the way in which lord rufford's young bay mare who had never seen a brook before
had flown over it with the major on her back taking it as larry afterwards described just in her stride without condescending to look at it i was just behind the major and saw her do it larry understood that a man should never talk of his own place in a run
but he didn't quite understand that neither should he talk of having been close to another man who was supposed to have had the best of it lord rufford who didn't talk much of these things quite understood that he had received full value for his billet and mount in the improved character of his mare
the major who didn't know the ground tried it at an impracticable place and brought his mare down but she fell at the right side and he was quick enough in getting away from her not to fall under her in the ditch
tony tuppet who knew every foot of that double ditch and bank and every foot in the hedge above kept well to the left and crept through a spot where one ditch ran into the other intersecting of the fence tony like a knowing huntsman as he was
both lord rufford and hampton who in spite of their affected nonchalance were in truth rather riding against one another took it all in a fly choosing a lighter spot than that which the major had encountered larry had longed to follow them
and hurried down the ditch to the spot which tony had chosen and which was now crowded by horsemen he would have done it as well as the best of them said kate panting for breath we're all right said larry follow me don't let them hustle you out
now mat can't you make way for a lady half a minute mat growled quite understanding the use which was being made of kate masters but he did give way and was rewarded with a gracious smile you are going uncommon well miss kate said mat
and i won't stop you i am so much obliged to you mister ruggles said kate not scrupling for a moment to take the advantage offered her the fox had turned a little to the left which was in larry's favour
and the major was now close to him covered on one side with mud but still looking as though the mud were all right there are some men who can crush their hats have their boots and breeches full of water and be covered with dirt from their faces downwards
and yet look as though nothing were amiss while with others the marks of a fall are always provocative either of pity or ridicule i hope you're not hurt major caneback said larry glad of the occasion to speak to so distinguished an individual
the major grunted as he rode on finding no necessity here even for his customary two words little accidents such as that were the price he paid for his day's entertainment as they got within view of littleton gorse hampton
lord rufford and tony had the best of it though two or three farmers were very close to them at this moment tony's mind was much disturbed and he looked round more than once for captain glomax
captain glomax had got into the brook and had then ridden down to the high road
near to them and which as he knew ran within one field of the gorse he had lost his place and had got a ducking and was a little out of humour with things in general it had not been his purpose to go to impington on this day
and he was still in his mind saying evil things of the u r u respecting that poisoned fox perhaps he was thinking as itinerant masters often must think that it was very hard to have to bear so many unpleasant things
a threat that unless the money were increased he wouldn't hunt the country more than three times a week as tony got near to the gorse and also near to the road he managed with infinite skill to get the hounds off the scent
and to make a fictitious cast to the left as though he thought the fox had traversed that way tony knew well enough that the fox was at that moment in littleton gorse but he knew also that the gorse was only six acres
that such a fox as he had before him wouldn't stay there two minutes after the first hound was in it and that dillsborough wood which to his imagination was full of poison would then be only a mile and a half before him
tony whose fault was a tendency to mystery as is the fault of most huntsmen having accomplished his object in stopping the hounds pretended to cast about with great diligence he crossed the road and was down one side of a field and along another
looking anxiously for the captain the fox has gone on to the gorse said the elder botsey what a stupid old pig he is meaning that tony tuppett was the pig he was seen going on said larry who had come across a man mending a drain
but who was now as much in the dark as others then four or five rode up to the huntsman and told him that the fox had been seen heading for the gorse tony said not a word but bit his lips and scratched his head and bethought himself
what fools men might be even though they did ride well to hounds
and then as is usual on such occasions a little mild repartee went about what the sportsmen themselves would have called chaff ned botsey came up not having broken his horse's back as had been rumoured but having had to drag the brute out of the brook
with the help of two countrymen and the major was asked about his fall till he was forced to open his mouth double ditch mare fell matter of course and then he got himself out of the crowd disgusted with the littleness of mankind
lord rufford had been riding a very big chestnut horse and had watched the anxious struggles of kate masters to hold her place kate though fifteen and quite up to that age in intelligence and impudence was small and looked almost a child
that's a nice pony of yours my dear said the lord kate who didn't quite like being called my dear but who knew that a lord has privileges said that it was a very good pony suppose we change said his lordship
could you ride my horse he's very big said kate you'd look like a tom tit on a haystack said his lordship and if you got on my pony you'd look like a haystack on a tom tit said kate
then it was felt that kate masters had had the best of that little encounter yes i got one there said lord rufford while his friends were laughing at him at length captain glomax was seen in the road and tony was with him at once
whispering in his ear that the hounds if allowed to go on would certainly run into dillsborough wood d the hounds muttered the captain but he knew too well what he was about to face so terrible a danger
they're going home he said as soon as he had joined lord rufford and the crowd going home exclaimed a pink coated young rider of a hired horse which had been going well with him and as he said so he looked at his watch
the fox certainly went on to littleton said the elder botsey my dear fellow said the captain i can tell you where the fox went quite as well as you can tell me do allow a man to know what he's about some times
it isn't generally the custom here to take the hounds off a running fox continued botsey
and it isn't generally the custom to have fox coverts poisoned said the captain assuming to himself the credit due to tony's sagacity if you wish to be master of these hounds i haven't the slightest objection
then the thing was understood and captain glomax was allowed to carry off the hounds and his ill humour without another word but just at that moment while the hounds and the master and lord rufford and his friends were turning back in their own direction
john morton came up with his carriage and the senator is it all over asked the senator all over for to day said lord rufford did you catch the animal no mister gotobed we couldn't catch him to tell the truth we didn't try
but we had a nice little skurry for four or five miles some of you look very wet captain glomax and ned botsey were standing near the carriage but the captain as soon as he heard this broke into a trot and followed the hounds
some of us are very wet said ned that's part of the fun oh
you found one fox dead and you didn't kill another because you didn't try well mister morton i don't think i shall take to fox hunting even though they should introduce it in mickewa what's become of the rest of the men most of them are in the brook said ned botsey as he rode on towards dillsborough
i think i've won my bet said the hotel keeper
i say we did find in dillsborough wood we found a fox though unfortunately the poor brute was dead
it had been intended that the bet should be governed by the fact whether dillsborough wood did or did not contain a fox on that morning he himself had backed the wood and botsey had been strong in his opinion against the wood which of them had been practically right
had not the presence of the poisoned fox shown that he was right i think you ought to pay said larry
when the ladies went up stairs the afternoon was not half over and they did not dine till past seven as morton returned to the house in the dusk he thought that perhaps arabella might make some attempt to throw herself in his way
she had often done so when they were not engaged and surely she might do so now there was nothing to prevent her coming down to the library when she had got rid of her travelling clothes and in this hope he looked into the room
as soon as the door was open the senator who was preparing his lecture in his mind at once asked whether no one in england had an apparatus for warming rooms such as was to be found in every well built house in the states
the paragon hardly vouchsafed him a word of reply but escaped up stairs trusting that he might meet miss trefoil on the way he was a bold man and even ventured to knock at her door but there was no reply
we knew that we should find the house such as it was left a hundred years ago he told us that himself he should have put something in it to make it at any rate decent before we came in what's the use if he's to live always at foreign courts
he intends to come home sometimes i suppose and if he didn't you would lady augustus was not going to let her daughter marry a man who could not give her a home for at any rate a part of the year
of course he must furnish the place and have an immense deal done before he can marry i think it is a piece of impudence to bring one to such a place as this that's nonsense mamma because he told us all about it
the more i see of it all arabella
it must do mamma twelve hundred a year is all that he offers and his lawyer says that he will make no stipulation whatever as to an allowance really mamma you might leave that to me i like to have everything fixed my dear and certain
there's no doubt about the property mamma a nasty beggarly place and from what everybody says he's sure to be a minister or ambassador or something of that sort
brazil or the west indies or some british colony said her ladyship showing her ignorance of the foreign office service that might be very well you could stay at home only where would you live he wouldn't keep a house in town for you
is this the sort of place you'd like i don't think it makes any difference where one is said arabella disgusted but i do a very great difference it seems to me that he's altogether under the control of that hideous old termagant
arabella i think you'd better make up your mind that it won't do it must do said arabella you're very fond of him it seems mamma how you do delight to torture me as if my life weren't bad enough without your making it worse
i'll tell you what it is mamma i've been at it till i'm nearly broken down i must settle somewhere or else die or else run away i can't stand this any longer and i won't talk of work men's work
what man ever has to work as i do i wonder which was the hardest part of that work the hairdressing and painting and companionship of the lady's maid or the continual smiling upon unmarried men to whom she had nothing to say
and for whom she did not in the least care i can't do it any more and i won't as for mister morton i don't care that for him you know i don't i never cared much for anybody
you'll find that will come all right after you are married like you and papa i suppose my dear i had no mother to take care of me or i shouldn't have married your father i wish you hadn't because then i shouldn't be going to marry mister morton
but as i have got so far for heaven's sake let it go on if you break with him i'll tell him everything and throw myself into his hands lady augustus sighed deeply i will mamma it was you spotted this man
my opinion is that we've made a mistake he's not the sort of man i took him to be he's as hard as a file leave that to me mamma you are determined then i think i am at any rate let me look about me
don't give him an opportunity of breaking off till i have made up my mind i can always break off if i like it no one in london has heard of the engagement yet just leave me alone for this week to see what i think about it
then lady augustus threw herself back in her chair and went to sleep or pretended to do so a little after half past seven she and her daughter dressed for dinner went down to the library together
the other guests were assembled there and missus morton was already plainly expressing her anger at the tardiness of her son's guests the senator had got hold of mister mainwaring and was asking pressing questions as to church patronage
a subject not very agreeable to the rector of saint john's as his living had been bought for him with his wife's money during the incumbency of an old gentleman of seventy eight mister cooper who was himself nearly that age and who was vicar of mallingham
a parish which ran into dillsborough and comprehended a part of its population was listening to these queries with awe and perhaps with some little gratification as he had been presented to his living by the bishop after a curacy of many years
this kind of things i believe can be bought and sold in the market said the senator speaking every word with absolute distinctness but as he paused for an answer the two ladies came in and the conversation was changed
both the clergymen were introduced to lady augustus and her daughter and mister mainwaring at once took refuge under the shadow of the ladies title arabella did not sit down so that morton had an opportunity of standing near to his love
people always are aren't they perhaps ladies are we were but all that about the carriages mister morton wasn't my doing mamma had been talking to me so much that i didn't know whether i was on my head or my heels
it was very good of you to come and meet us and i ought to have been more gracious in this way she made her peace and as she was quite in earnest doing a portion of the hard work of her life she continued to smile as sweetly as she could
perhaps he liked it but any man endowed with that power of appreciation which we call sympathy would have felt it to be as cold as though it had come from a figure on a glass window the dinner was announced
mister morton was honoured with the hand of lady augustus the senator handed the old lady into the dining room and mister mainwaring the younger lady so that arabella was sitting next to her lover it had all been planned by morton and acceded to by his grandmother
though lady augustus had power enough to snub him on more than one occasion suppose we were to allow at once she said that everything is better in the united states than anywhere else shouldn't we get along easier
i don't know that getting along easy is what we have particularly got in view said mister gotobed who was certainly in quest of information but it is what i have in view mister gotobed so if you please we'll take the pre eminence of your country for granted
then she turned to mister mainwaring on the other side upon this the senator addressed himself for a while to the table at large and had soon forgotten altogether the expression of the lady's wishes
i believe you have a good many churches about here said lady augustus trying to make conversation to her neighbour one in every parish i fancy said mister mainwaring who preferred all subjects to clerical subjects
i suppose london is quite empty now we came direct from the duke's said lady augustus and did not even sleep in town but it is empty the duke was the brother of lord augustus
and a compromise had been made with lady augustus by which she and her daughter should be allowed a fortnight every year at the duke's place in the country and a certain amount of entertainment in town i remember the duke at christchurch said the parson
he and i were of the same par he was lord mistletoe then dear me that was a long time ago i wonder whether he remembers being upset out of a trap with me one day after dinner i suppose we had dined in earnest
he has gone his way and i have gone mine and i've never seen him since pray remember me to him lady augustus said she would and did entertain some little increased respect for the clergyman who could boast that he had been tipsy in company
he had a good word to say for reginald morton to which she would not even listen she was willing enough to ask questions about the mallingham tenants but mister cooper would revert back to the old days and so conversation was at an end
morton tried to make himself agreeable to his left hand neighbour trying also very hard to make himself believe that he was happy in his immediate position how often in the various amusements of the world is one tempted to pause a moment
and ask oneself whether one really likes it he was conscious that he was working hard struggling to be happy painfully anxious to be sure that he was enjoying the luxury of being in love
there she was and very beautiful she looked and he thought that he could be proud of her if she sat at the end of his table and he knew that she was engaged to be his wife but he doubted whether she was in love with him and he almost doubted sometimes
whether he was very much in love with her he asked her in so many words what he should do to amuse her would she like to ride with him as if so he would endeavour to get saddle horses would she like to go out hunting
would she be taken round to see the neighbouring towns rufford and norrington lord rufford lives somewhere near rufford she asked yes he lived at rufford hall three or four miles from the town did lord rufford hunt
morton believed that he was greatly given to hunting then he asked arabella whether she knew the young lord she had just met him she said and had only asked the question because of the name he is one of my neighbours down here said morton
but being always away of course i see nothing of him after that arabella consented to be taken out on horseback to see a meet of the hounds although she could not hunt we must see what we can do about horses he said
she however professed her readiness to go in the carriage if a saddle horse could not be found the dinner party i fear was very dull mister mainwaring perhaps liked it because he was fond of dining anywhere away from home
mister cooper was glad once more to see his late old friend's old dining room mister gotobed perhaps obtained some information but otherwise the affair was dull
are we to have a week of this said lady augustus when she found herself up stairs you must mamma if we are to stay till we go to the gores lord rufford is here in the neighbourhood but they don't know each other yes they do slightly
i am to go to the meet some day and he'll be there it might be dangerous nonsense mamma and after all you've been saying about dropping mister morton but there is nothing so bad as a useless flirtation do i ever flirt
oh mamma that after so many years you shouldn't know me did you ever see me yet making myself happy in any way what nonsense you talk
but no jerry muskrat probably he is taking a nap in that big house of his said johnny chuck and if he is we'll have to sit here until he wakes up or else go back home and visit him some other time
that's so replied peter i don't see what he has his house in the water for anyway
funny place to build a house isn't it johnny chuck scratched his head thoughtfully it does seem a funny place he admitted it certainly does seem a funny place but then jerry muskrat is a funny fellow
that seems funny to me i suppose there is a reason for it and probably there is a reason for building his house where it is i've found that there is a reason for most things probably jerry's great great grandfather built his house that way and so jerry does the same thing
peter rabbit suddenly brightened up i do believe you are right johnny chuck and if you are there must be a story about it and if there is a story grandfather frog will be sure to know it there he is over on his big green lily pad
and he looks as if he might be feeling very good natured this morning let's go ask him why jerry muskrat builds his house in the water grandfather frog saw them coming and he guessed right away that they were coming for a story
he grinned to himself and pretended to go to sleep good morning grandfather frog said johnny chuck grandfather frog didn't answer johnny tried again and still no reply he's asleep
said johnny looking dreadfully disappointed and i guess we'd better not disturb him for he might wake up cross and of course we wouldn't get a story if he did peter looked at grandfather frog sharply he wasn't so sure that that was a real nap
it seemed to him that there was just the least little hint of a smile in the corners of grandfather frog's big mouth you sit here a minute he whispered in johnny chuck's ear
and peter hopped along the bank until he was right behind grandfather frog now just at that place on the bank was growing a toadstool peter looked over at johnny chuck and winked then he turned around
and with one of his long hind feet he kicked the toadstool with all his might now toadstools as you all know are not very well fastened at the roots and this one was no different from the rest
when peter kicked it it flew out into the air and landed with a great splash in the smiling pool close beside the big green lily pad on which grandfather frog was sitting of course he didn't see it coming and of course it gave him a great start
chug a rum exclaimed grandfather frog and dived head first into the water a minute later peter's sharp eyes saw him peeping out from under a lily pad to see what had frightened him so ha ha ha shouted peter dancing about on the bank
ha ha ha grandfather frog afraid of a toadstool ha ha ha at first grandfather frog was angry very angry indeed but he is too old and too wise to lose his temper for long over a joke
especially when he has been fairly caught trying to play a joke himself so presently he climbed back on to his big green lily pad blinking his great goggly eyes and looking just a wee bit foolish chug a rum
said he but i thought it surely was a stone thrown by farmer brown's boy
just trying to get even with you for trying to fool us into thinking that you were asleep when you were wide awake replied peter oh grandfather frog do tell us why it is that jerry muskrat builds his house in the water please do
i have a mind not to just to get even with you said grandfather frog settling himself comfortably but i believe i will to show you that there are some folks who can take a joke without losing their temper
goody cried peter and johnny chuck together sitting down side by side on the very edge of the bank grandfather frog folded his hands across his white and yellow waistcoat and half closed his eyes as if looking way
way back into the past chug a rum he began a long long time ago when the world was young there was very little dry land and most of the animals lived in the water yes sir most of the animals lived in the water
as sensible animals do to day peter nudged johnny chuck he means himself and his family he whispered with a chuckle after a time continued grandfather frog there began to be more land and still more
then some of the animals began to spend most of their time on the land as there got to be more and more land more and more of the animals left the water
now old mother nature had been keeping a sharp watch as she always does and when she found that they were foolish enough to like the land best she did all that she could to make things comfortable for them she taught them how to run and jump and climb and dig
according to which things they liked best to do
and they began to look down on those who still lived in the water and to put on airs and hold their heads very high now of course old mother nature didn't like this and to punish them she said that they should no longer be able to live in the water even if they wanted to
at first they only laughed but after a while they found that quite often there were times when it would be very nice to be at home in the water as they once had been but it was of no use some could swim as long as they could keep their heads above water
peter nodded he knew that he could swim if he had to but only for a very little way and he hated the thought of it now there were a few animals of whom old mister muskrat the grandfather a thousand times removed of jerry muskrat was one
who learned to walk and run on dry land but who still loved the water continued grandfather frog one day old mother nature found mister muskrat sitting on a rock looking very mournful what's the matter mister muskrat
she asked mister muskrat looked very much ashamed as he finally owned up that he was envious of his cousins and some of the other animals because they had such fine houses on the land then why don't you build you a fine house on the land
asked old mother nature mister muskrat hesitated i
and and well i was put in the water in the first place and i ought to be contented with what i have got and make the best of it old mother nature was so pleased with mister muskrat's reply
that right away she made up her mind that he should have a finer house than any of the others so she took him over to a quiet little pool where the water was not too deep and she showed him how to build a wonderful house of mud and rushes and twigs
with a nice warm bedroom lined with grass above the water and an entrance down under the water so that no one except those who still lived most of the time in the water could possibly get into it
none of his friends on land had such a big fine house and mister muskrat was very proud of it but with all his pride he never forgot that it was a reward for trying to be content with his surroundings and making the best of them
so from that day to this the muskrats have built their houses in the water and have been among the most industrious contented and happy of all the animals and that is why jerry muskrat has built that fine house in the smiling pool
and has so few enemies concluded grandfather frog peter rabbit drew a long breath which was almost a sigh i almost wish my grandfather a thousand times removed had been content to stay in the water too he said
chug a rum retorted grandfather frog if he had
why peter rabbit cannot fold his hands
he is very fond of sitting with his hands folded that way a little way from him sat peter rabbit peter was sitting up very straight but his hands dropped right down in front happy jack noticed it why don't you fold your hands the way i do peter rabbit
shouted happy jack i i don't want to stammered peter you mean you can't jeered happy jack peter pretended not to hear and a few minutes later he hopped away towards the dear old briar patch lipperty lipperty lip
i really believe he can't fold his hands said happy jack to himself but speaking aloud he can't and none of his family can said a gruff voice happy jack turned to find old mister toad sitting in the lone little path
why not asked happy jack ask grandfather frog he knows replied old mister toad and started on about his business and this is how it happens that grandfather frog told this story to the little meadow and forest people
gathered around him on the bank of the smiling pool chug a rum said grandfather frog old mister rabbit the grandfather a thousand times removed of peter rabbit was always getting into trouble yes sir old mister rabbit was always getting into trouble
seemed like he wouldn't be happy if he couldn't get into trouble it was all because he was so dreadfully curious about other people's business just as peter rabbit is now it seemed that he was just born to be curious and so of course to get into trouble
one day word came to the green forest and to the green meadows that old mother nature was coming to see how all the little meadow and forest people were getting along to settle all the little troubles and fusses between them and to find out who were and who were not
obeying the orders she had given them when she had visited them last my my my such a hurrying and scurrying and worrying as there was you see everybody wanted to look his best when old mother nature arrived yes sir everybody wanted to look his best
there was the greatest changing of clothes you ever did see old king bear put on his blackest coat mister coon and mister mink and mister otter sat up half the night brushing their suits and making them look as fine and handsome as they could
even old mister toad put on a new suit under his old one and planned to pull the old one off and throw it away as soon as old mother nature should arrive then everybody began to fix up their homes and make them as neat and nice as they knew how
everybody but mister rabbit now mister rabbit was lazy he didn't like to work any more than peter rabbit does now no sir old mister rabbit was afraid of work the very sight of work scared old mister rabbit
you see he was so busy minding other people's business that he didn't have time to attend to his own so his brown and gray coat always was rumpled and tumbled and dirty his house was a tumble down affair in which no one but mister rabbit
would ever have thought of living and his garden oh dear me such a garden you never did see it was all weeds and brambles they filled up the yard
now when old mister rabbit heard that old mother nature was coming his heart sank way way down for he knew just how angry she would be when she saw his house his garden and his shabby suit
oh dear oh dear what shall i do wailed mister rabbit wringing his hands get busy and clean up advised mister woodchuck hurrying about his own work now mister woodchuck was a worker and very very neat
he meant to have his home looking just as fine as he could make it he brought up some clean yellow sand from deep down in the ground and sprinkled it smoothly over his doorstep i'll help you if i get through my own work in time shouted mister woodchuck over his shoulder
that gave mister rabbit an idea he would ask all his neighbors to help him and perhaps then he could get his house and garden in order by the time old mother nature arrived so mister rabbit called on mister skunk
and mister coon and mister mink and mister squirrel and mister chipmunk and all the rest of his neighbors telling them of his trouble and asking them to help
now in spite of the trouble mister rabbit was forever making for other people by his dreadful curiosity and meddling with other people's affairs all his neighbors had a warm place in their hearts for mister rabbit and they all promised that they would help him
mister rabbit stopped a while after each call and sat with his arms folded watching the one he was calling on work
but this was no time to be doing it and mister skunk told him so if you want the rest of us to help you you'd better get things started yourself said old mister skunk carefully combing out his big plumy tail that's right mister skunk that's right said mister rabbit
starting along briskly just as if he was going to hurry right home and begin work that very instant but half an hour later when mister skunk happened to pass the home of mister chipmunk there sat mister rabbit with his arms folded
watching mister chipmunk hurrying about as only mister chipmunk can finally mister rabbit had made the round of all his friends and neighbors and he once more reached his tumble down house oh dear sighed mister rabbit as he looked at the tangle of brambles
i never never can clear away all this it will be a lot easier to work when all my friends are here to help so he sighed once more and folded his arms instead of beginning work as he should have done and then because the sun was bright and warm
and he was very very comfortable old mister rabbit began to nod and presently he was fast asleep now old mother nature likes to take people by surprise and it happened that she chose this very day to make her promised visit
she was greatly pleased with all she saw as she went along until she came to the home of mister rabbit mercy me exclaimed old mother nature throwing up her hands as she saw the tumble down house almost hidden by the brambles and weeds
can it be possible that any one really lives here then peering through the tangle of brambles she spied old mister rabbit sitting on his broken down doorstep with his arms folded and fast asleep at first she was very indignant
oh very indignant indeed she decided that mister rabbit should be punished very severely but as she watched him sitting there dreaming in the warm sunshine her anger began to melt away the fact is
old mother nature was like all the rest of mister rabbit's neighbors she just couldn't help loving happy go lucky mister rabbit in spite of all his faults with a long stick she reached in and tickled the end of his nose
mister rabbit sneezed and this made him wake up he yawned and blinked and then his eyes suddenly flew wide open with fright he had discovered old mother nature frowning at him she pointed a long forefinger at him and said
there's time for work and time for play who folds his arms with work undone doth cheat himself and spoil his fun hereafter mister rabbit you and your children and your children's children will never again be able to sit with folded arms
until you or they have learned to work
why spotty the turtle carries his house with him spotty the turtle sat on an old log on the bank of the smiling pool taking a sun bath he had sat that way for the longest time without once moving
peter rabbit had seen him when he went by on his way to the laughing brook and the green forest to look for some one to pass the time of day with spotty was still there when peter returned a long time after and he didn't look as if he had moved
a sudden thought struck peter
he had seen the houses of most of his other friends but think as hard as ever he could
hi spotty he shouted where do you live spotty slowly turned his head and looked up at peter there was a twinkle in his eyes though peter didn't see it right here in the smiling pool where else should i live he replied
i mean where is your house returned peter of course i know you live in the smiling pool but where is your house
peter stared very hard
his house was with him and now he had simply retired inside he didn't need any other house than just that hard spotted shell inside of which he was now so cosily tucked away that's a great idea ho ho ho
that's a great idea shouted peter of course it is replied spotty putting nothing but his head out you will always find me at home whenever you call peter and that is more than you can say of most other people
all the way to his own home in the dear old briar patch peter thought about spotty and how queer it was that he should carry his house around with him i wonder how it happens that he does it thought he no wonder he is so slow
of course it is very handy to have his house always with him as he says he is always at home still when he is in a hurry to get away from an enemy it must be very awkward to have to carry his house on his back i i
why how stupid of me he doesn't have to run away at all all he has got to do is to go inside his house and stay there until the danger is past i never thought of that before why that is the handiest thing i ever heard of
now peter knew that there must be a good story about spotty and his house and you know peter dearly loves a good story so at the very first opportunity the next day he hurried over to the smiling pool to ask grandfather frog about it
as usual grandfather frog was sitting on his big green lily pad no sooner did peter pop his head above the edge of the bank of the smiling pool than grandfather frog exclaimed chug a rum you've kept me waiting a long time peter rabbit
i don't like to be kept waiting if you wanted to know about spotty the turtle why didn't you come earlier all the time there was a twinkle in the big goggly eyes of grandfather frog
he hadn't said a word to any one about spotty so how could grandfather frog know what he had come for for a long time he had had a great deal of respect for grandfather frog who as you know is very old and very wise
but now peter felt almost afraid of him you see it seemed to peter as if grandfather frog had read his very thoughts i i didn't know you were waiting truly i didn't stammered peter
if you please how did you know that i was coming and what i was coming for never mind how i knew i know a great deal that i don't tell which is more than some folks can say replied grandfather frog
peter wondered if he meant him for you know peter is a great gossip but he didn't say anything because he didn't know just what to say and in a minute grandfather frog began the story peter so much wanted
of course you know without me telling you that there is a reason for spotty's carrying his house around with him because there is a reason for everything in this world and of course you know that that reason is because of something that happened a long time ago
way back in the days when the world was young almost everything to day is the result of things that happened in those long ago days the great great ever so great grandfather of spotty the turtle lived then and unlike spotty whom you know
he had no house he was very quiet and bashful was mister turtle and he never meddled with any one's business because he believed that the best way of keeping out of trouble was to attend strictly to his own affairs
he was a good deal like spotty just as fond of the water and just as slow moving but he didn't have the house which spotty has now if he had had he would have been saved a great deal of trouble and worry
for a long time everybody lived at peace with everybody else then came the trying time of which you already know when those who lived on the green meadows and in the green forest had the very hardest kind of work to find enough to eat
and were hungry most of the time now mister turtle living in the smiling pool had plenty to eat he had nothing to worry about on that score everybody who lives in the smiling pool knows that it is the best place in the world anyway
grandfather frog winked at jerry muskrat who was listening and jerry nodded his head
and that he wasn't safe a minute when on shore and not always safe in the water continued grandfather frog he had two or three very narrow escapes and these set him to thinking he was too slow and awkward to run or to fight
the only thing he could do was to keep out of sight as much as possible so he learned to swim with only his head out of water and sometimes with only the end of his nose out of water
when he went on land he would cover himself with mud and then when he heard anybody coming he would lie perfectly still with his legs and his tail and his head drawn in just as close as possible
one day he had crawled under a piece of bark to rest
when he got ready to go on his way he found that the piece of bark had caught on his back
at first he was annoyed and started to shake it off before he succeeded he heard someone coming
it was mister fisher and he was very hungry and fierce he looked at the piece of bark under which mister turtle was hiding but all he saw was the bark because you know mister turtle had drawn himself wholly under i believe
said mister fisher talking out loud to himself that i'll have a look around the smiling pool and see if i can catch that slow moving turtle who lives there i believe he'll make me a good dinner of course mister turtle heard just what he said
and he blessed the piece of bark which had hidden him from mister fisher's sight for a long time he lay very still when he did go on he took the greatest care not to shake off that piece of bark for he didn't know but that any minute he might want to hide under it again
at last he reached the smiling pool and slipped into the water leaving the piece of bark on the bank thereafter when he wanted to go on land he would first make sure that no one was watching then he would crawl under the piece of bark and get it on his back
wherever he went he carried the piece of bark so as to have it handy to hide under now all this time old mother nature had been watching mister turtle and it pleased her to see that he was smart enough to think of such a clever way of fooling his enemies
so she began to study how she could help mister turtle one day she came up behind him just as he sat down to rest the piece of bark was uncomfortable and scratched his back i wish said he talking to himself
for he didn't know that any one else was near i wish that i had a house of my own that i could carry on my back all the time and be perfectly safe when i was inside of it you shall have said old mother nature and reaching out
she touched his back and turned the skin into hard shell then she touched the skin of his stomach and turned that into hard shell now draw in your head and your legs and your tail said she mister turtle did as he was told to do
and there he was in the very best and safest kind of a house perfectly hidden from all his enemies oh mother nature how can i ever thank you he cried by doing as you always have done attending wholly to your own affairs
replied old mother nature so ever since that long ago day when the world was young all turtles have carried their houses with them and never have meddled in things that don't concern them concluded grandfather frog
oh thank you grandfather frog exclaimed peter drawing a long breath that was a perfectly splendid thing for old mother nature to do then he started for his own home in the dear old briar patch
and all the way there he wondered and wondered how grandfather frog knew that he wanted that story and to this day he hasn't found out you see he didn't notice that grandfather frog was listening when he asked spotty about his house
chapter nineteen magnetic ore milling work during the hudson fulton celebration of october nineteen o nine burgomaster van leeuwen
of amsterdam member of the delegation sent officially from holland to escort the half moon and participate in the functions of the anniversary paid a visit to the edison laboratory at orange to see the inventor who may be regarded as pre eminent among those of dutch descent in this country
found as usual hard at work this time on his cement house of which he showed the iron molds edison took occasion to remark that if he had achieved anything worth while it was due to the obstinacy and pertinacity he had inherited from his forefathers
he has been not less assiduous than they in reducing the rocks of the earth itself to flour although this phase of mister edison's diverse activities is not as generally known to the world as many others of a more popular character
low grade iron ore as carried on at edison new jersey proved to be the most colossal experiment that he has ever made
he could truthfully answer both yes and no yes in that circumstances over which mister edison had no control compelled the shutting down of the plant at the very moment of success and no
in that the mechanically successful and commercially practical results obtained after the exercise of stupendous efforts and the expenditure of a fortune are so conclusive that they must inevitably be the reliance of many future iron masters
in other words mister edison was at least a quarter of a century ahead of the times in the work now to be considered
large beds of black sand on the beach in layers from one to six inches thick hundreds of thousands of tons my first thought was that it would be a very easy matter to concentrate this and i found i could sell the stuff at a good price
and that business was slowly drifting westward
this ore could be excavated very cheaply by means of improved mining facilities and transported at low cost to lake ports hence the iron and steel mills east of the alleghanies compelled to rely on limited local deposits of bessemer ore
and upon foreign ores which were constantly rising in value began to sustain a serious competition with western mills even in eastern markets
long before this situation arose it had been recognized by eastern iron masters that sooner or later the deposits of high grade ore would be exhausted and in consequence there would ensue a compelling necessity to fall back on the low grade magnetic ores
by concentration of the iron particles associated with it seemed to be the only solution of the problem many attempts had been made in by gone days to concentrate the iron in such ores by water processes but with only a partial degree of success
the impossibility of obtaining a uniform concentrate was a most serious objection had there not indeed been other difficulties which rendered this method commercially impracticable it is quite natural therefore that the idea of magnetic separation should have occurred to many inventors
thus we find numerous instances throughout the last century of experiments along this line and particularly in the last forty or fifty years during which various attempts have been made by others than edison to perfect magnetic separation and bring it up to something like commercial practice
it was his opinion that it was cheaper to quarry and concentrate lean ore in a big way than to attempt to mine under adverse circumstances limited bodies of high grade ore he appreciated fully the serious nature of the gigantic questions involved
in which he contemplated the automatic handling of many thousands of tons of material daily it may be stated as broadly true that edison engineered to handle immense masses of stuff automatically while his predecessors aimed chiefly at close separation
reduced to its barest crudest terms the proposition of magnetic separation is simplicity itself a piece of the ore magnetite may be reduced to powder and the ore particles separated therefrom by the help of a simple hand magnet to elucidate the basic principle of edison's method
the magnetic particles are attracted out of the straight line of the falling stream and being heavy gravitate inwardly and fall to one side of a partition placed below the non magnetic gangue descends in a straight line to the other side of the partition thus a complete separation is effected
simple though the principle appears it was in its application to vast masses of material and in the solving of great engineering problems connected therewith that edison's originality made itself manifest in the concentrating works that he established in new jersey early in the nineties
not only did he develop thoroughly the refining of the crushed ore so that after it had passed the four hundred and eighty magnets in the mill the concentrates came out finally containing ninety one to ninety three per cent
but he also devised collateral machinery methods and processes all fundamental in their nature these are too numerous to specify in detail as they extended throughout the various ramifications of the plant but the principal ones are worthy of mention such as
that mister edison's work was appreciated at the time is made evident by the following extract from an article describing the edison plant published in the iron age of october twenty eighth eighteen ninety seven in which after mentioning his struggle with adverse conditions it says
there is very little that is showy from the popular point of view in the gigantic work which mister edison has done during these years but to those who are capable of grasping the difficulties encountered mister edison appears in the new light of a brilliant constructing engineer
grappling with technical and commercial problems of the highest order his genius as an inventor is revealed in many details of the great concentrating plant but to our mind
one of the most interesting and striking investigations made by edison in this connection is worthy of note and may be related in his own words i felt certain that there must be large bodies of magnetite in the east
having determined to investigate the mountain regions of new jersey i constructed a very sensitive magnetic needle
but did not find deposits of any magnitude one day however as we drove over a mountain range not known as iron bearing land i was astonished to find that the needle was strongly attracted and remained so thus indicating that the whole mountain was underlaid with vast bodies of magnetic ore
i knew it was a commercial problem to produce high grade bessemer ore from these deposits and took steps to acquire a large amount of the property i also planned a great magnetic survey of the east and i believe it remains the most comprehensive of its kind yet performed
i had a number of men survey a strip reaching from lower canada to north carolina the only instrument we used was the special magnetic needle we started in lower canada and travelled across the line of march twenty five miles then advanced south one thousand feet
then back across the line of march again twenty five miles then south another thousand feet across again and so on thus we advanced all the way to north carolina varying our cross country march from two to twenty five miles according to geological formation
we also knew the width length and approximate depth of every one of these deposits which were enormous the amount of ore disclosed by this survey was simply fabulous
i also secured sixteen thousand acres in which the deposit was proportionately as large these few acres alone contained sufficient ore to supply the whole united states iron trade including exports for seventy years
given a mountain of rock containing only one fifth to one fourth magnetic iron the broad problem confronting edison resolved itself into three distinct parts first to tear down the mountain bodily and grind it to powder second to extract from this powder the particles of iron
mingled in its mass and third to accomplish these results at a cost sufficiently low to give the product a commercial value
while there was no touch of the human hand upon the material from the beginning of the treatment to its finish
he could not depend upon the market to supply suitable machinery for important operations but would be obliged to devise and build it himself thus outside the steam shovel and such staple items as engines boilers dynamos and motors
all of the diverse and complex machinery of the entire concentrating plant as subsequently completed
no such departure was as radical as that of the method of crushing the ore existing machinery for this purpose had been designed on the basis of mining methods then in vogue by which the rock was thoroughly shattered by means of high explosives and reduced to pieces of one hundred pounds or less
from a consideration of these facts and with his usual tendency to upset traditional observances edison conceived the bold idea of constructing gigantic rolls which by the force of momentum would be capable of crushing individual rocks of vastly greater size than ever before attempted
he reasoned that the advantages thus obtained would be fourfold a minimum of machinery and parts greater compactness a saving of power and greater economy in mining as this last named operation precedes the crushing let us first consider it as it was projected and carried on by him
the faith that moves mountains had a new opportunity in work of this nature it had been customary as above stated to depend upon a high explosive such as dynamite
this however he deemed to be a most uneconomical process
this was the plan that was subsequently put into practice in the great works at edison new jersey a series of three inch holes twenty feet deep were drilled eight feet apart about twelve feet back of the ore bank and into these were inserted dynamite cartridges
the problem included handling and crushing the run of the mine without selection the steam shovel did not discriminate but picked up handily single pieces weighing five or six tons and loaded them on the skips with quantities of smaller lumps
when the skips arrived at the giant rolls their contents were dumped automatically into a superimposed hopper the rolls were well named for with ear splitting noise they broke up in a few seconds the great pieces of rock tossed in from the skips
it is not easy to appreciate to the full the daring exemplified in these great crushing rolls or rather rock crackers
that the mind was overwhelmed with a sense of the magnificent proportions of this operation the enormous force exerted during this process may be illustrated from the fact that during its development in running one of the early forms of rolls
the giant rolls were two solid cylinders six feet in diameter and five feet long made of cast iron to the faces of these rolls were bolted a series of heavy chilled iron plates containing a number of projecting knobs two inches high
each roll had also two rows of four inch knobs intended to strike a series of hammer like blows the rolls were set face to face fourteen inches apart in a heavy frame and the total weight was one hundred and thirty tons of which seventy tons were in moving parts
the space between these two rolls allowed pieces of rock measuring less than fourteen inches to descend to other smaller rolls placed below the giant rolls were belt driven in opposite directions through friction clutches although the belt was not depended upon for the actual crushing
it was as though a rock of this size had got in the way of two express trains travelling in opposite directions at nearly sixty miles an hour in other words it was the kinetic energy of the rolls that crumbled up the rocks with pile driver effect this sudden strain might have tended to stop the engine driving the rolls
the belt was released at the moment of resistance in the rolls by reason of the rocks falling between them the act of breaking and crushing would naturally decrease the tremendous momentum but after the rock was reduced and the pieces had passed through
the belt would again come into play and once more speed up the rolls for a repetition of their regular prize fighter duty on leaving the giant rolls the rocks having been reduced to pieces not larger than fourteen inches passed into the series of intermediate rolls of similar construction and operation
by which they were still further reduced and again passed on to three other sets of rolls of smaller dimensions these latter rolls were also face lined with chilled iron plates but unlike the larger ones were positively driven reducing the rock to pieces of about one half inch size or smaller
the whole crushing operation of reduction from massive boulders to small pebbly pieces having been done in less time than the telling has occupied the product was conveyed to the dryer a tower nine feet square and fifty feet high
heated from below by great open furnace fires all down the inside walls of this tower were placed cast iron plates nine feet long and seven inches wide arranged alternately in fish ladder fashion
the rock broken up into pieces about the size of marbles having been dried and conveyed to the stock house the surplusage was automatically carried out from the other end of the stock house by conveyors to pass through the next process
by which it was reduced to a powder the machinery for accomplishing this result represents another interesting and radical departure of edison from accepted usage he had investigated all the crushing machines on the market and tried all he could get he found them all greatly lacking in economy of operation
indeed the highest results obtainable from the best were eighteen per cent of actual work involving a loss of eighty two per cent by friction his nature revolted at such an immense loss of power especially as he proposed the crushing of vast quantities of ore thus he was obliged to begin again at the foundation
and which practically reversed the above figures as it developed eighty four per cent of work done with only sixteen per cent loss in friction a brief description of this remarkable machine will probably interest the reader
in the two end pieces of a heavy iron frame were set three rolls or cylinders one in the centre another below and the other above all three being in a vertical line
having chilled iron smooth face plates of considerable thickness the lowest roll was set in a fixed bearing at the bottom of the frame and therefore could only turn around on its axis the middle and top rolls were free to move up or down from and toward the lower roll
in which was run a half inch endless wire rope this rope was wound seven times over the sheaves as above
and in this manner the pressure was applied to the rolls it will be seen therefore that the system consisted in a single rope passed over sheaves and so arranged that it could be varied in length
friction was almost entirely eliminated because the upper and lower roll bearings turned with the rolls and revolved in the wire rope which constituted the bearing proper the same cautious foresight exercised by edison in providing a safety device the fuse
to prevent fires in his electric light system was again displayed in this concentrating plant where to save possible injury to its expensive operating parts he devised an analogous factor providing all the crushing machinery with closely calculated safety pins
which besides having a very large working capacity by gravity eliminated all power except that required to elevate the material the screening process allowed the finest part of the crushed rock to pass on by conveyor belts to the magnetic separators
while the coarser particles were in like manner automatically returned to the rolls for further reduction in a narrative not intended to be strictly technical it would probably tire the reader to follow this material in detail through the numerous steps attending the magnetic separation
this sand was transported automatically by belt conveyors to the rear of the works to be stored and sold being sharp crystalline and even in quality it was a valuable by product finding a ready sale for building purposes railway sand boxes and various industrial uses
the concentrate in fine powdery form was delivered in similar manner to a stock house as to the next step in the process we may now quote again from the article in the iron age
exposed to snow and rain in many respects the attainment of these somewhat conflicting ends was the most perplexing of the problems which confronted mister edison the agglomeration of the concentrates having been decided upon two other considerations not mentioned above were of primary importance
first to find a suitable cheap binding material and second its nature must be such that very little would be necessary per ton of concentrates these severe requirements were staggering but mister edison's courage did not falter although it seemed a well nigh hopeless task
this was the final process requisite for the making of a completed commercial product its practice of course necessitated the addition of an entirely new department of the works which was carried into effect by the construction and installation of the novel mixing and briquetting machinery
while they were so porous as to be capable of absorbing twenty six per cent of their own volume in alcohol but repelling water absolutely perfect old soaks
thus with never failing persistence and patience coupled with intense thought and hard work edison met and conquered one by one the complex difficulties that confronted him
and it is now to be noted that the product he had striven so sedulously to obtain was a highly commercial one for not only did the briquettes of concentrated ore fulfil the purpose of their creation but in use actually tended to increase the working capacity of the furnace
two point five seven two
on the ninth at five p m the briquettes having been nearly exhausted the percentage was dropped to twenty five per cent and on the tenth the output dropped to one hundred twenty tons
these figures prove that the yield of the furnace is considerably increased the crane trial was too short to settle the question to what extent the increase in product may be carried this increase in output of course means a reduction in the cost of labor and of general expenses
the richness of the ore and its purity of course affect the limestone consumption in the case of the crane trial there was a reduction from thirty per cent to twelve per cent of the ore charge finally the fuel consumption is reduced which in the case of the eastern plants with their relatively costly coke
is a very important consideration it is regarded as possible that eastern furnaces will be able to use a smaller proportion of the costlier coke and correspondingly increase in anthracite coal which is a cheaper fuel in that section so far as foundry iron is concerned the experience at catasauqua
pennsylvania brief as it has been shows that a stronger and tougher metal is made edison himself tells an interesting little story in this connection when he enjoyed the active help of that noble character john fritz the distinguished inventor and pioneer of the modern steel industry in america he says
when i was struggling along with the iron ore concentration i went to see several blast furnace men to sell the ore at the market price they saw i was very anxious to sell it and they would take advantage of my necessity
and told him what i was doing well he said to me edison you are doing a good thing for the eastern furnaces they ought to help you
for edison's methods always iconoclastic when progress is in sight were particularly so at the period in question it has been said that edison's scrap heap contains the elements of a liberal education
interesting as it might be to follow at length the numerous phases of ingenious and resourceful development that took place during those busy years the limit of present space forbids their relation it would however be denying the justice that is edison's due to omit all mention of two hitherto unnamed items
in particular that have added to the world's store of useful devices we refer first to the great travelling hoisting crane having a span of two hundred and fifteen feet and used for hoisting loads equal to ten tons this being the largest of the kind made up to that time
and afterward used as a model by many others the second item was the ingenious and varied forms of conveyor belt devised and used by edison at the concentrating works and subsequently developed into a separate and extensive business by an engineer to whom he gave permission to use his plans and patterns
edison's native shrewdness and knowledge of human nature was put to practical use in the busy days of plant construction it was found impossible to keep mechanics on account of indifferent residential accommodations afforded by the tiny village remote from civilization among the central mountains of new jersey
as settlers in the artificial yosemite he was creating we owe to mister mallory a characteristic story of this period as to an incidental unbending from toil which in itself illustrates the ever present determination to conquer what is undertaken
along in the latter part of the nineties when the work on the problem of concentrating iron ore was in progress it became necessary when leaving the plant at edison to wait over at lake hopatcong
i took off the cloth got out the balls picked out a cue for mister edison and when we banked for the first shot i won and started the game after making two or three shots i missed and a long carom shot was left for mister edison the cue ball and object ball being within about twelve inches of each other
i continued at his request to put the balls back in the same position for the next fifteen minutes
having taken a somewhat superficial survey of the great enterprise under consideration
in the making of a marketable commercial product as exemplified in the test at the crane furnace let us revert to that demonstration and note the events that followed
it was of such rich character that being cheaply mined by greatly improved and inexpensive methods
thus was swept away the possibility of reaping the reward so richly earned by years of incessant thought labor and care this great and notable plant representing a very large outlay of money brought to completion
ready for business and embracing some of the most brilliant and remarkable of edison's inventions and methods must be abandoned by force of circumstances over which he had no control and with it must die the high hopes that his progressive conquering march to success had legitimately engendered
the financial aspect of these enterprises is often overlooked and forgotten in this instance it was of more than usual import and seriousness as edison was virtually his own backer putting into the company almost the whole of all the fortune his inventions had brought him
and to insist that it shall have barely the legal rate of interest and far less than the return of over the counter retail trade it is an absolute fact that the great electrical inventors and the men who stood behind them have had little return for their foresight and courage in this instance
when the inventor was largely his own financier the difficulties and perils were redoubled let mister mallory give an instance during the latter part of the panic of eighteen ninety three there came a period when we were very hard up for ready cash
due largely to the panicky conditions and a large pay roll had been raised with considerable difficulty a short time before pay day our treasurer called me up by telephone and said
i have just received the paid checks from the bank and i am fearful that my assistant who has forged my name to some of the checks has absconded with about three thousand dollars i went immediately to mister edison and told him of the forgery and the amount of money taken and in what an embarrassing position we were for the next pay roll
when i had finished he said it is too bad the money is gone but i will tell you what to do go and see the president of the bank which paid the forged checks get him to admit the bank's liability and then say to him that mister edison does not think the bank should suffer because he happened to have a dishonest clerk
in his employ also say to him that i shall not ask them to make the amount good this was done the bank admitting its liability and being much pleased with this action when i reported to mister edison he said that's all right
we have made a friend of the bank and we may need friends later on and so it happened that some time afterward when we greatly needed help in the way of loans
this iron ore concentrating project had lain close to edison's heart and ambition indeed it had permeated his whole being to the exclusion of almost all other investigations or inventions for a while for five years he had lived and worked steadily at edison
to follow his natural bent in being surrounded day and night by his responsible chosen associates with whom he worked uninterrupted by outsiders from early morning away into the late hours of the evening those who were laboring with him inspired by his unflagging enthusiasm
the concentrating works had been in operation and we had produced a considerable quantity of the briquettes and had been able to sell only a portion of them the iron market being in such condition that blast furnaces were not making any new purchases of iron ore
and were having difficulty to receive and consume the ores which had been previously contracted for so what sales we were able to make were at extremely low prices
and it was with the greatest possible reluctance that mister edison was able to come finally to the conclusion that
when this decision was reached mister edison and i took the jersey central train from edison bound for orange and i did not look forward to the immediate future with any degree of confidence as the concentrating plant was heavily in debt without any early prospect of being able to pay off its indebtedness
as we had the knowledge gained from our experience in the concentrating problem we must if possible apply it to some practical use and at the same time we must work out some other plans by which we could make enough money to pay off the concentrating company's indebtedness
mister edison stating most positively that no company with which he had personally been actively connected had ever failed to pay its debts and he did not propose to have the concentrating company any exception
and which might prove profitable we figured carefully over the probabilities of financial returns from the phonograph works and other enterprises
for manufacturing portland cement and that mister edison would devote his attention to the developing of a storage battery which did not use lead and sulphuric acid so these two lines of work were taken up by mister edison with just as much enthusiasm and energy as is usual with him
and only once did i hear him make any reference to the financial loss which he himself made and he then said as far as i am concerned i can any time get a job at seventy five dollars per month as a telegrapher and that will amply take care of all my personal requirements
he started in with the maximum amount of enthusiasm and ambition and in the course of about three years we succeeded in paying off all the indebtedness of the concentrating works which amounted to several hundred thousand dollars
and to take advantage of the knowledge which we had acquired at so great a cost it will have been gathered that the funds for this great experiment were furnished largely by edison in fact over two million dollars were spent in the attempt
edison's philosophic view of affairs is given in the following anecdote from mister mallory
wet year wet year prophesied the cardinal the sumac seemed to fill his idea of a perfect location from the very first he perched on a limb and between dressing his plumage
he knew how to turn his crimson suit into the most perfect of water proof coats
sleeked his feathers and breasting the april downpour kept on calling for rain he knew he would appear brighter when it was past
would bring nearer his heart's desire he was a very beau brummel while he waited from morning until night he bathed dressed his feathers sunned himself fluffed and flirted he strutted and chipped
incessantly he claimed that sumac for his very own and stoutly battled for possession with many intruders it grew on a densely wooded slope
that attracted homestead seekers a sober pair of robins began laying their foundations there the morning the cardinal arrived
he had little trouble with the robins they were easily conquered
in a wild plum tree but the air was thick with chips chatter and red and black feathers before the blackbirds acknowledged defeat they were old timers and knew about the grubs and the young corn
but they also knew when they were beaten so they moved down stream to a scrub oak trying to assure each other
the cardinal was left boasting and strutting in the sumac but in his heart he found it lonesome business being the son of a king he was much too dignified to beg for a mate and besides it took all his time to guard the sumac
but his eyes were wide open to all that went on around him and he envied the blackbird his glossy devoted little sweetheart with all his might he almost strained his voice trying to rival the love song of a skylark
beneath the maples the cardinal was torn between two opinions he was alone he was love sick and he was holding the finest building location beside the shining river for his mate
and her slowness in coming made their devotion difficult to endure when he coveted a true love but it seemed to the cardinal that he never could so forget himself as to emulate the example of that dove lover
the dove had no dignity he was so effusive he was a nuisance he kept his dignified quaker mate stuffed to discomfort he clung to the side of the nest trying to help brood
he pestered her with caresses and cooed over his love song until every chipmunk on the line fence was familiar with his story the cardinal's temper was worn to such a fine edge
that he darted at the dove one day and pulled a big tuft of feathers from his back when he had returned to the sumac he was compelled to admit that his anger
every morning brought new arrivals trim young females fresh from their long holiday and big boastful males appearing their brightest and bravest each singer almost splitting his throat in the effort
to captivate the mate he coveted
gold blue and black rocking on the willows splashing in the water bursting into jets of melody making every possible display of their beauty and music and at times fighting fiercely when they discovered
that the females they were wooing favoured their rivals and desired only to be friendly with them the heart of the cardinal sank as he watched there was not a member of his immediate family among them
he pitied himself as he wondered if fate had in store for him the trials he saw others suffering those dreadful feathered females how they coquetted how they flirted
how they sleeked and flattened their plumage and with half open beaks and sparkling eyes hopped closer and closer as if charmed the eager singers with swelling throats sang and sang
in a very frenzy of extravagant pleading
for the last three days the cardinal had been watching his cousin rose breasted
who apparently encouraged his advances only to see him left sitting as blue and disconsolate as any human lover when he discovers that the maid
belongs to another man the cardinal flew to the very top of the highest sycamore and looked across country toward the limberlost should he go there seeking a swamp mate among his kindred
it was not an endurable thought to be sure matters were becoming serious no bird beside the shining river had plumed paraded or made more music than he was it all to be wasted
and gaze at him with unconcealed admiration no doubt she devoutly wished her plain pudgy husband wore a scarlet coat but it is praise from one's own sex that is praise indeed
that he was a prince indeed and he decided to remain in his chosen location and with his physical and vocal attractions compel the finest little cardinal in the fields to seek him
he planned it all very carefully how she would hear his splendid music and come to take a peep at him how she would be captivated by his size and beauty how she would come timidly
but come of course for his approval how he would condescend to accept her if she pleased him in all particulars
for the sumac was in a lovely spot for scenery as well as nest building for several days he had boasted he had bantered
he had on this last day almost condescended to coaxing but not one little bright eyed cardinal female had come to offer herself the performance of a brown thrush drove him wild with envy
there was no way to improve that music it was woven fresh from the warp
notes so thrilled with love's pleading and passion's tender pulsing pain that at its close
gathered around with care and deliberation
it was the cardinal's dream materialized for another before his very eyes and it filled him with envy if that plain brown bird that slinked as if he had a theft to account for could by showing himself and singing for an hour
win a mate why should not he the most gorgeous bird of the woods openly flaunting his charms and discoursing his music have at least equal success should he the proudest
most magnificent of cardinals be compelled to go seeking a mate like any common bird perish the thought he went to the river to bathe after finding a spot where the water flowed crystal clear over a bed of white limestone
he perched and strained until his jetty whiskers appeared stubby he poured out a tumultuous cry vibrant with every passion raging in him he caught up his own rolling echoes
he improvised and set the shining river ringing wet year wet year he whistled and whistled until all birdland and even mankind heard for the farmer paused at his kitchen door
hear that maria jest hear it i swanny if that bird doesn't stop predictin wet weather i'll get so scared i won't durst put in my corn afore june
they's some birds like killdeers an bobwhites at can make things pretty plain
at could jest speak words out clear an distinct like that fellow seems to come from the river bottom b'lieve i'll jest step down that way an see if the lower field is ready for the plow yet
if you want to trapse through slush an drizzle
why say so but don't for land's sake lay it on to plowin
i've been hearin him from the barn all day an there's somethin kind o human in his notes at takes me jest a little diffrunt from any other bird i ever noticed i'm really curious to set eyes on him
seemed to me from his singin out to the barn it ud be mighty near like meetin folks bosh exclaimed maria i don't s'pose he sings a mite better an any other bird
a bird singin beside the river always sounds twicet as fine
i've knowed that for forty year chances are
wet year wet year pealed the flaming prophet he went out closing the door softly and with an utter disregard for the corn field made a bee line for the musician
i don't know as this is the best for twinges o rheumatiz he muttered as he turned up his collar and drew his old hat lower to keep the splashing drops from his face
i don't jest rightly s'pose i should go but i'm free to admit i'd as lief be dead as not to answer when i get a call an the fact is i'm called down beside the river
wet year wet year rolled the cardinal's prediction thanky old fellow glad to hear you didn't jest need the information but i got my bearin's rightly from it
i'd like it powerful well if you'd settle right here say bout where you are an where are you anyway
and dodging beside the fence peeping into the bushes searching for the bird suddenly there was a whir of wings and a streak of crimson
scared you into the next county i s'pose he muttered but it came nearer being a scared man than a frightened bird for the cardinal flashed straight toward him until only a few yards away
settin on a sawed stick in a little wire house takes all the ginger out of any bird an their feathers are always mussy inside o a cage never saw you
for they ain't a feather out o place on you you are finer'n a piece o red satin
an a dartin crost the water cage never touched you but you are somebody's pet jest the same an i look like the man an you are tryin to tell me so by gum
you think you know me
wish to land i knowed what you want
and the raindrops glistened on his white hair he squared his shoulders and stood very erect howdy mister redbird how d'ye find yerself this evenin
well you never was more welcome any place in your life
this minnit if you'd say you came to settle on this river bank how do you like it to my mind it's jest as near paradise as you'll strike on earth old wabash is a twister for curvin
an it's limestone bed half the way an the water's as pretty
an as for trimmin why say mister redbird i'll jest leave it to you if she ain't all trimmed up like a woman's spring bunnit look at the grass a creepin
maria says at thy'd be purtier an hers if they were only double but lord mister redbird they are
an sumac an spicebush an trees lord mister redbird the sycamores an maples an tulip an ash an elm trees
fine long the old wabash they put em into poetry books an sing songs about em what do you think o that jest back o you a little there's a sycamore split into five trunks
most anything you can name you can find it long this ole wabash if you only know where to hunt for it they's mighty few white men takes the trouble to look but the indians used to know
down the river an camp under these very trees an ma ud git so mad at the old squaws
over into ohio to get it milled
an ma ud be compelled to hand over to em her big white loaves jest about set her plumb crazy used to get up in the night an fix her yeast an bake an let the oven cool
an hide the bread out in the wheat bin an get the smell of it all out o the house by good daylight so's at she could say there wasn't a loaf in the cabin
oh if it's good pickin you're after they's berries for all creation long the river yet an jest wait a few days till old april gets done showerin an i plow this corn field
the cardinal chipped delightedly and hopped and tilted closer i hadn't jest lowed all winter i'd tackle this field again i've turned it every spring for forty year bought it when i was a young fellow jest married to maria
for it's jest that much o paradise i'm plumb sure of first time i plowed this field mister redbird i only hit the high places
if you'd stay to cheer me up a little an post me on the weather hate the doggondest to own i'm worsted an
very sight o you kinder warms the cockles o my heart all up an every skip you take sets me a wantin to be jumpin too
i'll fetch you everything on the place it's likely a redbird ever teched airly in the mornin if you'll say you'll stay an wave your torch long my river bank this summer
corn's a leetle big an hard for you mebby i can split it up a mite
he split and shaved them down as fine as possible and as he reached one end of the rail the cardinal with a spasmodic chip dashed down and snatched a particle from the other
and flashed back to the bush tested approved and chipped his thanks
makin everybody at sees you happy an havin some chance to be happy yourself an i look like your friend well well i'm monstrous willin to adopt you if you'll take me
an as for feedin
long this same rail every day
but for that matter if i ever get her down to see you jest once the trick's done with her too for you're the prettiest thing god ever made in the shape of a bird at i ever saw
why don't you keep out o sight a little
here here here whistled the cardinal
the limberlost ain't to be compared with the river mister redbird you're foolish if you go
but then you warned me didn't you old fellow well i told maria seein you ud be like meetin folks an it has been
in a trim half military salute well good bye mister redbird never had more pleasure meetin anybody in my life cept first time i met maria you think about the plowin
good bye an do be a little more careful o yourself see you in the mornin right after breakfast no count taken o the weather wet year wet year
the cardinal went to the top rail and feasted on the sweet grains of corn until his craw was full and then nestled in the sumac and went to sleep early next morning he was abroad and in fine toilet
and with a full voice from the top of the sumac greeted the day wet year wet year far down the river echoed his voice until it so closely resembled some member of his family
and busy with their nest building the cardinal returned to the sumac
he decided to prospect in the opposite direction and taking wing he started up the river following the channel he winged his flight for miles over the cool sparkling water between the tangle of foliage bordering the banks
when he came to the long cumbrous structures of wood with which men had bridged the river where the shuffling feet of tired farm horses raised clouds of dust and set the echoes rolling with their thunderous hoof beats
he was afraid and rising high he sailed over them in short broken curves of flight but where giant maple and ash leaning locked branches across the channel
gently sloping in others and always crowded with a tangle of foliage at an abrupt curve in the river he mounted to the summit of a big ash and made boastful prophecy wet year wet year
and on all sides there sprang up the voices of his kind startled the cardinal took wing he followed the river in a circling flight until he remembered that here might be the opportunity to win the coveted river mate
the cardinal flew over the narrow neck and sent another call
again he flashed up the river and circled horseshoe bend
he understood the river circled in one great curve the cardinal mounted to the tip top limb of the ash and looked around him there was never a fairer sight for the eye of man or bird
the mist and shimmer of early spring were in the air the wabash rounded horseshoe bend
seemed to sweep the face of heaven and whose roots like miserly fingers clutched deep into the black muck of rainbow bottom it was in this lovely spot that the rainbow at last materialized
for good measure there were added seeds
above all the sycamore waved its majestic head it made a throne that seemed suitable for the son of the king and mounting to its topmost branch for miles the river carried his challenge
ho cardinals look this way behold me have you seen any other of so great size have you any to equal my grace who can whistle so loud so clear so compelling a note
that among the many cardinals that had gathered to hear there was not one to compare with him black envy filled their hearts who was this flaming dashing stranger
there were many unmated cardinals in rainbow bottom and many jealous males a second time the cardinal rocking and flashing proclaimed himself
here here
the cardinal with a royal flourish sprang in air to seek her but her outraged mate was ahead of him and with a scream she fled leaving a tuft of feathers in her mate's beak in turn
the cardinal struck him like a flashing rocket and then red war waged in rainbow bottom the females scattered for cover with all their might the cardinal worked in a kiss on one poor little bird too frightened
to escape him then the males closed in and serious business began the cardinal would have enjoyed a fight vastly with two or three opponents but a half dozen made discretion
better than valour he darted among them scattering them right and left and made for the sycamore with all his remaining breath he insolently repeated his challenge and then
headed down stream for the sumac with what grace he could command there was an hour of angry recrimination before sweet peace brooded again in rainbow bottom the newly mated pair finally made up
and forgot the captivating stranger all save the poor little one that had been kissed by accident
she had been hatched from a fifth egg to begin with and every one knows the disadvantage of beginning life with four sturdy older birds on top of one it was a meager egg
she cried pitifully and was almost dead when a brown faced barefoot boy with a fishing pole on his shoulder passed and heard her poor little thing you are almost dead he said
i know what i'll do with you i'll take you over and set you in the bushes
to save the poor quivering little bird she was left so badly frightened that she could not move for a long time all the tribulations of birdland fell to her lot she was so frail and weak
she lost two of her wing quills and that made her more timid than ever coming north she had given out again and finally had wandered into rainbow bottom lost and alone she was such a shy fearsome little body
the females all flouted her and the males never seemed to notice that there was material in her for a very fine mate every other female cardinal in rainbow bottom had several males courting her but this poor frightened
he had intended it for the bold creature that had answered his challenge but since it came to her it was hers in a way after all she hid in the underbrush for the remainder of the day
and was never so frightened in all her life
at the down curve of the horseshoe straining her ears
all day she hid and waited and the following days were filled with longing but he never came again so one morning possessed with courage she did not understand
she started down the river for miles she sneaked through the underbrush and watched and listened
and she returned to rainbow bottom the next morning she set out early and flew to the spot
the night before from there she glided through the bushes and underbrush trembling and quaking yet pushing stoutly onward straining her ears for some note of the brilliant stranger's it was mid forenoon
when she reached the region of the sumac and as she hopped warily along only a short distance from her full and splendid there burst the voice of the singer for whom she was searching
she sprang into air and fled a mile before she realized that she was flying then she stopped and listened and rolling with the river she heard those bold true tones
close to earth she went back again to see if unobserved she could find a spot where she might watch the stranger that had kissed her when at last she reached a place where she could see him plainly
his beauty was so bewildering
there was nothing save defeat from overwhelming numbers in rainbow bottom
verily wondrous great are thy promises yet i do not doubt but thou canst make them good only keep me not in suspense after raising such hopes learn then first said she how that power ever waits upon the good
while the bad are left wholly destitute of strength
for since good and evil are contraries if it is made plain that good is power the feebleness of evil is clearly seen and conversely if the frail nature of evil is made manifest the strength of good is thereby known
however to win ampler credence for my conclusion i will pursue both paths and draw confirmation for my statements first in one way and then in the other the carrying out of any human action depends upon two things
whereas if there be no power the will is all in vain and so if thou seest any man wishing to attain some end yet utterly failing to attain it thou canst not doubt that he lacked the power of getting what he wished for
why certainly not there is no denying it canst thou then doubt that he whom thou seest to have accomplished what he willed
of course not then in respect of what he can accomplish a man is to be reckoned strong in respect of what he cannot accomplish weak granted said i then dost thou remember that by our former reasonings
it was concluded that the whole aim of man's will though the means of pursuit vary is set intently upon happiness i do remember that this too was proved dost thou also call to mind how happiness is absolute good
with one indistinguishable purpose strive to reach good yes that follows but it is certain that by the attainment of good men become good it is then do the good attain their object
it seems so but if the bad were to attain the good which is their object they could not be bad no
the other attain it not is there any doubt that the good are endued with power while they who are bad are weak if any doubt it he is incapable of reflecting on the nature of things or the consequences involved in reasoning
instead of which in a way other than is agreeable to its nature it i will not say fulfils its function but feigns to fulfil it which of these two would in thy view be the stronger i guess thy meaning but i pray thee
whereas the bad try to attain this same good through all manner of concupiscence which is not the natural way of attaining good or dost thou think otherwise nay rather one further consequence is clear to me
for from my admissions it must needs follow that the good have power and the bad are impotent thou anticipatest rightly and that as physicians reckon is a sign that nature is set working
but since i see thee so ready at understanding i will heap proof on proof look how manifest is the extremity of vicious men's weakness they cannot even reach that goal to which the aim of nature leads and almost constrains them
but which they cannot win or hold nay their failure concerns the very sum and crown of things poor wretches they fail to compass even that for which they toil day and night
who so attains the end of his desires that nothing further to be desired lies beyond whence follows the obvious conclusion that they who are wicked are seen likewise to be wholly destitute of strength for why do they forsake virtue and follow vice
is it from ignorance of what is good well what is more weak and feeble than the blindness of ignorance do they know what they ought to follow but lust drives them aside out of the way if it be so they are still frail by reason of their incontinence
for they cannot fight against vice or do they knowingly and wilfully forsake the good and turn aside to vice why at this rate they not only cease to have power but cease to be at all for they who forsake the common end of all things that are
that we should assert that the bad who form the greater part of mankind do not exist but the fact is so i do not indeed deny that they who are bad are bad but that they are in an unqualified and absolute sense i deny
the bad have an ability nor do i wish to deny it only this ability of theirs comes not from strength but from impotence for their ability is to do evil
that nothing has more power than supreme good we did said i but that same highest good cannot do evil certainly not is there anyone then who thinks that men are able to do all things none but a madman
the ability to commit crime cannot be referred to the good therefore it is not a thing to be desired and yet all power is desirable it is clear then that ability to do evil is not power
the wise alone are able to do what they would while the wicked follow their own hearts lust but can not accomplish what they would for they go on in their wilfulness
sorrow his spirit vexes sore and empty hopes delude
yet in some wise notwithstanding ye discern the true end of happiness and so the aim of nature leads you thither to that true good while error in many forms leads you astray therefrom
for reflect whether men are able to win happiness by those means through which they think to reach the proposed end truly if either wealth rank or any of the rest
bring with them anything of such sort as seems to have nothing wanting to it that is good we too acknowledge that some are made happy by the acquisition of these things but if they are not able to fulfil their promises and moreover
lack many good things is not the happiness men seek in them clearly discovered to be a false show therefore do i first ask thee thyself who but lately wert living in affluence amid all that abundance of wealth
was thy mind never troubled in consequence of some wrong done to thee nay said i
the absence of the other admitted but a man lacks that of which he is in want he does
cannot make its possessor independent and free from all want yet this was what it seemed to promise moreover i think this also well deserves to be considered that there is nothing in the special nature of money
to hinder its being taken away from those who possess it against their will i admit it why of course when every day the stronger wrests it from the weaker without his consent else whence come lawsuits
who can venture to deny it yet he would not unless he possessed the money which it is possible to lose no he certainly would not
then we have worked round to an opposite conclusion the wealth which was thought to make a man independent rather puts him in need of further protection how in the world then
can want be driven away by riches cannot the rich feel hunger cannot they thirst are not the limbs of the wealthy sensitive to the winter's cold but thou wilt say
the rich have the wherewithal to sate their hunger the means to get rid of thirst and cold true enough want can thus be soothed by riches wholly removed it cannot be
for if this ever gaping ever craving want is glutted by wealth it needs must be that the want itself which can be so glutted still remains i do not speak of how very little suffices for nature
and how for avarice nothing is enough wherefore if wealth cannot get rid of want and makes new wants of its own
see his piles of gold rise high though he gather store of treasure that can never satisfy though with pearls his gorget blazes rarest that the ocean yields though a hundred head of oxen travail in his ample fields
the name of the other is safie and my own zobeide after our father's death the property that he left was equally divided among us and
as soon as these two sisters received their portions they left me to live with their mother my other two sisters and myself stayed with our mother who was then alive and who when she afterwards died
for i am the youngest married and left me alone some time after my eldest sister's husband sold all that he had and with that money and my sister's portion they went both into africa where her husband
by riotous living and debauchery spent all and finding himself reduced to poverty found a pretext for divorcing my sister
i received her with every possible tenderness and inquiring into the cause of her distress she told me with tears how inhumanly her husband had behaved towards her her misfortunes affected me and i mingled my tears with hers
i took her to a bath clothed her with my own apparel and thus addressed her sister you are the elder and i esteem you as my mother during your absence god has blest the portion that fell to my share
and the employment i follow of breeding silk worms assure yourself there is nothing i have but is at your service and as much at your disposal as my own we lived very comfortably together for some months
as we were one day conversing about our third sister and wondering we received no intelligence of her
her husband had treated her after the same manner and i received her likewise with the same affection as i had done the former some time after my two sisters
told me they intended to marry again i observed that if putting me to expense was the only reason they might lay those thoughts aside and be welcome to remain for what i had would be sufficient to maintain us all three
in a manner answerable to our condition but i added i rather believe you wish to marry again i shall feel much surprised if such be the case after the experience you have had of the little satisfaction there is in wedlock
is it possible you dare venture a second time you know how rare it is to meet with a husband perfectly virtuous and deserving believe what i say and let us live together as comfortably as we can
but abundantly more wise than we if you will vouchsafe to receive us once more into your house and account us your slaves we shall never commit a similar fault again my answer was dear sisters
i have not altered my mind with respect to you since we last parted come again and take part of what i have upon this i embraced them and we lived together as before
we continued thus a whole year in perfect love and harmony seeing that god had increased my small stock i projected a voyage to embark some of it in a commercial speculation to this end
where i bought a ship ready fitted for sea
we set sail with a fair wind and soon cleared the persian gulf when we had reached the open sea we steered our course to the indies and the twentieth day saw land it was a very high mountain
at the bottom of which we perceived a great town having a fresh gale we soon reached the harbour and cast anchor i had not patience to wait till my sisters were dressed to go along with me but went ashore alone in the boat
and they had all such dreadful countenances that i was greatly alarmed but perceiving they remained stationary and did not so much as move their eyes i took courage and went nearer when i found they were all turned into stones
i entered the town and passed through several streets where at different intervals stood men in various attitudes but all motionless and petrified in the quarter inhabited by the merchants
i found most of the shops shut and in such as were open i likewise found the people petrified having reached a vast square in the heart of the city i perceived a large folding gate covered with plates of gold
which stood open a curtain of silk stuff seemed to be drawn before it a lamp hung over the entrance after i had surveyed the building i made no doubt but it was the palace of the prince who reigned over that country
i approached in hopes to find some
no one but the guards in the vestibule all petrified some standing some sitting and some lying i came to a large court where i saw before me a stately building the windows of which were inclosed with gates of messy gold
i concluded it to be the queen's apartments i entered and in a large hall i found several black eunuchs turned into stone i went from thence into a room richly furnished
i stood some time admiring the riches and magnificence of the room but above all
and at last came into a large room where there was a throne of massive gold
and upon the throne there was a bed of rich stuff embroidered with pearls what surprised me most was a sparkling light which came from above the bed being curious to know whence it proceeded i ascended the steps
and lifting up my head saw a diamond as large as the egg of an ostrich lying upon a low stool it was so pure that i could not find the least blemish in it and it sparkled with so much brilliancy
however it made me imagine that there was some living creature in this place for i could not believe that the torches continued thus burning of themselves several other rarities detained my curiosity in this room
which was inestimable in value were it only for the diamond i mentioned the doors being all open or but half shut i surveyed some other apartments that were as beautiful as those i had already seen
and thought of nothing but gratifying my curiosity in the mean time night came on which reminded me that it was time to retire i proposed to return the way i had entered but i could not find it
i lost myself among the apartments and perceiving i was come back again to the large room where the throne the couch the large diamond and the torches stood i resolved to take my night's lodging there and to depart the next morning early
to get aboard my ship i laid myself down upon a couch not without some dread to be alone in a desolate place and this fear hindered my sleep about midnight
after the same manner and in the same tone as it is read in our mosques being extremely glad to hear it i immediately arose and taking a torch in my hand passed from one chamber to another
on that side from whence the sound proceeded i came to the closet door and stood still not doubting that it came from thence i set down my torch upon the ground
and two candlesticks with large tapers of white wax burning i saw a little carpet laid down like those we have to kneel upon when we say our prayers and a comely young man sat on this carpet
reading with great devotion the koraun which lay before him on a desk at this sight i was transported with admiration i wondered how it came to pass that he should be the only living creature
the door being only half shut i opened it went in and standing upright before the niche i repeated this prayer aloud praise be to god who has favoured us with a happy voyage
and may he be graciously pleased to protect us in the same manner
hear me o lord and grant my request the young man turned his eyes towards me and said my good lady pray let me know who you are and what has brought you to this desolate city
and why i alone am safe in the midst of such a terrible disaster i told him in a few words whence i had come what had made me undertake the voyage and how i safely arrived at the port after twenty days sailing
when i had done i prayed him to perform his promise and told him how much i was struck by the frightful desolation which i had seen in the city lady said the young man have patience for a moment
at these words he shut the koraun put it into a rich case and laid it in the niche
and perceiving in him so much good nature and beauty i felt emotions i had never known before he made me sit down by him and before he began his discourse i could not forbear saying with an air that discovered the sentiments i felt
you must know that this city was the metropolis of a mighty kingdom over which the sultan my father reigned that prince his whole court the inhabitants of the city and all his other subjects
were magi worshippers of fire and of nardoun the ancient king of the giants who rebelled against god but though i was born of an idolatrous father and mother i had the good fortune in my youth to have a governess
as soon as i was capable of understanding it she explained to me all the passages of this excellent book and infused piety into my mind unknown to my father or any other person she happened to die
but not before she had perfectly instructed me in all that was necessary to convince me of the truth of the moosulmaun religion after her death i persisted with constancy in the belief of its divinity
the words were these inhabitants abandon the worship of nardoun and of fire and worship the only god who shews mercy this voice was heard three years successively but no one was converted
for he was metamorphosed into a black stone as he is to be seen in this palace and the queen my mother had the like destiny i am the only person who did not suffer under that heavy judgment
and ever since i have continued to serve god with more fervency than before i am persuaded dear lady that he has sent you hither for my comfort for which i render him infinite thanks for i must own
that this solitary life is extremely irksome all these expressions and particularly the last greatly increased my love for him prince said i there is no doubt but providence has brought me into your port to afford you an opportunity
the ship i came in may serve in some measure to convince you
and i dare engage to promise you sanctuary there until the mighty commander of the faithful
my vessel is at your service
he accepted the offer and we conversed the remainder of the night concerning our embarkation as soon as it was day we left the palace
after i had presented my sisters to the prince i told them what had hindered my return the day before how i had met with the young prince his story and the cause of the desolation of so fine a city
the seamen were taken up several days in unlading the merchandize i brought with me and embarking
such as jewels gold and money we left the furniture and goods which consisted of an infinite quantity of plate
for it would have required several vessels more to convey to bagdad
after we had laden the vessel with what we thought most desirable we took such provisions and water aboard as were necessary for our voyage
at last we set sail with a wind as favourable as we could wish the young prince my sisters and myself enjoyed ourselves for some time very agreeably but alas this good understanding did not last long
for my sisters grew jealous of the friendship between the prince and myself and maliciously asked me one day what we should do with him when we came to bagdad i perceived immediately
that they put this question on purpose to discover my inclinations therefore resolving to put it off with a jest i answered i will take him for my husband and upon that turning myself to the prince said
sir i humbly beg of you to give your consent for as soon as we come to bagdad i desire to offer you my person to be your slave
and to resign myself wholly to your commands the prince replied i know not madam whether you be in jest or no but for my part i seriously declare before these ladies your sisters
and proved to be a flat on the coast which when day appeared i found to be a desert island
i soon dried my clothes in the sun and as i walked along i found several kinds of fruit and likewise fresh water which gave me some hopes of preserving my life i had just laid myself down to rest in a shade
and hanging out its tongue which induced me to conclude it had received some injury i instantly arose and perceived that it was pursued by a larger serpent which had hold of its tail and was endeavouring to devour it
which i hit upon the head and killed the other finding itself at liberty took wing and flew away i looked after it for some time till it disappeared i then sought another shady spot for repose and fell asleep
judge what was my surprise when i awoke to see standing by me a black woman of lively and agreeable features who held in her hand two bitches of the same colour fastened together i sat up
and asked her who she was i am said she the serpent whom you lately delivered from my mortal enemy
the important services you have rendered me than by what i have just done the treachery of your sisters was well known to me and to avenge your wrongs as soon as i was liberated by your generous assistance
whom i have transformed into this shape but this punishment will not suffice and my will is that you treat them hereafter
she delivered to me the two bitches and said if you would not be changed into a similar form i command you in the name of him that governs the sea to give each of your sisters every night one hundred lashes with a rod
and the young prince whom they have drowned i was forced to promise obedience since that time i have whipped them every night though with regret whereof your majesty has been a witness
my tears testify with how much sorrow and reluctance
and in this your majesty may see i am more to be pitied than blamed if there be any thing else relating to myself
will give you full information in the relation of her story after the caliph had heard zobeide with much astonishment
chapter ten under water when night fell all the interior of the great dome streets and houses became lighted with brilliant incandescent lamps which rendered it bright as day
dorothy thought the island must look beautiful by night from the outer shore of the lake there was revelry and feasting in the queen's palace and the music of the royal band could be plainly heard in lady aurex's house where ozma and dorothy remained with their hostess and keeper
they were prisoners but treated with much consideration lady aurex gave them a nice supper and when they wished to retire showed them to a pretty room with comfortable beds and wished them a good night and pleasant dreams what do you think of all this ozma
dorothy anxiously inquired when they were alone i am glad we came was the reply for although there may be mischief done to morrow it was necessary i should know about these people whose leaders are wild and lawless
and oppress their subjects with injustice and cruelties my task therefore is to liberate the skeezers and the flatheads and secure for them freedom and happiness i have no doubt i can accomplish this in time just now though we're in a bad fix
asserted dorothy if queen coo ee oh conquers to morrow she won't be nice to us and if the su dic conquers he'll be worse do not worry dear said ozma i do not think we are in danger whatever happens
dorothy was not worrying especially she had confidence in her friend the fairy princess of oz and she enjoyed the excitement of the events in which she was taking part
so she crept into bed and fell asleep as easily as if she had been in her own cosy room in ozma's palace a sort of grating grinding sound awakened her the whole island seemed to tremble and sway as it might do in an earthquake
dorothy sat up in bed rubbing her eyes to get the sleep out of them and then found it was daybreak ozma was hurriedly dressing herself
asked dorothy jumping out of bed i'm not sure answered ozma but it feels as if the island is sinking as soon as possible they finished dressing while the creaking and swaying continued then they rushed into the living room of the house
and found lady aurex fully dressed awaiting them do not be alarmed said their hostess coo ee oh has decided to submerge the island that is all but it proves the flatheads are coming to attack us
sub merging the island asked dorothy come here and see was the reply lady aurex led them to a window which faced the side of the great dome which covered all the village and they could see that the island was indeed sinking
for the water of the lake was already half way up the side of the dome through the glass could be seen swimming fishes and tall stalks of swaying seaweeds for the water was clear as crystal and through it they could distinguish even the farther shore of the lake
the flatheads are not here yet said lady aurex they will come soon but not until all of this dome is under the surface of the water won't the dome leak dorothy inquired anxiously no indeed
sunk before oh yes on several occasions but coo ee oh doesn't care to do that often for it requires a lot of hard work to operate the machinery the dome was built so that the island could disappear
i think she continued that our queen fears the flatheads will attack the island and try to break the glass of the dome well if we're under water they can't fight us and we can't fight them asserted dorothy
they could kill the fishes however said ozma gravely we have ways to fight also
claimed lady aurex i cannot tell you all our secrets but this island is full of surprises also our queen's magic is astonishing did she steal it all from the three adepts in sorcery that are now fishes
she stole the knowledge and the magic tools but she has used them as the three adepts never would have done by this time the top of the dome was quite under water and suddenly the island stopped sinking and became stationary
see cried lady aurex pointing to the shore the flatheads have come on the bank which was now far above their heads a crowd of dark figures could be seen now let us see what coo ee oh will do to oppose them
continued lady aurex in a voice that betrayed her excitement the flatheads pushing their way through the line of palm trees had reached the shore of the lake just as the top of the island's dome disappeared beneath the surface
the water now flowed from shore to shore but through the clear water the dome was still visible and the houses of the skeezers could be dimly seen through the panes of glass good exclaimed the su dic
who had armed all his followers and had brought with him two copper vessels which he carefully set down upon the ground beside him if coo ee oh wants to hide instead of fighting our job will be easy for in one of these copper vessels i have enough poison to kill every fish in the lake
kill them then while we have time and then we can go home again advised one of the chief officers not yet objected the su dic the queen of the skeezers has defied me and i want to get her into my power as well as to destroy her magic
she transformed my poor wife into a golden pig and i must have revenge for that whatever else we do look out suddenly exclaimed the officers pointing into the lake something's going to happen
from the submerged dome a door opened and something black shot swiftly out into the water the door instantly closed behind it and the dark object cleaved its way through the water without rising to the surface directly toward the place where the flatheads were standing
that is one of the queen's submarines was the reply it is all enclosed and can move under water coo ee oh has several of these boats which are kept in little rooms in the basement under our village when the island is submerged
the queen uses these boats to reach the shore and i believe she now intends to fight the flatheads with them the su dic and his people knew nothing of coo ee oh's submarines so they watched with surprise as the under water boat approached them
when it was quite near the shore it rose to the surface and the top parted and fell back disclosing a boat full of armed skeezers at the head was the queen standing up in the bow and holding in one hand
a coil of magic rope that gleamed like silver the boat halted and coo ee oh drew back her arm to throw the silver rope toward the su dic who was now but a few feet from her
having been it is said overwhelmed by the ocean
a fairy fell in love with him and drew him away by enchantment while he was engaged in hunting his queen set out in quest of him but was taken ill on her journey and died leaving an infant son whom from the melancholy circumstances of his birth
she called tristram gouvernail the queen's squire who had accompanied her took charge of the child and restored him to his father who had at length burst the enchantments of the fairy and returned home
and the new queen being jealous of the influence of tristram with his father laid plots for his life which were discovered by gouvernail who in consequence fled with the boy to the court of the king of france where tristram was kindly received
and grew up improving in every gallant and knightly accomplishment adding to his skill in arms the arts of music and of chess in particular he devoted himself to the chase and to all woodland sports so that he became distinguished above all other chevaliers of the court
for his knowledge of all that relates to hunting no wonder that belinda the king's daughter fell in love with him but as he did not return her passion she in a sudden impulse of anger excited her father against him and he was banished the kingdom
the princess soon repented of her act and in despair destroyed herself having first written a most tender letter to tristram sending him at the same time a beautiful and sagacious dog of which she was very fond desiring him to keep it as a memorial of her
and as his queen tristram's stepmother held the throne
and took him to cornwall to his uncle mark who gave him a kind reception king mark resided at the castle of tintadel already mentioned in the history of uther and igerne in this court
tristram became distinguished in all the exercises incumbent on a knight nor was it long before he had an opportunity of practically employing his valor and skill moraunt a celebrated champion brother to the queen of ireland
arrived at the court to demand tribute of king mark the knights of cornwall are in ill repute in romance for their cowardice and they exhibited it on this occasion king mark could find no champion who dared to encounter the irish knight
till his nephew tristram who had not yet received the honors of knighthood craved to be admitted to the order offering at the same time to fight the battle of cornwall against the irish champion king mark assented with reluctance
tristram received the accolade which conferred knighthood upon him and the place and time were assigned for the encounter without attempting to give the details of this famous combat the first and one of the most glorious of tristram's exploits
we shall only say that the young knight though severely wounded cleft the head of moraunt leaving a portion of his sword in the wound moraunt half dead with his wound and the disgrace of his defeat hastened to hide himself in his ship
sailed away with all speed for ireland and died soon after arriving in his own country the kingdom of cornwall was thus delivered from its tribute tristram weakened by loss of blood fell senseless
his friends flew to his assistance they dressed his wounds which in general healed readily but the lance of moraunt was poisoned and one wound which it made yielded to no remedies but grew worse day by day the surgeons could do no more
tristram asked permission of his uncle to depart and seek for aid in the kingdom of loegria england with his consent he embarked and after tossing for many days on the sea was driven by the winds to the coast of ireland he landed
full of joy and gratitude that he had escaped the peril of the sea
and began to play it was a summer evening and the king of ireland and his daughter
were at a window which overlooked the sea the strange harper was sent for and conveyed to the palace where finding that he was in ireland whose champion he had lately slain he concealed his name and called himself tramtris
the queen undertook his cure and by a medicated bath gradually restored him to health his skill in music and in games occasioned his being frequently called to court
who profited so well under his care that she soon had no equal in the kingdom except her instructor at this time a tournament was held at which many knights of the round table and others were present
on the first day a saracen prince named palamedes obtained the advantage over all they brought him to the court and gave him a feast at which tristram just recovering from his wound was present
palamedes could not behold them without emotion and made no effort to conceal his love tristram perceived it and the pain he felt from jealousy taught him how dear the fair isoude had already become to him next day the tournament was renewed
tristram still feeble from his wound rose during the night took his arms and concealed them in a forest near the place of the contest and after it had begun mingled with the combatants he overthrew all that encountered him in particular palamedes
whom he brought to the ground with a stroke of his lance and then fought him hand to hand bearing off the prize of the tourney but his exertions caused his wound to reopen he bled fast and in this sad state yet in triumph they bore him to the palace
the fair isoude devoted herself to his relief with an interest which grew more vivid day by day and her skilful care soon restored him to health it happened one day that a damsel of the court entering the closet where tristram's arms were deposited
perceived that a part of the sword had been broken off it occurred to her that the missing portion was like that which was left in the skull of moraunt the irish champion she imparted her thought to the queen
who compared the fragment taken from her brother's wound with the sword of tristram and was satisfied that it was part of the same and that the weapon of tristram was that which reft her brother's life she laid her griefs and resentment before the king
who satisfied himself with his own eyes of the truth of her suspicions tristram was cited before the whole court and reproached with having dared to present himself before them after having slain their kinsman
he acknowledged that he had fought with moraunt to settle the claim for tribute and said that it was by force of winds and waves alone that he was thrown on their coast the queen demanded vengeance for the death of her brother
but a murmur rose from all the assembly that the life of one so handsome and so brave should not be taken for such a cause and generosity finally triumphed over resentment in the mind of the king
tristram was dismissed in safety but commanded to leave the kingdom without delay and never to return thither under pain of death tristram went back with restored health to cornwall
king mark made his nephew give him a minute recital of his adventures tristram told him all minutely but when he came to speak of the fair isoude he described her charms with a warmth and energy such as none but a lover could display
king mark was fascinated with the description and choosing a favorable time demanded a boon footnote good faith was the very corner stone of chivalry whenever a knight's word was pledged it mattered not how rashly
hence the sacred obligation of the boon granted by a knight to his suppliant instances without number occur in romance in which a knight by rashly granting an indefinite boon was obliged to do or suffer something extremely to his prejudice
but it is not in romance alone that we find such singular instances of adherence to an indefinite promise the history of the times presents authentic transactions equally embarrassing and absurd scott note to sir tristram
of his nephew who readily granted it the king made him swear upon the holy reliques that he would fulfil his commands then mark directed him to go to ireland
tristram believed it was certain death for him to return to ireland and how could he act as ambassador for his uncle in such a cause yet bound by his oath he hesitated not for an instant he only took the precaution to change his armor
he embarked for ireland but a tempest drove him to the coast of england near camelot where king arthur was holding his court attended by the knights of the round table and many others the most illustrious in the world tristram kept himself unknown
he took part in many justs he fought many combats in which he covered himself with glory one day he saw among those recently arrived the king of ireland father of the fair isoude
this prince accused of treason against his liege sovereign arthur came to camelot to free himself from the charge blaanor one of the most redoubtable warriors of the round table was his accuser and argius the king
had neither youthful vigor nor strength to encounter him he must therefore seek a champion to sustain his innocence but the knights of the round table were not at liberty to fight against one another unless in a quarrel of their own
argius heard of the great renown of the unknown knight he also was witness of his exploits he sought him and conjured him to adopt his defence and on his oath declared that he was innocent of the crime of which he was accused
tristram readily consented and made himself known to the king who on his part promised to reward his exertions if successful with whatever gift he might ask tristram fought with blaanor and overthrew him
and held his life in his power the fallen warrior called on him to use his right of conquest and strike the fatal blow god forbid said tristram that i should take the life of so brave a knight he raised him up and restored him to his friends
the judges of the field decided that the king of ireland was acquitted of the charge against him and they led tristram in triumph to his tent king argius full of gratitude conjured tristram to accompany him to his kingdom they departed together and arrived in ireland
and the queen forgetting her resentment for her brother's death exhibited to the preserver of her husband's life nothing but gratitude and good will how happy a moment for isoude who knew that her father had promised his deliverer
whatever boon he might ask but the unhappy tristram gazed on her with despair at the thought of the cruel oath which bound him his magnanimous soul subdued the force of his love
argius consented and soon all was prepared for the departure of isoude brengwain her favorite maid of honor was to accompany her on the day of departure the queen took aside this devoted attendant
and told her that she had observed that her daughter and tristram were attached to one another and that to avert the bad effects of this inclination she had procured from a powerful fairy a potent philter love draught
and to king mark on the evening of their marriage
a favorable wind filled the sails and promised them a fortunate voyage the lovers gazed upon one another and could not repress their sighs love seemed to light up all his fires on their lips as in their hearts
the day was warm they suffered from thirst isoude first complained tristram descried the bottle containing the love draught which brengwain had been so imprudent as to leave in sight he took it
gave some of it to the charming isoude and drank the remainder himself the dog houdain licked the cup
the old monarch was delighted with his bride and his gratitude to tristram was unbounded he loaded him with honors and made him chamberlain of his palace thus giving him access to the queen at all times
in the midst of the festivities of the court which followed the royal marriage an unknown minstrel one day presented himself bearing a harp of peculiar construction
he excited the curiosity of king mark by refusing to play upon it till he should grant him a boon the king having promised to grant his request the minstrel who was none other than the saracen knight sir palamedes the lover of the fair isoude
king mark could not by the laws of knighthood withhold the boon the lady was mounted on her horse and led away by her triumphant lover tristram it is needless to say was absent at the time and did not return until their departure
when he heard what had taken place he seized his rote and hastened to the shore where isoude and her new master had already embarked tristram played upon his rote and the sound reached the ears of isoude who became so deeply affected
that sir palamedes was induced to return with her to land that they might see the unknown musician tristram watched his opportunity seized the lady's horse by the bridle and plunged with her into the forest tauntingly informing his rival that
what he had got by the harp he had lost by the rote palamedes pursued and a combat was about to commence
and addressing palamedes said you tell me that you love me you will not then deny me the request i am about to make lady he replied i will perform your bidding leave then said she this contest
and repair to king arthur's court
tell her that there are in the world but two ladies herself and i and two lovers hers and mine and come thou not in future in any place where i am palamedes burst into tears ah lady said he
i will obey you but i beseech you that you will not for ever steel your heart against me palamedes she replied may i never taste of joy again if i ever quit my first love palamedes then went his way the lovers remained a week in concealment
advising him in future to reward minstrels in some other way the king showed much gratitude to tristram but in the bottom of his heart he cherished bitter jealousy of him
one day tristram and isoude were alone together in her private chamber a base and cowardly knight of the court named andret spied them through a keyhole they sat at a table of chess but were not attending to the game
andret brought the king having first raised his suspicions and placed him so as to watch their motions the king saw enough to confirm his suspicions and he burst into the apartment with his sword drawn
and had nearly slain tristram before he was put on his guard but tristram avoided the blow drew his sword and drove before him the cowardly monarch chasing him through all the apartments of the palace giving him frequent blows with the flat of his sword
while he cried in vain to his knights to save him they were not inclined or did not dare to interpose in his behalf a proof of the great popularity of the tale of sir tristram is the fact that the italian poets
boiardo and ariosto have founded upon it the idea of the two enchanted fountains which produced the opposite effects of love and hatred boiardo thus describes the fountain of hatred
fair was that fountain sculptured all of gold with alabaster sculptured rich and rare and in its basin clear thou might'st behold the flowery marge reflected fresh and fair
sage merlin framed the font so legends bear when on fair isoude doated tristram brave that the good errant knight arriving there
and leave his luckless love and scape his timeless grave but ne'er the warrior's evil fate allowed his steps that fountain's charmed verge to gain
though restless roving on adventure proud
in their pockets and in their boots and when they wanted a morsel to eat the voracious horde had swept away everything from cellar to garret the night was even worse as soon as the lights were out these untiring nibblers set to work
and everywhere in the ceilings in the floors in the cupboards at the doors there was a chase and a rummage and so furious a noise of gimlets pincers and saws that a deaf man could not have rested for one hour together
neither cats nor dogs nor poison nor traps nor prayers nor candles burnt to all the saints nothing would do anything the more they killed the more came and the inhabitants of hamel began to go to the dogs
set off by a scarlet cock's feather he was dressed in a green jacket with a leather belt and red breeches and on his feet were sandals fastened by thongs passed round his legs in the gipsy fashion
that is how he may be seen to this day painted on a window of the cathedral of hamel he stopped on the great market place before the town hall turned his back on the church and went on with his music singing
the stranger sent word to the counsellors that if they would make it worth his while he would rid them of all their rats before night down to the very last then he is a sorcerer cried the citizens with one voice we must beware of him
the town counsellor who was considered clever reassured them he said sorcerer or no if this bagpiper speaks the truth it was he who sent us this horrible vermin
well we must learn to catch the devil in his own snares you leave it to me leave it to the town counsellor said the citizens one to another and the stranger was brought before them before night said he
i shall have despatched all the rats in hamel if you will but pay me a gros a head a gros a head cried the citizens but that will come to millions of florins the town counsellor simply shrugged his shoulders and said to the stranger
a bargain to work the rats will be paid one gros a head as you ask the bagpiper announced that he would operate that very evening when the moon rose he added that the inhabitants
and that it would be a pleasant spectacle when the people of hamel heard of the bargain they too exclaimed a gros a head but this will cost us a deal of money leave it to the town counsellor said the town council with a malicious air
and the good people of hamel repeated with their counsellors leave it to the town counsellor
and the moment the moon rose on the horizon
it was first a slow caressing sound then more and more lively and urgent
and retreats of the town soon from the bottom of the cellars the top of the garrets from under all the furniture from all the nooks and corners of the houses
search for the door fling themselves into the street and trip trip trip begin to run in file towards the front of the town hall so squeezed together that they covered the pavement like the waves of flooded torrent
when the square was quite full the bagpiper faced about and still playing briskly turned towards the river
the rats took the leap swam straight to the funnel plunged in head foremost and disappeared the plunging continued thus without ceasing till midnight at last dragging himself with difficulty came a big rat
it was the king of the band are they all there friend blanchet asked the bagpiper they are all there replied friend blanchet and how many were they nine hundred and ninety thousand nine hundred and ninety nine
well reckoned well reckoned
the next morning at nine o'clock the bagpiper repaired to the town hall where the town council awaited him all your rats took a jump into the river yesterday said he to the counsellors and i guarantee that not one of them comes back they were
nine hundred and ninety thousand nine hundred and ninety nine at one gros a head reckon let us reckon the heads first one gros a head is one head the gros where are the heads
the ratcatcher did not expect this treacherous stroke he paled with anger and his eyes flashed fire the heads cried he if you care about them go and find them in the river so replied the town counsellor
you refuse to hold to the terms of your agreement we ourselves could refuse you all payment
keep your recompense for yourself replied the ratcatcher proudly if you do not pay me i will be paid by your heirs thereupon he pulled his hat down over his eyes went hastily out of the hall and left the town without speaking to a soul
when the hamel people heard how the affair had ended they rubbed their hands and with no more scruple than their town counsellor they laughed over the ratcatcher who they said was caught in his own trap
next day which was a sunday they all went gaily to church thinking that after mass they would at last be able to eat some good thing that the rats had not tasted before them
they never suspected the terrible surprise that awaited them on their return home no children anywhere they had all disappeared our children where are our poor children was the cry that was soon heard in all the streets
attracted by the magic sounds and had rushed to the great market place there they found the ratcatcher playing his bagpipes at the same spot as the evening before then the stranger had begun to walk quickly and they had followed running singing and dancing to the sound of the music
as if by a miracle one was bandy legged and could not run fast enough the other who had left the house in haste one foot shod the other bare had hurt himself against a big stone and could not walk without difficulty the third had arrived in time
had struck so violently against the wall of the mountain that he fell backwards at the moment it closed upon his comrades at this story the parents redoubled their lamentations they ran with pikes and mattocks to the mountain and searched till evening
to find the opening by which their children had disappeared without being able to find it at last the night falling
who certainly must have come out of the mountain
that is why for several years they sent in search of them to different countries but no one ever came on the trace of the poor little ones it was not till much later that anything was to be heard of them
about one hundred and fifty years after the event when there was no longer one left of the
there arrived one evening in hamel some merchants of bremen returning from the east who asked to speak with the citizens they told that they in crossing hungary
transylvania where the inhabitants only spoke german while all around them nothing was spoken but hungarian these people also declared that they came from germany but they did not know how they chanced to be in this strange country
now said the merchants of bremen these germans cannot be other than the descendants of the lost children of hamel the people of hamel did not doubt it and since that day they regard it as certain that the transylvanians of hungary
the secret missus chatterton standing by her toilet table carefully examining her wealth of gray hair to note the changes in its tint
was suddenly surprised in the very act of picking out an obnoxious white hair by a slight noise in the further corner of the apartment and dropping her fingers quickly and turning away from the glass she exclaimed how dare you hortense come in without knocking
if you make a noise i'll kill you declared a man standing in the shadow of a portiere and watching her underneath a slouched black hat there was a slight click that caused the listener's nerves to thrill
said missus chatterton with evident reluctance handing the box designated
to escape hortense's prying eyes in making the movement she gave a sweeping glance out the window should she dare to scream michael was busy on the lawn she knew she could hear his voice talking to one of the under gardeners
see here old lady warned the man you keep your eyes in the room now then his greedy glance fastened on the glittering gems on her fingers i'll thank you to rip them things off dick racing along the further end of the hall after his bird with a
whoop la i've almost caught you startling him he proceeded to perform the service for himself there he goes cried dick in her room bother well i must catch him so without the preamble of knocking the boy dashed into the dressing room
the bird whizzing ahead of him flashed between the drawn folds of the portiere excuse me cried dick rushing in but my swallow oh go back cried missus chatterton hoarsely you'll be killed
the bird flying over his head and the appearance of the boy disconcerted the robber for one instant he held the long white hand in his tearing off the rings there was no chance for her to escape she knew but she could save dick
go back she screamed again there was only a moment to think but dick dashed in and with a mighty spirit but small fists he flung himself against the stalwart arms and shoulders o heavens screamed missus chatterton
he's but a boy let him go you shall have the rings help help dick clutching and tearing blindly at whatever in the line of hair or ragged garment he could lay hold of was waging an unequal warfare but what he did was accomplished finely
she could hear him strike the cheval glass with a dull thud i can shoot as well as you said missus chatterton handling the pistol deftly make a noise and i will
where are you dick cried polly's voice outside and rapping at the door missus chatterton have you seen him come in called missus chatterton with firmest of fingers on the trigger
oh dick cried polly in a breath with a fearful glance at the boy lying there i think he's all right polly she dared say no more for dick had not stirred polly clasped her hands and rushed out almost into jasper's face
a burglar a burglar and he dashed into missus chatterton's room don't interfere said missus chatterton i'm a splendid markswoman you needn't shoot said the man sullenly i won't stir
well here are the men jasper had seized a table spread and as michael and the undergardeners advanced he went back of the robber and cleverly threw it over his head it was easy to secure and bind him then
polly rushed over to dick turn the creature over and let us see how he looks said mister king hurrying in as the last knot of the rope was made fast the old slouched hat had fallen off in the struggle and the man's features came plainly to view
he's no beauty and that's a fact i've seen that fellow round here for many a day said michael giving the recumbent legs a small kick
i mind yees yer see with another attention from his gardening boot i want to tie one rope cried a voice dick opened his eyes rubbed them
of his head i'm all right polly i saw stars but i've got over it i guess let me give him the last knot he staggered blindly to his feet i'll tie for you said jasper trust me dick's all right only stunned he telegraphed to the rapidly increasing group
tell his mother so do somebody said old mister king well cousin eunice you've covered yourself with glory he turned on her warmly she had thrown aside the pistol and now sank into a chair never mind she waved it off carelessly
i'll imagine the compliments just now i want a glass of wine call hortense will you the man on the floor tried to raise his head but he couldn't so was obliged to content himself with an ugly grin that bird has flown he said i'll peep
with that missus chatterton's spirit returned
to see the extent of her maid's dishonesty but beyond a few minor deficiencies of her wardrobe there was no robbery to speak of evidently hortense had considered it unwise to be burdened with much impedimenta
so the robber was hauled off to justice and phronsie coming wonderingly up the stairs came softly in upon them in time to see dick rush up to missus chatterton with a you're a brick before them all
isn't he lovely cried phronsie tearing her gaze off from the wonderful wings as the swallow fluttered under the mosquito netting speedily brought in yes his wings are said polly oh dick do tell over again how it all happened
so dick rehearsed once more as far as he knew the story tossing off lightly his part of it your poor head does it ache cried polly
no not a bit declared dick shaking his brown poll
that heavy plate cried polly looking over at the cheval glass with a shiver phronsie deserted the fascinating bird and began to smooth dick's head with both hands do let me bathe it she begged i'll get the pond's extract
no i won't said dick it smells awfully and i've had so much of it for my leg i'm all right phronsie see his wings now he's stretching but phronsie was not to be diverted from her purpose
i'll get bay rum she said may i dick made a wry face worse and worse cologne then no i hate it he doesn't want it bathed phronsie dear said polly boys like to get hurt you know
tisn't manly to be fixed up phronsie gave a sigh which so went to dick's heart that he said all right bring on some water if you want to
putting both hands on her shoulders and looking into the brown eyes should you be willing to go abroad with your mother and phronsie mister king and jasper oh polly gasped but you
we couldn't leave you she cried loyally well i suppose i should go along too said the little doctor enjoying her face
cried polly slipping out from under the doctor's palms and seizing the two hands extended she began to spin around as in the olden days did you ever ever hear of anything so perfectly magnificent
doctor fisher made haste to answer polly missus whitney will take care of them and jasper led her off into the dance again how can we ever leave the boys oh i don't see cried polly a bit reproachfully
her hair blown over her rosy cheeks as they danced lightly down the long hall doctor fisher leaned against a pillar and watched them have to said jasper
that is if anybody asked me i will said polly laughing come papa fisher holding out her hand do give me the honor all right said doctor fisher bravely so jasper took the deserted post by the pillar
and whistled a strauss waltz thereupon a most extraordinary hopping up and down the hall was commenced the two figures bobbing like a pair of corks on a quivering water surface
the doors opened and several faces appeared amongst the number missus fisher's i couldn't help it said the little doctor coming up red and animated and wiping his forehead his spectacles had fallen off long since and he had let them go
it looked so nice to see jasper and polly i thought i'd try it i didn't suppose i'd get on so well i really believe i can dance humph laughed mister king it looks like it just see polly
oh papa fisher cried polly with a merry peal in which jasper unpuckering his lips from the strauss effort had joined we must have looked here she went off again yes said jasper you did
that's just it polly you did lucky you two caperers didn't break anything well if you've got through laughing observed doctor fisher i'll remark that the secret is out do you like it polly asked mister king holding out his hand
say my girl and then before she could answer he went on you see we can't do anything without a doctor on our travels now providence has given us one though rather an obstinate specimen he pointed to father fisher
and he wants to see the hospitals and you want to study a bit of music and your mother wants rest and jasper and phronsie and i want fun so we're going that's all when demanded polly breathlessly
drakestail drakestail was very little that is why he was called drakestail but tiny as he was he had brains and he knew what he was about for having begun with nothing he ended by amassing a hundred crowns
now the king of the country who was very extravagant and never kept any money having heard that drakestail had some went one day in his own person to borrow his hoard
and my word in those days drakestail was not a little proud of having lent money to the king but after the first and second year seeing that they never even dreamed of paying the interest he became uneasy so much so
and get repaid so one fine morning drakestail very spruce and fresh takes the road singing quack quack quack when shall i get my money back
he had not gone far when he met friend fox on his rounds that way good morning neighbour says the friend where are you off to so early i am going to the king for what he owes me oh take me with thee
drakestail said to himself one can't have too many friends i will says he
you will soon be tired make yourself quite small get into my throat go into my gizzard and i will carry you happy thought says friend fox he takes bag and baggage and presto
is gone like a letter into the post and drakestail is off again all spruce and fresh still singing quack quack quack when shall i have my money back he had not gone far when he met his lady friend ladder
leaning on her wall good morning my duckling says the lady friend whither away so bold i am going to the king for what he owes me oh take me with thee drakestail said to himself
one can't have too many friends i will says he but with your wooden legs you will soon be tired
happy thought says my friend ladder
and quack quack quack drakestail is off again singing and spruce as before a little farther he meets his sweetheart my friend river wandering quietly in the sunshine thou my cherub says she
whither so lonesome with arching tail on this muddy road i am going to the king you know for what he owes me oh take me with thee drakestail said to himself we can't be too many friends
i will says he but you who sleep while you walk will soon be tired make yourself quite small get into my throat go into my gizzard and i will carry you
happy thought says my friend river she takes bag and baggage and glou glou glou she takes her place between friend fox and my friend ladder and quack quack quack drakestail is off again singing
manoeuvring his wasps
where are we bound for so spruce and fresh i am going to the king for what he owes me oh take
i will says he but with your battalion to drag along you will soon be tired make yourself quite small go into my throat get into my gizzard and i will carry you
and left file he takes the same road to join the others with all his party there was not much more room but by closing up a bit they managed and drakestail is off again singing
he strikes with the knocker toc toc who is there asks the porter putting his head out of the wicket tis i drakestail i wish to speak to the king speak to the king
who was just sitting down to dinner with a napkin round his neck and all his ministers good good said the king laughing i know what it is make him come in and put him with the turkeys and chickens the porter descends
but turkeys and chickens are creatures who don't like people that are not as themselves when they saw the new comer and how he was made and when they heard him crying too they began to look black at him what is it what does he want
i am lost said drakestail to himself when by good luck he remembers his comrade friend fox and he cries
or drakestail's life is of little worth then friend fox who was only waiting for these words hastens out throws himself on the wicked fowls and quick quack he tears them to pieces so much so that at the end of five minutes
there was not one left alive and drakestail quite content began to sing again quack quack quack when shall i get my money back when the king
and the poultry woman came to tell him what had been going on in the yard he was terribly annoyed
into the well to make an end of him and it was done as he commanded drakestail was in despair of getting himself out of such a deep hole when he remembered his lady friend the ladder ladder ladder come out of thy hold or drakestail's days will soon be told
my friend ladder who was only waiting for these words hastens out leans her two arms on the edge of the well then drakestail climbs nimbly on her back and hop he is in the yard where he begins to sing louder than ever
heard him again reclaiming his money he became livid with rage he commanded that the furnace should be heated and this tail of a drake thrown into it because he must be a sorcerer the furnace was soon hot
but this time drakestail was not so afraid he counted on his sweetheart my friend river river river outward flow or to death drakestail must go my friend river hastens out
the palace to the height of more than four feet and drakestail quite content begins to swim singing deafeningly quack quack quack when shall i get my money back
but when he heard drakestail singing again
bring him here and i'll cut his throat bring him here quick cried he and quickly two footmen ran to fetch drakestail
they have decided to receive me imagine his terror when on entering he sees the king as red as a turkey cock and all his ministers attending him standing sword in hand he thought this time it was all up with him
happily he remembered that there was still one remaining friend and he cried with dying accents wasp's nest wasp's nest make a sally
hereupon the scene changes
with all his wasps they threw themselves on the infuriated king and his ministers and stung them so fiercely in the face that they lost their heads and not knowing where to hide themselves they all jumped pell mell from the window and broke their necks on the pavement
behold drakestail much astonished all alone in the big saloon and master of the field he could not get over it nevertheless he remembered shortly what he had come for to the palace and improving the occasion
he set to work to hunt for his dear money but in vain he rummaged in all the drawers he found nothing all had been spent
and feeling fatigued he sat himself down on it to think over his adventure in the meanwhile the people had found their king and his ministers with their feet in the air on the pavement and they had gone into the palace to know how it had occurred
drakestail who was no longer surprised at anything received the acclamations of the people as if he had never done anything else all his life
does the promise uttered by the master of mankind upon the eve of the end whoso that believeth in me the works that i do he shall do also and whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will i do still hold good to such as do ask and do believe
and of that strange man who carried on and completed his work answer this question according to their judgment the time was a sunday afternoon in summer and the place a church in the midland counties
it was a beautiful church ancient and spacious moreover it had recently been restored at great cost seven or eight hundred people could have found sittings in it and doubtless they had done so when busscombe was a large manufacturing town
before the failure of the coal supply and other causes drove away its trade now it was much what it had been in the time of the normans a little agricultural village with a population of three hundred souls out of this population including the choir boys
exactly thirty nine had elected to attend church on this particular sunday and of these three were fast asleep and four were dozing
for another clergyman was preaching and as he counted bitterness and disappointment took hold of him the preacher was a deputation
sent by one of the large missionary societies to arouse the indifferent to a sense of duty towards their unconverted black brethren in africa and incidentally to collect cash to be spent in the conversion of the said brethren
and had laboured hard to secure him a good audience but the beauty of the weather or terror of the inevitable subscription prevailed against him hence his disappointment well he thought with a sigh i have done my best and i must make it up out of my own pocket
then he settled himself to listen to the sermon the preacher a battered looking individual of between fifty and sixty years of age was gaunt with recent sickness patient and unimaginative in aspect
he preached extemporarily with the aid of notes and it cannot be said that his discourse was remarkable for interest at any rate in its beginning doubtless the sparse congregation so prone to slumber discouraged him
for offering exhortations to empty benches is but weary work indeed he was meditating the advisability of bringing his argument to an abrupt conclusion when chancing to glance round he became aware that he had at least one sympathetic listener
from that moment the sermon improved by degrees till at length it reached a really high level of excellence ceasing from rhetoric the speaker began to tell of his own experience and sufferings in the cause amongst savage tribes
for he himself was a missionary of many years standing he told how once he and a companion had been sent to a nation who named themselves the sons of fire because their god was the lightning
if indeed they could be said to boast any gods other than the spear and the king in simple language he narrated his terrible adventures among these savages
and his own flight for his life
but this is by the way he went on for my society does not ask you to subscribe towards the conversion of the children of fire until that people is conquered which very likely will not be for generations seeing that they live in central africa
occupying a territory that white men do not desire no missionary will dare again to visit them at this moment something caused him to look a second time at thomas owen he was leaning forward in his place listening eagerly
and a strange light filled the large dark eyes that shone in the pallor of his delicate nervous face there is a man who would dare if he were put to it thought the deputation to himself then he ended his sermon
that evening the two men sat at dinner in the rectory it was a very fine rectory beautifully furnished for owen was a man of taste which he had the means to gratify also although they were alone the dinner was good
so good that the poor broken down missionary sipping his unaccustomed port a vintage wine sighed aloud in admiration and involuntary envy what is the matter asked owen nothing mister owen
that is everything heaven forgive me but i who enjoy your hospitality am envious of you don't think too hardly of me i have a large family to support
and if only you knew what a struggle my life is and has been for the last twenty years you would not i am sure but you have never experienced it and could not understand the labourer is worthy of his hire
well my hire is under two hundred a year and eight of us must live or starve on it and i have worked ay until my health is broken a labourer indeed
till i die of it at least it is a noble life and death exclaimed owen a sudden fire of enthusiasm burning in his dark eyes yes viewed from a distance were you asked to leave this living of two thousand a year
i see that is what they put it at in crockford with its english comforts and easy work that you might lead that life and attain that death then you would think differently but why should i bore you with such talk
thank heaven that your lines are cast in pleasant places yes please i will take one more glass it does me good tell me some more about that tribe you were speaking of in your sermon
the sons of fire i think you called them said owen as he passed him the decanter so with an eloquence induced by the generous wine and a quickened imagination the deputation told him told him many strange things and terrible
for this people was an awful people vigorous in mind and body and warriors from generation to generation but superstition ridden and cruel they lived in the far interior some months journey by boat and ox waggon from the coast
and of white men and their ways they knew but little how many of them are there asked owen who can say he answered nearly half a million perhaps at least they pretend that they can put sixty thousand men under arms
and did they treat you badly when you first visited them not at first they received us civilly enough and on a given day we were requested to explain to the king and the council of wizards the religion which we came to teach
all that day we explained and all the next or rather my friend did for i knew very little of the language and they listened with great interest at last the chief of the wizards and the first prophet to the king rose to question us
he was named hokosa a tall thin man with a spiritual face and terrible calm eyes you speak well son of a white man he said but let us pass from words to deeds
you tell us that this god of yours whom you desire that we should take as our god so that you may become his chief prophets in the land was a wizard such as we are though grater than we are for not only did he know the past and the future as we do
but also he could cure those who were smitten with hopeless sickness and raise those who were dead which we cannot do you tell us moreover that by faith those who believe on him can do works as great as he did and that you do believe on him
therefore we will put you to the proof ho there lead forth that evil one as he spoke a man was placed before us one who had been convicted of witchcraft or some other crime kill him said hokosa
and the man lay still before us now followers of the new god said hokosa raise him from the dead as your master did in vain did we offer explanations peace said hokosa at length
your words weary us look now either you have preached to us a false god and are liars or you are traitors to the king you preach since lacking faith in him you cannot do such works as he gives power to do to those who have faith in him
out of your own mouths are you judged white men choose which horn of the bull you will you hang to one of them and it shall pierce you this is the sentence of the king
i speak it who am the king's mouth that you white man who have spoken to us and cheated us these two weary days be put to death and that you his companion who have been silent be driven from the land
they gave my poor friend ten minutes to talk to his spirit then they speared him before my face after it was over hokosa spoke to me saying go back white man to those who sent you and tell them the words of the sons of fire
that they have listened to the message of peace and though they are a people of warriors yet they thank them for that message for in itself it sounds good and beautiful in their ears if it be true tell them that having proved you liars
they dealt with you as all honest men seek that liars should be dealt with tell them that they desire to hear more of this matter and if one can be sent to them who has no false tongue who in all things fulfills the promises of his lips
that they will hearken to him and treat him well but that for such as you they keep a spear and who went after you got back asked owen who was listening with the deepest interest
nobody went and yet said owen speaking more to himself than to his guest the man hokosa was right and the christian who of a truth believes the promises of our religion should trust to them and go
then perhaps you would like to undertake the mission mister owen said the deputation briskly for the reflection stung him unintentional as it was owen started
the drinking of the cup now the king's word was done the anger went out of his eyes and once more his countenance grew weary a command was issued and with the most perfect order moving like one man the regiments changed their array
forming up battalion upon battalion in face of the king that they might give him the royal salute so soon as he had drunk the cup of the first fruits a herald stood forward and cried hearken you sons of fire hearken you children of umsuka
shaker of the earth have any of you a boon to ask of the king men stood forward and having saluted one by one asked this thing or that the king heard their requests and as he nodded or turned his head away
so they were granted or refused when all had done the prince hafela came forward lifted his spear and cried a boon king what is it asked his father eyeing him curiously a small matter king
he replied a while ago i named a certain woman noma the ward of hokosa the wizard and she was sealed to me to fill the place of my first wife the queen that is to be she passed into the house of the royal women
and by your command king it was fixed that i should marry her according to our customs to morrow after the feast of the first fruits is ended king my heart is changed towards that woman i no longer desire to take her to wife
and i pray that you will order that she shall now be handed back to hokosa her guardian you blow hot and cold with the same mouth hafela said umsuka and in love or war i do not like such men
what have you to say to this demand hokosa now hokosa stepped forward from where he stood at the head of the company of wizards his dress like that of his companions was simple but in its way striking on his shoulders he wore a cloak of shining snakeskin
about his loins was a short kilt of the same material and round his forehead arms and knees were fillets of snakeskin at his side hung his pouch of medicines and in his hand he held no spear but a wand of ivory
whereof the top was roughly carved so as to resemble the head of a cobra reared up to strike king he said i have heard the words of the prince and i do not think that this insult should have been put upon the lady noma my ward
or upon me her guardian still let it be for i would not that one should pass from under the shadow of my house whither she is not welcome without my leave the prince named this woman as his queen as he had the right to do
and without my leave he unnames her as he has the right to do were the prince a common man according to custom he should pay a fine of cattle to be held by me in trust for her whom he discards
but this is a matter that i leave to you king you do well hokosa answered umsuka to leave this to me prince you would not wish the fine that you should pay to be that of any common man
with the girl shall be handed over two hundred head of cattle more i will do justice unless she herself consents she shall not be put away let the lady noma be summoned
now the face of hafela grew sullen and watching owen saw a swift change pass over that of hokosa evidently he was not certain of the woman
presently there was a stir and from the gates of the royal house the lady noma appeared attended by women and stood before the king she was a tall and lovely girl and the sunlight flashed upon her bronze hued breast and her ornaments of ivory
her black hair was fastened in a knot upon her neck her features were fine and small her gait was delicate and sure as that of an antelope and her eyes were beautiful and full of pride there she stood before the king looking round her like a stag
seeing her thus owen understood how it came about that she held two men so strangely different in the hollow of her hand for her charm was of a nature to appeal to both of them a charm of the spirit as well as of the flesh and yet the face was haughty
a face that upon occasion might even become cruel you sent for me and i am here o king she said in a slow and quiet voice listen girl answered the king a while ago the prince hafela my son
named you as her who should be his queen whereon you were taken and placed in the house of the royal women to abide the day of your marriage which should be to morrow
it is true that the prince has honoured me thus and that you have been pleased to approve of his choice she said lifting her eyebrows what of it o king this girl the prince who was pleased to honour you is now pleased to dishonour you
here in the presence of the council and army he prays of me to annul his sealing to you and to send you back to the house of your guardian hokosa the wizard noma started and her face grew hard
is it so she said then it would seem that i have lost favour in the eyes of my lord the prince or that some fairer woman has found it of these matters i know nothing replied the king but this i know
that if you seek justice you shall have it say but the word and he to whom you were promised in marriage shall take you in marriage whether he wills or wills it not at this speech the face of hafela was suddenly lit up as with the fire of hope
while over that of hokosa there passed another subtle change the girl glanced at them both and was silent for a while her breast heaved and her white teeth bit upon her lip to owen who noted all
it was clear that rival passions were struggling in her heart the passion of power and the passion of love or of some emotion which he did not understand hokosa fixed his calm eyes upon her with a strange intensity of gaze
much as a snake quivers that is about to strike its prey to the careless eye there was nothing remarkable about his look and attitude to the observer it was evident that both were full of extraordinary purpose
he was talking to the girl not with words but in some secret language that he and she understood alone she started as one starts who catches the tone of a well remembered voice in a crowd of strangers and lifting her eyes from the ground whither she had turned them in meditation
she looked up at hokosa instantly her face began to change the haughtiness and anger went out of it it grew troubled the lips parted in a sigh first she bent her head and body towards him
then without more ado she walked to where he stood and took him by the hand here at some whispered word or sign she seemed to recover herself and again resuming the character of a proud offended beauty she curtseyed to umsuka and spoke
o king as you see i have made my choice i will not force myself upon a man who scorns me no not even to share his place and power though it is true that i love them both
nay i will return to hokosa my guardian and to his wife zinti who has been as my mother and with them be at peace it is well said the king and perhaps girl your choice is wise
perhaps your loss is not so great as you have thought hafela take you the hand of hokosa and release the girl back to him according to the law promising in the ears of men before the first month of winter
to pay him two hundred head of cattle as forfeit to be held by him in trust for the girl in a sullen voice his lips trembling with rage hafela did as the king commanded and when the hands of the conspirators unclasped
owen perceived that in that of the prince lay a tiny packet mix me the cup of the first fruits and swiftly said the king again for the sun grows low in the heavens and ere it sinks i have words to say
now a polished gourd filled with native beer was handed to nodwengo the second son of the king and one by one the great councillors approached and with appropriate words let fall into it offerings emblematic of fertility and increase
the first cast in a grain of corn the second a blade of grass the third a shaving from an ox's horn the fourth a drop of water the fifth a woman's hair the sixth a particle of earth and so on
until every ingredient was added to it that was necessary to the magic brew then hokosa as chief of the medicine men blessed the cup according to the ancient forms praying that he whose body was the heavens whose eyes were lightning
and whose voice was thunder the spirit whom they worshipped might increase and multiply to them during the coming year all those fruits and elements that were present in the cup and that every virtue which they contained might comfort the body of the king
his prayer finished it was the turn of hafela to play his part as the eldest born of the king kneeling over the cup which stood upon the ground a spear was handed to him that had been made red hot in the fire
taking the spear he stabbed with it towards the four quarters of the horizon then muttering some invocation he plunged it into the bowl stirring its contents till the iron grew black now he threw aside the spear
and lifting the bowl in both hands he carried it to his father and offered it to him although he had been unable to see him drop the poison into the cup a glance at hafela told owen that it was there
he could not prevent his hands from twitching or the sweat from starting upon his brow and breast the king rose and taking the bowl held it on high saying in this cup which i drink on behalf of the nation
it was the signal for the royal salute for which each regiment had been prepared as the last word left the king's lips every one of the thirty thousand men present in that great place began to rattle his kerry against the surface of his ox hide shield
at first the sound produced resembled that of the murmur of the sea but by slow and just degrees it grew louder and ever louder till the roar of it was like the deepest voice of thunder a sound awe inspiring terrible
suddenly when its volume was most four spears were thrown into the air and at this signal every man ceased to beat upon his shield in the place itself there was silence but from the mountains around the echoes still crashed and volleyed
when the last of them had died away the king brought the cup to the level of his lips owen saw
indeed his arm was lifted and his mouth was open
and remembered to act now would be madness his time had not yet come the cup touched the king's lips and at the sign from every throat in that countless multitude sprang the word king and every foot stamped upon the ground shaking the solid earth
thrice the monarch drank and thrice this tremendous salute the salute of the whole nation to its ruler was repeated each time more loudly than the last then pouring the rest of the liquor on the ground umsuka set aside the cup
and in the midst of a silence that seemed deep after the crash of the great salute he began to address the multitude hearken councillors and captains and you my people hearken
as you know i have two sons calves of the black bull princes of the land my son hafela the eldest born and my son nodwengo his half brother at this point the king began to grow confused
he hesitated passing his hand over his eyes then slowly and with difficulty repeated those words which he had already said we hear you father cried the councillors in encouragement as for the second time he paused
caleb wondered what this meant perceiving that she spoke to him no less than to his daughter he saw her with astonishment so fluttered and distressed that she could scarcely breathe and holding to a chair to save herself from falling they are wheels indeed
she panted coming nearer nearer very close and now you hear them stopping at the garden gate
and now she uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight and running up to caleb put her hands upon his eyes as a young man rushed into the room and flinging away his hat into the air came sweeping down upon them is it over
cried dot yes happily over yes do you recollect the voice dear caleb did you ever hear the like of it before cried dot if my boy in the golden south americas was alive said caleb trembling
he is alive shrieked dot removing her hands from his eyes and clapping them in ecstasy
see where he stands before you healthy and strong your own dear son your own dear living loving brother bertha all honour to the little creature for her transports
all honour to the heartiness with which she met the sunburnt sailor fellow with his dark streaming hair half way and never turned her rosy little mouth aside but suffered him to kiss it freely and to press her to his bounding heart
as if he had got drunk for joy the carrier entering started back and well he might to find himself in such good company look john said caleb exultingly look here my own boy from the golden south americas my own son
him that you fitted out and sent away yourself him that you were always such a friend to the carrier advanced to seize him by the hand but recoiling as some feature in his face awakened a remembrance of the deaf man in the cart said edward was it you
i was the man said edward and could you steal disguised into the house of your old friend rejoined the carrier there was a frank boy once how many years is it caleb since we heard that he was dead and had it proved we thought
who never would have done that there was a generous friend of mine once more a father to me than a friend said edward
you were he so i am certain you will hear me now the carrier with a troubled glance at dot who still kept far away from him replied well that's but fair i will
you must know that when i left here a boy said edward i was in love and my love was returned she was a very young girl who perhaps you may tell me
but i knew mine and i had a passion for her you had exclaimed the carrier you indeed i had returned the other and she returned it i have ever since believed she did and now i am sure she did
heaven help me said the carrier this is worse than all
i hoped she might have been forced into it against her own desire and recollection it would be small comfort but it would be some i thought and on i came that i might have the truth the real truth observing freely for myself and judging for myself without obstruction on the one hand
or presenting my own influence if i had any before her on the other i dressed myself unlike myself you know how and waited on the road you know where you had no suspicion of me neither had had she
until i whispered in her ear at that fireside and she so nearly betrayed me but when she knew that edward was alive and had come back sobbed dot now speaking for herself as she had burned to do all through this narrative
and when she knew his purpose she advised him by all means to keep his secret close for his old friend john peerybingle was much too open in his nature and too clumsy in all artifice being a clumsy man in general said dot half laughing and half crying
to keep it for him and when she that's me john sobbed the little woman told him all and how his sweetheart had believed him to be dead and how she had at last been over persuaded by her mother into a marriage which the silly dear old thing called advantageous
and when she that's me again john told him they were not yet married though close upon it and that it would be nothing but a sacrifice if it went on for there was no love on her side and when he went nearly mad with joy to hear it then she that's me again
said she would go between them as she had often done before in old times john and would sound his sweetheart and be sure that what she me again john said and thought was right and it was right john and they were brought together john
and they were married john an hour ago and here's the bride and gruff and tackleton may die a bachelor
she was an irresistible little woman if that be anything to the purpose and never so completely irresistible as in her present transports
amid the tumult of emotions in his breast the honest carrier had stood confounded flying now towards her dot stretched out her hand to stop him and retreated as before no john no hear all
don't love me any more john till you've heard every word i have to say it was wrong to have a secret from you john i'm very sorry i didn't think it any harm till i came and sat down by you on the little stool last night but when i knew
that you had seen me walking in the gallery with edward
i felt how giddy and how wrong it was but oh dear john how could you could you think so little woman how she sobbed again
she wouldn't let him don't love me yet please john not for a long time yet when i was sad about this intended marriage dear it was because i remembered may and edward such young lovers
you believe that now don't you john john was going to make another rush at this appeal but she stopped him again no keep there please john when i laugh at you as i sometimes do john and call you clumsy and a dear old goose and names of that sort
it's because i love you john so well and take such pleasure in your ways and wouldn't see you altered in the least respect to have you made a king to morrow hooroar said caleb with unusual vigour my opinion
and when i speak of people being middle aged and steady john and pretend that we are a humdrum couple going on in a jog trot sort of way it's only because i'm such a silly little thing john that i like sometimes
to act as a kind of play with baby and all that and make believe she saw that he was coming and stopped him again but she was very nearly too late
what i want most to tell you i have kept to the last my dear good generous john when we were talking the other night about the cricket i had it on my lips to say
that at first i did not love you quite so dearly as i do now when i first came home here i was half afraid that i mightn't learn to love you every bit as well as i hoped and prayed i might being so very young john but dear john every day and hour i loved you more and more
and if i could have loved you better than i do the noble words i heard you say this morning would have made me but i can't all the affection that i had it was a great deal john i gave you
as you well deserve long long ago and i have no more left to give now my dear husband take me to your heart again that's my home john and never never think of sending me to any other
you may be sure the carrier was in a state of perfect rapture
and you may be sure they all were inclusive of miss slowboy who wept copiously for joy and wishing to include her young charge in the general interchange of congratulations handed round the baby to everybody in succession as if it were something to drink but
now the sound of wheels was heard again outside the door and somebody exclaimed that gruff and tackleton was coming back speedily that worthy gentleman appeared looking warm and flustered
there's some mistake i appointed missus tackleton to meet me at the church and i'll swear i passed her on the road on her way here oh here she is i beg your pardon sir i haven't the pleasure of knowing you but if you can do me the favour to spare this young lady
returned the other with a smile i am as deaf to harsh discourse this morning as i was to all discourse last night the look that tackleton bestowed upon him and the start he gave i am sorry sir said edward
holding out may's left hand and especially the third finger
but as she has been there once this morning perhaps you'll excuse her tackleton looked hard at the third finger and took a little piece of silver paper apparently containing a ring from his waistcoat pocket miss slowboy said tackleton
will you have the kindness to throw that in the fire thankee it was a previous engagement quite an old engagement that prevented my wife from keeping her appointment with you i assure you said edward
mister tackleton will do me the justice to acknowledge that i revealed it to him faithfully and that i told him many times i never could forget it said may blushing
it's quite correct missus edward plummer i infer that's the name returned the bridegroom ah i shouldn't have known you sir said tackleton scrutinising his face narrowly and making a low bow
i give you joy sir thankee missus peerybingle said tackleton turning suddenly to where she stood with her husband i'm sorry you haven't done me a very great kindness but upon my life i am sorry you are better than i thought you
i am not a clever man as you very well know i am not a young man i loved my little dot because i had seen her grow up from a child in her father's house because i knew how precious she was
there's many men i can't compare with who never could have loved my little dot like me i think he paused and softly beat the ground a short time with his foot before resuming i often thought that though i wasn't good enough for her i should make her a kind husband
and perhaps know her value better than another
and came to think it might be possible that we should be married and in the end it came about and we were married
but i had not i feel it now sufficiently considered her to be sure said tackleton
all left out of sight hah you had best not interrupt me said the carrier with some sternness till you understand me and you're wide of doing so if yesterday i'd have struck that man down at a blow who dared to breathe a word against her
to day i'd set my foot upon his face if he was my brother the toy merchant gazed at him in astonishment he went on in a softer tone did i consider said the carrier
that i took her at her age and with her beauty from her young companions and the many scenes of which she was the ornament
to shut her up from day to day in my dull house and keep my tedious company
or claim in me that i loved her when everybody
never i took advantage of her hopeful nature and her cheerful disposition and i married her i wish i never had for her sake not for mine the toy merchant gazed at him without winking even the half shut eye was open now
heaven bless her said the carrier for the cheerful constancy with which she has tried to keep the knowledge of this from me
poor child poor dot i not to find it out who have seen her eyes fill with tears when such a marriage as our own was spoken of i who have seen the secret trembling on her lips a hundred times and never suspected it till last night poor girl
that i could ever believe she was she made a show of it said tackleton she made such a show of it that to tell you the truth it was the origin of my misgivings and here he asserted the superiority of may fielding
who certainly made no sort of show of being fond of him she has tried said the poor carrier with greater emotion than he had exhibited yet i only now begin to know how hard she has tried to be my dutiful and zealous wife
how good she has been how much she has done how brave and strong a heart she has let the happiness i have known under this roof bear witness it will be some help and comfort to me when i am here alone here alone said tackleton oh
i mean returned the carrier to do her the greatest kindness and make her the best reparation in my power i can release her from the daily pain of an unequal marriage and the struggle to conceal it she shall be as free as i can render her
make her reparation exclaimed tackleton twisting and turning his great ears with his hands there must be something wrong here you didn't say that of course
the carrier set his grip upon the collar of the toy merchant and shook him like a reed listen to me he said and take care that you hear me right listen to me do i speak plainly very plainly indeed
answered tackleton as if i meant it very much as if you meant it i sat upon that hearth last night all night exclaimed the carrier on the spot where she has often sat beside me with her sweet face looking into mine
i called up her whole life day by day i had her dear self in its every passage in review before me and upon my soul she is innocent if there is one to judge the innocent and guilty
staunch cricket on the hearth loyal household fairies passion and distrust have left me said the carrier and nothing but my grief remains in an unhappy moment some old lover
forsaken perhaps for me against her will returned in an unhappy moment taken by surprise and wanting time to think of what she did she made herself a party to his treachery by concealing it last night she saw him in the interview we witnessed it was wrong
but otherwise than this she is innocent if there is truth on earth if that is your opinion tackleton began so let her go pursued the carrier
go with my blessing for the many happy hours she has given me and my forgiveness for any pang she has caused me let her go and have the peace of mind i wish her
she'll never hate me she'll learn to like me better when i'm not a drag upon her and she wears the chain i have riveted more lightly
to day she shall return to it and i will trouble her no more her father and mother will be here to day we had made a little plan for keeping it together and they shall take her home i can trust her there or anywhere she leaves me without blame
and she will live so i am sure if i should die i may perhaps while she is still young i have lost some courage in a few hours she'll find that i remembered her
this is the end of what you showed me now it's over
not quite yet i have heard your noble words i could not steal away pretending to be ignorant of what has affected me with such deep gratitude do not say it's over till the clock has struck again she had entered shortly after tackleton and had remained there
she never looked at tackleton but fixed her eyes upon her husband but she kept away from him setting as wide a space as possible between them and though she spoke with most impassioned earnestness she went no nearer to him even then
how different in this from her old self no hand can make the clock which will strike again for me the hours that are gone replied the carrier with a faint smile but let it be so if you will my dear it will strike soon
it's of little matter what we say i'd try to please you in a harder case than that well muttered tackleton i must be off for when the clock strikes again it'll be necessary for me to be upon my way to church
sorry for the loss and the occasion of it too
and you'll remember what i have said why if you compel me to make the observation said tackleton previously taking the precaution of getting into his chaise i must say that it was so very unexpected that i'm far from being likely to forget it
the better for us both returned the carrier good bye i give you joy i wish i could give it to you said tackleton as i can't thankee
good bye take care of yourself the carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller in the distance than his horse's flowers and favours near at hand and then with a deep sigh
went strolling like a restless broken man among some neighbouring elms unwilling to return until the clock was on the eve of striking his little wife being left alone sobbed piteously
but often dried her eyes and checked herself to say how good he was how excellent he was and once or twice she laughed
that tilly was quite horrified ow if you please don't said tilly it's enough to dead and bury the baby so it is if you please
inquired her mistress drying her eyes when i can't live here and have gone to my old home
the more tremendous from its long suppression
if her eyes had not encountered caleb plummer leading in his daughter this spectacle restoring her to a sense of the proprieties she stood for some few moments silent with her mouth wide open and then
posting off to the bed on which the baby lay asleep danced in a weird saint vitus manner on the floor and at the same time rummaged with her face and head among the bedclothes apparently deriving much relief from those extraordinary operations
i told her you would not be there mum whispered caleb i heard as much last night but bless you said the little man taking her tenderly by both hands
he put his arms about her neck and hugged her as a child might have hugged one of his own dolls bertha couldn't stay at home this morning said caleb
and i've come to the conclusion that i'd better if you'll stay with me mum the while tell her the truth
he inquired trembling from head to foot i don't know what effect it may have upon her i don't know what she'll think of me i don't know that she'll ever care for her poor father afterwards
but it's best for her that she should be undeceived and i must bear the consequences as i deserve mary said bertha where is your hand ah here it is here it is pressing it to her lips with a smile and drawing it through her arm
i heard them speaking softly among themselves last night of some blame against you they were wrong the carrier's wife was silent caleb answered for her they were wrong he said i knew it cried bertha proudly i told them so i scorned to hear a word
she pressed the hand between her own and the soft cheek against her face no i am not so blind as that her father went on one side of her while dot remained upon the other holding her hand
i know you all said bertha better than you think but none so well as her not even you father there is nothing half so real and so true about me as she is if i could be restored to sight this instant
my sister bertha my dear
hear me kindly i have a confession to make to you my darling a confession father i have wandered from the truth and lost myself my child said caleb with a pitiable expression in his bewildered face
i have wandered from the truth intending to be kind to you and have been cruel she turned her wonder stricken face towards him and repeated cruel he accuses himself too strongly bertha said dot you'll say so presently
you'll be the first to tell him so he cruel to me cried bertha with a smile of incredulity
my dear blind daughter hear me and forgive me the world you live in heart of mine doesn't exist as i have represented it the eyes you have trusted in have been false to you
she turned her wonder stricken face towards him still but drew back and clung closer to her friend
and surrounded you with fancies but living people are not fancies she said hurriedly and turning very pale and still retiring from him
then spread them in a manner most forlorn and sad upon her face the marriage that takes place to day said caleb is with a stern sordid grinding man a hard master to you and me my dear for many years
ugly in his looks and in his nature cold and callous always unlike what i have painted him to you in everything my child in everything oh why cried the blind girl tortured as it seemed almost beyond endurance why did you ever do this
why did you ever fill my heart so full and then come in like death and tear away the objects of my love o heaven how blind i am how helpless and alone her afflicted father hung his head and offered no reply but in his penitence and sorrow
she had been but a short time in this passion of regret when the cricket on the hearth unheard by all but her began to chirp not merrily but in a low faint sorrowing way it was so mournful that her tears began to flow
they fell down like rain she heard the cricket voice more plainly soon and was conscious through her blindness of the presence hovering about her father mary said the blind girl tell me what my home is what it truly is
it is a poor place bertha very poor and bare indeed the house will scarcely keep out wind and rain another winter it is as roughly shielded from the weather bertha dot continued in a low clear voice as your poor father in his sackcloth coat
the blind girl greatly agitated rose and led the carrier's little wife aside those presents that i took such care of that came almost at my wish and were so dearly welcome to me she said trembling where did they come from did you send them
no who then dot saw she knew already and was silent the blind girl spread her hands before her face again but in quite another manner now dear mary a moment one moment
more this way speak softly to me you are true i know you'd not deceive me now would you no bertha indeed no i am sure you would not you have too much pity for me mary look across the room to where we were just now
and tell me what you see i see said dot who understood her well an old man sitting in a chair and leaning sorrowfully on the back with his face resting on his hand as if his child should comfort him bertha
bertha i have seen him many times before and striving hard in many ways for one great sacred object and i honour his grey head and bless him the blind girl broke away from her and throwing herself upon her knees before him took the grey head to her breast
i have been blind and now my eyes are open i never knew him
there were no words for caleb's emotion there is not a gallant figure on this earth exclaimed the blind girl holding him in her embrace that i would love so dearly and would cherish so devotedly as this the greyer and more worn the dearer father
never let them say i am blind again there's not a furrow in his face there's not a hair upon his head that shall be forgotten in my prayers and thanks to heaven
and in my blindness i believed him said the girl caressing him with tears of exquisite affection to be so different and having him beside me day by day so mindful of me always never dreamed of this the fresh smart father in the blue coat bertha
said poor caleb he's gone nothing is gone she answered dearest father no
the father that i loved so well the father that i never loved enough and never knew the benefactor whom i first began to reverence and love because he had such sympathy for me all are here in you nothing is dead to me
the soul of all that was most dear to me is here here
but looking now towards the little hay maker in the moorish meadow she saw that the clock was within a few minutes of striking
father said bertha hesitating mary yes my dear returned caleb here she is there is no change in her you never told me anything of her that was not true
i should have done it my dear i'm afraid returned caleb if i could have made her better than she was
nothing could improve her bertha
her delight and pride in the reply and her renewed embrace of dot were charming to behold more changes than you think for may happen though my dear said dot changes for the better i mean changes for great joy to some of us
you mustn't let them startle you too much if any such should ever happen and affect you are those wheels upon the road you've a quick ear bertha are they wheels yes coming very fast i
i i know you have a quick ear said dot placing her hand upon her heart and evidently talking on as fast as she could to hide its palpitating state
of the equivocal nature or amphiboly of the conceptions of reflection from the confusion of the transcendental with the empirical use of the understanding reflection reflexio is not occupied about objects themselves
for the purpose of directly obtaining conceptions of them but is that state of the mind in which we set ourselves to discover the subjective conditions under which we obtain conceptions it is the consciousness of the relation of given representations
to the different sources or faculties of cognition by which alone their relation to each other can be rightly determined the first question which occurs in considering our representations is to what faculty of cognition do they belong to the understanding
or to the senses many judgements are admitted to be true from mere habit or inclination but because reflection neither precedes nor follows
all judgements do not require examination that is investigation into the grounds of their truth for when they are immediately certain for example between two points there can be only one straight line
the act whereby i compare my representations with the faculty of cognition which originates them and whereby i distinguish whether they are compared with each other as belonging to the pure understanding or to sensuous intuition i term transcendental reflection
now the relations in which conceptions can stand to each other are those of identity and difference agreement and opposition of the internal and external finally of the determinable and the determining matter and form
the proper determination of these relations rests on the question to what faculty of cognition they subjectively belong whether to sensibility or understanding for on the manner in which we solve this question
depends the manner in which we must cogitate these relations before constructing any objective judgement we compare the conceptions that are to be placed in the judgement and observe whether there exists identity of many representations in one conception
if a general judgement is to be constructed or difference if a particular whether there is agreement when affirmative and opposition when negative judgements are to be constructed and so on for this reason we ought to call these conceptions
conceptions of comparison conceptus comparationis
thus we shall not be able to discover whether the things are identical or different in agreement or opposition et cetera
comparatio but only by distinguishing the mode of cognition to which they belong in other words by means of transcendental reflection we may therefore with justice say that logical reflection is mere comparison
for in it no account is taken of the faculty of cognition to which the given conceptions belong and they are consequently as far as regards their origin to be treated as homogeneous while transcendental reflection
which applies to the objects themselves contains the ground of the possibility of objective comparison of representations with each other and is therefore very different from the former because the faculties of cognition to which they belong are not even the same
transcendental reflection is a duty which no one can neglect who wishes to establish an a priori judgement upon things we shall now proceed to fulfil this duty
and thereby throw not a little light on the question as to the determination of the proper business of the understanding one identity and difference when an object is presented to us several times but always with the same internal determinations
but although they may be in this respect perfectly the same
thus in the case of two drops of water
quality and quantity and the fact that they are intuited at the same time in different places is sufficient to justify us in holding them to be numerically different
consequently as intelligibilia that is objects of pure understanding although on account of the confused nature of their representations he gave them the name of phenomena and in this case his principle of the indiscernible
principium identatis indiscernibilium is not to be impugned but as phenomena are objects of sensibility and as the understanding in respect of them must be employed empirically and not purely or transcendentally
plurality and numerical difference are given by space itself as the condition of external phenomena for one part of space although it may be perfectly similar and equal to another part is still without it and for this reason alone is different from the latter
however similar and equal one may be to another two agreement and opposition when reality is represented by the pure understanding realitas noumenon
opposition between realities is incogitable such a relation that is
they annihilate the effects of each other and may be represented in the formula
on the other hand the real in a phenomenon realitas phaenomenon may very well be in mutual opposition and when united in the same subject the one may completely or in part annihilate the effect or consequence of the other
as in the case of two moving forces in the same straight line drawing or impelling a point in opposite directions or in the case of a pleasure counterbalancing a certain amount of pain three the internal and external
in an object of the pure understanding only that is internal which has no relation as regards its existence to anything different from itself on the other hand the internal determinations of a substantia phaenomenon in space
are nothing but relations and it is itself nothing more than a complex of mere relations substance in space we are cognizant of only through forces operative in it either drawing others towards itself attraction
but what other internal attributes of such an object can i think than those which my internal sense presents to me that to wit
declared that all substances even the component parts of matter were simple substances with powers of representation in one word monads four matter and form
these two conceptions lie at the foundation of all other reflection so inseparably are they connected with every mode of exercising the understanding the former denotes the determinable in general the second its determination
both in a transcendental sense abstraction being made of every difference in that which is given and of the mode in which it is determined logicians formerly termed the universal matter the specific difference of this or that part of the universal form
in a judgement one may call the given conceptions logical matter for the judgement
are the matter the mode in which they are connected in the object the form in respect to things in general unlimited reality was regarded as the matter of all possibility the limitation thereof negation as the form
by which one thing is distinguished from another according to transcendental conceptions the understanding demands that something be given at least in the conception in order to be able to determine it in a certain manner hence
in a conception of the pure understanding the matter precedes the form and for this reason
monads and of an internal power of representation in them
that is of their representations hence with him space and time were possible
the latter through the connection of their determinations with each other as causes and effects and so would it really be if the pure understanding were capable of an immediate application to objects and if space and time were determinations of things in themselves
but being merely sensuous intuitions in which we determine all objects solely as phenomena the form of intuition as a subjective property of sensibility must antecede all matter sensations
consequently space and time must antecede all phenomena and all data of experience and rather make experience itself possible but the intellectual philosopher could not endure that the form should precede the things themselves
and determine their possibility an objection perfectly correct if we assume that we intuite things as they are although with confused representation
the aenigmas or riddles zadig as one beside himself and perfectly thunder struck beat his march at random he entred however into the city of babylon
on that very day when those combatants who had been before engag'd in the list or circus were already assembled in the spacious outer court of the palace
all in general were lavish of their praises and in their hearts wish'd him their sovereign except the envious man who as he pass'd by fetch'd a deep sigh and turn'd his head aside the populace
with loud acclamations attended him to the palace gate the queen who had heard of his arrival was in the utmost agony between hope and despair her vexation had almost brought her to death's door
she couldn't conceive why zadig should appear without his accoutrements nor imagine which way itobad could procure the snow white armour at the sight of zadig a confus'd murmur ran thro the whole place
tho another appears clad in my armour but in the mean time before i can possibly prove my assertion i insist upon being admitted into court
what is the longest and yet the shortest thing in the world the most swift and the most slow the most divisible and the most extended the least valu'd and the most regretted
and without which nothing can possibly be done which in a word devours every thing how minute soever and yet gives life and spirit to every object or being however great itobad
nothing passes so slowly as time to him who is in expectation and nothing so swift as time to him who is in the perfect enjoyment of his wishes it's extent is to infinity in the whole
and divisible to infinity in part all men neglect it in the passage and all regret the loss of it when tis past nothing can possibly be done without it it buries in oblivion whatever is unworthy of being transmitted
without being ever thankful for it which we enjoy without knowing how we came by it which we give away to others without knowing where tis to be found and which we lose without being any ways conscious of our misfortune
each pass'd his verdict zadig was the only person that concluded it was life he solv'd every a enigma propos'd with equal facility itobad when he heard the explications
always said that nothing in the world was more easy than to solve such obvious questions and that he could interpret a thousand of them without the least hesitation were he inclin'd to trouble his head about such trifles
in regard to justice the sovereign good
zadig's answers still carried the greatest weight what pity tis said some who were present that one of so comprehensive a genius should make such a scurvy cavalier most illustrious grandees
said zadig i was the person that had the honour of being victor at your circus the white armour most puissant lords was mine that awkward warrior there lord itobad dress'd himself in it whilst i was asleep
he imagin'd it is plain that it would do him more honour than his own green one unaccoutred as i am i am ready before this august assembly to give them incontestable proof of my superior skill
to engage with the usurper of the white armour with my sword only in my mantle and bonnet and to testify that i only was the happy victor of the justly admired hottam
he did not doubt but being properly accoutred with his helmet his cuirass and his bracelets he should be able to hue down an antagonist in his mantle and cap and nothing to skreen him from his resentment but a single sabre
zadig drew his sword and saluted the queen with it who view'd him with transport mix'd with fear itobad drew his but paid his compliments to nobody
upon his fort as the swords men call it by which means itobad's sword was snapt in two with that zadig in an instant clos'd his adversary and by his superior strength as well as skill
laid him sprawling on his back then holding the point of his sword to the opening of his cuirass submit to be stripp'd of your borrow'd plumes or you are a dead man this moment itobad
of his pompous helmet his superb cuirass his rich bracelets his brilliant cuisses or armour for his thighs and other martial accoutrements when zadig had equipp'd himself cap a pee in his now recover'd armour
that the white armour was zadig's property he was thereupon acknowledg'd king of babylon by the unanimous content of the whole court but more particularly
who after such a long series of misfortunes now tasted the sweets of seeing her darling zadig thought worthy in the opinion of the whole world
now he began to reflect on what the angel jesrad had said to him nay he reflected so far back as the story of the arabian atom of dust metamorphosed into a diamond
the queen and he ador'd the divine providence zadig permitted missouf the fair coquet to make her conquests where she could he sent couriers to bring the free booter arbogad to court
and gave him an honourable military post in his army with a farther promise of promotion to the highest dignity but upon this express condition that he would act for the future as a soldier of honour but assur'd him at the same time
that he'd make a publick example of him if he follow'd his profession of free booting for the future
together with the fair almonza his new bride
and was his favourite minister at court as the just reward of his past services he was in short the king's real friend and zadig was the only monarch in the universe that could boast of such an attendant
the dwarf tho dumb was not wholly forgotten the fisherman was put into the possession of a very handsome house
and orcan was sentenc'd not only to pay him a very considerable sum for the injustice done him in detaining his wife but to resign her likewise to the proper owner the fisherman however grown wise by experience
soften'd the rigour of the sentence and took the money only in full of all accounts he didn't leave so much as semira wholly disconsolate tho she had such an aversion to a blind eye nor azora
comfortless notwithstanding her affectionate intention to shorten his nose for he sooth'd their sorrows by very munificent presents the envious informer indeed
died with shame and vexation the empire was glorious abroad and in the full enjoyment of tranquility peace and plenty at home this in short was the true golden age
the whole country was sway'd by love and justice every one blest zadig and zadig blest heav'n for his unexpected success
definition of the emotions after sensations and images we have to name among the phenomena of consciousness the whole series of affective states our pleasures and our pains our joys and our griefs
our sentiments our emotions and our passions it is universally admitted that these states are of a mental nature
as we do our sensations but we constantly consider them as indwelling or subjective states this rule however
as we do our indifferent sensations the sensations of weight
which appear to us as perceived by us but as being other than ourselves on the contrary we constantly and without hesitation refer our emotional states to our ego it is i who suffer we say
i who complain i who hope it is true that this attribution is not absolutely characteristic of mental phenomena for it happens that we put a part of our ego into material objects such as our bodies
and even into objects separate from our bodies and whose sole relation to us is that of a legal proprietorship we must guard against the somewhat frequent error of identifying the ego with the psychical
as representing the essence of mind on this point i will recall the fine ironical image used by tyndall the illustrious english physicist to show the abyss which separates thought from the molecular states of the brain let us suppose he says
that the sentiment love for example corresponds to a right hand spiral movement of the molecules of the brain and the sentiment hatred to a left hand spiral movement we should then know that when we love a movement is produced in one direction
and when we hate in another but the why would remain without an answer the question of knowing what place in our metaphysical theory we ought to secure for emotion seems difficult to resolve
and we even find some pleasure in leaving it in suspense in order that it may be understood that a metaphysician is not compelled to explain everything besides the difficulties which atop us here are peculiarly of a psychological order
they proceed from the fact that studies on the nature of the emotions are still very little advanced the physical conditions of these states are pretty well known and their psychical and social effects have been abundantly described
but very little is known as to what distinguishes an emotion from a thought two principal opinions may be upheld in the actual state of our acquaintance with the psychology of the feelings when we endeavour to penetrate their essential and final nature
the first and traditional one consists in seeing in emotion a phenomenon sui generis this is very simple and leaves nothing more to be said
who by the by gave it a peculiar form by causing the play of images to intervene in the formation of the feelings however this particular point is of slight importance
it exists in all doctrines in which the characteristic difference between thought and feeling is expunged and feeling is brought back to thought
the fact of perceiving something to perceive is in fact the property of intelligence to reason to imagine to judge to understand is always in a certain sense to perceive
it has been imagined that emotion is nothing else than a perception of a certain kind an intellectual act strictly comparable to the contemplation of a landscape only in the place of a landscape with placid features
you must put a storm a cataclysm of nature and instead of supposing this storm outside us let it burst within us let it reach us not by the outer senses of sight and condition but by the inner senses
what we then perceive will be an emotion such is the theory that two authors
happened to discover almost at the same time
and w james as a philosopher their theory at first sight appears singular like everything which runs counter to our mental habits it lays down that the symptoms which we all till now
the translation and the distant effects of the emotions constitute their essential base these effects are the expression of the physiognomy the gesture the cry and the speech
or the reflex action on the circulation the pallor or blushing
or it is the heart which hastens or slackens its beats or makes them irregular or enfeebles or augments them or the respiration which changes its rhythm or increases or is suspended
or else it is the secretion of the saliva or of the sweat which flows in abundance or dries up or the muscular force which is increased or decays
or the almost undefinable organic troubles revealed to us by the singing in the ears constriction of the epigastrium the jerks the trembling vertigo or nausea all this collection of organic troubles
under the form of tactile muscular thermal and other sensations until now this category of phenomena has been somewhat neglected because we saw in it effects and consequences of which the role in emotion itself seemed slight
and considers them the direct effects of the external excitant which is expressed by this elegant formula
it used to be said i perceive a danger i am frightened i tremble now we must say i tremble before a danger first and it is after having trembled that i am frightened
this is not a change in order only it is something much more serious the change is directed to the nature of emotion it is considered to exist in the organic derangements indicated above
these derangements are the basis of emotion its physical basis and to be moved is to perceive them take away from the consciousness this physical reflex and emotion ceases it is no longer anything but an idea
this theory has at least the merit of originality it also pleases one by its great clearness
is likewise an intellectualist system the definition of emotion as it is taught by w james seems expressly made for us who are seeking to resolve all intellectual states into physical impressions accompanied by consciousness
by the side of emotion we may place as demanding the same analytical study the feeling of effort we ought to inquire with effort as has been done with emotion what is the psychological nature of this phenomenon
and in the same way that there exists an intellectualist theory of the emotions viz that of james
so there exists an intellectualist theory of effort which likewise tends to bring back all will to intelligence it is again the same author that true genius w james who has attempted this reduction
i do not know whether he has taken into account the parallelism of the two theories but it is nevertheless evident effort that basis of activity that state of consciousness which so many psychologists have described as something sui generis
to be conscious of an effort would then be nothing else than to receive all these centripetal sensations and what proves this is that the consciousness of effort when most clearly manifested is accompanied by some muscular energy
some strong contraction or some respiratory trouble and yields if we render the respiration again regular and put the muscles back into repose to my great regret
is infinitely interesting and leads to a fairly clear conception by which everything is explained by a mechanism reflected in a mirror which is the consciousness but we remain perplexed
and we ask ourselves whether this clearness of perception is not somewhat artificial whether affectivity emotivity tendency will are really all reduced to perceptions or whether they are not rather irreducible elements
which should be added to the consciousness does not for instance desire represent a complement of the consciousness
which does not belong to the physical domain and which forms the moral world
the painter was a young scrub out of the west named kraft who had a favourite food and a pet theory his pabulum was an unquenchable belief in the unerring artistic adjustment of nature
three years ago kraft bill judkins a poet and i took our meals at cypher's on eighth avenue i say took when we had money cypher got it off of us as he expressed it
we had no credit we went in called for food and ate it we paid or we did not pay we had confidence in cypher's sullenness and smouldering ferocity
deep down in his sunless soul he was either a prince a fool or an artist he sat at a worm eaten desk covered with files of waiters checks so old that i was sure the bottomest one was for clams that hendrik hudson had eaten and paid for
once when we left him unpaid
i looked back and saw him shaking with inaudible laughter behind his film now and then we paid up back scores but the chief thing at cypher's was milly milly was a waitress
she was a grand example of kraft's theory of the artistic adjustment of nature she belonged largely to waiting as minerva did to the art of scrapping or venus to the science of serious flirtation
you expected to see her colossal figure loom through that reeking blue cloud of smoke from frying fat just as you expect the palisades to appear through a drifting hudson river fog
there amid the steam of vegetables and the vapours of acres of ham and the crash of crockery the clatter of steel the screaming of short orders the cries of the hungering and all the horrid tumult of feeding man
milly steered her magnificent way like some great liner cleaving among the canoes of howling savages our goddess of grub was built on lines so majestic that they could be followed only with awe
her sleeves were always rolled above her elbows she could have taken us three musketeers in her two hands and dropped us out of the window she had seen fewer years than any of us but she was of such superb evehood and simplicity that she mothered us from the beginning
her voice rang like a great silver bell her smile was many toothed and frequent she seemed like a yellow sunrise on mountain tops i never saw her but i thought of the yosemite
and yet somehow i could never think of her as existing outside of cypher's there nature had placed her and she had taken root and grown mightily
to the exquisite congruity between milly and cypher's there is a certain fate hanging over milly said kraft and if it overtakes her she is lost to cypher's and to us she will grow fat
asked judkins fearsomely she will go to night school and become refined i ventured anxiously it is this said kraft punctuating in a puddle of spilled coffee with a stiff forefinger caesar had his brutus
the cotton has its bollworm the chorus girl has her pittsburger the summer boarder has his poison ivy the hero has his carnegie medal art has its morgan the rose has its
speak i interrupted much perturbed you do not think that milly will begin to lace one day concluded kraft solemnly there will come to cypher's for a plate of beans a millionaire lumberman from wisconsin
and he will marry milly never exclaimed judkins and i in horror a lumberman repeated kraft hoarsely and a millionaire lumberman i sighed despairingly from wisconsin groaned judkins
once fortune smiled upon them straight to new york they hie and lay their goods at the feet of the girl who serves them beans in a beanery why the alphabet itself connives the sunday newspaper's headliner's work is cut for him
winsome waitress wins wealthy wisconsin woodsman for a while we felt that milly was on the verge of being lost to us it was our love of the unerring artistic adjustment of nature that inspired us
our fears must have been prophetic for on that same evening the wildwood discharged upon us milly's preordained confiscator our fee to adjustment and order but alaska and not wisconsin bore the burden of the visitation
we were at our supper of beef stew and dried apples when he trotted in as if on the heels of a dog team and made one of the mess at our table
with the freedom of the camps he assaulted our ears and claimed the fellowship of men lost in the wilds of a hash house we embraced him as a specimen and in three minutes we had all but died for one another as friends
he was rugged and bearded and wind dried he had just come off the trail he said at one of the north river ferries i fancied i could see the snow dust of chilcoot yet powdering his shoulders and then he strewed the table with the nuggets
stuffed ptarmigans bead work and seal pelts of the returned klondiker and began to prate to us of his millions bank drafts for two millions was his summing up
i never got off the train since i mushed out of seattle and i'm hungry the stuff the niggers feed you on pullmans don't count you gentlemen order what you want and then milly loomed up with a thousand dishes on her bare arm
loomed up big and white and pink and awful as mount saint elias with a smile like day breaking in a gulch and the klondiker threw down his pelts and nuggets as dross and let his jaw fall half way and stared at her
you could almost see the diamond tiaras on milly's brow and the hand embroidered silk paris gowns that he meant to buy for her at last the bollworm had attacked the cotton the poison ivy was reaching out its tendrils to entwine the summer boarder
the millionaire lumberman thinly disguised as the alaskan miner was about to engulf our milly and upset nature's adjustment kraft was the first to act he leaped up and pounded the klondiker's back come out and drink he shouted
there he rumbled a roughly good humoured protest that's the girl for my money he declared she can eat out of my skillet the rest of her life why i never see such a fine girl i'm going back there and ask her to marry me
i guess she won't want to sling hash any more when she sees the pile of dust i've got you'll take another whiskey and milk now kraft persuaded with satan's smile i thought you up country fellows were better sports
kraft whispered into his ear such a polite barbed insult relating to people who were miserly with their funds that the miner crashed down handful after handful of silver and notes calling for all the fluids in the world to drown the imputation
thus the work was accomplished with his own guns we drove him from the field and then we had him carted to a distant small hotel and put to bed with his nuggets and baby seal skins stuffed around him he will never find cypher's again said kraft
this i say happened three years ago and about that time a little luck descended upon us three and we were enabled to buy costlier and less wholesome food than cypher's
our paths separated and i saw kraft no more and judkins seldom but as i said i saw a painting the other day that was sold for five thousand dollars the title was boadicea
and the figure seemed to fill all out of doors but of all the picture's admirers who stood before it i believe i was the only one who longed for boadicea to stalk from her frame bringing me corned beef hash with poached egg
then said i when you led us against the lumberman the klondiker it wasn't altogether on account of the unerring artistic adjustment of nature well
the badge of policeman o'roon it cannot be denied that men and women have looked upon one another for the first time and become instantly enamored it is a risky process this love at first sight
such as drink policemen horses and earldoms during a certain war a troop calling itself the gentle riders rode into history and one or two ambuscades the gentle riders were recruited from the aristocracy of the wild men of the west
and the wild men of the aristocracy of the east in khaki there is little telling them one from another so they became good friends and comrades all around ellsworth remsen whose old knickerbocker descent
atoned for his modest rating at only ten millions ate his canned beef gayly by the campfires of the gentle riders the war was a great lark to him so that he scarcely regretted polo and planked shad
one of the troopers was a well set up affable cool young man who called himself o'roon to this young man remsen took an especial liking
the two rode side by side during the famous mooted up hill charge that was disputed so hotly at the time by the spaniards and afterward by the democrats after the war remsen came back to his polo and shad
one day a well set up affable cool young man disturbed him at his club and he and o'roon were soon pounding each other and exchanging opprobrious epithets after the manner of long lost friends
o'roon looked seedy and out of luck and perfectly contented but it seemed that his content was only apparent get me a job remsen he said i've just handed a barber my last shilling
no trouble at all said remsen i know a lot of men who have banks and stores and things downtown any particular line you fancy yes said o'roon with a look of interest i took a walk in your central park this morning
i'd like to be one of those bobbies on horseback that would be about the ticket besides it's the only thing i could do i can ride a little and the fresh air suits me think you could land that for me
and now at the extreme risk of wearying old gentlemen who carry leather fob chains and elderly ladies who but no grandmother herself yet thrills at foolish immortal romeo there must be a hint of love at first sight
it came just as remsen was strolling into fifth avenue from his club a few doors away a motor car was creeping along foot by foot impeded by a freshet of vehicles that filled the street
in the car was a chauffeur and an old gentleman with snowy side whiskers and a scotch plaid cap which could not be worn while automobiling except by a personage not even a wine agent would dare do it
but these two were of no consequence except perhaps for the guiding of the machine and the paying for it at the old gentleman's side sat a young lady more beautiful than pomegranate blossoms
more exquisite than the first quarter moon viewed at twilight through the tops of oleanders remsen saw her and knew his fate he could have flung himself under the very wheels that conveyed her
but he knew that would be the last means of attracting the attention of those who ride in motor cars slowly the auto passed and if we place the poets above the autoists carried the heart of remsen with it
and many women who at a certain distance appear to resemble pomegranate blossoms yet he hoped to see her again for each one fancies that his romance has its own tutelary guardian and divinity
luckily for remsen's peace of mind there came a diversion in the guise of a reunion of the gentle riders of the city there were not many of them perhaps a score and there was wassail and things to eat
and speeches and the spaniard was bearded again in recapitulation and when daylight threatened them the survivors prepared to depart but some remained upon the battlefield one of these was trooper o'roon who was not seasoned to potent liquids
his legs declined to fulfil the obligations they had sworn to the police department i'm stewed remsen said o'roon to his friend why do they build hotels that go round and round like catherine wheels
with your badge on your horse in your uniform will i charm nurse maids and prevent the grass from growing under people's feet in the park this day i will have your badge and your honor besides having the jolliest lark i've been blessed with since we licked spain
promptly on time the counterfeit presentment of mounted policeman o'roon single footed into the park on his chestnut steed in a uniform two men who are unlike will look alike
two who somewhat resemble each other in feature and figure will appear as twin brothers so remsen trotted down the bridle paths enjoying himself hugely so few real pleasures do ten millionaires have
along the driveway in the early morning spun a victoria drawn by a pair of fiery bays there was something foreign about the affair
which could not be worn while driving except by a personage at his side sat the lady of remsen's heart the lady who looked like pomegranate blossoms and the gibbous moon remsen met them coming
at the instant of their passing her eyes looked into his and but for the ever coward's heart of a true lover he could have sworn that she flushed a faint pink
the bays had bolted remsen sent his chestnut after the victoria like a shot there was work cut out for the impersonator of policeman o'roon the chestnut ranged alongside the off bay thirty seconds after the chase began
ah you're all right o'roon couldn't have done it more neatly
the driver released his hands from the wrapped reins jumped from his seat and stood at the heads of the team the chestnut approving his new rider danced and pranced reviling equinely the subdued bays
remsen lingering was dimly conscious of a vague impossible unnecessary old gentleman in a scotch cap who talked incessantly about something and he was acutely conscious of a pair of violet eyes
that would have drawn saint pyrites from his iron pillar or whatever the allusion is and of the lady's smile and look a little frightened but a look that with the ever coward heart of a true lover he could not yet construe
they were asking his name and bestowing upon him wellbred thanks for his heroic deed and the scotch cap was especially babbling and insistent but the eloquent appeal was in the eyes of the lady a little thrill of satisfaction ran through remsen
because he had a name to give which without undue pride was worthy of being spoken in high places and a small fortune which with due pride he could leave at his end without disgrace he opened his lips to speak
and scotch cap from possible death where was policeman o'roon off his beat exposed disgraced discharged
don't mention it he said stolidly we policemen are paid to do these things it's our duty and he rode away
but knowing he could never have done anything else at the end of the day remsen sent the chestnut to his stable and went to o'roon's room the policeman was again a well set up affable cool young man
who sat by the window smoking cigars i wish you and the rest of the police force and all badges horses brass buttons and men who can't drink two glasses of brut without getting upset were at the devil said remsen feelingly
if you damaged that horse of mine i'll never forgive you i'm going to buy him and take him back with me oh yes and i think my sister lady angela you know wants particularly for you to come up to the hotel with me this evening
the pendulum eighty first street let em out please yelled the shepherd in blue a flock of citizen sheep scrambled out and another flock scrambled aboard
ding ding the cattle cars of the manhattan elevated rattled away and john perkins drifted down the stairway of the station with the released flock john walked slowly toward his flat
slowly because in the lexicon of his daily life there was no such word as perhaps there are no surprises awaiting a man who has been married two years and lives in a flat as he walked
of russians and japs slaughtered by the deadly linotype for dinner there would be pot roast a salad flavored with a dressing warranted not to crack or injure the leather stewed rhubarb
and the bottle of strawberry marmalade blushing at the certificate of chemical purity on its label after dinner katy would show him the new patch in her crazy quilt that the iceman had cut for her off the end of his four in hand
at half past seven they would spread newspapers over the furniture to catch the pieces of plastering that fell when the fat man in the flat overhead began to take his physical culture exercises exactly at eight
hickey and mooney of the vaudeville team unbooked in the flat across the hall would yield to the gentle influence of delirium tremens and begin to overturn chairs under the delusion that hammerstein was pursuing them
with a five hundred dollar a week contract then the gent at the window across the air shaft would get out his flute the nightly gas leak would steal forth to frolic in the highways the dumbwaiter would slip off its trolley
the janitor would drive missus zanowitski's five children once more across the yalu the lady with the champagne shoes and the skye terrier would trip downstairs and paste her thursday name over her bell and letter box
now where are you going i'd like to know john perkins
of late such had been john perkins's habit at ten or eleven he would return sometimes katy would be asleep sometimes waiting up
ready to melt in the crucible of her ire a little more gold plating from the wrought steel chains of matrimony for these things cupid will have to answer when he stands at the bar of justice with his victims from the frogmore flats
to night john perkins encountered a tremendous upheaval of the commonplace when he reached his door no katy was there with her affectionate confectionate kiss the three rooms seemed in portentous disorder
all about lay her things in confusion shoes in the middle of the floor curling tongs hair bows kimonos powder box jumbled together on dresser and chairs this was not katy's way
with a sinking heart john saw the comb with a curling cloud of her brown hair among its teeth some unusual hurry and perturbation must have possessed her
for she always carefully placed these combings in the little blue vase on the mantel to be some day formed into the coveted feminine rat hanging conspicuously to the gas jet by a string was a folded paper
john seized it it was a note from his wife running thus dear john i just had a telegram saying mother is very sick
don't forget to write to the company about the gas meter and your good socks are in the top drawer i will write to morrow hastily katy never during their two years of matrimony
there on the back of a chair hung pathetically empty and formless the red wrapper with black dots that she always wore while getting the meals her week day clothes had been tossed here and there in her haste
a little paper bag of her favorite butter scotch lay with its string yet unwound a daily paper sprawled on the floor gaping rectangularly where a railroad time table had been clipped from it everything in the room spoke of a loss
of an essence gone of its soul and life departed john perkins stood among the dead remains with a queer feeling of desolation in his heart he began to set the rooms tidy as well as he could
when he touched her clothes a thrill of something like terror went through him he had never thought what existence would be without katy she had become so thoroughly annealed into his life that she was like the air he breathed
necessary but scarcely noticed now without warning she was gone vanished as completely absent as if she had never existed of course it would be only for a few days or at most a week or two
but it seemed to him as if the very hand of death had pointed a finger at his secure and uneventful home john dragged the cold mutton from the ice box
made coffee and sat down to a lonely meal face to face with the strawberry marmalade's shameless certificate of purity bright among withdrawn blessings now appeared to him the ghosts of pot roasts and the salad with tan polish dressing
his home was dismantled
john sat at a front window he did not care to smoke outside the city roared to him to come join in its dance of folly and pleasure the night was his
he might go forth unquestioned and thrum the strings of jollity as free as any gay bachelor there he might carouse and wander and have his fling until dawn if he liked and there would be no wrathful katy waiting for him
bearing the chalice that held the dregs of his joy he might play pool at mc closkey's with his roistering friends until aurora dimmed the electric bulbs if he chose
he hit unerringly upon the keynote of his discomfort he knew now that katy was necessary to his happiness his feeling for her lulled into unconsciousness by the dull round of domesticity
had been sharply stirred by the loss of her presence has it not been dinned into us by proverb and sermon and fable that we never prize the music till the sweet voiced bird has flown
i'm a double dyed dub mused john perkins the way i've been treating katy off every night playing pool and bumming with the boys instead of staying home with her the poor girl here all alone with nothing to amuse her and me acting that way
john perkins you're the worst kind of a shine i'm going to make it up for the little girl i'll take her out and let her see some amusement and i'll cut out the mc closkey gang right from this minute
yes there was the city roaring outside for john perkins to come dance in the train of momus and at mc closkey's the boys were knocking the balls idly into the pockets against the hour for the nightly game but no primrose way
nor clicking cue could woo the remorseful soul of perkins the bereft the thing that was his lightly held and half scorned had been taken away from him and he wanted it backward to a certain man named adam
it still retained something of her contour midway of the sleeves were fine individual wrinkles made by the movements of her arms in working for his comfort and pleasure a delicate but impelling odor of bluebells came from it
he would make up for all his neglect what was life without her the door opened katy walked in carrying a little hand satchel john stared at her stupidly my i'm glad to get back said katy
ma wasn't sick to amount to anything
wealth and rent chapter seven wealth and its indirect uses
one goods may be ranked according to their technical relation to wants the technical rank of goods sometimes spoken of as the degree of roundaboutness of the process signifies the number of steps or processes
that intervene between the agent used and the desired form if one wishing the hickory nut hanging above his head must first pick up a stick to throw at it the nut is removed one step from desire
but even among savages the processes are much more complicated the indian with a crude knife fashions his bow and arrow fastens the flint and cord which represent still other processes of industry
and shoots the bird which satisfies his hunger in modern conditions the relations are vastly more complicated
two goods may be ranked by their relation to wants in time the relation in respect to time is measured by the period that must elapse before the utility of an agent results in is converted into
gratification no agent or influence intervening a thing may yet be removed a long way from gratification a tree may not be fitted to bear fruit for ten years to come meantime
the number of steps has no necessary relation to the time a number of technical steps may be taken in half an hour or a process of a single technical step may last a year in the mechanic arts
the technical relations are of primary significance but in economics the time relations are mainly to be considered
as immediately enjoyable goods and durable agents enjoyable goods are goods in a final form producing gratification
so that their use is distributed throughout the winter cider and wine are kept till they get a quality that appeals more to the palate coal wood and stocks of goods are thus kept in the form of enjoyable goods
destined to be physically destroyed when at length they yield a gratification evidently they must be storing up meantime a certain additional utility for otherwise there would be no reason why they should be kept for the future
such goods as these are sometimes called unripened consumption goods but until ripened they bear in part the character of durable agents abiding sources of economic enjoyments are called durable agents
the inhabited house is a source of continued gratification in each moment's shelter it affords but further it is the durable source of a series of future uses as yet unripened the hammer the hoe
four this classification of goods is abstract in that it is a classification not of concrete goods but of qualities shared in some degree by nearly all goods
just at the moment of consumption to those most durable which yield an endless series of uses or products yet the classification is practical corresponding as it does with thoughts which men have in the use of goods
by repairs and other methods goods become and are looked upon as durable sources of a series of uses it is to be noted further that the enjoyable goods pass over into psychic income that is
one the bounty and variety of the natural supply of indirect goods in the material world are the prime conditions of a bountiful income to society
the supply of material economic goods all the earlier civilizations arose in warmer countries but after man had gained a certain mastery over the obstacles of nature he was able to soften the harsher features of climate
soil conditions for vegetable life determine first the amount and kind of animal life animal life from one point of view is a parasite living on the vegetable it is only the vegetable that has power to assimilate most inorganic compounds
the amount of rainfall is one of the most important conditions of industry man therefore depends on the resources of the soil directly or indirectly a fertile soil furnishes him either directly a supply of vegetable food
or indirectly a supply of animal food natural supplies of metals of coal and of timber are important consumption goods but they are also indirectly the condition for a vast variety of other goods
the industry that could exist without iron copper and coal
the variety of flora and fauna and their fitness for man's needs largely condition the possible production if in the course of evolution it had chanced that wheat and corn the horse and the cow
had been crowded out in the struggle for existence we should have had a very different civilization the possibilities of civilization in peru and those of all the indians on the american continent
not content with the material world about him even when it is at its best man alters it in many ways he enriches the soil improves the varieties of animals
he even in some slight degree affects the climate and by the use of a multitude of artificial bits of matter called tools
the outer world is to man the sole source of motive forces he can bring things together and they produce the result further it may be said that nearly every kind of utility is conditioned on motion
it is man's aim to secure a constant inflow of goods to secure this either he must move to get the goods or he must cause goods to move toward him the law of conservation of energy
helps to explain economic action the supply of energy in the universe cannot be increased or diminished but may take on new forms so a limited supply in man's control may take on various forms
and so have different effects on gratifications one and the same source of energy may be converted into the different forms of heat light motion electricity et cetera but there must be some source
man's desire is directed to getting force at the right place and in the right degree if light or heat is too intense it causes pain the glare of the sun blinds instead of giving keener vision
a moderate force applied to any of the senses gives the maximum clearness or pleasure man is constantly endeavoring to secure forces from the outer world and to adjust motion
three among the main sources of power used by men are food domestic animals and fuel in eating food man stores up force in his own body when he draws the bow
he puts force into it to lie latent until liberated at the right moment there must be a source of energy likewise that mental action may go on and the power of sunbeams stored for a time in food
is liberated in the processes of thought this first natural mode of liberating energy within their own bodies does not satisfy the growing needs and aims of men such a mode is labor
which becomes at times painful and distasteful in the earliest societies known some sorts of domestic animals are found supplementing man's efforts and acting upon the material world to alter it for man
the dog joining in the chase guards his master's safety and helps to bear his burdens the draft beast in the field turns the heavy soil and aids in the final harvest
the trained elephant does the work of twenty men piling logs loading ships or carrying burdens man further increases his control over the material world by making other men do his bidding domestic slavery
where wife or child serves the father of the family or chattel slavery where the vanquished toils for the victor are all but universal in early communities such a method of increasing one's control over the forces of the world
requires only superior strength no special intelligence in mechanics and is thus one of the first crude devices in a primitive civilization fuel has been up to the present time perhaps the most important source of energy
fire in the hands of savage man gave him dominion over the forests and over the metals in this age of steam the liberation of the energy of the sun stored up in coal in ages past
are in wind and water while the supply of fuel is being used at a progressive rate and will soon approach exhaustion there are elsewhere exhaustless stores of energy awaiting man's command to make use of the wind for sailing a boat
if some means can be found for equalizing the flow and for storing the power of the wind it may yet become a great agency of industry the force of falling water long used in a petty way by the old water mills
but wave motion is too irregular to serve well the needs for power but the constant motion of the tides offers at some favored points
five man studies and compares the durable goods that give him command over enjoyable goods and attaches value to them thus energy is found dissipating itself throughout the world in ways useless to man
where it cannot serve his purposes as man grows in power of control over nature he seeks to apply these forces in forms and at places he has selected if he can arm himself with the energies of mine and torrent
he ceases to accept passively its conditions and to live on its grudging gifts he becomes its fashioner in a sense its creator
his intelligence and his wants are most important factors determining what the form of the physical world about him shall be but all the efforts of men in the most developed economy cannot make to disappear
the differences in the quality of goods and agents desirable goods to consume are limited in quantity and they vary in quality hence they have value and some higher than others likewise durable material agents
and sources of power are limited in number and vary in convenience of location and efficiency as men seek to gratify their desires they attach importance to these agents of power each is valued for its service or its series of services
the apple tree is valued because it bears fruit and the orchard because the trees give promise of yielding a succession of crops for years to come there are thus two problems of value in connection with durable goods
that of the value of a temporary use for a brief period as for a year and that of the value of a thing itself the use bearer for a long series of years or in perpetuity
to explain what fixes the value of the temporary use is the problem of rent to explain what determines the value of long continued use or of permanent control and ownership of a use bearer
the word comes from the low latin renta from renda in turn
that which is given yielded or given back or rendita that which is given or returned the french rendre english render to give or return that which belongs to one
is used very early chaucer used rente as an income
cattle probably meaning property chattels and rente income rental is a collective term for a number of rents the total yield of an estate was called its rental or rent roll and a list of the various sources of income
including all payments from tenants in money produce or services
three the popular meaning of rent is the amount paid for the use of material things which must be returned to the owners after the time of use agreed upon we speak of the rent of a house boat et cetera
using the word as a synonym for hire in the european languages the word is used more frequently in that sense in the french la rente means the income from any kind of property
but corporate securities and national bonds came particularly to be called
because they are a form of investment yielding a permanent income the one who has a perpetual income from bonds or rents is called a
and capitalrente the income usually in england called interest a restricted meaning has long been applied by economists to the word the income yielded by lands et cetera
this was put in contrast with interest for money and capital and with wages of labor this meaning is now being abandoned by economic students a wider meaning recently given to the word by many economists
turns on the supposed relation of some portions of price to cost of production thus frequent use is made of the expressions consumer's rent producer's rent buyer's rent
meantime no economist can dictate what meaning is to be attached to the term but one may suggest the definition that seems to him most expedient throughout this work we shall endeavor to use the term rent uniformly and consistently
four the essential thought in rent as we shall use it
as distinguished from the value of the use bearer or thing itself the meaning of usufruct is the use of the fruits or in legal phrase
by a metaphor the word in legal discussion is applied to the use of any product and we shall employ it as in common speech in reference to one's own goods
the qualities whose use gives value are not usually indestructible
there is a famous phrase used by ricardo rent is paid for the original and indestructible qualities of the soil he said indestructible but the word is not apt
there are many qualities in the fertile field that must be destroyed when it is used every economist since ricardo's time has recognized this and many excuses for the inaccuracy have been given after every harvest
the field is less serviceable than before and if it is to be of the same grade of efficiency the fertile elements must be restored we cannot assert that ricardo meant undestroyed for he was not quite clear on the question
it is only by a fiction that most indirect agents can be regarded as indestructible things yielding rent are not indestructible
is estimated allowance must be made for repairs depreciation and for various expenses which absorb a good portion of the gross product when this allowance has been made the income may be considered as a net sum not due to the sale
or to the using up of any part of the thing rented this is the essential thought in typical rent that it is the value of the surplus or net product of an economic agent leaving the agent itself unimpaired in efficiency
the total product is sometimes called the gross rent but economic rent is net rent this thought is made clearer by the following discussion
one economic rent likewise called natural competitive and sometimes rack rent is to be distinguished from contract rent economic rent is the market value of the usufruct
and contract rent is the amount a man pays for the use of wealth by virtue of an existing agreement the one is impersonal or economic the other is personal or legal being fixed by agreements between persons
the rents usually spoken of are contract rents
if the contract has been lately made the two will be nearly the same contracts of long standing often bind the tenant or borrower to pay either more or less than the present competitive price if after a time
the value of the use is greater than the contract rent the tenant is fortunate in having his lease but he is the loser if he is bound by lease or agreement to pay rent in a locality where land has become less valuable
custom may prevent the owner from charging all the usufruct of the agent is worth if the contract rent is less than the economic rent evidently the borrower enjoys a part of the usufruct without charge
prospective hirers of agents forecast what the use will be worth to them
the form of the renting contract is observed by men in estimating the uses of their own wealth where no contract exists if they count the gross product of an agent as rent it is bad bookkeeping in many cases it is necessary therefore
land is not recognized as wealth to be exchanged or owned but at a later stage as in the middle ages in europe land and the things pertaining to it as ditches houses mills cattle stock
and the few simple implements constituted the larger portion of the wealth land was granted to the tenant or serf in return for services the contract was pretty strictly drawn and all items were specified
it was not hard to hold the tenant to his contract to keep the land in about the same condition there was a certain rotation of crops the tenant was obliged to keep his stock up to standard and moreover he had a certain interest in the land
because his contract rent as explained above was less than the economic rent the landlord therefore could count pretty surely on the undiminished power of his land and stock from one year to another at that time
truck and barter were the common modes of exchange and rents were paid in products and services not in money the fruits of the soil were consumed on the spot instead of being sold as now land was rarely if ever sold outright
so that there was no occasion to estimate its total selling value it was thought of as a place on which to live
its yearly use was all that was subject to contract sale and exchange not the land itself but a rent charge on the land was sold
many medieval estates were so tied up by legal conditions that they could not be sold outright all that the owner could do was to sell or mortgage the annual rental thus in the middle ages
it was all but universal to look upon most indirect agents as exchangeable only under the renting contract as subject to renting
four as industry developed the renting contract remained almost wholly confined to cases of renting lands and houses the materials and appliances needed for manufacture and commerce are so manifold and varying in quality
that the rent form of contract is very cumbersome and difficult for exchangers to enforce if a merchant about to embark on a trading journey wished to rent a ship and a stock of goods
he must agree to repay the loan in goods of the same kind and quality as those received a contract most difficult to execute and giving occasion to costly tests and countless disagreements
it was much easier for the merchant to get his loan under the interest contract
a money loan with which to buy the goods with the growth of industry and commerce wealth increased in towns taking many forms as those of ships wagons tools and stocks of goods
in england the country which developed its industrial system earliest the idea of rent therefore gradually became disassociated almost entirely from the use or hire of any wealth but land and real property
because in the middle ages rent was associated almost entirely with natural resources they being the only important forms of wealth which men rented from others there was fostered the idea that the essential mark of rent
is the connection with natural resources it is a simple example of the association of ideas in the transfer or loan of movable goods the rent contract was quite overshadowed by the other form of contract that of a money loan
according to this explanation the essential and primary difference between renting wealth and borrowing money at interest is not in the kind of wealth whose use is thus temporarily transferred but in the nature of the contract
but as forms of wealth differ in their fitness for transfer under the two forms of contract there goes on a competition between them as a result of which each becomes associated with certain groups of goods in the middle ages
the renting contract was the dominant form but it has been progressively displaced by loans in the money form
five the main forms of wealth whose usufruct is still sold under long renting contracts are land and its more durable improvements in england farms are let under long leases a very common form being the thirty year lease
under the old almost fixed conditions in agriculture such a lease was equitable but when prices are rapidly changing and when new methods are being introduced it gives rise to great hardships about twenty five years ago
in america farms are let usually on shares and from year to year but the plan of a money rent is increasingly followed the difficulty of getting an equitable arrangement between landlord and tenant is recognized by all
he must specify in the contract whether the products can be taken away or are to be fed on the place so that the soil may not be impoverished and he must provide for the purchase of other fertilizers
on the other hand the tenant under the renting contract has little motive for improvement and many occasions for discontent so in america far more than in the older countries land changes hands by sale
the purchaser going into debt for it giving his note and paying interest on the loan
many less durable goods are rented for brief periods carriages are rented for the day bicycles by the week or month sewing machines boats guns tents and even diamond engagement rings
yield their joys under the renting contract people frequently hesitate between the renting and the purchase of a piano and in some cases renting is the more convenient and desirable way of securing its use the purchase of a dress coat
or of a masquerade suit to be worn but once involves for some an excessive and needless sacrifice for a moderate sum its temporary use may be had and it is then returned little the worse for wear
a final word of caution may be given economic rent is not confined to the cases of contract rent it exists in every case where a more or less durable agent yields a use that is scarce and desirable
the owner who uses a thing himself gets the advantage in the product as clearly as if he collected rent from a borrower houses lived in by the owners
clothing books all scarce and durable agents are yielding rents in this logical sense to the economist therefore the problem of economic rent as one of the grand divisions of the problem of value
remains of undiminished importance for in these unceasing streams of uses
before i proceed in relating the part i had in public affairs under this new governor's administration it may not be amiss here to give some account of the rise and progress of my philosophical reputation
in seventeen forty six being at boston i met there with a doctor spence who was lately arrived from scotland and show'd me some electric experiments they were imperfectly perform'd as he was not very expert
a present of a glass tube with some account of the use of it in making such experiments i eagerly seized the opportunity of repeating what i had seen at boston
adding a number of new ones i say much practice for my house was continually full for some time with people who came to see these new wonders
was founded in sixteen sixty and holds the foremost place among english societies for the advancement of science
to divide a little this incumbrance among my friends i caused a number of similar tubes to be blown at our glass house with which they furnish'd themselves so that we had at length several performers
and accompanied with such explanations in such method
should assist in comprehending the following he procur'd an elegant apparatus for the purpose in which all the little machines that i had roughly made for myself were nicely form'd by instrument makers his lectures
were well attended and gave great satisfaction and after some time he went thro the colonies exhibiting them in every capital town and pick'd up some money
oblig'd as we were to mister collinson for his present of the tube et cetera i thought it right he should be inform'd of our success in using it and wrote him several letters containing accounts of our experiments
where they were not at first thought worth so much notice as to be printed in their transactions one paper which i wrote for mister kinnersley
an acquaintance of mine and one of the members also of that society who wrote me word that it had been read but was laughed at by the connoisseurs the papers however being shown to doctor fothergill
he thought them of too much value to be stifled and advis'd the printing of them mister collinson then gave them to cave for publication in his gentleman's magazine but he chose to print them separately in a pamphlet
and doctor fothergill wrote the preface cave it seems judged rightly for his profit for by the additions
believing it was better to spend what time i could spare from public business in making new experiments than in disputing about those already made i therefore never answered
of the royal academy of sciences took up my cause and refuted him
languages and the doctrine it contain'd was by degrees universally adopted by the philosophers of europe in preference to that of the abbe so that he lived to see himself the last of his sect
this engag'd the public attention everywhere
who had an apparatus for experimental philosophy
undertook to repeat what he called the philadelphia experiments and after they were performed before the king and court all the curious of paris flocked to see them i will not swell this narrative with an account of that capital experiment
as both are to be found in the histories of electricity
quarrels with the proprietary governors
mister morris ask'd me if i thought he must expect as uncomfortable an administration i said no you may on the contrary have a very comfortable one if you will only take care
i promise you i will if possible avoid them he had some reason for loving to dispute being eloquent
and therefore generally successful in argumentative conversation he had been brought up to it from a boy his father as i have heard accustoming his children to dispute with one another for his diversion
for in the course of my observation these disputing contradicting and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs they get victory sometimes but they never get good will
which would be of more use to them we parted he going to philadelphia and i to boston in returning i met at new york with the votes of the assembly by which it appear'd that notwithstanding his promise to me he and the house were already in high contention
and it was a continual battle between them as long as he retain'd the government i had my share of it for as soon as i got back to my seat in the assembly i was put on every committee for answering his speeches and messages
the proprietor would give you a good price the governor says i
thick upon his own face so that finding he was likely to be negrofied himself he as well as mister hamilton
our hereditary governors who when any expense was to be incurred for the defense of their province with incredible meanness instructed their deputies to pass no act for levying the necessary taxes
unless their vast estates were in the same act expressly excused and they had even taken bonds of these deputies to observe such instructions the assemblies for three years held out against this injustice
tho constrained to bend at last at length captain denny who was governor morris's successor
the government of massachusetts bay projected
and mister pownall afterward governor pownall to new york to solicit assistance as i was in the assembly knew its temper and was mister quincy's countryman he appli'd to me for my influence and assistance
and therefore i propos'd that the orders should be payable in a year and to bear an interest of five per cent with these orders i suppos'd the provisions might easily be purchas'd the assembly with very little hesitation adopted the proposal the orders were immediately printed
the fund for paying them was the interest of all the paper currency then extant in the province upon loan together with the revenue arising from the excise which being known to be more than sufficient
who then resided at treves was deeply affected by the calamities of illyricum but the lateness of the season suspended the execution of his designs till the ensuing spring he marched in person
he should examine and pronounce when he arrived at sirmium he gave audience to the deputies
was incapable of the magnanimity which dares to acknowledge a fault he forgot the provocation remembered only the injury and advanced into the country of the quadi
and dejected countenances and without daring to complain of the murder of their king they affirmed with solemn oaths that the late invasion was the crime of some irregular robbers which the public council of the nation condemned and abhorred
the answer of the emperor left them
from the evidence of reason as well as history that the two marriages of valentinian with severa and with justina were successively contracted and that he used the ancient permission of divorce which was still allowed by the laws though it was condemned by the church
who seemed to unite every claim which could entitle him to the undoubted succession of the western empire he was the eldest son of a monarch whose glorious reign had confirmed the free and honorable choice of his fellow soldiers
before he had attained the ninth year of his age the royal youth received from the hands of his indulgent father the purple robe and diadem
the favorable opinion of the army and the people
immediately revived in the imperial council and the ambitious design of reigning in the name of an infant was artfully executed by
and equitius who commanded the attachment of the illyrian and italian bands they contrived the most honorable pretences
and the troops of gaul who might have asserted the claims of the lawful successor they suggested the necessity of extinguishing the hopes of foreign and domestic enemies by a bold and decisive measure the empress justina
who had been left in a palace about one hundred miles from bregetio was respectively invited to appear in the camp with the son of the deceased emperor on the sixth day after the death of valentinian the infant prince of the same name
who was only four years old was shown in the arms of his mother to the legions and solemnly invested by military acclamation
were seasonably prevented by the wise and moderate conduct of the emperor gratian he cheerfully accepted the choice of the army
as a brother not as a rival and advised the empress with her son valentinian to fix their residence at milan in the fair and peaceful province of italy while he assumed the more arduous command of the countries beyond the alps
dissembled his resentment till he could safely punish or disgrace the authors of the conspiracy and though he uniformly behaved with tenderness and regard to his infant colleague he gradually confounded
in the administration of the western empire the office of a guardian with the authority of a sovereign
the last a punisher society in every state is a blessing but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries
by a government which we might expect in a country without government our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer government like dress is the badge of lost innocence
the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise
uniform and irresistibly obeyed man would need no other lawgiver but that not being the case he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest
and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least wherefore security being the true design and end of government it unanswerably follows
that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us with the least expence and greatest benefit is preferable to all others in order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government
let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth unconnected with the rest
or of the world in this state of natural liberty society will be their first thought
the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants
that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another who in his turn requires the same four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness
without accomplishing any thing when he had felled his timber he could not remove it nor erect it after it was removed hunger in the mean time would urge him from his work and every different want
call him a different way disease nay even misfortune would be death for though neither might be mortal yet either would disable him from living and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die
while they remained perfectly just to each other but as nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice it will unavoidably happen that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration which bound them together in a common cause
they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other and this remissness will point out the necessity of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue some convenient tree will afford them a state house
under the branches of which the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters it is more than probable that their first laws will have the title only of regulations and be enforced by no other penalty
in this first parliament every man by natural right will have a seat but as the colony increases the public concerns will increase likewise and the distance at which the members may be separated
will render it too inconvenient for all of them to meet on every occasion as at first when their number was small their habitations near and the public concerns few and trifling
to be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those have who appointed them and who will act in the same manner as the whole body would act were they present
each part sending its proper number and that the elected might never form to themselves an interest separate from the electors prudence will point out the propriety of having elections often because as the elected
and as this frequent interchange will establish a common interest with every part of the community they will mutually and naturally support each other and on this not on the unmeaning name of king depends the strength of government
and the happiness of the governed here then is the origin and rise of government namely a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world here too is the design and end of government viz
freedom and security and however our eyes may be dazzled with snow or our ears deceived by sound however prejudice may warp our wills or interest darken our understanding the simple voice of nature and of reason will say it is right
from a principle in nature which no art can overturn viz that the more simple any thing is the less liable it is to be disordered and the easier repaired when disordered
and with this maxim in view i offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of england
in which it was erected is granted when the world was over run with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue but that it is imperfect subject to convulsions and incapable of producing what it seems to promise
is easily demonstrated absolute governments tho the disgrace of human nature have this advantage with them that they are simple if the people suffer they know the head from which their suffering springs know likewise the remedy
and every political physician will advise a different medicine i know it is difficult to get over local or long standing prejudices yet if we will suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the english constitution
we shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient tyrannies compounded with some new republican materials first the remains of monarchical tyranny in the person of the king secondly the remains of aristocratical tyranny
in the persons of the peers thirdly the new republican materials in the persons of the commons on whose virtue depends the freedom of england the two first by being hereditary are independent of the people
constitutional sense they contribute nothing towards the freedom of the state to say that the constitution of england is a union of three powers reciprocally checking each other is farcical either the words have no meaning or they are
secondly that the commons by being appointed for that purpose are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the crown but as the same constitution which gives the commons a power to check the king by withholding the supplies
gives afterwards the king a power to check the commons by empowering him to reject their other bills it again supposes that the king is wiser than those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him a mere absurdity
there is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy it first excludes a man from the means of information yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required the state of a king shuts him from the world
yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly wherefore the different parts by unnaturally opposing and destroying each other prove the whole character to be absurd and useless some writers have explained the english constitution thus
the people another the peers are an house in behalf of the king the commons in behalf of the people but this hath all the distinctions of an house divided against itself and though the expressions be pleasantly arranged
yet when examined they appear idle and ambiguous and it will always happen that the nicest construction that words are capable of when applied to the description of some thing which either cannot exist or is too incomprehensible to be within the compass of description
or as the phrase is check the rapidity of its motion yet so long as they cannot stop it their endeavors will be ineffectual the first moving power will at last have its way and what it wants in speed is supplied by time
that the crown is this overbearing part in the english constitution needs not be mentioned and that it derives its whole consequence merely from being the giver of places and pensions is self evident wherefore
though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door against absolute monarchy we at the same time have been foolish enough to put the crown in possession of the key the prejudice of englishmen in favour of their own government by king lords and commons
it is handed to the people under the more formidable shape of an act of parliament for the fate of charles the first hath only made kings more subtle not more just
early friends in philadelphia keimer and i liv'd on a pretty good familiar footing and agreed tolerably well for he suspected nothing of my setting up
he retained a great deal of his old enthusiasms and lov'd argumentation we therefore had many disputations i used to work him so with my socratic method
so distant from any point we had in hand and yet by degrees led to the point and brought him into difficulties and contradictions that at last he grew ridiculously cautious
the most common question without asking first
however it gave him so high an opinion of my abilities in the confuting way that he seriously proposed my being his colleague in a project he had of setting up a new sect he was to preach the doctrines and i was to confound all opponents
when he came to explain with me upon the doctrines i found several conundrums which i objected to unless i might have my way a little too and introduce some of mine keimer wore his beard at full length because
but agreed to admit them upon condition of his adopting the doctrine of using no animal food i doubt said he my constitution will not bear that i assur'd him it would
he was usually a great glutton and i promised myself some diversion in half starving him he agreed to try the practice if i would keep him company i did so and we held it for three months
we had our victuals dress'd and brought to us regularly by a woman in the neighborhood who had from me a list of forty dishes to be prepar'd for us at different times
i have since kept several lents most strictly leaving the common diet for that and that for the common abruptly without the least inconvenience
suffered grievously tired of the project long'd for the flesh pots of egypt and order'd a roast pig he invited me and two women friends to dine with him but it being brought too soon upon table
he could not resist the temptation and ate the whole before we came
during this time to miss read i had a great respect and affection for her and had some reason to believe she had the same for me but as i was about to take a long voyage and we were both very young only a little above eighteen
it was thought most prudent by her mother to prevent our going too far at present as a marriage if it was to take place would be more convenient after my return when i should be as i expected set up in my business
perhaps too she thought my expectations not so well founded as i imagined them to be my chief acquaintances at this time were charles osborne joseph watson and james ralph all lovers of reading
conveyancer in the town charles brockden the other was clerk to a merchant watson was a pious sensible young man of great integrity the others rather more lax in their principles of religion
particularly ralph who as well as collins had been unsettled by me for which they both made me suffer osborne was sensible candid frank sincere and affectionate to his friends but in literary matters
too fond of criticizing ralph was ingenious genteel in his manners and extremely eloquent i think i never knew a prettier talker both of them were great admirers of poetry
assur'd him he had no genius for poetry and advis'd him to think of nothing beyond the business he was bred to that in the mercantile way tho he had no stock he might by his diligence and punctuality
recommend himself to employment as a factor and in time acquire wherewith to trade on his own account i approv'd the amusing one's self with poetry now and then so far as to improve one's language but no farther
we excluded all considerations of invention by agreeing that the task should be a version of the eighteenth psalm which describes the descent of a deity when the time of our meeting drew nigh ralph called on me first
and let me know his piece was ready i told him i had been busy and having little inclination had done nothing he then show'd me his piece for my opinion and i much approv'd it as it appear'd to me to have great merit
now says he osborne never will allow the least merit in anything of mine but makes one thousand criticisms out of mere envy he is not so jealous of you i wish therefore you would take this piece and produce it as yours
i will pretend not to have had time and so produce nothing we shall then see what he will say to it it was agreed and i immediately transcrib'd it
we met watson's performance was read there were some beauties in it but many defects osborne's was read it was much better ralph did it justice remarked some faults but applauded the beauties
he himself had nothing to produce i was backward seemed desirous of being excused
but no excuse could be admitted produce i must
and join'd in applauding it ralph only made some criticisms and propos'd some amendments but i defended my text osborne was against ralph and told him he was no better a critic than poet so he dropt the argument
but who would have imagin'd said he that franklin had been capable of such a performance such painting such force such fire he has even improv'd the original
in his common conversation he seems to have no choice of words he hesitates and blunders and yet good god how he writes
and osborne was a little laughed at this transaction fixed ralph in his resolution of becoming a poet i did all i could to dissuade him from it but he continued scribbling verses till pope cured him
but ever when true friendship binds spirit it is that spirit finds in spirit then our bliss we found in spirit yet to them i'm bound
margaret was ready long before the appointed time and had leisure enough to cry a little quietly when unobserved and to smile brightly when any one looked at her
and whirling away past the well known stations seeing the old south country towns and hamlets sleeping in the warm light of the pure sun
none of the bustle and stir that margaret had noticed in her two journeys on the london and north western line later on in the year this line of railway should be stirring and alive with rich pleasure seekers
with his hands in his pockets so absorbed in the simple act of watching that it made the travellers wonder what he could find to do when the train whirled away and only the blank of a railway some sheds
every mile was redolent of associations which she would not have missed for the world but each of which made her cry upon the days that are no more with ineffable longing the last time she had passed along this road
was when she had left it with her father and mother the day the season had been gloomy and she herself hopeless but they were there with her now she was alone an orphan
as it had been in former years nature felt no change and was ever young mister bell knew something of what would be passing through her mind and wisely and kindly held his tongue they drove up to the lennard arms
half farm house half inn standing a little apart from the road as much as to say that the host did not so depend on the custom of travellers as to have to court it by any obtrusiveness
in some hidden recesses of whose leafy wealth hung the grim escutcheon of the lennards the door of the inn stood wide open but there was no hospitable hurry to receive the travellers when the landlady did appear
and they might have abstracted many an article first she gave them a kind welcome almost as if they had been invited guests and apologised for her coming having been so delayed
by saying that it was hay time and the provisions for the men had to be sent a field and she had been too busy packing up the baskets to hear the noise of wheels over the road which since they had left the highway ran over soft short turf why
and then she went up to margaret and shook her hands with motherly fondness and how are you all how's the vicar and miss dixon the vicar above all god bless him we've never ceased to be sorry that he left
margaret tried to speak and tell her of her father's death of her mother's it was evident that missus purkis was aware from her omission of her name but she choked in the effort and could only touch her deep mourning
and say the one word papa surely sir it's never so said missus purkis turning to mister bell for confirmation of the sad suspicion that now entered her mind there was a gentleman here in the spring it
who told us a deal of mister hale and miss margaret and he said missus hale was gone poor lady but never a word of the vicar's being ailing
it is so however said mister bell he died quite suddenly when on a visit to me at oxford he was a good man missus purkis and there's many of us that might be thankful to have as calm an end as his come margaret my dear
her father was my oldest friend and she's my god daughter so i thought we would just come down together and see the old place and i know of old you can give us comfortable rooms and a capital dinner you don't remember me i see but my name is bell
and once or twice when the parsonage has been full i've slept here and tasted your good ale to be sure i ask your pardon but you see i was taken up with miss hale
and wash your face it's only this very morning i plunged some fresh gathered roses head downward in the water jug
well to be sure we must all die only that gentleman said he was quite picking up after his trouble about missus hale's death come down to me missus purkis after you have attended to miss hale i want to have a consultation with you about dinner
the little casement window in margaret's bed chamber was almost filled up with rose and vine branches but pushing them aside and stretching a little out she could see the tops of the parsonage chimneys above the trees
and they both talk so much and both at a time that they knock one down as it were and it's not till they're gone and one's a little at peace that one can think that there were things one might have said on one's own side of the question
he'll be after the men's cans in the hay field and peeping in and then there'll be an ado because it's not ginger beer but i can't help it my mother and my grandmother before me sent good malt liquor to haymakers and took salts and senna when anything ailed them
and after this rustic luncheon they set out to walk hardly knowing in what direction to turn so many old familiar inducements were there in each shall we go past the vicarage asked mister bell no not yet
we will go this way and make a round so as to come back by it replied margaret here and there old trees had been felled the autumn before or a squatter's roughly built and decaying cottage had disappeared
margaret missed them each and all and grieved over them like old friends they came past the spot where she and mister lennox had sketched the white lightning scarred trunk of the venerable beech among whose roots they had sate down was there no more
the old man the inhabitant of the ruinous cottage was dead the cottage had been pulled down and a new one tidy and respectable had been built in its stead
afterwards we lose the sense of the mysterious i take changes in all i see as a matter of course the instability of all human things is familiar to me to you it is new and oppressive let us go on to see little susan said margaret
drawing her companion up a grassy road way leading under the shadow of a forest glade with all my heart though i have not an idea who little susan may be but i have a kindness for all susans for simple susan's sake
quite sure that is if you don't walk so fast you see
you would think it romantic to be walking with a person fat and scant o breath if i were hamlet prince of denmark have compassion on my infirmities for his sake
i am content to take your liking me without examining too curiously into the materials it is made of only we need not walk at a snail's pace very well walk at your own pace and i will follow
but she would rather have gone over these dear loved walks in silence if indeed she were not ungrateful enough to wish that she might have been alone they reached the cottage where susan's widowed mother lived susan was not there
she was gone to the parochial school margaret was disappointed and the poor woman saw it and began to make a kind of apology
and learning to read a chapter in the new testament every night by her side than from all the schooling under the sun margaret did not want to encourage him to go on by replying to him and so prolonging the discussion before the mother
so she turned to her and asked how is old betty barnes i don't know said the woman rather shortly we'se not friends why not asked margaret who had formerly been the peacemaker of the village she stole my cat
i don't know i reckon
it was no explanation by dint of questioning margaret extracted from her the horrible fact that betty barnes having been induced by a gypsy fortune teller to lend the latter her husband's sunday clothes
became alarmed by their non appearance and her consequent dread of her husband's anger and as according to one of the savage country superstitions the cries of a cat in the agonies of being boiled or roasted alive compelled as it were
but at the end the bewildered woman simply repeated her first assertion namely that it were very cruel for sure and she should not like to do it
she had heard it all her life but it were very cruel for all that margaret gave it up in despair and walked away sick at heart you are a good girl not to triumph over me said mister bell
how what do you mean i own i am wrong about schooling anything rather than have that child brought up in such practical paganism oh i remember poor little susan i must go and see her would you mind calling at the school
the buzz of voices like the murmur of a hive of busy human bees made itself heard as soon as they emerged from the forest on the more open village green on which the school was situated
but in an instant she had conquered this feeling and modestly advanced meeting many a bright glance of recognition and hearing many a half suppressed murmur of it's miss hale the vicar's lady heard the name and her manner at once became more kindly
the lady held out a hand to mister bell with
margaret explained that it was not her father and stammered out the fact of his death wondering all the time how mister hale could have borne coming to revisit helstone if it had been as the vicar's lady supposed
first class stand up for a parsing lesson with miss hale poor margaret whose visit was sentimental not in any degree inspective felt herself taken in but as in some way bringing her in contact with little eager faces once well known
and who had received the solemn rite of baptism from her father she sate down half losing herself in tracing out the changing features of the girls and holding susan's hand for a minute or two unobserved by all
while the first class sought for their books and the vicar's lady went as near as a lady could towards holding mister bell by the button while she explained the phonetic system to him and gave him a conversation she had had with the inspector about it
but we are taught by mister milsome to call a an who can remember an adjective absolute said half a dozen voices at once
the children knew more than she did mister bell turned away and smiled margaret spoke no more during the lesson but after it was over she went quietly round to one or two old favourites
though a tinge of sadness mixed itself with her pleasure when school was over for the day it was yet early in the summer afternoon
and see the the word improvements had half slipped out of her mouth but she substituted the more cautious term alterations which the present vicar was making
the parsonage was so altered both inside and out that the real pain was less than she had anticipated it was not like the same place the garden the grass plat
formerly so daintily trim that even a stray rose leaf seemed like a fleck on its exquisite arrangement and propriety was strewed with children's things a bag of marbles here a hoop there
to the destruction of a long beautiful tender branch laden with flowers which in former days would have been trained up tenderly as if beloved the little square matted hall was equally filled with signs of merry healthy rough childhood ah said missus hepworth
who straggled to the tempting beer house unobserved as they might hope but not unobserved in reality for the active vicar kept his eye on the road even during the composition of his most orthodox sermons
they were both of them tired and margaret herself so much so that she was unwilling to go out as she had proposed to do and have another ramble among the woods and fields so close to the home of her childhood
and somehow this visit to helstone had not been all had not been exactly what she had expected there was change everywhere slight yet pervading all
households were changed by absence or death or marriage or the natural mutations brought by days and months and years which carry us on imperceptibly from childhood to youth
whence we drop like fruit fully ripe into the quiet mother earth places were changed a tree gone here
which harmonised well with her pensive thought mister bell slept soundly after his unusual exercise through the day at last he was roused by the entrance of the tea tray brought in by a flushed looking country girl
who had evidently been finding some variety from her usual occupation of waiter in assisting this day in the hayfield
suddenly looking up at him with her clear honest eyes i told a lie and her face became scarlet true that was bad i own
not but what i have told a pretty round number in my life not all in downright words as i suppose you did but in actions or in some shabby circumlocutory way leading people either to disbelieve the truth
the tainting blood of falsehood runs through us all i should have guessed you as far from it as most people what crying child nay now we'll not talk of it if it ends in this way i dare say you have been sorry for it and that you won't do it again
and it's long ago now and in short i want you to be very cheerful and not very sad this evening margaret wiped her eyes and tried to talk about something else but suddenly she burst out afresh please mister bell let me tell you about it
you could perhaps help me a little no not help me but if you knew the truth perhaps you could put me to rights that is not it after all said she in despair at not being able to express herself more exactly as she wished
and i was undone with anxiety and afraid too that i might have drawn him into danger and we had an alarm just after her death for dixon met some one in milton a man called leonards who had known fred and who seemed to owe him a grudge
and with this new fright i thought i had better hurry off fred to london where as you would understand from what we said the other night he was to go to consult mister lennox as to his chances if he stood the trial so we that is he and i
and we were too early and went out to walk in a field just close by i was always in a panic about this leonards who was i knew somewhere in the neighbourhood
some one came by on horseback in the road just below the field style by which we stood i saw him look at me but i did not know who it was at first the sun was so in my eyes but in an instant the dazzle went off and i saw it was mister thornton and we bowed
and he saw frederick of course said mister bell helping her on with her story as he thought yes and then at the station a man came up tipsy and reeling and he tried to collar fred and over balanced himself as fred wrenched himself away
and fell over the edge of the platform not far not deep not above three feet but oh mister bell somehow that fall killed him how awkward it was this leonards i suppose and how did fred get off
now comes the bad part said she nervously twining her fingers together a police inspector came and taxed me with having been the companion of the young man whose push or blow had occasioned leonards death
he might be shot all this flashed through my mind and i said it was not me i was not at the railway station that night i knew nothing about it i had no conscience or thought but to save frederick i say it was right i should have done the same
you forgot yourself in thought for another i hope i should have done the same no you would not it was wrong disobedient faithless at that very time fred was safely out of england
and in my blindness i forgot that there was another witness who could testify to my being there who mister thornton you know he had seen me close to the station we had bowed to each other well
he would know nothing of this riot about the drunken fellow's death i suppose the inquiry never came to anything no the proceedings they had begun to talk about on the inquest were stopped mister thornton did know all about it he was a magistrate
and he found out that it was not the fall that had caused the death but not before he knew what i had said oh mister bell she suddenly covered her face with her hands as if wishing to hide herself from the presence of the recollection
did you have any explanation with him did you ever tell him the strong instinctive motive the instinctive want of faith and clutching at a sin to keep myself from sinking said she bitterly no how could i
he knew nothing of frederick to put myself to rights in his good opinion was i to tell him of the secrets of our family involving as they seemed to do the chances of poor frederick's entire exculpation fred's last words
but he must be perplexed if the affair has never been in the least explained there was first your walking out with a young man in the dark but it was my brother said margaret surprised true but how was he to know that
i don't know i never thought of anything of that kind said margaret reddening and looking hurt and offended and perhaps he never would but for the lie which under the circumstances i maintain was necessary
there are many things more unlikely i should say replied mister bell but i believe i never shall still somehow one does not like to have sunk so low in in a friend's opinion as i have done in his
her eyes were full of tears but her voice was steady and mister bell was not looking at her and now that frederick has given up all hope and almost all wish of ever clearing himself and returning to england
and tell him also that i gave you leave to do so because i felt that for papa's sake i should not like to lose his respect though we may never be likely to meet again certainly i think he ought to know
i do not like you to rest even under the shadow of an impropriety he would not know what to think of seeing you alone with a young man as for that said margaret rather haughtily
yet still i should choose to have it explained if any natural opportunity for easy explanation occurs but it is not to clear myself of any suspicion of improper conduct that i wish to have him told
if i thought that he had suspected me i should not care for his good opinion no it is that he may learn how i was tempted and how i fell into the snare why i told that falsehood in short which i don't blame
you for it is no partiality of mine i assure you what other people may think of the rightness or wrongness is nothing in comparison to my own deep knowledge my innate conviction that it was wrong
but we will not talk of that any more if you please it is done my sin is sinned i have now to put it behind me and be truthful for evermore if i can very well if you like to be uncomfortable and morbid be so
i always keep my conscience as tight shut up as a jack in a box for when it jumps into existence it surprises me by its size so i coax it down again as the fisherman coaxed the genie
would you once more compress yourself into your former dimensions and when i've got him down don't i clap the seal on the vase and take good care how i open it again and how i go against solomon wisest of men who confined him there
but it was no smiling matter to margaret she hardly attended to what mister bell was saying her thoughts ran upon the idea before entertained but which now had assumed the strength of a conviction
for that and any return on her part she had resolved never to dwell upon and she kept rigidly to her resolution but in the respect and high regard which she had hoped would have ever made him willing in the spirit of gerald griffin's beautiful lines
to turn and look back when thou hearest the sound of my name she kept choking and swallowing all the time that she thought about it she tried to comfort herself with the idea that what he imagined her to be did not alter the fact of what she was
but it was a truism a phantom and broke down under the weight of her regret she had twenty questions on the tip of her tongue to ask mister bell but not one of them did she utter mister bell thought that she was tired and sent her early to her room
where she sate long hours by the open window gazing out on the purple dome above where the stars arose and twinkled and disappeared behind the great umbrageous trees before she went to bed all night long too there burnt a little light on earth
a candle in her old bedroom which was the nursery with the present inhabitants of the parsonage until the new one was built a sense of change of individual nothingness of perplexity and disappointment over powered margaret
nothing had been the same and this slight all pervading instability had given her greater pain than if all had been too entirely changed for her to recognise it i begin to understand now what heaven must be and oh
the grandeur and repose of the words the same yesterday to day and for ever everlasting from everlasting to everlasting thou art god that sky above me looks as though it could not change and yet it will
i am so tired so tired of being whirled on through all these phases of my life in which nothing abides by me no creature no place it is like the circle in which the victims of earthly passion eddy continually
i am in the mood in which women of another religion take the veil i seek heavenly steadfastness in earthly monotony if i were a roman catholic and could deaden my heart stun it with some great blow i might become a nun
if the world stood still it would retrograde and become corrupt if that is not irish looking out of myself and my own painful sense of change the progress all around me is right and necessary
to quiver down to her lips she went into the parlour and greeted mister bell ah missy you were up late last night and so you're late this morning now i've got a little piece of news for you what do you think of an invitation to dinner
a morning call literally in the dewy morning why i've had the vicar here already on his way to the school how much the desire of giving our hostess a teetotal lecture for the benefit of the haymakers had to do with his earliness i don't know
but here he was when i came down just before nine and we are asked to dine there to day but edith expects me back i cannot go said margaret thankful to have so good an excuse
still it is open if you would like it oh no said margaret let us keep to our plan let us start at twelve it is very good and kind of them but indeed i could not go very well don't fidget yourself and i'll arrange it all
before they left margaret stole round to the back of the vicarage garden and gathered a little straggling piece of honeysuckle she would not take a flower the day before for fear of being observed and her motives and feelings commented upon
but as she returned across the common the place was reinvested with the old enchanting atmosphere the common sounds of life were more musical there than anywhere else in the whole world the light more golden the life more tranquil and full of dreamy delight
as margaret remembered her feelings yesterday she said to herself and i too change perpetually now this now that now disappointed and peevish because all is not exactly as i had pictured it
when it was the six hundred and seventy third night she pursued it hath reached me o auspicious king
they said we will not slay him save in our own land then they sailed on till they came to the city of karaj the builder whereof was an amalekite fierce and furious and he had set up at each gate of the city a magical figure of copper which whenever a stranger entered
blew a blast on a trumpet that all in the city heard it and fell upon the stranger and slew him except they embraced their creed
king of al irak who biddeth the folk quit their belief and worship his lord wherefore when they bring him before thee look thou spare him not
so haply our god may look lovingly upon us but the wazir said o king it befitteth not to slaughter him thus for he would die in a moment better we imprison him and build a pyre of fuel and burn him with fire
quoth they we found the chains and shackles cast down and the doors fast locked whereat the king marvelled and asked hath this fellow to heaven up flown or into the earth gone down and they answered we know not then said the king
i will go and question my god and he will inform me whither he is gone so he rose and went in to prostrate himself to his idol but found it not and began to rub his eyes and say am i in sleep or on wake then he turned to his wazir and said to him
where is my god and where is my prisoner by my faith o dog of wazirs haddest thou not counselled me to burn him i had slaughtered him for it is he who hath stolen my god and fled and there is no help but i take brood wreak of him
then he drew his sword and struck off the wazir's head
replied gharib say there is no god but the god and abraham is the friend of god so the marid pronounced the profession of faith and was enrolled among the people of felicity now his name was zalzal
and the idol and made for the higher air such was his case but as regards the king when his soldiers saw what had befallen and the slaughter of the wazir they renounced the worship of the idol and drawing their swords slew the king after which they fell on one another
and the women and girls fled to the hamlets and forted villages wherefore the city became desert and none dwelt therein but the owl
and the land of the enchanted calf so called because its king al muzalzil had a pied calf which he had clad in housings brocaded with red gold and worshipped as a god one day the king and his people went in to the calf and found him trembling so the king said
what shall we do o king quoth he when my son cometh and ye see him embrace him do ye lay hold of him and they said hearkening and obedience after two days came zalzal and gharib with the king's idol of karaj
but no sooner had they entered the palace gate than the jinn seized on them and carried them before al muzalzil who looked at his son with eyes of ire and said to him o dog of the jann hast thou left thy faith and that of thy fathers and grandfathers
quoth zalzal i have embraced the true faith and on like wise do thou woe be to thee seek salvation and thou shalt be saved from the wrath of the king almighty in sway creator of night and day
therewith his father waxed wroth and said o son of adultery dost confront me with these words
whereupon the king cried out to a marid called sayyar saying
when being weary he alighted in a valley full of trees and streams and fruits and setting down from his back gharib chained as he was fell asleep for fatigue
he strove with his bonds till he burst them then taking up a heavy stone he cast it down on the marid's head and crushed his bones so that he died on the spot then he fared on into the valley and shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say
when it was the six hundred and seventy fifth night she continued it hath reached me o auspicious king
and found himself in a great island in mid ocean full of all fruits that lips and tongue could desire so he abode alone on the island drinking of its waters and eating of its fruits and of fish that he caught and days and years passed over him
till he had sojourned there in his solitude seven years one day as he sat
they grieved for him and one of the ifrits said abide thou here till we bear these two lambs to our king that he may break his fast on the one and sup on the other and after we will come back and carry thee to thine own country he thanked them and said
where be the lambs quoth they these two mortals are the lambs
i take refuge with allah the god of abraham the friend the lord of all creatures who hath power over everything then the marids flew away
when one of them returned bringing with him a suit of clothes wherewith he clad him then he took him up and flew with him sky high out of sight of earth
and a flaming shaft issued from amongst them and made for the marid who fled from it towards the earth
and the fiery shaft overtook the marid who became a heap of ashes
after which he rose to the surface and swam for two days and two nights till his strength failed him and he made certain of death but on the third day as he was despairing he caught sight of an island steep and mountainous so he swam for it and landing walked on inland
where he rested a day and a night feeding on the growth of the ground then he climbed to the mountain top and descending the opposite slope fared on two days till he came in sight of a walled and bulwarked city
so she asked him what be thy name and faith and whence comest thou and he answered
and i am a moslem said she leave this creed and enter mine and i will marry thee and make thee king but he looked at her with eyes of ire and cried perish thou and thy faith cried she
and she called out to her men saying imprison him in the house of the idol haply it will soften his heart so they shut him up in the domed shrine and locking the doors upon him went their way
they jailed him in the idol's domed shrine and locking the doors upon him went their way
but he smote one of them with his fist and slew him and so did he with another and yet another till he had slain five and twenty of them and the rest fled
quoth she what is the matter and quoth they the prisoner hath broken thine idol and slain thy men and told her all that had passed when she heard this she cast her crown to the ground and said there is no worth left in idols
then she mounted amid a thousand fighting men and rode to the temple
and come forth and was slaying men and overthrowing warriors when she saw his prowess her heart was drowned in the love of him and she said to herself
that he may lie in my bosom the rest of my life then she cried to her men hold aloof from him and leave him to himself then going up to him she muttered certain magical words whereupon his arm became benumbed his forearm relaxed
and the sword dropped from his hand so they seized him and pinioned him as he stood confounded stupefied then the queen returned to her palace and seating herself on her seat of estate bade her people withdraw and leave gharib with her
when they were alone she said to him o dog of the arabs wilt thou shiver my idol and slay my people he replied
so she took water and conjuring over it sprinkled it upon him and he became an ape and she used to feed and water and keep him in a loses appointing one to care for him and in this plight he abode two years then she called him to her one day and said to him
come do thy business he replied tis well and mounting on her breast seized her by the neck and brake it
they found gharib standing at the gate clad in complete war gear and he said to them o folk leave the service of idols and worship the all wise king creator of night and day the lord of men the quickener of dry bones
for he made all things and hath dominion over all when the kafirs heard this they ran at him but he fell on them like a rending lion and charged through them again and again slaying of them much people
and shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say when it was the six hundred and seventy seventh night she pursued it hath reached me o auspicious king that when the kafirs fell upon gharib
who plied them with the keen sabre and made them drink the cup of destruction whilst allah hurried their souls to hell fire
to tell the tale and the rest cried out quarter quarter and believed in the requiting king whom no one thing diverteth from other thing
lord of this world and of the next then zalzal saluted gharib and gave him joy of his safety and gharib said to him how knowest thou of my case and he replied o my lord
i ruled them for a year's space till one night i lay down to sleep having thee in thought and saw thee in a dream fighting against the people of jan shah wherefore i took these thousand marids and came to thee
then he seized upon jan shah's treasures and those of the slain and appointed a ruler over the city
and added them to those of jan shah then zalzal loaded forty thousand marids with the treasure
flew with his host towards the city of isbanir al madain
ho star o morn ho mahdiyah whereupon the twain started up from sleep in amazement and said who calleth us at this hour quoth he
and lullilooed with cries of joy so that all the palace rang again and the captains of the army awoke and said what is to do so they made for the palace and asked the eunuchs hath one of the king's women given birth to a child and they answered
no but rejoice ye for king gharib hath returned to you so they rejoiced and gharib after salams to the women came forth amongst his comrades who threw themselves upon him and kissed his hands and feet returning thanks to almighty allah and praising him
but we know not what they want for we have had with them neither battle nor speech and presently they added the name of the commander of the besieging army is murad shah and he hath with him an hundred thousand horse and three thousand foot besides two hundred tribesmen of the jinn
now the manner of his coming was wondrous and shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say when it was the six hundred and seventy eighth night she said it hath reached me o auspicious king
let her go bidding her flee for her life she went forth distracted unknowing whither to turn and saying
that thou mayst see my case and the misery i am in and wandered on from country to country and valley to valley
in whose midst stood a strong based castle and a lofty builded as it were one of the pavilions of paradise so she betook herself thither and entering the fortalice found it hung and carpeted with stuffs of silk and great plenty of gold and silver vessels
and therein were an hundred beautiful damsels
deeming her of the virgins of the jinn and asked her of her case quoth she i am daughter to the persians king and told them all that had befallen her which when they heard they wept over her and condoled with her and comforted her
saying be of good cheer and keep thine eyes cool and clear for here shalt thou have meat and drink and raiment
she called down blessings on them and they brought her food of which she ate till she was satisfied then quoth she to them who is the owner of this palace and lord over you girls and quoth they king salsal son of dal is our master
he passeth a night here once in every month and fareth in the morning to rule over the tribes of the jann
and he grew up in his mother's lap after a while came king salsal riding on a paper white elephant as he were a tower plastered with lime and attended by the troops of the jinn he entered the palace where the hundred damsels met him and kissed ground before him
when the king saw her he looked at her and said to the others who is yonder damsel and they replied
king of the persians and turks and daylamites quoth he who brought her hither so they repeated to him her story
and said to her grieve not but take patience till thy son be grown a man when i will go to the land of the ajamis and strike off thy father's head from between his shoulders and seat thy son on the throne in his stead so she rose and kissed his hands and blessed him
then she abode in the castle and her son grew up and was reared with the children of the king they used to ride forth together a hunting and birding and he became skilled in the chase of wild beasts and ravening lions and ate of their flesh till his heart became harder than the rock
o my mamma who is my papa she replied o my son
and i am the king's daughter of the persians and she told him her story quoth he
and quoth she yes whereupon he
colonel woodville had begun to swear it was not the torrent of loud imprecation that dick had heard in jackson but subdued and all the more fierce because it was so like the ferocious whine of a powerful and hurt wild animal swearing was common enough among the older men of the south
even among the educated but colonel woodville now surpassed them all dick heard oaths ripe and rich entirely new to him and he heard the old ones in new arrangements and with new inflections and yet there was no blasphemy about it
it seemed a part of time and place and what was more it seemed natural coming from the lips of the old colonel they reached the door the cut in the side of the ravine and at once a wide portion of the battlefield sprang into the light while the roar of the guns was redoubled
i will nevertheless see the chase and even if i am an old hound i could run with the best of them if that infernal yankee bullet had not taken me in the leg miss woodville brought him the glasses a powerful pair and he glued them instantly to his eyes
dick saw only the field of battle dark lines and blurs the red flare of cannon and rifle fire and towers and banks of smoke but the colonel saw individual human beings and with his trained military eye he knew what the movements meant
dick felt the hand upon his shoulder trembling with excitement he was excited himself miss woodville stood just behind them and a faint tinge of color appeared in her pale face the yankees are getting ready to charge said the colonel
and their rifles make sheets of flame all the time the cannon are firing over their heads heavens what a bombardment i've never before listened to its like
asked miss woodville very little yet and they should do little pemberton is showing more judgment than i expected of him the defense should hold its fire until the enemy is well within range and that's what we're doing the colonel leaned a little more heavily upon him but dick steadied himself
the old man still kept the glasses to his eyes and swept them back and forth in as wide an arc as their position permitted the hills shook with the thunder of the cannon and the brilliant sun piercing through the smoke lighted up the vast battle line
the attack of the skirmishers grows hotter said the old man the thickets blaze with the fire of their rifles heavy masses of infantry are moving forward now they stop and lie on their arms
they are awaiting the word from other parts of the field and it shows with certainty that a grand attack is coming two batteries of eight guns each have come nearer i did not think it possible for the fire of their cannon to increase but it has done so young sir would you care to look through the glasses
i believe not colonel i will trust to the naked eye and your report it was an odd feeling that made dick decline the glasses if he looked he must tell to the others what he saw and he wished to show neither exultation nor depression
the colonel the duty of courtesy discharged resumed his own position of witness and herald the columns of infantry are getting up again he said i see a man in what i take to be a general's uniform riding along their front he must be making a speech
no doubt he knows the desperate nature of the attack and would inspire them now he is gone and other officers colonels and majors are moving about what are the skirmishers doing colonel their fire is not so hot they must be drawing back
they have made the prelude and the importance of their role has passed the masses of infantry are drawing together again now i see men on horseback with trumpets to their lips yes the charge is coming
there was a terrific crash much nearer and dick knew that it was the southern batteries opening fire the shoulder upon which the colonel's hand rested shook a little but it was from excitement he said nothing and colonel woodville continued the smoke is so heavy i can't see what damage was done
there are gaps in the yankee lines but the men have closed up and they come on at the double quick with their cannon still firing over their heads in his excitement he took his hand off dick's shoulder and leaned forward a little farther supporting himself now against the earthen wall dick stood just behind him
shielded from the sight of any one who might be passing in the ravine although there was little danger now from searchers with a great battle going on meanwhile he watched the combat with an eagerness fully equal to that of the old colonel the mighty crash of cannon and rifles together continued
but for a little while the smoke banked up in front so densely that the whole combat was hidden from them then a wind slowly rolled the smoke away the figures of the men began to appear like shadowy tracery and then emerged distinct and separate from the haze
they are nearer now said the colonel i can plainly see their long lines moving and their light guns coming with them but our batteries are raking them horribly their men are falling by the scores and hundreds miss woodville uttered a deep sigh and turned her face away
but she looked again in a few moments the terrible spell was upon her too dick's nerves were quivering his heart was with the assailants and theirs with the assailed but he would not speak aloud against the hopes of colonel woodville and his daughter since he was in their house such as it was
and in a measure under their protection their charge is splendid continued the colonel and i hope pemberton has made full use of the ground for defense he will need all the help he can get oh to be out of the battle on such a day
the smoke is in the way again and i can see nothing now it has passed and the enemy is still advancing but our fire grows hotter and hotter the shells and the grape and the canister and the bullets are smashing through them they cannot live under it they must go back
nevertheless the blue lines came steadily toward the southern earthworks dick saw officers some ahorse and some afoot rushing about and encouraging the men and he saw many fall and lie still while the regiments passed on
they are in the nearer thickets cried the colonel and now they're climbing the slopes ah you riflemen your target is there the northern army was so near now that the southern rifle fire was beating upon it like a storm never flinching the men of the west and northwest
and reached the ears of those in the ravine the omen of victory exclaimed the colonel exultantly our brave lads feel that they're about to triumph grant can't break through our line why doesn't he call off his men it's slaughter dick's heart sank
he knew that the colonel's words were true the southern army posted in its defenses was breaking the ring of steel that sought to crush it to death groups of men in blue who had seized ground in the very front of the defenses either died there or were gradually driven back
the attack has failed and the south has won a victory but grant will come again said dick speaking his opinion for the first time no doubt of it said colonel woodville but likely he will come to the same fate he spoke wholly without animosity
the battle now died fast the men in gray had been invincible their cannon and rifles had made an impenetrable barrier of fire and grant despite the valor of his troops had been forced to draw off many thousands had fallen and the southern generals were exultant
johnston would come up and grant having such heavy losses would be unable to withstand the united confederate armies but grant as colonel woodville foresaw had no idea of retreating fresh troops were pouring down the great river for him
and while he would not again attempt to storm vicksburg the ring of steel around it would be made so broad and strong that pemberton could not get out nor could johnston get in when the last cannon shot echoed over the far hills colonel woodville turned away from the door of his hillside home
i must ask your shoulder again young sir he said to dick what i have seen rejoices me greatly but i do not say it to taunt you in war if one wins the other must lose and bear in mind that you are the invader
asked dick you may you are a good young man i'm glad i saved you from that scoundrel slade as the score between us is even i wish that you were out of vicksburg and with your own people i was thinking too sir that i ought to go
the repulse had struck him a hard blow was it possible that grant could not win and if he could not win what terrible risks he would run in the heart of the confederacy with perhaps two armies to fight he felt that only the mississippi
that life line connecting him with the north could save him but as dusk came gradually in the ravine he resolved that he would go his supper as usual was brought to him by miss woodville she was as taciturn as ever speaking scarcely a half dozen words
when he asked her if victor had gone through the battle unharmed she merely nodded and presently he was alone again with the dusk deepening in the great gully dick was confident that nobody but colonel woodville his daughter and himself were in the cave home it was but a small place
and new callous places on her hands indicated that she was doing the cooking and all other work his resolve to risk everything and go was strengthened he waited patiently until the full night had come and only the usual sounds of an army in camp arose then he made ready
he had surrendered his holster and pistols to colonel woodville and so he must issue forth unarmed
he had several ten dollar gold pieces in his pocket
he knew that it would be most welcome and he could not calculate how many hundreds in confederacy currency it was worth he was glad that he could repay a little at least then he stepped lightly toward the larger chamber in which colonel woodville lay
the usual candle was burning on the table near his bed but the great bald head lay motionless on the pillow and the heavy white eyebrows drooped over closed lids sound asleep dick was glad of it the colonel with his strong loyalty to the south
might seek to hold him at least as his personal prisoner and now the trouble was avoided he moved gently across the floor and then passed toward the open door how good that puff of fresh air and freedom felt on his face
dick stepped into the narrow path cut in the side of the ravine and inhaled more draughts of the fresh air how sweet and strong it was how it filled one's lungs and brought with it life courage and confidence
the blessed winds that blew about the world he knew that the path ran in front of other hollows dug in the earth and he felt sorry for the people who were compelled to burrow in them he felt sorry in truth for all vicksburg because now that he was outside his fears for grant disappeared
and he knew that he must win while he remained in the path a deep boom came from the direction of the union army and a huge shell burst over the town it was followed in a moment by another and then by many others while the besieged rejoiced in victory
and proceeded toward the center of the town he judged that in the hours following a great battle while there was yet much confusion he would find his best chance he had reckoned rightly there was a great passing to and fro in vicksburg but its lights were dim
oil and candles alike were scarce and there was little but the moon's rays to disclose a town to the eye the rejoicings over the victory had brought more people than usual into the streets but the same exultation made them unsuspicious and dick glided among them in the dusk almost without fear
he had concluded that the longest way around was the shortest way through and he directed his steps toward the river he had formed a clear plan at last and he believed that it would succeed twisting and turning always keeping in the shadows he made good progress
descended the bluff and at last stood behind the ruins of an old warehouse near the stream southern batteries were not far away from him and he heard the men talking then strengthening his resolution he came from behind the ruins flung himself almost flat on the ground and crawled toward the river
a hail came and dick flattened himself against the ground and lay perfectly still evidently the sentinel was satisfied that his fancy had been making merry with him as he did not look further at the shadow and dick after waiting two or three minutes resumed his slow creeping
karmu was a farmer and dharmu was a trader once when dharmu was away from home karmu gave a religious feast and did not invite dharmu's household when dharmu returned and learnt this
he told his wife that he also would perform the ceremonies in his house so they set to work and were employed in cooking rice and vegetables far into the night
and karam gosain came down to see what preparations dharmu was making in his honour and he watched from the back of the house just then dharmu strained off the water from the cooked rice
and threw it out of the window and it fell on karam gosain and scalded him and as the flies and insects worried the wound karam gosain went off to the ganges and buried himself in the middle of the stream
as he had thus offended karam gosain all dharmu's undertakings failed and he fell into deep poverty and had not even enough to eat so he had to take service with his brother karmu
of the other labourers and the labourers also told him that it was not suitable for him to work as a labourer himself but dharmu said
and in the same way dharmu's wife might have acted as overseer of the women but she was ashamed not to work too one day they were transplanting the rice and karmu brought out breakfast for the labourers
he told dharmu and his wife to wash their hands and come and eat but they answered that they belonged to the household and that the hired labourers should be fed first so the labourers ate and they ate up all the rice
and there was nothing left for dharmu and his wife when the midday meal was brought the same thing happened
but they hoped that it would be made up to them when the wages were paid and worked on fasting at evening when they came to pay the wages in kind dharmu's name was called out first
but he told his brother to pay the labourers first and in doing this the paddy was all used up and there was nothing left for dharmu and his wife so they went home sorrowfully and their children cried for food
and they had nothing to give them in the night dharmu's wife said they promised to pay us for merely looking after the work and instead we worked hard and have still got nothing we will not work for them anymore
come let us undo the work we did to day you cut down the embankments you repaired and i will uproot the seedlings which i planted so they went out into the night to do this but whenever dharmu raised his spade a voice called out
hold hold and whenever his wife put out her hand to pull up the rice a voice called out hold hold then they said who are you who stop us and the voice answered
and they asked how they should propitiate him and the voice said grind turmeric and put it on a plate and buy new cloth and dye it with turmeric and make ready oil and take these things to the ganges
and they went to eat the fruit but when they got near they found that all the figs were full of grubs and they sang exhausted by hunger we came to a fig tree and found it full of grubs
o karam gosain how far off are you then they came to a mango tree and the same thing happened and they went on and saw a cow with a calf and they thought
o karam gosain how far off are you but the cow said to them go to the banks of the ganges then they came to a buffalo and went to milk it but it lowered its head and charged them
and the buffalo said go on to the bank of the ganges then they came to a horse and they thought that they would catch it and mount it but it kicked and snorted and they sang
and they saw under a banyan tree a large pot full of rupees but they were so disheartened that they made no attempt to touch it then they met a woman who asked where they were going and when she heard she said
then they met a woman with both her feet burning in a fire and another with a stool stuck fast to her back and they promised to enquire how these might be delivered
but they said it is no low caste person but dharmu then they bathed him and anointed him with oil and turmeric and wrapped him in the new cloth which they had brought and thus they persuaded him to return
so they rose up to go back and dharmu asked about the women whom they had met and karam gosain said the woman has a stool stuck to her back because when visitors came she never offered them a seat
let her do so in future and she will be freed and the woman has her feet burning in the fire because she pushed the fuel into the fire with her foot let her not do so in future and she will be freed
and a horse and a buffalo and a cow and money and mangoes and figs and dharmu said yes but that he had not been able to catch the animals and the fruit was bad
karam gosain promised them that on their way back they should take possession of all and they did so and mounted on the elephant and returned to their home with great wealth
he became aware that the furnace roar of the battle was growing louder great blown clouds had floated to the still heights of air before him the noise too was approaching
the woods filtered men and the fields became dotted as he rounded a hillock he perceived that the roadway was now a crying mass of wagons teams and men
from the heaving tangle issued exhortations commands imprecations fear was sweeping it all along the cracking whips bit and horses plunged and tugged
the white topped wagons strained and stumbled in their exertions like fat sheep the youth felt comforted in a measure by this sight they were all retreating perhaps then he was not so bad after all
he seated himself and watched the terror stricken wagons they fled like soft ungainly animals all the roarers and lashers served to help him to magnify the dangers and horrors of the engagement
presently the calm head of a forward going column of infantry appeared in the road it came swiftly on avoiding the obstructions gave it the sinuous movement of a serpent the men at the head
the raving teamsters swore many strange oaths the commands to make way had the ring of a great importance in them the men were going forward to the heart of the din they were to confront the eager rush of the enemy
they felt the pride of their onward movement when the remainder of the army seemed trying to dribble down this road they tumbled teams about with a fine feeling that it was no matter so long as their column got to the front in time
this importance made their faces grave and stern and the backs of the officers were very rigid as the youth looked at them the black weight of his woe returned to him
he could have wept in his longings he searched about in his mind for an adequate malediction for the indefinite cause the thing upon which men turn the words of final blame it
whatever it was was responsible for him he said there lay the fault the haste of the column to reach the battle seemed to the forlorn young man to be something much finer than stout fighting heroes he thought
could find excuses in that long seething lane they could retire with perfect self respect and make excuses to the stars he wondered what those men had eaten that they could be in such haste
to force their way to grim chances of death as he watched his envy grew until he thought that he wished to change lives with one of them he would have liked to have used a tremendous force he said throw off himself and become a better
swift pictures of himself apart yet in himself came to him a blue desperate figure leading lurid charges with one knee forward and a broken blade high a blue determined figure
standing before a crimson and steel assault getting calmly killed on a high place before the eyes of all he thought of the magnificent pathos of his dead body these thoughts uplifted him
the clanking arms of the column near him made him soar on the red wings of war for a few moments he was sublime he thought that he was about to start for the front indeed he saw a picture of himself
dust stained haggard panting flying to the front at the proper moment to seize and throttle the dark leering witch of calamity then the difficulties of the thing began to drag at him he hesitated
balancing awkwardly on one foot he had no rifle he could not fight with his hands said he resentfully to his plan well rifles could be had for the picking they were extraordinarily profuse
also he continued it would be a miracle if he found his regiment well he could fight with any regiment he started forward slowly he stepped as if he expected to tread upon some explosive thing
doubts and he were struggling he would truly be a worm if any of his comrades should see him returning thus the marks of his flight upon him
there was a reply that the intent fighters did not care for what happened rearward saving that no hostile bayonets appeared there in the battle blur his face would in a way be hidden like the face of a cowled man
but then he said that his tireless fate would bring forth when the strife lulled for a moment a man to ask of him an explanation
he was not cast down by this defeat of his plan for upon studying the affair carefully he could not but admit that the objections were very formidable furthermore various ailments had begun to cry out
in their presence he could not persist in flying high with the wings of war they rendered it almost impossible for him to see himself in a heroic light he tumbled headlong he discovered that he had a scorching thirst
his face was so dry and grimy that he thought he could feel his skin crackle each bone of his body had an ache in it and seemingly threatened to break with each movement his feet were like two sores
there was a dull weight like feeling in his stomach and when he tried to walk his head swayed and he tottered he could not see with distinctness small patches of green mist floated before his vision
while he had been tossed by many emotions he had not been aware of ailments now the beset him
as he was at last compelled to pay attention to them his capacity for self hate was multiplied in despair he declared that he was not like those others he now conceded it to be impossible that he should ever become a hero
he was a craven loon those pictures of glory were piteous things he groaned from his heart and went staggering off a certain mothlike quality within him kept him in the vicinity of the battle
he had a great desire to see and to get news he wished to know who was winning he told himself that despite his unprecedented suffering he had never lost his greed for a victory
thus many men of courage he considered would be obliged to desert the colors and scurry like chickens he would appear as one of them they would be sullen brothers in distress and he could then easily believe
that previously the army had encountered great defeats and in a few months had shaken off all blood and tradition of them emerging as bright and valiant as a new one thrusting out of sight the memory of disaster
and appearing with the valor and confidence of unconquered legions the shrilling voices of the people at home would pipe dismally for a time
and he did not conceive public opinion to be accurate at long range it was quite probable they would hit the wrong man who after he had recovered from his amazement would perhaps spend the rest of his days
in writing replies to the songs of his alleged failure it would be very unfortunate no doubt but in this case a general was of no consequence to the youth in a defeat
there would be a roundabout vindication of himself he thought it would prove in a manner that he had fled early because of his superior powers of perception a serious prophet upon predicting a flood should be the first man to climb a tree
if the army had gone gloriously on he would be lost if the din meant that now his army's flags were tilted forward he was a condemned wretch he would be compelled to doom himself to isolation
if the men were advancing their indifferent feet were trampling upon his chances for a successful life as these thoughts went rapidly through his mind he turned upon them and tried to thrust them away
he denounced himself as a villain he said that he was the most unutterably selfish man in existence his mind pictured the soldiers who would place their defiant bodies before the spear of the yelling battle fiend
and as he saw their dripping corpses on an imagined field he said that he was their murderer again he thought
he believed that he envied a corpse thinking of the slain he achieved a great contempt for some of them as if they were guilty for thus becoming lifeless they might have been killed by lucky chances he said
and their robes of glorious memories were shams however he still said that it was a great pity he was not as they a defeat of the army had suggested itself to him as a means of escape
from the consequences of his fall he considered now however that it was useless to think of such a possibility
but as he mortally feared these shafts it became impossible for him to invent a tale he felt he could trust he experimented with many schemes but threw them aside one by one as flimsy
he was quick to see vulnerable places in them all furthermore he was much afraid that some arrow of scorn might lay him mentally low before he could raise his protecting tale
he imagined the whole regiment saying where's henry fleming
to discover when he would run wherever he went in camp he would encounter insolent and lingeringly cruel stares as he imagined himself passing near a crowd of comrades he could hear one say
then as if the heads were moved by one muscle all the faces were turned toward him with wide derisive grins he seemed to hear some one make a humorous remark in a low tone at it the others all crowed and cackled
the youth fell back in the procession until the tattered soldier was not in sight then he started to walk on with the others but he was amid wounds the mob of men was bleeding
because of the tattered soldier's question he now felt that his shame could be viewed he was continually casting sidelong glances to see if the men were contemplating the letters of guilt he felt burned into his brow
and men slowing to his dreary pace were walking with him they were discussing his plight questioning him and giving him advice in a dogged way he repelled them
signing to them to go on and leave him alone the shadows of his face were deepening and his tight lips seemed holding in check the moan of great despair there could be seen a certain stiffness in the movements of his body
as if he were taking infinite care not to arouse the passion of his wounds as he went on he seemed always looking for a place like one who goes to choose a grave
something in the gesture of the man as he waved the bloody and pitying soldiers away made the youth start as if bitten he yelled in horror tottering forward he laid a quivering hand upon the man's arm
as the latter slowly turned his waxlike features toward him the youth screamed
the tall soldier made a little commonplace smile hello henry he said the youth swayed on his legs and glared strangely he stuttered and stammered oh jim oh jim
i got shot yes b'jiminey i got shot he reiterated this fact in a bewildered way as if he did not know how it came about
they occupied themselves again in dragging their own tragedies toward the rear suddenly as the two friends marched on the tall soldier seemed to be overcome by a tremor his face turned to a semblance of gray paste
he clutched the youth's arm and looked all about him as if dreading to be overheard then he began to speak in a shaking whisper i tell yeh what i'm fraid of henry i'll tell yeh what i'm fraid of
i m fraid i ll fall down an them yeh know them damned artillery wagons
the youth cried out to him hysterically i ll take care of yeh jim i ll take care of yeh i swear t gawd i will sure will yeh henry the tall soldier beseeched yes yes i tell yeh i'll take care of yeh jim protested the youth
i'd do it fer you wouldn't i henry he paused in piteous anxiety to await his friend's reply the youth had reached an anguish where the sobs scorched him he strove to express his loyalty
the youth wished his friend to lean upon him but the other always shook his head and strangely protested no no no leave me be leave me be his look was fixed again upon the unknown
he moved with mysterious purpose and all of the youth's offers he brushed aside no no leave me be leave me be the youth had to follow
presently the latter heard a voice talking softly near his shoulder turning he saw that it belonged to the tattered soldier
the tall soldier weakly tried to wrench himself free huh he said vacantly he stared at the youth for a moment at last he spoke as if dimly comprehending
he started blindly through the grass the youth turned once to look at the lashing riders and jouncing guns of the battery he was startled from this view by a shrill outcry from the tattered man
he and the tattered man began a pursuit there was a singular race
jim jim what are you doing what makes you do this way you'll hurt yerself the same purpose was in the tall soldier's face
he protested in a dulled way keeping his eyes fastened on the mystic place of his intentions no no don't tech me leave me be leave me be the youth aghast and filled with wonder at the tall soldier
began quaveringly to question him where yeh goin jim what you thinking about where you going tell me won't you jim the tall soldier faced about as upon relentless pursuers
in his eyes there was a great appeal leave me be can't yeh leave me be for a minnit the youth recoiled why jim he said in a dazed way what s the matter with you
the tall soldier turned and lurching dangerously went on the youth and the tattered soldier followed sneaking as if whipped feeling unable to face the stricken man if he should again confront them
they began to have thoughts of a solemn ceremony there was something rite like in these movements of the doomed soldier and there was a resemblance in him to a devotee of a mad religion blood sucking muscle wrenching bone crushing
they were awed and afraid they hung back lest he have at command a dreadful weapon at last they saw him stop and stand motionless hastening up they perceived that his face wore an expression
they paused and stood expectant there was a silence finally the chest of the doomed soldier began to heave with a strained motion
it increased in violence until it was as if an animal was within and was kicking and tumbling furiously to be free
and once as his friend rolled his eyes he saw something in them that made him sink wailing to the ground he raised his voice in a last supreme call jim jim jim
leave me be there was another silence while he waited suddenly his form stiffened and straightened
he stared into space to the two watchers there was a curious and profound dignity in the firm lines of his awful face he was invaded by a creeping strangeness that slowly enveloped him
then it began to swing forward slow and straight in the manner of a falling tree a swift muscular contortion made the left shoulder strike the ground first
the body seemed to bounce a little way from the earth god said the tattered soldier the youth had watched spellbound this ceremony at the place of meeting
his face had been twisted into an expression of every agony he had imagined for his friend he now sprang to his feet and going closer gazed upon the pastelike face the mouth was open and the teeth
showed in a laugh as the flap of the blue jacket fell away from the body he could see that the side looked as if it had been chewed by wolves the youth turned
with sudden livid rage toward the battlefield he shook his fist he seemed about to deliver a philippic hell the red sun was pasted in the sky
chapter one i was born in tuckahoe near hillsborough and about twelve miles from easton in talbot county maryland i have no accurate knowledge of my age never having seen any authentic record containing it
they seldom come nearer to it than planting time harvest time cherry time spring time or fall time a want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood
the white children could tell their ages i could not tell why i ought to be deprived of the same privilege i was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it he deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent
and evidence of a restless spirit the nearest estimate i can give makes me now between twenty seven and twenty eight years of age i come to this from hearing my master say some time during eighteen thirty five i was about seventeen years old
he was admitted to be such by all i ever heard speak of my parentage the opinion was also whispered that my master was my father but of the correctness of this opinion i know nothing the means of knowing was withheld from me
my mother and i were separated when i was but an infant before i knew her as my mother it is a common custom in the part of maryland from which i ran away to part children from their mothers at a very early age frequently before the child has reached its twelfth month
and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off and the child is placed under the care of an old woman too old for field labor for what this separation is done i do not know unless it be to hinder the development of the child's affection toward its mother
and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child this is the inevitable result i never saw my mother to know her as such more than four or five times in my life and each of these times was very short in duration and at night
she was hired by a mister stewart who lived about twelve miles from my home she made her journeys to see me in the night travelling the whole distance on foot after the performance of her day's work she was a field hand
and a whipping is the penalty of not being in the field at sunrise unless a slave has special permission from his or her master to the contrary a permission which they seldom get and one that gives to him that gives it the proud name of being a kind master
i do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day she was with me in the night she would lie down with me and get me to sleep but long before i waked she was gone very little communication ever took place between us
death soon ended what little we could have while she lived and with it her hardships and suffering she died when i was about seven years old on one of my master's farms near lee's mill i was not allowed to be present during her illness at her death or burial
she was gone long before i knew any thing about it never having enjoyed to any considerable extent her soothing presence her tender and watchful care i received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions i should have probably felt at the death of a stranger
called thus suddenly away she left me without the slightest intimation of who my father was the whisper that my master was my father may or may not be true
that slaveholders have ordained and by law established that the children of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers and this is done too obviously to administer to their own lusts
and make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable for by this cunning arrangement the slaveholder in cases not a few sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father
i know of such cases and it is worthy of remark that such slaves invariably suffer greater hardships and have more to contend with than others they are in the first place a constant offence to their mistress
she is ever disposed to find fault with them they can seldom do any thing to please her
especially when she suspects her husband of showing to his mulatto children favors which he withholds from his black slaves the master is frequently compelled to sell this class of his slaves out of deference to the feelings of his white wife and cruel as the deed may
but must stand by and see one white son tie up his brother of but few shades darker complexion than himself and ply the gory lash to his naked back and if he lisp one word of disapproval it is set down to his parental partiality
and only makes a bad matter worse both for himself and the slave whom he would protect and defend every year brings with it multitudes of this class of slaves it was doubtless in consequence of a knowledge of this fact
that one great statesman of the south predicted the downfall of slavery by the inevitable laws of population
it is nevertheless plain that a very different looking class of people are springing up at the south and are now held in slavery from those originally brought to this country from africa
it will do away the force of the argument that god cursed ham and therefore american slavery is right if the lineal descendants of ham are alone to be scripturally enslaved it is certain that slavery at the south must soon become unscriptural
i do not remember his first name he was generally called captain anthony a title which i presume he acquired by sailing a craft on the chesapeake bay he was not considered a rich slaveholder
he owned two or three farms and about thirty slaves his farms and slaves were under the care of an overseer the overseer's name was plummer mister plummer was a miserable drunkard a profane swearer and a savage monster
hardened by a long life of slaveholding he would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave i have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine
and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood no words no tears no prayers from his gory victim seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose the louder she screamed the harder he whipped
and where the blood ran fastest
he would whip her to make her scream and whip her to make her hush and not until overcome by fatigue would he cease to swing the blood clotted cowskin i remember the first time i ever witnessed this horrible exhibition i was quite a child
but i well remember it i never shall forget it whilst i remember any thing it was the first of a long series of such outrages
it struck me with awful force it was the blood stained gate the entrance to the hell of slavery through which i was about to pass it was a most terrible spectacle i wish i could commit to paper the feelings with which i beheld it
he had ordered her not to go out evenings and warned her that she must never let him catch her in company with a young man who was paying attention to her belonging to colonel lloyd the young man's name was ned roberts generally called lloyd's ned
why master was so careful of her may be safely left to conjecture she was a woman of noble form and of graceful proportions having very few equals and fewer superiors
in personal appearance among the colored or white women of our neighborhood aunt hester had not only disobeyed his orders in going out but had been found in company with lloyd's ned which circumstance i found from what he said while whipping her was the chief offence
had he been a man of pure morals himself he might have been thought interested in protecting the innocence of my aunt but those who knew him will not suspect him of any such virtue before he commenced whipping aunt hester he took her into the kitchen
and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist put in for the purpose he made her get upon the stool and tied her hands to the hook she now stood fair for his infernal purpose her arms were stretched up at their full length so that she stood upon the ends of her toes
and after rolling up his sleeves he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin and soon the warm red blood amid heart rending shrieks from her and horrid oaths from him came dripping to the floor i was so terrified and horror stricken at the sight
that i hid myself in a closet and dared not venture out till long after the bloody transaction was over i expected it would be my turn next it was all new to me i had never seen any thing like it before
one daughter lucretia and her husband captain thomas auld they lived in one house upon the home plantation of colonel edward lloyd my master was colonel lloyd's clerk and superintendent
i spent two years of childhood on this plantation in my old master's family it was here that i witnessed the bloody transaction recorded in the first chapter and as i received my first impressions of slavery on this plantation i will give some description of it
and of slavery as it there existed the plantation is about twelve miles north of easton in talbot county and is situated on the border of miles river the principal products raised upon it were tobacco corn and wheat
he was able to keep in almost constant employment a large sloop in carrying them to market at baltimore this sloop was named sally lloyd in honor of one of the colonel's daughters my master's son in law captain auld was master of the vessel
she was otherwise manned by the colonel's own slaves their names were peter isaac rich and jake these were esteemed very highly by the other slaves and looked upon as the privileged ones of the plantation
wye town was under the overseership of a man named noah willis new design was under the overseership of a mister townsend the overseers of these and all the rest of the farms numbering over twenty
received advice and direction from the managers of the home plantation this was the great business place it was the seat of government for the whole twenty farms all disputes among the overseers were settled here if a slave was convicted of any high misdemeanor became unmanageable
he was brought immediately here severely whipped put on board the sloop carried to baltimore and sold to austin woolfolk or some other slave trader as a warning to the slaves remaining
here too the slaves of all the other farms received their monthly allowance of food and their yearly clothing the men and women slaves received as their monthly allowance of food eight pounds of pork or its equivalent in fish and one bushel of corn meal
their yearly clothing consisted of two coarse linen shirts one pair of linen trousers like the shirts one jacket one pair of trousers for winter made of coarse negro cloth one pair of stockings and one pair of shoes
there were no beds given the slaves unless one coarse blanket be considered such and none but the men and women had these this however is not considered a very great privation
for when their day's work in the field is done the most of them having their washing mending and cooking to do and having few or none of the ordinary facilities for doing either of these very many of their sleeping hours are consumed in preparing for the field the coming day
no age nor sex finds any favor mister severe the overseer used to stand by the door of the quarter armed with a large hickory stick and heavy cowskin ready to whip any one who was so unfortunate as not to hear
and this too in the midst of her crying children pleading for their mother's release he seemed to take pleasure in manifesting his fiendish barbarity added to his cruelty he was a profane swearer
it was enough to chill the blood and stiffen the hair of an ordinary man to hear him talk scarce a sentence escaped him but that was commenced or concluded by some horrid oath the field was the place to witness his cruelty and profanity
he died very soon after i went to colonel lloyd's and he died as he lived uttering with his dying groans bitter curses and horrid oaths his death was regarded by the slaves as the result of a merciful providence
mister severe's place was filled by a mister hopkins he was a very different man he was less cruel less profane and made less noise than mister severe his course was characterized by no extraordinary demonstrations of cruelty
he whipped but seemed to take no pleasure in it he was called by the slaves a good overseer the home plantation of colonel lloyd wore the appearance of a country village
were performed here the shoemaking and mending the blacksmithing cartwrighting coopering weaving and grain grinding were all performed by the slaves on the home plantation the whole place wore a business like aspect very unlike the neighboring farms
it was associated in their minds with greatness a representative could not be prouder of his election to a seat in the american congress than a slave on one of the out farms would be of his election to do errands at the great house farm
they regarded it as evidence of great confidence reposed in them by their overseers and it was on this account as well as a constant desire to be out of the field from under the driver's lash that they esteemed it a high privilege one worth careful living for
he was called the smartest and most trusty fellow who had this honor conferred upon him the most frequently
the competitors for this office sought as diligently to please their overseers as the office seekers in the political parties seek to please and deceive the people the same traits of character might be seen in colonel lloyd's slaves as are seen in the slaves of the political parties
the slaves selected to go to the great house farm for the monthly allowance for themselves and their fellow slaves were peculiarly enthusiastic while on their way they would make the dense old woods for miles around reverberate with their wild songs
they would compose and sing as they went along consulting neither time nor tune the thought that came up came out
especially would they do this when leaving home they would then sing most exultingly the following words
than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do i did not when a slave understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs i was myself within the circle
without might see and hear they told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension they were tones loud long and deep they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish
every tone was a testimony against slavery and a prayer to god for deliverance from chains the hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit and filled me with ineffable sadness i have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them
the mere recurrence to those songs even now afflicts me and while i am writing these lines an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek
i can never get rid of that conception
and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds if any one wishes to be impressed with the soul killing effects of slavery let him go to colonel lloyd's plantation and on allowance day
place himself in the deep pine woods and there let him in silence analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul and if he is not thus impressed it will only be because there is no flesh in his obdurate heart
i have often been utterly astonished since i came to the north to find persons who could speak of the singing among slaves as evidence of their contentment and happiness it is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake slaves sing most when they are most unhappy
the songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart and he is relieved by them only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears at least such is my experience i have often sung to drown my sorrow but seldom to express my happiness
chapter eight in a very short time after i went to live at baltimore my old master's youngest son richard died and in about three years and six months after his death my old master captain anthony died
leaving only his son andrew and daughter lucretia to share his estate he died while on a visit to see his daughter at hillsborough cut off thus unexpectedly he left no will as to the disposal of his property
it was therefore necessary to have a valuation of the property that it might be equally divided between missus lucretia and master andrew i was immediately sent for to be valued with the other property
here again my feelings rose up in detestation of slavery i had now a new conception of my degraded condition prior to this i had become if not insensible to my lot at least partly so
i left baltimore with a young heart overborne with sadness and a soul full of apprehension i took passage with captain rowe in the schooner wild cat and after a sail of about twenty four hours i found myself near the place of my birth
i had now been absent from it almost if not quite five years i however remembered the place very well i was only about five years old when i left it to go and live with my old master on colonel lloyd's plantation
so that i was now between ten and eleven years old we were all ranked together at the valuation
were ranked with horses sheep and swine there were horses and men cattle and women pigs and children all holding the same rank in the scale of being and were all subjected to the same narrow examination silvery headed age and sprightly youth
at this moment i saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder after the valuation then came the division
i have no language to express the high excitement and deep anxiety which were felt among us poor slaves during this time our fate for life was now to be decided we had no more voice in that decision than the brutes among whom we were ranked
a single word from the white men was enough against all our wishes prayers and entreaties to sunder forever the dearest friends dearest kindred and strongest ties known to human beings
in addition to the pain of separation there was the horrid dread of falling into the hands of master andrew he was known to us all as being a most cruel wretch a common drunkard who had by his reckless mismanagement and profligate dissipation
already wasted a large portion of his father's property we all felt that we might as well be sold at once to the georgia traders as to pass into his hands
would be our inevitable condition a condition held by us all in the utmost horror and dread i suffered more anxiety than most of my fellow slaves i had known what it was to be kindly treated they had known nothing of the kind
they had seen little or nothing of the world they were in very deed men and women of sorrow and acquainted with grief their backs had been made familiar with the bloody lash so that they had become callous mine was yet tender
for while at baltimore i got few whippings and few slaves could boast of a kinder master and mistress than myself and the thought of passing out of their hands into those of master andrew a man who but a few days before
was well calculated to make me anxious as to my fate after he had committed this savage outrage upon my brother he turned to me and said that was the way he meant to serve me one of these days meaning i suppose when i came into his possession
thanks to a kind providence i fell to the portion of missus lucretia and was sent immediately back to baltimore to live again in the family of master hugh
it was a glad day to me
i was absent from baltimore for the purpose of valuation and division just about one month and it seemed to have been six very soon after my return to baltimore my mistress lucretia died leaving her husband and one child amanda
all remained slaves from the youngest to the oldest if any one thing in my experience more than another served to deepen my conviction of the infernal character of slavery and to fill me with unutterable loathing of slaveholders
it was their base ingratitude to my poor old grandmother
she had been the source of all his wealth she had peopled his plantation with slaves she had become a great grandmother in his service
and in their hands she saw her children her grandchildren and her great grandchildren divided like so many sheep without being gratified with the small privilege of a single word as to their or her own destiny
and to cap the climax of their base ingratitude and fiendish barbarity my grandmother who was now very old having outlived my old master and all his children having seen the beginning and end of all of them
and her present owners finding she was of but little value her frame already racked with the pains of old age and complete helplessness fast stealing over her once active limbs they took her to the woods built her a little hut put up a little mud chimney
she lives to remember and mourn over the loss of children the loss of grandchildren and the loss of great grandchildren they are in the language of the slave's poet whittier gone gone sold and gone to the rice swamp dank and lone
where the slave whip ceaseless swings where the noisome insect stings where the fever demon strews poison with the falling dews where the sickly sunbeams glare
to the rice swamp dank and lone from virginia hills and waters
the hearth is desolate the children the unconscious children who once sang and danced in her presence are gone she gropes her way in the darkness of age for a drink of water
instead of the voices of her children she hears by day the moans of the dove
all is gloom the grave is at the door and now when weighed down by the pains and aches of old age when the head inclines to the feet when the beginning and ending of human existence meet
the time for the exercise of that tenderness and affection which children only can exercise towards a declining parent my poor old grandmother the devoted mother of twelve children is left all alone in yonder little hut
before a few dim embers she stands she sits she staggers she falls she groans she dies and there are none of her children or grandchildren present to wipe from her wrinkled brow the cold sweat of death
or to place beneath the sod her fallen remains will not a righteous god visit for these things in about two years after the death of missus lucretia master thomas married his second wife
and as a means of punishing his brother he took me from him to live with himself at saint michael's here i underwent another most painful separation it however was not so severe as the one i dreaded at the division of property
for during this interval a great change had taken place in master hugh and his once kind and affectionate wife the influence of brandy upon him and of slavery upon her had effected a disastrous change in the characters of both
so that as far as they were concerned i thought i had little to lose by the change but it was not to them that i was attached it was to those little baltimore boys that i felt the strongest attachment
the barrier betwixt himself and brother he considered impassable i then had to regret that i did not at least make the attempt to carry out my resolution to run away for the chances of success are tenfold greater from the city
than from the country i sailed from baltimore for saint michael's in the sloop amanda captain edward dodson on my passage i paid particular attention to the direction which the steamboats
took to go to philadelphia i found instead of going down on reaching north point they went up the bay in a north easterly direction i deemed this knowledge of the utmost importance my determination to run away was again revived
i resolved to wait only so long as the offering of a favorable opportunity
once upon a time there lived a king and queen who had an only daughter her incomparable beauty sweetness and intelligence caused her to be named graciosa she was all her mother's joy
every day she had given her a different dress of gold brocade velvet or satin yet she was neither conceited nor boastful she used to pass her mornings in study and in the afternoon she sat sewing by the queen's side
she had however plenty of play time and sweetmeats without end so that she was altogether the happiest princess alive at the same court was an elderly young lady named duchess grognon
who was the very opposite of graciosa her hair was fiery red her face fat and spotty and she had but one eye her mouth was so big that you might have thought she could eat you up only she had no teeth to do it with
she was also humpbacked and lame of course she could not help her ugliness and nobody would have disliked her for that if she had not been of such an unpleasant temper that she hated everything sweet and beautiful
she had also a very good opinion of herself and when any one praised the princess would say angrily that is a lie my little finger is worth her whole body in course of time the queen fell sick and died
and her daughter was almost broken hearted so was her husband for a year and then he began to comfort himself by hunting one day after a long chase he came to a strange castle which happened to be that of the duchess grognon
she informed of his approach went out to meet him and received him most respectfully as he was very hot with hunting she took him into the coolest place in the palace which was a vaulted cave most elegantly furnished
where there were two hundred barrels arranged in long rows madam are these all yours inquired the king yes sire but i shall be most happy if you will condescend to taste their contents which wine do you prefer canary
hermitage champagne and she ran over a long list out of which his majesty made his choice grognon took a little hammer and struck toc toc on the cask from which there rolled out a handful of silver money
from which when she tapped it out poured a stream of gold coins i never saw the like what nonsense and she tried the third out of which came a heap of pearls and diamonds so that the floor of the cave was strewn with them sire
she exclaimed some one has robbed me of my good wine and put this rubbish in its place rubbish madam why such rubbish would buy my whole kingdom it is yours sire replied the duchess if you will make me your queen
the king who was a great lover of money replied eagerly certainly madam i'll marry you to morrow if you will grognon highly delighted made but one other condition that she should have the princess graciosa entirely in her own rule and power
just as if she had been her real mother to which the foolish king consented for he thought much more of riches than he did of his child so he and grognon departed hand in hand out of the cave very well pleased
and asked him if he had had good sport in his hunting yes my child said he for i have taken a dove alive oh give it me and i will nourish and cherish it cried the princess
that is impossible for it is the duchess grognon whom i have promised to marry she a dove she is rather a hawk sighed the princess in despair but her father bade her hold her tongue and promise to love her stepmother
who would have over her all the authority of a mother and to whom he wished to present her that very day the obedient princess went to her apartment where her nurse soon found out the sorrow in her face and its cause
my child said the good old woman princesses ought to show a good example to humbler women promise me to do your best to please your father and to make yourself agreeable to the stepmother he has chosen for you
and the nurse gave so much good advice that graciosa began to smile and dressed herself in her best attire a green robe embroidered with gold while her fair loose falling hair was adorned according to the fashion of the day
with a coronet of jasmine of which the leaves were made of large emeralds grognon on her part made the best of herself that was possible she put on a high heeled shoe to appear less lame
she padded her shoulders dyed her red hair black and put in a false eye then dressed herself in a hooped petticoat of violet satin trimmed with blue and an upper gown of yellow with green ribands
in this costume she wished to enter the city on horseback as she understood the queens were in the habit of doing meantime
and to pass the time away she went all alone into a little wood where she sobbed and wept in secret until suddenly there appeared before her a young page whom she had never seen before who are you she inquired
and when did his majesty take you into his service princess said the page bowing i am in no one's service but your own i am percinet a prince in my own country so that there is no inequality of rank between us
i have loved you long and seen you often for i have the fairy gift of making myself invisible i might longer have concealed myself from you but for your present sorrow in which however i hope to be of both comfort and assistance
a page and yet a prince and your faithful lover at these words at once tender and respectful the princess who had long heard of the fairy prince percinet felt so happy that she feared grognon no more
they talked a little while together and then returned to the palace where the page assisted her to mount her horse on which she looked so beautiful that all the new queen's splendours faded into nothing in comparison and not one of the courtiers had eyes for any except graciosa
as soon as grognon saw it what cried she has this creature the impudence to be better mounted than myself descend miss and let me try your horse and your page whom everybody thinks so much of bid him come and hold my bridle
but no sooner had the duchess mounted than the horse ran away with her and dragged her over briers stones and mud and finally threw her into a deep ditch her head was cut in several places and her arm fractured
they picked her up in little pieces like a broken wineglass never was there a poor bride in worse plight but in spite of her sufferings her malice remained she sent for the king
this is all graciosa's fault she wished to kill me i desire that your majesty will punish her or leave me to do it else i will certainly be revenged upon you both the king afraid of losing his casks full of gold pieces consented
and graciosa was commanded to appear she came trembling and looking round vainly for prince percinet the cruel grognon ordered four women ugly as witches to take her and strip off her fine clothes
and whip her with rods till her white shoulders were red with blood but lo as soon as the rods touched her they turned into bundles of feathers and the women tired themselves to death with whipping
ah kind percinet what do i not owe you what should i do without you sighed the princess when she was taken back to her own chamber and her nurse and then she saw the prince standing before her in his green dress and his white plume
the most charming of pages percinet advised her to pretend illness on account of the cruel treatment she was supposed to have received which so delighted grognon that she got well all the sooner and the marriage was celebrated with great splendour
soon after the king who knew that his wife's weak point was her vanity gave a tournament at which he ordered the six bravest knights of the court to proclaim that queen grognon was the fairest lady alive
no knight ventured to dispute this fact until there appeared one who carried a little box adorned with diamonds and proclaimed aloud that grognon was the ugliest woman in the universe and that the most beautiful was she whose portrait was in the box
he opened it and behold the image of the princess graciosa the princess who sat behind her stepmother felt sure that the unknown knight was percinet but she dared say nothing the contest was fixed for next day
but in the meantime grognon wild with anger commanded graciosa to be taken in the middle of the night to a forest a hundred leagues distant full of wolves lions tigers and bears
in vain the poor maiden implored that the attendants would kill her at once rather than leave her in that dreadful place the queen's orders must be obeyed no answer was made to her but the servants remounted and rode away
at last overcome with fear and grief she sank on the ground sobbing out percinet percinet have you forsaken me while she spoke a bright light dazzled her eyes
the midnight forest was changed into glittering alleys at the end of which appeared a palace of crystal shining like the sun she knew it was the doing of the fairy prince who loved her and felt a joy mingled with fear
she turned to fly but saw him standing before her more handsome and charming than ever princess said he why are you afraid of me this is the palace of the fairy queen my mother and the princesses my sisters
who will take care of you and love you tenderly enter this chariot and i will convey you there
they reached the palace where the queen and her two daughters received the forlorn princess with great kindness and led her through many rooms of rock crystal glittering with jewels where to her amazement graciosa saw the history of her own life
even down to this adventure in the forest painted on the walls how is this she said prince you know everything about me yes and i wish to preserve everything concerning you said he tenderly
she spent eight days in his palace days full of every enjoyment and percinet tried all the arguments he could think of to induce her to marry him and remain there for ever
and she preferred rather to suffer than to be wanting in duty she entreated percinet to use his fairy power to send her home again and meantime to tell her what had become of her father come with me into the great tower there and you shall see for yourself
thereupon he took her to the top of a tower prodigiously high put her little finger to his lips and her foot upon his foot then he bade her look
the king and grognon sitting together on their throne the latter was telling how graciosa had hanged herself in a cave she will not be much loss sire and as when dead she was far too frightful for you to look at i have given orders to bury her at once
she might well say that for she had had a large faggot put into a coffin and sealed up the king and all the nation mourned over it and now that she was no more they declared there never was such a sweet creature as the lost princess
the sight of her father's grief quite overcame graciosa oh percinet she cried my father believes me dead if you love me take me home the prince consented though very sorrowfully
saying that she was as cruel to him as grognon was to her and mounted with her in his chariot drawn by four white stags
what is this she cried terrified princess my palace which you forsake is among the things which are dead and gone you will enter it no more till after your burial prince
only she knew well that she suffered quite as much as he did in thus departing and quitting him arrived in her father's presence she had great difficulty in persuading him that she was not a ghost until the coffin with the faggot inside it was taken up
and grognon's malice discovered but even then the king was so weak a man that the queen soon made him believe he had been cheated that the princess was really dead and that this was a false graciosa
without more ado he abandoned his daughter to her stepmother's will grognon transported with joy dragged her to a dark prison took away her clothes made her dress in rags feed on bread and water and sleep upon straw
forlorn and hopeless graciosa dared not now call upon percinet she doubted if he still loved her enough to come to her aid meantime grognon had sent for a fairy who was scarcely less malicious than herself
i have here said she a little wretch of a girl for whom i wish to find all sorts of difficult tasks pray assist me in giving her a new one every day
the fairy promised to think of it and soon brought a skein as thick as four persons yet composed of thread so fine that it broke if you only blew upon it and so tangled that it had neither beginning nor end
grognon delighted sent for her poor prisoner there miss teach your clumsy fingers to unwind this skein and if you break a single thread i will flay you alive
then she sent her to her miserable cell and treble locked the door graciosa stood dismayed turning the skein over and over and breaking hundreds of threads each time ah percinet she cried in despair
come and help me or at least receive my last farewell immediately percinet stood beside her having entered the cell as easily as if he carried the key in his pocket behold me princess ready to serve you even though you forsook me
he touched the skein with his wand and it untangled itself and wound itself up in perfect order do you wish anything more madam asked he coldly percinet percinet do not reproach me i am only too unhappy
it is your own fault come with me and make us both happy but she said nothing and the fairy prince disappeared at sunset grognon eagerly came to the prison door with her three keys
and found graciosa smiling and fair her task all done there was no complaint to make yet grognon exclaimed that the skein was dirty and boxed the princess's ears till her rosy cheeks turned yellow and blue
then she left her and overwhelmed the fairy with reproaches find me by to morrow something absolutely impossible for her to do the fairy brought a great basket full of feathers plucked from every kind of bird
nightingales canaries linnets larks doves thrushes peacocks ostriches pheasants partridges magpies eagles
in fact if i told them all over i should never come to an end and all these feathers were so mixed up together that they could not be distinguished see
grognon jumped for joy sent for the princess and ordered her to take her task and finish it as before by set of sun
she threw them all back again into the basket and began to weep bitterly let me die said she for death only will end my sorrows percinet loves me no longer if he did he would already have been here here i am my princess
cried a voice from under the basket and the fairy prince appeared he gave three taps with his wand the feathers flew by millions out of the basket and arranged themselves in little heaps each belonging to a different bird what do i not owe you
love me answered the prince tenderly and said no more when grognon arrived she found the task done she was furious at the fairy who was as much astonished as herself at the result of their malicious contrivances
but she promised to try once more and for several days employed all her industry in inventing a box which she said the prisoner must be forbidden on any account to open then added the cunning fairy
she will open it and the result will satisfy you to your heart's content
and set it on a certain table in an apartment she named but not upon any account to open it or examine its contents
she was dressed like any poor peasant in a cotton gown a woollen hood and wooden shoes yet as she walked along people took her for a queen in disguise so lovely were her looks and ways but being weak with imprisonment she soon grew weary
and sitting down upon the edge of a little wood took the box upon her lap suddenly a wonderful desire seized her to open it i will take nothing out i will touch nothing said she to herself but i must see what is inside
without reflecting on the consequences she lifted up the lid and instantly there jumped out a number of little men and little women carrying little tables and chairs little dishes and little musical instruments
the whole company were so small that the biggest giant among them was scarcely the height of a finger they leaped into the green meadow separated into various bands and began dancing and singing eating and drinking to graciosa's wonder and delight
but when she recollected herself and wished to get them into the box again they all scampered away
again in her distress she called upon percinet and again he appeared and with a single touch of his wand sent all the little people back into the box then in his chariot drawn by stags he took her to the castle where she did all that she had been commanded
and returned in safety to her stepmother who was more furious than ever if a fairy could be strangled grognon certainly would have done it in her rage at last she resolved to ask help no more but to work her own wicked will upon graciosa
she caused to be dug a large hole in the garden and taking the princess there showed her the stone which covered it underneath this stone lies a great treasure lift it up and you will see
grognon pushed her in and let the stone fall down again upon her burying her alive after this there seemed no more hope for the poor princess o percinet cried she you are avenged
why did i not return your love and marry you still death will be less bitter if only you regret me a little while she spoke she saw through the blank darkness a glimmer of light it came through a little door
she remembered what percinet had said that she would never return to the fairy palace until after she was buried perhaps this final cruelty of grognon would be the end of her sorrows so she took courage crept through the little door and lo
she came out into a beautiful garden with long alleys fruit trees and flower beds well she knew it and well she knew the glitter of the rock crystal walls and there at the palace gate stood percinet and the queen his mother
and the princesses his sisters
and graciosa after all her sufferings wept for joy the marriage was celebrated with great splendour and all the fairies for a thousand leagues round attended it
some came in chariots drawn by dragons or swans or peacocks some were mounted upon floating clouds or globes of fire among the rest appeared the very fairy who had assisted grognon to torment graciosa
when she discovered that grognon's poor prisoner was now prince percinet's bride she was overwhelmed with confusion and entreated her to forget all that had passed
said the fairy and refusing to stay for the wedding dinner she remounted her chariot drawn by two terrible serpents and flew to the palace of graciosa's father there before either king or courtiers or ladies in waiting could stop her
even had they wished to do it which remains doubtful she came behind the wicked grognon and twisted her neck just as a cook does a barn door fowl
a tale of the ragged mountains during the fall of the year eighteen twenty seven while residing near charlottesville virginia i casually made the acquaintance of mister augustus bedloe
this young gentleman was remarkable in every respect and excited in me a profound interest and curiosity i found it impossible to comprehend him either in his moral or his physical relations of his family i could obtain no satisfactory account
whence he came i never ascertained even about his age although i call him a young gentleman there was something which perplexed me in no little degree he certainly seemed young and he made a point of speaking about his youth
yet there were moments when i should have had little trouble in imagining him a hundred years of age but in no regard was he more peculiar than in his personal appearance he was singularly tall and thin
he stooped much his limbs were exceedingly long and emaciated his forehead was broad and low his complexion was absolutely bloodless
although sound than i had ever before seen teeth in a human head the expression of his smile however was by no means unpleasing as might be supposed but it had no variation whatever
or diminution of light underwent contraction
in moments of excitement the orbs grew bright to a degree almost inconceivable seeming to emit luminous rays
but of an intrinsic lustre as does a candle or the sun yet their ordinary condition was so totally vapid filmy
and dull as to convey the idea of the eyes of a long interred corpse these peculiarities of person appeared to cause him much annoyance
and he was continually alluding to them in a sort of half explanatory half apologetic strain which when i first heard it impressed me very painfully i soon however grew accustomed to it and my uneasiness wore off
it seemed to be his design rather to insinuate than directly to assert that physically he had not always been what he was that a long series of neuralgic attacks had reduced him from a condition
of more than usual personal beauty to that which i saw for many years past he had been attended by a physician named templeton an old gentleman perhaps seventy years of age
whom he had first encountered at saratoga and from whose attention while there he either received or fancied that he received great benefit the result was that bedloe who was wealthy
had made an arrangement with doctor templeton by which the latter in consideration of a liberal annual allowance had consented to devote his time and medical experience exclusively to the care of the invalid
doctor templeton had been a traveller in his younger days and at paris had become a convert in great measure to the doctrines of mesmer it was altogether by means of magnetic remedies
and this success had very naturally inspired the latter with a certain degree of confidence in the opinions from which the remedies had been educed the doctor however like all enthusiasts had struggled hard to make a thorough convert of his pupil
late days has become so common as to attract little or no attention but which at the period of which i write had very rarely been known in america i mean to say that between doctor templeton and bedloe
there had grown up little by little a very distinct and strongly marked rapport or magnetic relation i am not prepared to assert however that this rapport extended beyond the limits of the simple sleep producing power
but this power itself had attained great intensity at the first attempt to induce the magnetic somnolency the mesmerist entirely failed in the fifth or sixth he succeeded very partially
sleep was brought about almost instantaneously by the mere volition of the operator even when the invalid was unaware of his presence it is only now in the year eighteen forty five
enthusiastic his imagination was singularly vigorous and creative and no doubt it derived additional force from the habitual use of morphine which he swallowed in great quantity
it was his practice to take a very large dose of it immediately after breakfast each morning or rather immediately after a cup of strong coffee
and then set forth alone or attended only by a dog upon a long ramble among the chain of wild and dreary hills that lie westward and southward of charlottesville and are there dignified by the title of the ragged mountains
upon a dim warm misty day toward the close of november and during the strange interregnum of the seasons which in america is termed the indian summer mister bedloe departed as usual for the hills
in health no worse than usual and in rather more than ordinary spirits the account which he gave of his expedition and of the events which had detained him was a singular one indeed you will remember said he
i bent my steps immediately to the mountains and about ten entered a gorge which was entirely new to me
the scenery which presented itself on all sides although scarcely entitled to be called grand had about it an indescribable and to me a delicious aspect of dreary desolation
the solitude seemed absolutely virgin
had been trodden never before by the foot of a human being so entirely secluded and in fact inaccessible except through a series of accidents is the entrance of the ravine
that it is by no means impossible that i was indeed the first adventurer the very first and sole adventurer
to deepen the vague impressions which these objects created
this path was excessively sinuous and as the sun could not be seen i soon lost all idea of the direction in which i journeyed in the meantime the morphine had its customary effect
that of enduing all the external world with an intensity of interest in the quivering of a leaf in the hue of a blade of grass in the shape of a trefoil in the humming of a bee
in the gleaming of a dew drop in the breathing of the wind in the faint odors that came from the forest there came a whole universe of suggestion a gay and motley train of rhapsodical and
immethodical thought busied in this i walked on for several hours during which the mist deepened around me to so great an extent that at length i was reduced to an absolute groping of the way
and now an indescribable uneasiness possessed me a species of nervous hesitation and tremor i feared to tread lest i should be precipitated into some abyss i remembered too strange stories
told about these ragged hills and of the uncouth and fierce races of men who tenanted their groves and caverns
very suddenly my attention was arrested by the loud beating of a drum my amazement was of course extreme
but a new and still more astounding source of interest and perplexity arose there came a wild rattling or jingling sound
rushed past me with a shriek he came so close to my person that i felt his hot breath upon my face
scarcely had he disappeared in the mist before
the sight of this monster rather relieved than heightened my terrors for i now made sure that i dreamed
i stepped boldly and briskly forward i rubbed my eyes i called aloud i pinched my limbs
here stooping i bathed my hands and my head and neck this seemed to dissipate the equivocal sensations which had hitherto annoyed me
as i thought a new man and proceeded steadily and complacently on my unknown way at length quite overcome by exertion and by a certain oppressive closeness of the atmosphere
i seated myself beneath a tree presently there came a feeble gleam of sunshine and the shadow of the leaves of the tree fell faintly but definitely upon the grass
at this shadow i gazed wonderingly for many minutes its character stupefied me with astonishment i looked upward the tree was a palm i now arose hurriedly and in a state of fearful agitation
for the fancy that i dreamed would serve me no longer i saw i felt
and these senses now brought to my soul a world of novel and singular sensation the heat became all at once intolerable a strange odor loaded the breeze a low continuous murmur
like that arising from a full but gently flowing river came to my ears intermingled with the peculiar hum of multitudinous human voices while i listened in an extremity of astonishment
which i need not attempt to describe a strong and brief gust of wind
i found myself at the foot of a high mountain and looking down into a vast plain through which wound a majestic river on the margin of this river stood an eastern looking city
such as we read of in the arabian tales but of a character even more singular than any there described from my position which was far above the level of the town
i could perceive its every nook and corner as if delineated on a map the streets seemed innumerable and crossed each other irregularly in all directions but were rather long winding alleys than streets
and absolutely swarmed with inhabitants the houses were wildly picturesque on every hand was a wilderness of balconies of verandas of minarets of shrines and fantastically carved oriels
bazaars abounded and in these were displayed rich wares in infinite variety and profusion silks muslins the most dazzling cutlery the most magnificent jewels and gems
litters with stately dames close veiled elephants gorgeously caparisoned idols grotesquely hewn drums banners and gongs spears silver and gilded maces and amid the crowd and the clamor
amid the million of black and yellow men turbaned and robed and of flowing beard there roamed a countless multitude of holy filleted bulls
or clung to the minarets and oriels from the swarming streets to the banks of the river there descended innumerable flights of steps leading to bathing places
while the river itself seemed to force a passage with difficulty through the vast fleets of deeply burthened ships that far and wide encountered its surface beyond the limits of the city arose in frequent majestic groups
the palm and the cocoa
or a solitary graceful maiden taking her way with a pitcher upon her head to the banks of the magnificent river
but not so what i saw what i heard what i felt what i thought had about it nothing of the unmistakable idiosyncrasy of the dream
all was rigorously self consistent at first doubting that i was really awake i entered into a series of tests which soon convinced me that i really was now
when one dreams and in the dream suspects that he dreams the suspicion never fails to confirm itself and the sleeper is almost immediately aroused thus novalis errs
i am forced to class it among other phenomena in this i am not sure that you are wrong observed doctor templeton but proceed
you arose and descended into the city i arose continued bedloe regarding the doctor with an air of profound astonishment i arose as you say and
descended into the city on my way i fell in with an immense populace crowding through every avenue all in the same direction and exhibiting in every action the wildest excitement
very suddenly and by some inconceivable impulse i became intensely imbued with personal interest in what was going on i seemed to feel that i had an important part to play
without exactly understanding what it was against the crowd which environed me however i experienced a deep sentiment of animosity i shrank from amid them and swiftly by a circuitous path
reached and entered the city here all was the wildest tumult and contention
clad in garments half indian half european and officered by gentlemen in a uniform partly british were engaged at great odds with the swarming rabble of the alleys
i joined the weaker party arming myself with the weapons of a fallen officer and fighting i knew not whom with the nervous ferocity of despair
we were soon overpowered by numbers and driven to seek refuge in a species of kiosk here we barricaded ourselves and for the present were secure from a loop hole near the summit of the kiosk
i perceived a vast crowd in furious agitation surrounding and assaulting a gay palace that overhung the river presently
there descended an effeminate looking person
a boat was at hand in which he escaped to the opposite bank of the river
my companions and having succeeded in gaining over a few of them to my purpose made a frantic sally from the kiosk we rushed amid the crowd that surrounded it they retreated at first before us
they rallied fought madly and retreated again in the mean time we were borne far from the kiosk and became bewildered and entangled among the narrow streets of tall overhanging houses
the rabble pressed impetuously upon us harrassing us with their spears and overwhelming us with flights of arrows these latter were very remarkable and resembled in some respects the writhing creese of the malay
they were made to imitate the body of a creeping serpent and were long and black with a poisoned barb one of them struck me upon the right temple i reeled and fell
an instantaneous and dreadful sickness seized me i struggled i gasped i died you will hardly persist now said i smiling that the whole of your adventure was not a dream
when i said these words i of course expected some lively sally from bedloe in reply but to my astonishment he hesitated trembled became fearfully pallid and remained silent
he at length said hoarsely to bedloe for many minutes continued the latter my sole sentiment my sole feeling was that of darkness and
nonentity with the consciousness of death at length there seemed to pass a violent and sudden shock through my soul as if of electricity
with it came the sense of elasticity and of light this latter i felt not saw in an instant i seemed to rise from the ground but i had no bodily no visible
audible or palpable presence the crowd had departed the tumult had ceased the city was in comparative repose beneath me lay my corpse
with the arrow in my temple the whole head greatly swollen and disfigured but all these things i felt not saw i took interest in nothing even the corpse seemed a matter in which i had no concern
but appeared to be impelled into motion and flitted buoyantly out of the city retracing the circuitous path by which i had entered it when i had attained that point of the ravine in the mountains
at which i had encountered the hyena i again experienced a shock
the sense of weight of volition of substance returned i became my original self and bent my steps eagerly homeward but the past had not lost the vividness of the real
and not now even for an instant can i compel my understanding to regard it as a dream nor was it said templeton with an air of deep solemnity yet it would
otherwise it should be termed
the soul of the man of to day is upon the verge of some stupendous psychal discoveries let us content ourselves with this supposition
for the rest i have some explanation to make here is a watercolor drawing which i should have shown you before but which an unaccountable sentiment of horror
has hitherto prevented me from showing we looked at the picture which he presented i saw nothing in it of an extraordinary character but its effect upon bedloe was prodigious
he nearly fainted as he gazed and yet it was but a miniature portrait a miraculously accurate one to be sure of his own very remarkable features at least this was my thought
as i regarded it you will perceive said templeton the date of this picture it is here scarcely visible in this corner seventeen eighty
in this year was the portrait taken it is the likeness of a dead friend a mister oldeb to whom i became much attached at calcutta
during the administration of warren hastings i was then only twenty years old when i first saw you mister bedloe at saratoga it was the miraculous similarity
in accomplishing this point i was urged partly and perhaps principally by a regretful memory of the deceased
and not altogether horrorless curiosity respecting yourself in your detail of the vision which presented itself to you amid the hills you have described
the indian city of benares upon the holy river the riots the combat the massacre were the actual events of the insurrection of cheyte sing
which took place in seventeen eighty when hastings was put in imminent peril of his life the man escaping by the string of turbans was cheyte sing himself
the party in the kiosk were sepoys and british officers headed by hastings of this party i was one
to prevent the rash and fatal sally of the officer who fell in the crowded alleys by the poisoned arrow of a bengalee that officer was my dearest friend it was oldeb
you will perceive by these manuscripts here the speaker produced a note book in which several pages appeared to have been freshly written that at the very period
in which you fancied these things amid the hills i was engaged in detailing them upon paper here at home in about a week after this conversation the following paragraphs appeared
in a charlottesville paper we have the painful duty of announcing the death of mister augustus bedlo a gentleman whose amiable manners and many virtues have long endeared him
to the citizens of charlottesville mister b for some years past has been subject to neuralgia which has often threatened to terminate fatally but this can be regarded only as the mediate cause of his decease
the proximate cause was one of especial singularity in an excursion to the ragged mountains a few days since a slight cold and fever were contracted
attended with great determination of blood to the head to relieve this doctor templeton resorted to topical bleeding leeches were applied to the temples in a fearfully brief period
the patient died when it appeared that in the jar containing the leeches had been introduced by accident one of the venomous vermicular sangsues which are now and then found in the neighboring ponds
this creature fastened itself upon a small artery in the right temple its close resemblance to the medicinal leech caused the mistake to be overlooked until too late n b
the poisonous sangsue of charlottesville may always be distinguished from the medicinal leech by its blackness and especially by its writhing or vermicular motions which very nearly resemble those of a snake
i was speaking with the editor of the paper in question upon the topic of this remarkable accident when it occurred to me to ask how it happened that the name of the deceased had been given as bedlo
i presume i said you have authority for this spelling but i have always supposed the name to be written with an e at the end authority no he replied
the name is bedlo with an e all the world over and i never knew it to be spelt otherwise in my life then said i mutteringly as i turned upon my heel then indeed
has it come to pass that one truth is stranger than any fiction for bedloe without the e
chapter eight the cariboo road when the railway first went through the fraser canyon passengers looking out of the windows anywhere from yale to ashcroft were amazed to see something like a jacob's ladder up and down the mountains
appearing in places to hang almost in mid air between yale and lytton it hugged the mountain side on what looked like a shelf of rock directly above the wildest water of the canyon crib work of huge trees resembling in the distance the woven pattern of a willow basket
the traveller almost expected to see the thing sway and swing to the wind then the train would sweep through a tunnel or swing round a sharp bend and far up among the summits might be seen a mule team or a string of pack horses winding round the shoulders of the rock
and follow a trail apparently secure only for a mountain goat the first impression was that the thing must be an old indian war path along which no enemy could pursue but when the train paused at a water tank and the traveller made inquiry he was told that this was nothing less
with care creep up from langley to hope and yale and the fares charged afforded a good revenue to the hudson's bay company even when prospectors struck above yale
or from the okanagan to the thompson the difficulties of transportation were soon surmounted a road was shortly opened from harrison lake to lillooet
and as to the thompson there was the well worn trail of the fur traders who had been going overland to kamloops for fifty years it was when gold was discovered higher up on the fraser and in cariboo
after the colony of british columbia had taken its place on the political map that governor douglas was put to the task of building a great road henceforth for a few years at least the miners would be the backbone if not the whole body of the new colony
how could the administration be carried on if the government had no road into the mining region and so the governor of british columbia entered on the boldest undertaking in roadbuilding ever launched by any community of twenty thousand people
the cariboo road became to british columbia what the appian way was to rome it was eighteen feet wide and over four hundred and eighty miles long it was one of the finest roads ever built in the world
yet it cost the country only two thousand dollars a mile as against the forty thousand dollars a mile which the two transcontinental railways spent later on their roadbeds along the canyon
and when the road was opened in september packers charges fell from a dollar to forty eight cents and finally to eighteen cents a pound but presently the trend of travel drew away from harrison lake to the line of the fraser
at first there was nothing but a mule trail hacked out of the rock from yale to spuzzum but miners went voluntarily to work and widened the bridle path above the shelving waters from spuzzum to lytton
the river ledges seemed almost impassable for pack animals yet a cable ferry was rigged up at spuzzum and mules were sent over the ledges to draw it up the river when the water rose so high that the lower ledges were unsafe
the packers ascended the mountains eight hundred feet above the roaring canyon where cliffs broke off they sent the animals across an indian bridge the marvel is not that many a poor beast fell headlong eight hundred feet down the precipice
drawn by six horses road houses along the way provided relays of fresh horses freight went in by bull team but pack horses and mules were still used to carry miners provisions to the camps in the hills which lay off the main road
it was while the road was still building that an enterprising packer brought twenty one camels on the trail they were not a success and caused countless stampedes horses and mules took fright at the slightest whiff of them
the camels themselves could stand neither the climate nor the hard rock road they were turned adrift on the thompson river where the last of them died in nineteen o five there was something highly romantic in the stage coach travel of this halcyon era
the driver was always a crack whip a man who called himself an old timer though often his years numbered fewer than twenty most of the drivers however knew the trail from having packed in on shanks's mare and camped under the stars
on the down trip bags were piled on the roof with a couple of frontiersmen armed with rifles to guard them many were the devices of a returning miner for concealing the gold which he had won a fat hurdy gurdy girl or sometimes a squaw would climb to a place in the stage
and when the stage with a crack of the whip and a prance of the six horses came rattling across the bridge and rolling into yale the fat girl would be the first to deposit her ample person at the bank or the express office whence gold could safely be sent on down to victoria
and when she emerged half an hour later she would have thinned perceptibly then the rough miner who had not addressed a word to her on the way down for fear of a confidence man aboard would present susy with a handsome reward in the form of a gaudy dress or a year's provisions
start from a road house was made at dawn when the clouds still hung heavy on the mountains and the peaks were all reflected in the glacial waters the passengers tumbled dishevelled from log walled rooms where the beds were bench berths
the fare consisted of ham fried in slabs eggs ancient and transformed to leather in lard slapjacks known as rocky mountain dead shot in maple syrup that never saw a maple tree and was black as a pot and potatoes in soggy pyramids
yet so keen was the mountain air so stimulating the ozone of the resinous hemlock forests that the most fastidious traveller felt he had fared sumptuously and gaily paid the two fifty for the meal
perhaps there was time to wash in the common tin basin at the door where the towel always bore evidence of patronage perhaps not anyhow no matter washing was only a trivial incident of mountain travel in those days
the passenger jumped for a place in the coach the long whip cracked the horses sprang forward and away the stage rattled round curves where a hind wheel would try to go over the edge only the driver didn't let it down embankments where any normal wagon would have upset
but this one didn't up sharp grades where no horses ought to be driven at a trot but where the six persisted in going at a gallop the passenger didn't mind the jolting that almost dislocated his spine
he was thankful not to be held up by highwaymen or dumped into the wild cataract of waters below outside was a changing panorama of mountain and canyon with a world of forests and lakes
inside was a drama of human nature to outdo any curtain raiser he had ever witnessed a baronet who had lost in the game and was going home penniless perhaps earning his way by helping with the horses an outworn actress who had been trying her luck at the dance halls
a gambler pretending that he was a millionaire a saloon keeper with a few thousands in his pockets and a diamond in his shirt the size of a pebble a tenderfoot rigged out as a veteran with buckskin coat a belt full of artillery
fearfully and wonderfully made new high boots and a devil may care air that deceived no one but himself a few shuswaps and siwashes fat ill smelling insolent and plainly highly amused
in their beady watchful black ferret eyes at the mad ways of this white race a still more ill smelling chinaman and a taciturn grizzled ragged fellow paying no attention to the fat squaw keeping his observations and his thoughts inside his high boots
or the express office at yale if one could get a seat outside with the guards and the driver one who knew how to unlock the lore of these sons of the hills he was lucky for he would learn who made his strike there who was murdered at another place
how the sneak thief trailed the tenderfoot somewhere else all of it romance much of it fiction much of it fact but no fiction half so marvellous as the fact bull teams of twenty yokes
long lines of pack horses led by a bell mare mule teams with a tinkling of bells and singing of the drivers met the stage and passed with happy salute at nightfall the camp fires of foot travellers could be seen down at the water's edge
and there was always danger enough to add zest to the journey wherever there are hordes of hungry adventurous men there will be desperadoes in spite of begbie's justice robberies occurred on the road and not a few murders
the time going in and out varied but the journey could be made in five days and was often made in four the building of the cariboo road had an important influence on the camp that its builders could not foresee
before the road was built adventurers had arrived in cariboo expecting to pick up pails of nuggets at the bottom of a rainbow their disillusionment came but there was an easy way back to the world they did not stay to breed crime and lawlessness in the camp
the walking' as begbie expressed it
and the road was good especially for thugs while there were ten thousand men in cariboo in the winter of sixty two and perhaps twenty thousand in the winter of sixty three there were less than five thousand in seventy one this does not mean that the camp had collapsed
it had simply changed from a poor man's camp to a camp for a capitalist or a company it will be remembered that the miners first found the gold in flakes then farther up in nuggets then that the nuggets had to be pursued to pay dirt beneath gravel and clay
this meant shafts tunnels hydraulic machinery stamp mills later when the pay dirt showed signs of merging into quartz there passed away for ever the day of the penniless prospector
seeking the golden fleece of the hills as his predecessor the trapper had sought the pelt of the little beaver
an instrument for shaping empire for it was the inrush of miners which gave birth to the colony of british columbia federation with the canadian dominion followed in eighteen seventy one
chapter seven life at the mines
there was a great deal of work to be done in the mining country and men were in high demand the ordinary wage was ten dollars a day and men who could be trusted and who were brave enough to pack the gold out to the coast received twenty
and even as high as fifty dollars a day there is a letter written by sir matthew begbie describing how the mountain trails were infested that winter by desperadoes lying in wait for the miners who came staggering over the trail
literally weighted down with gold the miners found what the great banks have always found that the presence of unused gold is a nuisance and a curse they had to lug the gold in leather sacks with them to their work
and back with them to their shacks and they always carried firearms ready for use there was very little shooting at the mines but if a bad man turned up missing
or whether he hung as a sign of warning from a pole set horizontally at a proper height between two trees in a mining camp there is no mercy for the crook
washed up on the bars of sneak thieves given thirty nine lashes and like the scapegoat turned out into the mountain wilds a rough and ready justice administered without judge or jury but a woman was as safe on the trail as in her own home
a thing that civilization never understands about a wild mining camp missus cameron wife of the famous cariboo cameron lived with her husband on his claim till she died and many other women lived in the camps with their husbands
when the road opened there was a rush of hurdy gurdy girls for dance halls but that did not modify the rough chivalry of an unwritten law these hurdy gurdy girls who tiptoed to the concertina the fiddle and the hand organ
were german and if we may believe the poet of cariboo they were something like the glasgow girls described by wolfe as cold to everything but a bagpipe i wrong them
sings the poet of cariboo they danced a nicht in dresses licht fra late until the early o but o their hearts were hard as flint which vexed the laddies sairly o
the dollar was their only love and that they loved fu dearly o they dinna care a flea for men let them court hooe'er sincerely o cariboo was what the miners call a he camp
not unnaturally the she camps heard the call from macedonia the bishop of oxford the bishop of london the lord mayor of london and a colonial society in england gathered up some industrious young women
as suitable wives for the british columbia miners alack the day there was no poet to send letters to the outside world on this handling of cupid's bow and arrow the comedy was pushed in the most business like fashion
threescore young girls came out under the auspices of the society and the church carefully shepherded by a clergyman and a stern matron they reached victoria in september of sixty two and were housed in the barracks
and when the girls passed to and from their temporary lodging their progress was like a royal procession through a silent gaping but most respectful lane of whiskered faces a man looking anything but respect would have been knocked down on the spot
we laugh now victoria did not laugh then it was all taken very seriously
on the instant every girl was offered some kind of situation which she voluntarily and almost immediately exchanged for matrimony in all some ninety girls came out under these auspices in sixty two
the respectable girls fitted in where they belonged the disreputable also found their own places and the mining camp began to take on an appearance of domesticity and home matthew begbie
later like douglas given a title for his services to the empire had as we have seen first come out under direct appointment by the crown and when parliamentary government was organized in british columbia his position was confirmed as chief justice
he had less regard for red tape than most chief justices like douglas he first maintained law and order and then looked up to see if he had any authority for it
he stood for the rights of the poorest miner in private life he was fond of music art and literature but in public life he was autocratic as a czar and sternly righteous as a prophet
he was a vigilance committee in himself through sheer force of personality crime did not flourish where begbie went chinaman or indian could be as sure of justice as the richest miner in cariboo
from hating and fearing him the camp came almost to worship him many are the stories of his circuits once a jury persisted in bringing in a verdict of manslaughter in place of murder prisoner
thundered begbie it is not a pleasant duty to me to sentence you only to prison for life you deserve to be hanged had the jury performed their duty i might have the painful satisfaction of condemning you to death
you gentlemen of the jury permit me to say that it would give me great pleasure to sentence you to be hanged each and every one of you for bringing in a murderer guilty only of manslaughter
on another occasion when an american had accidentally shot an indian the coroner rendered a verdict worried to death by a dog begbie ordered another inquest
had been killed by falling over a cliff begbie on his own authority ordered the american seized and taken down to victoria on his way down the prisoner escaped from the constable this type of hair trigger gunmen at once fled the country
when begbie came mister alexander one of the overlanders of sixty two tells how begbie's decisions may not have been good law but they were first class justice his doctrine was that if a man were killed
some one had to be hanged for it and the effect was salutary a man had been sandbagged in a victoria saloon and thrown out to die his companion in the saloon was arrested and tried the circumstantial evidence was strong
and the judge so charged the jury but the jury acquitted the prisoner dead silence fell in the court room the prisoner's counsel arose and requested the discharge of the man begbie whirled prisoner at the bar
the jury have said you are not guilty you can go and i devoutly hope the next man you sandbag will be one of the jury on another occasion a man was found stabbed on the cariboo road
tried and in spite of strong evidence against him acquitted begbie adjourned the court with the pious wish that the murderer should go out and cut the throats of the jury but
in spite of his harsh manner towards the wrong doer the old man as the miners affectionately called him kept law and order in the early days gold commissioners not only settled all mining disputes but acted as judge and jury
against any decision of the gold commissioners begbie was the sole appeal and in all the long years of his administration no decision of his was ever challenged the effect of sudden wealth on some of the hungry ragged horde who infested cariboo
was of a sort to discount fiction one man took out forty thousand dollars in gold nuggets a lunatic escaped from a madhouse could not have been more foolish he came to the best saloon of barkerville
he called in guests from the highways and byways and treated them to champagne which cost thirty dollars and fifty dollars a bottle when the rabble could drink no more champagne he ordered every glass filled and placed on the bar
there was still a basket of champagne left he danced the hurdy gurdy on that basket till he cut his feet the champagne was all gone but he still had some gold nuggets there was a mirror in the bar room valued at hundreds of dollars
the miner stood and proudly surveyed his own figure in the glass had he not won his dearest desire and conquered all things in conquering fortune he gathered his last nuggets and hurled them in handfuls at the mirror
shattering it in countless pieces then he went out in the night to sleep under the stars penniless he settled down to work for the rest of his life in other men's mines
the staid overlanders who had risked their lives to reach this wild land of desire who had come from such church going hamlets as whitby such scottish presbyterian centres as toronto and montreal
hardly knew whether they were dreaming or living in a country of crazy pixies who delved in mud and water all day and weltered in champagne all night the cariboo poet sang their sentiments in these words
i ken a body made a strike he looked a little lord
his lordship's humble servant he wi'out a thought o guile
an noo the puir soul's left alane wi nocht to weet his throttle in barkerville which became the centre of cariboo saloons and dance halls grew up overnight pianos were packed in on mules at a rate of a dollar a pound from quesnel
champagne in pint bottles sold at two ounces of gold potatoes retailed at ninety dollars a hundredweight nails were cheap at a dollar a pound milk was retailed frozen at a dollar a pound
boots still cost fifty dollars such luxuries as mirrors and stoves cost as high as seven hundred dollars each the hurdy gurdy girls with true german thrift charged ten dollars or more a dance
not the stately waltz but a wild fling to shake the rafters and tire out the stoutest miners a newspaper was published in barkerville
jus twa poond sterling sure as death it should be four between us baith
sawney had ye yer taters here and neeps and carrots dinna speer what price though i might tell ye weel ye'd ainly think me a leein chiel the first twa years i spent out here
but hoo i've lived syne my freend
like fitba knockit back and fore that's lang in reachin goal or feather blown by ilka wind that whistles tween each pole e'en sae my mining life has been for mony a weary day later
when the dance hall became the theatre of barkerville james anderson used to sing his rhymes to the stentorious shouting
he thinks his pile is made an he's goin hame this fall
what would be more natural than that these adventurous navigators passing around the shores of the gulf should sooner or later discover the mouth of the mississippi river and what more certain than that they would enter it explore it and plant colonies along its shores wherever they found a fertile soil and a salubrious climate
the results we have presupposed are precisely those which we find to have existed at one time in the mississippi valley the mound builders of the united states were pre eminently a river people
their densest settlements and greatest works were near the mississippi and its tributaries says foster
navigable streams were the great highways of the mound builders mister fontaine claims
that this ancient people constructed levees to control and utilize the bayous of the mississippi for the purpose of agriculture and commerce the yazoo river is called yazoo okhinnah the river of ancient ruins
this would indicate that the civilization of this people advanced up the mississippi river and spread out over its tributaries but did not cross the alleghany
the head waters of the missouri became one of their great centres of population but their chief sites were upon the mississippi and ohio rivers in wisconsin we find the northern central limit of their work they seem to have occupied the southern counties of the state and the western shores of lake michigan
their circular mounds are found in minnesota and iowa and some very large ones in dakota illinois and indiana were densely populated by them it is believed that the vital centre of their colonies was near the junction of the ohio and mississippi rivers
their mounds were not cones but four sided pyramids
at hopetown ohio are two walled figures one a square the other a circle each containing precisely twenty acres
so that the space enclosed by each might exactly correspond
copper implements are very numerous in the mounds copper axes spear heads hollow buttons bosses for ornaments bracelets rings et cetera are found in very many of them strikingly similar to those of the bronze age in europe in one in butler county ohio
presenting an unbroken metallic lustre the overlapping edges so well polished as to be scarcely discoverable beads and stars made of shells have sometimes been found doubly plated first with copper then with silver
a rude article in the shape of an axe composed of pure lead weighing about half a pound was found in sinking a well within the trench of the ancient works at circleville there can be no doubt it was the production of the mound builders as galena has often been found on the altars in the mounds
it has been generally thought by mister squier and others that there were no evidences that the mound builders were acquainted with the use of iron or that their plating was more than a simple overlaying of one metal on another or on some foreign substance some years since however
or ornaments for a sword belt or buckler they are composed of copper overlaid with a thick plate of silver the fronts are slightly convex with a depression like a cup in the centre and they measure two inches and a quarter across the face of each
it is six inches in length two in breadth and weighs one ounce
two or three pieces of copper tube were also found filled with iron rust these pieces from their appearance composed the lower end of the scabbard near the point of the sword
the mound had every appearance of being as old as any in the neighborhood and was at the first settlement of marietta covered with large trees
as this skeleton alone was discovered the bones were very much decayed and many of them crumbled to dust upon exposure to the air
these articles have been critically examined and it is beyond doubt that the copper bosses were absolutely plated not simply overlaid with silver between the copper and the silver exists a connection such as it seems to me could only be produced by heat
and if it is admitted that these are genuine relics of the mound builders it must at the same time be admitted that they possessed the difficult art of plating one metal upon another there is but one alternative viz that they had occasional or constant intercourse with a people advanced in the arts
from whom these articles were obtained again if doctor hildreth is not mistaken oxydized iron or steel was also discovered in connection with the above remains from which also follows the extraordinary conclusion that the mound builders were acquainted with the use of iron
the conclusion being of course subject to the improbable alternative already mentioned
there were found deep excavations with rude ladders huge masses of rock broken off also numerous stone tools and all the evidences of extensive and long continued labor it is even said that the great ontonagon mass of pure copper which is now in washington was excavated by these ancient miners
and that when first found its surface showed numerous marks of their tools
they possessed various mechanical contrivances they were very probably acquainted with the lathe
in a mound on the scioto river was found around the neck of a skeleton triple rows of beads made of marine shells and the tusks of some animal several of these says squier
still retain their polish and bear marks which seem to indicate that they were turned in some machine instead of being carved or rubbed into shape by hand not among the least interesting and remarkable relics continues the same author
obtained from the mounds are the stone tubes they are all carved from fine grained materials capable of receiving a polish and being made ornamental as well as useful
was found in a mound in the immediate vicinity of chillicothe it is composed of a compact variety of slate this stone cuts with great clearness and receives a fine though not glaring polish
and the other terminates in a broad flattened triangular mouth piece of fine proportions which is carved with mathematical precision it is drilled throughout the bore is seven tenths of an inch in diameter at the cylindrical end of the tube and retains that calibre until it reaches the point where the cylinder
subsides into the mouth piece when it contracts gradually to one tenth of an inch the inner surface of the tube is perfectly smooth till within a short distance of the point of contraction
when we consider that some of their porphyry carvings will turn the edge of the best tempered knife we are forced to conclude that they possessed that singular process known to the mexicans and peruvians of tempering copper to the hardness of steel
we find in the mounds adzes similar in shape to our own with the edges bevelled from the inside drills and gravers of copper have also been found with chisel shaped edges or sharp points it is not impossible says squier
but on the contrary very probable from a close inspection of the mound pottery that the ancient people possessed the simple approximation toward the potter's wheel and the polish which some of the finer vessels possess is due to other causes than vitrification
they consist of figures of birds animals reptiles and the faces of men carved from various kinds of stones upon the bowls of pipes upon toys upon rings and in distinct and separate figures we give the opinions of those who have examined them mister squier observes
the bowls of most of the stone pipes are carved in miniature figures of animals birds reptiles et cetera all of them are executed with strict fidelity to nature and with exquisite skill not only are the features of the objects faithfully represented
among their sculptures in ohio we find accurate representations of the lamantine manatee or sea cow found to day on the shores of florida brazil and central america and of the toucan a tropical and almost exclusively south american bird
sea shells from the gulf pearls from the atlantic and obsidian from mexico have also been found side by side in their mounds the antiquity of their works is now generally conceded from the ruins of nineveh and babylon says mister gliddon
in perfect preservation nevertheless the skeletons deposited in our indian mounds from the lakes to the gulf are crumbling into dust through age alone all the evidence points to the conclusion that civilized or semi civilized man has dwelt on the western continent from a vast antiquity
maize tobacco quinoa and the mandico plants have been cultivated so long that their wild originals have quite disappeared
alluding to the above named plants doctor brinton
remarks several are sure to perish unless fostered by human care what numberless ages does this suggest how many centuries elapsed ere man thought of cultivating indian corn how many more ere it had spread over nearly a hundred degrees of latitude and lost all resemblance to its original form
in the animal kingdom certain animals were domesticated by the aborigines from so remote a period that scarcely any of their species as in the case of the lama of peru were to be found in a state of unrestrained freedom at the advent of the spaniards
short's north americans of antiquity
most ancient remains of man found in europe are distinguished by a flattening of the tibia and this peculiarity is found to be present in an exaggerated form in some of the american mounds
and as there is no good reason why their builders should have avoided erecting them on that terrace while they raised them promiscuously on all the others it follows not unreasonably
they called the region they left in the mississippi valley
in allusion probably to the red clay soil of part of the country in the mounds we find many works of copper but none of bronze
by mixing one part of tin with nine parts of copper or which is more probable the manufactures of the mound builders may have been made on the spot and as they had no tin within their territory they used copper alone except it may be for such tools as were needed to carve stone and these perhaps were hardened with tin
it is known that the mexicans possessed the art of manufacturing true bronze and the intercourse which evidently existed between mexico and the mississippi valley as proved by the presence of implements of obsidian in the mounds of ohio renders it probable that the same commerce which brought them obsidian brought them also small quantities of tin
or tin hardened copper implements necessary for their sculptures the proofs then of the connection of the mound builders with atlantis are one their race identity with the nations of central america who possessed flood legends and whose traditions all point to an eastern
two the similarity of their civilization and their works of stone and bronze with the civilization of the bronze age in europe three the presence of great truncated mounds kindred to the pyramids of central america mexico egypt and india
four the representation of tropical animals which point to an intercourse with the regions around the gulf of mexico where the atlanteans were colonized five
the central american and mexican colonies the western shores of atlantis were not far distant from the west india islands a people possessed of ships could readily pass from island to island until they reached the continent
columbus found the natives making such voyages in open canoes if then we will suppose that there was no original connection between the inhabitants of the main land and of atlantis the commercial activity of the atlanteans would soon reveal to them the shores of the gulf
commerce implies the plantation of colonies the trading post is always the nucleus of a settlement
and the hudson bay company we can therefore readily believe that commercial intercourse between atlantis and yucatan honduras and mexico created colonies along the shores of the gulf which gradually spread into the interior
and to the high table lands of mexico and accordingly we find as i have already shown that all the traditions of central america and mexico point to some country in the east and beyond the sea as the source of their first civilized people
and this region known among them as aztlan lived in the memory of the people as a beautiful and happy land where their ancestors had dwelt in peace for many generations
one third of this tongue the maya is pure greek who brought the dialect of homer to america or who took to greece that of the mayas greek is the offspring of the sanscrit is maya or are they coeval
higher even than that of europe in the time of columbus there can be no question and it is also probable as i have shown that they originally belonged to the white race
the toltecs were fair robust and bearded i have often seen indians of pure blood with blue eyes
at teotihuacan
the city is indeed of vast extent
ruins which at first make no impression so complete is their dilapidation he asserts the great antiquity of these ruins because he found the very highways of the ancient city to be composed of broken bricks and pottery the debris left by earlier populations
this continent he says page forty three is the land of mysteries we here enter an infinity whose limits we cannot estimate i shall soon have to quit work in this place the long avenue on which it stands is lined with ruins of public buildings and palaces
forming continuous lines as in the streets of modern cities still all these edifices and halls were as nothing compared with the vast substructures which strengthened their foundations we find the strongest resemblances to the works of the ancient european races
the masonry is similar the cement is the same the sculptures are alike both peoples used the arch in both continents we find bricks glassware and even porcelain
with blue figures on a white ground also bronze composed of the same elements of copper and tin in like proportions coins made of copper round and t shaped and even metallic candlesticks
in a fossil state indicating an immense antiquity the toltecs possessed a pure and simple religion like that of atlantis as described by plato with the same sacrifices of fruits and flowers they were farmers they raised and wove cotton
they cultivated fruits they used the sign of the cross extensively they cut and engraved precious stones among their carvings have been found representations of the elephant and the lion both animals not known in america the forms of sepulture
were the same as among the ancient races of the old world they burnt the bodies of their great men and enclosed the dust in funeral urns some of their dead were buried in a sitting position others reclined at full length and many were embalmed like the egyptian mummies
when we turn to mexico the same resemblances present themselves the government was an elective monarchy like that of poland the king being selected from the royal family by the votes of the nobles of the kingdom there was a royal family an aristocracy
a privileged priesthood a judiciary and a common people here we have all the several estates into which society in europe is divided there were thirty grand nobles in the kingdom
and the vastness of the realm may be judged by the fact that each of these could muster one hundred thousand vassals from their own estates or a total of three millions and we have only to read of the vast hordes brought into the field against cortez to know that this was not an exaggeration
the judges were independent even of the king and held their offices for life there were supreme judges for the larger divisions of the kingdom district judges in each of the provinces and magistrates chosen by the people throughout the country
there was also a general legislative assembly congress or parliament held every eighty days presided over by the king consisting of all the judges of the realm to which the last appeal lay
the rites of marriage says prescott were celebrated with as much formality as in any christian country and the institution was held in such reverence that a tribunal was instituted for the sole purpose of determining questions relating to it
divorces could not be obtained until authorized by a sentence of the court after a patient hearing of the parties slavery was tolerated but the labors of the slave were light his rights carefully guarded and his children were free the slave could own property and even other slaves
that the spanish priests declared the devil had given them a bogus imitation of christianity to destroy their souls the devil said they stole all he could they had confessions absolution of sins and baptism
when their children were named they sprinkled their lips and bosoms with water and the lord was implored to permit the holy drops to wash away the sin that was given it before the foundation of the world the priests were numerous and powerful
they practised fasts vigils flagellations and many of them lived in monastic seclusion the aztecs like the egyptians had progressed through all the three different modes of writing the picture writing the symbolical and the phonetic
they recorded all their laws their tribute rolls specifying the various imposts their mythology astronomical calendars and rituals their political annals and their chronology they wrote on cotton cloth on skins prepared like parchment
on a composition of silk and gum and on a species of paper soft and beautiful made from the aloe their books were about the size and shape of our own but the leaves were long strips folded together in many folds they wrote poetry and cultivated oratory
and paid much attention to rhetoric they also had a species of theatrical performances their proficiency in astronomy is thus spoken of by prescott that they should be capable of accurately adjusting their festivals by the movements of the heavenly bodies
and should fix the true length of the tropical year with a precision unknown to the great philosophers of antiquity could be the result only of a long series of nice and patient observations evincing no slight progress in civilization
their women says the same author are described by the spaniards as pretty though with a serious and rather melancholy cast of countenance their long black hair might generally be seen wreathed with flowers or among the richer people
with strings of precious stones and pearls from the gulf of california
and passed their time in indolent tranquillity
embroidery and the like while their maidens beguiled the hours by the rehearsal of traditionary tales and ballads numerous attendants of both sexes waited at the banquets the balls were scented with perfumes and the courts strewed with odoriferous herbs and flowers
which were distributed in profusion among the guests as they arrived cotton napkins and ewers of water were placed before them as they took their seats at the board
the table was well supplied with substantial meats especially game among which the most conspicuous was the turkey also there were found very delicious vegetables and fruits of every variety native to the continent
at mycenae on page three hundred fifty four one of the oldest structures in greece we find precisely the same form of arch filled in in the same way rosengarten
the base of these treasure houses is circular and the covering of a dome shape it does not however form an arch but courses of stone are laid horizontally over one another in such a way that each course projects beyond the one below it
till the space at the highest course becomes so narrow that a single stone covers it
the same form of arch is found among the ruins of that interesting people the etruscans etruscan vaults are of two kinds the more curious and probably the most ancient are false arches
formed of horizontal courses of stone each a little overlapping the other
chapter two the egyptian colony what proofs have we that the egyptians were a colony from atlantis
the egyptians derived their civilization from them and as the egyptians far antedated the rise of the phoenician nations proper this must have meant that egypt derived its civilization from the same country to which the phoenicians owed their own origin the phoenician legends
was the child of the phoenician gods
misor gave birth to taaut the god of letters the inventor of the alphabet and taaut became thoth the god of history of the egyptians
and ra was the sun god of egypt
rana a god of the toltecs raymi the great festival of the sun of the peruvians and rayam a god of yemen
nine we find another proof of the descent of the egyptians from atlantis in their belief as to the under world this land of the dead was situated in the west hence the tombs were all placed whenever possible on the west bank of the nile
the constant cry of the mourners as the funeral procession moved forward was to the west to the west this under world was beyond the water hence the funeral procession always crossed a body of water where the tombs were as in most cases
on the west bank of the nile the nile was crossed
the most western cape projecting into the atlantic it was only to be reached from egypt by crossing the water and it was associated with the ark the emblem of atlantis in all lands the soul of the dead man was supposed to journey to the under world by a water progress
his destination was the elysian fields where mighty corn grew and where he was expected to cultivate the earth this task was of supreme importance
a name which reminds us of the atlantean god uranos in connection with all this we must not forget that plato described atlantis as that sacred island lying beneath the sun everywhere in the ancient world we find the minds of men looking to the west for the land of the dead
that under an immense ocean in the far west there was an under world a world comprising millions of the dead a mighty race that had been suddenly swallowed up in the greatest catastrophe known to man since he had inhabited the globe
to use the words of a recent writer in blackwood
then lepsius found the hieroglyphic sign of the papyrus roll on monuments of the twelfth dynasty afterward he found the same sign on monuments of the fourth dynasty which is getting back pretty close to menes the protomonarch and indeed little doubt is entertained
that the art of writing on papyrus was understood as early as the days of menes himself the fruits of investigation in this as in many other subjects are truly most marvellous
instead of exhibiting the rise and progress of any branches of knowledge they tend to prove that nothing had any rise or progress but that everything is referable to the very earliest dates the experience of the egyptologist
and to spect that nothing growed but that as soon as men were planted on the banks of the nile they were already the cleverest men that ever lived endowed with more knowledge and more power than their successors for centuries and centuries could attain to
how shall we support the theory if it come to our knowledge that before noah was cold in his grave his descendants were adepts in construction and in the fine arts and that their achievements were for magnitude such as if we possess the requisite skill
as we have not yet discovered any trace of the rude savage egypt but have seen her in her very earliest manifestations already skilful erudite and strong it is impossible to determine the order of her inventions
light may yet be thrown upon her rise and progress but our deepest researches have hitherto shown her to us as only the mother of a most accomplished race how they came by their knowledge is matter for speculation that they possessed it is matter of fact
in quarrying rock in building and in sculpture the explanation is simple the waters of the atlantic now flow over the country where all this magnificence and power were developed by slow stages from the rude beginnings of barbarism
egypt was the magnificent the golden bridge ten thousand years long glorious with temples and pyramids illuminated and illustrated by the most complete and continuous records of human history along which the civilization of atlantis
in a great procession of kings and priests philosophers and astronomers artists and artisans streamed forward to greece to rome to europe to america as far back in the ages as the eye can penetrate even where the perspective dwindles almost to a point
we can still see the swarming multitudes possessed of all the arts of the highest civilization pressing forward from out that other and greater empire of which even this wonderworking nile land is but a faint and imperfect copy
look at the record of egyptian greatness as preserved in her works the pyramids still in their ruins are the marvel of mankind the river nile was diverted from its course by monstrous embankments to make a place for the city of memphis the artificial lake of moeris
was created as a reservoir for the waters of the nile it was four hundred and fifty miles in circumference and three hundred and fifty feet deep with subterranean channels flood gates locks and dams by which the wilderness was redeemed from sterility
the joints are scarcely perceptible and not wider than the thickness of silver paper and the cement so tenacious that fragments of the casing stones still remain in their original position notwithstanding the lapse of so many centuries and the violence by which they were detached
covering a square each side of which is eighteen hundred feet
they have been astounded and overcome by the magnificence and the prodigality of workmanship here to be admired courts halls gate ways pillars
monolithic figures sculptures rows of sphinxes are massed in such profusion that the sight is too much for modern comprehension denon says
it is hardly possible to believe after having seen it in the reality of the existence of so many buildings collected on a single point in their dimensions in the resolute perseverance which their construction required
the cathedral of notre dame at paris could be set inside one of the halls of karnac and not touch the walls the whole valley and delta of the nile from the catacombs to the sea was covered with temples palaces tombs pyramids and pillars
the state of society in the early days of egypt approximated very closely to our modern civilization
forty two commandments prescribed the duties of men to themselves their neighbors their country and the deity a heaven awaited the good and a hell the vicious there was a judgment day when the hearts of men were weighed
he is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat monogamy was the strict rule not even the kings in the early days were allowed to have more than one wife the wife's rights of separate property and her dower were protected by law
i saw a swahili running excitedly towards me shouting out simba simba lion lion and every now and again looking behind him as he ran on questioning him i found that the lions had tried to snatch a man from the camp by the river
but being foiled in this had seized and killed one of the donkeys and were at that moment busy devouring it not far off now was my chance i rushed for the heavy rifle which farquhar had kindly left
with me for use in case an opportunity such as this should arise and led by the swahili i started most carefully to stalk the lions
and could just make out the outline of one of them through the dense bush when unfortunately my guide snapped a rotten branch the wily beast heard the noise growled his defiance and disappeared in a moment into a patch of even thicker jungle close by
in desperation at the thought of his escaping me once again i crept hurriedly back to the camp summoned the available workmen and told them to bring all the tom toms tin cans and other noisy instruments of any kind that could be found
as quickly as possible i posted them in a half circle round the thicket and gave the head jemadar
i then crept round by myself and soon found a good position and one which the lion was most likely to retreat past
and my satisfaction at the prospect of bagging him was unbounded slowly he advanced along the path stopping every few seconds to look round
he must have observed me as he was oblivious to my presence however i let him approach to within about fifteen yards of me and then covered him with my rifle the moment i moved to do this he caught sight of me and seemed much astonished at my sudden appearance
for he stuck his forefeet into the ground threw himself back on his haunches and growled savagely as i covered his brain with my rifle
but never trust an untried weapon i pulled the trigger and to my horror heard the dull snap that tells of a misfire worse was to follow i was so taken aback and disconcerted by this untoward accident
that i entirely forgot to fire the left barrel and lowered the rifle from my shoulder with the intention of reloading if i should be given time fortunately for me the lion was so distracted by the terrific din and uproar of the coolies behind him that instead of springing on me
as might have been expected he bounded aside into the jungle again by this time i had collected my wits and just as he jumped i let him have the left barrel an answering angry growl told me that he had been hit but nevertheless he succeeded once more in getting clear away
i eventually lost his trail in a rocky patch of ground bitterly did i anathematise the hour in which i had relied on a borrowed weapon
the cap being only slightly dented so that the whole fault did indeed lie with the rifle
seriously however my continued ill luck was most exasperating and the result was that the indians were more than ever confirmed in their belief that the lions were really evil spirits proof against mortal weapons
certainly they did seem to bear charmed lives after this dismal failure there was of course nothing to do but to return to camp before doing so however i proceeded to view the dead donkey which i found to have been only slightly devoured
it the quarters it is a curious fact that lions always begin at the tail of their prey and eat upwards towards the head as their meal had thus been interrupted evidently at the very beginning
accordingly as there was no tree of any kind close at hand i had a staging erected some ten feet away from the body this machan was about twelve feet high and was composed of four poles stuck into the ground and inclined towards each other at the top
where a plank was lashed to serve as a seat further as the nights were still pitch dark i had the donkey's carcase
at sundown therefore i took up my position on my airy perch
of my gun bearer mahina i decided to go alone i would gladly have taken him with me indeed but he had a bad cough
which might spoil all darkness fell almost immediately and everything became extraordinarily still the silence of an african jungle on a dark night needs to be experienced to be realised it is most impressive especially when one is absolutely alone
and isolated from one's fellow creatures as i was then the solitude and stillness and the purpose of my vigil all had their effect on me and from a condition of strained expectancy i gradually fell into a dreamy mood
which harmonised well with my surroundings suddenly i was startled out of my reverie by the snapping of a twig and straining my ears for a further sound i fancied i could hear the rustling of a large body forcing its way through the bush
the man eater i thought to myself surely to night my luck will change and i shall bag one of the brutes profound silence again succeeded i sat on my eyrie like a statue every nerve tense with excitement
told me that my presence had been noticed and i began to fear that disappointment awaited me once more but no matters quickly took an unexpected turn
or coming for the bait prepared for him the lion began stealthily to stalk me for about two hours he horrified me by slowly creeping round and round my crazy structure gradually edging his way nearer and nearer
every moment i expected him to rush it and the staging had not been constructed with an eye to such a possibility if one of the rather flimsy poles should break
and heartily repented my folly in having placed myself in such a dangerous position i kept perfectly still however
and my feelings may be better imagined than described
for a moment i was so terrified that i nearly fell off the plank
the involuntary start which i could not help giving was immediately answered by a sinister growl from below after this i again kept as still as i could though absolutely trembling with excitement
i could barely make out his form as he crouched among the whitish undergrowth but i saw enough for my purpose and before he could come any nearer i took careful aim and pulled the trigger the sound of the shot was at once followed by a most terrific roar
and then i could hear him leaping about in all directions i was no longer able to see him however as his first bound had taken him into the thick bush but to make assurance doubly sure i kept blazing away in the direction in which i heard him plunging about
at length came a series of mighty groans gradually subsiding into deep sighs and finally ceasing altogether
who had so long harried us would trouble us no more as soon as i ceased firing a tumult of inquiring voices was borne across the dark jungle from the men in camp about a quarter of a mile away i shouted back that i was safe and sound and that one of the lions was dead
came running to the scene they surrounded my eyrie and to my amazement prostrated themselves on the ground before me saluting me with cries of mabarak mabarak which i believe means blessed one or saviour
accordingly we all returned in triumph to the camp where great rejoicings were kept up for the remainder of the night the swahili and other african natives celebrating the occasion by an especially wild and savage dance for my part i anxiously awaited the dawn
i was on my way to the eventful spot as i could not completely persuade myself that even yet the devil might not have eluded me in some uncanny and mysterious way happily my fears proved groundless and i was relieved to find that my luck
after playing me so many exasperating tricks had really turned at last i had scarcely traced the blood for more than a few paces when on rounding a bush
seemingly alive and crouching for a spring on looking closer however i satisfied myself that he was really and truly stone dead whereupon my followers crowded round laughed and danced and shouted with joy like children
and bore me in triumph shoulder high round the dead body these thanksgiving ceremonies being over i examined the body and found that two bullets had taken effect one close behind the left shoulder evidently penetrating the heart and the other in the off hind leg
the prize was indeed one to be proud of his length from tip of nose to tip of tail was nine feet eight inches he stood three feet nine inches high and it took eight men to carry him back to camp
the death of the second man eater
climbing up the steps of his bungalow and prowling round the verandah the inspector hearing the noise and thinking it was a drunken coolie shouted angrily go away but fortunately for him did not attempt to come out or to open the door
thus disappointed in his attempt to obtain a meal of human flesh the lion seized a couple of the inspector's goats and devoured them there and then on hearing of this occurrence i determined to sit up the next night near the inspector's bungalow
fortunately there was a vacant iron shanty close at hand with a convenient loophole in it for firing from and outside this i placed three full grown goats as bait
the same time dragging away the others rail and all i fired several shots in his direction
so i only succeeded in hitting one of the goats i often longed for a flash light on such occasions next morning i started off in pursuit and was joined by some others from the camp i found that the trail of the goats and rail was easily followed
and we soon came up about a quarter of a mile away to where the lion was still busy at his meal he was concealed in some thick bush and growled angrily on hearing our approach finally as we got closer he suddenly made a charge
rushing through the bushes at a great pace in an instant every man of the party scrambled hastily up the nearest tree
who stood steadily by me throughout
where we had last seen him we guessed by the silence that he had slunk off we therefore advanced cautiously and on getting up to the place
thinking that in all probability the lion would return as usual to finish his meal i had a very strong scaffolding put up a few feet away from the dead goats and took up my position on it before dark on this occasion i brought my gun bearer mahina to take a turn at watching
as i was by this time worn out for want of sleep having spent so many nights on the look out i was just dozing off comfortably when suddenly i felt my arm seized and on looking up saw mahina pointing in the direction of the goats sher
lion was all he whispered i grasped my double smooth bore which i had charged with slug and waited patiently in a few moments i was rewarded for as i watched the spot where i expected the lion to appear
there was a rustling among the bushes and i saw him stealthily emerge into the open and pass almost directly beneath us i fired both barrels practically together into his shoulder and to my joy could see him go down under the force of the blow
he was out of sight among the bushes and i had to fire after him quite at random nevertheless i was confident of getting him in the morning and accordingly set out as soon as it was light for over a mile there was no difficulty in following the blood trail
and as he had rested several times i felt sure that he had been badly wounded in the end however my hunt proved fruitless for after a time the traces of blood ceased and the surface of the ground became rocky
passed through tsavo on a tour of inspection on behalf of the foreign office after examining the bridge and other works and expressing his satisfaction
one or two of which he has kindly allowed me to reproduce in this book
and was delighted that one at least was dead when he asked me if i expected to get the second lion soon i well remember his half doubting smile as i rather too confidently asserted that i hoped to bag him also in the course of a few days
as it happened there was no sign of our enemy for about ten days after this and we began to hope that he had died of his wounds in the bush
as otherwise at least one more victim would have been added to the list for on the night of december twenty seventh i was suddenly aroused by terrified shouts from my trolley men who slept in a tree close outside my boma
to the effect that a lion was trying to get at them it would have been madness to have gone out as the moon was hidden by dense clouds and it was absolutely impossible to see anything more than a yard in front of one
and round the tree was a regular ring of his footmarks the following evening i took up my position in this same tree in the hope that he would make another attempt the night began badly as while climbing up to my perch
as may be imagined i came down again very quickly but one of my men managed to despatch it with a long pole fortunately the night was clear and cloudless and the moon made every thing almost as bright as day
i kept watch until about two a m when i roused mahina to take his turn for about an hour i slept peacefully with my back to the tree
mahina however was on the alert and had seen nothing and although i looked carefully round us on all sides i too could discover nothing unusual only half satisfied i was about to lie back again
when i fancied i saw something move a little way off among the low bushes
it was the man eater cautiously stalking us the ground was fairly open round our tree with only a small bush every here and there
and from our position it was a most fascinating sight to watch this great brute stealing stealthily round us taking advantage of every bit of cover as he came his skill showed that he was an old hand at the terrible game of man hunting
so i determined to run no undue risk of losing him this time i accordingly waited until he got quite close about twenty yards away
i heard the bullet strike him but unfortunately it had no knockdown effect
and made off with great long bounds before he disappeared from sight however i managed to have three more shots at him from the magazine rifle and another growl told me that the last of these had also taken effect
i took a native tracker with me so that i was free to keep a good look out while mahina followed immediately behind with a martini carbine splashes of blood being plentiful we were able to get along quickly and we had not proceeded more than a quarter of a mile through the jungle
when suddenly a fierce warning growl was heard right in front of us looking cautiously through the bushes i could see the man eater glaring out in our direction and showing his tusks in an angry snarl i at once took careful aim and fired
instantly he sprang out and made a most determined charge down on us i fired again and knocked him over but in a second he was up once more and coming for me as fast as he could in his crippled condition a third shot had no apparent effect
so i put out my hand for the martini hoping to stop him with it to my dismay however it was not there the terror of the sudden charge had proved too much for mahina and both he and the carbine were by this time well on their way up a tree
even as it was i had barely time to swing myself up out of his reach before he arrived at the foot of the tree when the lion found he was too late he started to limp back to the thicket but by this time i had seized the carbine from mahina
and the first shot i fired from it seemed to give him his quietus
rather foolishly i at once scrambled down from the tree and walked up towards him
and attempted another charge this time however a martini bullet in the chest and another in the head finished him for good and all he dropped in his tracks not five yards away from me and died gamely biting savagely at a branch which had fallen to the ground
eventually amid the wild rejoicings of the natives and coolies i had the lion carried to my boma which was close at hand on examination we found no less than six bullet holes in the body and embedded only a little way in the flesh of the back
was the slug which i had fired into him from the scaffolding about ten days previously he measured nine feet six inches from tip of nose to tip of tail and stood three feet eleven and a half inches high
the news of the death of the second devil soon spread far and wide over the country
best of all the coolies who had absconded came flocking back to tsavo
they could not now do enough for me
written in hindustani describing all our trials and my ultimate victory as the poem relates our troubles in somewhat quaint and biblical language i have given a translation of it in the appendix
the bowl i shall always consider my most highly prized and hardest won trophy the inscription on it reads as follows sir we your overseer timekeepers mistaris and workmen
present you with this bowl as a token of our gratitude to you for your bravery in killing two man eating lions at great risk to your own life thereby saving us from the fate of being devoured by these terrible monsters
who nightly broke into our tents and took our fellow workers from our side in presenting you with this bowl we all add our prayers for your long life happiness and prosperity we shall ever remain sir your grateful servants
overseer and clerk of works on behalf of your workmen dated at tsavo january thirtieth eighteen ninety nine
of having been specifically referred to in the house of lords by the prime minister of the day speaking of the difficulties which had been encountered in the construction of the uganda railway the late lord salisbury said
and conceived a most unfortunate taste for our porters
at last the labourers entirely declined to go on unless they were guarded by an iron entrenchment of course it is difficult to work a railway under these conditions and until we found an enthusiastic sportsman to get rid of these lions our enterprise was seriously hindered
also the spectator of march third nineteen hundred had an article entitled the lions that stopped the railway from which the following extracts are taken
their wish to propitiate the local deities is easily understood
white or black the story of these two beasts to what a distance the whole story carries us back and how impossible it becomes to account for the survival of primitive man against this kind of foe for fire
which has hitherto been regarded as his main safeguard against the carnivora these cared nothing
i may mention that poison was tried but without effect the poisoned carcases of transport animals which had died from the bite of the tsetse fly were placed in likely spots but the wily man eaters would not touch them and much preferred live men to dead donkeys
in the tropical forest both in american and west central africa but there is no evidence that the old inhabitants of europe or of assyria or asia minor ever killed lions or wolves by this means they looked to the king or chief or some champion to kill these monsters for them
it was not the sport but the duty of kings and was in itself a title to be a ruler of men
from the story of the tsavo river we can appreciate their services to man even at this distance of time
chapter ten the completion of the tsavo bridge when all the excitement had died down and there was no longer any dread of the man eaters work went on briskly
as the piers and abutments progressed in height the question of how to lift the large stones into their positions had to be solved we possessed no cranes for this purpose so i set to work and improvised a shears made of a couple of thirty foot rails
while the other ends were fixed at a distance of about ten feet apart in a large block of wood this contrivance acted capitally and by manipulation of ropes and pulleys the heavy stones were swung into position quickly and without difficulty
so that in a very short time the masonry of the bridge was completed the next business was to span the sixty foot distance between the piers with iron girders as i had neither winches nor sufficient blocks and tackle to haul these over into position
i was driven to erect temporary piers in the middle of each span built up crib shape of wooden sleepers great wooden beams were stretched across from the stone piers to these cribs and laid with rails and the girder was run over its exact place
while still on the trucks in which it had been brought up from the coast it was next jacked up from the trucks which were hauled away empty the temporary bridge was dismantled and the girder finally lowered gently into position when the last girder was thus successfully placed
no time was lost in linking up the permanent way and very soon i had the satisfaction of seeing the first train cross the finished work curiously enough only a day or so after the bridge had been completed and the intermediate cribs cleared away a tremendous rain storm broke over the country
tearing up trees by the roots and whirling them along like straws steadily higher and higher rose the flood and standing on my bridge i watched expectantly
we had built across the stream in order to bring stone and sand to the main work to give way before the ever rising volume of water
sweeping with almost irresistible force round the bend of the river some little distance above the bridge this i knew was the debris of the trolley crossing furthest up the river on it came and with it an additional bank of stormy looking water
there was a dull thud and a rending and riving of timbers and then the flood rolled on
leaving not a vestige of the two bridges behind it the impact indeed was so great that the rails were twisted round the broken tree trunks as if they had been so much ordinary wire the double tier of wreckage now swept forward and hurled itself
with a sullen plunge against the cutwaters of my stone piers the shock was great but to my immense satisfaction the bridge took it without a tremor
on its journey to the ocean i confess that i witnessed the whole occurrence with a thrill of pride
it was visited by leopards hyenas wild dogs wild cats and other inhabitants of the jungle around us these animals did a great deal of damage to the herds of sheep and goats which were kept to supply the commissariat
and there was always great rejoicing when a capture was made in one of the many traps that were laid for them leopards especially are most destructive often killing simply for pleasure and not for food and i have always harboured animosity towards
them since the night when one wantonly destroyed a whole herd of mine
and which were secured at sundown in a grass hut at one corner of my boma one particularly dark night we were startled by a tremendous commotion in this shed but as this was before the man eaters were killed no one dared stir out to investigate the cause of the disturbance
i naturally thought that the intruder was one of the demons
in spite of these however it was some time before the noise died down and everything became still again
the shed to see what had happened and there to my intense anger i found every one of my sheep and goats lying stretched dead on the ground with its throat bitten through
and i saw from this and from the tracks all round that the author of the wholesale slaughter had been a leopard
i hoped that he would return the next night to make a meal
i accordingly left the carcases exactly as they lay and having a very powerful steel trap
and secured it by a stout chain to a long stake driven into the ground outside darkness found everyone in my boma on the alert and listening anxiously to hear the noise the leopard would make the moment he was caught in the trap
nor were we disappointed for about midnight we heard the click of the powerful spring
i had been sitting all evening with my rifle by my side and a lantern lighted
watchman carrying the lamp as we approached the shed the leopard made a frantic spring in our direction as far as the chain would allow him and this so frightened the chaukidar that he fled in terror leaving me in utter darkness
the night was as black as had been the previous one and i could see absolutely nothing
as his struggles ceased and all was still i called out that he was dead and at once everyone in the boma turned out bringing all the lanterns in the place
who shouted that he too wanted revenge as some of the goats had belonged to him whereupon he levelled his revolver at the dead leopard and shutting his eyes tightly fired four shots in rapid succession naturally not one of these touched the beast
but they caused considerable consternation amongst the onlookers who scattered rapidly to right and left next morning a party of starving wa kamba happened to be passing just as i was about to skin the leopard
and then to take the meat i of course assented to this proposal and in a very few minutes the skin had been neatly taken off and the famishing natives began a ravenous meal on the raw flesh
wild dogs are also very destructive and often caused great losses among our sheep and goats many a night have i listened to these animals hunting and harrying some poor creature of the wilds round my camp they never relinquish a chase and will attack anything
man or beast when really driven by hunger
chapter ten the escape treading softly and with ears straining for the slightest sound the two men descended to the first floor of the house they heard nothing to alarm them as they crept down and not until they paused on the first landing to reconnoitre
did they even catch the murmur of voices issuing from the guardroom below so muffled was the sound that crispin guessed how matters stood even before he had looked over the balusters into the hall beneath
the faint grey of the dawn was the only light that penetrated the gloom of that pit the fates are kind kenneth he whispered those fools sit with closed doors come but kenneth laid his hand upon galliard's sleeve
what if the door should open as we pass someone will die muttered crispin back but pray god that it may not we must run the risk is there no other way why yes returned galliard sardonically
we can linger here until we are taken but oddslife i'm not so minded come and as he spoke he drew the lad along his foot was upon the topmost stair of the flight
when of a sudden the stillness of the house was broken by a loud knock upon the street door instantly as though they had been awaiting it there was a stir of feet below and the bang of an overturned chair then a shaft of yellow light fell athwart the darkness of the hall
they were but in time
a bolt was drawn and a chain rattled then followed the creak of hinges
crispin could now make out the figures of colonel pride and of three men who came with him but he had scant leisure to survey them for the colonel was in haste come sirs he heard him say light me to their garret
for an instant it seemed to him there was naught left but to stand there and await recapture through his mind it flashed that they were five and he but one
with that swiftness which thought alone can compass did he weigh the odds and judge his chances he realized how desperate they were did he remain and even as he thought he glanced sharply round dim indeed was the light
but his sight was keen and quickened by the imminence of danger partly his eyes and partly his instinct told him that not six paces behind him there must be a door and if heaven pleased it should be unlocked behind it they must look for shelter
it even crossed his mind in that second of crowding galloping thought that perchance the room might be occupied that was a risk he must take the lesser risk of the two the choice of one of which was forced upon him
he had determined all this ere the soldier's foot was upon the third step of the staircase and before the colonel had commenced the ascent kenneth stood palsied with fear gazing like one fascinated at the approaching peril
come with me and tread lightly as you love your life in three long strides and by steps that were softer than a cat's crispin crossed to the door which he had rather guessed than seen he ran his hand along until he caught the latch
softly he tried it it gave and the door opened kenneth was by then beside him he paused to look back on the opposite wall the light of the trooper's lanthorn fell brightly another moment and the fellow would have reached and turned the corner of the stairs
and his light must reveal them to him but ere that instant was passed crispin had drawn his companion through
the chamber was untenanted and almost bare of furniture at which discovery crispin breathed more freely they stood there and heard the ascending footsteps and the clank clank of a sword against the stair rail a bar of yellow light came under the door that sheltered them
stronger it grew and farther it crept along the floor then stopped and receded again as he who bore the lanthorn turned and began to climb to the second floor an instant later and the light had vanished eclipsed by those who followed in the fellow's wake
the window sir crispin cried kenneth in an excited whisper the window no answered crispin calmly the drop is a long one and we should but light in the streets and be little better than we are here
wait he listened the footsteps had turned the corner leading to the floor above he opened the door partly at first then wide for an instant he stood listening again the steps were well overhead by now
soon they would mount the last flight and then discovery must be swift to follow now was all crispin said and drawing his sword he led the way swiftly yet cautiously to the stairs once more in passing he glanced over the rails the guardroom door stood ajar
and he caught the murmurs of subdued conversation but he did not pause had the door stood wide he would not have paused then there was not a second to be lost to wait was to increase the already overwhelming danger cautiously
and leaning well upon the stout baluster he began the descent kenneth followed him mechanically with white face and a feeling of suffocation in his throat they gained the corner and turning they began what was truly the perilous part of their journey
not more than a dozen steps were there but at the bottom stood the guardroom door and through the chink of its opening a shaft of light fell upon the nethermost step once a stair creaked and to their quickened senses it sounded like a pistol shot
as loud to crispin sounded the indrawn breath of apprehension from kenneth that followed it he had almost paused to curse the lad when thinking him of how time pressed he went on within three steps of the bottom were they
and they could almost distinguish what was being said in the room when crispin stopped and turning his head to attract kenneth's attention he pointed straight across the hall to a dimly visible door it was that of the chamber wherein he had been brought before cromwell
its position had occurred to him some moments before and he had determined then upon going that way the lad followed the indication of his finger
but the calm unmovable crispin proceeded as if naught had chanced he argued that even if he who had risen were coming towards the door there was nothing to be gained by standing still their only chance lay now in passing before it might be opened
they that walk through perils in a brave man's company cannot but gain confidence from the calm of his demeanour so was it now with kenneth
and well it was for him that this was so they gained the bottom of the staircase at length
then slowly painfully slowly to avoid their steps from ringing upon the stone floor they crept across towards the door that meant safety to sir crispin slowly step by step they moved and with every stride crispin looked behind him
in silence and in safety they were permitted to reach the door to crispin's joy it was unfastened quietly he opened it
holding it for him as he passed in and keeping watch with eye and ear the while scarce had kenneth entered the chamber when from above came the sound of loud and excited voices announcing to them that their flight was at last discovered
with confused shouts that something must be amiss
slife he muttered twas a close thing aye shout you cuckolds he went on yell yourselves hoarse as the crows you are you'll hang us where gives are hanged will you kenneth tugged at the skirts of his doublet what now he inquired
now said crispin we'll leave by the window if it please you they crossed the room and a moment or two later they had dropped on to the narrow railed pathway overlooking the river which crispin had observed from their prison window the evening before
he had observed too that a small boat was moored at some steps about a hundred yards farther down the stream and towards that spot he now sped along the footpath followed closely by kenneth the path sloped in that direction so that by the time the spot was reached the water flowed not more than six feet or so beneath them
half a dozen steps took them down this to the moorings of that boat which fortunately had not been removed get in kenneth crispin commanded there
heaven send we come upon some good malignant homestead ere we go far
chapter twenty seven glacial and preglacial lakes and rivers since the recession of the ice preglacial lakes have been filled up and are now dry land and river beds have been changed so that new channels have been cut
and new lakes have been formed even the imagination that wonderful architect with all its tendencies to exaggeration palls in its attempt to give expression in measured quantities to the mighty power exerted by the great glacier
or combination of glaciers that existed in comparatively recent times
at this point are striking evidences of the work of the ice age before the glacial period the wisconsin river made a detour some miles west of its present channel through the high hills in the region of baraboo
are very precipitous and are formed almost entirely of rocks the river at that point passed between two of these hills when the ice flowed down it surrounded these hills yet did not sweep over their tops but left great piles of glacial drift
this lake recedes many feet during the summer but it is again filled up by the rains and snows of winter there is no considerable stream either flowing into or out from it it is a lake formed by the glaciers
there are hundreds and perhaps thousands of lakes
these smaller inland lakes
southern wisconsin and minnesota are due almost entirely to the great deposits of glacial drift that have been transported with the ice wherever these kettle holes are found large bodies of ice have become anchored
while the ice behind it has carried the drift until it is covered over and piled up at the sides when these ice mountains melted away depressions were left which in some cases have resulted in lakes and in others simply dry kettle holes
this process has been hinted at in a former chapter but we give it here as one of the kinds of lakes formed during the glacial period they are found everywhere that glacial action has prevailed they are found in great abundance in some parts of new england
on the margin of the terminal moraine these lakes however are comparatively insignificant as compared with the great inland seas like lake superior and lake michigan that undoubtedly owe their origin largely to the ice age
in order however that we may understand more fully the formation of these greater lakes it will be necessary for us to go back and examine the conditions that seem to have existed before the glacial period
this is evidenced in very many ways by sounding the depths of old river beds now filled with glacial debris the old beds show unmistakable evidences of having been worn down to their present level by the action of running water
they also prove to be many feet below the present sea level this fact seems to be sufficient to prove the theory of a higher elevation of the north american continent in preglacial times it should be said here that undoubtedly the constant filling up of the ocean
with the drift carried down by the rivers has somewhat raised its level but hardly to the extent indicated by the old river beds the question naturally arises where did all the dirt come from to fill up these great river beds
doctor wright estimates that there is not less than one million square miles of territory in north america covered with glacial debris to an average depth of fifty feet of course the depth varies in different places from a few inches to several hundred feet
of the carrying power of these great glaciers we will speak more fully in a future chapter in preglacial times the watershed of the mississippi and of the great rivers east of the alleghany mountains the susquehanna and hudson
extended probably farther north than it does to day the larger portion of the drainage area that now finds an outlet through the river saint lawrence at one time undoubtedly drained off through the mississippi valley
that prior to the glacial period a river flowed down through lake superior which connected with lake michigan at a point near its present outlet
the channel of the river passing down through what is now the bottom of lake michigan which had an outlet at the head of the lake near chicago and flowed off into the mississippi river all of the lake bottoms of this great chain with the exception of lake erie
are now below sea level the reason for this exception will appear further on before the ice age there was supposed to be no connection between lake michigan and lake huron as there is now through the straits of mackinac
another preglacial river had its rise in the region of lake huron and flowed through an old river bed extending from the georgian bay in a southeasterly direction through the province of ontario and emptied into the present lake ontario
from lake ontario there is an old river bed running through the valley of the mohawk which empties into the hudson at troy neither of these two rivers having their sources in the north found an outlet through the present saint lawrence river
there is evidence that there was more than one center of snow and ice accumulation and each of these great centers probably had several subcenters this theory has color given to it by the directions of movement shown by the glacial drift
these bowlders when they were first torn from their rocky beds by the irresistible power of ice pressure were rough and jagged in shape the same as any rock would be torn from a quarry by a blast
they have been smoothed and rounded by rubbing against the moving ice and against each other in the progress of their long journey from their original homes where their home was the geologist can immediately tell upon examination
and when they had grown to a sufficient height they joined at their edges making one grand glacier the movements of which were the resultant of the combined pressure exerted by these great centers of power so that all of north america north of the line of the terminal moraine
with the exception of a small area heretofore noted chiefly in wisconsin became covered with one vast sheet of ice the glacier north of lake superior widened out the old river bed by a process of erosion to its present width
there may have existed something of a lake in preglacial times through which the river ran but it undoubtedly owes its present width to the grinding action of the irresistible icebergs and the piling up of debris on the shores
the river bed was filled up by a glacial drift at the point of its present outlet until the lake was raised in its level much higher than that of lake michigan another glacier plowed down through lake michigan widening it out
to its present dimensions while the glacial drift was deposited at what is now the head of the lake filling up the old outlet and thus making a great dam the damming up of these great water courses was another cause for increasing the width of these lakes
in a similar way lake erie was formed it is supposed however that this lake is entirely the product of glacial action as there is no evidence of an old river bed in its bottom besides it is much shallower than the other lakes
the same action that formed lake erie filled up the old river bed running through the province of ontario so that when the ice receded lake erie became the new channel for the old river
the same process filled up the valley of the mohawk to more than one hundred feet in depth and also raised the valley of the hudson this caused the new channel to be made through the niagara river and a new route to the ocean for the drainage of all the chain of lakes through the saint lawrence
were worn out by the action of running water except erie the great glaciers widened them out and in the case of lake erie scooped it out at the same time it built great dams across the outlets which raised the surface of the water to a much higher level
and caused them to form new outlets thus changing the whole face of the country over which the ice drifted the glaciated region of north america is among the most productive in the world and in many respects presents a most pleasing landscape
other lakes besides these mentioned have been formed during the ice period through blocking the course of a river by the ice itself doctor wright during the time he traced out the line of the terminal moraine discovered that the ice sheet crossed the ohio river
at a point near cincinnati where there is a great bend to the northward in the river with the exception of this point and perhaps another point below
at this point however the ice seems to have filled the valley from hill to hill which very naturally would form a great dam or lake in the ohio valley of course such a lake could not be permanent because when the ice melted away
it again opened the channel and allowed the water to flow off some years before this discovery was made there were terraces found along the banks of the ohio river and its tributaries that had been the subject of much speculation
it is well known that by the action of water from rainfall earth gravel and other debris will wash down the side of a hill or mountain until it strikes a water level and there it will build out a terrace near the level of the water surface
the width of these terraces will be determined by the time the water has stood at that level
the evidences that are cited pro and con
but it is sufficient to say here that the sum of the evidence goes to show that there was an ice dam formed at a point near cincinnati
terraces were formed running up the ohio and its tributaries corresponding to the level that the water must have risen to if the valley were filled up with ice these facts taken with the greater fact that the ice sheet actually did cross the ohio valley into kentucky
seems to prove conclusively the existence of such a lake during the period that the ice rested at its extreme limit the fact that in some places successive terraces are found does not disprove the theory
because it is more than likely that when the ice receded it did so in successive stages
there is abundant proof of this in the successive moraines and also in the formation of successive terraces some of these terraces could have been formed from other causes it does not require any great stretch of the imagination to understand how numerous lakes
as the ice melted away the thick bodies of ice might be many many years in melting
and thus form a great inland sea from the vast amounts of water that would come from the melting ice all of the region about winnipeg in the red river country covering great areas of hundreds of miles in extent
is a level plain only lacking the coloring to give to one passing through it the effect of a great unruffled sea there is no doubt but that all of this region was the bottom of a great lake at some period when the ice was receding
and this accounts for the great depth of black soil that we find in this and other regions the soil was a water deposit
we can imagine that during this period the water that flowed off through the great mississippi must have been of enormous volume as compared to the present time a large portion of the delta of the mississippi
was carried down during the ice melting period doctor wright as we have before stated has estimated that there are a million square miles of country
by leveling down hills and mountains in the northern country
and i have no doubt but that a great portion of louisiana and western mississippi
as large or larger than lake michigan to be drained off in a comparatively short time when we think of it in this light the great delta of the mississippi is easily accounted for there are evidences of a great lake in the red river country of the northwest
that is much larger than any of our greatest lakes the shores of this lake the bed of which is now dry land and the heart of a great agricultural region are well defined and have been surveyed and mapped out when this great body of water was released it was to the northward
drainage before the ice age we have already said that during the ice age river beds were changed valleys were filled up new lakes were made and waterfalls created great as were the changes made by the carrying power of moving ice
still greater were those made in preglacial times not however from the action of moving ice but from running water erosion caused by running water has probably
the valley of the ohio river will probably average a mile in width at its upper level and deep as it is to day it was much deeper in preglacial times there is evidence that the whole bed of the river
was from one hundred to one hundred fifty feet deeper than it is at present this has been determined by borings at different points to ascertain the depth of the drift that was lodged during the glacial period in the trough of the ohio river
anyone traveling up or down the river to day can readily see that it is a great sinuous groove cut down through the earth by millions of years of water erosion and not only this but that at some time in its history this great valley has been partly filled
forming on one or both sides of the river level areas called bottom land these lands are exceedingly productive owing to the great depth and richness of the soil for many years the writer lived upon one of the rivers tributary to the ohio
and often made trips by steamboat up and down the ohio river traveling along this river a close observer will be struck by the exactness of the stratifications in the rock and in the coal beds to be seen on each side of the river
all the rivers that are tributary to the ohio such as the monongahela the alleghany the muskingum the tennessee the cumberland the kentucky the wabash the miami the licking the scioto
the big sandy the kanawha the hocking and the great beaver besides numerous smaller streams have their own valleys that have been worn away by the same process and to a greater depth than they now appear to be
all of the material that once filled these valleys has been carried down by the water filling up the bottom of the ocean and building out the great delta of the lower mississippi mountains have been worn down and carried away by the action of the running water
until their height is much lower than in former times the great lakes that were enlarged during the glacial period and in some cases wholly created by the scooping out and damming up of the waterways and by piling glacial drift around their shores
have had some of their outlets raised to a higher level and others have been created anew the old river beds that formerly carried the water that is now drained through the saint lawrence were eroded by the action of running water to a great depth
and the salt water is found in the bed of the old river great bodies of salt are found at that low level constantly dissolved by the water percolating through the sand and gravel of the glacial drift this salt water is pumped up and evaporated
leaving the salt forming one of the important industries of that region all of the rivers from the ohio eastward tell the same story which is that at some remote period the land was much higher above the level of the sea than it is to day
the bottoms of many of these old river beds are lower than sea level but as they were made by running water they must have been at one time above that point there is abundant evidence that the earth sinks in some places and rises in others
along the ridges of some of the eastern mountains are found in great abundance the products of the bottom of the ocean these evidences show that at some period when the mountains were formed
evidences of this exist in various parts not only of the united states but of the world
what is the final destiny of the earth that now appears above the surface of the ocean evidently if the earth should remain without further upheaval
the problem of building a world and then tearing it to pieces is a very complicated one there is a constant battle going on between the powers that build up and those that tear down and this is as true of character building as it is of world building
the world has never been exactly alike any two successive days from the time its foundations were laid to the present moment it seems to be a fundamental law of all life and growth as well as of all decay
that there shall be a constant change there is no such thing as rest in nature the smallest molecules and atoms of matter are in constant agitation in the animal and vegetable world there is a period of life and growth
and this seems to be the destiny of planets themselves
still science teaches us that with all this turmoil and change nothing either of matter or energy is lost but that it is simply undergoing one eternal round of change does this law apply to mind and soul
once upon a time there was a fisherman who had a wife and three children every morning he used to go out fishing and whatever fish he caught he sold to the king one day among the other fishes he caught a golden crab
and had tucked up her gown so that her feet were visible she suddenly heard a voice which said let down let down thy petticoat that lets thy feet be seen she turned round in surprise
when her husband came home and they sat down to dinner they presently heard the crab's little voice saying
they were all very much surprised but they gave him something to eat when the old man came to take away the plate which had contained the crab's dinner he found it full of gold and as the same thing happened every day he soon became very fond of the crab
one day the crab said to the fisherman's wife go to the king and tell him i wish to marry his younger daughter the old woman went accordingly and laid the matter before the king who laughed a little at the notion of his daughter marrying a crab
but did not decline the proposal altogether because he was a prudent monarch and knew that the crab was likely to be a prince in disguise he said therefore to the fisherman's wife go old woman and tell the crab i will give him my daughter if by to morrow morning
he can build a wall in front of my castle much higher than my tower upon which all the flowers of the world must grow and bloom the fisherman's wife went home and gave this message then the crab gave her a golden rod and said
go and strike with this rod three times upon the ground on the place which the king showed you and to morrow morning the wall will be there the old woman did so and went away again the next morning when the king awoke what do you think he saw
the wall stood there before his eyes exactly as he had bespoken it then the old woman went back to the king and said to him your majesty's orders have been fulfilled
a garden in which there are three fountains of which the first must play gold the second diamonds and the third brilliants so the old woman had to strike again three times upon the ground with the rod and the next morning
the garden was there the king now gave his consent and the wedding was fixed for the very next day then the crab said to the old fisherman now take this rod
will come out and ask you what you wish for answer him thus your master the king has sent me to tell you that you must send him his golden garment that is like the sun make him give you besides
the queenly robes of gold and precious stones which are like the flowery meadows and bring them both to me
and when the married pair were alone together the crab made himself known to his young wife and told her how he was the son of the greatest king in the world and how he was enchanted
and he could also change himself into an eagle as often as he wished no sooner had he said this than he shook himself and immediately became a handsome youth but the next morning he was forced to creep back again into his crab shell
and the same thing happened every day but the princess's affection for the crab and the polite attention with which she behaved to him surprised the royal family very much they suspected some secret but though they spied and spied they could not discover it
thus a year passed away and the princess had a son whom she called benjamin but her mother still thought the whole matter very strange at last she said to the king that he ought to ask his daughter whether she would not like to have another husband instead of the crab
but when the daughter was questioned she only answered i am married to the crab and him only will i have then the king said to her i will appoint a tournament in your honour and i will invite all the princes in the world to it
and if any one of them pleases you you shall marry him in the evening the princess told this to the crab who said to her take this rod go to the garden gate and knock with it then a black man will come out and say to you
answer him thus your master the king has sent me hither to tell you to send him his golden armour and his steed and the silver apple and bring them to me
the princess did so and brought him what he desired the following evening the prince dressed himself for the tournament before he went he said to his wife now mind you do not say when you see me that i am the crab for if you do this
evil will come of it place yourself at the window with your sisters i will ride by and throw you the silver apple take it in your hand but if they ask you who i am say that you do not know so saying he kissed her repeated his warning once more and went away
the princess went with her sisters to the window and looked on at the tournament presently her husband rode by and threw the apple up to her she caught it in her hand and went with it to her room and by and by her husband came back to her
but her father was much surprised that she did not seem to care about any of the princes he therefore appointed a second tournament the crab then gave his wife the same directions as before only this time the apple which she received from the black man was of gold
he did not overtake the dog but found himself above a staircase which he descended then he saw before him a stately palace and entering he found in a large hall a table set for twelve persons
he hid himself in the hall behind a great picture that he might see what would happen at noon he heard a great noise so that he trembled with fear when he took courage to look out from behind the picture he saw twelve eagles flying in at this sight his fear became still greater
the eagles flew to the basin of a fountain that was there and bathed themselves when suddenly they were changed into twelve handsome youths now they seated themselves at the table and one of them took up a goblet filled with wine and said a health to my father
and another said a health to my mother and so the healths went round then one of them said a health to my dearest lady long may she live and well but a curse on the cruel mother that burnt my golden shell
and so saying he wept bitterly then the youths rose from the table went back to the great stone fountain turned themselves into eagles again and flew away then the old man went away too returned to the light of day and went home
soon after he heard that the princess was ill and that the only thing that did her good was having stories told to her he therefore went to the royal castle obtained an audience of the princess and told her about the strange things he had seen in the underground palace
no sooner had he finished than the princess asked him whether he could find the way to that palace yes he answered certainly and now she desired him to guide her thither at once the old man did so and when they came to the palace he hid her behind the great picture
presently the eagles came flying in and changed themselves into young men and in a moment the princess recognised her husband amongst them all and tried to come out of her hiding place but the old man held her back the youths
seated themselves at the table and now the prince said again while he took up the cup of wine a health to my dearest lady long may she live and well but a curse on the cruel mother that burnt my golden shell
then the princess could restrain herself no longer but ran forward and threw her arms round her husband and immediately he knew her again and said do you remember how i told you that day that you would betray me now you see that i spoke the truth
but all that bad time is past now listen to me i must still remain enchanted for three months will you stay here with me till that time is over so the princess stayed with him and said to the old man
at last a king's daughter came into the wood she had lost her way and could not find her father's kingdom again she had been wandering round and round for nine days and she came at last to the iron case a voice came from within and asked her
where do you come from and where do you want to go she answered i have lost my way to my father's kingdom and i shall never get home again then the voice from the iron stove said
you must come again and bring a knife with you to scrape a hole in the iron then he gave her someone for a guide who walked near her and said nothing but he brought her in two hours to her house there was great joy in the castle when the princess came back
and the old king fell on her neck and kissed her but she was very much troubled and said dear father listen to what has befallen me i should never have come home again out of the great wild wood if i had not come to an iron stove
should take her place they took her there gave her a knife and said she must scrape at the iron stove she scraped for twenty four hours but did not make the least impression when the day broke a voice called from the iron stove
it seems to me that it is day outside then she answered
then she was taken out and had to scrape for four and twenty hours but she could make no impression as soon as the day broke the voice from the stove called out it seems to be daylight outside then she answered
it seems so to me too i think i hear my father blowing his horn so you are a swineherd's daughter go away at once and let the king's daughter come and say to her that what i foretell shall come to pass and if she does not come
everything in the kingdom shall fall into ruin and not one stone shall be left upon another when the princess heard this she began to cry
she took leave of her father put a knife in her belt and went to the iron stove in the wood as soon as she reached it she began to scrape and the iron gave way and before two hours had passed she had made a little hole
then she peeped in and saw such a beautiful youth all shining with gold and precious stones that she fell in love with him on the spot so she scraped away harder than ever and made the hole so large that he could get out then he said
you are mine and i am thine you are my bride and have set me free he wanted to take her with him to his kingdom but she begged him just to let her go once more to her father and the prince let her go but told her
the iron stove vanished and went away over a mountain of glass and sharp swords but the prince was free
then she said good bye to her father and took a little money with her and went again into the great wood to look for the iron stove but she could not find it she sought it for nine days and then her hunger became so great
that she did not know how she could live any longer and when it was evening she climbed a little tree and wished that the night would not come because she was afraid of the wild beasts
then she got down from the tree and went towards the light she came to a little old house with a great deal of grass growing round and stood in front of a little heap of wood she thought alas what am i coming to
and a table beautifully spread with roast meats and wine and all the dishes and drinking cups were of silver then she took heart and knocked then a fat toad called out little green toad with leg like crook
open wide the door and look who it was the latch that shook and a little toad came forward and let her in
they asked her how she came there and what she wanted then she told everything that had happened to her and how because she had exceeded her permission only to speak three words the stove had disappeared with the prince
and how she had searched a very long time and must wander over mountain and valley till she found him then the old toad said little green toad whose leg doth twist
go to the corner of which you wist and bring to me the large old kist and the little toad went and brought out a great chest then they gave her food and drink and led her to a beautifully made bed of silk and samite
when she had passed these she would find her lover again so she was given three large needles a plough wheel and three nuts which she was to take great care of she set out with these things and when she came to the glass mountain which was so slippery
she stuck the three needles behind her feet and then in front and so got over it and when she was on the other side put them carefully away then she reached the three cutting swords and got on her plough wheel and rolled over them
at last she came to a great lake and when she had crossed that arrived at a beautiful castle she went in and gave herself out as a servant a poor maid who would gladly be engaged
but she knew that the prince whom she had freed from the iron stove in the great wood was in the castle so she was taken on as a kitchen maid for very small wages now the prince was about to marry another princess for he thought she was dead long ago
in the evening when she had washed up and was ready she felt in her pocket and found the three nuts which the old toad had given her she cracked one and was going to eat the kernel when behold there was a beautiful royal dress inside it
saying that it was not a dress for a serving maid then she said she would not sell it unless she was granted one favour namely to sleep by the prince's door the bride granted her this because the dress was so beautiful and she had so few like it
when it was evening she said to her bridegroom that stupid maid wants to sleep by your door if you are contented i am he said but she gave him a glass of wine in which she had poured a sleeping draught
but the maid did not want money and asked that she should sleep again by the prince's door the bride however gave him a sleeping draught and he slept so soundly that he heard nothing but the kitchen maid wept the whole night long and said
i have freed you in a wood and from an iron stove i sought you and have crossed a glassy mountain three sharp swords and a great lake to find you and now you will not hear me the servants outside heard how she cried the whole night
and in the morning they told their master and when she had washed up on the third night she bit the third nut and there was a still more beautiful dress inside that was made of pure gold
when the bride saw it she wanted to have it but the maid would only give it her on condition that she should sleep for the third time by the prince's door but the prince took care not to drink the sleeping draught when she began to weep and to say
dearest sweetheart i freed you in the horrible wild wood and from an iron stove he jumped up and said you are right you are mine and i am thine though it was still night he got into a carriage with her and they took the false bride's clothes away
at the little old house but when they stepped inside it turned into a large castle the toads were all freed and were beautiful king's children running about for joy
there they were married and they remained in the castle which was much larger than that of the princess's father's but because the old man did not like being left alone they went and fetched him so they had two kingdoms and lived in great wealth
there was once a young hunter who went boldly into the forest he had a merry and light heart and as he went whistling along there came an ugly old woman who said to him good day dear hunter you are very merry and contented
but i suffer hunger and thirst so give me a trifle the hunter was sorry for the poor old woman and he felt in his pocket and gave her all he could spare he was going on then but the old woman stopped him and said
they will let the cloak fall but one of the birds will be hit and will drop down dead take the cloak with you it is a wishing cloak and when you throw it on your shoulders you have only to wish yourself at a certain place and in the twinkling of an eye you are there
pulled the trigger and shot into the midst of them so that their feathers flew about then the flock took flight with much screaming but one fell dead and the cloak fluttered down then the hunter did as the old woman had told him
he cut open the bird found its heart swallowed it and took the cloak home with him the next morning when he awoke he remembered the promise and wanted to see if it had come true but when he lifted up his pillow there sparkled the gold piece
and the next morning he found another and so on every time he got up he collected a heap of gold but at last he thought to himself
so he took leave of his parents slung his hunting knapsack and his gun round him and journeyed into the world it happened that one day he went through a thick wood and when he came to the end of it there lay in the plain before him a large castle
at one of the windows in it stood an old woman with a most beautiful maiden by her side looking out but the old woman was a witch and she said to the girl
there comes one out of the wood who has a wonderful treasure in his body which we must manage to possess ourselves of darling daughter we have more right to it than he he has a bird's heart in him
and so every morning there lies a gold piece under his pillow she told her how they could get hold of it and how she was to coax it from him and at last threatened her angrily saying
when the hunter came nearer he saw the maiden and said to himself
it was not long before he was so much in love with the witch maiden that he thought of nothing else and only looked in her eyes and whatever she wanted that he gladly did then the old witch said now we must have the bird heart he will not feel when it is gone
who had to hand it to the hunter drink to me now my dearest she said then he took the goblet and when he had swallowed the drink the bird heart came out of his mouth the maiden had to get hold of it secretly and then swallow it herself
for the old witch wanted to have it thenceforward he found no more gold under his pillow and it lay under the maiden's but he was so much in love and so much bewitched that he thought of nothing except spending all his time with the maiden
the old witch grew angry and said such a cloak is a wonderful thing it is seldom to be had in the world and have it i must and will she beat the maiden and said that if she did not obey it would go ill with her
so she did her mother's bidding and standing one day by the window she looked away into the far distance as if she were very sad why are you standing there looking so sad asked the hunter
alas my love she replied over there lies the granite mountain where the costly precious stones grow i have a great longing to go there so that when i think of it i am very sad for who can fetch them
only the birds who fly a man never if you have no other trouble said the hunter that one i can easily remove from your heart so he wrapped her round in his cloak and wished themselves to the granite mountain
sitting on it the precious stones sparkled so brightly on all sides that it was a pleasure to see them and they collected the most beautiful and costly together but now the old witch had through her caused the hunter's eyes to become heavy
i am so tired that i can hardly stand on my feet so they sat down and he laid his head on her lap and fell asleep as soon as he was sound asleep she unfastened the cloak from his shoulders threw it on her own
left the granite and stones and wished herself home again but when the hunter had finished his sleep and awoke he found that his love had betrayed him and left him alone on the wild mountain oh said he
and he had not sat long before he saw three of them striding towards him
the giants came up and the first pushed him with his foot and said what sort of an earthworm is that the second said crush him dead but the third said contemptuously it is not worth the trouble let him live he cannot remain here
and if he goes higher up the mountain the clouds will take him and carry him off talking thus they went away but the hunter had listened to their talk and as soon as they had gone he rose and climbed to the summit
a cloud swept by and seizing him carried him away it travelled for a time in the sky and then it sank down and hovered over a large vegetable garden surrounded by walls so that he came safely to the ground amidst cabbages and vegetables
the hunter then looked about him saying if only i had something to eat i am so hungry and it will go badly with me in the future for i see here not an apple or pear or fruit of any kind nothing but vegetables everywhere at last he thought
and found himself wonderfully changed four legs began to grow on him a thick head and two long ears and he saw with horror that he had changed into a donkey but as he was still very hungry and this juicy salad tasted very good to his present nature
he went on eating with a still greater appetite at last he got hold of another kind of cabbage but scarcely had swallowed it when he felt another change and he once more regained his human form the hunter now lay down and slept off his weariness
and went into the castle where he begged for a lodging i am so tired he said i can go no farther the witch asked countryman who are you and what is your business he answered i am a messenger of the king
when the old witch heard of the fine salad she wanted to eat it and said dear countryman just let me taste the wonderful salad why not he answered i have brought two heads with me and will give you one so saying
he opened his sack and gave her the bad one the witch suspected no evil and her mouth watered to taste the new dish so that she went into the kitchen to prepare it herself when it was ready she could not wait till it was served at the table
but she immediately took a couple of leaves and put them in her mouth no sooner however had she swallowed them than she lost human form and ran into the courtyard in the shape of a donkey now the servant came into the kitchen
and when she saw the salad standing there ready cooked she was about to carry it up but on the way according to her old habit she tasted it and ate a couple of leaves immediately the charm worked
and she became a donkey and ran out to join the old witch and the dish with the salad in it fell to the ground in the meantime the messenger was sitting with the lovely maiden and as no one came with the salad and she wanted very much to taste it she said
i don't know where the salad is then thought the hunter the cabbage must have already begun to work and he said i will go to the kitchen and fetch it myself when he came there he saw the two donkeys running about in the courtyard but the salad was lying on the ground
that's all right said he two have had their share and lifting the remaining leaves up he laid them on the dish and brought them to the maiden i am bringing you the delicious food my own self he said
then she ate and as the others had done she at once lost her human form and ran as a donkey into the yard when the hunter had washed his face so that the changed ones might know him he went into the yard saying
now you shall receive a reward for your faithlessness he tied them all three with a rope and drove them away till he came to a mill he knocked at the window and the miller put his head out and asked what he wanted i have three tiresome animals he answered
which i don't want to keep any longer
i will pay you as much as you want the miller replied why not what shall i do with them then the hunter said that to the old donkey which was the witch three beatings and one meal to the younger one which was the servant
after a couple of days the miller came and said that he must tell him that the old donkey which was to have three beatings and only one meal had died the two others he added are certainly not dead and get their three meals every day
then the beautiful maiden fell on her knees before him saying oh my dearest forgive me the ill i have done you my mother compelled me to do it it was against my will for i love you dearly your wishing cloak is hanging in a cupboard
introduction the combined qualities of the realist and the idealist which dickens possessed to a remarkable degree together with his naturally jovial attitude toward life in general
dickens gave his first formal expression to his christmas thoughts in his series of small books the first of which was the famous christmas carol the one perfect chrysolite
thackeray wrote of it who can listen to objections regarding such a book as this
this volume was put forth in a very attractive manner with illustrations by john leech who was the first artist to make these characters live and his drawings were varied and spirited there followed upon this four others
the chimes the cricket on the hearth the battle of life and the haunted man
by doyle maclise and others the five are known to day as the christmas books of them all the carol is the best known and loved and the cricket on the hearth although third in the series
is perhaps next in point of popularity and is especially familiar to americans through joseph jefferson's characterisation of caleb plummer dickens seems to have put his whole self into these glowing little stories
whoever sees but a clever ghost story in the christmas carol misses its chief charm and lesson
a new life is brought to scrooge when he running to his window opened it and put out his head no fog no mist clear bright jovial stirring cold cold piping for the blood to dance to
golden sun light heavenly sky sweet fresh air merry bells oh glorious glorious all this brightness has its attendant shadow and deep from the childish heart
the ever memorable toast of tiny tim god bless us every one the cricket on the hearth strikes a different note charmingly poetically
the sweet chirping of the little cricket is associated with human feelings and actions and at the crisis of the story decides the fate and fortune of the carrier and his wife
it would be as absurd to interpret all of these as caricatures as to deny dickens his great and varied powers of creation dickens exaggerated many of his comic and satirical characters
if scrooge be not as he has been pictured it is because a more human scrooge was desired a scrooge not wholly bad a scrooge of a better heart a scrooge to whom the resurrection described in this story was possible
it has been the illustrator's whole aim to make these people live in some form more fully consistent with their types george alfred williams
r radiantly and transparently happy railed at the world rare candor and flexibility of mind
rare fidelity of purpose and achievement rarely brought to pass reeling headlong in luxury and sensuality
regarded with sincere abhorrence regulated by the fixed rules of good breeding religious rights and ceremonies
reluctant to appear in so equivocal a character render null and void rent by internal contentions
repugnant alike to reason and conscience resigned to growing infirmities resist a common adversary
resting on some collateral circumstance rhetorical and ambitious diction rich and exuberant complexities
rigid and exact boundaries rooted in immeasurable error and falsity roused to tumultuous activity
rude and blind criticism s sadly counterbalanced by numerous faults said with epigrammatic point
seem to savor of paradox seize the auspicious moment self centered anxiety and preoccupation self command born of varied intercourse
sensitive and apprehensive temperament sentimental wailings for the past serve the innocent purposes of life
set down with meticulous care shames us out of our nonsense sharp outbursts of hatred and bitterness sharp restrictions
of duty and opportunity sharply and definitely conceived she had lost her way in a labyrinth of conjecture
she took refuge in a passionate exaggeration of her own insufficiency sheer midsummer madness
slavish doctrines of sectarianism slow and resistless forces of conviction smug respectability and self content
snatch some advantage socialized and exacting studies some very undignified disclosures something essentially inexpressible
something stifling and over perfumed spinning a network of falsehoods spiritual and moral significance
staring in helpless bewilderment stealthily escaping observation stern determination to inflict summary justice
stigmatized as moral cowards stimulated to profitable industry stopped as if on the verge of profundities
stretched out in dreary monotony strict and unalloyed veracity struck incessantly and remorselessly
vulgar curiosity
sullen and widespread discontent superior in strength and prowess supported by a splendid fearlessness
w we all agree as to we all feel the force of the maxim we all in equal sincerity profess
we are apt to forget we are assembled here to day we are beginning to realize
we are in the habit of saying we are met to night we are not able to prove we are not disinterested
we can but pause to contemplate we can imagine the amazement of we can not but be struck with we can not escape the truth
we can not have this too deeply fixed we can not too highly honor the temper of we can not wonder
we can only applaud the sentiment we can only bow with awe we can presume we can remember with pride
we can see to some extent we continually hear nowadays we deeply appreciate the circumstances of
we easily persuade ourselves we feel keenly about such things we grope blindly along
we have a firm assurance we have a right to claim we have an overpowering sense we have been accustomed to
we have been told by more than one we have come together to night we have great reason to be thankful we have heard lately
we have here plain proof we have need to examine we have no means of knowing
we have the evidence of this we have the good fortune to night we have to admit
we have witnessed on many occasions we hear it is said sometimes we hear no complaint we heartily wish and mean
we hold fast to the principle we laugh to scorn the idea we may all of us agree we may be permitted to remember
we may contemplate with satisfaction we may have a deep consciousness we may indeed consider
we may not know precisely how we must also look we must constantly direct our purpose we must not be deceived
we must not mistake we must realize conscientiously we must remember we need no proof to assure us
we often hear persons say we ought in strict propriety we pride ourselves upon the fact we rightly pay all honor
we see in a variety of ways we shall all doubtless concede we shall be blind not to perceive we shall do well to remember
we shall have no difficulty in determining we should be convinced we should contemplate and compare we should dread nothing so much
we should lend our influence we should not question for a moment we should not therefore question we stand astonished at
weighty as these conditions are well gentlemen it must be confessed well may we explain well now let us propose
well that being the case i say were i to enter into a detailed description were i to speculate
what are the precise characteristics what are we to think of what are you going to do what can avail
what can be more intelligible what can be more monstrous than what can i say better what commonly happens is this
what could be more captivating what could be more true what do we gain by what do we understand to have been what i mean is this
what i now say is what i object to is what i propose to do is what i shall actually attempt to show here
what is this but to say what more shall i say what remains but to wish you
when once it has seized him is exceedingly strong
she must have had a superiority of understanding and talents as she certainly inspired him with a more than ordinary passion and she having signified her willingness to accept of his hand
which he could not
for which place the bride and bridegroom set out on horseback i suppose in very good humour
used archly to mention johnson's having told him with much gravity sir it was a love marriage on both sides i have had from my illustrious friend the following curious account of their journey
to church upon the nuptial morn ninth
and had got into her head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit should use her lover like a dog so sir at first she told me that i rode too fast and she could not keep up with me and when i rode a little slower
when she did i observed her to be in tears this it must be allowed was a singular beginning of connubial felicity but there is no doubt that johnson though he thus shewed a manly firmness
by samuel johnson but the only pupils that were put under his care were the celebrated david garrick and his brother george and a mister offely
a young gentleman of good fortune who died early as yet his name had nothing of that celebrity which afterwards commanded the highest attention and respect of mankind
had such an advertisement appeared after the publication of his london or his rambler or his dictionary how would it have burst upon the world with what eagerness would the great
and the wealthy have embraced an opportunity of putting their sons under the learned tuition of samuel johnson the truth however is that he was not so well qualified for being a teacher of elements
and a conductor in learning by regular gradations as men of inferiour powers of mind his own acquisitions had been made by fits and starts by violent irruptions into the regions of knowledge
and it could not be expected that his impatience would be subdued and his impetuosity restrained so as to fit him for a quiet guide to novices the art of communicating instruction of whatever kind
is much to be valued and i have ever thought that those who devote themselves to this employment and do their duty with diligence and success
in minute attention and must be so frequently irritated by unavoidable slowness and errour in the advances of scholars
that he did not keep his academy above a year and a half from mister garrick's account he did not appear to have been profoundly reverenced by his pupils his oddities of manner
and uncouth gesticulations could not but be the subject of merriment to them and in particular the young rogues used to listen at the door of his bed chamber and peep through the key hole
that they might turn into ridicule his tumultuous and awkward fondness for missus johnson whom he used to name by the familiar
which like betty or betsey is provincially used as a contraction for elisabeth her christian name
when applied to a woman of her age and appearance
with swelled cheeks of a florid red produced by thick painting and increased by the liberal use of cordials flaring and fantastick in her dress and affected both in her speech
and now in the possession of mister john nichols scheme for the classes of a grammar school when the introduction or formation of nouns and verbs is perfectly mastered let them learn
eutropius afterwards their part is in the irregular nouns and verbs and in the rules for making and scanning verses they are examined as the first class three
ovid's metamorphoses in the morning and caesar's commentaries in the afternoon practise in the latin rules till they are perfect in them afterwards in mister leeds's greek grammar examined as before
afterwards they proceed to virgil beginning at the same time to write themes and verses and to learn greek
i know not well what books to direct you to
in the study of latin it is proper not to read the latter authours
virgil horace phaedrus the greatest and most necessary task still remains to attain a habit of expression without which knowledge is of little use
and can only be acquired by a daily imitation of the best and correctest authours sam johnson
while johnson kept his academy there can be no doubt that he was insensibly furnishing his mind with various knowledge
plunge her into deeper calamity johnson in sly allusion to the supposed oppressive proceedings of the court of which mister walmsley was register
the great field of genius and exertion where talents of every kind have the fullest scope and the highest encouragement it is a memorable circumstance that his pupil david garrick went thither
and follow the profession of the law from which he was soon diverted by his decided preference for the stage
to the metropolis was many years afterwards noticed
allegorical poem on shakspeare's mulberry tree
seventeen thirty seven dear sir i had the favour of yours and am extremely obliged to you but i cannot say i had a greater affection for you upon it than i had before
davy garrick is to be with you early the next week and mister johnson to try his fate with a tragedy and to see to get himself employed in some translation either from the latin or the french
johnson is a very good scholar and poet and i have great hopes will turn out a fine tragedy writer if it should any way lie in your way
what then are we to believe what then can be the reason what then i may be asked what then is the use
what we are concerned to know is what we have most to complain of what would you say whatever a man thinks
whatever difference of opinion may exist whatever opinion i may express whatever the truth may be when i am told
when i hear it said when i remember the history when i review these circumstances when i speak of this question
when i thus profess myself when one remembers when we consider the vastness when we contemplate when we get so far as this
whence was the proof to come while acknowledging the great value
while i have hinted to you whilst i am on this matter who can deny the effect who can say in a word who does not like to see
who that reads does not see who will accuse me why again should i take notice why need you seek to disprove
will any gentleman say will anyone answer will it be whispered will it not be well for us will you allow me to present to you
y yet i am convinced yet i am willing to admit yet i am willing to conclude yet i feel quite free to say
yet i for one do not hesitate to admit yet i have never been thoroughly satisfied yet i suppose it is worth while yet i would have to think
yet if you were to ask the question yet it is instructive and interesting yet it is no less true yet it is perfectly plain yet
let me consider what consequences must yet may i not remind you you all know the history of you and i are always contrasting
you are at a parting of the ways you are now invited to do honor you can never forget you can not assert you do not need to be told
you have been mindful you have been pleased to confer upon me you have but to observe you have done me great honor you have no right
you have not forgotten you have often pondered over you have sometimes been astonished
you know the legend which has grown up you know very well you may also be assured you may be acquainted with you may be sure
you may depend upon it you may remember you may well be proud you may well study the example you might apply to yourselves
you will allow me to say with becoming brevity you will be pleased to hear you will bear me out when i say you will clearly understand
you will scarcely be surprised you would never dream of urging you yourselves are the evidence your friendly and generous words
your good sense must tell you
when it was the two hundred and fifty fifth night she said it hath reached me o auspicious king that when the badawi asked his banditti o arabs was this caravan bound from egypt for baghdad or from baghdad for egypt
they answered twas bound from egypt for baghdad and he said return ye to the slain for methinks the owner of this caravan is not dead so they turned back to the slain
and fell to prodding and slashing them with lance and sword
who had thrown himself down among the corpses and when they came to him quoth they thou dost but feign thyself dead but we will make an end of thee and one of the badawin levelled his javelin
and would have plunged it into his breast when he cried out save me o my lord
o saint of gilan and behold
saw that the birds were flown with their god send he sat up and finding no one rose and set off running but behold abu naib the badawi looked back and said to his troop i see somewhat moving afar off o arabs
called out to him saying flight shall not forward thee and we after thee and he smote his mare
and she hastened after him
seeing before him a watering tank and a cistern beside it climbed up into a niche in the cistern and stretching himself at full length feigned to be asleep and said o gracious protector
cover me with the veil of thy protection which may not be torn away and lo the badawi came up to the cistern and standing in his stirrup irons
and behold a scorpion stung the badawi in the palm and he cried out saying
he tarried in the niche and mahmud of balkh bade load his beasts
at this he rejoiced and went on till he reached the cistern and the reservoir now his mule was athirst and turned aside to drink
and shied and started whereupon mahmud raised his eyes and
stripped to his shirt and bag trousers said to him what man this deed to thee hath dight and left thee in this evil plight
o my son the mules and the baggage were thy ransom so do thou comfort thyself with his saying who said if thereby man can save his head from death his good is worth him but a slice of nail
but now o my son come down and fear no hurt thereupon he descended from the cistern niche
on a mule and they fared on till they reached baghdad where he brought him to his own house and carried him to the bath saying to him the goods and money were the ransom of thy life o my son but if thou wilt hearken to me
i will give thee the worth of that thou hast lost twice told when he came out of the bath
carried him into a saloon decorated with gold with four raised floors and bade them bring a tray with all manner of meats so they ate and drank
but he received it upon the palm of his hand and said what dost thou persist in thy evil designs upon me did i not tell thee that were i wont to sell this merchandise to other than thee for gold i would sell it thee for silver
quoth mahmud i will give thee neither merchandise nor mule nor clothes save at this price for i am gone mad for love of thee and bless him who said told us ascribing to his shaykhs
and he went forwards through the dark when behold he saw the door of a mosque standing open and entering the vestibule there took shelter and concealment and suddenly a light approached him and on examining it
he saw that it came from a pair of lanthorns borne by two slaves before two merchants now one was an old man of comely face and the other a youth and he heard the younger say to the elder o my uncle i conjure thee by allah
did i not forbid thee many a time when the oath of divorce was always in thy mouth as it were holy writ then he turned to his right and
as he were a slice of the full moon said to him peace be with thee who art thou o my son quoth he returning the salutation of peace
and ceased to say her permitted say when it was the two hundred and fifty sixth night she said it hath reached me o auspicious king
so he packed me fifty loads of goods and gave me ten thousand dinars wherewith i set out for baghdad but when i reached the lion's copse the wild arabs came out against me and took all my goods and monies
so i entered the city knowing not where to pass the night and seeing this place i took shelter here quoth the old man o my son what sayest thou to my giving thee a thousand dinars and a suit of clothes and a mule worth
to what end wilt thou give me these things o my uncle and the other answered this young man who accompanieth me is the son of my brother and an only son
forthright she left him whereupon he egged on all the folk to intercede with me to restore her to him but i told him that this could not lawfully be save by an intermediate marriage
so as thou art a stranger come with us and we will marry thee to her thou shalt lie with her to night and on the morrow divorce her and we will give thee what i said
by allah to bide the night with a bride on a bed in a house is far better than sleeping in the streets and vestibules so he went with them to the kazi
was moved to love him and who said to the old man what is your will he replied we wish to make this young man an intermediary husband for my daughter
ten thousand gold pieces now if after passing the night with her he divorce her in the morning we will give him a mule and dress each worth a thousand dinars and a third thousand of ready money but
if he divorce her not he shall pay down the ten thousand dinars according to contract so they agreed to the agreement and the father of the bride to be received his bond for the marriage settlement
clothing him anew carried him to his daughter's house and there he left him standing at the door whilst he himself went in to the young lady and said take the bond of thy marriage settlement
so do thou use him with the best of usage then he put the bond into her hands and left her and went to his own lodging now the lady's cousin had an old duenna who used to visit zubaydah
and he had done many a kindness to this woman so he said to her o my mother if my cousin zubaydah see this handsome young man she will never after accept my offer so i would fain have thee contrive some trick to keep her
this young woman better thou let her lie alone and feel not her person nor draw thee near to her he asked why so and she answered because her body is full of leprosy
and i dread lest she infect thy fair and seemly youth quoth he i have no need of her
and she replied i have no need of him but will let him lie alone and on the morrow he shall gang his gait then she called a slave girl and said to her take the tray of food and set it before him
so the handmaid carried him the tray of food and set it before him and he ate his fill
allah disappoint the old hag who told me that he was affected with leprosy surely this is not the voice of one who hath such a disease
tuning the strings sang to it in a voice so sweet its music would stay the birds in the heart of heaven and began these two couplets i love a fawn with gentle white black eyes
whose walk the willow wand with envy kills forbidding me he bids for rival mine tis allah's grace who grants to whom he wills and when he heard her chant these lines he ended his recitation of the chapter
and began also to sing and repeated the following couplet my salam to the fawn in the garments concealed and to roses in gardens of cheek revealed the lady rose up
recited these two couplets she shineth forth a moon and bends a willow wand and breathes out ambergris and gazes a gazelle meseems as if grief loved my heart and when from her
swinging her haunches and gracefully swaying a shape the handiwork of him whose boons are hidden and each of them stole one glance of the eyes that cost them a thousand sighs
which met rankled in his heart he repeated these two couplets she spied the moon of heaven
true both saw moons but sooth to say it was her very eyes i saw
and when she drew near him and there remained but two paces between them he recited these two couplets she spread three tresses of unplaited hair one night and showed me nights not one but four
and faced the moon of heaven with her brow and showed me two fold moons in single hour and as she was hard by him he said to her keep away from me lest thou infect me
and he saw that it was cleft as it were in two halves by its veins and sinews
then said she keep away from me thou for thou art stricken with leprosy
he asked who told thee i was a leper and she answered the old woman so told me quoth he twas she told me also that thou wast afflicted with white scurvy and so saying
he bared his forearms and showed her that his skin was also like virgin silver thereupon she pressed him to her bosom and he pressed her to his bosom and the twain embraced with closest embrace then she took him and lying down on her back
let down her petticoat trousers
and putting both hands to her flanks
and quoth he thy father made me give him a written bond to pay ten thousand dinars to thy wedding settlement and except i pay it this very day they will imprison me for debt in the kazi's house and now my hand lacketh one half dirham of the sum
she asked o my lord is the marriage bond in thy hand or in theirs and he answered o my lady in mine but i have nothing she rejoined the matter is easy fear thou nothing
take these hundred dinars an i had more i would give thee what thou lackest but of a truth my father of his love for my cousin hath transported all his goods even to my jewellery from my lodging to his
but when they send thee a serjeant of the ecclesiastical court and shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say when it was the two hundred and fifty seventh night she said it hath reached me o auspicious king
and when they send thee at an early hour a serjeant of the ecclesiastical court and the kazi and my father bid thee divorce me do thou reply
and right that i should marry at nightfall and divorce in the morning then kiss the kazi's hand and give him a present and in like manner kiss the assessors hands and give each of them ten gold pieces
so they will all speak with thee and if they ask thee why dost thou not divorce her and take the thousand dinars and the mule and suit of clothes according to contract duly contracted do thou answer every hair of her head is worth a thousand ducats
to me and i will never put her away neither will i take a suit of clothes nor aught else and if the kazi say to thee then pay down the marriage settlement do thou reply i am short of cash at this present whereupon
and allow thee time to pay now whilst they were talking behold
by no law of ours at all at all and if thou be ignorant of the religious law i will act as thine advocate then they went to the divorce court
not put away the woman and take what falleth to thee by the contract hearing this he went up to the kazi and kissing his hand put fifty dinars in it and said o our lord the kazi
by what law is it lawful and right that i should marry at nightfall and divorce in the morning in my own despite the kazi answered
and by force is sanctioned by no school of the moslems then said the young lady's father if thou wilt not divorce pay me the ten thousand dinars her marriage settlement
give me a delay of three days but the kazi said
wonders may display and allah bless him for his say be mild when rage shall come to afflict thy soul be patient when calamity breeds ire lookye the nights are big with child by time
whose pregnancy bears wondrous things and dire then she rose and made ready food and brought the tray and they two ate and drank and were merry and mirthful presently
to let him hear a little music so she took the lute and played a melody
said to them what want ye they replied o my lord we are foreign and wandering religious mendicants the viands of whose souls are music and dainty verse and we would fain take our pleasure with thee this night till morning cloth appear
and with almighty allah be thy reward for we adore music and there is not one of us but knoweth by heart
there is one i must consult
who said open the door to them
and made them sit down and welcomed them then he fetched them food but they would not eat and said o our lord our meat is to repeat allah's name in our hearts and to hear music with our ears and bless him who saith our aim is only converse to enjoy
we heard pleasant music in thy house but when we entered it ceased and fain would we know whether the player was a slave girl white or black or a maiden of good family he answered
verily my father in law hath bound me to pay a marriage settlement of ten thousand dinars for her and they have given me ten days time said one of the dervishes
have no care and think of naught but good for i am shaykh of the convent and have forty dervishes under my orders i will presently collect from them the ten thousand dinars and thou shalt pay thy father in law the wedding settlement but now
bid thy wife make us music that we may be gladdened and pleasured for to some folk music is meat to others medicine and to others refreshing as a fan
and the reason of their coming to the house was that the caliph being heavy at heart had summoned his minister and said o wazir it is our will to go down to the city and pace its streets for my breast is sore straitened so they all four donned dervish dress
and went down and walked about till they came to that house where hearing music they were minded to know the cause they spent the night in joyance and harmony and telling tale after tale until morning dawned when the caliph laid an hundred gold pieces under the prayer carpet
went their way now when zubaydah lifted the carpet she found beneath it the hundred dinars
take these hundred dinars which i have found under the prayer carpet assuredly the dervishes when about to leave us laid them there without our knowledge
bought therewith meat and rice and clarified butter and all they required and when it was night he lit the wax candles and said to his wife the mendicants
have not brought the ten thousand dinars which they promised me but indeed they are poor men as they were talking behold the dervishes knocked at the door and she said go down and open to them
so he did her bidding and bringing them up said to them have you brought me the ten thousand dinars you promised me they answered we have not been able to collect aught thereof as yet but fear nothing inshallah
tomorrow we will compound for thee some alchemical cookery but now bid thy wife play us her very best pieces and gladden our hearts for we love music
and made them such melody that had caused the hardest rocks to dance with glee and they passed the night in mirth and merriment converse and good cheer till morn appeared with its sheen and shone when the caliph laid an hundred gold pieces under the prayer carpet and all
went their way and they ceased not to visit him thus every night for nine nights and each morning the caliph put an hundred dinars under the prayer carpet till the tenth night when they came not now the reason of their failure to come
was that the caliph had sent to a great merchant saying to him bring me fifty loads of stuffs such as come from cairo
the man from scotland yard had just surrendered hat coat and umbrella to the vestiaire and was turning through swinging doors to the dining room again embracing lanyard his glance seemed devoid of any sort of intelligible expression and if its object needed all his self possession in that moment
it was to dissemble relief rather than dismay an accent of the fortuitous distinguished this second encounter too persuasively to excuse further misgivings what the adventurer himself hadn't known till within the last ten minutes that he was coming to troyon's
roddy couldn't possibly have anticipated ergo whatever the detective's business it had nothing to do with lanyard furthermore before quitting the lobby roddy paused long enough to instruct the vestiaire to have a fire laid in his room so he was stopping at troyon's and didn't care who knew it
his doubts altogether dissipated by this incident lanyard followed his natural enemy into the dining room with an air as devil may care as one could wish and so impressive that the maitre d'hotel abandoned the detective to the mercies of one of his captains and himself hastened to seat lanyard and take his order
this last disposed of lanyard surrendered himself to new impressions of which the first proved a bit disheartening however impulsively he hadn't resought troyon's without definite intent to wit to gain some clue however slender to the mystery of that wretched child marcel
but now it appeared he had procrastinated fatally time and change had left little other than the shell of the troyon's he remembered
madame no longer occupied the desk of the caisse enquiries so discreetly worded as to be uncompromising elicited from the maitre d'hotel the information that the house had been under new management these eighteen months the old proprietor was dead
and his widow had sold out lock stock and barrel and retired to the country it was not known exactly where and with the new administration had come fresh decorations and furnishings as well as a complete change of personnel not even one of the old waiters remained all
all are gone the old familiar faces lanyard quoted in vindictive melancholy damn em happily
other impressions less ultimate proved puzzling disconcerting and paradoxically reassuring lanyard commanded a fair view of roddy across the waist of the room the detective had ordered a meal that matched his aspect well both of true british simplicity
he was a square set man with a square jaw cold blue eyes a fat nose a thin lipped trap of a mouth
his dinner comprised a cut from the joint boiled potatoes brussels sprouts a bit of cheese a bottle of bass he ate slowly chewing with the doggedness of a strong character hampered by a weak digestion
and all the while kept eyes fixed to an issue of the paris edition of the london daily mail with an effect of concentration quite too convincing now one doesn't read the paris edition of the london daily mail with tense excitement humanly speaking it can't be done
where then was the object of this so sedulously dissembled interest lanyard wasn't slow to read this riddle to his satisfaction in as far that is as it was satisfactory to feel still more certain that roddy's quarry was another than himself
despite the lateness of the hour which had by now turned ten o'clock the restaurant had a dozen tables or so in the service of guests pleasantly engaged in lengthening out an agreeable evening with dessert
the majority of these were in couples but at a table one removed from roddy's sat a party of three and lanyard noticed or fancied that the man from scotland yard turned his newspaper only during lulls in the conversation in this quarter of the three
one might pass for an american of position and wealth
furrowed seamed twisted a mask of mortal anguish and once when this one looked up and casually encountered lanyard's gaze the adventurer was shocked to find himself staring into eyes like those of a dead man
leaving visible only the round black points of pupils abnormally distended and staring blank fixed passionless beneath lashless lids for the instant they seemed to explore lanyard's very soul with a look of remote and impersonal curiosity
then they fell away and when next the adventurer looked the man had turned to attend to some observation of one of his companions on his right sat a girl who might be his daughter for not only was she too hall marked american but she was far too young to be the other's wife
a demure old fashioned type well poised but unassuming fetchingly gowned and with sufficient individuality of taste but not conspicuously a girl with soft brown hair and soft brown eyes pretty not extravagantly so when her face was in repose
but with a slow smile that rendered her little less than beautiful in all lanyard thought the kind of woman that is predestined to comfort mankind whose strongest instinct is the maternal she took little part in the conversation
seldom interrupting what was practically a duologue between her putative father and the third of their party this last was one whom lanyard was sure he knew though he could see no more than the back of monsieur le comte remy de morbihan
and he wondered with a thrill of amusement if it were possible that roddy was on the trail of that tremendous buck if so it would be a chase worth following a diversion rendered the more exquisite to lanyard by the spice of novelty since for once he would figure as a dispassionate bystander
was one to conjure with in the paris of his day and generation he claimed the distinction of being at once the homeliest one of the wealthiest and the most liked man in france as to his looks good or bad they were said to prove infallibly fatal with women
while not a few men perhaps for that reason did their possessor the honour to imitate them
moon like mask with waxed moustaches womanish eyes and never failing grin
his extraordinary popularity was due to the equally extraordinary extravagance with which he supported that latest gallic fad le sport the parisian rugby team was his pampered protege he was an active member of the tennis club maintained not only a flock of automobiles but a famous racing stable
rode to hounds was a good field gun patronized aviation and motor boat racing risked as many maximums during the monte carlo season as the grand duke michael himself
lanyard for one wouldn't have thought him the properest company or the best parisian cicerone for an ailing american gentleman blessed with independent means and an attractive daughter paris on the other hand paris who forgives everything to him who contributes to her amusement
but perhaps lanyard was prejudiced by his partiality for americans a sentiment the outgrowth of the years spent in new york with bourke he even fancied that between his spirit and theirs existed some subtle bond of sympathy for all he knew he might himself be american
for some time lanyard strained to catch something of the conversation that seemed to hold so much of interest for roddy but without success because of the hum of voices that filled the room in time however
the gathering began to thin out until at length there remained only this party of three lanyard enjoying a most delectable salad and roddy puffing a cigar
and slowly gulping down a second bottle of bass
the first remark overheard by lanyard came from the elderly american following a pause and a consultation of his watch quarter to eleven he announced
if mademoiselle isn't bored the girl's reply accompanied by a pretty inclination of her head toward the frenchman was lost in the accents of the first speaker a strong and sonorous voice in strange contrast with his ravaged appearance and distressing cough
don't let that worry you he advised cheerfully
see what we found there to day she slipped a ring from her hand and passed it to de morbihan there followed silence for an instant then an exclamation from the frenchman but it is superb accept mademoiselle my compliments it is worthy even of you
she flushed prettily as she nodded smiling acknowledgement
you fill us with envy you have the souls of poets and the wealth of princes but we must come to paris to find beautiful things for our women folk take care though lest you go too far monsieur bannon how so too far you might attract the attention of the lone wolf
they say he's on the prowl once more the american laughed a trace contemptuously lanyard's fingers tightened on his knife and fork otherwise he made no sign a sidelong glance into a mirror at his elbow showed roddy still absorbed in the daily mail
the girl bent forward with a look of eager interest the lone wolf who is that you don't know him in america mademoiselle no
but he operates in a most individual way and keeps the police busy trying to guess where he'll strike next the girl breathed an incredulous exclamation
the rogue has had a wonderfully successful career thanks to his dispensing with confederates and confining his depredations to jewels and similar valuables portable and easy to convert into cash yet he added nodding sagely one isn't afraid to predict his race is almost run
you don't tell me the older man exclaimed have they picked up the scent at last
by now the conversation had caught the interest of several loitering waiters
he called quietly and ordered coffee and cigars with a liqueur to follow known the american exclaimed they've caught him eh i didn't say that de morbihan laughed but the mystery is no more in certain quarters who is he then that monsieur will pardon me
i'm not yet free to state indeed i may be indiscreet in saying as much as i do yet among friends his shrug implied that as far as he was concerned waiters were unhuman and the other guests of the establishment non existent
but the american persisted perhaps you can tell us how they got on his track it wasn't difficult said de morbihan indeed quite simple this tone of depreciation is becoming for it was my part to suggest the solution to my friend the chief of the surete
and since he is my friend i too was distressed on his behalf and badgered my poor wits until they chanced upon an idea which led us to the light you won't tell us the girl protested with a little moue of disappointment as the frenchman paused provokingly perhaps i shouldn't
and yet why not as i say it was elementary reasoning a mere matter of logical deduction and elimination one made up one's mind the lone wolf must be a certain sort of man the rest was simply sifting france for the man to fit the theory
no i must continue very well i confess to some little pride it was a feat he is cunning that one de morbihan paused and shifted sideways in his chair grinning like a mischievous child by this manoeuvre
thanks to the arrangement of mirrors lining the walls he commanded an indirect view of lanyard a fact of which the latter was not unaware though his expression remained unchanged as he sat with a corner of his eye reserved for roddy
speculating whether de morbihan were telling the truth or only boasting for his own glorification do go on please the girl begged prettily i can deny you nothing mademoiselle well then from what little was known of this mysterious creature
that is clear i trust too deep for me my friend the elderly man confessed impenetrable reticence the count expounded sententious and enjoying himself hugely isn't possible in the human relations
even unconsciously with a wife a mistress a child
and a secret between two is a prolific breeder of platitudes granted this line of reasoning the lone wolf is of necessity not only unmarried but practically friendless other attributes of his will obviously comprise youth courage imagination
a rather high order of intelligence and a social position let us say rather an ostensible business enabling him to travel at will hither and yon without exciting comment so far good
and by this means several fine fish were enmeshed in the net of suspicion carefully scrutinized and one by one let go all except one the veritable man him they sedulously watched shadowing him across europe and back again
he was in berlin at the time of the famous rheinart robbery though he compassed that coup without detection he was in vienna when the british embassy there was looted
recently he has been in london and there he made love to and ran away with the diamonds of a certain lady of some eminence you have heard of madame omber eh now by roddy's expression it was plain that if madame omber's name wasn't strange in his hearing
at least he found this news about her most surprising
lanyard gently pinched the small end of a cigar dipped it into his coffee and lighted it with not so much as a suspicion of tremor his brain however
was working rapidly in effort to determine whether de morbihan meant this for warning or was simply narrating an amusing yarn founded on advance information and amplified by an ingenious imagination for by now the news of the omber affair must have thrilled many a continental telegraph wire
madame omber of course the american agreed thoughtfully everyone has heard of her wonderful jewels the real marvel is that the lone wolf neglected so shining a mark as long as he did but truly so monsieur and they caught him at it eh not precisely
but he left a clue and london to boot with such haste as would seem to indicate he knew his cunning hand had for once slipped then they'll nab him soon ah monsieur
rest assured the chief of the surete has laid his plans his web is spun and so artfully that i think our unsociable outlaw will soon be making friends in the prison of the sante but now we must adjourn one is sorry it has been so very pleasant
a waiter conjured the bill from some recess of his waistcoat and served it on a clean plate to the american another ran bawling for the vestiaire roddy glued his gaze afresh to the daily mail the party rose lanyard noticed that the american signed instead of settling the bill with cash
plunged across the room with both hands outstretched and a cry of joyous surprise not really justified by their rather slight acquaintanceship ah ah he clamoured vivaciously it is monsieur lanyard who knows all about paintings but this is delightful my friend one grand pleasure
you must know my friends but come and seizing lanyard's hands when that one somewhat reluctantly rose in response to this surprisingly over exuberant greeting
mademoiselle bannon with your permission my friend monsieur lanyard
when lanyard clasped it was cold as cold as ice and as their eyes met that abominable cough laid hold of the man as it were by the nape of his neck and shook him viciously before it had finished with him his sensitively coloured face was purple and he was gasping breathless and infuriated
i tell him he should not stop in paris at this season it is nothing the american interposed brusquely between paroxysms but our winter climate monsieur it is not fit for those in the prime of health it is i who am unfit bannon snapped pressing a handkerchief to his lips unfit to live
lanyard murmured some conventional expression of sympathy through it all he was conscious of the regard of the girl her soft brown eyes met his candidly with a look cool in its composure straightforward in its enquiry neither bold nor mock demure
and if they were the first to fall it was with an effect of curiosity sated without hint of discomfiture and somehow the adventurer felt himself measured classified filed away between amusement and pique he continued to stare while the elderly american recovered his breath
monsieur bannon and i he has not seen paris in twenty years he tells me well it will be amusing to show him what changes have taken place in all that time one regrets mademoiselle is too fatigued to accompany us but you my friend now if you would consent to make our third it would be most amiable of you
i'm sorry lanyard excused himself but as you see i am only just in from the railroad a long and tiresome journey you are very good but i good de morbihan exclaimed with violence i on the contrary i am a very selfish man
i seek but to afford myself the pleasure of your company you lead such a busy life my friend romping about europe here one day god knows where the next that one must make one's best of your spare moments you will join us surely really i cannot to night another time perhaps if you'll excuse me
another time perhaps' his invariable excuse i tell you not two men in all paris have any real acquaintance with this gentleman whom all paris knows
as you will my friend he granted but should you change your mind well you'll have no trouble finding us ask any place along the regular route we see far too little of one another monsieur
it will be an honour lanyard returned formally in his heart he was pondering several most excruciating methods of murdering the man
waiting for sydney to come into the bedroom as usual and wish her good night kitty was astonished by the appearance of her grandmother entering on tiptoe from the corridor with a small paper parcel in her hand
whisper said missus presty pointing to the open door of communication with missus linley's room this is your birthday present you mustn't look at it till you wake to morrow morning
she pushed the parcel under the pillow and instead of saying good night took a chair and sat down
kitty's grandmother disapproved of spending money lavishly on birthday gifts to children show it of course and take the greatest care of it missus presty answered gravely but tell me one thing my dear
wouldn't you like to see all your presents early in the morning like mine still smarting under the recollection of her interview with her son in law missus presty
had certain ends to gain in putting this idea into the child's head it was her special object to raise domestic obstacles to a private interview between the husband and wife during the earlier hours of the day
if the gifts usually presented after the nursery dinner were produced on this occasion after breakfast there would be a period of delay before any confidential conversation
could take place between mister and missus linley in this interval missus presty saw her opportunity of setting linley's authority at defiance by rousing the first jealous suspicion
in the mind of his wife innocent little kitty became her grandmother's accomplice on the spot i shall ask mamma to let me have my presents at breakfast time she announced
and kind mamma will say yes missus presty chimed in we will breakfast early my precious child good night kitty was half asleep when her governess entered the room afterward much later than usual
i thought you had forgotten me she said yawning and stretching out her plump little arms sydney's heart ached when she thought of the separation that was to come with the next day
her despair forced its way to expression in words i wish i could forget you she answered in reckless wretchedness the child was still too drowsy to hear plainly
what did you say she asked sydney gently lifted her in the bed and kissed her again and again kitty's sleepy eyes opened in surprise how cold your hands are she said
and how often you kiss me what is it you have come to say to me good night or good by sydney laid her down again on the pillow gave her a last kiss and ran out of the room
in the corridor she heard linley's voice on the lower floor he was asking one of the servants if miss westerfield was in the house or in the garden her first impulse was to advance to the stairs
and to answer his question in a moment more the remembrance of missus linley checked her she went back to her bed chamber the presents that she had received since her arrival at mount morven
entering the room after she had left the house on the sofa lay the pretty new dress which she had worn at the evening party other little gifts were arranged on either side of it
kept a morsel of paper in its place on which she had written a few penitent words of farewell addressed to missus linley
on the toilet table three photographic portraits showed themselves among the brushes and combs
had she any right to make those dear faces her companions in the future she hesitated her tears dropped on the photographs they're as good as spoiled now she thought
they're no longer fit for anybody but me she paused and abruptly took up the third and last photograph the likeness of herbert linley was it an offense now even to look at his portrait
her resolution vibrated between two miseries the misery of preserving her keep sake after she had parted from him forever and the misery of destroying it
resigned to one more sacrifice she took the card in both hands to tear it up it would have been scattered in pieces on the floor but for the chance which had turned the portrait side of the card toward her
instead of the back her longing eyes stole a last look at him a frenzy seized her she pressed her lips to the photograph in a passion of hopeless love what does it matter she asked herself
i'm nothing but the ignorant object of his kindness the poor fool who could see no difference between gratitude and love where is the harm of having him with me when i am starving in the streets
or dying in the workhouse the fervid spirit in her that had never known a mother's loving discipline never thrilled to the sympathy of a sister friend
rose in revolt against the evil destiny which had imbittered her life her eyes still rested on the photograph come to my heart my only friend and kill me
as those wild words escaped her she thrust the card furiously into the bosom of her dress and threw herself on the floor there was something in the mad self abandonment of that action
which mocked the innocent despair of her childhood on the day when her mother left her at the cruel mercy of her aunt that night was a night of torment in secret to another person at mount morven
wandering in his need of self isolation up and down the dreary stone passages in the lower part of the house linley counted the hours inexorably lessening the interval between him
and the ordeal of confession to his wife as yet he had failed to find the opportunity of addressing to sydney the only words of encouragement he could allow to pass his lips
he had asked for her earlier in the evening and nobody could tell him where she was still in ignorance of the refuge which she might by bare possibility hope to find in missus mac edwin's house
sydney was spared the torturing doubts which now beset herbert linley's mind would the noble woman whom they had injured allow their atonement to plead for them
and consent to keep their miserable secret might they still put their trust in that generous nature a few hours hence
they were all assembled as usual at the breakfast table preferring the request suggested to her by missus presty kitty had hastened the presentation of the birthday gifts by getting into her mother's bed in the morning
and exacting her mother's promise before she would consent to get out again by her own express wish she was left in ignorance of what the presents would prove to be
hide them from me said this young epicure in pleasurable sensations and make me want to see them until i can bear it no longer the gifts had accordingly been collected in an embrasure
of one of the windows and the time had now arrived when kitty could bear it no longer in the procession of the presents missus linley led the way
she had passed behind the screen which had thus far protected the hidden treasures from discovery and appeared again with a vision of beauty in the shape of a doll
the dress of this wonderful creature exhibited the latest audacities of french fashion her head made a bow her eyes went to sleep and woke again
she had a voice that said two words more precious than two thousand in the mouth of a mere living creature kitty's arms opened and embraced her gift with a scream of ecstasy
that fervent pressure found its way to the right spring the doll squeaked mamma and creaked and cried again and said papa
kitty sat down on the floor her legs would support her no longer i think i shall faint she said quite seriously in the midst of the general laughter sydney silently placed a new toy
a pretty little imitation of a jeweler's casket at kitty's side and drew back before the child could look at her missus presty was the only person present who noticed her pale face
and the trembling of her hands as she made the effort which preserved her composure the doll's necklace bracelets and watch and chain riveted kitty's attention on the casket
just as she thought of looking round for her dear syd her father produced a new outburst of delight by presenting a perambulator worthy of the doll
her uncle followed with a parasol devoted to the preservation of the doll's complexion when she went out for an airing then there came a pause
where was the generous grandmother's gift nobody remembered it missus presty herself discovered the inestimable sixpenny picture book cast away and forgotten on a distant window seat
i have a great mind to keep this she said to kitty till you are old enough to value it properly
in the moment of her absence at the window linley's mother in law lost the chance of seeing him whisper to sydney meet me in the shrubbery in half an hour he said she stepped back from him startled by the proposal
having by this time recovered herself kitty got on her legs now the spoiled child declared addressing the company present i'm going to play
the doll was put into the perambulator and was wheeled about the room while missus linley moved the chairs out of the way and randal attended with the open parasol under orders to pretend that the sun was shining
missus presty picked it up from the floor determined by this time to hold it
in the position which she now occupied linley was visible approaching sydney again your own interests are seriously concerned he whispered in something that i have to tell you
incapable of hearing what passed between them missus presty could see that a secret understanding united her son in law and the governess she looked round cautiously at missus linley
kitty's humor had changed she was now eager to see the doll's splendid clothes taken off and put on again come and look at it she said to sydney i want you to enjoy my birthday as much as i do
left by himself randal got rid of the parasol by putting it on a table near the door missus presty beckoned to him to join her at the further end of the room i want you to do me a favor she began
glancing at linley before she proceeded missus presty took up a newspaper and affected to be consulting randal's opinion on a passage which had attracted her attention
your brother is looking our way she whispered he mustn't suspect that there is a secret between us false pretenses of any kind invariably irritated randal what do you want me to do he asked sharply
the reply only increased his perplexity observe miss westerfield and your brother look at them now randal obeyed what is there to look at he inquired can't you see
i see they are talking to each other they are talking confidentially talking so that missus linley can't hear them look again
with an expression which showed his dislike of that lady a little too plainly before he could answer what she had just said to him his lively little niece hit on a new idea
the sun was shining the flowers were in their brightest beauty and the doll had not yet been taken into the garden kitty at once led the way out so completely preoccupied
in steering the perambulator in a straight course that she forgot her uncle and the parasol only waiting to remind her husband and sydney that they were wasting the beautiful summer morning indoors
missus linley followed her daughter and innocently placed a fatal obstacle in missus presty's way by leaving the room
having consulted each other by a look linley and the governess went out next left alone with randal missus presty's anger under the complete overthrow of her carefully laid scheme
set restraint at defiance my daughter's married life is a wreck she burst out pointing theatrically to the door by which linley and sydney westerfield had retired
and catherine has the vile creature whom your brother picked up in london to thank for it now do you understand me less than ever randal answered unless you have taken leave of your senses
missus presty recovered the command of her temper on that fine morning her daughter might remain in the garden until the luncheon bell rang linley had only to say that he wished to speak with his wife
and the private interview which he had so rudely insisted on as his sole privilege would assuredly take place the one chance left of still defeating him on his own ground
was to force randal to interfere by convincing him of his brother's guilt moderation of language and composure of manner offered the only hopeful prospect of reaching this end
missus presty assumed the disguise of patient submission and used the irresistible influence of good humor and good sense i don't complain dear randal of what you have said to me she replied
my indiscretion has deserved it i ought to have produced my proofs and have left it to you to draw the conclusion sit down if you please i won't detain you for more than a few minutes
randal had not anticipated such moderation as this he took the chair that was nearest to missus presty they were both now sitting with their backs turned to the entrance from the library to the drawing room
i won't trouble you with my own impressions missus presty went on i will be careful only to mention what i have seen and heard if you refuse to believe me i refer you to the guilty persons themselves
she had just got to the end of those introductory words when missus linley returned by way of the library to fetch the forgotten parasol randal insisted on making missus presty express herself plainly
you speak of guilty persons he said am i to understand that one of those guilty persons is my brother missus linley advanced a step and took the parasol from the table
hearing what randal said she paused wondering at the strange allusion to her husband in the meanwhile missus presty answered the question that had been addressed to her yes she said to randal
i mean your brother and your brother's mistress sydney westerfield missus linley laid the parasol back on the table and approached them she never once looked at her mother
her face white and rigid was turned toward randal to him and to him only she spoke what does my mother's horrible language mean she asked
chance had decided in her favor after all don't you see she said to her daughter that i am here to answer for myself missus linley still looked at randal and still spoke to him
it is impossible for me to insist on an explanation from my mother she proceeded no matter what i may feel i must remember that she is my mother i ask you again
you who have been listening to her what does she mean missus presty's sense of her own importance refused to submit to being passed over in this way
however insolently you may behave catherine you will not succeed in provoking me your mother is bound to open your eyes to the truth you have a rival in your husband's affections
and that rival is your governess take your own course now i have no more to say with her head high in the air looking the picture of conscious virtue the old lady walked out
at the same moment randal seized his first opportunity of speaking
the indignation which missus presty had roused in her made no allowances and was blind to all sense of right don't trouble yourself to account for your silence she said most unjustly
you were listening to my mother without a word of remonstrance when i came into the room you are concerned in this vile slander too randal considerately refrained from provoking her
by attempting to defend himself while she was incapable of understanding him you will be sorry when you find that you have misjudged me he said and sighed and left her
she dropped into a chair if there was any one distinct thought in her at that moment it was the thought of her husband she was eager to see him she longed to say to him
my love i don't believe a word of it he was not in the garden when she had returned for the parasol and sydney was not in the garden
wondering what had become of her father and her governess kitty had asked the nursemaid to look for them what had happened since where had they been found after some hesitation missus linley sent for the nursemaid
she felt the strongest reluctance when the girl appeared to approach the very inquiries which she was interested in making have you found mister linley she said with an effort
yes ma'am where did you find him in the shrubbery did your master say anything i slipped away ma'am before he saw me why miss westerfield was in the shrubbery with my master
i might have been mistaken the girl paused and looked confused missus linley tried to tell her to go on the words were in her mind but the capacity of giving expression to them failed her
she impatiently made a sign the sign was understood i might have been mistaken the maid repeated but i thought miss westerfield was crying
having replied in those terms she seemed to be anxious to get away the parasol caught her eye miss kitty wants this she said and wonders why you have not gone back to her in the garden may i take the parasol
take it the tone of the mistress's voice was completely changed the servant looked at her with vague misgivings are you not well ma'am quite well the servant withdrew
missus linley's chair happened to be near one of the windows which commanded a view of the drive leading to the main entrance of the house a carriage had just arrived bringing holiday travelers to visit
that part of mount morven which was open to strangers she watched them as they got out talking and laughing and looking about them
still shrinking instinctively from the first doubt of herbert that had ever entered her mind she found a refuge from herself in watching the ordinary events of the day
one by one the tourists disappeared under the portico of the front door the empty carriage was driven away next to water the horses at the village inn solitude was all she could see from the windows
silence horrible silence surrounded her out of doors and in the thoughts from which she recoiled forced their way back into her mind the narrative of the nursemaid's discovery became a burden on her memory
once more she considered the circumstances in spite of herself she considered the circumstances again her husband and sydney westerfield together in the shrubbery and sydney crying
had missus presty's abominable suspicion of them reached their ears or no that second possibility might be estimated at its right value by any other woman
not by herbert linley's wife she snatched up the newspaper and fixed her eyes on it in the hope of fixing her mind on it next obstinately desperately she read without knowing what she was reading
the lines of print were beginning to mingle and grow dim when she was startled by the sudden opening of the door
piccadilly february nineteenth eighteen o one my dear lord whether emma will be able to write to you to day or not is a question as she has got one of her terrible sick head achs
among other things that vex her is that we have been drawn in to be under the absolute necessity of giving a dinner to
on sunday next he asked it himself having expressed his strong desire of hearing banti's and emma's voices together
that the worst construction is put upon the most innocent actions as this dinner must be
i have sent him an invitation in short we will get rid of it as well as we can and guard against its producing more meetings of the same sort emma would really have gone any lengths to have avoided sunday's dinner
who really has shewn the greatest civility to us when we were last in england and since we returned and she has at last acquiesced to my opinion
i have been thus explicit as i know well your lordship's way of thinking and your very kind attachment to us
of not being removed from naples but at my own request and having only empowered lord grenville to remove me on securing to me a nett income of two thousand pounds per annum lord grenville has recommended to the treasury
the taking my extraordinary expences into consideration i have fully demonstrated to lord grenville and treasury that eight thousand pounds is absolutely necessary for the clearing off my unfunded debt
without making up for my losses upon the whole then i do not expect to get more than the nett annuity above mentioned and the eight thousand pounds but unless that is granted
i shall indeed have been very ill used i hope in my next to be able to inform your lordship that all has been finally settled i am busy in putting in order the remains of my vases and pictures
that you so kindly saved for me on board the fourdroyant and the sale of them will enable me to go on more at my ease and not leave a debt unpaid but unfortunately there have been too many picture sales this year
and mine will come late adieu my very dear lord may health and success attend you wherever you go and i flatter myself this political jumble
your lordship's ever obliged and most sincerely attached friend and servant wm hamilton
and write you a line to tell you that she is much better having vomited naturally and is now purposing to take a regular one of tartar emetic all her convulsive complaints certainly proceed from a foul stomach
and i will answer for it she will be in spirits to write to you herself to morrow adieu my very dear lord i have not a moment to lose as the bell is going your ever attached and obliged humble servant wm hamilton
eighteen o one my very dear lord i wish it was in my power to profit of your kind invitation
and which i thought surely lost on board the colossus it has comforted me much we remain in the same cruel state with respect to the king's recovery there can be no doubt but that his majesty is better
however if my conjectures are true the regency must soon take place as it may be long before his majesty could be troubled with business supposing even his fever to have totally subsided
the certainty of the french squadron's being in the mediterranean god knows how all this will end but i hope it will be your lordship's lot to bring paul to his senses god send you every success and send you home
safe and well crowned with additional laurels and then i hope you will repose your shattered frame and make your friends happy by staying with them
but not quite free from bile ever my dear lord your lordship's most attached and eternally obliged humble servant wm hamilton
and read in your own hand that god had not only granted you complete success against the enemies of our country
prevented your receiving the smallest scratch we can only repeat what we knew well and often said before that nelson was is and to the last will ever be the first however
we all agree that when we get you safe home once more that you should never more risk your shattered frame you have done enough and are well entitled to the motto of virgil
the famous broughton after he had beaten every opponent that dared to measure hard blows with him set up an ale house the broughton's head in london with the above verse of virgil under it some years after
he was persuaded to accept the challenge of a coachman and was beaten not that i mean to convey that any such thing could happen to your lordship but you have done enough let others follow your examples
they will be remembered to the latest posterity it appeared to me most extraordinary that the sixth inst the date of your last letter to emma the death of the emperor paul which we have no doubt of here
should not be known at copenhagen it appears to us that as soon as that great event is known in sweden and denmark
the formidable giant northern coalition will of itself fall to pieces
in a very short time you would have laughed to have seen what i saw yesterday emma did not know whether she was on her head or heels in such a hurry to tell your great news
that she could utter nothing but tears of joy and tenderness i went to davison yesterday morning and found him still in bed having had a severe fit of the gout and with your letter which he had just received and he cried like a child
but what was very extraordinary assured me that from the instant he had read your letter all pain had left him and that he felt himself able to get up and walk about your brother
missus nelson and horace dined with us your brother was more extraordinary than ever he would get up suddenly and cut a caper rubbing his hands every time that the thought of your fresh laurels came into his head
but i am sure that no one really rejoiced more at heart than i did i have lived too long to have extacies but with calm reflection i felt for my friend having got to the very summit of glory
enemies you have none but those that are bursting with envy and such animals infest all parts of the world the king be assured is though weak getting well fast lord loughborough told livingston who has just been here
that he was with the king the day before yesterday before and after delivery of the seals and that he was perfectly calm and recollected ever your sincerely attached and truly obliged humble servant wm hamilton
you have already calmed the minds of every body with respect to the threatened french invasion in short all your lordship does is complete like yourself and nobody else
but still i think there is no occasion for the commander in chief to expose his person as much as you do why should you not have a private flag known to your fleet and not to the enemy when you shift it and go reconnoitring
captain hopkins going from hence in the speedwell cutter to join your lordship will be happy to introduce himself to you by presenting this letter himself they give him a good character in this country
but my acquaintance with him is but of two days i was yesterday with captain dobbins in the diligence cutter we sailed out of this glorious harbour and the day being fine sailed out some leagues and examined the crow rock
which is reckoned the greatest danger as to entering the harbour but the two light houses lately erected take off all danger in the night and it is visible in the day time except a short time
in spring tides i am delighted with the improvements at milford it will surely be a great town if we have peace in three years the houses rising up like mushrooms even in these difficult times
i visited the two light houses and found them perfectly clean and in good order
as i think in the manner you dispatch business you will have completed all by wednesday next the day i shall probably be in london charles greville's kind compliments the name of nelson is in every mouth
or what is i believe oftener the case by the ignorance and mistakes of the physicians then indeed there is reason to lament but as in the case of your good father
the lamp was suffered to burn out fairly and that his sufferings were not great and that by his son's glorious and unparalleled successes he saw his family ennobled and with the probability in time
of its being amply rewarded as it ought to have been long ago his mind could not be troubled in his latter moments on account of the family he left behind him and as to his own peace of mind at the moment of his dissolution
there can be no doubt among those who ever had the honour of his acquaintance i have said more than i intended but dare say your lordship had nearly the same thoughts with the addition of the feelings of a dutiful son
for the loss of a most excellent father it is however now as your lordship is the father of your family incumbent upon you to take particular care of your own health
my dear sir the moment i received your letter of the eleventh of march from leghorn i went with it to general acton and although i could not from your letter only in my ministerial character demand from this court the assistance
that such vessels are absolutely necessary on the present occasion i told his excellency that i trusted as this government had hitherto shewn itself as sanguine in the good cause and more so
than any of the allies of great britain that he would lay your letter before the king at naples and
which should join you as soon as the weather would permit at present indeed it is not very encouraging for row boats we wait a courier from vienna to decide the march of eight thousand eight hundred infantry
and artillery included intended to join the emperor's army in italy and although the grand duke of tuscany has refused the permission for these troops to march through his dominions the king of naples has told his son in law
that whenever the safety of italy should require it he would nevertheless march them through tuscany
whenever the good of the service required it however the thousand cavalry sent from hence have taken their route by loretto through the pope's state we have had as i suppose you know
the admirals hotham and goodall here for some weeks i can entre nous perceive that my old friend hotham is not quite awake enough for such a command as that of the king's fleet in the mediterranean
although he appears the best creature imaginable i did not know much of your friend lord hood personally but by his correspondence with me his activity and clearness was most conspicuous
lady hamilton and i admire your constancy and hope the severe service you have undergone will be handsomely rewarded when i reported to lord grenville in my last dispatch the letter i received from you lately
i could not help giving you the epithet of that brave officer captain nelson if you do not deserve it i know not who does with our love to sam i am ever dear sir
i am to beg of your lordship to use your kind endeavours that this urgent want may be supplied as soon as possible well understood that the proprietors of this article should be perfectly satisfied with this government as to the price of the lead
and most humble servant wm hamilton three palermo sunday night late near winding up watch hour
seventeen ninety nine my very dear lord ten thousand thanks for your kind attention in sending us hallowell's letter to troubridge it comforts us in one respect
as it flatters us with commodore duckworth's four ships joining you soon but i must own from the junction of five spanish ships and frigates i now think something more than going into toulon is intended
your lordship's truly affectionate and eternally attached wm hamilton
my dear lord whilst emma was writing to your lordship i have been with acton to get a felucca to send ball's dispatch to you it is of so old a date
that i make no doubt of ball's having joined you before his dispatch reaches i send your lordship an interesting letter i have just received from our consul at trieste and acton's answer to my yesterday's letter
communicating your kind resolution of taking care of their sicilian majesties and their kingdoms and which your lordship will see gives them great satisfaction
as to the fleet having been seen by the towers near messina and to the westward i believe it was your squadron i send you likewise a strange rhapsody from lord bristol
above all take care of your health that is the first of blessings may god ever protect you we miss you heavily but a short time must clear up the business and we hope bring you back to those who love and esteem you
to the very bottom of their souls ever your affectionate friend and humble servant wm hamilton
palermo june seventeenth seventeen ninety nine my dear lord
nothing has happened worth telling you since the few hours we have been separated
ever my dear lord your truly attached friend wm hamilton
palermo june twentieth seventeen ninety nine eight o'clock at night my dear lord having wrote fully by the felucca to day that went off at three o'clock and have not yet general acton's answer
with respect to what the court would wish you to do when you hear how the french fleet is disposed of i have nothing to write by the transport god bless you and i hope somehow or other we shall meet again soon
persano friday night
we have had a miserable cold day but good sport i killed two boars and a doe the king nineteen boars two stags
he is happy beyond expression i send you charles's letter but do not lose it as i will answer it when i return you see the line we have taken will put it out of the power of our enemies to hurt us
i will give up my judgment of worldly matters to no one i approve of all you do in my absence but it would be nonsense and appear affected to carry your scruples too far divert yourself reasonably
my dearest wife your's w h p s let gasparo pay thirty ducats for the vase to
by way of charity we may give thirty ounces to that shabby dog hadrava though he knows the picture is not worth more than ten at most his writing to you in such a stile is pitiful indeed
you will often have such letters if you do not tell him now
persano saturday fourteenth january seventeen ninety two my dear emma i have received a letter from douglass with one inclosed from mister durno who to my surprise
to lord abercorn and to mister durno with the order inclosed pray send for smith and ask him if he remembers having put such letters in the post and let him inquire at the naples post about them
and let him send the inclosed by tuesday's post to rome i certainly will not give another order until this matter is cleared up i fear some roguery we have had a fine day
and killed numberless boars a hundred and fifty at least i have killed four out of six shot and am satisfied as one is a real monster the king thirty d'onerato eighteen
and so on the favoured shooters vincenzo is rather better but not able to serve me my best compliments to alexander hamilton you did well to invite copley
ever your's in deed and in truth w h
seventeen ninety two you did admirably my dear em in not inviting lady a h to dine with the prince and still better in telling her honestly the reason i have always found that going straight is the best method
though not the way of the world you did also very well in asking madame skamouski and not taking upon you to present her without leave in short consult your own good sense and do not be in a hurry
for i cannot eat meat breakfasts or suppers and have absolutely lived on bread and butter and tea as the prince asked you you did well to send for a song to douglass's but in general you will do right to sing only at home
i inclose his letter as you are mentioned in it also knight's as you desire god knows we have no secrets nor i hope ever shall we have much business between this and saturday
saturday morning so that we shall arrive late what say you to a feet washing that night o che gusto when your prima ora is over and all gone
ever your's w h
persano monday night january sixteenth seventeen ninety two for your long and interesting letter i can only write a line to tell you i am well we have been out till an hour in the night from day break
and i have fired off my gun but once having had a bad post the king and favoured party have diverted themselves to morrow will probably be a good day for me pray let smith get orders for the museum
pray write a very kind letter to our friend the archbishop and convince him that emma to her friends is unalterable do not say a word about the telescope for i must try it first against mine
and amongst them a wolf and some stags he fell asleep in the coach
one would have thought he had shed blood enough this is a heavy air nobody eats with appetite and many are ill with colds we shall be home on saturday and indeed my sweet emma
i shall be most happy to see you to morrow we go to a mountain
your's ever my dear wife w h
it was not your white and silver alone that made you look like an angel at the academy suppose you had put it on nine parts out of ten of the ladies in company
but take my word that for some years to come the more simply you dress the more conspicuous will be your beauty which according to my idea is the most perfect i have yet met with take it all in all
and to day they are obliged to white wash the walls to take away the blood there were more than four hundred boars deer stags and all
which just keeps my mind from starving except to day on a mountain i have never felt the least appetite there i eat the wings of a cold chicken with pleasure hamilton is delighted with your civilities
saturday night w h
seventeen ninety four my dear em by having grumbled a little i got a better post to day and have killed two boars and a sow all enormous
i have missed but two shot since i came here and to be sure when the post is good it is noble shooting the rocks and mountains as wild as the boars the news you sent me of poor lord pembroke
gave me a little twist but i have for some time perceived that my friends with whom i spent my younger days have been dropping around me lord pembroke's neck was very short
and his father died of an apoplexy my study of antiquities has kept me in constant thought of the perpetual fluctuation of every thing
the whole art is really to live all the days of our life and not with anxious care disturb the sweetest hour that life affords which is the present admire the creator and all his works
to us incomprehensible and do all the good you can upon earth and take the chance of eternity without dismay you must tell the archbishop that he will have the leyden gazettes a week later
as i cannot read them time enough to send by this messenger the weather is delightful and i believe we shall have done all our business so as to return on thursday pray find out if the queen goes to caserta
here all is a profound secret i must work hard myself at translating when i return for i believe the language master totally incapable of it i dined this morning at nine o'clock
and i think it agreed better with me than tea i found myself growing weak for want of a good meal not daring to eat much at supper
divert yourself i shall soon be at you again your's ever w h
eighteen o one here we are my dear emma after a pleasant day's journey no extraordinary occurrence our chaise is good and would have held the famous tria juncta in uno very well
but we must submit to the circumstances of the times sir joseph bankes we found in bed with the gout and last night his hot house was robbed of its choicest fruit peaches and nectarines
amuse yourself as well as you can and you may be assured that i shall return as soon as possible and you shall hear from me often ever your's my dear emma with the truest affection wm hamilton
my kindest love to my lord if he is not gone p s
chapter four the table was set on the terrace breakfast was served and the company was gathered
and since a journey was to the fore and something sustaining needed a soft boiled egg apiece there were four persons present though there should have been five the two guests were an englishman and his wife whom the chances of travel had brought over night
to valedolmo between them presiding over the coffee machine was mister wilder's sister miss hazel' never miss wilder except to the butcher and baker it was the cross of her life she had always affirmed
that her name was not mary or jane or rebecca hazel does well enough when one is eighteen and beautiful but when one is fifty and no longer beautiful it is little short of absurd but if any one at fifty could carry such a name gracefully
it was miss hazel wilder her fifty years sat as jauntily as constance's twenty two this morning she was very business like in her short skirt belted jacket and green felt alpine hat with a feather in the side
no one would mistake her for a cyclist or a golfer or a motorist or anything in the world but an alpine climber whatever miss hazel was or was not she was always game across from miss hazel sat her brother in knickerbockers
his alpine stock at his elbow and also his fan since his domicile in italy mister wilder's fan had assumed the nature of a symbol he could no more be separated from it than saint sebastian from his arrows
or saint laurence from his gridiron at mister wilder's elbow was the empty chair where constance should have been she who had insisted on six as a proper breakfast hour and had grudgingly consented to postpone it till half past
out of deference to her sleepy headed elders her father had finished his egg and hers too before she appeared as nonchalant and smiling as if she were out the earliest of all
she advanced to the table saluted in military fashion dropped a kiss on her father's bald spot and possessed herself of the empty chair she too was clad in mountain climbing costume in so far as blouse and skirt and leather leggings went
but above her face there fluttered the fluffy white brim of a ruffled sun hat with a bunch of pink rosebuds set over one ear
i look so deliciously german in it but i simply can't afford to burn all the skin off my nose you can't make us believe that said her father the reason is that lieutenant di ferara and captain coroloni are going with us to day
and that this hat is more becoming than the other it's one reason constance agreed imperturbably but as i say i don't wish to burn the skin off my nose because that is unbecoming too
you are ungrateful dad she added as she helped herself to honey with a liberal hand i invited them solely on your account
and the driver is sitting on the kitchen doorstep drinking coffee and smiling over the top of his cup at elizabetta there are two of him two i only ordered one one is the official driver and the other is a boy
constance eyed her father sharply there was something at once guilty and triumphant about his expression what is it dad she inquired sternly
on the contrary he has really how clever of gustavo i hope she added anxiously that he talks good italian i don't know about his italian but he talks uncommonly good english english
there was reproach disgust disillusionment in her tone not really father yes really and truly almost as well as i do he has lived in new york and he speaks english like a dream real english
not the gustavo lieutenant di ferara kind i can understand what he says how simply horrible very convenient i should say if there's anything i detest it's an americanized italian
and here in valedolmo of all places where you have a right to demand something unique and romantic and picturesque and real it's too bad of gustavo i shall never place any faith in his judgment again you may talk english to the man if you like
i shall address him in nothing but italian as they rose from the table she suggested pessimistically let's go and look at the donkeys i suppose they'll be horrid scraggly knock kneed little beasts
they turned out however to be unusually attractive as donkeys go and they were innocently engaged in nibbling not rose leaves but grass under the tutelage of a barefoot boy constance patted their shaggy mouse coloured noses
made the acquaintance of the boy whose name was beppo and looked about for the driver proper he rose and bowed as she approached his appearance was even more violently spectacular than she had ordered gustavo had given good measure
he wore a loose white shirt immaculately white with a red silk handkerchief knotted about his throat brown corduroy knee breeches and a red cotton sash with the hilt of a knife conspicuously protruding
his corduroy jacket was slung carelessly across his shoulders his hat was cocked jauntily with a red heron feather stuck in the band last perfect touch of all in his ears at his ears rather
a close examination revealed the thread two golden hoops flashed in the sunlight his skin was dark not too dark just a good healthy out door tan
his gaze candour itself he wore a tiny suggestion of a moustache which turned up at the corners a suspicious examination of this might have revealed the fact that it was touched up with burnt cork
there was no doubt but that he was a handsome fellow and his attire suggested that he knew it constance clasped her hands in an ecstasy of admiration he's perfect she cried where on earth did gustavo find him
did you ever see anything so beautiful she appealed to the others he looks like a brigand in opera bouffe the donkey man reddened visibly and fumbled with his hat my dear her father warned he understands english
she continued to gaze with the open admiration one would bestow upon a picture or a view or a blue ribbon horse the man flashed her a momentary glance from a pair of searching grey eyes then dropped his gaze humbly to the ground
buon giorno he said in glib italian constance studied him more intently there was something elusively familiar about his expression she was sure she had seen him before buon giorno she replied in italian
si signorina what is your name i spik angleesh he observed i don't care if you do speak english i prefer italian what is your name she repeated the question in italian
si signorina he ventured again an anxious look had crept to his face and he hastily turned away and commenced carrying parcels from the kitchen constance looked after him puzzled and suspicious
the one insult which she could not brook was for an italian to fail to understand her when she talked italian as he returned and knelt to tighten the strap of a hamper she caught sight of the thread that held his earring she looked a second longer
and a sudden smile of illumination flashed to her face she suppressed it quickly and turned away he seems rather slow about understanding she remarked to the others but i dare say he'll do the poor fellow is embarrassed apologized her father
his name is tony he added even he had understood that much italian was there ever an italian who had been in america whose name was not tony
or something decently picturesque my dear miss hazel objected i think you are hypercritical the man is scarcely to blame for his name i suppose not she agreed
further discussion was precluded by the appearance of a station carriage which turned in at the gate and stopped before them two officers descended and saluted
in summer uniforms of white linen with gold shoulder straps and shining top boots they rivalled the donkey man in decorativeness constance received them with flattering acclaim while she noted from the corner of her eye the effect upon tony
he had not counted upon this addition to the party and was as scowling as she could have wished while the officers were engaged in making their bow to the others constance casually reapproached the donkeys
tony feigned immersion in the business of strapping hampers he had no wish to be drawn into any italian tete a tete but to his relief she addressed him this time in english are these donkeys used to mountain climbing
but yes signorina sicuramente zay are ver strong ver good zat donk signorina he go all day and never one little stumble his english she noted with amused appreciation was an exact copy of gustavo's
he had learned his lesson well but she allowed not the slightest recognition of the fact to appear in her face and what are their names she inquired dis is fidilini signorina and zat one wif ze white nose is macaroni
and zat ovver is cristoforo colombo elizabetta appeared in the doorway with two rush covered flasks and tony hurried forward to receive them there was a complaisant set to his shoulders as he strode off
constance noted delightedly he was felicitating himself upon the ease with which he had fooled her well she would give him cause before the day was over for other than felicitations she stifled a laugh of prophetic triumph and sauntered over to beppo
and who is carlo he is the guide who owns them beppo looked momentarily guilty the answer had slipped out before he thought oh indeed but if tony is a guide why doesn't he have donkeys of his own
he used to but one unfortunately fell into the lake and got drowned and the other died of a sickness he put forth this preposterous statement with a glance as grave and innocent as that of a little cherub is tony a good guide
but yes of the best there was growing anxiety in beppo's tone he divined suspicion behind these persistent inquiries and he knew that in case tony were dismissed his own munificent pay would stop
do you understand any english she suddenly asked he modestly repudiated any great knowledge a word here a word there i learn it in school i see she paused for a moment and then inquired casually
have you known tony long si signorina how long beppo considered some one clearly must vouch for the man's respectability this was not in the lesson that had been taught him
but he determined to branch out for himself he is my father signorina really he looks young to be your father have you any brothers and sisters beppo i have four brothers signorina and five sisters
he fell back upon the truth with relief davvero the signorina smiled upon him a smile of such heavenly sweetness that he instantly joined the already crowded ranks of her admirers she drew from her pocket a handful of coppers
and dropped them into his grimy little palm here beppo are some soldi for the brothers and sisters
after some delay owing to tony's inability to balance the chafing dish on cristoforo colombo's back they filed from the gateway an imposing cavalcade the ladies were on foot
loftily oblivious to the fact that three empty saddles awaited their pleasure constance a gesticulating officer at either hand was vivaciously talking italian while tony trudging behind listened with a sombre light in his eye
and as she caught sight of his gloomy face the animation of her italian redoubled the situation held for her mischief loving soul undreamed of possibilities and though she ostensibly occupied herself with the officers
she by no means neglected the donkey man during the first few miles of the journey he earned his four francs
it was a disgracefully unprofessional pack
once he retraced their path some two hundred yards in search of a veil she thought she had dropped
he chased fidilini over half the mountainside while the others were resting and he carried the chafing dish for a couple of miles because it refused to adjust itself nicely to the pack
the morning ended by his being left behind with a balking donkey while the others completed the last ascent that led to their halting place for lunch it was a small plateau shaded by oak trees with a broad view below them
and a mountain stream foaming down from the rocks above it was owing to beppo's knowledge of the mountain paths rather than tony's which had guided them to this agreeable spot though no one in the party except constance appeared to have noted the fact
tony arrived some ten minutes after the others hot but victorious driving cristoforo colombo before him constance welcomed his return with an off hand nod and set him about preparing lunch
he and beppo served it and repacked the hampers entirely ignored by the others of the party poor tony was beginning to realize that a donkey man lives on a desert island in so far as any companionship goes but his moment was coming
as they were about to start on constance spied high above their heads where the stream burst from the rocks a clump of starry white blossoms
oh i must have it it's the first i ever saw growing i hadn't supposed we were high enough she glanced at the officers the ascent was not dangerous but it was undeniably muddy and they both wore white with very good cause they hesitated
and while they hesitated the opportunity was lost tony sprang forward scrambled up the precipice hand over hand swung out across the stream by the aid of an overhanging branch and secured the flowers
it was very gracefully and easily done and a burst of applause greeted his descent he divided his flowers into two equal parts and sweeping off his hat presented them with a bow not to constance but to the officers
who somewhat sulkily passed them on she received them with a smile for an instant her eyes met tony's and he fell back rewarded the captain and lieutenant for the first time regarded the donkey man
and they regarded him narrowly red sash earrings stiletto and all constance caught the look and laughed isn't he picturesque she inquired in italian the head waiter at the hotel du lac found him for me
which is a great convenience the two said nothing but they looked at each other and shrugged the donkeys were requisitioned for the rest of the journey while tony led miss hazel's mount
an officer marching at each side of her saddle
tony could draw from that obvious fact what consolation there was in it the ruined fortress their destination was now exactly above their heads the last ascent boldly skirted the shoulder of the mountain
and then doubled upward in a series of serpentine coils below them the whole of lake garda was spread like a map mister wilder and the englishman having paused at the edge of the declivity
were endeavouring to trace the boundary line of austria and they called upon the officers for help the two relinquished their post at constance's side while the donkeys kept on past them up the hill the winding path was both stony and steep
and from a donkey's standpoint thoroughly objectionable fidilini was well in the lead trotting sedately when suddenly without the slightest warning he chose to revolt whether constance pulled the wrong rein
or whether as she affirmed it was merely his natural badness in any case he suddenly veered from the path and took a cross cut down the rocky slope below them donkeys are fortunately sure footed beasts
otherwise the two would have plunged together down the sheer face of the mountain as it was it looked ghastly enough to the four men below they shouted to constance to stick on and commenced scrambling up the slope with absolutely no hope of reaching her
it was tony's chance a second time to show his agility and this time to some purpose he was a dozen yards behind and much lower down which gave him a start leaping forward he dropped over the precipice
a fall of ten feet to a narrow ledge below running toward them at an angle he succeeded in cutting off their flight before the frightened donkey could swerve tony had seized him by the tail and had braced himself against a boulder
it was not a dignified rescue but at least it was effective fidilini came to a halt constance not expecting the sudden jolt toppled over sidewise and tony being equally unprepared to receive her
the two went down together rolling over and over on the grassy slope my dear are you hurt mister wilder quite pale with anxiety came scrambling to her side constance sat up and laughed hysterically
but i think perhaps tony is tony however was at least able to run as he was again on his feet and after the donkey captain coroloni and her father helped constance to her feet
while lieutenant di ferara recovered a side comb and the white sun hat they all climbed down together to the path below none the worse for the averted tragedy tony rejoined them somewhat short of breath but leading a humbled fidilini
constance beyond a brief glance said nothing but her father to the poor man's intense embarrassment shook him warmly by the hand with the repeated assurance that his bravery should not go unrewarded they completed their journey on foot
the duke and duchess were so well pleased with the successful and droll result of the adventure of the distressed one that they resolved to carry on the joke seeing what a fit subject they had to deal with for making it all pass for reality
so having laid their plans and given instructions to their servants and vassals how to behave to sancho in his government of the promised island the next day that following clavileno's flight the duke told sancho to prepare and get ready to go and be governor
for his islanders were already looking out for him as for the showers of may sancho made him an obeisance and said ever since i came down from heaven and from the top of it beheld the earth and saw how little it is
the great desire i had to be a governor has been partly cooled in me for what is there grand in being ruler on a grain of mustard seed or what dignity or authority in governing half a dozen men about as big as hazel nuts for so far as i could see there were no more on the whole earth
if your lordship would be so good as to give me ever so small a bit of heaven were it no more than half a league i'd rather have it than the best island in the world recollect sancho said the duke i cannot give a bit of heaven
no not so much as the breadth of my nail to anyone rewards and favours of that sort are reserved for god alone what i can give i give you and that is a real genuine island compact well proportioned and uncommonly fertile and fruitful
where if you know how to use your opportunities you may with the help of the world's riches gain those of heaven well then said sancho let the island come and i'll try and be such a governor that in spite of scoundrels i'll go to heaven
and it's not from any craving to quit my own humble condition or better myself but from the desire i have to try what it tastes like to be a governor
you'll eat your fingers off after the government so sweet a thing is it to command and be obeyed depend upon it when your master comes to be emperor as he will beyond a doubt from the course his affairs are taking it will be no easy matter to wrest the dignity from him
and he will be sore and sorry at heart to have been so long without becoming one senor said sancho it is my belief it's a good thing to be in command if it's only over a drove of cattle may i be buried with you sancho
said the duke but you know everything i hope you will make as good a governor as your sagacity promises and that is all i have to say and now remember to morrow is the day you must set out for the government of the island
and this evening they will provide you with the proper attire for you to wear and all things requisite for your departure let them dress me as they like said sancho however i'm dressed i'll be sancho panza that's true said the duke
but one's dress must be suited to the office or rank one holds for it would not do for a jurist to dress like a soldier or a soldier like a priest you sancho shall go partly as a lawyer partly as a captain for in the island i am giving you
arms are needed as much as letters and letters as much as arms of letters i know but little said sancho for i don't even know the a b c but it is enough for me to have the christus in my memory to be a good governor
as for arms i'll handle those they give me till i drop and then god be my help with so good a memory said the duke sancho cannot go wrong in anything here don quixote joined them
and learning what passed and how soon sancho was to go to his government he with the duke's permission took him by the hand and retired to his room with him for the purpose of giving him advice as to how he was to demean himself in his office as soon as they had entered the chamber he closed the door after him
and almost by force made sancho sit down beside him and in a quiet tone thus addressed him i give infinite thanks to heaven friend sancho that before i have met with any good luck fortune has come forward to meet thee
i who counted upon my good fortune to discharge the recompense of thy services find myself still waiting for advancement while thou before the time and contrary to all reasonable expectation seest thyself blessed in the fulfillment of thy desires
some will bribe beg solicit rise early entreat persist without attaining the object of their suit while another comes and without knowing why or wherefore finds himself invested with the place or office so many have sued for
and here it is that the common saying there is good luck as well as bad luck in suits applies thou who to my thinking art beyond all doubt a dullard without early rising or night watching or taking any trouble
with the mere breath of knight errantry that has breathed upon thee seest thyself without more ado governor of an island as though it were a mere matter of course this i say sancho that thou attribute not the favour thou hast received to thine own merits
but give thanks to heaven that disposes matters beneficently and secondly thanks to the great power the profession of knight errantry contains in itself with a heart then
wherein thou art about to ingulf thyself for offices and great trusts are nothing else but a mighty gulf of troubles first of all my son thou must fear god for in the fear of him is wisdom
and being wise thou canst not err in aught secondly thou must keep in view what thou art striving to know thyself the most difficult thing to know that the mind can imagine
if thou knowest thyself it will follow thou wilt not puff thyself up like the frog that strove to make himself as large as the ox if thou dost the recollection of having kept pigs in thine own country will serve
but that was when i was a boy afterwards when i was something more of a man it was geese i kept not pigs but to my thinking that has nothing to do with it for all who are governors don't come of a kingly stock true said don quixote
and for that reason those who are not of noble origin should take care that the dignity of the office they hold he accompanied by a gentle suavity which wisely managed will save them from the sneers of malice that no station escapes
glory in thy humble birth sancho and be not ashamed of saying thou art peasant born for when it is seen thou art not ashamed no one will set himself to put thee to the blush and pride thyself rather upon being one of lowly virtue
than a lofty sinner countless are they who
and of the truth of this i could give thee instances enough to weary thee remember sancho if thou make virtue thy aim and take a pride in doing virtuous actions thou wilt have no cause to envy those who have princely and lordly ones
for blood is an inheritance but virtue an acquisition and virtue has in itself alone a worth that blood does not possess this being so if perchance anyone of thy kinsfolk should come to see thee when thou art in thine island
thou art not to repel or slight him but on the contrary to welcome him entertain him and make much of him
which is not pleased that any should despise what it hath made and wilt comply with the laws of well ordered nature if thou carriest thy wife with thee and it is not well for those that administer governments to be long without their wives
teach and instruct her and strive to smooth down her natural roughness for all that may be gained by a wise governor may be lost and wasted by a boorish stupid wife if perchance thou art left a widower a thing which may happen
and in virtue of thy office seekest a consort of higher degree choose not one to serve thee for a hook or for a fishing rod or for the hood of thy won't have it for verily i tell thee for all the judge's wife receives
the husband will be held accountable at the general calling to account where he will have repay in death fourfold items that in life he regarded as naught never go by arbitrary law
which is so much favoured by ignorant men who plume themselves on cleverness let the tears of the poor man find with thee more compassion but not more justice than the pleadings of the rich
strive to lay bare the truth as well amid the promises and presents of the rich man as amid the sobs and entreaties of the poor when equity may and should be brought into play press not the utmost rigour of the law against the guilty
for the reputation of the stern judge stands not higher than that of the compassionate if perchance thou permittest the staff of justice to swerve let it be not by the weight of a gift but by that of mercy
if it should happen thee to give judgment in the cause of one who is thine enemy turn thy thoughts away from thy injury and fix them on the justice of the case let not thine own passion blind thee in another man's cause
for the errors thou wilt thus commit will be most frequently irremediable or if not only to be remedied at the expense of thy good name and even of thy fortune if any handsome woman come to seek justice of thee
turn away thine eyes from her tears and thine ears from her lamentations and consider deliberately the merits of her demand if thou wouldst not have thy reason swept away by her weeping and thy rectitude by her sighs
abuse not by word him whom thou hast to punish in deed
bear in mind that the culprit who comes under thy jurisdiction is but a miserable man subject to all the propensities of our depraved nature and so far as may be in thy power show thyself lenient and forbearing
for though the attributes of god are all equal
with regard to the mode in which thou shouldst govern thy person and thy house sancho the first charge i have to give thee is to be clean and to cut thy nails not letting them grow as some do
whose ignorance makes them fancy that long nails are an ornament to their hands as if those excrescences they neglect to cut were nails and not the talons of a lizard catching kestrel
go not ungirt and loose sancho for disordered attire is a sign of an unstable mind unless indeed the slovenliness and slackness is to be set down to craft as was the common opinion in the case of julius caesar
ascertain cautiously what thy office may be worth and if it will allow thee to give liveries to thy servants give them respectable and serviceable rather than showy and gay ones and divide them between thy servants and the poor
that is to say if thou canst clothe six pages clothe three and three poor men and thus thou wilt have pages for heaven and pages for earth the vainglorious never think of this new mode of giving liveries
eat not garlic nor onions lest they find out thy boorish origin by the smell walk slowly and speak deliberately but not in such a way as to make it seem thou art listening to thyself
for all affectation is bad dine sparingly and sup more sparingly still for the health of the whole body is forged in the workshop of the stomach be temperate in drinking
bearing in mind that wine in excess keeps neither secrets nor promises take care sancho not to chew on both sides and not to eruct in anybody's presence eruct said sancho
i don't know what that means to eruct sancho said don quixote means to belch and that is one of the filthiest words in the spanish language though a very expressive one and therefore nice folk have had recourse to the latin
eruct and instead of belches say eructations and if some do not understand these terms it matters little for custom will bring them into use in the course of time so that they will be readily understood
this is the way a language is enriched custom and the public are all powerful there in truth senor said sancho one of the counsels and cautions i mean to bear in mind shall be this not to belch for i'm constantly doing it
eruct sancho not belch said don quixote eruct i shall say henceforth and i swear not to forget it said sancho
likewise sancho said don quixote thou must not mingle such a quantity of proverbs in thy discourse as thou dost for though proverbs are short maxims thou dost drag them in so often by the head and shoulders that they savour more of nonsense than of maxims
god alone can cure that said sancho for i have more proverbs in me than a book and when i speak they come so thick together into my mouth that they fall to fighting among themselves to get out that's why my tongue lets fly the first that come though they may not be pat to the purpose
in a house where there's plenty supper is soon cooked and he who binds does not wrangle and the bell ringer's in a safe berth and giving and keeping require brains
pack tack string proverbs together nobody is hindering thee my mother beats me and i go on with my tricks i am bidding thee avoid proverbs and here in a second thou hast shot out a whole litany of them
mind sancho i do not say that a proverb aptly brought in is objectionable but to pile up and string together proverbs at random makes conversation dull and vulgar
nor carry thy legs stiff or sticking out from the horse's belly nor yet sit so loosely that one would suppose thou wert on dapple for the seat on a horse makes gentlemen of some and grooms of others
and remember sancho diligence is the mother of good fortune and indolence its opposite never yet attained the object of an honest ambition the last counsel i will give thee now though it does not tend to bodily improvement
i would have thee carry carefully in thy memory for i believe it will be no less useful to thee than those i have given thee already and it is this never engage in a dispute about families
for necessarily one of those compared will be better than the other and thou wilt be hated by the one thou hast disparaged and get nothing in any shape from the one thou hast exalted thy attire
shall be hose of full length a long jerkin and a cloak a trifle longer loose breeches by no means for they are becoming neither for gentlemen nor for governors for the present sancho this is all that has occurred to me to advise thee
as time goes by and occasions arise my instructions shall follow if thou take care to let me know how thou art circumstanced senor said sancho i see well enough that all these things your worship has said to me are good holy and profitable
but what use will they be to me if i don't remember one of them to be sure that about not letting my nails grow and marrying again if i have the chance will not slip out of my head but all that other hash muddle and jumble i don't and can't recollect any more of it than of last year's clouds
so it must be given me in writing for though i can't either read or write i'll give it to my confessor to drive it into me and remind me of it whenever it is necessary ah sinner that i am said don quixote
how bad it looks in governors not to know how to read or write for let me tell thee sancho when a man knows not how to read or is left handed it argues one of two things either that he was the son of exceedingly mean and lowly parents
or that he himself was so incorrigible and ill conditioned that neither good company nor good teaching could make any impression on him it is a great defect that thou labourest under and therefore i would have thee learn at any rate to sign thy name
i can sign my name well enough said sancho for when i was steward of the brotherhood in my village i learned to make certain letters like the marks on bales of goods which they told me made out my name besides i can pretend my right hand is disabled
and make some one else sign for me for there's a remedy for everything except death and as i shall be in command and hold the staff i can do as i like moreover
let them make light of me and abuse me they'll come for wool and go back shorn
the silly sayings of the rich pass for saws in the world
only make yourself honey and the flies will suck you as much as thou hast so much art thou worth as my grandmother used to say
and thou canst have no revenge of a man of substance oh god's curse upon thee sancho here exclaimed don quixote sixty thousand devils fly away with thee and thy proverbs
for the last hour thou hast been stringing them together and inflicting the pangs of torture on me with every one of them those proverbs will bring thee to the gallows one day i promise thee thy subjects will take the government from thee or there will be revolts among them
tell me where dost thou pick them up thou booby how dost thou apply them thou blockhead for with me to utter one and make it apply properly i have to sweat and labour as if i were digging by god master mine
said sancho your worship is making a fuss about very little why the devil should you be vexed if i make use of what is my own
and here are three just this instant come into my head pat to the purpose and like pears in a basket but i won't repeat them for sage silence is called sancho that sancho thou art not said don quixote
for not only art thou not sage silence but thou art pestilent prate and perversity still i would like to know what three proverbs have just now come into thy memory
and it is a good one and none occurs to me what can be better said sancho than never put thy thumbs between two back teeth and to
get out of my house and what do you want with my wife there is no answer and
all which fit to a hair for no one should quarrel with his governor or him in authority over him because he will come off the worst as he does who puts his finger between two back and if they are not back teeth it makes no difference so long as they are teeth and
to whatever the governor may say there's no answer any more than to get out of my house and what do you want with my wife and then as for that about the stone and the pitcher a blind man could see that
so that he who sees the mote in another's eye had need to see the beam in his own that it be not said of himself the dead woman was frightened at the one with her throat cut and your worship knows well that
the fool knows more in his own house than the wise man in another's nay sancho said don quixote the fool knows nothing either in his own house or in anybody else's for no wise structure of any sort can stand on a foundation of folly
but let us say no more about it sancho for if thou governest badly thine will be the fault and mine the shame but i comfort myself with having done my duty in advising thee as earnestly and as wisely as i could and thus i am released from my obligations and my promise
god guide thee sancho and govern thee in thy government and deliver me from the misgiving i have that thou wilt turn the whole island upside down a thing i might easily prevent by explaining to the duke what thou art
and telling him that all that fat little person of thine is nothing else but a sack full of proverbs and sauciness senor said sancho if your worship thinks i'm not fit for this government i give it up on the spot
for the mere black of the nail of my soul is dearer to me than my whole body and i can live just as well simple sancho on bread and onions as governor on partridges and capons and what's more while we're asleep we're all equal great and small rich and poor
but if your worship looks into it you will see it was your worship alone that put me on to this business of governing for i know no more about the government of islands than a buzzard and if there's any reason to think that because of my being a governor the devil will get hold of me i'd rather go sancho to heaven than governor to hell
when sense from spirit files away and subterfuge is done when that which is and that which was apart intrinsic stand and this brief tragedy of flesh is shifted like a sand when figures show their royal front
and mists are carved away behold the atom i preferred to all the lists of clay two i have no life but this to lead it here
nor any death but lest dispelled from there nor tie to earths to come nor action new except through this extent the realm of you three
your riches taught me poverty myself a millionnaire in little wealths as girls could boast till broad as buenos ayre you drifted your dominions a different peru and i esteemed all poverty for life's estate with you
of mines i little know myself but just the names of gems the colors of the commonest and scarce of diadems so much that did i meet the queen her glory i should know but this must be a different wealth to miss it beggars so
to those who look on you without a stint without a blame might i but be the jew i m sure it is golconda beyond my power to deem to have a smile for mine each day how better than a gem
at least it solaces to know that there exists a gold although i prove it just in time its distance to behold it s far far treasure to surmise and estimate the pearl that slipped my simple fingers through while just a girl at school
i gave myself to him and took himself for pay the solemn contract of a life was ratified this way the wealth might disappoint myself a poorer prove than this great purchaser suspect the daily own of love
depreciate the vision but till the merchant buy still fable in the isles of spice the subtle cargoes lie
the letter going to him happy letter tell him tell him the page i did n't write tell him i only said the syntax and left the verb and the pronoun out
so you could see what moved them so tell him it was n't a practised writer you guessed from the way the sentence toiled you could hear the bodice tug behind you as if it held but the might of a child you almost pitied it you it worked so
tell him no you may quibble there for it would split his heart to know it and then you and i were silenter tell him night finished before we finished and the old clock kept neighing day and you got sleepy and begged to be ended
what could it hinder so to say tell him just how she sealed you cautious but if he ask where you are hid until to morrow happy letter gesture coquette and shake your head
t is first i lock the door and push it with my fingers next for transport it be sure and then i go the furthest off to counteract a knock then draw my little letter forth and softly pick its lock then glancing narrow at the wall
and narrow at the floor for firm conviction of a mouse not exorcised before peruse how infinite i am to no one that you know and sigh for lack of heaven but not the heaven the creeds bestow
futile the winds to a heart in port done with the compass done with the chart rowing in eden ah the sea might i but moor to night in thee
the night was wide and furnished scant with but a single star that often as a cloud it met blew out itself for fear the wind pursued the little bush and drove away the leaves
november left then clambered up and fretted in the eaves no squirrel went abroad a dog's belated feet like intermittent plush were heard adown the empty street to feel if blinds be fast and closer to the fire
her little rocking chair to draw and shiver for the poor the housewife's gentle task how pleasanter said she unto the sofa opposite the sleet than may no thee
did the harebell loose her girdle to the lover bee would the bee the harebell hallow much as formerly did the paradise persuaded yield her moat of pearl would the eden be an eden or the earl an earl
a charm invests a face imperfectly beheld the lady dare not lift her veil for fear it be dispelled but peers beyond her mesh and wishes and denies lest interview annul a want that image satisfies
the lovers the rose did caper on her cheek her bodice rose and fell her pretty speech like drunken men did stagger pitiful her fingers fumbled at her work her needle would not go what ailed so smart a little maid it puzzled me to know
whose bonnets touch the firmament whose sandals touch the town meek at whose everlasting feet a myriad daisies play which sir are you and which am i upon an august day
the moon is distant from the sea and yet with amber hands she leads him docile as a boy along appointed sands he never misses a degree obedient to her eye he comes just so far toward the town
just so far goes away oh signor thine the amber hand and mine the distant sea
and turned away imperial my lifetime folding up deliberate as a duke would do a kingdom's title deed henceforth a dedicated sort a member of the cloud yet not too far to come at call and do the little toils
that make the circuit of the rest and deal occasional smiles to lives that stoop to notice mine and kindly ask it in whose invitation knew you not for whom i must decline
the lost jewel i held a jewel in my fingers and went to sleep the day was warm and winds were prosy i said
i woke and chid my honest fingers the gem was gone and now an amethyst remembrance is all i own
what if i burst the fleshly gate and pass escaped to thee what if i file this mortal off
and wade in liberty they cannot take us any more dungeons may call and guns implore
thine is the stillest night thine the securest fold too near thou art for seeking thee too tender to be told two going to heaven
i don't know when pray do not ask me how indeed i m too astonished to think of answering you going to heaven how dim it sounds and yet it will be done as sure as flocks go home at night unto the shepherd's arm
if you should get there first save just a little place for me close to the two i lost the smallest robe will fit me and just a bit of crown for you know we do not mind our dress when we are going home
i am glad they did believe it whom i have never found since the mighty autumn afternoon i left them in the ground three at least to pray is left is left
o jesus in the air i know not which thy chamber is i m knocking everywhere thou stirrest earthquake in the south and maelstrom in the sea say jesus christ of nazareth hast thou no arm for me
step lightly on this narrow spot the broadest land that grows is not so ample as the breast these emerald seams enclose step lofty for this name is told as far as cannon dwell
or flag subsist or fame export her deathless syllable
morns like these we parted noons like these she rose fluttering first then firmer to her fair repose never did she lisp it
she was mute from transport i from agony till the evening nearing one the shutters drew quick a sharper rustling and this linnet flew
a death blow is a life blow to some who till they died did not alive become who had they lived had died but when they died vitality begun
to see that i made no mistake in its extremest clause the date and manner of the shame and then the pious form that god have mercy on the soul the jury voted him i made my soul familiar with her extremity
that at the last it should not be a novel agony but she and death acquainted meet tranquilly as friends salute and pass without a hint and there the matter ends
i have not quite the strength now to break it to the bee i will not name it in the street for shops would stare that i so shy so very ignorant should have the face to die the hillsides must not know it
where i have rambled so nor tell the loving forests the day that i shall go nor lisp it at the table nor heedless by the way hint that within the riddle one will walk to day
they dropped like flakes they dropped like stars like petals from a rose when suddenly across the june a wind with fingers goes they perished in the seamless grass no eye could find the place
but god on his repealless list can summon every face
the only ghost i ever saw was dressed in mechlin so he wore no sandal on his foot and stepped like flakes of snow his gait was soundless like the bird but rapid like the roe his fashions quaint mosaic
or haply mistletoe his conversation seldom his laughter like the breeze that dies away in dimples among the pensive trees our interview was transient of me himself was shy
and god forbid i look behind since that appalling day
some too fragile for winter winds the thoughtful grave encloses tenderly tucking them in from frost before their feet are cold never the treasures in her nest the cautious grave exposes
building where schoolboy dare not look and sportsman is not bold this covert have all the children early aged and often cold sparrows unnoticed by the father lambs for whom time had not a fold
become so wondrous dear as for the lost we grapple though all the rest are here in broken mathematics we estimate our prize vast in its fading ratio to our penurious eyes
memorials death sets a thing significant the eye had hurried by except a perished creature entreat us tenderly to ponder little workmanships in crayon or in wool with this was last her fingers did
industrious until the thimble weighed too heavy the stitches stopped themselves
a book i have a friend gave whose pencil here and there had notched the place that pleased him at rest his fingers are now when i read i read not for interrupting tears obliterate the etchings too costly for repairs
lit with a ruby lathed with down stiller than the fields at the full dew beautiful as pictures no man drew people like the moth of mechlin frames
duties of gossamer and eider names almost contented i could be mong such unique society
their height in heaven comforts not their glory nought to me
the house of supposition the glimmering frontier that skirts the acres of perhaps to me shows insecure the wealth i had contented me
then i had counted it until it pleased my narrow eyes better than larger values however true their show this timid life of evidence keeps pleading i don't know
confronting sudden pelf a finer shame of ecstasy convicted of itself a best disgrace a brave man feels acknowledged of the brave
triumph may be of several kinds there s triumph in the room when that old imperator death by faith is overcome there s triumph of the finer mind when truth affronted long
a this way beckons spaciously a miracle for all
i noticed people disappeared when but a little child supposed they visited remote or settled regions wild now know i they both visited and settled regions wild but did because they died a fact withheld the little child
i had no cause to be awake my best was gone to sleep and morn a new politeness took and failed to wake them up but called the others clear and passed their curtains by sweet morning when i over sleep knock recollect for me
i looked at sunrise once and then i looked at them and wishfulness in me arose for circumstance the same
so choosing but a gown and taking but a prayer the only raiment i should need i struggled and was there
so short way off it seems and now they re centuries from that how pleased they were at what you said you try to touch the smile and dip your fingers in the frost when was it can you tell you asked the company to tea acquaintance just a few
and chatted close with this grand thing that don't remember you past bows and invitations past interview and vow past what ourselves can estimate that makes the quick of woe
our journey had advanced our feet were almost come to that odd fork in being's road eternity by term our pace took sudden awe our feet reluctant led before were cities but between the forest of the dead
be its mattress straight be its pillow round
on such a night or such a night would anybody care if such a little figure slipped quiet from its chair so quiet oh how quiet that nobody might know but that the little figure rocked softer to and fro
there was a little figure plump for every little knoll busy needles and spools of thread and trudging feet from school playmates and holidays and nuts and visions vast and small
strange that the feet so precious charged should reach so small a goal
the attar from the rose is not expressed by suns alone it is the gift of screws the general rose decays but this in lady's drawer makes summer when the lady lies in ceaseless rosemary
one might depart at option from enterprise below t is sweet to know that stocks will stand when we with daisies lie that commerce will continue and trades as briskly fly it makes the parting tranquil
and keeps the soul serene that gentlemen so sprightly conduct the pleasing scene
her final summer was it and yet we guessed it not if tenderer industriousness pervaded her we thought a further force of life developed from within when death lit all the shortness up and made the hurry plain
one need not be a chamber to be haunted one need not be a house the brain has corridors surpassing material place far safer of a midnight meeting external ghost than an interior confronting
that whiter host far safer through an abbey gallop the stones achase than moonless one's own self encounter in lonesome place ourself behind ourself concealed should startle most
assassin hid in our apartment be horror's least the prudent carries a revolver he bolts the door o'erlooking a superior spectre more near
she died this was the way she died and when her breath was done took up her simple wardrobe and started for the sun her little figure at the gate the angels must have spied since i could never find her upon the mortal side
wait till the majesty of death invests so mean a brow almost a powdered footman might dare to touch it now wait till in everlasting robes this democrat is dressed then prate about preferment and station and the rest
tranquil as to repose chastened as to the chapel this humble tourist rose did not talk of returning alluded to no time when were the gales propitious we might look for him was grateful for the roses in life's diverse bouquet
talked softly of new species to pick another day beguiling thus the wonder the wondrous nearer drew hands bustled at the moorings
one little maid from playmates one little mind from school there must be guests in eden all the rooms are full far as the east from even
nor fire for just my marble feet could keep a chancel cool and yet it tasted like them all the figures i have seen set orderly for burial reminded me of mine as if my life were shaven and fitted to a frame
and could not breathe without a key
when everything that ticked has stopped and space stares all around or grisly frosts first autumn morns repeal the beating ground but most like chaos stopless cool without a chance or spar
or even a report of land to justify despair
it listening listening went to sleep
here was no notice no dissent no universe no laws
all these did conquer but the ones who overcame most times wear nothing commoner than snow no ornament but palms surrender is a sort unknown on this superior soil
defeat an outgrown anguish remembered as the mile our panting ankle barely gained when night devoured the road but we stood whispering in the house and all we said was saved
till hair and eyes and timid head are out of sight in heaven i think just how my lips will weigh with shapeless quivering prayer that you so late consider me the sparrow of your care
i mind me that of anguish sent some drifts were moved away before my simple bosom broke and why not this if they and so until delirious borne i con that thing forgiven
till with long fright and longer trust i drop my heart unshriven
the forgotten grave after a hundred years nobody knows the place agony that enacted there motionless as peace weeds triumphant ranged strangers strolled and spelled
at the lone orthography of the elder dead winds of summer fields recollect the way instinct picking up the key dropped by memory
too intrinsic for renown laurel veil your deathless tree
the eagerness with which the first volume of emily dickinson's poems has been read shows very clearly that all our alleged modern artificiality does not prevent a prompt appreciation of the qualities of directness and simplicity in approaching the greatest themes
life and love and death that irresistible needle touch as one of her best critics has called it piercing at once the very core of a thought has found a response as wide and sympathetic as it has been unexpected even to those who knew best her compelling power
this second volume while open to the same criticism as to form with its predecessor shows also the same shining beauties although emily dickinson had been in the habit of sending occasional poems to friends and correspondents
the full extent of her writing was by no means imagined by them her friend h h must at least have suspected it for in a letter dated fifth september eighteen eighty four she wrote my dear friend
it is a cruel wrong to your day and generation that you will not give them light if such a thing should happen as that i should outlive you i wish you would make me your literary legatee and executor surely after you are what is called dead
you ought to be i do not think we have a right to withhold from the world a word or a thought any more than a deed which might help a single soul truly yours helen jackson
the portfolios were found shortly after emily dickinson's death by her sister and only surviving housemate most of the poems had been carefully copied on sheets of note paper and tied in little fascicules each of six or eight sheets
while many of them bear evidence of having been thrown off at white heat still more had received thoughtful revision there is the frequent addition of rather perplexing foot notes affording large choice of words and phrases
without important exception her friends have generously placed at the disposal of the editors any poems they had received from her and these have given the obvious advantage of comparison among several renderings of the same verse
in a letter to one of the present editors the april following she says i made no verse but one or two until this winter the handwriting was at first somewhat like the delicate running italian hand of our elder gentlewomen
but as she advanced in breadth of thought it grew bolder and more abrupt until in her latest years each letter stood distinct and separate from its fellows in most of her poems particularly the later ones everything by way of punctuation was discarded except numerous dashes
and all important words began with capitals the effect of a page of her more recent manuscript is exceedingly quaint and strong the fac simile given in the present volume is from one of the earlier transition periods
although there is nowhere a date the handwriting makes it possible to arrange the poems with general chronologic accuracy as a rule the verses were without titles but a country burial a thunder storm the humming bird and a few others were named by their author frequently at the end
like impressionist pictures or wagner's rugged music the very absence of conventional form challenges attention in emily dickinson's exacting hands the especial intrinsic fitness of a particular order of words
and her verses all show a strange cadence of inner rhythmical music lines are always daringly constructed and the thought rhyme appears frequently appealing indeed to an unrecognized sense more elusive than hearing
emily dickinson scrutinized everything with clear eyed frankness every subject was proper ground for legitimate study even the sombre facts of death and burial and the unknown life beyond she touches these themes sometimes lightly sometimes almost humorously
more often with weird and peculiar power but she is never by any chance frivolous or trivial and while as one critic has said she may exhibit toward god an emersonian self possession it was because she looked upon all life with a candor as unprejudiced as it is rare
she had tried society and the world and found them lacking she was not an invalid and she lived in seclusion from no love disappointment her life was the normal blossoming of a nature introspective to a high degree whose best thought could not exist in pretence
storm wind the wild march sky sunsets and dawns the birds and bees butterflies and flowers of her garden with a few trusted human friends were sufficient companionship
the coming of the first robin was a jubilee beyond crowning of monarch or birthday of pope the first red leaf hurrying through the altered air an epoch immortality was close about her and while never morbid or melancholy she lived in its presence
mabel loomis todd amherst massachusetts august eighteen ninety one my nosegays are for captives dim long expectant eyes fingers denied the plucking patient till paradise
the first news that the world received of the earthquake came direct from san francisco and was confined largely to descriptions of the disaster which had overwhelmed that city
it was so sudden so appalling so tragic in its nature that for the time being it quite overshadowed the havoc and misery wrought in a number of other california towns of lesser note
as the truth however became gradually sifted out of the tangle of rumors the horror instead of being diminished was vastly increased
it became evident that instead of this being a local catastrophe the full force of the seismic waves had travelled from ukiah in the north to monterey in the south a distance of about one hundred eighty miles
and had made itself felt for a considerable distance from the pacific westward wrecking the larger buildings of every town in its path rending and ruining as it went and doing millions of dollars worth of damage
the destruction of santa rosa in santa rosa sixty miles to the north of san francisco and one of the most beautiful towns of california practically every building was destroyed or badly damaged
the brick and stone business blocks together with the public buildings were thrown down the court house hall of records the occidental and santa rosa hotels the athenaeum theatre the new masonic temple
odd fellows block all the banks everything went and in all the city not one brick or stone building was left standing except the california northwestern depot
in the residential portion of the city the foundations receded from under the houses badly wrecking about twenty of the largest and damaging every one more or less and here as in san francisco flames followed the earthquake
from the ruins of the fallen houses fifty eight bodies were taken out and interred during the first few days and the total of dead and injured was close to a hundred
the money loss at this small city is estimated at three million dollars the destruction of santa rosa gave rise to general sorrow among the residents of the interior of the state
it was one of the show towns of california and not only one of the most prosperous cities in the fine county of sonoma but one of the most picturesque in the state
surrounding it there were miles of orchards vineyards and corn fields the beautiful drives of the city were adorned with bowers of roses which everywhere were seen growing about the homes of the people
in its vicinity are the famous gardens of luther burbank the california wizard but these fortunately escaped injury at san jose another very beautiful city of over twenty thousand population
not a single brick or stone building of two stories or over was left standing among those wrecked were the hall of justice just completed at a cost of three hundred thousand dollars the new high school
the presbyterian church and saint patrick's cathedral numbers of people were caught in the ruins and maimed or killed the death list appears to have been small but the property damage was not less than five million dollars
the agnew state insane asylum in the vicinity of san jose was entirely destroyed more than half the inmates being killed or injured the stanford university
about thirty miles south of san francisco felt the full force of the earthquake and was badly wrecked only two lives were lost as a result of the earthquake one of a student the other of a fireman
but eight students were injured more or less seriously the damage to the buildings is estimated by president jordan to amount to about four million dollars
the memorial church with its twelve marble figures of the apostles each weighing two tons was badly injured by the fall of its gothic spire which crashed through the roof and demolished much of the interior
the great entrance archway was split in twain and wrecked so too were the library the gymnasium and the power house a number of other buildings in the outer quadrangle and some of the small workshops were seriously damaged
encina hall and the inner quadrangle were practically uninjured and the bulk of the books collections and apparatus escaped damage
and one hundred fifty miles north of the capital escaped without injury not a single pane of glass being broken or a brick displaced in sacramento and no injury done in the other places
they lying eastward of the seat of serious earthquake activity los angeles and santa barbara escaped with a slight trembling stockton one hundred three miles north of san francisco
felt a severe shock and the santa fe bridge over the san joaquin river at this point settled several inches the only place in southern california that suffered was brawley
about one hundred buildings in the town and the surrounding valley being injured though none of them were destroyed the earthquake at other cities
at alameda on the bay opposite san francisco a score of chimneys were shaken down and other injuries done
railroad tracks were twisted and over six hundred feet of track of the oakland transit company's railway sank four feet the total damage done amounted to probably two hundred thousand dollars but no lives were lost
tomales a place of three hundred fifty inhabitants was left a pile of ruins at los panos several buildings were wrecked causing damage to the extent of seventy five thousand dollars but no lives were lost
at loma prieta the earthquake caused a mine house to slip down the side of a mountain ten men being buried in the ruins
fort bragg one of the principal lumbering towns in mendocino county was practically wiped out by fire following the earthquake but out of a population of five thousand only one was killed though scores were injured
the town of berkeley across the bay from san francisco suffered considerable damage from twisted structures fallen walls and broken chimneys
the greatest injury being in the collapse of the town hall and the ruin of the deaf and dumb asylum the university of california situated here was fortunate in escaping injury
it being reported that not a building was harmed in the slightest degree another public edifice of importance and interest in a different section of the state the famous lick astronomical observatory was equally fortunate
no damage being done to the buildings or the instruments at the state university salinas a town down the coast near monterey suffered severely
the place being to a large extent destroyed with an estimated loss of over one million dollars the spreckels sugar factory and a score of other buildings were reported ruined and a number of lives lost
during the succeeding week several other shocks of some strength were reported from this town thus the ruinous work of the earthquake stretched over a broad track of prosperous peaceful and happy country
embracing one of the best sections of california laying waste not only the towns in its path but doing much damage to ranch houses and country residences
strange manifestations of nature were reported from the interior where the ground was opened in many places like a ploughed field great rents in the earth were reported
and for many miles north from los angeles miniature geysers are said to have spouted volcano like streams of hot mud railroad tracks in some localities were badly injured sinking or lifting
and being put out of service until repaired in fact the ruinous effects of the earthquake immensely exceeded those of any similar catastrophe ever before known in the united states
shaken by earthquake swept by flames the water supply cut off by the breaking of the mains the authorities of the doomed city for a time stood appalled
what could be done to stay the fierce march of the flames which were sweeping resistlessly over palace and hovel alike over stately hall and miserable hut water was not to be had what was to take its place
nothing remained but to meet ruin with ruin to make a desert in the path of the fire and thus seek to stop its march they had dynamite gunpowder and other explosives and in the frightful exigency there was nothing else to be used
only for a brief interval did the authorities yield to the general feeling of helplessness then they aroused themselves to the demands of the occasion and prepared to do all in the power of man in the effort to arrest the conflagration
while the soldiers under general funston took military charge of the city squads of cavalry and troops of infantry patrolling the streets and guarding the sections that had not yet been touched by the flames
this was not all that was needed to be done from the barbary coast as the resort of the vicious and criminal classes was called hordes of wretches poured out as soon as night fell
seeking to slip through the guards and loot stores and rob the dead in the burning section orders were given to the soldiers to kill all who were engaged in such work and these orders were carried out
an associated press reporter saw three of these thieves shot and fatally wounded and doubtless others of them were similarly dealt with elsewhere a band of fire fighters was quickly organized by the mayor and chief of police
and the devoted firemen put themselves in the face of the flames determined to do their utmost to stay them in their course cut off from the use of their accustomed engines and water streams which might have been effective if brought into play at the beginning of the struggle
there was nothing to work with but the dynamite cartridge and the gunpowder mine and they set bravely to work to do what they could with these on every side the roar of explosions could be heard and the crash of falling walls came to the ear
while people were forced to leave buildings which still stood but which it was decided must be felled frequently a crash of stone and brick followed by a cloud of dust gave warning to pedestrians that destruction was going on in the forefront of the flames
and that travel in such localities was unsafe fighting the flames all through the night of wednesday and the morning of thursday this work went on hopelessly but resolutely
during the following day blasts could be heard in different sections at intervals of a few minutes and buildings not destroyed by fire were blown to atoms but over the gaps jumped the live flames
and the disheartened fire fighters were driven back step by step but they continued the work with little regard for their own safety and with unflinching desperation one instance of the peril they ran may be given
had placed a heavy charge of dynamite in a building at sixth and jesse streets for some reason it did not explode and he returned to relight the fuse thinking it had become extinguished
while he was in the building the explosion took place and he received injuries that seemed likely to prove fatal his skull being fractured and several bones broken while he was injured internally
in the early morning when the fire reached the municipal building on portsmouth square the nurses with the aid of soldiers got out fifty bodies which were in the temporary morgue and a number of patients from the receiving hospital
just after they reached the street with their gruesome charge a building was blown up and the flying bricks and splinters came falling upon them the nurses fortunately escaped harm but several of the soldiers were hurt
and had to be taken with the other patients to the out of doors presidio hospital the southern pacific hospital at fourteenth and missouri streets was among the buildings destroyed by dynamite the patients having been removed to places of safety
and the linda vista and the pleasanton two large family hotels on jones street in the better part of the city were also among those blown up to stay the progress of the conflagration the struggle against the fire
the fire had continued to creep onward and upward until it reached the summit of nob hill a district of splendid residences and threatened the handsome fairmount hotel
acting as a committee of public safety
they finally met in the north end police station on sacramento street and there entered actively upon their duties of seeking to check the progress of the flames maintain order in the city and control and direct the host of fugitives
many of whom still in a state of semi panic were moving helplessly to and fro and sadly needed wise counsels and a helping hand
the fire fighters meanwhile kept up their indefatigable work under the direction of the mayor and the chief of their department the engines almost from the start had proved useless from lack of water and were either abandoned or moved to the outlying districts
the cloud of despair grew darker still as the report spread that the city's supply of dynamite had given out no more dynamite
tears standing in his smoke smirched eyes no more dynamite o god no more dynamite we are lost moaned the throng that heard his despairing words a new supply of explosives so
at that hour the supply of the explosive exhausted and not a dozen streams of water being thrown in the entire fire zone the stunned firemen and the stupefied people stood helpless with their eyes fixed in despair upon the swiftly creeping flames
had all been like these the entire city would have been doomed but there were those at the head of affairs who never for a moment gave up their resolution
dynamite and giant powder were to be had in the presidio military reservation and a requisition upon the army authorities was made the louder reverberations as the day advanced and night came on showed that a fresh supply had been obtained
and that a new and determined campaign against the conflagration had been entered upon hitherto much of the work had been ignorantly and carelessly done
and by the hasty and premature use of explosives more harm than good had been occasioned as the fire continued to spread in spite of the heroic work of the fighting corps
the committee of safety called a meeting at noon on friday and decided to blow up all the residences on the east side of van ness avenue between golden gate and pacific avenues a distance of one mile
a fact which led to the idea that a safety line might be made here too broad for the flames to cross the firemen therefore although exhausted from over twenty four hours work and lack of food
determined to make a desperate stand at this point they declared that should the fire cross van ness avenue and the wind continue its earlier direction toward the west the destruction of san francisco would be virtually complete
the district west of van ness avenue and north of mc allister constitutes the finest part of the metropolis here are located all of the finer homes of the well to do and wealthier classes
and the resolution to destroy them was the last resort of desperation hundreds of police regiments of soldiers and scores of volunteers were sent into the doomed district to warn the people to flee
they heroically responded to the demand of law and went bravely on their way leaving their loved homes and trudging painfully over the pavements with the little they could carry away of their treasured possessions
the reply of a grizzled fire engineer standing at o'farrell street and van ness avenue beside a blackened engine may not have been as terse as that of hugo's guardsman at waterloo but the pathos of it must have been as great
we are waiting for it to come when it gets here we will make one more stand if it crosses van ness avenue the city is gone the savers of the city
yet the work now to be done was much too important to be left to the hands of untrained volunteers skilled engineers were needed men used to the scientific handling of explosives
and it was men of this kind who finally saved what is left to day of the city three men saved san francisco so far as any san francisco existed after the fire had worked its will
these three constituting the dynamite squad who faced and defied the demon at van ness avenue when the burning city seemed doomed and the flames lit the sky farther and farther to the west admiral mc calla
sent a trio of his most trusted men from mare island with orders to check the conflagration at any cost of property with them they brought a ton and a half of guncotton
the terrific power of the explosive was equal to the maniac determination of the fire captain mac bride was in charge of the squad chief gunner adamson placed the charges and the third gunner set them off
stationing themselves on van ness avenue which the conflagration was approaching with leaps and bounds from the burning business section of the city they went systematically to work and when they had ended a broad open space
occupied only by the dismantled ruins of buildings remained of what had been a long row of handsome and costly residences which
had been consigned to hideous ruin the thunderous detonations to which the terrified city listened all that dreadful friday night meant much to those whose ears were deafened by them a million dollars worth of property
noble residences and worthless shacks alike were blown to drifting dust but that destruction broke the fire and sent the raging flames back over their own charred path the whole east side of van ness avenue
from the golden gate to greenwich
was dynamited a block deep though most of the structures as yet had stood untouched by spark or cinder not one charge failed not one building stood upon its foundation
unless some second malicious miracle of nature should reverse the direction of the west wind by nine o'clock it was felt that the populous district to the west
was safe every pound of guncotton did its work and though the ruins burned it was but feebly from golden gate avenue north the fire crossed the wide street in but one place
there the flames were writhing up the walls before the dynamiters could reach the spot yet they made their way to the foundations carrying their explosives despite the furnace like heat
the charge had to be placed so swiftly and the fuse lit in such a hurry that the explosion was not quite successful from the trained viewpoint of the gunners but though the walls still stood
it was only an empty victory for the fire as bare brick and smoking ruins are poor food for flames captain mac bride's dynamiting squad had realized that a stand was hopeless except on van ness avenue
their decision thus coinciding with that of the authorities they could have forced their explosives farther in the burning section but not a pound of guncotton could be or was wasted
the ruined blocks of the wide thoroughfare formed a trench through the clustered structures that the conflagration wild as it was could not leap engines pumping brine through fort mason from the bay completed the little work that the guncotton had left
the desolate waste straight through the heart of the city remained a mute witness to the most heroic and effective work of the whole calamity three men did this and when their work was over and what stood of the city rested quietly for the first time
they departed as modestly as they had come they were ordered to save san francisco and they obeyed orders and captain mac bride and his two gunners made history on that dreadful night they stayed the march of the conflagration at that critical point
leaving it no channel to spread except along the wharf region in which its final force was spent one side of van ness avenue was gone the other remained the fire leaping the broad open space only feebly in a few places
where it was easily extinguished in this connection it is well to put on record an interesting circumstance this is that there is one place within pistol shot of san francisco that the earthquake did not touch
that did not lose a chimney or feel a tremor that spot is alcatraz island despite the fact that the island is covered with brick buildings brick forts and brick chimneys not a brick was loosened nor a crack made nor a quiver felt
an act of folly amounting to wickedness an afternoon of painfully constrained behavior an agreeable image of serene dignity an air of artificial constraint
an air of round eyed profundity an alarmed sense of strange responsibilities an almost excessive exactness
an ample and imposing structure an apostle of unworldly ardor an appreciable menace an ardent and gifted youth an arid dictum
an artful and malignant enemy an assumption entirely gratuitous an assumption which proved erroneous an atmosphere of sunny gaiety an attitude of passive impartiality
an authoritative and conclusive inquiry
an endless field for discussion an enervating and emasculating form of indulgence an ennobling and invigorating influence an entirely negligible quantity
an essentially grotesque and commonplace thing an eternal and imperishable example
an excessive refinement of feeling an expression at once confident and appealing an extensive and populous country an habitual steadiness and coolness of reflection an honest and unquestioning pride
an icy indifference an idle and unworthy action an ill assorted vocabulary an immeasurable advantage an imminent and overmastering peril
an imperturbable demeanor and steadiness of mind an implacable foe
an incongruous spectacle an incredible mental agility
an indomitable and unselfish soul an ineradicable love of fun and mystification an inevitable factor of human conduct
an inexhaustible copiousness and readiness of speech an insatiable appetite for trifles an insatiable voracity an inscrutable mystery
an intentional breach of politeness an interchange of civilities an intolerable deal of guesswork an involuntary gesture of remonstrance
an irritating and dangerous treatment an itching propensity for argument an object of indestructible interest an obnoxious member of society
an open and violent rupture an outburst of impassioned eloquence an unaccountable feeling of antipathy an unbecoming vehemence an undisciplined state of feeling
an unerring sense of humor an unparalleled and almost miraculous growth an unparalleled atrocity an unpatriotic and ignoble act
an unreasoning form of coercion an utterly vile and detestable spirit and now i address myself to my task and the like
ardently and enthusiastically convinced argued with immense force and feeling arrayed with scrupulous neatness arrogance and untutored haughtiness as an impartial bystander
as belated as they are fallacious as by a secret of freemasonry as odious as it is absurd as ridiculous as it was unnecessary
attained by rigorous self restraint attended by insuperable difficulties averted by some happy stroke of fortune await the sentence of impartial posterity
it is a curious fact it is a great pleasure to meet you it is a huge undertaking it is a most unfortunate affair it is a perfectly plain proposition
it is a rather melancholy thought it is a truth universally acknowledged it is all very inexcusable it is all very well for you to be philosophical it is altogether probable
it is an admirable way of putting it it is an error of taste it is an extreme case but the principle is sound it is an ingenious theory it is an uncommonly fine description
it is extremely interesting i can assure you it is for you to decide it is historically true it is i who should ask forgiveness it is incredible
it is indeed generous of you to suggest it it is inexplicable it is interesting as a theory it is literally impossible it is merely a mood it is most unfortunate
it is my deliberately formed opinion it is my opinion you are too conscientious it is nevertheless true it is not a matter of the slightest consequence it is not always fair to judge by appearances
it is not so unreasonable as you think it is often very misleading it is one of the grave problems of the day it is only a fancy of mine
it is perfectly defensible it is perfectly trite it is permissible to gratify such an impulse it is possible but i rather doubt it it is quite an easy matter
it is quite conceivable it is quite too absurd it is rather startling it is really impressive it is really most callous of you to laugh
it is sheer madness it is sickening and so insufferably arrogant it is simply a coincidence it is the most incomprehensible thing in the world
it is true i am grieved to say it is true none the less it is very amusing it is very far from being a fiction it is very good of you to do this for my pleasure
it is very ingenious it is very splendid of you it is wanton capriciousness it is your privilege to think so it's a difficult and delicate matter to discuss
it's a matter of immediate urgency it's absolute folly it's absurd it's impossible it's all nonsense it's as logical as it can be under the circumstances
it's been a strange experience for you it's deliciously honest it's going to be rather troublesome it's inconceivable that it should ever be necessary it's mere pride of opinion
it's my chief form of recreation it's not a matter of vast importance it's past my comprehension it's quite wonderful how logical and simple you make it it's really very perplexing
it's so charming of you to say that it's so kind of you to come it's such a bore having to talk about it it's the natural sequence it's too melancholy
it's very wonderful it makes it all quite interesting it may sound strange to you
it must be fascinating
it seems an age since we've last seen you it seems entirely wonderful to me it seems incredible it seems like a distracting dream it seems preposterous it seems the height of absurdity
it seems to me that you have a perfect right to do so it seems unspeakably funny to me it seems very ridiculous it shall be as you wish it should not be objectionable
it sounds plausible it sounds profoundly interesting it sounds rather appalling it sounds very alluring it strikes me as rather pathetic it was an unpardonable liberty
it was really an extraordinary experience it was so incredible it was the most amazing thing i ever heard it was very good of you to come out and join us
it will create a considerable sensation it will divert your thoughts from a mournful subject it will give me pleasure to do it it will not alter my determination it would be ill advised
s sacrificed to a futile sort of treadmill sadness prevailed among her moods scorched with the lightning of momentary indignation scorning such paltry devices
scotched but not slain scrupulous morality of conduct seem to swim in a sort of blurred mist before the eyes seething with suppressed wrath seize on greedily
sensuous enjoyment of the outward show of life serenity beamed from his look serenity of paralysis and death seriousness lurked in the depths of her eyes
set anew in some fresh and appealing form setting all the sane traditions at defiance shadowy vistas of sylvan beauty she affected disdain she assented in precisely the right terms
she bandies adjectives with the best she challenged his dissent she cherished no petty resentments she curled her fastidious lip she curled her lip with defiant scorn
she did her best to mask her agitation
she fell into a dreamy silence she fell into abstracted reverie she felt herself carried off her feet by the rush of incoherent impressions she flushed an agitated pink
she forced a faint quivering smile she frowned incomprehension she had an air of restrained fury she had an undercurrent of acidity she hugged the thought of her own unknown and unapplauded integrity
she lingered a few leisurely seconds she nodded mutely she nourished a dream of ambition she permitted herself a delicate little smile she poured out on him the full opulence of a proud recognition
she regarded him stonily out of flint blue eyes she sat eyeing him with frosty calm she seemed the embodiment of dauntless resolution she seemed wrapped in a veil of lassitude she shook hands grudgingly
she softened her frown to a quivering smile she spoke with hurried eagerness she spoke with sweet severity she stilled and trampled on the inward protest she stood her ground with the most perfect dignity
she strangled a fierce tide of feeling that welled up within her she swept away all opposing opinion with the swift rush of her enthusiasm she thrived on insincerity she twitted him merrily
she was both weary and placated she was conscious of a tumultuous rush of sensations she was demure and dimly appealing she was exquisitely simple she was gripped with a sense of suffocation and panic
she was in an anguish of sharp and penetrating remorse she was oppressed by a dead melancholy she was stricken to the soul she wore an air of wistful questioning sheer superfluity of happiness
sickening contrasts and diabolic ironies of life silence fell singing lustily as if to exorcise the demon of gloom skirmishes and retreats of conscience
slender experience of the facts of life slope towards extinction slow the movement was and tortuous slowly disengaging its significance from the thicket of words
so innocent in her exuberant happiness soar into a rosy zone of contemplation softened by the solicitude of untiring and anxious love solitary and sorely smitten souls
some dim remembered and dream like images some exquisite refinement in the architecture of the brain some flash of witty irrelevance something curiously suggestive and engaging
something full of urgent haste something indescribably reckless and desperate in such a picture something that seizes tyrannously upon the soul sore beset by the pressure of temptation
specious show of impeccability spectacular display of wrath spur and whip the tired mind into action stale and facile platitudes
startled into perilous activity startling leaps over vast gulfs of time stem the tide of opinion stern emptying of the soul stimulated to an ever deepening subtlety
stirred into a true access of enthusiasm stony insensibility to the small pricks and frictions of daily life strange capacities and suggestions both of vehemence and pride
strange laughings and glitterings of silver streamlets stripped to its bare skeleton
struck dumb with strange surprise stung by his thoughts and impatient of rest stung by the splendor of the prospect subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty
sublime indifference to contemporary usage and taste submission to an implied rebuke subtle indications of great mental agitation subtle suggestions of remoteness
such things as the eye of history sees such was the petty chronicle suddenly a thought shook him suddenly overawed by a strange delicious shyness
suddenly smitten with unreality suddenly snuffed out in the middle of ambitious schemes suffered to languish in obscurity sugared remonstrances and cajoleries
suggestions of veiled and vibrant feeling summer clouds floating feathery overhead sunk in a phraseological quagmire sunk into a gloomy reverie
sunny silence broods over the realm of little cottages supreme arbiter of conduct susceptibility to fleeting impressions
b bandied to and fro based on a fundamental error beguile the tedium of the journey bemoaning and bewailing his sad fortune beset with external dangers
betrayed into deplorable error bewildering multiplication of details beyond the dreams of avarice blended with courage and devotion blind leaders of the blind
blunt the finer sensibilities blustering desire for publicity bound up with impossibilities and absurdities breathed an almost exaggerated humility
brief ventures of kindliness brilliant display of ingenious argument bring odium upon the individual brisk directness of speech brutal recognition of failure
bursts of unpremeditated frankness but delusions and phantasmagoria but that is beside the mark but this is a digression
by a curious perversity of fate by a happy turn of thinking
by common consent by means of crafty insinuations by no means inconsolable by temperament incompatible by the common judgment of the thinking world
by the sheer centripetal force of sympathy by virtue of a common understanding by way of rejoinder c calculated to create disgust
calm strength and constancy capable of a severe scientific treatment capacity for urbanity and moderation carried into port by fair winds
caught unawares by a base impulse ceaseless tramp of humanity censured for his negligence championing the cause of religious education chastened and refined by experience
checked by the voice of authority cherished the amiable illusion cherishing a huge fallacy childishly inaccurate and absurd chivalrous loyalty and high forbearance
clever and captivating eloquence coarse and glittering ostentation coherent and continuous trend of thought commended by perfect suavity
common ground of agreement complicated and infinitely embittered conceded from a sense of justice conceived with imperfect knowledge concentrated and implacable resolve
conditions of unspeakable humiliation conducive to well being and efficiency confused rumblings presaging a different epoch constrained by the sober exercise of judgment
consumed by a demon of activity continuous and stubborn disregard contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment couched in terms of feigned devotion credulous and emotionally extravagant
creed of incredulity and derision
dazzled by their novelty and brilliance debased by common use deep essentials of moral grandeur deeply engrossed in congenial work deeply moved as well as keenly stung
deeply rooted in the heart of humanity defiant of analysis and rule degenerate into comparative feebleness degenerated into deadness and formality
degrading and debasing curiosity deliberate and cautious reflection delicacy of perception and quick tact delude many minds into acquiescence
dictated by an overweening partiality differ in degree only and not in kind
diffusing beneficent results dignified by deliberation and privacy dimly implying some sort of jest discreditable and insincere support
disdaining the guidance of reason disenchanting effect of time and experience disfigured by glaring faults disguised in sentimental frippery dispel all anxious concern
displayed enormous power and splendor distinguish themselves by their eccentricities distracted by contending desires diversity of mind and temperament
divested of all personal feelings dogged and shameless beyond all precedent dominated by no prevailing taste or fashion doomed by inexorable fate doomed to impermanence and transiency
draw back in distrust and misgiving dreaded and detested rival driven towards disaffection and violence due to historical perspective dull and trite commonplaces
part five miscellaneous subjects
the nonexistence of evil the true explanation of this subject is very difficult know that beings are of two kinds material and spiritual
those perceptible to the senses and those intellectual things which are sensible are those which are perceived by the five exterior senses thus
those outward existences which the eyes see are called sensible intellectual things are those which have no outward existence but are conceptions of the mind
for example mind itself is an intellectual thing which has no outward existence all man's characteristics and qualities form an intellectual existence
evil is simply their nonexistence so ignorance is the want of knowledge error is the want of guidance forgetfulness is the want of memory
stupidity is the want of good sense all these things have no real existence in the same way the sensible realities are absolutely good
and evil is due to their nonexistence that is to say blindness is the want of sight deafness is the want of hearing poverty is the want of wealth illness is the want of health
death is the want of life and weakness is the want of strength nevertheless a doubt occurs to the mind that is scorpions and serpents are poisonous
are they good or evil for they are existing beings yes a scorpion is evil in relation to man a serpent is evil in relation to man
but in relation to themselves they are not evil for their poison is their weapon and by their sting they defend themselves
but as the elements of their poison do not agree with our elements that is to say as there is antagonism between these different elements therefore this antagonism is evil
but in reality as regards themselves they are good the epitome of this discourse is that it is possible that one thing in relation to another may be evil
he created good this evil is nothingness so death is the absence of life when man no longer receives life he dies darkness
is the absence of light when there is no light there is darkness light is an existing thing but darkness is nonexistent wealth is an existing thing
but poverty is nonexisting then it is evident that all evils return to nonexistence good exists evil is nonexistent
know that there are two kinds of torment subtile and gross for example ignorance itself is a torment but it is a subtile torment
indifference to god is itself a torment so also are falsehood cruelty and treachery all the imperfections are torments but they are subtile torments
certainly for an intelligent man death is better than sin and a cut tongue is better than lying or calumny the other kind of torment is gross such as penalties
imprisonment beating expulsion and banishment but for the people of god separation from god is the greatest torment of all
the justice and mercy of god know that to do justice is to give to everyone according to his deserts for example
when a workman labors from morning until evening justice requires that he shall be paid his wages but when he has done no work and taken no trouble he is given a gift this
is bounty if you give alms and gifts to a poor man although he has taken no trouble for you nor done anything to deserve it this is bounty
so christ besought forgiveness for his murderers this is called bounty now the question of the good or evil of things is determined by reason or by law
regard them as matters of law not of reason thus
that it is unlawful to partake of meat and butter together because it is taref and taref in hebrew means unclean as kosher means clean this
they say is a question of law and not of reason but the theologians think that the good and evil of things depend upon both reason and law
treachery falsehood hypocrisy and cruelty is reason every intelligent man comprehends that murder theft treachery falsehood hypocrisy and cruelty
according to reason is evil and reprehensible if he commits a murder he will be responsible whether the renown of the prophet has reached him or not
for it is reason that formulates the reprehensible character of the action when a man commits this bad action he will surely be responsible
but in a place where the commands of a prophet are not known and where the people do not act in conformity with the divine instructions such as the command of christ to return good for evil
but act according to the desires of nature that is if they torment those who torment them from the point of view of religion they are excused because the divine command has not been delivered to them
though they do not deserve mercy and beneficence nevertheless god treats them with mercy and forgives them now vengeance according to reason is also blameworthy
because through vengeance no good result is gained by the avenger so if a man strikes another and he who is struck takes revenge by returning the blow what advantage will he gain
will this be a balm for his wound or a remedy for his pain no god forbid in truth the two actions are the same both are injuries
the only difference is that one occurred first
the law of the community will punish the aggressor but will not take revenge this punishment has for its end to warn to protect and to oppose
cruelty and transgression so that other men may not be tyrannical but if he who has been struck pardons and forgives he shows the greatest mercy
the right method of treating criminals question should a criminal be punished
there are two sorts of retributory punishments one is vengeance the other chastisement man has not the right to take vengeance
but the community has the right to punish the criminal and this punishment is intended to warn and to prevent so that no other person will dare to commit a like crime
this punishment is for the protection of man's rights but it is not vengeance vengeance appeases the anger of the heart by opposing one evil to another this is not allowable
for man has not the right to take vengeance but if criminals were entirely forgiven the order of the world would be upset so punishment is one of the essential necessities
the communities must punish the oppressor the murderer the malefactor so as to warn and restrain others from committing like crimes but the most essential thing
is that the people must be educated in such a way that no crimes will be committed for it is possible to educate the masses so effectively that they will avoid and shrink from perpetrating crimes
so that the crime itself will appear to them as the greatest chastisement the utmost condemnation and torment therefore no crimes which require punishment will be committed
we must speak of things that are feasible for example if someone oppresses injures and wrongs another and the wronged man retaliates this is vengeance and is censurable
zayd has not the right to kill the son of amr if he does so this is vengeance if amr dishonors zayd the latter has not the right to dishonor amr if he does so
this is vengeance and it is very reprehensible no rather he must return good for evil and not only forgive but also if possible be of service to his oppressor
this conduct is worthy of man for what advantage does he gain by vengeance the two actions are equivalent if one action is reprehensible both are reprehensible
the only difference is that one was committed first the other later but the community has the right of defense and of self protection moreover
the community has no hatred nor animosity for the murderer it imprisons or punishes him merely for the protection and security of others it is not for the purpose of taking vengeance upon the murderer
but for the purpose of inflicting a punishment by which the community will be protected if the community and the inheritors of the murdered one were to forgive and return good for evil
the community has no ill will and rancor in the infliction of punishment and it does not desire to appease the anger of the heart its purpose is by punishment to protect others
so also justice is one of the attributes of the lord the tent of existence is upheld upon the pillar of justice and not upon forgiveness
for example if the governments of europe had not withstood the notorious attila he would not have left a single living man some people are like bloodthirsty wolves
if they see no punishment forthcoming they will kill men merely for pleasure and diversion one of the tyrants of persia killed his tutor merely for the sake of making merry for mere fun and sport
the abbasid having summoned his ministers councillors and functionaries to his presence let loose a box full of scorpions in the assembly
the constitution of the communities depends upon justice not upon forgiveness then what christ meant by forgiveness and pardon is not that
when nations attack you burn your homes plunder your goods assault your wives children and relatives and violate your honor you should be submissive in the presence of these tyrannical foes
and allow them to perform all their cruelties and oppressions no the words of christ refer to the conduct of two individuals toward each other if one person assaults another
the injured one should forgive him but the communities must protect the rights of man so if someone assaults injures oppresses and wounds me
i will offer no resistance and i will forgive him
although for the malefactor noninterference is apparently a kindness it would be an oppression to man sh adi
if at this moment a wild arab were to enter this place with a drawn sword wishing to assault wound and kill you most assuredly i would prevent him
if i abandoned you to the arab that would not be justice but injustice but if he injure me personally i would forgive him one thing remains to be said
it is that the communities are day and night occupied in making penal laws and in preparing and organizing instruments and means of punishment they build prisons make chains and fetters
arrange places of exile and banishment and different kinds of hardships and tortures and think by these means to discipline criminals whereas in reality they are causing destruction of morals
to cause them day by day to progress and to increase in science and knowledge to acquire virtues to gain good morals and to avoid vices so that crimes may not occur
at the present time the contrary prevails the community is always thinking of enforcing the penal laws and of preparing means of punishment instruments of death and chastisement
places for imprisonment and banishment and they expect crimes to be committed this has a demoralizing effect but if the community would endeavor to educate the masses
in all these classes of perfections there would be progress and there would be fewer crimes it has been ascertained that among civilized peoples crime
is less frequent than among uncivilized that is to say among those who have acquired the true civilization which is divine civilization
consider how often murder occurs among the barbarians of africa they even kill one another in order to eat each other's flesh and blood
is merely an attorney while a civil servant sleeps from ten to four every day and is only waked up at sixty in order to be given a pension
but there is no humorous comment to be made upon the barrister unless it is to call him my learned friend he has much more right than the actor to claim to be a member of the profession
i don't know why perhaps it is because he walks about the temple in a top hat so many of one's acquaintances at some time or other have eaten dinners
that one hardly dares to say anything against the profession besides one never knows when one may not want to be defended however i shall take the risk and put the barrister in the dock
gentlemen of the jury observe this well dressed gentleman before you what shall we say about him let us begin by asking ourselves what we expect
from a profession in the first place certainly we expect a living but i think we want something more than that
if we were offered a thousand a year to walk from charing cross to barnet every day reasons of poverty might compel us to accept the offer
but we should hardly be proud of our new profession we should prefer to earn a thousand a year by doing some more useful work indeed to a man of any fine feeling
the profession of barnet walking would only be tolerable if he could persuade himself that by his exertions he was helping to revive the neglected art of pedestrianism
or to make more popular the neglected beauties of barnet if he could hope that after his three hundredth journey inquisitive people would begin to follow him wondering what he was after
he would have to persuade himself that he was walking not only for himself but also for the community it seems to me then
that a profession is a noble or an ignoble one according as it offers or denies to him who practises it the opportunity of working for some other end than his own advancement
a doctor collects fees from his patients but he is aiming at something more than pounds shillings and pence he is out to put an end to suffering a schoolmaster
is giving a message to the world expressing the truth as he sees it for his own profit perhaps but not for that alone
all these and a thousand other ways of living have something of nobility in them we enter them full of high resolves
we fail of course the painter finds that mother's darling brings in the stuff and he turns out mother's darlings mechanically
but it is not because the profession is an ignoble one we had our chances indeed the light is still there for those who look it beckons to us
now what of the bar is the barrister after anything other than his own advancement he follows what gleam what are his ideals
never mind whether he fails more often or less often than others to attain them i am not bothering about that i only want to know what it is that he is after
in the quiet hours when we are alone with ourselves and there is nobody to tell us what fine fellows we are we come sometimes upon a weak moment in which we wonder
not how much money we are earning nor how famous we are becoming but what good we are doing if a barrister ever has such a moment what is his consolation
becomes a better fighter against disease advancing himself no doubt but advancing also medical science just as the schoolmaster having learnt new and better ways of teaching
that the more expert he becomes as an advocate the better will he be able to help in the administration of this justice which is his ideal can he tell himself this
will be the better served by reason of it let us take a case smith versus jones counsel is briefed for smith after examining the case he tells himself in effect this
but only about his own victory what ultimately then is he after what does the bar offer its devotees beyond material success
i asked just now what were a barrister's ideals suppose we ask instead what is the ideal barrister if one spoke loosely of an ideal doctor
one would not necessarily mean a titled gentleman in harley street an ideal schoolmaster is not synonymous with the headmaster of eton or the owner of the most profitable preparatory school
but can there be an ideal barrister other than a successful barrister the eager young writer just beginning a literary career might
fix his eyes upon francis thompson rather than upon sir hall caine the eager young clergyman might dream dreams over the life of father damien more often than over the life of the archbishop of canterbury
it is only because he thinks that perhaps after all sir john simon's manner is the more effective there may be other answers to the questions i have asked
than the answers i have given but it is no answer to ask me how the law can be administered without barristers i do not know nor do i know how the roads can be swept
without getting somebody to sweep them but that would not disqualify me from saying that road sweeping was an unattractive profession
so also i am entitled to my opinion about the bar which is this that because it offers material victories only and never spiritual ones
that because there can be no standard by which its disciples are judged save the earthly standard that because there is no place within its ranks for the altruist or the idealist
he was an almost perfect type of the petty small town middle class lawyer he lived in panama pennsylvania he had never been captain of anything except the crescent volunteer fire company
but he owned the title because he collected rents wrote insurance and meddled with lawsuits he carried a quite visible mustache comb and wore a collar but no tie
on warm days he appeared on the street in his shirt sleeves and discussed the comparative temperatures of the past thirty years with doctor smith and the mansion house bus driver
he never used the word beauty except in reference to a setter dog beauty of words or music of faith or rebellion did not exist for him he rather fancied large ambitious
banal red and gold sunsets but he merely glanced at them as he straggled home and remarked that they were nice
were immoral his entire system of theology was comprised in the bible which he never read and the methodist church which he rarely attended
and he desired no system of economics beyond the current platform of the republican party he was aimlessly industrious crotchety but kind and almost quixotically honest
he believed that panama pennsylvania was good enough for anybody this last opinion was not shared by his wife nor by his daughter una
missus golden was one of the women who aspire just enough to be vaguely discontented not enough to make them toil at the acquisition of understanding and knowledge
she had floated into a comfortable semi belief in a semi christian science and she read novels with a conviction that she would have been a romantic person if she hadn't married mister golden
not but what he's a fine man and very bright and all but he hasn't got much imagination or any well romance she wrote poetry about spring and neighborhood births
and captain golden admired it so actively that he read it aloud to callers she attended all the meetings of the panama study club and desired to learn french
though she never went beyond borrowing a french grammar from the episcopalian rector and learning one conjugation but in the pioneer suffrage movement she took no part she didn't think it was quite ladylike
she was a poor cook and her house always smelled stuffy but she liked to have flowers about she was pretty of face frail of body genuinely gracious of manner
she really did like people liked to give cookies to the neighborhood boys and if you weren't impatient with her slackness you found her a wistful and touching figure in her slight youthfulness
and in the ambition to be a romantic personage a marie antoinette or a missus grover cleveland which ambition she still retained at fifty five
and if they were refused let her lips droop in a manner which only a brute could withstand she plaintively admired her efficient daughter una
una golden was a good little woman not pretty not noisy not particularly articulate but instinctively on the inside of things
naturally able to size up people and affairs she had common sense and unkindled passion
with a healthy woman's simple longing for love and life at twenty four una had half a dozen times fancied herself in love she had been embraced at a dance
and felt the stirring of a desire for surrender but always a native shrewdness had kept her from agonizing over these affairs she was not and will not be a misunderstood genius
an undeveloped artist an embryonic leader in feminism nor an ugly duckling who would put on a georgette hat and captivate the theatrical world she was an untrained ambitious
thoroughly commonplace small town girl but she was a natural executive and she secretly controlled the golden household kept captain golden from eating with his knife and her mother from becoming drugged
with too much reading of poppy flavored novels she wanted to learn learn anything but the goldens were too respectable to permit her to have a job
and too poor to permit her to go to college from the age of seventeen when she had graduated from the high school in white ribbons and heavy new boots and tight new organdy to twenty three
she had kept house and gone to gossip parties and unmethodically read books from the town library walter scott richard le gallienne harriet beecher stowe missus humphry ward
how to know the birds my year in the holy land home needlework sartor resartus and ships that pass in the night her residue of knowledge from reading them
was a disbelief in panama pennsylvania she was likely never to be anything more amazing than a mother and wife who would entertain the honiton embroidery circle twice a year
these glasses made a business like center to her face you felt that without them she would have been too childish her mouth was as kind as her spirited eyes but it drooped
her body was so femininely soft that you regarded her as rather plump but for all her curving hips and the thick ankles which she considered common she was rather anemic
her cheeks were round not rosy but clear and soft her lips a pale pink her chin was plucky and undimpled it was usually spotted with one or two unimportant eruptions
which she kept so well covered with powder that they were never noticeable no one ever thought of them except una herself to whom they were tragic blemishes which she timorously examined in the mirror
but they kept startling her anew she would secretly touch them with a worried forefinger and wonder whether men were able to see anything else in her face
you remembered her best as she hurried through the street in her tan mackintosh with its yellow velveteen collar turned high up and one of those modest round hats to which she was addicted
she trusted in the village ideal of virginal vacuousness as the type of beauty which most captivated men though every year she was more shrewdly doubtful of the divine superiority of these men
a good name a number of debts and eleven hundred dollars in lodge insurance the funeral was scarcely over before neighbors the furniture man the grocer the polite old homeopathic doctor
all right minded persons agree that a good name is precious beyond rubies but una would have preferred less honor and more rubies
she was so engaged in comforting her mother that she scarcely grieved for her father she took charge of everything money house bills
to wear black and look wan she sobbed on una's shoulder she said that she was lonely and una sturdily comforted her and looked for work
devoting all of her curiosity all of her youth to a widowed mother of small pleasantries a small income and a shabby security thirty comes and thirty five the daughter ages steadily
at forty she is as old as her unwithering mother sweet she is and pathetically hopeful of being a pianist or a nurse never quite reconciled to spinsterhood
though she often laughs about it often by her insistence that she is an old maid she makes the thought of her barren age embarrassing to others the mother is sweet too
or be content to stay alone had she acquired interests she might have meant something in the new generation but the time for revolt passes
however much the daughter may long to seem young among younger women the mother is usually unconscious of her selfishness she would be unspeakably horrified if some brutal soul told her that she was a vampire
chance chance and waste rule them both and the world passes by while the mother has her games of cards with daughter and deems herself unselfish because now and then she lets daughter join a party
only to hasten back to mother and even wonders why daughter doesn't take an interest in girls her own age that ugly couple on the porch of the apple sauce and wash pitcher boarding house
the mother a mute dwarfish punchinello and the daughter a drab woman of forty with a mole a wart a silence that charming mother of white hair and real lace with the well groomed daughter
that comfortable mother at home and daughter in an office but with no suitors no ambition beyond the one at home they are all examples of the mother and daughter phenomenon
that most touching most destructive example of selfless unselfishness which robs all the generations to come because mother has never been trained to endure the long long thoughts of solitude
because she sees nothing by herself and within herself hears no diverting voice there were many such mothers and daughters in panama
if they were wealthy daughter collected rents and saw lawyers and belonged to a club and tried to keep youthful at parties if middle class daughter taught school almost invariably
if poor mother did the washing and daughter collected it so it was marked down for una that she should be a teacher not that she wanted to be a teacher
after graduating from high school she had spent two miserable terms of teaching in the small white district school four miles out on the bethlehem road
she hated the drive out and back the airless room and the foul outbuildings the shy stupid staring children the jolly little arithmetical problems about wall paper piles of lumber
the amount of time that notoriously inefficient workmen will take to do a certain piece of work una was honest enough to know that she was not an honest teacher
that she neither loved masses of other people's children nor had any ideals of developing the new generation but she had to make money of course she would teach
when she talked over affairs with her tearful mother missus golden always ended by suggesting i wonder if perhaps you couldn't go back to school teaching again
everybody said you were so successful and maybe i could get some needlework to do i do want to help so much missus golden did apparently really want to help
but she never suggested anything besides teaching and she went on recklessly investing in the nicest mourning meantime una tried to find other work in panama
seen from a balloon panama is merely a mole on the long hill slopes but to una its few straggly streets were a whole cosmos
she knew somebody in every single house she knew just where the succotash the cake boxes the clothes lines were kept in each of the grocery stores and on market saturdays
she could wait on herself she summed up the whole town and its possibilities and she wondered what opportunities the world out beyond panama had for her she recalled two trips to philadelphia
and one to harrisburg she made out a list of openings with such methodical exactness as she devoted to keeping the dwindling lodge insurance from disappearing altogether
hers was no poetic outreach like that of the young genius who wants to be off for bohemia it was a question of earning money in the least tedious way
una was facing the feminist problem without knowing what the word feminist meant this was her list of fair fields of fruitful labor
she could and probably would teach in some hen coop of pedagogy she could marry but no one seemed to want her except old henry carson the widower
who called on her and her mother once in two weeks and would propose whenever she encouraged him to this she knew scientifically she had only to sit beside him on the sofa
let her hand drop down beside his but she positively and ungratefully didn't want to marry henry and listen to his hawking and his grumbling for the rest of her life
sooner or later one of the boys might propose but in a small town it was all a gamble
there weren't so very many desirable young men most of the energetic ones went off to philadelphia and new york true that jennie mc tevish had been married at thirty one
when everybody had thought she was hopelessly an old maid yet here was birdie mayberry unmarried at thirty four no one could ever understand why for she had been the prettiest and jolliest girl in town
she could go off and study music law medicine elocution or any of that amazing hodge podge of pursuits which are permitted to small town women
but she really couldn't afford to do any of these and besides she had no talent for music of a higher grade than sousa and victor herbert she was afraid of lawyers
blood made her sick and her voice was too quiet for the noble art of elocution as practised by several satin waisted semi artistic ladies who gave readings
she could have a job selling dry goods behind the counter in the hub store but that meant loss of caste she could teach dancing but she couldn't dance particularly well
and that was all that she could do she had tried to find work as office woman for doctor mayberry the dentist in the office of the panama wood turning company in the post office
as lofty enthroned cashier for the hub store painting place cards and making fancy work for the art needlework exchange
the job behind the counter in the hub store was the only one offered her if i were only a boy sighed una
i could go to work in the hardware store or on the railroad or anywhere and not lose respectability
squire updegraff the real estate and insurance man that her experience with captain golden would make her a perfect treasure in the office squire updegraff had leaped up at her entrance and blared
well well and how is the little girl making it he had set out a chair for her and held her hand but he knew that her only experience with her father's affairs had been an effort to balance captain golden's account books
which were works of genius in so far as they were composed according to the inspirational method so there was nothing very serious in their elaborate discussion of giving una a job
it was her last hope in panama she went disconsolately down the short street between the two story buildings and the rows of hitched lumber wagons nellie page the town belle
tripping by in canvas sneakers and a large red hair ribbon shouted at her and charlie martindale of the first national bank nodded to her but these exquisites were too young for her
they danced too well and laughed too easily the person who stopped her for a long curbstone conference about the weather while most of the town observed and gossiped was the fateful henry carson
miss mattie pugh drove by returning from district school miss mattie had taught at clark's crossing for seventeen years had grown meek and meager and hopeless
heavens thought una would she have to be shut into the fetid barn of a small school unless she married henry i won't be genteel
a cataract of protest poured through her all the rest of her life she would have to meet that doddering old mister mosely who was unavoidably bearing down on her now
and be held by him in long meaningless talks and there was nothing amusing to do she was so frightfully bored she suddenly hated the town hated every evening she would have to spend there
reading newspapers and playing cards with her mother and dreading a call from mister henry carson she wanted wanted some one to love to talk with
why had she discouraged the beautiful charlie martindale the time he had tried to kiss her at a dance charlie was fatuous but he was young and she wanted yes
yes that was it she wanted youth she who was herself so young and she would grow old here unless some one one of these godlike young men condescended to recognize her
grow old among these streets like piles of lumber she charged into the small white ambling golden house with its peculiar smell of stale lamb gravy
and on the old broken couch where her father had snored all through every bright sunday afternoon she sobbed feebly she raised her head to consider a noise overhead
the faint domestic thunder of a sewing machine shaking the walls with its rhythm the machine stopped she heard the noise of scissors dropped on the floor the most stuffily domestic sound in the world
the airless house was crushing her she sprang up and then she sat down again there was no place to which she could flee henry carson and the district school were menacing her
and meantime she had to find out what her mother was sewing whether she had again been wasting money in buying mourning poor poor little mother working away happy up there
and i've got to go and scold you una agonized oh i want to earn money i want to earn real money for you she saw a quadrangle of white on the table behind a book
she pounced on it it was a letter from missus sessions and una scratched it open excitedly mister and missus albert sessions of panama had gone to new york
mister sessions was in machinery they liked new york they lived in a flat and went to theaters missus sessions was a pillowy soul whom una trusted why don't you
wrote missus sessions if you don't find the kind of work you want in panama think about coming up to new york and taking stenography there are lots of chances here for secretaries et cetera
una carefully laid down the letter she went over and straightened her mother's red wool slippers she wanted to postpone for an exquisite throbbing moment
the joy of announcing to herself that she had made a decision she would go to new york become a stenographer a secretary to a corporation president a rich woman free
responsible the fact of making this revolutionary decision so quickly gave her a feeling of power of already being a business woman
she galloped up stairs to the room where her mother was driving the sewing machine mumsie she cried we're going to new york i'm going to learn to be a business woman
and the little mother will be all dressed in satin and silks and dine on what is it and peaches and cream the poem don't come out right but oh my little mother we're going out adventuring we are
she plunged down beside her mother burrowed her head in her mother's lap kissed that hand whose skin was like thinnest wrinkly tissue paper
has some one sent for us is it the letter from emma sessions what did she say in it she suggested it but we are going up independent but can we afford to
and the heart of england it is today rich luxuriant slow
save more than to play a trick or two on the hounds that blinked in the sun down toward stratford there are flat islands covered with sedge long rows of weeping willows low hazel hawthorn and places where green grow the rushes o
then if the farmer leaves a spot untilled the dogrose pre empts the place and showers its petals on the vagrant winds
the first glimpse we get of stratford is the spire of holy trinity then comes the tower of the new memorial theater which by the way is exactly like the city hall at dead horse colorado
stratford is just another village of niagara falls the same shops the same guides the same hackmen all are there save poor lo with his beadwork and sassafras
in fact a cabby just outside of new place offered to take me to the whirlpool and the canada side for a dollar at least this is what i thought he said of course it is barely possible that i was daydreaming
but i think the facts are that it was he who dozed and waking suddenly as i passed gave me the wrong cue there is a macbeth livery stable a falstaff bakery and all the shops and stores keep othello this and hamlet that
i saw briarwood pipes with shakespeare's face carved on the bowl all for one and six feather fans with advice to the players printed across the folds the seven ages on handkerchiefs and souvenir spoons galore all warranted gorham's best
the visitor at the birthplace is given a cheerful little lecture on the various relics and curiosities as they are shown the young ladies who perform this office are clever women with pleasant voices and big starched white aprons
i was at stratford four days and went just four times to the old curiosity shop each day the same bright british damsel conducted me through and told her tale but it was always with animation and a certain sweet satisfaction in her mission and starched apron that was very charming
no man can tell the same story over and over without soon reaching a point where he betrays his weariness and then he flavors the whole with a dash of contempt but a good woman heaven bless her is ever eager to please
i was told that it was very probable that judith could write but that she affixed her name thus in merry jest john shakespeare could not write we have no reason to suppose that ann hathaway could
the age of miracles is past or that bit of jolly claptrap concerning the sacred baboons that are seen about certain temples in india they can talk explain the priests but being wise they never do
judith married thomas quiney the only letter addressed to shakespeare that can be found is one from the happy father of thomas mister richard quiney wherein he asks for a loan of thirty pounds
whether he was accommodated we can not say and if he was did he pay it back is a question that has caused much hot debate but it is worthy of note that although considerable doubt as to authenticity has smooched the other shakespearian relics
yet the fact of the poet having been struck for a loan by richard quiney stands out in a solemn way as the one undisputed thing in the master's career little did mister quiney think when he wrote that letter that he was writing for the ages
philanthropists have won all by giving money but who save quiney has reaped immortality by asking for it the inscription over shakespeare's grave is an offer of reward if you do and a threat of punishment if you don't all in choice doggerel
why did he not learn at the feet of sir thomas lucy and write his own epitaph but i rather guess i know why his grave was not marked with his name he was a play actor and the church people would have been outraged at the thought of burying a strolling player in that sacred chancel
but his son in law doctor john hall honored the great man and was bound he should have a worthy resting place so at midnight with the help of a few trusted friends he dug the grave and lowered the dust of england's greatest son
then they hastily replaced the stones and over the grave they placed the slab that they had brought good friend for jesus sake forbear to dig the dust enclosed here blest be the man who spares these stones and cursed be he who moves my bones
a threat from a ghost ah no one dare molest that grave besides they didn't know who was buried there neither are we quite sure long years after the interment some one set a bust of the poet
and a tablet on the wall over against the grave under certain circumstances if occasion demands i might muster a sublime conceit but considering the fact that ten thousand americans visit stratford every year
and all write descriptions of the place i dare not in the face of baedeker do it further than that in every library there are washington irving hawthorne and william winter's three lacrimose but charming volumes
and i am glad to remember that the columbus who discovered stratford and gave it to the people was an american i am proud to think that americans have written so charmingly of shakespeare i am proud to know that at stratford no man besides the master is as honored as irving
and while i can not restrain a blush for our english cousins i am proud that over half the visitors at the birthplace are americans and prouder still am i to remember that they all write letters to the newspapers at home about stratford on avon
in england poets are relegated to a corner the earth and the fulness thereof belongs to the men who can kill on this rock have the english state and church been built
as the tourist approaches the city of london for the first time there are four monuments that probably will attract his attention they lift themselves out of the fog and smoke and soot and seem to struggle toward the blue
one of these monuments is to commemorate a calamity the conflagration of sixteen hundred sixty six and the others are in honor of deeds of war
the finest memorial in saint paul's is to a certain eminent irishman arthur wellesley the mines and quarries of earth have been called on for their richest contributions and talent and skill have given their all to produce this enduring work of beauty
that tells posterity of the mighty acts of this mighty man the rare richness and lavish beauty of the wellington mausoleum
as an exploiter the corsican overdid the thing a bit so the world arose and put him down but safely dead his shade can boast a grave so sumptuous that englishmen in paris refuse to look upon it but england need not be ashamed
her land is spiked with glistening monuments to greatness gone and on these monuments one often gets the epitomized life of the man whose dust lies below on the carved marble to lord cornwallis i read that
he defeated the americans with great slaughter and so wherever in england i see a beautiful monument
and one grows to the belief that while woman's glory is her hair man's glory is to defeat some one and if he can defeat with great slaughter his monument is twice as high as if he had only visited on his brother man a plain undoing
in truth i am told by a friend who has a bias for statistics that all monuments above fifty feet high in england are to the honor of men who have defeated other men with great slaughter the only exceptions to this rule are the albert memorial
and a monument to a worthy brewer who died and left three hundred thousand pounds to charity i mentioned this fact to my friend but he unhorsed me by declaring that modesty forbade carving truth on monuments
yet it was a fact that the brewer too had brought defeat to vast numbers and had like saul slaughtered his thousands when i visited the site of the globe theater and found thereon a brewery
whose shares are warranted to make the owner rich beyond the dream of avarice i was depressed in my boyhood i had supposed that if ever i should reach this spot where shakespeare's plays were first produced
while some white haired old patriarch would greet me and give a little lecture to the assembled pilgrims on the great man whose footsteps had made sacred the soil beneath our feet
but there is no park and no monument and no white haired old poet to give you welcome only a brewery ay mon but ain't ut a big un protested an englishman who heard my murmurs yes
yes i must be truthful it is a big brewery and there are four big bulldogs in the courtway and there are big vats and big workmen in big aprons and each of these workmen is allowed to drink six quarts of beer each day without charge
which proves that kindliness is not dead then there are big horses that draw the big wagons and on the corner there is a big taproom where the thirsty are served with big glasses the founder of this brewery became rich
and if my statistical friend is right the owners of these mighty vats have defeated mankind with great slaughter we have seen that although napoleon the defeated has a more gorgeous tomb than wellington who defeated him
yet there is consolation in the thought that although england has no monument to shakespeare he now has the freedom of elysium while the present address of the british worthies who have battened and fattened on poor humanity's thirst for strong drink
since samuel johnson was executor of thrale's estate is unknown we have this on the authority of a solid englishman who says
the virtues essential and peculiar to the exalted station of british worthy debar the unfortunate possessor from entering paradise there is not a lord chancellor or lord mayor or lord of the chamber or master of the hounds
or beefeater in ordinary or any sort of british bigwig out of the whole of british beadledom upon which the sun never sets in elysium this is the only dignity beyond their reach
the writer quoted is an honorable man and i am sure he would not make this assertion if he did not have proof of the fact so for the present i will allow him to go on his own recognizance
but still should not england have a fitting monument to shakespeare he is her one universal citizen his name is honored in every school or college of earth where books are prized
there is no scholar in any clime who is not his debtor he was born in england he never was out of england his ashes rest in england but england's budget has never been ballasted with a single pound
to help preserve inviolate the memory of her one son to whom the world uncovers victor hugo has said something on this subject which runs about like this why a monument to shakespeare
he is his own monument and england is its pedestal shakespeare has no need of a pyramid he has his work what can bronze or marble do for him malachite and alabaster are of no avail
jasper serpentine basalt porphyry granite
they are all a waste of pains genius can do without them what is as indestructible as these the tempest the winter's tale julius caesar coriolanus
what monument sublimer than lear sterner than the merchant of venice more dazzling than romeo and juliet
what moon could shed about the pile a light more mystic than that of a midsummer night's dream what capital were it even in london could rumble around it as tumultuously as macbeth's perturbed soul
what framework of cedar or oak will last as long as othello what bronze can equal the bronze of hamlet no construction of lime or rock of iron and of cement is worth the deep breath of genius
which is the respiration of god through man what edifice can equal thought babel is less lofty than isaiah cheops is smaller than homer the colosseum is inferior to juvenal
saint peter's of rome does not reach to the ankle of dante what architect has the skill to build a tower so high as the name of shakespeare add anything if you can to mind then why a monument to shakespeare
i answer
it is a melancholy of mine own compounded of many simples extracted from many objects and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness
i have on several occasions been to the shakespeare country approaching it from different directions but each time i am set down at leamington perhaps this is by some act of parliament i really do not know
anyway i have ceased to kick against the pricks and now meekly accept my fate leamington seems largely under subjection to that triumvirate of despots the butler the coachman and the gardener
you hear the jingle of keys the flick of the whip and the rattle of the lawnmower and a cold secret fear takes possession of you a sort of half frenzied impulse to flee before smug modernity takes you captive and whisks you off to play tiddledywinks
or to dance the racquet but the tram is at the door the outside fare is a penny inside it's two and we are soon safe
warwick is worth our while for here we see scenes such as shakespeare saw and our delight is in the things that his eyes beheld at the foot of mill street are the ruins of the old gothic bridge that leads off to banbury
and when i saw that sign and pointing finger i felt like leaving all and flying thence just beyond the bridge settled snugly in a forest of waving branches we see storied old warwick castle with caesar's tower lifting itself from the mass of green
all about are quaint old houses and shops with red tiled roofs and little windows with diamond panes hung on hinges where maidens fair have looked down on brave men in coats of mail
these narrow stony streets have rung with the clang and echo of hurrying hoofs the tramp of royalist and parliamentarian horse and foot drum and banner the stir of princely visits
of mail coach market assize and kingly court colbrand armed with giant club sir guy richard neville kingmaker and his barbaric train all trod these streets watered their horses in this river
camped on yonder bank or huddled in this castle yard and again they came back when will shakespeare a youth from stratford eight miles away came here and waved his magic wand
warwick castle is probably in better condition now than it was in the sixteenth century but practically it is the same it is the only castle in england where the portcullis is lowered at ten o'clock every night and raised in the morning
if the coast happens to be clear to tap of drum it costs a shilling to visit the castle a fine old soldier in spotless uniform with waxed white moustache and dangling sword conducts the visitors
he imparts full two shillings worth of facts as we go all with a fierce roll of r's as becomes a man of war the long line of battlements the massive buttresses the angular entrance cut through solid rock
crooked abrupt with places where fighting men can lie in ambush all is as shakespeare knew it there are the cedars of lebanon brought by crusaders from the east and the screaming peacocks in the paved courtway and
in the great hall are to be seen the sword and accouterments of the fabled guy the mace of the kingmaker the helmet of cromwell and the armor of lord brooke killed at litchfield and that shakespeare saw these things there is no doubt
but he saw them as a countryman who came on certain fete days and stared with open mouth we know this because he has covered all with the glamour of his rich boyish imagination
that failed to perceive the cruel mockery of such selfish pageantry had his view been from the inside he would not have made his kings noble nor his princes generous
and from his brain the dazzling pictures would have fled yet his fancies serve us better than the facts shakespeare shows us many castles
when he pictures macbeth's castle he has warwick in his inward eye this castle hath a pleasant seat the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses
this guest of summer the temple haunting martlet does approve by his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath smells wooingly here no jutty frieze buttress nor coign of vantage but this bird hath made his pendent bed
and procreant cradle where they most breed and haunt i have observed the air is delicate five miles from warwick ten if you believe the cab drivers are the ruins of kenilworth castle
in fifteen hundred seventy five when shakespeare was eleven years of age queen elizabeth came to kenilworth whether her ticket was by way of leamington i do not know but she remained from july ninth to july twenty seventh
and there were great doings most every day to which the yeomanry were oft invited john shakespeare was a worthy citizen of warwickshire and it is very probable that he received an invitation and that he drove over with mary arden his wife
sitting on the front seat holding the baby and all the other seven children sitting on the straw behind and we may be sure that the eldest boy in that brood never forgot the day
in fact in midsummer night's dream he has called on his memory for certain features of the show elizabeth was forty one years old then but apparently very attractive and glib of tongue
no doubt kenilworth was stupendous in its magnificence and it will pay you to take down from its shelf sir walter's novel and read about it but today it is all a crumbling heap ivy rooks and daws hold the place in fee
each pushing hard for sole possession it is eight miles from warwick to stratford by the direct road but ten by the river i have walked both routes and consider the latter the shorter two miles down the river is barford
and a mile farther is wasperton with its quaint old stone church it is a good place to rest for nothing is so soothing as a cool church where the dim light streams through colored windows and out of sight somewhere an organ softly plays
soon after leaving the church a rustic swain hailed me and asked for a match the pipe and the virginia weed they mean amity the world over if i had questions to ask now was the time so i asked
and rusticus informed me that hampton lucy was only a mile beyond and that shakespeare never stole deer at all so i hope we shall hear no more of that libelous accusation but did shakespeare run away i demanded
and come to think of it rusticus is right most great men have at some time departed hastily without leaving orders where to forward their mail indeed it seems necessary that a man should have run away at least once
in order afterward to attain eminence moses lot tarquin pericles demosthenes saint paul shakespeare rousseau voltaire goldsmith hugo but the list is too long to give
but just suppose that shakespeare had not run away and to whom do we owe it that he did leave justice shallow or ann hathaway or both i should say to ann first and his honor second
i think if shakespeare could write an article for the ladies home journal on women who have helped me and tell the whole truth as no man ever will in print he would put ann hathaway first
he signed a bond when eighteen years old agreeing to marry her she was twenty six no record is found of the marriage but we should think of her gratefully for no doubt it was she who started the lad off for london
that's the way i expressed it to my new found friend and he agreed with me so we shook hands and parted charlcote is as fair as a dream of paradise
past the bright red brick pile of charlcote mansion the river bank is lined with rushes and in one place i saw the prongs of antlers shaking the elders
i sent a shrill whistle and a stick that way and out ran four fine deer that loped gracefully across the turf the sight brought my poacher instincts to the surface but i bottled them and trudged on until i came to the little church that stands at the entrance to the park
all mansions castles and prisons in england have chapels or churches attached and this is well for in the good old days it seemed wise to keep in close communication with the other world for often on short notice
or if he did not go himself he compelled others to do so and who but a brute would kill a man without benefit of the clergy so each estate hired its priests by the year just as men with a taste for litigation hold attorneys in constant retainer
in charlcote church is a memorial to sir thomas lucy and there is a glowing epitaph that quite upsets any of those taunting and defaming allusions in the merry wives
at the foot of the monument is a line to the effect that the inscription thereon was written by the only one in possession of the facts sir thomas himself several epitaphs in the churchyard are worthy of space in your commonplace book
struck me as having the true ring farewell proud vain false treacherous world we have seen enough of thee we value not what thou canst say of we
when the charlcote mansion was built there was a housewarming and good queen bess who was not so awful good came in great state so we see that she had various calling acquaintances in these parts
but we have no proof that she ever knew that any such person as w shakespeare lived however she came to charlcote and dined on venison and what a pity it is that she and shakespeare did not meet in london afterward and talk it over
some hasty individual has put forth a statement to the effect that poets can only be bred in a mountainous country where they could lift up their eyes to the hills rock and ravine beetling crag singing cascade
and the heights where the lightning plays and the mists hover are certainly good timber for poetry after you have caught your poet but nature eludes all formula again it is the human interest that adds vitality to art
chapter one how the city jerusalem was taken and the temple pillaged by antiochus epiphanes as also concerning the actions of the maccabees matthias and judas
had a quarrel with the sixth ptolemy about his right to the whole country of syria a great sedition fell among the men of power in judea and they had a contention about obtaining the government while each of those that were of dignity could not endure to be subject to their equals
complied with them and came upon the jews with a great army and took their city by force and slew a great multitude of those that favored ptolemy and sent out his soldiers to plunder them without mercy
he also spoiled the temple and put a stop to the constant practice of offering a daily sacrifice of expiation for three years and six months
or with its pillage or with the great slaughter he had made there but being overcome with his violent passions and remembering what he had suffered during the siege he compelled the jews to dissolve the laws of their country and to keep their infants uncircumcised
and to sacrifice swine's flesh upon the altar
till at length he provoked the poor sufferers by the extremity of his wicked doings to avenge themselves three accordingly matthias the son of asamoneus one of the priests who lived in a village called modin armed himself
and thereupon out of the fear of the many garrisons of the enemy he fled to the mountains and so many of the people followed him that he was encouraged to come down from the mountains and to give battle to antiochus's generals
when he beat them and drove them out of judea so he came to the government by this his success and became the prince of his own people by their own free consent and then died leaving the government to judas his eldest son four
now judas supposing that antiochus would not lie still gathered an army out of his own countrymen and was the first that made a league of friendship with the romans and drove epiphanes out of the country when he had made a second expedition into it
and this by giving him a great defeat there and when he was warmed by this great success he made an assault upon the garrison that was in the city for it had not been cut off hitherto so he ejected them out of the upper city
five so this antiochus got together fifty thousand footmen and five thousand horsemen and fourscore elephants and marched through judea into the mountainous parts he then took bethsura which was a small city
and with military trappings of gold to guard him and supposing that antiochus himself was upon him he ran a great way before his own army and cutting his way through the enemy's troops he got up to the elephant
now he that governed the elephant was but a private man and had he proved to be antiochus
nay this disappointment proved an omen to his brother judas how the entire battle would end it is true that the jews fought it out bravely for a long time but the king's forces being superior in number and having fortune on their side obtained the victory
and when a great many of his men were slain judas took the rest with him and fled to the toparchy of gophna so antiochus went to jerusalem and staid there but a few days for he wanted provisions and so he went his way
he left indeed a garrison behind him such as he thought sufficient to keep the place but drew the rest of his army off to take their winter quarters in syria six now after the king was departed judas was not idle
for as many of his own nation came to him so did he gather those that had escaped out of the battle together and gave battle again to antiochus's generals at a village called adasa and being too hard for his enemies in the battle and killing a great number of them
he was at last himself slain also nor was it many days afterward that his brother john had a plot laid against him by antiochus's party and was slain by them chapter two concerning the successors of judas
who were jonathan and simon and john hyrcanus one when jonathan who was judas's brother succeeded him he behaved himself with great circumspection in other respects with relation to his own people
and he corroborated his authority by preserving his friendship with the romans he also made a league with antiochus the son yet was not all this sufficient for his security for the tyrant trypho who was guardian to antiochus's son laid a plot against him
yet could not he make the king ashamed of his ambition though he had assisted him in killing trypho
he also laid a great many men in ambush in many places of the mountains and was superior in all his attacks upon them and when he had been conqueror after so glorious a manner he was made high priest and also freed the jews from the dominion of the macedonians
after one hundred and seventy years of the empire of seleucus three this simon also had a plot laid against him and was slain at a feast by his son in law ptolemy who put his wife and two sons into prison and sent some persons to kill john who was also called hyrcanus
but was repelled by the people who had just then admitted of hyrcanus so he retired presently to one of the fortresses that were about jericho which was called dagon now when hyrcanus had received the high priesthood which his father had held before
he made great haste to attack ptolemy that he might afford relief to his mother and brethren four so he laid siege to the fortress and was superior to ptolemy in other respects but was overcome by him as to the just affection he had for his relations
for when ptolemy was distressed he brought forth his mother and his brethren and set them upon the wall and beat them with rods in every body's sight and threatened that unless he would go away immediately he would throw them down headlong
at which sight hyrcanus's commiseration and concern were too hard for his anger but his mother was not dismayed neither at the stripes she received nor at the death with which she was threatened
the year of rest came on upon which the jews rest every seventh year as they do on every seventh day on this year therefore ptolemy was freed from being besieged and slew the brethren of john with their mother and fled to zeno
who was tyrant of philadelphia five and now antiochus was so angry at what he had suffered from simon that he made an expedition into judea and sat down before jerusalem and besieged hyrcanus
six however at another time when antiochus was gone upon an expedition against the medes and so gave hyrcanus an opportunity of being revenged upon him he immediately made an attack upon the cities of syria as thinking what proved to be the case with them
so he took medaba and samea with the towns in their neighborhood as also shechem and gerizzim and besides these he subdued the nation of the cutheans who dwelt round about that temple which was built in imitation of the temple at jerusalem
he also took a great many other cities of idumea with adoreon and marissa seven
and shut the multitude again within the wall and when they had taken the city they demolished it and made slaves of its inhabitants and as they had still great success in their undertakings they did not suffer their zeal to cool
but marched with an army as far as scythopolis and made an incursion upon it and laid waste all the country that lay within mount carmel eight but then these successes of john and of his sons made them be envied
and administered the government after a most extraordinary manner and this for thirty three entire years together he died leaving five sons behind him he was certainly a very happy man
alexandra reigns nine years during which time the pharisees were the real rulers of the nation one
and had thereby got the good will of the people nor was he mistaken as to his expectations for this woman kept the dominion by the opinion that the people had of her piety for she chiefly studied the ancient customs of her country
and cast those men out of the government that offended against their holy laws and as she had two sons by alexander she made hyrcanus the elder high priest on account of his age as also besides that on account of his inactive temper
no way disposing him to disturb the public but she retained the younger aristobulus with her as a private person by reason of the warmth of his temper two and now the pharisees joined themselves to her to assist her in the government
and seem to interpret the laws more accurately low alexandra hearkened to them to an extraordinary degree as being herself a woman of great piety towards god but these pharisees artfully insinuated themselves into her favor
by little and little and became themselves the real administrators of the public affairs they banished and reduced whom they pleased they bound and loosed men at their pleasure
they had the enjoyment of the royal authority whilst the expenses and the difficulties of it belonged to alexandra she was a sagacious woman in the management of great affairs and intent always upon gathering soldiers together so that she increased the army the one half
and procured a great body of foreign troops till her own nation became not only very powerful at home but terrible also to foreign potentates while she governed other people and the pharisees governed her three accordingly
a person of figure and one that had been a friend to alexander and accused him as having assisted the king with his advice for crucifying the eight hundred men before mentioned
now she was so superstitious as to comply with their desires and accordingly they slew whom they pleased themselves but the principal of those that were in danger fled to aristobulus who persuaded his mother to spare the men on account of their dignity
but to expel them out of the city unless she took them to be innocent so they were suffered to go unpunished and were dispersed all over the country but when alexandra sent out her army to damascus
and besieged cleopatra five
four in the mean time alexandra fell sick and aristobulus her younger son took hold of this opportunity with his domestics of which he had a great many who were all of them his friends on account of the warmth of their youth
and got possession of all the fortresses he also used the sums of money he found in them to get together a number of mercenary soldiers and made himself king and besides this upon hyrcanus's complaint to his mother she compassionated his case
just as the other cities sebaste and agrippias had their names changed and these given them from sebastus and agrippa but alexandra died before she could punish aristobulus for his disinheriting his brother after she had reigned nine years
chapter six when hyrcanus who was alexander's heir receded from his claim to the crown aristobulus is made king and afterward the same hyrcanus by the means of antipater is brought back by abetas
at last pompey is made the arbitrator of the dispute between the brothers one now hyrcanus was heir to the kingdom and to him did his mother commit it before she died but aristobulus was superior to him in power and magnanimity
and hyrcanus retired to the house of aristobulus two now those other people which were at variance with aristobulus were afraid upon his unexpected obtaining the government and especially this concerned antipater
on account of his ancestors and riches and other authority to him belonging he also persuaded hyrcanus to fly to aretas the king of arabia and to lay claim to the kingdom as also he persuaded aretas to receive hyrcanus and to bring him back to his kingdom
he also cast great reproaches upon aristobulus as to his morals and gave great commendations to hyrcanus and exhorted aretas to receive him
to afford his assistance to such as are injured alleging that hyrcanus was treated unjustly by being deprived of that dominion which belonged to him by the prerogative of his birth and when he had predisposed them both to do what he would have them he took hyrcanus by night
and ran away from the city and continuing his flight with great swiftness he escaped to the place called petra which is the royal seat of the king of arabia where he put hyrcanus into aretas's hand and by discoursing much with him
and gaining upon him with many presents he prevailed with him to give him an army that might restore him to his kingdom this army consisted of fifty thousand footmen and horsemen against which aristobulus was not able to make resistance
but was deserted in his first onset and was driven to jerusalem he also had been taken at first by force if scaurus the roman general had not come and seasonably interposed himself and raised the siege
this scaurus was sent into syria from armenia by pompey the great when he fought against tigranes so scaurus came to damascus which had been lately taken by metellus and lollius and caused them to leave the place
and upon his hearing how the affairs of judea stood he made haste thither as to a certain booty three as soon therefore as he was come into the country there came ambassadors from both the brothers each of them desiring his assistance
but aristobulus's three hundred talents had more weight with him than the justice of the cause which sum when scaurus had received he sent a herald to hyrcanus and the arabians and threatened them with the resentment of the romans and of pompey unless they would raise the siege
and slew about six thousand of them and together with them antipater's brother phalion four when hyrcanus and antipater were thus deprived of their hopes from the arabians they transferred the same to their adversaries
and because pompey had passed through syria and was come to damascus they fled to him for assistance and without any bribes they made the same equitable pleas that they had used to aretas and besought him to hate the violent behavior of aristobulus
and to bestow the kingdom on him to whom it justly belonged both on account of his good character and on account of his superiority in age however neither was aristobulus wanting to himself in this case as relying on the bribes that scaurus had received
he was also there himself and adorned himself after a manner the most agreeable to royalty that he was able but he soon thought it beneath him to come in such a servile manner and could not endure to serve his own ends in a way so much more abject than he was used to
but many of his syrian auxiliaries and marched against aristobulus but when he had passed by pella and scythopolis and was come to corea where you enter into the country of judea when you go up to it through the mediterranean parts
he heard that aristobulus was fled to alexandrium which is a strong hold fortified with the utmost magnificence and situated upon a high mountain and he sent to him and commanded him to come down now his inclination was to try his fortune in a battle
since he was called in such an imperious manner rather than to comply with that call however he saw the multitude were in great fear
and when he went up to the citadel it was that he might not appear to debase himself too low however pompey commanded him to give up his fortified places and forced him to write to every one of their governors to yield them up
and retired to jerusalem and prepared to fight with pompey six
and after he had put his mother and brother to death died himself
one for after the death of their father the elder of them aristobulus changed the government into a kingdom and was the first that put a diadem upon his head four hundred seventy and one years and three months
after our people came down into this country when they were set free from the babylonian slavery now of his brethren he appeared to have an affection for antigonus who was next to him and made him his equal but for the rest he bound them and put them in prison
he also put his mother in bonds for her contesting the government with him for john had left her to be the governess of public affairs he also proceeded to that degree of barbarity as to cause her to be pined to death in prison two
but vengeance circumvented him in the affair of his brother antigonus whom he loved and whom he made his partner in the kingdom for he slew him by the means of the calumnies which ill men about the palace contrived against him
however as antigonus came once in a splendid manner from the army to that festival wherein our ancient custom is to make tabernacles for god it happened in those days that aristobulus was sick and that at the conclusion of the feast
and told him in what a pompous manner the armed men came and with what insolence antigonus marched and that such his insolence was too great for a private person and that accordingly he was come with a great band of men to kill him
when it was in his power to take the kingdom himself three now aristobulus by degrees and unwillingly gave credit to these accusations and accordingly he took care not to discover his suspicion openly
though he provided to be secure against any accidents so he placed the guards of his body in a certain dark subterranean passage for he lay sick in a place called formerly the citadel though afterwards its name was changed to antonia
and he gave orders that if antigonus came unarmed they should let him alone but if he came to him in his armor they should kill him
but upon this occasion the queen very cunningly contrived the matter with those that plotted his ruin for she persuaded those that were sent to conceal the king's message but to tell antigonus how his brother had heard
he had got a very the suit of armor made with fine martial ornaments in galilee and because his present sickness hindered him from coming and seeing all that finery he very much desired to see him now in his armor because said he
in a little time thou art going away from me four as soon as antigonus heard this the good temper of his brother not allowing him to suspect any harm from him he came along with his armor on to show it to his brother
but when he was going along that dark passage which was called strato's tower he was slain by the body guards and became an eminent instance how calumny destroys all good will and natural affection and how none of our good affections are strong enough to resist envy perpetually
five and truly any one would be surprised at judas upon this occasion he was of the sect of the essens and had never failed or deceived men in his predictions before now this man saw antigonus as he was passing along by the temple
and the place where he ought to be slain according to that fatal decree was strato's tower which is at the distance of six hundred furlongs from this place and yet four hours of this day are over already
which still appeared hereupon a lamentable cry arose among the spectators as if the servant had spilled the blood on purpose in that place and as the king heard that cry he inquired what was the cause of it and while nobody durst tell him
so i perceive i am not like to escape the all seeing eye of god as to the great crimes i have committed but the vengeance of the blood of my kinsman pursues me hastily o thou most impudent body
what actions were done by alexander janneus who reigned twenty seven years one and now the king's wife loosed the king's brethren and made alexander king who appeared both elder in age and more moderate in his temper than the rest
now it happened that there was a battle between him and ptolemy who was called lathyrus who had taken the city asochis he indeed slew a great many of his enemies but the victory rather inclined to ptolemy but when this ptolemy was pursued by his mother cleopatra
and retired into egypt alexander besieged gadara and took it
alexander recovered this blow and turned his force towards the maritime parts and took raphia and gaza with anthedon also which was afterwards called agrippias by king herod three
but when he had made slaves of the citizens of all these cities the nation of the jews made an insurrection against him at a festival for at those feasts seditions are generally begun and it looked as if he should not be able to escape the plot they had laid for him
had not his foreign auxiliaries the pisidians and cilicians assisted him for as to the syrians he never admitted them among his mercenary troops on account of their innate enmity against the jewish nation
and when he had slain more than six thousand of the rebels he made an incursion into arabia and when he had taken that country together with the gileadires and moabites he enjoined them to pay him tribute
and when he had made his escape to jerusalem he provoked the multitude which hated him before to make an insurrection against him and this on account of the greatness of the calamity that he was under however he was then too hard for them
and in the several battles that were fought on both sides he slew not fewer than fifty thousand of the jews in the interval of six years
since he did but consume his own kingdom till at length he left off fighting and endeavored to come to a composition with them by talking with his subjects but this mutability and irregularity of his conduct made them hate him still more
at the same time they invited demetrius
and as he readily complied with their requests in hopes of great advantages
while the adverse party had three thousand horsemen and fourteen thousand footmen now before they joined battle the kings made proclamation and endeavored to draw off each other's soldiers and make them revolt
while demetrius hoped to induce alexander's mercenaries to leave him and alexander hoped to induce the jews that were with demetrius to leave him but since neither the jews would leave off their rage nor the greeks prove unfaithful they came to an engagement
and to a close fight with their weapons in which battle demetrius was the conqueror although alexander's mercenaries showed the greatest exploits both in soul and body yet did the upshot of this battle prove different from what was expected as to both of them
for neither did those that invited demetrius to come to them continue firm to him though he was conqueror and six thousand jews out of pity to the change of alexander's condition when he was fled to the mountains came over to him
yet could not demetrius bear this turn of affairs but supposing that alexander was already become a match for him again and that all the nation would at length run to him
the rest of the jewish multitude did not lay aside their quarrels with him when the foreign auxiliaries were gone but they had a perpetual war with alexander until he had slain the greatest part of them and driven the rest into the city berneselis and when he had demolished that city
he carried the captives to jerusalem nay his rage was grown so extravagant that his barbarity proceeded to the degree of impiety for when he had ordered eight hundred to be hung upon crosses in the midst of the city he had the throats of their wives and children cut before their eyes
this man was the brother of demetrius and the last of the race of the seleucidae
alexander was afraid of him when he was marching against the arabians so he cut a deep trench between antipatris which was near the mountains and the shores of joppa he also erected a high wall before the trench
and built wooden towers in order to hinder any sudden approaches but still he was not able to exclude antiochus for he burnt the towers and filled up the trenches and marched on with his army and as he looked upon taking his revenge on alexander
eight about this time it was that the people of damascus out of their hatred to ptolemy the son of menhens invited aretas to take the government and made him king of celesyria this man also made an expedition against judea
and beat alexander in battle but afterwards retired by mutual agreement but alexander when he had taken pella marched to gerasa again
and when he had built a triple wall about the garrison he took the place by force he also demolished golan and seleucia and what was called the valley of antiochus besides which he took the strong fortress of gamala
stepan arkadyevitch was a truthful man in his relations with himself he was incapable of deceiving himself and persuading himself that he repented of his conduct he could not at this date repent of the fact that he
a handsome susceptible man of thirty four was not in love with his wife the mother of five living and two dead children and only a year younger than himself
but he felt all the difficulty of his position and was sorry for his wife his children and himself
a worn out woman no longer young or good looking and in no way remarkable or interesting merely a good mother ought from a sense of fairness to take an indulgent view it had turned out quite the other way oh it's awful
and he could think of nothing to be done
how well we got on she was contented and happy in her children i never interfered with her in anything i let her manage the children and the house just as she liked it's true it's bad her having been a governess in our house that's bad there's something common
vulgar in flirting with one's governess but what a governess
but after all while she was in the house i kept myself in hand and the worst of it all is that she's already it seems as if ill luck would have it so
there was no solution but that universal solution which life gives to all questions even the most complex and insoluble
one must live in the needs of the day that is forget oneself to forget himself in sleep was impossible now at least till nighttime he could not go back now to the music sung by the decanter women so he must forget himself in the dream of daily life
and getting up he put on a gray dressing gown lined with blue silk tied the tassels in a knot and drawing a deep breath of air into his broad bare chest he walked to the window with his usual confident step
turning out his feet that carried his full frame so easily he pulled up the blind and rang the bell loudly it was at once answered by the appearance of an old friend
are there any papers from the office asked stepan arkadyevitch taking the telegram and seating himself at the looking glass on the table replied matvey glancing with inquiring sympathy at his master and after a short pause he added with a sly smile
they've sent from the carriage jobbers stepan arkadyevitch made no reply he merely glanced at matvey in the looking glass in the glance in which their eyes met in the looking glass it was clear that they understood one another stepan arkadyevitch's eyes asked
why do you tell me that don't you know matvey put his hands in his jacket pockets thrust out one leg and gazed silently good humoredly with a faint smile at his master i told them to come on sunday and till then not to trouble you or themselves for nothing he said
he had obviously prepared the sentence beforehand stepan arkadyevitch saw matvey wanted to make a joke and attract attention to himself tearing open the telegram he read it through guessing at the words misspelt as they always are in telegrams and his face brightened
matvey my sister anna arkadyevna will be here tomorrow he said checking for a minute the sleek plump hand of the barber cutting a pink path through his long curly whiskers thank god said matvey showing by this response that he like his master
realized the significance of this arrival that is that anna arkadyevna the sister he was so fond of might bring about a reconciliation between husband and wife alone or with her husband inquired matvey
stepan arkadyevitch could not answer as the barber was at work on his upper lip and he raised one finger matvey nodded at the looking glass alone is the room to be got ready upstairs inform darya alexandrovna where she orders
darya alexandrovna matvey repeated as though in doubt yes inform her here take the telegram give it to her and then do what she tells you you want to try it on matvey understood but he only said yes sir
stepan arkadyevitch was already washed and combed and ready to be dressed when matvey stepping deliberately in his creaky boots
laughing only with his eyes and putting his hands in his pockets he watched his master with his head on one side stepan arkadyevitch was silent a minute then a good humored and rather pitiful smile showed itself on his handsome face
eh matvey he said shaking his head it's all right sir she will come round said matvey come round yes sir do you think so who's there asked stepan arkadyevitch hearing the rustle of a woman's dress at the door it's i
said a firm pleasant woman's voice and the stern pockmarked face of matrona philimonovna the nurse was thrust in at the doorway well what is it matrona queried stepan arkadyevitch
although stepan arkadyevitch was completely in the wrong as regards his wife and was conscious of this himself almost every one in the house even the nurse darya alexandrovna's chief ally was on his side
go to her sir own your fault again maybe god will aid you she is suffering so it's sad to see her
come that'll do you can go said stepan arkadyevitch blushing suddenly well now do dress me he turned to matvey and threw off his dressing gown decisively
darya alexandrovna in a dressing jacket and with her now scanty once luxuriant and beautiful hair fastened up with hairpins on the nape of her neck with a sunken thin face and large startled eyes
which looked prominent from the thinness of her face was standing among a litter of all sorts of things scattered all over the room before an open bureau from which she was taking something hearing her husband's steps she stopped looking towards the door
and trying assiduously to give her features a severe and contemptuous expression she felt she was afraid of him and afraid of the coming interview
to sort out the children's things and her own so as to take them to her mother's and again she could not bring herself to do this but now again as each time before she kept saying to herself that things cannot go on like this
that she must take some step to punish him put him to shame avenge on him some little part at least of the suffering he had caused her she still continued to tell herself that she should leave him but she was conscious that this was impossible it was impossible because
she could not get out of the habit of regarding him as her husband and loving him besides this she realized that if even here in her own house she could hardly manage to look after her five children properly they would be still worse off where she was going with them all
as it was even in the course of these three days the youngest was unwell from being given unwholesome soup and the others had almost gone without their dinner the day before she was conscious that it was impossible to go away but cheating herself she went on all the same sorting out her things
seeing her husband she dropped her hands into the drawer of the bureau as though looking for something and only looked round at him when he had come quite up to her but her face to which she tried to give a severe and resolute expression
betrayed bewilderment and suffering dolly he said in a subdued and timid voice he bent his head towards his shoulder and tried to look pitiful and humble but for all that he was radiant with freshness and health
in a rapid glance she scanned his figure that beamed with health and freshness yes he is happy and content she thought while i and that disgusting good nature which every one likes him for and praises i hate that good nature of his she thought her mouth stiffened
the muscles of the cheek contracted on the right side of her pale nervous face what do you want she said in a rapid deep unnatural voice dolly he repeated with a quiver in his voice
well what is that to me i can't see her she cried
as though this shriek were called up by physical pain stepan arkadyevitch could be calm when he thought of his wife he could hope that she would come round as matvey expressed it and could quietly go on reading his paper and drinking his coffee but when he saw her tortured suffering face
there was a sob in his throat she shut the bureau with a slam and glanced at him dolly what can i say one thing forgive remember cannot nine years of my life atone for an instant she dropped her eyes and listened
expecting what he would say as it were beseeching him in some way or other to make her believe differently instant of passion he said and would have gone on but at that word as at a pang of physical pain her lips stiffened again
his lips swelled his eyes were swimming with tears dolly he said sobbing now for mercy's sake think of the children they are not to blame i am to blame and punish me make me expiate my fault anything i can do i am ready to do anything
but dolly forgive me she sat down he listened to her hard heavy breathing
she tried several times to begin to speak but could not he waited you remember the children stiva to play with them but i remember them and know that this means their ruin she said
obviously one of the phrases she had more than once repeated to herself in the course of the last few days she had called him stiva and he glanced at her with gratitude and moved to take her hand but she drew back from him with aversion i think of the children
and for that reason i would do anything in the world to save them but i don't myself know how to save them by taking them away from their father or by leaving them with a vicious father yes a vicious father tell me after what has happened
can we live together is that possible tell me eh is it possible she repeated raising her voice after my husband the father of my children enters into a love affair with his own children's governess
getting more and more heated your tears mean nothing
you have neither heart nor honorable feeling
with pain and wrath she uttered the word so terrible to herself stranger he looked at her and the fury expressed in her face alarmed and amazed him
and her face suddenly softened she seemed to be pulling herself together for a few seconds as though she did not know where she was and what she was doing and getting up rapidly she moved towards the door well she loves my child he thought
noticing the change of her face at the child's cry my child how can she hate me dolly one word more he said following her if you come near me i will call in the servants the children they may all know you are a scoundrel i am going away at once and you may live here with your mistress
and she went out slamming the door stepan arkadyevitch sighed wiped his face and with a subdued tread walked out of the room matvey says she will come round but how i don't see the least chance of it ah oh how horrible it is
and how vulgarly she shouted he said to himself remembering her shriek and the words scoundrel and mistress and very likely the maids were listening horribly vulgar horrible stepan arkadyevitch stood a few seconds alone
wiped his face squared his chest and walked out of the room it was friday and in the dining room the german watchmaker was winding up the clock stepan arkadyevitch remembered his joke about this punctual bald watchmaker
that the german was wound up for a whole lifetime himself to wind up watches and he smiled stepan arkadyevitch was fond of a joke and maybe she will come round that's a good expression come round he thought i must repeat that matvey he shouted
arrange everything with darya in the sitting room for anna arkadyevna he said to matvey when he came in yes sir stepan arkadyevitch put on his fur coat and went out onto the steps you won't dine at home said matvey seeing him off
that's as it happens but here's for the housekeeping he said taking ten roubles from his pocketbook that'll be enough enough or not enough we must make it do said matvey slamming the carriage door and stepping back onto the steps
darya alexandrovna meanwhile having pacified the child and knowing from the sound of the carriage that he had gone off went back again to her bedroom it was her solitary refuge from the household cares which
should they have any milk should not a new cook be sent for ah let me alone let me alone she said and going back to her bedroom she sat down in the same place as she had sat when talking to her husband clasping tightly her thin hands with the rings that slipped down on her bony fingers
even if we remain in the same house we are strangers strangers forever she repeated again with special significance the word so dreadful to her and how i loved him my god how i loved him how i loved him
and now don't i love him don't i love him more than before the most horrible thing is she began but did not finish her thought
let us send for my brother she said
very well i will come directly and see about it but did you send for some new milk
when he was dressed stepan arkadyevitch sprinkled some scent on himself pulled down his shirt cuffs distributed into his pockets his cigarettes pocketbook matches and watch with its double chain and seals and shaking out his handkerchief
feeling himself clean fragrant healthy and physically at ease in spite of his unhappiness he walked with a slight swing on each leg into the dining room where coffee was already waiting for him and beside the coffee letters and papers from the office
he read the letters one was very unpleasant from a merchant who was buying a forest on his wife's property to sell this forest was absolutely essential but at present until he was reconciled with his wife the subject could not be discussed
the most unpleasant thing of all was that his pecuniary interests should in this way enter into the question of his reconciliation with his wife and the idea that he might be led on by his interests that he might seek a reconciliation with his wife on account of the sale of the forest that idea hurt him
when he had finished his letters stepan arkadyevitch moved the office papers close to him rapidly looked through two pieces of business made a few notes with a big pencil and pushing away the papers turned to his coffee as he sipped his coffee he opened a still damp morning paper
and began reading it stepan arkadyevitch took in and read a liberal paper not an extreme one but one advocating the views held by the majority and in spite of the fact that science art and politics had no special interest for him
he firmly held those views on all these subjects which were held by the majority and by his paper and he only changed them when the majority changed them or more strictly speaking he did not change them but they imperceptibly changed of themselves within him
stepan arkadyevitch had not chosen his political opinions or his views these political opinions and views had come to him of themselves just as he did not choose the shapes of his hat and coat but simply took those that were being worn and for him
living in a certain society owing to the need ordinarily developed at years of discretion for some degree of mental activity to have views was just as indispensable as to have a hat if there was a reason for his preferring liberal to conservative views
which were held also by many of his circle it arose not from his considering liberalism more rational but from its being in closer accordance with his manner of life the liberal party said that in russia everything is wrong
and certainly stepan arkadyevitch had many debts and was decidedly short of money the liberal party said that marriage is an institution quite out of date and that it needs reconstruction and family life certainly afforded stepan arkadyevitch little gratification
and stepan arkadyevitch could not get through even a short service without his legs aching from standing up and could never make out what was the object of all the terrible and high flown language about another world when life might be so very amusing in this world and with all this
and he liked his newspaper as he did his cigar after dinner for the slight fog it diffused in his brain he read the leading article in which it was maintained that it was quite senseless in our day to raise an outcry that radicalism was threatening to swallow up all conservative elements
and dropped some innuendoes reflecting on the ministry with his characteristic quickwittedness he caught the drift of each innuendo divined whence it came at whom and on what ground it was aimed and that afforded him as it always did a certain satisfaction
but today that satisfaction was embittered by matrona philimonovna's advice and the unsatisfactory state of the household
and that one need have no more gray hair and of the sale of a light carriage and of a young person seeking a situation but these items of information did not give him as usual a quiet ironical gratification
having finished the paper a second cup of coffee and a roll and butter he got up shaking the crumbs of the roll off his waistcoat and squaring his broad chest he smiled joyously not because there was anything particularly agreeable in his mind
the joyous smile was evoked by a good digestion but this joyous smile at once recalled everything to him and he grew thoughtful two childish voices stepan arkadyevitch recognized the voices of grisha his youngest boy and tanya his eldest girl
were heard outside the door they were carrying something and dropped it i told you not to sit passengers on the roof said the little girl in english there pick them up everything's in confusion thought stepan arkadyevitch there are the children running about by themselves
and going to the door he called them they threw down the box that represented a train and came in to their father the little girl her father's favorite ran up boldly embraced him and hung laughingly on his neck
enjoying as she always did the smell of scent that came from his whiskers at last the little girl kissed his face which was flushed from his stooping posture and beaming with tenderness loosed her hands and was about to run away again but her father held her back
how is mamma he asked passing his hand over his daughter's smooth soft little neck good morning he said smiling to the boy who had come up to greet him he was conscious that he loved the boy less and always tried to be fair but the boy felt it
he at once perceived it and blushed too i don't know she said she did not say we must do our lessons but she said we were to go for a walk with miss hoole to grandmamma's well go tanya my darling oh wait a minute though he said
still holding her and stroking her soft little hand he took off the mantelpiece where he had put it yesterday a little box of sweets and gave her two picking out her favorites a chocolate and a fondant for grisha
said the little girl pointing to the chocolate yes yes
and let her go the carriage is ready said matvey but there's some one to see you with a petition been here long asked stepan arkadyevitch half an hour how many times have i told you to tell me at once
the widow of a staff captain kalinin came with a request impossible and unreasonable but stepan arkadyevitch as he generally did made her sit down heard her to the end attentively without interrupting her and gave her detailed advice as to how and to whom to apply
and even wrote her in his large sprawling good and legible hand a confident and fluent little note to a personage who might be of use to her having got rid of the staff captain's widow stepan arkadyevitch took his hat and stopped to recollect whether he had forgotten anything
it appeared that he had forgotten nothing except what he wanted to forget his wife ah yes he bowed his head and his handsome face assumed a harassed expression to go or not to go he said to himself
that nothing could come of it but falsity that to amend to set right their relations was impossible because it was impossible to make her attractive again and able to inspire love or to make him an old man not susceptible to love except deceit and lying nothing could come of it now
and deceit and lying were opposed to his nature it must be some time though it can't go on like this he said trying to give himself courage
translated by constance garnett part one chapter one happy families are all alike every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way
the wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a french girl who had been a governess in their family and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him this position of affairs had now lasted three days
and not only the husband and wife themselves but all the members of their family and household were painfully conscious of it every person in the house felt that there was no sense in their living together
and that the stray people brought together by chance in any inn had more in common with one another than they the members of the family and household of the oblonskys the wife did not leave her own room the husband had not been at home for three days
the children ran wild all over the house the english governess quarreled with the housekeeper and wrote to a friend asking her to look out for a new situation for her the man cook had walked off the day before just at dinner time the kitchen maid and the coachman
three days after the quarrel prince stepan arkadyevitch oblonsky
woke up at his usual hour that is at eight o'clock in the morning not in his wife's bedroom but on the leather covered sofa in his study he turned over his stout well cared for person on the springy sofa as though he would sink into a long sleep again
he vigorously embraced the pillow on the other side and buried his face in it but all at once he jumped up
and opened his eyes yes yes how was it now he thought going over his dream now how was it to be sure alabin was giving a dinner at darmstadt no not darmstadt but something american yes but then darmstadt was in america yes
and there were some sort of little decanters on the table and they were women too he remembered stepan arkadyevitch's eyes twinkled gaily and he pondered with a smile yes it was nice very nice
there was a great deal more that was delightful only there's no putting it into words or even expressing it in one's thoughts awake and noticing a gleam of light peeping in beside one of the serge curtains he cheerfully dropped his feet over the edge of the sofa and felt about with them for his slippers
a present on his last birthday worked for him by his wife on gold colored morocco and as he had done every day for the last nine years he stretched out his hand without getting up towards the place where his dressing gown always hung in his bedroom
recalling everything that had happened and again every detail of his quarrel with his wife was present to his imagination all the hopelessness of his position and worst of all his own fault yes she won't forgive me and she can't forgive me
and the most awful thing about it is that it's all my fault all my fault though i'm not to blame
as he remembered the acutely painful sensations caused him by this quarrel most unpleasant of all was the first minute when on coming happy and good humored from the theater with a huge pear in his hand for his wife he had not found his wife in the drawing room
and saw her at last in her bedroom with the unlucky letter that revealed everything in her hand she his dolly forever fussing and worrying over household details and limited in her ideas as he considered
was sitting perfectly still with the letter in her hand looking at him with an expression of horror despair and indignation what's this this she asked pointing to the letter and at this recollection stepan arkadyevitch as is so often the case
was not so much annoyed at the fact itself as at the way in which he had met his wife's words there happened to him at that instant what does happen to people when they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful
he did not succeed in adapting his face to the position in which he was placed towards his wife by the discovery of his fault instead of being hurt denying defending himself begging forgiveness instead of remaining indifferent even anything would have been better than what he did do
his face utterly involuntarily reflex spinal action reflected stepan arkadyevitch who was fond of physiology utterly involuntarily assumed its habitual good humored and therefore idiotic smile
this idiotic smile he could not forgive himself catching sight of that smile dolly shuddered as though at physical pain broke out with her characteristic heat into a flood of cruel words and rushed out of the room since then
she had refused to see her husband it's that idiotic smile that's to blame for it all thought stepan arkadyevitch but what's to be done what's to be done he said to himself in despair
one year after the return of the companions of barentz
with two yachts the eendracht and esperance
quitted amsterdam on the second july fifteen ninety eight the commander in chief of this squadron was oliver de noort a man at that time about thirty or thereabouts and well known as having made several long cruising voyages
his second in command and vice admiral was jacob claaz d'ulpenda and as pilot there was a certain melis a skilful sailor of english origin
this expedition fitted out by the merchants of amsterdam with the concurrence and aid of the states general of holland had a double purpose at once commercial and military
formerly the dutch had contented themselves with fetching from portugal the merchandise which they distributed by means of their coasting vessels throughout europe but now they were reduced to the necessity of going to seek the commodities in the scene of their production
for this object de noort was to show his countrymen the route inaugurated by magellan and on the way to inflict as much injury as he could upon the spaniards and portuguese
and who had just added portugal to his possessions had forbidden his subjects to have any commercial intercourse with the rebels of the low countries it was thus a necessity for holland if she did not wish to be ruined
and as a consequence to fall anew under spanish rule to open up for herself a road to the spice islands the route which was the least frequented by the enemy's ships was that by the strait of magellan and this was the one which de noort was ordered to follow
after touching at goree the dutch anchored in the gulf of guinea
here the portuguese pretended to give a friendly welcome to the men who went on shore but they took advantage of a favourable opportunity to fall upon and massacre them without mercy among the dead were cornille de noort brother of the admiral melis
and john de bremen the captain peter esias being the only man who escaped it was a sorrowful commencement for a campaign a sad presage which was destined not to remain unfulfilled de noort who was furious over this foul play
but he found the portuguese so well entrenched that after a brisk skirmish in which seventeen more of his men were either killed or wounded he was obliged to weigh anchor without having been able to avenge the wicked and cowardly perfidy to which his brother
for endeavouring to foment a spirit of despondency amongst the crews and for his well proved rebellion
and the course of the ships was changed for crossing the atlantic de noort had scarcely cast anchor in the bay of rio janeiro before he sent some sailors on shore to obtain water and buy provisions from the natives
the dutchmen deprived of their pilot toss at random upon the ocean
the flag ship struck upon a rock with so much violence that had the sea been a little rougher she must have been lost there were also some bloody and barbarous executions of mutinous sailors notably that of a poor man
who having wounded a pilot with a knife thrust was condemned to have his hand nailed to the mainmast the invalids of whom there were many on board the fleet were brought on shore and nearly all were cured by the end of a fortnight
which was not more than three miles from the mainland but before putting to sea he was obliged to burn the eendracht
that he was able to cast anchor in port desire where the crew killed in a few days a quantity of dog fish and sea lions
and was interred at port desire on the twenty third november the fleet entered the strait of magellan
with two dutch ships under the command of sebald de weerdt who had wintered not far from the bay of mauritius and by the abandoning of vice admiral claaz who as it would appear had been several times guilty of insubordination
on the twenty ninth of february sixteen hundred de noort after having been ninety nine days in passing through the strait came out on to the pacific ocean a fortnight later a storm separated him from the hendrik fredrik
afterwards he sailed along the coast of chili where he was able to obtain provisions in abundance in exchange for nuremberg knives hatchets shirts hats and other articles of no great value
after ravaging plundering and burning several towns on the peruvian coast after sinking all the vessels that he met with and amassing a considerable booty
de noort hearing that a squadron commanded by the brother of the viceroy don luis de velasco had been sent in pursuit of him judged it time to make for the ladrone islands
they are as much at home in the water as upon land and are very clever divers as we perceived when we threw five pieces of iron into the sea
one of them having succeeded in climbing along a part of the rigging had the audacity to enter a cabin and seize upon a sword with which he threw himself into the sea
on the fourteenth october following de noort traversed the philippine archipelago where he made several descents and burnt plundered or sunk a number of spanish or portuguese vessels and some chinese junks
and in the battle which followed the dutch had five men killed and twenty five wounded and lost their brigantine which was captured with her crew of twenty five men the spaniards lost more than two hundred men for their flag ship caught fire and sank
far from picking up the wounded and the able bodied men who were trying to save themselves by swimming the dutch making way with sails set on the foremast across the heads which were to be seen in the water pierced some with lances
and also discharged their cannon over them after this bloody and fruitless victory de noort went to recruit at borneo captured a rich cargo of spices at java and having doubled the cape of good hope landed at rotterdam on the twenty sixth of august
and who had taught his countrymen the way to the indies it behoves us while extolling his qualities as a sailor
in the midst of all those gascons who formed the basis of the armies of henry of navarre and in such society he perfected the habits of boasting and falsehood which belonged to his character
and the number of agricultural labourers was greatly reduced by the change from thence arose general distress and also such a surplussage of population as was fast becoming a matter of anxious concern
at this moment therefore arises the necessity for such an emigration as may relieve the country of its population may permit all the miserable people dying of hunger to provide for their own wants in a new country
and by that means may increase the influence and prosperity of the mother country all the more thoughtful minds in england who follow the course of public opinion hakluyt thomas hariot carlyle peckham and the brothers gilbert
but he neither conceived nor began the carrying into execution as he has been too often credited with doing of this fruitful project
afterwards proceeding to support the claims of the prior de crato
it is a short time after his return to england that he falls into disgrace with his royal mistress
would not the discovery and conquest of el dorado of the country in which according to orellana the temples are roofed with plates of gold where all the tools even those for the meanest purposes are made of gold where one walks upon precious stones
procure for him greater glory these are the very words which raleigh employs in his account than cortes had gained in mexico or pizarro in peru he will have under him more golden towns and nations than the king of spain the sultan of the turks
humboldt discloses what had given them birth when he describes to us the nature of the soil and the rocks which surround lake parima
they are says this great traveller rocks of micaceous slate and of sparkling talc which are resplendent in the midst of a sheet of water which acts as a reflector beneath the burning tropical sun
and all those marvels of which the boastful and enthusiastic minds of the spaniards afforded them a glimpse
of its productions and its inhabitants with imperturbable assurance but he had taken care to send at his own expense a ship commanded by captain whiddon to prepare the way for the fleet which he intended to conduct in person to the banks of the orinoco
was that all the information he received from his emissary was unfavourable to the enterprise raleigh himself started from plymouth on the ninth february fifteen ninety five with a small fleet of five vessels and one hundred soldiers
without reckoning marines officers and volunteers after stopping four days at fortaventura one of the canaries to take in wood and water there he reached teneriffe where captain brereton ought to have rejoined him
the arrival of the english did not please him and he immediately despatched emissaries to cumana and to margarita with orders to gather together the troops to attack the englishmen
the account which raleigh gives of his campaign is so fabulous with the coolness of a gascon transported to the banks of the thames
he so heaps one falsehood upon the top of another that one is almost tempted to class his narrative amongst the number of imaginary voyages he says that some spaniards who had seen the town of manoa called el dorado
with game and birds of every species in great abundance who filled the air with hitherto unknown notes it was a real concert for us my captain sent to search for mines perceived veins both of gold and silver
but as he had no tool but his sword he was unable to detach these metals to examine them in detail however he carried away several bits of them which he reserved for future examination
but why should i have undertaken a voyage thus laborious if i had not entertained the conviction that there is not a country upon earth which is richer in gold than guiana
i showed these stones to several inhabitants of orinoco who have assured me that there exists an entire mountain of them
came to see raleigh boasted to him of the formidable power of the emperor of manoa and proved to him that his forces were insufficient
as wearing clothes and possessing great riches especially in plates of gold finally he spoke to him of a mountain of pure gold raleigh relates that he wished to approach this mountain but sad mischance it was at that moment half submerged
their extraordinary whiteness nevertheless surprised me after a short time of repose on the banks of the vinicapara and a visit to the village of the cacique
we will spare the reader the description of people three times taller than ordinary men of cyclops of natives who had their eyes upon the shoulders their mouth in the chest and the hair growing from the middle of the back
if we put on one side all these figments of an imagination run mad what gain has been derived for geography there was certainly no pains spared in announcing with much noise and very great puffing this fantastic expedition
in fancy free i an author see who says the awful war i'll sing of titans with the thunder king
edmund drake his father was one of those clergy who devote themselves to the education of the people his poverty was only equalled by the respect which was felt for his character
burdened with a family as he was the father of francis drake found himself obliged from necessity to allow his son to embrace the maritime profession for which he had an ardent longing
and to serve as cabin boy on board a coasting vessel which traded with holland industrious active self reliant and saving the young francis drake had soon acquired all the theoretical knowledge needed for the direction of a vessel
when he had realized a small sum which was increased by the sale of a vessel bequeathed to him by his first master he made more extended voyages he visited the bay of biscay and the gulf of guinea
and laid out all his capital in purchasing a cargo which he hoped to sell in the west indies but no sooner had he arrived at rio de la hacha than both ship and cargo were confiscated we know not under what frivolous pretext
all the remonstrances of drake who thus saw himself ruined were useless he vowed to avenge himself for such a piece of injustice and he kept his word in fifteen sixty seven two years after this adventure
of what was destined to take place in mexico then they besieged la mina where some more negroes were taken which they sold at the antilles hawkins doubtless by the advice of drake captured the town of rio de la hacha
drake afterwards made two expeditions to the west indies for the purpose of studying the country when he considered himself to have acquired the necessary information he fitted out two vessels at his own expense
the swan of twenty five tons commanded by his brother john and the pasha of plymouth
and obtained considerable spoil unfortunately these enterprises were not carried out without much cruelty and many acts of violence which would make men of the present day blush
but we will not dwell upon the scenes of piracy and barbarity which are only too frequently met with in the sixteenth century after assisting in the suppression of the rebellion in ireland drake whose name was beginning to be well known
francis drake started from plymouth on the fifteenth november fifteen seventy seven he had some intercourse with the moors of mogador of which he had no reason to boast
where he laid in a supply of water he afterwards arrived at seal bay in patagonia where he traded with the natives and killed a great number of penguins and sea wolves for the nourishment of his crew
some of the patagonians who were seen on the thirteenth may a little below seal bay says the original narrative wore on the head a kind of horn and nearly all had many beautiful birds feathers by way of hats
they also had the face painted and diversified by several kinds of colours and they each held a bow in the hand from which every time they drew it they discharged two arrows they were very agile
and as far as we could see well instructed in the art of making war for they kept good order in marching and advancing and for so few men as they were they made themselves appear a large number
notices that drake does not mention the extraordinary stature which magellan had attributed to the patagonians for this there is more than one good reason there exists in patagonia more than one tribe
and the description here given by drake of the savages whom he met does not at all resemble that given by pigafetta of the patagonians of port saint julian if there exist as seems now to be proved a race of men of great stature
their habitat appears fixed upon the shores of the strait at the southern extremity of patagonia
at which drake arrived on the second june on the following day he reached the harbour of saint julian where he found a gibbet erected of yore by magellan for the punishment of some rebellious members of his crew
drake in his turn chose this spot to rid himself of one of his captains named doughty who had been long accused of treason and underhand dealing and who on several occasions had separated himself from the fleet
if drake were accused upon his return to england in spite of the moderation which he always evinced towards his men of having taken advantage of the opportunity to get rid of a rival whom he dreaded
it is difficult to conceive that the forty judges who pronounced the sentence should have concerted together to further the secret designs of their admiral and condemn an innocent man on the twentieth of august the fleet now reduced to three vessels
two of the ships having been so much damaged that they were at once destroyed by the admiral entered the strait which had not been traversed since the time of magellan although he met with fine harbours drake found that it was difficult to anchor in them
but by the injury which he did to the spaniards he showed what ravages he would have committed if he had had still under his command the fleet with which he left england during a descent upon the island of mocha the english had two men killed and several wounded
while drake himself hit by two arrows on the head
the people were forewarned of his approach so that he found there a strong force which obliged him to re embark at arica he plundered three small vessels
but what most rejoiced the heart of drake was to learn that a galleon named the cagafuego very richly laden was sailing towards paraca he immediately went in pursuit
he might again pass the strait of magellan or he might cross the southern sea and doubling the cape of good hope might so return to the atlantic ocean or he could sail up the coast of china and return by the frozen sea and the north cape
when we arrived the savages manifested great admiration at the sight of us and thinking that we were gods they received us with great humanity and reverence as long as we remained they continued to come and visit us
then they made a long discourse after the manner of a harangue and when they had finished they laid aside their bows and arrows in that place and approached us to offer their presents the first time they came their women remained in the same place
and scratched and tore the skin and flesh of their cheeks lamenting themselves in a wonderful manner
but we have since learnt that it was a kind of sacrifice which they offered to us the facts given by drake with regard to the indians of california are almost the only ones which he furnishes upon the manners and customs of the nations which he visited
we would draw the reader's attention here to that custom of long harangues which the traveller especially remarks just as cartier had observed upon it forty years earlier and which is so noticeable amongst the canadian indians at the present day
drake did not advance farther north and gave up his project of returning by the frozen sea
as this part of the voyage deals with countries already known and as the observations made by drake are neither numerous nor novel our narrative here shall be brief on the thirteenth of october fifteen seventy nine
drake arrived in latitude eight degrees north at a group of islands of which the inhabitants had their ears much lengthened by the weight of the ornaments suspended to them their nails were allowed to grow and appeared to serve as defensive weapons while their teeth
black as ship's pitch contracted this colour from the use of the betel nut after resting for a time drake passed by the philippines and on the fourteenth of november
dressed in their state costumes after an interchange of civilities and presents the english received some rice sugar canes fowls figo
on the morrow some of the sailors who had landed were present at a council when the king arrived a rich umbrella or parasol all embroidered in gold was borne before him he was dressed after the fashion of his country but with extreme magnificence
reaching to the ground he wore as an ornament upon the head a kind of turban made of the same stuff all worked in fine gold and enriched with jewels and tufts on his neck there hung a fine gold chain many times doubled
and formed of broad links on his fingers he had six rings of very valuable stones and his feet were encased in shoes of morocco leather after remaining some time in the country to refresh his crew drake again put to sea
but his ship on the ninth of january fifteen eighty struck on a rock and to float her off it was necessary to throw overboard eight pieces of ordnance and a large quantity of provisions a month later drake arrived at baratena island
daggers and bucklers and all these arms are made with much art drake had been some little time at java when he learnt that not far distant there was a powerful fleet at anchor which he suspected must belong to spain
to avoid it he put to sea in all haste he doubled the cape of good hope during the first days of june and after stopping at sierra leone to take in water he entered plymouth harbour on the third november fifteen eighty
after an absence of three years all but a few days the reception which awaited him in england was at first extremely cold his having fallen by surprise both upon spanish towns and ships
rightly caused him to be regarded by a portion of society as a pirate who tramples under foot the rights of nations
and later on the dutch were destined to inflict much injury upon the spaniards and the large profits accruing to him from it encouraged his contemporaries and gave birth in their minds to the love for long and hazardous voyages
among all those who took example by drake the most illustrious was undoubtedly thomas cavendish or candish cavendish joined the english marine service at a very early age and passed a most stormy youth
the desire of twenty tons the content of sixty tons and the hugh gallant of forty tons upon which he embarked one hundred and twenty three soldiers and sailors setting sail on the twenty second july fifteen eighty six
and arrived on the twenty seventh november at port desire he found there an immense quantity of dog fish very large and so strong that four men could with difficulty kill them and numbers of birds which having no wings could not fly and which fed upon fish
in this very secure harbour the ships were drawn up on shore to be repaired during his stay at this place cavendish had some skirmishes with the patagonians men of gigantic size and having feet eighteen inches long
who wounded two of the sailors with arrows tipped with sharpened flints on the seventh january fifteen eighty seven cavendish entered the strait of magellan and in the narrowest part of it received on board his ships one and twenty spaniards and two women
changed the name of philippeville into that of port famine under which appellation the place is known at the present day on the twenty first the ships entered a beautiful bay which received the name of elizabeth and in which was buried the carpenter of the hugh gallant
not far from thence a fine river fell into the sea on the banks of which dwelt the anthropophagi who had fought so fiercely with the spaniards and who endeavoured but in vain to entice the englishmen into the interior of the country
and its inhabitants fully determined to maintain their liberty repulsed by force of arms every attempt to land it was necessary therefore to go to the island of saint maria where the indians who took the englishmen for spaniards
a party of thirty musketeers advanced into the country and met with oxen cows wild horses hares and partridges in abundance the little troop was attacked by the spaniards
he afterwards ravaged plundered or burnt the towns of paraca cincha pisca and paita and devastated the island of puna
after having scuttled the hugh gallant which was totally unfit any longer to keep the water cavendish continued his profitable cruising burnt in the latitude of new spain a ship of one hundred twenty tons plundered and burnt aguatulio
then victorious and contented cavendish wished to secure the great spoils which he was conveying against any chance of danger he touched at the ladrones the philippines and greater java doubled the cape of good hope
recruited himself at saint helena and on the ninth september fifteen eighty eight anchored at plymouth after two years of sailing privateering and fighting at the end of two years after his return of all the great fortune which he had brought back with him
there remained only a sum sufficient for the fitting out of a third and as it proved a last expedition cavendish started on the sixth august fifteen ninety one with five vessels but a storm on the coast of patagonia scattered the flotilla
which could not be collected again until the arrival at port desire assailed by fearful hurricanes in the strait of magellan cavendish was obliged to go back after having seen himself deserted by three of his ships the want of fresh provisions the cold
and the privations of all kinds which he underwent and which had decimated his crew forced him to return northwards along the coast of brazil where the portuguese opposed every attempt at landing he was therefore obliged to put to sea again without having been able to revictual
mister woodhouse was fond of society in his own way he liked very much to have his friends come and see him and from various united causes from his long residence at hartfield and his good nature from his fortune his house and his daughter
not unfrequently through emma's persuasion he had some of the chosen and the best to dine with him but evening parties were what he preferred and unless he fancied himself at any time unequal to company
there was scarcely an evening in the week in which emma could not make up a card table for him real long standing regard brought the westons and mister knightley and by mister elton a young man living alone without liking it
the privilege of exchanging any vacant evening of his own blank solitude for the elegancies and society of mister woodhouse's drawing room and the smiles of his lovely daughter was in no danger of being thrown away after these came a second set
and missus goddard three ladies almost always at the service of an invitation from hartfield and who were fetched and carried home so often that mister woodhouse thought it no hardship for either james or the horses had it taken place only once a year it would have been a grievance
missus bates the widow of a former vicar of highbury was a very old lady almost past every thing but tea and quadrille she lived with her single daughter in a very small way
and was considered with all the regard and respect which a harmless old lady under such untoward circumstances can excite her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young handsome rich nor married
for having much of the public favour and she had no intellectual superiority to make atonement to herself or frighten those who might hate her into outward respect she had never boasted either beauty or cleverness
and yet she was a happy woman and a woman whom no one named without good will it was her own universal good will and contented temper which worked such wonders she loved every body was interested in every body's happiness
quicksighted to every body's merits thought herself a most fortunate creature and surrounded with blessings in such an excellent mother and so many good neighbours and friends and a home that wanted for nothing
the simplicity and cheerfulness of her nature her contented and grateful spirit were a recommendation to every body and a mine of felicity to herself she was a great talker upon little matters
which exactly suited mister woodhouse full of trivial communications and harmless gossip missus goddard was the mistress of a school not of a seminary or an establishment or any thing which professed
in long sentences of refined nonsense to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality upon new principles and new systems and where young ladies for enormous pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity
but a real honest old fashioned boarding school where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price and where girls might be sent to be out of the way and scramble themselves into a little education
without any danger of coming back prodigies missus goddard's school was in high repute and very deservedly for highbury was reckoned a particularly healthy spot she had an ample house and garden gave the children plenty of wholesome food
let them run about a great deal in the summer and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own hands it was no wonder that a train of twenty young couple now walked after her to church she was a plain motherly kind of woman who had worked hard in her youth
and win or lose a few sixpences by his fireside these were the ladies whom emma found herself very frequently able to collect and happy was she for her father's sake in the power
though as far as she was herself concerned it was no remedy for the absence of missus weston
and very much pleased with herself for contriving things so well but the quiet prosings of three such women made her feel that every evening so spent was indeed one of the long evenings she had fearfully anticipated
as she sat one morning looking forward to exactly such a close of the present day a note was brought from missus goddard requesting in most respectful terms to be allowed to bring miss smith with her a most welcome request
for miss smith was a girl of seventeen whom emma knew very well by sight and had long felt an interest in on account of her beauty a very gracious invitation was returned and the evening no longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion
harriet smith was the natural daughter of somebody somebody had placed her several years back at missus goddard's school and somebody had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of parlour boarder this was all that was generally known of her history
she had no visible friends but what had been acquired at highbury and was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young ladies who had been at school there with her she was a very pretty girl and her beauty happened to be of a sort which emma particularly admired
she was short plump and fair with a fine bloom blue eyes light hair regular features and a look of great sweetness and before the end of the evening emma was as much pleased with her manners as her person
and quite determined to continue the acquaintance she was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in miss smith's conversation but she found her altogether very engaging not inconveniently shy not unwilling to talk
and yet so far from pushing shewing so proper and becoming a deference seeming so pleasantly grateful for being admitted to hartfield and so artlessly impressed by the appearance of every thing in so superior a style to what she had been used to
that she must have good sense and deserve encouragement encouragement should be given those soft blue eyes and all those natural graces should not be wasted on the inferior society of highbury and its connexions
as renting a large farm of mister knightley and residing in the parish of donwell very creditably she believed she knew mister knightley thought highly of them but they must be coarse and unpolished and very unfit
to be the intimates of a girl who wanted only a little more knowledge and elegance to be quite perfect she would notice her she would improve her she would detach her from her bad acquaintance and introduce her into good society
she would form her opinions and her manners it would be an interesting and certainly a very kind undertaking highly becoming her own situation in life her leisure and powers she was so busy in admiring those soft blue eyes
was all set out and ready and moved forwards to the fire before she was aware with an alacrity beyond the common impulse of a spirit which yet was never indifferent to the credit of doing every thing well and attentively
with the real good will of a mind delighted with its own ideas did she then do all the honours of the meal and help and recommend the minced chicken and scalloped oysters
with an urgency which she knew would be acceptable to the early hours and civil scruples of their guests upon such occasions poor mister woodhouses feelings were in sad warfare he loved to have the cloth laid because it had been the fashion of his youth
with thorough self approbation recommend though he might constrain himself while the ladies were comfortably clearing the nicer things to say missus bates let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs an egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome
serle understands boiling an egg better than any body i would not recommend an egg boiled by any body else but you need not be afraid they are very small you see one of our small eggs will not hurt you miss bates
let emma help you to a little bit of tart a very little bit ours are all apple tarts you need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here i do not advise the custard missus goddard what say you to half a glass of wine a small half glass
put into a tumbler of water i do not think it could disagree with you emma allowed her father to talk but supplied her visitors in a much more satisfactory style and on the present evening had particular pleasure in sending them away happy
the happiness of miss smith was quite equal to her intentions miss woodhouse was so great a personage in highbury that the prospect of the introduction had given as much panic as pleasure
emma woodhouse handsome clever and rich with a comfortable home and happy disposition seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence
and had lived nearly twenty one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her she was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate indulgent father and had in consequence of her sister's marriage
been mistress of his house from a very early period her mother had died too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of her caresses and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as governess
who had fallen little short of a mother in affection sixteen years had miss taylor been in mister woodhouse's family less as a governess than a friend very fond of both daughters but particularly of emma
between them it was more the intimacy of sisters even before miss taylor had ceased to hold the nominal office of governess
and the shadow of authority being now long passed away they had been living together as friend and friend very mutually attached and emma doing just what she liked highly esteeming miss taylor's judgment but directed chiefly by her own
the real evils indeed of emma's situation were the power of having rather too much her own way and a disposition to think a little too well of herself these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many enjoyments
the danger however was at present so unperceived that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her sorrow came a gentle sorrow but not at all in the shape of any disagreeable consciousness miss taylor married
it was miss taylor's loss which first brought grief it was on the wedding day of this beloved friend that emma first sat in mournful thought of any continuance the wedding over and the bride people gone
her father and herself were left to dine together with no prospect of a third to cheer a long evening her father composed himself to sleep after dinner as usual
and she had then only to sit and think of what she had lost the event had every promise of happiness for her friend mister weston was a man of unexceptionable character easy fortune suitable age and pleasant manners
and there was some satisfaction in considering with what self denying generous friendship she had always wished and promoted the match but it was a black morning's work for her the want of miss taylor would be felt every hour of every day
and how nursed her through the various illnesses of childhood a large debt of gratitude was owing here but the intercourse of the last seven years the equal footing and perfect unreserve which had soon followed isabella's marriage
on their being left to each other was yet a dearer tenderer recollection she had been a friend and companion such as few possessed intelligent well informed useful gentle knowing all the ways of the family
how was she to bear the change it was true that her friend was going only half a mile from them but emma was aware that great must be the difference between a missus weston only half a mile from them and a miss taylor in the house
and with all her advantages natural and domestic she was now in great danger of suffering from intellectual solitude she dearly loved her father but he was no companion for her he could not meet her in conversation
rational or playful the evil of the actual disparity in their ages and mister woodhouse had not married early was much increased by his constitution and habits for having been a valetudinarian all his life
without activity of mind or body he was a much older man in ways than in years and though everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable temper his talents could not have recommended him at any time her sister
before christmas brought the next visit from isabella and her husband and their little children to fill the house and give her pleasant society again highbury the large and populous village almost amounting to a town
she had many acquaintance in the place for her father was universally civil but not one among them who could be accepted in lieu of miss taylor for even half a day it was a melancholy change and emma could not but sigh over it and wish for impossible things
till her father awoke and made it necessary to be cheerful his spirits required support he was a nervous man easily depressed fond of every body that he was used to and hating to part with them
hating change of every kind matrimony as the origin of change was always disagreeable and he was by no means yet reconciled to his own daughter's marrying
though it had been entirely a match of affection when he was now obliged to part with miss taylor too and from his habits of gentle selfishness and of being never able to suppose that other people could feel differently from himself
he was very much disposed to think miss taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for them and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the rest of her life at hartfield emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully as she could to keep him from such thoughts
but when tea came it was impossible for him not to say exactly as he had said at dinner poor miss taylor i wish she were here again what a pity it is that mister weston ever thought of her i cannot agree with you papa
you know i cannot mister weston is such a good humoured pleasant excellent man that he thoroughly deserves a good wife and you would not have had miss taylor live with us for ever and bear all my odd humours when she might have a house of her own a house of her own
but where is the advantage of a house of her own this is three times as large and you have never any odd humours my dear how often we shall be going to see them and they coming to see us we shall be always meeting we must begin
we must go and pay wedding visit very soon my dear how am i to get so far randalls is such a distance i could not walk half so far no papa nobody thought of your walking we must go in the carriage to be sure
the carriage but james will not like to put the horses to for such a little way and where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our visit they are to be put into mister weston's stable papa you know we have settled all that already
we talked it all over with mister weston last night and as for james you may be very sure he will always like going to randalls because of his daughter's being housemaid there i only doubt whether he will ever take us anywhere else that was your doing papa
you got hannah that good place nobody thought of hannah till you mentioned her james is so obliged to you i am very glad i did think of her it was very lucky for i would not have had poor james think himself slighted upon any account
and i am sure she will make a very good servant she is a civil pretty spoken girl i have a great opinion of her whenever i see her she always curtseys and asks me how i do in a very pretty manner
i observe she always turns the lock of the door the right way and never bangs it i am sure she will be an excellent servant and it will be a great comfort to poor miss taylor to have somebody about her that she is used to see whenever james goes over to see his daughter you know she will be hearing of us
he will be able to tell her how we all are emma spared no exertions to maintain this happier flow of ideas and hoped by the help of backgammon to get her father tolerably through the evening and be attacked by no regrets but her own
the backgammon table was placed but a visitor immediately afterwards walked in and made it unnecessary mister knightley a sensible man about seven or eight and thirty was not only a very old and intimate friend of the family
he had returned to a late dinner after some days absence
and animated mister woodhouse for some time mister knightley had a cheerful manner which always did him good and his many inquiries after poor isabella and her children were answered most satisfactorily when this was over mister woodhouse gratefully observed
not at all sir it is a beautiful moonlight night and so mild that i must draw back from your great fire but you must have found it very damp and dirty i wish you may not catch cold
dirty sir look at my shoes not a speck on them well that is quite surprising for we have had a vast deal of rain here it rained dreadfully hard for half an hour while we were at breakfast i wanted them to put off the wedding
by the bye i have not wished you joy being pretty well aware of what sort of joy you must both be feeling i have been in no hurry with my congratulations but i hope it all went off tolerably well how did you all behave who cried most
ah poor miss taylor tis a sad business poor mister and miss woodhouse if you please but i cannot possibly say poor miss taylor i have a great regard for you and emma
but when it comes to the question of dependence or independence at any rate it must be better to have only one to please than two especially when one of those two is such a fanciful troublesome creature said emma playfully
that is what you have in your head i know and what you would certainly say if my father were not by i believe it is very true my dear indeed said mister woodhouse with a sigh i am afraid i am sometimes very fanciful and troublesome
my dearest papa you do not think i could mean you or suppose mister knightley to mean you what a horrible idea oh no i meant only myself mister knightley loves to find fault with me you know in a joke it is all a joke
she knew it would be so much less so to her father that she would not have him really suspect such a circumstance as her not being thought perfect by every body emma knows i never flatter her said mister knightley
but i meant no reflection on any body miss taylor has been used to have two persons to please she will now have but one the chances are that she must be a gainer well said emma willing to let it pass
you want to hear about the wedding and i shall be happy to tell you for we all behaved charmingly every body was punctual every body in their best looks not a tear and hardly a long face to be seen
oh no we all felt that we were going to be only half a mile apart and were sure of meeting every day dear emma bears every thing so well said her father but mister knightley she is really very sorry to lose poor miss taylor
and i am sure she will miss her more than she thinks for emma turned away her head divided between tears and smiles it is impossible that emma should not miss such a companion said mister knightley
we should not like her so well as we do sir if we could suppose it but she knows how much the marriage is to miss taylor's advantage she knows how very acceptable it must be at miss taylor's time of life to be settled in a home of her own
and therefore cannot allow herself to feel so much pain as pleasure every friend of miss taylor must be glad to have her so happily married
and a very considerable one that i made the match myself i made the match you know four years ago
when so many people said mister weston would never marry again may comfort me for any thing mister knightley shook his head at her her father fondly replied ah my dear i wish you would not make matches and foretell things
for whatever you say always comes to pass pray do not make any more matches i promise you to make none for myself papa but i must indeed for other people it is the greatest amusement in the world and after such success you know
every body said that mister weston would never marry again oh dear no mister weston who had been a widower so long
so constantly occupied either in his business in town or among his friends here always acceptable wherever he went always cheerful mister weston need not spend a single evening in the year alone if he did not like it
oh no mister weston certainly would never marry again some people even talked of a promise to his wife on her deathbed and others of the son and the uncle not letting him all manner of solemn nonsense was talked on the subject but i believed none of it
ever since the day about four years ago that miss taylor and i met with him in broadway lane when because it began to drizzle he darted away with so much gallantry and borrowed two umbrellas for us from farmer mitchell's i made up my mind on the subject
i planned the match from that hour and when such success has blessed me in this instance dear papa you cannot think that i shall leave off match making i do not understand what you mean by success said mister knightley
success supposes endeavour your time has been properly and delicately spent if you have been endeavouring for the last four years to bring about this marriage a worthy employment for a young lady's mind
where is your merit what are you proud of you made a lucky guess and that is all that can be said and have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess i pity you i thought you cleverer
for depend upon it a lucky guess is never merely luck there is always some talent in it and as to my poor word success which you quarrel with i do not know that i am so entirely without any claim to it you have drawn two pretty pictures
but i think there may be a third a something between the do nothing and the do all if i had not promoted mister weston's visits here and given many little encouragements and smoothed many little matters it might not have come to any thing after all
i think you must know hartfield enough to comprehend that a straightforward open hearted man like weston and a rational unaffected woman like miss taylor may be safely left to manage their own concerns
emma never thinks of herself if she can do good to others rejoined mister woodhouse understanding but in part
only one more papa only for mister elton poor mister elton you like mister elton papa i must look about for a wife for him there is nobody in highbury who deserves him
and he has been here a whole year and has fitted up his house so comfortably that it would be a shame to have him single any longer and i thought when he was joining their hands to day he looked so very much as if he would like to have the same kind office done for him
i think very well of mister elton and this is the only way i have of doing him a service mister elton is a very pretty young man to be sure and a very good young man and i have a great regard for him
ask him to come and dine with us some day that will be a much better thing i dare say mister knightley will be so kind as to meet him with a great deal of pleasure sir at any time said mister knightley laughing
and i agree with you entirely that it will be a much better thing invite him to dinner emma and help him to the best of the fish and the chicken
chapter nine i repent i laid the manuscript down consoled to find that my father had had a peep into that mysterious world and that he knew mister raven
then i remembered that i had never heard the cause or any circumstance of my father's death and began to believe that he must at last have followed mister raven and not come back whereupon i speedily grew ashamed of my flight
what wondrous facts might i not by this time have gathered concerning life and death and wide regions beyond ordinary perception assuredly the ravens were good people
they were doubtless strange but it was faculty in which the one was peculiar and beauty in which the other was marvellous and i had not believed in them had treated them as unworthy of my confidence as harbouring a design against me
the more i thought of my behaviour to them the more disgusted i became with myself why should i have feared such dead to share their holy rest was an honour of which i had proved myself unworthy
what harm could that sleeping king that lady with the wound in her palm have done me i fell a longing after the sweet and stately stillness of their two countenances and wept
weeping i threw myself on a couch and suddenly fell asleep as suddenly i woke feeling as if some one had called me the house was still as an empty church
a blackbird was singing on the lawn i said to myself i will go and tell them i am ashamed and will do whatever they would have me do i rose and went straight up the stairs to the garret
the wooden chamber was just as when first i saw it the mirror dimly reflecting everything before it it was nearly noon and the sun would be a little higher than when first i came
i must raise the hood a little and adjust the mirrors accordingly if i had but been in time to see mister raven do it i pulled the chains and let the light fall on the first mirror i turned then to the other
there were the shapes of the former vision distinguishable indeed but tremulous like a landscape in a pool ruffled by a small pipling wind i touched the glass it was impermeable
suspecting polarisation as the thing required i shifted and shifted the mirrors changing their relation until at last in a great degree so far as i was concerned by chance things came right between them
and i saw the mountains blue and steady and clear i stepped forward and my feet were among the heather all i knew of the way to the cottage was that we had gone through a pine forest
i passed through many thickets and several small fir woods continually fancying afresh that i recognised something of the country but i had come upon no forest and now the sun was near the horizon and the air had begun to grow chill with the coming winter
when to my delight i saw a little black object coming toward me it was indeed the raven i hastened to meet him i beg your pardon sir for my rudeness last night i said will you take me with you now
i heartily confess i do not deserve it ah he returned and looked up then after a brief pause my wife does not expect you to night he said she regrets that we at all encouraged your staying last week
take me to her that i may tell her how sorry i am i begged humbly it is of no use he answered your night was not come then or you would not have left us it is not come now and i cannot show you the way
the dead were rejoicing under their daisies they all lie among the roots of the flowers of heaven at the thought of your delight when the winter should be past and the morning with its birds come ere you left them they shivered in their beds
when the spring of the universe arrives but that cannot be for ages yet how many i do not know and do not care to know tell me one thing i beg of you mister raven is my father with you have you seen him since he left the world
yes he is with us fast asleep that was he you saw with his arm on the coverlet his hand half closed why did you not tell me that i should have been so near him and not know
and turn your back on him corrected the raven i would have lain down at once had i known i doubt it had you been ready to lie down you would have known him old sir up'ard he went on and your twice great grandfather
both are up and away long ago your great grandfather has been with us for many a year i think he will soon begin to stir you saw him last night though of course you did not know him why of course
because he is so much nearer waking than you no one who will not sleep can ever wake i do not at all understand you you turned away and would not understand i held my peace but if i did not say something he would go
and my grandfather is he also with you i asked no he is still in the evil wood fighting the dead where is the evil wood that i may find him you will not find him
but you will hardly miss the wood it is the place where those who will not sleep wake up at night to kill their dead and bury them i cannot understand you naturally not neither do i understand you
i can read neither your heart nor your face when my wife and i do not understand our children it is because there is not enough of them to be understood god alone can understand foolishness
there are more ways than one i know for i have gone by two already there are indeed many ways tell me please how to recognise the nearest i cannot answered the raven
you and i use the same words with different meanings we are often unable to tell people what they need to know because they want to know something else and would therefore only misunderstand what we said
home is ever so far away in the palm of your hand and how to get there it is of no use to tell you but you will get there you must get there you have to get there everybody who is not at home
you thought you were at home where i found you if that had been your home you could not have left it nobody can leave home and nobody ever was or ever will be at home without having gone there
enigma treading on enigma i exclaimed i did not come here to be asked riddles no but you came and found the riddles waiting for you indeed you are yourself the only riddle what you call riddles are truths
and seem riddles because you are not true worse and worse i cried and you must answer the riddles he continued they will go on asking themselves until you understand yourself the universe is a riddle trying to get out
and you are holding your door hard against it will you not in pity tell me what i am to do where i must go how should i tell your to do or the way to it if i am not to go home
i do not know of any the beings most like you are in that direction he pointed with his beak i could see nothing but the setting sun which blinded me well i said bitterly
i cannot help feeling hardly treated taken from my home abandoned in a strange world and refused instruction as to where i am to go or what i am to do you forget said the raven that when i brought you
and you declined my hospitality you reached what you call home in safety now you are come of yourself good night he turned and walked slowly away with his beak toward the ground i stood
dazed it was true i had come of myself but had i not come with intent of atonement my heart was sore and in my brain was neither quest nor purpose hope nor desire
i gazed after the raven and would have followed him but felt it useless all at once he pounced on a spot throwing the whole weight of his body on his bill and for some moments dug vigorously
then with a flutter of his wings he threw back his head and something shot from his bill cast high in the air that moment the sun set and the air at once grew very dusk but the something
opened into a soft radiance and came pulsing toward me like a fire fly but with a much larger and a yellower light it flew over my head i turned and followed it
here i interrupt my narrative to remark that it involves a constant struggle to say what cannot be said with even an approach to precision the things recorded being
in their nature and in that of the creatures concerned in them so inexpressibly different from any possible events of this economy that i can present them only by giving in the forms and language of life in this world the modes in which they affected me
not the things themselves but the feelings they woke in me even this much however i do with a continuous and abiding sense of failure finding it impossible to present more than one phase
of a multitudinously complicated significance or one concentric sphere of a graduated embodiment a single thing would sometimes seem to be and mean many things with an uncertain identity at the heart of them
which kept constantly altering their look i am indeed often driven to set down what i know to be but a clumsy and doubtful representation of the mere feeling aimed at
none of the communicating media of this world being fit to convey it in its peculiar strangeness with even an approach to clearness or certainty
chapter thirty one the sexton's old horse i stood and watched the last gleam of the white leopardess melt away then turned to follow my guide but reluctantly what had i to do with sleep
surely reason was the same in every world and what reason could there be in going to sleep with the dead when the hour was calling the live man besides no one would wake me and how could i be certain of waking early of waking at all
the sleepers in that house let morning glide into noon and noon into night nor ever stirred i murmured but followed for i knew not what else to do
the librarian walked on in silence and i walked silent as he time and space glided past us the sun set it began to grow dark and i felt in the air the spreading cold of the chamber of death
my heart sank lower and lower i began to lose sight of the lean long coated figure and at length could no more hear his swishing stride through the heather but then i heard instead the slow flapping wings of the raven
and at intervals now a firefly now a gleaming butterfly rose into the rayless air by and by the moon appeared slow crossing the far horizon
you are tired are you not mister vane said the raven alighting on a stone you must make acquaintance with the horse that will carry you in the morning he gave a strange whistle through his long black beak
a spot appeared on the face of the half risen moon to my ears came presently the drumming of swift soft galloping hoofs and in a minute or two out of the very disc of the moon low thundered the terrible horse
his mane flowed away behind him like the crest of a wind fighting wave torn seaward in hoary spray and the whisk of his tail kept blinding the eye of the moon nineteen hands he seemed huge of bone tight of skin
hard of muscle a steed the holy death himself might choose on which to ride abroad and slay the moon seemed to regard him with awe in her scary light he looked a very skeleton loosely roped together
terrifically large he moved with the lightness of a winged insect as he drew near his speed slackened and his mane and tail drifted about him settling
now i was not merely a lover of horses but i loved every horse i saw i had never spent money except upon horses and had never sold a horse the sight of this mighty one terrible to look at
woke in me longing to possess him it was pure greed nay rank covetousness an evil thing in all the worlds i do not mean that i could have stolen him but that regardless of his proper place i would have bought him if i could
i laid my hands on him and stroked the protuberant bones that humped a hide smooth and thin and shiny as satin so shiny that the very shape of the moon was reflected in it i fondled his sharp pointed ears whispered words in them
and breathed into his red nostrils the breath of a man's life he in return breathed into mine the breath of a horse's life and we loved one another what eyes he had blue filmy like the eyes of the dead
behind each was a glowing coal the raven with wings half extended looked on pleased at my love making to his magnificent horse that is well be friends with him he said he will carry you all the better to morrow
now we must hurry home my desire to ride the horse had grown passionate may i not mount him at once mister raven i cried by all means he answered mount and ride him home
the horse bent his head over my shoulder lovingly i twisted my hands in his mane and scrambled onto his back not without aid from certain protuberant bones he would outspeed any leopard in creation i cried
not that way at night answered the raven the road is difficult but come loss now will be gain then to wait is harder than to run and its meed is the fuller
go on my son straight to the cottage i shall be there as soon as you it will rejoice my wife's heart to see son of hers on that horse i sat silent the horse stood like a block of marble
why do you linger asked the raven i long so much to ride after the leopardess i answered that i can scarce restrain myself you have promised
my debt to the little ones appears i confess a greater thing than my bond to you yield to the temptation and you will bring mischief upon them and on yourself also what matters it for me i
i will go but the truth was i forgot the children infatuate with the horse eyes flashed through the darkness and i knew that adam stood in his own shape beside me
i knew also by his voice that he repressed an indignation almost too strong for him mister vane he said do you not know why you have not yet done anything worth doing because i have been a fool i answered
wherein in everything which do you count your most indiscreet action bringing the princess to life i ought to have left her to her just fate
nay now you talk foolishly you could not have done otherwise than you did not knowing she was evil but you never brought any one to life how could you yourself dead i dead i cried
yes he answered and you will be dead so long as you refuse to die back to the old riddling i returned scornfully be persuaded and go home with me he continued gently the most
nearly the only foolish thing you ever did was to run from our dead i pressed the horse's ribs and he was off like a sudden wind i gave him a pat on the side of the neck and he went about in a sharp driven curve
close to the ground like a cat when scratchingly she wheels about after a mouse leaning sideways till his mane swept the tops of the heather through the dark i heard the wings of the raven
five quick flaps i heard and he perched on the horse's head the horse checked himself instantly ploughing up the ground with his feet mister vane croaked the raven think what you are doing
twice already has evil befallen you once from fear and once from heedlessness breach of word is far worse it is a crime the little ones are in frightful peril and i brought it upon them
i cried but indeed i will not break my word to you i will return and spend in your house what nights what days what years you please i tell you once more you will do them
other than good if you go to night he insisted but a false sense of power a sense which had no root and was merely vibrated into me from the strength of the horse had alas rendered me too stupid to listen to anything he said
it is my duty and i will go if i perish for it go then foolish boy he returned with anger in his croak take the horse and ride to failure may it be to humility
he spread his wings and flew again i pressed the lean ribs under me after the spotted leopardess i whispered in his ear he turned his head this way and that snuffing the air then started
and went a few paces in a slow undecided walk suddenly he quickened his walk broke into a trot began to gallop and in a few moments his speed was tremendous he seemed to see in the dark never stumbled not once faltered
not once hesitated i sat as on the ridge of a wave i felt under me the play of each individual muscle his joints were so elastic and his every movement glided so into the next that not once did he jar me
his growing swiftness bore him along until he flew rather than ran the wind met and passed us like a tornado across the evil hollow we sped like a bolt from an arblast
no monster lifted its neck all knew the hoofs that thundered over their heads we rushed up the hills we shot down their farther slopes from the rocky chasms of the river bed he did not swerve he held on over them his fierce
terrible gallop the moon half way up the heaven gazed with a solemn trouble in her pale countenance rejoicing in the power of my steed and in the pride of my life i sat like a king and rode
we were near the middle of the many channels my horse every other moment clearing one sometimes two in his stride and now and then gathering himself for a great bounding leap when the moon reached the key stone of her arch
then came a wonder and a terror she began to descend rolling like the nave of fortune's wheel bowled by the gods and went faster and faster like our own moon this one had a human face
and now the broad forehead now the chin was uppermost as she rolled i gazed aghast across the ravines came the howling of wolves
an ugly fear began to invade the hollow places of my heart my confidence was on the wane the horse maintained his headlong swiftness with ears pricked forward and thirsty nostrils exulting in the wind his career created
but there was the moon jolting like an old chariot wheel down the hill of heaven with awful boding she rolled at last over the horizon edge and disappeared carrying all her light with her
the mighty steed was in the act of clearing a wide shallow channel when we were caught in the net of the darkness his head dropped its impetus carried his helpless bulk across
and where he fell he lay i got up kneeled beside him and felt him all over not a bone could i find broken but he was a horse no more
chapter twenty two the opening of the flower the night passed away very sweetly for cornelius although in great agitation every instant he fancied he heard the gentle voice of rosa calling him he then started up went to the door
and looked through the grating but no one was behind it and the lobby was empty rosa no doubt would be watching too but happier than he she watched over the tulip she had before her eyes that noble flower
that wonder of wonders which not only was unknown but was not even thought possible until then what would the world say when it heard that the black tulip was found that it existed and that it was the prisoner van baerle who had found it
how cornelius would have spurned the offer of his liberty in exchange for his tulip day came without any news the tulip was not yet in flower the day passed as the night night came and with it rosa
joyous and cheerful as a bird well asked cornelius well all is going on prosperously this night without any doubt our tulip will be in flower and will it flower black
black as jet without a speck of any other colour without one speck good heavens my dear rosa i have been dreaming all night in the first place of you rosa made a sign of incredulity
if it is no more than that i have a messenger quite ready is he safe one for whom i will answer he is one of my lovers i hope not jacob no be quiet it is the ferryman of loewestein
a smart young man of twenty five by jove be quiet said rosa smiling he is still under age as you have yourself fixed it from twenty six to twenty eight in fine
and i will write or rather on second thoughts you will for if i did being a poor prisoner people might like your father see a conspiracy in it you will write to the president of the horticultural society and i am sure he will come
but if he tarries well let us suppose that he tarries one day or even two but it is impossible a tulip fancier like him will not tarry one hour not one minute not one second
and intrust the tulip to him ah if we had been able to carry it ourselves rosa it would never have left my hands but to pass into yours but this is a dream which we must not entertain continued cornelius with a sigh
would indeed be quite capable of playing such a trick said rosa and if on your return you find it open well oh rosa whenever it opens remember that not a moment must be lost in apprising the president
and in apprising you yes i understand rosa sighed yet without any bitter feeling but rather like a woman who begins to understand a foible and to accustom herself to it i return to your tulip mynheer van baerle
and as soon as it opens i will give you news which being done the messenger will set out immediately rosa rosa i don't know to what wonder under the sun i shall compare you compare me to the black tulip and i promise you
oh my friend very dear friend i entreat you say very dear rosa very dear very dear yes very dear said rosa with a beating heart beyond herself with happiness
and now that you have said very dear dear rosa say also most happy say happier and more blessed than ever man was under the sun
and that is your cheek your fresh cheek your soft rosy cheek oh rosa give it me of your own free will and not by chance ah the prisoner's prayer ended in a sigh of ecstasy
his lips met those of the maiden not by chance nor by stratagem but as saint preux's was to meet the lips of julie a hundred years later rosa made her escape cornelius stood with his heart upon his lips
and his face glued to the wicket in the door he was fairly choking with happiness and joy he opened his window and gazed long with swelling heart at the cloudless vault of heaven and the moon which shone like silver
upon the two fold stream flowing from far beyond the hills he filled his lungs with the pure sweet air while his brain dwelt upon thoughts of happiness and his heart overflowed with gratitude and religious fervour
oh thou art always watching from on high my god he cried half prostrate his glowing eyes fixed upon the stars forgive me that i almost doubted thy existence during these latter days for thou didst hide thy face behind the clouds
and wert for a moment lost to my sight o thou merciful god thou pitying father everlasting but to day this evening and to night again i see thee in all thy wondrous glory in the mirror of thy heavenly abode and more clearly still
down there he said is rosa watching like myself and waiting from minute to minute down there under rosa's eyes is the mysterious flower which lives which expands which opens
yes perhaps at this moment the two objects of my dearest love caress each other under the eye of heaven at this moment a star blazed in the southern sky and shot through the whole horizon falling down as it were
on the fortress of loewestein cornelius felt a thrill run through his frame ah he said here is heaven sending a soul to my flower
nearly at that very moment the prisoner heard in the lobby
and the rustling of a gown and a well known voice which said to him cornelius my friend
and very happy friend come come quickly cornelius darted with one spring from the window to the door his lips met those of rosa who told him with a kiss it is open it is black here it is
whilst with the other she held to the same height the miraculous tulip cornelius uttered a cry and was nearly fainting oh muttered he my god my god thou dost reward me for my innocence and my captivity as thou hast allowed two such flowers
the whole of the flower was as black and shining as jet rosa said cornelius almost gasping rosa there is not one moment to lose in writing the letter it is written my dearest cornelius said rosa is it indeed
whilst the tulip opened i wrote it myself for i did not wish to lose a moment here is the letter and tell me whether you approve of it cornelius took the letter and read in a handwriting
as follows mynheer president the black tulip is about to open perhaps in ten minutes as soon as it is open i shall send a messenger to you with the request that you will come and fetch it in person from the fortress at loewestein
i am the daughter of the jailer gryphus almost as much of a captive as the prisoners of my father i cannot therefore bring to you this wonderful flower this is the reason why i beg you to come and fetch it yourself it is my wish
that it should be called rosa barlaensis it has opened it is perfectly black come mynheer president come i have the honour to be your humble servant rosa gryphus that's it dear rosa that's it
your letter is admirable i could not have written it with such beautiful simplicity you will give to the committee all the information that will be required of you they will then know how the tulip has been grown how much care and anxiety and how many sleepless nights
it has cost but for the present not a minute must be lost the messenger the messenger what's the name of the president give me the letter i will direct it oh he is very well known it is mynheer van systens the burgomaster of haarlem
give it to me rosa give it to me and with a trembling hand cornelius wrote the address to mynheer peter van systens burgomaster and president of the horticultural society of haarlem and now rosa go
rosa's lover rosa had scarcely pronounced these consolatory words when a voice was heard from the staircase asking gryphus how matters were going on do you hear father said rosa what master jacob calls you
after this he locked the door and called out i shall be with you directly friend jacob poor cornelius thus left alone with his bitter grief muttered to himself ah you old hangman it is me you have trodden under foot
that henceforth her father would make no objection to his cultivating flowers and how do you know that the prisoner asked with a doleful look
ah master jacob
saying this she smiled in such a way that the little cloud of jealousy which had darkened the brow of cornelius speedily vanished how was it asked the prisoner well being asked by his friend
my father told at supper the whole story of the tulip or rather of the bulb and of his own fine exploit of crushing it cornelius heaved a sigh which might have been called a groan
had you only seen master jacob at that moment continued rosa i really thought he would set fire to the castle his eyes were like two flaming torches his hair stood on end and he clinched his fist for a moment
you have done that he cried you have crushed the bulb indeed i have it is infamous said master jacob it is odious you have committed a great crime my father was quite dumbfounded
are you mad too he asked his friend
crushed the bulb my god my god crushed then turning toward me he asked but it was not the only one that he had did he ask that inquired cornelius with some anxiety
you think it was not the only one said my father very well we shall search for the others you will search for the others cried jacob taking my father by the collar but he immediately loosed him then turning towards me
he continued asking and what did that poor young man say i did not know what to answer as you had so strictly enjoined me never to allow any one to guess the interest which you are taking in the bulb fortunately
well now are you mad cried my father what immense misfortune is it to crush a tulip bulb you may buy a hundred of them in the market of gorcum perhaps some less precious one than that was i quite incautiously replied
and what did jacob say or do at these words asked cornelius at these words if i must say it his eyes seemed to flash like lightning but said cornelius that was not all i am sure he said something in his turn
so then my pretty rosa he said
i saw that i had made a blunder what do i know i said negligently do i understand anything of tulips i only know as unfortunately it is our lot to live with prisoners that for them any pastime is of value
to procure this bulb i turned my eyes away to avoid my father's look but i met those of jacob it was as if he had tried to read my thoughts at the bottom of my heart some little show of anger sometimes saves an answer
i shrugged my shoulders turned my back and advanced towards the door but i was kept by something which i heard although it was uttered in a very low voice only jacob said to my father it would not be so difficult to ascertain that
how so you need only search his person and if he has the other bulbs we shall find them as there usually are three suckers three suckers cried cornelius did you say that i have three the word certainly struck me
then take him down under some pretext or other and i will search his cell in the meanwhile halloa halloa said cornelius but this mister jacob of yours is a villain it seems i am afraid he is
certainly that not one of your movements escaped him not one indeed rosa said cornelius growing quite pale well it was not you he was after who else then
it is not you that he was in love with but with whom else he was after my bulb and is in love with my tulip you don't say so and yet it is very possible said rosa
will you make sure of it in what manner oh it would be very easy tell me go to morrow into the garden manage matters so that jacob may know as he did the first time that you are going there
and that he may follow you feign to put the bulb into the ground leave the garden but look through the keyhole of the door and watch him well
we shall do as he does oh said rosa with a sigh you are very fond of your bulbs to tell the truth said the prisoner sighing likewise since your father crushed that unfortunate bulb
i feel as if part of my own self had been paralyzed now just hear me said rosa will you try something else what will you accept the proposition of my father which proposition
tulip bulbs by hundreds indeed he did accept two or three and along with them you may grow the third sucker yes that would do very well said cornelius knitting his brow if your father were alone
who watches all our ways well that is true but only think you are depriving yourself as i can easily see of a very great pleasure she pronounced these words with a smile
which was not altogether without a tinge of irony cornelius reflected for a moment he evidently was struggling against some vehement desire no he cried at last with the stoicism of a roman of old
it would be a weakness it would be a folly it would be a meanness if i thus give up the only and last resource which we possess to the uncertain chances of the bad passions of anger and envy
i should never deserve to be forgiven no rosa no to morrow we shall come to a conclusion
you will plant it according to my instructions and as to the third sucker cornelius here heaved a deep sigh watch over it as a miser over his first or last piece of gold as the mother over her child
as the wounded over the last drop of blood in his veins
some voice within me tells me that it will be our saving that it will be a source of good to us be easy mynheer cornelius said rosa with a sweet mixture of melancholy and gravity be easy your wishes are commands to me
me who have no one in the world but you sacrifice me don't come to see me any more rosa felt her heart sink within her and her eyes were filling with tears alas she said what is it
asked cornelius i see one thing what do you see
rosa was vexed with him and with good reason perhaps she would never return to see the prisoner and then he would have no more news either of rosa or of his tulips we have to confess to the disgrace of our hero
and of floriculture that of his two affections he felt most strongly inclined to regret the loss of rosa
chapter thirty four of the embarrassment of riches d'artagnan lost no time and as soon as the thing was suitable and opportune he paid a visit to the lord treasurer of his majesty he had then the satisfaction to exchange
a piece of paper covered with very ugly writing for a prodigious number of crowns recently stamped with the effigies
d'artagnan easily controlled himself and yet on this occasion he could not help evincing a joy which the reader will perhaps comprehend if he deigns to have some indulgence for a man who since his birth
had never seen so many pieces and rolls of pieces juxta placed in an order truly agreeable to the eye the treasurer placed all the rolls in bags and closed each bag with a stamp sealed with the arms of england
a favor which treasurers do not grant to everybody then impassible and just as polite as he ought to be towards a man honored with the friendship of the king he said to d'artagnan take away your money sir your money
these words made a thousand chords vibrate in the heart of d'artagnan which he had never felt before he had the bags packed in a small cart and returned home meditating deeply
can no longer expect to wear a smooth brow a wrinkle for every hundred thousand livres is not too much d'artagnan shut himself up ate no dinner closed his door to everybody and with a lighted lamp and a loaded pistol on the table
d'artagnan remembered that the english are masters in mechanics and conservative industry and he determined to go in the morning in search of a mechanic who would sell him a strong box he did not go far master will jobson dwelling in piccadilly
listened to his propositions comprehended his wishes and promised to make him a safety lock that should relieve him from all future fear i will give you said he a piece of mechanism entirely new at the first serious attempt upon your lock
the little copper bullet pleases me mightily so now sir mechanic the terms a fortnight for the execution
payable on delivery replied the artisan d'artagnan's brow darkened a fortnight was delay enough to allow the thieves of london time to remove all occasion for the strong box as to the fifteen hundred livres that would be paying too dear
for what a little vigilance would procure him for nothing i will think of it said he thank you sir and he returned home at full speed nobody had yet touched his treasure
and found him so thoughtful that he could not help expressing his surprise how is this said he you are rich and not gay you who were so anxious for wealth my friend the pleasures to which we are not accustomed
oppress us more than the griefs with which we are familiar give me your opinion if you please i can ask you who have always had money when we have money what do we do with it that depends
what have you done with yours seeing that it has not made you a miser or a prodigal for avarice dries up the heart and prodigality drowns it is that not so fabricius could not have spoken more justly
but in truth my money has never been a burden to me how so
no you know i have a tolerably handsome house and that house composes the better part of my property i know it does so that you can be as rich as i am and indeed more rich whenever you like by the same means
but your rents do you lay them by no what do you think of a chest concealed in a wall i never made use of such a thing then you must have some confidant some safe man of business who pays you interest at a fair rate not at all
good heavens what do you do with it then i spend all i have and i only have what i spend my dear d'artagnan ah that may be but you are something of a prince
and then you have expenses and appearances well i don't see why you should be less of a noble than i am my friend your money would be quite sufficient
two thirds too much i beg your pardon did you not tell me i thought i heard you say i fancied you had a partner ah mordioux that's true cried d'artagnan coloring
that's a pity it was a round sum and sounded well
what a memory you have tolerably good yes thank god
his was not a bad dream what a speculation peste well what is said is said how much are you to give him oh said d'artagnan he is not a bad fellow i shall arrange matters with him i have had a great deal of trouble you see
and expenses all that must be taken into account my dear friend i can depend on you
but now that you have nothing more to do here we shall depart if you please you can go and thank his majesty ask if he has any commands and in six days
my friend i am most anxious to be off and will go at once and pay my respects to the king
am going to call upon some friends in the city
with all my heart what do you want to do with him something very simple and which will not fatigue him i shall only beg him to take charge of my pistols which lie there on the table near that coffer
who was busy writing kept him in the ante chamber a full hour whilst walking about in the gallery from the door to the window from the window to the door
but at the moment he was going to ascertain if it were he the usher summoned him to his majesty's presence
while receiving the thanks of our friend chevalier said he you are wrong to express gratitude to me i have not paid you a quarter of the value of the history of the box into which you put the brave general the excellent duke of albemarle
i mean and the king laughed heartily d'artagnan did not think it proper to interrupt his majesty and he bowed with much modesty a propos continued charles do you think my dear monk has really pardoned you pardoned me yes i hope so sire
eh but it was a cruel trick odds fish to pack up the first personage of the english revolution like a herring in your place i would not trust him chevalier but sire yes i know very well monk calls you his friend
but he has too penetrating an eye not to have a memory and too lofty a brow not to be very proud you know grande supercilium i shall certainly learn latin said d'artagnan to himself but stop
cried the merry monarch i must manage your reconciliation i know how to set about it so d'artagnan bit his mustache will your majesty permit me to tell you the truth speak chevalier speak
well sire you alarm me greatly if your majesty undertakes the affair as you seem inclined to do i am a lost man the duke will have me assassinated the king burst into a fresh roar of laughter
sire i beg you to allow me to settle this matter myself and if your majesty has no further need of my services no chevalier what
if your majesty has no more commands for me
ah but my sister must know you she must in case of need have you to depend upon
very well parry come here parry the side door opened and parry entered his face beaming with pleasure as soon as he saw d'artagnan what is rochester doing said the king he is on the canal with the ladies replied parry
and buckingham he is there also that is well
that is the duke of buckingham chevalier
oh sire you know there is one of my vessels at your disposal sire you overpower me i cannot think of putting your majesty's officers
the king slapped d'artagnan upon the shoulder nobody will be inconvenienced on your account chevalier
and to whom you will willingly serve as a companion i fancy for you know him d'artagnan appeared astonished
as he had begun it by a joyous burst of laughter
then fainted into unreality before the sheer wonder of what he saw in the brief interval it takes to snap the fingers the climax was thus so hurriedly upon him
and through it all he was clearly aware of the pair of little human figures man and woman standing erect and commanding at the centre knew too that she directed and controlled
while he in some secondary fashion supported her and ever watched but both were dim dropped somewhere into a lesser scale
it was the knowledge of their presence however that alone enabled him to keep his powers in hand at all but for these two human beings there within possible reach he must have closed his eyes and swooned
for a tempest that seemed to toss loose stars about the sky swept round about him pouring up the pillared avenue in front of the procession a blast of giant energy of liberty came through
forwards and backwards circling spirally about him like a whirlwind came this revival of life that sought to dip itself once more in matter and in form it came to the accurate out line of its form they had traced for it
he held his mind steady enough to realise that it was akin to what men call a descent of some spiritual movement that wakens a body of believers into faith a race an entire nation
only that he experienced it in this brief concentrated form before it has scattered down into ten thousand hearts here he knew its source and essence behind the veil crudely unmanageable as yet
he felt it rushing loose behind appearances there was this amazing impact of a twisting swinging force that stormed down as though it would bend and coil the very ribs of the old stubborn hills
it sought to warm them with the stress of its own irresistible life stream to beat them into shape and make pliable their obstinate resistance through all things the impulse poured and spread like fire at white heat
yet nothing visible came as yet no alteration in the actual landscape no sign of change in things familiar to his eyes while impetus thus fought against inertia
calm and untouched himself he lay outside the circle of evocation watching waiting scarcely daring to breathe yet well aware that any minute the scene would transfer itself from memory that was subjective
to matter that was objective and then in a flash the bridge was built and the transfer was accomplished how or where he did not see he could not tell it was there before he knew it
there before his normal earthly sight he saw it as he saw the hands he was holding stupidly up to shield his face
latent for centuries came pouring down the empty wadi bed prepared for its reception through stones and sand and boulders it came in an impetuous hurricane of power
the liberation of its life appalled him all that was free untied responded instantly like chaff loose objects fled towards it there was a yielding in the hills and precipices
and even in the mass of desert which provided their foundation the hinges of the sand went creaking in the night it shaped for itself a bodily outline
yet most strangely nothing definitely moved how could he express the violent contradiction for the immobility was apparent only a sham a counterfeit
he saw the two things side by side the outer immobility the senses commonly agree upon and this amazing flying out of their inner invisible substance
towards the vortex of attracting life that sucked them in for stubborn matter turned docile before the stress of this returning life taught somewhere to be plastic it was being moulded into an approach to bodily outline
the two officiating human beings safe at the stationary centre and himself just outside the circle of operation alone remained untouched and unaffected but a few feet in any direction for any one of them meant
instantaneous death they would be absorbed into the vortex mere corpuscles pressed into the service of this sphere of action of a mighty body how these perceptions reached him with such conviction henriot could never say
he knew it because he felt it something fell about him from the sky that already paled towards the dawn the stars themselves it seemed contributed some part of the terrific flowing impulse that conquered matter
and shaped itself this physical expression then before he was able to fashion any preconceived idea of what visible form this potent life might assume he was aware of further change
it came at the briefest possible interval after the beginning this certainty that to and fro about him as yet however indeterminate passed magnitudes that were stupendous as the desert there was beauty in them too
though a terrible beauty hardly of this earth at all a fragment of old egypt had returned a little portion of that vast body of belief that once was egypt
evoked by the worship of one human heart passionately sincere the ka of egypt stepped back to visit the material it once informed the sand yet only a portion came
henriot clearly realised that it stretched forth an arm finding no mass of worshippers through whom it might express itself completely it pressed inanimate matter thus into its service here was the beginning the woman had spoken of
little opening clue entire reconstruction lay perhaps beyond and henriot next realised that these magnitudes in which this group energy sought to clothe itself as visible form were curiously familiar
it was not a new thing that he would see booming softly as they dropped downwards through the sky with a motion the size of them rendered delusive they trooped up the avenue towards the central point that summoned them
he realised the giant flock of them descent of fearful beauty outlining a type of life denied to the world for ages countless as this sand that blew against his skin
careering over the waste of desert moved the army of dark splendours that dwarfed any organic structure called a body men have ever known he recognised them cold in him of death though the outlines reared higher than the pyramids
and towered up to hide whole groups of stars yes he recognised them in their partial revelation though he never saw the monstrous host complete but one of them he realised posing its eternal riddle to the sands
had of old been glimpsed sufficiently to seize its form in stone yet poorly seized as a doll may stand for the dignity of a human being or a child's toy represent an engine that draws trains
and he knelt there on his narrow ledge the world of men forgotten the power that caught him was too great a thing for wonder or for fear he even felt no awe
sensation of any kind that can be named or realised left him utterly he forgot himself he merely watched the glory numbed him block and pencil as the reason of his presence there at all
no longer existed yet one small link remained that held him to some kind of consciousness of earthly things he never lost sight of this that being just outside the circle of evocation he was safe
and that the man and woman being stationary in its untouched centre were also safe but that a movement of six inches in any direction meant for any one of them instant death
what was it then that suddenly strengthened this solitary link so that the chain tautened and he felt the pull of it henriot could not say he came back with the rush of a descending drop to the realisation dimly
vaguely as from great distance that he was with these two now at this moment in the wadi hof and that the cold of dawn was in the air about him the chill breath of the desert made him shiver
but at first so deeply had his soul been dipped in this fragment of ancient worship he could remember nothing more somewhere lay a little spot of streets and houses its name escaped him
he had once been there there were many people but insignificant people who were they and what had he to do with them all recent memories had been drowned in the tide that flooded him from an immeasurable past
and who were they these two beings standing on the white floor of sand below him for a long time he could not recover their names yet he remembered them and thus robbed of association that names bring
and for this reason the evocation had been partial only the admixture of an evil motive was the flaw that marred complete success the names then flashed upon him lady statham richard vance
vance with a horrid drop from splendour into something mean and sordid henriot felt the pain of it the motive of the man was so insignificant his purpose so atrocious
more and more with the name came back his first repugnance fear suspicion and human terror caught him he shrieked but as in nightmare no sound escaped his lips he tried to move
a wild desire to interfere to protect to prevent flung him forward close to the dizzy edge of the gulf below but his muscles refused obedience to the will
that it dislocated the machinery of clairvoyant vision the inner perception clouded and grew dark outer and inner mingled in violent inextricable confusion the wrench seemed almost physical
it happened all at once retreat and continuation for a moment somehow combined and if he did not definitely see the awful thing at least he was aware that it had come to pass
he witnessed it the supreme moment of evocation was close life through that awful sandy vortex whirled and raged loose particles showered and pelted
caught by the draught of vehement life that moulded the substance of the desert into imperial outline when suddenly shot the little evil thing across that marred and blasted it
into the whirlpool flew forward a particle of material that was a human being and the group soul caught and used it the actual accomplishment henriot did not claim to see
he was a witness but a witness who could give no evidence whether the woman was pushed of set intention or whether some detail of sound and pattern was falsely used to effect the terrible result he was helpless to determine
he pretends no itemised account she went in one second with appalling swiftness she disappeared swallowed out of space and time within that awful maw
one little corpuscle among a million through which the life now stalking the desert wastes moulded itself a troop like body sand took her there followed emptiness
a hush of unutterable silence stillness peace movement and sound instantly retired whence they came the avenues of memory closed
the splendours all went down into their sandy tombs the moon had sunk into the libyan wilderness the eastern sky was red
the dawn drew out that wondrous sweetness of the desert which is as sister to the sweetness that the moonlight brings the desert settled back to sleep huge unfathomable
charged to the brim with life that watches waits and yet conceals itself behind the ruins of apparent desolation and the wadi empty at his feet
filled slowly with the gentle little winds that bring the sunrise then across the pale glimmering of sand henriot saw a figure moving it came quickly towards him
yet unsteadily and with a hurry that was ugly vance was on the way to fetch him and the horror of the man's approach struck him like a hammer in the face he closed his eyes
sinking back to hide but before he swooned there reached him the clatter of the murderer's tread as he began to climb over the splintered rocks
and the faint echo of his voice calling him by name falsely and in pretence
dreams of childhood we think we have advanced too rapidly let us go back a little before our last attempt to overcome the difficulties of dream distortion through our technique
in which distortion is either entirely absent or of trifling importance if there are such but here again we digress from the history of the evolution of our knowledge for as a matter of fact
we become aware of dreams entirely free of distortion only after the consistent application of our method of interpretation and after complete analysis of the distorted dream
they are short clear coherent easy to understand unambiguous and yet unquestionable dreams but do not think that all children's dreams are like this
dream distortion makes its appearance very early in childhood and dreams of children from five to eight years of age have been recorded that showed all the characteristics of later dreams
but if you will limit yourselves to the age beginning with conscious psychic activity up to the fourth or fifth year you will discover a series of dreams that are of a so called infantile character
from these children's dreams we gain information concerning the nature of dreams with great ease and certainty and we hope it will prove decisive and of universal application one
for the understanding of these dreams we need no analysis no technical methods we need not question the child that is giving an account of his dream but one must add to this a story taken from the life of the child
so that we may base our further deductions upon them a a boy of twenty two months is to present a basket of cherries as a birthday gift he plainly does so very unwillingly
although they promise him that he will get some of them himself the next morning he relates as his dream hermann eat all cherries b
a little girl of three and a quarter years makes her first trip across a lake at the landing she does not want to leave the boat and cries bitterly the time of the trip seems to her to have passed entirely too rapidly
the next morning she says last night i rode on the lake we may add the supplementary fact that this trip lasted longer
a boy of five and a quarter years is taken on an excursion into the escherntal near hallstatt he had heard that hallstatt lay at the foot of the dachstein and had shown great interest in this mountain
from his home in aussee there was a beautiful view of the dachstein
the child had tried again and again to see it through the telescope with what result no one knew he started on the excursion in a joyously expectant mood whenever a new mountain came in sight the boy asked
is that the dachstein the oftener this question was answered in the negative the more moody he became later he became entirely silent and would not take part in a small climb to a waterfall
they thought he was overtired but the next morning he said quite happily last night i dreamed that we were in the simonyhuette it was with this expectation therefore that he had taken part in the excursion
the only detail he gave was one he had heard before you had to climb steps for six hours these three dreams will suffice for all the information we desire
two we see that children's dreams are not meaningless they are intelligible significant psychic acts you will recall what i represented to you as the medical opinion concerning the dream
the simile of untrained fingers wandering aimlessly over the keys of the piano you cannot fail to see how decidedly these dreams of childhood are opposed to this conception
but it would be strange indeed if the child brought forth complete psychic products in sleep while the adult in the same condition contents himself with spasmodic reactions indeed
we have every reason to attribute the more normal and deeper sleep to the child three dream distortion is lacking in these dreams therefore they need no interpretation the manifest and latent dreams are merged
dream distortion is therefore not inherent in the dream i may assume that this relieves you of a great burden but upon closer consideration we shall have to admit of a tiny bit of distortion
a certain differentiation between manifest dream content and latent dream thought even in these dreams four the child's dream is a reaction to an experience of the day
now recall our discussions concerning the importance of the role of external or internal bodily stimuli as disturbers of sleep or as dream producers we learned definite facts about this
but could only explain a very small number of dreams in this way in these children's dreams nothing points to the influence of such somatic stimuli we cannot be mistaken for the dreams are entirely intelligible and easy to survey
but we need not give up the theory of physical causation entirely on this account we can only ask why at the outset we forgot that besides the physical stimuli there are also psychic sleep disturbing stimuli
for we know that it is these stimuli that commonly cause the disturbed sleep of adults by preventing them from producing the ideal condition of sleep the withdrawal of interest from the world the dreamer does not wish to interrupt his life
but would rather continue his work with the things that occupy him and for this reason he does not sleep the unfulfilled wish to which he reacts by means of the dream is the psychic sleep disturbing stimulus for the child
five from this point we easily arrive at an explanation of the function of the dream the dream as a reaction to the psychic stimulus must have the value of a release of this stimulus
which results in its elimination and in the continuation of sleep we do not know how this release is made possible by the dream but we note that the dream is not a disturber of sleep as calumny says
but a guardian of sleep whose duty it is to quell disturbances it is true we think we would have slept better if we had not dreamt but here we are wrong as a matter of fact we would not have slept at all without the help of the dream
that we have slept so soundly is due to the dream alone it could not help disturbing us slightly just as the night watchman often cannot avoid making a little noise while he drives away the rioters who would awaken us with their noise
six one main characteristic of the dream is that a wish is its source and that the content of the dream is the gratification of this wish
another equally constant feature is that the dream does not merely express a thought but also represents the fulfillment of this wish in the form of a hallucinatory experience i should like to travel on the lake
says the wish that excites the dream the dream itself has as its content i travel on the lake one distinction between the latent and manifest dream a distortion of the latent dream thought
therefore remains even in the case of these simple children's dreams namely the translation of the thought into experience in the interpretation of the dream it is of utmost importance that this change be traced back
if this should prove to be an extremely common characteristic of the dream then the above mentioned dream fragment i see my brother in a closet could not be translated my brother is close pressed but rather
i wish that my brother were close pressed my brother should be close pressed of the two universal characteristics of the dream we have cited the second plainly has greater prospects of unconditional acknowledgment than the first
only extensive investigation can ascertain that the cause of the dream must always be a wish and cannot also be an anxiety a plan or a reproach but this does not alter the other characteristic
that the dream does not simply reproduce the stimulus but by experiencing it anew as it were removes expells and settles it seven
in connection with these characteristics of the dream we can again resume the comparison between the dream and the error in the case of the latter we distinguish an interfering tendency and one interfered with
and the error is the compromise between the two the dream fits into the same scheme the tendency interfered with in this case can be no other than that of sleep
for the interfering tendency we substitute the psychic stimulus the wish which strives for its fulfillment let us say for thus far we are not familiar with any other sleep disturbing psychic stimulus
in this instance also the dream is the result of compromise we sleep and yet we experience the removal of a wish we gratify the wish but at the same time continue to sleep
mister ian hamilton's ballad of hadji is undeniably clever hadji is a wonderful arab horse that a reckless hunter rides to death in the pursuit of a wild boar and the moral of the poem for there is a moral
seems to be that an absorbing passion is a very dangerous thing and blunts the human sympathies in the course of the chase a little child is drowned a brahmin maiden murdered and an aged peasant severely wounded
some of the stanzas are very graceful notably one beginning yes like a bubble filled with smoke the curd white moon upswimming broke the vacancy of space
but such lines as the following which occur in the description of the fight with the boar i hung as close as keepsake locket on maiden breast but from its socket he wrenched my bridle arm
are dreadful and his brains festooned the thorn is not a very happy way of telling the reader how the boar died all through the volume we find the same curious mixture of good and bad
is awkward and uncouth and yet the poem in which the expression occurs has some pretty lines mister ian hamilton should prune pruning whether in the garden or in the study
mister catty dedicates his book to the memory of wordsworth shelley coleridge and keats a somewhat pompous signboard for such very ordinary wine
and an inscription in golden letters on the cover informs us that his poems are addressed to the rising generation whom he tells us elsewhere he is anxious to initiate into the great comprehensive truth that
virtue is no other than self interest deeply understood
but it certainly does not convey that secret to the reader it is heavy abstract and prosaic and shows how intolerably dull a man can be who has the best intentions and the most earnest beliefs
in the rest of the volume where mister catty does not take himself quite so seriously there are some rather pleasing things the sonnet on shelley's room at university college would be admirable
green in the wizard arms of the foam bearded atlantic an isle of old enchantment a melancholy isle enchanted and dreaming lies and there by shannon's flowing in the moonlight spectre thin
the spectre erin sits wail no more lonely one mother of exile wail no more banshee of the world no more thy sorrows are the world's thou art no more alone thy wrongs the world's
are the first and last stanzas of mister todhunter's poem the banshee to throw away the natural grace of rhyme from a modern song is as mister swinburne once remarked
a wilful abdication of half the power and half the charm of verse and we cannot say that mister todhunter has given us much that consoles us for its loss part of his poem reads like a translation of an old bardic song
part of it like rough material for poetry and part of it like misshapen prose it is an interesting specimen of poetic writing but it is not a perfect work of art
the doom of the children of lir and the lamentation for the sons of turann rhyme gives architecture as well as melody to song
and though the lovely lute builded walls of thebes may have risen up to unrhymed choral metres we have had no modern amphion to work such wonders for us
five were the chiefs who challenged by their deeds the over kingship
and after them stood up midhir the proud who reigned upon the hills of bri of bri the loved of liath bri of the broken heart and last was angus og all these had many voices but for bov derg were most
has of course an archaeological interest but has no artistic value at all indeed from the point of view of art the few little poems at the end of the volume are worth all the ambitious
pseudo epics that mister todhunter has tried to construct out of celtic lore a bacchic day is charming and the sonnet on the open air performance of the faithfull shepherdesse
is most gracefully phrased and most happy in conception mister peacock is an american poet and professor thomas danleigh supplee a m ph d f r s
who has written a preface to his poems of the plains and songs of the solitudes tells us that he is entitled to be called the laureate of the west though a staunch republican mister peacock according to the enthusiastic professor
is not ashamed of his ancestor king william of holland nor of his relatives lord and lady peacock who it seems are natives of scotland
where his father edited the zanesville aurora and he had an uncle who was a superior man and edited the wheeling intelligencer his poems seem to be extremely popular and have been highly praised
the professor informs us by victor hugo the saturday review and the commercial advertiser the preface is the most amusing part of the book but the poems also are worth studying
the maniac the bandit chief and the outlaw can hardly be called light reading but we strongly recommend the poem on chicago chicago great city of the west all that wealth all that power invest
thou sprang like magic from the sand as touched by the magician's wand thou sprang is slightly depressing and the second line is rather obscure
but we should not measure by too high a standard the untutored utterances of artless nature the opening lines of the vendetta also deserve mention when stars are glowing through day's gloaming glow
reflecting from ocean's deep mighty flow at twilight when no grim shadows of night like ghouls have stalked in wake of the light the first line is certainly a masterpiece and indeed the whole volume is full of gems of this kind
the professor remarks in his elaborate preface that mister peacock frequently rises to the sublime and the two passages quoted above show how keenly critical is his taste in these matters and how well the poet deserves his panegyric
mister alexander skene smith's holiday recreations and other poems is heralded by a preface for which principal cairns is responsible
principal cairns claims that the life story enshrined in mister smith's poems shows the wide diffusion of native fire and literary culture in all parts of scotland happily under higher auspices than those of mere poetic impulse
this is hardly a very felicitous way of introducing a poet nor can we say that mister smith's poems are distinguished by either fire or culture he has a placid pleasant way of writing and indeed his verses cannot do any harm
though he really should not publish such attempts at metrical versions of the psalms as the following a septuagenarian we frequently may see an octogenarian if one should live to be he is a burden to himself with weariness and woe
and soon he dies and off he flies and leaveth all below the literary culture that produced these lines is we fear not of a very high order
i study poetry simply as a fine art by which i may exercise my intellect and elevate my taste wrote the late mister george morine many years ago to a friend
one of the sonnets that entitled sunset appeared in mister waddington's anthology about ten years after mister morine's death but this is the first time that his collected poems have been published they are often distinguished by a grave and chastened
beauty of style and their solemn cadences have something of the grand manner about them the editor mister wilton
to whom mister morine bequeathed his manuscripts seems to have performed his task with great tact and judgment and we hope that this little book will meet with the recognition that it deserves
poems in the modern spirit with the secret of content
chapter seven a sprained ankle i was panic stricken as i ran along the corridor i was confident that the mysterious intruder and probable murderer had been found and that he lay dead or dying at the foot of the chute i got down the staircase somehow and through the kitchen to the basement stairs
mister jamieson had been before me and the door stood open liddy was standing in the middle of the kitchen holding a frying pan by the handle as a weapon don't go down there she yelled when she saw me moving toward the basement stairs
i said sharply come down with us and turn on all the lights she offered her resignation as usual on the spot but i took her by the arm and she came along finally she switched on all the lights and pointed to a door just ahead that's the door she said sulkily
the key's in it but the key was not in it mister jamieson shook it but it was a heavy door well locked and then he stooped and began punching around the keyhole with the end of a lead pencil when he stood up his face was exultant
it's locked on the inside he said in a low tone
that is unless you didn't see any one crossing the lawn or skulking around the house did you
but the iron gates once closed and tended by the lodge keeper now stood permanently open the day of the motor car had come no one had time for closed gates and lodge keepers the lodge at sunnyside was merely a sort of supplementary servants quarters it was as convenient in its appointments as the big house and infinitely more cozy
as i went down the drive my thoughts were busy who would it be that mister jamieson had trapped in the cellar would we find a body or some one badly injured scarcely either whoever had fallen had been able to lock the laundry door on the inside if the fugitive had come from outside the house
how did he get in if it was some member of the household who could it have been and then a feeling of horror almost overwhelmed me gertrude gertrude and her injured ankle gertrude found limping slowly up the drive when i had thought she was in bed
i tried to put the thought away but it would not go if gertrude had been on the circular staircase that night why had she fled from mister jamieson the idea puzzling as it was seemed borne out by this circumstance whoever had taken refuge at the head of the stairs
and yet every way i turned i seemed to find something that pointed to such a connection
he did he absolutely disappeared in the dusk without my getting more than a glimpse of his face i had a vague impression of unfamiliar features and of a sort of cap with a visor then he was gone i went to the lodge and rapped
it required two or three poundings to bring thomas to the door and he opened it only an inch or so where is warner i asked i
it was so evident that thomas did not want me inside that i went in tell warner he is needed in a hurry i repeated and turned into the little sitting room i could hear thomas going up the stairs could hear him rouse warner and the steps of the chauffeur as he hurriedly dressed but my attention was busy with the room below
on the center table open was a sealskin traveling bag it was filled with gold topped bottles and brushes and it breathed opulence luxury femininity from every inch of surface
he was completely but somewhat incongruously dressed and his open boyish face looked abashed
and earn good salaries in a congenial occupation
mister jamieson wants you to help him break the lock warner whose bag is this he was in the doorway by this time and he pretended not to hear warner i called come back here whose bag is this
it belongs to thomas he said and fled up the drive to thomas a london bag with mirrors and cosmetic jars of which thomas could not even have guessed the use
however i put the bag in the back of my mind which was fast becoming stored with anomalous and apparently irreconcilable facts and followed warner to the house liddy had come back to the kitchen
the door to the basement stairs was double barred and had a table pushed against it and beside her on the table was most of the kitchen paraphernalia did you see if there was any one missing in the house i asked ignoring the array of sauce pans rolling pins and the poker of the range
rosie is missing liddy said with unction she had objected to rosie the parlor maid from the start missus watson went into her room and found she had gone without her hat
people that trust themselves a dozen miles from the city in strange houses with servants they don't know needn't be surprised if they wake up some morning and find their throats cut after which carefully veiled sarcasm liddy relapsed into gloom
warner came in then with a handful of small tools and mister jamieson went with him to the basement oddly enough i was not alarmed with all my heart i wished for halsey but i was not frightened at the door he was to force warner put down his tools and looked at it
then he turned the handle without the slightest difficulty the door opened revealing the blackness of the drying room beyond mister jamieson gave an exclamation of disgust gone he said
confound such careless work i might have known it was true enough we got the lights on finally and looked all through the three rooms that constituted this wing of the basement everything was quiet and empty
an explanation of how the fugitive had escaped injury was found in a heaped up basket of clothes under the chute the basket had been overturned but that was all mister jamieson examined the windows one was unlocked and offered an easy escape
the window or the door which way had the fugitive escaped the door seemed most probable and i hoped it had been so i could not have borne just then to think that it was my poor gertrude we had been hounding through the darkness and yet
i had met gertrude not far from that very window i went up stairs at last tired and depressed missus watson and liddy were making tea in the kitchen in certain walks of life the tea pot is the refuge in times of stress trouble or sickness
they give tea to the dying and they put it in the baby's nursing bottle missus watson was fixing a tray to be sent in to me and when i asked her about rosie she confirmed her absence she's not here she said but i would not think much of that miss innes
rosie is a pretty young girl and perhaps she has a sweetheart it will be a good thing if she has the maids stay much better when they have something like that to hold them here gertrude had gone back to her room and while i was drinking my cup of hot tea
mister jamieson came in we might take up the conversation where we left off an hour and a half ago he said but before we go on i want to say this the person who escaped from the laundry was a woman with a foot of moderate size and well arched
she wore nothing but a stocking on her right foot and in spite of the unlocked door she escaped by the window and again i thought of gertrude's sprained ankle
david westren by mister alfred hayes is a long narrative poem in tennysonian blank verse a sort of serious novel set to music it is somewhat lacking in actuality
and the picturesque style in which it is written rather contributes to this effect lending the story beauty but robbing it of truth
still it is not without power and cultured verse is certainly a pleasanter medium for story telling than coarse and common prose the hero of the poem is a young clergyman of the muscular christian school
a lover of good cheer a bubbling source of jest and tale a monarch of the gun a dreader tyrant of the darting trout than that bright bird whose azure lightning threads the brooklet's bowery windings
the red fox did well to seek the boulder strewn hill side when westren cheered her dappled foes the otter had cause to rue the dawn when westren's form loomed through the streaming bracken to waylay her late return from plunder
the rough pack barking a jealous welcome round their friend one day he meets on the river a lovely girl who is angling and helps her to land a gallant fish all flashing in the sun
in silver mail inlaid with scarlet gems his back thick sprinkled as a leopard's hide with rich brown spots and belly of bright gold
they naturally fall in love with each other and marry and for many years david westren leads a perfectly happy life suddenly calamity comes upon him
his wife and children die and he finds himself alone and desolate then begins his struggle like job he cries out against the injustice of things and his own personal sorrow makes him realise the sorrow and misery of the world
but the answer that satisfied job does not satisfy him he finds no comfort in contemplating leviathan as if we lacked reminding of brute force as if we never felt the clumsy hoof
as if the bulk of twenty million whales were worth one pleading soul or all the laws that rule the lifeless suns could soothe the sense of outrage in a loving human heart sublime majestic
ay but when our trust totters and faith is shattered to the base grand words will not uprear it mister hayes states the problem of life extremely well but his solution is sadly inadequate
both from a psychological and from a dramatic point of view david westren ultimately becomes a mild unitarian a sort of pastoral stopford brooke with leanings towards positivism
and we leave him preaching platitudes to a village congregation however in spite of this commonplace conclusion there is a great deal in mister hayes's poem that is strong and fine and he undoubtedly possesses a fair ear for music
and a remarkable faculty of poetical expression some of his descriptive touches of nature such as in meeting woods whereon a film of mist slept like the bloom upon the purple grape are very graceful and suggestive
and he will probably make his mark in literature there is much that is fascinating in mister rennell rodd's last volume the unknown madonna and other poems
mister rodd looks at life with all the charming optimism of a young man though he is quite conscious of the fact that a stray note of melancholy here and there has an artistic as well as a popular value
and his verse is distinguished by a certain refinement and purity of outline though not passionate he can play very prettily with the words of passion and his emotions are quite healthy and quite harmless in excelsis
the most ambitious poem in the book is somewhat too abstract and metaphysical and such lines as lift thee o'er thy here and now look beyond thine i and thou
are excessively tedious but when mister rodd leaves the problem of the unconditioned to take care of itself and makes no attempt to solve the mysteries of the ego and the non ego he is very pleasant reading indeed
a mazurka of chopin is charming in spite of the awkwardness of the fifth line and so are the verses on assisi and those on san servolo at venice these last have all the brilliancy of a clever pastel
the prettiest thing in the whole volume is this little lyric on spring such blue of sky so palely fair such glow of earth such lucid air such purple on the mountain lines such deep new verdure in the pines
the live light strikes the broken towers the crocus bulbs burst into flowers the sap strikes up the black vine stock and the lizard wakes in the splintered rock
and the heart is touched with a thought of god the very silence seems to sing it must be spring it must be spring we do not care for palely fair in the first line
and the repetition of the word strikes is not very felicitous but the grace of movement and delicacy of touch are pleasing the wind by mister james ross
is a rather gusty ode written apparently without any definite scheme of metre and not very impressive as it lacks both the strength of the blizzard and the sweetness of zephyr here is the opening
the roaming tentless wind no rest can ever find from east and west and south and north he is for ever driven forth from the chill east where fierce hyaenas seek their awful feast from the warm west by beams of glitt'ring summer blest
nothing could be much worse than this and if the line where fierce hyaenas seek their awful feast is intended to frighten us it entirely misses its effect the ode is followed by some sonnets
which are destined we fear to be ludibria ventis immortality even in the nineteenth century is not granted to those who rhyme awe and war together
mister isaac sharp's saul of tarsus is an interesting and in some respects a fine poem saul of tarsus silently with a silent company to damascus gates drew nigh
and his eyes too and his mien were
are two strong simple verses and indeed the spirit of the whole poem is dignified and stately the rest of the volume however is disappointing ordinary theology has long since converted its gold into lead
and words and phrases that once touched the heart of the world have become wearisome and meaningless through repetition if theology desires to move us she must re write her formulas
there is something very pleasant in coming across a poet who can apostrophise byron as transcendent star that gems the firmament of poesy and can speak of longfellow as a mighty titan
and mister mackenzie's highland daydreams could not possibly offend any one it must be admitted that they are rather old fashioned but this is usually the case with natural spontaneous verse it takes a great artist to be thoroughly modern
nature is always a little behind the age the story of the cross an attempt to versify the gospel narratives is a strange survival of the tate and brady school of poetry mister nash who styles himself
a humble soldier in the army of faith expresses a hope that his book may invigorate devotional feeling especially among the young to whom verse is perhaps more attractive than to their elders
but we should be sorry to think that people of any age could admire such a paraphrase as the following foxes have holes in which to slink for rest the birds of air find shelter in the nest but he the son of man and lord of all
has no abiding place his own to call it is a curious fact that the worst work is always done with the best intentions and that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves very seriously
birmingham cornish brothers
bristol j w arrowsmith
his favourite companion and confident he found him as necessary in the conduct of his affairs as the king of babylon had before done in the administration of his government and lucky it was for zadig
he discover'd that his master was in his temper benevolent strictly honest and a man of good natural parts zadig was very much concern'd that one of so much sense should pay divine adoration to a whole host of created
he talk'd at first to his master with great precaution on so important a topick but at last told him in direct terms that they were created bodies as others tho of less lustre and that there was no more adoration due to them than to a stock or a stone
but said setoc they are eternal beings to whom we are indebted for all the blessings we enjoy they animate nature they regulate the seasons they are in a word at such an infinite distance from us that it would be downright impious not to adore them
you are more indebted said zadig to the waters of the red sea which transport so many valuable commodities into the indies why pray
why don't you adore the land of the gangarides
he fell prostrate on his knees before the wax lights o ye everlasting ever shining luminaries
having repeated these words so loud as setoc might hear them he sat down to table without taking the least notice of setoc what said setoc somewhat startled at his conduct art thou at thy prayers before supper i act just as inconsistently sir as you do
i worship these candles without reflecting on their makers or yourself who are my most beneficent patron setoc took the hint and was conscious of the reproof that was conceal'd so genteely under a vail the superior wisdom of his slave enlightned his mind
and from that hour he was less lavish than ever he had been of his incense to those created beings and for the future
at that time there was a most hideous custom in high repute all over arabia which came originally from scythia but having met with the sanction of the bigotted brachmans threatn'd to spread its infection all over the east when a married man happen'd to die
happen'd just at that juncture to be dead and his widow
publish'd the day nay the hour that she propos'd to throw herself according to custom on her deceased husband's funeral pile and be attended by a concert of drums and trumpets
or by the education of such as demanded their maternal indulgence and
he forc'd from him at last an ingenuous confession that the barbarous custom then subsisting ought if possible to be abolish'd tis now replied setoc above a thousand years since the widows of arabia have been indulg'd with this privilege of dying with their husbands
do you communicate these sentiments to the sovereigns of your tribes and in the mean while i'll go and sound the widow's inclinations accordingly he paid her a visit and having insinuated himself into her favour
i am a profess'd devotee and should i shew the least reluctance my reputation would be lost for ever all the world would laugh at me should i not burn myself on this occasion
and out of pride and ostentation than any real love for the deceas'd he talk'd to her for some considerable time so rationally
chapter seven strange to say the anger of the raturans was not assuaged by the rebuff which they received at that time they took counsel again
and then attack them when off their guard meanwhile zeppa
the day on which the idea occurred to him opened his mouth and gave forth the first notes of a hymn in a fine sonorous bass voice the child gazed at him for a few moments in open eyed wonder and then burst into an uncontrollable fit of open mouthed laughter
this gaze was evidently regarded by lippy as an additional touch of humour for she went off into renewed explosions of delight and the lesson had to be given up for that time zeppa was gifted however with patient perseverance in a remarkable degree
she went wrong in one or two notes however which gave zeppa the opportunity of putting her right he took her on his knee and told her
and her teacher gazed at her with intense pleasure depicted on his handsome face until she reached the note
no not so sing thus he said giving the right notes the pupil took it up at once and thus the singing lessons were fairly begun but the matter did not rest here for lippy proud of her new acquirement
soon began to exhibit her powers to her little companions and ere long a few of the smallest of these ventured to creep into zeppa's hut while the daily lesson was going on gradually they grew bolder and joined in the exercise zeppa took pleasure in helping them
and at last permitted as many as could crowd into his hut to do so those who could not get inside sat on the ground outside and as the hut was open in front the gathering soon increased thus insensibly without a well defined intention or effort on the part of any one
the assembling of these children for their lesson brought powerfully to zeppa's mind one day the meetings of the ratinga people for worship and the appropriateness of beginning with prayer occurred to him accordingly that morning just as he was about to commence the hymns he clasped his hands
and briefly asked god's blessing on the work
and before they had time to recover the prayer was over zeppa's mode of terminating the assembly was characteristic he did not like to order the children away much less to put them out of his hut
they felt that nothing short of extermination would suffice and they were right extermination of the sinners or the sins was indeed their only chance of peace not knowing the gospel method of blotting out the latter their one resource lay in obliterating the former
until the entire force of the tribe was under his command leaving the aged men and boys to protect the women and children those dark skinned warriors marched away to battle not with the flaunting banners and martial music of civilised man but with the profound silence and the stealthy tread of the savage
and spare javelins but being a night attack the fighting men went alone each armed with a heavy club a light spear and a stone knife or hatchet
the main body was halted and scouts were sent out in advance to see that all was clear then the plan of attack was formed one detachment was to approach the enemy's village on the right
there is a proverb relating to the plans of men as well as mice which receives verification in every land and time its truth received corroboration at this time on sugar loaf island on that same night it chanced that the chief ongoloo was unable to sleep
he sent for his prime ministerial jester and one of his chiefs to whom he proposed a ramble the chief and jester professed themselves charmed with the proposal although each had been roused from a pleasant slumber in the course of the ramble they came unexpectedly on one of the raturan scouts
whom they temporarily extinguished with a club ongoloo became at once alive to the situation and took instant action wapoota he said in an excited whisper run to the rear of the foe go swiftly like the sea bird when you get there yell shriek like like you know how
as you did last time change your ground at each yell so they will think you a host fear not to be captured your death is nothing away a kick facilitated wapoota's flight and the two chiefs returned at speed to rouse the sleeping camp wapoota performed his part nobly
and without being captured for he did not agree with ongoloo as to the unimportance of his own death at the unexpected outcry in the rear the raturans halted and held a hasty council of war let us go back and fight them said one no use they are evil spirits not men said another
while we waste time here said the leading chief the mountain dogs will get ready for us come forward the chief was right ongoloo's ruse caused delay so that when the raturans reached the village they found armed men ready to receive them
the women scattered and fled the savage warriors pursued
although he had refused to go out to war with his entertainers he felt no disposition to stand idly by when they were attacked disordered though his mind was he could make a clear distinction between aggressive war and self defence
as the tide of battle flowed and victory leaned sometimes to one side sometimes to the other zeppa was unarmed as he drew near he was observed by both parties to stop abruptly in his career and wrench out of the ground a stake
that had been meant for the corner post of a newly begun hut it resembled the great club of hercules rather than a weapon of modern man whirling it like a feather round his head the maniac rushed on he was thoroughly roused a feeling of desperate anxiety coupled with a sense of horrible injustice
had set his spirit in a blaze his great size which became more apparent as he advanced his flashing eyes compressed lips
gave him altogether an aspect so terrible
the raturans could not stand it but turned and fled in a body under the impression that he was more than human he was too fleet for them however overtaking a flying knot
then hurling the mighty club away as if it were a mere hindrance to him he ran straight at the leader of the raturans who being head and shoulders above his fellows seemed a suitable foe to single out before reaching him however
who was hard pressed at the time by a crowd of opponents one roar from the maniac sent these flying like chaff before the wind it must be added however for the credit of the men of ratura that ongoloo and his warriors had backed up their new leader gallantly
ran with him at racing speed in the direction of the raturan villages
but if it had been thirty hundred it would have made no difference in the effect of zeppa's roar and aspect as he rushed upon them with obviously awful intentions though without arms in fact the latter circumstance tended rather to increase the fears of the superstitious natives
they fled as one man at the first sight of the maniac and lippy was recovered instantly zeppa's ferocity vanished and the tenderest of smiles rippled over his face as he took the child in his arms and kissed her but wapoota did not feel quite so easy
but they did not as in former times return to slay the aged and carry the women and children into captivity to the surprise of all his followers and the anger of not a few ongoloo commanded his men to return to their village and leave the raturans alone one of his chiefs
who showed a disposition to resist his authority he promptly knocked down whereupon the rest became obedient and went quietly home on reaching the village zeppa went straight to his hut with lippy on his shoulder apparently he had forgotten all about the recent fight for without even waiting to take food or rest
who felt that she was only receiving her due the child accepted the attention her young companions attracted by the sweet sounds soon flocked to the old place of rendezvous and when the last of the straggling warriors returned from the field of battle they found the singing class going full swing as if nothing had happened
other sounds began to arise sounds of wailing and woe which soon drowned the hymns of praise as soon as zeppa became fully alive to this fact
and passed his hand across his brow as if to clear away some misty clouds that rested there it was evident that his shattered intellect had taken in a very imperfect impression of what had occurred as if to get rid of this beclouded state he started off that evening at a quick walk
no one ever followed him on these occasions the natives regarded his person as in some measure sacred and would have deemed it not only dangerous but insolent to go up among the rocky heights when the madman was known to be there once indeed wapoota
with that presumptuous temerity which is a characteristic of fools in general ventured on the strength of old acquaintance to follow him and even went towards the well known cave where he had found refuge and protection in the day of his distress
but zeppa had either forgotten his former intercourse with the jester or intended to repudiate the connection for he did not receive him kindly on the way up wapoota who felt somewhat timorous about the visit
had made up his mind as to the best mode of address with which to approach his friend he had decided that although he was not particularly youthful the language and manner of a respectful son to a revered father would best befit the occasion
he assumed a stooping attitude of profound respect and drew near zeppa looked up with a frown as if annoyed at the intrusion your unworthy son began wapoota comes to but he got no further he could not well have hit upon a more unfortunate phrase
and saw the maniac bound over the fire towards him but he saw and heard no more for his limbs became suddenly endued with something like electric vitality he turned and shot over a small precipice as if flung from an ancient catapult what he alighted on he did not know still less did he care
and intensified the electric battery within him he went down the slopes regardless of gradient at a pace that might have left even zeppa behind if he had followed but zeppa did not follow when wapoota went over the precipice and disappeared zeppa halted and stood erect
they have done wonders you must send them a word to help them on their way graham stared at him absent mindedly then with a start
yes he said that is good that is good he weighed a message tell them well done south west he turned his eyes to helen wotton again his face expressed his struggle between conflicting ideas
we must capture the flying stages he explained unless we can do that they will land negroes at all costs we must prevent that he felt even as he spoke that this was not what had been in his mind before the interruption
he saw her face respond here i am doing nothing he said it is impossible protested the man in yellow it is a fight in a warren your place is here he explained elaborately he motioned towards the room where graham must wait
but here was no spectacular battle field such as he imagined instead was seclusion and suspense
inaudibly and invisibly within four miles of him beneath the roehampton stage a strange and unprecedented contest it was a battle that was a hundred thousand little battles a battle in a sponge of ways and channels
whose secret manufacture and sudden distribution in enormous quantities had been one of ostrog's culminating moves against the council
it seemed as though it held itself vacant until the aeroplanes should come ever and again there was news of these drawing nearer from this spanish town and then that and presently from france but of the new guns that ostrog had made and which were known to be in the city
came no news in spite of graham's urgency nor any report of successes from the dense felt of fighting strands about the flying stages section after section of the labour societies reported itself assembled reported itself marching and vanished from knowledge into the labyrinth of that warfare
what was happening there even the busy ward leaders did not know in spite of the opening and closing of doors
graham felt isolated strangely inactive inoperative his isolation seemed at times the strangest the most unexpected of all the things that had happened since his awakening it had something of the quality of that inactivity that comes in dreams a tumult
the stupendous realisation of a world struggle between ostrog and himself
now the door would be closed and graham and helen were alone together they seemed sharply marked off then from all the unprecedented world storm that rushed together without vividly aware of one another only concerned with one another then the door would open again messengers would enter
the dark hurry and tumult the stress and vehemence of the battle rushed in and overwhelmed them they were no longer persons but mere spectators mere impressions of a tremendous convulsion they became unreal even to themselves miniatures of personality indescribably small
a running to and fro and cries the girl stood up speechless incredulous metallic voices were shouting victory yes it was victory bursting through the curtains appeared the man in yellow startled and dishevelled with excitement victory he cried victory the people are winning
tell me what we have driven them out of the under galleries at norwood streatham is afire and burning wildly and roehampton is ours ours and we have taken the monoplane that lay thereon a shrill bell rang an agitated grey headed man appeared from the room of the ward leaders
do you mean they are found too late said the old man if we could stop them another hour cried the man in yellow nothing can stop them now said the old man they have near a hundred aeroplanes in the first fleet
graham glanced at the two men and then at helen he spoke after a long pause we have no aeronauts none he turned suddenly to helen his decision was made i must do it do what go to this flying stage to this machine
i am an aeronaut after all those days for which you reproached me were not altogether wasted he turned to the old man in yellow tell them to put it upon the guides the man in yellow hesitated
this monoplane it is a chance you don't mean to fight yes to fight in the air
a big aeroplane is a clumsy thing a resolute man but never since flying began cried the man in yellow there has been no need but now the time has come tell them now send them my message to put it upon the guides
i see now something to do i see now why i am here the old man dumbly interrogated the man in yellow nodded and hurried out helen made a step towards graham her face was white but sire how can one fight you will be killed
perhaps yet not to do it or to let some one else attempt it you will be killed she repeated i've said my word do you not see it may save london he stopped he could speak no more
he swept the alternative aside by a gesture and they stood looking at one another they were both clear that he must go there was no step back from these towering heroisms her eyes brimmed with tears she came towards him with a curious movement of her hands
as though she felt her way and could not see she seized his hand and kissed it to wake she cried for this he held her clumsily for a moment and kissed the hair of her bowed head and then thrust her away and turned towards the man in yellow
chapter twenty three graham speaks his word
the master of the earth was not even master of his own mind even his will seemed a will not his own his own acts surprised him
these things were definite the negroes were coming helen wotton had warned the people of their coming and he was master of the earth each of these facts seemed struggling for complete possession of his thoughts they protruded from a background of swarming halls
elevated passages rooms jammed with ward leaders in council kinematograph and telephone rooms and windows looking out on a seething sea of marching men the men in yellow and men whom he fancied were called ward leaders
perhaps they were doing a little of both perhaps some power unseen and unsuspected propelled them all he was aware that he was going to make a proclamation to the people of the earth aware of certain grandiose phrases floating in his mind as the thing he meant to say
many little things happened and then he found himself with the man in yellow entering a little room where this proclamation of his was to be made this room was grotesquely latter day in its appointments in the centre was a bright oval
lit by shaded electric lights from above the rest was in shadow and the double finely fitting doors through which he came from the swarming hall of the atlas made the place very still the dead thud of these as they closed behind him
the sudden cessation of the tumult in which he had been living for hours the quivering circle of light the whispers and quick noiseless movements of vaguely visible attendants in the shadows had a strange effect upon graham
he walked into the centre of the light and his shadow drew together black and sharp to a little blot at his feet the vague shape of the thing he meant to say was already in his mind but this silence this isolation the withdrawal from that contagious crowd
this audience of gaping glaring machines had not been in his anticipation all his supports seemed withdrawn together he seemed to have dropped into this suddenly suddenly to have discovered himself in a moment he was changed
he found that he now feared to be inadequate he feared to be theatrical he feared the quality of his voice the quality of his wit astonished he turned to the man in yellow with a propitiatory gesture for a moment he said i must wait
i must think of the thing i have to say
there came an agitated messenger with news that the foremost aeroplanes were passing over madrid what news of the flying stages he asked the people of the south west wards are ready ready
i suppose it must be a sort of speech would to god i knew certainly the thing that should be said aeroplanes at madrid they must have started before the main fleet oh what can it matter whether i speak well or ill he said and felt the light grow brighter
he had framed some vague sentence of democratic sentiment when suddenly doubts overwhelmed him his belief in his heroic quality and calling he found had altogether lost its assured conviction
he thought of that swift flight of aeroplanes like the swoop of fate towards him he was astonished that he could have seen things in any other light in that final emergency he debated thrust debate resolutely aside determined at all costs to go through with the thing he had undertaken
and he could find no word to begin even as he stood awkward hesitating with an indiscreet apology for his inability trembling on his lips came the noise of many people crying out
wait cried someone and a door opened graham turned and the watching lights waned through the open doorway he saw a slight girlish figure approaching his heart leapt it was helen wotton the man in yellow came out of the nearer shadows into the circle of light
this is the girl who told us what ostrog had done he said she came in very quietly and stood still as if she did not want to interrupt graham's eloquence
he turned back to her you have helped me he said lamely helped me very much this is very difficult he paused he addressed himself to the unseen multitudes who stared upon him through those grotesque black eyes at first he spoke slowly
men and women of the new age he said you have arisen to do battle for the race there is no easy victory before us he stopped to gather words he wished passionately for the gift of moving speech
this battle that is coming this battle that rushes upon us to night is only a beginning all your lives it may be you must fight take no thought though i am beaten though i am utterly overthrown i think i may be overthrown
he found the thing in his mind too vague for words he paused momentarily and broke into vague exhortations and then a rush of speech came upon him much that he said was but the humanitarian commonplace of a vanished age
but the conviction of his voice touched it to vitality he stated the case of the old days to the people of the new age to the girl at his side i come out of the past to you he said with the memory of an age that hoped
my age was an age of dreams of beginnings an age of noble hopes throughout the world we had made an end of slavery throughout the world we had spread the desire and anticipation that wars might cease that all men and women might live nobly
in freedom and peace so we hoped in the days that are past and what of those hopes how is it with man after two hundred years great cities vast powers a collective greatness beyond our dreams for that we did not work
and that has come but how is it with the little lives that make up this greater life how is it with the common lives as it has ever been sorrow and labour lives cramped and unfulfilled lives tempted by power tempted by wealth
and gone to waste and folly the old faiths have faded and changed the new faith is there a new faith charity and mercy he floundered beauty and the love of beautiful things effort and devotion
give yourselves as i would give myself as christ gave himself upon the cross it does not matter if you understand it does not matter if you seem to fail you know in the core of your hearts you know there is no promise
but with all his heart and strength of this new faith within him he spoke of the greatness of self abnegation of his belief in an immortal life of humanity in which we live and move and have our being his voice rose and fell
no doubt of his heroic words he had it all straight and plain his eloquence limped no longer and at last he made an end to speaking here and now he cried i make my will all that is mine in the world
all that is mine in the world i give to the people of the world to all of you i give it to you and myself i give to you and as god wills to night i will live for you or i will die he ended
he found the light of his present exaltation reflected in the face of the girl their eyes met her eyes were swimming with tears of enthusiasm i knew she whispered oh father of the world sire i knew you would say these things
citizen deputy when presently the young girl awoke with a delicious feeling of rest and well being she had plenty of leisure to think
she was actually a guest a rescued protege
whom she had sworn before her god and before her father to pursue with hatred and revenge ten years had gone by since then lying upon the sweet scented bed which the hospitality of the derouledes had provided for her
she seemed to see passing before her the spectres of these past ten years the first four after her brother's death
her whole soul yearned for a secluded a religious life for great barriers of solemn vows and days spent in prayer and contemplation to interpose between herself and the memory of that awful night when
she had made the solemn oath to avenge her brother's death she was only eighteen when she first entered the convent directly after her father's death when she felt very lonely both morally and mentally lonely and followed by the obsession of that oath
and he a simple minded man of great learning and a total lack of knowledge of the world was completely at a loss how to advise the archbishop was consulted he could grant a dispensation and release her of that most solemn vow
when first this idea was suggested to her juliette was exultant her entire nature which in itself was wholesome light hearted the very reverse of morbid rebelled against this unnatural task placed upon her young shoulders it was only religion
the strange warped religion of that extraordinary age which kept her to it which forbade her breaking lightly that most unnatural oath the archbishop was a man of many duties many engagements he agreed to give this strange cas de conscience his most earnest attention
he would make no promises but mademoiselle de marny was rich a munificent donation to the poor of paris or to some cause dear to the holy father himself might perhaps be more acceptable to god than the fulfilment of a compulsory vow
juliette within the convent walls was waiting patiently for the archbishop's decision at the very moment when the greatest upheaval the world has ever known was beginning to shake the very foundations of france
the archbishop had other things now to think about than isolated cases of conscience he forgot all about juliette probably he was busy consoling a monarch for the loss of his throne and preparing himself and his royal patron for the scaffold
the convent of the ursulines was scattered during the terror everyone remembers the thermidor massacres and the thirty four nuns all daughters of ancient families of france who went so cheerfully to the scaffold
how or why she herself could not have told she was very young and still a postulant she was allowed to live in retirement with petronelle her old nurse who had remained faithful through all these years then the archbishop was prosecuted and imprisoned
juliette made frantic efforts to see him but all in vain when he died she looked upon her spiritual guide's death as a direct warning from god that nothing could relieve her of her oath
she had watched the turmoils of the revolution through the attic window of her tiny apartment in paris waited upon by faithful petronelle she had been forced to live on the savings of that worthy old soul as all her property all the marny estates
the dot she took with her to the convent everything in fact had been seized by the revolutionary government self appointed to level fortunes as well as individuals
from that attic window she had seen beautiful paris writhing under the pitiless lash of the demon of terror which it had provoked she had heard the rumble of the tumbrils dragging day after day their load of victims to the insatiable maker of this revolution of fraternity the guillotine
she had seen the gay light hearted people of this star city turned to howling beasts of prey its women changed to sexless vultures with murderous talons implanted in everything that is noble high or beautiful
two years later she had heard the cries of an entire people exulting over a regicide
the pale faced large eyed charlotte who had commited a crime for the sake of a conviction greater than brutus some had called her greater than joan of arc
for it was to a mission of evil and of sin that she was called from the depths of her breton village and not to one of glory and triumph greater than brutus juliette followed the trial of charlotte corday with all the passionate ardour of her exalted temperament
just think what an effect it must have had upon the mind of this young girl who for nine years the best of her life had also lived with the idea of a sublime mission pervading her very soul she watched charlotte corday at her trial
conquering her natural repulsion for such scenes and the crowds which usually watched them she had forced her way into the foremost rank of the narrow gallery which overlooked the hall of the revolutionary tribunal she heard the indictment
heard tinville's speech and the calling of the witnesses all this is unnecessary i killed marat juliette heard the fresh young voice ringing out clearly above the murmur of voices the howls of execration she saw the beautiful young face clear calm impassive
i killed marat and there in the special space allotted to the citizen deputies sitting among those who represented the party of the moderate gironde was paul deroulede the man whom she had sworn to pursue with a vengeance as great as complete
as that which guided charlotte corday's hand she watched him during the trial and wondered if he had any presentiment of the hatred which dogged him
he was very dark almost swarthy a son of the south with brown hair free from powder thrown back and revealing the brow of a student rather than that of a legislator he watched charlotte corday earnestly
and juliette who watched him saw the look of measureless pity which softened the otherwise hard look of his close set eyes he made an impassioned speech for the defence a speech which has become historic it would have cost any other man his head juliette marvelled at his courage
marat whom his funeral orators had compared to the great the sacred leveller of mankind
it was an appeal the most eloquent man of that eloquent age
everyone round juliette listened as he spoke
whispered the bloodthirsty amazons who sat knitting in the gallery but there was no further comment a huge magnificently equipped hospital for sick children had been thrown open in paris that very morning a gift to the nation from citoyen deroulede
surely he was privileged to talk a little if it pleased him his hospital would cover quite a good many defalcations
santerre shrugged their shoulders it is deroulede
juliette heard it all the knitters round her were talking loudly even charlotte was almost forgotten whilst deroulede talked he had a fine voice of strong calibre which echoed powerfully through the hall he was rather short but broad shouldered and well knit
with an expressive hand which looked slender and delicate below the fine lace ruffle charlotte corday was condemned all deroulede's eloquence could not save her juliette left the court in a state of mad exultation
she was very young the scenes she had witnessed in the past two years could not help but excite the imagination of a young girl left entirely to her own intellectual and moral resources what scenes great god and now to wait for an opportunity
charlotte corday the half educated little provincial should not put to shame mademoiselle de marny the daughter of a hundred dukes of those who had made france before she took to unmaking herself but she could not formulate any definite plans
impulse and coincidence had worked their will with her she had been in the habit daily
ostensibly to gaze at marat's dwelling as crowds of idlers were wont to do but really in order to look at deroulede's house once or twice she saw him coming or going from home once she caught sight of the inner hall and of a young girl in a dark kirtle and snow white kerchief
bidding him good bye at his door another time she caught sight of him at the corner of the street helping that same young girl over the muddy pavement he had just met her and she was carrying a basket of provisions he took it from her and carried it to the house
and innately so evidently for the girl was slightly deformed hardly a hunchback but weak and unattractive looking with melancholy eyes and a pale pinched face it was the thought of that little act of simple chivalry witnessed the day before
which caused juliette to provoke the scene which but for deroulede's timely interference might have ended so fatally but she reckoned on that interference the whole thing had occurred to her suddenly and she had carried it through
god would show her a means to the end and now she was inside the house of the man who had murdered her brother and sent her sorrowing father a poor senseless maniac tottering to the grave
to see what was going on and therefore did not understand what the reopening and shutting of the front door had meant
it is only the soldiers come back for me said juliette quietly for you yes they are coming to take me away
she had no time to say more
in his hand he held a leather case all torn and split at one end and a few tiny scraps of half charred paper he walked straight up to juliette and roughly thrust the case and papers into her face these are yours he said roughly yes
i suppose you know where they were found she nodded quietly in reply what were these papers which you burnt love letters you lie she shrugged her shoulders as you please she said curtly what were these papers he repeated
with a loud obscene oath which however had not the power to disturb the young girl's serenity i have told you she said love letters which i wished to burn who was your lover he asked
were the letters from him no you had more than one lover then he laughed and a hideous leer seemed further to distort his ugly countenance he thrust his face quite close to hers and she closed her eyes sick with the horror of this contact with the degraded wretch
with his close proximity the beautiful refined girl before him with a rough gesture he put his clawlike hand under her delicate chin forcing her to turn round and to look at him she shuddered at the loathsome touch but her quietude never forsook her for a moment
it was into the power of wretches such as this man that she had wilfully delivered the man she loved this brutish creature's familiarity put the finishing touch to her own degradation but it gave her the courage to carry through her purpose to the end you had more than one lover then
was that it was that it he repeated suddenly seizing one of her wrists and giving it as savage twist so that she almost screamed with the pain yes she replied firmly do you know that you brought me here on a fool's errand he asked viciously
that the citizen deputy deroulede cannot be sent to the guillotine on mere suspicion eh did you know that when you wrote out that denunciation no i did not know you thought we could arrest him on mere suspicion yes you knew he was innocent i knew it
a splendid combination ma foi said merlin with an oath
not understanding what was going on not knowing what to think or what to believe they had known nothing of deroulede's plans for the escape of marie antoinette they didn't know what the letter case had contained
nothing she replied no one knew anything of my private affairs or of my private correspondence said juliette coldly as you say it was a splendid combination
and my denunciation of him was not based on facts and do you know my fine aristocrat
i know she rejoined quietly that you citizen merlin are determined that someone shall pay for this day's blunder you dare not now attack the citizen deputy and so you must be content with me
come now follow the men quietly resistance would only aggravate your case i am quite prepared to follow you
i have said no and i mean no
juliette was too proud to insist any further she had hoped by one word to soften madame deroulede's and anne mie's heart towards her she did not know whether they believed that miserable lie which she had been telling to merlin
but that one word was not to be spoken she would have to go forth to her certain trial to her probable death
she turned quietly and walked towards the door where the two men already stood at attention
the crippled girl was face to face with a psychological problem which in itself was far beyond her comprehension but vaguely she felt that it was a problem something in juliette's face had already caused her to bitterly repent her action towards her
and now as this beautiful refined woman was about to pass from under the shelter of this roof to the cruel publicity and terrible torture of that awful revolutionary tribunal anne mie's whole heart went out to her in boundless sympathy before merlin or the men could prevent her
and whispered it was an oath i swore it to my father and my dead brother tell him
but i'll atone with my life tell him whispered juliette now then shouted merlin out of the way hunchback unless you want to come along too forgive me
petronelle take care of her and with a firm step she followed the soldiers out of the room presently the front door was heard to open then to shut with a loud bang
chapter eighteen in the luxembourg prison juliette was alone at last that is to say comparatively alone for there were too many aristocrats too many criminels and traitors in the prisons of paris now to allow of any seclusion of those who were about to be tried
condemned and guillotined the young girl had been marched through the crowded streets of paris followed by a jeering mob who readily recognised in the gentle high bred girl the obvious prey which the committee of public safety was wont from time to time to throw to the hungry hydra headed dog of the revolution
had had few of these very welcome sights an aristocrat a real elegant refined woman with white hands and proud pale face
madame guillotine was above all catholic in her tastes her gaunt arms painted blood red were open alike to the murderer and the thief the aristocrats of ancient lineage and the proletariat from the gutter
whom they had roused from one slavery in order to throw it headlong under a tyrannical yoke more brutish more absolute than before there were twelve prisons in paris then and forty thousand in france and they were all full
an entire army went round the country recruiting prisoners there was no room for separate cells no room for privacy no cause or desire for the most elementary sense of delicacy women men children all were herded together
for one day perhaps two and a night or so
the soldiers laughed and improved the occasion with another insulting jest even merlin forgot his vexation delighted at the incident but juliette had seen nothing of it all she was walking as in a dream
she did not feel the rough hands of the soldiers jostling her through the crowd
where she dwelt alone now with the man she loved instead of the squalid houses of paris with their eternal device of fraternity and equality there were beautiful trees and shrubs of laurel and of roses around her making the air fragrant with their soft intoxicating perfumes
sweet voices from the land of dreams filled the atmosphere with their tender murmur whilst overhead a cloudless sky illumined this earthly paradise she was happy supremely completely happy she had saved him from the consequences of her own iniquitous crime
and she was about to give her life for him so that his safety might be more completely assured her love for him he would never know now he knew only her crime but presently when she would be convicted and condemned confronted with a few scraps of burned paper and a torn letter case
then he would know that she had stood her trial self accused and meant to die for him
it was ethereal and perhaps not altogether human but it was hers she had been his divinity his madonna he had loved in her that which was her truer her better self what was base in her was not truly her
that awful oath sworn so solemnly had been her relentless tyrant and her religion a religion of superstition and of false ideals had blinded her and dragged her into crime
that through it all she should have known love and learned its tender secrets was more than she deserved that she should have felt his burning kisses on her hand was heavenly compensation for all she would have to suffer and so she allowed them to drag her through the sansculotte mob of paris
who would have torn her to pieces then and there so as not to delay the pleasure of seeing her die they took her to the luxembourg once the palace of the medici the home of proud monsieur in the days of the great monarch now a loathsome overfilled prison it was then six o'clock in the afternoon
drawing towards the close of this memorable day she was handed over to the governor of the prison a short thick set man in black trousers and black shag woollen shirt
he eyed her up and down as she passed under the narrow doorway
you will be personally responsible for this prisoner to the committee of public safety any visitors allowed certainly not without the special permission of the public prosecutor juliette heard this brief exchange of words over her future fate no visitor would be allowed to see her
well perhaps that would be best she would have been afraid to meet deroulede again afraid to read in his eyes that story of his dead love which alone might have destroyed her present happiness and she wished to see no one she had a memory to dwell on a short heavenly memory
it consisted of a few words a kiss the last one on her hand and that passionate murmur which had escaped from his lips when he knelt at her feet
it was some few hours later
a tall somewhat lazy looking figure he was sitting at a table face to face with the citizen deputy on a chair beside him lay a heavy caped coat covered with the dust and the splashings of a long journey but he himself was attired in clothes that suggested the most fastidious taste
and the most perfect of tailors he wore with apparent ease the eccentric fashion of the time the short waisted coat of many lapels the double waistcoat and billows of delicate lace
unlike deroulede he was of great height with fair hair and a somewhat lazy expression in his good natured blue eyes and as he spoke there was just a soupcon of foreign accent in the pronunciation of the french vowels
that would have betrayed the britisher to an observant ear the two men had been talking earnestly for some time the tall englishman was watching his friend keenly whilst an amused pleasant smile lingered round the corners of his firm mouth and jaw
said deroulede at last placing an anxious hand on his friend's shoulder
la i took care of that responded blakeney with his short pleasant laugh i sent tinville my autograph this morning
i knew what you maniacs would be after so i came across in the daydream just to see if i couldn't get my share of the fun fun you call it queried the other bitterly
a mad insane senseless tragedy with but one issue the guillotine for you all then why did you come to what shall i say my friend rejoined sir percy blakeney with that inimitable drawl of his
three things my friend may i offer you a pinch of snuff no ah well and with the graceful gesture of an accomplished dandy sir percy flicked off a grain of dust from his immaculate mechlin ruffles three things he continued quietly
deroulede smiled does it not seem amusing to you blakeney
is attempting the unattainable and yet we mean to try i know it i guessed it that is why i came that is also why i sent a pleasant little note to the committee of public safety
well well the result is obvious robespierre danton tinville merlin and the whole of the demmed murderous crowd
a needle in a haystack they'll put the abortive attempt down to me and you may
i only suggest that you may escape safely out of france in the daydream and with the help of your humble servant but in the meanwhile they'll discover you and they'll not let you escape a second time my friend if a terrier were to lose his temper he never would run a rat to earth
now your revolutionary government has lost its temper with me ever since i slipped through chauvelin's fingers they are blind with their own fury whilst i am perfectly happy and cool as a cucumber my life has become valuable to me my friend
there is someone over the water now who weeps when i don't return no no never fear they'll not get the scarlet pimpernel this journey he laughed a gay pleasant laugh
over in england who was waiting anxiously for his safe return and yet you'll not help us to rescue the queen rejoined deroulede with some bitterness by every means in my power replied blakeney save the insane
but i will help to get you all out of the demmed hole when you have failed we'll not fail asserted the other hotly sir percy blakeney went close up to his friend and placed his long slender hand
with a touch of almost womanly tenderness upon the latter's shoulder will you tell me your plans
there are not many of us in it he began although half france will be in sympathy with us we have plenty of money of course and also the necessary disguise for the royal lady yes i in the meanwhile have asked for and obtained the post of governor of the conciergerie i go into my new quarters to morrow
in the meanwhile i am making arrangements for my mother and and those dependent upon me to quit france immediately blakeney had perceived the slight hesitation when deroulede mentioned those dependent upon him he looked scrutinisingly at his friend who continued quickly
i am still very popular among the people my family can go about unmolested i must get them out of france however in case in case of course rejoined the other simply as soon as i am assured that they are safe my friends and i can prosecute our plans
you see the trial of the queen has not yet been decided on but i know that it is in the air we hope to get her away disguised in one of the uniforms of the national guard as you know it will be my duty to make the final round every evening in the prison
and to see that everything is safe for the night two fellows watch all night in the room next to that occupied by the queen usually they drink and play cards all night long i want an opportunity to drug their brandy and thus to render them more loutish and idiotic than usual
then for a blow on the head that will make them senseless
and after that well after that friend rejoined sir percy earnestly after that shall i fill in the details of the picture the guard twenty five strong outside the conciergerie
i have the right to come and go as i please i faith so you have but one of your guards' eh wrapped to the eyes in a long mantle to hide the female figure beneath i have been in paris but a few hours
and yet already i have realised that there is not one demmed citizen within its walls who does not at this moment suspect some other demmed citizen of conniving at the queen's escape even the sparrows on the house tops are objects of suspicion
no figure wrapped in a mantle will from this day forth leave paris unchallenged but you yourself friend suggested deroulede you think you can quit paris unrecognised
because she is a woman and has been a queen she has nerves poor soul and weaknesses of body and of mind now alas for her alas for france who wreaks such idle vengeance on so poor an enemy can you take hold of marie antoinette by the shoulders
shove her into the bottom of a cart and pile sacks of potatoes on the top of her i did that to the comtesse de tournai and her daughter as stiff necked a pair of french aristocrats as ever deserved the guillotine for their insane prejudices but can you do it to marie antoinette
she'd rebuke you publicly and betray herself and you in a flash sooner than submit to a loss of dignity
ah there's the trouble friend do you think you need appeal to the sense of chivalry of my league we are still twenty strong and heart and soul in sympathy with your mad schemes the poor poor queen
and then who will help you all if we too are put out of the way we should succeed if you helped us at one time you used proudly to say the league of the scarlet pimpernel has never failed
and he laughed that funny somewhat inane laugh of his which had deceived the clever men of two countries as to his real personality deroulede went up to the heavy oak desk which occupied a conspicuous place in the centre of one of the walls he unlocked it and drew forth a bundle of papers
will you look through these he asked handing them to sir percy blakeney what are they different schemes i have drawn up in case my original plan should not succeed burn them my friend said blakeney laconically have you not yet learned the lesson of never putting your hand to paper
i can't burn these you see i shall not be able to have long conversations with marie antoinette i must give her my suggestions in writing that she may study them and not fail me through lack of knowledge of her part better that than papers in these times my friend
these papers if found would send you untried to the guillotine i am careful and at present quite beyond suspicion moreover among the papers is a complete collection of passports suitable for any character the queen and her attendant may be forced to assume
so as not to arouse suspicion i gradually got them together on one pretence or another now i am ready for any eventuality he suddenly paused a look in his friend's face had given him a swift warning
the flying ship of professor lucifer sang through the skies like a silver arrow the bleak white steel of it gleaming in the bleak blue emptiness of the evening
to the two men in it it seemed to be far above the stars the professor had himself invented the flying machine and had also invented nearly everything in it every sort of tool or apparatus had in consequence
to the full that fantastic and distorted look which belongs to the miracles of science for the world of science and evolution is far more nameless and elusive and like a dream
since in the latter images and ideas remain themselves eternally while it is the whole idea of evolution that identities melt into each other as they do in a nightmare
all the tools of professor lucifer were the ancient human tools gone mad grown into unrecognizable shapes forgetful of their origin forgetful of their names that thing which looked like an enormous key
with three wheels was really a patent and very deadly revolver that object which seemed to be created by the entanglement of two corkscrews was really the key the thing which might have been mistaken for a tricycle turned upside down
all these things as i say the professor had invented he had invented everything in the flying ship with the exception perhaps of himself this he had been born too late actually to inaugurate but he believed at least
the professor had not invented and him he had not even very greatly improved though he had fished him up with a lasso out of his own back garden in western bulgaria with the pure object of improving him
he was an exceedingly holy man almost entirely covered with white hair
a monk of immense learning and acute intellect he had made himself happy in a little stone hut
chiefly by writing the most crushing refutations of exposures of certain heresies the last professors of which had been burnt generally by each other precisely one thousand one hundred nineteen years previously
in the society of wild animals and now that his luck had lifted him above all the mountains in the society of a wild physicist he made himself happy still i have no intention my good michael said professor lucifer
rubbing shoulders with men of all kinds you will forgive me said the monk meekly from under loads of white beard but i fear i do not understand was it in order that i might rub my shoulder against men of all kinds
you know better phrase it how you like twist it how you like you know that you know better you know what are a man's real feelings about the heavens when he finds himself alone in the heavens surrounded by the heavens
the heavens are evil the sky is evil the stars are evil this mere space this mere quantity terrifies a man more than tigers or the terrible plague you know that since our science has spoken
the bottom has fallen out of the universe now heaven is the hopeless thing more hopeless than any hell now
of morbid apes it must be in the earth underneath you under the roots of the grass in the place where hell was of old the fiery crypts the lurid cellars of the underworld to which you once condemned the wicked
radiantly i really like to draw out your simple ideas well the fact is said the other that much as i admire your rhetoric and the rhetoric of your school from a purely verbal point of view such little study of you
and your school in human history as i have been enabled to make has led me to er rather singular conclusion
especially in a foreign language come come said the professor encouragingly i'll help you out how did my view strike you well the truth is i know i don't express it properly but somehow it seemed to me
that you always convey ideas of that kind with most eloquence when er when oh get on cried lucifer boisterously well in point of fact when your flying ship is just going to run into something
i thought you wouldn't mind my mentioning it but it's running into something now lucifer exploded with an oath and leapt erect leaning hard upon the handle
they had been shooting downwards into great cracks and caverns of cloud now through a sort of purple haze could be seen comparatively near to them what seemed to be the upper part of a huge dark orb or sphere
islanded in a sea of cloud the professor's eyes were blazing like a maniac's
we will have no gods here man shall be as innocent as the daisies as innocent and as cruel here the intellect there seems said michael timidly to be something sticking up in the middle of it
so there is said the professor leaning over the side of the ship his spectacles shining with intellectual excitement what can it be it might of course be merely a then a shriek indescribable
broke out of him of a sudden and he flung up his arms like a lost spirit the monk took the helm in a tired way he did not seem much astonished for he came from an ignorant part of the world
in which it is not uncommon for lost spirits to shriek when they see the curious shape which the professor
for a moment their eyes and nostrils were stopped with darkness and opaque cloud then the darkness warmed into a kind of brown fog and far far below them the brown fog fell until it warmed into fire
through the dense london atmosphere they could see below them the flaming london lights lights which lay beneath them in squares and oblongs of fire the fog and fire were mixed in a passionate vapour
you might say that the fog was drowning the flames or you might say that the flames had set the fog on fire beside the ship and beneath it for it swung just under the ball
bewilderingly on every side a monstrosity in that starless heaven
they were so near to the ball that lucifer leaned his hand against it holding the vessel away
above it the cross already draped in the dark mists of the borderland was shadowy and more awful in shape and size professor lucifer slapped his hand twice upon the surface of the great orb
his arms in stark weariness and he pointed up to the cross his face dark with a grin i was telling you just now michael that i can prove the best part of the rationalist case
the cross is arbitrary above all the globe is at unity with itself the cross is primarily and above all things at enmity with itself the cross is the conflict of two hostile lines
what you say is perfectly true said michael with serenity but we like contradictions in terms man is a contradiction in terms he is a beast whose superiority to other beasts consists in having fallen
an eternal collision so am i that is a struggle in stone every form of life is a struggle in flesh the shape of the cross is irrational just as the shape of the human animal is irrational
represented by that cross has a necessary place at a certain evolutionary stage but surely the cross is the lower development and the sphere the higher after all it is easy enough to see
what is really wrong with wren's architectural arrangement and what is that pray inquired michael meekly the cross is on top of the ball said professor lucifer simply that is surely wrong
the ball should be on top of the cross the cross is a mere barbaric prop the ball is perfection the cross at its best
the ball is the rounded the ripe and final fruit and the fruit should be at the top of the tree not at the bottom of it oh said the monk a wrinkle coming into his forehead so
because i think in that case you would see a most singular effect an effect that has generally been achieved by all those able and powerful systems which rationalism
has produced to lead or teach mankind you would see i think
and logical outcome of your logical scheme what are you talking about asked lucifer what would happen i mean it would fall down said the monk looking wistfully into the void
lucifer made an angry movement and opened his mouth to speak but michael with all his air of deliberation was proceeding before he could bring out a word i once knew a man like you lucifer
he said with a maddening monotony and slowness of articulation he took this there is no man like me cried lucifer with a violence that shook the ship as i was observing continued michael this man also took the view
that the symbol of christianity was a symbol of savagery and all unreason his history is rather amusing it is also a perfect allegory of what happens to rationalists like yourself
he began of course by refusing to allow a crucifix in his house or round his wife's neck or even in a picture he said as you say that it was an arbitrary and fantastic shape
loved because it was paradoxical then he began to grow fiercer and more eccentric he would batter the crosses
he was standing smoking for a moment
of an interminable line of palings when his eyes were opened not a light shifted not a leaf stirred
he broke it down and tore it up for he hated the cross and every paling is a wall of crosses when he returned to his house he was a literal madman he sat upon a chair
he broke his furniture because it was made of crosses he burnt his house because it was made of crosses he was found in the river lucifer was looking at him
with a bitten lip is that story really true he asked oh no said michael airily it is a parable it is a parable of you and all your rationalists you begin
when we meet you again you are saying that no one has any will to join it with we leave you
we find you saying that there is no such place as ireland you start by hating the irrational and you come to hate everything
and so lucifer leapt upon him with a cry like a wild beast's ah he screamed to every man his madness you are mad on the cross let it save you and with a herculean energy
at the same instant lucifer drove down a lever and the ship shot up with him in it alone ha ha he yelled what sort of a support do you find it old fellow
for practical purposes of support replied michael grimly it is at any rate a great deal better than the ball may i ask if you are going to leave me here yes yes i mount i mount
my path is upward how often have you told me professor that there is really no up or down in space said the monk i shall mount up as much as you will indeed said lucifer
the decadent comedy life is much too important to be taken seriously those who look at the matter a little more deeply or delicately see that paradox is a thing which especially belongs to all religions paradox
of this kind is to be found in such a saying as the meek shall inherit the earth but those who see and feel the fundamental fact of the matter know that paradox is a thing which belongs not to religion only
father michael in spite of his years and in spite of his asceticism or because of it for all i know was a very healthy and happy old gentleman
the deathless and hopeless contradiction which is involved in the mere idea of courage he was a happy and healthy old gentleman and therefore he was quite careless about it and he felt as every man feels
that this had always been made to mean that whoever lost his physical life should save his spiritual life now he knew the truth that is known to all fighters and hunters and climbers of cliffs
should think about philosophical inconsistencies but such extreme states are dangerous things to dogmatize about frequently they produce a certain useless and joyless activity of the mere intellect
but even from desire and if it is impossible to dogmatize about such states it is still more impossible to describe them to this spasm of sanity and clarity in michael's mind succeeded a spasm
at the highest crisis of some incurable anguish there will suddenly fall upon the man the stillness of an insane contentment it is not hope for hope is broken and romantic and concerned
and as it were at once doubtful and defiant but this is simply a satisfaction it is not knowledge for the intellect seems to have no particular part in it nor is it as the modern idiots
would certainly say it is a mere numbness or negative paralysis of the powers of grief it is not negative in the least it is as positive as good news in some sense indeed it is good news
it seems almost as if there were some equality among things some balance in all possible contingencies which we are not permitted to know lest we should learn indifference to good and evil but which is sometimes shown to us for an instant
as a last aid in our last agony michael certainly could not have given any sort of rational account of this vast unmeaning satisfaction which soaked through him and filled him to the brim
he felt with a sort of half witted lucidity that the cross was there and the ball was there and the dome was there that he was going to climb down from them and that he did not mind in the least whether he was killed or not
this mysterious mood lasted long enough to start him on his dreadful descent and to force him to continue it but six times before he reached
terror had returned on him like a flying storm of darkness and thunder by the time he had reached that place of safety he almost felt as in some impossible fit of drunkenness that he had two heads
one was calm careless and efficient the other saw the danger like a deadly map was wise careful and useless he had fancied that he would have to let himself vertically down the face of the whole building
when he dropped into the upper gallery he still felt as far from the terrestrial globe as if he had only dropped from the sun to the moon he paused a little panting in the gallery under the ball
and idly kicked his heels moving a few yards along it and as he did so a thunderbolt struck his soul a man a heavy ordinary man with a composed indifferent face
he merely let his mind float in an endless felicity about the man he thought how nice it would be if he had to live up in that gallery with that one man for ever he thought
now he was living in the same world with a man an inexhaustible ecstasy in the gallery below the ball father michael had found that man who is the noblest and most divine and most lovable of all men better than all the saints
greater than all the heroes man friday in the confused colour and music of his new paradise
beautiful solid man seemed to be making to him remarks about something or other being after hours and against orders he also seemed to be asking how michael got up there this beautiful man
evidently felt as michael did that the earth was a star and was set in heaven at length michael sated himself with the mere sensual music of the voice of the man in buttons he began to listen to what he said
michael realized that the image of god in nickel buttons was asking him how he had come there
on his giving this answer the demeanour of the image of god underwent a remarkable change from addressing michael gruffly as if he were a malefactor he began suddenly to speak to him
amiability as if he were a child he seemed particularly anxious to coax him away from the balustrade he led him by the arm towards a door leading into the building itself soothing him all the time
he gave what even michael slight as was his knowledge of the world felt to be an improbable account of the sumptuous pleasures and varied advantages awaiting him downstairs michael followed him however if only out of politeness
down an apparently interminable spiral of staircase at one point a door opened michael stepped through it and the unaccountable man in buttons leapt after him and pinioned him where he stood
but he only wished to stand to stand and stare he had stepped as it were into another infinity out under the dome of another heaven but this was a dome of heaven made by man
the gold and green and crimson of its sunset were not in the shapeless clouds but in shapes of cherubim and seraphim awful human shapes
its stars were not above but far below like fallen stars still in unbroken constellations the dome itself was full of darkness and far below lower even than the lights
could be seen creeping or motionless great black masses of men the tongue of a terrible organ
as if he were a god and all the voices were hurled at him no the pretty things aren't here said the demi god in buttons caressingly the pretty things are downstairs you come along with me
so michael made no attempt to explain his feelings to him but followed him meekly enough down the trail of the serpentine staircase he had no notion where or at what level he was
he found himself on the familiar level in a street full of faces with the houses and even the lamp posts above his head he felt suddenly happy and suddenly indescribably small he fancied
his eyes sought the pavement seriously as children's do as if it were a thing with which something satisfactory could be done he felt the full warmth of that pleasure from which the proud shut themselves out
the pleasure which not only goes with humiliation but which almost is humiliation men who have escaped death by a hair have it and men whose love is returned by a woman unexpectedly
and men whose sins are forgiven them everything his eye fell on it feasted on not aesthetically but with a plain jolly appetite as of a boy eating buns
by the lit stage of some promising pantomime he happened to see in one shop which projected with a bulging bravery on to the pavement some square tins of potted meat and it seemed like a hint
he was perhaps the happiest of all the children of men for in that unendurable instant when he hung half slipping to the ball of saint paul's the whole universe
had been destroyed and re created suddenly through all the din of the dark streets came a crash of glass
of the cockney mob a rush was made in the right direction a dingy office next to the shop of the potted meat the pane of glass was lying in splinters about the pavement and the police already had their hands
on a very tall young man with dark lank hair and dark dazed eyes with a grey plaid over his shoulder who had just smashed the shop window with a single blow of his stick i'd do it again
said the young man with a furious white face anybody would have done it did you see what it said i swear i'd do it again then his eyes encountered the monkish habit of michael and he pulled off his grey tam o' shanter
with the gesture of a catholic father did you see what they said he cried trembling did you see what they dared to say i didn't understand it at first i read it half through before i broke the window
where they stood with the love of god they should not move till they saw their own sweet and startling existence they should not go from that place till they went home embracing like brothers and shouting like men delivered
from the cross from which he had fallen fell the shadow of its fantastic mercy and the first three words he spoke in a voice like a silver trumpet held men as still as stones perhaps
if he had spoken there for an hour in his illumination he might have founded a religion on ludgate hill but the heavy hand of his guide fell suddenly on his shoulder this poor fellow is dotty he said good humouredly to the crowd
i found him wandering in the cathedral says he came in a flying ship is there a constable to spare to take care of him there was a constable to spare two other constables attended
to the tall young man in grey a fourth concerned himself with the owner of the shop who showed some tendency to be turbulent they took the tall young man away to a magistrate whither we shall follow him
in an ensuing chapter and they took the happiest man in the world away
ye have said that ye could not worship your god because ye are cast out of your synagogues but behold i say unto you if ye suppose that ye cannot worship god ye do greatly err
ye must believe what zenos said for behold he said thou hast turned away thy judgments because of thy son
thou art angry o lord with this people
ye see that a second prophet of old has testified of the son of god
he was spoken of by moses yea and behold a type was raised up in the wilderness that whosoever would look upon it might live
and this because of the hardness of their hearts but there were many who were so hardened that they would not look therefore they perished
if ye could be healed by merely casting about your eyes that ye might be healed would ye not behold quickly or would ye rather harden your hearts in unbelief and be slothful that ye would not cast about your eyes
but if not so then cast about your eyes and begin to believe in the son of god that he will come to redeem his people and that he shall suffer and die to atone for their sins
and that he shall rise again from the dead which shall bring to pass the resurrection that all men shall stand before him to be judged at the last and judgment day
and as it beginneth to swell even so nourish it by your faith and behold it will become a tree springing up in you unto everlasting life and then may god grant unto you
that your burdens may be light through the joy of his son
for according to the great plan of the eternal god there must be an atonement made or else all mankind must unavoidably perish yea all are hardened yea all are fallen and are lost and must perish except it be through the atonement
yea not a sacrifice of man neither of beast neither of any manner of fowl for it shall not be a human sacrifice but it must be an infinite
which will atone for the sins of another now if a man murdereth behold will our law which is just take the life of his brother
therefore there can be nothing which is short of an infinite atonement
and then shall there be or it is expedient there should be a stop to the shedding of blood then shall the law of moses be fulfilled yea it shall be all fulfilled every jot and tittle
every whit pointing to that great and last sacrifice and that great and last sacrifice will be the son of god yea infinite
this being the intent of this last sacrifice to bring about the bowels of mercy which overpowereth justice and bringeth about means unto men that they may have faith
and encircles them in the arms of safety while he that exercises no faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of the demands of justice therefore only unto him that has faith unto repentance
that ye may begin to exercise your faith unto repentance that ye begin to call upon his holy name
yea over all your household both morning
ye must pour out your souls in your closets and your secret places
let your hearts be full drawn out in prayer unto him continually for your welfare
do not suppose that this is all for after ye have done all these things if ye turn away the needy and the naked and visit not the sick and afflicted and impart of your substance if ye have to those who stand in need
i say unto you if ye do not any of these things behold your prayer is vain and availeth you nothing and ye are as hypocrites
if ye do not remember to be charitable ye are as dross which the refiners do cast out it being of no worth
seeing that the holy scriptures testify of these things
for behold now is the time and the day of your salvation and therefore if ye will repent and harden not your hearts
this life is the time for men to prepare to meet god
as ye have had so many witnesses therefore i beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end for after this day of life which is given us to prepare for eternity
behold if we do not improve our time while in this life then cometh the night of darkness
when ye are brought to that awful crisis that i will repent that i will return to my god nay ye cannot say this for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life that same spirit
behold ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil and he doth seal you his therefore the spirit of the lord hath withdrawn from you and hath no place in you and the devil hath all power over you and this
but in the hearts of the righteous doth he dwell yea and he has also said that the righteous shall sit down in his kingdom to go no more out
i desire that ye should remember these things and that ye should work out your salvation with fear before god
but that ye receive it and take upon you the name of christ that ye humble yourselves even to the dust and worship god in whatsoever place ye may be in in spirit and in truth and that ye live in thanksgiving daily
that ye be watchful unto prayer continually that ye may not be led away by the temptations of the devil that he may not overpower you that ye may not become his subjects at the last day for behold he rewardeth you
i would exhort you to have patience and that ye bear with all manner of afflictions that ye do not revile against those who do cast you out because of your exceeding poverty
chapter twenty two little darky girls when will mister lincoln be president sylvia asked a few mornings after her father's announcement of his intention to return to boston he was inaugurated yesterday replied her mother
then can't captain carleton go north with us asked sylvia who had convinced herself that when mister lincoln was in charge of the government that all the troubles over charleston's forts would end but missus fulton shook her head
captain carleton must stay and perhaps fight to defend the flag she replied i wish we could leave at once but we must stay as long as we can sylvia listened soberly she wondered what her mother would say if she knew of her promise to missus carleton
to take a message to fort sumter if missus carleton should ask her to do so the warm days of early march made the southern city full of fragrance and beauty many flowers were in bloom the hedges were green and the air soft and warm sylvia and grace often spoke of flora
and wished that they could again visit the plantation philip had brought sylvia a letter from flora thanking her for the locket and hoping that they would see each other again philip had not come into the house he seemed much older to sylvia than he did on her visit to the plantation in october
he said that ralph was in the confederate army i'd be a soldier if i was only a little older he declared and sylvia did not even ask him about dinkie or the ponies she wished that she could tell him that very soon she was going to boston but she knew that she must not
so she said good bye and philip walked down the path and waved his cap to her as he reached the gate it had been many weeks since the butterfly had sailed about charleston harbor but the little boat was in the charge of an old negro who took good care of it the negro knew sylvia
and he knew that it was through her interest in estralla that the little negro girl and her mother had been given their freedom now and then he appeared at aunt connie's kitchen and one warm day toward the last of march when sylvia was wandering about the garden she saw uncle peter going up the walk to the rear of the house
she called and ran to ask him about the boat uncle peter had a great deal of news to tell he said that unless major anderson and his soldiers left fort sumter at once that all the forts and the new batteries built by the confederates would open fire upon sumter and destroy it
i hears a good deal missy deed i does he declared but i doan let on as i hears massa linkum he's gwine to send a lot o big ships down here fore long yas indeed i wish i could have a sail in the butterfly again said sylvia a little wistfully
do you missy well i reckons you can i doan believe any body'd stop me a givin yo a little sail roun de harbor said uncle peter i spec's major anderson is a waitin an a watchin fer dem ships of massa linkum to come a sailin in
continued the old negro for it was a time when the colored people were eager and hopeful for some news that might promise them their freedom sylvia knew that missus carleton was worried and unhappy it was known in charleston that fort sumter was near the end of its food supplies
perhaps she won't ask me but if i could go and see captain carleton and tell him that she was going to boston with us and then bring her back a message i know she'd be happier thought the little girl
declared estralla smilingly i'll go and thank her myself said sylvia taking the plate and offering one of the cookies to estralla uncle pete he say as de soldiers at fort sumter mus be gettin hungry said the little colored girl
i wish you and i could take captain carleton some of these cookies responded sylvia if you was black like i is we could go a sailin right off to de fort in plain daylight said estralla sylvia sprang to her feet so quickly
that she nearly upset the plate of cookies could we oh estralla could we really she exclaimed estralla looked at her little mistress with wondering eyes yas course nobody'd mind two leetle nigger gals but you ain't black missy
but estralla listen i could be black you could rub soot from the chimney all over my face and hands and i could pin my hair close on top of my head
then nobody would know me sylvia had quite forgotten the fine cookies she was holding estralla by the arm and talking very rapidly estralla was almost frightened at sylvia's eagerness yas missy but what for do you wanter go she asked
oh estralla if the men are hungry we could carry them something to eat but most of all i want to see captain carleton and get some message for his wife she is so unhappy to go away without a word come long down in de garden said estralla
now as interested as sylvia herself an tells me more whar nobody'll be hearin
uncl peter won let us take the boat
and i don't want to tell even my mother until well and sylvia hesitated a moment and then continued until next week then i will tell her and you too dat's right missy i'll make yo de finest cake i knows how le's see
i'll put citron an raisins an currants in it an butter
and aunt connie rolled her eyes and lifted her hands as if she could already taste its richness all that afternoon sylvia could think of nothing but the proposed trip she sat with missus carleton a little while before supper and told her of what uncle peter had said that ships from the north were on the way to the aid of fort sumter
missus carleton's smile vanished sylvia realized that this kind friend was troubled and wished with all her heart that she could say to morrow i will tell you all about captain carleton but she knew that she must keep silent until she had carried out her plan
sylvia was the first one at the breakfast table the next morning and was delighted when her mother said that she and missus carleton were invited to luncheon at the house of a friend aunt connie and estralla will take good care of you missus fulton added and sylvia felt her face flush
but she made no reply and soon hurried to the cabin where estralla was waiting for her it was still early in the forenoon when two little negro girls
appeared at the wharf where the butterfly was moored uncle peter was not to be seen but he had just left the boat whose sail had not even been lowered and the two girls hurried on board in a moment sylvia had unfastened the rope pushed the boat clear of the landing
and rudder in hand was steering the boat out toward the channel two or three men in uniform watched the little darkies as they supposed both the girls to be with amusement negro children were always playing about and no attention was paid to them my landy whispered estralla
but it happened that uncle peter had been sent on an errand to a distant part of the town and before he returned the butterfly was well down the harbor once or twice a guard boat passed them closely enough to make sure that there were only two colored children in the boat
and they came up under the walls of fort sumter without a hindrance the sentries at the fort had watched the little craft with anxious eyes wondering if it could be bringing any message but when the soldiers looked down at the two little negro girls they laughed in spite of their disappointment
when sylvia said that her name was sylvia fulton and that she had come to see captain carleton a sentry exclaimed
you can write a letter to missus carleton and we will take it suggested sylvia and then she told him uncle peter's news that the president was sending ships to the aid of the fort that is great news said the captain if it is only true we may keep the fort for the union
within the hour of their arrival sylvia and estralla were on their way home the captain had praised and thanked sylvia for the loyal friendship that had prompted her visit missus carleton and i will always remember your courage he said as he handed her the letter
i am so glad i thought about it but it was really estralla she said if i was black we could come sylvia had replied then the boat swung clear and headed toward charleston i am not going to land at the big wharves said sylvia i am going to that wharf near miss patten's garden
whar on airth you been an whar's yo missy demanded aunt connie
missy wants a big pitcher of hot water replied estralla dancing about just beyond aunt connie's reach missy sylvia say to tell you we been carryin de cake to her fr'en an she gwine to tell you mammy explained estralla when her mammy had finally grasped her firmly by the shoulders
h'ar's de hot water and estralla hurried off to help sylvia scrub off the sticky soot which had so well disguised her and when missus fulton and missus carleton returned they found a very rosy faced smiling little girl on the porch all ready to tell them of her trip to fort sumter
chapter twenty nine a glass of poison margaret could do nothing but stare at the man before her he was heavy set and powerful and wont to having his own way mister styles she began but he put his hand over her mouth you are sick
out of your head he interrupted i know what is best and you must do as i say come on and he pulled her forward by the hand where to not very far i i do not wish to go to your home i'll not take you there don't fear
you are going to hand me over to the the authorities never come i won't hurt you he led the way through the woods across a small stream and past a spot where some wild berries grew then they struck a trail leading up a hillside the place was new to her
she said presently and came to a halt to a place where you will be safe that isn't answering the question we'll be there in a few minutes and then you can see for yourself margaret cannot you trust me girl i'm not going to hurt you
margaret's strength gave out and suddenly she sank down on her knees all in are you he said not unkindly and stooping he picked her up bodily she tried to resist but could not and he took her into the cottage and placed her on a couch i'll get you a nurse
and when she roused up once more an old woman was at margaret's side she had administered some sort of drug what the girl did not know and it had put her into a sound sleep when margaret looked around again
come awake have ye miss said she where am i asked margaret feebly you're safe enough never fear margaret said no more and the woman went about some little work presently the girl arose and dressed herself
she felt much stronger than when at the home of martha sampson in spite of what she had experienced in running away she sank down in a rocking chair to think matters over how far was she from sidham
she knew she must have come a long distance but could not tell if it was five miles or fifty she looked out of the window but the scenery was strange to her as she sat there she reviewed what had passed her mind becoming clearer as she thought
she remembered the scene at the inquest and remembered how she had fainted and how raymond had supported her and taken her to the nurse's house then she remembered how the coroner's jury had accused her of the terrible crime and she gave a deep shudder poor dear father
she murmured who could have been so wicked as to take your life an hour went by and she prepared to leave the cottage when a shadow fell across the window and matlock styles appeared he spoke a few low words to the old woman and the latter walked away
as the man entered the room margaret arose and faced him the englishman was well dressed and newly shaven and wore a rosebud in his buttonhole evidently he had spent some time over his toilet in honor of the occasion i'm glad to see you up and looking so well
he said pleasantly i was afraid your running away would hurt you i i must thank you for what you have done for me mister styles she answered oh that's all right miss margaret i'd do as much for you any day i think it's a bloomin shame the way you have been treated
well i suppose it cannot be helped but i must be getting back soon you will show me the road don't be in a hurry to go you're not strong enough to go besides the englishman paused impressively what's the use of going back
don't you know things look beastly black for you perhaps but i am not afraid now i am not guilty mister styles of course not of course not i knew that from the start but things do look black no use of talking
i want to help you he came closer at which she retreated a step thank you but i do not see what you can do i must go back and give myself up i i was not myself when i ran away it was a very foolish thing to do
if you go back do you know what they will do they will surely hang you oh merciful heaven do not say that i wouldn't if it wasn't so but i've been talking to the coroner and the chief of police and they have all of the evidence as straight as a string
i am innocent i feel that you are and that is why i side with you besides you know my feeling for you i've loved you for a long time i told you so before he took hold of her arm if you'll do what i wish
i'll see to it that you escape that you are never bothered any more how can you do that never mind how it can be done promise to give up case and be my wife and i will attend to all of the rest and i'll promise you more than that listen
she put up her hands and waved him away then she burst into tears don't speak so please don't i i cannot bear it i have gone through so much already won't you listen to reason matlock styles face darkened
i am giving you everything i have my wealth my honor everything can a man do more than that i love you love you more than raymond case ever did or will
she wrung her hands and his dark eyes seemed to pierce her very soul she felt faint and sank on a bench come will you accept margaret no no i cannot but think of what is before you
if i tried to escape they would soon be on my track no i can prevent that how because the world will know that you are innocent she gave a start and looked at him wildly pleadingly then you know the real murderer
she panted if i answer that question will you become my wife again she shrank back you know the murderer she repeated perhaps you committed the foul deeds yourself he took a step back as if struck a blow
then he recovered quickly and smiled a bitter smile no i was not near the place i can prove it besides your folks and myself were on good terms there is somebody else who was around the house when the affair happened somebody you know well
a person who would know all about the drug with which your father and missus langmore were killed who was it will you consent to marry me tell me first no afterwards you are fooling me
i swear i am not margaret marry me and i will clear you as surely as the sun is shining and if i refuse he came and caught her by the arm his face blazing with sudden passion do not dare to do that
don't you understand the matter you are in my power in my power absolutely i can hand you over to the police whenever i will that will not be such a hardship i said i was going back bah if i tell them that i caught you
that you begged me to let you get away that you even said you would marry me if i would aid you what then everybody will think you guilty and raymond case will never come near you again you
you had better think this matter over i do not want to think it over my mind is made up i shall never marry you never no matter what happens i loathe and despise you there was a moment of silence and his dark face turned a sickly white
then in a burst of rage he caught her by the throat and threw her backward to the floor she offered no resistance and pausing in his madness he realized that she had swooned away fainted he hissed between his set teeth i wish she was dead
curse her and her beauty he waited and as she did not return to consciousness he picked her up and placed her on the bed then he hurried outside go back to the house he said to the old woman you'll not be needed here any more
then he looked around to see that there was no other water around the building when she rouses up she will be dry and she will drink this he muttered to himself half a glass will do the work and she will never bother me or anybody else any more he paused again
and took from his pocket several sheets of paper closely and carelessly written upon in pencil the first sheet was headed dying confession of margaret langmore a fine forgery if i do say so myself he mused
mat you always were a plum with the pen i'll add a line telling where she can be found and then send it to the coroner that will be better than leaving it around here she might find it before she drank that dose he paused again perhaps she won't drink it after all
i'll give her some of it now and make sure he raised up the almost lifeless girl and forced open her lips then he took the glass and poured half the contents down her throat
diana had never liked lydia
she declared that she would be glad to see lydia deprived of her money and put into jail the punishment would be no more than she deserved yet when these things came to pass when by the discovery that vrain yet lived lydia lost her liberty and when
as connected with the conspiracy she was arrested on a criminal warrant and put into prison diana was the only friend she had miss vrain declared that her stepmother was innocent visited her in prison and engaged a lawyer to defend her
lucian could not forbear pointing out the discrepancy between diana's past sentiments and her present actions but miss vrain was quite ready with an excuse i am only doing my duty she said in herself i like lydia as little as ever i did
so i wish to help her if possible and after all added diana she is my father's wife as if that fact extenuated all he has reason to know it replied lucian bitterly
if it had not been for lydia your father would not have left his home for a lunatic asylum nor would clear have been murdered
said lucian kissing her it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good so diana played the part of a good samaritan towards her stepmother and helped her to bear the evil of being thrust into prison lydia wrote to her father in paris but received no reply
and therefore was without a friend in the world save diana later on she was admitted to bail and diana took her to the hotel in kensington there to wait for the arrival of mister clyne his absence and silence were both unaccountable i hope nothing is wrong with poppa
wept lydia as a rule he is always smart in replying
i'm sure he will be over soon while she was thus waiting for her father and link in every way was seeking evidence against her missus clear received an answer to her message in the same column of the daily telegraph and in the same cypher
there appeared a message from wrent that he would meet missus clear at no thirteen geneva square link was delighted when missus clear showed him this and rubbed his hands with much pleasure affairs were about to be brought to a crisis
and as link was the moving spirit in the matter his vanity was sufficiently gratified as to make him quite amiable we've got him this time mister denzil he said with enthusiasm you and i and a couple of policemen will go down to that house in geneva square by the front sir by the front
missus clear also questioned lucian wishing to be enlightened on all points no she'll come in by the back down the cellarway as wrent expects her to come then he'll follow in the same path and walk right into the trap but won't the two be seen climbing over that fence in the daytime
will hide in what was the bedroom and listen to what wrent has to say to missus clear we'll give him rope enough to hang himself sir and then pounce out and nab him well he won't show much fight if he is mister vrain i don't believe he is mister vrain retorted the detective bluntly
can you trust missus clear absolutely she knows on which side her bread is buttered her only chance of getting free from her share of the matter is to turn queen's evidence and she intends to do so what did she say about vrain being wrent well sir
said link putting his head on one side and looking at lucian with an odd expression you had better wait till the man's caught before i answer that question then maybe you won't require an answer it is very probable i won't replied lucian drily what time am i to see you to night
peacock gave it to me this morning the scene will be quite dramatic i hope it won't prove to be vrain said lucian restlessly for he thought how grieved diana would be i hope not answered link curtly but there's no knowing
however if the old man does get into trouble he can plead insanity his having been in the asylum of jorce is a strong card for him to play good day mister denzil i'll see you to night at nine o'clock sharp good day replied lucian
lucian did not go near diana that day in the first place he did not wish to see lydia for whom he had no great love and in the second he was afraid to speak to diana as to the possibility of her father being wrent diana as a good daughter should
held firmly to the idea that her father could not behave in such a way and as a sensible woman she did not think that a man with so few of his senses about him could have acted the dual part with which he was credited without in some measure betraying himself
lucian was somewhat of this opinion himself yet he had an uneasy feeling that vrain might prove to be the culprit the fact of vrain's being often away from missus clear's house in bayswater
and wrent absent in the same way from missus bensusan's house in jersey street appeared strange and argued a connection between the two again the resemblance between them was most extraordinary and unaccountable on the whole lucian was not satisfied in his mind as to what would be the end of the matter
and had he known missus clear's address he would have gone to question her about it but only link knew where the woman was to be found and kept that information to himself especially from denzil now that he had the reins once more in his hands he did not intend that the barrister should take them again
punctual to the minute link in a state of subdued excitement came to lucian's rooms already he had sent his two policemen over to the house into which he had instructed them to enter in the quietest and most unostentatious manner
and now came to escort the barrister across lucian put on his hat at once and the two walked out into the dark night for dark it was with no moon few stars and a great many clouds a most satisfactory night for their purpose all the better
said link casting a look round the deserted square all the better for our little game i wish to secure this fellow as quietly as possible here's the door open in with you mister denzil
link had a dark lantern which he used carefully so that no light could be seen from the window looking on to the square and with his three companions he went into the back room which had formerly been used by clear as a sleeping apartment here the two policemen stationed themselves in one corner
and link with lucian waited near the door leading into the sitting room so as to be ready for missus clear
in a whisper he conversed with link have you heard anything of that girl rhoda he asked we have traced her to berkshire whispered link she went back to her gypsy kinsfolk you know i dare say we'll manage to lay hands on her sooner or later
replied link in the same tone myself mister denzil and two policemen keep the man in talk and find out if possible if he committed the murder i hope he won't kill me muttered missus clear he will if he knows i've betrayed him that will be all right
said link in a low impatient voice we will rush out should he prove dangerous
said missus clear nervously it's an awful situation and she moved stealthily across the floor to the window there was a faint gaslight outside and the watchers could see her figure and profile black against the slight illumination
all was still and silent as the grave when they began their dreary watch the minutes passed slowly in the darkness and there was an unbroken silence save for the breathing of the watchers and the restless movements of missus clear near the window
and clearer they paused at the door and then moved towards the window where missus clear was standing is that you said a low voice which came weirdly out of the darkness yes
i am glad also said the voice harshly as i wish to know why you propose to betray me because you won't pay me the money said missus clear boldly and if you don't give it to me this very night i'll go straight and tell the police all about my husband i'll kill you first
cried the man with a snarl and made a dash at the woman with a cry for help she eluded him and sprang towards the bedroom door for protection the next moment the four watchers were in the room wrestling with wrent when he felt the grip of their hands and knew that he was betrayed
he cried out savagely and fought with the strength of two men however he could do little against his four adversaries and worn out with the struggle collapsed suddenly on to the dusty floor with a motion of despair lost lost he muttered all lost
breathing hard link slipped back the cover of the dark lantern
out of the darkness started a pale face with white hair and long white beard lucian uttered a cry mister vrain he said shrinking back mister vrain
look again said link passing his hand rapidly over the face and head of the prostrate man
chapter four settling in sunday january eighth a day of disaster i stupidly gave permission for the third motor to be got out this morning this was done first thing and the motor placed on firm ice
later campbell told me one of the men had dropped a leg through crossing a sludgy patch some two hundred yards from the ship i didn't consider it very serious as i imagined the man had only gone through the surface crust
about seven a m i started for the shore with a single man load leaving campbell looking about for the best crossing for the motor i sent meares and the dogs over with a can of petrol on arrival after some twenty minutes he returned to tell me the motor had gone through
a man on the rope wilkinson suddenly went through to the shoulders but was immediately hauled out during the operation the ice under the motor was seen to give and suddenly it and the motor disappeared the men kept hold of the rope
but it cut through the ice towards them with an ever increasing strain obliging one after another to let go half a minute later nothing remained but a big hole perhaps it was lucky there was no accident to the men but it's a sad incident for us in any case
it's a big blow to know that one of the two best motors on which so much time and trouble have been spent now lies at the bottom of the sea the actual spot where the motor disappeared was crossed by its fellow motor with a very heavy load
as well as by myself with heavy ponies only yesterday meares took campbell back and returned with the report that the ice in the vicinity of the accident was hourly getting more dangerous it was clear that we were practically cut off
certainly as regards heavy transport bowers went back again with meares and managed to ferry over some wind clothes and odds and ends since that no communication has been held the shore party have been working
at six i went to the ice edge farther to the north i found a place where the ship could come and be near the heavy ice over which sledging is still possible i went near the ship and semaphored directions for her to get to this place
as soon as she could using steam if necessary she is at present wedged in with the pack and i think pennell hopes to warp her along when the pack loosens meares and i marked the new trail with kerosene tins before returning
so here we are waiting again till fortune is kinder meanwhile the hut proceeds altogether there are four layers of boarding to go on two of which are nearing completion it will be some time before the rest and the insulation is on
it's a big job getting settled in like this and a tantalising one when one is hoping to do some depot work before the season closes we had a keen north wind to night and a haze but wind is dropping and sun shining brightly again
to day seemed to be the hottest we have yet had after walking across i was perspiring freely
one could almost imagine a warm summer day in england this is my first night ashore i'm writing in one of my new domed tents which makes a very comfortable apartment
which had not previously been in sight from our camp she was now working her way along the ice edge with some difficulty
a flag was hoisted immediately for the ponies to come out and we commenced a good day's work all day the sledges have been coming to and fro but most of the pulling work has been done by the ponies the track is so good
the dogs working five to a team
in this way we transported a large quantity of miscellaneous stores first about three tons of coal for present use
all the many stores chimney and ventilators for the hut all the biologists gear a big pile the remainder of the physicists gear and medical stores and many old cases in fact a general clear up of everything except the two heavy items of forage and fuel
later in the day we made a start on the first of these and got seven tons ashore before ceasing work we close with a good day to our credit marred by an unfortunate incident one of the dogs a good puller was seen to cough after a journey
he was evidently trying to bring something up two minutes later he was dead nobody seems to know the reason but a post mortem is being held by atkinson and i suppose the cause of death will be found we can't afford to lose animals of any sort
all the ponies except three have now brought loads from the ship oates thinks these three are too nervous to work over this slippery surface however he tried one of the hardest cases to night a very fine pony and got him in successfully with a big load
to morrow we ought to be running some twelve or thirteen of these animals
but the third owing to the stupidity of one of the sailors nevertheless a third occasion couldn't be overlooked by his messmates
it was still funnier when he brought his final load an exceptionally heavy one with a set face and ardent pace vouchsafing not a word to anyone he passed we have achieved fair organisation to day
evans is in charge of the road and periodically goes along searching for bad places and bridging cracks with boards and snow bowers checks every case as it comes on shore and dashes off to the ship to arrange the precedence of different classes of goods
he proves a perfect treasure there is not a single case he does not know or a single article of any sort which he cannot put his hand on at once rennick and bruce are working gallantly at the discharge of stores on board
williamson and leese load the sledges and are getting very clever and expeditious evans seaman is generally superintending the sledging and camp outfit forde keohane
have been driving ponies a task at which i have assisted myself once or twice there was a report that the ice was getting rotten but i went over it myself and found it sound throughout the accident with the motor sledge has made people nervous
the weather has been very warm and fine on the whole with occasional gleams of sunshine but to night there is a rather chill wind from the south the hut is progressing famously in two more working days we ought to have everything necessary on shore
we have been six days in mc murdo sound and to night i can say we are landed were it impossible to land another pound we could go on without hitch nothing like it has been done before nothing so expeditious and complete
this morning the main loads were fodder sledge after sledge brought the bales and early in the afternoon the last
in addition to this oddments have been arriving all day instruments clothing and personal effects our camp is becoming so perfect in its appointments that i am almost suspicious of some drawback hidden by the summer weather
a felt layer a second boarding and finally linoleum as the plenteous volcanic sand can be piled well up on every side it is impossible to imagine that draughts can penetrate into the hut from beneath
and it is equally impossible to imagine great loss of heat by contact or radiation in that direction to add to the wall insulation the south and east sides of the hut are piled high with compressed forage bales whilst the north side
is being prepared as a winter stable for the ponies the stable will stand between the wall of the hut and a wall built of forage bales six bales high and two bales thick this will be roofed with rafters and tarpaulin as we cannot find enough boarding
some of the ponies are very troublesome but all except two have been running to day and until this evening there were no excitements after tea oates suggested leading out the two intractable animals behind other sledges at the same time he brought out the strong nervous grey pony
i led one of the supposedly safe ponies and all went well whilst we made our journey three loads were safely brought in
the pony tied to it suddenly got scared away he dashed with sledge attached he made straight for the other ponies but finding the incubus still fast to him
and finally dashed down hill to camp again pretty exhausted oddly enough neither sledge nor pony was much damaged then we departed again in the same order half way over the floe my rear pony got his foreleg foul of his halter
then got frightened tugged at his halter and lifted the unladen sledge to which he was tied then the halter broke and away he went but by this time the damage was done my pony snorted wildly and sprang forward as the sledge banged to the ground
i just managed to hold him till oates came up then we started again but he was thoroughly frightened
and i was obliged to let go he galloped back and the party dejectedly returned at the camp evans got hold of the pony but in a moment it was off again knocking evans off his legs finally he was captured and led forth once more between oates and anton
the ski run was completely cut through in two places the gap and observation hill almost bare a great bare slope on the side of arrival heights and on top of crater heights an immense bare table land how delighted
we should have been to see it like this in the old days the pond was thawed
the hole which we had dug in the mound in the pond was still there as meares discovered by falling into it up to his waist and getting very wet on the south side we could see the pressure ridges beyond pram point as of old horseshoe bay calm and unpressed
the sea ice pressed on pram point and along the gap ice foot and a new ridge running around c armitage about two miles off we saw ferrar's old thermometer tubes standing out of the snow slope as though they'd been placed yesterday
the flagstaff was down the stays having carried away but in five minutes it could be put up again we loaded some asbestos sheeting from the old magnetic hut on our sledges for simpson
got a clear run to glacier tongue i had hoped to get across the wide crack by going west
i found our larder in the grotto completed and stored with mutton and penguins
i took ponting out to see some interesting thaw effects on the ice cliffs east of the camp i noted that the ice layers were pressing out over thin dirt bands as though the latter made the cleavage lines over which the strata slid
i heard that all the people who journeyed towards c royds yesterday reached their destination in safety campbell levick and priestley had just departed
we took up our abode in the hut to day and are simply overwhelmed with its comfort after breakfast this morning i found bowers making cubicles as i had arranged but i soon saw these would not fit in so instructed him to build a bulkhead of cases
which shuts off the officers space from the men's i am quite sure to the satisfaction of both the space between my bulkhead and the men's i allotted to five bowers oates atkinson meares and cherry garrard
these five are all special friends and have already made their dormitory very habitable simpson and wright are near the instruments in their corner next come day and nelson in a space which includes the latter's lab near the big window next to this is a space for three
debenham taylor and gran they also have already made their space part dormitory and part workshop it is fine to see the way everyone sets to work to put things straight in a day or two the hut will become the most comfortable of houses and in a week or so the whole station
it is really wonderful to realise the amount of work which has been got through of late it will be a fortnight to morrow since we arrived in mc murdo sound and here we are absolutely settled down and ready to start on our depot journey
directly the ponies have had a proper chance to recover from the effects of the voyage i had no idea we should be so expeditious it snowed hard all last night there were about three or four inches of soft snow over the camp this morning
and simpson tells me some six inches out by the ship the camp looks very white during the day it has been blowing very hard from the south with a great deal of drift here in this camp as usual we do not feel it much but we see the anemometer racing on the hill and the snow clouds sweeping past the ship
the floe is breaking between the point and the ship though curiously it remains fast on a direct route to the ship now the open water runs parallel to our ship road and only a few hundred yards south of it yesterday the whaler was rowed in close to the camp
the big wedge of ice to which the ship is holding on the outskirts of the bay can have very little grip to keep it in and must inevitably go out very soon i hope this may result in the ship finding a more sheltered
and secure position close to us a big iceberg sailed past the ship this afternoon atkinson declares it was the end of the cape barne glacier i hope they will know in the ship as it would be interesting to witness the birth of a glacier in this region
it is clearing to night but still blowing hard the ponies don't like the wind but they are all standing the cold wonderfully and all their sores are healed up
the ship had a poor time last night steam was ordered but the floe began breaking up fast at one a m and the rest of the night was passed in struggling with ice anchors steam was reported ready just as the ship broke adrift
in the morning she secured to the ice edge on the same line as before but a few hundred yards nearer after getting things going at the hut i walked over and suggested that pennell should come round the corner close in shore the ice anchors were tripped and we steamed slowly in
making fast to the floe within two hundred yards of the ice foot and four hundred yards of the hut for the present the position is extraordinarily comfortable
receiving great shelter from the end of the cape with a northerly blow she might turn rather close to the shore where the soundings run to three fathoms but behind such a stretch of ice she could scarcely get a sea or swell without warning
it looks a wonderfully comfortable little nook but of course one can be certain of nothing in this place one knows from experience how deceptive the appearance of security may be pennell is truly excellent in his present position
he's invariably cheerful unceasingly watchful and continuously ready for emergencies i have come to possess implicit confidence in him
it was very unpleasant outside after breakfast
this afternoon it fell almost calm but the sky clouded over again and now there is a gentle warm southerly breeze with light falling snow and an overcast sky
the position of the ship makes the casual transport that still proceeds very easy but the ice is rather thin at the edge in the hut all is marching towards the utmost comfort bowers has completed a storeroom on the south side an excellent place to keep our travelling provisions
every day he conceives or carries out some plan to benefit the camp simpson and wright are worthy of all admiration they have been unceasingly active in getting things to the fore
but indeed it is hard to specialise praise where everyone is working so indefatigably for the cause each man in his way is a treasure clissold the cook has started splendidly has served seal penguin and skua now
and i can honestly say that i have never met these articles of food in such a pleasing guise this point is of the greatest practical importance as it means the certainty of good health for any number of years hooper was landed to day much to his joy he got to work at once and will be a splendid help
freeing the scientific people of all dirty work anton and demetri are both most anxious to help on all occasions they are excellent boys
the hut is becoming the most comfortable dwelling place imaginable we have made unto ourselves a truly seductive home within the walls of which peace quiet and comfort reign supreme such a noble dwelling transcends the word hut
and we pause to give it a more fitting title only from lack of the appropriate suggestion
if you can picture our house nestling below this small hill on a long stretch of black sand
cases ranged in neat blocks in front of it and the sea lapping the icefoot below
as for our wider surroundings it would be difficult to describe their beauty in sufficiently glowing terms cape evans is one of the many spurs of erebus
and the one that stands closest under the mountain so that always towering above us we have the grand snowy peak with its smoking summit north and south of us are deep bays beyond which great glaciers come rippling over
the lower slopes to thrust high blue walled snouts into the sea
with camera and cinematograph the wind has been boisterous all day to advantage after the last snow fall as it has been drifting the loose snow along and hardening the surfaces the horses don't like it naturally
i think the hardening process must be good for animals though not for men nature replies to it in the former by growing a thick coat with wonderful promptitude it seems to me that the shaggy coats of our ponies are already improving
the dogs seem to feel the cold little so far but they are not so exposed
on the windward side connecting the roofing with that of the porch the improvement is enormous and will make the greatest difference to those who dwell near the door
which will be completed in a few days internal affairs have been straightening out as rapidly as before and every hour seems to add some new touch for the better this morning i overhauled all the fur sleeping bags and found them in splendid order
ponting has fitted up his own dark room doing the carpentering work with extraordinary speed and to everyone's admiration to night he made a window in the dark room in an hour or so meares has become enamoured of the gramophone
we find we have a splendid selection of records the pianola is being brought in sections
oates goes steadily on with the ponies he is perfectly excellent and untiring in his devotion to the animals
for this reason we must have a great deal of food for animals and men
our house has assumed great proportions bowers annexe is finished roof and all thoroughly snow tight an excellent place for spare clothing furs and ready use stores and its extension affording complete protection
to the entrance porch of the hut the stables are nearly finished a thoroughly stout well roofed lean to on the north side nelson has a small extension on the east side
simpson has almost completed his ice cavern light tight lining niches floor and all wright and forde have almost completed the absolute hut a patchwork building for which the framework only was brought
but it will be very well adapted for our needs gran has been putting record on the ski runners record is a mixture of vegetable tar paraffin soft soap and linseed oil with some patent addition which prevents freezing
this according to gran p o evans and crean have been preparing sledges evans shows himself wonderfully capable and i haven't a doubt as to the working of the sledges he has fitted up
we are delighted with everything first the felt boots and felt slippers made by jaeger and then summer wind clothes and fur mits nothing could be better than these articles finally to night we have overhauled and served out two pairs of finnesko fur boots
to each traveller they are excellent in quality
a little stretching and all was well they are very good indeed
we are well repaid for all the trouble which was taken in selecting the food list and the firms from which the various articles could best be obtained and we are showering blessings on mister wyatt's head for so strictly safeguarding our interests in these particulars
our clothing is as good as good in fact first and last running through the whole extent of our outfit i can say with some pride that there is not a single arrangement
an emperor penguin was found on the cape well advanced in moult a good specimen skin atkinson found cysts formed by a tapeworm in the intestines it seems clear that this parasite is not transferred from another host
and that its history is unlike that of any other known tapeworm in fact atkinson scores a discovery in parasitology of no little importance the wind has turned to the north to night and is blowing quite fresh
the pianola has been erected by rennick he is a good fellow and one feels for him much at such a time
and it shows well that he should give so much pains in putting it right for us day has been explaining the manner in which he hopes to be able to cope with the motor sledge difficulty he is hopeful of getting things right but i fear it won't do to place more reliance on the machines
everything looks hopeful for the depot journey if only we can get our stores and ponies past the glacier tongue
so extraordinarily well cooked
i told two of the party they were beef
it is the first time i have tasted seal without being aware of its particular flavour but even its own flavour is acceptable in our cook's hands he really is excellent
my anxiety for the ship was not unfounded fearing a little trouble i went out of the hut in the middle of the night and saw at once that she was having a bad time the ice was breaking with a northerly swell and the wind increasing with the ship on dead lee shore
and some still held pennell was getting up steam and his men struggling to replace the anchors we got out the men and gave some help at six steam was up and i was right glad to see the ship back out to windward leaving us to recover anchors and hawsers
she stood away to the west and almost immediately after a large berg drove in and grounded in the place she had occupied we spent the day measuring our provisions and fixing up clothing arrangements for our journey a good deal of progress has been made in the afternoon the ship returned to the northern ice edge
and loose ice all along the edge our people went out with the ice anchors and i saw the ship pass west again then as i went out on the floe came the report that she was ashore i ran out to the cape with evans and saw that the report was only too true
she looked to be firmly fixed and in a very uncomfortable position it looked as though she
as the drift was making rapidly to the south later pennell told me he had been trying to look behind the berg and had been going astern some time before he struck my heart sank when i looked at her and i sent evans off in the whaler to sound
recovered the ice anchors again set the people to work and walked disconsolately back to the cape to watch visions of the ship failing to return to new zealand and of sixty people waiting here arose in my mind with sickening pertinacity
and the only consolation i could draw from such imaginations was the determination that the southern work should go on as before meanwhile the least ill possible seemed to be an extensive lightening of the ship with boats
as the tide was evidently high when she struck a terribly depressing prospect
the men shifting cargo aft pennell tells me they shifted ten tons in a very short time the first ray of hope came when by careful watching one could see that the ship was turning very slowly then one saw the men running from side to side
and knew that an attempt was being made to roll her off the rolling produced a more rapid turning movement at first and then she seemed to hang again but only for a short time the engines had been going astern all the time and presently a slight movement became apparent
but we only knew she was getting clear when we heard cheers on board and more cheers from the whaler then she gathered stern way and was clear the relief was enormous
and worked under these very trying circumstances from pennell down there is not an officer or man who has not done his job nobly during the past weeks and it will be a glorious thing to remember the unselfish loyal help they are giving us
i think i like him more every day campbell and his party returned late this afternoon i have not heard details meares and oates went to the glacier tongue and satisfied themselves that the ice is good it only has to remain another three days
and it would be poor luck if it failed in that time
a quiet day with little to record the ship lies peacefully in the bay a brisk northerly breeze in the forenoon died to light airs in the evening
we have had a long busy day at clothing everyone sewing away diligently the eastern party ponies were put on board the ship this morning
placid conditions last for a very short time in these regions i got up at five this morning to find the weather calm and beautiful but to my astonishment an opening lane of water between the land and the ice in the bay
the latter was going out in a solid mass the ship discovered it easily got up her ice anchors
and put out to sea to dredge
this proved an exaggeration but an immense piece of floe had separated from the land meares and i walked till we came to the first ice luckily we found that it extends for some two miles along the rock of our cape and we discovered a possible way to lead ponies down to it
it was plain that only the ponies could go by it no loads
we have got all the forage and food sledges and equipment off to the ship the dogs will follow in an hour i hope
and had advised his highness to appear in england at the head of a strong body of troops and to call the people to arms william had seen at a glance the whole importance of the crisis
admitted that the distempers of the state were such as required an extraordinary remedy but spoke with earnestness of the chance of failure and of the calamities which failure might bring on britain and on europe
he knew well that many who talked in high language about sacrificing their lives and fortunes for their country would hesitate when the prospect of another bloody circuit was brought close to them he wanted therefore to have not vague professions of good will
his principal coadjutor in this work was henry sidney brother of algernon it is remarkable that both edward russell and henry sidney had been in the household of james that both had partly on public and partly on private grounds become his enemies
and that both had to avenge the blood of near kinsmen who had in the same year fallen victims to his implacable severity here the resemblance ends russell with considerable abilities was proud acrimonious restless and violent
sidney with a sweet temper and winning manners seemed to be deficient in capacity and knowledge and to be sunk in voluptuousness and indolence his face and form were eminently handsome in his youth he had been the terror of husbands
and even now at near fifty he was the favourite of women and the envy of younger men he had formerly resided at the hague in a public character and had then succeeded in obtaining a large share of william's confidence
many wondered at this for it seemed that between the most austere of statesmen
swift many years later could not be convinced that one whom he had known only as an illiterate and frivolous old rake could really have played a great part in a great revolution yet a less acute observer than swift might have been aware that there is a certain tact
it is in some sense an advantage to him that he is destitute of those more showy talents which would make him an object of admiration of envy and of fear sidney was a remarkable instance of this truth incapable ignorant and dissipated as he seemed to be
he understood or rather felt with whom it was necessary to be reserved and with whom he might safely venture to be communicative the consequence was that he did what mordaunt with all his vivacity and invention or burnet
he went into the scheme with his whole heart
sidney sounded halifax shrewsbury took his part with a courage and decision which at a later period seemed to be wanting to his character he at once agreed to set his estate his honours and his life on the stake but halifax received the first hint
the brow the eye and the mouth of halifax indicated a powerful intellect and an exquisite sense of the ludicrous but the expression was that of a sceptic of a voluptuary of a man not likely to venture his all on a single hazard
or to be a martyr in any cause to those who are acquainted with his countenance
he was now free but this did not content him he wished to be again great attached as he was to the anglican church hostile as he was to the french ascendency he could not hope to be great in a court swarming with jesuits and obsequious to the house of bourbon
but if he bore a chief part in a revolution which should confound all the schemes of the papists
and which should transfer the regal power to an illustrious pair whom he had united he might emerge from his eclipse with new splendour the whigs whose animosity had nine years before driven him from office would
on his auspicious reappearance join their acclamations to the acclamations of his old friends the cavaliers
the earl of devonshire the two noblemen had met at a village in the peak and had exchanged assurances of good will devonshire had frankly owned that the whigs had been guilty of a great injustice and had declared that they were now convinced of their error
danby on his side had also recantations to make he had once held or pretended to hold the doctrine of passive obedience in the largest sense under his administration and with his sanction a law had been proposed which if it had been passed
would have excluded from parliament and office all who refused to declare on oath that they thought resistance in every case unlawful but his vigorous understanding now thoroughly awakened by anxiety for the public interests and for his own was no longer to be duped
the whole plan was opened to him and he approved of it but in a few days he began to be unquiet his mind was not sufficiently powerful to emancipate itself from the prejudices of education
he at length told his accomplices that he could go no further with them if they thought him capable of betraying them they might stab him and he should hardly blame them for by drawing back after going so far he had given them a kind of right over his life
from the moment when the tailor had bowed his farewell to the moment when graham found himself in the lift was altogether barely five minutes as yet the haze of his vast interval of sleep hung about him as yet the initial strangeness of his being alive at all in this remote age touched everything with wonder
with a sense of the irrational with something of the quality of a realistic dream he was still detached an astonished spectator still but half involved in life what he had seen and especially the last crowded tumult
framed in the setting of the balcony had a spectacular turn like a thing witnessed from the box of a theatre i don't understand he said what was the trouble my mind is in a whirl why were they shouting what is the danger we have our troubles
said howard his eyes avoided graham's enquiry this is a time of unrest and in fact your appearance your waking just now has a sort of connexion
said graham puzzled it will be it is bound to be perplexing at present it is all so strange anything seems possible anything in the details even your counting i understand is different the lift stopped
and they stepped out into a narrow but very long passage between high walls along which ran an extraordinary number of tubes and big cables
this is one of the city ways for various public services light and so forth was it a social trouble that in the great roadway place how are you governed have you still a police several said howard several
about fourteen i don't understand very probably not our social order will probably seem very complex to you to tell you the truth i don't understand it myself very clearly nobody does you will perhaps bye and bye
graham's attention was divided between the urgent necessity of his inquiries and the people in the passages and halls they were traversing for a moment his mind would be concentrated upon howard and the halting answers he made
and then he would lose the thread in response to some vivid unexpected impression along the passages in the halls half the people seemed to be men in the red uniform the pale blue canvas that had been so abundant in the aisle of moving ways did not appear
he judged they knew howard and not himself and that they wondered who he was this howard it seemed
that was odd there came a passage in twilight and into this passage a footway hung so that he could see the feet and ankles of people going to and fro thereon but no more of them
they crossed by means of a narrow bridge closed in with glass so clear that it made him giddy even to remember it the floor of it also was of glass
looked down between his legs upon the swarming blue and red multitudes minute and foreshortened struggling and gesticulating still towards the little balcony far below a little toy balcony it seemed where he had so recently been standing
a thin haze and the glare of the mighty globes of light obscured everything a man seated in a little openwork cradle shot by from some point still higher than the little narrow bridge rushing down a cable as swiftly almost as if he were falling
graham stopped involuntarily to watch this strange passenger vanish below
a great shouting cries of wrath screaming
then howard had thrust him forward across the bridge and he was in a little narrow passage decorated with geometrical patterns i want to see more of that cried graham resisting no no cried howard still gripping his arm this way you must go this way
and the men in red following them seemed ready to enforce his orders some negroes in a curious wasp like uniform of black and yellow appeared down the passage and one hastened to throw up a sliding shutter that had seemed a door to graham and led the way through it
as they crossed the gallery he heard a whisper from below the sleeper and was aware of a turning of heads a hum of observation they entered another little passage in the wall of this ante chamber
he entered the place at the corner so that he received the fullest impression of its huge proportions the black in the wasp uniform stood aside like a well trained servant and closed the valve behind him
on a pedestal at the remoter end and more brilliantly lit than any other object was a gigantic white figure of atlas strong and strenuous the globe upon his bowed shoulders it was the first thing to strike his attention it was so vast
so patiently and painfully real so white and simple save for this figure and for a dais in the centre
the dais was remote in the greatness of the area it would have looked a mere slab of metal had it not been for the group of seven men who stood about a table on it and gave an inkling of its proportions
howard led him along the end gallery until they were opposite this mighty labouring figure then he stopped the two men in red who had followed them into the gallery came and stood on either hand of graham you must remain here murmured howard
for a few moments and without waiting for a reply hurried away along the gallery
the council oh said graham and after an equally ineffectual attempt at the other man went to the railing and stared at the distant men in white who stood watching him and whispering together the council
he perceived there were now eight though how the newcomer had arrived he had not observed they made no gestures of greeting they stood regarding him as in the nineteenth century a group of men might have stood in the street regarding a distant balloon that had suddenly floated into view what council could it be that gathered there
and why should he be brought to them and be looked at strangely and spoken of inaudibly howard appeared beneath walking quickly across the polished floor towards them as he drew near he bowed and performed certain peculiar movements apparently of a ceremonious nature
thence they wandered to the walls of the hall
these panels were grouped in a great and elaborate framing of dark metal which passed into the metallic caryatidae of the galleries and the great structural lines of the interior the facile grace of these panels enhanced the mighty white effort
graham's eyes came back to the council and howard was descending the steps as he drew nearer his features could be distinguished and graham saw that he was flushed and blowing out his cheeks his countenance was still disturbed when presently he reappeared along the gallery this way
he said concisely and they went on in silence to a little door that opened at their approach the two men in red stopped on either side of this door howard and graham passed in and graham glancing back saw the white robed council still standing in a close group and looking at him
then the door closed behind him with a heavy thud and for the first time since his awakening he was in silence the floor even was noiseless to his feet
howard opened another door and they were in the first of two contiguous chambers furnished in white and green what council was that began graham what were they discussing what have they to do with me
he walked slantingways across the room and turned blowing out his cheeks again ugh he grunted a man relieved graham stood regarding him you must understand began howard abruptly avoiding graham's eyes
that our social order is very complex a half explanation a bare unqualified statement would give you false impressions as a matter of fact it is a case of compound interest partly
to ask you to keep in seclusion graham turned on him this is strange he said no harm will be done you no harm but you must be kept here while i learn my position i presume precisely
why is a great multitude shouting and excited because my trance is over and who are the men in white in that huge council chamber all in good time sire said howard but not crudely not crudely
i should be told what is happening you must wait really you must wait graham sat down abruptly i suppose since i have waited so long to resume life he said that i must wait a little longer
that is better said howard yes that is much better and i must leave you alone for a space
i am sorry he went towards the noiseless door hesitated and vanished graham walked to the door tried it found it securely fastened in some way he never came to understand turned about paced the room restlessly
made the circuit of the room and sat down he remained sitting for some time with folded arms and knitted brow biting his finger nails and trying to piece together the kaleidoscopic impressions of this first hour of awakened life the vast mechanical spaces
with a little greyshot beard trimmed to a point and his hair its blackness streaked now with bands of grey arranged over his forehead in an unfamiliar but pleasing manner he seemed a man of five and forty perhaps for a moment he did not perceive this was himself
a flash of laughter came with the recognition
the thought smote him abruptly and keenly he stopped short the expression of his face changed to a white consternation the tumultuous memory of the moving platforms and the huge facade of that wonderful street reasserted itself
the faint humming note of its easy motion was the only clear sound in that quiet place as these vanes sprang up one after the other graham could get transient glimpses of the sky he was surprised to see a star
and he began to recall that along all the vast chambers and passages he had traversed with howard he had observed no windows at all had there been windows there were windows on the street indeed but were they for light or was the whole city lit day and night for evermore so that there was no night there
and another thing dawned upon him there was no fireplace in either room was the season summer and were these merely summer apartments or was the whole city uniformly heated or cooled he became interested in these questions
a chair faced this he had a transitory idea that these cylinders might be books or a modern substitute for books but at first it did not seem so the lettering on the cylinders puzzled him at first sight it seemed like russian
he remembered reading a story with that title then he recalled the story vividly one of the best stories in the world but this thing before him was not a book as he understood it he puzzled out the titles of two adjacent cylinders the heart of darkness he had never heard of before
nor the madonna of the future no doubt if they were indeed stories they were by post victorian authors he puzzled over this peculiar cylinder for some time and replaced it then he turned to the square apparatus and examined that
he opened a sort of lid and found one of the double cylinders within and on the upper edge a little stud like the stud of an electric bell he pressed this and a rapid clicking began and ceased he became aware of voices and music and noticed a play of colour on the smooth front face
he suddenly realised what this might be and stepped back to regard it on the flat surface was now a little picture very vividly coloured and in this picture were figures that moved
his interest was seized at once by the situation which presented a man pacing up and down and vociferating angry things to a pretty but petulant woman both were in the picturesque costume that seemed so strange to graham i have worked said the man but what have you been doing
at last the miniature drama came to an end and the square face of the apparatus was blank again
he stood up and abruptly he was back in his own wonderland the clearness of the kinetoscope drama passed and the struggle in the vast place of streets the ambiguous council the swift phases of his waking hour came back
these people had spoken of the council with suggestions of a vague universality of power and they had spoken of the sleeper it had not really struck him vividly at the time that he was the sleeper he had to recall precisely what they had said
he walked into the bedroom and peered up through the quick intervals of the revolving fan as the fan swept round a dim turmoil like the noise of machinery came in rhythmic eddies all else was silence
though the perpetual day still irradiated his apartments he perceived the little intermittent strip of sky was now deep blue black almost with a dust of little stars he resumed his examination of the rooms
as he did so it came into his mind that it must be these little appliances had fixed the language so that it was still clear and understandable after two hundred years the haphazard cylinders he substituted displayed a musical fantasia
the music was unfamiliar but the rendering was realistic and with a contemporary unfamiliarity
a dream surely the fancy of a fantastic voluptuous writer he became interested curious the story developed with a flavour of strangely twisted sentimentality suddenly he did not like it he liked it less as it proceeded
he had a revulsion of feeling these were no pictures no idealisations but photographed realities he wanted no more of the twenty second century venusberg he forgot the part played by the model in nineteenth century art
and gave way to an archaic indignation he rose angry and half ashamed at himself for witnessing this thing even in solitude
when he attempted next day to replace these tannhauser cylinders by another pair he found the apparatus broken he struck out a path oblique to the room and paced to and fro struggling with intolerable vast impressions
what have they got to what has been done
the vastness of street and house he was prepared for the multitudes of people but conflicts in the city ways and the systematised sensuality of a class of rich men he thought of bellamy the hero of whose socialistic utopia had so oddly anticipated this actual experience
but here was no utopia no socialistic state he had already seen enough to realise that the ancient antithesis of luxury waste and sensuality on the one hand and abject poverty on the other still prevailed
he knew enough of the essential factors of life to understand that correlation and not only were the buildings of the city gigantic and the crowds in the street gigantic but the voices he had heard in the ways the uneasiness of howard the very atmosphere spoke of gigantic discontent
he prowled about his apartment examining everything as a caged animal might do he was very tired with that feverish exhaustion that does not admit of rest he listened for long spaces under the ventilator to catch some distant echo of the tumults he
felt must be proceeding in the city he began to talk to himself
then i am two hundred and thirty three years old the oldest inhabitant surely they haven't reversed the tendency of our time and gone back to the rule of the oldest my claims are indisputable mumble mumble i remember the bulgarian atrocities as though it was yesterday
steady he said steady his pacing became more regular this new world he said i don't understand it why but it is all why
i suppose they can fly and do all sorts of things let me try and remember just how it began he was surprised at first to find how vague the memories of his first thirty years had become he remembered fragments for the most part trivial moments things of no great importance that he had observed
of his rivals and friends and betrayers of the decision of this issue and that and then of his last years of misery of fluctuating resolves and at last of his strenuous studies in a little while he perceived he had it all again dim perhaps
like metal long laid aside but in no way defective or injured capable of re polishing and the hue of it was a deepening misery was it worth re polishing by a miracle he had been lifted out of a life that had become intolerable
the marvel of his fate mingled with and in some way minimised the marvel of his survival he had awakened to mankind it seemed only to be snatched away into this unaccountable solitude howard came regularly with subtly sustaining and nutritive fluids
his enquiries became more definite and searching howard retreated through protests and difficulties the awakening was unforeseen he repeated
the thing is this said graham you are afraid of something i shall do in some way i am arbitrator i might be arbitrator it is not that but you have i may tell you this much
the automatic increase of your property puts great possibilities of interference in your hands
but it is too complex we dare not suddenly while you are still half awake it won't do said graham suppose it is as you say why am i not being crammed night and day with facts and warnings and all the wisdom of the time to fit me for my responsibilities
am i any wiser now than two days ago if it is two days when i awoke howard pulled his lip i am beginning to feel every hour i feel more clearly a system of concealment of which you are the face
is this council or committee or whatever they are cooking the accounts of my estate is that it that note of suspicion said howard ugh
i am alive make no doubt of it i am alive every day my pulse is stronger and my mind clearer and more vigorous no more quiescence i am a man come back to life and i want to live live
howard's face lit with an idea he came towards graham and spoke in an easy confidential tone the council secludes you here for your good you are restless naturally an energetic man you find it dull here
now we have treated you neglectfully the crowds in yonder streets of yours that said howard i am afraid but graham began pacing the room howard stood near the door watching him
the implication of howard's suggestion was only half evident to graham company suppose he were to accept the proposal demand some sort of company
would there be any possibilities of gathering from the conversation of this additional person some vague inkling of the struggle that had broken out so vividly at his waking moment he meditated again
he turned on howard abruptly what do you mean by company howard raised his eyes and shrugged his shoulders
our social ideas he said have a certain increased liberality perhaps in comparison with your times
by feminine society for instance we think it no scandal we have cleared our minds of formulae there is in our city a class a necessary class no longer despised discreet graham stopped dead
it is a thing i should perhaps have thought of before but as a matter of fact so much is happening he indicated the exterior world graham hesitated for a moment the figure of a possible woman dominated his mind with an intense attraction
then he flashed into anger no he shouted he began striding rapidly up and down the room everything you say everything you do convinces me of some great issue in which i am concerned
desire and indulgence are life in a sense and death extinction in my life before i slept i had worked out that pitiful question i will not begin again there is a city a multitude and meanwhile i am here like a rabbit in a bag
for no good purpose i warn you i warn you of the consequences
he realised that to threaten thus might be a danger to himself he stopped howard stood regarding him with a curious expression i take it this is a message to the council said howard
graham had a momentary impulse to leap upon the man fell or stun him it must have shown upon his face at any rate howard's movement was quick
it was not likely they would be less humane yet they had cleared their minds of formulae was humanity a formula as well as chastity his imagination set to work to suggest things that might be done to him
he returned to his former preoccupation with the council's possible intentions he began to reconsider the details of howard's behaviour sinister glances inexplicable hesitations then for a time his mind circled about the idea of escaping from these rooms
but whither could he escape into this vast crowded world he would be worse off than a saxon yeoman suddenly dropped into nineteenth century london and besides how could anyone escape from these rooms how can it benefit anyone if harm should happen to me
he thought of the tumult the great social trouble of which he was so unaccountably the axis a text irrelevant enough and yet curiously insistent came floating up out of the darkness of his memory this also a council had said
the supreme court has determined that the united states never held any municipal sovereignty jurisdiction or right of soil in the territory of which any of the new states have been formed except for temporary purposes
those questions on which men might reason had been the foundation of judicial decision
came to be presented the question whether cuffee should be kept in his normal condition or not the question whether the congress of the united states could decide what might or might not be property in a territory
to perform his public duty having taken with him his negro slave the court however in giving their decision in this case or their opinion
have gone into the question with such clearness such precision and such amplitude that it will relieve me from the necessity of arguing it any further than to make a reference to some sentences contained in that opinion
and here let me say i can not see how those who agreed on a former occasion that the constitutional right of the slaveholder to take his property into the territory
the constitutional power of the congress and the constitutional power of the territory to legislate upon that subject should be a judicial question
can now attempt to escape the operation of an opinion which covers the exact political question which it was known beforehand the court would be called upon to decide
decided in strictness of technical language it was known it could not be hundreds thousands a vast variety of cases may arise and centuries elapse and leave that court
if our union still exists deciding questions in relation to that character of property in the territories but the great and fundamental idea was that after thirty years of angry controversy dividing the people and paralyzing the arm of the federal government
some umpire should be sought which would compose the difficulty and set it upon a footing to leave us in future to proceed in peace and that umpire was selected which the constitution had provided to decide questions of law
the territory being a part of the united states the government and the citizen both enter it under the authority of the constitution with their respective rights defined and marked out
and the federal government can exercise no power over his person or property beyond what that instrument confers nor lawfully deny any right which it has reserved
the powers over person and property of which we speak are not only not granted to congress but are in express terms denied and they are forbidden to exercise them and this prohibition is not confined to the states
but the words are general and extend to the whole territory over which the constitution gives it power to legislate including those portions of it remaining under territorial government
on the same footing with citizens of the states and guards them as firmly and plainly against any inroads which the general government might attempt under the plea of implied or incidental powers
and if congress itself can not do this if it is beyond the powers conferred on the federal government it will be admitted we presume that it could not authorize a territorial government to exercise them
it could confer no power on any local government established by its authority to violate the provisions of the constitution and if the constitution recognizes the right of property of the master in the slave
no tribunal acting under the authority of the united states whether it be legislative executive or judicial has a right to draw such a distinction
or deny to it the benefit of the provisions and guarantees which have been provided for the protection of private property
this is done in plain words too plain to be misunderstood and no word can be found in the constitution which gives congress a greater power over slave property
or which entitles property of that kind to less protection than property of any other description the only power conferred is the power coupled with the duty of guarding and protecting the owner in his rights
upon these considerations it is the opinion of the court that the act of congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the united states north of the line therein mentioned is not warranted by the constitution
by being carried into this territory even if they had been carried there by the owner
mister davis here then mister president i say the umpire selected as the referee in the controversy has decided that neither the congress nor its agent the territorial government
has the power to invade or impair the right of property within the limits of a territory i will not inquire whether it be technically a decision or not
it is well known to those who have been associated with me in the two houses of congress that from the commencement of the question i have been the determined opponent of what is called squatter sovereignty
i never gave it countenance and i am now least of all disposed to give it quarter in eighteen forty eight it made its appearance for good purposes
and his reflection led him to a conclusion to which i doubt not to day he adheres as tenaciously as ever but from which it was my fortune good or ill to dissent when his letter was read to me in manuscript
i being together with some other persons asked
a fallacy fraught with mischief that it escaped an issue which was upon us which it was our duty to meet
which led to a greater danger i thought it a fallacy which would surely be exploded i doubted then and still more for some time afterward when held to a dread responsibility for the position which i occupied
each to send forth its army kansas became the battle field and kansas the cry which wellnigh led to civil war this was the first fruit more deadly than the fatal upas
what is it i say which can be counted in the balance on our side against the performance of that duty which is imposed upon us if any one believes congress has not the constitutional power
he acts conscientiously in insisting upon congress not usurping it if any one believes that the squatters upon the lands of the united states within a territory are invested with sovereignty
having won it by some of those processes unknown to history without grant or without revolution without money and without price he adhering to the theory
i say lay your hand upon the constitution and find there the warrant of your authority
what is there to sustain your theory
and you must govern your conduct according to them yet i do not deny your sovereignty that is the power to do as they please provided it conforms to the rule which others chose to lay down
can this be a definition of sovereignty but again sir
that a territorial legislature can do anything which a state legislature can do and that subject to the constitution means merely the restraints imposed upon both this is confounding the whole theory and the history of our government
the states were the grantors they made the compact they gave the federal agent its powers they inhibited themselves from doing certain things
therefore its powers are not comparable to the powers of the state legislature because one is the creature of grant
and the other the exponent of sovereign power the supreme court have covered the whole ground of the relation of the congress to the territorial legislatures
are those put upon the other in language so clear as to render it needless further to labor the subject in eighteen fifty following the promulgation of this notion of squatter sovereignty
we had the idea of non intervention introduced into the senate of the united states and it is strange to me how that idea has expanded it seems to have been more malleable than gold
to have been hammered out to an extent that covers boundless regions undiscovered by those who proclaimed the doctrine non intervention then meant as the debates show
to property in slaves why sir the very acts which they passed at the time refute it there is the fugitive slave law and that abomination of laws which assumed to confiscate the property of a citizen
who should attempt to bring it into this district with intent to remove it to sell it at some other time
congress acted then upon the subject acted beyond the limit of its authority as i believed confidently believed and if ever that act comes before the supreme court i feel satisfied they will declare it null and void
and repudiate the laws they were then creating the man who stood most prominently the advocate of the measures of that year who great in many periods of our history perhaps shone then with the brightest light his genius ever emitted
i refer to henry clay has given his own view on this subject and i suppose he may be considered as the highest authority
and which in said territories restrict abridge or obstruct the full enjoyment of any right of person or property of a citizen of the united states
are hereby declared and shall be held as repealed upon that mister clay said mister president
i thought that upon this subject there had been a clear understanding in the senate that the senate would not decide itself upon the lex loci as it respects slavery
to be decided by the proper and competent tribunal the supreme court of the united states appendix to congressional globe
that was the position taken by mister clay the leader a mere sentence will show with what view i regarded the dogma of non intervention when that amendment was offered i said but what is non intervention seems to vary
as often as the light and shade of every fleeting cloud it has different meanings in every state in every county in every town if non intervention means that we shall not have protection for our property in slaves
then i always was and always shall be opposed to it
then i am opposed to non intervention and shall always be opposed to it
mister downs one of the committee of thirteen and an advocate of the measures said what i understand by non intervention is an interposition of congress prohibiting or establishing or interfering with slavery
to exclude the congress from any kind of legislation whatever i am at a loss to conceive certain it is it was not the theory of that period and it was not contended for in all the controversies we had then
that the issue was before us and ought to be met the sooner the better that truth would prevail if presented to the people borne down to day it would rise up to morrow and i stood then on the same general plea which i am making now
the senator from illinois mister douglas and myself differed at that time as i presume we do now we differed radically then he opposed every proposition which i made
which should be taken there to remove the obstructions of the mexican laws voting for a proposition to exclude the conclusion that slavery might be taken there voting for the proposition expressly to prohibit its introduction
voting for the proposition to keep in force the laws of mexico which prohibited it some of these votes it is but just to him i should say
were outside of the limits of any instructions which could have been given before the fact in eighteen fifty four advancing in this same general line of thought the congress in enacting territorial bills left out a provision
which had before been usually contained in them
it has been sometimes assumed that this was the recognition of the power of the territorial legislature to exercise plenary legislation as might that of a state it will be remembered that when our present form of government was instituted
there were those who believed the federal government should have the power of revision over the laws of a state it was long and ably contended for in the convention which formed the constitution
and one of the compromises which was made was an appellate power to lodge power in the supreme court to decide all questions of constitutional law but did this omission of the obligation to send here the laws of the territories
work this grant of power to the territorial legislature certainly not it could not and that it did not is evinced by the fact that
at a subsequent period the organic act was revised because the legislation of the territory of kansas was offensive to the congress of the united states congress could not abdicate its authority
it could not abandon its trust and when it omitted the requirement that the laws should be sent back it created a casus which required it to act without the official records being laid before it
as they would have been if the obligation had existed that was all the difference it was not enforcing upon the agent the obligation to send the information it left congress as to its power
i find myself physically unable to go as fully into the subject as i intended and therefore omitting a reference to those acts suffice it to say that here was the recognition of the obligation of congress to interpose against a territorial legislature
for the protection of personal right that is what we ask of congress now i am not disposed to ask this congress to go into speculative legislation i am not one of those who would willingly see this congress enact a code
to be applied to all territories and for all time to come i only ask that cases as they arise may be met according to the exigency
then the congress by existing laws and governmental machinery shall intervene
as far as may be an adequate remedy i ask no slave code nor horse code nor machine code i ask that the territorial legislature be made to understand beforehand
that the congress of the united states does not concede to them the power to interfere with the rights of person or property guaranteed by the constitution and that it will apply the remedy
if the territorial legislature should so far forget its duty so far transcend its power as to commit that violation of right that is the announcement of the fifth resolution
they have asserted and vindicated her equality of right by that asserted equality of right i doubt not she will stand for weal or for woe for prosperity or adversity
for the preservation of the great blessings which we enjoy or the trial of a new and separate condition i trust mississippi never will surrender the smallest atom of the sovereignty independence and equality to which she was born
to avoid any danger or any sacrifice to which she may hereby be exposed the sixth resolution of the series declares at what time a state may form a constitution and decide upon her domestic institutions
i deny this right to the territorial condition because the territory belongs in common to the states every citizen of the united states as a joint owner of that territory has a right to go into it
with any property which he may possess these territorial inhabitants require municipal law police and government they should have them but they should be restricted to their own necessities
they have no right within their municipal power to attempt to decide the rights of the people of the states they have no right to exclude any citizen of the united states from owning and equally enjoying this common possession
it is for the purpose of preserving order and giving protection to rights of person and property that a municipal territorial government should be instituted the last resolution refers to a law founded on a provision of the constitution
which contains an obligation of faith to every state of the union and that obligation of faith has been violated by thirteen states of the confederacy as many as originally fought the battles
of the revolution and established the confederation is it to be expected that a compact thus broken in part violated in its important features will be regarded as binding in all else
is the free trade which the north sought in the formation of the union and for which the states generally agreed to give congress the power to regulate commerce to be trampled under foot by laws of obstruction
not giving to the citizens of the south that free transit across the territory of the northern states which we might claim from any friendly state under christendom and is congress to stand powerless by on the doctrine of non intervention
shall we claim no more from that which we have constituted for our own purposes and which we support by draining our own means for its support we have had agitation changing in its form and gathering intensity
for the last forty years it was first for political power and directed against new states now it has assumed a social form is all prevailing and has reached the point of revolution and civil war
for it was only last fall that an overt act was committed by men who were sustained by arms and money raised by extensive combination among the non slaveholding states to carry treasonable war against the state of virginia because now
as before the revolution and ever since she held the african in bondage this is part of the history and marks the necessity of the times
to see whether we are conforming to our plighted faith and to ask seriously solemnly looking each other inquiringly in the face what we should do to save our country this agitation being at first one of sectional pride for political power
there are men who habitually set aside a portion of money which they are annually to apply to what are called charitable purposes that is to say so far as i understand it
to support some vagrant lecturer whose purpose is agitation and mischief wherever he goes this constitutes therefore a trade a class of people are thus employed employed for mischief
for incendiary purposes perhaps not always understood by those who furnish the money but such is the effect such is the result of their action
and in this state of the case i call upon the senate to affirm the great principles on which our institutions rest in no spirit of crimination have i stated the reasons why i present it
if it may be to crown our country with peace and start it once more in its primal channel on a career of progressive prosperity and justice
the majority section can not be struggling for additional power in order to preserve their rights if any of them ever believed in what is called southern aggression they know
now they have the majority in the representative districts and in the electoral college they can not therefore fear an invasion of their rights they need no additional political power to protect them from that
the argument then or the reason on which this agitation commenced has passed away and yet we are asked if a party hostile to our institutions shall gain possession of the government
that we shall stand quietly by and wait for an overt act overt act is not a declaration of war an overt act what would be thought of a country that
the power of resistance consists in no small degree in meeting the evil at the outer gate i can speak for myself and i have no right to speak for others when i say that
if i belonged to a party organized on the basis of making war on any section or interest in the united states if i know myself i would instantly quit it we have made no war against you
we have asked no discrimination in our favor we claim to have but the constitution fairly and equally administered to consent to less than this would be to sink in the scale of manhood would be to make our posterity so degraded
which was stronger than triple bars of brass and steel the ceaseless current of kind offices renewing and renewed in an eternal flow and gathering volume and velocity as it rolled
it was a function intended not for the injury of any it declared its purpose to be the benefit of all concessions which were made between the different states in the convention prove the motive each gave to the other
young as a nation our triumphs under this system have had no parallel in human history we have tamed a wilderness we have spanned a continent we have built up a granary that secures the commercial world against the fear of famine
higher than all this we have achieved a moral triumph we have received by hundreds of thousands a constant tide of immigrants
energetic if not well educated fleeing some from want some from oppression some from the penalties of violated law received them into our society and by the gentle suasion of a government which exhibits no force
by removing want and giving employment they have subsided into peaceful citizens and have increased the wealth and power of our country if then this temple so blessed
which we were about to look to see it extended over the continent giving a protecting arm to infant republics that need it if this temple is tottering on its pillars what i ask can be a higher or nobler duty
for the senate to perform than to rush to its pillars and uphold them
we have tampered with a question which has grown
the patriotism and the sound sense of the people whenever the federal government from its high places of authority shall proclaim the truth in unequivocal language will in my firm belief receive and approve it
but so long as we deal like the delphic oracle in words of double meaning so long as we attempt to escape from responsibility and exhibit our fear to declare the truth by the fact that we do not act upon it
we must expect speculative theory to occupy the mind of the public and error to increase as time rolls on but
to destroy our government the historian who shall attempt philosophically to examine the question will
and discovered it be compelled to cry out veritably so the unseen insect in the course of time destroys the mighty oak
if not then i hope there is yet time by the full explicit declaration of the truth to disabuse the popular mind
to arouse the popular heart to expose the danger from lurking treason and ill concealed hostility to rally a virtuous people to their country's rescue who circling closer and deeper as the storm gathers fury
around the ark of their fathers covenant will place it in security
chris put down his spyglass and the two boys hidden on the piny knoll watched the procession out of sight i'm supposed to take something from her chris said with his eyes sparkling but i know now what i'm going to give her back in return
i feel sort of sorry for that girl he added thoughtfully
amos wanted to know what all comes next
chris passed him some we have to wait until dusk anyway he said his voice abstracted and by the look of the light that won't be long the piny knoll was steep and rocky and only two adventurous boys would ever have reached the top
too precipitous on which to build houses it rose far above the surrounding roofs of peking the green and scarlet of curved tiles spread under the boys sight like a curling sea
before them stretched out in long angular wings to right and left swept the palace walls listening and watching the boys gathered by the silver trumpet notes that the princess and her retinue had re entered the palace walls by another gate
before leaving for a new domain she would probably take the jewel tree with her i can't imagine a woman leaving a thing like that behind he paused remembering she held a spray of jeweled flowers in her hand maybe off the tree
looked across with great concern to where amos lay on his back dozing i can't take him along chris thought and i can't leave him alone if i should get caught what in the world do i do then
strike three strike three chris held the folded object in his hand and then glanced at amos amos slept going softly out of the pine grove to a narrow ledge of rock where he was out of sight
chris put the object down and said strike three nothing happened the object remained an object then suddenly understanding chris struck the stone ledge three times
at once the folded object began to unfold itself and to puff itself up like a little mushroom in a matter of seconds chris could see what it was becoming and before he could wink ten times a balloon with a basket hanging from it
quite big enough for two boys hung swaying in the air chris examined it with pleasure and then struck the ground three times again the balloon gently collapsed and refolded itself
chris exclaimed then
he picked up the folded balloon and went to waken amos amos he said shaking his friend's shoulder it's time for me to go are you awake amos blinked a few times and said he thought so then listen to me
chris told him earnestly and listen hard amos sat up more alertly i have a handy thing here which is for you to use only do you hear only if i don't come back
amos's eyes began to get brighter and he swallowed don't come back law chris
where nobody understands good english he cried why unless i'd steal and miss becky told me never to do that but unless i did how could i eat in these foreign parts chris sat back on his haunches well i don't know how you could myself
but don't you cross any bridges until you come to them look he held out the folded balloon if i'm not back by two sunups from now i may have to hide all during tomorrow if i'm not back by then
put this package out beyond the trees in the clearing that's very important you've got that i haven't got anything but a few old dried up fruits amos pouted that's all no amos chris gave him another rousing shake i mean
do you understand that much amos brightened at once and broke into a broad grin oh yes of course why didn't you say so in the first place you said put the package out in the clear where's that on this tippy top of a hill amos asked looking about
the ledge near where we climbed up that's big enough chris reminded him oh yes amos said looking wise well chris took up again you put the package on the ledge and strike the ground three times like this
promise me not to strike three at all except for either of those two reasons amos raised his right hand looking very solemn i promise he said only he added looking bewildered and already somewhat forlorn
what happens when i do hit three times
it's a special kind of balloon chris began after correcting what had almost been a bad slip a what amos stuck his head forward trying hard to understand a balloon oh chris stopped and stared at amos
perhaps balloons had not yet been invented how very confusing it's something that will hold you up in the air there's a basket for you to sit in no sir amos cried wagging his head decisively from side to side
me in the air over the roofs and high up no indeedy chris not me chris was becoming exasperated he had important things to do look amos if you have to use it
and stay here and wait for me don't follow me now or watch or i might fail amos jumped up from the pine covered ground oh chris he cried his voice sharp with distress can't i go you might get hurt
there's no telling what could happen if you're all alone chris was tempted to take his friend with him but someone must get the news back to the mirabelle
no he said after a long moment better not but i'd sure like to amos now don't lose that package it's your escape wish me luck amos clasped his hand and then rushing off dashed back again here chris
our fruits better not to eat strange food in this foreigny place good luck he added chris stuffed the dried fruit in his pocket amos turned back into the darkening pine knoll and chris pushed his way out to the narrow steep ledge
hanging high above the roofs of peking chris uncoiled the magic rope from around his waist and standing as far out on the rock ledge as he dared in order to have the greatest possible freedom of movement he attempted for the first time
to draw an eagle in the air with the rope it was a complicated fast maneuver the rope twisted and whipped in the air and the result was a molted looking droop tailed buzzard its wings were not wide enough
its back very insecure to look at in short chris knew it was a total failure he tried again racing against the oncoming darkness and this time he succeeded although when he pulled it close and straddled the body of the magic bird
his heart was in his throat that it might unfurl itself become just a rope and hurl him to his death far below but this second eagle seemed secure enough chris pressed his hands on the wings spread out on either side with a jolt they flapped
and the boy's strange conveyance moved somewhat unsteadily through the air chris frightened but resolute found that by touching the head of the bird in the direction he wanted to go the magic eagle would turn and after a few moments to test out his new method of travel
as he looked for what he wanted to find at last the very fragrance rising up toward him on the night air guided him to a large palace set in gardens pools of water reflected the first stars among their lilypads
the shaded walks and lawns were deserted at that hour swooping down and flying back and forth to make sure he would not be seen chris grounded the eagle and holding fast to one wing tip in case he should have to take off in a hurry
chapter twenty eight chris and amos lay belly down in a low clump of pine scrub at the top of a precipitous rocky pinnacle below them in the blistering noon lay the palace walls of the lord of the seven seas
descendant of the sun and the moon overlord of the mountains and the plains prince of all the isles father of plenty and brilliance before which all cast down their eyes the emperor of china
the two boys were uninterested in titles somewhere within that city within a city inside the enormous spread of the palace walls that were surrounded in their turn by the city of peking lay the goal they had come so far to seek
the jewel tree of the princess of china now like a general planning his campaign chris lay looking down at the high angular walls thinking of how he would gain entry on regaining the mirabelle in a boat made from the magic rope
chris had reappeared among his friends recovered from his fever he had given much thought to what he considered would be the last dangerous section of the journey and after listening to what his master said through the shell
a camel made from the magic rope as amos had never seen a real camel he thought the rope animal quite natural and as remarkable a creature as a real one chris took care to make it or disentangle it
out of amos's sight and so many were the strange and wonderful things to be seen that amos had no time to concern himself over the reality of a camel the arid countryside was blanched by the excessive heat
flies droned over the dates and figs that the boys pulled from their pockets to eat amos wriggled with excitement as he pointed out details to chris chris look at that procession going in the big gate
all those pigtailed gentlemen dressed in embroidered coats i like that blue one with butterflies on it no i'd sooner have the black satin one with the dragon in red and yellow he looked again more closely or the one with the peacock in green and purple
which would you sooner have chris paid little attention to amos's exclamations leaning on his elbows and looking at the scene below his mind worked busily on these last vital problems but amos was not waiting for an answer
hate to be a dignitary in all this heat amos said unenviously what are they doing now he enquired and both boys parted the prickly pine needles to look out and down
the leader of the procession rapped three times on the great gate with a gold staff sentinels and guards came forward walking on the broad gate top and after talking with the members of the procession
and the great outer gates of the palace studded with pronged spikes of carved metal swung slowly outward sixteen men came into sight eight on either side pushing wide the gates
gee imagine the weight of those doors chris murmured and taking out his spyglass looked through it golly moses he exclaimed take a look amos those gates are made of bronze nearly three feet thick
and now they have the gates open look at the depth of the walls they're as deep through as a room the waiting procession the richly dressed courtiers and curtained palanquin moved inside and the gates were slowly pulled close by lines of men
dragging at ropes and chains to shut them from within the main gate drifted out the sound becoming fainter and fainter of other trumpets sounding the order for the opening of other gates ten times the boys counted the trumpets blew
throbbed against the sultry air lawsy me amos sighed when no more trumpets were to be heard ten walls and ten gates at the very least course we don't know he rolled his worried eyes toward chris
we don't know whether those folks got to the emperor or not likely he's in behind a couple more walls just to be on the safe side he searched his friend's face how are we going past all that many guards and trumpets chris even if we could tie up a guard or two
amos need not have been so concerned for chris had a good plan but just at that moment the heat overcame chris putting his head down on his arms he slept amos slept too
and it must have been several hours later that the rising sound of a crowd talking and laughing with excitement penetrated their sleep and brought them to consciousness for a moment they both lay rubbing their eyes and peering out
then they realized by the growing crowd on either side of the palace gate and along the narrow street leading away from it that someone of importance was about to come from the palace and parade through the streets of peking wonder what goes on
chris muttered as the crowds below swelled and grew boys climbed upon one another's shoulders teakwood stools were brought for the richer people to stand on and along the street that led away to the right around the palace walls
chris and amos could see embroidered silks hung from all the windows and chinese people in their best holiday clothes laughing excitedly all were looking toward the gates and at last from far within
even more distantly than before came the first sound of trumpets these had a sweeter clearer sound than those the boys had heard at noon never heard a sweeter note amos said might be made of silver way they sound
the boys counted and twelve times the low lovely notes swung out on the air twelve gates
and look you were right they are silver trumpets the trumpeters atop the great outer gates were now differently dressed and there were not two but a dozen lined along the deep palace walls the trumpets ten feet long were curved
and of silver that in the sunlight dazzled the eye as they were blown the final gates were pushed aside a long procession emerged of such fantasy and variety of color that the two boys were spellbound
elephants and camels llamas and horses all richly caparisoned in eastern silks passed along with their riders guards with curved swords and many thonged whips formed a double hedge between those in the procession
and the bystanders still others led leopards and black panthers on chains as an added protection to those they guarded palanquin after palanquin passed by
a murmur arose from the crowd four lines of youths preceded a palanquin more finely decked than the rest and the murmur rose after it came four lines of chinese girls fanning the air with peacock fans on long staves
chris breathed that color yellow is the royal color of china he did not have to elaborate his thought for the palanquin that finally came in sight showed by its richness that it could belong only to royalty and by its beauty and grace
only to a woman made of silver and rock crystal studded with diamonds and pearls and hung about with sheer curtains of embroidered yellow silk the palanquin belonged without doubt to a young girl of the royal house
as it appeared under the high arch of the outer gate a roar of joy and greeting arose from the waiting crowd and with one accord every man bowed low covering his eyes with the wide sleeve of his left arm
the women and girls in the crowd and those leaning from the upper stories of the houses threw down before the palanquin objects that flashed and twinkled in the sun
chris whipped out his spyglass and looked at the curtains of the palanquin the thin silk was transparent enough under the strong focus of the glass and behind it chris could perceive leaning delicately against silk cushions a chinese girl as beautiful as a dream
her slightly uptilted eyes were large and dark her skin put a magnolia flower to shame her mouth was lifted in a charming smile and her long exquisite fingers held a spray of jeweled flowers
all about the palanquin rained a shower of jeweled buds and petals for no doubt a real flower was thought too inferior for the only child of the descendant of the sun and the moon prince of all the isles and lord of the seven seas
he seems almost at once to have attained popularity and he has progressed gradually since then ever in an upward direction until he is to day one of the most popular and extensively owned varieties of the dog
sir paynton pigott had at the date mentioned a very fine kennel of the breed for in the live stock journal of may thirtieth eighteen seventy nine
we find his kennel fully reviewed in a most enthusiastic manner by a correspondent who visited it in consequence of a controversy that was going on at the time as to whether or not there was such a dog at all and who therefore wished to see and judge for himself as to this point
at the end of his report on the kennel
even as we know them at the present day he was certainly longer in the back than we care for nowadays and his head also was shorter and his jaw more snipy than is now seen but his portrait clearly shows he was a genuine scottish terrier and there is no doubt that he
with his kennel mates tartan crofter syringa cavack and posey conferred benefit upon the breed to dive deeper into the antiquity of the scottish terrier is a thing which means that he who tries it must be prepared to meet all sorts of abuse ridicule and criticism
one man will tell you there never was any such thing as the present day scottish terrier that the mere fact of his having prick ears shows he is a mongrel another that he is merely an offshoot of the skye or the dandie another that the only scottish terrier that is a scottish terrier
there is strong presumption that they one and all came originally from one variety and it is quite possible nay probable that different crosses into other varieties have produced the assortment of to day
that there still exist in scotland at the present time specimens of the breed which propagated the lot which was what is called even now the highland terrier a little long backed short legged snipy faced prick or drop eared
mostly sandy and black coloured terrier game as a pebble lively as a cricket and all in all a most charming little companion and further that to produce our present day scottish terrier or shall we say to improve the points of his progenitor
the assistance of our old friend the black and tan wire haired terrier of england was sought by a few astute people living probably not very far from aberdeen scottish terriers frequently go by the name of aberdeen terriers an appellation it is true
usually heard only from the lips of people who do not know much about them mister w l mc candlish one of the greatest living authorities on the breed
in an able treatise published some time back tells us in reference to this matter that the terrier under notice went at different periods under the names of highland cairn aberdeen and scotch that he is now known by the proud title of scottish terrier
and that the only surviving trace of the differing nomenclature is the title aberdeen which many people still regard as a different breed a want of knowledge frequently turned to account by the unscrupulous dealer who is able to sell under the name of aberdeen
whereas they were in reality merely a picked sort of old scotch or highland terrier sir paynton himself as appears from the columns of the live stock journal march second eighteen seventy seven bought some of the strain of van bust
and therein gives a full description of the same sir paynton pigott's kennel of the breed assumed quite large proportions and was most successful several times winning all the prizes offered in the variety at different shows
he may well be called the father of the breed in england for when he gave up exhibiting a great deal of his best blood got into the kennels of mister h j ludlow who as everyone knows has done such a tremendous amount of good in popularising the breed
and has also himself produced such a galaxy of specimens of the very best class mister ludlow's first terrier was a bitch called splinter two the name of kildee is in the breed almost world famous
and it is interesting to note that in every line does he go back to the said splinter two rambler called by the great authorities the first pillar of the stud book was a son of a dog called bon accord and it is to this latter dog and roger rough
and also the aforesaid tartan and splinter two that nearly all of the best present day pedigrees go back this being so it is unnecessary to give many more names of dogs who have in their generations of some years back assisted in bringing the breed to its present state of perfection
and some very good terriers of to day own him as progenitor in nearly every line the best descendants of alister were kildee tiree whinstone prince alexander and heather prince he was apparently too much inbred to
and though he produced or was responsible for several beautiful terriers it is much to be doubted whether in a breed which is suffering from the ill effects of too much inbreeding he was not one of the greatest sinners the scottish terrier club was formed in the year eighteen eighty two
in the same year a joint committee drew up a standard of perfection for the breed messrs j b morison and thomson gray two gentlemen who were looked upon as great authorities having a good deal to do with it
skull proportionately long slightly domed and covered with short hard hair
though the nose projects somewhat over the mouth which gives the impression of the upper jaw being longer than the under one eyes a dark brown or hazel colour small piercing very bright and rather sunken ears very small
prick or half prick the former is preferable but never drop they should also be sharp pointed and the hair on them should not be long but velvety and they should not be cut the ears should be free from any fringe at the top neck short thick and muscular
and exceedingly strong in hind quarters legs and feet both fore and hind legs should be short and very heavy in bone the former being straight and well set on under the body as the scottish terrier should not be out at elbows the hocks should be bent
and the thighs very muscular and the feet strong small and thickly covered with short hair the fore feet being larger than the hind ones tail should be about seven inches long never docked carried with a slight bend and often gaily coat
size from fifteen pounds to twenty pounds the best weight being as near as possible eighteen pounds for dogs and sixteen pounds for bitches when in condition for work colour steel or iron grey black brindle brown brindle
grey brindle black sandy and wheaten white markings are objectionable and can only be allowed on the chest and to a small extent general appearance the face should wear a very sharp bright and active expression
and the head should be carried up the dog owing to the shortness of his coat should appear to be higher on the leg than he really is but at the same time he should look compact and possessed of great muscle in his hind quarters
in fact a scottish terrier though essentially a terrier cannot be too powerfully put together and should be from about nine inches to twelve inches in height special faults muzzle either under or over hung eyes large or light coloured
ears large round at the points or drop it is also a fault if they are too heavily covered with hair legs bent or slightly bent and out at elbows coat any silkiness wave or tendency to curl
is a serious blemish as is also an open coat size
there have of recent years been many very excellent specimens of the scottish terrier bred and exhibited preeminent among them stands missus hannay's
who was a most symmetrical terrier and probably the nearest approach to perfection in the breed yet seen
mister mc candlish's ems cosmetic mister chapman's heather bob and heather charm mister kinnear's seafield rascal
it is highly probable that of all the terrier tribe the scottie taken as a whole is the best companion he makes a most excellent house dog is not too big does not leave white hairs about all over the place loves only his master and his master's household
and is withal a capable and reliable guard
are incomparable weavers many other spiders excel in ingenious devices for filling their stomachs and leaving a lineage behind them the two primary laws of living things some of them are celebrities of long standing renown who are mentioned in all the books
like the narbonne lycosa but of a perfection unknown to the brutal spider of the waste lands the lycosa surrounds the mouth of her shaft with a simple parapet a mere collection of tiny pebbles sticks and silk the others fix
a movable door to theirs a round shutter with a hinge a groove and a set of bolts
the lid drops into the groove and fits so exactly that there is no possibility of distinguishing the join if the aggressor persist and seek to raise the trap door the recluse pushes the bolt that is to say plants her claws into certain holes
on the opposite side to the hinge props herself against the wall and holds the door firmly another the argyroneta or water spider builds herself an elegant silken diving bell in which she stores air
thus supplied with the wherewithal to breathe she awaits the coming of the game and keeps herself cool meanwhile at times of scorching heat hers must be a regular sybaritic abode such as eccentric man has sometimes ventured to build under water
with mighty blocks of stone and marble
but i must abandon the idea the water spider is not found in my district the mygale the expert in hinged doors is found there but very seldom
opportunity as we know is fleeting the observer more than any other is obliged to take it by the forelock preoccupied as i was with other researches i but gave a glance at the magnificent subject which good fortune offered
the opportunity fled and has never returned
the least of creatures adds its note to the harmonies of life in the fields around traversed in these days with a tired step but still vigilantly explored i find nothing so often as the labyrinth spider
and rosemary cropped close by the teeth of the flocks this is where i resort
lend themselves to proceedings which might not be tolerated by the unfriendly hedge several times a week in july i go to study my spiders on the spot at an early hour before the sun beats fiercely on one's neck the children accompany me
each provided with an orange wherewith to slake the thirst that will not be slow in coming they lend me their good eyes and supple limbs the expedition promises to be fruitful we soon discover high silk buildings
betrayed at a distance by the glittering threads which the dawn has converted into dewy rosaries
so much so that they forget their oranges for a moment nor am i on my part indifferent a splendid spectacle indeed is that of our spider's labyrinth heavy with the tears of the night and lit up by the first rays of the sun
accompanied as it is by the thrushes symphony this alone is worth getting up for half an hour's heat and the magic jewels disappear with the dew now is the moment to inspect the webs
here is one spreading its sheet over a large cluster of rock roses it is the size of a handkerchief a profusion of guy ropes attached to any chance projection
there is not a twig but supplies a contact point entwined on every side surrounded and surmounted the bush disappears from view veiled in white muslin the web is flat at the edges
as far as the unevenness of the support permits and gradually hollows into a crater not unlike the bell of a hunting horn the central portion is a cone shaped gulf a funnel whose neck narrowing by degrees
dives perpendicularly into the leafy thicket to a depth of eight or nine inches at the entrance to the tube in the gloom of that murderous alley sits the spider who looks at us and betrays no great excitement at our presence
she is grey modestly adorned on the thorax with two black ribbons and on the abdomen with two stripes in which white specks alternate with brown at the tip of the belly two small mobile appendages
form a sort of tail a rather curious feature in a spider the crater shaped web is not of the same structure throughout at the borders it is a gossamer weft of sparse threads nearer the centre
and then satin lower still on the narrower part of the opening it is a network of roughly lozenged meshes lastly the neck of the funnel the usual resting place is formed of solid silk
the spider never ceases working at her carpet which represents her investigation platform every night she goes to it walks over it inspecting her snares extending her domain and increasing it with new threads
the work is done with the silk constantly hanging from the spinnerets and constantly extracted as the animal moves about the neck of the funnel being more often walked upon than the rest of the dwelling is therefore provided with a thicker upholstery
beyond it are the slopes of the crater which are also much frequented regions spokes of some regularity fix the diameter of the mouth a swaying walk and the guiding aid of the caudal appendages have laid lozengy meshes across these spokes
this part has been strengthened by the nightly rounds of inspection lastly come the less visited expanses which consequently have a thinner carpet at the bottom of the passage dipping into the brushwood we might expect to find a secret cabin
to escape through the grass and gain the open it is well to know this arrangement of the home if you wish to capture the spider without hurting her when attacked from the front the fugitive runs down and slips through the postern gate at the bottom
to look for her by rummaging in the brushwood often leads to nothing so swift is her flight besides a blind search entails a great risk of maiming her let us eschew violence which is but seldom successful and resort to craft
if practicable squeeze the bottom of the tuft containing the neck of the funnel with both hands that is enough the animal is caught feeling its retreat cut off it readily darts into the paper bag held out to it
in this way i fill my cages with subjects that have not been demoralized by contusions the surface of the crater is not exactly a snare it is just possible for the casual pedestrian to catch his legs in the silky carpets
has her no less treacherous labyrinth look above the web what a forest of ropes
they are fastened to the tip of every branch there are long ropes and short ropes upright and slanting straight and bent taut and slack all criss cross and a tangle to the height of three feet or so in inextricable disorder
throw a small locust into the rigging unable to obtain a steady foothold on that shaky support he flounders about and the more he struggles the more he entangles his shackles the spider spying on the threshold of her abyss
lets him have his way she does not run up the shrouds of the mast work to seize the desperate prisoner she waits until his bonds of threads twisted backwards and forwards make him fall on the web he falls
the other comes and flings herself upon her prostrate prey the attack is not without danger the locust is demoralized rather than tied up it is merely bits of broken thread that he is trailing from his legs the bold assailant does not mind
and then regardless of kicks inserts her fangs the bite is usually given at the lower end of a haunch not that this place is more vulnerable than any other thin skinned part but probably because it has a better flavour
the different webs which i inspect to study the food in the larder show me among other joints various flies and small butterflies and carcasses of almost untouched locusts all deprived of their hind legs or at least of one
locusts legs often dangle emptied of their succulent contents on the edges of the web from the meat hooks of the butcher's shop
chapter eight the crab spider the spider that showed me the exodus in all its magnificence is known officially
of hurting neither the throat nor the ear as is too often the case with scientific nomenclature which sounds more like sneezing than articulate speech since it is the rule to dignify plants and animals with a latin label
which spit out a name instead of pronouncing it what will posterity do in face of the rising tide of a barbarous vocabulary which under the pretence of progress stifles real knowledge
it will relegate the whole business to the quagmire of oblivion
some sort of information such is the term crab spider applied by the ancients to the group to which the thomisus belongs a pretty accurate term for in this case there is an evident analogy between the spider
and the crustacean like the crab the thomisus walks sideways she also has forelegs stronger than her hind legs the only thing wanting to complete the resemblance
is the front pair of stone gauntlets raised in the attitude of self defence the spider with the crab like figure does not know how to manufacture nets for catching game without springs or snares
she lies in ambush among the flowers and awaits the arrival of the quarry which she kills by administering a scientific stab in the neck the thomisus in particular the subject of this chapter
is passionately addicted to the pursuit of the domestic bee i have described the contests between the victim and her executioner at greater length elsewhere the bee appears seeking no quarrel
intent upon plunder she tests the flowers with her tongue she selects a spot that will yield a good return soon she is wrapped up in her harvesting while she is filling her baskets and distending her crop the thomisus
that bandit lurking under cover of the flowers issues from her hiding place
steals up close and with a sudden rush nabs her in the nape of the neck in vain the bee protests and darts her sting at random the assailant does not let go besides the bite in the neck is paralysing
because the cervical nerve centres are affected the poor thing's legs stiffen and all is over in a second the murderess now sucks the victim's blood at her ease and when she has done
scornfully flings the drained corpse aside she hides herself once more ready to bleed a second gleaner should the occasion offer this slaughter of the bee engaged in the hallowed delights of labour
has always revolted me why should there be workers to feed idlers why sweated
these hateful discords amid the general harmony perplex the thinker all the more as we shall see the cruel vampire become a model of devotion where her family is concerned the ogre loved his children
he ate the children of others under the tyranny of the stomach we are all of us beasts and men alike ogres the dignity of labour the joy of life maternal affection the terrors of death
all these do not count in others the main point
and savoury according to the etymology of her name
the thomisus should be like the ancient lictor who bound the sufferer to the stake the comparison is not inappropriate as regards many spiders who tie their prey with a thread to subdue it and consume it at their ease
but it just happens that the thomisus is at variance with her label she does not fasten her bee who dying suddenly of a bite in the neck offers no resistance to her consumer
our spider's godfather overlooked the exception he did not know of the perfidious mode of attack
in some cases the rigging of the net in others the swan's down of the nest is manufactured the thomisus a first class nest builder does like the rest she hoards in her abdomen
but without undue display of obesity the wherewithal to house her family snugly can the expression onustus refer simply to her slow and sidelong walk the explanation appeals to me without satisfying me fully
except in the case of a sudden alarm every spider maintains a sober gait and a wary pace when all is said the scientific term is composed of a misconception and a worthless epithet how difficult it is to name animals rationally
the dictionary is becoming exhausted and the constant flood that requires cataloguing mounts incessantly wearing out our combinations of syllables as the technical name tells the reader nothing how shall he be informed
her favourite shrub is the white leaved rock rose cistus albidus with the large pink crumpled ephemeral blooms that last but a morning and are replaced next day by fresh flowers which have blossomed in the cool dawn
this glorious efflorescence goes on for five or six weeks
fussing and bustling in the spacious whorl of the stamens which beflour them with yellow their persecutrix knows of this affluence she posts herself in her watch house under the rosy screen of a petal
cast your eyes over the flower more or less everywhere if you see a bee lying lifeless with legs and tongue out stretched draw nearer the thomisus will be there nine times out of ten the thug has struck her blow
she is draining the blood of the departed after all this cutter of bees throats is a pretty a very pretty creature despite her unwieldy paunch fashioned like a squat pyramid and embossed on the base on either side with a pimple shaped like a camel's hump
the skin more pleasing to the eye than any satin is milk white in some in others lemon yellow there are fine ladies among them who adorn their legs with a number of pink bracelets and their back with carmine arabesques
a narrow pale green ribbon sometimes edges the right and left of the breast it is not so rich as the costume of the banded epeira but much more elegant because of its soberness its daintiness and the artful blending of its hues
novice fingers which shrink from touching any other spider allow themselves to be enticed by these attractions they do not fear to handle the beauteous thomisus so gentle in appearance well
what can this gem among spiders do in the first place she makes a nest worthy of its architect with twigs and horse hair and bits of wool the goldfinch the chaffinch
construct an aerial bower in the fork of the branches
one of the upper twigs of the rock rose her regular hunting ground a twig withered by the heat and possessing a few dead leaves which curl into a little cottage
ascending and descending with a gentle swing in more or less every direction the living shuttle swollen with silk weaves a bag whose outer casing becomes one with the dry leaves around the work which is partly visible and partly hidden by its supports
the mouth of the receptacle is hermetically closed with a lid of the same white silk lastly a few threads stretched like a thin curtain form a canopy above the nest and with the curved tips of the leaves frame a sort of alcove wherein the mother takes up her abode
it is more than a place of rest after the fatigues of her confinement it is a guard room an inspection post where the mother remains sprawling until the youngsters exodus greatly emaciated by the laying of her eggs
and by her expenditure of silk she lives only for the protection of her nest should some vagrant pass near by she hurries from her watch tower lifts a limb and puts the intruder to flight if i tease her with a straw
she parries with big gestures like those of a prize fighter she uses her fists against my weapon when i propose to dislodge her in view of certain experiments i find some difficulty in doing so she clings to the silken floor
she frustrates my attacks which i am bound to moderate lest i should injure her she is no sooner attracted outside than she stubbornly returns to her post she declines to leave her treasure even so does the narbonne
any strange pill which she is given in exchange for her own she confuses alien produce with the produce of her ovaries and her silk factory those hallowed words maternal love were out of place here it is an impetuous
an almost mechanical impulse wherein real affection plays no part whatever the beautiful spider of the rock roses is no more generously endowed when moved from her nest to another of the same kind she settles upon it and never stirs from it
even though the different arrangement of the leafy fence be such as to warn her that she is not really at home provided that she have satin under her feet she does not notice her mistake she watches over another's nest with the same vigilance
which she might show in watching over her own the lycosa surpasses her in maternal blindness she fastens to her spinnerets and dangles by way of a bag of eggs a ball of cork polished with my file a paper pellet
a little ball of thread in order to discover if the thomisus is capable of a similar error i gathered some broken pieces of silk worm's cocoon into a closed cone turning the fragments so as to bring the smoother and more delicate inner surface
outside my attempt was unsuccessful when removed from her home and placed on the artificial wallet the mother thomisus obstinately refused to settle there can she be more clear sighted than the lycosa
perhaps so let us not be too extravagant with our praise however the imitation of the bag was a very clumsy one the work of laying is finished by the end of may
after which lying flat on the ceiling of her nest the mother never leaves her guard room either by night or day seeing her look so thin and wrinkled i imagine that i can please her by bringing her a provision of bees
as i was wont to do i have misjudged her needs the bee hitherto her favourite dish tempts her no longer in vain does the prey buzz close by
takes no notice of the windfall she lives exclusively upon maternal devotion a commendable but unsubstantial fare and so i see her pining away from day to day becoming more and more wrinkled
what is the withered thing waiting for before expiring she is waiting for her children to emerge the dying creature is still of use to them when the banded epeira's little ones issue from their balloon
they have long been orphans there is none to come to their assistance and they have not the strength to free themselves unaided the balloon has to split automatically and to scatter the youngsters and their flossy mattress all mixed up together
impatiently under the silken ceiling herself made a hole in the bag she persists in living for five or six weeks despite her shattered health so as to give a last helping hand and open the door for her family
after performing this duty she gently lets herself die hugging her nest and turning into a shrivelled relic when july comes the little ones emerge
in view of their acrobatic habits i have placed a bundle of slender twigs at the top of the cage in which they were born all of them pass through the wire gauze and form a group on the summit of the brushwood where they swiftly weave a spacious lounge of criss cross threads
here they remain pretty quietly for a day or two then foot bridges begin to be flung from one object to the next this is the opportune moment i put the bunch laden with beasties on a small table in the shade
before the open window soon the exodus commences but slowly and unsteadily there are hesitations retrogressions perpendicular falls at the end of a thread ascents that bring the hanging spider up again
in short much ado for a poor result as matters continue to drag it occurs to me at eleven o'clock to take the bundle of brushwood swarming with the little spiders all eager to be off and place it on the window sill in the glare of the sun
after a few minutes of heat and light the scene assumes a very different aspect the emigrants run to the top of the twigs bustle about actively it becomes a bewildering rope yard
where thousands of legs are drawing the hemp from the spinnerets i do not see the ropes manufactured and sent floating at the mercy of the air but i guess their presence three or four spiders start at a time
each going her own way in directions independent of her neighbours all are moving upwards all are climbing some support as can be perceived by the nimble motion of their legs moreover the road is visible behind the climber
it is of double thickness thanks to an added thread then at a certain height individual movement ceases the tiny animal soars in space and shines lit up by the sun softly it sways
there is a slight breeze outside the floating cable has snapped and the creature has gone off borne on its parachute
like a spot of light against the dark foliage of the near cypresses
it crosses over the cypress screen it disappears others follow some higher some lower hither and thither but the throng has finished its preparations the hour has come to disperse in swarms
we now see from the crest of the brushwood a continuous spray of starters who shoot up like microscopic projectiles and mount in a spreading cluster in the end it is like the bouquet at the finish of a pyrotechnic display
the sheaf of rockets fired simultaneously the comparison is correct down to the dazzling light itself flaming in the sun like so many gleaming points
what an entrance into the world clutching its aeronautic thread the minute creature mounts
sooner or later nearer or farther the fall comes to live we have to descend often very low alas the crested lark crumbles the mule droppings in the road
and thus picks up his food the oaten grain which he would never find by soaring in the sky his throat swollen with song we have to descend the stomach's inexorable claims demand it
the spiderling therefore touches land gravity tempered by the parachute is kind to her the rest of her story escapes me
what infinitely tiny midges does she capture before possessing the strength to stab her bee what are the methods what the wiles of atom contending with atom
we shall find her again in spring grown quite large and crouching among the flowers
the postern by which skeldergate was formerly approached no longer exists and the few old houses left in the street are disguised in melancholy modern costume of whitewash and cement
shops of the smaller and poorer order intermixed here and there with dingy warehouses and joyless private residences of red brick compose the present a spect of skeldergate on the river side
and the towing path on the other open to view here where the street ends and on the side of it furthest from the river a narrow little lane leads up to the paved footway surmounting the ancient walls of york the one small row of buildings
which is all that the lane possesses is composed of cheap lodging houses with an opposite view at the distance of a few feet of a portion of the massive city wall this place is called rosemary lane very little light enters it very few people live in it
opened softly on the evening of the twenty third of september eighteen hundred and forty six and a solitary individual of the male sex sauntered into skeldergate from the seclusion of rosemary lane turning northward
and he surveyed the scene around him with eyes of two different colors a bilious brown eye on the lookout for employment and a bilious green eye in a similar predicament in plainer terms
had withdrawn him from his customary pursuits and had left him prostrate in the end like many a better man he had lost his clerical appearance he had faded with the autumn leaves his crape hat band had put itself in brown mourning for its own bereavement of black
superior to all forms of moral mildew impervious to the action of social rust he was as courteous as persuasive as blandly dignified as ever he carried his head as high without a shirt collar as ever he had carried it with one
the threadbare black handkerchief round his neck was perfectly tied his rotten old shoes were neatly blacked
time change and poverty had all attacked the captain together and had all failed alike to get him down on the ground he paced the streets of york a man superior to clothes and circumstances his vagabond varnish as bright on him as ever
it was plainly evident that he had no particular destination to reach and nothing whatever to do while he was still loitering the clock of york minster chimed the half hour past five cabs rattled by him over the bridge on their way to meet the train from london
at twenty minutes to six after a moment's hesitation the captain sauntered after the cabs when it is one of a man's regular habits to live upon his fellow creatures that man is always more or less fond of haunting large railway stations
that entire incapability of devising administrative measures for the management of large crowds which is one of the characteristics of englishmen in authority
three different lines of railway assemble three passenger mobs from morning to night under one roof and leave them to raise a traveler's riot with all the assistance which the bewildered servants of the company can render to increase the confusion
the customary disturbance was rising to its climax as captain wragge approached the platform dozens of different people were trying to attain dozens of different objects in dozens of different directions all starting from the same common point
and all equally deprived of the means of information a sudden parting of the crowd near the second class carriages attracted the captain's curiosity he pushed his way in and found a decently dressed man assisted by a porter and a policeman
attempting to pick up some printed bills scattered from a paper parcel which his frenzied fellow passengers had knocked out of his hand offering his assistance in this emergency with the polite alacrity which marked his character
fifty pounds reward printed in capital letters on the bills which he assisted in recovering and instantly secreted one of them to be more closely examined at the first convenient opportunity
as he crumpled up the bill in the palm of his hand his party colored eyes fixed with hungry interest on the proprietor of the unlucky parcel when a man happens not to be possessed of fifty pence in his own pocket if his heart is in the right place it bounds
if his mouth is properly constituted it waters at the sight of another man who carries about with him a printed offer of fifty pounds sterling addressed to his fellow creatures the unfortunate traveler wrapped up his parcel as he best might
leaving the station for the river side which was close at hand the stranger entered the ferryboat at the north street postern
entered the boat also and employed the short interval of transit to the opposite bank in a perusal of the handbill
with his back carefully turned on the traveler
a young lady age eighteen dress deep mourning personal appearance hair of a very light brown eyebrows and eyelashes darker eyes light gray complexion strikingly pale
two little moles close together on the left side of the neck mark on the under clothing
is supposed to have joined or attempted to join under an assumed name a theatrical company now performing at york had when she left london one black box and no other luggage whoever will give such information as will restore her to her friends
shall receive the above reward apply at the office of mister harkness solicitor coney street york or to messrs wyatt pendril and gwilt serle street lincoln's inn london
pocketed the handbill and followed his leader for the second time the stranger directed his steps to the nearest street which ran down to the river compared a note in his pocketbook with the numbers of the houses on the left hand side stopped at one of them and rang the bell
the captain went on to the next house affected to ring the bell in his turn and stood with his back to the traveler in appearance waiting to be let in in reality
listening with all his might for any scraps of dialogue which might reach his ears on the opening of the door behind him the door was answered with all due alacrity
does mister huxtable live here asked the traveler yes sir was the answer in a woman's voice is he at home not at home now sir but he will be in again at eight to night i think a young lady called here early in the day did she not
just so i will call and see mister huxtable at the same time any name sir no say a gentleman called on theatrical business that will be enough wait one minute if you please i am a stranger in york will you kindly tell me which is the way to coney street
the woman gave the required information the door closed and the stranger hastened away in the direction of coney street
the handbill revealed plainly enough that the man's next object was to complete the necessary arrangements with the local solicitor on the subject of the promised reward having seen and heard enough for his immediate purpose the captain retraced his steps down the street turned to the right
and entered on the esplanade which in that quarter of the city borders the river side between the swimming baths and lendal tower this is a family matter
persisting from sheer force of habit in the old assertion of his relationship to magdalen's mother
and so he saw it now three courses were open to him in connection with the remarkable discovery which he had just made the first course was to do nothing in the matter at all inadmissible on family grounds equally inadmissible on pecuniary grounds
rejected accordingly the second course was to deserve the gratitude of the young lady's friends rated at fifty pounds the third course was by a timely warning to deserve the gratitude of the young lady herself rated at an unknown figure
not from doubt of magdalen's pecuniary resources for he was totally ignorant of the circumstances which had deprived the sisters of their inheritance but from doubt whether an obstacle in the shape of an undiscovered gentleman might not be privately connected with her disappearance from home
i feel for this misguided girl mused the captain solemnly strutting backward and forward by the lonely river side
i always shall look upon her
where was the adopted relative at that moment in other words how was a young lady in magdalen's critical position
if there was an obstructive gentleman in the background it would be mere waste of time to pursue the question but if the inference which the handbill suggested was correct if she was really alone at that moment in the city of york where was she likely to be
not in the crowded thoroughfares to begin with not viewing the objects of interest in the minster
was she in the waiting room at the railway she would hardly run that risk was she in one of the hotels doubtful considering that she was entirely by herself in a pastry cook's shop far more likely
driving about in a cab possible certainly but no more loitering away the time in some quiet locality out of doors likely enough again on that fine autumn evening
the captain paused weighed the relative claims on his attention of the quiet locality and the pastry cook's shop
the sun had set more than half an hour since the red light lay broad and low in the cloudless western heaven all visible objects were softening in the tender twilight but were not darkening yet the first few lamps lit in the street below
on his left hand the majestic west front of york minster soared over the city and caught the last brightest light of heaven on the summits of its lofty towers had this noble prospect tempted the lost girl to linger and look at it no
thus far not a sign of her the captain looked round him attentively and walked on he reached the spot where the iron course of the railroad strikes its way through arches in the old wall he paused at this place
where the central activity of a great railway enterprise beats with all the pulses of its loud clanging life side by side with the dead majesty of the past deep under the old historic stones which tell of fortified york and the sieges of two centuries since
he stood on this spot and searched for her again and searched in vain others were looking idly down at the desolate activity on the wilderness of the iron rails but she was not among them the captain glanced doubtfully at the darkening sky
ascends again and continues its course southward until the walls reach the river once more he paused and peered anxiously into the dim inner corners of the old guard room was she waiting there for the darkness to come and hide her from prying eyes
no a solitary workman loitered through the stone chamber but no other living creature stirred in the place the captain mounted the steps which led out from the postern and walked on he advanced some fifty or sixty yards along the paved footway
the outlying suburbs of york on one side of him a rope walk and some patches of kitchen garden occupying a vacant strip of ground on the other he advanced with eager eyes and quickened step for he saw before him the lonely figure of a woman
standing by the parapet of the wall with her face set toward the westward view he approached cautiously to make sure of her before she turned and observed him there was no mistaking that tall dark figure as it rested against the parapet with a listless grace
there she stood in her long black cloak and gown the last dim light of evening falling tenderly on her pale resolute young face there she stood not three months since
the spoiled darling of her parents the priceless treasure of the household never left unprotected never trusted alone there she stood in the lovely dawn of her womanhood a castaway in a strange city wrecked on the world
i think i have the honor of addressing the younger miss vanstone he began
and his altered dress you are mistaken she said quietly you are a perfect stranger to me pardon me replied the captain i am a species of relation
i presented myself on that memorable occasion to an honored preceptress in your late father's family permit me under equally agreeable circumstances to present myself to you
he tucked his umbrella under his arm and jocosely spelled his name for her further enlightenment
said the captain ticking off the letters persuasively on his fingers i remember your name said magdalen excuse me for leaving you abruptly i have an engagement she tried to pass him and walk on northward toward the railway
he instantly met the attempt by raising both hands and displaying a pair of darned black gloves outspread in polite protest not that way he said not that way miss vanstone i beg and entreat
why not she asked haughtily because answered the captain that is the way which leads to mister huxtable's in the ungovernable astonishment of hearing his reply she suddenly bent forward
and for the first time looked him close in the face he sustained her suspicious scrutiny with every appearance of feeling highly gratified by it h u x hux said the captain playfully turning to the old joke
t a ta huxta b l e ble huxtable what do you know about mister huxtable she asked what do you mean by mentioning him to me
the captain's curly lip took a new twist upward he immediately replied to the best practical purpose by producing the handbill from his pocket there is just light enough left he said
for young and lovely eyes to read by before i enter upon the personal statement which your flattering inquiry claims from me pray bestow a moment's attention on this document
she took the handbill from him by the last gleam of twilight she read the lines which set a price on her recovery which published the description of her in pitiless print like the description of a strayed dog
no tender consideration had prepared her for the shock no kind word softened it to her when it came the vagabond whose cunning eyes watched her eagerly while she read
knew no more that the handbill which he had stolen had only been prepared in anticipation of the worst and was only to be publicly used in the event of all more considerate means of tracing her being tried in vain than she knew it the bill dropped from her hand
her face flushed deeply she turned away from captain wragge as if all idea of his existence had passed out of her mind oh norah norah
oh norah norah how is norah inquired the captain with the utmost politeness
pray compose yourself
at present i have every reason to believe that you have just perused the only copy in circulation allow me to pick it up before he could touch the bill she snatched it from the pavement tore it into fragments and threw them over the wall
how did you come by it she asked suddenly my dear creature i have just told you remonstrated the captain we all come by it from my maternal grandfather how did you come by that handbill
permitted himself to tell the unmitigated truth the effect of the narrative on magdalen by no means fulfilled captain wragge's anticipations in relating it she was not startled she was not irritated
she showed no disposition to cast herself on his mercy and to seek his advice she looked him steadily in the face and all she said when he had neatly rounded his last sentence was go on go on repeated the captain
shocked to disappoint you i am sure but the fact is i have done no you have not
the end of it is you came here to look for me and you mean to earn the fifty pounds reward
smart said the captain laughing indulgently and drumming with his umbrella on the pavement some men might take it seriously i'm not easily offended try again
magdalen looked at him through the gathering darkness in mute perplexity all her little experience of society had been experience among people who possessed a common sense of honor and a common responsibility of social position
she had hitherto seen nothing but the successful human product from the great manufactory of civilization here was one of the failures and with all her quickness she was puzzled how to deal with it
pursued the captain it has just occurred to my mind that you might actually have spoken in earnest my poor child how can i earn the fifty pounds before the reward is offered to me
those handbills may not be publicly posted for a week to come precious as you are to all your relatives myself included
there is a train to london at nine forty five to night
and go back by it never said magdalen firing at the bare suggestion exactly as the captain had intended she should if my mind had not been made up before that vile handbill would have decided me i forgive norah
she added turning away and speaking to herself but not mister pendril and not miss garth quite right
the family spirit i should have done the same myself at your age
hark there goes the clock again half past seven miss vanstone
pardon this seasonable abruptness if you are to carry out your resolution if you are to be your own mistress much longer you must take a course of some kind before eight o'clock you are young
you are inexperienced you are in imminent danger here is a position of emergency on one side and here am i on the other with an uncle's interest in you full of advice
tap me suppose i choose to depend on nobody and to act for myself said magdalen what then then replied the captain you will walk straight into one of the four traps
which are set to catch you in the ancient and interesting city of york trap the first at mister huxtable's house trap the second at all the hotels
at the railway station trap the fourth at the theater that man with the handbills has had an hour at his disposal if he has not set those four traps
with the assistance of the local solicitor by this time he is not the competent lawyer's clerk i take him for
if there is somebody else in the background whose advice you prefer to mine you see that i am alone she interposed proudly if you knew me better you would know that i depend on nobody but myself
those words decided the only doubt which now remained in the captain's mind the doubt whether the course was clear before him the motive of her flight from home was evidently what the handbills assumed it to be a reckless fancy for going on the stage
one of two things thought wragge to himself in his logical way she's worth more than fifty pounds to me in her present situation or she isn't if she is her friends may whistle for her
if she isn't i have only to keep her till the bills are posted fortified by this simple plan of action the captain returned to the charge and politely placed magdalen between the two inevitable alternatives
of trusting herself to him on the one hand or of returning to her friends on the other i respect independence of character wherever i find it he said with an air of virtuous severity
under existing circumstances where is your way mister huxtable is out of the question to begin with out of the question for to night said magdalen
excellent hotels for single gentlemen the very worst hotels in the world for handsome young ladies who present themselves alone at the door without male escort without a maid in attendance
and without a single article of luggage dark as it is i think i could see a lady's box if there was anything of the sort in our immediate neighborhood
what is to prevent my sending the ticket for it nothing if you want to communicate your address by means of your box nothing whatever think pray think
as not to inquire at all the hotels
of your striking appearance even if they consented to receive you
of universal curiosity and remark here is night coming on as fast as it can don't let me bore you only let me ask once more where are you to sleep
there was no answer to that question in magdalen's position there was literally no answer to it on her side she was silent
repeated the captain the reply is obvious under my roof
look upon her as your aunt pray look upon her as your aunt the landlady is a widow the house is close by there are no other lodgers and there is a bedroom to let
can anything be more satisfactory under all the circumstances
and confine myself exclusively to the night i may or may not command theatrical facilities which i am in a position to offer you
sympathy and admiration may or may not be strong within me when i contemplate the dash and independence of your character hosts of examples of bright stars of the british drama
we are within five minutes walk of my present address allow me to offer you my arm no you hesitate you distrust me
good heavens is it possible you can have heard anything to my disadvantage quite possible said magdalen without a moment's flinching from the answer may i inquire the particulars asked the captain with the politest composure
what is mister huxtable
very good now observe
to go on the stage my dear girl
it's not a respectable man you want in your present predicament it's a rogue like me magdalen laughed bitterly there is some truth in that she said
thank you for recalling me to myself and my circumstances i have my end to gain
is my turn to beg pardon now i have been talking as if i was a young lady of family and position absurd we know better than that don't we captain wragge you are quite right nobody's child must sleep under somebody's roof and why not yours
said the captain dexterously profiting by the sudden change in her humor and cunningly refraining from exasperating it by saying more himself this way she followed him a few steps and suddenly stopped suppose i am discovered
she broke out abruptly who has any authority over me who can take me back if i don't choose to go if they all find me to morrow what then can't i say no to mister pendril can't i trust my own courage with miss garth
she roused herself looked up at the darkening heaven looked round at the darkening view what must be must she said and followed him the minster clock struck the quarter to eight as they left the walk on the wall
edison's work in stock printers and telegraphy had marked him as a rising man in the electrical art of the period but his invention of quadruplex telegraphy in eighteen seventy four
was what brought him very prominently before the notice of the public duplex telegraphy or the sending of two separate messages in opposite directions at the same time over one line was known and practiced previous to this time
but quadruplex telegraphy or the simultaneous sending of four separate messages two in each direction over a single line had not been successfully accomplished although it had been the subject of many an inventor's dream
and the object of anxious efforts for many long years in the early part of eighteen seventy three and for some time afterward the system invented by joseph stearns was the duplex in practical use
in april of that year however edison took up the study of the subject and filed two applications for patents
not only duplex or in opposite directions as above explained but could also be sent diplex that is to say in one direction simultaneously as separate and distinct messages over the one line
thus there was introduced a new feature into the art of multiplex telegraphy for whereas duplexing accomplished by varying the strength of the current permitted messages to be sent simultaneously from opposite stations
and thereby produced a system by means of which four messages could be sent over a single line at the same time two in each direction
as the reader will probably be interested to learn something of the theoretical principles of this fascinating invention we shall endeavor to offer a brief and condensed explanation thereof
with as little technicality as the subject will permit this explanation will necessarily be of somewhat elementary character for the benefit of the lay reader whose indulgence is asked for an occasional reiteration
introduced for the sake of clearness of comprehension while the apparatus and the circuits
seemingly very intricate the principles are really quite simple and the difficulty of comprehension is more apparent than real if the underlying phenomena are studied attentively
at the root of all systems of telegraphy including multiplex systems there lies the single basic principle upon which their performance depends namely the obtaining of a slight mechanical movement
at the more or less distant end of a telegraph line this is accomplished through the utilization of the phenomena of electromagnetism these phenomena are easy of comprehension and demonstration
if a rod of soft iron be wound around with a number of turns of insulated wire and a current of electricity be sent through the wire the rod will be instantly magnetized and will remain a magnet as long as the current flows
but when the current is cut off the magnetic effect instantly ceases this device is known as an electromagnet and the charging and discharging of such a magnet may of course be repeated indefinitely
to itself pieces of iron or steel the basic importance of an electromagnet in telegraphy will be at once apparent when we consider the sounder whose clicks are familiar to every ear
this instrument consists essentially of an electro magnet of horseshoe form with its two poles close together and with its armature a bar of iron
maintained in close proximity to the poles but kept normally in a retracted position by a spring when the distant operator presses down his key the circuit is closed and a current passes along the line
and through the generally two coils of the electromagnet thus magnetizing the iron core its attractive power draws the armature toward the poles when the operator releases the pressure on his key the circuit is broken
current does not flow the magnetic effect ceases and the armature is drawn back by its spring these movements give rise to the clicking sounds which represent the dots and dashes of the morse or other alphabet
as transmitted by the operator similar movements produced in like manner are availed of in another instrument known as the relay whose office is to act practically as an automatic transmitter key
repeating the messages received in its coils
equipped with its own battery or when the message is intended for its own station sending the message to an adjacent sounder included in a local battery circuit
with a simple circuit therefore between two stations and where an intermediate battery is not necessary a relay is not used passing on to the consideration of another phase of the phenomena of electromagnetism
in which will be seen on the left a simple form of electromagnet consisting of a bar of soft iron wound around with insulated wire through which a current is flowing from a battery
the arrows indicate the direction of flow all magnets have two poles north and south a permanent magnet made of steel which as distinguished from soft iron retains its magnetism for long periods
and its polarity remains fixed
and the polarity of the soft iron bar is determined by the direction of flow of current around it for the time being if the direction is reversed the polarity will also be reversed
assuming for instance the bar to be end on toward the observer that end will be a south pole if the current is flowing from left to right clockwise around the bar
or a north pole if flowing in the other direction as illustrated at the right of the figure
the determining factor of polarity being the direction of the current
they will tend to produce exactly opposite polarities and thus neutralize each other hence the bar would remain non magnetic as the path to the quadruplex passes through the duplex
let us consider the stearns system after noting one other principle namely that if more than one path is presented in which an electric current may complete its circuit it divides in proportion to the resistance of each path
hence if we connect one pole of a battery with the earth and from the other pole
equal currents will traverse the wires
is led from a battery around a bar of soft iron from left to right and another wire of equal resistance and equal number of turns b around from right to left
the flow of current will cause two equal opposing actions to be set up in the bar one will exactly offset the other and no magnetic effect will be produced a relay thus wound is known as a differential relay
more generally called a neutral relay the non technical reader may wonder what use can possibly be made of an apparently non operative piece of apparatus it must be borne in mind however in considering a duplex system
that a differential relay is used at each end of the line and forms part of the circuit and that while each relay must be absolutely unresponsive to the signals
sent out from its home office it must respond to signals transmitted by a distant office hence the next figure four with its accompanying explanation will probably make the matter clear
if another battery d be introduced at the distant end of the wire a the differential or neutral relay becomes actively operative as follows
the distant station to which a message is to be sent the relay at each end has two coils one and two
the latter in each case has in its circuit a resistance r to compensate for the resistance of the main line so that there shall be no inequalities in the circuits the artificial line as well as that to which the two coils are joined
are connected to earth there is a battery c and a key k when the key is depressed current flows through the relay coils at a but no magnetism is produced as they oppose each other
the current however flows out through the main line coil over the line and through the main line coil one at b completing its circuit to earth and magnetizing the bar of the relay thus causing its armature to be attracted
on releasing the key the circuit is broken and magnetism instantly ceases it will be evident therefore that the operator at a may cause the relay at b
similar effects would be produced from b to a if the battery and key were placed at the b end
we have a differential duplex arrangement by means of which two operators may actuate relays at the ends distant from them without causing the operation of the relays at their home ends
in practice this is done by means of a special instrument known as a continuity preserving transmitter or usually as a transmitter this consists of an electromagnet t operated by a key k
and separate battery the armature lever l is long pivoted in the centre and is bent over at the end
at a point a little beyond its centre is a small piece of insulating material to which is screwed a strip of spring metal s conveniently placed with reference to the end of the lever is a bent metallic piece p
and attached to the lower end of this bent piece is a post or standard to which the main battery is electrically connected
the relay coils are connected by wire to the spring piece s and the armature lever is connected to earth if the key is depressed the armature is attracted and its bent end is moved upward
depressing the spring which makes contact with the upper screw which places the battery to the line and simultaneously breaks the ground connection between the spring and the upturned end of the lever
when the key is released the battery is again connected to earth the compensating resistances and condensers necessary for a duplex arrangement are shown in the diagram
current flows via post p through s and to both relay coils at a thence over the main line to main line coil at b
and down to earth through s and the armature lever with its grounded wire the relay at a would be unresponsive but the core of the relay at b would be magnetized and its armature respond to signals from a
in like manner if the transmitter at b be closed current would flow through similar parts and thus cause the relay at a to respond if both transmitters be closed simultaneously both batteries will be placed to the line
which would practically result in doubling the current in each of the main line coils in consequence of which both relays are energized and their armatures attracted through the operation of the keys at the distant ends
hence two messages can be sent in opposite directions over the same line simultaneously the reader will undoubtedly see quite clearly from the above system which rests upon varying the strength of the current
to accomplish this object edison introduced another and distinct feature namely the using of the same current but also varying its direction of flow that is to say alternately reversing the polarity of the batteries
as applied to the line and thus producing corresponding changes in the polarity of another specially constructed type of relay called a polarized relay
and its explanation from which it appears that the polarity of a soft iron bar is determined not by the strength of the current flowing around it but by the direction thereof with this idea clearly in mind
the theory of the polarized relay generally called polar
will be readily understood
the ends of which are connected with a battery b thus forming an electromagnet an essential part of this relay consists of a swinging permanent magnet c whose polarity remains fixed
that end between the terminals of the electromagnet being a north pole inasmuch as unlike poles of magnets are attracted to each other and like poles repelled
it follows that this north pole will be repelled by the north pole of the electromagnet but will swing over and be attracted by its south pole if the direction of flow of current be reversed by reversing the battery
the electromagnetic polarity also reverses and the end of the permanent magnet swings over to the other side
this device being a relay its purpose is to repeat transmitted signals into a local circuit as before explained for this purpose there are provided at d and e
a contact and a back stop the former of which is opened and closed by the swinging permanent magnet thus opening and closing the local circuit
manifestly there must be provided some convenient way for rapidly transposing the direction of the current flow if such a device as the polar relay is to be used for the reception of telegraph messages
and this is accomplished by means of an instrument called a pole changer which consists essentially of a movable contact piece connected permanently to the earth or grounded and arranged to connect one
or the other pole of a battery to the line and simultaneously ground the other pole this action of the pole changer is effected by movements of the armature of an electromagnet through the manipulation of an ordinary telegraph key
by an operator at the home station as in the operation of the transmitter above referred to by a combination of the neutral relay and the polar relay two operators by manipulating two telegraph keys
in the ordinary way can simultaneously send two messages over one line in the same direction with the same current one operator varying its strength and the other operator varying its polarity or direction of flow
although in the patent referred to edison showed and claimed the adaptation of the principle to duplex telegraphy indeed as a matter of fact it was found that by winding the polar relay differentially
and arranging the circuits and collateral appliances appropriately the polar duplex system was more highly efficient than the neutral system and it is extensively used to the present day
thus far we have referred to two systems one the neutral or differential duplex
by one of these two systems a single wire could be used for sending two messages in opposite directions and by the other in the same direction or in opposite directions
two in each direction thus employing eight operators four at each end two sending and two receiving
the equipment of such a system at each end of the line consists of these two instruments together with the special form of transmitter and the pole changer and their keys for actuating the neutral and polar relays at the other or distant end
compensating resistances and condensers
it will be understood of course that the polar relay as used in the quadruplex system is wound differentially and therefore its operation is somewhat similar in principle to that of the differentially wound neutral relay
in that it does not respond to the operation of the key at the home office but only operates in response to the movements of the distant key
our explanation has merely aimed to show the underlying phenomena and principles in broad outline without entering into more detail than was deemed absolutely necessary
it should be stated however that between the outline and the filling in of the details there was an enormous amount of hard work study patient plodding and endless experiments before edison finally perfected his quadruplex system
in the year eighteen seventy four if it were attempted to offer here a detailed explanation of the varied and numerous operations of the quadruplex this article would assume the proportions of a treatise
an idea of their complexity may be gathered from the following which is quoted from american telegraphy and encyclopedia of the telegraph
so quickly made broken up and others reformed as in the operation of the edison quadruplex for example it is quite demonstrable that during the making of a simple dash of the morse alphabet by the neutral relay at the home station
the distant pole changer may reverse its battery several times the home pole changer may do likewise and the home transmitter may increase and decrease the electromotive force of the home battery repeatedly
simultaneously and of course as a consequence of the foregoing actions the home neutral relay itself may have had its magnetism reversed several times and the signal that is the dash will have been made
partly by the home battery partly by the distant and home batteries combined partly by current on the main line
partly by the main line static current partly by the condenser static current and yet on a well adjusted circuit the dash will have been produced on the quadruplex sounder as clearly as any dash on an ordinary single wire sounder
and refer the reader to the above or other text books if he desires to make a close study of its intricate operations before finally dismissing the quadruplex and for the benefit of the inquiring reader
a hint as to an essential difference between the neutral relay as used in the duplex and as used in the quadruplex may be given
with the duplex as we have seen the current on the main line is changed in strength only when both keys at opposite stations are closed together so that a current due to both batteries flows over the main line
when a single message is sent from one station to the other or when both stations are sending messages that do not conflict only one battery or the other is connected to the main line but with the quadruplex
suppose one of the operators in new york for instance is sending reversals of current to chicago we can readily see how these changes in polarity will operate the polar relay at the distant station
but why will they not also operate the neutral relay at the distant station as well this difficulty was solved by dividing the battery at each station into two unequal parts
the smaller battery being always in circuit with the pole changer ready to have its polarity reversed on the main line to operate the distant polar relay but the spring retracting the armature of the neutral relay
is made so stiff as to resist these weak currents if however the transmitter is operated at the same end the entire battery is connected to the main line and the strength of this current is sufficient to operate the neutral relay
the current so varied in strength is subject to reversal of polarity by the pole changer but the variations in strength have no effect upon the distant polar relay because that relay being responsive to changes in polarity of a weak current
is obviously responsive to corresponding changes in polarity of a powerful current
bearing always in mind that by reason of the differential winding of the polar and neutral relays neither of the relays at one station will respond to the home battery and can only respond to the distant battery
the polar relay responding when the polarity of the current is reversed whether the current be strong or weak and the neutral relay responding when the line current is increased regardless of its polarity
the quadruplex was also arranged to operate on the wheatstone bridge principle
in a railroad system there are usually two terminal stations and a number of way stations there is naturally much intercommunication which would be greatly curtailed by a system having the capacity of only a single message at a time
the duplexes above described could not be used on a railroad telegraph system because of the necessity of electrically balancing the line which while entirely feasible on a through line
would not be practicable between a number of intercommunicating points edison's phonoplex normally doubled the capacity of telegraph lines whether employed on way business or through traffic
but in actual practice made it possible to obtain more than double service it has been in practical use for many years on some of the leading railroads of the united states
the system is a combination of telegraphic apparatus and telephone receiver although in this case the latter instrument is not used in the generally understood manner it is well known that the diaphragm of a telephone vibrates with the fluctuations of the current energizing the magnet beneath it
if the make and break of the magnetizing current be rapid the vibrations being within the limits of the human ear the diaphragm will produce an audible sound
without producing a sound if therefore there be placed in the same circuit a regular telegraph relay and a special telephone an operator may by manipulating a key operate the relay and its sounder
without producing a sound in the telephone
corresponding to the signals transmitted but this current is too weak to affect the telegraph relay
have any of you ever thought of what little people like you were doing in this country more than a hundred years ago when the cruel tide of war swept over its bosom from many homes the fathers were absent fighting bravely for the liberty which we now enjoy
while the mothers no less valiantly struggled against hardships and discomforts in order to keep a home for their children whom you only know as your great grandfathers and great grandmothers dignified gentlemen and beautiful ladies
whose painted portraits hang upon the walls in some of your homes
yet their bright faces must have looked grave sometimes when they heard the grown people talk of the great things that were happening around them some of these little people never forgot the wonderful events of which they heard
is about a boy and girl who lived in bordentown new jersey the father of these children was a soldier in general washington's army which was encamped a few miles north of trenton on the pennsylvania side of the delaware river
thus you see that the british in force were between washington's army and bordentown
could not imagine such a thing as christmas without their father and had busied themselves for weeks in making everything ready to have a merry time with him kitty who loved to play quite as much as any frolicsome kitty of to day had spent all her spare time
in knitting a pair of thick woollen stockings which seems a wonderful feat for a little girl only eight years old to perform can you not see her sitting by the great chimney place filled with its roaring crackling logs in her quaint short waisted dress
knitting away steadily and puckering up her rosy dimpled face over the strange twists and turns of that old stocking i can see her and i can also hear her sweet voice
to find that his little girl can knit like a grown up woman while harry spreads out on the hearth a goodly store of shellbarks that he has gathered and is keeping for his share of the sprise what if he shouldn't come asks harry suddenly oh he'll come
papa never stays away on christmas says kitty looking up into her mother's face for an echo to her words instead she sees something very like tears in her mother's eyes oh mamma don't you think he'll come he will come if he possibly can
says missus tracy and if he cannot we will keep christmas whenever dear papa does come home it won't be half so nice said kitty nothing's so nice as really christmas and
we'll let him come just the same and if he brings anything for papa we can put it away for him this plan still seemed a poor one to miss kitty who went to her bed in a sober mood that night
and was heard telling her dear dollie martha washington that wars were mis'able and that when she married she should have a man who kept a candy shop for a husband and not a soldier no martha not even if he's as nice as papa
as martha made no objection to this little arrangement being an obedient child they were both soon fast asleep the days of that cold winter of seventeen seventy six wore on
so cold it was that the sufferings of the soldiers were great their bleeding feet often leaving marks on the pure white snow over which they marched as christmas drew near there was a feeling among the patriots
that some blow was about to be struck but what it was and from whence they knew not and better than all the british had no idea that any strong blow could come from washington's army weak and out of heart as they thought
missus tracy looked anxiously each day for news of the husband and father only a few miles away yet so separated by the river and the enemy's troops that they seemed like a hundred christmas eve came but brought with it
few rejoicings the hearts of the people were too sad to be taken up with merrymaking
good natured germans who only fought the americans because they were paid for it gave themselves up to the feasting and revelry shall we hang up our stockings asked kitty in rather a doleful voice yes said her mother
santa claus won't forget you i am sure although he has been kept pretty busy looking after the soldiers this winter which side is he on asked harry the right side of course said missus tracy which was the most sensible answer she could possibly have given
for each child he turned for a moment to look at the sleeping faces for saint nicholas has a tender spot in his great big heart for a soldier's children then remembering many other small folks waiting for him all over the land
he sprang up the chimney and was away in a trice santa claus in the form of missus tracy's farmer brother brought her a splendid turkey
harry was very fond of turkey too as well as of all other good things but when his mother said it's such a fine bird it seems too bad to eat it without father harry cried out yes keep it for papa
and kitty joining in the chorus the vote was unanimous and the turkey was hung away to await the return of the good soldier although it seemed strange as kitty told martha washington to have no papa and no turkey on christmas day
the day passed and night came cold with a steady fall of rain and sleet
and that he might come home and wear his beautiful blue stockings and eat his turkey said harry's sleepy voice
toward morning the good people in bordentown were suddenly aroused by firing in the distance which became more and more distinct as the day wore on there was great excitement in the town men and women gathered together in little groups in the streets
to wonder what it was all about and neighbours came dropping into missus tracy's parlour all day long one after the other to say what they thought of the firing
to say that general washington had surprised the british at trenton early that morning and completely routed them
that they left without the slightest ceremony it was a joyful hour to the good town people when the red jackets turned their backs on them thinking every moment that the patriot army would be after them indeed it seemed as if wonders would never cease that day
for while rejoicings were still loud over the departure of the enemy there came a knock at missus tracy's door and while she was wondering whether she dared open it it was pushed ajar and a tall soldier entered what a scream of delight greeted that soldier
while missus tracy drew him toward the warm blaze and helped him off with his damp cloak cold and tired captain tracy was after a night's march in the streets and a day's fighting but he was not too weary to smile at the dear faces around him
or to pat kitty's head when she brought his warm stockings and would put them on the tired feet herself suddenly there was a sharp quick bark outside the door what's that cried harry oh i forgot open the door
here fido fido into the room there sprang a beautiful little king charles spaniel white with tan spots and ears of the longest softest and silkiest what a little dear exclaimed kitty where did it come from
from the battle of trenton said her father his poor master was shot after the red coats had turned their backs and i was hurrying along one of the streets where the fight had been the fiercest i heard a low groan
lying among a number of slain i raised his head he begged for some water which i brought him and bending down my ear i heard him whisper dying last battle say a prayer he tried to follow me in the words of a prayer
and then taking my hand laid it on something soft and warm
it was as much as i could do to get the little creature away from his dead master he clung to him as if he loved him better than life
for a christmas present pretty little fido said kitty taking the soft curly creature in her arms i think it's the best present in the world and to morrow is to be real christmas because you are home papa and we'll eat the turkey said harry
and shellbarks lots of them that i saved for you what a good time we'll have and oh papa don't go to war any more but stay at home with mother and kitty and fido and me what would become of our country if we should all do that my little man
it was a good day's work that we did this christmas getting the army all across the river so quickly and quietly that we surprised the enemy and gained a victory with the loss of few men
thus it was that some of the good people of seventeen seventy six spent their christmas
the josephs christmas the month before christmas was always the most exciting and mysterious time in the joseph household such scheming and planning such putting of curly heads together in corners such counting of small hoards
such hiding and smuggling of things out of sight as went on among the little josephs there were a good many of them and very few of the pennies hence the reason for so much contriving and consulting from fourteen year old mollie
and something to father and mother joseph besides
that they had to cudgel their small brains for ways and means thereof father and mother were always discreetly blind and silent through december no questions were asked no matter what queer things were done
many secret trips to the little store at the railway station two miles away were ignored and no little joseph was called to account because he or she looked terribly guilty when somebody suddenly came into the room the air was simply charged with secrets
sister mollie was the grand repository of these all the little josephs came to her for advice and assistance it was mollie who for troubled small brothers and sisters did such sums in division as this
how can i get a ten cent present for emmy and a fifteen cent one for jimmy out of eighteen cents or how can seven sticks of candy be divided among eight people so that each shall have one
it was mollie who advised regarding the purchase of ribbon and crepe paper it was mollie who put the finishing touches to most of the little gifts in short all through december mollie was weighed down under an avalanche of responsibility
it speaks volumes for her sagacity and skill that she never got things mixed up or made any such terrible mistake as letting one little joseph find out what another was going to give him
dead secrecy was the keystone of all plans and confidences during this particular december the planning and contriving had been more difficult and the results less satisfactory than usual
for was there not on the corner table in the kitchen a small mountain of tiny sometimes very tiny gifts labelled with the names of recipients and givers and worth their weight in gold if love and good wishes count for anything
sat before the fire and listened to the wind howling about the house i'm glad i'm not driving over the prairie tonight said mister joseph it's quite a storm i hope it will be fine tomorrow for the children's sake they've set their hearts on having a sleigh ride
mary this is the first christmas since we came west that we couldn't afford some little extras for them even if twas only a box of nuts and candy missus joseph sighed over jimmy's worn jacket which she was mending then she smiled
the children will not mind bless their hearts look at all the little knick knacks they've made for each other last week when i was over at taunton
with christmas presents i did feel that i'd ask nothing better than to go in and buy all the lovely things i wanted just for once and give them to the children tomorrow morning they've never had anything really nice for christmas but there
we've all got each other and good health and spirits
mister joseph nodded that's so
she never has had anything but homemade dolls and that small heart of hers is set on a real one there was one at fisher's store today
just fancy maggie's face if she saw such a christmas box as that tomorrow morning don't let's fancy it laughed missus joseph
it's all the christmassy i could give them
it is though said mister joseph as he strode to the door and flung it open two snowed up figures were standing on the porch as they stepped in the josephs recognized one of them as mister ralston a wealthy merchant in a small town fifteen miles away
late hour for callers isn't it said mister ralston the fact is
can you take us in for the night mister joseph certainly and welcome exclaimed mister joseph heartily if you don't mind a shakedown by the kitchen fire for the night my missus ralston as his wife helped her off with her things
but you are snowed up i'll see to putting your horse away mister ralston this way if you please when the two men came stamping into the house again
the former with a steaming hot cup of tea in her hand mister ralston put the big basket he was carrying down on a bench in the corner thought i'd better bring our christmas flummery in he said you see missus joseph
that is if we ever get there missus joseph gave a little sigh in spite of herself and looked wistfully at the heap of gifts on the corner table how meagre and small they did look to be sure beside that bulgy basket with its cover suggestively tied down
the josephs laughed our santa claus is somewhat out of pocket this year said mister joseph frankly those are the little things the small folks here have made for each other they've been a month at it and i'm always kind of relieved when christmas is over
and there are no more mysterious doings we're in such cramped quarters here that you can't move without stepping on somebody's secret a shakedown was spread in the kitchen for the unexpected guests and presently the ralstons found themselves alone
missus ralston went over to the christmas table and looked at the little gifts half tenderly and half pityingly they're not much like the contents of our basket are they she said as she touched the calendar jimmie had made for mollie out of cardboard and autumn leaves and grasses
just what i was thinking returned her husband and i was thinking of something else too i've a notion that i'd like to see some of the things in our basket right here on this table i'd like to see them all said missus ralston promptly
let's just leave them here edward roger's family will have plenty of presents without them and for that matter we can send them ours when we go back home just as you say agreed mister ralston
i like the idea of giving the small folk of this household a rousing good christmas for once they're poor i know and i dare say pretty well pinched this year like most of the farmers hereabout after the crop failure
missus ralston untied the cover of the big basket then the two of them moving as stealthily as if engaged in a burglary transferred the contents to the table mister ralston got out a small pencil and a note book
they managed to divide theirs up pretty evenly among the little josephs when all was done missus ralston said
till we're gone it fell out as missus ralston had planned the dawn broke fine and clear over a vast white world
breakfast for the storm stayed travellers was cooked and eaten by lamplight then the horse and sleigh were brought to the door and mister ralston carried out his empty basket i expect the trail will be heavy he said but i guess we'd get to lindsay in time for dinner anyway
much obliged for your kindness mister joseph when you and missus joseph come to town we shall hope to have a chance to return it
when missus joseph went back to the kitchen
one look she gave and then this funny little mother began to cry but they were happy tears mister joseph came too and looked and whistled there really seemed to be everything on that table that the hearts of children could desire
a pair of fur topped kid gloves just mollie's size and a china cup and saucer
and in the other a doll with curling golden hair and brown eyes dressed in real clothes and with all her wardrobe in a trunk beside her pinned to her dress was a leaf from mister ralston's notebook with maggie's name written on it
mollie looked at the workbasket that her housewifely little heart had always longed for studious jimmy beamed over the books and ted and hal whooped with delight over the skates and as for the big box of good things why everybody appreciated that
that christmas was one to date from in that family i'm glad to be able to say too that even in the heyday of their delight and surprise over their wonderful presents the little josephs did not forget to appreciate the gifts
mollie thought her calendar just too pretty for anything and jimmy was sure the new red mittens which maggie had knitted for him with her own chubby wee fingers were the very nicest gayest mittens a boy had ever worn
jimmy scarecrow led a sad life in the winter jimmy's greatest grief was his lack of occupation he liked to be useful and in winter he was absolutely of no use at all he wondered how many such miserable winters he would have to endure
he was a young scarecrow and this was his first one he was strongly made and although his wooden joints creaked a little when the wind blew he did not grow in the least rickety every morning when the wintry sun peered like a hard yellow eye across the dry corn stubble
jimmy felt sad but at christmas time his heart nearly broke on christmas eve santa claus came in his sledge heaped high with presents urging his team of reindeer across the field
he was on his way to the farmhouse where betsey lived with her aunt hannah betsey was a very good little girl with very smooth yellow curls and she had a great many presents santa claus had a large wax doll baby for her on his arm
tucked up against the fur collar of his coat he was afraid to trust it in the pack lest it get broken when poor jimmy scarecrow saw santa claus his heart gave a great leap santa claus here i am he cried out but santa claus did not hear him
santa claus please give me a little present i was good all summer and kept the crows out of the corn pleaded the poor scarecrow in his choking voice but santa claus passed by with a merry halloo and a great clamour of bells
then jimmy scarecrow stood in the corn stubble and shook with sobs until his joints creaked i am of no use in the world and everybody has forgotten me he moaned but he was mistaken
the next morning betsey sat at the window holding her christmas doll baby and she looked out at jimmy scarecrow standing alone in the field amidst the corn stubble aunt hannah said she
aunt hannah was making a crazy patchwork quilt and she frowned hard at a triangular piece of red silk and circular piece of pink wondering how to fit them together well said she did santa claus bring the scarecrow any christmas present
no of course he didn't why not because he's a scarecrow don't ask silly questions i wouldn't like to be treated so if i was a scarecrow said betsey but her aunt hannah did not hear her
was snowing hard out of doors and the north wind blew the scarecrow's poor old coat got whiter and whiter with snow sometimes he almost vanished in the thick white storm
i've got one for every bed in the house and i've given four away i'd give this away if i knew of anybody that wanted it
to her sister susan who lived down the road half an hour after aunt hannah had gone betsey put her little red plaid shawl over her head and ran across the field to jimmy scarecrow she carried her new doll baby smuggled up under her shawl
wish you merry christmas she said to jimmy scarecrow wish you the same said jimmy but his voice was choked with sobs and was also muffled for his old hat had slipped down to his chin betsey looked pitifully at the old hat fringed with icicles
like frozen tears and the old snow laden coat i've brought you a christmas present said she and with that she tucked her doll baby inside jimmy scarecrow's coat sticking its tiny feet into a pocket
thank you said jimmy scarecrow faintly you're welcome said she keep her under your overcoat so the snow won't wet her and she won't catch cold she's delicate yes i will said jimmy scarecrow
and he tried hard to bring one of his stiff outstretched arms around to clasp the doll baby don't you feel cold in that old summer coat asked betsey
but he shivered and the wind whistled through his rags you wait a minute said betsey and was off across the field jimmy scarecrow stood in the corn stubble with the doll baby under his coat and waited
and soon betsey was back again with aunt hannah's crazy quilt trailing in the snow behind her here said she here is something to keep you warm and she folded the crazy quilt around the scarecrow and pinned it
aunt hannah wants to give it away if anybody wants it she explained she's got so many crazy quilts in the house now she doesn't know what to do with them good bye be sure you keep the doll baby covered up
and with that she ran cross the field and left jimmy scarecrow alone with the crazy quilt and the doll baby
i hope this quilt is harmless if it is crazy he said but the quilt was warm and he dismissed his fears soon the doll baby whimpered but he creaked his joints a little and that amused it and he heard it cooing inside his coat
jimmy scarecrow had never felt so happy in his life as he did for an hour or so but after that the snow began to turn to rain and the crazy quilt was soaked through and through
santa claus dear santa claus cried jimmy scarecrow with a great sob and that time santa claus heard him and drew rein
it's only me replied the scarecrow
jimmy scarecrow santa got out of his sledge and waded up have you been standing here ever since corn was ripe he asked pityingly and jimmy replied that he had what's that over your shoulders santa claus continued holding up his lantern
it's a crazy quilt and what are you holding under your coat the doll baby that betsey gave me and i'm afraid it's dead poor jimmy scarecrow sobbed nonsense cried santa claus let me see it
and with that he pulled the doll baby out from under the scarecrow's coat and patted its back and shook it a little and it began to cry and then to crow it's all right said santa claus this is the doll baby i gave betsey and it is not at all delicate
it went through the measles and the chicken pox and the mumps and the whooping cough before it left the north pole now get into the sledge jimmy scarecrow and bring the doll baby and the crazy quilt i have never had any quilts that weren't in their right minds at the north pole but maybe i can cure this one
get in santa chirruped to his reindeer and they drew the sledge up close in a beautiful curve get in jimmy scarecrow and come with me to the north pole he cried please how long shall i stay asked jimmy scarecrow why you are going to live with me replied santa claus
i've been looking for a person like you for a long time are there any crows to scare away at the north pole i want to be useful jimmy scarecrow said anxiously no answered santa claus but i don't want you to scare away crows
i want you to scare away arctic explorers i can keep you in work for a thousand years and scaring away arctic explorers from the north pole is much more important than scaring away crows from corn why
if they found the pole there wouldn't be a piece an inch long left in a week's time and the earth would cave in like an apple without a core they would whittle it all to pieces and carry it away in their pockets for souvenirs come along i am in a hurry
i will go on two conditions said jimmy
you shall make them any present you choose what else i want some way provided to scare the crows out of the corn next summer while i am away said jimmy
santa took his stylographic pen out of his pocket went with his lantern close to one of the fence posts and wrote these words upon it notice to crows whichever crow shall hereafter hop fly or flop
into this field during the absence of jimmy scarecrow and therefrom purloin steal or abstract corn shall be instantly in a twinkling and a trice turned snow white and be ever after a disgrace a byword and a reproach to his whole race
per order of santa claus the corn will be safe now said santa claus get in jimmy got into the sledge and they flew away over the fields out of sight with merry halloos and a great clamour of bells
no said mister redmain she must stay where she is i fancy something happened last night which she has got to tell us about ah what was that asked mister brett facing round on her
mary began her story with the incident of her having been pursued by some one and rescued by the blacksmith whom she told her listeners she had known in london then she narrated all that had happened the night before from first to last
not forgetting the flame that lighted the closet as they approached the window just let me see those memoranda said mister brett to mister redmain rising and looking for the paper where he had left it the day before
it was of that paper i was this moment thinking answered mister redmain it is not here said mister brett i thought as much the fool there was a thousand pounds there for her
i didn't want to drive her to despair a dying man must mind what he is about ring the bell and see what mewks has to say
evident anxiety i will not record his examination mister brett took it for granted he had deliberately and intentionally shut out mary and mewks did not attempt to deny it protesting he believed she was boring his master
mister brett next requested the presence of miss yolland she was nowhere to be found the place was searched throughout but there was no trace of her when the doctor arrived
hesper sought mary and kissed her with some appearance of gratitude she saw what a horrible suspicion perhaps even accusation she had saved her from
the behavior and disappearance of sepia seemed to give her little trouble
almost every evening until he left durnmelling mary went to see mister redmain she read to him and tried to teach him
and something did seem to be getting into or waking up in him the man had never before in the least submitted but now it looked as if the watching spirit of life were feeling through the dust heap of his evil judgments
low thoughts and bad life to find the thing that spirit had made
when the two met and joined then would the man be saved god and he would be together sometimes he would utter the strangest things
and sometimes for days mary would not have an idea what was going on in him when suffering he would occasionally break into fierce and evil language then be suddenly silent god and satan were striving for the man
and having no reason to think his death would be a great grief in the house did not hesitate much to express his doubt and indeed it caused no gloom for there was little love in the attentions the mortimers paid him
and in what other hope could hesper have married than that one day she would be free with a freedom informed with power the power of money but to the mother's suggestions as to possible changes in the future
the daughter never responded she had no thought of plans in common with her strange rumors came abroad godfrey wardour heard something of them and laughed them to scorn
and at last lowered his pride so far as to call on mary under the pretense of buying something in the shop his troubled look filled her with sympathy but she could not help being glad afresh that he had escaped the snares laid for him
he looked at her searchingly and at last murmured a request that she would allow him to have a little conversation with her she led the way to her parlor closed the door and asked him to take a seat
mister wardour said mary if i thought you would believe what i told yon i would willingly do as you ask me as it is allow me to refer you to mister brett the lawyer whom i dare say you know
happily the character of mister brett was well known in testbridge and all the country round and from him godfrey wardour learned what sent him traveling on the continent again not in the hope of finding sepia
what became of her none of her family ever learned some time after it came out that the same night on which the presence of joseph rescued mary from her pursuer a man speaking with a foreign accent
than she wrote to mary inviting her to go and visit her but mary answered she could no more leave home and must content herself with the hope of seeing missus redmain when she came to durnmelling
the time for that did not again arrive but when mary went to london she always called on her and generally saw mister redmain but they never had any more talk about the things mary loved most
whether the change was caused by something better than physical decay who knows save him who can use even decay for redemption he lived two years more and died rather suddenly after his death
and that of her father which followed soon hesper went again to durnmelling and behaved better to her mother than before mary sometimes saw her and a flicker of genuine friendship began to appear on hesper's part mister turnbull
was soon driving what he called a roaring trade he bought and sold a great deal more than mary but she had business sufficient to employ her days and leave her nights free and bring her and letty enough to live on as comfortably as they desired
to use when occasion was for others and something to lay by for the time of lengthening shadows turnbull seemed to hare taken a lesson from his late narrow escape for he gave up the worst of his speculations
and confined himself to genuine business principles the more contentedly that all marston folly swept from his path he was free to his own interpretation of the phrase he grew a rich man and died happy
so his friends said and said as they saw missus turnbull left testbridge
there she was regarded as the widow of an officer in her majesty's service and
she did not think it worth her while to make one was not the supposed brevet a truer index to her consciousness of herself than the actual ticket by ill luck attached to her widow of a linen draper
george carried on the business and when mary and he happened to pass in the street they nodded to each other letty was diligent in business but it never got into her heart she continued to be much liked
and in the shop was delightful if she ever had another offer of marriage the fact remained unknown she lived to be a sweet gracious little old lady and often forgot that she was a widow but never that she was a wife
all the days of her appointed time she waited till her change should come
looking out for her as he had said he would her mother in law could not help dying but she never forgave her for what nobody knew after a year or so missus wardour began to take a little notice of her again
old mister duppa died and a young man came to minister to his congregation who thought the baptism of the spirit of more importance than the most correct of opinions concerning even the baptizing spirit
from him mary found she could learn and would be much to blame if she did not learn from him letty also heard what increased her desire to be worth something before she went to rejoin tom
joseph jasper became once more mary's pupil she was now no more content with her little cottage piano but had an instrument of quite another capacity on which to accompany the violin of the blacksmith
to him trade came in steadily and before long he had to build a larger shoeing shed from a wide neighborhood horses were brought him to be shod cart wheels to be tired axles to be mended plowshares to be sharpened
and all sorts of odd jobs to be done he soon found it necessary to make arrangement with a carpenter and wheelwright to work on his premises before two years were over he was what people call a flourishing man and laying by a little money
than for any thing else in the world but i will tell you another difference the princess was like several children in one such was the variety of her moods
and in one mood she had no recollection or care about any thing whatever belonging to a previous mood not even if it had left her but a moment before and had been so violent as to make her ready to put her hand in the fire to get what she wanted
plainly she was the mere puppet of her moods and more than that any cunning nurse who knew her well enough could call or send away those moods almost as she pleased like a showman pulling strings behind a show
agnes on the contrary seldom changed her mood but kept that of calm assured self satisfaction father nor mother had ever by wise punishment helped her to gain a victory over herself
and do what she did not like or choose and their folly in reasoning with one unreasonable had fixed her in her conceit
she would actually nod her head to herself in complacent pride that she had stood out against them this however was not so difficult as to justify even the pride of having conquered
seeing she loved them so little and paid so little attention to the arguments and persuasions they used neither when she found herself wrapped in the dark folds of the wise woman's cloak did she behave in the least like the princess for she was not afraid
some are too stupid to be afraid there is nothing fine in that some who are not easily frightened would yet turn their backs and run the moment they were frightened such never had more courage than fear
but the man who will do his work in spite of his fear is a man of true courage the fearlessness of agnes was only ignorance she did not know what it was to be hurt
she had never read a single story of giant or ogress or wolf and her mother had never carried out one of her threats of punishment if the wise woman had but pinched her she would have shown herself an abject little coward
on and on she carried her without a word she knew that if she set her down she would never run after her like the princess at least not before the evil thing was already upon her on and on she went never halting
never letting the light look in or agnes look out she walked very fast and got home to her cottage very soon after the princess had gone from it but she did not set agnes down either in the cottage or in the great hall
made of a substance similar to that of the mirror which rosamond had broken but differently compounded that substance no one could see by itself it had neither door nor window nor any opening to break its perfect roundness
the wise woman carried agnes into a dark room there undressed her took from her hand her knitting needles and put her naked as she was born into the hollow sphere
what sort of a place it was she could not tell she could see nothing but a faint cold bluish light all about her she could not feel that any thing supported her and yet she did not sink
and indeed it was but this she had cared only for somebody and now she was going to have only somebody her own choice was going to be carried a good deal farther for her
than she would have knowingly carried it for herself after sitting a while she wished she had something to do but nothing came a little longer and it grew wearisome
she would see whether she could not walk out of the strange luminous dusk that surrounded her walk she found she could well enough but walk out she could not on and on she went
keeping as much in a straight line as she might but after walking until she was thoroughly tired she found herself no nearer out of her prison than before she had not indeed advanced a single step for
in whatever direction she tried to go the sphere turned round and round answering her feet accordingly like a squirrel in his cage she but kept placing another spot of the cunningly suspended sphere under her feet
and she would have been still only at its lowest point after walking for ages at length she cried aloud but there was no answer it grew dreary and drearier in her that is
outside there was no change nothing was overhead nothing under foot nothing on either hand but the same pale faint bluish glimmer she wept at last then grew very angry
and then sullen but nobody heeded whether she cried or laughed it was all the same to the cold unmoving twilight that rounded her on and on went the dreary hours or did they go at all
and laid her in her bosom fed her with a wonderful milk which she received without knowing it nursed her all the night long and just ere she woke laid her back in the blue sphere again when first she came to herself
she thought the horrors of the preceding day had been all a dream of the night but they soon asserted themselves as facts for here they were nothing to see but a cold blue light and nothing to do but see it
oh how slowly the hours went by she lost all notion of time if she had been told that she had been there twenty years she would have believed it or twenty minutes it would have been all the same
except for weariness time was for her no more another night came and another still during both of which the wise woman nursed and fed her but she knew nothing of that and the same one dreary day
seemed ever brooding over her all at once on the third day she was aware that a naked child was seated beside her but there was something about the child that made her shudder she never looked at agnes
that she would have been glad to play with a serpent and put out her hand to touch her she touched nothing the child also put out her hand but in the direction away from agnes and that was well
for if she had touched agnes it would have killed her then agnes said who are you and the little girl said who are you i am agnes said agnes and the little girl said i am agnes
then agnes thought she was mocking her and said you are ugly and the little girl said you are ugly then agnes lost her temper and put out her hands to seize the little girl but lo
and the little girl was gone only to return again and each time she came back she was tenfold uglier than before and now agnes hated her with her whole heart the moment she hated her
it flashed upon her with a sickening disgust that the child was not another but her self her somebody and that she was now shut up with her for ever and ever no more for one moment ever to be alone
in her agony of despair sleep descended and she slept when she woke there was the little girl heedless ugly miserable staring at her own toes all at once
the creature began to smile but with such an odious self satisfied expression that agnes felt ashamed of seeing her then she began to pat her own cheeks to stroke her own body and examine her finger ends
nodding her head with satisfaction agnes felt that there could not be such another hateful ape like creature and at the same time was perfectly aware she was only doing outside of her what she herself had been doing
inside of her she turned sick at herself and would gladly have been put out of existence but for three days the odious companionship went on by the third day agnes was not merely sick
but ashamed of the life she had hitherto led was despicable in her own eyes and astonished that she had never seen the truth concerning herself before the next morning she woke in the arms of the wise woman
the horror had vanished from her sight and two heavenly eyes were gazing upon her she wept and clung to her and the more she clung the more tenderly did the great strong arms close around her
when she had lain thus for a while the wise woman carried her into her cottage and washed her in the little well then dressed her in clean garments and gave her bread and milk when she had eaten it she called her to her
and said very solemnly agnes you must not imagine you are cured that you are ashamed of yourself now is no sign that the cause for such shame has ceased in new circumstances
especially after you have done well for a while you will be in danger of thinking just as much of yourself as before so beware of yourself i am going from home and leave you in charge of the house
with this difference that she told her to go into the picture hall when she pleased showing her the entrance against which the clock no longer stood and went away
she must walk all the way to testbridge she felt weak but the fresh air was reviving she did not know the way so familiarly as that between thornwick and the town but she would enter the latter before arriving at the common
she had not gone far when the moon rose and from behind the clouds diminished the darkness a little the first part of her journey lay along a narrow lane with a small ditch a rising bank and a hedge on each side
about the middle of the lane was a farmyard and a little way farther a cottage soon after passing the gate of the farmyard she thought she heard steps behind her seemingly soft and swift and naturally felt a little apprehension
but her thoughts flew to the one hiding place for thoughts and hearts and lives and she felt no terror at the same time something moved her to quicken her pace as she drew near the common she heard the steps more plainly
behind her were the footsteps plain enough the same moment the clouds thinned about the moon and a pale light came filtering through upon the common in front of her she cast one look over her shoulder saw something turn a corner in the lane
and sped on again she would have run but there was no place of refuge now nearer than the corner of the turnpike road and she knew her breath would fail her long before that how lonely and shelterless the common looked
the soft swift steps came nearer and nearer was that music she heard she dared not stop to listen but immediately thereupon was poured forth on the dim air such a stream of pearly sounds
she was so rejoiced to know that he must be somewhere near that for very delight of unsecured safety she held her peace and had almost stopped but she ran on again
in the mean time the moon had been growing out of the clouds clearer and clearer the hut came in sight but the look of it was somehow altered with an undefinable change such as might appear on a familiar object in a dream
and the same moment to look behind her the consequence was that she fell but safe in the smith's arms that instant appeared a man running he half stopped and turning from the path took to the common
jasper handed his violin to mary and darted after him the chase did not last a minute
joseph seized him by the wrist saw something glitter in his other hand and turned sick the fellow had stabbed him with indignation as if it were a snake that had bit him
when he came to himself mary was binding up his arm what a fool i am he said trying to get up but yielding at once to mary's prevention ain't it ridic'lous now miss that a man of my size
and ready to work a sledge with any smith in yorkshire should turn sick for a little bit of a job with a knife but my father was just the same and he was a stronger man than i'm like to be i fancy it is no such wonder as you think said mary
you have lost a good deal of blood her voice faltered she had been greatly alarmed and the more that she had not light enough to get the edges of the wound properly together you've stopped it ain't you miss i think so
then i'll be after the fellow no no you must not attempt it you must lie still awhile but i don't understand it at all that cottage used to be a mere hovel without door or window it can't be you live in it
ay that i do and it's not a bad place either answered joseph that's what i went to yorkshire to get my money for it's mine bought and paid for but what made you think of coming here let's go into the smithy
house i won't presume to call it said joseph though it has a lean to for the smith and i'll tell you everything about it but really miss you oughtn't to be out like this after dark there's too many vagabonds about
he brought a chair and making her sit down began to blow the covered fire on the hearth where he had not long before boiled his kettle for his tea then closing the door he lighted a candle
and mary looking about her could scarcely believe the change that had come upon the miserable vacuity joseph sat down upon his anvil and begged to know where she had just been and how far she had run from the rascal
and the greater were his regrets that he had not secured the miscreant anyhow miss he said you'll never come from there alone in the dark again i understand you joseph answered mary
for i know you would not have me leave doing what i can for the poor man up there because of a little danger in the way no that i wouldn't miss that would be as much as to say you would do the will of god when the devil would let you what i mean is
or whatever you may please to call me ready at your word i must not take you from your work you know joseph work's not everything miss he answered
part of this conversation and a good deal more passed on their way to testbridge whither as soon as joseph seemed all right mary who had forgotten her hunger and faintness insisted on setting out at once
in her turn she questioned joseph and learned that as soon as he knew she was going to settle at testbridge he started off to find if possible a place in the neighborhood humble enough to be within his reach
he told her that already he had work enough to keep him going that the horses he once shod were always brought to him again
and that he had plenty of time both for his violin and his books when they came to the suburbs she sent him home and went straight to mister brett with mister redmain's message he undertook to be at durnmelling at the time appointed
he has recently expressed himself on the mangasarian crapsey debate let us hear what he has to say on the historicity of jesus the reverend gentleman begins by an uncompromising denial of our statements and ends by virtually admitting all that we contend for
this morning we will write of his denials next sunday of his admissions mister mangasarian says doctor barton has not given evidence of his skill as a logician or of his accuracy in the use of history
then he proceeds to apologize in a way for the character of his reply to our argument by saying that mister mangasarian's arguments fortunately do not require to be taken very seriously for they are not in themselves serious
notwithstanding this protest doctor barton proceeds to do his best to reply to our position in the debate we call attention to the fact that according to the new testament paul was in jerusalem when jesus was teaching and performing his miracles there
yet paul never seems to have met jesus or to have heard of his teachings or miracles to this doctor barton replies we cannot know and are not bound to explain where paul was on the few occasions when jesus publicly visited jerusalem
the above reply we are compelled to say much to our regret is not even honest without actually telling any untruths it suggests indirectly two falsehoods first that jesus was not much in jerusalem
and second that paul was absent from the city when jesus was there the question is not how often jesus visited jerusalem but how conspicuous was the part he played there he may have visited jerusalem only once in all his life
yet if he preached there daily in the synagogues if he performed great miracles there if he marched through the streets followed by the palm waving multitude shouting hosanna et cetera if he attacked the high priest and the pharisees there to which latter class paul belonged
it would not be honest to intimate that the few times jesus visited jerusalem paul was engaged elsewhere the reverend debater attempts to belittle the jerusalem career of jesus by suggesting that he was not there much when according to the gospels
it was in that city that his ministry began and culminated again to our argument that paul never refers to any of the teachings of jesus the reverend replies nor is it of consequence that paul seldom quotes the words of jesus
seldom would imply that paul quotes jesus sometimes we say paul gives not a single quotation to prove that he knew of a teaching jesus he had heard of a crucified risen christ one who had also instituted a bread and wine supper
but of jesus as a teacher and of his teaching paul is absolutely ignorant but by saying paul seldom quotes jesus doctor barton tries to produce the impression that paul quotes jesus though not very often which is not true
there is not a single miracle parable or moral teaching attributed to jesus in the gospels of which paul seems to possess any knowledge whatever nor is it true that it is of no consequence that paul seldom quotes the words of jesus
for it proves that the gospel jesus was unknown to paul and that he was created at a later date once more we say that the only jesus paul knew was the one he met in a trance on his way to damascus
to this the pastor of the first congregational church of oak park replies in the same we do not care to explain style he says nor is it of consequence that paul values comparatively lightly having known him in the flesh
the words paul valued comparatively lightly are as misleading as the words paul seldom quotes jesus paul never quotes jesus teachings and he never met jesus in the flesh
the clergyman's words however convey the impression that paul knew jesus in the flesh but he valued that knowledge comparatively lightly that is to say he did not think much of it
by whomever written after two thousand years it is still uncertain to whom we are indebted for the story of jesus what in doctor barton's opinion could have influenced the framers of the life of jesus to suppress their identity
and why does not the church instead of printing the words the gospel according to matthew or john which is not true print the gospel by whomever written two at the very least four of paul's epistles are genuine says the same clergyman
only four paul has thirteen epistles in the bible and of only four of them is doctor barton certain what are the remaining nine doing in the holy bible and which four does the clergyman accept as doubtlessly genuine
only yesterday all thirteen of paul's letters were infallible and they are so still wherever no questions are asked about them it is only where there is intelligence and inquiry that four of them at least are reliable
as honesty and culture increase the number of inspired epistles decreases what the americans are too enlightened to accept the church sends to the heathen three it is true that early a sect grew up which
we wonder how many kinds of flesh there are according to doctor barton moreover does not the bible teach that jesus was tempted in all things and was a man of like passions as ourselves the good man controls his appetites and passions but his flesh is not any different from anybody else's
denied that jesus was any more than an imaginary existence but pleads the clergyman these sects believed that jesus was real though not carnal flesh what kind of flesh was he then
if by carnal the gnostics meant sensual then the apostles in denouncing them for rejecting a carnal jesus must have held that jesus was carnal or sensual how does the reverend barton like the conclusion to which his own reasoning leads him
this admission is in answer to the charge that even in the first centuries the christians were compelled to resort to forgery to prove the historicity of jesus the doctor admits the charge except that he calls it by another name
we may not have the precise words jesus uttered the portrait may be colored tradition may have had its influence but jesus was real a most remarkable admission from a clerical it concedes all that higher criticism contends for
doctor barton replies with considerable temper to date people's right to think of jesus as a man from that decree is not to be characterized by any polite term our neighbor in the first place misquotes us in his haste
but by what polite language is the conduct of the christian church which to this day prints in its bibles translated from the original greek when no original manuscripts are in existence to be characterized
doctor barton's efforts to save his creed remind us of the japanese proverb it is no use mending the lid if the pot be broken
rector of grace episcopal church of oak park in answer to your query which i received i beg to give the following statement facts not theories the date of your own letter nineteen o eight tells what
the looking forward of the world to him
every time we date our letters suggests the clergyman we prove that jesus lived the ancient greeks reckoned time by the olympiads which fact according to this interesting clergyman
the roman chronology began with the building of rome by romulus which by the same reasoning would prove that romulus and remus born of mars and nursed by a she wolf are historical
and dionysius the monkish author of the era did not compute time from the birth of jesus but from the day on which the virgin mary met an angel from heaven this date prevailed in many countries until seventeen forty five
would the date on a letter prove that an angel appeared to mary and hailed her as the future mother of god according to this clergyman scientists instead of studying the crust of the earth and making geological investigations to ascertain the probable age of the earth
if the existence of such a country as palestine proves that jesus is real the existence of switzerland must prove that william tell is historical and the existence of an athens must prove that athene and apollo really lived and from the fact that there is an england
a line of apostles and bishops coming right down from him by his appointment to anderson of chicago shows that jesus is historical it does but only to episcopalians the catholics and the other sects do not believe that anderson is a descendant of jesus
did the priests of baal or moloch prove that these beings existed the reverend has another argument
which christian church brother your own church began with henry the eighth in fifteen thirty four with persecution and murder when the king his hands wet with the blood of his own wives and ministers made himself the supreme head of the church in england
the methodist church began with john wesley not much over a hundred years ago the presbyterian church began with john calvin who burned his guest on a slow fire in geneva about three hundred years ago and the lutheran church began with martin luther in the sixteenth century
it was i martin luther who slew all the peasants in the peasants war for i commanded them to be slaughtered but i throw the responsibility on our lord god who instructed me to give this order and the roman catholic church the parent of the smaller churches all chips from the same block
began its real career with the first christian emperor constantine who hanged his father in law strangled his brother in law murdered his nephew beheaded his eldest son and killed his wife gibbon writes of constantine that
the same year of his reign in which he convened the council of nice was polluted by the execution or rather murder of his eldest son but our clerical neighbor from oak park has one more argument why is sunday observed instead of saturday
well why sun day is the day of the sun whose glorious existence in the lovely heavens over our heads has never been doubted it was the day which the pagans dedicated to the sun sunday existed before the jesus story was known
haven't time to go deeper now and he intimates that to deny his facts is either to be a fool or a liar we will not comment on this we are interested in arguments not in epithets
found its way into a church it went farther it made its appearance in the pulpit in my hand i hold the notice of a publication bearing the title is jesus a myth said doctor boyle this too just as though paul never bore testimony
this gave the clergyman a splendid opportunity to present in clear and convincing form the evidence for the reality of jesus but one thing prevented him the lack of evidence therefore after announcing the subject he dismissed it by remarking that paul's testimony was enough
let mister mangasarian first disprove paul he writes the argument in a nutshell is this jesus is historical because he is guaranteed by paul but who guarantees paul
aside from the fact that the jesus of paul is essentially a different jesus from the gospel jesus there still remains the question who is paul let us see how much the church scholars themselves know about paul the place and manner and occasion of his death are not less uncertain
than the facts of his later life the chronology of the rest of his life is as uncertain we have no means of knowing when he was born or how long he lived or at what dates the several events of his life took place
referring to the epistles of paul the same authority says the chief of these preliminary questions is the genuineness of the epistles bearing paul's name which if they be his yes if
the christian scholar whose article on paul is printed in the britannica and from which we are now quoting gives further expression to this uncertainty
the pastoral epistles have given rise to still graver questions and are probably even less defensible let the reader remember that the above is not from a rationalist
vice principal saint mary hall oxford england were we disposed to quote rationalist authorities the argument against paul would be far more decisive but we are satisfied to rest the case on orthodox admissions alone
in other words the church has proceeded on the theory that two uncertainties make a certainty we promised to square also with the facts of history our statement that the chief concern of the church jewish christian or mohammedan is not righteousness but orthodoxy
he mentioned the placing of a nude woman on a pedestal in the city of paris the assassination of william mc kinley the same unbelief sent a murderer down the isle of a church in denver
to pluck the symbol of the sacrament from the hands of a priest and slay him at the altar the story of a nude woman et cetera is pure fiction and that the two murders were caused by unbelief is mere assumption
who also handle the holy sacraments she was murdered not by a crazed individual but by the orders of the bishop of alexandria
the reverend must answer or never tell an untruth again
two poltrot the protestant in the sixteenth century assassinated francois the catholic duke of guise in france and the leaders of the church instead of disclaiming responsibility for the act publicly praised the assassin and theodore beza
we shall present these together with our reply as they appeared on the sunday programs of the independent religious society criticism is welcome if the criticism is just it prevents us from making the same mistake twice
the historicity of jesus is in print a few further reflections on some minor points in doctor crapsey's argument may add to the value of the published copy
mangasarian crapsey debate answer the only way this question can be settled is by appealing to history mithraism is a variant religion which at one time spread over the roman empire and came near outclassing christianity
like brahmanism judaism shinto and the babylonian and egyptian cults which had no single founders christianity is a deposit to which hellenic judaic and latin tendencies have each contributed its quota
but the popular imagination craves a maker for the universe a founder for rome a first man for the human race and a great chief as the starter of the tribe in the same way it fancies a divine or semi divine being as the author of its credo
we would be in the same position that the astronomers were when they discovered the great planet uranus from their knowledge of the movements of these bodies they were convinced that these perturbations could be occasioned by nothing less than a great planet lying outside of the then view of mankind
we have of jesus a very distinctly outlined history there is nothing vague about him
we can follow jesus history from the time that he entered upon his public career until the time that career closed just as easily as we can follow caesar et cetera
answer how long was the time from the opening of jesus public career until the time that it closed one year according to the three gospels it sounds quite a period to speak of following his public career from beginning to end
with the exception of one year his whole life is hid in impenetrable darkness we know nothing of his childhood nothing of his old age if he lived to be old and of his youth we know just enough to fill up a year
the christ i admit to be purely mythological the word christ you know means the anointed one they the hebrews expected the coming of that christ but that is purely a mythical title
answer did the hebrews then expect the coming of a title were they looking forward to seeing the ancient throne of david restored by a title by messiah or christ the jews did not mean a name but a man a real flesh and bone savior
anointed or appointed by heaven but if the christ which the hebrews expected was purely mythical what makes the same christ in the supposed tacitus passage historical
the new testament jesus is jesus christ and the apostle john speaks of those who confess not that jesus christ is come in the flesh mark his words not christ but jesus christ the apostle does not separate the two names
there were those then in the early church who denied the historicity not of a title for what meaning would there be in denying that a title is come in the flesh but of a person known as jesus christ and what could the doctor mean when he speaks of a title being mythological
there are no mythological titles titles are words and we do not speak of the historicity or the non historicity of words we cannot say of words as we do of men that some are historical and others are mythical william tell is a myth
not the name but the man the name stands for william is the name of many real people and so is tell there were many anointed kings who are historical and the question is is jesus christ or jesus the anointed also historical
to answer that jesus is historical but the anointed is not is to evade the question when mosheim declares that the prevalent opinion among early christians was that christ existed in appearance only
there is no meaning in saying that a man's title existed in appearance only we do not speak of a title being born or crucified
they had in mind not a title but a person in conclusion if the christ by whom the hebrews meant not a mere name but a man was purely mythological
the minister of the south congregational church who heard the debate has publicly called your lecturer an unscrupulous sophist who practices imposition upon a popular audience
and who put forth sentence after sentence which every scholar present knew to be a perversion of the facts so outrageous as to be laughable as one of the leading morning papers said the above is not a reply to arguments made by mister mangasarian
our critic is not careful to make his statements agree with the fact one instance however he is able to remember which when it fell upon my ears he writes it struck me with such amazement that it completely drove from my mind a series of most astonishing statements of various sorts
which had just preceded it we refrain from commenting on the excuse given to explain so significant a failure of memory the instance referred to was about the denial of some in apostolic times that jesus christ is come in the flesh
but as mister mangasarian had hardly spoken more than twenty minutes when he touched upon this point it is not likely that it could have been preceded by a series of most astonishing statements of various sorts
and what was the statement which while it crippled his memory it did not moderate his zeal we will let him present it himself i refer to the use he made of one or two passages in the new testament mentioning some who deny that jesus christ is come in the flesh
so that he went on to say there were those even among the early christians themselves who denied that jesus had come in the flesh of course they were cast out as heretics here came an impressive pause and then without further explanation or qualification he proceeded to something else
does it justify hasty language saint john writes of those who confessed not that jesus christ is come in the flesh the natural meaning of the words is that even in apostolic times some denied the flesh and bone jesus
and regarded him as an idea or an apparition something like the holy ghost
to us more important than anything presented on this subject is this evidence of the existence of a very early dispute among the first disciples of jesus on the question of whether he was real or merely an apparition
the apostle john in his epistle clearly states that even among the faithful there were those who confess not that jesus christ is come in the flesh this is very important as early as john's time if he is the writer of the epistle jesus historicity was questioned
the gospel of john also hints at the existence in the primitive church of christians who did not accept the reality of jesus when doubting thomas is told of the resurrection he answers that he must feel the prints of the nails with his fingers before he will believe
and jesus not only grants the wishes of this skeptical apostle but he also eats in the presence of them all which story is told evidently to silence the critics who maintained that jesus was only a spirit the wisdom of god an emanation a light and not real flesh and bones
the same clergyman to whom a copy of the mangasarian crapsey debate was sent has written a five page criticism of it the strength of a given criticism is determined by asking
does it in any way impair the soundness of the argument against which it is directed critics have discovered mistakes in darwin and haeckel but are these mistakes of such a nature as to prove fatal to the theory of evolution
to be effective criticism must be aimed at the heart of an argument a man's life is not in his hat which could be knocked off or in his clothes which could be torn in places by his assailant without in the least weakening his opponent's position
does not at all disprove the fact that according to the christian scriptures themselves among the apostolic followers there were those to whom jesus christ was only a phantom milman the christian historian
states that the belief about jesus christ adopted by almost all the gnostic sects was that jesus christ was but an apparent human being an impassive phantom
was ever such a view entertained of caesar socrates or of any other historical character on page twenty eight of the debate we say the apostle john complains of those who confess not that jesus christ is come in the flesh
to this the clergyman replies the apostle john never made any such complaint critical scholarship is pretty well agreed that he did not write the epistles ascribed to him we have a lecture on how the bible was invented
john did not write the epistles then which the christian church for two thousand years and at a cost of millions of dollars and at the greater sacrifice of truth and progress has been proclaiming to the world as the work of the inspired john
the strenuous efforts to get around this terrible text in the holy bible
our desire in engaging in this argument is to turn the thought and love of the world from a mythical being to humanity which is both real and present on page twenty two of the debate we say
saint paul tells us that he lived in jerusalem at a time when jesus must have been holding the attention of the city yet he never met him to this the clergyman replies paul tells us nothing of the kind in a speech which is put into the mouth of paul
put into the mouth of paul is this another instance of forgery john did not write the epistles and paul's speech in the book of acts was put into his mouth
we are blamed for not knowing better than to prove anything by quoting paul and john as if everything they said was trustworthy in other words only those passages in the bible are authentic which the clergy quote those which the rationalists quote are spurious
in the meantime the authentic as well as the spurious passages together compose the churches word of god
was it right for you to assume that i was correctly reported by the news after stating what he had said in his interview with the reporter the rabbi continues but said i to the reporter all these possible allusions do not prove that jesus existed
you see in reality i agreed with you i personally believe jesus lived but i have no proof for this beyond my feeling that the movement with which the name is associated could even for paul not have taken its nomenclature without a personal substratum
but and this i told the reporter also this does not prove that the jesus of the gospels is historical rabbi hirsch writes in this same letter that he did not say jesus was mentioned in the rabbinical books the news reports the rabbi as saying
as the report in the news was allowed to stand for four days without correction and as rabbi hirsch did not even privately by letter or by phone disclaim responsibility for the article to mister mangasarian
the latter claims he was justified in assuming that the published report was reliable but it is with pleasure that the independent religious society gives rabbi hirsch this opportunity to explain his position
we hope he will also let us know whether he said to the reporter i do not believe in mister mangasarian's argument that christianity has inspired massacres wars and inquisitions it is a stock argument and not to the point this is extraordinary
and as the rabbi does not question the statement we infer that it is a correct report of what he said
and thou shalt consume all the people which the lord thy god shall deliver thee thine eye shall have no pity upon them
and stopped short and now the children's eyes were big with wonder as they looked upon it and its occupants
and it was drawn by two horses standing upon wooden platforms with rollers underneath so that instead of the horses themselves running the wheels of the platforms whirled around taking the carriage wherever the driver might direct
but he held the reins firmly in his stuffed hands and looked straight ahead like a well trained servant seated in the carriage was the loveliest wax doll the children had ever looked upon she was nearly as big as tot
and was exquisitely dressed in a gown of soft fluffy white material with many pink ribbons upon her shoulders and sleeves and a broad sash around her waist her silken hair was long and of a golden color
while her eyes were blue and had in their depths a sweet and gentle expression as for her complexion it was a dainty pink and white delicately blended
upon her head she wore a golden crown with seven points upon it and each point was tipped with a gleaming jewel almost at first sight dot longed to hold the wax doll in her arms and love and fondle her
and tot suddenly became so bashful that he took off his hat and bowed his head to the sweet lady as he called her with his eyes bent upon the ground yet scarcely had the children taken a good look at this delightful creature
when the wax doll leaped lightly from the carriage and stood before them showing as she did so that her feet were clad in white satin slippers embroidered with silver who are you she asked in a pleasant voice
but with some anxiety dot thought and how did you ever get to merryland we came in a boat replied the girl and this is my friend tot thompson and i am dot freeland
shyly lifting his eyes and nodding his head but you shouldn't have come here said the little lady this is private property and i have placed guards to prevent anyone entering my valleys are you the queen asked the girl
yes i am queen of all merryland and i cannot understand why my guards have disobeyed my orders oh the guards were all right said dot it was we who disobeyed
but we really couldn't help it for we had to go wherever the boat carried us then she told the queen all the story of their adventures and of how they had been carried by accident into the valleys of merryland
after she had heard the story the little lady looked puzzled for a moment and then said no one who enters my kingdom should ever be allowed to leave it again for if they did the world should soon know all about me and my people
then what are you going to do with us inquired the girl really i do not know you see i am so perplexed that i have stopped smiling and that will never do in the world
for should the weather change and cool my wax i would remain solemn until it warmed up again and my people would then think me unworthy to be the queen of merryland
i'd much rather be at home again if i could although your valleys are so queer and delightful then the queen again smiled upon them don't worry my dear she exclaimed brightly i'll find some way out of our difficulty
escort these strangers to my royal palace and see that you treat them most politely for although they are in reality my prisoners they have been guilty of no intentional wrong and seem to be nice children
the wooden captain removed his wooden hat and bowed very low so low indeed that tot could see the peg on the top of his head that held the hat on when it was in place your majesty's commands shall be obeyed he said
then the queen stepped into her carriage the rag coachman cracked his whip and the wheels of the horses platform began spinning around
why don't they make em to walk on their legs continued the boy it would tire them too much answered the captain being on platforms the horses never get tired you see for the wheels do all the work
then after a pause he asked what do you feed em cotton answered the captain we keep them quite full of it all the time that's what makes them look so plump and healthy what do they feed horses on in your country
hay said tot we tried stuffing ours with hay once remarked the captain but it made their skins look lumpy it was so coarse
i see said tot again in a rather bewildered voice the street they were walking upon was smooth and level and the houses they passed were neat and pretty but both the children noticed there were
no people to be seen anywhere about the village this seemed strange and dot was about ask who lived in the houses when they arrived at the gate of the palace
thereupon the gate opened slowly and they passed into a beautiful flower garden and walked along the green bordered paths until they came to the high arched doorway of the palace
and led them through a hall into her drawing room having dismissed the wooden captain with a nod of her royal head although the house was by far the biggest one in the valley
and when the children sat down in the drawing room they chose the biggest chairs and found them just about the right size now my dears said the pretty queen it is almost dinner time and i know you must be nearly starved
so i will have you shown at once to your rooms and when you have bathed your faces and brushed your clothes you shall have something nice to eat she touched a bell that stood upon a table near by and at once there came into the room
a little boy doll dressed in a brown suit with brass buttons he was larger in size than any doll tot had seen outside of merryland yet he was not so big as the queen herself when the children looked at him closely
they could see that his face and hands and feet were knitted from colored worsteds while his eyes were two big black beads this curious doll walked straight up to the queen and bowed before her while she said scollops
show this young man to the laughing chamber and wait upon him while he arranges his toilet scollops as the knitted boy seemed named bowed again and murmured your majesty shall be obeyed
that won the little boy's heart at once where are we going he asked as they began to mount the stairs to the laughing chamber replied scollops
and having reached the top of the stairs they walked down a long hallway and entered a room so odd and pretty that tot stopped short and gazed at it in astonishment
but upon the wall were painted hundreds of heads of children boys and girls of all countries with light and dark hair straight and curly hair blue and black and brown and gray eyes and all with laughing faces
the posts of the bed were also carved into laughing baby faces the chairs and the dresser showed a face upon every spot where there was a place for one and every face throughout the whole room had a smile upon it
to match the rest of the furniture the carpet had woven upon it in bright colors all kinds of laughing children's faces and the effect of the queer room was to make tot himself laugh until the tears roll
down his cheeks when the boy had looked the room over and seen all the faces scollops helped him to wash his hands and face to comb his hair and to brush his clothes and when this task was finished
the woolly doll said i will now show you why this room is called the laughing chamber
tot lay down upon the bed and at once heard a sweet tinkling chorus of laughter coming from every part of the room it was so delightful and soothing that he listened to it rapture
softly his eyes closed and in another moment he would have been sound asleep had not scollops raised him to his feet and said it is not time for sleep yet for you haven't had your dinner
but the laughing faces will make you slumber peacefully when the time comes
the rocky arch was not very thick yet before dot and tot had floated to the other side of it shouts of merry laughter and the chattering of many voices came to their ears some of the voices sounded loud and shrill
and sunny and dotted with broad leaved trees while soft tender grasses mingled with brilliant flowers covered the ground in every direction there seemed to be no houses at all yet
streets were laid out in regular order having at their sides raised platforms in place of houses each of the platforms was four feet high and
from one another by stretches of the flower strewn lawn the top and sides of every platform were padded like the mattresses of a bed and were covered with silks and velvets of the most gorgeous patterns
on many of these raised and padded platforms dot and tot saw groups of funny looking clowns all dressed in wide baggy trousers puffy jackets and soft pointed caps yet in their costumes
was an endless variety of colorings and combinations of colors making the groups look remarkably bright and pleasing the faces of the clowns were painted
in a fanciful way with rings of red and blue and yellow on their cheeks and spots and streaks of the same gorgeous colors over their eyes and around their chins when the children first came into the valley of the clowns
while others were juggling with balls or balancing long feathers and sticks upon their noses and chins
and these spectators also cried out their approval or poked fun at the performers when they failed to accomplish the acts they were attempting
while dot and tot sat in their boat looking with amazement at the strange sights all about them one of the clowns chanced to look their way and upon seeing the children
he set up a shout and rushed down to the shore followed by more than a hundred of his fellows as they ran the clowns leaped over one another turned somersaults into the air
and so swift were all their movements that in less time than one could think possible they were all crowded along the river bank and shouting loud greetings to the new arrivals
dot had to put her fingers in her ears at first for the noise bewildered her
she noticed a richly dressed clown standing before the others and making low bows to her and to tot as his lips seemed to move
everyone was talking at the same time and at first dot could hear nothing plainly but the clown who was standing in front of his comrades clapped his hands loudly together three times
at which the others instantly became silent and motionless then with another bow the leader addressed her speaking in a sweet and most pleasing tone of voice
welcome o king and queen of children to the valley of clowns we live but for your amusement we love your happy and smiling faces more than anything else in the world
and this day on which you have come to visit your slaves is the most joyful we have ever known here he made another bow and threw his pointed cap
head again there was a shout of applause at this feat and tot laughed loudly and clapped his hands then the leader of the clowns again spoke
if you will graciously consent to land in our country where everything we have is at your service we shall be delighted to amuse you to the best of our ability you are very kind answered dot
and as we are tired by sitting in the boat so long we shall be glad to accept your invitation then she pushed the boat to the shore
then dot and tot stepped out upon land and as they did so every clown present turned a backward somersault and shouted here we are again
the one who had first spoken to them now came forward and shook hands with both dot and tot in a very polite manner my name is flippityflop he said and i am the prince of clowns
ruling here under the gracious favor of her majesty the queen of merryland i beg you will allow me to escort you to my dwelling but first i should like to know your names and how you came here i'm
tot tompum said the boy
and here's dot f'eelun we've come in a boat long long ways off an we don't know how to get home again we are delighted to have you with us however you came here replied the clown
and as for your getting home again why that is worry and no one ever worries in the valley of clowns you are welcome to remain our guests as long as you please and while you are with us you must consider us your slaves
for clowns have always been the slaves of children then he turned to the others brothers he shouted
of the big round world
instantly every clown stood upon his head and knocked his heels together in the air as they wore silver bells around their ankles this made a most delightful tinkling sound
after which he marched up the street followed by the rest of the clowns who sang and danced as they came the prince carried them to one of the prettiest platforms and set them gently upon its cushioned top
then he leaped into the air whirled around like a windmill and landed gracefully beside them welcome to my dwelling he said but this isn't a dwelling exclaimed dot a dwelling is a house
and this is a sofa declared tot
come on he cried and jumping down the hole disappeared from view
just beneath her was flippityflop holding out his arms come on he said again i'll catch you dot did not hesitate but dropped through the opening and the prince caught her safely in his arms
chapter seven the clown country flippityflop's house proved to be one big room built under the platform
and lighted by a soft glow from hidden electric lamps the walls were covered with bright yellow silk hangings and on the floor was a crimson carpet
all around the sides were wide benches with soft cushions of purple velvet and near the middle of the room was a small table of blue and silver on the walls dot noticed several gaudily colored pictures of clowns
and when flippityflop saw the children looking at these pictures he said those are portraits of my father and grandfather and great grandfather they were all princes of this valley of merryland as well as good men
and clever clowns therefore i am proud of them they look very jolly said dot they were jolly and proved a comfort to thousands of children but you must be hungry
and i trust you will allow me to offer you some dinner what will you have what you got inquired tot well i have in my cupboard
boiled buttercups and pickled shoelaces he answered don't want any said tot these seem rather foolish things to eat remarked dot
of course they are foolish things agreed flippityflop cheerfully everything we do here is foolish you certainly can't expect wisdom in a country of clowns course not said tot
if you'll send to the boat for our basket i think we will prefer to eat the things we brought with us declared dot certainly answered the prince and immediately sticking his head through the trapdoor
he asked a clown who stood outside to fetch the basket it came in a remarkably short time and then flippityflop assisted dot to lay the cloth on the blue and silver table
while the children proceeded to eat of the sandwiches cake and apple tarts that remained in the basket wouldn't you like something to drink asked the prince
i am rather thirsty admitted dot have you any milk no we do not use milk in this valley he answered but we have some excellent green paint or if you prefer it i can give a bottle of red mucilage
no thank you said dot we couldn't drink those perhaps you will bring us some fresh water from the river but the water is quite wet exclaimed the clown and is liable to make you damp
surely you won't think of drinking it oh yes we're accustomed to drinking water said the girl so the water was sent for and dot and tot took long and refreshing drinks
although their action alarmed flippityflop who urged them to eat a few handfuls of sawdust afterward to absorb the dampness do all the clowns live in this valley asked the girl
when the table was cleared yes all except those we send into the world to amuse the children answered flippityflop you see we train them all very carefully and every year one is selected to go into the world
how do they get there asked the child at the upper edge of our valley there is one place not so steep as the rest the clown who is leaving us
climbs to this place and finds himself on the top of a mountain so he makes himself into a ball as he has been taught to do and rolls down the mountain into the outside world
oh exclaimed dot i've seen em in circuses to be sure that's the proper place for clowns do they make the children laugh sometimes said the girl when they do not said flippityflop gravely
they are imitation clowns and were never trained in this valley of merryland
but come it is time our people were gathering on the platforms for their evening practice would you like to watch them yes indeed cried dot joyfully and tot clapped his hands and echoed deed
were now occupied by clowns who were performing in a most marvelous manner the trees were full of electric lights which shed brilliant rays over the scene and enabled the children to see everything distinctly
come with me said their friend and i will lead you through the street that you may see what my brothers are doing they left the prince's platform and came to the next where
three gaily dressed clowns were bounding into the air and whirling around before they came down again every time they jumped they cried all right mister johnson in their shrill voices
and often one of them would fall on his head or back instead of landing on his feet when this happened they were not hurt for the platform was soft and yielding so they sprang up at once and tried it over again laughing at their own mishaps
at the next platform were some juggling clowns one of these placed a light ladder on his shoulders and another ran up it and stood upon his head on the top rung
in another place the clowns threw small silver balls into the air one after the other and then caught them cleverly as they came down
near the end of the street a clown dressed in a costume of scarlet with green spots upon it and wearing a white pointed cap upon his head was singing a comic song they stopped to listen while he sang as follows
if barbers treat their patrons so i'll just allow my beard to grow
but this one was dressed in a curious costume that was all white on one side of his body and all red on the other side this fellow balanced the point of his cap upon the end of his nose
and then making a bow sang the following song
there he went within a tent saw a convex firmament
saw a shark without a tooth
saw a crimson elephant next he walked into a street saw a lamp post drink and eat
he awoke and was in bed
this singer had so droll an expression on his face that tot yelled with rapture and dot found herself laughing heartily indeed
and they were sorry when a bell rang and put a stop to the antics of the clowns
and flippityflop said they had gone to bed and would not appear until the next morning the children were somewhat tired by the adventures of the day so when flippityflop helped them to gain the room under his platform
they crept to the soft cushioned benches that lined the walls and lay down in less than a minute dot and tot were fast asleep curled up side by side with their arms entwined
next morning they were awakened by the strains of sweet music dot at once sat up and asked what is that that is my alarm clock answered flippityflop who had been reclining upon a bench at the other side of the room
it's a queer alarm clock said the girl but a very good one returned the clown it is really a big music box under the bench which starts playing every morning at seven o'clock
won't you join me at breakfast asked the prince i'm going to have a dish of scrambled egg shells and a few fried buttons the eggshells make our complexion white and chalky and we are very fond of them
well i declare said the clown what peculiar tastes you children have but he allowed them to breakfast from their own stock of food and when the meal was finished dot said we must be going now but
first i wish to thank you for the pleasant time we have had in your valley we enjoyed the clowns very much indeed nice clowns declared tot with emphasis
especially as you are going to visit our queen then he carried the big basket down to the boat for them and all the clowns came to the river bank in a long procession to bid them good bye
after they were seated in the boat and had begun to float out into the river again the clowns started singing a comic song in one big chorus as a farewell entertainment
dot and tot laughed and waved their handkerchiefs at the jolly fellows until the archway leading into the next valley was reached and as the shadow of the rocks fell upon them and shut out their view of the first valley of merryland
in the summer of the year sixteen eighty eight the archbishopric became vacant furstemburg was the candidate of the house of bourbon the enemies of that house proposed the young prince clement of bavaria furstemburg was already a bishop
two thirds of the chapter of cologne should join the pope would grant no dispensation to a creature of france the emperor induced more than a third part of the chapter to vote for the bavarian prince meanwhile
munster and hildesheim the majority was adverse to france lewis saw with indignation and alarm
but hostile to him in a paper written with great acrimony he complained of the injustice with which france was on all occasions treated by that see which ought to extend a parental protection
by insulting the holy see these faults he committed at a conjuncture at which no fault could be committed with impunity and under the eye of an opponent second in vigilance sagacity and energy to no statesman whose memory history has preserved
william saw with stern delight his adversaries toiling to clear away obstacle after obstacle from his path while they raised against themselves the enmity of all sects he laboured to conciliate all
the great design which he meditated he with exquisite skill presented to different governments in different lights and it must be added that though those lights were different none of them was false he called on the princes of northern germany
to rally round him in defence of the common cause of all reformed churches
of the british roman catholics was that shortsighted and headstrong monarch who when he might easily have obtained for them a legal toleration had trampled on law liberty property in order to raise them to an odious and precarious ascendency
if the misgovernment of james were suffered to continue it must produce at no remote time a popular outbreak which might be followed by a barbarous persecution of the papists the prince declared that to avert the horrors of such a persecution was one of his chief objects
if he succeeded in his design he would use the power which he must then possess as head of the protestant interest to protect the members of the church of rome perhaps the passions excited by the tyranny of james might make it impossible to efface the penal laws from the statute book
but those laws should be mitigated by a lenient administration no class would really gain more by the proposed expedition than those peaceable and unambitious roman catholics who merely wished to follow their callings and to worship their maker without molestation
the only losers would be the tyrconnels the dovers the albevilles and the other political adventurers who in return for flattery and evil counsel had obtained from their credulous master governments regiments and embassies
while william exerted himself to enlist on his side the sympathies both of protestants and of roman catholics he exerted himself with not less vigour and prudence to provide the military means which his undertaking required
he could not make a descent on england without the sanction of the united provinces if he asked for that sanction before his design was ripe for execution his intentions might possibly be thwarted by the faction hostile to his house and would certainly be divulged to the whole world
he therefore determined to make his preparations with all speed and when they were complete to seize some favourable moment for requesting the consent of the federation it was observed by the agents of france that he was more busy than they had ever known him
not a day passed on which he was not seen spurring from his villa to the hague he was perpetually closeted with his most distinguished adherents twenty four ships of war were fitted out for sea in addition to the ordinary force which the commonwealth maintained
there was as it chanced an excellent pretence for making this addition to the marine for some algerine corsairs had recently dared to show themselves in the german ocean a camp was formed near nimeguen many thousands of troops were assembled there
in order to strengthen this army the garrisons were withdrawn from the strongholds in dutch brabant even the renowned fortress of bergopzoom was left almost defenceless field pieces
bombs and tumbrels from all the magazines of the united provinces were collected at the head quarters all the bakers of rotterdam toiled day and night to make biscuit all the gunmakers of utrecht were found too few to execute the orders for pistols and muskets
they could not indeed be formally enlisted without the sanction of the federation but they were well drilled and kept in such a state of discipline that they might without difficulty be distributed into regiments within twenty four hours after that sanction should be obtained
these preparations required ready money but william had by strict economy laid up against a great emergency a treasure amounting to about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling what more was wanting was supplied by the zeal of his partisans
great quantities of gold not less it was said than a hundred thousand guineas came to him from england
and trelawney bishop of bristol had during their residence in the tower reconsidered the doctrine of nonresistance and were ready to welcome an armed deliverer a brother of the bishop of bristol colonel charles trelawney
who commanded one of the tangier regiments now known as the fourth of the line signified his readiness to draw his sword for the protestant religion similar assurances arrived from the savage kirke churchill
in a letter written with a certain elevation of language which was the sure mark that he was going to commit a baseness declared that he was determined to perform his duty to heaven and to his country and that he put his honour absolutely into the hands of the prince of orange
william doubtless read these words with one of those bitter and cynical smiles which gave his face its least pleasing expression
william first received assurances of support from a very different quarter the history of sunderland's intrigues is covered with an obscurity which it is not probable that any inquirer will ever succeed in penetrating but
though it is impossible to discover the whole truth it is easy to detect some palpable fictions the jacobites for obvious reasons affirmed that the revolution of sixteen eighty eight was the result of a plot concerted long before
sunderland they represented as the chief conspirator he had they averred in pursuance of his great design incited his too confiding master to dispense with statutes to create an illegal tribunal
to confiscate freehold property and to send the fathers of the established church to a prison this romance rests on no evidence and though it has been repeated down to our own time seems hardly to deserve confutation
no fact is more certain than that sunderland opposed some of the most imprudent steps which james took and in particular the prosecution of the bishops which really brought on the decisive crisis but even if this fact were not established
there would still remain one argument sufficient to decide the controversy what conceivable motive had sunderland to wish for a revolution under the existing system he was at the height of dignity and prosperity
as president of the council he took precedence of the whole temporal peerage as principal secretary of state he was the most active and powerful member of the cabinet
was a very small part of what he received from france alone he drew a regular stipend of near six thousand pounds a year besides large occasional gratuities he had bargained with tyrconnel for five thousand a year
or fifty thousand pounds down from ireland what sums he made by selling places titles and pardons can only be conjectured but must have been enormous james seemed to take a pleasure in loading with wealth one whom he regarded
as his own convert all fines all forfeitures went to sunderland on every grant toll was paid to him
the answer was have you spoken to my lord president one bold man ventured to say that the lord president got all the money of the court well replied his majesty
and it must be remembered that fortunes of thirty thousand pounds a year were in his time rarer than fortunes of a hundred thousand pounds a year now are
what chance was there that in a new order of things a man so deeply implicated in illegal and unpopular acts a member of the high commission a renegade whom the multitude in places of general resort pursued with the cry of popish dog
would be greater and richer what chance that he would even be able to escape condign punishment he had undoubtedly been long in the habit of looking forward to the time when william and mary might be in the ordinary course of nature and law
scarcely however had he by that inexpiable crime made himself an object of hatred and contempt to the whole nation
the loss of his places his salaries his pensions was the least that he had to dread his patrimonial mansion amid woods at althorpe might be confiscated he might lie many years in a prison he might end his days in a foreign land
a pensioner on the bounty of france even this was not the worst visions of an innumerable crowd covering tower hill and shouting with savage joy at the sight of the apostate of a scaffold hung with black
of burnet reading the prayer for the departing and of ketch leaning on the axe with which russell and monmouth had been mangled in so butcherly a fashion began to haunt the unhappy statesman there was yet one way in which he might escape
a way more terrible to a noble spirit than a prison or a scaffold he might still by a well timed and useful treason earn his pardon from the foes of the government it was in his power to render to them at this conjuncture
services beyond all price for he had the royal ear he had great influence over the jesuitical cabal and he was blindly trusted by the french ambassador a channel of communication was not wanting a channel
she vehemently protested that it was a forgery her husband with characteristic ingenuity defended himself by representing that it was quite impossible for any man to be so base as to do what he was in the habit of doing
even if this is lady sunderland's hand he said that is no affair of mine your majesty knows my domestic misfortunes the footing on which my wife and mister sidney are is but too public who can believe that i would make a confidant of the man
who has injured my honour in the tenderest point
and secret intelligence was still transmitted from the wittol to the adulteress from the adulteress to the gallant
to the enemies of james it is highly probable that the first decisive assurances of sunderland's support were conveyed orally by sidney to william about the middle of august it is certain that from that time till the expedition was ready to sail
the anxiety of william became intense from common eyes his feelings were concealed by the icy tranquillity of his demeanour
the preparations were not quite complete the design was already suspected
the king of france or the city of amsterdam might still frustrate the whole plan if lewis were to send a great force into brabant
god support you william wrote and enable you to bear your part in a work on which as far as human beings can see
it was not over england alone that william's guardianship now extended scotland had risen on her tyrants all the regular soldiers by whom she had long been held down had been summoned by james to his help against the dutch invaders
with the exception of a very small force which under the command of the duke of gordon a great roman catholic lord garrisoned the castle of edinburgh every mail which had gone northward during the eventful month of november
had carried news which stirred the passions of the oppressed scots while the event of the military operations was still doubtful there were at edinburgh riots and clamours which became more menacing after james had retreated from salisbury
great crowds assembled at first by night and then by broad daylight popes were publicly burned loud shouts were raised for a free parliament placards were stuck up setting prices on the heads of the ministers of the crown
among those ministers perth as filling the great place of chancellor as standing high in the royal favour as an apostate from the reformed faith and as the man who had first introduced the thumbscrew into the jurisprudence of his country
was the most detested his nerves were weak his spirit abject and the only courage which he possessed was that evil courage which braves infamy and which looks steadily on the torments of others
his post at such a time was at the head of the council board but his heart failed him and he determined to take refuge at his country seat from the danger which as he judged by the looks and cries of the fierce and resolute populace of edinburgh was not remote
a strong guard escorted him safe to castle drummond but scarcely had he departed when the city rose up a few troops tried to suppress the insurrection but were overpowered the palace of holyrood which had been turned into a roman catholic seminary and printing house
was stormed and sacked huge heaps of popish books beads crucifixes and pictures were burned in the high street in the midst of the agitation came down the tidings of the king's flight the members of the government gave up all thought of contending with the popular fury
and changed sides with a promptitude then common among scottish politicians the privy council by one proclamation ordered that all papists should be disarmed and by another invited protestants to muster for the defence of pure religion
the nation had not waited for the call town and country were already up in arms for the prince of orange nithisdale and clydesdale were the only regions in which there was the least chance that the roman catholics would make head
and both nithisdale and clydesdale were soon occupied by bands of armed presbyterians among the insurgents were some fierce and moody men who had formerly disowned argyle and who were now equally eager to disown william
his highness they said was plainly a malignant there was not a word about the covenant in his declaration the dutch were a people with whom no true servant of the lord would unite they consorted with lutherans
he wildly tried to find consolation in the rites of his new church he importuned his priests for comfort prayed confessed and communicated but his faith was weak and he owned that in spite of all his devotions
the strong terrors of death were upon him at this time
he disguised himself as well as he could
he succeeded in embarking but in spite of all his precautions he had been recognised and the alarm had been given as soon as it was known that the cruel renegade was on the waters and that he had gold with him pursuers inflamed at once by hatred and by avarice were on his track
a skiff commanded by an old buccaneer overtook the flying vessel and boarded her perth was dragged out of the hold on deck in woman's clothes stripped hustled and plundered bayonets were held to his breast begging for life with unmanly cries
thence by order of the council over which he had lately presided and which was filled with men who had been partakers in his guilt he was removed to stirling castle it was on a sunday during the time of public worship that he was conveyed under a guard to his place of confinement
but even rigid puritans forgot the sanctity of the day and of the work the churches poured forth their congregations as the torturer passed by and the noise of threats execrations and screams of hatred
and many others now hastened thither to pay their court to him on the seventh of january he requested them to attend him at whitehall the assemblage was large and respectable the duke of hamilton and his eldest son the earl of arran
the chiefs of a house of almost regal dignity appeared at the head of the procession they were accompanied by thirty lords and about eighty gentlemen of note william desired them to consult together
and to let him know in what way he could best promote the welfare of their country he then withdrew and left them to deliberate unrestrained by his presence they repaired to the council chamber and put hamilton into the chair
though there seems to have been little difference of opinion their debates lasted three days a fact which is sufficiently explained by the circumstance that sir patrick hume was one of the debaters arran ventured to recommend a negotiation with the king
but this motion was ill received by the mover's father and by the whole assembly and did not even find a seconder at length resolutions were carried closely resembling the resolutions which the english lords and commoners had presented to the prince a few days before
there was a very small faction which wished to recall james without stipulations there was also a very small faction which wished to set up a commonwealth and to entrust the administration to a council of state under the presidency of the prince of orange
consisted of persons in whom love of hereditary monarchy and love of constitutional freedom were combined though in different proportions and who were equally opposed to the total abolition of the kingly office and to the unconditional restoration of the king
but in the wide interval which separated the bigots who still clung to the doctrines of filmer from the enthusiasts who still dreamed the dreams of harrington there was room for many shades of opinion
if we neglect minute subdivisions we shall find that the great majority of the nation and of the convention was divided into four bodies three of these bodies consisted of tories the whig party formed the fourth
the amity of the whigs and tories had not survived the peril which had produced it on several occasions during the prince's march from the west dissension had appeared among his followers
that dissension had by his skilful management been easily quieted but from the day on which he entered saint james's palace in triumph such management could no longer be practised his victory
by relieving the nation from the strong dread of popish tyranny had deprived him of half his influence old antipathies which had slept when bishops were in the tower when jesuits were at the council board
with all that from his youth up he had most hated with old parliamentary captains who had stormed his country house with old parliamentary commissioners who had sequestrated his estate with men who had plotted the rye house butchery and headed the western rebellion
that beloved church too for whose sake he had after a painful struggle broken through his allegiance to the throne was she really in safety or had he rescued her from one enemy only that she might be exposed to another
the popish priests indeed were in exile in hiding or in prison
but the presbyterian and independent teachers went in long procession to salute the chief of the government and were as graciously received as the true successors of the apostles some schismatics avowed the hope
that every fence which excluded them from ecclesiastical preferment would soon be levelled that the articles would be softened down that the liturgy would be garbled that christmas would cease to be a feast that good friday would cease to be a fast
that canons on whom no bishop had ever laid his hand would without the sacred vestment of white linen distribute in the choirs of cathedrals the eucharistic bread and wine to communicants lolling on benches the prince indeed
was not a fanatical presbyterian but he was at best a latitudinarian he had no scruple about communicating in the anglican form but he cared not in what form other people communicated his wife it was to be feared had imbibed too much of his spirit
and should in spite of all the faults of the hereditary monarch uphold the cause of hereditary monarchy the body which was animated by these sentiments was large and respectable
it included about one half of the house of lords about one third of the house of commons a majority of the country gentlemen and at least nine tenths of the clergy but it was torn by dissensions and beset on every side by difficulties
one section of this great party a section which was especially strong among divines and of which sherlock was the chief organ
it was in truth an attempt to make a middle way where there was no room for a middle way to effect a compromise between two things which do not admit of compromise resistance and nonresistance
the tories had formerly taken their stand on the principle of nonresistance but that ground most of them had now abandoned and were not disposed again to occupy the cavaliers of england had as a class
been so deeply concerned directly or indirectly in the late rising against the king that they could not for very shame talk at that moment about the sacred duty of obeying nero
the king ought to be immediately invited back and permitted if such were his pleasure to put seymour and danby the bishop of london and the bishop of bristol to death for high treason to reestablish the ecclesiastical commission
to fill the church with popish dignitaries and to place the army under the command of popish officers but if as the tories themselves now seemed to confess that theory was unsound why treat with the king
for what satisfactory guarantee could he give how was it possible to draw up an act of parliament in language clearer than the language of the acts of parliament which required that the dean of christ church should be a protestant
how was it possible to put any promise into words stronger than those in which james had repeatedly declared that he would strictly respect the legal rights of the anglican clergy if law or honour could have bound him
he would never have been forced to fly from his kingdom if neither law nor honour could bind him could he safely be permitted to return it is probable however that in spite of these arguments a motion for opening a negotiation with james
would have been made in the convention and would have been supported by the great body of tories had he not been on this as on every other occasion his own worst enemy
brought intelligence which damped the ardour of his adherents
and yet without despoiling him of his crown this device was a regency the most uncompromising of those divines who had inculcated the doctrine of passive obedience
had never maintained that such obedience was due to a babe or to a madman it was universally acknowledged that when the rightful sovereign was intellectually incapable of performing his office a deputy might be appointed to act in his stead
and that any person who should resist the deputy and should plead as an excuse for doing so the command of a prince who was in the cradle or who was raving would justly incur the penalties of rebellion stupidity perverseness and superstition
such was the reasoning of the primate had made james as unfit to rule his dominions as any child in swaddling clothes
that course must therefore be taken which had been taken when henry the sixth was an infant and again when he became lethargic james could not be king in effect but he must still continue to be king in semblance
writs must still run in his name his image and superscription must still appear on the coin and on the great seal acts of parliament must still be called from the years of his reign but the administration must be taken from him
and confided to a regent named by the estates of the realm in this way sancroft gravely maintained the people would remain true to their allegiance the oaths of fealty which they had sworn to their king would be strictly fulfilled
well informed of the approach of every danger while it is yet at a distance the indian generally rests secure under his knowledge of the signs of the forest and the long and difficult paths that separate him from those he has most reason to dread but the enemy who
by any lucky concurrence of accidents has found means to elude the vigilance of the scouts will seldom meet with sentinels nearer home to sound the alarm in addition to this general usage
but so soon as they were observed the whole of the juvenile pack raised by common consent a shrill and warning whoop and then sank as it were by magic from before the sight of their visitors
he found it everywhere met by dark quick and rolling eyeballs gathering no encouragement from this startling presage of the nature of the scrutiny he was likely to undergo from the more mature judgments of the men
there was an instant when the young soldier would have retreated it was however too late to appear to hesitate the cry of the children had drawn a dozen warriors to the door of the nearest lodge where they stood clustered in a dark and savage group
gravely awaiting the nearer approach of those who had unexpectedly come among them david in some measure familiarized to the scene led the way with a steadiness that no slight obstacle was likely to disconcert into this very building
it was the principal edifice of the village though roughly constructed of the bark and branches of trees being the lodge in which the tribe held its councils and public meetings during their temporary residence on the borders of the english province
he trusted to the discretion of his companion whose footsteps he closely followed endeavoring as he proceeded to rally his thoughts for the occasion his blood curdled when he found himself in absolute contact with such fierce and implacable enemies
and seated himself in silence so soon as their visitor had passed the observant warriors fell back from the entrance and arranging themselves about him they seemed patiently to await the moment when it might comport with the dignity of the stranger to speak
by far the greater number stood leaning in lazy lounging attitudes against the upright posts that supported the crazy building while three or four of the oldest and most distinguished of the chiefs placed themselves on the earth a little more in advance
a flaring torch was burning in the place and set its red glare from face to face and figure to figure as it waved in the currents of air duncan profited by its light to read the probable character of his reception
but his ingenuity availed him little against the cold artifices of the people he had encountered the chiefs in front scarce cast a glance at his person keeping their eyes on the ground with an air that might have been intended for respect
but which it was quite easy to construe into distrust
nor even the fashion of a garment unheeded and without comment at length one whose hair was beginning to be sprinkled with gray but whose sinewy limbs and firm tread announced that he was still equal to the duties of manhood
though they seemed by the gestures that accompanied them to be uttered more in courtesy than anger the latter shook his head and made a gesture indicative of his inability to reply do none of my brothers speak the french or the english
he said in the former language looking about him from countenance to countenance in hopes of finding a nod of assent though more than one had turned as if to catch the meaning of his words they remained unanswered i should be grieved to think
continued duncan speaking slowly and using the simplest french of which he was the master to believe that none of this wise and brave nation understand the language that the grand monarque uses when he talks to his children
in the language of the canadas when our great father speaks to his people is it with the tongue of a huron
whether the color of the skin be red or black or white returned duncan evasively though chiefly is he satisfied with the brave hurons in what manner will he speak
demanded the wary chief when the runners count to him the scalps which five nights ago grew on the heads of the yengeese they were his enemies said duncan shuddering involuntarily
he sees the dead yengeese but no huron what can this mean a great chief like him has more thoughts than tongues
he looks to see that no enemies are on his trail the canoe of a dead warrior will not float on the horican returned the savage gloomily his ears are open to the delawares
who are not our friends and they fill them with lies it cannot be see he has bid me who am a man that knows the art of healing to go to his children
the red hurons of the great lakes and ask if any are sick another silence succeeded this annunciation of the character duncan had assumed every eye was simultaneously bent on his person
as if to inquire into the truth or falsehood of the declaration with an intelligence and keenness that caused the subject of their scrutiny to tremble for the result he was however relieved again by the former speaker
do the cunning men of the canadas paint their skins the huron coldly continued we have heard them boast that their faces were pale
when an indian chief comes among his white fathers returned duncan with great steadiness
my brothers have given me paint and i wear it a low murmur of applause announced that the compliment of the tribe was favorably received the elderly chief made a gesture of commendation
and as he had already prepared a simple and probable tale to support his pretended occupation his hopes of ultimate success grew brighter after a silence of a few moments as if adjusting his thoughts in order to make a suitable answer to the declaration their guests had just given
another warrior arose and placed himself in an attitude to speak while his lips were yet in the act of parting a low but fearful sound arose from the forest and was immediately succeeded by a high shrill yell that was drawn out
until it equaled the longest and most plaintive howl of the wolf the sudden and terrible interruption caused duncan to start from his seat unconscious of everything but the effect produced by so frightful a cry at the same moment
which were still ringing beneath the arches of the woods unable to command himself any longer the youth broke from the place and presently stood in the center of a disorderly throng that included nearly everything having life within the limits of the encampment
men women and children the aged the inform the active and the strong were alike abroad some exclaiming aloud others clapping their hands with a joy that seemed frantic and all
expressing their savage pleasure in some unexpected event though astounded at first by the uproar heyward was soon enabled to find its solution by the scene that followed there yet lingered sufficient light in the heavens
to exhibit those bright openings among the tree tops where different paths left the clearing to enter the depths of the wilderness beneath one of them a line of warriors issued from the woods and advanced slowly toward the dwellings one in front bore a short pole
every disagreeable sensation was quieted in inward congratulation for the opportune relief and insignificance it conferred on himself when at the distance of a few hundred feet from the lodges the newly arrived warriors halted
their plaintive and terrific cry which was intended to represent equally the wailings of the dead and the triumph to the victors had entirely ceased
in words that were far from appalling though not more intelligible to those for whose ears they were intended than their expressive yells it would be difficult to convey a suitable idea of the savage ecstasy with which the news thus imparted was received
the squaws seized clubs axes or whatever weapon of offense first offered itself to their hands and rushed eagerly to act their part in the cruel game that was at hand even the children would not be excluded
but boys little able to wield the instruments tore the tomahawks from the belts of their fathers and stole into the ranks apt imitators of the savage traits exhibited by their parents
large piles of brush lay scattered about the clearing and a wary and aged squaw was occupied in firing as many as might serve to light the coming exhibition as the flame arose
its power exceeded that of the parting day and assisted to render objects at the same time more distinct and more hideous the whole scene formed a striking picture whose frame was composed of the dark and tall border of pines
the warriors just arrived were the most distant figures a little in advance stood two men who were apparently selected from the rest as the principal actors in what was to follow
though it was quite evident that they were governed by very different emotions while one stood erect and firm prepared to meet his fate like a hero the other bowed his head as if palsied by terror or stricken with shame
the high spirited duncan felt a powerful impulse of admiration and pity toward the former
to exhibit his generous emotions he watched his slightest movement however with eager eyes and as he traced the fine outline of his admirably proportioned and active frame he endeavored to persuade himself that if the powers of man
seconded by such noble resolution could bear one harmless through so severe a trial the youthful captive before him might hope for success in the hazardous race he was about to run insensibly
that far exceeded any before heard the more abject of the two victims continued motionless but the other bounded from the place at the cry with the activity and swiftness of a deer instead of rushing through the hostile lines as had been expected
and leaping the heads of a row of children he gained at once the exterior and safer side of the formidable array the artifice was answered by a hundred voices raised in imprecations and the whole of the excited multitude broke from their order
and spread themselves about the place in wild confusion a dozen blazing piles now shed their lurid brightness on the place which resembled some unhallowed and supernatural arena
in which malicious demons had assembled to act their bloody and lawless rites the forms in the background looked like unearthly beings gliding before the eye and cleaving the air with frantic and unmeaning gestures
while the savage passions of such as passed the flames were rendered fearfully distinct by the gleams that shot athwart their inflamed visages it will easily be understood that amid such a concourse of vindictive enemies no breathing time was allowed the fugitive
but the whole body of his captors threw themselves before him and drove him back into the center of his relentless persecutors turning like a headed deer he shot with the swiftness of an arrow through a pillar of forked flame
and passing the whole multitude harmless he appeared on the opposite side of the clearing here too he was met and turned by a few of the older and more subtle of the hurons once more he tried the throng as if seeking safety in its blindness
arms gleaming knives and formidable clubs appeared above them but the blows were evidently given at random the awful effect was heightened by the piercing shrieks of the women and the fierce yells of the warriors
now and then duncan caught a glimpse of a light form cleaving the air in some desperate bound and he rather hoped than believed that the captive yet retained the command of his astonishing powers of activity
suddenly the multitude rolled backward and approached the spot where he himself stood the heavy body in the rear pressed upon the women and children in front and bore them to the earth the stranger reappeared in the confusion
human power could not however much longer endure so severe a trial of this the captive seemed conscious profiting by the momentary opening he darted from among the warriors and made a desperate
and what seemed to duncan a final effort to gain the wood as if aware that no danger was to be apprehended from the young soldier the fugitive nearly brushed his person in his flight a tall and powerful huron who had husbanded his forces
pressed close upon his heels and with an uplifted arm menaced a fatal blow duncan thrust forth a foot and the shock precipitated the eager savage headlong many feet in advance of his intended victim
thought itself is not quicker than was the motion with which the latter profited by the advantage he turned gleamed like a meteor again before the eyes of duncan and at the next moment when the latter recovered his recollection and gazed around in quest of the captive
he saw him quietly leaning against a small painted post which stood before the door of the principal lodge apprehensive that the part he had taken in the escape might prove fatal to himself duncan left the place without delay he followed the crowd
and breathing thick and hard after his exertions but disdaining to permit a single sign of suffering to escape his person was now protected by immemorial and sacred usage until the tribe in council had deliberated and determined on his fate
that the disappointed women did not lavishly expend on the successful stranger they flouted at his efforts and told him with bitter scoffs that his feet were better than his hands and that he merited wings
to all this the captive made no reply but was content to preserve an attitude in which dignity was singularly blended with disdain exasperated as much by his composure as by his good fortune their words became unintelligible
and were succeeded by shrill piercing yells
who had taken the necessary precaution to fire the piles made her way through the throng and cleared a place for herself in front of the captive the squalid and withered person of this hag might well have obtained for her the character of possessing more than human cunning
as more intelligible to the subject of her gibes she commenced aloud look you delaware she said snapping her fingers in his face your nation is a race of women
your squaws are the mothers of deer but if a bear or a wildcat or a serpent were born among you ye would flee the huron girls shall make you petticoats and we will find you a husband
a burst of savage laughter succeeded this attack during which the soft and musical merriment of the younger females strangely chimed with the cracked voice of their older and more malignant companion but the stranger was superior to all their efforts
his head was immovable nor did he betray the slightest consciousness that any were present except when his haughty eye rolled toward the dusky forms of the warriors who stalked in the background silent and sullen observers of the scene
infuriated at the self command of the captive the woman placed her arms akimbo and throwing herself into a posture of defiance she broke out anew in a torrent of words that no art of ours could commit successfully to paper her breath was however
expended in vain for although distinguished in her nation as a proficient in the art of abuse she was permitted to work herself into such a fury as actually to foam at the mouth without causing a muscle to vibrate in the motionless figure of the stranger
the effect of his indifference began to extend itself to the other spectators and a youngster who was just quitting the condition of a boy to enter the state of manhood attempted to assist the termagant
by flourishing his tomahawk before their victim and adding his empty boasts to the taunts of the women then indeed the captive turned his face toward the light and looked down on the stripling with an expression that was superior to contempt
at the next moment he resumed his quiet and reclining attitude against the post but the change of posture had permitted duncan to exchange glances with the firm and piercing eyes of uncas
breathless with amazement and heavily oppressed with the critical situation of his friend heyward recoiled before the look trembling lest its meaning might in some unknown manner hasten the prisoner's fate
there was not however any instant cause for such an apprehension just then a warrior forced his way into the exasperated crowd motioning the women and children aside with a stern gesture he took uncas by the arm
and led him toward the door of the council lodge thither all the chiefs and most of the distinguished warriors followed among whom the anxious heyward found means to enter without attracting any dangerous attention to himself
a few minutes were consumed in disposing of those present in a manner suitable to their rank and influence in the tribe an order very similar to that adopted in the preceding interview was observed the aged and superior chiefs occupying the area of the spacious apartment
within the powerful light of a glaring torch while their juniors and inferiors were arranged in the background presenting a dark outline of swarthy and marked visages in the very center of the lodge
immediately under an opening that admitted the twinkling light of one or two stars stood uncas calm elevated and collected his high and haughty carriage was not lost on his captors who often bent their looks on his person with eyes which
plainly betrayed their admiration of the stranger's daring the case was different with the individual whom duncan had observed to stand forth with his friend previously to the desperate trial of speed and who instead of joining in the chase had remained
as though impelled by a fate to whose decrees he submitted seemingly without a struggle heyward profited by the first opportunity to gaze in his face secretly apprehensive he might find the features of another acquaintance
but they proved to be those of a stranger and what was still more inexplicable of one who bore all the distinctive marks of a huron warrior instead of mingling with his tribe however he sat apart a solitary being in a multitude
his form shrinking into a crouching and abject attitude as if anxious to fill as little space as possible when each individual had taken his proper station and silence reigned in the place the gray haired chief already introduced to the reader
delaware he said though one of a nation of women you have proved yourself a man i would give you food but he who eats with a huron should become his friend
rest in peace till the morning sun when our last words shall be spoken seven nights and as many summer days have i fasted on the trail of the hurons uncas coldly replied
resumed the other without appearing to regard the boast of his captive when they get back then will our wise man say to you live or die has a huron no ears scornfully exclaimed uncas
who understood the mohican to allude to the fatal rifle of the scout bent forward in earnest observation of the effect it might produce on the conquerors but the chief was content with simply retorting
he pointed with his finger toward the solitary huron but without deigning to bestow any other notice on so unworthy an object the words of the answer and the air of the speaker produced a strong sensation among his auditors
every eye rolled sullenly toward the individual indicated by the simple gesture and a low threatening murmur passed through the crowd the ominous sounds reached the outer door and the women and children pressing into the throng
no gap had been left between shoulder and shoulder that was not now filled with the dark lineaments of some eager and curious human countenance in the meantime the more aged chiefs in the center communed with each other in short and broken sentences
not a word was uttered that did not convey the meaning of the speaker in the simplest and most energetic form again a long and deeply solemn pause took place it was known by all present to be the brave precursor of a weighty and important judgment
they who composed the outer circle of faces were on tiptoe to gaze and even the culprit for an instant forgot his shame in a deeper emotion and exposed his abject features in order to cast an anxious and troubled glance at the dark assemblage of chiefs
the silence was finally broken by the aged warrior so often named he arose from the earth and moving past the immovable form of uncas placed himself in a dignified attitude before the offender at that moment
holding the torch and muttering the indistinct words of what might have been a species of incantation though her presence was altogether an intrusion it was unheeded
approaching uncas she held the blazing brand in such a manner as to cast its red glare on his person and to expose the slightest emotion of his countenance the mohican maintained his firm and haughty attitude and his eyes so far from deigning to meet her inquisitive look
dwelt steadily on the distance as though it penetrated the obstacles which impeded the view and looked into futurity satisfied with her examination she left him with a slight expression of pleasure and proceeded to practise the same trying experiment
the light rendered every limb and joint discernible and duncan turned away in horror when he saw they were writhing in irrepressible agony the woman was commencing a low and plaintive howl at the sad and shameful spectacle when the chief put forth his hand
and gently pushed her aside reed that bends he said addressing the young culprit by name and in his proper language though the great spirit has made you pleasant to the eyes it would have been better that you had not been born
your tongue is loud in the village but in battle it is still none of my young men strike the tomahawk deeper into the war post none of them so lightly on the yengeese the enemy know the shape of your back
but they have never seen the color of your eyes three times have they called on you to come and as often did you forget to answer your name will never be mentioned again in your tribe it is already forgotten
as the chief slowly uttered these words pausing impressively between each sentence the culprit raised his face in deference to the other's rank and years shame horror and pride struggled in its lineaments his eye which was contracted with inward anguish
gleamed on the persons of those whose breath was his fame and the latter emotion for an instant predominated he arose to his feet and baring his bosom looked steadily on the keen glittering knife that was already upheld by his inexorable judge
as the weapon passed slowly into his heart he even smiled as if in joy at having found death less dreadful than he had anticipated and fell heavily on his face at the feet of the rigid and unyielding form of uncas
dashed the torch to the earth and buried everything in darkness the whole shuddering group of spectators glided from the lodge like troubled sprites and duncan thought that he and the yet throbbing body of the victim of an indian judgment
chapter four the overlanders when the cariboo fever reached the east the public there had heard neither of the indian massacres in oregon nor that the sioux were on the war path in dakota
promoters who had never set foot west of buffalo launched wild cat mining companies and parcel express devices and stages by routes that went up sheer walls and crossed unbridged rivers to such frauds there could be no certain check
cariboo became in popular imagination a land where nuggets grew on the side of the road and could be picked by the bushel basket besides times were so hard in the east that the majority of the youthful adventurers who were caught by the fever
having noticed advertisements of an easy stage route from saint paul set out for the gold diggings in may eighteen sixty two tickets could be purchased in london england as well as in canada for when these young canadians reached saint paul
they found eighteen young men from england like themselves diligently searching the whereabouts of the stage route that was their first inkling that fraudulent practices were being carried on and that they had been deceived that there was in fact
no stage route from saint paul to cariboo a few of them turned back but the majority by ox cart and rickety stagecoach pushed on to the red river and went up to a point near the boundary of modern manitoba where lay the first steamboat to navigate that river
about to start on her maiden trip on this steamboat the little international afterwards famous for running into sand banks and mud bars the troops of overlanders took passage and stowed themselves away wherever they could some in the cook's galley
a band of horsemen swept over the horizon and the travellers found themselves surrounded by sioux warriors the old plainsman who acted as guide bethought him of a ruse he hoisted a flag of the hudson's bay company and waved it in the face of the sioux without speaking
the painted warriors drew together and conferred the oxen stood complacently chewing the cud indians never molested british fur traders presently the raiders went off over the horizon as swiftly as they had come and the gold seekers drove on
little realizing the fate from which they had been delivered there had been heavy rains that spring on the prairie and trees came jouncing down the muddy flood of the red river the little international like a panicky bicycle rider steered straight for every tree
and hit one with such impact that her smokestack came toppling down
that it required all the crew and most of the passengers to shove her off but everybody was jubilant this was the first navigation of the red river by steam the queen's birthday the twenty fourth of may
was celebrated on board the vessel pottle deep to the tune of the bagpipes played by the governor's scottish piper
indians ran along the river bank firing off rifles in welcome and opposite the flats where the fort gate opened on what is now main street the company's men came out and fired a royal salute
the people bound for cariboo camped on the flats outside fort garry here was a strange world indeed two wheeled ox carts made wholly of wood without iron or bolt wound up to the fort from saint paul in processions a mile long
and abreast on sinewy ponies riding bareback or on home made saddles only a few stores stood along what is now main street which ran northward towards the selkirk settlement
the overlanders began to barter for carts oxen ponies and dried deer meat or pemmican an ox and cart cost from forty to fifty dollars ponies sold at twenty five dollars pemmican cost sixteen cents a pound
and a pair of duffel hudson's bay blankets cost eight or ten dollars instead of blankets many of the travellers bought the cheaper buffalo robes these sold as low as a dollar each john black the presbyterian apostle of the red river
one wonders whether as the last ox cart creaked into the distance the fur traders realized that the miner heralded the settler and that the settler would fence off the hunter's game preserve into farms and cities
not the less rare because hope beckoned the travellers the unfenced prairie billowed to the horizon a sea of green
and decked with the hues of gorgeous flowers the prairie rose fragrant tender elusive and fragile as the english primrose the blood red tiger lily the brown windflower with its corn tassel the heavy wax cups
of the sedgy water lily growing where wild duck flackered unafraid game was superabundant prairie chickens nestled along the single file trail deer bounded from the poplar thickets
an hour was permitted for harnessing and breaking camp and then the carts creaked out in line they halted at six for breakfast and marched again at seven dinner was at two supper at six and tents were seldom pitched before nine at night
on sunday the procession rested and some one read divine service the oxen and ponies foraged for themselves by limiting camp to five hours in spite of the slow pace of the oxen
dreaming of the fortunes awaiting them in cariboo some nights when the captain permitted a longer halt than usual and when camp fires blazed before the tents men played the violin and sang and danced each man was his own cook
in the company was one woman with two children she was an irishwoman but she bore the name of shubert from which we may infer that her husband was not an irishman sunday having intervened
heavy rains came on now and james m'kay
the weather became oppressively hot and mosquitoes swarmed from the sloughs at carlton and at fort pitt
husky dogs in wolfish packs surrounded the camp of the overlanders and stole pemmican from under the tent flaps from fort pitt westward the trail crossed a rough wooded country and there were no more scows to take the ox carts across the rivers
eleven days of continuous rain had flooded the sloughs into swamps and in three days as many as eight corduroy bridges had to be built
and light poles were laid across the floating trees where the trees swerved to the current some one would swim out and anchor them with ropes till the hundred carts had passed safely to the other side it was the twenty first of july
and the travellers were welcomed inside the fort the arrival of the overlanders is remembered at edmonton by some old timers even to this day salvoes of welcome were fired from the fort cannon
by a half breed shooting his musket into the touch hole of the big gun concerts were given with bagpipes concertinas flutes drums and fiddles in honour of the far travellers pemmican bags were replenished from the company's stores
miners often uttered loud complaints against the charges made by the fur traders for provisions forgetting what it cost to pack these provisions in by dog train and canoe
had withheld their help the overlanders would have perished before they reached the rockies though the miner did everything to destroy the fur trade started fires which ravaged the hunter's forest haunts put up saloons which demoralized the indians
built wagon roads where aforetime wandered only the shy creatures of the wilds though the miner heralded the doom of the fur trade yet with an unvarying courtesy from fort garry to the rockies the hudson's bay men helped the overlanders
contrivances consisting of two poles within which the horses were attached
why now when the huskies have chewed all you own but your instruments you are locking the stable door after your horse has been stolen no answered the prospectors if those husky dogs last night could devour all our camp kit without disturbing us
to night they might swallow us before we'd waken the next pause was at saint albert one of father lacombe's missions what surprised the overlanders as they advanced was the amazing fertility of the soil
at fort garry at pitt at edmonton at saint albert at saint ann they saw great fields of wheat barley and potatoes afterwards many who failed in the mines drifted back to the plains and became farmers
and finding yellow specks the size of pin heads in the fine sand a number of them knocked up cabins for themselves
later when these belated overlanders decided to follow on to cariboo they suffered terrible hardships the overlanders were to enter the rockies by the yellowhead pass which had been discovered long ago by jasper hawse of the hudson's bay company
this section of their trail is visible to the modern traveller from the windows of a grand trunk pacific railway train just as the lower sections of the cariboo trail in the fraser canyon are to be seen from the trains of the canadian pacific and the canadian northern
first came the fur trader seeking adventure through these passes pursuing the little beaver the miner came next fevered to delirium lured by the siren of an elusive yellow goddess the settler came third prosaic and plodding
the travellers were now glad to cover ten miles a day fallen trees lay across the trail in impassable ramparts and floods filled the gullies scouts went ahead blazing trees to show the way bushwhackers followed
cutting away windfall and throwing logs into sloughs horses sank to their withers in seemingly bottomless muskegs
a continuous and self fed fire burning on the crown of a hill
whose torrential current warned them of rising ground three times in one day windfall and swamp forced the party to ford the stream for passage on the opposite side the oxen swam and the ox carts floated
fortune what cared these argonauts who had tramped across the width of the continent that the lofty mountains raised a sheer wall between them and their treasure cheer on cheer rang from the encampment men with clothes in tatters pitched caps in air
it is perhaps well
but there were no faint hearts in the camp that night even the irishwoman's two little children came out and gazed at what they could not understand the party now crossed a ravine to the main stream of the athabaska it was necessary to camp here for a week
to the stern of this was attached a tree the branch end dipping in the water as a sweep and rudder to keep the craft to its course on this the overlanders were ferried across the athabaska
the argonauts early in eighteen forty nine the sleepy quiet of victoria vancouver island was disturbed by the arrival of straggling groups of ragged nondescript wanderers
who were neither trappers nor settlers they carried blanket packs on their backs and leather bags belted securely round the waist close to their pistols they did not wear moccasins after the fashion of trappers
and had little to say to any one they volunteered little information as to whence they had come or whither they were going they sought out roderick finlayson chief trader for the hudson's bay company
iron ladles and wire screens it was only when they came to pay that finlayson felt sure of what he had already guessed they unstrapped those little leather bags round under their cartridge belts
and produced in tiny gold nuggets the price of what they had bought finlayson did not know exactly what to do the fur trader hated the miner the miner wherever he went sounded the knell of fur trading
and the trapper did not like to have his game preserve overrun by fellows who scared off all animals from traps set fire going to clear away underbrush and owned responsibility to no authority no doubt these men were argonauts
drifted up from the gold diggings of california no doubt they were searching for new mines but who had ever heard of gold in vancouver island or in new caledonia as the mainland was named if there had been gold would not the company have found it
very doubtful what the real value would prove it proved sixteen dollars to the ounce
many of the company's servants drifted away to california in the wake of the forty niners and the company found it hard to keep its trappers from deserting all up and down the pacific coast the quest for gold had become a sort of yellow fever madness
men flung certainty to the winds and trekked recklessly to california to oregon to the hinterland of the country round colville and okanagan yet nothing occurred to cause any excitement in victoria
there was a short lived flurry over the discovery in queen charlotte islands of a nugget valued at six hundred dollars and a vein of gold bearing quartz
the quartz could not be worked at a profit
the chief trader at the little fur post of yale reported that when he rinsed sand round in his camp frying pan fine flakes and scales of yellow could be seen at the bottom
but gold in such minute particles would not satisfy the men who were hunting nuggets it required treatment by quicksilver
kept all the specks and flakes brought to his post as samples from eighteen fifty two to eighteen fifty six he had less than would fill a half pint bottle if a half pint is counted as a half pound
and the gold at the company's price of eleven dollars an ounce it will be seen why four years of such discoveries did not set victoria on fire it has been so with every discovery of gold in the history of the world
the silent shaggy ragged first scouts of the gold stampede wander houseless for years from hill to hill from gully to gully up rivers up stream beds up dry watercourses
seeking the source of those yellow specks seen far down the mountains near the sea precipice rapids avalanche winter storm take their toll of dead corpses are washed down in the spring floods
smashed by a snowslide under which lie two dead pardners then by and by when everybody has forgotten about it a shaggy man comes out of the wilds with a leather bag the bag goes to the mint
and the world goes mad victoria went to sleep again when men drifted in to trade dust and nuggets for picks and flour the fur traders smiled
james douglas was governor he was assisted in the administration by a council of three nominated by himself john tod james cooper and roderick finlayson in eighteen fifty six
a colonial legislature was elected and met at victoria in august for the first time
the company owned the colony and its will was supreme in the government john work was the company's chief factor at victoria and finlayson was chief trader because california and oregon had gone american
some small british warships lay at esquimalt harbour the little fort had expanded beyond the stockade the governor's house was to the east of the stockade a new church had been built
two schools had been built inside the fort were perhaps forty five employees inside and outside lived some eight hundred people but grass grew in the roads
and on which were perhaps a hundred cattle and a score of brood mares the company also had a saw mill buildings of huge squared timbers flanked three sides of the inner stockades the dining hall the cook house
only a fringe of settlement went beyond the company's farm the fort was sound asleep secure in an eternal certainty that the domain which it guarded would never be overrun by american settlers as california and oregon had been
the little admiralty cruisers which lay at esquimalt were guarantee that new caledonia should never be stampeded into a republic by an inrush of aliens then as now
it was victoria's boast that it was more english than england so passed christmas of fifty seven with plum pudding and a roasted ox and toasts to the crown and the company
though we cannot be quite sure that the company was not put before the crown in the souls of the fur traders then in march eighteen fifty eight just when victoria felt most secure as the capital of a perpetual fur realm
something happened a few yankee prospectors had gone down on the hudson's bay steamer otter to san francisco in february with gold dust and nuggets
by canoe by dugout by pack horse and on foot they planned to ascend the fraser and they mobbed the company for passage to langley by the first steamer out from victoria goods were paid for in cash
before finlayson could believe his own eyes he had two million dollars in his safe some of it for purchases some of it on deposit for safe keeping though the company gave no guarantee to the depositors
and simply sealed each man's leather pouch as it was placed in the safe no complaint was ever made against it of dishonesty or unfair treatment without waiting instructions from england and with poignant memory of oregon
governor douglas at once clapped on a licence of twenty one shillings a month for mining privileges under the british crown thus he obtained a rough registration of the men going to the up country but thousands passed victoria altogether
another boat load of eight hundred and fifty came in april in four months sixty seven vessels carrying from a hundred to a thousand men each had come up from san francisco to victoria crews deserted their ships clerks deserted the company
trappers turned miners and took to the gold bars before victoria awoke to what it was all about twenty thousand people were camped under tents outside the stockade and the air was full of the wildest rumours of fabulous gold finds
in the spring the fraser rolled to the sea a swollen flood against the turbid current worked tipsy rafts towed by wheezy steamers or leaky old sailing craft
and rickety row boats raced cockle shell canoes for the gold bars above ashore the banks of the river were lined with foot passengers toiling under heavy packs wagons to which clung human forms on every foot of space
and long rows of pack horses bogged in the flood of the overflowing river by september ten thousand men were rocking and washing for gold round yale
a mushroom boom in town lots had sprung up at these points before victoria was well awake by the time speculators reached victoria the best lots in that place had already been bought by the company's men
and some of the substantial fortunes of victoria date from this period though the river was so high that the richest bars could not be worked till late in august five hundred thousand dollars in gold was taken from the bed of the fraser
and twelve dollars for each vessel with decks later these tolls were disallowed by the home authorities the prompt action of douglas however had the effect of keeping the mining movement in hand
on fraser river about a fourth of the canoes that attempt to come up are lost in the rapids which extend from fort yale nearly to the forks a few days ago six men were drowned by their canoe upsetting
there is more danger going down than coming up there can be no doubt about this country being immensely rich in gold almost every bar on the river from yale up will pay from three dollars to seven dollars a day to the man
at the present stage of water when the river gets low which will be about august the bars will pay very well one hundred and ninety six dollars was taken out by one man last winter in a few hours
but the water was then at its lowest stage the gold on the bars is all very fine and hard to save in a rocker
good wages can be made almost anywhere on the river as long as the bars are actually covered with water we have not yet been able to find a place where we can work anything but rockers if we could get a sluice to work
we could make from twelve dollars to sixteen dollars a day each we only commenced work yesterday and we are satisfied that when we get fully under way we can make from five dollars to seven dollars a day each
a few men have been there and proved the existence of rich diggings by bringing specimens back with them the indians all along the river have gold in their possession that they say they dug themselves but they will not tell where they get it
nor allow small parties to go up after it i have seen pieces in their possession weighing two pounds the indians above are disposed to be troublesome and went into a camp twenty miles above us and forcibly took provisions and arms from a party of four men
and cut two severely with their knives they came to our camp the same day and insisted that we should trade with them or leave the country we design to remain here until we can get a hundred men together when we will move up above the falls
and do just what we please without regard to the indians we are at present the highest up of any white men on the river
but there will be hell to pay after a while there is a pack trail from hope but it cannot be travelled till the snow is off the mountains the prices of provisions are as follows flour thirty five dollars per hundred weight
pork a dollar a pound beans fifty cents a pound and other things in proportion every party that starts from the sound should have their own supplies to last them three or four months and they should bring the largest size chinook canoes
as small ones are very liable to swamp in the rapids each canoe should be provided with thirty fathoms of strong line for towing over swift water
sprang up along the river bank as if by magic naturally the last comers of fifty eight were too late to get a place on the gold bars and they went back to the coast in disgust calling the gold stampede the fraser river humbug
often the day's yield ran as high as eight hundred dollars a man
from dry gully to precipice edge and often over the edge to death or fortune exactly fifty six years from the first rush of fifty eight in the month of april i sat on the banks of the fraser at yale
and punted across the rapids in a flat bottomed boat and swirled in and out among the eddies of the famous bars
higher up could be seen some chinamen but whether they were fishing or washing we could not tell two transcontinental railroads skirted the canyon one on each side and the tents of a thousand construction workers
stood where once were the camps of the gold seekers banded together for protection when we came back across the river an old old man met us and sat talking to us on the bank
he had come to the fraser in that first rush of fifty eight he had been one of the leaders against the murderous bands of indians then he had pushed on up the river to cariboo travelling as he told us
wherever the float or sign of mineral might lead him both on the fraser and in cariboo he had found his share of luck and ill luck and he plainly regretted the passing of that golden age of danger and adventure
but he said pointing his trembling old hands at the two railways if we prospectors hadn't blazed the trail of the canyon you wouldn't have your railroads here to day they only followed the trail we first cut and then built
also there were blue moons
nevertheless they were as common as were green suns in eighteen eighty three science had to account for these unconventionalities such publications as nature and knowledge were besieged with inquiries
i suppose in alaska and in the south sea islands all the medicine men were similarly upon trial something had to be thought of upon the twenty eighth of august eighteen eighty three the volcano of krakatoa of the straits of sunda
had blown up terrific we're told that the sound was heard two thousand miles and that thirty six thousand three hundred eighty persons were killed seems just a little unscientific or impositive to me
it is said that these phenomena were caused by particles of volcanic dust that were cast high in the air by krakatoa this is the explanation that was agreed upon in eighteen eighty three but for seven years the atmospheric phenomena continued
except that in the seven there was a lapse of several years and where was the volcanic dust all that time
so how can you prove that something is not something else when neither is something else some other thing there's nothing to prove this is one of the profundities that we advertised in advance
you can oppose an absurdity only with some other absurdity but science is established preposterousness we divide all intellection the obviously preposterousness and the established but krakatoa
that's the explanation that the scientists gave
as much as it can external relations of this earth this book is an assemblage of data of external relations of this earth we take the position that our data have been damned upon no consideration for individual merits or demerits
but in conformity with a general attempt to hold out for isolation of this earth this is attempted positiveness we take the position that science can no more succeed than
scientists have perpetrated such an enormity as suspension of volcanic dust seven years in the air disregarding the lapse of several years
the arrival of dust from somewhere beyond this earth not that scientists themselves have ever achieved positiveness in its aspect of unitedness among themselves because nordenskiold
before eighteen eighty three wrote a great deal upon his theory of cosmic dust and professor cleveland abbe contended against the krakatoan explanation but that this is the orthodoxy of the main body of scientists
my own chief reason for indignation here that this preposterous explanation interferes with some of my own enormities it would cost me too much explaining if i should have to admit that this earth's atmosphere
for instance the turtle of vicksburg
and forty plates some of them marvelously colored it was issued after an investigation that took five years you couldn't think of anything done more efficiently artistically authoritatively the mathematical parts are especially impressive
distribution of the dust of krakatoa velocity of translation
annual register
before the eruption occurred
that they were seen in natal south africa six months before the eruption inertia and its inhospitality or
raw meat should not be fed to babies we shall have a few data initiatorily i fear me that the horse and the barn were a little extreme for our budding liberalities the outrageous is the reasonable
if introduced politely hailstones for instance one reads in the newspapers of hailstones the size of hens eggs one smiles nevertheless i will engage to list one hundred instances from the monthly weather review
of the smithsonian institution eighteen seventy four hundred seventy nine two pounders authenticated and six pounders reported at seringapatam india about the year eighteen hundred fell a hailstone
i fear me i fear me this is one of the profoundly damned i blurt out something that should perhaps be withheld for several hundred pages but that damned thing was the size of an elephant
one smiles in montana in the winter of eighteen eighty seven fell snowflakes fifteen inches across and eight inches thick monthly weather review nineteen fifteen seventy three
in the topography of intellection i should say that what we call knowledge is ignorance surrounded by laughter black rains red rains
the fall of a thousand tons of butter jet black snow pink snow blue hailstones hailstones flavored like oranges punk and silk and charcoal
about one hundred years ago if anyone was so credulous as to think that stones had ever fallen from the sky he was reasoned with in the first place there are no stones in the sky therefore no stones can fall from the sky
or nothing more reasonable or scientific or logical than that could be said upon any subject the only trouble is the universal trouble that the major premise is not real or is intermediate somewhere between realness
and unrealness in seventeen seventy two a committee of whom lavoisier was a member was appointed by the french academy to investigate a report that a stone had fallen from the sky at luce france
the exclusionists explanation at that time was that stones do not fall from the sky
and that hot stones may be picked up where a luminous object seemingly had landed only lightning striking a stone heating even melting it the stone of luce showed signs of fusion
lavoisier's analysis absolutely proved
so authoritatively falling stones were damned the stock means of exclusion remained the explanation of lightning that was seen to strike something that had been upon the ground in the first place
but positiveness and the fate of every positive statement it is not customary to think of damned stones raising an outcry against a sentence of exclusion but subjectively
or data of them bombarded the walls raised against them monthly review
the phenomenon which is the subject of the remarks before us will seem to most persons as little worthy of credit as any that could be offered the falling of large stones from the sky without any assignable cause of their previous ascent
seems to partake so much of the marvelous as almost entirely to exclude the operation of known and natural agents yet a body of evidence is here brought to prove that such events have actually taken place
the writer abandons the first or absolute exclusion and modifies it with the explanation that the day before a reported fall of stones in tuscany june sixteenth seventeen ninety four there had been an eruption of vesuvius
it's more than one hundred and twenty years later
that has ever been acceptably traced to terrestrial origin falling stones had to be undamned
of outside forces one may have the knowledge of a lavoisier and still not be able to analyze not be able even to see
except conformably with the hypnoses or the conventional reactions against hypnoses of one's era we believe no more we accept
little by little the whirlwind and volcano explanations had to be abandoned but so powerful was this exclusion hypnosis sentence of damnation or this attempt at positiveness
that far into our own times some scientists notably professor lawrence smith and sir robert ball continued to hold out against all external origins asserting that nothing could fall to this earth
but the common impression of them is only a retreat of attempted exclusion that only two kinds of substance fall from the sky metallic and stony
as late as november nineteen o two
a member of the selborne society still argued that meteorites do not fall from the sky that they are masses of iron upon the ground in the first place that attract lightning
viscous and putrid
story of a highly unpleasant substance that had fallen from the sky in wilson county tennessee we read that doctor troost visited the place and investigated later we're going to investigate some investigations
that they had scattered the decaying flesh of a dead hog over the tobacco fields if we don't accept this datum
it had been examined and described by professor graves formerly lecturer at dartmouth college it was an object that had upon it a nap similar to that of milled cloth upon removing this nap
a buff colored pulpy substance was found
is professor graves account communicated by professor dewey that upon the evening of august thirteenth eighteen nineteen a light was seen in amherst a falling object sound
the next morning in professor dewey's front yard in what is said to have been the only position from which the light that had been seen in the room the night before could have been reflected
was found a substance unlike anything before observed by anyone who saw it it was a bowl shaped object about eight inches in diameter and one inch thick bright buff colored and having upon it a
upon removing this covering a buff colored pulpy substance of the consistency of soft soap was found of an offensive suffocating smell
a few minutes of exposure to the air changed the buff color to a livid color resembling venous blood it absorbed moisture quickly from the air and liquefied for some of the chemic reactions see the journal
that seems to me to belong here london times april nineteenth eighteen thirty six fall of fish that had occurred in the neighborhood
it is said that the fish were of the chalwa species about a span in length and a seer in weight you know they were dead and dry or
even though they were so definitely identified as of a known local species or they were not fish at all i incline myself to the acceptance that they were not fish
it is said that whatever they were they could not be eaten that in the pan
may sixteenth or seventeen eighteen thirty four is the date given in the journal
occurs the inevitable damnation of the amherst object professor edward hitchcock went to live in amherst
had been found at nearly the same place professor hitchcock was invited by professor graves to examine it exactly like the first one corresponded in size and color and consistency the chemic reactions were the same professor hitchcock
recognized it in a moment it was a gelatinous fungus he did not satisfy himself as to just the exact species it belonged to but he predicted that similar fungi might spring up within twenty four hours
but before evening two others sprang up or we've arrived at one of the oldest of the exclusionists conventions or nostoc we shall have many data
almost always the exclusionists argue
an alga or in some respects a fungous growth the rival convention is spawn of frogs or of fishes these two conventions have made a strong combination
when the testimony was too good that it had fallen
in a whirlwind now i can't say that nostoc is always greenish any more than i can say that blackbirds are always black having seen a white one we shall quote a scientist who knew of flesh colored nostoc when
so to know was convenient when we come to reported falls of gelatinous substances i'd like it to be noticed how often they are described as whitish or grayish in looking up the subject myself i have read only
green science gossip
it would seem acceptable that if many reports of white birds should occur the birds are not blackbirds even though there have been white blackbirds or that if often reported
grayish or whitish gelatinous substance is not nostoc and is not spawn if occurring in times unseasonable for spawn the kentucky phenomenon
and now we have an occurrence that attracted a great deal of attention in its own time usually these things of the accursed have been hushed up or disregarded suppressed like the seven black rains of slains but upon march third eighteen seventy six
something occurred in bath county kentucky that brought many newspaper correspondents to the scene the substance that looked like beef that fell from the sky
upon march third eighteen seventy six at olympian springs bath county kentucky flakes of a substance that looked like beef fell from the sky from a clear sky we'd like to emphasize that it was said
that nothing but this falling substance was visible in the sky it fell in flakes of various sizes some two inches square
the flake formation is interesting later we shall think of it as signifying pressure somewhere it was a thick shower on the ground on trees on fences but it was narrowly localized
and the new york times march tenth eighteen seventy six then the exclusionists something that looked like beef one flake of it the size of a square envelope
newspaper correspondents wrote broadcast and witnesses were quoted and this time there is no mention of a hoax and except by one scientist
that the fall did take place it seems to me that the exclusionists are still more emphatically conservators it is not so much that they are inimical to all data
of externally derived substances that fall upon this earth as that they are inimical to all data discordant with a system that does not include such phenomena
or the spirit or hope or ambition of the cosmos which we call attempted positivism not to find out the new not to add to what is called knowledge but to systematize
expressed in the supplement is amusing to some of us who i fear may be a little improper at times very spirit of the salvation army when some third rate scientist comes out with an explanation of the vermiform appendix
to give completeness to the proper explanation it is said that mister brandeis had identified the substance as flesh colored nostoc professor lawrence smith of kentucky
one of the most resolute of the exclusionists new york times march twelfth eighteen seventy six that the substance had been examined and analyzed by professor smith according to whom it gave every indication of being the
doctor a mead edwards president of the newark scientific association
his feeling was of conviction that propriety had been re established or that the problem had been solved as he expresses it knowing mister brandeis well he had called upon that upholder of respectability
to see the substance that had been identified as nostoc but he had also called upon doctor hamilton who had a specimen and doctor hamilton had declared it to be lung tissue doctor edwards
writes of the substance that had so completely or beautifully if beauty is completeness been identified as nostoc it turned out to be lung tissue also
nevertheless he endorses the local explanation and a bizarre thing it is a flock of gorged heavy weighted buzzards but far up and invisible in the clear sky
they had disgorged professor fassig lists the substance in his bibliography as fish spawn mc atee monthly weather review may nineteen eighteen
if the whole world should seem to combine against you it is only unreal combination or intermediateness to unity and disunity every resistance is itself divided into parts resisting one another the simplest strategy seems to be
never bother to fight a thing set its own parts fighting one another we are merging away from carnal to gelatinous substance and here there is an abundance of instances or reports of instances
these data are so improper they're obscene to the science of today but we shall see that science
was not so prudish chladni was not and greg was not i shall have to accept myself that gelatinous substance has often fallen from the sky or that
far up or far away the whole sky is gelatinous that meteors tear through and detach fragments that fragments are brought down by storms
it seems more acceptable that only certain areas are
says that all our data in this respect must be
he is very sure but just a little redundant we shall be opposed by the standard resistances there in the first place up from one place in a whirlwind and down in another
with which we shall end up it will mean that something had been in a stationary position for several days over a small part of a small town in england this is the revolutionary thing that we have alluded to before
whether the substance were nostoc or spawn or some kind of a larval nexus doesn't matter so much if it stood in the sky for several days we rank with moses as a chronicler of improprieties
to accept connection or that there are at least vast gelatinous areas aloft and that meteorites tear through carrying down some of the substance
placed before the academy some fragments of a gelatinous substance said to have fallen from the sky and asked that they be analyzed there is no further allusion to this subject comptes rendus
that in wilna lithuania april fourth eighteen forty six in a rainstorm fell nut sized masses of a substance that is described as both resinous and gelatinous it was odorless until burned
then it spread a very pronounced sweetish odor it is described as like gelatine but much firmer but having been in water twenty four hours it swelled out
early in august eighteen ninety four thousands of jellyfish about the size of a shilling had fallen at bath england i think it is not acceptable that they were jellyfish but it does look
as if this time frog spawn did fall from the sky and may have been translated by a whirlwind because
small frogs fell at wigan england nature eighty seven ten that june twenty fourth nineteen eleven at eton bucks england the ground was found covered with masses of jelly the size of peas
after a heavy rainfall we are not told of nostoc this time it is said that the object contained numerous eggs
of bath his description is of minute worms in filmy envelopes he tries to account for their segregation the mystery of it is what could have brought so many of them together
and in most of them segregation is the great mystery a whirlwind seems anything but a segregative force segregation of things that have fallen from the sky has been avoided as most deep dyed of the damned
mister jenyns conceives of a large pool in which were many of these spherical masses of the pool drying up and concentrating all in a small area of a whirlwind then scooping all up together
it may not look like common sense to say that these things had been stationary over the town of bath several days the seven black rains of slains the four red rains of siena
falls of viscid substance in the years sixteen fifty two sixteen eighty six seventeen eighteen seventeen ninety six eighteen eleven eighteen nineteen eighteen forty four
he gives earlier dates but i practice exclusions myself in the report of the british association eighteen sixty sixty three
that seemed to pass near the ground
the next day a jelly like mass was found in the snow
for either spawn or nostoc greg's comment in this instance is curious if true but he records without modification the fall of a meteorite at gotha germany september sixth eighteen thirty five
leaving a jelly like mass on the ground we are told that this substance fell only three feet away from an observer in the report of the british association eighteen fifty five ninety four according to a letter from greg to professor baden powell
at night october eighth eighteen forty four near coblenz a german who was known to greg and another person saw a luminous body fall close to them they returned next morning and found a gelatinous mass
lumps of jelly were found on the ground at rahway new jersey the substance was whitish or resembled the coagulated white of an egg that mister h h garland of nelson county virginia had found a jelly like substance
of about the circumference of a twenty five cent piece that according to a communication from a c twining to professor olmstead a woman at west point new york
had seen a mass the size of a teacup it looked like boiled starch that according to a newspaper of newark new jersey a mass of gelatinous substance like soft soap had been found
chapter eighteen edward said edith scold pablo he has been ill treating my poor cat he is a cruel boy pablo laughed see edward he's laughing put him in the pitfall again
and let him stay there till he says he's sorry i very sorry now missy edith but cat bite me said pablo well if pussy did it didn't hurt you much and what did i tell you this morning out of the bible
that you must forgive them who behave ill to you yes missy edith you tell me all that and so i do i forgive pussy cause she bite me but i kick her for it that's not forgiveness is it edward
you should have forgiven it at once and not kicked it at all miss edith when pussy bite me pussy hurt me make me angry and i give her a kick then i think what you tell me and i do as you tell me
i forgive pussy with all my heart i think you must forgive pablo edith said edward if it is only to set him a good example
i will this time but if he kicks pussy again he must be put in the pitfall mind that pablo yes missy edith i go into pitfall and then you cry and ask master edward to take me out
when you have me put in pitfall then you not good christian cause you not forgive when you cry and take me out then you good christian once more
by this conversation it will appear to the reader that they had been trying to impress pablo with the principles of the christian religion and such was the case edith having been one of the most active in the endeavor
although very young for a missionary however alice and humphrey had been more successful and pablo was now beginning to comprehend what they had attempted to instill and was really progressing dayly
edward remained at the cottage expecting to bear some message from the intendant he was right in his conjecture for on the third day oswald partridge came over to say that the intendant would be happy to see him if he could make it convenient to go over
oswald had ridden over on a pony edward arranged to take billy and return with him they started early the next morning and edward asked oswald
not exactly replied oswald but i think
it is to offer you some situation if you could be prevailed upon to accept it very true replied edward he offers me the post of secretary what do you think why sir i think i would accept it
at all events i would take it on trial there can be no harm done if you do not like it you can only go back to the cottage again one thing i am sure of which is that master heatherstone will make it as pleasant to you as he can
for he is most anxious to serve you that i really believe replied edward and i have pretty well made up my mind to accept the office it is a post of confidence and i shall know all that is going on
which i can not do while i am secluded in the forest and depend upon it we shall have stirring news i suppose you think that the king will come over replied oswald i feel certain of it oswald
and that is the reason why i want to be where i can know all that is going on well sir it is my opinion that the king will come over as well as yours yet i think at present he stands but a poor chance but master heatherstone
i should think but he is very close the conversation then changed and after a ride of eight hours they arrived at the intendant's house edward gave billy into oswald's charge and knocked at the door
phoebe let him in and asked him into the sitting room where he found the intendant alone edward armitage i am glad to see you and shall be still more so if i find that you have made up your mind to accept my proposition
what is your reply i am very thankful to you for the offer sir replied edward and will accept it if you think that i am fitting for it
i can but give it a trial and leave if i find it too arduous or too irksome too arduous it shall not be that shall be my concern and too irksome i hope you will not find it
were it not that my eyes are getting weak and i wish to save them as much as possible you will therefore have to write chiefly what i shall dictate but it is not only for that i require a person that i can confide in
i very often shall send you to london instead of going myself and to that i presume you will have no objection certainly none sir well then it is no use saying any more just now you will have a chamber in this house
and you will live with me and at my table altogether neither shall i say any thing just now about remuneration as i am convinced that you will be satisfied all that i require now is to know the day that you will come
that every thing may be ready i suppose sir i must change my attire replied edward looking at his forester's dress that will hardly accord with the office of secretary
i agree with you that it will be better to keep that dress for your forest excursions as i presume you will not altogether abandon them
you can provide yourself with a suit at lymington i will furnish you the means i thank you sir i have means much more than sufficient replied edward although not quite so wealthy as little clara appeared to be
wealthy indeed replied the intendant i had no idea that poor ratcliffe possessed so much ready money and jewels well then this is wednesday can you come over next monday yes sir replied edward
i see no reason to the contrary well then that is settled and i suppose you would like to see your accommodation patience and clara are in the next room you can join them and you will make my daughter very happy
by telling her that you are to become a resident with us you will of course dine with us to day and sleep here to night mister heatherstone then opened the door and saying to his daughter patience my dear i leave you to entertain edward armitage
till dinner time he ushered edward in and closed the door again clara ran up to edward as soon as he went in and having kissed him edward then took patience's offered hand then you have consented said patience inquiringly yes
i could not refuse such kindness replied edward and when do you come on monday night if i can be ready by that time why what have you to get ready said clara i must not appear in a forester's dress my little clara
i can wear that with a gun in my hand but not with a pen so i must go to lymington and see what a tailor can do for me you will feel as strange in a secretary's dress as i did in boys clothes said clara perhaps i may said edward
although he felt that such would not be the case having been accustomed to much better clothes when at arnwood than what were usually worn by secretaries and this remembrance brought back arnwood in its train and edward became silent and pensive
patience observed it and after a time said you will be able to watch over your sisters mister armitage
almost as if you were at the cottage you do not return till to morrow how did you come over i rode the pony billy mistress patience
said clara you call me clara why not call her patience you forget that i am only a forester clara replied edward with a grave smile no you are a secretary now replied clara
mistress patience is older than you by several years i call you clara because you are but a little girl but i must not take that liberty with mistress heatherstone do you think so patience said clara
i certainly do not think that it would be a liberty in a person after being well acquainted with me to call me patience replied she especially when that person lives in the house with us eats and associates with us as one of the family
and is received on an equality but i dare say clara that master armitage will be guided by his own feelings and act as he considers to be proper but you give him leave and then it is proper replied clara
yes if he gave himself leave clara said patience but we will now show him his own room clara continued patience wishing to change the subject of conversation will you follow us sir
said patience with a little mock ceremony edward did so without replying and was ushered into a large airy room very neatly furnished this is your future lodging said patience i hope you will like it
why he never saw any thing like it before said clara yes i have clara replied edward where did you at arnwood the apartments were on a much larger scale
oh yes i have heard my father speak of it said clara with the tears starting in her eyes at his memory yes it was burned down and all the children burned to death so they say clara
but i was not there when it was burned where were you then
as if she would have read his thoughts edward smiled and said do you doubt what i say no indeed said she i have no doubt that you were at the cottage at the time but i was thinking that if the apartments at arnwood were more splendid
you have been used to better and to worse and therefore will i trust be content with these i trust i have shown no signs of discontent i should indeed be difficult to please if an apartment like this did not suit me besides allow me to observe
that although i stated that the apartments at arnwood were on a grander scale i never said that i had ever been a possessor of one of them patience smiled and made no reply now that you know your way to your apartment master armitage
when you come over on monday you will i presume bring your clothes in a cart
they are fond of flowers and will be much pleased with possessing any you sleep here to night i think my father said inquired patience he did make the proposal and i shall gladly avail myself of it as i am not to trust to phoebe's ideas of comfort this time
said edward smiling yes that was a cross action of phoebe's and i can tell you master armitage that she is ashamed to look you in the face ever since but how fortunate for me that she was cross and turned you out as she did
you must forgive her as she was the means of your performing a noble action and i must forgive her as she was the means of my life being saved
indeed i ought to feel grateful to her for if she had not given me so bad a bed that night i never should have been so comfortably lodged as it is proposed that i shall be now i hope you are hungry edward said clara dinner is almost ready
i dare say i shall eat more than you do clara so you ought a great big man like you how old are you edward said clara i am thirteen patience is past sixteen now how old are you
i am not yet eighteen clara so that i can hardly be called a man why you are as tall as mister heatherstone yes i believe i am and can't you do every thing that a man can do i really don't know
but i certainly shall always try so to do well then you must be a man well clara if it pleases you i will be a man here comes mister heatherstone so i know dinner is ready is it not sir
yes my child it is replied mister heatherstone kissing clara so let us all go in mister heatherstone as was usual at that time with the people to whose party he ostensibly belonged said a grace before meat
of considerable length and then they sat down to table as soon as the repast was over mister heatherstone returned to his study and edward went out to find oswald partridge with whom he remained the larger portion of the afternoon
going to the kennel and examining the dogs and talking of matters connected with the chase i have not two men that can stalk a deer observed oswald the men appointed here
most of them are men who have been in the army and i believe have been appointed to these situations to get rid of them because they were troublesome and they are any thing but good characters the consequence is that we kill but few deer
for i have so much to attend to here as none of them know their duties that i can seldom take my own gun out
and he said that if you accepted an offer he had made you and came over here we should not want venison so it is clear that he does not expect you to have your pen always in your hand i am glad to hear that replied edward depend upon it his own table
at all events shall be well supplied is not that fellow corbould who is leaning against the wall yes he is to be discharged as he can not walk well and the surgeon says he will always limp
he owes you a grudge and i am glad that he is going away for he is a dangerous man but the sun is setting mister edward and supper will soon be on the table you had better go back to the house edward bade oswald farewell
and returned to the intendant's and found that oswald was correct as supper was being placed on the table soon after supper phoebe and the men servants were summoned and prayers offered up by the intendant after which patience and clara retired
edward remained in conversation with the intendant for about an hour and then was conducted by him to his room which had already been shown to him by patience edward did not sleep much that night the novelty of his situation the novelty of his prospects
and his speculations thereon kept him awake till near morning he was however up in good time and having assisted at the morning prayers and afterward eaten a most substantial breakfast
to take up his abode with them billy was fresh and cantered gayly along so that edward was back early in the afternoon and once more welcomed by his household he stated to humphrey all that had occurred
alice and edith did not quite so much approve of it and a few tears were shed at the idea of edward leaving the cottage the next day edward and humphrey set off for lymington with billy in the cart do you know edward said humphrey
what i am going to try and purchase i will tell you as many kids as i can or goats and kids i don't care which why have you not stock enough already you will this year have four cows in milk
and you have two cow calves bringing up that is very true but i do not intend to have goats for their milk but simply for eating in lieu of mutton sheep i can not manage but goats with a little hay in winter will do well
and will find themselves in the forest all the year round i won't kill any of the females for the first year or two and after that i expect we shall have a flock sufficient to meet any demand upon it it is not a bad idea humphrey they will always come home
if you have hay for them during the winter yes and a large shed for them to lie in when the snow is on the ground now i recollect when we used to go to lymington i saw a great many goats and i have no doubt that they are to be purchased i will soon ascertain that for you
replied edward we will drive there first as i must ask him to recommend me to a tailor on their arrival at lymington they went straight to the hostelry and found the landlord at home he recommended a tailor to edward
who sent for him to the inn and was measured by him for a plain suit of dark cloth edward and humphrey then went out as edward had to procure boots and many other articles of dress to correspond with the one which he was about to assume
i am most puzzled about a hat humphrey said edward i hate those steeple crowned hats worn by the roundheads yet the hat and feather is not proper for a secretary i would advise you to submit to wear the steeple crowned hats nevertheless
said humphrey your dress as i consider is a sort of disgrace to a cavalier born and the heir of arnwood why not therefore take its hat as well as secretary to the intendant you should dress like him if not
you may occasion remarks especially when you travel on his concerns you are right humphrey i must not do things by halves and unless i wear the hat i might be suspected i doubt if the intendant wears it for any other reason said humphrey
at all events i will not go to the height of the fashion replied edward laughing some of the hats are not quite so tall as the others here is the shop for the hat and for the sword belt edward chose a hat and a plain sword belt
while all these purchases on the part of edward and many others by humphrey such as nails saws tools and various articles which alice required for the household were gathered together the landlord had sent out to inquire for the goats
humphrey left edward to put away these in the cart while he went out a second time to see the goats he made an agreement with the man who had them for sale for a male and three females with two kids each at their sides
and ten more female kids which had just been weaned the man engaged to drive them from lymington as far as the road went into the forest on the following day when humphrey would meet them pay him his money and drive them to the cottage
which would be only three miles from the place agreed upon having settled that satisfactorily he returned to edward who was all ready and they went back home we have dipped somewhat into the bag to day edward said humphrey but the money is well spent
i think so humphrey but i have no doubt that i shall be able to replace the money very soon as the intendant will pay me for my services the tailor has promised the clothes on saturday without fail so that you or i must go for them i will go edward
my sisters will wish you to stay with them now as you are so soon to leave them and i will take pablo with me that he may know his way to the town and i will show him where to buy things in case he goes there by himself it appears to me to have been a most fortunate thing
your having caught pablo as you did humphrey for i do not well know how i could have left you if you had not at all events i can do much better without you than i should have done replied humphrey although i think now
that i could get on by myself but still edward you know we can not tell what a day may bring forth and i might fall sick or something happen which might prevent my attending to any thing and then without you or pablo every thing might have gone to rack and ruin
certainly when we think how we were left by the death of old jacob to our own resources we have much to thank god for in having got on so well i agree with you and also that it has pleased heaven to grant us all such good health
i hope you will manage that he calls once a week i will if i can humphrey for i shall be just as anxious as you are to know if all goes on well indeed i shall insist upon coming over to you once a fortnight and i hardly think the intendant will refuse me
indeed i am sure that he will not so am i replied humphrey i am certain that he wishes us all well and has in a measure taken us under his protection but edward recollect i shall never kill any venison after this
and so you may tell the intendant i will and that will be an excuse for him to send some over if he pleases indeed as i know i shall be permitted to go out with oswald it will be hard if a stray buck does not find its way to the cottage
thus did they continue talking over matters till they arrived at the cottage alice came out to them saying to humphrey
and then i hope to bring them with me as it is look how poor billy is loaded where's pablo in the garden he has been working there all day and edith is with him well then we will unload the cart while you get us something to eat alice
for we are not a little hungry i can tell you i have some rabbit stew on the fire humphrey all ready for you and you will find it very good nothing i like better my dear girl pablo won't thank me for bringing this home continued humphrey
taking the long saw out of the cart he will have to go to the bottom of the pit again as soon as the pit is made the cart was soon unloaded billy taken out and turned out to feed and then they went in to the supper
humphrey was off the next morning with pablo at an early hour to meet the farmer of whom he had purchased the goats and kids he found them punctual to the time at the place agreed upon and being satisfied with the lot
paid the farmer his money and drove them home through the forest goat very good kid better always eat kid in spain said pablo were you born in spain pablo not sure but i think so
first recollect myself in that country do you recollect your father no never see him did your mother never talk about him call her mother but think no mother at all custom
why did you call her mother cause she feed me when little beat me when i get big all mothers do that what made you come to england i don't know but i hear people say plenty of money in england plenty to eat
plenty to drink bring plenty money back to spain how long have you been in england one two three year yes three year and a bit which did you like best england or spain
when with my people like spain best warm sun warm night england little sun cold night much rain snow and air always cold but now i live with you have warm bed
plenty victuals like england best
steal every thing replied pablo laughing sometimes take
farmer look very sharp have big dog did you ever go out to steal make me go out not bring back something beat me very hard suppose farmer catch me beat hard too nothing but beat beat beat
then they obliged you to steal suppose bring nothing home first beat and then not have to eat for one two three days how you like that master humphrey i think you steal
after no victuals for three days i should hope not replied humphrey although i have never been so severely punished and i hope pablo you will never steal any more why steal any more replied pablo
i not like to steal but because hungry i steal now i never hungry always have plenty to eat no one beat me now sleep warm all night why i steal then no master humphrey i never steal more
cause i have no reason why and cause missy alice and edith tell me how the good god up there say must not steal i am glad to hear you give that as a reason pablo replied humphrey
as it proves that my sisters have not been teaching you in vain like to hear missy alice talk she talk grave missy edith talk too but she laugh very much very fond missy edith
very happy little girl jump about just like one of these kids we drive home always merry hah see cottage now soon get home massa humphrey
of course there couldn't be a school in the green forest without news of it spreading very fast news travels quickly through the green forest and over the green meadows
exclaimed old mother nature what have you come for striped chipmunk i've come to try to learn will you let me stay mother nature replied striped chipmunk of course i'll let you stay
what are the differences between striped chipmunk and his cousins the tree squirrels peter looked very hard at striped chipmunk as if he had never really seen him before he is smaller than they are
began peter in fact he is the smallest squirrel i know peter paused old mother nature nodded encouragingly go on
the rest of his coat is reddish brown above and light underneath his tail is rather thin and flat i never see him in the trees so i guess he can't climb oh yes i can interrupted striped chipmunk
i can climb if i want to and i do sometimes but prefer the ground go on peter said old mother nature he seems to like old stone walls and rock piles continued peter
continued peter that is one of his secrets but i know it is in the ground i guess this is all i know about him i should say the chief difference between striped chipmunk and the tree squirrels is that he spends all his time on the ground
while his cousins of the trees have no pockets at all
i don't see how i came to forget that i've laughed many times at striped chipmunk with those pockets stuffed with nuts or seeds until his head looked three times bigger than it does now those pockets must be very handy
they are replied striped chipmunk i couldn't get along without them they save me a lot of running back and forth i can tell you and the other great difference said old mother nature
is that striped chipmunk sleeps nearly all winter just waking up occasionally to pop his head out on a bright day to see how the weather is a great many folks call striped chipmunk a ground squirrel but more properly he is a rock squirrel
i dig a tunnel just big enough to run along comfortably down deep enough to be out of reach of jack frost i make a nice little bedroom with a bed of grass and leaves and i make another little room for a storeroom in which to keep my supply of seeds and nuts
sometimes i have more than one storeroom also i have some little side tunnels but why is it i never have been able to find the entrance to your tunnel asked peter as full of curiosity as ever
because i have it hidden underneath the stone wall on the edge of the old orchard replied striped chipmunk but even then i should think that all the sand you must have taken out would give your secret away cried peter
i took it all out through another hole some distance away a sort of back door and then closed it up solidly if you please mother nature if i am not a ground squirrel who is
your cousin seek seek the spermophile sometimes called gopher squirrel who lives on the open plains of the west where there are no rocks or stones he likes best the flat open country
and he also wears stripes only he has more of them than you have and they are broken up into little dots he is called the thirteen lined spermophile he has pockets in his cheeks just as you have
they are called gray ground squirrels and sometimes gray gophers one of the largest of these is the california ground squirrel he has a big bushy tail very like happy jack's
he gets into so much mischief in the grain fields and in the orchards that he is quite as much disliked as is jack rabbit this particular member of the family is quite as much at home among rocks and tree roots as in open ground
he climbs low trees for fruit and nuts but prefers to stay on the ground now just remember that the chipmunks are rock squirrels and their cousins the spermophiles are ground squirrels now
who of you has seen timmy the flying squirrel lately i haven't said peter rabbit i haven't said striped chipmunk i haven't said happy jack i haven't said chatterer
my i wish i could fly the way he can old mother nature shook her head disapprovingly jumper said she what is wrong with your eyes when did you ever see timmy fly
last night insisted jumper stubbornly oh no you didn't retorted old mother nature you didn't see him fly for the very good reason that he cannot fly any more than you can
you saw him simply jump just remember that the only animals in this great land who can fly are the bats
i mean jumping he looks as if he had wings insisted jumper stubbornly that is simply because i have given him a fold of skin between the front and hind leg on each side explained old mother nature
when he jumps he stretches his legs out flat and that stretches out those two folds of skin until they look almost like wings this is the reason he can sail so far when he jumps from a high place
you've seen a bird after flapping its wings to get going sail along with them outstretched and motionless timmy does the same thing only he gets going by jumping
you may have noticed that he usually goes to the top of a tree before jumping then he can sail down a wonderfully long distance his tail helps him to keep his balance
if there is anything in the way he can steer himself around it when he reaches the tree he is jumping for he shoots up a little way and lands on the trunk not far above the ground then he scampers up that tree to do it all over again
inquired striped chipmunk because when the rest of you squirrels are out and about he is curled up in a little ball in his nest fast asleep timmy likes the night especially the early evening
and doesn't like the light of day how big is he asked happy jack and looked a little sheepish as if he were a wee bit ashamed of not being acquainted with one of his own cousins
way out in the far west he grows a little bigger his coat is a soft yellowish brown above beneath he is all white his fur is wonderfully soft
does he eat nuts like his cousins asked peter rabbit he certainly does replied old mother nature also he eats grubs and insects he dearly loves a fat beetle
he makes a comfortable nest of bark lining grass and moss or any other soft material he can find occasionally he builds an outside nest high up in a fork in the branches of a tree
he likes to get into old buildings does he have many enemies asked happy jack the same enemies the rest of you have replied old mother nature but the one he has most reason to fear
is hooty the owl and that is the one you have least reason to fear because hooty seldom hunts by day does he sleep all winter piped up striped chipmunk not as you do
said old mother nature in very cold weather he sleeps but if he happens to be living where the weather does not get very cold he is active all the year around now i guess this is enough about the squirrel family
you've forgotten johnny chuck cried peter old mother nature laughed so i have said she that will never do never in the world
johnny and his relatives the marmots certainly cannot be overlooked we will take them for our lesson to morrow
chapter twenty two pleasant meadows
meg cheerfully blackened and burned her white hands cooking delicate messes for the dear while amy a loyal slave of the ring celebrated her return by giving away as many of her treasures as she could prevail on her sisters to accept
as christmas approached the usual mysteries began to haunt the house and jo frequently convulsed the family by proposing utterly impossible or magnificently absurd ceremonies in honor of this unusually merry christmas
laurie was equally impracticable and would have had bonfires skyrockets and triumphal arches if he had had his own way after many skirmishes and snubbings the ambitious pair were considered effectually quenched and went about with forlorn faces
which were rather belied by explosions of laughter when the two got together several days of unusually mild weather fitly ushered in a splendid christmas day
hannah felt in her bones that it was going to be an unusually fine day and she proved herself a true prophetess for everybody and everything seemed bound to produce a grand success to begin with mister march wrote that he should soon be with them
the unquenchables had done their best to be worthy of the name for like elves they had worked by night and conjured up a comical surprise out in the garden stood a stately snow maiden crowned with holly
bearing a basket of fruit and flowers in one hand
but health and peace and happiness be yours this christmas day here's fruit to feed our busy bee and flowers for her nose here's music for her pianee an afghan for her toes
who laboured with great industry to make it fair and true accept a ribbon red i beg for madam purrer's tail and ice cream made by lovely peg a mont blanc in a pail their dearest love my makers laid within my breast of snow
accept it and the alpine maid from laurie and from jo how beth laughed when she saw it how laurie ran up and down to bring in the gifts and what ridiculous speeches jo made as she presented them
i'm so full of happiness that if father was only here i couldn't hold one drop more said beth
slapping the pocket wherein reposed the long desired undine and sintram i'm sure i am echoed amy poring over the engraved copy of the madonna and child which her mother had given her in a pretty frame
of course i am cried meg smoothing the silvery folds of her first silk dress for mister laurence had insisted on giving it how can i be otherwise said missus march gratefully
as her eyes went from her husband's letter to beth's smiling face and her hand carressed the brooch made of gray and golden chestnut and dark brown hair which the girls had just fastened on her breast
now and then in this workaday world things do happen in the delightful storybook fashion
he might just as well have turned a somersault and uttered an indian war whoop for his face was so full of suppressed excitement and his voice so treacherously joyful that everyone jumped up
here's another christmas present for the march family before the words were well out of his mouth he was whisked away somehow and in his place appeared a tall man muffled up to the eyes leaning on the arm of another tall man
mister march became invisible in the embrace of four pairs of loving arms jo disgraced herself by nearly fainting away and had to be doctored by laurie in the china closet mister brooke kissed meg entirely by mistake
as he somewhat incoherently explained and amy the dignified tumbled over a stool and never stopping to get up hugged and cried over her father's boots in the most touching manner missus march was the first to recover herself
and held up her hand with a warning hush remember beth but it was too late the study door flew open the little red wrapper appeared on the threshold joy put strength into the feeble limbs
and beth ran straight into her father's arms never mind what happened just after that for the full hearts overflowed washing away the bitterness of the past and leaving only the sweetness of the present
it was not at all romantic but a hearty laugh set everybody straight again for hannah was discovered behind the door sobbing over the fat turkey which she had forgotten to put down when she rushed up from the kitchen as the laugh subsided
missus march began to thank mister brooke for his faithful care of her husband at which mister brooke suddenly remembered that mister march needed rest and seizing laurie he precipitately retired then the two invalids were ordered to repose which they did
by both sitting in one big chair and talking hard mister march told how he had longed to surprise them and how when the fine weather came he had been allowed by his doctor to take advantage of it
how devoted brooke had been and how he was altogether a most estimable and upright young man why mister march paused a minute just there and after a glance at meg who was violently poking the fire
looked at his wife with an inquiring lift of the eyebrows i leave you to imagine also why missus march gently nodded her head and asked rather abruptly
there never was such a christmas dinner as they had that day the fat turkey was a sight to behold when hannah sent him up stuffed browned and decorated so was the plum pudding
in which amy reveled like a fly in a honeypot everything turned out well which was a mercy hannah said
let alone bilin of it in a cloth mister laurence and his grandson dined with them also mister brooke at whom jo glowered darkly to laurie's infinite amusement two easy chairs stood side by side at the head of the table
in which sat beth and her father feasting modestly on chicken and a little fruit they drank healths told stories sang songs reminisced as the old folks say and had a thoroughly good time a sleigh ride had been planned
but the girls would not leave their father so the guests departed early and as twilight gathered the happy family sat together round the fire just a year ago we were groaning over the dismal christmas we expected to have
and congratulating herself on having treated mister brooke with dignity i think it's been a pretty hard one observed amy watching the light shine on her ring with thoughtful eyes i'm glad it's over
because we've got you back whispered beth who sat on her father's knee rather a rough road for you to travel my little pilgrims especially the latter part of it
but you have got on bravely and i think the burdens are in a fair way to tumble off very soon said mister march looking with fatherly satisfaction at the four young faces gathered round him
oh tell us what they are cried meg who sat beside him here is one and taking up the hand which lay on the arm of his chair he pointed to the roughened forefinger a burn on the back
a burnt offering has been made to vanity this hardened palm has earned something better than blisters and i'm sure the sewing done by these pricked fingers will last a long time so much good will went into the stitches meg my dear
i value the womanly skill which keeps home happy more than white hands or fashionable accomplishments i'm proud to shake this good industrious little hand and hope i shall not soon be asked to give it away
if meg had wanted a reward for hours of patient labor she received it in the hearty pressure of her father's hand and the approving smile he gave her what about jo
please say something nice for she has tried so hard and been so very very good to me said beth in her father's ear he laughed and looked across at the tall girl who sat opposite
her face is rather thin and pale just now with watching and anxiety but i like to look at it for it has grown gentler and her voice is lower she doesn't bounce but moves quietly
i don't know whether the shearing sobered our black sheep but i do know that in all washington i couldn't find anything beautiful enough to be bought with the five and twenty dollars
now beth said amy longing for her turn but ready to wait there's so little of her i'm afraid to say much for fear she will slip away altogether though she is not so shy as she used to be
ran errands for her mother all the afternoon gave meg her place tonight and has waited on every one with patience and good humor i also observe that she does not fret much nor look in the glass
and has not even mentioned a very pretty ring which she wears so i conclude that she has learned to think of other people more and of herself less and has decided to try and mold her character as carefully as she molds her little clay figures
i am glad of this for though i should be very proud of a graceful statue made by her i shall be infinitely prouder of a lovable daughter with a talent for making life beautiful to herself and others
what are you thinking of beth asked jo when amy had thanked her father and told about her ring i read in pilgrim's progress today
before they went on to their journey's end answered beth adding as she slipped out of her father's arms
it's singing time now and i want to be in my old place i'll try to sing the song of the shepherd boy which the pilgrims heard i made the music for father because he likes the verses
so sitting at the dear little piano beth softly touched the keys and in the sweet voice they had never thought to hear again sang to her own accompaniment the quaint hymn
in former times every woman who gave birth to a child or passed through a miscarriage was exposed to grave danger of infection or child bed fever but at present thanks to the recognition of the bacterial origin of the disease and of its identity with wound infection
this danger can be practically eliminated by the rigid observance of surgical cleanliness and aseptic technique physicians have also learned that the most effective method of coping with other serious complications of pregnancy and labor
or at least by subjecting them to treatment in their earliest stages for if they be allowed to go on to full development the results are little better than in times past furthermore
timely recognition of such conditions makes appropriate treatment possible and practically insures a successful outcome while tardy recognition is frequently followed by disastrous results
these few examples give some idea of the benefits of prophylaxis in the practice of obstetrics prospective mothers should understand not only that there is an advantage in taking such precautions but that they may be risking their lives
or at least their future well being unless they insist upon competent medical attention it is true of course that pregnancy and childbirth are generally normal processes but they are not always so fortunately
most of the abnormalities give timely warning of their occurrence and in most instances may be relieved by comparatively simple measures or if not they afford indications for treatment which should lead to a happy termination
the recognition of the existence of such conditions however is not always easy and their ideal treatment requires careful training and sometimes the utmost nicety of judgment consequently
but instead the family physician should be consulted who should he feel unwilling to assume the responsibility of the case will be able to recommend a thoroughly competent substitute from my own experience as a teacher and consultant
i state without hesitation that in no other branch of medicine or surgery are graver emergencies encountered than in certain obstetrical complications whose treatment involves the greatest responsibility and requires the highest order of ability
to insure a successful outcome for the mother and her child for these reasons a physician should be chosen only after mature deliberation and his services should be esteemed much more highly than is usually the case
in order that the principles of prevention may receive their fullest application during pregnancy labor and the lying in period it is also advisable that intelligent women should possess some knowledge of the reproductive process in human beings
which i can thoroughly recommend to prospective mothers the subject matter has been carefully chosen and the author has wisely refrained from giving advice with regard to treatment which can be satisfactorily directed only after careful study by a physician
at the same time he has given a clear account of the physiology of pregnancy and labor and has laid down sound rules for the guidance of the patient one of the most important facts emphasized by doctor slemons
is the value of medical supervision for several weeks after the child is born this precaution contributes greatly toward a rapid and complete convalescence during the lying in period the physician should supervise the care of the mother and the child
should insist upon the necessity for maternal nursing and should keep the mother under observation until perfectly normal conditions are regained if the latter duty is conscientiously fulfilled many years of invalidism may be saved
and thousands of operations rendered unnecessary although there have been notable advances in the science and in the art of obstetrics since the middle of the eighteenth century a great many fundamental facts must yet be learned
for example we are almost totally ignorant of the stimulus which causes the mother to fall into labor approximately two hundred eighty days after the last normal menstruation there are two points which i desire to impress especially upon the readers of this book
they must come to realize that they will secure the best treatment only as they demand the highest standard of excellence from their attendants and they can aid in securing this for their poorer sisters and their children by interesting themselves in obstetrical charities
secondly they must realize that real progress in the science of obstetrics can be expected to proceed only from well equipped clinics connected with strong universities and in charge of thoroughly trained and broad minded men
as yet such institutions scarcely exist in this country women who are anxious to promote the welfare of their sex can find no better way of doing so than by bringing this need to the attention of wealthy men interested in philanthropy and education
has been brought to its present degree of perfection and further progress can scarcely be expected without its aid they should remember also that whenever they take such a well known drug as ergot for the control of bleeding
that incapacity in national politics should appear as a leading trait in american character was unexpected by americans but might naturally result from their conditions the better test of american character was not political but social
and was to be found not in the government but in the people the sixteen years of jefferson and madison's rule furnished international tests of popular intelligence upon which americans could depend
the ocean was the only open field for competition among nations americans enjoyed there no natural or artificial advantages over englishmen frenchmen or spaniards
yet the americans developed in the course of twenty years a surprising degree of skill in naval affairs
was the more remarkable because
this alone sprang from direct competition with europe during ten centuries of struggle the nations of europe had labored to obtain superiority over each other in ship construction yet americans instantly made improvements which gave them superiority
and which europeans were unable immediately to imitate even after seeing them not only were american vessels better in model faster in sailing easier and quicker in handling and more economical in working than the european
but they were also better equipped the english complained as a grievance that the americans adopted new and unwarranted devices in naval warfare that their vessels were heavier and better constructed and their missiles of unusual shape and improper use
the americans resorted to expedients that had not been tried before
the english admitted themselves to be slow to change their habits but the french were both quick and scientific yet americans did on the ocean what the french under stronger inducements failed to do
the french privateer preyed upon british commerce for twenty years without seriously injuring it
and an outcry for protection arose among english shippers which the admiralty could not calm the british newspapers were filled with assertions that the american cruiser was the superior of any vessel of its class
and threatened to overthrow england's supremacy on the ocean another test of relative intelligence was furnished by the battles at sea
they explained their inferiority by the length of time that had elapsed since their navy had found on the ocean an enemy to fight every vestige of hostile fleets had been swept away until after the battle of trafalgar
british frigates ceased practice with their guns doubtless the british navy had become somewhat careless in the absence of a dangerous enemy
nothing showed that nelson's line of battle ships frigates or sloops were as a rule better fought than the macedonian and java the avon and reindeer
of all vessels the sloop of war on account of its smallness its quick motion and its more accurate armament of thirty two pound carronades offered the best test of relative gunnery
and sir howard douglas in commenting upon the destruction of the peacock and avon
in these two actions it is clear that the fire of the british vessels was thrown too high and that the ordnance of their opponents were expressly and carefully aimed at and took effect chiefly in the hull
showed that the excellence of american gunnery continued till the close of the war whether at point blank range or at long distance practice the americans used guns as they had never been used at sea before
none of the reports of former british victories showed that the british fire had been more destructive at any previous time than in eighteen twelve
and no report of any commander since the british navy existed showed so much damage inflicted on an opponent in so short a time as was proved to have been inflicted on themselves by the reports of british commanders in the american war
the strongest proof of american superiority was given by the best british officers like broke who strained every nerve to maintain an equality with american gunnery
so instantaneous and energetic was the effort that according to the british historian of the war
of the captured british ships proved that no want of their old fighting qualities accounted for their repeated and almost habitual mortifications unwilling as the english were to admit the superior skill of americans on the ocean
they did not hesitate to admit it in certain respects on land the american rifle in american hands was affirmed to have no equal in the world this admission could scarcely be withheld after the lists of killed and wounded which followed almost every battle
but the admission served to check a wider inquiry in truth the rifle played but a small part in the war winchester's men at the river raisin may have owed their over confidence as the british forty first owed its losses to that weapon
and at new orleans five or six hundred of coffee's men who were out of range were armed with the rifle but the surprising losses of the british were commonly due to artillery and musketry fire at new orleans the artillery was chiefly engaged
the artillery battle of january first according to british accounts amply proved the superiority of american gunnery on that occasion which was probably the fairest test during the war the battle of january eighth was also chiefly an artillery battle
the main british column never arrived within fair musket range pakenham was killed by a grape shot and the main column of his troops halted more than one hundred yards from the parapet
two parallel lines of regular soldiers practically equal in numbers armed with similar weapons moved in close order toward each other across a wide open plain without cover or advantage of position stopping at intervals to load and fire
until one line broke and retired at the same time two three gun batteries the british being the heavier maintained a steady fire from positions opposite each other according to the reports the two infantry lines in the centre never came nearer than eighty yards
owing to severe losses his troops broke and could not be rallied comparison of official reports showed that the british lost in killed and wounded four hundred and sixty nine men
the americans two hundred and ninety six some doubts always affect the returns of wounded because the severity of the wound cannot be known but dead men tell their own tale
and the returns proved that the american fire was superior to that of the british in the proportion of more than fifty per cent if estimated by the entire loss and of two hundred and forty two to one hundred if estimated by the deaths alone
besides the mortification of defeat captain eleazer derby wood of new york constructed fort meigs which enabled harrison to defeat the attack of proctor in may eighteen thirteen captain joseph gilbert totten of new york
was chief engineer to general izard at plattsburg where he directed the fortifications that stopped the advance of prevost's great army none of the works constructed by a graduate of west point was captured by the enemy
and had an engineer been employed at washington by armstrong and winder the city would have been easily saved perhaps without exaggeration the west point academy might be said to have decided next to the navy the result of the war
the works at new orleans were simple in character and as far as they were due to engineering skill were directed by major latour a frenchman but the war was already ended when the battle of new orleans was fought during the critical campaign of eighteen fourteen
the west point engineers doubled the capacity of the little american army for resistance
sailed into the midst of broke's five ships captain isaac hull in command of the constitution had been detained at annapolis shipping a new crew until july fifth the day when broke's squadron left halifax
then the ship got under way and stood down chesapeake bay on her voyage to new york the wind was ahead and very light not until july tenth did the ship anchor off cape henry lighthouse
and not till sunrise of july twelfth did she stand to the eastward and northward
when at two o'clock in the afternoon off barnegat on the new jersey coast the lookout at the masthead discovered four sails to the northward and two hours later a fifth sail to the northeast hull took them for rodgers's squadron the wind was light
and hull being to windward determined to speak the nearest vessel the last to come in sight the afternoon passed without bringing the ships together
hull decided to lose no time in escaping then followed one of the most exciting and sustained chases recorded in naval history at daybreak the next morning one british frigate was astern within five or six miles two more were to leeward
and the rest of the fleet some ten miles astern all making chase hull put out his boats to tow the constitution broke summoned the boats of the squadron to tow the shannon hull then bent all his spare rope to the cables dropped a small anchor half a mile ahead
in twenty six fathoms of water and warped his ship along broke quickly imitated the device and slowly gained on the chase the guerriere crept so near hull's lee beam as to open fire but her shot fell short
fortunately the wind though slight favored hull all night the british and american crews toiled on and when morning came the belvidera proving to be the best sailer got in advance of her consorts
working two kedge anchors until at two o'clock in the afternoon she tried in her turn to reach the constitution with her bow guns but in vain hull expected capture
but the belvidera could not approach nearer without bringing her boats under the constitution's stern guns and the wearied crews toiled on towing and kedging the ships barely out of gunshot till another morning came
the breeze though still light then allowed hull to take in his boats the belvidera being two and a half miles in his wake the shannon three and a half miles on his lee and the three other frigates well to leeward the wind freshened and the constitution drew ahead
until toward seven o'clock in the evening of july nineteenth a heavy rain squall struck the ship and by taking skillful advantage of it hull left the belvidera and shannon far astern yet until eight o'clock the next morning they were still in sight
keeping up the chase perhaps nothing during the war tested american seamanship more thoroughly than these three days of combined skill and endurance in the face of the irresistible enemy
the result showed that hull and the constitution had nothing to fear in these respects there remained the question whether the superiority extended to his guns and such was the contempt of the british naval officers for american ships
that with this expedience before their eyes they still believed one of their thirty eight gun frigates to be more than a match for an american forty four although the american besides the heavier armament
had proved his capacity to outsail and out manoeuvre the englishman both parties became more eager than ever for the test for once even the federalists of new england felt their blood stir
for their own president and their own votes had called these frigates into existence and a victory won by the constitution which had been built by their hands was in their eyes a greater victory over their political opponents than over the british
fitting out at the washington navy yard but secretary hamilton july twenty eighth ordered him to take command also of the constitution on her arrival in port doubtless hull expected this change
and probably the expectation induced him to risk a dangerous experiment for without bringing his ship to the charlestown navy yard
after obtaining such supplies as he needed
the constitution the next day august nineteenth eighteen twelve at two o'clock in the afternoon
sighted the guerriere the meeting was welcome on both sides only three days before captain dacres had entered on the log of a merchantman a challenge to any american frigate to meet him off sandy hook
but the mistake which caused the little belt to suffer so seriously for the misfortune of being taken for the guerriere had caused a corresponding feeling of anger in the officers of the british frigate
the meeting of august nineteenth had the character of a preconcerted duel the wind was blowing fresh from the northwest with the sea running high dacres backed his main topsail and waited hull shortened sail and ran down before the wind
they pounded each other with all their strength as rapidly as the guns could be worked the constitution poured in broadside after broadside double shotted with round and grape and without exaggeration the echo of these guns startled the world
in less than thirty minutes from the time we got alongside of the enemy reported hull
the length of the constitution was one hundred and seventy three feet
dacres knew this very nearly as well as it was known to hull yet he sought a duel what he did not know was that in a still greater proportion the american officers and crew were better and more intelligent seamen than the british
and that their passionate wish to repay old scores gave them extraordinary energy so much greater was the moral superiority than the physical that while the guerriere's force counted as seven against ten
her losses counted as though her force were only two against ten dacres's error cost him dear for among the guerriere's crew of two hundred and seventy two seventy nine were killed or wounded
and the ship was injured beyond saving before dacres realized his mistake although he needed only thirty minutes of close fighting for the purpose he never fully understood the causes of his defeat
and settled down to listen looking at adam steadily and listening attentively that he might miss nothing even the inflection of a word i found lilla and mimi at home watford had been detained by business on the farm
miss watford received me as kindly as before mimi too seemed glad to see me
true they seemed to be very deep and earnest but there was no offence in them had it not been for the drawing down of the brows and the stern set of the jaws i should not at first have noticed anything
but the stare when presently it began increased in intensity i could see that lilla began to suffer from nervousness as on the first occasion but she carried herself bravely
however the more nervous she grew the harder mister caswall stared it was evident to me that he had come prepared for some sort of mesmeric or hypnotic battle
it was evidently intended to give some sign to the negro
quietly in by the hall door which was open then mister caswall's efforts at staring became intensified and poor lilla's nervousness grew greater mimi
as if to comfort or strengthen her with the consciousness of her presence this evidently made a difficulty for mister caswall for his efforts without appearing to get feebler seemed less effective this continued for a little while
without a word she crossed the room and stood beside mister caswall it really was very like a fight of a peculiar kind and the longer it was sustained the more earnest the fiercer it grew
but all that you can understand this time to go on in sporting phrase it was understood by all to be a fight to a finish and the mixed group did not slacken a moment or relax their efforts
on lilla the strain began to tell disastrously she grew pale a patchy pallor which meant that her nerves were out of order she trembled like an aspen and though she struggled bravely i noticed that her legs would hardly support her
a dozen times she seemed about to collapse in a faint but each time on catching sight of mimi's eyes she made a fresh struggle and pulled through by now mister caswall's face had lost its appearance of passivity
his eyes glowed with a fiery light he was still the old roman in inflexibility of purpose
his companions in the baleful work seemed to have taken on something of his feeling lady arabella looked like a soulless pitiless being not human
unless it revived old legends of transformed human beings who had lost their humanity in some transformation or in the sweep of natural savagery as for the negro well
i can only say that it was solely due to the self restraint which you impressed on me that i did not wipe him out as he stood without warning without fair play without a single one of the graces of life and death
mimi was all resolve and self forgetfulness so intent on the soul struggle in which she was engaged that there was no possibility of any other thought
as for myself the bonds of will which held me inactive seemed like bands of steel which numbed all my faculties except sight and hearing we seemed fixed in an impasse something must happen
though the power of guessing was inactive as in a dream i saw mimi's hand move restlessly as if groping for something
and in that instant she was transformed it was as if youth and strength entered afresh into something already dead to sensibility and intention
as if by inspiration she grasped the other's band with a force which blenched the knuckles her face suddenly flamed as if some divine light shone through it her form expanded till it stood out majestically lifting her right hand
she stepped forward towards caswall and with a bold sweep of her arm seemed to drive some strange force towards him again and again was the gesture repeated the man falling back from her at each movement towards the door he retreated
she following there was a sound as of the cooing sob of doves which seemed to multiply and intensify with each second the sound from the unseen source rose and rose as he retreated till
finally it swelled out in a triumphant peal as she with a fierce sweep of her arm seemed to hurl something at her foe and he moving his hands blindly before his face appeared to be swept through the doorway and out into the open sunlight
all at once my own faculties were fully restored i could see and hear everything and be fully conscious of what was going on even the figures of the baleful group were there though dimly seen as through a veil a shadowy veil
and mimi throw up her arms in a gesture of triumph as i saw her through the great window the sunshine flooded the landscape which however
the reports closer to home were even more disturbing all day long it would seem that the birds were coming thicker from all quarters doubtless many were going as well as coming but the mass seemed never to get less
each bird seemed to sound some note of fear or anger or seeking and the whirring of wings never ceased nor lessened the air was full of a muttered throb no window or barrier could shut out the sound
till the ears of any listener became dulled by the ceaseless murmur so monotonous it was so cheerless so disheartening so melancholy that all longed but in vain for any variety no matter how terrible it might be
not the evil accomplished the ground began to look bare whenever some passing sound temporarily frightened the birds edgar caswall
tortured his brain for a long time unavailingly to think of some means of getting rid of what he as well as his neighbours had come to regard as a plague of birds at last he recalled a circumstance
the experience was of some years ago in china
natural irrigation scheme to supply the wilderness of paddy fields it was at the time of the ripening rice and the myriads of birds which came to feed on the coming crop was a serious menace not only to the district but to the country at large
knew how to deal with it they made a vast kite which they caused to be flown over the centre spot of the incursion the kite was shaped like a great hawk and the moment it rose into the air the birds began to cower and seek protection
and then to disappear so long as that kite was flying overhead the birds lay low and the crop was saved accordingly caswall ordered his men to construct an immense kite adhering as well as they could to the lines of a hawk
then he and his men with a sufficiency of cord began to fly it high overhead the experience of china was repeated the moment the kite rose the birds hid or sought shelter the following morning the kite was still flying high
from castra regis but there followed in turn
all the birds were cowed their sounds stopped neither song nor chirp was heard silence seemed to have taken the place of the normal voices of bird life but that was not all the silence spread to all animals the fear
and restraint which brooded amongst the denizens of the air began to affect all life not only did the birds cease song or chirp but the lowing of the cattle ceased in the fields and the varied sounds of life died away
more dreadful more disheartening more soul killing than any concourse of sounds no matter how full of fear and dread
after a little there were signs of universal depression which those who ran might read one and all the faces of men and women seemed bereft of vitality of interest of thought and most of all
the soundless air seemed to have the same effect as the universal darkness when men gnawed their tongues with pain from this infliction of silence there was no relief everything was affected gloom was the predominant note
joy appeared to have passed away as a factor of life and this creative impulse had nothing to take its place
it seemed like a new misanthropic belief which had fallen on human beings carrying with it the negation of all hope after a few days men began to grow desperate their very words as well as their senses seemed to be in chains
edgar caswall again tortured his brain to find any antidote or palliative of this greater evil than before he would gladly have destroyed the kite or caused its flying to cease but the instant it was pulled down
the birds rose up in even greater numbers all those who depended in any way on agriculture sent pitiful protests to castra regis it was strange indeed what influence that weird kite seemed to exercise
even human beings were affected by it as if both it and they were realities as for the people at mercy farm it was like a taste of actual death
if she had been indeed a real dove with a real kite hanging over her in the air she could not have been more frightened or more affected
by the terror this created of course some of those already drawn into the vortex noticed the effect on individuals those who were interested took care to compare their information strangely enough as it seemed to the others
thus the black had a never failing source of amusement lady arabella's cold nature rendered her immune to anything in the way of pain or trouble concerning others edgar caswall was far too haughty a person
much less the lower order of mere animals
as time went on her face became pinched and her eyes dull with watching and crying mimi suffered too on account of her cousin's suffering but as she could do nothing she resolutely made up her mind to self restraint and patience
it is a great mistake to think that fairies witches magicians and such people lived only in eastern countries
fairies and their like belong to every country and every age and no doubt we should see plenty of them now if we only knew how
in a large town in germany there lived some couple of hundred years ago a cobbler and his wife they were poor and hard working
and mended any shoes that were brought him his wife sold the fruit and vegetables they grew in their garden in the market place and as she was always neat and clean and her goods were temptingly spread out she had plenty of customers
the couple had one boy called jem a handsome pleasant faced boy of twelve and tall for his age he used to sit by his mother in the market and would carry home what people bought from her
for which they often gave him a pretty flower or a slice of cake or even some small coin one day jem and his mother sat as usual in the market place with plenty of nice herbs and vegetables spread out on the board
and in some smaller baskets early pears apples and apricots jem cried his wares at the top of his voice this way gentlemen see these lovely cabbages and these fresh herbs
early apples ladies early pears and apricots and all cheap come buy buy as he cried an old woman came across the market place she looked very torn and ragged
and had a small sharp face all wrinkled with red eyes
she leant on a tall stick and limped and shuffled and stumbled along as if she were going to fall on her nose at any moment in this fashion she came along till she got to the stall where jem and his mother were and there she stopped
as her head shook to and fro yes i am was the answer can i serve you we'll see we'll see let me look at those herbs i wonder if you've got what i want said the old woman
as she thrust a pair of hideous brown hands into the herb basket and began turning over all the neatly packed herbs with her skinny fingers often holding them up to her nose and sniffing at them
the cobbler's wife felt much disgusted at seeing her wares treated like this but she dared not speak when the old hag had turned over the whole basket she muttered bad stuff bad stuff much better fifty years ago all bad
this made jem very angry you are a very rude old woman he cried out first you mess all our nice herbs about with your horrid brown fingers and sniff at them with your long nose till no one else will care to buy them
though the duke's cook himself buys all his herbs from us the old woman looked sharply at the saucy boy laughed unpleasantly and said so you don't like my long nose sonny well you shall have one yourself right down to your chin
as she spoke she shuffled towards the hamper of cabbages took up one after another squeezed them hard and threw them back muttering again bad stuff bad stuff
don't waggle your head in that horrid way begged jem anxiously your neck is as thin as a cabbage stalk and it might easily break and your head fall into the basket and then who would buy anything
don't you like thin necks laughed the old woman then you sha'n't have any but a head stuck close between your shoulders so that it may be quite sure not to fall off
don't talk such nonsense to the child said the mother at last if you wish to buy please make haste as you are keeping other customers away very well i will do as you ask said the old woman with an angry look
i will buy these six cabbages but as you see i can only walk with my stick and can carry nothing let your boy carry them home for me and i'll pay him for his trouble the little fellow didn't like this and began to cry
for he was afraid of the old woman but his mother ordered him to go for she thought it wrong not to help such a weakly old creature so still crying he gathered the cabbages into a basket and followed the old woman across the market place
but at last she stopped in front of a small tumble down house she drew a rusty old hook from her pocket and stuck it into a little hole in the door which suddenly flew open how surprised jem was when they went in
the house was splendidly furnished the walls and ceiling of marble the furniture of ebony inlaid with gold and precious stones the floor of such smooth slippery glass that the little fellow tumbled down more than once
the old woman took out a silver whistle and blew it till the sound rang through the house immediately a lot of guinea pigs came running down the stairs but jem thought it rather odd that they all walked on their hind legs
wore nutshells for shoes and men's clothes whilst even their hats were put on in the newest fashion where are my slippers lazy crew cried the old woman and hit about with her stick how long am i to stand waiting here
which she put on her feet now all limping and shuffling was at an end she threw away her stick and walked briskly across the glass floor drawing little jem after her
at last she paused in a room which looked almost like a kitchen it was so full of pots and pans but the tables were of mahogany and the sofas and chairs covered with the richest stuffs sit down said the old woman pleasantly
and she pushed jem into a corner of a sofa and put a table close in front of him sit down you've had a long walk and a heavy load to carry and i must give you something for your trouble wait a bit and i'll give you some nice soup
which you'll remember as long as you live so saying she whistled again first came in guinea pigs in men's clothing they had tied on large kitchen aprons and in their belts were stuck carving knives and sauce ladles and such things
after them hopped in a number of squirrels they too walked on their hind legs wore full turkish trousers and little green velvet caps on their heads they seemed to be the scullions
which they carried to the stove here the old woman was bustling about and jem could see that she was cooking something very special for him at last the broth began to bubble and boil and she drew off the saucepan
and poured its contents into a silver bowl which she set before jem there my boy said she eat this soup and then you'll have everything which pleased you so much about me and you shall be a clever cook too but the real herb
no the real herb you'll never find why had your mother not got it in her basket the child could not think what she was talking about but he quite understood the soup which tasted most delicious
his mother had often given him nice things but nothing had ever seemed so good as this the smell of the herbs and spices rose from the bowl and the soup tasted both sweet and sharp at the same time and was very strong
as he was finishing it the guinea pigs lit some arabian incense which gradually filled the room with clouds of blue vapour they grew thicker and thicker and the scent nearly overpowered the boy
he reminded himself that he must get back to his mother but whenever he tried to rouse himself to go he sank back again drowsily and at last he fell sound asleep in the corner of the sofa strange dreams came to him
he thought the old woman took off all his clothes and wrapped him up in a squirrel skin and that he went about with the other squirrels and guinea pigs who were all very pleasant and well mannered and waited on the old woman
first he learned to clean her cocoa nut shoes with oil and to rub them up then he learnt to catch the little sun moths and rub them through the finest sieves
and the flour from them he made into soft bread for the toothless old woman in this way he passed from one kind of service to another spending a year in each till in the fourth year he was promoted to the kitchen
and reached the greatest perfection he could make all the most difficult dishes and two hundred different kinds of patties soup flavoured with every sort of herb he had learnt it all and learnt it well and quickly
when he had lived seven years with the old woman she ordered him one day as she was going out to kill and pluck a chicken stuff it with herbs and have it very nicely roasted by the time she got back
he did this quite according to rule he wrung the chicken's neck plunged it into boiling water carefully plucked out all the feathers and rubbed the skin nice and smooth then he went to fetch the herbs to stuff it with
in the store room he noticed a half opened cupboard which he did not remember having seen before he peeped in and saw a lot of baskets from which came a strong and pleasant smell he opened one
and found a very uncommon herb in it the stems and leaves were a bluish green
edged with yellow he gazed at the flower smelt it and found it gave the same strong strange perfume which came from the soup the old woman had made him but the smell was so sharp
that he began to sneeze again and again and at last he woke up there he lay on the old woman's sofa and stared about him in surprise
why i could have sworn i had been a squirrel a companion of guinea pigs and such creatures and had become a great cook too how mother will laugh when i tell her
he jumped up and prepared to go all his limbs still seemed quite stiff with his long sleep especially his neck for he could not move his head easily and he laughed at his own stupidity at being still so drowsy
that he kept knocking his nose against the wall or cupboards the squirrels and guinea pigs ran whimpering after him as though they would like to go too and he begged them to come when he reached the door
but they all turned and ran quickly back into the house again the part of the town was out of the way and jem did not know the many narrow streets in it and was puzzled by their windings and by the crowd of people who seemed excited about some show
from what he heard he fancied they were going to see a dwarf for he heard them call out just look at the ugly dwarf what a long nose he has and see how his head is stuck in between his shoulders
and only look at his ugly brown hands if he had not been in such a hurry to get back to his mother he would have gone too for he loved shows with giants and dwarfs and the like he was quite puzzled when he reached the market place
there sat his mother with a good deal of fruit still in her baskets so he felt he could not have slept so very long but it struck him that she was sad for she did not call to the passers by but sat with her head resting on her hand
and as he came nearer he thought she looked paler than usual he hesitated what to do but at last he slipped behind her laid a hand on her arm and said mammy what's the matter are you angry with me
she turned round quickly and jumped up with a cry of horror what do you want you hideous dwarf she cried get away i can't bear such tricks but mother dear what's the matter with you repeated jem quite frightened you can't be well
i have said already get away replied hannah quite angrily you won't get anything out of me by your games you monstrosity oh dear oh dear she must be wandering in her mind murmured the lad to himself
how can i manage to get her home dearest mother do look at me close can't you see i am your own son jem well did you ever hear such impudence asked hannah turning to a neighbour
just see that frightful dwarf would you believe that he wants me to think he is my son jem
and scolded as hard as they could and said what a shame it was to make game of missus hannah who had never got over the loss of her beautiful boy who had been stolen from her seven years ago
and they threatened to fall upon jem and scratch him well if he did not go away at once poor jem did not know what to make of it all he was sure he had gone to market with his mother only that morning had helped to set out the stall
had gone to the old woman's house where he had some soup and a little nap and now when he came back they were all talking of seven years and they called him a horrid dwarf
when he found that his mother would really have nothing to do with him he turned away with tears in his eyes and went sadly down the street towards his father's stall now i'll see whether he will know me thought he
i'll stand by the door and talk to him when he got to the stall he stood in the doorway and looked in the cobbler was so busy at work that he did not see him for some time but happening to look up
he caught sight of his visitor and letting shoes thread and everything fall to the ground he cried with horror good heavens what is that good evening master said the boy as he stepped in how do you do
replied the father to jem's surprise for he did not seem to know him business does not go well i am all alone and am getting old and a workman is costly
but haven't you a son who could learn your trade by degrees asked jem i had one he was called jem and would have been a tall sturdy lad of twenty by this time and able to help me well
why when he was only twelve he was quite sharp and quick
and a good looking boy too and pleasant so that customers were taken by him well well so goes the world but where is your son asked jem with a trembling voice heaven only knows replied the man
and we have heard no more of him seven years ago cried jem with horror yes indeed seven years ago though it seems but yesterday that my wife came back howling and crying
and saying the child had not come back all day i always thought and said that something of the kind would happen jem was a beautiful boy and everyone made much of him and my wife was so proud of him
and liked him to carry the vegetables and things to grand folks houses where he was petted and made much of but i used to say take care the town is large
keep a sharp eye on jem and so it happened for one day an old woman came and bought a lot of things more than she could carry so my wife being a kindly soul lent her the boy and we have never seen him since
and that was seven years ago you say yes seven years we had him cried we went from house to house many knew the pretty boy and were fond of him but it was all in vain
no one seemed to know the old woman who bought the vegetables either only one old woman who is ninety years old said it might have been the fairy herbaline who came into the town once in every fifty years to buy things
as his father spoke things grew clearer to jem's mind and he saw now that he had not been dreaming but had really served the old woman seven years in the shape of a squirrel as he thought it over rage filled his heart
seven years of his youth had been stolen from him and what had he got in return to learn to rub up cocoa nuts and to polish glass floors and to be taught cooking by guinea pigs he stood there thinking
till at last his father asked him is there anything i can do for you young gentleman shall i make you a pair of slippers or perhaps with a smile case for your nose what have you to do with my nose asked jem
and why should i want a case for it well everyone to his taste replied the cobbler but i must say if i had such a nose i would have a nice red leather cover made for it here is a nice piece
and think what a protection it would be to you as it is you must be constantly knocking up against things the lad was dumb with fright he felt his nose it was thick and quite two hands long
so then the old woman had changed his shape and that was why his own mother did not know him and called him a horrid dwarf master said he have you got a glass that i could see myself in
young gentleman was the answer your appearance is hardly one to be vain of and there is no need to waste your time looking in a glass besides i have none here and if you must have one
you had better ask urban the barber who lives over the way to lend you his good morning so saying he gently pushed jem into the street shut the door and went back to his work jem stepped across to the barber
whom he had known in old days good morning urban said he may i look at myself in your glass for a moment with pleasure said the barber laughing and all the people in his shop fell to laughing also
and white hands and small nose no wonder you are rather vain but look as long as you like at yourself so spoke the barber and a titter ran round the room meantime jem had stepped up to the mirror
and stood gazing sadly at his reflection tears came to his eyes no wonder you did not know your child again dear mother thought he he wasn't like this when you were so proud of his looks
his eyes had grown quite small like pigs eyes his nose was huge and hung down over his mouth and chin his throat seemed to have disappeared altogether and his head was fixed stiffly between his shoulders
he was no taller than he had been seven years ago when he was not much more than twelve years old but he made up in breadth and his back and chest had grown into lumps like two great sacks
his legs were small and spindly but his arms were as large as those of a well grown man with large brown hands and long skinny fingers then he remembered the morning when he had first seen the old woman
and her threats to him and without saying a word he left the barber's shop he determined to go again to his mother and found her still in the market place he begged her to listen quietly to him
and he reminded her of the day when he went away with the old woman and of many things in his childhood and told her how the fairy had bewitched him and he had served her seven years hannah did not know what to think
the story was so strange and it seemed impossible to think her pretty boy and this hideous dwarf were the same at last she decided to go and talk to her husband about it she gathered up her baskets told jem to follow her
and went straight to the cobbler's stall look here said she this creature says he is our lost son he has been telling me how he was stolen seven years ago and bewitched by a fairy
indeed interrupted the cobbler angrily did he tell you this wait a minute you rascal why i told him all about it myself only an hour ago
so you were bewitched my son were you wait a bit and i'll bewitch you so saying he caught up a bundle of straps and hit out at jem so hard that he ran off crying
the poor little dwarf roamed about all the rest of the day without food or drink
he woke next morning with the first rays of light and began to think what he could do to earn a living suddenly he remembered that he was an excellent cook and he determined to look out for a place
if we mean them to honour the gods and their parents and to value friendship with one another yes and i think that our principles are right he said but if they are to be courageous must they not learn other lessons besides these and lessons of such a kind as will take away the fear of death
certainly not he said and can he be fearless of death or will he choose death in battle rather than defeat and slavery who believes the world below to be real and terrible impossible
that will be our duty he said then i said we shall have to obliterate many obnoxious passages beginning with the verses
i would rather be a serf on the land of a poor and portionless man than rule over all the dead who have come to nought we must also expunge the verse which tells us how pluto feared
that he alone should be wise but the other souls are flitting shades again
lamenting her fate leaving manhood and youth again and the soul with shrilling cry passed like smoke beneath the earth and as bats in hollow of mystic cavern
whenever any of them has dropped out of the string and falls from the rock fly shrilling and cling to one another so did they with shrilling cry hold together as they moved and we must beg homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike out these and similar passages
not because they are unpoetical or unattractive to the popular ear but because the greater the poetical charm of them the less are they meet for the ears of boys and men who are meant to be free and who should fear slavery more than death undoubtedly
also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling names which describe the world below cocytus and styx ghosts under the earth and sapless shades
and any similar words of which the very mention causes a shudder to pass through the inmost soul of him who hears them i do not say that these horrible stories may not have a use of some kind but there is a danger that the nerves of our guardians may be rendered too excitable and effeminate by them
there is a real danger he said then we must have no more of them true
clearly and shall we proceed to get rid of the weepings and wailings of famous men they will go with the rest but shall we be right in getting rid of them reflect our principle is that the good man will not consider death terrible to any other good man who is his comrade
and making them over to women and not even to women who are good for anything or to men of a baser sort that those who are being educated by us to be the defenders of their country may scorn to do the like that will be very right
who is the son of a goddess first lying on his side then on his back and then on his face then starting up and sailing in a frenzy along the shores of the barren sea now taking the sooty ashes in both his hands and pouring them over his head
or weeping and wailing in the various modes which homer has delineated nor should he describe priam the kinsman of the gods as praying and beseeching rolling in the dirt calling each man loudly by his name
still more earnestly will we beg of him at all events not to introduce the gods lamenting and saying alas my misery alas that i bore the bravest to my sorrow but if he must introduce the gods
at any rate let him not dare so completely to misrepresent the greatest of the gods as to make him say o heavens with my eyes verily i behold a dear friend of mine chased round and round the city and my heart is sorrowful or again
our youth seriously listen to such unworthy representations of the gods instead of laughing at them as they ought hardly will any of them deem that he himself being but a man can be dishonoured by similar actions
and instead of having any shame or self control he will be always whining and lamenting on slight occasions yes he said that is most true yes i replied but that surely is what ought not to be as the argument has just proved to us
and by that proof we must abide until it is disproved by a better it ought not to be neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter for a fit of laughter which has been indulged to excess almost always produces a violent reaction
so i believe then persons of worth even if only mortal men must not be represented as overcome by laughter and still less must such a representation of the gods be allowed still less of the gods as you say he replied
inextinguishable laughter arose among the blessed gods when they saw hephaestus bustling about the mansion on your views we must not admit them on my views if you like to father them on me
that we must not admit them is certain again truth should be highly valued if as we were saying a lie is useless to the gods
then the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians private individuals have no business with them clearly not he said then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying the rulers of the state should be the persons and they
in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens may be allowed to lie for the public good but nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind and although the rulers have this privilege
for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer
and how things are going with himself or his fellow sailors most true he said if then
any of the craftsmen whether he be priest or physician or carpenter he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally subversive and destructive of ship or state most certainly he said if our idea of the state is ever carried out
in the next place our youth must be temperate certainly
obedience to commanders and self control in sensual pleasures true
whether in verse or prose are well or ill spoken they are ill spoken they may very possibly afford some amusement but they do not conduce to temperance
yes and then again to make the wisest of men say that nothing in his opinion is more glorious than when the tables are full of bread and meat and the cup bearer carries round wine which he draws from the bowl and pours into the cups
but forgot them all in a moment through his lust
but wanted to lie with her on the ground declaring that he had never been in such a state of rapture before even when they first met one another without the knowledge of their parents or that other tale of how hephaestus because of similar goings on
indeed he said i am strongly of opinion that they ought not to hear that sort of thing but any deeds of endurance which are done or told by famous men these they ought to see and hear as for example what is said in the verses
neither must we sing to them of gifts persuading gods and persuading reverend kings neither is phoenix the tutor of achilles
to be approved or deemed to have given his pupil good counsel when he told him that he should take the gifts of the greeks and assist them but that without a gift he should not lay aside his anger
i hardly like to say that in attributing these feelings to achilles or in believing that they are truly attributed to him he is guilty of downright impiety as little can i believe the narrative of his insolence to apollo where he says thou hast wronged me o far darter
most abominable of deities verily i would be even with thee
or his insubordination to the river god on whose divinity he is ready to lay hands
which had been previously dedicated to the other river god spercheius and that he actually performed this vow or that he dragged hector round the tomb of patroclus and slaughtered the captives at the pyre of all this i cannot believe that he was guilty
any more than i can allow our citizens to believe that he the wise cheiron's pupil the son of a goddess and of peleus who was the gentlest of men and third in descent from zeus was so disordered in his wits as to be at one time the slave of two seemingly inconsistent passions
meanness not untainted by avarice combined with overweening contempt of gods and men you are quite right he replied and let us equally refuse to believe or allow to be repeated the tale of theseus son of poseidon
and let us further compel the poets to declare either that these acts were not done by them or that they were not the sons of gods both in the same breath they shall not be permitted to affirm we will not have them trying to persuade our youth that the gods are the authors of evil
and that heroes are no better than men sentiments which as we were saying are neither pious nor true for we have already proved that evil cannot come from the gods assuredly not and further they are likely to have a bad effect on those who hear them
and who have the blood of deities yet flowing in their veins and therefore let us put an end to such tales lest they engender laxity of morals among the young
but now that we are determining what classes of subjects are or are not to be spoken of let us see whether any have been omitted by us
we shall have to say that about men poets and story tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy and the good miserable and that injustice is profitable when undetected but that justice is a man's own loss and another's gain
these things we shall forbid them to utter and command them to sing and say the opposite to be sure we shall he replied but if you admit that i am right in this
where then is justice and where is injustice and in what part of the state did they spring up probably in the dealings of these citizens with one another i cannot imagine that they are more likely to be found any where else
i dare say that you are right in your suggestion i said we had better think the matter out and not shrink from the enquiry
now that we have thus established them
stripped and barefoot but in winter substantially clothed and shod they will feed on barley meal and flour of wheat
and they and their children will feast drinking of the wine which they have made wearing garlands on their heads
and if you were providing for a city of pigs how else would you feed the beasts but what would you have glaucon i replied why he said you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life people who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas
and dine off tables and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style yes i said now i understand the question which you would have me consider is not only how a state but how a luxurious state is created and possibly there is no harm in this
all these not of one sort only but in every variety
and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be procured true he said
another will be the votaries of music poets and their attendant train of rhapsodists players dancers contractors also makers of divers kinds of articles including women's dresses and we shall want more servants
and nurses wet and dry tirewomen and barbers as well as confectioners and cooks and swineherds too
but are needed now they must not be forgotten and there will be animals of many other kinds if people eat them certainly and living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before much greater
and the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now and not enough quite true then a slice of our neighbours land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage and they will want a slice of ours if like ourselves they exceed the limit of necessity
which will have to go out and fight with the invaders for all that we have
why he said are they not capable of defending themselves no i said not if we were right in the principle which was acknowledged by all of us when we were framing the state the principle as you will remember was that one man cannot practise many arts with success
but to him and to every other worker was assigned one work for which he was by nature fitted and at that he was to continue working all his life long and at no other he was not to let opportunities slip and then he would become a good workman
or master of defence nor be of any use to him who has not learned how to handle them and has never bestowed any attention upon them how then will he who takes up a shield or other implement of war become a good fighter all in a day whether with heavy armed or any other kind of troops
not also require natural aptitude for his calling certainly then it will be our duty to select if we can natures which are fitted for the task of guarding the city it will and the selection will be no easy matter i said but we must be brave and do our best
we must is not the noble youth very like a well bred dog in respect of guarding and watching
and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight well
and is he likely to be brave who has no spirit whether horse or dog or any other animal have you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable i have
true and also of the mental ones his soul is to be full of spirit yes but are not these spirited natures apt to be savage with one another and with everybody else a difficulty by no means easy to overcome he replied whereas i said
for the one is the contradiction of the other true
and yet the combination of them appears to be impossible and hence we must infer that to be a good guardian is impossible i am afraid that what you say is true he replied here feeling perplexed i began to think over what had preceded my friend i said
no wonder that we are in a perplexity for we have lost sight of the image which we had before us
and where do you find them many animals i replied furnish examples of them our friend the dog is a very good one you know that well bred dogs are perfectly gentle to their familiars and acquaintances and the reverse to strangers yes i know
i do not apprehend your meaning the trait of which i am speaking i replied may be also seen in the dog and is remarkable in the animal what trait why a dog whenever he sees a stranger is angry when an acquaintance he welcomes him
although the one has never done him any harm nor the other any good did this never strike you as curious the matter never struck me before but i quite recognise the truth of your remark and surely this instinct of the dog is very charming
and must not an animal be a lover of learning who determines what he likes and dislikes by the test of knowledge and ignorance most assuredly
how do justice and injustice grow up in states
shall we begin education with music and go on to gymnastic afterwards by all means and when you speak of music do you include literature or not i do and literature may be either true or false yes
and the young should be trained in both kinds and we begin with the false i do not understand your meaning he said you know i said that we begin by telling children stories which though not wholly destitute of truth are in the main fictitious
very true that was my meaning when i said that we must teach music before gymnastics quite right he said you know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work
quite true and shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons
but most of those which are now in use must be discarded
you may find a model of the lesser in the greater i said for they are necessarily of the same type and there is the same spirit in both of them very likely he replied but i do not as yet know what you would term the greater those i said which are narrated by homer and hesiod
a fault which is most serious i said the fault of telling a lie and what is more a bad lie but when is this fault committed whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes
as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original yes he said that sort of thing is certainly very blameable but what are the stories which you mean first of all i said
even if they were true ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons if possible they had better be buried in silence but if there is an absolute necessity for their mention a chosen few might hear them in a mystery
and they should sacrifice not a common eleusinian pig but some huge and unprocurable victim and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed
yes adeimantus they are stories not to be repeated in our state
and that even if he chastises his father when he does wrong in whatever manner he will only be following the example of the first and greatest among the gods i entirely agree with you he said in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to be repeated
and of the plots and fightings of the gods against one another for they are not true no we shall never mention the battles of the giants or let them be embroidered on garments and we shall be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives
if they would only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy and that never up to this time has there been any quarrel between citizens
or how on another occasion zeus sent him flying for taking her part when she was being beaten and all the battles of the gods in homer these tales must not be admitted into our state whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not
there you are right he replied but if any one asks where are such models to be found and of what tales are you speaking how shall we answer him i said to him you and i adeimantus at this moment are not poets but founders of a state
now the founders of a state ought to know the general forms in which poets should cast their tales and the limits which must be observed by them but to make the tales is not their business very true he said but what are these forms of theology which you mean something of this kind i replied
god is always to be represented as he truly is whatever be the sort of poetry epic lyric or tragic in which the representation is given right and is he not truly good and must he not be represented as such certainly
and no good thing is hurtful no indeed and that which is not hurtful hurts not certainly not and that which hurts not does no evil no and can that which does no evil be a cause of evil impossible and the good is advantageous yes
and therefore the cause of well being yes it follows therefore that the good is not the cause of all things but of the good only assuredly then god if he be good is not the author of all things as the many assert but he is the cause of
and not of most things that occur to men for few are the goods of human life and many are the evils and the good is to be attributed to god alone of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere and not in him that appears to me to be most true he said
then we must not listen to homer or to any other poet who is guilty of the folly of saying that two casks lie at the threshold of zeus full of lots one of good the other of evil lots
sometimes meets with evil fortune at other times with good but that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill him wild hunger drives o'er the beauteous earth and again zeus who is the dispenser of good and evil to us
and if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties which was really the work of pandarus was brought about by athene and zeus
god plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house
but that those who are punished are miserable and that god is the author of their misery the poet is not to be permitted to say though he may say that the wicked are miserable because they require to be punished and are benefited by receiving punishment from god
but that god being good is the author of evil to any one is to be strenuously denied and not to be said or sung or heard in verse or prose by any one whether old or young in any well ordered commonwealth such a fiction is suicidal ruinous
impious i agree with you he replied and am ready to give my assent to the law let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform that god is not the author of all things
and things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or discomposed for example when healthiest and strongest the human frame is least liable to be affected by meats and drinks
and the plant which is in the fullest vigour also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar causes of course and will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by any external influence true
is least liable to suffer change from without true but surely god and the things of god are in every way perfect of course they are then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes he cannot
for we cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty very true adeimantus but then would any one whether god or man desire to make himself worse impossible
then it is impossible that god should ever be willing to change being as is supposed the fairest and best that is conceivable every god remains absolutely and for ever in his own form that necessarily follows he said in my judgment
walk up and down cities in all sorts of forms and let no one slander proteus and thetis
for the life giving daughters of inachus the river of argos let us have no more lies of that sort neither must we have mothers under the influence of the poets scaring their children with a bad version of these myths telling how certain gods as they say
but let them take heed lest they make cowards of their children and at the same time speak blasphemy against the gods heaven forbid he said
is hated of gods and men what do you mean he said i mean that no one is willingly deceived in that which is the truest and highest part of himself or about the truest and highest matters there above all
he is most afraid of a lie having possession of him still he said i do not comprehend you the reason is i replied that you attribute some profound meaning to my words
there is nothing more hateful to them and as i was just now remarking this ignorance in the soul of him who is deceived may be called the true lie for the lie in words is only a kind of imitation and shadowy image of a previous affection of the soul
not pure unadulterated falsehood am i not right perfectly right the true lie is hated not only by the gods but also by men yes whereas the lie in words is in certain cases useful and not hateful
in dealing with enemies that would be an instance or again when those whom we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are going to do some harm then it is useful and is a sort of medicine or preventive also in the tales of mythology of which we were just now speaking
and therefore has recourse to invention that would be ridiculous he said then the lying poet has no place in our idea of god i should say not or perhaps he may tell a lie because he is afraid of enemies that is inconceivable
then the superhuman and divine is absolutely incapable of falsehood yes then is god perfectly simple and true both in word and deed he changes not he deceives not either by sign or word by dream or waking vision
your thoughts he said are the reflection of my own you agree with me then i said that this is the second type or form in which we should write and speak about divine things the gods are not magicians who transform themselves
neither do they deceive mankind in any way i grant that then although we are admirers of homer we do not admire the lying dream which zeus sends to agamemnon
thetis says that apollo at her nuptials was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long and to know no sickness and when he had spoken of my lot as in all things blessed of heaven he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul
and i thought that the word of phoebus being divine and full of prophecy would not fail and now he himself who uttered the strain
he it is who has slain my son these are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our anger and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus neither shall we allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young meaning
as we do that our guardians as far as men can be should be true worshippers of the gods and like them
one of the first things i did on getting settled on my ranch the second time i was in california was to get a wagon and go down to my eucalyptus grove for a load of the pale green aromatic boughs with which to trim my attic study for their fragrance is delightful
and their delicate blue green tone lends itself readily to decorative purposes when the supply needed replenishing i rode down on mountain billy and carried home the sweet smelling branches on the saddle the grove served a more utilitarian purpose however
the eucalyptus is an australian tree with narrow straight hanging leaves and its rapid growth makes it useful for firewood a tree will grow forty feet in four years
and its greenness was most grateful to eyes unused to the bright colors and strong lights of california opposite the little grove in a small house perched on a hill an old sea captain lived alone
as i rode by one day he sat with his feet hanging over the edge of the high piazza looking off as if on the prow of his vessel gazing out to sea when i stopped to ask if he had seen anything noteworthy happen at the grove
he had spoken in an impersonal way that i quite understood he had been taken unawares but the next time i rode past as if to make up for any apparent rudeness he came hurrying down the walk to tell me of a crow's nest he had seen in the grove
to mark it he had fastened a piece of paper to the wire fence by the road and another paper to the nest tree binding it on with a eucalyptus twig in true sailor fashion it was always a relief to leave the hot beating sun and the glare of the yellow fields
and enter the cool shade of the quiet grove i could let down the fence and put it up behind me thus having my small forest all to myself and used to enjoy riding up and down the fragrant blue avenues the eucalyptus trees although thirty or forty feet high
were lithe and slender some of them could be spanned by the hands the rows were planted ten feet apart but the long branches interlaced so one had to be on the alert in riding down the lines to bend low on the saddle or push aside the branches that obstructed the way
the limbs were so slender and flexible that a touch was enough to bend back a green gate fifteen to twenty feet long and billy often pushed a branch aside with his nose in places fallen trees barred our path but billy used to step carefully over them
the eucalyptus trees change very curiously as they grow old when young they are covered with branches low to the ground and their aromatic tender leaves are light bluish green afterwards they lose their lower branches while their leaves become stiff and sickle shaped
dull green and almost odorless the same changes are seen in the bark first the trunks are smooth and green then they are hung with shaggy shreds of bark this in turn drops off so that the old trees are smooth again
but my first interest was in finding out who lived in my little woods a dog had once been seen driving a coyote wolf out of it but that was merely in passing i did not expect to meet wolves there it was said however to be a good place for tarantulas
for the eucalyptus absorbed all the moisture and that may have had something to do with its freedom from snakes and scorpions though it would not explain the absence of caterpillars and spiders which just then were so common outside though in the grove a great deal
i never ran into but one cobweb and was conscious of the pleasant freedom from falling caterpillars moreover i never saw a lizard in the blue gums though dozens of them were to be seen about the oaks and in the brush it was a surprise to find so many feathered folks living in the eucalyptus
and i took a personal interest in each one of the inhabitants the first time we started to go up and down the avenues we scared up a pair of turtle doves beautiful delicately tinted gentle creatures fit tenants of the lovely grove
in such a marked manner that when we passed a young dove a few yards farther on it was easy to put two and two together
and the grove became musical with the sweet calls of the young brood
or whether the bark had fallen down on them after they built i could get no trace of the owners of the nest and it troubled me not liking to have any little homes in my wood that i did not know all about
in one of the trees we came to an enormous nest made of the unusual materials that are sometimes chosen by that strange bird the road runner it was an exciting discovery for that was before the road runner had come to the ranch house
and i had been pursuing phantom runners over the hills in the vain attempt to learn something about them while here it seemed one had been living under my very vine and fig tree to make sure about the nest i spoke to my neighbor ranchman
and he told me that when he had been milking during the spring he had often seen the birds come out of the blue gums and had also seen them perching there on the trees how exasperating if i had only come earlier now they had gone and my chance of a nest study was lost
but my doll was not stuffed with sawdust for all of that there was still much to enjoy for a mourning dove flew from her nest of twigs almost over billy's head and it made me quite happy to know that the gentle bird was brooding her eggs in my woods
it seemed odd for there was her little cousin nesting out in the weeds in the bright sun while she was raising her brood in the shady forest the two nests were as unlike as the sites the bird outside had used dull green weeds while this one used beautiful shining oak stems
i thought the pretty bird would surely be safe here but one day when i called expecting to see a growing family i was shocked to find a pathetic little skeleton in the nest one afternoon in riding down the rows i came face to face
with two mites of hummingbirds seated on a branch their grayish green suits toned in with the color of the blue gums it was a surprise when one of them turned to the other and fed it the mother hummer was small enough to be taken for a nestling
he sat very unconcernedly on a low branch right out in the middle of the road but billy did not run over him i found two hummers nests in the eucalyptus during the summer one builder was the one the photographer was fortunate enough to catch brooding
making it the highest hummingbird's nest i had ever seen it was attached to a red leaf to mark the spot perhaps one often wonders how a bird can come back twice to the same leaf in a forest how one little home does make a place habitable
from a bare silent woods it becomes a dwelling place everything seemed to centre around this little nest then the only one in the grove the tiny pinch of down became the most important thing in the woods it was the castle which the trees surrounded when i first found the nest
and i became much interested in watching their progress often riding down to see how they were getting on the hummer did not return my interest she was nervous darting off when billy shook himself or when the shadow of a soaring turkey buzzard fell over the nest
but in spite of that we made ourselves quite at home before her door i would dismount and sit on the ground leaning against a blue gum while billy stood by in a bower of green leaves with ears pricked forward thoughtfully and a dreamy look of satisfaction in his eyes
soon she began to act so strangely for a brooding bird that when she flew i went to feel in the nest the tips of my fingers touched what felt like round balls but not satisfied i pulled down the bough and found one round ball
and one mite of a gray back with microscopic yellow hairs on each side of the spine the whole tiny body seemed to throb with its heart beats i wondered how such a midget could ever be fed but found as in the case of the hummer under the little lover's tree
that the mother gave its food most gently reserving her violent pumping for a more suitable age though one would as soon think of poking a needle down a baby's throat as that bill often while watching the nest my thoughts wandered away to the grove itself
the brown earth between the rows was barred by alternate lines of sunlight and shadow and the vista of each avenue ended in blue sky sometimes cool ocean breezes would penetrate the forest the rows of trees with their gently swaying interlacing branches
cast moving shadows over the sun touched leafy floor giving a white light to the grove for the undersides of the young eucalyptus leaves are like snow from the stiff sickle shaped upper leaves the sun glanced dazzling the eyes
mourning doves cooed and the sweet notes of yellow birds filled the sunny grove with suggestions of happiness a yellow butterfly wandered down the blue aisles such a secure retreat i returned to it again and again coming in out of the hot yellow world
and closing behind me the doors of my rest house for the little wood had come to seem like a cool wayside chapel a place of peace
chapter thirty four the odds and ends of doctor walker's sensational escape that night to south america of the recovery of over a million dollars in cash and securities in the safe from the chimney room
the papers have kept the public well informed of my share in discovering the secret chamber they have been singularly silent the inner history has never been told mister jamieson got all kinds of credit and some of it he deserved
and by night she was at sunnyside under gertrude's particular care while her mother had gone to barbara fitzhugh's what halsey said to missus armstrong i never knew but that he was considerate and chivalrous i feel confident it was halsey's way always with women
he and louise had no conversation together until that night gertrude and alex i mean jack had gone for a walk although it was nine o'clock and anybody but a pair of young geese would have known that dew was falling and that it is next to impossible to get rid of a summer cold
at half after nine growing weary of my own company i went downstairs to find the young people at the door of the living room i paused gertrude and jack had returned and were there sitting together on a divan with only one lamp lighted they did not see or hear me
and i beat a hasty retreat to the library but here again i was driven back louise was sitting in a deep chair looking the happiest i had ever seen her with halsey on the arm of the chair holding her close it was no place for an elderly spinster
i retired to my upstairs sitting room and got out eliza klinefelter's lavender slippers ah well the foster motherhood would soon have to be put away in camphor again the next day by degrees i got the whole story
paul armstrong had a besetting evil the love of money common enough but he loved money not for what it would buy but for its own sake an examination of the books showed no irregularities in the past year since john had been cashier
but before that in the time of anderson the old cashier who had died much strange juggling had been done with the records the railroad in new mexico had apparently drained the banker's private fortune and he determined to retrieve it by one stroke
this was nothing less than the looting of the bank's securities turning them into money and making his escape but the law has long arms paul armstrong evidently studied the situation carefully just as the only good indian is a dead indian
the connivance of doctor walker was suggested by his love for louise the man was unscrupulous and with the girl as a bait paul armstrong soon had him fast the plan was apparently the acme of simplicity a small town in the west
an attack of heart disease a body from a medical college dissecting room shipped in a trunk to doctor walker by a colleague in san francisco and palmed off for the supposed dead banker what was simpler the woman nina carrington was the cog that slipped
what she only suspected what she really knew we never learned she was a chambermaid in the hotel at c and it was evidently her intention to blackmail doctor walker his position at that time was uncomfortable
he denied the whole thing and she went to halsey it was this that had taken halsey to the doctor the night he disappeared he accused the doctor of the deception and crossing the lawn had said something cruel to louise then furious at her apparent connivance
he had started for the station doctor walker and paul armstrong the latter still lame where i had shot him hurried across to the embankment certain only of one thing halsey must not tell the detective what he suspected
until the money had been removed from the chimney room they stepped into the road in front of the car to stop it and fate played into their hands the car struck the train and they had only to dispose of the unconscious figure in the road this they did as i have told
sunnyside with its hoard in the chimney room had been rented without his knowledge attempts to dislodge me having failed he was driven to breaking into his own house the ladder in the chute the burning of the stable and the entrance through the card room window
all were in the course of a desperate attempt to get into the chimney room louise and her mother had from the first been the great stumbling blocks the plan had been to send louise away until it was too late for her to interfere but she came back to the hotel at c
just at the wrong time there was a terrible scene the girl was told that something of the kind was necessary that the bank was about to close and her stepfather would either avoid arrest and disgrace in this way or kill himself fanny armstrong was a weakling
she had no love for her stepfather but her devotion to her mother was entire self sacrificing forced into acquiescence by her mother's appeals overwhelmed by the situation the girl consented and fled
had sent the cashier to the bank that night in a frenzy louise arrived at sunnyside and found the house rented not knowing what to do she sent for arnold at the greenwood club and told him a little not all
she told him that there was something wrong and that the bank was about to close that his father was responsible of the conspiracy she said nothing to her surprise arnold already knew through bailey that night that things were not right
moreover he suspected what louise did not that the money was hidden at sunnyside he had a scrap of paper that indicated a concealed room somewhere his inherited cupidity was aroused eager to get halsey and jack bailey out of the house
he went up to the east entry and in the billiard room gave the cashier what he had refused earlier in the evening the address of paul armstrong in california and a telegram which had been forwarded to the club for bailey from doctor walker
it was in response to one bailey had sent and it said that paul armstrong was very ill bailey was almost desperate he decided to go west and find paul armstrong and to force him to disgorge
but the catastrophe at the bank occurred sooner than he had expected on the moment of starting west at andrews station where mister jamieson had located the car he read that the bank had closed and going back surrendered himself
john bailey had known paul armstrong intimately he did not believe that the money was gone in fact it was hardly possible in the interval since the securities had been taken where was it
bailey felt sure there was a hidden room at sunnyside he tried to see the architect of the building but like the contractor
it was halsey's idea that john bailey come to the house as a gardener and pursue his investigations as he could his smooth upper lip had been sufficient disguise with his change of clothes and a hair cut by a country barber
so it was alex jack bailey who had been our ghost not only had he alarmed louise and himself he admitted on the circular staircase but he had dug the hole in the trunk room wall and later sent eliza into hysteria
the note liddy had found in gertrude's scrap basket was from him and it was he who had startled me into unconsciousness by the clothes chute and with gertrude's help had carried me to louise's room gertrude i learned had watched all night beside me
in an extremity of anxiety about me that old thomas had seen his master and thought he had seen the sunnyside ghost there could be no doubt
the night liddy and i heard the noise on the circular staircase that too was right on the night before arnold armstrong was murdered jack bailey had made his first attempt to search for the secret room
and he took the owl train to town the oddest thing to me was that mister jamieson had known for some time that alex was jack bailey but the face of the pseudo gardener was very queer indeed when that night in the card room the detective turned to him and said
sunnyside is for sale no i shall not buy it little lucien armstrong is living with his step grandmother and she is recovering gradually from troubles that had extended over the entire period of her second marriage
anne watson lies not far from the man she killed and who as surely caused her death thomas the fourth victim of the conspiracy is buried on the hill with nina carrington five lives were sacrificed in the course of this grim conspiracy
there will be two weddings before long and liddy has asked for my heliotrope poplin to wear to the church i knew she would she has wanted it for three years and she was quite ugly the time i spilled coffee on it we are very quiet just the two of us
when warner married rosie liddy sniffed and said what i took for faithfulness in rosie had been nothing but mawkishness i have not yet outlived liddy's contempt because i gave them silver knives and forks as a wedding gift
so we sit and talk and sometimes liddy threatens to leave and often i discharge her but we stay together somehow i am talking of renting a house next year and liddy says to be sure there is no ghost
potash soda and ammonia caustic potash occurs in cylindrical sticks is soapy to the touch has an acrid taste
soluble in water liquor potassae is a strong solution of caustic potash and has a similar reaction
carbonate of potassium also known as potash pearlash salt of tartar is a white crystalline powder alkaline and caustic in taste and very deliquescent
feebly alkaline taste and are not deliquescent symptoms acrid soapy taste in mouth burning in throat and gullet acute pain at pit of stomach vomiting of bloody or brown mucus colicky pains bloody stools
surface cold pulse weak these preparations are not volatile so that there is not much fear of lung trouble in chronic cases death occurs from stricture of the oesophagus causing starvation post mortem appearances
soapy feeling softening inflammation and corrosion of mucous membrane of mouth pharynx oesophagus
the glottis may be inflamed and if there is danger of asphyxia tracheotomy may have to be performed carbonate of sodium occurs as soda and best soda the former in dirty crystalline masses
it is also found as washing soda symptoms post mortem appearances treatment and extraction from the stomach as for potash tests alkaline reaction
effervesces and evolves carbonic acid when treated with an acid crystallizes gives yellow tinge to blowpipe flame no precipitate with tartaric acid nor with bichloride of platinum ammonia may be taken
red and glazed the urgent symptoms are those of suffocation
or broncho pneumonia death may result from inflammation of the larynx and lungs when swallowed in solution the symptoms are similar to those of soda and potash post mortem appearances similar to other corrosives
method of extraction from the stomach the contents of the stomach et cetera must be first distilled the gas being conveyed into water free from ammonia tests nessler's reagent is the most delicate
but ammonia may be recognized by its pungent odour dense fumes given off with hydrochloric acid and strong alkaline reaction treatment vinegar and water other treatment according to symptoms
and so are all the internal organs gastro enteritis nephritis tests spectroscope shows blood contains methaemoglobin
sulphuret of potassium liver of sulphur
has a strong smell of sulphuretted hydrogen symptoms of acute irritant poisoning with stupor or convulsions excreta smell of sulphuretted hydrogen post mortem appearances stomach and duodenum reddened
with deposits of sulphur lungs congested treatment chloride of sodium or lime in dilute solution and ordinary treatment for irritant poisoning fatal period shortest fifteen minutes
like magnesium sulphate soluble in water and bitter in taste carbonate of barium is found in shops as a fine powder tasteless and colourless insoluble in water but effervescing with dilute acids
and readily decomposed by the free acids of the stomach nitrate of barium occurs in octahedral crystals soluble in water method of extraction from the stomach dialysis as for other soluble poisons tests
precipitated from its solutions by potassium carbonate or sulphuric acid burnt on platinum foil
symptoms besides those of irritants generally violent cramps and convulsions headache debility dimness of sight double vision noises in the ears and beating at the heart the salts of barium are also cardiac poisons
post mortem appearances as of irritants generally stomach may be perforated treatment wash out stomach with a solution of sodium or magnesium sulphate or of alum and give stimulants by the mouth and hypodermically
it strikes blue with solution of starch and stains the skin and intestines yellowish brown liquid preparations as the liniment or tincture may be taken accidentally or suicidally symptoms acrid taste tightness of throat
epigastric pain and then symptoms of irritant poisons generally chronic poisoning iodism is characterized
frontal headache loss of appetite marked mental depression acne of the face and chest
treatment stomach pump and emetics carbonate of sodium amylaceous fluids gruel arrowroot starch et cetera
and shake the iodine may be obtained on evaporation as a sublimate
iodide of potassium colourless generally opaque cubic crystals soluble in less than their weight of cold water symptoms not an active poison but even small doses sometimes produce the effects of a common cold
including those symptoms already mentioned as occurring with iodine analysis iodide of potassium in solution gives a bright yellow precipitate with lead salts
and a blue colour with sulphuric or nitric acid and starch
ordinary phosphorus is soluble in oil alcohol ether chloroform
insoluble in water it is much used in rat poisons made into a paste with flour sugar fat and prussian blue yellow phosphorus is not allowed to be used in the manufacture of lucifer matches and the importation of such is prohibited
in safety matches the amorphous phosphorus is on the box symptoms at first those of an irritant poison but days may elapse before any characteristic symptoms appear
and these may be mistaken for those of acute yellow atrophy of the liver the earliest signs are a garlicky taste in the mouth and pain in the throat and stomach vomited matter luminous in the dark bile stained or bloody with garlic like odour
great prostration diarrhoea with bloody stools harsh dry yellow skin purpuric spots with ecchymoses under the skin and mucous membranes retention or suppression of urine delirium convulsions coma and death
then jaundice comes on with enlargement of the liver haemorrhages from the mucous surfaces and under the skin later coma and convulsions in chronic cases there is fatty degeneration of most of the organs and tissues of the body
the inhalation of the fumes of phosphorus as in making vermin killers et cetera gives rise to phossy jaw post mortem appearances softening of the stomach haemorrhagic spots on all organs and under the skin
fatty degeneration of liver kidneys and heart blood stained urine phosphorescent contents of alimentary canal treatment early use of stomach pump and emetics followed by the administration of permanganate of potassium
or peroxide of hydrogen to oxidize the phosphorus oil should not be given sulphate and carbonate of magnesium mucilaginous drinks sulphate of copper is a valuable antidote both as an emetic
it is beyond doubt then that these paths do not lead to happiness they cannot guide anyone to the promised goal now i will very briefly show what serious evils are involved in following them just consider
is it thy endeavour to heap up money why thou must wrest it from its present possessor art thou minded to put on the splendour of official dignity thou must beg from those who have the giving of it
must lower thyself to the humble posture of petition dost thou long for power thou must face perils for thou wilt be at the mercy of thy subjects plots is glory thy aim
thou art lured on through all manner of hardships and there is an end to thy peace of mind art fain to lead a life of pleasure yet who does not scorn and contemn one
again on how slight and perishable a possession do they rely who set before themselves bodily excellences can ye ever surpass the elephant in bulk or the bull in strength
can ye excel the tiger in swiftness look upon the infinitude the solidity the swift motion of the heavens and for once cease to admire things mean and worthless
and yet the heavens are not so much to be admired on this account as for the reason which guides them
how soon gone more fleeting than the fading bloom of spring flowers and yet if as aristotle says men should see with the eyes of lynceus so that their sight might pierce through obstructions
appear altogether loathsome when all its inward parts lay open to the view therefore
of a three days fever from all which considerations we may conclude as a whole that these things which cannot make good the advantages they promise which are never made perfect by the assemblage of all good things
these neither lead as by ways to happiness nor themselves make men completely happy
alas how wide astray doth ignorance these wretched mortals lead from truth's own way for not on leafy stems do ye within the green wood look for gold nor strip the vine for gems
your nets ye do not spread upon the hill tops that the groaning board with fish be furnished if ye are fain to chase the bounding goat ye sweep not in vain search the ocean's ruffled face
the sea's far depths they know each hidden nook wherein the waves o'erwash the pearl as white as snow
where fish and prickly urchins do abound all this they know full well but not to know or care where hidden lies the good all hearts desire this blindness they can bear
with gaze on earth low bent they seek for that which reacheth far beyond the starry firmament what curse shall i call down on hearts so dull
to my dog who first heard these lines and didn't run away mad
a fool may give a wise man counsel preface in this age of the arduous pursuit of peace prosperity and pleasure
with this in mind the author has prepared the foolish dictionary not in serious emulation of the worthier and wordier works of webster and worcester but rather in the playful spirit of the parodist
how wise flippant sober or stupid this treatment has been it is for the reader alone to judge however if from epigram derivative or pure absurdity
there be born a single laugh between the lids the laborer will accredit himself worthy of his hire in further explanation it should be said
absinthe from two latin words ad and sinistrum meaning to the bad if in doubt try one old adage absinthe makes the jag last longer
and stein or tankard hence water tankard or water wagon accession a beheading process by which you may either win or lose a political job old spelling axe session
accident a condition of affairs in which presence of mind is good but absence of body better adamant from adam's aunt reputed to be a hard character hence anything tough or hard
adore from add annex and ore meaning wealth example foreign nobles who marry american heiresses adore them advice a commodity peddled by your lawyer and given away by your mother in law
but impossible to dispose of yourself famous as the one thing which it is more blessed to give than receive good advice something old men give young men when they can no longer give them a bad example
adversity a bottomless lake surrounded by near sighted friends affinity complimentary term for your husband or your wife sometimes a synonym for your finish afterthought
a tardy sense of prudence that prompts one to try to shut his mouth about the time he has put his foot in it age something to brag about in your wine cellar and forget in a birth day book
the boast of an old vintage the bug a boo of an old maid alcohol a liquid good for preserving almost everything except secrets
all skin alimony an expensive soothing syrup prescribed by the judge for a divorcee's bleeding heart old spelling allay money allopathy
homoeopathy
alphabet a toy for the children found in books blocks pictures and vermicelli soup contains twenty six letters and only three syllables
ancestors the originators of the family tree a remarkable sex paradox in which the ann sisters are always the four fathers angel a heavenly ineligible with wings and a harp
or an earthly eligible with money and a heart anti rooms euphemistic term for canfield's new york city anti imperialist a patriot whose conscience works overtime
antimony a metallic substance discovered by valentine in fourteen fifty and now extensively used in the arts particularly poker
appendicitis a modern pain costing about two hundred dollars more than the old fashioned stomach ache argument breaking and entering the ear
arson derived from the hebrew see insurance artist commonly the individual long haired and short suited having a positive pose and an uncertain income
often shy on meal tickets but strong on technique and the price of tripe sandwiches an artist may be a barber a boot black a sargent or a paderewski
augur one who bored the ancients with prophecies
to move a vehicle which ought to move but frequently can't automobilist a land lubber on wheels made up to resemble a deep sea diver
and even himself only in relation to his pupils sixty four knowledge for its own sake that is the last snare laid by morality we are thereby completely entangled in morals once more
sixty five the charm of knowledge would be small were it not so much shame has to be overcome on the way to it sixty five a we are most dishonourable towards our god
he is not permitted to sin sixty six the tendency of a person to allow himself to be degraded robbed deceived and exploited might be the diffidence of a god among men
sixty seven love to one only is a barbarity for it is exercised at the expense of all others love to god also sixty eight
i did that says my memory i could not have done that says my pride and remains inexorable eventually the memory yields sixty nine one has regarded life carelessly
if one has failed to see the hand that kills with leniency seventy if a man has character he has also his typical experience which always recurs seventy one
the sage as astronomer so long as thou feelest the stars as an above thee thou lackest the eye of the discerning one seventy two
it is not the strength but the duration of great sentiments that makes great men seventy three he who attains his ideal precisely thereby surpasses it seventy three a
many a peacock hides his tail from every eye and calls it his pride seventy four a man of genius is unbearable
gratitude and purity seventy five the degree and nature of a man's sensuality extends to the highest altitudes of his spirit seventy six
two men with the same principles probably seek fundamentally different ends therewith seventy eight he who despises himself nevertheless esteems himself thereby as a despiser
seventy nine a soul which knows that it is loved but does not itself love betrays its sediment its dregs come up eighty
a thing that is explained ceases to concern us what did the god mean who gave the advice know thyself did it perhaps imply cease to be concerned about thyself become objective
and socrates and the scientific man eighty one it is terrible to die of thirst at sea is it necessary that you should so salt your truth that it will no longer quench thirst
eighty two sympathy for all would be harshness and tyranny for thee my good neighbour eighty three instinct when the house is on fire one forgets even the dinner
yes but one recovers it from among the ashes eighty four woman learns how to hate in proportion as she forgets how to charm eighty five
the same emotions are in man and woman but in different tempo on that account man and woman never cease to misunderstand each other eighty six in the background of all their personal vanity
women themselves have still their impersonal scorn for woman eighty seven fettered heart free spirit when one firmly fetters one's heart and keeps it prisoner
one can allow one's spirit many liberties i said this once before but people do not believe it when i say so unless they know it already eighty eight
one begins to distrust very clever persons when they become embarrassed eighty nine dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences them
is not something dreadful also ninety heavy melancholy men turn lighter and come temporarily to their surface precisely by that which makes others heavy by hatred and love
ninety one so cold so icy that one burns one's finger at the touch of him every hand that lays hold of him shrinks back and for that very reason many think him red hot
ninety two who has not at one time or another sacrificed himself for the sake of his good name ninety three in affability there is no hatred of men
but precisely on that account a great deal too much contempt of men ninety four the maturity of man that means to have reacquired the seriousness that one had as a child at play
ninety five to be ashamed of one's immorality is a step on the ladder at the end of which one is ashamed also of one's morality ninety six
one should part from life as ulysses parted from nausicaa blessing it rather than in love with it ninety seven what a great man i always see merely the play actor of his own ideal
ninety eight when one trains one's conscience it kisses one while it bites ninety nine the disappointed one speaks i listened for the echo
and i heard only praise one hundred we all feign to ourselves that we are simpler than we are we thus relax ourselves away from our fellows
a discerning one might easily regard himself at present as the animalization of god one hundred two discovering reciprocal love should really disenchant the lover with regard to the beloved
the danger in happiness everything now turns out best for me i now love every fate who would like to be my fate
not their love of humanity but the impotence of their love prevents the christians of today burning us
characteristic of the type free spirit as its non freedom
by means of music the very passions enjoy themselves
a sign of strong character when once the resolution has been taken to shut the ear even to the best counter arguments occasionally therefore a will to stupidity
there is no such thing as moral phenomena but only a moral interpretation of phenomena
the criminal is often enough not equal to his deed he extenuates and maligns it
the advocates of a criminal are seldom artists enough to turn the beautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of the doer
our vanity is most difficult to wound just when our pride has been wounded
to him who feels himself preordained to contemplation and not to belief all believers are too noisy and obtrusive he guards against them
you want to prepossess him in your favour then you must be embarrassed before him
the immense expectation with regard to sexual love and the coyness in this expectation spoils all the perspectives of women at the outset
where there is neither love nor hatred in the game woman's play is mediocre
the great epochs of our life are at the points when we gain courage to rebaptize our badness as the best in us
the will to overcome an emotion is ultimately only the will of another
our loathing of dirt may be so great as to prevent our cleaning ourselves justifying ourselves
sensuality often forces the growth of love too much so that its root remains weak and is easily torn up
it is a curious thing that god learned greek when he wished to turn author and that he did not learn it better
to rejoice on account of praise is in many cases merely politeness of heart and the very opposite of vanity of spirit
even concubinage has been corrupted by marriage
he who exults at the stake does not triumph over pain
when we have to change an opinion about any one we charge heavily to his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us
a nation is a detour of nature
yes and then to get round them
in the eyes of all true women science is hostile to the sense of shame they feel as if one wished to peep under their skin with it or worse still under their dress and finery
the more abstract the truth you wish to teach the more must you allure the senses to it
the sexes deceive themselves about each other the reason is that in reality they honour and love only themselves or their own ideal to express it more agreeably thus man wishes woman to be peaceable
but in fact woman is essentially unpeaceable like the cat however well she may have assumed the peaceable demeanour
one is punished best for one's virtues
he who cannot find the way to his ideal lives more frivolously and shamelessly than the man without an ideal
from the senses originate all trustworthiness all good conscience all evidence of truth
pharisaism is not a deterioration of the good man a considerable part of it is rather an essential condition of being good
the one seeks an accoucheur for his thoughts the other seeks some one whom he can assist a good conversation thus originates
in intercourse with scholars and artists one readily makes mistakes of opposite kinds in a remarkable scholar one not infrequently finds a mediocre man and often even in a mediocre artist
one finds a very remarkable man
we do the same when awake as when dreaming we only invent and imagine him with whom we have intercourse and forget it immediately
in revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man
advice as a riddle if the band is not to break bite it first secure to make
the belly is the reason why man does not so readily take himself for a god
our vanity would like what we do best to pass precisely for what is most difficult to us concerning the origin of many systems of morals
when a woman has scholarly inclinations there is generally something wrong with her sexual nature barrenness itself conduces to a certain virility of taste man indeed if i may say so is the barren animal
comparing man and woman generally one may say that woman would not have the genius for adornment if she had not the instinct for the secondary role
he who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster and if thou gaze long into an abyss the abyss will also gaze into thee
from old florentine novels moreover from life buona femmina e mala femmina vuol bastone sacchetti november eighty sixth
to seduce their neighbour to a favourable opinion and afterwards to believe implicitly in this opinion of their neighbour who can do this conjuring trick so well as women
that which an age considers evil is usually an unseasonable echo of what was formerly considered good the atavism of an old ideal
around the hero everything becomes a tragedy
it is not enough to possess a talent one must also have your permission to possess it
where there is the tree of knowledge there is always paradise
what is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil
objection evasion joyous distrust and love of irony are signs of health everything absolute belongs to pathology
the sense of the tragic increases and declines with sensuousness
insanity in individuals is something rare but in groups parties nations and epochs it is the rule
the thought of suicide is a great consolation by means of it one gets successfully through many a bad night
not only our reason but also our conscience truckles to our strongest impulse the tyrant in us
one must repay good and ill but why just to the person who did us good or ill
poets act shamelessly towards their experiences they exploit them
our fellow creature is not our neighbour but our neighbour's neighbour so thinks every nation
love brings to light the noble and hidden qualities of a lover his rare and exceptional traits it is thus liable to be deceptive as to his normal character
jesus said to his jews the law was for servants love god as i love him as his son what have we sons of god to do with morals
in sight of every party a shepherd has always need of a bell wether or he has himself to be a wether occasionally
one may indeed lie with the mouth but with the accompanying grimace one nevertheless tells the truth
to vigorous men intimacy is a matter of shame and something precious
christianity gave eros poison to drink he did not die of it certainly but degenerated to vice
to talk much about oneself may also be a means of concealing oneself
in praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame
pity has an almost ludicrous effect on a man of knowledge like tender hands on a cyclops
one occasionally embraces some one or other out of love to mankind because one cannot embrace all but this is what one must never confess to the individual
ye utilitarians ye too love the utile only as a vehicle for your inclinations ye too really find the noise of its wheels insupportable
one loves ultimately one's desires not the thing desired
the vanity of others is only counter to our taste when it is counter to our vanity
with regard to what truthfulness is perhaps nobody has ever been sufficiently truthful
one does not believe in the follies of clever men what a forfeiture of the rights of man
the consequences of our actions seize us by the forelock very indifferent to the fact that we have meanwhile reformed
there is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a cause
it is inhuman to bless when one is being cursed
the familiarity of superiors embitters one because it may not be returned
there is a haughtiness of kindness which has the appearance of wickedness
i dislike him
chapter five boffin's bower over against a london house a corner house not far from cavendish square a man with a wooden leg had sat for some years
with his remaining foot in a basket in cold weather picking up a living on this wise every morning at eight o'clock he stumped to the corner carrying a chair a clothes horse a pair of trestles a board a basket and an umbrella
all strapped together separating these the board and trestles became a counter the basket supplied the few small lots of fruit and sweets that he offered for sale upon it and became a foot warmer
the unfolded clothes horse displayed a choice collection of halfpenny ballads and became a screen and the stool planted within it became his post for the rest of the day all weathers saw the man at the post
this is to be accepted in a double sense for he contrived a back to his wooden stool by placing it against the lamp post when the weather was wet he put up his umbrella over his stock in trade not over himself
but had in the beginning diffidently taken the corner upon which the side of the house gave a howling corner in the winter time a dusty corner in the summer time an undesirable corner at the best of times
shelterless fragments of straw and paper got up revolving storms there when the main street was at peace and the water cart as if it were drunk or short sighted came blundering and jolting round it
making it muddy when all else was clean on the front of his sale board hung a little placard like a kettle holder bearing the inscription in his own small text errands gone on with fi delity by
ladies and gentlemen i remain your humble servt silas wegg he had not only settled it with himself in course of time that he was errand goer by appointment to the house at the corner though he received such commissions not
half a dozen times in a year and then only as some servant's deputy but also that he was one of the house's retainers and owed vassalage to it and was bound to leal and loyal interest in it for this reason
on similar grounds he never beheld an inmate at any one of its windows but he touched his hat yet he knew so little about the inmates that he gave them names of his own invention as miss elizabeth master george
aunt jane uncle parker having no authority whatever for any such designations but particularly the last to which as a natural consequence he stuck with great obstinacy
over the house itself he exercised the same imaginary power as over its inhabitants and their affairs he had never been in it the length of a piece of fat
black water pipe which trailed itself over the area door into a damp stone passage and had rather the air of a leech on the house that had taken wonderfully but this was no impediment to his arranging it according to a plan of his own
but this once done was quite satisfactory and he rested persuaded that he knew his way about the house blindfold from the barred garrets in the high roof to the two iron extinguishers before the main door
it gave you the face ache to look at his apples the stomach ache to look at his oranges the tooth ache to look at his nuts
which had no discernible inside and was considered to represent the penn'orth appointed by magna charta whether from too much east wind or no it was an easterly corner the stall the stock and the keeper
were all as dry as the desert wegg was a knotty man and a close grained with a face carved out of very hard material that had just as much play of expression as a watchman's rattle when he laughed certain jerks occurred in it
and the rattle sprung sooth to say he was so wooden a man that he seemed to have taken his wooden leg naturally and rather suggested to the fanciful observer that he might be expected if his development received no untimely check
to be completely set up with a pair of wooden legs in about six months mister wegg was an observant person or as he himself said took a powerful sight of notice
he saluted all his regular passers by every day as he sat on his stool backed up by the lamp post and on the adaptable character of these salutes he greatly plumed himself thus to the rector he addressed a bow compounded of lay deference
to the doctor a confidential bow as to a gentleman whose acquaintance with his inside he begged respectfully to acknowledge before the quality he delighted to abase himself and for uncle parker who was in the army
at least so he had settled it he put his open hand to the side of his hat in a military manner which that angry eyed buttoned up inflammatory faced old gentleman appeared but imperfectly to appreciate
the only article in which silas dealt that was not hard was gingerbread on a certain day some wretched infant having purchased the damp gingerbread horse fearfully out of condition and the adhesive bird cage
which had been exposed for the day's sale he had taken a tin box from under his stool to produce a relay of those dreadful specimens and was going to look in at the lid when he said to himself pausing oh here you are again
here you are again repeated mister wegg musing and what are you now are you in the funns or where are you have you lately come to settle in this neighbourhood
having replaced his tin box accordingly did as he rose to bait his gingerbread trap for some other devoted infant the salute was acknowledged with morning sir morning morning calls me sir said mister wegg to himself
do you remember me then asked his new acquaintance stopping in his amble one sided before the stall and speaking in a pounding way though with great good humour
oh now what pursued the old fellow in an inquisitive manner carrying his knotted stick in his left arm as if it were a baby what do they allow you now it's job work that i do for our house
returned silas drily and with reticence it's not yet brought to an exact allowance oh it's not yet brought to an exact allowance no it's not yet brought to an exact allowance oh morning morning morning
thought silas qualifying his former good opinion as the other ambled off but in a moment he was back again with the question how did you get your wooden leg
mister wegg replied tartly to this personal inquiry in an accident do you like it well i haven't got to keep it warm
mister wegg made answer in a sort of desperation occasioned by the singularity of the question he hasn't repeated the other to his knotted stick as he gave it a hug he hasn't got ha ha to keep it warm
no said mister wegg who was growing restive under this examination i never did hear of the name of boffin do you like it why no
retorted mister wegg again approaching desperation i can't say i do why don't you like it i don't know why i don't retorted mister wegg approaching frenzy but i don't at all
now i'll tell you something that'll make you sorry for that said the stranger smiling my name's boffin
it is expedient that this history should bestow some attention they were a man and woman or perhaps they would be better described as a male and female
for the former was one of those long limbed knock kneed shambling bony people to whom it is difficult to assign any precise age looking as they do when they are yet boys like undergrown men and when they are almost men
like overgrown boys the woman was young but of a robust and hardy make as she need have been to bear the weight of the heavy bundle which was strapped to her back her companion was not encumbered with much luggage as there merely dangled
from a stick which he carried over his shoulder a small parcel wrapped in a common handkerchief and apparently light enough this circumstance added to the length of his legs which were of unusual extent
as if reproaching her tardiness and urging her to greater exertion thus they had toiled along the dusty road taking little heed of any object within sight
save when they stepped aside to allow a wider passage for the mail coaches which were whirling out of town until they passed through highgate archway when the foremost traveller stopped and called impatiently to his companion come on can't yer
what a lazybones yer are charlotte it's a heavy load i can tell you said the female coming up almost breathless with fatigue heavy what are yer talking about what are yer made for
is it much farther asked the woman
much farther yer as good as there said the long legged tramper pointing out before him look there those are the lights of london they're a good two mile off at least
said the woman despondingly never mind whether they're two mile off or twenty said noah claypole for he it was but get up and come on or i'll kick yer and so i give yer notice
and as he crossed the road while speaking as if fully prepared to put his threat into execution the woman rose without any further remark and trudged onward by his side
she asked after they had walked a few hundred yards how should i know replied noah whose temper had been considerably impaired by walking near i hope
not near replied mister claypole there not near so don't think it why not
that's enough without any why or because either replied mister claypole with dignity well you needn't be so cross said his companion a pretty thing it would be
so that sowerberry if he come up after us might poke in his old nose and have us taken back in a cart with handcuffs on said mister claypole in a jeering tone no i shall go and lose myself among the narrowest streets i can find and not stop
till we come to the very out of the wayest house i can set eyes on cod yer may thanks yer stars i've got a head for if we hadn't gone at first the wrong road a purpose and come back across country
yer'd have been locked up hard and fast a week ago my lady and serve yer right for being a fool i know i ain't as cunning as you are replied charlotte but don't put all the blame on me and say i should have been locked up you would have been
if i had been any way yer took the money from the till yer know yer did said mister claypole i took it for you noah dear rejoined charlotte did i keep it
as it was not mister claypole's habit to repose a blind and foolish confidence in anybody it should be observed in justice to that gentleman that he had trusted charlotte to this extent in order that if they were pursued
the money might be found on her which would leave him an opportunity of asserting his innocence of any theft and would greatly facilitate his chances of escape of course he entered at this juncture
into no explanation of his motives and they walked on very lovingly together in pursuance of this cautious plan mister claypole went on without halting until he arrived at the angel
he crossed into saint john's road and was soon deep in the obscurity of the intricate and dirty ways which lying between gray's inn lane and smithfield render that part of the town one of the lowest and worst that improvement has left in the midst of london
through these streets noah claypole walked dragging charlotte after him now stepping into the kennel to embrace at a glance the whole external character of some small public house now jogging on again
as some fancied appearance induced him to believe it too public for his purpose at length he stopped in front of one more humble in appearance and more dirty than any he had yet seen and having crossed over and surveyed it
unstrapping it from the woman's shoulders
and don't yer speak
what's the name of the house t
r three what cripples said charlotte three cripples repeated noah and a very good sign too now then keep close at my heels and come along
with these injunctions he pushed the rattling door with his shoulder and entered the house followed by his companion there was nobody in the bar but a young jew who with his two elbows on the counter
said noah barney complied by ushering them into a small back room and setting the required viands before them having done which he informed the travellers that they could be lodged that night
and left the amiable couple to their refreshment now this back room was immediately behind the bar and some steps lower so that any person connected with the house undrawing a small curtain which concealed a single pane of glass
fixed in the wall of the last named apartment about five feet from its flooring could not only look down upon any guests in the back room without any great hazard of being observed the glass being in a dark angle of the wall between which
and a large upright beam the observer had to thrust himself but could by applying his ear to the partition
the landlord of the house had not withdrawn his eye
and barney had only just returned from making the communication above related when fagin in the course of his evening's business came into the bar to inquire after some of his young pupils hush said barney
strangers repeated the old man
fagin appeared to receive this communication with great interest mounting a stool he cautiously applied his eye to the pane of glass from which secret post he could see mister claypole
taking cold beef from the dish and porter from the pot and administering homeopathic doses of both to charlotte who sat patiently by eating and drinking at his pleasure aha he whispered
looking round to barney i like that fellow's looks he'd be of use to us he knows how to train the girl already
with a subtle and eager look upon his face that might have appertained to some old goblin so i mean to be a gentleman said mister claypole kicking out his legs and continuing a conversation the commencement of which
pockets women's ridicules houses mail coaches banks said mister claypole rising with the porter but you can't do all that dear said charlotte
i shall look out to get into company with them as can replied noah they'll be able to make us useful some way or another why you yourself are worth fifty women
lor how nice it is to hear yer say so exclaimed charlotte imprinting a kiss upon his ugly face there that'll do don't yer be too affectionate in case i'm cross with yer
said noah disengaging himself with great gravity i should like to be the captain of some band and have the whopping of em and follering em about unbeknown to themselves that would suit me if there was good profit
and if we could only get in with some gentleman of this sort i say it would be cheap at that twenty pound note you've got especially as we don't very well know how to get rid of it ourselves after expressing this opinion
mister claypole looked into the porter pot with an aspect of deep wisdom and having well shaken its contents nodded condescendingly to charlotte and took a draught wherewith he appeared greatly refreshed
and setting himself down at the nearest table ordered something to drink of the grinning barney a pleasant night sir
and that's the truth fagin followed up this remark by striking the side of his nose with his right forefinger a gesture which noah attempted to imitate
in a very friendly manner good stuff that observed mister claypole smacking his lips dear said fagin a man need be always emptying a till or a pocket or a woman's reticule
or a house or a mail coach or a bank if he drinks it regularly mister claypole no sooner heard this extract from his own remarks than he fell back in his chair and looked from the jew to charlotte
with a countenance of ashy paleness and excessive terror don't mind me my dear said fagin drawing his chair closer ha ha
it was very lucky it was only me i didn't take it stammered noah no longer stretching out his legs like an independent gentleman but coiling them up as well as he could under his chair it was all her doing
yer've got it now charlotte yer know yer have no matter who's got it or who did it my dear replied fagin glancing nevertheless with a hawk's eye at the girl and the two bundles
i'm in that way myself and i like you for it in what way asked mister claypole a little recovering in that way of business rejoined fagin and so are the people of the house
you've hit the right nail upon the head and are as safe here as you could be there is not a safer place in all this town than is the cripples that is when i like to make it so and i have taken a fancy to you and the young woman
eyeing his new friend meanwhile with mingled fear and suspicion i'll tell you more said fagin after he had reassured the girl by dint of friendly nods and muttered encouragements i have got a friend
that i think can gratify your darling wish and put you in the right way where you can take whatever department of the business you think will suit you best at first and be taught all the others
to be anything else inquired fagin shrugging his shoulders here let me have a word with you outside
said noah getting his legs by gradual degrees abroad again
charlotte see to them bundles this mandate which had been delivered with great majesty was obeyed without the slightest demur
with the packages while noah held the door open and watched her out she's kept tolerably well under ain't she he asked as he resumed his seat in the tone of a keeper who had tamed some wild animal
now
could you do better than join him is he in a good way of business that's where it is responded noah winking one of his little eyes the top of the tree employs a power of hands
has the very best society in the profession regular town maders asked mister claypole not a countryman among em and i don't think he'd take you even on my recommendation if he didn't run rather short of assistants just now
replied fagin should i have to hand over said noah slapping his breeches pocket it couldn't possibly be done without replied fagin in a most decided manner
it's a lot of money not when it's in a note you can't get rid of retorted fagin number and date taken i suppose payment stopped at the bank ah it's not worth much to him it'll have to go abroad
what's the wages live like a gentleman board and lodging pipes and spirits free
and half of all the young woman earns replied mister fagin whether noah claypole whose rapacity was none of the least comprehensive would have acceded even to these glowing terms
he gradually relented and said he thought that would suit him but yer see observed noah as she will be able to do a good deal i should like to take something very light a little fancy work
suggested fagin ah something of that sort replied noah what do you think would suit me now something not too trying for the strength and not very dangerous you know that's the sort of thing
said fagin my friend wants somebody who would do that well very much why i did mention that and i shouldn't mind turning my hand to it sometimes rejoined mister claypole slowly
but it wouldn't pay by itself you know that's true observed the jew ruminating or pretending to ruminate no it might not what do you think then asked noah
anxiously regarding him something in the sneaking way
asked fagin there's a good deal of money made in snatching their bags and parcels and running round the corner don't they holler out a good deal and scratch sometimes asked noah shaking his head
i don't think that would answer my purpose ain't there any other line open stop said fagin laying his hand on noah's knee the kinchin lay what's that
demanded mister claypole the kinchins my dear said fagin is the young children that's sent on errands by their mothers with sixpences and shillings and the lay is just to take their money away
where they're always going errands and you can upset as many kinchins as you want any hour in the day ha ha ha with this fagin poked mister claypole in the side and they joined in a burst of laughter
mister morris bolter this is missus bolter missus bolter's humble servant said fagin bowing with grotesque politeness i hope i shall know her better very shortly do you hear the gentleman charlotte
you understand oh yes i understand perfectly replied fagin telling the truth for once good night good night
with all that haughtiness and air of superiority becoming not only a member of the sterner sex but a gentleman who appreciated the dignity of a special appointment on the kinchin lay
but they knew that the southland had been invaded that their homes were in danger and they made soldiers whose bravery and devotion excited the admiration of the world
as he approached rogersville
he now learned for the first time of the atrocities which had been committed on the defenceless inhabitants of athens and his blood boiled as he listened to the recital
fearing that their fate might be the same the whelps and robbers he exclaimed how i should like to get at them but their time will come never will the south lay down her arms until every northern soldier is driven in or across the ohio
who was especially well informed as to the strength and positions of the federal army and as to the feelings of the citizens
and the slaughter was horrifying but we are getting over that now and every true son of the south is more determined than ever to fight the war to the bitter end even if we see our homes in flames and the country laid waste how is it that kentucky does not join hands with her sister states
she will she must cried calhoun already thousands of her sons are flocking to the southern standard it needs but a victory a confederate army to enter her territory and the people will rise en masse there are not enough traitors or yankees in the state to keep them down
do you think beauregard can hold corinth asked the doctor he can if any one can he is a great general answered calhoun but morgan thinks the loss of corinth would not be fatal if the army were saved under no consideration says morgan
should beauregard allow himself to be cooped up in corinth i reckon he is right sighed the doctor but may the time never come when he will have to give it up amen to that answered calhoun from rogersville calhoun made his way north
he ascertained that the railroad which mitchell was engaged in repairing was not strongly guarded and he believed that with five hundred men morgan could break it almost anywhere between athens and columbia near mount pleasant he met a confederate officer with a party of recruits which he was taking south
he sent back by him a statement to morgan of all he had learned and added taking everything into consideration i believe that pulaski will be the best place for you to strike i have no fears but that you can capture it even with your small force
he stood on the top rail and turning around he uttered a shout of defiance then jumping down
the foremost of the federals a tall lanky sergeant named latham galloped to the side of his commander who was still struggling to extricate himself from his fallen horse springing from his saddle he helped him to his feet and anxiously inquired are you hurt lieutenant
the rebel the rebel where is he did you get him asked the lieutenant get him drawled the sergeant i think not he got across that field as if old nick was after him but once across he had the cheek to stand on the fence and crow like a young rooster i took a crack at him but missed
why didn't you pursue him demanded the officer fiercely what in those woods might as well look for a needle in a haymow but are you hurt lieutenant my leg is sprained he groaned but the worst of it is jupiter is dead curse that rebel
how i wish i had him i would make him pay dearly for that horse here is the rebel's horse i caught him exclaimed one of the men leading up calhoun's horse which he had captured
that is a fine horse said latham looking him over but he has been rode mighty hard wonder who that feller can be i see no signs of any other reb he must have been alone
for answer the lieutenant limped to a stone and sitting down said
sergeant latham took the roll which was securely strapped behind calhoun's saddle and began to unroll it as carefully as if he suspected it might be loaded a fine rubber and a good woollen blanket remarked the sergeant looks mighty like those goods once belonged to our good uncle samuel bet your life
ah here is a bundle of letters give them to me said the lieutenant the sergeant handed them over and the officer hastily glanced over them reading the superscriptions why he exclaimed in surprise these letters are all addressed to persons in kentucky what could that fellow be doing with letters going to kentucky
we will see he tore open one of the letters he had read but a few lines when he exclaimed with a strong expletive boys i would give a month's pay if we had captured that fellow who was he who was he cried several soldiers in unison he was let me see
and he was from the rebel army at corinth
morgan morgan i have heard of that fellow before he played the deuce with us in kentucky last winter burned the railroad bridge over bacon creek captured trains tore up the railroad and played smash generally
these letters all seem to be private ones written by the soldiers in morgan's command to their relatives and friends back in kentucky but he may have carried important dispatches on his person we let a rare prize slip through our fingers can't be helped now dryly remarked sergeant latham
if you had captured him it might have put one bar if not two on your shoulder strap the lieutenant scowled but did not reply all the letters were read and passed around
for they were written by love lorn swains whom the cruel hand of war had torn from their sweethearts golly it's a wonder them letters hadn't melted from the sweetness they contained remarked sergeant latham or took fire from their warmth put in a boyish looking soldier
boys i looked over his shoulder and read some of it i tell you it was hot stuff my dearest polly it commenced i but he never finished the sentence for the young soldier sprang and struck him a blow which rolled him in the dust a fight a fight shouted the men
and crowded around to see the fun stop that roared the lieutenant
sergeant latham see that both of those men are put on extra duty to night when things had quieted down others of the letters were read but some of them occasioned no merriment
instead one could see a rough blouse sleeve drawn across the eyes and a gulping down as if something choked the wearer these were letters written to the wives and mothers who were watching and waiting for their loved ones to return these letters reminded them of their own wives and mothers in the northland
waiting and praying for them suddenly the lieutenant spoke up boys we have been wasting time over those letters that fellow was making his way back to kentucky he has no horse
that old rebel osborne lives not more than a mile ahead
it was thought he sheltered these wandering bands of confederates
shut up or i will have you reduced to the ranks growled the lieutenant the subject was rather a painful one to the lieutenant for during his visit to the osbornes the week before when he tried to make himself agreeable to the daughter
the lady told him in very plain words what she thought of yankees it's nearly noon too continued the lieutenant after the interruption and that spring near the house is a splendid place to rest our horses and eat our dinners so fall in the lieutenant slowly mounted calhoun's horse
for his fall had made him sore and in none the best of humor he gave the command forward the plantation of mister osborne was soon reached it was a beautiful place the country had not yet been devastated by the cruel hand of war and the landscape
the sergeant turned back to carry out the order muttering confederate confederate the lieutenant is getting mighty nice he generally says rebel if lieutenant haines was surprised at the cordial greeting he had received from mister osborne
miss osborne was a most beautiful girl about twenty years of age no wonder lieutenant haines felt his heart beat faster when he looked upon her when he met her the week before she treated him with the utmost disdain now she greeted him with a smile and said
if not you are welcome nothing of the sort this time i am happy to say exclaimed the lieutenant with a bow and i hope i shall never be called upon to perform that disagreeable duty thank you she answered with a smile
the lieutenant tells me he met with quite a little adventure about a mile below here said mister osborne
and the lieutenant sat down to a most sumptuous repast what was lieutenant haines's adventure you spoke of at length asked miss osborne of her father better let the lieutenant tell the story for i know nothing of it answered mister osborne but he spoke of searching the house for a supposed concealed confederate
as mister osborne said this miss osborne gave a little gasp and turned pale but quickly recovering herself she turned a pair of inquiring eyes on the lieutenant eyes that emitted flames of angry light and seemed to look him through and through lieutenant haines turned very red
forgive me if i thought of such a thing he replied humbly your father has assured me he has neither seen nor concealed any confederate officer and his word is good with me make yourself easy i shall not insult you by searching the house
but tell us of your adventure i thought i heard firing about an hour ago was there any one hurt only my poor horse he was killed answered haines
haines laughingly replied i am sorry to disappoint you but as i captured my enemy's horse and he fled on foot i cannot admit defeat then your enemy was a solitary knight queried miss osborne yes but to all appearances a most gallant one strange she mused
the place for true knights at this time is at corinth from letters captured with his horse i take it he was from corinth said haines from those letters we learned that his name was calhoun pennington that he was a lieutenant in the command of captain john h morgan
a gentleman who has given us considerable trouble and may give us more and that he was on his way back to kentucky to recruit for morgan's command you say you captured letters queried the girl yes a whole package of them
the boys are having rare fun reading them i suppose it is according to military usages to read all communications captured from the enemy remarked miss osborne with a slight tinge of sarcasm in her tone but it seems sacrilege that these private letters should fall into profane hands
some of them were rich laughed haines they were written by loving swains to their girls there were others written to wives and mothers which almost brought tears to our eyes they were so full of yearnings for home lieutenant there was nothing in those letters of value to you from a military standpoint was there
suddenly asked miss osborne nothing then i have a great boon to ask will you not give them to me why miss osborne what can you do with them asked haines in surprise i can at least keep them sacred perhaps i can find means of getting them to those for whom they are intended
think of those wives and mothers watching waiting for letters which will never come oh give them to me lieutenant haines and you will sleep the sweeter to night your request is a strange one said the lieutenant yet i can see no harm in granting it you can have the letters
but the boys may have destroyed some of them by this time thank you oh thank you
we are not all monsters dinner was now over and sergeant latham came to report that the hour for the halt was up and to ask what were the lieutenant's orders
i see nothing more we can accomplish here answered the lieutenant the sergeant saluted and turned to go when the officer stopped him with say sergeant you can gather up all those letters we captured and send them up here with my horse
the family had accompanied lieutenant haines to the porch stepping down to where his horse was
i will catch up with you in a few moments did you bring the letters yes sir answered the soldier saluting and handing the package to his commander very well you may go now
and returning to the porch where mister osborne and the ladies still stood said that is the horse i captured from my foe he is a beauty isn't he jupiter was a splendid horse but i do not think i lost anything by the exchange here are the letters miss osborne
i will take the letters please had a bombshell exploded at lieutenant haines's feet
but he was unarmed save his sword and there was no mistaking the look in calhoun's eye it meant death if he attempted to draw his sword as for mister osborne he seemed as much surprised as lieutenant haines miss osborne gave a little shriek and then cried oh how could you betray us
and stood with clasped hands and with face as pale as death
i know not who you are he said but lieutenant haines is my guest and i will have no violence lower that weapon without doing so calhoun answered if i have done anything contrary to the wishes of those who have so kindly befriended me i am sorry
as it is i will bid you good day
he vaulted into the saddle and was away at full speed
i congratulate you on the success of your plot i will not be fool enough again to take the word of a southern gentleman
his daughter sprang in front of him and faced lieutenant haines with flashing eye i will not have my father accused of deception and falsehood she cried he knew nothing of that confederate being concealed in the house i alone am to blame and i told you nothing i strove to entertain you and keep you from searching the house
and i accomplished my purpose and you got those letters from me to give to him yes
to know that this may mean my undoing disgrace a dishonorable dismissal from the service i shall take no pleasure in your dishonor she exclaimed the color slowly mounting to her cheeks i did not intend that lieutenant pennington should show himself
it was his rashness that has brought all this trouble how can i return to camp without arms without a horse it would have been a kindness to me if your friend lieutenant pennington had put a bullet through my brain
mister osborne now spoke lieutenant haines he said my daughter speaks the truth when she says i knew nothing of the confederate officer being in my house had i known it i should have tried to conceal him to protect him but i should not have invited you to be my guest
and i shall make what reparation is in my power then turning to the colored boy who had stood by with mouth and eyes wide open he said tom go and saddle and bridle starlight and bring him around for this gentleman
as my guest i can do no less replied mister osborne if lieutenant pennington had not taken his i should have let him have one to continue on his way to kentucky so you see after all i am out nothing
just then they were aroused by the sound of horses feet and looking up they saw sergeant latham accompanied by two soldiers coming on a gallop
lieutenant excuse me but you were so long in joining us that i feared something
so i came back to see where in the world is your horse lieutenant coming answered his superior briskly
when the colored boy came leading an entirely strange horse with citizen saddle and bridle on the sergeant exchanged meaning glances with his companions but said nothing mounting lieutenant haines bade the family good day and rode moodily away
no sooner were they out of hearing than the sergeant forgetting military discipline exclaimed what in blazes is up lieutenant i suspected something was wrong all the time that is what made you come back is it asked the lieutenant
chapter one after shiloh the great battle of shiloh had been fought and victory had been snatched from the hands of the confederates by the opportune arrival of buell's army the southerners had lost their beloved commander slain a third of their number had fallen
although defeated they had not been conquered they had set forth from corinth in the highest hopes fully expecting to drive grant's army into the tennessee river this hope was almost realized when it suddenly perished twenty thousand fresh troops had arrived upon the field
but they had fallen back unmolested for the federal army had been too severely punished to think of pursuing both armies were willing to rest and have their decimated ranks filled with fresh troops
none felt their defeat more keenly than the kentucky brigade
they had fought as only brave men can fight they left one third of their number on the field killed and wounded defeat could not demoralize them and it fell to their lot to cover the retreat of beauregard they had stood like a wall of adamant between their fleeing army and the victorious federals
no charge could pierce that line of heroes with faces to the foe they slowly fell back contesting every inch of ground
at the headquarters of general john c breckinridge conspicuous in that group of notable men was one whose insignia of office showed him to be only a captain but he was already a marked man
it was but natural that in such a gathering the situation would be freely discussed it looks to me said breckinridge with a sigh that if we are forced to give up corinth our cause in the west will be lost i am in favor of holding corinth to the last man what is your opinion morgan
asked one of the officers turning to the captain of whom we have spoken thus addressed john h morgan modestly answered the general will pardon me if i differ with him somewhat in his opinion corinth should be held as long as that can be done with safety to the army
but corinth itself is of little value to us
not knowing the flattering words spoken of him morgan wended his way to his headquarters where he was informed by the orderly who took his horse that a young confederate officer had been waiting for some time to see him he said he must see you continued the orderly and if necessary he would wait all night
all right i will see what he wants replied morgan
there he was greeted by a young man not much more than a boy who wore the uniform of a confederate lieutenant morgan gave him a swift glance and then exclaimed bless my heart if this isn't calhoun pennington son of my old friend judge pennington i am more than glad to see you
let's see you were on the staff of the late lamented governor johnson were you not yes replied calhoun and his voice trembled and tears came into his eyes in spite of himself as he thought of the death of his beloved chief a grand man a brave man said morgan gently
that is what i have come to see you about general beauregard has offered me a position on his staff but i wanted to see you before i accepted what a position on the staff of general beauregard that is a rare honor for one so young as you are of course you are going to accept i do not know yet
great as the honor is which has been offered me i feel it is a service which would not be agreeable to me i much prefer the freer life of a scout and ranger
morgan mused for a moment and then suddenly asked are you not a cousin of frederic shackelford
calhoun's brow clouded yes he answered but why do you say the late colonel shackelford uncle dick is not dead is that so
he was desperately wounded answered calhoun but he did not die and he is now a prisoner in the hands of the yankees uncle dick is a hero but as for that traitor cousin of mine i hate him and again calhoun's brow grew dark i have no reason to love him laughed morgan
but i cannot help admiring him he it was who discovered our well laid plans and forced me to flee from lexington as a thief in the night aye answered calhoun but for him and that brute nelson kentucky would now have been out of the union but that is not all
had there been no nelson buell's army would not have reached grant in time to save him from destruction
i should have borne the news to general johnston that buell would join grant by the fifth and johnston would have made his attack a couple of days earlier i was bearing the news to johnston that nelson would reach savannah by the fifth when i was captured captured echoed morgan in surprise
yes captured and by no less a personage than my cousin fred shackelford but for this i would have reached johnston by the second as it was i did not reach shiloh until the morning of the last day of the battle then you escaped queried morgan no my cousin let me go
i was dressed in citizen's clothes
i suppose i ought to be thankful to him but i am not
and you ought to be thankful to him whether you are or not
but as i failed to get him i believe you would make a splendid substitute you still think you had rather go with me than be on beauregard's staff a thousand times yes i had rather go with you as a private than be a lieutenant on the general's staff answered calhoun with vehemence morgan's eyes sparkled
to serve in the ranks as a private soldier yet my companies are fully officered now let's see how would you like to go back to kentucky go back to kentucky asked calhoun in surprise yes to recruit for my command do you think you could dodge the yankees
i believe i could i could at least try answered calhoun his face aglow with the idea
and am going to try to reach kentucky my present force is small not much over four hundred i do not look for much help from the confederate government those in authority do not regard with much favor independent organizations to augment my force i must in a great measure rely on my own efforts
i know there are hundreds of the flower of kentucky youths eager to join me if they had the opportunity you are just the person to send back to organize them when can you start in the morning answered calhoun morgan smiled good he said you are made of the right material
he was to be one of morgan's men it was all he wished the next morning calhoun informed general beauregard that while sensible of the great honor which he would bestow on him by appointing him a member of his staff yet he believed he could be of more service to the south
and he had concluded to do so while i greatly regret to lose you replied the general i believe you have chosen well to one of your temperament service with morgan will be much more congenial than the duties of a staff officer in fact continued the general
with a smile i think you resemble morgan in being restive under orders and prefer to have your own way and go where you please a command or two of partisan rangers may do but too many would be fatal to the discipline of an army morgan may do the enemy a great deal of mischief
but after all the fate of the south must be decided by her great armies true general replied calhoun but if morgan can keep thousands of the enemy in the rear guarding their communications the great armies of the north will be depleted by that number that is true also answered beauregard
i have recommended him for a colonelcy convey to him my regards and tell him i heartily congratulate him upon his last recruit general beauregard's kind words touched calhoun deeply thank you general he replied with feeling
i trust i shall never prove myself unworthy of your good opinion may god bless you and crown your efforts with victory
a more superb body of rough riders was never formed calhoun was introduced to the officers of the squadron and when it became known that he was going back to kentucky to recruit for the command although many of the officers wondered why their chief had selected one so young they gave him a hearty welcome
but when it became known that he was the son of judge pennington of danville that he had already won renown as a daring scout and had been offered a position on the staff of general beauregard their welcome was doubly enthusiastic to this welcome there was one exception one of morgan's officers
captain p c conway had applied to morgan for permission to go back to kentucky on this same duty and had been refused he was a short thickset red faced man with a very pompous air his weakness was liquor yet he was a brave efficient officer what he considered an affront was never forgiven
for he was of a revengeful disposition it was consistent with his character that he should become a mortal enemy of calhoun when he was introduced to calhoun he merely bowed and did not offer to give his hand i believe i have heard of captain conway said calhoun with a smile
i have heard a cousin of mine speak of him why yes spoke up morgan with a twinkle in his eye captain lieutenant pennington is a cousin of your particular friend captain fred shackelford of the yankee army conway fairly turned purple with rage
lieutenant pennington has no reason to be proud of his relationship to that sneak and spy he snorted i have no more reason to love my cousin than you replied calhoun with some warmth he may have played the spy so have i but sneak he is not and i would thank you not to use the term again
traitor though he is to the south and his native state conway glared at him for a moment but there was something in calhoun's eye which told him that if he repeated the term it might cause trouble so he snapped well spy and traitor
with a fearful oath i will see that he is with these words he turned on his heel and stalked away shackelford's name has the same effect on conway that a red rag has on a mad bull laughed morgan he can never forget that trick your cousin played on him
ah i remember said calhoun fred told me all about it conway may take a dislike to me simply because i am fred's cousin i noticed that he greeted me rather coldly i reckon he will not carry his hatred so far as that replied morgan
but morgan might have changed his mind if he had heard conway talking to a brother officer just to think he fumed
i volunteered to go yesterday and he put me down to my mind pennington is no better than that sneak of a cousin of his and morgan will find it out some day
raskolnikov went straight to the house on the canal bank where sonia lived it was an old green house of three storeys he found the porter and obtained from him vague directions as to the whereabouts of kapernaumov the tailor
having found in the corner of the courtyard the entrance to the dark and narrow staircase he mounted to the second floor and came out into a gallery that ran round the whole second storey over the yard while he was wandering in the darkness uncertain where to turn for kapernaumov's door
a door opened three paces from him he mechanically took hold of it who is there a woman's voice asked uneasily it's i come to see you answered raskolnikov and he walked into the tiny entry
on a broken chair stood a candle in a battered copper candlestick it's you good heavens cried sonia weakly and she stood rooted to the spot which is your room this way and raskolnikov trying not to look at her hastened in
a minute later sonia too came in with the candle set down the candlestick and completely disconcerted stood before him inexpressibly agitated and apparently frightened by his unexpected visit
she felt sick and ashamed and happy too raskolnikov turned away quickly and sat on a chair by the table he scanned the room in a rapid glance it was a large but exceedingly low pitched room the only one let by the kapernaumovs
to whose rooms a closed door led in the wall on the left in the opposite side on the right hand wall was another door always kept locked that led to the next flat which formed a separate lodging sonia's room looked like a barn
it was a very irregular quadrangle and this gave it a grotesque appearance a wall with three windows looking out on to the canal ran aslant so that one corner formed a very acute angle and it was difficult to see in it without very strong light
the other corner was disproportionately obtuse there was scarcely any furniture in the big room in the corner on the right was a bedstead beside it nearest the door a chair a plain deal table covered by a blue cloth stood against the same wall
close to the door into the other flat two rush bottom chairs stood by the table on the opposite wall near the acute angle stood a small plain wooden chest of drawers looking as it were lost in a desert that was all there was in the room
the yellow scratched and shabby wall paper was black in the corners it must have been damp and full of fumes in the winter there was every sign of poverty even the bedstead had no curtain
sonia looked in silence at her visitor who was so attentively and unceremoniously scrutinising her room and even began at last to tremble with terror as though she was standing before her judge and the arbiter of her destinies
he asked still not lifting his eyes yes muttered sonia oh yes it is she added hastily as though in that lay her means of escape my landlady's clock has just struck i heard it myself
i've come to you for the last time raskolnikov went on gloomily although this was the first time i may perhaps not see you again are you going away i don't know to morrow
then you are not coming to katerina ivanovna to morrow sonia's voice shook i don't know i shall know to morrow morning never mind that i've come to say one word
he raised his brooding eyes to her and suddenly noticed that he was sitting down while she was all the while standing before him why are you standing sit down he said in a changed voice gentle and friendly she sat down he looked kindly and almost compassionately at her
how thin you are what a hand quite transparent like a dead hand he took her hand sonia smiled faintly i have always been like that she said even when you lived at home yes
of course you were he added abruptly and the expression of his face and the sound of his voice changed again suddenly he looked round him once more you rent this room from the kapernaumovs yes they live there through that door
yes they have another room like this all in one room yes i should be afraid in your room at night he observed gloomily they are very good people very kind answered sonia who still seemed bewildered
and all the furniture everything everything is theirs and they are very kind and the children too often come to see me they all stammer don't they yes he stammers and he's lame and his wife too
it's not exactly that she stammers but she can't speak plainly she is a very kind woman and he used to be a house serf and there are seven children and it's only the eldest one that stammers and the others are simply ill but they don't stammer
but where did you hear about them she added with some surprise your father told me then he told me all about you and how you went out at six o'clock and came back at nine and how katerina ivanovna knelt down by your bed
sonia was confused i fancied i saw him to day she whispered hesitatingly whom father i was walking in the street out there at the corner about ten o'clock and he seemed to be walking in front it looked just like him
i wanted to go to katerina ivanovna you were walking in the streets yes sonia whispered abruptly again overcome with confusion and looking down
oh no what are you saying no sonia looked at him almost with dismay you love her then love her of course said sonia with plaintive emphasis and she clasped her hands in distress
you see she is quite like a child her mind is quite unhinged you see from sorrow and how clever she used to be how generous how kind
her pale cheeks flushed there was a look of anguish in her eyes it was clear that she was stirred to the very depths that she was longing to speak to champion to express something a sort of insatiable compassion if one may so express it was reflected in every feature of her face
beat me how can you good heavens beat me and if she did beat me what then what of it you know nothing nothing about it she is so unhappy ah how unhappy and ill she is seeking righteousness she is pure
she has such faith that there must be righteousness everywhere and she expects it and if you were to torture her she wouldn't do wrong she doesn't see that it's impossible for people to be righteous and she is angry at it like a child like a child she is good
and what will happen to you sonia looked at him inquiringly they are left on your hands you see they were all on your hands before though and your father came to you to beg for drink well how will it be now
i don't know sonia articulated mournfully will they stay there i don't know they are in debt for the lodging but the landlady i hear said to day that she wanted to get rid of them and katerina ivanovna says that she won't stay another minute
oh no don't talk like that we are one we live like one
she persisted getting hot and excited and how she cried to day her mind is unhinged haven't you noticed it at one minute she is worrying like a child that everything should be right to morrow the lunch and all that
then she is wringing her hands spitting blood weeping and all at once she will begin knocking her head against the wall in despair then she will be comforted again
she builds all her hopes on you she says that you will help her now and that she will borrow a little money somewhere and go to her native town with me and set up a boarding school for the daughters of gentlemen and take me to superintend it
and she kisses and hugs me comforts me and you know she has such faith such faith in her fancies one can't contradict her and all the day long she has been washing cleaning mending
gasping for breath we went this morning to the shops to buy shoes for polenka and lida for theirs are quite worn out only the money we'd reckoned wasn't enough not nearly enough and she picked out such dear little boots for she has taste you don't know
and there in the shop she burst out crying before the shopmen because she hadn't enough ah it was sad to see her well after that i can understand your living like this raskolnikov said with a bitter smile and aren't you sorry for them aren't you sorry
sonia flew at him again why i know you gave your last penny yourself though you'd seen nothing of it and if you'd seen everything oh dear and how often how often i've brought her to tears only last week yes i
only a week before his death i was cruel and how often i've done it ah i've been wretched at the thought of it all day sonia wrung her hands as she spoke at the pain of remembering it you were cruel yes i i i
went to see them she went on weeping and father said read me something sonia my head aches read to me here's a book
and i said i can't stay as i didn't want to read and i'd gone in chiefly to show katerina ivanovna some collars lizaveta the pedlar sold me some collars and cuffs cheap pretty new embroidered ones
katerina ivanovna liked them very much she put them on and looked at herself in the glass and was delighted with them make me a present of them sonia she said please do please do she said she wanted them so much and when could she wear them
they just reminded her of her old happy days she looked at herself in the glass admired herself and she has no clothes at all no things of her own hasn't had all these years and she never asks anyone for anything she is proud she'd sooner give away everything
and these she asked for she liked them so much and i was sorry to give them what use are they to you katerina ivanovna i said i spoke like that to her
she gave me such a look and she was so grieved so grieved at my refusing her and it was so sad to see and she was not grieved for the collars but for my refusing i saw that
ah if only i could bring it all back change it take back those words ah if i but it's nothing to you did you know lizaveta the pedlar yes did you know her sonia asked with some surprise
katerina ivanovna is in consumption rapid consumption she will soon die said raskolnikov after a pause without answering her question oh no no no
and sonia unconsciously clutched both his hands as though imploring that she should not
the fact was that up to the last moment he had never expected such an ending he had been overbearing to the last degree never dreaming that two destitute and defenceless women could escape from his control this conviction was strengthened by his vanity and conceit a conceit to the point of fatuity
pyotr petrovitch who had made his way up from insignificance was morbidly given to self admiration had the highest opinion of his intelligence and capacities and sometimes even gloated in solitude over his image in the glass
but what he loved and valued above all was the money he had amassed by his labour and by all sorts of devices that money made him the equal of all who had been his superiors
pyotr petrovitch had spoken with perfect sincerity and had indeed felt genuinely indignant at such black ingratitude and yet when he made dounia his offer he was fully aware of the groundlessness of all the gossip
the story had been everywhere contradicted by marfa petrovna and was by then disbelieved by all the townspeople
yet he still thought highly of his own resolution in lifting dounia to his level and regarded it as something heroic in speaking of it to dounia
dounia was simply essential to him to do without her was unthinkable
but he had gone on waiting and amassing money he brooded with relish in profound secret over the image of a girl virtuous poor she must be poor very young very pretty of good birth and education very timid
one who had suffered much and was completely humbled before him one who would all her life look on him as her saviour worship him admire him and only him how many scenes how many amorous episodes he had imagined on this
seductive and playful theme when his work was over and behold the dream of so many years was all but realised the beauty and education of avdotya romanovna had impressed him her helpless position had been a great allurement
in her he had found even more than he dreamed of here was a girl of pride character virtue
and this creature would be slavishly grateful all her life for his heroic condescension and would humble herself in the dust before him and he would have absolute unbounded power over her not long before he had too after long reflection and hesitation
made an important change in his career and was now entering on a wider circle of business
he was in fact determined to try his fortune in petersburg he knew that women could do a very great deal the fascination of a charming virtuous highly educated woman might make his way easier might do wonders in attracting people to him
throwing an aureole round him and now everything was in ruins
had not even time to speak out had simply made a joke been carried away and it had ended so seriously and of course too he did love dounia in his own way he already possessed her in his dreams and all at once no
the next day the very next day it must all be set right smoothed over settled above all he must crush that conceited milksop who was the cause of it all with a sick feeling he could not help recalling razumihin too
but he soon reassured himself on that score as though a fellow like that could be put on a level with him the man he really dreaded in earnest was svidrigailov he had in short a great deal to attend to
no i i am more to blame than anyone said dounia kissing and embracing her mother i was tempted by his money but on my honour brother i had no idea he was such a base man
don't blame me brother god has delivered us god has delivered us pulcheria alexandrovna muttered but half consciously as though scarcely able to realise what had happened they were all relieved and in five minutes they were laughing
only now and then dounia turned white and frowned remembering what had passed
she had only that morning thought rupture with luzhin a terrible misfortune razumihin was delighted he did not yet dare to express his joy fully but he was in a fever of excitement as though a ton weight had fallen off his heart
now he had the right to devote his life to them to serve them anything might happen now but he felt afraid to think of further possibilities and dared not let his imagination range but raskolnikov sat still in the same place
almost sullen and indifferent though he had been the most insistent on getting rid of luzhin he seemed now the least concerned at what had happened dounia could not help thinking that he was still angry with her and pulcheria alexandrovna watched him timidly
what did svidrigailov say to you said dounia approaching him yes yes cried pulcheria alexandrovna raskolnikov raised his head
he wants to make you a present of ten thousand roubles and he desires to see you once in my presence see her on no account cried pulcheria alexandrovna and how dare he offer her money
then raskolnikov repeated rather dryly his conversation with svidrigailov omitting his account of the ghostly visitations of marfa petrovna wishing to avoid all unnecessary talk what answer did you give him asked dounia
at first i said i would not take any message to you then he said that he would do his utmost to obtain an interview with you without my help he assured me that his passion for you was a passing infatuation now he has no feeling for you
he doesn't want you to marry luzhin his talk was altogether rather muddled how do you explain him to yourself rodya how did he strike you
no doubt he has a motive and probably a bad one
of course i refused this money on your account once for all altogether i thought him very strange one might almost think he was mad but i may be mistaken that may only be the part he assumes
the death of marfa petrovna seems to have made a great impression on him god rest her soul exclaimed pulcheria alexandrovna
it's as though it had fallen from heaven
so as to avoid borrowing from that man until he offered help dounia seemed strangely impressed by svidrigailov's offer she still stood meditating he has got some terrible plan she said in a half whisper to herself almost shuddering
raskolnikov noticed this disproportionate terror i fancy i shall have to see him more than once again he said to dounia we will watch him i will track him out cried razumihin vigorously i won't lose sight of him
rodya has given me leave he said to me himself just now take care of my sister will you give me leave too avdotya romanovna dounia smiled and held out her hand but the look of anxiety did not leave her face
pulcheria alexandrovna gazed at her timidly but the three thousand roubles had obviously a soothing effect on her a quarter of an hour later they were all engaged in a lively conversation even raskolnikov listened attentively for some time though he did not talk
razumihin was the speaker and why why should you go away he flowed on ecstatically and what are you to do in a little town the great thing is you are all here together and you need one another
for a time anyway take me into partnership and i assure you we'll plan a capital enterprise listen i'll explain it all in detail to you the whole project it all flashed into my head this morning before anything had happened i tell you what i have an uncle i must introduce him to you a
most accommodating and respectable old man
for the last two years he has been bothering me to borrow it from him and pay him six per cent interest i know what that means he simply wants to help me last year i had no need of it but this year i resolved to borrow it as soon as he arrived
then you lend me another thousand of your three and we have enough for a start so we'll go into partnership and what are we going to do then razumihin began to unfold his project
know nothing at all of what they are selling and for that reason they are usually bad publishers and that any decent publications pay as a rule and give a profit sometimes a considerable one razumihin had indeed been dreaming of setting up as a publisher
for the last two years he had been working in publishers offices and knew three european languages well though he had told raskolnikov six days before that he was schwach in german with an object of persuading him to take half his translation and half the payment for it
he had told a lie then and raskolnikov knew he was lying why
of course there will be a lot of work but we will work you avdotya romanovna i rodion
i can be of use because i have experience for nearly two years i've been scuttling about among the publishers and now i know every detail of their business you need not be a saint to make pots believe me
why i know and i kept the secret two or three books which one might get a hundred roubles simply for thinking of translating and publishing indeed and i would not take five hundred for the very idea of one of them
if i were to tell a publisher i dare say he'd hesitate they are such blockheads and as for the business side printing paper selling you trust to me i know my way about we'll begin in a small way and go on to a large
in any case it will get us our living and we shall get back our capital dounia's eyes shone i like what you are saying dmitri prokofitch she said i know nothing about it of course put in pulcheria alexandrovna it may be a good idea but again god knows
it's new and untried of course we must remain here at least for a time she looked at rodya what do you think brother said dounia i think he's got a very good idea he answered of course it's too soon to dream of a publishing firm
i know of one book myself which would be sure to go well and as for his being able to manage it there's no doubt about that either he knows the business but we can talk it over later hurrah cried razumihin
now stay there's a flat here in this house belonging to the same owner it's a special flat apart not communicating with these lodgings it's furnished rent moderate three rooms suppose you take them to begin with i'll pawn your watch to morrow and bring you the money
and everything can be arranged then you can all three live together and rodya will be with you but where are you off to rodya
pulcheria alexandrovna asked in dismay at such a minute cried razumihin dounia looked at her brother with incredulous wonder he held his cap in his hand he was preparing to leave them
one would think you were burying me or saying good bye for ever he said somewhat oddly
where are you going rodya asked dounia rather strangely
he answered vaguely as though hesitating what he would say but there was a look of sharp determination in his white face
i will come afterwards i will come of myself when it's possible i remember you and love you
i decided this even before i'm absolutely resolved on it whatever may come to me whether i come to ruin or not i want to be alone forget me altogether it's better don't inquire about me when i can i'll come of myself or i'll send for you
perhaps it will all come back but now if you love me give me up else i shall begin to hate you i feel it good bye good god cried pulcheria alexandrovna both his mother and his sister were terribly alarmed
razumihin was also rodya rodya be reconciled with us let us be as before cried his poor mother he turned slowly to the door and slowly went out of the room dounia overtook him
brother what are you doing to mother she whispered her eyes flashing with indignation he looked dully at her no matter i shall come i'm coming he muttered in an undertone as though not fully conscious of what he was saying and he went out of the room
wicked heartless egoist cried dounia he is insane but not heartless he is mad don't you see it you're heartless after that razumihin whispered in her ear squeezing her hand tightly
i shall be back directly he shouted to the horror stricken mother and he ran out of the room raskolnikov was waiting for him at the end of the passage i knew you would run after me he said go back to them be with them be with them to morrow and always
i perhaps i shall come if i can good bye and without holding out his hand he walked away but where are you going what are you doing what's the matter with you how can you go on like this razumihin muttered at his wits end
raskolnikov stopped once more once for all never ask me about anything i have nothing to tell you don't come to see me maybe i'll come here leave me but don't leave them
it was dark in the corridor they were standing near the lamp for a minute they were looking at one another in silence razumihin remembered that minute all his life raskolnikov's burning and intent eyes grew more penetrating every moment
piercing into his soul into his consciousness suddenly razumihin started something strange as it were passed between them some idea some hint as it were slipped something awful hideous and suddenly understood on both sides razumihin turned pale
do you understand now said raskolnikov his face twitching nervously go back go to them he said suddenly and turning quickly he went out of the house i will not attempt to describe how razumihin went back to the ladies how he soothed them
how he protested that rodya needed rest in his illness protested that rodya was sure to come that he would come every day that he was very very much upset that he must not be irritated that he razumihin would watch over him would get him a doctor the best doctor a consultation
counting the dwellings there were exactly twelve buildings and they all seemed occupied when they reached the hardware store opposite cotting's mister west the proprietor was standing on the broad platform in front of it
in many respects bob west was the most important citizen of millville tall and gaunt with great horn spectacles covering a pair of cold gray eyes he was usually as reserved and silent as his neighbors were confiding and talkative
as it was known he had many interests outside of his store but compared with the multi millionaire old bob had come to be regarded more modestly although still admitted to be the village's warmest citizen he was an authority in the town too
and a man of real importance mister merrick stopped his horse to speak with the hardware man an old acquaintance west said he my girls are going to start a newspaper in millville the merchant bowed gravely
perhaps to cover the trace of a smile he was unable to repress it's to be a daily paper you know continued mister merrick
it'll need quite a bit of room in other words
west glanced along the street up one side and down the other and then shook his head negatively plenty of land but no buildings said he you might buy the old mill and turn it into a newspaper office
caldwell isn't making much of a living and would be glad to sell out it's too dusty and floury said patsy we'd never get it clean i'm sure what's in that shed of yours asked uncle john pointing to a long low building that adjoined the hardware store
west turned and looked at the shed reflectively that is where i store my stock of farm machinery
in fact i'm pretty well cleaned out of all surplus stock but next spring i shall need the place again good cried mister merrick that solves our problem has it a floor yes an excellent one
west thought it over there is room on the rear platform for all the farm machinery i now have on hand all right mister merrick i'll move the truck out and give you possession it won't make a bad newspaper office
but of course you are to fit up the place at your own expense thank you very much sir exclaimed uncle john i'll set lon taft at work at once where can he be found playing billiards at the hotel usually i suppose he is there now very good i'll hunt him up
the old merchant hesitated then he said slowly whatever your charming and energetic nieces undertake sir will doubtless be well accomplished
why that settles the question i think money is the keystone to success mister west said louise with dignity we are depending chiefly on the literary merit of our newspaper to win recognition of course of course said he hastily
put me down as a subscriber please and rely upon my support at all times it is possible young ladies nay quite probable i should say that your originality and genius will yet make millville famous that speech pleased uncle john
and as the hardware merchant bowed and turned away mister merrick said in his cheeriest tones he's quite right my dears and we're lucky to have found such a fine roomy place for our establishment before we go after the carpenter to fix it up
over the long distance telephone mister marvin reported that he had bought the required outfit and it was even then being loaded on the freight cars i've arranged for a special engine he added and if all goes well the freight will be on the sidetrack at chazy junction on monday morning
the dealer will send down three men to set up the presses and get everything in running order but he asks if you have arranged for your workmen how about it mister merrick have you plenty of competent printers and pressmen at millville there are none at all was the reply
better inquire how many we will need marvin and send them down here and by the way hire women or girls for every position they are competent to fill this is going to be a girls newspaper so we'll have as few men around as possible i understand sir
this business being accomplished he found lon taft at the hotel and instructed the carpenter to put rows of windows on both sides of the shed and to build partitions for an editorial office and a business office at the front
this was the beginning of a busy period especially for poor uncle john who had many details to attend to personally the next morning the electricians arrived and began stringing the power cables from the paper mill to the newspaper office
this rendered it necessary for mister merrick to make a trip to royal to complete his arrangement with mister skeelty the manager he drove over with arthur weldon in the buggy four miles of hill climbing over rough cobble stones into the pine forest
arriving there the visitors were astonished at the extent of the plant so recently established in this practically unknown district
was a building constructed from pine slabs and cobblestones material gathered from the clearing in which it stood but it was quite substantial and roomy adjoining the mill was the factory building where the pulp was rolled into print paper
surrounding these huge buildings were some sixty small dwellings of the bungalow type for the use of the workmen built of rough boards but neat and uniform in appearance
almost in the center of this group stood the extensive storehouse from which all necessary supplies were furnished the mill hands the cost being deducted from their wages the electric power plant was a building at the edge of royal waterfall
the low and persistent roar of which was scarcely drowned by the rumble of machinery finally at the edge of the clearing nearest the mills stood the business office and to this place mister merrick and arthur at once proceeded they found the office a busy place
three or four typewriters were clicking away operated by sallow faced girls and behind a tall desk were two bookkeepers in one of whom uncle john recognized with mild surprise the tramp he had encountered at chazy junction on the morning of his arrival
and a gentlemanly bearing had replaced the careless half defiant attitude of the former hobo it was evident he remembered meeting mister merrick for he smiled and returned the nabob's nod mister skeelty had a private enclosed office in a corner of the room
being admitted to this sanctum the visitors found the manager to be a small puffy individual about forty five years of age with shrewd beadlike black eyes and an insolent assumption of super importance
skeelty interrupted his task of running up columns of impressive figures to ask his callers to be seated and opened the interview with characteristic abruptness
how much will you contract to take
we want enough to run a newspaper plant at millville and will pay for whatever we use i've ordered a meter as you asked me to do and my men are now stringing the cables to make the connection
said mister skeelty with scornful emphasis your name merrick is not unknown to me it stands for financial success i understand but i'll bet you never made your money doing such fool things as establishing newspapers in graveyards
uncle john looked at the man attentively i shall refrain from criticising your conduct of this mill mister skeelty he quietly observed nor shall i dictate what you may do with your money provided you succeed in making any
the manager smiled broadly as if the retort pleased him give an take sir that's my motto he said but you prefer to take i do was the cheerful reply i'll take your paper for instance if it isn't too high priced
in case it is we will present you with a subscription said uncle john but that reminds me as a part of our bargain i want you to allow my nieces or any representative of the millville tribune to take subscriptions among your workmen
mister skeelty stared at him a moment then he laughed they're mostly foreigners mister merrick who haven't yet fully mastered the english language but he added thoughtfully a few among them might subscribe if your country sheet contains any news of interest at all
and their women constantly urge them to rebellion already there are grumblings and they claim they're buried alive in this forlorn forest don't appreciate the advantages of country life you see and i've an idea they'll begin to desert pretty soon
it's a penny paper said uncle john the subscription is only thirty cents a month delivered
very well mister skeelty we're after subscriptions more than money just now get all you can at that rate after signing a contract for the supply of electrical power
whereby he was outrageously robbed but the supply was guaranteed mister merrick and arthur returned to the farm that man said louise's young husband referring to the manager of the paper mill is an unmitigated scoundrel sir
but the ordinary beverages drunk in the british isles may be divided into three classes
beverages of the simplest kind not fermented two beverages consisting of water containing a considerable quantity of carbonic acid three beverages composed partly of fermented liquors
of the first class may be mentioned water toast and water barley water eau sucre lait
cheese and milk whey milk and water lemonade orangeade sherbet apple and pear juice
we may name soda water single and double ordinary effervescing draughts
bishop egg flip egg hot ale posset sack posset punch
has now become almost a necessary of life previous to the middle of the seventeenth century it was not used in england and it was wholly unknown to the greeks and romans pepys says in his diary september twenty fifth
though a difference of character is perceived yet this is not sufficient to authorize considering them as distinct species the tea tree flourishes best in temperate regions in china it is indigenous
the part of china where the best tea is cultivated is called by us the tea country the cultivation of the plant requires great care it is raised chiefly on the sides of hills
the shrub is pruned so as not to exceed the height of from two to three feet much in the same manner as the vine is treated in france they pluck the leaves one selecting them according to the kinds of tea required and notwithstanding the tediousness of the operation
each labourer is able to gather from four to ten or fifteen pounds a day when the trees attain to six or seven years of age the produce becomes so inferior that they are removed to make room for a fresh succession or they are cut down to allow of numerous young shoots
teas of the finest flavour consist of the youngest leaves and as these are gathered at four different periods of the year the younger the leaves the higher flavoured the tea and the scarcer and consequently the dearer
there are about a dozen different kinds but the principal are bohea congou and souchong and signify respectively inferior middling and superior teas are often perfumed and flavoured with the leaves of different kinds of plants grown on purpose
different tea farms in china produce teas of various qualities
is found to contain woody fibre mucilage a considerable quantity of the astringent principle or tannin a narcotic principle which is perhaps connected with a peculiar aroma the tannin is shown by its striking a black colour with sulphate of iron
and is the cause of the dark stain which is always formed when tea is spilt upon buff coloured cottons dyed with iron
has also been discovered in tea supposed to be identical with caffeine one of the constituents of coffee
a series of most remarkable products which have much analogy with those derived from uric acid in similar circumstances the infusion of tea differs from that of coffee by containing iron and manganese we have in tea of many kinds
a beverage which contains the active constituents of the most powerful mineral springs and however small the amount of iron may be which we daily take in this form
the leaves of the sloe white thorn ash elder and some others have been employed for this purpose such as the leaves of the speedwell wild germander black currants syringa purple spiked willow herb sweet brier and cherry tree
some of these are harmless others are to a certain degree poisonous as for example are the leaves of all the varieties of the plum and cherry tribe to which the sloe belongs adulteration by means of these leaves is by no means a new species of fraud
specifying severe penalties against those guilty of the offence
that should be chosen which possesses an agreeable odour and is as whole as possible
but the following facts connected with coffee
we are assured by bruce that the coffee tree is a native of abyssinia
a turkey merchant whose servant pasqua a greek understood the manner of roasting it this servant under the patronage of edwards established the first coffee house in london in george yard lombard street
coffee was then sold at four or five guineas a pound and a duty was soon afterwards laid upon it of fourpence a gallon when made into a beverage in the course of two centuries however this berry unknown originally as an article of food
except to some savage tribes on the confines of abyssinia has made its way through the whole of the civilized world mahommedans of all ranks drink coffee twice a day it is in universal request in france
and the demand for it throughout the british isles is daily increasing the more especially since so much attention has been given to mechanical contrivances for roasting and grinding the berry
it is grown chiefly in the districts of aden and mocha whence the name of our mocha coffee mocha coffee has a smaller and rounder bean than any other and likewise a more agreeable smell and taste
the next in reputation and quality is the java and ceylon coffee and then the coffees of bourbon and martinique
independently of one of the objects of roasting namely that of destroying its toughness and rendering it easily ground its tannin and other principles are rendered partly soluble in water and it is to the tannin that the brown colour of the decoction of coffee is owing
an aromatic flavour is likewise developed during torrefaction which is not perceived in the raw berry
but if the heat be increased beyond this the flavour is again dissipated
and much of the qualities of the beverage depends upon the operation the roasting of coffee for the dealers in london and paris has now become a separate branch of business and some of the roasters perform the operation on a great scale with considerable skill
if a cup of the best coffee be placed upon a table boiling hot it will fill the room with its fragrance but the coffee when warmed again after being cold
and thus often acquires a bad flavour brown sugar placed near it will communicate a disagreeable flavour it is stated that the coffee in the west indies has often been injured by being laid in rooms near the sugar works or where rum is distilled
doctor moseley mentions that a few bags of pepper on board a ship from india
chapter thirteen a world of high medical knowledge i spent a long and profitable season in the vicinity of the great dipper witnessing the almost infinite variations of human life as found from world to world and looking upon the wild wastes of the many planets that are not inhabited
finally i again spread my swift wings reached the beautiful star arcturus and noticed among the worlds that revolve around it a few that are sinless i was tempted to pause at one or another of these exceptional stations but i knew that i could not tarry until i had reached the far distant constellation of scorpio
in this wide flight i traveled a distance so great that i will not weary the mind with mentioning the trillions of miles now i was in the direct path of the milky way and my imagination staggered as i saw the endlessness of stars and solar systems
as far out beyond me as my assisted eyes could reach the star at which i arrived is one of the largest suns that blaze in the depths of immensity it is so wonderfully great that if twelve hundred million worlds as large as ours were all crushed into one great ball
it would not make one sphere as immense as this star or sun around which revolve about five hundred worlds or planets many of which are greater than our jupiter with abounding interest i visited all the inhabited worlds of this vast system how long it took i have no way of knowing
some of these worlds sustain a low order of human creatures while on others there are races that have reached a high degree in the scale of advancement of these five hundred worlds nearly one half are barren of all life and of those that are inhabited some twenty are sinless worlds
a period toward which we are anxiously looking and which we designate as the millennium of all this ponderous solar system there is one world that excels all the others in its medical attainments and of this one first i will give a flying notice
i have named this world dore lyn it is fifty times as large as our earth and of greater specific gravity its human creatures are delightfully formed and are in ruddy health and refined happiness in shape these dore lynites differ somewhat from us
and ascertained that creatures could be beautiful without resembling us whatever here i found four billions of people and there is room for twenty billions more so if you are in ill health and have run the round of our medical fraternity without success i would advise you to go to dore lyn
if you know how to reach it these dore lynites are almost three times our size and they are subject to most of our ills and many more from an early date the head government of this world paid particular attention to hygiene keeping all medical work under its own care
the government controls the whole field of medical science just as we do the post office department there are no conflicting schools of medicines such as allopathic homeopathic hydropathic eclectic and osteopathic
that no physician or medical school would think of having in our world the government medical schools of dore lyn are marvels indeed nothing is spared that money or talent can furnish the full graduates of these schools are only the survival of the fittest
the government has a series of institutions that do a work similar to our hospitals and have a corps of full graduates supplying the stations this entire system is so arranged that every family or individual receives all necessary treatment free
the cost of carrying on this vast system is one of the items of national expense i will now mention some of the medical achievements of these dore lynites when a physician suspects that the blood is poisoned he at once proceeds to a chemical analysis
and if certain kinds of poison are found the blood is filtered by the use of a fine instrument a blood vessel is exposed and cut and the two ends fastened to the delicate filter thus the blood is cleansed by passing through this instrument
those acquainted with the manner in which the blood circulates can readily see how all the blood of the body can be reached in a short time
and all types of hydrophobia which are ten fold more numerous in dore lyn than in our world there are no patent medicines in dore lyn the few medicines they have are manufactured only by government authority
no distinction being made between rich and poor one thousand years ago the medical aspects of dore lyn were similar to those which are seen in our world to day people were compelled to take all manner of poisons and opiates even from skilled hands
but in dore lyn those days of darkness and misery are past and the people enjoy the benefit of a medical skill one thousand years ahead of us they look back to the practice of the old physicians with ludicrous feelings
just as we do when reading the prescriptions that were used in the first century of our dispensation we call your attention to some of the antiquated remedies of our world as related by geike and copied from a medical journal of our own country following is a list
ashes of wolf's skull stag's horn the heads of mice the eyes of crabs owl's brains liver of frogs viper's fat grasshoppers bats et cetera
these supplied the alkalis which were prescribed physicians were accustomed to order doses of the gall of wild swine it is presumed the tame hog was not sufficiently efficacious
mice excretion made into a plaster and other equally vile and unsavory compounds colds in the head were cured by kissing the nose of a mule for sore throat snail slime was a favorite prescription
and mouse flesh was considered excellent for disease of the lungs boiled snails and powdered bats were prescribed for intestinal disorders when we read such a list of remedies we can scarcely believe that they were ever popular
but according to the history of dore lyn the time will come when many of our present medicines will be out of date and only mentioned in the old medical works the people of dore lyn have suffered in past ages innumerable woes on account of intemperance alcohol is unknown to them
but they have had a two thousand year's battle against three liquids that affect them as opium affects us strange to say that these terrible liquids were the bases of many of their medicines just like the anodyne medicines of our present day
thus in dore lyn the old kinds of medicines created many drunkards since the dawn of the brighter age a strict law prevails regarding the use of all narcotics in medicines then came gradually into use the many methods of treating disease without medicine
except the materials used to sustain life regularly being interested in these things i examined more closely into their past medical history and saw more clearly the present folly of a certain part of our medicinal practice how we are struggling with alcohol
especially as found in so many of our patent medicines and how helpless we are in trying to abolish the sale of these medicines by reason of our unbounded liberty in our world a man may concoct any alcoholic medicine and sell it without liquor license
for people become verily mad for the bottled stuff our nation may some day become wise enough to keep its own hand on the business that is determining the health and happiness of millions of its inhabitants but let me cease this digression and get back once more to dore lyn
one of the most noted medical achievements on this world consists in the manner of rendering a person unconscious of pain the anatomy of a dore lynite is in general the same as our anatomy their bones are arranged a little differently
and the sections of the backbone have a quite different formation when a surgeon of that world wishes to perform an operation and therefore render the patient unconscious he presses the tough cartilagenous part of a section of the backbone with a screw device fastened to the body of the patient
this simple act renders the spinal cord insensitive which condition may be maintained for hours without injuring the patient of course any point above the screw device is sensitive and for this reason it is more difficult to render a person unconscious in the parts about the head
many ages ago the world of microbes was laid bare but not before these people were masters of the microscope or an instrument serving the same purposes although formed on a partly different principle
these dore lynites have brought to light the numerous varieties of parasite broods that cause fermentations and diseases both infectious and otherwise a diseased body is looked upon as being in possession of a certain brood of microbes which are destroyed either by the blood filter
this is merely a hygienic selection of foods given to people of declining health instead of having them swallow ten or twenty dollars worth of strong medicines abnormal appetites crave for a class of foods injurious to the system
in dore lyn they have discovered a novel method of turning the diseased appetite from its cravings toward the things needed by the system in performing operations the experts of dore lyn have reached a marvelous degree of perfection
it took three and one half thousand years of continual experimenting on this delicate creation before it was pronounced satisfactory the false eye is not of flesh but one of manufacture it is placed in sensitive connection with the optic nerve
on which images are thrown by the delicate mechanism of the false eye the sight thus obtained is almost one half as distinct as that which is enjoyed by the normal eye these medical wizards also make artificial ears which are about as satisfactory as the natural ears
in certain lines of surgery we are equal to these dore lynites but we cannot register with them in the whole category of surgical achievements they have simply distanced us by five hundred years that is i believe that in five hundred years we can reach the fields of glory which they now occupy
think of laying bare a human lung and treating it with a special preparation for extreme cases of lung diseases and also treating it with a baking for department cases of a disease similar to pneumonia perhaps the most wonderful class of operations is performed on the heart and the brain
the heart is laid bare under a sheet of thermal rays fatty tissues are removed and other obstructions eradicated during the regular heart beats the government grants certain privileges of experimenting on her lowest class of criminals
that they have no power of recalling their past life and are incapable of uttering an oath
a long time ago there lived a king and queen who had no children although they both wished very much for a little son they tried not to let each other see how unhappy they were
and pretended to take pleasure in hunting and hawking and all sorts of other sports but at length the king could bear it no longer and declared that he must go and visit the furthest corners of his kingdom
and that it would be many months before he should return to his capital by that time he hoped he would have so many things to think about that he would have forgotten to trouble about the little son who never came
meaning to go only a little distance but everything looked so alike he could not make out the path by which he had come he walked on and on for hours the sun beating hotly on his head and his legs trembling under him
which looked as if it had been newly dug on the surface floated a silver cup with a golden handle but as it bobbed about whenever the king tried to seize it he was too thirsty to wait any longer and knelt down and drank his fill
which only hurt him without doing any good he called out angrily let go at once who is holding me it is i the king kostiei said a voice from the well
and looking up through the water was a little man with green eyes and a big head you have drunk from my spring and i shall not let you go until you promise to give me the most precious thing your palace contains which was not there when you left it
now the only thing that the king much cared for in his palace was the queen herself and as she was weeping bitterly on a pile of cushions in the great hall when he had ridden away
so he cheerfully gave the promise asked for by the ugly little man and in the twinkling of an eye man spring and cup had disappeared and the king was left kneeling on the dry sand
but as he felt much stronger and better he made up his mind that this strange adventure must really have happened and he sprang on his horse and rode off with a light heart to look for his companions in a few weeks they began to set out on their return home
on the steps of the palace stood the queen with a splendid golden cushion in her arms and on the cushion the most beautiful boy that ever was seen wrapped about in a cloud of lace
in a moment kostiei's words rushed into the king's mind and he began to weep bitterly to the surprise of everybody who had expected him nearly to die of joy at the sight of his son but try as he would and work as hard as he might
he could never forget his promise and every time he let the baby out of his sight he thought that he had seen it for the last time however years passed on and the prince grew first into a big boy and then into a fine young man
and gradually even the anxious king thought less and less about him and in the end forgot him altogether there was no family in the whole kingdom happier than the king and queen and prince
and tell him that i wish he would square accounts with me if he neglects to pay his debts he will bitterly repent it so saying the old man disappeared and the prince returned to the palace and told his father what had happened
but if i do not come back in a year's time you must give up all hopes of ever seeing me then the prince began to prepare for his journey his father gave him a complete suit of steel armour a sword and a horse
while his mother hung round his neck a cross of gold so kissing him tenderly with many tears they let him go he rode steadily on for three days and at sunset on the fourth day
he took up one of the garments and leaving his horse loose to wander about the adjoining fields he hid himself among some willows and waited in a few minutes a flock of geese which had been paddling about in the sea approached the shore
and put on the dresses struck the sand with their feet and were transformed in the twinkling of an eye into eleven beautiful young girls who flew away as fast as they could the twelfth and youngest remained in the water
she blushed and held out her hand saying to him in a soft voice i thank you noble prince for having granted my request
in a short time they reached kostiei's palace which gives light with a light brighter than the sun to the dark kingdoms below and the prince as he had been bidden entered boldly into the hall
sat in the centre upon a golden throne his green eyes glittered like glass his hands were as the claws of a crab when he caught sight of the prince he uttered piercing yells which shook the walls of the palace
the prince took no notice but continued his advance on his knees towards the throne when he had almost reached it the king broke out into a laugh and said it has been very lucky for you that you have been able to make me laugh
early the following morning the prince received a message that kostiei was ready to see him he got up and dressed and hastened to the presence chamber where the little king was seated on his throne when the prince appeared
bowing low before him kostiei began now prince this is what you have to do by to night you must build me a marble palace with windows of crystal and a roof of gold
it is to stand in the middle of a great park full of streams and lakes if you are able to build it you shall be my friend if not off with your head the prince listened in silence to this startling speech
and then returning to his room set himself to think about the certain death that awaited him he was quite absorbed in these thoughts when suddenly a bee flew against the window and tapped saying let me come in
and to morrow morning when you awake you will find the palace all ready what she said she did the next morning when the prince left his room he saw before him a palace more beautiful than his fancy had ever pictured
now good bye next morning king kostiei again sent for the prince the young princesses were all drawn up in a row dressed precisely in the same manner and with their eyes all cast down
as the prince looked at them he was amazed at their likeness twice he walked along the line without being able to detect the sign agreed upon
as she spoke she spat upon the ground and then drawing the prince after her out of the room she locked the door behind her and threw away the key
holding each other tight by the hand they made their way up into the sunlight and found themselves by the side of the same sea while the prince's horse was still quietly feeding in the neighbouring meadow the moment he saw his master the horse whinnied and galloped towards him
without losing an instant the prince sprang into the saddle swung the princess behind him and away they went like an arrow from a bow when the hour arrived which kostiei had fixed for the prince's last trial and there were no signs of him
kostiei was beside himself with rage and commanded his guards to ride after the fugitives if the guards returned without the fugitives their heads should pay for it by this time the prince and princess had got a good start
and were feeling quite happy when suddenly they heard the sound of a gallop far behind them the prince sprang from the saddle and laid his ear to the ground they are pursuing us he said then there is no time to be lost answered the princess
and as she spoke she changed herself into a river the prince into a bridge the horse into a crow and divided the wide road beyond the bridge into three little ones when the soldiers came up to the bridge they paused uncertainly
how were they to know which of the three roads the fugitives had taken
idiots he exclaimed in a passion they were the bridge and the river of course do you mean to say you never thought of that go back at once and off they galloped like lightning but time had been lost
kostiei's soldiers dashed hastily into the forest believing they saw before them the flying horse with its double burden they seemed close upon them when suddenly horse wood everything disappeared
and they found themselves at the place where they started
a horse a horse cried the king i will go after them myself this time they shall not escape and he galloped off foaming with anger i think i hear someone pursuing us said the princess yes so do i
and this time it is kostiei himself but his power only reaches as far as the first church and he can go no farther give me your golden cross so the prince unfastened the cross which was his mother's gift
and the princess hastily changed herself into a church the prince into a priest and the horse into a belfry it was hardly done when kostiei came up greeting monk have you seen some travellers on horseback pass this way
instead of heating it there was no such fuss when i was young in those good old times these airy notions had not come into fashion where the loose window sashes rattled at every passing breeze and the wind chased the smoke down the wide mouthed chimney
nobody complained of being stifled
no indeed we ran shivering through the long windy entries all wrapped in shawls and hugging ourselves to retain the friendly warmth of the fire as long as possible far from devising ways of letting in the air we tried hard to keep it out
by stuffing the cracks with cotton and closely curtaining the windows and bed even then the ice in the wash basin and the electricity which made our hair literally stand on end in the process of combing and the gradual transformation of fingers into thumbs
showed but too plainly that the wintry air had penetrated our defences when we crowded joyfully round a crackling sparkling wood fire even while our faces glowed with the intense heat cold shivers were creeping down our backs
and sudden draughts from an opening door set our teeth chattering i often wished myself on a spit to revolve slowly before the fire until thoroughly roasted not from any want of air i assure you
i for one love a snug house even a warm house i am of a chilly temperament
i banish all books on the subject from my table i studiously avoid all notorious fresh air lovers or try in every way to bring over the poor misguided mortals to my views but it is of no use fresh air is the fashion
are standing in the draught and such a whirlwind is raised by the flirting of fans and the rush of the dancers that i am blown like a dry leaf into a corner where i stand shivering and making rueful attempts to appear smiling and hospitable
i go out to pass a social afternoon with a friend and am set down in a room just above the freezing point with a little crack opened in the window and all the doors flying to change the air
i ride in the omnibus and am almost choked with my bonnet strings such a furious draught meets me in the face and when with infinite pains i have secured the only tolerably warm corner my next neighbor becomes very faint and must have the window open
even the poor babies are not safe from this popular insanity you may see the little victims any day taking an airing with their little red noses and watery eyes peeping forth from under the cap and feathers
very noisy and fully bent upon stirring me up and making me take exercise after snapping the door open and slamming it behind her with a clap that greatly disturbed my nerves she exclaimed in a stentorian voice
o dear me i shall die in such an oven my dear child you have no idea how hot it is and the first thing i knew up would go a window with a crash that made the weights rattle it might rain or shine
and finally enveloped me with the steam arising from them as they hung around my fire it roused my indignation that she should make herself and every body else so uncomfortable
and indisputably praiseworthy she was so good natured however and so happy in her delusion that i could not find it in my heart to remonstrate very vehemently except when she would make me listen to her interminable lectures upon the importance
the necessity of fresh air and the effect of a snug cosy room upon the blood the heart the lungs the head and as i verily believe she hinted the temper
i know i lost all control of mine long before she finished but whether it was the want of fresh air in practice or too much of it in theory i leave you to imagine
my friend always carried a small thermometer in her trunk which she consulted a dozen times an hour in order to regulate the temperature of the room alas for me if the quicksilver rose above sixty
i devoutly hoped she would leave it behind in some of our numerous stopping places and with an eye to that possibility i must confess i hung it in the most out of the way corners i could find but it seemed to be on her mind continually
she never forgot it and always packed it very carefully too i asked her two or three times to let me put it in my trunk where i had slyly arranged a nice little place full of hard surfaces and sharp corners but she always had plenty of room
to the near sighted purblind and short sighted friends
but as we are only half blind such comments as these are all the consolation we get oh near sighted is she yes it is very fashionable now a days for young ladies to carry eye glasses and call themselves near sighted or pooh
i meet my friend a some morning who returns my salutation with cold politeness and says
but as for seeing your old schoolmate two seats behind her of course you are too near sighted in vain i protest that i could not see her that three yards is a great distance to my eyes
see that little boy who having put on his father's spectacles is enjoying for the first time a clear and distinct view of the evening sky oh is that pretty little yellow dot a star exclaims the delighted child
but when his mother assures him that the stars always appear so to her and he turns to look in her face he says why mother how beautiful you look please to give me some little spectacles all my own
she could not resist this entreaty who could and little squire specs does not mind the shouts of his companions or the high sounding nicknames they give him he so rejoices in what seems to him a new sense a second sight
i was summoned the other day to welcome a family of cousins from a distant state whom i had not seen for a very long time they were accompanied i was told by a boston lady a stranger to us
i entered the room with considerable empressement but when my eye detected the dim outline of a circle of bonneted figures i stopped in despair in the middle of the room not knowing which was which or whom i ought to speak to first
and at last made an embarrassed half bow half courtesy to the company in general a confused murmur of greetings and introductions followed and throwing aside my air of stiff ceremonious politeness
shook hands with her in the most cordial manner and then in passing bowed formally to the next
what then was my surprise and utter confusion when she caught me by the hand and drawing me towards her kissed me emphatically several times how do you do dear have you quite forgotten me
what could i say i was petrified i could not smile i could not speak my only feeling was mortification at my most awkward mistake yet i ought to have become accustomed to such embarrassments for they are of very frequent occurrence
which is twisted in a pug or bob which is the correct term and surmounted by a tortoise shell comb but in the whole course of my numerous mistakes and blunders whether ludicrous serious or embarrassing
i believe i have never mistaken a cow for a human being as was done by old doctor e it was many years ago when boston common was still used as a pasture and cows were daily to be met in the crooked streets of the city that this gentleman
distinguished for the courtesy and old school politeness of his manner no less than for his extreme near sightedness was walking at a brisk pace one winter's day and saw just before him a lady as he thought richly dressed in furs
another cow anecdote where as you will see there was no gentle politeness wasted
numerous are the traditionary accounts of his peculiarities of his odd manners and customs which i have heard but it is only of one little incident that i am now going to speak a favorite employment of this good man was the care of his garden
and he might be seen any pleasant afternoon in summer rigged out in a hideous yellow calico robe or blouse with a dusty old black straw hat stuck on the back of his head hoeing and digging in that beloved patch of ground
one day as he was thus occupied his wife emerged from the house dressed in a dark brown gingham and bearing in her hand some muslins which she began to spread upon the gooseberry bushes to whiten
she was very busily engaged so that she was not aware that her husband was approaching her with a large stick until she felt a smart blow across her shoulders and heard his peculiar sharp voice shouting in her ears
so they were forced to travel over this country as having no other country but this to travel in they had indeed carried water along with them from the land over which they had traveled before as their conductor had bidden them
but when that was spent they were obliged to draw water out of wells with pain by reason of the hardness of the soil moreover what water they found was bitter and not fit for drinking and this in small quantities also
for mar denotes bitterness thither they came afflicted both by the tediousness of their journey and by their want of food for it entirely failed them at that time
now here was a well which made them choose to stay in the place which although it were not sufficient to satisfy so great an army did yet afford them some comfort as found in such desert places for they heard from those who had been to search
for the people were not in the nature of a complete army of men who might oppose a manly fortitude to the necessity that distressed them the multitude of the children and of the women also being of too weak capacities to be persuaded by reason blunted the courage of the men themselves
he was therefore in great difficulties and made everybody's calamity his own for they ran all of them to him and begged of him the women begged for their infants and the men for the women that he would not overlook them
and had promised to render the water such as they desired it to be in case they would be subservient to him in what he should enjoin them to do and this not after a remiss or negligent manner and when they asked what they were to do in order to have the water changed for the better
that when the greatest part was drawn up the remainder would be fit to drink so they labored at it till the water was so agitated and purged
and meeting with no relief they were in a very desponding condition and by fixing their attention upon nothing but their present misfortunes they were hindered from remembering what deliverances they had received from god and those by the virtue and wisdom of moses also
and had stones in their hands in order to despatch him
seeing it is probable that god tries their virtue and exercises their patience by these adversities that it may appear what fortitude they have and what memory they retain of his former wonderful works in their favor
and whether they will not think of them upon occasion of the miseries they now feel he told them it appeared they were not really good men either in patience or in remembering what had been successfully done for them
he also put them in mind of all that had passed how the egyptians were destroyed when they attempted to detain them contrary to the command of god and after what manner the very same river was to the others bloody and not fit for drinking
but was to them sweet and fit for drinking and how they went a new road through the sea which fled a long way from them by which very means they were themselves preserved but saw their enemies destroyed
and that when they were in want of weapons god gave them plenty of them and so he recounted all the particular instances how when they were in appearance just going to be destroyed god had saved them in a surprising manner
though it come not immediately if it be present with them before they suffer any great misfortune that they ought to reason thus that god delays to assist them not because he has no regard to them but because he will first try their fortitude and the pleasure they take in their freedom
but only in order to make them more useful in their service that as for himself he shall not be so much concerned for his own preservation for if he die unjustly he shall not reckon it any affliction but that he is concerned for them lest by casting stones at him
and brought them to repent of what they were going to do and because he thought the necessity they were under made their passion less unjustifiable he thought he ought to apply himself to god by prayer and supplication and going up to an eminence
and he desired that he would forgive what necessity had forced the people to do since such was the nature of mankind hard to please and very complaining under adversities accordingly god promised he would take care of them and afford them the succor they were desirous of
and told them he came to bring them from god a deliverance from their present distresses
they fell down upon the hebrews who caught them and satisfied their hunger with them and supposed that this was the method whereby god meant to supply them with food upon which moses returned thanks to god for affording them his assistance so suddenly
a dew fell down and moses when he found it stick to his hands supposed this was also come for food from god to them he tasted it and perceiving that the people knew not what it was and thought it snowed and that it was what usually fell at that time of the year
he informed them that this dew did not fall from heaven after the manner they imagined but came for their preservation and sustenance so he tasted it and gave them some of it that they might be satisfied about what he told them they also imitated their conductor and were pleased with the food
for it was like honey in sweetness and pleasant taste but like in its body to bdellium one of the sweet spices
however these strong men when they had gathered more than the measure appointed for them had no more than others but only tired themselves more in gathering it for they found no more than an omer apiece and the advantage they got by what was superfluous was none at all it corrupting
both by the worms breeding in it and by its bitterness so divine and wonderful a food was this it also supplied the want of other sorts of food to those that fed on it
and then betook himself to prayer to god beseeching him that as he had given them food when they were in the greatest want of it so he would give them drink since the favor of giving them food was of no value to them while they had nothing to drink
and out of it to receive plenty of what they wanted for he had taken care that drink should come to them without any labor or pains taking when moses had received this command from god he came to the people who waited for him and looked upon him
but they were astonished at this wonderful effect and as it were quenched their thirst by the very sight of it so they drank this pleasant this sweet water and such it seemed to be as might well be expected where god was the donor
they were also in admiration how moses was honored by god and they made grateful returns of sacrifices to god for his providence towards them
lucy's ghost kenneth had sent word to tom gates asking the young man to come to elmhurst but it was not until two days after the lawn party that tom appeared and asked permission to see mister forbes beth and louise were with kenneth at the time
and were eager to remain during the interview so the young man was shown into the library beth could scarcely recognize in him the calm and cheerful tom gates they had visited in the county jail for his face was drawn with care and anxiety eyes were bloodshot
and his former neat appearance was changed to one careless and untidy kenneth scrutinized him closely what have you been up to tom he asked i've been searching for lucy sir night and day
i haven't slept a wink since i heard the awful news of her sickness and escape where do you think she can be sir his question was full of agonized entreaty and his manner pitifully appealing i don't know answered kenneth
she was such a gentle shrinking girl as shy and retiring as a child and she never did a thing that would cause anyone the least worry or unhappiness but she was out of her head sir and didn't know what she was about that was the reason she went away
i thought to save her and drove her mad instead you might have known that declared kenneth a girl of her character sensitive to a fault would be greatly shocked to find the man she loved a criminal it was for her sake that is a poor excuse
if you had waited lucy would have proved her innocence they threatened to arrest her sir it would have killed her they wouldn't dare arrest her on suspicion
the squierses would dare do anything you don't know old missus squiers i know the law sir and in any event it was a foolish thing as well as criminal to forge a check to get the money they demanded
and pretty soon you'll be mad yourself if lucy is found do you want her to see you in this condition can she be found sir do you think we are trying to find her replied kenneth you have failed it seems
and will rogers had failed i've had one of the cleverest detectives of chicago trying to find her for the last three days
it must have been the detective that came to see missus rogers said tom musingly she told me a strange man had been there from mister forbes to inquire all about lucy
then you must show it by being a man and not by giving way to your trouble in this foolish manner i'll try sir now that there's something to hope for there's a good deal to hope for despair won't help you you must go to work
for i've disgraced myself in this neighborhood and i can't leave here till something is known of lucy's fate but i'll do something any kind of work if i can get it i need someone to assist me in my correspondence said kenneth would you like to be my secretary
me mister forbes me yes tom i'll pay you twenty dollars a week to start with and more if you serve me faithfully and you'll board here of course then tom gates broke down and began to cry like a child although he tried hard to control himself
just now you must have some sleep and get your strength back and don't worry about lucy burke will do everything that can be done and i am confident he will be able to trace the girl in time thank you sir
then he followed the butler away to his room and after the girls had discussed him and expressed their sympathy for the unfortunate fellow they all turned their attention to the important matter of the campaign the debate with hopkins was the thing that occupied them just now
and they must reply forcibly to the misleading statements made in his last hand bill meantime tom gates was sunk in the deep sleep of physical exhaustion and the day wore away before he wakened
when at last he regained consciousness he found the sun sinking in the west and feared he had been guilty of indiscretion he remembered that he was mister forbes's secretary now and that mister forbes might want him
he was not yet thoroughly rested but night was approaching and he reflected that he could obtain all the sleep that he needed then so greatly refreshed and in a quieter mood than he had been for days the young man dressed and entered the hall to find his way downstairs
who a few paces away had her back to the door of her own chamber from which she had evidently just stepped she stood motionless looking curiously at the youth who confronted her lucy don't you know me he asked his voice trembling with emotion
to begin with said the girl composedly my name happens to be eliza and as we've not been properly introduced i really don't see why i should know you she added with a light laugh tom gates shrank away from her as if he had been struck
you can't be lucy he murmured and yet and yet oh you must be lucy you must know me
it's very gratifying i'm sure young man said the girl a touch of scorn in her tones if you're my own tom you'll perhaps stand out of my way and let me go to my work without another word he backed up
which she did with a gesture of disdain when eliza parsons had disappeared down the back stairs beth drew a long breath and approached tom gates who still stood by the wall staring at the place where the girl had disappeared
i overheard said beth tell me tom is she really like lucy he looked at her with a dazed expression as if he scarcely comprehended her words could you have been mistaken persisted the questioner
he passed his hand over his eyes and gave a shudder either it was lucy or her ghost he muttered eliza parsons is no ghost declared beth she's one of the maids here at elmhurst and you're quite likely to see her again
has she been here long he asked eagerly no only a few days oh when i first saw her i was struck by her resemblance to missus rogers continued the girl
said tom choking back a sob lucy couldn't be so so airy so heartless she
she may be acting suggested beth but he shook his head gloomily no lucy couldn't act that way she's quick and impulsive but she she couldn't act and she wouldn't treat me that way either miss beth
lucy and i have been sweethearts for years and i know every expression of her dear face
i must have been mistaken i i'm sure i was mistaken beth sighed she was disappointed i suppose continued tom that i've thought of lucy so long and so much lately and worried so over her disappearance
that i'm not quite myself and imagined this girl was more like her than she really is what did you say her name was eliza parsons thank you can you tell me where i'll find mister forbes
he's getting ready for dinner now and won't need you at present then i'll go back to my room it it was a great shock to me that likeness miss de graf i can well believe it said beth
they always behave very well to me oh they give themselves such airs they are the most conceited creatures in the world and think themselves of so much importance by the by though i have thought of it a hundred times i have always forgot to ask you
what is your favorite complexion in a man do you like them best dark or fair i hardly know i never much thought about it something between both i think brown not fair and not very dark
they will hardly follow us there away they walked to the book and while isabella examined the names it was catherine's employment to watch the proceedings of these alarming young men
i hope they are not so impertinent as to follow us pray let me know if they are coming i am determined i will not look up in a few moments catherine with unaffected pleasure assured her that she need not be longer uneasy
as the gentlemen had just left the pump room and which way are they gone said isabella turning hastily round one was a very good looking young man they went towards the churchyard well i am amazingly glad i have got rid of them
you said you should like to see it catherine readily agreed
i shall not pay them any such compliment i assure you
that is the way to spoil them catherine had nothing to oppose against such reasoning and therefore to show the independence of miss thorpe and her resolution of humbling the sex they set off immediately as fast as they could walk in pursuit of the two young men
half a minute conducted them through the pump yard to the archway opposite union passage but here they were stopped everybody acquainted with bath may remember the difficulties of crossing cheap street at this point it is indeed a street of so impertinent a nature
so unfortunately connected with the great london and oxford roads and the principal inn of the city that a day never passes in which parties of ladies however important their business whether in quest of pastry millinery or even as in the present case of young men
are not detained on one side or other by carriages horsemen or carts this evil had been felt and lamented at least three times a day by isabella since her residence in bath and she was now fated to feel and lament it once more
for at the very moment of coming opposite to union passage and within view of the two gentlemen who were proceeding through the crowds and treading the gutters of that interesting alley they were prevented crossing by the approach of a gig
driven along on bad pavements by a most knowing looking coachman with all the vehemence that could most fitly endanger the lives of himself his companion and his horse oh these odious gigs said isabella looking up how i detest them
but this detestation though so just was of short duration for she looked again and exclaimed delightful mister morland and my brother good heaven tis james was uttered at the same moment by catherine
the horse was immediately checked with a violence which almost threw him on his haunches and the servant having now scampered up the gentlemen jumped out
catherine by whom this meeting was wholly unexpected received her brother with the liveliest pleasure and he being of a very amiable disposition and sincerely attached to her gave every proof on his side of equal satisfaction
which he could have leisure to do while the bright eyes of miss thorpe were incessantly challenging his notice and to her his devoirs were speedily paid with a mixture of joy and embarrassment
which might have informed catherine had she been more expert in the development of other people's feelings and less simply engrossed by her own
that her brother thought her friend quite as pretty as she could do herself john thorpe who in the mean time had been giving orders about the horse soon joined them and from him she directly received the amends which were her due for while he slightly and carelessly touched the hand of isabella
on her he bestowed a whole scrape and half a short bow he was a stout young man of middling height who with a plain face and ungraceful form seemed fearful of being too handsome unless he wore the dress of a groom and too much like a gentleman
unless he were easy where he ought to be civil and impudent where he might be allowed to be easy he took out his watch how long do you think we have been running in from tetbury miss morland i do not know the distance
morland remonstrated pleaded the authority of road books innkeepers and milestones but his friend disregarded them all he had a surer test of distance i know it must be five and twenty said he by the time we have been doing it
it is now half after one we drove out of the inn yard at tetbury
that makes it exactly twenty five you have lost an hour said morland it was only ten o'clock when we came from tetbury ten o'clock it was eleven upon my soul i counted every stroke
this brother of yours would persuade me out of my senses miss morland do but look at my horse did you ever see an animal so made for speed in your life the servant had just mounted the carriage and was driving off such true blood
three hours and a half indeed coming only three and twenty miles look at that creature and suppose it possible if you can he does look very hot to be sure hot he had not turned a hair till we came to walcot church
but look at his forehand look at his loins only see how he moves that horse cannot go less than ten miles an hour tie his legs and he will get on
well hung town built i have not had it a month it was built for a christ church man a friend of mine a very good sort of fellow he ran it a few weeks till i believe it was convenient to have done with it
it is a capital one of the kind but i am cursed tired of it
what do you ask and how much do you think he did miss morland i am sure i cannot guess at all curricle hung you see seat trunk sword case splashing board lamps silver molding all you see complete
that though they overtook and passed the two offending young men in milsom street she was so far from seeking to attract their notice that she looked back at them only three times john thorpe kept of course with catherine
and after a few minutes silence renewed the conversation about his gig you will find however miss morland it would be reckoned a cheap thing by some people for i might have sold it for ten guineas more the next day
are you fond of an open carriage miss morland yes very i have hardly ever an opportunity of being in one but i am particularly fond of it i am glad of it i will drive you out in mine every day
thank you said catherine in some distress from a doubt of the propriety of accepting such an offer i will drive you up lansdown hill to morrow thank you but will not your horse want rest rest
he has only come three and twenty miles to day all nonsense nothing ruins horses so much as rest nothing knocks them up so soon no no i shall exercise mine at the average of four hours every day while i am here shall you indeed
said catherine very seriously that will be forty miles a day forty ay fifty for what i care
to nothing more than a short decisive sentence of praise or condemnation on the face of every women they met and catherine after listening and agreeing as long as she could with all the civility and deference of the youthful female mind
have you ever read udolpho mister thorpe udolpho o lord not i i never read novels i have something else to do catherine humbled and ashamed was going to apologize for her question
i think you must like udolpho if you were to read it it is so very interesting not i faith
udolpho was written by missus radcliffe said catherine with some hesitation from the fear of mortifying him no sure was it
i was thinking of that other stupid book written by that woman they made such a fuss about she who married the french emigrant i suppose you mean camilla yes that's the book such unnatural stuff
this critique the justness of which was unfortunately lost on poor catherine brought them to the door of missus thorpe's lodgings and the feelings of the discerning and unprejudiced reader of camilla gave way to the feelings of the dutiful and affectionate son
as they met missus thorpe who had descried them from above in the passage ah mother how do you do said he giving her a hearty shake of the hand
it makes you look like an old witch here is morland and i come to stay a few days with you so you must look out for a couple of good beds somewhere near and this address seemed to satisfy all the fondest wishes of the mother's heart
my poor dear isabella said he fondly taking her hand and interrupting for a few moments her busy labors for some one of her five children how long it is how terribly long since you were here
knowing as she did that both the mister knightleys were as unpersuadable on that article as herself and two basins only were ordered after a little more discourse in praise of gruel with some wondering at its not being taken every evening by everybody
he proceeded to say with an air of grave reflection it was an awkward business my dear your spending the autumn at south end instead of coming here i never had much opinion of the sea air
mister wingfield most strenuously recommended it sir or we should not have gone he recommended it for all the children but particularly for the weakness in little bella's throat both sea air and bathing
and as to myself i have been long perfectly convinced though perhaps i never told you so before that the sea is very rarely of use to anybody i am sure it almost killed me once come come cried emma feeling this to be an unsafe subject
it makes me envious and miserable i who have never seen it south end is prohibited if you please my dear isabella i have not heard you make one inquiry after mister perry yet and he never forgets you oh good mister perry how is he sir
i suppose there is not a man in such practice anywhere but then there is not so clever a man anywhere and missus perry and the children how are they do the children grow i have a great regard for mister perry i hope he will be calling soon
he will be so pleased to see my little ones i hope he will be here to morrow for i have a question or two to ask him about myself of some consequence and my dear whenever he comes you had better let him look at little bella's throat oh my dear sir
her throat is so much better that i have hardly any uneasiness about it either bathing has been of the greatest service to her or else it is to be attributed to an excellent embrocation of mister wingfield's
i have not heard one inquiry after them
how are they sir why pretty well my dear upon the whole but poor missus bates had a bad cold about a month ago how sorry i am but colds were never so prevalent as they have been this autumn
mister wingfield told me that he had never known them more general or heavy except when it has been quite an influenza that has been a good deal the case my dear but not to the degree you mention perry says that colds have been very general
but not so heavy as he has very often known them in november perry does not call it altogether a sickly season no i do not know that mister wingfield considers it very sickly except ah my poor dear child
the truth is that in london it is always a sickly season nobody is healthy in london nobody can be it is a dreadful thing to have you forced to live there so far off and the air so bad no indeed we are not at all in a bad air
our part of london is so very superior to most others you must not confound us with london in general my dear sir the neighborhood of brunswick square is very different from almost all the rest we are so very airy
i should be unwilling i own to live in any other part of the town there is hardly any other that i could be satisfied to have my children in but we are so remarkably airy
mister wingfield thinks the vicinity of brunswick square decidedly the most favorable as to air ah my dear it is not like hartfield you make the best of it but after you have been a week at hartfield you are all of you different creatures
now i cannot say that i think you are any of you looking well at present i am sorry to hear you say so sir but i assure you excepting those little nervous headaches and palpitations which i am never entirely free from anywhere i am quite well myself
and if the children were rather pale before they went to bed it was only because they were a little more tired than usual from their journey and the happiness of coming i hope you will think better of their looks to morrow
for i assure you mister wingfield told me that he did not believe he had ever sent us off altogether in such good case
turning her eyes with affectionate anxiety toward her husband middling my dear i cannot compliment you i think mister john knightley very far from looking well what is the matter sir did you speak to me cried mister john knightley hearing his own name
i am sorry to find my love that my father does not think you looking well but i hope it is only from being a little fatigued i could have wished however as you know that you had seen mister wingfield before you left home
she had nothing worse to hear than isabella's kind inquiry after jane fairfax and jane fairfax though no great favorite with her in general she was at that moment very happy to assist in praising
that sweet amiable jane fairfax said missus john knightley it is so long since i have seen her except now and then for a moment accidentally in town what happiness it must be to her good old grandmother and excellent aunt when she comes to visit them
i always regret excessively on dear emma's account that she cannot be more at highbury but now their daughter is married i suppose colonel and missus campbell will not be able to part with her at all she would be such a delightful companion for emma
mister woodhouse agreed to it all but added our little friend harriet smith however is just such another pretty kind of young person you will like harriet emma could not have a better companion than harriet
but only jane fairfax one knows to be so very accomplished and superior and exactly emma's age this topic was discussed very happily and others succeeded of similar moment and passed away with similar harmony
but the evening did not close without a little return of agitation the gruel came and supplied a great deal to be said much praise and many comments undoubting decision of its wholesomeness for every constitution
but unfortunately among the failures which the daughter had to instance
ah said mister woodhouse shaking his head and fixing his eyes on her with tender concern the ejaculation in emma's ear expressed
it does not bear talking of and for a little while she hoped he would not talk of it and that a silent rumination might suffice to restore him to the relish of his own smooth gruel after an interval of some minutes however he began with
i shall always be very sorry that you went to the sea this autumn instead of coming here but why should you be sorry sir i assure you it did the children a great deal of good and moreover if you must go to the sea it had better not have been to south end
south end is an unhealthy place perry was surprised to hear you had fixed upon south end i know there is such an idea with many people but indeed it is quite a mistake sir we all had our health perfectly well there never found the least inconvenience from the mud
and mister wingfield says it is entirely a mistake to suppose the place unhealthy and i am sure he may be depended on for he thoroughly understands the nature of the air and his own brother and family have been there repeatedly you should have gone to cromer my dear if you went anywhere
perry was a week at cromer once and he holds it to be the best of all the sea bathing places
and by what i understand you might have had lodgings there quite away from the sea a quarter of a mile off very comfortable you should have consulted perry but my dear sir
and if one is to travel there is not much to choose between forty miles and a hundred better not move at all better stay in london altogether than travel forty miles to get into a worse air this is just what perry said it seemed to him a very ill judged measure
emma's attempts to stop her father had been vain and when he had reached such a point as this she could not wonder at her brother in law's breaking out mister perry said he in a voice of very strong displeasure would do as well to keep his opinion till it is asked for
why does he make it any business of his to wonder at what i do at my taking my family to one part of the coast or another i may be allowed i hope the use of my judgment as well as mister perry i want his directions no more than his drugs he paused
and growing cooler in a moment added with only sarcastic dryness if mister perry can tell me how to convey a wife and five children a distance of a hundred and thirty miles with no greater expense or inconvenience than a distance of forty
i should be as willing to prefer cromer to south end as he could himself true true cried mister knightley with most ready interposition very true that's a consideration indeed but john
the shoemaker good day said monsieur defarge looking down at the white head that bent low over the shoemaking it was raised for a moment and a very faint voice responded to the salutation as if it were at a distance good day
you are still hard at work i see after a long silence the head was lifted for another moment and the voice replied yes i am working this time a pair of haggard eyes had looked at the questioner
before the face had dropped again the faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful it was not the faintness of physical weakness though confinement and hard fare no doubt had their part in it its deplorable peculiarity was that it was the faintness of solitude and disuse
it was like the last feeble echo of a sound made long and long ago so entirely had it lost the life and resonance of the human voice that it affected the senses like a once beautiful colour faded away into a poor weak stain
so sunken and suppressed it was that it was like a voice underground so expressive it was of a hopeless and lost creature that a famished traveller wearied out by lonely wandering in a wilderness
some minutes of silent work had passed and the haggard eyes had looked up again not with any interest or curiosity but with a dull mechanical perception beforehand that the spot where the only visitor they were aware of had stood
was not yet empty i want said defarge who had not removed his gaze from the shoemaker
you can bear a little more the shoemaker stopped his work looked with a vacant air of listening at the floor on one side of him then similarly at the floor on the other side of him then upward at the speaker what did you say
you can bear a little more light i must bear it if you let it in laying the palest shadow of a stress upon the second word the opened half door was opened a little further and secured at that angle for the time
a broad ray of light fell into the garret
he had a white beard raggedly cut but not very long a hollow face and exceedingly bright eyes the hollowness and thinness of his face would have caused them to look large under his yet dark eyebrows and his confused white hair
but they were naturally large and looked unnaturally so his yellow rags of shirt lay open at the throat and showed his body to be withered and worn he and his old canvas frock and his loose stockings and all his poor tatters of clothes
had in a long seclusion from direct light and air
that it would have been hard to say which was which he had put up a hand between his eyes and the light and the very bones of it seemed transparent
he never looked at the figure before him without first looking down on this side of himself then on that as if he had lost the habit of associating place with sound he never spoke without first wandering in this manner and forgetting to speak
are you going to finish that pair of shoes to day asked defarge motioning to mister lorry to come forward what did you say do you mean to finish that pair of shoes to day
i can't say that i mean to i suppose so i don't know but the question reminded him of his work and he bent over it again
mister lorry came silently forward leaving the daughter by the door when he had stood for a minute or two by the side of defarge the shoemaker looked up he showed no surprise at seeing another figure
but the unsteady fingers of one of his hands strayed to his lips as he looked at it his lips and his nails were of the same pale lead colour and then the hand dropped to his work and he once more bent over the shoe the look and the action had occupied but an instant
you have a visitor you see said monsieur defarge what did you say here is a visitor the shoemaker looked up as before but without removing a hand from his work
here is monsieur who knows a well made shoe when he sees one show him that shoe you are working at take it monsieur mister lorry took it in his hand tell monsieur what kind of shoe it is and the maker's name
there was a longer pause than usual before the shoemaker replied
i said couldn't you describe the kind of shoe for monsieur's information it is a lady's shoe it is a young lady's walking shoe it is in the present mode i never saw the mode
i have had a pattern in my hand he glanced at the shoe with some little passing touch of pride and the maker's name said defarge now that he had no work to hold he laid the knuckles of the right hand in the hollow of the left
and then the knuckles of the left hand in the hollow of the right
without a moment's intermission the task of recalling him from the vagrancy into which he always sank when he had spoken was like recalling some very weak person from a swoon or endeavouring in the hope of some disclosure to stay the spirit of a fast dying man
did you ask me for my name assuredly i did one hundred and five north tower is that all one hundred and five north tower
with a weary sound that was not a sigh nor a groan he bent to work again until the silence was again broken you are not a shoemaker by trade said mister lorry looking steadfastly at him
his haggard eyes turned to defarge as if he would have transferred the question to him but as no help came from that quarter they turned back on the questioner when they had sought the ground i am not a shoemaker by trade no i was not a shoemaker by trade
i i learnt it here i taught myself i asked leave to he lapsed away even for minutes ringing those measured changes on his hands the whole time
his eyes came slowly back at last to the face from which they had wandered when they rested on it he started and resumed in the manner of a sleeper that moment awake reverting to a subject of last night
i asked leave to teach myself and i got it with much difficulty after a long while and i have made shoes ever since as he held out his hand for the shoe that had been taken from him mister lorry said still looking steadfastly in his face
monsieur manette do you remember nothing of me the shoe dropped to the ground and he sat looking fixedly at the questioner monsieur manette mister lorry laid his hand upon defarge's arm
as the captive of many years sat looking fixedly by turns at mister lorry and at defarge some long obliterated marks of an actively intent intelligence in the middle of the forehead
gradually forced themselves through the black mist that had fallen on him they were overclouded again they were fainter they were gone but they had been there and so exactly was the expression repeated on the fair young face of her
who had crept along the wall to a point where she could see him and where she now stood looking at him with hands which at first had been only raised in frightened compassion if not even to keep him off and shut out the sight of him but which were now extending towards him
trembling with eagerness to lay the spectral face upon her warm young breast and love it back to life and hope so exactly was the expression repeated though in stronger characters on her fair young face
darkness had fallen on him in its place he looked at the two less and less attentively and his eyes in gloomy abstraction sought the ground and looked about him in the old way finally with a deep long sigh
he took the shoe up and resumed his work have you recognised him monsieur asked defarge in a whisper yes for a moment at first i thought it quite hopeless
but i have unquestionably seen for a single moment the face that i once knew so well hush let us draw further back hush she had moved from the wall of the garret very near to the bench on which he sat
there was something awful in his unconsciousness of the figure that could have put out its hand and touched him as he stooped over his labour not a word was spoken not a sound was made she stood like a spirit beside him
and he bent over his work it happened at length that he had occasion to change the instrument in his hand for his shoemaker's knife
he had taken it up and was stooping to work again when his eyes caught the skirt of her dress he raised them and saw her face the two spectators started forward but she stayed them with a motion of her hand
she had no fear of his striking at her with the knife though they had he stared at her with a fearful look and after a while his lips began to form some words though no sound proceeded from them by degrees
in the pauses of his quick and laboured breathing he was heard to say what is this with the tears streaming down her face she put her two hands to her lips and kissed them to him then clasped them on her breast as if she laid his ruined head there
she sighed no who are you not yet trusting the tones of her voice she sat down on the bench beside him he recoiled but she laid her hand upon his arm
a strange thrill struck him when she did so and visibly passed over his frame he laid the knife down softly as he sat staring at her her golden hair which she wore in long curls had been hurriedly pushed aside and fell down over her neck
advancing his hand by little and little he took it up and looked at it in the midst of the action he went astray and with another deep sigh fell to work at his shoemaking but not for long releasing his arm she laid her hand upon his shoulder
he took her hair into his hand again and looked closely at it it is the same how can it be when was it how was it as the concentrated expression returned to his forehead
he seemed to become conscious that it was in hers too he turned her full to the light and looked at her
she had a fear of my going though i had none and when i was brought to the north tower they found these upon my sleeve you will leave me them they can never help me to escape in the body though they may in the spirit
those were the words i said i remember them very well he formed this speech with his lips many times before he could utter it but when he did find spoken words for it they came to him coherently though slowly
how was this was it you once more the two spectators started as he turned upon her with a frightful suddenness but she sat perfectly still in his grasp and only said
in a low voice i entreat you good gentlemen do not come near us do not speak do not move hark he exclaimed whose voice was that his hands released her as he uttered this cry and went up to his white hair which they tore in a frenzy
it died out as everything but his shoemaking did die out of him and he refolded his little packet and tried to secure it in his breast but he still looked at her and gloomily shook his head no no no you are too young too blooming
it can't be see what the prisoner is these are not the hands she knew this is not the face she knew this is not a voice she ever heard no no she was and he was before the slow years of the north tower
ages ago what is your name my gentle angel hailing his softened tone and manner his daughter fell upon her knees before him with her appealing hands upon his breast o sir
at another time you shall know my name and who my mother was and who my father and how i never knew their hard hard history but i cannot tell you at this time and i cannot tell you here all that i may tell you here and now is
kiss me kiss me o my dear my dear his cold white head mingled with her radiant hair which warmed and lighted it as though it were the light of freedom shining on him if you hear in my voice
weep for it if you touch in touching my hair anything that recalls a beloved head that lay on your breast when you were young and free weep for it weep for it if when i hint to you of a home that is before us
i bring back the remembrance of a home long desolate while your poor heart pined away weep for it weep for it she held him closer round the neck and rocked him on her breast like a child
if when i tell you dearest dear that your agony is over and that i have come here to take you from it and that we go to england to be at peace and at rest i cause you to think of your useful life laid waste and of our native france so wicked to you weep for it
weep for it and if when i shall tell you of my name and of my father who is living and of my mother who is dead
because the love of my poor mother hid his torture from me weep for it weep for it weep for her then and for me good gentlemen thank god i feel his sacred tears upon my face and his sobs strike against my heart o see
thank god for us thank god he had sunk in her arms and his face dropped on her breast
that the two beholders covered their faces
and his heaving breast and shaken form had long yielded to the calm that must follow all storms emblem to humanity of the rest and silence into which the storm called life must hush at last they came forward to raise the father and daughter from the ground
he had gradually dropped to the floor and lay there in a lethargy worn out she had nestled down with him that his head might lie upon her arm and her hair drooping over him curtained him from the light
if without disturbing him she said raising her hand to mister lorry as he stooped over them after repeated blowings of his nose
so that from the very door he could be taken away but consider is he fit for the journey asked mister lorry more fit for that i think than to remain in this city so dreadful to him it is true said defarge who was kneeling to look on and hear
more than that monsieur manette is for all reasons best out of france say shall i hire a carriage and post horses that's business said mister lorry resuming on the shortest notice his methodical manners and if business is to be done
you see how composed he has become and you cannot be afraid to leave him with me now why should you be if you will lock the door to secure us from interruption i do not doubt that you will find him when you come back as quiet as you leave him in any case
both mister lorry and defarge were rather disinclined to this course and in favour of one of them remaining but as there were not only carriage and horses to be seen to but travelling papers and as time pressed for the day was drawing to an end
it came at last to their hastily dividing the business that was necessary to be done and hurrying away to do it then as the darkness closed in
and watched him the darkness deepened and deepened and they both lay quiet until a light gleamed through the chinks in the wall mister lorry and monsieur defarge had made all ready for the journey and had brought with them besides travelling cloaks and wrappers
bread and meat wine and hot coffee
there was nothing else in the garret but a pallet bed and he and mister lorry roused the captive and assisted him to his feet
in the scared blank wonder of his face whether he knew what had happened whether he recollected what they had said to him
they tried speaking to him but he was so confused and so very slow to answer that they took fright at his bewilderment and agreed for the time to tamper with him no more he had a wild lost manner of occasionally clasping his head in his hands that had not been seen in him before
yet he had some pleasure in the mere sound of his daughter's voice and invariably turned to it when she spoke in the submissive way of one long accustomed to obey under coercion he ate and drank what they gave him to eat and drink and put on the cloak and other wrappings that they gave him to wear
he readily responded to his daughter's drawing her arm through his and took and kept her hand in both his own they began to descend monsieur defarge going first with the lamp mister lorry closing the little procession
they had not traversed many steps of the long main staircase when he stopped and stared at the roof and round at the walls you remember the place my father you remember coming up here what did you say but before she could repeat the question
remember no i don't remember it was so very long ago that he had no recollection whatever of his having been brought from his prison to that house was apparent to them they heard him mutter
one hundred and five north tower and when he looked about him
on their reaching the courtyard he instinctively altered his tread as being in expectation of a drawbridge and when there was no drawbridge and he saw the carriage waiting in the open street he dropped his daughter's hand and clasped his head again
no crowd was about the door no people were discernible at any of the many windows
an unnatural silence and desertion reigned there only one soul was to be seen and that was madame defarge who leaned against the door post knitting and saw nothing
the prisoner had got into a coach and his daughter had followed him when mister lorry's feet were arrested on the step by his asking miserably for his shoemaking tools and the unfinished shoes
and went knitting out of the lamplight through the courtyard she quickly brought them down and handed them in and immediately afterwards leaned against the door post knitting and saw nothing defarge got upon the box and gave the word to the barrier
the postilion cracked his whip and they clattered away under the feeble over swinging lamps under the over swinging lamps swinging ever brighter in the better streets and ever dimmer in the worse and by lighted shops gay crowds
illuminated coffee houses and theatre doors to one of the city gates soldiers with lanterns at the guard house there your papers travellers see here then monsieur the officer said defarge getting down and taking him gravely apart
these are the papers of monsieur inside with the white head they were consigned to me with him at the he dropped his voice there was a flutter among the military lanterns and one of them being handed into the coach by an arm in uniform the eyes connected with the arm looked
at monsieur with the white head it is well forward
adieu from defarge and so under a short grove of feebler and feebler over swinging lamps out under the great grove of stars beneath that arch of unmoved and eternal lights
some so remote from this little earth that the learned tell us it is doubtful whether their rays have even yet discovered it as a point in space where anything is suffered or done the shadows of the night were broad and black all through the cold and restless interval until dawn
they once more whispered in the ears of mister jarvis lorry sitting opposite the buried man who had been dug out and wondering what subtle powers were for ever lost to him and what were capable of restoration the old inquiry
i hope you care to be recalled to life and the old answer
to recover the provinces of italy and sicily and to chastise this pretended king
which had been inexorably proscribed by the latin clergy after the loss of her dukes apulia was chained as a servile appendage to the crown of sicily the founder of the monarchy had ruled by the sword
without healing the discontent of his subjects the feudal government was always pregnant with the seeds of rebellion and a nephew of roger himself invited the enemies of his family and nation the majesty of the purple
and a series of hungarian and turkish wars
the greek monarch intrusted a fleet and army
and in every operation gold as well as steel was the instrument of victory salerno and some places along the western coast maintained their fidelity to the norman king
but he lost in two campaigns the greater part of his continental possessions and the modest emperor disdaining all flattery and falsehood was content with the reduction of three hundred cities or villages of apulia and calabria
whose names and titles were inscribed on all the walls of the palace the prejudices of the latins
claimed the indefeasible dominion of italy and professed his design of chasing the barbarians beyond the alps by the artful speeches liberal gifts and unbounded promises of their eastern ally
against the despotism of frederic barbarossa
and he poured says the historian a river of gold into the bosom of ancona whose attachment to the greeks
rendered it an important garrison in the heart of italy it was twice besieged by the arms of frederic the imperial forces were twice repulsed by the spirit of freedom that spirit was animated by the ambassador of constantinople
and the most intrepid patriots the most faithful servants
his ambition was excited by the hope of stripping the purple from the german usurpers and of establishing in the west as in the east his lawful title of sole emperor of the romans
with this view he solicited the alliance of the people and the bishop of rome several of the nobles embraced the cause of the greek monarch the splendid nuptials of his niece with odo frangipani
the pope twice received in the vatican the ambassadors of constantinople they flattered his piety by the long promised union of the two churches
exasperated a free and commercial people one hundred galleys were launched and armed in as many days they swept the coasts of dalmatia and greece but after some mutual wounds the war was terminated by an agreement
inglorious to the empire insufficient for the republic and a complete vengeance of these and of fresh injuries was reserved for the succeeding generation
had informed his sovereign that he was strong enough to quell any domestic revolt of apulia and calabria but that his forces were inadequate to resist the impending attack of the king of sicily
alike eminent in rank alike defective in military talents the greeks were oppressed by land and sea
the service of a norman army and the truce of thirty years was not disturbed by any hostilities between sicily and constantinople about the end of that period
by an inhuman tyrant who had deserved the abhorrence of his country and mankind the sword of william the second the grandson of roger was drawn by a fugitive of the comnenian race
and the subjects of andronicus might salute the strangers as friends
and isaac angelus the new emperor might indulge his vanity or vengeance in the treatment of four thousand captives
they are strongly discriminated by the epithets of the bad and the good but these epithets which appear to describe the perfection of vice and virtue cannot strictly be applied to either of the norman princes
the first william did not degenerate from the valor of his race but his temper was slothful his manners were dissolute his passions headstrong and mischievous and the monarch is responsible not only for his personal vices
the great admiral who abused the confidence and conspired against the life of his benefactor from the arabian conquest sicily had imbibed a deep tincture of oriental manners the despotism the pomp
which afflicted palermo the island and the continent during the reign of william the first
and the dread of futurity the legitimate male posterity of tancred of hauteville was extinct in the person of the second william but his aunt the daughter of roger had married the most powerful prince of the age
and henry the sixth the son of frederic barbarossa descended from the alps to claim the imperial crown and the inheritance of his wife against the unanimous wish of a free people
this inheritance could only be acquired by arms and i am pleased to transcribe the style and sense of the historian falcandus who writes at the moment and on the spot with the feelings of a patriot
and the prophetic eye of a statesman constantia the daughter of sicily nursed from her cradle in the pleasures and plenty and educated in the arts and manners of this fortunate isle
departed long since to enrich the barbarians with our treasures and now returns with her savage allies to contaminate
can unite for their common safety
the term of his life and reign he stood in arms on the farthest verge of the apulian frontier against the powers of germany and the restitution of a royal captive
without injury or ransom may appear to surpass the most liberal measure of policy or reason after his decease the kingdom of his widow and infant son fell without a struggle
and henry pursued his victorious march from capua to palermo the political balance of italy was destroyed by his success and if the pope and the free cities had consulted their obvious and real interest
they would have combined the powers of earth and heaven to prevent the dangerous union of the german empire
was to abolish the privileges and to seize the property of these imprudent allies the last hope of falcandus was defeated by the discord of the christians and mahometans they fought in the capital
several thousands of the latter were slain but their surviving brethren fortified the mountains and disturbed above thirty years the peace of the island by the policy of frederic the second sixty thousand saracens were transplanted
in their wars against the roman church the emperor and his son mainfroy
palermo and the whole kingdom the pearls and jewels however precious might be easily removed but one hundred and sixty horses
his mother and sisters and the nobles of both sexes were separately confined in the fortresses of the alps and on the slightest rumor of rebellion the captives were deprived of life of their eyes or of the hope of posterity
and the heiress of the norman line might struggle to check her despotic husband and to save the patrimony of her new born son of an emperor so famous in the next age under the name of frederic the second ten years after this revolution
the french monarchs annexed to their crown the duchy of normandy the sceptre of her ancient dukes had been transmitted by a granddaughter of william the conqueror to the house of plantagenet and the adventurous normans
chapter eighteen character of constantine and his sons part two
the inheritance of the empire seemed to devolve on the three sons of fausta who have been already mentioned under the names of constantine of constantius and of constans these young princes were successively invested with the title of caesar
and the dates of their promotion may be referred to the tenth the twentieth
might be excused by the partiality of paternal affection but it is not so easy to understand the motives of the emperor when he endangered the safety both of his family and of his people by the unnecessary elevation
of his two nephews dalmatius and hannibalianus the former was raised by the title of caesar to an equality with his cousins in favor of the latter constantine invented the new and singular appellation
in any age of the empire hannibalianus alone was distinguished by the title of king
the use of such a title
and the duties of active life those who occasionally mention the education or talents of constantius allow that he excelled in the gymnastic arts of leaping and running that he was a dexterous archer a skilful horseman
and a master of all the different weapons used in the service either of the cavalry
though not perhaps with equal success
and of the roman jurisprudence were invited by the liberality of the emperor who reserved for himself the important task of instructing the royal youths in the science of government and the knowledge of mankind
but the genius of constantine himself had been formed by adversity and experience
he had learned to command his own passions to encounter those of his equals and to depend for his present safety and future greatness on the prudence and firmness of his personal conduct his destined successors
in the imperial purple incessantly surrounded with a train of flatterers they passed their youth in the enjoyment of luxury and the expectation of a throne
appear to wear a smooth and uniform aspect the indulgence of constantine admitted them at a very tender age to share the administration of the empire and they studied the art of reigning at the expense of the people intrusted to their care
the ancient patrimony of their father for the more opulent but less martial countries of the east italy
and africa were accustomed to revere constans the third of his sons as the representative of the great constantine he fixed dalmatius on the gothic frontier to which he annexed the government of thrace macedonia and greece
and the provinces of pontus cappadocia
were destined to form the extent of his new kingdom for each of these princes a suitable establishment was provided a just proportion of guards of legions and of auxiliaries was allotted for their respective dignity and defence
the ministers and generals who were placed about their persons were such as constantine could trust to assist and even to control these youthful sovereigns in the exercise of their delegated power as they advanced in years and experience
the limits of their authority were insensibly enlarged
with the figure and complexion of the ancient inhabitants of europe according to the various accidents of peace and war of alliance or conquest
the pursuit of game and the exercises of war or rather of rapine directed the vagrant motions of the sarmatians the movable camps or cities the ordinary residence of their wives and children
consisted only of large wagons drawn by oxen and covered in the form of tents the military strength of the nation was composed of cavalry and the custom of their warriors to lead in their hand one or two spare horses
enabled them to advance and to retreat with a rapid diligence which surprised the security and eluded the pursuit
which was capable of resisting a sword or javelin
cut into thin and polished slices carefully laid over each other in the manner of scales or feathers
they were reduced to the necessity of employing fish bones for the points of their weapons
that poisoned the wounds which they inflicted is alone sufficient to prove the most savage manners since a people impressed with a sense of humanity would have abhorred so cruel a practice and a nation skilled in the arts of war
their shaggy beards uncombed locks
where he was exposed almost without defence to the fury of these monsters of the desert
and from the accounts of history there is some reason to believe that these sarmatians were the jazygae one of the most numerous and warlike tribes of the nation the allurements of plenty engaged them
to seek a permanent establishment on the frontiers of the empire soon after the reign of augustus they obliged the dacians
tibiscus to retire into the hilly country and to abandon to the victorious sarmatians the fertile plains of the upper hungary
they watched or suspended the moment of attack as they were provoked by injuries or appeased by presents they gradually acquired the skill of using more dangerous weapons and although the sarmatians did not illustrate their name by any memorable exploits
with a formidable body of cavalry
who yielded to the pressure of the gothic power they seem to have chosen a king from that nation
the gothic kings aspired to extend their dominion from the euxine to the frontiers of germany
were stained with the blood of the contending barbarians after some experience of the superior strength and numbers of their adversaries the sarmatians implored the protection of the roman monarch who beheld with pleasure the discord of the nations
but who was justly alarmed by the progress of the gothic arms as soon as constantine had declared himself in favor of the weaker party the haughty araric king of the goths instead of expecting the attack of the legions
boldly passed the danube and spread terror and devastation through the province of maesia to oppose the inroad of this destroying host the aged emperor took the field in person
he had the mortification of seeing his troops fly before an inconsiderable detachment
from the business of persecuting the dalrymple family to the important and pressing question of church government they said that the old system had been abolished that no other system had been substituted
that it was impossible to say what was the established religion of the kingdom and that the first duty of the legislature was to put an end to an anarchy which was daily producing disasters and crimes
the leaders of the club were not to be so drawn away from their object it was moved and resolved that the consideration of ecclesiastical affairs should be postponed till secular affairs had been settled
the unjust and absurd act of incapacitation was carried by seventy four voices to twenty four another vote still more obviously aimed at the house of stair speedily followed
the parliament laid claim to a veto on the nomination of the judges and assumed the power of stopping the signet in other words of suspending the whole administration of justice till this claim should be allowed
it was plain from what passed in debate that though the chiefs of the club had begun with the court of session they did not mean to end there the arguments used by sir patrick hume and others
led directly to the conclusion that the king ought not to have the appointment of any great public functionary sir patrick indeed avowed both in speech and in writing his opinion that the whole patronage of the realm
ought to be transferred from the crown to the estates when the place of treasurer
so much provoked by their perverseness that after long temporising he refused to touch even acts which were in themselves unobjectionable and to which his instructions empowered him to consent
this state of things would have ended in some great convulsion if the king of scotland had not been also king of a much greater and more opulent kingdom charles the first had never found any parliament at westminster
more unmanageable than william during this session found the parliament at edinburgh but it was not in the power of the parliament at edinburgh to put on william such a pressure as the parliament at westminster had put on charles
a refusal of supplies at westminster was a serious thing and left the sovereign no choice except to yield or to raise money by unconstitutional means but a refusal of supplies at edinburgh
reduced him to no such dilemma the largest sum that he could hope to receive from scotland in a year was less than what he received from england every fortnight
more diligently cultivated and more thickly peopled than the greater part of the highlands the men who followed his banner were supposed to be not less numerous than all the macdonalds and macleans united
and were in strength and courage inferior to no tribe in the mountains but the clan had been made insignificant by the insignificance of the chief the marquess was the falsest the most fickle
the most pusillanimous of mankind already in the short space of six months he had been several times a jacobite and several times a williamite both jacobites and williamites regarded him with contempt and distrust
which respect for his immense power prevented them from fully expressing after repeatedly vowing fidelity to both parties and repeatedly betraying both he began to think that he should best provide for his safety
by abdicating the functions both of a peer and of a chieftain by absenting himself both from the parliament house at edinburgh and from his castle in the mountains and by quitting the country to which he was bound by every tie of duty and honour
for they had been employed by him only four years before as the ministers of his vengeance against the house of argyle they had garrisoned inverary they had ravaged lorn they had demolished houses cut down fruit trees
burned fishing boats broken millstones hanged campbells and were therefore not likely to be pleased by the prospect of mac callum mores restoration one word from the marquess
would have sent two thousand claymores to the jacobite side but that word he would not speak and the consequence was that the conduct of his followers was as irresolute and inconsistent as his own
while they were waiting for some indication of his wishes they were called to arms at once by two leaders either of whom might with some show of reason claim to be considered as the representative of the absent chief
lord murray the marquess's eldest son who was married to a daughter of the duke of hamilton declared for king william stewart of ballenach the marquess's confidential agent
declared for king james the people knew not which summons to obey he whose authority would have been held in profound reverence had plighted faith to both sides
and had then run away for fear of being under the necessity of joining either nor was it very easy to say
belonged to his steward or to his heir apparent the most important military post in athol was blair castle the house which now bears that name is not distinguished by any striking peculiarity
from other country seats of the aristocracy the old building was a lofty tower of rude architecture
the walls would have offered very little resistance to a battering train but were quite strong enough to keep the herdsmen of the grampians in awe about five miles south of this stronghold
of killiecrankie at present a highway as smooth as any road in middlesex
white villas peep from the birch forest and on a fine summer day there is scarcely a turn of the pass at which may not be seen some angler casting his fly on the foam of the river some artist sketching a pinnacle of rock
or some party of pleasure banqueting on the turf in the fretwork of shade and sunshine but in the days of william the third killiecrankie was mentioned with horror by the peaceful and industrious inhabitants of the perthshire lowlands
it was deemed the most perilous of all those dark ravines through which the marauders of the hills were wont to sally forth the sound so musical to modern ears
of the river brawling round the mossy rocks and among the smooth pebbles the dark masses of crag and verdure worthy of the pencil of wilson the fantastic peaks bathed at sunrise and sunset
suggested to our ancestors thoughts of murderous ambuscades and of bodies stripped gashed and abandoned to the birds of prey
that the weapons by which the highlanders could be most effectually subdued were the pickaxe and the spade the country which lay just above this pass was now the theatre of a war such as the highlands had not often witnessed
men wearing the same tartan and attached to the same lord were arrayed against each other the name of the absent chief was used with some show of reason on both sides ballenach at the head of a body of vassals
who considered him as the representative of the marquess occupied blair castle murray with twelve hundred followers appeared before the walls and demanded to be admitted
that the crisis required prompt and strenuous exertion on the fate of blair castle probably depended the fate of all athol on the fate of athol might depend the fate of scotland mackay hastened northward
and ordered his troops to assemble in the low country of perthshire some of them were quartered at such a distance that they did not arrive in time
which had served in holland and which bore the names of their colonels mackay himself balfour and ramsay there was also a gallant regiment of infantry from england then called hastings's but now known as the thirteenth of the line
one of them was commanded by lord kenmore the other which had been raised on the border and which is still styled the king's own borderers by lord leven two troops of horse lord annandale's and lord belhaven's
probably made up the army to the number of above three thousand men
but the call was so unexpected and the time allowed was so short that the muster was not a very full one the whole number of broadswords seems to have been under three thousand
with this force such as it was dundee set forth on his march he was joined by succours which had just arrived from ulster they consisted of little more than three hundred irish foot
incompetent as he was he bore a commission which gave him military rank in scotland next to dundee
children do not naturally love god they have no great capacity for an idea so subtle and mature as the idea of god while they are still children in a home and cared for life is too kind and easy for them to feel any great need of god
all things are still something god like the true god our modern minds insist upon believing can have no appetite for unnatural praise and adoration he does not clamour for the attention of children
he is not like one of those senile uncles who dream of glory in the nursery who love to hear it said the children adore him if children are loved and trained to truth justice and mutual forbearance
they will be ready for the true god as their needs bring them within his scope they should be left to their innocence and to their trust in the innocence of the world as long as they can be
they should be told only of god as a great friend whom some day they will need more and understand and know better that is as much as most children need
yet children are sometimes very near to god creative passion stirs in their play at times they display a divine simplicity but it does not follow that therefore they should be afflicted with theological formulae
or inducted into ceremonies and rites that they may dislike or misinterpret if by any accident by the death of a friend or a distressing story the thought of death afflicts a child then he may begin to hear of god
who takes those that serve him out of their slain bodies into his shining immortality or if by some menial treachery through some prowling priest the whisper of old bogey reaches our children
then we may set their minds at ease by the assurance of his limitless charity with adolescence comes the desire for god and to know more of god and that is the most suitable time for religious talk and teaching
god is not sexual in the last two or three hundred years there has been a very considerable disentanglement of the idea of god from the complex of sexual thought and feeling but in the early days of religion
the two things were inseparably bound together the fury of the hebrew prophets for example is continually proclaiming the extraordinary wrath of their god at this or that little dirtiness or irregularity or breach of the sexual tabus
the ceremony of circumcision is clearly indicative of the original nature of the semitic deity who developed into the trinitarian god so far as christianity dropped this rite so far christianity disavowed the old associations
but to this day the representative christian churches still make marriage into a mystical sacrament and with some exceptions the roman communion exacts the sacrifice of celibacy from its priesthood
regardless of the mischievousness and maliciousness that so often ensue nearly every christian church inflicts as much discredit and injustice as it can contrive upon the illegitimate child
they do not treat illegitimate children as unfortunate children but as children with a mystical and an incurable taint of sin kindly easy going christians may resent this statement because it does not tally with their own attitudes
but let them consult their orthodox authorities one must distinguish clearly here between what is held to be sacred or sinful in itself and what is held to be one's duty or a nation's duty
because it is in itself the wisest cleanest clearest best thing to do by the latter tests and reasonable arguments most or all of our institutions regulating the relations of the sexes may be justifiable
but my case is not whether they can be justified by these tests but that it is not by these tests that they are judged even to day by the professors of the chief religions of the world
it is the temper and not the conclusions of the religious bodies that i would criticise these sexual questions are guarded by a holy irascibility and the most violent efforts are made with a sense of complete righteousness
to prohibit their discussion that fury about sexual things is only to be explained on the hypothesis that the christian god remains a sex god in the minds of great numbers of his exponents
his disentanglement from that plexus is incomplete sexual things are still to the orthodox christian sacred things now the god whom those of the new faith are finding
is only mediately concerned with the relations of men and women he is no more sexual essentially than he is essentially dietetic or hygienic the god of leviticus was all these things
he is represented as prescribing the most petty and intimate of observances many of which are now habitually disregarded by the christians who profess him it is part of the evolution of the idea of god
that we have now so largely disentangled our conception of him from the dietary and regimen and meticulous sexual rules that were once inseparably bound up with his majesty christ himself was one of the chief forces in this disentanglement
there is the clearest evidence in several instances of his disregard of the rule and his insistence that his disciples should seek for the spirit underlying and often masked by the rule his church being made of baser matter
has followed him as reluctantly as possible and no further than it was obliged but it has followed him far enough to admit his principle that in all these matters there is no need for superstitious fear
that the interpretation of the divine purpose is left to the unembarrassed intelligence of men the church has followed him far enough to make the harsh threatenings of priests and ecclesiastics
against what they are pleased to consider impurity or sexual impiety a profound inconsistency one seems to hear their distant protests when one reads of christ and the magdalen or of christ eating with publicans and sinners
the clergy of our own days play the part of the new testament pharisees with the utmost exactness and complete unconsciousness one cannot imagine a modern ecclesiastic conversing with a magdalen in terms of ordinary civility
unless she was in a very high social position indeed or blending with disreputable characters without a dramatic sense of condescension and much explanatory by play those who profess modern religion
do but follow in these matters a course entirely compatible with what has survived of the authentic teachings of christ when they declare that god is not sexual and that religious passion and insult and persecution upon the score of sexual things
are a barbaric inheritance but lest anyone should fling off here with some hasty assumption that those who profess the religion of the true god are sexually anarchistic
let stress be laid at once upon the opening sentence of the preceding paragraph and let me a little anticipate a section which follows we would free men and women from exact and superstitious rules and observances
not to make them less the instruments of god but more wholly his the claim of modern religion is that one should give oneself unreservedly to god that there is no other salvation
the believer owes all his being and every moment of his life to god to keep mind and body as clean fine wholesome active and completely at god's service as he can
there is no scope for indulgence or dissipation in such a consecrated life it is a matter between the individual and his conscience or his doctor or his social understanding what exactly he may do or not do
what he may eat or drink or so forth upon any occasion nothing can exonerate him from doing his utmost to determine and perform the right act nothing can excuse his failure to do so
but what is here being insisted upon is that none of these things has immediately to do with god or religious emotion except only the general will to do right in god's service
the detailed interpretation of that right is for the dispassionate consideration of the human intelligence all this is set down here as distinctly as possible because of the emotional reservoirs of sex
and sexual excitement is always tending to leak back into religious feeling amongst the sex tormented priesthood of the roman communion in particular
and suchlike predecessors of christianity there seems to be an extraordinary belief that chastity was not invented until christianity came and that the religious life is largely the propitiation of god by feats of sexual abstinence
heresies are misconceptions of god religion is not a plant that has grown from one seed it is like a lake that has been fed by countless springs it is a great pool of living water
mingled from many sources and tainted with much impurity it is synthetic in its nature it becomes simpler from original complexities the sediment subsides
a life perfectly adjusted to its surroundings is a life without mentality no judgment is called for no inhibition
such a life is bliss or nirvana it is unconsciousness below dreaming consciousness is discord evoking the will to adjust it is inseparable from need
at every need consciousness breaks into being imperfect adjustments needs are the rents and tatters in the smooth dark veil of being through which the light of consciousness shines
the light of consciousness and will of which god is the sun so that every need of human life every disappointment and dissatisfaction and call for help and effort is a means whereby men may and do come to the realisation of god
there is no cardinal need there is no sort of experience in human life from which there does not come or has not come a contribution to men's religious ideas at every challenge men have to put forth effort feel doubt of adequacy
be thwarted perceive the chill shadow of their mortality at every challenge comes the possibility of help from without the idea of eluding frustration the aspiration towards immortality
it is possible to classify the appeals men make for god under the headings of their chief system of effort their efforts to understand their fear and their struggles for safety and happiness the craving of their restlessness for peace
their angers against disorder and their desire for the avenger their sexual passions and perplexities each of these great systems of needs and efforts brings its own sort of sediment into religion
each that is to say has its own kind of heresy its distinctive misapprehension of god it is only in the synthesis and mutual correction of many divergent ideas that the idea of god grows clear
the effort to understand completely for example leads to the endless heresies of theory men trip over the inherent infirmities of the human mind but in these days one does not argue greatly about dogma
almost every conceivable error about unity about personality about time and quantity and genus and species about begetting and beginning and limitation and similarity and every kink in the difficult mind of man
has been thrust forward in some form of dogma beside the errors of thought are the errors of emotion fear and feebleness go straight to the heresies that god is magic or that god is providence
restless egotism at leisure and unchallenged by urgent elementary realities breeds the heresies of mysticism anger and hate call for god's judgments and the stormy emotions of sex gave mankind the phallic god
those who find themselves possessed by the new spirit in religion realise very speedily the necessity of clearing the mind of all these exaggerations transferences and overflows of feeling
the search for divine truth is like gold washing nothing is of any value until most has been swept away
one sort of heresies stands apart from the rest it is infinitely the most various sort it includes all those heresies which result from wrong headed mental elaboration
as distinguished from those which are the result of hasty and imperfect apprehension the heresies of the clever rather than the heresies of the obtuse the former are of endless variety and complexity
the latter are in comparison natural simple confusions the former are the errors of the study the latter the superstitions that spring by the wayside or are brought down to us in our social structure out of a barbaric past
to the heresies of thought and speculation belong the elaborate doctrine of the trinity dogmas about god's absolute qualities such odd deductions as the accepted christian teachings about the virginity of mary and joseph and the like
all these things are parts of orthodox christianity yet none of them did christ even by the christian account expound or recommend he treated them as negligible
it was left for the alexandrians for alexander for little red haired busy wire pulling athanasius to find out exactly what their master was driving at three centuries after their master was dead
men still sit at little desks remote from god or life and rack their inadequate brains to meet fancied difficulties and state unnecessary perfections they seek god by logic
ignoring the marginal error that creeps into every syllogism their conceit blinds them to the limitations upon their thinking they weave spider like webs of muddle and disputation across the path by which men come to god
it would not matter very much if it were not that simpler souls are caught in these webs every great religious system in the world is choked by such webs each system has its own
of all the blood stained tangled heresies which make up doctrinal christianity and imprison the mind of the western world to day not one seems to have been known to the nominal founder of christianity
jesus christ never certainly claimed to be the messiah never spoke clearly of the trinity was vague upon the scheme of salvation and the significance of his martyrdom we are asked to suppose that he left his apostles without instructions
that were necessary to their eternal happiness that he could give them the lord's prayer but leave them to guess at the all important creed and that the church staggered along blindly putting its foot in and out of damnation
that garland of priests marshalled by constantine's officials came to its rescue from the conversion of paul onward the heresies of the intellect multiplied about christ's memory and hid him from the sight of men
we are no longer clear about the doctrine he taught nor about the things he said and did even the apostles creed is not traceable earlier than the fourth century it is manifestly an old patched formulary
rutinius explains that it was not written down for a long time but transmitted orally kept secret and used as a sort of password among the elect we are all so weary of this theology of the christians
we are all at heart so sceptical about their triune god that it is needless here to spend any time or space upon the twenty thousand different formulae in which the orthodox have attempted to believe in something of the sort
there are several useful encyclopaedias of sects and heresies compact but still bulky to which the curious may go there are ten thousand different expositions of orthodoxy
no one who really seeks god thinks of the trinity either the trinity of the trinitarian or the trinity of the sabellian or the trinity of the arian any more than one thinks of those theories made stone those gods with three heads and seven hands
who sit on lotus leaves and flourish lingams and what not in the temples of india let us leave therefore these morbid elaborations of the human intelligence to drift to limbo
and come rather to the natural heresies that spring from fundamental weaknesses of the human character and which are common to all religions against these it is necessary to keep constant watch they return very insidiously
god is not magic one of the most universal of these natural misconceptions of god is to consider him as something magic serving the ends of men it is not easy for us to grasp at first the full meaning of giving our souls to god
the missionary and teacher of any creed is all too apt to hawk god for what he will fetch he is greedy for the poor triumph of acquiescence and so it comes about that many people who have been led to believe themselves religious are in reality
still keeping back their own souls and trying to use god for their own purposes god is nothing more for them as yet than a magnificent fetish they did not really want him but they have heard that he is potent stuff
their unripe souls think to make use of him they call upon his name they do certain things that are supposed to be peculiarly influential with him such as saying prayers and repeating gross praises of him
the bible and suchlike mental mortification or making the sabbath dull and uncomfortable in return for these fetishistic propitiations god is supposed to interfere with the normal course of causation in their favour
he remedies unfavourable accidents cures petty ailments contrives unexpected gifts of medicine money or the like he averts bankruptcies arranges profitable transactions
and does a thousand such services for his little clique of faithful people the pious are represented as being constantly delighted by these little surprises these bouquets and chocolate boxes from the divinity or contrawise
he contrives spiteful turns for those who fail in their religious attentions he murders sabbath breaking children or disorganises the careful business schemes of the ungodly he is represented as going sabbath breakering on sunday morning
as a staffordshire worker goes ratting ordinary everyday christianity is saturated with this fetishistic conception of god it may be disowned in the hibbert journal but it is unblushingly advocated in the parish magazine
it is an idea taken over by christianity with the rest of the qualities of the hebrew god it is natural enough in minds so self centred that their recognition of weakness and need brings with it no real self surrender
a modest periodical called the northern british israel review illustrated with portraits of various clergymen of the church of england and of ladies and gentlemen who belong to the little school of thought which this magazine represents
it is i should judge a sub sect entirely within the established church of england that is to say within the anglican communion of the trinitarian christians it contains among other papers
a very entertaining summary by a gentleman entitled i cite the unusual title page of the periodical
of the views of isaiah ezekiel and obadiah upon the kaiser william they are distinctly hostile views mister landseer mackenzie discourses not only upon these anticipatory condemnations
but also upon the relations of the weather to this war he is convinced quite simply and honestly that god has been persistently rigging the weather against the germans
he points out that the absence of mist on the north sea was of great help to the british in the autumn of nineteen fourteen and declares that it was the wet state of the country that really held up the germans in flanders in the winter of nineteen fourteen fifteen
he ignores the part played by the weather in delaying the relief of kut el amara
having once decided upon intervention did not instead of this comparatively trivial meteorological assistance adopt the more effective course of for example exploding or spoiling the german stores of ammunition by some simple atomic miracle
or misdirecting their gunfire by a sudden local modification of the laws of refraction or gravitation
i can only conclude that this kind of belief is quite orthodox and permissible in the established church and that i am charging orthodox christianity here with nothing that has ever been officially repudiated i find indeed
the essential assumptions of mister landseer mackenzie repeated in endless official christian utterances on the part of german and british and russian divines the bishop of chelmsford for example
has recently ascribed our difficulties in the war to our impatience with long sermons among other similar causes such christians are manifestly convinced that god can be invoked by ritual
for example by special days of national prayer or an increased observance of sunday or made malignant by neglect or levity it is almost fundamental in their idea of him
the ordinary mohammedan seems as confident of this magic pettiness of god and the belief of china in the magic propitiations and resentments of heaven is at least equally strong
but the true god as those of the new religion know him is no such god of luck and intervention he is not to serve men's ends or the ends of nations or associations of men he is careless of our ceremonies and invocations
he does not lose his temper with our follies and weaknesses it is for us to serve him he captains us he does not coddle us
or even to seat themselves on his vacant throne the philosopher could excuse the hasty sallies of discontent and the hero could despise the ambitious projects which surpassed the fortune or the abilities of the rash conspirators a citizen of ancyra
had prepared for his own use a purple garment
the monarch after making some inquiry into the rank and character of his rival despatched the informer with a present of a pair of purple slippers to complete the magnificence of his imperial habit
who had resolved to assassinate julian in the field of exercise near antioch their intemperance revealed their guilt and they were conducted in chains to the presence of their injured sovereign who after a lively representation of the wickedness and folly of their enterprise
instead of a death of torture which they deserved and expected pronounced a sentence of exile against the two principal offenders
was the execution of a rash youth who with a feeble hand had aspired to seize the reins of empire but that youth was the son of marcellus the general of cavalry
which diocletian constantine and the patient habits of fourscore years had established in the empire a motive of superstition prevented the execution of the design which julian had frequently meditated
that they no longer remembered its servile and humiliating origin the office or rather the name of consul was cherished by a prince who contemplated with reverence the ruins of the republic
during the games of the circus he had imprudently or designedly performed the manumission of a slave in the presence of the consul the moment he was reminded that he had trespassed on the jurisdiction of another magistrate
he condemned himself to pay a fine of ten pounds of gold and embraced this public occasion of declaring to the world that he was subject
the spirit of his administration and his regard
that one half of the national council
which was permitted to represent the majesty of the roman name
so many idle citizens from the services of their country and by imposing an equal distribution of public duties he restored the strength the splendor or according to the glowing
the venerable age of greece excited the most tender compassion in the mind of julian which kindled into rapture when he recollected the gods the heroes and the men superior to heroes and to gods who have bequeathed to the latest posterity the monuments of their genius
argos for her deliverer the pride of corinth again rising from her ruins with the honors of a roman colony exacted a tribute from the adjacent republics for the purpose of defraying the games of the isthmus
from this tribute the cities of elis of delphi and of argos which had inherited from their remote ancestors the sacred office of perpetuating the olympic the pythian and the nemean games claimed a just exemption
who seems to have consulted only the interest of the capital in which he resided seven years after this sentence
and his eloquence was interposed
and if they condescended to harangue the soldiers whom they feared they treated with silent disdain the senators whom they despised the assemblies of the senate which constantius had avoided were considered by julian as the place where he could exhibit
he alternately practised as in a school of declamation the several modes of praise of censure of exhortation and his friend libanius
but as an amusement and although he might have trusted the integrity and discernment of his praetorian praefects he often placed himself by their side on the seat of judgment the acute penetration of his mind was agreeably occupied in detecting and defeating the chicanery of the advocates
who labored to disguise the truths of facts and to pervert the sense of the laws he sometimes forgot the gravity of his station asked indiscreet or unseasonable questions and betrayed by the loudness of his voice and the agitation of his body the earnest vehemence
but his knowledge of his own temper prompted him to encourage and even to solicit the reproof of his friends and ministers and whenever they ventured to oppose the irregular sallies of his passions the spectators could observe the shame as well as the gratitude of their monarch
and julian might have raised himself to the rank of minister or general of the state in which he was born a private citizen if the jealous caprice of power had disappointed his expectations if he had prudently declined the paths of greatness
the portrait of julian something seems wanting to the grace and perfection of the whole figure his genius was less powerful and sublime than that of caesar
the romans beheld an emperor who made no distinction between his duties and his pleasures
and who endeavored always to connect authority with merit and happiness with virtue even faction and religious faction was constrained to acknowledge the superiority of his genius in peace as well as in war and to confess with a sigh
that the apostate julian was a lover of his country
irruption of northern people upon the roman territories visigoths barbarians called in by stilicho vandals in africa franks and burgundians give their names to france and burgundy the huns
angles give the name to england attila king of the huns in italy genseric takes rome the lombards the people who inhabit the northern parts beyond the rhine and the danube
living in a healthy and prolific region frequently increase to such vast multitudes that part of them are compelled to abandon their native soil and seek a habitation in other countries the method adopted
when one of these provinces had to be relieved of its superabundant population was to divide into three parts each containing an equal number of nobles and of people of rich and of poor the third upon whom the lot fell
the ancient seat of their dominion and fixed their residence at constantinople for by this step they exposed the western empire
the remoteness of their position preventing them either from seeing or providing for its necessities to suffer the overthrow of such an extensive empire established by the blood of so many brave and virtuous men
showed no less folly in the princes themselves than infidelity in their ministers
contributed to its ruin and these barbarians exhibited much ability and perseverance in accomplishing their object the first of these northern nations that invaded the empire after the cimbrians
who were conquered by caius marius was the visigoths which name in our language signifies western goths these after some battles fought along its confines long held their seat of dominion upon the danube with consent of the emperors
and although moved by various causes they often attacked the roman provinces were always kept in subjection by the imperial forces the emperor theodosius conquered them with great glory and being wholly reduced to his power
they no longer selected a sovereign of their own but satisfied with the terms which he granted them lived and fought under his ensigns and authority on the death of theodosius his sons arcadius and honorius succeeded to the empire
ingratiated himself with the new emperors and at the same time so disturbed their government
to make the visigoths their enemies he advised that the accustomed stipend allowed to this people should be withheld and as he thought these enemies would not be sufficient alone to disturb the empire
he contrived that the burgundians franks vandals and alans a northern people in search of new habitations should assail the roman provinces
the visigoths on being deprived of their subsidy created alaric their king and having assailed the empire succeeded after many reverses in overrunning italy and finally in pillaging rome after this victory alaric died
and his successor astolphus having married placidia sister of the emperors agreed with them to go to the relief of gaul and spain which provinces had been assailed by the vandals burgundians alans and franks from the causes before mentioned
being pressed by the visigoths and unable to resist them were invited by boniface who governed africa for the empire to occupy that province for being in rebellion he was afraid his error would become known to the emperor
for these reasons the vandals gladly undertook the enterprise and under genseric their king became lords of africa at this time theodosius son of arcadius succeeded to the empire
and which from their name is still called hungary to these disorders it must be added that the emperor seeing himself attacked on so many sides to lessen the number of his enemies began to treat first with the vandals then with the franks
a course which diminished his own power and increased that of the barbarians nor was the island of britain which is now called england secure from them for the britons being apprehensive of those who had occupied gaul called the angli
a people of germany to their aid and these under vortigern their king first defended and then drove them from the island of which they took possession and after themselves named the country england
but the inhabitants being robbed of their home became desperate by necessity and resolved to take possession of some other country although they had been unable to defend their own they therefore crossed the sea with their families and settled in the country nearest to the beach
which from themselves is called brittany the huns who were said above to have occupied pannonia
turingi and ostro or eastern goths
and velamir king of the ostrogoths became subject to him attila having entered italy laid siege to aquileia where he remained without any obstacle for two years wasting the country round and dispersing the inhabitants
this as will be related in its place caused the origin of venice
he directed his course towards rome from the destruction of which he abstained at the entreaty of the pontiff his respect for whom was so great that he left italy and retired into austria where he died after the death of attila
velamir king of the ostrogoths and the heads of the other nations took arms against his sons
slew the one and compelled the other with his huns to repass the danube and return to their country
attila having left italy valentinian emperor of the west thought of restoring the country and that he might be more ready to defend it against the barbarians abandoned rome and removed the seat of government to ravenna the misfortunes which befell the western empire
created an emperor for their defense or suffered some one to usurp the dominion this occurred at the period of which we now speak when maximus a roman after the death of valentinian seized the government and compelled eudocia
but she being of imperial blood scorned the connection of a private citizen and being anxious to avenge herself for the insult secretly persuaded genseric king of the vandals and master of africa to come to italy
he also ravaged many other places in italy and then loaded with wealth withdrew to africa the romans having returned to their city and maximus being dead
after this several important events occurred both in italy
and after the deaths of many emperors the empire of constantinople devolved upon zeno and that of rome upon orestes and augustulus his son who obtained the sovereignty by fraud while they were designing to hold by force what they had obtained by treachery
who after the death of attila as before remarked
into the districts which they left unoccupied the longobardi or lombards also a northern people entered led by godogo their king odoacer conquered and slew orestes near pavia
the process of colonization considered from one side colonization whatever the motives of the emigrants was an economic matter it involved the use of capital to pay for their passage to sustain them on the voyage and to start them on the way of production
under this stern economic necessity puritans scotch irish germans and all were alike laid immigrants who paid their own way
undoubtedly a very considerable number could do so for we can trace the family fortunes of many early settlers henry cabot lodge is authority for the statement that the settlers of new england were drawn
they did not belong to the classes from which emigration is usually supplied for they all had a stake in the country they left behind though it would be interesting to know how accurate this statement is or how applicable to the other colonies
no study has as yet been made to gratify that interest for the present it is an unsolved problem just how many of the colonists were able to bear the cost of their own transfer to the new world indentured servants that
to overcome this difficulty a plan was worked out whereby shipowners and other persons of means furnished the passage money to immigrants in return for their promise or bond to work for a term of years to repay the sum advanced
this system was called indentured servitude it is probable that the number of bond servants exceeded the original twenty thousand puritans the yeomen the virginia gentlemen and the huguenots combined
all the way down the coast from massachusetts to georgia were to be found in the fields kitchens and workshops men women and children serving out terms of bondage generally ranging from five to seven years
in the proprietary colonies the proportion of bond servants was very high the baltimores penns carterets and other promoters anxiously sought for workers of every nationality to till their fields for land without labor was worth no more than land in the moon
hence the gates of the proprietary colonies were flung wide open every inducement was offered to immigrants in the form of cheap land and special efforts were made to increase the population by importing servants
the story of this traffic in white servants is one of the most striking things in the history of labor bondmen differed from the serfs of the feudal age in that they were not bound to the soil but to the master they likewise differed from the negro slaves
in that their servitude had a time limit still they were subject to many special disabilities it was for instance a common practice to impose on them penalties far heavier than were imposed upon freemen for the same offense
a free citizen of pennsylvania who indulged in horse racing and gambling was let off with a fine a white servant guilty of the same unlawful conduct was whipped at the post and fined as well
the condition of white bondmen in virginia according to lodge was little better than that of slaves loose indentures and harsh laws put them at the mercy of their masters
that such was their lot in all other colonies their fate depended upon the temper of their masters cruel
a chance to reach the new an opportunity to wrestle with fate for freedom and a home of their own when their weary years of servitude were over if they survived they might obtain land of their own or settle as free mechanics in the towns
for many a bondman the gamble proved to be a losing venture because he found himself unable to rise out of the state of poverty and dependence into which his servitude carried him for thousands on the contrary bondage proved to be a real avenue to freedom and prosperity
some of the best citizens of america have the blood of indentured servants in their veins the transported involuntary servitude
in their anxiety to secure settlers the companies and proprietors having colonies in america either resorted to or connived at the practice of kidnapping men women and children from the streets of english cities
in sixteen eighty it was officially estimated that ten thousand persons were spirited away to america many of the victims of the practice were young children for the traffic in them was highly profitable
orphans and dependents were sometimes disposed of in america by relatives unwilling to support them in a single year
in this gruesome business there lurked many tragedies and very few romances parents were separated from their children and husbands from their wives hundreds of skilled artisans carpenters smiths and weavers
utterly disappeared as if swallowed up by death a few thus dragged off to the new world
akin to the kidnapped at least in economic position were convicts deported to the colonies for life in lieu of fines and imprisonment the americans protested vigorously but ineffectually against this practice
indeed they exaggerated its evils for many of the criminals were only mild offenders against unduly harsh and cruel laws a peasant caught shooting a rabbit on a lord's estate
or a luckless servant girl who purloined a pocket handkerchief was branded as a criminal along with sturdy thieves and incorrigible rascals other transported offenders were political criminals that is persons who criticized or opposed the government
and scotch and english subjects in general who joined in political uprisings against the king the african slaves rivaling in numbers in the course of time the indentured servants and whites carried to america against their will were the african negroes
brought to america and sold into slavery when this form of bondage was first introduced into virginia in sixteen nineteen it was looked upon as a temporary necessity to be discarded with the increase of the white population moreover it does not appear
that those planters who first bought negroes at the auction block intended to establish a system of permanent bondage only by a slow process did chattel slavery take firm root and become recognized as the leading source of the labor supply in sixteen fifty
thirty years after the introduction of slavery there were only three hundred africans in virginia the great increase in later years was due in no small measure to the inordinate zeal for profits that seized slave traders both in old and in new england
finding it relatively easy to secure negroes in africa they crowded the southern ports with their vessels the english royal african company sent to america annually between seventeen thirteen and seventeen forty three from five to ten thousand slaves
the ship owners of new england were not far behind their english brethren in pushing this extraordinary traffic as the proportion of the negroes to the free white population steadily rose and as whole sections were overrun with slaves and slave traders the southern colonies grew alarmed
this effort was futile for the royal governor promptly vetoed it from time to time similar bills were passed only to meet with royal disapproval south carolina in seventeen sixty absolutely prohibited importation but the measure was killed by the british crown
as late as seventeen seventy two virginia not daunted by a century of rebuffs sent to george the third a petition in this vein the importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of africa
deeply impressed with these sentiments we most humbly beseech your majesty to remove all those restraints on your majesty's governors of this colony which inhibit their assenting to such laws as might check so very pernicious a commerce
all such protests were without avail the negro population grew by leaps and bounds until on the eve of the revolution it amounted to more than half a million in five states maryland virginia the two carolinas and georgia
the slaves nearly equalled or actually exceeded the whites in number in south carolina they formed almost two thirds of the population even in the middle colonies of delaware and pennsylvania about one fifth of the inhabitants were from africa to the north the proportion of slaves steadily diminished
including a few freedmen the climate the soil the commerce and the industry of the north were all unfavorable to the growth of a servile population still slavery though sectional was a part of the national system of economy
northern ships carried slaves to the southern colonies and the produce of the plantations to europe if the northern states will consult their interest they will not oppose the increase in slaves which will increase the commodities
of which they will become the carriers said john rutledge of south carolina in the convention which framed the constitution of the united states
and a part of the hill distinguished by the name of moriah and levelled by human industry was crowned with the stately temple of the jewish nation after the final destruction of the temple by the arms of titus and hadrian
a ploughshare was drawn over the consecrated ground as a sign of perpetual interdiction
and the vacant space of the lower city was filled
which spread themselves over the adjacent hill of calvary
with the warm feelings of a recent conversion sages and heroes who have visited the memorable scenes of ancient wisdom or glory
and his fervent devotion to the more immediate influence of the divine spirit the zeal perhaps the avarice of the clergy of jerusalem cherished and multiplied these beneficial visits
they fixed by unquestionable tradition the scene of each memorable event they exhibited the instruments which had been used in the passion of christ the nails and the lance that had pierced his hands his feet and his side
and which was dug out of the earth in the reign of those princes
as seemed necessary to account for its extraordinary preservation and seasonable discovery were gradually propagated without opposition the custody of the true cross which on easter sunday was solemnly exposed to the people was intrusted to the bishop of
as this gainful branch of commerce must soon have been annihilated it was found convenient to suppose that the marvelous wood possessed a secret power of vegetation
that the influence of the place and the belief of a perpetual miracle should have produced some salutary effects on the morals as well as on the faith of the people yet the most respectable of the ecclesiastical writers have been obliged to confess
not only that the streets of jerusalem were filled
theft idolatry poisoning murder was familiar to the inhabitants of the
the wealth and preeminence of the church of jerusalem
but the prospect of an immediate and important advantage would not suffer the impatient monarch to expect the remote and uncertain event of the persian war
on the commanding eminence of moriah a stately temple which might eclipse the splendor of the church of the resurrection on the adjacent hill of calvary
the hostile measures of the pagan government among the friends of the emperor if the names of emperor and of friend are not incompatible the first place was assigned by julian himself to the virtuous and learned
by severe justice and manly fortitude and while he exercised his abilities in the civil administration of britain he imitated in his poetical compositions the harmony and softness of the odes of sappho
this minister to whom julian communicated without reserve his most careless levities and his most serious counsels received an extraordinary commission to restore in its pristine beauty the temple of jerusalem
and their insolent triumph alarmed and exasperated the christian inhabitants of jerusalem the desire of rebuilding the temple has in every age been the ruling passion of the children of israel in this propitious moment the men forgot their avarice and the women their delicacy
power and enthusiasm were unsuccessful and the ground of the jewish temple
perhaps the absence and death of the emperor and the new maxims of a christian reign might explain the interruption of an arduous work
an earthquake a whirlwind and a fiery eruption which overturned and scattered the new foundations of the temple
the last of these writers has boldly declared that this preternatural event was not disputed by the infidels and his assertion strange as it may seem is confirmed by the unexceptionable testimony
whilst alypius assisted by the governor of the province urged with vigor and diligence the execution of the work horrible balls of fire breaking out near the foundations with frequent and reiterated attacks
rendered the place from time to time inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen and the victorious element continuing in this manner obstinately and resolutely bent
at this important crisis any singular accident of nature would assume the appearance and produce the effects of a real prodigy
the ex emperor now lived in a private palace with this princess in a less royal style and the niogo of kokiden to whom was given the honorary title of ex empress resided in the imperial palace with the emperor
her son and took up a conspicuous position the ex emperor still felt some anxiety about the heir apparent and appointed genji as his guardian as he had not yet a suitable person for that office
for the latter the second sister of the emperor was chosen and for the former the only daughter of the lady of rokjio whose husband had been a royal prince
the number of persons who take a share in the procession on this occasion is defined by regulations yet the selection of this number was most carefully made from the most fashionable of the nobles of the time
and their dresses and saddles were all chosen of beautiful appearance genji was also directed by special order to take part in the ceremony as the occasion was expected to be magnificent
every class of the people showed great eagerness to witness the scene and a great number of stands were erected all along the road the day thus looked forward to at last arrived
lady aoi seldom showed herself on such occasions besides she was now in a delicate state of health near her confinement and had therefore no inclination to go out
her attendants however suggested to her that she ought to go it is a great pity they said not to see it people come from a long distance to see it her mother also said you seem better to day
i think you had better go take these girls with you being pressed in this way she hastily made up her mind and went with a train of carriages all the road was thronged by multitudes of people
even nuns and aged women from their retreats were to be seen amongst them numerous carriages were also squeezed closely together so that the broad thoroughfare of the ichijio road was made almost spaceless
and they at last made their way and took up their position pushing the other two back where nothing could be seen even breaking their poles the lady so maltreated was of course extremely indignant
and she would fain have gone home without seeing the spectacle but there was no passage for retiring meanwhile the approach of the procession was announced and only this calmed her a little genji was as usual conspicuous in the procession
the quarrels about the carriage naturally came to the ears of genji he thought that lady aoi was too modest to be the instigator of such a dispute but her house was one of great and powerful families famous
for overweening pride a tendency shared by its domestics and they for other motives also of rivalry were glad to have an opportunity of mortifying the lady of rokjio
while genji privately took violet with him in a close carriage to see the festival and saw the horse races we have already mentioned that the mind of the lady of rokjio was still wavering and unsettled
and this state of mind became more and more augmented and serious after the day of the dispute about the carriages which made her feel a bitter disdain and jealousy towards the lady aoi strange to say
that from about the same time lady aoi became ill and began to suffer from spiritual influences all sorts of exorcisms were duly performed and some spirits came forth and gave their names
but among them was a spirit apparently a
who was intimately known to genji and who had most influence over him but the spirit gave no information to this effect hence some even surmised that the wandering spirit of some aged nurse or the like
long since dead still haunted the mansion and might have seized the opportunity of the lady's delicate health and taken possession of her
the lady when she was informed of the sufferings of lady aoi felt somewhat for her and began to experience a sort of compassion this became stronger
when she was told that the sufferings of the lady aoi were owing to some living spirit she thought that she never wished any evil to her but when she reflected
there were several times when she began to think that a wounded spirit such as her own might have some influence of the kind she had sometimes dreams after weary thinking between slumber and waking
in which she seemed to fly to some beautiful girl apparently lady aoi and to engage in bitter contention and struggle with her she became even terrified at these dreams but yet
they took place very often even in ordinary matters she thought it is too common a practice to say nothing of the good done by people but to exaggerate the bad and so in such cases
if it should be rumored that mine was that living spirit which tormented lady aoi how trying it would be to me it is no rare occurrence that one's disembodied spirit after death should wander about
but even that is not a very agreeable idea how much more then must it be disagreeable to have the repute that one's living spirit was inflicting pain upon another these thoughts still preyed upon her mind
and made her listless and depressed in due course the confinement of lady aoi approached at the same time the jealous spirit still vexed her and now more vigorous exorcising was employed
the lady was lying on her couch dressed in a pure white garment with her long tresses unfastened he approached her and taking her hand said what sad affliction you cause us
she then lifted her heavy eyelids and gazed on genji for some minutes he tried to soothe her and said pray don't trouble yourself too much about matters everything will come right your illness i think will soon pass away
but now he began to think that such things might really happen and he felt disturbed you speak thus said genji as if he was addressing the spirit but you do not tell me who you are do therefore
the lady was safely delivered of a child now to perform due thanksgiving for this happy deliverance
they came in all haste wiping off the perspiration from their faces as they journeyed and from the emperor and royal princes down to the ordinary nobles
first feeding and the more so as the child was a boy to return to the lady of rokjio when she heard of the safe delivery of lady aoi a slightly jealous feeling once more seemed to vex her
and when she began to move about she could not understand how it was
but the odor soon returned and she was disgusted with herself some days passed and the day of autumn appointments arrived by this time lady aoi's health seemed progressing favorably
and genji left her in order to attend the court when he said good by to her there was a strange and unusual look in her eyes sadaijin also went to court as well as his sons
who had some expectation of promotion and there were few people left in the mansion it was in the evening of that day that lady aoi was suddenly attacked by a spasm and before the news of this could be carried to the court
she died these sad tidings soon reached the court and created great distress and confusion even the arrangements for appointments and promotion were disturbed
as it happened late in the evening there was no time to send for the head of the monastery or any other distinguished priest messengers of inquiry came one after another to the mansion
she was left untouched during two or three days in the hope that she might revive but no change took place and now all hope was abandoned in due course the corpse was taken to the cemetery of toribeno
numerous mourners and priests of different churches crowded to the spot while representatives of the ex emperor princess wistaria and the heir apparent also were present
the ceremony of burial was performed with all solemnity and pathos thus the modest and virtuous lady aoi passed away forever genji forthwith confined himself to his apartment
constantly bore him company and conversed with him both on serious and amusing subjects their struggle in the apartment of gen naishi
were among the topics of their consoling conversation it was on one of these occasions that a soft shower of rain was falling the evening was rendered cheerless
walking slowly in his mourning robes of a dull color genji was leaning out of a window his cheek resting on his hand and looking out upon the half fading shrubberies was humming
has she become rain or cloud tis now unknown
they had as usual some pathetic conversation and then the latter hummed as if to himself
from which descends the passing rain her gentle soul may dwell though we may cease to trace its form in vain this was soon responded to by genji
that cloudy shrine we view on high where my lost love may dwell unseen looks gloomy now to this sad eye that looks with tears on what has been
he wrote a letter to the princess momo zono peach gardens he had known her long he admired her too she had been a spectator with her father
and was one of those to whom the appearance of genji was most welcome in his letter he stated that she might have a little sympathy with him in his sorrow and he also sent with it the following
many an autumn have i past in gloomy thought but none i ween has been so mournful as the last which rife with grief and change hath been there was indeed
nothing serious between genji and this princess yet as far as correspondence was concerned they now and then exchanged letters so she did not object to receiving this communication she felt for him much
and the mementoes of the dead both trifling and valuable were distributed in a due and agreeable manner and genji at length left the grand mansion with the intention of first going to the ex emperor
after his departure sadaijin went into the apartment occupied till lately by him the room was the same as before and everything was unchanged but his only daughter
the pride of his old days was no more and his son in law had gone too he looked around him for some moments he saw some papers lying about
they were those on which genji had been practising penmanship for amusement some in chinese others in japanese some in free style others in stiff among these papers
he saw one on which the words old pillows and old quilts were written and close to these the following how much the soul departed still may love to linger round this couch
my own heart tells me even i reluctant am to leave it now and on another of these papers accompanying the words the white frost lies upon the tiles the following
how many more of nights shall i on this lone bed without thee lie the flower has left its well known bed and o'er its place
the dews are shed as sadaijin was turning over these papers a withered flower which seems to have marked some particular occasion dropped from amongst them
and then proceeded to his mansion at nijio he went to the western wing to visit the young violet all were habited in new winter apparel and looked fresh and blooming
how long it seems since i saw you he exclaimed violet turned her glance a little aside she was apparently shy which only increased her beauty he approached
first of all he sent a letter to sadaijin's making inquiry after his infant child at this time he confined himself more than usual to his own house and for companionship he was constantly with violet
who was now approaching womanhood he would sometimes talk with her differently from the manner in which he would speak to a mere girl but on her part she seemed not to notice the difference and for their daily amusement either go
and sometimes they would play on till late in the evening some weeks thus passed away and there was one morning when violet did not appear so early as usual the inmates of the house who did not know what was the reason
were anxious about her thinking she was indisposed about noon genji came he entered the little room saying are you not quite well perhaps you would like to play at go again like last night for a change
she still continued silent and shy this was the evening of wild boar's day and some mochi pounded rice cake was presented to him according to custom on a tray of plain white wood
to day is not a very opportune day i would rather have them to morrow evening
so saying he smiled a little and sharp
soon understood what he meant and this he accordingly did on the morrow on a beautiful flower waiter up to this time nothing about violet had been publicly known
and genji thought it was time to inform her father about his daughter but he considered he had better have the ceremony of mogi first performed and ordered preparations to be made with that object
let us here notice that the young daughter of udaijin after she saw genji was longing to see him again this inclination was perceived by her relations it seems
that her father was not quite averse to this liking and he told his eldest daughter the reigning emperor's mother that genji was recently bereaved of his good consort and that he should not feel discontented
if his daughter were to take the place of lady aoi but this the royal mother did not approve it would be far better for her to be introduced at court she said
june weather permitting and on the fourteenth i went on board to arrange some matters in my state room i found that we were to have a great many passengers including a more than usual number of ladies
on the list were several of my acquaintances and among other names i was rejoiced to see that of mister cornelius wyatt a young artist for whom i entertained feelings of warm friendship
he had been with me a fellow student at c university where we were very much together he had the ordinary temperament of genius and was a compound of misanthropy sensibility and enthusiasm
to these qualities he united the warmest and truest heart which ever beat in a human bosom i observed that his name was carded upon three state rooms and upon again referring to the list of passengers
i found that he had engaged passage for himself wife and two sisters his own the state rooms were sufficiently roomy and each had two berths one above the other these berths to be sure
were so exceedingly narrow as to be insufficient for more than one person still i could not comprehend why there were three state rooms for these four persons i was just at that epoch
that i busied myself in a variety of ill bred and preposterous conjectures about this matter of the supernumerary state room it was no business of mine to be sure
it had been the original design to bring one for the words and servant had been first written and then overscored oh extra baggage to be sure i now said to myself something he wishes not to be put in the hold
something to be kept under his own eye ah i have it a painting or so and this is what he has been bargaining about with nicolino the italian jew this idea satisfied me
he had often talked about her in my presence however and in his usual style of enthusiasm he described her as of surpassing beauty wit and accomplishment i was therefore
quite anxious to make her acquaintance on the day in which i visited the ship the fourteenth wyatt and party were also to visit it so the captain informed me and i waited on board an hour longer than i had designed
the morrow having arrived i was going from my hotel to the wharf when captain hardy met me and said that owing to circumstances a stupid but convenient phrase
he rather thought the independence would not sail for a day or two and that when all was ready he would send up and let me know this i thought strange for there was a stiff southerly breeze but as the circumstances
were not forthcoming although i pumped for them with much perseverance i had nothing to do but to return home and digest my impatience at leisure
i did not receive the expected message from the captain for nearly a week it came at length however and i immediately went on board the ship was crowded with passengers
and every thing was in the bustle attendant upon making sail wyatt's party arrived in about ten minutes after myself there were the two sisters the bride and the artist the latter in one of his customary fits of
moody misanthropy i was too well used to these however to pay them any special attention he did not even introduce me to his wife this courtesy devolving per force upon his sister marian
a very sweet and intelligent girl who in a few hurried words made us acquainted missus wyatt had been closely veiled and when she raised her veil in acknowledging my bow
i confess that i was very profoundly astonished i should have been much more so however had not long experience advised me not to trust with too implicit a reliance the enthusiastic descriptions of my friend
the artist when indulging in comments upon the loveliness of woman when beauty was the theme i well knew with what facility he soared into the regions of the purely ideal the truth is
i could not help regarding missus wyatt as a decidedly plain looking woman if not positively ugly she was not i think very far from it she was dressed however in exquisite taste
and then i had no doubt that she had captivated my friend's heart by the more enduring graces of the intellect and soul she said very few words and passed at once into her state room with mister w
my old inquisitiveness now returned there was no servant that was a settled point i looked therefore for the extra baggage after some delay a cart arrived at the wharf
and no sooner had i seen it than i took credit to myself for the accuracy of my guessing i had reached the conclusion it will be remembered that the extra baggage of my friend the artist would prove to be pictures
or at least a picture for i knew he had been for several weeks in conference with nicolino and now here was a box which from its shape could possibly contain nothing in the world
i considered as sufficiently settled i chuckled excessively when i thought of my acumen it was the first time i had ever known wyatt to keep from me any of his artistical secrets
but here he evidently intended to steal a march upon me and smuggle a fine picture to new york under my very nose expecting me to know nothing of the matter i resolved to quiz him well
occupying very nearly the whole of the floor no doubt to the exceeding discomfort of the artist and his wife this the more especially as the tar or paint with which it was lettered in sprawling capitals
this side up to be handled with care now i was aware that missus adelaide curtis of albany was the artist's wife's mother
in chambers street new york for the first three or four days we had fine weather although the wind was dead ahead having chopped round to the northward immediately upon our losing sight of the coast
the passengers were consequently in high spirits and disposed to be social i must except however wyatt and his sisters who behaved stiffly and i could not help thinking
for the sisters however i could make no excuse they secluded themselves in their staterooms during the greater part of the passage and absolutely refused although i repeatedly urged them
to hold communication with any person on board missus wyatt herself was far more agreeable that is to say she was chatty and to be chatty is no slight recommendation at sea
and to my profound astonishment evinced no equivocal disposition to coquet with the men she amused us all very much i say amused and scarcely know how to explain myself
don't put all your eggs in one basket try an incubator cab affair for a drive cabby driver for a fare
caddie a small boy employed at a liberal stipend to lose balls for others and find them for himself cafe
for the privilege of tipping the waiters for something to eat cajole
to jolly beautifully calcium an earthly light that brightens even the stars cannibal a heathen hobo who never works but lives on other people captivate
to empty the head note women who have captivated men cape a neck in the sea caper a foot in the air
contracted in a pennsylvania blast furnace
to take off cartoon the take off cauliflower a cabbage with a college education cavalry that arm of the military service that engages in the real hoss tilities cemetery
the one place where princes and paupers porters and presidents are finally on the dead level champagne the stuff that makes the world go round chair four legged aid to the injured charity forehanded aid to the indigent
a man who is smart enough to operate an automobile but clever enough not to own one christian a member of any orthodox church christmas a widely observed holiday on which the past nor the future is of so much interest as the present
chump any one whose opinion differs radically from ours cigarette a weed whose smoke some say should never be inhaled and still more insist should never be exhaled cinder one of the first things to catch your eye in travelling
civilization an upward growth or tendency that has enabled mankind to develop the college yell from what was once only a feeble war whoop collector a man whom few care to see but many ask to call again college
pasted or stuck and etude study a place where everyone is stuck on study
see kernel compliment
hence to fill with hot air complexion color for the face
and shun to avoid to avoid difficulty buy it of the druggist commendation
hence a fixed up josh conductor
one who commands the coin conscience the fear of being found out cook a charitable institution providing food and shelter for policemen corps
and corps found in arms corset
shape and sec rough rough on the shape cosmetic a new face maker
a feminine virtue and a masculine vice cremation a means of disposing of the dead likely to become very popular especially with women who are so fond of having the last retort critic a wet blanket that soaks everything it touches crook
crow a bird that never complains without caws culture a degree of mental development that produces tailor made women fantastically sheared poodles and dock tailed horses cupid a driver of sharp darts cupidity
during the war of the rebellion a new and influential club was established in the city of baltimore in the state of maryland it is well known with what energy the taste for military matters became developed
shopkeepers and mechanics simple tradesmen jumped their counters to become extemporized captains colonels and generals without having ever passed the school of instruction at west point nevertheless
they quickly rivaled their compeers of the old continent and like them carried off victories by dint of lavish expenditure in ammunition money and men
but the point in which the americans singularly distanced the europeans was in the science of gunnery not indeed that their weapons retained a higher degree of perfection than theirs
but that they exhibited unheard of dimensions and consequently attained hitherto unheard of ranges in point of grazing plunging oblique or enfilading or point blank firing the english
french and prussians have nothing to learn but their cannon howitzers and mortars are mere pocket pistols
this fact need surprise no one the yankees the first mechanicians in the world are engineers just as the italians are musicians and the germans metaphysicians by right of birth nothing is more natural
therefore than to perceive them applying their audacious ingenuity to the science of gunnery witness the marvels of parrott dahlgren and rodman the armstrong palliser
guns were compelled to bow before their transatlantic rivals now when an american has an idea he directly seeks a second american to share it
they elect a president and two secretaries given four they name a keeper of records and the office is ready for work five they convene a general meeting and the club is fully constituted so things were managed in baltimore
the inventor of a new cannon associated himself with the caster and the borer thus was formed the nucleus of the gun club in a single month after its formation it numbered one thousand eight hundred thirty three effective members
and thirty thousand five hundred sixty five corresponding members one condition was imposed
or more or less perfected a cannon or in default of a cannon at least a firearm of some description it may however be mentioned that mere inventors of revolvers fire shooting
and similar small arms met with little consideration
the estimation in which these gentlemen were held according to one of the most scientific exponents of the gun club was proportional to the masses of their guns
and their projectiles exceeding the prescribed limits unfortunately occasionally cut in two some unoffending pedestrians these inventions in fact left far in the rear the timid instruments of european artillery
it is but fair to add that these yankees brave as they have ever proved themselves to be did not confine themselves to theories and formulae but that they paid heavily in propria persona for their inventions among them
were to be counted officers of all ranks from lieutenants to generals military men of every age from those who were just making their debut in the profession of arms up to those who had grown old in the gun carriage many had found
their rest on the field of battle whose names figured in the book of honor of the gun club and of those who made good their return the greater proportion bore the marks of their indisputable valor crutches wooden legs artificial arms
steel hooks caoutchouc jaws silver craniums platinum noses
of these little facts and felt justly proud when the despatches of a battle returned the number of victims at ten fold the quantity of projectiles expended one day however sad and melancholy day peace was signed between the survivors of the war
together with grief and the gun club was relegated to profound inactivity some few of the more advanced and inveterate theorists set themselves again to work upon calculations regarding the laws of projectiles they reverted invariably
the newspapers grew mouldy on the tables sounds of snoring came from dark corners and the members of the gun club
were reduced to silence by this disastrous peace and gave themselves up wholly to dreams of a platonic kind of artillery this is horrible said tom hunter one evening while rapidly carbonizing his wooden legs in the fireplace of the smoking room
nothing to do nothing to look forward to what a loathsome existence when again shall the guns arouse us in the morning with their delightful reports
it was delightful once upon a time one invented a gun and hardly was it cast when one hastened to try it in the face of the enemy then one returned to camp with a word of encouragement from sherman or a friendly shake of the hand from mc clellan but now the generals are gone back to their counters
the future of gunnery in america is lost ay and no war in prospect continued the famous james t maston scratching with his steel hook his gutta percha cranium not a cloud on the horizon and that too
no is it possible replied tom hunter
by which at its first trial he had succeeded in killing three hundred and thirty seven people fact replied he still what is the use of so many studies worked out so many difficulties vanquished it's mere waste of time
the new world seems to have made up its mind to live in peace and our bellicose tribune predicts some approaching catastrophes arising out of this scandalous increase of population nevertheless replied colonel blomsberry
they are always struggling in europe to maintain the principle of nationalities well
what are you dreaming of screamed bilsby
that would be better than doing nothing here returned the colonel quite so said j t matson but still we need not dream of that expedient and why not demanded the colonel because their ideas of progress
ridiculous replied tom hunter whittling with his bowie knife the arms of his easy chair but if that be the case there all that is left for us is to plant tobacco and distill whale oil what roared j t maston
shall we not employ these remaining years of our life in perfecting firearms shall there never be a fresh opportunity of trying the ranges of projectiles shall the air never again be lighted with the glare of our guns no international difficulty ever arise
hang a few of our countrymen no such luck replied colonel blomsberry nothing of the kind is likely to happen and even if it did we should not profit by it american susceptibility is fast declining and we are all going to the dogs
it is too true replied j t maston with fresh violence there are a thousand grounds for fighting and yet we don't fight we save up our arms and legs for the benefit of nations
it would be but just and fair returned colonel blomsberry
bah growled bilsby between the four teeth which the war had left him that will never do by jove cried j t maston he mustn't count on my vote at the next election nor on ours replied unanimously all the bellicose invalids
meanwhile replied j t maston allow me to say that if i cannot get an opportunity to try my new mortars on a real field of battle i shall say good by to the members of the gun club and go and bury myself in the prairies of arkansas
after this conversation every member of the association received a sealed circular couched in the following terms baltimore october third the president of the gun club has the honor to inform his colleagues
to attend in accordance with the present invitation very cordially impey barbicane
chapter two president barbicane's communication on the fifth of october at eight p m a dense crowd pressed toward the saloons of the gun club
all the members of the association resident in baltimore attended the invitation of their president as regards the corresponding members notices were delivered by hundreds throughout the streets of the city and large as was the great hall
it was quite inadequate to accommodate the crowd of savants they overflowed into the adjoining rooms down the narrow passages into the outer courtyards there they ran against the vulgar herd who pressed up to the doors each struggling to reach the front ranks
all eager to learn the nature of the important communication of president barbicane all pushing squeezing crushing with that perfect freedom of action which is so peculiar to the masses when educated in ideas of self government
on that evening a stranger who might have chanced to be in baltimore could not have gained admission for love or money into the great hall that was reserved exclusively for resident or corresponding members no one else could possibly have obtained a place and
the city magnates municipal councilors and select men
nevertheless the vast hall presented a curious spectacle its immense area was singularly adapted to the purpose lofty pillars formed of cannon superposed upon huge mortars as a base supported the fine ironwork of the arches
a perfect piece of cast iron lacework trophies of blunderbuses matchlocks arquebuses
were picturesquely interlaced against the walls the gas lit up in full glare myriads of revolvers grouped in the form of lustres while groups of pistols and candelabra formed of muskets bound together
completed this magnificent display of brilliance models of cannon bronze castings sights covered with dents plates battered by the shots of the gun club assortments of rammers and sponges chaplets of shells wreaths of projectiles
garlands of howitzers in short all the apparatus of the artillerist enchanted the eye by this wonderful arrangement and induced a kind of belief that their real purpose was ornamental rather than deadly
at the further end of the saloon the president assisted by four secretaries occupied a large platform his chair supported by a carved gun carriage was modeled upon the ponderous proportions of a thirty two inch mortar
in front of the table benches arranged in zigzag form like the circumvallations of a retrenchment formed a succession of bastions and curtains
one might say all the world was on the ramparts the president was sufficiently well known however for all to be assured that he would not put his colleagues to discomfort without some very strong motive impey barbicane was a man of forty years of age
calm cold austere of a singularly serious and self contained demeanor punctual as a chronometer of imperturbable temper and immovable character by no means chivalrous yet adventurous withal and always bringing practical ideas
to bear upon the very rashest enterprises an essentially new englander
and the implacable enemy of the gentlemen of the south those ancient cavaliers of the mother country
barbicane had made a large fortune as a timber merchant being nominated director of artillery during the war
bold in his conceptions he contributed powerfully to the progress of that arm and gave an immense impetus to experimental researches he was personage of the middle height
all his limbs complete his strongly marked features seemed drawn by square and rule and if it be true that in order to judge a man's character one must look at his profile barbicane so examined exhibited the most certain indications of energy
audacity and sang froid at this moment he was sitting in his armchair silent absorbed lost in reflection sheltered under his high crowned hat a kind of black cylinder which always seems firmly screwed upon the head of an american
just when the deep toned clock in the great hall struck eight barbicane as if he had been set in motion by a spring raised himself up a profound silence ensued and the speaker
after a period of years full of incidents we have been compelled to abandon our labors and to stop short on the road of progress i do not hesitate to state baldly that any war which would recall us to arms would be welcome tremendous applause
the meeting felt that the president was now approaching the critical point and redoubled their attention accordingly for some months past my brave colleagues continued barbicane i have been asking myself whether while confining ourselves to our own particular objects
is the conviction that we are safe to succeed in an enterprise which to any other country would appear wholly impracticable this project the result of long elaboration is the object of my present communication it is worthy of yourselves
antecedents of the gun club and it cannot fail to make some noise in the world a thrill of excitement ran through the meeting barbicane having by a rapid movement firmly fixed his hat upon his head calmly continued his harangue
there is no one among you my brave colleagues who has not seen the moon or at least heard speak of it don't be surprised if i am about to discourse to you regarding the queen of the night
her mass density and weight her constitution motions distance
selenographic charts have been constructed with a perfection which equals if it does not even surpass that of our terrestrial maps photography has given us proofs of the incomparable beauty of our satellite all is known regarding the moon
which mathematical science astronomy geology
no direct communication has been established with her a violent movement of interest and surprise here greeted this remark of the speaker permit me he continued to recount to you briefly how certain ardent spirits starting on imaginary journeys
have penetrated the secrets of our satellite in the seventeenth century a certain david fabricius
the inhabitants of the moon in sixteen forty nine a frenchman one jean baudoin published a journey performed from the earth to the moon by domingo gonzalez a spanish adventurer at the same period
cyrano de bergerac published that celebrated
which met with such success in france somewhat later another frenchman named fontenelle wrote the plurality of worlds a
of its time about eighteen thirty five a small treatise translated from the new york american related how sir john herschel having been despatched to the cape of good hope for the purpose of making there some astronomical calculations
sheep with horns of ivory a white species of deer and inhabitants with membranous wings like bats this brochure the work of an american named locke had a great sale but to bring this rapid sketch to a close
said barbicane the experiments which i call purely paper ones
nevertheless i am bound to add that some practical geniuses have attempted to establish actual communication with her thus a few days ago a german geometrician proposed to send a scientific expedition to the steppes of siberia
there on those vast plains they were to describe enormous geometric figures drawn in characters of reflecting luminosity among which was the proposition regarding the square of the hypothenuse commonly called the ass's bridge by the french
every intelligent being said the geometrician must understand the scientific meaning of that figure the selenites do they exist
there is no bond in existence between the earth and her satellite it is reserved for the practical genius of americans to establish a communication
the means of arriving thither are simple easy certain infallible and that is the purpose of my present proposal a storm of acclamations greeted these words there was not a single person in the whole audience who was not overcome carried away
lifted out of himself by the speaker's words long continued applause resounded from all sides as soon as the excitement had partially subsided barbicane resumed his speech in a somewhat graver voice you know said he
what progress artillery science has made during the last few years and what a degree of perfection firearms of every kind have reached moreover you are well aware that in general terms
chapter three effect of the president's communication it is impossible to describe the effect produced by the last words of the honorable president the cries the shouts the succession of roars hurrahs and all the varied vociferations
which the american language is capable of supplying it was a scene of indescribable confusion and uproar they shouted they clapped they stamped on the floor of the hall all the weapons in the museum discharged at once
could not have more violently set in motion the waves of sound one need not be surprised at this there are some cannoneers nearly as noisy as their own guns barbicane remained calm in the midst of this enthusiastic clamor
perhaps he was desirous of addressing a few more words to his colleagues for by his gestures he demanded silence and his powerful alarum was worn out by its violent reports no attention however was paid to his request
he was presently torn from his seat and passed from the hands of his faithful colleagues into the arms of a no less excited crowd nothing can astound an american
people have evidently been deceived by the dictionary in america all is easy all is simple and as for mechanical difficulties they are overcome before they arise between barbicane's proposition and its realization
no true yankee would have allowed even the semblance of a difficulty to be possible a thing with them is no sooner said than done the triumphal progress of the president continued throughout the evening it was a regular torchlight procession
all the heterogeneous units which make up the population of maryland shouted in their respective vernaculars and the vivas hurrahs and bravos were intermingled in inexpressible enthusiasm just at this crisis
as though she comprehended all this agitation regarding herself the moon shone forth with serene splendor eclipsing by her intense illumination all the surrounding lights the yankees all turned their gaze toward her resplendent orb kissed their hands
called her by all kinds of endearing names between eight o'clock and midnight one optician in jones' fall street made his fortune by the sale of opera glasses midnight arrived and the enthusiasm showed no signs of diminution
it spread equally among all classes of citizens men of science shopkeepers merchants porters chair men as well as greenhorns were stirred in their innermost fibres a national enterprise was at stake the whole city
high and low the quays bordering the patapsco the ships lying in the basins disgorged a crowd drunk with joy gin and whisky every one chattered argued discussed disputed applauded
from the gentleman lounging upon the barroom settee with his tumbler of sherry cobbler before him down to the waterman who got drunk upon his knock me down in the dingy taverns of fell point about two a m however
the excitement began to subside president barbicane reached his house bruised crushed and squeezed almost to a mummy hercules could not have resisted a similar outbreak of enthusiasm the crowd gradually deserted the squares and streets
they debated whether the moon was a finished world or whether it was destined to undergo any further transformation did it resemble the earth at the period when the latter was destitute as yet of an atmosphere what kind of spectacle would its hidden hemisphere present to our terrestrial spheroid
every one must see that that involved the commencement of a series of experiments all must hope that some day america
of that mysterious orb and some even seemed to fear lest its conquest should not sensibly derange the equilibrium of europe the project once under discussion not a single paragraph suggested a doubt of its realization
all the papers pamphlets reports all the journals published by the scientific literary and religious societies enlarged upon its advantages and the society of natural history of boston the society of science and art of albany
the geographical and statistical society of new york the philosophical society of philadelphia and the smithsonian of washington sent innumerable letters of congratulation to the gun club together with offers of immediate assistance and money
from that day forward impey barbicane became one of the greatest citizens of the united states a kind of washington of science a single trait of feeling taken from many others will serve to show the point which this homage of a whole people
seeing in that title an allusion damaging to barbicane's project broke into the auditorium smashed the benches and compelled the unlucky director to alter his playbill
chapter ten the hole in the carpet hooray hooray hooray mother comes home to day mother comes home to day hooray hooray hooray
jane sang this simple song directly after breakfast and the phoenix shed crystal tears of affectionate sympathy how beautiful it said is filial devotion she won't be home till past bedtime though said robert we might have one more carpet day
he was glad that mother was coming home quite glad very glad but at the same time that gladness was rudely contradicted by a quite strong feeling of sorrow because now they could not go out all day on the carpet i do wish we could go and get something nice for mother
only she'd want to know where we got it said anthea and she'd never never believe it the truth people never do somehow if it's at all interesting i'll tell you what said robert suppose we wished the carpet to take us somewhere where we could find a purse with money in it then we could buy her something
suppose it took us somewhere foreign and the purse was covered with strange eastern devices embroidered in rich silks and full of money that wasn't money at all here only foreign curiosities
then we couldn't spend it and people would bother about where we got it and we shouldn't know how on earth to get out of it at all cyril moved the table off the carpet as he spoke and its leg caught in one of anthea's darns and ripped away most of it as well as a large slit in the carpet
well now you have done it said robert but anthea was a really first class sister she did not say a word till she had got out the scotch heather mixture fingering wool
and the darning needle and the thimble and the scissors and by that time she had been able to get the better of her natural wish to be thoroughly disagreeable and was able to say quite kindly never mind squirrel i'll soon mend it cyril thumped her on the back he understood exactly how she had felt
and he was not an ungrateful brother respecting the purse containing coins the phoenix said scratching its invisible ear thoughtfully with its shining claw it might be as well perhaps to state clearly the amount which you wish to find as well as the country where you wish to find it
how much is an oboloi an obol is about twopence halfpenny the phoenix replied yes said jane and if you find a purse i suppose it is only because some one has lost it and you ought to take it to the policeman
the situation remarked the phoenix does indeed bristle with difficulties what about a buried treasure said cyril and every one was dead that it belonged to mother wouldn't believe that said more than one voice
making a knot at the end of a needleful of scotch heather mixture fingering wool which is very wrong and you must never do it when you are darning
no said the girls together there must be some way wait a sec anthea added i've got an idea coming don't speak there was a silence as she paused with the darning needle in the air suddenly she spoke
i see let's tell the carpet to take us somewhere where we can get the money for mother's present and and and get it some way that she'll believe in and not think wrong well i must say you are learning the way to get the most out of the carpet said cyril
he spoke more heartily and kindly than usual because he remembered how anthea had refrained from snarking him about tearing the carpet yes said the phoenix you certainly are and you have to remember that if you take a thing out it doesn't stay in
do hurry up panther said robert and that was why anthea did hurry up and why the big darn in the middle of the carpet was all open and webby like a fishing net not tight and close like woven cloth which is what a good well behaved darn should be
then every one put on its outdoor things the phoenix fluttered on to the mantelpiece and arranged its golden feathers in the glass and all was ready every one got on to the carpet please go slowly dear carpet anthea began we like to see where we're going
and then she added the difficult wish that had been decided on next moment the carpet stiff and raftlike was sailing over the roofs of kentish town i wish no i don't mean that i mean it's a pity we aren't higher up
said anthea as the edge of the carpet grazed a chimney pot that's right be careful said the phoenix in warning tones if you wish when you're on a wishing carpet you do wish and there's an end of it
so for a short time no one spoke and the carpet sailed on in calm magnificence over saint pancras and king's cross stations and over the crowded streets of clerkenwell
we might go and have a look at the palace
and then just over new cross a terrible thing happened jane and robert were in the middle of the carpet part of them was on the carpet and part of them the heaviest part was on the great central darn it's all very misty said jane it looks
partly like out of doors and partly like in the nursery at home i feel as if i was going to have measles everything looked awfully rum then remember i feel just exactly the same robert said it's the hole said the phoenix it's not measles whatever that possession may be
and at that both robert and jane suddenly and at once made a bound to try and get on to the safer part of the carpet and the darn gave way and their boots went up and the heavy heads and bodies of them went down through the hole
on the top of a high grey gloomy respectable house
the carpet seemed to awaken to new energy as soon as it had got rid of their weight and it rose high in the air the others lay down flat and peeped over the edge of the rising carpet are you hurt cried cyril and robert shouted no
oh how awful said anthea
what would have been the sentiments of the survivors if that darn had given way when we were crossing the river yes there's that said cyril recovering himself they'll be all right they'll howl till some one
they can tram it home but anthea would not be comforted it's all my fault she said i knew the proper way to darn and i didn't do it it's all my fault let's go home and patch the carpet with your etons something really strong and send it to fetch them
i wish stop cried the phoenix the carpet is dropping to earth and indeed it was it sank swiftly yet steadily and landed on the pavement of the deptford road it tipped a little as it landed so that cyril and anthea naturally walked off it and in an instant
it did this so quickly that not a single person in the deptford road noticed it the phoenix rustled its way into the breast of cyril's coat and almost at the same moment a well known voice remarked well i never what on earth are you doing here
they were face to face with their pet uncle their uncle reginald we did think of going to greenwich palace and talking about nelson said cyril telling as much of the truth as he thought his uncle could believe and where are the others asked uncle reginald
i don't exactly know cyril replied this time quite truthfully well said uncle reginald i must fly i've a case in the county court that's the worst of being a beastly solicitor one can't take the chances of life when one gets them
but alas it may not be the uncle felt in his pocket i mustn't enjoy myself he said
take care of yourselves adieu and waving a cheery farewell with his neat umbrella the good and high hatted uncle passed away leaving cyril and anthea to exchange eloquent glances over the shining golden sovereign that lay in cyril's hand well said anthea
well said cyril well said the phoenix good old carpet said cyril joyously it was clever of it so adequate and yet so simple said the phoenix with calm approval
oh come on home and let's mend the carpet i am a beast i'd forgotten the others just for a minute said the conscience stricken anthea they unrolled the carpet quickly and slyly they did not want to attract public attention
and the moment their feet were on the carpet anthea wished to be at home and instantly they were the kindness of their excellent uncle had made it unnecessary for them to go to such extremes as cyril's etons or anthea's sunday jacket for the patching of the carpet
anthea set to work at once to draw the edges of the broken darn together and cyril hastily went out and bought a large piece of the marble patterned american oil cloth which careful house wives use to cover dressers and kitchen tables it was the strongest thing he could think of
then they set to work to line the carpet throughout with the oil cloth the nursery felt very odd and empty without the others and cyril did not feel so sure as he had done about their being able to tram it home so he tried to help anthea which was very good of him but not much use to her
the phoenix watched them for a time but it was plainly growing more and more restless it fluffed up its splendid feathers and stood first on one gilded claw and then on the other and at last it said i can bear it no longer this suspense my robert who set my egg to hatch
i think if you'll excuse me yes do cried anthea i wish we'd thought of asking you before cyril opened the window the phoenix flapped its sunbright wings and vanished
so that's all right said cyril taking up his needle and instantly pricking his hand in a new place of course i know that what you have really wanted to know about all this time is not what anthea and cyril did
but i had to tell you the other first
you cannot tell all the different parts of them at the same time
here's a go jane's first act was tears dry up pussy don't be a little duffer said her brother kindly it'll be all right and then he looked about just as cyril had known he would for something to throw down
so as to attract the attention of the wayfarers far below in the street he could not find anything
and every single slate knew its place and kept it but as so often happens in looking for one thing he found another there was a trap door leading down into the house and that trap door was not fastened
the door fell back with a hollow clang on the leads behind and with its noise was mingled a blood curdling scream from underneath discovered hissed robert oh my cats alive they were indeed discovered
they found themselves looking down into an attic which was also a lumber room it had boxes and broken chairs old fenders and picture frames and rag bags hanging from nails
other clothes lay on the floor in neat piles in the middle of the piles of clothes sat a lady very fat indeed with her feet sticking out straight in front of her and it was she who had screamed and who in fact was still screaming
don't cried jane please don't we won't hurt you where are the rest of your gang asked the lady stopping short in the middle of a scream the others have gone on on the wishing carpet said jane truthfully the wishing carpet said the lady
yes said jane before robert could say you shut up you must have read about it the phoenix is with them then the lady got up and picking her way carefully between the piles of clothes she got to the door and through it she shut it behind her and the two children could hear her calling septimus
septimus in a loud yet frightened way now said robert quickly i'll drop first he hung by his hands and dropped through the trap door now you hang by your hands i'll catch you oh there's no time for jaw drop i say jane dropped
robert tried to catch her and even before they had finished the breathless roll among the piles of clothes which was what his catching ended in he whispered we'll hide behind those fenders and things they'll think we've gone along the roofs then when all is calm we'll creep down the stairs and take our chance
they hastily hid a corner of an iron bedstead stuck into robert's side and jane had only standing room for one foot but they bore it and when the lady came back not with septimus but with another lady they held their breath and their hearts beat thickly
let me look out said the second lady who was if possible older and thinner and primmer than the first so the two ladies dragged a box under the trap door and put another box on the top of it
and then they both climbed up very carefully and put their two trim tidy heads out of the trap door to look for the mad children now whispered robert getting the bedstead leg out of his side
robert and jane tiptoed down the stairs one flight two flights then they looked over the banisters horror a servant was coming up with a loaded scuttle the children with one consent crept swiftly through the first open door
the room was a study calm and gentlemanly with rows of books a writing table and a pair of embroidered slippers warming themselves in the fender the children hid behind the window curtains as they passed the table they saw on it
a missionary box with its bottom label torn off open and empty oh how awful whispered jane we shall never get away alive hush said robert not a moment too soon for there were steps on the stairs and next instant the two ladies came into the room
they did not see the children but they saw the empty missionary box i knew it said one selina it was a gang i was certain of it from the first
downstairs no doubt collecting the silver milk jug and sugar basin and the punch ladle that was uncle joe's and aunt jerusha's teaspoons i shall go down oh don't be so rash and heroic said selina amelia we must call the police from the window lock the door i will
i will the words ended in a yell as selina rushing to the window came face to face with the hidden children oh don't said jane how can you be so unkind we aren't burglars and we haven't any gang and we didn't open your missionary box we opened our own once
but we didn't have to use the money so our consciences made us put it back and don't oh i wish you wouldn't miss selina had seized jane and miss amelia captured robert the children found themselves held fast by strong slim hands pink at the wrists and white at the knuckles
we've got you at any rate said miss amelia selina your captive is smaller than mine you open the window at once and call murder as loud as you can
she called septimus because at that very moment she saw her nephew coming in at the gate in another minute he had let himself in with his latch key and had mounted the stairs as he came into the room jane and robert each uttered a shriek of joy so loud and so sudden
that the ladies leaped with surprise and nearly let them go it's our own clergyman cried jane don't you remember us asked robert you married our burglar for us don't you remember i knew it was a gang said amelia
septimus these abandoned children are members of a desperate burgling gang who are robbing the house
the reverend septimus passed his hand wearily over his brow i feel a little faint he said running upstairs so quickly we never touched the beastly box said robert then your confederates did said miss selina no no said the curate hastily
i opened the box myself this morning i found i had not enough small change for the mothers independent unity measles and croup insurance payments i suppose this is not a dream is it dream no indeed search the house i insist upon it
the curate still pale and trembling searched the house which of course was blamelessly free of burglars when he came back he sank wearily into his chair aren't you going to let us go asked robert with furious indignation for there is something
in being held by a strong lady that sets the blood of a boy boiling in his veins with anger and despair
you know how it carried you over to the island and you had to marry the burglar to the cook oh my head said the curate never mind your head just now said robert try to be honest and honourable and do your duty in that state of life
send for the police said miss selina send for a doctor said the curate do you think they are mad then said miss amelia i think i am said the curate jane had been crying ever since her capture now she said
you aren't now but perhaps you will be if and it would serve you jolly well right too aunt selina said the curate and aunt amelia believe me this is only an insane dream
but do not let us be unjust even in a dream do not hold the children they have done no harm as i said before it was i who opened the box the strong bony hands unwillingly loosened their grasp robert shook himself and stood in sulky resentment
but jane ran to the curate and embraced him so suddenly that he had not time to defend himself you're a dear she said it is like a dream just at first but you get used to it now do let us go there's a good kind honourable clergyman
i don't know said the reverend septimus it's a difficult problem
and if you're mad there might be a dream asylum where you'd be kindly treated and in time restored cured to your sorrowing relatives it is very hard to see your duty plainly even in ordinary life and these dream circumstances are so complicated
if it's a dream said robert you will wake up directly and then you'd be sorry if you'd sent us into a dream asylum because you might never get into the same dream again and let us out and so we might stay there for ever and then what about our sorrowing relatives who aren't in the dreams at all
but all the curate could now say was oh my head and jane and robert felt quite ill with helplessness and hopelessness a really conscientious curate is a very difficult thing to manage
the two children suddenly felt that extraordinary shrinking feeling that you always have when you are just going to vanish and the next moment they had vanished and the reverend septimus was left alone with his aunts i knew it was a dream he cried wildly i've had something like it before
aunt selina looked at him and then at aunt amelia then she said boldly what do you mean we haven't been dreaming anything you must have dropped off in your chair
afterwards aunt selina said to the other aunt
but i could see the poor dear fellow's brain giving way before my very eyes he couldn't have stood the strain of three dreams it was odd wasn't it all three of us dreaming the same thing at the same moment we must never tell dear seppy but i shall send an account of it to the psychical society
with stars instead of names you know and she did and you can read all about it in one of the society's fat blue books of course you understand what had happened
cyril and anthea had not half finished mending the carpet when the joyful emotions of reunion had calmed down a little they all went out and spent what was left of uncle reginald's sovereign in presents for mother
they bought her a pink silk handkerchief a pair of blue and white vases a bottle of scent a packet of christmas candles and a cake of soap shaped and coloured like a tomato
if they liked oranges of course also they bought a cake with icing on and the rest of the money they spent on flowers to put in the vases when they had arranged all the things on a table with the candles stuck up on a plate ready to light the moment mother's cab was heard
they washed themselves thoroughly and put on tidier clothes then robert said
but really it's just as much good old phoenix said robert suppose it hadn't thought of getting the wish ah said the phoenix it is perhaps fortunate for you that i am such a competent bird
there's mother's cab cried anthea and the phoenix hid and they lighted the candles and next moment mother was home again she liked her presents very much and found their story of uncle reginald and the sovereign easy and even pleasant to believe good old carpet were cyril's last sleepy words
the singing shell for years and years the beautiful shell had been upon the floor in gran'ma's front room it was a large shell with many points upon it these were coarse and rough but the shell was most beautiful inside
marcella had seen the shell time and time again and often admired its lovely coloring which could be seen when one looked inside the shell
so marcella brought the shell home and placed it in front of the nursery door here the dolls saw it that night when all the house was still and stood about it wondering what kind of toy it might be it seems to be nearly all mouth said henny the dutch doll
perhaps it can talk it has teeth the french doll pointed out it may bite i do not believe it will bite raggedy andy mused as he got down upon his hands and knees and looked up into the shell
marcella would not have it up here if it would bite and saying this raggedy andy put his rag arm into the lovely shell's mouth it doesn't bite i knew it wouldn't he cried just feel how smooth it is inside
all the dolls felt and were surprised to find it polished so highly inside while the outside was so coarse and rough with the help of uncle clem and henny raggedy andy turned the shell upon its back so that all the dolls might look in
all running together just as the coloring in an opal runs from one shade into another raggedy andy stooping over to look further up inside the pretty shell heard something it's whispering he said as he raised up in surprise
all the dolls took turns putting their ears to the mouth of the beautiful shell yes truly it whispered but they could not catch just what it said finally raggedy andy suggested that all the dolls lie down upon the floor directly before the shell and keep very quiet
if we don't make a sound we may be able to hear what it says he explained so the dolls lay down placing themselves flat upon the floor directly in front of the shell and where they could see and admire its beautiful coloring
this is the story the shell told the dolls in the nursery that night a long long time ago i lived upon the yellow sand deep down beneath the blue blue waters of the ocean
it was still and quiet way down where i lived for even if the ocean roared and pounded itself into an angry mass of tumbling waves up above this never disturbed the calm waters down where i lived
many times little fishes or other tiny sea people came and hid within my pretty house when they were being pursued by larger sea creatures
they would stay inside until i whispered that the larger creature had gone then they would leave me and return to their play pretty little sea horses with slender curving bodies often went sailing above me or would come to rest upon my back
it was nice to lie and watch the tiny things curl their little tails about the sea weed and talk together for the sea horses like one another and are gentle and kind to each other sharing their food happily and smoothing their little ones with their cunning noses
but one day a diver leaped over the side of a boat and came swimming head first down down to where i lay my how the tiny sea creatures scurried to hide from him he took me within his hand
and giving his feet a thump upon the yellow sand rose with me to the surface he poured the water from me and out came all the little creatures who had been hiding there raggedy andy wiggled upon the floor he was so interested
did the tiny creatures get back into the water safely he asked the beautiful shell oh yes the shell whispered in reply the man held me over the side of the boat so the tiny creatures went safely back into the water i am so glad raggedy andy said with a sigh of relief
he must have been a kindly man yes indeed the beautiful shell replied so i was placed along with a lot of other shells in the bottom of the boat and every once in a while another shell was placed amongst us
we were finally sold to different people and i have been at gran'ma's house for a long long time you lived there when gran'ma was a little girl didn't you raggedy ann asked yes replied the shell i have lived there ever since gran'ma was a little girl
she often used to play with me and listen to me sing raggedy ann can play peter peter pumpkin eater on the piano with one hand said uncle clem but none of us can sing will you sing for us he asked the shell i sing all the time the shell replied for i cannot help singing
but my singing is a secret and so is very soft and low put your head close to the opening in my shell and listen the dolls took turns doing this and heard the shell sing softly and very sweetly
how strange and far away it sounds exclaimed the french doll like fairies singing in the distance the shell must be singing the songs of the mermaids and the water fairies it is queer that anything so rough on the outside could be so pretty within said raggedy andy
indeed it is replied the beautiful shell and i get a great happiness from singing all the time and you will bring lots of pleasure to us by being so happy said raggedy andy for although you may not enter into our games we will always know that you are happily singing and that will make us all happy
i will tell you the secret of my singing said the shell when anyone puts his ear to me and listens he hears the reflection of his own heart's music singing so you see while i say that i am singing all the time
how unselfish you are to say this said raggedy andy
yes indeed came the answer from all the dolls even the tiny penny dolls that is why the shell is so beautiful inside said raggedy ann
and her death in the foregoing book and will now speak of what followed and was connected with those histories declaring before we proceed that we have nothing so much at heart as this that we may omit no facts
as the greatest part are unacquainted withal
and from such ornaments of speech also as may contribute to the pleasure of our readers that they may entertain the knowledge of what we write with some agreeable satisfaction and pleasure
when quintus hortensius and quintus metellus who was called metellus of crete were consuls at rome
and attacked and overcame those his adversaries that had fled thither and lay within the walls of the temple
he laid aside his enmity to him on these conditions that aristobulus should be king that he should live without intermeddling with public affairs and quietly enjoy the estate he had acquired when they had agreed upon these terms in the temple and had confirmed the agreement with oaths
and the giving one another their right hands and embracing one another in the sight of the whole multitude they departed the one aristobulus to the palace
who was at enmity with aristobulus and had differences with him on account of his good will to hyrcanus it is true that nicolatls of damascus says that antipater was of the stock of the principal jews who came out of babylon into judea but that assertion of his was to gratify herod who was his son
and that he made a league of friendship with those arabians and gazites and ascalonites that were of his own party and had by many and large presents made them his fast friends but now this younger antipater was suspicious of the power of aristobulus
and was afraid of some mischief he might do him because of his hatred to him so he stirred up the most powerful of the jews and talked against him to them privately and said that it was unjust to overlook the conduct of aristobulus who had gotten the government unrighteously and ejected his brother out of it
and the same speeches he perpetually made to hyrcanus and told him that his own life would be in danger unless he guarded himself and got shut of aristobulus for he said that the friends of aristobulus omitted no opportunity of advising him to kill him
as being then and not before sure to retain his principality hyrcanus gave no credit to these words of his as being of a gentle disposition and one that did not easily admit of calumnies against other men
this temper of his not disposing him to meddle with public affairs and want of spirit occasioned him to appear to spectators to be degenerous and unmanly while aristo bulus was of a contrary temper
when hyrcanus heard this he said that it was for his advantage to fly away to aretas now arabia is a country that borders upon judea however hyrcanus sent antipater first to the king of arabia in order to receive assurances from him
that when he should come in the manner of a supplicant to him he would not deliver him up to his enemies so antipater having received such assurances returned to hyrcanus to jerusalem
where the palace of aretas was
and this persuasion he continued every day without any intermission he also proposed to make him presents on that account at length he prevailed with aretas in his suit moreover hyrcanus promised him that when he had been brought thither and had received his kingdom
he would restore that country and those twelve cities which his father alexander had taken from the arabians which were these medaba naballo libias
and beat him in the battle and when after that victory many went over to hyrcanus as deserters aristobulus was left desolate and fled to jerusalem upon which the king of arabia took all his army and made an assault upon the temple
and besieged aristobulus therein the people still supporting hyreanus and assisting him in the siege while none but the priests continued with aristobulus so aretas united the forces of the arabians and of the jews together and pressed on the siege vigorously
and when upon his refusal and the excuses that he made he was still by the multitude compelled to speak he stood up in the midst of them and said o god the king of the whole world
since those that stand now with me are thy people and those that are besieged are also thy priests i beseech thee that thou wilt neither hearken to the prayers of those against these nor bring to effect what these pray against those
at which it is our custom to offer a great number of sacrifices to god but those that were with aristobulus wanted sacrifices and desired that their countrymen without would furnish them with such sacrifices
and when they required them to pay a thousand drachmae for each head of cattle aristobulus and the priests willingly undertook to pay for them accordingly and those within let down the money over the walls and gave it them but when the others had received it
and when the priests found they had been cheated and that the agreements they had made were violated they prayed to god that he would avenge them on their countrymen nor did he delay that their punishment but sent a strong and vehement storm of wind
but when scaurus was come to damascus and found that lollins and metellus had newly taken the city he came himself hastily into judea and when he was come thither ambassadors came to him both from aristobulus and hyrcanus and both desired he would assist them
and when both of them promised to give him money aristobulus four hundred talents and hyrcanus no less he accepted of aristobulus's promise for he was rich and had a great soul and desired to obtain nothing but what was moderate
whereas the other was poor and tenacious and made incredible promises in hopes of greater advantages for it was not the same thing to take a city that was exceeding strong and powerful as it was to eject out of the country some fugitives
with a greater number of mabateans who were no very warlike people he therefore made an agreement with aristobulus for the reasons before mentioned and took his money and raised the siege and ordered aretas to depart or else he should be declared an enemy to the romans
so scaurus returned to damascus again and aristobulus with a great army made war with aretas and hyrcanus and fought them at a place called papyron and beat them in the battle and slew about six thousand of the enemy with whom fell phalion also the brother of antipater
came ambassadors again to him antipater from hyrcanus and nicodemus from aristobulus which last also accused such as had taken bribes first gabinius and then scaurus the one three hundred talents and the other four hundred
he brought his army out of their winter quarters and marched into the country of damascus
who had been beheaded who was also his relation by marriage
and when he had passed over the cities of heliopolis and chalcis and got over the mountain which is on the limit of colesyria he came from pella to damascus and there it was that he heard the causes of the jews and of their governors hyrcanus and aristobulus
as also of the nation against them both which did not desire to be under kingly government because the form of government they received from their forefathers was that of subjection to the priests of that god whom they worshipped
and that he had but a small part of the country under him aristobulus having taken away the rest from him by force he also accused him that the incursions which had been made into their neighbors countries and the piracies that had been at sea were owing to him
and that the nation would not have revolted unless aristobulus had been a man given to violence and disorder and there were no fewer than a thousand jews of the best esteem among them who confirmed this accusation which confirmation was procured by antipater
but aristobulus alleged against him that it was hyrcanus's own temper which was inactive and on that account contemptible
for fear lest it should be transferred to others and that as to his title of king it was no other than what his father had taken before him
whose purple garments fine heads of hair and other ornaments were detested by the court and which they appeared in not as though they were to plead their cause in a court of justice
he then spake civilly to them and sent them away and told them that when he came again into their country he would settle all their affairs after he had first taken a view of the affairs of the nabateans in the mean time he ordered them to be quiet and treated aristobulus civilly
lest he should make the nation revolt and hinder his return which yet aristobulus did for without expecting any further determination which pompey had promised them
and the other parts of syria with the other roman legions which he had with him he made an expedition against aristobulus
which is the first entrance into judea when one passes over the midland countries
whither aristobulus had fled and thence pompey sent his commands to him that he should come to him accordingly at the persuasions of many that he would not make war with the romans he came down and when he had disputed with his brother about the right to the government
he went up again to the citadel as pompey gave him leave to do
so that he still pretended he would obey pompey in whatsoever he commanded
that he might not depress himself too low
but when pompey enjoined aristobulus to deliver up the fortresses he held and to send an injunction to their governors under his own hand for that purpose for they had been forbidden to deliver them up upon any other commands he submitted indeed to do so
but still he retired in displeasure to jerusalem and made preparation for war
monday morning eleven o'clock we are just come in here to the inn kept by missus jewkes's relation the first compliment i had was in a very impudent manner how i liked the squire i could not help saying
bold forward woman is it for you who keep an inn to treat passengers at this rate she was but in jest she said and asked pardon and she came and begged excuse again very submissively after robin and mister colbrand had talked to her a little
the latter here in great form gave me before robin the letter which i had given him back for that purpose and i retired as if to read it and so i did for i think i can't read it too often though for my peace of mind's sake i might better try to forget it
o how my heart went pit a pat what now thought i is to come next he went out and presently returned with a letter for me and another enclosed for mister colbrand
so i shut the door and never sure was the like known found the following agreeable contents in vain my pamela do i find it to struggle against my affection for you
i must needs after you were gone venture to entertain myself with your journal when i found missus jewkes's bad usage of you after your dreadful temptations and hurts and particularly your generous concern for me on hearing how narrowly i escaped drowning
and your most agreeable confession in another place that notwithstanding all my hard usage of you you could not hate me and that expressed in so sweet so soft and so innocent a manner that i flatter myself you may be brought to love me together with the other parts of your admirable journal
for oh that melodious voice praying for me at your departure and thanking me for my rebuke to missus jewkes still hangs upon my ears and delights my memory and though i went to bed i could not rest but about two got up and made thomas get one of the best horses ready in order to set out to overtake you
while i sat down to write this to you now my dear pamela let me beg of you on the receipt of this to order robin to drive you back again to my house i would have set out myself for the pleasure of bearing you company back in the chariot
but am really indisposed i believe with vexation that i should part thus with my soul's delight as i now find you are and must be in spite of the pride of my own heart you cannot imagine the obligation your return will lay me under to your goodness and yet if you will not so far favour me
you shall be under no restraint as you will see by my letter enclosed to colbrand which i have not sealed that you may read it but spare me my dearest girl the confusion of following you to your father's which i must do if you persist to go on for i find i cannot live a day without you
if you are the generous pamela i imagine you to be for hitherto you have been all goodness where it has not been merited let me see by this new instance the further excellence of your disposition let me see you can forgive the man who loves you more than himself
but take care thou art not too credulous neither o fond believer things that we wish are apt to gain a too ready credence with us this sham marriage is not yet cleared up missus jewkes the vile missus jewkes may yet instigate the mind of this master
his pride of heart and pride of condition may again take place and a man that could in so little a space first love me then hate then banish me his house and send me away disgracefully and now send for me again in such affectionate terms
may still waver may still deceive thee
and i charge thee to keep better guard than thou hast lately done and lead me not to follow too implicitly thy flattering and desirable impulses thus foolishly dialogued i with my heart and yet all the time this heart is pamela
i opened the letter to monsieur colbrand which was in these words
but if she will not give you such a letter you'll return with her to me if she please to favour me so far and that with all expedition that her health and safety will permit for i am pretty much indisposed but hope it will be but slight and soon go off i am yours et cetera on second thoughts
and you return with her for her safety now this is a dear generous manner of treating me o how i love to be generously used now my dear parents i wish i could consult you for your opinions how i should act should i go back or should i not
i doubt he has got too great hold in my heart for me to be easy presently if i should refuse and yet this gipsy information makes me fearful well i will i think trust in his generosity yet is it not too great a trust especially considering how i have been used
and i may be the means of making many happy as well as myself by placing a generous confidence in him and then i think he might have sent to colbrand or to robin to carry me back whether i would or not and how different is his behaviour to that
and as if it was a silly female piece of pride to make him follow me to my father's and as if i would use him hardly in my turn for his having used me ill in his upon the whole i resolved to obey him and if he uses me ill afterwards double will be his ungenerous guilt
and if he should use me ill then i shall be blamed for trusting him if well o then i did right to be sure but how would my censurers act in my case before the event justifies or condemns the action is the question
and as he is not so well as were to be wished the more haste you make the better and don't mind my fatigue but consider only yourselves and the horses robin who guessed the matter by his conversation with thomas as i suppose said
god bless you madam and reward you as your obligingness to my good master deserves and may we all live to see you triumph over missus jewkes i wondered to hear him say so for i was always careful of exposing my master or even that naughty woman before the common servants
but yet i question whether robin would have said this if he had not guessed by thomas's message and my resolving to return that i might stand well with his master so selfish are the hearts of poor mortals that they are ready to change as favour goes
so they were not long getting ready and i am just setting out back again and i hope i shall have no reason to repent it robin put on very vehemently and when we came to the little town where we lay on sunday night he gave his horses a bait
and said he would push for his master's that night as it would be moon light if i should not be too
fit to put up at for the night but monsieur colbrand's horse beginning to give way made a doubt between them wherefore i said hating to be on the road if it could be done
i should bear it well enough i hoped and that monsieur colbrand might leave his horse when it failed at some house and come into the chariot this pleased them both and about twelve miles short he left the horse and took off his spurs and holsters et cetera and with abundance of ceremonial excuses came into the chariot
and i sat the easier for it for my bones ached sadly with the jolting and so many miles travelling in so few hours as i have done from sunday night five o'clock but for all this it was eleven o'clock at night when we came to the village adjacent to my master's
but one of the helpers got the keys from missus jewkes and opened the gates and the horses could hardly crawl into the stable and i when i went to get out of the chariot fell down and thought i had lost the use of my limbs
missus jewkes came down with her clothes huddled on and lifted up her hands and eyes at my return but shewed more care of the horses than of me by that time the two maids came and i made shift to creep in as well as i could
it seems my poor master was very ill indeed and had been upon the bed most part of the day and abraham who succeeded john sat up with him
on the other side of the house missus jewkes said he had a feverish complaint and had been blooded and very prudently ordered abraham when he awaked not to tell him i was come for fear of surprising him and augmenting his fever
nor indeed to say any thing of me till she herself broke it to him in the morning as she should see how he was
tuesday morning getting up pretty early i have written thus far while missus jewkes lies snoring in bed fetching up her last night's disturbance i long for her rising to know how my poor master does
tis well for her she can sleep so purely no love but for herself will ever break her rest i am sure i am deadly sore all over as if i had been soundly beaten i did not think i could have lived under such fatigue
he asked what and she said i was come he raised himself up in his bed can it be said he what already she told him i came last night monsieur colbrand coming to inquire of his health he ordered him to draw near him
and was highly pleased with the account he gave him of the journey my readiness to come back and my willingness to reach home that night and he said why these tender fair ones i think bear fatigue better than us men but she is very good to give me such an instance of her readiness to oblige me
pray missus jewkes said he take great care of her health and let her be a bed all day she told him i had been up these two hours ask her said he if she will be so good as to make me a visit if she won't i'll rise and go to her indeed sir said she you must be still and i'll go to her
but don't urge her too much said he if she be unwilling she came to me and told me all the above and i said i would most willingly wait upon him for indeed i longed to see him and was much grieved he was so ill so i went down with her
i'm concerned to return my acknowledgments to you in so unfit a place and manner but will you give me your hand i did and he kissed it with great eagerness sir said i you do me too much honour i am sorry you are so ill
i can't be ill said he while you are with me i am very well already well said he and kissed my hand again you shall not repent this goodness my heart is too full of it to express myself as i ought
life is no life without you if you had refused me and yet i had hardly hopes you would oblige me i should have had a severe fit of it i believe
but now i shall be well instantly you need not missus jewkes added he send for the doctor from stamford as we talked yesterday for this lovely creature is my doctor as her absence was my disease
he begged me to sit down by his bed side and asked me if i had obliged him with sending for my former packet i said i had and hoped it would be brought he said it was doubly kind i would not stay long because of disturbing him
for how the poor man had behaved i can't tell but he could get no bail and if i have no fresh reason given me perhaps i shall not exact the payment and he has been some time at liberty and now follows his school but methinks i could wish you would not see him at present
i said i am sorry sir lady davers who loves you so well should have incurred your displeasure and that there should be any variance between your honour and her i hope it was not on my account he took out of his waistcoat pocket as he sat in his gown his letter case and said
here pamela read that when you go up stairs and let me have your thoughts upon it and that will let you into the affair he said he was very heavy of a sudden and would lie down and indulge for that day and if he was better in the morning would take an airing in the chariot
i have had some people with me desiring me to interpose with you and they have a greater regard for your honour than i am sorry to say it you have yourself could i think that a brother of mine would so meanly run away with my late dear mother's waiting maid
and keep her a prisoner from all her friends and to the disgrace of your own but i thought when you would not let the wench come to me on my mother's death that you meant no good i blush for you i'll assure you
consider brother that ours is no upstart family but is as ancient as the best in the kingdom and for several hundreds of years it has never been known that the heirs of it have disgraced themselves by unequal matches
but let me tell you that i and all mine will renounce you for ever if you can descend so meanly and i shall be ashamed to be called your sister a handsome man as you are in your person
so happy in the gifts of your mind that every body courts your company and possessed of such a noble and clear estate and very rich in money besides left you by the best of fathers and mothers with such ancient blood in your veins untainted
to make her happy in some honest fellow of her own degree and that will be doing something and will also oblige and pacify your much grieved sister if i have written too sharply consider it is my love to you and the shame you are bringing upon yourself
and i wish this may have the effect upon you intended by your very loving sister this is a sad letter my dear father and mother and one may see how poor people are despised by the proud and the rich and yet we were all on a foot originally
and many of these gentry that brag of their ancient blood would be glad to have it as wholesome and as really untainted as ours
surely these proud people never think what a short stage life is and that with all their vanity a time is coming when they shall be obliged to submit to be on a level with us and true said the philosopher when he looked upon the skull of a king and that of a poor man
that he saw no difference between them besides do they not know that the richest of princes and the poorest of beggars are to have one great and tremendous judge at the last day who will not distinguish between them according to their circumstances in life
but on the contrary may make their condemnations the greater as their neglected opportunities were the greater
besides how do these gentry know that supposing they could trace back their ancestry for one two three or even five hundred years
while their descendants may be reduced to the others dunghills
in their turns set up for pride of family and despise the others these reflections occurred to my thoughts made serious by my master's indisposition and this proud letter of the lowly lady davers against the high minded pamela lowly i say because she could stoop to such vain pride
but after all poor wretches that we be we scarce know what we are much less what we shall be
on this occasion i recall the following lines which i have read where the poet argues in a much better manner wise providence does various parts for various minds dispense the meanest slaves or those who hedge and ditch
are useful by their sweat to feed the rich the rich in due return impart their store which comfortably feeds the lab'ring poor nor let the rich the lowest slave disdain he's equally a link of nature's chain
and at the last are levell'd king and slave without distinction in the silent grave wednesday morning my master sent me a message just now that he was so much better that he would take a turn after breakfast in the chariot
and would have me give him my company i hope i shall know how to be humble and comport myself as i should do under all these favours missus jewkes is one of the most obliging creatures in the world and i have such respects shewn me by every one as if i was as great as lady davers
should i be now deceived i should be worse off than ever but i shall see what light this new honour will procure me so i'll get ready but i won't i think change my garb should i do it it would look as if i would be nearer on a level with him and yet should i not it might be thought a disgrace to him
but i will i think open the portmanteau and for the first time since i came hither put on my best silk nightgown but then that will be making myself a sort of right to the clothes i had renounced and i am not yet quite sure i shall have no other crosses to encounter
so i will go as i am for though ordinary i am as clean as a penny though i say it so i'll e'en go as i am except he orders otherwise yet missus jewkes says i ought to dress as fine as i can but i say i think not
how charmingly he looks to what he did yesterday blessed be god for it he arose and came to me and took me by the hand and would set me down by him and he said my charming girl seemed going to speak what would you say sir said i a little ashamed
but sir said i i shall disgrace you to go thus
and you look so pretty that if you shall not catch cold in that round eared cap you shall go just as you are but sir said i then you'll be pleased to go a bye way that it mayn't be seen you do so much honor to your servant
there's for you my dear father and mother did i not do well now to come back o could i get rid of my fears of this sham marriage for all this is not yet inconsistent with that frightful scheme i should be too happy
at last the welcome message came that my master was ready and so i went down as fast as i could and he before all the servants handed me in as if i was a lady and then came in himself missus jewkes begged he would take care he did not catch cold as he had been ill
and i had the pride to hear his new coachman say to one of his fellow servants they are a charming pair i am sure tis pity they should be parted
chapter twenty making a permanent home in the wilds
venture in the gold field were more peaceful and prosperous soon after the indian war we had moved to a new claim we began now to realize to the full our dream of earlier days
to settle on a farm and build a home three neighbors were all we had and the nearest lived nearly two miles away two of them kept bachelor's hall
the thick high timber made it impossible for us to see any of our neighbors houses we could reach only one by a road to the others we might go by a trail
under such conditions we could not have a public school this however did not keep us from having a school of our own one day one of our farther off neighbors
who lived more than four miles away came to visit us naturally the children flocked around him to hear his stories in broad scotch and to ply him with questions in his turn
he began to ask them questions one of these was when do you expect to go to school oh we have school now responded the children we have school every day
and pray who is your teacher and where is your schoolhouse father teaches us at home every morning before breakfast he hears the lessons then and
your father told me a while ago that you had your breakfast at six o'clock what time do you get up why father sets the clock for half past four
and that gives us an hour while mother gets breakfast you know boys and girls of today may pity those poor pioneer children who had to get up so early
they may as well dismiss such feelings from their hearts the children were cheerful and healthy they did some work during the day in addition to studying their lessons and besides
they went to bed earlier than some boys and girls do these days in january eighteen sixty one the wreck of the steamer northerner brought great sorrow to us
for my brother oliver was among those lost the ship struck on an uncharted rock during the stay at steilacoom in the time of the indian troubles
we had begun a trading venture in a small way the venture having proved successful we invested all our savings in a new stock of merchandise and this stock
not all paid for went down with the ship again we must start in life and we moved to a new location a homestead in the puyallup valley
here we lived and farmed for forty one years seeing the town of puyallup grow up on and around the homestead
in the puyallup valley there were more neighbors two families to the square mile yet no neighbors were in sight because the timber and underbrush were so thick we could scarcely see
two rods from the edge of our clearing but the neighbors were near enough for us to provide a public school and build a schoolhouse some of the neighbors took their axes to cut the logs
some their oxen to drag them others their saws and cleaving tools to make clapboards for the roof others again more handy with tools made the benches out of split logs or
as we called them puncheons with willing hands to help the schoolhouse soon received the finishing touches the side walls were scarcely high enough for the doorway
so one was cut in the end the door hung on wooden hinges which squeaked a good deal when the door was opened or shut but the children did not mind that
the roof answered well enough for the ceiling overhead and a cut in one of the logs on each side made two long narrow windows for light the children sat with their faces to the walls
with long shelves in front of them while the smaller tots sat on low benches near the middle of the room when the weather would permit the teacher left the door open to admit more light
there was no need to let in more fresh air as the roof was quite open and the cracks between the logs let in plenty of it sometimes we had a woman for teacher
and then the salary was smaller as she boarded around that meant some discomfort for her during part of the time where the surroundings were not pleasant one day little carrie
my daughter started to go to school but soon came running back out of breath mamma mamma i saw a great big cat sharpening his claws on a great big tree
she said as soon as she could catch her breath sure enough upon examination there were the marks of a cougar as high up on the tree as i could reach it must have been a big one to reach so far up the tree
but the incident soon dropped out of mind and the children went to school on the trail as if nothing had happened afterwards i met a cougar on a lonely trail in the woods
near where auburn now stands i had been attempting to drive some wild cattle home but they were so unruly that they scattered through the timber and i was obliged to go on without them late in the day
that it was hard to see the road even when the sun was shining on a cloudy day it seemed almost like night though i could see well enough to keep on the crooked trail
just before i got to stuck river crossing i came to a turn in the trail where it crossed the top of a big fir that had been turned up by the roots and had fallen nearly parallel with the trail
the big roots held the butt of the tree up from the ground i think the tree was four feet in diameter a hundred feet from the butt and the whole body from root to top was
eighty four steps long or about
i didn't stop to step it then but you may be sure i took some pretty long strides about that time for just as i stepped over the fallen tree near the top i saw something move on the big body near the roots
the thing was coming right towards me in an instant i realized that it was a great cougar he was pretty but he did not look especially pleasing to me i didn't know what to do
i had no gun with me and i knew perfectly well there was no use to run was i scared did you say did you ever have creepers run up your back and right to the roots of your hair and nearly to the top of your head
if i had been hurt i shouldn't have been here to
the fun of it was that the cougar hadn't seen me yet but as soon as he did he scampered off as if the old harry himself were after him while i sped off down the trail as if old beelzebub were after me
but no wild animals ever harmed us and we did not die for want of food clothing or shelter although we did have some experiences that were trying
before the clearings were large we sometimes were pinched for both food and clothing i will not say we suffered much for either
though i know that some families at times lived on potatoes straight usually fish could be had in abundance
but we managed to get leather to make each member of the family one pair we killed a pig to get bristles for the wax ends cut the pegs from alder log and seasoned them in the oven
and made the lasts out of the same timber those shoes were clumsy to be sure but they kept our feet dry and warm
and we felt thankful for them and sorry for some neighbors children who had to go barefooted even in quite cold weather carrie once had a pair of nice white shoes
for best i remember that one of her brothers made for her with buckskin uppers and light tan colored soles
you must not think that we had no recreation and that we were a sorrowful set there was never a happier lot of people than these same hard working pioneers and their families
we had joy in our home life and amusements as well as labor music was our greatest pleasure we never tired of it uncle john
as every one called him the old teacher was constantly teaching the children music so it soon came about they could read their music as readily as they could their school books
no christmas ever went by without a christmas tree at which the whole neighborhood joined the fourth of july was never passed without a celebration
and supplied the musicians
nobody had horse teams at the start we had to go with ox teams we could not make the trip out and back in one day and we did not have money to pay hotel bills
we managed in this way we would drive out part of the way and camp the next morning we would drive into town very early do our trading
and if possible drive back home the same day if not able to do this we camped on the road again but if the night was not too dark we would reach home that night
and oh what an appetite we would have and how bright the fire would be
the trees and stumps are all gone now and brick buildings and other good houses occupy much of the land as many people now live in that school district
as lived both east and west of the mountains when the territory was created in march of eighteen fifty three instead of going in ox teams or even sleds
the people have carriages or automobiles they can travel on any of the eighteen passenger trains that pass daily through puyallup or on street cars to tacoma and also
on some of the twenty to twenty four freight trains some of which are a third of a mile long such are some of the changes wrought in fifty years since pioneer life began
a frontier farm concord march first seventeen seventy four my dear cousin i am leaving next week with my husband for england
where we intend to pass some time visiting his friends john and i have determined to accept the invitation you gave us last summer for harold to come and spend a few months with you
his father thinks that a great future will ere many years open in the west and that it is therefore well the boy should learn something of frontier life for myself
i would rather that he stayed quietly at home for he is at present over fond of adventure but as my husband is meditating selling his estate here and moving west
it is perhaps better for him massachusetts is in a ferment as indeed are all the eastern states and the people talk openly of armed resistance against the government
my husband being of english birth and having served in the king's army cannot brook what he calls the rebellious talk which is common among his neighbors
and is already on bad terms with many around us i myself am as it were a neutral as an american woman
it seems to me that the colonists have been dealt with somewhat hardly by the english parliament and that the measures of the latter have been high handed and arbitrary
upon the other hand i naturally incline toward my husband's views he maintains that as the king's army has driven out the french and gives protection to the colony
it is only fair that the colonists should contribute to its expenses the english ask for no contributions toward the expense of their own country but demand that
at least the expenses of the protection of the colony shall not be charged upon the heavily taxed people at home as to the law that the colony shall trade only with the mother country
my husband says that this is the rule in the colonies of spain france portugal and the netherlands and that the people here who can obtain what land they choose and till it without rent
should not grumble at paying this small tax to the mother country however it be i fear that troubles will come and this place being the head and focus of the party hostile to england
my husband feeling himself out of accord with all his neighbors saving a few loyal gentlemen like himself is thinking much and seriously of selling our estate here
and of moving away into the new countries of the west
indeed cousin times have sadly changed since you were staying here with us five years ago
now there is nothing but wrangling and strife the dissenting clergy are as my husband says was the case in england before the great civil war the fomenters of this discontent
there are many busybodies who pass their time in stirring up the people by violent harangues and seditious writings therefore everyone takes one side or the other
and there is neither peace nor comfort in life accustomed as i have always been to living in ease and affluence i dread somewhat the thought of a life on the indian frontier
one has heard so many dreadful stories of indian fights and massacres that i tremble a little at the prospect but i do not mention this to john for as other women are
like yourself brave enough to support these dangers i would not appear a coward in his eyes you will see cousin that as this prospect is before us it is well that harold
should learn the ways of a frontier life moreover john does not like the thought of leaving him here while we are in england for as he says the boy might learn to become a rebel in his absence
therefore my dear cousin we have resolved to send him to you an opportunity offers in the fact that a gentleman of our acquaintance is with his family going this week west
with the intention of settling there and he will he tells us go first to detroit whence he will be able to send harold forward to your farm
and promises to return an accomplished backwoodsman john joins me in kind love to yourself and your husband and believe me to remain your affectionate cousin
mary wilson four months after the date of the above letter a lad some fifteen years old was walking with a man of middle age on the shores of lake huron
behind them was a large clearing of about a hundred acres in extent a comfortable house with buildings for cattle stood at a distance of some three hundred yards from the lake
broad fields of yellow corn waved brightly in the sun and from the edge of the clearing came the sound of a woodsman's ax showing that the proprietor was still enlarging the limits of his farm
surrounding the house at a distance of twenty yards was a strong stockade some seven feet in height formed of young trees pointed at the upper end
squared and fixed firmly in the ground the house itself although far more spacious and comfortable than the majority of backwood farmhouses was built in the usual fashion of solid logs
and was evidently designed to resist attack william welch had settled
which was then far removed from the nearest habitation it would have been a very imprudent act under ordinary circumstances to have established himself in so lonely a position
so far removed from the possibility of assistance in case of attack he settled there however just after pontiac who was at the head of an alliance of all the indian tribes of those parts had
after the long and desperate siege of fort pitt made peace with us upon finding that his friends the french had given up all thought of further resistance
to the english and had entirely abandoned the country mister welch thought therefore that a permanent peace was likely to reign on the frontier
and that he might safely establish himself in the charming location he had pitched upon far removed from the confines of civilization
the spot was a natural clearing of some forty acres in extent sloping down to the water's edge and a more charming site could hardly have been chosen mister welch had brought with him
three farm laborers from the east and as time went on he extended the clearing by cutting down the forest giants which bordered it but in spite of the beauty of the position
the fertility of the soil the abundance of his crops and the advantages afforded by the lake both from its plentiful supply of fish and as a highway by which he could convey his produce to market
he had more than once regretted his choice of location it was true that there had been no indian wars on a large scale
but the indians had several times broken out in sudden incursions three times he had been attacked but fortunately only by small parties
to beat off once when a more serious danger threatened him
with his wife and child and his more valuable chattels in the great scow in which he carried his produce to market and had to take refuge in the settlements to find on his return
his buildings destroyed and his farm wasted at that time he had serious thoughts of abandoning his location altogether but the settlements were extending rapidly toward him
and with the prospect of having neighbors before long and the natural reluctance to give up a place upon which he had expended so much toil he decided to hold on
hoping that more quiet times would prevail until other settlers would take up land around him the house had been rebuilt more strongly than before he now employed four men
and had been unmolested since his return to his farm three years before the date of this story already two or three locations had been taken up on the shores of the lake beyond him
a village had grown up thirty five miles away and several settlers had established themselves between that place and his home
san fernando and the peublo of los angelos
passports demanded at los angelos trouble with the mexican authorities kit carson sent on with the pack animals one trapper shoots another the mexicans become frightened
indians come into camp with their weapons concealed cool reception by kit carson arrival at santa fe and taos money realized soon parted with
carson joins another expedition the rivers trapped on four men killed by blackfeet indians kit carson joins gaunt's party the parks winter quarters
crow indian depredations kit carson and his party in pursuit the fight winter on the arkansas another expedition two deserters kit carson sent in pursuit
the fate of the runaways adventures with indians hair breadth escape made by kit carson in september mister young having accomplished all that he had intended
informed his men that he was going to new mexico the homeward route was through most of the country over which they had previously traveled the preparations for the journey having been completed the party started
and thence through to the peublo of los angelos
called so because they are inhabited by indians who bear that name these are the true descendants of the ancient aztecs who were once the subjects of the montezumas they are usually a quiet and industrious race
according to the principles forms and ceremonies of the roman catholic church they have not failed to inherit the superstition of their forefathers not withstanding the changes which time
with its cohorts of emigration books religious teachings association with other races mechanics science and art in greater or less degree has introduced into their country and accomplished under their eyes they still believe that
some day their great chief will return to them accordingly in each and every one of their towns
in order on his advent to let him know where his children live at los angelos the mexican authorities came to the trappers and demanded their passports
on finding that such articles of paper authority did not form any part of a trapper's outfit they determined to arrest them
fair and legitimate means were therefore laid aside and a foul policy adopted
thus attacking them in a weak point when they should become fully inebriated they considered the matter of their arrest both easy and certain mister young seeing the intentions of the authorities and their underhanded method of carrying them out
determined to thwart them he directed carson to take three men the loose animals and the camp equipage and move on with the instructions that if he did not soon join him to push on that if he did not eventually overtake him
to report in new mexico that the main party had been massacred young succeeded in collecting his men as best he could for they were yet sufficiently sober to retain a little of their reason
the treacherous mexicans however continued annoying the commander of the trappers by gratuitously offering the men all the liquor they desired one by one the trappers were allowing themselves to be easily conquered as the effects of the liquor began to be more active
they would soon have fallen a complete prey to their enemies had not a most singular circumstance put the mexicans to flight one of the trappers named james higgins without any provocation and without any excuse except that he was intoxicated
shot a man named james lawrence inflicting a slight wound such conduct so terrified the mexicans that they took sudden and precipitous leave this happened very fortunately before the party arrived at the mission of san gabriel
and perhaps killed by the mexicans aided by parties and reinforcements at the mission about dark young by urging his half drunken men into a forced march succeeded in overtaking carson
they went into camp a night of sleep soon set the brains of young's trappers once more to rights the next day the party
commenced with vigor the homeward march they continued nine days almost upon their former track when outward bound on the ninth day they once more stood on the banks of the colorado river while encamped on this stream
a band of five hundred indians made their appearance and entered the camp the rascals professed the greatest friendship for the trappers but their actions not fully measuring their words the white men looked to carson for advice
he had discovered that beneath their articles of dress their weapons were very carefully concealed and from this circumstance it became quite clearly apparent the indians intended to massacre the entire party here carson's boldness proved as it had before
and did many a time afterwards the safety of himself and friends or associates at the time the indians entered the camp carson with only a few of the party occupied it the rest were out visiting their traps
which it was their general custom to set whenever they arrived at a suitable stream
and feeling that the salvation of the entire party rested upon his courage and wisdom made up his mind that boldness was the wisest policy he could adopt he found present among the warriors one who could speak the spanish language
without further parley commence hostilities
and consequently were taken completely by surprise at kit's unusual boldness seeing that they would inevitably lose several of their braves if they made any hostile demonstration they chose the discreet part of best policy and departed
as a general rule no matter what the profit or urgent necessity which chance offers
a short search sufficed to discover the indian camp
the indians were so completely taken by surprise that they became panic struck and fled in every direction they however rallied somewhat and a running fight commenced which lasted some time but which did not change matters in favor of the indians
the entire herd fell into the possession of the trappers on the same evening after the men had wrapped themselves up in their blankets and laid down for a sleep and while enjoying their slumbers a noise reached their ears which sounded very much like distant thunder
but a close application of the sense of hearing showed plainly that an enemy was near at hand springing up with rifle in hand for generally in the mountains a man's gun rests in the same blanket with himself on all sleeping occasions they sallied forth to reconnoitre
and discovered a few warriors driving along a band of at least two hundred horses the trappers comprehended instantly that the warriors had been to the mexican settlements in sonora on a thieving expedition and that the horses had changed hands with only one party to the bargain
the opportunity to instill a lesson on the savage marauders was too good to be lost they saluted the thieves with a volley from their rifles which with the bullet whizzing about their heads and bodies so astonished them that they seemed almost immediately to forget their stolen property and to think only of a precipitous flight
to return the animals to their owners was an impossibility mister young therefore selected as many of the best horses as he needed for himself and men and game being very scarce killed two and dried most of the meat for future use turning the remainder loose
such either became wild mustangs or fell again into the clutches of the indians the company then renewed their trapping and continued it up the gila to a point opposite the copper mines of new mexico here they left the river and proceeded to the copper mines
these mines were not then and ever since have not been worked the holes which had many years before been made by the miners but who they were is unknown formed a safe hiding place for their skins the stock of beaver was therefore placed under the care of mister mc knight
young and his men then renewed their march and in due time arrived safely at santa fe here they purchased licenses to trade with the indians who live about the copper mines with these licenses as protection papers they returned to where the skins were concealed
they have proved a knotty historical problem to many an investigating mind for their authentic history has fallen and probably will ever remain in oblivion it may have been that about a century ago the spaniards with indian assistants worked them
there is a legendary story circulating similar to the traditions of the indians giving this explanation the more probable hypothesis however is that the indians themselves many centuries in the past were versed to some extent in the art of mining
and carried on the business in these mines but from indolence or to them uselessness of the metals the work was abandoned and their descendants failed to obtain the knowledge which their ancestors possessed
these mines and those which exist nearer to the large towns will some day render new mexico a profitable and rich field for the learned antiquary the ruse which mister young found absolutely necessary to employ in order to blind the mexican authorities
succeeded so well that when the fur arrived at santa fe every one considered the trappers had made a very good trade the amount of beaver thus brought in amounted to two thousand pounds the market price was twelve dollars the pound
the proceeds therefore of the entire trip were nearly twenty four thousand dollars the division of this handsome sum gave to each man several hundred dollars it was during the month of april eighteen thirty that mister young's party again reached the town of taos
here they disbanded having completed their enterprise like as jack when he returns from his battles with old ocean having a pocket well lined with hard earnings fails not to plunge into excess
with the determination to make up for the pleasure lost by years of toil the brave mountaineers courted merrymaking from their own accounts they passed a short time gloriously
this similarity of disposition between trappers and sailors in regard to pleasure's syren cup and its consequent draft upon their treasures causing them to forget the risk of life and limb and the expense of their valuable time is most remarkable these hardy trappers
like reliable old salts proved to be as true to the bowl as they had been to their steel for most of the party in a very brief space of time were penniless and ready to be fitted out for another expedition young kit at this period of his life
imitated the example set by his elders for he wished to be considered by them as an equal and a friend he however passed through this terrible ordeal which most frequently ruins its votary and eventually came out brighter
clearer and more noble for the conscience polish which he received he contracted no bad habits but learned the usefulness and happiness of resisting temptation and became so well schooled that he was able
by the caution and advice of wisdom founded on experience to prevent many a promising and skillful hand from grasping ruin in the same vortex the scenes of pleasure lasted until the fall of eighteen thirty kit then joined his second trapping expedition
this band had been formed for the purpose of trapping the principal streams of the rocky mountains mister fitzpatrick a trapper well known and respected by the mountaineers had charge of the party he was at that time
well acquainted by experience with the rocky mountains and has since then gained an enviable fame as an indian agent the new party travelled north and commenced operations on the platte river which they followed down stream to one of its tributaries the sweet water river
who had left taos some days in advance of the main body and for whom they were then hunting the whole party as now organized remained where they were throughout the winter of eighteen thirty and eighteen thirty one employed in killing only the amount of game necessary for their sustenance
an unfortunate affair here happened to them four of their men while hunting buffalo were attacked and killed by a party of blackfeet indians no other incident occurred during the winter to change the everyday routine in april of eighteen thirty one they recommenced trapping
shaping their course for bear river this is the principal stream that empties into great salt lake thence they returned to green river where they found some trappers under the command of mister sinclair
among many other facts they learned from this party that captain gaunt who was an old mountaineer well known to most of the whites present had passed the winter on the laramie river and that he was then with his men in the new park
kit carson and four of his companions determined to join him for this purpose they started and after ten days of steady travel found his party there are two of these natural parks in the rocky mountains to distinguish them they are called the old park and the new park
as their names imply they are fair natural examples of the manufactured parks of civilization in some things nature has lavished upon them charms and beauties which no human skill can imitate
kit and his companions were graciously received by gaunt and with him they trapped the streams in the vicinity of the new park and the plains of laramie to the south fork of the platte having finished here they left for the arkansas
remaining there while their captain went to taos to dispose of their stock of furs and to make such purchases of necessaries as the men required gaunt returned after an absence of two months when trapping operations were resumed on the arkansas river
which they trapped until it froze over the party then went into winter quarters the business of trapping for beaver is no child's play a person unaccustomed to it may possibly look upon it as no very difficult task
a single trial is usually sufficient to satisfy the uninitiated on this point for the beaver above all other wild animals of america is endowed with an extraordinary amount of instinct his handiwork and habits sufficiently attest this
there are bands of indians living in the northwestern part of america who really believe that the beaver has almost as much intelligence as an indian holding and maintaining that all the difference that exists between a beaver and an indian is
that the latter has been endowed by the great spirit with power and capabilities to catch the former some of the stories which old mountaineers occasionally inflict upon an inquisitive traveller are somewhat startling nevertheless
what this amphibious animal really performs is truly astounding and oftentimes the truth fails to gain credence during the winter the trappers had many very pleasant times for they had little work beyond the task of making themselves comfortable
the snow fell to a great depth which proved rather hard for their animals by dint of cutting down cottonwood trees and gathering the bark and branches for fodder they managed to prevent them from dying of starvation
the buffalo existed about there in great abundance and early in the winter they had taken the precaution to kill and prepare a large supply of this kind of game while it was in good condition
with which they escaped unperceived early the next morning the signs of the indians were discovered kit carson with twelve of his companions immediately saddled their horses and started in pursuit
it was very difficult to follow the trail of the indians from the fact that many herds of buffalo had crossed and repeatedly recrossed it during the night making the tracks very indistinct
having traveled forty miles their horses which were very poor in flesh became fatigued causing them to think of making a halt
it was agreed that they had best go into camp with this object in view they traveled towards some timber which was near by on arriving at the woods the advance of the party to their surprise and not less to their satisfaction discovered the smoke of their enemies fires
the distance between the parties was inconsiderable but in order that their movements might be made unobserved the trappers retreated to a secluded spot where they awaited the night judging it best to take the party by surprise
their first care was to secure and provide for their animals the second was to prepare their arms as soon as it would do for them to move they started eager for the strife
as from this source they wisely judged the red men would be less apprehensive of an attack their movements were made slowly and with great care in order not to alarm the savages having obtained a position close enough to observe the strength of their enemies they stopped to reconnoitre
the men then crept for a long distance on their hands and knees until finally they obtained a full view of the indians which showed them that the savages had erected two rough forts and that they were now divided into two parties a dance was in progress
in honor of the robbery so recently perpetrated which proved conclusively that they were without even a suspicion of danger just outside one of the forts the nine stolen animals were securely tied this sight did not tend to allay the wrath of the trappers
they resolved that come what might the attempt to regain their property and punish the indians should be made notwithstanding their strength to insure success in spite of their weakness they determined to conceal themselves and wait quietly until the indians had lain down for sleep
during this time of suspense the trappers were subjected to great suffering for the weather was intensely cold and they possessed but a scanty allowance of clothing fit for such work but as there is an end to all things there was an end to the dance and other festivities
and the savages sought their rest at last the time for action arrived kit carson and five of his companions commenced crawling towards the stolen horses which on reaching were easily set free by cutting their halters they then threw snow balls at them
and by this means drove them away without disturbing the sleeping indians the trappers who acted as a reserve party soon after joined kit and his companions and after retreating some distance in order to be out of the hearing of the enemy
they held a council to obtain the views of each member of the party as to their next step it appeared that a difference of opinion existed some of the men were in favor of returning having recovered their property and sustained no damage the remainder
wanted satisfaction for the trouble and hardship they had undergone while in pursuit of the thieves kit carson and two others composed this latter party and thus were determined to punish the thieves let the consequences of the attempt be ever so fatal the more peaceful party
seeing this earnestness could not do otherwise than lend their aid in the fight and cheerfully did so there always existed such a feeling of brotherly love among the old trappers of the rocky mountains that the hour of peril was never the hour for separation or desertion
this instance affords a fair example how the minority could easily rule the majority when the minority held to the side of danger the whole band were now unanimous in favor of the attack kit carson who had from the first acted as captain
ordered three men to take the recovered animals back to where they had secured their saddle horses then with his comrades he marched directly for the indian camp a dog belonging to the enemy first gave the alarm of approaching danger to the indians but not until kit and his party were within a few paces of the first fort
as soon as the occupants of the fort heard the noise they sprang to their feet and thus became fair marks for the unerring rifles of the trappers the whites did not throw away a single shot every ball struck a warrior in some vital spot
those who survived retreated to the fort occupied by their friends and as soon as possible commenced returning the fire but without execution as the trappers on discharging their first volley had well concealed themselves behind trees from whence they were shooting only when sure of an object it was now nearly daybreak
they did so but the white men who were expert fighters in this kind of warfare
the remainder immediately retreated into the fort after considerable deliberation the indians decided once more to make a sortie on they came and this time with such determination that the trappers could not withstand the assault but were compelled to retreat
they disputed however every inch of ground over which they trod as they fell back from one tree to another continually making their bullets tell with terrible effect on their foes the three men who had been sent back with the horses had joined their comrades soon after they had commenced retreating
they had heard the incessant firing and had become convinced that the fight was hotly contested and that their services were required on their joining the whole party resolved to make one more stand and as soon as the indians saw this they wavered and finally drew off
both sides had now seemingly had enough of fighting and hostilities soon after entirely ceased the savages marching back and leaving the whites masters of the field several of the trappers were slightly but none dangerously wounded the indians had paid dearly in numbers killed
for their rascality finding the coast clear carson and his men set out and soon rejoined their comrades on the arkansas river in the spring after having cached their fur the whole band departed for laramie river on another expedition while on the south fork of the platte two of the party deserted
taking with them three of their best animals suspecting their design gaunt sent kit carson and another man in pursuit of the fugitives who had one day the start as was suspected the two deserters had gone to the camp where the beaver fur was concealed and buried they had succeeded in digging it up
and stealing about three hundred pounds of this valuable property belonging to the company in general share and share alike carson and his companion failed entirely in their efforts to find the two men
doubtless they never lived to enjoy their ill gotten wealth for notwithstanding careful search was made the men were never heard from afterwards it is probable that they were killed by indians a fate which they at least richly merited this old camp the reader will please bear in mind was on the arkansas river
as has also been seen they were unsuccessful it now remained for them to determine their future course the country was so infested with hostile indians that it made their position thus alone very precarious to regain their commander's company was almost impracticable
at least without a more important object to make the risk necessary it was a foolhardy attempt time in learning the loss was of no great importance either to their leader or their party sooner or later this as a matter of course would be fully shown
and to this end immediately arranged everything so that they could make a successful defence in case they should be attacked by the savages they did not dare to venture out far from their fortifications but this was no great trial to them as game existed in great plenty and came very near their fortifications
while one slept the other stood on guard it was their intention to await the return of their party but at the expiration of one month they were quite happily relieved from their perilous position mister blackwell mister gaunt's partner arrived from the united states
he was accompanied by fifteen men and brought with him a complete outfit for the entire band
they were also made quite happy in obtaining the articles of outfit which would render their wild life more agreeable and easy shortly after this arrival four men from the trapping party came into camp and brought the news as to the whereabouts of gaunt and his men
they were overjoyed at finding kit and his comrade
and finally had given up all hopes of ever seeing them again
these springs form the head waters of the south fork of the river platte when four days journey had been accomplished and while they were partaking of their breakfast in camp an alarm of indians was given by one of the men
he had accidentally discovered the red skin rascals as they were prowling about the camp a rush was instantly made by the trappers with rifles in hand to save their horses shots were fired and one indian fell
the rest of the band made off as empty handed as they came with one exception one brave had succeeded in capturing and mounting a horse before the white men could reach him notwithstanding he had a dead brother lying on the ground
at least without a proper introduction on the contrary he galloped off seemingly quite proud of his trophy had it not been that the trappers had taken the precaution to hobble their horses before turning them out to graze
these stampedes are a source of great profit to the indians of the plains
the camanches are particularly expert and daring in this kind of robbery
when a camp is made which is nearly in range they turn their trained animals loose who at once fly across the plain penetrating and passing through the camp of their victims all of the picketed animals will endeavor to follow and usually succeed in following the trained horses
such are invariably led into the haunts of the thieves who easily secure them young horses and mules are easily frightened and in the havoc which generally ensues oftentimes great injury is done to the runaways themselves
the sight of a stampede on a grand scale requires steady nerves to witness without tremor and woe to the footman who cannot get out of the way when the frightened animals come along at times when the herd is very large the horses scatter over the open country and are irrecoverably lost
and such as do not become wild fall a prey to the ravenous wolves such most frequently is the fate of stampeded horses which have been bred in the states not being trained by a prairie life experience to take care of themselves
the bishop works the next morning at sunrise monseigneur bienvenu was strolling in his garden
does your grace know where the basket of silver is yes replied the bishop
i did not know what had become of it the bishop had just picked up the basket in a flower bed he presented it
here it is
ah returned the bishop so it is the silver which troubles you i don't know where it is great good god
in a twinkling with all the vivacity of an alert old woman
entered the alcove and returned to the bishop the bishop had just bent down and was sighing
which the basket had broken as it fell across the bed he rose up at madame magloire's cry
the silver has been stolen as she uttered this exclamation her eyes fell upon a corner of the garden where traces of the wall having been scaled were visible the coping of the wall had been torn away
the bishop remained silent for a moment then he raised his grave eyes
and in the first place was that silver ours
another silence ensued then the bishop went on
i have for a long time detained that silver wrongfully it belonged to the poor who was that man a poor man evidently
ah come are there no such things as pewter forks and spoons madame magloire shrugged her shoulders pewter has an odor iron forks and spoons then
iron has a taste very well said the bishop wooden ones then
at which jean valjean had sat on the previous evening
was grumbling under her breath that one really does not need either fork or spoon even of wood in order to dip a bit of bread in a cup of milk
and how fortunate that he did nothing but steal ah
it makes one shudder to think of it as the brother and sister were about to rise from the table there came a knock at the door come in said the bishop the door opened
a singular and violent group made its appearance on the threshold three men were holding a fourth man by the collar the three men were gendarmes the other was jean valjean
a brigadier of gendarmes who seemed to be in command of the group was standing near the door he entered and advanced to the bishop making a military salute monseigneur said he
at this word jean valjean who was dejected and seemed overwhelmed
with an air of stupefaction monseigneur he murmured so he is not the cure silence said the gendarme he is monseigneur the bishop
in the meantime monseigneur bienvenu had advanced as quickly as his great age permitted ah here you are he exclaimed looking at jean valjean i am glad to see you well
but how is this i gave you the candlesticks too which are of silver like the rest and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs
jean valjean opened his eyes wide and stared at the venerable bishop with an expression which no human tongue can render any account of monseigneur said the brigadier of gendarmes
so what this man said is true then we came across him he was walking like a man who is running away we stopped him to look into the matter he had this silver and he told you interposed the bishop with a smile
with whom he had passed the night i see how the matter stands and you have brought him back here it is a mistake in that case replied the brigadier we can let him go certainly replied the bishop
the gendarmes released jean valjean who recoiled is it true that i am to be released he said in an almost inarticulate voice and as though he were talking in his sleep
said one of the gendarmes my friend resumed the bishop before you go here are your candlesticks take them he stepped to the chimney piece took the two silver candlesticks and brought them to jean valjean
the two women looked on without uttering a word without a gesture without a look which could disconcert the bishop jean valjean was trembling in every limb
now said the bishop go in peace by the way when you return my friend it is not necessary to pass through the garden you can always enter and depart through the street door
it is never fastened with anything but a latch either by day or by night
you may retire gentlemen the gendarmes retired jean valjean was like a man on the point of fainting the bishop drew near to him and said in a low voice
do not forget never forget that you have promised to use this money in becoming an honest man
belong to evil but to good it is your soul that i buy from you
from the town hall he betook himself to the extremity of the town to a fleming named master scaufflaer french scaufflaire who let out horses and cabriolets as desired
in order to reach this scaufflaire the shortest way was to take the little frequented street in which was situated the parsonage of the parish in which m madeleine resided
the cure was it was said a worthy respectable and sensible man at the moment when m madeleine arrived in front of the parsonage there was but one passer by in the street
and this person noticed this after the mayor had passed the priest's house he halted stood motionless then turned about and retraced his steps to the door of the parsonage which had an iron knocker
he laid his hand quickly on the knocker and lifted it then he paused again and stopped short as though in thought and after the lapse of a few seconds instead of allowing the knocker to fall abruptly
he placed it gently and resumed his way with a sort of haste which had not been apparent previously m madeleine found master scaufflaire at home engaged in stitching a harness over
master scaufflaire he inquired have you a good horse mister mayor said the fleming all my horses are good what do you mean by a good horse
the deuce said the fleming twenty leagues yes
yes and how long can he rest at the end of his journey he must be able to set out again on the next day if necessary to traverse the same road yes the deuce the deuce
and it is twenty leagues m madeleine drew from his pocket the paper on which he had pencilled some figures he showed it to the fleming the figures were five six eight and a half
you see he said total nineteen and a half
mister mayor returned the fleming i have just what you want my little white horse you may have seen him pass occasionally
he is full of fire they wanted to make a saddle horse of him at first bah he reared he kicked he laid everybody flat on the ground he was thought to be vicious and no one knew what to do with him i bought him
that is what he wanted sir he is as gentle as a girl he goes like the wind ah indeed he must not be mounted it does not suit his ideas to be a saddle horse every one has his ambition draw yes
carry no we must suppose that is what he said to himself and he will accomplish the trip your twenty leagues all at a full trot and in less than eight hours but here are the conditions
state them in the first place you will give him half an hour's breathing spell midway of the road he will eat and some one must be by while he is eating to prevent the stable boy of the inn from stealing his oats
some one will be by in the second place is the cabriolet for monsieur le maire yes does monsieur le maire know how to drive yes
well monsieur le maire will travel alone and without baggage in order not to overload the horse agreed but as monsieur le maire will have no one with him he will be obliged to take the trouble himself
of seeing that the oats are not stolen that is understood i am to have thirty francs a day the days of rest to be paid for also not a farthing less and the beast's food to be at monsieur le maire's expense
m madeleine drew three napoleons from his purse and laid them on the table here is the pay for two days in advance fourthly for such a journey a cabriolet would be too heavy
and would fatigue the horse monsieur le maire must consent to travel in a little tilbury that i own i consent to that it is light but it has no cover that makes no difference to me
has monsieur le maire reflected that we are in the middle of winter m madeleine did not reply the fleming resumed that it is very cold m madeleine preserved silence
master scaufflaire continued that it may rain m madeleine raised his head and said the tilbury and the horse will be in front of my door to morrow morning at half past four o'clock
of course monsieur le maire replied scaufflaire then scratching a speck in the wood of the table with his thumb nail he resumed with that careless air which the flemings understand so well how to mingle with their shrewdness
monsieur le maire has not told me where he is going where is monsieur le maire going he had been thinking of nothing else since the beginning of the conversation but he did not know why he had not dared to put the question
are your horse's forelegs good said m madeleine yes monsieur le maire
are there many descends between here and the place whither you are going do not forget to be at my door at precisely half past four o'clock to morrow morning replied m madeleine and he took his departure
the fleming remained utterly stupid as he himself said some time afterwards the mayor had been gone two or three minutes when the door opened again it was the mayor once more
he still wore the same impassive and preoccupied air monsieur scaufflaire said he
the one bearing the other the one dragging the other monsieur le maire said the fleming with a broad smile so be it well does monsieur le maire wish to purchase them or me no
but i wish to guarantee you in any case you shall give me back the sum at my return at what value do you estimate your horse and cabriolet five hundred francs monsieur le maire
here it is m madeleine laid a bank bill on the table then left the room and this time he did not return master scaufflaire experienced a frightful regret that he had not said a thousand francs
the fleming called his wife and related the affair to her where the devil could monsieur le maire be going
said the wife i don't believe it said the husband m madeleine had forgotten the paper with the figures on it and it lay on the chimney piece the fleming picked it up and studied it five six
eight and a half that must designate the posting relays he turned to his wife i have found out what it is five leagues from here to hesdin
meanwhile m madeleine had returned home he had taken the longest way to return from master scaufflaire's as though the parsonage door had been a temptation for him
he ascended to his room and there he shut himself up which was a very simple act
nevertheless the portress of the factory who was at the same time m madeleine's only servant noticed that the latter's light was extinguished at half past eight and she mentioned it to the cashier when he came home adding
is monsieur le maire ill i thought he had a rather singular air this cashier occupied a room situated directly under m madeleine's chamber he paid no heed to the portress's words but went to bed and to sleep
in his sleep he had heard a noise above his head he listened it was a footstep pacing back and forth as though some one were walking in the room above him he listened more attentively
and recognized m madeleine's step this struck him as strange usually there was no noise in m madeleine's chamber until he rose in the morning a moment later the cashier heard a noise which resembled that of a cupboard being opened
and then shut again then a piece of furniture was disarranged then a pause ensued then the step began again the cashier sat up in bed quite awake now and staring and through his window panes he saw the reddish gleam
of a lighted window reflected on the opposite wall from the direction of the rays it could only come from the window of m madeleine's chamber the reflection wavered as though it came rather from a fire which had been lighted than from a candle
the shadow of the window frame was not shown which indicated that the window was wide open the fact that this window was open in such cold weather was surprising the cashier fell asleep again
an hour or two later he waked again the same step was still passing slowly and regularly back and forth overhead the reflection was still visible on the wall but now it was pale and peaceful like the reflection of a lamp
or of a candle the window was still open
what he does jean valjean listened not a sound he gave the door a push he pushed it gently with the tip of his finger
lightly with the furtive and uneasy gentleness of a cat which is desirous of entering the door yielded to this pressure and made an imperceptible and silent movement which enlarged the opening a little
he waited a moment then gave the door a second and a bolder push it continued to yield in silence the opening was now large enough to allow him to pass
but near the door there stood a little table which formed an embarrassing angle with it and barred the entrance jean valjean recognized the difficulty
it was necessary at any cost to enlarge the aperture still further he decided on his course of action and gave the door a third push more energetic than the two preceding
this time a badly oiled hinge suddenly emitted amid the silence a hoarse and prolonged cry jean valjean shuddered the noise of the hinge rang in his ears with something of the piercing and formidable sound
in the fantastic exaggerations of the first moment he almost imagined that that hinge had just become animated and had suddenly assumed a terrible life
and that it was barking like a dog to arouse every one and warn and to wake those who were asleep he halted shuddering bewildered and fell back from the tips of his toes upon his heels
he heard the arteries in his temples beating like two forge hammers and it seemed to him that his breath issued from his breast with the roar of the wind issuing from a cavern it seemed impossible to him that the horrible clamor
of that irritated hinge should not have disturbed the entire household like the shock of an earthquake the door pushed by him had taken the alarm and had shouted the old man would rise at once the two old women would shriek out
people would come to their assistance in less than a quarter of an hour the town would be in an uproar and the gendarmerie on hand for a moment he thought himself lost
he remained where he was petrified like the statue of salt not daring to make a movement several minutes elapsed the door had fallen wide open he ventured to peep into the next room
nothing had stirred there he lent an ear nothing was moving in the house the noise made by the rusty hinge had not awakened any one
this first danger was past but there still reigned a frightful tumult within him nevertheless he did not retreat even when he had thought himself lost he had not drawn back
his only thought now was to finish as soon as possible he took a step and entered the room this room was in a state of perfect calm
here and there vague and confused forms were distinguishable which in the daylight were papers scattered on a table open folios volumes piled upon a stool an arm chair heaped with clothing
and which at that hour were only shadowy corners and whitish spots jean valjean advanced with precaution taking care not to knock against the furniture
he could hear at the extremity of the room the even and tranquil breathing of the sleeping bishop he suddenly came to a halt he was near the bed
he had arrived there sooner than he had thought for nature sometimes mingles her effects and her spectacles with our actions with sombre and intelligent appropriateness
as though she desired to make us reflect for the last half hour a large cloud had covered the heavens
this cloud parted as though on purpose and a ray of light traversing the long window suddenly illuminated the bishop's pale face he was sleeping peacefully
he lay in his bed almost completely dressed on account of the cold of the basses alps in a garment of brown wool
his head was thrown back on the pillow in the careless attitude of repose his hand adorned with the pastoral ring and whence had fallen so many good deeds and so many holy actions was hanging over the edge of the bed
his whole face was illumined with a vague expression of satisfaction of hope and of felicity it was more than a smile and almost a radiance
he bore upon his brow the indescribable reflection of a light which was invisible the soul of the just contemplates in sleep a mysterious heaven
a reflection of that heaven rested on the bishop it was at the same time a luminous transparency
that slumbering nature that garden without a quiver that house which was so calm the hour the moment the silence added some solemn and unspeakable quality to the venerable repose of this man
and enveloped in a sort of serene and majestic
those closed eyes that face in which all was hope and all was confidence that head of an old man and that slumber of an infant
there was something almost divine in this man who was thus august without being himself aware of it jean valjean was in the shadow and stood motionless
with his iron candlestick in his hand frightened by this luminous old man never had he beheld anything like this this confidence terrified him the moral world has no
grander spectacle than this a troubled and uneasy conscience which has arrived on the brink of an evil action contemplating the slumber of the just that slumber in that isolation
and with a neighbor like himself had about it something sublime of which he was vaguely but imperiously conscious no one could have told what was passing within him not even himself
in order to attempt to form an idea of it it is necessary to think of the most violent of things in the presence of the most gentle even on his visage it would have been impossible to distinguish anything with certainty
it was a sort of haggard astonishment he gazed at it and that was all but what was his thought it would have been impossible to divine it what was evident was
and astounded but what was the nature of this emotion his eye never quitted the old man the only thing which was clearly to be inferred from his attitude
was a strange indecision one would have said that he was hesitating between the two abysses the one in which one loses one's self and that in which one saves one's self
he seemed prepared to crush that skull
at the expiration of a few minutes his left arm rose slowly towards his brow and he took off his cap then his arm fell back with the same deliberation and jean valjean fell
to meditating once more his cap in his left hand his club in his right hand his hair bristling all over his savage head the bishop continued to sleep in profound peace
beneath that terrifying gaze the gleam of the moon rendered confusedly visible the crucifix over the chimney piece which seemed to be extending its arms to both of them with a benediction for one
and pardon for the other suddenly jean valjean replaced his cap on his brow then stepped rapidly past the bed
straight to the cupboard which he saw near the head he raised his iron candlestick as though to force the lock the key was there he opened it the first thing which presented itself to him was the basket of silverware
they being ideas of general concernment that have something very abstruse and peculiar in their nature the comparing them one with another may perhaps be of use for their illustration and we may have the more clear and distinct conception of them by taking a view of them together
distance or space in its simple abstract conception to avoid confusion i call expansion to distinguish it from extension which by some is used to express this distance only as it is in the solid parts of matter and so includes or at least
as has been said repeat that idea and so adding it to the former enlarge its idea of length and make it equal to two spans or two paces and so as often as it will till it equals the distance of any parts of the earth one from another
and increase thus till it amounts to the distance of the sun or remotest star by such a progression as this setting out from the place where it is or any other place it can proceed and pass beyond all those lengths and find nothing to stop its going on either in or without body
it is true we can easily in our thoughts come to the end of solid extension the extremity and bounds of all body we have no difficulty to arrive at but when the mind is there it finds nothing to hinder its progress into this endless expansion
nor duration by motion just so is it in duration
and sticks not to ascribe infinity to duration but it is with more doubting and reserve that many admit or suppose the infinity of space the reason whereof seems to me to be this
that duration and extension being used as names of affections belonging to other beings we easily conceive in god infinite duration and we cannot avoid doing so but not attributing to him extension but only to matter which is finite
we are apter to doubt of the existence of expansion without matter of which alone we commonly suppose it an attribute and therefore when men pursue their thoughts of space they are apt to stop at the confines of body as if space were there at an end too
one may have occasion to think by the name duration that the continuation of existence with a kind of resistance to any destructive force and the continuation of solidity which is apt to be confounded with and if we will look into the minute anatomical parts of matter is little different from hardness
but be that as it will this is certain that whoever pursues his own thoughts will find them sometimes launch out beyond the extent of body into the infinity of space or expansion
the idea whereof is distinct and separate from body and all other things which may to those who please be a subject of further meditation five time to duration is as place to expansion time in general is to duration as place to expansion
they are so much of those boundless oceans of eternity and immensity as is set out and distinguished from the rest as it were by landmarks and so are made use of to denote the position of finite real beings in respect one to another
from such points fixed in sensible beings we reckon and from them we measure our portions of those infinite quantities which so considered are that which we call time and place
six time and place are taken for so much of either as are set out by the existence and motion of bodies time and place taken thus for determinate distinguishable portions of those infinite abysses of space and duration
and in this sense time begins and ends with the frame of this sensible world as in these phrases before mentioned before all time or when time shall be no more
place likewise is taken sometimes for that portion of infinite space which is possessed by and comprehended within the material world and is thereby distinguished from the rest of expansion though this may be more properly called extension than place
seven sometimes for so much of either as we design by measures taken from the bulk or motion of bodies secondly sometimes the word time is used in a larger sense and is applied to parts of that infinite duration
not that were really distinguished and measured out by this real existence and periodical motions of bodies that were appointed from the beginning to be for signs and for seasons and for days and years and are accordingly our measures of time
but such other portions too of that infinite uniform duration which we upon any occasion do suppose equal to certain lengths of measured time and so consider them as bounded and determined for if we should suppose the creation or fall of the angels was at the beginning of the julian period
whereby we would mark out so much of that undistinguished duration as we suppose equal to and would have admitted
and thus likewise we sometimes speak of place distance or bulk in the great inane beyond the confines of the world when we consider so much of that space as is equal to or capable to receive a body of any assigned dimensions as a cubic foot or do suppose a point in it
and are by us always reckoned from some known parts of this sensible world and from some certain epochs marked out to us by the motions observable in it
in the boundless invariable oceans of duration and expansion which comprehend in them all finite beings and in their full extent belong only to the deity and therefore we are not to wonder that we comprehend them not
but when applied to any particular finite beings the extension of any body is so much of that infinite space as the bulk of the body takes up and place is the position of any body when considered at a certain distance from some other as the idea of the particular duration of anything is
one shows the distance of the extremities of the bulk or existence of the same thing as that it is a foot square or lasted two years the other shows the distance of it in place or existence from other fixed points of space or duration
come to so small a part of extension or duration as excluded divisibility that would be as it were the indivisible unit or idea by repetition of which it would make its more enlarged ideas of extension and duration
instead thereof it makes use of the common measures which by familiar use in each country have imprinted themselves on the memory as inches and feet or cubits and parasangs and so seconds minutes hours days and years in duration
on the other side the ordinary smallest measure we have of either is looked on as an unit in number when the mind by division would reduce them into less fractions though on both sides both in addition and division either of space or duration when the idea under consideration becomes very big or very small
as the simple ideas of that kind out of which our complex modes of space extension and duration are made up and into which they can again be distinctly resolved such a small part in duration may be called a moment
in the train of their ordinary succession there the other wanting a proper name i know not whether i may be allowed to call a sensible point meaning thereby the least particle of matter or space we can discern which is ordinarily about a minute
but duration is but as it were the length of one straight line extended in infinitum not capable of multiplicity variation or figure but is one common measure of all existence whatsoever wherein all things whilst they exist equally partake
for this present moment is common to all things that are now in being and equally comprehends that part of their existence as much as if they were all but one single being and we may truly say they all exist in the same moment of time
with a perfect negation of all manner of expansion as it is to have the idea of any real existence with a perfect negation of all manner of duration and therefore what spirits have to do with space or how they communicate in it we know not
duration and time which is a part of it is the idea we have of perishing distance of which no two parts exist together but follow each other in succession
and therefore though we cannot conceive any duration without succession nor can put it together in our thoughts that any being does now exist to morrow or possess at once more than the present moment of duration yet we can conceive the eternal duration of the almighty far different from that of man
or any other finite being because man comprehends not in his knowledge or power all past and future things his thoughts are but of yesterday and he knows not what to morrow will bring forth what is once past he can never recal and what is yet to come he cannot make present
what i say of man i say of all finite beings who though they may far exceed man in knowledge and power yet are no more than the meanest creature in comparison with god himself finite or
might perhaps persuade one that time which reveals all other things is itself not to be discovered duration time and eternity are not without reason thought to have something very abstruse in their nature
will be able to furnish us with these ideas as clear and distinct as many others which are thought much less obscure and we shall find that the idea of eternity itself is derived from the same common original with the rest of our ideas three nature and origin
of the idea of duration to understand time and eternity aright we ought with attention to consider what idea it is we have of duration and how we came by it it is evident to any one who will but observe what passes in his own mind
that there is a train of ideas which constantly succeed one another in his understanding as long as he is awake reflection on these appearances of several ideas one after another in our minds is that which furnishes us with the idea of succession
and the distance between any parts of that succession or between the appearance of any two ideas in our minds is that we call duration
we know that we do exist and so we call the existence or the continuation of the existence of ourselves or anything else commensurate to the succession of any ideas in our minds the duration of ourselves or any such other thing co existent with our thinking
in that we have no perception of duration but by considering the train of ideas that take their turns in our understandings when that succession of ideas ceases our perception of duration ceases with it which every one clearly experiments in himself whilst he sleeps soundly
of which duration of things while he sleeps or thinks not he has no perception at all but it is quite lost to him and the moment wherein he leaves off to think till the moment he begins to think again seems to him to have no distance and so i doubt not
than it is but if sleep commonly unites the distant parts of duration it is because during that time we have no succession of ideas in our minds for if a man during his sleep dreams and variety of ideas make themselves perceptible in his mind
one after another he hath then during such dreaming a sense of duration and of the length of it by which it is to me very clear that men derive their ideas of duration from their reflections on the train of the ideas they observe to succeed one another in their own understandings
indeed a man having from reflecting on the succession and number of his own thoughts got the notion or idea of duration he can apply that notion to things which exist while he does not think
as he that has got the idea of extension from bodies by his sight or touch can apply it to distances where no body is seen or felt and therefore though a man has no perception of the length of duration which passed whilst he slept or thought not
yet having observed the revolution of days and nights and found the length of their duration to be in appearance regular and constant he can upon the supposition that that revolution has proceeded after the same manner whilst he was asleep or thought not
we get the notion of succession which if any one should think we did rather get from our observation of motion by our senses he will perhaps be of my mind when he considers that even motion produces in his mind an idea of succession
no otherwise than as it produces there a continued train of distinguishable ideas for a man looking upon a body really moving perceives yet no motion at all unless that motion produces a constant train of successive ideas v g a man becalmed at sea out of sight of land
as soon as this motion produces any new idea in him then he perceives that there has been motion but wherever a man is with all things at rest about him without perceiving any motion at all if during this hour of quiet he has been thinking
he will perceive the various ideas of his own thoughts in his own mind appearing one after another and thereby observe and find succession where he could observe no motion seven very slow motions unperceived
and this i think is the reason why motions very slow though they are constant are not perceived by us because in their remove from one sensible part towards another their change of distance is so slow that it causes no new ideas in us but a good while one after another
eight very swift motions unperceived on the contrary things that move so swift as not to affect the senses distinctly with several distinguishable distances of their motion and so cause not any train of ideas in the mind are not also perceived
nine the train of ideas has a certain degree of quickness hence i leave it to others to judge whether it be not probable that our ideas do whilst we are awake succeed one another in our minds at certain distances
not much unlike the images in the inside of a lantern turned round by the heat of a candle this appearance of theirs in train though perhaps it may be sometimes faster and sometimes slower yet i guess varies not very much in a waking man
there seem to be certain bounds to the quickness and slowness of the succession of those ideas one to another in our minds beyond which they can neither delay nor hasten ten real succession in swift motions without sense of succession
it is also evident that it must touch one part of the flesh first and another after and so in succession and yet i believe nobody who ever felt the pain of such a shot or heard the blow against the two distant walls could perceive any succession either in the pain or sound of so swift a stroke
such a part of duration as this wherein we perceive no succession is that which we call an instant and is that which takes up the time of only one idea in our minds without the succession of another wherein therefore we perceive no succession at all eleven in slow motions
this also happens where the motion is so slow as not to supply a constant train of fresh ideas to the senses as fast as the mind is capable of receiving new ones into it and so other ideas of our own thoughts having room to come into our minds between those offered to our senses by the moving body
that it hath moved yet the motion itself we perceive not twelve this train the measure of other successions so that to me it seems that the constant and regular succession of ideas in a waking man is as it were the measure and standard of all other successions
in their succession the duration of but one idea or else where any motion or succession is so slow
as when any one or more ideas in their ordinary course come into our mind between those which are offered to the sight by the different perceptible distances of a body in motion or between sounds or smells following one another
if it be so that the ideas of our minds whilst we have any there do constantly change and shift in a continual succession it would be impossible may any one say for a man to think long of any one thing
and i would have any one try whether he can keep one unvaried single idea in his mind without any other for any considerable time together fourteen proof
i think he cannot though he may commonly choose whether he will heedfully observe and consider them sixteen ideas however made include no sense of motion whether these several ideas in a man's mind be made by certain motions
i will not here dispute but this i am sure that they include no idea of motion in their appearance and if a man had not the idea of motion otherwise i think he would have none at all which is enough to my present purpose and sufficiently shows
is that which gives us the idea of succession and duration without which we should have no such ideas at all it is not then motion but the constant train of ideas in our minds whilst we are waking that furnishes us with the idea of duration
of any motion as by the train of ideas caused by the uninterrupted sensible change of distance between two bodies which we have from motion
whereby it might judge of its different lengths and consider the distinct order wherein several things exist
this consideration of duration as set out by certain periods and marked by certain measures or epochs is that i think which most properly we call time eighteen a good measure of time must divide its whole duration into equal periods
nothing then could serve well for a convenient measure of time but what has divided the whole length of its duration into apparently equal portions by constantly repeated periods what portions of duration are not distinguished or considered as distinguished and measured
by such periods come not so properly under the notion of time
before all time and when time shall be no more nineteen the revolutions of the sun and moon the properest measures of time for mankind
but the distinction of days and years having depended on the motion of the sun it has brought this mistake with it that it has been thought that motion and duration were the measure one of another
all which portions of time were measured out by the motion of those heavenly bodies
as the motions of the sun and in effect we see that some people in america counted their years by the coming of certain birds amongst them at their certain seasons and leaving them at others for a fit of an ague the sense of hunger or thirst a smell or a taste
or any other idea returning constantly at equidistant periods and making itself universally be taken notice of would not fail to measure out the course of succession and distinguish the distances of time
or many other people whose years notwithstanding the motion of the sun which they pretended to make use of are very irregular and it adds no small difficulty to chronology that the exact lengths of the years that several nations counted by are hard to be known
and so equally dispersed its light and heat to all the habitable parts of the earth in days all of the same length without its annual variations to the tropics as a late ingenious author supposes i do not think it very easy to imagine that notwithstanding the motion of the sun
men should in the antediluvian world from the beginning count by years or measure their time by periods that had no sensible mark very obvious to distinguish them by twenty one no two parts of duration can be certainly known to be equal
but perhaps it will be said without a regular motion such as of the sun or some other how could it ever be known that such periods were equal to which i answer the equality of any other returning appearances might be known by the same way
by which train of ideas discovering inequality in the natural days but none in the artificial days
we must therefore carefully distinguish betwixt duration itself
duration in itself is to be considered as going on in one constant equal uniform course but none of the measures of it which we make use of can be known to do so nor can we be assured that their assigned parts or periods are equal in duration one to another
for two successive lengths of duration however measured can never be demonstrated to be equal the motion of the sun which the world used so long and so confidently for an exact measure of duration has as i said been found in its several parts unequal
and though men have of late made use of a pendulum as a more steady and regular motion than that of the sun or to speak more truly of the earth yet if any one should be asked how he certainly knows that the two successive swings of a pendulum are equal
it would be very hard to satisfy him that they are infallibly so since we cannot be sure that the cause of that motion which is unknown to us shall always operate equally and we are sure that the medium in which the pendulum moves is not constantly the same
all that we can do for a measure of time is to take such as have continual successive appearances at seemingly equidistant periods of which seeming equality we have no other measure
but such as the train of our own ideas have lodged in our memories with the concurrence of other probable reasons to persuade us of their equality twenty two time not the measure of motion
by any one who will estimate or measure motion so as to judge right of it nor indeed does motion any otherwise conduce to the measuring of duration than as it constantly brings about the return of certain sensible ideas in seeming equidistant periods for if the motion of the sun
marked out in any matter are to extension for though we in this part of the universe by the constant use of them as of periods set out by the revolutions of the sun or as known parts of such periods have fixed the ideas of such lengths of duration in our minds
which we apply to all parts of time whose lengths we would consider yet there may be other parts of the universe where they no more use these measures of ours than in japan they do our inches feet or miles but yet something analogous to them there must be for without some regular periodical returns
we could not measure ourselves or signify to others the length of any duration though at the same time the world were as full of motion as it is now but no part of it disposed into regular and apparently equidistant revolutions but the different measures that may be made use of for the account of time
it is altogether as intelligible as reckoning from the beginning of the world though there were so far back no motion of the sun nor any motion at all for though the julian period be supposed to begin several hundred years before there were really either days nights or years marked out by any revolutions of the sun
is as easily applicable in our thoughts to duration where no sun or motion was as the idea of a foot or yard taken from bodies here can be applied in our thoughts to duration where no sun or motion was
where are no bodies at all twenty five as we can measure space in our thoughts where there is no body for supposing it were
being finite it must be at a certain distance as we suppose it to be
we can in our thoughts apply this measure of a year to duration before the creation or beyond the duration of bodies or motion as we can this measure of a mile to space beyond the utmost bodies
twenty six the assumption that the world is neither boundless nor eternal
but it being at least as conceivable as the contrary i have certainly the liberty to suppose it as well as any one hath to suppose the contrary and i doubt not but that every one that will go about it may easily conceive in his mind the beginning of motion though not of all
duration and so may come to a step and non ultra in his consideration of motion so also in his thoughts he may set limits to body and the extension belonging to it but not to space where no body is the utmost bounds of space and duration being beyond the reach of thought as well as the utmost bounds of number
are beyond the largest comprehension of the mind and all for the same reason as we shall see in another place twenty seven eternity by the same means therefore and from the same original that we come to have the idea of time
by reflecting on the train of our own ideas caused in us either by the natural appearances of those ideas coming constantly of themselves into our waking thoughts or else caused by external objects successively affecting our senses and having from the revolutions of the sun
and apply thus the length of the annual motion of the sun to duration supposed before the sun's or any other motion had its being which is no more difficult or absurd than to apply the notion i have of the moving of a shadow one hour to day upon the sun dial to the duration of something last night
and it is as impossible for the duration of that flame for an hour last night to co exist with any motion that now is or for ever shall be as for any part of duration that was before the beginning of the world to co exist with the motion of the sun now but yet this hinders not but that
having the idea of the length of the motion of the shadow on a dial between the marks of two hours i can as distinctly measure in my thoughts the duration of that candle light last night as i can the duration of anything that does now exist
reflection i can with the same ease and for the same reason apply it in my thoughts to duration antecedent to all manner of motion as well as to anything that is but a minute or a day antecedent to the motion that at this very moment the sun is in
or any other periods of revolution but the having a clear idea of the length of some periodical known motion or other interval of duration in my mind and applying that to the duration of the thing i would measure twenty nine the duration of anything need not be co existent with the motion we measure it by
yet i can equally imagine it with them
should be co existent to the motion we measure by or any other periodical revolution but it suffices to this purpose that we have the idea of the length of any regular periodical appearances which we can in our minds apply to duration with which the motion or appearance never co existed
thirty infinity in duration for as in the history of the creation delivered by moses i can imagine that light existed three days before the sun was or had any motion barely by thinking that the duration of light before the sun was created was so long as
or any continued motion a minute an hour a day a year or one thousand years for if i can but consider duration equal to one minute before either the being or motion of any body i can add one minute more till i come to sixty
than we have of the infinity of number to which we can add for ever without end thirty one origin of our ideas of duration and of the measures of it and thus i think it is plain
secondly by observing a distance in the parts of this succession we get the idea of duration thirdly by sensation observing certain appearances at certain regular and seeming equidistant periods we get the ideas of certain lengths or measures of duration
in the course of the next day the first of the usual betrothal visits were exchanged the new york ritual was precise and inflexible in such matters
to call on missus welland after which he and missus welland and may drove out to old missus manson mingott's to receive that venerable ancestress's blessing a visit to missus manson mingott
was always an amusing episode to the young man the house in itself was already an historic document though not of course as venerable as certain other old family houses in university place and lower fifth avenue
those were of the purest eighteen thirty with a grim harmony of cabbage rose garlanded carpets rosewood consoles round arched fire places
and immense glazed book cases of mahogany whereas old missus mingott who had built her house later had bodily cast out the massive furniture of her prime and mingled with the mingott heirlooms
the frivolous upholstery of the second empire
as if watching calmly for life and fashion to flow northward to her solitary doors she seemed in no hurry to have them come for her patience was equalled by her confidence she was sure that
presently the hoardings the quarries the one story saloons the wooden green houses in ragged gardens and the rocks from which goats surveyed the scene
as stately as her own perhaps for she was an impartial woman even statelier and that the cobble stones over which the old clattering omnibuses bumped would be replaced by smooth asphalt
such as people reported having seen in paris meanwhile as every one she cared to see came to her and she could fill her rooms as easily as the beauforts and without adding a
single item to the menu of her suppers she did not suffer from her geographic isolation the immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city
with two tiny white hands poised like gulls on the surface of the billows the burden of missus manson mingott's flesh had long since made it impossible for her to go up and down stairs
and with characteristic independence she had made her reception rooms upstairs and established herself in flagrant violation of all the new york proprieties on the ground floor of her house
upholstered like a sofa and a toilet table with frivolous lace flounces and a gilt framed mirror her visitors were startled and fascinated by the foreignness of this arrangement
which recalled scenes in french fiction and architectural incentives to immorality such as the simple american had never dreamed of that was how women with lovers lived in the wicked old societies
to picture her blameless life led in the stage setting of adultery but he said to himself with considerable admiration that if a lover had been what she wanted the intrepid woman would have had him too
which on a day of such glaring sunlight and at the shopping hour seemed in itself an indelicate thing for a compromised woman to do but at any rate it spared them the embarrassment of her presence
being long foreseen by watchful relatives had been carefully passed upon in family council and the engagement ring a large thick sapphire set in invisible claws met with her unqualified admiration
old fashioned eyes i hope you don't mean mine my dear i like all the novelties said the ancestress lifting the stone to her small bright orbs which no glasses had ever disfigured
very handsome she added returning the jewel very liberal in my time a cameo set in pearls was thought sufficient but it's the hand that sets off the ring isn't it my dear mister archer
and she waved one of her tiny hands with small pointed nails and rolls of aged fat encircling the wrist like ivory bracelets mine was modelled in rome by the great ferrigiani
you should have may's done no doubt he'll have it done my child her hand is large it's these modern sports that spread the joints but the skin is white and when's the wedding to be she broke off fixing her eyes on archer's face
oh missus welland murmured while the young man smiling at his betrothed replied as soon as ever it can if only you'll back me up missus mingott we must give them time to get to know each other a little better mamma
missus welland interposed with the proper affectation of reluctance to which the ancestress rejoined know each other fiddlesticks everybody in new york has always known everybody
don't wait till the bubble's off the wine marry them before lent i may catch pneumonia any winter now and i want to give the wedding breakfast these successive statements were received
with the proper expressions of amusement incredulity and gratitude and the visit was breaking up in a vein of mild pleasantry when the door opened to admit the countess olenska who entered in bonnet and mantle
i met the countess ellen in madison square and she was good enough to let me walk home with her ah i hope the house will be gayer now that ellen's here cried missus mingott with a glorious effrontery sit down sit down beaufort push up the yellow armchair
now i've got you i want a good gossip i hear your ball was magnificent and i understand you invited missus lemuel struthers well i've a curiosity to see the woman myself she had forgotten her relatives
to lay siege to the tight little citadel of new york of course if you and regina invite her the thing is settled well we need new blood and new money and i hear she's still very good looking
the carnivorous old lady declared in the hall while missus welland and may drew on their furs archer saw that the countess olenska was looking at him with a faintly questioning smile
of course you know already about may and me he said
i had her orders to tell you that we were engaged but i couldn't in that crowd the smile passed from countess olenska's eyes to her lips she looked younger more like the bold brown ellen mingott of his boyhood
of course i know yes and i'm so glad but one doesn't tell such things first in a crowd the ladies were on the threshold and she held out her hand good bye come and see me some day she said still looking at archer
but archer knew that missus welland was thinking it's a mistake for ellen to be seen the very day after her arrival
and the young man himself mentally added and she ought to know that a man who's just engaged doesn't spend his time calling on married women
they never do anything else and in spite of the cosmopolitan views on which he prided himself he thanked heaven that he was a new yorker
they lunched slowly and meditatively with mute intervals between rushes of talk for the spell once broken they had much to say and yet moments when saying became the mere accompaniment
to long duologues of silence archer kept the talk from his own affairs not with conscious intention but because he did not want to miss a word of her history and leaning on the table
she talked to him of the year and a half since they had met she had grown tired of what people called society new york was kind it was almost oppressively hospitable
and so she had decided to try washington where one was supposed to meet more varieties of people and of opinion and on the whole she should probably settle down in washington and make a home there for poor medora
who had worn out the patience of all her other relations just at the time when she most needed looking after and protecting from matrimonial perils but doctor carver aren't you afraid of doctor carver
i hear he's been staying with you at the blenkers she smiled oh the carver danger is over doctor carver is a very clever man he wants a rich wife to finance his plans
and medora is simply a good advertisement as a convert a convert to what to all sorts of new and crazy social schemes but do you know they interest me more than the blind conformity to tradition
somebody else's tradition that i see among our own friends it seems stupid to have discovered america only to make it into a copy of another country she smiled across the table
and beaufort do you say these things to beaufort he asked abruptly
but i used to and he understands ah it's what i've always told you you don't like us and you like beaufort because he's so unlike us he looked about the bare room
and out at the bare beach and the row of stark white village houses strung along the shore we're damnably dull
at length she said i believe it's because of you it was impossible to make the confession more dispassionately
or in a tone less encouraging to the vanity of the person addressed archer reddened to the temples but dared not move or speak it was as if her words had been some rare butterfly
she drew together her troubled brows but it seems as if i'd never before understood with how much that is hard and shabby and base
for a long time i've hoped this chance would come that i might tell you how you've helped me what you've made of me archer sat staring beneath frowning brows he interrupted her with a laugh
i'm the man who married one woman because another one told him to her paleness turned to a fugitive flush i thought you promised you were not to say such things today
ah how like a woman none of you will ever see a bad business through she lowered her voice is it a bad business for may
he stood in the window drumming against the raised sash and feeling in every fibre the wistful tenderness with which she had spoken her cousin's name
for that's the thing we've always got to think of haven't we by your own showing she insisted my own showing he echoed his blank eyes still on the sea
or if not she continued pursuing her own thought with a painful application if it's not worth while to have given up to have missed things so that others may be saved from disillusionment and misery
then everything i came home for everything that made my other life seem by contrast so bare and so poor because no one there took account of them all these things are a sham or a dream
he turned around without moving from his place and in that case there's no reason on earth why you shouldn't go back he concluded for her her eyes were clinging to him desperately
it's beyond human enduring that's all oh don't say that when i'm enduring it she burst out her eyes filling her arms had dropped along the table and she sat with her face abandoned to his gaze
overwhelmed by what it suddenly told him you too oh all this time you too
and neither made any show of moving archer was conscious of a curious indifference to her bodily presence he would hardly have been aware of it if one of the hands she had flung out on the table had not drawn his gaze
but still he made no effort to draw nearer he had known the love that is fed on caresses and feeds them
but this passion that was closer than his bones was not to be superficially satisfied his one terror was to do anything which might efface the sound and impression of her words his one thought
that he should never again feel quite alone but after a moment the sense of waste and ruin overcame him there they were close together and safe and shut in
yet so chained to their separate destinies that they might as well have been half the world apart
crying out to her beneath his words she sat motionless with lowered lids oh i shan't go yet not yet
some time then some time that you already foresee
i promise you not as long as you hold out
he dropped into his chair what her answer really said was if you lift a finger you'll drive me back back to all the abominations you know of and all the temptations you half guess
he understood it as clearly as if she had uttered the words and the thought kept him anchored to his side of the table in a kind of moved and sacred submission what a life for you he groaned
and mine a part of yours she nodded and that's to be all for either of us well it is all isn't it
at that he sprang up forgetting everything but the sweetness of her face she rose too not as if to meet him or to flee from him but quietly
not as a check but as a guide to him they fell into his while her arms extended but not rigid kept him far enough off to let her surrendered face say the rest they may have stood in that way for a long time
or only for a few moments but it was long enough for her silence to communicate all she had to say and for him to feel that only one thing mattered he must do nothing
to make this meeting their last he must leave their future in her care asking only that she should keep fast hold of it don't don't be unhappy
i won't go back she said and turning away she opened the door and led the way into the public dining room the strident school teachers
were gathering up their possessions preparatory to a straggling flight to the wharf across the beach lay the white steam boat at the pier and over the sunlit waters boston loomed
missus henry van der luyden listened in silence to her cousin missus archer's narrative it was all very well to tell yourself in advance that missus van der luyden was always silent and that
though non committal by nature and training she was very kind to the people she really liked even personal experience of these facts was not always a protection from the chill that descended on one
and the beautiful old carved frame of gainsborough's lady angelica du lac missus van der luyden's portrait by huntington in black velvet and venetian point
faced that of her lovely ancestress it was generally considered as fine as a cabanel and though twenty years had elapsed since its execution was still a perfect likeness indeed
the missus van der luyden who sat beneath it listening to missus archer might have been the twin sister of the fair and still youngish woman drooping against a gilt armchair before a green rep curtain
missus van der luyden still wore black velvet and venetian point when she went into society or rather since she never dined out when she threw open her own doors to receive it her fair hair
than when the portrait had been painted she always indeed struck newland archer as having been rather gruesomely preserved in the airless atmosphere of a perfectly irreproachable existence as bodies caught in glaciers
than the grimness of some of his mother's old aunts fierce spinsters who said no on principle before they knew what they were going to be asked missus van der luyden's attitude said neither yes nor no
but always appeared to incline to clemency till her thin lips wavering into the shadow of a smile made the almost invariable reply i shall first have to talk this over with my husband
she and mister van der luyden were so exactly alike that archer often wondered how after forty years of the closest conjugality two such merged identities
ever separated themselves enough for anything as controversial as a talking over but as neither had ever reached a decision without prefacing it by this mysterious conclave missus archer and her son
by reaching her long hand toward the bell rope i think she said i should like henry to hear what you have told me a footman appeared to whom she gravely added
presiding at a cabinet meeting not from any arrogance of mind but because the habit of a life time and the attitude of her friends and relations had led her to consider mister van der luyden's least gesture
as having an almost sacerdotal importance her promptness of action showed that she considered the case as pressing as missus archer but lest she should be thought to have committed herself in advance
she added with the sweetest look henry always enjoys seeing you dear adeline and he will wish to congratulate newland the double doors had solemnly reopened
were merely pale grey instead of pale blue mister van der luyden greeted missus archer with cousinly affability proffered to newland low voiced congratulations
couched in the same language as his wife's and seated himself in one of the brocade armchairs with the simplicity of a reigning sovereign i had just finished reading the times he said
i think my uncle egmont used to say he found it less agitating not to read the morning papers till after dinner said missus archer responsively yes my good father abhorred hurry
but now we live in a constant rush said mister van der luyden in measured tones looking with pleasant deliberation about the large shrouded room which to archer was so complete an image of its owners
and proceeded to rehearse once more the monstrous tale of the affront inflicted on missus lovell mingott of course she ended augusta welland and mary mingott both felt that
especially in view of newland's engagement you and henry ought to know ah said mister van der luyden drawing a deep breath there was a silence during which
the tick of the monumental ormolu clock on the white marble mantelpiece grew as loud as the boom of a minute gun archer contemplated with awe
i'm certain of it sir larry has been going it rather harder than usual lately if cousin louisa won't mind my mentioning it
talks at the top of his voice about the impertinence of inviting his wife to meet people he doesn't wish her to know he's simply using madame olenska as a lightning rod i've seen him try the same thing often before the leffertses
we'll hope it has not quite come to that said mister van der luyden firmly ah if only you and louisa went out more sighed missus archer
the van der luydens were morbidly sensitive to any criticism of their secluded existence they were the arbiters of fashion the court of last appeal and they knew it and bowed to their fate
but being shy and retiring persons with no natural inclination for their part they lived as much as possible in the sylvan solitude of skuytercliff and when they came to town declined all invitations
on the plea of missus van der luyden's health newland archer came to his mother's rescue everybody in new york knows what you and cousin louisa represent that's why missus mingott felt
it seems so to me said his wife as if she were producing a new thought i had no idea mister van der luyden continued that things had come to such a pass
he turned toward the young man have you read this morning's times newland why yes sir said archer who usually tossed off half a dozen papers with his morning coffee
husband and wife looked at each other again their pale eyes clung together in prolonged and serious consultation then a faint smile
fluttered over missus van der luyden's face she had evidently guessed and approved mister van der luyden turned to missus archer if louisa's health allowed her to dine out
and also to have a little canvasback shooting at trevenna mister van der luyden paused again and continued with increasing benevolence before taking him down to maryland we are inviting a few friends to meet him here only a little dinner
i am sure louisa will be as glad as i am if countess olenska will let us include her among our guests he got up bent his long body with a stiff friendliness toward his cousin and added
and that evening at the opera mister sillerton jackson was able to state that
inviting the countess olenska to the dinner which the van der luydens were giving the following week for their cousin the duke of saint austrey some of the younger men in the club box exchanged a smile at this announcement
is there any way out in the second chapter of this book i undertook to give an account of the state of mind which the enactment of the eighteenth amendment has created
and which is at the bottom of that contempt for the law whose widespread prevalence among the best elements of our population is acknowledged alike by prohibitionists and anti prohibitionists
people feel in their hearts i said that they are confronted with no other choice but that of either submitting to the full rigor of prohibition of trying to procure a law which nullifies the constitution
or of expressing their resentment against an outrage on the first principles of the constitution by contemptuous disregard of the law it is a deplorable choice of evils
must ask whether there is any practical possibility of escape from it the right means and the only entirely satisfactory means of escape from it is through the undoing of the error which brought it about
that is through the repeal of the eighteenth amendment towards that end many earnest and patriotic citizens are working but of course they realize the stupendous difficulty of the task they have undertaken
as a rule these men while working for the distant goal of repeal of the amendment are seeking to substitute for the volstead act a law which will permit the manufacture and sale of beer and light wines
but it is not pleasant to contemplate a situation in which to avoid something still worse
that amendment imbeds prohibition in the organic law of the country and thus not only imposes it upon the individual states regardless of what their desires may be
now an amendment repealing the eighteenth amendment but at the same time conferring upon congress the power to make laws concerning the manufacture sale and transportation of intoxicating liquors
an incomparably more favorable reception from the start than would a proposal of simple repeal for the public could readily be brought to see the reasonableness of giving the nation a chance through its representatives at washington
to express its will on the subject from time to time and the unreasonableness of binding generation after generation to helpless submission
and it is rarely that that plea rests on stronger ground than it would in this instance the one strong argument which might be urged against the proposal namely that such a provision would make prohibition a constant issue in national elections
the eighteenth amendment has been a frightful breeder of unsettlement and contention which bids fair to continue indefinitely i have offered this suggestion for what it may be worth as a practical proposal
it seems certainly deserving of discussion and i could not refrain from putting it forward as a possible means of relief from an intolerable situation but i do not wish to wind up on that note the right solution
a solution incomparably better than this which i have suggested on account of its apparently better chance of acceptance is the outright repeal of the eighteenth amendment and moreover
the primary need of this moment is not so much any practical proposal likely to be quickly realized as the awakening of the public mind to the fundamental issues of the case the essential principles of law of government
and of individual life which are so flagrantly sinned against by the prohibition amendment to the exposition of those fundamental issues this little book has been almost exclusively confined
what is needed above all is a clear and wholehearted recognition of fundamentals and i do not believe that the american people have got so far away from their fundamentals that such recognition will be denied when the case is clearly put before them
there is one and only one thing that could justify such a violation of liberty and of the cardinal principles of rational government as is embodied in the eighteenth amendment in the face of desperate necessity
there may be justification for the most desperate remedy but so far from this being a case of desperate necessity nothing is more unanimously acknowledged by all except those who labor under an obsession
than that the evil of drink has been steadily diminishing not only during the period of prohibition agitation but for many decades before that drunkenness had been rapidly declining
and both temperate drinking and total abstinence correspondingly increasing it is unnecessary to appeal to statistics the familiar experience of every man whose memory runs back twenty or forty or sixty years
is sufficient to put the case beyond question and every species of literary and historical record confirms the conclusion this violent assault upon liberty this crude defiance of the most settled principles of lawmaking and of government
this division of the country as it has been well expressed into the hunters and the hunted this sowing of dragons teeth in the shape of lawlessness and contempt for law
has not been the dictate of imperious necessity but the indulgence of the crude desire of a highly organized but one idead minority to impose its standards of conduct upon all of the american people
i am not thinking of tobacco or anything of the kind twenty years from now or fifty years from now it may be religion
the time to call a halt is now and the way to call a halt is to win back the ground that has already been lost to do that will be a splendid victory for all that we used to think of as american
for liberty for individuality for the freedom of each man to conduct his own life in his own way so long as he does not violate the rights of others
not kept from mischief to ourselves by a paternal law copper fastened in the constitution not watched like children by a host of guardians and spies and informers
battle of the ironclads flag officer farragut forts jackson and saint philip new orleans captured
farragut at vicksburg farragut's second expedition to vicksburg return to new orleans in addition to its heavy work of maintaining the atlantic blockade
eighteen sixty two after careful preparation during several months a joint expedition under the command of general ambrose e burnside and flag officer goldsborough
before the larger vessels could effect their entrance through hatteras inlet captured in the previous august a furious storm set in which delayed the expedition nearly a month by february seventh however
that and other serious difficulties were overcome and on the following day the expedition captured roanoke island and thus completely opened the whole interior water system of albemarle and pamlico sounds
and the reduction of fort macon and the rebel defenses of elizabeth city new berne and other smaller places an eventual advance upon goldsboro formed part of the original plan
but before it could be executed circumstances intervened effectually to thwart that object while the gradual occupation of the north carolina coast was going on two other expeditions of a similar nature were making steady progress
one of them under the direction of general quincy a gillmore carried on a remarkable siege operation against fort pulaski standing on an isolated sea marsh at the mouth of the savannah river
here not only the difficulties of approach but the apparently insurmountable obstacle of making the soft unctuous mud sustain heavy batteries was overcome and the fort compelled to surrender on april eleventh
after an effective bombardment the second was an expedition of nineteen ships which within a few days during the month of march without serious resistance
the destruction at that time attempted by commodore paulding remained very incomplete among the vessels set on fire the screw frigate merrimac which had been scuttled
was burned only to the water's edge leaving her hull and machinery entirely uninjured in due time she was raised by the confederates covered with a sloping roof of railroad iron
provided with a huge wedge shaped prow of cast iron and armed with a formidable battery of ten guns secret information came to the navy department of the progress of this work
in september eighteen sixty one the particular one of these three especially intended for this peculiar emergency was a ship of entirely novel design made by the celebrated inventor john ericsson
a swede by birth but american by adoption a man who combined great original genius with long scientific study and experience his invention may be most quickly described as having a small very low hull
covered by a much longer and wider flat deck only a foot or two above the water line upon which was placed a revolving iron turret twenty feet in diameter nine feet high and eight inches thick
on the inside of which were two eleven inch guns trained side by side and revolving with the turret this unique naval structure was promptly nicknamed a cheese box on a raft
and the designation was not at all inapt naval experts at once recognized that her sea going qualities were bad but compensation was thought to exist in the belief that her iron turret would resist shot and shell
and it quickly became certain that this was the much talked of rebel ironclad merrimac or as the confederates had renamed her the virginia she steamed rapidly toward newport news three miles to the southwest
where the union ships congress and cumberland lay at anchor these saw the uncouth monster coming and prepared for action the minnesota the saint lawrence and the roanoke lying at fortress monroe also saw her
neither did the broadsides of her intended prey nor the fire of the shore batteries for even an instant arrest her speed as rushing on she struck the cumberland
and with her iron prow broke a hole as large as a hogshead in her side then backing away and hovering over her victim at convenient distance she raked her decks with shot and shell until after three quarters of an hour's combat
who had maintained the fight with unyielding stubbornness went to the bottom in fifty feet of water with colors flying having sunk the cumberland
the merrimac next turned her attention to the congress which had meanwhile run into shoal water and grounded where the rebel vessel could not follow but the merrimac being herself apparently proof against shot and shell by her iron plating
took up a raking position two cables length away and during an hour's firing deliberately reduced the congress to helplessness and to surrender her commander being killed and the vessel set on fire
the approach the manoeuvering and the two successive combats consumed the afternoon and toward nightfall the merrimac and her three small consorts that had taken little part in the action withdrew to the rebel batteries on the virginia shore
that same night while the burning congress yet lighted up the waters of hampton roads a little ship as strange looking and as new to marine warfare as the rebel turtleback herself arrived by sea in tow from new york
and receiving orders to proceed at once to the scene of conflict stationed herself near the grounded minnesota this was ericsson's cheese box on a raft named by him the monitor
the union officers who had witnessed the day's events with dismay and were filled with gloomy forebodings for the morrow while welcoming this providential reinforcement were by no means reassured
the monitor was only half the size of her antagonist and had only two guns to the other's ten but this very disparity proved an essential advantage with only ten feet draft to the merrimac's twenty two
lieutenant john l worden commanding the monitor steamed boldly out to meet her then ensued a three hours naval conflict which held the breathless attention of the active participants and the spectators on ship and shore
and for many weeks excited the wonderment of the reading world if the monitor's solid eleven inch balls bounded without apparent effect from the sloping roof of the merrimac so in turn
the merrimac's broadsides passed harmlessly over the low deck of the monitor or rebounded from the round sides of her iron turret
tried to ram the pointed raft that carried the cheese box
easily glided out of the line of direct impact each ship passed through occasional moments of danger but the long three hours encounter ended without other serious damage than an injury to lieutenant worden
by the explosion of a rebel shell against a crevice of the monitor's pilot house through which he was looking which temporarily blinding his eye sight disabled him from command at that point the battle ended by mutual consent the monitor
ran into shoal water to permit surgical attendance to her wounded officer
yet that in democracy itself there is no inherent opposition to liberty the danger to individual liberty in a democracy
it is equally possible for the governing power on the one hand to respect or on the other hand to ignore the right of individuals to the free play of their individual powers the exercise of their individual predilections
the leading of their individual lives according to their own notions of what is right or desirable a monarch of enlightened and liberal mind will respect that right
and limit his encroachments upon it to the minimum required for the essential objects of reasonable government so too will a democracy if it is of like temper and intelligence but it is not so with socialism
numerous as are the varieties of socialism they all agree in being inherently antagonistic to individualism it may be pleaded in criticism of this assertion
that all government is opposed to individualism that the difference in this respect between socialism and other forms of civil organization is only one of degree that we make a surrender of individuality
as well as of liberty when we consent to live in any organized form of society it is not worth while to dispute the point the difference may if one chooses be regarded as only a difference of degree
equivalent to a difference of kind socialism is in its very essence opposed to individualism it makes the collective welfare not an incidental concern of each man's daily life
but his primary concern the standard it sets up the regulations it establishes are not things that a man must merely take account of as special restraints on his freedom
exceptional limitations on the exercise of his individuality they constitute the basic conditions of his life when the socialist movement was in its infancy in this country
though it had made great headway in several of the leading countries of europe the customary way of disposing of it was with a mere wave of the hand socialism can never work it is contrary to human nature
yet i have no doubt that a very large proportion of those who are opposed to socialism are still content with this way of disposing of it but socialism has steadily though of course with fluctuations
increased in strength in america as well as in europe for many decades and it would be folly to imagine that mere declarations of its being impracticable or contrary to human nature will suffice to check it
millions of men and women here in america ranging in intellect all the way from the most cultured to the most ignorant are filled with an ardent faith that in socialism and in nothing else
is to be found the remedy for all the great evils under which mankind suffers and there is no sign of slackening in the growth of this faith when the time comes for a real test of its strength
it is absurd to suppose that those who are inclined to welcome it as the salvation of the world will be frightened off by prophecies of failure they will want to make the trial
and they will make the trial regardless of all prophecies of disaster if the people shall have come to believe that the object is a desirable one that socialism is a form of life which they would like after they got it
the one great bulwark against socialism is the sentiment of liberty if we find nothing obnoxious in universal regimentation
if we feel that life would have as much savor when all of us were told off to our tasks or at least circumscribed and supervised in our activities by a swarm of officials carrying out the benevolent edicts of a paternal government
if we hold as of no account the exercise of individual choice and the development of individual potentialities which are the very lifeblood of the existing order of society if all these things hold no value for us
then we shall gravitate to socialism as surely as a river will find its way to the sea socialism granted its practicability and its practicability can never be disproved except by trial
by long and repeated trial holds out the promise of great blessings to mankind and some of these blessings it is actually capable of furnishing even if in the end it should prove to be a failure
above all it could completely abolish poverty that is anything like abject poverty the productive power of mankind thanks to the progress of science and invention
is now so great that even if socialism were to bring about a very great decline of productiveness not to be sure such utter blasting of productiveness as has been caused by the bolshevik insanity
by equal distribution the simple needs of all the people besides the abolition of poverty there would be the extinction of many sinister forms of competitive greed and dishonesty to the eye of the thinking conservative
these things poverty greed dishonesty while serious evils are but the blemishes in a great and wholesome scheme of human life drawbacks which go with the benefits of a system in which each man is free
the matter presents itself in no such light he sees a mass of misery which he believes and in large measure justly believes socialism would put an end to and he has no patience with the conservative who points out
and away with it we ought all to say if socialism while doing away with it would not be doing away with something else of infinite value and infinite benefit to mankind both material and spiritual
something with which is bound up the richness and zest of life not only for what it is the fashion of radicals to call the privileged few but for the great mass of mankind that something is liberty
and the individuality which is inseparably bound up with liberty the essence of socialism is the suppression of individuality the exaltation of the collective will and the collective interest
the submergence of the individual will and the individual interest the particular form even the particular degree of coercion by which this submergence is brought about
varies with the different types of socialism but they all agree in the essential fact of the submergence socialism may possibly be compatible with prosperity with contentment it is not compatible with liberty
not compatible with individuality i am of course not undertaking here to discuss the merits of socialism my purpose is only to point out that those who are hostile to socialism must cherish liberty
and it is vain to cherish liberty in the abstract if you are doing your best to dry up the very source of the love of liberty in the concrete workings of every man's daily experience with the plain man indeed with men in general
plain or otherwise love of liberty or of any elemental concept is strong only if it is instinctive
and it cannot be instinctive if it is jarred every day by habitual and unresented experience of its opposite prohibition is a restraint of liberty so clearly unrelated to any primary need of the state
which can claim the justification of being intended for the benefit of the poor or unfortunate so long as prohibition was a local measure so long even as it was a measure of state legislation
this effect did not follow or if at all only in a small degree people did not regard it as a dominant and above all as a paramount and inescapable part of the national life but decreed for the whole nation
and imbedded permanently in the constitution it will have an immeasurable effect in impairing that instinct of liberty which has been the very heart of the american spirit
and with the loss of that spirit will be lost the one great and enduring defense against socialism it is not by the argumentation of economists nor by the calculations of statisticians that the socialist advance can be halted
the real struggle will be a struggle not of the mind but of the spirit it will be socialism and regimentation against individualism and liberty the cause of prohibition has owed its rapid success in no small measure
to the support of great capitalists and industrialists bent upon the absorbing object of productive efficiency but they have paid a price they little realize for in the attainment of this minor object
they have made a tremendous breach in the greatest defense of the existing order of society against the advancing enemy to undermine the foundations of liberty
the dream censor we have learned to know the origin nature and function of the dream from the study of children's dreams dreams are the removal of sleep disturbing psychic stimuli by way of hallucinated satisfaction of adults dreams to be sure
we could explain only one group what we characterized as dreams of an infantile type as to the others we know nothing as yet nor do we understand them for the present however we have obtained a result whose significance we do not wish to under estimate
every time a dream is completely comprehensible to us it proves to be an hallucinated wish fulfillment this coincidence cannot be accidental nor is it an unimportant matter
and that it must first be led back to that content our next task is the investigation and the understanding of this dream distortion dream distortion is the thing which makes the dream seem strange and incomprehensible to us we want to know several things about it
firstly whence it comes its dynamics secondly what it does and finally how it does it we can say at this point that dream distortion is the product of the dream work that is of the mental functioning of which the dream itself is the conscious symptom
let us describe the dream work and trace it back to the forces which work upon it and now i shall ask you to listen to the following dream it was recorded by a lady of our profession and according to her originated with a highly cultivated and respected lady of advanced age
no analysis of this dream was made our informant remarks that to a psychoanalyst it needs no interpretation the dreamer herself did not interpret it but she judged and condemned it as if she understood its interpretation for she said concerning it
that a woman of fifty should dream such abominable stupid stuff a woman who has no other thought day and night than to care for her child and now follows the dreams of the services of love
she stresses the word service so love services since she is an old lady he lets her pass after some hesitation but instead of reaching the chief physician
she finds herself in a large somber room in which there are many officers and army doctors sitting and standing around a long table she turns with her proposal to a staff doctor who after a few words soon understands her the words of her speech in the dream are
i and numerous other women and girls of vienna are ready for the soldiers troops and officers without distinction here in the dream follows a murmuring that the idea is however correctly understood by those present she sees from the semi embarrassed
somewhat malicious expressions of the officers the lady then continues i know that our decision sounds strange but we are in bitter earnest the soldier in the field is not asked either whether or not he wants to die a moment of painful silence follows
the staff doctor puts his arm around her waist and says madame let us assume that it really came to that murmurs she withdraws from his arm with the thought they are all alike and answers my heavens i am an old woman
and perhaps will never be confronted with that situation one consideration moreover must be kept in mind the consideration of age which prevents an older woman from with a very young boy murmurs that would be horrible
the staff doctor i understand perfectly several officers among them one who had paid court to her in her youth
the staff officer nevertheless very politely and respectfully shows her the way to the second story up a very narrow winding iron stairway
in going up she hears an officer say that is a tremendous decision irrespective of whether a woman is young or old all honor to her
this dream she repeats twice in the course of a few weeks with as the lady notices quite insignificant and very senseless changes this dream corresponds in its structure to a day dream it has few gaps
and many of its individual points might have been elucidated as to content through inquiry which as you know was omitted the conspicuous and interesting point for us however is that the dream shows several gaps gaps not of recollection but of original content
in three places the content is apparently obliterated the speeches in which these gaps occur are interrupted by murmurs since we have performed no analysis we have strictly speaking also no right to make any assertion about the meaning of the dream
yet there are intimations given from which something may be concluded for example the phrase services of love and above all the bits of speech which immediately precede the murmurs demand a completion which can have but one meaning
if we interpolate these then the phantasy yields as its content the idea that the dreamer is ready as an act of patriotic duty to offer her person for the satisfaction of the erotic desires of the army
that certainly is exceedingly shocking it is an impudent libidinous phantasy but it does not occur in the dream at all
there is a vague murmur in the manifest dream something is lost or suppressed i hope you will recognize the inevitability of the conclusion that it is the shocking character of these places in the dream that was the motive for their suppression
yet where do you find a parallel for this state of affairs in these times you need not seek far
you know that that is the work of the newspaper censor in these blank spaces something was printed which was not to the liking of the censorship authorities and for that reason it was crossed out
you think that it is a pity that it probably was the most interesting part it was the best part in other places the censorship did not touch the completed sentence the author foresaw what parts might be expected to meet with the objection of the censor
and for that reason he softened them by way of prevention modified them slightly or contented himself with innuendo and allusion to what really wanted to flow from his pen thus the sheet it is true has no blank spaces
but from certain circumlocutions and obscurities of expression you will be able to guess that thoughts of the censorship were the restraining motive now let us keep to this parallel we say that the omitted dream speeches which were disguised by a murmuring
were also sacrifices to a censorship
wherever there are gaps in the manifest dream it is the fault of the dream censor indeed we should go further and recognize each time as a manifestation of the dream censor those places at which a dream element is especially faint indefinitely
and doubtfully recalled among other more clearly delineated portions but it is only rarely that this censorship manifests itself so undisguisedly so naively one may say
far more frequently the censorship manifests itself according to the second type through the production of weakenings innuendoes allusions instead of direct truthfulness
yet it is just this type that i can demonstrate by the only dream example which we have so far analyzed you will remember the dream of the three bad theatre tickets for one florin and a half
in the latent thoughts of this dream the element precipitately too soon stood in the foreground it means it was foolish to marry so early it was also foolish to buy theatre tickets so early
it was ridiculous of the sister in law to spend her money so hastily merely to buy an ornament nothing of this central element of the dream thought was evident in the manifest dream in the latter going to the theatre and getting the tickets were shoved into the foreground
that no one would suspect the latter behind the former this displacement of emphasis is a favorite device of the dream distortion and gives the dream that strangeness which makes the dreamer himself unwilling to recognize it as his own production omission modification
regrouping of the material these then are the effects of the dream censor and the devices of dream distortion the dream censorship itself is the author or one of the authors of the dream distortion whose investigation now occupies us
after these remarks concerning the effects of the dream censor let us now turn to their dynamics i hope you will not consider the expression too anthropomorphically and picture the dream censor as a severe little manikin who lives in a little brain chamber and there performs his duties
nor should you attempt to localize him too much to think of a brain center from which his censoring influence emanates and which would cease with the injury or extirpation of this center for the present the term dream censor is no more than a very convenient phrase for a dynamic relationship
and upon which tendencies it works nor will we be surprised to discover that we have already encountered the dream censor before perhaps without recognizing him for such was actually the case
you will remember that we had a surprising experience when we began to apply our technique of free association we then began to feel that some sort of a resistance blocked our efforts to proceed from the dream element to the unconscious element for which the former is the substitute
this resistance we said may be of varying strength enormous at one time quite negligible at another in the latter case we need cross only a few intermediate steps in our work of interpretation but when the resistance is strong
then we must go through a long chain of associations are taken far afield and must overcome all the difficulties which present themselves as critical objections to the association technique
we must now bring into the dream work as the dream censor the resistance to interpretation is nothing but the objectivation of the dream censor the latter proves to us that the force of the censor has not spent itself in causing the dream distortion
has not since been extinguished but that this censorship continues as a permanent institution with the purpose of preserving the distortion
this question which is fundamental to the understanding of the dream indeed perhaps to human life is easily answered if we look over a series of those dreams which have been analyzed the tendencies which the censorship exercises are those which are recognized by the waking judgment of the dreamer
those with which he feels himself in harmony
you do so with the same motives with which the dream censor works the motives with which it produces the dream distortion and makes the interpretation necessary recall the dream of our fifty year old lady without having interpreted it she considers her dream abominable
would have been still more outraged if our informant had told her anything about the indubitable meaning and it is just on account of this condemnation that the shocking spots in her dream were replaced by a murmur the tendencies however against which the dream censor directs itself
must now be described from the standpoint of this instance one can say only that these tendencies are of an objectionable nature throughout that they are shocking from an ethical aesthetic and social point of view that they are things one does not dare even to think
or thinks of only with abhorrence these censored wishes which have attained to a distorted expression in the dream are above all expressions of a boundless reckless egoism and indeed the personal ego occurs in every dream to play the major part in each of them
even if it can successfully disguise itself in the manifest content this sacro egoismo of the dream is surely not unconnected with the sleep inducing cessation of psychic activity which consists it should be noted
in the withdrawal of interest from the entire external world the ego which has been freed of all ethical restraints feels itself in accord with all the demands of the sexual striving with those demands which have long since been condemned by our aesthetic rearing
demands of such a character that they resist all our moral demands for restraint the pleasure striving the libido as we term it chooses its objects without inhibitions and indeed prefers those that are forbidden it chooses not only the wife of another but above all
those incestuous objects declared sacred by the agreement of mankind the mother and sister in the man's case the father and brother in the woman's even the dream of our fifty year old lady is an incestuous one its libido unmistakably directed toward her son
desires which we believe to be far from human nature show themselves strong enough to arouse dreams hate too expends itself without restraint revenge and murderous wishes toward those standing closest to the dreamer are not unusual
toward those best beloved in daily life toward parents brothers and sisters toward one's spouse and one's own children these censored wishes seem to arise from a veritable hell no censorship seems too harsh to be applied against their waking interpretation
but do not reproach the dream itself for this evil content you will not i am sure forget that the dream is charged with the harmless indeed the useful function of guarding sleep from disturbance this evil content then does not lie in the nature of the dream
you know also that there are dreams which can be recognized as the satisfaction of justified wishes and urgent bodily needs these to be sure undergo no dream distortion they need none they can satisfy their function without offending the ethical and aesthetic tendencies of the ego
the worse the censorable wish the greater the distortion on the other hand however the stricter the censor himself is at any particular time the greater the distortion will be also a young strictly reared and prudish girl will by reason of those factors
disfigure with an inexorable censorship those dream impulses which we physicians for example and which the dreamer herself ten years later would recognize as permissible harmless libidinous desires besides
i think we are not yet quite adept at it and above all there lies upon us the obligation to secure it against certain attacks it is not at all difficult to find a hitch in it our dream interpretations were made on the hypotheses we accepted a little while ago
that the dream has some meaning that from the hypnotic to the normal sleep one may carry over the idea of the existence at such times of an unconscious psychic activity and that all associations are predetermined
if we had come to plausible results on the basis of these hypotheses we would have been justified in concluding that the hypotheses were correct but what is to be done when the results are what i have just pictured them to be then it surely is natural to say
these results are impossible foolish at least very improbable hence there must have been something wrong with the hypotheses either the dream is no psychic phenomenon after all or there is no such thing as unconscious mental activity in the normal condition
or our technique has a gap in it somewhere is that not a simpler and more satisfying conclusion than the abominations which we pretend
both i answer it is a simpler as well as a more satisfying conclusion but not necessarily more correct for that reason let us take our time the matter is not yet ripe for judgment
above all we can strengthen the criticism against our dream interpretation still further that its conclusions are so unpleasant and unpalatable is perhaps of secondary importance a stronger argument
is the fact that the dreamers to whom we ascribe such wish tendencies from the interpretation of their dreams reject the interpretations most emphatically and with good reason what says the one
but indeed that can't be so why i work only for my sister i have no interest in life but to fulfill my duties toward her as being the oldest child
or a woman says of her dream you mean to say that i wish my husband were dead why that is simply revolting nonsense it isn't only that we have the happiest possible married life you probably won't believe me when i tell you so
but his death would deprive me of everything else that i own in the world or another will tell us you mean that i have sensual desires toward my sister that is ridiculous i am not in the least fond of her we don't get along and i haven't exchanged a word with her in years
we might perhaps ignore this sort of thing if the dreamers did not confirm or deny the tendencies ascribed to them we could say that they are matters which the dreamers do not know about themselves but that the dreamers should feel the exact opposite of the ascribed wish
and should be able to prove to us the dominance of the opposite tendency this fact must finally disconcert us is it not time to lay aside the whole work of the dream interpretation as something whose results reduce it to absurdity by no means
assuming that there are unconscious tendencies in the psychic life nothing is proved by the ability of the subject to show that their opposites dominate his conscious life perhaps there is room in the psychic life even for antithetical tendencies
the first two objections raised against our work hold merely that the results of dream interpretation are not simple and very unpleasant in answer to the first of these one may say that for all your enthusiasm for the simple solution you cannot thereby solve a single dream problem
to do so you must make up your mind to accept the fact of complicated relationships and to the second of these objections
what difference does it make if the results of the dream interpretation seem unpleasant even embarrassing and disgusting to you that doesn't prevent them from existing as i used to hear my teacher charcot say in similar cases when i was a young doctor one must be humble
one must keep personal preferences and antipathies in the background if one wishes to discover the realities of the world if a physicist can prove to you
become completely extinct do you also venture to say to him that cannot be so this prospect is too unpleasant on the contrary
if you reject the unpleasant you are repeating the mechanism of dream construction instead of understanding and mastering it
that so wide a field be given over to the evil in the constitution of man but does your own experience justify you in saying that i will not discuss the question of how you may estimate yourselves but have you found so much good will among your superiors and rivals
so much chivalry among your enemies so little envy in their company that you feel yourselves in duty bound to enter a protest against the part played by the evil of egoism in human nature
are you ignorant of how uncontrolled and undependable the average human being is in all the affairs of sex life or do you not know that all the immoralities and excesses of which we dream nightly are crimes committed daily by waking persons
what else does psychoanalysis do here but confirm the old saying of plato that the good people are those who content themselves with dreaming what the others the bad people really do and now turn your attention from the individual case to the great war devastating europe
think of the amount of brutality the cruelty and the lies allowed to spread over the civilized world do you really believe that a handful of conscienceless egoists and corruptionists could have succeeded in setting free all these evil spirits
if the millions of followers did not share in the guilt do you dare under these circumstances to break a lance for the absence of evil from the psychic constitution of mankind
you will reproach me with judging the war one sidedly you will say that it has also brought forth all that is most beautiful and noble in mankind its heroic courage its self sacrifice its social feeling certainly
of reproaching it with denying one thing because it was asserting another it is not our intention to deny the noble strivings of human nature nor have we ever done anything to deprecate their value on the contrary i show you not only the censored evil dream wishes
but also the censor which suppresses them and renders them unrecognizable we dwell on the evil in mankind with greater emphasis only because others deny it a method whereby the psychic life of mankind does not become better but merely incomprehensible
when however we give up this one sided ethical estimate we shall surely be able to find a more accurate formula for the relationship of the evil to the good in human nature and thus the matter stands
we need not give up the conclusions to which our labors in dream interpretation lead us even though we must consider those conclusions strange perhaps we can approach their understanding later by another path for the present let us repeat
dream distortion is a consequence of the censorship practised by accredited tendencies of the ego against those wish impulses that are in any way shocking impulses which stir in us nightly during sleep why these wish impulses come just at night and whence they come
these are questions which will bear considerable investigation it would be a mistake however to omit to mention with fitting emphasis another result of these investigations the dream wishes which try to disturb our sleep are not known to us
in fact we learn of them first through the dream interpretation therefore they may be described as at that time unconscious in the sense above defined but we can go beyond this and say that they are more than merely at that time unconscious
the dreamer to be sure denies their validity as we have seen in so many cases even after he has learned of their existence by means of the interpretation the situation is then repeated which we first encountered in the interpretation of the tongue slip hiccough
where the toastmaster was outraged and assured us that neither then nor ever before had he been conscious of disrespectful impulse toward his chief this is repeated with every interpretation of a markedly distorted dream and for that reason attains a significance for our conception
we are now prepared to conclude that there are processes and tendencies in the psychic life of which one knows nothing at all has known nothing for some time might in fact perhaps never have known anything
the unconscious thus receives a new meaning for us the idea of at present or at a specific time disappears from its conception for it can also mean permanently unconscious not merely latent at the time
visions and ideals the dreamers are the saviours of the world as the visible world is sustained by the invisible so men through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations
are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers humanity cannot forget its dreamers it cannot let their ideals fade and die it lives in them
composer sculptor painter poet prophet sage these are the makers of the after world the architects of heaven the world is beautiful because they have lived without them
humanity would perish he who cherishes a beautiful vision a lofty ideal in his heart will one day realize it columbus cherished a vision of another world and he discovered it
and he revealed it buddha beheld the vision of a spiritual world of stainless beauty and perfect peace and he entered into it cherish your visions cherish your ideals
if you but remain true to them your world will at last be built to desire is to obtain to aspire is to achieve
shall man's basest desires receive the fullest measure of gratification
such is not the law such a condition of things can never obtain ask and receive dream lofty dreams and as you dream so shall you become your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be
the greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream the oak sleeps in the acorn the bird waits in the egg and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs
dreams are the seedlings of realities your circumstances may be uncongenial but they shall not long remain so if you but perceive an ideal and strive to reach it
and lacking all the arts of refinement but he dreams of better things he thinks of intelligence of refinement of grace and beauty he conceives of mentally builds up
an ideal condition of life the vision of a wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him
that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside and with the growth of opportunities which fit the scope of his expanding powers he passes out of it forever years later we see this youth
as a full grown man we find him a master of certain forces of the mind which he wields with worldwide influence and almost unequalled power in his hands he holds the cords of gigantic responsibilities he speaks and lo
lives are changed men and women hang upon his words and remould their characters and sunlike he becomes the fixed and luminous centre round which innumerable destinies revolve
he has realized the vision of his youth he has become one with his ideal and you too youthful reader will realize the vision not the idle wish of your heart be it base or beautiful
or a mixture of both for you will always gravitate toward that which you secretly most love into your hands will be placed the exact results of your own thoughts
whatever your present environment may be you will fall remain or rise with your thoughts your vision your ideal you will become as small as your controlling desire as great as your dominant aspiration
in the beautiful words of stanton kirkham davis you may be keeping accounts and presently you shall walk out of the door that for so long has seemed to you the barrier of your ideals and shall find yourself before an audience
the pen still behind your ear the ink stains on your fingers and then and there shall pour out the torrent of your inspiration you may be driving sheep and you shall wander to the city bucolic and open mouthed
talk of luck of fortune and chance seeing a man grow rich they say how lucky he is observing another become intellectual they exclaim how highly favoured he is and noting
of the undaunted efforts they have put forth of the faith they have exercised that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable and realize the vision of their heart they do not know the darkness and the heartaches they only see the light and joy
and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result chance is not gifts
the aphorism as a man thinketh in his heart so is he
and could not be without the seed so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought and could not have appeared without them this applies equally to those acts called spontaneous and unpremeditated as to those which are deliberately executed
if a man's mind hath evil thoughts pain comes on him as comes the wheel the ox behind if one endure in purity of thought joy follows him as his own shadow sure
man is a growth by law and not a creation by artifice
as in the world of visible and material things a noble and godlike character is not a thing of favour or chance but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking
the effect of long cherished association with godlike thoughts
by the same process is the result of the continued harbouring of grovelling thoughts man is made or unmade by himself in the armoury of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself
he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace by the right choice and true application of thought man ascends to the divine perfection by the abuse and wrong application of thought
between these two extremes are all the grades of character and man is their maker and master of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul which have been restored and brought to light in this age
none is more gladdening or fruitful of divine promise and confidence than this that man is the master of thought the moulder of character and the maker and shaper of condition environment and destiny as a being of power
intelligence and love and the lord of his own thoughts man holds the key to every situation and contains within himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills
man is always the master
he then becomes the wise master directing his energies with intelligence and fashioning his thoughts to fruitful issues such is the conscious master and man can only thus become by discovering within himself
the laws of thought which discovery is totally a matter of application self analysis and experience only by much searching and mining are gold and diamonds obtained
and man can find every truth connected with his being if he will dig deep into the mine of his soul and that he is the maker of his character the moulder of his life and the builder of his destiny
until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment with the majority the bark of thought is allowed to drift upon the ocean of life aimlessness is a vice
all of which are indications of weakness which lead just as surely as deliberately planned sins though by a different route to failure unhappiness and loss
for weakness cannot persist in a power evolving universe a man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart and set out to accomplish it he should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thoughts
it may take the form of a spiritual ideal or it may be a worldly object according to his nature at the time being but whichever it is he should steadily focus his thought forces upon the object which he has set before him
and true concentration of thought even if he fails again and again to accomplish his purpose as he necessarily must until weakness is overcome the strength of character gained will be the measure of his true success
and this will form a new starting point for future power and triumph
should fix the thoughts upon the faultless performance of their duty no matter how insignificant their task may appear only in this way can the thoughts be gathered and focussed and resolution and energy be developed
which being done there is nothing which may not be accomplished the weakest soul knowing its own weakness and believing this truth that strength can only be developed by effort and practice
and adding effort to effort patience to patience and strength to strength will never cease to develop
as the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking to put away aimlessness and weakness
and to begin to think with purpose is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment who make all conditions serve them and who think strongly attempt fearlessly
they always lead to failure purpose energy power to do and all strong thoughts cease when doubt and fear creep in the will to do springs from the knowledge that we can do
doubt and fear are the great enemies of knowledge and he who encourages them who does not slay them thwarts himself at every step he who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure
his every thought is allied with power and all difficulties are bravely met and wisely overcome his purposes are seasonably planted and they bloom and bring forth fruit which does not fall prematurely to the ground
thought allied fearlessly to purpose becomes creative force he who knows this is ready to become something higher and stronger than a mere bundle of wavering thoughts and fluctuating sensations
all that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts in a justly ordered universe where loss of equipoise would mean total destruction individual responsibility must be absolute
his condition is also his own and not another man's his suffering and his happiness are evolved from within as he thinks so he is as he continues to think so he remains
a tendency to reverse this judgment and to say one man is an oppressor because many are slaves let us despise the slaves the truth is that oppressor and slave are co operators in ignorance and
and has put away all selfish thoughts belongs neither to oppressor nor oppressed he is free a man can only rise conquer and achieve by lifting up his thoughts he can only remain weak
give up all animality and selfishness by any means but a portion of it must at least be sacrificed
he could not find and develop his latent resources and would fail in any undertaking
he is not in a position to control affairs and to adopt serious responsibilities
but he is limited only by the thoughts which he chooses there can be no progress no achievement
and fixes his mind on the development of his plans and the strengthening of his resolution and self reliance and the higher he lifts his thoughts the more manly upright and righteous he becomes the greater will be his success
it helps the honest the magnanimous the virtuous all the great teachers of the ages have declared this in varying forms and to prove and know it
spiritual achievements are the consummation of holy aspirations he who lives constantly in the conception of noble and lofty thoughts who dwells upon all that is pure and unselfish will
as surely as the sun reaches its zenith and the moon its full become wise and noble in character and rise into a position of influence and blessedness achievement of whatever kind
a man descends a man may rise to high success in the world and even to lofty altitudes in the spiritual realm and again descend into weakness and wretchedness by allowing arrogant
all achievements whether in the business intellectual or spiritual world are the result of definitely directed thought are governed by the same law and are of the same method
bring forth if no useful seeds are put into it
and will continue to produce their kind just as a gardener cultivates his plot keeping it free from weeds and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires so may a man tend the garden of his mind weeding out all the wrong
useless and impure thoughts and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right useful and pure thoughts by pursuing this process a man sooner or later discovers that he is the master gardener of his soul
the director of his life he also reveals within himself the laws of thought and understands with ever increasing accuracy how the thought forces and mind elements operate in the shaping of his character circumstances and destiny
thought and character are one and as character can only manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance the outer conditions of a person's life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state
this does not mean that a man's circumstances at any given time are an indication of his entire character but that those circumstances are so intimately connected with some vital thought element within himself that for the time being
but all is the result of a law which cannot err this is just as true of those who feel out of harmony with their surroundings as of those who are contented with them as a progressive and evolving being
man is where he is that he may learn that he may grow and as he learns the spiritual lesson which any circumstance contains for him it passes away and gives place to other circumstances
but when he realizes that he is a creative power and that he may command the hidden soil and seeds of his being out of which circumstances grow he then becomes the rightful master of himself that circumstances grow out of thought
every man knows who has for any length of time practised self control and self purification for he will have noticed that the alteration in his circumstances has been in exact ratio with his altered mental condition
so true is this that when a man earnestly applies himself to remedy the defects in his character and makes swift and marked progress he passes rapidly through a succession of vicissitudes
and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance good thoughts bear good fruit bad thoughts bad fruit the outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of thought
or ascending into virtue and its pure happiness without the continued cultivation of virtuous aspirations and man therefore as the lord and master of thought is the maker of himself the shaper and author of environment
even at birth the soul comes to its own and through every step of its earthly pilgrimage it attracts those combinations of conditions which reveal itself which are the reflections of its own purity and impurity its strength and weakness
men do not attract that which they want but that which they are their whims fancies and ambitions are thwarted at every step but their inmost thoughts and desires are fed with their own food
they imprison being base they are also the angels of freedom they liberate being noble
but what he justly earns his wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with his thoughts and actions in the light of this truth what then is the meaning of fighting against circumstances
it means that a man is continually revolting against an effect without while all the time he is nourishing and preserving its cause in his heart that cause may take the form of a conscious vice or an unconscious weakness
but whatever it is it stubbornly retards the efforts of its possessor and thus calls aloud for remedy men are anxious to improve their circumstances but are unwilling to improve themselves
they therefore remain bound the man who does not shrink from self crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the object upon which his heart is set this is as true of earthly as of heavenly things
and considers he is justified in trying to deceive his employer on the ground of the insufficiency of his wages such a man does not understand the simplest rudiments of those principles which are the basis of true prosperity
totally unfitted to rise out of his wretchedness but is actually attracting to himself a still deeper wretchedness by dwelling in and acting out indolent deceptive and unmanly thoughts
here is a rich man who is the victim of a painful and persistent disease as the result of gluttony
and have his health as well such a man is totally unfit to have health because he has not yet learned the first principles of a healthy life here is an employer of labour
who adopts crooked measures to avoid paying the regulation wage and in the hope of making larger profits reduces the wages of his workpeople
both as regards reputation and riches he blames circumstances not knowing that he is the sole author of his condition i have introduced these three cases merely as illustrative of the truth that man is the causer
by encouraging thoughts and desires which cannot possibly harmonize with that end such cases could be multiplied and varied almost indefinitely
is the result of a superficial judgment which assumes that the dishonest man is almost totally corrupt and the honest man almost entirely virtuous in the light of a deeper knowledge and wider experience
such judgment is found to be erroneous the dishonest man
he also brings upon himself the sufferings which his vices produce the dishonest man likewise garners his own suffering and happiness it is pleasing to human vanity to believe that one suffers because of one's virtue
but not until a man has extirpated every sickly bitter and impure thought from his mind and washed every sinful stain from his soul
he will then know looking back upon his past ignorance and blindness that his life is and always was justly ordered and that all his past experiences good and bad were the equitable outworking of his evolving yet unevolved self
good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results this is but saying that nothing can come from corn but corn nothing from nettles but nettles
men understand this law in the natural world and work with it but few understand it in the mental and moral world though its operation there is just as simple and undeviating and they therefore do not co operate with it
suffering is always the effect of wrong thought in some direction it is an indication that the individual is out of harmony with himself with the law of his being the sole and supreme use of suffering is to purify
to burn out all that is useless and impure suffering ceases for him who is pure there could be no object in burning gold after the dross had been removed and a perfectly pure and enlightened being could not suffer
the circumstances which a man encounters with suffering are the result of his own mental in harmony the circumstances which a man encounters with blessedness are the result of his own mental harmony blessedness
blessedness and riches are only joined together when the riches are rightly and wisely used and the poor man only descends into wretchedness when he regards his lot as a burden unjustly imposed
indigence and indulgence are the two extremes of wretchedness they are both equally unnatural and the result of mental disorder
but begins to use them as aids to his more rapid progress and as a means of discovering the hidden powers and possibilities within himself law not confusion is the dominating principle in the universe justice
man has but to right himself to find that the universe is right and during the process of putting himself right he will find that as he alters his thoughts towards things and other people things and other people will alter towards him
the proof of this truth is in every person and it therefore admits of easy investigation by systematic introspection and self analysis
which solidify into circumstances of destitution and disease impure thoughts of every kind crystallize into enervating and confusing habits which solidify into distracting and adverse circumstances thoughts of fear
doubt and indecision crystallize into weak unmanly and irresolute habits which solidify into circumstances of failure indigence and slavish dependence
which solidify into circumstances of injury and persecution selfish thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of self seeking which solidify into circumstances more or less distressing on the other hand
beautiful thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of grace and kindliness which solidify into genial and sunny circumstances pure thoughts crystallize into habits of temperance and self control
which solidify into circumstances of pleasantness gentle and forgiving thoughts crystallize into habits of gentleness which solidify into protective and preservative circumstances
loving and unselfish thoughts crystallize into habits of self forgetfulness for others which solidify into circumstances of sure and abiding prosperity and true riches a particular train of thought persisted in
be it good or bad cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances a man cannot directly choose his circumstances but he can choose his thoughts and so indirectly yet surely shape his circumstances
let a man cease from his sinful thoughts and all the world will soften towards him and be ready to help him let him put away his weakly and sickly thoughts and lo opportunities will spring up on every hand to aid his strong resolves
let him encourage good thoughts and no hard fate shall bind him down to wretchedness and shame the world is your kaleidoscope
uncrown and fill a servant's place the human will that force unseen the offspring of a deathless soul can hew a way to any goal though walls of granite intervene
chapter nine they meet the woozy there seem to be very few houses around here after all remarked ojo after they had walked for a time in silence never mind said scraps we are not looking for houses
but rather the road of yellow bricks won't it be funny to run across something yellow in this dismal blue country there are worse colors than yellow in this country asserted the glass cat in a spiteful tone oh
do you mean the pink pebbles you call your brains and your red heart and green eyes asked the patchwork girl no i mean you if you must know it growled the cat
laughed scraps you'd give your whiskers for a lovely variegated complexion like mine i wouldn't retorted the cat i've the clearest complexion in the world and i don't employ a beauty doctor either
i see you don't said scraps please don't quarrel begged ojo this is an important journey and quarreling makes me discouraged to be brave one must be cheerful so i hope you will be as good tempered as possible
they had traveled some distance when suddenly they faced a high fence which barred any further progress straight ahead it ran directly across the road and enclosed a small forest of tall trees set close together
when the group of adventurers peered through the bars of the fence they thought this forest looked more gloomy and forbidding than any they had ever seen before they soon discovered that the path they had been following now made a bend and passed around the enclosure
or they wouldn't tell people to beware of it let's keep out then replied scraps that path is outside the fence and mister woozy may have all his little forest to himself for all we care but one of our errands is to find a woozy
ojo explained the magician wants me to get three hairs from the end of a woozy's tail let's go on and find some other woozy suggested the cat this one is ugly and dangerous or they wouldn't cage him up
then said scraps suppose we go in and find him very likely if we ask him politely to let us pull three hairs out of the tip of his tail he won't hurt us it would hurt him i'm sure
the boy admitted but this danger must be faced if we intend to save poor unc nunkie how shall we get over the fence climb answered scraps and at once she began climbing up the rows of bars ojo followed
and found it more easy than he had expected when they got to the top of the fence they began to get down on the other side and soon were in the forest the glass cat being small crept between the lower bars and joined them
here there was no path of any sort so they entered the woods the boy leading the way and wandered through the trees until they were nearly in the center of the forest they now came upon a clear space
but still more terrifying is it to face an unknown beast which you have never seen even a picture of so there is little wonder that the pulses of the munchkin boy beat fast as he and his companions stood facing the cave
the opening was perfectly square and about big enough to admit a goat i guess the woozy is asleep said scraps shall i throw in a stone to waken him no please don't answered ojo
his voice trembling a little i'm in no hurry but he had not long to wait for the woozy heard the sound of voices and came trotting out of his cave as this is the only woozy that has ever lived
either in the land of oz or out of it i must describe it to you the creature was all squares and flat surfaces and edges its head was an exact square like one of the building blocks a child plays with therefore
it had no ears but heard sounds through two openings in the upper corners its nose being in the center of a square surface was flat while the mouth was formed by the opening of the lower edge of the block
each being four sided the animal was covered with a thick smooth skin and had no hair at all except at the extreme end of its tail where there grew exactly three stiff stubby hairs
it is plain to me that you are a remarkable group as remarkable in your way as i am in mine and so you are welcome to my domain nice place isn't it but lonesome dreadfully lonesome
asked scraps who was regarding the queer square creature with much curiosity because i eat up all the honey bees which the munchkin farmers who live around here keep to make them honey are you fond of eating honey bees
inquired the boy very they are really delicious but the farmers did not like to lose their bees and so they tried to destroy me of course they couldn't do that why not
my skin is so thick and tough that nothing can get through it to hurt me so finding they could not destroy me they drove me into this forest and built a fence around me unkind wasn't it
asked ojo nothing at all i've tried the leaves from the trees and the mosses and creeping vines but they don't seem to suit my taste so there being no honey bees here i've eaten nothing for years
you must be awfully hungry said the boy i've got some bread and cheese in my basket would you like that kind of food give me a nibble and i will try it then i can tell you better whether it is grateful to my appetite
returned the woozy so
said ojo and threw down a piece the woozy ate that too and smacked its long thin lips that's mighty good it exclaimed any more plenty replied ojo
so he sat down on a stump and fed the woozy bread and cheese for a long time for no matter how much the boy broke off the loaf and the slice remained just as big that'll do said the woozy at last
name the favor and i will grant it i i want three hairs from the tip of your tail said ojo with some hesitation three hairs why that's all i have
on my tail or anywhere else exclaimed the beast i know but i want them very much
my prettiest feature said the woozy uneasily if i give up those three hairs i i'm just a blockhead yet i must have them insisted the boy firmly
and he then told the woozy all about the accident to unc nunkie and margolotte
that would restore them to life the beast listened with attention and when ojo had finished the recital it said with a sigh i always keep my word for i pride myself on being square so
you may have the three hairs and welcome i think under such circumstances it would be selfish in me to refuse you thank you thank you very much cried the boy joyfully may i pull out the hairs now
any time you like answered the woozy so ojo went up to the queer creature and taking hold of one of the hairs began to pull he pulled harder he pulled with all his might
panting i was afraid of that declared the beast you'll have to pull harder i'll help you exclaimed scraps coming to the boy's side you pull the hair
it slipped out of ojo's hands and he and scraps both rolled upon the ground in a heap and never stopped until they bumped against the rocky cave give it up advised the glass cat
as the boy arose and assisted the patchwork girl to her feet a dozen strong men couldn't pull out those hairs i believe they're clinched on the under side of the woozy's thick skin then what shall i do
asked the boy despairingly if on our return i fail to take these three hairs to the crooked magician the other things i have come to seek will be of no use at all and we cannot restore unc nunkie and margolotte to life
he was so disheartened that he sat down upon a stump and began to cry the woozy looked at the boy thoughtfully why don't you take me with you asked the beast then when at last you get to the magician's house
wiping away the tears and springing to his feet with a smile if i take the three hairs to the magician it won't matter if they are still in your body it can't matter in the least agreed the woozy come on then
they walked through the forest to the fence reaching it at a point exactly opposite that where they had entered the enclosure how did you get in asked the woozy we climbed over answered ojo i can't do that
said the beast i'm a very swift runner for i can overtake a honey bee as it flies and i can jump very high which is the reason they made such a tall fence to keep me in but i can't climb at all and i'm too big to squeeze between the bars of the fence
you're not such a terrible creature after all remarked scraps you haven't heard me growl or you wouldn't say that declared the woozy when i growl the sound echoes like thunder all through the valleys and woodlands
and children tremble with fear and women cover their heads with their aprons and big men run and hide i suppose there is nothing in the world so terrible to listen to as the growl of a woozy
please don't growl then begged ojo earnestly there is no danger of my growling for i am not angry only when angry do i utter my fearful ear splitting soul shuddering growl
also when i am angry my eyes flash fire whether i growl or not real fire asked ojo of course real fire
inquired the woozy in an injured tone in that case i've solved the riddle cried scraps dancing with glee those fence boards are made of wood and if the woozy stands close to the fence and lets his eyes flash fire
they might set fire to the fence and burn it up then he could walk away with us easily being free ah i have never thought of that plan or i would have been free long ago said the woozy but
i cannot flash fire from my eyes unless i am very angry can't you get angry bout something please asked ojo
you just say krizzle kroo to me will that make you angry inquired the boy terribly angry
the board had burned to a distance of several feet leaving an opening big enough for them all to pass through ojo broke some branches from a tree and with them whipped the fire until it was extinguished we don't want to burn the whole fence down
said he for the flames would attract the attention of the munchkin farmers who would then come and capture the woozy again i guess they'll be rather surprised when they find he's escaped so they will declared the woozy
chuckling gleefully when they find i'm gone the farmers will be badly scared for they'll expect me to eat up their honey bees as i did before that reminds me said the boy
that you must promise not to eat honey bees while you are in our company none at all not a bee you would get us all into trouble and we can't afford to have any more trouble than is necessary
observed the patchwork girl as they found the path and continued their journey the shape doesn't make a thing honest does it of course it does returned the woozy very decidedly no one could trust that crooked magician for instance just because he is crooked
but a square woozy couldn't do anything crooked if he wanted to i am neither square nor crooked said scraps looking down at her plump body no you're round so you're liable to do anything asserted the woozy
do not blame me miss gorgeous if i regard you with suspicion many a satin ribbon has a cotton back scraps didn't understand this but she had an uneasy misgiving that she had a cotton back herself
notwithstanding all the glory of the shops and the tempting array of the jewellery and trinkets of every description therein displayed after a few days of sailing on the exquisite lake and some walks and drives polly down deep in her heart
i have the presents for the girls i'm all ready why polly you haven't anything for yourself mother fisher exclaimed as polly ran into her room and told the news how grandpapa said they were to pack up and leave in the morning
and drew it out of its little box i think she'll like it with anxious eyes on mother fisher's face like it repeated her mother how can she help it polly i think so too said polly happily
replacing it on the bed of cotton and putting on the cover to look over another gift missus fisher regarded her keenly well now polly she said decidedly i shall go down and get that chain we were looking at
and dropped a kiss on polly's brown hair mamsie exclaimed polly springing off the bed and throwing her arms around her mother's neck i shall love that chain and i shall wear it just all the time
as hard as i could said polly laughing well you'll stare worse than ever now said adela in an important way there isn't anything in all this world that isn't in paris she brought up not very elegantly
i don't like paris tom let the words out before he thought that's just because you are a boy sniffed adela oh polly you ought to see the shops when mademoiselle has taken us into some
i declare i could stay all day in one such dreams of clothes and bonnets you never saw such bonnets polly pepper in all your life she lifted her hands unable to find words enough and the parks and gardens i suppose
are perfectly lovely cried polly feeling as if she must get away from the bonnets and clothes yes
that's elegant only mademoiselle won't take us there very often i wish i was rich and i'd have a span of long tailed grey horses and drive up and down there every day polly laughed well
i should like the tram ways and the stages said polly oh those don't go into the bois de boulogne cried adela in a tone of horror why polly pepper what are you thinking of she exclaimed this nettled tom
of something besides clothes and bonnets he broke out then he was sorry he had spoken well there's the louvre said polly after an uncomfortable little pause yes said adela that's best of all
and it doesn't cost anything so mademoiselle takes us there very often i should think it would be cried polly beaming at her and answering the first part of adela's sentence oh adela i do so long to see it
and you can't go there too often polly said jasper it's the only decent thing in paris said tom that i like i mean that and to sail up and down on the seine we'll go there the first day polly
said jasper the louvre i mean well here we are in paris and then it was all confusion for the guards were throwing open the doors to the compartments and streams of people were meeting on the platform in what seemed to be
inextricable confusion amid a babel of sounds and it wasn't until polly was driving up in the big cab with her part of mister king's family as he called it through the broad avenues and boulevards
with the exception of the little widow gray who stayed at home to look over adela's clothes and take any last stitches going off by themselves i do want to see the venus de milo said polly quite gone with impatience
oh adela these paintings will wait well that old statue will wait too cried adela pulling her off into another gallery now polly mademoiselle says in point of art the pictures in here are quite important
are they said poor polly listlessly yes they are said adela twitching her sleeve and mademoiselle brings us in this room every single time we come to the louvre it's the early french school you know she brought up glibly
catching her breath and standing quite still as she caught sight of the wonderful marble instinct with life at the end of the long corridor below stairs why she's smiling at us
as the afternoon sunshine streamed across the lovely face to lose itself in the folds of the crimson curtain in the background the parson folded his arms and drew in long breaths of delight
under her breath oh she's so beautiful adela well it's much better to see the pictures said adela and then we can come here again to morrow oh i haven't seen this half enough
to morrow now we'll drop in again and look at some of the pictures there is beauty enough in that statue said a lady who just passed them to the gentleman with her to satisfy any one
it's a wonderful type of beauty said edward yellow hair and brown eyes and such features i don't care about the features said the lady it's the expression
and that's wonderful to begin with that's about it replied edward and i suppose that's largely where the beauty lies evelyn let us walk slowly down the corridor again said evelyn and then come up
otherwise we shall attract attention to be standing here and gazing at them and i'd like to see that little beauty again remarked edward i'll confess evelyn so evelyn and edward
continued to gaze at intervals at the living beauty and mister king and his party were absorbed in the marble beauty and adela was running over in her mind how she meant to have polly pepper all to herself at the visit to the louvre the next afternoon
when she would show her the pictures she specially liked but they didn't any of them go to the louvre that next day as it happened it was so beautifully bright and sunshiny that grandpapa said it would be wicked to pass the day indoors
and on the winding sheltered paths it's perfectly lovely off there said polly and almost like the country with a longing glance off into the green cool shade beyond so they strolled off there
separating into little groups polly and jasper in front and wishing for nothing so much as a race i should think we might try it said jasper there is no one near to see come on polly do
i suppose we ought not to said polly with a sigh as adela overtook them ought not to what she asked eagerly jasper and i were wanting to run a race
exclaimed adela quite shocked i know it said polly and i wish we weren't o dear this seems just like the country and just then a child screamed that's phronsie exclaimed polly
her cheek turning quite white and she sped back over the path oh no polly jasper tried to reassure her as he ran after her they were having their race after all
when a man darted out from the thick shrubbery behind him cast a long searching glance around and quick as lightning threw himself against the stately old gentleman and seized the pocket book
and wailing bitterly what is it oh what is it cried polly my pocket book said grandpapa
and frightened this poor child almost to death he seemed to care a great deal more about that than any loss of the money which way cried jasper in his turn and was off like a shot on getting his answer
tom saw the fellow slink with the manner of one who knew the ins and outs of the place well now gliding and ducking low in the sparser growth now making a bold run around some exposed curve now dashing into a dense part of the wood
in the shape of a partner who could tell and realising if he caught the man at all he must do one of his sprints he covered the ground by a series of flying leaps dashed in where he saw his prey rush
one more leap with all his might and i have you cried tom the man under him thrown to the ground by the suddenness of tom's leap on him was wriggling and squirming with all the desperation of a trapped creature
when the individual with the flying footsteps hove in sight it was jasper
when the parson running as he hadn't run for years appeared to their view and after him at such a gait that would have been his fortune in a professional way was the little doctor his hat was gone
and resigned himself at once and closed his eyes instinctively he was a miserable looking man tall thin and stoop shouldered they saw when they got him on his feet unkempt and unwashed
his long black hair hung around a face sallow in the extreme and he shook so as tom and jasper marched him back escorted by the body guard of the parson and the little doctor that the two boys put their hands under his arms to help him along
he hasn't spent much don't tom said jasper joke about it can't help it said tom well now shall we turn him over to the sergents de ville turn him over repeated mister king
we are going to hand him over to the police child answered old mister king harshly and as soon as possible too grandpapa perhaps he's got some little children at home ask him grandpapa do
no no phronsie said mister king hastily say no more child you don't understand
why the fellow is starving his little children four of them his wife all starving hadn't a bit to eat since he could scarcely say when it seemed so very long ago since he had eaten last
it all came out in a torrent of words that choked him and like the true frenchman that he was he gestured in a way that told the story with his face and his fingers as well as with his tongue a sergent de ville
strolled by and looked curiously at the group but as mister king met his eye coolly and the party seemed intelligent and well able to take care of themselves it wasn't necessary to tender his services if they were talking to a worthless vagabond
then he pulled out the pocket book again and taking out several franc notes of a good size he pressed them between the man's dirty fingers
as through the wild green hills of wyre the train ran changing sky and shire and far behind a fading crest low in the forsaken west sank the high reared head of clee
hand said i since now we part from fields and men we know by heart from strangers faces strangers lands hand you have held true fellows hands
be clean then rot before you do a thing they'd not believe of you you and i must keep from shame in london streets the shropshire name
on banks of thames they must not say severn breeds worse men than they and friends abroad must bear in mind friends at home they leave behind
oh i shall be stiff and cold when i forget you hearts of gold the land where i shall mind you not is the land where all's forgot
luck my lads be with you still by falling stream and standing hill
men that made a man of me
it fanned their temples filled their lungs scattered their forelocks free my friends made words of it with tongues that talk no more to me their voices
dying as they fly thick on the wind are sown the names of men blow soundless by my fellows and my own
oh lads at home i heard you plain but here your speech is still and down the sighing wind in vain you hollo from the hill the wind and i we both were there
spring will not wait the loiterer's time who keeps so long away so others wear the broom and climb the hedgerows heaped with may oh tarnish late on wenlock edge
gold that i never see lie long high snowdrifts in the hedge that will not shower on me
what are those blue remembered hills what spires what farms are those that is the land of lost content i see it shining plain
in my own shire if i was sad homely comforters i had the earth because my heart was sore sorrowed for the son she bore
and standing hills long to remain shared their short lived comrade's pain and bound for the same bourn as i on every road i wandered by
trod beside me close and dear the beautiful and death struck year whether in the woodland brown i heard the beechnut rustle down
or littering far the fields of may lady smocks a bleaching lay and like a skylit water stood the bluebells in the azured wood yonder lightening other loads
the seasons range the country roads but here in london streets i ken no such helpmates only men and these are not in plight to bear if they would another's care
they have enough as tis i see in many an eye that measures me the mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind undone with misery
all they can is to hate their fellow man and till they drop they needs must still look at you and wish you ill
once in the wind of morning i ranged the thymy wold the world wide air was azure and all the brooks ran gold
there through the dews beside me behold a youth that trod with feathered cap on forehead and poised a golden rod
with mien to match the morning and gay delightful guise and friendly brows and laughter he looked me in the eyes oh whence i asked and whither he smiled and would not say
and looked at me and beckoned and laughed and led the way and with kind looks and laughter and nought to say beside we two went on together
i and my happy guide across the glittering pastures and empty upland still and solitude of shepherds high in the folded hill
by hanging woods and hamlets that gaze through orchards down on many a windmill turning and far discovered town
with gay regards of promise and sure unslackened stride and smiles and nothing spoken led on my merry guide
by blowing realms of woodland with sunstruck vanes afield
by valley guarded granges and silver waters wide content at heart i followed with my delightful guide and like the cloudy shadows across the country blown
we two face on for ever but not we two alone with the great gale we journey that breathes from gardens thinned
borne in the drift of blossoms whose petals throng the wind buoyed on the heaven heard whisper of dancing leaflets whirled
from all the woods that autumn bereaves in all the world and midst the fluttering legion of all that ever died i follow and before us goes the delightful guide
another night another day when shall this slough of sense be cast this dust of thoughts be laid at last the man of flesh and soul be slain and the man of bone remain
this tongue that talks these lungs that shout these thews that hustle us about this brain that fills the skull with schemes and its humming hive of dreams
these to day are proud in power and lord it in their little hour the immortal bones obey control of dying flesh and dying soul tis long till eve and morn are gone
slow the endless night comes on and late to fulness grows the birth that shall last as long as earth wanderers eastward wanderers west
know you why you cannot rest tis that every mother's son travails with a skeleton lie down in the bed of dust bear the fruit that bear you must
bring the eternal seed to light and morn is all the same as night rest you so from trouble sore fear the heat o the sun no more nor the snowing winter wild
now you labour not with child empty vessel garment cast we that wore you long shall last another night another day
so my bones within me say therefore they shall do my will to day while i am master still and flesh and soul now both are strong
shall hale the sullen slaves along before this fire of sense decay this smoke of thought blow clean away and leave with ancient night alone the stedfast and enduring bone
so quick so clean an ending oh that was right lad that was brave yours was not an ill for mending twas best to take it to the grave oh you had forethought you could reason
and saw your road and where it led and early wise and brave in season put the pistol to your head oh soon and better so than later after long disgrace and scorn
the soul that should not have been born right you guessed the rising morrow and scorned to tread the mire you must dust's your wages son of sorrow but men may come to worse than dust
souls undone undoing others long time since the tale began you would not live to wrong your brothers oh lad you died as fits a man
twill hurt but here are salves to friend you and many a balsam grows on ground and if your hand or foot offend you cut it off lad and be whole but play the man
stand up and end you when your sickness is your soul
in this timeless grave to throw no cypress sombre on the snow snap not from the bitter yew his leaves that live december through
break no rosemary bright with rime and sparkling to the cruel clime nor plod the winter land to look for willows in the icy brook to cast them leafless round him
bring no spray that ever buds in spring but if the christmas field has kept awns the last gleaner overstept or shrivelled flax whose flower is blue a single season never two
oh bring from hill and stream and plain whatever will not flower again to give him comfort he and those shall bide eternal bedfellows
where low upon the couch he lies whence he never shall arise
the carpenter's son here the hangman stops his cart now the best of friends must part fare you well for ill fare i live lads
and i will die oh at home had i but stayed prenticed to my father's trade had i stuck to plane and adze i had not been lost my lads
then i might have built perhaps gallows trees for other chaps never dangled on my own had i but left ill alone now you see they hang me high
all the same's the luck we prove though the midmost hangs for love comrades all that stand and gaze walk henceforth in other ways
see my neck and save your own comrades all leave ill alone make some day a decent end shrewder fellows than your friend
fare you well for ill fare i live lads and i will die
be still my soul be still the arms you bear are brittle earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong think rather
call to thought if now you grieve a little the days when we had rest o soul for they were long men loved unkindness then but lightless in the quarry i slept and saw not
tears fell down i did not mourn sweat ran and blood sprang out and i was never sorry then it was well with me in days ere i was born
i pace the earth and drink the air and feel the sun be still be still my soul it is but for a season let us endure an hour and see injustice done
ay look high heaven and earth ail from the prime foundation
empty heads and tongues a talking make the rough road easy walking and the feather pate of folly bears the falling sky oh tis jesting dancing drinking spins the heavy world around
if young hearts were not so clever oh they would be young for ever think no more tis only thinking lays lads underground
clunton and clunbury clungunford and clun are the quietest places under the sun in valleys of springs of rivers
the country for easy livers the quietest under the sun we still had sorrows to lighten one could not be always glad and lads knew trouble at knighton
when i was a knighton lad by bridges that thames runs under in london the town built ill tis sure small matter for wonder if sorrow is with one still
and if as a lad grows older the troubles he bears are more he carries his griefs on a shoulder that handselled them long before
nor london nor knighton the town tis a long way further than knighton a quieter place than clun where doomsday may thunder and lighten and little twill matter to one
loitering with a vacant eye along the grecian gallery and brooding on my heavy ill i met a statue standing still still in marble stone stood he
and stedfastly he looked at me well met i thought the look would say we both were fashioned far away we neither knew when we were young these londoners we live among
still he stood and eyed me hard an earnest and a grave regard what lad drooping with your lot i too would be where i am not
i too survey that endless line of men whose thoughts are not as mine years ere you stood up from rest on my neck the collar prest years when you lay down your ill
i shall stand and bear it still courage lad tis not for long stand quit you like stone be strong
so i thought his look would say and light on me my trouble lay and i slept out in flesh and bone manful like the man of stone
far in a western brookland that bred me long ago the poplars stand and tremble by pools i used to know there in the windless night time
here i lie down in london and turn to rest alone there by the starlit fences the wanderer halts and hears my soul that lingers sighing
about the glimmering weirs
the lad came to the door at night when lovers crown their vows and whistled soft and out of sight in shadow of the boughs i shall not vex you with my face henceforth my love for aye
so take me in your arms a space before the east is grey when i from hence away am past i shall not find a bride and you shall be the first and last i ever lay beside
she heard and went and knew not why her heart to his she laid light was the air beneath the sky but dark under the shade
oh do you breathe lad that your breast seems not to rise and fall and here upon my bosom prest there beats no heart at all oh loud my girl it once would knock you should have felt it then
the rose lipt girls are sleeping in fields where roses fade
still i think in newer veins frets the changeless blood of man now that other lads than i strip to bathe on severn shore they no help for all they try
tread the mill i trod before
where the lad lies down to rest stands the troubled dream beside there on thoughts that once were mine day looks down the eastern steep and the youth at morning shine
makes the vow he will not keep
far i hear the bugle blow to call me where i would not go and the guns begin the song soldier fly or stay for long comrade
if to turn and fly made a soldier never die fly i would for who would not tis sure no pleasure to be shot but since the man that runs away lives to die another day
and cowards funerals when they come are not wept so well at home therefore though the best is bad stand and do the best my lad stand and fight and see your slain
and take the bullet in your brain
you smile upon your friend to day to day his ills are over you hearken to the lover's say and happy is the lover
tis late to hearken late to smile but better late than never
and ned lies long in jail and i come home to ludlow amidst the moonlight pale
the isle of portland the star filled seas are smooth to night from france to england strown black towers above the portland light the felon quarried stone
on yonder island not to rise never to stir forth free far from his folk a dead lad lies that once was friends with me
lie you easy dream you light and sleep you fast for aye and luckier may you find the night than ever you found the day
square your shoulders lift your pack and leave your friends and go oh never fear man nought's to dread look not left nor right in all the endless road you tread there's nothing but the night
hughley steeple the vane on hughley steeple veers bright a far known sign and there lie hughley people and there lie friends of mine
tall in their midst the tower divides the shade and sun and the clock strikes the hour and tells the time to none to south the headstones cluster
and steeple shadowed slumber the slayers of themselves to north to south lie parted with hughley tower above the kind the single hearted
the lads i used to love and south or north tis only a choice of friends one knows and i shall ne'er be lonely asleep with these or those
terence this is stupid stuff you eat your victuals fast enough there can't be much amiss tis clear to see the rate you drink your beer but oh good lord the verse you make it gives a chap the belly ache
the cow the old cow she is dead
we poor lads tis our turn now to hear such tunes as killed the cow pretty friendship tis to rhyme your friends to death before their time moping melancholy mad come pipe a tune to dance to lad
why if tis dancing you would be there's brisker pipes than poetry say for what were hop yards meant or why was burton built on trent oh many a peer of england brews livelier liquor than the muse
ale man ale's the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think look into the pewter pot to see the world as the world's not and faith tis pleasant till tis past
the mischief is that twill not last oh i have been to ludlow fair and left my necktie god knows where
then the world seemed none so bad and i myself a sterling lad and down in lovely muck i've lain happy till i woke again
the world it was the old world yet i was i my things were wet and nothing now remained to do but begin the game anew
therefore since the world has still much good but much less good than ill and while the sun and moon endure luck's a chance but trouble's sure i'd face it as a wise man would
and train for ill and not for good tis true the stuff i bring for sale is not so brisk a brew as ale out of a stem that scored the hand i wrung it in a weary land
but take it if the smack is sour the better for the embittered hour it should do good to heart and head when your soul is in my soul's stead and i will friend you if i may
from the many venomed earth first a little thence to more he sampled all her killing store and easy smiling seasoned sound sate the king when healths went round
they put arsenic in his meat and stared aghast to watch him eat they poured strychnine in his cup and shook to see him drink it up they shook they stared as white's their shirt
i tell the tale that i heard told
and took the flowers to fair i brought them home unheeded the hue was not the wear so up and down i sow them for lads like me to find when i shall lie below them
a dead man out of mind some seed the birds devour and some the season mars but here and there will flower the solitary stars
and fields will yearly bear them as light leaved spring comes on
chapter fourteen forbidden fruit we were all with the exception of uncle roger more or less grumpy in the household of king next day perhaps our nerves had been upset by the excitement attendant on jimmy patterson's disappearance
even children cannot devour mince pie and cold fried pork ham and fruit cake before going to bed with entire impunity aunt janet had forgotten to warn uncle roger to keep an eye on our bedtime snacks
and we ate what seemed good unto us some of us had frightful dreams and all of us carried chips on our shoulders at breakfast felicity and dan began a bickering which they kept up the entire day felicity had a natural aptitude for what we called bossing
and in her mother's absence she deemed that she had a right to rule supreme she knew better than to make any attempt to assert authority over the story girl and felix and i were allowed some length of tether but cecily dan and peter were expected to submit
dutifully to her decrees in the main they did but on this particular morning dan was plainly inclined to rebel he had had time to grow sore over the things that felicity had said to him when jimmy patterson was thought lost
and he began the day with a flatly expressed determination that he was not going to let felicity rule the roost it was not a pleasant day and to make matters worse it rained until late in the afternoon
the story girl had not recovered from the mortifications of the previous day she would not talk and she would not tell a single story she sat on rachel ward's chest and ate her breakfast with the air of a martyr after breakfast she washed the dishes
then with a book under one arm and pat under the other she betook herself to the window seat in the upstairs hall and would not be lured from that retreat charmed we never so wisely she stroked the purring paddy
peter had gone home to see his mother and uncle roger had gone to markdale on business sara ray came up but was so snubbed by felicity that she went home crying felicity got the dinner by herself disdaining to ask or command assistance
she banged things about and rattled the stove covers until even cecily protested from her sofa dan sat on the floor and whittled
in which noble ambition he succeeded perfectly
it's not half so much fun having the grown ups away as i thought it would be i wish i was back in toronto i said sulkily the mince pie was to blame for that wish i wish you were i'm sure said felicity
riddling the fire noisily any one who lives with you felicity king will always be wishing he was somewhere else said dan i wasn't talking to you dan king retorted felicity speak when you're spoken to come when you're called
oh oh oh wailed cecily on the sofa i wish it would stop raining
i wish ma had never gone away i wish you'd leave felicity alone dan i wish girls had some sense said dan which brought the orgy of wishing to an end for the time
a wishing fairy might have had the time of her life in the king kitchen that morning particularly if she were a cynically inclined fairy
by tea time things had brightened up the rain had ceased and the old low raftered room was full of sunshine which danced on the shining dishes of the dresser made mosaics on the floor
and flickered over the table whereon a delicious meal was spread felicity had put on her blue muslin and looked so beautiful in it that her good humour was quite restored
cecily's headache was better and the story girl refreshed by an afternoon siesta came down with smiles and sparkling eyes dan alone continued to nurse his grievances
she said i heard uncle edward telling ever so many stories about him he was called to this congregation and he laboured here long and faithfully and was much beloved though he was very eccentric what does that mean asked peter hush
it just means queer said cecily nudging him with her elbow a common man would be queer but when it's a minister it's eccentric when he gets very old continued the story girl the presbytery thought it was time he was retired
he didn't think so but the presbytery had their way because there were so many of them to one of him he was retired and a young man was called to carlisle mister scott went to live in town but he came out to carlisle very often
and visited all the people regularly just the same as when he was their minister the young minister was a very good young man
because he had been told that the old minister was very angry at being set aside and would likely give him a sound drubbing if he ever met him one day the young minister was visiting the crawfords in markdale when they suddenly heard old mister scott's voice in the kitchen
the young minister turned pale as the dead
but she couldn't get him out of the room and all she could do was to hide him in the china closet the young minister slipped into the china closet and old mister scott came into the room he talked very nicely and read and prayed
they made very long prayers in those days you know and at the end of his prayer he said
give him courage not to fear the face of man
nobody ever knew they supposed he had seen him through the window before he came into the house
mister scott planted the yellow plum tree in grandfather's time said cecily peeling one of the plums and when he did it he said it was as christian an act as he ever did i wonder what he meant i don't see anything very christian about planting a tree
i do said the story girl sagely when next we assembled ourselves together it was after milking and the cares of the day were done with we foregathered in the balsam fragrant aisles of the fir wood
and ate early august apples to such an extent that the story girl said we made her think of the irishman's pig an irishman who lived at markdale had a little pig she said and he gave it a pailful of mush
the pig ate the whole pailful and then the irishman put the pig in the pail and it didn't fill more than half the pail now how was that when it held a whole pailful of mush this seemed to be a rather unanswerable kind of conundrum
we discussed the problem as we roamed the wood and dan and peter almost quarrelled over it dan maintaining that the thing was impossible and peter being of the opinion that the mush was somehow made thicker in the process of being eaten
and so took up less room during the discussion we came out to the fence of the hill pasture where grew the bad berry bushes just what these bad berries were i cannot tell we never knew their real name
and we were forbidden to eat them because it was thought they might be poisonous dan picked a cluster and held it up dan king don't you dare eat those berries said felicity in her bossiest tone they're poison drop them right away
but at felicity's prohibition the rebellion which had smouldered in him all day broke into sudden flame he would show her i'll eat them if i please felicity king he said in a fury i don't believe they're poison look here
dan crammed the whole bunch into his capacious mouth and chewed it up they taste great he said smacking and he ate two more clusters regardless of our horror stricken protestations and felicity's pleadings we feared that dan would drop dead on the spot
but nothing occurred immediately when an hour had passed we concluded that the bad berries were not poison after all and we looked upon dan as quite a hero for daring to eat them
felicity's so fond of making a fuss over everything
i noticed that dan was rather pale and quiet he lay down on the kitchen sofa
shut up he said i shut up felicity and cecily were setting out a lunch in the pantry when we were all startled by a loud groan from the sofa
all the defiance and bravado gone out of him we all went to pieces except cecily who alone retained her presence of mind have you got a pain in your stomach she demanded i've got an awful pain here
if that's where my stomach is moaned dan putting his hand on a portion of his anatomy considerably below his stomach oh oh oh go for uncle roger commanded cecily pale but composed
felicity put on the kettle dan i'm going to give you mustard and warm water the mustard and warm water produced its proper effect promptly but gave dan no relief
uncle roger who had been summoned from his own place went at once for the doctor telling peter to go down the hill for missus ray peter went but returned accompanied by sara only missus ray and judy pineau were both away
sara might better have stayed home she was of no use and could only add to the general confusion wandering aimlessly about crying and asking if dan was going to die
felicity might charm the palate and the story girl bind captive the soul but when pain and sickness wrung the brow it was cecily who was the ministering angel she made the writhing dan go to bed
she made him swallow every available antidote which was recommended in the doctor's book and she applied hot cloths to him until her faithful little hands were half scalded off there was no doubt dan was suffering intense pain
wringing her hands as she walked the kitchen floor oh why doesn't the doctor come i told dan the bad berries were poison but surely they can't kill people altogether pa's cousin died of eating something forty years ago sobbed sara ray
hold your tongue said peter in a fierce whisper you oughter have more sense than to say such things to the girls they don't want to be any worse scared than they are
we haven't any whisky said felicity disapprovingly this is a temperance house but rubbing whisky on the outside isn't any harm argued peter it's only when you take it inside it is bad for you
well we haven't any anyhow said felicity i suppose blueberry wine wouldn't do in its place
it was ten o'clock before dan began to get better but from that time he improved rapidly when the doctor who had been away from home when uncle roger reached markdale came at half past ten he found his patient very weak and white but free from pain
told her she was a little brick and had done just the right thing examined some of the fatal berries and gave it as his opinion that they were probably poisonous administered some powders to dan
missus ray now appeared looking for sara and said she would stay all night with us i'll be much obliged to you if you will said uncle roger i feel a bit shook i urged janet and alec to go to halifax
and took the responsibility of the children while they were away but i didn't know what i was letting myself in for if anything had happened
though i believe it's beyond the power of mortal man
now you young fry get straight off to your beds dan is out of danger and you can't do any more good not that any of you have done much except cecily she's got a head of her shoulders
it's been a horrid day all through said felicity drearily as we climbed the stairs i suppose we made it horrid ourselves said the story girl candidly but it'll be a good story to tell sometime she added
the story girl does penance ten days later aunt olivia and uncle roger went to town one evening to remain over night and the next day peter and the story girl were to stay at uncle alec's during their absence we were in the orchard at sunset
listening to the story of king cophetua and the beggar maid all of us except peter who was hoeing turnips and felicity who had gone down the hill on an errand to missus ray the story girl impersonated the beggar maid so vividly and with such an illusion of beauty
that we did not wonder in the least at the king's love for her i had read the story before and it had been my opinion that it was rot no king i felt certain would ever marry a beggar maid when he had princesses galore from whom to choose
but now i understood it all when felicity returned we concluded from her expression that she had news and she had sara is real sick she said with regret and something that was not regret mingled in her voice
missus ray says if she isn't better by the morning
and she is afraid it's the measles felicity flung the last sentence at the story girl who turned very pale oh do you suppose she caught them at the magic lantern show she said miserably
where else could she have caught them said felicity mercilessly i didn't see her of course
if they don't die completely of them it leaves them deaf
added felicity her heart melting at sight of the misery in the story girl's piteous eyes missus ray always looks on the dark side and it may not be the measles sara has after all but felicity had done her work too thoroughly
the story girl was not to be comforted i'd give anything if i'd never put sara up to going to that show she said it's all my fault but the punishment falls on sara and that isn't fair i'd go this minute and confess the whole thing to missus ray
and i mustn't do that i sha'n't sleep a wink to night i don't think she did she looked very pale and woebegone when she came down to breakfast but for all that there was a certain exhilaration about her
i'm going to do penance all day for coaxing sara to disobey her mother she announced with chastened triumph penance we murmured in bewilderment yes i'm going to deny myself everything i like
and do everything i can think of that i don't like just to punish myself for being so wicked and if any of you think of anything i don't just mention it to me i thought it out last night
without your doing anything said cecily well my conscience will feel better i don't believe presbyterians ever do penance said felicity dubiously i never heard of one doing it but the rest of us rather looked with favour on the story girl's idea
we felt sure that she would do penance as picturesquely and thoroughly as she did everything else you might put peas in your shoes you know suggested peter the very thing i never thought of that i'll get some after breakfast
i'm not going to eat a single thing all day except bread and water and not much of that
to sit down to one of aunt janet's meals in ordinary health and appetite and eat nothing but bread and water that would be penance with a vengeance we felt we could never do it but the story girl did it we admired and pitied her
her ascetic fare was really sweeter to her than honey of hymettus she was though quite unconsciously acting a part and tasting all the subtle joy of the artist which is so much more exquisite than any material pleasure
aunt janet of course noticed the story girl's abstinence and asked if she was sick no
for a sin i committed i can't confess it because that would bring trouble on another person so i'm going to do penance all day you don't mind do you aunt janet was in a very good humour that morning so she merely laughed
not if you don't go too far with your nonsense she said tolerantly thank you
i want to put them in my shoes there isn't any i used the last in the soup yesterday oh the story girl was much disappointed then i suppose i'll have to do without
i'll tell you said peter i'll pick up a lot of those little round pebbles on mister king's front walk
you'll do nothing of the sort said aunt janet sara must not do penance in that way she would wear holes in her stockings and might seriously bruise her feet what would you say if i took a whip and whipped my bare shoulders till the blood came
demanded the story girl aggrieved i wouldn't say anything retorted aunt janet
you'd find that penance enough the story girl was crimson with indignation to have such a remark made to you when you were fourteen and a half and before the boys too really aunt janet could be very dreadful
it was vacation and there was not much to do that day we were soon free to seek the orchard but the story girl would not come she had seated herself in the darkest hottest corner of the kitchen with a piece of old cotton in her hand
i am not going to play to day she said and i'm not going to tell a single story aunt janet won't let me put pebbles in my shoes
if i lean back the least bit and i'm going to work buttonholes all over this cotton i hate working buttonholes worse than anything in the world so i'm going to work them all day what's the good of working buttonholes on an old rag asked felicity it isn't any good
the beauty of penance is that it makes you feel uncomfortable so it doesn't matter what you do whether it's useful or not so long as it's nasty oh i wonder how sara is this morning mother's going down this afternoon said felicity
she says none of us must go near the place till we know whether it is the measles or not i've thought of a great penance said cecily eagerly don't go to the missionary meeting to night the story girl looked piteous
i must hear that missionary speak
just think how many new stories i'd have to tell after i'd heard him no i must go but i'll tell you what i'll do i'll wear my school dress and hat that will be penance felicity when you set the table for dinner put the broken handled knife for me i hate it so
and i'm going to take a dose of mexican tea every two hours it's such dreadful tasting stuff but it's a good blood purifier so aunt janet can't object to it the story girl carried out her self imposed penance fully
all day she sat in the kitchen and worked buttonholes subsisting on bread and water and mexican tea felicity did a mean thing she went to work and made little raisin pies right there in the kitchen before the story girl
the smell of raisin pies is something to tempt an anchorite and the story girl was exceedingly fond of them felicity ate two in her very presence and then brought the rest out to us in the orchard the story girl could see us through the window
carousing without stint on raisin pies and uncle edward's cherries but she worked on at her buttonholes she would not look at the exciting serial in the new magazine dan brought home from the post office neither would she open a letter from her father
pat came over but his most seductive purrs won no notice from his mistress who refused herself the pleasure of even patting him aunt janet could not go down the hill in the afternoon to find out how sara was because company came to tea
the millwards from markdale mister millward was a doctor and missus millward was a b a aunt janet was very desirous that everything should be as nice as possible and we were all sent to our rooms before tea to wash and dress up the story girl slipped over home
and when she came back we gasped she had combed her hair out straight and braided it in a tight kinky pudgy braid and she wore an old dress of faded print with holes in the elbows and ragged flounces which was much too short for her sara stanley
don't you know i have company to tea
i want to mortify the flesh i'll mortify you if i catch you showing yourself to the millwards like that my girl go right home and dress yourself decently or eat your supper in the kitchen the story girl chose the latter alternative
and eating only bread and water before the critical millwards would have been positive bliss to her when we went to the missionary meeting that evening
while felicity and cecily were in their pretty muslins and she had tied her hair with a snuff brown ribbon which was very unbecoming to her the first person we saw in the church porch was missus ray
she told us that sara had nothing worse than a feverish cold the missionary had at least seven happy listeners that night
now you see all your penance was wasted said felicity as we walked home keeping close together because of the rumour that peg bowen was abroad oh i don't know i feel better since i punished myself
but i'm going to make up for it to morrow said the story girl energetically in fact i'll begin to night i'm going to the pantry as soon as i get home and i'll read father's letter before i go to bed wasn't the missionary splendid that cannibal story was simply grand
missionaries are such noble people i'd like to be a missionary and have adventures like that said felix it would be all right if you could be sure the cannibals would be interrupted in the nick of time as his were said dan but sposen they weren't
i'm going to put two cents more a week in my missionary box than i've been doing said cecily determinedly two cents more a week out of cecily's egg money meant something of a sacrifice it inspired the rest of us
we all decided to increase our weekly contribution by a cent or so
determined to start one i don't seem to be able to feel as int'rested in missionaries as you folks do he said but maybe if i begin to give something i'll get int'rested i'll want to know how my money's being spent i won't be able to give much
when your father's run away and your mother goes out washing and you're only old enough to get fifty cents a week you can't give much to the heathen but i'll do the best i can my aunt jane was fond of missions
rather than to presbyterian heathen no it's only after they're converted that they're anything in particular said felicity before that they're just plain heathen but if you want your money to go to a methodist missionary
you can give it to the methodist minister at markdale i guess the presbyterians can get along without it and look after their own heathen just smell missus sampson's flowers said cecily as we passed a trim white paling close to the road
over which blew odours sweeter than the perfume of araby's shore her roses are all out and that bed of sweet william is a sight by daylight
william is a man's name and men are never sweet
but they are not sweet and shouldn't be that is for women oh look at the moonshine on the road in that gap between the spruces i'd like a dress of moonshine with stars for buttons it wouldn't do said felicity decidedly you could see through it
the cisco kid had killed six men in more or less fair scrimmages had murdered twice as many mostly mexicans and had winged a larger number whom he modestly forbore to count
the kid was twenty five looked twenty
he killed for the love of it because he was quick tempered to avoid arrest for his own amusement any reason that came to his mind would suffice he had escaped capture because he could shoot five sixths of a second sooner
than any sheriff or ranger in the service and because he rode a speckled roan horse that knew every cow path in the mesquite and pear thickets from san antonio to matamoras tonia perez the girl who loved the cisco kid
was half carmen half madonna and the rest oh yes a woman who is half carmen and half madonna can always be something more the rest let us say was humming bird she lived in a grass roofed jacal
near a little mexican settlement at the lone wolf crossing of the frio with her lived a father or grandfather a lineal aztec somewhat less than a thousand years old who herded a hundred goats and lived in a continuous drunken dream from drinking mescal
a tremendous forest of bristling pear twenty feet high at its worst crowded almost to its door
that the speckled roan would bring the kid to see his girl and once clinging like a lizard to the ridge pole high up under the peaked grass roof he had heard tonia with her madonna face and carmen beauty and humming bird soul parley with the sheriff's posse
one day the adjutant general of the state
wrote some sarcastic lines to captain duval of company x stationed at laredo relative to the serene and undisturbed existence led by murderers and desperadoes in the said captain's territory
and forwarded the letter after adding a few comments per ranger private bill adamson to ranger lieutenant sandridge camped at a water hole on the nueces with a squad of five men in preservation of law and order
lieutenant sandridge turned a beautiful couleur de rose through his ordinary strawberry complexion tucked the letter in his hip pocket and chewed off the ends of his gamboge moustache
the next morning he saddled his horse and rode alone to the mexican settlement at the lone wolf crossing of the frio twenty miles away six feet two blond as a viking quiet as a deacon dangerous as a machine gun
patiently seeking news of the cisco kid far more than the law the mexicans dreaded the cold and certain vengeance of the lone rider that the ranger sought it had been one of the kid's pastimes to shoot mexicans to see them kick
if he demanded from them moribund terpsichorean feats simply that he might be entertained what terrible and extreme penalties would be certain to follow should they anger him one and all they lounged with upturned palms and shrugging shoulders
but there was a man named fink who kept a store at the crossing a man of many nationalities tongues interests and ways of thinking no use to ask them mexicans he said to sandridge they're afraid to tell
goodall is his name ain't it he's been in my store once or twice i have an idea you might run across him at but i guess i don't keer to say myself i'm two seconds later in pulling a gun than i used to be and the difference is worth thinking about
but this kid's got a half mexican girl at the crossing that he comes to see she lives in that jacal a hundred yards down the arroyo at the edge of the pear maybe she no i don't suppose she would
the sun was low and the broad shade of the great pear thicket already covered the grass thatched hut the goats were enclosed for the night in a brush corral near by a few kids walked the top of it nibbling the chaparral leaves
the old mexican lay upon a blanket on the grass already in a stupor from his mescal and dreaming perhaps of the nights when he and pizarro touched glasses to their new world fortunes
and lieutenant sandridge sat in his saddle staring at her like a gannet agape at a sailorman the cisco kid was a vain person as all eminent and successful assassins are and his bosom would have been ruffled
had he known that at a simple exchange of glances two persons in whose minds he had been looming large suddenly abandoned at least for the time all thought of him never before had tonia seen such a man as this
he seemed to be made of sunshine and blood red tissue and clear weather he seemed to illuminate the shadow of the pear when he smiled as though the sun were rising again the men she had known had been small and dark
even the kid in spite of his achievements was a stripling no larger than herself with black straight hair and a cold marble face that chilled the noonday as for tonia though she sends description to the poorhouse
let her make a millionaire of your fancy her blue black hair smoothly divided in the middle and bound close to her head and her large eyes full of the latin melancholy gave her the madonna touch her motions and air spoke of the concealed fire
and the desire to charm that she had inherited from the gitanas of the basque province as for the humming bird part of her that dwelt in her heart you could not perceive it unless her bright red skirt and dark blue blouse
the newly lighted sun god asked for a drink of water tonia brought it from the red jar hanging under the brush shelter sandridge considered it necessary to dismount so as to lessen the trouble of her ministrations i play no spy
nor do i assume to master the thoughts of any human heart but i assert by the chronicler's right that before a quarter of an hour had sped sandridge was teaching her how to plaint a six strand rawhide stake rope
and tonia had explained to him that were it not for her little english book that the peripatetic padre had given her and the little crippled chivo
she would be very very lonely indeed which leads to a suspicion that the kid's fences needed repairing and that the adjutant general's sarcasm had fallen upon unproductive soil in his camp by the water hole lieutenant sandridge
announced and reiterated his intention of either causing the cisco kid to nibble the black loam of the frio country prairies or of haling him before a judge and jury that sounded business like twice a week he rode over to the lone wolf crossing of the frio
and directed tonia's slim slightly lemon tinted fingers among the intricacies of the slowly growing lariata a six strand plait is hard to learn and easy to teach
the ranger knew that he might find the kid there at any visit he kept his armament ready
thus he might bring down the kite and the humming bird with one stone while the sunny haired ornithologist was pursuing his studies the cisco kid was also attending to his professional duties
he moodily shot up a saloon in a small cow village on quintana creek killed the town marshal plugging him neatly in the centre of his tin badge and then rode away morose and unsatisfied
he yearned for the woman he loved to reassure him that she was his in spite of it he wanted her to call his bloodthirstiness bravery and his cruelty devotion he wanted tonia to bring him water from the red jar under the brush shelter
and tell him how the chivo was thriving on the bottle the kid turned the speckled roan's head up the ten mile pear flat that stretches along the arroyo hondo until it ends at the lone wolf crossing of the frio the roan whickered
for he had a sense of locality and direction equal to that of a belt line street car horse and he knew he would soon be nibbling the rich mesquite grass at the end of a forty foot stake rope
more weird and lonesome than the journey of an amazonian explorer is the ride of one through a texas pear flat with dismal monotony and startling variety the uncanny and multiform shapes of the cacti
lift their twisted trunks and fat bristly hands to encumber the way the demon plant appearing to live without soil or rain seems to taunt the parched traveller with its lush grey greenness
it warps itself a thousand times about what look to be open and inviting paths only to lure the rider into blind and impassable spine defended bottoms of the bag leaving him to retreat if he can
with the points of the compass whirling in his head to be lost in the pear is to die almost the death of the thief on the cross pierced by nails and with grotesque shapes of all the fiends hovering about but it was not so with the kid and his mount
winding twisting circling tracing the most fantastic and bewildering trail ever picked out the good roan lessened the distance to the lone wolf crossing with every coil and turn that he made while they fared the kid sang
he knew but one tune and sang it as he knew but one code and lived it and but one girl and loved her he was a single minded man of conventional ideas he had a voice like a coyote with bronchitis but whenever he chose to sing his song he sang it
it was a conventional song of the camps and trail
don't you monkey with my lulu girl or i'll tell you what i'll do and so on the roan was inured to it and did not mind
as though he were in a circus ring the speckled roan wheeled and danced through the labyrinth of pear until at length his rider knew by certain landmarks that the lone wolf crossing was close at hand then where the pear was thinner
and the hackberry tree on the edge of the arroyo a few yards farther the kid stopped the roan and gazed intently through the prickly openings then he dismounted dropped the roan's reins and proceeded on foot stooping and silent like an indian
the roan knowing his part stood still making no sound the kid crept noiselessly to the very edge of the pear thicket and reconnoitred between the leaves of a clump of cactus ten yards from his hiding place
sat his tonia calmly plaiting a rawhide lariat so far she might surely escape condemnation women have been known from time to time to engage in more mischievous occupations but if all must be told there is to be added
that her head reposed against the broad and comfortable chest of a tall red and yellow man and that his arm was about her guiding her nimble fingers that required so many lessons at the intricate six strand plait
sandridge glanced quickly at the dark mass of pear when he heard a slight squeaking sound that was not altogether unfamiliar a gun scabbard will make that sound when one grasps the handle of a six shooter suddenly but the sound was not repeated
and tonia's fingers needed close attention and then in the shadow of death they began to talk of their love and in the still july afternoon every word they uttered reached the ears of the kid remember then said tonia
you must not come again until i send for you soon he will be here
he saw him on the guadalupe three days ago when he is that near he always comes if he comes and finds you here he will kill you so for my sake you must come no more until i send you the word all right said the stranger and then what
and then said the girl you must bring your men here and kill him if not he will kill you he ain't a man to surrender that's sure said sandridge it's kill or be killed for the officer that goes up against mister cisco kid
he must die said the girl otherwise there will not be any peace in the world for thee and me he has killed many
bring your men and give him no chance to escape you used to think right much of him said sandridge tonia dropped the lariat
and curved a lemon tinted arm over the ranger's shoulder but then she murmured in liquid spanish i had not beheld thee thou great red mountain of a man and thou art kind and good as well as strong
could one choose him knowing thee let him die for then i will not be filled with fear by day and night lest he hurt thee or me how can i know when he comes asked sandridge when he comes said tonia
he remains two days sometimes three gregorio the small son of old luisa the lavendera has a swift pony i will write a letter to thee and send it by him saying how it will be best to come upon him
and bring many men with thee and have much care oh dear red one for the rattlesnake is not quicker to strike than is el chivato as they call him to send a ball from his pistola
the kid's handy with his gun sure enough admitted sandridge but when i come for him i shall come alone i'll get him by myself or not at all the cap wrote one or two things to me that make me want to do the trick without any help
you let me know when mister kid arrives and i'll do the rest i will send you the message by the boy gregorio said the girl i knew you were braver than that small slayer of men who never smiles how could i ever have thought i cared for him
it was time for the ranger to ride back to his camp on the water hole
for a parting salute the drowsy stillness of the torpid summer air still lay thick upon the dreaming afternoon
rose straight as a plumb line above the clay daubed chimney no sound or movement disturbed the serenity of the dense pear thicket ten yards away when the form of sandridge had disappeared loping his big dun down the steep banks of the frio crossing
the kid crept back to his own horse mounted him
but not far he stopped and waited in the silent depths of the pear until half an hour had passed and then tonia heard the high untrue notes of his unmusical singing
the kid seldom smiled but he smiled and waved his hat when he saw her he dismounted and his girl sprang into his arms the kid looked at her fondly his thick black hair clung to his head like a wrinkled mat
the meeting brought a slight ripple of some undercurrent of feeling to his smooth dark face that was usually as motionless as a clay mask how's my girl he asked holding her close sick of waiting so long for you dear one she answered
my eyes are dim with always gazing into that devil's pincushion through which you come and i can see into it such a little way too but you are here beloved one and i will not scold
go in and rest and let me water your horse and stake him with the long rope there is cool water in the jar for you the kid kissed her affectionately not if the court knows itself do i let a lady stake my horse for me said he but if you'll run in chica
i'll be a good deal obliged besides his marksmanship the kid had another attribute for which he admired himself greatly he was muy caballero as the mexicans express it where the ladies were concerned
for them he had always gentle words and consideration he could not have spoken a harsh word to a woman he might ruthlessly slay their husbands and brothers but he could not have laid the weight of a finger in anger upon a woman wherefore
many of that interesting division of humanity who had come under the spell of his politeness declared their disbelief in the stories circulated about mister kid one shouldn't believe everything one heard they said
when confronted by their indignant men folk with proof of the caballero's deeds of infamy they said maybe he had been driven to it and that he knew how to treat a lady anyhow considering this extremely courteous idiosyncrasy of the kid
and the pride he took in it one can perceive that the solution of the problem that was presented to him by what he saw and heard from his hiding place in the pear that afternoon at least as to one of the actors must have been obscured by difficulties
and yet one could not think of the kid overlooking little matters of that kind
goat steaks canned peaches and coffee by the light of a lantern in the jacal afterward the ancestor his flock corralled smoked a cigarette and became a mummy in a grey blanket tonia washed the few dishes
while the kid dried them with the flour sacking towel her eyes shone she chatted volubly of the inconsequent happenings of her small world since the kid's last visit it was as all his other home comings had been then outside tonia swung in a grass hammock with her guitar
do you love me just the same old girl asked the kid hunting for his cigarette papers always the same little one said tonia her dark eyes lingering upon him i must go over to fink's said the kid rising for some tobacco
i thought i had another sack in my coat i'll be back in a quarter of an hour hasten said tonia and tell me how long shall i call you my own this time will you be gone again to morrow leaving me to grieve
or will you be longer with your tonia oh i might stay two or three days this trip said the kid yawning i've been on the dodge for a month and i'd like to rest up he was gone half an hour for his tobacco
when he returned tonia was still lying in the hammock it's funny said the kid how i feel i feel like there was somebody lying behind every bush and tree waiting to shoot me i never had mullygrubs like them before
maybe it's one of them presumptions i've got half a notion to light out in the morning before day the guadalupe country is burning up about that old dutchman i plugged down there you are not afraid no one could make my brave little one fear
well i haven't been usually regarded as a jack rabbit when it comes to scrapping but i don't want a posse smoking me out when i'm in your jacal somebody might get hurt that oughtn't to remain with your tonia no one will find you here
the kid looked keenly into the shadows up and down the arroyo and toward the dim lights of the mexican village i'll see how it looks later on was his decision at midnight a horseman rode into the rangers camp
blazing his way by noisy halloes to indicate a pacific mission sandridge and one or two others turned out to investigate the row
from the lone wolf crossing he bore a letter for senor sandridge old luisa the lavendera had persuaded him to bring it he said her son gregorio being too ill of a fever to ride sandridge lighted the camp lantern and read the letter
these were its words dear one he has come hardly had you ridden away when he came out of the pear when he first talked he said he would stay three days or more then as it grew later he was like a wolf or a fox and walked about without rest
looking and listening soon he said he must leave before daylight when it is dark and stillest and then he seemed to suspect that i be not true to him he looked at me so strange that i am frightened i swear to him that i love him
his own tonia last of all he said i must prove to him i am true he thinks that even now men are waiting to kill him as he rides from my house to escape he says he will dress in my clothes
my red skirt and the blue waist i wear and the brown mantilla over the head and thus ride away but before that he says that i must put on his clothes his pantalones and camisa and hat
and ride away on his horse from the jacal as far as the big road beyond the crossing and back again this before he goes so he can tell if i am true and if men are hidden to shoot him it is a terrible thing an hour before daybreak this is to
be come my dear one and kill this man and take me for your tonia
knowing all you should do that you must come long before the time and hide yourself in the little shed
it is dark in there he will wear my red skirt and blue waist and brown mantilla i send you a hundred kisses come surely and shoot quickly and straight thine own tonia
sandridge quickly explained to his men the official part of the missive the rangers protested against his going alone i'll get him easy enough said the lieutenant the girl's got him trapped and don't even think he'll get the drop on me
sandridge saddled his horse and rode to the lone wolf crossing he tied his big dun in a clump of brush on the arroyo took his winchester from its scabbard and carefully approached the perez jacal
there was only the half of a high moon drifted over by ragged milk white gulf clouds the wagon shed was an excellent place for ambush and the ranger got inside it safely
he could see a horse tied and hear him impatiently pawing the hard trodden earth he waited almost an hour before two figures came out of the jacal
toward the crossing and village and then the other figure in skirt waist and mantilla over its head stepped out into the faint moonlight gazing after the rider sandridge thought he would take his chance then before tonia rode back
he fancied she might not care to see it throw up your hands he ordered loudly stepping out of the wagon shed with his winchester at his shoulder there was a quick turn of the figure but no movement to obey so the ranger pumped in the bullets
one two three and then twice more for you never could be too sure of bringing down the cisco kid there was no danger of missing at ten paces even in that half moonlight the old ancestor asleep on his blanket
was awakened by the shots listening further he heard a great cry from some man in mortal distress or anguish and rose up grumbling at the disturbing ways of moderns
for the lantern hanging on its nail the other spread a letter on the table
ah dios it is senor sandridge mumbled the old man approaching
that letter was written by el chivato as he is called by the man of tonia they say he is a bad man i do not know
i am very old and i did not know
it is a very foolish world and there is nothing in the house to drink nothing to drink just then all that sandridge could think of to do was to go outside and throw himself face downward in the dust by the side of his humming bird
of whom not a feather fluttered he was not a caballero by instinct and he could not understand the niceties of revenge
chapter eight prescriptions it was sunday the second day after the dance the boys were scattered for the day was delicious one of those sweet soft days which come to us early in may
down in the blacksmith shop chip was putting new rowels into his spurs and whistling softly to himself while he worked the little doctor had gone with him to visit silver that morning and had not hurried away
but had leaned against the manger and listened while he told her of the time silver swimming the river when it was up had followed him to the shonkin camp when chip had thought to leave him at home and they had laughed together over the juvenile seven and the subsequent
indignation of the mothers who with the exception of mary had bundled up their offspring and gone home mad true they had none of them thoroughly understood the situation having only the version of the children who accused the little doctor
the mystification of the others among the happy family who scented a secret with a joke to it but
was dwelt upon with much enjoyment by the little doctor
and chip had no present quarrel with fate or with anybody else that was why he whistled then voices reached him through the open door and a laugh her laugh chip smiled sympathetically
though he had not the faintest notion of the cause of her mirth as the voices drew nearer the soft smooth hated tones of dunk whitaker untangled from the little doctor's laugh and chip stopped whistling
dunk was making a good long stay of it this time usually he came one day and went the next and no one grieved at his departure you find them an entirely new species of course how do you get on with them
said dunk and the little doctor answered him frankly and distinctly
they furnish me with some amusement and i give them something quite new to talk about so we are quits they are a good hearted lot you know but so ignorant
that's good we're a good hearted lot but so ignorant the devil we are he struck the rivet such a blow that he snapped one shank of his spur short off this meant ten or twelve dollars for a new pair
though the cost of it troubled him little just then it was something tangible upon which to pour profanity however and the atmosphere grew sulphurous in the vicinity of the blacksmith shop and remained so for several minutes after which a tall
irate cow puncher with his hat pulled low over angry eyes left the shop and strode up the path to the deserted bunk house
after one of the flying u horses which had broken out of the pasture della was looking from the window when chip rode up the hill upon the coulee trail which passed close by the house she was tired of the platitudes of dunk
who trying to be both original and polished fell far short of being either and only succeeded in being extremely tiresome where's chip going j g she demanded in a proprietary tone
oh i wish i could go i wonder if he'd care the little doctor spoke impulsively as was her habit course he wouldn't hey chip hold on a minute the old man stood waving his pipe in the doorway
dell's afraid one uh the kids might fall downstairs ag'in and she'd miss the case i'm not either said the little doctor coming to stand by her brother it's too nice a day to stay inside and my muscles
ache for a gallop over the hills chip did not look up at her he did not dare he felt that if he met her eyes with the laugh in them he should do one of two undesirable things he should either smile back at her
weakly overlooking the hypocrisy of her friendliness or sneer in answer to her smile
and hurried away to put on her blue riding habit with its cunning little jockey cap which she found the only headgear that would stay upon her head in the teeth of montana wind and which made her look well kissable
she was standing on the porch drawing on her gauntlets when chip returned leading concho by the bridle let me help you begged dunk at her elbow hoping till the last that she would invite him to go with them
the little doctor not averse to hiding the bitter of her medicine under a coating of sugar smiled sweetly upon him to the delectation of dunk and the added bitterness of chip
who was rapidly nearing that state of mind which is locally described as being strictly on the fight i expect she thinks i'll amuse her some more he thought savagely as they galloped away through the quivering sunlight
and the horses were compelled to walk then it was that chip's native chivalry and self mastery were put to test
before now drawn much of the lonely ache out of his heart and keyed him up to the life which he must live and which chafed his spirit more than even he realized instead of such slender comfort
he was forced to ride beside the girl who had hurt him so close that his knee sometimes brushed her horse and to listen to her friendly chatter and make answer at times with at least some show of civility
she was talking reminiscently of the dance j g showed splendid judgment in his choice of musicians didn't he chip looked straight ahead
a vision of dick brown's vapid smile and curled up mustache rose before him i'd tell a man he said with faint irony
i liked their playing so much mister brown was especially good upon the guitar
yes of course you know yourself he plays beautifully cow punchers aren't expected to know all these things chip hated himself for replying so but the temptation mastered him aren't they
i can't see why not chip closed his lips tightly to keep in something impolite the little doctor puzzled as well as piqued went straight to the point why didn't you like mister brown's playing did i say i didn't like it well you not exactly
yes yes yes no answer from chip he could think of nothing to say that was not more or less profane i think he's a very nice amiable young man strong emphasis upon the second adjective i like amiable young men
silence he's going to come down here hunting next fall j g invited him yes what does he expect to find why whatever there is to hunt chickens and er deer exactly
and the horses broke of their own accord into a gallop which somewhat relieved the strain upon the mental atmosphere at the next hill the little doctor looked her companion over critically mister bennett you look positively bilious
shall i prescribe for you i can't see how that would add to your amusement i'm not trying to add to my amusement no if i were there's no material at hand bad tempered young men are never amusing to me
i like amiable young men such as dick brown i think you need a change of air mister bennett yes i've felt lately that eastern airs don't agree with my constitution
because the supply is very limited the little doctor grew white around the mouth she held concho's rein so tight he almost stopped if you didn't want me to come why in the world didn't you have the courage to say so at the start
i must say i don't admire people whose tempers and manners are so unstable i'm sorry i forced my presence upon you and i promise you it won't occur again
short around in the trail and as chip gave blazes a vicious jab with his spurs at the same instant the distance between them widened rapidly as chip raced away over the prairie he discovered a new and puzzling kink in his temper
he had been angry with the little doctor for coming but it was nothing
chapter six lost in the rosebud range
muttered the lad stirring restlessly i'll get him next time look out he's charging us oh the boy suddenly opened his eyes the darkness about him was deep and impenetrable and he was conscious of a heavy weight on his chest
what it was he did not know and some moments passed
all at once he recollected it was the bear he murmured i wonder if i am dead no he could feel the ground under him and a rock that his right hand rested on felt cold and chilling but what of the pressure on his chest
cautiously the lad moved a hand toward the object that was holding him down his fingers lightly touched it tad could scarce repress a yell it was the head of the bear
were dead or asleep awaiting the moment when the lad should stir again to fasten its cruel teeth into his body the boy was satisfied however that by exerting all his strength he would be able to pull himself away
undoubtedly it had fallen underneath the bear tad determined to mate a desperate effort to escape he felt as if his hair were standing on end with a cry that he could not keep back
the lad whirled over and sprang to his feet as he did so he leaped away running with all his might until he had put some distance between himself and the prostrate animal
tad brought up sharply
there he stood listening intently for several minutes not a sound disturbed the stillness of the night the leaves of the trees hung limp and lifeless for no breeze was stirring i wonder if he's dead
whispered the lad almost afraid to trust his voice out loud maybe that shot finished him i must find out somehow tad searched his clothes for matches finally finding his match safe next he sought to gather some sticks
he picked his way carefully toward the place where he had been lying peering into the shadows ahead of him suspiciously as he went there he is breathed tad he could faintly make out the figure of the bear lying half on its side as it had been before
the only difference being that the animal's head was stretched out on the ground instead of on the lad's chest i believe he's dead he must be or he'd have been after me before this decided the boy i m going to find out mustering his courage
tad continued his cautious approach lighting match after match shading the flame with his hands so that the light would not get into his eyes and prevent him from seeing anything ahead of him it required no little courage
for a boy alone in the mountains to walk up to a bear not knowing whether the animal were dead or alive yet when tad butler made up his mind to do a certain thing he persisted until he had accomplished it
he reached the side of the animal that is close enough so that he could get a good view of it the bear never moved and tad drew closer walking on his toes that he might make no sound
there seemed no other way to make certain except to stir the animal i'll do it whispered tad cautiously lighting another match he drew back his left foot and administered a sound kick
to the beast's side thinking that the bear had moved under the blow tad whirled and ran tittering a loud oh he waited but could hear no sound i believe i am afraid of myself that bear hasn't stirred at all
there was no movement other than a slight tremor
cried the lad in the excess of his excitement i wonder what the boys will say the next question is how am i going to get him back to camp tad pondered over this problem some moments i know he cried i'll hitch a rope to him
but where is that pony
that was the last he had seen of pink eye tad whistled and called listening after each attempt without the slightest result he's gone
the worst of it is i may be a long way from camp but i guess i can find my way with the compass all right the compass however was nowhere to be found the lad went through his pockets twice in search of it
ah there it is tad picked up the weapon joyfully
a moment later when he discovered that the weapon held nothing but empty shells the keen edge of his joy was dulled
it's better to pack back an empty gun than no gun at all he decided philosophically let me see i think we came up that way
they'll build a big fire so i can see it and i ought to be there within half an hour at least the lad struck out confidently he had been lost in the wilderness before and though he felt a slight uneasiness
he had no doubt of his ability to find the camp eventually he walked vigorously for half an hour then he halted the same impressive silence surrounded him
been going a little too far to the left he decided he changed his course and plodded on methodically again another half hour passed and once more the lad paused
tad uttered a long drawn
e he listened intently then repeated the call the sound of his own voice almost frightened him oh i'm
he cried now fully appreciating his position the panic of the lost seized him and tad ran this way and that plunging ahead for some distance then swerving to the right or to the left in a desperate attempt to free himself
from the endless thicket bruising his body from contact with the trunks of the trees and cutting his hands as they struck the rocks violently when he fell tad butler you stop this he commanded sternly bringing himself up sharply
i didn't think you were such a silly kid as to be afraid of the dark but in his innermost heart the lad knew that it was not the shadows that had so upset him it was the feeling of being lost in an unknown forest
instead of being in the foothills as he had supposed he was penetrating the fastnesses of the rosebud mountains themselves there is no use in my going on like this he decided finally
i'll sit down and wait for daylight that's all i can do i surely can find my way back to camp when the light comes again the next question was where should he go where
he had heard some one speak of mountain lions and having seen these before he fervently hoped he might not have another experience with them unarmed as he was
after searching around for some time
up this he clambered it would give him a good view in the morning anyway besides protecting him from any prowling animals that might chance in that part of the forest tad ensconced himself in a slight depression
and with a flat rock for a resting place leaned back determined to make the best of his position a gentle breeze now stirred the foliage above his head and all about him until the sound became a
he decided wisely casting a glance above him at the sky which was becoming rapidly overcast and i haven't any umbrella he added grinning at his own feeble joke well i've been wet before
else he would now have suffered from the cold as it was he shivered
tad butler had left the camp at daybreak he started off at a slow trot which he kept up over the rough uneven ground until some time after sunrise all the time keeping the mountain gorge in sight so that he might not lose his way
he had eaten no breakfast having simply taken a cup of sulphur water believing that he could make better time on an empty stomach however he now sat down and munched on one of the three hard boiled eggs he had taken with him
this he did by stretching flat on his back after having finished his scanty breakfast sharp on the half hour by his watch tad sprang up greatly refreshed
not feeling any fatigue to speak of now and then he would pause for a few moments to make sure that he was not straying from the river gorge
rocks and foliage hid from his view at noon tad sat down and ate another egg i must be getting near the place he mused still there was no trace of human habitation
there remained nothing for him to do save to push on which he did stubbornly when the sun went down he seemed no nearer to the object of his search than when he had set out at daybreak the lad after looking about
came upon a tree which he climbed in order to get an unobstructed view of the country he argued that camp fires would be lighted for the evening meal not a sign of smoke could he discover anywhere tad's heart sank
gathered wood for a camp fire water there was none so he had to do without it while he ate his last egg then he lay down to sleep refusing to allow himself to think very long at a time of his lonely position
late that night the boy awakened finding the moon shining brightly he got up and looked about him the camp fire had died out the light of the moon was so strong that he could make out the surroundings almost as well as in daylight
i may as well go on he decided perhaps i'll get somewhere in time for breakfast if i don't
for i haven't a scrap of food left so he trudged on he did not run this time for a little more care than he had been exercising was now necessary to avoid pitfalls in the shadows cast by rock and tree daylight came
but still the weary boy kept on his way hungry yes tad was actually faint for want of food he tried the experiment of chewing some leaves that he knew were harmless at first this gave him some relief
after a little it made him sick so he did not try the experiment again he feared he was going to give out
overlooking a long slope he rubbed his eyes almost unbelievingly halfway down the slope was a shack and off beyond it stood a man with his back turned toward him tad uttered a shout of joy and began leaping down the incline
the man down there startled by the cry wheeled suddenly and descrying the figure of tad butler racing toward him ran to his cabin
a moment more a second man dashed out he too carrying a gun both men stood facing the lad until when he got near enough they discovered that it was a boy then they laughed and lowered their weapons tad fairly staggered up to them
what's the excitement about demanded the first of the two men tad explained as best he could between breaths at which the men laughed more heartily than ever i want something to eat first of all i'm half starved
he told them sorry younker but we ain't got more'n enough for ourselves it's a long ways to where we kin git more but i am
i must have food right now protested tad so must we who are you demanded tad indignantly i didn't suppose there was a man mean enough to refuse a boy at least a piece of bread when that boy was starving
we're prospecting i reckon we know our business best ye can't get any chuck out of this outfit then tell me where the red star mine is
why that's the direction i came from exclaimed the lad sure ye must have dodged it did ye pass the ruby mounting i don't know where is it asked tad butler you'd know if ye saw it once
it's a peak that looks red when the sun shines on it no i didn't pass the place tell me how i can get to the mining camp even if you won't let me have anything to eat begged the boy my companions will starve before i can get back unless
i get help to them soon got a compass yes then lay yer course north by northwest
if ye don't miss it and the miner laughed coarsely know anybody there mister munson richard munson dick munson eh returned the man with increasing interest i'll be going now
much obliged for directing me at least said tad turning away and starting with compass in hand the men said something to each other in a low tone but tad paid no attention to them
hurrying away as fast as his weary limbs would carry him hey young feller come back here tad did so reluctantly sorry we can't give ye anything to eat my pardner and i reckon though that ye can milk the goat if ye want to the goat
yep the goat's our milk wagon she gives milk for the outfit at first he thought they were joking but tad suddenly realized that the men were in earnest i i never milked a goat he replied hesitatingly
well if yer hungry enough ye'll try where is the goat oh i dunno browsing hereabouts i reckon look her up if ye want to
thank you i'll try mebby you'll find her over in that little draw there to the left suggested the miner tad sought the draw and after some search came upon the goat rather unexpectedly
the animal gazed at him suspiciously and moved off when he spoke to her tad coaxed without avail until finally with a handful of green leaves
but this was his first experience at milking a goat as a result the lad went about his task rather awkwardly
until he felt that he could hold no more thank you missus goat he soothed patting the animal while she in turn rubbed her nose against his sleeve
you're welcome help yourself if you wish any more no thank you i think i have plenty but you shall have some more green leaves
and which she attacked with vigorous nibbles and tugs very much refreshed the boy ran back to the miners shack how much do i owe you he asked
here is twenty five cents i thank you very much replied the lad
because the miner refused to reach out his hand for it you're welcome kid mebby we might squeeze out a chunk of bread after all
i do not feel hungry now he smiled how far is it to the red star the way you have directed me as the eagle flies bout twelve miles you'll make it in fifteen cause
swinging his hand in parting salute as he started with renewed courage the fifteen miles of rough traveling did not discourage him in the least he reasoned that he ought to reach the mining camp by four or five o'clock that afternoon
talking to himself to keep up his courage consulting his compass frequently that he might not stray from the course in the least the lad hurried on reaching the draw that the miners had described he recognized it at once worked his way around it and came back
his judgment was verified when shortly after four o'clock he was gratified by sighting several pillars of black smoke that's the place i've hit it exulted the lad breaking into a sharp trot
where's mister munson mister richard munson i must see him at once he asked of one of these he ain't here what not here no then where is he i must find him expostulated the lad
stage door secrets ice a substance frequently associated with a tumble in winter a tumbler in summer and a skate the year around
how'd you like to be the iceman idiot
and out one who is just out of ideas idle useless idolize to make useless impecunious to be in a state of poverty
meaning money an invention for burning money income the reliable offspring of a wise investment from lat in
a distressing stomach trouble that is sometimes temporarily relieved by kicking the cat or whipping the children individuality a harmless trait possessed by one's self
infantry a defender of the peace inhabitant a native of any village town or city oldest inhabitant the champion liar intuition
a fictitious quality in females really suspicion irritant something which irritates counter irritant a woman shopping island
a place where the bottom of the sea sticks up through the water isolation
solus alone alone in the cold after dinner sit a while after supper walk a mile and every meal's a supper to the hobo j
lies have no legs that's why we all have to stand for them jack an instrument requiring a strong arm and used for raising heavy weights or for pulling off the boots
jack pot an instrument requiring a strong hand and used for raising heavy bets or for pulling off the stakes jag from the spanish word zaga
meaning a load packed on the outside of a van in america the load is packed on the inside of a man
janitor from jangle to quarrel and torrid meaning hot hot and quarrelsome jelly cake synonym for belly ache jersey
well knit new jersey well bit see mosquito
jew a hebrew and harp a musical instrument the jew's musical instrument being a sell low old spelling
an implement employed by men of acquisitive natures who cannot afford seats in the stock exchange job an uncertain commodity regulated by a union card jockey
from jog to move slowly and key something that makes fast hence one who makes the pace fast or slow according to instructions joint either a low limb
from the butcher or a low quarter in town in either case the lower the tougher joke a form of humor enjoyed by some and misunderstood by most in england requiring a diagram
raised letters and a club jolly versus
to con or josh jolly boat the ship of state judge one who sits on a bench in a court frames sentences and finishes crooks for a living and swears continually
who hands you a mint and gives you a sweet spirit followed shortly by a bun jury twelve men chosen to decide who has the better lawyer
chapter thirty six the gardners'call here is a letter with an indian stamp for you aunt jimsie said phil here are three for stella and two for pris and a glorious fat one for me from jo
there's nothing for you anne except a circular nobody noticed anne's flush as she took the thin letter phil tossed her carelessly but a few minutes later phil looked up to see a transfigured anne honey what good thing has happened
said anne trying hard to speak as if she were accustomed to having sketches accepted every mail but not quite succeeding
what was it when is it to be published did they pay you for it yes they've sent a check for ten dollars and the editor writes that he would like to see more of my work dear man he shall
it was an old sketch i found in my box i re wrote it and sent it in but i never really thought it could be accepted because it had no plot said anne recalling the bitter experience of averil's atonement what are you going to do with that ten dollars anne
let's all go up town and get drunk suggested phil i am going to squander it in a wild soulless revel of some sort declared anne gaily at all events it isn't tainted money like the check i got for that horrible reliable baking powder story
i spent it usefully for clothes and hated them every time i put them on think of having a real live author at patty's place said priscilla
authors are kittle cattle you never know when or how they will break out anne may make copy of us i meant that the ability to write for the press was a great responsibility said aunt jamesina severely and i hope anne realizes it
my daughter used to write stories before she went to the foreign field but now she has turned her attention to higher things she used to say her motto was never write a line you would be ashamed to read at your own funeral you'd better take that for yours anne
if you are going to embark in literature though to be sure added
anne's eyes shone all that day literary ambitions sprouted and budded in her brain their exhilaration accompanied her to jennie cooper's walking party and not even the sight of gilbert and christine walking just ahead of her and roy
could quite subdue the sparkle of her starry hopes nevertheless she was not so rapt from things of earth as to be unable to notice that christine's walk was decidedly ungraceful but i suppose gilbert looks only at her face
so like a man thought anne scornfully shall you be home saturday afternoon asked roy yes my mother and sisters are coming to call on you said roy quietly something went over anne which might be described as a thrill
she had never met any of roy's family she realized the significance of his statement and it had somehow an irrevocableness about it that chilled her i shall be glad to see them she said flatly and then wondered if she really would be glad she ought to be of course
but would it not be something of an ordeal gossip had filtered to anne regarding the light in which the gardners viewed the infatuation of son and brother roy must have brought pressure to bear in the matter of this call anne knew she would be weighed in the balance
but would do her hair low friday afternoon none of the girls had classes at redmond stella took the opportunity to write a paper for the philomathic society and was sitting at the table in the corner of the living room
anne in her flannel blouse and serge skirt with her hair rather blown from her windy walk home was sitting squarely in the middle of the floor teasing the sarah cat with a wishbone joseph and rusty were both curled up in her lap
a warm plummy odor filled the whole house for priscilla was cooking in the kitchen presently she came in enshrouded in a huge work apron with a smudge of flour on her nose
to show aunt jamesina the chocolate cake she had just iced at this auspicious moment the knocker sounded nobody paid any attention to it save phil who sprang up and opened it expecting a boy with the hat she had bought that morning
anne scrambled to her feet somehow emptying two indignant cats out of her lap as she did so and mechanically shifting her wishbone from her right hand to her left priscilla who would have had to cross the room to reach the kitchen door lost her head
wildly plunged the chocolate cake under a cushion on the inglenook sofa and dashed upstairs stella began feverishly gathering up her manuscript only aunt jamesina and phil remained normal thanks to them everybody was soon sitting at ease even anne
priscilla came down apronless and smudgeless stella reduced her corner to decency and phil saved the situation by a stream of ready small talk missus gardner was tall and thin and handsome exquisitely gowned cordial with a cordiality that seemed
a trifle forced aline gardner was a younger edition of her mother lacking the cordiality she endeavored to be nice but succeeded only in being haughty and patronizing dorothy gardner was slim and jolly and rather tomboyish
anne knew she was roy's favorite sister and warmed to her she would have looked very much like roy if she had had dreamy dark eyes instead of roguish hazel ones
rusty and joseph left to themselves began a game of chase and sprang madly into missus gardner's silken lap and out of it in their wild career missus gardner lifted her lorgnette
of tolerant wonder anne despite her affection for rusty was not especially fond of cats but missus gardner's tone annoyed her inconsequently she remembered that missus john blythe was so fond of cats that she kept as many as her husband would allow
i have never liked cats said missus gardner remotely i love them said dorothy they are so nice and selfish dogs are too good and unselfish they make me feel uncomfortable but cats are gloriously human
you have two delightful old china dogs there
picking up magog she sat down on the cushion under which was secreted priscilla's chocolate cake priscilla and anne exchanged agonized glances but could do nothing
i'm the only one of the family he tells things to poor boy nobody could confide in mamma and aline you know what glorious times you girls must have here won't you let me come often and have a share in them come as often as you like anne responded heartily
thankful that one of roy's sisters was likable
and aline would never like her though missus gardner might be won altogether anne sighed with relief when the ordeal was over of all sad words of tongue or pen the saddest are it might have been quoted priscilla tragically lifting the cushion
this cake is now what you might call a flat failure and the cushion is likewise ruined never tell me that friday isn't unlucky people who send word they are coming on saturday shouldn't come on friday said aunt jamesina
the woman who lived in a shoe
the woman who lived in a shoe there was an old woman who lived in a shoe she had so many children
she gave them some broth without any bread and whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed
and has married them all happily she is surely entitled to pass her remaining days in peace and comfort she lived in a peculiar little house that looked something like this picture
with white gravel paths and many beds of bright colored flowers the old woman was very happy and contented there until one day she received a letter saying that her daughter hannah was dead and had sent her family of five children to their grandmother to be taken care of
this misfortune ruined all the old woman's dreams of quiet but the next day the children arrived three boys and two girls and she made the best of it and gave them the beds her own daughters had once occupied and her own cot as well
the youngsters were like all other children and got into mischief once in awhile but the old woman had much experience with children and managed to keep them in order very well while they quickly learned to obey her and generally did as they were bid
but scarcely had she succeeded in getting them settled in their new home when margaret another of her daughters died and sent four more children to her mother to be taken care of the old woman scarcely knew where to keep this new flock that had come to her fold
of course it was much more difficult to manage nine small children than five and they often led each other into mischief so that the flower beds began to be trampled upon and the green grass to be worn under the constant tread of little feet
and the furniture to show a good many scratches and bruises but the old woman continued to look after them as well as she was able until sarah her third daughter also died and three more children were sent to their grandmother to be brought up
the old woman was nearly distracted when she heard of this new addition to her family but she did not give way to despair she sent for the carpenter again and had him build another addition to her house as the picture shows
then she put three new cots in the new part for the babies to sleep in and when they arrived they were just as cozy and comfortable as peas in a pod the grandmother was a lively old woman for one of her years
you will realize what a large family the old woman had and how fully her time was occupied in caring for them all and now to make the matter worse her fourth daughter who had been named abigail suddenly took sick and died and she
also had four small children that must be cared for in some way the old woman having taken the other twelve could not well refuse to adopt these little orphans also i may as well have sixteen as a dozen she said with a sigh
they will drive me crazy some day anyhow so a few more will not matter at all once more she sent for the carpenter and bade him build a third addition to the house and when it was completed she added four more cots to the dozen that were already in use
the house presented a very queer appearance now but she did not mind that so long as the babies were comfortable i shall not have to build again she said and that is one satisfaction i have now no more daughters to die and leave me their children
and the flower beds trampled into shapeless masses by thirty two little feet that ran about from morn till night but the old woman did not complain at this
it cost so much money to clothe them
but it was a good and wholesome diet and the children thrived and grew fat upon it one day a stranger came along the road and when he saw the old woman's house he began to laugh what are you laughing at sir
asked the grandmother who was sitting upon her doorsteps engaged in mending sixteen pairs of stockings at your house the stranger replied it looks for all the world like a big shoe a shoe she said in surprise why yes
and soon people came from all parts of the country to look at the queer house and they usually went away laughing the old woman did not mind this at all she was too busy to be angry
or falling down and hurting themselves and these had to be comforted and some were naughty and had to be whipped and some were dirty and had to be washed and some were good and had to be kissed it was gran'ma do this and gran'ma do that from morning to night
so that the poor grandmother was nearly distracted the only peace she ever got was when they were all safely tucked in their little cots and were sound asleep for then at least she was free from worry and had a chance to gather her scattered wits
there are so many children she said one day to the baker man that i often really do n't know what to do
some of the children heard him say this and they resolved to play him a trick in return for his ill natured speech the baker man came every day to the shoe house and brought two great baskets of bread
the children all painted their faces to look as indians do when they are on the warpath and they caught the roosters and the turkey cock and pulled feathers from their tails to stick in their hair and then the boys made wooden tomahawks for the girls and bows and arrows for their own use
and then all sixteen went out and hid in the bushes near the top of the hill by and by the baker man came slowly up the path with a basket of bread on either arm and just as he reached the bushes there sounded in his ears a most unearthly war whoop
then a flight of arrows came from the bushes and although they were blunt and could do him no harm they rattled all over his body and one hit his nose and another his chin while several stuck fast in the loaves of bread altogether the baker man was terribly frightened
and when all the sixteen small indians rushed from the bushes and flourished their tomahawks he took to his heels and ran down the hill as fast as he could go when the grandmother returned she asked where is the bread for your supper
the children looked at one another in surprise for they had forgotten all about the bread and then one of them confessed and told her the whole story of how they had frightened the baker man for saying he would send them to the poor house
you are sixteen very naughty children exclaimed the old woman and for punishment you must eat your broth without any bread and afterwards each one shall have a sound whipping and be sent to bed then all the children began to cry at once
and there was such an uproar that their grandmother had to put cotton in her ears that she might not lose her hearing but she kept her promise and made them eat their broth without any bread for indeed there was no bread to give them then she stood them in a row and undressed them
and as she put the nightdress on each one she gave it a sound whipping and sent it to bed they cried some of course but they knew very well they deserved the punishment and it was not long before all of them were sound asleep
they took care not to play any more tricks on the baker man and as they grew older they were naturally much better behaved before many years the boys were old enough to work for the neighboring farmers and that made the woman's family a good deal smaller
if you live long enough both wishes will come true said anne calmly it's easy for you to be serene you're at home in philosophy i'm not and when i think of that horrible paper tomorrow i quail if i should fail in it what would jo say
you won't fail how did you get on in greek today i don't know perhaps it was a good paper and perhaps it was bad enough to make homer turn over in his grave i've studied and mulled over notebooks until i'm incapable of forming an opinion of anything
how thankful little phil will be when all this examinating is over examinating i never heard such a word well haven't i as good a right to make a word as any one else demanded phil words aren't made they grow
said anne never mind i begin faintly to discern clear water ahead where no examination breakers loom girls do you can you realize that our redmond life is almost over i can't said anne sorrowfully
it seems just yesterday that pris and i were alone in that crowd of freshmen at redmond and now we are seniors in our final examinations potent wise and reverend seniors quoted phil do you suppose we really are any wiser than when we came to redmond
you don't act as if you were by times said aunt jamesina severely oh aunt jimsie haven't we been pretty good girls take us by and large these three winters you've mothered us pleaded phil
who never spoiled a compliment by misplaced economy but i mistrust you haven't any too much sense yet it's not to be expected of course experience teaches sense you can't learn it in a college course
there are heaps of things you never learn at school quoted stella have you learned anything at redmond except dead languages and geometry and such trash queried aunt jamesina oh yes i think we have aunty protested anne
we've learned the truth of what professor woodleigh told us last philomathic said phil he said humor is the spiciest condiment in the feast of existence laugh at your mistakes but learn from them joke over your troubles but gather strength from them
make a jest of your difficulties but overcome them isn't that worth learning aunt jimsie yes it is dearie when you've learned to laugh at the things that should be laughed at and not to laugh at those that shouldn't you've got wisdom and understanding
what have you got out of your redmond course anne murmured priscilla aside i think said anne slowly that i really have learned to look upon each little hindrance as a jest and each great one as the foreshadowing of victory
summing up i think that is what redmond has given me i shall have to fall back on another professor woodleigh quotation to express what it has done for me said priscilla you remember that he said in his address
there is so much in the world for us all if we only have the eyes to see it and the heart to love it and the hand to gather it to ourselves so much in men and women so much in art and literature so much everywhere in which to delight
not their fault poor souls but those of us who have some gumption should duly thank the lord for it will you please define what gumption is aunt jimsie asked phil no i won't young woman any one who has gumption knows what it is
and any one who hasn't can never know what it is so there is no need of defining it the busy days flew by and examinations were over anne took high honors in english priscilla took honors in classics and phil in mathematics
stella obtained a good all round showing then came convocation this is what i would once have called an epoch in my life said anne as she took roy's violets out of their box and gazed at them thoughtfully she meant to carry them of course
but her eyes wandered to another box on her table it was filled with lilies of the valley as fresh and fragrant as those which bloomed in the green gables yard when june came to avonlea
college circles expected the announcement of her engagement to roy any day anne expected it herself yet just before she left patty's place for convocation she flung roy's violets aside and put gilbert's lilies of the valley in their place
that of the breathless moment when the stately president of redmond gave her cap and diploma and hailed her b a it was not of the flash in gilbert's eyes when he saw her lilies nor the puzzled pained glance roy gave her as he passed her on the platform
or dorothy's ardent impulsive good wishes it was of one strange unaccountable pang that spoiled this long expected day for her and left in it a certain faint but enduring flavor of bitterness
the arts graduates gave a graduation dance that night when anne dressed for it she tossed aside the pearl beads she usually wore and took from her trunk the small box that had come to green gables on christmas day in it was a thread like gold chain
with a tiny pink enamel heart as a pendant on the accompanying card was written with all good wishes from your old chum gilbert anne laughing over the memory the enamel heart conjured up the fatal day when
gilbert had called her carrots and vainly tried to make his peace with a pink candy heart had written him a nice little note of thanks but she had never worn the trinket tonight she fastened it about her white throat with a dreamy smile she and phil walked to redmond together
anne walked in silence phil chattered of many things suddenly she said
no said anne i think it's true said phil lightly anne did not speak in the darkness she felt her face burning she slipped her hand inside her collar and caught at the gold chain
one energetic twist and it gave way anne thrust the broken trinket into her pocket her hands were trembling and her eyes were smarting but she was the gayest of all the gay revellers that night and told gilbert unregretfully
that her card was full when he came to ask her for a dance afterwards when she sat with the girls before the dying embers at patty's place removing the spring chilliness from their satin skins none chatted more blithely than she of the day's events
well i suppose the lord doesn't regard the ears of a man said aunt jamesina gravely dropping all further criticism of moody spurgeon
agreeably to my promise i now relate to you all the particulars of the lost man and child which i have been able to collect it is entirely owing to the humane interest you seemed to take in the report that i have pursued the inquiry to the following result
you may remember that business called me to boston in the summer of eighteen twenty i sailed in the packet to providence and when i arrived there i learned that every seat in the stage was engaged i was thus obliged either to wait a few hours
or accept a seat with the driver who civilly offered me that accommodation accordingly i took my seat by his side and soon found him intelligent and communicative when we had travelled about ten miles the horses suddenly threw their ears on their necks as flat as a hare's said the driver
at this moment there was not a cloud visible in the firmament soon after a small speck appeared in the road there said my companion comes the storm breeder he always leaves a scotch mist behind him
by many a wet jacket do i remember him i suppose the poor fellow suffers much himself much more than is known to the world presently a man with a child beside him with a large black horse
he will tell you he cannot stay a moment for he must reach boston that night we were now ascending a high hill in walpole and as we had a fair view of the heavens i was rather disposed to jeer the driver for thinking of his surtout
and when at the height the driver pointed out in an eastern direction a little black speck as big as a hat
we may possibly reach polley's before it reaches us but the wanderer and his child will go to providence through rain thunder and lightning and now the horses as though taught by instinct hastened with increased speed
the little black cloud came on rolling over the turnpike and doubled and trebled itself in all directions the appearance of this cloud attracted the notice of all the passengers for after it had spread itself to a great bulk
the driver bespoke my attention to a remarkable configuration in the cloud he said every flash of lightning near its centre discovered to him distinctly the form of a man sitting in an open carriage drawn by a black horse
it was soon over the cloud passing in the direction of the turnpike toward providence
the man and child in the chair having excited some little sympathy among the passengers the gentleman was asked if he had observed them he said he had met them that the man seemed bewildered and inquired the way to boston
that he was driving at great speed as though he expected to outstrip the tempest that the moment he had passed him a thunderclap broke distinctly over the man's head and seemed to envelop both man and child horse and carriage i stopped said the gentleman supposing the lightning had struck him
but the horse only seemed to loom up and increase his speed and as well as i could judge he travelled just as fast as the thunder cloud while this man was speaking a peddler with a cart of tin merchandise came up all dripping
within a fortnight in four different states that at each time he had inquired the way to boston and that a thunder shower like the present had each time deluged him his wagon and his wares setting his tin pots et cetera afloat
so that he had determined to get marine insurance done for the future but that which excited his surprise most was the strange conduct of his horse
for that long before he could distinguish the man in the chair his own horse stood still in the road and flung back his ears in short said the peddler
this is all that i could learn at that time and the occurrence soon after would have become with me like one of those things which had never happened had i not as i stood recently on the doorstep of bennett's hotel in hartford heard a man say
there goes peter rugg and his child he looks wet and weary and farther from boston than ever
for whoever has once seen peter rugg can never after be deceived as to his identity peter rugg said i and who is peter rugg that said the stranger is more than anyone can tell exactly
ay said a bystander that is a thought bright only on one side how long would it take in that case to send a letter to boston for peter has already to my knowledge been more than twenty years travelling to that place but
under which peter rugg now labours i cannot say therefore i am rather inclined to pity than to judge you speak like a humane man said i and if you have known him so long i pray you will give me some account of him
has his appearance much altered in that time why yes he looks as though he never ate drank or slept and his child looks older than himself and he looks like time broke off from eternity and anxious to gain a resting place
and how does his horse look said i as for his horse he looks fatter and gayer and shows more animation and courage than he did twenty years ago the last time rugg spoke to me he inquired how far it was to boston i told him just one hundred miles
but said i you are now travelling from boston you must turn back alas said he it is all turn back boston shifts with the wind and plays all around the compass one man tells me it is to the east another to the west
stop then and refresh yourself
is peter rugg his real name or has he accidentally gained that name i know not but presume he will not deny his name you can ask him for see he has turned his horse and is passing this way
sir said i may i be so bold as to inquire if you are not mister rugg for i think i have seen you before
you live in boston do you and in what street in middle street when did you leave boston
why the old road is one hundred and seventeen miles and the turnpike is ninety seven how can you say so you impose on me it is wrong to trifle with a traveller you know it is but forty miles from newburyport to boston
he seemed to devour all before him and to scorn all behind
the stranger asked for missus rugg and was informed that missus rugg had died at a good old age more than twenty years before that time the stranger replied how can you deceive me so do ask missus rugg to step to the door
but said the stranger it seems to be on the wrong side of the street indeed everything here seems to be misplaced the streets are all changed the people are all changed the town seems changed
and what is strangest of all catharine rugg has deserted her husband and child pray said the stranger
he went a long voyage he is my kinsman if i could see him he could give me some account of missus rugg sir said missus croft i never heard of john foy where did he live just above here in orange tree lane there is no such place in this neighbourhood
no such street as king street why woman you mock me you may as well tell me there is no king george however madam you see i am wet and weary i must find a resting place i will go to hart's tavern near the market
which market sir for you seem perplexed we have several markets you know there is but one market near the town dock
but no such man as hart has kept there these twenty years here the stranger seemed disconcerted and muttered to himself quite audibly strange mistake
some other missus rugg some other middle street
i perceive my mistake there is a ferry between boston and charlestown there is no bridge ah i perceive my mistake if i was in boston my horse would carry me directly to my own door but my horse shows by his impatience that he is in a strange place
absurd that i should have mistaken this place for the old town of boston it is a much finer city than the town of boston it has been built long since boston i fancy boston must lie at a distance from this city as the good woman seems ignorant of it
at these words his horse began to chafe and strike the pavement with his fore feet the stranger seemed a little bewildered and said no home to night and giving the reins to his horse passed up the street and i saw no more of him
it was evident that the generation to which peter rugg belonged had passed away this was all the account of peter rugg i could obtain from missus croft but she directed me to an elderly man mister james felt who lived near her
but as it sometimes happens that men run away sometimes to be rid of others and sometimes to be rid of themselves and as rugg took his child with him and his own horse and chair and as it did not appear that any creditors made a stir
why my friend said james felt that peter rugg is now a living man i will not deny but that you have seen peter rugg and his child is impossible if you mean a small child
boston massacre seventeen seventy jenny rugg was about ten years old why sir jenny rugg if living must be more than sixty years of age that peter rugg is living is highly probable as he was only ten years older than myself
here i perceived that mister felt was in his dotage and i despaired of gaining any intelligence from him on which i could depend i took my leave of missus croft and proceeded to my lodgings at the marlborough hotel if peter rugg thought i
has been travelling since the boston massacre there is no reason why he should not travel to the end of time if the present generation know little of him the next will know less and peter and his child will have no hold on this world
in the course of the evening i related my adventure in middle street ha said one of the company smiling
i have heard my grandfather speak of him as though he seriously believed his own story sir said i pray let us compare your grandfather's story of mister rugg
and then his language was terrible in these fits of passion if a door stood in his way he would never do less than kick a panel through he would sometimes throw his heels over his head and come down on his feet uttering oaths in a circle
and did what others have since learned to do for merriment and money once rugg was seen to bite a tenpenny nail in halves in those days everybody both men and boys wore wigs and
while these fits were on him rugg had no respect for heaven or earth
one morning that rugg in his own chair with a fine large bay horse took his daughter and proceeded to concord on his return a violent storm overtook him at dark he stopped in menotomy
you are in an open chair and the tempest is increasing let the storm increase said rugg with a fearful oath i will see home to night in spite of the last tempest or may i never see home
at these words he gave his whip to his high spirited horse and disappeared in a moment but peter rugg did not reach home that night nor the next nor when he became a missing man could he ever be traced beyond mister cutter's in menotomy
for a long time after on every dark and stormy night the wife of peter rugg would fancy she heard the crack of a whip and the fleet tread of a horse and the rattling of a carriage passing her door
and saw the real peter rugg with his own horse and chair and child sitting beside him pass directly before his own door his head turning toward his house and himself making every effort to stop his horse but in vain
the next day the friends of missus rugg exerted themselves to find her husband and child they inquired at every public house and stable in town but it did not appear that rugg made any stay in boston no one
after rugg had passed his own door could give any account of him though it was asserted by some that the clatter of rugg's horse and carriage over the pavements shook the houses on both sides of the street
and this is credible if indeed rugg's horse and carriage did pass on that night for at this day in many of the streets a loaded truck or team in passing will shake the houses like an earthquake
however rugg's neighbours never afterward watched again some of them treated it all as a delusion and thought no more of it others of a different opinion shook their heads and said nothing
passing through the country like a streak of chalk this gave occasion to rugg's friends to make further inquiry but the more they inquired the more they were baffled if they heard of rugg one day in connecticut the next day they heard of him winding around the hills in new hampshire
charlestown bridge the toll gatherer asserted that sometimes on the darkest and most stormy nights when no object could be discerned about the time rugg was missing a horse and wheelcarriage with a noise equal to a troop
would at midnight in utter contempt of the rates of toll pass over the bridge this occurred so frequently that the toll gatherer resolved to attempt a discovery soon after at the usual time
apparently the same horse and carriage approached the bridge from charlestown square
and when questioned seemed anxious to waive the subject and thus peter rugg and his child horse and carriage remain a mystery to this day this sir
and full of copper and quartz in the days when the northern ocean washed the crest of mount washington and wrote its name upon the pictured rocks and the tide of the pacific swept over plymouth rock and surged up against bunker hill
when the gulf of mexico rolled its warm and shallow waters as far north as escanaba and eau claire in fact an immensely long time ago there lived somewhere in oconto county wisconsin a little jelly fish
and a little fellow whom we will call favosites because that was his name woke up inside of the egg and came out into the great world he was only a wee bit of floating jelly shaped like a cartridge pointed at both ends
he had at his sides an immense number of little paddles that went flapping flapping all the time keeping him constantly in motion whether the little fellow wanted to go or not so he kept scudding along in the water dodging from right to left
so he looked around until he found a flat bit of shell that just suited him when he sat down upon it and grew fast like old holger danske in the danish myth
only unlike holger he didn't go to sleep but proceeded to make himself at home so he made an opening in his upper side and rigged for himself a mouth and a stomach and put a whole row of feelers out
he kept taking them in and tried to wall himself up inside with them as a person would stone a well
or as though a man should swallow pebbles and stow them away in his feet and all around under the skin till he had filled himself full but little favosites became lonesome all alone on the bottom of that old ocean among so many outlandish neighbors
and so one night when he was fast asleep and dreaming as only a coral animal can dream there sprouted out of his side where his sixth rib would have been if he had had so many
who very soon began to eat worms and wall himself up as if for dear life then from these two another and another little bud came out and another and another little favosites was formed
and they all kept growing up higher and higher and cramming themselves fuller and fuller of limestone till at last there were so many of them and they were so crowded together that there wasn't room for them to grow round
once in a while some one in the company would get mad because the others got all of the lime or would feel uneasy at sitting still so long and swallowing stones
and would sail around like the old medusa and would lay more eggs which would hatch out into more favosites well
or were walled up and new ones filled their places and the colony thrived for a long time and had accumulated quite a stock of lime but one day there came a freshet in the menomonee river
and all the little favosites mouths were filled with it they didn't like the taste of iron so they all died but we know that their house was not spoiled for we have it here so the rock house they were making was tumbled about in the dirt
and the rolling pebbles knocked the corners off and the mud worked its way into the cracks and destroyed its beautiful whiteness there it lay for ages till the earth gave a great long heave
but the time of the old fishes came and went and many more times came and went but still favosites lay in the ground then came the long hot wet summer
and great ferns and rushes big as an oak and tall as a steeple grew over the land huge reptiles with jaws like a front door and teeth like cross cut saws and little reptiles with wings like bats
crawled and swam and flew but the ferns died and the reptiles died and the rush trees fell into the swamps and the mississippi now become quite a river
till at last they were turned into coal and wept bitter tears of petroleum
and hogs with noses so long they could sit on their hind legs and root and lots of still stranger creatures that no man ever saw alive
so the long long summer passed by and the autumn and the indian summer and at last the great winter came and it snowed and snowed
till the snow covered all the animals and then the trees and then the mountains then it would thaw a little and streams of water would run over the snow then it would freeze again and pack it into solid ice
still it went on snowing and thawing and freezing till the ice was a mile deep over wisconsin and the whole united states was one great skating rink so it kept on for about a million years until once
when the spring came and the south winds blew it began to thaw up then the ice came sliding down from the mountains and hills tearing up rocks little and big
crushing forests as you would crush an egg shell and wiping out rivers as you would wipe out a chalk mark so it came pushing thundering grinding along slowly enough
but with tremendous force this mile deep glacier like an immense plow drawn by a million oxen so the ice plowed across oconto county and little favosites was rooted out from the quiet place where he had lain so long
well the ice slid along melting all the while and making great torrents of water which as they swept onward covered land with clay and pebbles
and that was his beard for his beard was neither black as a raven's wing golden as the sunlight nor just an ordinary every day colour but it was blue bright blue of course had blue beards come into fashion
now not far from bluebeard's house there dwelt a widow with two very lovely daughters and one of these bluebeard wished to marry but which he did not mind they might settle that between themselves
neither of these girls had the least desire to have a husband with a blue beard and also not knowing the fate of the other wives they did not like to risk disappearing from the world as those had done
but being very polite young women they would not refuse bluebeard's proposals outright the younger said i would not for a moment take away sister anne's chance of marrying such a wealthy man while sister anne declared that although the elder
hunting and fishing expeditions picnics and balls went on from morning till night and all the night through so that there was not time even to think of sleep only feasting and pleasure the whole week long so well indeed did the younger sister enjoy this
that by the end of the week she had begun to think perhaps after all her host's beard was not so very blue and that it would be a fine thing to be the mistress of such a magnificent mansion and the wife of such a rich husband and so not long afterwards
there was a grand wedding and the widow's younger daughter became missus bluebeard about a month later bluebeard told his wife that he must leave her for several weeks having to travel on business
see here are my keys the keys of the rooms and of the chests where i keep my money my gold and silver plate and my jewels unlock rooms and chests
you will not need to use this at all in fact should you open that door or even put this key into the lock i should be dreadfully angry indeed i should make you suffer for it in a terrible way
then bluebeard bid his wife good bye and departed as soon as missus bluebeard's friends and relations knew that her husband was away they came flocking to visit her for they longed to see all her splendid possessions but had feared to come before
they could not enough admire the magnificent apartments and ran from one to another praising everything they beheld but the young wife heeded nothing they said or did all she thought of was that little key which she must not use
at last she could bear it no longer but slipping away from her visitors she ran along the passages and stairs nearly falling down them so great was her haste until she came to that door at the end of the corridor
for there they lay in a long straight row all dead she stood horrified for a moment or two gazing at the pale faces and long hair spread out around them then picking up the little key
which she had taken from the lock but dropped in her fright she hastily quitted the room shut and locked the door and ran to her own chamber to calm herself before returning to her guests but she was unable to rest for an instant so dreadful were her feelings
then with terror she noticed that on the key there was a stain
she washed the key and rubbed it and scraped it and polished it but all to no purpose if she succeeded in cleansing one side
but not the little one that she left behind bluebeard noticed this directly and sent her to fetch it trembling and white as a sheet she was forced to give it into his hand ha what is this he cried
what is this stain that i see his poor wife trembled still more and could not speak
you have unlocked the door of that room at the end of the passage you shall die in vain did his wife plead with him to spare her kneeling before him with tears streaming from her eyes
let me have a few moments alone to prepare for death half a quarter of an hour but not a moment longer he replied and left her the poor young woman hastened to a room at the foot of the turret stairs
where was her sister anne and called to her sister anne sister anne look from the tower window can you see no one coming
nothing but the green grass and the sun which shines upon it bluebeard shouted from below that the time was almost up sister anne sister anne look once again can you see no one coming whispered the young wife wringing her hands
but now bluebeard bawled out so loudly for his wife to come down that the whole house shook sister anne sister anne tell me is no one coming
and nearly dead with terror his wife descended still entreating him to spare her life he would not however give heed to her prayers and was just brandishing his sword so that it might come down straight and true upon her slender neck when the door burst open
chapter one they arrive at the monastery it was a warm bright day at the end of august the interview with the elder had been fixed for half past eleven immediately after late mass our visitors did not take part in the service
but arrived just as it was over first an elegant open carriage drawn by two valuable horses drove up with miuesov and a distant relative of his a young man of twenty called pyotr fomitch kalganov
this young man was preparing to enter the university miuesov with whom he was staying for the time was trying to persuade him to go abroad to the university of zurich or jena the young man was still undecided he was thoughtful and absent minded
he was nice looking strongly built and rather tall there was a strange fixity in his gaze at times like all very absent minded people he would sometimes stare at a person without seeing him he was silent and rather awkward
but sometimes when he was alone with any one he became talkative and effusive and would laugh at anything or nothing but his animation vanished as quickly as it appeared he was always well and even elaborately dressed he had already some independent fortune
and expectations of much more he was a friend of alyosha's in an ancient jolting but roomy hired carriage with a pair of old pinkish gray horses a long way behind miuesov's carriage
dmitri was late though he had been informed of the time the evening before the visitors left their carriage at the hotel outside the precincts and went to the gates of the monastery on foot except fyodor pavlovitch none of the party had ever seen the monastery
and miuesov had probably not even been to church for thirty years he looked about him with curiosity together with assumed ease but except the church and the domestic buildings though these too were ordinary enough he found nothing of interest in the interior of the monastery
the last of the worshippers were coming out of the church bareheaded and crossing themselves among the humbler people were a few of higher rank two or three ladies and a very old general they were all staying at the hotel
our visitors were at once surrounded by beggars but none of them gave them anything except young kalganov who took a ten copeck piece out of his purse and nervous and embarrassed god knows why hurriedly gave it to an old woman saying divide it equally
none of his companions made any remark upon it so that he had no reason to be embarrassed but perceiving this he was even more overcome it was strange that their arrival did not seem expected and that they were not received with special honor
though one of them had recently made a donation of a thousand roubles while another was a very wealthy and highly cultured landowner upon whom all in the monastery were in a sense dependent as a decision of the lawsuit might at any moment put their fishing rights in his hands
yet no official personage met them miuesov looked absent mindedly at the tombstones round the church and was on the point of saying that the dead buried here must have paid a pretty penny for the right of lying in this holy place but refrained
his liberal irony was rapidly changing almost into anger who the devil is there to ask in this imbecile place we must find out for time is passing he observed suddenly as though speaking to himself
all at once there came up a bald headed elderly man with ingratiating little eyes wearing a full summer overcoat lifting his hat he introduced himself with a honeyed lisp as maximov a landowner of tula
he at once entered into our visitors difficulty father zossima lives in the hermitage apart four hundred paces from the monastery the other side of the copse i know it's the other side of the copse observed fyodor pavlovitch but we don't remember the way
this way by this gate and straight across the copse the copse come with me won't you i'll show you i have to go i am going myself this way this way they came out of the gate and turned towards the copse
maximov a man of sixty ran rather than walked turning sideways to stare at them all with an incredible degree of nervous curiosity his eyes looked starting out of his head you see
observed miuesov severely that personage has granted us an audience so to speak and so though we thank you for showing us the way we cannot ask you to accompany us i've been there i've
who is a chevalier asked miuesov the elder the splendid elder the elder the honor and glory of the monastery zossima such an elder but his incoherent talk was cut short by a very pale wan looking monk
of medium height wearing a monk's cap who overtook them fyodor pavlovitch and miuesov stopped the monk with an extremely courteous profound bow announced the father superior invites all of you gentlemen to dine with him after your visit to the hermitage
at one o'clock not later and you also he added addressing maximov that i certainly will without fail cried fyodor pavlovitch hugely delighted at the invitation and believe me we've all given our word to behave properly here
and you pyotr alexandrovitch will you go too yes of course what have i come for but to study all the customs here the only obstacle to me is your company yes dmitri fyodorovitch is non existent as yet
it would be a capital thing if he didn't turn up do you suppose i like all this business and in your company too so we will come to dinner thank the father superior he said to the monk no it is my duty now to conduct you to the elder answered the monk
if so i'll go straight to the father superior to the father superior babbled maximov the father superior is engaged just now but as you please the monk hesitated impertinent old man miuesov observed aloud while maximov ran back to the monastery
he's like von sohn fyodor pavlovitch said suddenly is that all you can think of in what way is he like von sohn have you ever seen von sohn i've seen his portrait it's not the features but something indefinable
but look here fyodor pavlovitch you said just now that we had given our word to behave properly remember it i advise you to control yourself but if you begin to play the fool i don't intend to be associated with you here you see what a man he is he turned to the monk
i'm afraid to go among decent people with him a fine smile not without a certain slyness came on to the pale bloodless lips of the monk but he made no reply and was evidently silent from a sense of his own dignity miuesov frowned more than ever
oh devil take them all an outer show elaborated through centuries and nothing but charlatanism and nonsense underneath flashed through miuesov's mind here's the hermitage we've arrived cried fyodor pavlovitch the gates are shut
and he repeatedly made the sign of the cross to the saints painted above and on the sides of the gates when you go to rome you must do as the romans do here in this hermitage there are twenty five saints being saved they look at one another and eat cabbages
and not one woman goes in at this gate that's what is remarkable and that really is so but i did hear that the elder receives ladies he remarked suddenly to the monk women of the people are here too now lying in the portico there waiting
but for ladies of higher rank two rooms have been built adjoining the portico but outside the precincts you can see the windows and the elder goes out to them by an inner passage when he is well enough they are always outside the precincts
there is a harkov lady madame hohlakov waiting there now with her sick daughter
though of late he has been so weak that he has hardly shown himself even to the people so then there are loopholes after all to creep out of the hermitage to the ladies don't suppose holy father that i mean any harm
but no creature of the female sex no hens nor turkey hens nor cows fyodor pavlovitch i warn you i shall go back and leave you here they'll turn you out when i'm gone but i'm not interfering with you pyotr alexandrovitch look
he cried suddenly stepping within the precincts what a vale of roses they live in though there were no roses now there were numbers of rare and beautiful autumn flowers growing wherever there was space for them and evidently tended by a skillful hand
there were flower beds round the church and between the tombs and the one storied wooden house where the elder lived was also surrounded with flowers and was it like this in the time of the last elder varsonofy he didn't care for such elegance
they say he used to jump up and thrash even ladies with a stick observed fyodor pavlovitch as he went up the steps the elder varsonofy did sometimes seem rather strange but a great deal that's told is foolishness he never thrashed any one answered the monk now gentlemen
if you will wait a minute i will announce you fyodor pavlovitch for the last time your compact do you hear behave properly or i will pay you out miuesov had time to mutter again i can't think why you are so agitated
fyodor pavlovitch observed sarcastically are you uneasy about your sins they say he can tell by one's eyes what one has come about and what a lot you think of their opinion you a parisian and so advanced i'm surprised at you
chapter six smerdyakov he did in fact find his father still at table though there was a dining room in the house the table was laid as usual in the drawing room which was the largest room
and furnished with old fashioned ostentation the furniture was white and very old upholstered in old red silky material in the spaces between the windows there were mirrors in elaborate white and gilt frames of old fashioned carving
on the walls covered with white paper which was torn in many places there hung two large portraits one of some prince who had been governor of the district thirty years before and the other of some bishop also long since dead
in the corner opposite the door there were several ikons before which a lamp was lighted at nightfall not so much for devotional purposes as to light the room fyodor pavlovitch used to go to bed very late at three or four o'clock in the morning
and would wander about the room at night or sit in an arm chair thinking this had become a habit with him he often slept quite alone in the house sending his servants to the lodge but usually smerdyakov remained sleeping on a bench in the hall
when alyosha came in dinner was over but coffee and preserves had been served fyodor pavlovitch liked sweet things with brandy after dinner
the servants grigory and smerdyakov were standing by both the gentlemen and the servants seemed in singularly good spirits fyodor pavlovitch was roaring with laughter before he entered the room alyosha heard the shrill laugh he knew so well
and could tell from the sound of it that his father had only reached the good humored stage and was far from being completely drunk here he is here he is yelled fyodor pavlovitch highly delighted at seeing alyosha join us sit down
but would you like some no
never mind if you won't have it we will said fyodor pavlovitch beaming but stay have you dined yes answered alyosha who had in truth only eaten a piece of bread and drunk a glass of kvas in the father superior's kitchen
though i should be pleased to have some hot coffee bravo my darling he'll have some coffee does it want warming no it's boiling it's capital coffee smerdyakov's making my smerdyakov's an artist at coffee and at fish patties
and at fish soup too you must come one day and have some fish soup let me know beforehand but stay didn't i tell you this morning to come home with your mattress and pillow and all have you brought your mattress
ah but you were frightened you were frightened this morning weren't you there my darling i couldn't do anything to vex you do you know ivan i can't resist the way he looks one straight in the face and laughs it makes me laugh all over i'm so fond of him
alyosha let me give you my blessing a father's blessing alyosha rose but fyodor pavlovitch had already changed his mind no no he said i'll just make the sign of the cross over you for now sit still
now we've a treat for you in your own line too it'll make you laugh balaam's ass has begun talking to us here and how he talks how he talks balaam's ass it appeared was the valet smerdyakov he was a young man of about four and twenty
remarkably unsociable and taciturn not that he was shy or bashful on the contrary he was conceited and seemed to despise everybody but we must pause to say a few words about him now he was brought up by grigory and marfa
as grigory expressed it he was an unfriendly boy and seemed to look at the world mistrustfully in his childhood he was very fond of hanging cats and burying them with great ceremony he used to dress up in a sheet as though it were a surplice
and sang and waved some object over the dead cat as though it were a censer all this he did on the sly with the greatest secrecy
he shrank into a corner and sulked there for a week he doesn't care for you or me the monster grigory used to say to marfa and he doesn't care for any one are you a human being
he said addressing the boy directly you're not a human being
smerdyakov it appeared afterwards could never forgive him those words grigory taught him to read and write and when he was twelve years old began teaching him the scriptures but this teaching came to nothing at the second or third lesson the boy suddenly grinned
what's that for asked grigory looking at him threateningly from under his spectacles oh nothing god created light on the first day and the sun moon and stars on the fourth day
where did the light come from on the first day grigory was thunderstruck the boy looked sarcastically at his teacher there was something positively condescending in his expression grigory could not restrain himself
i'll show you where he cried and gave the boy a violent slap on the cheek the boy took the slap without a word but withdrew into his corner again for some days
a week later he had his first attack of the disease to which he was subject all the rest of his life epilepsy when fyodor pavlovitch heard of it his attitude to the boy seemed changed at once till then he had taken no notice of him
though he never scolded him and always gave him a copeck when he met him sometimes when he was in good humor he would send the boy something sweet from his table but as soon as he heard of his illness he showed an active interest in him
sent for a doctor and tried remedies but the disease turned out to be incurable the fits occurred on an average once a month but at various intervals the fits varied too in violence some were light and some were very severe
fyodor pavlovitch strictly forbade grigory to use corporal punishment to the boy and began allowing him to come upstairs to him he forbade him to be taught anything whatever for a time too one day when the boy was about fifteen
fyodor pavlovitch noticed him lingering by the bookcase and reading the titles through the glass fyodor pavlovitch had a fair number of books over a hundred but no one ever saw him reading
come read you shall be my librarian you'll be better sitting reading than hanging about the courtyard come read this
he read a little but didn't like it he did not once smile and ended by frowning why isn't it funny asked fyodor pavlovitch smerdyakov did not speak answer stupid
it's all untrue mumbled the boy with a grin then go to the devil you have the soul of a lackey stay here's smaragdov's universal history that's all true read that
so the bookcase was closed again shortly afterwards marfa and grigory reported to fyodor pavlovitch that smerdyakov was gradually beginning to show an extraordinary fastidiousness he would sit before his soup take up his spoon and look into the soup
bend over it examine it take a spoonful and hold it to the light what is it a beetle grigory would ask a fly perhaps observed marfa the squeamish youth never answered
but he did the same with his bread his meat and everything he ate he would hold a piece on his fork to the light scrutinize it microscopically and only after long deliberation decide to put it in his mouth
ach what fine gentlemen's airs grigory muttered looking at him when fyodor pavlovitch heard of this development in smerdyakov he determined to make him his cook and sent him to moscow to be trained
he spent some years there and came back remarkably changed in appearance he looked extraordinarily old for his age his face had grown wrinkled yellow and strangely emasculate in character he seemed almost exactly the same as before he went away
he was just as unsociable and showed not the slightest inclination for any companionship in moscow too as we heard afterwards he had always been silent moscow itself had little interest for him he saw very little there
and took scarcely any notice of anything he went once to the theater but returned silent and displeased with it on the other hand he came back to us from moscow well dressed in a clean coat and clean linen he brushed his clothes most scrupulously twice a day invariably
and was very fond of cleaning his smart calf boots with a special english polish so that they shone like mirrors he turned out a first rate cook fyodor pavlovitch paid him a salary almost the whole of which smerdyakov spent on clothes pomade
perfumes and such things but he seemed to have as much contempt for the female sex as for men he was discreet almost unapproachable with them fyodor pavlovitch began to regard him rather differently his fits were becoming more frequent
and on the days he was ill marfa cooked which did not suit fyodor pavlovitch at all why are your fits getting worse asked fyodor pavlovitch looking askance at his new cook would you like to get married shall i find you a wife
but smerdyakov turned pale with anger and made no reply fyodor pavlovitch left him with an impatient gesture the great thing was that he had absolute confidence in his honesty it happened once when fyodor pavlovitch was drunk
that he dropped in the muddy courtyard three hundred rouble notes which he had only just received he only missed them next day and was just hastening to search his pockets when he saw the notes lying on the table where had they come from
smerdyakov had picked them up and brought them in the day before well my lad i've never met any one like you fyodor pavlovitch said shortly and gave him ten roubles we may add that he not only believed in his honesty
but had for some reason a liking for him although the young man looked as morosely at him as at every one and was always silent he rarely spoke if it had occurred to any one to wonder at the time what the young man was interested in and what was in his mind
it would have been impossible to tell by looking at him yet he used sometimes to stop suddenly in the house or even in the yard or street and would stand still for ten minutes lost in thought a physiognomist studying his face would have said that there was no thought in it
no reflection but only a sort of contemplation there is a remarkable picture by the painter kramskoy called contemplation there is a forest in winter and on a roadway through the forest in absolute solitude
stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes he stands as it were lost in thought yet he is not thinking he is contemplating if any one touched him he would start and look at one as though awakening and bewildered
it's true he would come to himself immediately but if he were asked what he had been thinking about he would remember nothing yet probably he has hidden within himself the impression which had dominated him during the period of contemplation
those impressions are dear to him and no doubt he hoards them imperceptibly and even unconsciously how and why of course he does not know either he may suddenly after hoarding impressions for many years
abandon everything and go off to jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul's salvation or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native village and perhaps do both there are a good many contemplatives among the peasantry
chapter five the toil of trace and trail thirty days from the time it left dawson the salt water mail with buck and his mates at the fore arrived at skaguay they were in a wretched state worn out and worn down
buck's one hundred and forty pounds had dwindled to one hundred and fifteen the rest of his mates though lighter dogs had relatively lost more weight than he pike the malingerer who
in his lifetime of deceit had often successfully feigned a hurt leg was now limping in earnest sol leks was limping and dub was suffering from a wrenched shoulder blade they were all terribly footsore
no spring or rebound was left in them their feet fell heavily on the trail jarring their bodies and doubling the fatigue of a day's travel there was nothing the matter with them except that they were dead tired
it was not the dead tiredness that comes through brief and excessive effort from which recovery is a matter of hours but it was the dead tiredness that comes through the slow and prolonged strength drainage of months of toil
there was no power of recuperation left no reserve strength to call upon
bit of it every muscle every fibre every cell was tired dead tired and there was reason for it in less than five months they had travelled twenty five hundred miles
during the last eighteen hundred of which they had had but five days rest when they arrived at skaguay they were apparently on their last legs they could barely keep the traces taut and on the down grades just managed to keep out of the way of the sled
dis is de las den we get one long res eh for sure one bully long res the drivers confidently expected a long stopover themselves
and in the nature of reason and common justice they deserved an interval of loafing but so many were the men who had rushed into the klondike and so many were the sweethearts wives and kin that had not rushed in
that the congested mail was taking on alpine proportions also there were official orders fresh batches of hudson bay dogs were to take the places of those worthless for the trail the worthless ones were to be got rid of
and since dogs count for little against dollars they were to be sold three days passed by which time buck and his mates found how really tired and weak they were then on the morning of the fourth day
two men from the states came along and bought them harness and all for a song the men addressed each other as hal and charles charles was a middle aged lightish colored man with weak and watery eyes and a mustache that twisted fiercely and vigorously up
giving the lie to the limply drooping lip it concealed hal was a youngster of nineteen or twenty with a big colt's revolver and a hunting knife strapped about him on a belt that fairly bristled with cartridges this belt was the most salient thing about him
it advertised his callowness a callowness sheer and unutterable both men were manifestly out of place
buck heard the chaffering saw the money pass between the man and the government agent and knew that the scotch half breed and the mail train drivers were passing out of his life on the heels of perrault and francois and the others who had gone before
when driven with his mates to the new owners camp buck saw a slipshod and slovenly affair tent half stretched dishes unwashed everything in disorder also he saw a woman mercedes the men called her
she was charles's wife and hal's sister a nice family party buck watched them apprehensively as they proceeded to take down the tent and load the sled there was a great deal of effort about their manner but no businesslike method
the tent was rolled into an awkward bundle three times as large as it should have been the tin dishes were packed away unwashed mercedes continually fluttered in the way of her men and kept up an unbroken chattering of remonstrance and advice
when they put a clothes sack on the front of the sled she suggested it should go on the back and when they had put it on the back and covered it over with a couple of other bundles she discovered overlooked articles which could abide nowhere else but in that very sack and they unloaded again
three men from a neighboring tent came out and looked on grinning and winking at one another you've got a right smart load as it is said one of them and it's not me should tell you your business but i wouldn't tote that tent along if i was you
it's springtime and you won't get any more cold weather the man replied she shook her head decidedly
think it'll ride one of the men asked why shouldn't it charles demanded rather shortly oh that's all right that's all right the man hastened meekly to say
charles turned his back and drew the lashings down as well as he could which was not in the least well an of course the dogs can hike along all day with that contraption behind them affirmed a second of the men certainly
they were unable to move the sled the lazy brutes i'll show them he cried preparing to lash out at them with the whip but mercedes interfered crying oh hal you mustn't
and wrenched it from him the poor dears now you must promise you won't be harsh with them for the rest of the trip or i won't go a step precious lot you know about dogs her brother sneered and i wish you'd leave me alone they're lazy i tell you
and you've got to whip them to get anything out of them that's their way you ask any one ask one of those men mercedes looked at them imploringly untold repugnance at sight of pain written in her pretty face
they're weak as water if you want to know came the reply from one of the men plum tuckered out that's what's the matter they need a rest rest be blanked said hal with his beardless lips
but she was a clannish creature and rushed at once to the defence of her brother never mind that man she said pointedly
again hal's whip fell upon the dogs they threw themselves against the breast bands dug their feet into the packed snow got down low to it and put forth all their strength the sled held as though it were an anchor
after two efforts they stood still panting the whip was
when once more mercedes interfered she dropped on her knees before buck with tears in her eyes and put her arms around his neck
dears she cried sympathetically why don't you pull hard then you wouldn't be whipped buck did not like her but he was feeling too miserable to resist her taking it as part of the day's miserable work
you can help them a mighty lot by breaking out that sled the runners are froze fast throw your weight against the gee pole right and left and break it out a third time the attempt was made
but this time following the advice hal broke out the runners which had been frozen to the snow the overloaded and unwieldy sled forged ahead buck and his mates struggling frantically under the rain of blows a hundred yards ahead the path turned
and sloped steeply into the main street it would have required an experienced man to keep the top heavy sled upright and hal was not such a man as they swung on the turn the sled went over spilling half its load through the loose lashings
the dogs never stopped the lightened sled bounded on its side behind them they were angry because of the ill treatment they had received and the unjust load buck was raging he broke into a run the team following his lead
the capsized sled ground over him and the dogs dashed on up the street
kind hearted citizens caught the dogs and gathered up the scattered belongings also they gave advice half the load and twice the dogs
hal and his sister and brother in law listened unwillingly pitched tent and overhauled the outfit canned goods were turned out that made men laugh for canned goods on the long trail is a thing to dream about
blankets for a hotel quoth one of the men who laughed and helped half as many is too much get rid of them throw away that tent and all those dishes
she cried in general and she cried in particular over each discarded thing she clasped hands about knees rocking back and forth broken heartedly
not for a dozen charleses she appealed to everybody and to everything finally wiping her eyes and proceeding to cast out even articles of apparel that were imperative necessaries and in her zeal when she had finished with her own
she attacked the belongings of her men and went through them like a tornado this accomplished the outfit though cut in half was still a formidable bulk charles and hal went out in the evening and bought six outside dogs
these added to the six of the original team and teek and koona the huskies obtained at the rink rapids on the record trip brought the team up to fourteen
the treasure hunt flint's pointer jim said silver when we were alone if i saved your life you saved mine and i'll not forget it i seen the doctor waving you to run for it with the tail of my eye i did
jim that's one to you this is the first glint of hope i had since the attack failed
and now jim we're to go in for this here treasure hunting with sealed orders too and i don't like it and you
must stick close back to back like
just then a man hailed us from the fire that breakfast was ready and we were soon seated here and there about the sand over biscuit and fried junk
and it was now grown so hot that they could only approach it from the windward and even there not without precaution in the same wasteful spirit they had cooked i suppose three times more than we could eat and one of them with an empty laugh
threw what was left into the fire which blazed and roared again over this unusual fuel i never in my life saw men so careless of the morrow hand to mouth is the only word that can describe their way of doing
and what with wasted food and sleeping sentries though they were bold enough for a brush and be done with it i could see their entire unfitness for anything like a prolonged campaign even silver
eating away with captain flint upon his shoulder had not a word of blame for their recklessness and this the more surprised me for i thought he had never shown himself so cunning as he did then
said he it's lucky you have barbecue to think for you with this here head i got what i wanted i did sure enough they have the ship where they have it i don't know yet but once we hit the treasure
we'll have to jump about and find out and then mates us that has the boats i reckon has the upper hand thus he kept running on with his mouth full of the hot bacon thus he restored their hope and confidence and
but it's over and done i'll take him in a line when we go treasure hunting for we'll keep him like so much gold in case of accidents you mark and in the meantime once we got the ship and treasure both
and off to sea like jolly companions why then we'll talk mister hawkins over we will and we'll give him his share to be sure for all his kindness
for my part i was horribly cast down should the scheme he had now sketched prove feasible silver already doubly a traitor would not hesitate to adopt it
he had still a foot in either camp and there was no doubt he would prefer wealth and freedom with the pirates to a bare escape from hanging which was the best he had to hope on our side nay and even if things
he a cripple and i a boy against five strong and active seamen add to this double apprehension the mystery that still hung over the behaviour of my friends their unexplained desertion of the stockade their inexplicable cession of the chart
or harder still to understand the doctor's last warning to silver look out for squalls when you find it and you will readily believe how little taste i found in my breakfast and with how uneasy a heart i set forth behind my captors
besides the great cutlass at his waist and a pistol in each pocket of his square tailed coat to complete his strange appearance captain flint sat perched upon his shoulder and gabbling odds and ends of purposeless sea talk
came from our stock and i could see the truth of silver's words the night before had he not struck a bargain with the doctor he and his mutineers deserted by the ship must have been driven to subsist on clear water and the proceeds of their hunting
water would have been little to their taste a sailor is not usually a good shot and besides all that when they were so short of eatables it was not likely they would be very flush of powder well thus equipped we all set out even the fellow with the broken head
and straggled one after another to the beach where the two gigs awaited us even these bore trace of the drunken folly of the pirates one in a broken thwart and both in their muddy and unbailed condition
both were to be carried along with us for the sake of safety and so with our numbers divided between them we set forth upon the bosom of the anchorage as we pulled over there was some discussion on the chart
the red cross was of course far too large to be a guide and the terms of the note on the back as you will hear
of some ambiguity they ran the reader may remember thus tall tree spy glass shoulder bearing a point to the n of n n e skeleton island
e s e and by e ten feet a tall tree was thus the principal mark now right before us the anchorage was bounded by a plateau from two to three hundred feet high
adjoining on the north the sloping southern shoulder of the spy glass and
the top of the plateau was dotted thickly with pine trees of varying height every here and there one of a different species rose forty or fifty feet clear above its neighbours and which of these was the particular tall tree of captain flint
could only be decided on the spot
ere we were half way over long john alone shrugging his shoulders and bidding them wait till they were there we pulled easily by silver's directions not to weary the hands prematurely and after quite a long passage
but by little and little the hill began to steepen and become stony under foot and the wood to change its character and to grow in a more open order it was indeed a most pleasant portion of the island that we were now approaching
a heavy scented broom and many flowering shrubs had almost taken the place of grass thickets of green nutmeg trees were dotted here and there with the red columns and the broad shadow of the pines and the first
mingled their spice with the aroma of the others the air besides was fresh and stirring and this under the sheer sunbeams was a wonderful refreshment to our senses
the party spread itself abroad in a fan shape shouting and leaping to and fro about the centre and a good way behind the rest silver and i followed i tethered by my rope he ploughing with deep pants among the sliding gravel from time to time
indeed i had to lend him a hand or he must have missed his footing and fallen backward down the hill we had thus proceeded for about half a mile and were approaching the brow of the plateau when the man upon the farthest left began to cry aloud as if in terror
shout after shout came from him and the others began to run in his direction he can't a found the treasure said old morgan hurrying past us from the right
at the foot of a pretty big pine and involved in a green creeper which had even partly lifted some of the smaller bones a human skeleton lay with a few shreds of clothing on the ground i believe a chill struck for a moment to every heart
he was a seaman said george merry who bolder than the rest had gone up close and was examining the rags of clothing leastways this is good sea cloth aye aye said silver like enough
you wouldn't look to find a bishop here i reckon but what sort of a way is that for bones to lie tain't in natur indeed on a second glance it seemed impossible to fancy that the body was in a natural position
his hands raised above his head like a diver's pointing directly in the opposite i've taken a notion into my old numbskull observed silver here's the compass there's the tip
just take a bearing will you along the line of them bones it was done the body pointed straight in the direction of the island and the compass read duly e s
nor not nice says you great guns messmates but if flint was living this would be a hot spot for you and me
i saw him dead with these here deadlights said morgan billy took me in there he laid with
but if ever sperrit walked it would be flint's dear heart but he died bad did flint aye that he did observed another now he raged and now he hollered for the rum
and now he sang fifteen men were his only song mates
it was main hot and the windy was open and i hear that old song comin out as clear as clear and the death haul on the man already come come said silver stow this talk he's dead
and he don't walk that i know leastways he won't walk by day and you may lay to that care killed a cat fetch ahead for the doubloons
we started certainly but in spite of the hot sun and the staring daylight the pirates no longer ran separate and shouting through the wood
there are three tall trees said he about in the right line from skeleton island spy glass shoulder i take it
it's child's play to find the stuff now i've half a mind to dine first i don't feel sharp growled morgan thinkin o flint i think it were as done me
he were an ugly devil cried a third pirate with a shudder that blue in the face too that was how the rum took him added merry blue well i reckon he was blue
dick had his bible out and was praying volubly he had been well brought up had dick before he came to sea and fell among bad companions still silver was unconquered i could hear his teeth rattle in his head
but he had not yet surrendered nobody in this here island ever heard of darby he muttered not one but us that's here and then making a great effort shipmates he cried
i'm here to get that stuff and i'll not be beat by man or devil i never was feared of flint in his life and by the powers i'll face him dead
when did ever a gentleman o fortune show his stern to that much dollars for a boozy old seaman with a blue mug and him dead too but there was no sign of reawakening courage in his followers
rather indeed of growing terror at the irreverence of his words belay there john said merry don't you cross a sperrit and the rest were all too terrified to reply
they would have run away severally had they dared but fear kept them together and kept them close by john as if his daring helped them he on his part had pretty well fought his weakness down sperrit well maybe he said
but there's one thing not clear to me there was an echo now no man ever seen a sperrit with a shadow well then what's he doing with an echo to him i should like to know that ain't in natur surely
this argument seemed weak enough to me but you can never tell what will affect the superstitious and to my wonder george merry was greatly relieved well that's so he said you've a head upon your shoulders john and no mistake
bout ship mates this here crew is on a wrong tack i do believe and come to think on it it was like flint's voice i grant you but
by the powers ben gunn roared silver aye
ben gunn's not here in the body any more'n flint but the older hands greeted this remark with scorn why nobody minds ben gunn cried merry dead or alive nobody minds him
merry walking first with silver's compass to keep them on the right line with skeleton island he had said the truth dead or alive nobody minded ben gunn dick alone still held his bible and looked around him as he went with fearful glances
but he found no sympathy and silver even joked him on his precautions i told you said he i told you you had sp'iled your bible
if it ain't no good to swear by what do you suppose a sperrit would give for it not that and he snapped his big fingers halting a moment on his crutch but dick was not to be comforted indeed it was soon plain to me that the lad was falling sick
the first of the tall trees was reached and by the bearings proved the wrong one so with the second the third rose nearly two hundred feet into the air above a clump of underwood a giant of a vegetable with a red column as big as a cottage
it was conspicuous far to sea both on the east and west and might have been entered as a sailing mark upon the chart but it was not its size that now impressed my companions
their whole soul was found up in that fortune that whole lifetime of extravagance and pleasure that lay waiting there for each of them silver hobbled grunting on his crutch his nostrils stood out and quivered
he cursed like a madman when the flies settled on his hot and shiny countenance he plucked furiously at the line that held me to him and from time to time turned his eyes upon me with a deadly look certainly he took no pains to hide his thoughts and certainly i read them like print
in the immediate nearness of the gold all else had been forgotten his promise and the doctor's warning were both things of the past and i could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the treasure find and board the hispaniola under cover of night
when that ungodly buccaneer with the blue face he who died at savannah singing and shouting for drink had there with his own hand cut down his six accomplices this grove that was now so peaceful
must then have rung with cries i thought and even with the thought i could believe i heard it ringing still we were now at the margin of the thicket huzza mates all together shouted merry
and the foremost broke into a run and suddenly not ten yards further we beheld them stop a low cry arose silver doubled his pace digging away with the foot of his crutch like one possessed and next moment he and i had come also to a dead halt
before us was a great excavation not very recent for the sides had fallen in and grass had sprouted on the bottom in this were the shaft of a pick broken in two and the boards of several packing cases strewn around
buddhism and the peasant in order that one may realize the place that buddhism holds in the religious life of the chinese people as a whole he must turn to the organizations through which it functions
it is sometimes difficult to estimate the place of buddhism in china because it so interpenetrates the whole cultural and social life of the people it becomes their way
to see how it touches the life of the average man or woman in various ways will therefore be illuminating the most outstanding evidence of devotion are the many monasteries which dot the land in all buddhist countries
china is less dominated by them than other lands yet they form a very important reason for the persistence and strength of buddhism there one of the famous old shrines will represent them as a class and give evidence of their importance
one
is a famous shrine of south china it occupies a large amphitheater about fifteen hundred feet above the plain part way up
the drum mountain some three thousand feet high from the top of the mountain on clear days with the help of a glass the blue shores of formosa may be seen on the eastern horizon
the ascent to the monastery begins on the bank of the min river
carried by two or more coolies the road paved with granite slabs cut from the mountain side consists of a series of stone stairs which zig zag up the mountain under the shadow of ancient pine trees
every turn brings to view a bit of landscape carpeted with rice or a distant view where mountains and sky meet a brook rushes by the side of the road here it breaks into a beautiful waterfall there it gurgles in a deep ravine
have disposed themselves promiscuously their blackened weather beaten sides are incised with chinese characters one of them bears the words we put our trust in amitabha
another immortalizes the sentiments of some great official who has made the pilgrimage to the mountain near the monastery stand the sombre dagobas where repose the ashes of former abbots and monastery officials
not far away on the other side of the road hidden by trees is the crematory where the last remains of the brethren are consumed by the flames as one approaches the monastery he hears the regular sounds of a bell tolled by a water wheel
reminding the faithful of buddha's law he sees monks strolling leisurely about and lay brethren carrying wood
for the round hard cakes purchased from the monks by the merit seeking devotee the monastery itself consists of a large group of buildings erected about stone paved courts rising in terraces on the mountain side
the large court at the entrance leads to the hall of the four kings as one enters the spacious door he is faced by a jolly almost naked image of the laughing buddha this is maitreya
five thousand years after the departure of sakyamuni in the northern monasteries maitreya is often represented as reaching a height when standing of seventy feet or more which indicates the stature to which man will attain
when he returns to earth on each side of the visitor are two immense images of the deva kings in brahman cosmogony they were the guardians of the world
in this entrance hall of the buddhist monastery they stand as guardians of the buddhist faith in the same hall looking toward the open court beyond
the god worshipped by the soldiers and merchants although a confucian god he was early adopted by buddhist monks into their pantheon and made the guardian of their order beyond this entrance hall is a large stone paved court
on the left is a drum tower on the right one finds a series of small shrines a passage way leads to the library where numerous buddhist writings repose in lacquered cases
some of them written in their own blood by devout monks on the same side are guest halls the dining room for three hundred monks and the spacious well equipped kitchen with running water piped from a reservoir in the hills above
a store where books images and the simple requirements of the monks can be obtained is just above the dining room
and for housing the great printing establishment with its thousands of wooden blocks on which are carved
here also are kept the coffins in which the monks are to be burned on a terrace above the north side of the court rises the main hall
the buddhist trinity where three gilded images are seated on a lotus flower with halos covering their backs and heads the center image is that of sakyamuni the buddha on his right
quite often these images are said to represent the buddha the law and the community of monks on the altar are candlesticks and a fine incense burner from which curls of smoke arise
hangs from the ceiling in the rear are banners with praises to buddha given by pious devotees the floor is tiled and covered with round mats made of palm fiber on which the monks kneel during worship
before the mats are low stands for books on each side of this main hall are the images of nine buddhist saints arhats eighteen in all
behind this large temple opens another court and on a terrace above it stands the hall of the law with the images of kuan yin the goddess of mercy and the twenty four devas here also
are small images of viceroys and patrons of the monastery the hillsides are dotted with numerous temples and shrines there is one to
the great philosopher of the sung dynasty
in it are preserved a few characters indited by his hand on the west side of the monastery are large buildings for the housing of animals released by merit seeking devotees
here cows hogs goats chickens geese and ducks spend their old age without fear of beginning their transmigration by forming the main portion of a chinese feast the monastery is governed by an abbot
usually a man of good business ability elected by the monks under him are the officers of the two wings or groups of attendants one set looks after the spiritual interests of the monks the other takes care of their material needs
in strolling about the mountain side or in sleep their life is separated from all stirring contact with the life of the world two monasteries control feng shui
this monastery with its appointments is a good type of the monasteries all over china it was founded at the request of the inhabitants of the neighborhood because the dragons of the region used to cause much damage to the crops in the surrounding country
a holy monk came founded the monastery and by his good influence so curbed the dragons that the country side has enjoyed peace ever since and the monastery has prospered since the fourth century of our era records show that
holy monks brought rains and prosperity to various regions or prevented floods and calamities from damaging the villages
wind and water according to the chinese philosophy winds and water are spiritual forces and may be so controlled by other spiritual forces that instead of bringing harm
floods and dry seasons are so frequent in china that any institution holding out the promise of regulating them would become firmly established
one of the picturesque features of a chinese landscape is the pagoda these structures were introduced in the early stages of buddhism to enshrine the relics of buddha
hence numerous pagodas were erected to shelter these relics inasmuch as a pagoda contained the relics of buddha it possessed magic power and so came to play a great part in the control of the winds and the rains
the pagoda in china has an odd number of stories varying from three to thirteen the odd numbers belong to the positive principle in nature which is superior to the negative principle the pagoda plays quite a part in the festivals of the people
on certain occasions the stories are hung with lanterns and the pagodas are visited by numerous throngs three prayer for rain prayers for rain afford such a common illustration of the relation of buddhism to the life of the peasant
may be of seal value during a prolonged drought in some district of china when the heat opens gaping cracks in the fields and the grain is drying up the populace may visit their highest official and apprise him of the dire situation
he often forbids the slaughter of all animals for three days and in case rain has not thereby come
a the altar on such an occasion the great hall of the law may be used for the ceremony quite often a special altar is erected in an enclosure near the monastery on a platform one foot high
and twenty five feet on each side
in the center seats are arranged for the presiding monk and his assistants on each of the four sides of the altar is placed an image of the dragon king who is supposed to control the rain
if an image is not obtainable a piece of paper inscribed with the name of the dragon may be used flowers fruits and incense are spread before the images
the tent and altar are green and the monks wear green garments because green belongs to the spring and suggests rain
by abstinence and cleansing the presiding monk is one of high moral character and religious fervor while some monks recite appropriate sutras two others look after the offerings the incense and the sprinkling of water during the ceremony
to suggest the coming of rain the services continue day and night being conducted by groups of monks in succession b the prayer service the ceremonial is opened by a chant as follows
pearly dew of the jade heavens golden waves of buddha's ocean scatter the lotus flowers on a thousand thousand worlds of suffering that the heart of mercy may wash away great calamity
that a drop may become a flood that a drop may purify mountains and rivers we put our trust in the bodhisattvas and mahasattvas that purify the earth the chant ended
a monk takes a bowl of water and repeats thrice we put our trust in the great merciful kuan yin bodhisattva then follows the chant the bodhisattva's
it washes away the rank odors and dirt it keeps the altars clean and pure the mysterious words of the doctrine will be reverently repeated this chant ended the monks intone incantations of kuan yin
quite unintelligible even to them but of magical value while these are being uttered the presiding monk and his attendants walk around the altar while one of them with a branch sprinkles water on the floor
this symbolizes the cleansing of the altar and of the monks from all impurities which might render the ritual ineffective when the perambulating monks have returned to their place while the sprinkler continues his duties
the monks repeat the words we put our trust in the sweet dew kings bodhisattvas and mahasattvas the bodhisattvas have now come to the purified altar
and while the abbot offers incense to them the monks repeat the words the fields are destroyed so that they resemble the back of a tortoise the demons of drought produce calamity the dark people
footnote a term denoting the chinese pray earnestly while crops are being destroyed we pray that abundant limpid liquid may descend to purify and refresh the whole world the clouds of incense rise
this plaint is repeated thrice and is followed by an invocation wholeheartedly we cast ourselves to the earth o triratna
the leader remains quiet a long time with his eyes closed visualizing the buddhas the bodhisattvas the dragon kings and the saints all with their heavenly eyes and ears knowing that this region is afflicted with drought
that an altar has been constructed and that all have come to make petition
it is followed by an announcement to the effect that the sutra praying for rain was given by the buddha that a drought is afflicting the land
and that prayer is being made for rain but fearing that something may have been overlooked the magic formula of the king of light who turns the wheel
the altar having thus been cleansed of all impurities the rain sutra is opened and the one hundred and eighty eight dragon kings are urged by name in groups of ten to take action the formula is as follows
we with our whole heart invite such and such dragon kings to come we desire that the heart and wisdom which knows others intuitively will move the spirits above to obey the buddha to take pity on the people below
and to come to our province and send down sweet rain when the dragons have all been duly invited the monks chant suitable magical formulas while the leader sits in meditation visualizing these dragon kings and their tender solicitude for the people in distress
the monastery bell is sounded and the wooden fish is beaten while drums and cymbals add their effect the whole is intended to draw the attention of the dragon kings to the drought then the fifty four buddhas are invited in a similar manner in groups of ten
the sixth group consisting of four a similar form of address is used and similar magical formulas are recited with the noisy accompaniment the ceremony concludes by the expression of the hope that the three jewels buddha
the law and the community of monks and the dragon kings will grant the rain upon the altar are four copies of an announcement to the dragon kings and buddhas on the first day three copies are sent to them through the flames
one to the buddhas one to the dragon kings and one to the devas one copy is read daily and then sent up at the thanksgiving ceremony the announcement is as follows we put our trust in the limitless
reverent ocean clouds the dragons of august virtue and all their host all dragon kings and holy saints their august virtue is difficult to measure in accord with the command of buddha they send liquid rain
may their quiet mercy descend to the altar may they send down purity and freshness spreading over the ten directions we put our trust in the company of dragon kings of the clouds the saints and the bodhisattvas
the offerings are made only in the morning inasmuch as the buddhas following ancient custom are not supposed to eat after the noonday meal great care is taken that the altar shall not be desecrated by any one who eats meat or drinks wine
the magic formulas of great mercy are uttered or the name of kuan yin is repeated a thousand times
its meaning in the religious consciousness of the people is the idea that the drought is a punishment for sin the altar is made pure and acceptable and sin is removed in various symbolic ways
this fits in with the idea that man is an intimate part of the world order his sin disturbs the order of nature heaven manifests displeasures by sending down calamities upon men men should cease their wrongdoing
which disturbs the natural order and should also wash away the effects of their sins
and to predispose heaven to grant its blessings again four
the prayers for rain are an important part of the chinese peasant's world order drought is the manifestation of heaven's displeasure at the infraction of heaven's laws it calls for self examination and repentance
thus the monastery opens up the windows of the universal order as this touches the humble tiller of the soil the buddhist monasteries not only hold services in time of drought but also in time of flood
and at times when plagues of grasshoppers afflict the land or when diseases afflict human beings their adoption of chinese customs led them to have special ceremonies at the eclipse of the sun and moon although they knew the cause of the eclipse
as i was saying the other professor resumed if you'll just think over any poem that contains the words such as peter is poor said noble paul and i have always been his friend and though my means to give are small at least i can afford to lend
how few in this cold age of greed do good except on selfish grounds but i can feel for peter's need and i will lend him fifty pounds how great was peter's joy to find his friend in such a genial vein
well said peter with a sigh hand me the cash and i will go i'll form a joint stock company and turn an honest pound or so i'm grieved said paul to seem unkind the money shalt of course be lent but for a week or two i find it will not be convenient
so week by week poor peter came and turned in heaviness away for still the answer was the same i cannot manage it to day and now the april showers were dry the five short weeks were nearly spent yet still he got the old reply
it is not quite convenient the fourth arrived and punctual paul came with his legal friend at noon i thought it best said he to call one cannot settle things too soon poor peter shuddered in despair
his flowing locks he wildly tore and very soon his yellow hair was lying all about the floor the legal friend was standing by with sudden pity half unmanned the tear drop trembled in his eye the signed agreement in his hand
but when at length the legal soul resumed its customary force the law he said we ca'n't control pay or the law must take its course said paul how bitterly i rue that fatal morning when i called consider peter what you do
this style of business seems to me extremely inconvenient no nobleness of soul have i like some that in this age are found
this debt will simply swallow all and make my life a life of woe nay nay nay peter answered paul you must not rail on fortune so you have enough to eat and drink you are respected in the world
and at the barber's as i think you often get your whiskers curled though nobleness you ca'n't attain to any very great extent the path of honesty is plain however inconvenient tis true said peter i'm alive i keep my station in the world
once in the week i just contrive to get my whiskers oiled and curled but my assets are very low my little income's overspent to trench on capital you know is always inconvenient
but pay your debts cried honest paul my gentle peter pay your debts what matter if it swallows all that you describe as your assets already you're an hour behind yet generosity is best
how good how great poor peter cried yet i must sell my sunday wig the scarf pin that has been my pride my grand piano and my pig full soon his property took wings and daily as each treasure went
he sighed to find the state of things grow less and less convenient weeks grew to months and months to years peter was worn to skin and bone
said paul it fills me with surprise to hear you talk in such a tone i fear you scarcely realise the blessings that are all your own you're safe from being overfed you're sweetly picturesque in rags you never know the aching head that comes along with money bags
and you have time to cultivate that best of qualities content for which you'll find your present state remarkably convenient said peter though i cannot sound the depths of such a man as you yet in your character i've found an inconsistency or two
you seem to have long years to spare when there's a promise to fulfil and yet how punctual you were in calling with that little bill one can't be too deliberate said paul in parting with one's pelf with bills as you correctly state i'm punctuality itself
a man may surely claim his dues but when there's money to be lent a man must be allowed to choose such times as are convenient it chanced one day as peter sat gnawing a crust his usual meal
paul bustled in to have a chat and grasped his hand with friendly zeal i knew said he your frugal ways so that i might not wound your pride by bringing strangers in to gaze i've left my legal friend outside
you well remember i am sure when first your wealth began to go and people sneered at one so poor i never used my peter so and when you'd lost your little all and found yourself a thing despised i need not ask you to recall how tenderly i sympathised
but there's a heart within this breast and i will lend you fifty more not so was peter's mild reply his cheeks all wet with grateful tears no man recalls so well as i your services in bygone years
and this new offer i admit is very very kindly meant still to avail myself of it would not be quite convenient you'll see in a moment what the difference is between convenient and inconvenient
you quite understand it now don't you he added looking kindly at bruno who was sitting at sylvie's side on the floor yes said bruno very quietly such a short speech was very unusual for him but just then he seemed i fancied a little exhausted
in fact he climbed up into sylvie's lap as he spoke and rested his head against her shoulder
chapter twenty three an outlandish watch as i entered the little town i came upon two of the fishermen's wives interchanging that last word which never was the last and it occurred to me as an experiment with the magic watch
to wait till the little scene was over and then to encore it well good night and ye
nay ah winna forget an if she isn't suited she can but coom back good night a casual observer might have thought and there ends the dialogue that casual observer would have been mistaken
they'll not treat her bad yer may depend
good night ay they are that good night good night
and at last they parted i waited till they were some twenty yards apart and then put the watch a minute back the instantaneous change was startling the two figures seemed to flash back into their former places isn't suited she can but coom back
good night one of them was saying and so the whole dialogue was repeated and when they had parted for the second time i let them go their several ways and strolled on through the town
but the real usefulness of this magic power i thought would be to undo some harm some painful event some accident i had not long to wait for an opportunity of testing this property also of the magic watch for even as the thought passed through my mind
the accident i was imagining occurred a light cart was standing at the door of the great millinery depot of elveston laden with card board packing cases which the driver was carrying into the shop one by one
one of the cases had fallen into the street but it scarcely seemed worth while to step forward and pick it up as the man would be back again in a moment yet in that moment a young man riding a bicycle came sharp round the corner of the street
and in trying to avoid running over the box upset his machine and was thrown headlong against the wheel of the spring cart the driver ran out to his assistance and he and i together raised the unfortunate cyclist and carried him into the shop
i helped them in emptying the cart and placing in it some pillows for the wounded man to rest on and it was only when the driver had mounted to his place and was starting for the surgery that i bethought me of the strange power i possessed of undoing all this harm
now is my time i said to myself as i moved back the hand of the watch and saw almost without surprise this time
instantly i stepped out into the street picked up the box and replaced it in the cart in the next moment the bicycle had spun round the corner passed the cart without let or hindrance and soon vanished in the distance in a cloud of dust
delightful power of magic i thought how much of human suffering i have not only relieved but actually annihilated and in a glow of conscious virtue
i stood watching the unloading of the cart still holding the magic watch open in my hand as i was curious to see what would happen when we again reached the exact time at which i had put back the hand
the result was one that if only i had considered the thing carefully i might have foreseen as the hand of the watch touched the mark the spring cart which had driven off and was by this time half way down the street was back again at the door
and in the act of starting while oh woe for the golden dream of world wide benevolence that had dazzled my dreaming fancy the wounded youth was once more reclining on the heap of pillows his pale face set rigidly in the hard lines that told of pain resolutely endured
and took the seaward road that led to my lodgings the good i fancied i could do is vanished like a dream the evil of this troublesome world is the only abiding reality
and now i must record an experience so strange that i think it only fair before beginning to relate it to release my much enduring reader from any obligation he may feel to believe this part of my story
i would not have believed it i freely confess if i had not seen it with my own eyes then why should i expect it of my reader who quite possibly has never seen anything of the sort
i was passing a pretty little villa which stood rather back from the road in its own grounds with bright flower beds in front creepers wandering over the walls and hanging in festoons about the bow windows an easy chair forgotten on the lawn with a newspaper lying near it
resolved to guard the treasure even at the sacrifice of life and a front door standing invitingly half open here is my chance i thought for testing the reverse action of the magic watch i pressed the reversal peg and walked in
in another house the entrance of a stranger might cause surprise perhaps anger even going so far as to expel the said stranger with violence but here i knew nothing of the sort could happen the ordinary course of events first to think nothing about me
then hearing my footsteps to look up and see me and then to wonder what business i had there would be reversed by the action of my watch they would first wonder who i was then see me then look down and think no more about me and as to being expelled with violence
the party in the drawing room i had walked straight in you understand without ringing the bell or giving any notice of my approach consisted of four laughing rosy children of ages from about fourteen down to ten who were apparently all coming towards the door
i found they were really walking backwards while their mother seated by the fire with some needlework on her lap was saying just as i entered the room now girls you may get your things on for a walk to my utter astonishment for i was not yet accustomed to the action of the watch
all smiles ceased as browning says on the four pretty faces and they all got out pieces of needle work and sat down no one noticed me in the least as i quietly took a chair and sat down to watch them when the needle work had been unfolded and they were all ready to begin
their mother said come that's done at last you may fold up your work girls but the children took no notice whatever of the remark on the contrary they set to work at once sewing if that is the proper word to describe an operation such as i had never before witnessed
each of them threaded her needle with a short end of thread attached to the work which was instantly pulled by an invisible force through the stuff dragging the needle after it the nimble fingers of the little sempstress caught it at the other side but only to lose it again the next moment
and so the work went on steadily undoing itself and the neatly stitched little dresses or whatever they were steadily falling to pieces now and then one of the children would pause as the recovered thread became inconveniently long wind it on a bobbin
and start again with another short end at last all the work was picked to pieces and put away and the lady led the way into the next room walking backwards and making the insane remark not yet dear we must get the sewing done first
after which i was not surprised to see the children skipping backwards after her exclaiming oh mother it is such a lovely day for a walk in the dining room the table had only dirty plates and empty dishes on it
however the party with the addition of a gentleman as good natured and as rosy as the children seated themselves at it very contentedly you have seen people eating cherry tart and every now and then cautiously conveying a cherry stone from their lips to their plates
an empty fork is raised to the lips there it receives a neatly cut piece of mutton and swiftly conveys it to the plate where it instantly attaches itself to the mutton already there soon one of the plates furnished with a complete slice of mutton and two potatoes
was handed up to the presiding gentleman who quietly replaced the slice on the joint and the potatoes in the dish their conversation was if possible more bewildering than their mode of dining
it began by the youngest girl suddenly and without provocation addressing her eldest sister oh you wicked story teller she said i expected a sharp reply from the sister but instead of this she turned laughingly to her father and said in a very loud stage whisper
to be a bride the father in order to do his part in a conversation that seemed only fit for lunatics replied whisper it to me dear but she didn't whisper these children never did anything they were told
she said quite loud of course not everybody knows what dotty wants and little dolly shrugged her shoulders and said with a pretty pettishness now father you're not to tease you know i don't want to be bride's maid to anybody and dolly's to be the fourth was her father's idiotic reply
here number three put in her oar oh it is settled mother dear really and truly mary told us all about it it's to be next tuesday four weeks and three of her cousins are coming to be bride's maids and she doesn't forget it minnie the mother laughingly replied
i do wish they'd get it settled i don't like long engagements and minnie wound up the conversation if so chaotic a series of remarks deserves the name with only think we passed the cedars this morning just exactly as mary davenant was standing at the gate
wishing good bye to mister i forget his name of course we looked the other way by this time i was so hopelessly confused that i gave up listening and followed the dinner down into the kitchen
what need to tell how the mutton was placed on the spit and slowly unroasted how the potatoes were wrapped in their skins and handed over to the gardener to be buried how when the mutton had at length attained to rawness the fire which had gradually changed from red heat to a mere blaze
died down so suddenly that the cook had only just time to catch its last flicker on the end of a match or how the maid having taken the mutton off the spit carried it backwards of course out of the house to meet the butcher who was coming also backwards down the road
the longer i thought over this strange adventure the more hopelessly tangled the mystery became and it was a real relief to meet arthur in the road and get him to go with me up to the hall to learn what news the telegraph had brought i told him as we went what had happened at the station
the earl was sitting alone when we entered i am glad you are come in to keep me company he said muriel is gone to bed the excitement of that terrible scene was too much for her
and eric has gone to the hotel to pack his things to start for london by the early train then the telegram has come i said did you not hear oh i had forgotten it came in after you left the station yes it's all right eric has got his commission
and now that he has arranged matters with muriel he has business in town that must be seen to at once what arrangement do you mean i asked with a sinking heart as the thought of arthur's crushed hopes came to my mind
do you mean that they are engaged they have been engaged in a sense for two years the old man gently replied that is he has had my promise to consent to it so soon as he could secure a permanent and settled line in life
i could never be happy with my child married to a man without an object to live for without even an object to die for i hope they will be happy a strange voice said the speaker was evidently in the room but i had not heard the door open and i looked round in some astonishment
the earl seemed to share my surprise who spoke he exclaimed it was i said arthur looking at us with a worn haggard face and eyes from which the light of life seemed suddenly to have faded
and let me wish you joy also dear friend he added looking sadly at the earl and speaking in the same hollow tones that had startled us so much thank you the old man said simply and heartily
a silence followed then i rose feeling sure that arthur would wish to be alone and bade our gentle host good night arthur took his hand but said nothing nor did he speak again as we went home till we were in the house and had lit our bed room candles then he said
more to himself than to me the heart knoweth its own bitterness i never understood those words till now the next few days passed wearily enough i felt no inclination to call by myself at the hall still less to propose that arthur should go with me
it seemed better to wait till time that gentle healer of our bitterest sorrows should have helped him to recover from the first shock of the disappointment that had blighted his life business however soon demanded my presence in town
but i hope to run down again in a month i added i would stay now if i could i don't think it's good for you to be alone
i have made up my mind to accept a post in india that has been offered me
chased by pirates the weather now rapidly became finer and the ocean no longer lashed into fury by the breath of the tempest subsided once more into long regular undulations
the wind hauled gradually more round from the northward too and blew warm and balmy a most welcome change after the raw and chilly weather we had lately experienced we once more cracked on sail upon the little water lily
and on the morning following that upon which we filled away upon our course finding by observation that we were well clear of the cape and that we had plenty of room even should the wind once more back round from the westward
and stood away on a nor' west and by westerly course nothing of importance occurred for more than a week the weather continued settled and the glass stood high
and sufficiently moderate to permit of our carrying our jib headed topsail and day after day we flew forward upon our course seldom making less than ten knots in the hour and occasionally reaching as high as thirteen we were perfectly jubilant
for having rounded the cape in safety we now considered our troubles over and our ultimate success as certain we were fairly in the pacific the region of fine weather and our little barkie had behaved so well in the gale that our confidence in her seaworthiness
was thoroughly established so that all fear of future danger from bad weather was completely taken off our minds one morning the wind having fallen considerably lighter during the preceding night as soon as breakfast was over i roused up our square headed topsail
either a barque or a brig answered i the latter i am inclined to believe though he is still too far away for his mizzen mast to show if he has one why d'ye think it's a brig harry queried bob
having seen all that it was possible to see at present then it's that murderin albatross again for a thousand ejaculated bob in a tone of deep disgust
and consequently got a good long leg to the west'ard of us
i was inclined to take the same view of the matter that bob did it is true that when once a ship passes out of sight at sea you can never be sure of her exact position afterwards yet under certain circumstances
taking the direction of the wind and the state of the weather as data upon which to base your argument and in conjunction with these the course the vessel was steering when last seen or the part of the world to which you have reason to believe she is bound
it is astonishing how near a guess may be and is not unfrequently made as to her whereabouts
which she undoubtedly would have done under such circumstances making a fair wind of it at the same time there was of course a possibility of our being mistaken as to the craft in sight being the pirate brig it being by no means an unusual thing for vessels as small as she was
or even smaller to venture round the cape well said i perhaps it will be safest bob to assume for the present that this brig is the albatross what under such circumstances is your advice
which of us has the weather gauge d'ye think queried bob
if we are both going at about the same speed i should say we shall pass extremely close to her
to the northward rather edging down towards us if anything i thought ay ay chuckled bob it ain't every craft as can stick her bowsprit into the wind's eye like this here little barkie
and here we are going as close to the wind as he is and every thread ramping full take hold of her a minute hal and let's see what these old eyes of mine can tell us about the stranger i took hold of the tiller
and bob went aloft with the deliberation of the seaman who is in no particular hurry having reached the cross trees he stood upon them with one hand grasping the peak halliards to steady himself whilst with the other he shaded his eyes
we're raising her fast harry my boy
he then went as high as the yard of the topsail and clung there for a good five minutes reading all the signs which a seaman sees in the almost imperceptible peculiarities of rig shape of sails etcetera having satisfied himself
he descended deliberately to the deck evidently ruminating deeply
there's a familiar sort of a look with that craft away yonder
and i've no moral doubt in the world but what it's that villain johnson although we can't be sartain of it until we gets a nearer look at her
and if so by all means keep it even if we has to run the gauntlet of her broadside for a minute or two once let's be to wind'ard and in such weather as this i wouldn't fear the smartest square rigged craft that ever was launched
we could lead em no end of a dance and then give em the slip a'terwards when we was tired of the fun so my advice is to luff up as close as you can not too close ye know lad let her go through it but spring your luff all as you can get and let's try what our friend yonder is made of
as long as we're to leeward of him the game is his but let's get to wind'ard of him and it's ours to do what we like with it
but that would still be leaving him the weather gauge and i saw fully as clearly as bob did the advantage of obtaining this if possible so on we stood boldly lying a good point higher than we had been before steering
yet keeping every sail a good clean full and drawing to perfection the wind however was dropping fast and by the time that the sun was on the meridian we were not going more than five knots this made me extremely anxious
more particularly as the stranger proved a remarkably fast vessel so much so that it still remained a matter of doubt which of us would cross the other bob on the other hand was delighted beyond measure
stoutly avowing that the falling breeze was little if anything short of a divine manifestation in our favour he declared himself ready to stake all he was possessed of in the world and if the brig should turn out to be the pirate he actually was staking his life
on our speed as against that of the stranger in light winds and was already chuckling in anticipation over that craft's discomfiture she was within about five miles of us still maintaining her relative position of about four points on our lee bow
when bob served dinner on deck as was our custom in fine weather we were very busy with the viands keeping one eye always on the brig however when we noticed something fluttering over her taffrail
the stars and stripes and a pennant exclaimed he with his eye still at the tube lord bless us for the two pretty innocents he takes us for harry but there of course he don't know as we've got his character and all about him at our fingers ends
well anyhow we won't be behindhand with him in the matter of politeness and therewith master bob dived below returning in a moment with our ensign and club burgee in his hand which he bent to their respective halliards and ran them up
the one to our gaff end and the other to our mast head as we had by this time finished our meal bob cleared the things away muttering something about having plenty to do afore long besides eating and drinking
our colours had not been displayed above a minute when four small balls were seen ascending to the brig's main royal mast head
bob at once assumed the duties of signal officer by once more taking a peep through the glass commercial code pennant said he and then he read out the flags beneath it run down and fetch up the signal book said i
he did so we turned up the signal and read come under my lee i wish to speak you thank ee ejaculated bob not if we can help it mister johnson
i reckon twould be about the most onprofitable conwersation as ever the crew of this here cutter took a part in we've got our own wholesome planks to walk aboard here when we wants any of that sort of exercise and though there's not much to boast of in the way of room
i dare say there's more of that than we'd find on the plank you'd give us for a parade ground
you are right bob i replied glancing at the compass he is more than a point farther aft than he was a quarter of an hour ago but is it not possible that we are giving ourselves needless uneasiness
that craft certainly has a look of the albatross but we are not sure that it is her after all d'ye notice his main topmast staysail harry returned he
and into the slings of his fore yard how many vessels will ye see with a sail shaped like that yet i noticed that his was the other day and there's the red ribbon round him too in fact it's the albatross all over concluded he
with the glass once more at his eye it was but too evident that bob was right i had been hoping that the general resemblance of the brig in sight to the albatross was purely accidental but she was now within less than three miles of us
and even without the aid of the telescope certain features if i may so term them were recognisable which identified her beyond all question as the pirate brig what shall we do about answering his signal bob said i
he had no chance with us in a light air like the present and i entertained strong hopes of being able to slip past him unscathed when i felt sanguine of our ability to get fairly away from him in a chase dead to windward
but he evidently had no notion of letting us have our own way in this matter without a pretty vigorous protest on his part
we saw the brig slowly luff into the wind his fore sheet was raised for a moment a flash of flame and a puff of white smoke darted suddenly from his forecastle and then we saw the jets spouting up where the shot struck the water as it came ricocheting towards us
he had aimed apparently so as to throw the shot across our fore foot but it fell short by about fifty feet do that again you lubber exclaimed bob contemptuously apostrophising the brig three more such fool's tricks as that
see how long it takes him to pay off ag'in harry very near lost his way altogether when he'd a had to box her off with his headyards and by the time he'd done that we should be well clear of him well i did think the man had more sense than to do the like of that
friend johnson evidently saw his mistake as clearly as we did
just as we were crossing his bows however and had got his masts in tone by which time he had drawn considerably nearer us the brig fell off a little not to repeat her former error and again came the flash the smoke and the ringing report
here it comes straight for us this time and no mistake exclaimed bob as the water jets again marked the course of the shot scaldings out of the road all of us that's got thin skulls continued he
as the shot came skipping across the water in such long bounds as showed we were within range well missed added he as the shot struck the water close to us and bounded fairly over the boat passing close beneath the main boom and the foot of the mainsail
without injuring so much as a ropeyarn that's his long gun bob said i his broadside guns would never reach so far as this and though we're just now in rather warm quarters we shall be out of range again very soon
and then i think we need give ourselves no further trouble concerning him any way you've got something very like the fulfilment of the wish you expressed the other day
i'll warrant he's walking the quarter deck at this minute fit to bite his fingers off wi vexation at our slipping past him in this style here another shot from the brig came bounding after us but we offered him a much smaller mark than before
inasmuch as he was now nearly dead astern of us and we consequently presented an end instead of a broadside view to him the shot shaved us pretty close to windward nevertheless striking the water for the last time just short of our taffrail
and scurrying along and ploughing up the surface close enough to give us a pretty copious shower bath of spray ere it finally sank just ahead of us the next shot which quickly followed passed almost as close to leeward and the third came straight enough
but fell just short of us after this he fired no more very cleverly managed i call that harry said bob as soon as we found ourselves once more out of range we can now take things quietly and as it's your watch below
i'd recommend you to turn in and get a bit of a snooze it's your eight hours out to night my lad and if the breeze should happen to freshen about sundown and that chap comes after us and by the piper he means that same for i'm blest if he isn't in stays
you'll need to keep both eyes open all your watch this was good advice and i at once proceeded to adopt it cautioning bob to be sure to call me without delay in the event of any further complication arising
i had not been below above two minutes when i heard his voice shouting to me to come on deck again wondering what was now in the wind i sprang up the short companion ladder and my eye at once falling upon the brig which was now dead astern of us
heading in the same direction as ourselves though not lying so close to the wind i saw in a moment that our troubles were not yet by any means over the wind had by this time fallen so light that we were not making above three knots way through the water
whilst the pirate appeared barely to have steerage way in fact his canvas was flapping to the mast with every sluggish roll which the vessel took over the long scarcely perceptible swell
friend johnson was evidently greatly nettled at our having slipped so handsomely through his fingers as we had and seemed determined to have a word or two with us yet whether we would or no for he had lowered one of his boats
and she was just leaving the vessel in chase i took the glass and counted six men at the oars besides one or two i could not be sure which in the stern sheets this was serious indeed for a light boat propelled by six good oarsmen
so i directed bob to keep the cutter away about three points and then lash the tiller and lend me a hand to get our balloon canvas set
and then we got the spinnaker to the bowsprit end leading the sheet aft to the main boom after which we took in our jib and stopped it along the bowsprit
this additional spread of canvas coupled with the fact that we were running far enough off the wind to permit of its drawing well made a perceptible difference in our speed quite a knot i considered and bob agreed with me now what's the next thing to be done harry inquired he
this is all very well as far as it goes but yon boat is overhauling us at every stroke of the oars and we've only postponed the pleasure of an introduction to the chaps unless the breeze happens to freshen up a trifle of which i sees no signs just at present
i've made up my mind i replied we must not be taken bob i feel convinced that our lives would not be worth an hour's purchase if we fell into the hands of that villain but even supposing he were to stop short of murder
his malignity would doubtless prompt him to destroy the little lily and by such an act all our past efforts would be nullified and our future success rendered extremely doubtful we must fight robert my man now that we can no longer run
so let's get our gun up and rigged without further delay by the time that we have it ready they will be within range and i think we may persuade them to turn back yet so be it replied bob gleefully
i'd always rather fight than run away harry lad at least when it's anything like a fair match so let's rouse up the pop gun and have a shy at em
a four pound rifled piece which was specially made to my order by an eminent firm it was a most beautiful little weapon exquisitely finished was a breech loader and threw a solid shot about a mile and a shell nearly half as far again
it was mounted on a swivel or pivot which we had the means of firmly fixing to the deck we got it out and upon deck and soon had it mounted and ready for service bob took the tiller desiring me to work the gun
as i was not only a more practised artillerist than he but knew also how to handle a breech loader and i had the knack somehow of shooting straight i had it loaded and was in the act of levelling it when bob said
suppose we was to let them chaps get a bit nearer hal afore we opens fire i've a notion that if we gets em well away from the brig and well within range of our little barker there we might give em such a peppering afore they could get clear of us ag'in as would sicken em
of having any more to do with us perhaps it mightn't be quite onpossible to destr'y the boat altogether and then there's seven or eight good hands wiped off the chap's books this here ain't like a ordinary enemy you see lad
and the more harm we can do to him the more good we'll be doing the rest of the world it sounded rather like cold blooded barbarity this proposal of bob's to attempt the destruction instead of the repulse of the boat in pursuit of us
but every word he said in support of his proposition was strictly true and indeed some such idea had been present in my own mind so i withheld my fire for a time at length however they were within half a mile of us
there was a shout from the people in the boat
straight as it could go harry lad but rather too much elevation try em again boy and look smart about it too for they're giving way as if the devil was behind em which he probably is if they did but know it bob returned i keep cool old man
there's no hurry you attend to the steering of the craft i'll undertake to cool their courage for them before they're very much older
but it's getting to be rather ticklish work lad ain't it i was too busy with the gun to reply just then and in another moment i fired once more this time we saw the splinters fly from the bows of the boat and one of the oarsmen sprang from his seat
and fell back into the arms of the man behind him there was a moment of confusion with them and then we saw one of the men in the stern sheets there were two of them step along the thwarts and take the injured man's place this looked like a fixed determination to come alongside at any price
so i this time inserted a shell instead of a solid shot which i had before been firing once more after a very careful aim the little piece rang out and again the shot reached its mark this time with terrible effect
for the shell exploded as it passed through the boat's thin planking and the fragments continuing their flight forward told so severely among the crew that it appeared as if they were all more or less hurt we saw four fall from the thwarts at all events
and all hands ceased pulling whilst three of the oars slipped unnoticed overboard i unrove the spinnaker sheet from the main boom before the astonished bob knew what i was about let go the halliards and let the sail down by the run
and then jumped to the jib halliards and hoisted the sail like lightning now shouted i luff you may bob and let's heave the craft to and finish the job for them as i said this bob put his helm down whilst i hauled the jib sheet to windward
and then i sprang aft again to the gun by this time they had taken to their oars again but there were only two of them pulling a sure indication of the extent to which our last shot had told they were turning the boat round to pull back to the ship
and seeing this i felt some compunction about firing on them again and said so don't be such a soft hearted donkey harry lad retorted bob settle the whole lot if you can boy it'll only be so many skulking cut throats the less in the world
my idee is that every one of them chaps as we can finish off is one honest man's life saved
i accordingly loaded again and fired but probably from excitement fired too high and the missile flew harmlessly over the boat the next time i was more careful aiming with the utmost deliberation at length i pulled the trigger line
one of them sprang aft and crouched down doing something that we could not make out i took the glass and then saw that a large gap had been made by the explosion of the shell through which the water was doubtless pouring rapidly there was a movement among the wounded men
and one man jumped upon a thwart and waved his hat to the brig evidently as a signal of distress her captain had of course been watching us all this time and seemed to have conjectured that his people were getting the worst of it for we now saw that he had a second boat in the water
and on taking a look at the brig through the glass we observed that he had a tackle on his main yard arm with which he was hoisting out a gun to put into the boat it is time we were off once more bob i remarked as soon as i saw this
so another shot at our friends here and then we'll fill away the boat was very much disabled and appeared to be sinking gradually notwithstanding their efforts to keep her afloat for they were now baling rapidly but i thought it best to make sure of her
so once more loaded and fired the shell passed through her stern this time also and exploded there was a shrill scream from more than one agonised throat and the baling and pulling ceased altogether
she was nearly full of water her gunwale being but an inch or two above the surface i saw three or four figures rouse themselves on board her and recommence baling feebly but their efforts were useless she sank lower and lower
and at length rolled heavily bottom upwards throwing her wounded crew into the water almost immediately there was a furious splashing and by the aid of the glass i distinctly saw the dorsal fins of several sharks darting here and there among them
whilst over the glassy surface of the water a shriek or two came faintly towards us in less than a minute all was over with the miserable wretches the voracious sharks made short work of it with them
tearing living and dead alike to pieces in their eagerness to obtain a share of the prey at the moment that this tragic scene was enacting the second boat was about half way between the brig and those to whose assistance she was hastening
and her crew had a nearer and more distinct view of the horrible details of the catastrophe than we had
and then with a vengeful shout gave way more energetically than before but i felt little apprehension on their account the dying breeze had revived somewhat and the lily was now stealing along though with scarcely a ripple at her sharp bows about five knots
and the water looked rather darker to windward as though the wind was inclined to come still stronger the pirates tugged at their oars with might and main passing within oar's length of the wreck of the first boat when they again raised a furious yell
straining away at their stout ash blades until they made them bend like willow wands they gained on us considerably within the first ten minutes or quarter of an hour and i saw some of the crew preparing to fire the gun which was mounted in the boat's bows
judging that more powder would have to be burned after all i once more loaded our little piece charging with shell as before and whilst i was doing this our pursuers opened fire upon us they miscalculated their distance however or the powers of their gun
for the shot fell considerably short of us much to bob's delight to which he gave expression by the utterance of a few remarks of such biting sarcasm and raillery that they would infallibly have still further incensed the individuals to whom they were addressed could they but have heard them
i too was very glad to see the shot fall short for it placed us on somewhat more equal terms than i had dared to hope the boat was a large one probably their launch and pulled ten oars and there were three men in the bows working the gun
and the coxswain aft steering making altogether fourteen hands very heavy odds but then on the other hand the boat was heavy and her crew after their already long pull could not maintain the violent exertions they were now putting forth very much longer
and a very trifling abatement in that direction would enable us to slip away from them after all and moreover as they were now within range of our gun which being rifled threw a shot much farther than their smooth bore
there was a possibility of our being able so far to disable them as to compel them to give up the chase i accordingly levelled the breech loader and then waited for a favourable opportunity to fire at length it came
the shell entered the starboard bow of the pursuing boat about midway between her gunwale and her water line and immediately to our great surprise there was a violent explosion on board her a vivid flash of flame darted upward and outward
the sides of the boat appeared to be violently wrenched apart at their junction with the stem the gun and its carriage rose heavily in the air about ten feet and fell with a tremendous splash into the sea and oars and men were flung wildly about
many of them being blown fairly overboard whilst a dense cloud of smoke arose and for a moment hid everything from our view
as the sea flooding the flat sands flew on the sea born horde the two hosts shocked with dust and din
clanged all prince harold's howling kin on colan and the sword
ogier with guthrum by and eastward of such central stir far to the right and faintlier the house of elf the harp player struck eldred's with a cry the centre swat for weariness stemming the screaming horde
and wearily went colan's hands that swung king alfred's sword but like a cloud of morning to eastward easily tall eldred broke the sea of spears as a tall ship breaks the sea his face like a sanguine sunset
his shoulder a wessex down his hand like a windy hammer stroke men could not count the crests he broke so fast the crests went down as the tall white devil of the plague moves out of asian skies
with his foot on a waste of cities and his head in a cloud of flies or purple and peacock skies grow dark with a moving locust tower or tawny sand winds tall and dry like hell's red banners beat and fly
when death comes out of araby was eldred in his hour but while he moved like a massacre he murmured as in sleep and his words were all of low hedges and little fields and sheep even as he strode like a pestilence
that strides from rhine to rome he thought how tall his beans might be
spoke some stiff piece of childish prayer dull as the distant chimes that thanked our god for good eating and corn and quiet times till on the helm of a high chief fell shatteringly his brand
was wrought as the faerie blades and given to elf the minstrel by the monstrous water maids by them that dwell where luridly lost waters of the rhine move among roots of nations being sunken for a sign
under all graves they murmur they murmur and rebel down to the buried kingdoms creep and like a lost rain roar and weep
thrice drowned was elf the minstrel and washed as dead on sand and the third time men found him the spear was in his hand seven spears went about eldred like stays about a mast
six spears thrust upon eldred were splintered while he laughed one spear thrust into eldred three feet of blade and shaft and from the great heart grievously came forth the shaft and blade and he stood with the face of a dead man
stood a little and swayed then fell as falls a battle tower on smashed and struggling spears cast down from some unconquered town that rushing earthward carries down loads of live men of all renown archers and engineers
and a great clamour of christian men went up in agony crying fallen is the tower of wessex that stood beside the sea centre and right the wessex guard grew pale for doubt and fear
when we were wan and bloodless he gave you ale enow the pirates deal with him as dung god are you bloodless now grip wulf and gorlias grip the ash slaves and i make you free
stamp hildred hard in english land stand gurth stand gorlias gawen stand hold halfgar with the other hand
the lamps are dying in your homes the fruits upon your bough even now your old thatch smoulders gurth now is the judgment of the earth now is the death grip now for thunder of the captain not less the wessex line
and they mixed god with glamoury god with the gods of the burning tree and the wizard's tower and glass but mark was come of the glittering towns where hot white details show where men can number and expound
and his faith grew in a hard ground of doubt and reason and falsehood found where no faith else could grow belief that grew of all beliefs one moment back was blown
and belief that stood on unbelief stood up iron and alone the wessex crescent backwards crushed as with bloody spear went elf roaring and routing and mark against elf yet shouting shocked in his mid career
right on the roman shield and sword did spear of the rhine maids run but the shield shifted never the sword rang down to sever the great rhine sang for ever and the songs of elf were done
and a great thunder of christian men went up against the sky saying god hath broken the evil spear ere the good man's blood was dry spears at the charge yelled mark amain death on the gods of death
all wheels or webs of any worth the god that makes the roof gurth the god that makes the road the god that heweth kings in oak writeth songs on vellum god of gold and flaming glass confregit potentias
gladium et bellum steel and lightning broke about him battle bays and palm all the sea kings swayed among woods of the wessex arms upflung the trumpet of the roman tongue the thunder of the psalm
and midmost of that rolling field ran ogier ragingly lashing at mark who turned his blow and brake the helm about his brow and broke him to his knee then ogier heaved over his head his huge round shield of proof
and towered above the tossing field a statue on a roof dealing far blows about the fight like thunder bolts a roam like birds about the battle field
but hate in the buried ogier was strong as pain in hell with bare brute hand from the inside he burst the shield of brass and hide and a death stroke to the roman's side sent suddenly and well
and ogier leaping up alive hurled his huge shield away flying as when a juggler flings a whizzing plate in play and held two arms up rigidly and roared to all the danes fallen is rome yea fallen the city of the plains
how long she stood on the roof of the world as he stood on my shield the new wild world forgetteth her as foam fades on the sea how long she stood with her foot on man as he with his foot on me
no more shall the brown men of the south move like the ants in lines to quiet men with olives or madden men with vines
the blind gods roar and rave and dream of all cities under the sea for the heart of the north is broken and the blood of the north is free down from the dome of the world we come rivers on rivers down
under us swirl the sects and hordes and the high dooms we drown down from the dome of the world and down struck flying as a skiff on a river in spate is spun and swirled
until we come to the end of the world that breaks short like a cliff and when we come to the end of the world for me i count it fit to take the leap like a good river shot shrieking over it
shall keep us back from the end of the world and the things that happen then it is not alfred's dwarfish sword nor egbert's pigmy crown shall stay us now that descend in thunder
down through the world and down there was that in the wild men back of him there was that in his own wild song a dizzy throbbing a drunkard smoke that dazed to death all wessex folk and swept their spears along
vainly the sword of colan and the axe of alfred plied the danes poured in like a brainless plague and knew not when they died prince colan slew a score of them and was stricken to his knee
king alfred slew a score and seven and was borne back on a tree back to the black gate of the woods back up the single way back by the place of the parting ways christ's knights were whirled away and when they came to the parting ways
doom's heaviest hammer fell for the king was beaten blind at bay down the right lane with his array but colan swept the other way where he smote great strokes and fell
the roman villas heard him in the valley of the thames come over the hills roaring above their roofs and pouring on spire and stair and flooring brimstone and pitch and flames sheer o'er the great chalk uplands
and the hill of the horse went he till high on hampshire beacons he saw the southern sea high on the heights of wessex he saw the southern brine and turned him to a conquered land
and where the northern thornwoods stand and the road parts on either hand there came to him a sign king guthrum was a war chief a wise man in the field and though he prospered well and knew
how alfred's folk were sad and few not less with weighty care he drew long lines for pike and shield king guthrum lay on the upper land on a single road at gaze and his foe must come with lean array
and the rabbits ran like an elves army ere alfred came in sight the live wood came at guthrum on foot and claw and wing the nests were noisy overhead for alfred and the star of red
and though strange joys had grown in the night despair grew with the day and when white dawn crawled through the wood like cold foam of a flood then weakened every warrior's mood in hope though not in hardihood
and each man sorrowed as he stood in the fashion of his blood for the saxon franklin sorrowed for the things that had been fair for the dear dead woman crimson clad and the great feasts and the friends he had
i wronged a man to his slaying and a woman to her shame and once i looked on a sworn maid that was wed to the holy name and once i took my neighbour's wife that was bound to an eastland man in the starkness of my evil youth
before my griefs began people if you have any prayers say prayers for me and lay me under a christian stone in that lost land i thought my own to wait till the holy horn is blown
next night a king may starve or sleep but men and birds and beasts shall weep at the burial of a fool o drunkards in my cellar boys in my apple tree the world grows stern and strange and new
and wise men shall govern you and you shall weep for me but yoke me my own oxen down to my own farm my own dog will whine for me my own friends will bend the knee and the foes i slew openly
have never wished me harm and all were moved a little but colan stood apart having first pity and after hearing like rat in rafter that little worm of laughter that eats the irish heart
and his grey green eyes were cruel and the smile of his mouth waxed hard and he said and when did britain become your burying yard before the romans lit the land when schools and monks were none
we reared such stones to the sun god as might put out the sun the tall trees of britain we worshipped and were wise but you shall raid the whole land through and never a tree shall talk to you though every leaf is a tongue taught true
and the forest is full of eyes on one round hill to the seaward the trees grow tall and grey and the trees talk together when all men are away
the trees grow tall in rings and the trees talk together of many pagan things yet i could lie and listen with a cross upon my clay and hear unhurt for ever what the trees of britain say a proud man was the roman
his speech a single one but his eyes were like an eagle's eyes that is staring at the sun dig for me where i die he said if first or last i fall dead on the fell at the first charge or dead by wantage wall
lift not my head from bloody ground bear not my body home for all the earth is roman earth and i shall die in rome then alfred king of england bade blow the horns of war
out from the black wood into the blaze of sun and steel and song and when they came to the open land they wheeled deployed and stood midmost were marcus and the king and eldred on the right hand wing
far to the king's left elf the bard led on the eastern wing with songs and spells that change the blood and on the king's right harold stood the kinsman of the king young harold coarse with colours gay
smoking with oil and musk and the pleasant violence of the young pushed through his people giving tongue
but as he came before his line a little space along his beardless face broke into mirth and he cried what broken bits of earth are here for what their clothes are worth i would sell them for a song for colan was hung with raiment
tattered like autumn leaves and his men were all as thin as saints and all as poor as thieves no bows nor slings nor bolts they bore but bills and pikes ill made and none but colan bore a sword
and rusty was its blade and colan's eyes with mystery and iron laughter stirred and he spoke aloud but lightly not labouring to be heard oh truly we be broken hearts for that cause it is said
we light our candles to that lord that broke himself for bread but though we hold but bitterly what land the saxon leaves though ireland be but a land of saints and wales a land of thieves
that stricken spirits never strike nor lean hands hold a sword and if ever ye ride in ireland the jest may yet be said there is the land of broken hearts and the land of broken heads not less barbarian laughter
and stopping in his onward strides he snatched a bow in scorn from some mean slave and bent it on colan whose doom grew dark and shone
for colan had not bow nor sling on a lonely sword leaned he like arthur on excalibur in the battle by the sea to his great gold ear ring harold tugged back the feathered tail and swift had sprung the arrow
but swifter sprang the gael whirling the one sword round his head a great wheel in the sun he sent it splendid through the sky flying before the shaft could fly it smote earl harold over the eye
and blood began to run colan stood bare and weaponless earl harold as in pain strove for a smile put hand to head stumbled and suddenly fell dead and the small white daisies all waxed red
with blood out of his brain and all at that marvel of the sword cast like a stone to slay cried out said alfred who would see signs must give all things verily man shall not taste of victory till he throws his sword away
who have done this deed of fire for this is the manner of christian men whether of steel or priestly pen that they cast their hearts out of their ken to get their heart's desire and whether ye swear a hive of monks
or one fair wife to friend this is the manner of christian men that their oath endures the end for love our lord at the end of the world sits a red horse like a throne with a brazen helm and an iron bow
but one arrow alone love with the shield of the broken heart ever his bow doth bend with a single shaft for a single prize and the ultimate bolt that parts and flies
comes with a thunder of split skies and a sound of souls that rend so shall you earn a king's sword who cast your sword away and the king took with a random eye a rude axe from a hind hard by and turned him to the fray
before the gods that made the gods had seen their sunrise pass the white horse of the white horse vale was cut out of the grass before the gods that made the gods had drunk at dawn their fill
the white horse of the white horse vale was hoary on the hill age beyond age on british land aeons on aeons gone was peace and war in western hills and the white horse looked on
for the white horse knew england when there was none to know he saw the first oar break or bend he saw heaven fall and the world end o god how long ago for the end of the world was long ago
and all we dwell to day as children of some second birth like a strange people left on earth after a judgment day for the end of the world was long ago when the ends of the world waxed free
when rome was sunk in a waste of slaves and the sun drowned in the sea when caesar's sun fell out of the sky and whoso hearkened right could only hear the plunging of the nations in the night
when the ends of the earth came marching in to torch and cresset gleam and the roads of the world that lead to rome were filled with faces that moved like foam like faces in a dream and men rode out of the eastern lands
and men brake out of the northern lands enormous lands alone where a spell is laid upon life and lust and the rain is changed to a silver dust and the sea to a great green stone
and a shape that moveth murkily in mirrors of ice and night hath blanched with fear all beasts and birds as death and a shock of evil words blast a man's hair with white
and the cry of the palms and the purple moons or the cry of the frost and foam swept ever around an inmost place and the din of distant race on race cried and replied round rome
and there was death on the emperor and night upon the pope and alfred hiding in deep grass hardened his heart with hope a sea folk blinder than the sea broke all about his land
but alfred up against them bare and gripped the ground and grasped the air staggered and strove to stand he bent them back with spear and spade with desperate dyke and wall with foemen leaning on his shield
with golden crown and girded fleece made laws under a tree the northmen came about our land a christless chivalry who knew not of the arch or pen great beautiful half witted men from the sunrise and the sea
misshapen ships stood on the deep full of strange gold and fire and hairy men as huge as sin with horned heads came wading in through the long low sea mire
our towns were shaken of tall kings with scarlet beards like blood the world turned empty where they trod they took the kindly cross of god and cut it up for wood their souls were drifting as the sea
they seemed as trees walking the earth as witless and as tall yet they took hold upon the heavens and no help came at all they bred like birds in english woods they rooted like the rose
to hide him from their bows there was not english armour left nor any english thing
to be an english king for earthquake swallowing earthquake uprent the wessex tree the whirlpool of the pagan sway had swirled his sires as sticks away when a flood smites the sea
and the great kings of wessex wearied and sank in gore and even their ghosts in that great stress grew greyer and greyer less and less with the lords that died in lyonesse and the king that comes no more
and the god of the golden dragon was dumb upon his throne and the lord of the golden dragon ran in the woods alone and if ever he climbed the crest of luck and set the flag before returning as a wheel returns
came ruin and the rain that burns and all began once more and naught was left king alfred but shameful tears of rage in the island in the river in the end of all his age
in the island in the river he was broken to his knee and he read writ with an iron pen that god had wearied of wessex men and given their country field and fen to the devils of the sea
his mother sitting in egbert's hall and a book she showed him very small where a sapphire mary sat in stall with a golden christ at play it was wrought in the monk's slow manner from silver and sanguine shell
and there our lady was she stood and stroked the tall live grass as a man strokes his steed her face was like an open word when brave men speak and choose the very colours of her coat were better than good news
and the river running past one dim ancestral jewel hung on his ruined armour grey he rent and cast it at her feet where after centuries with slow feet men came from hall and school and street
and found it where it lay mother of god the wanderer said i am but a common king nor will i ask what saints may ask to see a secret thing the gates of heaven are fearful gates worse than the gates of hell
but for this earth most pitiful this little land i know if that which is for ever is or if our hearts shall break with bliss seeing the stranger go when our last bow is broken queen and our last javelin cast
under some sad green evening sky holding a ruined cross on high under warm westland grass to lie shall we come home at last and a voice came human but high up
and see the dear and dreadful things i hid within my heart the meanest man in grey fields gone behind the set of sun heareth between star and other star
but if he fail or if he win to no good man is told the men of the east may spell the stars and times and triumphs mark but the men signed of the cross of christ go gaily in the dark
they trim sad lamps they touch sad strings hearing the heavy purple wings where the forgotten seraph kings still plot how god shall die the wise men know all evil things under the twisted trees
where the perverse in pleasure pine and men are weary of green wine and sick of crimson seas but you and all the kind of christ are ignorant and brave and you have wars you hardly win
night shall be thrice night over you and heaven an iron cope do you have joy without a cause yea faith without a hope even as she spoke she was not
nor any word said he he only heard still as he stood under the old night's nodding hood the sea folk breaking down the wood like a high tide from sea he only heard the heathen men
whose eyes are blue and bleak singing about some cruel thing done by a great and smiling king in daylight on a deck he only heard the heathen men whose eyes are blue and blind
an adjustment of nature in an art exhibition the other day i saw a painting that had been sold for five thousand dollars the painter was a young scrub out of the west named kraft who had a favourite food and a pet theory
his pabulum was an unquenchable belief in the unerring artistic adjustment of nature his theory was fixed around corned beef hash with poached egg there was a story behind the picture so i went home and let it drip out of a fountain pen the idea of kraft
but that is not the beginning of the story three years ago kraft bill judkins a poet and i took our meals at cypher's on eighth avenue i say took when we had money cypher got it off of us as he expressed it we had no credit
we went in called for food and ate it we paid or we did not pay we had confidence in cypher's sullenness and smouldering ferocity deep down in his sunless soul he was either a prince a fool or an artist
he sat at a worm eaten desk covered with files of waiters checks so old that i was sure the bottomest one was for clams that hendrik hudson had eaten and paid for
of throwing a film over his eyes rendering opaque the windows of his soul once when we left him unpaid with egregious excuses i looked back and saw him shaking with inaudible laughter behind his film now and then we paid up back scores
but the chief thing at cypher's was milly milly was a waitress she was a grand example of kraft's theory of the artistic adjustment of nature she belonged largely to waiting as minerva did to the art of scrapping or venus to the science of serious flirtation
pedestalled and in bronze she might have stood with the noblest of her heroic sisters as liver and bacon enlivening the world she belonged to cypher's you expected to see her colossal figure loom through that reeking blue cloud of smoke from frying fat
just as you expect the palisades to appear through a drifting hudson river fog there amid the steam of vegetables and the vapours of acres of ham and the crash of crockery the clatter of steel the screaming of short orders
the cries of the hungering and all the horrid tumult of feeding man surrounded by swarms of the buzzing winged beasts bequeathed us by pharaoh milly steered her magnificent way like some great liner cleaving among the canoes of howling savages
our goddess of grub was built on lines so majestic that they could be followed only with awe her sleeves were always rolled above her elbows
she had seen fewer years than any of us but she was of such superb evehood and simplicity that she mothered us from the beginning cypher's store of eatables she poured out upon us with royal indifference to price and quantity as from a cornucopia that knew no exhaustion
her voice rang like a great silver bell her smile was many toothed and frequent she seemed like a yellow sunrise on mountain tops i never saw her but i thought of the yosemite and yet somehow i could never think of her as existing outside of cypher's
there nature had placed her and she had taken root and grown mightily she seemed happy and took her few poor dollars on saturday nights with the flushed pleasure of a child that receives an unexpected donation it was kraft who first voiced the fear that each of us must have held latently
one of us compared the harmony existing between a haydn symphony and pistache ice cream to the exquisite congruity between milly and cypher's there is a certain fate hanging over milly said kraft and if it overtakes her she is lost to cypher's and to us
she will grow fat asked judkins fearsomely she will go to night school and become refined i ventured anxiously it is this said kraft punctuating in a puddle of spilled coffee with a stiff forefinger
caesar had his brutus the cotton has its bollworm the chorus girl has her pittsburger the summer boarder has his poison ivy the hero has his carnegie medal art has its morgan the rose has its speak i interrupted much perturbed
one day concluded kraft solemnly there will come to cypher's for a plate of beans a millionaire lumberman from wisconsin and he will marry milly never exclaimed judkins and i in horror a lumberman repeated kraft hoarsely
and a millionaire lumberman i sighed despairingly from wisconsin groaned judkins we agreed that the awful fate seemed to menace her few things were less improbable milly like some vast virgin stretch of pine woods
was made to catch the lumberman's eye and well we knew the habits of the badgers once fortune smiled upon them straight to new york they hie and lay their goods at the feet of the girl who serves them beans in a beanery why the alphabet itself connives the sunday newspaper's headliner's work is cut for him
winsome waitress wins wealthy wisconsin woodsman for a while we felt that milly was on the verge of being lost to us it was our love of the unerring artistic adjustment of nature that inspired us we could not give her over to a lumberman doubly accursed by wealth and provincialism
we shuddered to think of milly with her voice modulated and her elbows covered pouring tea in the marble teepee of a tree murderer no in cypher's she belonged in the bacon smoke the cabbage perfume the grand wagnerian chorus of hurled ironstone china and rattling casters
our fears must have been prophetic for on that same evening the wildwood discharged upon us milly's preordained confiscator our fee to adjustment and order but alaska and not wisconsin bore the burden of the visitation
we were at our supper of beef stew and dried apples when he trotted in as if on the heels of a dog team and made one of the mess at our table with the freedom of the camps he assaulted our ears and claimed the fellowship of men lost in the wilds of a hash house
we embraced him as a specimen and in three minutes we had all but died for one another as friends he was rugged and bearded and wind dried he had just come off the trail he said at one of the north river ferries i fancied i could see the snow dust of chilcoot yet powdering his shoulders
bank drafts for two millions was his summing up and a thousand a day piling up from my claims and now i want some beef stew and canned peaches i never got off the train since i mushed out of seattle and i'm hungry
the stuff the niggers feed you on pullmans don't count you gentlemen order what you want and then milly loomed up with a thousand dishes on her bare arm loomed up big and white and pink and awful as mount saint elias with a smile like day breaking in a gulch
and the klondiker threw down his pelts and nuggets as dross and let his jaw fall half way and stared at her you could almost see the diamond tiaras on milly's brow and the hand embroidered silk paris gowns that he meant to buy for her
at last the bollworm had attacked the cotton the poison ivy was reaching out its tendrils to entwine the summer boarder the millionaire lumberman thinly disguised as the alaskan miner was about to engulf our milly and upset nature's adjustment kraft was the first to act
he leaped up and pounded the klondiker's back come out and drink he shouted drink first and eat afterward judkins seized one arm and i the other gaily roaringly irresistibly in jolly good fellow style we dragged him from the restaurant to a cafe
stuffing his pockets with his embalmed birds and indigestible nuggets there he rumbled a roughly good humoured protest that's the girl for my money he declared she can eat out of my skillet the rest of her life why i never see such a fine girl
i'm going back there and ask her to marry me
you'll take another whiskey and milk now kraft persuaded with satan's smile i thought you up country fellows were better sports kraft spent his puny store of coin at the bar
and then gave judkins and me such an appealing look that we went down to the last dime we had in toasting our guest then when our ammunition was gone and the klondiker
still somewhat sober began to babble again of milly kraft whispered into his ear such a polite barbed insult relating to people who were miserly with their funds that the miner crashed down handful after handful of silver and notes calling for all the fluids in the world to drown the imputation
thus the work was accomplished with his own guns we drove him from the field and then we had him carted to a distant small hotel and put to bed with his nuggets and baby seal skins stuffed around him he will never find cypher's again said kraft
he will propose to the first white apron he sees in a dairy restaurant to morrow and milly i mean the natural adjustment is saved and back to cypher's went we three and finding customers scarce we joined hands and did an indian dance with milly in the centre
this i say happened three years ago and about that time a little luck descended upon us three
our paths separated and i saw kraft no more and judkins seldom but as i said i saw a painting the other day that was sold for five thousand dollars the title was boadicea and the figure seemed to fill all out of doors but of all the picture's admirers who stood before it
i believe i was the only one who longed for boadicea to stalk from her frame bringing me corned beef hash with poached egg i hurried away to see kraft his satanic eyes were the same his hair was worse tangled but his clothes had been made by a tailor i didn't know i said to him
we've bought a cottage in the bronx with the money said he any evening at seven then said i when you led us against the lumberman the klondiker it wasn't altogether on account of the unerring artistic adjustment of nature
the library smoking room and den in the days when furniture was defined as that which may be carried about the natural bookcase was a chest with a strong lock these chests packed with precious manuscripts
followed the prince or noble from one castle to another and were even carried after him into camp before the invention of printing when twenty or thirty books formed an exceptionally large library and many great personages were content with the possession of one volume
such ambulant bookcases were sufficient for the requirements of the most eager bibliophile occasionally the volumes were kept in a small press or cupboard and placed in a chest only when their owner travelled but the bookcase as now known
did not take shape until much later for when books multiplied with the introduction of printing it became customary to fit up for their reception little rooms called cabinets in the famous cabinet of catherine de medici at blois
the walls are lined with book shelves concealed behind sliding panels a contrivance rendered doubly necessary by the general insecurity of property and by the fact that the books of that period whether in manuscript or printed
were made sumptuous as church jewelry by the art of painter and goldsmith long after the establishment of the printing press books except in the hands of the scholar continued to be a kind of curiosity like other objects of art
less an intellectual need than a treasure upon which rich men prided themselves it was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that the taste for books became a taste for reading france led the way in this new fashion
which was assiduously cultivated in those parisian salons of which madame de rambouillet's is the recognized type the possession of a library hitherto the privilege of kings
beautiful bindings were still highly valued and some of the most wonderful work produced in france belongs to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
but as people began to buy books for the sake of what they contained less exaggerated importance was attached to their exterior so that bindings though perfect as taste and skill could make them
thus utilizing the books as part of his scheme of decoration there is no doubt that this is not only the most practical but the most decorative way of housing any collection of books large enough to be so employed
to adorn the walls of a library and then conceal their ornamentation by expensive bookcases is a waste or rather a misapplication of effects always a sin against aesthetic principles the importance of bookbindings as an element in house decoration has already been touched upon
but since a taste for good bindings has come to be regarded as a collector's fad like accumulating snuff boxes or baisers de paix it seems needful to point out how obvious and valuable a means of decoration is lost by disregarding the outward appearance of books
to be decorative a bookcase need not contain the productions of the master binders
or the work of roger payne and sanderson unsurpassed as they are in color value ordinary bindings of half morocco or vellum form an expanse of warm lustrous color such bindings are comparatively inexpensive
the question of binding leads incidentally to that of editions though the latter is hardly within the scope of this book people who have begun to notice the outside of their books naturally come to appreciate paper and type
and thus learn that the modern book is too often merely the cheapest possible vehicle for putting words into print the last few years have brought about some improvement and it is now not unusual for a publisher in bringing out a book at the ordinary rates
to produce also a small edition in large paper copies these large paper books though as yet far from perfect in type and make up are superior to the average commercial article and apart from their artistic merit are in themselves a good investment
those who cannot afford both edition and binding will do better to buy large paper books or current first editions in boards than handsomely bound volumes unworthy in type and paper the plain paper or buckram covers of a good publisher are
in fact more decorative because more artistic than showy tree calf or antique morocco the same principle applies to the library itself plain shelves filled with good editions in good bindings are more truly decorative than ornate bookcases lined with tawdry books
it has already been pointed out that the plan of building book shelves into the walls is the most decorative and the most practical
the best examples of this treatment are found in france the walls of the rooms thus decorated were usually of panelled wood either in natural oak or walnut
will show how seldom the detached bookcase was used in french libraries but few models are to be found and these were probably designed for use in the boudoir or study
in england where private libraries were fewer and less extensive the movable bookcase was much used and examples of built in shelves are proportionately rarer
and in the seventeenth century according to john evelyn the three nations of great britain contained fewer books than paris almost all the old bookcases had one feature in common that is the lower cupboard with solid doors the bookcase proper rested upon this projecting cupboard
thus raising the books above the level of the furniture the prevalent fashion of low book shelves starting from the floor and not extending much higher than the dado moulding has probably been brought about by the other recent fashion of low studded rooms
architects are beginning to rediscover the forgotten fact that the stud of a room should be regulated by the dimensions of its floor space so that in the newer houses the dwarf bookcase is no longer a necessity it is certainly less convenient than the tall old fashioned press
for not only must one kneel to reach the lower shelves but the books are hidden and access to them is obstructed by their being on a level with the furniture the general decoration of the library should be of such character as to form a background or setting to the books
rather than to distract attention from them the richly adorned room in which books are but a minor incident is in fact no library at all there is no reason why the decorations of a library should not be splendid but in that case the books must be splendid too
and sufficient in number to dominate all the accessory decorations of the room when there are books enough it is best to use them as part of the decorative treatment of the walls
space may of course be gained by means of a series of bookcases projecting into the room and forming deep bays along each of the walls but this arrangement is seldom necessary save in a public library
the smoking room proper with its mise en scene of turkish divans narghilehs brass coffee trays and other oriental properties is no longer considered a necessity in the modern house
since the latter word seems to have attained the dignity of a technical term
it is usually conceded that common sense should regulate the furnishing of the den fragile chairs lace petticoat lamp shades and irrelevant bric a brac are consequently excluded and the master's sense of comfort often expresses itself in a set of office furniture
a roller top desk a revolving chair and others of the puffy type already described as the accepted model of a luxurious seat
prototypes of the modern roller top and the cane or leather seated writing chair with rounded back and five slim strong legs
convenience was not sacrificed to beauty in either desk or chair but both the old pieces being designed by skilled cabinet makers were as decorative as they were useful there seems in fact no reason why the modern den should not resemble the financiers bureaux seen in so many old prints
reference has been made to the way in which even in small houses a room may be sacrificed to a supposed effect or to some inherited tradition as to its former use
thus the family drawing room is too often made uninhabitable from some vague feeling that a drawing room is not worthy of its name unless too fine to sit in
while the small front room on the ground floor in the average american house the only corner given over to the master is thrown into the hall either that the house may appear larger and handsomer or from sheer inability to make so small a room habitable
close to the front door while there is usually another entrance at the back of the room facing the window one at least of these openings being as a rule of exaggerated width in such cases the door in the side of the room should be walled up
the best way of obtaining an effect of size is to panel the walls by means of clear cut architectural mouldings a few strong vertical lines will give dignity to the room and height to the ceiling
the walls should be free from pattern and light in color since dark walls necessitate much artificial light and have the disadvantage of making a room look small the ceiling if not plain must be ornamented with the lightest tracery and supported by a cornice correspondingly simple in design
heavy ceiling mouldings are obviously out of place in a small room and a plain expanse of plaster is always preferable to misapplied ornament a single curtain made of some flexible material such as corduroy or thin unlined damask
and so hung that it may be readily drawn back during the day is sufficient for the window while in a corner near this window may be placed an easy chair and a small solidly made table large enough to hold a lamp and a book or two these rooms in some recently built town houses contain chimneys set in an angle of the wall
a misplaced attempt at quaintness making it inconvenient to sit near the hearth and seriously interfering with the general arrangement of the room when the chimney occupies the centre of the longitudinal wall there is space even in a very narrow room for a group of chairs about the fireplace
provided as we are now supposing the opening in the parallel wall has been closed a bookcase or some other high piece of furniture may be placed on each side of the mantel and there will be space opposite for a sofa and a good sized writing table
blue beard there was a man who had fine houses both in town and country a deal of silver and gold plate embroidered furniture and coaches gilded all over with gold
but this man had the misfortune to have a blue beard which made him so frightfully ugly that all the women and girls ran away from him one of his neighbours a lady of quality had two daughters who were perfect beauties
he desired of her one of them in marriage leaving to her the choice which of the two she would bestow upon him they would neither of them have him and each made the other welcome of him being not able to bear the thought of marrying a man who had a blue beard
and what besides gave them disgust and aversion was his having already been married to several wives and nobody ever knew what became of them blue beard to engage their affection took them with the lady their mother
and feasting nobody went to bed but all passed the night in playing tricks upon each other in short every thing succeeded so well that the youngest daughter began to think the master of the house not to have a beard so very blue
are the keys of the two great wardrobes wherein i have my best furniture these are of my silver and gold plate which is not every day in use these open my strong boxes which hold my money both gold and silver these my caskets of jewels
and this is the master key to all my apartments but for this little one here it is the key of the closet at the end of the great gallery on the ground floor open them all go into all and every one of them
except that little closet which i forbid you and forbid it in such a manner that if you happen to open it
not daring to come while her husband was there because of his blue beard which frightened them they ran thro all the rooms closets and wardrobes which were all so rich and fine that they seemed to surpass one another after that
some of them were framed with glass others with silver plain and gilded the finest and most magnificent which were ever seen they ceased not to extol and envy the happiness of their friend who in the mean time no way diverted herself in looking upon all these rich things
because of the impatience she had to go and open the closet
she was so much pressed by her curiosity that without considering that it was very uncivil to leave her company she went down a little back stair case and with such excessive haste that she had twice or thrice like to have broken her neck
but could not at first see any thing plainly because the windows were shut after some moments she began to perceive that the floor was all covered over with clotted blood in which were reflected the bodies of several dead women ranged against the walls
these were all the wives whom blue beard had married and murdered one after another she was like to have died for fear and the key which she pulled out of the lock fell out of her hand after having somewhat recovered her senses she took up the key
locked the door and went up stairs into her chamber to recover herself but she could not so much was she frightened having observed that the key of the closet was stained with blood she tried two or three times to wipe it off but the blood would not come off
blue beard returned from his journey the same evening and said he had received letters upon the road informing him that the affair he went about was ended to his advantage his wife did all she could to convince him she was extremely glad of his speedy return
next morning he asked her for the keys which she gave him but with such a trembling hand that he easily guessed what had happened what said he is not the key of my closet among the rest i must certainly answered she
have left it above upon the table fail not said blue beard to bring it me presently after putting him off several times she was forced to bring him the key blue beard having very attentively considered it said to his wife
mighty well madam you shall go in and take your place among the ladies you saw there upon this she threw herself at her husband's feet and begged his pardon with all the signs of a true repentance for her disobedience
she would have melted a rock so beautiful and sorrowful was she but blue beard had a heart harder than any rock you must die madam said he and that presently since i must die answered she
she called out to her sister and said to her sister anne for that was her name go up i beg you upon the top of the tower and look if my brothers are not coming they promised me that they would come to day and if you see them
give them a sign to make haste her sister anne went up upon the top of the tower and the poor afflicted wife cried out from time to time anne sister anne do you see any one coming and sister anne said
i see nothing but the sun which makes a dust and the grass growing green in the mean while blue beard holding a great scimitar in his hand cried out as loud as he could bawl to his wife come down instantly
or i shall come up to you one moment longer if you please said his wife and then she cried out very softly anne sister anne dost thou see any body coming and sister anne answered
dost thou see any one coming i see replied sister anne a great dust that comes this way are they my brothers alas no my dear sister i see a flock of sheep will you not come down
cried blue beard one moment longer said his wife
dost thou see nobody coming i see said she two horsemen coming but they are yet a great way off god be praised she cried presently they are my brothers
i am beckoning to them as well as i can for them to make haste then blue beard bawled out so loud that he made the whole house tremble the distressed wife came down and threw herself at his feet all in tears with her hair about her shoulders
nought will avail said blue beard you must die then taking hold of her hair with one hand and lifting up his scimitar with the other he was going to take off her head the poor lady turning about to him
that blue beard made a sudden stop the gate was opened and presently entered two horsemen who drawing their swords ran directly to blue beard he knew them to be his wife's brothers one a dragoon the other a musqueteer
so that he ran away immediately to save himself but the two brothers pursued so close that they overtook him before he could get to the steps of the porch when they ran their swords thro his body and left him dead the poor wife was almost as dead as her husband
and had not strength enough to rise and welcome her brothers blue beard had no heirs and so his wife became mistress of all his estate she made use of one part of it to marry her sister anne to a young gentleman who had loved her a long while
another part to buy captains commissions for her brothers and the rest to marry herself to a very worthy gentleman
o curiosity thou mortal bane spite of thy charms thou causest often pain and sore regret of which we daily find a thousand instances attend mankind for thou o may it not displease the fair
nor weakly with a vain despotic hand imperious what's impossible command and be they discontented or the fire of wicked jealousy their hearts inspire
wisdom's wages and folly's pay once upon a time there was a wise man of wise men and a great magician to boot and his name was doctor simon agricola once upon a time there was a simpleton of simpletons and a great booby to boot
and his name was babo simon agricola had read all the books written by man and could do more magic than any conjurer that ever lived but nevertheless he was none too well off in the world
babo gathered rushes for a chair maker and he also had too few of the good things to make life easy but it is nothing out of the way for a simpleton to be in that case the two of them lived neighbor to neighbor the one in the next house to the other
and so far as the world could see there was not a pin to choose between them only that one was called a wise man and the other a simpleton one day the weather was cold and when babo came home from gathering rushes he found no fire in the house
oh said babo i will just take it in my hand in your hand in my hand can you carry a live coal in your hand oh yes said babo i can do that easily enough
well i should like to see you do it said simon agricola then i will show you said babo he spread a bed of cold dead ashes upon his palm now said he i will take the ember upon that agricola rolled up his eyes like a duck in a thunder storm
well said he i have lived more than seventy years and have read all the books in the world
and yet wise as i am i never thought of this little thing that is the way with your wise man pooh said babo that is nothing i know how to do many more tricks than that do you
said simon agricola then listen to morrow i am going out into the world to make my fortune for little or nothing is to be had in this town if you will go along with me i will make your fortune also
very well said babo and the bargain was struck so the next morning bright and early off they started upon their journey cheek by jowl the wise man and the simpleton to make their fortunes in the wide world
they will be of use by and by and as he spoke he picked up a great stone as big as his two fists and dropped it into the pouch that dangled at his side not i said babo i will carry no stone with me
with babo at his heels at last they came to a great wide plain where far or near nothing was to be seen but bare sand without so much as a pebble or a single blade of grass and there night caught up with them
dear dear but i am hungry said babo so am i said simon agricola let's sit down here and eat so down they sat and simon agricola opened his pouch and drew forth the stone the stone it
was a stone no longer but a fine loaf of white bread as big as your two fists you should have seen babo goggle and stare give me a piece of your bread master said he not i said agricola
as for the wise man he finished his loaf of bread to the last crumb
the next morning off they started again bright and early and before long they came to just such another field of stones as they left behind them the day before come master said babo
let us each take a stone with us we may need something more to eat before the day is over no said simon agricola we will need no stones to day
but the sweat ran down babo's face like drops on the window in an april shower at last they came to a great wide plain where neither stock nor stone was to be seen but only a gallows tree upon which one poor
wight hung dancing upon nothing at all and there night caught them again aha said babo to himself this time i shall have bread and my master none but listen to what happened
up stepped the wise man to the gallows and gave it a sharp rap with his staff then lo and behold the gallows was gone and in its place stood a fine inn with lights in the windows
and the smell of good things cooking filling the air all around so that only to sniff did one's heart good poor babo let fall the stone he had carried all day a stone it was and a stone he let fall born a fool live a fool
die a fool said agricola but come in babo come in here is room enough for two so that night babo had a good supper and a sound sleep and that is a cure for most of a body's troubles in this world
and there was the smith hard at work dinging and donging and making sweet music with hammer and anvil in walked simon agricola and gave him good day he put his fingers into his purse and brought out all the money he had in the world
it was one golden angel look friend said he to the blacksmith if you will let me have your forge for one hour i will give you this money for the use of it the blacksmith liked the tune of that song very well
the servants were hale stout fellows but the nobleman was as withered as a winter leaf can you shoe my horse said he to simon agricola for he took him to be the smith because of his leathern apron no says simon agricola that is not my trade
i only know how to make old people young old people young said the old nobleman can you make me young again yes said simon agricola i can but i must have a thousand golden angels for doing it very well
said the old nobleman make me young and you shall have them and welcome so simon agricola gave the word and babo blew the bellows until the fire blazed and roared then the doctor caught the old nobleman and laid him upon the forge
he heaped the coals over him and turned him this way and that until he grew red hot like a piece of iron then he drew him forth from the fire and dipped him in the water tank phizz the water hissed and the steam rose up in a cloud
and when simon agricola took the old nobleman out lo and behold he was as fresh and blooming and lusty as a lad of twenty but you should have seen how all the people stared and goggled babo and the blacksmith and the nobleman's servants
the nobleman strutted up and down for a while admiring himself and then he got upon his horse again but wait said simon agricola you forgot to pay me my thousand golden angels pooh said the nobleman and off he clattered
with his servants at his heels and that was all the good that simon agricola had of this trick but ill luck was not done with him yet for when the smith saw how matters had turned out
had paid him the golden angel he had promised for the use of the forge the doctor pulled a sour face but all the same he had to pay the angel then the smith let him go and off he marched in a huff
how would you like me to make your mother over yonder young again i should like nothing better said the smith very well said babo give me the golden angel that the master gave you and i'll do the job for you
when the blacksmith saw what babo had done to his mother he caught him by the collar and fell to giving him such a dressing down as never man had before help bawled babo help murder
such a hubbub had not been heard in that town for many a day back came simon agricola running and there he saw and took it all in in one look stop friend said he to the smith let the simpleton go this is not past mending yet
when he brought her out she was as well and strong as ever but just as old as she had been before now be off for a pair of scamps both of you said the blacksmith and if you ever come this way again i'll set all the dogs in the town upon you
simon agricola said nothing until they had come out upon the highway again and left the town well behind them then born a fool
doctor knowall doctor knowall who has come from the other end of nowhere he can cure any sickness or pain he can bring you back from the gates of death here is doctor knowall here is doctor knowall
now there was a very very rich man in that town whose daughter lay sick to death and when the news of this great doctor was brought to his ears he was for having him try his hand at curing the girl very well said simon agricola
i will do that but you must pay me two thousand golden angels two thousand golden angels said the rich man that is a great deal of money but you shall have it if only you will cure my daughter
simon agricola drew a little vial from his bosom from it he poured just six drops of yellow liquor upon the girl's tongue then lo and behold
and asked for a boiled chicken and a dumpling by way of something to eat bless you bless you said the rich man yes yes blessings are very good but i would like to have my two thousand golden angels said simon agricola
two thousand golden angels i said nothing about two thousand golden angels said the rich man two thousand fiddlesticks said he pooh pooh you must have been dreaming see here are two hundred silver pennies
and that is enough and more than enough for six drops of medicine i want my two thousand golden angels said simon agricola you will get nothing but two hundred pennies said the rich man i won't touch one of them said simon agricola and off he marched in a huff
but babo had kept his eyes open simon agricola had laid down the vial upon the table and while they were saying this and that back and forth thinking of nothing else babo quietly slipped it into his own pocket without any one but himself being the wiser
look friend said babo to the cook here i have some of the same medicine give me the two hundred pennies that the master would not take and i'll cure her for you as sound as a bottle very well said the cook and he counted out the two hundred pennies and babo slipped them into his pocket
and therewith rolled up her eyes and lay as stiff and dumb as a herring in a box when the cook saw what babo had done he snatched up the rolling pin and made at him to pound his head to a jelly but babo did not wait for his coming
he jumped out of the window and away he scampered with the cook at his heels well the upshot of the business was that simon agricola had to go back and bring life to the woman again or the cook would thump him and babo both with the rolling pin and what was more
or i will call the servants and give you both a drubbing for a pair of scamps simon agricola said never a word until they had gotten out of the town there his anger boiled over like water into the fire look said he to babo born a fool live a fool die a fool
i want no more of you here are two roads you take one and i will take the other what said babo
and then besides how about the fortune you promised me never mind that said simon agricola i have not made my own fortune yet
how shall i pay you said simon agricola i have not a single groat in the world what said babo have you nothing to give me i can give you a piece of advice well said babo
that is better than nothing so let me have it here it is said simon agricola think well think well before you do what you are about to do think well thank you said babo
and then the one went one way and the other the other you may go with the wise man if you choose but i shall jog along with the simpleton
he knew not whither night caught him and he lay down under a hedge to sleep there he lay and snored away like a saw mill for he was wearied with his long journeying now it chanced that that same night two thieves had broken into a miser's house
and had stolen an iron pot full of gold money day broke before they reached home so down they sat to consider the matter and the place where they seated themselves was on the other side of the hedge where babo lay the older thief was for carrying the money home under his coat
the younger was for burying it until night had come again they squabbled and bickered and argued till the noise they made wakened babo and he sat up the first thing he thought of was the advice that the doctor had given him the evening before think well he bawled out
think well before you do what you are about to do think well when the two thieves heard babo's piece of advice they thought that the judge's officers were after them for sure and certain
down they dropped the pot of money and away they scampered as fast as their legs could carry them babo heard them running and poked his head through the hedge and there lay the pot of gold look now said he this has come from the advice that was given me
no one ever gave me advice that was worth so much before
how did you get it said they i got it for a piece of advice said babo for a piece of advice no no the king's officers knew butter from lard and truth from t'other thing it was just the same in that country as it is in our town
there was nothing in the world so cheap as advice whoever heard of anybody giving a pot of gold and silver money for it without another word they marched babo and his pot of money off to the king come said the king tell me truly where did you get the pot of money
now how much will you sell your advice to me for how much will you give said babo well said the king let me have it for a day on trial and at the end of that time i will pay you what it is worth very well said babo
that is a bargain and so he lent the king his piece of advice for one day on trial now the chief councillor and some others had laid a plot against the king's life and that morning it had been settled that when the barber shaved him he was to cut his throat with a razor
so after the barber had lathered his face he began to whet the razor and to whet the razor just at that moment the king remembered babo's piece of advice think well said he think well before you do what you are about to do think well
when the barber heard the words that the king said he thought that all had been discovered down he fell upon his knees and confessed everything that is how babo's advice saved the king's life you can guess whether the king thought it was worth much or little
when babo came the next morning the king gave him ten chests full of money and that made the simpleton richer than anybody in all that land he built himself a fine house
and all were glad to stop and chat awhile with him when they met him in the street one morning babo looked out of the window and who should he see come travelling along the road but simon agricola himself and he was just as poor and dusty and travel stained as ever
come in come in said babo and you can guess how the wise man stared when he saw the simpleton living in such a fine way but he opened his eyes wider than ever when he heard that all these good things came from the piece of advice
aye aye said he the luck is with you for sure and certain but if you will pay me a thousand golden angels i will give you something better than a piece of advice i will teach you all the magic that is to be learned from the books no said babo
i am satisfied with the advice very well said simon agricola born a fool live a fool die a fool
that is all of this tale except the tip end of it and that i will give you now i have heard tell that one day the king dropped in the street the piece of advice that he had bought from babo and that before he found it again it had been trampled into the mud and dirt
i cannot say for certain that this is the truth but it must have been spoiled in some way or other for i have never heard of anybody in these days who would give even so much as a bad penny for it and yet it is worth just as much now as it was when babo sold it to the king
i had sat listening to these jolly folk for all this time and i had not heard old sindbad say a word and yet i knew very well he was full of a story for every now and then i could see his lips move
and he would smile and anon he would stroke his long white beard and smile again everybody clapped their hands and rattled their canicans after the blacksmith had ended his story and methought they liked it better than almost anything that had been told then there was a pause
and everybody was still and as nobody else spoke i myself ventured to break the silence i would like said i and my voice sounded thin in my own ears as one's voice always does sound in twilight land i would like to hear our friend sindbad the sailor tell a story
the heart with the treasure
lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt
and where thieves do not break through nor steal for where your treasure is there will your heart be also
to understand the words of our lord is the business of life for it is the main road to the understanding of the word himself and to receive him
is to receive the father and so to have life in ourselves and life the higher the deeper the simpler
is the business of life the word is that by which we live namely jesus himself
in shadow in suggestion himself any utterance worthy of being called a truth is human food how much more the word presenting no abstract laws of our being
but the vital relation of soul and body heart and will strength and rejoicing beauty and light to him who first gave birth to them all the son came forth to be
before our eyes and in our hearts that which he had made us for that we might behold the truth in him and cry out for the living god who in the highest sense of all is the truth
not as understood but as understanding living and being doing and creating the truth i am the truth said our lord
and by those who are in some measure like him in being the truth the word can be understood let us try to understand him sometimes no doubt the saviour would have spoken after a different fashion of speech
if he had come to englishmen instead of to jews but the lessons he gave would have been the same for even when questioned about a matter for its passing import his reply contained the enunciation of the great human principle which lay in it
and that lies changeless in every variation of changeful circumstance with the light of added ages of christian experience it ought to be easier for us to understand his words
because of its depth at once and its simplicity but it is so complete so imaginatively comprehensive so immediately operative on the conscience through its poetic suggestiveness
that when it is once understood there is nothing more to be said but everything to be done why not lay up for ourselves treasures upon earth because there the moth and rust
and the thief come and so we should lose those treasures yes by the moth and the rust and the thief
for where your treasure is there will your heart be also of course the heart will be where the treasure is but what has that to do with the argument this
that what is with the treasure must fare as the treasure that the heart which haunts the treasure house where the moth and rust corrupt will be exposed to the same ravages as the treasure
will itself be rusted and moth eaten many a man many a woman fair and flourishing to see is going about with a rusty moth eaten heart within that form of strength or beauty
but this is only a figure true but is the reality intended less or more than the figure does not the rust and the moth mean more than disease
but blessedness yea ecstasy a heart which is the inmost chamber wherein springs the divine fountain of your being a heart which god regards though you may never have known its existence
not even when its writhings under the gnawing of the moth and the slow fire of the rust have communicated a dull pain to that outer heart which sends the blood to its appointed course through your body if god sees that heart corroded
with the rust of cares riddled into caverns and films by the worms of ambition and greed then your heart is as god sees it for god sees things as they are and one day
you will be compelled to see nay to feel your heart as god sees it and to know that the cankered thing which you have within you
is indeed the centre of your being your very heart nor does the lesson apply to those only who worship mammon who give their lives their best energies to the accumulation of wealth
by taste by intellect by power by art by genius of any kind and so would gather golden opinions to be treasured in a storehouse of earth nor to such only
do these words bear terrible warning for the hurt lies not in this that these pleasures are false like the deceptions of magic for such they are not pleasures they are nor yet in this
that they pass away and leave a fierce disappointment behind that is only so much the better
that the immortal the infinite created in the image of the everlasting god is housed with the fading and the corrupting and clings to them as its good clings to them
till it is infected and interpenetrated with their proper diseases which assume in it a form more terrible in proportion to the superiority of its kind that which is mere decay in the one becoming moral vileness in the other
that which fits the one for the dunghill
and strengthening them in further and further flights till at last they should become strong to bear the god born into the presence of its father in heaven therein lies the hurt
he whose heart is sound because it haunts the treasure house of heaven may be tempted of the devil
they both along with saint luke tell us of a cry with a loud voice and the giving up of the ghost between which cry and the giving up saint luke records the words father into thy hands i commend my spirit
he tells us only that after jesus had received the vinegar he said it is finished and bowed his head and gave up the ghost will the lord ever tell us why he cried so
was it the cry of relief at the touch of death was it the cry of victory was it the cry of gladness that he had endured to the end or did the father look out upon him in answer to his my god
and the blessedness of it make him cry aloud because he could not smile was such his condition now that the greatest gladness of the universe could express itself only in a loud cry or was it but the last wrench of pain
ere the final repose began it may have been all in one but never surely in all books in all words of thinking men
can there be so much expressed as lay unarticulated in that cry of the son of god now had he made his father lord no longer in the might of making and loving alone but lord in right of devotion and deed of love
now should inward sonship and the spirit of glad sacrifice be born in the hearts of men for the divine obedience was perfected by suffering he had been amongst his brethren what he would have his brethren be
his very life being his essence of existence what best he loved what best he was he had been among them their god brother and the mighty story ends with a cry
then the cry meant it is finished the cry meant father into thy hands i commend my spirit every highest human act is just a giving back to god
of that which he first gave to us thou god hast given me here again is thy gift i send my spirit home every act of worship is a holding up to god of what god hath made us here lord
look what i have got feel with me in what thou hast made me in this thy own bounty my being i am thy child and know not how to thank thee save by uplifting the heave offering of the overflowing of thy life
and calling aloud it is thine it is mine i am thine and therefore i am mine the vast operations of the spiritual as of the physical world are simply a turning again to the source
the last act of our lord in thus commending his spirit at the close of his life was only a summing up of what he had been doing all his life he had been offering this sacrifice the sacrifice of himself
all the years and in thus sacrificing he had lived the divine life every morning when he went out ere it was day every evening when he lingered on the night lapt mountain after his friends were gone
he was offering himself to his father in the communion of loving words of high thoughts of speechless feelings and between he turned to do the same thing in deed namely in loving word
in helping thought in healing action towards his fellows for the way to worship god while the daylight lasts is to work the service of god the only divine service
is the helping of our fellows i do not seek to point out this commending of our spirits to the father as a duty that is to turn the highest privilege we possess into a burden grievous to be borne
for the human being may say thus with himself am i going to sleep to lose consciousness to be helpless for a time thoughtless dead or more awful consideration in the dreams that may come
may i not be weak of will and scant of conscience father into thy hands i commend my spirit i give myself back to thee take me soothe me refresh me make me over again
am i going out into the business and turmoil of the day where so many temptations may come to do less honourably less faithfully less kindly less diligently than the ideal man would have me do father
to refuse a friend's request to urge a neighbour's conscience father into thy hands i commend my spirit am i in pain is illness coming upon me to shut out the glad visions of a healthy brain
and bring me such as are troubled and untrue take my spirit lord and see as thou art wont that it has no more to bear than it can bear am i going to die thou knowest
for of the thousands who pass through it every day not one enlightens his neighbour left behind but shall i not long with agony for one breath of thy air and not receive it
shall i not be torn asunder with dying i will question no more father into thy hands i commend my spirit for it is thy business not mine
if thy love which is better than life receive it then surely thy tenderness will make it great thus may the human being say with himself think brothers think
sisters we walk in the air of an eternal fatherhood every uplifting of the heart is a looking up to the father graciousness and truth are around above
beneath us yea in us when we are least worthy then most tempted hardest unkindest let us yet commend our spirits into his hands
and shall we dare to think god would send us away if we came thus and would not be pleased that we came even if we were angry as jonah would we not let all the tenderness of our nature flow forth upon such a child
and shall we dare to think that if we being evil know how to give good gifts to our children god will not give us his own spirit when we come to ask him
some genial rain drop on the dry selfishness some glance of sunlight on the cloudy hopelessness bread at least will be given and not a stone water at least will be sure and not vinegar mingled with gall
nor is there anything we can ask for ourselves that we may not ask for another we may commend any brother any sister to the common fatherhood and there will be moments when filled with that spirit which is the lord
nothing will ease our hearts of their love but the commending of all men all our brothers all our sisters to the one father nor shall we ever know that repose in the father's hands
that rest of the holy sepulchre which the lord knew when the agony of death was over when the storm of the world died away behind his retiring spirit and he entered the regions where there is only life and therefore all that is not music is silence
jesus answered thou sayest that i am a king to this end was i born and for this cause came i into the world that i should bear witness unto the truth
the rank and rule of this world are uninteresting to him he might have had them calling his disciples to follow him and his twelve legions of angels to help them he might soon have driven the romans into the abyss piling them on the heap of nations they had tumbled there before
what easier for him than thus to have cleared the way and over the tributary world reigned the just monarch that was the dream of the jews never seen in israel or elsewhere but haunting the hopes and longings of the poor and their helpers
he might from jerusalem have ruled the world not merely dispensing what men call justice but compelling atonement he did not care for government no such kingdom would serve the ends of his father in heaven or comfort his own soul
what was perfect empire to the son of god while he might teach one human being to love his neighbour and be good like his father to be love helper to one heart for its joy and the glory of his father was the beginning of true kingship
the lord would rather wash the feet of his weary brothers than be the one only perfect monarch that ever ruled in the world it was empire he rejected when he ordered satan behind him like a dog to his heel government i repeat
was to him flat stale unprofitable what then is the kingdom over which the lord cares to reign for he says he came into the world to be a king i answer a kingdom of kings
and no other where every man is a king there and there only does the lord care to reign in the name of his father as no king in europe would care to reign over a cannibal a savage or an animal race
so the lord cares for no kingdom over anything this world calls a nation a king must rule over his own kind jesus is a king in virtue of no conquest inheritance or election but in right of essential being
see wherein consists his kingship what it is that makes him a king what manifestation of his essential being gives him a claim to be king the lord's is a kingdom in which no man seeks to be above another
ambition is of the dirt of this world's kingdoms he says i am a king for i was born for the purpose i came into the world with the object of bearing witness to the truth everyone that is of my kind
as would most christians nowadays instead of setting about being true requests a definition of truth a presentation to his intellect in set terms of what the word truth means but instantly whether confident of the uselessness of the inquiry
or intending to resume it when he has set the lord at liberty goes out to the people to tell them he finds no fault in him whatever interpretation we put on his action here he must be far less worthy of blame than those christians who
some by condemning the opinions of their neighbours some by teaching others what they do not themselves heed
first of all that his father is good perfectly good and that the crown and joy of life is to desire and do the will of the eternal source of will and of all life he deals thus the death blow to the power of hell for the one principle of hell is
my own glory is and ought to be my chief care my ambition to gather the regards of men to the one centre myself my pleasure is my pleasure my kingdom is
as many as i can bring to acknowledge my greatness over them my judgment is the faultless rule of things my right is what i desire the more i am all in all to myself the greater i am
the less i acknowledge debt or obligation to another the more i close my eyes to the fact that i did not make myself the more self sufficing i feel or imagine myself the greater i am
i will be free with the freedom that consists in doing whatever i am inclined to do from whatever quarter may come the inclination to do my own will so long as i feel anything to be my will is to be free is to live
to all these principles of hell or of this world they are the same thing and it matters nothing whether they are asserted or defended so long as they are acted upon the lord the king gives the direct lie
for i have been from all eternity the son of him from whom you issue and whom you call your father but whom you will not have your father i know all he thinks and is and i say this that my perfect freedom my pure individuality
and he will have his children such as himself creatures of love of fairness of self devotion to him and their fellows i was born to bear witness to the truth in my own person to be the truth visible
such as i am he is if i said i did not know him i should be a liar i fear nothing you can do to me shall the king who comes to say what is true turn his back for fear of men my father is like me i know it
and i say it you do not like to hear it because you are not like him i am low in your eyes which measure things by their show therefore you say i blaspheme
i should blaspheme if i said he was such as anything you are capable of imagining him for you love show and power and the praise of men i do not and god is like me
i came into the world to show him i am a king because he sent me to bear witness to his truth and i bear it kill me and i will rise again you can kill me but you cannot hold me dead death is my servant
able to see and write these things i should fail of witnessing and myself be after all a castaway no king but a talker no disciple of jesus ready to go with him to the death
a hater of the lies men speak for god and myself a truth speaking liar not a doer of the word
we see then that the lord bore his witness to the truth to the one god by standing just what he was before the eyes and the lies of men the true king is the man who stands up a true man
and speaks the truth and will die but not lie the robes of such a king may be rags or purple it matters neither way the rags are the more likely but neither better nor worse than the robes
it mattered nothing which they witnessed the truth is god the witness to the truth is jesus the kingdom of the truth is the hearts of men the bliss of men is the true god
the thought of god is the truth of everything all well being lies in true relation to god the man who responds to this with his whole being is of the truth the man who knows these things and but knows them
judgment and love by them is of the worst of lying with hand and foot and face he casts scorn upon that which his tongue confesses
little thought the sons of zebedee and their ambitious mother what the earthly throne of christ's glory was which they and she begged they might share for the king crowned by his witnessing
witnessed then to the height of his uttermost argument when he hung upon the cross like a sin as paul in his boldness expresses it when his witness is treated as a lie then most he witnesses for he gives it still
high and lifted up on the throne of his witness on the cross of his torture he holds to it i and the father are one every mockery borne in witnessing is a witnessing afresh
and perhaps made him sit on the judgment seat in his mockery of kingly garments and royal insignia saying behold your king just because of those robes and that crown that sceptre and that throne of ridicule
he was the only real king that ever sat on any throne is every christian expected to bear witness
one who believes must bear witness one who sees the truth must live witnessing to it is our life then a witnessing to the truth
do we carry ourselves in bank on farm in house or shop in study or chamber or workshop as the lord would or as the lord would not are we careful to be true do we endeavour to live to the height of our ideas
or are we mean self serving world flattering fawning slaves when contempt is cast on the truth do we smile wronged in our presence do we make no sign that we hold by it
but we are called upon to show that we are on the other side but when i say truth i do not mean opinion to treat opinion as if that were truth is grievously to wrong the truth
the soul that loves the truth and tries to be true will know when to speak and when to be silent but the true man will never look as if he did not care we are not bound to say all we think but we are bound not even to look what we do not think
the girl who said before a company of mocking companions i believe in jesus bore true witness to her master the truth david bore witness to god the truth when he said
the phantom slowly gravely silently approached when it came near him scrooge bent down upon his knee for in the very air through which this spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery
it was shrouded in a deep black garment which concealed its head its face its form and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand but for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night
and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded he felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread he knew no more
for the spirit neither spoke nor moved i am in the presence of the ghost of christmas yet to come said scrooge the spirit answered not but pointed onward with its hand
you are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened but will happen in the time before us scrooge pursued is that so spirit the upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds
as if the spirit had inclined its head that was the only answer he received although well used to ghostly company by this time scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him
and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it the spirit paused a moment as observing his condition and giving him time to recover but scrooge was all the worse for this it thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror
to know that behind the dusky shroud there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him while he though he stretched his own to the utmost could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black
ghost of the future he exclaimed i fear you more than any spectre i have seen but as i know your purpose is to do me good and as i hope to live to be another man from what i was
will you not speak to me it gave him no reply the hand was pointed straight before them lead on said scrooge lead on the night is waning fast and it is precious time to me i know
lead on spirit the phantom moved away as it had come towards him scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress which bore him up he thought and carried him along
they scarcely seemed to enter the city for the city rather seemed to spring up about them and encompass them of its own act but there they were in the heart of it on change amongst the merchants who hurried up and down
and chinked the money in their pockets and conversed in groups and looked at their watches and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals and so forth as scrooge had seen them often
the spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men observing that the hand was pointed to them scrooge advanced to listen to their talk
i don't know much about it either way i only know he's dead when did he die inquired another last night i believe why what was the matter with him
asked a third taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff box i thought he'd never die
said the first with a yawn what has he done with his money asked a red faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose that shook like the gills of a turkey cock
left it to his company perhaps he hasn't left it to me that's all i know this pleasantry was received with a general laugh it's likely to be a very cheap funeral said the same speaker
for upon my life i don't know of anybody to go to it suppose we make up a party and volunteer i don't mind going if a lunch is provided observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose
but i must be fed if i make one another laugh well i am the most disinterested among you after all said the first speaker
but i'll offer to go if anybody else will when i come to think of it i'm not at all sure that i wasn't his most particular friend for we used to stop and speak whenever we met bye bye
speakers and listeners strolled away and mixed with other groups scrooge knew the men and looked towards the spirit for an explanation the phantom glided on into a street its finger pointed to two persons meeting
scrooge listened again thinking that the explanation might lie here he knew these men also perfectly they were men of business very wealthy and of great importance
he had made a point always of standing well in their esteem in a business point of view that is strictly in a business point of view how are you said one how are you returned the other well said the first
so i am told returned the second cold isn't it seasonable for christmas time you're not a skater i suppose no no something else to think of good morning not another word that was their meeting their conversation and their parting
scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose he set himself to consider what it was likely to be
they could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of jacob his old partner for that was past and this ghost's province was the future nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself to whom he could apply them
but nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement he resolved to treasure up every word he heard and everything he saw and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared
for he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed and would render the solution of these riddles easy he looked about in that very place for his own image but another man stood in his accustomed corner
and though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the porch it gave him little surprise however
thought and hoped he saw his new born resolutions carried out in this quiet and dark beside him stood the phantom with its outstretched hand
when he roused himself from his thoughtful quest he fancied from the turn of the hand and its situation in reference to himself that the unseen eyes were looking at him keenly it made him shudder and feel very cold
where scrooge had never penetrated before although he recognised its situation and its bad repute the ways were foul and narrow the shops and houses wretched the people half naked drunken slipshod
ugly alleys and archways like so many cesspools disgorged their offences of smell and dirt and life upon the straggling streets and the whole quarter reeked with crime with filth
far in this den of infamous resort there was a low browed beetling shop below a pent house roof where iron old rags bottles bones and greasy offal were bought
upon the floor within were piled up heaps of rusty keys nails chains hinges files scales weights and refuse iron of all kinds
secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags masses of corrupted fat
sitting in among the wares he dealt in by a charcoal stove made of old bricks was a grey haired rascal
hung upon a line and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement scrooge and the phantom came into the presence of this man just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop
but she had scarcely entered when another woman similarly laden came in too and she was closely followed by a man in faded black who was no less startled by the sight of them than they had been upon the recognition of each other
after a short period of blank astonishment in which the old man with the pipe had joined them they all three burst into a laugh let the charwoman alone to be the first cried she who had entered first let the laundress alone to be the second
look here old joe here's a chance if we haven't all three met here without meaning it you couldn't have met in a better place said old joe removing his pipe from his mouth come into the parlour
you were made free of it long ago you know and the other two an't strangers stop till i shut the door of the shop
and i'm sure there's no such old bones here as mine ha ha we're all suitable to our calling we're well matched come into the parlour come into the parlour
the old man raked the fire together with an old stair rod and having trimmed his smoky lamp for it was night with the stem of his pipe put it in his mouth again while he did this the woman who had already spoken
threw her bundle on the floor and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool crossing her elbows on her knees and looking with a bold defiance at the other two what odds then what odds missus dilber said the woman
every person has a right to take care of themselves he always did that's true indeed said the laundress no man more so
yes and the bedpost was his own
the room was his own best and happiest of all the time before him was his own to make amends in i will live in the past the present and the future scrooge repeated as he scrambled out of bed
heaven and the christmas time be praised for this i say it on my knees old jacob on my knees he was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call
he had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the spirit and his face was wet with tears
cried scrooge folding one of his bed curtains in his arms they are not torn down rings and all they are here i am here
turning them inside out putting them on upside down tearing them mislaying them making them parties to every kind of extravagance
cried scrooge laughing and crying in the same breath and making a perfect laocooen of himself with his stockings
he had frisked into the sitting room and was now standing there perfectly winded there's the saucepan that the gruel was in cried scrooge starting off again and going round the fireplace
there's the door by which the ghost of jacob marley entered there's the corner where the ghost of christmas present sat there's the window where i saw the wandering spirits it's all right it's all true it all happened ha ha ha really
for a man who had been out of practice for so many years it was a splendid laugh a most illustrious laugh the father of a long long line of brilliant laughs
i don't know how long i've been among the spirits i don't know anything i'm quite a baby never mind i don't care i'd rather be a baby
clash clang hammer ding dong bell bell dong ding hammer clang clash oh glorious glorious
no fog no mist clear bright jovial stirring cold cold piping for the blood to dance to golden sunlight heavenly sky sweet fresh air
merry bells oh glorious glorious what's to day cried scrooge calling downward to a boy in sunday clothes who perhaps had loitered in to look about him eh returned the boy
with all his might of wonder what's to day my fine fellow said scrooge to day replied the boy
said scrooge to himself i haven't missed it
hallo my fine fellow hallo returned the boy do you know the poulterer's in the next street but one at the corner scrooge inquired
replied the lad an intelligent boy said scrooge a remarkable boy do you know whether they've sold the prize turkey that was hanging up there not the little prize turkey the big one
yes my buck it's hanging there now replied the boy
exclaimed the boy no no said scrooge i am in earnest go and buy it and tell em to bring it here that i may give them the direction where to take it come back with the man and i'll give you a shilling come back with him in less than five minutes
and i'll give you half a crown the boy was off like a shot he must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast i'll send it to bob cratchit's whispered scrooge rubbing his hands
and splitting with a laugh he sha'n't know who sends it it's twice the size of tiny tim
the hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one but write it he did somehow and went down stairs to open the street door ready for the coming of the poulterer's man as he stood there waiting his arrival
the knocker caught his eye i shall love it as long as i live cried scrooge patting it with his hand i scarcely ever looked at it before what an honest expression it has in its face
here's the turkey hallo whoop how are you merry christmas it was a turkey he never could have stood upon his legs that bird he would have snapped em short off in a minute like sticks of sealing wax
why it's impossible to carry that to camden town said scrooge you must have a cab the chuckle with which he said this and the chuckle with which he paid for the turkey and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab
and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again
shaving was not an easy task for his hand continued to shake very much and shaving requires attention even when you don't dance while you are at it
but if he had cut the end of his nose off he would have put a piece of sticking plaister over it and been quite satisfied he dressed himself all in his best and at last got out into the streets
the people were by this time pouring forth as he had seen them with the ghost of christmas present and walking with his hands behind him scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile
that three or four good humoured fellows said good morning sir a merry christmas to you and scrooge said often afterwards that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard
he had not gone far when coming on towards him he beheld the portly gentleman who had walked into his counting house the day before and said scrooge and marley's i believe
it sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met but he knew what path lay straight before him and he took it my dear sir said scrooge quickening his pace
and taking the old gentleman by both his hands how do you do i hope you succeeded yesterday it was very kind of you a merry christmas to you sir mister scrooge yes said scrooge
that is my name and i fear it may not be pleasant to you allow me to ask your pardon and will you have the goodness here scrooge whispered in his ear lord bless me cried the gentleman
as if his breath were taken away my dear mister scrooge are you serious if you please said scrooge not a farthing less a great many back payments are included in it i assure you will you do me that favour
said the other shaking hands with him
retorted scrooge come and see me will you come and see me i will cried the old gentleman and it was clear he meant to do it thank'ee said scrooge i am much obliged to you i thank you fifty times bless you
he went to church and walked about the streets and watched the people hurrying to and fro and patted children on the head and questioned beggars and looked down into the kitchens of houses and up to the windows
and found that everything could yield him pleasure he had never dreamed that any walk that anything could give him so much happiness in the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's house
he passed the door a dozen times before he had the courage to go up and knock but he made a dash and did it is your master at home my dear said scrooge to the girl nice girl very
yes sir where is he my love said scrooge he's in the dining room sir along with mistress i'll show you up stairs if you please thank'ee he knows me said scrooge
with his hand already on the dining room lock i'll go in here my dear he turned it gently and sidled his face in round the door they were looking at the table which was spread out in great array
for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points and like to see that everything is right fred said scrooge dear heart alive how his niece by marriage started scrooge had forgotten for the moment
about her sitting in the corner with the footstool or he wouldn't have done it on any account why bless my soul cried fred who's that it's i your uncle scrooge i have come to dinner
will you let me in fred let him in it is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off he was at home in five minutes nothing could be heartier his niece looked just the same
so did topper when he came so did the plump sister when she came so did every one when they came wonderful party wonderful games wonderful unanimity won der ful happiness
if he could only be there first and catch bob cratchit coming late that was the thing he had set his heart upon and he did it yes he did the clock struck nine
no bob he was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time scrooge sat with his door wide open that he might see him come into the tank his hat was off before he opened the door his comforter too
he was on his stool in a jiffy driving away with his pen as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock hallo growled scrooge in his accustomed voice as near as he could feign it
i am very sorry sir said bob i am behind my time
repeated scrooge yes i think you are
it's only once a year sir pleaded bob appearing from the tank it shall not be repeated i was making rather merry yesterday sir now i'll tell you what my friend said scrooge
i am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer and therefore he continued leaping from his stool and giving bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the tank again
and therefore i am about to raise your salary bob trembled and got a little nearer to the ruler he had a momentary idea of knocking scrooge down with it holding him and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait waistcoat
a merry christmas bob said scrooge with an earnestness that could not be mistaken as he clapped him on the back a merrier christmas bob my good fellow than i have given you for many a year
i'll raise your salary and endeavour to assist your struggling family and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon over a christmas bowl of smoking bishop bob
scrooge was better than his word he did it all and infinitely more and to tiny tim who did not die he was a second father he became as good a friend
as good a master and as good a man as the good old city knew or any other good old city town or borough in the good old world some people laughed to see the alteration in him but he let them laugh
and little heeded them for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe for good at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway
he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins as have the malady in less attractive forms his own heart laughed and that was quite enough for him
he had no further intercourse with spirits but lived upon the total abstinence principle ever afterwards and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep christmas well if any man alive possessed the knowledge
and so as tiny tim observed
free but a monster the peculiar ability of the human mind to slip so readily into the refuge of the commonplace after or even during some well nigh intolerable crisis
has been to me long one of the most interesting phenomena of our psychology it is instinctively a protective habit of course
the stripes say of the zebra and tiger that blend so cunningly with the barred and speckled shadowings of bush and jungle the twig and leaflike shapes and hues of certain insects in fact
all that natural camouflage which was the basis of the art of concealment so astonishingly developed in the late war like the animals of the wild the mind of man moves through a jungle the jungle of life
passing along paths beaten out by the thought of his countless forefathers in their progress from birth to death and these paths are bordered and screened figuratively and literally with bush and trees of his own selection setting out and cultivation
shelters of the familiar the habitual the customary on these ancestral paths within these barriers of usage man moves hidden and secure as the animals in their haunts or so he thinks outside them lie the wildernesses and the gardens of the unknown
but they are home to him therefore it is that he scurries from some open place of revelation some storm of emotion some strength testing struggle back into the shelter of the obvious
finding it an intellectual environment that demands no slightest expenditure of mental energy or initiative strength to sally forth again into the unfamiliar i crave pardon for this digression i set it down because now i remember how
when drake at last broke the silence that had closed in upon the passing of that still small voice the essence of these thoughts occurred to me he strode over to the weeping girl and in his voice was a roughness that angered me until i realized his purpose
get up ruth he ordered he came back once and he'll come back again now let him be and help us get a meal together i'm hungry
eat she exclaimed you can be hungry you bet i can and i am he answered cheerfully come on we've got to make the best of it ruth i broke in gently we'll all have to think about ourselves a little if we're to be of any use to him
you must eat and then rest no use crying in the milk even if it's spilt observed drake even more cheerfully brutal i learned that at the front where we got so we'd yelp for food even when the lads who'd been bringing it were all mixed up in it
she lifted ventnor's head from her lap rested it on the silks arose eyes wrathful her little hands closed in fists as though to strike him oh you brute she whispered
that's better said dick go ahead and hit me if you want the madder you get the better you'll feel for a moment i thought she was going to take him at his word then her anger fled thanks dick she said quietly
brewed tea over the spirit lamp with water from the bubbling spring in these commonplaces i knew that she at least was finding relief from that strain of the abnormal under which we had labored so long
to my surprise i found that i was hungry and with deep relief i watched ruth partake of food and drink even though lightly about her seemed to hover something of the ethereal elusive and disquieting was it the strangely pellucid light that gave the effect i wondered
and knew it was not for as i scanned her covertly there fell upon her face that shadow of inhuman tranquillity of unearthly withdrawal which i guessed had more than anything else maddened ventnor into his attack upon the disk i watched her fight against it
drive it back white lipped she raised her head and met my gaze
shame it came to me that painful as it might be for her the time for questioning had come ruth i said i know it's not necessary to remind you that we're in a tight place every fact and every scrap of knowledge that we can lay hold of
is of the utmost importance in enabling us to determine our course i'm going to repeat your brother's question what did norhala do to you and what happened when you were floating before the disk
the blaze of interest in drake's eyes at these questions changed to amazement at her stricken recoil from them there was nothing she whispered then defiantly nothing i don't know what you mean ruth
i spoke sharply now in my own perplexity you do know you must tell us for his sake i pointed toward ventnor she drew a long breath you're right of course she said unsteadily only i
i thought maybe i could fight it out myself but you'll have to know it there's a taint upon me i caught in drake's swift glance the echo of my own thrill of apprehension for her sanity yes she said now quietly
some new and alien thing within my heart my brain my soul it came to me from norhala when we rode the flying block and he sealed upon me when i was in his again she crimsoned embrace
and as we gazed at her incredulously a thing that urges me to forget you two and martin and all the world i've known that tries to pull me from you from all to drift untroubled in some vast calm filled with an ordered ecstasy of peace
and whose calling i want god help me oh so desperately to heed it whispered to me first she said from norhala when she put her arm around me it whispered and then seemed to float from her and cover me like like a veil
and from head to foot it was a quietness and peace that held within it a happiness at one and the same time utterly tranquil and utterly free i seemed to be at the doorway to unknown ecstasies and the life i had known only a dream
and you all of you even martin dreams within a dream you weren't real and you did not matter hypnotism muttered drake as she paused no she shook her head no more than that
the wonder of it grew and grew i thrilled with it i remember nothing of that ride saw nothing except that once through the peace enfolding me pierced warning that martin was in peril and i broke through to see him clutching norhala and to see floating up in her eyes death for him
and i saved him and again forgot then when i saw that beautiful flaming shape i felt no terror no fear only a tremendous joyous anticipation as though as though she faltered hung her head
then leaving that sentence unfinished whispered and when it lifted me it was as though i had come at last out of some endless black ocean of despair into the full sun of paradise ruth cried drake
and at the pain in his cry she winced wait she said and held up a little tremulous hand you asked and now you must listen she was silent and when once more she spoke her voice was low curiously rhythmic her eyes rapt
i was free free from every human fetter of fear or sorrow or love or hate free even of hope for what was there to hope for when everything desirable was mine
and i was elemental one with the eternal things yet fully conscious that i was i it was as though i were the shining shadow of a star afloat upon the breast of some still and hidden woodland pool
as though i were a little wind dancing among the mountain tops a mist whirling down a quiet glen a shimmering lance of the aurora pulsing in the high solitudes and there was music strange and wondrous music and terrible
but not terrible to me who was part of it vast chords and singing themes that rang like clusters of little swinging stars and harmonies that were like the very voice of infinite law resolving within itself all discords and all
all passionless yet rapturous out of the thing that held me out from its fires pulsed vitality a flood of inhuman energy in which i was bathed and it was as though this energy were
reassembling me fitting me even closer to the elemental things changing me fully into them i felt the little tendrils touching caressing then came the shots awakening was dreadful a struggling back from drowning
i saw martin blasted i drove the the spell away from me tore it away and o walter dick it hurt it hurt and for a breath before i ran to him it was like
like coming from a world in which there was no disorder no sorrow no doubts a rhythmic harmonious world of light and music into into a world that was like a black and dirty kitchen and it's there her voice rose hysterically
it's still within me whispering whispering urging me away from you from martin from every human thing bidding me give myself up surrender my humanity its seal she sobbed
an alien consciousness sealed within me that tries to make the human me a slave that waits to overcome my will and if i surrender gives me freedom an incredible freedom but makes me being still human a monster
she hid her face in her hands quivering if i could sleep she wailed but i'm afraid to sleep i think i shall never sleep again for sleeping how do i know what i may be when i wake i caught drake's eye he nodded
i slipped my hand down into the medicine case brought forth a certain potent and tasteless combination of drugs which i carry upon explorations i dropped a little into her cup then held it to her lips like a child unthinking she obeyed and drank
but i'll not surrender her eyes were tragic never think it i can win don't you know i can win drake dropped down beside her drew her toward him
and remember this nine tenths of what you're thinking now is purely over wrought nerves and weariness you'll win and we'll win never doubt it i don't she said i know it oh it will be hard but i will
coming home miss carlyle having resolved upon her course quitted her own house and removed to east lynne with peter and her handmaidens in spite of mister dill's grieved remonstrances she discharged the servants whom mister carlyle had engaged all save one man
on a friday night about a month after the wedding mister carlyle and his wife came home they were expected and miss carlyle went through the hall to receive them and stood on the upper steps between the pillars of the portico an elegant chariot with four post horses was drawing up
miss carlyle compressed her lips as she scanned it she was attired in a handsome dark silk dress and a new cap her anger had had time to cool down in the last month and her strong common sense told her that the wiser plan would be to make the best of it mister carlyle came up the steps with isabel
you here cornelia that was kind how are you isabel this is my sister lady isabel put forth her hand and miss carlyle condescended to touch the tips of her fingers
she jerked out mister carlyle left them together and went back to search for some trifles which had been left in the carriage miss carlyle led the way to a sitting room where the supper tray was laid
thank you i will go to my rooms but i do not require supper we have dined then what would you like to take asked miss corny some tea if you please i am very thirsty tea ejaculated miss corny so late as this
i don't know that they have boiling water you'd never sleep a wink all night ma'am if you took tea at eleven o'clock oh then never mind replied lady isabel it is of no consequence do not let me give trouble
miss carlyle whisked out of the room upon what errand was best known to herself and in the hall she and marvel came to an encounter no words passed but each eyed the other grimly marvel was very stylish with five flounces to her dress a veil and a parasol
meanwhile lady isabel sat down and burst into bitter tears and sobs a chill had come over her it did not seem like coming to east lynne mister carlyle entered and witnessed the grief isabel he uttered in amazement as he hastened up to her
my darling what ails you i am tired i think she gently answered and coming into the house again made me think of papa i should like to go to my rooms archibald but i don't know which they are neither did mister carlyle know but miss carlyle came whisking in again and said
the best rooms those next the library should she go up with my lady mister carlyle preferred to go himself and he held out his arm to isabel she drew her veil over her face as she passed miss carlyle
the branches were not lighted and the room looked cold and comfortless things seem all sixes and sevens in the house remarked mister carlyle i fancy the servants must have misunderstood my letter and not have expected us until to morrow night
on returning to the sitting room mister carlyle inquired the cause of the servants negligence i sent them away because they were superfluous encumbrances hastily replied miss carlyle we have four in the house and my lady has brought a fine maid i see making five
i have come up here to live mister carlyle felt checkmated he had always bowed to the will of miss corny but he had an idea that he and his wife should be better without her and your house he exclaimed
or to furnished lodgings archibald
and most people in your place would jump at the prospect of my living here your wife will be mistress i do not intend to take her honors from her but i will save her a world of trouble in management be as useful to her as a housekeeper she will be glad of that inexperienced as she is
i dare say she never gave a domestic order in her life this was a view of the case to mister carlyle so plausibly put that he began to think it might be all for the best he had great reverence for his sister's judgment force of habit is strong upon all of us
still he did not know did you buy that fine piano which has arrived angrily asked miss carlyle
miss corny groaned what did it cost
what did it cost repeated miss carlyle a hundred and twenty guineas he answered obedience to her will was yet powerful within him miss corny threw up her hands and eyes but at that moment peter entered with some hot water which his master had rung for
mister carlyle rose and looked on the side board where is the wine peter the servant put it out port and sherry mister carlyle drank a glass and then proceeded to mix some wine and water shall i mix some for you cornelia he asked
i'll mix for myself if i want any who's that for isabel he quitted the room carrying the wine and water and entered his wife's she was sitting half buried it seemed in the arm chair her face muffled up
as she raised it he saw that it was flushed and agitated that her eyes were bright and her frame was trembling what is the matter he hastily asked i got nervous after marvel went she whispered laying hold of him as if for protection from terror
i came back to the chair and covered my head over hoping some one would come up i have been talking to cornelia but what made you nervous oh i was very foolish i kept thinking of frightful things they would come into my mind do not blame me archibald this is the room papa died in
blame you my darling he uttered with deep feeling i thought of a dreadful story about the bats that the servants told i dare say you never heard it and i kept thinking suppose they were at the windows now behind the blinds
i fancied i might see you are laughing yes he was smiling for he knew that these moments of nervous fear are best met jestingly he made her drink the wine and water and then he showed her where the bell was ringing it as he did so
its position had been changed in some late alterations to the house your rooms shall be changed to morrow isabel no let us remain in these i shall like to feel that papa was once their occupant i won't get nervous again
but even as she spoke her actions belied her words mister carlyle had gone to the door and opened it and she flew close up to him cowering behind him shall you be gone very long archibald she whispered not more than an hour he answered
but he hastily put back one of his hands and held her tightly in his protecting grasp marvel was coming along the corridor in answer to the ring have the goodness to let miss carlyle know that i am not coming down again to night he said yes sir
mister carlyle shut the door and then looked at his wife and laughed he is very kind to me thought isabel with the morning began the perplexities of lady isabel carlyle but first of all just fancy the group at breakfast
miss carlyle descended in the startling costume the reader has seen took her seat at the breakfast table and there sat bolt upright mister carlyle came down next and then lady isabel entered in an elegant half mourning dress with flowing black ribbons
good morning ma'am i hope you slept well was miss carlyle's salutation quite well thank you she answered as she took her seat opposite miss carlyle miss carlyle pointed to the top of the table
i should be glad if you would answered lady isabel so miss carlyle proceeded to her duties very stern and grim the meal was nearly over when peter came in and said the butcher had come up for orders
miss carlyle looked at lady isabel waiting of course for her to give them isabel was silent with perplexity she had never given such an order in her life totally ignorant was she of the requirements of a household and did not know whether to suggest a few pounds of meat or a whole cow
it was the presence of that grim miss corny which put her out alone with her husband she would have said what ought i to order archibald tell me peter waited a something to roast and boil if you please stammered lady isabel
she spoke in a low tone embarrassment makes cowards of us and mister carlyle repeated it after her he knew no more about housekeeping than she did
up started miss corny she could not stand that are you aware lady isabel that an order such as that would only puzzle the butcher shall i give the necessary orders for to day the fishmonger will be here presently oh i wish you would
cried the relieved lady isabel i have not been accustomed to it but i must learn i don't think i know anything about housekeeping miss corny's answer was to stalk from the room isabel rose from her chair like a bird released from its cage and stood by his side
have you finished archibald i think i have dear oh here's my coffee there i have finished now let us go around the grounds he rose laid his hands playfully on her slender waist and looked at her
you may as well ask me to take a journey to the moon it is past nine and i have not been to the office for a month the tears rose in her eyes i wish you would be always with me east lynne will not be east lynne without you
i will be with you as much as ever i can my dearest he whispered come and walk with me through the park she ran for her bonnet gloves and parasol mister carlyle waited for her in the hall and they went out together
he thought it a good opportunity to speak about his sister she wishes to remain with us he said i do not know what to decide on the one hand i think she might save you the worry of household management on the other i fancy we shall be happier by ourselves
isabel's heart sank within her at the idea of that stern miss corny mounted over her as resident guard but refined and sensitive almost painfully considerate of the feelings of others she raised no word of objection
as you and miss carlyle please she answered isabel he said i wish it to be as you please i wish matters to be arranged as may best please you and i will have them so arranged my chief object in life now is your happiness
he spoke in all the sincerity of truth and isabel knew it and the thought came across her that with him by her side her loving protector miss carlyle could not mar her life's peace let her stay archibald she will not incommode us
at any rate it can be tried for a month or two and we shall see how it works he musingly observed they reached the park gates i wish i could go with you and be your clerk she cried unwilling to release his hand i should not have all that long way to go back by myself
rule brittania brittania rules the waves
the nations not so blest as thee must in their turn to tyrants fall whilst thou shalt flourish great and free the dread and envy of them all still more majestic shalt thou rise more dreadful from each foreign stroke
as the loud blast that tears the skies serves but to root thy native oak thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame all their attempts to bend thee down will but arouse thy generous flame and work their woe and thy renown
to thee belongs the rural reign thy cities shall with commerce shine all thine shall be the subject main and every shore it circles thine the muses still with freedom found shall to thy happy coast repair
blest isle with matchless beauty crown'd and manly hearts to guard the fair rule britannia brittania rules the waves britons never shall be slaves j thomson
one hundred twenty three the bard pindaric ode ruin seize thee ruthless king confusion on thy banners wait tho fann'd by conquest's crimson wing
they mock the air with idle state helm nor hauberk's twisted mail nor e e n thy virtues tyrant shall avail to save thy secret soul from nightly fears from cambria's curse from cambria's tears
robed in the sable garb of woe with haggard eyes the poet stood loose his beard and hoary hair stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air and with a master's hand and prophet's fire struck the deep sorrows of his lyre
hark how each giant oak and desert cave sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath
revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe vocal no more since cambria's fatal day to high born hoel's harp or soft llewellyn's lay cold is cadwallo's tongue that hush'd the stormy main
brave urien sleeps upon his craggy bed mountains ye mourn in vain modred whose magic song made huge plinlimmon bow his cloud topt head on dreary arvon's shore they lie smear'd with gore and ghastly pale
far far aloof the affrighted ravens sail the famish'd eagle screams and passes by dear lost companions of my tuneful art dear as the light that visits these sad eyes dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart
ye died amidst your dying country's cries no more i weep they do not sleep on yonder cliffs a griesly band i see them sit they linger yet avengers of their native land
mark the year and mark the night when severn shall re echo with affright the shrieks of death thro berkley's roof that ring shrieks of an agonising king
amazement in his van with flight combined and sorrow's faded form and solitude behind mighty victor mighty lord low on his funeral couch he lies no pitying heart no eye afford a tear to grace his obsequies
is the sable warrior fled thy son is gone he rests among the dead the swarm that in thy noon tide beam were born gone to salute the rising morn fair laughs the morn and soft the zephyr blows
regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway that hush'd in grim repose expects his evening prey fill high the sparkling bowl the rich repast prepare reft of a crown he yet may share the feast
close by the regal chair fell thirst and famine scowl a baleful smile upon their baffled guest heard ye the din of battle bray lance to lance and horse to horse long years of havock urge their destined course
and thro the kindred squadrons mow their way ye towers of julius london's lasting shame with many a foul and midnight murder fed revere his consort's faith his father's fame and spare the meek usurper's holy head
above below the rose of snow twined with her blushing foe we spread the bristled boar in infant gore wallows beneath the thorny shade
edward lo to sudden fate weave we the woof the thread is spun half of thy heart we consecrate the web is wove the work is done
stay o stay nor thus forlorn leave me unbless'd unpitied here to mourn
in yon bright track that fires the western skies they melt they vanish from my eyes but o what solemn scenes on snowdon's height descending slow their glittering skirts unroll visions of glory spare my aching sight
ye unborn ages crowd not on my soul no more our long lost arthur we bewail all hail ye genuine kings britannia's issue hail girt with many a baron bold sublime their starry fronts they rear
and gorgeous dames and statesmen old in bearded majesty appear in the midst a form divine her eye proclaims her of the briton line her lion port her awe commanding face attemper'd sweet to virgin grace
what strings symphonious tremble in the air what strains of vocal transport round her play
bright rapture calls and soaring as she sings waves in the eye of heaven her many colour'd wings the verse adorn again fierce war and faithful love and truth severe by fairy fiction drest
in buskin'd measures move pale grief and pleasing pain with horror tyrant of the throbbing breast a voice as of the cherub choir gales from blooming eden bear
fond impious man think'st thou yon sanguine cloud raised by thy breath has quench'd the orb of day to morrow he repairs the golden flood and warms the nations with redoubled ray
enough for me with joy i see the different doom our fates assign be thine despair and sceptred care to triumph and to die are mine he spoke and headlong from the mountain's height deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night
t gray one hundred twenty four
how sleep the brave who sink to rest by all their country's wishes blest when spring with dewy fingers cold returns to deck their hallow'd mould she there shall dress a sweeter sod than fancy's feet have ever trod
by fairy hands their knell is rung by forms unseen their dirge is sung there honour comes a pilgrim gray to bless the turf that wraps their clay and freedom shall awhile repair
to dwell a weeping hermit there w collins one hundred twenty five
for there i lost my father dear my father dear and brethren three their winding sheet the bluidy clay their graves are growing green to see and by them lies the dearest lad that ever blest a woman's ee
for mony a heart thou hast made sair that ne'er did wrong to thine or thee r burns one hundred twenty six lament for flodden
i've heard them lilting at our ewe milking lasses a lilting before dawn o day but now they are moaning on ilka green loaning the flowers of the forest are a wede away
at e'en in the gloaming
the flowers of the forest that fought aye the foremost the prime of our land are cauld in the clay we'll hear
little florence all the boys and very likely some of the girls who have got as far as this second chapter will glance down the page and exclaim dolls then they will add whatever is their favorite expression of scorn
and perhaps make a motion to lay the book down wait a moment girls and boys too i advise you to read on and see what came in this case of playing with dolls there were a good many thousands of boys in england at that time
in the twenties and thirties who might have been badly off when the terrible fifties came if florence nightingale had not played with her dolls read on and see for yourselves florence nightingale loved her dolls dearly
and took the greatest possible care of them and yet they were always delicate and given to sudden and alarming illnesses a doll never knew when she might be told that she was very ill and undressed and put to bed
though she might but just have got on her new frock then mamma florence would wait upon her tenderly smoothing her pillow bathing her forehead or rubbing her poor back and bringing her all kinds of good things in the doll house dishes
the doll might feel very much better the next day and think it was time to get up and put on the new frock again but she was very apt to have a relapse and go back to bed and gruel again
once at least before she was allowed to recover entirely the truth is florence was born to be a nurse and a sick doll was dearer to her than a strong and healthy one so i fear her dolls would have been invalids most of the time
if it had not been for parthenope's little family who often required their aunt florence's care these dolls were very unlucky or else their mamma was very careless you can call it whichever you like
they were always tumbling down and breaking their heads or losing arms and legs or burning themselves at the nursery fire or suffering from doll's consumption that dreadful complaint otherwise known as loss of sawdust
when these things happened aunt florence was called in as a matter of course and she set the fractures and salved the burns and stopped the flow of sawdust and proved herself in every way a most skillful nursery surgeon and physician
so it was that unconsciously and in play florence began her training for her life work she was having lessons of course arithmetic and all the other proper things
and studied regularly and had music and drawing lessons besides and her father taught her to love english literature and later opened to her the great doors marked latin and greek
her mother meantime taught her all kinds of handiwork and before she was twelve years old she could hemstitch and seam and embroider these things were all good and very good without them she could not have accomplished all she did
all the other learning was going to help that wonderful learning that began with nursing the sick dolls soon she was to take another step in her profession
the little fingers grown so skillful by bandaging waxen and china arms and legs were now to save a living loving creature from death to every english child this story is a nursery tale
no doubt it is to many american children also yet it is one that no one can ever tire of hearing so i shall tell it again
and old peggy who was too old to work and lived in a pleasant green paddock with nothing to do but amuse herself and crop grass all day long perhaps peggy found this tiresome
for whenever she saw florence at the gate she would toss her head and whinny and come trotting up to the gate good morning peggy florence would say would you like an apple
and more please horse language is a simple one compared to english and has no grammar well one day florence was riding her pony in company with her friend the vicar this good man loved all living creatures
but there were few dearer to him than florence nightingale they had the same tastes and feelings both loved to help and comfort all who were in trouble sorrow need sickness or any other adversity
he had studied medicine before he became a clergyman and so was able to tell her many things about the care of the sick and injured here was another teacher i suppose everyone we know could teach us something good if we were ready to learn
as i said florence and the vicar were riding along on the green downs and here i must stop again a moment to tell you what the downs are for when i was a child i used to wonder
they are great rounded hills covered with close thick turf like a velvet carpet they spread in long smooth green billows miles and miles of them
the slopes so gentle that it is delightful to drive or ride on them only you must be careful not to go near the edge where the green breaks off suddenly and a white chalk cliff goes down down hundreds of feet
to the blue sea tossing and tumbling below these are the white cliffs of england that you have so often read about am i never going on with the story yes have patience there is plenty of time
there were many sheep on the downs and there was one special flock that florence knew very well it belonged to old roger a shepherd who had often worked for her father roger and his good dog cap were both friends of florence's
and she was used to seeing them on the downs the sheep in a more or less orderly compact flock cap guarding them and driving back any stragglers who went nibbling off toward the cliff edge but to day there seemed no order anywhere
the sheep were scattered in twos and threes straying hither and thither and old roger alone was trying to collect them and apparently having a hard time of it the vicar saw his trouble and rode up to him
what is the matter roger he asked kindly where is your dog the boys have been throwing stones at him sir replied the old man they have broken his leg poor beast and he will never be good for anything again
i shall have to take a bit of cord and put an end to his misery oh cried florence who had ridden up with the vicar poor cap are you sure his leg is broken roger yes miss it's broke sure enough
best put him out of his pain i says no no cried florence not till we have tried to help him where is he
poor cap's days is over ah he were a good dog do everything but speak he could and went as near to that as a dumb beast could i'll never get another like him
while the old man lamented florence was looking eagerly in the face of the clergyman he met her look with a smile and nod we will go and see he said and off they rode leaving roger shaking his head and calling to the sheep
they soon reached the cottage the door was fastened and when they tried to open it a furious barking was heard within
they entered and there lay cap on the brick floor helpless and weak but still barking as hard as he could at what he supposed to be intruders when he saw florence and the little boy he stopped barking and wagged his tail feebly
then he crawled from under the table where he lay dragged himself to florence's feet and looked up pitifully in her face she knelt down by him and soothed and petted and talked to him while the good clergyman examined the injured leg
it was dreadfully swollen and every touch was painful but cap knew well enough that the hands that hurt were trying to help him and though he moaned and winced he licked the hands and made no effort to draw the leg away
is it broken asked florence anxiously no said the vicar no bones are broken there's no reason why cap should not recover all he needs is care and nursing florence quietly laid down her riding whip and tucked up her sleeves
what shall i do first she said well said the vicar i think a hot compress is the thing florence looked puzzled the dolls had never had hot compresses what is it she asked
quickly she tore the frock into strips of suitable width and length
as the heat drew out the inflammation and pain cap looked up at the little helper all his simple dog heart shining in his eyes the look sank into the child's heart and deepened the tenderness already there another step
florence came again the next day to bandage the leg
the next day the curate called again on leopold but helen happened to be otherwise engaged for a few minutes and missus ramshorn to be in the sick room when the servant brought his name with her jealousy of wingfold's teaching she would not have admitted him
but lingard made such loud protest when he heard her say not at home insisting on seeing him that she had to give way and tell the maid to show him up she had no notion however of leaving him alone in the room with the invalid
who could tell what absurd and extravagant ideas he might not put into the boy's head he might make him turn monk or socinian or latter day saint for what she knew so she sat blocking up the sole small window in the youth's dark dwelling that looked eastward
and damming back the tide of the dawn from his diseased and tormented soul little conversation was therefore possible
her whole bearing now as always was that of one who perfectly trusted a supreme spirit under whose influences lay even the rugged material of her deformed dwelling polwarth allowed wingfold to help him in getting tea
and the conversation as will be the case where all are in earnest quickly found the right channel it is not often in real life that such conversations occur generally in any talk worth calling conversation every man has some point to maintain
and his object is to justify his own thesis and disprove his neighbour's i will allow that he may primarily have adopted his thesis because of some sign of truth in it but his mode of supporting it is generally such as to block up every cranny in his soul
at which more truth might enter in the present case unusual as it is for so many as three truth loving men to come thus together on the face of this planet here were three simply set on uttering truth they had seen and gaining sight of truth as yet veiled from them
i shall attempt only a general impression of the result of their evening's intercourse partly recording the utterances of polwarth
but i cannot get a hold of your remarks one moment i think i have got the end of the clew
would you tell me what you mean by divine service for i think you must use the phrase in some different sense from what i have been accustomed to ah i ought to remember said polwarth that what has grown familiar to my mind from much solitary thinking
may not at once show itself to another when presented in the forms of a foreign individuality
when i use the phrase divine service i mean nothing whatever belonging to the church or its observances i mean by it what it ought to mean the serving of god the doing of something for god
shall i make of the church in my foolish imaginations a temple of idolatrous worship by supposing that it is for the sake of supplying some need that god has or of gratifying some taste in him that i there listen to his word say prayers to him and sing his praises
shall i be such a dull mule in the presence of the living truth or to use a homely simile shall i be as the good boy of the nursery rhyme who seated in his corner of selfish complacency regards the eating of his pie as a virtuous action
enjoys the contemplation of it and thinks what a pleasant object he thus makes of himself to his parents shall i to take a step farther degrade the sanctity of the closet hallowed in the words of jesus
by shutting its door in the vain fancy of there doing something that god requires of me as a sacred observance shall i foolishly imagine that to put in exercise the highest and loveliest the most entrancing privilege of existence
but what would you think of a child who said i am very useful to my father for when i ask him for anything or tell him i love him it gives him oh such pleasure i should say he was an unendurable prig better he had to be whipped for stealing said the curate
there would be more hope of his future returned polwarth is the child he continued who sits by his father's knee and looks up into his father's face serving that father because the heart of the father delights to look down upon his child
and shall the moment of my deepest repose and bliss the moment when i serve myself with the very life of the universe be called a serving of my god it is communion with god he holds it with me else never could i hold it with him i am as the foam froth upon his infinite ocean
springs from his seat at my knee finds that which will meet my necessity and is my eager happy servant of consequence in his own eyes inasmuch as he has done something for his father his seat by my knee is love delight well being peace not service
because i want to be near you father it makes me so happy come nearer still come to my bosom my child and be yet happier talk not of public worship as divine service it is a mockery
perfect in wisdom strength and everything of whom paul says that he is not worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything i cannot help thinking that you are fighting merely with a word
it stands merely for the forms of public worship were there no such thing as divine service in the true sense of the word then indeed it would scarcely be worth while to quarrel with its misapplication but i assert that true and genuine service may be rendered to the living god
nor is it hard to discover how for god is in every creature that he has made and in their needs he is needy and in all their afflictions he is afflicted therefore jesus says that whatever is done to one of his little ones is done to him
and if the soul of a man be the temple of the spirit then is the place of that man's labour his shop his counting house his laboratory the temple of jesus christ where the spirit of the man is incarnate in work mister drew
your counter is or ought to be his altar and everything thereon laid with intent of doing as well as you can for your neighbour in the name of the man christ jesus is a true sacrifice offered to him
i say not polwarth went on that so doing you will grow a rich man but i say that so doing you will be saved from growing too rich and that you will be a fellow worker with god for the salvation of his world
i must live i cannot give my goods away murmured mister drew thinkingly as one that sought enlightenment that would be to go direct against the order of his world said polwarth no a harder task is yours mister drew
to make your business a gain to you and at the same time to be not only what is commonly counted just but interested in and careful of and caring for your neighbour as a servant of the god of bounty who giveth to all men liberally
your calling is to do the best for your neighbour that you reasonably can but who is to fix what is reasonable asked drew the man himself thinking in the presence of jesus christ there is a holy moderation which is of god
but i will not judge that is for the god enlightened conscience of the man himself to do not for his neighbour's why should i be judged by another man's conscience but you see mister drew and this is what i was driving at that you have it in your power to serve god
through the needs of his children all the working day from morning to night so long as there is a customer in your shop i do think you are right sir said the linen draper i had a glimpse of the same thing the other night myself
and yet it seems as if you spoke of a purely ideal state one that could not be realised in this world purely ideal or not one thing is certain it will never be reached by one who is so indifferent to it as to believe it impossible
whether it may be reached in this world or not that is a question of no consequence whether a man has begun to reach after it is of the utmost awfulness of import
the aspiration the imagination of the man when the man throws wide his door to the father of his spirit when his individual being is thus supplemented to use a poor miserable word with the individuality that originated it
then is the man a whole healthy complete existence then indeed and then only will he do no wrong think no wrong love perfectly and be right merry then will he scarce think of praying because god is in every thought and enters anew with every sensation
then will he forgive and endure and pour out his soul for the beloved who yet grope their way in doubt and passion then every man will be dear and precious to him even the worst for in him also lies an unknown yearning after the same peace wherein he rests and loves
the romance of orthodoxy
it is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of our epoch but in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a profound laziness and fatigue and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle
take one quite external case
there would be less bustle if there were more activity
and this which is true of the apparent physical bustle is true also of the apparent bustle of the intellect most of the machinery of modern language is labour saving machinery and it saves mental labour very much more than it ought
scientific phrases are used like scientific wheels and piston rods to make swifter and smoother yet the path of the comfortable long words go rattling by us like long railway trains we know they are carrying thousands who are too tired or too indolent to walk and think for themselves
it is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable if you say the social utility of the indeterminate sentence is recognized by all criminologists
as a part of our sociological evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment you can go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of the gray matter inside your skull but if you begin
you will discover with a thrill of horror that you are obliged to think the long words are not the hard words it is the short words that are hard there is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word damn than in the word degeneration
have one particular aspect in which they are especially ruinous and confusing this difficulty occurs when the same long word is used in different connections to mean quite different things thus to take a well known instance the word idealist has one meaning as a piece of philosophy
and quite another as a piece of moral rhetoric in the same way the scientific materialists have had just reason to complain of people mixing up materialist as a term of cosmology with materialist as a moral taunt
so to take a cheaper instance the man who hates progressives in london always calls himself a progressive in south africa a confusion quite as unmeaning as this has arisen in connection with the word liberal as applied to religion and as applied to politics and society
in actual modern europe a freethinker does not mean a man who thinks for himself it means a man who having thought for himself has come to one particular class of conclusions
the impossibility of miracles the improbability of personal immortality and so on and none of these ideas are particularly liberal nay indeed almost all these ideas are definitely illiberal as it is the purpose of this chapter to show
in the few following pages i propose to point out as rapidly as possible that on every single one of the matters most strongly insisted on by liberalisers of theology their effect upon social practice would be definitely illiberal
almost every contemporary proposal to bring freedom into the church is simply a proposal to bring tyranny into the world for freeing the church now does not even mean freeing it in all directions it means freeing that peculiar set of dogmas loosely called scientific
can be shown to be the natural ally of oppression in fact it is a remarkable circumstance indeed not so very remarkable when one comes to think of it that most things are the allies of oppression
there is only one thing that can never go past a certain point in its alliance with oppression and that is orthodoxy i may it is true twist orthodoxy so as partly to justify a tyrant but i can easily make up a german philosophy to justify him entirely
now let us take in order the innovations that are the notes of the new theology or the modernist church we concluded the last chapter with the discovery of one of them the very doctrine which is called the most old fashioned was found to be the only safeguard of the new democracies of the earth
the doctrine seemingly most unpopular was found to be the only strength of the people in short we found that the only logical negation of oligarchy was in the affirmation of original sin so it is i maintain in all the other cases
i take the most obvious instance first the case of miracles for some extraordinary reason there is a fixed notion that it is more liberal to disbelieve in miracles than to believe in them
yet how rarely do we find trouble in a parish because the clergyman says that his father walked on the serpentine
more supernatural things are alleged to have happened in our time than would have been possible eighty years ago men of science believe in such marvels much more than they did
the most perplexing and even horrible prodigies of mind and spirit are always being unveiled in modern psychology things that the old science at least would frankly have rejected as miracles are hourly being asserted by the new science
the only thing which is still old fashioned enough to reject miracles is the new theology but in truth this notion that it is free to deny miracles has nothing to do with the evidence for or against them it is a lifeless verbal prejudice of which the original life and beginning
was not in the freedom of thought but simply in the dogma of materialism the man of the nineteenth century did not disbelieve in the resurrection because his liberal christianity allowed him to doubt it he disbelieved in it because his very strict materialism did not allow him to believe it
tennyson a very typical nineteenth century man uttered one of the instinctive truisms of his contemporaries when he said that there was faith in their honest doubt there was indeed those words have a profound and even a horrible truth
in their doubt of miracles there was a faith in a fixed and godless fate a deep and sincere faith in the incurable routine of the cosmos the doubts of the agnostic were only the dogmas of the monist
of the fact and evidence of the supernatural i will speak afterwards here we are only concerned with this clear point
reform or in the only tolerable sense progress means simply the gradual control of matter by mind a miracle simply means the swift control of matter by mind if you wish to feed the people you may think that feeding them miraculously in the wilderness is impossible
but you cannot think it illiberal if you really want poor children to go to the seaside you cannot think it illiberal that they should go there on flying dragons you can only think it unlikely a holiday like liberalism only means the liberty of man
a miracle only means the liberty of god you may conscientiously deny either of them but you cannot call your denial a triumph of the liberal idea the catholic church believed that man and god both had a sort of spiritual freedom
calvinism took away the freedom from man but left it to god scientific materialism binds the creator himself it chains up god as the apocalypse chained the devil it leaves nothing free in the universe and those who assist this process are called the liberal theologians
the assumption that there is something in the doubt of miracles akin to liberality or reform is literally the opposite of the truth if a man cannot believe in miracles there is an end of the matter he is not particularly liberal but he is perfectly honourable and logical which are much better things
but if he can believe in miracles he is certainly the more liberal for doing so because they mean first the freedom of the soul and secondly its control over the tyranny of circumstance sometimes this truth is ignored in a singularly naive way even by the ablest men
for instance mister bernard shaw speaks with hearty old fashioned contempt for the idea of miracles
he seems strangely unconscious that miracles are only the final flowers of his own favourite tree the doctrine of the omnipotence of will just in the same way he calls the desire for immortality a paltry selfishness
how can it be noble to wish to make one's life infinite and yet mean to wish to make it immortal no if it is desirable that man should triumph over the cruelty of nature or custom
but i must pass on to the larger cases of this curious error the notion that the liberalising of religion in some way helps the liberation of the world the second example of it can be found in the question of pantheism
or rather of a certain modern attitude which is often called immanentism and which often is buddhism but this is so much more difficult a matter that i must approach it with rather more preparation
here is a case there is a phrase of facile liberality uttered again and again at ethical societies and parliaments of religion
the religions of the earth do not greatly differ in rites and forms they do greatly differ in what they teach it is as if a man were to say do not be misled by the fact that the church times and the freethinker look utterly different that one is painted on vellum and the other carved on marble
that one is triangular and the other hectagonal read them and you will see that they say the same thing
an atheist stockbroker in surbiton looks exactly like a swedenborgian stockbroker in wimbledon you may walk round and round them and subject them to the most personal and offensive study without seeing anything swedenborgian in the hat or anything particularly godless in the umbrella
it is exactly in their souls that they are divided
they agree in machinery almost every great religion on earth works with the same external methods with priests scriptures altars sworn brotherhoods special feasts they agree in the mode of teaching what they differ about is the thing to be taught
pagan optimists and eastern pessimists would both have temples just as liberals and tories would both have newspapers creeds that exist to destroy each other both have scriptures just as armies that exist to destroy each other both have guns
the great example of this alleged identity of all human religions is the alleged spiritual identity of buddhism and christianity those who adopt this theory generally avoid the ethics of most other creeds except indeed confucianism which they like because it is not a creed
but they are cautious in their praises of mahommedanism generally confining themselves to imposing its morality only upon the refreshment of the lower classes
they feel sincerely a similarity students of popular science like mister blatchford are always insisting that christianity and buddhism are very much alike especially buddhism this is generally believed and i believed it myself until i read a book giving the reasons for it
the reasons were of two kinds resemblances that meant nothing because they were common to all humanity and resemblances which were not resemblances at all the author solemnly explained that the two creeds were alike in things in which all creeds are alike
or else he described them as alike in some point in which they are quite obviously different thus as a case of the first class he said that both christ and buddha were called by the divine voice coming out of the sky as if you would expect the divine voice to come out of the coal cellar
you might as well say that it was a remarkable coincidence that they both had feet to wash and the other class of similarities were those which simply were not similar thus this reconciler of the two religions draws earnest attention to the fact
that at certain religious feasts the robe of the lama is rent in pieces out of respect and the remnants highly valued but this is the reverse of a resemblance for the garments of christ were not rent in pieces out of respect but out of derision
and the remnants were not highly valued except for what they would fetch in the rag shops it is rather like alluding to the obvious connection between the two ceremonies of the sword when it taps a man's shoulder and when it cuts off his head
if it were not also true that the alleged philosophical resemblances are also of these two kinds either proving too much or not proving anything that buddhism approves of mercy or of self restraint
buddhists disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess because all sane human beings disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess but to say that buddhism and christianity give the same philosophy of these things is simply false
all humanity does agree that we are in a net of sin most of humanity agrees that there is some way out but as to what is the way out i do not think that there are two institutions in the universe which contradict each other so flatly as buddhism and christianity
even when i thought with most other well informed though unscholarly people that buddhism and christianity were alike there was one thing about them that always perplexed me
i do not mean in its technical style of representation but in the things that it was manifestly meant to represent no two ideals could be more opposite than a christian saint in a gothic cathedral and a buddhist saint in a chinese temple
the opposition exists at every point but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the buddhist saint always has his eyes shut
the buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep the mediaeval saint's body is wasted to its crazy bones but his eyes are frightfully alive
there cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that produced symbols so different as that granted that both images are extravagances are perversions of the pure creed it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances
this book is meant to be a companion to heretics and to put the positive side in addition to the negative many critics complained of the book called heretics because it merely criticised current philosophies without offering any alternative philosophy
this book is an attempt to answer the challenge it is unavoidably affirmative and therefore unavoidably autobiographical the writer has been driven back upon somewhat the same difficulty as that which beset newman in writing his apologia
he has been forced to be egotistical only in order to be sincere while everything else may be different the motive in both cases is the same it is the purpose of the writer to attempt an explanation not of whether the christian faith can be believed
but of how he personally has come to believe it the book is therefore arranged upon the positive principle of a riddle and its answer it deals first with all the writer's own solitary and sincere speculations
the only possible excuse for this book is that it is an answer to a challenge even a bad shot is dignified when he accepts a duel
when some time ago i published a series of hasty but sincere papers under the name of heretics several critics for whose intellect i have a warm respect
said that it was all very well for me to tell everybody to affirm his cosmic theory but that i had carefully avoided supporting my precepts with example i will begin to worry about my philosophy said mister street when mister chesterton has given us his
it was perhaps an incautious suggestion
but after all though mister street has inspired and created this book he need not read it if he does read it he will find that in its pages i have attempted in a vague and personal way in a set of mental pictures rather than in a series of deductions
to state the philosophy in which i have come to believe i will not call it my philosophy for i did not make it god and humanity made it and it made me
who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered england under the impression that it was a new island in the south seas i always find however that i am either too busy or too lazy to write this fine work
so i may as well give it away for the purposes of philosophical illustration there will probably be a general impression that the man who landed armed to the teeth and talking by signs to plant the british flag on that barbaric temple
which turned out to be the pavilion at brighton felt rather a fool i am not here concerned to deny that he looked a fool but if you imagine that he felt a fool or at any rate that the sense of folly was his sole or his dominant emotion
then you have not studied with sufficient delicacy the rich romantic nature of the hero of this tale his mistake was really a most enviable mistake and he knew it if he was the man i take him for
what could be more delightful than to have in the same few minutes all the fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the humane security of coming home again what could be better than to have all the fun of discovering south africa
without the disgusting necessity of landing there what could be more glorious than to brace one's self up to discover new south wales and then realize with a gush of happy tears that it was really old south wales
this at least seems to me the main problem for philosophers and is in a manner the main problem of this book how can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it
how can this queer cosmic town with its many legged citizens with its monstrous and ancient lamps how can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honour of being our own town
to show that a faith or a philosophy is true from every standpoint would be too big an undertaking even for a much bigger book than this it is necessary to follow one path of argument and this is the path that i here propose to follow
i wish to set forth my faith as particularly answering this double spiritual need
romance for the very word romance has in it the mystery and ancient meaning of rome any one setting out to dispute anything ought always to begin by saying what he does not dispute
beyond stating what he proposes to prove he should always state what he does not propose to prove the thing i do not propose to prove the thing i propose to take as common ground between myself and any average reader
is this desirability of an active and imaginative life picturesque and full of a poetical curiosity a life such as western man at any rate always seems to have desired
then he is not one of the ordinary people to whom i am talking if a man prefers nothing i can give him nothing but nearly all people i have ever met in this western society in which i live would agree to the general proposition that we need this life of
practical romance the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure
we need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable it is this achievement of my creed that i shall chiefly pursue in these pages but i have a peculiar reason for mentioning the man in a yacht
who discovered england for i am that man in a yacht i discovered england i do not see how this book can avoid being egotistical and i do not quite see to tell the truth how it can avoid being dull
dulness will however free me from the charge which i most lament the charge of being flippant
i know nothing so contemptible as a mere paradox a mere ingenious defence of the indefensible if it were true as has been said that mister bernard shaw lived upon paradox then he ought to be a mere common millionaire
for a man of his mental activity could invent a sophistry every six minutes it is as easy as lying because it is lying the truth is of course that mister shaw is cruelly hampered by the fact that he cannot tell any lie
unless he thinks it is the truth i find myself under the same intolerable bondage i never in my life said anything merely because i thought it funny though of course i have had ordinary human vainglory and may have thought it funny because i had said it
it is one thing to describe an interview with a gorgon or a griffin a creature who does not exist it is another thing to discover that the rhinoceros does exist and then take pleasure in the fact that he looks as if he didn't
one searches for truth but it may be that one pursues instinctively the more extraordinary truths and i offer this book with the heartiest sentiments to all the jolly people who hate what i write
and regard it very justly for all i know as a piece of poor clowning or a single tiresome joke for if this book is a joke it is a joke against me i am the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before
if there is an element of farce in what follows the farce is at my own expense for this book explains how i fancied i was the first to set foot in brighton and then found i was the last
no one can think my case more ludicrous than i think it myself
i am the fool of this story and no rebel shall hurl me from my throne i freely confess all the idiotic ambitions of the end of the nineteenth century i did like all other solemn little boys try to be in advance of the age
like them i tried to be some ten minutes in advance of the truth and i found that i was eighteen hundred years behind it i did strain my voice with a painfully juvenile exaggeration in uttering my truths and i was punished in the fittest and funniest way
for i have kept my truths but i have discovered not that they were not truths but simply that they were not mine when i fancied that i stood alone i was really in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all christendom it may be
heaven forgive me that i did try to be original but i only succeeded in inventing all by myself an inferior copy of the existing traditions of civilized religion the man from the yacht thought he was the first to find england i thought i was the first to find europe
i did try to found a heresy of my own and when i had put the last touches to it i discovered that it was orthodoxy it may be that somebody will be entertained by the account of this happy fiasco
it might amuse a friend or an enemy to read how i gradually learnt from the truth of some stray legend or from the falsehood of some dominant philosophy things that i might have learnt from my catechism if i had ever learnt it
there may or may not be some entertainment in reading how i found at last in an anarchist club or a babylonian temple what i might have found in the nearest parish church if any one is entertained by learning how the flowers of the field or the phrases in an omnibus
the accidents of politics or the pains of youth came together in a certain order to produce a certain conviction of christian orthodoxy he may possibly read this book but there is in everything a reasonable division of labour
and nothing on earth would induce me to read it i add one purely pedantic note which comes as a note naturally should at the beginning of the book
these essays are concerned only to discuss the actual fact that the central christian theology sufficiently summarized in the apostles creed is the best root of energy and sound ethics
they are not intended to discuss the very fascinating but quite different question of what is the present seat of authority for the proclamation of that creed when the word orthodoxy is used here it means the apostles creed
as understood by everybody calling himself christian until a very short time ago and the general historic conduct of those who held such a creed i have been forced by mere space to confine myself to what i have got from this creed
i do not touch the matter much disputed among modern christians of where we ourselves got it this is not an ecclesiastical treatise but a sort of slovenly autobiography
chapter twenty four shadow and his family
every one was on hand when school opened the next morning despite the fear that the mere mention of shadow the weasel had aroused in all save jimmy skunk and prickly porky you see
all felt they must be there so that they might learn all they possibly could about one they so feared it might help them to escape should they discover shadow hunting them sometime striped chipmunk
said old mother nature you know something about shadow the weasel tell us what you know i know i hate him declared striped chipmunk and all the others nodded their heads in agreement i
don't know a single good thing about him he continued but i know plenty of bad things he is the one enemy i fear more than any other because he is the one who can go wherever i can
any hole i can get into he can i've seen him just twice in my life and i hope i may never see him again what did he look like asked old mother nature
like a snake on legs declared striped chipmunk anyway that is what he made me think of because his body was so long and slim and he twisted and turned so easily
he was about as long as chatterer the red squirrel but looked longer because of his slim body and long neck he was brown above and white below his front feet were white and his hind feet
rather whitish but not clear white his short round tail was black at the end somehow his small head and sharp face made me think of a snake ugh i don't like to think about him
i saw him once and he wasn't brown at all striped chipmunk is all wrong excepting about the end of his tail interrupted jumper the hare he was all white
every bit of him but the end of his tail that was black striped chipmunk is quite right and so are you declared old mother nature striped chipmunk saw him in summer
and you saw him in winter he changes his coat according to season just as you do yourself jumper in winter he is trapped for his fur
but ermine oh said jumper and looked as if he felt a wee bit foolish what was he doing when you saw him asked old mother nature turning to striped chipmunk hunting
he had found my tracks where i had been gathering beechnuts and he was following them with his nose just the way bowser the hound follows reddy fox i nearly died of fright when i saw him
you are lucky to be alive declared chatterer the red squirrel i know it replied striped chipmunk and shivered again i know it i
guess i wouldn't be if reddy fox hadn't happened along just then and frightened shadow away
i never ran harder in my life than the time i saw him spoke up jumper the hare he was hunting me just the same way running with his nose in the snow
and following every twist and turn i had made
pooh exclaimed jimmy skunk the idea of a big fellow like you running from such a little fellow as my cousin shadow
of running declared jumper
but he is so quick i wouldn't stand the least chance in the world when i suspect shadow is about
if i could climb a tree like chatterer it would be different no it wouldn't
the only thing that saved me from him once was the fact that i could make a long jump from one tree to another and he couldn't he had found a hole in a certain tree where i was living
and it was just luck that i wasn't at home when he called i was just returning when he popped out
he is the most awful fellow in all the great world declared whitefoot the wood mouse jimmy skunk chuckled right out
he said why you
yet i could walk to it in a few minutes how do you know shadow is the most awful fellow in the great world i just know that's all
though squeaky voice he hunts and kills just for the love of it and no one no matter how big he is can do anything more awful than that
i have a lot of enemies sometimes it seems as if almost every one of my neighbors is looking for a mouse dinner but all but shadow the weasel hunt me when they are hungry and need food
i can forgive them for that every one must eat to live but shadow hunts me even when his stomach is so full he cannot eat another mouthful that fellow just loves to kill
he takes pleasure in it that is what makes him so awful whitefoot is right declared old mother nature and she spoke sadly if shadow was as big as buster bear or
puma the panther or even tufty the lynx he would be the most terrible creature in all the great world because of this awful desire to kill which fills him
he is hot blooded quick tempered and fearless even when cornered by an enemy against whom he has no chance he will fight to the last gasp
outside of that he hasn't a friend in the world not one hasn't he any enemies asked peter rabbit oh yes replied old mother nature
reddy fox old man coyote hooty the owl and various members of the hawk family have to be watched for by him but they do not worry him much
you see he moves so quickly dodging out of sight in a flash that whoever catches him must be quick indeed then too he is almost always close to good cover
he delights in old stone walls stone piles brush grown fences piles of rubbish and barns and old buildings the places that mice delight in
in such places there is always a hole to dart into in time of danger he hunts whenever he feels like it be it day or night and often covers considerable ground
though nothing to compare with his big brown water loving cousin billy mink it is because of his wonderful ability to disappear in an instant that he is called shadow
shadow is known as the common weasel short tailed weasel brown weasel bonaparte weasel and ermine and is found all over the forested parts of the northern part of the country
a little farther south in the east is a cousin very much like him called the new york weasel on the great plains of the west is a larger cousin with a longer tail called the long tailed weasel
large ermine or yellow bellied weasel his smallest cousin is the least weasel the latter is not much longer than a mouse in winter he is all white even the tip of his tail
in summer he is a purer white underneath than his larger cousins all of the weasels are alike in habits when running they bound over the ground much as peter rabbit does
in that part of the west where yap yap the prairie dog lives is a relative called the blackfooted ferret who looks like a large weasel he is about the size of billy mink but instead of the rich dark brown of billy's coat
his coat is a creamy yellow his feet are black and so is the tip of his tail his face is whitish with a dark band across the eyes he is most frequently found in prairie dog towns
and lives largely on yap yap and his friends his ways are those of shadow and his cousins there is no one yap yap fears quite as much the one
good thing shadow the weasel does is to kill robber the rat whenever they meet robber as you know is big and savage and always ready for a fight when cornered
but all the fight goes out of him when shadow appears perhaps it is because he knows how hopeless it is when shadow finds a barn overrun with rats he will sometimes stay until he has killed or driven out the last one
chapter eighteen mice with pockets and others
who are thrifty and who live largely on small seeds without pockets in which to carry the seeds
began old mother nature as soon as everybody was on hand the next morning i wouldn't be without my pockets for any thing spoke up striped chipmunk
old mother nature smiled you certainly do make good use of yours said she but there are others who have even greater need of pockets and among them are the pocket mice
of course it is because of their pockets that they are called pocket mice
all of these pretty little fellows live in the dry parts of the far west and southwest in the same region where longfoot the kangaroo rat lives
they are close neighbors and relatives of his midget the silky pocket mouse
so small that whitefoot the wood mouse is a giant compared with him he weighs less than an ounce
his back and sides are yellow and beneath he is white he has quite long hind legs and a long tail and these show at once that he is a jumper
in each cheek is a pocket opening from the outside and these pockets are lined with hair he is called silky pocket mouse because of the fineness and softness of his coat
he has some larger cousins one of them being a little bigger than nibbler the house mouse neighbors and close relatives are the spiny pocket mice do they
have spines like prickly porky demanded peter rabbit old mother nature laughed i don't wonder you ask said she i think it is a foolish name myself
and it has all through it long coarse hairs almost like bristles and from these
the smallest of the spiny pocket mice is about the size of nibbler the house mouse and the largest is twice as big they are more slender than their silky cousins
and their tails are longer in proportion to their size and have little tufts of hair at the ends of course they have pockets in their cheeks in habits
all the pocket mice are much alike they make burrows in the ground often throwing up a little mound with several entrances which lead to a central passageway connecting with the bedroom and storerooms
by day the entrances are closed with earth from inside for the mice are active only at night sometimes the burrows are hidden under bushes and sometimes they are right out in the open
dry country the pocket mice have learned to get along without drinking water their food consists mainly of a variety of small seeds
another mouse of the west looks almost enough like whitefoot to be a member of his branch of the family he has a beautiful yellowish brown coat and white waistcoat and his feet are white
but his tail is short in comparison with whitefoot's and instead of being slim is quite thick
is that because he eats grasshoppers asked peter rabbit at once
laughed old mother nature he is very very fond of grasshoppers and crickets he eats many kinds of insects moths flies cutworms beetles lizards frogs and scorpions
because of his fondness for the latter he is called the scorpion mouse in some sections he is fond of meat when he can get it he also eats seeds of many kinds
he is found all over the west from well up in the north to the hot dry regions of the southwest when he cannot find a convenient deserted burrow of some other animal
he digs a home for himself and there raises several families each year in the early evening he often utters a fine shrill whistling call note
another little member of the mouse family found clear across the country is the harvest mouse he is never bigger than nibbler the house mouse and often is much smaller in fact
he is one of the smallest of the entire family in appearance he is much like nibbler but his coat is browner and there are fine hairs on his tail
he loves grassy weedy or brushy places as a rule he does little harm to man for his food is chiefly seeds of weeds small wild fruits and parts of wild plants
of no value to man once in a while his family becomes so large that they do some damage in grain fields but this does not happen often the most interesting thing about this little mouse
is the way he builds his home sometimes he uses a hole in a tree or post and sometimes a deserted birds nest but more frequently he builds a nest for himself
a little round ball of grass and other vegetable matter this is placed in thick grass or weeds close to the ground or in bushes or low trees several feet from the ground
they are well built little houses and have one or more little doorways on the under side when they are in bushes or trees inside is a warm soft bed
the very nicest kind of a bed for the babies no one has a neater home than the harvest mouse he is quite as much at home in bushes and low trees as happy jack squirrel is in bigger trees
his long tail comes in very handy then for he often wraps it around a twig to make his footing more secure now this is all about the native mice and
you've forgotten nibbler the house mouse replied peter
and how fearful that their curiosity will not be satisfied remarked old mother nature as i was saying this is all about our native mice that is the mice who belong to this country
and now we come to nibbler the house mouse who like robber the brown rat has no business here at all but who has followed man all over the world
and like robber has become a pest to man peter rabbit looked rather sheepish when he discovered that old mother nature hadn't for gotten and resolved that in the future he would hold his tongue
asked old mother nature i have replied danny meadow mouse once i was carried to farmer brown's barn in a shock of corn and i found nibbler living in the barn
it is a wonder he wasn't living in farmer brown's house said old mother nature probably other members of his family were he is perfectly at home in any building put up by man
just as is robber the rat because of his small size he can go where robber cannot he delights to scamper about between the walls
being a true rodent he is forever gnawing holes in the corners of rooms and opening on to pantry shelves so that he may steal food he eats all sorts of food but spoils more for man
by running about over it than he eats in barns and henhouses he gets into the grain bins and steals a great deal of grain
it is largely because of robber the rat and nibbler that men keep the cats you all hate so a cat is nibbler's worst enemy nibbler is slender and graceful
with a long hairless tail and ears of good size he is very timid ready to dart into his hole at the least sound he raises from four to nine babies at a time
and several sets of them in a year if mister and missus nibbler are living in a house their nest is made of scraps of paper cloth wool
and other soft things stolen from the people who live in the house in getting this material they often do great damage if they are living in a barn they make their nest of hay
and any soft material they can find while nibbler prefers to live in or close to the homes of men he sometimes is driven out and then takes to the fields especially in summer
there he lives in all sorts of hiding places and isn't at all particular what the place is if it promises safety and food can be obtained close by i'm sorry nibbler ever came to this country
man brought him here and now he is here to stay and quite as much at home as if he belonged here the way the rest of you do this finishes the lessons on the order of rodents
the animals related by reason of having teeth for the purpose of gnawing i suspect these are the only ones in whom you take any interest and so you will not care to come to school any more am i right
you remember had laughed at peter rabbit for wanting to go to school no m a r m there are
isn't that so happy jack turned to the others and every one nodded even prickly porky there is one little fellow living right near here who looks to me as if
he must be a member of the mouse family but he isn't like any of the mice you have told us about continued happy jack he is so small he can hide under a leaf i'm sure he must be a mouse
you mean teeny weeny the shrew replied old mother nature smiling at happy jack he isn't a mouse he isn't even a rodent i'll try to have him here to morrow morning
the prince who acquired wisdom there was once a raja who had an only son and the raja was always urging his son to learn to read and write in order that when he came to his kingdom
he might manage well and be able to decide disputes that were brought to him for judgment but the boy paid no heed to his father's advice and continued to neglect his lessons at last when he was grown up the prince saw that his father was right
and he resolved to go away to foreign countries to acquire wisdom
and he took with him a purse of money and three pieces of gold after travelling a long time he one day saw a man ploughing in a field and he went and got some tobacco from him
and asked him whether there were any wise men living in that neighbourhood what do you want with wise men asked the ploughman the prince said that he was travelling to get wisdom the ploughman said that he would give him instruction if he were paid
then the prince promised to give him one gold piece for each piece of wisdom the ploughman agreed and said listen attentively
you are the son of a raja whenever you go to visit a friend or one of your subjects and they offer you a bedstead or stool or mat to sit on do not sit down at once but move the stool or mat
a little to one side this is one maxim give me my gold coin so the prince paid him then the ploughman said the second maxim is this
whenever you go to bathe do not bathe at the common bathing place but at a place by yourself give me my coin and the prince did so then he continued
my third maxim is this you are the son of a raja when men come to you for advice or to have a dispute decided listen to what the majority of those present say
now pay me and the prince gave him his last gold coin and said that he had no more well said the ploughman your lesson is finished but still i will give you one more piece of advice free
and it is this you are the son of a raja restrain your anger if anything you see or hear makes you angry still do not at once take action
hear the explanation and weigh it well then if you find cause you can give rein to your anger and if not let the offender off after this the prince set his face homewards as he had spent all his money
and he began to repent of having spent his gold pieces on advice that seemed worthless however on his way he turned into a bazar to buy some food
he was just about to do so when he remembered the maxim of his instructor and pulled the rug to one side and when he did so he saw that it had been spread over the mouth of a well and that if he had sat on it
then he went on his way and on the road he turned aside to a tank to bathe and remembering the maxim of his teacher he did not bathe at the common place but went to a place apart
then having eaten his lunch he continued his journey but he had not gone far when he found that he had left his purse behind
thereupon he applauded the wisdom of his teacher for if he had bathed at the common bathing place someone would have seen the purse and have taken it away when evening came on he turned into a village and asked the headman
to let him sleep in his verandah and there was already one other traveller sleeping there and in the morning it was found that the traveller had died in his sleep then the headman consulted the villagers and they decided that there was nothing to be done
but to throw away the body and that as the prince was also a traveller he should do it at first he refused to touch the corpse as he was the son of a raja but the villagers insisted
and then he bethought himself of the maxim that he should not act contrary to the general opinion so he yielded and dragged away the body and threw it into a ravine
before leaving it he remembered that it was proper to remove the clothes and when he began to do so he found round the waist of the body a roll of coin so he took this and was glad that he had followed the advice of his teacher
that evening he reached the boundary of his own territory and decided to press on home although it was dark at midnight he reached the palace and without arousing anyone went to the door of his wife's room
outside the door he saw a pair of shoes and a sword at the sight he became wild with rage and drawing the sword he called out who is in my room
as a matter of fact the prince's wife had got the prince's little sister to sleep with her and when the girl heard the prince's voice she got up to leave but when she opened the door and saw the prince standing with the drawn sword
she drew back in fear she told him who she was and explained that they had put the shoes and sword at the door to prevent anyone else from entering but in his wrath the prince would not listen and called to her to come out and be killed
chapter thirteen the youth went slowly toward the fire indicated by his departed friend as he reeled he bethought him of the welcome his comrades would give him
he had a conviction that he would soon feel in his sore heart the barbed missiles of ridicule he had no strength to invent a tale he would be a soft target he made vague plans to go off into the deeper darkness and hide
but they were all destroyed by the voices of exhaustion and pain from his body his ailments clamoring forced him to seek the place of food and rest at whatever cost he swung unsteadily toward the fire
he could see the forms of men throwing black shadows in the red light and as he went nearer it became known to him in some way that the ground was strewn with sleeping men
of a sudden he confronted a black and monstrous figure a rifle barrel caught some glinting beams halt halt he was dismayed for a moment but he presently thought that he
recognized the nervous voice as he stood tottering before the rifle barrel he called out
the rifle was lowered to a position of caution and the loud soldier came slowly forward he peered into the youth's face that you henry yes it's it's me
by ginger i'm glad t see yeh i give yeh up fer a goner i thought yeh was dead sure enough there was husky emotion in his voice the youth found that now he could barely stand upon his feet
there was a sudden sinking of his forces he thought he must hasten to produce his tale to protect him from the missiles already on the lips of his redoubtable comrades so staggering before the loud soldier he began
yes yes
i've had an awful time i've been all over
ter'ble fightin over there i had an awful time i got separated from the reg'ment
i got shot too his friend had stepped forward quickly what
poor ol boy we must hol on a minnit what am i doin i'll call simpson another figure at that moment loomed in the gloom
who yeh talkin to wilson he demanded his voice was anger toned who yeh talkin to
why hello henry you here why i thought you was dead four hours ago great jerusalem they keep turnin up every ten minutes or so we thought we'd lost forty two men by straight count
i got separated began the youth with considerable glibness
an he's in a fix an we must see t him right away he rested his rifle in the hollow of his left arm and his right around the youth's shoulder gee it must hurt like thunder he said the youth leaned heavily upon his friend
yes it hurts hurts a good deal he replied there was a faltering in his voice oh said the corporal he linked his arm in the youth's and drew him forward come on henry
put im t sleep in my blanket simpson an' hol on a minnit here's my canteen it's full a coffee
maybe it's a pretty bad un when i git relieved in a couple a minnits
he submitted passively to the latter's directing strength his head was in the old manner hanging forward upon his breast his knees wobbled
now henry he said let's have look at yer ol head
he was obliged to turn the other's head so that the full flush of the fire light would beam upon it he puckered his mouth with a critical air he drew back his lips and whistled through his teeth when his fingers came in contact with the splashed blood
and the rare wound ah here we are he said he awkwardly made further investigations jest as i thought he added presently yeh've been grazed by a ball
yeh'll fell that a number ten hat wouldn't fit yeh an your head'll be all het up an feel as dry as burnt pork
may git a lot a other sicknesses too by mornin
the youth remained on the ground like a parcel he stared with a vacant look into the fire after a time he aroused for some part and the things about him began to take form he saw that the ground in the deep shadows was cluttered with men
sprawling in every conceivable posture glancing narrowly into the more distant darkness he caught occasional glimpses of visages that loomed pallid and ghostly lit with a phosphorescent glow
these faces expressed in their lines the deep stupor of the tired soldiers they made them appear like men drunk with wine this bit of forest might have appeared to an ethereal wanderer
as a scene of the result of some frightful debauch on the other side of the fire the youth observed an officer asleep seated bolt upright with his back against a tree there was something perilous in his position
badgered by dreams perhaps he swayed with little bounces and starts like an old toddy stricken grandfather in a chimney corner dust and stains were upon his face
his lower jaw hung down as if lacking strength to assume its normal position he was the picture of an exhausted soldier after a feast of war he had evidently gone to sleep with his sword in his arms
these two had slumbered in an embrace but the weapon had been allowed in time to fall unheeded to the ground the brass mounted hilt lay in contact with some parts of the fire
within the gleam of rose and orange light from the burning sticks were other soldiers snoring and heaving or lying deathlike in slumber a few pairs of legs were stuck forth rigid and straight
the shoes displayed the mud or dust of marches and bits of rounded trousers protruding from the blankets showed rents and tears from hurried pitchings through the dense brambles
the fire cackled musically from it swelled light smoke overhead the foliage moved softly the leaves with their faces turned toward the blaze were colored shifting hues of silver
often edged with red far off to the right through a window in the forest could be seen a handful of stars lying like glittering pebbles on the black level of the night
occasionally in this low arched hall a soldier would arouse and turn his body to a new position the experience of his sleep having taught him of uneven and objectionable places upon the ground under him
or perhaps he would lift himself to a sitting posture blink at the fire for an unintelligent moment throw a swift glance at his prostrate companion
the loud young soldier came swinging two canteens by their light strings well now henry ol boy said the latter we'll have yeh fixed up in jest about a minnit he had the bustling ways of an amateur nurse
he fussed around the fire and stirred the sticks to brilliant exertions he made his patient drink largely from the canteen that contained the coffee it was to the youth a delicious draught
he tilted his head afar back and held the canteen long to his lips the cool mixture went caressingly down his blistered throat having finished he sighed with comfortable delight
the loud young soldier watched his comrade with an air of satisfaction he later produced an extensive handkerchief from his pocket
from the other canteen upon the middle of it this crude arrangement he bound over the youth's head
moving off and surveying his deed
the youth contemplated his friend with grateful eyes upon his aching and swelling head the cold cloth was like a tender woman's hand yeh don't holler ner say nothin remarked his friend approvingly
i know i'm a blacksmith at takin keer a sick folks an yeh never squeaked
the youth made no reply but began to fumble with the buttons of his jacket well come now continued his friend
the other got carefully erect and the loud young soldier led him among the sleeping forms lying in groups and rows
he spread the rubber one upon the ground and placed the woolen one about the youth's shoulders there now he said lie down an git some sleep the youth with his manner of doglike obedience
got carefully down like a crone stooping he stretched out with a murmur of relief and comfort the ground felt like the softest couch
hol on a minnit where you goin t sleep his friend waved his hand impatiently
hol on a minnit continued the youth
i've got your the loud young soldier snarled
he said severely after the reproof the youth said no more an exquisite drowsiness had spread through him the warm comfort of the blanket enveloped him and made a gentle langour
his head fell forward on his crooked arm and his weighted lids went softly down over his eyes hearing a splatter of musketry from the distance he wondered indifferently if those men sometimes slept
he gave a long sigh snuggled down into his blanket and in a moment
quite unintentionally on his part man the arch destroyer and the most predatory and merciless of all animal species except the wolves has rendered a great service to all the birds that live or nest upon the ground
if the teeth and claws had been permitted to multiply unchecked down to the present time with man's warfare on the upland game proceeding as it has done scores upon scores of species
long ere this would have been exterminated but the slaughter of the millions of north american foxes wolves weasels skunks and mink has so overwhelmingly reduced the four footed enemies of the birds
as a rule the few predatory wild animals that remain are not slaughtering the birds to a serious extent and for this we may well be thankful the domestic cat
will doubt this statement but the proof of its truthfulness is only too painfully abundant
and to kill the very birds that are most friendly with man and most helpful to him in his farming and fruit growing business the quail is about the only game bird that the cat affects seriously and to it the cat is very destructive
it is the robin catbird thrush bluebird dove woodpecker chickadee phoebe tanager and other birds of the lawn the garden and orchard that afford good hunting for sly and savage old thomas
when i was a boy in my teens i had a lasting series of object lessons on the cat as a predatory animal our betty was the most ambitious and successful domestic cat hunter of wild mammals
to her rats and mice were mere child's play
in considering the hunting cat let us call in a credible witness of the effects of domestic cats on the bob white the following is an eye witness report by ernest b beardsley in outdoor life for april nineteen twelve
the locality was wellington sumner county kansas in the meantime old queen was having a high old time up ahead some hundred feet by then running up the bank and back down in the draw
that mister cat was busy with when disturbed well we followed the draw across the field and got nine of a covey of sixteen that had been ahead of mister cat and about four o'clock that evening we killed another white and gray cat
while driving home that night mister savage told me that he had killed fifty or more in three or four years
and stay right with them and even after feeding on two or three they will lie and watch and when the covey moves they move when eating time comes around they are at it again and to a covey of young birds they are sure death to the whole covey
well will told me never to overlook a house cat that i found as far as a quarter of a mile from a farm or ranch for if they have not already turned wild they are learning how easy it is to hunt and live on game and are almost as bad
my advice is don't let tame cats get away when found out hunting for the chances are they have not seen a home in months and maybe years and say but they do get big and bad when you meet one
they establish themselves in a day and quickly learn where to seek easy game and good cover in the daytime they lie close in the thick brush exactly as tigers do in india but if not molested for a period of days they become bold
and attack game in open view one bird killing cat was so shy of man that it was only after two weeks of hard hunting mornings and evenings that it was killed we have seen cats
catch and kill gray squirrels chipmunks robins and thrushes
then the cats began upon them and in one year there was not a rabbit to be seen save at rare intervals at the same time the chipmunks of the park were almost exterminated that was the last straw and we began a
we eliminated that pest and we are keeping it eliminated and with what result in nineteen eleven a covey of eleven quail came and settled in our grounds and have remained there
not more than forty feet from the rear window of my office last spring when i left the administration building at six o'clock after the visitors had gone i found two half grown rabbits calmly roosting on the door mat
the rabbits are slowly coming back and the chipmunks are visibly increasing in number the gray squirrels now chase over the walks without fear of any living thing and our ducklings and young guineas and peacocks are safe once more
several millions of very valuable birds seems fairly beyond question i believe that in settled regions they are worse than weasels foxes
because there are about one hundred times as many of them and those that hunt are not afraid to hunt in the daytime of course
but in the country i believe that fully one half of them do i am personally acquainted with a cat in indiana on the farm of relatives which is notorious for its hunting propensities and its remarkable ability in capturing game
even the lady who is joint owner of the cat feels very badly about its destructiveness and has said over and over again that it ought to be killed but the cat is such a family pet that no one in the family has the heart to destroy it
the lady in question assured me that to her certain knowledge that particular cat would watch a nestful of young robins week after week
then he would kill them and devour them old tommy was too wise to kill the robins when they were unduly small in a great book entitled useful birds and their protection by e h forbush
state ornithologist of massachusetts and published by the massachusetts state board of agriculture in nineteen o five there appears on page three hundred sixty two many interesting facts on this subject for example
mister william brewster tells of an acquaintance in maine who said that his cat killed about fifty birds a year mister a c dike wrote to mister forbush of a cat owned by a family and well cared for
they watched it through one season and found that it killed fifty eight birds including the young in five nests nearly a hundred correspondents scattered through all the counties of the state
report the cat as one of the greatest enemies of birds
are absolutely sickening the number of birds killed by them in this state is appalling some cat lovers believe that each cat kills on the average not more than ten birds a year but i have learned of two instances
and that there is one cat to each farm in massachusetts we have in round numbers
to enact a law requiring cats to be licensed on account of the amount of work necessary in passing the no sale of game bill that measure was not pressed
but another year it will undoubtedly be passed for it is a good bill and extremely necessary at this time such a law is needed in every state there is a mark by which you may instantly and infallibly know
the worst of the wild cats
kill all such wherever found the harmless cats are domestic in their tastes and stay close to the family fireside and the kitchen being properly fed they have no temptation to become hunters there are cats and cats
the farmer cannot afford the luxury of their existence it is too expensive with him it is a matter of dollars and cash out of pocket for every hunting cat that he tolerates in his neighborhood there are two places
in which to strike the hunting cats in the open and in the state legislature while this chapter was in the hands of the compositors the hunting cat and gray rabbit shown in the accompanying illustration were brought in by a keeper
dogs as destroyers of birds i have received many letters from protectors of wild life informing me that the destruction of ground nesting birds and especially of upland game birds by roaming dogs
has in some localities become a great curse to bird life complaints of this kind have come from new york massachusetts connecticut pennsylvania and elsewhere usually the culprits are hunting dogs setters pointers and hounds
now surely it is not necessary to set forth here any argument on this subject it is not open to argument or academic treatment of any kind the cold fact is in the breeding season of birds
and while the young birds are incapable of quick and strong flight all dogs of every description should be restrained from free hunting and all dogs found hunting in the woods during the season referred to should be arrested
and their owners should be fined twenty dollars for each offense incidentally one half the fine should go to the citizen who arrests the dog the method of restraining hunting dogs should devolve upon dog owners
and the law need only prohibit or punish the act beyond a doubt in states that still possess quail and ruffed grouse free hunting by hunting dogs leads to great destruction of nests and broods during the breeding season
telegraph and telephone wires mister daniel c beard has strongly called my attention to the slaughter of birds by telegraph wires that has come under his personal observation
his country home at redding connecticut is near the main line of the new york new haven and hartford railway along which a line of very large poles carries a great number of wires the wires are so numerous
that they form a barrier through which it is difficult for any bird to fly and come out alive and unhurt mister beard says that among the birds killed or crippled by flying against those wires near redding he has seen the following species
to follow the line and pick up on one excursion enough birds for a pot pie beyond question
and claim countless thousands of victims they may well be set down as one of the unseen forces destructive to birds naturally we ask what can be done about it
to the telephone wires at intervals of a few rods sufficiently near that they attract the attention of flying birds and reveal the line of an obstruction this system should be adopted in all regions where the conditions are such that birds kill themselves
against telegraph wires and an excellent place to begin would be along the line
weasels and foxes and skunks are interesting and they do much to promote the hilarity of life in rural districts but they do not destroy insects and are of comparatively little value as destroyers of the noxious rodents that prey upon farm crops
and persistent destroyers of noxious rodents pocket gophers moles field mice and rats or that they do not kill wild birds numerously now is the time to produce it because the tide of public sentiment is strongly setting against the weasels
mink foxes and skunks once upon a time a shrewd young man in the zoological park discovered a weasel hiding behind a stone while devouring a sparrow that it had just caught and killed he stalked it successfully
seized it in his bare hand and even though bitten made good the capture the state of pennsylvania is extensively wooded with forests and with brush which affords excellent home quarters and breeding grounds for mammalian vermin
a portion of the seventy thousand dollars that it will produce each year will be used by the commission in paying bounties on the destruction of the surplus of vermin through the pursuit of vermin
any farmer can easily win enough bounties to more than pay the cost of his annual hunting license one dollar and the farmers boys will find a new interest in life
that their number had to be systematically reduced to that end buffalo jones was sent out by the government to find and destroy the intolerable surplus of pumas in the course of his campaign he killed about forty much to the benefit of the elk herds
around the entrance to the den of a big old male puma mister jones found the skulls and other remains of nine elk calves that the old tom had killed and carried there pumas and lynxes attack and kill mountain sheep
and the golden eagle is very partial to mountain sheep lambs and mountain goat kids it will not answer to permit birds of that bold and predatory species to become too numerous in mountains inhabited by goats and sheep and the fewer the mountain lions the better
for they like the lynx and eagle have nothing to live upon save the game the wolves and coyotes have learned to seek the ranges of cattle horses and sheep where they still do immense damage chiefly in killing young stock
for the destruction of wolves in many many places the gray wolf still persists and can not be exterminated to the stockmen of the west the wolf question is a serious matter the stockmen of montana say that a government expert once told them how to get rid of the gray wolves
wild creatures unexpectedly increase in number and a community awakens to the fact that some wild species has become a public nuisance in a small city park even gray squirrels may breed and become so fearfully numerous
that in their restless quest for food they may ravage the nests of the wild birds kill and devour the young and become a pest in the zoological park in nineteen o three we found that the red squirrels had increased to such a horde
or whatever his numerical strength the red squirrel is a bad citizen and while we do not by any means favor his extermination he should resolutely be kept within bounds by the rifle
when a crow nested in our woods near the beaver pond we were greatly pleased but with the feeding of the first brood
for their destructiveness of useful birds without any extenuating circumstances worth mentioning four of these are cooper's hawk the sharp shinned hawk pigeon hawk and duck hawk fortunately these species are not so numerous
that we need lose any sleep over them indeed i think that today it would be a mighty good collector who could find one specimen in seven days hunting like all other species these too are being shot out of our bird fauna
some of them are the great horned owl screech owl butcher bird or great northern shrike the only circumstance that saves these birds from instant condemnation is the delightful amount of rats mice
moles gophers and noxious insects that they annually consume
we are impelled to think long
who really does levy a heavy tax on our upland game birds as to the butcher bird we feel that we ought to kill him but in view of his record on wild mice and rats we hesitate and finally decline
a species to be destroyed
snakes mister thomas m upp a close and long observer of wild things wishes it distinctly understood that while the common black snakes and racers are practically harmless to birds
the pilot black snake long thick and truculent is a great scourge to nesting birds it seems to be deserving of death
is quite sweeping at the same time mister raymond l ditmars points out the fact that this serpent feeds during six months of the year on mice
the horsemen dismounted and together with the men on foot without a moment's delay taking up sancho and don quixote bodily they carried them into the court
in the middle of the court was a catafalque raised about two yards above the ground and covered completely by an immense canopy of black velvet and on the steps all round it white wax tapers
burned in more than a hundred silver candlesticks upon the catafalque was seen the dead body of a damsel so lovely that by her beauty she made death itself look beautiful
she lay with her head resting upon a cushion of brocade and crowned with a garland of sweet smelling flowers of divers sorts her hands crossed upon her bosom and between them a branch of yellow palm of victory
on one side of the court was erected a stage where upon two chairs were seated two persons who from having crowns on their heads and sceptres in their hands appeared to be kings of some sort
whether real or mock ones by the side of this stage which was reached by steps were two other chairs on which the men carrying the prisoners seated don quixote and sancho all in silence
and now two persons of distinction who were at once recognised by don quixote as his hosts the duke and duchess ascended the stage attended by a numerous suite and seated themselves on two gorgeous chairs
close to the two kings as they seemed to be who would not have been amazed at this nor was this all for don quixote had perceived that the dead body on the catafalque was that of the fair altisidora
as the duke and duchess mounted the stage don quixote and sancho rose and made them a profound obeisance which they returned by bowing their heads slightly at this moment an official crossed over
and approaching sancho threw over him a robe of black buckram painted all over with flames of fire and taking off his cap put upon his head a mitre such as those undergoing the sentence of the holy office wear
and whispered in his ear that he must not open his lips or they would put a gag upon him or take his life sancho surveyed himself from head to foot and saw himself all ablaze with flames
but as they did not burn him he did not care two farthings for them he took off the mitre and seeing painted with devils he put it on again saying to himself well so far those don't burn me
nor do these carry me off don quixote surveyed him too and though fear had got the better of his faculties he could not help smiling to see the figure sancho presented
and now from underneath the catafalque so it seemed there rose a low sweet sound of flutes which coming unbroken by human voice for there silence itself kept silence
had a soft and languishing effect then beside the pillow of what seemed to be the dead body suddenly appeared a fair youth in a roman habit
returns to life and in this magic court the dames in sables come to grace the scene and while her matrons all in seemly sort my lady robes in baize and bombazine
her beauty and her sorrows will i sing
than touched the thracian string but not in life alone methinks to me belongs the office lady when my tongue is cold in death believe me unto thee my voice shall raise its tributary song
my soul from this strait prison house set free as o'er the stygian lake it floats along thy praises singing still shall hold its way and make the waters of oblivion stay
at this point one of the two that looked like kings exclaimed enough enough divine singer it would be an endless task to put before us now the death and the charms of the peerless altisidora
not dead as the ignorant world imagines but living in the voice of fame and in the penance which sancho panza here present has to undergo to restore her to the long lost light
do thou therefore o rhadamanthus who sittest in judgment with me in the murky caverns of dis as thou knowest all that the inscrutable fates have decreed touching the resuscitation of this damsel
announce and declare it at once that the happiness we look forward to from her restoration be no longer deferred
than rhadamanthus rising up said ho officials of this house high and low great and small make haste hither one and all and print on sancho's face four and twenty smacks
and give him twelve pinches and six pin thrusts in the back and arms
on hearing this sancho broke silence and cried out by all that's good i'll as soon let my face be smacked or handled as turn moor body o me
what has handling my face got to do with the resurrection of this damsel the old woman took kindly to the blits they enchant dulcinea and whip me in order to disenchant her altisidora dies of ailments god was pleased to send her
and to bring her to life again they must give me four and twenty smacks and prick holes in my body with pins and raise weals on my arms with pinches try those jokes on a brother in law i'm an old dog and tus tus
thou must be made to howl ho i say officials obey my orders or by the word of an honest man ye shall see what ye were born for at this some six duennas
as is the fashion now a days no sooner had sancho caught sight of them than bellowing like a bull he exclaimed i might let myself be handled by all the world but allow duennas to touch me not a bit of it
though the devil should carry me off here don quixote too broke silence saying to sancho have patience my son and gratify these noble persons and give all thanks to heaven
that it has infused such virtue into thy person that by its sufferings thou canst disenchant the enchanted and restore to life the dead the duennas were now close to sancho and he
having become more tractable and reasonable settling himself well in his chair presented his face and beard to the first who delivered him a smack very stoutly laid on and then made him a low curtsey
less politeness and less paint senora duenna said sancho by god your hands smell of vinegar wash in fine all the duennas smacked him and several others of the household pinched him
but what he could not stand was being pricked by the pins and so apparently out of patience he started up out of his chair and seizing a lighted torch that stood near him fell upon the duennas and the whole set of his tormentors exclaiming
begone ye ministers of hell i'm not made of brass not to feel such out of the way tortures at this instant altisidora who probably was tired of having been so long lying on her back
the disenchantment of dulcinea now i say is the time when the virtue that is in thee is ripe and endowed with efficacy to work the good that is looked for from thee to which sancho made answer
but when the helpful voice was silent the daily lesson over the beloved presence gone and nothing remained but loneliness and grief then jo found her promise very hard to keep
how could she comfort father and mother when her own heart ached with a ceaseless longing for her sister how could she make the house cheerful when all its light and warmth and beauty
and where in all the world could she find some useful happy work to do that would take the place of the loving service which had been its own reward she tried in a blind hopeless way to do her duty
secretly rebelling against it all the while
and life get harder and harder as she toiled along some people seemed to get all sunshine and some all shadow it was not fair for she tried more than amy to be good but never got any reward
only disappointment trouble and hard work poor jo these were dark days to her for something like despair came over her when she thought of spending all her life in that quiet house
devoted to humdrum cares a few small pleasures and the duty that never seemed to grow any easier i can't do it i wasn't meant for a life like this and i know i shall
she said to herself when her first efforts failed and she fell into the moody miserable state of mind which often comes when strong wills have to yield to the inevitable but someone did come and help her
though jo did not recognize her good angels at once because they wore familiar shapes and used the simple spells best fitted to poor humanity often she started up at night thinking beth called her
and when the sight of the little empty bed made her cry with the bitter cry of unsubmissive sorrow oh beth come back come back she did not stretch out her yearning arms in vain
for as quick to hear her sobbing as she had been to hear her sister's faintest whisper her mother came to comfort her not with words only but the patient tenderness that soothes by a touch
tears that were mute reminders of a greater grief than jo's and broken whispers more eloquent than prayers because hopeful resignation went hand in hand with natural sorrow
sacred moments when heart talked to heart in the silence of the night turning affliction to a blessing which chastened grief and strengthned love feeling this jo's burden seemed easier to bear
duty grew sweeter and life looked more endurable seen from the safe shelter of her mother's arms when aching heart was a little comforted troubled mind likewise found help for one day
she went to the study and leaning over the good gray head lifted to welcome her with a tranquil smile she said very humbly father talk to me as you did to beth
for i'm all wrong my dear nothing can comfort me like this he answered with a falter in his voice and both arms round her as if he too needed help and did not fear to ask for it then
sitting in beth's little chair close beside him jo told her troubles
the fruitless efforts that discouraged her the want of faith that made life look so dark and all the sad bewilderment
she gave him entire confidence he gave her the help she needed and both found consolation in the act for the time had come when they could talk together not only as father and daughter
but as man and woman able and glad to serve each other with mutual sympathy as well as mutual love happy thoughtful times there in the old study which jo called the church of one member
and from which she came with fresh courage recovered cheerfulness and a more submissive spirit for the parents who had taught one child to meet death without fear were trying now to teach another to accept life without despondency or distrust
and to use its beautiful opportunities with gratitude and power other helps had jo humble wholesome duties and delights that would not be denied their part in serving her
brooms and dishcloths never could be as distasteful as they once had been for beth had presided over both and something of her housewifely spirit seemed to linger around the little mop and the old brush
never thrown away as she used them jo found herself humming the songs beth used to hum imitating beth's orderly ways and giving the little touches here and there that kept everything fresh and cozy
which was the first step toward making home happy though she didn't know it till hannah said with an approving squeeze of the hand you thoughtful creeter you're determined we shan't miss that dear lamb ef you can help it
we don't say much but we see it
as they sat sewing together jo discovered how much improved her sister meg was how well she could talk how much she knew about good womanly impulses thoughts and feelings how happy she was in husband and children
and how much they were all doing for each other marriage is an excellent thing after all i wonder if i should blossom out half as well as you have if i tried it
i could said jo as she constructed a kite for demi in the topsy turvy nursery it's just what you need to bring out the tender womanly half of your nature jo you are like a chestnut burr prickly outside
but silky soft within and a sweet kernal if one can only get at it love will make you show your heart one day and then the rough burr will fall off frost opens chestnut burrs ma'am
and it takes a good shake to bring them down boys go nutting and i don't care to be bagged by them returned jo pasting away at the kite which no wind that blows would ever carry up for daisy had tied herself on as a bob
meg laughed for she was glad to see a glimmer of jo's old spirit but she felt it her duty to enforce her opinion by every argument in her power
especially as two of meg's most effective arguments were
grief is the best opener of some hearts and jo's was nearly ready for the bag a little more sunshine to ripen the nut then not a boy's impatient shake but a man's hand
reached up to pick it gently from the burr and find the kernal sound and sweet if she suspected this she would have shut up tight and been more prickly than ever
fortunately she wasn't thinking about herself so when the time came down she dropped now if she had been the heroine of a moral storybook
renounced the world and gone about doing good in a mortified bonnet with tracts in her pocket but you see jo wasn't a heroine she was only a struggling human girl like hundreds of others
and she just acted out her nature being sad cross listless or energetic as the mood suggested it's highly virtuous to say we'll be good but we can't do it all at once and it takes a long pull
a strong pull and a pull all together before some of us even get our feet set in the right way jo had got so far she was learning to do her duty and to feel unhappy if she did not
she had often said she wanted to do something splendid no matter how hard and now she had her wish for what could be more beautiful than to devote her life to father and mother trying to make home as happy to them as they had to her
and if difficulties were necessary to increase the splendor of the effort what could be harder for a restless ambitious girl than to give up her own hopes plans and desires and cheerfully live for others
providence had taken her at her word
but better because self had no part in it
she decided that she would try and in her first attempt she found the helps i have suggested still another was given her and she took it not as a reward but as a comfort
as christian took the refreshment afforded by the little arbor where he rested as he climbed the hill called difficulty why don't you write
when the desponding fit over shadowed jo i've no heart to write and if i had nobody cares for my things
write something for us and never mind the rest of the world try it dear i'm sure it would do you good and please us very much don't believe i can but
jo got out her desk and began to overhaul her half finished manuscripts an hour afterward her mother peeped in
which caused missus march to smile and slip away
jo never knew how it happened but something got into that story that went straight to the hearts of those who read it for when her family had laughed and cried over it her father sent it much against her will to one of the popular magazines
and to her utter surprise it was not only paid for but others requested letters from several persons whose praise was honor followed the appearance of the little story newspapers copied it and strangers as well as friends admired it
for a small thing it was a great success and jo was more astonished than when her novel was commended and condemned all at once i don't understand it
what can there be in a simple little story like that to make people praise it so she said quite bewildered there is truth in it jo that's the secret humor and pathos make it alive and you have found your style at last
and put your heart into it my daughter
do your best and grow as happy as we are in your success
i owe it all to you and mother and beth said jo more touched by her father's words than by any amount of praise from the world so taught by love and sorrow jo wrote her little stories and sent them away to make friends for themselves
and her finding it a very charitable world to such humble wanderers for they were kindly welcomed and sent home comfortable tokens to their mother like dutiful children whom good fortune overtakes
when amy and laurie wrote of their engagement missus march feared that jo would find it difficult to rejoice over it but her fears were soon set at rest
the children before she read the letter twice it was a sort of written duet wherein each glorified the other in loverlike fashion very pleasant to read and satisfactory to think of for no one had any objection to make
you like it mother said jo as they laid down the closely written sheets and looked at one another yes i hoped it would be so ever since amy wrote that she had refused fred
i felt sure then that something better than what you call the mercenary spirit had come over her and a hint here and there in her letters made me suspect that love and laurie would win the day how sharp you are marmee and how silent
you never said a word to me mothers have need of sharp eyes and discreet tongues when they have girls to manage i was half afraid to put the idea into your head lest you should write and congratulate them before the thing was settled
i'm not the scatterbrain i was you may trust me i'm sober and sensible enough for anyone's confidante now so you are my dear and i should have made you mine only i fancied it might pain you to learn that your teddy loved someone else
now mother did you really think i could be so silly and selfish after i'd refused his love when it was freshest if not best i knew you were sincere then jo
you might perhaps feel like giving another answer forgive me dear i can't help seeing that you are very lonely and sometimes there is a hungry look in your eyes that goes to my heart so i fancied that your boy might fill the empty place if he tried now
no mother it is better as it is and i'm glad amy has learned to love him but you are right in one thing i am lonely and perhaps if teddy had tried again i might have said yes not because i love him any more
but because i care more to be loved than when he went away
sisters and brothers friends and babies till the best lover of all comes to give you your reward
but i don't mind whispering to marmee that i'd like to try all kinds it's very curious but the more i try to satisfy myself with all sorts of natural affections the more i seem to want i'd no idea hearts could take in so many
mine is so elastic it never seems full now and i used to be quite contented with my family i don't understand it i do and missus march smiled her wise smile as jo turned back the leaves to read what amy said of laurie
it is so beautiful to be loved as laurie loves me he isn't sentimental doesn't say much about it but i see and feel it in all he says and does and it makes me so happy and so humble
that i don't seem to be the same girl i was i never knew how good and generous and tender he was till now for he lets me read his heart and i find it full of noble impulses and hopes and purposes and am so proud to know it's mine
he says he feels as if he could make a prosperous voyage now with me aboard as mate and lots of love for ballast i pray he may and try to be all he believes me
for i love my gallant captain with all my heart and soul and might and never will desert him while god lets us be together
when two people love and live for one another and that's our cool reserved and worldly amy truly love does work miracles how very very happy they must be
as one might shut the covers of a lovely romance which holds the reader fast till the end comes and he finds himself alone in the workaday world again
by and by jo roamed away upstairs for it was rainy and she could not walk a restless spirit possessed her and the old feeling came again not bitter as it once was but a sorrowfully patient wonder
why one sister should have all she asked the other nothing it was not true she knew that and tried to put it away
and amy's happiness woke the hungry longing for someone to love with heart and soul and cling to while god let them be together up in the garret where jo's unquiet wanderings ended
stood four little wooden chests in a row each marked with its owners name and each filled with relics of the childhood and girlhood ended now for all jo glanced into them and when she came to her own
leaned her chin on the edge and stared absently at the chaotic collection till a bundle of old exercise books caught her eye she drew them out turned them over and relived that pleasant winter at kind missus kirke's
she had smiled at first then she looked thoughtful next sad and when she came to a little message written in the professor's hand her lips began to tremble the books slid out of her lap and she sat looking at the friendly words
and touched a tender spot in her heart
i may be a little late but i shall surely come
so kind so good so patient with me always my dear old fritz i didn't value him half enough when i had him but now how i should love to see him for everyone seems going away from me and i'm all alone
and holding the little paper fast as if it were a promise yet to be fulfilled jo laid her head down on a comfortable rag bag and cried as if in opposition to the rain pattering on the roof
was it all self pity loneliness or low spirits or was it the waking up of a sentiment which had bided its time as patiently as its inspirer
a marriage contract there is excitement in the veneering mansion the mature young lady is going to be married powder and all to the mature young gentleman and she is to be married from the veneering house and the veneerings are to give the breakfast
the analytical who objects as a matter of principle to everything that occurs on the premises necessarily objects to the match but his consent has been dispensed with and a spring van is delivering its load of greenhouse plants at the door
may be crowned with flowers the mature young lady is a lady of property the mature young gentleman is a gentleman of property he invests his property he goes in a condescending amateurish way into the city
oscillate on mysterious business between london and paris and be great where does he come from shares where is he going to shares what are his tastes shares has he any principles shares
what squeezes him into parliament shares perhaps he never of himself achieved success in anything never originated anything never produced anything sufficient answer to all shares o mighty shares
to set those blaring images so high and to cause us smaller vermin as under the influence of henbane or opium to cry out night and day relieve us of our money scatter it for us buy us and sell us ruin us only we beseech ye take rank among the powers of the earth and fatten on us
while the loves and graces have been preparing this torch for hymen which is to be kindled to morrow mister twemlow has suffered much in his mind
be veneering's oldest friends wards of his perhaps yet that can scarcely be for they are older than himself
and has done much to lure them to the altar
the mature young lady in the light of a sister and alfred lammle the mature young gentleman in the light of a brother twemlow has asked him whether he went to school as a junior with alfred he has answered not exactly whether sophronia was adopted by his mother
he has answered not precisely so twemlow's hand has gone to his forehead with a lost air but two or three weeks ago twemlow sitting over his newspaper and over his dry toast and weak tea
and over the stable yard in duke street saint james's received a highly perfumed cocked hat and monogram from missus veneering entreating her dearest mister t if not particularly engaged that day to come like a charming soul and make a fourth at dinner with dear mister podsnap
for the discussion of an interesting family topic the last three words doubly underlined and pointed with a note of admiration and twemlow replying not engaged and more than delighted
my dear twemlow says veneering your ready response to anastatia's unceremonious invitation is truly kind and like an old old friend you know our dear friend podsnap twemlow ought to know the dear friend podsnap who covered him with so much confusion
and he says he does know him and podsnap reciprocates apparently podsnap has been so wrought upon in a short time as to believe that he has been intimate in the house many many many years
in the friendliest manner he is making himself quite at home with his back to the fire executing a statuette of the colossus at rhodes twemlow has before noticed in his feeble way how soon the veneering guests become infected with the veneering fiction
not however that he has the least notion of its being his own case our friends alfred and sophronia pursues veneering the veiled prophet our friends alfred and sophronia
you will be glad to hear my dear fellows are going to be married as my wife and i make it a family affair the entire direction of which we take upon ourselves of course our first step is to communicate the fact to our family friends
oh thinks twemlow with his eyes on podsnap then there are only two of us and he's the other i did hope veneering goes on to have had lady tippins to meet you
oh thinks twemlow with his eyes wandering then there are three of us and she's the other mortimer lightwood resumes veneering whom you both know is out of town but he writes in his whimsical manner
boots and brewer observes veneering whom you also know i have not asked to day but i reserve them for the occasion then thinks twemlow with his eyes shut
but here collapses and does not completely recover until dinner is over and the analytical has been requested to withdraw we now come says veneering to the point the real point of our little family consultation sophronia
because i couldn't take so much upon myself when i have respected family friends to remember secondly
and feels averse to my giving away anybody until baby is old enough to be married what would happen if he did podsnap inquires of missus veneering my dear mister podsnap it's very foolish i know but i have an instinctive presentiment that if hamilton
gave away anybody else first he would never give away baby thus missus veneering with her open hands pressed together and each of her eight aquiline fingers looking so very like her one aquiline nose that the bran new jewels on them seem necessary for distinction's sake
but my dear podsnap quoth veneering there is a tried friend of our family who i think and hope you will agree with me podsnap is the friend on whom this agreeable duty almost naturally devolves that friend
is now among us that friend is twemlow certainly from podsnap that friend veneering repeats with greater firmness is our dear good twemlow
and i cannot sufficiently express to you my dear podsnap the pleasure i feel in having this opinion of mine and anastatia's so readily confirmed by you that other equally familiar and tried friend who stands in the proud position
or i ought rather to say
of baby's godfather and indeed veneering is much relieved in mind to find that podsnap betrays no jealousy of twemlow's elevation so it has come to pass that the spring van is strewing flowers on the rosy hours and on the staircase
and whose left hand appears to be in a state of acute rheumatism but is in fact voluntarily doubled up to act as a money box and now veneering shoots out of the study wherein he is accustomed when contemplative
to give his mind to the carving and gilding of the pilgrims going to canterbury in order to show twemlow the little flourish he has prepared for the trumpets of fashion describing how that on the seventeenth instant at saint james's church the reverend blank blank assisted by the reverend dash dash
united in the bonds of matrimony alfred lammle esquire of sackville street piccadilly to sophronia only daughter of the late horatio akershem esquire of yorkshire also how the fair bride was married from the house of hamilton veneering
esquire of stucconia and was given away by melvin twemlow esquire of duke street saint james's second cousin to lord snigsworth of snigsworthy park while perusing which composition twemlow makes some opaque approach to perceiving
that if the reverend blank blank and the reverend dash dash fail after this introduction to become enrolled in the list of veneering's dearest and oldest friends they will have none but themselves to thank for it after which appears sophronia
and after her appears alfred whom twemlow has seen once in his lifetime to do the same and to make a pasty sort of glitter as if he were constructed for candle light only and had been let out into daylight by some grand mistake and after that comes missus veneering
worn out by worry and excitement as she tells her dear mister twemlow
and to come like adorable recruits enlisted by a sergeant not present for on arriving at the veneering depot they are in a barrack of strangers so twemlow goes home to duke street saint james's to take a plate of mutton broth with a chop in it
and a look at the marriage service in order that he may cut in at the right place to morrow and he is low and feels it dull over the livery stable yard and is distinctly aware of a dint in his heart made by the most adorable of the adorable bridesmaids
for the poor little harmless gentleman once had his fancy like the rest of us and she didn't answer as she often does not and he thinks the adorable bridesmaid is like the fancy as she was then which she is not at all
and that if the fancy had not married some one else for money but had married him for love he and she would have been happy which they wouldn't have been and that she has a tenderness for him still whereas her toughness is a proverb
brooding over the fire with his dried little head in his dried little hands and his dried little elbows on his dried little knees twemlow is melancholy no adorable to bear me company here thinks he no adorable at the club
a waste a waste a waste my twemlow
betimes next morning that horrible old lady tippins
who while performing the ceremony was graciously pleased to observe what what what who who who why why why begins to be dyed and varnished for the interesting occasion
she has a reputation for giving smart accounts of things and she must be at these people's early my dear to lose nothing of the fun whereabout in the bonnet and drapery announced by her name any fragment of the real woman may be concealed
is perhaps known to her maid but you could easily buy all you see of her in bond street or you might scalp her and peel her and scrape her and make two lady tippinses out of her and yet not penetrate to the genuine article
she has a large gold eye glass has lady tippins to survey the proceedings with if she had one in each eye it might keep that other drooping lid up and look more uniform but perennial youth is in her artificial flowers and her list of lovers is full
mortimer you wretch says lady tippins turning the eyeglass about and about where is your charge the bridegroom
miserable is that the way you do your duty beyond an impression that he is to sit upon my knee and be seconded at some point of the solemnities
returns mortimer eugene is also in attendance with a pervading air upon him of having presupposed the ceremony to be a funeral and of being disappointed
and an unacknowledged member of that gentleman's family whom lady tippins surveying through her eye glass considers a fine man and quite a catch
thirty shillings a yard veil fifteen pound pocket handkerchief a present bridesmaids
veneering's flowers snub nosed one rather pretty but too conscious of her stockings bonnets three pound ten
veneering's house reached drawing rooms most magnificent here the podsnaps await the happy party mister podsnap with his hair brushes made the most of that imperial rocking horse missus podsnap majestically skittish here too are boots and brewer
and the two other buffers each buffer with a flower in his button hole his hair curled and his gloves buttoned on tight apparently come prepared
an oilcake fed style of business gentleman with mooney spectacles and an object of much interest
which makes seven twemlow thought and confidentially retiring with him into the conservatory it is understood that veneering is his co trustee and that they are arranging about the fortune buffers are even overheard to whisper
with a smack and a relish
pokey unknowns amazed to find how intimately they know veneering pluck up spirit fold their arms and begin to contradict him before breakfast what time missus veneering carrying baby dressed as a bridesmaid flits about among the company
emitting flashes of many coloured lightning from diamonds emeralds and rubies the analytical in course of time achieving what he feels to be due to himself in bringing to a dignified conclusion several quarrels he has on hand with the pastrycook's men
announces breakfast dining room no less magnificent than drawing room tables superb all the camels out and all laden splendid cake covered with cupids silver and true lovers knots
splendid bracelet produced by veneering before going down and clasped upon the arm of bride yet nobody seems to think much more of the veneerings than if they were a tolerable landlord and landlady doing the thing in the way of business at so much a head
the bride and bridegroom talk and laugh apart as has always been their manner and the buffers work their way through the dishes with systematic perseverance
another dismal circumstance is that veneering having the captivating tippins on one side of him and the bride's aunt on the other finds it immensely difficult to keep the peace for medusa
follows every lively remark made by that dear creature with an audible snort which may be referable to a chronic cold in the head but may also be referable to indignation and contempt
at length comes to be expected by the company who make embarrassing pauses when it is falling due and by waiting for it render it more emphatic when it comes the stoney aunt has likewise an injurious way of rejecting all dishes whereof lady tippins partakes
saying aloud when they are proffered to her no no no not for me take it away as with a set purpose of implying a misgiving that if nourished upon similar meats she might come to be like that charmer which would be a fatal consummation
aware of her enemy lady tippins tries a youthful sally or two and tries the eye glass but from the impenetrable cap and snorting armour of the stoney aunt all weapons rebound powerless another objectionable circumstance is
that the pokey unknowns support each other in being unimpressible they persist in not being frightened by the gold and silver camels and they are banded together to defy the elaborately chased ice pails they even seem to unite in some vague utterance of the sentiment
those lovely beings become each one of her own account depreciatingly contemplative of the millinery present while the bridegroom's man exhausted in the back of his chair appears to be improving the occasion by penitentially contemplating all the wrong he has ever done
that the latter in the back of his chair appears to be contemplating all the wrong he would like to do particularly to the present company in which state of affairs the usual ceremonies rather droop and flag and the splendid cake when cut by the fair hand of the bride
has but an indigestible appearance however all the things indispensable to be said are said
including lady tippins's yawning falling asleep and waking insensible and there is hurried preparation for the nuptial journey to the isle of wight and the outer air teems with brass bands and spectators
the malignant star of the analytical has pre ordained that pain and ridicule shall befall him for he standing on the doorsteps to grace the departure is suddenly caught
with a heavy shoe which a buffer in the hall champagne flushed and wild of aim has borrowed on the spur of the moment from the pastrycook's porter to cast after the departing pair as an auspicious omen so they all go up again into the gorgeous drawing rooms
all of them flushed with breakfast as having taken scarlatina sociably
and take as much as possible out of the splendid furniture and so lady tippins
and even the unknowns are slowly strained off and it is all over all over that is to say for the time being but there is another time to come and it comes in about a fortnight and it comes to mister and missus lammle
on the sands at shanklin in the isle of wight mister and missus lammle have walked for some time on the shanklin sands and one may see by their footprints that they have not walked arm in arm and that they have not walked in a straight track
and that they have walked in a moody humour for the lady has prodded little spirting holes in the damp sand before her with her parasol and the gentleman has trailed his stick after him
do you mean to tell me then sophronia
and turns upon him don't put it upon me sir i ask you do you mean to tell me mister lammle falls silent again and they walk as before missus lammle opens her nostrils and bites her under lip
mister lammle takes his gingerous whiskers in his left hand and bringing them together frowns furtively at his beloved out of a thick gingerous bush do i mean to say
putting it on me the unmanly disingenuousness mister lammle stops releases his whiskers and looks at her the what missus lammle haughtily replies without stopping and without looking back the meanness
he is at her side again in a pace or two and he retorts that is not what you said you said disingenuousness what if i did there is no if in the case you did i did then and what of it
what of it says mister lammle have you the face to utter the word to me the face too replied missus lammle staring at him with cold scorn pray how dare you sir utter the word to me i never did
as this happens to be true missus lammle is thrown on the feminine resource of saying i don't care what you uttered or did not utter
and a little more silence mister lammle breaks the latter you shall proceed in your own way
do i mean to tell you do i mean to tell you what that you are a man of property no then you married me on false pretences so be it next comes what you mean to say
no then you married me on false pretences if you were so dull a fortune hunter that you deceived yourself or if you were so greedy and grasping that you were over willing to be deceived by appearances is it my fault you adventurer the lady demands with great asperity
veneering with great contempt and what does veneering know about me was he not your trustee no i have no trustee but the one you saw on the day when you fraudulently married me
and his trust is not a very difficult one for it is only an annuity of a hundred and fifteen pounds i think there are some odd shillings or pence if you are very particular mister lammle bestows a by no means loving look upon the partner of his joys and sorrows
and he mutters something but checks himself question for question it is my turn again missus lammle what made you suppose me a man of property you made me suppose you so
but you asked somebody too come missus lammle admission for admission you asked somebody
neither will i returns the bridegroom with that they walk again she making those angry spirts in the sand he dragging that dejected tail
there was a golden surface on the brown cliffs but now and behold they are only damp earth a taunting roar comes from the sea and the far out rollers mount upon one another to look at the entrapped impostors and to join in impish and exultant gambols
do you pretend to believe missus lammle resumes sternly when you talk of my marrying you for worldly advantages that it was within the bounds of reasonable probability
again there are two sides to the question missus lammle what do you pretend to believe so you first deceive me and then insult me cries the lady with a heaving bosom
i have originated nothing the double edged question was yours was mine the bride repeats and her parasol breaks in her angry hand
and ominous marks have come to light about his nose as if the finger of the very devil himself had within the last few moments touched it here and there but he has repressive power and she has none throw it away he coolly recommends as to the parasol
you look ridiculous with it whereupon she calls him in her rage a deliberate villain and so casts the broken thing from her as that it strikes him in falling the finger marks are something whiter for the instant but he walks on at her side
she bursts into tears declaring herself the wretchedest the most deceived the worst used of women then she says that if she had the courage to kill herself she would do it then she calls him vile impostor
then she asks him why in the disappointment of his base speculation he does not take her life with his own hand under the present favourable circumstances then she cries again then she is enraged again and makes some mention of swindlers finally she sits down
crying on a block of stone and is in all the known and unknown humours of her sex at once pending her changes those aforesaid marks in his face have come and gone now here now there like white steps of a pipe on which the diabolical performer has played a tune
also his livid lips are parted at last as if he were breathless with running yet he is not now get up missus lammle and let us speak reasonably she sits upon her stone and takes no heed of him get up i tell you
you tell me tell me forsooth she affects not to know that his eyes are fastened on her as she droops her head again but her whole figure reveals that she knows it uneasily enough of this come do you hear get up
yielding to his hand she rises and they walk again but this time with their faces turned towards their place of residence missus lammle we have both been deceiving and we have both been deceived
in a nut shell there's the state of the case you sought me out tut
we know very well how it was why should you and i talk about it when you and i can't disguise it to proceed i am disappointed and cut a poor figure am i no one some one and i was coming to you
if you had waited a moment you too are disappointed and cut a poor figure an injured figure you are now cool enough sophronia to see that you can't be injured without my being equally injured and that therefore the mere word is not to the purpose
and when i look back the bride cries interrupting and when you look back you wonder how you can have been you'll excuse the word most certainly with so much reason such a fool as to take me
to so great an extent upon trust but the folly is committed on both sides i cannot get rid of you you cannot get rid of me what follows shame and misery the bride bitterly replies i don't know a mutual understanding follows
so we agree to keep the fact to ourselves you agree if it is possible i do possible
can't we united pretend to the world agreed secondly we owe the veneerings a grudge and we owe all other people the grudge of wishing them to be taken in as we ourselves have been taken in agreed yes agreed
we come smoothly to thirdly you have called me an adventurer sophronia so i am in plain uncomplimentary english so i am so are you my dear so are many people
we agree to keep our own secret and to work together in furtherance of our own schemes what schemes any scheme that will bring us money by our own schemes i mean our joint interest agreed
i suppose so agreed carried at once you see now sophronia only half a dozen words more we know one another perfectly don't be tempted into twitting me with the past knowledge that you have of me
because it is identical with the past knowledge that i have of you and in twitting me you twit yourself and i don't want to hear you do it with this good understanding established between us it is better never done to wind up all you have shown temper today sophronia
don't be betrayed into doing so again because i have a devil of a temper myself so the happy pair with this hopeful marriage contract thus signed sealed and delivered repair homeward
if when those infernal finger marks were on the white and breathless countenance of alfred lammle esquire they denoted that he conceived the purpose of subduing his dear wife missus alfred lammle by at once divesting her of any lingering reality or pretence of self respect
the farmhouse kitchen probably stood where it did as a matter of accident or haphazard choice yet its situation might have been planned by a master strategist in farmhouse architecture dairy and poultry yard and herb garden
and all the busy places of the farm seemed to lead by easy access into its wide flagged haven where there was room for everything and where muddy boots left traces that were easily swept away
and yet for all that it stood so well in the centre of human bustle its long latticed window with the wide window seat built into an embrasure beyond the huge fireplace looked out on a wild spreading view of hill and heather and wooded combe
imprisoned within high blank walls was not a room that lent itself readily either to comfort or decoration when we are more settled i shall work wonders in the way of making the kitchen habitable said the young woman to her occasional visitors
there was an unspoken wish in those words a wish which was unconfessed as well as unspoken emma ladbruk was the mistress of the farm jointly with her husband she might have her say and to a certain extent her way in ordering its affairs
but she was not mistress of the kitchen on one of the shelves of an old dresser in company with chipped sauce boats pewter jugs cheese graters and paid bills rested a worn and ragged bible
on whose front page was the record in faded ink of a baptism dated ninety four years ago martha crale was the name written on that yellow page the yellow wrinkled old dame who hobbled and muttered about the kitchen
looking like a dead autumn leaf which the winter winds still pushed hither and thither had once been martha crale for seventy odd years she had been martha mountjoy for longer than anyone could remember
she had pattered to and fro between oven and wash house and dairy and out to chicken run and garden grumbling and muttering and scolding but working unceasingly emma ladbruk of whose coming she took as little notice as she would
of a bee wandering in at a window on a summers day used at first to watch her with a kind of frightened curiosity she was so old and so much a part of the place it was difficult to think of her exactly as a living thing old shep
now he was just a blind breathing carcase nothing more and she still worked with frail energy still swept and baked and washed fetched and carried if there were something in these wise old dogs that did not perish utterly with death
emma used to think to herself what generations of ghost dogs there must be out on those hills that martha had reared and fed and tended and spoken a last good bye word to in that old kitchen
and what memories she must have of human generations that had passed away in her time it was difficult for anyone let alone a stranger like emma to get her to talk of the days that had been
there had been a palmerston that had been a name down tiverton way tiverton was not a far journey as the crow flies but to martha it was almost a foreign country later there had been northcotes and aclands and many other newer names that she had forgotten
the names changed but it was always libruls and toories yellows and blues and they always quarrelled and shouted as to who was right and who was wrong the one they quarrelled about most was a fine old gentleman with an angry faceshe
she had seen it on the floor too with a rotten apple squashed over it for the farm had changed its politics from time to time martha had never been on one side or the other none of they had ever done the farm a stroke of good
such was her sweeping verdict given with all a peasants distrust of the outside world when the half frightened curiosity had somewhat faded away emma ladbruk was uncomfortably conscious of another feeling towards the old woman
emma had come to the farm full of plans for little reforms and improvements in part the result of training in the newest ways and methods in part the outcome of her own ideas and fancies reforms in the kitchen region
if those deaf old ears could have been induced to give them even a hearing would have met with short shrift and scornful rejection and the kitchen region spread over the zone of dairy and market business and half the work of the household
emma with the latest science of dead poultry dressing at her finger tips sat by an unheeded watcher while old martha trussed the chickens for the market stall as she had trussed them for nearly fourscore yearsall
above all the coveted window corner that was to be a dainty cheerful oasis in the gaunt old kitchen stood now choked and lumbered with a litter of odds and ends that emma for all her nominal authority
emma was conscious that the wish was there disowned though it might be lurking at the back of her mind she felt the meanness of the wish come over her with a qualm of self reproach one day when she came into the kitchen
and found an unaccustomed state of things in that usually busy quarter old martha was not working a basket of corn was on the floor by her side and out in the yard the poultry were beginning to clamour a protest of overdue feeding time
but martha sat huddled in a shrunken bunch on the window seat
had once been a merry noisy child playing about in lanes and hay lofts and farmhouse garrets that had been eighty odd years ago and now she was just a frail old body cowering under the approaching chill of the death that was coming at last to take her
it was not probable that much could be done for her but emma hastened away to get assistance and counsel her husband she knew was down at a tree felling some little distance off but she might find some other intelligent soul who knew the old woman better than she did
the farm she soon found out had that faculty common to farmyards of swallowing up and losing its human population the poultry followed her in interested fashion and swine grunted interrogations at her from behind the bars of their styes
but barnyard and rickyard orchard and stables and dairy gave no reward to her search then as she retraced her steps towards the kitchen she came suddenly on her cousin young mister jim as every one called him
who divided his time between amateur horse dealing rabbit shooting and flirting with the farm maids im afraid old martha is dying said emma jim was not the sort of person to whom one had to break news gently nonsense
he said martha means to live to a hundred she told me so and shell do it she may be actually dying at this moment or it may just be the beginning of the break up persisted emma with a feeling of contempt for the slowness and dulness of the young man
a grin spread over his good natured features it dont look like it he said nodding towards the yard emma turned to catch the meaning of his remark old martha stood in the middle of a mob of poultry
scattering handfuls of grain around her the turkey cock with the bronzed sheen of his feathers and the purple red of his wattles the gamecock with the glowing metallic lustre of his eastern plumage the hens with their ochres and buffs and umbers
and their scarlet combs and the drakes with their bottle green heads
in the centre of which the old woman looked like a withered stalk standing amid a riotous growth of gaily hued flowers but she threw the grain deftly amid the wilderness of beaks
and passed to the rabbit shooting cousin as the next of kin emma ladbruk drifted out of its history as a bee that had wandered in at an open window might flit its way out again on a cold grey morning she stood waiting
with her boxes already stowed in the farm cart till the last of the market produce should be ready for the train she was to catch was of less importance than the chickens and butter and eggs that were to be offered for sale from where she stood
she could see an angle of the long latticed window that was to have been cosy with curtains and gay with bowls of flowers into her mind came the thought that for months perhaps for years long after she had been utterly forgotten
a white unheeding face would be seen peering out through those latticed panes and a weak muttering voice would be heard quavering up and down those flagged passages she made her way to a narrow barred casement that opened into the farm larder
mabel seated in the gallery that evening behind the president's chair
hoping each time that twenty one o'clock was nearer than she feared she knew well enough by now that the president of europe would not be half a minute either before or after his time his supreme punctuality was famous all over the continent
he had said twenty one so it was to be twenty one a sharp bell note impinged from beneath and in a moment the drawling voice of the speaker stopped once more she lifted her wrist saw that it wanted five minutes of the hour
then she leaned forward from her corner and stared down into the house a great change had passed over it at the metallic noise all down the long brown seats members were shifting and arranging themselves more decorously uncrossing their legs
slipping their hats beneath the leather fringes as she looked too she saw the president of the house coming down the three steps from his chair for another would need it in a few moments the house was full from end to end a late comer ran in from the twilight of the south door
the galleries at the lower end were occupied too down there where she had failed to obtain a seat yet from all the crowded interior there was no sound but a sibilant whispering
from the passages behind she could hear again the quick bell note repeat itself as the lobbies were cleared and from parliament square outside once more came the heavy murmur of the crowd that had been inaudible for the last twenty minutes when that ceased she would know that he was come
how strange and wonderful it was to be here on this night of all when the president was to speak a month ago he had assented to a similar bill in germany and had delivered a speech on the same subject at turin to morrow he was to be in spain
no one knew where he had been during the past week a rumour had spread that his volor had been seen passing over lake como and had been instantly contradicted no one knew either what he would say to night it might be three words or twenty thousand
there were a few clauses in the bill notably those bearing on the point as to when the new worship was to be made compulsory on all subjects over the age of seven it might be he would object and veto these in that case all must be done again and the bill re passed
mabel herself was inclined to these clauses they provided that although worship was to be offered in every parish church of england on the ensuing first day of october this was not to be compulsory on all subjects till the new year
life sustenance and paternity celebrated on the first day of each quarter sunday worship was to be purely voluntary she could not understand how any man could refuse this homage these four things were facts
they were the manifestations of what she called the spirit of the world and if others called that power god yet surely these ought to be considered as his functions where then was the difficulty it was not as if christian worship were not permitted under the usual regulations
catholics could still go to mass and yet appalling things were threatened in germany not less than twelve thousand persons had already left for rome and it was rumoured that forty thousand would refuse this simple act of homage a few days hence it bewildered and angered her to think of it
for herself the new worship was a crowning sign of the triumph of humanity her heart had yearned for some such thing as this some public corporate profession of what all now believed she had so resented the dulness of folk who were content with action
and never considered its springs surely this instinct within her was a true one she desired to stand with her fellows in some solemn place consecrated not by priests but by the will of man to have as her inspirers sweet singing and the peal of organs
to utter her sorrow with thousands beside her at her own feebleness of immolation before the spirit of all to sing aloud her praise of the glory of life and to offer by sacrifice and incense an emblematic homage to that from which she drew her being
and to whom one day she must render it again ah these christians had understood human nature she had told herself a hundred times it was true that they had degraded it darkened light poisoned thought misinterpreted instinct
but they had understood that man must worship must worship or sink for herself she intended to go at least once a week to the little old church half a mile away from her home to kneel there before the sunlit sanctuary to meditate on sweet mysteries
the open gangways the great mace on the table and heard above the murmur of the crowd outside and the dying whispers within her own heart beat she could not see him she knew he would come in from beneath through the door that none but he might use
straight into the seat beneath the canopy but she would hear his voice that must be joy enough for her ah there was silence now outside the soft roar had died he had come then
and through swimming eyes she saw the long ridges of heads rise beneath her and through drumming ears heard the murmur of many feet all faces looked this way and she watched them as a mirror to see the reflected light of his presence
there was a gentle sobbing somewhere in the air was it her own or another's the click of a door a great mellow booming over head shock after shock as the huge tenor bells tolled their three strokes and in an instant
over the white faces passed a ripple as if some breeze of passion shook the souls within there was a swaying here and there
edison his life and inventions
by the rational compromise with england in the dispute over the oregon region president polk had secured during eighteen forty six for undisturbed settlement three hundred thousand square miles of forest fertile land and fisheries
south of oregon and west of the rocky mountains added by treaty to the united states thus in about eighteen months there had been pieced into the national domain for quick development and exploitation
a region as large as the entire union of thirteen states at the close of the war of independence moreover within its boundaries was embraced all the great american gold field just on the eve of discovery for marshall had detected the shining particles in the mill race
at the foot of the sierra nevada nine days before mexico signed away her rights in california and in all the vague remote hinterland facing cathayward equally momentous were the times in europe where the attempt to secure opportunities of expansion
as well as larger liberty for the individual took quite different form the old absolutist system of government was fast breaking up and ancient thrones were tottering the red lava of deep revolutionary fires oozed up through many glowing cracks in the political crust
and all the social strata were shaken that the wild outbursts of insurrection midway in the fifth decade failed and died away was not surprising for the superincumbent deposits of tradition and convention were thick
but the retrospect indicates that many reforms and political changes were accomplished although the process involved the exile of not a few ardent spirits to america to become leading statesmen inventors
in eighteen forty seven too russia began her tremendous march eastward into central asia just as france was solidifying her first gains on the littoral of northern africa in england the fierce fervor of the chartist movement
with its violent rhetoric as to the rights of man was sobering down and passing pervasively into numerous practical schemes for social and political amelioration constituting in their entirety a most profound change throughout every part of the national life
into such times thomas alva edison was born and his relations to them and to the events of the past sixty years are the subject of this narrative aside from the personal interest that attaches to the picturesque career so typically american
there is a broader aspect in which the work of the franklin of the nineteenth century touches the welfare and progress of the race it is difficult at any time to determine the effect of any single invention and the investigation becomes more difficult
where inventions of the first class have been crowded upon each other in rapid and bewildering succession but it will be admitted that in edison one deals with a central figure of the great age that saw the invention and introduction in practical form of the telegraph
the submarine cable the telephone the electric light the electric railway the electric trolley car the storage battery the electric motor the phonograph the wireless telegraph
and that the influence of these on the world's affairs has not been excelled at any time by that of any other corresponding advances in the arts and sciences these pages deal with edison's share in the great work of the last half century
in abridging distance communicating intelligence lessening toil improving illumination recording forever the human voice and on behalf of inventive genius it may be urged
and the revolver guncotton and nitroglycerine added to the agencies for slaughter new metals chemicals and elements had become available in large numbers gases had been liquefied and solidified
and the range of useful heat and cold indefinitely extended the safety lamp had been given to the miner the caisson to the bridge builder the anti friction metal to the mechanic for bearings it was already known how to vulcanize rubber
the gigantic expansion of the iron and steel industry was foreshadowed in the change from wood to coal in the smelting furnaces the sewing machine had brought with it like the friction match one of the most profound influences in modifying domestic life
and making it different from that of all preceding time even in eighteen forty seven few of these things had lost their novelty most of them were in the earlier stages of development but it is when we turn to electricity
that the rich virgin condition of an illimitable new kingdom of discovery is seen perhaps the word utilization or application is better than discovery
for then as now an endless wealth of phenomena noted by experimenters from gilbert to franklin and faraday awaited the invention that could alone render them useful to mankind the eighteenth century
keenly curious and ceaselessly active in this fascinating field of investigation had not after all left much of a legacy in either principles or appliances the lodestone and the compass the frictional machine the leyden jar
the nature of conductors and insulators the identity of electricity and the thunder storm flash the use of lightning rods the physiological effects of an electrical shock these constituted the bulk of the bequest
to which philosophers were the only heirs pregnant with possibilities were many of the observations that had been recorded but these few appliances made up the meagre kit of tools with which the nineteenth century entered upon its task of acquiring the arts and conveniences
now such an intimate part of human nature's daily food that the average american to day pays more for his electrical service than he does for bread with the first year of the new century came volta's invention of the chemical battery
as a means of producing electricity a well known italian picture represents volta exhibiting his apparatus before the young conqueror napoleon then ravishing from the peninsula its treasure of ancient art and founding an ephemeral empire
at such a moment this gift of despoiled italy to the world was a noble revenge setting in motion incalculable beneficent forces and agencies for the first time man had command of a steady supply of electricity without toil or effort
were not much greater than those to be derived from the flight of a rocket while the frictional appliance is still employed in medicine it ranks with the flint axe and the tinder box in industrial obsolescence no art or trade could be founded on it
no diminution of daily work or increase of daily comfort could be secured with it but the little battery with its metal plates in a weak solution proved a perennial reservoir of electrical energy safe and controllable
and while the more extensive of them depend to day on the dynamo for electrical energy some of the most important still remain in loyal allegiance to the older source the battery itself soon underwent modifications and new types were evolved the storage
the double fluid and the dry various analogies next pointed to the use of heat and the thermoelectric cell emerged embodying the application of flame to the junction of two different metals davy of the safety lamp
threw a volume of current across the gap between two sticks of charcoal and the voltaic arc
shed its bright beams upon a dazzled world the decomposition of water by electrolytic action was recognized and made the basis of communicating at a distance even before the days of the electromagnet
the ties that bind electricity and magnetism in twinship of relation and interaction were detected and faraday's work in induction gave the world at once the dynamo and the motor hitch your wagon to a star said emerson
to all the coal fields and all the waterfalls faraday had directly hitched the wheels of industry not only was it now possible to convert mechanical energy into electricity cheaply and in illimitable quantities
but electricity at once showed its ubiquitous availability as a motive power boats were propelled by it cars were hauled and even papers printed electroplating became an art
and telegraphy sprang into active being on both sides of the atlantic at the time edison was born in eighteen forty seven telegraphy upon which he was to leave so indelible an imprint had barely struggled into acceptance by the public
in england wheatstone and cooke had introduced a ponderous magnetic needle telegraph in america in eighteen forty morse had taken out his first patent on an electromagnetic telegraph
the principle of which is dominating in the art to this day four years later the memorable message what hath god wrought was sent by young miss ellsworth over his circuits and incredulous washington was advised by wire
of the action of the democratic convention in baltimore in nominating polk by eighteen forty seven circuits had been strung between washington and new york under private enterprise the government having declined to buy the morse system for one hundred thousand dollars
everything was crude and primitive the poles were two hundred feet apart and could barely hold up a wash line
and the circuit was down for thirty six days in the first six months the little glass knob insulators made seductive targets for ignorant sportsmen attempts to insulate the line wire were limited
to coating it with tar or smearing it with wax for the benefit of all the bees in the neighborhood the farthest western reach of the telegraph lines in eighteen forty seven was pittsburg with three ply iron wire mounted on square glass insulators
with a little wooden pentroof for protection in that office where andrew carnegie was a messenger boy the magnets in use to receive the signals sent with the aid of powerful nitric acid batteries weighed as much as seventy five pounds apiece
but the business was fortunately small at the outset until the new device patronized chiefly by lottery men had proved its utility then came the great outburst of activity
at this memorable date of his life he was one saturday returning from alfredston to marygreen about three o'clock in the afternoon it was fine warm and soft summer weather and he walked with his tools at his back
having promised to call at a flour mill near cresscombe to execute a commission for his aunt he was in an enthusiastic mood he seemed to see his way to living comfortably in christminster in the course of a year or two and knocking at the doors of one of those strongholds of learning
when he considered what he had already done now and then as he went along he turned to face the peeps of country on either side of him but he hardly saw them the act was an automatic repetition of what he had been accustomed to do when less occupied
i have acquired quite an average student's power to read the common ancient classics latin in particular
to beguile his lonely walks by imaginary conversations therein i have read two books of the iliad besides being pretty familiar with passages such as the speech of phoenix in the ninth book the fight of hector and ajax in the fourteenth
the appearance of achilles unarmed and his heavenly armour in the eighteenth and the funeral games in the twenty third
and a lot of the greek testament i wish there was only one dialect all the same i have done some mathematics including the first six and the eleventh and twelfth books of euclid and algebra as far as simple equations i know something of the fathers
and something of roman and english history these things are only a beginning but i shall not make much farther advance here from the difficulty of getting books hence i must next concentrate all my energies on settling in christminster
once there i shall so advance with the assistance i shall there get that my present knowledge will appear to me but as childish ignorance i must save money and i will and one of those colleges shall open its doors to me
shall welcome whom now it would spurn if i wait twenty years for the welcome i'll be d d before i have done
and thought he might become even a bishop by leading a pure energetic wise christian life and what an example he would set
and live sumptuously for him on the remainder well on second thoughts a bishop was absurd he would draw the line at an archdeacon
herodotus aeschylus sophocles aristophanes
plato aristotle lucretius epictetus seneca antoninus then i must master other things the fathers thoroughly
i only know the letters as yet hoity toity but i can work hard i have staying power in abundance thank god and it is that which tells yes christminster shall be my alma mater
and i'll be her beloved son in whom she shall be well pleased in his deep concentration on these transactions of the future jude's walk had slackened and he was now standing quite still
looking at the ground as though the future were thrown thereon by a magic lantern on a sudden something smacked him sharply in the ear and he became aware that a soft cold substance had been flung at him
and had fallen at his feet a glance told him what it was a piece of flesh the characteristic part of a barrow pig which the countrymen used for greasing their boots as it was useless for any other purpose
pigs were rather plentiful hereabout being bred and fattened in large numbers in certain parts of north wessex on the other side of the hedge was a stream whence as he now for the first time realized had come the slight sounds of voices and laughter
that had mingled with his dreams he mounted the bank and looked over the fence on the further side of the stream stood a small homestead having a garden and pig sties attached in front of it beside the brook
three young women were kneeling with buckets and platters beside them containing heaps of pigs chitterlings which they were washing in the running water
and that he was watching them they braced themselves for inspection by putting their mouths demurely into shape and recommencing their rinsing operations with assiduity thank you said jude severely
i didn't throw it i tell you asserted one girl to her neighbour as if unconscious of the young man's presence nor i the second answered oh anny how can you said the third
but capable of passing as such at a little distance despite some coarseness of skin and fibre she had a round and prominent bosom full lips perfect teeth and the rich complexion of a cochin hen's egg she was a complete and substantial female animal
no more no less and jude was almost certain that to her was attributable the enterprise of attracting his attention from dreams of the humaner letters to what was simmering in the minds around him that you'll never be told
whoever did it was wasteful of other people's property oh that's nothing but you want to speak to me i suppose oh yes if you like to
as a woman is singled out in such cases for no reasoned purpose of further acquaintance but in commonplace obedience to conjunctive orders from headquarters
springing to her feet she said bring back what is lying there jude was now aware that no message on any matter connected with her father's business had prompted her signal to him he set down his basket of tools
an adroit little suck to the interior of each of her cheeks in succession
she brought as by magic upon its smooth and rotund surface a perfect dimple which she was able to retain there as long as she continued to smile this production of dimples at will
was a not unknown operation which many attempted but only a few succeeded in accomplishing they met in the middle of the plank and jude tossing back her missile seemed to expect her to explain why she had audaciously stopped him by this novel artillery
instead of by hailing him but she slyly looking in another direction
till moved by amatory curiosity she turned her eyes critically upon him you don't think i would shy things at you oh no
we are doing this for my father who naturally doesn't want anything thrown away he makes that into dubbin she nodded towards the fragment on the grass what made either of the others throw it i wonder
jude asked politely accepting her assertion though he had very large doubts as to its truth impudence don't tell folk it was i mind how can i i don't know your name ah no
shall i tell it to you do arabella donn i'm living here i must have known it if i had often come this way but i mostly go straight along the high road my father is a pig breeder
and these girls are helping me wash the innerds for black puddings and such like they talked a little more and a little more as they stood regarding each other and leaning against the hand rail of the bridge the unvoiced call of woman to man
which was uttered very distinctly by arabella's personality held jude to the spot against his intention almost against his will and in a way new to his experience it is scarcely an exaggeration to say
that till this moment jude had never looked at a woman to consider her as such but had vaguely regarded the sex as beings outside his life and purposes he gazed from her eyes to her mouth thence to her bosom and to her full round naked arms
she said piquantly i don't suppose i could he answered that's for you to think on there's nobody after me just now though there med be in a week or two she had spoken this without a smile and the dimples disappeared
and repeating the odd little sucking operation before mentioned jude being still unconscious of more than a general impression of her appearance next sunday he hazarded to morrow that is yes
shall i call yes she brightened with a little glow of triumph swept him almost tenderly with her eyes in turning and retracing her steps down the brookside grass rejoined her companions
jude fawley shouldered his tool basket and resumed his lonely way filled with an ardour at which he mentally stood at gaze he had just inhaled a single breath from a new atmosphere which had evidently been hanging round him everywhere he went
for he knew not how long but had somehow been divided from his actual breathing as by a sheet of glass the intentions as to reading working and learning which he had so precisely formulated only a few minutes earlier
who had drawn him to her which made it necessary that he should assert mere sportiveness on his part as his reason in seeking her something in her quite antipathetic to that side of him which had been occupied with literary study and the magnificent christminster dream
it had been no vestal who chose that missile for opening her attack on him he saw this with his intellectual eye just for a short fleeting while
as by the light of a falling lamp one might momentarily see an inscription on a wall before being enshrouded in darkness and then this passing discriminative power was withdrawn
and jude was lost to all conditions of things in the advent of a fresh and wild pleasure that of having found a new channel for emotional interest hitherto unsuspected though it had lain close beside him
catched un my dear laconically asked the girl called anny i don't know i wish i had thrown something else than that regretfully murmured arabella lord he's nobody though you med think so
till he prenticed himself at alfredston since then he's been very stuck up and always reading he wants to be a scholar they say oh i don't care what he is or anything about n don't you think it my child oh don't ye
what did you stay talking to him for if you didn't want un whether you do or whether you don't he's as simple as a child
meng wu asked whether tzu lu had love
a land of a thousand chariots might give yu charge of its levies
ch'ang is passionate how can he be firm eleven tzu kung said
a man begged him for vinegar
twenty six
twenty seven
butter cheese coffee tea
first importance that every thing connected with milk and butter should be kept clean if the milk acquires an unpleasant taste it communicates it to the butter tin pans are best to keep milk in
and they should be painted on the outside to keep them from rusting when they are put in water in summer milk should be kept as cool as possible before it is strained the pans and strainer should be rinsed with cold water and the milk not covered until it is cold
if you have no way of keeping your cream cool in hot weather it ought to be churned twice a week the earlier in the morning the better always put cold water in your churn the night before you use it and change it in the morning just before you put in the cream
when the butter is gathering take off the lid of the churn to let the heated air escape and move it gently have your butter ladle and pan scalded and cooled take out the butter and work it till all the milk is out scrape some lumps of salt and work in
it is best to have one kettle or basket to put the butter in that is used at the table it should be deep enough to hold five or six plates each covered with a saucer it can be kept in this way as firm and sweet as in an ice house
if you have a safe to keep it in it need not be covered cream takes much longer to rise in winter after it has stood two days to put it on the top of a moderately heated stove will assist it when it is hot set it away to skim the next day
when the cream will be thick and rich and churns easier if the weather is very cold and the cream has been chilled have a large pot of water over the fire set in the bucket when it is near boiling heat and keep stirring till it is milk warm have the churn scalded and put it in
one good working answers very well for butter in winter always scald the churn before you put in the cream in cold weather to put up butter for winter work it well and salt it rather more than for table use
use one ounce of this composition to every pound of butter work it well into the mass butter cured in this way it is said will keep good for several years i have never kept it longer than from the fall until late in the spring
it was then very sweet and good it will not do to use for a month because earlier the salts will not be sufficiently blended with it it should be kept in wooden vessels or nice stone jars earthen ware jars are not suitable for butter
as during the decomposition of the salts they corrode the glazing and the butter becomes rancid and unhealthy a friend of mine and a lady of much experience remarked on reading the above
begin by putting a layer of the prints in the bottom of a stone pot press the butter down close so that no cavities for the admission of air may remain then strew more of the mixture over it proceed in this manner until the vessel is filled
when put on the top a small muslin bag filled with salt and tie the jar up close it is very important to keep the butter in a cool place a great deal depends on the butter being well worked persons that have large dairies should always have a machine to work it
a large churning may be more effectually cleared of the butter milk in a few minutes than in the old way in an hour by doing it quickly it does not get soft and oily in hot weather a pickle for butter
to three gallons of water add four and a half pounds of good brown sugar one and a half ounces of saltpetre one ounce of salaeratus put them into an iron pot and let them come to a boil take off the scum when cold it is ready for use
when the pickle is entirely cold pour it over and put a plate on the top with a weight on it to keep the butter under tie it up close and keep it in a cold place when a roll is wanted take it out of the bag and slice it off for table use
it should be put on little plates and each covered with a saucer to exclude the air if the butter is good when put up in the fall it will keep till you can get grass butter in the spring the jars for this purpose should not have been previously used for pickles
when it is near boiling put it in the tub with the new milk and the rest of the night's milk it should be rather more than milk warm
wash and wipe the vat put in a clean cloth and turn in the cheese upside down
you may make cheese twice a week and still have butter for the family you should keep four thin cloths on purpose for cheese pennsylvania cream cheese the cheese called by this name is not in reality made of cream
spread a thin linen cloth over the top and as the whey rises dip it off with a saucer put the curd as whole as possible into a cheese hoop about the size of a dinner plate first spreading a wet cloth inside then fold the cloth smoothly over the top
put a weight on the top heavy enough to make the whey drain out gradually in six or seven hours it will be ready to take out of the press when rub it over with fine salt set it in a dry dark place change it from one plate to another twice a day
and it will be fit for use in less than a week to prepare rennet for making whey or cheese when the rennet is taken from the calf wash it lay it on a plate well covered with salt
put more on in two days keep it in a cold place in three or four days it will do to stretch on sticks hang it up in a dry cool place with as much salt as will stick to it when quite dry put it in a paper bag and hang it up
the same piece salted and dried will do several times cottage cheese or smearcase
or in a pot of water that is boiling over the fire when the whey has risen sufficiently pour it through a colander and put the curd or cheese away in a cold place and just before going to table season it with salt and pepper to your taste and pour some sweet cream over it
and stirred in the coffee when half cold and well mixed through it are sufficient to clear two pounds and is the most economical way of using eggs it will answer either for summer or winter
many persons use coffee roasters but some old experienced housekeepers think that the fine flavor flies off more than when done in a dutch oven and constantly stirred if you are careful it can be done very well in the dripping pan of a stove
put about two pounds in a pan stir it a few times it will roast gradually and if not sufficiently brown finish in a stove or before the fire
if you have a large family by using several pans six pounds of coffee can thus be roasted and but little time spent on it boiling coffee a large tea cupful of unground coffee will be sufficient for six persons
unless they take it very strong which is injurious to health grind it and put it in the tin pot with half a tea cup of cold water and the white of half an egg shake it till it is mixed then pour boiling water on it and let it stand close to the fire
and just come to a boil stir it and do not let it boil over let it keep at boiling heat five or ten minutes then take it from the fire and put in half a tea cup of water to settle it let it stand five minutes and pour it off
persons with weak nerves should never drink strong tea and coffee i have known instances of persons being afflicted with violent attacks of nervous head ache
and their general health was also improved by it before pouring out tea it should be stirred with a spoon that the strength of each cup may be alike milk is the best drink for children but if that cannot be had sweetened water with a little milk will do
when it boils stir in a heaped table spoonful of the above preparation dissolved in a tea cup of water keep stirring it until it boils again when pour it out drink it with sugar and cream to your taste
the master said love makes a spot beautiful who chooses not to dwell in love has he got wisdom two the master said loveless men cannot bear need long they cannot bear fortune long
three the master said
or hate others four the master said
the master said a man and his faults are of a piece by watching his faults we learn whether love be his eight the master said
in spite of such obstinacies as he now knew them inherently to possess was a herculean performance which gradually led him on to a greater interest in it than in the presupposed patent process
the mountain weight of material under which the ideas lay in those dusty volumes called the classics piqued him into a dogged mouselike subtlety of attempt to move it piecemeal
he had endeavoured to make his presence tolerable to his crusty maiden aunt by assisting her to the best of his ability and the business of the little cottage bakery had grown in consequence
an aged horse with a hanging head had been purchased for eight pounds at a sale a creaking cart with a whity brown tilt obtained for a few pounds more and in this turn out it became jude's business thrice a week to carry loaves of bread to the villagers
its interior was the scene of most of jude's education by private study as soon as the horse had learnt the road and the houses at which he was to pause awhile the boy seated in front would slip the reins over his arm ingeniously fix open
by means of a strap attached to the tilt the volume he was reading spread the dictionary on his knees and plunge into the simpler passages from caesar virgil or horace as the case might be in his purblind stumbling way
and with an expenditure of labour that would have made a tender hearted pedagogue shed tears yet somehow getting at the meaning of what he read and divining rather than beholding the spirit of the original
the only copies he had been able to lay hands on were old delphin editions because they were superseded and therefore cheap
may have had little chance of becoming a scholar by these rough and ready means he was in the way of getting into the groove he wished to follow while he was busied with these ancient pages which had already been thumbed by hands possibly in the grave
he was frequently met in the lanes by pedestrians and others without his seeing them and by degrees the people of the neighbourhood began to talk about his method of combining work and play such they considered his reading to be which
though probably convenient enough to himself was not altogether a safe proceeding for other travellers along the same roads there were murmurs
and insisted that it was the constable's duty to catch him in the act and take him to the police court at alfredston and get him fined for dangerous practices on the highway the policeman thereupon lay in wait for jude and one day accosted him and cautioned him
as jude had to get up at three o'clock in the morning to heat the oven and mix and set in the bread that he distributed later in the day he was obliged to go to bed at night immediately after laying the sponge so that if he could not read his classics on the highways
on a day when fawley was getting quite advanced being now about sixteen
he stopped the horse alighted and glancing round to see that nobody was in sight knelt down on the roadside bank with open book he turned first to the shiny goddess who seemed to look so softly and critically at his doings
then to the disappearing luminary on the other hand as he began phoebe
it had all come of reading heathen works exclusively the more he thought of it the more convinced he was of his inconsistency he began to wonder whether he could be reading quite the right books for his object in life
certainly there seemed little harmony between this pagan literature and the mediaeval colleges at christminster that ecclesiastical romance in stone
ultimately he decided that in his sheer love of reading he had taken up a wrong emotion for a christian young man he had dabbled in clarke's homer but had never yet worked much at the new testament in the greek though he possessed a copy
obtained by post from a second hand bookseller he abandoned the now familiar ionic for a new dialect and for a long time onward limited his reading almost entirely to the gospels and epistles in griesbach's text
as another outcome of this change of groove he visited on sundays all the churches within a walk and deciphered the latin inscriptions on fifteenth century brasses and tombs on one of these pilgrimages
food clothing and shelter an income from any work in preparing the first would be too meagre for making the second he felt a distaste
he inclined to they built in a city therefore he would learn to build he thought of his unknown uncle his cousin susanna's father an ecclesiastical worker in metal and somehow
mediaeval art in any material was a trade for which he had rather a fancy he could not go far wrong in following his uncle's footsteps and engaging himself awhile with the carcases that contained the scholar souls
here jude had the opportunity of learning at least the rudiments of freestone working some time later he went to a church builder in the same place and under the architect's direction became handy at restoring the dilapidated masonries of several village churches round about
chapter fourteen star surgeon it was amazing to dal timgar just how good it seemed to be back on hospital earth again
the seasons had changed and the port of philadelphia lay under the steaming summer sun as dal stepped off the shuttle ship to join the hurrying crowds in the great space port it seemed almost as though he were coming home
he thought for a moment of the night not so long before when he had waited here for the shuttle to hospital seattle to attend the meeting of the medical training council he had worn no uniform then
not even the collar and cuff of the probationary physician and he remembered his despair that night when he had thought that his career as a physician from hospital earth was at an end
now he was returning by shuttle from hospital seattle to the port of philadelphia again completing the cycle that had been started many months before but things were different now
the scarlet cape of the red service of surgery hung from his slender shoulders now and the light of the station room caught the polished silver emblem on his collar it was a tiny bit of metal
but its significance was enormous it announced to the world dal timgar's final and permanent acceptance as a physician but more it symbolized the far reaching distances he had already traveled
and would travel again in the service of hospital earth it was the silver star of the star surgeon the week just past had been both exciting and confusing
the hospital ship had arrived five hours after black doctor hugo tanner had recovered from his anaesthesia moving in on the lancet in frantic haste
and starting the shipment of special surgical supplies anaesthetics and maintenance equipment across in lifeboats almost before contact had been stabilized a large passenger boat hurtled away from the hospital ship's side
carrying a pair of four star surgeons half a dozen three star surgeons two radiologists two internists a dozen nurses and another four star black doctor across to the lancet and when they arrived at the patrol ship's entrance lock
they discovered that their haste had been in vain it was like grand rounds in the general wards of hospital philadelphia with the four star surgeons in the lead as they tramped aboard the patrol ship
they found black doctor tanner sitting quietly at his bedside reading a journal of pathology and taking notes he glared up at them when they burst in the door without even knocking but are you feeling well sir
you mean you permitted a probationary physician to perform this kind of surgery the four star surgeon cried incredulously i did not the black doctor snapped he had to drag me kicking and screaming into the operating room
but fortunately for me this particular probationary physician had the courage of his convictions as well as wit enough to realize that i would not survive if he waited for you to gather your army together
but i think you will find the surgery was handled with excellent skill again i must refer you to doctor timgar for the details i was not paying attention to the technique of the surgery i assure you but sir the chief surgeon broke in
how could there have been surgery of any sort here the dispatch that came to us listed the lancet as a plague ship plague ship the black doctor exploded
the doctors examined him within an inch of his life they exhausted every means of physical laboratory and radiological examination short of re opening his chest and looking in
and at last the chief surgeon was forced reluctantly to admit that there was nothing left for him to do but provide post operative follow up care for the irascible old man and by the time the examination was over and the black doctor was moved aboard the hospital ship
immediately to the medical training council at hospital seattle upon arrival in order to give their formal general practice patrol reports and to receive their appointments respectively as star physician star diagnostician
and star surgeon the orders were signed with the personal mark of hugo tanner physician of the black service of pathology now the ceremony and celebration in hospital seattle were over
he had expected to see black doctor arnquist at the investment ceremonies but there had been neither sign nor word from him dal tried to reach him after the ceremonies were over all he could learn was that the black doctor was unavailable
and then a message had come through to dal under the official hospital earth headquarters priority requesting him to present himself at once at the grand council building at hospital philadelphia for an interview of the utmost importance
he followed the directions on the dispatch now and reached the grand council building well ahead of the appointed time he followed corridors and rode elevators until he reached the twenty second story office suite where he had been directed to report
the whole building seemed alive with bustle as though something of enormous importance was going on high ranking physicians of all the services were hurrying about gathering in little groups at the elevators and talking among themselves in hushed voices
even more strange dal saw delegation after delegation of alien creatures moving through the building some in the special atmosphere maintaining devices necessary for their survival on earth
some characteristically alone and unaccompanied others in the company of great retinues of underlings dal paused in the main concourse of the building as he saw two such delegations arrive by special car from the port of philadelphia
odd he said quietly reaching in to stroke fuzzy's head
what do you think last time i saw a gathering like this was back at home during one of the centennial conclaves of the galactic confederation on the twenty second floor a secretary ushered him into an inner office
i'll be in touch with you directly he waited until the others had departed then he crossed the room and practically hugged dal in delight it's good to see you boy he said and above all
it's good to see that silver star at last you and your little pink friend have done a good job a far better job than i thought you would do i must admit dal perched fuzzy on his shoulder but
what is this about an interview why did you want to see me and what are all these people doing here doctor arnquist laughed don't worry he said you won't have to stay for the council meeting
as a four star black doctor to have to sit and listen and smile through it all but in the end it will be worth it and i thought that you should at least know that your name will be mentioned many times during these sessions
my name you didn't know that you were a guinea pig did you the black doctor said i i'm afraid i didn't an unwitting tool so to speak the black doctor chuckled
you know of course that the galactic confederation has been delaying and stalling any action on hospital earth's application for full status as one of the confederation powers and for a seat on the council
we had fulfilled two criteria for admission without difficulty we had resolved our problems at home so that we were free from war on our own planet and we had a talent that is much needed
and badly in demand in the galaxy a job to do that would fit into the confederation's organization but the confederation has always had a third criterion for its membership
a criterion that hospital earth could not so easily prove or demonstrate the black doctor smiled after all there could be no place in a true confederation of worlds for any one race of people that
considered itself superior to all the rest no race can be admitted to the confederation until its members have demonstrated that they are capable of tolerance willing to accept the members of other races on an equal footing
and it has always been the nature of earthmen to be intolerant to assume that one who looks strange and behaves differently must somehow be inferior
the black doctor crossed the room and opened a folder on the desk you can read the details some other time if you like you were selected by the galactic confederation from a thousand possible applicants
to serve as a test case to see if a place could be made for you on hospital earth no one here was told of your position not even you although certain of us suspected the truth
the confederation wanted to see if a well qualified likeable and intelligent creature from another world would be accepted and elevated to equal rank as a physician with earthmen
dal stared at him and i was the one you were the one it was a struggle all right but hospital earth has finally satisfied the confederation
at the end of this conclave we will be admitted to full membership and given a permanent seat and vote in the galactic council our probationary period will be over but
enough of that what about you what are your plans what do you propose to do now that you have that star on your collar they talked then about the future
while jack was accepting a temporary teaching post in the great diagnostic clinic at hospital philadelphia there were a dozen things that dal had considered but for the moment
he wanted only to travel from medical center to medical center on hospital earth observing and studying in order to decide how he would best like to use his abilities and his position as a physician from hospital earth
it will be in surgery of course he said just where in surgery or what kind i don't know just yet but there will be time enough to decide that then go along doctor arnquist said
with my congratulations and blessing you have taught us a great deal and perhaps you have learned some things at the same time dal hesitated for a moment then he nodded
i've learned some things he said but there's still one thing that i want to do before i go he lifted his little pink friend gently down from his shoulder and rested him in the crook of his arm
fuzzy looked up at him blinking his shoe button eyes happily you asked me once to leave fuzzy with you and i refused i couldn't see then how i could possibly do without him even the thought was frightening
but now i think i've changed my mind he reached out and placed fuzzy gently in the black doctor's hand i want you to keep him he said i don't think i'll need him any more i'll miss him
but i think it would be better if i don't have him now be good to him and let me visit him once in a while the black doctor looked at dal and then lifted fuzzy up to his own shoulder
for a moment the little creature shivered as if afraid then he blinked twice at dal trustingly and snuggled in comfortably against the black doctor's neck without a word dal turned and walked out of the office
he smiled as he stepped from the elevator into the main lobby and crossed through the crowd to the street doors
chapter eight plague in the control room the interstellar radio and teletype translator were silent the red light on the call board was still blinking tiger turned it off with a snap
here's the message that just came in as near as i can make out he said and if you can make sense of it you're way ahead of me the message was a single word teletyped in the center of a blue dispatch sheet
greetings this is all jack said that's every bit of it they repeated it half a dozen times just like that who repeated it dal asked where are the identification symbols
our own computer designated thirty one brucker from the direction and intensity of the signal
the message stared up at them cryptically dal shook his head doesn't give us much to go on that's certain even the location could be wrong if the signal came in on an odd frequency or from a long distance
who are you and what do you want there was a long delay and they thought the contact was lost then a voice came whispering through the static where is your ship now
who are you again a long pause and a howl of static then if you are far away it will be too late we have no time left we are dying
abruptly the voice message broke off and co ordinates began coming through between bursts of static tiger scribbled them down piecing them together through several repetitions check these out fast he told jack
there was a much longer pause then the voice came back no we have no contract we are all dying but if you must have a contract to come
we're coming keep your frequency open we will contact again when we are closer
did you hear that a planet calling for help with no hospital earth contract they sound desperate dal said we'd better go there contract or no contract of course we'll go there you idiot
see if jack has those co ordinates charted and start digging up information on them everything you can find
this is our golden chance to seal a contract with a new planet all three of the doctors fell to work trying to identify the mysterious caller
tiger was right this was almost too good to be true when a planet without a medical service contract called a g p p ship for help there was always hope that a brand new contract might be signed if the call was successful
many star systems had never been explored by ships of the confederation many races like earthmen at the time their star drive was discovered had no inkling of the existence of a galactic confederation of worlds
there might be no information whatever about the special anatomical and physiological characteristics of the inhabitants of an uncontacted planet and often a patrol crew faced insurmountable difficulties
coming in blind to solve a medical problem dal had his information gathered first a disappointingly small amount indeed
is this all you could find tiger said staring at the information slips there's just nothing else there dal said this one is a description and classification of the star and it doesn't sound like the one who wrote it had even been near it
he hadn't tiger said this is a routine radio telescopic survey report the star is a red giant big and cold with three possibly four planets inside the outer envelope of the star itself and only one outside it
nothing about satellites none of the planets thought to be habitable by man what's the other item an exploratory report on the outer planet done eight hundred years ago says it's an earth type planet and not much else
gives reference to the full report in the confederation files not a word about an intelligent race living there well maybe jack's got a bit more for us tiger said
but jack also came up with a blank central records on hospital earth sent back a physical description of a tiny outer planet of the star with a thin oxygen nitrogen atmosphere very little water
and enough methane mixed in to make the atmosphere deadly to earthmen then there's never been a medical service contract tiger asked contract jack said it doesn't even say there are any people there
not a word about any kind of life form well that's ridiculous dal said if we're getting messages from there somebody must be sending them but if a confederation ship explored there there's a way to find out
how soon can we convert to star drive as soon as we can get strapped down tiger said
and request the confederation records on the place jack stared at him you mean just ask to see confederation records we can't do that they'd skin us alive
those records are closed to everyone except full members of the confederation tell them it's an emergency dal said if they want to be legal about it give them my confederation serial number garv two is a member of the confederation and i'm a native born citizen
tiger got the request off while jack and dal strapped down for the conversion to koenig drive five minutes later tiger joined them grinning from ear to ear didn't even have to pull rank he said
and even dal was beginning to feel the first pangs of drive sickness before they felt the customary jolting vibration of the change to normal space and saw bright stars again in the viewscreen
the star called thirty one brucker was close then it was indeed a red giant long tenuous plumes of gas spread out for hundreds of millions of miles on all sides of its glowing red core
this mammoth star did not look so cold now as they stared at it in the viewscreen yet among the family of stars it was a cold dying giant with only a few moments of life left on the astronomical time scale
already the radio was chattering with two powerful signals coming in one came from the galactic confederation headquarters on garv two the other was a good clear signal from very close range
unquestionably beamed to them from the planet in distress they watched as the confederation report came clacking off the teletype and they stared at it unbelieving it just doesn't make sense jack said
you can't tell me that any intelligent race could develop from scratch in less than eight centuries time dal picked up the report and read it again this red giant star he read was studied in the usual fashion
it was found to have seven planets all but one lying within the tenuous outer gas envelope of the star itself the seventh planet has an atmosphere of its own and travels an orbit well outside the star surface
this planet was selected for landing and exploration following this was a long detailed and exceedingly dull description of the step by step procedure followed by a confederation exploratory ship making a first landing on a barren planet
there was a description of the atmosphere the soil surface the land masses and major water bodies physically the planet was a desert hot and dry and barren of vegetation excepting in two or three areas of jungle along the equator
the planet is inhabited by numerous small unintelligent animal species which seem well adapted to the semi arid conditions of higher animals and mammals only two species were discovered
and the intelligence level of a garvian drachma how small is that jack said idiot level dal said glumly i q of about twenty on the human scale
i guess the explorers weren't much impressed they didn't even put the planet down for a routine colonization survey well something has happened down there since then idiots can't build interstellar radios jack turned to tiger
are you getting them tiger nodded a voice was coming over the speaker hesitant and apologetic using the common tongue of the galactic confederation how soon can you come
the voice was asking clearly still with the sound of great reticence there is not much time but who are you tiger asked what's wrong down there we are sick dying thousands of us
we will be glad to help but we need information about you you have our position can you send up a spokesman to tell us your problem a long pause and then the voice came back wearily it will be done
and that could mean a star for every one of us yes but who are they dal said and where were they when the confederation ship was here i don't know jack said
but i'll bet you both that we have quite a time finding out why tiger said
i mean we'd better be very careful here jack said darkly i don't know about you but i think this whole business has a very strange smell there was nothing strange about the bruckian ship when it finally came into view
it was a standard design surface launching interplanetary craft with separated segments on either side suggesting atomic engines they saw the side jets flare as the ship maneuvered to come in alongside the lancet
and jack threw the switches to open the entrance lock and decontamination chambers
and warn the spokesman to keep himself in a sealed pressure suit
moments later the creature stepped out of the decontamination chamber he was small and humanoid with tiny fragile bones and pale hairless skin he stood no more than four feet high
more than anything else he looked like a very intelligent monkey with a diminutive space suit fitting his fragile body when he spoke the words came through the translator in english
but dal recognized the flowing syllables of the universal language of the galactic confederation how do you know the common tongue he said there is no record of your people in our confederation yet you use our own universal language
the bruckian nodded we know the language well my people dread outside contact it is a racial characteristic but we hear the confederation broadcasts and have learned to understand the common tongue
the space suited stranger looked at the doctors one by one we also know of the good works of the ships from hospital earth and now we appeal to you why jack said
you gave us no information nothing to go on there was no time the creature said death is stalking our land and the people are falling at their plows thousands of us are dying tens
of thousands even i am infected and soon will be dead unless you can find a way to help us quickly it will be too late and my people will be wiped from the face of the planet
jack looked grimly at tiger and dal well he said i guess that answers our question all right
when this had been done they felt safe and began to act as if they had been a menagerie of wild beasts let loose upon a body of defenceless men women and children not only did these wretched men rush into the houses stealing everything valuable they could find and were able to carry away
but when they had gathered together all they could discover they tortured their poor prisoners by every cruel method they could think of in order to make them tell where more treasures were concealed many of these unfortunates had had nothing to hide
and therefore could give no information to their brutal inquisitors and others died without telling what they had done with their valuables when the town had been thoroughly searched and sifted the pirates sent men out
into the little villages and plantations in the country and even hunters and small farmers were captured and made to give up everything they possessed which was worth taking for nearly three weeks these outrageous proceedings continued
and to prove that they were lower than the brute beasts they allowed the greater number of the prisoners collected in the church to perish of hunger there were not provisions enough in the town for the pirates own uses and for these miserable creatures also and so
with the exception of a small quantity of mule flesh which many of the prisoners could not eat they got nothing whatever and slowly starved when l'olonnois and his friends had been in possession of gibraltar for about a month
they thought it was time to leave but their greedy souls were not satisfied with the booty they had already obtained and they therefore sent messages to the spaniards who were still concealed in the forests
that unless in the course of two days a ransom of ten thousand pieces of eight were paid to them they would burn the town to the ground no matter what they thought of this heartless demand it was not easy for the scattered citizens to collect such a sum as this
and the two days passed without the payment of the ransom and the relentless pirates promptly carried out their threat and set the town on fire in various places when the poor spaniards saw this and perceived that they were about to lose even their homes
but they were not extinguished until a quarter of the town was entirely burned and a fine church reduced to ashes when the buccaneers found they could squeeze nothing more out of the town they went on board their ships carrying with them all the plunder and booty they had collected
and among their spoils were about five hundred slaves of all ages and both sexes who had been offered an opportunity to ransom themselves but who of course had no money with which to buy their freedom and who were now condemned to a captivity
worse than anything they had ever known before now the eight ships with their demon crews sailed away over the lake toward maracaibo it was quite possible for them to get out to sea without revisiting this unfortunate town
and then he sent some messengers ashore to inform the already half ruined citizens that unless they sent him thirty thousand pieces of eight he would enter their town again carry away everything they had left and burn the place to the ground the poor citizens
sent a committee to confer with the pirates and while the negotiations were going on some of the conscienceless buccaneers went on shore and carried off from one of the great churches its images pictures and even its bells
it was at last arranged that the citizens should pay twenty thousand pieces of eight which was the utmost sum they could possibly raise and in addition to this five hundred head of beef cattle
and the pirates promised that if this were done they would depart and molest the town no more the money was paid the cattle were put on board the ships and to the unspeakable relief of the citizens
there was nothing on earth that they would be so glad to furnish him as a pilot to show him how to sail away from their shores the pilot was instantly sent to the fleet and l'olonnois and his devastating band departed
they did not go directly to tortuga but stopped at a little island near hispaniola which was inhabited by french buccaneers and this delay was made entirely for the purpose of dividing the booty
it seems strange that any principle of right and justice should have been regarded by these dishonest knaves even in their relations to each other but they had rigid rules in regard to the division of their spoils
and according to these curious regulations the whole amount of plunder was apportioned among the officers and crews of the different ships before the regular allotment of shares was made
the claims of the wounded were fully satisfied according to their established code for the loss of a right arm a man was paid about six hundred dollars or six slaves for the loss of a left arm five hundred dollars or five slaves
five hundred dollars or five slaves
for a missing left leg four hundred dollars or four slaves for an eye or a finger one hundred dollars
these latter were apportioned among the men in the most ridiculous manner the pirates having no idea of the relative value of the jewels some of them preferring large and worthless colored stones to smaller diamonds and rubies when all their wickedly gained property had been divided
the pirates sailed to tortuga where they proceeded without loss of time to get rid of the wealth they had amassed they ate they drank they gambled they crowded the taverns as taverns have never been crowded before
they sold their valuable merchandise for a twentieth part of its value to some of the more level headed people of the place and having rioted gambled and committed every sort of extravagance for about three weeks
found themselves as poor as when they had started off on their expedition it took them almost as long to divide their spoils as it did to get rid of them as these precious rascals had now nothing to live upon
it was necessary to start out again and commit some more acts of robbery and ruin and l'olonnois whose rapacious mind seems to have been filled with a desire for town destroying projected an expedition to nicaragua
where he proposed to pillage and devastate as many towns and villages as possible his reputation as a successful commander was now so high that he had no trouble in getting men for more offered themselves than he could possibly take
he departed with seven hundred men and six ships stopping on the way near the coast of cuba and robbing some poor fishermen of their boats which he would need in shallow water
their voyage was a very long one and they were beset by calms and instead of reaching nicaragua they drifted into the gulf of honduras here they found themselves nearly out of provisions
and were obliged to land and scour the country to find something to eat leaving their ships they began a land march through the unfortunate region where they now found themselves they robbed indians they robbed villages
they devastated little towns taking everything that they cared for and burning what they did not want and treating the people they captured with viler cruelties than any in which the buccaneers had yet indulged
their great object was to take everything they could find and then try to make the people confess where other things were hidden men and women were hacked to pieces with swords
to tear out his tongue with his own hands and it is said that on some occasions his fury was so great that he would cut out the heart of a man and bite at it with his great teeth
no more dreadful miseries could be conceived than those inflicted upon the peaceful inhabitants of the country through which these wretches passed
they frequently met ambuscades of spaniards who endeavored to stop their progress but this was impossible the pirates were too strong in number and too savage in disposition to be resisted by ordinary christians and they kept on their wicked way
at last they reached a town called san pedro which was fairly well defended having around it a great hedge of prickly thorns but thorns cannot keep out pirates and after a severe fight
this was given and the time was occupied by the people in running away into the woods and carrying off their valuables but when the two hours had expired l'olonnois and his men entered the town and instead of rummaging around to see what they could find
who did not find provisions enough to feed his men their supplies ran very low and it was not long before they were in danger of starvation consequently they made their way by the most direct course to the coast
where they hoped to be able to get something to eat if they could find nothing else they might at least catch fish on their way every rascal of them prepared himself a net
which grew in abundance in those regions in order that he might catch himself a supper when he reached the sea after a time the buccaneers got back to their fleet and remained on the coast about three months
waiting for some expected spanish ships which they hoped to capture they eventually met with one and after a great deal of ordinary fighting and stratagem they boarded and took her but found her not a very valuable prize
now l'olonnois proposed to his men that they should sail for guatemala but he met with an unexpected obstacle the buccaneers who had enlisted under him had expected to make great fortunes in this expedition
but their high hopes had not been realized they had had very little booty and very little food they were hungry and disappointed and wanted to go home and the great majority of them declined to follow l'olonnois any farther
but there were some who declared that they would rather die than go home to tortuga as poor as when they left it
which he commanded the smaller vessels now departed for tortuga
when they found it absolutely impossible to get their great vessel off the sand banks the pirates set to work to break her up and build a boat out of her planks this was a serious undertaking but it was all they could do
they could not swim away and their ship was of no use to them as she was but when they began to work they had no idea it would take so long to build a boat it was several months before the unwieldy craft was finished
and they occupied part of the time in gardening planting french beans which came to maturity in six weeks and gave them some fresh vegetables
and made bread from some wheat which was among their provisions thus managing to live very well l'olonnois was never intended by nature to be a boat builder or anything else that was useful and honest and when the boat was finished it was discovered
that it had been planned so badly that it would not hold them all so all they could do was to draw lots to see who should embark in her for one half of them would have to stay until the others came back to release them
and reached the mouth of the nicaragua river there his party was attacked by some spaniards and indians who killed more than half of them and prevented the others from landing
and they might now have sailed back to the island where they had left their comrades
but went to the coast of cartagena the pirates left on the island were eventually taken off by a buccaneering vessel but l'olonnois had now reached the end of the string by which the devil had allowed him to gambol on this earth for so long a time
bravos or wild men these people would never have anything to do with the whites it was impossible to conquer them or to pacify them by kind treatment they hated the white man and would have nothing to do with him
they had heard of l'olonnois and his buccaneers and when they found this notorious pirate upon their shores
these bloody pirates had always conquered in their desperate fights because they were so reckless and so savage but now they had fallen among thoroughbred savages more cruel and more brutal and pitiless than themselves
nearly all the buccaneers were killed and l'olonnois was taken prisoner his furious captors tore his living body apart piece by piece and threw each fragment into the fire
of this monster if in his infancy he had died of croup
chapter sixteen a pirate potentate sometime in the last half of the seventeenth century on a quiet farm in a secluded part of wales there was born a little boy baby
his father was a farmer and his mother churned and tended the cows and the chickens and there was no reason to imagine that this gentle little baby born and reared in this rural solitude
would become one of the most formidable pirates that the world ever knew yet such was the case the baby's name was henry morgan and as he grew to be a big boy
so strong was his dislike that when he became a young man he ran away to the seacoast for he had a fancy to be a sailor there he found a ship bound for the west indies and in this he started out on his life's career
he had no money to pay his passage and he therefore followed the usual custom of those days and sold himself for a term of three years to an agent who was taking out a number of men to work on the plantations
in the places where these men were enlisted they were termed servants but when they got to the new world they were generally called slaves and treated as such
when young morgan reached the barbadoes he was resold to a planter and during his term of service he probably worked a good deal harder and was treated much more roughly than any of the laborers on his father's farm
but as soon as he was a free man he went to jamaica and there were few places in the world where a young man could be more free and more independent than in this lawless island here were rollicking and blustering
and here the young man determined to study piracy he was not a sailor and hunter
but he deliberately selected his profession and immediately set to work to acquire a knowledge of its practice there was a buccaneer ship about to sail from jamaica and on this morgan enlisted he was a clever fellow
no other buccaneering vessel was so widely known and so greatly feared and the english people in these regions were as proud of the young captain morgan as if he had been a regularly commissioned admiral cruising against an acknowledged enemy
returning from one of his voyages morgan found an old buccaneer named mansvelt in jamaica who had gathered together a fleet of vessels
this expedition seemed a promising one to morgan and he joined it being elected vice admiral of the fleet of fifteen vessels since the successes of l'olonnois and others attacks upon towns had become very popular with the buccaneers
whose leaders were getting to be tired of the retail branch of their business that is sailing about in one ship and capturing such merchantmen as it might fall in with mansvelt's expedition took with it not only six hundred fighting pirates but one writing pirate
for john esquemeling accompanied it and so far as the fame and reputation of these adventurers was concerned his pen was mightier than their swords for had it not been for his account of their deeds very little about them would have been known to the world
the fleet sailed directly for saint catherine an island near costa rica which was strongly fortified by the spaniards and used by them as a station for ammunition and supplies and also as a prison
they swarmed over the walls and carried the place at the edge of the cutlass and the mouth of the pistol in this fierce fight morgan performed such feats of valor that even some of the spaniards who had been taken prisoners were forced to praise his extraordinary courage
and ability as a leader the buccaneers proceeded to make very good use of their victory they captured some small adjoining islands and brought the cannon from them to the main fortress
he did so with the idea of founding there a permanent pirate principality the inhabitants of which should not consider themselves english french or dutch but plain pirates having a nationality and country of their own
had the seed thus planted by mansvelt and morgan grown and matured it is not unlikely that the whole of the west indies might now be owned and inhabited by an independent nation whose founders were the bold buccaneers
the spanish governor of the province had heard of their approach and met them with a body of soldiers so large that they prudently gave up the attempt a proceeding not very common with them but morgan was not only a dare devil of a pirate
but a very shrewd welshman they returned to the ships and after touching at saint catherine
there was plenty of fresh water and the ground could be cultivated
so that he could hold the island as a regular station for the assembling and fitting out of pirate vessels the permanent pirate colony never came to anything no reenforcements were sent mansvelt died
and the spaniards gathered together a sufficient force to retake the island of saint catherine
this was a blow to morgan
but after the project failed he set about forming another expedition he was now recognized as buccaneer in chief of the west indies and he very soon gathered together twelve ships and seven hundred men everything was made ready to sail
and the only thing left to be done was to decide what particular place they should favor with a visit there were some who advised an attack upon havana giving as a reason that in that city there were a great many nuns monks and priests
and if they could capture them they might ask as ransom for them a sum a great deal larger than they could expect to get from the pillage of an ordinary town but havana was considered to be too strong a place for a profitable venture
at last a deserter from the spanish army who had joined them came forward with a good idea he told the pirates of a town in cuba to which he knew the way it was named
which had been overlooked by the men who had been gathering the crop when morgan's fleet arrived at the nearest harbor to port au prince
but he did not succeed in making a secret attack as he had hoped one of his prisoners a spaniard let himself drop overboard as soon as the vessels cast anchor and swimming ashore
when morgan came within sight of this barricade he understood that the spaniards had discovered his approach and so he called a halt he had always been opposed to unnecessary work
so he left the road marched his men into the woods led them entirely around the barricades and then after proceeding a considerable distance emerged upon a wide plain which lay before the town
here he found that he would have to fight his way into the city and probably much to his surprise his men were presently charged by a body of cavalry pirates as a rule have nothing to do with horses either in peace or war
and the governor of the town no doubt thought that when his well armed horsemen charged upon these men accustomed to fighting on the decks of ships and totally unused to cavalry combats he would soon scatter and disperse them but pirates are peculiar fighters
if they had been attacked from above by means of balloons or from below by mines and explosives they would doubtless have adapted their style of defence to the method of attack they always did this and according to esquemeling they nearly always got the better of their enemies
but we must remember that in cases where they did not succeed as happened when they marched against the town of nata he says very little about the affair and amplifies only the accounts of their successes but the pirates routed the horsemen
and after a fight of about four hours they routed all the other spaniards who resisted them and took possession of the town here they captured a great many prisoners which they shut up in the churches and then sent detachments out into the country to look for those who had run away
then these utterly debased and cruel men began their usual course after capturing a town they pillaged feasted and rioted they gave no thought to the needs of the prisoners whom they had shut up in the churches many of whom starved to death
they tortured the poor people to make them tell where they had hid their treasures and nothing was too vile or too wicked for them to do if they thought they could profit by it they had come for the express purpose of taking everything that the people possessed
one to protect themselves from being carried away into slavery and one to keep their town from being burned the same punishments would be inflicted upon them for two weeks the pirates waited for the unfortunate citizens to go out into the country
and find some of their townsmen who had escaped with a portion of their treasure in those days people did not keep their wealth in banks as they do now but every man was the custodian of most of his own possessions and when they fled from the visitation of an enemy
they took with them everything of value that they could carry if their fortunes had been deposited in banks it would doubtless have been more convenient for the pirates before the citizens returned morgan made a discovery
a negro was captured who carried letters from the governor of santiago a neighboring city
telling them not to be in too great a hurry to pay the ransom demanded by the pirates because he was coming with a strong force to their assistance when morgan read these letters he changed his mind and thought it would be a wise thing not to stay in that region any longer than could be helped
so he decided not to wait for the unfortunate citizens to collect the heavy ransom he demanded but told them that if they would furnish him with five hundred head of cattle and also supply salt and help prepare the meat for shipment he would make no further demands upon them
on which he wished to land in order that they might take an account of stock and divide the profits this the pirates always did as soon as possible after they had concluded one of their nefarious enterprises but his men were not at all satisfied with what happened on the island
morgan estimated the total value of the booty to be about fifty thousand dollars and when this comparatively small sum was divided many of the men complained that it would not give them enough to pay their debts in jamaica they were utterly astonished
that after having sacked an entirely fresh town they should have so little and there is no doubt that many of them believed that their leader was a man who carried on the business of piracy for the purpose of enriching himself while he gave his followers barely enough to keep them quiet
there was however another cause of discontent among a large body of the men it appears that the men were very fond of marrow bones
and took the marrow bones which they cooked and ate while they were fresh one of the men a frenchman had selected a very fine bone and had put it by his side while he was preparing some other tidbits when an englishman came along picked up the bone
and carried it away now even in the chronicles of mother goose we are told of the intimate connection between welshmen thievery and marrow bones for taffy was a welshman taffy was a thief taffy came to my house and stole a leg of beef
i went to taffy's house taffy wasn't home taffy went to my house and stole a marrow bone what happened to taffy we do not know but morgan was a welshman morgan was a thief and one of his men had stolen a marrow bone therefore came trouble
the frenchman challenged the englishman but the latter being a mean scoundrel took advantage of his opponent unfairly stabbed him in the back and killed him now all the frenchmen in the company rose in furious protest
and promised that he would take him to jamaica and deliver him to justice but the frenchmen declined to be satisfied they had received but very little money after they had pillaged a rich town and they believed that their english companions were inclined to take advantage of them in every way
and consequently the greater part of them banded together and deliberately deserted morgan who was obliged to go back to jamaica with not more than half his regular forces
and in her fright and haste to get away ran across the lion's nose roused from his nap the lion laid his huge paw angrily on the tiny creature to kill her
some days later while stalking his prey in the forest the lion was caught in the toils of a hunter's net unable to free himself he filled the forest with his angry roaring
the mouse knew the voice and quickly found the lion struggling in the net running to one of the great ropes that bound him she gnawed it until it parted and soon the lion was free
said the mouse now you see that even a mouse can help a lion a kindness
a shepherd boy tended his master's sheep near a dark forest not far from the village soon he found life in the pasture very dull all he could do
to amuse himself was to talk to his dog or play on his shepherd's pipe one day as he sat watching the sheep and the quiet forest and thinking what he would do should he see a wolf
he thought of a plan to amuse himself his master had told him to call for help should a wolf attack the flock and the villagers would drive it away so now
though he had not seen anything that even looked like a wolf he ran toward the village shouting at the top of his voice wolf wolf as he expected the villagers who heard the cry
dropped their work and ran in great excitement to the pasture but when they got there they found the boy doubled up with laughter at the trick he had played on them a few days later
the shepherd boy again shouted wolf wolf again the villagers ran to help him only to be laughed at again then one evening
as the sun was setting behind the forest and the shadows were creeping out over the pasture a wolf really did spring from the underbrush and fall upon the sheep in terror
the boy ran toward the village shouting wolf wolf but though the villagers heard the cry they did not run to help him as they had before he cannot fool us again
they said the wolf killed a great many of the boy's sheep and then slipped away into the forest liars are not believed even when they speak the truth
a gnat flew over the meadow with much buzzing for so small a creature and settled on the tip of one of the horns of a bull after he had rested a short time
he made ready to fly away but before he left he begged the bull's pardon for having used his horn for a resting place you must be very glad to have me go now he said
it's all the same to me replied the bull i did not even know you were there we are often of greater importance in our own eyes
than in the eyes of our neighbor the smaller the mind
two travellers walking in the noonday sun sought the shade of a widespreading tree to rest as they lay looking up among the pleasant leaves they saw that it was a plane tree
how useless is the plane said one of them it bears no fruit whatever and only serves to litter the ground with leaves ungrateful creatures
said a voice from the plane tree you lie here in my cooling shade and yet you say i am useless thus ungratefully o jupiter do men receive their blessings
chapter twenty one novelty and variety when i look back over thirty years of gardening i see what an extraordinary progress there has been not only in the introduction of good plants new to general cultivation
but also in the home production of improved kinds of old favourites
there has been a remarkable advance and here again though many really beautiful things are being brought forward there seems always to be an undue value assigned to a fresh development on the score of its novelty
now it seems to me that among the thousands of beautiful things already at hand for garden use there is no merit whatever in novelty or variety unless the thing new or different is distinctly more beautiful
or in some such way better than an older thing of the same class and there seems to be a general wish among seed growers just now to dwarf all annual plants
may be a distinct gain to horticulture it may just make a good garden plant out of one that was formerly of indifferent quality but there seems to me to be a kind of stupidity
in inferring from this that all annuals are the better for dwarfing i take it that the bedding system has had a good deal to do with it it no doubt enables ignorant gardeners to use a larger variety of plants
but it is obvious that many if not most of the plants are individually made much uglier by the process take for example one of the dwarfest ageratums
what a silly little dumpy formless pincushion of a thing it is and then the dwarfest of the china asters here is a plant whose chief weakness already lies in a certain over stiffness made stiffer
and more shapeless still by dwarfing and by cramming with too many petals the comet asters of later years are a much improved type of flower with a looser shape and a certain degree of approach to grace and beauty
when this kind came out it was a noteworthy novelty not because it was a novelty but because it was a better and more beautiful thing
the introduction of a better class of red colouring
whose red and pink colourings had hitherto been of a bad and rank quality it is quite true that here and there the dwarf kind is a distinctly useful thing
in this grand plant one is glad to have dwarf ones as well as the old trailing kinds
for the podgy little dwarf snapdragons they are ungraceful little dumpy things
that give them a kind of absurd prettiness and a certain garden value i also look at them as a little floral joke that is harmless and not displeasing
one of the best and most interesting and admirable of garden plants
in a small garden of a type that i thought extremely desirable with a double flower of just the right degree of fulness and of an unusually fine colour i was fortunate enough to get some seed
nor have i ever seen elsewhere any that i think can compare with it
when a zinnia has a hard stiff tall flower with a great many rows of petals piled up one on top of another and when its habit is dwarfed to a mean degree of squatness it looks to me both ugly and absurd
whereas a reasonably double one well branched and two feet high is a handsome plant i also think that stocks and wallflowers are much handsomer when rather tall and branching dwarf stocks moreover
are invariably spattered with soil in heavy autumn rain an example of the improver not knowing where to stop in the matter of colouring always strikes me in the gaillardias
that is increased by division as well as by seed
with a narrow ring of red round the centre the improver has sought to increase the width of the red ring up to a certain point it makes a livelier and brighter looking flower but he has gone too far and extended the red
the red also is of a rather dull and heavy nature so that instead of a handsome yellow flower with a broad central ring here is an ugly red one with a yellow border there is no positive harm done
as the plant has been propagated at every stage of development and one may choose what one will but to see them together is an instructive lesson no annual plant
has of late years been so much improved as the sweet pea and one reason why its charming beauty and scent are so enjoyable is that they grow tall and can be seen on a level with the eye
there can be no excuse whatever for dwarfing this as has lately been done there are already plenty of good flowering plants under a foot high and the little dwarf white monstrosity
now being followed by coloured ones of the same habit seems to me worthy of nothing but condemnation it would be as right and sensible to dwarf a hollyhock into a podgy mass a foot high
or a foxglove happily these have as yet escaped dwarfing though i regret to see that a deformity that not unfrequently appears among garden foxgloves looking like a bell shaped flower
topping a stunted spike appears to have been fixed and is being offered as a novelty here is one of the clearest examples of a new development which is a distinct debasement of a naturally beautiful form
but which is nevertheless being pushed forward in trade it has no merit whatever in itself and is only likely to sell because it is new and curious and all this parade of distortion and deformity
comes about from the grower losing sight of beauty as the first consideration or from his not having the knowledge that would enable him to determine what are the points of character in various plants most deserving of development
and in not knowing when or where to stop abnormal size whether greatly above or much below the average appeals to the vulgar and uneducated eye and will always command its attention and wonderment
but then the production of the immense size that provokes astonishment and the misapplied ingenuity that produces unusual dwarfing are neither of them very high aims
and much as i feel grateful to those who improve garden flowers i venture to repeat my strong conviction that their efforts in selection and other methods should be so directed
as to keep in view the attainment of beauty in the first place and as a point of honour not to mere increase of size of bloom or compactness of habit many plants have been spoilt by excess of both
not for variety or novelty as ends in themselves but only to welcome them and offer them if they are distinctly of garden value in the best sense for if plants are grown or advertised or otherwise pushed
they become of the same nature as any other article in trade that is got up for sale for the sole benefit of the seller that is unduly lauded by advertisement and that makes its first appeal to the vulgar eye
by an exaggerated and showy pictorial representation that will serve no useful purpose and for which there is no true or healthy demand no doubt much of it comes about from the unwholesome pressure of trade competition
which in a way obliges all to follow where some lead i trust
being all bound in a kind of bondage to the general system and there is one great evil that calls loudly for redress
the worship of false gods several times during these notes i have spoken in a disparaging manner of the show table and i have not done so lightly but with all the care and thought and power of observation
that my limited capacity is worth and broadly i have come to this that shows such as those at the fortnightly meetings of the royal horticultural society and their more important one in the early summer
whose object is to bring together beautiful flowers of all kinds to a place where they may be seen are of the utmost value and that any shows anywhere for a like purpose and especially where there are no money prizes
are also sure to be helpful
does this really help the best interests of horticulture and as far as i can see that it does this i think the show right and helpful and whenever it does not i think it harmful and misleading
the love of gardening has so greatly grown and spread within the last few years that the need of really good and beautiful garden flowers is already far in advance of the demand for the so called
florists flowers by which i mean those that find favour in the exclusive shows of societies for the growing and exhibition of such flowers as tulips carnations dahlias and chrysanthemums in support of this i should like to know
what proportion of demand there is in dahlias for instance between the show kinds whose aim and object is the show table and the decorative kinds that are indisputably better for garden use looking at the catalogue
of a leading dahlia nursery i find that the decorative kinds fill ten pages while the show kinds including pompones fill only three
i am of opinion that the show table is unworthily used when its object is to be an end in itself and that it should be only a means to a better end and that when it exhibits what has become merely a fancy
it loses sight of its honourable position as a trustworthy exponent of horticulture and has degenerated to a baser use when as in chrysanthemum shows
no use anywhere but on that board and for the purpose of gaining a money prize i hold that the show table has a debased aim and a debasing influence beauty
in all the best sense is put aside in favour of set rules and measurements and the production of a thing that is of no use or value and individuals of a race of plants capable of producing the highest and most delightful forms of beauty
and of brightening our homes and even gardens during the dim days of early winter are teased and tortured and fatted and bloated into ugly and useless monstrosities for no purpose but to gain money
and when private gardeners go to these shows and see how the prizes are awarded and how all the glory is accorded to the first prize bloated monster can we wonder that the effect on their minds is confusing
if not absolutely harmful shows of carnations and pansies where the older rules prevail are equally misleading
as with the chrysanthemum every sort of trickery is allowed in arranging the petals of the carnation blooms petals are pulled out or stuck in and they are twisted about and groomed and combed and manipulated with special tools
dressed as the show word has it dressed so elaborately that the dressing only stops short of applying actual paint and perfumery already in the case of carnations a better influence is being felt
and at the london shows there are now classes for border carnations set up in long stalked bunches just as they grow it is only like this that their value as outdoor plants can be tested
for many of the show sorts have miserably weak stalks and a very poor lanky habit of growth then the poor pansies have single blooms laid flat on white papers and are only approved
if they will lie quite flat and show an outline of a perfect circle all that is most beautiful in a pansy the wing like curves the waved or slightly fluted radiations the scarcely perceptible
that displays to perfection the admirable delicacy of velvety texture all the little tender tricks and ways that make the pansy one of the best loved of garden flowers all this is overlooked
and not only passively overlooked but overtly contemned the show pansy judge appears to have no eye or brain or heart but to have in their place a pair of compasses with which to describe a circle
all idea of garden delight seems to be excluded as this kind of judging appeals to no recognition of beauty for beauty's sake but to hard systems of measurement
and rigid arrangement and computation that one would think more applicable to astronomy or geometry than to any matter relating to horticulture i do most strongly urge that beauty of the highest class should be the aim
and not anything of the nature of fashion or fancy and that every effort should be made towards the raising rather than the lowering of the standard of taste the societies which exist throughout the country are well organised
many have existed for a great number of years they are the local sources of horticultural education to which large circles of people naturally look for guidance and though they produce and especially the rose shows
quantities of beautiful things it cannot but be perceived by all who have had the benefit of some refinement of education that in very many cases they either deliberately teach or at any rate allow to be seen with their sanction
what cannot fail to be debasing to public taste i will just take two examples to show how obvious methods of leading taste are not only overlooked but even perverted
for it is not only in the individual blooms that much of the show teaching is unworthy but also in the training of the plants so that a plant that by nature has some beauty of form
is not encouraged or even allowed to develop that beauty but is trained into some shape that is not only foreign to its own nature but is absolutely ugly and ungraceful and entirely stupid
the natural habit of the chrysanthemum is to grow in the form of several upright stems they spring up sheaf wise straight upright for a time and only bending a little outwards above to give room for the branching heads of bloom
the stems are rather stiff because they are half woody at the base in the case of pot plants it would seem right only so far to stake or train them as to give the necessary support
so that each stem may lean a little over
when their clustered heads of flower would be given enough room and be seen to the greatest advantage but at shows the triumph of the training art seems to be to drag the poor thing round and round
over an internal scaffolding of sticks with an infinite number of ties and cross braces so that it makes a sort of shapeless ball and to arrange the flowers so that they are equally spotted all over it by tying back some almost to snapping point
i have never seen anything so ugly
trained in this manner such a sight gives me a feeling of shame not unmixed with wrathful indignation i ask myself what is it for
oh it is one of the ways they are trained for shows i ask him does he think it pretty or is it any use and he says well they think it makes a nice variety and when i press him further
the question is beyond him and he smiles vaguely and edges away evidently thinking my conversation perplexing and my company undesirable
and seeming to say we were really a good bit mildewed but have been doctored up for the show by being crammed and stuffed with artificial aliment my second example is that of azalea indica
what is prettier in a room than one of these in its little tree form a true tree with tiny trunk and wide spreading branches and its absurdly large and lovely flowers surely it is the most perfect room ornament
that we can have in tree shape in a moderate sized pot and where else can one see a tree loaded with lovely bloom whose individual flowers have a diameter equal to five times that of the trunk
but the show decrees that all this is wrong and that the tiny brittle branches must be trained stiffly round till the shape of the plant shows as a sort of cylinder again i ask myself what is this for what does it teach
can it be really to teach with deliberate intention that instead of displaying its natural and graceful tree form it should aim at a more desirable kind of beauty such as that of the chimney pot or drain pipe and that this is so important
that it is right and laudable to devote to it much time and delicate workmanship i cannot but think as well as hope that the strong influences for good that are now being brought to bear on all departments of gardening
may reach this class of show for there are already more hopeful signs in the admission of classes for groups arranged for decoration the prize show system no doubt creates its own evils because the judges
and those who frame the schedules have been in most cases men who have a knowledge of flowers but who are not people of cultivated taste and in deciding what points are to constitute the merits of a flower
they have to take such qualities as are within the clearest understanding of people of average intelligence and average education such for instance as size that can be measured symmetry that can be easily estimated thickness of petal that can be felt
so that a flower may possess features or qualities that endow it with the highest beauty but that exclude it because the hard and narrow limits of the show laws provide no means of dealing with it it is therefore thrown out
not because they have any fault to find with it but because it does not concern them and the ordinary gardener to whose practice it might be of the highest value accepting the verdict of the show judge as an infallible guide
also treats it with contempt and neglect now all this would not so much matter if it did not delude those whose taste is not sufficiently educated to enable them to form an opinion of their own
in accordance with the best and truest standards of beauty for i venture to repeat that what we have to look for for the benefit of our gardens and for our own bettering and increase of happiness in those gardens are things that are beautiful
for all these false gods are among us
the cornish royalists therefore bethought themselves of levying a force which might be more serviceable sir bevil granville the most beloved man of that country sir ralph hopton sir nicholas slanning
having entered cornwall by bridges thrown over the tamar hastened to an action lest stamwood should join him and obtain the honor of that victory which he looked for with assurance
gave a total defeat to their enemies ruthven with a few broken troops fled to saltash and when that town was taken he escaped with some difficulty and almost alone into plymouth stamford retired
and distributed his forces into plymouth and exeter notwithstanding these advantages the extreme want both of money and ammunition under which the cornish royalists labored
and this neutrality held all the winter season in the spring it was broken by the authority of the two houses but war recommenced with great appearance of disadvantage to the king's party stamford
joined to the natural gallantry of these troops commanded by the prime gentry of the county
stamford being encamped on the top of a high hill near stratum they attacked him in four divisions at five in the morning having lain all night under arms one division was commanded by lord mohun and sir ralph hopton
as to a very important scene of action
for allowing wilmot to pass him and proceed without any interruption to the succor of the distressed infantry at the devizes but essex finding that his army fell continually to decay after the siege of reading
and the weakness of the king and his want of all military stores had also restrained the activity of the royal army no action had happened in that part of england except one skirmish
colonel urrey a scotchman who served in the parliamentary army having received some disgust came to oxford and offered his services to the king in order to prove the sincerity of his conversion
he informed prince rupert of the loose disposition of the enemy's quarters and exhorted him to form some attempt upon them the prince who was entirely fitted for that kind of service falling suddenly upon the dispersed bodies of essex's army
routed two regiments of cavalry and one of infantry and carried his ravages within two miles of the general's quarters the alarm being given every one mounted on horseback in order to pursue the prince to recover the prisoners
and to repair the disgrace which the army had sustained among the rest hambden who had a regiment of infantry that lay at a distance joined the horse as a volunteer and overtaking the royalists on chalgrave field entered into the thickest of the battle
and the bone broken some days after he died in exquisite pain of his wound nor could his whole party had their army met with a total overthrow have been thrown into greater consternation
through all the horrors of civil war he sought the abolition of monarchy and subversion of the constitution an end which had it been attainable by peaceful measures ought carefully to have been avoided by every lover of his country
but whether in the pursuit of this violent enterprise he was actuated by private ambition or by honest prejudices derived from the former exorbitant powers of royalty it belongs not to an historian of this age scarcely even to an intimate friend
had arrived at oxford and had brought from the north a reenforcement of three thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse dislodging from thame and aylesbury where he had hitherto lain he thought proper to retreat nearer to london
and he showed to his friends his broken and disheartened forces which a few months before he had led into the field in so flourishing a condition the king freed from this enemy sent his army westward under prince rupert
son of lord say he himself as well as his father a great parliamentary leader was governor and commanded a garrison of two thousand five hundred foot and two regiments one of horse another of dragoons the fortifications not being complete or regular
it was resolved by prince rupert to storm the city and next morning with little other provisions suitable to such a work besides the courage of the troops the assault began
the cornish in three divisions attacked the west side with a resolution which nothing could control but though the middle division had already mounted the wall so great was the disadvantage of the ground and so brave the defence of the garrison
on the prince's side the assault was conducted with equal courage and almost with equal loss but with better success one party led by lord grandison was indeed beaten off and the commander himself mortally wounded
nothing but the suburbs was yet gained the entrance into the town was still more difficult and by the loss already sustained as well as by the prospect of further danger every one was extremely discouraged when to the great joy of the army
the city beat a parley the garrison was allowed to march out with their arms and baggage
and sent prince maurice with a detachment into devonshire he deliberated how to employ the remaining forces in an enterprise of moment some proposed and seemingly with reason to march directly to london where every thing was in confusion
where the army of the parliament was baffled weakened and dismayed and where it was hoped either by an insurrection of the citizens by victory or by treaty a speedy end might be put to the civil disorders
but this undertaking by reason of the great number and force of the london militia was thought by many to be attended with considerable difficulties gloucester lying within twenty miles
yet a very important conquest it was the only remaining garrison possessed by the parliament in those parts could that city be reduced the king held the whole course of the severn under his command the rich and malecontent counties of the west
having lost all protection from their friends might be forced to pay high contributions as an atonement for their disaffection an open communication could be preserved between wales and these new conquests
and thus united into one firm body might be employed in reestablishing the king's authority throughout the remainder these were the reasons for embracing that resolution fatal as it was ever esteemed to the royal party the governor of gloucester was one massey
a soldier of fortune who before he engaged with the parliament had offered his service to the king and as he was free from the fumes of enthusiasm by which most of the officers on that side were intoxicated he would lend an ear it was presumed
to proposals for accommodation but massey was resolute to preserve an entire fidelity to his masters and though no enthusiast himself he well knew how to employ to advantage that enthusiastic spirit so prevalent in his city and garrison
in a pert shrill undismayed accent said that they brought an answer from the godly city of gloucester and extremely ready were they according to the historian to give insolent and seditious replies to any question
as if their business were chiefly by provoking the king to make him violate his own safe conduct the answer from the city was in these words we the inhabitants magistrates officers and soldiers within the garrison of gloucester
and do accordingly conceive ourselves wholly bound to obey the commands of his majesty signified by both houses of parliament and are resolved by god's help to keep this city accordingly
the establishment of presbyterian discipline in their own country they were not satisfied but indulged still in an ardent passion for propagating by all methods that mode of religion in the neighboring kingdoms having flattered themselves in the fervor of their zeal
that by supernatural assistances they should be enabled to carry their triumphant covenant to the gates of rome itself it behoved them first to render it prevalent in england which already showed so great a disposition to receive it
than the english parliament in order to allure that nation into a close confederacy openly declared their wishes of ecclesiastical reformation and of imitating the example of their northern brethren when war was actually commenced the same artifices were used
and the scots beheld with the utmost impatience a scene of action of which they could not deem themselves indifferent spectators should the king they said be able by force of arms to prevail over the parliament of england and reestablish his authority in that powerful kingdom
he will undoubtedly retract all those concessions which with so many circumstances of violence and indignity the scots have extorted from him besides a sense of his own interest and a regard to royal power which has been entirely annihilated in this country
his very passion for prelacy and for religious ceremonies must lead him to invade a church which he has ever been taught to regard as anti christian and unlawful
does not the parliament consist of those very men who have ever opposed all war with scotland who have punished the authors of our oppressions who have obtained us the redress of every grievance and who with many honorable expressions
not to mention our own necessary security can we better express our gratitude to heaven for that pure light with which we are above all nations so eminently distinguished than by conveying the same divine knowledge to our unhappy neighbors
who are wading through a sea of blood in order to attain it these were in scotland the topics of every conversation with these doctrines the pulpits echoed and the famous curse of meroz
but with the same success as before the commissioners were also empowered to press the king on the article of religion and to recommend to him the scottish model of ecclesiastic worship and discipline
the english divines went away full of admiration at the blind assurance and bigoted prejudices of the man he on his part was moved with equal wonder at their obstinate attachment to such palpable errors and delusions by the concessions which the king had granted to scotland
charles flattered himself that he should be able by some decisive advantage to reduce the english parliament to a reasonable submission and might then expect with security the meeting of a scottish parliament
though earnestly solicited by loudon to summon presently that great council of the nation he absolutely refused to give authority to men who had already excited such dangerous commotions and who showed still the same disposition to resist and invade his authority
and being likewise denied this request they returned with extreme dissatisfaction to edinburgh the office of conservators of the peace was newly erected in scotland in order to maintain the confederacy between the two kingdoms and these
instigated by the clergy were resolved since they could not obtain the king's consent to summon in his name but by their own authority a convention of states
the only one which remained of his prerogative under color of providing for national peace endangered by the neighborhood of english armies was a convention called an assembly which though it meets with less solemnity
has the same authority as a parliament in raising money and levying forces hamilton and his brother the earl of laneric who had been sent into scotland in order to oppose these measures wanted either authority or sincerity
and passively yielded to the torrent the general assembly of the church met at the same time with the convention and exercising an authority almost absolute over the whole civil power made every political consideration yield to their theological zeal and prejudices
which effaced all former protestations and vows taken in both kingdoms and long maintained its credit and authority in this covenant the subscribers besides engaging mutually to defend each other against all opponents bound themselves to endeavor
without respect of persons the extirpation of popery and prelacy superstition
and regarded their own model as the only one which corresponded in any degree to such a description but that able politician had other views and while he employed his great talents in overreaching the presbyterians and secretly laughed at their simplicity
still retained an attachment to the hierarchy and to the ancient modes of worship but in the present danger which threatened their cause all scruples were laid aside and the covenant
the general assembly applauded this glorious imitation of the piety displayed by their ancestors who they said in three different applications during the reign of elizabeth had endeavored to engage the english by persuasion
besides what further punishment it should please the ensuing parliament to inflict on the refusers as enemies to god to the king and to the kingdom and being determined that the sword should carry conviction to all refractory minds
in hopes that this kingdom from which his cause had already received so much prejudice might at length contribute somewhat towards his protection and security
these troops so long as they were allowed to remain were useful by diverting the force of the irish rebels and protecting in the north the small remnants of the british planters but except this contract with the scottish nation
all the other measures of the parliament either were hitherto absolutely insignificant or tended rather to the prejudice of the protestant cause in ireland by continuing their violent persecution and still more violent menaces against priests and papists
they confirmed the irish catholics in their rebellion and cut off all hopes of indulgence and toleration by disposing beforehand of all the irish forfeitures to subscribers or adventurers they rendered all men of property desperate
and seemed to threaten a total extirpation of the natives and while they thus infused zeal and animosity into the enemy no measure was pursued which could tend to support or encourage the protestants now reduced to the last extremities
so great is the ascendant which from a long course of successes the english has acquired over the irish nation that though the latter when they receive military discipline among foreigners are not surpassed by any troops
they have never in their own country been able to make any vigorous effort for the defence or recovery of their liberties in many rencounters the english under lord more sir william saint leger sir frederic hamilton and others
had though under great disadvantages of situation and numbers put the irish to rout and returned in triumph to dublin the rebels raised the siege of tredah
except the fourth part of one small vessel's lading dublin to save itself from starving had been obliged to send the greater part of its inhabitants to england the army had little ammunition scarcely exceeding forty barrels of gunpowder
that the two nations while they continued their furious animosities should make desolate that fertile island which might serve to the subsistence and happiness of both
the king as he had neither money arms ammunition nor provisions to spare from his own urgent wants resolved to embrace an expedient which might at once relieve the necessities of the irish protestants and contribute to the advancement of his affairs in england
and it became prudent in the king if not absolutely necessary to embrace some expedient which might secure them for a time from the ruin and misery with which they were threatened accordingly the king gave orders to ormond and the justices to conclude for a year
a cessation of arms with the council of kilkenny by whom the irish were governed and to leave both sides in possession of their present advantages the parliament whose business it was to find fault with every measure adopted by the opposite party
soon after deserted to the parliament some irish catholics came over with these troops and joined the royal army where they continued the same cruelties and disorders to which they had been accustomed
the rapid progress of the royalists threatened the parliament with immediate subjection the factions and discontents among themselves in the city and throughout the neighboring counties prognosticated some dangerous division or insurrection
those parliamentary leaders it must be owned who had introduced such mighty innovations into the english constitution and who had projected so much greater had not engaged in an enterprise which exceeded their courage and capacity
great vigor from the beginning as well as wisdom they had displayed in all their counsels and a furious headstrong body broken loose from the restraint of law had hitherto been retained in subjection under their authority
and firmly united by zeal and passion as by the most legal and established government a small committee on whom the two houses devolved their power had directed all their military operations and had preserved a secrecy in deliberation
they had on all occasions exerted an authority much more despotic than the royalists even during the pressing exigencies of war could with patience endure in their sovereign whoever incurred their displeasure or was exposed to their suspicions was committed to prison
and prosecuted under the notion of delinquency after all the old jails were full many new ones were erected and even the ships were crowded with the royalists both gentry and clergy who anguished below decks and perished in those unhealthy confinements
as of tenderness and panegyric in his poetry he caught the attention of his hearers and exerted the utmost boldness in blaming those violent counsels by which the commons were governed finding all opposition within doors to be fruitless he endeavored to form a party without
which might oblige the parliament to accept of reasonable conditions and restore peace to the nation the charms of his conversation joined to his character of courage and integrity had procured him the entire confidence of northumberland conway
and chaloner the intimate friend of tomkins had entertained like sentiments and as the connections of these two gentlemen lay chiefly in the city they informed waller that the same abhorrence of war prevailed there among all men of reason and moderation
upon reflection it seemed not impracticable that a combination might be formed between the lords and citizens and by mutual concert the illegal taxes be refused
a covenant as a test was taken by the lords and commons and imposed on their army and on all who lived within their quarters besides resolving to amend and reform their lives
and they promise to assist to the utmost the forces raised by both houses against the forces levied by the king waller as soon as imprisoned sensible of the great danger into which he had fallen was so seized with the dread of death
with the most profound dissimulation he counterfeited such remorse of conscience that his execution was put off out of mere christian compassion till he might recover the use of his understanding he invited visits from the ruling clergy of all sects
and while he expressed his own penitence he received their devout exhortations with humility and reverence as conveying clearer conviction and information than in his life he had ever before attained presents too of which as well as of flattery
these holy men were not insensible were distributed among them as a small retribution for their prayers and ghostly counsel and by all these artifices more than from any regard to the beauty of his genius
bedford holland and conway had deserted the parliament and had gone to oxford clare and lovelace had followed them
the pulpits thundered and rumors were spread of twenty thousand irish who had landed
and had much retarded the advances of the king's army by continual sallies he infested them in their trenches and gained sudden advantages over them by disputing every inch of ground he repressed the vigor and alacrity of their courage elated by former successes
his garrison however was reduced to the last extremity and he failed not from time to time to inform the parliament that unless speedily relieved he should be necessitated from the extreme want of provisions and ammunition to open his gates to the enemy
they loaded with extraordinary caresses having associated in their cause the counties of hertford essex cambridge norfolk suffolk lincoln and huntingdon they gave the earl of manchester a commission to be general of the association
and appointed an army to be levied under his command but above all they were intent that essex's army on which their whole fortune depended should be put in a condition of marching against the king
they excited afresh their preachers to furious declamations against the royal cause they even employed the expedient of pressing though abolished by a late law for which they had strenuously contended
and defended himself from the enemy's horse who had advanced to meet him and who infested him during his whole march as he approached to gloucester the king was obliged to raise the siege and open the way for essex to enter that city
the necessities of the garrison were extreme one barrel of powder was their whole stock of ammunition remaining and their other provisions were in the same proportion essex had brought with him military stores and the neighboring country abundantly supplied him with victuals of every kind
the inhabitants had carefully concealed all provisions from the king's army and pretending to be quite exhausted had reserved their stores for that cause which they so much favored the chief difficulty still remained essex dreaded a battle with the king's army
on account of its great superiority in cavalry and he resolved to return if possible without running that hazard he lay five days at tewkesbury which was his first stage after leaving gloucester and he feigned by some preparations
and obtained the double advantage of passing unmolested an open country and of surprising a convoy of provisions which lay in that town
essex's horse were several times broken by the king's but his infantry maintained themselves in firm array and besides giving a continued fire they presented an invincible rampart of pikes against the furious shock of prince rupert
and those gallant troops of gentry of which the royal cavalry was chiefly composed the militia of london especially though utterly unacquainted with action though drawn hut a few days before from their ordinary occupations
yet having learned all military exercises and being animated with unconquerable zeal for the cause in which they were engaged
while the armies were engaged with the utmost ardor night put an end to the action and left the victory undecided next morning essex proceeded on his march and though his rear was once put in some disorder by an incursion of the king's horse he reached london in safety
this man devoted to the pursuits of learning and to the society of all the polite and elegant had enjoyed himself in every pleasure which a fine genius a generous disposition and an opulent fortune could afford called into public life
he had greedily imbibed when civil convulsions proceeded to extremities and it became requisite for him to choose his side he tempered the ardor of his zeal and embraced the defence of those limited powers which remained to monarchy
required by his birth and station gave way to a negligence which was easily observable on the morning of the battle in which he fell he had shown some care of adorning his person and gave for a reason
that the enemy should not find his body in any slovenly indecent situation i am weary subjoined he of the times
the great interest and popularity of the earl
had raised a considerable force for the king and great hopes of success were entertained from that quarter there appeared however in opposition to him two men on whom the event of the war finally depended
sat down before hull hotham was no longer governor of this place that gentleman and his son partly from a jealousy entertained of lord fairfax partly repenting of their engagements against the king had entered into a correspondence with newcastle
and had expressed an intention of delivering hull into his hands but their conspiracy being detected they were arrested and sent prisoners to london where without any regard to their former services they fell both of them victims to the severity of the parliament
newcastle having carried on the attack of hull for some time was beat off by a sally of the garrison and suffered so much that he thought proper to raise the siege about the same time manchester who advanced from the eastern associated counties
having joined cromwell and young fairfax obtained a considerable victory over the royalists at horncastle where the two officers last mentioned gained renown by their conduct and gallantry and though fortune had thus balanced her favors
and sought assistance for the finishing of that enterprise in which their own forces experienced such furious opposition the parliament had recourse to scotland
chapter one the finding of the copper cylinder it occurred as far back as february fifteenth eighteen fifty
and were now on their way to the mediterranean the wind had failed a deep calm had succeeded and everywhere as far as the eye could reach the water was smooth and glassy
the yacht rose and fell at the impulse of the long ocean undulations and the creaking of the spars sounded out a lazy accompaniment to the motion of the vessel all around was a watery horizon
except in the one place only toward the south where far in the distance the peak of teneriffe rose into the air the profound calm the warm atmosphere the slow pitching of the yacht
and the dull creaking of the spars all combined to lull into a state of indolent repose the people on board forward were the crew some asleep others smoking others playing cards
these two like the crew were in a state of dull and languid repose suspended between the two masts in an indian hammock lay featherstone with a cigar in his mouth and a novel in his hand which he was pretending to read
the fourth member of the party melick was seated near the mainmast folding some papers in a peculiar way his occupation at length attracted the roving eyes of featherstone who poked forth his head from his hammock and said in a sleepy voice
i say melick you're the most energetic fellah i ever saw by jove you're the only one aboard that's busy what are you doing paper boats said melick in a business like tone
paper boats by jove said featherstone what for i'm going to have a regatta said melick anything to kill time you know by jove exclaimed featherstone again raising himself higher in his hammock
that's not a bad idea a wegatta by jove glowious glowious i say oxenden did you hear that
oh i mean a race with these paper boats we can bet on them you know at this featherstone sat upright with his legs dangling out of the hammock by jove he exclaimed again betting so we can
who went solemnly on as he spoke folding his paper boats that's the fun of it for you see if there was a wind we should be going on ourselves and the regatta couldn't come off but as it is the water is just right you pick out your boat and lay your bet on her to race to some given point
a given point but how can we find any oh easily enough something or anything a bubble'll do or we can pitch out a bit of wood upon this featherstone descended from his perch and came near to examine the proceedings
while the other two eager to take advantage of the new excitement soon joined him by this time melick had finished his paper boats there were four of them and they were made of different colors namely red green yellow and white
i'll put these in the water said melick and then we can lay our bets on them as we choose but first let us see if there is anything that can be taken as a point of arrival if there isn't anything i can pitch out a bit of wood in any direction which may seem best
saying this he went to the side followed by the others and all looked out carefully over the water there's a black speck out there said oxenden so there is said featherstone that'll do i wonder what it is
it's only a round spot like the float of some net oh it's a spar said melick it's one end of it the rest is under water the spot thus chosen was a dark circular object about a hundred yards away
and certainly did look very much like the extremity of some spar the rest of which was under water whatever it was however it served well enough for their present purpose
melick now let himself down over the side and placed the paper boats on the water as carefully as possible after this the four stood watching the little fleet in silence the water was perfectly still
and there was no perceptible wind but there were draughts of air caused by the rise and fall of the yacht and these affected the tiny boats gradually they drew apart the green one drifting astern the yellow one remaining under the vessel
while the red and the white were carried out in the direction where they were expected to go with about a foot of space between them two to one on the red cried featherstone betting on the one which had gained the lead done said melick promptly taking his offer
oxenden made the same bet which was taken by melick and the doctor
as to the time which would be occupied by the race and as to fifty other things which need not be mentioned all took part in this the excitement rose high and the betting went on merrily at length it was noticed that the white was overhauling the red
the excitement grew intense the betting changed its form but was still kept up until at last the two paper boats seemed blended together in one dim spot which gradually faded out of sight it was now necessary to determine the state of the race
so featherstone ordered out the boat the four were soon embarked and the men rowed out toward the point which had been chosen as the end of the race on coming near
an animated discussion arose about this some of the bets were off but others remained an open question and each side insisted upon a different view of the case in the midst of this featherstone's attention was drawn to the dark spot already mentioned as the goal of the race
pull up lads a little let's see what it is it doesn't look to me like a spar the others always on the lookout for some new object of interest were attracted by these words and looked closely at the thing in question the men pulled the boat drew nearer
it's not a spar said melick who was at the bow and as he said this he reached out and grasped at it he failed to get it and did no more than touch it it moved easily and sank but soon came up again
a second time he grasped at it and with both hands this time he caught it and then lifted it out of the water into the boat these proceedings had been watched with the deepest interest and now as this curious floating thing made its appearance among them
they all crowded around it in eager excitement it looks like a can of preserved meat said the doctor it certainly is a can said melick for it's made of metal but as to preserved meat i have my doubts
the nature of the metal was not easily perceptible for it was coated with slime and covered over about half its surface with barnacles and sea weed
it's some kind of preserved meat said the doctor perhaps something good game i dare say yes yorkshire game pie they pot all sorts of things now
if it's game said oxenden it'll be rather high by this time man alive look at those weeds and shells it must have been floating for ages it's my belief said featherstone that it's part of the provisions laid in by noah for his long voyage in the ark
but whatever it is it isn't liquor it's odd too the thing is of foreign make evidently i never saw anything like it before it may be chinese by jove cried featherstone this is getting exciting let's go back to the yacht and open it the men rowed back to the yacht
it's meat of some sort continued the doctor i'm certain of that it has come in good time we can have it for dinner you may have my share then said oxenden i hereby give and bequeath to you all my right title and interest in and to
anything in the shape of meat that may be inside meat cans said melick are never so large as that oh i don't know about that said the doctor they make up pretty large packages of pemmican for the arctic expeditions
copper exclaimed oxenden is it copper look for yourselves said melick quietly they all looked and could see where the knife had cut into the vessel that it was as he said it was copper
it's foreign work said melick in england we make tin cans for everything
in that case said oxenden it may contain the mangled remains of one of the wives of some moorish pasha by this time they had reached the yacht and hurried aboard all were eager to satisfy their curiosity
then featherstone produced a knife which was used to open sardine boxes but after a faithful trial this proved useless at length melick who had gone off in search of something more effective made his appearance armed with an axe
with this he attacked the copper cylinder and by means of a few dexterous blows succeeded in cutting it open then he looked in
something said melick but i can't quite make it out if you can't make it out then shake it out said oxenden upon this melick took the cylinder turned it upside down shook it smartly and then lifted it and pounded it against the deck
this served to loosen the contents which seemed tightly packed but came gradually down until at length they could be seen and drawn forth melick drew them forth and the contents of the mysterious copper cylinder resolved themselves into two packages
the sight of these packages only served to intensify their curiosity if it had been some species of food it would at once have revealed itself but these packages suggested something more important what could they be
or strange coin from far cathay one of the packages was very much larger than the other it was enclosed in wrappers made of some coarse kind of felt bound tight with strong cords
the other was much smaller and was folded in the same material without being bound this melick seized and began to open wait a minute said featherstone let's make a bet on it five guineas that it's some sort of jewels done said oxenden
melick opened the package and it was seen that featherstone had lost there were no jewels but one or two sheets of something that looked like paper it was not paper however but some vegetable product which was used for the same purpose
the surface was smooth but the color was dingy and the lines of the vegetable fibres were plainly discernible these sheets were covered with writing halloa cried melick why this is english
at this the others crowded around to look on and featherstone in his excitement forgot that he had lost his bet there were three sheets all covered with writing one in english another in french and a third in german
it was the same message written in these three different languages but at that moment they scarcely noticed this
i have written this and committed it to the sea in the hope that the ocean currents may bear it within the reach of civilized man oh unknown friend whoever you are i entreat you to let this message be made known in some way to my father henry more
keswick cumberland england so that he may learn the fate of his son
which i should like to have forwarded to him do this for the sake of that mercy which you may one day wish to have shown to yourself adam more by jove cried featherstone as he read the above this is really getting to be something tremendous
this other package must be the manuscript said oxenden and it'll tell all about it such a manuscript'll be better than meat said the doctor sententiously melick said nothing but opening his knife he cut the cords and unfolded the wrapper
he saw a great collection of leaves just like those of the letter of some vegetable substance smooth as paper and covered with writing it looks like egyptian papyrus said the doctor that was the common paper of antiquity
never mind the egyptian papyrus said featherstone in feverish curiosity let's have the contents of the manuscript you melick read you're the most energetic of the lot and when you're tired the rest of us will take turns read
why it'll take a month to read all this said melick all the better said featherstone this calm will probably last a month and we shall have nothing to interest us
chapter five the torrent sweeping under the mountains the boat drifted on the light given by the aurora and the low moon seemed to grow fainter
and as i looked behind i saw that the distant glow from the volcanic fires had become more brilliant in the increasing darkness the sides of the channel grew steeper until at last they became rocky precipices rising to an unknown height
but with this lessening width the waters seemed to rush far more swiftly here i drifted helplessly and saw the gloomy rocky cliffs sweep past me as i was hurled onward on the breast of the tremendous flood i was in despair
the fate of agnew had prepared me for my own and i was only thankful that my fate since it was inevitable would be less appalling death seemed certain and my chief thought now was as to the moment when it would come i was prepared
far better was a death here amid the roar of waters than at the hands of those abhorrent beings by whose treachery my friend had fallen as i went on the precipices rose higher and seemed to overhang the channel grew narrower
the light grew fainter until at last all around me grew dark i was floating at the bottom of a vast chasm where the sides seemed to rise precipitously for thousands of feet where neither watery flood nor rocky wall was visible
and where far above i could see the line of sky between the summits of the cliffs and watch the glowing stars and as i watched them there came to me the thought that this was my last sight on earth
and i could only hope that the life which was so swiftly approaching its end might live again somewhere among those glittering orbs so i thought and with these thoughts i drifted on i cannot tell how long
until at length there appeared a vast black mass where the open sky above me terminated
this then i thought is the end here amid this darkness i must make the awful plunge and find my death i fell upon my knees in the bottom of the boat and prayed as i knelt there the boat drew nearer the black mass grew blacker
the current swept me on there were no breakers there was no phosphorescent sparkle of seething waters and no whiteness of foam i thought that i was on the brink of some tremendous cataract a thousand times deeper than niagara
some fall where the waters plunged into the depths of the earth and where gathering for the terrific descent all other movements all dashings and writhings and twistings were obliterated and lost in the one overwhelming onward rush
suddenly all grew dark dark beyond all expression the sky above was in a moment snatched from view i had been flung into some tremendous cavern and there on my knees with terror in my heart i waited for death
the moments passed and death delayed to come
and though i remained on my knees and waited long still the end came not the waters seemed still the boat motionless it was borne upon the surface of a vast stream as smooth as glass but who could tell how deep that stream was or how wide
at length i rose from my knees and sank down upon the seat of the boat and tried to peer through the gloom in vain
i listened but heard nothing save a deep dull droning sound which seemed to fill all the air and make it all tremulous with its vibrations i tried to collect my thoughts
and which i had mentioned to agnew this was the notion that at each pole there is a vast opening
for in that darkness there were no visible objects by which i could find out the rate of my progress and as those who go up in balloons are utterly insensible of motion
at length there came into view something which arrested my attention and engrossed all my thoughts it was faint glow that at first caught my gaze and on turning to see it better i saw a round red spot glowing like fire
i had not seen this before it looked like the moon when it rises from behind clouds and glows red and lurid from the horizon and so this glowed but not with the steady light of the moon
for the light was fitful and sometimes flashed into a baleful brightness which soon subsided into a dimmer lustre new alarm arose within me for this new sight suggested something more terrible than anything that i had thus far thought of
this then i thought was to be the end of my voyage this was my goal a pit of fire into which i should be hurled would it be well i thought to wait for such a fate and experience such a death agony
would it not be better for me to take my own life before i should know the worst i took my pistol and loaded it so as to be prepared but hesitated to use it until my fate should be more apparent so i sat holding my pistol
prepared to use it watching the light and awaiting the time when the glowing fires should make all further hope impossible
on the contrary it seemed to grow fainter there was also another change instead of shining before me it appeared more on my left
all the time it continued to grow fainter and it seemed certain that i was moving away from it rather than toward it in the midst of this there occurred a new thought which seemed to account for this light
and followed me still with their glare i had been carried into this darkness through some vast opening which now lay behind me disclosing the red volcano glow and this it was that caused that roundness and resemblance to the moon
i saw that i was still moving on away from that light as before and that its changing position was due to the turning of the boat as the water drifted it along now stern foremost now sidewise and again bow foremost
from this it seemed plainly evident that the waters had borne me into some vast cavern of unknown extent which went under the mountains a subterranean channel whose issue i could not conjecture
perhaps in some other ocean some land of ice and frost and eternal night but the old theory of the flow of water through the earth had taken hold of me and could not be shaken off i knew some scientific men
held the opinion that the earth's interior is a mass of molten rock and pent up fire and that the earth itself had once been a burning orb which had cooled down at the surface yet after all this was only a theory and there were other theories which were totally different
as a boy i had read wild works of fiction about lands in the interior of the earth with a sun at the centre which gave them the light of a perpetual day these i knew were only the creations of fiction
in that case there might be no sudden plunge after all the stream might run on for many thousand miles through this terrific cavern gloom in accordance with natural laws and i might thus live and drift on in this darkness until i should die a lingering death of horror and despair
there was no possible way of forming any estimate as to speed all was dark and even the glow behind was fading away nor could i make any conjecture whatever as to the size of the channel at the opening it had been contracted and narrow
but here it might have expanded itself to miles and its vaulted top might reach almost to the summit of the lofty mountains while sight thus failed me sound was equally unavailing for it was always the same a sustained and unintermittent roar
a low droning sound deep and terrible with no variations of dashing breakers or rushing rapids or falling cataracts vague thoughts of final escape came and went but in such a situation hope could not be sustained
the thick darkness oppressed the soul and at length even the glow of the distant volcanoes which had been gradually diminishing grew dimmer and fainter and finally faded out altogether that seemed to me to be my last sight of earthly things
the darkness grew so intolerable that i longed for something to dispel it if only for a moment i struck a match the air was still and the flame flashed out lighting up the boat and showing the black water around me this made me eager to see more
i loaded both barrels of the rifle keeping my pistol for another purpose and then fired one of them there was a tremendous report that rang in my ears like a hundred thunder volleys and rolled and reverberated far along and died away in endless echoes
like the sudden lightning it revealed all around i saw a wide expanse of water black as ink a stygian pool but no rocks were visible and it seemed as though i had been carried into a subterranean sea
i loaded the empty barrel and waited the flash of light had revealed nothing yet it had distracted my thoughts and the work of reloading was an additional distraction anything was better than inaction
i did not wish to waste my ammunition yet i thought that an occasional shot might serve some good purpose if it was only to afford me some relief from despair and now as i sat with the rifle in my hands i was aware of a sound
new exciting different altogether from the murmur of innumerable waters that filled my ears
it was a sound that spoke of life i heard quick heavy pantings as of some great living thing and with this there came the noise of regular movements in the water and the foaming and gurgling of waves
it was as though some living breathing creature were here not far away moving through these midnight waters and with this discovery there came a new fear the fear of pursuit
this new fear aroused me to action it was a danger quite unlike any other which i had ever known yet the fear which it inspired was a feeling that roused me to action and prompted me even though the coming danger might be as sure as death
to rise against it and resist to the last so i stood up with my rifle and listened with all my soul in my sense of hearing the sounds arose more plainly they had come nearer they were immediately in front
i raised my rifle and took aim then in quick succession two reports thundered out with tremendous uproar and interminable echoes but the long reverberations were unheeded in the blaze of sudden light and the vision that was revealed
for there full before me i saw though but for an instant a tremendous sight it was a vast monster moving in the waters against the stream and toward the boat its head was raised high its eyes were inflamed with a baleful light
its jaws opened wide bristled with sharp teeth and it had a long neck joined to a body of enormous bulk with a tail that lashed all the water into foam it was but for an instant that i saw it
full of terror and excitement i loaded my rifle again and waited listening for a renewal of the noise i felt sure that the monster balked of his prey would return with redoubled fury and that i should have to renew the conflict
i felt that the dangers of the subterranean passage and of the rushing waters had passed away and that a new peril had arisen from the assault of this monster of the deep nor was it this one alone that was to be dreaded where one was others were sure to be
and these would probably increase in number as i advanced farther into this realm of darkness and yet in spite of these grisly thoughts i felt less of horror than before for the fear which i had was now associated with action
and as i stood waiting for the onset and listening for the approach of the enemy the excitement that ensued was a positive relief from the dull despair into which i had sunk but a moment before yet though i waited for a new attack i waited in vain
the monster did not come back either the flash and the noise had terrified him or the bullets had hit him or else in his vastness he had been indifferent to so feeble a creature as myself
but whatever may have been the cause he did not emerge again out of the darkness and silence into which he had sunk for a long time i stood waiting then i sat down still watchful still listening but without any result
until at length i began to think that there was no chance of any new attack indeed it seemed now as though there had been no attack at all but that the monster had been swimming at random without any thought of me
in which case my rifle flashes had terrified him more than his fearful form had terrified me on the whole this incident had greatly benefited me it had roused me from my despair
i grew reckless and felt a disposition to acquiesce in whatever fate might have in store for me
we have not written for many days we did not wish to speak for we needed no words to remember that which has happened to us
we hid in the bushes and we waited the steps came closer and then we saw the fold of a white tunic among the trees and a gleam of gold we leapt forward we ran to them
and we stood looking upon the golden one they saw us and their hands closed into fists and the fists pulled their arms down as if they wished their arms to hold them
while their body swayed and they could not speak we dared not come too close to them we asked and our voice trembled
we asked they raised their head and there was a great pride in their voice they answered we have followed you then we could not speak
and they said we heard that you had gone to the uncharted forest for the whole city is speaking of it so on the night of the day when we heard it we ran away from the home of the peasants
we found the marks of your feet across the plain where no men walk so we followed them and we went into the forest and we followed the path where the branches were broken by your body
their white tunic was torn and the branches had cut the skin of their arms but they spoke as if they had never taken notice of it nor of weariness nor of fear
we have followed you they said and we shall follow you wherever you go if danger threatens you we shall face it also if it be death we shall die with you
your eyes are as a flame but our brothers have neither hope nor fire your mouth is cut of granite but our brothers are soft and humble your head is high but our brothers cringe
you walk but our brothers crawl we wish to be damned with you rather than
do as you please with us but do not send us away from you then they knelt and bowed their golden head before us
we had never thought of that which we did we bent to raise the golden one to their feet but when we touched them it was as if madness had stricken us
we seized their body and we pressed our lips to theirs the golden one breathed once and their breath was a moan and then their arms closed around us we stood together for a long time
and we were frightened that we had lived for
and had never known what joy is possible to men then we said our dearest one fear nothing of the forest there is no danger in solitude
we have no need of our brothers let us forget their good and our evil let us forget all things save that we are together
give us your hand look ahead it is our own world golden one a strange unknown world but our own then we walked on into the forest
their hand in ours and that night we knew that to hold the body of women in our arms is neither ugly nor shameful but the one ecstasy granted to the race of men
we have walked for many days the forest has no end and we seek no end but each day added to the chain of days between us and the city is like an added blessing
we have made a bow and many arrows we can kill more birds than we need for our food we find water and fruit in the forest at night we choose a clearing and we build a ring of fires around it
as a crown of jewels around us and smoke stands still in the air in columns made blue by the moonlight we sleep together in the midst of the ring the arms of the golden one around us
their head upon our breast some day we shall stop and build a house when we shall have gone far enough but we do not have to hasten
the days before us are without end like the forest we cannot understand this new life which we have found yet it seems so clear and so simple when questions come to puzzle us we walk faster
then turn and forget all things as we watch the golden one following the shadows of leaves fall upon their arms as they spread the branches apart but their shoulders are in the sun
the skin of their arms is like a blue mist but their shoulders are white and glowing as if the light fell not from above but rose from under their skin we watch the leaf which has fallen
upon their shoulder and it lies at the curve of their neck and a drop of dew glistens upon it like a jewel they approach us and they stop laughing knowing what we think
and they wait obediently without questions till it pleases us to turn and go on we go on and we bless the earth under our feet but questions come to us again as we walk in silence
then what can men wish for save corruption if this is the great evil of being alone then what is good and what is evil everything which comes from the many is good
everything which comes from one is evil
with our first breath we have broken the law but we have never doubted it yet now
but we lived not when we toiled for our brothers we were only weary there is no joy for men save the joy shared with all their brothers but the only things which taught us joy
and the golden one and both these joys belong to us alone
and they do not concern our brothers in any way thus do we wonder there is some error one frightful error in the thinking of men what is that error we do not know
but the knowledge struggles within us struggles to be born today the golden one stopped suddenly and said we love you
no they whispered that is not what we wished to say they were silent then they spoke slowly and their words were halting like the words of a child learning to speak for the first time
we are one alone and only and we love you who are one alone and only we looked into each other's eyes
the book fell from my hands and i wept i who had never known tears i wept in deliverance and in pity for all mankind
i understood the blessed thing which i had called my curse i understood why the best in me
and my transgressions and why i had never felt guilt in my sins i understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him
i read many books for many days then i called the golden one and i told her what i had read and what i had learned she looked at me and the first words she spoke were i love you
i have read of a man who lived many thousands of years ago and of all the names in these books his is the one i wish to bear
and i have read of a goddess i said who was the mother of the earth and of all the gods her name was gaea let this be your name my golden one for you are to be the mother of a new kind of gods
as the heir of all the saints and all the martyrs who came before him and who died for the same cause for the same word no matter what name they gave to their cause and their truth
i shall live here in my own house i shall take my food from the earth by the toil of my own hands i shall learn many secrets from my books through the years ahead i shall rebuild the achievements of the past
and open the way to carry them further the achievements which are open to me but closed forever to my brothers for their minds are shackled to the weakest
they called it electricity it was the power that moved their greatest inventions
i have found the engine which produced this light i shall learn how to repair it and how to make it work again i shall learn how to use the wires which carry this power then i shall build a barrier of wires around my home
and across the paths which lead to my home a barrier light as a cobweb more impassable than a wall of granite a barrier my brothers will never be able to cross
when i shall have read all the books and learned my new way when my home will be ready and my earth tilled i shall steal one day for the last time
who has no name save international
and all those like him fraternity
who cries without reason and solidarity
who calls for help in the night and a few others i shall call to me
has not been killed within them and who suffer under the yoke of their brothers they will follow me and i shall lead them to my fortress and here in this uncharted wilderness i
and they my chosen friends my fellow builders shall write the first chapter in the new history of man
and as i stand here at the door of glory i look behind me for the last time i look upon the history of men which i have learned from the books and i wonder it was a long story
and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man's freedom but what is freedom freedom from what there is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him save other men
he declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him no matter what their number
is the right of man and there is no right on earth above this right
but then he gave up all he had won and fell lower than his savage beginning what brought it to pass what disaster
took their reason away from men what whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission the worship of the word we when men accepted that worship
the structure of centuries collapsed about them the structure whose every beam had come from the thought of some one man each in his day down the ages from the depth of some one spirit
but for its own sake those men who survived those eager to obey eager to live for one another since they had nothing else to vindicate them those men could neither carry on nor preserve what they had received
thus did all thought all science all wisdom perish on earth thus did men
the steel towers the flying ships the power wires all the things they
perhaps later some men had been born with the mind and the courage to recover these things which were lost
and for the same reasons but i still wonder how it was possible in those graceless years of transition long ago that men did not see whither they were going and went on
in blindness and cowardice to their fate i wonder for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the word i could give it up
but such has been the story
what agony must have been theirs before that which they saw coming and could not stop perhaps they cried out in protest and in warning but men paid no heed to their warning and they
fought a hopeless battle and they perished with their banners smeared by their own blood and they chose to perish for they knew to them i send my salute across the centuries and my pity
that the despair of their hearts was not to be final and their night was not without hope for the battle they lost can never be lost for that which they died to save
can never perish through all the darkness through all the shame of which men are capable the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth it may sleep but it will awaken
it may wear chains but it will break through and man will go on man not men here on this mountain
i and my sons and my chosen friends shall build our new land and our fort and it will become as the heart of the earth lost and hidden at first but beating
beating louder each day and word of it will reach every corner of the earth and the roads of the world will become as veins which will carry the best of the world's blood to my threshold
and all my brothers and the councils of my brothers will hear of it but they will be impotent against me and the day will come
and my home will become the capital of a world where each man will be free to exist for his own sake
the word which can never die on this earth for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory
it is dark here in the forest the leaves rustle over our head black against the last gold of the sky the moss is soft and warm we shall sleep on this moss for many nights
till the beasts of the forest come to tear our body we have no bed now save the moss and no future save the beasts we are old now yet we were young this morning
when we carried our glass box through the streets of the city to the home of the scholars no men stopped us
they were as shapeless clouds huddled at the rise of the great sky
and others from distant lands whose names we had not heard we saw a great painting on the wall over their heads of the twenty illustrious men who had invented the candle all the heads of the council turned to us as we entered
these great and wise of the earth did not know what to think of us
as if we were a miracle it is true that our tunic was torn and stained with brown stains which had been blood we raised our right arm and we said our greeting to you our honored brothers of the world council of scholars
who are you our brother for you do not look like a scholar
then it was as if a great wind had stricken the hall for all the scholars spoke at once and they were angry and frightened a street sweeper
a street sweeper walking in upon the world council of scholars it is not to be believed it is against all the rules and all the laws but we knew how to stop them our brothers we said
we matter not nor our transgression it is only our brother men who matter give no thought to us for we are nothing but listen to our words for we bring you a gift such
listen to us for we hold the future of mankind in our hands then they listened we placed our
and they all bent forward and sat still watching and we stood still our eyes upon the wire and slowly slowly as a flush of blood a red flame trembled in the wire then the wire glowed
but terror struck the men of the council
we looked upon them and we laughed and said fear nothing our brothers there is a great power in these wires but this power is tamed it is yours we give it to you still they would not move
we cried we give you the key to the earth take it and let us be one of you the humblest among you
and make it ease the toil of men let us throw away our candles and our torches let us flood our cities with light let us bring a new light to men but they looked upon us and suddenly we were afraid
for their eyes were still and small and evil our brothers we cried have you nothing to say to us
nine moved forward they moved to the table and the others followed yes spoke collective zero
we have much to say to you the sound of their voices brought silence to the hall and to beat of our heart
we have much to say to a wretch who have broken all the laws and who boast of their infamy how dared you think that your mind held greater wisdom than the minds of your brothers
you shall be burned at the stake said democracy four sixty nine ninety eight no
seven thirty three o four till there is nothing left under the lashes no said collective zero
we cannot decide upon this our brothers no such crime has ever been committed and it is not for us to judge nor for any small council we shall deliver this creature to the world council itself
let the will of the council be done upon our body we do not care but the light what will you do with the light
no we answered what is not thought by all men cannot be true said collective zero
you have worked on this alone
many men in the homes of the scholars have had strange new ideas in the past
but when the majority of their brother scholars voted against them they abandoned their ideas as all men must this box is useless said alliance six seventy three forty nine
should it be what they claim of it said harmony nine
then it would bring ruin to the department of candles the candle is a great boon to mankind as approved by all men
and to decide upon the number needed and to re fit the plans so as to make candles instead of torches this touched upon thousands and thousands of men working in scores of states we cannot alter the plans again so soon
then it is a great evil for men have no cause to exist save in toiling for other men
nine rose and pointed at our box this thing they said must be destroyed and all the others cried as one
it must be destroyed then we leapt to the table we seized our box we shoved them aside and we ran to the window we turned and we looked at them for the last time and a rage
damned fools we swung our fist through the windowpane and we leapt out in a ringing rain of glass we fell but we never let the box fall from our hands
then we ran we ran blindly and men and houses streaked past us in a torrent without shape and the road seemed not to be flat before us but as if it were leaping up to meet us and we waited for the earth
to rise and strike us in the face but we ran we knew not where we were going we knew only that we must run run to the end of the world to the end of our days
then we knew suddenly that we were lying on a soft earth and that we had stopped
then we knew we were in the uncharted forest we had not thought of coming here but our legs had carried our wisdom and our legs had brought us to the uncharted forest against our will
our glass box lay beside us we crawled to it we fell upon it our face in our arms and we lay still we lay
then we rose we took our box and walked on into the forest it mattered not where we went we knew that men would not follow us for they never enter the uncharted forest
so we walked on our box in our arms our heart empty we are doomed whatever days are left to us we shall spend them alone
and we have heard of the corruption to be found in solitude we have torn ourselves from the truth which is our brother men and there is no road back for us and no redemption we know these things
but we do not care we care for nothing on earth we are tired only the glass box in our arms is like a living heart that gives us strength we have lied to ourselves
we have not built this box for the good of our brothers we built it for its own sake it is above all our brothers to us
above their truth why wonder about this we have not many days to live we are walking to the fangs awaiting us somewhere among the great silent trees
there is not a thing behind us to regret then a blow of pain struck us our first and our only we thought of the golden one
we thought of the golden one whom we shall never see again then the pain passed it is best
chapter five containing certain adventures which befel mister booth in the prison the remainder of the day mister booth spent in melancholy contemplation on his present condition
grief for some time banished the thoughts of food from his mind but in the morning nature began to grow uneasy for want of her usual nourishment for he had not eat a morsel during the last forty hours
a penny loaf which is it seems the ordinary allowance to the prisoners in bridewell was now delivered him and while he was eating this a man brought him a little packet sealed up
informing him that it came by a messenger who said it required no answer mister booth now opened his packet and after unfolding several pieces of blank paper successively at last
and not one of his friends as he was apprized knew of his confinement as there was no direction to the packet nor a word of writing contained in it he began to suspect that it was delivered to the wrong person
that he had made no mistake saying if your name is booth sir i am positive you are the gentleman to whom the parcel i gave you belongs
the most scrupulous honesty would perhaps in such a situation have been well enough satisfied in finding no owner for the guinea especially when proclamation had been made in the prison
that mister booth had received a packet without any direction to which if any person had any claim and would discover the contents he was ready to deliver it to such claimant no such claimant being found
i mean none who knew the contents for many swore that they expected just such a packet and believed it to be their property mister booth very calmly resolved to apply the money to his own use
the first thing after redemption of the coat which mister booth hungry as he was thought of was to supply himself with snuff which he had long to his great sorrow been without on this occasion he presently missed that iron box
which the methodist had so dexterously conveyed out of his pocket as we mentioned in the last chapter he no sooner missed this box than he immediately suspected that the gambler was the person who had stolen it
yet was he rather overwarm having therefore no doubt concerning the person of the thief he eagerly sought him out and very bluntly charged him with the fact the gambler
look at my apparel friend do thieves and gamesters wear such cloaths as these play is my folly not my vice it is my impulse and i have been a martyr to it
and in that one there is the eighteen pence i told you of he then turned up his cloaths and his pockets entirely resembled the pitchers of the belides booth was a little staggered at this defence
he said the real value of the iron box was too inconsiderable to mention but that he had a capricious value for it for the sake of the person who gave it him for though it is not said he worth sixpence
i would willingly give a crown to any one who would bring it me again robinson answered if that be the case you have nothing more to do but to signify your intention in the prison and i am well convinced
you will not be long without regaining the possession of your snuff box this advice was immediately followed and with success the methodist presently producing the box which he said he had found and should have returned it before
why so friend said robinson have i not heard you often say the wickeder any man was the better provided he was what you call a believer you mistake me cries cooper for that was the name of the methodist
no man can be wicked after he is possessed by the spirit there is a wide difference between the days of sin and the days of grace i have been a sinner myself
i care not answered the other what an atheist believes i suppose you would insinuate that i stole the snuff box but i value not your malice the lord knows my innocence
he then walked off with the reward and booth turning to robinson very earnestly asked pardon for his groundless suspicion which the other without any hesitation accorded him saying
but i have no reason to be offended with you for believing what the woman and the rascal who is just gone
which you did not perhaps know told you to my disadvantage and if you thought me to be a gambler you had just reason to suspect any ill of me for i myself am confined here by the perjury of one of those villains
who having cheated me of my money at play and hearing that i intended to apply to a magistrate against him himself began the attack and obtained a warrant against me of justice thrasher
in the afternoon booth indulged his friend with a game at cards at first for halfpence and afterwards for shillings when fortune so favoured robinson that he did not leave the other a single shilling in his pocket
a surprizing run of luck in a gamester is often mistaken for somewhat else by persons who are not over zealous believers in the divinity of fortune
who hath happened fortunately i might almost say unfortunately to have four by honours in his hand almost every time he dealt for a whole evening shunned universally by the whole company the next day
and certain it is that mister booth though of a temper very little inclined to suspicion began to waver in his opinion whether the character given by mister robinson of himself
or that which the others gave of him was the truer in the morning hunger paid him a second visit and found him again in the same situation as before after some deliberation therefore
he resolved to ask robinson to lend him a shilling or two of that money which was lately his own and this experiments he thought would confirm him either in a good or evil opinion of that gentleman
to this demand robinson answered with great alacrity that he should very gladly have complied had not fortune played one of her jade tricks with him for since my winning of you said he i have been stript
not only of your money but my own he was going to harangue farther but booth with great indignation turned from him this poor gentleman had very little time to reflect on his own misery
or the rascality as it appeared to him of the other when the same person who had the day before delivered him the guinea from the unknown hand again accosted him and told him a lady in the house so he expressed himself
desired the favour of his company mister booth immediately obeyed the message and was conducted into a room in the prison where he was presently convinced that missus vincent was no other than his old acquaintance
that it is possible for a woman to appear to be what she really is not eight or nine years had past since any interview between mister booth and miss matthews and their meeting now in so extraordinary a place
affected both of them with an equal surprize after some immaterial ceremonies the lady acquainted mister booth that having heard there was a person in the prison who knew her by the name of matthews
she had great curiosity to inquire who he was whereupon he had been shewn to her from the window of the house that she immediately recollected him and being informed of his distressful situation
for which she expressed great concern she had sent him that guinea which he had received the day before and then proceeded to excuse herself for not having desired to see him at that time
when she was under the greatest disorder and hurry of spirits booth made many handsome acknowledgments of her favour and added that he very little wondered at the disorder of her spirits concluding that he was heartily concerned at seeing her there
here he hesitated upon which bursting into an agony of tears she cried out o captain captain many extraordinary things have passed since last i saw you o gracious heaven
did i ever expect that this would be the next place of our meeting she then flung herself into her chair where she gave a loose to her passion whilst he in the most affectionate and tender manner endeavoured to soothe and comfort her
having vented this in a large flood of tears she became pretty well composed but booth unhappily mentioning her father
i have disgraced him mister booth i am unworthy the name of his daughter here passion again stopped her words and discharged itself in tears
after this second vent of sorrow or shame or if the reader pleases of rage she once more recovered from her agonies to say the truth these are i believe as critical discharges of nature
as any of those which are so called by the physicians and do more effectually relieve the mind than any remedies with which the whole materia medica of philosophy can supply it
when missus vincent had recovered her faculties she perceived booth standing silent with a mixture of concern and astonishment in his countenance then addressing herself to him with an air of most bewitching softness
of which she was a perfect mistress she said i do not wonder at your amazement captain booth nor indeed at the concern which you so plainly discover for me for i well know the goodness of your nature
you are a stranger to the cause of my sorrows i hope i am madam answered he for i cannot believe what i have heard in the prison surely murder at which words she started from her chair repeating
murder oh it is music in my ears you have heard then the cause of my commitment my glory my delight my reparation
this is the hand this is the arm that drove the penknife to his heart unkind fortune that not one drop of his blood reached my hand indeed sir i would never have washed it from it
but though i have not the happiness to see it on my hand i have the glorious satisfaction of remembering i saw it run in rivers on the floor i saw it forsake his cheeks
not of that monster man mister booth i am undone am revenged and have now no more business for life let them take it from me when they will our poor gentleman turned pale with horror at this speech
and the ejaculation of good heavens what do i hear burst spontaneously from his lips nor can we wonder at this though he was the bravest of men for her voice her looks her gestures
were properly adapted to the sentiments she exprest such indeed was her image that neither could shakspear describe nor hogarth paint nor clive act a fury in higher perfection
what do you hear reiterated she you hear the resentment of the most injured of women you have heard you say of the murder but do you know the cause mister booth have you since your return to england visited that country
where we formerly knew one another tell me do you know my wretched story tell me that my friend booth hesitated for an answer indeed he had heard some imperfect stories not much to her advantage
that i should ever have been found in nor can you know the cause of all that i have uttered and which i am convinced you never expected to have heard from my mouth if these circumstances raise your curiosity
i will satisfy it he answered that curiosity was too mean a word to express his ardent desire of knowing her story upon which with very little previous ceremony
she began to relate what is written in the following chapter but before we put an end to this it may be necessary to whisper a word or two to the critics who have perhaps begun to express no less astonishment than mister booth
that a lady in whom we had remarked a most extraordinary power of displaying softness should the very next moment after the words were out of her mouth express sentiments becoming the lips of
joan of naples christina of sweden katharine hays sarah malcolm con philips
footnote though last not least
or any other heroine of the tender sex which history sacred or profane ancient or modern false or true hath recorded we desire such critics to remember that it is the same english climate
in which on the lovely tenth of june under a serene sky the amorous jacobite kissing the odoriferous zephyr's breath gathers a nosegay of white roses to deck the whiter breast of celia
and in which on the eleventh of june the very next day the boisterous boreas roused by the hollow thunder rushes horrible through the air and driving the wet tempest before him levels the hope of the husbandman with the earth
soft and delicate who with a voice the sweetness of which the syrens might envy warbles the harmonious song in praise of the young adventurer and again the next day or perhaps the next hour
with fiery eyes wrinkled brows and foaming lips roars forth treason and nonsense in a political argument with some fair one of a different principle or if the critic be a whig
and consequently dislikes such kind of similes as being too favourable to jacobitism let him be contented with the following story i happened in my youth to sit behind two ladies in a side box at a play
where in the balcony on the opposite side was placed the inimitable b
in company with a young fellow of no very formal or indeed sober appearance one of the ladies i remember said to the other did you ever see anything look so modest
for it was impossible to conceive a greater appearance of modesty innocence and simplicity than what nature had displayed in the countenance of that girl and yet all appearances notwithstanding i myself
there was a softness in the november air that brought back memories of summer and a few belated daisies were blooming in the old clearing as keene and i passed by the ruins of the farm house again early on sunday morning
the practical life was a blind dull routine most men were toiling at tasks which they did not like by rules which they did not understand they never looked beyond the edge of their work the philosophical life was a spider's web
filmy threads of theory spun out of the inner consciousness it touched the world only at certain chosen points of attachment there was nothing firm nothing substantial in it you could look through it
vision was the only real knowledge to see the world the whole world as it is to look behind the scenes to read human life like a book that was the glorious thing most satisfying divine
thus he had talked as we climbed the hill now as we came by the place where we had first met a new eagerness sounded in his voice ever since that day i have inclined to tell you something more about myself
i felt sure you would understand i am planning to write a book a book of knowledge in the true sense a great book about human life not a history not a theory but a real view of life
its hidden motives its secret relations how different they are from what men dream and imagine and play that they are how much darker how much smaller and therefore
how much more interesting and wonderful no one has yet written perhaps because no one has yet conceived such a book as i have in mind i might call it a bionopsis
but surely said i you have chosen a strange place to write it the hilltop school this quiet and secluded region the stream of humanity is very slow and slender here it trickles
you must get out into the busy world you must be in the full current and feel its force you must take part in the active life of mankind in order really to know it a mistake he cried
action is the thing that blinds men you remember matthew arnold's line in action's dizzying eddy whurled to know the world you must stand apart from it and above it you must look down on it
well then said i you will have to find some secret spring of inspiration some point of vantage from which you can get your outlook and your insight he stopped short and looked me full in the face
we came to a little stream flowing through a grove of hemlocks keene seated himself on the fallen log that served for a bridge and beckoned me to a place beside him i promised
to give you an explanation to day to take you on one of my long walks well there is only one of them it is always the same you shall see where it leads what it means you shall share my secret
all the wonder and glory of it of course i know my conduct has seemed strange to you sometimes it has seemed strange even to me i have been doubtful troubled almost distracted i have been risking a great deal
in danger of losing what i value what most men count the best thing in the world but it could not be helped the risk was worth while a great discovery the opportunity of a lifetime yes
without prejudice i ask you to make me one promise you will suspend judgment you will say nothing you will keep my secret until you have been with me three times at the place where i am now taking you
by this time it was clear to me that i had to do with a case lying far outside of the common routine of life something subtle abnormal hard to measure
perhaps without expert advice to wait a little would be prudent for his sake as well as for the sake of others if there was some extraordinary reality behind his mysterious hints
i could see here and there the track of his former journeys broken branches of witch hazel and moose wood ferns trampled down a faint trail across some deeper bed of moss at mid day
we rested for a half hour to eat lunch but keene would eat nothing except a little pellet of some dark green substance that he took from a flat silver box in his pocket he swallowed it hastily
and stooping his face to the spring by which he had halted drank long and eagerly an indian trick said he shaking the drops of water from his face on a walk food is a hindrance a delay
but this tiny taste of bitter gum is a tonic it spurs the courage and doubles the strength if you are used to it otherwise i should not recommend you to try it faugh the flavour is vile
he rinsed his mouth again with water and stood up calling me to come on the way now tangled among the nameless peaks and ranges bore steadily southward rising all the time
but from glimpses here and there and from the purity and lightness of the air i judged that we were on far higher ground than any we had yet traversed the central comb perhaps of the mountain system
a few yards ahead of us through the crowded trunks of the dwarf forest i saw a gray mass like the wall of a fortress across our path it was a vast rock rising from the crest of the ridge
lifting its top above the sea of foliage at its base there were heaps of shattered stones and deep crevices almost like caves one side of the rock was broken by a slanting gully be careful
cried my companion there is a rattlers den somewhere about here the snakes are in their winter quarters now almost dormant but they can still strike if you tread on them step here give me your hand use that point of rock
hold fast by this bush it is firmly rooted so here we are on spy rock you have heard of it i thought so other people have heard of it and imagine that they have found it
five miles east of us on a lower ridge others think it is a peak just back of cro nest all wrong there is but one real spy rock here
this earth holds no more perfect view point it is one of the rare places from which a man may see the kingdoms of the world and all the glory of them look
it was like being lifted up so that we could look over the walls the horizon expanded as if by magic the vast circumference of vision swept around us with a radius of a hundred miles
mountain and meadow forest and field river and lake hill and dale village and farmland far off city and shimmering water
all lay open to our sight and over all the westering sun wove a transparent robe of gem like hues every feature of the landscape seemed alive quivering
pulsating with conscious beauty you could almost see the world breathe wonderful i cried most wonderful
you have found a mount of vision ah he answered
chapter twenty seven the next morning brought the following very unexpected letter from isabella bath april my dearest catherine
i received your two kind letters with the greatest delight and have a thousand apologies to make for not answering them sooner i really am quite ashamed of my idleness but in this horrid place one can find time for nothing
i have had my pen in my hand to begin a letter to you almost every day since you left bath but have always been prevented by some silly trifler or other pray write to me soon and direct to my own home
thank god we leave this vile place tomorrow since you went away i have had no pleasure in it the dust is beyond anything and everybody one cares for is gone i believe if i could see you i should not mind the rest
for you are dearer to me than anybody can conceive i am quite uneasy about your dear brother not having heard from him since he went to oxford and am fearful of some misunderstanding your kind offices will set all right
he is the only man i ever did or could love and i trust you will convince him of it the spring fashions are partly down and the hats the most frightful you can imagine i hope you spend your time pleasantly
but am afraid you never think of me i will not say all that i could of the family you are with because i would not be ungenerous or set you against those you esteem but it is very difficult to know whom to trust
and young men never know their minds two days together i rejoice to say that the young man whom of all others i particularly abhor has left bath you will know from this description i must mean captain tilney
who as you may remember was amazingly disposed to follow and tease me before you went away afterwards he got worse and became quite my shadow many girls might have been taken in for never were such attentions
but i knew the fickle sex too well he went away to his regiment two days ago and i trust i shall never be plagued with him again he is the greatest coxcomb i ever saw and amazingly disagreeable
the last two days he was always by the side of charlotte davis i pitied his taste but took no notice of him the last time we met was in bath street and i turned directly into a shop that he might not speak to me
i would not even look at him he went into the pump room afterwards but i would not have followed him for all the world such a contrast between him and your brother pray send me some news of the latter i am quite unhappy about him
he seemed so uncomfortable when he went away with a cold or something that affected his spirits i would write to him myself but have mislaid his direction and as i hinted above am afraid he took something in my conduct amiss
pray explain everything to his satisfaction or if he still harbours any doubt a line from himself to me or a call at putney when next in town might set all to rights i have not been to the rooms this age
nor to the play except going in last night with the hodges for a frolic at half price they teased me into it and i was determined they should not say i shut myself up because tilney was gone we happened to sit by the mitchells
and they pretended to be quite surprised to see me out i knew their spite at one time they could not be civil to me but now they are all friendship but i am not such a fool as to be taken in by them
you know i have a pretty good spirit of my own anne mitchell had tried to put on a turban like mine as i wore it the week before at the concert but made wretched work of it it happened to become my odd face i believe
at least tilney told me so at the time and said every eye was upon me but he is the last man whose word i would take i wear nothing but purple now i know i look hideous in it but no matter
lose no time my dearest sweetest catherine in writing to him and to me who ever am et cetera such a strain of shallow artifice could not impose even upon catherine
its inconsistencies contradictions and falsehood struck her from the very first she was ashamed of isabella and ashamed of having ever loved her her professions of attachment were now as disgusting as her excuses were empty
and her demands impudent write to james on her behalf no james should never hear isabella's name mentioned by her again on henry's arrival from woodston
she made known to him and eleanor their brother's safety congratulating them with sincerity on it and reading aloud the most material passages of her letter with strong indignation when she had finished it so much for isabella
she cried and for all our intimacy she must think me an idiot or she could not have written so but perhaps this has served to make her character better known to me than mine is to her i see what she has been about she is a vain coquette
and her tricks have not answered i do not believe she had ever any regard either for james or for me and i wish i had never known her it will soon be as if you never had said henry
there is but one thing that i cannot understand i see that she has had designs on captain tilney which have not succeeded but i do not understand what captain tilney has been about all this time
why should he pay her such attentions as to make her quarrel with my brother and then fly off himself i have very little to say for frederick's motives such as i believe them to have been he has his vanities as well as miss thorpe
and the chief difference is that having a stronger head they have not yet injured himself if the effect of his behaviour does not justify him with you we had better not seek after the cause then you do not suppose he ever really cared about her
i am persuaded that he never did and only made believe to do so for mischief's sake henry bowed his assent well then i must say that i do not like him at all
though it has turned out so well for us i do not like him at all as it happens there is no great harm done because i do not think isabella has any heart to lose but suppose he had made her very much in love with him
but we must first suppose isabella to have had a heart to lose consequently to have been a very different creature and in that case she would have met with very different treatment it is very right that you should stand by your brother
but your mind is warped by an innate principle of general integrity and therefore not accessible to the cool reasonings of family partiality or a desire of revenge catherine was complimented out of further bitterness
frederick could not be unpardonably guilty while henry made himself so agreeable
the beginning of vacation anne locked the schoolhouse door on a still yellow evening when the winds were purring in the spruces around the playground and the shadows were long and lazy by the edge of the woods
she dropped the key into her pocket with a sigh of satisfaction the school year was ended she had been reengaged for the next with many expressions of satisfaction only mister harmon andrews told her she ought to use the strap oftener
and two delightful months of a well earned vacation beckoned her invitingly anne felt at peace with the world and herself as she walked down the hill with her basket of flowers in her hand
since the earliest mayflowers anne had never missed her weekly pilgrimage to matthew's grave everyone else in avonlea except marilla had already forgotten quiet shy unimportant matthew cuthbert
but his memory was still green in anne's heart and always would be she could never forget the kind old man who had been the first to give her the love and sympathy her starved childhood had craved
at the foot of the hill a boy was sitting on the fence in the shadow of the spruces a boy with big dreamy eyes and a beautiful sensitive face he swung down and joined anne smiling but there were traces of tears on his cheeks
i thought i'd wait for you teacher because i knew you were going to the graveyard he said slipping his hand into hers i'm going there too i'm taking this bouquet of geraniums to put on grandpa irving's grave for grandma
and look teacher i'm going to put this bunch of white roses beside grandpa's grave in memory of my little mother because i can't go to her grave to put it there but don't you think she'll know all about it just the same
yes i am sure she will paul you see teacher it's just three years today since my little mother died it's such a long long time but it hurts just as much as ever and i miss her just as much as ever
sometimes it seems to me that i just can't bear it it hurts so paul's voice quivered and his lip trembled he looked down at his roses hoping that his teacher would not notice the tears in his eyes and yet
said anne very softly you wouldn't want it to stop hurting you wouldn't want to forget your little mother even if you could no indeed i wouldn't that's just the way i feel you're so good at understanding teacher
nobody else understands so well not even grandma although she's so good to me father understood pretty well but still i couldn't talk much to him about mother because it made him feel so bad
when he put his hand over his face i always knew it was time to stop poor father he must be dreadfully lonesome without me but you see he has nobody but a housekeeper now and he thinks housekeepers are no good to bring up little boys
especially when he has to be away from home so much on business grandmothers are better next to mothers someday when i'm brought up i'll go back to father and we're never going to be parted again
paul had talked so much to anne about his mother and father that she felt as if she had known them she thought his mother must have been very like what he was himself in temperament and disposition and she had an idea that stephen irving
was a rather reserved man with a deep and tender nature which he kept hidden scrupulously from the world father's not very easy to get acquainted with paul had said once i never got really acquainted with him until after my little mother died
but he's splendid when you do get to know him i love him the best in all the world and grandma irving next and then you teacher i'd love you next to father if it wasn't my duty to love grandma irving best because she's doing so much for me
you know teacher i wish she would leave the lamp in my room till i go to sleep though she takes it right out as soon as she tucks me up because she says i mustn't be a coward i'm not scared but i'd rather have the light
my little mother used always to sit beside me and hold my hand till i went to sleep i expect she spoiled me mothers do sometimes you know no anne did not know this although she might imagine it she thought sadly of her little mother
the mother who had thought her so perfectly beautiful and who had died so long ago and was buried beside her boyish husband in that unvisited grave far away anne could not remember her mother and for this reason she almost envied paul
my birthday is next week said paul as they walked up the long red hill basking in the june sunshine and father wrote me that he is sending me something that he thinks i'll like better than anything else he could send
i believe it has come already for grandma is keeping the bookcase drawer locked and that is something new and when i asked her why she just looked mysterious and said little boys mustn't be too curious it's very exciting to have a birthday isn't it
i'll be eleven you'd never think it to look at me would you grandma says i'm very small for my age and that it's all because i don't eat enough porridge i do my very best but grandma gives such generous platefuls
there's nothing mean about grandma i can tell you ever since you and i had that talk about praying going home from sunday school that day teacher when you said we ought to pray about all our difficulties
i've prayed every night that god would give me enough grace to enable me to eat every bit of my porridge in the mornings
for you ought to see the shoulders he has but sometimes concluded paul with a sigh and a meditative air i really think porridge will be the death of me anne permitted herself a smile since paul was not looking at her
all avonlea knew that old missus irving was bringing her grandson up in accordance with the good old fashioned methods of diet and morals let us hope not dear she said cheerfully how are your rock people coming on
does the oldest twin still continue to behave himself he has to said paul emphatically he knows i won't associate with him if he doesn't he is really full of wickedness i think and has nora found out about the golden lady yet
no but i think she suspects i'm almost sure she watched me the last time i went to the cave i don't mind if she finds out it is only for her sake i don't want her to so that her feelings won't be hurt
but if she is determined to have her feelings hurt it can't be helped if i were to go to the shore some night with you do you think i could see your rock people too paul shook his head gravely no i don't think you could see my rock people
i'm the only person who can see them but you could see rock people of your own you're one of the kind that can we're both that kind you know teacher he added squeezing her hand chummily isn't it splendid to be that kind teacher
splendid anne agreed gray shining eyes looking down into blue shining ones anne and paul both knew how fair the realm imagination opens to the view
and both knew the way to that happy land there the rose of joy bloomed immortal by dale and stream clouds never darkened the sunny sky sweet bells never jangled out of tune and kindred spirits abounded
the knowledge of that land's geography east o the sun west o the moon is priceless lore not to be bought in any market place it must be the gift of the good fairies at birth and the years can never deface it or take it away
it is better to possess it living in a garret than to be the inhabitant of palaces without it the avonlea graveyard was as yet the grass grown solitude it had always been
to be sure the improvers had an eye on it and priscilla grant had read a paper on cemeteries before the last meeting of the society
at some future time the improvers meant to have the lichened wayward old board fence replaced by a neat wire railing the grass mown and the leaning monuments straightened up
anne put on matthew's grave the flowers she had brought for it and then went over to the little poplar shaded corner where hester gray slept ever since the day of the spring picnic anne had put flowers on hester's grave when she visited matthew's
the evening before she had made a pilgrimage back to the little deserted garden in the woods and brought therefrom some of hester's own white roses i thought you would like them better than any others dear she said softly
anne was still sitting there when a shadow fell over the grass and she looked up to see missus allan they walked home together missus allan's face was not the face of the girlbride whom the minister had brought to avonlea five years before
it had lost some of its bloom and youthful curves and there were fine patient lines about eyes and mouth a tiny grave in that very cemetery accounted for some of them and some new ones had come during the recent illness
now happily over of her little son but missus allan's dimples were as sweet and sudden as ever her eyes as clear and bright and true and what her face lacked of girlish beauty was now more than atoned for in added tenderness and strength
i suppose you are looking forward to your vacation anne she said as they left the graveyard anne nodded yes i could roll the word as a sweet morsel under my tongue i think the summer is going to be lovely
for one thing missus morgan is coming to the island in july and priscilla is going to bring her up i feel one of my old thrills at the mere thought i hope you'll have a good time anne
oh i don't know i've come so far short in so many things i haven't done what i meant to do when i began to teach last fall i haven't lived up to my ideals
none of us ever do said missus allan with a sigh but then anne you know what lowell says not failure but low aim is crime we must have ideals and try to live up to them even if we never quite succeed
life would be a sorry business without them with them it's grand and great hold fast to your ideals anne i shall try but i have to let go most of my theories said anne laughing a little
i had the most beautiful set of theories you ever knew when i started out as a schoolma'am but every one of them has failed me at some pinch or another even the theory on corporal punishment teased missus allan but anne flushed
i shall never forgive myself for whipping anthony nonsense dear he deserved it and it agreed with him you have had no trouble with him since and he has come to think there's nobody like you
your kindness won his love after the idea that a girl was no good was rooted out of his stubborn mind he may have deserved it but that is not the point if i had calmly and deliberately decided to whip him because i thought it a just punishment for him
i would not feel over it as i do but the truth is missus allan that i just flew into a temper and whipped him because of that i wasn't thinking whether it was just or unjust even if he hadn't deserved it i'd have done it just the same
that is what humiliates me well we all make mistakes dear so just put it behind you we should regret our mistakes and learn from them but never carry them forward into the future with us there goes gilbert blythe on his wheel
home for his vacation too i suppose how are you and he getting on with your studies pretty well we plan to finish the virgil tonight there are only twenty lines to do then we are not going to study any more until september
do you think you will ever get to college oh i don't know anne looked dreamily afar to the opal tinted horizon marilla's eyes will never be much better than they are now although we are so thankful to think that they will not get
worse and then there are the twins somehow i don't believe their uncle will ever really send for them perhaps college may be around the bend in the road but i haven't got to the bend yet and i don't think much about it lest i might grow discontented
well i should like to see you go to college anne but if you never do don't be discontented about it we make our own lives wherever we are after all
they are broad or narrow according to what we put into them not what we get out life is rich and full here everywhere if we can only learn how to open our whole hearts to its richness and fulness
i think i understand what you mean said anne thoughtfully and i know i have so much to feel thankful for oh so much my work and paul irving and the dear twins and all my friends
do you know missus allan i'm so thankful for friendship it beautifies life so much true friendship is a very helpful thing indeed said missus allan and we should have a very high ideal of it
and never sully it by any failure in truth and sincerity i fear the name of friendship is often degraded to a kind of intimacy that has nothing of real friendship in it yes like gertie pye's and julia bell's
they are very intimate and go everywhere together but gertie is always saying nasty things of julia behind her back and everybody thinks she is jealous of her because she is always so pleased when anybody criticizes julia i think it is desecration to call that friendship
if we have friends we should look only for the best in them and give them the best that is in us don't you think then friendship would be the most beautiful thing in the world friendship is very beautiful smiled missus allan but some day
then she paused abruptly in the delicate white browed face beside her with its candid eyes and mobile features there was still far more of the child than of the woman
anne's heart so far harbored only dreams of friendship and ambition and missus allan did not wish to brush the bloom from her sweet unconsciousness
there were sharp pains and sudden dizziness and then profuse bleeding at the pores with dissolution
the scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow men and the whole seizure progress and termination of the disease were the incidents of half an hour
but the prince prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious when his dominions were half depopulated he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court
and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys this was an extensive and magnificent structure the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste a strong and lofty wall girdled it in this wall had gates of iron
the courtiers having entered brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts they resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within the abbey was amply provisioned
with such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion the external world could take care of itself in the meantime it was folly to grieve or to think the prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure
there were buffoons there were improvisatori there were ballet dancers there were musicians there was beauty there was wine all these and security were within without was the red death
it was a voluptuous scene that masquerade but first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held there were seven an imperial suite
in many palaces however such suites form a long and straight vista while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded here the case was very different as might have been expected from the duke's love of the bizarre
the apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time there was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards and at each turn a novel effect
to the right and left in the middle of each wall a tall and narrow gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite these windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened
that at the eastern extremity was hung for example in blue and vividly blue were its windows the second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries and here the panes were purple the third was green throughout and so were the casements
the fourth was furnished and lighted with orange the fifth with white the sixth with violet the seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue
there was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers but in the corridors that followed the suite there stood opposite to each window a heavy tripod bearing a brazier of fire that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room
and thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances but in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood tinted panes was ghastly in the extreme
its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull heavy monotonous clang and when the minute hand made the circuit of the face and the hour was to be stricken there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical
and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company and while the chimes of the clock yet rang it was observed that the giddiest grew pale and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation
but when the echoes had fully ceased a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly and made whispering vows each to the other
but in spite of these things it was a gay and magnificent revel the tastes of the duke were peculiar he had a fine eye for colors and effects
his plans were bold and fiery and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre
his followers felt that he was not it was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not he had directed in great part the moveable embellishments of the seven chambers upon occasion of this great fete
and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders
there were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments there were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions there was much of the beautiful much of the wanton much of the bizarre something of the terrible and not a little of that which might have excited disgust
to and fro in the seven chambers there stalked in fact a multitude of dreams
taking hue from the rooms and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps and anon there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet and then for a moment all is still and all is silent save the voice of the clock
the dreams are stiff frozen as they stand but the echoes of the chime die away they have endured but an instant and a light half subdued laughter floats after them as they depart
taking hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods
and then the music ceased as i have told
but now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock and thus it happened perhaps that more of thought crept with more of time into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled
and thus too it happened perhaps that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before
and the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around there arose at length from the whole company a buzz or murmur expressive of disapprobation and surprise then finally of terror of horror and of disgust
in truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited but the figure in question had out heroded herod and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum
even with the utterly lost to whom life and death are equally jests there are matters of which no jest can be made the whole company indeed seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed
the figure was tall and gaunt and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave the mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat
and yet all this might have been endured if not approved by the mad revellers around but the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the red death his vesture was dabbled in blood and his broad brow with all the features of the face was besprinkled with the scarlet horror
when the eyes of prince prospero fell upon this spectral image which with a slow and solemn movement as if more fully to sustain its role stalked to and fro among the waltzers
but in the next his brow reddened with rage who dares he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery seize him and unmask him that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise from the battlements
it was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the prince prospero as he uttered these words they rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly for the prince was a bold and robust man and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand
it was in the blue room where stood the prince with a group of pale courtiers by his side at first as he spoke there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder
who at the moment was also near at hand and now with deliberate and stately step made closer approach to the speaker but from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party there were found none who put forth hand to seize him
and while the vast assembly as if with one impulse shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls he made his way uninterruptedly but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first through the blue chamber to the purple
he bore aloft a drawn dagger and had approached in rapid impetuosity to within three or four feet of the retreating figure when the latter having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer
there was a sharp cry and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet upon which instantly afterwards fell prostrate in death the prince prospero
for six common sized loaves of bread take three pints of boiling water and mix it with five or six quarts of flour when thoroughly mixed add three pints of cold water stir it till the whole of the dough is of the same temperature
when lukewarm stir in half a pint of family yeast if brewers yeast is used a less quantity will answer a table spoonful of salt knead in flour till stiff enough to mould up and free from lumps the more the bread is kneaded the better it will be
cover it over with a thick cloth and if the weather is cold set it near a fire to ascertain when it has risen cut it through the middle with a knife if full of small holes like a sponge it is sufficiently light for baking it should be baked as soon as light
if your bread should get sour before you are ready to bake it dissolve two or more tea spoonsful of saleratus according to the acidity of it in a tea cup of milk or water strain it on to the dough work it in well then cut off enough for a loaf of bread
mould it up well slash it on both sides to prevent its cracking when baked put it in a buttered tin pan the bread should stand ten or twelve minutes in the pans before baking it if you like your bread baked a good deal let it stand in the oven an hour and a half
when the wheat is grown it makes better bread to wet the flour entirely with boiling water it should remain till cool before working in the yeast some cooks have an idea that it kills the life of the flour to scald it but it is a mistaken idea
it is sweeter for it and will keep good much longer bread made in this way is nearly as good as that which is wet with milk care must be taken not to put the yeast in when the dough is hot as it will scald it and prevents its rising most ovens require heating an hour and a half for bread
a brisk fire should be kept up and the doors of the room should be kept shut if the weather is cold pine and ash mixed together or birch wood is the best for heating an oven to ascertain if your oven is of the right temperature when cleaned throw in a little flour
if it browns in the course of a minute it is sufficiently hot if it turns black directly wait several minutes before putting in the things that are to be baked if the oven does not bake well set in a furnace of live coals
for four loaves of bread take three quarts of wheat flour and the same quantity of boiling water mix them well together
set it in a warm place to rise when light knead in flour till stiff enough to mould up then let it stand till risen again before moulding it up
wet up rye flour with lukewarm milk water will do to wet it with but it will not make the bread so good put in the same proportion of yeast as for wheat bread for four or five loaves of bread put in a couple of tea spoonsful of salt
a couple of table spoonsful of melted butter makes the crust more tender it should not be kneaded as stiff as wheat bread or it will be hard when baked when light take it out into pans without moulding it up let it remain in them about twenty minutes before baking
brown bread is made by scalding indian meal and stirring into it when lukewarm about the same quantity of rye flour as indian meal add yeast and salt in the same proportion as for other kinds of bread bake it between two and three hours
when light take it out into buttered pans let it remain a few minutes then bake it two hours and a half
boil the potatoes very soft then peel and mash them fine put in salt and very little butter then rub them with the flour wet the flour with lukewarm water then work in the yeast and flour till stiff to mould up
it will rise quicker than common wheat bread and should be baked as soon as risen as it turns sour very soon the potatoes that the bread is made of should be mealy and mixed with the flour in the proportion of one third of potatoes to two thirds of flour
rice bread boil a pint of rice till soft then mix it with a couple of quarts of rice or wheat flour when cool add half a tea cup of yeast a little salt and milk to render it of the consistency of rye bread when light bake it in small buttered pans
turn a quart of lukewarm milk on to a quart of flour melt a couple of ounces of butter and put to the milk and flour together with a couple of eggs and a tea spoonful of salt when cool stir in half a tea cup of yeast and flour to make it stiff enough to mould up
put it in a warm place when light do it up into small rolls lay the rolls on flat buttered tins let them remain twenty minutes before baking
boil a small handful of hops in a couple of quarts of water when the strength is obtained from them strain the liquor put it back on the fire take a little of the liquor and mix smoothly with three heaping table spoonsful of wheat flour stir it into the liquor when it boils
let it boil five or six minutes take it from the fire when lukewarm stir in a tea cup of yeast keep it in a warm place till risen when of a frothy appearance it is sufficiently light
add a table spoonful of salt turn it into a jar and cover it tight some people keep yeast in bottles but they are apt to burst some use jugs but they cannot be cleaned so easily as jars
whenever your yeast gets sour the jar should be thoroughly cleaned before fresh is put in if not cleaned it will spoil the fresh yeast yeast made in this manner will keep good a fortnight in warm weather in cold weather longer
if it does not foam well when put in it is too stale to use
take half the quantity of milk you need for your biscuit set it in a warm place with a little flour and a tea spoonful of salt when light mix it with the rest of the milk and use it directly for the biscuit it takes a pint of this yeast for five or six loaves of bread
another method of making yeast which is very good is to take about half a pound of your bread dough when risen and roll it out thin and dry it when you wish to make bread put a quart of lukewarm milk to it set it near the fire to rise
when light scald the flour and let it be till lukewarm then add the yeast and salt
the dough will need a little fresh hop liquor put to it in the course of three or four times baking potato yeast makes very nice bread but the yeast does not keep good as long as when made without them it is made in the following manner
boil a couple of good sized potatoes soft peel and rub them through a sieve put to it a couple of table spoonsful of wheat flour and a quart of hot hop tea when lukewarm stir in half a tea cup of yeast
when light put in a couple of tea spoonsful of salt put it in your yeast jar and cover it up tight
stir into a pint of good lively yeast a table spoonful of salt and rye or wheat flour to make a thick batter when risen stir in indian meal till of the right consistency to roll out
when risen again roll them out very thin cut them into cakes with a tumbler and dry them in the shade in clear windy weather care must be taken to keep them from the sun or they will ferment
when perfectly dry tie them up in a bag and keep them in a cool dry place to raise four or five loaves of bread take one of these cakes and put to it a little lukewarm milk or water
butter biscuit melt a tea cup of butter mix it with two thirds of a pint of milk if you have not any milk water may be substituted but the biscuit will not be as nice put in a tea spoonful of salt half a tea cup of yeast
milk yeast is the best see directions for making it stir in flour till it is stiff enough to mould up a couple of eggs improve the biscuit but are not essential
set the dough in a warm place when risen mould the dough with the hand into small cakes lay them on flat tins that have been buttered let them remain half an hour before they are baked
mix it with a pint of butter milk and a couple of tea spoonsful of salt stir in flour until stiff enough to mould up mould it up into small cakes and bake them immediately
weigh out four pounds of flour and rub three pounds and a half of it with four ounces of butter four beaten eggs and a couple of tea spoonsful of salt moisten it with milk pound it out thin with a rolling pin sprinkle a little of the reserved flour over it lightly
this operation continue to repeat till you get in all the reserved flour then roll it out thin cut it into cakes with a tumbler lay them on flat buttered tins cover them with a damp cloth to prevent their drying bake them in a quick oven
mould them up into small biscuit and bake them immediately
potato biscuit boil mealy potatoes very soft peel and mash them to four good sized potatoes put a piece of butter of the size of a hen's egg a tea spoonful of salt
if the milk cools the potatoes put in a quarter of a pint of yeast and flour to make them of the right consistency to mould up set them in a warm place when risen mould them up with the hand let them remain ten or fifteen minutes before baking them
stir into a pint of lukewarm milk half a tea cup of melted butter a tea spoonful of salt half a tea cup of family or a table spoonful of brewers yeast the latter is the best add flour till it is a very stiff batter
when light drop this mixture by the large spoonful on to flat buttered tins several inches apart let them remain a few minutes before baking bake them in a quick oven till they are a light brown
crackers rub six ounces of butter with two pounds of flour dissolve a couple of tea spoonsful of saleratus in a wine glass of milk and strain it on to the flour add a tea spoonful of salt and milk enough to enable you to roll it out
beat it with a rolling pin for half an hour pounding it out thin cut it into cakes with a tumbler bake them about fifteen minutes then take them from the oven
there is no end sire replied the minister in giving money to these people they would swallow up the treasury of france
i'll pay switzerland the honour of standing godfather for my next child your majesty said the minister in so doing would have all the grammarians in europe upon your back
she may be godmother replied francis hastily so announce my intentions by a courier to morrow morning i am astonished said francis the first that day fortnight speaking to his minister as he entered the closet that we have had no answer from switzerland
they take it kindly said the king they do sire replied the minister and have the highest sense of the honour your majesty has done them but the republick as godmother claims her right in this case of naming the child
in all reason quoth the king she will christen him francis or henry or lewis or some name that she knows will be agreeable to us your majesty is deceived replied the minister
i have this hour received a dispatch from our resident with the determination of the republic on that point also and what name has the republick fixed upon for the dauphin shadrach mesech abed nego replied the minister
by saint peter's girdle i will have nothing to do with the swiss cried francis the first pulling up his breeches and walking hastily across the floor your majesty replied the minister calmly cannot bring yourself off we'll pay them in money said the king
sire there are not sixty thousand crowns in the treasury answered the minister i'll pawn the best jewel in my crown quoth francis the first your honour stands pawn'd already in this matter answered monsieur le premier
by we'll go to war with em
that these little books which i here put into thy hands might stand instead of many bigger books
yet have i carried myself towards thee in such fanciful guise of careless disport that right sore am i ashamed now to intreat thy lenity seriously in beseeching thee to believe it of me that in the story of my father and his christian names i have no thoughts of treading upon francis the first
nor in the affair of the nose upon francis the ninth nor in the character of my uncle toby of characterizing the militiating spirits of my country the wound upon his groin is a wound to every comparison of that kind nor by trim that i meant the duke of ormond
or that my book is wrote against predestination or free will or taxes
in order by a more frequent and a more convulsive elevation and depression of the diaphragm and the succussations of the intercostal and abdominal muscles in laughter to drive the gall and other bitter juices from the gall bladder liver and sweet bread of his majesty's subjects
we want mister shandy to dive into the bottom of this doubt whether the name can be changed or not and as the beards of so many commissaries officials advocates proctors registers and of the most eminent of our school divines and others are all to meet in the middle of one table
and didius has so pressingly invited you who in your distress would miss such an occasion all that is requisite continued yorick is to apprize didius and let him manage a conversation after dinner so as to introduce the subject
then my brother toby cried my father clapping his two hands together shall go with us let my old tye wig quoth my uncle toby and my laced regimentals be hung to the fire all night trim page numbering skips ten pages
no doubt sir there is a whole chapter wanting here and a chasm of ten pages made in the book by it but the book binder is neither a fool or a knave or a puppy nor is the book a jot more imperfect at least upon that score
i question first by the bye whether the same experiment might not be made as successfully upon sundry other chapters but there is no end an please your reverences in trying experiments upon chapters we have had enough of it so there's an end of that matter
we'll go in the coach said my father prithee have the arms been altered obadiah
or whether twas more from the blunder of his head than hand or whether lastly it was from the sinister turn which every thing relating to our family was apt to take it so fell out however to our reproach that instead of the bend dexter which since harry the eighth's reign was honestly our due
a bend sinister by some of these fatalities had been drawn quite across the field of the shandy arms tis scarce credible that the mind of so wise a man as my father was could be so much incommoded with so small a matter the word coach let it be whose it would
or coach man or coach horse or coach hire could never be named in the family but he constantly complained of carrying this vile mark of illegitimacy upon the door of his own he never once was able to step into the coach or out of it without turning round to take a view of the arms
and making a vow at the same time that it was the last time he would ever set his foot in it again till the bend sinister was taken out but like the affair of the hinge it was one of the many things which the destinies had set down in their books ever to be grumbled at and in wiser families than ours but never to be mended
has the bend sinister been brush'd out i say said my father there has been nothing brush'd out sir answered obadiah but the lining we'll go o'horseback said my father turning to yorick
of all things in the world except politicks the clergy know the least of heraldry said yorick no matter for that cried my father i should be sorry to appear with a blot in my escutcheon before them never mind the bend sinister said my uncle toby putting on his tye wig
no indeed said my father you may go with my aunt dinah to a visitation with a bend sinister if you think fit my poor uncle toby blush'd my father was vexed at himself no my dear brother toby said my father changing his tone
but the damp of the coach lining about my loins may give me the sciatica again as it did december january and february last winter so if you please you shall ride my wife's pad
now the chapter i was obliged to tear out was the description of this cavalcade in which corporal trim and obadiah upon two coach horses a breast led the way as slow as a patrole
whilst my uncle toby in his laced regimentals and tye wig kept his rank with my father in deep roads and dissertations alternately upon the advantage of learning and arms as each could get the start
for my own part i am but just set up in the business so know little about it but in my opinion to write a book is for all the world like humming a song be but in tune with yourself madam tis no matter how high or how low you take it
this is the reason may it please your reverences that some of the lowest and flattest compositions pass off very well as yorick told my uncle toby one night by siege my uncle toby looked brisk at the sound of the word siege but could make neither head or tail of it
i'm to preach at court next sunday said homenas run over my notes so i humm'd over doctor homenas's notes the modulation's very well
but that all of a sudden up started an air in the middle of it so fine so rich so heavenly it carried my soul up with it into the other world
that by the first note i humm'd i found myself flying into the other world and from thence discovered the vale from whence i came so deep so low and dismal that i shall never have the heart to descend into it again
chapter two the lair of the wolf you are a fool the words came in a cold snarl that curdled the hearer's blood he who had just been named a fool lowered his eyes sullenly without answer you and all the others i lead
the speaker leaned forward his fist pounding emphasis on the rude table between them he was a tall rangy built man supple as a leopard and with a lean cruel predatory face his eyes danced and glittered with a kind of reckless mockery
the fellow spoken to replied sullenly this solomon kane is a demon from hell i tell you faugh dolt he is a man who will die from a pistol ball or a sword thrust so thought jean juan and la costa
answered the other grimly where are they ask the mountain wolves that tore the flesh from their dead bones where does this kane hide we have searched the mountains and the valleys for leagues and we have found no trace i tell you le loup he comes up from hell
i knew no good would come from hanging that friar a moon ago the wolf strummed impatiently upon the table his keen face despite lines of wild living and dissipation was the face of a thinker
faugh i say again the fellow has found some cavern or secret vale of which we do not know where he hides in the day and at night he sallies forth and slays us gloomily commented the other he hunts us down as a wolf hunts deer by god le loup
the first we know of this man is when we find jean the most desperate bandit unhung nailed to a tree with his own dagger through his breast
then the spaniard juan is struck down and after we find him he lives long enough to tell us that the slayer is an englishman solomon kane who has sworn to destroy our entire band what then la costa
a swordsman second only to yourself goes forth swearing to meet this kane by the demons of perdition it seems he met him for we found his sword pierced corpse upon a cliff what now are we all to fall before this english fiend true
our best men have been done to death by him mused the bandit chief soon the rest return from that little trip to the hermit's then we shall see kane can not hide forever then ha what was that the two turned swiftly as a shadow fell across the table
into the entrance of the cave that formed the bandit lair a man staggered his eyes were wide and staring he reeled on buckling legs and a dark red stain dyed his tunic he came a few tottering steps forward then pitched across the table sliding off onto the floor
hell's devils cursed the wolf hauling him upright and propping him in a chair where are the rest curse you dead all dead
the wolf shook the man savagely the other bandit gazing on in wide eyed horror we reached the hermit's hut just as the moon rose the man muttered i stayed outside to watch the others went in to torture the hermit
to make him reveal the hiding place of his gold yes yes then what the wolf was raging with impatience then the world turned red the hut went up in a roar and a red rain flooded the valley through it i saw
the hermit and a tall man clad all in black coming from the trees solomon kane gasped the bandit i knew it i silence fool snarled the chief go on i fled kane pursued wounded me
but i outran him got here first the man slumped forward on the table saints and devils raged the wolf what does he look like this kane like satan
the voice trailed off in silence the dead man slid from the table to lie in a red heap upon the floor like satan babbled the other bandit i told you tis the horned one himself i tell you he ceased as a frightened face peered in at the cave entrance
kane aye the wolf was too much at sea to lie keep close watch la mon in a moment the rat and i will join you the face withdrew and le loup turned to the other
i and that thief la mon are all that are left what would you suggest the rat's pallid lips barely formed the word flight you are right let us take the gems and gold from the chests and flee using the secret passageway
and la mon he can watch until we are ready to flee then why divide the treasure three ways a faint smile touched the rat's malevolent features then a sudden thought smote him he indicating the corpse on the floor said
i got here first does that mean kane was pursuing him here and as the wolf nodded impatiently the other turned to the chests with chattering haste
the light uncertain and dancing gleamed redly in the slowly widening lake of blood in which the dead man lay it danced upon the heaps of gems and coins emptied hastily upon the floor from the brass bound chests that ranged the walls
and it glittered in the eyes of the wolf with the same gleam which sparkled from his sheathed dagger the chests were empty their treasure lying in a shimmering mass upon the bloodstained floor the wolf stopped and listened outside was silence
there was no moon and le loup's keen imagination pictured the dark slayer solomon kane gliding through the blackness a shadow among shadows he grinned crookedly this time the englishman would be foiled there is a chest yet unopened said he pointing
the rat with a muttered exclamation of surprize bent over the chest indicated with a single catlike motion the wolf sprang upon him sheathing his dagger to the hilt in the rat's back between the shoulders the rat sagged to the floor without a sound
why divide the treasure two ways murmured le loup wiping his blade upon the dead man's doublet now for la mon he stepped toward the door then stopped and shrank back
though so dark and still he stood that a fantastic semblance of shadow was lent him by the guttering candle a tall man as tall as le loup he was clad in black from head to foot in plain close fitting garments that somehow suited the somber face
long arms and broad shoulders betokened the swordsman as plainly as the long rapier in his hand the features of the man were saturnine and gloomy a kind of dark pallor lent him a ghostly appearance in the uncertain light an effect heightened by the satanic darkness of his lowering brows
eyes large deep set and unblinking fixed their gaze upon the bandit and looking into them le loup was unable to decide what color they were strangely the mephistophelean trend of the lower features was offset by a high broad forehead
though this was partly hidden by a featherless hat that forehead marked the dreamer the idealist the introvert just as the eyes and the thin straight nose betrayed the fanatic an observer would have been struck by the eyes of the two men who stood there facing each other
eyes of both betokened untold deeps of power but there the resemblance ceased
that reflected a thousand changing lights and gleams like some strange gem there was mockery in those eyes cruelty and recklessness the eyes of the man in black on the other hand deep set and staring from under prominent brows were cold but deep gazing into them
one had the impression of looking into countless fathoms of ice now the eyes clashed and the wolf who was used to being feared felt a strange coolness on his spine the sensation was new to him a new thrill to one who lived for thrills and he laughed suddenly
you are solomon kane i suppose he asked managing to make his question sound politely incurious i am solomon kane the voice was resonant and powerful are you prepared to meet your god why monsieur le loup answered bowing
i assure you i am as ready as i ever will be i might ask monsieur the same question no doubt i stated my inquiry wrongly kane said grimly i will change it are you prepared to meet your master the devil as to that monsieur
le loup examined his finger nails with elaborate unconcern i must say that i can at present render a most satisfactory account to his horned excellency
for a while at least le loup did not wonder as to the fate of la mon kane's presence in the cave was sufficient answer that did not need the trace of blood on his rapier to verify it what i wish to know monsieur said the bandit
is why in the devil's name have you harassed my band as you have and how did you destroy that last set of fools your last question is easily answered sir kane replied i myself had the tale spread that the hermit possessed a store of gold
knowing that would draw your scum as carrion draws vultures for days and nights i have watched the hut and tonight when i saw your villains coming i warned the hermit and together we went among the trees back of the hut
then when the rogues were inside i struck flint and steel to the train i had laid and flame ran through the trees like a red snake until it reached the powder i had placed beneath the hut floor then the hut and thirteen sinners went to hell in a great roar of flame and smoke
true one escaped but him i had slain in the forest had not i stumbled and fallen upon a broken root which gave him time to elude me monsieur said le loup with another low bow
i grant you the admiration i must needs bestow on a brave and shrewd foeman yet tell me this why have you followed me as a wolf follows deer some moons ago said kane his frown becoming more menacing
you know the details better than i there was a girl there a mere child who hoping to escape your lust fled up the valley but you you jackal of hell you caught her and left her violated and dying i found her there
and above her dead form i made up my mind to hunt you down and kill you
yes i remember the wench mon dieu so the softer sentiments enter into the affair monsieur i had not thought you an amorous man be not jealous good fellow there are many more wenches le loup take care kane exclaimed a terrible menace in his voice
i have never yet done a man to death by torture but by god sir you tempt me the tone and more especially the unexpected oath coming as it did from kane slightly sobered le loup his eyes narrowed and his hand moved toward his rapier
the air was tense for an instant then the wolf relaxed elaborately who was the girl he asked idly your wife i never saw her before answered kane nom d'un nom swore the bandit what sort of a man are you monsieur
who takes up a feud of this sort merely to avenge a wench unknown to you that sir is my own affair it is sufficient that i do so kane could not have explained even to himself nor did he ever seek an explanation within himself a true fanatic
his promptings were reasons enough for his actions you are right monsieur le loup was sparring now for time casually he edged backward inch by inch with such consummate acting skill that he aroused no suspicion even in the hawk who watched him monsieur said he
possibly you will say that you are merely a noble cavalier wandering about like a true galahad protecting the weaker but you and i know different there on the floor is the equivalent to an emperor's ransom let us divide it peaceably then if you like not my company why
nom d'un nom we can go our separate ways kane leaned forward a terrible brooding threat growing in his cold eyes he seemed like a great condor about to launch himself upon his victim sir do you assume me to be as great a villain as yourself
suddenly le loup threw back his head his eyes dancing and leaping with a wild mockery and a kind of insane recklessness his shout of laughter sent the echoes flying
no you fool i do not class you with myself mon dieu monsieur kane you have a task indeed if you intend to avenge all the wenches who have known my favors shades of death shall i waste time in parleying with this base scoundrel kane snarled in a voice suddenly blood thirsting
and his lean frame flashed forward like a bent bow suddenly released at the same instant le loup with a wild laugh bounded backward with a movement as swift as kane's his timing was perfect his back flung hands struck the table and hurled it aside
plunging the cave into darkness as the candle toppled and went out kane's rapier sang like an arrow in the dark as he thrust blindly and ferociously adieu monsieur galahad the taunt came from somewhere in front of him but kane plunging toward the sound with the savage fury of baffled wrath
from somewhere seemed to come an echo of a mocking laugh kane whirled eyes fixed on the dimly outlined entrance
captain blood and the greater portion of his buccaneers had been at their post on the heights of nuestra senora de la poupa utterly in ignorance of what was taking place blood although the man chiefly if not solely responsible for the swift reduction of the city
which was proving a veritable treasure house was not even shown the consideration of being called to the council of officers
determined the terms of the capitulation this was a slight that at another time captain blood would not have borne for a moment but at present in his odd frame of mind and its divorcement from piracy he was content to smile his utter contempt of the french general
and still less his men resentment smouldered amongst them for a while to flame out violently at the end of that week in cartagena it was only by undertaking to voice their grievance to the baron that their captain was able for the moment to pacify them
he found him in the offices which the baron had set up in the town with a staff of clerks to register the treasure brought in and to cast up the surrendered account books with a view to ascertaining precisely what were the sums yet to be delivered up
the baron sat there scrutinizing ledgers like a city merchant and checking figures to make sure that all was correct to the last peso a choice occupation this for the general of the king's armies by sea and land
he looked up irritated by the interruption which captain blood's advent occasioned
the latter greeted him i must speak frankly and you must suffer it my men are on the point of mutiny
captain blood i too will speak frankly and you too must suffer it if there is a mutiny you and your captains shall be held personally responsible the mistake you make is in assuming with me the tone of an ally
whereas i have given you clearly to understand from the first that you are simply in the position of having accepted service under me your proper apprehension of that fact will save the waste of a deal of words blood contained himself with difficulty
you may define our positions as you please said he but i'll remind you that the nature of a thing is not changed by the name you give it i am concerned with facts chiefly with the fact that we entered into definite articles with you
my men demand it they are not satisfied of what are they not satisfied demanded the baron
a blow in the face could scarcely have taken the frenchman more aback he stiffened and drew himself up his eyes blazing his face of a deathly pallor the clerks at the tables laid down their pens and awaited the explosion in a sort of terror
do you really dare so much you and the dirty thieves that follow you god's blood you shall answer to me for that word
i will remind you said blood that i am speaking not for myself but for my men it is they who are not satisfied they who threaten that unless satisfaction is afforded them and promptly they will take it
now don't be rash my men are within their rights as you are aware they demand to know when this sharing of the spoil is to take place and when they are to receive the fifth for which their articles provide god give me patience
how can we share the spoil before it has been completely gathered my men have reason to believe that it is gathered and anyway they view with mistrust that it should all be housed aboard your ships and remain in your possession
they say that hereafter there will be no ascertaining what the spoil really amounts to but name of heaven i have kept books they are there for all to see they do not wish to see account books few of them can read
they want to view the treasure itself they know you compel me to be blunt that the accounts have been falsified your books show the spoil of cartagena
the men know and they are very skilled in these computations that it exceeds the enormous total of forty millions they insist that the treasure itself be produced and weighed in their presence as is the custom among the brethren of the coast
i know nothing of filibuster customs the gentleman was disdainful but you are learning quickly what do you mean you rogue i am a leader of armies not of plundering thieves oh but of course
blood's irony laughed in his eyes yet whatever you may be i warn you that unless you yield to a demand that i consider just and therefore uphold you may look for trouble
ah pardieu am i to understand that you are threatening me
i warn you of the trouble that a little prudence may avert you do not know on what a volcano you are sitting you do not know the ways of buccaneers if you persist cartagena will be drenched in blood and whatever the outcome the king of france will not have been well served
that shifted the basis of the argument to less hostile ground
he gave it with an extreme ill grace and only because blood made him realize at last that to withhold it longer would be dangerous in an engagement he might conceivably defeat blood's followers but conceivably he might not and even if he succeeded the effort would be so costly to him in men
that he might not thereafter find himself in sufficient strength to maintain his hold of what he had seized the end of it all was that he gave a promise at once to make the necessary preparations and if captain blood and his officers would wait upon him on board the victorieuse to morrow morning
weighed in their presence and their fifth share surrendered there and then into their own keeping among the buccaneers that night
but when the next dawn broke over cartagena they had the explanation of it the only ships to be seen in the harbour were the arabella and the elizabeth riding at anchor and the atropos and the lachesis careened on the beach for repair of the damage sustained in the bombardment
the french ships were gone they had been quietly and secretly warped out of the harbour under cover of night and three sails faint and small on the horizon to westward was all that remained to be seen of them
taking with him the troops and mariners he had brought from france he had left behind him at cartagena not only the empty handed buccaneers whom he had swindled
and the volunteers and negroes from hispaniola whom he had swindled no less the two parties were fused into one by their common fury and before the exhibition of it the inhabitants of that ill fated town were stricken with deeper terror than they had yet known since the coming of this expedition
captain blood alone kept his head setting a curb upon his deep chagrin
he would present a reckoning for all the petty affronts and insults to which that unspeakable fellow now proved a scoundrel had subjected him we must follow he declared follow and punish at first that was the general cry
then came the consideration that only two of the buccaneer ships were seaworthy and these could not accommodate the whole force particularly being at the moment indifferently victualled for a long voyage the crews of the lachesis and atropos and with them their captains wolverstone and yberville
renounced the intention after all there would be a deal of treasure still hidden in cartagena they would remain behind to extort it whilst fitting their ships for sea let blood and hagthorpe and those who sailed with them do as they pleased
then only did blood realize the rashness of his proposal and in attempting to draw back he almost precipitated a battle between the two parties into which that same proposal had now divided the buccaneers and meanwhile those french sails on the horizon were growing less and less
blood was reduced to despair if he went off now heaven knew what would happen to the town the temper of those whom he was leaving being what it was yet if he remained it would simply mean that his own and hagthorpe's crews
would join in the saturnalia and increase the hideousness of events now inevitable unable to reach a decision his own men and hagthorpe's took the matter off his hands eager to give chase to rivarol
when blood torn as he was between conflicting considerations still hesitated they bore him almost by main force aboard the arabella within an hour the water casks at least replenished and stowed aboard the arabella and the elizabeth put to sea upon that angry chase
when we were well at sea and the arabella's course was laid writes pitt in his log i went to seek the captain knowing him to be in great trouble of mind over these events i found him sitting alone in his cabin his head in his hands
torment in the eyes that stared straight before him seeing nothing what now peter cried the young somerset mariner lord man
no said blood thickly and for once he was communicative it may well be that he must vent the thing that oppressed him or be driven mad by it and pitt after all was his friend and loved him and so a proper man for confidences but if she knew
if she knew o god i had thought to have done with piracy thought to have done with it for ever
think of cartagena think of the hell those devils will be making of it now and i must have that on my soul
it is that dirty thief who has brought all this about what could you have done to prevent it i would have stayed if it could have availed it could not and you know it
what now what remains loyal service with the english was made impossible for me loyal service with france has led to this and that is equally impossible hereafter what to live clean
but something remained the last thing that he could have expected something towards which they were rapidly sailing over the tropical sunlit sea all this against which he now inveighed so bitterly was but a necessary stage in the shaping of his odd destiny
setting a course for hispaniola since they judged that thither must rivarol go to refit before attempting to cross to france the arabella and the elizabeth ploughed briskly northward with a moderately favourable wind for two days and nights without ever catching a glimpse of their quarry
their position then according to pitt's log
and indeed away to the northwest faintly visible as a bank of clouds appeared the great ridge of the blue mountains whose peaks were thrust into the clear upper air above the low lying haze
the wind to which they were sailing very close was westerly and it bore to their ears a booming sound which in less experienced ears might have passed for the breaking of surf upon a lee shore guns said pitt who stood with blood upon the quarter deck blood nodded listening
ten miles away perhaps fifteen somewhere off port royal i should judge pitt added then he looked at his captain does it concern us he asked guns off port royal that should argue colonel bishop at work
and against whom should he be in action but against friends of ours i think it may concern us anyway we'll stand in to investigate bid them put the helm over close hauled they tacked aweather guided by the sound of combat which grew in volume and definition as they approached it
thus for an hour perhaps then as telescope to his eye blood raked the haze expecting at any moment to behold the battling ships the guns abruptly ceased they held to their course nevertheless with all hands on deck
eagerly anxiously scanning the sea ahead and presently an object loomed into view which soon defined itself for a great ship on fire
the outlines of the blazing vessel grew clearer presently her masts stood out sharp and black above the smoke and flames and through his telescope blood made out plainly the pennon of saint george fluttering from her maintop an english ship he cried
he scanned the seas for the conqueror in the battle of which this grim evidence was added to that of the sounds they had heard and when at last as they drew closer to the doomed vessel they made out the shadowy outlines of three tall ships some three or four miles away standing in toward port royal
the first and natural assumption was that these ships must belong to the jamaica fleet and that the burning vessel was a defeated buccaneer and because of this they sped on to pick up the three boats that were standing away from the blazing hulk
enact at once a five year close season law on the remnant of ruffed grouse quail woodcock snipe and all shore birds even in the home of the newest and deadliest autoloading shotgun
the terms of the game commissioners should be not less than four years like so many other states connecticut has recklessly wasted her wild life inheritance during the fifteen years preceding the year eighteen ninety eight
the bird life of that state had decreased seventy five per cent on march sixth nineteen twelve
and the protection of game this fact we have more cover than there was thirty or forty years ago more brush probably but there is not one partridge ruffed grouse today where there were twenty ten years ago
first of all connecticut needs a ten year close season law to save her remnant of shore birds before it is completely annihilated then she needs a bayne law and needs it badly under such a law
and the tagging system that it provides the state game wardens would have so strong a grip on the situation that the present unlawful sale of game would be completely stopped half way measures in preventing the sale of game will not answer
men of connecticut save the last remnants of your native game birds before they are all utterly exterminated within your borders don't ask the killers of game what they will agree to but make the laws what you know they should be
if you want a gameless state let the destruction go on as it now is going with sixteen thousand licensed gunners in the field each year and you will surely have it right soon delaware
stop all spring shooting at once stop killing shore birds for ten years and protect swans indefinitely enact bag limit laws in very small figures
delaware can step out of her position at the rear of the procession of states and take a place in the front rank will she do it we hope so for her present status is unworthy of any right minded red blooded state this side of the philippines
district of columbia the sale of all native wild game regardless of its source should be stopped immediately by the enactment of a complete bayne law
if game shooting within the district is continued on the marshes of the eastern branch and on the potomac river common decency demands the enactment of bag limit laws and long close season laws of the most modern pattern
just why it is that gross abuses against wild life have so long been tolerated in the territorial center of the american nation remains to be ascertained but whatever the reason the situation is absurd and intolerable
and congress should terminate it immediately as late as eighteen ninety seven and i think for two or three
as a spectacle for gods and men behold to day the sale of quail ruffed grouse wild turkeys and other american game half way between the capitol and the white house
look at center market as a national fence for the sale of game stolen by market gunners from maryland virginia the carolinas and pennsylvania it is time for congress to bring the district of columbia sharply into line
the reputation of the national capital demands it whether the gods of the cafes will consent or not florida shooting shore birds and waterfowl in late winter and spring should be stopped
the sale of all native wild game should be prohibited a state game commissioner whose term of office should be not less than four years and a force of salaried game wardens should be appointed
a general resident license should be required for hunting the killing of does and fawns should be stopped and no deer should be killed save bucks with horns at least three inches long
the bag limit of five deer per year should be two deer of twenty quail and two turkeys per day should be ten quail and one turkey the open season on all game birds should end on february first for domestic reasons
that can be found anywhere in the united states the plume hunters have practically exterminated the plume bearing egrets wholly annihilated the roseate spoonbill the flamingo and also the carolina parrakeet
one of them killed an audubon association warden guy m bradley whose business it was to enforce the state laws protecting the egret rookeries the people really to blame for the shooting of guy bradley
and the extermination of the egrets by lawless and dangerous men are the vain and merciless women who wear the white badges of cruelty as long as they can be purchased they have much to answer for originally
the general bird life of florida decreased in volume seventy seven per cent in nineteen hundred it was at a very low point and it has steadily continued to decrease
the rapidly growing settlement and cultivation of the state has of course had much to do with the disappearance of wild life generally and the draining and exploitation of the everglades
and will render posterity good service the great private game and bird preserve of doctor ray v pierce at apalachicola known as saint vincent island containing twenty square miles of wonderful woods and waters
i know one man who never once exceeded the limit of twenty birds per day
can the quail of any state long endure such drains as that from a zoological point of view florida is in bad shape a great many of her people who shoot are desperately lawless and uncontrollable
and the state is not financially able to support a force of wardens sufficiently strong to enforce the laws even as they are it looks as if the slaughter would go on until nothing of bird life remains
at present i can see no hope whatever for saving even a good remnant of the wild life of the state the present status of wild life protective laws in florida was made the subject of an article in forest and stream of august tenth nineteen twelve
game commissioner of the state of alabama in an article entitled the florida situation in view of his record no one will question either the value or the honest sincerity of mister wallace's opinions
the following paragraphs are from that article the enactment of a model and modern game law for the state of florida is absolutely imperative in order to save many of the most
valuable species of birds and game of that state from certain depletion and threatened extinction the question of the protection of the birds and game in florida is not a local one but is national in its scope birds know no state lines
and while practically all the states lying to the north of florida protect migratory birds and waterfowl yet these are recklessly slaughtered in that state to such an extent as to be appalling to all sportsmen and bird lovers
so alarming has become the decrease of the birds and game of florida that unless a halt is called on the campaign of reckless annihilation that has been ceaselessly waged in that state
will linger only in history and tradition it is the sincerest hope of all lovers of wild life of the american continent that a strong and invincible sentiment
relative to the imperative necessity of real conservation legislation be crystallized in the minds of the members elect of the florida legislature
chapter thirty new laws needed in the states continued maine there are reasons for the belief that maine is conserving her large game better than any other state or province in north america
one glance over her laws is sufficient to convince anyone that instead of studying the clamor of her shooting population maine has actually been studying the needs of her game and providing for those needs if all other states were doing equally well
only bull moose with at least two three inch prongs on its horns may be killed caribou have had a close season since eighteen ninety nine on gray and black squirrels doves and quail there is no open season
the open season for deer varies from ten weeks to four weeks and in parts of three counties there is no open season at all silencers are prohibited and firearms in forests may be prohibited by the governor during droughts
nearly all wild fowl shooting ends january first but in two places on december first people who have not learned the facts habitually think of maine as a vast killing ground for deer
and it is well for it to be known that the hunting grounds have been carefully designated according to the abundance or scarcity of game maine has wisely chosen to regard her hunting grounds and her deer as a valuable asset and she manages them accordingly
to be a guide in that state is to be a good citizen and a protector of game from illegal slaughter no non resident may hunt without a licensed guide the licenses for the thousands of deer killed in maine each year
and the expenses of the visiting sportsmen who hunt them annually bring into the state and leave there a huge sum of money variously estimated at from
the splendid services that he rendered the state of maine during his thirteen years of service especially in the creation of a good code of game laws constitute an imperishable monument to his name and fame there is very little that maine needs
for all practical purposes the pine tree state is to be congratulated upon its wise and efficient handling of the wild life situation maryland
how has it come to pass that maryland lacks more good wild life laws than any other state in the union except north carolina of the really fundamental protective laws
embracing the list that to every self respecting state seems indispensable maryland has almost none save certain bag limit laws otherwise the state is wide open
it is indeed high time that she should abandon her present attitude of hostility to wild life and become a good neighbor she should do what is fair and right about the protection of the migratory game and bird life that annually passes twice through her territory
at the last session of the maryland legislature the law preventing the use of power boats in wild fowl shooting was repealed that was a step ten years backward
clear her record is a long one here it is local regulations should be replaced by a uniform state law the sale of all native wild game should be stopped spring and late winter shooting of game should be stopped
the use of machine shotguns in hunting should be stopped at once stop the use of power boats in wild fowl shooting massachusetts
in nineteen twelve the state of massachusetts moved up into the foremost rank of states where for one year new york had stood alone she passed a counterpart of the new york law absolutely prohibiting the sale of all
wild american game in massachusetts but providing for the sale of game that has been reared in preserves and tagged by state officers this victory was achieved only after three months of hard fighting
the coalition of sportsmen zoologists and friends of wild life in general proved irresistible just as a similar union of forces accomplished the bayne law in new york in nineteen eleven the victory is highly instructive as great victories usually are
it proves once more that whenever the american people can be aroused from their normal apathy regarding wild life any good conservation legislation can be enacted the prime necessities to success are good measures good management
a reasonable campaign fund and tireless energy and persistence massachusetts is to be roundly congratulated on having so thoroughly cleaned up her sale of game situation incidentally
massachusetts needs a bag limit law more in keeping with her small remnant of wild life and that she will have ere long very soon also her sportsmen will raise the standard of ethics in shotgun shooting
by barring out the automatic and pump shotguns so much beloved by the market shooters as matters stand at this date nineteen twelve the old bay state needs the following new laws
low bag limits on all game five year close seasons on all shore birds snipe and woodcock expulsion of the automatic and pump shotguns in hunting michigan
on the whole the game laws of michigan are in excellent shape and leave little to be desired in the line of betterment except to be simplified all the game protected by the laws of the state is debarred from sale
make it fifteen birds per day of waterfowl all species combined and no grouse or quail there should be five year close seasons enacted for quail grouse plover woodcock snipe and all other shore birds
provision should be made for a large state game refuge in southern minnesota the state should prohibit the use of machine guns in hunting to day direct and reliable advices show that the game situation in minnesota is far from encouraging
now what is minnesota going to do about all this is she willing through apathy to become a gameless state her people need to arouse themselves now and pass several strong laws
her bag limit of forty five birds per day of quail grouse woodcock and plover and fifty per day of the waterbirds is a joke and nothing more but it is no laughing matter it spells extermination
the shooting of all water fowl should cease on january first a reasonable limit should be established on deer a hunting license law should be passed at once
it is seriously to the discredit of mississippi that her laws actually classify robins cedar birds grosbeaks and doves as game and make them killable as such from september first to march first
i should think that if no economic consideration carried weight in mississippi state pride alone would be sufficient to promote a correction of the evil if we of the north were to slaughter mockingbirds for food when they come north to visit us
and they would be quite right missouri the missouri bag limits that permit the killing or possession of fifty birds per day are absurd and fatally liberal the utmost should be twenty five and even that is too high
doves should be taken off the list of game birds and protected throughout the year and so should all tree squirrels spring shooting of shore birds and waterfowl should be prohibited without delay
the state of missouri is really strong in her position as a game protecting state she perpetually protects such vanishing species as the ruffed grouse
will even yet profit by her good example montana like colorado and wyoming montana is wasting a valuable heritage of wild game while she struggles to maintain the theory that she still is in the list of states that furnish big game hunting
is optimistic regarding even the big game and believes that it is holding its own this is partially true of white tailed deer
it is said that in nineteen eleven eleven thousand deer were killed in montana all in the western part of the state
but quite right for antelopes and other big game all the grouse and ptarmigan of montana need a five year close season the splendid sage grouse is now extinct in many parts of its previous range fifty eight thousand licensed gunners are too many for them
the few mountain sheep and mountain goats that survive should have a five year close season at once the killing of female hoofed animals should be prohibited by law montana has not yet adopted the model law for the protection of non game birds
montana's bag limits are not wholly bad but the grizzly bear has almost been exterminated save in the yellowstone park
nebraska no other state has bestowed close seasons upon as many extinct species of game as nebraska behold how she has resolutely locked the doors of her empty cage
after all these species have flown elk antelope wild turkey passenger pigeon whooping crane sage grouse ptarmigan and curlew
there is little to say regarding the future of the game of nebraska for its future is now history provision should be made for one or more state game preserves spring shooting of shore birds and waterfowl should be prohibited
a larger and more effective warden service should be provided doves should be removed from the game list nevada the sage grouse should be given a ten year close season for recuperation
all non game birds should have perpetual protection the cranes now verging on extinction and the pigeons and doves should at once be taken out of the list of game birds and forever protected
all the shore birds need five years of close protection a state game warden whose term of office is not less than four years should be provided for
a corps of salaried game protectors should be chosen for active and aggressive game protection nevada's bag limits are among the best of any state the only serious flaw being ten sage grouse per day which should be zero
nevada still has a few antelope and we beg her to protect them all from being hunted or killed it is my belief that if the antelope is really saved anywhere in the united states outside of national parks and preserves it will be in the wild and remote regions of nevada
and in fact all game save deer there appear to be no bag limits on the quantity that may be killed in a day or a season the following bag limits are greatly needed forthwith gray squirrel none per day or per year
duck except wood duck ten per day or thirty per season ruffed grouse four per day twelve per season hare and rabbit four per day or twelve per season
five year close seasons should immediately be enacted for the following species quail woodcock jacksnipe and all species of shore or beach birds the sale of all native wild game should be prohibited
new jersey enjoys the distinction of being the second state to break the strangle hold of the gun makers of hartford and ilion and cast out the odious automatic and pump guns it was a pitched battle that of nineteen twelve
inaugurated by ernest napier president of the state game and fish commission and his fellow commissioners the longer the contest continued the more did the press and the people of new jersey awaken to the seriousness of the situation
finally the gun suppression bill passed the two houses of the legislature with a total of only fourteen votes against it and after a full hearing had been granted the attorneys of the gunmakers was promptly signed by governor woodrow wilson
and always has gone as far as the killers of game would permit her to go but the people have made one great mistake common to nearly every state of permitting the game killers to dictate the game laws
always and everywhere this is a grievous mistake and fatal to the game for example in eighteen sixty six new jersey enacted a five year close season law on the prairie fowl pinnated grouse
but it was too late to save it now that species is as dead to new jersey as is the mastodon the moral is will the people apply this lesson to the ruffed grouse quail and the shore birds generally before they too
if it is done it must be done against the will of the gunners for they prefer to shoot and shoot they will if they can dictate the laws until the last game bird is dead
in nineteen twelve new jersey is spending thirty thousand dollars in trying to restock her birdless covers with foreign game birds and quail in brief here are the imperative duties of new jersey
provide eight year close seasons for quail ruffed grouse woodcock snipe all shore birds and the wood duck prohibit the sale of all native wild game but promote the sale of preserve bred game
prevent the repeal of the automatic gun law which surely will be attempted each year prohibit all bird shooting after january tenth each year until fall
prohibit the killing of squirrels as game new mexico all things considered the game laws of new mexico are surprisingly up to date
it is clear that new mexico is wide awake to the dangers of the wild life situation on two counts her laws are not quite perfect there is no law prohibiting spring shooting and there is no model law protecting the non game birds
the sale of game will not trouble new mexico because the present laws prevent the sale of all protected game except plover curlew and snipe all of them species by no means common in the arid regions of the southwest
the term of the state warden should be extended to four years new york in the year of grace nineteen twelve i think we may justly regard new york as the banner state of all america
and done well nigh the utmost that any state can do to clear her bad record and give all her wild creatures a fair chance to survive the people of the empire state literally can point with pride to the list of things accomplished in the discharge of good citizenship
toward the remnant of wild life and toward the future generations of new yorkers that we of to day have borne our share of the burden of bringing about the conditions of nineteen twelve will be a source of satisfaction
especially when the sword and shield hang useless upon the walls of old age new york began to protect her deer in seventeen o five and her heath hens in seventeen o eight
and of bucks having horns less than three inches in length spring shooting was stopped in nineteen o three a comprehensive law protecting non game birds was enacted in eighteen sixty two
new york's first law against the sale of certain game during close seasons was enacted in eighteen thirty seven in nineteen eleven new york enacted with only one adverse vote
a law prohibiting the sale of all native wild game throughout the state no matter where killed and providing liberally for the encouragement of game breeding and the sale of preserve bred game in nineteen twelve
a new codification of the state game laws went into effect through the initiative of governor dix and conservation commissioners van kennen moore and fleming assisted as special counsel
george a lawyer and john b burnham this code contains many important new provisions one of the most valuable of which is a clause giving the conservation commission power
in nineteen ten william dutcher and t gilbert pearson and the national association of audubon societies won after a struggle lasting five years the passage of the shea plumage bill prohibiting the sale of aigrettes
chap two hundred fifty six this law should be duplicated in every state two things remain to be done in the state of new york all the shore birds quail
and gray squirrels of the state should be given five year close seasons by the action of the state conservation commission for the good name of the state and the ethical standing of its sportsmen
chapter six kingston instructive remarks on early english history instructive observations on carved oak and life in general sad case of stivvings junior musings on antiquity
i forget that i am steering interesting result hampton court maze harris as a guide it was a glorious morning late spring or early summer as you care to take it
when the dainty sheen of grass and leaf is blushing to a deeper green and the year seems like a fair young maid trembling with strange wakening pulses on the brink of womanhood the quaint back streets of kingston
where they came down to the water's edge looked quite picturesque in the flashing sunlight the glinting river with its drifting barges the wooded towpath the trim kept villas on the other side harris in a red and orange blazer grunting away at the sculls
the distant glimpses of the grey old palace of the tudors all made a sunny picture so bright but calm so full of life
i felt myself being dreamily lulled off into a musing fit i mused on kingston or kyningestun
great caesar crossed the river there and the roman legions camped upon its sloping uplands caesar like in later years elizabeth
only he was more respectable than good queen bess he didn't put up at the public houses
was england's virgin queen there's scarcely a pub of any attractions within ten miles of london that she does not seem to have looked in at or stopped at or slept at some time or other i wonder now
supposing harris say turned over a new leaf and became a great and good man and got to be prime minister and died if they would put up signs over the public houses that he had patronised harris had a glass of bitter in this house
harris had two of scotch cold here in the summer of eighty eight harris was chucked from here in december eighteen eighty six no there would be too many of them it would be the houses that he had never entered that would become famous
so he slipped from the noisy revel to steal a quiet moonlight hour with his beloved
perhaps from the casement standing hand in hand they were watching the calm moonlight on the river while from the distant halls the boisterous revelry floated in broken bursts of faint heard din and tumult then brutal odo
years later to the crash of battle music saxon kings and saxon revelry were buried side by side and kingston's greatness passed away for a time to rise once more when hampton court became the palace of the tudors and the stuarts
and bright cloaked gallants swaggered down the water steps to cry what ferry ho gadzooks gramercy many of the old houses round about speak very plainly of those days when kingston was a royal borough and nobles and courtiers lived there
near their king and the long road to the palace gates was gay all day with clanking steel and prancing palfreys and rustling silks and velvets and fair faces the large and spacious houses with their
oriel latticed windows their huge fireplaces and their gabled roofs breathe of the days of hose and doublet of pearl embroidered stomachers and complicated oaths they were upraised in the days when men knew how to build
the hard red bricks have only grown more firmly set with time and their oak stairs do not creak and grunt when you try to go down them quietly speaking of oak staircases reminds me that there is a magnificent carved oak staircase in one of the houses in kingston
it is a shop now in the market place but it was evidently once the mansion of some great personage
put his hand in his pocket and paid for it then and there the shopman he knows my friend
asked our hero if he would like to see some fine old carved oak my friend said he would and the shopman thereupon took him through the shop and up the staircase of the house
and the wall all the way up was oak panelled with carving
from the stairs they went into the drawing room which was a large bright room decorated with a somewhat startling though cheerful paper of a blue ground there was nothing however remarkable about the apartment and my friend wondered why he had been brought there
the proprietor went up to the paper and tapped it it gave forth a wooden sound oak he explained all carved oak right up to the ceiling just the same as you saw on the staircase
over carved oak with blue wall paper
i can't say i altogether blame the man which is doubtless a great relief to his mind from his point of view which would be that of the average householder desiring to take life as lightly as possible and not that of the old curiosity shop maniac
there is reason on his side carved oak is very pleasant to look at and to have a little of but it is no doubt somewhat depressing to live in for those whose fancy does not lie that way it would be like living in a church no
what was sad in his case was that he who didn't care for carved oak should have his drawing room panelled with it
it seems to be the rule of this world each person has what he doesn't want and other people have what he does want married men have wives and don't seem to want them and young single fellows cry out that they can't get them
rich old couples with no one to leave their money to die childless then there are girls with lovers the girls that have lovers never want them they say they would rather be without them that they bother them
they never mean to marry it does not do to dwell on these things it makes one so sad there was a boy at our school we used to call him sandford and merton his real name was stivvings
he was the most extraordinary lad i ever came across
for sitting up in bed and reading greek and as for french irregular verbs there was simply no keeping him away from them
i never knew such a strange creature yet harmless mind you as the babe unborn well that boy
so that he couldn't go to school there never was such a boy to get ill as that sandford and merton
he would be stricken down with rheumatic fever and he would go out in a november fog and come home with a sunstroke they put him under laughing gas one year poor lad and drew all his teeth and gave him a false set because he suffered so terribly with toothache and then it turned to
he was never without a cold except once for nine weeks while he had scarlet fever and he always had chilblains during the great cholera scare of eighteen seventy one our neighbourhood was singularly free from it
he had to stop in bed when he was ill and eat chicken and custards and hot house grapes and he would lie there and sob because they wouldn't let him do latin exercises
for the sake of being ill for a day
nothing we could think of seemed to make us ill until the holidays began then on the breaking up day we caught colds and whooping cough and all kinds of disorders which lasted till the term recommenced when in spite of everything we could manoeuvre to the contrary
we would get suddenly well again and be better than ever such is life and we are but as grass that is cut down and put into the oven and baked to go back to the carved oak question
our great great grandfathers why all our art treasures of to day are only the dug up commonplaces of three or four hundred years ago i wonder if there is real intrinsic beauty in the old soup plates beer mugs and candle snuffers that we prize so now
or if it is only the halo of age glowing around them that gives them their charms in our eyes the old blue that we hang about our walls as ornaments were the common every day household utensils of a few centuries ago and the pink shepherds and the yellow shepherdesses that we
hand round now for all our friends to gush over and pretend they understand
will it be the same in the future will the prized treasures of to day always be the cheap trifles of the day before will rows of our willow pattern
will the white cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower inside species unknown that our sarah janes now break in sheer light heartedness of spirit be carefully mended
it is a white dog its eyes blue its nose is a delicate red with spots its head is painfully erect its expression is amiability carried
i do not admire it myself
thoughtless friends jeer at it and even my landlady herself
but in two hundred years time it is more than probable that that dog will be dug up from somewhere or other minus its legs and with its tail broken and will be sold for old china
and speculate as to how beautiful the bit of the tail that is lost no doubt was we in this age do not see the beauty of that dog
so it is with that china dog
the making of such dogs will have become a lost art our descendants will wonder how we did it and say how clever we were we shall be referred to lovingly as
those grand old artists that flourished in the nineteenth century and produced those china dogs the sampler that the eldest daughter did at school will be spoken of
of the victorian era and be almost priceless the blue and white mugs of the present day roadside inn will be hunted up all cracked and chipped and sold for their weight in gold and rich people will use them for claret cups
and travellers from japan will buy up all the presents from ramsgate and souvenirs of margate
as ancient english curios at this point harris threw away the sculls got up and left his seat and sat on his back and stuck his legs in the air montmorency
what's that for what's that for why no on second thoughts i will not repeat what harris said i may have been to blame i admit it
i was thinking of other things and forgot as
that i was steering and the consequence was that we had got mixed up a good deal with the tow path
harris however said he had done enough for a bit and proposed that i should take a turn so as we were in i got out and took the tow line and ran the boat on past hampton court what a dear old wall that is that runs along by the river there
i never pass it without feeling better for the sight of it such a mellow bright sweet old wall
young vine peeping over the top at this spot to see what is going on upon the busy river and the sober old ivy clustering a little farther down there are fifty shades and tints and hues in every ten yards of that old wall if i could only draw
and knew how to paint i could make a lovely sketch of that old wall i'm sure i've often thought i should like to live at hampton court
but there i don't suppose i should really care for it when it came to actual practice
now drew nearer and now died away and all was death like silence save the beating of one's own heart we are creatures of the sun we men and women we love light and life
that is why we crowd into the towns and cities and the country grows more and more deserted every year in the sunlight in the daytime when nature is alive and busy all around us we like the open hill sides and the deep woods well enough but in the night
the world seems so lonesome and we get frightened like children in a silent house then we sit and sob and long for the gas lit streets and the sound of human voices and the answering throb of human life we feel so helpless and so little in the great stillness
when the dark trees rustle in the night wind
he went in once to show somebody else the way
charged for admission harris
who said they had been there for three quarters of an hour and had had about enough of it harris told them they could follow him if they liked he was just going in and then should turn round and come out again they said it was very kind of him and fell behind and followed
they picked up various other people who wanted to get it over
who had been there all the morning insisted on taking his arm for fear of losing him harris kept on turning to the right but it seemed a long way
oh one of the largest in europe said harris yes it must be replied the cousin because we've walked a good two miles already harris began to think it rather strange himself
but he held on until at last they passed the half of a penny bun on the ground that harris's cousin swore he had noticed there seven minutes ago harris said oh impossible but the woman with the baby said not at all
as she herself had taken it from the child and thrown it down there just before she met harris she also added that she wished she never had met harris and expressed an opinion that he was an impostor that made harris mad and he produced his map and explained his theory
the map may be all right enough said one of the party if you know whereabouts in it we are now harris didn't know and suggested that the best thing to do would be to go back to the entrance and begin again
for the beginning again part of it there was not much enthusiasm but with regard to the advisability of going back to the entrance there was complete unanimity and so they turned and trailed after harris again in the opposite direction
about ten minutes more passed and then they found themselves in the centre harris thought at first of pretending that that was what he had been aiming at but the crowd looked dangerous and he decided to treat it as an accident anyhow
they had got something to start from then they did know where they were and the map was once more consulted and the thing seemed simpler than ever and off they started for the third time and three minutes later they were back in the centre again after that they simply couldn't get anywhere else
whatever way they turned brought them back to the middle it became so regular at length that some of the people stopped there and waited for the others to take a walk round and come back to them
and they told him to go and curl his hair with it
that to a certain extent he had become unpopular they all got crazy at last and sang out for the keeper and the man came and climbed up the ladder outside and shouted out directions to them but all their heads were by this time in such a confused whirl
that they were incapable of grasping anything and so the man told them to stop where they were and he would come to them they huddled together and waited and he climbed down and came in he was a young keeper as luck would have it and new to the business and when he got in
he couldn't find them and he wandered about trying to get to them and then he got lost
he had never yet heard a young girl express herself in just this fashion never at least save in cases where to say such things seemed a kind of demonstrative evidence of a certain laxity of deportment
as they said at geneva he felt that he had lived at geneva so long that he had lost a good deal he had become dishabituated to the american tone never indeed since he had grown old enough to appreciate things
had he encountered a young american girl of so pronounced a type as this certainly she was very charming but how deucedly sociable was she simply a pretty girl from new york state were they all like that the pretty girls who had a
good deal of gentlemen's society or was she also a designing an audacious an unscrupulous young person winterbourne had lost his instinct in this matter and his reason could not help him miss daisy miller looked extremely innocent
some people had told him that after all american girls were exceedingly innocent and others had told him that after all they were not he was inclined to think miss daisy miller was a flirt a pretty american flirt
dangerous terrible women with whom one's relations were liable to take a serious turn but this young girl was not a coquette in that sense she was very unsophisticated she was only a pretty american flirt
winterbourne was almost grateful for having found the formula that applied to miss daisy miller he leaned back in his seat he remarked to himself that she had the most charming nose he had ever seen he wondered what were the regular conditions and limitations
yes formerly more than once said winterbourne you too i suppose have seen it no we haven't been there i want to go there dreadfully of course i mean to go there i wouldn't go away from here without having seen that old castle
it's a very pretty excursion said winterbourne and very easy to make you can drive you know or you can go by the little steamer you can go in the cars said miss miller yes you can go in the cars winterbourne assented
our courier says they take you right up to the castle the young girl continued we were going last week but my mother gave out she suffers dreadfully from dyspepsia she said she couldn't go randolph wouldn't go either
he says he doesn't think much of old castles but i guess we'll go this week if we can get randolph your brother is not interested in ancient monuments winterbourne inquired smiling he says he don't care much about old castles he's only nine
i should think it might be arranged said winterbourne couldn't you get some one to stay for the afternoon with randolph miss miller looked at him a moment and then very placidly i wish you would stay with him she said winterbourne hesitated a moment
with me asked the young girl with the same placidity she didn't rise blushing as a young girl at geneva would have done and yet winterbourne conscious that he had been very bold thought it possible she was offended with your mother he answered very respectfully
that you would like to go up there most earnestly winterbourne declared then we may arrange it if mother will stay with randolph i guess eugenio will eugenio the young man inquired eugenio's our courier
we could only mean miss daisy miller and himself this program seemed almost too agreeable for credence he felt as if he ought to kiss the young lady's hand possibly he would have done so and quite spoiled the project but at this moment another person
presumably eugenio appeared a tall handsome man with superb whiskers wearing a velvet morning coat and a brilliant watch chain approached miss miller looking sharply at her companion oh eugenio said miss miller with the friendliest accent
eugenio had looked at winterbourne from head to foot he now bowed gravely to the young lady i have the honor to inform mademoiselle that luncheon is upon the table miss miller slowly rose see here eugenio she said i'm going to that old castle anyway
the courier inquired mademoiselle has made arrangements
eugenio's tone apparently threw even to miss miller's own apprehension a slightly ironical light upon the young girl's situation she turned to winterbourne blushing a little a very little you won't back out she said
i shall not be happy till we go he protested and you are staying in this hotel she went on
the courier stood looking at winterbourne offensively the young man at least thought his manner of looking an offense to miss miller it conveyed an imputation that she picked up acquaintances
he said smiling and referring to his aunt oh well we'll go some day said miss miller and she gave him a smile and turned away she put up her parasol and walked back to the inn beside eugenio winterbourne stood looking after her
and as she moved away drawing her muslin furbelows over the gravel said to himself that she had the tournure of a princess he had however engaged to do more than proved feasible in promising to present his aunt missus costello to miss daisy miller
as soon as the former lady had got better of her headache he waited upon her in her apartment and after the proper inquiries in regard to her health
a mamma a daughter and a little boy and a courier said missus costello oh yes i have observed them seen them
a high nose and a great deal of very striking white hair which she wore in large puffs and rouleaux over the top of her head
this young man was amusing himself at hamburg and though he was on his travels was rarely perceived to visit any particular city at the moment selected by his mother for her own appearance there
was therefore more attentive than those who as she said were nearer to her he had imbibed at geneva the idea that one must always be attentive to one's aunt missus costello had not seen him for many years and she was greatly pleased with him
manifesting her approbation by initiating him into many of the secrets of that social sway which as she gave him to understand she exerted in the american capital she admitted that she was very exclusive but if he were acquainted with new york
he immediately perceived from her tone that miss daisy miller's place in the social scale was low i am afraid you don't approve of them he said they are very common missus costello declared
not accepting ah you don't accept them said the young man i can't my dear frederick i would if i could but i can't the young girl is very pretty said winterbourne in a moment of course she's pretty
but she is very common i see what you mean of course said winterbourne after another pause she has that charming look that they all have his aunt resumed i can't think where they pick it up and she dresses in perfection
no you don't know how well she dresses i can't think where they get their taste but my dear aunt she is not after all a comanche savage she is a young lady said missus costello
an intimacy with the courier the young man demanded oh the mother is just as bad they treat the courier like a familiar friend like a gentleman i shouldn't wonder if he dines with them
very likely they have never seen a man with such good manners such fine clothes so like a gentleman
count he sits with them in the garden in the evening i think he smokes winterbourne listened with interest to these disclosures they helped him to make up his mind about miss daisy evidently she was rather wild
well he said i am not a courier and yet she was very charming to me you had better have said at first said missus costello with dignity that you had made her acquaintance
did you say i said i should take the liberty of introducing her to my admirable aunt i am much obliged to you it was to guarantee my respectability said winterbourne and pray
ah you are cruel said the young man
you don't say that as if you believed it missus costello observed
cried missus costello what a dreadful girl her nephew was silent for some moments you really think then he began earnestly and with a desire for trustworthy information you really think that but he paused again
think what sir said his aunt that she is the sort of young lady who expects a man sooner or later to carry her off i haven't the least idea what such young ladies expect a man to do
you have lived too long out of the country you will be sure to make some great mistake
my dear aunt i am not so innocent said winterbourne smiling and curling his mustache
winterbourne continued to curl his mustache meditatively you won't let the poor girl know you then he asked at last
i think that she fully intends it then my dear frederick said missus costello i must decline the honor of her acquaintance i am an old woman but i am not too old thank heaven to be shocked
but don't they all do these things the young girls in america winterbourne inquired missus costello stared a moment i should like to see my granddaughters do them she declared grimly this seemed to throw some light upon the matter
tremendous flirts if therefore miss daisy miller exceeded the liberal margin allowed to these young ladies it was probable that anything might be expected of her winterbourne was impatient to see her again and he was vexed with himself that by instinct
he should not appreciate her justly though he was impatient to see her he hardly knew what he should say to her about his aunt's refusal to become acquainted with her but he discovered promptly enough that with miss daisy miller there was no great need of walking on tiptoe
he found her that evening in the garden wandering about in the warm starlight like an indolent sylph and swinging to and fro the largest fan he had ever beheld it was ten o'clock he had dined with his aunt
miss daisy miller seemed very glad to see him she declared it was the longest evening she had ever passed have you been all alone he asked i have been walking round with mother but mother gets tired walking round she answered has she gone to bed
no she doesn't like to go to bed said the young girl she doesn't sleep not three hours she says she doesn't know how she lives she's dreadfully nervous i guess she sleeps more than she thinks she's gone somewhere after randolph
she wants to try to get him to go to bed he doesn't like to go to bed let us hope she will persuade him observed winterbourne she will talk to him all she can but he doesn't like her to talk to him
said miss daisy opening her fan she's going to try to get eugenio to talk to him but he isn't afraid of eugenio eugenio's a splendid courier but he can't make much impression on randolph i don't believe he'll go to bed before eleven
it appeared that randolph's vigil was in fact triumphantly prolonged for winterbourne strolled about with the young girl for some time without meeting her mother i have been looking round for that lady you want to introduce me to his companion resumed she's your aunt
then on winterbourne's admitting the fact and expressing some curiosity as to how she had learned it she said she had heard all about missus costello from the chambermaid she was very quiet and very comme il faut she wore white puffs she spoke to no one
i think that's a lovely description headache and all said miss daisy chattering along in her thin gay voice i want to know her ever so much i know just what your aunt would be i know i should like her she would be very exclusive
i like a lady to be exclusive i'm dying to be exclusive myself well we are exclusive mother and i we don't speak to everyone or they don't speak to us i suppose it's about the same thing
anyway i shall be ever so glad to know your aunt winterbourne was embarrassed she would be most happy he said but i am afraid those headaches will interfere the young girl looked at him through the dusk
but i suppose she doesn't have a headache every day she said sympathetically winterbourne was silent a moment she tells me she does he answered at last not knowing what to say miss daisy miller stopped and stood looking at him
her prettiness was still visible in the darkness she was opening and closing her enormous fan she doesn't want to know me she said suddenly why don't you say so
and she gave a little laugh winterbourne fancied there was a tremor in her voice he was touched shocked mortified by it my dear young lady he protested she knows no one
blockhead hans far away in the country lay an old manor house where lived an old squire who had two sons they thought themselves so clever
that if they had known only half of what they did know it would have been quite enough they both wanted to marry the king's daughter for she had proclaimed that she would have for her husband the man who knew best how to choose his words
knew the whole latin dictionary and also three years issue of the daily paper of the town off by heart so that he could repeat it all backwards or forwards as you pleased the other had worked at the laws of corporation
and knew by heart what every member of the corporation ought to know so that he thought he could quite well speak on state matters and give his opinion he understood besides this how to embroider braces with roses and other flowers and scrolls
had a milk white one then they oiled the corners of their mouths so that they might be able to speak more fluently all the servants stood in the courtyard and saw them mount their steeds and here by chance came the third brother
where are you off to you are in your sunday best clothes we are going to court to woo the princess don't you know what is known throughout all the country side and they told him all about it hurrah i'll go to
cried blockhead hans and the brothers laughed at him and rode off dear father cried blockhead hans i must have a horse too what a desire for marriage has seized me if she will have me she will have me
and if she won't have me i will have her stop that nonsense said the old man i will not give you a horse you can't speak you don't know how to choose your words your brothers ah they are very different lads
well said blockhead hans if i can't have a horse i will take the goat which is mine he can carry me and he did so he sat astride on the goat struck his heels into its side
for everything had to be thought out
bawled blockhead hans here i am just look what i found on the road and he showed them a dead crow which he had picked up blockhead said his brothers what are you going to do with it with the crow i shall give it to the princess
do so certainly they said laughing loudly and riding on slap bang here i am again look what i have just found you don't find such things every day on the road
and the brothers turned round to see what in the world he could have found blockhead said they that is an old wooden shoe without the top are you going to send that too to the princess of course i shall returned blockhead hans
and the brothers laughed and rode on a good way slap bang here i am cried blockhead hans better and better it is really famous what have you found now asked the brothers
it is really too good how pleased the princess will be why said the brothers this is pure mud straight from the ditch of course it is said blockhead hans and it is the best kind
look how it runs through one's fingers and so saying he filled his pocket with the mud but the brothers rode on so fast that dust and sparks flew all around and they reached the gate of the town a good hour before blockhead hans
here came the suitors numbered according to their arrival and they were ranged in rows six in each row and they were so tightly packed that they could not move their arms this was a very good thing for otherwise they would have torn each other in pieces
merely because the one was in front of the other all the country people were standing round the king's throne and were crowded together in thick masses almost out of the windows to see the princess receive the suitors
and as each one came into the room all his fine phrases went out like a candle it doesn't matter said the princess away out with him at last she came to the row in which the brother who knew the dictionary by heart was but he did not know it any longer
he had quite forgotten it in the rank and file and the floor creaked and the ceiling was all made of glass mirrors so that he saw himself standing on his head
and each of them was writing down what was said to publish it in the paper that came out and was sold at the street corners for a penny it was fearful and they had made up the fire so hot that it was grilling it is hot in here isn't it said the suitor
of course it is my father is roasting young chickens to day said the princess ahem there he stood like an idiot he was not prepared for such a speech he did not know what to say although he wanted to say something witty
ahem it doesn't matter said the princess take him out and out he had to go now the other brother entered how hot it is he said of course we are roasting young chickens to day remarked the princess
how do you um he said and the reporters wrote down how do you um it doesn't matter said the princess take him out now blockhead hans came in he rode his goat right into the hall
of course i am roasting young chickens to day said the princess that's good replied blockhead hans then can i roast a crow with them with the greatest of pleasure said the princess but have you anything you can roast them in
for i have neither pot nor saucepan oh rather said blockhead hans here is a cooking implement with tin rings and he drew out the old wooden shoe and laid the crow in it that is quite a meal said the princess but where shall we get the soup from
do you see there are standing three reporters and an old editor and this old editor is the worst for he doesn't understand anything
and the reporters giggled and each dropped a blot of ink on the floor ah are those the great people said blockhead hans then i will give the editor the best so saying he turned his pockets inside out and threw the mud
right in his face that was neatly done said the princess i couldn't have done it but i will soon learn how to blockhead hans became king got a wife and a crown and sat on the throne
and this we have still damp from the newspaper of the editor and the reporters
many years ago there lived an emperor who was so fond of new clothes that he spent all his money on them in order to be beautifully dressed he did not care about his soldiers he did not care about the theatre
he had a coat for every hour of the day and just as they say of a king he is in the council chamber they always said here the emperor is in the wardrobe in the great city in which he lived
not only were the texture and pattern uncommonly beautiful
possessed this wonderful property that they were invisible to anyone who was not fit for his office or who was unpardonably stupid those must indeed be splendid clothes thought the emperor
if i had them on i could find out which men in my kingdom are unfit for the offices they hold i could distinguish the wise from the stupid yes this cloth must be woven for me at once and he gave both the impostors much money
so that they might begin their work they placed two weaving looms and began to do as if they were working but they had not the least thing on the looms they also demanded the finest silk and the best gold which they put in their pockets
and worked at the empty looms till late into the night i should like very much to know how far they have got on with the cloth thought the emperor but he remembered when he thought about it that whoever was stupid or not fit for his office would not be able to see it
now he certainly believed that he had nothing to fear for himself but he wanted first to send somebody else in order to see how he stood with regard to his office everybody in the whole town knew what a wonderful power the cloth had
and no one understands his office better than he now the good old minister went into the hall where the two impostors sat working at the empty weaving looms dear me thought the old minister opening his eyes wide i can see nothing but he did not say so
both the impostors begged him to be so kind as to step closer and asked him if it were not a beautiful texture and lovely colours they pointed to the empty loom and the poor old minister went forward rubbing his eyes but he could see nothing
dear dear thought he can i be stupid i have never thought that and nobody must know it can i be not fit for my office no i must certainly not say that i cannot see the cloth
have you nothing to say about it asked one of the men who was weaving oh it is lovely most lovely answered the old minister looking through his spectacles
yes i will tell the emperor that it pleases me very much
the old minister paid great attention so that he could tell the same to the emperor when he came back to him which he did the impostors now wanted more money more silk and more gold to use in their weaving
they put it all in their own pockets and there came no threads on the loom but they went on as they had done before working at the empty loom the emperor soon sent another worthy statesman to see how the weaving was getting on and whether the cloth would soon be finished
it was the same with him as the first one he looked and looked but because there was nothing on the empty loom he could see nothing is it not a beautiful piece of cloth asked the two impostors
and they pointed to and described the splendid material which was not there stupid i am not thought the man so it must be my good office for which i am not fitted it is strange certainly but no one must be allowed to notice it
and so he praised the cloth which he did not see and expressed to them his delight at the beautiful colours and the splendid texture yes it is quite beautiful he said to the emperor
everybody in the town was talking of the magnificent cloth now the emperor wanted to see it himself while it was still on the loom with a great crowd of select followers amongst whom were both the worthy statesmen who had already been there before
he went to the cunning impostors who were now weaving with all their might but without fibre or thread is it not splendid said both the old statesmen who had already been there
and then they pointed to the empty loom for they believed that the others could see the cloth quite well what thought the emperor i can see nothing this is indeed horrible
and all the people in the streets and at the windows said how matchless are the emperor's new clothes that train fastened to his dress how beautifully it hangs no one wished it to be noticed that he could see nothing
for then he would have been unfit for his office or else very stupid none of the emperor's clothes had met with such approval as these had but he has nothing on said a little child at last
just listen to the innocent child said the father and each one whispered to his neighbour what the child had said but he has nothing on
but he thought to himself i must go on with the procession now
how one came as was foretold to the city of never the child that played about the terraces and gardens in sight of the surrey hills
never knew that it was he that should come to the ultimate city never knew that he should see the under pits
i think of him now as a child with a little red watering can going about the gardens on a summer's day that lit the warm south country his imagination delighted with all tales of quite little adventures
wall above wall and mountain above mountain stands at the edge of the world and in perpetual twilight alone with the moon and the sun holds up the inconceivable city of never to tread its streets he was destined
prophecy knew it he had the magic halter and a worn old rope it was an old wayfaring woman had given it to him it had the power to hold any animal whose race had never known captivity such as the unicorn
that marvel of the nations not when it is night in the world and we can see no further than the stars not when the sun is shining where we dwell dazzling our eyes but when the sun has set on some stormy days
that overpeer the edges of the world and seem to dance with dignity and calm in that gentle light of evening that is wonder's native haunt then does the city of never unvisited and afar look long at her sister the world
it had been prophecied that he should come there they knew it when the pebbles were being made and before the isles of coral were given unto the sea and thus the prophecy came unto fulfilment and passed into history
and so at length to oblivion out of which i drag it as it goes floating by into which i shall one day tumble the hippogriffs dance before dawn in the upper air long before sunrise flashes upon our lawns
they go to glitter in light that has not yet come to the world and as the dawn works up from the ragged hills and the stars feel it they go slanting earthwards till sunlight touches the tops of the tallest trees and the hippogriffs alight
with a rattle of quills and fold their wings and gallop and gambol away till they come to some prosperous wealthy detestable town and they leap at once from the fields and soar away from the sight of it pursued by the horrible smoke of it
until they come again to the pure blue air he whom prophecy had named from of old to come to the city of never went down one midnight with his magic halter to a lake side where the hippogriffs alighted at dawn
for the turf was soft there and they could gallop far before they came to a town and there he waited hidden near their hoofmarks and the stars paled a little and grew indistinct but there was no other sign as yet of the dawn
when there appeared far up in the deeps of the night two little saffron specks then four and five it was the hippogriffs dancing and twirling around in the sun another flock joined them there were twelve of them now
they descended in wide curves slowly trees down on earth revealed against the sky jet black each delicate twig a star disappeared from a cluster now another
and dawn came on like music like a new song ducks shot by to the lake from still dark fields of corn far voices uttered a colour grew upon water and still the hippogriffs gloried in the light
revelling up in the sky but when pigeons stirred on the branches and the first small bird was abroad and little coots from the rushes ventured to peer about
as a wounded beast goes home but when they came to the heights that venturous rider saw huge and fair to the left of him the destined city of never and he beheld the towers of lel and lek
at evening upon the world while others hint that knowledge of these might undo our civilization there watched him ceaselessly from the under pits those eyes whose duty it is from further within and deeper
the sentinels on the bulwarks beheld that stream of bats and lifted up their spears as it were for war nevertheless when they perceived that that war for which they watched was not now come upon them
they lowered their spears and suffered him to enter and he passed whirring through the earthward gateway even so he came as foretold to the city of never perched upon toldenarba
and saw late twilight on those pinnacles that know no other light all the domes were of copper but the spires on their summits were gold little steps of onyx ran all this way and that
with cobbled agates were its streets a glory through small square panes of rose quartz the citizens looked from their houses to them as they looked abroad the world far off seemed happy
clad though that city was in one robe always in twilight yet was its beauty worthy of even so lovely a wonder city and twilight were both peerless but for each other
that none can say of them where their boundary is and which the eternal twilight
and passing away mourning catastrophes in other worlds and they built temples sometimes to ruined stars that had fallen flaming down from the milky way giving them worship still when by us long since forgotten
other temples they have who knows to what divinities and he that was destined alone of men to come to the city of never was well content to behold it as he trotted down its agate street
with the wings of his hippogriff furled seeing at either side of him marvel on marvel of which even china is ignorant then as he neared the city's further rampart by which no inhabitant stirred
and looked in a direction to which no houses faced with any rose pink windows he suddenly saw far off dwarfing the mountains an even greater city whether that city was built upon the twilight
or whether it rose from the coasts of some other world he did not know he saw it dominate the city of never and strove to reach it
the hippogriff shied frantically and neither the magic halter nor anything that he did could make the monster face it at last from the city of never's lonely outskirts where no inhabitants walked
the rider turned slowly earthward he knew now why all the windows faced this way the denizens of the twilight gazed at the world and not at a greater than them then from the last step of the earthward stairway
like lead past the under pits and down the glittering face of toldenarba down from the overshadowed glories of the gold tipped city of never and out of perpetual twilight swooped the man on his winged monster
the wind that slept at the time leaped up like a dog at their onrush it uttered a cry and ran past them down on the world it was morning night was roaming away with his cloak trailed behind him
the orb was grey but it glittered lights blinked surprisingly in early windows forth over wet dim fields went cows from their houses even in this hour touched the fields again the feet of the hippogriff
going back to some airy dancing place of his people and he that surmounted glittering toldenarba and came alone of men to the city of never has his name and his fame among nations
but he and the people of that twilit city well know two things unguessed by other men
the bride of the man horse in the morning of his two hundred and fiftieth year shepperalk the centaur went to the golden coffer wherein the treasure of the centaurs was
had hammered from mountain gold and set with opals bartered from the gnomes he put it upon his wrist and said no word but walked from his mother's cavern and he took with him too that clarion of the centaurs
that famous silver horn that in its time had summoned to surrender seventeen cities of man and for twenty years had brayed at star girt walls in the siege of tholdenblarna the citadel of the gods
the inner land of the mountains that today he would not wonder awhile at the sunset and afterwards trot back to the cavern again to sleep on rushes pulled by rivers that know not man she knew
that it was with him as it had been of old with his father and with goom the father of jyshak and long ago with the gods therefore she only sighed and let him go but he
coming out from the cavern that was his home went for the first time over the little stream and going round the corner of the crags saw glittering beneath him the mundane plain
and the wind of the autumn that was gilding the world rushing up the slopes of the mountain beat cold on his naked flanks he raised his head and snorted i am a man horse now he shouted aloud
and leaping from crag to crag he galloped by valley and chasm by torrent bed and scar of avalanche until he came to the wandering leagues of the plain and left behind him for ever
his goal was zretazoola the city of sombelene what legend of sombelene's inhuman beauty or of the wonder of her mystery had ever floated over the mundane plain
and only confided secretly to the bat for shepperalk was more legendary even than man certain it was that he headed from the first for the city of zretazoola where sombelene in her temple dwelt
though all the mundane plain its rivers and mountains lay between shepperalk's home and the city he sought when first the feet of the centaur touched the grass of that soft alluvial earth
he blew for joy upon the silver horn he pranced and caracoled
pace came to him like a maiden with a lamp a new and beautiful wonder the wind laughed as it passed him he put his head down low to the scent of the flowers he lifted it up to be nearer the unseen stars
he revelled through kingdoms took rivers in his stride how shall i tell you ye that dwell in cities
to sing in some city's spires before daylight comes he was the sworn companion of the wind for joy he was as a song the lightnings of his legendary sires the earlier gods
began to mix with his blood his hooves thundered he came to the cities of men and all men trembled for they remembered the ancient mythical wars and now they dreaded new battles and feared for the race of man
history does not know them but what of that not all of us have sat at historians feet but all have learned fable and myth at their mothers knees
and there were none that did not fear strange wars when they saw shepperalk swerve and leap along the public ways so he passed from city to city by night he lay down unpanting in the reeds of some marsh or a forest
before dawn he rose triumphant and hugely drank of some river in the dark and splashing out of it
and to send echoing eastwards the exultant greetings of his jubilant horn and lo the sunrise coming up from the echoes and the plains new lit by the day and the leagues spinning by like water flung from a top
and that gay companion the loudly laughing wind and men and the fears of men and their little cities and after that great rivers and waste spaces and huge new hills and then new lands beyond them and more cities of men
and always the old companion the glorious wind kingdom by kingdom slipt by and still his breath was even it is a golden thing to gallop on good turf in one's youth said the young man horse the centaur
the aged made subtle prophecies is he not swift said the young how glad he is said children night after night brought him sleep and day after day lit his gallop
who live by the edges of the mundane plain and from them he came to the lands of legend again such as those in which he was cradled on the other side of the world and which fringe the marge of the world and mix with the twilight
he galloped on into their golden mist and when it hid from his eyes the sight of things the dreams in his heart awoke and romantically he pondered all those rumours that used to come to him from sombelene
because of the fellowship of fabulous things she dwelt said evening secretly to the bat in a little temple by a lone lakeshore a grove of cypresses screened her from the city from zretazoola of the climbing ways
for only her beauty and her lineage were divine her father had been half centaur and half god her mother was the child of a desert lion and that sphinx that watches the pyramids
she was more mystical than woman her beauty was as a dream was as a song the one dream of a lifetime dreamed on enchanted dews
blown far from his native coasts by storm in paradise dawn after dawn on mountains of romance or twilight after twilight could never equal her beauty all the glow worms had not the secret among them
the lions came not to woo her because they feared her strength and the gods dared not love her because they knew she must die this was what evening had whispered to the bat
this was the dream in the heart of shepperalk as he cantered blind through the mist and suddenly there at his hooves in the dark of the plain appeared the cleft in the legendary lands and zretazoola sheltering in the cleft
and only seeing dimly through his lashes seized sombelene by the hair
and so haled her away and leaping with her over the floorless chasm where the waters of the lake fall unremembered away into a hole in the world took her we know not where
to be her slave for all centuries that are allowed to his race
how nuth would have practised his art upon the gnoles despite the advertisements of rival firms it is probable that every tradesman knows that nobody in business at the present time
has a position equal to that of mister nuth to those outside the magic circle of business
and whatever claims they boast his rivals know it his terms are moderate so much cash down when the goods are delivered so much in blackmail afterwards he consults your convenience
his skill may be counted upon i have seen a shadow on a windy night move more noisily than nuth for nuth is a burglar by trade men have been known to stay in country houses
these mouldering chairs these full length ancestors and carved mahogany are the produce of the incomparable nuth it may be urged against my use of the word incomparable that in the burglary business the name of slith
stands paramount and alone and of this i am not ignorant but slith is a classic and lived long ago and knew nothing at all of modern competition besides which
the surprising nature of his doom has possibly cast a glamour upon slith that exaggerates in our eyes his undoubted merits it must not be thought that i am a friend of nuth's
on the contrary such politics as i have are on the side of property and he needs no words from me for his position is almost unique in trade
whenever anyone came to inspect it before purchase the caretaker used to praise the house in the words that nuth had suggested if it wasn't for the drains she would say it's the finest house in london
here in a neat black dress on one spring morning came an old woman whose bonnet was lined with red asking for mister nuth and with her came her large and awkward son missus eggins the caretaker
and there was nuth standing quite close to them lord said the old woman whose bonnet was lined with red you did make me start and then she saw by his eyes that that was not the way to speak to mister nuth
first of all nuth wanted to see a business reference and when he was shown one from a jeweller with whom he happened to be hand in glove the upshot of it was that he agreed to take young tonker for this was the surname of the likely lad
and to make him his apprentice and the old woman whose bonnet was lined with red went back to her little cottage in the country and every evening said to her old man tonker we must fasten the shutters of a night time for tommy's a burglar now
the details of the likely lad's apprenticeship i do not propose to give for those that are in the business know those details already and those that are in other businesses care only for their own while men of leisure who have no trade at all
would fail to appreciate the gradual degrees by which tommy tonker came first to cross bare boards covered with little obstacles in the dark without making any sound and then to go silently up creaky stairs and then
to open doors and lastly to climb let it suffice that the business prospered greatly while glowing reports of tommy tonker's progress were sent from time to time to the old woman whose bonnet was lined with red
nuth had given up lessons in writing very early for he seemed to have some prejudice against forgery and therefore considered writing a waste of time and then there came the transaction with lord castlenorman at his surrey residence
instructed by mister nuth who waited outside came away with one pocketful of rings and shirt studs it was quite a light pocketful but the jewellers in paris could not match it without sending specially to africa
so that lord castlenorman had to borrow bone shirt studs not even rumour whispered the name of nuth were i to say that this turned his head there are those to whom the assertion would give pain
for his associates hold that his astute judgment was unaffected by circumstance i will say therefore that it spurred his genius to plan what no burglar had ever planned before it was nothing less than to burgle the house of the gnoles
and this that abstemious man unfolded to tonker over a cup of tea had tonker not been nearly insane with pride over their recent transaction and had he not been blinded by a veneration for nuth he would have
but i cry over spilt milk he expostulated respectfully he said he would rather not go he said it was not fair he allowed himself to argue
and in the end one windy october morning with a menace in the air found him and nuth drawing near to the dreadful wood nuth by weighing little emeralds against pieces of common rock had ascertained the probable weight of those house ornaments
that the gnoles are believed to possess in the narrow lofty house wherein they have dwelt from of old they decided to steal two emeralds and to carry them between them on a cloak but if they should be too heavy one must be dropped at once
nuth warned young tonker against greed and explained that the emeralds were worth less than cheese until they were safe away from the dreadful wood everything had been planned and they walked now in silence
no track led up to the sinister gloom of the trees either of men or cattle not even a poacher had been there snaring elves for over a hundred years you did not trespass twice in the dells of the gnoles
and without one window at all facing in that direction they did not speak of it there and elsewhere it is unheard of into this wood stepped nuth and tommy tonker they had no firearms
tonker had asked for a pistol but nuth replied that the sound of a shot would bring everything down on us and no more was said about it into the wood they went all day deeper and deeper
they saw the skeleton of some early georgian poacher nailed to a door in an oak tree sometimes they saw a fairy scuttle away from them once tonker stepped heavily on a hard dry stick after which they both lay still for twenty minutes
and the sunset flared full of omens through the tree trunks and night fell and they came by fitful starlight as nuth had foreseen to that lean high house where the gnoles so secretly dwelt
all was so silent by that unvalued house that the faded courage of tonker flickered up but to nuth's experienced sense it seemed too silent and all the while there was that look in the sky
that was worse than a spoken doom so that nuth as is often the case when men are in doubt had leisure to fear the worst nevertheless he did not abandon the business but sent the likely lad with the instruments of his trade
to the old green casement and the moment that tonker touched the withered boards the silence that though ominous was earthly became unearthly like the touch of a ghoul and tonker heard his breath offending against that silence
and tonker prayed that a mouse or a mole might make any noise at all but not a creature stirred even nuth was still and then and there while yet he was undiscovered the likely lad made up his mind
as he should have done long before to leave those colossal emeralds where they were and have nothing further to do with the lean high house of the gnoles but to quit this sinister wood in the nick of time and retire from business at once
and buy a place in the country then he descended softly and beckoned to nuth but the gnoles had watched him through knavish holes that they bore in trunks of the trees
and the unearthly silence gave way as it were with a grace to the rapid screams of tonker as they picked him up from behind screams that came faster and faster until they were incoherent
and where they took him it is not good to ask and what they did with him i shall not say nuth looked on for a while from the corner of the house with a mild surprise on his face as he rubbed his chin
for the trick of the holes in the trees was new to him then he stole nimbly away through the dreadful wood and did they catch nuth you ask me gentle reader
but when they got there they found all the little houses deserted not a forest child was to be found
till at last they came to the very edge of the forest and there was nora's farm a rambling red brick house with a barn twice its size behind it down in the pasture by the house
half a dozen snow witches were dancing in a circle now near now far all over the pasture and sometimes right up to the farm house windows
and bounded forward eric did not follow he stood to watch
they rushed to meet her for a minute she was lost in a cloud of blown snow and then there she was dancing in their circle back and forth across the pasture and then
come on she called we're going to slide on the brook below the cornfield but eric did not follow he did not like the snow witches
he thought he heard the forest children laughing the sound came from the barn so eric ran to the door it was a big sliding door and now stood open on a crack just large enough for a child to slip through eric
went in the barn was tremendously big
ahead of him were two stalls with a horse in one but eric was most interested in the empty stall for it was from there the laughter seemed to come he stood looking and listening and then right down through the ceiling of the stall shot a child
face in the world eric opened his mouth to say hello
silent in amazement for another child had shot through the ceiling and landed beside the girl this was a boy he was red headed too freckle faced and snub nosed he looked even jollier than the girl
before eric had closed his mouth on his amazement whoop and down came another boy this boy was red haired freckle faced and snub nosed
and he looked jollier than the other two put together if that were possible for his red hair curled in saucy tight little ringlets and his mouth was wide with smiles it was this last one who said hello
who are you eric who are you nora's grandchildren of course come up we're having sport the three children ran across the barn to a ladder
and scrambled up and disappeared through a trap door at the top eric followed the attic was full of hay in mountains and little hills hay and hay and hay
he followed the children around the biggest mountain through a tunnel and there they vanished he found the hole in the stable ceiling and looked down not very far below him was the manger full of hay and red headed children
and dropped landing among them then the four laughed heartily together and ran across the barn again up the ladder around the hay mountain and dropped down the hole they did that dozens of times until they were tired of it
then they played hide and go seek in the hay country and after that blind man's buff in the barn below the little girl was blind man first they tied a red handkerchief tight over her eyes
then they ran about dodging her calling her laughing at her groping hands and hesitating steps but after a few minutes she became accustomed to the darkness and ran and jumped about after them until they had to be very wary and swift indeed
by and by they played tag just plain tag and eric liked that best of all back and forth across the great room they raced up the ladder over the hay
through the hole into the stable round and round in and out up and down until they were too tired and hot for any more then they lay up in the hay where there was a little window looking far out across the meadows
wandering around alone and now and then looking up at the barn she must have heard their shouts and laughter
let's open the window and call to her to come up she'll tell us stories the children looked out eagerly
they said eric laughed no look he pointed with his finger over there by the white birch look she sees us he waved quick help me open the window he could not find the catch
the window was draped with cobwebs and dusty with the dust of years it looked as though it had never been opened the little red headed girl put her hand on his arm she was laughing don't be silly she said there's no one by the white birch
why look of course she's there eric was impatient she's moving now waving to us of course you see her yes said the jolliest of the boys we do see it faintly
we've seen it before too a kind of a shadow on the snow but father says it's nothing to mind imaginings nothing real just spots in our eyes or something
she was half fairy people could see her if they looked hard enough but they were not apt to believe their own eyes when they had looked that was dreadful for her
she had not said so but he had guessed it from her face when she told him well well now he understood a little better these were earth children with shadows in their eyes
but he could see her well enough because his eyes were clear and presently he would run out to her and they would go home together but just now it was jolly and cozy here in the barn and these earth children were good fun
oh yes said the jolliest boy but she is queer we love her and she's a fine grandmother i can tell you and she tells the best stories
let's go in and get some cookies from her said the other boy they must be done by now so up they hopped and without another look towards the shadow out on the snow by the white birch jumped down the hole and ran out of the barn into the kitchen
nora was there knitting by a table two big pans of cookies just out of the oven cooling in front of her how good they smelled eric had never tasted hot ginger cookies before
and when nora gave him one a big round one all for his own
he perched on the edge of the table and ate that one and many another before he was done this boy grandma began the red headed girl his name is eric interrupted nora handing him another cookie
i know him very well well
but of course you can't play with her she isn't an earth child she's a fairy
but it doesn't make you cross laughed the jolliest boy
do tell us a story begged the other two so nora put down her knitting and taking the cat on her lap a great sleepy white fellow who had been purring by the stove she began to tell them stories
she told stories about helma and ivra the wind creatures the snow witches and many more the children listened eagerly clapping their hands now and then and at the end of every story asking for more
but eric was lost in wonder the children thought the stories were not true just fairy stories told them by a grandmother and nora had evidently long ago given up expecting them to believe
her black eyes twinkled knowingly when they met eric's puzzled ones
looking at the farm house waiting for him but gradually as the stories went on the little figure out there grew more and more to look like just a blue shadow on the snow
paler and paler finally he had to strain his eyes to see it at all then he jumped down from the table and said he must go home his heart was beating a little wildly
these red headed children were fine playfellows he liked them oh so much he wished he could stay and play with them for a week yes but he must go now that blue shadow on the snow seemed lonely
take her some cookies said nora filling his pockets
nora laughed with them and so after a minute eric joined in but he and nora looked at each other through their laughter and nodded understanding
he overtook her a long way in walking rapidly did you have a good time with the witches he asked
nora's grandchildren are awfully good fun
did they laugh at me
they laughed at me they thought i was a funny boy to have me for a playmate
but i won't play with nora's grandchildren any more unless they'll let you play too i won't truly ivra laughed and it was like spring coming into winter yes play with them all you like i love them too
i've often watched them the littlest boy the one with the funny curls laughs at me and stares and stares
but they are awfully jolly
and now it was more fun to be it than to be hiding almost for one was likely to come upon strangers peeping out of tree hollows swimming under water or swinging in the tree tops any minute when the person who was it came across one of these strangers
he would simply say i spy and you're it then he would draw the stranger away to the goal where he usually joined the game and was as much at home as though he had been playing in it from the very first
the day that eric found wild thyme so was the best of all or rather she was the best of all and that was strange for when he first spied her he did not like her at all her dress was a purple slip
just to her knees with a big rent in the skirt her hair was short and bushy and dark and her face was soberer than most forest people's faces
her chin in her hands and she did not look eager to make friends with any one but he cried i spy you're it just the same she did not lift her eyes she only said you must catch me first
i am wild thyme and that will be hard eric laughed for she was not a yard away from him and he sprang forward as he laughed but she was quicker than he she had been at perfect rest on the rock
her chin in her hands and not looking at him but the instant he jumped she was off like a flash a purple streak across the field but eric did not let his surprise delay him he ran after her just as fast as he could
and that was very very fast
soon wild thyme slowed down a little and faced him running backward her bushy hair raised from her head in the wind of her running her little brown face and great purple eyes gleaming mischievously eric sprang for her she dodged
he sprang again she dodged again he cried out in vexation and sprang again straight and sure he caught her by her bushy hair as she turned to fly and a strange thing happened to him in that second
the second he caught her hair instead of wild thyme and the sunny field he was looking at the sea he was standing on the shore looking away and away almost to foreign lands now
ever since that spring night on the shore he had been thinking of the sea and longing with all his might to cross it and see foreign lands for himself only that had seemed impossible and something he must surely wait till he was grown up to do
but now in a flash
she pinched eric's arm with all her strength then he was angry
and she him by the arm staring hotly into each other's faces but slowly they relaxed
she was so wild so free so strong so mischievous and when the game was ended she invited them to a dance that very night it's to be around the tree man's tree she said and all come come
so they ran away from the others to the edge of the field where eric had discovered wild thyme and there on the even grassy ground
not at all like the dances earth children dance it was much more fun and much livelier the dances were just whirling and skipping and jumping each dancer by himself but all in a circle eric liked it as well as though it had been a new game late that afternoon
gathered ferns and flowers to deck themselves for the evening they put them on over the stream which was the only mirror in the forest helma made a girdle of brakes for herself and a dandelion wreath for her hair
and a chain of them for her neck eric crowned himself with bloodroot and contrived grass sandals for his feet but the sandals of course wore through before the end of the first dance and fell off they had a splendid supper of raspberries and cream
which they sat on the door stone to eat and then told stories to each other while they waited for the moon to rise it came early big and round and yellow shining through the trees
flooding the aisles of the forest with silver light until they looked like still streams and the trees like masts of great ships standing in them then the three hurried away to the tree man's they ran hand in hand through the forest aisles
their faces as bright to each other as in daylight but before they even came in sight of the tree
thrummmm thrummmmmmmmmmmm very soft very insistent very simple and strangely thrilling when they came to the tree there were the forest children who had come early
whirling around in a circle and the tree girl in the center of the circle making music with a tiny instrument she held in one hand and touched with the fingers of the other soon forest people began arriving from every direction
there were the blue water children bright pebbles around their necks and white sea shells in their blue hair the forest children were crowned with maidenhair fern the tree girl was the most beautiful of all in her silver cobweb frock and her cloudy hair the tree man
stood still in the shadow but his long white beard gleamed out and his deep eyes wild thyme wore a rope of the flower that is named for her around her neck
but there was a new rent in her purple frock and her legs were scratched as though she had remembered her dance only the last minute and come plunging the shortest way through bushes which was true
every one except the tree man was dancing bewitched in the moonlight all over the grassy space around the great tree
when the tree girl's music stopped between dances then it would go on in eric's head it was just the sound of the night after all once eric noticed that the beautiful wicked witch was dancing next to him in the circle but he was not afraid of her there with the others
and in bright moonlight and she was plotting no ill her face was sparkling with delight
when the great moon hung just above them and shadows were few and far between the tree mother came walking through the forest quieter and more beautiful than the moon wild thyme ran to her
and laid her bushy head against her breast for wild thyme only of all the forest people loved her without awe
her robe gleamed like frost and her hair was a pool of light above her head
wild thyme jumped back into the dance and the tree mother stood alone but although she stood as still as a moonbeam under the tree she made eric think of dancing more than all the others put together
and the rest of that night eric felt as though the music instrument the tree girl was swinging was silent and that all the music flowed from tree mother but eric after all was only an earth child
and his legs got very tired in spite of the music and the moonlight so at last he slipped out of the circle and stumbling with weariness and sleepiness went to tree mother she picked him up in her arms and the minute his head touched her shoulder
he was sound asleep the music at last hushed in his head when he woke it was summer dawn the birds were flitting above in the tree boughs and making high singing he was alone lying beneath a silver birch his head among the star flowers
she ran up and down hunting for a foothold at last she reached the end of the wall and disappeared around the corner eric and the wind creatures followed
bravo cried the wind creatures eric went up after her often slipping back and bruising and scratching his hands and knees
at last they gained the top the wind creatures had flown up and were waiting for them there
the wall enclosed the garden of a very rich family
with straight walks trellises fountains benches and neat flower beds laid out in squares and circles now piled high with blossoming snow just as the children reached the top of the wall
the door into the garden from the stern gray mansion behind it opened and through it came three people first was a very tall lady all wrapped up in furs tails and heads of the poor animals that had been slain to make them hanging from her shoulders and down her back
even the children could see that her face was sour in spite of all its smiling then came a young man in a stiff funny hat carrying a cane beating up the snow flowers with it as he passed the flower beds
and behind them walked helma with her gaze on the ground that is why they did not know her at first that and her very strange clothes she was dressed all in velvet and fur
and her arms up to her elbows were hidden in a huge white muff she swayed as she walked on weird little high heels and the toes of her boots drew out to long points almost like a goblin's her hat was a velvet affair
so awkward and heavy it seemed to weigh down her head and her candleflame hair was smothered under it is it any wonder that they did not know her like that but when she walked close under the wall and they heard her voice they knew her
wait they whispered from their high place on the wall they could look down on the heads of the three people and hear all they were saying they had never learned that it is not fair to listen that way from all helma said they could plainly see she was a prisoner
she was saying no never never never in a thousand days and years will i ever be happy here my place is in the forest oh how these heels bother
silly girl cried the old woman smiling more than ever and looking more disagreeable than ever at the same time your place is where you were born in a fine house and wearing clothes like other people heels indeed did you expect them to do any thing else but
bother mine have bothered for sixty years but you haven't heard me complain neither would i helma said if i didn't know about other kinds of shoes that don't hurt those sandals i wore when you caught me didn't hurt
why can't i wear those at least when i walk in the garden well you might began the old woman a little more kindly and smiling less if you promise always to put on the high heels before coming into the drawing room
no said the young man sharply let her once into the garden in her sandals and she'll climb the wall and be off i say that we give her no chance to escape after she has been to a hundred or so balls and worn these beautiful and
appropriate clothes long enough she'll be glad of her luck and nothing could drag her into the forest believe me now helma stopped pleading and laughed at the young man
she stopped laughing to sigh the old woman took her hand not unkindly my poor dear girl she said how many times must i tell you it is only a dream
that house in the woods and the little girl and boy they aren't really there at all you know you have dreamed them come cheer up be a brave girl we have parties and good times enough here
helma answered in a low even voice that showed well enough how sure she was of the truth of what she was saying no they are realer than you
is realer than all the people in that mansion put together cousins uncles aunts guests servants and all she is my little fairy daughter
said the young man the wings of the wind creatures on the top of the wall rustled just then in a gust of cold north wind helma threw up her head as at a familiar sound and her eyes slowly lifted to the faces of the children looking down for a minute
she looked steadily at them without believing and then it was as though her pale face suddenly burst into song but the old woman and the young man were not looking at her and so they noticed nothing the young man said
and are more like other people so there but helma laughed her head thrown back so that the children could look into her happy eyes and see the glow of her short hair under her grotesque hat
keep your keys cousin she said and your old skylight keep shut tight as tight i shall find a way out but my children must be patient
must teach eric to keep his face and body clean they must not forget meal times and when anything goes wrong or they think it is going wrong they must ask the tree man's advice
i will find a way to them soon they must keep happy and wait she said all that slowly and distinctly her eyes smiling into theirs
what silly talk laughed the sour old lady just as though you were making a speech well it must be luncheon time now and high time we were changing our frocks wear your gray velvet helma and don't forget to put on stockings to match
there's to be strawberry ice to day and goose to begin with of course cook says she has never seen a tenderer the old lady went on talking about the wonderful luncheon they were to have until they were out of hearing
but the children on the gray wall could see that helma was going in differently from the way she had come out her head was high and she stepped out in her funny high heeled boots as though she were walking in sandals
she turned and waved her queer great muff to the children and the wind creatures and they heard her laugh
she was staring intently at the closed door her face very pale suddenly she buried her head in her arms and burst into sobs hoarse jerky sobs the first and the last time eric was ever to hear her cry
eric and the wind children sat cross legged and waited soon she stopped and wiped her face on her sleeve she is locked in but she will find a way home she said almost laughing
the wind creatures took them back to the forest under the giant cedars they said good by and left them the children went straight to the tree man's to tell him the news he gave them deep bowls of warm milk to drink
how they go in search of their mother the ocean day and night around mountains and through mountains and across whole continents and never stop until they find her and of the myriad presents they carry to her
of the things they see and the things they do as they flow searching it was a long story and almost before the end the little story teller had fallen asleep with her head tipped back against the tree man's chest
i remember a reference made i remember an intimation i remember full well i remember the enjoyment with which
i repeat i am not speaking i repeat my statement in another form i respectfully counsel i respectfully submit
i said a little way back i said it would be well i said that i thought i salute with profound reverence
i sanction with all my heart i saw an ingenious argument the other day i say frankly i say in moderation
i say it most confidently i say no more of these things i say not one syllable against i say then my first point is
i say this is no disparagement of i say this the more gladly i say without fear of contradiction i see around me
i see as clearly as any man possibly can i see little hope of i see no exception i see no possibility of
i see no reason for doubting i seem to hear you say i seize upon this opportunity i seriously desire
i set out with saying i shall add a few words i shall address myself to a single point i shall ask you to look very closely
i shall be told i shall best attain my object i shall bestow a little attention upon i shall certainly admit
i shall consider myself privileged i shall desist from i shall endeavor to be guided i shall give it in the words of
i shall here briefly recite the i shall here use the word to denote i shall hope to interest you i shall invite you to follow me
i shall just give the summary of i shall never believe i shall never cease to be grateful i shall not acknowledge
i shall not attempt a detailed narrative i shall not end without appealing i shall not enlarge upon i shall not force into the discussion
i shall not go so far as to say i shall not hesitate to say something i shall not tax your patience i shall not undertake to prophesy
i shall not weary your patience i shall now give you some instances i shall now proceed to show
i shall pass by all this i shall presently show i shall proceed without further preface i shall recur to certain questions
i shall say all this without entering into i shall show that i am not i shall speak first about i shall speak with becoming frankness
i shall take a broader view of the subject i shall take it for granted here i shall therefore endeavor i shall touch upon one or two questions
i shall waste no time in refuting i shall with your sanction i should be false to my own manhood i should be surprised if
i should be the last man to deny i should fail in my duty if i should find it hard to discover
i should have forfeited my own self respect i should like at least to mention i should like to emphasize i should like to go a step farther
i should like to refer to two events i should like to see that view answered i should like to day to examine briefly i should much prefer
i should not be satisfied with myself i should think it too absurd i shrink from the contemplation
i simply pause here to ask i sincerely regret the absence i sincerely wish it were in my power i solemnly declare
i sometimes hear a wish expressed i sorrowfully call to mind i speak forth my sentiment i speak from no little personal observation
i speak of this to show
i speak the secret feeling of this company i speak what i know when i say i speak wholly without authority i speak with feeling upon this point
i speak with some degree of encouragement i speak with the utmost sincerity i speak within the hearing of i stand in awed amazement before
i stand in the midst of men i still view with respect i submit it to every candid mind i submit that in such a case
i submit that it is high time i submit this proposition i summon you to do your share i suppose it is right to answer
i suppose it to be entirely true i suppose most men will recollect i suppose that everyone who listens to me i suppose there is no one here
i suppose we are all of one opinion i suspect that is why we so often i sympathize most heartily i take a broader and bolder position
i take it for granted i take leave to say i take one picture as an illustration i take pleasure in saying i take the liberty of observing
i take this instance at random i take two views of i tell him in reply i tell you gentlemen
i tender my thanks to you i thank you for having allowed me i thank you for the appreciative tone i thank you for the honor
i thank you for your most generous greeting i thank you for your thoughtful courtesy i thank you from the bottom of my heart i thank you very gratefully
i think i am correct in saying i think i am not the first to utter i think i can claim a purpose i think i can sincerely declare
i think i have a right to look upon i think i have rightly spoken i think i might safely say i think i need not say more
i think it is not too much to say i think it is quite right i think it may be necessary to consider i think it might be said with safety
i think it probable i think it will astonish you i think it will be granted i think no wise man can be indifferent
i think on the contrary i think something may be said in favor of i think that all will agree i think that i can explain i think that i can venture to say
i think that none of us will deny
i think we are justified i think we can hardly hope i think we may all easily see i think we may ask in reply
i think we may safely conclude i think we may say therefore i think we may well be proud of i think we may well congratulate each other
i think we need neither doubt nor fear i think we ought to recur a moment to i think we shall all recognize i think we should do well to call to mind
i think we take too narrow a view i think when we look back upon i think you may well rejoice in i think you will all agree
i think you will pardon my saying i think you will see i thus explicitly reply i tremble at the task
i tremble to think i trust i may be indulged
i trust that as the years roll on i trust that i shall have the indulgence i trust that this will not be regarded as i turn gentlemen to the case
i use the word advisedly i use the word in the sense i use very plain language i utter this word with the deepest affection
i value very much the honor i venture to ask permission i venture to say i verily believe i very confidently submit
i want to bespeak your attention
i want to make some simple applications i want to say just a few words i want to say one word more i want to say to you seriously
i want to think with you i warn and exhort you i was astonished to learn i was constantly watchful to
i was exceedingly interested i was honored with the acquaintance i was lost in admiration i was not slow to accept and believe
i was not without some anxiety i was overwhelmed i was sincerely astonished i was very much interested
i was very much thrilled i well recollect the time i well remember an occasion i will accept the general proposition
i will add the memorable words i will ask the indulgence i will ask you to accompany me i will ask you to bear witness
i will dwell a little longer i will endeavor in a brief way i will endeavor to illustrate i will endeavor to show you
i will enlarge no further i will even express a hope at the outset i will even go further and say i will first call your attention to
i will give one more illustration i will illustrate this point by i will merely mention i will neither affirm nor deny
i will not allude i will not argue this i will not attempt to note i will not be content until
i will not enumerate at present i will not pause to maintain i will not positively say i will not pretend to inquire into
i will not quarrel with i will not relinquish the confidence i will not repeat the arguments here i will not try to gauge
i will now consider with you i will now leave this question i will now take an instance i will only speak to one point
i will only sum up my evidence i will only take an occasion to express
i will say at once i will speak but a word or two more i will speak plainly i will state with perfect distinctness
i will suppose the objection to be i will take one more instance i will take the precaution to add i will tell you what i think of i will try to make the thing intelligible
i will venture a single remark i will venture to add i will venture to express the hope i will yield the whole question i willingly admit
i wish also to declare positively i wish at the outset i wish emphatically to reaffirm i wish i had the time and the power i wish it first observed
i wish rather to call your attention i wish sir that justice might be done i wish to ask if you honestly and candidly believe i wish to be allowed to enforce in detail
i wish to begin my statement i wish to confine what i have to say i wish to do full justice to i wish to draw your attention
i wish to express my profound gratification i wish to give these arguments their full weight i wish to know whether i wish to offer a few words relative to
i wish to remind you in how large a degree i wish to say a word or two i wish to state all this as a matter of fact i wish you success and happiness
i wish you to observe i would also gratefully acknowledge i would as soon believe i would desire to speak simply and directly i would enter a protest
i would further point out to you i would have you understand i would infinitely rather i would like to say one word just here
i would not be understood as belittling i would not dwell upon that matter if i would not push the suggestion so far i would now gladly lay before you
i would rather a thousand times i would recommend to your consideration i would suggest first of all i would that my voice could reach the ear
i would urge and entreat you i would urge upon you i would venture to point out
half suffocated by his triumph hardened into convictions and resolves haughtiness and arrogance were largely attributed to him haunt the recesses of the memory haunted with a chill and unearthly foreboding
he accosted me with trepidation he adroitly shifted his ground he airily lampooned their most cherished prejudices he bowed submission he braced himself to the exquisite burden of life
he condescended to intimate speech with her he conversed with a colorless fluency he could detect the hollow ring of fundamental nothingness
he drank of the spirit of the universe he drew near to a desperate resolve
he felt an unaccountable loathing he felt the ironic rebound of her words he flung diffidence to the winds he flushed crimson he found the silence intolerably irksome he frowned perplexedly
he gave her a baffled stare he gave himself to a sudden day dream he gave his ear to this demon of false glory he grew wanton with success he had acted with chivalrous delicacy of honor
he had the gift of deep dark silences he held his breath in admiring silence he laughed away my protestations
he listened greedily and gazed intent he made a loathsome object he made the politest of monosyllabic replies he murmured a civil rejoinder he murmured a vague acceptance
he mused a little while in grave thought he never wears an argument to tatters he only smiled with fatuous superiority he paused stunned and comprehending he perceived the iron hand within the velvet glove
he raised a silencing hand he ruled autocratically
he surrendered himself to gloomy thought he threaded a labyrinth of obscure streets he threw a ton's weight of resolve upon his muscles he threw out phrases of ill humor he threw round a measuring eye
he treads the primrose path of dalliance he used an unguarded adjective
he was born to a lively and intelligent patriotism he was dimly mistrustful of it he was discreetly silent he was empty of thought he was entangled in a paradox
he was giving his youth away by handfuls he was haunted and begirt by presences he was measured and urbane he was most profoundly skeptical he was nothing if not grandiloquent
he was quaking on the precipice of a bad bilious attack he was utterly detached from life he went hot and cold he would fall into the blackest melancholies
her blank gaze chilled you her bright eyes were triumphant her eyes danced with malice her eyes dilated with pain and fear
her heart fluttered with a vague terror her heart pounded in her throat her heart was full of speechless sorrow her hurrying thoughts clamored for utterance her imagination recoiled her interest flagged
her life had dwarfed her ambitions her limbs ran to marble her lips hardened her lips parted in a keen expectancy her mind was a store house of innocuous anecdote her mind was beaten to the ground by the catastrophe
her mood was unaccountably chilled her musings took a sudden and arbitrary twist her scarlet lip curled cruelly her smile was faintly depreciatory her smile was linked with a sigh
her solicitude thrilled him her stare dissolved her step seemed to pity the grass it prest her strength was scattered in fits of agitation her stumbling ignorance which sought the road of wisdom
her thoughts outstripped her erring feet her tone was gathering remonstrance her tongue on the subject was sharpness itself her tongue stumbled and was silent her voice had the coaxing inflections of a child
her voice trailed off vaguely her voice was full of temper hard held her voice with a tentative question in it rested in air her wariness seemed put to rout his accents breathed profound relief
his agitation increased his brow grew knit and gloomy his brow was in his hand his conscience leapt to the light his constraint was excruciating his curiosity is quenched
his dignity counseled him to be silent his ears sang with the vibrating intensity of his secret existence his eyes had a twinkle of reminiscent pleasantry his eyes literally blazed with savage fire
his eyes shone with the pure fire of a great purpose his eyes stared unseeingly his face caught the full strength of the rising wind his face dismissed its shadow his face fell abruptly into stern lines
his face torn with conflict his face was gravely authoritative his gaze faltered and fell
his last illusions crumbled his lips loosened in a furtively exultant smile his lips seemed to be permanently parted in a good humored smile his mind echoed with words
his mind leaped gladly to meet new issues and fresh tides of thought his mind was dazed and wandering in a mist of memories his mood yielded his mouth quivered with pleasure
his passions vented themselves with sneers his pulses leaped anew his reputation had withered his sensibilities were offended his shrewd gaze fixed appraisingly upon her
his soul full of fire and eagle winged his soul was compressed into a single agony of prayer his soul was wrung with a sudden wild homesickness his speech faltered his swift and caustic satire
his temper was dark and explosive his thoughts galloped his thoughts were in clamoring confusion
his troubled spirit shifted its load his vagrant thoughts were in full career his voice insensibly grew inquisitorial his voice was thick with resentment and futile protest his whole face was lighted with a fierce enthusiasm
his whole frame seemed collapsed and shrinking his whole tone was flippant and bumptious his words trailed off brokenly his youthful zeal was contagious hope was far and dim
when shadows three together started forth running from out a company that passed beneath the rain of the sharp martyrdom towards us came they and each one cried out stop thou for by thy garb to us thou seemest to be some one of our depraved city
ah me what wounds i saw upon their limbs recent and ancient by the flames burnt in it pains me still but to remember it unto their cries my teacher paused attentive he turned his face towards me and now wait
he said to these we should be courteous
as soon as we stood still they recommenced the old refrain and when they overtook us formed of themselves a wheel all three of them as champions stripped and oiled are wont to do watching for their advantage and their hold before they come to blows and thrusts between them
thus wheeling round did every one his visage direct to me so that in opposite wise his neck and feet continual journey made and if the misery of this soft place bring in disdain ourselves and our entreaties began one and our aspect black and blistered
let the renown of us thy mind incline to tell us who thou art who thus securely thy living feet dost move along through hell he in whose footprints thou dost see me treading naked and skinless though he now may go was of a greater rank than thou dost think
and in life much did he with his wisdom and his sword the other who close by me treads the sand tegghiaio aldobrandi is whose fame above there in the world should welcome be and i who with them on the cross am placed jacopo rusticucci was
and truly my savage wife more than aught else doth harm me could i have been protected from the fire
but as i should have burned and baked myself my terror overmastered my good will which made me greedy of embracing them then i began sorrow and not disdain did your condition fix within me so that tardily it wholly is stripped off
as soon as this my lord said unto me words on account of which i thought within me that people such as you are were approaching i of your city am and evermore your labours and your honourable names i with affection have retraced and heard
i leave the gall and go for the sweet fruits promised to me by the veracious leader but to the centre first i needs must plunge so may the soul for a long while conduct those limbs of thine did he make answer then
and so may thy renown shine after thee valour and courtesy say if they dwell within our city as they used to do or if they wholly have gone out of it for guglielmo borsier who is in torment
with us of late and goes there with his comrades doth greatly mortify us with his words the new inhabitants and the sudden gains pride and extravagance have in thee engendered florence so that thou weep'st thereat already
in this wise i exclaimed with face uplifted and the three taking that for my reply looked at each other as one looks at truth if other times so little it doth cost thee replied they all to satisfy another happy art thou
thus speaking at thy will therefore if thou escape from these dark places and come to rebehold the beauteous stars when it shall pleasure thee to say i was see that thou speak of us unto the people
then they broke up the wheel and in their flight it seemed as if their agile legs were wings not an amen could possibly be said so rapidly as they had disappeared wherefore the master deemed best to depart
i followed him and little had we gone before the sound of water was so near us that speaking we should hardly have been heard even as that stream which holdeth its own course the first from monte veso tow'rds the east
which is above called acquacheta ere it down descendeth into its low bed and at forli is vacant of that name reverberates there above san benedetto from alps by falling at a single leap where for a thousand there were room enough
after i this had all from me unloosed as my conductor had commanded me i reached it to him gathered up and coiled whereat he turned himself to the right side and at a little distance from the verge he cast it down into that deep abyss
it must needs be some novelty respond i said within myself to the new signal the master with his eye is following so ah me how very cautious men should be with those who not alone behold the act but with their wisdom look into the thoughts
he said to me soon there will upward come what i await and what thy thought is dreaming must soon reveal itself unto thy sight
a man should close his lips as far as may be because without his fault it causes shame but here i cannot and reader by the notes of this my comedy to thee i swear so may they not be void of lasting favour athwart that dense and darksome atmosphere
but on the border did not drag its tail the face was as the face of a just man its semblance outwardly was so benign and of a serpent all the trunk beside two paws it had hairy unto the armpits
the back and breast and both the sides it had depicted o'er with nooses and with shields with colours more groundwork or broidery never in cloth did tartars make nor turks nor were such tissues by arachne laid
as sometimes wherries lie upon the shore that part are in the water part on land and as among the guzzling germans there the beaver plants himself to wage his war so that vile monster lay upon the border which is of stone and shutteth in the sand
his tail was wholly quivering in the void contorting upwards the envenomed fork that in the guise of scorpion armed its point the guide said now perforce must turn aside our way a little
we therefore on the right side descended and made ten steps upon the outer verge completely to avoid the sand and flame and after we are come to him i see a little farther off upon the sand a people sitting near the hollow place
then said to me the master so that full experience of this round thou bear away now go and see what their condition is there let thy conversation be concise till thou returnest i will speak with him that he concede to us his stalwart shoulders
thus farther still upon the outermost head of that seventh circle all alone i went where sat the melancholy folk out of their eyes was gushing forth their woe this way that way they helped them with their hands now from the flames and now from the hot soil
not otherwise in summer do the dogs now with the foot now with the muzzle when by fleas or flies or gadflies they are bitten when i had turned mine eyes upon the faces of some on whom the dolorous fire is falling not one of them i knew
but i perceived that from the neck of each there hung a pouch which certain colour had and certain blazon and thereupon it seems their eyes are feeding and as i gazing round me come among them upon a yellow pouch i azure saw that had the face and posture of a lion
proceeding then the current of my sight another of them saw i red as blood display a goose more white than butter is and one who with an azure sow and gravid emblazoned had his little pouch of white said unto me what dost thou in this moat
now get thee gone and since thou'rt still alive know that a neighbour of mine vitaliano will have his seat here on my left hand side a paduan am i with these florentines full many a time they thunder in mine ears exclaiming come the sovereign cavalier
he who shall bring the satchel with three goats then twisted he his mouth and forth he thrust his tongue like to an ox that licks its nose and fearing lest my longer stay might vex him who had warned me not to tarry long backward i turned me from those weary souls
i found my guide who had already mounted upon the back of that wild animal and said to me now be both strong and bold now we descend by stairways such as these mount thou in front for i will be midway so that the tail may have no power to harm thee
even such became i at those proffered words but shame in me his menaces produced which maketh servant strong before good master i seated me upon those monstrous shoulders i wished to say and yet the voice came not as i believed
take heed that thou embrace me but he who other times had rescued me in other peril soon as i had mounted within his arms encircled and sustained me
the circles large and the descent be little think of the novel burden which thou hast even as the little vessel shoves from shore backward still backward so he thence withdrew and when he wholly felt himself afloat there where his breast had been he turned his tail
and that extended like an eel he moved and with his paws drew to himself the air a greater fear i do not think there was what time abandoned phaeton the reins whereby the heavens as still appears were scorched
nor when the wretched icarus his flanks felt stripped of feathers by the melting wax
but i perceive it only by wind upon my face and from below i heard already on the right the whirlpool making a horrible crashing under us whence i thrust out my head with eyes cast downward then was i still more fearful of the abyss
because i fires beheld and heard laments whereat i trembling all the closer cling i saw then for before i had not seen it the turning and descending by great horrors that were approaching upon divers sides
and has distinct in valleys ten its bottom as where for the protection of the walls many and many moats surround the castles the part in which they are a figure forms just such an image those presented there
and as about such strongholds from their gates unto the outer bank are little bridges so from the precipice's base did crags project which intersected dikes and moats unto the well that truncates and collects them
within this place down shaken from the back of geryon we found us and the poet held to the left and i moved on behind upon my right hand i beheld new anguish new torments and new wielders of the lash wherewith the foremost bolgia was replete
down at the bottom were the sinners naked this side the middle came they facing us beyond it with us but with greater steps even as the romans for the mighty host the year of jubilee upon the bridge have chosen a mode to pass the people over
for all upon one side towards the castle their faces have and go unto saint peter's on the other side they go towards the mountain this side and that along the livid stone beheld i horned demons with great scourges
who cruelly were beating them behind ah me how they did make them lift their legs at the first blows and sooth not any one the second waited for nor for the third while i was going on mine eyes by one encountered were and straight i said
already with sight of this one i am not unfed therefore i stayed my feet to make him out and with me the sweet guide came to a stand and to my going somewhat back assented
lowering his face but little it availed him for said i thou that castest down thine eyes if false are not the features which thou bearest thou art venedico caccianimico but what doth bring thee to such pungent sauces and he to me
unwillingly i tell it but forces me thine utterance distinct which makes me recollect the ancient world i was the one who the fair ghisola induced to grant the wishes of the marquis howe'er the shameless story may be told
not the sole bolognese am i who weeps here nay rather is this place so full of them that not so many tongues to day are taught twixt reno and savena to say sipa and if thereof thou wishest pledge or proof bring to thy mind our avaricious heart
while speaking in this manner with his scourge a demon smote him
i joined myself again unto mine escort thereafterward with footsteps few we came to where a crag projected from the bank this very easily did we ascend and turning to the right along its ridge from those eternal circles we departed
the guide said wait and see that on thee strike the vision of those others evil born of whom thou hast not yet beheld the faces because together with us they have gone from the old bridge we looked upon the train which tow'rds us came upon the other border
and which the scourges in like manner smite and the good master without my inquiring said to me see that tall one who is coming and for his pain seems not to shed a tear still what a royal aspect he retains that jason is
who by his heart and cunning the colchians of the ram made destitute he by the isle of lemnos passed along after the daring women pitiless had unto death devoted all their males there with his tokens and with ornate words did he deceive hypsipyle
the maiden who first herself had all the rest deceived there did he leave her pregnant and forlorn such sin unto such punishment condemns him and also for medea is vengeance done
with him go those who in such wise deceive and this sufficient be of the first valley to know and those that in its jaws it holds we were already where the narrow path crosses athwart the second dike
thence we heard people who are making moan in the next bolgia snorting with their muzzles and with their palms beating upon themselves the margins were incrusted with a mould by exhalation from below that sticks there and with the eyes and nostrils wages war
the bottom is so deep no place suffices to give us sight of it
thither we came and thence down in the moat i saw a people smothered in a filth that out of human privies seemed to flow and whilst below there with mine eye i search i saw one with his head so foul with ordure
it was not clear if he were clerk or layman he screamed to me wherefore art thou so eager to look at me more than the other foul ones and i to him because if i remember i have already seen thee with dry hair
and thou'rt alessio interminei of lucca therefore i eye thee more than all the others and he thereon belabouring his pumpkin the flatteries have submerged me here below wherewith my tongue was never surfeited
then said to me the guide see that thou thrust thy visage somewhat farther in advance that with thine eyes thou well the face attain of that uncleanly and dishevelled drab who there doth scratch herself with filthy nails and crouches now and now on foot is standing
have i great gratitude from thee
and herewith let our sight be satisfied
ye who the things of god which ought to be the brides of holiness rapaciously for silver and for gold do prostitute now it behoves for you the trumpet sound because in this third bolgia ye abide
wisdom supreme o how great art thou showest in heaven in earth and in the evil world and with what justice doth thy power distribute i saw upon the sides and on the bottom the livid stone with perforations filled
all of one size and every one was round to me less ample seemed they not nor greater than those that in my beautiful saint john are fashioned for the place of the baptisers and one of which not many years ago i broke for some one who was drowning in it
be this a seal all men to undeceive out of the mouth of each one there protruded the feet of a transgressor and the legs up to the calf the rest within remained in all of them the soles were both on fire wherefore the joints so violently quivered
they would have snapped asunder withes and bands even as the flame of unctuous things is wont to move upon the outer surface only so likewise was it there from heel to point master who is that one who writhes himself
more than his other comrades quivering i said and whom a redder flame is sucking and he to me if thou wilt have me bear thee down there along that bank which lowest lies
and i what pleases thee to me is pleasing thou art my lord and knowest that i depart not from thy desire and knowest what is not spoken straightway upon the fourth dike we arrived
and the good master yet from off his haunch deposed me not till to the hole he brought me of him who so lamented with his shanks whoe'er thou art that standest upside down o doleful soul implanted like a stake to say began i
if thou canst speak out i stood even as the friar who is confessing the false assassin who when he is fixed recalls him so that death may be delayed and he cried out dost thou stand there already
by many years the record lied to me art thou so early satiate with that wealth for which thou didst not fear to take by fraud the beautiful lady and then work her woe such i became as people are who stand not comprehending what is answered them
as if bemocked and know not how to answer then said virgilius say to him straightway i am not he i am not he thou thinkest and i replied as was imposed on me
then sighing with a voice of lamentation said to me then what wantest thou of me if who i am thou carest so much to know that thou on that account hast crossed the bank know that i vested was with the great mantle
and truly was i son of the she bear so eager to advance the cubs that wealth above and here myself i pocketed beneath my head the others are dragged down who have preceded me in simony flattened along the fissure of the rock
for after him shall come of fouler deed from tow'rds the west a pastor without law such as befits to cover him and me new jason will he be of whom we read in maccabees and as his king was pliant so he who governs france shall be to this one
i do not know if i were here too bold that him i answered only in this metre i pray thee tell me now how great a treasure our lord demanded of saint peter first before he put the keys into his keeping truly he nothing asked but follow me
nor peter nor the rest asked of matthias silver or gold when he by lot was chosen unto the place the guilty soul had lost therefore stay here for thou art justly punished
because your avarice afflicts the world trampling the good and lifting the depraved the evangelist you pastors had in mind when she who sitteth upon many waters to fornicate with kings by him was seen
the same who with the seven heads was born and power and strength from the ten horns received so long as virtue to her spouse was pleasing ye have made yourselves a god of gold and silver and from the idolater how differ ye save that he one
and ye a hundred worship ah constantine of how much ill was mother not thy conversion but that marriage dower which the first wealthy father took from thee and while i sang to him such notes as these
either that anger or that conscience stung him he struggled violently with both his feet i think in sooth that it my leader pleased with such contented lip he listened ever
therefore with both his arms he took me up and when he had me all upon his breast remounted by the way where he descended nor did he tire to have me clasped to him but bore me to the summit of the arch which from the fourth dike to the fifth is passage
there tenderly he laid his burden down tenderly on the crag uneven and steep that would have been hard passage for the goats thence was unveiled to me another valley
of the first song which is of the submerged i was already thoroughly disposed to peer down into the uncovered depth which bathed itself with tears of agony and people saw i through the circular valley silent and weeping
coming at the pace which in this world the litanies assume as lower down my sight descended on them wondrously each one seemed to be distorted from chin to the beginning of the chest for tow'rds the reins the countenance was turned
as to look forward had been taken from them perchance indeed by violence of palsy some one has been thus wholly turned awry but i ne'er saw it nor believe it can be as god may let thee reader gather fruit from this thy reading
think now for thyself how i could ever keep my face unmoistened when our own image near me i beheld distorted so the weeping of the eyes along the fissure bathed the hinder parts truly i wept leaning upon a peak of the hard crag
so that my escort said to me art thou too of the other fools here pity lives when it is wholly dead
who feels compassion at the doom divine lift up lift up thy head and see for whom opened the earth before the thebans eyes wherefore they all cried whither rushest thou amphiaraus why dost leave the war
as far as minos who lays hold on all see he has made a bosom of his shoulders because he wished to see too far before him behind he looks and backward goes his way
when from a male a female he became his members being all of them transformed and afterwards was forced to strike once more the two entangled serpents with his rod ere he could have again his manly plumes
that aruns is who backs the other's belly who in the hills of luni
among the marbles white a cavern had for his abode whence to behold the stars and sea the view was not cut off from him and she there who is covering up her breasts which thou beholdest not with loosened tresses
and on that side has all the hairy skin was manto who made quest through many lands afterwards tarried there where i was born whereof i would thou list to me a little after her father had from life departed
and the city of bacchus had become enslaved she a long season wandered through the world above in beauteous italy lies a lake at the alp's foot that shuts in germany over tyrol and has the name benaco
by a thousand springs i think and more is bathed twixt garda and val camonica pennino with water that grows stagnant in that lake midway a place is where the trentine pastor and he of brescia
sitteth peschiera fortress fair and strong to front the brescians and the bergamasks where round about the bank descendeth lowest there of necessity must fall whatever in bosom of benaco cannot stay and grows a river down through verdant pastures
soon as the water doth begin to run no more benaco is it called but mincio far as governo where it falls in po not far it runs before it finds a plain in which it spreads itself and makes it marshy
and oft tis wont in summer to be sickly passing that way the virgin pitiless land in the middle of the fen descried untilled and naked of inhabitants there to escape all human intercourse she with her servants stayed her arts to practise and lived
and left her empty body there the men thereafter who were scattered round collected in that place which was made strong by the lagoon it had on every side they built their city over those dead bones and after her who first the place selected mantua named it
without other omen its people once within more crowded were ere the stupidity of casalodi from pinamonte had received deceit therefore i caution thee if e'er thou hearest originate my city otherwise no falsehood may the verity defraud
and i my master thy discourses are to me so certain and so take my faith that unto me the rest would be spent coals but tell me of the people who are passing if any one note worthy thou beholdest for only unto that my mind reverts
then said he to me he who from the cheek thrusts out his beard upon his swarthy shoulders was at the time when greece was void of males so that there scarce remained one in the cradle an augur and with calchas gave the moment in aulis
when to sever the first cable eryphylus his name was and so sings my lofty tragedy in some part or other that knowest thou well who knowest the whole of it the next who is so slender in the flanks was michael scott
behold guido bonatti
who now unto his leather and his thread would fain have stuck but he too late repents behold the wretched ones who left the needle the spool and rock and made them fortune tellers they wrought their magic spells with herb and image
but come now for already holds the confines of both the hemispheres and under seville touches the ocean wave cain and the thorns and yesternight the moon was round already thou shouldst remember well it did not harm thee from time to time within the forest deep
theory that stations actually correspond to faculty an aristocratic society might accordingly be a perfect heaven if the variety and superposition of functions in it
expressed a corresponding diversity in its members faculties and ideals and indeed what aristocratic philosophers have always maintained is that men really differ so much in capacity
that one is happier for being a slave another for being a shopkeeper and a third for being a king all professions they say even the lowest are or may be vocations
some men aristotle tells us are slaves by nature only physical functions are spontaneous in them so long as they are humanely treated it is we may infer a benefit for them to be commanded
and the contribution their labour makes toward rational life in their betters is the highest dignity they can attain and should be prized by them as a sufficient privilege such assertions coming from lordly lips
have a suspicious optimism about them yet the faithful slave such as the nurse we find in the tragedies may sometimes have corresponded to that description
in other regions it is surely true that to advance in conventional station would often entail a loss in true dignity and happiness it would seldom benefit a musician to be appointed admiral or a housemaid to become a prima donna
scientific breeding might conceivably develop much more sharply the various temperaments and faculties needed in the state and then each caste or order of citizens
would not be more commonly dissatisfied with its lot than men or women now are with their sex one tribe would run errands as persistently as the ants another would sing like the lark
aristocracy logically involves castes but such castes as exist in india and the social classes we find in the western world
are not now based on any profound difference in race capacity or inclination they are based probably on the chances of some early war reinforced by custom and perpetuated by inheritance
a certain circulation corresponding in part to proved ability or disability takes place in the body politic and since the french revolution has taken place increasingly
some by energy and perseverance rise from the bottom some by ill fortune or vice fall from the top but these readjustments are insignificant
in comparison with the social inertia that perpetuates all the classes and even such shifts as occur at once re establish artificial conditions for the next generation as a rule
it would be easy however to exaggerate the havoc wrought by such artificial conditions the monotony we observe in mankind must not be charged to the oppressive influence of circumstances crushing the individual soul
it is not society's fault that most men seem to miss their vocation most men have no vocation and society in imposing on them some chance language some chance religion and some chance career
first plants an ideal in their bosoms and insinuates into them a sort of racial or professional soul their only character is composed of the habits they have been led to acquire
some little propensities betrayed in childhood may very probably survive one man may prove by his dying words that he was congenitally witty another tender another brave
but these native qualities will simply have added an ineffectual tint to some typical existence or other and the vast majority will remain as schopenhauer said fabrikwaaren der natur
variety in human dreams like personality among savages may indeed be inwardly very great but it is not efficacious to be socially important and expressible in some common medium
initial differences in temper must be organised into custom and become cumulative by being imitated and enforced the only artists who can show great originality are those trained in distinct and established schools
for originality and genius must be largely fed and raised on the shoulders of some old tradition a rich organisation and heritage while they predetermine the core of all possible variations
increase their number since every advance opens up new vistas and growth in extending the periphery of the substance organised multiplies the number of points at which new growths may begin
thus it is only in recent times that discoveries in science have been frequent because natural science until lately possessed no settled method and no considerable fund of acquired truths
so too in political society statesmanship is made possible by traditional policies generalship by military institutions
savages are born free and equal but wherever a complex and highly specialised environment limits the loose freedom of those born into it it also stimulates their capacity under forced culture
remarkable growths will appear bringing to light possibilities in men which might perhaps not even have been possibilities had they been left to themselves for mulberry leaves do not of themselves develop into brocade
a certain personal idiosyncrasy must be assumed at bottom else cotton damask would be as good as silk and all men having like opportunities would be equally great
this idiosyncrasy is brought out by social pressure while in a state of nature it might have betrayed itself only in trivial and futile ways
distinction is thus in one sense artificial since it cannot become important or practical unless a certain environment gives play to individual talent and preserves its originality
but distinction nevertheless is perfectly real and not merely imputed in vain does the man in the street declare that he too could have been a king if he had been born in the purple
for that potentiality does not belong to him as he is but only as he might have been if per impossibile he had not been himself
there is a strange metaphysical illusion in imagining that a man might change his parents his body his early environment and yet retain his personality
in its higher faculties his personality is produced by his special relations
but shakespeare he could never have been nor can it be called an injustice to all of us who are not englishmen of queen elizabeth's time that shakespeare had that advantage and was thereby enabled to exist
the sense of injustice at unequal opportunities arises only when the two environments compared are really somewhat analogous
it was a just insight for instance in the christian fable to make the first rebel against god the chief among the angels the spirit occupying the position nearest to that which he tried to usurp
lucifer's fallacy consisted in thinking natural inequality artificial his perversity lay in rebelling against himself and rejecting the happiness proper to his nature
this was the maddest possible way of rebelling against his true creator
and makes us be no one except in wilful fancy would envy the peculiar advantages of a whale or an ant of an inca or a grand lama
an exchange of places with such remote beings would too evidently leave each creature the very same that it was before for after a nominal exchange of places
each office would remain filled and no trace of a change would be perceptible but the penny that one man finds and another misses would not had fortune been reversed have transmuted each man into the other
so adventitious a circumstance seems easily transferable without undermining that personal distinction which it had come to embitter yet the incipient fallacy lurking even in such suppositions becomes obvious
is also adventitious and ideally transferable and whether jack and jill remaining themselves could have exchanged genders what extends these invidious comparisons beyond all tolerable bounds
is the generic and vague nature proper to language and its terms the first personal pronoun i is a concept so thoroughly universal that it can accompany any experience whatever
yet it is used to designate an individual who is really definable not by the formal selfhood which he shares with every other thinker but by the special events that make up his life
each man's memory embraces a certain field and if the landscape open to his vision is sad and hateful he naturally wishes it to shift and become like that paradise in which as he fancies other men dwell
a legitimate rebellion against evil in his own experience becomes an unthinkable supposition about what his experience might have been had he enjoyed those other men's opportunities or even
so far can unreason wander had he possessed their character the wholly different creature a replica of that envied ideal
and so the dreamer imagines that creature would have been himself in a different situation if a new birth could still be called by a man's own name
the reason would be that the concrete faculties now present in him are the basis for the ideal he throws out and if these particular faculties came to fruition in a new being he would call that being himself
the poorer the reality therefore the meaner and vaguer the ideal it is able to project man is so tied to his personal endowment essential to him though an accident in the world
lie not within his universe of aspiration even his most perversely metaphysical envy can begrudge to others
suffering is it is not mere inequality therefore that can be a reproach to the aristocratic or theistic ideal could each person fulfil his own nature
the most striking differences in endowment and fortune would trouble nobody's dreams the true reproach to which aristocracy and theism are open
is the thwarting of those unequal natures and the consequent suffering imposed on them all injustice in this world is not something comparative the wrong is deep clear and absolute in each private fate
a bruised child wailing in the street his small world for the moment utterly black and cruel before him does not fetch his unhappiness from sophisticated comparisons or irrational envy
nor can any compensations and celestial harmonies supervening later ever expunge or justify that moment's bitterness the pain may be whistled away and forgotten
the mind may be rendered by it only a little harder a little coarser a little more secretive and sullen and familiar with unrightable wrong but ignoring that pain will not prevent its having existed
was her own uneasiness infectious was the child determined to share her vigil she would wait a little longer this time and see their rooms were over the parlour and thus as far removed as possible from the judge's den
in her own which was front she felt at perfect ease
that she finally raised her window and allowed the cool wind to soothe her heated cheeks how calm the aspect of the lawn and its clustering shrubs
dimly seen though they were through the leaves of the vines she had but partially clipped she felt the element of peace which comes with perfect quiet and was fain to forget for awhile the terrors it so frequently conceals
the moon which had been invisible up to this moment emerged from skurrying clouds as she quietly watched the scene and in an instant her peace was gone and all the thronging difficulties of her position came rushing back upon her
in full force as all the details of the scene so mercifully hidden just now flashed again upon her vision perched as she was in a window overlooking the lane she had but to lift her eyes from the double fence
that symbol of sad seclusion to light on the trees rising above that unspeakable ravine black with memories she felt strangely like forgetting to night beyond how it stood out on the bluff
the bifurcated mass of dismal ruin from which men had turned their eyes these many years now but the moon loved it caressed it dallied with it
lighting up its toppling chimney and empty staring gable there where the black streak could be seen she had stood with the judge in that struggle of wills which had left its scars upon them both to this very day
there hidden but always seen by those who remembered the traditions of the place mouldered away the walls of that old closet where the timorous god stricken suicide had breathed out his soul
she had stood in it only the other day penned from outsiders view by the judge's outstretched arms then she had no mind for bygone horrors her own tragedy weighed too heavily upon her but to night
as she gazed fascinated anxious to forget herself anxious to indulge in any thought which would relieve her from dwelling on the question she must settle before she slept she allowed her wonder and her revulsion to have free course
instead of ignoring she would recall the story of the place as it had been told her when she first came to settle in its neighbourhood spencer's folly well it had been that
when the wind tore down branches and toppled down chimneys when cattle were smitten in the field and men on the highway when the old bridge since replaced buckled up and sank in the roaring flood it could no longer span
and the bluff towering overhead flared into flame and the house which was its glory was smitten apart by the descending bolt as by a titan sword and blazed like a beacon to the sky
this was long before she herself had come to shelby but she had been told the story so often that it was quite as vivid to her as if she had been one of the innumerable men and women who had crowded the glistening swimming streets
to view this spectacle of destruction the family had been gone for months and so no pity mingled with the excitement not till the following day did the awful nature of the event break in its full horror upon the town
among the ruins in a closet which the flames had spared they found hunched up in one corner the body of a man in whose seared throat a wound appeared which had not been made by lightning or fire
spencer spencer himself returned they knew not how to die of this self inflicted wound in the dark corner of his grand but neglected dwelling and this was what made the horror of the place
and the spot became outlawed to all sensitive citizens folly and madness and the vengeance of high heaven upon unhallowed walls spoke to her from that towering mass bathed though it was just now
in liquid light under the impartial moon but as she continued to survey it the clouds came trooping up once more and the vision was wiped out and with it all memories save those of a nearer trouble
a more pressing necessity withdrawing from the window
innocence was asleep at last not a movement disturbed the closed lids on the wax like cheek even the breath came so softly
repose the most perfect and in the form of all others the sweetest to a tender mother lay before her and touched her already yearning heart to tears
yes she was right sorrow was slowly sapping the fountain of her darling's youth
with a sob and a prayer the mother left the room and locking herself into her own sat down at last to face the new perplexity the monstrous enigma which had come into her life
it had followed in natural sequence from a proposal made by the judge that some attention should be given his long neglected rooms he had said on rising from the breakfast table
i am really sorry to trouble you missus scoville but if you have time this morning will you clean up my study before i leave the carriage is ordered for half past nine
you will be choked judge no more than i have been for the last two days you may enter any time and going in he left the door open behind him he will lock it when he goes out
she commented to herself i had better hasten
a possible enlightenment on a subject which had held the whole community in a state of curiosity for years she was going to enter the room which had been barred from public sight by poor bela's dying body
she was going to see or had he only meant that she was to have her way with the library the room where she had already been and much of which she remembered the doubt gave a tremulous eagerness to her step
and caused her eye to wander immediately to that forbidden corner soon as she had stepped over the threshold the bedroom door was open proof that she was expected to enter there
meanwhile she felt the eye of the judge upon her and endeavoured to preserve a perfect composure and to sink the curious and inquiring woman in the diligent housekeeper but she could not quite
two facts of which she immediately became cognisant prevented this first the great room before her presented a bare floor whereas on her first visit it had been very decently
if not cheerfully covered by a huge carpet rug secondly the judge's chair which had once looked immovable had been dragged forward into such a position that he could keep his own eye on the bedroom door
manifestly she was not to be allowed to pursue her duties unwatched certainly she had to take more than one look at the every day implements she carried to retain that balance of judgment
which should prevent her from becoming the dupe of her own expectations i do not expect you to clean up here as thoroughly as you have your own rooms up stairs he remarked as she passed him you haven't the time
i had rather not have that touched she turned with a smile and nodded she felt that she had been set to work with a string tied round her feet not touch the curtain
why that was the one thing in the room she wanted to touch for in it she not only saw the carpet which had been taken up from the floor of the study but a possible screen behind which anything might lurk even his redoubtable secret
or had it another and much simpler explanation might it not have been hung there merely as a shield to the window the room must have a window and there was none to be seen elsewhere it would be like him to shut out light and air
she would ask there is no window she observed looking back at the judge no was his short reply slowly she set down her pail one thing was settled
it was bela's cot she saw before her a cot without any sheets these had been left behind in the dead negro's room and the judge had been sleeping just as she had feared wrapped in a rug and with uncovered pillow
this pillow was his own it had not been brought down with the bed she hastily slipped a cover on it and without calling any further attention to her act began to make up the bed conscious that the papers he made a feint of reading
were but a cover for his watchfulness she moved about in a matter of fact way and did not spare him the clouds of dust which presently rose before her broom she could have managed it more deftly
would have done so at another time but it was her express intention just now to make him move back out of her way if only to give her an opportunity to disturb by a backward stroke of her broom the folds of the carpet rug
oh she protested with a pleading glance his way i'm not half done there's another day to follow he dryly remarked rising and taking a key from his pocket
the act expressed his wishes and she was proceeding to carry out her things when a quick sliding noise from the wall she was passing drew her attention and caused her to spring forward in an involuntary effort
to catch a picture which had slipped its cord and was falling to the floor a shout from the judge of stand aside let me come reached her too late she had grasped and lifted the picture and seen
but first let me explain this picture was not like the others hanging about it was a veiled one from some motive of precaution or characteristic desire for concealment
on the part of the judge it had been closely wrapped about in heavy brown paper before being hung and in the encounter which ensued between the falling picture and the spear of an image standing on a table underneath
this paper had received a slit through which deborah had been given a glimpse of the canvas beneath the shock of what she saw would have unnerved a less courageous woman
it was a highly finished portrait of oliver in his youth
the upper tuolumne excursion we come now to the grandest of all the yosemite excursions one that requires at least two or three weeks the best time to make it is from about the middle of july
while the glacier meadows will be in their glory and the snow on the mountains will be firm enough to make climbing safe long ago i made these sierra trips carrying only a sackful of bread with a little tea and sugar and was thus independent and free
the best way to leave the valley will be by the yosemite fall trail camping the first night on the tioga road opposite the east end of the hoffman range next morning climb mount hoffman
thence push on past tenaya lake into the tuolumne meadows and establish a central camp near the soda springs from which glorious excursions can be made at your leisure
it is also the most accessible it is in the heart of the high sierra east of yosemite
the gray picturesque cathedral range bounds it on the south a similar range or spur the highest peak of which is mount conness on the north the noble mounts dana gibbs mammoth lyell
the highest of which are the glaciers that lie on the north sides of mount lyell and mount mc clure
a distance of about twelve miles forming charming sauntering grounds from which the glorious mountains may be enjoyed as they look down in divine serenity over the dark forests that clothe their bases
narrow strips of pine woods cross the meadow carpet from side to side and it is somewhat roughened here and there by moraine boulders and dead trees brought down from the heights by snow avalanches
but for miles and miles it is so smooth and level that a hundred horsemen may ride abreast over it the main lower portion of the meadows is about four miles long and from a quarter to half a mile wide
the other eastward to mount dana and mount gibbs along both forks strips of meadow extend almost to their heads the most beautiful portions of the meadows are spread over lake basins
which have been filled up by deposits from the river a few of these river lakes still exist but they are now shallow and are rapidly approaching extinction
the sod in most places is exceedingly fine and silky and free from weeds and bushes while charming flowers abound especially gentians dwarf daisies potentillas
on the banks of the river and its tributaries cassiope and bryanthus may be found where the sod curls over stream banks and around boulders the principal grass of these meadows is a delicate calamagrostis
and offer no appreciable resistance in walking through them along the edges of the meadows beneath the pines and throughout the greater part of the valley tall ribbon leaved grasses grow in abundance chiefly bromus
triticum and agrostis in october the nights are frosty and then the meadows at sunrise when every leaf is laden with crystals are a fine sight
the days are still warm and calm and bees and butterflies continue to waver and hum about the late blooming flowers until the coming of the snow usually in november
storm then follows storm in quick succession burying the meadows to a depth of from ten to twenty feet while magnificent avalanches descend through the forests from the laden heights
perhaps the best all round excursion time after winters of average snowfall is from the middle of july to the middle or end of august the snow is then melted from the woods and southern slopes of the mountains and the meadows and gardens
are in their glory while the weather is mostly all reviving exhilarating sunshine the few clouds that rise now and then and the showers they yield are only enough to keep everything fresh and fragrant
the groves about the soda springs are favorite camping grounds on account of the cold pleasant tasting water charged with carbonic acid and because of the views of the mountains across the meadow the glacier monument cathedral peak
cathedral spires unicorn peak and a series of ornamental nameless companions rising in striking forms and nearness above a dense forest growing on the left
which broad deep and far reaching exerted vast influence on the scenery of this portion of the sierra but there are fine camping grounds
all along the meadows and one may move from grove to grove every day all summer enjoying new homes and new beauty to satisfy every roving desire for change
at least as far as the foot of the wonderful series of river cataracts all of these excursions are sure to be made memorable with joyful health giving experiences
but perhaps none of them will be remembered with keener delight than the days spent in sauntering on the broad velvet lawns by the river sharing the sky with the mountains and trees gaining something of their strength and peace
the excursion to the top of mount dana is a very easy one for though the mountain is thirteen thousand feet high the ascent from the west side is so gentle and smooth
that one may ride a mule to the very summit across many a busy stream from meadow to meadow lies your flowery way mountains all about you few of them hidden by irregular foregrounds
gradually ascending other mountains come in sight peak rising above peak with their snow and ice in endless variety of grouping and sculpture now your attention is turned to the moraines
sweeping in beautiful curves from the hollows and canyons
polished a thousand years ago and still shining towards the base of the mountain you note the dwarfing of the trees until at a height of about eleven thousand feet you find patches of the tough white barked pine
pressed so flat by the ten or twenty feet of snow piled upon them every winter for centuries that you may walk over them as if walking on a shaggy rug
and if curious about such things you may discover specimens of this hardy tree mountaineer not more than four feet high and about as many inches in diameter at the ground
that are from two hundred to four hundred years old still holding bravely to life making the most of their slender summers shaking their tasseled needles in the breeze right cheerily
drinking the thin sunshine and maturing their fine purple cones as if they meant to live forever the general view from the summit is one of the most extensive and sublime to be found in all the range
to the eastward you gaze far out over the desert plains and mountains of the great basin range beyond range extending with soft outlines blue and purple in the distance more than six thousand feet below you lies lake mono
ten miles in diameter from north to south and fourteen from west to east lying bare in the treeless desert like a disk of burnished metal though at times it is swept by mountain storm winds and streaked with foam
to the southward there is a well defined range of pale gray extinct volcanoes and though the highest of them rises nearly two thousand feet above the lake you can look down from here into their circular cup like craters
from which a comparatively short time ago ashes and cinders were showered over the surrounding sage plains and glacier laden mountains
to the westward the landscape is made up of exceedingly strong gray glaciated domes and ridge waves most of them comparatively low but the largest high enough to be called mountains
separated by canyons and darkened with lines and fields of forest cathedral peak and mount hoffman in the distance small lakes and innumerable meadows in the foreground
chapter twelve how best to spend one's yosemite time
i should start at daybreak say at three o'clock in midsummer with a pocketful of any sort of dry breakfast stuff for glacier point sentinel dome the head of illilouette fall nevada fall
the top of liberty cap vernal fall and the wild boulder choked river canyon the trail leaves the valley at the base of the sentinel rock
and as you slowly saunter from point to point along its many accommodating zigzags nearly all the valley rocks and falls are seen in striking ever changing combinations
at a height of about fifteen hundred feet the great half dome comes full in sight overshadowing every other feature of the valley to the eastward
from glacier point you look down three thousand feet over the edge of its sheer face to the meadows and groves and innumerable yellow pine spires
three brothers and el capitan with the dome paved basin of yosemite creek and mount hoffman in the background
southeastward the starr king
and its deeply sculptured fountain peaks called
and beyond all marshaled along the eastern horizon the icy summits on the axis of the range and broad swaths of forests growing on ancient moraines while the nevada vernal
and san joaquin rivers are presented in bewildering array
and the coast ranges hazy and dim in the distance from glacier point go down the trail into the lower end of the illilouette basin cross illilouette creek and follow it to the fall
where from an outjutting rock at its head you will get a fine view of its rejoicing waters and wild canyon and the half dome thence returning to the trail follow it to the head of the nevada fall
linger here an hour or two for not only have you glorious views of the wonderful fall but of its wild leaping exulting rapids
and greater than all the stupendous scenery into the heart of which the white passionate river goes wildly thundering surpassing everything of its kind in the world after an unmeasured hour or so of this glory
all your body aglow nerve currents flashing through you never before felt go to the top of the liberty cap only a glad saunter now that your legs as well as head and heart are awake
and rejoicing with everything the liberty cap a companion of the half dome is sheer and inaccessible on three of its sides
but on the east a gentle ice burnished juniper dotted slope extends to the summit where other wonderful views are displayed where all are wonderful the south side and shoulders of half dome and clouds rest
the beautiful little yosemite valley and its many domes the starr king cluster of domes sentinel dome glacier point and perhaps the most tremendously impressive of all
the views of the hopper shaped canyon of the river from the head of the nevada fall to the head of the valley returning to the trail you descend between the nevada fall
and the liberty cap with fine side views of both the fall and the rock pass on through clouds of spray and along the rapids to the head of the vernal fall about a mile below the nevada
linger here if night is still distant for views of this favorite fall and the stupendous rock scenery about it then descend a stairway by its side follow a dim trail through its spray
back to the wide tranquil valley
another grand one day excursion is to the upper yosemite fall the top of the highest of the three brothers called eagle peak on the geological survey maps the brow of el capitan
the head of the ribbon fall across the beautiful ribbon creek basin and back to the valley by the big oak flat wagon road
magnificent views are obtained as you approach it and pass through its spray though when the snow is melting fast you will be well drenched from the foot of the fall the trail zigzags up a narrow canyon
between the fall and a plain mural cliff that is burnished here and there by glacial action you should stop a while on a flat iron fenced rock a little below the head of the fall
beside the enthusiastic throng of starry comet like waters to learn something of their strength their marvelous variety of forms and above all their glorious music
gathered and composed from the snow storms hail rain and wind storms that have fallen on their glacier sculptured domey ridgy basin refreshed and exhilarated
you follow your trail way through silver fir and pine woods to eagle peak where the most comprehensive of all the views to be had on the north wall heights are displayed after an hour or two of gazing dreaming
studying the tremendous topography et cetera trace the rim of the valley to the grand el capitan ridge and go down to its brow where you will gain everlasting impressions of nature's steadfastness and power
combined with ineffable fineness of beauty dragging yourself away go to the head of the ribbon fall thence across the beautiful ribbon creek basin to the big oak flat stage road
and down its fine grades to the valley enjoying glorious yosemite scenery all the way to the foot of el capitan and your camp two day excursions
for a two day trip i would go straight to mount hoffman spend the night on the summit next morning go down by may lake to tenaya lake and return to the valley by cloud's rest and the nevada and vernal falls
as on the foregoing excursion you leave the valley by the yosemite falls trail
a short distance east of porcupine flat from that point push straight up to the summit mount hoffman is a mass of gray granite that rises almost in the center of the yosemite park
about eight or ten miles in a straight line from the valley its southern slopes are low and easily climbed and adorned here and there with castle like crumbling piles and long jagged crests
hornblende feldspar granite zircon tourmaline et cetera weathered out and strewn closely and loosely as if they had been sown broadcast their radiance is fairly dazzling in sunlight
almost hiding the multitude of small flowers that grow among them at first sight only these radiant crystals are likely to be noticed but looking closely you discover a multitude of very small
gilias phloxes mimulus et cetera many of them with more petals than leaves on the borders of little streams larger plants flourish lupines daisies asters goldenrods
hairbell mountain columbine potentilla astragalus and a few gentians with charming heathworts bryanthus cassiope kalmia vaccinium in boulder fringing rings or bank covers
you saunter among the crystals and flowers as if you were walking among stars from the summit nearly all the yosemite park is displayed like a map
northward lies yosemite's wide basin with its domes and small lakes shining like larger crystals eastward the rocky
bounded by its snowy peaks in glorious array southward yosemite and westward the vast forest on no other yosemite park mountain are you more likely to linger you will find it a magnificent sky camp
clumps of dwarf pine and mountain hemlock will furnish resin roots and branches for fuel and light and the rills sparkling water
thousands of the little plant people will gaze at your camp fire with the crystals and stars companions and guardians as you lie at rest in the heart of the vast serene night
and hundreds of smooth rock waves that appear to be coming rolling on towards you like high heaving waves ready to break
no mountain top could be better placed for this most glorious of mountain views to watch and see the deepening colors of the dawn and the sunbeams streaming through the snowy high sierra passes
awakening the lakes and crystals
with your heart aglow spangling lake tenaya and lake may will beckon you away for walks on their ice burnished shores leave tenaya at the west end cross to the south side of the outlet
and gradually work your way up in an almost straight south direction to the summit of the divide between tenaya creek
and follow the divide to clouds rest after a glorious view from the crest of this lofty granite wave you will find a trail on its western end that will lead you down past nevada and vernal falls
to the valley in good time provided you left your hoffman sky camp early two day excursions
another grand two day excursion is the same as the first of the one day trips as far as the head of illilouette fall
and pass the night where i camped forty one years ago
the first of the sixty five that i discovered in the sierra glacial phenomena in the illilouette basin are on the grandest scale and in the course of my explorations i found
were the most interesting of them all the path of the vanished glacier shone in many places as if washed with silver and pushing up the canyon on this bright road i passed lake after lake in solid basins of granite
and many a meadow along the canyon stream that links them together the main lateral moraines that bound the view below the canyon are from a hundred to nearly two hundred feet high and wonderfully regular
like artificial embankments covered with a magnificent growth of silver fir and pine but this garden and forest luxuriance is speedily left behind
and patches of bryanthus cassiope and arctic willows begin to appear the small lakes which a few miles down the valley are so richly bordered with flowery meadows
have at an elevation of ten thousand feet only small brown mats of carex leaving bare rocks around more than half their shores yet
strange to say amid all this arctic repression the mountain pine on ledges and buttresses of red mountain seems to find the climate best suited to it
some specimens that i measured were over a hundred feet high and twenty four feet in circumference showing hardly a trace of severe storms looking as fresh and vigorous as the giants of the lower zones
evening came on just as i got fairly into the main canyon it is about a mile wide and a little less than two miles long
from mountain to mountain shuts it in on the east my camp was on the brink of one of the lakes in a thicket of mountain hemlock partly sheltered from the wind
early next morning i set out to trace the ancient glacier to its head passing around the north shore of my camp lake i followed the main stream from one lakelet to another
are continued in straggling masses along the walls
something like the mud corn from a grindstone this suggested its glacial origin for the stream that was carrying it issued from a raw looking moraine that seemed to be in process of formation
with a slope of about thirty eight degrees climbing to the top of it i discovered a very small but well characterized glacier swooping down from the shadowy cliffs of the mountain to its terminal moraine
the ice appeared on all the lower portion of the glacier farther up it was covered with snow
was from twelve to fourteen feet wide the melting snow and ice formed a network of rills that ran gracefully down the surface of the glacier merrily singing in their shining channels
rising early which will be easy as your bed will be rather cold and you will not be able to sleep much anyhow after visiting the glacier climb the red mountain and enjoy the magnificent views from the summit
and those of the yosemite rocks especially the half dome and the upper part of the north wall are very fine but of course far the most imposing view is the vast array of snowy peaks along the axis of the range
and go down into the head of little yosemite and thence down past the nevada and vernal falls to the valley a truly glorious two day trip a three day excursion
the best three day excursion as far as i can see is the same as the first of the two day trips until you reach lake tenaya
and camp there on the morning of the third day go to the top of mount dana in time for the glory of the dawn
when you leave the mountain go far enough down the north side for a view of the dana glacier
crossing of budd creek where you will find the sunrise trail branching off up the mountain side through the forest in a southwesterly direction past the west side of cathedral peak
which will lead you down to the valley by the vernal and nevada falls if you are a good walker you can leave the trail where it begins to descend a steep slope in the silver fir woods
to any one not desperately time poor this trip should have four days instead of three camping the second night at the soda springs
thence by the sunrise trail to cathedral peak visiting the beautiful cathedral lake which lies about a mile to the west of cathedral peak eating your luncheon and thence to clouds rest and the valley as above
glacier lakes and glacier meadows et cetera but sections of the magnificent silver fir
i think this has been the very dreariest winter i ever knew has it not my little daughter who brought her these violets
where somehow or other muriel always lay curled up at tea time now ay and many hours in the day time though we hardly noticed it at first taking between his hands the little face which broke into smiles at the merest touch of the father's fingers he asked her
to morrow so we have said for a great many to morrows but it is always put off what do you think mother is the little maid strong enough missus halifax hesitated said something about east winds
yet i think it would do her good if she braved east winds and played out of doors as the boys do
the child shrank back with an involuntary oh no that is because she is a little girl necessarily less strong than the lads are is it not so uncle phineas continued her father hastily
muriel will be quite strong when the warm weather comes we have had such a severe winter every one of the children has suffered said the mother in a cheerful tone as she poured out a cup of cream for her daughter
to whom was now given by common consent all the richest and rarest of the house i think every one has said john looking round on his apple cheeked boys it must have been a sharp eye that detected any decrease of health
or increase of suffering there but my plan will set all to rights i spoke to missus tod yesterday she will be ready to take us all in boys shall you like going to enderley you shall go as soon as ever the larch wood is green
for at longfield already we began to make a natural almanack and chronological table
i think so unless you will consent to let me go alone to enderley she shook her head what with those troubles at the mills how can you speak so lightly
only cheerfully the troubles must be borne why not bear them with as good heart as possible they cannot last let lord luxmore do what he will if as i told you we re let longfield for this one summer to sir ralph
if my landlord will not do it i will and add a steam engine too now the last was a daring scheme discussed many a winter night by us three in longfield parlour
at first missus halifax had looked grave most women would especially wives and mothers in those days when every innovation was regarded with horror and improvement and ruin were held synonymous
she might have thought so too had she not believed in her husband but now at mention of the steam engine she looked up and smiled lady oldtower asked me about it to day she said she hoped you would not ruin yourself
like mister miller of glasgow i said i was not afraid her husband returned a bright look it is easier to make the world trust one when one is trusted by one's own household ah
never fear you will make your fortune yet in spite of lord luxmore for all winter john had found out how many cares come with an attained wish chiefly because as the earl had said
his lordship possessed an excellent memory the kingswell election had worked its results in a hundred small ways wherein the heavy hand of the landlord could be laid upon the tenant he bore up bravely against it
but hard was the struggle between might and right oppression and staunch resistance it would have gone harder but for one whom john now began to call his friend at least one who invariably called mister halifax so
our neighbour sir ralph oldtower how often has lady oldtower been here ursula she called first you remember after our trouble with the children she has been twice since i think
to day she wanted me to bring muriel and take luncheon at the manor house i shall not go i told her so but gently i hope
well never mind some day we will take our place and so shall our children
i think though john rarely betrayed it he had strongly this presentiment of future power which may often be noticed in men who have carved out their own fortunes they have in them the instinct to rise
and as surely as water regains its own level so do they from however low a source ascend to theirs not many weeks after we removed in a body to enderley though the chief reason was
that john might be constantly on the spot superintending his mills yet i fancied i could detect a secondary reason which he would not own even to himself but which peered out unconsciously in his anxious looks
i saw it when he tried to rouse muriel into energy by telling her how much she would enjoy enderley hill
seemed to be to make her love the world and the things therein he used to turn away almost in pain from her smile as she would listen to all he said then steal off to the harpsichord and begin that soft dreamy music
which the children called talking to angels we came to enderley through the valley where was john's cloth mill many a time in our walks he and i had passed it and stopped to listen to the drowsy fall of the miniature niagara
turning of the great water wheel little we thought he should ever own it or that john would be pointing it out to his own boys lecturing them on undershot and overshot as he used to lecture me it was sweet
though half melancholy to see enderley again to climb the steep meadows and narrow mule paths up which he used to help me so kindly he could not now he had his little daughter in his arms it had come alas
to be a regular thing that muriel should be carried up every slight ascent
we paused half way up on a low wall where i had many a time rested watching the sunset over nunneley hill watching for john to come home every night at least after miss march went away
he usually found me sitting there he turned to me and smiled dost remember lad at which appellation guy widely stared but for a minute how strangely it brought back old times
when there were neither wife nor children only he and i this seat on the wall with its small twilight picture of the valley below the mill and nunneley heights
was all mine mine solely for evermore enderley is just the same phineas twelve years have made no change except in us and he looked fondly at his wife who stood a little way off
holding firmly on the wall in a hazardous group her three boys
in two brief phrases given by our friend shakspeare one to hamlet the other to othello tis very strange and tis better as it is
better as it was better a thousand times i went to missus halifax and helped her to describe the prospect to the inquisitive boys finally coaxing the refractory guy up the winding road where
just as if it had been yesterday stood my old friends my four lombardy poplars three together and one apart missus tod descried us afar off
a little stouter a little rosier that was all in her delight she so absolutely forgot herself as to address the mother as miss march at which long unspoken name ursula started
her colour went and came and her eyes turned restlessly towards the church hard by it is all right miss ma'am i mean tod bears in mind mister halifax's orders and has planted
roots and evergreens yes i know and when she had put all her little ones to bed we wondering where the mother was went out towards the little churchyard and found her quietly sitting there
muriel brightened up before she had been there many days
and go about with me everywhere it was the season she enjoyed most the time of the singing of birds and the springing of delicate scented flowers i myself never loved the beech wood better than did our muriel
she used continually to tell us this was the happiest spring she had ever had in her life john was much occupied now he left his norton bury business under efficient care
early and late he was there very often muriel and i followed him and spent whole mornings in the mill meadows through them the stream on which the machinery depended was led by various contrivances
checked or increased in its flow making small ponds or locks or waterfalls we used to stay for hours listening to its murmur to the sharp strange cry of the swans that were kept there
and the twitter of the water hen to her young among the reeds then the father would come to us and remain a few minutes fondling muriel and telling me how things went on at the mill one morning as we three sat there
on the brick work of a little bridge underneath an elm tree round the roots of which the water made a pool so clear that we could see a large pike
half way down john suddenly said what is the matter with the stream do you notice phineas
these two hours i thought you were drawing off the water
and isn't this a sweet sunny place for a little maid to be lazy in his tone was gay but he had an anxious look he walked rapidly down the meadows and went into his mill then i saw him retracing his steps
examining where the stream entered the bounds of his property finally he walked off towards the little town at the head of the valley beyond which buried in woods lay luxmore hall
then he came towards us narrowly watching the stream it had sunk more and more the muddy bottom was showing plainly yes that's it it can be nothing else i did not think he would have dared to do it
do what john who lord luxmore he spoke in the smothered tones of violent passion lord luxmore has turned out of its course the stream that works my mill
i tried to urge that such an act was improbable in fact against the law not against the law of the great against the little besides he gives a decent colouring
to make fountains at luxmore hall but i see what it is i have seen it coming a whole year he is determined to ruin me john said this in much excitement
he hardly felt muriel's tiny creeping hands what does ruin mean is anybody making father angry no my sweet not angry only very very miserable he snatched her up and buried his head in her soft childish bosom
she kissed him and patted his hair never mind dear father you say nothing signifies if we are only good and father is always good i wish i were he sat down with her on his knee
the murmur of the elm leaves and the slow dropping of the stream soothed him by and by his spirit rose as it always did the heavier it was pressed down no lord luxmore shall not ruin me i have thought of a scheme
but first i must speak to my people i shall have to shorten wages for a time how soon to night if it must be done better done at once before winter sets in poor fellows
they'll be hard upon me but it is only temporary i must reason them into patience if i can god knows it is not they alone who want it
he almost ground his teeth as he saw the sun shining on the far white wing of luxmore hall have you no way of righting yourself if it is an unlawful act why not go to law phineas you forget my principle
i urged no more since whether abstractedly the question be right or wrong there can be no doubt that what a man believes to be evil to him it is evil now uncle phineas go you home with muriel
tell my wife what has occurred say i will come to tea as soon as i can but i may have some little trouble with my people here she must not alarm herself no the mother never did
she had the rare feminine virtue of never fidgetting at least externally what was to be borne she bore what was to be done she did but she rarely made any fuss about either her doings
or her sufferings to night
understood it i think more clearly than i did probably from being better acquainted with her husband's plans and fears she saw at once the position in which he was placed a grave one
then you think john is right of course i do i had not meant it as a question or even a doubt but it was pleasant to hear her thus answer for as i have said ursula was not a woman to be led blindfold
was much more likely to be herself than john she said no more but put the children to bed then came downstairs with her bonnet on will you come with me phineas or are you too tired i am going down to the mill she started walking quickly
she stooped to pick up a crying child and send it home to its mother in enderley village it was almost dark and we met no one else except a young man
he was rather odd looking being invariably muffled up in a large cloak and a foreign sort of hat who is that watching our mills said missus halifax hastily i told her all i had seen of the person a papist most likely
john objected to the opprobrious word papist
they used to find shelter at luxmore and that name set both our thoughts anxiously wandering so that not until we reached the foot of the hill did i notice that the person had followed us almost to the mill gates in his empty mill
standing beside one of its silenced looms we found the master he was very much dejected ursula touched his arm before he even saw her well love you know what has happened yes john but never mind
i would not except for my poor people what do you intend doing that which you have wished to do all the year our wishes come as a cross to us sometimes he said rather bitterly it is the only thing i can do
the water power being so greatly lessened i must either stop the mills or work them by steam do that then set up your steam engine and have all the country down upon me for destroying hand labour have a new set of luddites coming to burn my mill
and break my machinery that is what lord luxmore wants did he not say he would ruin me worse than this he is ruining my good name if you had heard those poor people whom i sent away tonight
who will have short work these two months and after that machinery work which they fancy is taking the very bread out of their mouths
he spoke as we rarely heard john speak as worldly cares and worldly injustice cause even the best of men to speak sometimes poor people he added how can i blame them i was actually dumb before them to night
when they said i must take the cost of what i do they must have bread for their children but so must i for mine lord luxmore is the cause of all here i heard or fancied i heard out of the black shadow behind the loom a heavy sigh
you and the children are secure anyhow that's one comfort but oh my poor people at enderley again ursula asked if nothing could be done yes i did think of one plan but john i know what you thought of
she laid her hand on his arm and looked straight up at him eye to eye
clearly as a book at last john said would it be too hard a sacrifice love how can you talk so we could do it easily by living in a plainer way by giving up one or two trifles only outside things you know
why need we care for outside things why indeed he said in a low fond tone so i easily found out how they meant to settle the difficulty namely
lest his family should take harm by any possible non success in his business had settled upon his wife three months of little renunciations three months of the old narrow way of living as at norton bury
and the poor people at enderley might have full wages whether or no there was full work then in our quiet valley there would be no want no murmurings and above all no blaming of the master they decided it all
in fewer words than i have taken to write it it was so easy to decide when both were of one mind now said john rising as if a load were taken off his breast now
husband don't let us speak of lord luxmore again that sigh quite ghostly in the darkness they heard it likewise this time who's there only i mister halifax don't be angry with me
it was the softest mildest voice the voice of one long used to oppression
appeared from behind the loom i do not know you sir how came you to enter my mill i followed missus halifax i have often watched her and your children but you don't remember me yes
we all recognized the face more wan than ever
i am surprised to see you here lord ravenel hush i hate the very sound of the name i would have renounced it long ago
if he would have let me he do you mean your father the boy no he was a young man now but scarcely looked more than a boy assented silently as if afraid to utter the name would not your coming here displease him said john
always tenacious of trenching a hair's breadth upon any lawful authority it matters not he is away he has left me these six months alone at luxmore have you offended him asked ursula
who had cast kindly looks on the thin face which perhaps reminded her of another now for ever banished from our sight and his also
and wish to become a monk the youth crossed himself then started and looked round in terror of observers you will not betray me you are a good man mister halifax and you spoke warmly for us tell me i will keep your secret
are you a catholic too no indeed ah i hoped you were but you are sure you will not betray me mister halifax smiled at such a possibility yet in truth there was some reason for the young man's fears
since even in those days catholics were hunted down both by law and by public opinion as virulently as protestant nonconformists all who kept out of the pale of the national church were denounced as
schismatics deists atheists it was all one but why do you wish to leave the world i am sick of it there never was but one in it i cared for or who cared for me and now sancta maria ora pro nobis
his lips moved in a paroxysm of prayer helpless parrot learnt latin prayer yet being in earnest it seemed to do him good the mother as if she heard in fancy that pitiful cry which rose to my memory too
poor william don't tell william turned and spoke to him kindly asking him if he would go home with us he looked exceedingly surprised i you cannot mean it after lord luxmore has done you all this evil
is that any reason why i should not do good to his son that is if i could can i the lad lifted up those soft grey eyes and then i remembered what his sister had said of lord ravenel's enthusiastic admiration of mister halifax
oh you could you could but i and mine are heretics you know i will pray for you only let me come and see you
come and welcome heartily welcome lord no not that name missus halifax call me as they used to call me at saint omer brother anselmo the mother was half inclined to smile
sincerity so henceforward brother anselmo was almost domesticated at rose cottage what would the earl have said had a little bird flown over to london and told him that his only son the heir apparent to his title
and political opinions was in constant and open association for clandestine acquaintance was against all our laws and rules with john halifax the mill owner john halifax the radical as he was still called sometimes
imbibing principles modes of life and of thought which to say the least were decidedly different from those of the house of luxmore above all what would that noble parent have said had he been aware
that this his only son for whom report whispered he was already planning a splendid marriage
that lord ravenel was spending all the love of his loving nature in the half paternal half lover like sentiment which a young man will sometimes lavish on a mere child upon john halifax's little blind daughter muriel
he said she made him good our child of peace he would sit
his patron saint and the little maid in her quiet way was very fond of him delighting in his company when her father was not by but no one ever was to her like her father the chief bond between her and lord ravenel
or anselmo as he would have us call him was music he taught her to play on the organ in the empty church close by there during the long midsummer evenings they two would sit for hours in the organ gallery
while i listened down below hardly believing that such heavenly sounds could come from those small child fingers almost ready to fancy she had called down some celestial harmonist to aid her in playing
since as we used to say but by some instinct never said now
just at this time her father saw somewhat less of her than usual he was oppressed with business cares daily hourly vexations only twice a week the great water wheel
and their pretty sham cataracts were almost always low or dry it ceased to be a pleasure to walk in the green hollow between the two grassy hills which heretofore muriel and i
had liked even better than the flat now she missed the noise of the water the cry of the water hens the stirring of the reeds above all she missed her father
and hardly ever had a spare minute even for his little daughter he was setting up that wonderful novelty a steam engine he had already been to manchester and elsewhere
and seen how the new power was applied by arkwright hargreaves and others
and mechanical knowledge furnished the rest
especially in our primitive valley until the thing was complete so the ignorant simple mill people when they came for their easy saturday's wages only stood and gaped at the mass of iron and the curiously shaped brickwork
and wondered what on earth the master was about
guarantees that the young visiters is the unaided effort in fiction of an authoress of nine years effort however is an absurd word to use as you may see by studying the triumphant countenance of the child herself
which is here reproduced as frontispiece to her sublime work this is no portrait of a writer who had to burn the oil at midnight indeed there is documentary evidence that she was hauled off to bed every evening at six it has an air of careless power
there is a complacency about it that by the severe might perhaps be called smugness it needed no effort for that face to knock off a masterpiece it probably represents precisely how she looked when she finished a chapter when she was actually at work
with the tongue firmly clenched between the teeth an unholy rapture showing as she drew near her love chapter fellow craftsmen will see that she is looking forward to this chapter all the time the manuscript is in pencil in a stout little note book
and there it has lain for years for though the authoress was nine when she wrote it she is now a grown woman it has lain in lavender as it were in the dumpy note book waiting for a publisher to ride that way and rescue it
not a bit afraid that to this age it may appear victorian indeed if its pictures of high life are accurate as we cannot doubt the authoress seems always so sure of her facts
even the grand historical figures were free and easy such as king edward of whom we have perhaps the most human picture ever penned
and afterwards slips away to tuck into ices it would seem in particular that we are oddly wrong in our idea of the young victorian lady as a person more shy and shrinking than the girl of to day the ethel of this story is a fascinating creature
who would have a good time wherever there were a few males but no longer could she voyage through life quite so jollily without attracting the attention of the censorious
chaperon seems to be one of the very few good words of which our authoress had never heard the lady she had grown into the owner of the copyright already referred to gives me a few particulars of this child she used to be
and we were asked to explain why we once thought so much of ourselves as that
invented their own games dodged the governess and let the rest of the world go hang she read everything that came her way including as the context amply proves the grown up novels of the period
i adored writing and used to pray for bad weather so that i need not go out but could stay in and write her mother used to have early tea in bed sometimes visitors came to the house when there was talk of events in high society
there was mention of places called hampton court the gaiety theatre and the crystale palace this is almost all that is now remembered but it was enough for the blazing child
she sucked her thumb for a moment this is guesswork and sat down to her amazing tale her mother used to have early tea in bed
mister salteena woke up rarther early next day and was delighted to find horace the footman entering with a cup of tea oh thank you my man said mister salteena rolling over in the costly bed
mister clark is nearly out of the bath sir announced horace i will have great pleasure in turning it on for you if such is your desire well yes you might said mister salteena seeing it was the idear mister salteena cleverly conceals his emotion but
as soon as he is alone he rushes to ethel's door i say said mister salteena excitedly i have had some tea in bed sometimes visitors came to the house nothing much in that to us but how consummately this child must have studied them
where there may be a novelist of nine years i am sure that when you left your bedroom this child stole in
went a little to her head and it accompanies ethel on her travels with superb effect for instance she is careful to put it on to be proposed to
those who read will see how the rooms in hampton court became the compartments in the crystale palace and how the gaierty hotel grew out of the gaiety theatre with many other agreeable changes the novelist will find the tale a model for his future work
how cunningly throughout she keeps us on the hooks of suspense jumping to mister salteena when we are in a quiver about ethel and turning to ethel when we are quite uneasy about mister salteena this authoress of nine is flirting with her readers all the time
her mind is such a rich pocket that as she digs in it her head to the side and her tongue well out she sends up showers of nuggets there seldom probably was a novelist with such an uncanny knowledge of his characters as she has of mister salteena
and i wished up to the end that ethel would make him happy though i never had much hope after i read the description of bernard clark's legs it is not to be wondered at that mister salteena soon grew rarther jellous of bernard who showed off from the first
my own room is next the bathroom said bernard
thus was mister salteena put in his place and there the cruel authoress with her tongue farther out than ever doggedly keeps him after dinner
ethel played some merry tunes on the piano and bernard responded with a rarther loud song in a base voice and ethel clapped him a good deal then mister salteena asked a few riddles as he was not musicle
bernard's idear warmly acclaimed by ethel is that she and he should go up to london for a few weeks gaierty something of the kind has often been done in fiction and in guide books but never probably in such a hearty way as here
arrived at the gaierty hotel bernard pokes his head into the window of the pay desk have you a couple of bedrooms for self and young lady he enquired in a lordly way he is told that they have two beauties
thank you said bernard we will go up if you have no objection none whatever sir said the genial lady the beds are well aired and the view quite pleasant come along ethel cried bernard this sounds alright eh oh quite said ethel with a beaming smile
i shall be quite lost in that large bed ethel says yes i expect you will said bernard
bernard's proposal should be carried in the pocket of all future swains he decides whilst imbibing his morning tea beneath the pink silken quilt that to propose in london would not be the correct idear
he springs out of bed and knocks at ethel's door are you up my dear he called well not quite said ethel hastily jumping from her downy nest he explains his idear
i shall soon be ready as i had my bath last night so won't wash very much now
faints and is brought back to life by a clever idear of bernard's who pours water on her she soon came to and looked up with a sickly smile take me back to the gaierty hotel she whispered faintly with pleasure my darling said bernard
ethel felt better after a few drops of champaigne and began to tidy her hair while bernard packed the remains of the food then arm in arm they tottered to the boat i trust you have not got an illness my darling murmured bernard as he helped her in
oh no i am very strong said ethel i fainted from joy she added to explain matters oh i see said bernard handing her a cushion well some people do he added kindly
so i will end my chapter the authoress says and we can picture her doing it complacently and slowly pulling in her tongue
with a humped pattern of gold on the pure white and it had a long train edged with airum lillies you will indeed be a charming spectacle my darling gasped bernard as they left the shop and i have no doubt she was
and promised to send her a darling little baby calf when ready this is perhaps the prettiest touch in the story and should make us all take off our hats to the innocent wondering mind that thought of it poor mister salteena
he was at the wedding dressed in black and crying into his handkerchief however he recovered to an extent and married another and had ten children five of each none of them of course equal to ethel's children
not a word added or cut out each chapter being in one long paragraph however
aithra the daughter of pittheus the king she had one fair son named theseus the bravest lad in all the land and aithra never smiled but when she looked at him
for her husband had forgotten her and lived far away
to the temple of poseidon and sit there all day looking out across the bay over methana
and the attic shore beyond and when theseus was full fifteen years old she took him up with her to the temple and into the thickets of the grove which grew in the temple yard
and she led him to a tall plane tree beneath whose shade grew arbutus and lentisk and purple heather bushes and there she sighed and said theseus my son go into that thicket
and you will find at the plane tree foot a great flat stone lift it and bring me what lies underneath then theseus pushed his way in through the thick bushes
and saw that they had not been moved for many a year and searching among their roots he found a great flat stone
he tried to lift it but he could not and he tried till the sweat ran down his brow from heat and the tears from his eyes for shame but all was of no avail
and at last he came back to his mother and said i have found the stone but i cannot lift it
then she sighed and said the gods wait long but they are just at last let it be for another year
then she took him by the hand and went into the temple and prayed and came down again with theseus to her home and when a full year was past she led theseus up again to the temple and bade him lift the stone
but he could not then she sighed and said the same words again and went down and came again the next year but theseus could not lift the stone then nor the year after
and he longed to ask his mother the meaning of that stone and what might lie underneath it but her face was so sad that he had not the heart to ask so he said to himself
the day shall surely come when i will lift that stone
and in order to grow strong he spent all his days in wrestling and boxing and hurling and taming horses and hunting the boar and the bull and coursing goats and deer among the rocks
till upon all the mountains there was no hunter so swift as theseus and he killed phaia the wild sow of crommyon which wasted all the land till all the people said surely the gods are with the lad
and when his eighteenth year was past aithra led him up again to the temple and said theseus lift the stone this day
and theseus went into the thicket and stood over the stone and tugged at it
and rolled it over with a shout and when he looked beneath it on the ground lay a sword of bronze with a hilt of glittering gold and by it a pair of golden sandals
and he caught them up and burst through the bushes like a wild boar and leapt to his mother holding them high above his head but when she saw them she wept long in silence
hiding her fair face in her shawl and theseus stood by her wondering and wept also he knew not why and when she was tired of weeping she lifted up her head
and laid her finger on her lips and said hide them in your bosom theseus my son and come with me where we can look down upon the sea then they went outside the sacred wall
and looked down over the bright blue sea and aithra said do you see this land at our feet and he said yes this is troezene where i was born and bred and she said
it is but a little land barren and rocky and looks towards the bleak north east do you see that land beyond yes that is attica
and it looks toward the sunny south a land of olive oil and honey
whose veins are of pure silver and their bones of marble white as snow
there are twelve towns well peopled the homes of an ancient race the children of kekrops the serpent king the son of mother earth who wear gold cicalas among the tresses of their golden hair
for like the cicalas they sprang from the earth and like the cicalas they sing all day rejoicing in the genial sun what would you do son theseus if you were king
of such a land then theseus stood astonished as he looked across the broad bright sea and saw the fair attic shore from sunium to hymettus and pentelicus
and all the mountain peaks which girdle athens round but athens itself he could not see
midway across the sea then his heart grew great within him and he said if i were king of such a land i would rule it wisely and well in wisdom and in might
that when i died all men might weep over my tomb and cry alas for the shepherd of his people and aithra smiled and said take then the sword and the sandals
king of athens who lives on pallas hill and say to him the stone is lifted but whose is the pledge beneath it then show him the sword and the sandals and take what the gods shall send
but theseus wept shall i leave you o my mother but she answered weep not for me that which is fated must be and grief is easy to those who do nought but grieve
full of sorrow was my youth and full of sorrow my womanhood full of sorrow was my youth for bellerophon
whom my father drove away by treason and full of sorrow my womanhood for thy treacherous father and for thee and full of sorrow my old age will be for i see my fate in dreams
when the sons of the swan shall carry me captive to the hollow vale of eurotas till i sail across the seas a slave the handmaid of the pest of greece yet shall i be avenged
he went to consult a fairy to ascertain what he ought to do to make the princess love him the fairy said to him you know that the princess has a large cat of which she is very fond well
she can marry that person only who can succeed in treading on her cat's tail the king said to himself that will not be very difficult to accomplish and he quitted the fairy determined rather to crush the cat's tail than to fail in treading on it
he hastened to his mistress's palace master puss came to meet him very consequentially as was his wont the king lifted up his foot but when he thought to have put it on the cat's tail puss turned round so quickly that he trod on nothing but the floor
he was a week trying to tread on this fatal tail which appeared to be full of quicksilver for it was continually moving
at last the king had the good fortune to surprise master puss while he was asleep and trod upon his tail with all his weight puss awakened mewing horribly and immediately took the shape of a tall man who looking at the king with eyes full of anger said to him
you may now marry the princess
unless he should be either blind or silly he will certainly be able to see or feel it when the enchanter had disappeared the king went to find the princess who consented to marry him however he did not live long with her for he died eight months after the wedding
shortly after his death the queen gave birth to a young prince who was called desire he had the finest large blue eyes in the world and a pretty little mouth but his nose was so large that it covered half his face the queen was inconsolable when she saw this large nose
but the ladies who were with her told her that the nose was not so large as it appeared to her to be that it was a roman nose and that history averred that all heroes had large noses the queen who loved her son to excess
and by continually looking at desire his nose no longer appeared to be so very long the prince was brought up very carefully and as soon as he could speak
and the courtiers to show their respect to the queen and her son pulled their children's noses several times a day with a view of lengthening them they had however a difficult task for their sons appeared to have hardly any nose at all compared with prince desire's
when he became old enough to understand it
he or she was always spoken of as having a long nose the room was hung round with pictures in which all the figures had large noses and desire grew so accustomed to regard length of nose as an ornament that he would not for an empire have parted with an atom of his
when he had reached the age of twenty it was thought expedient for him to marry and the portraits of various princesses were submitted to him he was in raptures with that of mignonetta the daughter of a great king and heiress to several kingdoms
of the kingdoms however desire thought not at all he was so much struck with her beauty the princess mignonetta although he was thus charmed with her had a little turned up nose which harmonized admirably with her other features
but which very much perplexed the courtiers they had acquired such a habit of ridiculing small noses that they sometimes could not forbear laughing at that of the princess but desire would not suffer a jest on this subject and he banished two courtiers from his presence
who dared to make insinuations against mignonetta's nose the others warned by their fate were more cautious and there was one who said to the prince that in truth a man could not be amiable who had not a large nose
but that it was not the same in respect to woman for a wise man who spoke greek had informed him that he had read in an old manuscript that the fair cleopatra had the end of her nose turned up the prince made a magnificent present to the courtier who told him this good news
and dispatched ambassadors to demand mignonetta in marriage his proposal was accepted and he was so anxious to see her that he went more than nine miles on the road to meet her
he would not allow any of his courtiers to accompany him and mounting a good horse
the horse presently came to a large plain which he traversed the whole day without seeing a single house both horse and rider were ready to die with hunger at last as night was about to set in they discovered a cave in which a light was burning
burst out laughing as they looked at each other exclaiming simultaneously oh what a comical nose not so comical as yours said desire
i was saying then that i was your father's friend at that time he frequently came to see me and you must know that in those days i was very pretty your father told me so i must repeat to you a conversation that we had together the last time he saw me
for i do not like long tales a long tongue is still more insufferable than a large nose and i remember when i was young that i was admired for not being a great talker the queen my mother used frequently to have it mentioned to her for such as you see me
i am a great king's daughter my father your father ate when he was hungry said the prince interrupting her yes he did doubtless said the fairy
i was merely going to tell you that my father
he checked himself however for he wanted something of the fairy and said i know that the pleasure i should take in listening to you would make me forget my own hunger but my horse who will not understand you is in need of some food this compliment made the fairy blush prettily
you shall wait no longer said she to desire calling her domestics you are very polite and in spite of the size of your nose you are very amiable
if i were not hungry i would leave this prate a pace who fancies that she is a little talker one must be very stupid not to perceive one's own defects that comes of her being born a princess flatterers have spoiled her and persuaded her that she is a little talker
who praise all princes very shamelessly concealing our defects from us or representing them to us as perfections but as for me i shall never be their dupe i know my own defects god be thanked poor desire quite thought he was right
and little imagined that those who had praised his nose had ridiculed it in their hearts as the waiting woman was ridiculing the fairy for the prince observed that she turned her head aside every now and then to laugh with regard to himself
but ate away as fast as he could prince said the fairy to him when he began to be satisfied move a little i entreat you your nose makes so large a shadow that it prevents me from seeing what is on my plate
i went to his court when he was quite a child but it is forty years since i first retired into this solitude
are the ladies still as fond of running about in my time they used to go on the same day to the promenade to the assembly to the theater to the ball but how long your nose is i cannot grow used to it in truth madam answered desire
do not say any more about my nose it is as it is and in what does it concern you i am contented with it and do not wish that it was any shorter everyone to his taste oh i perceive now i have hurt your feelings my poor desire said the fairy
but i did not intend to do so on the contrary i am your friend and i wish to do you a service but notwithstanding that i cannot help being shocked at your nose i will not however mention it to you again
i will even constrain myself to think that you are snub nosed though in truth there are materials enough in it to make three reasonable noses desire who had finished his supper grew so tired of the fairy's tedious prattle about his nose
that he sprang on his horse and rode away from the cavern he continued his journey and wherever he went he thought that everybody was mad for everybody talked about his nose nevertheless he had been so accustomed to hear it asserted that his nose was handsome
that he could not reconcile to himself the idea that it was too long the old fairy who wished to do him a service in spite of himself determined to shut up mignonetta in a crystal palace and place this palace in the prince's road desire
transported with joy strove to break it but he could not succeed in despair he wished to approach near it so as at least to speak to the princess who on her part stretched her hand close to the crystal wall of the palace he was very anxious to kiss her hand
but turn his head which way he would he could not place his mouth near it his nose constantly preventing him he then perceived for the first time its extraordinary length and feeling all over it with his hand i must confess said he that my nose is too large
at the moment he pronounced those words the crystal palace vanished and the fairy appeared leading mignonetta by the hand and saying confess that you are greatly obliged to me i vainly wished to speak to you about your nose
in this way self love conceals from us all the defects of our minds and bodies in vain reason endeavors to unveil them to us we can never perceive them until the same self love that blinds us to them finds them to be opposed to its interests
youth and diplomacy on july eleventh seventeen sixty seven in the north parish of braintree
two streams of as good blood as flowed in the colony mingled in the veins of the infant
he was called after his great grandfather on the mother's side john quincy a man of local note who had borne in his day a distinguished part in provincial affairs such a naming was a simple and natural occurrence enough
but mister adams afterward moralized upon it in his characteristic way the incident which gave rise to this circumstance is not without its moral to my heart he was dying when i was baptized and his daughter my grandmother present at my birth
and have been to me through life a perpetual admonition to do nothing unworthy of it fate which had made such good preparation for him before his birth was not less kind in arranging the circumstances of his early training and development
his father was deeply engaged in the patriot cause and the first matters borne in upon his opening intelligence concerned the public discontent and resistance to tyranny he was but seven years old when he clambered with his mother to the top of one of the high hills in the neighborhood of his home
to listen to the sounds of conflict upon bunker's hill and to watch the flaming ruin of charlestown profound was the impression made upon him by the spectacle and it was intensified by many an hour spent afterward upon the same spot
or taken and carried into boston as hostages by any foraging or marauding detachment later when the british had evacuated boston the boy barely nine years old became post rider between the city and the farm a distance of eleven miles each way
in order to bring all the latest news to his mother not much regular schooling was to be got amid such surroundings of times and events but the lad had a natural aptitude or affinity for knowledge which stood him in better stead than could any dame of a village school
dear sir i love to receive letters very well much better than i love to write them i make but a poor figure at composition my head is much too fickle my thoughts are running after birds eggs play and trifles
you would give me some instructions with regard to my time and advise me how to proportion my studies and my play in writing and i will keep them by me and endeavor to follow them i am dear sir with a present determination of growing better yours p s
sir if you will be so good as to favor me with a blank book i will transcribe the most remarkable occurrences i met with in my reading which will serve to fix them upon my mind not long after the writing of this model epistle
the simple village life was interrupted by an unexpected change john adams was sent on a diplomatic journey to paris and on february thirteenth seventeen seventy eight embarked in the frigate boston john quincy adams then eleven years old accompanied his father
and thus made his first acquaintance with the foreign lands where so many of his coming years were to be passed this initial visit however was brief and he was hardly well established at school when events caused his father to start for home
unfortunately this return trip was a needless loss of time since within three months of their setting foot upon american shores the two travellers were again on their stormy way back across the atlantic in a leaky ship
or a diary of the events that happen to me and of objects that i see and of characters that i converse with from day to day
yet i have not patience and perseverance enough to do it so constantly as i ought my pappa who takes a great deal of pains to put me in the right way has also advised me to preserve copies of all my letters and has given me a convenient blank book for this end
and altho i shall have the mortification a few years hence to read a great deal of my childish nonsense yet i shall have the pleasure and advantage of remarking the several steps by which i shall have advanced in taste judgment and knowledge
a journal book and a letter book of a lad of eleven years old can not be expected to contain much of science literature arts wisdom or wit
and may hereafter help me to recollect both persons and things
he did in fact begin it when setting out on the aforementioned second trip to europe calling it
begun friday twelve of november seventeen seventy nine the spark of life in the great undertaking flickered in a somewhat feeble and irregular way for many years thereafter
what may be denominated the diary proper begins a very vigorous work in more senses than one continued with astonishing persistency and faithfulness until within a few days of the writer's death the latest entry is of the fourth of january eighteen forty eight
who could certainly not ask for better or more abundant evidence few of us know our most intimate friends better than any of us may know mister adams if we will but take the trouble even the brief extracts already given from his correspondence show us the boy
it only concerns us to get them into the proper light for seeing them accurately if a lad of seven nine or eleven years of age should write such solemn little effusions amid the surroundings and influences of the present day he would probably be set down justly enough
as either an offensive young prig or a prematurely developed hypocrite but the precocious adams
as when he was seventy and at an age when most young people simply win love or cause annoyance he was preferring wisdom to mischief
these few but bold and striking touches which paint the boy are changed for an infinitely more elaborate and complex presentation from the time when the diary begins
even as abridged in the printing this immense work ranks among the half dozen longest diaries to be found in any library and it is unquestionably by far the most valuable henceforth we are to travel along its broad route to the end
we shall see in it both the great and the small among public men halting onward in a way very different from that in which they march along the stately pages of the historian and we shall find many side lights by no means colorless
would not have preferred the ignominy of omission as one turns the leaves he feels as though he were walking through a graveyard of slaughtered reputations wherein not many headstones show a few words of measured commendation it is only the greatness and goodness of mister adams himself
while knowing also that it is beyond question accurate one after another every trait of mister adams comes out we shall see that he was a man of a very high and noble character veined with some very notable and disagreeable blemishes his aspirations were honorable
he had an avowed ambition but it was of that pure kind which led him to render true and distinguished services to his countrymen he was not only a zealous patriot but a profound believer in the sound and practicable tenets
of the liberal political creed of the united states he had one of the most honest and independent natures that was ever given to man personal integrity of course goes without saying but he had the rarer gift of an elevated and rigid political honesty
such as has been unfrequently seen in any age or any nation in times of severe trial this quality was even cruelly tested but we shall never see it fail
well read in literature and of wide and varied information in nearly all matters of knowledge
where indeed they were vast and ever growing he had a clear and generally a cool head and was nearly always able to do full justice to himself and to his cause he had an indomitable will
unconquerable persistence and infinite laboriousness such were the qualities which made him a great statesman but unfortunately we must behold a hardly less striking reverse to the picture
in the faults and shortcomings which made him so unpopular in his lifetime that posterity is only just beginning to forget the prejudices of his contemporaries and to render concerning him the judgment which he deserves
never did a man of pure life and just purposes have fewer friends or more enemies than john quincy adams his nature said to have been very affectionate in his family relations was in its aspect outside of that small circle
and we shall find them fighting beside him only when irresistibly compelled to do so by policy or strong convictions as he had little sympathy with those with whom he was brought in contact
and thus having really a low opinion of so many of them he could indulge his vindictive rancor without stint his invective always powerful will sometimes startle us by its venom and we shall be pained to see him apt to make enemies for a good cause
by making them for himself this has been perhaps too long a lingering upon the threshold but mister adams's career in public life stretched over so long a period that to write a full historical memoir of him within the limited space of this volume is impossible
all that can be attempted is to present a sketch of the man with a few of his more prominent surroundings against a very meagre and insufficient background of the history of the times so it may be permissible to begin with a general outline of his figure
and to mingle in very distinguished society for a brief period he got a little schooling first at paris next at amsterdam and then at leyden altogether the amount was insignificant since he was not quite fourteen years old when he actually found himself engaged in a diplomatic career
was then accredited as an envoy to russia from the united states and he took mister adams with him as his private secretary
upon his return he spent six months in travel and then he rejoined his father in paris where that gentleman was engaged with franklin and john jay in negotiating the final treaty of peace between the revolted colonies and the mother country
the boy was at once enlisted in the service as an additional secretary
which apparently he was left to do for himself he was indeed a singular young man not unworthy of such confidence the glimpses which we get of him during this stay abroad show him as the associate upon terms of equality with grown men of marked ability
and exercising important functions he preferred diplomacy to dissipation statesmen to mistresses and in the midst of all the temptations of the gayest capital in the world
the chariness with which he sprinkled his wild oats amid the alluring gardens chiefly devoted to the culture of those cereals
at least if the tongue of slander wags not with gross untruth concerning the colleagues of john adams but he was not in europe to amuse himself though at an age when amusement is natural and a tinge of sinfulness is so often pardoned
to mingle with the men who were making history to be cognizant of the weightiest of public affairs to profit by all that the grandest city in the world had to show it was easy to be not only allured by the prospect but also to be deceived by its apparent advantages
adams however had the sense and courage to turn his back on it and to go home to the meagre shores and small society of new england there to become a boy again to enter harvard college
and come under all its at that time rigid and petty regulations it almost seems a mistake but it was not
and having been in the world and among company for three to return to spend one or two years in the pale of a college
and afterwards not expect however good an opinion i may have of myself to bring myself into notice under three or four years more if ever
for i have ambition though i hope its object is laudable but still oh how wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes favors or on those of any body else i am determined that so long as i shall be able to get my own living in an honorable manner
i will depend upon no one my father has been so much taken up all his lifetime with the interests of the public
so that his children will have to provide for themselves which i shall never be able to do if i loiter away my precious time in europe and shun going home until i am forced to it
i have taken it at last i would not take one be fore because i knew i could not teach little children how to love god unless i loved him myself my class is perfectly delightful there are twelve dear little things in it
of all ages between eight and nine eleven are girls
when i get them all about me and their sweet innocent faces look up into mine i am so happy that i can hardly help stopping every now and then to kiss them they ask the very strangest questions
i mean to spend a great deal of time in preparing the lesson and in hunting up stories to illustrate it oh i am so glad i was ever born into this beautiful world where there will always be dear little children to love
sunday has come again and with it my darling little class doctor cabot has preached delightfully all day
i long to feel as the best christians feel and to live as they live
and whenever i am conscious of not practicing what i preach i am bitterly ashamed and grieved how much work badly done i am now having to undo if i had begun in earnest to serve god when i was as young as these children are
poor johnny ross is not so docile as they are and tries my patience to the last degree
this morning i had my little flock about me and talked to them out of the very bottom of my heart about jesus they left their seats and got close to me in a circle leaning on my lap and drinking in every word all of a sudden
for he got up what i suppose he meant for a blush
i should not have remembered it however by it i mean his impertinence if he had not shortly after made a really excellent address to the children perhaps it was a little above their comprehension
but it showed a good deal of thought and earnestness i meant to ask who he was but forgot it this has been a delightful sunday i have really feasted on doctor cabot's preaching but i am satisfied
so much has been going on that i have not had time to write there is no end to the picnics drives parties et cetera this summer i am afraid i am not getting on at all my prayers are dull and short and full of wandering thoughts
and as soon as i get home am stupid and peevish
and i declare i would rather be so than such a vapid flat creature as mary jones or such a dull heavy one as big lucy merrill
clara ray says the girls think me reckless and imprudent in speech i've a good mind not to go with her set any more
and now comes this blow at my vanity on the whole i feel greatly out of sorts this evening
people talk about happiness to be found in a christian life
on sundays i am pretty good and always seem to start afresh but on week days i am drawn along with those about me all my pleasures are innocent ones there is surely no harm in going to concerts driving out singing and making little visits
but these things distract me they absorb me they make religious duties irksome i almost wish i could shut myself up in a cell and so get out of the reach of temptation the truth is the journey heavenward is all up hill
it is high time to stop and think i have been like one running a race and am stopping to take breath
and i want to go where i shall be admired and applauded to whom shall i yield to god or to myself
i met doctor cabot to day and could not help asking the question is it right for me to sing and play in company when all i do it for is to be admired are you sure it is all you do it for he returned oh i said
i suppose there may be a sprinkling of desire to entertain and please mixed with the love of display do you suppose that your love of display allowing you have it would be forever slain by your merely refusing to sing in company
i said if not its death blow meanwhile in punishing yourself you punish your poor innocent friends he said laughing no child go on singing god has given you this power of entertaining
and gratifying your friends but pray without ceasing that you may sing from pure benevolence and not from pure self love why do people pray about such things as that i cried of course they do
why i would pray about my little finger if my little finger went astray i looked at his little finger but saw no signs of its becoming schismatic
this morning i took great delight in praying for my little scholars and went to sunday school as on wings but on reaching my seat what was my horror to find maria perry there oh your seat is changed
i shall speak to mister williams about it directly at any rate i would not fly into such a fury she said it is just as pleasant to me to have pretty children to teach as it is to you
and i got on with the lesson very badly i am sure maria perry has no gift at teaching little children and i feel quite vexed and disappointed this has not been a profitable sunday and i and now going to bed cheerless and uneasy
mister williams said he hoped i would go on teaching for twenty years
he should want me to take charge of them i should have been greatly elated by these compliments but for the display i made of myself to maria perry on sunday oh that i could learn to bridle my unlucky tongue
as a general rule i do not think poor people are very interesting and they are always ungrateful we went first to see old jacob stone i have been there a good many times with the baskets of nice things mother takes such comfort in sending him
i was shocked to see how worn away he was he seemed in great distress of mind and begged mother to pray with him i do not see how she could
and some little ornaments were arranged about the room mother complimented her on her neatness and said a queen might sleep in such a bed as that
mercy on us she cried out it ain't to sleep in
after we came away i asked mother how she could listen to such a rigmarole in patience
why the poor creature likes to show off her bright carpet and nice bed her chairs her vases and her knick knacks and she likes to talk about her beloved money and her bank stock i may not have done her any good but i have given her a pleasure
and so have you why i hardly spoke a word yes but your mere presence gratified her and if she ever gets into trouble she will feel kindly towards us for the sake of our sympathy with her pleasures
and had just heard that she was sick and in great want we found her in bed there was no furniture in the room and three little half naked children sat with their bare feet in some ashes where there had been a little fire
three such disconsolate faces i never saw mother sent me to the nearest baker's for bread
or else leave off spending one's whole time in just doing easy pleasant things one likes to do
look at the dear little thing mother i cried doesn't she look like a line of poetry you foolish romantic child quoth mother she looks to me like a very ordinary line of prose a slice of bread and butter and a piece of gingerbread
mean more to her than these elaborate ringlets possibly can they get in her eyes and make her neck cold see they are dripping with water and the child is all in a shiver so saying mother folded a towel round its neck
to catch the falling drops and went for bread and butter of which the child consumed a quantity that was absolutely appalling
july sixteenth my school days are over i have come off with flying colors and mother is pleased at my success i said to her today that i should now have time to draw and practice to my heart's content
you will not find your heart content with either she said
sometimes i am angry about it and sometimes grieved however i find jenny quite nice she buys all the new books and lends them to me i wish i liked more solid reading but i don't and i wish i were not so fond of novels but i am
which she always wears and often shows me according to her he is exactly like the heroes i most admire in books she says she knows he would like me if we should meet but that is not probable very few like me
not even amelia but how foolish to write that down thursday jenny's brother has been here all evening he has the most perfect manners i ever saw i am sure that mother who thinks so much of such things would be charmed with him
he gave me an account of his mother's death and how he and jenny nursed her day and night he has a great deal of feeling i was going to tell him about my father's death sorrow seems to bring people together so but i could not oh
instead of being snatched from us in that sudden way sunday
jenny's brother has been at our church all day he walked home with me this afternoon mother after being up all night with missus jones and her baby was not able to go out doctor cabot preaches as if we had all got to die pretty soon
or else have something almost as bad happen to us how can old people always try to make young people feel uncomfortable and as if things couldn't last
i suppose mother would say my head was turned by my good fortune but it is not i am getting quite sober and serious it is a great thing to be to be well liked
and would make any sacrifice for one he loved i could not like a man who did not possess such sentiments as his perhaps mother would think i ought not to put such things into my journal
what a dear little thing she is she and her brother are so much alike the plan is for us three girls jenny amelia and myself to form ourselves into a little class to read and to study together she says charley
somehow i forgot to tell mother that mister underhill was to be our teacher so when it came my turn to have the class meet here she was not quite pleased i told her she could stay and watch us and then she would see for herself that we all behaved ourselves
mother insisted on sending for me though mister underhill had proposed to see me home himself so he stayed after i left
i studied awhile with mister underhill at last he said scribbling something on a bit of paper here is a sentence i hope you can translate i took it and read these words you are the brightest prettiest most warm hearted little thing in the world
and then glad and then sorry but i pretended to laugh and said i could not translate greek i shall have to tell mother and what will she say
this morning mother began thus kate i do not like these lessons of yours at your age with your judgment quite unformed it is not proper that you should spend so much time with a young man jenny is always there and amelia
missus gordon says missus gordon ha i burst out
and because he does not entirely neglect me she has put her mother up to coming here meddling and making if what you say of amelia is true it is most ungenerous in you to tell of it but i do not believe it
amelia gordon has too much good sense to be carried away by a handsome face and agreeable manners i began to cry he likes me i got out he likes me ever so much
nobody ever said such nice things to me and i don't want such horrid things said about him has it really come this said mother quite shocked oh my poor child how my selfish sorrow has made me neglect you
i said he is a man he is twenty years old or at least he will be on the fifteenth of next october the child actually keeps his birthdays cried mother oh my wicked shameful carelessness it's done now
you don't mean that he has dared to say anything without consulting me asked mother and you have allowed it oh katherine
and no mortal force could open it i stopped crying and sat with folded arms mother said what she had to say and then i came to you my dear old journal yes he likes me and i like him come now
let's out with it once for all he loves me and i love him you are just a little bit too late mother
i never can write down all the things that have happened the very day after i wrote that mother had forbidden my going to the class charley came to see her and they had a regular fight together he has told me about it since then as he could not prevail his uncle wrote
then jenny came with her pretty ways and cried and told mother what a darling brother charley was she made a good deal too out of his having lost both father and mother and needing my affection so much mother shut herself up
and i have no doubt prayed over it i really believe she prays over every new dress she buys then she sent for me and talked beautifully and i behaved abominably at last she said she would put us on one year's probation
charley is not at all pleased with mother's terms but no one would guess it from his manner to her his coming is always the signal for her trotting down stairs he goes to meet her and offers her a chair as if he was delighted to see her
because a correspondence is one of the forbidden things he says he entered into no contract not to write and keeps slipping little notes into my hand but i don't think that quite right mother hears us arguing and disputing about it though she does not know the subject under discussion
and to day she said to me i would not argue with him if i were you he never will yield
and he ought to yield there is no obstinacy like that of a f
oh you may as well finish it i cried i know you think him a fool then mother burst out oh my child she said before it is too late do be persuaded by me to give up this whole thing i shrink from paining or offending you
but it is my duty as your mother to warn you against a marriage that will make shipwreck of your happiness marriage i fairly shrieked out that is the last thing i have ever thought of i felt a chill creep over me
all i had wanted was to have charley come here every day take me out now and then and care for nobody else yes marriage mother repeated
how can you fail to see what i see oh so plainly that charley underhill can never never meet the requirements of your soul you are captivated by what girls of your age call beauty regular features a fair complexion and soft eyes
seems to be that is true she replied his ruling passion is love of admiration the little pleasing acts that attract you are so many traps set to catch the attention and the favorable opinion of those about him
he has not one honest desire to please because it is right to be pleasing oh my precious child what a fatal mistake you are making in relying on your own judgment in this
but being engaged is not half so nice as i expected it would be i suppose it is owing to my being obliged to defy mother's judgment in order to gratify my own people say she has great insight into character and sees at a glance what others only learn after much study
i have taken a dreadful cold it is too bad i dare say i shall be coughing all winter and instead of going out with charley be shut up at home
my mind was somewhat distracted with these cares and i found it a little difficult to keep on with my morning devotions in spite of them but i have learned at least to face and fight such distractions instead of running away from them as i used to do my faith in prayer
my resort to it becomes more and more the foundation of my life and i believe with one wiser and better than myself that nothing but prayer stands between my soul and the best gifts of god in other words
that i can and shall get what i ask for i went down into the kitchen put on my large baking apron and began my labors of course the door bell rang and a poor woman was announced
it is very sweet to follow fenelon's counsel and give oneself to christ in all these interruptions but this time i said oh dear before i thought then i wished i hadn't and went up with a cheerful face at any rate to my unwelcome visitor
who proved to be one of my aggravating poor folks a great giant of a woman in perfect health and with a husband to support her if he will i told her that i could do no more for her she answered me rudely and kept urging her claims i felt ruffled
off came my apron and up two pairs of stairs i ran after a long search it came to light work resumed door bell again aunty wanted the children to come to an early dinner going to aunty's is next to going to paradise to them
every thing was now hurry and flurry i tried to be patient and not to fret their temper by undue attention to nails ears and other susceptible parts of the human frame but after it was all over and i had kissed all the sweet dear faces good by
i felt sure that i had not been the perfect mother i want to be in all these little emergencies yes far from it bridget had let the milk i was going to use boil over and finally burn up i was annoyed and irritated and already tired
and did not see how i was to get more as mary was cleaning the silver to be sure there is not much of it and had other extra saturday work to do i thought bridget might offer to run to the corner for it though it isn't her business
and seemed as sulky as if i had burned the milk not she after all i said to myself what does it signify if ernest gets no dessert it isn't good for him and how much precious time is wasted over just this one thing
however i reflected that arbitrarily refusing to indulge him in this respect is not exactly my mission as his wife he is perfectly well and likes his little luxuries as well as other people do
i looked at the clock once more told her she should go of course as soon as lunch was over this involved my doing all her absence left undone at last i got through with the kitchen the sunday dinner being well under way
and ran upstairs to put away the host of little garments the children had left when they took their flight and to make myself presentable at lunch then i began to be uneasy lest ernest should not be punctual and mary be delayed but he came just as the clock struck one
i ran joyfully to meet him very glad now that i had something good to give him
and i was opening my mouth to tell mary she might go when the doorbell rang once more and missus fry of jersey city was announced
missus fry said all they wanted was a cup of tea and a bit of bread and butter nothing else dear now don't put yourself out now be bright and animated and like yourself she whispered
that she would really try to eat a morsel more which ernest remarked dryly was a great triumph of mind over matter as they talked and laughed and ate leisurely on
at last i gave her a glance that said she might go when a new visitor was announced missus winthrop from brooklyn one of ernest's patients a few years ago when she lived here she professed herself greatly indebted to him
but no see him she must he was her
sweet bedside manners and i am such a favorite with him you know ernest did not receive his favorite with any special warmth but invited her out to lunch and gallanted her to the table we had just left just like a man
poor mary she had to fly round and get up what she could missus winthrop devoted herself to ernest with a persistent ignoring of me that i thought rude and unwomanly she asked if he had read a certain book he had not she then said
i need not ask then if missus elliott has done so
of course replied ernest but she contrives to read the reports of all the murders of which the newspapers are full missus winthrop took this speech literally
and this whole day has been frittered away in the veriest trifles it isn't living to live so who is the better for my being in the world since six o'clock this morning i am for one she said kissing my hot cheeks
your and ernest's hospitality is always graceful i admire it in you both and this is one of the little ways not to be despised of giving enjoyment
and yet you said that outrageous thing about my reading about nothing but murders i said oh well you understood it he said laughingly but that dreadful missus winthrop took it literally
what do we care for missus winthrop he returned
after all one must take life as it comes its homely details are so mixed up with its sweet charities and loves and friendships that one is forced to believe that god has joined them together and does not will that they should be put asunder
a stormy day and the children home from school and no little frolicking and laughing going on it must be delightful to feel well and strong while one's children are young there is so much to do for them i do it
but no one can tell the effort it costs me what a contrast there is between their vitality and the languor under which i suffer when their noise became intolerable i proposed to read to them
as i sat with this precious little group about me ernest opened the door looked in gravely and without a word and instantly disappeared i felt uneasy and asked him this evening why he looked so was i indulging the children too much
or what was it he took me into his arms and said my precious wife why will you torment yourself with such fancies my very heart was yearning over you at that moment
as it did the first time i saw you surrounded by your little class at sunday school years ago and i was asking myself
and my children such a mother oh i am glad i have got this written down i will read it over when the sense of my deficiencies overwhelms me while i ask god why he has given me such a patient forbearing husband
this has been a sad day to our church our dear doctor cabot has gone to his eternal home and left us as sheep without a shepherd his death was sudden at the last and found us all unprepared for it but my tears of sorrow are mingled with tears of joy
how strange that we ever forget that we are all such
the desolate pilgrimage was not long
and it is delightful to think of them as not divided by death but united by it in a complete and eternal union i never saw a husband and wife more tenderly attached to each other and this is a beautiful close to their long and happy married life
who from my youth up have been my stay and my staff in the house of my pilgrimage almost all the disappointments and sorrows of my life have had their christian sympathy particularly the daily wasting solicitude concerning my darling una
for they to watched for years over as delicate a flower and saw it fade and die only those who have suffered thus can appreciate the heart soreness through which no matter how outwardly cheerful i may be
i am always passing but what then have i not ten thousand times made this my prayer that in the words of leighton my will might become identical with god's will and shall he not take me at my word
just as i was writing these words my canary burst forth with a song so joyous
something seemed to say this captive sings in his cage because it has never known liberty and cannot regret a lost freedom so the soul of my child limited by the restrictions of a feeble body
what this child is to me i cannot tell and yet if the skillful and kind gardener should house this delicate plant before frosts come
corny's catamount two boys sat on the bars one whittling the other whistling not for want of thought by any means for his brow was knit in an anxious frown and he paused now and then to thump the rail with an impatient exclamation
the other lad appeared to be absorbed in shaping an arrow from the slender stick in his hand but he watched his neighbor with a grin saying a few words occasionally which seemed to add to his irritation though they were in a sympathizing tone oh well
if a chap can't do a thing he can't and he'd better give up and say beat but i won't give up and i never say beat i'm not going to be laughed out of it and i'll do what i said i would if it takes all summer chris warner
you'll have to be pretty spry then for there's only two more days to august replied the whittler shutting one eye to look along his arrow and see if it was true i intend to be spry
and if you won't go and blab i'll tell you a plan i made last night guess you can trust me i've heard about a dozen plans now and never told one of em they all failed so there was nothing to tell
but this one is not going to fail if i die for it i feel that it's best to tell some one because it is really dangerous and if anything should happen to me as is very likely it would save time and trouble
don't seem to feel anxious a mite but i'll stand ready to pick up the pieces if you come to grief now chris it's mean of you to keep on making fun when i'm in dead earnest and this may be the last thing you can do for me
wait till i get out my handkerchief if you're going to be affectin i may want it granite's cheap up here just mention what you'd like on your tombstone and i'll see that it's done if it takes my last cent
that the slender city lad could not help laughing and with a slap that nearly sent his neighbor off his perch corny said good naturedly come now stop joking and lend a hand and i'll do anything i can for you i've set my heart on shooting a wildcat
and i know i can if i once get a good chance mother won't let me go off far enough so of course i don't do it and then you all jeer at me to morrow we are going up the mountain and i'm set on trying again
for abner says the big woods are the place to find the varmint now you hold your tongue and let me slip away when i think we've hit the right spot i'm not a bit afraid and while the rest go poking to the top i'll plunge into the woods and see what i can do
all right better take old buff he'll bring you home when you get lost and keep puss from clawing you you won't like that part of the fun as much as you expect to maybe said chris with a sly twinkle of the eye
as he glanced at corny and then away to the vast forest that stretched far up the mighty mountain's side no i don't want any help and buff will betray me by barking i prefer to go alone i shall take some lunch and plenty of shot and have a glorious time
even if i don't meet that confounded beast i will keep dashing in and out of the woods as we go
and when they do you just say oh he's all right he'll be along directly and go ahead and let me alone corny spoke so confidently and looked so pleased with his plan that honest chris could not bear to tell him how much danger he would run in that pathless forest
where older hunters than he had been lost don't feel as if i cared to tell any lies about it and i don't advise your goin but if you're mad for catamounts i s'pose i must humor you and say nothing only bear in mind
abner and i will be along and if you get into a scrape jest give a yell and we'll come no fear of that i've tramped round all summer and know my way like an indian keep the girls quiet and let me have a good lark i'll turn up all right by sundown
so don't worry not a word to mother mind or she won't let me go
but it's not my funeral so i won't meddle hope you'll have first rate sport and bag a brace of cats one thing you mind don't get too nigh before you fire and keep out of sight of the critters as much as you can chris spoke in a deep whisper
looking so excited and impressed by the reckless courage of his mate that corny felt himself a leatherstocking and went off to tea with his finger on his lips full of boyish faith in his own powers if he had seen chris dart behind the barn
and there roll upon the grass in convulsions of laughter
no deacon could have been more sober however than chris when they met next morning while the party of summer boarders at the old farm house were in a pleasant bustle of preparation for the long expected day on the mountain
three merry girls a pair of small boys two amiable mammas chris and corny made up the party with abner to drive the big wagon drawn by milk and molasses the yellow span all aboard shouted our young nimrod
in a hurry to be off as the lunch basket was handed up and the small boys packed in the most uncomfortable corners regardless of their arms and legs away they rattled with a parting cheer and peace fell upon the farm house for a few hours
to the great contentment of the good people left behind corny's mother was one of them and her last words were a pleasant day dear i wish you'd leave that gun at home i'm so afraid you'll get hurt with it no fun without it
don't worry mammy i'm old enough to take care of myself i'll see to him ma'am called chris as he hung on behind and waved his old straw hat with a steady reliable sort of look that made the anxious lady feel more comfortable
we are going to walk up and leave the horses to rest so i can choose my time see i've got a bottle of cold tea in this pocket and a lot of grub in the other no danger of my starving is there whispered corny as he leaned over to chris who sat apparently on nothing
with his long legs dangling into space shouldn't wonder if you needed every mite of it hunting is mighty hard work on a hot day and this is going to be a blazer answered chris pulling his big straw hat lower over his eyes
as we intend to follow corny's adventures we need not pause to describe the drive which was a merry one with girls chattering mammas holding on to excited small boys in danger of flying out at every jolt abner joking till every one roared
corny's dangerous evolutions with the beloved gun and the gymnastic feats chris performed jumping off to pick flowers for the ladies and getting on again while milk and molasses tore up and down the rough road as if they enjoyed it
about ten o'clock they reached the foot of the mountain and after a short rest at the hotel began the three mile ascent in high spirits abner was to follow later with the wagon to bring the party down so chris was guide
as he knew the way well and often came with people the girls and younger boys hurried on full of eagerness to reach the top the ladies went more slowly enjoying the grand beauty of the scene while chris carried the lunch basket and corny lingered in the rear
waiting for a good chance to plunge he wanted to be off before abner came as he well knew that wise man and mighty hunter would never let him go alone the very next path i see i'll dive in and run
chris can't leave the rest to follow and if i once get a good start they won't catch me in a hurry thought the boy longing to be free and alone in the wild woods that tempted him on either hand just as he was tightening his belt to be ready for the run
missus barker the stout lady called him and being a well bred lad he hastened at once to see what she wanted feeling that he was the only gentleman in the party give me your arm dear i'm getting very tired and fear i can't hold out to the top
without a little help said the poor lady red and panting with the heat and steepness of the road certainly ma'am answered corny obeying at once and inwardly resolving to deposit his fair burden
on the first fallen log they came to and make his escape but missus barker got on bravely with the support of his strong arm and chatted away so delightfully that corny would really have enjoyed the walk if his soul had not been yearning for catamounts
he did his best but when they passed opening after opening into the green recesses of the wood and the granite boulders grew more and more plentiful his patience gave out and he began to plan what he could say to excuse himself chris was behind
though he grinned cheerfully when poor corny looked round and beckoned as well as he could with a gun on one arm and a stout lady on the other the hardest part is coming now and we'd better rest a moment
here's a nice rock and the last spring we are likely to see till we get to the top come on chris and give us the dipper missus barker wants a drink and so do i called the young hunter driven to despair at last up came chris and while he rummaged in the well packed basket
corny slipped into the wood leaving the good lady with her thanks half spoken sitting on a warm stone beside a muddy little pool a loud laugh followed him as he scrambled through the tall ferns and went plunging down the steep mountain side eager to reach the lower woods
let him laugh it will be my turn when i go home with a fine cat over my shoulder thought corny tearing along heedless of falls scratches and bruised knees at length he paused for breath and looked about him well satisfied
for the spot was lonely and lovely enough to suit any hunter the tallest pines he ever saw sighed far overhead the ground was ankle deep in moss and gay with scarlet bunch berries
every fallen log was veiled by sweet scented linnea green vines or nodding brakes while hidden brooks sang musically and the air was full of the soft flutter of leaves the whir of wings
the sound of birds gossiping sweetly in the safe shelter of the forest where human feet so seldom came i'll rest a bit and then go along down keeping a look out for puss by the way thought corny feeling safe and free
and very happy for he had his own way at last and a whole day to lead the life he loved so he bathed his hot face took a cool drink and lay on the moss staring up into the green gloom of the pines
blissfully dreaming of the joys of a hunter's life till a peculiar cry startled him to his feet and sent him creeping warily toward the sound whether it was a new kind of bird or a fox or a bear he did not know
and prowls by night abner said they purred and snarled and gave a mewing sort of cry but which it was now he could not tell having unfortunately been half asleep
pretending that he did not care for such small game now this is what i call fun he said to himself tramping gayly along and at that moment went splash into a mud hole concealed under the grass
he sunk up to his knees and with great difficulty got out by clinging to the tussocks that grew near in his struggles the lunch was lost for the bottle broke and the pocket where the sandwiches were stored was full of mud
a woful spectacle was the trim lad as he emerged from the slough black and dripping in front well spattered behind hatless and one shoe gone having been carelessly left unlaced in the ardor of the chase
here's a mess thought poor corny
luckily my powder is dry and my gun safe so my fun isn't spoiled though i do look like a wallowing pig i've heard of mud baths but i never took one before and i'll be shot if i do again
so he washed as well as he could hoping the sun would dry him picked out a few bits of bread unspoiled by the general wreck and trudged on with less ardor though by no means discouraged yet
i'm too high for any game but birds and those i don't want i'll go slap down and come out in the valley abner said any brook would show the way and this rascal that led me into a scrape shall lead me out he said
as he followed the little stream that went tumbling over the stones that increased as the ground sloped toward the deep ravine where a waterfall shone like silver in the sun i'll take a bath if the pool is big enough and that will set me up
shouldn't wonder if i'd got poisoned a bit with some of these vines i've been tearing through my hands smart like fury and i guess the mosquitoes have about eaten my face up never saw such clouds of stingers before said corny
looking at his scratched hands and rubbing his hot face in great discomfort for it was the gnat that drove the lion mad you remember it was easy to say i'll follow the brook but not so easy to do it
for the frolicsome stream went headlong over rocks crept under fallen logs and now and then hid itself so cleverly that one had to look and listen carefully to recover the trail it was long past noon when corny came out near the waterfall
so tired and hungry that he heartily wished himself back among the party who had lunched well and were now probably driving gayly homeward to a good supper
enjoying the splendid view far over valley and intervale through the gap in the mountain range he was desperately tired with these hours of rough travel and very hungry but would not own it and sat considering what to do next
for he saw by the sun that the afternoon was half over there was time to go back the way he had come and by following the path down the hill he could reach the hotel and get supper and a bed or be driven home that was the wise thing to do
but his pride rebelled against returning empty handed after all his plans and boasts of great exploits i won't go home to be laughed at by chris and abner i'll shoot something if i stay all night
who cares for hunger and mosquito bites not i hunters can bear more than that i guess the next live thing i see i'll shoot it and make a fire and have a jolly supper now which way will i go up or down
a pretty hard prospect either way the sight of an eagle soaring above him seemed to answer his question and fill him with new strength and ardor to shoot the king of birds and take him home in triumph would cover the hunter with glory
it should be done and away he went climbing tumbling leaping from rock to rock toward the place where the eagle had alighted more cuts and bruises more vain shots
and all the reward of his eager struggles was a single feather that floated down as the great bird soared serenely away leaving the boy exhausted and disappointed in a wilderness of granite boulders with no sign of a path to show the way out
as he leaned breathless and weary against the crag where he had fondly hoped to find the eagle's nest he realized for the first time what a fool hardy thing he had done here he was alone without a guide
in this wild region where there was neither food nor shelter and night coming on utterly used up he could not get home now if he had known the way and suddenly all the tales he had ever heard of men lost in the mountains
came into his head if he had not been weak with hunger he would have felt better able to bear it but his legs trembled under him his head ached with the glare of the sun and a queer faintness came over him now and then
for the city lad was unused to such violent exercise plucky as he was the only thing to do now is to get down to the valley if i can before dark abner said there was an old cabin where the hunters used to sleep
somewhere round that way i can try for it and perhaps shoot something on the way may break my bones but i can't sit and starve up here and i was a fool to come i'll keep the feather anyway to prove that i really saw an eagle that's better than nothing
still bravely trying to affect the indifference to danger and fatigue which hunters are always described as possessing in such a remarkable degree corny slung the useless gun on his back and began the steep descent
discovering now the perils he had been too eager to see before he was a good climber but was stiff with weariness and his hands already sore with scratches and poison so he went slowly feeling quite unfit for such hard work coming to the ravine
he found the only road was down its precipitous side to the valley that looked so safe and pleasant now stunted pines grew in the fissures of the rocks and their strong roots helped the clinging hands and feet
as the boy painfully climbed slipped and swung along fearing every minute to come to some impassable barrier in the dangerous path but he got on wonderfully well and was feeling much encouraged when his foot slipped the root he held gave way
and down he went rolling and bumping to his death on the rocks below he thought as a crash came and he knew no more
as he opened his eyes and saw a brilliant sky above him all purple gold and red he seemed floating in the air for he swayed to and fro on a soft bed a pleasant murmur reached his ear and when he looked down he saw what looked like clouds
misty and white below him he lay a few minutes drowsily musing for the fall had stunned him then as he moved his hand something pricked it and he felt pine needles in the fingers that closed over them caught in a tree by jupiter
and all visions of heaven vanished in a breath as he sat up and stared about him wide awake now and conscious of many aching bones yes there he lay among the branches of one of the sturdy pines into which he had fallen on his way down the precipice
set there to save a life and teach a lesson to a wilful young heart that never forgot that hour holding fast lest a rash motion should set him bounding further down like a living ball
corny took an observation as rapidly as possible for the red light was fading and the mist rising from the valley all he could see was a narrow ledge where the tree stood and anxious to reach a safer bed for the night
he climbed cautiously down to drop on the rock so full of gratitude for safety that he could only lie quite still for a little while thinking of mother and trying not to cry
he was much shaken by the fall his flesh bruised his clothes torn and his spirit cowed for hunger weariness pain and danger showed him what a very feeble creature he was after all
he could do no more till morning and resigned himself to a night on the mountain side glad to be there alive though doubtful what daylight would show him too tired to move he lay watching the western sky
where the sun set gloriously behind the purple hills all below was wrapped in mist and not a sound reached him but the sigh of the pine and the murmur of the waterfall this is a first class scrape
what a fool i was not to go back when i could instead of blundering down here where no one can get at me and as like as not i can't get out alone gun smashed in that confounded fall so i can't even fire a shot to call help
and very likely a day or so to spend here till i'm found if i ever am chris said yell if you want us much good that would do now i'll try though and getting up on his weary legs corny shouted till he was hoarse
but echo alone answered him and after a few efforts he gave it up trying to accept the situation like a man as if kind nature took pity on the poor boy the little ledge was soft with lichens and thin grass
and here and there grew a sprig of checkerberry sown by the wind sheltered by the tree and nourished by the moisture that trickled down the rock from some hidden spring eagerly corny ate the sweet leaves to stay the pangs of hunger that gnawed him
and finished his meal with grass and pine needles calling himself a calf and wishing his pasture were wider the fellows we read about always come to grief in a place where they can shoot a bird catch a fish
or knock over some handy beast for supper he said talking to himself for company even the old chap lost in the bush in australia had a savage with him who dug a hole in a tree and pulled out a nice fat worm to eat
i'm not lucky enough even to find a sassafras bush to chew or a bird's egg to suck my poor gun is broken or i might bang away at a hawk and cook him for supper if the bog didn't spoil my matches as it did my lunch oh well
i'll pull through i guess and when it's all over it will be a jolly good story to tell then hoping to forget his woes in sleep he nestled under the low growing branches of the pine and lay blinking drowsily at the twilight world outside
a dream came and he saw the old farm house in sad confusion caused by his absence the women crying the men sober all anxious and all making ready to come and look for him
so vivid was it that he woke himself by crying out here i am and nearly went over the ledge stretching out his arms to abner the start and the scare made it hard to go to sleep again
and he sat looking at the solemn sky full of stars that seemed watching over him alone there like a poor lost child on the great mountain's stony breast he had never seen the world at that hour before
when they gathered about the piano for a sing he joined in with a good old tenor surprising them all by knowing a lot of the songs they sang after the young people were gone he lingered wiping his eyes and saying bless my soul thoughtfully
he told julia cloud over and over again how more than pleased he was with what she had done for his children and insisted that her salary should be twice as large
and that he wanted the children to have a larger allowance during the coming year allison had spoken of his work among the young people of the church and he felt that it would have been the wish of their father and mother both that the young people should give liberally toward church work
he would see that a sum was set aside in the bank for their use in any such plans as they might have for their christian endeavor work
or to praise their dear cloudy jewel for her part in everything the next day they took him everywhere and showed him everything about the college and the place introduced him to their favorite professors at least those who were not already gone on their vacations and took him for a long drive past their favorite haunts
then he had to meet jane bristol and howard letchworth julia cloud was greatly relieved and delighted when he set his approval upon both these young people as suitable friends for the children they are both poor and earning their own living
said julia cloud feeling that in view of the future and what it might contain she wanted to be entirely honest that the weight of responsibility should not rest too heavily upon her all the better for that no doubt said guardy lud thoughtfully
watching jane bristol's sweet smile as she talked over some committee plans with allison i should say they were about as wholesome a couple of young people as could be found to match your two
and they'll choose that kind for life i'm entirely satisfied with the work you're doing miss cloud i couldn't have found a better mother for em if i'd searched heaven i'm sure and so julia cloud was well content to go on with her beloved work as home maker
but the day after guardy lud left just as the three were sitting together over a great state map of roads perfecting their plans for a wonderful vacation which was to include a brief visit to ellen robinson at sterling a noisy ford drew up at the door
and there was ellen robinson herself with the entire family done up in linen dust coats and peering curiously half contemptuously at the strange pink and white architecture of the many windowed villa allison arose and went down the terrace to do the honors
showing his uncle where to drive in and put his car in the little garage helping his aunt and the little cousins to alight for mercy's sake julia what a queer house you've got said ellen the minute she arrived
gazing disapprovingly at the many windows and the brick terrace i should think twould take all your time to keep clean what's the idea in making a sidewalk of your front porch looks as if some crazy person had built it couldn't you find anything better than this in the town
i saw some real pretty frame houses with gardens as we came through we like this very well said julia cloud with her old patient smile and the hurt flush that always accompanied her answers to her sister's contempt cherry doesn't seem to mind washing windows
she likes to keep them bright we find it very comfortable and light and airy come inside and see how pretty it is once inside ellen robinson was somewhat awed with the strangeness of the rooms and the beauty of the furnishings but all she said after a prolonged survey was
no paper on the wall that's queer isn't it and the chimney right in the room
leslie took the children up stairs to wash their faces and freshen up and julia cloud led her sister to the lovely guest room that was always in perfect order well you certainly have things well fixed said ellen grudgingly what easy little stairs
it's like child's play going up i suppose that's one consolation for having such a little playhouse affair to live in you don't have to climb up far well we've come to stay two days if you want us herbert said he could spare that much time off
and we're going to stop in thayerville on the way back and see his folks a couple of days and that'll be a week now if you don't want us say so and we'll go on to night it isn't as if we couldn't go when we like you know
but julia cloud was genuinely glad to see her sister and said so heartily enough to satisfy even so jealous a nature as ellen's and so presently they were walking about the pretty rooms together and ellen was taking in all the beauties of the home
and this is your bedroom she paused in the middle of the rose and gray room and looked about her taking in every little detail with an eye that would put it away for remembrance long afterwards well they certainly have feathered your nest well
she declared as her eyes rested on the luxury everywhere though i don't like that painted furniture much myself she said as she glanced at the french gray enamel of the bed but i suppose it's all right if that's the kind of thing you like
was it some of their old furniture from california oh no said julia cloud quickly the pretty flush coming in her cheeks everything was bought new except a few little bits of mahogany down stairs we had such fun choosing it too don't you like my furniture
i love it i hovered around it again and again but i didn't dream of having it in my room it was so expensive it's real french enamel you know and happens to be a craze of fashion at present i thought it was ridiculous to buy it
but leslie insisted that it was the only thing for my room and those crazy extravagant children went and bought it when i had my head turned you don't say said ellen robinson putting a hard investigating finger on the foot board well it does seem sort of smooth
but i never thought my cane seat chairs were much guess i'll have to get em out and varnish em what's that out there a porch julia cloud
led her out to the upper porch with its rush rugs willow chairs and table and its stone wall crowned with blooming plants and trailing vines she showed her the bird's nest in the tree overhead well said ellen half sourly
i suppose there's no chance of your getting sick of it all and coming back and i must say i don't blame you it certainly is a contrast from the way you've lived up to now but these children will grow up and get married and then where will you be
the color flamed into julia cloud's cheeks in good earnest now i'm not looking for such chances ellen she said decidedly i don't intend ever to marry i'm happier as i am
yes but after these children are married what'll you do who'll support you don't let that worry you ellen there are other children and i love to mother them but as far as support is concerned i'm putting away money in the bank constantly
more than i ever expected to have all together in life and i shall not trouble anybody for support however i hope to be able to work for a good many years yet and what i'm doing now i love shall we go down stairs
have allison and leslie got any sweethearts yet she asked pryingly as she followed her sister down the stairs i suppose they have by this time they have a great many young friends and we have beautiful times together but you won't see many of them now
college closed last week for two long days allison and leslie devoted themselves religiously to their relatives taking them here and there in the car showing them over the college and the town and trying in all the ways they knew to make them have a good time
and the robinsons had piled into their car and started away with grudging thanks for the efforts in their behalf leslie sat on the terrace musingly and at last quite shyly she said cloudy dear what makes such a difference in people
why are some so much harder to make have a good time than others why i feel as if i'd lived years since day before yesterday and i don't feel as if they'd half enjoyed anything i really wanted to make them happy
for i felt as if we'd taken so much from them when we took you but i just seemed to fail everything i did julia cloud smiled i don't know what it is dear unless it is that some people have different ideals and standards from other people
and they can't find their pleasure the same way your aunt ellen always wanted to have a lot of people around and liked to go to tea parties and dress a great deal and she never cared for reading or study or music but i think you're mistaken about their not having had a good time
they appreciated your trying to do things for them i know for aunt ellen said to me that you were a very thoughtful girl and the children enjoyed the victrola especially the funny records herbert liked it that allison let him drive his car when they went out
they enjoyed the eating too i know even though ellen did say she shouldn't care to have her meals cooked by a servant she should want to be sure they were clean did she truly say that cloudy twinkled leslie isn't she funny
they both broke down and laughed but i'm glad they came cloudy i truly am it was nice to play with the children
and nicest of all to have them see you how beautiful you are at the head of the house dear flattering child said julia cloud lovingly it is so good to know you feel that way but now here comes allison
and we must finish up our plans for the trip and get ready to close the house for the summer they had a wonderful trip to mountains and lakes and seaside staying as long as they pleased wherever they liked and everywhere making friends and having good times
but toward the end of their trip the children began to get restless for the little pink and white cottage and home we really ought to get back and see how the christian endeavor society is getting along said allison one day as they glided through a little village that reminded them of home
i don't see any place as nice as our town do you cloudy and i don't feel quite right anywhere but home on sunday do you for really all the christian endeavor societies i've been to this summer acted as if their members were all away on vacations and they didn't care whether school kept or not
and so they went home to begin another happy winter but the very first day there came a rift in their happiness in the shape of the new professor of chemistry a man about julia cloud's age whom ellen robinson had met on her visit to thayerville
and told about her sister ellen had suggested that maybe he could get her sister to take him to board to this day julia cloud has never decided whether ellen really thought julia would take a professor from the college to board or whether she just sent him there as a joke
there was a third solution which julia cloud kept in the back of her mind and only took out occasionally with an angry troubled look when she was very much annoyed it was that ellen was still anxious to have her sister get married
and she had taken this way to get her acquainted with a man whom she thought a good match
if julia had been sure that this idea had entered into her sister's thoughts she might have slammed the door in professor armitage's face that night when he had the audacity to come and ask to be taken into cloudy villa as a boarder
why the very idea said leslie with snapping eyes as if we wanted a man always around no indeed horrors wouldn't that be awful but professor armitage like everybody else who came once to cloudy villa liked it
and begged a thousand pardons for presuming but came again and again until even the children began to like him in a way and did not in the least mind having him around but the day came at last about the middle of the winter or nearer to the spring
when leslie and allison began to realize that professor armitage came to see their cloudy jewel
an evening's fun missus blair had said that all the preparations for the bazaar must be completed on tuesday
she knew the ways of girls too well to think that it would be safe to have anything left for wednesday morning the flower table of course had to be arranged on that day and some things for the refreshment table
but so definite had she been in expressing her wishes that the girls felt that it was due her for lending her house to pay all deference to what she said on the monday therefore after easter
they went to work with a will to gather in the promised contributions there were naturally some disappointments but on the whole the fancy articles bestowed upon them were numerous and beautiful and many were the ohs and ahs
from the four and their assistants when on tuesday they fell to the task of opening the parcels and arranging their contents on the tables tuesday was rainy and at dusk gave little promise of a bright sky for the following day
brenda was in a tremor of excitement oh dear how dreadful if to morrow should be stormy i am sure it will be and what shall we do with great emphasis on the shall
sang nora while edith patted brenda on the back and said well we can't do anything to change the weather and we might as well hope for the best i know that a lot of people will come even if it rains
and perhaps they'll be good and buy three times as much as they would in fine weather just then julia came in with the evening paper in her hand see or rather hear the news old probability says clear and fair wednesday
missus blair sent this paper up from the library to cheer you there was a large patch of blue in the west when the sun went down
exclaimed the others derisively in the place where the sun should have gone down she responded with a smile why how well the rooms look there won't be a thing for the boys to do this evening for philip and will hardon
and one or two others were to come in the evening to see what they could do to help and in view of their coming missus blair had invited the girls to stay to dinner oh no there really isn't a thing for them to do but perhaps when they see how hard we have worked
they will make up their minds to spend any amount of money to morrow
boys are not so fond of spending money at fairs i can tell you that said nora rather decidedly and besides most of them are so much in debt that they haven't anything to spend oh
well philip's friends are not like that said belle rather sharply
some juniors that i know new york fellows are coming to morrow and they will spend a lot of money gracious exclaimed brenda
it seems to me that most of these things are for girls to use oh they can buy things for their sisters and cousins besides boys like pincushions and picture frames and sofa pillows oh
i am sure that we shall have no trouble getting them to buy all that they can afford replied belle positively as a matter of fact when the boys after dinner were ushered into the pretty little ballroom where the tables laden with fancy goods stood
they expressed great interest in all that they saw and began to make bids for the things which seemed to them best worth having look out cried nora or we may take you at your word will hardon
well why not he enquired as long as it is to be in a good cause oh no interrupted the practical edith that would not really be fair besides
everybody ought to have an equal chance at the beginning oh how silly you are edith broke in brenda
could be here at the same minute if any one wants to bid on anything to night i say that it is perfectly fair after much discussion it was at last decided that any one who had a great preference for any special thing
might write his name on a piece of paper and have it pinned to the object with the limit of price that he was willing to pay then you must be willing said brenda
and refuses to be contented with anything else but in that case what are we to do cried two or three of the boys in chorus
if you only make up your minds to it perhaps you'll want me to buy a blue sofa pillow or some other yale thing sighed will hardon perhaps i shall be driven to take this moaned philip
holding up a large doll dressed in the long embroidered robes of a baby all the girls laughed except edith who seldom saw the funny side of things as quickly as the others well you can see yourselves boys she said in a determined tone
that you ought to be glad to buy whatever is left over for you probably won't get in until toward evening you can always find some one to give the things to that you buy this doll asked philip holding it rather clumsily on his arm why of course said edith
we know several children who would be delighted with it at christmas no thank you sister edith responded philip i'm not going to spend my hard earned allowance in presents for children
if you make me buy this doll out it goes to a certain room in one of the college buildings to become a cherished decoration and waving the doll dramatically in the air i shall defy any proctor or college authority to tear it away from me
then i hope he may get it murmured will hardon to ruth roberts i can't imagine anything that would amuse the fellows more
a regular reception but you know i'm in earnest about that pillow he added for he knew and ruth knew that he knew that the down pillow with its rich crimson cover embroidered with a large h was the work of her skilful fingers
ruth and will had met several times since the ball game and although the four had not yet discovered it these two young persons had begun to take considerable interest in each other you wouldn't pay a hundred dollars for it queried ruth
and besides it would be worth much more to me this was not entirely an idle boast this readiness to spend a large sum of money for a small thing on the part of will
although very quiet in his way of living and in his general conversation he had a larger income than many in his set
and though he naturally spent more than the average undergraduate
he still had enough to spend on others and more than one of his less fortunate classmates had reason to thank him for what he had done for him no one knew of his liberality except those whom he helped for he had not the least wish to pose as a benefactor
now ruth while pleased at his wish for the cushion had no idea that he would if necessary pay a hundred dollars for it if you really wish to have it i'll try to secure it for you she said i am sure there won't be any trouble
although i suppose that it can't be laid aside to night as long as edith feels as she does very well answered will i'll trust to you for i really do want it very much come cried brenda rushing up to them you are not doing a thing you two
well the rest of you seemed so busy that we thought we should only be in the way said will with the glibness that is almost second nature with youths of his age but we're ready to work now and they went across the room to the surprise table where half a dozen of their friends were busy
the surprise table had been an idea of belle's and was a rather agreeable change from the usual grab bag all kinds of little things toys novelties like those used as german favors small books and photographs
were neatly done up in bright tissue paper wrappings and tied with silk ribbons they were heaped on a large table and purchasers were permitted to buy each little package at their own price provided at least according to a sign placed above the table that no bid should be
for less than fifteen cents nora was to have charge of this table and she expected to have a great deal of fun out of the misfits between the purchasers and the parcels altogether the preparations for the bazaar had moved along much more smoothly than any one had expected
it is true that the various mothers of the girls comprising the four had said that they would be glad enough when it was all over because for a fortnight it had been impossible to get the girls to think of anything else yet each of these mothers
saw a compensation for the excitement of this last week or two in the fact that her daughter had shown more perseverance than she had given her credit for missus barlow was especially pleased with the good spirit that her niece julia had shown
for it would have been so easy and natural for her at the last to display a little pettishness in the way of a refusal to have anything to do with the bazaar in view of the fact that she had not been invited to join the four at their weekly meetings for work
but julia was not one to show this kind of resentment and since she had become interested in manuel she was only too glad to help the bazaar that was to benefit him at her aunt's suggestion she had made it her special duty
to collect flowers and plants for the flower table and armed with notes of introduction from missus barlow she had gone to many a supposedly close person to ask for some small contribution to the flower table her success had been altogether remarkable
and in addition to the cut flowers that were to arrive on wednesday a great many beautiful potted plants and vines had been sent in from various conservatories for general decorations the only real work for the boys who had come to assist
or near the flower table where they would be most effective the work did not of course proceed very rapidly for every one in the group of fifteen or more had to give an opinion on everything and a unanimous opinion as to what looked best in any particular case was naturally impossible
the large room was so handsome as to require comparatively little decoration the long mirrors with which every side was paneled formed a complete decoration in themselves and added to the general effectiveness as brenda said by making the tables look double
now if the boys did not find a great deal of work to do they were very outspoken in their admiration for all that had been accomplished by the girls well if other people will only be as much impressed as you are and will open their purses accordingly
we shall have nothing to complain of said nora and i hope that you will all come back and buy everything that is left over by to morrow evening can't we have first choice of anything queried tom hurst a mischief loving friend of philip's whom some of the girls distrusted a little
no answered nora sternly you must not be so selfish there may be old ladies who will want do you suppose that any old lady will want that tobacco pouch asked tom with a most innocent expression on his face she might
answered nora with a very dignified manner she might if she had a son who was fond of smoking at any rate she ought to have first choice well then replied tom i don't believe that i shall return
that encourages old ladies to buy tobacco pouches they're more harmless for old ladies than for harvard undergraduates said another of the girls seriously whereat two or three of the boys pulled cigarette cases out of their pockets and said
wouldn't you rather have us use tobacco pouches than smoke these unwholesome cigarettes you shouldn't use tobacco at all cried edith in a plaintive tone at your age philip you know how mamma feels about it don't be a goose edith retorted philip
unless you want us to stay away to morrow anyway it's time we started for cambridge we're not used to late hours at this the rest of the boys laughed rather more loudly than the occasion seemed to warrant but with a return of good manners
they bade the girls good bye and promised missus blair who had returned to the room that they would certainly drop in some time on wednesday don't forget your promise to me said will hardon in an undertone as he shook hands with ruth and ruth promised not to forget
ruth and one other girl were to spend the night with julia and brenda so as to be ready early in the morning and the rest of the assistants started off in a large group attended by one of missus blair's servants for none of them had very far to walk
it certainly does look as if it might clear up said belle to nora as they walked along yes indeed answered nora
the great cities of japan afford remarkable opportunities for seeing the life of the common people for the little houses and shops with their open fronts reveal the penetralia in a way not known in our more secluded homes
the employment of the merchant being formerly the lowest of respectable callings one does not find even yet in japan many great stores or a very high standard of business morality
to raise themselves above that social class hence english and american merchants who only see japan from the business side continually speak of the japanese as dishonest tricky and altogether unreliable and greatly prefer to deal with the chinese
who have much of the business virtue that is characteristic of the english as a nation only within a few years have the samurai or indeed any one who was capable of figuring in any higher occupation in life been willing to adopt the calling of the merchant
but many of the abler japanese of to day have begun to see that trade is one of the most important factors of a nation's well being and that the business of buying and selling if wisely and honestly done is an employment that nobody need be ashamed to enter there are in japan a few great merchants
whose word may be trusted and whose obligations will be fulfilled with absolute honesty but a large part of the buying and selling is still in the hands of mercantile freebooters who will take an advantage wherever it is possible to get one in whose morality honesty has no place
it is the mediaeval not the modern idea of business that is still held among japanese merchants with them trade is a warfare between buyer and seller in which every man must take all possible advantage for himself and it is the lookout of the other party if he is cheated
the greatest and most modernized of the cities of the empire the shops are not the large city stores that one sees in european and american cities but little open fronted rooms on the edge of which one sits to make one's purchases while the proprietor smiles and bows and dickers
setting his price by the style of his customer's dress
opens the enormous furushiki or bundle handkerchief in which it is enveloped and takes out roll after roll of silk or chintz neatly done up in paper or yellow cotton with infinite patience he waits while the merits of each piece are examined and discussed
and if none of his stock proves satisfactory he is willing to come again with a new set of wares knowing that in the end purchases will be made sufficient to cover all his trouble the less aristocratic people are content to go to the stores themselves and the business streets of a japanese city such as the ginza in t o ky o
to be simply a roofed and matted platform upon which both clerks and customers sit this platform is screened from the street by dark blue cotton curtains or awnings hung from the low projecting eaves of the heavy roof as the customers take their seats
upon the straw mat of the platform itself a small boy appears with tea for the party an obsequious clerk greets them with the customary salutations of welcome pushes the charcoal brazier toward them that they may smoke or warm their hands before proceeding to business
when this is given the work begins the little boys are summoned and are soon sent off to the great fire proof warehouse which stands with heavy doors thrown open on the other side of the platform away from the street
through the doorway one can see endless piles of costly stuffs stored safely away and from these piles the boys select the required fabric loading themselves down with them so that they can barely stagger under the weights that they carry
carry always with them when the purchase is at last made there is still some time to be spent by the customer in waiting until the clerk has made an abstruse calculation upon his soroban the transaction has been entered in the books of the firm and a long bill has been written and stamped and handed to her with the bundle
during her stay in the store the foreign customer making her first visit to the place is frequently startled by loud shouts from the whole staff of clerks and small boys outcries so sudden so simultaneous and so stentorian that she cannot rid herself of the idea that something terrible is happening every time that they occur
there is less pomp and circumstance about the smaller stores for all the goods are within easy reach and the shops for household utensils and chinaware seem to have nearly the whole stock in trade piled up in front or even in the street itself
opening upon well kept gardens the whole work of the store is often attended to by the proprietor assisted by his wife and family and perhaps one or two apprentices each of the workers in turn takes an occasional holiday for there is no day in the japanese calendar when the shops are all closed
have still time to enjoy their holidays and their little gardens and have more pleasure and less hard work than those under similar circumstances in our own country the stranger visiting any of the great japanese cities is surprised by the lack of large stores and manufactories
the delicate vases the bronzes and the silks are often made in humblest homes the work of one or two laborers with rudest tools there are no great manufactories to be seen and the bane of so many cities the polluting factory smoke never rises over the cities of japan
the hard confining factory life with its never ceasing roar of machinery bewildering the minds and intellects of the men who come under its deadening influences until they become scarcely more than machines themselves is a thing as yet almost unknown in japan
the life of the jinrikisha man even hard and comfortless as it may seem to run all day like a horse through the crowded city streets is one that keeps him in the fresh air under the open sky and quickens his powers both of body and mind
to the poor in japanese cities is never denied the fresh air and sunshine green trees and grass
for the enjoyment of even the meanest and lowest on certain days in the month in different sections of the city are held night festivals near temples and many shopkeepers take the opportunity to erect temporary booths
in which they so arrange their wares as to tempt the passers by as they go to and fro very often there is a magnificent display of young trees potted plants and flowers brought in from the country and ranged on both sides of the street here the gardeners make lively sales
as the displays are often fine in themselves and show to a special advantage in the flaring torchlight the eager venders who do all they can to call the attention of the crowd to their wares make many good bargains
for flower men are proverbial in their high charges asking often five and ten times the real value of a plant but coming down in price almost immediately on remonstrance you ask the price of a dwarf wistaria growing in a pot the man answers at once two dollars
two dollars you answer in surprise it is not worth more than thirty or forty cents seventy five then he will respond and thus the buyer and seller approach nearer in price until the bargain is struck somewhere near the first price offered
and when the last customer has departed the merchants must work late into the night to get their wares safely home again but beside the flower shows there are long rows of booths which with the many visitors who throng the streets make a gay and lively scene
so dense is the crowd that it is with difficulty one can push through on foot or in jinrikisha the darkness is illuminated by torches whose weird flames flare and smoke in the wind and shine down upon the little sheds which line both sides of the road
and contain so tempting a display of cheap toys and trinkets that not only the children but their elders are attracted by them some of the booths are devoted to dolls others to toys of various kinds still others to birds in cages goldfish in globes
queer chirping insects in wicker baskets pretty ornaments for the hair fans candies and cakes of all sorts roasted beans and peanuts and other things too numerous to mention the long line of stalls ends with booths or tents in which shows of dancing jugglery
educated animals and monstrosities natural or artificial may be seen for the moderate admission fee of two sen each of these shows is well advertised by the beating of drums by the shouting of doorkeepers
the longer the absence the finer and more costly must be the presents given on returning
by ten o'clock when the crowds have dispersed and the purchasers have all gone home and gone to bed the busy booth keepers take down their stalls pack up their wares and disappear leaving no trace of the night's gayeties to greet the morning sun
in which they occur seems entirely given over to festivity the streets are gayly decorated with flags and bright lanterns all alike in design and color are hung in rows from the low eaves of the houses young bamboo trees set along the street and decorated with bits of bright colored tissue paper
are a frequent and effective accompaniment of these festivals and here and there throughout the district are set up high stands on the tops of which musicians with squeaky flutes and drums of varying calibre keep up a din more festive than harmonious
it takes a day or two for the rejoicings to get fully under way but by the second or third day the fun is at its height and the streets are thronged with merrymakers a great deal of labor and strength as well as ingenuity is spent in the construction of enormous floats or dashi
lofty platforms of two stories either set on wheels and drawn by black bullocks or crowds of shouting men or carried by poles on men's shoulders upon the first floor of these great floats is usually a company of dancers or mummers who dance attitudinize
or make faces for the amusement of the crowds that gather along their route while up above an effigy of some hero in japanese history or the figure of some animal or monster looks down unmoved upon the absurdities below each dashi is attended
days of such universal fun and frolic that it will be known among the common people to all succeeding generations as the emperor's big matsuri every quarter of the city vied with every other in the production of gorgeous dashi
and the streets were gay with every conceivable variety of decoration from the little red and white paper lanterns that even the poorest hung before their houses to the great evergreen arches set with electric lights with which the great business streets were spanned thickly from end to end
and the great bivalve with its fair freight was drawn slowly along through the gayly illuminated streets jimmu tenno and other heroes of japanese legend or history each upon its lofty platform
a white elephant and countless other subjects were represented in the festival cars sent forth by all the districts of the city to celebrate the great event upon such festival occasions
there are no signs of business about but the floor of the shop is covered with bright red blankets
furnished by the wealthier shopkeepers will attract gaping crowds who watch and block the street until the advance guard of some approaching dashi scatters them for a moment in japan as in other parts of the world the country people are rather looked down upon by the dwellers in the city
that play so prominent a part in japanese city life to day the frog in the well knows not the great ocean is the snub with which the japanese cockney sets down farmer rice field's expressions of opinion
while the conservative countryman laughs at the foreign affectations of the t o ky o man and returns to his village with tales of the cookery of the capital
is the goal of every young countryman's ambition and thither he goes to seek his fortune finding alas too often only the hard lot of the jinrikisha man instead of the wealth and power that his country dreams had shown him
the lower class women of the cities are in many respects like their sisters of the rural districts except that they have less freedom than the country women in what the economists call direct production
though professional tailors are mostly men
and as instructors in the ceremonial tea etiquette music painting and flower arrangement many women of the old school are able to earn an independence though none of these occupations are confined to the women alone the business of hotel keeping we have referred to in a previous chapter
and it is a well known fact that unless a hotel keeper has a capable wife his business will not succeed at present
small restaurants where food is served in the foreign style are springing up and these are usually conducted by a man and his wife who have at some time served as cook and waitress in a foreign family and who conduct the business cooperatively and on terms of good fellowship and equality
in these little eating houses where a well cooked foreign dinner of from three to six courses is served for the moderate sum of thirty or forty cents the man usually does the cooking the woman the serving and handling of the money
until the time arrives when the profits of the business are sufficient to justify the hiring of more help when this time comes the labor is redistributed the woman frequently taking upon herself the reception of the guests and the keeping of the accounts
one important calling in the eyes of many persons especially those of the lower classes is that of fortune telling and these guides in all matters of life both great and small are to be found in every section of the city
an impending marriage an illness
a journey about to be taken these are all subjects for the fortune teller he tells the right day of marriage and says whether the fates of the two parties will combine well gives clues to the causes of sudden illness and information as to what has become of lost articles
they sent to know if the fates were propitious to the change for all the family the day and year of birth of each was told
and so the young man stayed as a visitor at his father's house for the remaining months of the year after which he became once more a member of the household thus the inconvenience and the evil were both avoided
her sister in law fell ill and before she had recovered her strength the children one after another came down with various diseases which though in no case fatal kept the family in a state of anxiety for more than a year
the old lady was quite sure that there was some witchcraft or art magic at work among her dear ones and after consulting the servants for she knew that she could expect no sympathy in her plans from either her brother or his wife she betook herself to a fortune teller to discover through his means
the causes of the illness in the family the fortune teller revealed to her the fact that two occult forces were at work bringing evil upon the house
the other was the spirit of a horse that had once belonged in the family and that after death revenged itself upon its former masters for the hard service wherewith it had been made to serve the only way in which these two powers could be appeased
would be by finding the well and removing the obstructions that choked it and by erecting an image of the horse and offering to it cakes and other meat offerings the fortune teller hinted moreover
at this information go inkyo sama was much perturbed for further aid for her afflicted family seemed to require the use of money and of that commodity she had very little being mainly dependent upon her brother for support
she returned to her home and consulted the servants upon the matter but though they quite agreed with her that something should be done they had little capital to invest in the enterprises suggested by the fortune teller at last the old lady went to her brother
but he only laughed at her well meant attempts to help his family and refused to give her money for such a purpose she retired discouraged but urged by the servants she decided to make a last appeal
this time to her sister in law who must surely be moved by the evil that was threatening herself and her children taking some of the head servants with her she went to her sister and presented the case
this was her last resort and she clung to her forlorn hope longer than many would have done the servants adding their arguments to her impassioned appeals only to find out after all that the steadfast sister could not be moved and that she would not propitiate the horse's spirit
or allow money to be used for such a purpose she gave it up then and sat down to await the fate of her doomed house doubtless wondering much and sighing often over the foolish skepticism of her near relatives and wishing that the rationalistic tendencies of the time
beside these callings there are other employments which are not regarded as wholly respectable by either japanese or foreigners
or establishments where dancing girls are trained and let out by the day or evening to tea houses or private parties are usually managed by women at these establishments little girls are taken sometimes by contract with their parents sometimes adopted by the proprietors of the house
and from very early youth are trained not only in the art of dancing but are taught singing and samisen playing all the etiquette of serving and entertaining guests and whatever else goes to make a girl charming to the opposite sex
when thoroughly taught they form a valuable investment and well repay the labor spent upon them for a popular geisha commands a good price everywhere and has her time overcrowded with engagements
a japanese entertainment is hardly regarded as complete without geishas in attendance and their dancing music and graceful service at supper form a charming addition to an evening of enjoyment at a tea house
are hired to march in quaint uniforms in the procession or borne aloft on great dashi dance for the benefit of the admiring crowds the japanese dances are charmingly graceful and modest
the swaying of the body and limbs the artistic management of the flowing draperies the variety of themes and costumes of the different dances all go to make an entertainment by geishas one of the pleasantest of japanese enjoyments sometimes in scarlet and yellow robes
the dainty maidens imitate with their supple bodies the dance of the maple leaves as they are driven hither and thither in the autumn wind sometimes with tucked up kimonos and jaunty red petticoats they play the part of little country girls carrying their eggs to market in the neighboring village
again clad in armor they simulate the warlike gestures and martial stamp of some of the old time heroes or with whitened faces and hoary locks they perform with rake and broom the dance of the good old man and old woman who play so prominent a part in japanese pictures and then
when the dance is over and all are bewitched with their grace and beauty
laughing and jesting the while until there is little wonder if the young men at the entertainment drink more than is good for them and leave the tea house at last thoroughly tipsy
the geishas unfortunately though fair are frail in their system of education manners stand higher than morals and many a geisha gladly leaves the dancing in the tea houses to become the concubine of some wealthy japanese or foreigner thinking none the worse of herself for such a business arrangement
the geisha is not necessarily bad but there is in her life much temptation to evil and little stimulus to do right so that where one lives blameless many go wrong and drop below the margin of respectability altogether
yet so fascinating bright and lively are these geishas that many of them have been taken by men of good position as wives and are now the heads of the most respectable homes without true education or morals but trained thoroughly in all the arts and accomplishments that please
witty quick at repartee pretty and always well dressed the geisha has proved a formidable rival for the demure quiet maiden of good family who can only give her husband an unsullied name silent obedience and faithful service all her life
the freedom of the present age as shown in the chapter on marriage and divorce
or to change the old system of education for girls a liberal education and more freedom in early life for women has been suggested and is now being tried but the problem of the geisha and her fascination is a deep one in japan
below the geisha in respectability stands the j o r o or licensed prostitute every city in japan has its disreputable quarter where the various j o r o ya or licensed houses of prostitution are situated
do everything in their power to make their houses grounds and employees attractive and to the unsuspecting foreigner this portion of the city seems often the pleasantest and most respectable a j o r o need never be taken for a respectable woman for her dress is distinctive
and a stay of a short time in japan is long enough to teach even the most obtuse that the obi or sash tied in front instead of behind is one of the badges of shame but though the occupation of the j o r o is altogether disreputable
though the prostitute quarter is the spot to which the police turn for information in regard to criminals and law breakers a sort of a trap into which sooner or later the offender against the law is sure to fall japanese public opinion though recognizing the evil as a great one
although it is true that sins of this character are regarded much more leniently in japan than in england or america the reason lies very largely in the fact that these women are seldom free agents many of them are virtually slaves
sold in childhood to the keepers of the houses in which they work and trained amid the surroundings of the j o r o ya for the life which is the only life they have ever known a few may have sacrificed themselves freely but reluctantly for those whom they love
and by their revolting slavery may be earning the means to keep their dear ones from starvation or disgrace
a lover who is willing to raise her again to a life of respectability and make her a happy wife and the mother of children
but the no dance was the only dramatic amusement of the nobility this no is an ancient japanese theatrical performance more perhaps like the greek drama than anything in our modern life all the movements of the actors are measured and conventionalized
the regular theatre preserves in many ways the life and costumes of old japan and the details of dress and scenery are most carefully studied the actors are usually men
in no case are the roles taken by both sexes upon one stage as the performances last all day from ten or eleven in the forenoon until eight or nine in the evening going to the theatre means much more than a few hours of entertainment after the day's work is over
a lunch and dinner with innumerable light edibles between go to make up the usual bill of fare for a day at the play and tea houses in the neighborhood of the theatre provide the necessary meals
a room to take them in a resting place between the acts and whatever tea cakes and other refreshments may be ordered these latter eatables are served by the attendants of the tea house in the theatre boxes while the play is in progress
similar to the theatre in many ways are the public halls where professional story tellers the hanashika night after night relate long stories to crowded audiences as powerfully and vividly as the best trained elocutionist
each gesture and each modulation of the voice is studied as carefully as are those of the actors many charming tales are told of old japan and even western stories have found their way to these assemblies
a long story is often continued from night to night until finished unfortunately the class of people who patronize these places is low
to amuse a large company by their eloquence or mimicry this is a very favorite entertainment and the hanashika has so perfected the art of imitation that he can change in a moment from the tones of a child to those of an old woman
solemn and sad subjects are touched upon as well as merry and bright things and he never fails to make his audience weep or laugh according to his theme and well merits the applause he always receives at the end
the hanami or picnic to famous places to view certain flowers as they bloom in their season though not belonging strictly to city life forms one of the greatest of the pleasures of city people the river sumida on which t o ky o is situated
with their large double pink blossoms and when in april and may these flowers are in their perfection great crowds of sightseers flock to muk o jima to enjoy the blossoms under the trees
the river is crowded with picnic parties in boats every tea house along the banks is full of guests and the little stalls and resting places on the way find a quick sale for fruit confectionery and light lunches sake is often too freely imbibed by the merrymakers
whose flushed faces show when returning homeward how their day was spent there is much quiet enjoyment too of the lovely blossoms the broad calm river and the gayly dressed crowds
kameido for the plum and wistaria oji for its famous maple trees and many others each noted for some special beauty dango zaka has its own peculiar attraction the famous chrysanthemum dolls
these ingenious figures are arranged so as to form tableaux scenes from history or fiction well known to all the people they are of life size and the faces hands and feet are made of some composition and closely resemble life in every detail
is that the scenery whether it be the representation of a waterfall rocks or bushes
so closely are the leaves and flowers bound together to make the flat surface of different objects but alive and growing on the plants it is impossible to tell where the roots and stems are hidden for nothing is visible but for example the white spray and greenish shadows of a waterfall
or the parti colored figures in a young girl's dress but should it be the visitor's good fortune to watch the repairing of one of these lifelike images he will find that the entire body is a frame woven of split bamboo within which the plants are placed their roots packed in damp earth and bound about with straw
while their leaves and flowers are pulled through the basket frame and woven into whatsoever pattern the artistic eye and skillful fingers of the gardener may select a roof of matting shields each group from the sun by day and a slight sprinkling every night
serves to keep the plants fresh for nearly a month and the flowers continue their blooming during that time as calmly as if in perfectly natural positions each of the gardeners of the neighborhood has his own little show containing several tableaux
the entrance to which is guarded by an officious gate keeper who shouts out the merits of his particular groups of figures and forces his show bills upon the passer by in the hope of securing the two sen admission fee which is required for each exhibit
life and work of kepler kepler was born in december fifteen seventy one
father an officer in the duke's army mother something of a virago both very poor kepler was utilized as a tavern pot boy but ultimately sent to a charity school and thence to the university of tuebingen
their times of revolution and their distances from the sun ultimately hit upon his fanciful regular solid hypothesis and published his first book in fifteen ninety seven in fifteen ninety nine was invited by tycho to prague
and there appointed imperial mathematician at a handsome but seldom paid salary observed the new star of sixteen o four endeavoured to find the law of refraction of light from vitellio's measurements but failed
after incredible labour through innumerable wrong guesses and six years of almost incessant calculation he at length emerged in his two laws discoveries which swept away all epicycles deferents
equants and other remnants of the greek system and ushered in the dawn of modern astronomy
planets move in ellipses with the sun in one focus law two the radius vector or line joining sun and planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times
published his second book containing these laws in sixteen o nine death of rudolph in sixteen twelve and subsequent increased misery and misfortune of kepler
ultimately discovered the connection between the times and distances of the planets for which he had been groping all his mature life and announced it in sixteen eighteen law three
the square of the time of revolution or year of each planet is proportional to the cube of its mean distance from the sun the book in which this law was published on celestial harmonies
was dedicated to james of england in sixteen twenty had to intervene to protect his mother from being tortured for witchcraft accepted a professorship at linz published the rudolphine tables in sixteen twenty seven
and his own theory made a last effort to overcome his poverty by getting the arrears of his salary paid at prague but was unsuccessful and contracting brain fever on the journey died in november
and misfortune and placed himself in the very highest rank of scientific men his laws so extraordinarily discovered introduced order and simplicity
into what else would have been a chaos of detailed observations and they served as a secure basis for the splendid erection made on them by newton seven planets of the ptolemaic system
but not above the average in theoretical and mathematical power the other poor sickly devoid of experimental gifts and unfitted by nature for accurate observation
but strong almost beyond competition in speculative subtlety and innate mathematical perception the one is the complement of the other and from the fact of their following each other so closely
and was reduced to keeping a tavern young john kepler was thereupon taken from school and employed as pot boy between the ages of nine and twelve he was a sickly lad
subject to violent illnesses from the cradle so that his life was frequently despaired of ultimately he was sent to a monastic school and thence to the university of tuebingen where he graduated second on the list
meanwhile home affairs had gone to rack and ruin his father abandoned the home and later died abroad the mother quarrelled with all her relations including her son john
though stipulating that it should not debar him from some more brilliant profession when there was a chance for astronomy in those days seems to have ranked as a minor science like mineralogy or meteorology now
and as he had a most singularly restless and inquisitive mind full of appreciation of everything relating to number and magnitude was a born speculator and thinker just as mozart was a born musician
or bidder a born calculator he was agitated by questions such as these why are there exactly six planets is there any connection between their orbital distances
or between their orbits and the times of describing them these things tormented him and he thought about them day and night it is characteristic of the spirit of the times this questioning why there should be six planets
if you inscribe in a circle a large number of equilateral triangles they envelop another circle
brooding over this disappointment the idea of trying solid figures suddenly strikes him what have plane figures to do with the celestial orbits he cries out inscribe the regular solids
and then brilliant idea he remembers that there are but five euclid had shown
the reason of there being only six seems to be attained this coincidence assures him he is on the right track and with great enthusiasm and hope he represents the earth's orbit by a sphere
as the norm and measure of all round it he circumscribes a dodecahedron and puts another sphere round that which is approximately the orbit of mars round that again a tetrahedron
an octahedron which figures he takes to inclose the spheres of venus and of mercury respectively
can never be told in words i regretted no more the time wasted i tired of no labour i shunned no toil of reckoning days and nights spent in calculation
under the patronage of the emperor rudolph and as he was known to have by far the best planetary observations of any man living kepler wrote to him to know if he might come and examine them so as to perfect his theory
tycho immediately replied come not as a stranger but as a very welcome friend come and share in my observations with such instruments as i have with me and as a dearly beloved associate
after this visit tycho wrote again offering him the post of mathematical assistant which after hesitation was accepted part of the hesitation kepler expresses by saying that
so that he had to apply for help to tycho it is clear indeed that for some time now he subsisted entirely on the bounty of tycho and he expresses himself
i must read you a letter written to him by kepler it seems that kepler on one of his absences from prague driven half mad with poverty and trouble fell foul of tycho
whom he thought to be behaving badly in money matters to him and his family and wrote him a violent letter full of reproaches and insults
pointing out the groundlessness and ingratitude of the accusation kepler repents instantly and replies most noble tycho these are the words of his letter
how shall i enumerate or rightly estimate your benefits conferred on me for two months you have liberally and gratuitously maintained me and my whole family you have provided for all my wishes
you have done me every possible kindness you have communicated to me everything you hold most dear no one by word or deed has intentionally injured me in anything in short not to your children
your wife or yourself have you shown more indulgence than to me this being so as i am anxious to put on record i cannot reflect without consternation
that i should have been so given up by god to my own intemperance as to shut my eyes on all these benefits that instead of modest and respectful gratitude i should indulge for three weeks in continual
moroseness towards all your family in headlong passion and the utmost insolence towards yourself who possess so many claims on my veneration from your noble family your extraordinary learning
and distinguished reputation whatever i have said or written against the person the fame the honour and the learning of your excellency or whatever in any other way i have injuriously spoken or written
in sixteen o one kepler was appointed imperial mathematician to assist tycho in his calculations the emperor rudolph did a good piece of work in thus maintaining these two eminent men but it is quite clear
that it was as astrologers that he valued them and all he cared for in the planetary motions was limited to their supposed effect on his own and his kingdom's destiny
and the tables upon which tycho was now engaged are well called the rudolphine tables these tables of planetary motion tycho had always regarded as the main work of his life but he died before they were finished
and on his death bed he intrusted the completion of them to kepler who loyally undertook their charge the imperial funds were by this time however so taxed by wars and other difficulties
and drafts on estates for it but when the time came for them to be honoured they were worthless and he had no power to enforce his claims so everything but brooding had to be abandoned as too expensive
and he proceeded to study optics he gave a very accurate explanation of the action of the human eye and made many hypotheses some of them shrewd and close to the mark concerning the law of refraction of light in dense media
but though several minor points of interest turned up nothing of the first magnitude came out of this long research the true law of refraction was discovered some years after by a dutch professor
willebrod snell we must now devote a little time to the main work of kepler's life all the time he had been at prague he had been making a severe study of the motion of the planet mars
the planets did not revolve in simple circles they did not try other curves as we should at once do now but they tried combinations of circles
hence was introduced the idea of an equant
an arbitrary point not the earth about which the speed might be uniform copernicus by making the sun the centre had been able to simplify a good deal of this
and to abolish the equant but now that kepler had the accurate observations of tycho to refer to he found immense difficulty in obtaining the true positions of the planets
for a considerable collection of data to have accumulated with respect to it he tried all manner of circular orbits for the earth and for mars placing them in all sorts of aspects with respect to the sun
both being supposed excentric with respect to the sun but he could not get any such arrangement to work with uniform motion about the sun so he reintroduced the equant
and thus had another variable at his disposal in fact two for he had an equant for the earth and another for mars getting a pattern of the kind suggested in fig twenty nine
the equants might divide the line in any arbitrary ratio all sorts of combinations had to be tried the relative positions of the earth and mars to be worked out for each
with unexampled diligence at length he hit upon a point that seemed nearly right he thought he had found the truth but no before long the position of the planet as calculated
and as recorded by tycho
or about one eighth of a degree
he would yet find out the law of the universe he proceeded to see if by making the planet librate or the plane of its orbit tilt up and down anything could be done
he was rewarded by finding that at any rate the plane of the orbit did not tilt up and down it was fixed
he divided the orbit into triangles and tried if making the triangles equal would do a great piece of luck they did beautifully the rate of description of areas not arcs
fresh little errors appeared and grew in importance thus he announces it himself while thus triumphing over mars and preparing for him as for one already vanquished
a despised captive has burst all the chains of the equations and broken forth from the prisons of the tables still a part of the truth had been gained
and every philosopher since aristotle had been wrong that circular motion was not the perfect and natural motion but that planets might move in some other closed curve
suppose he tried an oval well there are a great variety of ovals and several were tried with the result that they could be made to answer better than a circle but still were not right
now however the geometrical and mathematical difficulties of calculation which before had been tedious and oppressive threatened to become overwhelming
that when he made the circuit oval his law of equable description of areas broke down that seemed to require the circular orbit and yet no circular orbit was quite accurate
and he remembered that the optical inequality of mars
this coincidence in his own words woke him out of sleep and for some reason or other impelled him instantly to try making the planet oscillate in the diameter of its epicycle
strange that he had not thought of it before it was a famous curve for the greek geometers had studied it as one of the sections of a cone but it was not so well known in kepler's time
if the sun was in one focus so moving the planet in a selected ellipse with the sun in one focus at a speed given by the equable area description
of the steps by which kepler rose to his great generalizations the two laws which have immortalized his name all the complications of epicycle equant deferent excentric
he had been there eleven years but they had been hard years of poverty and he could leave without regret
but it was the only thing for which people would pay him and on it after a fashion he lived we do not find that his circumstances were ever prosperous
and though eight thousand crowns were due to him from bohemia he could not manage to get them paid about this time occurred a singular interruption to his work his old mother
of whose fierce temper something has already been indicated had been engaged in a law suit for some years near their old home
a change of judge having in process of time occurred the defendant saw his way to turn the tables on the old lady by accusing her of sorcery she was sent to prison and condemned to the torture
with the usual intelligent idea of extracting a voluntary confession kepler had to hurry from linz to interpose he succeeded in saving her from the torture
her spirit however was unbroken for no sooner was she released than she commenced a fresh action against her accuser but fresh trouble was averted by the death of the poor old dame
at the age of nearly eighty this narration renders the unflagging energy shown by her son in his mathematical wrestlings less surprising interspersed with these domestic troubles
it might well have been that there was no connection that it was purely imaginary like his old idea of the law of the successive distances of the planets and like so many others of the guesses and fancies
of its distance from the sun or once more the speed of each planet in its orbit is as the inverse square root of its distance from the sun the product of the distance into the square of the speed
which i named before i was sure of my discovery what sixteen years ago i urged as a thing to be sought
beyond my most sanguine expectations it is not eighteen months since i got the first glimpse of light three months since the dawn very few days since the unveiled sun
most admirable to gaze upon burst upon me nothing holds me i will indulge my sacred fury i will triumph over mankind by the honest confession
as god has waited six thousand years for an observer soon after this great work his third book appeared it was an epitome of the copernican theory
a clear and fairly popular exposition of it which had the honour of being at once suppressed and placed on the list of books prohibited by the church side by side with the work of copernicus himself
to undertake another book still he worked on at the rudolphine tables of tycho and ultimately with some small help from vienna completed them but he could not get the means to print them
they were the first really accurate tables which navigators ever possessed they were the precursors of our present nautical almanack after this the grand duke of tuscany
attended the imperial meeting and pleaded his own cause but it was all fruitless and exhausted by the journey weakened by over study and disheartened by the failure he caught a fever
and died in his fifty ninth year his body was buried at ratisbon and a century ago a proposal was made to erect a marble monument to his memory but nothing was done
it matters little one way or the other whether germany having almost refused him bread during his life should
the tools by which he did his work would have been impossible for him frederick and sophia of denmark and rudolph of bohemia are therefore to be remembered as co workers with him kepler
with his ill health and inferior physical energy was unable to command the like advantages much nevertheless he did more one cannot but feel he might have done had he been properly helped
of all the steps unsuccessful as well as successful by which he travelled he maps out his route like a traveller in fact he compares himself to columbus or magellan
voyaging into unknown lands and recording his wandering route this being remembered it will be found that his methods do not differ so utterly from those used by other philosophers in like case
his imagination was perhaps more luxuriant and was allowed freer play than most men's but it was nevertheless always controlled by rigid examination
and comparison of hypotheses with fact brewster says of him ardent restless burning to distinguish himself by discovery he attempted everything
and once having obtained a glimpse of a clue no labour was too hard in following or verifying it a few of his attempts succeeded a multitude failed
those which failed seem to us now fanciful those which succeeded appear to us sublime but his methods were the same when in search of what really existed he sometimes found it
it is necessary for us now to consider some science still in its infancy astronomy is so clear and so thoroughly explored now that it is difficult to put oneself into a contemporary attitude
to supernatural agency we have had our copernican era not perhaps brought about by a single individual but still achieved
and rude weather predictions across the atlantic are roughly possible barometers and thermometers and anemometers and all their tribe represent the astronomical instruments in the island of huen
and our numerous meteorological observatories with their continual record of events
observation is heaped on observation tables are compiled volumes are filled with data the hours of sunshine are recorded the fall of rain
in evolving the beginnings of law and order from the midst of all this chaos perhaps as a man he may not come but his era will come through this stage the science must pass
ere it is ready for the commanding intellect of a newton but what a work it will be for the man whoever he be that undertakes it a fearful monotonous grind of calculation
hypothesis hypothesis calculation a desperate and groping endeavour to reconcile theories with facts a life of such labour crowned by three brilliant discoveries
this chapter is written more than seven years later than the foregoing in further testimony and praise returning to canada at the time of the great war we came face to face with a serious financial crisis
only two ways seemed open to us one was to lay our affairs frankly before the board showing that our salary was quite insufficient with war conditions and prices to meet our requirements
as we entered the dining room we found a large mail from china on the table one letter was forwarded from the lady in australia whose gifts in the past seemed always to have met some felt need
her letter enclosed fifty pounds with the expressed wish that thirty pounds should be used for work in china but twenty pounds was to be used to meet some personal need i handed the letter to my daughter saying shall we not believe that god will undertake for us
it seems to me as if our father were beside us saying my child take this hundred dollars as an earnest of what i am going to do for you tears stood in her eyes as my daughter gave the letter back saying mother we don't trust god half enough
were i to attempt to write the history of the months that followed a long chapter would be required but my testimony along this line is surely sufficient it was on this same furlough that i came to have an enlarged vision of my heavenly father's willingness
and i rejoice to testify that the result of this decision became a constant source of wonder and praise yes i found the lord could guide me even in trimming my hat to his glory
that is so that i could stand up before an audience and not bring discredit to my master praise his name there is nothing too great for his power and nothing too small for his love
at the time of the great war a son had gone to england with the first canadian contingent when this news reached us in china i began to pray definitely that the lord would use my son's gifts in the best way for his country's good
but would keep him back from the trenches and from actual warfare my boy did not know of this prayer some weeks after reaching england he was looking forward to leaving for the trenches in france
when orders came that he was needed in the orderly room and his unit left without him months later a call came for volunteers to fill the great gaps made at the time of the first use of gas
my boy resigned his position and joined the company of volunteers to be sent to france just before they were to leave he was again sent for from headquarters and told he was to go to the canadian base in france as adjutant
his duties in this capacity kept him at the forwarding base a year later he again planned to resign in order to get to the trenches he had begun making arrangements for this step when he had a fall from his horse
which caused him to be invalided home to canada where he was kept till the close of the war it would indeed be difficult to persuade his mother that all this happened by chance
for one day when in great distress expecting any day a cable to say he had left for the trenches i received a most clear assurance from the lord that he had the boy in his keeping
after our return to china when in great trouble i prayed the lord to grant me a clear sign of his favor by giving me a certain petition which affected a child in the homeland the request was a complicated one including several definite details
a little more than a month later a letter reached me from the one for whom i had asked the lord's favor she wrote joyously telling that she had received just what i had asked for and in every detail as i had prayed
it became necessary for us to find a home elsewhere
on going there to get a site for our home though we looked for more than a week we could find no place as we started down the hill one morning soon after midnight
a friend on the train traveling third class saw us getting on the second class and came in for a few words before getting off the train when he heard we had failed to get a site he said
i know of a beautiful site which our mission is reserving for a future missionary i'll ask them to give it to you
i am now writing these closing words in our god given home built on this beautiful site one of the most lovely spots to be found in china so from this quiet mountain retreat a monument of what god can give in answer to prayer
this little book of prayer testimonies is sent forth as the past has been reviewed and god's wonderful faithfulness recalled there has come a great sense of regret that i have not trusted god more and asked more of him both for my family and the chinese
yes it is truly wonderful but the wonder is not that god can answer prayer but that he does when we so imperfectly meet the conditions clearly laid down in his word in recent years i have often tested myself by these conditions
and there has come a conscious spiritual sagging as the discerning soul can plainly see all the conditions mentioned in the list below may be included in the one word abide conditions of prevailing prayer
one contrite humility before god and forsaking of sin
must be willing to make amends for wrongs to others
five wrong motives james four two three six despising god's law amos two four
more than fifty years have passed since that day but the impression left upon my child mind of a being invisible but able to hear and help has never been effaced
the most precious recollections of early childhood are associated with stories told us by our mother many of which illustrated the power of prayer
one that made a specially deep impression upon me was about our grandfather who as a little boy went to visit cousins in the south of england their home being situated close to a dense forest
one day the children lured by the beautiful wild flowers became hopelessly lost in the woods after trying in vain to find a way out the eldest a young girl called the frightened crying little ones around her and said
when mother died she told us to always tell jesus if we were in any trouble let us kneel down and ask him to take us home
the bird hopped away but kept so close to the child as to lead him on soon all were joining in the chase after the bird which flew or hopped in front or just above and sometimes on the ground almost within reach then suddenly it flew into the air and away
the children looked up to find themselves on the edge of the woods and in sight of home
to just tell jesus when in trouble through the mists of memory one incident comes out clearly which occurred when i was six or seven years of age while playing one day in the garden i was seized with what we then called
i ran to my mother for comfort but nothing she could do seemed to ease the pain
and just as i was with my face pressed against my mother's breast i said in my heart lord jesus if you will take away this toothache right now now i will be your little girl for three years
before the prayer was well uttered the pain was entirely gone i believed that jesus had taken it away and the result was that for years when tempted to be naughty i was afraid to do what i knew was wrong lest if i broke my side of what i felt to be a compact
the toothache would return this little incident had a real influence over my early life gave me a constant sense of the reality of a divine presence and so helped to prepare me for the public confession of christ as my saviour a few years later at the age of eleven
about a year after my confession of christ an incident occurred which greatly strengthened my faith and led me to look to god as a father in a new way when easter sunday morning came it was so warm only spring clothes could be worn
why take ye thought for raiment seek ye first the kingdom of god and all these things shall be added unto you
it was as if god spoke the words directly to me i determined to go to church even if i had to humiliate myself by going in my old winter dress the lord was true to his promise
i can still feel the power the resurrection messages had upon my heart that day so long ago and further on the following day a box came from a distant aunt containing not only new dresses but much else that might well be included in the all these things
an unforgetable proof of god's loving care came to us as a family about this time when my parents were face to face with a serious financial crisis
before they call i will answer and while they are yet speaking i will hear at that time it is necessary to state we depended on a quarterly income which came through my mother's lawyer in england
unusual circumstances had so drained our resources that we found ourselves in the middle of the quarter with barely sufficient to meet a week's needs
he would not forsake those who put their trust in him that very day a letter came from the lawyer in england enclosing a draft for a sum ample to meet our needs till the regular remittance should arrive
this unexpected and timely draft proved to be a bonus which did not occur again some years later having moved to a strange city a great longing came to do some definite service for my master
one day there came to the bible class i attended a call for teachers to aid in a sunday school near by
when i presented myself before the superintendent of this sunday school the following sunday and offered my services it is not much wonder i received a rebuff for i was young and quite unknown i was told that if i wished a class it would be well for me to find my own scholars
i can remember how a lump seemed choking me all the way home that day at last determining not to be baffled i prayed the lord to help me get some scholars i went forth praying every step of the way
the following saturday afternoon and canvassing just one short street near our home i received the promise of nineteen children for sunday school the next day a rather victorious young woman walked up to the sunday school superintendent with seventeen children following
needless to say i was given a class in the autumn of eighteen eighty five the toronto mission union a faith mission decided to establish a branch mission in the east end slums of that city
i learned that prayer was the secret which overcame every obstacle the key that unlocked every closed door
the time came when two diverse paths lay before me one to england as an artist one to china as a missionary circumstances made a definite decision most difficult
i thought i had tried every means to find out god's will for me and no light had come but in a day of great trouble when my precious mother's very life seemed to hang in the balance i shut myself up with god's word
praying definitely for him to guide me to some passage by which i might know his will for my life my bible opening at the fifteenth chapter of john's gospel the sixteenth verse seemed to come as a message to me
ye have not chosen me but i have chosen you and ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit going to my dear mother and telling her of the message god had given me she said i dare not fight against god
from that time the last hindrance from going to china was removed surely the wonderful way god has kept his child for more than thirty years in china is proof that this call was not a mistaken one
a little later a few weeks before my marriage when i found i was short fifty dollars of what i would need to be married free of debt i resolved not to let others know of my need but to just trust god to send it to me
the thought came if you cannot trust god for this when hudson taylor could trust for so much more are you worthy to be a missionary it was my first experience of trusting quite alone for money i was sorely tempted to give others just a hint of my need
but i was kept back from doing so and though i had a week or more of severe testing peace of mind and the assurance that god would supply my need came at length the answer however did not come till the very last night before the wedding
after these friends had left i returned to my home circle assembled in the back parlor and showed them the address and the purse unopened not for a moment did i think there was anything in the purse till my brother said you foolish girl why don't you open it
i opened the purse and found it contained a check for fifty dollars
i will go before thee and make the crooked places straight i will break in pieces the gates of brass and cut in sunder the bars of iron
in october eighteen eighty seven my husband was appointed by the canadian presbyterian church to open a new field in the northern section of the province of honan china we left canada the following january reaching china in march eighteen eighty eight
not till then did we realize the tremendous difficulties of the task before us doctor hudson taylor of the china inland mission writing to us at this time said we understand north honan is to be your field
we as a mission have tried for ten years to enter that province from the south and have only just succeeded it is one of the most anti foreign provinces in china brother if you would enter that province you must go forward on your knees
would that a faithful record had been kept of god's faithfulness in answering prayer our strength as a mission and as individuals during those years so fraught with dangers and difficulties
lay in the fact that we did realize the hopelessness of our task apart from divine aid the following incident occurred while we were still outside honan studying the language at a sister mission
it illustrates the importance of prayer from the home base for those on the field my husband was finding great difficulty in acquiring the language he studied faithfully many hours daily but made painfully slow progress
he and his colleague went regularly together to the street chapel to practise preaching in chinese to the people
but though mister goforth had come to china almost a year before the other missionary the people would ask the latter to speak instead of mister goforth saying they understood him better
he told me that he realized most unusual help when his turn came to speak sentences came to his mind as never before and not only had he made himself understood but some had appeared much moved coming up afterward to have further conversation with him
so delighted and encouraged was he with this experience that he made a careful note of it in his diary some two months and a half later a letter came from a student in knox college saying that on a certain evening
a number of students had met specially to pray for mister goforth the power of prayer was such and the presence of god so manifestly felt that they decided to write and ask mister goforth if any special help had come to him at that time
looking in his diary he found that the time of their meeting corresponded with that time of special help in the language i cannot tell why there should come to me a thought of some one miles and years away
we are too busy to spare thought for days together of some friends away perhaps god does it for us and we ought to read his signal as a sign to pray
perhaps just then my friend has fiercer fight a more appalling weakness a decay of courage darkness some lost sense of right and so in case he needs my prayers i pray at last the joyful news reached us women
it would be difficult for those in the homeland to understand what the years of waiting had meant to some of us the danger to those dear to us touring in honan was very great
for years they never left us to go on a tour without our being filled with dread lest they should never return yet the lord in his mercy heard our prayers for them and though often in grave danger none received serious injury
this is not a history of the mission but i cannot forbear giving here one incident illustrating how they were kept during those early days
moved in intending to spend the winter there but a sudden and bitter persecution arose just as they had become settled the mission premises were attacked by a mob and everything was looted
the two men were roughly handled one being dragged about the courtyard they found themselves at last left alone their lives spared but everything gone their position was serious in the extreme
several days journey away from friends with no money no bedding and no clothes but those upon them and the cold winter begun
and according to his promise he delivered them out of their distresses for even while they prayed a brother missionary from a distant station was at hand he arrived unexpectedly without knowing what had occurred a few hours after the looting had taken place
a few months after the above incident several families moved into honan and a permanent occupation was effected but the hearts of the people seemed as adamant against us they hated and distrusted us as if we were their worst enemies
the district in which we settled was known for its turbulent and anti foreign spirit and as a band of missionaries we were frequently in the gravest danger many times we realized that we as well as our fellow workers at the other stations were kept from serious harm
the following are concrete examples of how god heard our prayers at this time we had for our station doctor a man of splendid gifts he was a gold medalist with years of special training and hospital experience
and was looked upon as one of the rising physicians in the city from which he came imagine his disappointment therefore when month after month passed and scarcely a good case came to the hospital
the people did not know what he could do and moreover they were afraid to trust themselves into his hands
very much depended upon the outcome of this and other serious operations had the patients died under the doctor's hands it would have been quite sufficient to have caused the destruction of the mission premises and the life of every missionary
three years later the hospital records showed that there had been twenty eight thousand treatments in one year again we kept praying that the lord would give us converts from the very beginning
we had heard of missionaries in india china and elsewhere who had worked for many years without gaining converts but we did not believe that this was god's will for us we believed that it was his pleasure and purpose to save men and women through his human channels
and why not from the beginning so we kept praying and working and expecting converts and god gave them to us the experience of thirty years has confirmed this belief space permits the mention of but two of these earliest converts
who came with us into honan as mister goforth's personal teacher he was a man of high degree equal to the western m a and was one of the proudest and most overbearing of confucian scholars
but mister goforth kept praying for this man and using all his influence to win him for christ before many months passed a great change had come over mister wang his proud overbearing manner had changed and he became a humble devout follower of the lowly nazarene
god used a dream to awaken this man's conscience as is not uncommon in china one night he dreamed he was struggling in a deep miry pit
but try as he would he could find no way of escape when about to give up in despair he looked up and saw mister goforth and another missionary on the bank above him with their hands stretched out to save him
again he sought for some other way of escape but finding none he allowed them to draw him up this man later on became mister goforth's most valued evangelist
for many years his splendid gifts were used to the glory of his master in the work among the scholar class in the changtefu district he has long since passed to his reward dying as he had lived trusting only in the merit of jesus christ for salvation
another of the bright glints in the darkness of those earliest days in honan was the remarkable conversion of wang fu lin
for many years his business had been that of a public story teller but when mister goforth came across him he was reduced to an utter wreck through opium smoking
he accepted the gospel but for a long time seemed too weak to break off the opium habit again and again he tried to do so but failed hopelessly each time
the poor fellow seemed almost past hope when one day mister goforth brought him to the mission in his cart the ten days that followed can never be forgotten by those who watched wang fu lin struggle for physical and spiritual life
i verily believe nothing but prayer could have brought him through at the end of the ten days the power of opium was broken and wang fu lin came out of the struggle a new man in christ jesus i shall have occasion to speak of this man again
in all the cases of divine healing cited in this record it will be noted that god healed in answer to prayer either when the doctors had done all in their power and hope had been abandoned or when we were out of reach of medical aid
one of the most devoted and saintly of god's missionaries gave a testimony which later was used of god to save the writer from giving up service in china and returning home to canada
doctor corbett said that for fifteen years he had been laid aside every year with that terrible scourge of the east dysentery and the doctors at last gave a definite decision that he must return at once to the homeland and forsake china
but said the grand old man i knew god had called me to china and i also knew that god did not change so what could i do i dared not go back on my call so i determined that if i could not live in china i could die there
and from that time the disease lost its hold on me
at last one day my husband brought me the decision of the doctors that i should return home and as i lay there ill and weak the temptation came to yield but as i remembered doctor corbett's testimony and my own clear call
i felt that to go back would be to go against my own conscience i therefore determined to do as doctor corbett had done leave myself in the lord's hands whether for life or for death this happened more than twenty years ago
and since then i have had very little trouble from that dread disease yes the deeper the need and the more bitter the extremity the greater the opportunity for god to show forth his mighty power in our lives
during our fourth year in china when we were spending the hot season at the coast our little son eighteen months old was taken very ill with dysentery after several days fight for the child's life came the realization one evening
that the angel of death was at hand my whole soul rebelled i actually seemed to hate god i could see nothing but cruel injustice in it all and the child seemed to be fast going
my husband and i knelt down beside the little one's bedside and he pleaded earnestly with me to yield my will and my child to god after a long and bitter struggle god gained the victory and i told my husband i would give my child to the lord
then my husband prayed committing the precious soul into the lord's keeping while he was praying i noticed that the rapid hard breathing of the child had ceased thinking my darling was gone i hastened for a light for it was dark
but on examining the child's face i found that he had sunk into a deep sound natural sleep which lasted most of the night the following day he was practically well of the dysentery
to me it has always seemed that the lord tested me to almost the last moment then when i yielded my dearest treasure to him and put my lord first he gave back the child
while writing the above i came across an extract from the christian of march twelfth nineteen fourteen in which the editor said speaking at the annual meeting of the huntingdon county hospital
lord sandwich referred to the power of spiritual healing
the hunting of the man it came before my mind with an unreasonable hope of escape that the outer door of my room was still open to me i was convinced now absolutely assured
that moreau had been vivisecting a human being all the time since i had heard his name i had been trying to link in my mind in some way the grotesque animalism of the islanders with his abominations and now i thought i saw it all
these creatures i had seen were the victims of some hideous experiment these sickening scoundrels had merely intended to keep me back to fool me with their display of confidence and presently to fall upon me with a fate more horrible than death
with torture and after torture
to send me off a lost soul a beast to the rest of their comus rout i looked round for some weapon nothing then with an inspiration i turned over the deck chair put my foot on the side of it
and tore away the side rail it happened that a nail came away with the wood and projecting gave a touch of danger to an otherwise petty weapon
and found montgomery within a yard of it he meant to lock the outer door i raised this nailed stick of mine and cut at his face but he sprang back i hesitated a moment then turned and fled round the corner of the house
and as ready as a hospital rabbit for my fate he emerged behind the corner for i heard him shout prendick then he began to run after me shouting things as he ran this time running blindly
i went northeastward in a direction at right angles to my previous expedition once as i went running headlong up the beach i glanced over my shoulder and saw his attendant with him i ran furiously up the slope over it
my chest straining my heart beating in my ears and then hearing nothing of montgomery or his man and feeling upon the verge of exhaustion i doubled sharply back towards the beach as i judged and lay down in the shelter of a canebrake
there i remained for a long time too fearful to move and indeed too fearful even to plan a course of action the wild scene about me lay sleeping silently under the sun
and the only sound near me was the thin hum of some small gnats that had discovered me presently i became aware of a drowsy breathing sound
after about an hour i heard montgomery shouting my name far away to the north that set me thinking of my plan of action as i interpreted it then
this island was inhabited only by these two vivisectors and their animalised victims some of these no doubt they could press into their service against me if need arose i knew both moreau and montgomery carried revolvers
and save for a feeble bar of deal spiked with a small nail the merest mockery of a mace i was unarmed
until i began to think of food and drink
i knew no way of getting anything to eat i was too ignorant of botany to discover any resort of root or fruit that might lie about me i had no means of trapping the few rabbits upon the island
it grew blanker the more i turned the prospect over at last in the desperation of my position my mind turned to the animal men i had encountered i tried to find some hope in what i remembered of them
in turn i recalled each one i had seen and tried to draw some augury of assistance from my memory then suddenly i heard a staghound bay and at that realised a new danger i took little time to think
but snatching up my nailed stick rushed headlong from my hiding place towards the sound of the sea i remember a growth of thorny plants with spines that stabbed like pen knives i emerged bleeding and with torn clothes upon the lip of a long creek opening northward
wading up the creek and presently finding myself kneedeep in a little stream i scrambled out at last on the westward bank and with my heart beating loudly in my ears crept into a tangle of ferns to await the issue i heard the dog
draw nearer and yelp when it came to the thorns then i heard no more and presently began to think i had escaped the minutes passed the silence lengthened out and at last after an hour of security my courage began to return to me
i remembered that if i were too hard pressed at least one path of escape from torment still lay open to me
i had half a mind to drown myself then but an odd wish to see the whole adventure out a queer impersonal spectacular interest in myself restrained me
i stretched my limbs sore and painful from the pricks of the spiny plants and stared around me at the trees
my eyes lit upon a black face watching me i saw that it was the simian creature who had met the launch upon the beach he was clinging to the oblique stem of a palm tree i gripped my stick and stood up facing him
he began chattering you you you was all i could distinguish at first suddenly he dropped from the tree and in another moment was holding the fronds apart and staring curiously at me
you he said in the boat he was a man then at least as much of a man as montgomery's attendant for he could talk yes i said i came in the boat from the ship oh he said
and his bright restless eyes travelled over me to my hands to the stick i carried to my feet to the tattered places in my coat and the cuts and scratches i had received from the thorns he seemed puzzled at something his eyes came back to my hands
he held his own hand out and counted his digits slowly one two three four five eigh i did not grasp his meaning then
afterwards i was to find that a great proportion of these beast people had malformed hands lacking sometimes even three digits but guessing this was in some way a greeting i did the same thing by way of reply he grinned with immense satisfaction
he made a swift movement and vanished the fern fronds he had stood between came swishing together i pushed out of the brake after him and was astonished to find him swinging cheerfully by one lank arm
from a rope of creepers that looped down from the foliage overhead his back was to me hullo said i he came down with a twisting jump and stood facing me i say said i
where can i get something to eat eat he said eat man's food now
come along said he i went with him to see the adventure out i guessed the huts were some rough shelter where he and some more of these beast people lived i might perhaps find them friendly
find some handle in their minds to take hold of
my ape like companion trotted along by my side with his hands hanging down and his jaw thrust forward
how long have you been on this island said i how long he asked and after having the question repeated he held up three fingers the creature was little better than an idiot
i tried to make out what he meant by that and it seems i bored him after another question or two
and so to a bare place covered with a yellow white incrustation
i saw the level blue of the sea the path coiled down abruptly into a narrow ravine between two tumbled and knotty masses of blackish scoriae into this we plunged it was extremely dark this passage
after the blinding sunlight reflected from the sulphurous ground
blotches of green and crimson drifted across my eyes my conductor stopped suddenly home said he and i stood in a floor of a chasm that was at first absolutely dark to me
i heard some strange noises and thrust the knuckles of my left hand into my eyes i became aware of a disagreeable odor like that of a monkey's cage ill cleaned beyond the rock opened again upon a gradual slope of sunlit greenery
jerry barker i never knew a better man than my new master he was kind and good and as strong for the right as john manly and so good tempered and merry that very few people could pick a quarrel with him
he was very fond of making little songs and singing them to himself one he was very fond of was this come father and mother and sister and brother come all of you turn to and help one another
and so they did harry was as clever at stable work as a much older boy and always wanted to do what he could then polly and dolly used to come in the morning to help with the cab to brush and beat the cushions
they were always early in the morning for jerry would say if you in the morning throw minutes away you can't pick them up in the course of a day you may hurry and scurry and flurry and worry you've lost them forever forever and aye
he could not bear any careless loitering and waste of time and nothing was so near making him angry as to find people who were always late wanting a cab horse to be driven hard to make up for their idleness
one day two wild looking young men came out of a tavern close by the stand and called jerry here cabby look sharp we are rather late put on the steam will you and take us to the victoria in time for the one o'clock train
you shall have a shilling extra i will take you at the regular pace gentlemen shillings don't pay for putting on the steam like that larry's cab was standing next to ours he flung open the door and said
he set off as hard as he could jerry patted me on the neck no jack a shilling would not pay for that sort of thing would it old boy although jerry was determinedly set against hard driving
and as they led him into a shop he walked as if he were in great pain jerry of course came back to the stand but in about ten minutes one of the shopmen called him
can you take me to the south eastern railway said the young man this unlucky fall has made me late i fear but it is of great importance that i should not lose the twelve o'clock train i should be most thankful if you could get me there in time
and will gladly pay you an extra fare i'll do my very best said jerry heartily if you think you are well enough sir for he looked dreadfully white and ill i must go he said earnestly
please to open the door and let us lose no time the next minute jerry was on the box with a cheery chirrup to me and a twitch of the rein that i well understood now then jack my boy said he spin along
we'll show them how we can get over the ground if we only know why it is always difficult to drive fast in the city in the middle of the day when the streets are full of traffic but we did what could be done and when a good driver
and a good horse who understand each other are of one mind it is wonderful what they can do i had a very good mouth that is i could be guided by the slightest touch of the rein and that is a great thing in london
omnibuses carts vans trucks cabs and great wagons creeping along at a walking pace some going one way some another some going slowly others wanting to pass them omnibuses stopping short every few minutes to take up a passenger
and manage to get to the front going so near the wheels on each side that half an inch nearer and they would scrape well you get along for a bit but soon find yourself in a long train of carts and carriages all obliged to go at a walk
perhaps you come to a regular block up and have to stand still for minutes together till something clears out into a side street or the policeman interferes you have to be ready for any chance to dash forward if there be an opening
and be quick as a rat dog to see if there be room and if there be time lest you get your own wheels locked or smashed or the shaft of some other vehicle run into your chest or shoulder all this is what you have to be ready for
if you want to get through london fast in the middle of the day it wants a deal of practice jerry and i were used to it and no one could beat us at getting through when we were set upon it i was quick and bold
and could always trust my driver jerry was quick and patient at the same time and could trust his horse which was a great thing too he very seldom used the whip i knew by his voice and his click click when he wanted to get on fast
the young man put his head out and said anxiously i think i had better get out and walk i shall never get there if this goes on i'll do all that can be done sir said jerry i think we shall be in time
for there was a whole train of cabs and carriages all going our way at a quick trot perhaps wanting to catch that very train at any rate we whirled into the station with many more just as the great clock pointed to eight minutes to twelve o'clock
so glad we hit the time sir but don't stay now sir the bell is ringing here porter take this gentleman's luggage dover line twelve o'clock train that's it and without waiting for another word
and drew up on one side till the crush was past so glad he said so glad poor young fellow i wonder what it was that made him so anxious jerry often talked to himself quite loud enough for me to hear
a good deal more than i generally get said he nodding slyly what he gave me will keep me in little comforts for several days gammon said one he's a humbug said another
preaching to us and then doing the same himself look here mates said jerry the gentleman offered me half a crown extra but i didn't take it twas quite pay enough for me to see how glad he was to catch that train
and if jack and i choose to have a quick run now and then to please ourselves that's our business and not yours well said larry you'll never be a rich man most likely not said jerry
but i don't know that i shall be the less happy for that i have heard the commandments read a great many times and i never noticed that any of them said thou shalt be rich and there are a good many curious things said in the new testament about rich men
that i think would make me feel rather queer if i was one of them if you ever do get rich said governor gray looking over his shoulder across the top of his cab you'll deserve it jerry
and you won't find a curse come with your wealth as for you larry you'll die poor you spend too much in whipcord well said larry what is a fellow to do if his horse won't go without it
good luck is rather particular who she rides with and mostly prefers those who have got common sense and a good heart at least that is my experience governor gray turned round again to his newspaper
the two leaved pine the two leaved pine pinus contorta
above the silver fir zone forms the bulk of the alpine forests up to a height of from eight thousand
growing in beautiful order on moraines scarcely changed as yet by post glacial weathering compared with the giants of the lower regions this is a small tree seldom exceeding a height of eighty or ninety feet
it is a well proportioned rather handsome tree with grayish brown bark and crooked much divided branches which cover the greater part of the trunk but not so densely as to prevent it being seen
the lower limbs like those of most other conifers that grow in snowy regions curve downward gradually take a horizontal position about half way up the trunk then aspire more and more toward the summit
the short rigid needles in fascicles of two are arranged in comparatively long cylindrical tassels at the ends of the tough up curving branches the cones are about two inches long growing in clusters among the needles
without any striking effect except while very young when the flowers are of a vivid crimson color and the whole tree appears to be dotted with brilliant flowers the staminate flowers are still more showy on account of their great abundance
often giving a reddish yellow tinge to the whole mass of foliage and filling the air with pollen no other pine on the range is so regularly planted as this one covering moraines that extend along the sides of the high rocky valleys for miles without interruption
the thin bark is streaked and sprinkled with resin as though it had been showered upon the forest like rain therefore this tree more than any other is subject to destruction by fire during strong winds extensive forests are destroyed
the flames leaping from tree to tree in continuous belts that go surging and racing onward above the bending wood like prairie grass fires during the calm season of indian summer the fire creeps quietly along the ground
arriving at the foot of a tree
increasing in velocity and dragging the flames upward then the leaves catch forming an immense column of fire beautifully spired on the edges and tinted a rose purple hue it rushes aloft thirty or forty feet above the top of the tree
leaving the trunks and branches scarcely scarred the heat however is sufficient to kill the tree and in a few years the bark shrivels and falls off forests miles in extent are thus killed and left standing
with the branches on but peeled and rigid appearing gray in the distance like misty clouds later the branches drop off leaving a forest of bleached spars
at length the roots decay and the forlorn gray trunks are blown down during some storm and piled one upon another encumbering the ground until dry and seasoned they are consumed by another fire and leave the ground ready for a fresh crop
in sheltered lake hollows on beds of alluvium this pine varies so far from the common form that frequently it could be taken for a distinct species growing in damp sods like grasses from forty to eighty feet high
bending all together to the breeze and whirling in eddying gusts more lively than any other tree in the woods i frequently found specimens fifty feet high less than five inches in diameter being so slender and at the same time clad with leafy boughs
it is often bent and weighed down to the ground when laden with soft snow thus forming fine ornamental arches many of them to last until the melting of the snow in the spring the mountain pine
the mountain pine pinus monticola is the noblest tree of the alpine zone hardy and long lived towering grandly above its companions and becoming stronger and more imposing
just where other species begin to crouch and disappear at its best it is usually about ninety feet high and five or six feet in diameter though you may find specimens here and there considerably larger than this
it is as massive and suggestive of enduring strength as an oak about two thirds of the trunk is commonly free of limbs but close fringy tufts of spray occur nearly all the way down to the ground
on trees that occupy exposed situations near its upper limit the bark is deep reddish brown and rather deeply furrowed the main furrows running nearly parallel to each other and connected on the old trees by conspicuous cross furrows
the cones are from four to eight inches long smooth slender cylindrical and somewhat curved they grow in clusters of from three to six or seven and become pendulous as they increase in weight
this species is nearly related to the sugar pine and though not half so tall it suggests its noble relative in the way that it extends its long branches in general habit it is first met on the upper margin of the silver fir zone
singly in what appears as chance situations without making much impression on the general forest continuing up through the forests of the two leaved pine it begins to show its distinguishing characteristic in the most marked way
at an elevation of about ten thousand feet extending its tough rather slender arms in the frosty air welcoming the storms and feeding on them and reaching sometimes to the grand old age
the western juniper the juniper or red cedar juniperus occidentalis is preeminently a rock tree
occupying the baldest domes and pavements in the upper silver fir and alpine zones
in such situations rooted in narrow cracks or fissures where there is scarcely a handful of soil it is frequently over eight feet in diameter and not much more in height the tops of old trees are almost always dead
decorated with a few leafy sprays reminding one of the crumbling towers of old castles scantily draped with ivy its homes on bare barren dome and ridge top seem to have been chosen for safety against fire
with scarce a trace of the rocky angularity and broken limbs so characteristic a feature throughout the greater part of its range it never makes anything like a forest seldom even a grove usually it stands out separate and independent
clinging by slight joints to the rocks living chiefly on snow and thin air and maintaining sound health on this diet for two thousand years or more every feature or every gesture it makes expresses steadfast dogged endurance
the bark is of a bright cinnamon color and is handsomely braided and reticulated on thrifty trees flaking off in thin shining ribbons that are sometimes used by the indians for tent matting
its fine color and picturesqueness are appreciated by artists but to me the juniper seems a singularly strange and taciturn tree i have spent many a day and night in its company
it seems to be a survivor of some ancient race wholly unacquainted with its neighbors its broad stumpiness of course makes wind waving or even shaking out of the question but it is not this rocky rigidity that constitutes its silence
in calm sun days the sugar pine preaches like an enthusiastic apostle without moving a leaf on level rocks the juniper dies standing and wastes insensibly out of existence like granite the wind exerting about as little control over it
alive or dead as is does over a glacier boulder i have spent a good deal of time trying to determine the age of these wonderful trees but as all of the very old ones are honey combed with dry rot i never was able to get a complete count of the largest
some are undoubtedly more than two thousand years old for though on deep moraine soil they grow about as fast as some of the pines on bare pavements and smoothly glaciated overswept ridges in the dome region they grow very slowly
one on the starr king ridge only two feet eleven inches in diameter
another on the same ridge only one foot seven and a half inches in diameter had reached the age of eight hundred thirty four years the first fifteen inches from the bark of a medium size tree six feet in diameter on the north tenaya pavement
had eight hundred fifty nine layers of wood beyond this the count was stopped by dry rot and scars the largest examined was thirty three feet in girth or nearly ten feet in diameter and although i have failed to get anything like a complete count
jeff peters was always eloquent when the ethics of his profession was under discussion the only times said he
that me and andy tucker ever had any hiatuses in our cordial intents was when we differed on the moral aspects of grafting andy had his standards and i had mine
i didn't approve of all of andy's schemes for levying contributions from the public and he thought i allowed my conscience to interfere too often for the financial good of the firm we had high arguments sometimes
i don't know how you mean that andy says i but we have been friends too long for me to take offense at a taunt that you will regret when you cool off i have yet says i to shake hands with a subpoena server
the grassdale people liked us and me and andy declared a cessation of hostilities never so much as floating the fly leaf of a rubber concession prospectus or flashing a brazilian diamond while we was there
me and andy sees at a glance what it is but we pretend to read it through it was one of them old time typewritten green goods letters explaining how for one thousand dollars you could get five thousand dollars in bills
if you answer it they write again asking you to come on with your money and do business but think of em writing to me says murkison a few days later he drops around again boys says he
i know you are all right or i wouldn't confide in you i wrote to them rascals again just for fun they answered and told me to come on to chicago they said telegraph to j smith when i would start
when i get there i'm to wait on a certain street corner till a man in a gray suit comes along and drops a newspaper in front of me then i am to ask him how the water is and he knows it's me and i know it's him
ah yes says andy gaping it's the same old game i've often read about it in the papers then he conducts you to the private abattoir in the hotel where mister jones is already waiting
they show you brand new real money and sell you all you want at five for one
says andy boys says murkison i've got it in my mind that them fellows can't fool me i think i'll put a couple of thousand in my jeans and go up there and put it all over em
if bill murkison gets his eyes once on them bills they show him
that's the kind of trader bill murkison is yes i jist believe i'll drop up chicago way and take a five to one shot on j smith i guess the water'll be fine enough
me and andy tries to get this financial misquotation out of murkison's head
from betting on bryan's election
maybe it would teach em a lesson
in our idle hours we always improved our higher selves by ratiocination and mental thought jeff says andy after a long time
it does you credit i was just thinking the same thing that you have expressed it would not be honorable or praiseworthy says i for us to let murkison go on with this project he has taken up
if he is determined to go let us go with him and prevent this swindle from coming off andy agreed with me and i was glad to see that he was in earnest about breaking up this green goods scheme
i don't call myself a religious man says i or a fanatic in moral bigotry but i can't stand still and see a man who has built up his business by his own efforts and brains and risk
i'd hate to see any money dropped in it as bad as you would well we went to see murkison no boys says he i can't consent to let the song of this chicago siren waft by me on the summer breeze
i'll fry some fat out of this ignis fatuus or burn a hole in the skillet
maybe you could help some when it comes to cashing in the ticket to that five to one shot yes i'd really take it as a pastime and regalement if you boys would go along too
to look over some iron ore property in west virginia he wires j smith that he will set foot in the spider web on a given date and the three of us lights out for chicago on the way murkison
amuses himself with premonitions and advance pleasant recollections in a gray suit says he on the southwest corner of wabash avenue and lake street he drops the paper
i think it's the duty of every citizen says he to try to do up these robbers that prey upon the public i'll show em whether the water's fine five dollars for one that's what j smith offers
and he'll have to keep his contract if he does business with bill murkison
murkison was to meet the gray man at half past nine we had dinner at a hotel and then went up to murkison's room to wait for the time to come now boys says murkison
let's get our gumption together and inoculate a plan for defeating the enemy suppose while i'm exchanging airy bandage with the gray capper you gents come along by accident you know and holler hello murk
bring em along he'll say of course if they care to invest now how does that scheme strike you
why i'll tell you what i say says i i say let's settle this thing right here now i don't see any use of wasting any more time
get out that two thousand and lay it on the table obey with velocity says i for otherwise alternatives are impending i am preferably a man of mildness but now and then i find myself in the middle of extremities
is what keeps the jails and court houses going you come up here to rob these men of their money does it excuse you i asks that they were trying to skin you no sir you was going to rob peter to stand off paul
you are ten times worse says i than that green goods man you go to church at home and pretend to be a decent citizen but you'll come to chicago and commit larceny from men that have built up a sound and profitable business
by dealing with such contemptible scoundrels as you have tried to be to day how do you know says i that that green goods man hasn't a large family dependent upon his extortions
it's you supposedly respectable citizens who are always on the lookout to get something for nothing says i that support the lotteries and wild cat mines and stock exchanges and wire tappers of this country
if it wasn't for you they'd go out of business the green goods man you was going to rob says i studied maybe for years to learn his trade
you come up here all sanctified and vanoplied with respectability and a pleasing post office address to swindle him
now get out your watch says i to murkison no i don't want it says i lay it on the table and you sit in that chair till it ticks off an hour then you can go if you make any noise or leave any sooner
then he says jeff do you mind my asking you a question two says i or forty was that the idea you had says he when we started out with murkison
why certainly says i what else could it have been wasn't it yours too in about half an hour andy spoke again i think there are times when andy don't exactly understand my system of ethics and moral hygiene
jeff says he some time when you have the leisure i wish you'd draw off a diagram and foot notes of that conscience of yours
chapter eleven lord grenville's ball
the historic ball given by the then secretary of state for foreign affairs lord grenville was the most brilliant function of the year though the autumn season had only just begun
everybody who was anybody had contrived to be in london in time to be present there and to shine at this ball to the best of his or her respective ability his royal highness the prince of wales had promised to be present
he was coming on presently from the opera
before preparing to receive his guests at ten o'clock an unusually late hour in those days the grand rooms of the foreign office exquisitely decorated with exotic palms and flowers were filled to overflowing
one room had been set apart for dancing and the dainty strains of the minuet made a soft accompaniment to the gay chatter the merry laughter of the numerous and brilliant company in a smaller chamber facing the top of the fine stairway
the distinguished host stood ready to receive his guests distinguished men beautiful women notabilities from every european country had already filed past him
which the extravagant fashion of the time demanded and then laughing and talking had dispersed in the ball reception and card rooms beyond not far from lord grenville's elbow
leaning against one of the console tables chauvelin in his irreproachable black costume was taking a quiet survey of the brilliant throng he noted that sir percy and lady blakeney had not yet arrived
had just begun to filtrate across the channel in his official capacity he had been received courteously by his english colleagues mister pitt had shaken him by the hand lord grenville had entertained him more than once
but the more intimate circles of london society ignored him altogether the women openly turned their backs upon him the men who held no official position refused to shake his hand
and he had a burning love for his own country these three sentiments made him supremely indifferent to the snubs he received in this fog ridden loyalist old fashioned england
he firmly believed that the french aristocrat was the most bitter enemy of france he would have wished to see every one of them annihilated he was one of those who during this awful reign of terror
had been the first to utter the historic and ferocious desire that aristocrats might have but one head between them so that it might be cut off with a single stroke of the guillotine
and thus he looked upon every french aristocrat who had succeeded in escaping from france as so much prey of which the guillotine had been unwarrantably cheated there is no doubt that those royalist emigres once they had managed to cross the frontier
did their very best to stir up foreign indignation against france plots without end were hatched in england in belgium in holland
small wonder therefore that the romantic and mysterious personality of the scarlet pimpernel was a source of bitter hatred to chauvelin he and the few young jackanapes under his command well furnished with money armed with boundless daring
chauvelin had sworn to his colleagues in paris that he would discover the identity of that meddlesome englishman entice him over to france and then
as easily as that of any other man suddenly there was a great stir on the handsome staircase all conversation stopped for a moment as the majordomo's voice outside announced
his royal highness the prince of wales and suite sir percy blakeney lady blakeney lord grenville went quickly to the door to receive his exalted guest
his fair hair free from powder
and the flat chapeau bras under his arm
lord grenville said to his royal guest
the accredited agent of the french government chauvelin immediately the prince entered had stepped forward expecting this introduction he bowed very low whilst the prince returned his salute with a curt nod of the head monsieur
we will try to forget the government that sent you and look upon you merely as our guest a private gentleman from france as such you are welcome monsieur monseigneur rejoined chauvelin bowing once again
madame he added bowing ceremoniously before marguerite ah my little chauvelin she said with unconcerned gaiety and extending her tiny hand to him monsieur and i are old friends your royal highness
ah then said the prince this time very graciously
there is someone else i would crave permission to present to your royal highness here interposed lord grenville ah who is it asked the prince
by all means they are among the lucky ones then lord grenville turned in search of the comtesse who sat at the further end of the room lud love me whispered his royal highness to marguerite as soon as he had caught sight of the rigid figure of the old lady
lud love me she looks very virtuous and very melancholy faith your royal highness she rejoined with a smile virtue is like precious odours most fragrant when it is crushed virtue alas sighed the prince
is mostly unbecoming to your charming sex madame madame la comtesse de tournay de basserive said lord grenville introducing the lady this is a pleasure madame my royal father as you know is ever glad to welcome those of your compatriots
whom france has driven from her shores your royal highness is ever gracious replied the comtesse with becoming dignity then indicating her daughter who stood timidly by her side my daughter suzanne monseigneur she said
ah charming charming said the prince and now allow me comtesse to introduce you lady blakeney who honours us with her friendship you and she will have much to say to one another i vow every compatriot of lady blakeney's
is doubly welcome for her sake her friends are our friends her enemies the enemies of england marguerite's blue eyes had twinkled with merriment at this gracious speech from her exalted friend the comtesse de tournay
was here receiving a public lesson at which marguerite could not help but rejoice but the comtesse for whom respect of royalty amounted almost to a religion was too well schooled in courtly etiquette to show the slightest sign of embarrassment
your amiable reception of me at our last meeting still dwells pleasantly in my memory
show our gratitude to england by devotion to the wishes of monseigneur madame said marguerite with another ceremonious curtsey madame responded the comtesse with equal dignity
the prince in the meanwhile was saying a few gracious words to the young vicomte i am happy to know you monsieur le vicomte he said i knew your father well when he was ambassador in london ah monseigneur replied the vicomte
nay monseigneur he said now as if in direct response
and to france the prince looked at him keenly for a moment or two
perhaps you know more about our national hero than we do ourselves
see he added turning to the groups round the room the ladies hang upon your lips you would render yourself popular among the fair sex if you were to gratify their curiosity ah monseigneur said chauvelin significantly
rumour has it in france that your highness could an you would give the truest account of that enigmatical wayside flower he looked quickly and keenly at marguerite as he spoke but she betrayed no emotion and her eyes met his quite fearlessly
with wonderful charm and dignity we but name the scarlet pimpernel and every fair cheek is suffused with a blush of enthusiasm none have seen him save his faithful lieutenants we know not if he be tall or short
fair or dark handsome or ill formed but we know that he is the bravest gentleman in all the world
when we remember that he is an englishman
added marguerite looking almost with defiance across at the placid sphinx like face of the frenchman
we worship him we wear his badge we tremble for him when he is in danger and exult with him in the hour of his victory chauvelin did no more than bow placidly both to the prince and to marguerite
he felt that both speeches were intended each in their way to convey contempt or defiance the pleasure loving idle prince he despised
a long jovial inane laugh broke the sudden silence which had fallen over everyone and we poor husbands came in slow affected accents from gorgeous sir percy we have to stand by while they worship a demmed shadow
at first i was about ter be a little reckless and kick cause ther buttons was all off but since i diskiver that the button holes is all busted out why i wouldn't go so fur as to say the buttons is any loss to speak of
and the frio the ranch house a two room box structure was on the rise of a gently swelling hill in the midst of a wilderness of high chaparral
in front of it was a small clearing where stood the sheep pens shearing shed and wool house only a few feet back of it began the thorny jungle
sam was going to ride over to the chapman ranch to see about buying some more improved merino rams at length he came out ready for his ride this being a business trip of some importance
into something much less pleasing to the sight the tight white collar awkwardly constricted his muscular mahogany colored neck the buttonless shirt bulged in stiff waves beneath his unbuttoned vest
the suit of ready made effectually concealed the fine lines of his straight athletic figure his berry brown face was set to the melancholy dignity befitting a prisoner of state
he gave randy his three year old son a pat on the head and hurried out to where mexico his favorite saddle horse was standing
marthy leisurely rocking in her chair fixed her place in the book with her finger and turned her head smiling mischievously as she noted the havoc sam had wrought with his appearance in trying to fix up
you look jest like one of them hayseeds in the picture papers stead of a free and independent sheepman of the state o texas sam climbed awkwardly into the saddle
oh shet up and ride along said missus webber with a little jerk at the handles of her chair you always fussin bout my readin i do a plenty and i'll read when i wanter i live in the bresh here like a varmint
never seein nor hearin nothin and what other musement kin i have not in listenin to you talk for it's complain complain one day after another oh go on sam and leave me in peace
he should have started three hours earlier chapman ranch was only eighteen miles away but there was a road for only three miles of the distance he had ridden over there once with one of the half moon cowpunchers and he had the direction well defined in his mind
he turned now to his right up a little hill pebble covered upon which grew only the tenacious and thorny prickly pear and chaparral
in about two hours he discovered that he was lost then came the usual confusion of mind and the hurry to get somewhere
mexico was anxious to redeem the situation twisting with alacrity along the tortuous labyrinths of the jungle at the moment his master's sureness of the route had failed his horse had divined the fact
there were no hills now that they could climb to obtain a view of the country they came upon a few but so dense and interlaced was the brush that scarcely could a rabbit penetrate the mass they were in the great lonely thicket of the frio bottoms
it was a mere nothing for a cattleman or a sheepman to be lost for a day or a night the thing often happened it was merely a matter of missing a meal or two and sleeping comfortably on your saddle blankets on a soft mattress of mesquite grass
so he had never left her alone it must have been about four in the afternoon when sam's conscience awoke
until now he had been hoping to strike the trail that led to the frio crossing and the chapman ranch he must have crossed it at some dim part of it and ridden beyond if so he was now something like fifty miles from home
if he could strike a ranch a camp any place where he could get a fresh horse and inquire the road he would ride all night to get back to marthy and the kid so i have hinted sam was seized by remorse
there was a big lump in his throat as he thought of the cross words he had spoken to his wife surely it was hard enough for her to live in that horrible country without having to bear the burden of his abuse he cursed himself grimly and felt a sudden flush of shame that
over glowed the summer heat as he remembered the many times he had flouted and railed at her because she had a liking for reading fiction ther only so'ce ov amusement ther po gal's got said sam aloud with a sob
which unaccustomed sound caused mexico to shy a bit a livin with a sore headed kiote like me a low down skunk that ought to be licked to death with a saddle cinch a cookin and a washin and a livin on mutton and beans
in a little book he thought of marthy as she had been when he first met her in dogtown smart pretty and saucy before the sun had turned the roses in her cheeks brown and the silence of the chaparral had tamed her ambitions
and have them send down a big box of novels and reading matter for marthy things were going to be different he wondered whether a little piano could be placed in one of the rooms of the ranch house without the family having to move out of doors
in spite of their bickerings when night came marthy was wont to dismiss her fears of the country and rest her head upon sam's strong arm with a sigh of peaceful content and dependence and were her fears so groundless
sam thought of roving marauding mexicans of stealthy cougars that sometimes invaded the ranches of rattlesnakes centipedes and a dozen possible dangers marthy would be frantic with fear
randy would cry and call for dada to come still the interminable succession of stretches of brush cactus and mesquite hollow after hollow slope after slope all exactly alike
all familiar by constant repetition and yet all strange and new if he could only arrive somewhere the straight line is art nature moves in circles a straightforward man
is more an artificial product than a diplomatist is
as their footprints have attested
frequently wind up at their starting point it was when sam webber was fullest of contrition and good resolves that mexico with a heavy sigh subsided from his regular brisk trot
he gave mexico a smart kick with his heels
he quickened his gait into a languid trot rounding a great clump of black chaparral he stopped short sam dropped the bridle reins and sat
not ten yards away marthy serene and comfortable sat in her rocking chair before the door in the shade of the house with her feet resting luxuriously upon the steps
and considered the arrivals with emotionless eyes she held a book in her lap with her finger holding the place sam shook himself queerly like a man coming out of a dream and slowly dismounted
he moistened his dry lips
in lincoln the best part of the theatrical season came late when the good companies stopped off there for one night stands after their long runs in new york and chicago that spring lena went with me to see joseph jefferson in rip van winkle
she handed her feelings over to the actors with a kind of fatalistic resignation accessories of costume and scene meant much more to her than to me she sat entranced through robin hood and hung upon the lips of the contralto who sang
oh promise me toward the end of april the billboards which i watched anxiously in those days bloomed out one morning with gleaming white posters on which two names were impressively printed in blue gothic letters
the name of an actress of whom i had often heard and the name camille i called at the raleigh block for lena on saturday evening and we walked down to the theater the weather was warm and sultry and put us both in a holiday humor
we arrived early because lena liked to watch the people come in there was a note on the programme saying that the incidental music would be from the opera traviata which was made from the same story as the play we had neither of us read the play and we did not know what it was about
the count of monte cristo which i had seen james o'neill play that winter was by the only alexandre dumas i knew this play i saw was by his son and i expected a family resemblance
a couple of jack rabbits run in off the prairie could not have been more innocent of what awaited them than were lena and i our excitement began with the rise of the curtain when the moody varville seated before the fire interrogated nanine
decidedly there was a new tang about this dialogue i had never heard in the theater lines that were alive that presupposed and took for granted like those which passed between varville and marguerite in the brief encounter before her friends entered
was delicate torment i seem to remember gilded chairs and tables arranged hurriedly by footmen in white gloves and stockings linen of dazzling whiteness glittering glass silver dishes a great bowl of fruit and the reddest of roses
the room was invaded by beautiful women and dashing young men laughing and talking together the men were dressed more or less after the period in which the play was written the women were not i saw no inconsistency
every sentence made one older and wiser
one could experience excess and satiety without the inconvenience of learning what to do with one's hands in a drawing room when the characters all spoke at once and i missed some of the phrases they flashed at each other i was in misery
she was already old with a ravaged countenance and a physique curiously hard and stiff she moved with difficulty i think she was lame i seem to remember some story about a malady of the spine
her armand was disproportionately young and slight a handsome youth perplexed in the extreme but what did it matter i believed devoutly in her power to fascinate him in her dazzling loveliness i believed her young
ardent reckless disillusioned under sentence feverish avid of pleasure i wanted to cross the footlights and help the slim waisted armand in the frilled shirt to convince her that there was still loyalty and devotion in the world her sudden
illness when the gayety was at its height her pallor the handkerchief she crushed against her lips the cough she smothered under the laughter while gaston kept playing the piano lightly it all wrung my heart
but not so much as her cynicism in the long dialogue with her lover which followed
while the charmingly sincere young man pleaded with her accompanied by the orchestra in the old traviata duet misterioso misterioso she maintained her bitter skepticism and the curtain fell on her dancing recklessly with the others
between the acts we had no time to forget the orchestra kept sawing away at the traviata music so joyous and sad so thin and far away so clap trap and yet so heart breaking
after the second act i left lena in tearful contemplation of the ceiling and went out into the lobby to smoke as i walked about there i congratulated myself that i had not brought some lincoln girl who would talk during the waits about the junior dances
or whether the cadets would camp at plattsmouth lena was at least a woman and i was a man
lena wept unceasingly and i sat helpless to prevent the closing of that chapter of idyllic love dreading the return of the young man whose ineffable happiness was only to be the measure of his fall
i suppose no woman could have been further in person voice and temperament from dumas appealing heroine than the veteran actress who first acquainted me with her her conception of the character was as heavy and uncompromising as her diction
she bore hard on the idea and on the consonants at all times she was highly tragic devoured by remorse lightness of stress or behavior was far from her her voice was heavy and deep
as if she were summoning him to the bar of judgment but the lines were enough she had only to utter them they created the character in spite of her the heartless world which marguerite re entered with varville
had never been so glittering and reckless as on the night when it gathered in olympe's salon for the fourth act there were chandeliers hung from the ceiling i remember many servants in livery
gaming tables where the men played with piles of gold and a staircase down which the guests made their entrance after all the others had gathered round the card tables and young duval had been warned by prudence marguerite descended the staircase with varville such a cloak
such a fan such jewels and her face one knew at a glance how it was with her when armand with the terrible words look all of you i owe this woman nothing
flung the gold and bank notes at the half swooning marguerite lena cowered beside me and covered her face with her hands the curtain rose on the bedroom scene
nanine alone could have made me cry i loved nanine tenderly and gaston how one clung to that good fellow the new year's presents were not too much nothing could be too much now i wept unrestrainedly
was wet through by the time that moribund woman sank for the last time into the arms of her lover when we reached the door of the theater the streets were shining with rain i had prudently brought along missus harling's useful commencement present
i tramped through the puddles and under the showery trees mourning for marguerite gauthier as if she had died only yesterday sighing with the spirit of eighteen forty which had sighed so much
and which had reached me only that night across long years and several languages through the person of an infirm old actress the idea is one that no circumstances can frustrate wherever and whenever that piece is put on
one march evening in my sophomore year i was sitting alone in my room after supper
my window was open and the earthy wind blowing through made me indolent on the edge of the prairie where the sun had gone down the sky was turquoise blue like a lake with gold light throbbing in it higher up in the
utter clarity of the western slope the evening star hung like a lamp suspended by silver chains like the lamp engraved upon the title page of old latin texts which is always appearing in new heavens and waking new desires in men
it reminded me at any rate to shut my window and light my wick in answer i did so regretfully and the dim objects in the room emerged from the shadows and took their place about me with the helpfulness which custom breeds
to bring the muse into my country cleric had explained to us that patria here meant not a nation or even a province
this was not a boast but a hope at once bold and devoutly humble that he might bring the muse but lately come to italy from her cloudy grecian mountains not to the capital the palatia romana
but to his own little country to his father's fields sloping down to the river and to the old beech trees with broken tops cleric said he thought virgil when he was dying at brindisi must have remembered that passage
crowded with figures of gods and men should be burned rather than survive him unperfected then his mind must have gone back to the perfect utterance of the georgics where the pen was fitted to the matter as the plough is to the furrow
and he must have said to himself with the thankfulness of a good man i was the first to bring the muse into my country we left the classroom quietly
though perhaps i alone knew cleric intimately enough to guess what that feeling was in the evening as i sat staring at my book the fervor of his voice stirred through the quantities on the page before me
i was wondering whether that particular rocky strip of new england coast about which he had so often told me was cleric's patria before i had got far with my reading i was disturbed by a knock i hurried to the door and when i opened it
and i beheld lena lingard she was so quietly conventionalized by city clothes that i might have passed her on the street without seeing her her black suit fitted her figure smoothly and a black lace hat with pale blue forget me nots
sat demurely on her yellow hair i led her toward cleric's chair the only comfortable one i had questioning her confusedly she was not disconcerted by my embarrassment she looked about her with the naive curiosity i remembered so well
you are quite comfortable here are n't you i live in lincoln now too jim i'm in business for myself i have a dressmaking shop in the raleigh block out on o street i've made a real good start but lena when did you come oh i've been here all winter
i've thought about looking you up lots of times
she laughed her mellow easy laugh that was either very artless or very comprehending one never quite knew which you seem the same though except you're a young man now of course do you think i've changed
she took off her jacket and sat more at ease in her blouse of some soft flimsy silk she was already at home in my place had slipped quietly into it as she did into everything
this summer i'm going to build the house for mother i've talked about so long i won't be able to pay up on it at first but
next summer i'll take her down new furniture and carpets so she'll have something to look forward to all winter i watched lena sitting there so smooth and sunny and well cared for and thought of how she used to run barefoot over the prairie until after the snow began to fly
and how crazy mary chased her round and round the cornfields it seemed to me wonderful that she should have got on so well in the world certainly she had no one but herself to thank for it
look at me i've never earned a dollar and i don't know that i'll ever be able to tony says you're going to be richer than mister harling some day she's always bragging about you you know tell me how is tony she's fine
she works for missus gardener at the hotel now she's housekeeper missus gardener's health is n't what it was and she can't see after everything like she used to
overlooked things is she still going with larry donovan oh that's on worse than ever i guess they're engaged tony talks about him like he was president of the railroad everybody laughs about it because she was never a girl to be soft
lena's face dimpled some of us could tell her things but it would n't do any good she'd always believe him that's antonia's failing you know if she once likes people she won't hear anything against them
i think i'd better go home and look after antonia i said i think you had
it's a good thing the harlings are friendly with her again larry's afraid of them they ship so much grain they have influence with the railroad people what are you studying she leaned her elbows on the table and drew my book toward her
i caught a faint odor of violet sachet so that's latin is it it looks hard
don't you just love a good play jim i can't stay at home in the evening if there's one in town i'd be willing to work like a slave it seems to me to live in a place where there are theaters let's go to a show together sometime
would you like to i'd be ever so pleased i'm never busy after six o'clock and i let my sewing girls go at half past five i board to save time but sometimes i cook a chop for myself and i'd be glad to cook one for you well
she began to put on her white gloves it's been awful good to see you jim
we can talk when you come to see me i expect you don't often have lady visitors
how surprised missus burden would be lena laughed softly as she rose
no i don't want you to go with me i'm to meet some swedes at the drug store you would n't care for them i wanted to see your room so i could write tony all about it but i must tell her how i left you right here with your books she's always so afraid some one will run off with you
i walked with her to the door come and see me sometimes when you're lonesome but maybe you have all the friends you want have you she turned her soft cheek to me have you she whispered teasingly in my ear
in a moment i watched her fade down the dusky stairway when i turned back to my room the place seemed much pleasanter than before lena had left something warm and friendly in the lamplight
how i loved to hear her laugh again it was so soft and unexcited and appreciative gave a favorable interpretation to everything when i closed my eyes i could hear them all laughing
the danish laundry girls and the three bohemian marys lena had brought them all back to me it came over me as it had never done before the relation between girls like those and the poetry of virgil
if there were no girls like them in the world there would be no poetry i understood that clearly for the first time this revelation seemed to me inestimably precious i clung to it as if it might suddenly vanish
as i sat down to my book at last my old dream about lena coming across the harvest field in her short skirt seemed to me like the memory of an actual experience it floated before me on the page like a picture and underneath it stood the mournful line
i feel it incumbent on me to explain what my exact connection with it is and so i may as well say at once that i am not the narrator but only the editor of this extraordinary history and then go on to tell how it found its way into my hands
some years ago i the editor was stopping with a friend vir doctissimus et amicus neus at a certain university which for the purposes of this history we will call cambridge
one of these gentlemen was i think without exception the handsomest young fellow i have ever seen he was very tall very broad and had a look of power and a grace of bearing that seemed as native to him as it is to a wild stag
in addition his face was almost without flaw a good face as well as a beautiful one and when he lifted his hat which he did just then to a passing lady i saw that his head was covered with little golden curls growing close to the scalp
good gracious i said to my friend with whom i was walking
they call him the greek god but look at the other one he's vincey's that's the god's name guardian and supposed to be full of every kind of information
i looked and found the older man quite as interesting in his way as the glorified specimen of humanity at his side he appeared to be about forty years of age and was i think as ugly as his companion was handsome
to begin with he was shortish rather bow legged very deep chested and with unusually long arms he had dark hair and small eyes and the hair grew right down on his forehead
and his whiskers grew right up to his hair so that there was uncommonly little of his countenance to be seen altogether he reminded me forcibly of a gorilla and yet there was something very pleasing and genial about the man's eye i remember saying that i should like to know him
all right answered my friend nothing easier i know vincey i'll introduce you and he did and for some minutes we stood chatting about the zulu people i think for i had just returned from the cape at the time presently however
a stoutish lady whose name i do not remember came along the pavement accompanied by a pretty fair haired girl and these two mister vincey who clearly knew them well at once joined walking off in their company
whose name i discovered was holly when he saw the ladies advancing he suddenly stopped short in his talk cast a reproachful look at his companion and with an abrupt nod to myself turned and marched off alone across the street
i heard afterwards that he was popularly supposed to be as much afraid of a woman as most people are of a mad dog which accounted for his precipitate retreat i cannot say however that young vincey showed much aversion to feminine society on this occasion
since it was exceedingly probable that the acquaintance would end in a transfer of her affections he was altogether too good looking and what is more he had none of that consciousness and conceit about him which usually afflicts handsome men
and makes them deservedly disliked by their fellows that same evening
this was the last i saw or heard of charon and the greek god for many a long day
but a month ago i received a letter and two packets one of manuscript
by horace holly a name that at the moment was not familiar to me it ran as follows
may first eighteen my dear sir you will be surprised considering the very slight nature of our acquaintance to get a letter from me
to be brief and come to my business i have recently read with much interest a book of yours describing a central african adventure
however this may be it has given me an idea
which together with the scarab the royal son of the sun
that my ward
leo vincey and myself have recently passed through a real african adventure of a nature so much more marvellous than the one which you describe that to tell the truth i am almost ashamed to submit it to you lest you should disbelieve my tale
you will see it stated in this manuscript that i or rather we had made up our minds not to make this history public during our joint lives nor should we alter our determination were it not for a circumstance which has recently arisen
going away again this time to central asia where if anywhere upon this earth wisdom is to be found and we anticipate that our sojourn there will be a long one possibly we shall not return
under these altered conditions it has become a question whether we are justified in withholding from the world an account of a phenomenon which we believe to be of unparalleled interest merely because our private life is involved
or because we are afraid of ridicule and doubt being cast upon our statements i hold one view about this matter and leo holds another and finally after much discussion we have come to a compromise namely to send the history to you
giving you full leave to publish it if you think fit the only stipulation being that you shall disguise our real names
and now what am i to say further i really do not know
exactly as it happened as regards she herself i have nothing to add day by day we gave greater occasion to regret that we did not better avail ourselves of our opportunities to obtain more information
from that marvellous woman who was she how did she first come to the caves of kor
we never ascertained and now alas we never shall at least not yet these and many other questions arise in my mind but what is the good of asking them now will you undertake the task
we give you complete freedom and as a reward you will we believe have the credit of presenting to the world the most wonderful history as distinguished from romance that its records can show read the manuscript which i have copied out fairly for your benefit
p s of course if any profit results from the sale of the writing should you care to undertake its publication you can do what you like with it but if there is a loss i will leave instructions with my lawyers messrs geoffrey and jordan to meet it
as i think the reader will be also and at once made up my mind to press on with the matter i wrote to this effect to mister holly but a week afterwards received a letter from that gentleman's lawyers returning my own
with the information that their client and mister leo vincey had already left this country for thibet and they did not at present know their address well that is all i have to say of the history itself the reader must judge i give it him
at first i was inclined to believe that this history of a woman on whom clothed in the majesty of her almost endless years the shadow of eternity itself lay like the dark wing of night was some gigantic allegory of which i could not catch the meaning
informing the substance of a mortal who yet drew her strength from earth and in whose human bosom passions yet rose and fell and beat as in the undying world around her the winds and the tides rise and fall and beat unceasingly
but as i went on i abandoned that idea also to me the story seems to bear the stamp of truth upon its face its explanation i must leave to others and with this slight preface
which circumstances make necessary i introduce the world to ayesha and the caves of kor the editor p s there is on consideration
he will observe that so far as we are made acquainted with him there appears to be nothing in the character of leo vincey which in the opinion of most people would have been likely to attract an intellect so powerful as that of ayesha he is not even
at any rate to my view particularly interesting indeed one might imagine that mister holly would under ordinary circumstances have easily outstripped him in the favour of she can it be that extremes meet
and that the very excess and splendour of her mind led her by means of some strange physical reaction to worship at the shrine of matter
or is the true explanation what i believe it to be namely that ayesha seeing further than we can see perceived the germ and smouldering spark of greatness which lay hid within her lover's soul
and well knew that under the influence of her gift of life watered by her wisdom and shone upon with the sunshine of her presence it would bloom like a flower and flash out like a star
filling the world with light and fragrance here also i am not able to answer but must leave the reader to form his own judgment on the facts before him
tall narrow gloomy room no furniture but a rude bench a bare stone floor cold stone walls and a gloomy ceiling of arched stone over head
a long narrow slit of a window high above in the wall through the iron bars of which otto could see a small patch of blue sky and now and then a darting swallow for an instant seen the next instant gone
such was the little baron's prison in trutz drachen fastened to a bolt and hanging against the walls hung a pair of heavy chains with gaping fetters at the ends they were thick with rust
and the red stain of the rust streaked the wall below where they hung like a smear of blood little otto shuddered as he looked at them can those be meant for me he thought
nothing was to be seen but that one patch of blue sky far up in the wall no sound from without was to be heard in that gloomy cell of stone for the window pierced the outer wall and the earth and its noises lay far below
suddenly a door crashed without and the footsteps of men were heard coming along the corridor they stopped in front of otto's cell he heard the jingle of keys and then a loud rattle of one thrust into the lock of the heavy oaken door
the rusty bolt was shot back with a screech the door opened and there stood baron henry no longer in his armor but clad in a long black robe that reached nearly to his feet a broad leather belt was girdled about his waist
and from it dangled a short heavy hunting sword another man was with the baron a heavy faced fellow clad in a leathern jerkin over which was drawn a short coat of linked mail the two stood for a moment looking into the room and otto
his pale face glimmering in the gloom sat upon the edge of the heavy wooden bench or bed looking back at them out of his great blue eyes then the two entered and closed the door behind them dost thou know why thou art here
said the baron in his deep harsh voice nay said otto i know not so said the baron then i will tell thee
three years ago the good baron frederick my uncle kneeled in the dust and besought mercy at thy father's hands the mercy he received was the coward blow that slew him thou knowest the story
said poor little otto and began to weep the baron stood for a moment or two looking gloomily upon him as the little boy sat there with the tears running down his white face i will tell thee
said he at last i swore an oath that the red cock should crow on drachenhausen and i have given it to the dames i swore an oath that no vuelph that ever left my hands should be able to strike such a blow as thy father gave to baron frederick
and now i will fulfil that too catch the boy casper and hold him as the man in the mail shirt stepped toward little otto the boy leaped up from where he sat and caught the baron about the knees
do not harm me i am only a little child i have never done harm to thee do not harm me take him away said the baron harshly the fellow stooped
and loosening otto's hold in spite of his struggles and cries carried him to the bench against which he held him whilst the baron stood above him baron henry and the other came forth from the cell carefully closing the wooden door behind them
at the end of the corridor the baron turned let the leech be sent to the boy said he
and walked away otto lay upon the hard couch in his cell covered with a shaggy bear skin his face was paler and thinner than ever and dark rings encircled his blue eyes
he was looking toward the door for there was a noise of someone fumbling with the lock without since that dreadful day when baron henry had come to his cell only two souls had visited otto
one was the fellow who had come with the baron that time his name otto found was casper he brought the boy his rude meals of bread and meat and water the other visitor was the leech or doctor
who besides binding wounds bleeding and leeching and administering his simple remedies to those who were taken sick in the castle acted as the baron's barber the baron had left the key in the lock of the door
so that these two might enter when they chose
working uncertainly with the key striving to turn it in the rusty cumbersome lock at last the bolts grated back there was a pause and then the door opened a little way
and otto thought that he could see someone peeping in from without by and by the door opened further there was another pause and then a slender elfish looking little girl
with straight black hair and shining black eyes crept noiselessly into the room she stood close by the door with her finger in her mouth staring at the boy where he lay upon his couch
until at last she stood within a few feet of where he lay art thou the baron otto said she yes answered otto
why i thought that thou wert a great tall fellow at least and here thou art a little boy no older than carl max the gooseherd then after a little pause my name is pauline
and my father is the baron i heard him tell my mother all about thee and so i wanted to come here and see thee myself art thou sick yes said otto i am sick and did my father hurt thee
aye said otto and his eyes filled with tears until one sparkling drop trickled slowly down his white face little pauline stood looking seriously at him for a while i am sorry for thee otto said she at last
and then at her childish pity he began crying in earnest this was only the first visit of many from the little maid for after that she often came to otto's prison who began to look for her coming from day to day
as the one bright spot in the darkness and the gloom sitting upon the edge of his bed and gazing into his face with wide open eyes she would listen to him by the hour as he told her of his life in that far away monastery home
of poor simple brother john's wonderful visions of the good abbot's books with their beautiful pictures and of all the monkish tales and stories of knights and dragons and heroes and emperors of ancient rome
which brother emmanuel had taught him to read in the crabbed monkish latin in which they were written one day the little maid sat for a long while silent after he had ended speaking
said she yes said otto all are true and do they never go out to fight other priests no said otto they know nothing of fighting
so said she and then fell silent in the thought of the wonder of it all and that there should be men in the world that knew nothing of violence and bloodshed
for in all the eight years of her life she had scarcely been outside of the walls of castle trutz drachen at another time it was of otto's mother that they were speaking and didst thou never see her otto said the little girl
aye said otto i see her sometimes in my dreams and her face always shines so bright that i know she is an angel for brother john has often seen the dear angels
and he tells me that their faces always shine in that way i saw her the night thy father hurt me so for i could not sleep and my head felt as though it would break asunder then she came
with that patient seriousness that he had caught from the monks and that sat so quaintly upon him so said little pauline and then after a pause that is why thy mother kissed thee when thy head ached because she is an angel
when i was sick my mother bade gretchen carry me to a far part of the house because i cried and so troubled her did thy mother ever strike thee otto nay said otto mine hath often struck me
told my father that last night he had seen a fire in the woods and that he had crept up to it without anyone knowing there he had seen the baron conrad and six of his men and that they were eating one of the swine that they had killed and roasted maybe said she
seating herself upon the edge of otto's couch maybe my father will kill thy father and they will bring him here and let him lie upon a black bed with bright candles burning around him as they did my uncle frederick when he was killed god forbid said otto
and then lay for a while with his hands clasped dost thou love me pauline said he after a while yes said pauline for thou art a good child though my father says that thy wits are cracked
mayhap they are said otto simply for i have often been told so before but thou wouldst not see me die pauline wouldst thou nay said pauline i would not see thee die
uncle frederick could not speak because he was dead then listen pauline said otto if i go not away from here i shall surely die every day i grow more sick and the leech cannot cure me
here he broke down and turning his face upon the couch began crying while little pauline sat looking seriously at him why dost thou cry otto said she after a while
because said he i am so sick and i want my father to come and take me away from here but why dost thou want to go away said pauline if thy father takes thee away
thou canst not tell me any more stories yes i can said otto for when i grow to be a man i will come again and marry thee and when thou art my wife i can tell thee all the stories that i know
dear pauline canst thou not tell my father where i am that he may come here and take me away before i die
said pauline after a little while for sometimes i go with casper max to see his mother who nursed me when i was a baby she is the wife of fritz the swineherd and she will make him tell thy father for she will do whatever i ask of her
wilt thou tell him pauline said otto but see otto said the little girl
yes said otto very seriously i will promise then i will tell thy father where thou art
wilt thou not pauline yes said she for if my father and my mother knew that i did such a thing they would strike me
how otto lived in the dragon's house the gates of the monastery stood wide open the world lay beyond and all was ready for departure baron conrad and his men at arms sat foot in stirrup
then poor brother john came forward and took the boy's hand and looked up into his face as he sat upon his horse we will meet again said he with his strange vacant smile but maybe it will be in paradise
and look down upon the angels in the court yard below aye answered otto with an answering smile forward cried the baron in a deep voice and with a clash of hoofs and jingle of armor they were gone
and the great wooden gates were shut to behind them down the steep winding pathway they rode and out into the great wide world beyond
upon which otto and brother john had gazed so often from the wooden belfry of the white cross on the hill hast been taught to ride a horse by the priests up yonder on michaelsburg asked the baron when they had reached the level road
nay said otto we had no horse to ride but only to bring in the harvest or the grapes from the further vineyards to the vintage prut said the baron
methought the abbot would have had enough of the blood of old days in his veins to have taught thee what is fitting for a knight to know art not afeared nay said otto with a smile i am not afeared
there at least thou showest thyself a vuelph said the grim baron but perhaps otto's thought of fear and baron conrad's thought of fear were two very different matters
the afternoon had passed by the time they had reached the end of their journey up the steep stony path they rode to the drawbridge
in the gray twilight of the coming night little otto looked up with great wondering awe struck eyes at this grim new home of his the next moment
they clattered over the drawbridge that spanned the narrow black gulph between the roadway and the wall and the next were past the echoing arch of the great gateway and in the gray gloaming of the paved court yard within
otto looked around upon the many faces gathered there to catch the first sight of the little baron hard rugged faces seamed and weather beaten very different from those of the gentle brethren
among whom he had lived and it seemed strange to him that there was none there whom he should know as he climbed the steep stony steps to the door of the baron's house old ursela came running down to meet him
she flung her withered arms around him and hugged him close to her my little child she cried and then fell to sobbing as though her heart would break
thought the little boy his new home was all very strange and wonderful to otto the armors the trophies the flags the long galleries with their ranges of rooms
the great hall below with its vaulted roof and its great fireplace of grotesquely carved stone and all the strange people
places where it seemed to otto no one could have ever been before once he wandered down a long dark passageway below the hall pushed open a narrow iron bound oaken door
and found himself all at once in a strange new land the gray light coming in through a range of tall narrow windows fell upon a row of silent motionless figures carven in stone
knights and ladies in strange armor and dress each lying upon his or her stony couch with clasped hands and gazing with fixed motionless
stony eyeballs up into the gloomy vaulted arch above them there lay in a cold silent row all of the vuelphs who had died since the ancient castle had been built it was the chapel into which otto had made his way
now long since fallen out of use excepting as a burial place of the race at another time he clambered up into the loft under the high peaked roof where lay numberless forgotten things covered with the dim dust of years
there a flock of pigeons had made their roost and flapped noisily out into the sunlight when he pushed open the door from below here he hunted among the mouldering things of the past until oh joy of joys
in an ancient oaken chest he found a great lot of worm eaten books that had belonged to some old chaplain of the castle in days gone by they were not precious and beautiful volumes such as the father abbot had showed him
but all the same they had their quaint painted pictures
again at another time going into the court yard otto had found the door of melchior's tower standing invitingly open for old hilda schwartz carl's wife
had come down below upon some business or other then upon the shaky wooden steps otto ran without waiting for a second thought for he had often gazed at those curious buildings hanging so far up in the air
and had wondered what they were like round and round and up and up otto climbed until his head spun at last he reached a landing stage and gazing over the edge and down
beheld the stone pavement far far below lit by a faint glimmer of light that entered through the arched doorway otto clutched tight hold of the wooden rail he had no thought that he had climbed so far
upon the other side of the landing was a window that pierced the thick stone walls of the tower
looking no larger than ants in the distance fed upon the refuse thrown out over the walls of the castle there lay the moving tree tops like a billowy green sea and the coarse thatched roofs of the peasant cottages
round which crawled the little children like tiny human specks then otto turned and crept down the stairs frightened at the height to which he had climbed at the doorway
he met mother hilda bless us she cried starting back and crossing herself and then seeing who it was ducked him a courtesy with as pleasant a smile as her forbidding face with its little deep set eyes
was able to put upon itself old ursela seemed nearer to the boy than anyone else about the castle
so different from the monkish tales that he had heard and read at the monastery but one day it was a tale of a different sort that she told him and one that opened his eyes to what he had never dreamed of before
the mellow sunlight fell through the window upon old ursela as she sat in the warmth with her distaff in her hands while otto lay close to her feet upon a bear skin silently thinking over the strange story
of a brave knight and a fiery dragon that she had just told him suddenly ursela broke the silence little one said she
nay said otto but tell me ursela how it was tis strange said the old woman that no one should have told thee in all this time and then
in her own fashion she related to him the story of how his father had set forth upon that expedition in spite of all that otto's mother had said beseeching him to abide at home
and how the poor lady had died from her fright and grief otto listened with eyes that grew wider and wider though not all with wonder he no longer lay upon the bear skin
but sat up with his hands clasped for a moment or two after the old woman had ended her story he sat staring silently at her then he cried out in a sharp voice and is this truth that you tell me ursela
and did my father seek to rob the towns people of their goods old ursela laughed
that he did and many times ah me those day's are all gone now and she fetched a deep sigh then we lived in plenty and had both silks and linens
and velvets besides in the store closets and were able to buy good wines and live in plenty upon the best
with nothing better than sour beer to drink but there is one comfort in it all and that is that our good baron paid back the score he owed the trutz drachen people not only for that
but for all that they had done from the very first thereupon she went on to tell otto how baron conrad had fulfilled the pledge of revenge that he had made abbot otto how he had watched day after day
until one time he had caught the trutz drachen folk with baron frederick at their head
and of how baron conrad had answered aye thou shalt have such mercy as thou deservest and had therewith raised his great two handed sword and laid his kneeling enemy dead at one blow
poor little otto had never dreamed that such cruelty and wickedness could be he listened to the old woman's story with gaping horror and when the last came and she told him
with a smack of her lips how his father had killed his enemy with his own hand he gave a gasping cry and sprang to his feet just then the door at the other end of the chamber was noisily opened and baron conrad himself strode into the room
otto turned his head and seeing who it was gave another cry loud and quavering and ran to his father and caught him by the hand oh father he cried oh father is it true that thou hast killed a man with thy own hand
aye said the baron grimly it is true enough and i think me i have killed many more than one but what of that otto
here in the world it is different from what it is at saint michaelsburg here a man must either slay or be slain but poor little otto with his face hidden in his father's robe
cried as though his heart would break oh father he said again and again it cannot be it cannot be that thou who art so kind to me should have killed a man with thine own hands
then i wish that i were back in the monastery again i am afraid out here in the great wide world perhaps somebody may kill me for i am only a weak little boy and could not save my own life if they chose to take it from me
drawing his bushy eyebrows together once he reached out his hand as though to stroke the boy's hair but drew it back again turning angrily upon the old woman ursela said he
thou must tell the child no more such stories as these he knowest not at all of such things as yet keep thy tongue busy with the old woman's tales that he loves to hear thee tell and leave it with me to teach him what becometh a true knight
and a vuelph that night the father and son sat together beside the roaring fire in the great ball tell me otto said the baron dost thou hate me
for having done what ursela told thee today that i did otto looked for a while into his father's face i know not said he at last in his quaint quiet voice but methinks that i
do not hate thee for it the baron drew his bushy brows together until his eyes twinkled out of the depths beneath them then of a sudden he broke into a great loud laugh
that brave knight happened to be in the neighborhood the very same night in which de valence fled before the arms of wallace across the clyde and he no sooner saw the scottish colors on the walls of dumbarton than finding out who was their planter
his soul took fire and stung with a generous ambition of equaling in glory his equal in years he determined to assist while he emulated the victor to this end
he traversed the adjoining country striving to enlighten the understandings of the stupidly satisfied and to excite the discontented to revolt with most he failed
some took upon them to lecture him on fishing in troubled waters and warned him if he would keep his head on his shoulders to wear his yoke in peace others thought the project too arduous for men of small means
they wished well to the arms of sir william wallace and should he continue successful would watch the moment to aid him with all their little power those who had much property feared to risk its loss by embracing a doubtful struggle
some were too great cowards to fight for the rights they would gladly regain by the exertions of others
but expose their offspring to the revenge of a resentful enemy this was the best apology of any that had been offered natural affection was the pleader and though blinded to its true interest such weakness had an amiable source and so was pardoned
you will send your hirelings to tow him in but if a plank could save him now you would not throw it to him i understand you sirs and shall trouble your patriotism no more in short
and a few brave spirits who would put all to the hazard for so good a cause could be prevailed on to hold themselves in readiness to obey sir eustace when he should see the moment to conduct them to sir william wallace
he was trying his eloquence among the clan at lennox when ker arriving stamped his persuasions with truth and above five hundred men arranged themselves under their lord's standard maxwell gladly explained himself to wallace's lieutenant
and summoning his little reserve they marched with flying pennons through the town of dumbarton
and sanctioned by the example of the earl of lennox whose name held a great influence in those parts several who before had held back from doubting their own judgment now came forward and nearly eight hundred well appointed men marched into the fortress
a council being held respecting the disposal of the new troops it was decided that the lennox men must remain with their earl in garrison while those brought by maxwell and under his command should follow wallace in the prosecution of his conquests along with his own especial people
and where the possession of such a castle would compel the neighboring ones to surrender and where occupying the hills with bands of resolute scots would be a more efficient bulwark than a thousand towers that maxwell gazed on him with admiration and lennox with wonder
mar had seen the power of his arms murray had already drunk the experience of a veteran from his genius hence they were not surprised on hearing that which filled strangers with amazement
or were visited in vision by some heroic shade who offered to his sleeping fancy designs far vaster than his waking faculties could have conceived he had thought that the young wallace might have won dumbarton by a bold stroke and that when his invincible courage should be steered by stroke
and that when his invincible courage should be steered by graver heads every success might be expected from his arms and saw that when turned to any cause of policy the gordian knot of it he did unloose familiar as his garter he marveled and said within himself
but when scotland lost her freedom as the sword was not drawn in her defense i looked not where it lay i then studied the arts of peace that is over and now the passion of my soul revives when the mind is bent on one object only
all becomes clear that leads to it zeal in such cases is almost genius soon after these observations it was admitted that wallace might attend lord mar and his family on the morrow to the isle of bute
when the dawn broke he arose from his heather bed in the great tower and having called forth twenty of the bothwell men to escort their lord he told ireland he should expect to have a cheering account of the wounded on his return
there my dear lord said he presenting it it will not dishonor your hand for it cut down many a proud norwegian on the field of largs wallace took the sword and turned to meet murray with edwin in the portal when they reached the citadel
lord mar between murray and edwin followed and the servants and guard completed the suit being well mounted they pleasantly pursued their way avoiding all inhabited places and resting in the deepest recesses of the hills
lord mar proposed traveling all night but at the close of the evening his countess complained of fatigue declaring she could not advance further than the eastern bank of the river cart
and seeing them laid to rest planted his men to keep guard around the circle the moon had sunk in the west before the whole of his little camp were asleep but when all seemed composed he wandered forth by the dim light of the stars to view the surrounding country
his country's enemies had leveled with the ground he turned in anguish of heart toward the south for there less racking remembrances hovered over the distant hills leaning on the shattered stump of an old tree he fixed his eyes on the far stretching plain
which alone seemed to divide him from the venerable sir ronald crawford and his youthful haunts at ayr full of thoughts of her who used to share those happy scenes he heard a sigh behind him he turned round and beheld a female figure disappear among the trees
the silver light of the stars was not brighter than its airy robes which floated in the wind his heart paused it beat violently still the figure advanced
but it fled and again vanished he dropped upon the ground in speechless disappointment tis false cried he recovering from his first expectation tis a phantom of my own creating
the pure spirit of marion would never fly from me i loved her too well she would not thus redouble my grief but i shall go to thee wife of my soul cried he and that is comfort balm indeed is the christian's hope
such were his words such were his thoughts till the coldness of the hour and the exhaustion of nature putting a friendly seal upon his senses he sunk upon the bank and fell into a profound sleep
when he awoke the lark was caroling above his head and to his surprise he found a plaid was laid over him he threw it off and beheld edwin seated at his feet
this has been your doing my kind brother said he but how came you to discover me i missed you when the dawn broke and at last found you here sleeping under the dew and has none else been astir inquired wallace thinking of the figure he had seen
finding everybody ready he took his station and setting forth all proceeded cheerfully though slowly through the delightful valleys of barochan by sunset they arrived at the point of embarkation
if myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought he was grievously mistaken wrongs are not righted so easily as that it was only the beginning
other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say i have won the victory for a day for two days the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader
and the knights of the rose were proportionately uplifted the day that blunt met his fall
who was it stole their tank if they did but know he should smart for it
smoke ye not their tricks lads see ye not that they have stolen their own water tank so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water the bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said and a general laugh went around
no one doubted that wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank so no more water was ever carried for the head squires but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over
even if myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary he was speedily undeceived one morning about a week after the fight as he and gascoyne were crossing the armory court
they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building holloa falworth they cried knowest thou that blunt is nigh well again nay said myles i knew it not but i am right glad to hear it
thou wilt sing a different song anon said one of the bachelors i tell thee he is hot against thee and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly aye marry said another
that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him look to thyself falworth he cometh again wednesday or thursday next thou standest in a parlous state myles said gascoyne as they entered the great quadrangle
i do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil i know not said myles boldly but i fear him not nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill
one evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory laughing and talking and shouting to one another holloa you sirrah falworth called one of them along the length of the room blunt cometh again to morrow day
myles saw gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look as the bachelor had said blunt came the next morning
it was just after chapel and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty myles was sitting on a bench along the wall talking and jesting with some who stood by
when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him it was walter blunt he came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked
even myles stopped in his speech for a moment and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed in his hand blunt carried the house orders for the day and without seeming to notice myles he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service
myles had risen and was now standing listening with the others when blunt had ended reading the list of names he rolled up the parchment and thrust it into his belt then swinging suddenly on his heel he strode straight up to myles facing him front to front
never will i forget or forgive that offence and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life when myles had seen his enemy turn upon him he did not know at first what to expect he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then
and he held himself prepared for any event he faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching and spoke up boldly in answer so be it walter blunt i fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me
thou'lt have cause to fear me ere i am through with thee he smiled a baleful lingering smile and then turned slowly and walked away what thinkest thou myles said gascoyne as the two left the armory together i think naught said myles gruffly
he will not dare to touch me to harm me i fear him not nevertheless he did not speak the full feelings of his heart i know not myles said gascoyne shaking his head doubtfully
walter blunt is a parlous evil minded knave and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth i fear him not said myles again but his heart foreboded trouble
even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that see ye not said myles one day
when the knights of the rose were gathered in the brutus tower see ye not that they grow as bad as ever an we put not a stop to this overmastery now it will never stop best let it be myles said wilkes they will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them
that night as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking as they always did before turning in he stood upon his cot and shouted silence list to me a little and then in the hush that followed
then he jumped down again from his elevated stand and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place what was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see what was the result he was not slow in discovering the next day
myles and gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy
and now and then applauding a more than usually well aimed cast of the knife suddenly that impish little page spoken of before robin ingoldsby thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy and said ho falworth
blunt is going to serve thee out to day and i myself heard him say so he says he is going to slit thine ears and then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared myles darted after him caught him midway in the quadrangle and brought him back by the scuff of the neck squalling and struggling
there said he still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside wilkes sit thou there thou imp of evil and now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon
an thou stop not thine outcry i will cut thy throat for thee and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger it was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey he knew myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats
among them was that of his taskmaster fearing punishment for his neglected duty he had slipped out of the cot and hidden himself beneath it those who had entered were walter blunt and three of the older bachelors
blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something but without avail it was myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled to lie in wait for him to overpower him by numbers and to mutilate him by slitting his ears
a disgraceful punishment administered as a rule only for thieving and poaching he would not dare to do such a thing cried myles with heaving breast and flashing eyes aye but he would said gascoyne his father lord reginald blunt is a great man over nottingham way
and my lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that but tell me robin ingoldsby
prithee tell it me robin where do they propose to lie in wait for falworth in the gate way of the buttery court so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory answered the boy are they there now said wilkes aye nine of them said robin
i heard blunt tell mowbray to go and gather the others
that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal that will do robin said myles thou mayst go and therewith the little imp scurried off pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner
i take no such coward's part as that i say an they hunger to fight give them their stomachful the others were very reluctant for such extreme measures but myles as usual carried his way and so a pitched battle was decided upon
it was gascoyne who suggested the plan which they afterwards followed then wilkes started away to gather together those of the knights of the rose not upon household duty
listened to them as they described the weapons nay nay master myles said he when myles had ended by telling the use to which he intended putting them thou art going all wrong in this matter with such blades ere this battle is ended some one would be slain and so murder done
then the family of him who was killed would haply have ye cited
e n though my trade be making of blades rather would i ha a good stout cudgel in my hand than the best dagger that ever was forged myles stood thoughtfully for a moment or two then looking up
chapter three don quixote when kenneth got home he told mister watson of his discovery and asked the old gentleman to write to the sign painter and find out what could be done the lawyer laughed heartily at his young friend's whim but agreed to help him
no mister watson i'm set on this it's a crime to allow these signs to flaunt themselves in our prettiest scenes my instinct revolts at the desecration besides
true enough if you're serious ken i'll frankly say the thing can't be done you may perhaps buy the privilege of maintaining the rocks of the glen free from advertising but the advertisers will paint more signs on all the approaches and you won't have gained much
i'll drive every advertising sign out of this country impossible the great corporations who control these industries make their fortunes by this style of advertising the rural districts are their strongholds and they must advertise or they can't sell their products
let them advertise in decent ways then what right has any soap maker to flaunt his wares in my face whether i'm interested in them or not the right of custom
people have submitted to these things so long that the manufacturers consider themselves justified in covering every barn rock and fence with their signs i see no way to stop them nor i at present but there must be a way
drive out one and another will take his place they pay liberally for locations pshaw ten dollars a year for a rock as big as a barn but they rent thousands of such positions and in the aggregate our farmers get large sums from them
and ruin the appearance of their homes and farms mister watson smiled they're not artists ken they can't realize on appearances but they can use the money the signs bring them they need to be educated that's all
these farmers seem very honest decent fellows they are ken i wish you knew them better so do i mister watson this campaign ought to bring us closer together for i mean to get them to help me you'll have to buy them i'm afraid
not all of them there must be some refinement among them but the lawyer was not convinced however it was not his desire to stifle this new born enthusiasm of kenneth's even though he believed it misdirected
he wanted the young man to rouse himself and take an interest in life and if his antagonism to advertising signs would effect this
it would cost the boy something but he would gain his money's worth in experience after a few days the sign painter answered the letter he would relinquish the three signs in the glen for a payment of fifty dollars each
with the understanding that no other competing signs were to take their place kenneth promptly mailed a check for the amount demanded and early next morning started for the glen with what he called his eliminators these eliminators consisted of two men with cans of turpentine
and gasoline and an equipment of scrubbing brushes parsons the farmer came over to watch this novel proceeding happy in the possession of three crisp five dollar notes given in accordance with the agreement made with him
all day the two men scrubbed the rocks faithfully assisted at odd times by their impatient employer but the thick splashes of paint clung desperately to the rugged surface of the rock and the task was a hard one
but his energy was not exhausted no one ever knew what it cost in labor and material to erase those three signs but after ten days they had vanished completely and the boy heaved a sigh of satisfaction and turned his attention to extending the campaign
on the farm nearest to elmhurst at the north which belonged to a man named webb was a barn facing the road that displayed on its side a tobacco sign kenneth interviewed mister webb and found that he received no money for the sign but the man contended
and acknowledged frankly that it was a pity to decorate their premises with signs of patent medicines and questionable soaps but the majority of them sneered at the champion and many refused point blank to consider any proposition to discard the advertisements
indeed some were proud of them and believed it a mark of distinction to have their fences and sheds announce an eye remedy or several varieties of pickles mister watson at first an amused observer of the campaign soon became indignant at the way that kenneth was ridiculed and reviled
not so much because they were interested in the novel ideas of the young artist as because they expected to be amused by hearing the boyish master of elmhurst lecture at em so they filled the little room to overflowing and to add to the dignity of the proceedings
the hon erastus hopkins state representative for the district lent his presence to the assemblage not that the honorable erastus cared a fig about this foolish talk of exterminating advertising signs he was himself a large stockholder in a breakfast food factory
which painted signs wherever it could secure space these signs were not works of art but they were distinctly helpful to business and only a fool in the opinion of the honorable erastus would protest against the inevitable what brought the legislator to the meeting
was the fact that he was coming forward for re election in november and believed that this afforded a good chance to meet some of his constituents and make a favorable impression so he came early and shook hands with everyone that arrived and afterward took as prominent a seat as possible indeed
the gathering had at first the appearance of being a political one so entirely did the representative dominate it but mister watson took the platform and shyly introduced the speaker of the evening the farmers all knew mister watson and liked him
so when kenneth rose they prepared to listen in respectful silence usually a young man making his maiden speech is somewhat diffident but young forbes was so thoroughly in earnest and so indignant at the opposition that his plans had encountered
that he forgot that it was his first public speech and thought only of impressing his hearers with his views exulting in the fact that on this occasion they could not talk back as they usually did in private
so he exhorted them earnestly to keep their homes beautiful and free from the degradation of advertising and never to permit glaring commercialism to mar the scenery around them he told them what he had been able to accomplish by himself in a short time
how he had redeemed the glen from its disgraceful condition and restored it to its former beauty he asked them to observe webb's pretty homestead no longer marred by the unsightly sign upon the barn and then
he appealed to them to help him in driving all the advertising signs out of the community when he ended they applauded his speech mildly but it was chiefly for the reason that he had spoken so forcibly and well then
the honorable erastus hopkins quick to catch the lack of sympathy in the audience stood up and begged leave to reply to young forbes he said the objection to advertising signs was only a rich man's aristocratic hobby
and that it could not be indulged in a democratic community of honest people his own firm he said bought thousands of bushels of oats from the farmers and converted them into the celebrated eagle eye breakfast food three packages for a quarter
they sold this breakfast food to thousands of farmers to give them health and strength to harvest another crop of oats thus he benefited the community going and coming what should he not advertise this mutual benefit commodity wherever he pleased and especially among the farmers
what aristocratic notion could prevent him it was a mighty good thing for the farmers to be reminded by means of the signs on their barns and fences of the things they needed in daily life if the young man at elmhurst would like to be of public service
he might find some better way to do so than by advancing such crazy ideas but this continued the representative was a subject of small importance what he wished especially to call their attention to was the fact that he had served the district faithfully as representative
and deserved their suffrages for renomination and then he began to discuss political questions in general and his own merits in particular so that kenneth and mister watson disgusted at the way in which the honorable erastus had captured the meeting
left the school house and indignantly returned to elmhurst this man hopkins said mister watson angrily is not a gentleman he's an impertinent meddler he ruined any good effect my speech might have created said kenneth gloomily
give it up my boy advised the elder man laying a kindly hand on the youth's shoulder it really isn't worth the struggle but i can't give it up and acknowledge myself beaten protested kenneth almost ready to weep with disappointment
well well let's think it over ken and see what can be done perhaps that rascally hopkins was right when he advised you to find some other way to serve the community i can't do better than to make it clean to do away with these disreputable signs said the boy stubbornly
kenneth flushed red he was by nature shy and retiring to a degree only his pent up enthusiasm had carried him through the ordeal and now that it was over he was chagrined to think that the speech had been so ineffective
but take note though thou seest me in the greatest danger on earth thou must not set thy hand to thy sword to defend me unless thou shouldst perceive that they who assail me are rabble and low people in which case thou canst come to my aid don quixote
it was early evening october fifth at green's ranch the somber quiet of the place seemed to indicate a deserted estate but a dim light in the window invited me to knock at once i heard feet shuffle across the floor and a bolt slide in the door
who be you called a woman distinctly i introduced myself through the key hole and was admitted
the idea that a frontier woman should be so easily frightened seemed ridiculous haven't you heard she returned why the whole country is up in arms looking for two desperate outlaws they shot a sheep herder last night in telegraph canyon
and after robbing the fellow of four dollars left him for dead mister green went to egan canyon this afternoon for the mail and hasn't returned
i said we were well provided with food and fire arms that she might feel quite safe from the brigands now coonskin called for me and said our evening meal was under way so i bade missus green a good night
coonskin whose chief literary diet had been dime novels listened to the news with rapt attention
gee wouldn't i like to capture em though he said enthusiastically
something tells me that we'll meet these outlaws supper over and dishes washed we retired
the night was cool and a gentle breeze was blowing
suddenly i heard don who was on guard growl then a sound of wheels and a horse's whinny will your dog bite mister pod called mister green
oh he chuckled anybody would know you by your outfit besides everybody along the trail has been expecting you even two desperadoes this was interesting
while at breakfast i learned that the salt lake newspapers containing illustrated accounts of my prosperity had subscribers all along the trail that the shooting at telegraph canyon was the first in that section for sixteen years
that no pay boxes were expected at the egan mill where a half dozen men were working and that what was of more importance than the rest it was the prevailing opinion that pye pod was the man the outlaws were laying for griswold is the unfortunate man's name said green
the outlaws pretended to be friendly lunched with him and started off on their horses but griswold had no sooner turned his back than the strangers ordered him to throw up his hands they took all his funds shot him and galloped away with his good horses leaving their jaded ones
the poor fellow regained consciousness and managed by morning to crawl six miles to a ranch resolute men hurriedly saddled their horses and soon thirty were after the outlaws i hear griswold is with them he having recovered
they felt pretty near the game mister green gave me a second handed description of the desperadoes and their outfit and directing me on my route wished us godspeed
i felt that my route forced me to overtake rather than to meet by chance two men who set but little value on other men's lives and even less on their own
we soon arrived at egan where we were kindly received the men showed us about the works allowing me to take photographs
at three points only should we find water at nine mile spring thirty mile and pinto creek the latter being seventy miles away no habitation would we see only an occasional coyote or a band of wild horses or possibly some prairie schooner
were climbing higher and higher the rugged plateau until we reached nine mile and unpacked the spring was in a grassy spot and coonskin first replenished our canteens then released the donkeys it was noon accustomed as we were to travel on two meals a day
the desperadoes formed the chief topic of discussion even don showed the bloodhound in him and ever since leaving egan showed unusual excitement and was more vigilant
taking everything into consideration we were in a fair mood to be startled when the dog sprang to his feet and growled then three men heavily armed galloped up and dismounted i was relieved when i saw one of the riders wearing a bandage round his head it must be griswold
the strangers left their steeds standing each tying a rein to a stirrup then introduced themselves
but now coonskin cooked for our friends while i did all the honors and gleaned all the information essential to our interests
but had set out hardly equipped for the chase one picked up a two quart canteen saying good naturedly that he reckoned he would have to rustle it
before separating on our several missions coonskin photographed the party and griswold repeated his description of the outlaws
before leaving they asked me if i would blaze a sage brush fire that night should i reach thirty mile and discover any evidence of the bandits they also admonished me to hold up and shoot without considering an instant any two mounted men of the description given else we two would never live to tell how it happened
with this parting injunction unofficial though it was the riders loped away and my nervous troop at half past two hit the trail in lively form i was glad the country was clear and open only an occasional dwarf cedar stood in dark relief against the sage
and in consequence of the clouds which had gathered the darkness was dense i felt we must be near to thirty mile the idea of passing the spring and having to trace our steps next morning was not to be entertained seeing a bunch of cedars some distance to the right i headed for them
and there we camped behind the screen of three small trees and the darkness we spread our blankets lunched on bread and cold meat and went to sleep the donkeys were picketed still another hundred yards back so as not to be seen from the trail we did not light a fire
by ten o'clock next morning we had breakfasted and were trailing toward the summit of the plateau three miles further on was thirty mile here again i unpacked the animals for an hour's grazing on the grass by the spring the noon hour found us weary travelers reclining on a heap of blankets
to the east some fifty feet away stood a tub obscured by pussy willows and brimming with cool water furnished by a cedar trough which reached from the bubbling spring the overflow streamed down a tiny gorge in the hard soil under cover of the willows and finally sank in the earth
said coonskin disappointedly at length i'd give a farm to get a whack at them he had no sooner uttered the words than he turned pale and i turned to behold two small moving dots on the horizon some two miles down the trail
jove he added i believe the outlaws are coming
assigning to my valet the shot gun and the smith and wesson double action revolver i loaded two extra shells with buckshot tested the locks of my winchester and single action colt revolver gave coonskin explicit instructions and awaited events
when the strange riders rode to within a half mile of us they stopped and dismounted it was plain they were cinching their saddles probably preparing to do some rough riding
but i was cautioned that they might exchange a horse for one on the range in order to mislead their pursuers they and their outfit in all other respects tallied with the description given to me
he protested that it would be better not to attempt to hold up the fellows until we were sure we were right
and stationing himself some ten feet before us watched the strangers eagerly i assured coonskin that if our dog allowed those horsemen to enter camp we could rest easy
don't let them corral us i cautioned if they get us between them the game is up those were anxious moments for me as well as for the young man who was ten years my junior i was seated on our packs my winchester lying across my knees cocked
coonskin sat on the ground at my right with shot gun in hand our revolvers were in our belts our bearded and sun burned faces long hair and generally rough attire added to our unfriendly attitude must have puzzled the approaching horsemen
when they had come to a hundred feet from us i called roughly helloa boys come in you're just in time for grub
he identified the desperadoes instantly reining their steeds one of them slung some simple questions at me designed no doubt to throw us off guard purty nice lot of burros you've got he began pretty fair i replied disinterestedly
i did not answer then the man asked how far is it i don't know and i don't care a d
shall we go in and cook no better water our horses and go on said the partner
the other guided his horse to our left to hem coonskin and me in between them instantly i rose to my feet and trailing the rifle over my wrist strode eyeing him defiantly in a line at a right angle with the course of his horse
but the rogue did not go far before turning his steed in the direction of the tub there both men dismounted behind their steeds took off the bridles with spade bits that their horses might drink
not exactly i said with a faint smile don't think i ever saw three armed men i waited a few seconds for my levity to produce the desired effect then added
there were three determined looking fellows armed with double barreled shot guns who stopped here they were man hunting
how long ago were they here where'd they go oh just a little while ago they took in a few cans of water i here pointed in their direction and said they were going to cook over there behind that knoll
but sancho never budged his courage had left him the outlaws turned their eyes upon us so quickly i think they must have overheard my whispered command they hastily bridled mounted and rode southwesterly in the direction we were bound
i was in the mood to jump coonskin for not aiding me to hold up the outlaws
and marched them handcuffed into ely the county seat and think of the handsome reward i said
unless it should be solicited by me and furthermore i did not wish to hear any expressions of desire to attack anything more formidable than a jack rabbit
and my caravan was on the move again about midnight we made a dry camp at a discreet distance from the trail where without building a fire we made a cold lunch serve for our second meal that day and retired next morning early we resumed the journey
by two o'clock we had crossed the long valley mountains and were on the margin of a sage covered plain still probably twenty miles to pinto several times we were puzzled by forking trails and were in doubt whether we were on the right one to eureka
i judged the valley to be ten miles wide on we rode the plucky animals swinging slowly along in that awkward yet amusing hip movement characteristic of the burro until i distinguished across the plain what looked to be a house i decided to head for it
we arrived there at five o'clock to find the place temporarily deserted to discover a fine spring and plenty of hay here we cooked our evening meal and were enjoying a smoke when two men rode up with an air of conscious proprietorship
they were mister robinson proprietor of newark mines and his superintendent both were very hospitable mister robinson invited me to help myself to anything i or my party needed regretted that we had not waited to dine with him and asked us to spend the evening at his house and breakfast with him
we were treated to a heaping plate of delicious apples and it was a late hour before we sought our tents it was a relief to feel myself well beyond the outlaws domain next day my good host directed his superintendent to guide us over chihuahua pass
which would save us a fifteen mile journey around the extremity of the mountain by way of pinto the climb over the pass was rich with beautiful views after rising several hundred feet and looking back the vista between the summits and the plains glistening in the sun was superb
the mines were a mile or two up the canyon and to this point my kind host accompanied us after which his man on horseback led us over the roughest and most puzzling part of the trail
the queen bee by carl ewald the farmer opened his hive off with you he said to the bees the sun is shining and everywhere the flowers are coming out
many a streamlet makes a river
what does that matter to us said the bees but all the same they flew out for they had been sitting all the winter in the hive
they hummed and buzzed they stretched their legs they tried their wings they swarmed out in all directions they crawled up and down the hive they flew off to the flowers and bushes or wandered all around on the ground there were hundreds and hundreds of them
last of all came the queen she was bigger than the others and it was she who ruled the hive
a good bee does not idle but turns to with a will and makes good use of its time so she divided them into parties and set them to work you over there fly out and see if there is any honey in the flowers the others can collect flower dust and when you come home give it in smartly to the old bees in the hive
away they flew at once but all the very young ones stayed behind they made the last party for they had never been out with the others what are we to do they asked you you must perspire said the queen one two three then we can begin our work
and they perspired as well as they had learned to and the prettiest yellow wax came out of their bodies good said the queen now we will begin to build the old bees took the wax and began to build a number of little six sided cells all alike and close up to one another
all the time they were building the others came flying in with flower dust and honey which they laid at the queen's feet we can now knead the dough she said but first put a little honey in that makes it taste so much better they kneaded and kneaded
and before very long they had made some pretty little loaves of bee bread which they carried into the cells now let us go on with the building commanded the queen bee and they perspired wax and built for all they were worth and now my work begins said the queen
and she heaved a deep sigh for her work was the hardest work of all she sat down in the middle of the hive and began to lay her eggs she laid great heaps of them
each egg had a little cell to itself and when they had all been put in their places
the bees had them ready in no time and then the queen laid ten pretty eggs one in each of the big rooms and the doors were fixed as before every day the bees flew in and out gathering great heaps of honey and flower dust but in the evening when their work was done
they would open the doors just a crack and have a peep at the eggs take care the queen said one day they are coming and all the eggs burst at once and in every cell lay a pretty little bee baby what funny creatures said the young bees
they have no eyes and where are their legs and wings
one must be a grub before one can become a bee be quick now and give them something to eat the bees bestirred themselves to feed the little ones
the ten however that lay in the large cells got as much to eat as ever they wanted and every day a great quantity of honey was carried in to them they are princesses said the queen so you must treat them well the others you can stint they are only working people
and they must accustom themselves to be content with what they can get and every morning the poor little wretches got a little piece of bee bread and nothing more and with that they had to be satisfied though they were ever so hungry
she was the youngest of them all and only just come out of the egg she could not see but she could plainly hear the grown up bees talking outside and for a while she lay quite still and kept her thoughts to herself all at once she said out loud
you have had enough for to day answered the old bee who was appointed to be head bee nurse creeping up and down in the passage outside maybe but i am hungry shouted the little grub i will go into one of the princesses chambers i have not room to stir here
just listen to her said the old bee mockingly one would think by the demands she makes that she was a fine little princess
but i want to be queen cried the grub and thumped on the door of course the old bee did not answer such nonsense but went on to the others from every side they were calling out for more food and the little grub could hear it all it is hard though she thought that we should have to be so hungry
but she had scarcely said this before the other princesses began to cry out in the most dreadful manner
the head bee nurse came running up in an instant and opened the doors what are your graces orders she asked dropping a curtsy and scraping the ground with her feet more honey they shouted all in one voice but me first me first i am the one who is to be queen
in a moment in a moment your graces she answered and ran off as fast as her six legs could carry her she soon came back with many other bees
and then they got them to hold their tongues and lie still and rest but the little grub lay awake thinking over what had happened she longed so much for some honey that she began to shake the door again give me some honey i can't stand it any longer
hold your tongue little bawler the queen's coming and at the same moment the queen bee came go your ways she said to the bees i wish to be alone for a long time she stood in silence before the princesses chambers
now they are lying there asleep she said at last from morning till evening they do nothing but eat and sleep and they grow bigger and fatter every day in a few days they will be full grown and will creep out of their cells then my turn will be over
i know that too well i have heard the bees saying to one another that they would like to have a younger and more beautiful queen and they will chase me away in disgrace but i will not submit to it to morrow i will kill them all
then she went away but the little grub had heard all she said dear me she thought it is really a pity about the little princesses they are certainly very uppish and they have not been nice to me
you must mind what you are doing my good grub she said
next time i shall tell the queen first listen to me said the grub and she told her about the queen's wicked design good gracious is that true cried the old nurse and beat her wings in horror and without hearing a word more she hurried off to tell the other bees
i think i deserve a little honey for what i have done said the little grub but i can now lie down and sleep with a good conscience next evening when the queen thought that all the bees were in bed she came to kill the princesses the grub could hear her talking aloud to herself
but she was quite afraid of the wicked queen and dared not stir i hope she won't kill the princesses she thought and squeezed herself nearer to the door to hear what happened the queen looked cautiously round on all sides and then opened the first of the doors
but at the same moment the bees swarmed out from all directions seized her by the legs and wings and dragged her out what is the matter she cried are you raising a rebellion no your majesty answered the bees with great reverence but we know that you are intending to kill the princesses
and that you shall not be allowed to do
let me go cried the queen and tried to get away i am queen now anyway and have the power to do what i like how do you know that i shall die in the autumn but the bees held her fast and dragged her outside the hive there they set her free
but she shook her wings in a passion and said to them you are disloyal subjects who are not worth ruling over i won't stay here an hour longer
some of the old bees who had been grubs at the same time as the queen declared that they would follow her and soon after they flew away now we have no queen said the others we must take good care of the princesses
and so they crammed them with honey from morning till night and they grew and grabbed and squabbled and made more noise each day than the day before as for the little grub no one gave a single thought to her one morning the doors of the princesses chambers flew open
and all ten of them stepped out beautiful full grown queen bees the other bees ran up and gazed at them in admiration
it is hard to say which is the most beautiful i am one cried you make a mistake said another and stabbed her with her sting you are rather conceited shrieked a third i imagine that i am rather prettier than you are
and immediately they all began calling out at once and soon after began to fight with one another as hard as ever they could
let them go on fighting then we shall see which of them is the strongest and we will choose her to be our queen we can't do with more than one
wings and legs which had been bitten off were flying about in the air and after some time eight of the princesses lay dead upon the ground the two last were still fighting one of them had lost all her wings and the other had only four legs left
we should have done better to have kept the old one but she might have spared herself the remark for in the same moment the princesses gave each other such a stab with their stings that they both fell dead as a door nail
now we have no queen what shall we do what shall we do in despair they crawled about the hive and did not know which way to turn but the oldest and cleverest sat in a corner and held a council
but at last the head bee nurse got a hearing and said
i remember that the same misfortune happened to us in this hive a long time ago i was then a grub myself i lay in my cell and distinctly heard what took place
but the bees took one of us grubs and laid her in one of the princesses cells they fed her every day with the finest and best honey in the whole hive and when she was full grown she was a charming and good queen i can clearly remember the whole affair
but we may do the same thing again i propose that we act in the same way the bees were delighted and cried that they would willingly do so and they ran off at once to fetch a grub wait a moment cried the head bee nurse and take me with you
at any rate i will come and help you consider now it must be one of the youngest grubs for she must have time to think over her new position when one has been brought up to be a mere drudge it is not easy to accustom oneself to wear a crown
that also seemed to the bees to be wise and the old one went on close by the side of the princesses cells lies a little grub she is the youngest of them all she must have learnt a good deal by hearing the princesses refined conversation
and i have noticed that she has some character besides it was she who was honourable enough to tell me about the wicked intentions of the old queen let us take her at once they went in a solemn procession to the six sided cell where the little grub lay
the head bee nurse politely knocked at the door opened it cautiously and told the grub what the bees had decided at first she could hardly believe her own ears
she perceived that it was all in earnest so i am to be queen after all
you would not believe it you old growler i hope that your majesty will forget the rude remarks that i made at the time you lay in the six sided cell said the old bee with a respectful bow i forgive you said the new baked princess fetch me some more honey
a little time after the grub was full grown and stepped out of her cell as big and as beautiful as the bees could wish and besides she knew how to commando away with you she said
i am thinking of building a new wing to the hive the new princesses shall live there next year it is very unsuitable for them to be so near common grubs heyday said the bees to one another
no said the head bee nurse that is not so
containing a theory of the earth a general history of man of the brute creation and of vegetables minerals et cetera of which mister barr published an english translation in ten goodly volumes thus in this work of world wide celebrity is the feline race discussed
i give the author's words as i find them the cat is a faithless domestic and only kept through necessity to oppose to another domestic which incommodes us still more and which we cannot drive away
for we pay no respect to those who being fond of all beasts keep cats for amusement though these animals are gentle and frolicksome when young yet they even then possess an innate cunning and perverse disposition which age increases and which education only serves to conceal
like all knaves they know how to conceal their intentions to watch wait and choose opportunities for seizing their prey to fly from punishment and to remain away until the danger is over and they can return with safety they readily conform to the habits of society but never acquire its manners
for of attachment they have only the appearance as may be seen by the obliquity of their motions and duplicity of their looks they never look in the face those who treat them best and of whom they seem to be the most fond
but either through fear or falsehood they approach him by windings to seek for those caresses they have no pleasure in but only to flatter those from whom they receive them very different from that faithful animal the dog whose sentiments are all directed to the person of his master
the cat appears only to feel for himself only to love conditionally only to partake of society that he may abuse it and by this disposition he has more affinity to man than the dog who is all sincerity
though he is sadly mistaken on the subject of which he writes these were probably his honest opinions but what can be said for a writer in the encyclopaedia britannica who holds forth as follows and is not only ignorant of what he talks about but steals buffon's absurd prejudices and passes them off as his own
in his opinion the cat is a useful but deceitful domestic although when young it is playful and gay it possesses at the same time an innate malice and perverse disposition which increases as it grows up and which education learns it to conceal but never to subdue
here i think are some pretty sentiments and some valuable information about the cat kind let us hope that the other contributors to the encyclopaedia knew something more of what they wrote about than the gentleman above quoted and these opinions are not uncommon
for instance allow me to quote from an article in a popular miscellany no i cannot abide cats says the writer pet cats wild cats tom cats gib cats persian cats angora cats tortoiseshell cats tabby cats black cats manx cats brindled cats
none of these cats delight me they are associated in my mind with none but disagreeable objects and remembrances old maids witchcraft dreadful sabbaths with old women flying up the chimney upon broom sticks to drink hell broth with the evil one
charms incantations sorceries sucking children's breaths stopping out late on the tiles catterwauling and molrowing in the night season prowling about the streets at unseasonable hours and a variety of other things too numerous and too unpleasant to mention
upon the other hand puss has had her defenders and miss isabel hill writes thus poor pinkey i can scarce dare a word in praise of one belonging to thy slandered sisterhood
yet a few good examples embolden me to assert that i have rarely known any harm of cats who were given a fair chance though i own i have seldom met with any that have enjoyed that advantage is it their fault that they are born nearly without brains though with all their senses about them and of a tender turn
oh that all females made such good use of their tongues cross from sheer melancholy reflecting in their starved and persecuted maturity on the fondness lavished over the days in which they were pet useless toys as soon as they can deserve and may require kind treatment
they are as ill used as if they were constant wives rather unfair on ladies of their excessive genius could every cat like whittington's catch fortunes for her master as well as mice we should hear no more said against the species
suppose they only fawn on us because we house and feed them they have no nobler proofs of friendship with which to thank us and if their very gratitude for this self interested hire be adduced as a crime alas poor pussies had minette been a thomas a whiskered fur collared philander
he would most probably have surmounted that unmanly weakness and received all favours as but his due i never see a missus mouser rubbing her soft coat against me with round upturned eyes but i translate her purr into words like these
agur in the book of proverbs refers to some and all through scripture we find animals used as types of human character cats may teach us patience and perseverance and earnest concentration of mind on a desired object
as they watch for hours together by a mouse hole or in ambush for a bird in their nicely calculated springs we are taught neither to come short through want of mercy or go beyond the mark in its excess
in their delicate walking amidst the fragile articles on a table or mantel piece is illustrated the tact and discrimination by which we should thread rather than force our way and in pursuit of our own ends avoid the injuring of others
in their noiseless tread and stealthy movements we are reminded of the frequent importance of secresy and caution prior to action while their promptitude at the right moment warns us on the other hand against the evils of irresolution and delay
the curiosity with which they spy into all places and the thorough smelling which any new object invariably receives from them commends to us the pursuit of knowledge even under difficulties cats however will never smell the same thing twice over
thereby showing a retentive as well as an acquiring faculty then to speak of what may be learned from their mere form and ordinary motions so full of beauty and gracefulness what cat was ever awkward or clumsy
whether in play or in earnest cats are the very embodiment of elegance as your cat rubs her head against something you offer her which she either does not fancy or does not want she instructs you that there is a gracious mode of refusing a thing
and as she sits up like a bear on her hind legs to ask for something which cats will often do for a long time together you may see the advantage of a winning and engaging way as well when you are seeking a favour as when you think fit to decline one
if true courtesy and considerateness should prevent you not merely from positively hurting another but also from purposely clashing say with another's fancies peculiarities or predilections this too may be learned from the cat who does not like to be rubbed the wrong way
who does like to be rubbed the wrong way and who objects to your treading on her tail nor is the soft foot with its skilfully sheathed and ever sharp claws without a moral too for whilst there is nothing commendable in anything approaching to spite passion or revenge
it may remind one of the placid countenance and calm repose with which the sphynx seems to look forth from the shadow of the pyramids on the changes and troubles of the world this leads to the remark that cats after all are very enigmatical creatures
you never get to the bottom of cats you will never find any two well known to you that do not offer marked diversities in ways and dispositions and in general the combination they exhibit of activity and repose
and the rapidity with which they pass from the one to the other their gentle aspects and fragile form united with strength and pliancy their sudden appearances and disappearances their tenacity of life and many escapes from dangers as many lives as a cat
their silent and rapid movements their sometimes unaccountable gatherings and strange noises at night all contribute to invest them with a mysterious fascination which reaches its culminating point in the not very frequent case of a completely black cat
instances are frequent i am happy to tell cat haters of illustrious persons who have been attached to the feline race and of cats who have merited such attachment mahomet would seem to have been very fond of cats
for it is said that he once cut off the sleeve of his robe rather than disturb his favourite while sleeping on it petrarch was so fond of his cat that when it died he had it embalmed and placed in a niche in his apartment and you ought to read what rousseau has to say in favour of the feline race
it was a large house walled round very carefully and said to be full of patients it was at damascus that the incident above related occurred to mahomet his followers in this place ever afterwards paid a great respect to cats
and supported the hospital in question by public subscriptions with much liberality when the duke of norfolk was committed to the tower in the reign of queen elizabeth a favourite cat made her way into the prison room by getting down the chimney
the first day says lady morgan in her delightful book we had the honour of dining at the palace of the archbishop of toronto at naples he said to me
let us see though before we try our anecdotes what is known of the cat's peculiarities i rather like this quaint description of the domestic pussy which occurs in an old heraldic book john bossewell's workes of armorie published in fifteen ninety seven
the field is of the saphire on a chief pearle a masion cruieves this beaste is called a masion for that he is enimie to myse and rattes he is slye and wittie and seeth so sharpely that he overcommeth darkness of the nighte
in shape of body he is like unto a leoparde
he doth delighte that he enjoyeth his libertie and in his youth he is swifte plyante and merye he maketh a rufull noyse and a gastefulle when he profereth to fighte with another he is a cruell beaste when he is wilde
and falleth on his owne feete from moste highe places and never is hurt therewith when he hathe a fayre skinne he is as it were proude thereof and then he goethe muche aboute to be seene it is commonly supposed that a cat's scratch is venomous
because a lacerated wound oftener festers than a smooth cut from a sharp knife it is erroneously said that cats feel a cutaneous irritation at the approach of rain and offer sensible evidence of uneasiness allusion may be found to this in thomson's seasons
virgil has also made the subject a theme for poetic allusion the chinese look into their cat's eyes to know what o'clock it is
i have noticed this often myself and have seen them rush about in a half wild state just before windy weather i think it is when the wind is rising that they are most affected it is stated in a japanese book that the tip of a cat's nose is always cold
except on the day corresponding with our midsummer day this is a question i cannot say i have gone into deeply i know however that cats always have a warm nose when they first awaken from sleep all cats are fond of warmth
i knew one which used to open an oven door after the kitchen fire was out and creep into the oven one day the servant shut the door not noticing the cat was inside and lighted the fire for a long while she could not make out whence came the sounds of its crying and scratching
but fortunately made the discovery in time to save its life a cat's love of the sunshine is well known and perhaps this story may not be unfamiliar to the reader one broiling hot summer's day charles james fox and the prince of wales were lounging up saint james's street
although the prince might choose which side of the street he thought fit on reaching piccadilly it turned out that fox had seen thirteen cats and the prince none the prince asked for an explanation of this apparent miracle
said fox chose of course the shady side of the way as most agreeable i knew that the sunny side would be left for me and that cats prefer the sunshine cats usually but not always fall on their feet because of the facility with which they balance themselves when springing from a height
which power of balancing is in some degree produced by the flexibility of the heel the bones of which have no fewer than four joints cats alight softly on their feet because in the middle of the foot is a large ball or pad in five parts formed of an elastic substance and at the base of each toe is a similar pad
this so changes the position of the centre of gravity that the body makes a half turn in the air and the feet become lowest
there is a breed of tail less white cats in the isle of man and also in devonshire these are not the sort of animals with which on shipboard the stow aways are made acquainted a great many cats in the isle of man are said to be deaf thus as deaf as a manx cat
there is an idea that white cats with blue eyes are always deaf but a correspondent of notes and queries says i am myself possessed of a white cat which at the advanced age of upwards of seventeen years still retains its hearing to great perfection
and is remarkably intelligent and devoted more so than cats are usually given credit for its affection for persons is indeed more like that of a dog than of a cat it is a half bred persian cat and its eyes are perfectly blue
with round pupils not elongated as those of cats usually are it occasionally suffers from irritation in the ears but this has not at all resulted in deafness do you know why cats always wash themselves after a meal
but the sparrow flew away this vexed pussy extremely and he said as long as i live i will eat first and wash my face afterwards which all cats do even to this day
a french writer says the three animals that waste most time over their toilet are cats flies and women the attitudes and motions of a cat are very graceful because she is furnished with collar bones she can therefore carry food to her mouth like a monkey
can clasp can climb and can strike sideways and seat herself at a height upon a very narrow space the lateral movements of the head in cats are not so extensive as in the owl but are nevertheless considerable
a cat can look round pretty far behind it without moving its body which might be apt to startle its prey the spine of the cat is very full and loose in order that all its movements in all possible directions and circumstances may be free and unrestrained
for this purpose too all the joints which connect its bones together are extremely loose and free thus the cat is enabled to get through small apertures to leap from great heights and even to fall in an unfavourable posture with little or no injury to itself
its ears are not so moveable as those of some other animals but are more so than in very many animals the shape of the external ear or rather cartilaginous portion is admirably adapted to intercept sounds
the natural posture is forward and outward so as to catch sounds proceeding from the front and sides the upper half however is moveable and by means of a thin layer of muscular fibres it is made to curve backwards and receive sounds from the rear
although a cat cannot lick its face and head it nevertheless cleans these parts thoroughly in fact as we often observe a cat licks its right paw for a long time and then brushes down the corresponding side of the head and face and when this is accomplished it does the same with the other paw and corresponding side
a may kitten makes a dirty cat is a piece of huntingdonshire folk lore says mister cuthbert bede quoted to me in order to deter me from keeping a kitten that had been born in may doctor turton says
the cat has a more voluminous and expressive vocabulary than any other brute the short twitter of complacency and affection the purr of tranquility and pleasure the mew of distress the growl of anger and the horrible wailing of pain
for myself i seldom hear a catawauling without thinking of that droll picture in punch of the old lady sitting up in bed and pricking up her ears to the music of a mewing cat
i love to listen to em it may be fancy but somehow they don't seem to play so sweetly as they did when i was a girl
few even amongst pussy's most ardent admirers who possess the faculty of hearing and have heard the music of cats would desire the continuance of their sweet voices yet a concert was exhibited at paris wherein cats were the performers
they were placed in rows and a monkey beat time to them as the cats mewed and the historian of the facts relates that the diversity of the tones which they emitted produced a very ludicrous effect
this exhibition was announced to the parisian public by the title of concert miaulant this would seem to prove that cats may be taught tricks which is not generally believed but is nevertheless the case
in pool's twists and turns about the streets of london mention is made of a poor half naked boy strumming a violin while another urchin with a whip makes two half starved cats go through numerous feats of agility
de roget says that in animals that graze and keep their heads for a long time in a dependent position the danger from an excessive impetus in the blood flowing towards the head is much greater than in other animals and we find that an extraordinary provision is made to obviate this danger
the arteries which supply the brain on their entrance into the basis of the skull suddenly divide into a great number of minute branches forming a complicated network of vessels an arrangement which on the well known principle of hydraulics must greatly check the velocity of the blood conducted through them
is evident from the branches afterwards uniting into larger trunks when they have entered the brain through the substance of which they are then distributed exactly as in other animals where no such previous subdivision takes place
but scarcely perceptible in the cat
the retina or expansion of the optic nerve is most sensitive to the stimulus of light hence a well marked ciliary muscle contracts the pupil to a mere vertical fissure during the day while in the dark the pupil dilates enormously and lets in as much light as possible
but even this would be insufficient for cats have to look for their prey in holes cellars and other places where little or no light can penetrate hence the cat is furnished with a bright metal like lustrous membrane called the tapetum which lines part of the hollow globe of the eye
and sheds considerable light on the image of an object thrown on the retina this membrane is we are told common to all vertebrated animals but is especially beautiful and lustrous in nocturnal animals the herbivora such as the ox and sheep have the tapetum of the finest enamelled green colour
provided probably to suit the nature of their food which is green the subject however of the various colours of the tapetum in different animals is not yet understood
the sensibility of the retina in cats is so great that neither the contractions of the pupil nor the closing of the eye lids would alone afford them sufficient protection from the action of the light hence in common with most animals the cat is furnished with a nictitating membrane
which is in fact a third eyelid sliding over the transparent cornea beneath the common eyelids this membrane is not altogether opaque but translucent allowing light to fall on the retina and acting as it were like a shade
when these rays reach the observer direct he sees the lamps or luminiferous bodies themselves but when he is out of their direct sight the brightness of their illumination only becomes apparent through the rays being collected and reflected by some appropriate substance
the cornea of the eye of the cat and of many other animals has a great power of concentrating the rays and reflecting them through the pupil professor bohn at leipsic made experiments proving that when the external light is wholly excluded none can be seen in the cat's eye
for the same reason the animal by a change of posture or other means intercepting the rays immediately deprives the observer of all light otherwise existing in or permeating the room in this action when the iris of the eye is completely open the degree of brilliancy is the greatest
but when the iris is partly contracted which it always is when the external light or the light in the room is increased then the illumination is more obscure the internal motions of the animals have also great influence over this luminous appearance by the contraction and relaxation of the iris dependent upon them
when the animal is alarmed or first disturbed it naturally dilates the pupil and the eye glares when it is appeased or composed the pupil contracts and the light in the eye is no longer seen
a german savant says that at the end of each hair of a cat's whiskers is a sort of bulb of nervous substance which converts it into a most sensitive feeler the whiskers are of the greatest use to her when hunting in the dark
the nervous bulbs at the ends of a lion's whiskers are as large as a small pea but an english writer differs from him thus every one must have observed what are usually called the whiskers on a cat's upper lip the use of these in a state of nature is very important
they are organs of touch they are attached to a bed of close glands under the skin and each of these long and stiff hairs is connected with the nerves of the lip the slightest contact of these whiskers with any surrounding object is thus felt most distinctly by the animal although the hairs are of themselves insensible
they stand out on each side in the lion as well as in the common cat so that from point to point they are equal in width to the animal's body if we imagine therefore a lion stealing through a covert of wood in an imperfect light
we shall at once see the use of these long hairs they indicate to him through the nicest feeling any obstacle which may present itself to the passage of the body they prevent the rustle of boughs and leaves which would give warning to his prey if he were to attempt to pass through too dense a bush
and this in conjunction with the soft cushions of his feet and the fur upon which he treads the retractable claws never coming in contact with the ground enable him to move towards his victim with a stillness even greater than that of the snake who creeps along the grass and is not perceived till he is coiled round his prey
black cats especially are said to be highly charged with electricity which when the animal is irritated is easily visible in the dark here are directions i have for producing the effect lay one hand upon the cat's throat and slightly press its shoulder bones
if the other hand be drawn gently along its back electric shocks will be felt in the hand upon the cat's throat if the tips of the ears be touched after the back has been rubbed shocks of electricity may also be felt or they may be obtained from the foot
lay the animal upon your knees and apply the right hand to the back the left fore paw resting on the palm of your left hand
and by this means bring your fore finger in contact with one of the bones of the leg where it joins the paw when from the knob or end of this bone the finger slightly pressing on it you may feel distinctly successive shocks similar to those obtained from the ears
the reverend mister wood expresses an opinion that on account of the superabundance of electricity which is developed in the cat the animal is found very useful to paralysed persons who instinctively encourage its approach and from the touch derive some benefit
those who suffer from rheumatism often find the presence of a cat alleviate their sufferings
that if a hair of her mistress's head were laid upon the animal's back
and rolling on the floor would strive to free herself from the object of her fears the pointing of a finger at her side at a distance of half a foot would cause her fur to bristle up and throw her into a violent tremour it is difficult to account for the fondness of cats for fish
as nature seems to have given them an appetite which with their great antipathy to water they can rarely gratify unassisted many instances have however been recorded of cats catching fish
a mister moody of sesmond near newcastle upon tyne had a cat in eighteen twenty nine which had been in his possession for some years
and frequently brought them home alive besides minnows and eels she occasionally carried home pilchards one of which about six inches long was once found in her possession she also contrived to teach a neighbour's cat to fish
being in the constant habit of diving into the sea and bringing up the fish alive in her mouth and depositing them in the guard room for the use of the sailors she is now seven years old and has long been a useful caterer it is supposed that her pursuit of the water rats first taught her to venture into the water
to which it is well known puss has a natural aversion she is now as fond of the water as a newfoundland dog and takes her regular peregrinations along the rocks at its edge looking out for her game ready to dive for it at a moment's notice talking of the cat's fondness for fish i should however mention
but it is not such a rarity as we are led to believe on the contrary specimens are frequently offered for sale at the zoological gardens it is another great mistake to think that cats have fleas the insect infesting a half grown cat does not leap like a flea
the she cat goes with young from fifty five to fifty eight days and generally has four or five kittens at a litter when born they are blind and deaf like puppies they get their sight in about nine days and are about eighteen months before reaching full growth
those who wish their cats to catch mice i should advise not to neglect the cat's food a starved cat makes a very bad mouser being too eager and hungry for the work it tries to pounce upon its prey before the proper time comes a good mouser does not eat the mouse
i have a black cat which is very fat but a wonderful huntsman and surprisingly nimble at the chase he is also as proud of his achievements as a human sportsman and brings me every head of game he catches sometimes if i have been out when he has caught his mouse
he has gone all over the house in search of me and at last has taken his seat by the fireside or out in the garden and nursed the trophy of his prowess until i returned
but once having laid it at my feet and had his head scratched in return his interest in the matter seemed to cease and he went away without again attempting to touch it it was clear that he had made me a present of the game and as we sometimes think when we make anyone a present of something to eat it would be more delicate for us to go away immediately
lest it might be supposed we desired to be asked to stop and partake of it tom thus departed no doubt with a similar idea no experiment says an intelligent writer can be more beautiful than that of setting a kitten for the first time before a looking glass the animal appears surprised and pleased with the reflection
and at length finding its efforts fruitless it looks behind the glass and appears highly astonished at the absence of the figure it again views itself and tries to touch the image with its foot suddenly looking at intervals behind the glass
the two youngest miss thorpes were by themselves in the parlour and on anne's quitting it to call her sister catherine took the opportunity of asking the other for some particulars of their yesterday's party
that nobody could imagine how charming it had been and that it had been more delightful than anybody could conceive such was the information of the first five minutes the second unfolded thus much in detail
and hurrying back to the hotel swallowed their dinner in haste to prevent being in the dark and then had a delightful drive back only the moon was not up and it rained a little and mister morland's horse was so tired he could hardly get it along
maria's intelligence concluded with a tender effusion of pity for her sister anne
she will never forgive me i am sure but you know how could i help it john would have me go for he vowed he would not drive her because she had such thick ankles i dare say she will not be in good humour again this month
but i am determined i will not be cross it is not a little matter that puts me out of temper isabella now entered the room with so eager a step and a look of such happy importance as engaged all her friend's notice
and so you guessed it the moment you had my note sly creature oh my dear catherine you alone who know my heart can judge of my present happiness your brother is the most charming of men i only wish i were more worthy of him
but what will your excellent father and mother say oh heavens when i think of them i am so agitated catherine's understanding began to awake an idea of the truth suddenly darted into her mind and
with the natural blush of so new an emotion she cried out good heaven my dear isabella what do you mean can you can you really be in love with james this bold surmise however she soon learnt comprehended but half the fact
the anxious affection which she was accused of having continually watched in isabella's every look and action had in the course of their yesterday's party received the delightful confession of an equal love her heart and faith were alike engaged to james
of which the ordinary course of life can hardly afford a return the strength of her feelings she could not express the nature of them however contented her friend the happiness of having such a sister was their first effusion
you will be so infinitely dearer to me my catherine than either anne or maria i feel that i shall be so much more attached to my dear morland's family than to my own this was a pitch of friendship beyond catherine
that i quite doted on you the first moment i saw you but so it always is with me the first moment settles everything the very first day that morland came to us last christmas the very first moment i beheld him my heart was irrecoverably gone
i remember i wore my yellow gown with my hair done up in braids and when i came into the drawing room and john introduced him i thought i never saw anybody so handsome before here
i know but i will not pain you by describing my anxiety you have seen enough of it i feel that i have betrayed myself perpetually so unguarded in speaking of my partiality for the church but my secret i was always sure would be safe with you
catherine felt that nothing could have been safer but ashamed of an ignorance little expected she dared no longer contest the point nor refuse to have been as full of arch penetration and affectionate sympathy as isabella chose to consider her
her brother she found was preparing to set off with all speed to fullerton to make known his situation and ask consent and here was a source of some real agitation to the mind of isabella catherine endeavoured to persuade her as she was herself persuaded that
they never can consent to it your brother who might marry anybody here catherine again discerned the force of love indeed isabella you are too humble the difference of fortune can be nothing to signify oh
my sweet catherine in your generous heart i know it would signify nothing but we must not expect such disinterestedness in many as for myself i am sure i only wish our situations were reversed had i the command of millions were i mistress of the whole world your brother would
be my only choice this charming sentiment recommended as much by sense as novelty gave catherine a most pleasing remembrance of all the heroines of her acquaintance and she thought her friend never looked more lovely than in uttering the grand idea
i am sure they will consent was her frequent declaration i am sure they will be delighted with you for my own part said isabella my wishes are so moderate that the smallest income in nature would be enough for me
if i can but be near you i shall be satisfied but this is idle talking i will not allow myself to think of such things till we have your father's answer morland says that by sending it tonight to salisbury we may have it tomorrow tomorrow
a reverie succeeded this conviction and when isabella spoke again it was to resolve on the quality of her wedding gown their conference was put an end to by the anxious young lover himself who came to breathe his parting sigh before he set off for wiltshire
but knew not what to say and her eloquence was only in her eyes from them however the eight parts of speech shone out most expressively
impatient for the realization of all that he hoped at home
twice was he called almost from the door by her eagerness to have him gone indeed morland i must drive you away consider how far you have to ride i cannot bear to see you linger so for heaven's sake waste no more time
there go go i insist on it the two friends with hearts now more united than ever were inseparable for the day and in schemes of sisterly happiness the hours flew along missus thorpe and her son
to fill up the measure of curiosity
to catherine's simple feelings this odd sort of reserve seemed neither kindly meant nor consistently supported and its unkindness she would hardly have forborne pointing out had its inconsistency been less their friend
before the delivery of the letters a needful exertion for as the time of reasonable expectation drew near isabella became more and more desponding and before the letter arrived had worked herself into a state of real distress
but when it did come where could distress be found i have had no difficulty in gaining the consent of my kind parents and am promised that everything in their power shall be done to forward my happiness were the first three lines
and in one moment all was joyful security the brightest glow was instantly spread over isabella's features all care and anxiety seemed removed her spirits became almost too high for control and she called herself without scruple
the happiest of mortals missus thorpe with tears of joy embraced her daughter her son her visitor and could have embraced half the inhabitants of bath with satisfaction
her heart was overflowing with tenderness it was dear john and dear catherine at every word dear anne and dear maria must immediately be made sharers in their felicity and two dears at once before the name of isabella
were not more than that beloved child had now well earned john himself was no skulker in joy
but swore off many sentences in his praise the letter whence sprang all this felicity was short containing little more than this assurance of success and every particular was deferred till james could write again
but for particulars isabella could well afford to wait the needful was comprised in mister morland's promise his honour was pledged to make everything easy and by what means their income was to be formed whether landed property were to be resigned
or funded money made over was a matter in which her disinterested spirit took no concern she knew enough to feel secure of an honourable and speedy establishment and her imagination took a rapid flight over its attendant felicities
she saw herself at the end of a few weeks the gaze and admiration of every new acquaintance at fullerton the envy of every valued old friend in putney with a carriage at her command a new name on her tickets
and a brilliant exhibition of hoop rings on her finger when the contents of the letter were ascertained john thorpe who had only waited its arrival to begin his journey to london prepared to set off well miss morland
i am come to bid you good bye catherine wished him a good journey without appearing to hear her he walked to the window fidgeted about hummed a tune and seemed wholly self occupied
do you that's honest by heavens i am glad you are no enemy to matrimony however did you ever hear the old song going to one wedding brings on another
i dine with miss tilney today and must now be going home nay but there is no such confounded hurry who knows when we may be together again not but that i shall be down again by the end of a fortnight
and it is not only good nature but you have so much so much of everything and then you have such upon my soul i do not know anybody like you oh
there are a great many people like me i dare say only a great deal better good morning to you but i say miss morland i shall come and pay my respects at fullerton before it is long if not disagreeable pray do
my father and mother will be very glad to see you and i hope i hope miss morland you will not be sorry to see me oh dear not at all
but i have a notion miss morland you and i think pretty much alike upon most matters perhaps we may
there are not many that i know my own mind about by jove no more do i
my notion of things is simple enough let me only have the girl i like say i with a comfortable house over my head and what care i for all the rest fortune is nothing i am sure of a good income of my own
and if she had not a penny why so much the better very true i think like you there if there is a good fortune on one side there can be no occasion for any on the other no matter which has it so that there is enough
i hate the idea of one great fortune looking out for another and to marry for money i think the wickedest thing in existence good day
and away she went it was not in the power of all his gallantry to detain her longer with such news to communicate and such a visit to prepare for her departure was not to be delayed by anything in his nature to urge and she hurried away
in mister and missus allen by the communication of the wonderful event how great was her disappointment the important affair which many words of preparation ushered in had been foreseen by them both ever since her brother's arrival
and all that they felt on the occasion was comprehended in a wish for the young people's happiness with a remark on the gentleman's side in favour of isabella's beauty
it was to catherine the most surprising insensibility the disclosure however of the great secret of james's going to fullerton the day before did raise some emotion in missus allen she could not listen to that with perfect calmness
chapter eleven the morrow brought a very sober looking morning the sun making only a few efforts to appear and catherine augured from it everything most favourable to her wishes
declined giving any absolute promise of sunshine she applied to missus allen and missus allen's opinion was more positive she had no doubt in the world of its being a very fine day if the clouds would only go off and the sun keep out
at about eleven o'clock however a few specks of small rain upon the windows caught catherine's watchful eye and oh dear i do believe it will be wet broke from her in a most desponding tone
i thought how it would be said missus allen no walk for me today sighed catherine but perhaps it may come to nothing or it may hold up before twelve perhaps it may but then my dear
it will be so dirty oh that will not signify i never mind dirt no replied her friend very placidly i know you never mind dirt after a short pause
it comes on faster and faster said catherine as she stood watching at a window so it does indeed if it keeps raining the streets will be very wet there are four umbrellas up already how i hate the sight of an umbrella
there will be very few people in the pump room if it rains all the morning i hope mister allen will put on his greatcoat when he goes but i dare say he will not for he had rather do anything in the world than walk out in a greatcoat i wonder he should dislike it it must be so comfortable
the rain continued fast though not heavy catherine went every five minutes to the clock threatening on each return that if it still kept on raining another five minutes she would give up the matter as hopeless
the clock struck twelve and it still rained you will not be able to go my dear i do not quite despair yet i shall not give it up till a quarter after twelve
this is just the time of day for it to clear up and i do think it looks a little lighter there it is twenty minutes after twelve and now i shall give it up entirely oh that we had such weather here as they had at udolpho
or at least in tuscany and the south of france the night that poor saint aubin died such beautiful weather at half past twelve when catherine's anxious attention to the weather was over and she could no longer claim any merit from its amendment
that a bright afternoon would succeed and justified the opinion of missus allen who had always thought it would clear up but whether catherine might still expect her friends whether there had not been too much rain for miss tilney to venture must yet be a question
it was too dirty for missus allen to accompany her husband to the pump room he accordingly set off by himself and catherine had barely watched him down the street when her notice was claimed by the approach of the same two open carriages
containing the same three people that had surprised her so much a few mornings back isabella my brother and mister thorpe i declare they are coming for me perhaps but i shall not go i cannot go indeed
for you know miss tilney may still call missus allen agreed to it john thorpe was soon with them and his voice was with them yet sooner for on the stairs he was calling out to miss morland to be quick make haste make haste as he threw open the door
this was of course vehemently talked down as no reason at all missus allen was called on to second him and the two others walked in to give their assistance my sweetest catherine is not this delightful we shall have a most heavenly drive
you are to thank your brother and me for the scheme it darted into our heads at breakfast time i verily believe at the same instant and we should have been off two hours ago if it had not been for this detestable rain but it does not signify the nights are moonlight and we shall do delightfully
oh i am in such ecstasies at the thoughts of a little country air and quiet so much better than going to the lower rooms we shall drive directly to clifton and dine there
i doubt our being able to do so much said morland you croaking fellow cried thorpe we shall be able to do ten times more kingsweston aye and blaize castle too and anything else we can hear of
but here is your sister says she will not go blaize castle cried catherine what is that the finest place in england worth going fifty miles at any time to see
what is it really a castle an old castle the oldest in the kingdom
they promised to come at twelve only it rained but now as it is so fine i dare say they will be here soon not they indeed cried thorpe for as we turned into broad street i saw them does he not drive a phaeton with bright chestnuts
i do not know indeed yes i know he does i saw him you are talking of the man you danced with last night are not you yes well i saw him at that moment turn up the lansdown road driving a smart looking girl
it is very odd but i suppose they thought it would be too dirty for a walk and well they might for i never saw so much dirt in my life walk you could no more walk than you could fly it has not been so dirty the whole winter it is ankle deep everywhere
isabella corroborated it my dearest catherine you cannot form an idea of the dirt come you must go you cannot refuse going now i should like to see the castle but may we go all over it
may we go up every staircase and into every suite of rooms yes yes every hole and corner but then if they should only be gone out for an hour till it is dryer and call by and by
make yourself easy there is no danger of that for i heard tilney hallooing to a man who was just passing by on horseback that they were going as far as wick rocks then i will shall i go missus allen
and in two minutes they were off catherine's feelings as she got into the carriage
divided between regret for the loss of one great pleasure and the hope of soon enjoying another almost its equal in degree however unlike in kind she could not think the tilneys had acted quite well by her
in so readily giving up their engagement without sending her any message of excuse it was now but an hour later than the time fixed on for the beginning of their walk and in spite of what she had heard of the prodigious accumulation of dirt in the course of that hour
as her fancy represented blaize castle to be was such a counterpoise of good as might console her for almost anything they passed briskly down pulteney street and through laura place without the exchange of many words
thorpe talked to his horse and she meditated by turns on broken promises and broken arches phaetons and false hangings tilneys and trap doors as they entered argyle buildings however she was roused by this address from her companion
who is that girl who looked at you so hard as she went by who where on the right hand pavement she must be almost out of sight now catherine looked round and saw miss tilney leaning on her brother's arm
but to what purpose did she speak thorpe only lashed his horse into a brisker trot the tilneys who had soon ceased to look after her were in a moment out of sight round the corner of laura place and in another moment she was herself whisked into the marketplace
still however and during the length of another street she entreated him to stop pray pray stop mister thorpe i cannot go on i will not go on i must go back to miss tilney but mister thorpe only laughed smacked his whip
encouraged his horse made odd noises and drove on and catherine angry and vexed as she was having no power of getting away was obliged to give up the point and submit her reproaches however were not spared
how could you deceive me so mister thorpe how could you say that you saw them driving up the lansdown road i would not have had it happen so for the world they must think it so strange so rude of me to go by them too without saying a word
you do not know how vexed i am i shall have no pleasure at clifton nor in anything else i had rather ten thousand times rather get out now and walk back to them how could you say you saw them driving out in a phaeton thorpe defended himself very stoutly
declared he had never seen two men so much alike in his life and would hardly give up the point of its having been tilney himself their drive even when this subject was over was not likely to be very agreeable
catherine's complaisance was no longer what it had been in their former airing she listened reluctantly and her replies were short blaize castle remained her only comfort towards that she still looked at intervals with pleasure
though rather than be disappointed of the promised walk and especially rather than be thought ill of by the tilneys she would willingly have given up all the happiness which its walls could supply the happiness of a progress through a long suite of lofty rooms
exhibiting the remains of magnificent furniture though now for many years deserted the happiness of being stopped in their way along narrow winding vaults by a low grated door
or even of having their lamp their only lamp extinguished by a sudden gust of wind and of being left in total darkness in the meanwhile they proceeded on their journey without any mischance and were within view of the town of keynsham
made his friend pull up to know what was the matter the others then came close enough for conversation and morland said we had better go back thorpe it is too late to go on today
it is all one to me replied thorpe rather angrily and instantly turning his horse they were on their way back to bath
said he soon afterwards we might have done it very well
and i have almost broke my arm with pulling him in to that cursed broken winded jade's pace morland is a fool for not keeping a horse and gig of his own no he is not said catherine warmly
and that if people who rolled in money could not afford things he did not know who could which catherine did not even endeavour to understand disappointed of what was to have been the consolation for her first disappointment
she was less and less disposed either to be agreeable herself or to find her companion so and they returned to pulteney street without her speaking twenty words as she entered the house the footman told her that a gentleman and lady had called
and inquired for her a few minutes after her setting off that when he told them she was gone out with mister thorpe the lady had asked whether any message had been left for her and on his saying no had felt for a card but said she had none about her and went away
pondering over these heart rending tidings catherine walked slowly upstairs at the head of them she was met by mister allen who on hearing the reason of their speedy return
a very good equivalent for the quiet and country air of an inn at clifton her satisfaction too in not being at the lower rooms was spoken more than once how i pity the poor creatures that are going there
i dare say it will not be a very good ball i know the mitchells will not be there i am sure i pity everybody that is but i dare say mister morland you long to be at it do not you i am sure you do
well pray do not let anybody here be a restraint on you i dare say we could do very well without you but you men think yourselves of such consequence catherine could almost have accused isabella of being wanting in tenderness towards herself and her sorrows
so very little did they appear to dwell on her mind and so very inadequate was the comfort she offered do not be so dull my dearest creature she whispered you will quite break my heart it was amazingly shocking to be sure
but the tilneys were entirely to blame why were not they more punctual it was dirty indeed but what did that signify i am sure john and i should not have minded it i never mind going through anything where a friend is concerned that is my disposition
and now i may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch which is the true heroine's portion to a pillow strewed with thorns and wet with tears
we find the following symptomatic indications in the american provings
continuing painful for several days
eleven ninety six furuncles with stinging pains
twelve twenty two dark bluish red painful swellings with general malaise eleven sixty seven acute pain and erysipelatous swelling very hard and pale in the centre
a tablespoonful of this solution every three hours generally relieves the pain in a short period promotes suppuration effects the discharge of the decayed cellular tissue
if furuncles incline to become carbunculous the ichorous matter is speedily changed to good pus and all danger is averted in a case of carbuncle the gangrenous disorganization of the skin and cellular tissue becomes very soon confined to a small spot
the dead parts are separated from the living tissues the fever is hushed the disorganizations which it threatens are averted a healthy suppuration is established throughout the gangrenous part detaching and removing all decayed matter
and replacing the loss of substance by new granulations until the sore becomes cicatrized in such a hardly perceptible manner that any one who is acquainted with the ravages of this disease and is in the habit of seeing deep and disfiguring cicatrizes
even in the most successful cases is disposed to deny the fact that such an intensely disorganizing process has been going on in this instance no other remedial means are required much less a surgical operation
showing that the psoric miasm pervades the tissues it behooves us in order to secure all the better a favorable result to give a dose of highly potentized sulphur at the very outset of the disease
the former in all cases where no sulphur had been used
sulphur should likewise be given in all cases where the furuncles reappear at different periods
corrects at the same time the primary degeneration of the tissues without either interfering with the operations of the other drug on the contrary by assisting each other
genuine panaritia only spring up in psoric ground and in regard to extent and intensity of development depend altogether upon the existing psoric taint
this is most effectually accomplished by at once giving sulphur the most powerful of our anti psorics sulphur seems to attack the evil at its very foundation and we feel perfectly satisfied with its action
in order to abbreviate the tortures inherent in this malady this result is most certainly accomplished by means of apis
as long as the world continues to live in darkness and to reject the rays of truth which the genius of hahnemann has sent forth among the benighted understandings of his fellow beings
notwithstanding hahnemann's teachings concerning the medicinal power of sulphur which the world has now been in possession of for years and which the most thoughtful minds have accepted as a truth
haemorrhoidal patients continue to swallow sulphur from day to day almost every body from the child up to the old man who is affected with catarrh swallows the so termed pulmonary powders which contain sulphur and of which relief is expected
whole legions repair every year to the sulphur springs young and old use sulphur baths at home all over the world the itch which is a very common disease is removed by means of a sulphur ointment
one of the evil consequences of this ignorance which particularly oppresses the laboring class is the artificial development of panaritia the more frequently these occur the more necessary it is to employ speedy and safe means for their extermination
in such a case we can no longer depend upon sulphur of which we cannot possibly know how far it has already poisoned the organism and to what extent it may still be able to rouse a reaction
it is even sufficient to arrest the disorganizing process and to bring about a satisfactorily progressing cure the curative indications contained in the american provings have been confirmed by my own experience
the phalangeal bones are painful burning jerking like a stitching contracting sensation in the right numb from without inwards drawing pains reaching the extremities of the fingers distinct feeling of numbness in the fingers especially in the tips
around the roots of the nails with sensation as if the nails were loose and as if they could be shaken off burning in the tips of fingers as from fire fine burning stinging in the tips of the fingers
burning around a hang nail on the outside of the fourth finger of the right hand with pain internally without redness and without aggravation from pressure with continual burning in the tip swelling of the fingers which remained painful for several days
blister at the tip of the right index discharging a bloody ichor when opened and afterwards a milky pus with violent burning throbbing and gnawing pains continuing to spread for two days from all this we deduce the highly important practical rule
in a case of whitlow first ascertain whether and how far sulphur has been abused by the patient unfortunately the non abuse of sulphur is an exception to the rule whereas the abuse of sulphur is quite common even in our age
would that in this respect the ancient darkness might yield to the new light in case sulphur had been abused by the patient we mix a few drops of apis three in twelve tablespoonfuls of water
this treatment has to be continued until the pains cease they cease either because the inflammation has been dispersed and the morbid process is terminated or else a healthy suppuration has been set up
a simple bread and milk poultice may be used as soothing palliative especially if the external skin is of a firm hard texture resolution may be depended upon in every case where apis has been resorted to in time
in such a case we have at once to resort to a very high potency of sulphur a single globule of sulphur six thousand would frequently ameliorate the worst aspect of the case as by a miracle
a drop morning and evening would so improve the symptoms as to render all further medication unnecessary if the psoric miasm should be the cause of the retarded improvement as may easily be determined by the predisposing circumstances of the case
and if no sulphur should have been administered previously
and to at once exhibit a globule of sulphur thirty which may be allowed to act for twenty four hours
in the american provings apis is indicated in this disease by the following symptoms
twelve eighteen measle shaped eruption if we add to these symptoms the peculiarity inherent in apis to cause catarrhal irritations of the eyes such as occur during measles
and generally get well without any prejudice to the general health nevertheless cases occur where intense ophthalmia a violent and racking cough and the phenomena which appertain to it an intense irritation of the internal mucous membrane
dangerous prostration of strength
render the interference of art desirable
but likewise from the effects which have been witnessed under the operation of other medicines in ordinary cases and without treatment it takes three five seven and eleven days before the eyes get well again
but under the use of apis the eyes improve so decidedly in from one to three days that the eyes do not require any further treatment and that even troublesome sequelae such as photophobia styes which come and go
troublesome lachrymation continual redness
fistulae lachrymalis et cetera need not be apprehended
we hear nothing of the troublesome and often so wearing and racking cough which so often prevails in measles and the continuance of which is accompanied by an increased irritation and swelling of the respiratory mucous membrane
which recurs in paroxysms assumes a suspicious sound shows a tendency to croup and to the development of tuberculosis and finally degenerates in whooping cough
so that epidemic measles and whooping cough often go hand in hand after apis the cough speedily begins to become looser and milder
and to gradually disappear without leaving a trace behind if these results should be confirmed by further experience we would have attained additional means of preventing the supervention of whooping cough in measles
a triumph of art and science which should elicit our warmest gratitude any one who knows how malignant measles unassisted by art are accompanied by deep seated irritation of the mucous membrane of the stomach and bowels
to sopor how they threaten life by long lasting and troublesome putrid and typhoid fevers and how if they do not terminate fatally they result in slow convalescence and sometimes in chronic maladies for life will admit
on beholding the quiet sleep which patients enjoy the pleasant and general perspiration the return of appetite the increase of strength and the complete disappearance of all putrid and typhoid symptoms
if after using the aconite the eruption breaks out and the fever abates no further medication is necessary if fever and eruption should require further aid
well shaken a dessert spoonful morning and evening or if the disease is very acute every three hours which treatment is to be continued until an improvement sets in after which the natural reaction of the organism will terminate the cure
sequelae seldom take place after this kind of treatment
in urticaria and pemphigus apis will likewise afford speedy and certain help many symptoms in the american provings confirm this statement more particularly eleven ninety eight to twelve ten and twelve thirty two to thirty five
very soon thick nettle rash over the whole body itching a good deal passing off after sleeping soundly violent inflammation and pressure over the whole body friction brought out small white spots resembling musquito bites
suddenly an indescribable stinging sensation over the whole body with white and red spots in the palms of the hands on the arms and feet her whole body was covered with itching and burning swollen streaks after which the other troubles disappeared swelling of the face and body
the parts are covered with a sort of blotches somewhat paler than the ordinary color of the skin eruption over the whole body resembling nettle rash with itching and burning nettle rash in many cases spots on the nape of the neck and forehead resembling nettle rash under the skin
consequences of repelled urticaria whitish violently itching swellings of the skin on the head and nape of the neck like nettle rash after the rash disappeared the whole of the right side was paralyzed with violent delirium even unto rage
but so far it has been sought for in vain the same physician speaking of pemphigus writes in the same place that its etiology prognosis and treatment are still very dubious
characterized by some specific chronic miasm or in conjunction with the most penetrating and disturbing emotions such as fright and its consequences the more frequently we observe the sudden appearance and disappearance of such pustules
during the period of organic vigor seems to be a sort of trifling derangement somewhat like urticaria but which as the vital energies become prostrated by age becomes more and more searching and tormenting
exhausting the vital juices and leading irresistibly to a fatal termination a result which is particularly apt to take place during old age although i have likewise observed it but rarely among new born infants
these developments lead us to suspect that urticaria and pemphigus are identical in essence
in either case if the vital forces are prostrated and the sensitiveness of the organic reaction is considerable
if the improvement cease or the eruption should reappear we have in the first place to examine whether the improvement will not speedily resume its course or whether the eruption does not show itself more feebly than before
or if the cure is not evidenced by some other favorable change in the former case the medicine should be permitted to act still further
in all benign cases more particularly if no other means of treatment had been resorted to before this management will suffice if this should not be the case if the eruption should appear again we may rest assured that a psoric miasm lurks in the organism
and that an anti psoric treatment has to be resorted to the best anti psoric under these circumstances is sulphur thirty one pellet provided this drug has not yet been abused or causticum thirty one pellet if such an abuse has taken place
syphilis may likewise complicate the disease in which case mercurius thirty one pellet may be given or if mercury had been previously taken in excessive doses mercurius six thousand one globule
nevertheless much remains to be desired in this dreaded disease who does not know that medicinal aggravations are particularly to be dreaded in this malady who has not often felt embarrassed to select the right remedy among three or four that seemed indicated by the symptoms
and where it was nevertheless important in view of the threatening danger to select at once the right remedy who has not been struck by the strange irregularity that in a disease which generally sets in as an epidemic
different remedies are often indicated by different groups of symptoms who has not become convinced after a careful observation of the course of the disease that nothing is more deceptive than the pretended curative virtues of corrosive sublimate in dysentery
in this very particular of the warning words of the master who having himself been deceived at one time by the delusive palliation of mercury addresses to us the remarkable warning that mercury so far from responding to all non venereal maladies
this delusive palliation is more particularly one of the effects of corrosive sublimate in dysentery and is exceedingly dangerous in this disease hence we warn practitioners against this danger
even though it did not protect its discoverer from faulty applications yet finally led us to the discovery of the right remedy for dysentery
afterwards watery and fetid lastly papescent mixed with blood and mucus and attended with tenesmus afterwards dysenteric stools with tenesmus and sensation as if the bowels were crushed
all this shows us that apis is a natural remedy for dysentery this truth is abundantly confirmed by experience all my previously obtained results in practice testify to the correctness of this statement
and sleeps quietly during this slumber fever pain and tenesmus disappear and the patient wakes with a feeling of health if this should not take place in three hours owing to the more advanced state of the disease
after which the patient soon feels well if the dysenteric disease has had a chance to localize itself and to assume a higher degree of intensity it becomes necessary to excite the organic reaction all the more frequently
under these circumstances we repeat the medicine every hour or every two or three hours one globule at a time until all further medication has become unnecessary
earth water indispensable food or from other still unknown elementary influences inevitably acting upon every body commences in the form of a simple
whether with or without vomiting watery or papescent of one color or another with or without pain with or without fever have yielded readily safely and thoroughly to apis in my hands
i must except however cholera of the epidemic form where i have not yet been able to try apis for want of opportunity as far as my personal observations go i am disposed to affirm that the best mode of effecting a good result
and aconite three in alternation one drop of each preparation well shaken in a bottle containing twelve tablespoonfuls of water and giving a tablespoonful every hour or three hours if the danger is great and in milder cases
a full drop alternately morning and evening this treatment is continued until an improvement sets in after which the organic reaction is permitted to develope itself which will terminate in a few hours or days
in the perfect recovery of the patient this end is not always attained with equal certainty and rapidity
in such a case apis alone often develops a powerful reaction which is avoided by the alternate use of aconite
the two remedies should be given in alternation
speedily followed by quiet sleep and recovery on waking may we not expect the same result at the commencement of asiatic cholera
more particularly if resulting not from any deep seated disorganizations but from some permanent inflammatory irritation of the intestinal mucous membrane and which causes and fosters so much distress by rendering all normal digestion impossible
and finally bringing on its inseparable companion the last degree of hypochondria this misery is so much more lamentable as it is so to say
by the still prevailing and almost ineradicable delusion of cathartic medication scarcely has the little being seen the light of the world when the process of purgation begins nurse aunt
it is his habit in after life to combat every little costiveness every digestive derangement every incipient disease by means of his cathartic mixture
and his skill is considered proportionate to the quantity of stuff which the bowels expel under the operation of his drugs laxative pills rhubarb glauber salts bitter waters aloes gin et cetera et cetera
every year we see thousands rush to warm and cold springs that have the reputation of being possessed with dissolvent and cathartic properties those who cannot afford to go to the springs use artificial mineral water in order to accomplish similar purposes
very seldom a disease is met with that is permitted to run its course without dissolvent or cathartic means it is still a profitable business to sell patent purgatives such as cider in which a little magnesia has been dissolved
everybody feels how offensive these things are to nature how they attack the stomach and bowels how they derange digestion and nutrition how slowly patients recover from the effects of such drugs how chronic abdominal affections
after having been eased for a while by such drugs soon return again with redoubled vigor how the dose has to be increased in order to obtain the same result how the intervals of relief becomes shorter and shorter and how in the end the stomach is totally ruined
gradually lead to the complete derangement of the reproductive process in spite of all this long habit has secured to these pernicious customs a sort of prescriptive right the distress consequent upon them
increases in proportion as the reactive powers of the organism decrease which is more particularly the case in the present generation the suppression of these abuses has never been more necessary than in our age indeed the old proverb is again verified
where need is greatest there help is nearest the world is not only indebted to hahnemann for a knowledge but also for a natural corrective of this serious abuse his provings on healthy persons show this beyond a doubt few men
if their attention has once been directed to this abuse will feel disposed to deny its extent
they will soon cease to exist as regular means of treatment and their pernicious consequences will no longer have to be relieved by remedial means
until now i have not had an opportunity of verifying the truth of this theoretical conclusion by actual experiments hence i content myself with offering this suggestion for further practical trials the american provings likewise show that apis may be of great use in scarlatina
tongue very painful the burning and raw feeling increases vesicles spring up along the margin of the tongue the pains are accompanied by stitches at the tip of the tongue toward the left side a row of small vesicles spring up some six or eight which are very painful and sore
dryness of the tongue red and fiery appearance of the inside of the cheeks with painful sensitiveness
burning at the upper portion of the left ear stitches under the left ear tension under and behind the ears red swelling of both ears with a stinging and burning pain in the swelling
reddened eyes violent delirium
swelling of the cervical glands on the injured side
if we add to these symptoms the above enumerated cerebral symptoms the typhoid alteration of the internal mucous membrane of the whole alimentary canal and of the respiratory organs the disorganizing and paralyzing action upon the blood and nerves
the inclination to dropsical effusion the affection of the cervical glands with tendency to suppuration
we have a group of symptoms which resemble very accurately the prevailing type of epidemic scarlatina
the dangers to which children were usually exposed in scarlatina have dwindled down to one
and the disease must necessarily terminate fatally that no remedy has as yet been discovered in all other cases unless some strange mishap should interfere
and to watch the effects of this dose without interference the immediate consequence of this proceeding is to bring the eruption out in a few hours all over the skin with abatement of the fever and general perspiration
after which the eruption runs its course in a few days with a progressive feeling of convalescence the epidermis peels off from the third to the fifth day
and at the latest to the seventh day with cessation of the fever so that the process of desquamation is generally terminated within the next seven days after which the patient may be fairly said to be convalescent and the patient may be said to be absolutely freed from all danger of consecutive diseases
but the experience which i have had an opportunity of making during my long official employment as district physician has convinced me that nature accomplishes her end far more easily more speedily and satisfactorily
the sequelae especially are rendered less dangerous by this means
in seven dessert spoonfuls of water by shaking the solution vigorously in a corked vial and giving a dessert spoonful every three six or twelve hours as the case may require
in all ordinary cases a single solution of this kind sufficed to subdue the fever and to secure a favorable termination of the disease
if a process of disorganization has already developed itself in the intestinal mucous membrane
which is an inherent accompaniment of such a disorganizing process has depressed the nervous activity to such a degree that typhus or paralysis of the brain or lungs seems unavoidable
as may be inferred from the bright red tongue which is thickly studded with eruptive vesicles and speedily becomes excoriated fissured and covered with aphthae by a copious discharge of thick white bloody and fetid mucus from the nose
by the swelling and induration of the parotid glands
scanty emissions of turbid red painful urine accelerated and labored breathing loss of consciousness delirium sopor convulsions trembling of the limbs appearance as if the patient were lying in his bed in a state of fainting
the skin is at times burning hot and dry at others it feels like parchment cooler at others again hot and cool together in spots the fever increases with changing pulse and is more constant
in short all the symptoms although developing themselves less rapidly
few drops of the third potency shaken together with twelve tablespoonfuls of water each drug by itself the dose to be repeated every hour
and if the temperature is rather depressed by giving apis without the aconite a tablespoonful every hour or two hours in favorable cases the fever becomes more remittent within one to three days a moderate and pleasant perspiration breaks out all over the skin
the tongue has been healed the normal desire for food has returned and the digestive functions go on regularly after which the natural reaction of the organism assisted by careful diet will be found sufficient to complete the cure
so that in a few days a gradual improvement however slight became perceptible to the careful observer as soon as the improvement is well marked all repetition of the medicine should cease and the natural reaction of the organism should be permitted to complete the cure
an invaluable blessing of nature this proceeding is crowned with the desired results the convalescence is shorter and easier and there is less danger of serious sequelae
are generally avoided under this treatment without any other aid
a small hole about as large as a thimble may be gouged out of a block and covered over with wire gauze or any other kind of perforated cover so that when the queen is put in the bees cannot enter to destroy her
so that when she is liberated the next day they will gladly adopt her in place of the one they have lost
they will gnaw the wax away and liberate her themselves from her confinement queens that seem bent on departing to the woods may be confined in the same way
a small paste board box with suitable holes or a wooden match box thoroughly scalded i have found to answer a very good purpose i shall here describe what may be called a queen nursery
which i have contrived to aid those who are engaged in the rapid multiplication of colonies by artificial means a solid block about an inch and a quarter thick is substituted for one of my frames holes
about one and a half inches in diameter are bored through it and covered on both sides with gauze wire slides the wire ought to be such as will allow a common bee to pass through
but should be too small to permit a queen to do the same any kind of perforated cover may be made to answer the same purpose as the gauze wire if a number of sealed queens are on hand
he may very carefully cut out the combs containing them and place them each in a separate cradle the bees having access to them will give them proper attention and as soon as they are hatched will supply them with food
and thus they will always be on hand for use when they are needed this nursery must of course be established in a hive which has no mature queen or it will quickly be transformed into a slaughter house by the bees
i have not yet tested this plan so thoroughly as to be certain that it will succeed and i know so well the immense difference between theoretical conjectures and practical results that i consider nothing in the bee line
or indeed in any other line as established until it has been submitted to the most rigorous demonstrations and has triumphantly passed from the mere regions of the brain to those of actual fact
a theory on any subject may seem so plausible as almost to amount to a positive demonstration and yet when put to the working test it is often found to be encumbered by some unforeseen difficulty
which speedily convinces even its sanguine projector that it has no practical value nine things out of ten may work to a charm and yet the tenth may be so connected with the other nine
that its failure renders their success of no account when i first used this nursery i did not give the bees access to it and i found that the queens were not properly developed and died in their cells
perhaps they did not receive sufficient warmth or were not treated in some other important respects
in the multiplicity of my experiments i did not repeat this one under a sufficient variety of circumstances to ascertain the precise cause of failure nor have i as yet
tried whether it will answer perfectly by admitting the bees to the queen cells last spring i made one queen supply several hives with eggs so as to keep them strong in numbers
while they were constantly engaged in rearing a large number of spare queens two hives which i shall call a and b were deprived at intervals of a week
as soon as the queens in a were of an age suitable to be removed i took them away and gave the colony a fertile queen from another hive c as soon as she had laid a large number of eggs in the empty cells
were sealed over these were now removed and the queen restored she had thus made one circuit and laid a very large number of eggs in the two hives which were first deprived of their queens
after allowing her to replenish her own hive with eggs i sent her out again on her perambulating mission and by this new device was able to get an extraordinary number of young queens from the three hives
and at the same time to preserve their numbers from seriously diminishing two queens may in this way be made in six hives to furnish all the supernumerary queens which will be wanted in quite a large apiary
it will be perfectly obvious to every intelligent and ingenious apiarian that the perfect control of the comb is the soul of an entirely new system of practical management
and that it may be modified to suit the wants of all who wish to cultivate bees even the advocate of the old fashioned plan of killing the bees can with one of my hives destroy his faithful laborers
by shaking them into a tub of water almost if not quite as speedily as by setting them over a sulphur pit while after the work of death is accomplished his honey will be free from disgusting fumes
and all the labor of cutting it out of the hive may be dispensed with i am now prepared to answer an objection which doubtless has been present in the minds of many all the time that they have been reading the various processes
the truth is that some persons are so very timid or suffer so dreadfully from the sting of a bee that they are every way disqualified from having anything to do with them and ought either to have no bees upon their premises
may dispense entirely with any protection i find in short that the risk of being stung is really diminished by the use of my hives
for some new hive or new plan by which with little or no trouble they may reap copious harvests of the precious nectar this is emphatically the class to seize hold of every new device
and waste their time and money to fill the coffers of the ignorant or unprincipled there never will be a royal road to profitable bee keeping if there is any branch of rural economy which more
than all others demands care and experience for its profitable management it is the keeping of bees and those who have a painful consciousness that the disposition to put off and neglect was so to speak
born in them and has never been got out of them will do well to let bees alone unless they hope by the study of their systematic industry to reform evil habits which are well nigh incurable
that my system of management will be used extensively and very advantageously by careful and skillful apiarians i know too much of the world to expect that it will with the masses
very speedily supercede other methods even if it were so absolutely perfect as to admit of no possible improvement i hope however that i may without being charged with presumption
be permitted to put on record the prediction that movable frames will in due season be almost universally employed
whether bees are allowed to swarm naturally or are increased by artificial means or are kept in hives in which they are not expected to swarm at all note
so perfectly simple and yet so efficacious of gaining the control of the combs by these frames
the most important of them is a confirmation of my conjecture that fixed air is capable of forming an union with phlogiston and thereby becoming a kind of air that is not miscible with water i had produced this effect before by means of iron filings and brimstone
fermenting in this kind of air but i have since had a much more decisive and elegant proof of it by electricity for after taking a small electric explosion for about an hour in the space of an inch of fixed air
i found that when water was admitted to it only one fourth of the air was imbibed probably the whole of it would have been rendered immiscible in water if the electrical operation had been continued a sufficient time
this air continued several days in water and was even agitated in water without any farther diminution it was not however common air for it was not diminished by nitrous air
by means of iron filings and brimstone i have since my former experiments procured a considerable quantity of this kind of air in a method something different from that which i used before
and exhausted it with a pump of mister smeaton's construction i filled it with fixed air and then left it plunged under water so that no common air could have access to it in this manner and in about a week there was
as near as i can recollect one sixth or at least one eighth of the whole converted into a permanent air not imbibed by water
from this experiment i expected that the same effect would have been produced on fixed air by the fumes of liver of sulphur but i was disappointed in that expectation which surprised me not a little
to the effect of phlogiston exhaled from this substance on acid air perhaps more time may be requisite for this purpose for this process was not continued more than a day and a night iron filings and brimstone
i have observed ferment with great heat in nitrous air and i have since observed that this process is attended with greater heat in fixed air than in common air
as i observed before i imagined that if it could have dissolved iron the phlogiston would have united with the air and have made it immiscible with water as in the former instances
neither the iron nor the air appeared to have been affected by their mutual contact having exposed equal quantities of common and fixed air in equal and similar cylindrical glass vessels to equal degrees of heat
by placing them before a fire and frequently changing their situations i observed that they were expanded exactly alike and when removed from the fire they both recovered their former dimensions
might also yield some fixed air which is known to be contained in the salt of tartar from which it is made i mixed the two ingredients viz salt of tartar and brimstone
and applying the flame of a candle to it so as to form the liver of sulphur i received the air that came from it in this process in a vessel of quicksilver in this manner i procured a very considerable quantity of fixed air
i put about the quantity of half a nut shell full of ether inclosed in a glass tube through a body of quicksilver into an ounce measure of common air confined by quicksilver
withdrawing the quicksilver and admitting water to this air without any agitation it began to be absorbed but only about half an ounce measure had disappeared after it had stood an hour in the water
but by once passing it through water the air was reduced to its original dimensions being tried by a mixture of nitrous air it appeared not to be so good as fresh air though the injury it had received was not considerable
fixed air was not so much increased as the rest and phlogisticated air less but after passing through the water
the vapours being soon condensed by cold like the vapour of water
i made it boil and catched the air which had rested on the surface of the spirit and which had been expelled by the heat together with the vapour in a vessel of quicksilver and afterwards admitted acid air to it the vessel was filled with white fumes
as if there had been a mixture of alkaline air along with it to what this appearance was owing i cannot tell and indeed i did not examine into it three having been informed by doctor small and mister bolton of birmingham
a fact which i afterwards found mentioned in the philosophical transactions it occurred to me that this would be very convenient for experiments relating to ignition in different kinds of air and indeed i found that it was easily fired
and that any part of it being once fired
all the kinds of air in which this paper was burned received an addition to their bulk which consisted partly of nitrous air from the nitrous precipitate and partly of inflammable air from the paper
as some of the circumstances attending the ignition of this paper in some of the kinds of air were a little remarkable i shall just recite them firing this paper in inflammable air
which it did without any ignition of the inflammable air itself the quantity increased regularly
but then it began to decrease till one third of the whole quantity disappeared a piece of this paper being put to three ounce measures of acid air a great part of it presently turned yellow and the air was reduced to one third of the original quantity
i set fire to the paper immediately upon which there was a production of air
to be very little different from pure nitrous air i repeated this experiment with the same event paper dipped in a solution of mercury zinc or iron in nitrous acid has in a small degree
the same property with paper dipped in a solution of copper in the same acid four gunpowder is also fired in all kinds of air and in the quantity in which i tried it did not make any sensible change in them
except that the common air in which it was fired would not afterwards admit a candle to burn in it in order to try this experiment i half exhausted a receiver and then with a burning glass fired the gunpowder which had been previously put into it
by this means i could fire a greater quantity of gunpowder in a small quantity of air and avoid the hazard of blowing up and breaking my receiver i own that i was rather afraid of firing gunpowder in inflammable air
but there was no reason for my fear for it exploded quite freely in this air leaving it in all respects just as it was before in order to make this experiment and indeed almost all the experiments of firing gunpowder in different kinds of air
and having carefully exhausted it by a pump of mister smeaton's construction i filled the receiver with any kind of air
in the experiment with inflammable air a considerable mixture of common air would have been exceedingly hazardous for by that assistance the inflammable air might have exploded in such a manner
as to have been dangerous to the operator indeed i believe i should not have ventured to have made the experiment at all with any other pump besides mister smeaton's sometimes i filled a glass vessel with quicksilver
and introduced the air to it when it was inverted in a bason of quicksilver by this means i intirely avoided any mixture of common air but then it was not easy to convey the gunpowder into it
in the exact quantity that was requisite for my purpose this however was the only method by which i could contrive to fire gunpowder in acid or alkaline air in which it exploded
i burned a considerable quantity of gunpowder in an exhausted receiver
chapter six pollen or bee bread this substance is gathered by the bees from the flowers or blossoms and is used for the nourishment of their young
repeated experiments have proved that no brood can be raised in a hive unless the bees are supplied with it it contains none of the elements of wax but is rich in what chemists call nitrogenous substances
which are not contained in honey and which furnish ample nourishment for the development of the growing bee doctor hunter dissected some immature bees and found their stomachs to contain farina but not a particle of honey
we are indebted to huber for the discovery of the use made by the bees of pollen that it did not serve as food for the mature bees
was evident from the fact that large supplies are often found in hives whose inmates have starved to death it was this fact which led the old observers to conclude that it was gathered for the purpose of building comb
after huber had demonstrated that wax is secreted from an entirely different substance he was soon led to conjecture that the bee bread must be used for the nourishment of the embryo bees
by rigid experiments he proved the truth of this supposition bees were confined to their hive without any pollen after being supplied with honey eggs and larvae in a short time the young all perished
a fresh supply of brood was given to them with an ample allowance of pollen and the development of the larvae then proceeded in the natural way when a colony is actively engaged in carrying in this article
it may be taken for granted that they have a fertile queen and are busy in breeding on the contrary
the queen is either dead or diseased and the hive should at once be examined in the backward spring of eighteen fifty two i had an excellent opportunity of testing the value of this substance in one of my hives
was an artificial swarm of the previous year the hive was well protected being double and the situation was warm i opened it on the fifth of february and although the weather until within a week of that time
had been unusually cold i found many of the cells filled with brood
brood nor bee bread the bees were then supplied with bee bread taken from another hive the next day this was found to have been used by them and a large number of eggs had been deposited in the cells
when this supply was exhausted egg laying ceased and was again renewed when more was furnished them during all the time of these experiments the weather was unpromising
and as the bees were unable to go out for water they were supplied at home with this important article dzierzon is of opinion that the bees are able to furnish food for the young without the presence of pollen in the hive
although he admits that they can do this only for a short time and at a great expense of vital energy just as the strength of an animal nursing its young is rapidly reduced when for want of proper food
without very severely taxing their strength but as all the elements of wax are found in honey and none of them in pollen this opinion does not seem to me to be entitled to much weight
that bees cannot live upon pollen without any honey is proved by the fact that large stores of it are often found in hives whose occupants have died of starvation that they can live without it
is equally well known but that the full grown bees make some use of it in connection with honey for their own nourishment i believe to be highly probable the bees prefer to gather fresh bee bread
even when there are large accumulations of old stores in the cells hence the great importance of being able to make the surplus of old colonies supply the deficiency of young ones
on the advantages which ought to be found in an improved hive if both honey and pollen can be obtained from the same flower then a load of each will be secured by the industrious insect of this any one may convince himself
that a bee in gathering pollen always confines herself to the same kind of flower on which she begins even when that is not so abundant as some others thus if you examine a ball of this substance taken from her thigh
it is found to be of one uniform color throughout the load of one will be yellow another red and a third brown the color varying according to that of the plant from which it was obtained
it is probable that the pollen of different kinds of flowers would not pack so well together it is certain that if they flew from one species to another there would be a much greater mixture of different varieties than there now is
for they carry on their bodies the pollen or fertilizing principle and thus aid most powerfully in the impregnation of plants this is one reason why it is so difficult to preserve pure
i cannot resist the impression that the honey bee was made for the especial service and instruction of man at first the importance of its products when honey was the only natural sweet
served most powerfully to attract his attention to its curious habits and now since the cultivation of the sugar cane has diminished the relative value of its luscious sweets
speaks of them as having received a direct emanation from the divine intelligence and many modern apiarians are almost disposed to rank the bee for sagacity as next in the scale of creation to man
has long been known and of late successful attempts have been made to furnish a substitute
they labor at this work with astonishing industry and seem decidedly to prefer the meal to the old pollen stored in their combs by this means the bees are induced to commence breeding early and rapidly recruit their numbers
the feeding is continued till the bees cease to carry away the meal that is until the natural supplies furnish them with a preferable article the average consumption of each colony is about two pounds of meal
at the last annual apiarian convention in germany a cultivator recommended wheat flour as an excellent substitute for pollen he says that in february eighteen fifty two he used it with the best results
the bees forsook the honey which had been set out for them and engaged actively in carrying in large quantities of the wheat flour which was placed about twenty paces in front of the hives the construction of my hives
permits the flour to be placed at once where the bees can take it without being compelled to waste their time in going out for it or to suffer for the want of it when the weather confines them at home
the discovery of this substitute removes a serious obstacle to the successful culture of bees in many districts there is a great abundance of honey for a few weeks in the season and almost any number of colonies
the supply of pollen is often so insufficient that the new colonies of the previous year are found destitute of this article in the spring and unless the season is early and the weather unusually favorable
how they went to the mountains to eat nuts the nuts are quite ripe now said chanticleer to his wife partlet suppose we go together to the mountains and eat as many as we can
before the squirrel takes them all away with all my heart said partlet let us go and make a holiday of it together so they went to the mountains and as it was a lovely day they stayed there till the evening
or whether they were lazy and would not i do not know however they took it into their heads that it did not become them to go home on foot so chanticleer began to build a little carriage of nutshells and when it was finished
while this was passing a duck came quacking up and cried out you thieving vagabonds what business have you in my grounds i'll give it you well for your insolence
crying now duck get on as fast as you can and away they went at a pretty good pace after they had travelled along a little way
and the needle cried out stop stop
had been at a public house a few miles off and had sat drinking till they had forgotten how late it was he begged therefore that the travellers would be so kind as to give them a lift in their carriage
and the duck seemed much tired and waddled about a good deal from one side to the other
and when nobody was stirring in the inn chanticleer awakened his wife and fetching the egg they pecked a hole in it ate it up and threw the shells into the fireplace
and having done this they crept away as softly as possible however the duck who slept in the open air in the yard heard them coming and jumping into the brook which ran close by the inn soon swam out of their reach
but when he stirred it up the eggshells flew into his eyes and almost blinded him bless me said he all the world seems to have a design against my head this morning
another day
so chanticleer built a handsome carriage with four red wheels and harnessed six mice to it and then he and partlet got into the carriage and away they drove soon afterwards a cat met them and said where are you going
and chanticleer replied all on our way a visit to pay to mister korbes the fox today then the cat said take me with you chanticleer said
with all my heart get up behind and be sure you do not fall off take care of this handsome coach of mine nor dirty my pretty red wheels so fine now mice be ready and wheels run steady for we are going a visit to pay
to mister korbes the fox today soon after came up a millstone an egg a duck and a pin and chanticleer gave them all leave to get into the carriage and go with them when they arrived at mister korbes's house
the pin stuck himself into the bed pillow the millstone laid himself over the house door and the egg rolled himself up in the towel when mister korbes came home he went to the fireplace to make a fire
then he was very angry and went without his supper to bed but when he laid his head on the pillow the pin ran into his cheek at this he became quite furious and jumping up would have run out of the house
how partlet died and was buried and how chanticleer died of grief
now partlet found a very large nut but she said nothing about it to chanticleer and kept it all to herself
then she was in a great fright and cried out to chanticleer
chanticleer ran as fast as he could to the river and said river give me some water for partlet lies in the mountain
but the bride said run first and bring me my garland that is hanging on a willow in the garden
and six mice built a little hearse to carry her to her grave and when it was ready they harnessed themselves before it and chanticleer drove them on the way they met the fox
the bear the goat and all the beasts of the wood came and climbed upon the hearse so on they went till they came to a rapid stream how shall we get over said chanticleer
then said a straw i will lay myself across
i will lay myself across the stream and you shall pass over upon me
that the log of wood fell in and was carried away by the stream then a stone who saw what had happened came up and kindly offered to help poor chanticleer by laying himself across the stream
and this time he got safely to the other side with the hearse
partlet and having dug a grave for her he laid her in it and made a little hillock over her then he sat down by the grave and wept and mourned till at last he died too
king grisly beard a great king of a land far away in the east had a daughter who was very beautiful but so proud and haughty and conceited
and asked thither all her suitors and they all sat in a row ranged according to their rank kings and princes and dukes and earls and counts and barons and knights
said she the next was too tall what a maypole said she the next was too short what a dumpling said she the fourth was too pale
that had been laid to dry over a baker's oven and thus she had some joke to crack upon every one but she laughed more than all at a good king who was there look at him said she
let him come in so they brought in a dirty looking fellow and when he had sung before the king and the princess he begged a boon then the king said
you have sung so well that i will give you my daughter for your wife
so words and tears were of no avail the parson was sent for and she was married to the fiddler when this was over the king said now get ready to go you must not stay here
you must travel on with your husband
ah unlucky wretch that i am sighed she would that i had married king grisly beard next they came to some fine meadows whose are these beautiful green meadows said she
they belong to king grisly beard
they had all been thine ah unlucky wretch that i am said she would that i had married king grisly beard then they came to a great city
what a paltry place said she to whom does that little dirty hole belong then the fiddler said that is your and my house where we are to live
where are your servants cried she
you must do for yourself whatever is to be done now
but it made her fingers very sore i see this work won't do said he try and spin perhaps you will do that better so she sat down and tried to spin
i'll try and set up a trade in pots and pans
alas sighed she
and broke all her goods into a thousand pieces then she began to cry and knew not what to do ah what will become of me said she what will my husband say
so she ran home and told him all
all on a sudden as she was going out in came the king's son in golden clothes
however he kept fast hold and led her in
so that the meats in it fell about then everybody laughed and jeered at her and she was so abashed that she wished herself a thousand feet deep in the earth she sprang to the door to run away
but on the steps king grisly beard overtook her and brought her back and said
i am the fiddler who has lived with you in the hut i brought you there because i really loved you i am also the soldier that overset your stall
you have learnt wisdom and it is time to hold our marriage feast then the chamberlains came and brought her the most beautiful robes and her father and his whole court were there already
and welcomed her home on her marriage joy was in every face and every heart the feast was grand they danced and sang all were merry
food for the sick remarks on preparing food for the sick few young persons understand cooking for the sick it is very important to know how to prepare their food in an inviting manner
every thing should be perfectly clean and nice
is very useful to strain lemonade panada or herb tea if you want any thing to use through the night you should prepare it if possible beforehand as a person that is sick can sometimes fall asleep without knowing it
if the room is kept perfectly still boiled custard beat an egg with a heaped tea spoonful of sugar stir it into a tea cupful of boiling milk and stir till it is thick
pour it in a bowl on a slice of toast cut up and grate a little nutmeg over panada put some crackers crusts of dry bread or dried rusk in a sauce pan with cold water and a few raisins
season to your taste with wine nutmeg and butter oat meal gruel
and pour it out on a slice of bread toasted and cut up or some dried rusk if the patient should like them you can put in a few raisins stoned and cut up
and if nicely warmed over is as good as when fresh corn gruel
have a clean skillet with a pint of boiling water in it stir it in and when done season it with salt to your taste
moisten two tea spoonsful of powdered arrow root with water and rub it smooth with a spoon then pour on half a pint of boiling water season it with lemon juice or wine and nutmeg in cooking arrow root for children
it is a very good way to make it very thick and thin it afterwards with milk sago wash the sago allowing two table spoonsful to a quart of water and soak it an hour
and season it with wine or lemon juice tapioca jelly wash the tapioca well and let it soak for several hours in cold water put it in a sauce pan with the same water and let it boil slowly till it is clear and thick
and stir in when it boils keep stirring it five minutes when pour it in a bowl and season with salt barley water
it is a cooling drink in fevers if the weather is cold you can make a larger quantity some boil whole raisins with barley take it with or without seasoning to poach eggs
put a pint of water in a clean skillet with a little butter and salt when it boils break two eggs in a plate and put them in
toasted and buttered this is a very delicate way of cooking eggs barley panada boil a small tea cup of barley in water till it is soft with a tea cup of raisins
calf's foot blancmange put a set of nicely cleaned feet in four quarts of water and let it boil more than half away strain through a colander and when it is cold scrape off all the fat
put it in a sauce pan with a quart of new milk
let it boil ten minutes and strain it
cream toast cut a slice of stale bread and wet it with cream toast it slowly and butter it this is very nice for an invalid and an agreeable change
and put in a spoonful of butter toast a slice of bread and moisten it with water then pour on the boiling milk this is very good for sick persons and can be eaten without much exertion
and stew it in a skillet with a little cream and butter if it is preferred dry it may be fried in butter alone
let it soak a few minutes to extract the salt and stew it in a little water just before it is done put in some cream and parsley if you broil ham that is uncooked it should always be soaked in water a few minutes
if you have a small chicken it will take half of it to make a pint of chicken water
when it has boiled down to a pint take it up and put in a little salt and slice of toasted bread this is valuable in cases of dysentery and cholera morbus particularly when made of old fowls
beef feet soak the feet and have them nicely cleaned boil them slowly and take off the scum as it rises when they are soft and tender take them up and separate the bones from the glutinous part
and conveys nutriment in a form that will hardly disagree with the most delicate stomach and has been taken when nearly all other food was rejected a few drops of vinegar and a little salt renders it more palatable
cut it in small pieces bruise it till tender put it in a wide mouthed bottle and cork it tight
mutton may be done in the same way mutton and veal broth boil a piece of mutton till it comes to pieces then strain the broth and let it get cold
then warm it and put in a little salt
wine whey
set it over the fire till it just boils again then set it off till the curd has settled
when it turns take out the rennet
if you have rennet in a bottle of wine two tea spoonsful of it will make a quart of whey
but do not let it burn put it in a pitcher and pour boiling water on it toast water will allay thirst better than almost any thing else if it is wanted to drink through the night it should always be made early in the evening
tamarinds currant or grape jelly cranberries or dried fruit of any kind make a good drink coffee sick persons should have their coffee made separate from the family
as standing in the tin pot spoils the flavor put two tea spoonsful of ground coffee in a small mug and pour boiling water on it let it set by the fire to settle and pour it off in a cup with sugar and cream
care should be taken that there are no burnt grains chocolate to make a cup of chocolate grate a large tea spoonful in a mug
let it stand covered by the fire a few minutes when you can put in sugar and cream black tea black tea is much more suitable than green for sick persons as it does not affect the nerves
pat a tea spoonful in a pot that will hold about two cups and pour boiling water on it let it set by the fire to draw five or ten minutes rye mush this is a nourishing and light diet for the sick
mixed smooth in a little water and stirred in a pint of boiling water let it boil twenty minutes stirring frequently
narrative continued by the doctor the jolly boat's last trip this fifth trip was quite different from any of the others in the first place
the little gallipot of a boat that we were in was gravely overloaded five grown men and three of them trelawney redruth and the captain over six feet high
was already more than she was meant to carry add to that the powder pork and bread bags the gunwale was lipping astern
several times we shipped a little water and my breeches and the tails of my coat were all soaking wet before we had gone a hundred yards the captain made us trim the boat
and we got her to lie a little more evenly all the same we were afraid to breathe in the second place the ebb was now making a strong rippling current
running westward through the basin and then south'ard and seaward down the straits by which we had entered in the morning even the ripples were a danger to our overloaded craft
two fresh men were at the oars the tide keeps washing her down could you pull a little stronger not without swamping the boat said he you must bear up sir
if you please bear up until you see you're gaining i tried and found by experiment that the tide kept sweeping us westward until i had laid her head due east
or just about right angles to the way we ought to go we'll never get ashore at this rate said i if it's the only course that we can lie sir we must even lie it
returned the captain we must keep upstream you see sir he went on if once we dropped to leeward of the landing place it's hard to say where we should get ashore
besides the chance of being boarded by the gigs whereas the way we go the current must slacken and then we can dodge back along the shore
for we had all quietly made up our minds to treat him like one of ourselves suddenly the captain spoke up again and i thought his voice was a little changed
the gun said he i have thought of that said i for i made sure he was thinking of a bombardment of the fort they could never get the gun ashore
we put the boat's head direct for the landing place by this time we had got so far out of the run of the current that we kept steerage way even at our necessarily gentle rate of rowing
and offered a target like a barn door i could hear as well as see that brandy faced rascal israel
mister trelawney will you please pick me off one of these men sir hands if possible said the captain
trelawney was as cool as steel he looked to the priming of his gun now cried the captain easy with that gun sir or you'll swamp the boat
all hands stand by to trim her when he aims the squire raised his gun the rowing ceased
was in consequence the most exposed however we had no luck for just as trelawney fired down he stooped the ball whistled over him
and it was one of the other four who fell the cry he gave was echoed not only by his companions on board but by a great number of voices from the shore
and looking in that direction i saw the other pirates trooping out from among the trees and tumbling into their places in the boats
give way then cried the captain we mustn't mind if we swamp her now if we can't get ashore all's up only one of the gigs is being manned sir
i added the crew of the other most likely going round by shore to cut us off they'll have a hot run sir returned the captain
jack ashore you know it's not them i mind it's the round shot carpet bowls my lady's maid couldn't miss tell us squire
when you see the match and we'll hold water in the meanwhile we had been making headway at a good pace for a boat so overloaded and we had shipped
below the clustering trees the gig was no longer to be feared the little point had already concealed it from our eyes the ebb tide which had so cruelly delayed us
and delaying our assailants the one source of danger was the gun if i durst said the captain i'd stop and pick off another man
but it was plain that they meant nothing should delay their shot they had never so much as looked at their fallen comrade though he was not dead
backed with a great heave that sent her stern bodily under water the report fell in at the same instant of time this was the first that jim heard the sound of the squire's shot
not having reached him where the ball passed not one of us precisely knew but i fancy it must have been over our heads and that the wind of it may have contributed to our disaster
on our feet the other three took complete headers and came up again drenched and bubbling so far there was no great harm no lives were lost
and we could wade ashore in safety but there were all our stores at the bottom and to make things worse
as for the captain he had carried his over his shoulder by a bandoleer and like a wise man lock uppermost the other three had gone down with the boat
to add to our concern
hunter was steady that we knew joyce was a doubtful case a pleasant polite man for a valet
and to brush one's clothes but not entirely fitted for a man of war with all this in our minds we waded ashore as fast as we could leaving behind us
everywhere through the records we find evidences that the ancient irish both high and low were passionately fond of music it was mixed up with their daily home life and formed part of their amusements meetings and celebrations of every kind
in the religious tales music is always one of the delights of heaven and a chief function of the angels who attend on god is to chant music of ineffable sweetness to him which they generally do in the shape of beautiful white birds
a good example of the people's intense fondness for music is found in an old irish religious poem in which the hard lot of adam and eve for a whole year after their expulsion from paradise is described when they were as the poem expresses it
without proper food fire house music or raiment here music is put among the necessaries of life so that it was a misery to be without it in the early ages of the church many of the irish ecclesiastics
took delight in playing on the harp and in order to indulge in this innocent and refining taste they were wont to bring with them on their missionary journeys a small portable harp with which they beguiled many a weary hour after their hard work
in very early times irish professors of music were as eagerly sought after on the continent as those of literature and general learning so that they were sometimes placed at the head of great music schools at a later time it was quite common among the welsh bards
to come over to ireland to receive instruction from the irish harpers
brought over to wales a number of skilled irish musicians who in conference with the native welsh bards carried out some great improvements in welsh music ireland was long the school for scottish harpers also who regularly came over like those of wales
to finish their musical education a practice which continued down to about one hundred fifty years ago giraldus cambrensis a welshman who visited ireland in eleven eighty five though very much prejudiced against the irish
says that irish harpers were incomparably more skilful than those of any other nation he had ever heard play
it is constantly mixed up with our oldest legends and it was in use from the remotest pagan times the old irish harps were of a medium size or rather small the average height being about thirty inches and some were not much more than half that height
they had strings of brass wire which were tuned by a key not very different from the present tuning key irish harpers always played with the fingers or with the finger nails the irish had a small stringed instrument called a timpan
to which at one side was attached a short neck the strings were stretched across the flat face of the drum and along the neck and were tuned and regulated by pins or keys and a bridge it was played with a bow or with the finger nail or by both together
while the notes were regulated in pitch or stopped as musicians say with the fingers of the left hand like those of a fiddle or guitar this little instrument was a great favourite and is constantly mentioned in irish literature
harpers and timpanists were honoured in ireland beyond all other musicians and their rights and privileges were even laid down in the law kings had always harpers in their service who resided in the palaces and were well paid for their services
many of whom played them as an accomplishment as people now play the piano and guitar but the bagpipe was the great favourite of the common people the form in use was what we now call the highland or scotch pipes slung from the shoulder the bag inflated by the mouth
resting on the lap when in use and having the bag inflated by a bellows but this is a late invention the old irish had also whistles and flageolets with holes for the fingers and blown by the mouth much like those of the present day
on many of the great stone crosses are sculptured harp players and pipe players from which we learn a great deal about the shapes and sizes of the several instruments the irish had curved bronze trumpets and horns of various shapes and sizes
which judging from the numbers found buried in clay and bogs must have been in very general use in the national museum in dublin is a collection of twenty six ancient trumpets varying in length from eight feet down to eighteen inches
the larger ones are of most admirable workmanship formed by hammering curved jointed ornamented and riveted with extraordinary skill and perfection of finish
among the household of every king and chief there was a band of trumpeters as there were harpers who were assigned their proper places at feasts and meetings trumpets were used for various purposes in war in hunting for signals during meetings and banquets
as a mark of honour on the arrival of distinguished visitors and such like for war purposes trumpeters had different calls for directing movements for battle for unyoking for marching for halting for retiring to sleep
a little branch on which were suspended a number of diminutive bells which produced a sweet tinkling when shaken a custom found also in early times on the continent the musical branch figures much in irish romantic literature
the music of ancient ireland consisted wholly of short airs each with two strains or parts seldom more but these though simple in comparison with modern music were constructed with such exquisite art that of a large proportion of them it may be truly said
no modern composer can produce airs of a similar kind to equal them the irish musicians had various styles three of which are very often mentioned in tales and other ancient irish writings of these numerous specimens have come down to the present day
the sorrow music goltree was slow and sad and was always sung on the occasion of a death we have many airs belonging to this style which are now commonly called keens i e laments or dirges the sleep music suantree
was intended to produce sleep and the tunes belonging to this style were plaintive and soothing such airs are now known as lullabies or nurse tunes or cradle songs of which numerous examples are preserved in collections of irish music
there were special spinning wheel songs which the women sang with words in chorus or in dialogue when employed in spinning
at milking time the girls were in the habit of chanting a particular sort of air in a low gentle voice these milking songs were slow and plaintive something like the nurse tunes
this practice was common down to fifty or sixty years ago and i well remember seeing cows grow restless when the song was interrupted and become again quiet and placid when it was resumed the same custom was common in the highlands of scotland
while ploughmen were at their work they whistled a sweet slow and sad strain which had as powerful an effect in soothing the horses at their hard labour as the milking songs had on the cows and these plough whistles also were quite usual till about half a century ago
special airs and songs were used during working time by smiths by weavers and by boatmen
examples of all the preceding classes of melodies will be found in the collections of irish airs by bunting petrie and joyce the irish had numerous war marches which the pipers played at the head of the clansmen when marching to battle
and which inspired them with courage and dash for the fight this custom is still kept up by the scotch and many fine battle tunes are printed in irish and scotch collections of national music the man who did most in modern times to draw attention to irish music was thomas moore
the search it is not to be supposed of course that the flight of little nell and her grandfather from the old curiosity shop was not noticed all the time while they were wandering about homeless and wretched
more than one went searching everywhere for them without success one of these was quilp the ugly dwarf he had loaned the grandfather more money than the shop would bring
and he made up his mind now that the old man had a secret hoard somewhere which might be his if he could find it he soon learned that if kit knew anything about it he would not tell so he and his lawyer a sleek oily rascal named brass
he kept in his room a big box like trunk in which was a silver stove that he used to cook his meals the stove had a lot of little openings in one he would put an egg in another some coffee in another a piece of meat and in the fourth
some water then he would light a lamp that stood under it and in five minutes the egg would be cooked the coffee boiled and the meat done all ready to eat he was the queerest sort of boarder the strangest habit he had was this
he seemed to be very fond of punch and judy shows and whenever he heard one on the street he would run out without his hat
and then invite them to his rooms where he would question them for a long time
the truth was the mysterious stranger was a long missing brother of little nell's grandfather a misunderstanding had come between them many years before when both were young men the younger had become a traveler in many countries and had never seen his brother since
he had come back now to england a rich man to find the other had vanished with little nell his grandchild he had soon learned the story of their misfortune and how the fear of quilp had driven them away
that the child and the old man had disappeared at the fair and that since then so they had heard a pair resembling them had been seen with the jarley waxwork exhibition the stranger easily discovered where missus jarley was and determined to set out to her at once
but he remembered that his brother little nell's grandfather could not be expected to know him after all the years he had been gone and as for little nell herself she had never seen him and he was afraid if they heard a strange man had come for them they would take fright and run away again
so he tried to find some one they had loved to go with him to show that he intended only kindness he was not long in hearing of kit who had found a situation as footman and he gained his employer's leave to take the lad with him
and that her grandfather blamed him as the cause of their misfortune
but kit promised the stranger that his mother should go in his place and went to tell her at once kit found his mother was at church but the matter was so urgent that he went straight to the pew and brought her out which caused even the minister to pause in his sermon
and made all the congregation look surprised kit took her home packed her box and bundled her into the coach which the stranger brought and away they went to find the wanderers now quilp had all along suspected that kit and his mother
knew something of their whereabouts and he had made it his business to watch either one or the other the dwarf in fact was in the church when kit came for his mother and he followed when she left with the stranger he took another coach and pursued feeling certain he was on the right track
but they were all too late when the stranger found missus jarley next day she could only tell him that little nell and her grandfather had disappeared again and he had to return with kit's mother much discouraged to london
the part kit had played in this made the dwarf hate him if possible more than ever and he agreed to pay brass his rascally lawyer to ruin the lad by making a false charge of theft against him
kit was arrested and the note of course was found on his person the evidence seemed so strong that the poor fellow was quickly tried found guilty and sentenced to prison for a long time all might have gone wrong but for a little maid servant of brass's
whom the lawyer had starved and mistreated for years he used to keep her locked in the moldy cellar and gave her so little to eat that she would creep into the office at night she had found a key that fitted the door to pick up the bits of bread that dick swiveller brass's clerk
after kit was arrested she ran away from brass's house and told her story to kit's employer who had all along believed in his innocence
this so enraged the lawyer that when he was brought face to face with the little maid's evidence and found that he himself was caught he made full confession of the part quilp had played and told the whole story to revenge himself on the dwarf
the dwarf received warning from sally brass but he had no time to get away when he heard the knocking on the gates and knew that the law he had so long defied was at last upon him he fell into a panic and did not know which way to turn
he tried to cover the light of the fire but only succeeded in upsetting the stove then he ran out of the house on to the dock in the darkness it was a black foggy night and he could not see a foot before him he thought he could climb over the wall to the next wharf and so escape
but in his fright he missed his way and fell over the edge of the platform into the swift flowing river he screamed in terror but the water filled his throat and the knocking on the gates was so loud that no one heard him the water swept him close to a ship
the waves threw his drowned body finally on the edge of a dismal swamp in the red glare of the blazing ruin which the overturned stove that night made of the building in which he had framed his evil plots and this was the end of quilp the dwarf
as for kit he found himself all at once not only free but a hero his employer came to the jail to tell him that he was free and that everyone knew now of his innocence and they made him eat and drink and everybody shook hands with him
then he was put into a coach and they drove straight home where his mother was waiting to kiss him and cry over him with joy and last but by no means least of all his new good fortune
he learned then that the stranger who had been searching so long for little nell and her grandfather had found certainly where they were and that kit was to go with him and his employer at once and bring them back again to london they started the next day and on the long road
they talked much of little nell and the strange chance by which the lost had been found a gentleman who lived in the village to which they were now bound who had himself been kind to the child and to the old man whom the new schoolmaster had brought with him had written of the pair to kit's employer
and the letter had been the lost clue so long sought to their hiding place snow began falling as the daylight wore away and the coach wheels made no noise all night and all the next day they rode and it was midnight before they came to the town
they left the driver to take the horses to the inn and approached the building afoot they went quite close and looked through the window in the room an old man bent low over a fire crooning to himself and kit seeing that it was his old master opened the door ran in
he had a dress of little nell's in his hand and smoothed and patted it as he muttered that she had been asleep asleep a long time now and was marble cold and would not wake
and see here these shoes how worn they are you see where her feet went bare upon the ground they told me afterward that the stones had cut and bruised them she never told me that no no god bless her and i have remembered since how she walked behind me
that i might not see how lame she was
so he muttered on and the cheeks of the others were wet with tears for they had begun to understand the sad truth kit could not speak but the stranger did you speak of little nell he said do you remember long ago another child too
who loved you when you were a child yourself say that you had a brother long forgotten who now at last came back to you to be what you were then to him give me but one word dear brother to say you know me and life will still be precious to us again
the old man shook his head for grief had killed all memory pushing them aside he went into the next room calling little nell's name softly as he went they followed kit sobbed as they entered for there on her bed little nell lay dead
dear gentle patient noble nell the schoolmaster told them of her last hours they had read and talked to her a while and then she had sunk peacefully to sleep they knew by what she said in her dreams that they were of her wanderings
and of the people who had helped them for often she whispered god bless you and she spoke once of beautiful music that was in the air opening her eyes at last she begged that they would kiss her once again that done she turned to the old man with a lovely smile on her face
such he said as he had never seen and threw both arms about his neck they did not know at first that she was dead they laid little nell to rest the next day in the churchyard where she had so often sat
he thought she would come back to him some day and that then they would go away together he used to sit beside her grave and watch for her each afternoon one day he did not return at the usual hour and they went to look for him he was lying dead upon the stone
they buried him beside the child he had loved and there in the churchyard where they had often talked together they both lie side by side none of those who had known little nell ever forgot her story after the death of the old man his brother the stranger who had sought them so long
traveled in the footsteps of the two wanderers to search out and reward all who had been kind to them missus jarley of the waxwork the punch and judy showmen he found them all even the rough canal boatmen were not forgotten
kit's story got abroad and he found himself with hosts of friends who gave him a good position and secured his mother from want so that his greatest misfortune turned out after all to be his greatest good the little maid whose evidence cleared kit of the terrible charge against him
lived to marry dick swiveller the clerk of brass the lawyer while meek missus quilp after her husband's drowning married a clever young man and lived a pleasant life on the dead dwarf's money the fate of the others whose wickedness has been a part of this story was not so pleasant
the two gamblers who tempted the old man to steal missus jarley's strong box were detected in another crime and sent to jail brass became a convict condemned to walk on a treadmill chained to a long line of other evil men and dragging wherever he went a heavy iron ball
after he was released he joined his wicked sister sally and the two sank lower and lower till they might even be seen on dark nights on narrow london streets searching in refuse boxes for bits of food like twin spirits of wickedness and crime
the men were mending the dolls very badly so little nell took a needle and sewed them all neatly they were delighted at this and took the pair to the inn where they were to show the punch and judy and there they found them a place to sleep in an empty loft
the next day the wanderers went on with the showmen whenever they came to a village the booth was pitched and the show took place and they never left a town without a pack of ragged children at their heels
the punch and judy show grew tiresome but the company seemed better than none little nell was weary with walking but she tried to hide it from her grandfather the inn at which they lodged the next night
was full of showmen with trained dogs conjurers and others hurrying to a town where there was to be a fair with horse races to which the punch and judy partners were bound and little nell began to distrust their company
to tell the truth the others believed the child and the old man were running away from their friends and that a reward might be obtained for giving them up the way in which the men watched them frightened little nell and when they reached the scene of the fair
she had determined to escape it was the second day of the races before a chance came and then while the showmen's backs were turned they slipped away in the crowd to the open fields again these alarms and the exposure had begun to affect the old man
the pale old schoolmaster sat smoking in the garden he was a sad solitary man and loved little nell when he first saw her because she was like a favorite pupil he once had he made them sleep in the school room that night
who died from pricking her finger while sewing on sunday she was quick to learn and soon became a great favorite with the visitors missus jarley was kind and but for the fact that her grandfather's mind failed more and more every day little nell would have been quite happy
one evening the two walked into the country beyond the town and a sudden thunder storm arose they took shelter at an inn on the highroad and while they waited there some rough men began a noisy game of cards behind a screen
he made her give him the money she had earned from the waxwork joined the gamblers and in a few hours had lost it all his insanity had made him forget the presence of the child he so loved and when the game was done it was too late to leave the inn that night
little nell had now only one piece of money left a gold piece sewed in her dress this she had to change into silver and to pay a part for their lodging when she was abed she could not sleep for fear of the wicked men she had seen gambling
when at last she fell asleep she waked suddenly to see a figure in the room she was too frightened to scream and lay very still and trembled the robber searched her clothing
took the rest of the money and went out she was dreadfully afraid he might return to harm her if she could get to her grandfather she thought she would be safe she opened the door softly and in the moonlight saw the figure entering the old man's room
she caught a view of his face and then she knew that the figure was her own grandfather and that crazed by the gambling scene he himself had robbed her all that night little nell lay and cried she knew to be sure
that her grandfather was not a thief and that he did not know what he was doing when he stole her money but she knew too that if people found out he was crazy they would take him away from her and shut him up where she could not be with him and of this she could not bear to think
he gambled away for often he was out all night and even seemed to shun her so she was sad and took many long walks alone through the fields one evening it happened that she passed a meadow where beside a hedge a fire was burning
with three men sitting and lying around it she was in the shadow and they did not see her one she saw was her grandfather and the others were the gamblers with whom he had played at the inn on the night of the storm
little nell crept close they were tempting the poor daft old man to steal the money from missus jarley's strong box and while she listened he consented she ran home in terrible grief she tried to sleep but could not
at last she could bear it no longer she went to the old man's room and wakened him i have had a dreadful dream she told him a dream of an old gray haired man like you robbing people of their gold i can not stay i can not leave you here we must go
to the crazy old man she seemed an angel he dressed himself in fear and with her little basket on her arm she led him out of the house on away from the town into the country far away from missus jarley who had been so kind to them
and of the further wandering that lay before them now poor little nell burst into tears but at length she bravely dried her tears lest they sadden her grandfather and they went
and when they awoke in the afternoon some rough canal men took them aboard their dirty craft as far as the next town the men were well meaning enough and meant the travelers no harm but after a while they began to drink and quarreled and fought among themselves
and little nell sat all night wet with the rain and sang to them to quiet them the place to which they finally came was a town of wretched workmen who toiled all day in iron furnaces for little wages and were almost as miserable and hungry as the wanderers themselves
no one gave them anything and they lived for three days with only two penny loaves to eat for all their money was now gone and slept at night in the ashes of some poor laborer's hut the fourth day they dragged themselves into the country again
little nell's shoes were worn through to the bare ground her feet were bleeding her limbs ached and she was deadly faint they begged but no one would help them the child's strength was almost gone when they met a traveler who was reading in a book as he walked along
he looked up as they came near it was the kind old schoolmaster in whose school they had slept before they met missus jarley in her house on wheels when she saw him little nell shrieked and fell unconscious at his feet
the schoolmaster carried her to an inn near by where she was put to bed and doctored under his care for she was very weak she told him all the story of their wanderings
and he heard it with astonishment and wonder to find such a great heart and heroism in a child he had been appointed schoolmaster he told her in another town to which he was then on his way and he declared they should go with him and he would care for them
feldman had set his legs the problem of heading for the great spaceport and escape from earth and he let them take him without further guidance his mind was wrapped up in a whirl of the past his past and that of the whole planet
both pasts had in common the growth and sudden ruin of idealism idealism throughout history some men had sought the ideal and most had called it freedom only fools expected absolute freedom
but wise men dreamed up many systems of relative freedom including democracy they had tried that in america as the last fling of the dream it had been a good attempt too the men who drew the constitution had been pretty practical dreamers
they came to their task after a bitter war and a worse period of wild chaos and they had learned where idealism stopped and idiocy began they set up a republic with all the elements of democracy that they considered safe
that kind of talk didn't get far people wanted to hear about rights not about duties they took the phrase that all men were created equal and left out the implied kicker that equality was in the sight of god and before the law
they wanted an equality with the greatest men without giving up their drive toward mediocrity and they meant to have it in a way they got it they got the vote extended to everyone the man on subsidy or public dole could vote to demand more
the man who read of nothing beyond sex crimes could vote on the great political issues of the world no ability was needed for his vote in fact he was assured that voting alone was enough to make him a fine and noble citizen he loved that
if he bothered to vote at all that year he became a great man by listing his unthought hungry desire for someone to take care of him without responsibility so he went out and voted for the man who promised him most
or who looked most like what his limited dreams felt to be a father image or son image or hero image he never bothered later to see how the men he'd elected had handled the jobs he had given them someone had to look of course and someone did
organized special interests stepped in where the mob had failed lobbies grew up there had always been pressure groups but now they developed into a third arm of the government the old farm lobby was unbeatable
it was an accident that grew up so fast it never even knew it wasn't a real part of the government it developed during a period of chaos when another country called russia got the first hunk of metal above the atmosphere
and when the representatives who had been picked for everything but their grasp of science and government went into panic over a myth of national prestige the space effort was turned over to the aircraft industry
which had never been able to manage itself successfully except under the stimulus of war or a threat of war the failing airplane industry became the space combine overnight and nobody kept track of how big it was except a few sharp operators
they worked out a system of subcontracts that spread the profits so wide that hardly a company of any size in the country wasn't getting a share thus a lot of patriotic noble voters got their pay from companies in the lobby block
and could be panicked by the lobby at the first mention of recession so space lobby took over completely in its own field it developed enough pressure to get whatever appropriations it wanted even over presidential veto it created the only space experts
which meant that the men placed in government agencies to regulate it came from its own ranks the other lobbies learned a lot from space there had been a medical lobby long before but it had been a conservative group mostly concerned with protecting medical autonomy and ethics
it also tried to prevent government control of treatment and payment feeling that it couldn't trust the people to know where to stop but its history was a long series of retreats it fought what it called socialized medicine
but the people wanted their troubles handled free which meant by government spending since that could be added to the national debt and thus didn't seem to cost anything it lost and eventually the government paid most medical costs
then quantity of treatment paid rather than quality competence no longer mattered so much the lobby lost but didn't know it because the lowered standards of competence in the profession lowered the caliber of men running the political aspects of that profession as exemplified by the lobby
it wiped out two billion people depopulated africa and most of asia and wrecked europe leaving only america comparatively safe to take over
an obscure scientist in one of the laboratories run by the medical lobby found a cure before the first waves of the epidemic hit america rutherford ryan then head of the lobby made sure that medical lobby got all the credit by the time the world recovered america ran it
and the medical lobby was untouchable ryan made a deal with space lobby and the two effectively ran the world none of the smaller lobbies could buck them and neither could the government there was still a president and a congress
as there had been a senate under the roman caesars but the two lobbies ran themselves as they chose the real government had become a kind of oligarchy as it always did after too much false democracy ruined the ideals of real and practical self rule
they had very little to worry about for that for security and the right not to think most people were willing to leave well enough alone some rules seemed harsh of course
such as the law that all operations had to be performed in lobby hospitals but that could be justified it was the only safe kind of surgery and the only way to make sure there was no unsupervised experimentation such as that which supposedly caused the plague
the rule was now an absolute ethic of medicine it also made for better fees feldman's father had stuck by the rule but had questioned it feldman learned not to question in medical school he scored second in medical ethics only
to christina ryan he had never figured why she singled him out for her attentions but he gloried in both those attentions and the results he became automatically a rising young man the favorite of the daughter of the lobby president
in return he agreed to follow that period by becoming an administrator a doctor's doctor as they put it they were married in april and his office was ready in may complete with a staff of eighty the publicity releases had gone out
and the public relations lobby that handled news and education was paid to begin the greatest build up any young genius ever had they celebrated that with a little party of some four hundred people and reporters at ryan's lodge in canada
it was to be a gala weekend it was then that baxter shot himself baxter had been feldman's closest friend in the lobby he'd come along to handle press relations and had gotten romantic about the countryside
never having been out of a city before he hired a guide and went hunting eighty miles beyond the last outpost of civilization somehow he got his hand on a gun though only guides were supposed to touch them
managed to overcome its safety devices and then pulled the trigger with the gun pointed the wrong way chris feldman and harnett from public relations had accompanied him on the trip they were sitting in a nearby car while feldman enjoyed the scenery
chris made further plans and harnett gathered material there was also a photographer and writer but they hadn't been introduced by name feldman reached baxter first the man was moaning and scared and he was bleeding profusely
only a miracle had saved him from instant death the bullet had struck a rib been deflected and robbed of some of its energy and had barely reached the heart but it had pierced the pericardium as best feldman could guess and it could be fatal
and i'll spread it in every one of our media i'll have to it's the only way to retain public confidence there'd be a leak with all the guides and others here and we can't afford that i like you you have color but touch that wound
and i'll crucify you chris added her own threats she'd spent years making him the outlet for all her ambitions denied because women were still only second rate members of medical lobby she couldn't let it go now
and only anodyne tablets in place of anesthesia he got the bullet out and sewed up the wound with a bit of surgical thread he'd been using to tie up a torn good luck emblem the photographer and writer recorded the whole thing
chris swore harshly and beat her fists against the bole of a tree but baxter lived he recovered completely and was shocked at the heinous thing that had been done to him
there were also times when it didn't seem to matter and when his only thoughts were for the villages and the plague they brought him the papers where he was painted as a monster beside whom jack the ripper and albrecht delier were gentle amateurs
but there were also signs that the lobby was worried as if afraid that some attempt might still be made to rescue him he'd looked forward to the trip to the airport as a way of judging public reaction
but apparently the lobby had no desire to test that the guards led him up to the roof of the jail where a rocket was waiting the landing space was too small for one of the station shuttles but a little northport southport shuttle was parked there
after what must have been a difficult set down the guards tested doc's manacles and forced him into the shuttle inside chris was waiting carrying an official automatic
the shuttle lifted sluggishly but there was no great difficulty doc could see that there was even some fuel remaining when they slipped into the tube at the orbital station chris went out and other guards came in to free him
so long doctor feldman the pilot called softly as they led him out then the guards shoved him through the airlock into the station fifteen minutes later he was locked into one of the cabins of the iroquois with all his possessions stacked beside him
but finally he received a surly acknowledgement steward whatcha want how's the chance of getting some food you're on first class they could afford it doc decided he wouldn't cost them much
considering the distance he was going bring me two complete dinners one earth normal and one mars normal okay feldman
a sharp click interrupted him that's enough steward captain everts speaking doctor feldman you have my apologies until you reach your destination you are my passenger and entitled to every consideration of any other passenger except freedom of movement through the ship
i am always available for legitimate complaints feldman shook his head he'd heard of such men but he'd thought the species extinct the steward brought his food in a thoroughly chastened manner he managed to find space for it
sir for a moment as the smell of real steak reached him doc regretted the fact that his metabolism had been switched then he shrugged a little wouldn't hurt him though there was no proper nourishment in it
he squeezed some of the gravy and bits of meat into one of his bottles sticking to his purpose then he fell to on the rest but after a few bites it was queerly unsatisfactory the seemingly unappealing mars normal ragout suited his current tastes better after all
it was better than wasting his time in dread he might even be able to leave some notes behind a gong sounded and a red light warned him that acceleration was due he finished with his bottles put them into the incubator
and piled into his bunk swallowing one of the tablets of morphetal the ship furnished acceleration had ended
he flipped the switch while reaching for the coffee captain everts the speaker said may i join you in your cabin come ahead feldman invited he cut off the switch and glanced at the clock on the wall there were less than eleven hours left to him
there was neither friendliness nor hostility in his glance his words were courteous as doc motioned toward the tray of breakfast i've already eaten thank you he accepted a chair his voice was apologetic when he began
this is a personal matter which i perhaps have no right to bring up but my wife is greatly worried about this plague
the ship physician believes missus everts may have the plague but isn't sure of the symptoms i
doc wondered about the physician apparently there was another man who placed his patients above anything else though he was probably meticulous about obeying all actual rules there was no law against listening to a pariah at least
we went through it together shortly after having our metabolism switched during the food shortage of eighty eight
the swelling was there he asked a few questions but there could be no doubt both of you must have it captain though it won't mature for another year i'm sorry there's no hope then
but thank you he got to his feet and left as quietly and erectly as he had entered doc tore up his notes bitterly he paced his cabin slowly reading out the hours while his eyes lingered on the little bottle of cultures
at times the fear grew in him but he mastered it there was half an hour left when he began opening the little bottles and making his films he was still not finished when steps echoed down the hall but he was reasonably sure of his results
doc forced his hands to steadiness with foolish pride and began climbing into the suit he reached for the helmet but the man shook his head pointing to the oxygen gauge there would be exactly one hour's supply of oxygen when he was thrown out
and it still lacked five minutes of the deadline they marched him down the hallway to meet everts coming toward them there were still three minutes left when they reached the airlock with its inner door already open the spacesuited man climbed into it
and began strapping down so that the rush of air would not sweep him outward when the other seal was released doc had saved one bracky weed now he raised it to his lips fumbling for a light
better change your metabolism back to earth normal captain everts he said and his voice was so normal that he hardly recognized it everts eyes widened briefly the man bowed faintly thank you
doctor feldman it was ridiculous impossible and yet there was a curious relief at the formality of it it was like something from a play too unreal to affect his life everts nodded to the man holding the helmet
doc dropped his bracky weed and felt the helmet snap down a hiss of oxygen reached him and the suit ballooned out there was no gravity the two men handed him up easily to the one in the airlock while the inner seal began to close
there was still ten seconds to go according to the big chronometer that had been installed in the lock the spaceman used it in tying the sack of possessions firmly to doc's suit a red light went on
the man caught doc and held him against the outer seal the red light blinked four seconds three two there was a sudden heavy thudding sound and the iroquois seemed to jerk sideways slightly
convert feldman fought for control of himself forced himself to think to hold onto his sanity
but the will to be himself was stronger than logic and bit by bit he forced the fear and horror away from him until he could examine his situation he was spinning slowly so that stars ahead of him seemed to crawl across his view
the ship was retreating from him already hundreds of yards away mars was a shrunken pill far away then something blinked to one side he turned his head to stare
a little ship was less than three hundred yards away he recognized it as a life raft now his spin brought him around to face it and he saw it was parallelling his course
the ejection of the life raft must have caused the thump he'd heard before he was cast adrift it meant someone was trying to save him it meant life he flailed his arms and beat his legs together
and the little ship leaped forward whoever was handling it knew nothing about piloting it picked up too much speed at too great an angle again blue spurts came but this time matters were even worse
then there was a long wait before a third try was made he estimated the course it would miss him by a good hundred feet but it was probably the best the amateur pilot could do the ship drifted closer but to one side it would soon pass him completely
a spacesuited figure suddenly appeared in the tiny airlock holding a coil of rope the rope shot out well thrown but it was too short it would pass within ten feet and might as well have been ten miles for all the good it would do him
every film he had seen on space seemed to form a mad jumble in his mind but he seized on the first idea he could remember he inhaled deeply and yanked the oxygen tank free an automatic seal on the suit cut off the connection
he aimed the hissing bottle fumbling for the manual valve it almost worked it kicked him toward the rope slightly but most of the energy was wasted in setting him into a wilder spin he blinked trying to spot the rope
it was within five feet now again he waited until he seemed to be in position this time he threw the bottle away from it it added spin to his vertical axis but the rope came into view within arm's reach he grasped it
just as his lungs seemed about to burst he couldn't hold on long enough to tie the rope his lungs gave up suddenly collapsing and then sucking in greedily clean air rushed in letting his head clear
he'd forgotten that the inflated suit held enough oxygen for several minutes his body struck the edge of the airlock and a hand jerked him inside the outer seal was slammed shut and locked and there was a hiss of air entering
he threw back his helmet just as chris ryan jerked hers off her voice shook almost hysterically thank god dan i almost gave up i liked the air out there better he told her bitterly if you'll open the lock again i'll leave
i came along to see you killed as you know very well saving you wasn't in my orders he grunted and reached for the handle that would release the outer lock
it's up to you dan she told him and there was all the sincerity in the world in her blue eyes i'm on your side now he began counting on his fingers let's see the spare battery
the delay in arresting me the choice of matthews it was all true anger began to grow in her eyes dan feldman you get inside this raft if you don't care about me you might consider the people dying of the plague who need you
addressed to missus d e everts and signed by one of the best doctors on the lobby board of directors regret confirm diagnosis topsecret repeat topsecret martian fever incubates fourteen years believed highly fatal no cure
research beginning immediately penalty violation topsecret death all concerned missus everts rates a topsecret break doc commented dryly come off it chris she's the daughter of elmers of space lobby chris answered
she pointed to the message underlining words with her finger fourteen years you couldn't have caused it highly fatal and people are being told it's only a skin disease research beginning but you've already done most of the research i can see that now
i can't prove my motives you'll just have to believe me but it wasn't hard to do what i've done that shuttle pilot was found in a routine check stowed away on the life raft i was with captain everts when he was found so i discovered how to get into the raft
the pilot's farewell addressing him as doctor feldman had been too low for her to hear but it was something that fitted her story it was probably a deliberate clue to give him hope to assure him the villages were still trying it shook his confidence
and you've decided your precious lobby won't save you she dropped her eyes then raised them to meet his defiantly i'm not just scared and selfish dad caught it too and it must be close to the time for him
there was a manual lever which chris must have used before it might work out here where there was room to maneuver and nothing to hit but trying to make a landing was going to be different dan she repeated he shrugged i don't know
they've started research too late and they'll be under so much pressure that the real brains won't have a chance the topsecret stuff looks bad for research maybe there's a cure it works in culture bottles but it may fail in person
when i'm convinced i'm safe with you i may tell you about it oh her voice was low then she sighed i suppose i can understand why you hate me dan i don't hate you i'm too mixed up tomorrow maybe but not now
shut up and let me see if i can figure out how to land this thing he found that the fuel tanks were nearly full but that still didn't leave much margin
they had no aspirators however and they couldn't cover much territory in the spacesuits they would have to use it meant he'd have to land close to a village where he was known he jockeyed the ship around by trial and error studying the manual that was lying prominently on the control panel
according to the booklet the ship was simple to operate it was self leveling in an atmosphere and automatic flare computers were supposed to make it possible for an amateur to judge the rate of descent near the surface it looked reassuring and was probably written with that in mind
finally he reached for the control hoping he'd figured his landing orbit reasonably well by simple logic he smoothed it out in the following hours as he watched the markings on mars when they were near turnover point
he began cranking the little gyroscope to swing the ship it saved fuel to turn without power
he was gaining some proficiency however he felt but now he had to waste fuel and ruin his orbit again there was no way to practice maneuvering without actually doing so in the end he compromised
leaving a small margin for a bad landing that would require a second attempt but with less practice than he wanted he had located jake's village through the little telescope when he finally reached for the main blast control
while the blast lashed out then they were in the outer fringes of the sky and the blast was beginning to show a corona that ruined visibility he turned to the flare computer and back to what he could see through the quartz viewport
as nearly as he could judge the computer seemed to work as it should the speed was within acceptable limits
the flare bloomed and he yanked down on the little lever it could have been worse they hit the ground bounced twice and turned over the ship was a mess when feldman freed himself from the elastic straps of the seat
chris had shrieked as they hit but she was unbuckling herself now he threw her her spacesuit and one of the emergency bottles of oxygen from the rack hurry up with that
they were halfway to the village when a dozen tractors came racing up and jake piled out of the lead one to drag the two in with him heard about it from the broadcasts and figured you might land around here good to see you doc
he started the tractor off at full speed back to the wastelands while doc stared at the armed men who were riding the tractors jake caught his look and nodded you're in enemy territory doc
son of a king in order madam to explain how i came to lose my right eye and to wear the dress of a calender you must first know that i am the son of a king my father's only brother reigned over the neighbouring country
and had two children a daughter and a son who were of the same age as myself as i grew up and was allowed more liberty
and usually stayed there about two months in this way my cousin and i became very intimate
the very last time i saw him he seemed more delighted to see me than ever and gave a great feast in my honour when we had finished eating he said to me my cousin you would never guess what i have been doing since your last visit to us
directly after your departure i set a number of men to work on a building after my own design it is now completed and ready to be lived in i should like to show it to you but you must first swear two things to be faithful to me and to keep my secret
of course i did not dream of refusing him anything he asked and gave the promise without the least hesitation he then bade me wait an instant and vanished returning in a few moments with a richly dressed lady of great beauty
but as he did not tell me her name i thought it was better not to inquire we all three sat down to table and amused ourselves with talking of all sorts of indifferent things and with drinking each other's health suddenly the prince said to me
cousin we have no time to lose be so kind as to conduct this lady to a certain spot where you will find a dome like tomb newly built you cannot mistake it go in both of you and wait till i come i shall not be long
as i had promised i prepared to do as i was told and giving my hand to the lady i escorted her by the light of the moon to the place of which the prince had spoken we had barely reached it when he joined us himself carrying a small vessel of water
a pickaxe and a little bag containing plaster with the pickaxe he at once began to destroy the empty sepulchre in the middle of the tomb
when he had knocked down the whole sepulchre he proceeded to dig at the earth and beneath where the sepulchre had been i saw a trap door he raised the door and i caught sight of the top of a spiral staircase then he said turning to the lady
madam this is the way that will lead you down to the spot which i told you of
i don't understand no matter he replied go back by the path that you came he would say no more and greatly puzzled i returned to my room in the palace and went to bed
i at last decided to return home leaving the ministers to make my excuses i longed to tell them what had become of the prince about whose fate they felt the most dreadful anxiety but the oath i had sworn kept me silent
on my arrival at my father's capital i was astonished to find a large detachment of guards drawn up before the gate of the palace
i asked the officers in command the reason of this strange behaviour and was horrified to learn that the army had mutinied and put to death the king my father
further that by his orders i was placed under arrest
because once when shooting at a bird with a bow i had shot out his eye by accident
but i made them in person it was all of no use he cherished an undying hatred towards me and lost no occasion of showing it having once got me in his power i felt he could show no mercy and i was right
mad with triumph and fury he came to me in my prison and tore out my right eye that is how i lost it my persecutor however did not stop here he shut me up in a large case and ordered his executioner to carry me into a desert place
to cut off my head and then to abandon my body to the birds of prey the case with me inside it was accordingly placed on a horse and the executioner accompanied by another man
but their hearts were not so hard as they seemed and my tears and prayers made them waver forsake the kingdom instantly said the executioner at last and take care never to come back for you will not only lose your head but make us lose ours
i thanked him gratefully and tried to console myself for the loss of my eye by thinking of the other misfortunes i had escaped
i could only travel very slowly and cautiously generally resting in some out of the way place by day and walking as far as i was able by night but at length i arrived in the kingdom of my uncle of whose protection i was sure
i found him in great trouble about the disappearance of his son who had he said vanished without leaving a trace but his own grief did not prevent him sharing mine we mingled our tears for the loss of one was the loss of the other
i therefore lost no time in telling my uncle everything i knew and i observed that even before i had ended his sorrow appeared to be lightened a little my dear nephew he said your story gives me some hope
i was aware that my son was building a tomb and i think i can find the spot but as he wished to keep the matter secret let us go alone and seek the place ourselves he then bade me disguise myself and we both slipped out of a garden door which opened on to the cemetery
it did not take long for us to arrive at the scene of the prince's disappearance or to discover the tomb i had sought so vainly before we entered it and found the trap door which led to the staircase but we had great difficulty in raising it
because the prince had fastened it down underneath with the plaster he had brought with him my uncle went first and i followed him when we reached the bottom of the stairs we stepped into a sort of ante room filled with such a dense smoke that it was hardly possible to see anything however
we passed through the smoke into a large chamber which at first seemed quite empty the room was brilliantly lighted and in another moment we perceived a sort of platform at one end on which were the bodies of the prince and a lady both half burned
as if they had been dragged out of a fire before it had quite consumed them this horrible sight turned me faint but to my surprise my uncle did not show so much surprise as anger i knew he said
that my son was tenderly attached to this lady whom it was impossible he should ever marry i tried to turn his thoughts and presented to him the most beautiful princesses but he cared for none of them and as you see
they have now been united by a horrible death in an underground tomb but as he spoke his anger melted into tears and again i wept with him when he recovered himself he drew me to him my dear nephew he said embracing me
then he turned and went up the stairs we reached the palace without anyone having noticed our absence when shortly after a clashing of drums and cymbals and the blare of trumpets burst upon our astonished ears
my heart sank when i perceived that the commander
and was come to seize the kingdom of my uncle the capital was utterly unprepared to stand a siege and seeing that resistance was useless at once opened its gates my uncle fought hard for his life but was soon overpowered and when he fell
persecuted by ill fortune and stricken with grief
i shaved my beard and my eyebrows and put on the dress of a calender in which it was easy for me to travel without being known
haroun al raschid when i had no further reason to fear my enemies it was my intention to come to bagdad and to throw myself at the feet of his highness who would i felt certain be touched by my sad story and would grant me besides his help and protection
after a journey which lasted some months i arrived at length at the gates of this city it was sunset and i paused for a little to look about me and to decide which way to turn my steps i was still debating on this subject when i was joined by this other calender
who stopped to greet me you like me appear to be a stranger i said he replied that i was right and before he could say more the third calender came up he also was newly arrived in bagdad
and being brothers in misfortune we resolved to cast in our lots together and to share whatever fate might have in store by this time it had grown late and we did not know where to spend the night but our lucky star having guided us to this door
we took the liberty of knocking and of asking for shelter which was given to us at once with the best grace in the world this madam is my story i am satisfied replied zobeida you can go when you like
i was taught first to read and write and then to learn the koran which is the basis of our holy religion and the better to understand it i read with my tutors the ablest commentators on its teaching and committed to memory all the traditions respecting the prophet
which have been gathered from the mouth of those who were his friends i also learnt history and was instructed in poetry versification geography chronology and in all the outdoor exercises in which every prince should excel
but what i liked best of all was writing arabic characters and in this i soon surpassed my masters and gained a reputation in this branch of knowledge that reached as far as india itself
now the sultan of the indies curious to see a young prince with such strange tastes sent an ambassador to my father laden with rich presents and a warm invitation to visit his court
my father who was deeply anxious to secure the friendship of so powerful a monarch and held besides that a little travel would greatly improve my manners and open my mind accepted gladly and in a short time i had set out for india with the ambassador
attended only by a small suite on account of the length of the journey and the badness of the roads however as was my duty i took with me ten camels laden with rich presents for the sultan
and as soon as it came near we found that the dust concealed a band of fifty robbers our men barely numbered half
so we tried to overawe them by informing them who we were and whither we were going the robbers however only laughed and declared that was none of their business and without more words attacked us brutally
and that the ambassador and all our followers were made prisoners i put spurs to my horse and rode away as fast as i could till the poor beast fell dead from a wound in his side i managed to jump off without any injury and looked about to see if i was pursued
i found myself in a country that was quite new to me and dared not return to the main road lest i should again fall into the hands of the robbers luckily my wound was only a slight one and after binding it up as well as i could i walked on for the rest of the day
till i reached a cave at the foot of a mountain where i passed the night in peace making my supper off some fruits i had gathered on the way i wandered about for a whole month without knowing where i was going
till at length i found myself on the outskirts of a beautiful city watered by winding streams which enjoyed an eternal spring
my face and hands had been burned nearly black my clothes were all in rags and my shoes were in such a state that i had been forced to abandon them altogether i entered the town and stopped at a tailor's shop to inquire where i was
the man saw i was better than my condition and begged me to sit down and in return i told him my whole story the tailor listened with attention but his reply instead of giving me consolation only increased my trouble beware he said
of telling any one what you have told me for the prince who governs the kingdom is your father's greatest enemy and he will be rejoiced to find you in his power i thanked the tailor for his counsel and said i would do whatever he advised then being very hungry
in a few days i had quite recovered from the hardships i had undergone and then the tailor knowing that it was the custom for the princes of our religion to learn a trade or profession so as to provide for themselves
inquired if there was anything i could do for my living
all that is of no use here said the tailor take my advice put on a short coat and as you seem hardy and strong go into the woods and cut firewood which you will sell in the streets by this means you will earn your living and be able to wait till better times come
the hatchet and the cord shall be my present this counsel was very distasteful to me but i thought i could not do otherwise than adopt it so the next morning i set out with a company of poor wood cutters to whom the tailor had introduced me
even on the first day i cut enough wood to sell for a tolerable sum and very soon i became more expert and had made enough money to repay the tailor all he had lent me i had been a wood cutter for more than a year when
one day i wandered further into the forest than i had ever done before and reached a delicious green glade where i began to cut wood i was hacking at the root of a tree when i beheld an iron ring fastened to a trapdoor of the same metal i soon cleared away the earth
and pulling up the door found a staircase which i hastily made up my mind to go down carrying my hatchet with me by way of protection when i reached the bottom i discovered that i was in a huge palace as brilliantly lighted as any palace above ground that i had ever seen
with a long gallery supported by pillars of jasper ornamented with capitals of gold down this gallery a lady came to meet me of such beauty that i forgot everything else and thought only of her to save her all the trouble possible i hastened towards her
she asked again with a sigh i have been in this place now for five and twenty years and you are the first man who has visited me emboldened by her beauty and gentleness i ventured to reply before madam i answer your question
allow me to say how grateful i am for this meeting which is not only a consolation to me in my own heavy sorrow but may perhaps enable me to render your lot happier and then i told her who i was and how i had come there alas prince
she said with a deeper sigh than before
at my father's desire i was married to a prince who was my own cousin but on my very wedding day i was snatched up by a genius and brought here in a faint for a long while i did nothing but weep and would not suffer the genius to come near me
but time teaches us submission and i have now got accustomed to his presence and if clothes and jewels could content me i have them in plenty every tenth day for five and twenty years i have received a visit from him
but in case i should need his help at any other time i have only to touch a talisman that stands at the entrance of my chamber it wants still five days to his next visit and i hope that during that time you will do me the honour to be my guest
i was too much dazzled by her beauty to dream of refusing her offer and accordingly the princess had me conducted to the bath and a rich dress befitting my rank was provided for me then a feast of the most delicate dishes was served in a room hung with embroidered indian fabrics
next day when we were at dinner i could maintain my patience no longer and implored the princess to break her bonds and return with me to the world which was lighted by the sun what you ask is impossible she answered
but stay here with me instead and we can be happy and all you will have to do is to betake yourself to the forest every tenth day when i am expecting my master the genius he is very jealous as you know and will not suffer a man to come near me
princess i replied i see it is only fear of the genius that makes you act like this for myself i dread him so little that i mean to break his talisman in pieces awful though you think him he shall feel the weight of my arm
and i herewith take a solemn vow to stamp out the whole race the princess who realized the consequences of such audacity entreated me not to touch the talisman if you do it will be the ruin of both of us said she i know genii much better than you
i gave one kick to the talisman and it fell into a thousand pieces hardly had my foot touched the talisman when the air became as dark as night a fearful noise was heard and the palace shook to its very foundations in an instant i was sobered and understood what i had done
but i was too late the palace opened and the genius appeared who turning angrily to the princess asked indignantly
a pain in my heart she replied hastily obliged me to seek the aid of this little bottle feeling faint i slipped and fell against the talisman which broke that is really all you are an impudent liar cried the genius
how did this hatchet and those shoes get here i never saw them before she answered
to this the genius only replied by insults and blows i could hear the shrieks and groans of the princess and having by this time taken off my rich garments and put on those in which i had arrived the previous day i lifted the trap found myself once more in the forest
with a light load of wood and a heart full of shame and sorrow the tailor who had been uneasy at my long absence was delighted to see me
the tailor noticed my confusion and was just going to inquire the reason when the door of the room opened and the old man appeared carrying with him my hatchet and shoes i am a genius he said the son of the daughter of eblis prince of the genii
is not this hatchet yours and these shoes without waiting for an answer which indeed i could hardly have given him so great was my fright he seized hold of me and darted up into the air with the quickness of lightning and then with equal swiftness dropped down towards the earth
when he touched the ground he rapped it with his foot it opened and we found ourselves in the enchanted palace in the presence of the beautiful princess of the ebony isle but how different she looked from what she was when i had last seen her
for she was lying stretched on the ground covered with blood and weeping bitterly traitress cried the genius is not this man your lover she lifted up her eyes slowly and looked sadly at me i never saw him before she answered slowly
i do not know who he is what exclaimed the genius
but if he really is a stranger to me she replied
very well said the genius drawing his sword take this and cut off his head alas answered the princess i am too weak even to hold the sabre and supposing that i had the strength why should i put an innocent man to death
how should i when i never saw her before cut her head off then if she is a stranger to you and i shall believe you are speaking the truth and will set you at liberty
but the look of gratitude she gave me shook my courage and i flung the sabre to the earth i should not deserve to live i said to the genius if i were such a coward as to slay a lady who is not only unknown to me but who is at this moment half dead herself
do with me as you will i am in your power but i refuse to obey your cruel command i see said the genius that you have both made up your minds to brave me but i will give you a sample of what you may expect
so saying with one sweep of his sabre he cut off a hand of the princess
then i lost consciousness for several minutes when i came to myself i implored the genius to keep me no longer in this state of suspense
that is the way in which a genius treats the woman who has betrayed him if i chose i could kill you also but i will be merciful and content myself with changing you into a dog an ass a lion or a bird whichever you prefer
the story of the garden of eden
parallel readings
drummond ideal life
and when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eye and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and she gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat
in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of jehovah god amongst the trees of the garden
blessed is the man that endureth temptation for when he hath been approved he shall receive a crown of life which the lord promised to them that love him let no man say when he is tempted i am tempted of god
for god cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempteth no man but each man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed then the lust when it hath conceived beareth sin
and the sin when it is full grown bringeth forth death
than the measure of man's mind and the heart of the eternal is most wonderfully kind frederick w faber none could enter into life but those who were in downright earnest
and unless they left the wicked world behind them for there was only room for body and soul but not for body and soul and sin john bunyan
the nature of sin henry drummond has said that sin is a little word that has wandered out of theology into life members of a secret organization known as the thugs of india
feel at times that it is their solemn duty to strangle certain of their fellow men do they thereby commit a sin a parsee believes that it is wrong to light a cigar for it is a desecration of his emblem of purity fire
others in the western world for very different reasons regard the same act as wrong is the lighting or smoking of a cigar a sin for these classes is the act necessarily wrong in itself
many and various have been the definitions of sin and the explanations of its origin most primitive peoples defined it as failure to perform certain ceremonial acts or to bring tribute to the gods
morality and religion were rarely combined the hebrew people were the first to define right and wrong in terms of personal life and service sin as represented in genesis three was the result of individual choice
it was yielding to the common rather than the nobler impulses to desire rather than to the sense of duty the temptation came from within rather than from without and the responsibility of not choosing the best rested with the individual
the explanation is as simple and as true to human experience to day as in the childhood of the race the persian religion on the contrary conceived of the world as controlled by two hostile gods
with their hosts of attendant angels one god ormuzd was the embodiment of light and goodness the other ahriman represented darkness and evil they traced all sin to the direct influence of ahriman
and the evil spirits that attended him during the persian period a somewhat similar explanation of the origin of evil appeared in jewish thought satan who in the book of job appears to be simply the prosecuting attorney of heaven began to be thought of as the enemy of man
until in later times all sin was traced directly or indirectly to his influence this was the conception prevalent among the puritans this view tended to relieve man of personal responsibility
for he was regarded as the victim of assaults of hosts of malignant spirits does your knowledge of the heart of man confirm the insight of the prophet who speaks through the wonderful story of genesis three three
most of the elements which are found in the story may likewise be traced in earlier semitic traditions the aim of the prophet who has given us the story was according to the view of certain interpreters to present in vivid concrete form
the origin nature and consequences of sin this method of teaching was similar to that which jesus used for example in the parable of dives and lazarus the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
apparently symbolizes temptation is temptation necessary for man's moral development the serpent was evidently chosen because of its reputation for craft and treachery the serpent's words represent the natural inclinations
that were struggling in the mind of the woman against her sense of duty note that in the story the temptation did not come to man through his appetite or his curiosity or his esthetic sense but through his wife whom god had given him
was the man's act in any way excusable strong men and women often sin through the influence of those whom they love and admire are they thereby excused what natural impulses impelled the woman to disobey the divine command
in what form did temptation come to the man in genesis three does temptation appeal in a different form to each individual the hebrew word for sin which means to miss the mark placed before each individual
chapter thirteen over the river it is our intention to explore a route from kanab to the colorado river at the mouth of the paria and if successful in this undertaking to cross the river and proceed to tusayan
and ultimately to santa fe new mexico we propose to build a flatboat for the purpose of ferrying over the river and have had the lumber necessary for that purpose hauled from saint george to kanab from here to the mouth of the paria
pushing on to the east with mister hamblin for a couple of hours in the early morning we reach the mouth of a dry canyon which comes down through the cliffs instead of a narrow canyon we find an open valley
from one fourth to one half a mile in width on rare occasions a stream flows down this valley but now sand dunes stretch across it
here again we find that wonderful scenery of naked white rocks carved into great round bosses and domes looking off to the north we can see vermilion and pink cliffs crowned with forests
while below us to the south stretch the dunes and red lands of the vermilion cliff region and far away we can see the opposite wall of the grand canyon in the middle of the afternoon we descend into the canyon valley and hurriedly ride
and by digging into the sand this sweet water is found
at sunrise mister hamblin and i part from the train once more taking with us chuar
all day long our way is over red hills with a bold line of cliffs on our left a little after noon we reach a great spring and here we are to camp for the night for the region beyond us is unknown and we wish to enter it with a good day before us
and hamblin and i climb the cliffs
early in the morning we pass up a beautiful valley to the south and turn westward onto a great promontory from the summit of which the grand canyon is in view its deep gorge can be seen to the westward for fifty or sixty miles
and to the southeastward we look off into the stupendous chasm with its marvelous forms and colors twenty one years later i read over the notes of that day's experience and the picture of the grand canyon from this point is once more before me
i did not know when writing the notes that this was the grandest view that can be obtained of the region from fremont's peak to the gulf of california but i did realize that the scene before me was awful sublime and glorious
awful in profound depths sublime in massive and strange forms and glorious in colors years later i visited the same spot with my friend thomas moran from this world of wonder he selected a section which was the most interesting to him
and painted it that painting known as the chasm of the colorado is in a hall in the senate wing of the capitol of the united states if any one will look upon that picture and then realize that it was but a small part of the landscape
before us on this memorable twenty sixth day of september he will understand why i suppress my notes descriptive of the scene the landscape is too vast too complex too grand for verbal description
who have joined us here by previous appointment as we need their services in crossing the river on the last day of september we follow the vermilion cliffs around to the mouth of the paria here the cliffs present a wall of about two thousand feet in height
above orange and vermilion but below chocolate purple and gray in alternating bands of rainbow brightness the cliffs are cut with deep side canyons and the rainbow hills below are destitute of vegetation
or cuts its bottom deeper and still deeper ever forming narrow clefts but when the stream has cut its channel down until the declivity is greatly reduced it can no longer carry the load of sand with which it is fed but drops a part of it on the way
wherever it drops it in this manner a sand bank is formed now the effect of this sand bar is to turn the course of the river against the wall or bank and as it unloads in one place it cuts in another below and loads itself again
so long as the declivity of the stream is great the greater the load of sand carried the greater the rate of vertical cutting but when the declivity is reduced so that part of the load is thrown down vertical cutting is changed to lateral
and the day is spent in getting to its summit we make a dry camp that is without water except that which has been carried in canteens by the indians october fourth
all day long we pass by the foot of the echo cliffs which are in fact the continuation of the vermilion cliffs
and deep chasms running down into the marble canyon on the right at night we camp at a water pocket a pool in a great limestone rock we still go south for another half day to a cedar ridge here we turn westward climbing the cliffs
a great homogeneous sandstone stretches declining rapidly and on its sides are carved innumerable basins which are now filled with pure water and we call this the thousand wells
we have a long afternoon's ride over sand dunes slowly toiling from mile to mile we can see a ledge of rocks in the distance and the indian with us assures us that we shall find water there
at night we come to the cliff and under it in a great cave we find a lakelet sweeter cooler water never blessed the desert while at jacob's pool several days before i sent a runner forward into this region with instructions
to hunt us up some of the natives and bring them to this pool when we arrive we are disappointed in not finding them on hand but a little later half a dozen men come in with the indian messenger they are surly fellows and seem to be displeased at our coming
about two o'clock i set a couple of men to prepare a hasty lunch call up all hands and we saddle pack eat our lunch and start off to the southwest to reach the moenkopi where there is a little rancheria of indians
so we are told we set out at a rapid rate and when daylight comes we are in sight of the canyon of the moenkopi into which we soon descend but the rancheria has been abandoned
though i have seen many ruins from time to time at first i am a little disappointed in the people they seem scarcely superior to the shoshones and utes tribes with whom i am so well acquainted their dress is less picturesque
and the men have an ugly fashion of banging their hair in front so that it comes down to their eyes and conceals their foreheads but the women are more neatly dressed and arrange their hair in picturesque coils oraibi is a town of several hundred inhabitants
it stands on a mesa or little plateau two hundred or three hundred feet above the surrounding plain the mesa itself has a rather diversified surface the streets of the town are quite irregular and in a general way run from north to south
the houses are constructed to face the east they are of stone laid in mortar and are usually three or four stories high the second story stands back upon the first leaving a terrace over one tier of rooms
third is set back of the second and the fourth back of the third so that their houses are terraced to face the east these terraces on the top are all flat and the people usually ascend to the first terrace by a ladder
and then by another into the lower rooms in like manner ladders or rude stairways are used to reach the upper stories the climate is very warm and the people live on the tops of their houses
it seems strange to see little naked children climbing the ladders and running over the house tops like herds of monkeys after we have looked about the town and been gazed upon by the wondering eyes of the men women and children
in a large central room we gather and the food is placed before us a stew of goat's flesh is served in earthen bowls and each one of us is furnished with a little earthen ladle the bread is a great novelty to me
it is made of corn meal in sheets as thin and large as foolscap paper in the corner of the house is a little oven the top of which is a great flat stone and the good housewife bakes her bread in this manner
with a thin coating of the meal paste in a minute or two it forms into a thin paper like cake and she takes it up by the edge folds it once and places it on a basket tray
then another and another sheet of paper bread is made in like manner and piled on the tray i notice that the paste stands in a number of different bowls and that she takes from one bowl and then another in order
and i soon see the effect of this the corn before being ground is assorted by colors white yellow red blue and black and the sheets of bread when made are of the same variety of colors white yellow red blue and black
this bread held on very beautiful trays is itself a work of art they call it piki after we have partaken of goat stew and bread a course of dumplings melons and peaches is served
and this finishes the feast what seem to be dumplings are composed of a kind of hash of bread and meat tied up in little balls with cornhusks and served boiling hot they are eaten with much gusto by the party and highly praised
some days after we learned how they are made they are prepared of goat's flesh bread and turnips and kneaded by mastication as we prefer to masticate our own food this dainty dish is never again a favorite
once more they sprinkle the sacred water and the sacred meal over the tops of the houses then the cacique in a loud voice directs the labor of the day so his talk is explained to us some must gather corn others must go for wood
water must be brought from the distant wells and the animals of the strangers must be cared for now the house tops present a lively scene bowls of water are brought
from them the men fill their mouths and with dexterity blow water over their hands in spray and wash their faces and lave their long shining heads of hair and the women dress one another's locks with bowls of water they make suds of the yucca plant
and wash and comb and deftly roll their hair the elder women in great coils at the back of the head the younger women in flat coils on their cheeks and so the days are passed and the weeks go by
and we study the language of the people and record many hundreds of their words and observe their habits and customs and gain some knowledge of their mythology but above all do we become interested in their religious ceremonies
the leader of the shamans is a great burly bald headed indian which is a remarkable sight for i have never seen one before whatever he says or does is repeated by three others in turn the paraphernalia
of their worship is very interesting at one end of the chamber is a series of tablets of wood covered with quaint pictures of animals and of corn and overhead are conventional black clouds from which yellow lightnings are projected
while drops of rain fall on the corn below wooden birds set on pedestals and decorated with plumes are arranged in various ways ears of corn vases of holy water
and trays of meal make up a part of the paraphernalia of worship i try to record some of the prayers but am not very successful as it is difficult to hold my interpreter to the work but one of these prayers is something like this
pash lolomai master of the clouds we eat no stolen bread our young men ride not the stolen ass our food is not stolen from the gardens of our neighbors
we beseech of thee to dip your great sprinkler made of the feathers of the birds of the heavens into the lakes of the skies and sprinkle us with sweet rains that the ground may be prepared in the winter for the corn that grows in the summer
at one time in the night three women were brought into the kiva these women had a cincture of cotton about their loins but were otherwise nude one was very old another of middle age and the third quite young
necks shoulders and breasts of the women then with his finger as a brush he decorated them over this groundwork which was of yellow with many figures in various colors from that time to daylight the three women remained in the kiva
and took part in the ceremony as choristers and dancing performers at sunrise we are filed out of the kiva and a curious sight is presented to our view shupaulovi is built in terraces about a central court or plaza
and in the plaza about fifty men are drawn up in a line facing us these men are naked except that they wear masks strange and grotesque and great flaring headdresses in many colors our party from the kiva stand before this line of men
with a great chorus of singers set up a tumultuous noise and with slow shuffling steps the line of men and the line of women move toward each other in a curious waving dance
when the lines approach so as to be not more than ten or twelve feet apart our party still being between them they all change so as to dance backward to their original positions
this is repeated until the dancers have passed over the plaza four times then there is a wild confusion of dances the order of which i cannot understand if indeed there is any system except that the men and women dance apart
soon this is over and the women all file down the ladder into the kiva and the men strip off their masks and arrange themselves about the plaza every one according to his own wish but as if in sharp expectancy
then the women return up the ladder from the kiva and climb to the tops of the houses and stand on the brink of the nearer terrace now the music commences once more
throws something i cannot tell what into the midst of the plaza with a shout and a scream every man jumps for it one seizes it another takes it away from him and then another secures it
we employ our time in making a collection of the arts of the people of this town first we display to them our stock of goods composed of knives needles awls scissors paints dyestuffs leather and various fabrics in gay colors
then we go around among the people and select the articles of pottery stone implements instruments and utensils made of bone horn shell articles of clothing and ornament baskets trays and many other things
and tell the people to bring them the next day to our rooms a little after sunrise they come in and we have a busy day of barter when articles are brought in such as i want i lay them aside
and it rises from three hundred to four hundred feet above the sand plains below by a precipitous cliff on every side to reach it from below it must be climbed by niches and stairways in the rock it is a good site for defense
at the foot of the cliff and on some terraces the people have built corrals of stone for their asses all the water used in these three towns is derived from a well nearly a mile away a deep pit sunk in the sand over the site of a dune
and after they are fed they are sent away to a distance of some miles there is no tree or shrub growing near the walpi mesa it is miles away to where the stunted cedars are found and the people bring curious little loads of wood on the backs of their donkeys
hano or tewa as it is sometimes called has been built lately
the other towns are very old their foundation dates back many centuries so we gather from this talk the people of hano also speak a radically distinct language belonging to another stock of tribes they formerly lived on the rio grande
but during some war they were driven away and were permitted to build their home here two days are spent in trading with the people and we pride ourselves on having made a good ethnologic collection we are especially interested in seeing the men and women spin and weave
or medicine orders as they are sometimes called but this institution has been nowhere developed more thoroughly than among the pueblo indians of this region
that a part of their ceremonies are secret and another part public and that the times of ceremony are also times for feasting and athletic sports here at walpi the great snake dance is performed for several days before this festival is held
the people with great diligence gather snakes from the rocks and sands of the region round about and bring them to the kiva of one of their clans in great numbers by scores and hundreds most of these snakes are quite harmless but rattlesnakes abound
and they are also caught for they play the most important role in the great snake dance the medicine men or priest doctors are very deft in the management of rattlesnakes when they bring them to the kiva
they herd all the snakes in a great mass of writhing hissing rattling serpents for this purpose they have little wands to the end of each one of which a bunch of feathers is affixed if a snake attempts to leave its allotted place in the kiva
the men of the order prepare for the great performance with the snakes clothed only in loincloth each one seizes a snake and a rattlesnake is preferred if there are enough of them for all it is managed in this way
the snake is teased with the feather wand and his attention occupied by one man while another standing near at a favorable moment seizes the snake just back of the head then he puts the snake in his mouth
but the attention of the snake is constantly occupied by the attendant who carries the wand then the men of the priest order carrying the snakes in their mouths arrange themselves in a line in the court and move in a procession several times about the court and then engage in a dance
chapter nine the evening of the fifth of june while the master's house was being constructed joam garral was also busied in the arrangement of the out buildings comprising the kitchen and offices in which provisions of all kinds
were intended to be stored in the first place there was an important stock of the roots of that little tree some six or ten feet in height which yields the manioc
it is certain that in south america it contains a more noxious juice which it is necessary to previously get rid of by pressure when this result is obtained the root is reduced to flour
even in the form of tapioca according to the fancy of the natives on board the jangada there was a huge pile of this useful product destined for general consumption as for preserved meats not forgetting a whole flock of sheep
some of every one of these things it was hoped would figure in turn on the tables of the master and his men and so each day shooting and fishing were to be regularly indulged in for beverages they had a good store of the best that country produced caysuma or
which is distilled from the boiled root of the sweet manioc beiju from brazil a sort of national brandy the chica of peru the mazato of the ucayali
extracted from the boiled fruits of the banana tree pressed and fermented guarana a kind of paste made from the double almond of the paulliniasorbilis a genuine tablet of chocolate so far as its color goes
which is reduced to a fine powder and with the addition of water yields an excellent drink and this was not all there is in these countries a species of dark violet wine
or let us say stern of the craft and formed a part reserved for the garral family and their personal servants in the center the huts for the indians and the blacks had been erected
for the indians
with only light poles supporting the roof of foliage the air circulated freely throughout these open constructions and swung the hammock suspended in the interior and the natives among whom were three or four complete families with women and children
the indians accustomed to live in the open air free and untrammeled were not able to accustom themselves to the imprisonment
and that a larger number were not taken in case of an attack by the riverside indians such would have been useless the natives of central america are not to be feared in the least and the times are quite changed since it was necessary to provide against their aggressions
the indians along the river belong to peaceable tribes and the fiercest of them have retired before the advancing civilization and drawn further and further away from the river and its tributaries
danger was not taken into consideration there were no precautions against attacks to conclude our description of the jangada we have only to speak of one or two erections of different kinds which gave it a very picturesque aspect
in the bow was the cabin of the pilot we say in the bow and not at the stern where the helmsman is generally found in navigating under such circumstances a rudder is of no use long oars have no effect on a raft of such dimensions
even when worked with a hundred sturdy arms it was from the sides by means of long boathooks or props thrust against the bed of the stream that the jangada was kept in the current
were carried on board and afforded easy communications with the banks the pilot had to look after the channels of the river the deviations of the current the eddies which it was necessary to avoid the creeks or bays which afforded favorable anchorage
who had been received at the fazenda he had known the children from birth he had baptized them educated them and hoped to give each of them the nuptial blessing the age of the padre did not allow of his exercising his important ministry any longer
but if padre passanha during the course of the voyage was to take his meals with the family
assuredly the good old priest had never been so lodged in his modest parsonage the parsonage was not enough for padre passanha he ought to have a chapel the chapel then was built in the center of the jangada and a little bell surmounted it
it was small enough undoubtedly and it could not hold the whole of the crew but it was richly decorated
such was the wonderful structure which was going down the amazon
from the observation and calculation of the rising it would seem as though there was not much longer to wait all was ready to date the fifth of june the pilot arrived the evening before he was a man about fifty well up in his profession
but rather fond of drink such as he was
never saw better than when he had imbibed a few glasses of tafia and he never did any work at all without a certain demijohn of that liquor to which he paid frequent court the rise of the flood had clearly manifested itself for several days
it would all have to be built over again but as the fall of the river would be very rapid it would take long months before similar conditions recurred on the fifth of june toward the evening the future passengers of the jangada were collected on a plateau
padre passanha benito lina fragoso cybele and some of the servants indian or negro of the fazenda fragoso could not keep himself still he went and he came he ran down the bank and ran up the plateau
he noted the points of the river gauge and shouted hurrah as the water crept up it will swim it will swim he shouted the raft which is to take us to belem it will float if all the cataracts of the sky have to open to flood the amazon
the jangada was moored to the bank with solid cables so that it could not be carried away by the current when it floated off quite a tribe from one hundred and fifty to two hundred indians without counting the population of the village
had come to assist at the interesting spectacle they were all keenly on the watch and silence reigned over the impressionable crowd
colbert reappeared beneath the curtains have you heard said mazarin alas yes my lord can he be right can all this money be badly acquired
replied colbert coolly and yet it is very possible that according to his theological views your eminence has been in a certain degree in the wrong people generally find they have been so
in the first place they commit the wrong of dying colbert that is true my lord against whom however did the theatin make out that you had committed these wrongs against the king
mazarin shrugged his shoulders as if i had not saved both his state and his finances that admits of no contradiction my lord does it
then i have received a merely legitimate salary in spite of the opinion of my confessor that is beyond doubt and i might fairly keep for my own family which is so needy a good fortune
the whole even of which i have earned i see no impediment to that monseigneur i felt assured that in consulting you colbert i should have good advice replied mazarin greatly delighted colbert resumed his pedantic look
my lord interrupted he i think it would be quite as well to examine whether what the theatin said is not a snare oh no a snare what for
he believed your eminence to be at death's door because your eminence consulted him did i not hear him say
recollect my lord if he did not say something a little like that to you that is quite a theatrical speech that is possible
in which case my lord i should consider you as required by the theatin to to make restitution cried mazarin with great warmth
what of all you do not dream of such a thing you speak just as the confessor did to make restitution of a part that is to say his majesty's part and that monseigneur
may have its dangers your eminence is too skillful a politician not to know that at this moment
that is not my affair said mazarin triumphantly
whose accounts i gave you to verify some months ago colbert bit his lips at the name of fouquet his majesty said he between his teeth
your money monseigneur would afford him a delicious banquet well but i am not the superintendent of his majesty's finances i have my purse
some legacy but i cannot disappoint my family the legacy of a part would dishonor you and offend the king leaving a part to his majesty is to avow that that part has inspired you with doubts as to the lawfulness of the means of acquisition
i thought your eminence did me the honor to ask my advice yes but you are ignorant of the principal details of the question i am ignorant of nothing my lord during ten years
all the columns of figures which are found in france have passed into review before me and if i have painfully nailed them into my brain
i could recite figure by figure all the money that is spent in france from marseilles to cherbourg then you would have me throw all my money into the coffers of the king cried mazarin ironically and from whom at the same time
the gout forced painful moans
you said so clearly it seems to me when you advised me to give it to him ah
that is because your eminence absorbed as you are by your disease
that character if i may venture to express myself thus resembles that which my lord confessed just now to the theatin go on that is
pride pardon me my lord haughtiness nobleness kings have no pride that is a human passion pride yes you are right next
well my lord if i have divined rightly your eminence has but to give all your money to the king and that immediately but for what said mazarin quite bewildered
because the king will not accept of the whole what and he a young man and devoured by ambition just so a young man who is anxious for my death my lord
to inherit yes colbert yes he is anxious for my death in order to inherit triple fool that i am i would prevent him exactly if the donation were made in a certain form
he would refuse it well but how that is plain enough a young man who has yet done nothing who burns to distinguish himself who burns to reign alone
will never take anything ready built he will construct for himself this prince monseigneur
nor with the palais mazarin which you have had so superbly constructed
nor with saint germain where he was born all that does not proceed from himself i predict he will disdain and you will guarantee that if i give my forty millions to the king
saying certain things to him at the same time i guarantee he will refuse them but those things what are they i will write them if my lord will have the goodness to dictate them
an enormous one nobody will afterwards be able to accuse your eminence of that unjust avarice with which pamphleteers have reproached the most brilliant mind of the present age you are right colbert you are right go
and seek the king on my part and take him my will your donation my lord but if he should accept it if he should even think of accepting it then there would remain thirteen millions for your family
and that is a good round sum but then you would be either a fool or a traitor and i am neither the one nor the other my lord you appear to be much afraid that the king will accept
you have a deal more reason to fear that he will not accept but see you if he does not accept i should like to guarantee my thirteen reserved millions to him yes i will do so yes
i shall faint i am very very ill colbert i am near my end
the cardinal was indeed very ill large drops of sweat flowed down upon his bed of agony and the frightful pallor of a face streaming with water was a spectacle which the most hardened practitioner could not have beheld without much compassion
his neck stretched out his lips half open to give vent to unconnected fragments of incoherent thoughts he lashed up his courage to the pitch of the undertaking contemplated whilst within ten paces of him separated only by a wall
his master was being stifled by anguish which drew from him lamentable cries thinking no more of the treasures of the earth or of the joys of paradise but much of all the horrors of hell
whilst burning hot napkins physic revulsives and guenaud who was recalled were performing their functions with increased activity
holding his great head in both his hands to compress within it the fever of the projects engendered by the brain was meditating the tenor of the donation he would make mazarin write
it would appear as if all the cries of the cardinal and all the attacks of death upon this representative of the past were stimulants for the genius of this thinker with the bushy eyebrows who was turning already towards the rising sun of a regenerated society
colbert resumed his place at mazarin's pillow at the first interval of pain and persuaded him to dictate a donation thus conceived about to appear before god the master of mankind
i beg the king who was my master on earth to resume the wealth which his bounty has bestowed upon me and which my family would be happy to see pass into such illustrious hands the particulars of my property will be found they are drawn up
and the tide of flattery was mounting towards the throne courtiers have a marvelous instinct in scenting the turn of events courtiers possess a supreme kind of science
they are diplomatists in throwing light upon the unraveling of complicated intrigues captains in divining the issue of battles and physicians in curing the sick
understood at once that the cardinal must be very ill scarcely had anne of austria conducted the young queen to her apartments and taken from her brow the head dress of ceremony when she went to see her son in his cabinet
where alone melancholy and depressed he was indulging as if to exercise his will in one of those terrible inward passions king's passions which create events when they break out
became such benign tempests that his most violent his only passion
was that famous fit of anger which he exhibited fifty years later on the occasion of a little concealment of the duc de maine's and which had for result a shower of blows inflicted with a cane upon the back of a poor valet who had stolen a biscuit
the young king then was as we have seen a prey to a double excitement and he said to himself as he looked in a glass o king king by name and not in fact phantom
vain phantom art thou inert statue which has no other power than that of provoking salutations from courtiers when wilt thou be able to raise thy velvet arm or clench thy silken hand
when wilt thou be able to open for any purpose but to sigh or smile lips condemned to the motionless stupidity of the marbles in thy gallery then passing his hand over his brow and feeling the want of air
he struck his brow with his open hand crying king of france what a title people of france
i have just returned to my louvre my horses just unharnessed are still smoking and i have created interest enough to induce scarcely twenty persons to look at me as i passed twenty what do i say no
there were not twenty anxious to see the king of france there are not even ten archers to guard my palace of residence archers people guards all are at the palais royal why my good god
have not i the king the right to ask of you all that because said a voice replying to his and which sounded from the other side of the door of the cabinet
because at the palais royal lies all the gold that is to say all the power of him who desires to reign louis turned round sharply the voice which had pronounced these words was that of anne of austria
the king started and advanced towards her i hope said he your majesty has paid no attention to the vain declamations which the solitude and disgust familiar to kings
suggest to the happiest dispositions i only paid attention to one thing my son and that was that you were complaining who i
what were you doing then i thought i was under the ferule of my professor and developing a subject of amplification my son replied anne of austria shaking her head
you are wrong not to trust my word you are wrong not to grant me your confidence a day will come and perhaps quickly wherein you will have occasion to remember that axiom
and they alone are kings who are all powerful your intention continued the king was not however to cast blame upon the rich men of this age was it no
said the queen warmly no sire they who are rich in this age under your reign are rich because you have been willing they should be so and i entertain against them neither malice nor envy
they have without doubt served your majesty sufficiently well for your majesty to have permitted them to reward themselves that is what i mean to say by the words for which you reproach me
god forbid madame that i should ever reproach my mother with anything besides continued anne of austria the lord never gives the goods of this world but for a season
the lord as correctives to honor and riches the lord has placed sufferings sickness and death and no one added she with a melancholy smile which proved she made the application of the funeral precept to herself
no man can take his wealth or greatness with him to the grave it results therefore that the young gather the abundant harvest prepared for them by the old louis listened with increased attention to the words which anne of austria
no doubt pronounced with a view to console him madame said he looking earnestly at his mother one would almost say in truth that you had something else to announce to me
i have absolutely nothing my son only you cannot have failed to remark that his eminence the cardinal is very ill louis looked at his mother
expecting some emotion in her voice some sorrow in her countenance the face of anne of austria appeared a little changed but that was from sufferings of quite a personal character
perhaps the alteration was caused by the cancer which had begun to consume her breast yes madame said the king
and it would be a great loss to the kingdom if god were to summon his eminence away is not that your opinion as well as mine my son said the queen yes madame yes certainly
it would be a great loss for the kingdom said louis coloring but the peril does not seem to me to be so great besides the cardinal is still young
the king had scarcely ceased speaking when an usher lifted the tapestry and stood with a paper in his hand waiting for the king to speak to him what have you there asked the king
replied the usher give it to me said the king and he took the paper but at the moment he was about to open it there was a great noise in the gallery the ante chamber and the court ah ah
how could i say there was but one king in france i was mistaken there are two as he spoke or thought thus the door opened and the superintendent of finances fouquet appeared before his nominal master
it was he who made the noise in the ante chamber it was his horse that made the noise in the courtyard in addition to all this a loud murmur was heard along his passage
he is only a man who is much too rich that is all whilst saying these words a bitter feeling gave to these words of the queen a most hateful expression whereas the brow of the king
calm and self possessed on the contrary was without the slightest wrinkle he nodded therefore familiarly to fouquet whilst he continued to unfold the paper given to him by the usher fouquet perceived this movement
and with a politeness at once easy and respectful advanced towards the queen so as not to disturb the king louis had opened the paper and yet he did not read it
he turned half round therefore and while continuing his conversation with the queen faced the king you know monsieur fouquet said louis
yes sire i know that said fouquet in fact he is very ill
and the affair seemed so pressing that i left at once
an hour and a half ago yes your majesty said fouquet consulting a watch richly ornamented with diamonds an hour and a half said the king still able to restrain his anger
but not to conceal his astonishment i understand you sire your majesty doubts my word and you have reason to do so but i have really come in that time though it is wonderful
i received from england three pairs of very fast horses as i had been assured they were placed at distances of four leagues apart and i tried them this evening
your majesty sees i have not been cheated the queen mother smiled with something like secret envy but fouquet caught her thought thus madame he promptly said
truly not madame therefore the horses only await the orders of his majesty to enter the royal stables and if i allowed myself to try them it was only for fear of offering to the king anything that was not positively wonderful
the king became quite red you know monsieur fouquet said the queen that at the court of france it is not the custom for a subject to offer anything to his king
louis started i hoped madame said fouquet much agitated that my love for his majesty
it was not so much a present that i permitted myself to offer as the tribute i paid thank you monsieur fouquet said the king politely and i am gratified by your intention for i love good horses
but you know i am not very rich you who are my superintendent of finances know it better than any one else i am not able then however willing i may be to purchase such a valuable set of horses
fouquet darted a haughty glance at the queen mother who appeared to triumph at the false position in which the minister had placed himself and replied luxury is the virtue of kings sire
it is by luxury they are more than other men with luxury a king nourishes his subjects and honors them under the mild heat of this luxury of kings springs the luxury of individuals a source of riches for the people
his majesty by accepting the gift of these six incomparable horses would stimulate the pride of his own breeders of limousin
and this emulation would have been beneficial to all but the king is silent and consequently i am condemned during this speech louis was unconsciously folding and unfolding mazarin's paper
upon which he had not cast his eyes at length he glanced upon it and uttered a faint cry at reading the first line what is the matter my son asked the queen anxiously and going towards the king
from the cardinal replied the king continuing to read
is he worse then read said the king passing the parchment to his mother
as if he thought that nothing less than reading would convince anne of austria of a thing so astonishing as was conveyed in that paper anne of austria read in turn and as she read her eyes sparkled with joy all the greater from her useless endeavor to hide it
which attracted the attention of fouquet oh a regularly drawn up deed of gift said she a gift repeated fouquet yes
forty millions cried the queen oh my son this is very noble on the part of his eminence and will silence all malicious rumors
forty millions scraped together slowly coming back all in one heap to the treasury it is the act of a faithful subject and a good christian
fouquet had taken some steps backwards and remained silent the king looked at him and held the paper out to him in turn the superintendent only bestowed a haughty look of a second upon it then bowing yes sire
why it is but an hour since i left his eminence said the king write then sire write said the young king with evident repugnance well
replied anne of austria it seems to me my son that a man who has just made such a present has a good right to expect to be thanked for it with some degree of promptitude then turning towards fouquet is not that likewise your opinion monsieur
that the present is worth the trouble yes madame said fouquet with a lofty air that did not escape the king accept then and thank him insisted anne of austria
yes thank him sire ah said the queen but do not accept continued fouquet and why not asked the queen
you have yourself said why madame replied fouquet because kings cannot and ought not to receive presents from their subjects
the king remained silent between these two contrary opinions but forty millions said anne of austria in the same tone as that in which at a later period
poor marie antoinette replied you will tell me as much i know said fouquet laughing forty millions makes a good round sum
but monsieur said anne of austria instead of persuading the king not to receive this present recall to his majesty's mind you whose duty it is that these forty millions are a fortune to him
it is precisely madame because these forty millions would be a fortune that i will say to the king sire if it be not decent for a king to accept from a subject six horses
it ill becomes you monsieur to give your king a lesson said anne of austria better procure for him forty millions to replace those you make him lose
the king shall have them whenever he wishes said the superintendent of finances bowing yes by oppressing the people said the queen and were they not oppressed madame
replied fouquet when they were made to sweat the forty millions given by this deed furthermore his majesty has asked my opinion i have given it if his majesty ask my concurrence it will be the same nonsense
accept my son accept said anne of austria you are above reports and interpretations refuse sire said fouquet as long as a king lives he has no other measure but his conscience
no other judge than his own desires but when dead he has posterity which applauds or accuses thank you mother replied louis bowing respectfully to the queen
thank you monsieur fouquet said he dismissing the superintendent civilly do you accept asked anne of austria once more i shall consider of it
the reason why i was alone in the mountains on this occasion was because for the only time in all my experience i had a difficulty with my guide he was a crippled old mountain man with a profound contempt for tenderfeet
a contempt that in my case was accentuated by the fact that i wore spectacles which at that day and in that region were usually held to indicate a defective moral character in the wearer
or as he expressed it trundled a tenderfoot and though a good hunter who showed me much game our experience together was not happy he was very rheumatic and liked to lie abed late so that i usually had to get breakfast and in fact do most of the work around camp
finally one day he declined to go out with me saying that he had a pain when that afternoon i got back to camp i speedily found what the pain was we were traveling very light indeed
i having practically nothing but my buffalo sleeping bag my wash kit and a pair of socks i had also taken a flask of whisky for emergencies although as i found that the emergencies never arose and that tea was better than whisky when a man was cold or done out
when i got back to camp the old fellow was sitting on a tree trunk very erect with his rifle across his knees and in response to my nod of greeting he merely leered at me i leaned my rifle against a tree walked over to where my bed was lying
and happening to rummage in it for something i found the whisky flask was empty i turned on him at once and accused him of having drunk it to which he merely responded by asking what i was going to do about it there did not seem much to do so i said that we would part company
we were only four or five days from a settlement and i would go in alone taking one of the horses he responded by cocking his rifle and saying that i could go alone and be damned to me but i could not take any horse i answered all right that if i could not i could not
and began to move around to get some flour and salt pork
my rifle was leaning against a tree near the cooking things to his right managing to get near it i whipped it up and threw the bead on him calling hands up he of course put up his hands and then said oh come i was only joking to which i answered well i am not
now straighten your legs and let your rifle go to the ground he remonstrated saying the rifle would go off and i told him to let it go off however he straightened his legs in such fashion that it came to the ground without a jar i then made him move back and picked up the rifle
by this time he was quite sober and really did not seem angry looking at me quizzically he told me that if i would give him back his rifle he would call it quits and we could go on together
he said he had no intention of coming after me and as he was very much crippled with rheumatism i did not believe he would do so accordingly i took the little mare with nothing but some flour bacon and tea and my bed roll and started off
at the blasted pine i looked round and as i could see him in camp i left his rifle there i then traveled till dark and that night for the only time in my experience i used in camping a trick of the old time trappers in the indian days
so after getting supper while my pony fed round i left the fire burning repacked the mare and pushed ahead until it literally became so dark that i could not see then i picketed the mare slept where i was without a fire until the first streak of dawn
and then pushed on for a couple of hours before halting to take breakfast and to let the little mare have a good feed no plainsman needs to be told that a man should not lie near a fire if there is danger of an enemy creeping up on him
and that above all a man should not put himself in a position where he can be ambushed at dawn on this second day i lost the trail and toward nightfall gave up the effort to find it camped where i was and went out to shoot a grouse for supper
it was while hunting in vain for a grouse that i came on the bear and killed it as above described when i reached the settlement and went into the store the storekeeper identified me by remarking you're the tenderfoot that old hank was trundling ain't you
i admitted that i was a good many years later after i had been elected vice president i went on a cougar hunt in northwestern colorado with johnny goff a famous hunter and mountain man it was midwinter
but merely as johnny goff's tourist of course during the years when i was most busy at serious work i could do no hunting and even my riding was of a decorous kind
but a man whose business is sedentary should get some kind of exercise if he wishes to keep himself in as good physical trim as his brethren who do manual labor when i worked on a ranch i needed no form of exercise except my work but when i worked in an office the case was different
the only onlookers being the members of our faithful families my two ponies were the only occupants of my stable except a cart horse my wife and i rode and drove them and they were used for household errands and for the children and for two afternoons a week they served me as polo ponies
polo is a good game infinitely better for vigorous men than tennis or golf or anything of that kind there is all the fun of football with the horse thrown in
but at oyster bay our great and permanent amusements were rowing and sailing i do not care for the latter and am fond of the former i suppose it sounds archaic but i cannot help thinking that the people with motor boats miss a great deal
if they would only keep to rowboats or canoes and use oar or paddle themselves they would get infinitely more benefit than by having their work done for them by gasoline but i rarely took exercise merely as exercise primarily i took it because i liked it
play should never be allowed to interfere with work and a life devoted merely to play is of all forms of existence the most dismal but the joy of life is a very good thing and while work is the essential in it play also has its place
when obliged to live in cities i for a long time found that boxing and wrestling enabled me to get a good deal of exercise in condensed and attractive form i was reluctantly obliged to abandon both as i grew older
i dropped the wrestling earliest when i became governor the champion middleweight wrestler of america happened to be in albany and i got him to come round three or four afternoons a week
who refused to audit a bill i put in for a wrestling mat explaining that i could have a billiard table billiards being recognized as a proper gubernatorial amusement but that a wrestling mat symbolized something unusual and unheard of and could not be permitted
he was nearly as pleased as i was when i told him i thought we would vote the war a failure and abandon wrestling after that i took up boxing again while president i used to box with some of the aides as well as play single stick with general wood
after a few years i had to abandon boxing as well as wrestling for in one bout a young captain of artillery cross countered me on the eye and the blow smashed the little blood vessels fortunately it was my left eye but the sight has been dim ever since
and if it had been the right eye i should have been entirely unable to shoot accordingly i thought it better to acknowledge that i had become an elderly man and would have to stop boxing
when i was in the legislature and was working very hard with little chance of getting out of doors all the exercise i got was boxing and wrestling a young fellow turned up who was a second rate prize fighter the son of one of my old boxing teachers
for several weeks i had him come round to my rooms in the morning to put on the gloves with me for half an hour then he suddenly stopped and some days later i received a letter of woe from him from the jail i found that he was by profession a burglar
and merely followed boxing as the amusement of his lighter moments or when business was slack
and to most of those i knew i grew genuinely attached i have never been able to sympathize with the outcry against prize fighters the only objection i have to the prize ring is the crookedness that has attended its commercial development
most certainly prize fighting is not half as brutalizing or demoralizing as many forms of big business and of the legal work carried on in connection with big business powerful vigorous men of strong animal development must have some way in which their animal spirits can find vent
when i was police commissioner i found and jacob riis will back me up in this that the establishment of a boxing club in a tough neighborhood always tended to do away with knifing and gun fighting among the young fellows who would otherwise have been in murderous gangs
but they had to have some outlet for their activities in the same way i have always regarded boxing as a first class sport to encourage in the young men's christian association i do not like to see young christians with shoulders that slope like a champagne bottle
of course boxing should be encouraged in the army and navy i was first drawn to two naval chaplains fathers chidwick and rainey by finding that each of them had bought half a dozen sets of boxing gloves and encouraged their crews in boxing
when i was police commissioner i heartily approved the effort to get boxing clubs started in new york on a clean basis later i was reluctantly obliged to come to the conclusion that the prize ring had become hopelessly debased and demoralized
and as governor i aided in the passage of and signed the bill putting a stop to professional boxing for money this was because some of the prize fighters themselves were crooked
while the crowd of hangers on who attended and made up and profited by the matches had placed the whole business on a basis of commercialism and brutality that was intolerable i shall always maintain that boxing contests themselves make good healthy sport
it is idle to compare them with bull fighting the torture and death of the wretched horses in bull fighting is enough of itself to blast the sport no matter how great the skill and prowess shown by the bull fighters
there should always be the opportunity provided in a glove fight or bare fist fight to stop it when one competitor is hopelessly outclassed or too badly hammered but the men who take part in these fights are hard as nails
and it is not worth while to feel sentimental about their receiving punishment which as a matter of fact they do not mind of course the men who look on ought to be able to stand up with the gloves or without them themselves
i have scant use for the type of sportsmanship which consists merely in looking on at the feats of some one else some as good citizens as i know are or were prize fighters take mike donovan of new york
mike is a devoted temperance man and can be relied upon for every movement in the interest of good citizenship
one evening he and i both in dress suits attended a temperance meeting of catholic societies it culminated in a lively set to between myself and a tammany senator who was a very good fellow but whose ideas of temperance differed radically from mine
afterward i grew to know him well both while i was governor and while i was president and many a time he came on and boxed with me battling nelson was another stanch friend and he and i think alike on most questions of political and industrial life
i have for a long time had the friendship of john l sullivan than whom in his prime no better man ever stepped into the ring he is now a massachusetts farmer john used occasionally to visit me at the white house
his advent always causing a distinct flutter among the waiting senators and congressmen when i went to africa he presented me with a gold mounted rabbit's foot for luck i carried it through my african trip and i certainly had good luck
sat down opposite me and put a very expensive cigar on the desk saying have a cigar i thanked him and said i did not smoke to which he responded put it in your pocket he then added take another put both in your pocket this i accordingly did
he was my sister's favorite son and i always took a special interest in him myself i did my best to bring him up the way he ought to go but there was just nothing to be done with him his tastes were naturally low he took to music
while in the white house i always tried to get a couple of hours exercise in the afternoons sometimes tennis more often riding or else a rough cross country walk perhaps down rock creek which was then as wild as a stream in the white mountains or on the virginia side along the potomac
my companions at tennis or on these rides and walks we gradually grew to style the tennis cabinet and then we extended the term to take in many of my old time western friends such as ben daniels seth bullock luther kelly
and others who had taken part with me in more serious outdoor adventures than walking and riding for pleasure most of the men who were oftenest with me on these trips men like major general leonard wood or major general thomas henry barry
or presley marion rixey surgeon general of the navy or robert bacon who was afterwards secretary of state or james garfield who was secretary of the interior or gifford pinchot who was chief of the forest service were better men physically than i was
but i could ride and walk well enough for us all thoroughly to enjoy it often especially in the winters and early springs we would arrange for a point to point walk not turning aside for anything for instance swimming rock creek or even the potomac if it came in our way
of course under such circumstances we had to arrange that our return to washington should be when it was dark so that our appearance might scandalize no one on several occasions we thus swam rock creek in the early spring when the ice was floating thick upon it
if we swam the potomac we usually took off our clothes i remember one such occasion when the french ambassador jusserand who was a member of the tennis cabinet was along and just as we were about to get in to swim somebody said
mister ambassador mister ambassador you haven't taken off your gloves to which he promptly responded i think i will leave them on we might meet ladies we liked rock creek for these walks because we could do so much scrambling and climbing along the cliffs
there was almost as much climbing when we walked down the potomac to washington from the virginia end of the chain bridge i would occasionally take some big game friend from abroad selous or saint george littledale
once i invited an entire class of officers who were attending lectures at the war college to come on one of these walks i chose a route which gave us the hardest climbing along the rocks and the deepest crossings of the creek and my army friends enjoyed it hugely being the right sort to a man
on march first nineteen o nine three days before leaving the presidency various members of the tennis cabinet lunched with me at the white house tennis cabinet was an elastic term and of course many who ought to have been at the lunch were for one reason or another away from washington
but to make up for this a goodly number of out of town honorary members so to speak were present for instance seth bullock luther kelly better known as yellowstone kelly in the days when he was an army scout against the sioux and abernathy the wolf hunter
at the end of the lunch seth bullock suddenly reached forward swept aside a mass of flowers which made a centerpiece on the table and revealed a bronze cougar by proctor which was a parting gift to me the lunch party and the cougar were then photographed on the lawn
a major general proved afraid even to let his horse canter when he went on a ride with us and certain otherwise good men proved as unable to walk as if they had been sedentary brokers i consulted with men like major generals wood and bell who were themselves of fine physique
with bodies fit to meet any demand it was late in my administration and we deemed it best only to make a beginning experience teaches the most inveterate reformer how hard it is to get a totally non military nation to accept seriously any military improvement
accordingly i merely issued directions that each officer should prove his ability to walk fifty miles or ride one hundred in three days this is of course a test which many a healthy middle aged woman would be able to meet
but a large portion of the press adopted the view that it was a bit of capricious tyranny on my part and a considerable number of elderly officers with desk rather than field experience intrigued with their friends in congress to have the order annulled
so one day i took a ride of a little over one hundred miles myself in company with surgeon general rixey and two other officers the virginia roads were frozen and in ruts and in the afternoon and evening there was a storm of snow and sleet
and when it had been thus experimentally shown under unfavorable conditions how easy it was to do in one day the task for which the army officers were allowed three days all open objection ceased
but some bureau chiefs still did as much underhanded work against the order as they dared and it was often difficult to reach them
for they were vigorous young men who laughed at the idea of treating a fifty mile walk as over fatiguing well the navy department officials rebuked them and made them take the walk over again in three days on the ground that taking it in one day did not comply with the regulations
this seems unbelievable but leonard assures me it is true he did not inform me at the time being afraid to get in wrong with his permanent superiors
one of our best naval officers sent me the following letter after the above had appeared i note in your autobiography now being published in the outlook that you refer to the reasons which led you to establish a physical test for the army
this was further reduced to ten miles each month which is the present test and there is danger lest even this utterly insufficient test be abolished i enclose a copy of a recent letter to the surgeon general which will show our present deplorable condition and the worse condition into which we are slipping back
the original test of fifty miles in three days did a very great deal of good it decreased by thousands of dollars the money expended on street car fare and by a much greater sum the amount expended over the bar it eliminated a number of the wholly unfit
i am returning under separate cover the soldiers foot and the military shoe the book contains knowledge of a practical character that is valuable for the men who have to march who have suffered from foot troubles and who must avoid them in order to attain efficiency
the words in capitals express according to my idea the gist of the whole matter as regards military men the army officer whose men break down on test gets a black eye the one whose men show efficiency in this respect gets a bouquet
they will look at the pictures and say it is a good book but they won't read it the marine officers on the contrary are very much interested because they have to teach their men to care for their feet and they must know how to care for their own
but the naval officers feel no such necessity simply because their men do not have to demonstrate their efficiency by practice marches and they themselves do not have to do a stunt that will show up their own ignorance and inefficiency in the matter
for example some time ago i was talking with some chaps about shoes the necessity of having them long enough and wide enough et cetera and one of them said i have no use for such shoes as i never walk except when i have to
but it was excellent as a matter of instruction and training of handling feet and in an emergency such as we soon may have in mexico sound hearts are not much good if the feet won't stand
however the twenty five mile test in two days each quarter answered the same purpose for the reason that twelve point five miles will produce sore feet with bad shoes and sore feet and lame muscles even with good shoes if there has been no practice marching
the point is that whereas formerly officers had to practice walking a bit and give some attention to proper footgear now they don't have to and the natural consequence is that they don't do it
there are plenty of officers who do not walk any more than is necessary to reach a street car that will carry them from their residences to their offices
in order to avoid the danger of being selected out we have no such service opinion and it is not in process of formation on the contrary it is known that the principal dignitaries unanimously advised the secretary to abandon all physical tests
he a civilian was wise enough not to take the advice i would like to see a test established that would oblige officers to take sufficient exercise to pass it without inconvenience
for the reasons given above twenty miles in two days every other month would do the business while ten miles each month does not touch it simply because nobody has to walk on next day feet as for the proposed test of so many hours exercise a week
the flat foots of the pendulous belly muscles are delighted they are looking into the question of pedometers and will hang one of these on their wheezy chests and let it count every shuffling step they take out of doors
if we had an adequate test throughout twenty years there would at the end of that time be few if any sacks of blubber at the upper end of the list and service opinion against that sort of thing would be established these tests were kept during my administration
they were afterwards abandoned not through perversity or viciousness but through weakness and inability to understand the need of preparedness in advance if the emergencies of war are to be properly met when or if they arrive
in no country with an army worth calling such is there a chance for a man physically unfit to stay in the service
to follow any other course is to put a premium on slothful incapacity and to do the gravest wrong to the nation i have mentioned all these experiences and i could mention scores of others because out of them grew my philosophy perhaps they were in part caused by my philosophy
the dweller in cities has less chance than the dweller in the country to keep his body sound and vigorous but he can do so if only he will take the trouble any young lawyer shopkeeper or clerk or shop assistant can keep himself in good condition if he tries
some of the best men who have ever served under me in the national guard and in my regiment were former clerks or floor walkers why johnny hayes the marathon victor and at one time world champion one of my valued friends and supporters was a floor walker in bloomingdale's big department store
whose brother an officer in the italian army who had died on duty in a foreign land had also greatly liked the article and carried it round with him
instead of the heading i actually did use
there are two kinds of success or rather two kinds of ability displayed in the achievement of success there is first the success either in big things or small things which comes to the man who has in him the natural power to do what no one else can do
and what no amount of training no perseverance or will power will enable any ordinary man to do this success of course like every other kind of success may be on a very big scale or on a small scale
the quality which the man possesses may be that which enables him to run a hundred yards in nine and three fifths seconds or to play ten separate games of chess at the same time blindfolded or to add five columns of figures at once without effort or to write the ode to a grecian urn
or to deliver the gettysburg speech or to show the ability of frederick at leuthen or nelson at trafalgar no amount of training of body or mind would enable any good ordinary man to perform any one of these feats
of course the proper performance of each implies much previous study or training but in no one of them is success to be attained save by the altogether exceptional man who has in him the something additional which the ordinary man does not have
this is the most striking kind of success and it can be attained only by the man who has in him the quality which separates him in kind no less than in degree from his fellows but much the commoner type of success in every walk of life and in every species of effort
is that which comes to the man who differs from his fellows not by the kind of quality which he possesses but by the degree of development which he has given that quality
it is the only kind of success that is open to most of us yet some of the greatest successes in history have been those of this second class
to the average man it is probably more useful to study this second type of success than to study the first from the study of the first he can learn inspiration he can get uplift and lofty enthusiasm from the study of the second he can if he chooses
find out how to win a similar success himself i need hardly say that all the successes i have ever won have been of the second type i never won anything without hard labor and the exercise of my best judgment and careful planning and working long in advance
having been a rather sickly and awkward boy i was as a young man at first both nervous and distrustful of my own prowess i had to train myself painfully and laboriously not merely as regards my body but as regards my soul and spirit
he says that at the outset almost every man is frightened when he goes into action
after this is kept up long enough it changes from pretense to reality and the man does in very fact become fearless by sheer dint of practicing fearlessness when he does not feel it i am using my own language not marryat's this was the theory upon which i went
but by acting as if i was not afraid i gradually ceased to be afraid most men can have the same experience if they choose they will first learn to bear themselves well in trials which they anticipate and which they school themselves in advance to meet
after a while the habit will grow on them and they will behave well in sudden and unexpected emergencies which come upon them unawares it is of course much pleasanter if one is naturally fearless
and i envy and respect the men who are naturally fearless but it is a good thing to remember that the man who does not enjoy this advantage can nevertheless stand beside the man who does and can do his duty with the like efficiency if he chooses to
of course he must not let his desire take the form merely of a day dream let him dream about being a fearless man and the more he dreams the better he will be always provided he does his best to realize the dream in practice
the old chest at wyther grange when i was a child i always thought a visit to wyther grange was a great treat
she always wore stiffly rustling gowns of rich silk made in the fashion of her youth i suppose she must have changed her dress occasionally
as she went trailing about the house with a big bunch of keys at her belt keys that opened a score of wonderful old chests and boxes and drawers it was one of my
as winnifred laurance she had been the beauty of the family and was a handsome woman still with brilliant dark eyes and cameo like features she always looked very sad spoke in a low sweet voice
and was my childish ideal of all that was high bred and graceful i had many beloved haunts at the grange but i liked the garret best it was a roomy old place big enough to have comfortably housed a family in itself
that old garret was a veritable fairyland to me there was one old chest which i could not explore and like all forbidden things it possessed a great attraction for me it stood away back in a dusty cobwebbed corner
a strong high wooden box painted blue from some words which i had heard grandmother let fall i was sure it had a history it was the one thing she never explored in her periodical overhaulings
when i grew tired of playing i liked to creep up on it and sit there picturing out my own fancies concerning it of which my favourite one was that some day i should solve the riddle and open the chest to find it full of gold and jewels
when they came to the old chest grandmother rapped the top smartly with her keys i wonder what is in this old chest she said i believe it really should be opened the moths may have got into it through that crack in the lid
she confided it to my care when she went away and i promised that it should never be opened until she came for it
it is almost thirty years since she was here how pretty she was i never approved of her said grandmother brusquely she was a sentimental fanciful creature
i have no doubt that she will refuse she will cling to her old sentimental ideas as long as the breath is in her body i rather avoided the old chest after this it took on a new significance in my eyes and seemed to me like the tomb of something
that is from eliza she said i would know her writing anywhere none of your modern sprawly untidy hands but a fine lady like script as regular as copperplate read the letter winnifred
you need not read them aloud i can imagine them all
aunt winnifred opened and read the letter and laid it down with a brief sigh this is all she says about the chest if it were not for one thing that is in it i would ask you to open the chest and burn all its contents
but i cannot bear that anyone but myself should see or touch that one thing so please leave the chest as it is dear aunt it is no matter if the moths do get in that is all
and i must confess that i am disappointed i have always had an almost childish curiosity about that old chest but i seem fated not to have it gratified that one thing must be her wedding dress
and afterwards i will tell you the story we went eagerly up the garret stairs aunt knelt down before the old chest and selected a key from the bunch at her belt would it not be too provoking amy if this key should not fit after all well i do not believe you would be any more disappointed than i
a layer of tissue paper revealed itself with a fine tracing of sifted dust in its crinkles lift it up child said my aunt gently there are no ghosts for you at least in this old chest
lifting up the cover she laid it in my lap there amy
the first thing i took out was a small square case covered with dark purple velvet the tiny clasp was almost rusted away and yielded easily i gave a little cry of admiration aunt winnifred bent over my shoulder that is eliza's portrait at the age of twenty
lovely indeed was the face looking out at me from its border of tarnished gilt
was a warm auburn and the curves of her bare neck and shoulders were exquisite the other picture is that of the man to whom she was betrothed tell me amy do you think him handsome i looked at the other portrait critically it was that of a young man of about twenty five
he was undeniably handsome but there was something i did not like in his face and i said so aunt winnifred made no reply she was taking out the remaining contents of the box there was a white silk fan with delicately carved ivory sticks
aunt laid the box aside and unpacked the chest in silence first came a ball dress of pale yellow satin brocade made with the trained skirt baby waist and full puffed sleeves of a former generation
where shall i begin at the very beginning aunty you see i know nothing at all except her name tell me who she was and why she put her wedding dress away here poor eliza said aunt dreamily
her home was in a distant city and she never came to wyther grange the other eliza laurance was a poor man's daughter she and i were of the same age and did not look unlike each other although i was not so pretty by half you can see by the portrait how beautiful she was
this did not seem much of a defect to me then amy for i was young and romantic too mother never cared much for eliza i think but everyone else liked her
the grange was a very lively place then amy
his manners were polished and easy and people said he was rich i don't think amy that i ever trusted willis starr but like all the rest i was blinded by his charm mother was almost the only one who did not worship at his shrine
and we were invited to a ball that evening this yellow gown is the very one she wore i suppose that is why she put it away here the gown she wore on the happiest night of her life i had never seen her look more beautiful
her neck and arms were bare and she wore this string of pearls and carried a bouquet of her favourite white roses when we reached home after the dance eliza had her happy secret to tell us she was engaged to willis starr and they were to be married in early spring
willis starr certainly seemed to be an ideal lover and eliza was so perfectly happy that she seemed to grow more beautiful and radiant every day well amy the wedding day was set
as her own mother was dead and i was to be bridesmaid we made her wedding dress together she and i girls were not above making their own gowns then
it was i who draped the veil over her sunny curls see how yellow and creased it is now but it was as white as snow that day a week before the wedding willis starr was spending the evening at the grange we were all chattering gaily about the coming event
certainly there is i said sharply she is our cousin and the daughter of our uncle george our eliza is not an heiress you surely did not suppose she was willis stepped aside with a mocking smile
i did what wonder i had heard much about the great heiress eliza laurance and the great beauty eliza laurance i supposed they were one and the same you have all been careful not to undeceive me
we have never dreamed of allowing anyone to think that eliza was an heiress she is sweet and lovely enough to be loved for her own sake i went back to the parlour full of dismay willis starr remained gloomy and taciturn all the rest of the evening but nobody seemed to notice it but myself
i laughed and ran downstairs leaving her to read it when i returned she was still standing just where i had left her in the middle of the room holding the letter in her hand her face was as white as her veil
as of someone who had been stricken a mortal blow
it was the fortune not the girl he loved he says he is too poor for us to dream of marrying when i have nothing oh such a cruel heartless letter why did he not kill me it would have been so much more merciful
i wanted to call mother but she would not let me she went away to her own room trailing along the dark hall in her dress and veil and locked herself in well i told it all to the others in some fashion
but this was in real life and eliza did not die although many times we thought she would when she did recover how frightfully changed she was it almost broke my heart to see her her very nature seemed to have changed too
all her joyousness and light heartedness were dead from that time she was a faded dispirited creature no more like the eliza we had known than the merest stranger and then after a while came other news
willis starr was married to the other eliza laurance the true heiress he had made no second mistake we tried to keep it from eliza
that was the day she came up here alone and packed this old chest nobody ever knew just what she put into it but you and i see now amy her ball dress her wedding gown her love letters and
more than all else her youth and happiness this old chest was the tomb of it all eliza laurance was really buried here she went home soon after
and i do not think she ever intended to and i never saw her again that is the story of the old chest it was all over so long ago the heartbreak and the misery but it all seems to come back to me now poor eliza
let us put all these things back in their grave amy she said they are of no use to anyone now the linen might be bleached and used i dare say but it would seem like a sacrilege it was mother's wedding present to eliza
i would like to keep that reverently we put gowns and letters and trinkets back into the old blue chest aunt winnifred closed the lid and turned the key softly
the count's successes the venetians come to terms with him views of the venetians
milanese ambassadors at venice league of the venetians and milanese the count dupes the venetians and milanese he applies for assistance to the florentines diversity of opinions in florence on the subject neri di gino capponi averse to assisting the count
cosmo de medici disposed to do so the florentines sent ambassadors to the count after this victory the count marched into the brescian territory occupied the whole country and then pitched his camp within two miles of the city the venetians
sent them one thousand foot and two thousand horse by whose aid the venetians were in a condition to treat for peace at one time it seemed the fate of their republic to lose by war and win by negotiation for what was taken from them in battle was frequently restored twofold on the restoration of peace
and as it was in their power to make peace with either of the two the one desiring it from ambition the other from fear
and offer him assistance to effect his design
and that becoming unable either to defend themselves or trust the count they would be compelled having no other resource to fall into their hands having taken this resolution they sounded the count and found him quite disposed for peace
evidently desirous that the honor and advantage of the victory at caravaggio should be his own and not accrue to the milanese the parties therefore entered into an agreement in which the venetians undertook to pay the count thirteen thousand florins per month till he should obtain milan
and to furnish him during the continuance of the war four thousand horse and two thousand foot
and whatever else had been taken by him during the late campaigns and content himself with those territories which the duke possessed at the time of his death when this treaty became known at milan it grieved the citizens more than the victory at caravaggio had exhilarated them
the rulers of the city mourned the people complained women and children wept and all exclaimed against the count as false and perfidious although they could not hope that either prayers or promises would divert him from his ungrateful design
though late aware of thy pride cruelty and ambition come hither not to ask aught nor with the hope even if we were so disposed of obtaining it but to remind thee of the benefits thou hast received from the people of milan
but for our simplicity we received thee to our home actuated by reverence for the happy memory of our duke with whom being connected by marriage and renewed alliance we believed thy affection would descend to those who had inherited his authority
and that if to the benefits he had conferred on thee our own were added the friendship we sought to establish would not only be firm but inseparable with this impression we added verona or brescia to thy previous appointments
what more could we either give or promise thee what else couldst thou not from us merely but from any others have either had or expected
thou receivedst from us an unhoped for benefit and we in return an unmerited wrong neither hast thou deferred until now the manifestation of thy base designs for no sooner wert thou appointed to command our armies than
alas those who grasp at all cannot be satisfied with a part thou didst promise that we should possess the conquests which thou might afterward make
purchased by our money and blood and followed by our ruin oh unhappy states which have to guard against their oppressor
and faithless arms like thine may our example instruct posterity since that of thebes and philip of macedon who after victory over her enemies from being her captain became her foe and her prince
still this want of caution in us does not excuse the perfidy in thee nor can it obliterate the infamy with which our just complaints will blacken thy character throughout the world
and though ambition should blind thine eyes the whole world witness to thine iniquity will compel thee to open them god himself will unclose them if perjuries if violated faith if treacheries displease him
and if as ever he is still the enemy of the wicked do not therefore promise thyself any certainty of victory for the just wrath of the almighty will weigh heavily upon thee and we are resolved to lose our liberty only with our lives
but if we found we could not ultimately defend it we would submit ourselves to anyone rather than to thee and if our sins be so great that in spite of our utmost resolution we should still fall into thy hands be quite assured
that the sovereignty which is commenced in deceit and villainy will terminate either in thyself or thy children with ignominy and blood the count though not insensible to the just reproaches of the milanese
did not exhibit either by words or gestures any unusual excitement and replied that he willingly attributed to their angry feelings all the serious charges of their indiscreet harangue and he would reply to them in detail were he in the presence of anyone who could decide their differences
it would thus be manifest they had no right to complain when he had effected the arrangements which they first attempted to make and that if he had deferred to do so a little longer
whether the charge were true or false that god whom they had invoked to avenge their injuries would show at the conclusion of the war and would demonstrate which was most his friend
at least till they could deprive the count of the aid of the venetians who they did not think would long be either friendly or faithful to him on the other hand the count perfectly aware of this thought it not imprudent supposing the obligation of the treaty insufficient
to bind them by the ties of interest and therefore in assigning to each their portion of the enterprise he consented that the venetians should attack crema and himself with the other forces assail the remainder of the territory
neither did they think he would be content with the boundaries assigned him by the treaty
and wishing before they changed sides to effect this point they publicly answered the envoys that their engagements with the count prevented them from defending the milanese but secretly gave them every assurance of their wish to do so
with whom they made peace and entered into alliance
having come to this agreement
and to return to the venetian territory
he could not avoid feeling regret and displeasure similar to what the milanese had experienced when he abandoned them he took two days to consider the reply he would make to the ambassadors whom the venetians had sent to inform him of the treaty and during this time
he determined to dupe the venetians and not abandon his enterprise therefore appearing openly to accept the proposal for peace
and with pretexts or caviling to put it off to give the venetians greater assurance of his sincerity he made a truce with the milanese for a month withdrew from milan
for the venetians confident of peace were slow in preparing for war and the milanese finding the truce concluded the enemy withdrawn and the venetians their friends felt assured that the count had determined to abandon his design
and by whom he had constantly been faithfully advised and liberally supported nor did cosmo abandon him in his extreme necessity but supplied him generously from his own resources and encouraged him to prosecute his design he also wished the city publicly to assist him
in the first place he apprehended that the milanese through their anger against the count would surrender themselves entirely to the venetians which would occasion the ruin of all supposing he should occupy milan
it appeared to him that so great military superiority combined with such an extent of territory would be dangerous to themselves
which could never be united to injure others and separately are unable to do so to attain this he saw no better means than to refrain from aiding the count and continuing in the former league with the venetians these reasonings were not satisfactory to cosmo's friends
pointed out that to lend assistance to the count would be highly beneficial both to italy
or the venetians her lords and surely under such circumstances no one could doubt which would be most to their advantage to have for their neighbor a powerful friend or a far more powerful foe neither need it be apprehended that the milanese
he was a young man of from twenty four to twenty five years of age tall and slender wearing gracefully the picturesque military costume of the period his large boots contained a foot which mademoiselle de montalais might not have disowned if she had been transformed into a man
then stooping towards him in a clear distinct voice which was perfectly audible at the window where the two girls were concealed a message for his royal highness he said ah ah cried the soldier officer a messenger
do you know him why yes
the soldier returned your pardon young gentleman but your name if you please
the soldier made a profound bow and
out of breath supporting his capacious body with one hand whilst with the other he cut the air as a fisherman cleaves the waves with his oar ah monsieur le vicomte you at blois cried he well that is a wonder
how madame de la vall i mean how delighted madame de saint remy will be to see you but come in his royal highness is at breakfast must he be interrupted is the matter serious yes and no monsieur de saint remy
great news monsieur de saint remy and good i presume excellent come quickly come quickly then cried the worthy man
and an animated whispering betrayed the emotion of the two girls
in the meantime the object of so much laudable curiosity continued his route following the steps of the maitre d'hotel the noise of quick steps
warned them that they were coming to the end of their course the pages valets and officers assembled in the office which led up to the refectory welcomed the newcomer with the proverbial politeness of the country some of them were acquainted with raoul
not into the glass but upon the tablecloth madame who was not so preoccupied as her glorious spouse was remarked this distraction of the page well exclaimed she well repeated monsieur what is going on then
took advantage of the moment why am i to be disturbed said gaston
with an inquietude that escaped none of the assistants and consequently redoubled the general curiosity
in which every message was connected with a dark and complicated intrigue perhaps likewise
beneath the roofs of blois to the proportions of a phantom monsieur pushed away his plate shall i tell the envoy to wait
a glance from madame emboldened gaston who replied no no let him come in at once on the contrary
who is he a gentleman of this country
with his accustomed gravity monsieur turned his eyes in a certain manner upon the people of his suite so that all pages officers and equerries quitted the service knives and goblets and made towards the second chamber door a retreat as rapid as it was disorderly
the short interval of solitude which this retreat had left him permitted monsieur the time to assume a diplomatic countenance he did not turn round but waited till the maitre d'hotel should bring the messenger face to face with him
raoul stopped even with the lower end of the table so as to be exactly between monsieur and madame from this place he made a profound bow to monsieur and a very humble one to madame then drawing himself up into military pose
which would promise him at least an appearance of secrecy the doors being closed monsieur raised his eyes towards the vicomte and said
this minute monseigneur how is the king his majesty is in perfect health monseigneur and my sister in law her majesty the queen mother still suffers from the complaint in her chest but for the last month she has been rather better
unsealed it as he would have unsealed a suspicious packet and in order to read it so that no one should remark the effects of it upon his countenance he turned round madame followed with an anxiety almost equal to that of the prince every maneuver of her august husband
raoul impassible and a little disengaged by the attention of his hosts looked from his place through the open window at the gardens and the statues which peopled them well cried monsieur all at once with a cheerful smile here is an agreeable surprise
the table was too large to allow the arm of the prince to reach the hand of madame
and did it with so good a grace as to procure a flattering acknowledgement from the princess you know the contents of this letter no doubt said gaston to raoul
but upon reflection his highness took up his pen it is beautiful writing said madame but i cannot read it
and as i knew with what joy his majesty would pass a day at blois i venture to ask your royal highness's permission to mark the house you inhabit as our quarters if however the suddenness of this request should create to your royal highness any embarrassment i entreat you to say so by the messenger i send
and express to him my gratitude for the honor he has done me raoul bowed on what day will his majesty arrive continued the prince the king monseigneur will in all probability arrive this evening
to give counter orders to the courier
much nearer monseigneur his majesty must by this time have arrived at meung does the court accompany him yes monseigneur
asked monsieur his reserve beginning to diminish
and that is that his messenger has been very agreeable to me but i will tell him so myself raoul bowed his thanks to monsieur for the honor he had done him monsieur made a sign to madame who struck a bell which was placed at her right hand
i depend on the king my nephew not having to repent of the favor he does my house
cried all the officers of the household with frantic enthusiasm
which passed over him for a long time being unaccustomed to hear it his ear had had rest
more vivacious and more brilliant royalty rose up before him like a new and more painful provocation madame perfectly understood the sufferings of that timid gloomy heart she rose from the table monsieur imitated her mechanically
and all the domestics with a buzzing like that of several bee hives surrounded raoul for the purpose of questioning him madame saw this movement
this is not the time for gossiping but working said she
care will be taken of that gentleman i hope added madame
the worthy man immediately hastened after raoul madame desires refreshments to be offered to you said he and there is besides a lodging for you in the castle
as he was passing under the porch leading his horse by the bridle
chapter thirty four it was the wedding day of four happy people the day was bright the sky blue and sherwood had taken upon itself
the old church of nottingham was already crowded to excess the newly banded guard of royal bowmen gay in their scarlet and white livery
so soon as the weddings were over all would go back to a great feast given at gamewell hall in honor of the day then afterward the two couples would go with the king into london
to be followed within seven days by the rest of the royal guard richard meant to employ these fellows shrewdly and test their loyalty not for reasons of sentiment only
had he forgiven robin and his men the hour was reached and at once a small company was seen issuing forth from nottingham castle against his will master monceux had given use of the castle
to the two bridegrooms the newly made earls of nottingham and huntingdon with robin and geoffrey were firstly old george of gamewell
the squire was happy and radiant he walked between them and turned his head ever and again in laughing speech with sir richard of the lee and his heir stuteley and little john were next
the long and short of it and after them the jovial friar of copmanhurst arthur a bland with a gold chain about his neck given him by the knight sir richard walked with middle the tinker
on his left and much the miller on his right close behind trotted the small complaisant midge dressed up very fine in a livery of purple doublet and green hose
as they walked rather consciously up the narrow path between the smiling ranks of their fellows the crowd cheered them radiantly a hood
was called and called again some maids from the opposite windows threw them kisses and waved pretty kerchiefs in their honor
within the church waiting for them soberly at the chancel steps was my lord of hereford dressed out in his finest and richest robes and beside him friar tuck
for robin hood and will scarlett the bishop had enmity and contempt but towards the earls of huntingdon and nottingham this time serving man could only profess
an abundance of respect the brides were to be escorted from gamewell by no other person than the king himself he was to give them both in marriage and had promised them jewels and to spare
when they were come to court loud cheering and noise from the mob without the church told of their approach the people were wild with joy at having their king amongst them like this
citizens burgesses apprentices were all in their best their wives and their sweethearts all dressed out in splendid attire as the king jumped down from his horse before the lych gate
and held out his strong hand to help the brides from off their milk white mares the whole place became alive with excitement and rapture little maids with baskets of violets and primroses
flung their offerings prettily under the feet of the two beauteous blushing brides who leaned so timidly upon the king's proud arms at last the service was begun
and both couples were well nigh wed the bishop had spoken the latin service impressively and with unction in the first row stood monceux in all the pomp of his shrievalty
with his councilmen and aldermen master simeon with face leaner than ever and inturning eyes glared impotently at the chief actors in this historic scene
alone missing from it was the cold colorless beauty of the demoiselle marie she had taken herself to her room this morn and had sworn never to leave it again
but now that the double marriage was nearly made she suddenly appeared thrusting her way rudely through the gathered crowd at the church door she was wild eyed dishevelled
her dress fastened all awry folks looked once at her and then exchanged glances between themselves stay this mockery of marriage my lord she cried
fiercely facing the bishop she had elbowed a path for herself to the chancel steps i do forbid the marrying of these two she pointed a trembling finger from robin to marian
this woman is blood guilty and holy church may not countenance her she shrilled desperately
her own father and i have proof of it tis false roared robin then beside himself you viper you mean souled spy is no crime too great for you
there is no need for defence spoke the king the charge is too wild and foolish an one seize this woman some of you and take her without
i will deal with her later he imperiously signed to his guards and at once the demoiselle was gripped harshly by both arms be gentle with her pleaded marian she is distraught
and hath not command upon herself i beg of you sire to forgive this i have no quarrel with mistress monceux the demoiselle had suddenly become quiet under the fierce hands of much
and little john she allowed them to thrust her ignominiously forth at the door of the church she turned once as though to renew her preposterous charges but contented herself merely
with a single glance towards them of malignant hate then she was gone and people stirred themselves uneasily as folks do when having been within touch of the plague
the sheriff had stared with protruding eyes of horror and dismay upon his daughter when he saw that she was gone that the dreadful episode was done
he gasped hurriedly and sat down his mind became confused his vision obscured as by a cloud the service was finished robin and marian
geoffrey and aimee no longer of aragon were joined together for the rest of their lives the bishop pronounced a blessing and forgetting himself utterly in the emotion of the moment
spoke fervently and with purpose the king kissed the brides and after him their husbands kissed them also then all signed their names in the church books
and the trumpeters and heralds made music for them they returned through the streets of nottingham gay now with flags and merry with a joyful populace loud cheerings rent the air
and people showered flowers and blessings upon them before the happy couples ran six of the greenwood men loyal subjects now flinging largesse upon the people right and left
from out of well filled bags all the treasure that they had accumulated in their caves at barnesdale the king's bowmen freely distributed this day all were happy
the nightmare of unjust dealings of norman oppression of laws for the poor and none for the rich was ended the king had said it
and the king had already made good the promise in his words afterward at gamewell
full rank as baron of the realm with power to speak and vote in the upper court of appeal the highest rank in the land next to the king himself sir richard of the lee and his son
became members of the star chamber with grants of land in perpetuity turning to marian the king wished her every joy that she could wish herself and gave to her
the lands of broadweald in lancashire to hold in her own right for ever thus you shall have wealth to share with your robin and i counsel you both to make good use of your days
my subjects who are loyal to me shall have no cause to regret it i will give you aimee the castle of acquitaine which i held under my father's grant until his death
you know how fair a spot it is and how sweet the sky of france help her to administer her riches geoffrey wisely and well
on our arrival at the nunnery i was left alone for half an hour then the bishop came in with the lady superior and the abbess who had charge of the kitchen when i left the bishop read to me
three punishments of which he said i could take my choice first to fast five days in the fasting room second to suffer punishment in the lime room third to fast four days
in the cell as i knew nothing of these places except the cell a priest was directed to take me to them that i might see for myself and then take my choice at first
i thought i did not care and i said i had no choice about it but when i came to see the rooms i was thankful that i was not allowed to abide by that decision certainly
i had no idea what was before me i was blindfolded and taken to the lime room first i think it must have been situated at a great distance from the room we left
for he led me down several flights of stairs and through long low passages where it was impossible to stand erect at length we entered a room where the atmosphere seemed laden
with hot vapor my blinder was removed and i found myself in a pleasant room some fifteen feet square there was no furniture of any kind but a wide bench fastened to the wall
extended round three sides of the room the floor looked like one solid block of dark colored marble not a crack or seam to be seen in it but it was clouded
highly polished and very beautiful around the sides of the room a great number of hooks and chains were fastened to the wall and a large hook hung in the center overhead
near the door stood two men with long iron bars some two inches square on their shoulders the priest directed me to stand upon the bench and turning to the men
they put down their bars and i suppose touched a concealed spring for the whole floor at once flew up and fastened to the large hook over head
surprised and terrified i stood wondering what was to come next at my feet yawned a deep pit from which arose a suffocating vapor so hot it almost scorched my face
and nearly stopped my breath the priest pointed to the heaving tumbling billows of smoke that were rolling below and asked how would you like to be thrown into the lime
not at all i gasped in a voice scarcely audible it would burn me to death i suppose he thought i was sufficiently frightened
this they did by slowly letting down the floor and i could see that it was in some way supported by the chains attached to the walls
i was nearly suffocated by the lime smoke that filled the room and though i knew not what was in reserve for me i was glad when my blinder was put on and i was led away
i think we returned the same way we came and entered another room where the scent was so very offensive that i begged to be taken out immediately even before my eyes were uncovered
and i knew nothing of the loathsome objects by which we were surrounded i felt that i could not endure to breathe an atmosphere so deadly but the sight that met my eyes when my blinder was removed
i cannot describe nor the sensations with which i gazed upon it i can only give the reader some faint idea of the place which they said was called the fasting room and here
incorrigible offenders fasted until they starved to death nor was this all their dead bodies were not even allowed a decent burial
but were suffered to remain in the place where they died until the work of death was complete and dust returned to dust thus the atmosphere became a deadly poison
to the next poor victim who was left to breathe the noxious effluvia of corruption and decay i am well aware that my reader will hardly credit my statements
but i do solemnly affirm that i relate nothing but the truth in this room were placed several large iron kettles so deep that a person could sit in them
and many of them contained the remains of human beings in one the corpse looked as though it had been dead but a short time others still sat erect in the kettle
but the flesh was dropping from the bones every stage of decay was here represented from the commencement till nothing but a pile of bones was left of the poor sufferer conceive if you can
with what feelings i gazed upon these disgusting relics of the dead even now my blood chills in my veins as memory recalls the fearful sight or as in sleep
i live over again the dread realities of that hour was i to meet a fate like this i might perchance escape it for that time but what assurance had i
that i was not ultimately destined to such an end these thoughts filled my mind as i followed the priest from the room and for a long time i continued to speculate upon what i had seen
they called it the fasting room but if fasting were the only object why were they placed in those kettles instead of being allowed to sit on chairs or benches
or even on the floor and why placed in iron kettles why were they not made of wood it would have answered the purpose quite as well
if fasting or starvation were the only objects in view then came the fearful suggestion were these kettles ever heated and was that floor made of stone or iron
the thought was too shocking to be cherished for a moment but i could not drive it from my mind i was again blindfolded and taken to a place they called a cell
but it was quite different from the one i was in before we descended several steps as we entered it and instead of the darkness i anticipated i found myself in a large room
with sufficient light to enable me to see every object distinctly one end of a long chain was fastened around my waist and the other firmly secured to an iron ring in the floor
but the chain though large and heavy was long enough to allow me to go all over the room i could not see how it was lighted but it must have been in some artificial manner
for it was quite as light at night as in the day here were instruments of various kinds the use of which i did not understand some of them lying on the floor
others attached to the sides of the room one of them was made in the form of a large fish but of what material i do not know it was of a bright flesh color
and fastened to a board on the floor if i pressed my foot upon the board it would put in motion some machinery within which caused it to spring forward with a harsh jarring sound
like the rumbling of the cars at the same time its eyes would roll round and its mouth open displaying a set of teeth so large and long
that i was glad to keep at a safe distance i wished to know whether it would really bite me or not but it looked so frightful i did not dare to hazard the experiment
another so nearly resembled a large serpent i almost thought it was one but i found it moved only when touched in a certain manner then it would roll over open its mouth
and run out its tongue there was another that i cannot describe for i never saw anything that looked like it it was some kind of a machine
and the turning of a crank made it draw together in such a way that if a person were once within its embrace the pressure would soon arrest the vital current and stop the breath of life
around the walls of the room were chains rings and hooks almost innumerable but i did not know their use and feared to touch them
i believed them all to be instruments of torture and i thought they gave me a long chain in the hope and expectation that my curiosity would lead me into some of the numerous traps
the room contained every morning the figure i had seen beside the dying nun which they called the devil came to my cell and unlocking the door himself entered
and walked around me laughing heartily and seeming much pleased to find me there he would blow white froth from his mouth but he never spoke to me
and when he went out he locked the door after him and took away the key he was in fact very thoughtful and prudent but it will be long before i believe that he came as they pretended
from the spirit world so far from being frightened the incident was rather a source of amusement such questions as the following would force themselves upon my mind
where did he get that key and what will he do with it does the devil hold the keys of this nunnery so that he can come and go as he pleases
or are the priests on such friendly terms with his satanic majesty that they lend him their keys or do they hold them as partners
chapter twenty five the old well house when bryce came hurrying up to him folliot was standing at his garden door with his hands thrust under his coat tails the very picture of a benevolent leisured gentleman
in that part of folliot's big garden i want a bit of talk with you said bryce as folliot closed the door and turned down a side path to a still more retired region private talk let's go where it's quiet
without replying in words to this suggestion folliot led the way through his rose trees to a far corner of his grounds where an old building of grey stone covered with ivy stood amongst high trees
and motioned bryce to enter quiet enough in here doctor he observed you've never seen this place bit of a fancy of mine bryce absorbed as he was in the thoughts of the moment
it was a square building of old stone its walls unlined unplastered its floor paved with much worn flags of limestone evidently set down in a long dead age
and now polished to marble like smoothness in its midst set flush with the floor was what was evidently a trap door furnished with a heavy iron ring to this folliot pointed
with a glance of significant interest deepest well in all wrychester under that he remarked you'd never think it it's a hundred feet deep and more dry now
water gave out some years ago some people would have pulled this old well house down but not me i did better i turned it to good account he raised a hand and pointed upward to an obviously modern ceiling of strong oak timbers
had that put in he continued and turned the top of the building into a little snuggery come up he led the way to a flight of steps in one corner of the lower room pushed open a door at their head
the two or three chairs were deep and big enough to lie down in the two windows commanded pleasant views of the cathedral towers on one side and of the close on the other nice little place to be alone in d'ye see said folliot
cool in summer warm in winter modern fire grate you notice
good place for that certainly agreed bryce folliot pointed his visitor to one of the big chairs and turning to a cabinet brought out some glasses a syphon of soda water and a heavy cut glass decanter
he nodded at a box of cigars which lay open on a table at bryce's elbow as he began to mix a couple of drinks help yourself he said good stuff those not until he had given bryce a drink
and had carried his own glass to another easy chair did folliot refer to any reason for bryce's visit but once settled down he looked at him speculatively what did you want to see me about he asked
bryce who had lighted a cigar looked across its smoke at the imperturbable face opposite you've just had glassdale here he observed quietly i saw him leave you
folliot nodded without any change of expression aye doctor he said and what do you know about glassdale now bryce who would have cheerfully hobnobbed with a man
whom he was about to conduct to the scaffold lifted his glass and drank a good deal he answered
the fact is i came here to tell you so
a wide term remarked folliot
i mean about recent matters replied bryce i've interested myself in them for reasons of my own ever since braden was found at the foot of those stairs in paradise and i was fetched to him i've interested myself and
i've discovered a great deal more much more than's known to anybody folliot threw one leg over the other and began to jog his foot oh he said after a pause dear me and what might you know now doctor aught you can tell me eh
lots answered bryce i came to tell you on seeing that glassdale had been with you because i was with glassdale this morning folliot made no answer
but bryce saw that his cool almost indifferent manner was changing he was beginning under the surface to get anxious when i left glassdale at noon continued bryce i'd no idea and i don't think he had
that he was coming to see you but i know what put the notion into his head i gave him copies of those two reward bills he no doubt thought he might make a bit and so he came in to town and to you well asked folliot
i shouldn't wonder remarked bryce reflectively and almost as if speaking to himself i shouldn't at all wonder if glassdale's the sort of man who can be bought he no doubt has his price but all that glassdale knows is nothing
to what i know folliot had allowed his cigar to go out he threw it away took a fresh one from the box and slowly struck a match and lighted it what might you know now he asked after another pause
and about who killed him and why there's only one way of doing all that sort of thing you know you've got to go back a long way back to the very beginnings i went back to the time when braden was married not as braden of course
but as who he really was john brake that was at a place called braden medworth near barthorpe in leicestershire he paused there watching folliot but folliot showed no more than close attention and bryce went on
not much in that for the really important part of the story he continued but brake had other associations with barthorpe a bit later he got to know got into close touch with a barthorpe man who about the time of brake's marriage
left barthorpe end settled in london brake and this man began to have some secret dealings together there was another man in with them too
brake had evidently a belief in these men and he trusted them unfortunately for himself he sometimes trusted the bank's money to them i know what happened he used to let them have money for short financial transactions to be refunded
within a very brief space but he went to the fire too often and got his fingers burned in the end the two men did him one of them in particular and cleared out he had to stand the racket
he stood it to the tune of ten years penal servitude
he wanted to find those two men and began a long search for them like to know the names of the men mister folliot you might mention em if you know em answered folliot the name of the particular one was wraye falkiner wraye
replied bryce promptly of the other the man of lesser importance flood
which showed that he knew he had the whip hand shall i tell you something about falkiner wraye he asked i will it's deeply interesting mister falkiner wraye after cheating and deceiving brake
and leaving him to pay the penalty of his over trustfulness cleared out of england and carried his money making talents to foreign parts he succeeded in doing well
and eventually he came back and married a rich widow and settled himself down in an out of the world english town to grow roses you're falkiner wraye you know mister folliot bryce laughed as he made this direct accusation
and then to his left hand falkiner wraye he said had an unfortunate gun accident in his youth which marked him for life he lost the middle finger of his left hand and he got a bad scar on his left jaw there they are those marks
fortunate for you mister folliot that the police don't know all that i know for if they did those marks would have done for you days ago for a minute or two folliot sat joggling his leg a bad sign in him of rising temper
if bryce had but known it while he remained silent he watched bryce narrowly and when he spoke his voice was calm as ever
you said just now that you'd no doubt that man glassdale could be bought and i'm inclining to think that you're one of those men that have their price what is it we've not come to that retorted bryce you're a bit mistaken
if i have my price it's not in the same commodity that glassdale would want but before we do any talking about that sort of thing i want to add to my stock of knowledge look here we'll be candid i don't care a snap of my fingers that brake
that collishaw's dead nor if one had his neck broken and the other was poisoned but whose hand was that which the mason varner saw that morning when brake was flung out of that doorway come now whose
not mine my lad answered folliot confidently that's a fact bryce hesitated giving folliot a searching look and folliot nodded solemnly i tell you not mine he repeated i'd naught to do with it
then who had demanded bryce was it the other man flood and if so who is flood folliot got up from his chair and cigar between his lips and hands under the tails of his old coat
he was evidently thinking deeply and bryce made no attempt to disturb him some minutes went by before folliot took the cigar from his lips and leaning against the chimneypiece looked fixedly at his visitor look here my lad he said earnestly
you're no doubt as you say a good hand at finding things out and you've doubtless done a good bit of ferreting and done it well enough in your own opinion but there's one thing you can't find out and the police can't find out either
but neither you nor the police nor anybody could fasten me to either matter granting all you say to be true where's the positive truth what about circumstantial evidence asked bryce
you'd have a job to get it retorted folliot supposing that all you say is true about about past matters nothing can prove nothing
on the other hand i can prove easily that i never did meet him i can account for every minute of my time that day as to the other affair not an ounce of direct evidence then it was the other man exclaimed bryce
now then who is he folliot replied with a shrewd glance a man who by giving away another man gave himself away would be a damned fool he answered if there is another man as if there must be interrupted bryce
then he's safe concluded folliot you'll get nothing from me about him and nobody can get at you except through him asked bryce that's about it assented folliot laconically bryce laughed cynically
a pretty coil he said with a sneer here you talked about my price i'm quite content to hold my tongue if you'd tell me something about what happened seventeen years ago what asked folliot you knew brake
you must have known his family affairs said bryce what became of brake's wife and children when he went to prison folliot shook his head
you're wrong he answered i never at any time knew anything of brake's family affairs so little indeed that i never even knew he was married bryce rose to his feet and stood staring what he exclaimed
what's incredible asked folliot
bryce in his eagerness and surprise grasped folliot's arm and shook it good heavens man he said those two wards of ransford's are brake's girl and boy didn't you know that didn't you never answered folliot never
and who's ransford then i never heard brake speak of any ransford what game is all this what before bryce could reply folliot suddenly started thrust his companion aside and went to one of the windows
a sharp exclamation from him took bryce to his side folliot lifted a shaking hand and pointed into the garden there he whispered hell and what's this mean
bryce looked in the direction pointed out behind the pergola of rambler roses the figures of men were coming towards the old well house led by one of folliot's gardeners suddenly they emerged into full view
and close behind him the detective
which marks the convict his head was clipped short
upon his haggard face standing with his hands behind him he waited for the moment when he would be ordered to his work john lexman a o forty three
he dare not let his mind dwell upon the long aching years ahead he dare not think of the woman he left or let his mind dwell upon the agony which she was enduring he had disappeared from the world
the world he loved and the world that knew him and all that there was in life all that was worth while had been crushed and obliterated into the granite of the princetown quarries
new interests made up his existence the quality of the food was one the character of the book he would receive from the prison library another the future meant sunday chapel the present whatever task they found him
for the day he was to paint some doors and windows of an outlying cottage a cottage occupied by a warder who for some reason on the day previous had spoken to him
with a certain kindness and a certain respect which was unusual face the wall growled a voice and mechanically he turned his hands still behind him and stood staring at the grey wall of the prison storehouse
he heard the shuffling feet of the quarry gang his ears caught the clink of the chains which bound them together they were desperate men peculiarly interesting to him and he had watched their faces furtively in the early period
of his imprisonment he had been sent to dartmoor after spending three months in wormwood scrubbs old hands had told him variously that he was fortunate or unlucky it was usual to have twelve months at the scrubbs
before testing the life of a convict establishment he believed there was some talk of sending him to parkhurst and here he traced the influence which t x would exercise for parkhurst was a prisoner's paradise
he heard his warder's voice behind him right turn forty three quick march he walked ahead of the armed guard through the great and gloomy gates of the prison turned sharply to the right and walked up the village street
beyond the village of princetown and on the tavistock road
which had been lately taken by the prison staff and it was to the decoration of one of these that a o forty three had been sent the house was as yet without a tenant a paper hanger under the charge of another warder
was waiting for the arrival of the painter the two warders exchanged greetings
leaving the other in charge of both men for an hour they worked in silence under the eyes of the guard presently the warder went outside and john lexman had an opportunity of examining his fellow sufferer
he was a man of twenty four or twenty five lithe and alert by no means bad looking
which distinguished the majority of the inhabitants at dartmoor they waited until they heard the warder's step clear the passage and until his iron shod boots were tramping over the cobbled path which led from the door through the tiny garden to the road
before the second man spoke what are you in for he asked in a low voice murder said john lexman laconically he had answered the question before
which came into the eyes of the questioner what have you got fifteen years said the other that means eleven years and nine months said the first man you've never been here before i suppose hardly said lexman drily
i was here when i was a kid confessed the paper hanger i am going out next week john lexman looked at him enviously had the man told him that he had inherited a great fortune and a greater title
his envy would not have been so genuine going out the drive in the brake to the station the ride to london in creased but comfortable clothing free as the air at liberty to go to bed and rise when he liked
to choose his own dinner to answer no call save the call of his conscience to see he checked himself what are you in for he asked in self defence conspiracy and fraud said the other cheerfully
i was put away by a woman after three of us had got clear with twelve thousand pounds damn rough luck wasn't it john nodded it was curious he thought how sympathetic one grows with these exponents of crimes
one naturally adopts their point of view and sees life through their distorted vision i bet i'm not given away with the next lot the prisoner went on i've got one of the biggest ideas i've ever had and i've got a real good man to help me
how asked john in surprise the man jerked his head in the direction of the prison larry green he said briefly he's coming out next month too and we are all fixed up proper we are going to get the pile
which told john as clearly as though the man had confessed as much that he had never occupied any social position in life the warder's step on the stones outside reduced them to silence suddenly his voice came up the stairs
forty three he called sharply i want you down here john took his paint pot and brush and went clattering down the uncarpeted stairs where's the other man asked the warder in a low voice
he's upstairs in the back room the warder stepped out of the door and looked left and right coming up from princetown was a big grey car put down your paint pot he said his voice was shaking with excitement i am going upstairs
when that car comes abreast of the gate ask no questions and jump into it get down into the bottom and pull a sack over you and do not get up until the car stops the blood rushed to john lexman's head and he staggered
my god he whispered do as i tell you hissed the warder like an automaton john put down his brushes and walked slowly to the gate the grey car was crawling up the hill
and the face of the driver was half enveloped in a big rubber mask through the two great goggles john could see little to help him identify the man as the machine came up to the gate he leapt into the tonneau and sank instantly to the bottom
as he did so he felt the car leap forward underneath him now it was going fast now faster now it rocked and swayed as it gathered speed he felt it sweeping down hill and up hill
and once he heard a hollow rumble as it crossed a wooden bridge he could not detect from his hiding place in what direction they were going but he gathered they had switched off to the left
never once did he feel the car slacken its pace until with a grind of brakes it stopped suddenly get out said a voice john lexman threw off the cover and leapt out and as he did so
for a moment he thought he was alone and looked around
it was an accident that he should see it
he turned at the sound of a voice he was standing on the slope of a small tor at the foot there was a smooth stretch of green sward it was on this stretch that the people of dartmoor held their pony races in the summer months
there was no sign of horses but only a great bat like machine with out stretched pinions of taut white canvas and by that machine
john stumbled down the slope as he neared the machine he stopped and gasped kara he said and the brown man smiled but i do not understand
when he had recovered from his surprise i am going to take you to a place of safety said the other i have no reason to be grateful to you as yet kara breathed lexman a word from you could have saved me i could not lie my dear lexman
if that is what you are referring to
my wife she is waiting for you said the other he turned his head listening
you haven't time for argument they discovered your escape he said get in john clambered up into the frail body of the machine and kara followed this is a self starter he said one of the newest models of monoplanes
he clicked over a lever and with a roar the big three bladed tractor screw spun the aeroplane moved forward with a jerk
and then suddenly the jerky progress ceased the machine swayed gently from side to side and looking over the passenger saw the ground recede beneath him up up they climbed in one long sweeping ascent
passing through drifting clouds
john lexman looked down he saw the indentations of the coast
but in an incredibly short space of time all signs of the land were blotted out talking was impossible the roar of the engines defied penetration kara was evidently a skilful pilot
from time to time he consulted the compass on the board before him and changed his course ever so slightly presently he released one hand from the driving wheel and scribbling on a little block of paper which was inserted in a pocket
at the side of the seat he passed it back john lexman read if you cannot swim there is a life belt under your seat john nodded kara was searching the sea for something and presently he found it
viewed from the height at which they flew it looked no more than a white speck in a great blue saucer but presently the machine began to dip falling at a terrific rate of speed which took away the breath of the man who was hanging on with both hands
to the dangerous seat behind he was deadly cold
it was all so incredible so impossible he expected to wake up
now he saw the point for which kara was making a white steam yacht long and narrow of beam was steaming slowly westward he could see the feathery wake in her rear
and as the aeroplane fell he had time to observe that a boat had been put off then with a jerk the monoplane flattened out and came like a skimming bird to the surface of the water her engines stopped
and by that time they will pick us up his voice was high and harsh in the almost painful silence which followed the stoppage of the engines in less than five minutes the boat had come alongside manned
as lexman gathered from a glimpse of the crew by greeks he scrambled aboard and five minutes later he was standing on the white deck of the yacht watching the disappearing tail of the monoplane kara was by his side
there goes fifteen hundred pounds said the greek with a smile
six oz of butter the rind of one lemon six eggs puff paste mode peel core and cut the apples as for sauce
put them into a stewpan with only just sufficient water to prevent them from burning and let them stew until reduced to a pulp weigh the pulp
grated lemon rind and six well beaten eggs beat these ingredients well together then melt the butter stir it to the other things put a border of puff paste round the dish
seasonable from august to march two more economical twelve twenty nine ingredients
one quarter pounds of butter four eggs one pint of bread crumbs mode pare core and cut the apples as for sauce and boil them until reduced to a pulp then add the butter melted and the eggs
which should be well whisked beat up the pudding for two or three minutes butter a pie dish put in a layer of bread crumbs then the apple and then another layer of bread crumbs flake over these a few tiny pieces of butter
time
sufficient for five or six persons seasonable from august to march note a very good economical pudding may be made merely with apples boiled and sweetened
with the addition of a few strips of lemon peel a layer of bread crumbs should be placed above and below the apples and the pudding baked
constituents of the apple all apples contain sugar malic acid or the acid of apples mucilage or gum woody fibre and water together with some aroma
on which their peculiar flavour depends the hard acid kinds are unwholesome if eaten raw but by the process of cooking a great deal of this acid is decomposed and converted into sugar
the sweet and mellow kinds form a valuable addition to the dessert a great part of the acid juice is converted into sugar as the fruit ripens and even after it is gathered by natural process termed maturation but
rich sweet apple pudding twelve thirty ingredients a half pounds of bread crumbs
a half pounds of moist sugar six eggs twelve sweet almonds
half saltspoonful of grated nutmeg one wineglassful of brandy mode chop the suet very fine wash the currants dry them and pick away the stalks and pieces of grit
pare core and chop the apple and grate the bread into fine crumbs and mince the almonds mix all these ingredients together adding the sugar and nutmeg beat up the eggs omitting the whites of three
stir these to the pudding and when all is well mixed add the brandy and put the pudding into a buttered mould tie down with a cloth put it into boiling water and let it boil for three hours
in very cold frosty weather means should be adopted for warming the room baked apple pudding very good twelve thirty one ingredients
two tablespoonfuls of finely chopped suet three eggs three tablespoonfuls of flour one pint of milk a little grated nutmeg mode mix the flour to a smooth batter with the milk
add the eggs which should be well whisked and put this batter into a well buttered pie dish wipe the apples clean but do not pare them cut them in halves and take out the cores lay them in the batter rind uppermost
over which also grate a little nutmeg bake in a moderate oven for an hour and cover when served with sifted loaf sugar this pudding is also very good with the apples pared sliced and mixed with the batter
apples sugar to taste one small teaspoonful of finely minced lemon peel two tablespoonfuls of lemon juice mode
using for a moderate sized pudding from three quarters to one pounds of flour with the other ingredients in proportion butter a basin line it with some of the paste pare core and cut the apples into slices
and fill the basin with these add the sugar the lemon peel and juice and cover with crust pinch the edges together flour the cloth place it over the pudding tie it securely and put it into plenty of fast boiling water
then turn it out of the basin and send to table quickly apple puddings may also be boiled in a cloth without a basin but when made in this way must be served without the least delay as the crust so soon becomes heavy
must be taken to keep it well covered with the water all the time
but the apples become flavourless and scarce after february apple tart or pie twelve thirty three ingredients
of puff paste by either of the above named recipes place a border of it round the edge of a pie dish and fill it with apples pared cored and cut into slices sweeten with moist sugar add the lemon peel and juice
and two or three tablespoonfuls of water cover with crust cut it evenly round close to the edge of the pie dish
or rather longer should the pie be very large when it is three parts done take it out of the oven put the white of an egg on a plate and with the blade of a knife whisk it to a froth
brush the pie over with this then sprinkle upon it some sifted sugar and then a few drops of water put the pie back into the oven and finish baking and be particularly careful that it does not catch or burn
which it is very liable to do after the crust is iced if made with a plain crust the icing may be omitted
ten to fifteen minutes afterwards
seasonable from august to march but the apples become flavourless after february note many things are suggested for the flavouring of apple pie some say two or three tablespoonfuls of beer others the same quantity of sherry
whilst the old fashioned addition of a few cloves is by many persons preferred to anything else
quinces the environs of corinth originally produced the most beautiful quinces but the plant was subsequently introduced into gaul with the most perfect success
in a vessel filled with honey or sweet wine which was reduced to half the quantity by ebullition quinces may be profitably cultivated in this country as a variety with other fruit trees and may be planted in espaliers or as standards
a very fine flavoured marmalade may be prepared from quinces and a small portion of quince in apple pie much improves its flavour the french use quinces for flavouring many sauces
they should be kept in a high and dry loft and out of the way of the rooms used by the family creamed apple tart twelve thirty four ingredients
one tablespoonful of lemon juice
mode make an apple tart by the preceding recipe
cut out the middle of the lid or crust leaving a border all round the dish fill up with a nicely made boiled custard grate a little nutmeg over the top and the pie is ready for table this tart is usually eaten cold is rather an old fashioned dish
apples moist sugar cloves mode boil the rice in milk until three parts done then strain it off and pare and core the apples without dividing them put a small quantity of sugar and a clove into each apple
put the rice round them and tie each ball separately in a cloth boil until the apples are tender then take them up remove the cloths and serve
seasonable from august to march apple tourte or cake german recipe twelve thirty six ingredients
sugar to taste the rind of one small lemon three eggs one quarter pint of cream or milk one quarter pounds of butter
of sweet almonds mode pare core and cut the apples into small pieces put sufficient moist sugar to sweeten them into a basin add the lemon peel which should be finely minced and the cream stir these ingredients well
whisk the eggs and melt the butter mix altogether add the sliced apple and let these be well stirred into the mixture line a large round plate with the paste place a narrow rim of the same round the outer edge
and lay the apples thickly in the middle blanch the almonds cut them into long shreds and strew over the top of the apples
taking care that the almonds do not get burnt when done strew some sifted sugar over the top and serve
and is sufficient to fill two large sized plates time
seasonable from august to march apples no fruit is so universally popular as the apple it is grown extensively for cider but many sorts are cultivated for the table
the apple uncooked is less digestible than the pear the degree of digestibility varying according to the firmness of its texture and flavour very wholesome and delicious jellies marmalades and sweetmeats are prepared from it
one quarter pounds of currants four eggs mode beat the butter to a thick cream strew in by degrees the sugar and mix both these well together then dredge the flour in gradually
add the currants and moisten with the eggs which should be well beaten when all the ingredients are well stirred and mixed butter a mould that will hold the mixture exactly tie it down with a cloth put the pudding into boiling water and boil for five hours
when turned out strew some powdered sugar over it and serve
sufficient for five or six persons seasonable at any time baked apricot pudding twelve thirty eight ingredients
the yolks of four eggs one glass of sherry mode make the milk boiling hot and pour it on to the bread crumbs when half cold add the sugar the well whisked yolks of the eggs and the sherry
divide the apricots in half scald them until they are soft and break them up with a spoon adding a few of the kernels which should be well pounded in a mortar then mix the fruit and other ingredients together put a border of paste round the dish fill
time
average cost in full season
seasonable in august september and october apricot tart twelve thirty nine ingredients
puff paste or short crust mode break the apricots in half take out the stones and put them into a pie dish in the centre of which place a very small cup or jar bottom uppermost
sweeten with good moist sugar but add no water line the edge of the dish with paste put on the cover and ornament the pie in any of the usual modes
sufficient for four or five persons seasonable in august september and october green ones rather earlier note green apricots make very good tarts
a good apricot when perfectly ripe is an excellent fruit it has been somewhat condemned for its laxative qualities but this has possibly arisen from the fruit having been eaten unripe or in too great excess
delicate persons should not eat the apricot uncooked without a liberal allowance of powdered sugar the apricot makes excellent jam and marmalade
two heaped tablespoonfuls of moist sugar a little grated nutmeg mode mix the arrowroot with as much cold milk as will make it into a smooth batter
when it boils strain it gently to the batter stirring it all the time to keep it smooth then add the butter
and sweeten with moist sugar put the mixture into a pie dish round which has been placed a border of paste grate a little nutmeg over the top and bake the pudding
in a moderate oven or boil it the same length of time in a well buttered basin to enrich this pudding stir to the other ingredients just before it is put in the oven three well whisked eggs
as also the paste round the edge of the dish
sufficient for five or six persons seasonable at any time arrowroot in india and in the colonies by the process of rasping they extract from a vegetable maranta arundinacea
a sediment nearly resembling tapioca the grated pulp is sifted into a quantity of water from which it is afterwards strained and dried and the sediment thus produced is called arrowroot
its qualities closely resemble those of tapioca a bachelor's pudding twelve forty one ingredients
whisk the eggs beat these up with the remaining ingredients and when all is thoroughly mixed put the pudding into a buttered basin tie it down with a cloth and boil for three hours
sufficient for four or five persons seasonable from august to march bakewell pudding very rich
one oz of almonds jam mode
beat all together until well mixed then pour it into the dish over the jam and bake for an hour in a moderate oven
sufficient for four or six persons seasonable at any time two twelve forty three ingredients
three oz of butter one oz of pounded almonds jam mode put the bread crumbs at the bottom of a pie dish then over them a layer of jam of any kind that may be preferred mix the milk and eggs together
add the sugar butter and pounded almonds beat fill well together pour it into the dish
sufficient for four or five persons seasonable at any time baroness pudding author's recipe twelve forty four ingredients
half pint of milk one quarter saltspoonful of salt mode prepare the suet by carefully freeing it from skin and chop it finely stone the raisins and cut them in halves
and mix both these ingredients with the salt and flour moisten the whole with the above proportion of milk stir the mixture well and tie the pudding in a floured cloth which has been previously wrung out in boiling water
put the pudding into a saucepan of boiling water and let it boil without ceasing
serve merely with plain sifted sugar a little of which may be sprinkled over the pudding time
sufficient for seven or eight persons seasonable in winter when fresh fruit is not obtainable note this pudding the editress cannot too highly recommend
the recipe was kindly given to her family by a lady who bore the title here prefixed to it and with all who have partaken of it it is an especial favourite nothing is of greater consequence in the above directions than attention to the time of boiling
place this jar in boiling water and let it simmer very slowly until the fruit is soft then put it into a preserving pan with the sugar and boil gently for fifteen minutes line a tartlet pan with paste bake it
and when the paste is cold fill with the barberries and ornament the tart with a few baked leaves of paste cut out as shown in the engraving
a fruit of such great acidity that even birds refuse to eat it in this respect it nearly approaches the tamarind when boiled with sugar it makes a very agreeable preserve or jelly according to the different modes of preparing it
barberries are also used as a dry sweetmeat and in sugarplums or comfits are pickled with vinegar and are used for various culinary purposes they are well calculated to allay heat and thirst in persons afflicted with fevers
and producing a very good effect baked batter pudding twelve forty six ingredients
four tablespoonfuls of flour two oz of butter four eggs a little salt mode mix the flour with a small quantity of cold milk make the remainder hot and pour it on to the flour
sufficient for five or six persons seasonable at any time baked batter pudding with dried or fresh fruit twelve forty seven ingredients
when fresh fruits are in season this pudding is exceedingly nice with damsons plums red currants gooseberries or apples when made with these the pudding must be thickly sprinkled over with sifted sugar
boiled batter pudding with fruit is made in the same manner by putting the fruit into a buttered basin
sufficient for seven or eight persons seasonable at any time with dried fruits boiled batter pudding twelve forty eight ingredients
one pint of milk three tablespoonfuls of flour a little salt mode put the flour into a basin and add sufficient milk to moisten it carefully rub down all the lumps with a spoon
then pour in the remainder of the milk and stir in the butter which should be previously melted keep beating the mixture add the eggs and a pinch of salt and when the batter is quite smooth put it into a well buttered basin
tie it down very tightly and put it into boiling water
to prevent the flour settling in any part
or jam of any kind when the latter is used a little of it may be placed round the dish in small quantities as a garnish time
sufficient for five or six persons seasonable at any time orange batter pudding twelve forty nine ingredients
three tablespoonfuls of flour mode make the batter with the above ingredients put it into a well buttered basin tie it down with a cloth and boil for one hour as soon as it is turned out of the basin
put a small jar of orange marmalade all over the top and send the pudding very quickly to table
average cost with the marmalade
sufficient for five or six persons seasonable at any time but more suitable for a winter pudding
twelve fifty ingredients
one pint of milk four eggs
six bitter almonds one tablespoonful of brandy mode
bring it to the boiling point strain it on to the bread crumbs and let these remain till cold then add the eggs which should be well whisked the butter sugar and brandy and beat the pudding well until all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed
line the bottom of a pie dish with the candied peel sliced thin put in the mixture and bake for nearly three quarters hour time nearly three quarters hour average cost
sufficient for five or six persons seasonable at any time note a few currants may be substituted for the candied peel and will be found an excellent addition to this pudding they should be beaten in with the mixture
and not laid at the bottom of the pie dish
break the bread into small pieces and pour on them as much boiling water as will soak them well let these stand till the water is cool then press it out and mash the bread with a fork until it is quite free from lumps
measure this pulp and to every quart stir in salt nutmeg sugar and currants in the above proportion mix all well together
sufficient for six or seven persons seasonable at any time boiled bread pudding twelve fifty two ingredients
three quarters pint of bread crumbs sugar to taste four eggs one oz of butter three oz of currants one quarter teaspoonful of grated nutmeg mode make the milk boiling and pour it on the bread crumbs
sufficient for six or seven persons seasonable at any time bread bread contains in its composition in the form of vegetable albumen and vegetable fibrine
two of the chief constituents of flesh and in its incombustible constituents the salts which are indispensable for sanguification of the same quality and in the same proportion as flesh
but flesh contains besides these a number of substances which are entirely wanting in vegetable food and on these peculiar constituents of flesh depend certain effects
one quarter pounds of moist sugar four eggs two tablespoonfuls of brandy two tablespoonfuls of cream grated nutmeg to taste mode
from a stale brown loaf add to these the currants and suet and be particular that the latter is finely chopped
beat the pudding well for a few minutes put it into a buttered basin or mould tie it down tightly and boil for nearly four hours send sweet sauce to table with it time nearly four hours
sufficient for six or seven persons seasonable at any time but more suitable for a winter pudding miniature bread puddings twelve fifty four ingredients
sugar to taste two tablespoonfuls of brandy one teaspoonful of finely minced lemon peel mode make the milk boiling pour it on to the bread crumbs
and serve with sweet sauce a few currants may be added to these puddings
sufficient for seven or eight small puddings seasonable at any time baked bread and butter pudding twelve fifty five ingredients
four eggs sugar to taste one quarter pounds of currants flavouring of vanilla grated lemon peel or nutmeg mode cut nine slices of bread and butter not very thick and put them into a pie dish
with currants between each layer and on the top sweeten and flavour the milk either by infusing a little lemon peel in it or by adding a few drops of essence of vanilla well whisk the eggs and stir these to the milk
by adding cream candied peel or more eggs than stated above it should not be turned out but sent to table in the pie dish and is better for being made about two hours before it is baked time
sufficient for six or seven persons seasonable at any time butter butter is indispensable in almost all culinary preparations good fresh butter used in moderation
is easily digested it is softening nutritious and fattening and is far
of collective ideas of substances one a collective idea is one idea besides these complex ideas of several single substances as of man horse
which i so call because such ideas are made up of many particular substances considered together as united into one idea and which so joined are looked on as one
the idea of such a collection of men as make an army though consisting of a great number of distinct substances is as much one idea as the idea of a man and the great collective idea of all bodies whatsoever signified by the name world
is as much one idea as the idea of any the least particle of matter in it it sufficing to the unity of any idea that it be considered as one representation or picture though made up of ever so many particulars two
by the same faculty make the complex ideas of particular substances consisting of an aggregate of divers simple ideas united in one substance and as the mind by putting together the repeated ideas of unity makes the collective mode
as a troop an army a swarm a city a fleet each of which every one finds that he represents to his own mind by one idea in one view and so under that notion considers those several things as perfectly one
as one ship or one atom nor is it harder to conceive how an army of ten thousand men should make one idea than how a man should make one idea
it being as easy to the mind to unite into one the idea of a great number of men and consider it as one as it is to unite into one particular all the distinct ideas that make up the composition of a man and consider them all together as one
three artificial things that are made up of distinct substances are our collective ideas amongst such kind of collective ideas are to be counted most part of artificial things
they are but the artificial draughts of the mind bringing things very remote and independent on one another into one view the better to contemplate and discourse on them united into one conception and signified by one name
for there are no things so remote nor so contrary which the mind cannot by this art of composition bring into one idea as is visible in that signified by the name universe
and carries its view from one to the other this is as the words import relation and respect and the denominations given to positive things intimating that respect and serving as marks to lead the thoughts beyond the subject itself denominated
v g when i consider him as a man i have nothing in my mind but the complex idea of the species man so likewise when i say caius is a white man
i intimate some other person and when i give him the name whiter i intimate some other thing in both cases my thought is led to something beyond caius and there are two things brought into consideration
as in the above mentioned instance the contract and ceremony of marriage with sempronia is the occasion of the denomination and relation of husband and the colour white the occasion why he is said to be whiter than free stone
with a reciprocal intimation as father and son bigger and less cause and effect are very obvious to every one and everybody at first sight perceives the relation for father and son husband and wife and such other correlative terms
that upon the naming of either of them the thoughts are presently carried beyond the thing so named and nobody overlooks or doubts of a relation where it is so plainly intimated but where languages have failed to give correlative names
there the relation is not always so easily taken notice of concubine is no doubt a relative name as well as wife but in languages where this and the like words have not a correlative term there people are not so apt to take them to be so
as wanting that evident mark of relation which is between correlatives which seem to explain one another and not to be able to exist but together hence it is that many of those names which duly considered do include evident relations
have been called external denominations but all names that are more than empty sounds must signify some idea which is either in the thing to which the name is applied and then it is positive
and is looked on as united to and existing in the thing to which the denomination is given or else it arises from the respect the mind finds in it to something distinct from it with which it considers it and then it includes a relation
three some seemingly absolute terms contain relations another sort of relative terms there is which are not looked on to be either relative or so much as external denominations
of his own kind let man be what it will five change of relation may be without any change in the things related the nature therefore of relation consists in the referring or comparing two things one to another
from which comparison one of both comes to be denominated and if either of those things be removed or cease to be the relation ceases and the denomination consequent to it though the other receive in itself no alteration at all
v g caius whom i consider to day as a father ceases to be so to morrow only by the death of his son without any alteration made in himself nay barely by the mind's changing the object to which it compares anything
the same thing is capable of having contrary denominations at the same time v g caius compared to several persons may truly be said to be older and younger stronger and weaker
whatsoever doth or can exist or be considered as one thing is positive and so not only simple ideas and substances but modes also are positive beings though the parts of which they consist are very often relative one to another
for there can be no relation but betwixt two things considered as two things there must always be in relation two ideas or things either in themselves really separate or considered as distinct and then a ground or occasion for their comparison
seven all things capable of relation concerning relation in general these things may be considered first that there is no one thing whether simple idea substance mode or relation
or name of either of them which is not capable of almost an infinite number of considerations in reference to other things and therefore this makes no small part of men's thoughts and words v g
one single man may at once be concerned in and sustain all these following relations and many more viz father brother son grandfather grandson father in law son in law husband friend enemy
he being capable of as many relations as there can be occasions of comparing him to other things in any manner of agreement disagreement or respect whatsoever
eight our ideas of relations often clearer than of the subjects related secondly this further may be considered concerning relation that though it be not contained in the real existence of things
but something extraneous and superinduced yet the ideas which relative words stand for are often clearer and more distinct than of those substances to which they do belong
an accurate collection of sundry ideas is necessary a man if he compares two things together can hardly be supposed not to know what it is wherein he compares them so that when he compares any things together he cannot but have a very clear idea of that relation
the ideas then of relations are capable at least of being more perfect and distinct in our minds than those of substances because it is commonly hard to know all the simple ideas which are really in any substance but for the most part
for significant relative words as well as others standing only for ideas and those being all either simple or made up of simple ones it suffices for the knowing the precise idea the relative term stands for to have a clear conception
of that which is the foundation of the relation which may be done without having a perfect and clear idea of the thing it is attributed to thus having the notion that one laid the egg out of which the other was hatched i have a clear idea of the relation of dam and chick
nine relations all terminate in simple ideas thirdly though there be a great number of considerations wherein things may be compared one with another and so a multitude of relations
and in some that seem to be the most remote from sense or reflection which yet will appear to have their ideas from thence and leave it past doubt that the notions we have of them are but certain simple ideas and so originally derived from sense or reflection
ten terms leading the mind beyond the subject denominated are relative fourthly that relation being the considering of one thing with another which is extrinsical to it
black merry thoughtful thirsty angry extended these and the like are all absolute because they neither signify nor intimate anything but what does or is supposed really to exist in the man thus denominated
but father brother king husband
together with the thing they denominate imply also something else separate and exterior to the existence of that thing eleven all relatives made up of simple ideas
having laid down these premises concerning relation in general i shall now proceed to show in some instances how all the ideas we have of relation are made up as the others are only of simple ideas and that they all
terminate at last in simple ideas i shall begin with the most comprehensive relation wherein all things that do or can exist are concerned and that is the relation of cause and effect the idea whereof
how derived from the two fountains of all our knowledge sensation and reflection i shall in the next place consider chapter twenty six of cause and effect and other relations one
whence the ideas of cause and effect got in the notice that our senses take of the constant vicissitude of things we cannot but observe that several particular both qualities and substances
begin to exist and that they receive this their existence from the due application and operation of some other being from this observation we get our ideas of cause and effect that which produces any simple or complex idea
we denote by the general name cause and that which is produced effect thus finding that in that substance which we call wax fluidity which is a simple idea that was not in it before
is constantly produced by the application of a certain degree of heat we call the simple idea of heat in relation to fluidity in wax the cause of it and fluidity the effect so also finding that the substance wood
which is a certain collection of simple ideas so called by the application of fire is turned into another substance called ashes
consisting of a collection of simple ideas quite different from that complex idea which we call wood we consider fire in relation to ashes as cause and the ashes as effect
so that whatever is considered by us to conduce or operate to the producing any particular simple idea or collection of simple ideas whether substance or mode which did not before exist
hath thereby in our minds the relation of a cause and so is denominated by us two creation generation making alteration
begin to be and an effect is that which had its beginning from some other thing the mind finds no great difficulty to distinguish the several originals of things into two sorts first when the thing is wholly made new
so that no part thereof did ever exist before as when a new particle of matter doth begin to exist in rerum natura which had before no being and this we call creation
secondly when a thing is made up of particles which did all of them before exist but that very thing so constituted of pre existing particles which considered all together make up such a collection of simple ideas
had not any existence before as this man this egg
when the cause is extrinsical and the effect produced by a sensible separation or juxta position of discernible parts we call it making and such are all artificial things when any simple idea is produced
which was not in that subject before we call it alteration thus a man is generated a picture made and either of them altered when any new sensible quality or simple idea is produced in either of them
it suffices to consider any simple idea or substance as beginning to exist by the operation of some other without knowing the manner of that operation three relations of time
time and place are also the foundations of very large relations and all finite beings at least are concerned in them but having already shown in another place how we get those ideas it may suffice here to intimate
that most of the denominations of things received from time are only relations thus when any one says that queen elizabeth lived sixty nine and reigned forty five years these words import only the relation of that duration to some other
william the conqueror invaded england about the year ten sixty six which means this that taking the duration from our saviour's time till now for one entire great length of time it shows at what distance this invasion was from the two extremes
and so do all words of time answering to the question when which show only the distance of any point of time from the period of a longer duration from which we measure
which yet will when considered be found to be relative
whereof we have the idea in our minds thus having settled in our thoughts the idea of the ordinary duration of a man to be seventy years when we say a man is young we mean that his age is yet but a small part of that which usually men attain to
and when we denominate him old we mean that his duration is ran out almost to the end of that which men do not usually exceed and so it is but comparing the particular age or duration of this or that man
to the idea of that duration which we have in our minds as ordinarily belonging to that sort of animals which is plain in the application of these names to other things for a man is called young at twenty years and very young at seven years old
but yet a horse we call old at twenty and a dog at seven years because in each of these we compare their age to different ideas of duration which are settled in our minds as belonging to these several sorts of animals in the ordinary course of nature
but the sun and stars though they have outlasted several generations of men we call not old because we do not know what period god hath set to that sort of beings
this term belonging properly to those things which we can observe in the ordinary course of things by a natural decay to come to an end in a certain period of time and so have in our minds as it were a standard to which we can compare the several parts of their duration
but as in duration so in extension and bulk there are some ideas that are relative which we signify by names that are thought positive as great and little are truly relations for here also having by observation settled in our minds the ideas
of the bigness of several species of things from those we have been most accustomed to we make them as it were the standards whereby to denominate the bulk of others thus we call a great apple such a one as is bigger than the ordinary sort of those we have been used to
which is but a little one to a fleming they two having from the different breed of their countries taken several sized ideas to which they compare and in relation to which they denominate their great and their little six
absolute terms often stand for relations so likewise weak and strong are but relative denominations of power
thus when we say a weak man we mean one that has not so much strength or power to move as usually men have or usually those of his size have which is a comparing his strength to the idea we have of the usual strength of men or men of such a size
the like when we say the creatures are all weak things weak there is but a relative term signifying the disproportion there is in the power of god and the creatures
chapter twenty three of our complex ideas of substances the mind being as i have declared furnished with a great number of the simple ideas conveyed in by the senses as they are found in exterior things
or by reflection on its own operations takes notice also that a certain number of these simple ideas go constantly together which being presumed to belong to one thing and words being suited to common apprehensions
and made use of for quick dispatch are called so united in one subject by one name which by inadvertency we are apt afterward to talk of and consider as one simple idea which indeed is a complication of many ideas together
because as i have said not imagining how these simple ideas can subsist by themselves we accustom ourselves to suppose some substratum wherein they do subsist and from which they do result which therefore
we call substance two our obscure idea of substance in general so that if any one will examine himself concerning his notion of pure substance in general
he would not be in a much better case than the indian before mentioned who saying that the world was supported by a great elephant was asked what the elephant rested on to which his answer was a great tortoise but being again pressed to know
what gave support to the broad backed tortoise replied something he knew not what and thus here as in all other cases where we use words without having clear and distinct ideas we talk like children who
that it is something which in truth signifies no more when so used either by children or men but that they know not what and that the thing they pretend to know and talk of is what they have no distinct idea of at all
which according to the true import of the word is in plain english standing under or upholding three of the sorts of substances an obscure and relative idea of substance in general
and are therefore supposed to flow from the particular internal constitution or unknown essence of that substance thus we come to have the ideas of a man horse gold
further than of certain simple ideas co existent together i appeal to every one's own experience it is the ordinary qualities observable in iron or a diamond put together that make the true
complex idea of those substances which a smith
who whatever substantial forms he may talk of has no other idea of those substances than what is framed by a collection of those simple ideas which are to be found in them only we must take notice that our complex ideas of substances
besides all those simple ideas they are made up of have always the confused idea of something to which they belong and in which they subsist and therefore when we speak of any sort of substance we say it is a thing having such or such qualities
as body is a thing that is extended figured and capable of motion spirit a thing capable of thinking and so hardness friability and power to draw iron we say are qualities to be found in a loadstone
these and the like fashions of speaking intimate that the substance is supposed always something besides the extension figure solidity motion thinking or other observable ideas
though we know not what it is four no clear or distinct idea of substance in general hence when we talk or think of any particular sort of corporeal substances
though the idea we have of either of them be but the complication or collection of those several simple ideas of sensible qualities which we used to find united in the thing called horse or stone yet because we cannot conceive how they should subsist alone
those many sensible qualities which affect our senses do subsist by supposing a substance wherein thinking knowing doubting
we have as clear a notion of the substance of spirit as we have of body the one being supposed to be without knowing what it is the substratum to those simple ideas we have from without and the other supposed with a like ignorance of what it is
and therefore from our not having any notion of the substance of spirit we can no more conclude its non existence than we can for the same reason deny the existence of body
our ideas of particular sorts of substances whatever therefore be the secret abstract nature of substance in general all the ideas we have of particular distinct sorts of substances are nothing but several combinations of simple ideas
co existing in such though unknown cause of their union as makes the whole subsist of itself it is by such combinations of simple ideas and nothing else that we represent particular sorts of substances to ourselves
upon hearing which words every one who understands the language frames in his mind a combination of those several simple ideas which he has usually observed or fancied to exist together under that denomination
it be manifest and every one upon inquiry into his own thoughts will find that he has no other idea of any substance
vitriol bread but what he has barely of those sensible qualities which he supposes to inhere
a support to those qualities or simple ideas which he has observed to exist united together thus the idea of the sun what is it but an aggregate of those several simple ideas bright hot roundish
seven their active and passive powers a great part of our complex ideas of substances for he has the perfectest idea of any of the particular sorts of substances who has gathered and put together
most of those simple ideas which do exist in it among which are to be reckoned its active powers and passive capacities which though not simple ideas yet in this respect for brevity's sake may conveniently enough be reckoned amongst them
thus the power of drawing iron is one of the ideas of the complex one of that substance we call a loadstone and a power to be so drawn is a part of the complex one we call iron which powers pass for inherent qualities in those subjects
because every substance being as apt by the powers we observe in it to change some sensible qualities in other subjects as it is to produce in us those simple ideas which we receive immediately from it does by those new sensible qualities
introduced into other subjects discover to us those powers which do thereby mediately affect our senses as regularly as its sensible qualities do it immediately
nothing but powers in it to produce those ideas in us
examples no conscious monotheism and but little idea of immateriality discoverable still less any moral dualism of deities the great good spirit and the great bad spirit
being alike terms and notions of foreign importation if we accept the definition that mythology is the idea of god expressed in symbol figure and narrative and always struggling toward a clearer utterance
it is well not only to trace this idea in its very earliest embodiment in language but also for the sake of comparison
the reply to this is given us by immanuel kant he has shown that our reason dwelling on the facts of experience constantly seeks the principles which connect them together and only rests satisfied in the conviction
that there is a highest and first principle which reconciles all their discrepancies and binds them into one this he calls the ideal of reason it must be true
for it is evolved from the laws of reason our only test of truth furthermore the sense of personality and the voice of conscience analyzed to their sources can only be explained by the assumption of an infinite personality
and an absolute standard of right or if to some all this appears but wire drawn metaphysical subtlety they are welcome to the definition of the realist
could be without some notion of divinity certainly in america no instance of its absence has been discovered obscure grotesque unworthy it often was but everywhere man was oppressed with a sensus numinis
a feeling that invisible powerful agencies were at work around him who as they willed could help or hurt him in every heart was an altar to the unknown god not that it was customary to attach any idea of unity to these unseen powers
the supposition that in ancient times and in very unenlightened conditions before mythology had grown a monotheism prevailed which afterwards at various times was revived by reformers
is a belief that should have passed away when the delights of savage life and the praises of a state of nature ceased to be the themes of philosophers
the exhibitions of force in nature seemed to them the manifestations of that mysterious power felt by their self consciousness to combine these various manifestations and recognize them as the operations of one personality
a word comprehending all manifestations of the unseen world
it has been rendered spirit demon god devil mystery magic but commonly and rather absurdly by the english and french medicine
in the algonkin dialects this word is manito and oki in iroquois oki and otkon
the aztec teotl the quichua huaca and the maya ku
and as in this word supernatural we see a transfer of a conception of place and that it literally means that which is above the natural world so in such as we can analyze of these vague and primitive terms the same trope appears discoverable
wakan as an adverb means above oki is but another orthography for oghee
but has its origin in the very texture of the human mind the heavens the upper regions are in every religion the supposed abode of the divine what is higher is always the stronger and the nobler
a superior is one who is better than we are and therefore a chieftain in algonkin is called oghee ma the higher one there is moreover a naif and spontaneous instinct which leads man in his ecstasies of joy
and in his paroxysms of fear or pain to lift his hands and eyes to the overhanging firmament there the sun and bright stars sojourn
and as a metaphor in their speeches and as a paint expressive of friendly design
all originally meant the sky above and our own word heaven is often employed synonymously with god there is at first no personification in these expressions they embrace all unseen agencies
they are void of personality and yet to the illogical primitive man there is nothing contradictory in making them the object of his prayers the mayas had legions of gods
which is the same word in the vocative case as the latins called their united divinities superi those above so captain john smith found that the powhatans of virginia employed the word oki
above in the same sense and it even had passed into a definite personification among them in the shape of an idol of wood evil favoredly carved in purer dialects of the algonkin
it is always indefinite as in the terms nipoon oki spirit of summer pipoon oki spirit of winter perhaps the word was introduced into iroquois by the hurons neighbors and associates of the algonkins
the hurons applied it to that demoniac power who rules the seasons of the year who holds the winds and the waves in leash
it reappears under the curious form quaker doubtless a corruption of the powhatan qui oki
was garonhia which again turns out on examination to be their common word for sky and again in all probability from the verbal root gar
lord of the sky prince of the azure planisphere he above all are of frequent occurrence and by a still bolder metaphor the araucanians according to molina entitled their greatest god the soul of the sky
this last expression leads to another train of thought as the philosopher pondering on the workings of self consciousness recognizes that various pathways lead up to god
so the primitive man in forming his language sometimes trod one sometimes another whatever else sceptics have questioned no one has yet presumed to doubt that if a god and a soul exist at all they are of like essence
this firm belief has left its impress on language in the names devised to express the supernal the spiritual world
and aemi to blow in greek the words for soul or spirit
all are directly from verbal roots expressing the motion of the wind or the breath the hebrew word ruah is translated in the old testament sometimes by wind sometimes by spirit sometimes by breath
etymologically in fact ghosts and gusts breaths and breezes the great spirit and the great wind are one and the same it is easy to guess the reason of this the soul is the life the life is the breath
invisible imponderable quickening with vigorous motion slackening in rest and sleep passing quite away in death it is the most obvious sign of life all nations grasped the analogy and identified the one with the other
but the breath is nothing but wind how easy therefore to look upon the wind that moves up and down and to and fro upon the earth that carries the clouds itself unseen that calls forth the terrible tempests
and the various seasons as the breath the spirit of god as god himself so in the mosaic record of creation it is said a mighty wind passed over the formless sea and brought forth the world
the wind of lives armed with these analogies we turn to the primitive tongues of america and find them there as distinct as in the old world
in dakota niya is literally breath figuratively life in netela
and the reasoning faculty the supreme existence they call sillam innua owner of the air or of the all or sillam nelega lord of the air or wind in the yakama tongue of oregon
wkrisha signifies there is wind wkrishwit life with the aztecs
and personified in their myths it was said to have been born of the breath of tezcatlipoca their highest divinity who himself is often called yoalliehecatl
in the legends of the quiches the mysterious creative power is hurakan a name of no signification in their language one which their remote ancestors brought with them from the antilles
which finds its meaning in the ancient tongue of haiti
ouragan orkan was adopted into european marine languages as the native name of the terrible tornado
is to this day the correct term in their language for the tropical whirlwind and the natives of panama worshipped the same phenomenon
none have traced it to its true source the facts of meteorology have been thought all sufficient for a solution as if man ever did or ever could draw the idea of god from nature in the identity of wind with breath
of breath with life of life with soul of soul with god lies the far deeper and far truer reason whose insensible development i have here traced in outline indeed but confirmed by the evidence of language itself
let none of these expressions however be construed to prove the distinct recognition of one supreme being of monotheism either as displayed in the one personal definite god of the semitic races
or in the dim pantheistic sense of the brahmins there was not a single instance on the american continent the missionaries found no word in any of their languages fit to interpret deus god
how could they expect it the associations we attach to that name are the accumulated fruits of nigh two thousand years of christianity the phrases good spirit great spirit and similar ones
have occasioned endless discrepancies in the minds of travellers in most instances they are entirely of modern origin coined at the suggestion of missionaries applied to the white man's god
he feels within him something that tells him they are not of his kind and yet not altogether different from him he sums them up in one word drawn from sensuous experience does he wish to express still more forcibly this sentiment
he doubles the word or prefixes an adjective or adds an affix as the genius of his language may dictate but it still remains to him but an unapplied abstraction a mere category of thought
a frame for the all it is never the object of veneration or sacrifice no myth brings it down to his comprehension it is not installed in his temples
man cannot escape the belief that behind all form is one essence but the moment he would seize and define it it eludes his grasp
he worships not the infinite he thinks but a base idol of his own making as in the zend avesta behind the eternal struggle of ormuzd and ahriman looms up the undisturbed and infinite zeruana akerana
as in the pages of the greek poets we here and there catch glimpses of a zeus who is not he throned on olympus nor he who takes part in the wrangles of the gods but stands far off and alone one yet all
who was who is who will be so the belief in an unseen spirit who asks neither supplication nor sacrifice who as the natives of texas told joutel in sixteen eighty four
was doubtless occasionally present to their minds it was present not more but far less distinctly and often not at all in the more savage tribes and no assertion can be more contrary to the laws of religious progress
than that which pretends that a purer and more monotheistic religion exists among nations devoid of mythology there are only two instances on the american continent
where the worship of an immaterial god was definitely instituted and these as the highest conquests of american natural religions deserve especial mention they occurred as we might expect in the two most civilized nations
and the nahuas of tezcuco it is related that about the year fourteen forty at a grand religious council held at the consecration of the newly built temple of the sun at cuzco the inca yupanqui
rose before the assembled multitude and spoke somewhat as follows many say that the sun is the maker of all things but he who makes should abide by what he has made
now many things happen when the sun is absent therefore he cannot be the universal creator and that he is alive at all is doubtful for his trips do not tire him were he a living thing he would grow weary like ourselves
were he free he would visit other parts of the heavens he is like a tethered beast who makes a daily round under the eye of a master he is like an arrow which must go whither it is sent not whither it wishes
i tell you that he our father and master the sun must have a lord and master more powerful than himself
a name was proclaimed based upon that of the highest divinities known to the ancient aymara race illatici viracocha pachacamac literally the thunder vase the foam of the sea
in a vale by the sea near callao wherein his worship was to be conducted without images or human sacrifices the inca was ahead of his age however and when the spaniards visited the temple of pachacamac in fifteen twenty five
they found not only the walls adorned with hideous paintings but an ugly idol of wood representing a man of colossal proportions set up therein
at length in indignation and despair the prince exclaimed verily these gods that i am adoring what are they but idols of stone without speech or feeling they could not have made the beauty of the heaven the sun the moon
and the stars which adorn it and which light the earth with its countless streams its fountains and waters its trees and plants and its various inhabitants there must be some god invisible and unknown
who is the universal creator he alone can console me in my affliction and take away my sorrow strengthened in this conviction by a timely fulfilment of his heart's desire
he erected a temple nine stories high to represent the nine heavens which he dedicated to the unknown god the cause of causes this temple he ordained should never be polluted by blood
for the popular one the inca continued to receive the homage of his subjects as a brother of the sun and the regular services to that luminary were never interrupted
nor did the prince of tezcuco afterwards neglect the honors due his national gods nor even refrain himself from plunging the knife into the breasts of captives
not in contrast to polytheism but in living intuition in the religious sentiments if this subtle but true distinction be rightly understood it will excite no surprise to find such epithets as endless
omnipotent invisible adorable such appellations as the maker and moulder of all the mother and father of life the one god complete in perfection and unity
the creator of all that is the soul of the world in use and of undoubted indigenous origin not only among the civilized aztecs but even among the haitians the araucanians
we shall be far from regarding them as familiar to the popular mind
and magniloquence used by the priests and devotees of every several god to do him honor they prove something in regard to a consciousness of divinity hedging us about but nothing at all in favor of a recognition of one god
they exemplify how profound is the conviction of a highest and first principle but they do not offer the least reason to surmise that this was a living reality in doctrine or practice
the confusion of these distinct ideas has led to much misconception of the native creeds but another and more fatal error was that which distorted them into a dualistic form
ranging on one hand the good spirit with his legions of angels on the other the evil one with his swarms of fiends representing the world as the scene of their unending conflict man as the unlucky football
who gets all the blows this notion which has its historical origin among the parsees of ancient iran is unknown to savage nations the idea of the devil justly observes jacob grimm
is foreign to all primitive religions yet professor mueller in his voluminous work on those of america after approvingly quoting this saying complacently proceeds to classify the deities as good
has arisen partly from habits of thought difficult to break partly from mistranslations of native words partly from the foolish axiom of the early missionaries the gods of the gentiles are devils
yet their own writings furnish conclusive proof that no such distinction existed out of their own fancies the same word otkon which father bruyas employs to translate into iroquois the term devil
he told them that the deity they adored was a demon who loved all evil things and they must hate him whereupon his auditors replied that so far from this being the case whom he called a wicked being was the power that sent them all good things
written in sixteen twenty two the author says that the indians worship a good power called kiehtan and another who as farre as wee can conceive is the devill named hobbamock or hobbamoqui
the former of these names is merely the word great in their dialect of algonkin with a final n and is probably an abbreviation of kittanitowit the great manito
a vague term mentioned by roger williams and other early writers
the kindly god who cured diseases aided them in the chase and appeared to them in dreams as their protector therefore with great justice doctor jarvis has explained it to mean
to whom they pray to the neglect of a better one is in reality the highest power they recognize
and said to be their wicked spirit is in fact the only name in their language for spiritual existence in general
is the benign power appealed to by their priests who is throned in the pleiades who sends fruits and flowers to the earth
the shadowy embodiment of evil but simply and solely their god of the dead the pluto of their pantheon corresponding to the mictla of the mexicans the evidence on the point is indeed conclusive
the jesuit missionaries very rarely distinguish between good and evil deities when speaking of the religion of the northern tribes and the moravian brethren among the algonkins and iroquois place on record
their unanimous testimony that the idea of a devil a prince of darkness they first received in later times
just as much the idea of a bad as of a good spirit he is unaware of any distinction
and am persuaded that those persons who represent them as doing so do it inconsiderately and because it is so natural to subscribe to a long cherished popular opinion
very soon after coming in contact with the whites the indians caught the notion of a bad and good spirit pitted one against the other in eternal warfare and engrafted it on their ancient traditions
but as a popular error it still holds its ground with reference to the more barbarous and less known tribes perhaps no myth has been so often quoted in its confirmation as that of the ancient iroquois which narrates
the conflict between the first two brothers of our race it is of undoubted native origin and venerable antiquity the version given by the tuscarora chief cusic in eighteen twenty five
relates that in the beginning of things there were two brothers
for in the dark realms of the underworld he still lives receiving the souls of the dead and being the author of all evil now when we compare this with the version of the same legend given by father brebeuf
missionary to the hurons in sixteen thirty six we find its whole complexion altered the moral dualism vanishes the names good mind and bad mind do not appear it is the struggle of ioskeha the white one
with his brother tawiscara the dark one and we at once perceive that christian influence in the course of two centuries had given the tale a meaning foreign to its original intent
so it is with the story the algonkins tell of their hero manibozho who in the opinion of a well known writer
this famous magician tried his arts on the prince of serpents after a prolonged struggle which brought on the general deluge and the destruction of the world he won the victory the first authority we have for this narrative
in sixteen thirty four is quite dissimilar and makes no mention of a serpent and as we shall hereafter see neither among the algonkins nor any other indians was the serpent usually a type of evil
finds a remarkable proof in the myths of the quiches which were committed to writing in the seventeenth century they narrate the struggles between the rulers of the upper and the nether world the descent of the former into xibalba
the realm of phantoms and their victory over its lords one death and seven deaths the writer adds of the latter who clearly represent to his mind the evil one and his adjutants in the old times
they did not have much power they were but annoyers and opposers of men
the writer appears to compare the great power assigned by the christian religion to satan and his allies with the very much less potency attributed to their analogues in heathendom
the gods of the primitive man are beings of thoroughly human physiognomy painted with colors furnished by intercourse with his fellows these are his enemies or his friends as he conciliates or insults them
no mere man least of all a savage is kind and benevolent in spite of neglect and injury nor is any man causelessly and ceaselessly malicious personal family or national feuds render some more inimical
than others but always from a desire to guard their own interests never out of a delight in evil for its own sake thus the cruel gods of death disease and danger were never of satanic nature
while the kindliest divinities were disposed to punish and that severely any neglect of their ceremonies moral dualism can only arise in minds where the ideas of good and evil are not synonymous with those of pleasure and pain
for the conception of a wholly good or a wholly evil nature requires the use of these terms in their higher ethical sense
chapter six religion and science science then commands our respect not on the basis that its present assumptions and deductions are absolutely and for all time true
but on the ground that its method is for all time true the method of discovery the method of observation research experimentation comparison examination testing
an unremitting crusade against it that much of this crusade had turned into a rear guard action was due less to the weakness of the defenders of the faith than to the invulnerability of their non resistant victim
as it does those truths which form its proper subject we therefore pronounce false every assertion which is contrary to the enlightened truth of faith hence
that one may be allowed to hold true their assertions even when opposed to revealed doctrine can anything stronger be said to discourage research investigation experiment and retard progress
and only sixty years ago it is but the restatement of what the church has uttered so many times and for so long that all knowledge material as well as spiritual is to be found in the bible as interpreted by the church
during the period in which the church was dominant it was this that had killed the urge to search and seek for the truth which is the goal of all science the means by which humanity is set on the road to progress
this was the damnable precept foisted on the minds of men which enslaved them throughout the ages and from which we are just emerging this was the precept
to reconcile science with religion on the one hand that of religion we have the forces of intolerance superstition and the endeavor to besmirch repress and ridicule
science on the other hand does not hesitate to tear down old conceptions and has only one motive the ultimate truth religion has the purpose
of keeping the masses in the narrow and false path of only accepted doctrines the true scientist is the man with the open mind one who will discard the worthless and accept only the proven good the religionist
closes his mind to all facts which he is unwilling to believe everything which will endanger his creed religion teaches the individual to place all hope all desire in a problematical hereafter
the stay on earth is so short compared to the everlasting life to come that of what interest is this life all things are vain the misery the suffering of his fellow men leave him cold
it is not that science has attained true conclusions not that the evidence at hand must remain immutable but that the scientific method of analyzing and formulating assumptions on the basis of discovery on ascertained facts
is a superior method to the closed infallible method of revelation these assumptions based upon the known facts lead to a working hypothesis which in turn develops into a theory
science welcomes the critical attitude that leads to the refinement of its theories there may be today various theories held by scientists in which they are mistaken but the question of the method by which they arrive at conclusions
can no longer be under consideration with regard to its validity to the scientific mind knowledge is something to be arrived at by study and research to the religionist knowledge is something that is contained
in an infallible and supernatural statement or insight religion exalts the transcendental science manipulates only the material to the consistent religionist
he would delude himself that his inner convictions give him a finality concerning his evolving environment it is therefore not so much science that the religionist is fighting but the scientific method
this scientific method of approach he rightly perceives has so pervaded our mode of thinking that it is the subtle and most disintegrating force that is shattering the religious foundations doctor james t shotwell
speaking of the scientific method concludes but whatever strictures philosophy may pass upon the conclusions of science as merely relative and provisional there is no clearer fact in the history of thought that its attitudes and methods
have been at opposite poles from those of religion it does no good to blink the fact established as it is by the most positive proofs of history and psychology science has made headway by attempting to eliminate mystery so far as it can
religion on the other hand has stressed mystery and accepted it in its own terms science is the product of bold adventure pushing into the realm of the mysterious to interpret its phenomena in terms of the investigator
and the glory of the morning hills science does not justify by faith but by works it is the living denial of that age long acceptance which we accord to the mystery as such
it renounces authority cuts athwart custom violates the sacred rejects the myths it adjusts itself to the process of change whose creative impulse it itself supplies
each discovery of something new involves the discarding of something old above all it progresses by doubting rather than by believing james t shotwell the religious revolution of to day
there has never been an advance in science of widespread importance which in some manner or other endangered some mouldy religious concept that the church has not bitterly opposed
an advance which in time has proven of inestimable benefit for all mankind a glance at the history of human progress will reveal scores of such instances the two rival divisions of the christian church
it was the decree of the lateran council of fifteen fifteen that ordered that no books should be printed but such as had been inspected by the ecclesiastical censors under pain of excommunication and fine
it is easily understood that having declared the bible to contain all knowledge both scientific and spiritual and then passing a decree ordering no books to be printed
which did not agree on all points with the church's interpretation of the bible the church was in absolute control of all thought both written and spoken it was to no advantage for the scholar to investigate any new fields
for all knowledge which was possible for the mind to discover had already been revealed in the scriptures thus declared the church we understand why it was that copernicus did not permit his book to be published until he was dying
we understand also that when galileo and bruno had the courage of their convictions and gave voice to their beliefs they were persecuted galileo was made to recant a discovery
was hostile to the truth as witness the persecutions of those who dared to venture that the earth was round botany mathematics and geometry as well as the natural sciences slumbered geology
the clergy opposed fire and marine insurance on the ground that it was a tempting of providence life insurance was regarded as an act of interference with the consequence of god's will medicine met the most strenuous of opposition
the persistence of religion we believe what we believe not because we have been convinced by such and such arguments but because we are of such and such a disposition c e m joad
generations followed and what had been offered as hypothetical theological suppositions were through custom and tradition taken for granted as unquestioned truth llewelyn powys
the theologians point to this as a proof of the existence of a supreme being an investigation of this assertion leads the martian to the conclusion that religions have continued to exist mainly because of the power
which inherited superstitions wield over mankind men are born with a marked tendency towards superstitions certain isolated families of men are born with an inherited tendency towards tuberculosis
most of these are born not with an active tuberculosis but some as yet imperfectly understood tendency a defect in their protoplasmic make up that renders them an easy prey to the tubercle bacillus
in superstition creed religion the god idea it was karl marx who remarked that the tradition of all the generations of the past weighs down like an alp upon the brain of the living
since the days of our racial childhood our beliefs have been handed down from generation to generation and they have persisted since in all ages it was forbidden to question their existence man has persuaded himself that it is so
just because he has said it for so long and so often the force of repetition is great it is in fact taken by a vast majority of men as the equivalent of proof most men have to accept their religions ready made
the toil for bread is incessant there is not sufficient leisure to verify the sources of their religious beliefs moreover the ecclesiastic's answers to the riddles of life are easier by far to grasp
than the answers of science these two factors of innate mental inertia and force of repetition are well manifested by the present tactics of advertising
the manufacturer of any product well knows that constant repetition and the dangling of his product before the eyes of the public will lead to a widespread acceptance of the advertising slogans propounded for his article
the force of so called authority has aggravated this mental inertia it takes a tremendous amount of will power and mental courage for any individual to assert an opinion that runs counter to the accepted mode of thinking
it is much easier and much more pleasant to give oneself passively to that delusion of grandeur that delusion that pleasantly drugs the mind with the assumption that there is a supreme being who is personally interested in our well being
a providence who like a school master at his pleasure dispenses rewards and punishments as immortality heaven and hell so firmly has this become entrenched in the minds of men
that the irrationalities which manifest themselves against such a conception make no impression schopenhauer well states nothing is more provoking when we are arguing against a man with reasons and explanations
that the little good which religion had accomplished had occurred at the time when our race was in its infancy just as fear is instilled into the mind of the child to protect it from the dangers of its environment
replaces those fears by a logical comprehension of the laws governing his environment but in religious matters this fear has clung to man tenaciously and while at first serving a protective function
at the present stage of civilization constitutes an embryonic impediment the assertion of ecclesiastics that without the aid of religious learning and influence our civilization would have been retarded is a statement
that a study of the development of man shows to be directly opposed to the facts that religion has been the greatest impediment in the road to progress this will be shown in the subsequent chapters
that during the middle ages the priests and monks kept up the torch of learning that being the only literate people they brought back the study of the classics historically speaking this is about the most impudent statement that one could imagine
later learned to read and write from the arabs jews and greeks exiled from constantinople after fourteen fifty three it is because they wanted to keep the power in their hands the people they did not permit to learn either to read or write
even the reading of the bible bear in mind was considered a crime we are told that the priests and monks built hospitals and gave alms to the poor having gotten enormous tracts of the best land into their hands
so that the people were starving they were willing to throw a bone occasionally to the latter it cost them nothing and it gave them a reputation for charity they built enormous monasteries with well filled cellars and lived on the fat of the land
while the people lived in wretched hovels working their lives away for a crust of bread the beasts the domestic animals lived a more comfortable life than did the men women and children of the people
and the church never never raised a finger to ameliorate their condition it kept them in superstitious darkness and helped the temporal lords for a long period the spiritual were also the temporal lords
and what had been done by science and purely secular knowledge in its brief period of activity the period when science and secular knowledge had partially liberated themselves from ecclesiastical domination
when copernicus showed that the earth was not the center of the universe when darwin proved that man's origin was not the result of direct creation when freud explained that man was not the master of his own thoughts or actions
llewelyn powys in the writings of the greek and roman philosophers are found the germinal concepts of geological truths but as christianity took control of the world
instead of a steady progression of knowledge in this field there was a distinct retrogression according to the prevailing belief the earth was soon to be destroyed and the collecting of knowledge was futile and any study of its nature was vain
saint jerome stated that the broken and twisted crust of the earth exhibited the wrath of god against sin tertullian asserted that fossils resulted from the flood of noah
in the seventeenth century the theological faculty of paris protested against the scientific doctrine as unscriptural destroyed their treatises and banished their authors from paris
in the middle of the eighteenth century buffon in france produced a thesis attempting to state simple geological truths the theological faculty of the sorbonne
dismissed him from his high position and forced him to print a recantation stating i declare that i had no intention to contradict the text of the scripture that i believe most firmly all therein related about the creation
both as to order of time and matter of fact i abandon everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth and generally all which may be contrary to the narrative of moses the doctrine which buffon abandoned
is now as firmly established as that of the earth's rotation upon its axis yet in his day it was heatedly asserted by ecclesiastics that the scientific doctrine that fossils represent animals which died before adam
contradicts the theological doctrine of adam's fall and the statement that death entered the world by sin and this objection was further strengthened when the ecclesiastics became cognizant that geology had proved
that the earth was vastly older than the six thousand years determined by archbishop ussher's interpretation of the old testament about fifteen eighty
that the creation of man took place
in sixteen fifty archbishop ussher announced after careful study that man was created four thousand and four years before the christian era but this proving too vague doctor john lightfoot
vice chancellor of the university of cambridge assured the world that heaven and earth centre and circumference were created together in the same instant and clouds full of water and this work took place
and man was created by the trinity
when the egyptologists assyriologists archeologists and anthropologists showed that man had reached a far advanced stage of civilization
long before the six thousand years given as the age of the earth their efforts were ridiculed by the clergy and these scientists were forced to bring their findings before the world
in the face of the well known methods of ecclesiastical opposition at a very early period in the evolution of civilization men began to ask questions regarding language and the answers to these questions
were naturally embodied in the myths legends and chronicles of their sacred books language was considered god given and complete the diversity of language was firmly held to be explained
by the story of the tower of babel and since the writers of the bible were merely pens in the hand of god the conclusion was reached that not only the sense but the words letters and even the punctuation
proceeded from the holy spirit at the end of the seventeenth century the ecclesiastical contention that the hebrew punctuation was divinely inspired seemed to be generally disproven
the great orthodox body of religiosa dementia fell back upon the remainder of the theory that the hebrew language was the first of all languages which was spoken by the almighty given by him to adam
that language has been accepted as the result of evolutionary processes in obedience to laws more or less clearly ascertained babel thus takes its place quietly among the other myths of the bible
in a purely civil matter the infallible church from its inception had displayed a marked hostility to loans at interest from the earliest period
the whole weight of the church was brought to bear against the taking of interest for money pope leo the great solemnly adjudged it a sin worthy of severe punishment in the thirteenth century
by his declaration that even to advance on interest the money necessary in maritime trade was damnable usury the whole evolution of european civilization was greatly hindered by this policy
religion and evolution darwinism which at first was declared by the clergy to be brutal degrading
atheistic and anti christian is now included as part of the bible teaching in a similar manner the copernican theory the theory of gravitation the nebular hypothesis
the theory of uniformity in geology and every scientific advance has been opposed on the same grounds that is that these are against the teachings of the christian church and how many galileos brunos and darwins
and other would be benefactors to the human race have died mute because of this opposition and fear of persecution by the church in eighteen seventy seven an eminent french catholic physician
doctor constantin james published an elaborate answer to darwin's book he called it on darwinism or the ape man
that he sent the author a reply in which he stated that it refutes so well the aberrations of darwinism a system which is repugnant at once to history to the traditions of all peoples to exact science
to observed facts and even to reason itself
did not alienation from god and the leaning toward materialism due to depravity eagerly seek support in all this tissue of fables the protestant clergy were no less vigorous in their opposition
in our own country it was opposed by doctor noah porter president of yale college
both leading authorities at princeton university fundamentalism in the united states furnished the spectacle of the trial in nineteen twenty five of a school teacher named scopes for teaching the theory of evolution
dayton tennessee became the laughingstock of the educated world and the derision with which this effort to obstruct knowledge at this late date was met with by the comments of the press in this country and abroad is at least encouraging
but it is an excellent example of what effect religious obscurantism may exert in backward sections of our country doctor max carl otto considering the implications of evolution
calls attention to the following take the evolution of living forms the more we learn about biological history the clearer it becomes that the process has been from the human point of view incredibly bungling and wasteful
there have been futile experiments without number highly successful achievements have been thrown aside one type of life after another has arisen and has pushed up a blind alley to extinction if there is a god whose method has been evolution
then seemingly his slogan was we'll fight it out along this line if it takes a billennium but unlike grant he has always surrendered in this maelstrom the human species as thomas huxley said
keeping its head above water as best it might and thinking neither of whence nor whither many volumes have been written to give a purposive interpretation of the rise and evolutionary ramifications of living forms
the course of evolution itself is their refutation when the churches could no longer ignore the rising tide of secular opinion they resorted to compromise
and called to their aid a certain number of intellectually dishonest scientists the attempt to harmonize christianity and evolution can only be accounted for in terms of either dishonesty or stupidity
and that is true of the whole range of science science is in fact atheistic or nothing it knows nothing of god it does not bother about god its triumphs are achieved by leaving god out of account
what has heretofore been mentioned is but a mere trifle when one considers the vast number of similar incidents in which religion has played the role of barrier to progress
she felt that she could not give too much time to a diversion which afforded her the only real pleasurable moments that she knew
the woman seemed to echo the thought which was ever in edna's mind or better the feeling which constantly possessed her
the meaning out of everything the conditions of her life were in no way changed but her whole existence was dulled like a faded garment which seems to be no longer worth wearing
she went up in the mornings to madame lebrun's room
and discovered in some corner an old family album
which she discovered between its pages
and that was he also in kilts at the age of five wearing long curls and holding a whip in his hand it made edna laugh and she laughed too at the portrait in his first long trousers while another interested her
taken when he left for college looking thin long faced with eyes full of fire ambition and great intentions but there was no recent picture
explained madame lebrun she had a letter from him written before he left new orleans edna wished to see the letter and madame lebrun told her to look for it either on the table or the dresser
the letter was on the bookshelf it possessed the greatest interest and attraction for edna the envelope its size and shape the post mark the handwriting she examined every detail of the outside before opening it
that he had packed his trunk in good shape that he was well
his mother would find it in his room among other books there on the table edna experienced a pang of jealousy because he had written to his mother rather than to her every one seemed to take for granted that she missed him
expressed regret that he had gone
where had they met on carondelet street in the morning they had gone in and had a drink and a cigar together
how did he look how did he seem grave or gay or how quite cheerful and wholly taken up with the idea of his trip
edna tapped her foot impatiently and wondered why the children persisted in playing in the sun when they might be under the trees
or ever expected to feel she had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves they had never taken the form of struggles
and she entertained the conviction that she had a right to them and that they concerned no one but herself
or for any one then had followed a rather heated argument the two women did not appear to understand each other or to be talking the same language
but i wouldn't give myself i can't make it more clear it's only something which i am beginning to comprehend which is revealing itself to me
your bible tells you so i'm sure i couldn't do more than that oh yes you could laughed edna
did not greatly miss her young friend oh good morning mademoiselle is it you
while others attributed it to the natural aversion for water sometimes believed to accompany the artistic temperament mademoiselle offered edna some chocolates in a paper bag which she took from her pocket by way of showing that she bore no ill feeling
they saved her from starvation as madame lebrun's table was utterly impossible and no one save so impertinent a woman as madame lebrun could think of offering such food to people and requiring them to pay for it
she must feel very lonely without her son said edna desiring to change the subject her favorite son too it must have been quite hard to let him go
her favorite son oh dear
she worships him and the ground he walks on
and keep the barest pittance for himself favorite son indeed i miss the poor fellow myself my dear
he comes to see me often in the city
that victor hanging would be too good for him
whom victor considered that he had some sort of claim upon
it's about time he was getting another
for some reason she felt depressed almost unhappy she had not intended to go into the water but she donned her bathing suit and left mademoiselle alone seated under the shade of the children's tent the water was growing cooler as the season advanced
whose round fluted columns supported the sloping roof the house was painted a dazzling white the outside shutters or jalousies were green
in the yard which was kept scrupulously neat were flowers and plants of every description which flourishes in south louisiana within doors the appointments were perfect after the conventional type the softest carpets and rugs covered the floors
rich and tasteful draperies hung at doors and windows there were paintings selected with judgment and discrimination upon the walls the cut glass the silver the heavy damask
mister pontellier was very fond of walking about his house examining its various appointments and details to see that nothing was amiss he greatly valued his possessions chiefly because they were his and derived genuine pleasure from contemplating a painting
women who came in carriages or in the street cars or walked when the air was soft and distance permitted a light colored mulatto boy
a maid in white fluted cap offered the callers liqueur coffee or chocolate as they might desire
the boys were being put to bed the patter of their bare escaping feet could be heard occasionally as well as the pursuing voice of the quadroon lifted in mild protest and entreaty
this soup is really impossible it's strange that woman hasn't learned yet to make a decent soup any free lunch stand in town serves a better one was missus belthrop here
the boy retired and returned after a moment bringing the tiny silver tray which was covered with ladies visiting cards he handed it to missus pontellier give it to mister pontellier she said
mister pontellier scanned the names of his wife's callers reading some of them aloud with comments as he read
nice girls it's time they were getting married missus belthrop i tell you what it is edna you can't afford to snub missus belthrop why belthrop could buy and sell us ten times over his business is worth a good round sum to me you'd better write her a note
madame laforce
missus eleanor boltons he pushed the cards aside mercy exclaimed edna who had been fuming
i'm not making any fuss over it but it's just such seeming trifles that we've got to take seriously such things count
they need looking after like any other class of persons that you employ
they'd soon make a nice mess of me and my business
i'm going to get my dinner at the club good night he went into the hall took his hat and stick from the stand and left the house she was somewhat familiar with such scenes they had often made her very unhappy
on a few previous occasions she had been completely deprived of any desire to finish her dinner sometimes she had gone into the kitchen to administer a tardy rebuke to the cook
but that evening edna finished her dinner alone with forced deliberation her face was flushed and her eyes flamed with some inward fire that lighted them
it was a large beautiful room rich and picturesque in the soft dim light which the maid had turned low
all the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage she was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half darkness which met her moods
but the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars they jeered and sounded mournful notes without promise devoid even of hope she turned back into the room and began to
walk to and fro down its whole length without stopping without resting she carried in her hands a thin handkerchief which she tore into ribbons rolled into a ball and flung from her once she stopped and taking off her wedding ring
flung it upon the carpet when she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it striving to crush it but her small boot heel did not make an indenture not a mark upon the little glittering circlet
she wanted to destroy something the crash and clatter were what she wanted to hear a maid alarmed at the din of breaking glass entered the room to discover what was the matter
that were scattered upon the carpet and here's your ring ma'am under the chair edna held out her hand and taking the ring slipped it upon her finger
asked edna if she would not meet him in town in order to look at some new fixtures for the library i hardly think we need new fixtures leonce
the way to become rich is to make money my dear edna not to save it he said
she was unusually pale and very quiet
the boys were dragging along the banquette a small express wagon which they had filled with blocks and sticks the quadroon was following them
a fruit vender was crying his wares in the street
she felt no interest in anything about her the street the children the fruit vender
antagonistic she went back into the house she had thought of speaking to the cook concerning her blunders of the previous night
mister pontellier's arguments were usually convincing with those
he left home feeling quite sure that he and edna would sit down that evening and possibly a few
she could see their shortcomings and defects which were glaring in her eyes
finally she gathered together a few of the sketches
and she carried them with her when a little later she dressed and left the house she looked handsome and distinguished in her street gown the tan of the seashore had left her face and her forehead was smooth white and polished beneath her heavy yellow brown hair
there were a few freckles on her face and a small dark mole near the under lip and one on the temple half hidden in her hair
she was still under the spell of her infatuation she had tried to forget him realizing the inutility of remembering but the thought of him was like an obsession ever pressing itself upon her
fading sometimes as if it would melt into the mist of the forgotten
edna was on her way to madame ratignolle's
his father had been in the business before him
and clearheadedness his family lived in commodious apartments over the store having an entrance on the side within the porte cochere there was something which edna thought very french very foreign about their whole manner of living in the large and pleasant salon
which extended across the width of the house the ratignolles entertained their friends once a fortnight with a soiree musicale
she told her to notice particularly if a fine linen handkerchief of monsieur ratignolle's which was missing last week had been returned
then placing an arm around edna's waist she led her to the front of the house to the salon where it was cool and sweet with the odor of great roses that stood upon the hearth in jars madame ratignolle looked more beautiful than ever there at home
melting curves of her white throat perhaps i shall be able to paint your picture some day said edna with a smile when they were seated
i believe i ought to work again i feel as if i wanted to be doing something
do you think it worth while to take it up again and study some more i might study for a while with laidpore
valueless that she herself had not alone decided but determined but she sought the words of praise and encouragement that would help her to put heart into her venture your talent is immense dear nonsense protested edna well pleased
then holding them at arm's length narrowing her eyes and dropping her head on one side surely this bavarian peasant is worthy of framing and this basket of apples
one might almost be tempted to reach out a hand and take one edna could not control a feeling which bordered upon complacency at her friend's praise even realizing as she did its true worth
who appreciated the gift far beyond its value and proudly exhibited the pictures to her husband
his cheerfulness was unbounded and it was matched by his goodness of heart his broad charity and common sense he and his wife spoke english with an accent which was only discernible through its un
and a certain carefulness and deliberation edna's husband
the ratignolles understood each other perfectly
as edna seated herself at table with them she thought
simple choice and in every way satisfying
his wife was keenly interested in everything he said laying down her fork the better to listen
edna felt depressed rather than soothed after leaving them
gave her no regret no longing it was not a condition of life which fitted her and she could see in it
she was moved by a kind of commiseration for madame ratignolle a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul
in which she would never have the taste of life's delirium edna vaguely wondered what she meant by life's delirium
edna could not help but think that it was very foolish very childish to have stamped upon her wedding ring and smashed the crystal vase upon the tiles she was visited by no more outbursts moving her to such futile expedients
she began to do as she liked and to feel as she liked she completely abandoned her tuesdays at home and did not return the visits of those who had called upon her
going and coming as it suited her fancy and so far as she was able lending herself to any passing caprice
but her new and unexpected line of conduct completely bewildered him it shocked him
when mister pontellier became rude edna grew insolent she had resolved never to take another step backward
perhaps i shan't always feel like it then in god's name paint but don't let the family go to the devil there's madame ratignolle because she keeps up her music she doesn't let everything else go to chaos
and she's more of a musician than you are a painter she isn't a musician and i'm not a painter
let me alone you bother me it sometimes entered mister pontellier's mind to wonder if his wife were not growing a little unbalanced mentally he could see plainly that she was not herself that is
he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world her husband let her alone as she requested and went away to his office
she was working with great energy and interest without accomplishing anything however which satisfied her even in the smallest degree for a time she had the whole household enrolled in the service of art the boys posed for her
the quadroon sat for hours before edna's palette patient as a savage while the house maid took charge of the children and the drawing room went undusted
but the housemaid too served her term as model when edna perceived that the young woman's back and shoulders were molded on classic lines and that her hair loosened from its confining cap became an inspiration while edna worked she sometimes sang low the little air
it moved her with recollections she could hear again the ripple of the water the flapping sail
there were days when she was very happy without knowing why she was happy to be alive and breathing when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight the color the odors the luxuriant warmth of some perfect southern day
she liked then to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places she discovered many a sunny sleepy corner fashioned to dream in and she found it good to dream and to be alone and unmolested there were days when she was unhappy
when it did not seem worth while to be glad or sorry to be alive or dead when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium
annihilation she could not work on such a day
to listen while she played upon the piano quite early in the afternoon she started upon her quest for the pianist
in fact they knew nothing of any of their neighbors their lodgers were all people of the highest distinction they assured edna she did not linger to discuss class distinctions with madame pouponne
in truth he did not want to know her at all or anything concerning her the most disagreeable and unpopular
likely to do so she knew it was useless to ask madame ratignolle who was on the most distant terms with the musician
and she also knew where the lebruns lived on chartres street their home from the outside looked like a prison with iron bars before the door and lower windows
and no one had ever thought of dislodging them at the side was a high fence enclosing the garden a gate or door opening upon the street was locked edna rang the bell at this side garden gate and stood upon the banquette waiting to be admitted
a black woman wiping her hands upon her apron was close at his heels before she saw them edna could hear them in altercation the woman plainly an anomaly claiming the right to be allowed to perform her duties one of which was to answer the bell
victor was surprised and delighted to see missus pontellier and he made no attempt to conceal either his astonishment or his delight he was a dark browed good looking youngster of nineteen greatly resembling his mother
and started back to her interrupted task of weeding the garden
owing to its rapidity and incoherence was all but incomprehensible to edna whatever it was the rebuke was convincing for the woman dropped her hoe and went mumbling into the house
edna did not wish to enter it was very pleasant there on the side porch
she seated herself for she was tired from her long tramp and she began to rock gently and smooth out the folds of her silk parasol
he at once explained that the black woman's offensive conduct was all due to imperfect training as he was not there to take her in hand
he stayed all winter at the island he lived there and kept the place in order and got things ready for the summer visitors
and every now and again he drummed up a pretext to bring him to the city my
he wouldn't want his mother to know and he began to talk in a whisper he was scintillant with recollections of course he couldn't think of telling missus pontellier all about it she being a woman and not comprehending such things
but it all began with a girl peeping and smiling at him through the shutters as he passed by oh but she was a beauty
missus pontellier did not know him if she supposed he was one to let an opportunity like that escape him despite herself the youngster amused her she must have betrayed in her look some degree of interest or entertainment the boy grew more daring
but for the timely appearance of madame lebrun that lady was still clad in white according to her custom of the summer her eyes beamed an effusive welcome would not missus pontellier go inside
why had she not been there before how was that dear mister pontellier
had missus pontellier ever known such a warm november
he had taken her parasol from her hands while he spoke to her
when madame lebrun complained that it was so dull coming back to the city
she somehow felt like a confederate in crime and tried to look severe and disapproving
he remembered the contents which in truth he rattled off very glibly when put to the test one letter was written from vera cruz and the other from the city of mexico
but of course the prospects were vastly better
the people and their habits the conditions of life which he found there he sent his love to the family
that was about the substance of the two letters edna felt that if there had been a message for her she would have received it the despondent frame of mind in which she had left home began again to overtake her
the afternoon was already well advanced victor escorted her out upon the banquette lifted her parasol and held it over her while he walked to the car with her
he entreated her to bear in mind that the disclosures of the afternoon were strictly confidential she laughed and bantered him a little remembering too late that she should have been dignified and reserved
the attracting force between two such bodies is no longer exactly towards the centre of revolution and therefore kepler's second law is no longer precisely obeyed the rate of description of areas is subject to slight acceleration
the effect of this tangential force acting on the tide compelling body is gradually to increase its distance from the other body applying these statements to the earth and moon
so that it turns always the same face towards us moreover that its distance from the earth is steadily increasing
long ago the moon must therefore have been much nearer the earth
trade winds and storms were also more violent if ever the moon were close to the earth it would have to revolve round it in about three hours if the earth rotated on its axis in three hours
it would be unstable and begin to separate a portion of itself as a kind of bud which might then get detached and gradually pushed away by the violent tidal action hence it is possible that this is the history of the moon if so
it is probably an exceptional history the planets were not formed from the sun in this way
hence with them the process is inverted and they must be approaching him and may some day crash along his surface the inner moon is now about four thousand miles away
and weighs therefore if composed of rock
we considered the local peculiarities of the tides the way in which they were formed in open ocean under the action of the moon and the sun
and also the means by which their heights and times could be calculated and predicted years beforehand towards the end i stated that the subject was very far from being exhausted
and first we must remind ourselves of the fact that almost all the rocks which form the accessible crust of the earth were deposited by the agency of water nearly all are arranged in regular strata
the strata which were once horizontal are now so no longer they have been tilted and upheaved bent and distorted in many places some of them again have been metamorphosed by fire so that their organic remains have been destroyed
the date of their formation no man yet can tell but that it was vastly distant is certain for the geological era is not over aqueous action still goes on still does frost chip the rocks into fragments
the waves and the tides are still at work along every coast line eating away into the cliffs undermining gradually and submerging acre after acre and making with the refuse a shingly or a sandy or a muddy beach
and drive and drag until even the hardest rock like basalt becomes honeycombed into strange galleries and passages fingal's cave for instance and the softer parts are crumbled away but the area now exposed to the teeth of the waves is not great
but they cannot reach cliffs one hundred feet high they can undermine such cliffs indeed and then grind the fragments to powder but their direct action is limited not so limited however as they would be without the tides consider for a moment the denudation import of the tides
but few places are so favourably situated as liverpool in this respect and the direct scouring action of the tides in general is not very great their geological import mainly consists in this that they raise and lower the surface waves at regular intervals
the waves are a great planing machine attacking the land and the tides raise and lower this planing machine so that its denuding tooth is applied now twenty feet vertically above mean level now twenty feet below
making all allowance for the power of winds and waves currents tides and watercourses assisted by glacial ice and frost it must be apparent how slowly the work of forming the rocks is being carried on
it goes on steadily but so slowly that it is estimated to take six thousand years to wear away one foot of the american continent by all the denuding causes combined to erode a stratum five thousand feet thick
will require at this rate thirty million years the age of the earth is not at all accurately known but there are many grounds for believing it not to be much older than some thirty million years that is to say
not greatly more than this period of time has elapsed since it was in a molten condition it may be as old as a hundred million years but its age is believed by those most competent to judge to be more likely within this limit than beyond it but if we ask
and denuded and re formed over and over again we get an answer not in feet but in miles
constitute a stratum ten miles thick and everywhere the rocks at the base of our stratified system are of the most stupendous volume and thickness it has always been a puzzle how known agents could have formed these mighty masses
and the only solution offered by geologists was unlimited time given unlimited time they could of course be formed no matter how slowly the process went on
it becomes necessary to look for a far more powerful engine than any now existing there must have been some denuding agent in those remote ages ages far more distant from us than the carboniferous period
far older than any forms of life fossil or otherwise ages among the oldest known to geology a denuding agent must have then existed far more powerful than any we now know
such an agent it has been the privilege of astronomy and physics within the last ten years to discover to this discovery i now proceed to lead up our fundamental standard of time is the period of the earth's rotation the length of the day the earth is our
one standard clock all time is expressed in terms of it and if it began to go wrong or if it did not go with perfect uniformity it would seem a most difficult thing to discover its error and a most puzzling piece of knowledge to utilize when found
ancient eclipses and the like and we find that the record of their occurrence as made by the old magi of chaldaea is in very close accordance with the result of calculation one of these famous old eclipses was observed in babylon about thirty six centuries ago
this residual discrepancy when every known cause has been allowed for amounts to about one hour the eclipse occurred later than calculation warrants now this would have happened from either of two causes
either an acceleration of the moon in her orbit or a retardation of the earth in her diurnal rotation a shortening of the month or a lengthening of the day or both the total discrepancy being say two hours
suppose the earth loses a small piece of time which i will call an instant per day a locality on the earth will come up to a given position one instant late on the first day after an event
on the next day it would come up two instants late by reason of the previous loss but it also loses another instant during the course of the second day and so the total lateness by the end of that day amounts to three instants the day after
n plus one instants or practically when n is big
and the total loss has amounted to an hour hence the length of an instant the loss per diem
whence one instant equals the two hundred forty millionth part of a second
in a year the aggregate loss mounts up
in a century to about three seconds and in thirty six centuries to an hour but even at the end of the thirty six centuries the day is barely any longer
and even a million years ago unless the rate of loss was different as it probably was the day would only be thirty five minutes shorter
these numbers are to be taken as illustrative not as precisely representing terrestrial fact what can have caused the slowing down
swelling of the earth by reason of accumulation of meteoric dust might do something but probably very little contraction of the earth as it goes on cooling would act in the opposite direction and probably more than counterbalance the dust effect
the problem is thus not a simple one for there are several disturbing causes and for none of them are the data enough to base a quantitative estimate upon but one certain agent in lengthening the day and almost certainly the main agent is to be found in the tides
remember that the tidal humps were produced as the prolateness of a sphere whirled round and round a fixed centre like a football whirled by a string these humps are pulled at by the moon
giving back at one quarter swing what it has received at the previous quarter but in so far as it encounters friction which it does in all channels where there is an actual ebb and flow of the water it has to receive more than it gives back
and the balance of energy has to be made up to it or the tides would cease the energy of the tides is in fact continually being dissipated by friction and all the energy so dissipated is taken from the rotation of the earth
if tidal energy were utilized by engineers the machines driven would be really driven at the expense of the earth's rotation it would be a mode of harnessing the earth and using the moon as fixed point or fulcrum
the moon pulling at the tidal protuberance and holding it still as the earth rotates is the mechanism whereby the energy is extracted the handle whereby the friction brake is applied
in other words to make the day and the month equal the same cause must have been in operation but with eighty fold greater intensity on the moon it has ceased now because the rotation has stopped
but if ever the moon rotated on its axis with respect to the earth and if it were either fluid itself or possessed any liquid ocean then the tides caused by the pull of the earth must have been prodigious and would tend to stop its rotation
we have thus arrived at this fact
than it is now a million years ago it was perhaps an hour shorter twenty million years ago it must have been much shorter fifty million years ago it may have been only a few hours long
the earth may have spun round then quite quickly but there is a limit if it spun too fast it would fly to pieces attach shot by means of wax to the whirling earth model
and at a certain speed the cohesion of the wax cannot hold them so they fly off the earth is held together not by cohesion but by gravitation it is not difficult to reckon
how fast the earth must spin for gravity at its surface to be annulled and for portions to fly off
this is a critical speed if ever the day was three hours long something must have happened the day can never have been shorter than that for if it were the earth would have a tendency to fly in pieces
or at least to separate into two pieces remember this as a natural result of a three hour day which corresponds to an unstable state of things remember also that in some past epoch a three hour day is a probability
if we think of the state of things going on in the earth's atmosphere if it had an atmosphere at that remote date we shall recognize the existence of the most fearful tornadoes
instead of waiting six hours between low and high tide we should have to wait only three quarters of an hour every hour and a half the water would execute a complete swing from high tide to high again
it cannot do that without itself getting pulled forward the pull of the earth on the moon will therefore not be quite central but will be a little in advance of its centre hence by kepler's second law
the rate of description of areas by its radius vector cannot be constant but must increase
though it serves well enough for the case of a ball whirled at the end of an elastic string after having got up the whirl the hand holding the string may remain almost fixed at the centre of the circle and the motion will continue steadily
but if the hand be moved so as always to pull the string a little in advance of the centre
the elastic will be more and more stretched until the whirling ball is describing a much larger circle but in this case it will likewise be going faster distance and speed increase together
which practically states that the further a planet is from the centre the slower it goes its velocity varies inversely with the square root of its distance
if instead of a ball held by elastic it were a satellite held by gravity an increase in distance must be accompanied by a diminution in speed
the time of revolution varies as the square of the cube root of the distance kepler's third law hence the tidal reaction on the moon
the pulling the moon a little forward has also the secondary or indirect effect of making it move slower and go further off it may seem strange that an accelerating pull directed in front of the centre
and therefore always pulling the moon the way it is going should retard it and that a retarding force like friction if such a force acted should hasten it and make it complete its orbit sooner but so it precisely is
gradually but very slowly the moon is receding from us and the month is becoming longer the tides of the earth are pushing it away this is not a periodic disturbance like the temporary acceleration of its motion discovered by laplace
working backwards also we see that in past ages the moon must have been nearer to us than it is now and the month shorter
now just note what the effect of the increased nearness of the moon was upon our tides remember that the tide generating force varies inversely as the cube of distance
the earth's tides would have been twice as high as they are now the pushing away action was then a good deal more violent and so the process went on quicker the moon must at some time have been just half its present distance
we have the moon at one third of its present distance from the earth and the tides six hundred feet high now just contemplate the effect of a six hundred foot tide we are here only about one hundred fifty feet above the level of the sea
hence the tide would sweep right over us and rush far away inland at high tide we should have some two hundred feet of blue water over our heads there would be nothing to stop such a tide as that in this neighbourhood
till it reached the high lands of derbyshire manchester would be a seaport then with a vengeance the day was shorter then and so the interval between tide and tide was more like ten than twelve hours accordingly
in about five hours all that mass of water
and great tracts of sand between here and ireland would be left dry another five hours and the water would come tearing and driving over the country applying its furious waves and currents to the work of denudation which would proceed apace
that are of the most portentous thickness
sir robert ball believes and several geologists agree with him that the mighty tides we are contemplating may have been coaeval with this ancient laurentian formation and others of like nature with it
but let us leave geology now and trace the inverted progress of events as we recede in imagination back through the geological era beyond
when the moon was still closer and closer to the earth and was revolving round it quicker and quicker before life or water existed on it and when the rocks were still molten suppose the moon once touched the earth's surface
the month was only three hours long at this initial epoch remember however the initial length of the day we found that it was just possible for the earth to rotate on its axis in three hours and that when it did so
something was liable to separate from it here we find the moon in contact with it and going round it in this same three hour period surely the two are connected
there was no moon only the earth as a molten globe rapidly spinning on its axis spinning in about three hours gradually by reason of some disturbing causes a protuberance a sort of bud forms at one side
one about eighty times as big as the other the bigger one we now call earth the smaller we now call moon round and round the two bodies went pulling each other into tremendously elongated or prolate shapes
and so they might have gone on for a long time but they are unstable and cannot go on thus they must either separate or collapse some disturbing cause acts again and the smaller mass begins to revolve less rapidly
tides at once begin gigantic tides of molten lava hundreds of miles high tides not in free ocean for there was none then but in the pasty mass of the entire earth immediately the series of changes i have described begins
the speed of rotation gets slackened the moon's mass gets pushed further and further away and its time of revolution grows rapidly longer the changes went on rapidly at first because the tides were so gigantic but gradually
and by slow degrees the bodies get more distant and the rate of change more moderate until after the lapse of ages we find the day twenty four hours long the moon two hundred forty thousand miles distant
and only a few feet high this is the era we call to day the process does not stop here still the stately march of events goes on and the eye of science strives to penetrate into the events of the future with the same clearness
neither of these bodies rotating with respect to each other the two as if joined by a bar and total cessation of tide generating action between them the date of this period is one hundred and fifty millions of years hence
but unless some unforeseen catastrophe intervenes it must assuredly come yet neither will even this be the final stage for the system is disturbed by the tide generating force of the sun it is a small effect
we are presented with a picture of the month getting gradually shorter than the day the moon gradually approaching instead of receding and so incalculable myriads of ages hence precipitating itself upon the surface of the earth whence it arose
such a catastrophe is already imminent in a neighbouring planet mars
the planet rotates in twenty four hours as we do but its tides are following its moon more quickly than it rotates after them they are therefore tending to increase its rate of spin and to retard the revolution of the moon
to that which separated our moon the day shorter than the month forces a moon further away the month shorter than the day tends to draw a satellite nearer this moon of mars is not a large body
it is only twenty or thirty miles in diameter but it weighs some forty billion tons and will ultimately crash along the surface with a velocity of eight thousand miles an hour such a blow must produce the most astounding effects when it occurs
agents like those we have traced in the history of the earth and moon must be at work the motion of all must be complicated by the phenomena of tides it is professor george darwin
who has worked out the astronomical influence of the tides on the principles of sir william thomson it is sir robert ball
earth one thousand mars three hundred four jupiter two thousand one hundred thirty six saturn one thousand and thirty three uranus twenty one neptune nine
the power of all of them is very feeble and by acting on different sides they usually partly neutralize each other's action but occasionally they get all on one side
and in that case some perceptible effect may be produced the probable effect seems likely to be a gentle heaving tide in the solar surface with breaking up of any incipient crust
and such an effect may be considered as evidenced periodically by the great increase in the number of solar spots which then break out the solar tides are however much too small to appreciably push any planet away
hence we are not to suppose that the planets originated by budding from the sun in contradiction of the nebular hypothesis nor is it necessary to assume that the satellites as a class originated in the way ours did though they may have done so
they were more probably secondary rings our moon differs from other satellites in being exceptionally large compared with the size of its primary it is as big as some of the moons of jupiter and saturn
the earth is the only one of the small planets that has an appreciable moon and hence there is nothing forced or unnatural in supposing that it may have had an exceptional history evidently however tidal phenomena must be taken into consideration
in any treatment of the solar system through enormous length of time and it will probably play a large part in determining its future when laplace and lagrange investigated the question of the stability or instability of the solar system
they did so on the hypothesis that the bodies composing it were rigid they reached a grand conclusion that all the mutual perturbations of the solar system were periodic that whatever changes were going on
and then begin to diminish then increase again then diminish and so on
but this conclusion is not final the hypothesis that the bodies are rigid is not strictly true
able in the long run to upset all their calculations
whereas the ordinary perturbations go through their swings in some hundred thousand years or so at the most granted it is small but it is terribly persistent and it always acts in one direction never does it cease
never does it begin to act oppositely and undo what it has done it is like the perpetual dropping of water there may be only one drop in a twelvemonth but leave it long enough and the hardest stone must be worn away at last
we have been speaking of millions of years somewhat familiarly
it is longer than our lifetime it is true to the ephemeral insects whose lifetime is an hour a year might seem an awful period the mid day sun might seem an almost stationary body the changes of the seasons would be unknown
everything but the most fleeting and rapid changes would appear permanent and at rest conversely if our life period embraced myriads of aeons things which now seem permanent would then appear
sometimes covered with ocean the stars we now call fixed would be moving visibly before our eyes the earth would be humming on its axis like a top and the whole of human history might seem as fleeting as a cloud of breath on a mirror
shall the stately evolution of the planetary orbs themselves be hurried it may be that we are able to trace the history of the solar system for some thousand million years or so but for how much longer time must it not have a history
entirely beyond our ken those who study the stars have impressed upon them the existence of the most immeasurable distances which yet are swallowed up as nothing in the infinitude of space
he said horrid things about other people in such a charming way that one forgave him for the equally horrid things he said about oneself behind one's back hating anything in the way of ill natured gossip ourselves
thus although possessed of only moderate means he was able to live comfortably within his income and still more comfortably within those of various tolerantly disposed associates
some fraction of a shilling or franc or whatever the prevailing coinage might be should be diverted from his pocket or service into that of a hard up companion a two franc cigar would be cheerfully offered to a wealthy patron
the coin would have been duly returned at the earliest opportunity he would have taken means to insure against forgetfulness on the part of the borrower but accidents might happen and even the temporary estrangement from his penny or sou
was a calamity to be avoided the knowledge of this amiable weakness offered a perpetual temptation to play upon laploshka's fears of involuntary generosity
to offer him a lift in a cab and pretend not to have enough money to pay the fair to fluster him with a request for a sixpence when his hand was full of silver just received in change these were a few of the petty torments
that ingenuity prompted as occasion afforded to do justice to laploshka's resourcefulness it must be admitted that he always emerged somehow or other from the most embarrassing dilemma
without in any way compromising his reputation for saying no but the gods send opportunities at some time to most men and mine came one evening when laploshka and i were supping together in a cheap boulevard restaurant
except when he was the bidden guest of some one with an irreproachable income laploshka was wont to curb his appetite for high living on such fortunate occasions he let it go on an easy snaffle
at the conclusion of the meal a somewhat urgent message called me away and without heeding my companion's agitated protest i called back cruelly pay my share i'll settle with you to morrow
early on the morrow laploshka hunted me down by instinct as i walked along a side street that i hardly ever frequented he had the air of a man who had not slept you owe me two francs from last night
was his breathless greeting i spoke evasively of the situation in portugal where more trouble seemed brewing but laploshka listened with the abstraction of the deaf adder and quickly returned to the subject of the two francs
but his eyes bulged a little and his cheeks took on the mottled hues of an ethnographical map of the balkan peninsula that same day at sundown he died failure of the heart's action was the doctor's verdict
there arose the problem of what to do with his two francs to have killed laploshka was one thing to have kept his beloved money would have argued a callousness of feeling of which i am not capable
was an operation which called for some tact an easy way out of the difficulty seemed however to present itself the following sunday as i was wedged into the cosmopolitan crowd
which filled the side aisle of one of the most popular paris churches a collecting bag for
made audible criticisms to his companion on the claims of the said charity they do not want money he said they have too much money they have no poor they are all pampered
if that were really the case my way seemed clear i dropped laploshka's two francs into the bag
half way through my meal i happened to glance in the direction of that empty seat and saw that it was no longer empty poring over the bill of fare with the absorbed scrutiny of one who seeks the cheapest among the cheap
was laploshka once he looked across at me with a comprehensive glance at my repast as though to say it is my two francs you are eating and then looked swiftly away
the schnitzel turned to leather in my mouth
i left the emmenthaler untasted my one idea was to get away from the room away from the table where that was seated
and as i fled i felt laploshka's reproachful eyes watching the amount that i gave to the piccolo out of his two francs i lunched next day at an expensive restaurant which i felt sure that the living laploshka
would never have entered on his own account and i hoped that the dead laploshka would observe the same barriers i was not mistaken but as i came out i found him miserably studying the bill of fare stuck up on the portals
then he slowly made his way over to a milk hall for the first time in my experience i missed the charm and gaiety of vienna life after that in paris or london or wherever i happened to be
i continued to see a good deal of laploshka if i had a seat in a box at a theatre i was always conscious of his eyes furtively watching me from the dim recesses of the gallery as i turned into my club on a rainy afternoon
i would see him taking inadequate shelter in a doorway opposite even if i indulged in the modest luxury of a penny chair in the park he generally confronted me from one of the free benches never staring at me
but always elaborately conscious of my presence my friends began to comment on my changed looks and advised me to leave off heaps of things i should have liked to have left off laploshka on a certain sunday
a swift inspiration came to me and i merely dropped my own sou into the bag and slid the silver coin into my pocket i had withdrawn laploshka's two francs from the poor who should never have had the legacy
as i backed away from the crowd i heard a woman's voice say i don't believe he put my money in the bag there are swarms of people in paris like that but my mind was lighter that it had been for a long time
a shower drove me two days later into one of the historic churches on the left bank of the seine and there i found peering at the old wood carvings the baron r one of the wealthiest and most shabbily dressed men in paris
it was now or never putting a strong american inflection into the french which i usually talked with an unmistakable british accent i catechised the baron as to the date of the church's building
its dimensions and other details which an american tourist would be certain to want to know having acquired such information as the baron was able to impart on short notice i solemnly placed the two franc piece in his hand
with the hearty assurance that it was pour vous and turned to go the baron was slightly taken aback but accepted the situation with a good grace walking over to a small box fixed in the wall
he dropped laploshka's two francs into the slot over the box was the inscription
i caught a fleeting glimpse of laploshka he smiled slightly raised his hat and vanished i never saw him again
my dear helen i will begin where i left off in my last letter as you may imagine i did not get any sleep that night not even so much as a cat's nap as people say though
how cat's naps differ from men's and women's naps i don't know i shivered all night and it hurt me terribly whenever i moved early in the morning your grandfather came downstairs
and when he saw how i looked he swore again that same oath we all know very well what it means when he swears in that way it means that he is going to do all he can for you and is so sorry
that he is afraid of seeming too sorry don't you remember when you had that big double tooth pulled out and he gave you five dollars how he swore then
well he took me up in his arms and carried me into the dining room it was quite cool there was a nice wood fire on the hearth and mary was setting the table for breakfast
it was enough to make any cat laugh you don't ever mean to say sir as you're going to put that cat into the cradle
in a few minutes mary came down with the cradle and set it down by the fire with such a bang that i wondered it did not break you know she always bangs things when she is cross but i never could see what good it does
then your grandfather made up a nice bed in the cradle out of charlie's winter blanket and an old pillow and laid me down in it all rolled up as i was in your petticoat
till the tears ran down his red cheeks well he said i tell you one thing the game will last me till that poor cat gets well again
then he went upstairs and brought down a bottle of something very soft and slippery like lard and put it on my eyes and it made them feel much better after that he gave me some milk
into which he had put some of his very best brandy that was pretty hard to get down but i understood enough of what they had said to be sure that if i did not take something of the kind i should never get well
the bandages were wet with something which smelled so badly it made me feel very sick for the first day or two cats noses are much more sensitive to smells than people's are
he would swear at me and put me back again every morning he put the soft white stuff on my eyes and changed the bandages on my leg and oh my dear helen such good things as i had to eat
and have only the old pieces which nobody wants two things troubled me very much while i was confined to the cradle one was that everybody who came in to see your mother laughed as if they never could stop
at the first sight of me and the other was that i heard poor caesar mewing all around the house and calling me with all his might and i knew he thought i was dead
i have always noticed that people do not observe any difference between one cat's voice and another's now they really are just as different as human voices caesar has one of the finest deepest toned voices
i ever heard one day after i got well enough to be in the kitchen he slipped in between the legs of the butcher's boy who was bringing in some meat but before i had time to say one word to him
mary flew at him with the broom and drove him out however he saw that i was alive and that was something i am afraid it will be some days yet before i can see him again
for they do not let me go out at all and the bandages are not taken off my leg the cradle is carried upstairs and i sleep on charlie's blanket behind the stove
i heard your mother say to day that she really believed the cat had the rheumatism i do not know what that is but i think i have got it it hurts me all over when i walk
i get my mouth full of hairs which is very disagreeable i heard your grandfather say to day that he believed he would try missus somebody's hair restorer on the cat
and then they laughed still harder i will write you again in a day or two and tell you how i am getting on i hope
and that is i am so ashamed to have you see me in such a plight i told you in my last letter that my fur was beginning to come off your grandfather has tried several things of his
which are said to be good for hair but they have not had the least effect for my part i don't see why they should fur and hair are two very different things and i thought at the outset
there was no use in putting on my skin what was intended for the skin of human heads
if i can judge from your grandfather's head which you know is as bald and pink and shiny as a baby's however he has been so good to me that i let him do any thing he likes and every day he rubs in some new kind of stuff
which smells a little worse than the last one it is utterly impossible for me to get within half a mile of a rat or a mouse i might as well fire off a gun to let them know i am coming as to go about scented up
so that they can smell me a great deal farther off than they can see me if it were not for this dreadful state of my fur i should be perfectly happy for i feel much better than i ever did before in my whole life
and am twice as fat as when you went away i try to be resigned to whatever may be in store for me but it is very hard to look forward to being a fright all the rest of one's days
do you suppose it would do any good to shave the cat all over at this i could not resist the impulse to scream and your mother said i do believe the creature knows whenever we speak about her
and leave me behind when i knew perfectly well that the children would neither notice nor understand half so much as i would there are some houses in which i lived before i came to live with you about which
i could tell strange stories if i chose caesar pretends that he likes the looks of little spots of pink skin here and there in fur but i know he only does it to save my feelings
for it isn't in human nature i mean in cat's nature that any one should you see i spend so much more time in the society of men and women than of cats that i find myself constantly using expressions which
sound queerly in a cat's mouth but you know me well enough to be sure that every thing i say is perfectly natural and now my dear helen i hope i have prepared you to see me looking perfectly hideous
i only trust that your love for me will not be entirely killed by my unfortunate appearance if you do seem to love me less i shall be wretched
of at least half the hunt while his lack of tact and amiability had done much to alienate the remainder hence subscriptions were beginning to fall off foxes grew provokingly scarcer
and wire obtruded itself with increasing frequency the major could plead reasonable excuse for his fit of the glooms in ranging herself as a partisan on the side of major pallaby
missus hoopington had been largely influenced by the fact that she had made up her mind to marry him at an early date against his notorious bad temper she set his three thousand a year
and his prospective succession to a baronetcy gave a casting vote in his favour the major's plans on the subject of matrimony were not at present in such an advanced stage as missus hoopington's
but he was beginning to find his way over to hoopington hall with a frequency that was already being commented on he had a wretchedly thin field out again yesterday said missus hoopington
just compare him for a moment with some of your heavy hunting men anyhow my dear norah he can't ride russians never can but he shoots yes and what does he shoot
yesterday he brought home a woodpecker in his game bag but he'd shot three pheasants and some rabbits as well that's no excuse for including a woodpecker in his game bag
a grand duke pots a vulture just as seriously as we should stalk a bustard anyhow i've explained to vladimir that certain birds are beneath his dignity as a sportsman and as he's only nineteen of course
missus hoopington sniffed most people with whom vladimir came in contact found his high spirits infectious but his present hostess was guaranteed immune against infection of that sort
i hear him coming in now she observed i shall go and get ready for tea we're going to have it here in the hall entertain the major if he comes in before i'm down and above all be bright
norah was dependent on her aunt's good graces for many little things that made life worth living and she was conscious of a feeling of discomfiture because the russian youth whom she had brought down as a welcome element of change in the country house routine
was not making a good impression that young gentleman however was supremely unconscious of any shortcomings and burst into the hall tired and less sprucely groomed than usual but distinctly radiant
his game bag looked comfortably full guess what i have shot he demanded pheasants woodpigeons rabbits hazarded norah no a large beast i don't know what you call it in english
brown with a darkish tail norah changed colour does it live in a tree and eat nuts she asked hoping that the use of the adjective large might be an exaggeration vladimir laughed
it lives in the woods and eats rabbits and chickens norah sat down suddenly and hid her face in her hands merciful heaven she wailed he's shot a fox
in a torrent of agitated words she tried to explain the horror of the situation the boy understood nothing but was thoroughly alarmed hide it hide it said norah frantically pointing to the still unopened bag my aunt
and the major will be here in a moment throw it on the top of that chest they won't see it there vladimir swung the bag with fair aim but the strap caught in its flight on the outstanding point of an antler fixed in the wall
and the bag with its terrible burden remained suspended just above the alcove where tea would presently be laid at that moment missus hoopington and the major entered the hall
the major is going to draw our covers to morrow announced the lady with a certain heavy satisfaction smithers is confident that we'll be able to show him some sport
i'm sure i hope so i hope so said the major moodily i must break this sequence of blank days one hears so often that a fox has settled down as a tenant for life in certain covers
they'd get short shrift said missus hoopington norah found her way mechanically to the tea table and made her fingers frantically busy in rearranging the parsley round the sandwich dish
she dared not raise her eyes above the level of the tea table and she almost expected to see a spot of accusing vulpine blood drip down and stain the whiteness of the cloth her aunt's manner signalled to her the repeated message to
nothing worth speaking of said the boy norah's heart which had stood still for a space made up for lost time with a most disturbing bound
i wish you'd find something that was worth speaking about said the hostess every one seems to have lost their tongues when did smithers last see that fox said the major
yesterday morning a fine dog fox with a dark brush confided missus hoopington aha we'll have a good gallop after that brush to morrow said the major with a transient gleam of good humour
and then gloomy silence settled again round the tea table a silence broken only by despondent munchings and the occasional feverish rattle of a teaspoon in its saucer
a diversion was at last afforded by missus hoopington's fox terrier which had jumped on to a vacant chair the better to survey the delicacies of the table
and was now sniffing in an upward direction at something apparently more interesting than cold tea cake what is exciting him asked his mistress as the dog suddenly broke into short angry barks
with a running accompaniment of tremulous whines why she continued it's your game bag vladimir what have you got in it by gad said the major who was now standing up
as frantically as a woman up in town for one day's shopping tries on a succession of garments he reviled and railed at fate and the general scheme of things he pitied himself with a strong deep pity too poignent for tears
he condemned every one with whom he had ever come in contact to endless and abnormal punishments in fact he conveyed the impression that if a destroying angel had been lent to him for a week
it would have had very little time for private study in the lulls of his outcry could be heard the querulous monotone of missus hoopington and the sharp staccato barking of the fox terrier vladimir
who did not understand a tithe of what was being said sat fondling a cigarette and repeating under his breath from time to time a vigorous english adjective which he had long ago taken affectionately into his vocabulary
his mind strayed back to the youth in the old russian folk tale who shot an enchanted bird with dramatic results meanwhile the major roaming round the hall like an imprisoned cyclone
had caught sight of and joyfully pounced on the telephone apparatus and lost no time in ringing up the hunt secretary and announcing his resignation of the mastership a servant had by this time brought his horse round to the door
and in a few seconds missus hoopington's shrill monotone had the field to itself but after the major's display her best efforts at vocal violence missed their full effect it was as though one had come straight out from a wagner opera
leaving behind her a silence almost as terrible as the turmoil which had preceded it what shall i do with that asked vladimir at last bury it said norah
just plain burial said vladimir rather relieved he had almost expected that some of the local clergy would have insisted on being present or that a salute might have to be fired over the grave
and thus it came to pass that in the dusk of a november evening the russian boy murmuring a few of the prayers of his church for luck
and corinthian and peloponnesian citizens within it were being besieged that of athens against the peloponnesians that they had incited a town of hers a member of her alliance and a contributor to her revenue to revolt
and had come and were openly fighting against her on the side of the potidaeans for all this war had not yet broken out there was still truce for a while for this was a private enterprise on the part of corinth
but the siege of potidaea put an end to her inaction she had men inside it besides she feared for the place immediately summoning the allies to lacedaemon
she came and loudly accused athens of breach of the treaty and aggression on the rights of peloponnese with her the aeginetans formally unrepresented from fear of athens in secret proved not the least urgent of the advocates for war
held their ordinary assembly and invited them to speak there were many who came forward and made their several accusations among them the megarians in a long list of grievances called special attention to the fact of their exclusion from the ports of the athenian empire
and the market of athens in defiance of the treaty last of all the corinthians came forward and having let those who preceded them inflame the lacedaemonians now followed with a speech to this effect
the confidence which you feel in your constitution and social order inclines you to receive any reflections of ours on other powers with a certain scepticism hence springs your moderation but hence also the rather limited knowledge which you betray
in dealing with foreign politics time after time was our voice raised to warn you of the blows about to be dealt us by athens and time after time instead of taking the trouble to ascertain the worth of our communications
you contented yourselves with suspecting the speakers of being inspired by private interest and so instead of calling these allies together before the blow fell you have delayed to do so till we are smarting under it
allies among whom we have not the worst title to speak as having the greatest complaints to make complaints of athenian outrage and lacedaemonian neglect now if these assaults on the rights of hellas had been made in the dark
as it is long speeches are not needed where you see servitude accomplished for some of us meditated for others in particular for our allies and prolonged preparations in the aggressor against the hour of war or what pray
for the true author of the subjugation of a people is not so much the immediate agent
particularly if that power aspires to the glory of being the liberator of hellas we are at last assembled it has not been easy to assemble nor even now are our objects defined
have cast threats aside and betaken themselves to action and we know what are the paths by which athenian aggression travels
a degree of confidence she may feel from the idea that your bluntness of perception prevents your noticing her but it is nothing to the impulse which her advance will receive from the knowledge that you see but do not care to interfere
and defend yourselves not by doing anything but by looking as if you would do something you alone wait till the power of an enemy is becoming twice its original size instead of crushing it in its infancy and yet the world used to say
that you were to be depended upon but in your case we fear it said more than the truth the mede we ourselves know had time to come from the ends of the earth to peloponnese
without any force of yours worthy of the name advancing to meet him but this was a distant enemy well athens at all events is a near neighbour and yet athens you utterly disregard
against athens you prefer to act on the defensive instead of on the offensive
indeed expectations from you have before now been the ruin of some whose faith induced them to omit preparation we hope that none of you will consider these words of remonstrance to be rather words of hostility
men remonstrate with friends who are in error accusations they reserve for enemies who have wronged them besides we consider that we have as good a right as any one to point out a neighbour's faults particularly when we contemplate
the great contrast between the two national characters a contrast of which as far as we can see you have little perception having never yet considered what sort of antagonists you will encounter in the athenians how widely
how absolutely different from yourselves the athenians are addicted to innovation and their designs are characterized by swiftness alike in conception and execution you have a genius for keeping what you have got accompanied by a total want of invention
and when forced to act you never go far enough again they are adventurous beyond their power and daring beyond their judgment and in danger they are sanguine your wont is to attempt less than is justified by your power
to mistrust even what is sanctioned by your judgment and to fancy that from danger there is no release further there is promptitude on their side against procrastination on yours they are never at home you are never from it
for they hope by their absence to extend their acquisitions you fear by your advance to endanger what you have left behind they are swift to follow up a success and slow to recoil from a reverse their bodies they spend ungrudgingly in their country's cause
you still delay and fail to see that peace stays longest with those who are not more careful to use their power justly than to show their determination not to submit to injustice on the contrary
but in the present instance as we have just shown your habits are old fashioned as compared with theirs it is the law as in art so in politics that improvements ever prevail
and though fixed usages may be best for undisturbed communities constant necessities of action must be accompanied by the constant improvement of methods
by a speedy invasion of attica and do not sacrifice friends and kindred to their bitterest enemies and drive the rest of us in despair to some other alliance such a step would not be condemned either by the gods who received our oaths or by the men who witnessed them
the breach of a treaty cannot be laid to the people whom desertion compels to seek new relations but to the power that fails to assist its confederate but if you will only act we will stand by you it would be unnatural for us to change
such were the words of the corinthians
on other business on hearing the speeches they thought themselves called upon to come before the lacedaemonians
that it was not a matter to be hastily decided on but one that demanded further consideration
and to refresh the memory of the old and enlighten the ignorance of the young from a notion that their words might have the effect of inducing them to prefer tranquillity to war
this belief was not without its grounds the preparations of both the combatants
in the last state of perfection and he could see the rest of the hellenic race taking sides in the quarrel those who delayed doing so at once having it in contemplation indeed this was the greatest movement yet known in history
of time be clearly ascertained yet the evidences which an inquiry carried as far back as was practicable leads me to trust all point to the conclusion that there was nothing on a great scale
either in war or in other matters for instance it is evident that the country now called hellas had in ancient times no settled population on the contrary migrations were of frequent occurrence
the several tribes readily abandoning their homes under the pressure of superior numbers without commerce without freedom of communication either by land or sea cultivating no more of their territory than the exigencies of life required
they cared little for shifting their habitation and consequently neither built large cities nor attained to any other form of greatness the richest soils were always most subject to this change of masters such as the district now called thessaly boeotia
most of the peloponnese arcadia excepted and the most fertile parts of the rest of hellas the goodness of the land favoured the aggrandizement of particular individuals and thus created faction which proved a fertile source of ruin
it also invited invasion accordingly attica from the poverty of its soil enjoying from a very remote period freedom from faction never changed its inhabitants
and here is no inconsiderable exemplification of my assertion that the migrations were the cause of there being no correspondent growth in other parts the most powerful victims of war or faction
from the rest of hellas took refuge with the athenians as a safe retreat and at an early period becoming naturalized swelled the already large population of the city to such a height that attica became at last too small to hold them
nor indeed of the universal prevalence of the name on the contrary before the time of hellen son of deucalion no such appellation existed but the country went by the names of the different tribes
and were invited as allies into the other cities that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection the name of hellenes
born long after the trojan war he nowhere calls all of them by that name nor indeed any of them except the followers of achilles from phthiotis who were the original hellenes
in his poems they are called danaans argives and achaeans he does not even use the term barbarian
by one distinctive appellation it appears therefore that the several hellenic communities comprising not only those who first acquired the name city by city as they came to understand each other but also those who assumed it afterwards as the name of the whole people
were before the trojan war prevented by their want of strength and the absence of mutual intercourse from displaying any collective action indeed they could not unite for this expedition till they had gained increased familiarity with the sea
and the first person known to us by tradition as having established a navy is minos he made himself master of what is now called the hellenic sea and ruled over the cyclades into most of which
and thus did his best to put down piracy in those waters a necessary step to secure the revenues for his own use
and even at the present day many of hellas still follow the old fashion the ozolian
the acarnanians and that region of the continent and the custom of carrying arms is still kept up among these continentals from the old piratical habits the whole of hellas used once to carry arms their habitations being unprotected
and to adopt an easier and more luxurious mode of life indeed it is only lately that their rich old men left off the luxury of wearing undergarments of linen and fastening a knot of their hair with a tie of golden grasshoppers
a fashion which spread to their ionian kindred and long prevailed among the old men there
more in conformity with modern ideas was first adopted by the lacedaemonians the rich doing their best to assimilate their way of life to that of the common people they also set the example of contending naked
publicly stripping and anointing themselves with oil in their gymnastic exercises formerly even in the olympic contests the athletes who contended wore belts across their middles and it is but a few years since that the practice ceased
to this day among some of the barbarians especially in asia when prizes for boxing and wrestling are offered belts are worn by the combatants and there are many other points in which a likeness might be shown between the life of the hellenic world of old and the barbarian of to day
but the old towns on account of the great prevalence of piracy were built away from the sea whether on the islands or the continent and still remain in their old sites for the pirates used to plunder one another
and indeed all coast populations whether seafaring or not the islanders too were great pirates these islanders were carians and phoenicians by whom most of the islands were colonized as was proved by the following fact
were carians they were identified by the fashion of the arms buried with them and by the method of interment which was the same as the carians still follow but as soon as minos had formed his navy communication by sea became easier
as he colonized most of the islands and thus expelled the malefactors the coast population now began to apply themselves more closely to the acquisition of wealth and their life became more settled
some even began to build themselves walls on the strength of their newly acquired riches for the love of gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger and the possession of capital enabled the more powerful to reduce the smaller towns to subjection
and it was at a somewhat later stage of this development
what enabled agamemnon to raise the armament was more in my opinion his superiority in strength than the oaths of tyndareus which bound the suitors to follow him
indeed the account given by those peloponnesians who have been the recipients of the most credible tradition is this
pelops arriving among a needy population from asia with vast wealth acquired such power that stranger though he was the country was called after him and this power fortune saw fit materially to increase in the hands of his descendants
and to the hands of his relation who had left his father on account of the death of chrysippus
when he set out on his expedition had committed mycenae and the government as time went on and eurystheus did not return
besides his power seemed considerable and he had not neglected to court the favour of the populace and assumed the sceptre of mycenae
and so the power of the descendants of pelops came to be greater than that of the descendants of perseus
and that of the arcadians was furnished by him this at least is what homer says if his testimony is deemed sufficient besides in his account of the transmission of the sceptre
now agamemnon's was a continental power and he could not have been master of any except the adjacent islands and these would not be many but through the possession of a fleet
but no exact observer would therefore feel justified in rejecting the estimate given by the poets and by tradition of the magnitude of the armament for i suppose if lacedaemon were to become desolate
and the temples and the foundations of the public buildings were left that as time went on there would be a strong disposition with posterity to refuse to accept her fame as a true exponent of her power and yet they occupy two fifths of peloponnese
and lead the whole not to speak of their numerous allies without still as the city is neither built in a compact form nor adorned with magnificent temples and public edifices but composed of villages after the old fashion of hellas
whereas if athens were to suffer the same misfortune i suppose that any inference from the appearance presented to the eye
we have therefore no right to be sceptical nor to content ourselves with an inspection of a town to the exclusion of a consideration of its power but we may safely conclude that the armament in question surpassed all before it
he has represented it as consisting of twelve hundred vessels the boeotian complement of each ship being a hundred and twenty men
by this i conceive he meant to convey the maximum and the minimum complement at any rate he does not specify the amount of any others in his catalogue of the ships that they were all rowers
which all the men at the oar are bowmen now it is improbable that many supernumeraries sailed if we except the kings and high officers especially as they had to cross the open sea with munitions of war in ships
during the prosecution of the war even after the victory they obtained on their arrival and a victory there must have been or the fortifications of the naval camp could never have been built there is no indication of their whole force having been employed on the contrary
they seem to have turned to cultivation of the chersonese and to piracy from want of supplies this was what really enabled the trojans to keep the field for ten years against them the dispersion of the enemy making them always a match for the detachment left behind
they would have easily defeated the trojans in the field since they could hold their own against them with the division on service in short if they had stuck to the siege
but as want of money proved the weakness of earlier expeditions so from the same cause even the one in question more famous than its predecessors may be pronounced on the evidence of what it effected to have been inferior to its renown
even after the trojan war hellas was still engaged in removing and settling and thus could not attain to the quiet which must precede growth the late return of the hellenes from ilium caused many revolutions
so that much had to be done and many years had to elapse before hellas could attain to a durable tranquillity undisturbed by removals and could begin to send out colonies as athens did to ionia and most of the islands
and the peloponnesians to most of italy and sicily and some places in the rest of hellas all these places were founded subsequently to the war with troy but as the power of hellas grew and the acquisition of wealth became more an object
the revenues of the states increasing tyrannies were by their means established almost everywhere the old form of government being hereditary monarchy with definite prerogatives
and hellas began to fit out fleets and apply herself more closely to the sea it is said that the corinthians were the first to approach the modern style of naval architecture and that corinth was the first place in hellas where galleys were built
and we have ameinocles a corinthian shipwright making four ships for the samians dating from the end of this war it is nearly three hundred years ago
again the earliest sea fight in history was between the corinthians and corcyraeans
dating from the same time planted on an isthmus corinth had from time out of mind been a commercial emporium as formerly almost all communication between the hellenes within and without peloponnese was carried on overland
and the corinthian territory was the highway through which it travelled she had consequently great money resources as is shown by the epithet wealthy bestowed by the old poets on the place and this enabled her when traffic by sea became more common
to procure her navy and put down piracy and as she could offer a mart for both branches of the trade she acquired for herself all the power which a large revenue affords
subsequently the ionians attained to great naval strength in the reign of cyrus the first king of the persians and of his son cambyses
seem to have been principally composed of the old fifty oars and long boats
it was quite at the end of this period that the war with aegina and the prospect of the barbarian invasion enabled themistocles to persuade the athenians to build the fleet with which they fought at salamis
they were the means by which the islands were reached and reduced those of the smallest area falling the easiest prey wars by land there were none none at least by which power was acquired
various too were the obstacles which the national growth encountered in various localities the power of the ionians was advancing with rapid strides when it came into collision with persia under king cyrus who after having dethroned croesus
again wherever there were tyrants their habit of providing simply for themselves of looking solely to their personal comfort and family aggrandizement made safety the great aim of their policy and prevented anything great proceeding from them
or of any vigorous action of their own but at last a time came when the tyrants of athens and the far older tyrannies of the rest of hellas were
once and for all put down by lacedaemon for this city though after the settlement of the dorians its present inhabitants it suffered from factions for an unparalleled length of time still at a very early period obtained good laws
and enjoyed a freedom from tyrants which was unbroken it has possessed the same form of government for more than four hundred years reckoning to the end of the late war and has thus been in a position to arrange the affairs of the other states
not many years after the deposition of the tyrants the battle of marathon was fought between the medes and the athenians ten years afterwards the barbarian returned with the armada for the subjugation of hellas
in the face of this great danger the command of the confederate hellenes was assumed by the lacedaemonians in virtue of their superior power and the athenians having made up their minds to abandon their city broke up their homes
threw themselves into their ships and became a naval people this coalition after repulsing the barbarian soon afterwards split into two sections which included the hellenes who had revolted from the king as well as those who had aided him in the war
or with its own revolted allies and consequently afforded them constant practice in military matters and that experience which is learnt in the school of danger
and imposed instead contributions in money on all except chios and lesbos both found their resources for this war separately to exceed the sum of their strength when the alliance flourished intact
having now given the result of my inquiries into early times i grant that there will be a difficulty in believing every particular detail the way that most men deal with traditions even traditions of their own country
pisistratus was really supreme
yet not liking to be apprehended and risk their lives for nothing fell upon hipparchus near the temple of the daughters of leos
which have not been obscured by time for instance
kings have two votes each the fact being that they have only one
so little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth accepting readily the first story that comes to hand on the whole however the conclusions i have drawn from the proofs quoted may i believe safely be relied on
to come to this war despite the known disposition of the actors in a struggle to overrate its importance
so my habit has been to make the speakers say what was in my opinion demanded of them by the various occasions of course adhering as closely as possible to the general sense of what they really said and with reference to the narrative of events
far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand i did not even trust my own impressions but it rests partly on what i saw myself partly on what others saw for me the accuracy of the report being always tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible
in fine i have written my work not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment but as a possession for all time the median war the greatest achievement of past times yet found a speedy decision in two actions by sea and two by land
here by the parties contending the old inhabitants being sometimes removed to make room for others never was there so much banishing and blood shedding now on the field of battle now in the strife of faction
there were great droughts in sundry places and consequent famines and that most calamitous and awfully fatal visitation the plague all this came upon them with the late war which was begun by the athenians and peloponnesians
to the question why they broke the treaty i answer by placing first an account of their grounds of complaint and points of difference that no one may ever have to ask the immediate cause which plunged the hellenes into a war of such magnitude
at the office of the king's attorney let us leave the banker driving his horses at their fullest speed
and had left home in the carriage she directed her course towards the faubourg saint germain went down the rue mazarine and stopped at the passage du pont neuf she descended and went through the passage
she was very plainly dressed as would be the case with a woman of taste walking in the morning
and directed the driver to go to the rue de harlay as soon as she was seated in the vehicle she drew from her pocket a very thick black veil which she tied on to her straw bonnet she then replaced the bonnet and saw with pleasure in a little pocket mirror
that her white complexion and brilliant eyes were alone visible the cab crossed the pont neuf and entered the rue de harlay by the place dauphine the driver was paid as the door opened
there was a great deal going on that morning and many business like persons at the palais business like persons pay very little attention to women
than any other woman calling upon her lawyer
the instant she appeared the door keeper rose came to her and asked her whether she was not the person with whom the procureur had made an appointment and on her affirmative answer being given
the magistrate was seated in an arm chair writing with his back towards the door he did not move as he heard it open and the door keeper pronounce the words walk in madame and then reclose it
but no sooner had the man's footsteps ceased than he started up drew the bolts closed the curtains and examined every corner of the room then when he had assured himself that he could neither be seen nor heard and was consequently relieved of doubts he said
thanks madame thanks for your punctuality and he offered a chair to madame danglars which she accepted for her heart beat so violently that she felt nearly suffocated it is a long time madame said the procureur
describing a half circle with his chair so as to place himself exactly opposite to madame danglars it is a long time since i had the pleasure of speaking alone with you and i regret that we have only now met to enter upon a painful conversation
nevertheless sir you see i have answered your first appeal although certainly the conversation must be much more painful for me than for you
it is true then he said rather uttering his thoughts aloud than addressing his companion it is true then
it is true that every step in our lives is like the course of an insect on the sands it leaves its track alas to many the path is traced by tears sir said madame danglars
you can feel for my emotion can you not spare me then i beseech you when i look at this room whence so many guilty creatures have departed trembling and ashamed when i look at that chair before which i now sit trembling and ashamed
oh it requires all my reason to convince me that i am not a very guilty woman and you a menacing judge
i feel that my place is not in the judge's seat but on the prisoner's stool you said madame danglars yes i i think sir you exaggerate your situation said madame danglars whose beautiful eyes sparkled for a moment
the paths of which you were just speaking have been traced by all young men of ardent imaginations besides the pleasure there is always remorse from the indulgence of our passions and after all what have you men to fear from all this
the world excuses and notoriety ennobles you madame replied villefort you know that i am no hypocrite or at least that i never deceive without a reason if my brow be severe it is because many misfortunes have clouded it
if my heart be petrified it is that it might sustain the blows it has received i was not so in my youth i was not so on the night of the betrothal
but since then everything has changed in and about me i am accustomed to brave difficulties and in the conflict to crush those who by their own free will or by chance voluntarily or involuntarily interfere with me in my career
it is generally the case that what we most ardently desire is as ardently withheld from us by those who wish to obtain it or from whom we attempt to snatch it thus the greater number of a man's errors
come before him disguised under the specious form of necessity then after error has been committed in a moment of excitement of delirium or of fear we see that we might have avoided and escaped it
the means we might have used which we in our blindness could not see then seem simple and easy and we say why did i not do this instead of that women on the contrary are rarely tormented with remorse
for the decision does not come from you your misfortunes are generally imposed upon you and your faults the results of others crimes in any case sir you will allow replied madame danglars
poor thing said villefort pressing her hand it was too severe for your strength for you were twice overwhelmed and yet well well i must tell you collect all your courage for you have not yet heard all
what is there more to hear you only look back to the past and it is indeed bad enough well picture to yourself a future more gloomy still certainly frightful perhaps sanguinary
the baroness knew how calm villefort naturally was and his present excitement frightened her so much that she opened her mouth to scream but the sound died in her throat how has this terrible past been recalled cried villefort
how is it that it has escaped from the depths of the tomb and the recesses of our hearts where it was buried to visit us now like a phantom whitening our cheeks and flushing our brows with shame alas said hermine
doubtless it is chance chance
no no madame there is no such thing as chance oh yes has not a fatal chance revealed all this was it not by chance the count of monte cristo bought that house was it not by chance he caused the earth to be dug up
is it not by chance that the unfortunate child was disinterred under the trees that poor innocent offspring of mine which i never even kissed but for whom i wept many many tears
nothing was found beneath the flowers there was no child disinterred no you must not weep no you must not groan you must tremble what can you mean asked madame danglars shuddering
digging underneath these trees found neither skeleton nor chest because neither of them was there neither of them there
no said villefort burying his face in his hands no a hundred times no then you did not bury the poor child there sir why did you deceive me where did you place it tell me where there
but listen to me listen and you will pity me who has for twenty years alone borne the heavy burden of grief i am about to reveal without casting the least portion upon you oh you frighten me but speak i will listen you recollect that sad night
when you were half expiring on that bed in the red damask room while i scarcely less agitated than you awaited your delivery the child was born was given to me motionless breathless voiceless we thought it dead
as though she would spring from her chair but villefort stopped and clasped his hands as if to implore her attention we thought it dead he repeated i placed it in the chest which was to take the place of a coffin i descended to the garden i dug a hole
and then flung it down in haste scarcely had i covered it with earth when the arm of the corsican was stretched towards me i saw a shadow rise and at the same time a flash of light i felt pain
and you almost dying yourself came to meet me we were obliged to keep silent upon the dreadful catastrophe you had the fortitude to regain the house assisted by your nurse a duel was the pretext for my wound
though we scarcely expected it our secret remained in our own keeping alone i was taken to versailles for three months i struggled with death at last as i seemed to cling to life i was ordered to the south
walking six leagues a day madame de villefort followed the litter in her carriage
thence i passed on to the rhone whence i descended merely with the current to arles at arles i was again placed on my litter and continued my journey to marseilles my recovery lasted six months i never heard you mentioned
and i did not dare inquire for you when i returned to paris i learned that you
always the same always the child's corpse coming every night in my dreams rising from the earth and hovering over the grave with menacing look and gesture i inquired immediately on my return to paris the house had not been inhabited since we left it
but it had just been let for nine years i found the tenant i pretended that i disliked the idea that a house belonging to my wife's father and mother should pass into the hands of strangers
would he not one day make you pay for keeping this terrible secret would it not be a sweet revenge for him when he found that i had not died from the blow of his dagger it was therefore necessary before everything else and at all risks
that i should cause all traces of the past to disappear that i should destroy every material vestige too much reality would always remain in my recollection it was for this i had annulled the lease it was for this i had come it was for this i was waiting
night arrived i allowed it to become quite dark i was without a light in that room when the wind shook all the doors behind which i continually expected to see some spy concealed i trembled
i seemed everywhere to hear your moans behind me in the bed and i dared not turn around my heart beat so violently that i feared my wound would open at length one by one
i understood that i had nothing to fear that i should neither be seen nor heard so i decided upon descending to the garden
i consider myself as brave as most men but when i drew from my breast the little key of the staircase which i had found in my coat that little key we both used to cherish so much which you wished to have fastened to a golden ring
when i opened the door and saw the pale moon shedding a long stream of white light on the spiral staircase like a spectre i leaned against the wall and nearly shrieked i seemed to be going mad at last i mastered my agitation
i descended the staircase step by step the only thing i could not conquer was a strange trembling in my knees i grasped the railings if i had relaxed my hold for a moment i should have fallen i reached the lower door
outside this door a spade was placed against the wall i took it and advanced towards the thicket i had provided myself with a dark lantern in the middle of the lawn i stopped to light it then i continued my path
it was the end of november all the verdure of the garden had disappeared the trees were nothing more than skeletons with their long bony arms and the dead leaves sounded on the gravel under my feet my terror overcame me to such a degree as i approached the thicket
no noise disturbed the silence but the owl whose piercing cry seemed to be calling up the phantoms of the night i tied my lantern to a forked branch i had noticed a year before
the grass had grown very thickly there during the summer and when autumn arrived no one had been there to mow it still one place where the grass was thin attracted my attention it evidently was there i had turned up the ground i went to work
the hour then for which i had been waiting during the last year had at length arrived how i worked how i hoped how i struck every piece of turf thinking to find some resistance to my spade but no i found nothing
though i had made a hole twice as large as the first i thought i had been deceived had mistaken the spot i turned around i looked at the trees i tried to recall the details which had struck me at the time
a cold sharp wind whistled through the leafless branches and yet the drops fell from my forehead i recollected that i was stabbed just as i was trampling the ground to fill up the hole while doing so i had leaned against a laburnum
behind me was an artificial rockery intended to serve as a resting place for persons walking in the garden in falling my hand relaxing its hold of the laburnum felt the coldness of the stone on my right i saw the tree behind me the rock
i stood in the same attitude and threw myself down i rose and again began digging and enlarging the hole still i found nothing nothing the chest was no longer there the chest no longer there murmured madame danglars choking with fear
think not i contented myself with this one effort continued villefort no i searched the whole thicket i thought the assassin having discovered the chest and supposing it to be a treasure had intended carrying it off but perceiving his error
had dug another hole and deposited it there but i could find nothing then the idea struck me that he had not taken these precautions and had simply thrown it in a corner in the last case i must wait for daylight to renew my search i remained in the room and waited
oh heavens when daylight dawned i went down again my first visit was to the thicket i hoped to find some traces which had escaped me in the darkness
i had turned up the earth over a surface of more than twenty feet square and a depth of two feet a laborer would not have done in a day what occupied me an hour but i could find nothing absolutely nothing then i renewed the search supposing it had been thrown aside
it would probably be on the path which led to the little gate but this examination was as useless as the first and with a bursting heart i returned to the thicket which now contained no hope for me oh cried madame danglars
it was enough to drive you mad i hoped for a moment that it might said villefort but that happiness was denied me however recovering my strength and my ideas why said i should that man have carried away the corpse
but you said replied madame danglars he would require it as a proof ah no madame that could not be dead bodies are not kept a year they are shown to a magistrate and the evidence is taken now nothing of the kind has happened
what then asked hermine trembling violently something more terrible more fatal more alarming for us the child was perhaps alive and the assassin may have saved it
my child was alive said she you buried my child alive
madame danglars had risen and stood before the procureur whose hands she wrung in her feeble grasp i know not i merely suppose so as i might suppose anything else replied villefort with a look so fixed
it indicated that his powerful mind was on the verge of despair and madness ah my child my poor child cried the baroness falling on her chair and stifling her sobs in her handkerchief villefort becoming somewhat reassured
perceived that to avert the maternal storm gathering over his head
you understand then that if it were so said he rising in his turn and approaching the baroness to speak to her in a lower tone we are lost this child lives and some one knows it lives some one is in possession of our secret
and since monte cristo speaks before us of a child disinterred when that child could not be found it is he who is in possession of our secret just god avenging god murmured madame danglars
villefort's only answer was a stifled groan but the child the child sir repeated the agitated mother how i have searched for him replied villefort wringing his hands how i have called him in my long sleepless nights
how i have longed for royal wealth to purchase a million of secrets from a million of men and to find mine among them at last one day when for the hundredth time i took up my spade i asked myself again and again
what the corsican could have done with the child a child encumbers a fugitive perhaps on perceiving it was still alive he had thrown it into the river
a man may murder another out of revenge but he would not deliberately drown a child perhaps continued villefort he had put it in the foundling hospital oh yes yes cried the baroness my child is there
i ran to the hospital and learned that the same night the night of the twentieth of september a child had been brought there wrapped in part of a fine linen napkin purposely torn in half this portion of the napkin was marked with half a baron's crown
and the letter h truly truly said madame danglars all my linen is marked thus monsieur de nargonne was a baronet and my name is hermine thank god my child was not then dead no it was not dead
villefort shrugged his shoulders do i know said he and do you believe that if i knew
alas no i know not a woman about six months after came to claim it with the other half of the napkin this woman gave all the requisite particulars and it was intrusted to her but you should have inquired for the woman you should have traced her
and what do you think i did i feigned a criminal process and employed all the most acute bloodhounds and skilful agents in search of her
and there they lost her they lost her yes forever madame danglars had listened to this recital with a sigh a tear or a shriek for every detail and this is all said she and you stopped there
oh no said villefort i never ceased to search and to inquire however the last two or three years i had allowed myself some respite but now i will begin with more perseverance and fury than ever since fear urges me not my conscience but
oh the wickedness of man is very great said villefort since it surpasses the goodness of god did you observe that man's eyes while he was speaking to us no but have you ever watched him carefully
doubtless he is capricious but that is all one thing alone struck me of all the exquisite things he placed before us he touched nothing i might have suspected he was poisoning us and you see you would have been deceived
yes doubtless but believe me that man has other projects for that reason i wished to see you to speak to you to warn you against every one but especially against him tell me cried villefort
fixing his eyes more steadfastly on her than he had ever done before did you ever reveal to any one our connection never to any one you understand me replied villefort affectionately when i say any one pardon my urgency
to any one living i mean yes yes i understand very well ejaculated the baroness never i swear to you were you ever in the habit of writing in the evening what had transpired in the morning do you keep a journal
and why he speaks in our presence of children that have been disinterred in a garden villefort pronounced these words with an accent which would have made the count shudder had he heard him then he pressed the hand the baroness reluctantly gave him and led her respectfully back to the door
once upon a time there was a woman whose husband died while she was pregnant and she was very unhappy
she was left well off and among her property were three gold coins and as she was afraid of these being stolen she decided to place them in the care of the village headman so she took them to him and asked him to keep them till her child was born
and no one was present at the time but the headman's wife in due time her child was born and by the mercy of singh chando it was a son and when the boy had grown a bit and could run alone his mother decided to take back the gold coins
so she went to the headman and asked him for them but he and his wife said
we know of no gold coins where are your witnesses you must have had witnesses in such a business and they drove her out she went away crying and called the villagers together and asked them to decide the matter so they questioned her and the headman
but as it was word against word they could come to no decision so they settled to put the parties on oath but the headman and the woman both swore that they had spoken the truth saying may we die if we have spoken falsely
then the villagers made them swear by their children and the woman and the headman laid their hands on the heads of their sons and swore and when the woman swore her son fell down dead and she took up the dead body in her arms and ran away with it
the villagers were very sorry for what had happened but the headman and his wife abused them for not having believed their word the woman had not gone very far before she met a stranger who asked why she was crying and when she told him he said
do not cry you told one falsehood and so your son has died take your child back to the villagers and tell them that it was five gold coins and not three that you gave to the headman and if you do this the child will come to life again
so the woman hastened back and found the villagers still assembled and she told them as the stranger had directed and she agreed to be sworn again on the body of the child and the headman promised to pay five gold pieces if the child were restored to life
so the woman laid her hands on the dead child and swore and it was restored to life then the headman was dumbfounded and reluctantly brought out five gold pieces and gave them to the woman
she gave five rupees to the villagers and they made the headman give them ten rupees for having deceived them and they bought pigs and had a feast in the course of time the boy grew up and his mother urged him to marry he asked her
if she knew how to choose a wife and also what sort of cattle to buy and she said that she did not know her husband had not told her this so the youth said that he would go to singh chando and ask
his mother washed his clothes for him and gave him food for the journey and he set out on the way he met a man who asked him where he was going and he answered that he was going to make a petition to singh chando then said the man make a petition for me also
i have so much wealth that i cannot look after it all ask him to take away half from me the youth promised and went on and he met another man who said that he had so many cattle that he could not build enough cow houses for them
and he promised and went on and came to singh chando and there he asked how to choose a wife and how to buy cattle and singh chando said
when you buy a bullock first put your hand on its quarter and if it shrinks and tries to get free buy it and when you want a wife enquire first as to the character of her father and mother good parents make good children
then the youth asked about the two men he had met singh chando said tell the first man when he is ploughing to plough two or three furrows beyond the boundary of his field and his wealth will diminish
and tell the second man to drive away three or four of his cattle every day and their number will decrease so the youth returned and met the man who had too many cattle and told him what chando had said and the man thought
if i drive away three or four head of cattle every day i shall soon become poor so from that time he looked out for any straying cattle and would drive them home with his own if the owner claimed them he gave them up
but if no claimant appeared he kept them and so he became richer than ever and the youth went on and met the man who was too rich and when he heard what chando had said he thought
if i plough over the boundary on to my neighbour's land it will be a great sin and i shall soon become poor and he went to his ploughmen and told them never to plough right up to the edge of the field but to leave two of three furrows space
and they obeyed and from that time he grew richer than ever and the youth returned to his mother and told her all that had happened and they understood the meaning of the advice which chando had given to the two men and acted accordingly
chapter six a chapter for schoolgirls every fall a larger number of young girls leave home to come east to the various finishing schools in this section of the country
for the benefit of those who are making this trip for the first time we outline a few of the more important points in connection with the preliminaries to the trip east together with minute instructions as to the journey itself selecting a proper school
this is of course mainly a parent's problem and is best solved by resorting to the following formula let a and b represent two young girls finishing schools in the east missus raleigh jones x from the west sends her daughter to a
missus borax y from the same city sends her daughter to b upon consulting the local social register it is found that mister raleigh jones is a member of the union colonial town and country and valley hunt clubs
and that mister borax is an undertaker shall missus f b gerald z send her daughter annette to a or to b and why
answer a because life is real life is earnest and the grave is not its goal correct equipment for the schoolgirl having selected an educational institution
the next requisite is a suitable equipment girls who live in other parts of the united states are often surprised to discover that the clothes which they have purchased at the best store in their home town are totally unsuited for the rough climate of the east
i would therefore recommend the following list subject of course to variation in individual cases one dress
one dress swiss dotted blue or one dress swiss undotted white fifteen yards tulle best quality pink
four bottles perfume domestic or one bottle perfume french twelve dozen dorine men's pocket size
assorted one brassiere or riding habit one hundred boxes aspirin for dances and house parties one wave permanent for conversation twenty four waves temporary
ten thousand nets hair one hundred thousand pins hair
en route after the purchase of a complete outfit it will be necessary to say goodbye to one's local friends
partings are always somewhat sad but it will be found that much simple pleasure may be derived from the last nights with the various boys to whom one is engaged in this connection however
it would be well to avoid making any rash statements regarding undying friendship and affection because when you next see eddie or walter at christmas time
and really after one starts dancing with yale men well it's a funny world in case you do not happen to meet any friends on the train
the surest way to protect yourself from any unwelcome advances is to buy a copy of the atlantic monthly and carry it in plain view next to a hare lip this is the safest protection for a travelling young girl that i know of
or their rheumatism if you are compelled to go to the dining car alone you will probably sit beside an elk with white socks who will call the waiter george along about the second course he will say to you it's warm for september isn't it
let him choke but do not be too hopeful as the chances are that he will dislodge the bone all will go well until the dessert when his wife will begin telling how raspberry sherbet always disagrees with her offer her your raspberry sherbet
after dinner you may wish to read for a while but the porter will probably have made up all the berths for the night it will also be found that the light in your berth does not work so you will be awake for a long time finally
just as you are leaving buffalo you will at last get to sleep and when you open your eyes again you will be in buffalo there will be two more awakenings that night
where a merry wedding party with horns and cow bells will follow the lucky bride and groom into your car and once at schenectady where the pullman car shock absorbing tests are held the next morning tired but unhappy you will reach new york
a journey around new york the aquarium take fifth avenue bus to times square transfer to forty second street crosstown get off at forty fourth street and walk one block south to the biltmore
the most interesting fish will be found underneath the hanging clock near the telephone booths grant's tomb take fifth avenue bus and a light lunch change at washington square to a blue serge or dotted swiss
ride to the end of the line and walk three blocks east then return the same way you came followed by three fast sets of tennis a light supper and early to bed if you do not feel better in the morning
cut out milk fresh fruit and uncooked foods for a while metropolitan museum of art take subway to brooklyn flatbush then ask the subway guard where to go he will tell you the bronx
take three oranges a lemon three of gin to one of vermouth with a dash of bitters serve cold the ritz take taxicab and fifty dollars
brooklyn bridge terrible and their auction is worse when you have visited all these places it will probably be time to take the train to your school the first days in the new school
the first week of school life is apt to be quite discouraging and we can not too emphatically warn the young girl not to do anything rash under the influence of homesickness
it is in this initial period that many girls feeling utterly alone and friendless write those letters to boys back home which are later so difficult to pass off with a laugh it is during this first attack of homesickness also that many girls in their loneliness
we advise go slow at first becoming acclimatized in your first day at school you will be shown your room in your room you will find a sad eyed fat girl
you will be told that this will be your room mate for the year you will find that you have drawn a blank
that her paw made his money in oil and that she is religious you will be nice to her for the first week because you aren't taking any chances at the start you will tolerate her for the rest of the year because she will do your lessons for you every night
across the hall from you there will be two older girls who are back for their second year one of them will remind you of the angel painted on the ceiling of the victory theatre back home until she starts telling about her summer at narragansett
you go to miss french and ask her if you can have your cousin visit you she sniffs at the cousin and tell's you that she must have a letter from charley's father one from charley's minister one from the governor of your state
and one from some disinterested party certifying that charley has never been in the penitentiary has never committed arson and is a legitimate child
charley will come and will be ushered into the reception room while he is sitting there alone the entire school will walk slowly one by one past the open door and look in at him
this will cause charley to perspire freely and to wish to god he had worn his dark suit it is not at all likely that you will be allowed to go to new haven during your first year which is quite a pity as this city founded in sixteen thirty eight
is rich in historical interest it was here for example in eighteen ninety three that yale defeated harvard at football and the historic pigskin which was used that day is still preserved intact
many other quaint relics are to be seen in and around the city of elms mementos of the past which bring to the younger generation a knowledge and respect for things gone in the month of june for example
there is really nothing which quite conjures up for the college youth of today a sense of the mutability and impermanence of this mortal life so much as the sight of a member of the class of eighteen seventy five after three days intensive drinking eheu fugaces
illustration caption who shall write first is a question that has perplexed many a lady or gentleman who is anxious to do the correct thing under any circumstances a lady who has left town may send a brief note or a p p c
to a gentleman who remains at home if the gentleman is her husband and if she has left town with his business partner neither the note nor the card requires an acknowledgment
the squire himself was the type of a class found only among the rural population of our southern states a class the individuals of which are connected by a general similarity of position and circumstance
so does the country gentleman alone in the midst of his broad estate outgrow the man of crowds and conventionalities in our cities the oak may have the advantage in the comparison as his locality and consequent superiority are permanent
the squire out of his own district we ignore whether intrinsically or simply in default of comparison at home he is invariably a great man such at least was squire hardy sour and cynical in speech yet overflowing with human kindness
he judged by the law of procrustes and permitted no appeals opinionated and arbitrary as the czar he was sauced by his negroes respected and loved by his neighbors led by the nose by his wife and daughters and the abject slave of his grandchildren
his house was as big as a barn and as his sons and daughters married they brought their mates home to the old mansion it will be time enough for them to hive quoth the squire when the old box is full notwithstanding his contempt for fast men nowadays
he is rather pleased with any allusion to his own youthful reputation in that line and not unfrequently tells a good story on himself we can not omit one told by a neighbor as being characteristic of the times and manners forty years ago
at culpepper court house or some court house thereabout dick hardy then a good humored gay young bachelor and the prime favorite of both sexes was called upon to carve the pig at the court dinner the district judge was at the table
the lawyers justices and everybody else that felt disposed to dine at dick's right elbow sat a militia colonel who was tricked out in all the pomp and circumstance admitted by his rank
he had probably been engaged on some court martial imposing fifty cent fines on absentees from the last general muster howbeit dick in thrusting his fork into the back of the pig bespattered the officer's regimentals with some of the superfluous gravy
beg your pardon said dick as he went on with his carving now these were times when the war spirit was high and chivalry at a premium beg your pardon might serve as a napkin to wipe the stain from one's honor
but did not touch the question of the greased and spotted regimentals the colonel swelling with wrath seized a spoon and deliberately dipping it into the gravy dashed it over dick's prominent shirt frill all saw the act and with open eyes and mouth sat in astonished silence
leaned back in his chair with arms akimbo regarding the young farmer with cool disdain a murmur of surprise and indignation arose from the congregated guests dick's face turned red as a turkey gobbler's he deliberately took the pig by the hind legs
stunned by the squashing blow astounded and blinded with streams of gravy and wads of stuffing he attempted to rise but blow after blow from the fat pig fell upon his bewildered head he seized a carving knife and attempted to defend himself with blind but ineffectual fury
and at length with a desperate effort rose and took to his heels dick hardy whose wrath waxed hotter and hotter followed belaboring him unmercifully at every step around the table through the hall and into the street the crowd shouting and applauding
we are sorry to learn that among this crowd were lawyers sheriffs magistrates and constables and that even his honor the judge forgetting his dignity and position shouted in a loud voice give it to him dick hardy there's no law in christendom against basting a man with a roast pig
dick's weapon failed before his anger and when at length the battered colonel escaped into the door of a friendly dwelling the victor had nothing in his hands but the hind legs of the roaster
the company reassembled and finished their dinner as best they might in reply to a toast hardy made a speech wherein he apologized for sacrificing the principal dinner dish and as he expressed it for putting public property to private uses
in reply to this speech a treat was ordered
and it is presumable the day wound up with a spree after the squire got older and a family grew up around him he was not always victorious in his contests for example a question lately arose about the refurnishing of the house
on their return from a visit to richmond the ladies took it into their heads that the parlors looked bare and old fashioned and it was decided by them in secret conclave that a change was necessary what said he in a towering passion
isn't it enough that you spend your time and money in vinegar to sour sweet peaches and your sugar to sweeten crab apples that you must turn the house you were born in topsy turvy god help us we've a house with windows to let the light in and you want curtains to keep it out
the squire smote the oak floor with his heavy cane and the rosy petitioners fled from his presence laughing in due time however the parlors were furnished with carpets curtains paper and all the fixtures of modern luxury
the ladies were of course greatly delighted and while professing great aversion and contempt for the tawdry lumber it was plain to see that the worthy man enjoyed their pleasure as much as they did the new furniture
on another occasion too did the doughty squire suffer defeat under circumstances far more humiliating and from an adversary far less worthy the western horizon was blushing rosy red at the coming of the sun
whose descending chariot was hidden by the thick indian summer haze that covered lowland and mountain as it were with a violet tinted veil this was the condition of things we were going to say
when squire hardy sallied forth charged with a small bag of salt for the purpose of looking after his farm generally and particularly of salting his sheep it was an interesting sight to see the old gentleman with his dignified portly figure
marching at the head of a long procession of improved breeds the universally received emblems of innocence and patience barring his modern costume he might have suggested to the artist's mind a picture of one of the patriarchs having come to a convenient place
expressing their pleasure at the expected treat by gentle bleatings the squire stooped to spread the salt the black ram either from most uncivil impatience or mistaking the movement of the proprietor's coat tail for a challenge pitched into him incontinently
an attack from behind so sudden and unexpected threw the squire sprawling on his face into a stone pile oh never was the thunder's jar the red tornado's wasting wing or all the elemental war
like the fury of squire hardy on that occasion he recovered his feet with the agility of a boy his nose bleeding and a stone in each hand the timid flock looked all aghast while the audacious offender
so far from having shown any disposition to skulk stood shaking his head and threatening as if he had a mind to follow up the dastardly attack the squire let fly one stone which grazed the villain's head and killed a lamb
who had been squirrel shooting made his appearance in time to save them quick quick young man your gun
the squire was frantic with rage the cause of which our hero having seen something of the affray easily divined he was unwilling however to trust his hair triggered piece in the hands of his excited host
kill him shoot don't let him live a minute crayon leveled his piece and fired the offender made a bound and fell dead the black blood spouting from his forehead in a stream as thick as your thumb
there now exclaimed the squire with infinite satisfaction you've got it you ungrateful brute
and this will teach him a good lesson in all likelihood replied crayon dryly it will break him of this trick of butting not long after this occurrence squire hardy went to hear an itinerant phrenologist who lectured in the village
in the progress of his discourse the lecturer for purposes of illustration introduced the skulls of several animals mapped off in the most correct and scientific manner observe ladies and gentlemen the head of the wolf
combativeness enormously developed alimentiveness large while conscientiousness is entirely wanting on the other hand look at this cranium here combativeness is a nullity absolutely wanting
while the fullness of the sentimental organs indicate at once the mild and peaceful disposition of the sheep the squire who had listened with great attention up to this point hastily rose to his feet a sheep he exclaimed
did you call a sheep a peaceful animal i tell you sir it is the most ferocious and unruly beast in existence sir i had a ram once my dear sir cried the astonished lecturer on the authority of our most distinguished writers
the sheep is an emblem of peace and innocence an emblem of the devil interrupted the squire boiling over you are an ignorant impostor and your science a humbug i had a ram once that would have taught you more in five seconds than you've learned from books in all your lifetime
a letter from petroleum v nasby
that beautiful city visited for that purpose
and who hev sworn allejinse to a flag with thirty six stars onto it at cleveland my esteemed and life long friend and co laborer
but he failed us and it wuz decided in a cabinet meetin
and so stated but seward remarked with a groan that ef ever there wuz a party since parties wuz invented wich needed prayin for ours wuz that party and parson
ef yoo hev any agonizin petitions
offer em up for these fellers ef there is any efficacy in prayer it's my honest unbiased opinion
sich a magnificent chance to make it manifest try yoor self particularly on custer tho after all continyood he in a musin abstracted sort a way wich he's fallen into lately the fellow is sich a triflin bein
that he reely kin hardly be held sponsible for what he's doin
good hevens they'r mostly druv to it by hunger and the secretary maundered on suthin about sixty days and ninety days
so receevin transportashen and suffishent money from the secret service fund for expenses i departed for cleveland and after a tejus trip thro an ablishn country i arrived there my thots were gloomy beyond expression
i hed recently gone through this same country ez chaplin to the presidential tour
here wuz where the cheers for grant were vociferous with nary a snort for his eggslency
to a deestrick assessor there wuz but why recount my sufferins why harrow up the public bosom or lasserate the public mind suffice to say i endoored it
suffice to say that i hed strength left to ride up bank street in cleveland
the evenin i arrived the delegates sich ez wuz on hand held a informal meetin to arrange matters so ez they wood work smooth when the crowd finally got together
there wuz custar michigan with his hair freshly oiled and curled and busslin about ez though he hed cheated hisself into the beleef that he reely amounted to suthin and there wuz seventy eight other men who hed distinguished theirselves in the late war
but who hed never got their deserts ceptin by brevet owin to the fact that the administrashn wuz ablishn
tho why that shood hev bin the case i coodent see they hevin bin to an alarmin extent quarter masters and commissaries and in the recrootin service til i notist the prevailin color their noses
then i knowd all about it there wuz another pekooliarity about it which for a time amoozed me them ez wuz present wuz divided into two classes
and them ez expected to be shortly
and on the other class the most wolfish hungry fierce expression i hev ever witnessed
and damned the ablishunists with more emphasis and fervency than the others one enthoosiastic individual who hed bin quartermaster two years and hed bin allowed to resign jest after the battle mother
wich hevin his papers all destroyed made settlin with the government a easy matter wuz so feroshus that i felt called upon to check him
gently i hev bin thro this thing i hev my commission it broke out on me jest ez it hez on yoo
it ain't a assessorship i want sez he
murmured i an ef i accept the post orfis in my native village which i hev bin solissited so strongly to take that i hev finally yielded i do it only that i may devote my few remainin energies
ef i am whom wat is the savior and and where is
be quiet yoo idiot remarked i soothingly to him yoo'll git your apintment
wat a postmaster he must be whose gineral cussedness turns my stummick
asked ef there wuz ary man in the room who hed bin a prizner doorin the late fratricidle struggle
he hed bin taken three times and wuz altogether eighteen months in doorance vile in three diffrent prizns custar fell on his neck and asked him aggitatidly ef he wuz shoor quite shoor after sufferin all that
that he supported the policy of the president are you quite shoor quite shoor i am returned the phenomenon i stand by andrew johnson and his policy and i don't want no office
wat prizns wuz yoo incarcerated in asked i lookin at him with wonder fust at camp morton then at camp douglas and finally at johnson's island custar dropt him and the rest remarked that
they guessed he'd better not menshen his presence or consider hisself a delegate ez ginerous foes they loved him ruther better than a brother yet as the call didn't quite inclood him tho there wuz a delightful oneness between em
yet ef twuz all the same he hed better not announce hisself he wuz from kentucky i afterwards ascertained the next mornin suthin over two hundred more arriv
and the delegashens bein all in it wuz decided to go on with the show a big tent hed bin brought on from boston to accommodate the expected crowd
this settled the biznis wuz begun genral wool wuz made temporary chairman
general ewing made another extemporaneous address which he read from manuscript and we adjourned for dinner
the chairman asked who shood make speeches after dinner
wich he proposed to present et settry this occasioned another shindy wen the chairman remarked resolushens wen every delegate rose
et cetera i stood it until some one mentioned me ez chaplin to the expedition west when the pressure becum unendurable
in vain i ashoored em that there bein no consciences about the white house
in vain i ashoored em that i hed no influence with his majesty two thirds em pulled applicashens for places they wanted from the left breast coat pocket and insistid on my takin em
i told em that i cood do nuthin for em but they laft me to skorn
who hez inflooence with his eggslency and yoo must do it
and that way i took seezin a carpet sack wich by the way belonged to a delegate i took it to give myself the look of a traveler i rushed to the depot and startid home entirely satisfied that ef cleveland may be taken as a sample
i opened the carpet sack on the train spectin to find a clean shirt in it at least it contained to my disgust an address to be read before the cleveland convention
signed by eight hundred names and a copy the indiana state directory for eighteen sixty four the names wuz in one hand writin and wuz arranged alphabetically
chapter twenty one finding and losing a fortune our youthful dream of becoming farmers was now realized in fullest measure the clearing was gradually enlarged and abundant crops came to reward our efforts
the comfort and plenty we had hoped and struggled for was attained next came a development in the family fortunes that we had not dreamed of never had we thought to see the meeker family conducting a business that would require a london office
this unexpected prosperity came to us through the hop growing industry upon which we entered with all our force the business was well started by the time of my father's death in eighteen sixty nine and in the fifteen years following
the acreage planted to hops was increased until the crop yield of eighteen eighty two a yield of more than seventy one tons gave the puyallup valley the banner crop as to quantity of the united states
and some persons asserted of the world the public generally gave me the credit of introducing hop culture into the northwest therefore it seems fitting to tell here the story of the beginnings of an industry
that came to have great importance in march of eighteen sixty five charles wood of olympia
jacob r meeker who then lived on his claim in the puyallup valley john v meeker my brother passed by my cabin when he carried the sack of roots on his back
a distance of about twenty miles and from the sack i took roots enough to plant six hills of hops
my father planted the remainder
this was sold for eighty five cents a pound or a little more than a hundred and fifty dollars for the bale this sum was more money than had been received by any of the settlers in the puyallup valley except perhaps two
but not enough to plant an acre the following year eighteen sixty seven i planted four acres and for twenty six successive years thereafter we added to the area planted
but seeing that there were possibilities of great gain i took pains to study hop culture and found that by allowing our hops to mature thoroughly curing them at a low temperature and baling them while hot
which brought an average of seventy cents a pound my first hop house was built in eighteen sixty eight a log house it still stands in pioneer park in puyallup
we frequently employed more than a thousand people during harvest time many of these were indians some of whom would come for a thousand miles down the coast from british columbia and even the confines of alaska
they came in the great cedar log canoes manned with twenty paddlers or more for the most part i managed my indian workers very easily once i had to tie up two of them to a tree for getting drunk their friends came and stole away the prisoners
which was what i intended they should do it was in eighteen seventy eighteen years after my arrival from across the plains that i made my first return journey to the states i had to go through the mud to the columbia river
then out over the bar to the pacific ocean and down to san francisco then there was the seven days journey over the central and union pacific and connecting lines this meant sitting bolt upright all the way
for there were no sleeping cars then and no diners either about eighteen eighty two i had come to realize that the important market for hops was in england
first seven bales then the following year five hundred bales then fifteen hundred finally our annual shipments reached eleven thousand bales a year or the equivalent in value of half a million dollars
said at that time to be the largest export hop business
at one time i had two full trainloads between the pacific and the atlantic on their way to london i spent four winters in london dealing in the hop market little as i had thought ever to handle an international business
still less had i thought ever to write a book my first publication was an eighty page pamphlet descriptive of washington territory printed in eighteen seventy my first real book hop culture in the united states
was published in eighteen eighty three i mention this fact simply as one instance out of the many that could be given of the unexpected lines of development that life in the new land opened out to the pioneers
the hop business could not be called a venture it was simply a growth the conditions were favorable to us in that we could produce hops for the world's market at the lowest prices
we actually pressed the english growers so closely that more than fifteen thousand acres of hops were destroyed in that country our great prosperity was not to last one evening in eighteen ninety two
as i stepped out of my office and cast my eyes toward one group of hop houses it struck me that the hop foliage of a field near by was off color did not look natural one of my clerks from the office said the same thing
the vines did not look natural i walked down to the yards a quarter of a mile away and there first saw the hop louse the yard was literally alive with lice
and they were destroying at least the quality of the hops i issued a hop circular sending it to more than six hundred correspondents all along the coast in california oregon washington and british columbia
and before the week was out i began to receive samples from them and letters asking what was the matter with the hops it appeared that the attack of lice was simultaneous in oregon washington and british columbia
i sent my second son fred meeker to london to learn the english methods of fighting the pest and to import some spraying machinery we found to our cost however in the course of time
that the english methods did not suit our different conditions for while we could kill the lice we had to use so much spraying material on the dense foliage that in killing them we virtually destroyed the hops
instead of being able to sell our hops at the top price of the market we saw our product fall to the foot of the list the last crop i raised cost me eleven cents a pound and sold for three
under the hammer at sheriff's sale at that time i had advanced to my neighbors and others upon their hop crops more than a hundred thousand dollars which was lost these people simply could not pay
and i forgave the debt taking no judgments against them and i have never regretted the action all my accumulations were swept away and i quit the business or rather the business quit me
are not imaginary perhaps the letters themselves tell that they are truthful accounts of experiences that came into my own life with the army in the far west whether they be about indians desperadoes or hunting
not one little thing has been stolen they are of a life that has passed as has passed the buffalo and the antelope yes and the log and adobe quarters for the army all flowery descriptions have been omitted
as it seemed that a simple concise narration of events as they actually occurred was more in keeping with the life and that which came into it frances m a roe
kit carson colorado territory october eighteen seventy one
to tell you that we arrived here safely and will take the stage for fort lyon to morrow morning at six o'clock
where one feels there is danger of being murdered any minute not one woman have i seen here but there are men any number of dreadful looking men each one armed with big pistols and leather belts full of cartridges
but the houses we saw as we came from the station were worse even than the men they looked in the moonlight like huge cakes of clay where spooks and creepy things might be found the hotel is much like the houses
faye has just been in to say that only one of my trunks can be taken on the stage with us and of course i had to select one that has all sorts of things in it and consequently leave my pretty dresses here to be sent for
all but the japanese silk which happens to be in that trunk but imagine my mortification in having to go with faye to his regiment with only two dresses and then to make my shortcomings the more vexatious
faye will be simply fine all the time in his brand new uniform perhaps i can send a long letter soon if i live to reach that army post that still seems so far away
in an awful breakneck way the day was glorious and the atmosphere so clear we could see miles and miles in every direction but there was not one object to be seen on the vast rolling plains not a tree nor a house
except the wretched ranch and stockade where we got fresh horses and a perfectly uneatable dinner it was dark when we reached the post so of course we could see nothing that night
general and missus phillips gave us a most cordial welcome just as though they had known us always dinner was served soon after we arrived and the cheerful dining room and the table with its dainty china and bright silver was such a surprise
so much nicer than anything we had expected to find here and all so different from the terrible places we had seen since reaching the plains it was apparent at once that this was not a place for spooks general phillips is not a real general
i was so disappointed when i was told this but faye says that he is very much afraid that i will have cause sooner or later to think that the grade of captain is quite high enough
he thinks this way because having graduated at west point this year he is only a second lieutenant just now and general phillips is his captain and company commander
it seems that in the army lieutenants are called mister always
at least that is what they tell me but in faye's company the captain is called general and the first lieutenant is called major
i get things mixed sometimes most girls would a soldier in uniform waited upon us at dinner and that seemed so funny i wanted to watch him all the time which distracted me
i suppose for once i called general phillips mister it so happened too that just that instant there was not a sound in the room so everyone heard the blunder general phillips straightened back in his chair
and his little son gave a smothered giggle for which he should have been sent to bed at once but that was not all that soldier who had been so dignified and stiff
these soldiers are not nearly as nice as one would suppose them to be when one sees them dressed up in their blue uniforms with bright brass buttons and they can make mistakes too for yesterday when i asked that same man a question
he answered yes sorr then i smiled of course but he did not seem to have enough sense to see why when i told faye about it he looked vexed and said i must never laugh at an enlisted man
that it was not dignified in the wife of an officer to do so and then i told him that an officer should teach an enlisted man not to snicker at his wife and not to call her sorr which was disrespectful i wanted to say more
there is no high wall around it as there is at fort trumbull
in the center of which is a high flagstaff and a big cannon the buildings are very low and broad and are made of adobe a kind of clay and mud mixed together and the walls are very thick
runs all around the post and brings water to the trees and lawns but water for use in the houses is brought up in wagons from the arkansas river and is kept in barrels yesterday morning our first here
but there was nothing to be seen as it was still quite dark the drumming became less loud and then ceased altogether
they made me shiver this all suddenly ceased and immediately there were lights flashing some distance away and dozens of men seemed to be talking all at the same time some of them shouting here here
i began to think that perhaps indians had come upon us and called to faye
and that each man was answering to his name there was the same performance this morning and at breakfast i asked general phillips why soldiers required such a beating of drums and deafening racket generally to awaken them in the morning
but he did not tell me
yesterday morning directly after guard mounting faye put on his full dress uniform epaulets beautiful scarlet sash and sword and went over to the office of the commanding officer to report officially
and one can see by his very walk that he expects this to be remembered always so it is apparent to me that the safest thing to do is to call everyone general there seem to be so many here
and as we have to buy everything i said at dinner last evening that we must have some precisely like it supposing of course that general phillips would feel highly gratified because his taste was admired
but instead of the smile and gracious acquiescence i had expected there was another straightening back in the chair and a silence that was ominous and chilling
finally he recovered sufficient breath to tell me that at present there were no good carpenters in the company later on however i learned that only captains and officers of higher rank can have such things
the captains seem to have the best of everything and the lieutenants are expected to get along with smaller houses much less pay and much less everything else and at the same time perform all of the disagreeable duties
and perhaps by that time it will be just and fair for the lieutenants to have everything we saw our house yesterday quarters i must learn to say
all of the officers quarters are new and this set has never been occupied it has a hall with a pretty stairway three rooms and a large shed downstairs
and two rooms and a very large hall closet on the second floor a soldier is cleaning the windows and floors and making things tidy generally many of the men like to cook and do things for officers of their company
thereby adding to their pay and these men are called strikers there are four companies here three of infantry and one troop of cavalry you must always remember that faye is in the infantry
with the cavalry he has a classmate and a friend also which will make it pleasant for both of us in my letters to you i will disregard army etiquette and call the lieutenants by their rank otherwise you would not know of whom i was writing
an officer or civilian lieutenant baldwin has been on the frontier many years and is an experienced hunter of buffalo and antelope he says that i must commence riding horseback at once
and do all sorts of things we are to remain with general and missus phillips several days while our own house is being made habitable and in the meantime our trunks and boxes will come also the colored cook
that an officer left to be sold when he was retired last spring we got only enough to make ourselves comfortable during the winter for it seems to be the general belief here that these companies of infantry will be ordered to camp supply
indian territory in the spring it must be a most dreadful place with old log houses built in the hot sand hills and surrounded by almost every tribe of hostile indians
it may not be possible for me to write again for several days as i will be very busy getting settled in the house i must get things arranged just as soon as i can so i will be able to go out on horseback with faye and lieutenant baldwin
fort lyon colorado territory october eighteen seventy one when a very small girl i was told many wonderful tales about a grand indian chief
called red jacket by my great grandmother who you will remember saw him a number of times when she also was a small girl and since then almost all my life
i have wanted to see with my very own eyes an indian a real noble red man dressed in beautiful skins embroidered with beads and on his head long waving feathers well
missus phillips says that indians are all alike
and she must know for she has lived on the frontier a long time and has seen many indians of many tribes we went to las animas yesterday missus phillips missus cole and i to do a little shopping
there are several small stores in the half mexican village where curious little things from mexico can often be found if one does not mind poking about underneath the trash and dirt that is everywhere
while we were in the largest of these shops ten or twelve indians dashed up to the door on their ponies
came in the store and passed on quickly to the counter farthest back where the ammunition is kept as they came toward us in their imperious way never once looking to the right or to the left they seemed like giants
and to increase in size and numbers with every step their coming was so sudden we did not have a chance to get out of their way and it so happened that missus phillips and i were in their line of march
and when the one in the lead got to us we were pushed aside with such impatient force that we both fell over on the counter the others passed on just the same however and if we had fallen to the floor
i presume they would have stepped over us and otherwise been oblivious to our existence this was my introduction to an indian the noble red man as soon as they got to the counter they demanded powder
balls and percussion caps and as these things were given them they were stuffed down their muzzle loading rifles and what could not be rammed down the barrels was put in greasy skin bags and hidden under their blankets
i saw one test the sharp edge of a long wicked looking knife and then it also disappeared under his blanket all this time the other indians were on their ponies in front watching every move that was being made around them
there was only the one small door to the little adobe shop and into this an indian had ridden his piebald pony its forefeet were up a step on the sill and its head and shoulders were in the room
which made it quite impossible for us three frightened women to run out in the street so we got back of a counter and as missus phillips expressed it midway between the devil and the deep sea
there certainly could be no mistake about the devil side of it it was an awful situation to be in and one to terrify anybody we were actually prisoners penned in with all those savages
who were evidently in an ugly mood with quantities of ammunition within their reach and only two white men to protect us even the few small windows had iron bars across they could have killed every one of us
and ridden far away before anyone in the sleepy town found it out well when those inside had been given or had helped themselves to whatever they wanted out they all marched again quickly and silently
just as they had come in they instantly mounted their ponies and all rode down the street and out of sight at race speed some leaning so far over on their little beasts that one could hardly see the indian at all
the pony that was ridden into the store door was without a bridle and was guided by a long strip of buffalo skin which was fastened around his lower jaw by a slipknot
it is amazing to see how tractable the indians can make their ponies with only that one rein
and were greatly excited because they had just heard there was a small party of cheyennes down the river two or three miles the utes and cheyennes are bitter enemies he said that the utes were very cross
ready for the blood of indian or white man therefore he had permitted them to do about as they pleased while in the store particularly as we were there and he saw that we were frightened
that young man did not know that his own swarthy face was a greenish white all the time those indians were in the store not one penny did they pay for the things they carried off
only two years ago the entire ute nation was on the warpath killing every white person they came across and one must have much faith in indians to believe that their change of heart
they were all hideous with streaks of red or green paint on their faces that made them look like fiends their hair was roped with strips of bright colored stuff and hung down on each side of their shoulders in front
and of course had on long trouserlike leggings of skin and moccasins they were not tall but rather short and stocky the odor of those skins and of the indians themselves in that stuffy little shop
and then had hidden themselves on the top of a bluff overlooking the trail they knew the cheyennes to be following and had fired upon them as they passed below killing two and wounding a number of others
you can see how treacherous these indians are and how very far from noble is their method of warfare they are so disappointing too so wholly unlike cooper's red men
we were glad enough to get in the ambulance and start on our way to the post but alas our troubles were not over the mules must have felt the excitement in the air
they proceeded to run away with us we had the four little mules that are the special pets of the quartermaster and are known throughout the garrison as the shaved tails because the hair on their tails is kept closely cut down to the very tips
where it is left in a square brush of three or four inches they are perfectly matched coal black all over except their little noses and are quite small they are full of mischief and full of wisdom too
even for government mules and when one says let's take a sprint the others always agree about that there is never the slightest hesitation
which by offering to us infallible demonstration cuts off at once all doubt and difficulty by this argument too we may prove the infinity of the divine attributes
which i am afraid can never be ascertained with certainty from any other topic for how can an effect which either is finite or for aught we know may be so how can such an effect i say prove an infinite cause
the unity too of the divine nature it is very difficult if not absolutely impossible to deduce merely from contemplating the works of nature nor will the uniformity alone of the plan even were it allowed give us any assurance of that attribute
as if those advantages and conveniences in the abstract argument were full proofs of its solidity but it is first proper in my opinion to determine what argument of this nature you choose to insist on
and we shall afterwards from itself better than from its useful consequences endeavour to determine what value we ought to put upon it
which i would insist on is the common one whatever exists must have a cause or reason of its existence it being absolutely impossible for any thing to produce itself or be the cause of its own existence
in mounting up therefore from effects to causes we must either go on in tracing an infinite succession without any ultimate cause at all or must at last have recourse to some ultimate cause that is necessarily existent
of that cause which immediately preceded but the whole eternal chain or succession taken together is not determined or caused by any thing and yet it is evident that it requires a cause or reason
as much as any particular object which begins to exist in time the question is still reasonable why this particular succession of causes existed from eternity and not any other succession or no succession at all
if there be no necessarily existent being any supposition which can be formed is equally possible nor is there any more absurdity in nothing's having existed from eternity
than there is in that succession of causes which constitutes the universe what was it then which determined something to exist rather than nothing and bestowed being on a particular possibility exclusive of the rest
external causes there are supposed to be none chance is a word without a meaning was it nothing but that can never produce any thing we must therefore have recourse to a necessarily existent being
who carries the reason of his existence in himself and who cannot be supposed not to exist without an express contradiction there is consequently such a being that is there is a deity
though i know that the starting objections is his chief delight
it seems to me so obviously ill grounded and at the same time of so little consequence to the cause of true piety and religion that i shall myself venture to show the fallacy of it
nothing that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction whatever we conceive as existent we can also conceive as non existent there is no being therefore whose non existence implies a contradiction
consequently there is no being whose existence is demonstrable i propose this argument as entirely decisive and am willing to rest the whole controversy upon it it is pretended that the deity is a necessarily existent being
that if we knew his whole essence or nature we should perceive it to be as impossible for him not to exist as for twice two not to be four but it is evident that this can never happen while our faculties remain the same as at present
it will still be possible for us at any time to conceive the non existence of what we formerly conceived to exist nor can the mind ever lie under a necessity of supposing any object to remain always in being
in the same manner as we lie under a necessity of always conceiving twice two to be four
have no meaning or which is the same thing none that is consistent but further why may not the material universe be the necessarily existent being according to this pretended explication of necessity
we dare not affirm that we know all the qualities of matter and for aught we can determine it may contain some qualities which were they known would make its non existence appear as great a contradiction as that twice two is five
i find only one argument employed to prove that the material world is not the necessarily existent being and this argument is derived from the contingency both of the matter and the form of the world
and any form may be conceived to be altered such an annihilation or alteration therefore is not impossible
but it seems a great partiality not to perceive that the same argument extends equally to the deity so far as we have any conception of him and that the mind can at least imagine him to be non existent or his attributes to be altered
it must be some unknown inconceivable qualities which can make his non existence appear impossible or his attributes unalterable and no reason can be assigned why these qualities may not belong to matter
as they are altogether unknown and inconceivable they can never be proved incompatible with it add to this that in tracing an eternal succession of objects
it seems absurd to inquire for a general cause or first author how can any thing that exists from eternity have a cause since that relation implies a priority in time and a beginning of existence
in such a chain too or succession of objects each part is caused by that which preceded it and causes that which succeeds it where then is the difficulty but the whole you say wants a cause
like the uniting of several distinct countries into one kingdom or several distinct members into one body is performed merely by an arbitrary act of the mind and has no influence on the nature of things
did i show you the particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter i should think it very unreasonable should you afterwards ask me what was the cause of the whole twenty
this is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause of the parts
from starting any further difficulties yet i cannot forbear insisting still upon another topic it is observed by arithmeticians that the products of nine compose always either nine or some lesser product of nine
if you add together all the characters of which any of the former products is composed thus of eighteen twenty seven thirty six which are products of nine you make nine by adding one to eight two to seven three to six
and if you add three six and nine you make eighteen a lesser product of nine to a superficial observer so wonderful a regularity may be admired as the effect either of chance or design
but a skilful algebraist immediately concludes it to be the work of necessity and demonstrates that it must for ever result from the nature of these numbers
is it not probable i ask that the whole economy of the universe is conducted by a like necessity though no human algebra can furnish a key which solves the difficulty and instead of admiring the order of natural beings
may it not happen that could we penetrate into the intimate nature of bodies we should clearly see why it was absolutely impossible they could ever admit of any other disposition
so dangerous is it to introduce this idea of necessity into the present question and so naturally does it afford an inference directly opposite to the religious hypothesis
and who finding from mathematics that the understanding frequently leads to truth through obscurity and contrary to first appearances have transferred the same habit of thinking to subjects where it ought not to have place
other people even of good sense and the best inclined to religion feel always some deficiency in such arguments though they are not perhaps able to explain distinctly where it lies
the violence of revolutions is generally proportioned to the degree of the maladministration which has produced them
that the government of scotland having been during many years far more oppressive and corrupt than the government of england should have fallen with a far heavier ruin the movement against the last king of the house of stuart was in england conservative
in scotland destructive the english complained not of the law but of the violation of the law they rose up against the first magistrate merely in order to assert the supremacy of the law they were for the most part
from the ordinary methods prescribed by the law the convention which met at westminster though summoned by irregular writs was constituted on the exact model of a regular parliament no man was invited to the upper house
whose right to sit there was not clear the knights and burgesses were chosen by those electors who would have been entitled to choose the members of a house of commons called under the great seal the franchises of the forty shilling freeholder
of the householder paying scot and lot of the burgage tenant
of the master of arts of oxford were respected the sense of the constituent bodies was taken with as little violence on the part of mobs with as little trickery on the part of returning officers as at any general election of that age
when at length the estates met their deliberations were carried on with perfect freedom and in strict accordance with ancient forms there was indeed after the first flight of james
but that anarchy nowhere lasted longer than forty eight hours from the day on which william reached saint james's not even the most unpopular agents of the fallen government not even the ministers of the roman catholic church
had any thing to fear from the fury of the populace
the church established by law was the most odious institution in the realm the tribunals had pronounced some sentences so flagitious the parliament had passed some acts so oppressive that unless those sentences and those acts were treated as nullities
it would be impossible to bring together a convention commanding the public respect and expressing the public opinion it was hardly to be expected for example that the whigs in this day of their power would endure to see their hereditary leader
the son of a martyr the grandson of a martyr excluded from the parliament house in which nine of his ancestors had sate as earls of argyle and excluded by a judgment on which the whole kingdom cried shame still less was it to be expected
that they would suffer the election of members for counties and towns to be conducted according to the provisions of the existing law for under the existing law
several lords who had been deprived of their honours by sentences which the general voice loudly condemned as unjust and he took on himself to dispense with the act which deprived presbyterians of the elective franchise
the clergy of the established church were to use the phrase then common rabbled the morning of christmas day was fixed for the commencement of these outrages for nothing disgusted the rigid covenanter
more than the reverence paid by the prelatist to the ancient holidays of the church that such reverence may be carried to an absurd extreme is true but a philosopher may perhaps be inclined to think the opposite extreme not less absurd
and may ask why religion should reject the aid of associations which exist in every nation sufficiently civilised to have a calendar and which are found by experience to have a powerful and often a salutary effect
the puritan who was in general but too ready to follow precedents and analogies drawn from the history and jurisprudence of the jews might have found in the old testament quite as clear warrant for keeping festivals in honour of great events
and sacked the cellar and larder of the minister which at that season were probably better stocked than usual
sometimes beaten sometimes ducked his furniture was thrown out of the windows his wife and children turned out of doors in the snow he was then carried to the market place and exposed during some time as a malefactor
his gown was torn to shreds over his head if he had a prayer book in his pocket it was burned and he was dismissed with a charge never as he valued his life
so the episcopal parish priests were called were expelled the graver covenanters while they applauded the fervour of their riotous brethren were apprehensive that proceedings so irregular might give scandal and learned with especial concern
that here and there an achan had disgraced the good cause by stooping to plunder the canaanites whom he ought only to have smitten a general meeting of ministers and elders was called for the purpose of preventing such discreditable excesses
in this meeting it was determined that for the future the ejection of the established clergy
were in the highest degree offensive to william who had in the south of the island protected even benedictines and franciscans from insult and spoliation but though he had at the request of a large number of the noblemen and gentlemen of scotland
taken on himself provisionally the executive administration of that kingdom the means of maintaining order there were not at his command he had not a single regiment north of the tweed or indeed within many miles of that river
it was vain to hope that mere words would quiet a nation which had not in any age been very amenable to control and which was now agitated by hopes and resentments such as great revolutions following great oppressions naturally engender
a proclamation was however put forth directing that all people should lay down their arms and that till the convention should have settled the government the clergy of the established church should be suffered to reside on their cures without molestation
but this proclamation not being supported by troops was very little regarded on the very day after it was published at glasgow the venerable cathedral of that city almost the only fine church of the middle ages which stands uninjured in scotland
was attacked by a crowd of presbyterians from the meeting houses with whom were mingled many of their fiercer brethren from the hills it was a sunday but to rabble a congregation of prelatists was held to be a work of necessity and mercy
left scant leisure for the cultivation of the arts and sciences there was little money in private purses or public treasuries to be dedicated to schools libraries and museums few there were with time to read long and widely
and fewer still who could devote their lives to things that delight the eye and the mind and yet poor and meager as the intellectual life of the colonists may seem by way of comparison heroic efforts were made in every community to lift the people above the plane
of mere existence after the first clearings were opened in the forests those efforts were redoubled and with lengthening years told upon the thought and spirit of the land the appearance during the struggle with england
of an extraordinary group of leaders familiar with history political philosophy and the arts of war government and diplomacy itself bore eloquent testimony to the high quality of the american intellect no one not even the most critical
scattered from massachusetts to georgia the adamses ellsworth the morrises the livingstons hamilton franklin washington madison marshall henry the randolphs and the pinckneys
without coming to the conclusion that there was something in american colonial life which fostered minds of depth and power women surmounted even greater difficulties than the men in the process of self education
and their keen interest in public issues is evident in many a record like the letters of missus john adams to her husband during the revolution the writings of missus mercy otis warren the sister of james otis who measured her pen with the british propagandists
and the patriot newspapers founded and managed by women the leadership of the churches in the intellectual life of america the churches assumed a role of high importance
there were abundant reasons for this in many of the colonies maryland pennsylvania and new england the religious impulse had been one of the impelling motives in stimulating immigration in all the colonies
the clergy at least in the beginning formed the only class with any leisure to devote to matters of the spirit they preached on sundays and taught school on week days they led in the discussion of local problems and in the formation of political opinion
in new england the puritans were supreme notwithstanding the efforts of the crown to overbear their authority in the middle colonies particularly the multiplication of sects made the dominance of any single denomination impossible
which promised in time a separation of church and state and freedom of opinion the church of england virginia was the stronghold of the english system of church and state
the anglican faith and worship were prescribed by law sustained by taxes imposed on all and favored by the governor the provincial councilors and the richest planters the established church says lodge was one of the appendages of the virginia aristocracy
the church was also sanctioned by law and supported by taxes in the carolinas after seventeen o four and in georgia after that colony passed directly under the crown in seventeen fifty four
against the protests of the catholics it was likewise established in maryland in new york too notwithstanding the resistance of the dutch the established church was fostered by the provincial officials
and the anglicans embracing about one fifteenth of the population exerted an influence all out of proportion to their numbers many factors helped to enhance the power of the english church in the colonies
it was supported by the british government and the official class sent out to the provinces its bishops and archbishops in england were appointed by the king and its faith and service were set forth by acts of parliament
having its seat of power in the english monarchy it could hold its clergy and missionaries loyal to the crown and so counteract to some extent the independent spirit that was growing up in america the church always a strong bulwark of the state
therefore had a political role to play here as in england able bishops and far seeing leaders firmly grasped this fact about the middle of the eighteenth century and redoubled their efforts to augment the influence of the church in provincial affairs
who still cherished memories of bitter religious conflicts in the mother country puritanism in new england if the established faith made for imperial unity the same could not be said of puritanism
the plymouth pilgrims had cast off all allegiance to the anglican church and established a separate and independent congregation before they came to america
within the church soon after their arrival in massachusetts likewise flung off their yoke of union with the anglicans in each town a separate congregation was organized the male members choosing the pastor the teachers and the other officers
they also composed the voters in the town meeting where secular matters were determined the union of church and government was thus complete and uniformity of faith and life prescribed by law and enforced by civil authorities
but this worked for local autonomy instead of imperial unity the clergy became a powerful class dominant through their learning and their fearful denunciations of the faithless they wrote the books for the people to read
a day of rest that began at six o'clock on saturday evening and lasted until sunset on sunday all work all trading all amusement and all worldly conversation were absolutely prohibited during those hours
a thoughtless maid servant who for some earthly reason smiled in church was in danger of being banished as a vagabond robert pike a devout puritan thinking the sun had gone to rest ventured forth on horseback one sunday evening
and was luckless enough to have a ray of light strike him through a rift in the clouds
with persons accused of witchcraft the puritans were still more ruthless
eighteen people were hanged one was pressed to death many suffered imprisonment and two died in jail just about this time however there came a break in the uniformity of puritan rule
the crown and church in england had long looked upon it with disfavor
a new document issued seven years later wrested from the puritans of the colony the right to elect their own governor and reserved the power of appointment to the king it also abolished the rule limiting the suffrage to church members
substituting for it a simple property qualification thus a royal governor and an official family certain to be episcopalian in faith and monarchist in sympathies were forced upon massachusetts
and members of all religious denominations if they had the required amount of property were permitted to take part in elections by this act in the name of the crown the puritan monopoly was broken down in massachusetts
and that province was brought into line with connecticut rhode island and new hampshire where property not religious faith was the test for the suffrage growth of religious toleration
though neither the anglicans of virginia nor the puritans of massachusetts believed in toleration for other denominations that principle was strictly applied in rhode island there under the leadership of roger williams
liberty in matters of conscience was established in the beginning maryland by granting in sixteen forty nine freedom to those who professed to believe in jesus christ opened its gates to all christians and pennsylvania true to the tenets of the friends
gave freedom of conscience to those
to be the creator upholder and ruler of the world
by one circumstance or another the middle colonies were thus early characterized by diversity rather than uniformity of opinion dutch protestants huguenots quakers baptists presbyterians new lights moravians lutherans
catholics and other denominations became too strongly intrenched and too widely scattered to permit any one of them to rule if it had desired to do so there were communities and indeed whole sections where one or another church prevailed
toleration encouraged diversity and diversity in turn worked for greater toleration the government and faith of the dissenting denominations conspired with economic and political tendencies to draw america away from the english state
presbyterians quakers baptists and puritans had no hierarchy of bishops and archbishops to bind them to the seat of power in london neither did they look to that metropolis for guidance in interpreting articles of faith
local self government in matters ecclesiastical helped to train them for local self government in matters political the spirit of independence which led dissenters to revolt in the old world
when a man prides himself on being able to understand and interpret the writings of chrysippus say to yourself if chrysippus had not written obscurely this fellow would have had nothing to be proud of but what is it that i desire
to understand nature and to follow her accordingly i ask who is the interpreter on hearing that it is chrysippus i go to him but it seems i do not understand what he wrote so i seek one to interpret that
so far there is nothing to pride myself on
this itself is the only thing to be proud of but if i admire the interpretation and that alone what else have i turned out but a mere commentator instead of a lover of wisdom except indeed that i happen to be interpreting chrysippus instead of homer
so when any one says to me prithee read me chrysippus i am more inclined to blush when i cannot show my deeds to be in harmony and accordance with his sayings
remember that you are entertaining two guests body and soul what you give to the body you presently lose what you give to the soul you keep for ever
you who are eating and drinking by those who do neither you who are talking
nor abstain from the things and the pleasures we ought to abstain from so he went on
be what it may the goal appointed me bravely i'll follow nay and if i would not i'd prove a coward yet must follow still again
who to necessity doth bow aright is learn'd in wisdom and the things of god
and the intrepidity of one who heeds them not but it is not impossible else were happiness also impossible we should act as we do in seafaring what can i do
choose the master the crew the day the opportunity then comes a sudden storm what matters it to me my part has been fully done the matter is in the hands of another the master of the ship
the ship is foundering what then have i to do i do the only thing that remains to me to be drowned without fear without a cry without upbraiding god but knowing that what has been born
must likewise perish for i am not eternity but a human being a part of the whole
fly comrades the enemy are upon us we shall reply
we have but erred in sending such a spy as you
he says that death is no evil for it need not even bring shame with it he says that fame is but the empty noise of madmen and what report did this spy bring us of pain what of pleasure what of want
that to be clothed in sackcloth is better than any purple robe that sleeping on the bare ground is the softest couch and in proof of each assertion he points to his own courage constancy and freedom
through reason will not that suffice him when alone when he beholds and reflects now can no evil happen unto me for me there is no robber for me no earthquake
all things are full of peace full of tranquillity neither highway nor city nor gathering of men neither neighbor nor comrade can do me hurt another supplies my food whose care it is
another my raiment another hath given me perceptions of sense and primary conceptions and when he supplies my necessities no more it is that he is sounding the retreat that he hath opened the door and is saying to thee
come wither to nought that thou needest fear
whatsoever of fire is in thee unto fire shall return whatsoever of earth unto earth of spirit unto spirit of water unto water
there is no hades no fabled rivers of sighs of lamentation or of fire but all things are full of beings spiritual and divine with thoughts like these
beholding the sun moon and stars enjoying earth and sea a man is neither helpless nor alone
what wouldst thou be found doing when overtaken by death if i might choose i would be found doing some deed of true humanity of wide import beneficent and noble
but if i may not be found engaged in aught so lofty
that i may be found raising up in myself that which had fallen learning to deal more wisely with the things of sense working out my own tranquillity and thus rendering that which is its due to every relation of life
if death surprise me thus employed it is enough if i can stretch forth my hands to god and say the faculties which i received at thy hands for apprehending this thine administration i have not neglected
as far as in me lay i have done thee no dishonour behold how i have used the senses the primary conceptions which thous gavest me have i ever laid anything to thy charge have i ever murmured at aught that came to pass
or wished it otherwise have i in anything transgressed the relations of life for that thou didst beget me i thank thee for that thou hast given for the time during which i have used the things that were thine
it suffices me take them back and place them wherever thou wilt they were all thine and thou gavest them me if a man depart thus minded is it not enough
what life is fairer and more noble what end happier than his appendix a fragments attributed to epictetus
a life entangled with fortune is like a torrent it is turbulent and muddy hard to pass and masterful of mood noisy and of brief continuance
the soul that companies with virtue is like an ever flowing source it is a pure clear and wholesome draught sweet rich and generous of its store that injures not neither destroys
it is a shame that one who sweetens his drink with the gifts of the bee should embitter god's gift reason with vice
keep neither a blunt knife nor an ill disciplined looseness of tongue
nature hath given men one tongue but two ears that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak
think of god more often than thou breathest
for custom can make it sweet to thee
may well be based upon epictetean sayings
and made his vast body of extracts from more than five hundred authors for his son's use
the above selection includes some of doubtful origin but intrinsic interest crossley appendix b the hymn of cleanthes
chiefest glory of deathless gods almighty for ever sovereign of nature that rulest by law what name shall we give thee blessed be thou
for on thee should call all things that are mortal for that we are thine offspring nay all that in myriad motion lives for its day on the earth bears one impress thy likeness upon it
wherefore my song is of thee and i hymn thy power for ever lo the vast orb of the worlds round the earth evermore as it rolleth feels thee its ruler and guide
and owns thy lordship rejoicing aye for thy conquering hands have a servant of living fire sharp is the bolt where it falls nature shrinks at the shock and doth shudder
thus thou directest the word universal that pulses through all things mingling its life with lights that are great and lights that are lesser
high king through ages unending nought is done that is done without thee in the earth or the waters or in the heights of heaven save the deed of the fool and the sinner
thou canst make rough things smooth at thy voice lo jarring disorder moveth to music and love is born where hatred abounded thus hast thou fitted alike things good and things evil together
that over all might reign one reason supreme and eternal though thereunto the hearts of the wicked be hardened and heedless woe unto them for while ever their hands are grasping at good things
blind are their eyes yea stopped are their ears to god's law universal calling through wise disobedience to live the life that is noble this they mark not but heedless of right turn each to his own way here
a heart fired with ambition in strife and straining unhallowed there thrusting honour aside fast set upon getting and gaining others again given over to lusts and dissolute softness
working never god's law but that which wareth upon it nay but o giver of all things good whose home is the dark cloud thou that wields heaven's bolt save men from their ignorance grievous
wherewithal sistered with justice thou rulest and governest all things that we honoured by thee may requite thee with worship and honour evermore praising thy works
as is meet for men that shall perish seeing that none
to blunder upon a scene which unfolded to me some of the mysteries of the book making craft and at once put an end to my astonishment i was one summer's day loitering through the great saloons of the british museum with that listlessness
with which one is apt to saunter about a museum in warm weather sometimes lolling over the glass cases of minerals sometimes studying the hieroglyphics on an egyptian mummy and some times trying with nearly equal success
to comprehend the allegorical paintings on the lofty ceilings whilst i was gazing about in this idle way my attention was attracted to a distant door at the end of a suite of apartments it was closed but every now and then it would open
and some strange favored being generally clothed in black would steal forth and glide through the rooms without noticing any of the surrounding objects there was an air of mystery about this that piqued my languid curiosity and i determined to attempt the passage of that strait
and to explore the unknown regions beyond the door yielded to my hand with all that facility with which the portals of enchanted castles yield to the adventurous knight errant i found myself in a spacious chamber surrounded with great cases of venerable books
now and then one of these personages would write something on a small slip of paper and ring a bell whereupon a familiar would appear take the paper in profound silence glide out of the room and return shortly loaded with ponderous tomes
upon which the other would fall tooth and nail with famished voracity i had no longer a doubt that i had happened upon a body of magi deeply engaged in the study of occult sciences the scene reminded me of an old arabian tale
in the bosom of a mountain which opened only once a year where he made the spirits of the place bring him books of all kinds of dark knowledge so that at the end of the year when the magic portal once more swung open on its hinges he issued forth so versed in forbidden lore
a few words were sufficient for the purpose i found that these mysterious personages whom i had mistaken for magi were principally authors and were in the very act of manufacturing books i was in fact in the reading room of the great british library
being now in possession of the secret i sat down in a corner and watched the process of this book manufactory i noticed one lean bilious looking wight who sought none but the most worm eaten volumes
printed in black letter he was evidently constructing some work of profound erudition that would be purchased by every man who wished to be thought learned placed upon a conspicuous shelf of his library or laid open upon his table but never read
i observed him now and then draw a large fragment of biscuit out of his pocket and gnaw whether it was his dinner or whether he was endeavoring to keep off that exhaustion of the stomach produced by much pondering over dry works
i leave to harder students than myself to determine there was one dapper little gentleman in bright colored clothes with a chirping gossiping expression of countenance who had all the appearance of an author on good terms with his bookseller
he made more stir and show of business than any of the others dipping into various books fluttering over the leaves of manuscripts taking a morsel out of one a morsel out of another line upon line precept upon precept here a little and there a little
the contents of his book seemed to be as heterogeneous as those of the witches cauldron in macbeth it was here a finger and there a thumb toe of frog and blind worm's sting
may it not be the way in which providence has taken care that the seeds of knowledge and wisdom shall be preserved from age to age in spite of the inevitable decay of the works in which they were first produced
we see that nature has wisely though whimsically provided for the conveyance of seeds from clime to clime in the maws of certain birds so that animals which in themselves are little better than carrion and apparently the lawless plunderers of the orchard and the corn field
are in fact nature's carriers to disperse and perpetuate her blessings in like manner the beauties and fine thoughts of ancient and obsolete authors are caught up by these flights of predatory writers and cast forth again to flourish and bear fruit
in a remote and distant tract of time many of their works also undergo a kind of metempsychosis
what was formerly a ponderous history revives in the shape of a romance an old legend changes into a modern play and a sober philosophical treatise furnishes the body for a whole series of bouncing and sparkling essays
thus it is in the clearing of our american woodlands where we burn down a forest of stately pines a progeny of dwarf oaks start up in their place and we never see the prostrate trunk of a tree mouldering into soil but it gives birth to a whole tribe of fungi
let us not then lament over the decay and oblivion into which ancient writers descend
and the species continue to flourish thus also do authors beget authors and having produced a numerous progeny in a good old age they sleep with their fathers that is to say with the authors who preceded them and from whom they had stolen
still however my imagination continued busy and indeed the same scene continued before my mind's eye only a little changed in some of the details i dreamt that the chamber was still decorated with the portraits of ancient authors but that the number was increased
the long tables had disappeared and in place of the sage magi i beheld a ragged threadbare throng such as may be seen plying about the great repository of cast off clothes monmouth street whenever they seized upon a book
but took a sleeve from one a cape from another a skirt from a third thus decking himself out piecemeal while some of his original rags would peep out from among his borrowed finery there was a portly rosy well fed parson
whom i observed ogling several mouldy polemical writers through an eyeglass he soon contrived to slip on the voluminous mantle of one of the old fathers and having purloined the gray beard of another endeavored to look exceedingly wise
but the smirking commonplace of his countenance set at naught all the trappings of wisdom one sickly looking gentleman was busied embroidering a very flimsy garment with gold thread drawn out of several old court dresses of the reign of queen elizabeth
and i perceived that he had patched his small clothes with scraps of parchment from a latin author there were some well dressed gentlemen it is true who only helped themselves to a gem or so which sparkled among their own ornaments without eclipsing them
some too seemed to contemplate the costumes of the old writers merely to imbibe their principles of taste and to catch their air and spirit but i grieve to say that too many were apt to array themselves from top to toe in the patchwork manner i have mentioned
as to the dapper little compiler of farragos mentioned some time since he had arrayed himself in as many patches and colors as harlequin and there was as fierce a contention of claimants about him as about the dead body of patroclus
i was grieved to see many men to whom i had been accustomed to look up with awe and reverence fain to steal off with scarce a rag to cover their nakedness just then my eye was caught by the pragmatical old gentleman in the greek grizzled wig
who was scrambling away in sore affright with half a score of authors in full cry after him they were close upon his haunches in a twinkling off went his wig at every turn some strip of raiment was peeled away until in a few moments from his domineering pomp
he shrunk into a little pursy chopp'd bald shot and made his exit with only a few tags and rags fluttering at his back
which broke the whole illusion the tumult and the scuffle were at an end the chamber resumed its usual appearance
along the walls in short i found myself wide awake in my corner with the whole assemblage of hookworms gazing at me with astonishment nothing of the dream had been real but my burst of laughter
and birds had drawn their valentines the jealous trout that low did lie rose at a well dissembled flie there stood my friend with patient skill attending of his trembling quill
sir h wotton it is said that many an unlucky urchin is induced to run away from his family and betake himself to a seafaring life
but as soon as the weather was auspicious and that the spring began to melt into the verge of summer we took rod in hand and sallied into the country as stark mad as was ever don quixote from reading books of chivalry
being attired cap a pie for the enterprise he wore a broad skirted fustian coat perplexed with half a hundred pockets a pair of stout shoes and leathern gaiters a basket slung on one side for fish
a patent rod a landing net and a score of other inconveniences only to be found in the true angler's armory thus harnessed for the field he was as great a matter of stare and wonderment among the country folk
who had never seen a regular angler as was the steel clad hero of la mancha among the goatherds of the sierra morena our first essay was along a mountain brook among the highlands of the hudson
a most unfortunate place for the execution of those piscatory tactics which had been invented along the velvet margins of quiet english rivulets it was one of those wild streams that lavish among our romantic solitudes
unheeded beauties enough to fill the sketch book of a hunter of the picturesque sometimes it would leap down rocky shelves making small cascades over which the trees threw their broad balancing sprays and long nameless weeds
would steal forth into open day with the most placid demure face imaginable as i have seen some pestilent shrew of a housewife after filling her home with uproar and ill humor come dimpling out of doors swimming and curtseying and smiling upon all the world
that angling is something like poetry a man must be born to it i hooked myself instead of the fish tangled my line in every tree lost my bait broke my rod until i gave up the attempt in despair
satisfied that it was his fascinating vein of honest simplicity and rural feeling that had bewitched me and not the passion for angling my companions however were more persevering in their delusion
i have them at this moment before eyes stealing along the border of the brook where it lay open to the day or was merely fringed by shrubs and bushes i see the bittern rising with hollow scream as they break in upon his rarely invaded haunt
the kingfisher watching them suspiciously from his dry tree that overhangs the deep black millpond in the gorge of the hills the tortoise letting himself slip sideways from off the stone or log on which he is sunning himself
just by a spring of pure sweet water that stole out of the side of a hill
while i lay on the grass and built castles in a bright pile of clouds until i fell asleep all this may appear like mere egotism yet i cannot refrain from uttering these recollections which are passing like a strain of music over my mind
and have been called up by an agreeable scene which i witnessed not long since
a beautiful little stream which flows down from the welsh hills and throws itself into the dee my attention was attracted to a group seated on the margin on approaching i found it to consist
his face bore the marks of former storms but present fair weather its furrows had been worn into an habitual smile his iron gray locks hung about his ears
and he had altogether the good humored air of a constitutional philosopher who was disposed to take the world as it went one of his companions was a ragged wight with the skulking look of an arrant poacher
and i'll warrant could find his way to any gentleman's fish pond in the neighborhood in the darkest night the other was a tall awkward country lad with a lounging gait and apparently somewhat of a rustic beau the old man was busy in examining the maw of a trout
which he had just killed to discover by its contents what insects were seasonable for bait and was lecturing on the subject to his companions who appeared to listen with infinite deference i have a kind feeling towards all
in which are set forth many of the maxims of their inoffensive fraternity take good hede sayeth this
that in going about your disportes ye open no man's gates but that ye shet them again also ye shall not use this forsayd crafti disport for no covetousness to the encreasing and sparing of your money only but principally for your solace
and to cause the helth of your body and specyally of your soule
and there was a cheerful contentedness in his looks that quite drew me towards him i could not but remark the gallant manner in which he stumped from one part of the brook to another waving his rod in the air to keep the line from dragging on the ground or catching among the bushes and the adroitness
the country around was of that pastoral kind which walton is fond of describing it was a part of the great plain of cheshire close by the beautiful vale of gessford
he was very communicative having all the easy garrulity
for who does not like now and then to play the sage he had been much of a rambler in his day and had passed some years of his youth in america particularly in savannah
he had afterwards experienced many ups and downs in life until he got into the navy where his leg was carried away by a cannon ball at the battle of camperdown this was the only stroke of real good fortune he had ever experienced for it got him a pension
which together with some small paternal property brought him in a revenue of nearly forty pounds
and devoted the remainder of his life to the noble art of angling
and he seemed to have imbibed all his simple frankness and prevalent good humor though he had been sorely buffeted about the world he was satisfied that the world in itself was good and beautiful though he had been as roughly used in different countries as a poor sheep that is fleeced by every hedge and thicket
yet he spoke of every nation with candor and kindness appearing to look only on the good side of things and above all he was almost the only man i had ever met with who had been an unfortunate adventurer in america
and of course a youth of some expectation and much courted by the idle gentleman like personages of the place in taking him under his care therefore the old man had probably an eye to a privileged corner in the tap room and an occasional cup of cheerful ale free of expense
it has been reduced among them to perfect rule and system indeed it is an amusement peculiarly adapted to the mild and highly cultivated scenery of england where every roughness has been softened away from the landscape
it is delightful to saunter along those limpid streams which wander like veins of silver through the bosom of this beautiful country leading one through a diversity of small home scenery sometimes winding through ornamented grounds
sometimes brimming along through rich pasturage where the fresh green is mingled with sweet smelling flowers sometimes venturing in sight of villages and hamlets and then running capriciously away into shady retirements the sweetness and serenity of nature
and the quiet watchfulness of the sport gradually bring on pleasant fits of musing which are now and then agreeably interrupted by the song of a bird the distant whistle of the peasant or perhaps the vagary of some fish leaping out of the still water
and skimming transiently about its glassy surface
i cannot forbear to give another quotation from one of those ancient champions of angling which breathes the same innocent and happy spirit let me live harmlessly and near the brink of trent or avon have a dwelling place
where i may see my quill or cork down sink with eager bite of pike or bleak or dace and on the world and my creator think whilst some men strive ill gotten goods t embrace
so i the fields and meadows green may view and daily by fresh rivers walk at will among the daisies and the violets blue red hyacinth and yellow daffodil
on the top was a ship for a weathercock the interior was fitted up in a truly nautical style his ideas of comfort and convenience having been acquired on the berth deck of a man of war
a hammock was slung from the ceiling which in the daytime was lashed up so as to take but little room from the centre of the chamber hung a model of a ship of his own workmanship two or three chairs a table and a large sea chest formed the principal movables
the mantelpiece was decorated with sea shells over which hung a quadrant flanked by two wood cuts of most bitter looking naval commanders
his implements for angling were carefully disposed on nails and hooks about the room on a shelf was arranged his library containing a work on angling much worn a bible covered with canvas an odd volume or two of voyages
the establishment reminded me of that of the renowned robinson crusoe it was kept in neat order everything being stowed away with the regularity of a ship of war and he informed me that he scoured the deck every morning and swept it between meals
i found him seated on a bench before the door smoking his pipe in the soft evening sunshine his cat was purring soberly on the threshold and his parrot describing some strange evolutions in an iron ring that swung in the centre of his cage
he had been angling all day and gave me a history of his sport with as much minuteness as a general would talk over a campaign being particularly animated in relating the manner in which he had taken a large trout which had completely tasked all his skill and wariness
his happiness however sprung from within himself and was independent of external circumstances for he had that inexhaustible good nature which is the most precious gift of heaven spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought
and was a privileged visitor to their kitchens the whole tenor of his life was quiet and inoffensive being principally passed about the neighboring streams when the weather and season were favorable and at other times he employed himself at home
it was the spot where his father and mother had been buried i have done for i fear that my reader is growing weary but i could not refrain from drawing the picture of this worthy brother of the angle who has made me more than ever in love with the theory
though i fear i shall never be adroit in the practice of his art
the common people of france have a great superiority over that class in every other country on this very score
both in england and the northern states of europe which appears to be the greatest impediment to general improvement drinking is here the principal relaxation of the men including smoking but the women are very abstemious
though they have no public amusements as a substitute i ought to except one theatre which appears more than is necessary for when i was there it was not half full and neither the ladies nor actresses displayed much fancy in their dress
were sufficient to show the state of the dramatic art in denmark and the gross taste of the audience a magician in the disguise of a tinker enters a cottage where the women are all busy ironing and rubs a dirty frying pan against the linen
and dance after him rousing their husbands who join in the dance but get the start of them in the pursuit the tinker with the frying pan for a shield renders them immovable and blacks their cheeks each laughs at the other unconscious of his own appearance
displays a gloomy kind of grandeur throughout for the silence of spacious apartments
and i listen for the sound of my footsteps as i have done at midnight to the ticking of the death watch encouraging a kind of fanciful superstition every object carried me back to past times
and impressed the manners of the age forcibly on my mind in this point of view the preservation of old palaces and their tarnished furniture is useful for they may be considered as historical documents
the vacuum left by departed greatness was everywhere observable whilst the battles and processions portrayed on the walls told you who had here excited revelry after retiring from slaughter or dismissed pageantry in search of pleasure
it seemed a vast tomb full of the shadowy phantoms of those who had played or toiled their hour out and sunk behind the tapestry which celebrated the conquests of love or war could they be no more to whom my imagination thus gave life
it cannot be as easily could i believe that the large silver lions at the top of the banqueting room thought and reasoned but avaunt ye waking dreams yet i cannot describe the curiosities to you
it is a pity they do not lend them to the actors instead of allowing them to perish ingloriously i have not visited any other palace excepting hirsholm the gardens of which are laid out with taste and command the finest views the country affords
the public library consists of a collection much larger than i expected to see and it is well arranged of the value of the icelandic manuscripts i could not form a judgment though the alphabet of some of them amused me
by showing what immense labour men will submit to in order to transmit their ideas to posterity i have sometimes thought it a great misfortune for individuals to acquire a certain delicacy of sentiment
which often makes them weary of the common occurrences of life yet it is this very delicacy of feeling and thinking which probably has produced most of the performances that have benefited mankind it might with propriety perhaps
be termed the malady of genius the cause of that characteristic melancholy which grows with its growth and strengthens with its strength there are some good pictures in the royal museum
do not start i am not going to trouble you with a dull catalogue or stupid criticisms on masters to whom time has assigned their just niche in the temple of fame had there been any by living artists of this country i should have noticed them
as making a part of the sketches i am drawing of the present state of the place the good pictures were mixed indiscriminately with the bad ones in order to assort the frames the same fault is conspicuous in the new splendid gallery forming at paris
though it seems an obvious thought that a school for artists ought to be arranged in such a manner as to show the progressive discoveries and improvements in the art a collection of the dresses arms and implements of the laplanders attracted my attention
renders them useful but this may partly have been occasioned by the hasty manner in which they were removed from the palace when in flames there are some respectable men of science here but few literary characters and fewer artists
they want encouragement and will continue i fear from the present appearance of things to languish unnoticed a long time for neither the vanity of wealth nor the enterprising spirit of commerce has yet thrown a glance that way
besides the prince royal determined to be economical almost descends to parsimony and perhaps depresses his subjects by labouring not to oppress them for his intentions always seem to be good
yet nothing can give a more forcible idea of the dulness which eats away all activity of mind than the insipid routine of a court without magnificence or elegance the prince from what i can now collect
finds him as tractable as he could wish for i consider the count as the real sovereign scarcely behind the curtain the prince having none of that obstinate self sufficiency of youth so often the forerunner of decision of character
some termagant wives make of their husbands
which was far too great for the revenue of the crown the prince royal at present runs into the opposite extreme and the formality if not the parsimony of the court seems to extend to all the other branches of society which i had an opportunity of
observing though hospitality still characterises their intercourse with strangers but let me now stop i may be a little partial and view everything with the jaundiced eye of melancholy for i am sad and have cause
she had found in her every thing that could tend to make a farther connection between the families undesirable
to comprehend all the difficulties that must have perplexed the engagement and retarded the marriage of edward and herself had he been otherwise free and she had seen almost enough to be thankful for her own sake
or to allow her to derive encouragement from a preference only given her because her real situation was unknown but that it was so had not only been declared by lucy's eyes at the time but was declared over again the next morning more openly
for at her particular desire lady middleton set her down in berkeley street on the chance of seeing elinor alone to tell her how happy she was the chance proved a lucky one
no pride no hauteur and your sister just the same all sweetness and affability elinor wished to talk of something else but lucy still pressed her to own that she had reason for her happiness and elinor was obliged to go on
and her liking me is every thing you shan't talk me out of my satisfaction
and there will be no difficulties at all to what i used to think
to this elinor had no answer to make and did not attempt any are you ill miss dashwood you seem low you don't speak sure you an't well i never was in better health
i am glad of it with all my heart but really you did not look it
for lady middleton's delighted with missus dashwood so we shall be a good deal in harley street i dare say and edward spends half his time with his sister besides lady middleton and missus ferrars will visit now
they should always be glad to see me they are such charming women
and never looked at me in a pleasant way you know what i mean if i had been treated in that forbidding sort of way
elinor was prevented from making any reply to this civil triumph by the door's being thrown open the servant's announcing mister ferrars and edward's immediately walking in
it was a very awkward moment and the countenance of each shewed that it was so they all looked exceedingly foolish and edward seemed to have as great an inclination to walk out of the room again as to advance farther into it
the very circumstance in its unpleasantest form which they would each have been most anxious to avoid had fallen on them they were not only all three together but were together without the relief of any other person
but elinor had more to do
to do it well that she forced herself after a moment's recollection to welcome him with a look and manner that were almost easy and almost open and another struggle another effort still improved them
she would not allow the presence of lucy nor the consciousness of some injustice towards herself to deter her from saying that she was happy to see him
she would not be frightened from paying him those attentions which as a friend and almost a relation were his due by the observant eyes of lucy though she soon perceived them to be narrowly watching her
her manners gave some re assurance to edward and he had courage enough to sit down but his embarrassment still exceeded that of the ladies in a proportion which the case rendered reasonable though his sex might make it rare
for his heart had not the indifference of lucy's nor could his conscience have quite the ease of elinor's lucy with a demure and settled air seemed determined to make no contribution to the comfort of the others
and would not say a word and almost every thing that was said proceeded from elinor
for she loitered away several minutes on the landing place with the most high minded fortitude before she went to her sister when that was once done however it was time for the raptures of edward to cease for marianne's joy hurried her into the drawing room immediately
her pleasure in seeing him was like every other of her feelings strong in itself and strongly spoken she met him with a hand that would be taken and a voice that expressed the affection of a sister
again they all sat down and for a moment or two all were silent while marianne was looking with the most speaking tenderness sometimes at edward and sometimes at elinor regretting only that their delight in each other should be checked by lucy's unwelcome presence
edward was the first to speak and it was to notice marianne's altered looks and express his fear of her not finding london agree with her oh don't think of me she replied with spirited earnestness
said edward willing to say any thing that might introduce another subject not at all
and thank heaven you are what you always were she paused no one spoke
and of her being particularly disgusted with his mother till they were more in private but why were you not there edward why did you not come i was engaged elsewhere
perhaps miss marianne cried lucy eager to take some revenge on her
elinor was very angry but marianne seemed entirely insensible of the sting for she calmly replied not so indeed for seriously speaking i am very sure that conscience only kept edward from harley street
and i really believe he has the most delicate conscience in the world the most scrupulous in performing every engagement however minute
he is the most fearful of giving pain of wounding expectation and the most incapable of being selfish of any body i ever saw edward it is so and i will say it
for those who will accept of my love and esteem must submit to my open commendation the nature of her commendation in the present case however happened to be particularly ill suited to the feelings of two thirds of her auditors and was so very unexhilarating to edward
going so soon said marianne my dear edward this must not be and drawing him a little aside she whispered her persuasion that lucy could not stay much longer
but even this encouragement failed for he would go and lucy who would have outstaid him had his visit lasted two hours soon afterwards went away what can bring her here so often said marianne on her leaving them
it is but natural that he should like to see her as well as ourselves marianne looked at her steadily and said
for it is so bad a day i was afraid you might not come which would be a shocking thing
her love made no answer and after slightly bowing to the ladies began complaining of the weather how horrid all this is said he such weather makes every thing and every body disgusting
how few people know what comfort is sir john is as stupid as the weather the rest of the company soon dropt in i am afraid miss marianne said sir john
all about it i assure you and i admire your taste very much
said mister palmer marianne remained perfectly silent though her countenance betrayed her interest in what was said is it very ugly
you and i sir john said missus jennings should not stand upon such ceremony then you would be very ill bred cried mister palmer
i have the whip hand of you charlotte laughed heartily to think that her husband could not get rid of her and exultingly said she did not care how cross he was to her as they must live together it was impossible for any one
to be more thoroughly good natured or more determined to be happy than missus palmer the studied indifference insolence and discontent of her husband gave her no pain and when he scolded or abused her she was highly diverted
always out of humour elinor was not inclined after a little observation to give him credit for being so genuinely and unaffectedly ill natured or ill bred as he wished to appear his temper might
perhaps be a little soured by finding like many others of his sex that through some unaccountable bias in favour of beauty he was the husband of a very silly woman but she knew that this kind of blunder was too common for any sensible man to be lastingly hurt by it
the motive was too common to be wondered at
it will be quite delightful my love applying to her husband don't you long to have the miss dashwoods come to cleveland certainly he replied with a sneer i came into devonshire with no other view
i am sure you will like it of all things the westons will be with us and it will be quite delightful you cannot think what a sweet place cleveland is and we are so gay now for mister palmer is always going about the country canvassing against the election
don't palm all your abuses of languages upon me
elinor was again obliged to decline her invitation and by changing the subject put a stop to her entreaties she thought it probable that as they lived in the same county
i have seen him for ever in town
but if he were ever so much there
upon my word replied elinor you know much more of the matter than i do if you have any reason to expect such a match
i assure you i heard of it in my way through town my dear missus palmer upon my honour i did i met colonel brandon monday morning in bond street just before we left town and he told me of it directly you surprise me very much
and so we began talking of my brother and sister and one thing and another and i said to him so colonel there is a new family come to barton cottage i hear
and what did the colonel say
mister brandon was very well i hope oh yes quite well and so full of your praises he did nothing but say fine things of you i am flattered by his commendation
he seems an excellent man and i think him uncommonly pleasing
mama says he was in love with your sister too i assure you it was a great compliment if he was for he hardly ever falls in love with any body is mister willoughby much known in your part of somersetshire
and so does mister palmer too i am sure though we could not get him to own it last night missus palmer's information respecting willoughby was not very material but any testimony in his favour however small was pleasing to her
i am so glad we are got acquainted at last continued charlotte and now i hope we shall always be great friends you can't think how much i longed to see you it is so delightful that you should live at the cottage nothing can be like it to be sure
and i am so glad your sister is going to be well married i hope you will be a great deal at combe magna it is a sweet place by all accounts you have been long acquainted with colonel brandon have not you yes
a great while ever since my sister married he was a particular friend of sir john's i believe she added in a low voice
she was of strict integrity herself with a delicate sense of honour but she was as desirous of saving sir walter's feelings as solicitous for the credit of the family as aristocratic in her ideas of what was due to them as anybody of sense and honesty could well be
she was a benevolent charitable good woman and capable of strong attachments most correct in her conduct strict in her notions of decorum and with manners that were held a standard of good breeding
herself the widow of only a knight she gave the dignity of a baronet all its due and sir walter independent of his claims as an old acquaintance an attentive neighbour
that did not admit of a doubt but she was very anxious to have it done with the least possible pain to him and elizabeth she drew up plans of economy she made exact calculations and she did what nobody else thought of doing she consulted anne
every emendation of anne's had been on the side of honesty against importance she wanted more vigorous measures a more complete reformation a quicker release from debt a much higher tone of indifference for everything but justice and equity
if we can persuade your father to all this said lady russell looking over her paper much may be done if he will adopt these regulations in seven years he will be clear and i hope we may be able to convince him and elizabeth
and it is singularity which often makes the worst part of our suffering as it always does of our conduct i have great hope of prevailing we must be serious and decided for after all the person who has contracted debts must pay them
there is still more due to the character of an honest man
she wanted it to be prescribed and felt as a duty she rated lady russell's influence highly and as to the severe degree of self denial which her own conscience prompted she believed there might be little more difficulty in persuading them to a complete than to half a reformation
would be hardly less painful than of both and so on through the whole list of lady russell's too gentle reductions how anne's more rigid requisitions might have been taken is of little consequence lady russell's had no success at all
to live no longer with the decencies even of a private gentleman no he would sooner quit kellynch hall at once than remain in it on such disgraceful terms quit kellynch hall the hint was immediately taken up by mister shepherd
whose interest was involved in the reality of sir walter's retrenching and who was perfectly persuaded that nothing would be done without a change of abode
he said in confessing his judgement to be entirely on that side it did not appear to him that sir walter could materially alter his style of living
and ancient dignity to support in any other place sir walter might judge for himself and would be looked up to as regulating the modes of life in whatever way he might choose to model his household sir walter would quit
kellynch hall and after a very few days more of doubt and indecision the great question of whither he should go was settled and the first outline of this important change made out there had been three alternatives london bath
or another house in the country
she disliked bath and did not think it agreed with her and bath was to be her home sir walter had at first thought more of london
it was a much safer place for a gentleman in his predicament
two material advantages of bath over london had of course been given all their weight its more convenient distance from kellynch only fifty miles and lady russell's spending some part of every winter there and to the very great satisfaction of lady russell
whose first views on the projected change had been for bath sir walter and elizabeth were induced to believe that they should lose neither consequence nor enjoyment by settling there lady russell felt obliged to oppose her dear anne's known wishes
the undesirableness of any other house in the same neighbourhood for sir walter was certainly much strengthened by one part and a very material part of the scheme which had been happily engrafted on the beginning he was not only to quit his home
but to see it in the hands of others a trial of fortitude which stronger heads than sir walter's have found too much kellynch hall was to be let this however was a profound secret not to be breathed beyond their own circle
sir walter could not have borne the degradation of being known to design letting his house mister shepherd had once mentioned the word advertise but never dared approach it again sir walter spurned the idea of its being offered in any manner
and it was only on the supposition of his being spontaneously solicited by some most unexceptionable applicant on his own terms and as a great favour that he would let it at all how quick come the reasons for approving what we like
elizabeth had been lately forming an intimacy which she wished to see interrupted it was with the daughter of mister shepherd who had returned after an unprosperous marriage to her father's house with the additional burden of two children
in spite of all that lady russell who thought it a friendship quite out of place could hint of caution and reserve lady russell indeed had scarcely any influence with elizabeth and seemed to love her
rather because she would love her than because elizabeth deserved it she had never received from her more than outward attention nothing beyond the observances of complaisance had never succeeded in any point which she wanted to carry against previous inclination
but the object of distant civility from situation missus clay was in lady russell's estimate
for i was somehow or other afraid i had offended you by what i told you that monday offended me how could you suppose so believe me and elinor spoke it with the truest sincerity
nothing could be farther from my intention than to give you such an idea could you have a motive for the trust that was not honourable and flattering to me and yet i do assure you replied lucy
i felt sure that you was angry with me and have been quarrelling with myself ever since for having took such a liberty as to trouble you with my affairs but i am very glad to find it was only my own fancy and that you really do not blame me
your case is a very unfortunate one you seem to me to be surrounded with difficulties and you will have need of all your mutual affection to support you under them mister ferrars i believe is entirely dependent on his mother
and could struggle with any poverty for him but i love him too well to be the selfish means of robbing him perhaps of all that his mother might give him if he married to please her we must wait it may be for many years
with almost every other man in the world it would be an alarming prospect but edward's affection and constancy nothing can deprive me of i know that conviction must be every thing to you and he is undoubtedly supported by the same trust in your's
and under many circumstances it naturally would during a four years engagement
lucy here looked up but elinor was careful in guarding her countenance from every expression that could give her words a suspicious tendency edward's love for me said lucy has been pretty well put to the test by our long
elinor hardly knew whether to smile or sigh at this assertion lucy went on
and from our different situations in life from his being so much more in the world than me and our continual separation
all this thought elinor is very pretty but it can impose upon neither of us but what said she after a short silence are your views or have you none but that of waiting for missus ferrars's death
which is a melancholy and shocking extremity is her son determined to submit to this and to all the tediousness of the many years of suspense in which it may involve you rather than run the risk of her displeasure for a while by owning the truth
would very likely secure every thing to robert and the idea of that for edward's sake frightens away all my inclination for hasty measures and for your own sake too or you are carrying your disinterestedness beyond reason
lucy looked at elinor again and was silent
asked elinor not at all i never saw him but i fancy he is very unlike his brother silly and a great coxcomb a great coxcomb repeated miss steele
whose ear had caught those words by a sudden pause in marianne's music
elinor blushed in spite of herself lucy bit her lip and looked angrily at her sister a mutual silence took place for some time lucy first put an end to it by saying in a lower tone
though marianne was then giving them the powerful protection of a very magnificent concerto i will honestly tell you of one scheme which has lately come into my head for bringing matters to bear
indeed i am bound to let you into the secret for you are a party concerned
now my plan is that he should take orders as soon as he can and then through your interest which i am sure you would be kind enough to use out of friendship for him and i hope out of some regard to me
your brother might be persuaded to give him norland living which i understand is a very good one and the present incumbent not likely to live a great while that would be enough for us to marry upon
that must be recommendation enough to her husband but missus john dashwood would not much approve of edward's going into orders then i rather suspect that my interest would do very little
we seem so beset with difficulties on every side that though it would make us miserable for a time we should be happier perhaps in the end
no answered elinor with a smile which concealed very agitated feelings on such a subject i certainly will not you know very well that my opinion would have no weight with you unless it were on the side of your wishes
i advise you by all means to put an end to your engagement with edward ferrars it will be more for the happiness of both of you i should resolve upon doing it immediately elinor blushed for the insincerity of edward's future wife
and replied this compliment would effectually frighten me from giving any opinion on the subject had i formed one it raises my influence much too high the power of dividing two people so tenderly attached is too much for an indifferent person
tis because you are an indifferent person said lucy with some pique and laying a particular stress on those words that your judgment might justly have such weight with me
if you could be supposed to be biased in any respect by your own feelings your opinion would not be worth having elinor thought it wisest to make no answer to this
lest they might provoke each other to an unsuitable increase of ease and unreserve and was even partly determined never to mention the subject again another pause therefore of many minutes duration succeeded this speech
and lucy was still the first to end it shall you be in town this winter miss dashwood said she with all her accustomary complacency certainly not i am sorry for that returned the other
while her eyes brightened at the information it would have gave me such pleasure to meet you there but i dare say you will go for all that to be sure your brother and sister will ask you to come to them
otherwise london would have no charms for me i have not spirits for it elinor was soon called to the card table by the conclusion of the first rubber and the confidential discourse of the two ladies was therefore at an end
to which both of them submitted without any reluctance for nothing had been said on either side to make them dislike each other less than they had done before and elinor sat down to the card table with the melancholy persuasion that edward was not only without affection for the person who was to be his wife
but that he had not even the chance of being tolerably happy in marriage which sincere affection on her side would have given for self interest alone could induce a woman to keep a man to an engagement of which she seemed so thoroughly aware that he was weary
from this time the subject was never revived by elinor and when entered on by lucy who seldom missed an opportunity of introducing it and was particularly careful to inform her confidante of her happiness whenever she received a letter from edward
it was treated by the former with calmness and caution and dismissed as soon as civility would allow for she felt such conversations to be an indulgence which lucy did not deserve and which were dangerous to herself
the visit of the miss steeles at barton park was lengthened far beyond what the first invitation implied their favour increased they could not be spared sir john would not hear of their going and in spite of their numerous and long arranged engagements in exeter
and as his vigils were apt to be prolonged he furnished a bedroom adjoining the office where lincoln often passed the night with him mister hay gives this account of the practice of the law in those days
in forming our ideas of lincoln's growth and development as a lawyer we must remember that in those early days litigation was very simple as compared with that of modern times population was sparse and society scarcely organized
land was plentiful and employment abundant there was an utter absence of the abstruse questions and complications which now beset the law
there was no need of that close and searching study into principles and precedents which keeps the modern law student buried in his office on the contrary the very character of this simple litigation drew the lawyer into the street and neighborhood
a man would for his convenience lay down an irascible neighbor's fence and indolently forget to put it up again and an action of trespass would grow out of it the suit would lead to a free fight and sometimes furnish the bloody incidents for a murder trial
eagerly discussing a current political topic not as a question of news for news was not then received quickly or frequently as it is now but rather for the sake of debate and the men from the country the pioneers and farmers
mister hay says speaking of the youths who made the county clerk's office their place of rendezvous
it was always a great treat when lincoln got amongst us we were sure to have some of those stories for which he already had a reputation and there was this peculiarity about them that they were not only entertaining in themselves
after mister hay entered his office
the course of their labors was often broken by the older man's wise and witty digressions once an interruption occurred which affords an odd illustration of the character of discussion then prevalent
no matter to which party the speaker belonged
just under our office and through a trap door made there when the building was used for a store house we could hear everything that was said in the hall below one night there was a discussion in which e d baker took part he was a fiery fellow
and when his impulsiveness was let loose among the rough element that composed his audience there was a fair prospect of trouble at any moment lincoln was lying on the bed apparently paying no attention to what was going on lamborn was talking
and we suddenly heard baker interrupting him with a sharp remark
and was preventing the whigs from voting lincoln started off at a gait which showed his interest in the matter in hand he went up to radford and persuaded him to leave the polls without a moment's delay one of his candid remarks is remembered and recorded
radford you'll spoil and blow if you live much longer
early in the year eighteen forty it seemed possible that the whigs might elect general harrison to the presidency and this hope lent added energy to the party even in the states where the majority was so strongly against them as in illinois
and threw himself with ardor into the canvass traversing a great part of the state and speaking with remarkable effect only one of the speeches he made during the year has been preserved entire
a rattling stump speech of the kind then universally popular in the west and which is still considered a very high grade of eloquence in the south but it is of no kindred with his inaugural addresses
mister lamborn insists that the difference between the van buren party and the whigs is that although the former sometimes err in practice they are always correct in principle whereas the latter are wrong in principle and the better to impress this proposition
the first branch of the figure that is the democrats are vulnerable in the heel i admit is not merely figuratively but literally true who that looks but for a moment at their swartwouts their prices their harringtons
and their hundreds of others scampering away with the public money to texas to europe and to every spot of the earth where a villain may hope to find refuge from justice can at all doubt that they are most distressingly affected in their heels
with a species of running itch it seems that this malady of their heels operates on the sound headed and honest hearted creatures very much as the cork leg in the comic song did on its owner which when he once got started on it
the more he tried to stop it the more it would run away at the hazard of wearing this point threadbare i will relate an anecdote which seems to be too strikingly in point to be omitted a witty irish soldier
who was always boasting of his bravery when no danger was near but who invariably retreated without orders at the first charge of the engagement being asked by his captain why he did so replied captain
address that argument to cowards and slaves with the free and the brave it will affect nothing it may be true if it must let it many free countries have lost their liberty and ours may lose hers but if she shall
be it my proudest plume not that i was the last to desert but that i never deserted her i know that the great volcano at washington aroused and directed by the evil spirit that reigns there
no green spot or living thing while on its bosom are riding like demons on the wave of hell the imps of the evil spirit and fiendishly taunting all those who dare to resist its destroying course
with the hopelessness of their efforts and knowing this i cannot deny that all may be swept away broken by it i too may be bow to it i never will
if ever i feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its almighty architect it is when i contemplate the cause of my country deserted by all the world beside
and i standing up boldly alone hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors here without contemplating consequences before heaven and in face of the world
let none falter who thinks he is right and we may succeed but if after all we should fail be it so we still shall have the proud consolation of saying to our consciences
these perfervid and musical metaphors of devotion and defiance have often been quoted as mister lincoln's heroic challenge to the slave power and bishop simpson gave them that lofty significance in his funeral oration
but they were simply the utterances of a young and ardent whig earnestly advocating the election of old tippecanoe and not unwilling while doing this to show the people of the capital a specimen of his eloquence
the whole campaign was carried on in a tone somewhat shrill the whigs were recovering from the numbness into which they had fallen during the time of jackson's imperious predominance
and in the new prospect of success they felt all the excitement of prosperous rebels the taunts of the party in power when harrison's nomination was first mentioned their sneers at hard cider and log cabins
had been dexterously adopted as the slogan of the opposition and gave rise to the distinguishing features of that extraordinary campaign log cabins were built in every western county
tuns of hard cider were filled and emptied at all the whig mass meetings and as the canvass gained momentum and vehemence a curious kind of music added its inspiration to the cause and after the maine election was over
she went hell bent for governor kent and tippecanoe and tyler too it was one of the busiest and most enjoyable seasons of lincoln's life he had grown by this time thoroughly at home in political controversy
and he had the pleasure of frequently meeting mister douglas in rough and tumble debate
i have been to the secretary's office within the last hour and find things precisely as you left them no new arrivals of returns on either side douglas has not been here since you left a report is in circulation here now that he has abandoned
there is no news here noah i still think will be elected very easily i am afraid of our race for representative doctor knapp has become a candidate and i fear the few votes he will get will be taken from us also
again he wrote on new year's day eighteen forty a letter curiously destitute of any festal suggestions
whereas by another year they may be brought in again the whigs of our district say that everything is in favor of holding the election next summer except the fact of your absence and several of them have requested me to ask your opinion on the matter
write me immediately what you think of it on the other side of this sheet i send you a copy of my land resolutions which passed both branches of our legislature last winter will you show them to mister calhoun
informing him of the fact of their passage through our legislature mister calhoun suggested a similar proposition last winter and perhaps if he finds himself backed by one of the states he may be induced to take it up again
after the session opened january twentieth he wrote to mister stuart accurately outlining the work of the winter
state affairs have evidently lost their interest however and his soul is in arms for the wider fray
be sure to send me as many copies of the life of harrison as you can spare be very sure to send me the senate journal of new york for september eighteen fourteen
he had seen in a newspaper a charge of disloyalty made against mister van buren during the war with great britain but as usual wanted to be sure of his facts and in general he adds
send me everything you think will be a good war club the nomination of harrison takes first rate you know i am never sanguine but i believe we will carry the state the chance for doing so appears to me twenty five per cent
better than it did for you to beat douglas a great many of the grocery sort of van buren men are out for harrison our irish blacksmith gregory is for harrison
you have heard that the whigs and locos had a political discussion shortly after the meeting of the legislature well i made a big speech which is in progress of printing in pamphlet form to enlighten you and the rest of the world i shall send you a copy when it is finished
the big speech was the one from which we have just quoted the sanguine mood continued in his next letter march first
i have never seen the prospects of our party so bright in these parts as they are now we shall carry this county by a larger majority than we did in eighteen thirty six when you ran against may
i do not think my prospects individually are very flattering for i think it probable i shall not be permitted to be a candidate but the party ticket will succeed triumphantly subscriptions to the old soldier pour in without abatement
this morning i took from the post office a letter from dubois inclosing the names of sixty subscribers and on carrying it to francis
francis caught him by the hair and jammed him back against a market cart where the matter ended by francis being pulled away from him the whole affair was so ludicrous that francis and everybody else douglas excepted have been laughing about it ever since
douglas seems to have had a great propensity to such rencontres of which the issue was ordinarily his complete discomfiture as he had the untoward habit of attacking much bigger and stronger men than himself
he weighed at that time little if anything over a hundred pounds yet his heart was so valiant that he made nothing of assaulting men of ponderous flesh like francis or of great height and strength like stuart
he sought a quarrel with the latter during their canvass in eighteen thirty eight in a grocery with the usual result
jest mopped the floor with him in the same letter mister lincoln gives a long list of names to which he wants documents to be sent it shows a remarkable personal acquaintance with the minutest needs of the canvass this one is a doubtful whig
that one is an inquiring democrat
he tells stuart that joe smith is an admirer of his and that a few documents had better be mailed to the mormons and he must be sure the next time he writes to send evan butler his compliments it would be strange indeed
the rural delegates took all the nominations away from springfield except two baker for the senate and lincoln for the house of representatives ninian he says meaning ninian w edwards
was very much hurt at not being nominated but he has become tolerably well reconciled i was much very much wounded myself at his being left out the fact is the country delegates made the nominations as they pleased
harrison was elected in november and the great preoccupation of most of the whigs was of course the distribution of the offices which they felt belonged to them as the spoils of battle
but we are left in no doubt as to the way in which lincoln regarded the unseemly scramble it is probable that he was asked to express his preference among applicants and he wrote under date of december seventeenth
this affair of appointments to office is very annoying more so to you than to me doubtless i am as you know opposed to removals to make places for our friends bearing this in mind
i express my preference in a few cases as follows for marshal first john dawson second b f edwards for postmaster here doctor henry at carlinville joseph c howell
the mention of this last post office rouses his righteous indignation and he calls for justice upon a wrong doer
there is no question of the propriety of removing the postmaster at carlinville i have been told by so many different persons as to preclude all doubt of its truth that he boldly refused to deliver from his office during the canvass
once more
he addresses a letter to mister stuart which closes the correspondence and which affords a glimpse of that strange condition of melancholia into whose dark shadow he was then entering
and which lasted with only occasional intervals of healthy cheerfulness to the time of his marriage we give this remarkable letter entire from the manuscript submitted to us by the late john t stuart dear stuart
though from the deplorable state of my mind at this time i fear i shall give you but little satisfaction about the matter of the congressional election
and none that i can learn among our enemies though of course there will be if the general ticket be adopted the chicago american peoria register and sangamo journal have already hoisted your flag upon their own responsibility
and the other whig papers of the district are expected to follow immediately on last evening there was a meeting of our friends at butler's and i submitted the question to them and found them unanimously in favor of having you announced as a candidate
we would delay announcing you as by your authority for a week or two we thought that to appear too keen about it might spur our opponents on about their general ticket project upon the whole i think i may say with certainty that your reelection is sure
if what i feel were equally distributed to the whole human family there would not be one cheerful face on earth whether i shall ever be better i cannot tell i awfully forebode i shall not
to remain as i am is impossible i must die or be better it appears to me the matter you speak of on my account you may attend to as you say unless you shall hear of my condition forbidding it
i say this because i fear i shall be unable to attend to any business here and a change of scene might help me if i could be myself i would rather remain at home with judge logan i can write no more
your friend as ever
the social condition of kentucky had changed considerably from the early pioneer days life had assumed a more settled and orderly course the old barbarous equality of the earlier time was gone
a difference of classes began to be seen those who held slaves assumed a distinct social superiority over those who did not thomas lincoln concluding that kentucky was no country for a poor man
determined to seek his fortune in indiana he had heard of rich and unoccupied lands in perry county in that state and thither he determined to go he built a rude raft loaded it with his kit of tools
and four hundred gallons of whisky and trusted his fortunes to the winding water courses he met with only one accident on his way his raft capsized in the ohio river but he fished up his kit of tools and most of the ardent spirits
and arrived safely at the place of a settler named posey with whom he left his odd invoice of household goods for the wilderness while he started on foot to look for a home in the dense forest
he selected a spot which pleased him in his first day's journey he then walked back to knob creek and brought his family on to their new home no humbler cavalcade ever invaded the indiana timber besides his wife and two children
his earthly possessions were of the slightest for the backs of two borrowed horses sufficed for the load insufficient bedding and clothing a few pans and kettles were their sole movable wealth
they relied on lincoln's kit of tools for their furniture and on his rifle for their food at posey's they hired a wagon and literally hewed a path through the wilderness to their new habitation near little pigeon creek
a mile and a half east of gentryville in a rich and fertile forest country thomas lincoln with the assistance of his wife and children built a temporary shelter of the sort called in the frontier language
a half faced camp merely a shed of poles which defended the inmates on three sides from foul weather but left them open to its inclemency in front for a whole year his family lived in this wretched fold
while he was clearing a little patch of ground for planting corn and building a rough cabin for a permanent residence they moved into the latter before it was half completed for by this time the sparrows had followed the lincolns from kentucky
and the half faced camp was given up to them but the rude cabin seemed so spacious and comfortable after the squalor of the camp that thomas lincoln did no further work on it for a long time
he left it for a year or two without doors or windows or floor the battle for existence allowed him no time for such superfluities he raised enough corn to support life
the outside corner supported by a crotched stick driven into the ground the table a huge hewed log standing on four legs a pot kettle and skillet and a few tin and pewter dishes were all the furniture
the boy abraham climbed at night to his bed of leaves in the loft by a ladder of wooden pins driven into the logs this life has been vaunted by poets and romancers as a happy and healthful one
even dennis hanks speaking of his youthful days when his only home was the half faced camp says i tell you billy i enjoyed myself better then than i ever have since
and singular epidemics from time to time ravaged the settlements in the autumn of eighteen eighteen the little community of pigeon creek was almost exterminated by a frightful pestilence called the milk sickness
or in the dialect of the country the milk sick it is a mysterious disease which has been the theme of endless wrangling among western physicians
and the difficulty of ascertaining anything about it has been greatly increased by the local sensitiveness which forbids any one to admit that any well defined case has ever been seen in his neighborhood although just over the creek or in the next county
among the pioneers of pigeon creek so ill fed ill housed and uncared for there was little prospect of recovery from such a grave disorder the sparrows husband and wife
with scant ceremony in a little clearing of the forest it is related of young abraham that he sorrowed most of all that his mother should have been laid away with such maimed rites
and that he contrived several months later to have a wandering preacher named david elkin brought to the settlement to deliver a funeral sermon over her grave already white with the early winter snows footnote
died october fifth a d eighteen eighteen aged thirty five years erected by a friend of her martyred son eighteen seventy nine
this was the dreariest winter of his life for before the next december came his father had brought from kentucky a new wife who was to change the lot of all the desolate little family very much for the better sarah bush
had been an acquaintance of thomas lincoln before his first marriage she had it is said rejected him to marry one johnston the jailer at elizabethtown who had died leaving her with three children a boy and two girls
when lincoln's widowhood had lasted a year he went down to elizabethtown to begin again the wooing broken off so many years before he wasted no time in preliminaries but promptly made his wishes known
even in those discouraging surroundings and thomas lincoln and the children were the better for her coming all the rest of their lives the lack of doors and floors was at once corrected
her honest pride inspired her husband to greater thrift and industry the goods she brought with her compelled some effort at harmony in the other fittings of the house she dressed the children in warmer clothing
but no qualification was ever required of a teacher
if a straggler supposed to understand latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood he was looked upon as a wizard there was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education
but in the case of this ungainly boy there was no necessity of any external incentive a thirst for knowledge as a means of rising in the world was innate in him it had nothing to do with that love of science for its own sake
which has been so often seen in lowly savants who have sacrificed their lives to the pure desire of knowing the works of god all the little learning he ever acquired he seized as a tool to better his condition
he learned his letters that he might read books and see how men in the great world outside of his woods had borne themselves in the fight for which he longed he learned to write first that he might have an accomplishment his playmates had not
then that he might help his elders by writing their letters and enjoy the feeling of usefulness which this gave him and finally that he might copy what struck him in his reading and thus make it his own for future use
he was already more than half fuddled i told him that some serious thing must have happened to moreau by this time or he would have returned before this and that it behoved us to ascertain what that catastrophe was montgomery raised some feeble objections and at last agreed
we had some food and then all three of us started it is possibly due to the tension of my mind at the time but even now that start into the hot stillness of the tropical afternoon is a singularly vivid impression
m'ling went first his shoulder hunched his strange black head moving with quick starts as he peered first on this side of the way and then on that he was unarmed his axe he had dropped when he encountered the swine man teeth were his weapons when it came to fighting
montgomery almost staggered into him and then stopped too then listening intently we heard coming through the trees the sound of voices and footsteps approaching us he is dead said a deep vibrating voice
he is not dead he is not dead jabbered another we saw we saw said several voices hullo suddenly shouted montgomery hullo there confound you said i and gripped my pistol
there was a silence then a crashing among the interlacing vegetation first here then there and then half a dozen faces appeared strange faces lit by a strange light
i recognised the ape man i had indeed already identified his voice and two of the white swathed brown featured creatures i had seen in montgomery's boat
a heavy faceless thing with strange red eyes looking at us curiously from amidst the green for a space no one spoke then montgomery hiccoughed who said he was dead
he is dead said this monster they saw there was nothing threatening about this detachment at any rate
pointed is there a law now asked the monkey man
is he dead indeed is there a law repeated the man in white is there a law thou other with the whip he is dead said the hairy grey thing and they all stood watching us
children of the law i said he is not dead
he has changed his shape he has changed his body i went on for a time you will not see him he is there i pointed upward where he can watch you you cannot see him but he can see you fear the law
the thing that bled and ran screaming and sobbing that is dead too said the grey thing still regarding me that's well grunted montgomery the other with the whip began the grey thing well said i
said he was dead but montgomery was still sober enough to understand my motive in denying moreau's death he is not dead he said slowly not dead at all no more dead than i am some
said i have broken the law they will die some have died show us now where his old body lies the body he cast away because he had no more need of it it is this way man who walked in the sea
immediately after appeared a monster in headlong pursuit blood bedabbled
the grey thing leapt aside m'ling with a snarl flew at it and was struck aside montgomery fired
i saw its features vanish in a flash its face was driven in yet it passed me gripped montgomery and holding him fell headlong beside him and pulled him sprawling upon itself in its death agony i found myself alone with m'ling the dead brute and the prostrate man
montgomery raised himself slowly and stared in a muddled way at the shattered beast man beside him it more than half sobered him he scrambled to his feet then i saw the grey thing returning cautiously through the trees see said i pointing to the dead brute
is the law not alive this came of breaking the law he peered at the body he sends the fire that kills said he in his deep voice repeating part of the ritual
the others gathered round and stared for a space at last we drew near the westward extremity of the island we came upon the gnawed and mutilated body of the puma its shoulder bone smashed by a bullet and perhaps twenty yards farther found at last what we sought
moreau lay face downward in a trampled space in a canebrake one hand was almost severed at the wrist and his silvery hair was dabbled in blood his head had been battered in by the fetters of the puma the broken canes beneath him were smeared with blood
his revolver we could not find montgomery turned him over resting at intervals and with the help of the seven beast people for he was a heavy man we carried moreau back to the enclosure the night was darkling
twice we heard unseen creatures howling and shrieking past our little band and once the little pink sloth creature appeared and stared at us and vanished again but we were not attacked again at the gates of the enclosure our company of beast people left us m'ling going with the rest
among the chips scattered about the beach lay the two axes that had been used to chop up the boats the tide was creeping in behind me there was nothing for it but courage i looked squarely into the faces of the advancing monsters
one knelt then the other two i turned and walked towards the dead bodies keeping my face towards the three kneeling beast men very much as an actor passing up the stage faces the audience they broke the law said i putting my foot on the sayer of the law
they have been slain even the sayer of the law even the other with the whip great is the law come and see none escape said one of them advancing and peering none escape said i therefore hear and do as i command
they stood up looking questioningly at one another stand there said i i picked up the hatchets and swung them by their heads from the sling of my arm turned montgomery over picked up his revolver still loaded in two chambers
but still more afraid of my cracking red whip lash and after some fumbling and hesitation some whip cracking and shouting they lifted him gingerly carried him down to the beach and went splashing into the dazzling welter of the sea on said i
on carry him far they went in up to their armpits and stood regarding me let go said i and the body of montgomery vanished with a splash something seemed to tighten across my chest good said i with a break in my voice
and they came back hurrying and fearful to the margin of the water leaving long wakes of black in the silver at the water's edge they stopped turning and glaring into the sea as though they presently expected montgomery to arise therefrom and exact vengeance
i heard a light footfall behind me and turning quickly saw the big hyena swine perhaps a dozen yards away his head was bent down his bright eyes were fixed upon me his stumpy hands clenched and held close by his side
he stopped in this crouching attitude when i turned his eyes a little averted for a moment we stood eye to eye
at the first excuse it may seem treacherous but so i was resolved i was far more afraid of him than of any other two of the beast folk his continued life was i knew a threat against mine
i was perhaps a dozen seconds collecting myself then cried i salute bow down his teeth flashed upon me in a snarl who are you that i should
i heard him yelp saw him run sideways and turn knew i had missed and clicked back the cock with my thumb for the next shot but he was already running headlong jumping from side to side and i dared not risk another miss
every now and then he looked back at me over his shoulder he went slanting along the beach and vanished beneath the driving masses of dense smoke that were still pouring out from the burning enclosure for some time i stood staring after him
a dreadful thing that i was only beginning to realise was that over all this island there was now no safe place where i could be alone and secure to rest or sleep i had recovered strength amazingly since my landing but i was still inclined to be nervous and to break down under any great stress
but my heart failed me i went back to the beach and turning eastward past the burning enclosure made for a point where a shallow spit of coral sand ran out towards the reef here i could sit down and think
and there i sat chin on knees the sun beating down upon my head and unspeakable dread in my mind plotting how i could live on against the hour of my rescue if ever rescue came
my thoughts were disturbed by a crying of sea birds hurrying towards some black object that had been stranded by the waves on the beach near the enclosure i knew what that object was but i had not the heart to go back and drive them off
i began walking along the beach in the opposite direction designing to come round the eastward corner of the island and so approach the ravine of the huts without traversing the possible ambuscades of the thickets
perhaps half a mile along the beach i became aware of one of my three beast folk advancing out of the landward bushes towards me i was now so nervous with my own imaginings that i immediately drew my revolver
he hesitated as he approached go away cried i
it retreated a little way very like a dog being sent home and stopped looking at me imploringly with canine brown eyes
no go away i insisted and snapped my whip
and the destruction of the house of pain had affected them i know now the folly of my cowardice
towards noon certain of them came and squatted basking in the hot sand the imperious voices of hunger and thirst prevailed over my dread i came out of the bushes and revolver in hand walked down towards these seated figures one a wolf woman turned her head and stared at me
and then the others none attempted to rise or salute me i felt too faint and weary to insist and i let the moment pass i want food said i almost apologetically and drawing near there is food in the huts said an ox boar man
drowsily and looking away from me i passed them and went down into the shadow and odours of the almost deserted ravine in an empty hut i feasted on some specked and half decayed fruit and then after i had propped some branches and sticks about the opening
the exhaustion of the last thirty hours claimed its own and i fell into a light slumber
in this way i became one among the beast people in the island of doctor moreau when i awoke it was dark about me my arm ached in its bandages i sat up wondering at first where i might be i heard coarse voices talking outside
i heard something breathing saw something crouched together close beside me i held my breath trying to see what it was it began to move slowly interminably then something soft and warm and moist passed across my hand all my muscles contracted
i snatched my hand away a cry of alarm began and was stifled in my throat
i master who are you they say there is no master now but i know i know
i am your slave master are you the one i met on the beach i asked the same master the thing was evidently faithful enough for it might have fallen upon me as i slept
it is well i said extending my hand for another licking kiss i began to realise what its presence meant and the tide of my courage flowed where are the others i asked they are mad they are fools said the dog man
even now they talk together beyond there they say the master is dead the other with the whip is dead that other who walked in the sea is as we are we have no master no whips no house of pain any more there is an end
we love the law and will keep it but there is no pain no master no whips for ever again so they say but i know master i know i felt in the darkness and patted the dog man's head it is well i said again
presently you will slay them all said the dog man presently i answered i will slay them all after certain days and certain things have come to pass every one of them save those you spare every one of them shall be slain
what the master wishes to kill the master kills said the dog man with a certain satisfaction in his voice and that their sins may grow i said let them live in their folly until their time is ripe let them not know that i am the master
the master's will is sweet said the dog man with the ready tact of his canine blood but one has sinned said i him i will kill whenever i may meet him when i say to you that is he see that you fall upon him
for a moment the opening of the hut was blackened by the exit of the dog man then i followed and stood up almost in the exact spot where i had been when i had heard moreau and his staghound pursuing me
taking little heed of the dim things that peered at us out of the huts none about the fire attempted to salute me most of them disregarded me ostentatiously i looked round for the hyena swine but he was not there
altogether perhaps twenty of the beast folk squatted staring into the fire or talking to one another he is dead he is dead the master is dead said the voice of the ape man to the right of me
he is not dead said i in a loud voice even now he watches us this startled them twenty pairs of eyes regarded me the house of pain is gone said i it will come again
the master you cannot see yet even now he listens among you true true said the dog man they were staggered at my assurance an animal may be ferocious and cunning enough but it takes a real man to tell a lie
the man with the bandaged arm speaks a strange thing said one of the beast folk i tell you it is so i said the master and the house of pain will come again woe be to him who breaks the law they looked curiously at one another
they looked i noticed at the deep cuts i made in the turf then the satyr raised a doubt i answered him then one of the dappled things objected and an animated discussion sprang up round the fire every moment i began to feel more convinced of my present security
i talked now without the catching in my breath due to the intensity of my excitement that had troubled me at first in the course of about an hour i had really convinced several of the beast folk of the truth of my assertions and talked most of the others into a dubious state
i kept a sharp eye for my enemy the hyena swine but he never appeared every now and then a suspicious movement would startle me but my confidence grew rapidly then as the moon crept down from the zenith one by one the listeners began to yawn
and first one and then another retired towards the dens in the ravine and i dreading the silence and darkness went with them knowing i was safer with several of them than with one alone in this manner began the longer part of my sojourn upon this island of doctor moreau
but from that night until the end came there was but one thing happened to tell save a series of innumerable small unpleasant details and the fretting of an incessant uneasiness
so that i prefer to make no chronicle for that gap of time to tell only one cardinal incident of the ten months i spent as an intimate of these half humanised brutes there is much that sticks in my memory that i could write things that i would cheerfully give my right hand to forget
but they do not help the telling of the story
i found their simple scale of honour was based mainly on the capacity for inflicting trenchant wounds indeed i may say without vanity i hope that i held something like pre eminence among them one or two whom in a rare access of high spirits i had scarred rather badly
bore me a grudge but it vented itself chiefly behind my back and at a safe distance from my missiles in grimaces the hyena swine avoided me and i was always on the alert for him my inseparable dog man hated and dreaded him intensely
i really believe that was at the root of the brute's attachment to me it was soon evident to me that the former monster had tasted blood and gone the way of the leopard man
once i tried to induce the beast folk to hunt him but i lacked the authority to make them co operate for one end again and again i tried to approach his den and come upon him unaware but always he was too acute for me and saw or winded me and got away he too
made every forest pathway dangerous to me and my ally with his lurking ambuscades
in the first month or so the beast folk compared with their latter condition were human enough and for one or two besides my canine friend i even conceived a friendly tolerance the little pink sloth creature displayed an odd affection for me and took to following me about
the monkey man bored me however he assumed on the strength of his five digits that he was my equal and was for ever jabbering at me jabbering the most arrant nonsense
he had an idea i believe that to gabble about names that meant nothing was the proper use of speech he called it big thinks to distinguish it from little thinks the sane every day interests of life if ever i made a remark he did not understand he would praise it very much
ask me to say it again learn it by heart and go off repeating it with a word wrong here or there to all the milder of the beast people he thought nothing of what was plain and comprehensible i invented some very curious big thinks for his especial use
i think now that he was the silliest creature i ever met he had developed in the most wonderful way the distinctive silliness of man without losing one jot of the natural folly of a monkey
during that time they respected the usage established by the law and behaved with general decorum once i found another rabbit torn to pieces by the hyena swine i am assured but that was all
it was about may when i first distinctly perceived a growing difference in their speech and carriage a growing coarseness of articulation a growing disinclination to talk
though they evidently felt ashamed of themselves every now and then i would come upon one or another running on toes and finger tips and quite unable to recover the vertical attitude they held things more clumsily drinking by suction feeding by gnawing grew commoner every day
i realised more keenly than ever what moreau had told me about the stubborn beast flesh they were reverting and reverting very rapidly some of them the pioneers in this i noticed with some surprise were all females
the tradition of the law was clearly losing its force i cannot pursue this disagreeable subject my dog man imperceptibly slipped back to the dog again day by day he became dumb quadrupedal hairy
i scarcely noticed the transition from the companion on my right hand to the lurching dog at my side as the carelessness and disorganisation increased from day to day the lane of dwelling places at no time very sweet became so loathsome that i left it
how the hair began to spread over the exposed limbs how their foreheads fell away and their faces projected how the quasi human intimacy i had permitted myself with some of them in the first month of my loneliness became a shuddering horror to recall the change was slow and inevitable
for them and for me it came without any definite shock i still went among them in safety because no jolt in the downward glide had released the increasing charge of explosive animalism that ousted the human day by day but i began to fear that soon now that shock must come
we were in just the state of equilibrium that would remain in one of those happy family cages which animal tamers exhibit if the tamer were to leave it for ever of course these creatures did not decline into such beasts as the reader has seen in zoological gardens
and the dwindling shreds of the humanity still startled me every now and then a momentary recrudescence of speech perhaps an unexpected dexterity of the fore feet a pitiful attempt to walk erect i too must have undergone strange changes
at first i spent the daylight hours on the southward beach watching for a ship hoping and praying for a ship i counted on the ipecacuanha returning as the year wore on but she never came five times i saw sails and thrice smoke but nothing ever touched the island
i always had a bonfire ready but no doubt the volcanic reputation of the island was taken to account for that it was only about september or october that i began to think of making a raft by that time my arm had healed and both my hands were at my service again
none of the abundant creepers seemed limber or strong enough and with all my litter of scientific education i could not devise any way of making them so
i spent more than a fortnight grubbing among the black ruins of the enclosure and on the beach where the boats had been burnt looking for nails and other stray pieces of metal that might prove of service
now and then some beast creature would watch me and go leaping off when i called to it there came a season of thunder storms and heavy rain which greatly retarded my work but at last the raft was completed i was delighted with it
but with a certain lack of practical sense which has always been my bane i had made it a mile or more from the sea and before i had dragged it down to the beach the thing had fallen to pieces perhaps it is as well that i was saved from launching it
he had long since lost speech and active movement and the lank hair of the little brute grew thicker every day and his stumpy claws more askew
at first i did not understand but presently it occurred to me that he wished me to follow him and this i did at last slowly for the day was hot when we reached the trees he clambered into them for he could travel better among their swinging creepers than on the ground
and suddenly in a trampled space i came upon a ghastly group my saint bernard creature lay on the ground dead and near his body crouched the hyena swine gripping the quivering flesh with its misshapen claws gnawing at it and snarling with delight
as i approached the monster lifted its glaring eyes to mine its lips went trembling back from its red stained teeth and it growled menacingly it was not afraid and not ashamed the last vestige of the human taint had vanished
i advanced a step farther stopped and pulled out my revolver at last i had him face to face the brute made no sign of retreat but its ears went back its hair bristled and its body crouched together i aimed between the eyes and fired
its spring carried it over me i fell under the hind part of its body but luckily i had hit as i meant and it had died even as it leapt
that danger at least was over but this i knew was only the first of the series of relapses that must come i burnt both of the bodies on a pyre of brushwood but after that i saw that unless i left the island my death was only a question of time
the beast people by that time had with one or two exceptions left the ravine and made themselves lairs according to their taste among the thickets of the island few prowled by day most of them slept and the island might have seemed deserted to a new comer
but at night the air was hideous with their calls and howling i had half a mind to make a massacre of them to build traps or fight them with my knife had i possessed sufficient cartridges i should not have hesitated to begin the killing
there could now be scarcely a score left of the dangerous carnivores the braver of these were already dead after the death of this poor dog of mine my last friend i too adopted to some extent the practice of slumbering in the daytime in order to be on my guard at night
i turned once more almost passionately now to hammering together stakes and branches to form a raft for my escape i found a thousand difficulties i am an extremely unhandy man
and this time i took care of the strength the only insurmountable obstacle was that i had no vessel to contain the water i should need if i floated forth upon these untravelled seas i would have even tried pottery but the island contained no clay
i used to go moping about the island trying with all my might to solve this one last difficulty sometimes i would give way to wild outbursts of rage and hack and splinter some unlucky tree in my intolerable vexation but i could think of nothing
and then came a day a wonderful day which i spent in ecstasy i saw a sail to the southwest a small sail like that of a little schooner and forthwith
in the dawn the sail was nearer and i saw it was the dirty lug sail of a small boat but it sailed strangely my eyes were weary with watching and i peered and could not believe them two men were in the boat sitting low down one by the bows the other at the rudder
suddenly a great white bird flew up out of the boat and neither of the men stirred nor noticed it it circled round and then came sweeping overhead with its strong wings outspread then i stopped shouting and sat down on the headland and rested my chin on my hands and stared
slowly slowly the boat drove past towards the west
in the afternoon the tide stranded the boat and left it a hundred yards or so to the westward of the ruins of the enclosure the men in it were dead had been dead so long that they fell to pieces when i tilted the boat on its side and dragged them out
one had a shock of red hair like the captain of the ipecacuanha and a dirty white cap lay in the bottom of the boat as i stood beside the boat three of the beasts came slinking out of the bushes and sniffing towards me
one of my spasms of disgust came upon me i thrust the little boat down the beach and clambered on board her
i turned my back upon them struck the lug and began paddling out to sea i could not bring myself to look behind me
the first thing he did was to assure his council that he would make it his endeavour to preserve the government both in church and state as it was by law established and that he would always take care to defend and support the church
great public acclamations were raised over this fair speech and a great deal was said from the pulpits and elsewhere about the word of a king which was never broken by credulous people who little supposed that he had formed a secret council for catholic affairs of which a mischievous jesuit
he was always jealous of making some show of being independent of the king of france while he pocketed his money as notwithstanding his publishing two papers in favour of popery and not likely to do it much service i should think written by the king his brother and found in his strong box
he was tried for perjury a fortnight after the coronation and besides being very heavily fined was sentenced to stand twice in the pillory to be whipped from aldgate to newgate one day and from newgate to tyburn two days afterwards and to stand in the pillory five times a year as long as he lived
this fearful sentence was actually inflicted on the rascal being unable to stand after his first flogging he was dragged on a sledge from newgate to tyburn and flogged as he was drawn along he was so strong a villain that he did not die under the torture
but lived to be afterwards pardoned and rewarded though not to be ever believed in any more dangerfield the only other one of that crew left alive was not so fortunate he was almost killed by a whipping from newgate to tyburn and as if that were not punishment enough
a ferocious barrister of gray's inn gave him a poke in the eye with his cane which caused his death for which the ferocious barrister was deservedly tried and executed as soon as james was on the throne argyle and monmouth went from brussels to rotterdam and attended a meeting of scottish exiles held there
to concert measures for a rising in england it was agreed that argyle should effect a landing in scotland and monmouth in england and that two englishmen should be sent with argyle to be in his confidence and two scotchmen with the duke of monmouth
but two of his men being taken prisoners at the orkney islands the government became aware of his intention and was able to act against him with such vigour as to prevent his raising more than two or three thousand highlanders although he sent a fiery cross by trusty messengers from clan to clan and from glen to glen
as the custom then was when those wild people were to be excited by their chiefs as he was moving towards glasgow with his small force he was betrayed by some of his followers taken and carried with his hands tied behind his back to his old prison in edinburgh castle
james ordered him to be executed on his old shamefully unjust sentence within three days
however the boot was not applied he was simply beheaded and his head was set upon the top of edinburgh jail one of those englishmen who had been assigned to him was that old soldier rumbold the master of the rye house he was sorely wounded and within a week after argyle had suffered with great courage was brought up for trial
he too was executed after defending himself with great spirit and saying that he did not believe that god had made the greater part of mankind to carry saddles on their backs and bridles in their mouths and to be ridden by a few booted and spurred for the purpose in which i thoroughly agree with rumbold
the duke of monmouth partly through being detained and partly through idling his time away was five or six weeks behind his friend when he landed at lyme in dorset having at his right hand an unlucky nobleman called lord grey of werk
and a popish usurper and i know not what else charging him not only with what he had done which was bad enough but with what neither he nor anybody else had done such as setting fire to london and poisoning the late king raising some four thousand men by these means he marched on to taunton
flowers were strewn in his way and every compliment and honour that could be devised was showered upon him
and gave him a bible ornamented with their own fair hands together with other presents encouraged by this homage he proclaimed himself king and went on to bridgewater but here the government troops under the earl of feversham were close at hand and he was so dispirited at finding that he made but few powerful friends after all
that it was a question whether he should disband his army and endeavour to escape it was resolved at the instance of that unlucky lord grey to make a night attack on the king's army as it lay encamped on the edge of a morass called sedgemoor the horsemen were commanded by the same unlucky lord who was not a brave man
he gave up the battle almost at the first obstacle
they were soon dispersed by the trained soldiers and fled in all directions when the duke of monmouth himself fled
the only other articles he had upon him were a few papers and little books one of the latter being a strange jumble in his own writing of charms songs recipes and prayers he was completely broken he wrote a miserable letter to the king beseeching and entreating to be allowed to see him
on the fifteenth of july one thousand six hundred and eighty five
the crowd was immense and the tops of all the houses were covered with gazers he had seen his wife the daughter of the duke of buccleuch
the lady harriet wentworth who was one of the last persons he remembered in this life before laying down his head upon the block he felt the edge of the axe and told the executioner that he feared it was not sharp enough and that the axe was not heavy enough on the executioner replying that it was of the proper kind the duke said
i pray you have a care and do not use me so awkwardly as you used my lord russell the executioner made nervous by this and trembling struck once and merely gashed him in the neck upon this the duke of monmouth raised his head and looked the man reproachfully in the face
the atrocities committed by the government which followed this monmouth rebellion form the blackest and most lamentable page in english history the poor peasants having been dispersed with great loss and their leaders having been taken one would think that the implacable king might have been satisfied
but no he let loose upon them among other intolerable monsters a colonel kirk
were worthy of their leader the atrocities committed by these demons in human shape are far too horrible to be related here
and ruining them by making them buy their pardons at the price of all they possessed
to have batches of prisoners hanged outside the windows for the company's diversion
the detestable king informed him as an acknowledgment of these services that he was very well satisfied with his proceedings but the king's great delight was in the proceedings of jeffreys now a peer who went down into the west with four other judges to try persons accused of having had any share in the rebellion
was charged with having given shelter in her house to two fugitives from sedgemoor three times the jury refused to find her guilty until jeffreys bullied and frightened them into that false verdict when he had extorted it from them he said
as i dare say he would he sentenced her to be burned alive that very afternoon the clergy of the cathedral and some others interfered in her favour and she was beheaded within a week as a high mark of his approbation the king made jeffreys lord chancellor and he then went on to dorchester to exeter
one man who pleaded not guilty he ordered to be taken out of court upon the instant and hanged
at dorchester alone in the course of a few days jeffreys hanged eighty people besides whipping transporting imprisoning and selling as slaves great numbers he executed in all two hundred and fifty or three hundred
these executions took place among the neighbours and friends of the sentenced in thirty six towns and villages their bodies were mangled steeped in caldrons of boiling pitch and tar and hung up by the roadsides in the streets over the very churches the sight and smell of heads and limbs
you will hear much of the horrors of the great french revolution many and terrible they were there is no doubt but i know of nothing worse done by the maddened people of france in that awful time than was done by the highest judge in england with the express approval of the king of england in the bloody assize
jeffreys was as fond of money for himself as of misery for others and he sold pardons wholesale to fill his pockets the king ordered at one time a thousand prisoners to be given to certain of his favourites in order that they might bargain with them for their pardons
the young ladies of taunton who had presented the bible were bestowed upon the maids of honour at court and those precious ladies made very hard bargains with them indeed when the bloody assize was at its most dismal height
and when the king heard that through drunkenness and raging he was very ill his odious majesty remarked that such another man could not easily be found in england besides all this a former sheriff of london named cornish was hanged within sight of his own house after an abominably conducted trial
for having had a share in the rye house plot on evidence given by rumsey
and on the very same day a worthy widow named elizabeth gaunt was burned alive at tyburn for having sheltered a wretch who himself gave evidence against her she settled the fuel about herself with her own hands so that the flames should reach her quickly
so he went to work to change the religion of the country with all possible speed and what he did was this he first of all tried to get rid of what was called the test act which prevented the catholics from holding public employments by his own power of dispensing with the penalties
he tried it in one case and eleven of the twelve judges deciding in his favour he exercised it in three others
and whom he kept in their places and sanctioned he revived the hated ecclesiastical commission to get rid of compton bishop of london who manfully opposed him he solicited the pope to favour england with an ambassador which the pope who was a sensible man then rather unwillingly did
he favoured the establishment of convents in several parts of london he was delighted to have the streets and even the court itself filled with monks and friars in the habits of their orders he constantly endeavoured to make catholics of the protestants about him he held private interviews which he called closetings
he tried the same thing with the corporations and also though not so successfully with the lord lieutenants of counties to terrify the people into the endurance of all these measures he kept an army of fifteen thousand men encamped on hounslow heath where mass was openly performed in the general's tent
and where priests went among the soldiers endeavouring to persuade them to become catholics for circulating a paper among those men advising them to be true to their religion a protestant clergyman named johnson the chaplain of the late lord russell was actually sentenced to stand three times in the pillory
and was actually whipped from newgate to tyburn he dismissed his own brother in law from his council because he was a protestant and made a privy councillor of the before mentioned father petre he handed ireland over to richard talbot earl of tyrconnell
a worthless dissolute knave who played the same game there for his master and who played the deeper game for himself of one day putting it under the protection of the french king in going to these extremities every man of sense and judgment among the catholics from the pope to a porter knew that the king was a mere bigoted fool
who would undo himself and the cause he sought to advance but he was deaf to all reason and happily for england ever afterwards went tumbling off his throne in his own blind way a spirit began to arise in the country which the besotted blunderer little expected he first found it out in the university of cambridge
having made a catholic a dean at oxford without any opposition he tried to make a monk a master of arts at cambridge which attempt the university resisted and defeated him he then went back to his favourite oxford
his last plunge head foremost in his tumble off his throne he had issued a declaration that there should be no religious tests or penal laws in order to let in the catholics more easily but the protestant dissenters unmindful of themselves had gallantly joined the regular church in opposing it tooth and nail
when they got to the tower the officers and soldiers on guard besought them for their blessing while they were confined there the soldiers every day drank to their release with loud shouts when they were brought up to the court of king's bench for their trial which the attorney general said was for the high offence of censuring the government
and giving their opinion about affairs of state they were attended by similar multitudes and surrounded by a throng of noblemen and gentlemen when the jury went out at seven o'clock at night to consider of their verdict everybody except the king knew that they would rather starve than yield to the king's brewer who was one of them
it did not pass only to the east but passed to the west too until it reached the camp at hounslow where the fifteen thousand soldiers took it up and echoed it and still when the dull king who was then with lord feversham heard the mighty roar asked in alarm what it was and was told that it was nothing but the acquittal of the bishops
he said in his dogged way call you that nothing it is so much the worse for them
but i doubt if saint winifred had much to do with it as the king's friend inasmuch as the entirely new prospect of a catholic successor for both the king's daughters were protestants determined the earls of shrewsbury danby and devonshire lord lumley the bishop of london
admiral russell and colonel sidney to invite the prince of orange over to england the royal mole seeing his danger at last made in his fright many great concessions besides raising an army of forty thousand men but the prince of orange was not a man for james the second to cope with
his preparations were extraordinarily vigorous and his mind was resolved for a fortnight after the prince was ready to sail for england a great wind from the west prevented the departure of his fleet even when the wind lulled and it did sail it was dispersed by a storm and was obliged to put back to refit
on monday the fifth it anchored at torbay in devonshire and the prince with a splendid retinue of officers and men marched into exeter but the people in that western part of the country had suffered so much in the bloody assize that they had lost heart few people joined him and he began to think of returning
and publishing the invitation he had received from those lords as his justification for having come at all at this crisis some of the gentry joined him
of the protestant religion and of the prince of orange from that time the cause received no check
if he wanted any money by this time the king was running about in a pitiable way touching people for the king's evil in one place reviewing his troops in another and bleeding from the nose in a third the young prince was sent to portsmouth
in the night his daughter anne fled from whitehall palace and the bishop of london who had once been a soldier rode before her with a drawn sword in his hand and pistols at his saddle god help me cried the miserable king my very children have forsaken me
in his wildness after debating with such lords as were in london whether he should or should not call a parliament and after naming three of them to negotiate with the prince he resolved to fly to france he had the little prince of wales brought back from portsmouth and the child and the queen crossed the river to lambeth in an open boat
on a miserable wet night and got safely away this was on the night of the ninth of december at one o'clock on the morning of the eleventh the king who had in the meantime received a letter from the prince of orange stating his objects got out of bed
and went down the back stairs the same i suppose by which the priest in the wig and gown had come up to his brother and crossed the river in a small boat sinking the great seal of england by the way
he rode accompanied by sir edward hales to feversham where he embarked in a custom house hoy the master of this hoy wanting more ballast
and informed the king of their suspicions that he was a hatchet faced jesuit as they took his money and would not let him go he told them who he was and that the prince of orange wanted to take his life and he began to scream for a boat
he put himself into the hands of the lord lieutenant of the county
who only wanting to get rid of him and not caring where he went so that he went away was very much disconcerted that they did not let him go however there was nothing for it but to have him brought back with some state in the way of life guards to whitehall and as soon as he got there in his infatuation he heard mass
and set a jesuit to say grace at his public dinner the people had been thrown into the strangest state of confusion by his flight and had taken it into their heads that the irish part of the army were going to murder the protestants therefore they set the bells a ringing and lighted watch fires
and burned catholic chapels and looked about in all directions for father petre and the jesuits while the pope's ambassador was running away in the dress of a footman they found no jesuits but a man who had once been a frightened witness before jeffreys in court
the people to their lasting honour did not tear him to pieces after knocking him about a little they took him in the basest agonies of terror to the lord mayor who sent him at his own shrieking petition to the tower for safety there he died their bewilderment continuing
the people now lighted bonfires and made rejoicings as if they had any reason to be glad to have the king back again but his stay was very short for the english guards were removed from whitehall dutch guards were marched up to it and he was told by one of his late ministers that the prince would enter london next day and he had better go to ham
he thought himself very cunning in this as he meant to escape from rochester to france
so he went to gravesend in his royal barge attended by certain lords and watched by dutch troops and pitied by the generous people who were far more forgiving than he had ever been when they saw him in his humiliation on the night of the twenty third of december not even then understanding that everybody wanted to get rid of him
he went out absurdly through his rochester garden down to the medway and got away to france where he rejoined the queen there had been a council in his absence of the lords and the authorities of london when the prince came on the day after the king's departure he summoned the lords to meet him
and soon afterwards all those who had served in any of the parliaments of king charles the second it was finally resolved by these authorities that the throne was vacant by the conduct of king james the second that it was inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this protestant kingdom to be governed by a popish prince
and that their children should succeed them if they had any that if they had none the princess anne and her children should succeed that if she had none the heirs of the prince of orange should succeed
the english people were very well disposed to like their new queen and to receive her with great favour when she came among them as a stranger but she held the protestant religion in great dislike and brought over a crowd of unpleasant priests who made her do some very ridiculous things
and forced themselves upon the public notice in many disagreeable ways hence the people soon came to dislike her and she soon came to dislike them and she did so much all through this reign in setting the king who was dotingly fond of her
he never took a straight course but always took a crooked one he was bent upon war with spain though neither the house of commons nor the people were quite clear as to the justice of that war now that they began to think a little more about the story of the spanish match but the king rushed into it hotly
raised money by illegal means to meet its expenses and encountered a miserable failure at cadiz in the very first year of his reign an expedition to cadiz had been made in the hope of plunder but as it was not successful it was necessary to get a grant of money from the parliament
and when they met in no very complying humour the king told them to make haste to let him have it or it would be the worse for themselves not put in a more complying humour by this they impeached the king's favourite the duke of buckingham as the cause which he undoubtedly was
of many great public grievances and wrongs the king to save him dissolved the parliament without getting the money he wanted and when the lords implored him to consider and grant a little delay he replied no not one minute
he then began to raise money for himself by the following means among others he levied certain duties called tonnage and poundage which had not been granted by the parliament and could lawfully be levied by no other power he called upon the seaport towns to furnish
and to pay all the cost for three months of a fleet of armed ships and he required the people to unite in lending him large sums of money the repayment of which was very doubtful if the poor people refused they were pressed as soldiers or sailors if the gentry refused they were sent to prison
five gentlemen named sir thomas darnel john corbet walter earl john heveningham
and were sent to prison without any cause but the king's pleasure being stated for their imprisonment then the question came to be solemnly tried whether this was not a violation of magna charta and an encroachment by the king on the highest rights of the english people
his lawyers contended no because to encroach upon the rights of the english people would be to do wrong and the king could do no wrong the accommodating judges decided in favour of this wicked nonsense and here was a fatal division between the king and the people
for all this it became necessary to call another parliament the people sensible of the danger in which their liberties were chose for it those who were best known for their determined opposition to the king but still the king quite blinded by his determination to carry everything before him
addressed them when they met in a contemptuous manner and just told them in so many words that he had only called them together because he wanted money the parliament strong enough and resolute enough to know that they would lower his tone cared little for what he said and laid before him one of the great documents of history
it being contrary to their rights and liberties and the laws of their country at first the king returned an answer to this petition in which he tried to shirk it altogether but the house of commons then showing their determination to go on with the impeachment of buckingham the king in alarm returned an answer
giving his consent to all that was required of him he not only afterwards departed from his word and honour on these points over and over again but at this very time he did the mean and dissembling act of publishing his first answer and not his second
merely that the people might suppose that the parliament had not got the better of him that pestilent buckingham
for such miserable causes and such miserable creatures are wars sometimes made but he was destined to do little more mischief in this world one morning as he was going out of his house to his carriage
and he was violently stabbed with a knife which the murderer left sticking in his heart
he had had angry words up stairs just before with some french gentlemen who were immediately suspected by his servants and had a close escape from being set upon and killed in the midst of the noise the real murderer who had gone to the kitchen and might easily have got away drew his sword and cried out i am the man
his name was john felton a protestant and a retired officer in the army
and then he drew out the knife fell against a table and died the council made a mighty business of examining john felton about this murder though it was a plain case enough one would think he had come seventy miles to do it he told them and he did it for the reason he had declared
but as the judges now found out that torture was contrary to the law of england it is a pity they did not make the discovery a little sooner john felton was simply executed for the murder he had done a murder it undoubtedly was and not in the least to be defended
though he had freed england from one of the most profligate contemptible and base court favourites to whom it has ever yielded a very different man now arose this was sir thomas wentworth a yorkshire gentleman who had sat in parliament for a long time and who had favoured arbitrary and haughty principles
but who had gone over to the people's side on receiving offence from buckingham the king much wanting such a man for besides being naturally favourable to the king's cause he had great abilities made him first a baron
a parliament however was still in existence and was not to be won on the twentieth of january one thousand six hundred and twenty nine sir john eliot a great man who had been active in the petition of right brought forward other strong resolutions against the king's chief instruments and called upon the speaker to put them to the vote
to this the speaker answered he was commanded otherwise by the king and got up to leave the chair which according to the rules of the house of commons would have obliged it to adjourn without doing anything more when two members named mister hollis and mister valentine held him down
a scene of great confusion arose among the members and while many swords were drawn and flashing about the king who was kept informed of all that was going on told the captain of his guard to go down to the house and force the doors the resolutions were by that time however voted and the house adjourned
as they claimed it to be their privilege not to answer out of parliament for anything they had said in it they were committed to the tower the king then went down and dissolved the parliament in a speech wherein he made mention of these gentlemen as vipers'
the king always remarkably unforgiving never overlooked their offence when they demanded to be brought up before the court of king's bench he even resorted to the meanness of having them moved about from prison to prison so that the writs issued for that purpose should not legally find them
at last they came before the court and were sentenced to heavy fines and to be imprisoned during the king's pleasure when sir john eliot's health had quite given way and he so longed for change of air and scene as to petition for his release the king sent back the answer worthy of his sowship himself
that the petition was not humble enough when he sent another petition by his young son in which he pathetically offered to go back to prison when his health was restored if he might be released for its recovery the king still disregarded it when he died in the tower and his children petitioned to be allowed to take his body down to cornwall
there to lay it among the ashes of his forefathers the king returned for answer let sir john eliot's body be buried in the church of that parish where he died all this was like a very little king indeed i think
and now for twelve long years steadily pursuing his design of setting himself up and putting the people down the king called no parliament but ruled without one if twelve thousand volumes were written in his praise as a good many have been it would still remain a fact impossible to be denied
that for twelve years king charles the first reigned in england unlawfully and despotically seized upon his subjects goods and money at his pleasure and punished according to his unbridled will all who ventured to oppose him it is a fashion with some people to think that this king's career was cut short
but i must say myself that i think he ran a pretty long one william laud archbishop of canterbury was the king's right hand man in the religious part of the putting down of the people's liberties laud who was a sincere man of large learning but small sense
for the two things sometimes go together in very different quantities though a protestant held opinions so near those of the catholics
he looked upon vows robes lighted candles images and so forth as amazingly important in religious ceremonies and he brought in an immensity of bowing and candle snuffing he also regarded archbishops and bishops as a sort of miraculous persons
and was inveterate in the last degree against any who thought otherwise accordingly he offered up thanks to heaven and was in a state of much pious pleasure when a scotch clergyman named leighton was pilloried whipped branded in the cheek and had one of his ears cut off and one of his nostrils slit
for calling bishops trumpery and the inventions of men he originated on a sunday morning the prosecution of william prynne a barrister who was of similar opinions and who was fined a thousand pounds who was pilloried who had his ears cut off on two occasions one ear at a time and who was imprisoned for life
who was also fined a thousand pounds and who afterwards had his ears cut off and was imprisoned for life these were gentle methods of persuasion some will tell you i think they were rather calculated to be alarming to the people
notwithstanding the great complaints that had for years and years been made on the subject of monopolies
the riff coast pirates
that hath been false to twain old sea song of the year sixteen twenty probably by this time the greater part of the piratical craft along the riff coast has been destroyed
unfortunately for themselves attacked a vessel some little time ago belonging to the sultan of morocco for years past the governments of several european powers have sought to put friendly pressure upon the sultan of morocco
to effectually stop the depredations of the riffian coast pirates no strong measures however were really taken until the above episode occurred it is said that in early days the moors were some time in accustoming themselves to the perils of the deep
the sea is a huge beast which silly folk ride like worms on logs but it afterwards became clear that the moors had a strong fancy for the worms and logs too they gave up marvelling at those who went to sea and went on it themselves in search of plunder
that when these depredations were first made they took the form of reprisals upon the spaniards no sooner was granada fallen than thousands of desperate moors left the land disdaining to live under a spanish yoke settling along a portion of the northern coast of africa
they immediately proceeded to first attack all spanish vessels that could be found their quickness and knowledge of the coasts gave them the opportunity of reprisals for which they longed probably this got monotonous in course of time
for in their wild sea courses they took to harrying the vessels belonging to other nations and so laid the foundation for a race of pirates which has continued down to quite recently
each man pulled an oar and knew how to fight as well as row drawing little water a small squadron of these craft could be pushed up almost any creek or lie hidden behind a rock till the enemy came in sight
then oars out and a quick stroke for a few minutes next they were alongside their unsuspecting prey and pouring in a first volley ultimately the prize was usually taken the crew put in irons and the pirates returned home with their capture
no doubt being received with acclamation upon their arrival as far back as the sixteenth century the spanish forts at alhucemas not to mention other places were established for the purpose of repressing piracy in its vicinity
as they culminated in strong representations being made to the sultan of morocco by the various governments
and while in that condition two boats approached her from the shore
when however the latter got within a hundred yards or so of the helpless vessel the suspicions of the crew were aroused
a volley of bullets was returned by way of reply followed by a regular fusillade as the boats advanced there were only three revolvers on board the schooner and with these the crew prepared to defend themselves soon however their supply of ammunition became exhausted
and the pirates boarded the schooner without further opposition the vessel was at once ransacked even the clothes of the crew being taken the ship's own boat was lowered and into this the marauders put their booty and took it ashore also carrying the captain and one of the crew with them
about an hour later another boat containing about twenty pirates came off and fired on the ship the crew seeing that they could offer no effective resistance hid themselves away in the hold the other pirates had left very little for the new arrivals to take
and this seemed to annoy them so much that they gave vent to their ill feelings in several ways not the least wanton being the pollution of the ship's fresh water they also smashed the vessel's compass and tore up the charts
for the next two days the crew existed on a few biscuits which the pirates had left behind
the crew of the schooner hoisted a shirt as a signal which was fortunately seen
a place fortified by the spaniards to keep the pirates in check when several boats full of armed moors seized the vessel and made the crew prisoners they then completely pillaged the ship removing almost everything of any use or value
but the pirates opened fire on the steamer killing and wounding some of the crew the spaniard was compelled to retire leaving the captain of the barque in the hands of the moors subsequently the barque was picked up in an abandoned condition by the british steamship oswin and towed into almeria
an arrangement was afterwards made with the pirates to release the captains of the fiducia and the portuguese barque rosita faro a much earlier capture and some members of both crews in exchange for the riffians captured by the spanish steamer sevilla and a ransom of three thousand dollars
and a few other frenchmen for some reason or other the pirates seemed very much disinclined to part with these prisoners only a short time before the attack on the french barque took place a notice was issued by the british board of trade in which the attention of ship owners and masters of vessels
as usual the pirates ransacked the vessel destroyed the ensign and ship's papers brutally assaulted the men on board and then made off in their boat scarcely had the foregoing notice been generally circulated
when a boat full of pirates suddenly came alongside and speedily upset the quietness which had previously reigned on board the jacob five of the crew managed to escape in the cutter's boat and were picked up some days later by a passing vessel
after the vessel had been pillaged the rigging and sails destroyed the men were all securely bound and left to their fate fortunately the weather continued fine and the jacob drifted towards the spanish coast where she was seen and assistance promptly rendered
the captain of another spanish vessel had quite a thrilling adventure among these pirates in may eighteen ninety two
the moors then boarded the san antonio and took her in tow when close to the land the captain was rowed ashore and the pirates spent part of the night in unloading the cargo next morning the san antonio was seen drifting out to sea and the captain who was afraid of being put to death
probably thinking that some of their comrades were on the barque but unable to set the necessary canvas to return only two moors were sent off with the captain and these remained in the boat when the vessel was reached
upon gaining the deck of the barque the captain was surprised to find himself alone without hesitating for a moment he released the crew who were confined below hoisted sail and stood out to sea the moors who had been left in the boat were speedily cut adrift
much to their amazement for it so happened that none of the pirates had stayed on board no doubt they were eager to find a safe hiding place for their plunder
took no further heed of the matter a few days later the san antonio arrived at gibraltar where full particulars of the outrage were furnished to the authorities space will not admit of details being given of the attacks on the spanish barque goleta the portuguese barque rosita faro
and other vessels it should be mentioned however
have had remarkably narrow escapes from being captured by these sea ruffians it is sincerely to be hoped that the sultan of morocco is carrying out his task in such a manner as will induce the inhabitants of the riff coast to follow some occupation in future
for the purpose of obtaining the release of captives to be received with derision often too they were maltreated to such an extent that they were glad to escape with their lives some of the neighboring tribes continually endeavored to purchase captives for the pleasure of killing them
chapter eight they must have carried me
for when i woke the following morning my surroundings were familiar enough though a glorious maze of uncertainties rocked to and fro in my mind
was heru real or only a lovely fancy and those hairy ruffians of whom a horrible vision danced before my waking eyes were they fancy too no
my wrists still ached with the strain of the tussle the quaint sad wine taste was still on my lips it was all real enough i decided starting up in bed and if it was real where was the little princess what had they done with her surely they had not given her to the ape men
and she shrinking from them in horror while her poor white face turned to me for rescue in desperate pleading oh i must find her at all costs and leaping from bed i snatched up those trousers without which the best of heroes is nothing
with half a dozen others behind him swept aside the curtains of my doorway they peeped and peered all about the room then one said is princess heru with you sir no i answered roughly saints alive man
whom we saw carried down to the harbour at daybreak by yonder woodmen and the pink upon their pretty cheeks faded to nothing at the suggestion what i roared heru taken from the palace by a handful of men and none of you infernal rascals
none of you white livered abortions lifted a hand to save her curse on you a thousand times out of my way you churls and snatching up coat and hat and sword i rushed furiously down the long marble stairs just as the short martian night was giving place to lavender coloured light of morning
i found my way somehow down the deserted corridors where the air was heavy with aromatic vapours i flew by curtained niches and chambers where amongst mounds of half withered flowers the martian lovers were slowly waking down into the banquethall i sped
and there in the twilight was the litter of the feast still about gold cups and silver broken bread and meat the convolvulus flowers all turning their pallid faces to the rosy daylight making pools of brightness between the shadows
amongst the litter little sapphire coloured finches were feeding twittering merrily to themselves as they hopped about and here and there down the long tables lay asprawl a belated reveller his empty oblivion phial before him his curly head upon his arms dreaming perhaps of last night's feast
and a neglected bride dozing dispassionate in some distant chamber but heru was not there and little i cared for twittering finches or sighing damsels with hasty feet i rushed down the hall out into the cool sweet air of the planet morning
there i met one whom i knew and he told me he had been among the crowd and had heard the woodmen had gone no farther than the river gate that heru was with them beyond a doubt i would not listen to more good i shouted
get me a horse and just a handful of your sleek kindred and we will pull the prize from the bear's paw even yet surely i said turning to a knot of martian youths who stood listening a few steps away
the big bullies are very few the sea runs behind them the maid in their clutch is worth fighting for it needs but one good onset five minutes gallantry and she is ours again
think how fine it will look to bring her back before yon sleepy fellows have found their weapons you there with the blue tunic you look a proper fellow and something of a heart should beat under such gay wrappings will you come with me but blue mantle biting his thumbs
murmured he had not breakfasted yet and edged away behind his companions wherever i looked eyes dropped and timid hands fidgeted as their owners backed off from my dangerous enthusiasm there was obviously no help to be had from them and meantime the precious moments were flying
so with a disdainful glance i turned on my heels and set off alone as hard as i could go for the harbour but it was too late i rushed through the marketplace where all was silent and deserted i ran on to the wharves beyond and they were empty save for the litter and embers of the fires ar hap's men had made during their stay
two boatloads of them twenty yards from shore
this latter was careening over as a dusky group of men lifted aboard to a heap of tumbled silks and stuffs in the stern such a sweet piece of insensible merchandise as no man i at least of all could mistake it was heru herself and the rogues were ladling her on board like so much sandal wood or cotton sheeting
i did not wait for more but out came my sword and yielding to a reckless impulse for which perhaps last night's wine was as much to blame as anything i sprang down the steps and leapt aboard of the boat just as it was pushed off upon the swift tide
full of bersark rage i cut one brawny copper coloured thief down and struck another with my fist between the eyes so that he went headlong into the water sinking like lead and deep into the great target of his neighbour's chest i drove my blade had there been a man beside me
had there been but two or three of all those silken triflers too late come on the terraces above to watch we might have won but all alone what could i do that last red beast turned on my blade and as he fell dragged me half down with him i staggered up
and tugging the metal from him turned on the next at that moment the cause of all the turmoil roused by the fighting came to herself and sitting up on the piled plunder in the boat stared round for a moment with a childish horror at the barbarians whose prize she was then at me
then at the dead man at my feet whose blood was welling in a red tide from the wound in his breast as the full meaning of the scene dawned upon her she started to her feet looking wonderfully beautiful amongst those dusky forms and extending her hands to me began to cry in the most piteous way
i sprang forward and as i did so saw an ape man clap his hairy paw over her mouth and face
and drag her roughly back but that was about the last i remembered as i turned to hit him standing on the slippery thwart another rogue crept up behind and let drive with a club he had in hand the cudgel caught me sideways on the head a glancing shot i can recall a blaze of light
a strange medley of sounds in my ears and then clutching at a pile of stuffs as i fell a tall bower of spray rising on either hand and the cool shock of the blue sea as i plunged headlong in but nothing after that how long after i know not
but presently a tissue of daylight crept into my eyes and i awoke again it was better than nothing perhaps yet it was a poor awakening the big sun lay low down and the day was all but done so much i guessed as i rocked in that light with an undulating movement
recognised with a start of wonder that i was still in the water floating on a swift current into the unknown on an air filled pile of silken stuffs which had been pulled down with me from the boat when i got my ganging from yonder rascal's mace it was a wet couch sodden and chilly
but as the freshening evening wind blew on my face and the darkening water lapped against my forehead i revived more fully where had we come to i turned an aching neck and all along on both sides seemed to stretch steep straight coasts about a mile or so apart
in the shadow of the setting sun black as ebony between the two the hampered water ran quickly with away on the right some shallow sandy spits and islands covered with dwarf bushes chilly inhospitable looking places they seemed as i turned my eyes upon them
but he who rides helpless down an evening tide stands out for no great niceties of landing place could i but reach them they would make at least a drier bed than this of mine
the sinews of my neck and forearms a mass of agonies and no more fit to swim me to those reedy swamps which now as pain and hunger began to tell seemed to wear the aspects of paradise with a groan i dropped back upon my raft and watched the islands slipping by
while over my feet the southern sky darkened to purple there was no help there but glancing round away on the left and a few furlongs from me i noticed on the surface of the water two converging strands of brightness
a head presently developed then as we approached the ears and antlers of a swimming stag it was a huge beast as it loomed up against the glow bigger than any mortal stag ever was the kind of fellow traveller no one would willingly accost
when we were about a furlong apart the great beast seemed to change its course mayhap it took the wreckage on which i floated for an outlying shoal
be this as it may the beast came hurtling down on me lip deep in the waves a mighty brown head with pricked ears that flicked the water from them now and then small bright eyes set far back and wide palmated antlers on a mighty forehead like the dead branches of a tree
what that martian mountain elk had hoped for can only be guessed what he met with was a tangle of floating finery carrying a numbed traveller on it and with a snort of disappointment he turned again it was a poor chance but better than nothing
quick as thought the beast twisted his head aside and tossed his antlers so that the try was fruitless but was i to lose my only chance of shore with all my strength i hurled myself upon him missing my clutch again by a hair's breadth
and going headlong into the salt furrow his chest was turning up happily i kept hold of the web for the great elk then turned back passing between me and the ruck of stuff and getting thereby the silk under his chin and as i came gasping to the top once more
round came that dainty wreckage over his back and i clutched it and sooner than it takes to tell i was towing to the shore as perhaps no one was ever towed before the big beast dragged the ruck like withered weed behind him bellowing all the time with a voice which made the hills echo all round
and then when he got his feet upon the shallows rose dripping and mountainous a very cliff of black hide and limb against the night shine and with a single sweep of his antlers tore the webbing from me who lay prone and breathless in the mud and thinking it was his enemy hurled the limp bundle on the beach
the tumult of the struggle into which that vision led me still throbs in my mind the soft lisping voices of the planet i ransacked for its sake and the roar of the destruction which followed me back from the quest drowns all other sounds in my ears i must and will write
it relieves me read and believe as you list at the moment this story commences i was thinking of grilled steak and tomatoes steak crisp and brown on both sides and tomatoes red as a setting sun
much else though i have forgotten that fact remains as clear as the last sight of a well remembered shore in the mind of some wave tossed traveller and the occasion which produced that prosaic thought was a night well calculated to make one think of supper and fireside
and as i gulliver jones the poor foresaid navy lieutenant with the honoured stars of our republic on my collar and an undeserved snub from those in authority rankling in my heart
picked my way homeward by a short cut through the dismalness of a new york slum i longed for steak and stout slippers and a pipe with all the pathetic keenness of a troubled soul it was a wild black kind of night and the weirdness of it showed up as i passed from light to light
or crossed the mouths of dim alleys leading heaven knows to what infernal dens of mystery and crime even in this latter day city of ours the moon was up as far as the church steeples large vapoury clouds scudding across the sky between us and her
and sighed in the parapets like strange voices talking about things not of human interest it made no difference to me of course new york in this year of grace is not the place for the supernatural be the time never so fit for witch riding
and the night wind in the chimney stacks sound never so much like the last gurgling cries of throttled men
a poor younger son with five dollars in my purse by way of fortune a packet of unpaid bills in my breastpocket and round my neck a locket with a portrait therein of that dear buxom freckled stub nosed girl away in a little southern seaport town
gods i had not even touched the fringe of that affliction thus sauntering along moodily
i was crossing in front of a dilapidated block of houses dating back nearly to the time of the pilgrim fathers when i had a vague consciousness of something dark suddenly sweeping by me a thing like a huge bat or a solid shadow if such a thing could be
and the next instant there was a thud and a bump a bump again a half stifled cry and then a hurried vision of some black carpeting that flapped and shook as though all the winds of eblis were in its folds and then apparently disgorged from its inmost recesses a little man
before my first start of half amused surprise was over i saw him by the flickering lamp light clutch at space as he tried to steady himself stumble on the slippery curb and the next moment go down on the back of his head with a most ugly thud now i was not destitute of feeling
there he lay silent and as it turned out afterwards dead as a door nail the strangest old fellow ever eyes looked upon dressed in shabby sorrel coloured clothes of antique cut with a long grey beard upon his chin
and his head dropped back over my arm as though it had been fixed to his body with string alone there was neither heart beat nor breath in him and the last flicker of life faded out of that gaunt face even as i watched it was not altogether a pleasant situation
and the only thing to do appeared to be to get the dead man into proper care
as speedily as possible so sending a chance passer by into the main street for a cab
you don't suppose i go about at this time of night with turkey carpets under my arm do you it belongs to this old chap here who has just dropped out of the skies on to his head chuck it on top and shut the door and that rug the very mainspring of the startling things which followed
was thus carelessly thrown on to the carriage and off we went well to be brief i handed in that stark old traveller from nowhere at the hospital and as a matter of curiosity sat in the waiting room while they examined him in five minutes the house surgeon on duty came in to see me
and with a shake of his head said briefly gone sir clean gone broke his neck like a pipe stem most strange looking man and none of us can even guess at his age not a friend of yours i suppose nothing whatever to do with me sir
and as a matter of common charity i brought him in here were there any means of identification on him none whatever answered the doctor taking out his notebook and as a matter of form writing down my name and address and a few brief particulars
nothing whatever except this curious looking bead hung round his neck by a blackened thong of leather and he handed me a thing about as big as a filbert nut with a loop for suspension and apparently of rock crystal though so begrimed and dull its nature was difficult to speak of with certainty
the bead was of no seeming value and slipped unintentionally into my waistcoat pocket as i chatted for a few minutes more with the doctor and then shaking hands i said goodbye and went back to the cab which was still waiting outside
it was only on reaching home i noticed the hospital porters had omitted to take the dead man's carpet from the roof of the cab when they carried him in and as the cabman did not care about driving back to the hospital with it and it could not well be left in the street i somewhat reluctantly carried it indoors with me
once in the shine of my own lamp and a cigar in my mouth i had a closer look at that ancient piece of art work from heaven or the other place only knows what ancient loom a big strong rug of faded oriental colouring it covered half the floor of my sitting room
the substance being of a material more like camel's hair than anything else and running across when examined closely were some dark fibres so long and fine that surely they must have come from the tail of solomon's favourite black stallion itself but the strangest thing about that carpet was its pattern
it was threadbare enough to all conscience in places yet the design still lived in solemn age wasted hues and as i dragged it to my stove front and spread it out
who had lately recovered from delirium tremens as anything else in the centre appeared a round such as might be taken for the sun while here and there in the field as heralds say were lesser orbs which from their size and position could represent smaller worlds circling about it
between these orbs were dotted lines and arrow heads of the oldest form pointing in all directions while all the intervening spaces were filled up with woven characters half way in appearance between runes and cryptic sanskrit round the borders these characters ran into a wild maze
a perfect jungle of an alphabet through which none but a wizard could have forced a way in search of meaning altogether i thought as i kicked it out straight upon my floor it was a strange and not unhandsome article of furniture it would do nicely for the mess room on the carolina
little did i guess how dear it would be at any price meanwhile that steak was late
what a dark sodden world it was that frowned in on me as i moved over to the window and opened it for the benefit of the cool air and how the wind howled about the roof tops how lonely i was
what a fool i had been to ask for long leave and come ashore like this to curry favour with a set of stubborn dunderheads who cared nothing for me or polly
and could not or would not understand how important it was to the best interests of the service that i should get that promotion which alone would send me back to her an eligible wooer
i wish i wish i exclaimed walking round the little room i wish i were while these unfinished exclamations were actually passing my lips i chanced to cross that infernal mat and it is no more startling than true
but at my word a quiver of expectation ran through that gaunt web a rustle of anticipation filled its ancient fabric and one frayed corner surged up and as i passed off its surface in my stride
and the steak and tomatoes mentioned more than once already it was the draught caused by the opening door of course that had made the dead man's rug lift so strangely what else could it have been i made this apology to the good woman
and when she had set the table and closed the door took another turn or two about my den continuing as i did so my angry thoughts yes yes i said at last returning to the stove and taking my stand hands in pockets in front of it
anything were better than this any enterprise however wild any adventure however desperate oh i wish i were anywhere but here anywhere out of this redtape ridden world of ours i wish i were in the planet mars
it humped up in the middle so abruptly that i came down sitting with a shock that numbed me for the moment it threw me on my back and billowed up round me as though i were in the trough of a stormy sea quicker than i can write
rolled me over lapped me in fold after fold till head and feet and everything were gone crushed life and breath back into my innermost being and then with the last particle of consciousness i felt myself lifted from the floor pass once round the room
and finally shoot out point foremost into space through the open window and go up and up and up with a sound of rending atmospheres that seemed to tear like riven silk in one prolonged shriek under my head and to close up in thunder astern until my reeling senses could stand it no longer
tree branches had broken the lifeboat's fall the bow rockets had burned out in emergency blast and the swamp had cushioned the landing a bit it was still a crash the battered cylinder sank slowly into the stagnant water and thin mud of the swamp
the bow was well under before jason managed to kick open the emergency hatch in the waist there was no way of knowing how long it would take for the boat to go under and jason was in no condition to ponder the situation concussed and bloody he had just enough drive left to get himself out
wading and falling he made his way to firmer land sitting down heavily as soon as he found something that would support him behind him the lifeboat burbled and sank under the water bubbles of trapped air kept rising for a while then stopped
the water stilled and except for the broken branches and trees there was no sign that a ship had ever come this way insects whined across the swamp and the only sound that broke the quiet of the woods beyond was the cruel scream of an animal pulling down its dinner
when that had echoed away in tiny waves of sound everything was silent jason pulled himself out of the half trance with an effort his body felt like it had been through a meat grinder and it was almost impossible to think with the fog in his head
after minutes of deliberation he figured out that the medikit was what he needed the easy off snap was very difficult and the button release didn't work he finally twisted his arm around until it was under the orifice and pressed the entire unit down
it buzzed industriously though he couldn't feel the needles he guessed it had worked his sight spun dizzily for a while then cleared pain killers went to work and he slowly came out of the dark cloud that had enveloped his brain since the crash
he was without food friendless surrounded by the hostile forces of an alien planet
looking at the red stain he was suddenly angry hating this deadly planet and the incredible stupidity of the people who lived on it cursing out loud was better and his voice didn't sound as weak now he ended up shouting and shaking his fist at nothing in particular but it helped
the anger washed away the fear and brought him back to reality sitting on the ground felt good now the sun was warm and when he leaned back he could almost forget the unending burden of doubled gravity anger had carried away fear
still alive none of the bruises seemed very important and no bones were broken his gun was still working it
the medikit was operating as well if he kept his senses managed to walk in a fairly straight line and could live off the land there was a fair chance he might make it back to the city what kind of a reception would be waiting for him there was a different matter altogether
he would find that out after he arrived getting there had first priority
strength sapping gravity murderous weather and violent animals could he survive as if to add emphasis to his thoughts the sky darkened over and rain hissed into the forest marching towards him
jason scrambled to his feet and took a bearing before the rain closed down visibility a jagged chain of mountains stood dimly on the horizon he remembered crossing them on the flight out they would do as a first goal after he had reached them he would worry about the next leg of the journey
leaves and dirt flew before the wind in quick gusts then the rain washed over him soaked chilled already bone tired he pitted the tottering strength of his legs against the planet of death when nightfall came it was still raining
there was no way of being sure of the direction and no point in going on if that wasn't enough jason was on the ragged edge of exhaustion it was going to be a wet night all the trees were thick boled and slippery he couldn't have climbed them on a one g world
the rain stopped around midnight and the temperature fell sharply jason woke sluggishly from a dream in which he was being frozen to death to find it was almost true fine snow was sifting through the trees powdering the ground and drifting against him
the cold bit into his flesh and when he sneezed it hurt his chest his aching and numb body only wanted rest but the spark of reason that remained in him forced him to his feet if he lay down now he would die
holding one hand against the tree so he wouldn't fall he began to trudge around it step after shuffling step around and around until the terrible cold eased a bit and he could stop shivering fatigue crawled up him like a muffling gray blanket
he kept on walking half the time with his eyes closed opening them only when he fell and had to climb painfully to his feet again the sun burned away the snow clouds at dawn jason leaned against his tree and blinked up at the sky with sore eyes
the ground was white in all directions except around the tree where his stumbling feet had churned a circle of black mud his back against the smooth trunk jason sank slowly down to the ground letting the sun soak into him
exhaustion had him light headed and his lips were cracked from thirst almost continuous coughing tore at his chest with fingers of fire though the sun was still low it was hot already burning his skin dry dry and hot it wasn't right
this thought kept nagging at his brain until he admitted it turned it over and over and looked at it from all sides what wasn't right the way he felt pneumonia he had all the symptoms his dry lips cracked and blood moistened them when he smiled
that meant something he knew but he just couldn't remember what holding it up he saw that one of the hypodermics was projecting halfway from its socket of course it was empty of whatever antibiotic the analyzer had called for it needed refilling
jason hurled the thing away with a curse and it splashed into a pool and was gone end of medicine end of medikit end of jason din alt single handed battler against the perils of deathworld strong hearted stranger who could do as well as the natives
a choking growl echoed behind him he turned dropped and fired in the same motion it was all over before his conscious mind was aware it had happened
jason gaped at the ugly beast dying not a meter from him and realized he had been trained well his first reaction was unhappiness that he had killed one of the grubber dogs when he looked closer he realized this animal was slightly different in markings size and temper
though most of its forequarters were blown away blood pumping out in dying spurts it kept trying to reach jason before the eyes glazed with death it had struggled its way almost to his feet it wasn't quite a grubber dog though chances were it was a wild relative
bearing the same relation as dog to wolf he wondered if there were any other resemblances between wolves and this dead beast did they hunt in packs too as soon as the thought hit him he looked up not a moment too soon
the great forms were drifting through the trees closing in on him when he shot two the others snarled with rage and sank back into the forest they didn't leave instead of being frightened by the deaths they grew even more enraged
he wished dimly that he were leaning against a smaller tree but it wasn't worth the effort to go to one sometime in the afternoon he fired his last shot it killed an animal he had allowed to get close he had noticed he was missing the longer shots
though they shouldn't talk it would kill them all in the end too
now that he didn't have to force himself to stay alert and hold the gun the fever took hold he wanted to sleep and he knew it would be a long sleep his eyes were almost closed as he watched the wary carnivores slip closer to him the first one crept close enough to spring
it leaped whirling in midair and falling before it reached him blood ran from its gaping mouth and the short shaft of metal projected from the side of his head the two men walked out of the brush and looked down at him
their mere presence seemed to have been enough for the carnivores because they all vanished
further reading of the log produced no new evidence there was a good deal more information about the early animal and plant life and how deadly they were as well as the first defenses against them interesting historically but of no use whatsoever in countering the menace
he never lived to change his mind the last entry in the log less than two months after the first attack was very brief and in a different handwriting captain kurkowski died today of poisoning following an insect bite his death is greatly mourned
the why of the planetary revulsion had yet to be uncovered kerk must see this book jason said he should have some idea of the progress being made can we get transportation or do we walk to city hall walk of course meta said
they had just entered kerk's outer office when a shrill screaming burst out of the phone screen it took jason a moment to realize that it was a mechanical signal not a human voice what is it he asked kerk burst through the door and headed for the street entrance
everyone else in the office was going the same way meta looked confused leaning towards the door then looking back at jason what does it mean can't you tell me he shook her arm
sector alarm a major breakthrough of some kind at the perimeter everyone but other perimeter guards has to answer well go then he said don't worry about me i'll be all right his words acted like a trigger release meta's gun was in her hand and she was gone before he had finished speaking
at first jason could make no sense of it at all just a confused jumble of faces and voices it was a multi channel set designed for military use a number of images were carried on the screen at one time rows of heads or hazy backgrounds where the user had left the field of view
many of the heads were talking at the same time and the babble of their voices made no sense whatsoever after examining the controls and making a few experiments jason began to understand the operation though all stations were on the screen at all times their audio channels could be controlled
in that way two three or more stations could be hooked together in a link up they would be in round robin communication with each other yet never out of contact with the other stations identification between voice and sound was automatic
whenever one of the pictured images spoke the image would glow red by trial and error jason brought in the audio for the stations he wanted and tried to follow the course of the attack very quickly he realized this was something out of the ordinary in some way no one made it clear
kerk seemed to be in charge at least he was the only one with an override transmitter he used it for general commands the many tiny images faded and his face appeared on top of them filling the entire screen
all perimeter stations send twenty five per cent of your complement to area twelve the small images reappeared and the babble increased red lights flickering from face to face abandon the first floor acid bombs can't reach
just sitting and watching was frustrating particularly when it was a desperate emergency he didn't overvalue his worth but he was sure there was always room for another gun by the time he had dragged himself down to the street level a turbo truck had slammed to a stop in front of the loading platform
jason didn't dare enter that maelstrom of rolling metal he found he could be of use tugging the heavy drums into position on the truck while the others rolled them up they accepted his aid without acknowledgment
it was exhausting sweaty work hauling the leaden drums into place against the heavy gravity after a minute jason worked by touch through a red haze of hammering blood he realized the job was done only when the truck suddenly leaped forward and he was thrown to the floor
he lay there his chest heaving as the driver hurled the heavy vehicle along all jason could do was bounce around in the bottom he could see well enough but was still gasping for breath when they braked at the fighting zone to jason it was a scene of incredible confusion
guns firing flames men and women running on all sides the napalm drums were unloaded without his help and the truck vanished for more
it was impossible there seemed to be a great number of small animals he killed two that attacked him other than that he couldn't determine the nature of the battle
it was covered with freshly applied surgical foam he held his gun in his left hand a stump of control cable dangling from it jason thought the man was looking for medical aid he couldn't have been more wrong
then with the gun once more in his hand he began to roll the drum along the ground with his feet it was slow cumbersome work but he was still in the fight jason pushed through the hurrying crowd and bent over the drum let me do it he said you can cover us both with your gun
the man wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his arm and blinked at jason he seemed to recognize him when he smiled it was a grimace of pain empty of humor do that i can still shoot two half men maybe we equal one whole
jason was laboring too hard to even notice the insult an explosion had blasted a raw pit in the street ahead two people were at the bottom digging it even deeper with shovels the whole thing seemed meaningless
just as jason and the wounded man rolled up the drum the diggers leaped out of the excavation and began shooting down into its depths one of them turned a young girl barely in her teens praise perimeter she breathed they found the napalm
one of the new horrors is breaking through towards thirteen we just found it
when half of it had gurgled down she kicked the drum itself in
this was putting it very mildly the napalm caught tongues of flame and roiling greasy smoke climbed up to the sky under jason's feet the earth shifted and moved
something black and long stirred in the heart of the flame then arched up into the sky over their heads in the midst of the searing heat it still moved with alien jolting motions it was immense at least two meters thick and with no indication of its length
the flames didn't stop it at all just annoyed it jason had some idea of the thing's length as the street cracked and buckled for fifty meters on each side of the pit great loops of the creature began to emerge from the ground
he fired his gun as did the others not that it seemed to have any effect more and more people were appearing armed with a variety of weapons flame throwers and grenades seemed to be the most effective clear the area we're going to saturate it fall back
there was still doubt in jason's mind what to do clear the area but what area
even under two gravities they moved jason had a naked feeling of being alone on the stage he was in the center of the street and the others had vanished no one remained except the wounded man jason had helped he stumbled towards jason waving his good arm
jason couldn't understand what he said kerk was shouting orders again from one of the trucks they had started to move too the urgency struck home and jason started to run it was too late
on all sides the earth was buckling cracking as more loops of the underground thing forced its way into the light safety lay ahead only in front of it rose an arch of dirt encrusted gray there are seconds of time that seem to last an eternity
a moment of subjective time that is grabbed and stretched to an infinite distance this was one of those moments jason stood frozen even the smoke in the sky hung unmoving the high standing loop of alien life was before him
every detail piercingly clear thick as a man ribbed and gray as old bark
jason knew nothing then he was shot forward pushed by a rock hard shoulder the wounded man was still there trying to get jason clear gun clenched in his jaws he dragged jason along with his good arm towards the creature
the others stopped firing they saw his plan and it was a good one a loop of the thing arched into the air leaving an opening between its body and the ground
one handed with a single thrust he picked jason off the ground and sent him hurtling under the living arch moving tendrils brushed fire along his face then he was through rolling over and over on the ground
it was too late there had been a chance for one person to get out
instead he had pushed jason first the thing was aware of movement when jason brushed its tendrils it dropped and caught the wounded man under its weight he vanished from sight as the tendrils wrapped around him and the animals swarmed over
his trigger must have pulled back to full automatic because the gun kept firing a long time after he should have been dead jason crawled some of the fanged animals ran towards him but were shot he knew nothing about this
then rude hands grabbed him up and pulled him forward he slammed into the side of a truck and kerk's face was in front of his flushed and angry one of the giant fists closed on the front of jason's clothes and he was lifted off his feet shaken like a limp bag of rags
he offered no protest and could not have even if kerk had killed him when he was thrown to the ground someone picked him up and slid him into the back of the truck he did not lose consciousness as the truck bounced away
it's a strange feeling jason said i've never really seen the perimeter from this side before ugly is about the only word for it he lay on his stomach next to rhes looking through a screen of leaves downhill towards the perimeter
they were both wrapped in heavy furs in spite of the midday heat with thick leggings and leather gauntlets to protect their hands the gravity and the heat were already making jason dizzy but he forced himself to ignore this
ahead on the far side of a burnt corridor stood the perimeter a high wall of varying height and texture seemingly made of everything in the world it was impossible to tell what it had originally been constructed of
generations of attackers had bruised broken and undermined it repairs had been quickly made patches thrust roughly into place and fixed there crude masonry crumbled and gave way to a rat's nest of woven timbers
this overlapped a length of pitted metal large plates riveted together even this metal had been eaten through and bursting sandbags spilled out of a jagged hole over the surface of the wall detector wires and charged cables looped and hung
it varies a simple sweep just enough to fool an animal but was never meant to keep men out look for yourself it fires at regularly repeated two four three and one minute intervals they crawled back to the hollow where naxa and the others waited for them
naxa is keeping the larger animals away and you all can handle the smaller ones that isn't the danger every thorn is poisoned and even the blades of grass carry a deadly sting
watch out for insects of any kind and once we start moving breathe only through the wet cloths he's right naxa snorted
death death up by that wall do like e says they could only wait then honing down already needle sharp crossbow bolts and glancing up at the slowly moving sun only naxa didn't share the unrest
he sat eyes unfocused feeling the movement of animal life in the jungle around them on the way he said biggest thing i ver heard not a beast tween here and the mountains ain't howlin is lungs out runnin towards the city jason was aware of part of it
they hit naxa said suddenly the men were on their feet now staring in the direction of the city jason had felt the twist as the attack had been driven home and knew that this was it there was the sound of shots and a heavy booming far away
thin streamers of smoke began to blow above the treetops let's get into position rhes said around them the jungle howled with an echo of hatred
jason got the medikit to him in time but he was so sick he had to turn back the other three were bitten or scratched and treatment came too late their swollen twisted bodies were left behind on the trail
it was turned on but only a hiss of atmospheric static came from the speaker we could have timed it rhes said no we couldn't jason told him not accurately we want to hit that wall at the height of the attack when our chances are best
the sound from the speaker changed a voice spoke a short sentence then cut off bring me three barrels of flour let's go rhes urged as he started forward wait jason said taking him by the arm i'm timing the flame thrower it's due in there
a blast of fire sprayed the ground then turned off we have four minutes to the next one we hit the long period they ran stumbling in the soft ashes tripping over charred bones and rusted metal two men grabbed jason under the arm and half carried him across the ground
it hadn't been planned that way but it saved precious seconds they dropped him against the wall and he fumbled out the bombs he had made the charges from krannon's gun taken when he was killed had been hooked together with a firing circuit all the moves had been rehearsed carefully and they went smoothly now
if he was wrong they were all dead the first men had slapped their wads of sticky congealed sap against the wall jason pressed the charges into them and they stuck a roughly rectangular pattern as high as a man
while he did this the detonating wire was run out to its length and the raiders pressed back against the base of the wall jason stumbled through the ashes to the detonator fell on it and pressed the switch at the same time
behind him a thundering bang shook the wall and red flame burst out rhes was the first one there pulling at the twisted and smoking metal with his gloved hands others grabbed on and bent the jagged pieces aside
the hole was filled with smoke and nothing was visible through it jason dived into the opening rolled on a heap of rubble and smacked into something solid when he blinked the smoke from his eyes he looked around him he was inside the city
the others poured through now picking him up as they charged in so he wouldn't be trampled underfoot someone spotted the spaceship and they ran that way a man ran around the corner of a building towards them
the man slumped slowly back onto the street three metal bolts sticking out of his body they ran on without stopping running between the low storehouses the ship stood ahead someone had reached it ahead of them they could see the outer hatch slowly grinding shut
a hail of bolts from the bows crashed into it with no effect keep going jason shouted get next to the hull before he reaches the guns this time three men didn't make it the rest of them were under the belly of the ship when every gun let go at once
whoever was inside the ship had hit all the gun trips at once both to knock out the attackers and summon aid he would be on the screen now calling for help their time was running out
it was locked from the inside one of the men brushed him aside and pulled at the inset handle it broke off in his hand but the hatch remained closed the big guns had stopped now and they could hear again did anyone get the gun from that dead man he asked it would blow this thing open
no rhes said we didn't stop before the words were out of his mouth two men were running back towards the buildings angling away from each other the ship's guns roared again a string of explosions cut across one man before they could change direction and find the other man he had reached the buildings
he returned quickly darting into the open to throw the gun to them before he could dive back to safety the shells caught him jason grabbed up the gun as it skidded almost to his feet they heard the sound of wide open truck turbines screaming towards them as he blasted the lock
the mechanism sighed and the hatch sagged open they were all through the air lock before the first truck appeared naxa stayed behind with the gun to hold the lock until they could take the control room everyone climbed faster than jason once he had pointed them the way so the battle was over when he got there
one of the techs had found the gun controls and was shooting wildly the sheer quantity of his fire driving the trucks back
he found the communications screen and snapped it on kerk's wide eyed face stared at him from the screen you kerk said breathing the word like a curse yes it's me jason answered he talked without looking up while his hands were busy at the control board
listen to me kerk and don't doubt anything i say i may not know how to fly one of these ships but i do know how to blow them up do you hear that sound he flipped over a switch and the faraway whine of a pump droned faintly that's the main fuel pump
if i let it run which i won't right now it could quickly fill the drive chamber with raw fuel pour in so much that it would run out of the stern tubes then what do you think would happen to your one and only spacer if i pressed the firing button
i'm not asking you what would happen to me since you don't care but you need this ship the way you need life itself there was only silence in the cabin now the men who had won the ship turned to face him kerk's voice grated loudly through the room
why did you lead those animals in here his voice cracked and broke as anger choked him and spilled over watch your tongue kerk jason said with soft menace
if you want them to share it with you you had better learn to talk nicely
jason looked at the older man's florid and swollen face and felt a measure of sympathy
a knight was a person who spent his time going round succouring the oppressed suckin wot said william bewildered succour means to help he spent his time helping anyone who was in trouble how much did he get for it asked william
nothing of course said miss drew appalled by the base commercialism of the twentieth century he helped the poor because he loved them william he had a lot of adventures and fighting and he helped beautiful persecuted damsels
william's respect for the knight rose of course said miss drew hastily they needn't necessarily be beautiful but in most of the stories we have they were beautiful followed some stories of fighting and adventure and the rescuing of beautiful damsels
the idea of the thing began to take hold of william's imagination i say he said to his chum ginger after school that knight thing sounds all right suckin' i mean helpin people an fightin an all that
yes said ginger slowly
well said william after a pause let's be squires in turn you first he added hastily wot'll you give me if i'm first said ginger displaying again the base commercialism of his age william considered
i'll give you first drink out of a bottle of ginger ale wot i'm goin to get with my next money it'll be three weeks off cause they're takin the next two weeks to pay for an ole window wot my ball slipped into by mistake
he spoke with the bitterness that always characterised his statements of the injustice of the grown up world all right said ginger i won't forget about the drink of ginger ale
no you won't said ginger simply i'll remind you all right well let's set off course said william it would be nicer with armour an horses an trumpets but i spect folks ud think
anyway she said we could still be knights an help people di'n't she anyway i'll get my bugle that'll be something william's bugle had just returned to public life after one of its periodic terms of retirement into his father's keeping
william took his bugle proudly in one hand and his pistol the glorious result of a dip in the bran tub at a school party in the other
off the two set upon the road of romance and adventure i'll carry the bugle said ginger cause i'm squire william was loth to give up his treasure well i'll carry it now he said but when i begin fightin folks i'll give it you to hold
they walked along for about a mile without meeting anyone william began to be aware of a sinking feeling in the region of his waist i wonder wot they eat he said at last i'm gettin so's i wouldn't mind sumthin to eat
we ought to have waited till after dinner you ought to have brought sumthin said william severely you're the squire you're not much of a squire not to have brought sumthin for me to eat an me put in ginger
if i'd brought any i'd have brought it for me more'n for you william fingered his minute pistol if we meet any wild animals he said darkly
you might go an milk that suggested william milk ud be better'n nothing
no i'm not squire i bet squires did the milkin knights wu'n't of done the milkin i'll remember said ginger bitterly when you're squire all the things wot you said a squire ought to do when i was squire
she turned her eyes upon them sadly go on said the knight to his reluctant squire
we'd got nothin to put it in so we'd only of got tossed for nothin p'raps if we'd gone on
william's spirits rose his hunger was forgotten come on he said we might find someone to rescue here it looks like a place where there might be someone to rescue there was no one in the garden to question the right of entry of two small boys armed with a bugle and a toy pistol
unchallenged they went up to the house while the knight was wondering whether to blow his bugle at the front door or by the open window
and she was speaking fast and passionately william ready for all contingencies marshalled his forces follow me he whispered and crept on all fours nearer the window they could see a man now an elderly man with white hair and a white beard
and how long will you keep me in this vile prison she was saying in a voice that trembled with anger base wretch that you are crumbs ejaculated william ha ha sneered the man i have you in my power
i will keep you here a prisoner till you sign the paper which will make me master of all your wealth and beware girl if you do not sign you may answer for it with your life golly murmured william then he crawled away into the bushes followed by his attendant squire well said william
his face purple with excitement we've found someone to rescue all right he's a base wretch wot she said all right will you kill him said the awed squire
hurled himself at the door and turned the key in the lock here came an angry shout from inside who's that what the devil
you base wretch like wot she said you was bawled william his mouth still applied closely to the keyhole let me out at once or i'll you mean ole oppressor who the deuce are you what's this tomfool trick
a resounding kick shook the door i've gotter pistol said william sternly i'll shoot you dead if you kick the door down you mangy ole beast the sound of kicking ceased and a scrambling and scraping accompanied by oaths proceeded from the interior
i'll stay on guard said william with the tense expression of the soldier at his post an you go an set her free go an blow the bugle at the front door then they'll know something's happened he added simply
two young men and a maiden were the recipients of her hospitality dad will be here in a minute she said he's just gone to the dark room to see to some photos he'd left in toning or fixing or something
how did it go off oh quite well we knew our parts anyway i think the village will enjoy it anyway it's never very critical is it and it loves a melodrama
perhaps i'd better go and find him oh let me go miss greene said one of the youths ardently well i don't know whether you'd find the place it's a shed in the garden that he uses
i'll go he stopped a nightmare sound as discordant as it was ear splitting filled the room miss greene sank back into her chair suddenly white one of the young men let a cup of tea fall neatly from his fingers on to the floor and there crash into fragments
the young lady visitor emitted a scream that would have done credit to a factory siren then at the open french window appeared a small boy holding a bugle purple faced with the effort of his performance one of the young men was the first to recover speech
he stepped away from the broken crockery on the floor as if to disclaim all responsibility for it and said sternly did you make that horrible noise miss greene began to laugh hysterically do have some tea now you've come she said to ginger
ginger remembered the pangs of hunger of which excitement had momentarily rendered him oblivious and deciding that there was no time like the present took a cake from the stand and began to consume it in silence you'd better be careful said the young lady to her hostess
he might have escaped from the asylum he looks mad he had a very mad look i thought when he was standing at the window he's evidently hungry anyway i can't think why father doesn't come here ginger fortified by a walnut bun remembered his mission
it's all right now he said you can go home he's shut up me an william shut him up you see said the young lady with a meaning glance around i said he was from the asylum he looked mad we'd better humour him and ring up the asylum
have another cake darling boy she said in a tone of honeyed sweetness nothing loth ginger selected an ornate pyramid of icing at this point there came a bellowing and crashing and tramping outside and miss priscilla's father
roaring fury and threats of vengeance hurled himself into the room miss priscilla's father had made his escape by a small window at the other end of the shed
while he was spluttering william who had just discovered that his bird had flown appeared at the window
william and ginger sat on the railing that separated their houses it's not really much fun bein a knight said william slowly no agreed ginger
you'll have to wait a jolly long time for that drink of ginger ale an expression of dejection came over ginger's face an you wasn't even ever squire he said then he brightened
to william the idea of reform was new and startling and not wholly unattractive it originated with the housemaid whose brother was a reformed burglar now employed in a grocer's shop
e got it quite sudden like an e give up all is bad ways straight off
william was deeply interested the point was all innocently driven in later by the sunday school mistress william's family had no real faith in the sunday school as a corrective to william's inherent wickedness
but they knew that no sabbath peace or calm was humanly possible while william was in the house
and sent him pained and protesting down the road every sunday afternoon their only regret was that sunday school did not begin earlier and end later fortunately for william most of his friends parents were inspired by the same zeal
so that he met his old cronies of the week days henry ginger douglas and all the rest and together they beguiled the monotony of the sabbath but this sunday the tall pale lady who for her sins
essayed to lead william and his friends along the straight and narrow path of virtue was almost inspired she was like some prophetess of old she was so emphatic that the red cherries that hung coquettishly over the edge of her hat rattled against it as though in applause
we must all start afresh she said we must all be turned that's what conversion means william's fascinated eye wandered from the cherries to the distant view out of the window
he thought suddenly of the noble burglar who had turned his back upon the mysterious nefarious tools of his trade
opposite him sat a small girl in a pink and white checked frock he often whiled away the dullest hours of sunday school by putting out his tongue at her or throwing paper pellets at her manufactured previously for the purpose but to day
meeting her serious eye he looked away hastily and we must all help someone went on the urgent voice if we have turned ourselves we must help someone else to turn
determined and eager was the eye that the small girl turned upon william and william realised that his time had come he was to be converted he felt almost thrilled by the prospect
he was so enthralled that he received absent mindedly and without gratitude the mountainous bull's eye passed to him from ginger and only gave a half hearted smile when a well aimed pellet from henry's hand sent one of the prophetess's cherries swinging high in the air
after the class the pink checked girl whose name most appropriately was deborah stalked william for several yards and finally cornered him william she said are you going to turn i'm goin to think about it said william guardedly william
i think you ought to turn i'll help you she added sweetly william drew a deep breath all right i will he said she heaved a sigh of relief
william considered there were several things that he had wanted to do for some time but hadn't managed to do yet he had not tried turning off the water at the main and hiding the key and seeing what would happen he hadn't tried shutting up the cat in the hen house
he hadn't tried painting his long suffering mongrel jumble with the pot of green paint that was in the tool shed he hadn't tried pouring water into the receiver of the telephone he hadn't tried locking the cook into the larder there were in short
whole fields of crime entirely unexplored all these things and others must be done before the reformation
said william say day after to morrow she considered this for a minute very well she said at last reluctantly day after to morrow the next day dawned bright and fair
william arose with a distinct sense that something important had happened then he thought of the reformation he saw himself leading a quiet and blameless life
being exquisitely polite to his family his instructors and the various foolish people who visited his home for the sole purpose apparently of making inane remarks to him he saw all this and the picture was far from unattractive in the distance
in the immediate future however there were various quite important things to be done there was a whole normal lifetime of crime to be crowded into one day
the gardener had a perfectly bald head william had sometimes idly imagined the impact of a pea sent violently from a pea shooter with the gardener's bald head before there had been a lifetime of experiment before him
and he had put off this one idly in favour of something more pressing now there was only one day he took up his pea shooter and aimed carefully the pea did not embed itself deeply into the gardener's skull as william had sometimes thought it would
it bounced back it bounced back quite hard the gardener also bounced back with a yell of anger shaking his fist at william's window but william had discreetly retired he hid the pea shooter assumed his famous expression of innocence and felt distinctly cheered
the gardener retired grumbling to the potting shed so for the present
and placed in its stead a worm which had just appeared in the window box in readiness for the early bird he surveyed the scene with a deep sigh of satisfaction
william possessed a true strategic instinct for the right moment for a retreat hearing therefore a heavy step on the stairs he seized several pieces of toast and fled
the kitten a mass of fury and lust for revenge came flying through the window william hid behind a laurel bush till it had passed then set off down the road school of course was impossible
the precious hours of such a day as this could not be wasted in school he went down the road full of his noble purpose
to morrow it would all be impossible to morrow began the blameless life it must all be worked off to day he skirted the school by a field path in case any of those narrow souls paid to employ so aimlessly the precious hours of his youth
might be there they would certainly be tactless enough to question him as he passed the door then he joined the main road the main road was empty except for a caravan a caravan gaily painted in red and yellow it had little lace curtains at the window
it was altogether a most fascinating caravan no one seemed to be near it william looked through the windows there was a kind of dresser with crockery hanging from it a small table and a little oil stove
so that it was presumably empty too
it appeared to be a mule a mule with a jaundiced view of life it rolled a sad eye towards william then with a deep sigh returned to its contemplation of the landscape william gazed upon caravan and steed fascinated
never in his future life of noble merit would he be able to annex a caravan
or had got on to it by mistake or or anything conscience stirred faintly in his breast but he silenced it sternly conscience was to rule him for the rest of his life and it could jolly well let him alone this day
with some difficulty he climbed on to the driver's seat took the reins said gee up to the melancholy mule and the whole equipage with a jolt and faint rattle
william did not know how to drive but it did not seem to matter the mule ambled along and william high up on the driver's seat the reins held with ostentatious carelessness in one hand
the whip poised lightly in the other was in the seventh heaven of bliss he was driving a caravan he was driving a caravan he was driving a caravan
the very telegraph posts seemed to gape with envy and admiration as he passed what ultimately he was going to do with his caravan he neither knew nor cared all that mattered was it was a bright sunny morning and all the others were in school
and he was driving a red and yellow caravan along the high road the birds seemed to be singing a paeon of praise to him he was intoxicated with pride it was his caravan his road his world
carelessly he flicked the mule with the whip there are several explanations of what happened then the mule may not have been used to the whip a wasp may have just stung him at that particular minute a wandering demon may have entered into him
mules are notoriously accessible to wandering demons whatever the explanation the mule suddenly started forward and galloped at full speed down the hill the reins dropped from william's hands
he clung for dear life on to his seat as the caravan swaying and jolting along the uneven road seemed to be doing its utmost to fling him off there came a rattle of crockery from within then suddenly there came another sound from within a
william's hair stood on end he almost forgot to cling to the seat for not one scream came but many
shaking her fist at the world in general her hair and face were covered with sugar and a fork was embedded in the front of her dress otherwise she too had escaped undamaged the owner of the donkey cart arose from the melee of pots and pans
and turned upon her fiercely she screamed at him furiously in reply then along the road could be seen the figure of a fat man carrying a fishing rod he began to run wildly towards the caravan ach gott in himmel he cried as he ran my beautiful caravan
who has this to it done he joined the frenzied altercation that was going on between the donkey man and the fat woman the air was rent by their angry shouts a group of highly appreciative villagers collected round them
then one of them pointed to william who sat feeling still slightly shaken upon the bank it was im wot done it he said it was im that was a drivin of it down the ill
the fat woman and the donkey man joined the pursuit to william it was like some ghastly nightmare after an evening's entertainment at the cinematograph meanwhile the donkey and the mule fraternised over the debris
and the villagers helped themselves to all they could find but the fat man was very fat and the fat woman was very fat and the donkey man was very old and william was young and very fleet so in less than ten minutes they gave up the pursuit and returned panting and quarrelling to the road
william sat on the further outskirts of the wood and panted he felt on the whole exhilarated by the adventure it was quite a suitable adventure for his last day of unregeneration but he felt also in need of bodily sustenance
so he purchased a bun and a bottle of lemonade at a neighbouring shop and sat by the roadside to recover there were no signs of his pursuers he felt reluctant to return home it is always well to follow a morning's absence from school by an afternoon's absence from school
a return in the afternoon is ignominious and humiliating william wandered round the neighbourhood experiencing all the thrill of the outlaw certainly by this time the gardener would have complained to his father probably the schoolmistress would have sent a note also
an exciting chase by an angry farmer it was after tea time when he returned home walking with careless bravado as of a criminal who has drunk of crime to its very depth and flaunts it before the world his spirits sank a little as he approached the gate
he could see through the trees the fat caravan owner gesticulating at the door helped by the villagers he had tracked william phrases floated to him through the summer air mine beautiful caravan ach gott in himmel
he could see the gardener smiling in the distance there was a small blue bruise on his shining head william judged from the smile that he had laid his formal complaint before authority william noticed that his father looked pale and harassed
he noticed also with a thrill of horror that his hand was bound up and that there was a long scratch down his cheek he knew the cat had scratched somebody but crumbs a small boy came down the road and saw william hesitating at the open gateway
you'll catch it he said cheerfully they've wrote to say you wasn't in school william crept round to the back of the house beneath the bushes he felt that the time had come to give himself up to justice but he wanted as the popular saying is to be sure of getting his money's worth
there was the tin half full of green paint in the tool shed he'd had his eye on it for some time he went quietly round to the tool shed soon he was contemplating with a satisfied smile a green and enraged cat
and a green and enraged hen then bracing himself for the effort he delivered himself up to justice when all was said and done no punishment could be really adequate to a day like that dusk was falling william
gazed pensively from his bedroom window he was reviewing his day he had almost forgotten the stormy and decidedly unpleasant scene with his father mister brown's rhetoric had been rather lost on william
because its pearls of sarcasm had been so far above his head and william had not been really loth to retire at once to bed after all it had been a very tiring day now his thoughts were going over some of its most exquisite moments
the moments when the pea and the gardener's head met and rebounded with such satisfactory force the moment when he swung along the high road monarch of a caravan and a mule and the whole wide world the moment when the scarecrow hunched up and collapsed so realistically
the cat covered with green paint after all it was his last day he saw himself from to morrow onward leading a quiet and blameless life walking sedately to school working at high pressure in school doing his homework conscientiously in the evening
being exquisitely polite to his family and instructors and the vision failed utterly to attract
or locking the cook into the larder or or hundreds of things there came a gentle voice from the garden william where are you william looked down and met the earnest gaze of deborah hello he said william she said you won't forget that you're going to start to morrow will you
yes and the bedpost was his own the bed was his own the room was his own best and happiest of all the time before him was his own
to make amends in i will live in the past the present and the future scrooge repeated as he scrambled out of bed the spirits of all three shall strive within me
i say it on my knees old jacob on my knees he was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call
i know they will his hands were busy with his garments all this time turning them inside out putting them on upside down tearing them mislaying them
making them parties to every kind of extravagance i don't know what to do cried scrooge
i am as merry as a schoolboy i am as giddy as a drunken man a merry christmas to everybody a happy new year to all the world hallo here whoop
hallo he had frisked into the sitting room and was now standing there perfectly winded there's the saucepan that the gruel was in cried scrooge
starting off again and going round the fireplace there's the door by which the ghost of jacob marley entered there's the corner where the ghost of christmas present sat
there's the window where i saw the wandering spirits it's all right
really for a man who had been out of practice for so many years it was a splendid laugh a most illustrious laugh the father of a long long line of brilliant laughs
i don't know what day of the month it is said scrooge i don't know how long i've been among the spirits i don't know anything i'm quite a baby never mind i don't care
hallo here he was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard
glorious running to the window he opened it and put out his head no fog no mist clear bright jovial
stirring cold cold piping for the blood to dance to golden sunlight heavenly sky sweet fresh air merry bells
of course they can of course they can hallo my fine fellow
it's a pleasure to talk to him yes my buck it's hanging there now replied the boy is it said scrooge go and buy it walk er exclaimed the boy
the hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one but write it he did somehow and went down stairs to open the street door ready for the coming of the poulterer's man
as he stood there waiting his arrival the knocker caught his eye i shall love it as long as i live cried scrooge patting it with his hand i scarcely ever looked at it before
what an honest expression it has in its face it's a wonderful knocker here's the turkey hallo whoop how are you merry christmas it was a
turkey he never could have stood upon his legs that bird he would have snapped em short off in a minute like sticks of sealing wax why it's impossible to carry that to camden town said scrooge
you must have a cab the chuckle with which he said this and the chuckle with which he paid for the turkey and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy
were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again and chuckled till he cried shaving was not an easy task
and been quite satisfied he dressed himself all in his best and at last got out into the streets the people were by this time pouring forth
as he had seen them with the ghost of christmas present and walking with his hands behind him scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile he looked so irresistibly pleasant in a word
it sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met but he knew what path lay straight before him and he took it
lord bless me cried the gentleman as if his breath were taken away my dear mister scrooge are you serious if you please said scrooge not a farthing less
a great many back payments are included in it i assure you will you do me that favour my dear sir said the other shaking hands with him i don't know what to say to such munifi
don't say anything please retorted scrooge come and see me will you come and see me i will cried the old gentleman and it was clear he meant to do it thank'ee said scrooge i am much obliged to you
i thank you fifty times bless you he went to church and walked about the streets and watched the people hurrying to and fro and patted children on the head and questioned beggars
and looked down into the kitchens of houses and up to the windows and found that everything could yield him pleasure he had never dreamed that any walk that anything could give him so much happiness in the afternoon
he turned his steps towards his nephew's house he passed the door a dozen times before he had the courage to go up and knock but he made a dash and did it
is your master at home my dear said scrooge to the girl nice girl very yes sir where is he my love said scrooge he's in the dining room sir
along with mistress i'll show you up stairs if you please thank'ee he knows me said scrooge with his hand already on the dining room lock i'll go in here my dear he turned it gently
and sidled his face in round the door they were looking at the table which was spread out in great array for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points and like to see that everything is right fred
why bless my soul cried fred who's that it's i your uncle scrooge i have come to dinner will you let me in fred let him in
he was at home in five minutes nothing could be heartier his niece looked just the same so did topper when he came so did the plump sister when she came so did every one when they came
wonderful party wonderful games wonderful unanimity won der ful happiness but he was early at the office next morning
if he could only be there first and catch bob cratchit coming late
and he did it yes he did the clock struck nine no bob a quarter past no bob
scrooge sat with his door wide open that he might see him come into the tank his hat was off before he opened the door his comforter too he was on his stool in a jiffy
driving away with his pen as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock hallo growled scrooge in his accustomed voice as near as he could feign it
what do you mean by coming here at this time of day i am very sorry sir said bob i am behind my time you are repeated scrooge yes i think you are
step this way sir if you please it's only once a year sir pleaded bob appearing from the tank it shall not be repeated i was making rather merry yesterday sir
now i'll tell you what my friend said scrooge i am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer and therefore he continued leaping from his stool
and giving bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the tank again and therefore i am about to raise your salary bob trembled and got a little nearer to the ruler
he had a momentary idea of knocking scrooge down with it holding him and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait waistcoat a merry christmas bob said scrooge
scrooge was better than his word he did it all and infinitely more and to tiny tim who did not die he was a second father he became
as good a friend as good a master and as good a man as the good old city knew
town or borough in the good old world some people laughed to see the alteration in him but he let them laugh and little heeded them for he was wise enough to know
that nothing ever happened on this globe for good at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway
he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins as have the malady in less attractive forms his own heart laughed and that was quite enough for him
in his bed and tossed about in his anxiety he groaned and said to his wife
how are we to feed our poor children when we no longer have anything even for ourselves i'll tell you what husband answered the woman early tomorrow morning we will take the children out into the forest
to where it is the thickest there we will light a fire for them and give each of them one more piece of bread and then we will go to our work and leave them alone they will not find the way home again
and we shall be rid of them no wife said the man i will not do that how can i bear to leave my children alone in the forest the wild animals would soon come
and tear them to pieces o you fool said she then we must all four die of hunger you may as well plane the planks for our coffins and she left him no peace
and had heard what their stepmother had said to their father gretel wept bitter tears and said to hansel now all is over with us be quiet gretel said hansel
do not distress yourself i will soon find a way to help us and when the old folks had fallen asleep he got up put on his little coat opened the door below and crept outside
then he went back and said to gretel be comforted dear little sister and sleep in peace god will not forsake us and he lay down again in his bed when day dawned
and i will light a fire that you may not be cold hansel and gretel gathered brushwood together as high as a little hill the brushwood was lighted and when the flames were burning very high the woman said
now children lay yourselves down by the fire and rest we will go into the forest and cut some wood when we have done we will come back and fetch you away hansel and gretel
sat by the fire and when noon came each ate a little piece of bread and as they heard the strokes of the wood axe they believed that their father was near it was not the axe however
but a branch which he had fastened to a withered tree which the wind was blowing backwards and forwards and as they had been sitting such a long time their eyes closed with fatigue and they fell fast asleep
when at last they awoke it was already dark night gretel began to cry and said how are we to get out of the forest now but hansel comforted her and said just wait a little
until the moon has risen and then we will soon find the way and when the full moon had risen hansel took his little sister by the hand and followed the pebbles which shone like newly coined silver pieces
and showed them the way they walked the whole night long and by break of day came once more to their father's house they knocked at the door and when the woman opened it and saw that it was hansel and gretel she said
you naughty children why have you slept so long in the forest we thought you were never coming back at all the father however rejoiced for it had cut him to the heart to leave them behind alone
not long afterwards there was once more great dearth throughout the land and the children heard their mother saying at night to their father
we have one half loaf left and that is the end the children must go we will take them farther into the wood
but scolded and reproached him he who says a must say b likewise and as he had yielded the first time he had to do so a second time also
the children however were still awake and had heard the conversation when the old folks were asleep hansel again got up and wanted to go out and pick up pebbles as he had done before
and wants to say goodbye to me answered hansel fool said the woman that is not your little pigeon that is the morning sun that is shining on the chimney hansel however little by little threw all the crumbs
the woman led the children still deeper into the forest where they had never in their lives been before then a great fire was again made and the mother said
just sit there you children and when you are tired you may sleep a little we are going into the forest to cut wood and in the evening when we are done we will come and fetch you away when it was noon
they set out but they found no crumbs for the many thousands of birds which fly about in the woods and fields had picked them all up hansel said to gretel we shall soon find the way but they did not find it
they walked the whole night and all the next day too from morning till evening but they did not get out of the forest and were very hungry for they had nothing to eat but two or three berries which grew on the ground
and as they were so weary that their legs would carry them no longer they lay down beneath a tree and fell asleep it was now three mornings since they had left their father's house
they saw a beautiful snow white bird sitting on a bough which sang so delightfully that they stood still and listened to it and when its song was over it spread its wings and flew away before them
and broke off a little of the roof to try how it tasted and gretel leant against the window and nibbled at the panes then a soft voice cried from the parlour nibble nibble gnaw
who is nibbling at my little house the children answered the wind the wind the heaven born wind and went on eating without disturbing themselves
suddenly the door opened and a woman as old as the hills who supported herself on crutches came creeping out hansel and gretel were so terribly frightened
that they let fall what they had in their hands the old woman however nodded her head and said oh you dear children who has brought you here do come in and stay with me
no harm shall happen to you she took them both by the hand and led them into her little house then good food was set before them milk and pancakes with sugar
apples and nuts afterwards two pretty little beds were covered with clean white linen and hansel and gretel lay down in them and thought they were in heaven the old woman
had only pretended to be so kind she was in reality a wicked witch who lay in wait for children and had only built the little house of bread in order to entice them there
when a child fell into her power she killed it cooked and ate it and that was a feast day with her witches have red eyes and cannot see far
but they have a keen scent like the beasts and are aware when human beings draw near when hansel and gretel came into her neighbourhood she laughed with malice and said mockingly
they shall not escape me again early in the morning before the children were awake she was already up and when she saw both of them sleeping and looking so pretty
with their plump and rosy cheeks she muttered to herself that will be a dainty mouthful then she seized hansel with her shrivelled hand carried him into a little stable
and locked him in behind a grated door scream as he might it would not help him then she went to gretel shook her till she awoke and cried
get up lazy thing fetch some water and cook something good for your brother he is in the stable outside and is to be made fat when he is fat i will eat him
gretel began to weep bitterly but it was all in vain for she was forced to do what the wicked witch commanded and now the best food was cooked for poor hansel but gretel
got nothing but crab shells every morning the woman crept to the little stable and cried hansel stretch out your finger that i may feel if you will soon be fat hansel however
who had dim eyes could not see it and thought it was hansel's finger and was astonished that there was no way of fattening him when four weeks had gone by and hansel still remained thin
if the wild beasts in the forest had but devoured us we should at any rate have died together just keep your noise to yourself said the old woman it won't help you at all
early in the morning gretel had to go out and hang up the cauldron with the water and light the fire we will bake first said the old woman i have already heated the oven
and kneaded the dough she pushed poor gretel out to the oven from which flames of fire were already darting creep in said the witch and see if it is properly heated
so that we can put the bread in and once gretel was inside she intended to shut the oven and let her bake in it and then she would eat her too but gretel saw what she had in mind and said
oh then she began to howl quite horribly but gretel ran away and the godless witch was miserably burnt to death gretel however ran like lightning to hansel
opened his little stable and cried hansel we are saved the old witch is dead then hansel sprang like a bird from its cage when the door is opened how they did rejoice and embrace each other
and dance about and kiss each other and as they had no longer any need to fear her they went into the witch's house and in every corner there stood chests full of pearls and jewels
these are far better than pebbles said hansel and thrust into his pockets whatever could be got in and gretel said i too will take something home with me and filled her pinafore full
but now we must be off said hansel that we may get out of the witch's forest when they had walked for two hours they came to a great stretch of water we cannot cross said hansel
little duck little duck dost thou see hansel and gretel are waiting for thee there's never a plank or bridge in sight take us across on thy back so white
the duck came to them and hansel seated himself on its back and told his sister to sit by him no replied gretel that will be too heavy for the little duck
she shall take us across one after the other the good little duck did so and when they were once safely across and had walked for a short time the forest seemed to be more and more familiar to them and at length
they saw from afar their father's house then they began to run rushed into the parlour and threw themselves round their father's neck the man had not known one happy hour since he had left the children in the forest
the woman however was dead gretel emptied her pinafore until pearls and precious stones ran about the room and hansel threw one handful after another out of his pocket to add to them
fruit is seed my romola said tito the second morning after he had made his speech in the piazza del duomo i am to receive grand visitors to day
the great favourite of the cristianissimo i know you don't care to go through smiling ceremonies with these rustling magnates whom we are not likely to see again and as they will want to look at the antiquities and the library perhaps you had better give up your work to day and go to see your cousin brigida
romola discerned a wish in this intimation and immediately assented but presently coming back in her hood and mantle she said oh what a long breath florence will take when the gates are flung open and the last frenchman is walking out of them
the attitude had been a frequent one and tito was accustomed when he felt her hand there to raise his head throw himself a little backward and look up at her
the french are as ready to go from florence as the wasps to leave a ripe pear when they have just fastened on it romola keenly sensitive to the absence of the usual response took away her hand and said i am going tito
farewell my sweet one i must wait at home take maso with you still tito did not look up and romola went out without saying any more
very slight things make epochs in married life and this morning for the first time she admitted to herself not only that tito had changed but that he had changed towards her did the reason lie in herself
than he laid down his pen and looked up in delightful security from seeing anything else than parchment and broken marble he was rather disgusted with himself that he had not been able to look up at romola and behave to her just as usual
he would have chosen if he could to be even more than usually kind but he could not on a sudden master an involuntary shrinking from her which by a subtle relation depended on those very characteristics in him that made him
his nature was one of those most remote from defiance or impudence and all his inclinations leaned towards preserving romola's tenderness he was not tormented by sentimental scruples
which as he had demonstrated to himself by a very rapid course of argument had no relation to solid utility but his freedom from scruples did not release him from the dread of what was disagreeable
unscrupulousness gets rid of much but not of toothache or wounded vanity or the sense of loneliness against which as the world at present stands there is no security but a thoroughly healthy jaw and a just loving soul
and tito was feeling intensely at this moment that no devices could save him from pain in the impending collision with romola no persuasive blandness could cushion him against the shock towards which he was being driven like a timid animal
urged to a desperate leap by the terror of the tooth and the claw that are close behind it the secret feeling he had previously had that the tenacious adherence to bardo's wishes about the library had become under existing difficulties a piece of sentimental folly
which deprived himself and romola of substantial advantages might perhaps never have wrought itself into action but for the events of the past week which had brought at once the pressure of a new motive and the outlet of a rare opportunity
nay it was not till his dread had been aggravated by the sight of baldassarre looking more like his sane self not until he had begun to feel that he might be compelled to flee from florence
he wished among other things to carry romola with him and not if possible to carry any infamy
and at no moment could it look like a temptation to him but only like a hideous alternative
even with a bag of diamonds and incur the life of an adventurer it was not possible for him to make himself independent even of those florentines who only greeted him with regard still less was it possible for him to make himself independent of romola
she was the wife of his first love he loved her still she belonged to that furniture of life which he shrank from parting with he winced under her judgment he felt uncertain how far the revulsion of her feeling towards him might go
and all that sense of power over a wife which makes a husband risk betrayals that a lover never ventures on would not suffice to counteract tito's uneasiness this was the leaden weight which had been too strong for his will
and kept him from raising his head to meet her eyes their pure light brought too near him the prospect of a coming struggle but it was not to be helped if they had to leave florence they must have money
and that problem of arranging life to his mind had been the source of all his misdoing he would have been equal to any sacrifice that was not unpleasant the rustling magnates came and went the bargains had been concluded and romola returned home
romola thought she discerned an effort in his liveliness and attributing it to the consciousness in him that she had been wounded in the morning accepted the effort as an act of penitence inwardly aching a little at that sign of growing distance between them
that there was an offence about which neither of them dared to speak the next day tito remained away from home until late at night
i have just looked in to tell you the good news for i know tito has not come yet said bernardo the french king moves off to morrow not before it is high time
i'm afraid there'll be small agreement among us when he's gone but at any rate all parties are agreed in being glad not to have florence stifled with soldiery any longer
don't you want your spectacles godfather said romola in anxiety that he should see just what she saw no child no said bernardo uncovering his grey head as he seated himself with firm erectness
for seeing at this distance my old eyes are perhaps better than your young ones old men's eyes are like old men's memories they are strongest for things a long way off
it is better than having no portrait said romola apologetically after bernardo had been silent a little while it is less like him now than the image i have in my mind but then that might fade with the years she rested her arm on the old man's shoulder as she spoke
drawn towards him strongly by their common interest in the dead i don't know said bernardo i almost think i see bardo as he was when he was young better than that picture shows him to me as he was when he was old your father had a great deal of fire in his eyes when he was young
could hang over the books and live with shadows all his life however he had put his heart into that bernardo gave a slight shrug as he spoke the last words but romola discerned in his voice a feeling that accorded with her own
and he was disappointed to the last she said involuntarily but immediately fearing lest her words should be taken to imply an accusation against tito she went on almost hurriedly
if we could only see his longest dearest wish fulfilled just to his mind well so we may said bernardo kindly rising and putting on his cap the times are cloudy now but fish are caught by waiting who knows
he looked round as he spoke then turning to her and patting her cheek said and you need not be afraid of my dying my ghost will claim nothing i've taken care of that in my will romola seized the hand that was against her cheek and put it to her lips in silence
haven't you been scolding your husband for keeping away from home so much lately i see him everywhere but here said bernardo willing to change the subject she felt the flush spread over her neck and face as she said
he has been very much wanted you know he speaks so well i am glad to know that his value is understood you are contented then madonna orgogliosa said bernardo smiling as he moved to the door assuredly poor romola
there was one thing that would have made the pang of disappointment in her husband harder to bear it was that any one should know he gave her cause for disappointment this might be a woman's weakness but it is closely allied to a woman's nobleness
and every one knew there was a second bonfire of vanities being prepared in front of the old palace but at this hour it was evident that the centre of popular interest lay elsewhere
from the pressure of new comers trying to force their way forward from all the openings but the front ranks were already close serried and resisted the pressure those ranks were ranged around a semicircular barrier in front of the church
and within this barrier were already assembling the dominican brethren of san marco but the temporary wooden pulpit erected over the church door was still empty
it was presently to be entered by the man whom the pope's command had banished from the pulpit of the duomo whom the other ecclesiastics of florence had been forbidden to consort with whom the citizens had been forbidden to hear on pain of excommunication
this man had said a wicked unbelieving pope who has gained the pontifical chair by bribery is not christ's vicar his curses are broken swords he grasps a hilt without a blade
though the pope was hanging terrible threats over florence if it did not renounce the pestilential schismatic and send him to rome to be converted still as on this very morning accepted the communion from his excommunicated hands
it was a momentous question
namely what was and what was not accordant with the highest spiritual law
he would attest his choice by some unmistakable sign as long as the belief in the prophet carried no threat of outward calamity but rather the confident hope of exceptional safety no sign was needed
his preaching was a music to which the people felt themselves marching along the way they wished to go
and an interdict on their city there inevitably came the question what miracle showest thou slowly at first then faster and faster that fatal demand had been swelling in savonarola's ear
provoking a response outwardly in the declaration that at the fitting time the miracle would come inwardly in the faith not unwavering for what faith is so that if the need for miracle became urgent
the work he had before him was too great for the divine power to leave it halting his faith wavered but not his speech it is the lot of every man who has to speak for the satisfaction of the crowd that he must often speak in virtue of yesterday's faith
hoping it will come back to morrow it was in preparation for a scene which was really a response to the popular impatience for some supernatural guarantee of the prophet's mission that the wooden pulpit had been erected above the church door
but while the ordinary frati in black mantles were entering and arranging themselves
it was felt that savonarola would not appear just yet and there was some interest in singling out the various monks some of them belonging to high florentine families
many of them having fathers brothers or cousins among the artisans and shopkeepers who made the majority of the crowd it was not till the tale of monks was complete not till they had fluttered their books and had begun to chant that people said to each other
fra girolamo must be coming now that expectation rather than any spell from the accustomed wail of psalmody was what made silence and expectation seem to spread like a paling solemn light over the multitude of upturned faces
all now directed towards the empty pulpit the next instant the pulpit was no longer empty a figure covered from head to foot in black cowl and mantle had entered it and was kneeling with bent head and with face turned away
it seemed a weary time to the eager people while the black figure knelt and the monks chanted
so that those who had already the will to stone him felt their arms unnerved at last there was a vibration among the multitude each seeming to give his neighbour a momentary aspen like touch
as when men who have been watching for something in the heavens see the expected presence silently disclosing itself
and to those who stood near the pulpit it was as if the sounds which had just been filling their ears had suddenly merged themselves in the force of savonarola's flashing glance as he looked round him in the silence then he stretched out his hands
which in their exquisite delicacy seemed transfigured from an animal organ for grasping into vehicles of sensibility too acute to need any gross contact hands that came like an appealing speech from that part of his soul which was masked by his strong passionate face
written on now with deeper lines about the mouth and brow than are made by forty four years of ordinary life at the first stretching out of the hands some of the crowd in the front ranks fell on their knees and here and there a devout disciple farther off
but the great majority stood firm some resisting the impulse to kneel before this excommunicated man might not a great judgment fall upon him even in this act of blessing
others jarred with scorn and hatred of the ambitious deceiver who was getting up this new comedy before which nevertheless they felt themselves impotent as before the triumph of a fashion but then came the voice
clear and low at first uttering the words of absolution
that wanted to stifle it it rang like a trumpet to the extremities of the piazza and under it every head was bowed
after the utterance of that blessing savonarola himself fell on his knees and hid his face in temporary exhaustion those great jets of emotion were a necessary part of his life he himself had said to the people long ago without preaching i cannot live
but it was a life that shattered him in a few minutes more some had risen to their feet but a larger number remained kneeling and all faces were intently watching him
when i should hold this sacrament in my hand in the face of you all to pray fervently to the most high that if this work of mine does not come from him he will send a fire and consume me
if some in a spirit of devout obedience made the effort to pray every consciousness was chiefly possessed by the sense that savonarola was praying in a voice not loud but distinctly audible in the wide stillness lord
if i have not wrought in sincerity of soul if my word cometh not from thee strike me in this moment with thy thunder and let the fires of thy wrath enclose me
with eyes uplifted and a quivering excitement in his whole aspect every one else was motionless and silent too while the sunlight which for the last quarter of an hour had here and there been piercing the greyness made fitful streaks across the convent wall
causing some awe stricken spectators to start timidly but soon there was a wider parting and with a gentle quickness like a smile a stream of brightness poured itself on the crystal vase and then spread itself over savonarola's face with mild glorification
behold the answer the warm radiance thrilled through savonarola's frame and so did the shout it was his last moment of untroubled triumph and in its rapturous confidence he felt carried to a grander scene yet to come
before an audience that would represent all christendom in whose presence he should again be sealed as the messenger of the supreme righteousness and feel himself full charged with divine strength it was but a moment that expanded itself in that prevision
but was spreading itself impartially over all things clean and unclean there began along with the general movement of the crowd a confusion of voices in which certain strong discords and varying scales of laughter
made it evident that in the previous silence and universal kneeling hostility and scorn had only submitted unwillingly to a momentary spell
it seems to me the plaudits are giving way to criticism said tito who had been watching the scene attentively from an upper loggia in one of the houses opposite the church
why tito was safe tito had good reasons for saying that he was safe
he had had plenty of time to provide himself with resources he had been strengthening his influence at rome and at milan by being the medium of secret information and indirect measures against the frate and the popular party
he had cultivated more assiduously than ever the regard of this party by showing subtle evidence that his political convictions were entirely on their side and all the while
hereditary interests alliances and prejudices
who were the bitterest enemies of savonarola carried on a system of underhand correspondence and espionage in which the deepest hypocrisy was the best service and demanded the heaviest pay
were the more inclined to credit tito with sincerity in his political adhesion to them because he affected no religious sympathies by virtue of these conditions the last three months had been a time of flattering success to tito
and the rewards of talent and learning were more splendid at present the scale dipped in favour of milan and if within the year he could render certain services to duke ludovico sforza
the arrest of lamberto dell antella with a tell tale letter on his person and a bitter rancour against the medici in his heart was an incalculable event it was not possible in spite of the careful pretexts with which his agency had been guarded that tito should escape implication
but his quick mind had soon traced out the course that would secure his own safety with the fewest unpleasant concomitants it is agreeable to keep a whole skin but the skin still remains an organ sensitive to the atmosphere
his reckoning had not deceived him that night before he returned home he had secured the three results for which he most cared
he was to retain his secretaryship for another year unless he previously resigned it and lastly the price by which he had obtained these guarantees was to be kept as a state secret
but one of the special council appointed to investigate the evidence of the plot francesco valori as we have seen was the head of the piagnoni a man with certain fine qualities that were not incompatible with violent partisanship
with an arrogant temper that alienated his friends nor with bitter personal animosities one of the bitterest being directed against bernardo del nero to him in a brief private interview after obtaining a pledge of secrecy
an agency induced by motives about which he was very frank declaring at the same time that he had always believed their efforts futile and that he sincerely preferred the maintenance of the popular government affected to confide to valori as a secret his own personal dislike for bernardo del nero
by a journey to siena and into romagna where piero de medici was again trying to gather forces obtain documentary evidence to lay before the council
and hence the fact that he had been a source of information to the authorities must be wrapped in profound secrecy still some odour of the facts might escape in spite of precaution and before tito could incur the unpleasant consequences of acting against his friends
valori's mind was not intensely bent on the estimation of tito's conduct and it was intensely bent on procuring an extreme sentence against the five prisoners there were sure to be immense efforts to save them
and it was to be wished on public grounds that the evidence against them should be of the strongest so as to alarm all well affected men at the dangers of clemency
and it was not always easy to see the next unless a traitor turned up lamberto dell antella had been tortured in aid of his previous willingness to tell more than he knew nevertheless additional and stronger facts were desirable
especially against bernardo del nero who so far as appeared hitherto had simply refrained from betraying the late plot after having tried in vain to discourage it for the welfare of florence demanded that the guilt of bernardo del nero should be put in the strongest light
so francesco valori zealously believed and perhaps he was not himself aware that the strength of his zeal was determined by his hatred
and won them over to his opinion late in the day tito was admitted to an audience of the special council
which was to have been carried into execution in the middle of this very month of august documentary evidence on this subject would do more than anything else to make the right course clear he received a commission to start for siena by break of day and besides this
and with that apparently unaffected admission of being actuated by motives short of the highest which is often the intensest affectation there were several whose minds were not too entirely preoccupied to pass a new judgment on him in these new circumstances
they silently concluded that this ingenious and serviceable greek was in future rather to be used for public needs than for private intimacy unprincipled men were useful
enabling those who had more scruples to keep their hands tolerably clean in a world where there was much dirty work to be done
without human instruments whom it would not be unbecoming to kick or to spit upon in the act of handing them their wages
some of these very men who passed a tacit judgment on tito were shortly to be engaged in a memorable transaction that could by no means have been carried through without the use of an unscrupulousness as decided as his but as their own bright poet pulci had said for them
it is one thing to love the fruits of treachery
the same society has had a gibbet for the murderer and a gibbet for the martyr an execrating hiss for a dastardly act and as loud a hiss for many a word of generous truthfulness or just insight a mixed condition of things which is the sign not of hopeless confusion
he had that degree of self contemplation which necessarily accompanies the habit of acting on well considered reasons of whatever quality and if he could have chosen he would have declined to see himself disapproved by men of the world he had never meant to be disapproved
he had meant always to conduct himself so ably that if he acted in opposition to the standard of other men they should not be aware of it and the barrier between himself and romola had been raised by the impossibility of such concealment with her
he shrank from condemnatory judgments as from a climate to which he could not adapt himself but things were not so plastic in the hands of cleverness as could be wished and events had turned out inconveniently he had really no rancour against messer bernardo del nero
he had served them very ably and in such a way that if their party had been winners he would have merited high reward but was he to relinquish all the agreeable fruits of life because their party had failed his proffer of a little additional proof against them would probably have no influence on their fate
in fact he felt convinced they would escape any extreme consequences but if he had not given it his own fortunes which made a promising fabric would have been utterly ruined and what motive could any man really have except his own interest
florentines whose passions were engaged in their petty and precarious political schemes might have no self interest separable from family pride and tenacity in old hatreds and attachments a modern simpleton who swallowed whole one of the old systems of philosophy
or the voice of an inward monitor might see his interest in a form of self conceit which he called self rewarding virtue fanatics who believed in the coming scourge and renovation might see their own interest in a future palm branch and white robe
but no man of clear intellect allowed his course to be determined by such puerile impulses or questionable inward fumes did not pontanus poet and philosopher of unrivalled latinity
make the finest possible oration at naples to welcome the french king who had come to dethrone the learned orator's royal friend and patron and still pontanus held up his head and prospered men did not really care about these things except when their personal spleen was touched
it was weakness only that was despised power of any sort carried its immunity and no man unless by very rare good fortune could mount high in the world without incurring a few unpleasant necessities which laid him open to enmity
and perhaps to a little hissing when enmity wanted a pretext it was a faint prognostic of that hissing gathered by tito from certain indications when he was before the council which gave his present conduct the character of an epoch to him and made him dwell on it with argumentative vindication
well a little patience and in another year or perhaps in half a year he might turn his back on these hard eager florentines with their futile quarrels and sinking fortunes his brilliant success at florence had had some ugly flaws in it he had fallen in love with the wrong woman
he was conscious of well tried skill could he not strip himself of the past as of rehearsal clothing and throw away the old bundle to robe himself for the real scene it did not enter into tito's meditations on the future that on issuing from the council chamber and descending the stairs
chapter thirty three the time will come did you hear that young eames is staying at guestwick manor as these were the first words which the squire spoke to missus dale as they walked together up to the great house
at guestwick manor said missus dale
do you hear that bell there's promotion for master johnny don't you remember mamma said bell that he helped his lordship in his trouble with the bull lily who remembered accurately all the passages of her last interview with john eames said nothing
but felt in some sort sore at the idea that he should be so near her at such a time in some unconscious way she had liked him for coming to her and saying all that he did say she valued him more highly
after that scene than she did before but now she would feel herself injured and hurt if he ever made his way into her presence under circumstances as they existed
i should not have thought that lord de guest was the man to show so much gratitude for so slight a favour said the squire however i'm going to dine there to morrow to meet young eames said missus dale
yes especially to meet young eames at least i've been very specially asked to come and i've been told that he is to be there and is bernard going indeed i'm not said bernard i shall come over and dine with you
a half formed idea flitted across lily's mind teaching her to imagine for a moment that she might possibly be concerned in this arrangement but the thought vanished as quickly as it came merely leaving some soreness behind it
there are certain maladies which make the whole body sore the patient let him be touched on any point let him even be nearly touched will roar with agony as though his whole body had been bruised so it is also with maladies of the mind
because she had the strength to walk as though she did not bear it nothing happened to her or in her presence that did not in some way connect itself with her misery her uncle was going over to meet john eames at lord de guest's
of course the men there would talk about her and all such talking was an injury to her the afternoon of that day did not pass away brightly as long as the servants were in the room the dinner went on
much as other dinners at such times a certain amount of hypocrisy must always be practised in closely domestic circles at mixed dinner parties people can talk before richard and william
people so mixed do not talk together their inward home thoughts but when close friends are together a little conscious reticence is practised till the door is tiled at such a meeting as this that conscious reticence
was of service and created an effect which was salutary when the door was tiled and when the servants were gone how could they be merry together by what mirth should the beards be made to wag on that christmas day
he was with lord de guest at pawkins's why didn't you go and see him asked missus dale well i don't know he did not seem to wish it i shall go down to torquay in february i must be up in london you know in a fortnight for good
making her feel that her wound was again opened i want him to give up his profession altogether said the squire speaking firmly and slowly it would be better i think for both of us that he should do so
would it be wise at his time of life said missus dale and when he has been doing so well i think it would be wise if he were my son it would be thought better that he should live here upon the property among the people
who are to become his tenants than remain up in london or perhaps be sent to india he has one profession as the heir of this place and that i think should be enough i should have but an idle life of it down here said bernard
and sat quite silent with demure countenance perhaps even with something of sternness in her face but the fact is said missus dale speaking in a low tone and having well considered what she was about to say
that bernard is not exactly the same as your son why not said the squire i have even offered to settle the property on him if he will leave the service you do not owe him so much as you would owe your son and therefore
he does not owe you as much as he would owe his father if you mean that i cannot constrain him i know that well enough as regards money i have offered to do for him quite as much as any father would feel called upon to do for an only son
feeling that he could not go on in bell's presence if he should marry said missus dale it may well be that his wife would like a house of her own wouldn't she have this house said the squire angrily isn't it big enough i only want one room for myself
regarding her with that painful special tenderness lily who was sitting next to missus dale put her hand out secretly and got hold of her mother's thereby indicating that she did not intend to occupy the cell offered to her by her uncle
or to look to him as the companion of her monastic seclusion after that there was nothing more then said as to bernard's prospects missus hearn is dining at the vicarage i suppose asked the squire
yes she went in after church said bell i saw her go with missus boyce she told me she never would dine with them again after dark in winter said missus dale the last time she was there the boy let the lamp blow out as she was going home and she lost her way
the truth was she was angry because mister boyce didn't go with her she's always angry said the squire she hardly speaks to me now when she paid her rent the other day to jolliffe she said she hoped it would do me much good as though she thought me a brute for taking it
she's very old you know said bell i'd give her the house for nothing if i were you uncle said lily no my dear if you were me you would not i should be very wrong to do so
why should missus hearn have her house for nothing any more than her meat or her clothes it would be much more reasonable were i to give her so much money into her hand yearly but it would be wrong in me to do so seeing that she is not an object of charity
and it would be wrong in her to take it and she wouldn't take it said missus dale i don't think she would but if she did i'm sure she would grumble because it wasn't double the amount and if mister boyce had gone home with her
she would have grumbled because he walked too fast she is very old said bell again but nevertheless she ought to know better than to speak disparagingly of me to my servants she should have more respect for herself
and the squire showed by the tone of his voice that he thought very much about it it was very long and very dull that christmas evening making bernard feel strongly that he would be very foolish to give up his profession
and tie himself down to a life at allington women are more accustomed than men to long dull unemployed hours and therefore missus dale and her daughters bore the tedium courageously while he yawned stretched himself
they sat demurely listening as the squire laid down the law on small matters and contradicting him occasionally when the spirit of either of them prompted her specially to do so of course you know much better than i do he would say
not at all missus dale would answer i don't pretend to know anything about it but so the evening wore itself away and when the squire was left alone at half past nine he did not feel that the day had passed badly with him
that was his style of life and he expected no more from it than he got he did not look to find things very pleasant and if not happy he was at any rate contented
only think of johnny eames being at guestwick manor said bell as they were going home i don't see why he shouldn't be there said lily i would rather it should be he than i because lady julia is so grumpy
but asking your uncle christopher especially to meet him said missus dale there must be some reason for it then lily felt the soreness come upon her again and spoke no further upon the subject
and that lily's soreness was not false in its mysterious forebodings eames on the evening after his dinner at pawkins's had seen the earl and explained to him
but that he could remain over the tuesday he must be at his office by twelve on wednesday and could manage to do that by an early train from guestwick
very well johnny said the earl talking to his young friend with the bedroom candle in his hand as he was going up to dress
and i have always understood that a certain bullock exhibited by lord de guest was declared by the metropolitan butchers to have realized all the possible excellences of breeding feeding and condition
but lord de guest took the praise that was offered to him and found himself in a seventh heaven of delight he was never so happy as when surrounded by butchers graziers and salesmen who were able to appreciate the work of his life
isn't he like his sire he was got by lambkin you know lambkin said johnny who had not as yet been able to learn much about the guestwick stock yes lambkin the bull that we had the trouble with
i daresay said johnny who looked very hard but could not see it's very odd exclaimed the earl but do you know that bull has been as quiet since that day as quiet as as anything
i think it must have been my pocket handkerchief i daresay it was said johnny or perhaps the flies flies said the earl angrily do you suppose he isn't used to flies come away i ordered dinner at seven and it's past six now
my brother in law colonel dale is up in town and he dines with us so he took johnny's arm and led him off through the show calling his attention as he went to several beasts which were inferior to his own
and across piccadilly to jermyn street john eames acknowledged to himself that it was odd that he should have an earl leaning on his arm as he passed along through the streets at home in his own life his daily companions were cradell
and amelia roper missus lupex and missus roper the difference was very great and yet he found it quite as easy to talk to the earl as to missus lupex you know the dales down at allington of course said the earl
oh yes i know them but perhaps you never met the colonel i don't think i ever did he's a queer sort of fellow very well in his way but he never does anything he and my sister live at torquay
and as far as i can find out they neither of them have any occupation of any sort he's come up to town now because we both had to meet our family lawyers and sign some papers but he looks on the journey as a great hardship as for me
my sister and crofts may tell me what they like but when a man's out in the open air for eight or nine hours every day it doesn't much matter where he goes to sleep after that this is pawkins's capital good house
but not so good as it used to be while old pawkins was alive show mister eames up into a bedroom to wash his hands colonel dale was much like his brother in face but was taller even thinner and apparently older
when eames went into the sitting room the colonel was there alone and had to take upon himself the trouble of introducing himself he did not get up from his arm chair
i knew your father at guestwick a great many years ago then he turned his face back towards the fire and sighed it's got very cold this afternoon said johnny trying to make conversation it's always cold in london said the colonel
in opposition to very terrible obstacles and as he now looked at the intrepid lover
and the pawkins of that day himself stood behind the earl's elbow when the dinner began and himself removed the cover from the soup tureen lord de guest did not require much personal attention but he would have felt annoyed if this hadn't been done
pawkins then took his lordship's orders about the wine and retired
it isn't like what it was thirty years ago but then everything of that sort has got worse and worse i suppose it has said the colonel i remember when old pawkins had as good a glass of port as i've got at home or nearly
then eames took heart of grace and had his laughter out the dinner was very dull and before the colonel went to bed johnny regretted that he had been induced to dine at pawkins's
and john eames had perhaps received at his office some little accession of dignity from the circumstance of which he had been not unpleasantly aware but as he sat at the table on which there were four or five apples and a plate of dried nuts
looking at the earl as he endeavoured to keep his eyes open and at the colonel to whom it seemed absolutely a matter of indifference whether his companions were asleep or awake he confessed to himself that the price he was paying
was almost too dear missus roper's tea table was not pleasant to him
with the company of two tired old men with whom he seemed to have no mutual subject of conversation once or twice he tried a word with the colonel for the colonel sat with his eyes open looking at the fire
but he was answered with monosyllables and it was evident to him that the colonel did not wish to talk to sit still with his hands closed over each other on his lap was work enough for colonel dale during his after dinner hours
but the earl knew what was going on during that terrible conflict between him and his slumber in which the drowsy god fairly vanquished him for some twenty minutes his conscience was always accusing him of treating his guests badly
he was very angry with himself and tried to arouse himself and talk but his brother in law would not help him in his efforts
come johnny fill your glass he had already got into the way of calling his young friend johnny having found that missus eames generally spoke of her son by that name i have been filling my glass all the time said eames
taking the decanter again in his hand as he spoke i'm glad you've found something to amuse you for it has seemed to me that you and dale haven't had much to say to each other i've been listening all the time you've been asleep said the colonel
then there's been some excuse for my holding my tongue said the earl by the by dale what do you think of that fellow crosbie eames ears were instantly on the alert and the spirit of dullness vanished from him think of him said the colonel
he ought to have every bone in his skin broken said the earl so he ought said eames getting up from his chair in his eagerness and speaking in a tone somewhat louder than was perhaps becoming in the presence of his seniors so he ought my lord
he is the most abominable rascal that ever i met in my life i wish i was lily dale's brother then he sat down again remembering that he was speaking in the presence of lily's uncle and of the father of bernard dale
who might be supposed to occupy the place of lily's brother the colonel turned his head round and looked at the young man with surprise i beg your pardon sir said eames but i have known missus dale and your nieces all my life
oh have you said the colonel nevertheless it is perhaps as well not to make too free with a young lady's name not that i blame you in the least mister eames i should think not said the earl
i shall tell him my mind and i believe you will do the same on hearing this john eames winked at the earl and made a motion with his head towards the colonel
and then the earl winked back at eames de guest said the colonel i think i'll go upstairs i always have a little arrowroot in my own room i'll ring the bell for a candle said the host then the colonel went
and as the door was closed behind him the earl raised his two hands and uttered that single word negus whereupon johnny burst out laughing
i wonder what pawkins says about him but i suppose they have them of all sorts in an hotel
whether bernard shouldn't punish the fellow for what he has done somebody ought to do it it isn't right that he should escape somebody ought to let mister crosbie know what a scoundrel he has made himself i'd do it to morrow only i'm afraid
no no no said the earl you are not the right person at all what have you got to do with it you've merely known them as family friends but that's not enough no i suppose not said eames sadly
perhaps it's best as it is said the earl i don't know that any good would be got by knocking him over the head and if we are to be christians i suppose we ought to be christians what sort of a christian has he been
that's true enough and if i was bernard i should be very apt to forget my bible lessons about meekness do you know my lord i should think it the most christian thing in the world to pitch into him i should indeed
there are some things for which a man ought to be beaten black and blue so that he shouldn't do them again exactly you might say it isn't christian to hang a man i'd always hang a murderer it wasn't right to hang men for stealing sheep
well i believe so if any fellow wanted now to curry favour with the young lady what an opportunity he'd have johnny remained silent for a moment or two before he answered i'm not so sure of that he said
mournfully as though grieving at the thought that there was no chance of currying favour with lily by thrashing her late lover i don't pretend to know much about girls said lord de guest but i should think it would be so
i should fancy that nothing would please her so much as hearing that he had caught it and that all the world knew that he'd caught it the earl had declared
he was no doubt right if i thought so said eames i'd find him out to morrow why so what difference does it make to you then there was another pause during which johnny looked very sheepish
you don't mean to say that you're in love with miss lily dale i don't know much about being in love with her said johnny turning very red as he spoke and then he made up his mind in a wild sort of way to tell all the truth to his friend
pawkins's port wine may perhaps have had something to do with the resolution but i'd go through fire and water for her my lord i knew her years before he had ever seen her and have loved her a great deal better than he will ever love any one
when i heard that she had accepted him i had half a mind to cut my own throat or else his highty tighty said the earl it's very ridiculous i know said johnny and of course she would never have accepted me
i don't see that at all i haven't a shilling in the world girls don't care much for that and then a clerk in the income tax office it's such a poor thing the other fellow was only a clerk in another office
the earl living down at guestwick did not understand that the income tax office in the city
and separated by as impassable a gulf oh yes said johnny but his office is another kind of thing and then he was a swell himself by george i don't see it said the earl
i don't wonder a bit at her accepting a fellow like that i hated him the first moment i saw him but that's no reason she should hate him he had that sort of manner you know he was a swell and girls like that kind of thing
when i thought she was going to be married i could not help telling her then but it seems to me my dear fellow that you ought to be very much obliged to crosbie that is to say if you've a mind to i know what you mean my lord
i am not a bit obliged to him it's my belief that all this will about kill her as to myself if i thought she'd ever have me then he was again silent and the earl could see that the tears were in his eyes
and i'll give you a bit of advice you come down and spend your christmas with me at guestwick oh my lord never mind my lording me but do as i tell you lady julia sent you a message
though i forgot all about it till now she wants to thank you herself for what you did in the field that's all nonsense my lord very well you can tell her so you may take my word for this too my sister hates crosbie quite as much as you do
i think she'd pitch into him as you call it herself if she knew how you come down to guestwick for the christmas and then go over to allington and tell them all plainly what you mean i couldn't say a word to her now say it to the squire then
go to him and tell him what you mean holding your head up like a man don't talk to me about swells the man who means honestly is the best swell i know he's the only swell i recognize
and say you come from me from guestwick manor tell him that if he'll put a little stick under the pot to make it boil i'll put a bigger one he'll understand what that means oh no my lord but i say oh yes
and i've a sneaking kindness for you too master johnny lord bless you i knew your father as well as i ever knew any man and to tell the truth i believe i helped to ruin him he held land of me you know
and there can't be any doubt that he did ruin himself he knew no more about a beast when he'd done than than than that waiter if he'd gone on to this day he wouldn't have been any wiser johnny sat silent with his eyes full of tears
what was he to say to his friend you come down with me continued the earl and you'll find we'll make it all straight i daresay you're right about not speaking to the girl just at present but tell everything to the uncle and then to the mother
and above all things never think that you're not good enough yourself a man should never think that my belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning if you are made of dirt like that fellow crosbie
you'll be found out at last no doubt but then i don't think you are made of dirt i hope not and so do i you can come down i suppose with me the day after to morrow i'm afraid not i have had all my leave
shall i write to old buffle and ask it as a favour no said johnny i shouldn't like that but i'll see to morrow and then i'll let you know i can go down by the mail train on saturday at any rate that won't be comfortable
see and come with me if you can now good night my dear fellow and remember this when i say a thing i mean it i think i may boast that i never yet went back from my word the earl as he spoke gave his left hand to his guest
he tapped his own breast thrice with his right hand as he went through the little scene john eames felt that he was every inch an earl i don't know what to say to you my lord say nothing not a word more to me
but say to yourself that faint heart never won fair lady good night my dear boy good night i dine out to morrow but you can call and let me know at about six eames then left the room without another word
would he be justified in taking the earl at his word
and i remained idle in a pause of consideration of whether i should leave my labour for the night or hasten its conclusion by an unremitting attention to it as i sat a train of reflection occurred to me which led me to consider the effects of
and filled it forever with the bitterest remorse i was now about to form another being of whose dispositions i was alike ignorant she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate and delight for its own sake
to the superior beauty of man she might quit him and he
would be children and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror had i right for my own benefit
to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations
and my heart failed within me when on looking up i saw by the light of the moon the daemon at the casement a ghastly grin wrinkled his lips as he gazed on me
and trembling with passion tore to pieces the thing on which i was engaged the wretch saw me destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended for happiness and with a howl of devilish despair and revenge
several hours passed and i remained near my window gazing on the sea it was almost motionless for the winds were hushed and all nature reposed under the eye of the quiet moon
a few fishing vessels alone specked the water and now and then the gentle breeze wafted the sound of voices as the fishermen called to one another i felt the silence although i was hardly conscious of its extreme profundity
until my ear was suddenly arrested by the paddling of oars near the shore and a person landed close to my house in a few minutes after i heard the creaking of my door as if some one endeavoured to open it softly
i trembled from head to foot i felt a presentiment of who it was
but i was overcome by the sensation of helplessness so often felt in frightful dreams when you in vain endeavour to fly from an impending danger and was rooted to the spot presently i heard the sound of footsteps along the passage
the door opened and the wretch whom i dreaded appeared shutting the door he approached me and said in a smothered voice you have destroyed the work which you began
do you dare to break your promise i have endured toil and misery i left switzerland with you i crept along the shores of the rhine among its willow islands and over the summits of its hills
i have dwelt many months in the heaths of england and among the deserts of scotland i have endured incalculable fatigue and cold and hunger do you dare destroy my hopes begone
remember that i have power you believe yourself miserable but i can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you you are my creator
the monster saw my determination in my face and gnashed his teeth in the impotence of anger shall each man cried he find a wife for his bosom
man you may hate but beware your hours will pass in dread and misery
are you to be happy while i grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness you can blast my other passions but revenge remains revenge henceforth dearer than light or food
that i may sting with its venom man you shall repent of the injuries you inflict devil cease and do not poison the air with these sounds of malice
while my imagination conjured up a thousand images to torment and sting me why had i not followed him and closed with him in mortal strife but i had suffered him to depart
on your wedding night that then was the period fixed for the fulfilment of my destiny in that hour i should die and at once satisfy and extinguish his malice
the prospect did not move me to fear yet when i thought of my beloved elizabeth of her tears and endless sorrow when she should find her lover so barbarously snatched from her tears
the first i had shed for many months streamed from my eyes and i resolved not to fall before my enemy without a bitter struggle the night passed away
and the sun rose from the ocean my feelings became calmer if it may be called calmness when the violence of rage sinks into the depths of despair
nay a wish that such should prove the fact stole across me i desired that i might pass my life on that barren rock wearily it is true
i walked about the isle like a restless spectre separated from all it loved and miserable in the separation when it became noon and the sun rose higher
yet still the words of the fiend rang in my ears like a death knell they appeared like a dream yet distinct and oppressive as a reality the sun had far descended
he said that he was wearing away his time fruitlessly where he was that letters from the friends he had formed in london desired his return to complete the negotiation they had entered into for his indian enterprise
but as his journey to london might be followed even sooner than he now conjectured by his longer voyage he entreated me to bestow as much of my society on him as i could spare he besought me therefore
to leave my solitary isle and to meet him at perth that we might proceed southwards together this letter in a degree recalled me to life and i determined to quit my island at the expiration of two days
yet before i departed there was a task to perform on which i shuddered to reflect i must pack up my chemical instruments and for that purpose
the remains of the half finished creature whom i had destroyed
and i almost felt as if i had mangled the living flesh of a human being i paused to collect myself and then entered the chamber with trembling hand i conveyed the instruments out of the room
and laying them up determined to throw them into the sea that very night and in the meantime i sat upon the beach employed in cleaning and arranging my chemical apparatus
nothing could be more complete than the alteration that had taken place in my feelings since the night of the appearance of the daemon
the idea of renewing my labours did not for one instant occur to me
but i did not reflect that a voluntary act of mine could avert it i had resolved in my own mind that to create another like the fiend i had first made would be an act of the basest and most atrocious selfishness
and i banished from my mind every thought that could lead to a different conclusion between two and three in the morning the moon rose and i then putting my basket aboard a little skiff
and avoided with shuddering anxiety any encounter with my fellow creatures at one time the moon
that i resolved to prolong my stay on the water and fixing the rudder in a direct position stretched myself at the bottom of the boat clouds hid the moon everything was obscure
the wind was high and the waves continually threatened the safety of my little skiff
thus situated my only resource was to drive before the wind i confess that i felt a few sensations of terror i had no compass with me
i might be driven into the wide atlantic and feel all the tortures of starvation or be swallowed up in the immeasurable waters that roared and buffeted around me i had already been out many hours
and felt the torment of a burning thirst a prelude to my other sufferings
and of clerval all left behind on whom the monster might satisfy his sanguinary and merciless passions this idea plunged me into a reverie so despairing and frightful
that even now when the scene is on the point of closing before me forever i shudder to reflect on it some hours passed thus but by degrees as the sun declined towards the horizon
the wind died away into a gentle breeze and the sea became free from breakers but these gave place to a heavy swell i felt sick and hardly able to hold the rudder when suddenly
i saw a line of high land towards the south almost spent as i was
this sudden certainty of life rushed like a flood of warm joy to my heart and tears gushed from my eyes
even in the excess of misery i constructed another sail with a part of my dress and eagerly steered my course towards the land it had a wild and rocky appearance but as i approached nearer
i easily perceived the traces of cultivation i saw vessels near the shore and found myself suddenly transported back to the neighbourhood of civilized man i carefully traced the windings of the land
and hailed a steeple which i at length saw issuing from behind a small promontory as i was in a state of extreme debility
i perceived a small neat town and a good harbour which i entered my heart bounding with joy at my unexpected escape as i was occupied in fixing the boat and arranging the sails
several people crowded towards the spot they seemed much surprised at my appearance but instead of offering me any assistance whispered together with gestures that at any other time
might have produced in me a slight sensation of alarm as it was i merely remarked that they spoke english and i therefore addressed them in that language my good friends said i
will you be so kind as to tell me the name of this town and inform me where i am you will know that soon enough replied a man with a hoarse voice
i was exceedingly surprised on receiving so rude an answer from a stranger
why do you answer me so roughly i replied surely it is not the custom of englishmen to receive strangers so inhospitably i do not know said the man
while this strange dialogue continued i perceived the crowd rapidly increase their faces expressed a mixture of curiosity and anger which annoyed and in some degree alarmed me
i inquired the way to the inn but no one replied i then moved forward and a murmuring sound arose from the crowd as they followed and surrounded me when an ill looking man approaching
tapped me on the shoulder and said come sir you must follow me to mister kirwin's to give an account of yourself who is mister kirwin why am i to give an account of myself
ay sir free enough for honest folks mister kirwin is a magistrate and you are to give an account of the death of a gentleman who was found murdered here last night this answer startled me
but i presently recovered myself i was innocent that could easily be proved accordingly i followed my conductor in silence and was led to one of the best houses in the town
little did i then expect the calamity that was in a few moments to overwhelm me and extinguish in horror and despair all fear of ignominy or death
chapter nineteen london was our present point of rest we determined to remain several months in this wonderful and celebrated city clerval desired the intercourse of the men of genius and talent who flourished at this time
and quickly availed myself of the letters of introduction that i had brought with me addressed to the most distinguished natural philosophers if this journey had taken place during my days of study and happiness it would have afforded me inexpressible pleasure
but a blight had come over my existence and i only visited these people for the sake of the information they might give me on the subject in which my interest was so terribly profound company was irksome to me
when alone i could fill my mind with the sights of heaven and earth the voice of henry soothed me and i could thus cheat myself into a transitory peace but busy uninteresting joyous faces
but in clerval i saw the image of my former self he was inquisitive and anxious to gain experience and instruction the difference of manners which he observed was to him an inexhaustible source of instruction and amusement
he was also pursuing an object he had long had in view his design was to visit india in the belief that he had in his knowledge of its various languages and in the views he had taken of its society
and the only check to his enjoyments was my sorrowful and dejected mind i tried to conceal this as much as possible that i might not debar him from the pleasures natural to one who was entering on a new scene of life undisturbed by
any care or bitter recollection i often refused to accompany him alleging another engagement that i might remain alone i now also began to collect the materials necessary for my new creation
and this was to me like the torture of single drops of water continually falling on the head every thought that was devoted to it was an extreme anguish and every word that i spoke in allusion to it caused my lips to quiver and my heart to palpitate
after passing some months in london we received a letter from a person in scotland who had formerly been our visitor at geneva he mentioned the beauties of his native country
and asked us if those were not sufficient allurements to induce us to prolong our journey as far north as perth where he resided clerval eagerly desired to accept this invitation and i although i abhorred society
we had arrived in england at the beginning of october and it was now february we accordingly determined to commence our journey towards the north at the expiration of another month in this expedition
we did not intend to follow the great road to edinburgh but to visit windsor oxford matlock and the cumberland lakes resolving to arrive at the completion of this tour about the end of july
i packed up my chemical instruments and the materials i had collected resolving to finish my labours in some obscure nook in the northern highlands of scotland we quitted london on the twenty seventh of march
this was a new scene to us mountaineers the majestic oaks the quantity of game and the herds of stately deer were all novelties to us from thence we proceeded to oxford
as we entered this city our minds were filled with the remembrance of the events that had been transacted there more than a century and a half before
the insolent goring his queen and son gave a peculiar interest to every part of the city which they might be supposed to have inhabited the spirit of elder days found a dwelling here and we delighted to trace its footsteps
the streets are almost magnificent and the lovely isis which flows beside it through meadows of exquisite verdure is spread forth into a placid expanse of waters which reflects its majestic assemblage of towers and spires and domes
the sight of what is beautiful in nature or the study of what is excellent and sublime in the productions of man could always interest my heart and communicate elasticity to my spirits but i am a blasted tree
the bolt has entered my soul and i felt then that i should survive to exhibit what i shall soon cease to be
pitiable to others and intolerable to myself
which might relate to the most animating epoch of english history our little voyages of discovery were often prolonged by the successive objects that presented themselves we visited the tomb of the illustrious hampden and the field on which that patriot fell
for a moment my soul was elevated from its debasing and miserable fears to contemplate the divine ideas of liberty and self sacrifice of which these sights were the monuments and the remembrancers
for an instant i dared to shake off my chains and look around me with a free and lofty spirit but the iron had eaten into my flesh and i sank again trembling and hopeless into my miserable self
we left oxford with regret and proceeded to matlock which was our next place of rest the country in the neighbourhood of this village resembled to a greater degree the scenery of switzerland but everything is on a lower scale
and the green hills want the crown of distant white alps which always attend on the piny mountains of my native country we visited the wondrous cave and the little cabinets of natural history
where the curiosities are disposed in the same manner as in the collections at servox and chamounix the latter name made me tremble when pronounced by henry and i hastened to quit matlock with which that terrible scene was thus associated
the lakes and the dashing of the rocky streams were all familiar and dear sights to me here also we made some acquaintances who almost contrived to cheat me into happiness
the delight of clerval was proportionably greater than mine his mind expanded in the company of men of talent and he found in his own nature greater capacities and resources
and among these mountains i should scarcely regret switzerland and the rhine but he found that a traveller's life is one that includes much pain amidst its enjoyments his feelings are forever on the stretch
and when he begins to sink into repose he finds himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in pleasure for something new which again engages his attention
we had scarcely visited the various lakes of cumberland and westmorland and conceived an affection for some of the inhabitants when the period of our appointment with our scotch friend approached and we left them to travel on for my own part
i was not sorry i had now neglected my promise for some time and i feared the effects of the daemon's disappointment he might remain in switzerland and wreak his vengeance on my relatives
i would not quit henry for a moment but followed him as his shadow to protect him from the fancied rage of his destroyer i felt as if i had committed some great crime the consciousness of which haunted me i was guiltless
as mortal as that of crime i visited edinburgh with languid eyes and mind and yet that city might have interested the most unfortunate being clerval did not like it so well as oxford
for the antiquity of the latter city was more pleasing to him but the beauty and regularity of the new town of edinburgh its romantic castle and its environs the most delightful in the world arthur's seat saint bernard's well
but i was impatient to arrive at the termination of my journey we left edinburgh in a week passing through coupar saint andrew's
but i was in no mood to laugh and talk with strangers or enter into their feelings or plans with the good humour expected from a guest and accordingly i told clerval that i wished to make the tour of scotland alone
henry wished to dissuade me but seeing me bent on this plan ceased to remonstrate he entreated me to write often
in your solitary rambles than with these scotch people whom i do not know
having parted from my friend i determined to visit some remote spot of scotland and finish my work in solitude i did not doubt but that the monster followed me and would discover himself to me when i should have finished
that he might receive his companion with this resolution i traversed the northern highlands and fixed on one of the remotest of the orkneys as the scene of my labours it was a place fitted for such a work
the soil was barren scarcely affording pasture for a few miserable cows and oatmeal for its inhabitants which consisted of five persons whose gaunt and scraggy limbs gave tokens of their miserable fare
vegetables and bread when they indulged in such luxuries and even fresh water was to be procured from the mainland which was about five miles distant on the whole island there were but three miserable huts
and one of these was vacant when i arrived this i hired it contained but two rooms and these exhibited all the squalidness of the most miserable penury the thatch had fallen in the walls were unplastered
and the door was off its hinges i ordered it to be repaired bought some furniture and took possession
as it was i lived ungazed at and unmolested hardly thanked for the pittance of food and clothes which i gave so much does suffering blunt even the coarsest sensations of men in this retreat i devoted the morning to labour
but in the evening when the weather permitted i walked on the stony beach of the sea to listen to the waves as they roared and dashed at my feet it was a monotonous yet ever changing scene i thought of switzerland
and at other times i toiled day and night in order to complete my work it was indeed a filthy process in which i was engaged during my first experiment a kind of enthusiastic frenzy had blinded me to the horror of my employment
my mind was intently fixed on the consummation of my labour and my eyes were shut to the horror of my proceedings
and my heart often sickened at the work of my hands thus situated employed in the most detestable occupation
immersed in a solitude where nothing could for an instant call my attention from the actual scene in which i was engaged my spirits became unequal i grew restless and nervous
every moment i feared to meet my persecutor sometimes i sat with my eyes fixed on the ground fearing to raise them lest they should encounter the object which i so much dreaded to behold
i feared to wander from the sight of my fellow creatures lest when alone he should come to claim his companion in the mean time i worked on and my labour was already considerably advanced
chapter twenty jane reports progress letter from the honourable jane champion to sir deryck brand
my wires and post cards have not told you much beyond the fact of my safe arrival having been here a fortnight
from infancy it has always been difficult to me to write anything beyond that stock commencement i hope you are quite well and i approach the task of a descriptive letter with an effort which is colossal and yet
i wish i might for once borrow the pen of a ready writer because i cannot help knowing that i have been passing through experiences such as do not often fall to the lot of a woman
nurse rosemary gray is getting on capitally she is making herself indispensable to the patient and he turns to her with a completeness of confidence which causes her heart to swell with professional pride
poor jane has got no further than hearing from his own lips that she is the very last person in the whole world he would wish should come near him in his blindness when she was suggested as a possible visitor he said
so jane is getting her horsewhipping boy and according to the method of a careful and thoughtful judge who orders thirty lashes of the cat in three applications of ten
so is jane's punishment laid on at intervals not more than she can bear at a time but enough to keep her heart continually sore and her spirit in perpetual dread and you dear clever doctor
are proved perfectly right in your diagnosis of the sentiment of the case he says her pity would be the last straw on his already heavy cross and the expression is an apt one her pity for him being indeed a thing of straw
the only pity she feels is pity for herself thus hopelessly caught in the meshes of her own mistake but how to make him realise this is the puzzle do you remember how the israelites were shut in between migdol and the sea
i knew migdol meant towers but i never understood the passage until i stood upon that narrow wedge of desert with the red sea in front and on the left the rocky range of gebel attaka on the right
towering up against the sky like the weird shapes of an impregnable fortress
even so boy is poor jane now tramping her patch of desert which narrows daily to the measure of her despair migdol is his certainty that her love could only be pity
the red sea is the confession into which she must inevitably plunge to avoid scaling migdol in the chill waters of which as she drags him in with her his love is bound to drown as waves of doubt and mistrust sweep over its head doubts which he has lost the power of removing
and behind come galloping the hosts of pharaoh chance speeding on the wheels of circumstance at any moment some accident may compel a revelation and instantly he will be scaling rocky migdol
with torn hands and bleeding feet and she poor jane floundering in the depths of the red sea
with divine commission to stretch out the rod of understanding love making a safe way through so that together they might reach the promised land dear wise old boy dare you undertake the role of moses
as you may suppose jane grows haggard and thin in spite of old margery's porridge which is put on every day after lunch for the next morning's breakfast and anybody passing gives it a stir did you know that was the right way to make porridge deryck
i always thought it was made in five minutes as wanted
without rushing into weird spelling
and if you do not know it no grotesque spelling on my part could convey to your mind any but a caricatured version of the pretty scotch accent with which margery says stir the porridge nurse gray
in fact i am agreeably surprised at the ease with which i understand the natives and the pleasure i derive from their conversation for after wrestling with one or two modern novels dealing with the highlands i had expected to find the language an unknown tongue
instead of which lo and behold old margery maggie the housemaid macdonald the gardener and macalister the game keeper all speak a rather purer english than i do far more carefully pronounced and with every r sounded and rolled
and use in their verbs several quaint variations of tense but what a syntactical digression oh boy the wound at my heart is so deep and so sore that i dread the dressings even by your delicate touch where was i
ah the porridge gave me my loophole of escape well as i was saying jane grows worn and thin old margery's porridge notwithstanding but nurse rosemary gray is flourishing and remains a pretty dainty little thing
doctor rob's own unaided contribution to the fascinating picture by the way i was quite unprepared to find him such a character i learn much from doctor mackenzie
and i love doctor rob excepting on those occasions when i long to pick him up by the scruff of his fawn overcoat and drop him out of the window on the point of nurse rosemary's personal appearance i found it best to be perfectly frank with the household
you can have no conception how often awkward moments arose as for instance in the library the first time garth came downstairs when he ordered simpson to bring the steps for miss gray
he having just seen her do it mercifully the perfect training of an english man servant saved the situation and he merely said yessir certainly sir
and looked upon me standing silently by as a person who evidently delighted in giving unnecessary trouble had it been dear old margery with her scotch tongue
so i sent for simpson and margery to the dining room that evening when the master was safely out of ear shot and told them that for reasons which i could not fully explain a very incorrect description of my appearance had been given him
he thought me small and slim fair and very pretty and it was most important in order to avoid long explanations and mental confusion for him that he should not at present be undeceived simpson's expression of polite attention did not vary
and his only comment was certainly miss quite so but across old margery's countenance while i was speaking passed many shades of opinion which fortunately
she even added her own commentary and a very good thing too i am thinking for master garth poor laddie was always so set upon having beauty about him master garthie i would say to him when he had friends coming
and all his ideas in talking over the dinner concerned the cleaning up of the old silver and putting out of valentine glass and worstered china master garthie i would say feeling the occasion called for the apt quoting of scripture
it appears to me your attention is given entirely to the outside of the cup and platter and you care nothing for all the good things that lie within so it is just as well to keep him deceived miss gray
you cannot very well explain expression to the blind
well to continue my report the voice gave us some trouble as you foresaw and the whole plan hung in the balance during a few awful moments for though he easily accepted the explanation we had planned he sent me out and told doctor mackenzie
my voice in his room would madden him doctor rob was equal to the occasion and won the day and garth having once given in never mentioned the matter again only sometimes i see him listening and remembering
but nurse rosemary gray has beautiful hours when poor anxious yearning jane is shut out for her patient turns to her and depends on her and talks to her and tries to reach her mind and shows her his and is a wonderful person to live with and know
jane marching about in the cold outside and hearing them talk realises how little she understood the beautiful gift which was laid at her feet how little she had grasped the nature and mind of the man whom she dismissed as a mere boy
nurse rosemary sitting beside him during long sweet hours of companionship is learning it and jane ramping up and down her narrowing strip of desert tastes the sirocco of despair and now i come to the point of my letter
i don't think i can bear it unaided much longer and he would so enjoy having you and showing you how he had got on and all the things he had already learned to do also you might put in a word for jane
oh boy if you could spare forty eight hours and a breath of the moors would be good for you also i have a little private plan which depends largely for its fulfilment on your coming oh boy come yours needing you
jeanette from sir deryck brand to nurse rosemary gray castle gleneesh
my dear jeanette certainly i will come i will leave euston on friday evening i can spend the whole of saturday and most of sunday at gleneesh but must be home in time for monday's work
i will do my best only alas i am not moses and do not possess his wonder working rod moreover latest investigations have proved that the israelites could not have crossed at the place you mention
but further north at the bitter lakes a mere matter of detail in no way affecting the extreme appositeness of your illustration rather adding to it for i fear there are bitter waters ahead of you my poor girl still i am hopeful
nay more than hopeful confident often of late in connection with you i have thought of the promise about all things working together for good any one can make good things work together for good but only the heavenly father can bring good out of evil
and taking all our mistakes and failings and foolishnesses cause them to work to our most perfect well being the more intricate and involved this problem of human existence becomes the greater the need to take as our own clear rule of life
trust in the lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths ancient marching orders and simple but true and therefore eternal
i am glad nurse rosemary is proving so efficient but i hope we may not have to face yet another complication in our problem suppose our patient falls in love with dainty little nurse rosemary where will jane be then
i fear the desert would have to open its mouth and swallow her up we must avert such a catastrophe
i could not jest thus were i not coming shortly to your aid how maddening it is and you so priceless but most men are either fools or blind and one is both trust me to prove it to him to my own satisfaction and his if i get the chance
yours always devotedly deryck brand from sir deryck brand to doctor robert mackenzie dear mackenzie
do you consider it to be advisable that i should shortly pay a visit to our patient at gleneesh and give an opinion on his progress i find i can make it possible to come north this week end i hope you are satisfied with the nurse i sent up
yours very faithfully deryck brand from doctor robert mackenzie to sir deryck brand dear sir deryck every possible need of the patient's is being met by the capable lady you sent to be his nurse
i am no longer needed nor are you for the patient but i deem it exceedingly advisable that you should shortly pay a visit to the nurse who is losing more flesh than a lady of her proportions can well afford
some secret care besides the natural anxiety of having the responsibility of this case is wearing her out she may confide in you she cannot quite bring herself to trust in your humble servant
hard on the secretary nurse rosemary sat with her patient in the sunny library at gleneesh a small table was between them upon which lay a pile of letters his morning mail ready for her to open
read to him and pass across should there chance to be one among them he wished to touch or to keep in his pocket they were seated close to the french window opening on to the terrace the breeze fragrant with the breath of spring flowers blew about them
and the morning sun streamed in garth in white flannels wearing a green tie and a button hole of primroses lay back luxuriously enjoying with his rapidly quickening senses the scent of the flowers and the touch of the sun beams
nurse rosemary finished reading a letter of her own folded it and put it in her pocket with a feeling of thankful relief deryck was coming he had not failed her
quite right said nurse rosemary how did you know because it was on one sheet a woman's letter on a matter of great importance would have run to two if not three and that letter was on a matter of importance
right again said nurse rosemary smiling and again how did you know because you gave a little sigh of relief after reading the first line
nurse rosemary laughed
my letter was from oh don't tell me cried garth quickly putting out his hand in protest i had no idea of seeming curious as to your private correspondence miss gray
only it is such a pleasure to report progress to you in the things i manage to find out without being told but i meant to tell you anyway said nurse rosemary the letter is from sir deryck
and amongst other things he says he is coming up to see you next saturday ah good said garth and what a change he will find
and i shall have the pleasure of reporting on the nurse secretary reader and unspeakably patient guide and companion he provided for me
in a tone of suddenly awakened anxiety
no said nurse rosemary not yet
i was wanting to ask whether you could spare me just during forty eight hours and doctor brand's visit would be an excellent opportunity i could leave you more easily knowing you would have his companionship if i may take the week end leaving on friday night
i could return early on monday morning
doctor brand would read you saturday's and sunday's ah i forgot there is no sunday post so i should miss but one and he would more than take my place in other ways very well said garth striving not to show disappointment
i should have liked that we three should have talked together but no wonder you want a time off shall you be going far no i have friends near by and now do you wish to attend to your letters yes said garth reaching out his hand
wait a minute there is a newspaper among them i smell the printing ink i don't want that but kindly give me the rest nurse rosemary took out the newspaper then pushed the pile along until it touched his hand garth took them
what a lot he said smiling in pleasurable anticipation i say miss gray
you ought to be able to bring out a pretty comprehensive complete letter writer do you remember the condolences of missus parker bangs
kind old soul but she should not have mentioned blind bartimaeus dipping seven times in the pool of siloam it is always best to avoid classical allusions especially if sacred unless one has them accurately now
garth paused he had been handling his letters one by one carefully fingering each before laying it on the table beside him he had just come to one written on foreign paper and sealed he broke off his sentence abruptly
held the letter silently for a moment then passed his fingers slowly over the seal nurse rosemary watched him anxiously he made no remark but after a moment
he slipped the sealed letter beneath the rest so that she should come to it last of all then the usual order of proceedings commenced garth lighted a cigarette one of the first things he had learned to do for himself and smoked contentedly
carefully placing his ash tray and almost unfailingly locating the ash in time and correctly nurse rosemary took up the first letter read the postmark and described the writing on the envelope garth guessed from whom it came
and was immensely pleased if on opening his surmise proved correct there were nine to day of varying interest some from men friends one or two from charming women who professed themselves ready to come and see him as soon as he wished for visitors
one from a blind asylum asking for a subscription a short note from the doctor heralding his visit and a bill for ties from a bond street shop nurse rosemary's fingers shook as she replaced the eighth in its envelope
the last of the pile lay on the table as she took it up garth with a quick movement flung his cigarette end through the window and lay back shading his face with his hand did i shoot straight nurse he asked
she leaned forward and saw the tiny column of blue smoke rising from the gravel quite straight she said
this letter has an egyptian stamp and the postmark is cairo it is sealed with scarlet sealing wax and the engraving on the seal is a plumed helmet with the visor closed and the writing
asked garth mechanically and very quietly the handwriting is rather bold and very clear with no twirls or flourishes it is written with a broad nib
will you kindly open it nurse and tell me the signature before reading the rest of the letter nurse rosemary fought with her throat which threatened to close altogether and stifle her voice she opened the letter
turned to the last page and found the signature it is signed jane champion mister dalmain said nurse rosemary
and nurse rosemary began dear dal what can i write if i were with you there would be so much i could say but writing is so difficult so impossible
i know it is harder for you than it would have been for any of us but you will be braver over it than we should have been and you will come through splendidly and go on thinking life beautiful and making it seem so to other people
i never thought it so until that summer at overdene and shenstone when you taught me the perception of beauty since then in every sunset and sunrise in the blue green of the atlantic the purple of the mountains the spray of niagara
the golden deserts of egypt i have thought of you and understood them better because of you oh dal i should like to come and tell you all about them and let you see them through my eyes and then you would widen out my narrow understanding of them
and show them again to me in greater loveliness i hear you receive no visitors but cannot you make just one exception and let me come i was at the great pyramid when i heard i was sitting on the piazza after dinner
the moonlight called up memories i had just made up my mind to give up the nile
and write asking you to come and see me when general loraine turned up with an english paper and a letter from myra and i heard would you have come garth and now my friend as you cannot come to me
may i come to you if you just say come i will come from any part of the world where i may chance to be when the message reaches me never mind this egyptian address i shall not be there when you are hearing this
direct to me at my aunt's town house all my letters go there and are forwarded unopened let me come and oh do believe that i know something of how hard it is for you but god can enable believe me to be
yours more than i can write jane champion garth removed the hand which had been shielding his face if you are not tired miss gray after reading so many letters
i should like to dictate my answer to that one immediately while it is fresh in my mind have you paper there thank you may we begin dear miss champion i am deeply touched by your kind letter of sympathy
a long pause nurse rosemary gray waited
i am glad you did not give up the nile trip but an early bee hummed in from the hyacinths and buzzed against the pane otherwise the room was very still but of course if you had sent for me i should have come
the bee fought the window angrily up and down up and down for several minutes then found the open glass and whirled out into the sunshine joyfully
it is more than kind of you to suggest coming to see me but nurse rosemary dropped her pen
let her come garth turned upon her a face of blank surprise i do not wish it he said in a tone of absolute finality but think how hard it must be for any one to want so much to be near a
a friend in trouble and to be kept away it is only her wonderful kindness of heart makes her offer to come miss gray she is a friend and comrade of long ago it would greatly sadden her to see me thus
it does not seem so to her pleaded nurse rosemary ah cannot you read between the lines or does it take a woman's heart to understand a woman's letter did i read it badly may i read it over again
a look of real annoyance gathered upon garth's face he spoke with quiet sternness a frown bending his straight black brows you read it quite well he said but you do not do well to discuss it
i must feel able to dictate my letters to my secretary without having to explain them i beg your pardon sir said nurse rosemary humbly i was wrong garth stretched his hand across the table and left it there a moment
though no responsive hand was placed within it never mind he said with his winning smile my kind little mentor and guide you can direct me in most things but not in this now let us conclude where were we
did you put it is most kind or it is more than kind more than kind said nurse rosemary brokenly right for it is indeed more than kind only she and i can possibly know how much more
now let us go on but i am receiving no visitors and do not desire any until i have so mastered my new circumstances that the handicap connected with them shall neither be painful nor very noticeable to other people
during the summer i shall be learning step by step to live this new life in complete seclusion at gleneesh i feel sure my friends will respect my wish in this matter i have with me one who most perfectly and patiently is helping
ah wait cried garth suddenly i will not say that she might think she might misunderstand had you begun to write it no what was the last word matter ah yes that is right
full stop after matter now let me think garth dropped his face into his hands and sat for a long time absorbed in thought nurse rosemary waited her right hand held the pen poised over the paper
her left was pressed against her breast her eyes rested on that dark bowed head with a look of unutterable yearning and of passionate tenderness at last garth lifted his face yours very sincerely
a substitute the story of my last cricket match chapter one
captain i have some idea of cricket not much perhaps but i certainly have some i was not in the varsity team nor near it but i played in the freshman's match
and provided myself with spectacles i was nearly in the school team once that was when i carried my bat for forty five i must own that my performance was a surprise to everyone
and to myself among the rest but as i never repeated it or anything like it they left me very wisely out of the eleven thus it will be seen that from a cricketing point of view i did not
even in my best days come up to first rate form and my best days were reckoning from last summer quite fifteen years ago during those fifteen years i do not remember once handling a bat
far less hitting at a cricket ball with one and yet in this state of unpreparedness i had the presumption last summer to captain a team and to lead them on well not to victory but to disgrace
it's a fact the match was storwell versus latchmere storwell was my team and as i do not think a more remarkable match was ever known in the whole annals of cricketing history
i here venture to report it when they first asked me to play i thought they were mad storwell on sea is a village on the south coast i beg pardon
i believe it is called by the inhabitants a town it is a pretty place and not unknown in the locality it has a season and all that kind of thing and it was during the season i was there
and one day a deputation of the inhabitants called on me at my lodgings to ask if i would lead the local cricket club to say victory as i have said
my first impression was that they were mad either that or else that they were playing it off on the unprotected stranger i hinted so much to the deputation the deputation smiled
the chief spokesman was the local barber his name was sapsworth he explained that mister wingrave had sent them there wingrave was the vicar we were up
i decided to crush the deputation before the thing went farther to show you the sort of man you propose should captain you
but the admission did not crush them quite the other way it opened the floodgates of their eloquence that's nothing mister sapsworth cried there's hedges here we've had to put him in
he don't even know the rules of the game and he's just turned sixty one i glanced at mister hedges thus frankly referred to he was a smiling red faced bald headed old gentleman who
if not considerable in height was great in girth he would certainly have turned the scale at sixteen stone i felt that to cricketers who intended to play mister hedges any objections which i might urge would appear quite trivial
when is the match to be i asked to morrow was the startling reply i was speechless that i after fifteen years total abstention
should be asked to captain a team the members of which were entire strangers to me and of whose individual styles of play i had not the faintest notion in a match against an unknown foe at four and twenty hours notice
the end of it was that i agreed to play
chapter three and bats our innings was over for thirteen runs we sat there moping in a crowd i among the rest when mister benyon bustling up
reminded me of my duties as a captain now then turn out send your men into the field we can't stop here all day i'm first man in
we looked at each other one part of his address gave us a certain gratification that part in which he stated that he soon would have to go we turned out
i suppose a more unpromising set of fieldsmen never yet took their places in the field the latchmere men went slouching towards the tent some of them i noticed instead of going in stole towards the rear
i never set eyes on them again mister trentham i i can't bowl whispered mister sapsworth to me as we moved across the turf he and i had agreed that we should start the bowling
but mister benyon intervened now bob sapsworth you take the bowling one end and let your captain take the other captain you take first over i obeyed without a murmur
it might have been quite a usual thing to see in a match a member of one team ordering about the captain of the other i do not think that our field was arranged on scientific principles i may certainly claim that i had nothing to do with its arrangement
there is a suspicion floating through my mind that at one or two points two or more men were placed unusually close together for instance at deep mid off very deep mid off
mister hawthorn and mister hedges were not only doing their best to trample on each other's toes but each was seeking for a place of security behind the other's back mister barker shared with mister benyon the honour of being first man in
the latchmere captain as a captain had become quite as much a figurehead as i had his bearing was indicative of extreme depression i think he had learned that to take off hand the first substitute who offered was now and then
unwise to enable him to bat with more advantage mister benyon had removed his waistcoat which matched his trousers and his coat what he had done with it i cannot say
now he had on a bright red flannel shirt his tastes in costume seemed a trifle lurid the sleeves of which were turned up above the elbows his pose was almost as peculiar as his costume he stood bolt upright
his legs together his feet drawn heel to heel not at all in the fashion of a modern cricketer who seeks to guard his wickets with his legs his bat he held straight down in front of him the blade swinging gently in the air
i am afraid i wasted more time in preparing to deliver my first ball than i need have done but if mister benyon had not had a smack with a bat for twenty years it was a good fifteen since i had bowled a ball
after such a lapse of time one requires to pull oneself together before exhibiting one's powers to a cricketer of mister benyon's calibre he however did not seem to recognise the necessity which i myself felt that i was under
hurry up sir don't i tell you that soon i'll have to go i hurried up i gave him an overhand full pitch which would have made a decent catch for point if point had been close in which he wasn't however in any case mister benyon would have saved him the trouble
he hit the ball a crack the like of which i had never seen before he drove it over the hedge and over the trees and up to the skies and out of sight i don't think that's a bad little smack to start with he observed i like your kind of bowling mister
i suppose that's a boundary he called to the scorer if there was one which i doubt put down tom benyon six he turned again to me it's no good wasting time looking for that ball i've another in my pocket you can have
he put his hand into his trousers pocket those remarkable garments fitted him like eel skins
have such a thing as a cricket ball in one of the pockets
he drew one out and threw it up to me my second ball was a colourable imitation of my first only this time it was wide to leg to long leg mister benyon sent it flying put down tom benyon another six he cried i do like your bowling mister
i've got another ball which you can have he produced a second ball from the same pocket from which the first had come i could scarcely believe my eyes but i was discovering with horatio that there were more things in heaven and earth than had been contained in my philosophy
since mister benyon professed such affection for the style of bowling which i favoured i sent him down another sample this time it was fairly straight by which i mean that it would not have pitched more than a yard from the wickets if mister benyon had allowed it to pitch which he didn't
he drove it with terrific force right above my head never mind about the ball he said i've got another in my pocket he had the third and in the same pocket from which the other two had come
my fourth ball he treated to a swipe to square leg he seemed to have a partiality for swiping quite unnecessarily he allowed that this was so i do like a ball which i can get a smack at
he remarked as he produced a fourth ball from the same pocket of his tightly fitting trousers which had contained the other three a swipe does warm me so your kind of bowling mister s just the thing it was kind of him to say so though to my thinking
his remark did not convey a compliment when he sent my fifth ball out of sight i wished that his love for swiping had been less or my bowling of another kind the sixth however which he also produced from the same wondrous store contained in his breeches pocket
he contented himself with what he called snicking that's what i call a pretty snick he said the snick in question was a tremendous drive to deep mid off it was stopped quite involuntarily by mister hawthorn and mister hedges
so far as i could see it stunned the pair of them neither of them made the slightest attempt to return the ball run it out cried mister benyon he and mister barker began to run they ran four and then they ran two more and still the ball was not thrown in
mister benyon urged the fielders on hurry up bill hedges mister hedges did not hurry up he never could have hurried up even if his manner of fielding the ball had not wholly deprived him of his wind but the ball was at last thrown in
out of the average bowler and mister benyon's last performance his snick had placed him at the other wicket prepared to receive mister sapsworth's bowling when it came now bob sapsworth
crack smack whack went the balls out of sight in all directions and for each ball that disappeared mister benyon produced another from his breeches pocket i felt that these things must be happening to me in a dream
i was rapidly approaching the condition in which alice must have been in wonderland prepared for anything time went on mister sapsworth and i bowled over after over mister benyon was making a record in tall scoring
and the balls he lost and the balls which he produced and the diabolical ingenuity with which he managed at the close of every over to change his end if mister barker did no hitting he did some running he never had a chance to make a stroke
but his partner took care to make him run an incredibly large odd number as a wind up to every over mister benyon did not seem to be distressed by the exertion in the least mister barker emphatically did
mister benyon had buoyed us up by his statement that he would soon have to go his ideas of soon were different from ours i suppose at the outside our innings had lasted half an hour how long we bowled to mister benyon is more than i can say
i know that i bowled until i felt that i should either have to stop or drop by degrees one fact began to be impressed upon me it was this that the number of spectators was growing smaller by degrees and beautifully less
originally there had been quite a crowd assembled in course of time this had dwindled to half a dozen stragglers a little later on even these had gone
or his ghost what was more some of our own team took courage and leg bail i caught one of them the lad fenning in the act of scrambling through the hedge but i had not the heart to stop him i only wished that i had been so fortunate as to have led the van
the thing grew serious so far as i could see mister hawthorn mister hedges mister sapsworth and i were the only members of the storwell team left on the ground and the reflection involuntarily crossed my mind what fools we were to stay
the amount of running about we had to do and the way in which mister benyon urged us on the perspiration was running off from us in streams i had never had such a sweater before i do like your kind of bowling mister mister benyon would constantly remark
if i had had an equal admiration for his kind of batting we should have been quits but i had not at least not then a little later looking round the field i found that mister hawthorn had disappeared and that mister hedges stuck in a hedge
was struggling gallantly to reach safety on the other side it was the last ball of mister sapsworth's over mister benyon ran thirteen for a hit to leg he made mister barker run them too it was the proverbial last straw
as mister barker was running the thirteenth run instead of going to his wicket he dropped his bat the bat which he had never had a chance to utilise and bolted off the field as though satan was behind him mister benyon called out to him
but mister barker neither stopped nor stayed it seemed that the match was going to resolve itself into a game of single wicket to make things better
he first stood close up to the hedge then he stood in the middle of the hedge then i doubt if he stood upon the other side but at least he had vanished from my ken and i was left alone to bowl to mister benyon that over
i do like your kind of bowling mister he observed when as usual he sent my first ball out of sight never mind about the ball i've got one in my pocket you can have he had he produced it always from the same pocket it was about the second thousand
i felt that it was time to introduce myself it's a fine evening she turned she looked me up and down then she looked straight in front of her again i don't know you but i was not to be crushed
there was something about the shape of her that which suggested sociability that is my misfortune rather than my fault i don't know nothing at all about that i do not speak to strangers as a rule
sometimes there's never no knowing who they are i felt that i was getting on
it's not loud enough for me i like a band as i can hear one suspected there might be occasions on which one could almost like a band which one could not hear but i did not say so that broke the ice
and the conversation drifting on to personal topics she explained to me that she had a young man who so to speak was resting owing to what she called a difference which she had had with him it struck me that the tale as she told it
contained elements of tragedy bakers she observed is what i like i have a sister who likes butchers to me there's always the smell of the meat about a butcher but it's as you're made the worst of bakers is
they're such a thirsty lot possibly i suggested that is in a measure owing to the nature of their occupation that may be but still there is a limit and when a man is always drinking i think it's time for him to stop
i thought so too but she went on my young man his name is willyum evans is a baker and him and me have been walking out together four years come next month so i said to him
willyum it's my day out tuesday i shall expect you to take me somewhere so he said i will so i said hyde park corner half past ten i was there as the clock was striking
and a fine scuffle i had to get there too and if you'll believe me he kept me waiting two hours and three quarters by the clock what's over the gatekeeper's lodge which is longer than any gentleman ought to keep a lady waiting
i don't care who he is so when he did come i was a bit huffy so i said well willyum i hope i've put you to no hurry and it's a pity you should have troubled yourself to come at this time of day seeing as how i'm just off home
it's like this i accidentally had an appointment
and which i couldn't help and that's how it is i'm a little behind i see i said and it had something to do with pint pots i have no doubt so he sat down on a seat which was wet owing to there being a drizzle on
and as it seemed silly for me to stand whilst he was sitting i sat down likewise so there we sat neither of us saying nothing till i began to feel a little damp
so i said well willyum have you forgotten it's my day out i thought you was going to take me somewhere he said so i am so i said where are you going to take me to
which i was so he said
so i said i say nothing and the idea willyum of your talking about taking me to battersea park when as you very well know it is raining cats and dogs is not what i expected' because
as he could very well see i only had a parasol which was red and the rain was coming through and the colour coming out but he didn't care for the rain no more than nothing because as i tell you he being a baker
you must know that willyum is that near about money that i never saw nothing like him not that it's a bad thing in a man though it may be carried too far and i must say i do think willyum do carry it too far
he has never given me nothing which he didn't want me to pay for not even half a pint of beer so i was not surprised when he said the fact is matilda' which is me
well i said that's a nice thing to promise to take me out and then to have no money so he said if you was to pay the expenses for both the two of us it might make things more pleasant so i said
no i thank you because i had been had that way before and more than once so i got up and i said well willyum i will now wish you a good day
and my clothes is sticking to me and i don't care to stop no longer so he said now matilda don't you get disagreeable' which i was beginning to feel it and so i own we are both of us having a day out he said
and don't let no bad tempers spoil our pleasure i may have some money somewhere unbeknown to myself so i will look and see though i must say i do think it hard that all the expenses should be borne by me so he begins feeling in his pockets
it will make it seven and six no i said i shall put no five shillings of mine to no half crown of yours
the soonest mended and if you don't mind i will go and get myself something to eat being hungry and having i am thankful to say money of my own with which to pay for it
which he had and anything like the mess he'd made of it you never saw he held it out to me no i said i thank you
well he said it's a pity it should be wasted i'll eat it myself which he did and me standing in the rain there looking on that did put my back up mister evans i said short and sharp i wish you a good day i am going
picking at the bits of pasty what was stuck to the paper
so i pulls up now let us understand each other willyum if you please are you going to pay for something for me to eat or are you not he gives himself a kind of a shake so as to get his courage up and he says
you shall have anything you like to eat at my expense matilda so long as the cost does not exceed' then he hesitated
then he gave himself another kind of shake which i took as a sign that his courage was running down for both the two of us that made me fairly wild it really did to think that he had promised to take me somewhere
which it was a new dress i had on what i had got special for the occasion
and the colour was coming out of my parasol which was likewise new and my hair all coming out of curl and me feeling as limp as a rag and starving hungry and that he should want to put me off with fourpence halfpenny worth of food
drawn from him as if it were his eye tooth it did make me feel really wild i never said a word to him
he comes running after me and he catches hold of my arm and he says now matilda what did i say just now about letting no bad tempers spoil our pleasure i said
but it isn't mine and as i don't want to have no more to do with you mister evans perhaps you will be so kind as to let me go but he holds on to me all the tighter and he says i tell you what matilda
my brother as you have heard me talk about lives close by here we will go and dine with him he being a married man and with a comfortable home he will be glad to see us well i didn't know what to do not liking to have no quarrel with him in the street
he took me to a mews what led out of park lane and as we was turning the corner he said there's only this one thing about my brother him and me has had a little difference of opinion and he is not of a forgiving disposition so i said
and ask for missus henry evans what is my brother's wife so to speak it might smooth the way so i said i do not understand you just now you was saying as how your brother would be glad to see us are you now insinuating otherwise
we will hope for the best do not let us spoil our day's pleasure by no disagreeable observations there is never no knowing what might happen
there is my brother now matilda
so i says willyum whatever is the matter now your conduct do seem to me to be of the most extraordinary character
washing a carriage with a bucket of water
and anything like the way in which he started swearing you never heard hollo he says there's that putty faced brother of mine i've been looking for you for some time here's something for you willyum
and some of it went over me oh dear me you never saw nothing like the mess that i was in and he grabs hold of willyum by the collar and he says hang me if i don't wipe down the street with you and he shouts out enrietta
here's brother willyum haven't you got anything for him you bet your life he's come for something and a window opens over the way and a woman puts her head out and she empties something out of a pail over willyum and again some of it went over me
oh dear oh dear and that giant of a man he set about willyum something cruel
i was that frightened and i got into a cab just as i was
and i've never spoken to willyum nor set eyes on him since then which it's a fortnight the day after to morrow and if you had been in my place and had been treated as i was would you have let things go on as usual just as if there hadn't been no difference
the fairies are now believed by naturalist to be extinct though a clergyman of the church of england saw three near colchester as lately as eighteen fifty five while passing through a park after dining with the lord of the manor
the sight greatly staggered him and he was so affected that his account of it was incoherent in the year eighteen o seven a troop of fairies visited a wood near aix and carried off the daughter of a peasant
who had been seen to enter it with a bundle of clothing
disappeared about the same time but afterward returned he had seen the abduction been in pursuit of the fairies
that he saw one change itself into two opposing armies and fight a battle with great slaughter
after it had resumed its original shape and gone away there were seven hundred bodies of the slain which the villagers had to bury
of the wounded recovered in the time of henry the third of england
a fairy and it was universally respected faith
belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge of things without parallel famous
done to a turn on the iron behold him who to be famous aspired content well his grill has a plating of gold and his twistings are greatly admired
a king there was who lost an eye in some excess of passion and straight his courtiers all did try to follow the new fashion each dropped one eyelid when before the throne he ventured thinking twould please the king
that monarch swore he'd slay them all for winking
they were not hot to hazard such disaster they dared not close an eye dared not see better than their master seeing them lacrymose and glum a leech consoled the weepers he spread small rags with liquid gum
and covered half their peepers the court all wore the stuff the flame of royal anger dying that's how court plaster got its name unless i'm greatly lying
usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness frequently in honor of some holy person
in the roman catholic church feasts are movable and immovable
immovable until they are full
though it is believed that the ancient dead like the modern were light eaters among the many feasts of the romans
which was held according to livy whenever stones fell from heaven felon
a person of greater enterprise than discretion who in embracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate attachment female
one of the opposing or unfair sex the maker at creation's birth with living things had stocked the earth from elephants to bats and snails they all were good for all were males
but when the devil came and saw he said by thine eternal law of growth maturity decay
away and leave untenanted the earth unless
to laugh he had no sleeve the thing with deviltry did so accord
the master pondered this advice then shook and threw the fateful dice wherewith all matters here below are ordered and observed the throw then bent his head in awful state confirming the decree of fate
while rivers from their courses rolled to make it plastic for the mould enough collected but no more for niggard nature hoards her store he kneaded it to flexible clay while nick unseen threw some away
and then the various forms he cast gross organs first and finer last no one at once evolved but all by even touches grew and small degrees advanced till shade by shade
to match all living things he'd made females complete in all their parts except his clay gave out the hearts no matter satan cried with speed
i'll fetch the very hearts they need so flew away and soon brought back the number needed in a sack that night earth rang with sounds of strife ten million males each had a wife
that night sweet peace her pinions spread
ten million devils dead
an habitual liar's nearest approach to truth
when david said all men are liars dave himself a liar fibbed like any thief perhaps he thought to weaken disbelief by proof that
though i suspect the aged knave had been of
had he but known a fig's reluctant leaf
no david served not naked truth when he struck that sledge hammer blow at all his race nor did he hit the nail upon the head for reason shows that it could never be and the facts contradict him to his face
fickleness
the iterated satiety of an enterprising affection fiddle
by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat to rome said nero if to smoke you turn i shall not cease to fiddle while you burn to nero rome replied pray do your worst
tis my excuse that you were fiddling first
a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed finance
the art or science of managing revenues and resources for the best advantage of the manager the pronunciation of this word
is one of america's most precious discoveries and possessions flag
a colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships it appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that one sees
rubbish may be shot here flesh
the second person of the secular trinity flop versus suddenly to change one's opinions and go over to another party the most notable flop on record was that of saul of tarsus
partisan journals fly speck
the prototype of punctuation it is observed by garvinus that the systems of punctuation in use by the various literary nations
these creatures
bringing out the sense of the work by a species of interpretation superior to and independent of the writer's powers the
that is to say the early writers whose work is so esteemed by later scribes and critics in the same language never punctuated at all but worked right along free handed
we observe the same thing in children to day
of individuals reproduces the methods and stages of development
with his optical instruments and chemical tests
the common house fly
in transcribing these ancient m s s for the purpose of either making the work their own or preserving what they naturally regard as divine revelations later writers reverently and accurately copy whatever marks they find upon the papyrus or parchment
to the unspeakable enhancement of the lucidity of the thought and value of the work
naturally avail themselves of the obvious advantages of these marks in their own work and with such assistance as the flies of their own household may be willing to grant frequently rival and sometimes surpass the older compositions
in respect at least of punctuation which is no small glory
guides his actions and adorns his life folly although erasmus praised thee once in a thick volume and all authors known if not thy glory yet thy power have shown
to mend their lives and to sustain his own
with all thine offspring thronged from every land thyself inspiring me the song of praise and if too weak i'll hire to help me bawl dick watson gilder gravest of us all
fool
a person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity he is omnific omniform omnipercipient omniscient omnipotent
the railroad the steamboat the telegraph the platitude and the circle of the sciences he created patriotism and taught the nations war founded theology philosophy law medicine and chicago he established monarchical
and republican government he is from everlasting to everlasting such as creation's dawn beheld he fooleth now in the morning of time he sang upon primitive hills and in the noonday of existence headed the procession of being
his grandmotherly hand was warmly tucked in the set sun of civilization and in the twilight he prepares man's evening meal of milk and morality and turns down the covers of the universal grave
and after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of eternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of human civilization force
force is but might the teacher said that definition's just the boy said naught
remembering his pounded head force is not might but must forefinger
the finger commonly used in pointing out two malefactors
n this looks like an easy word to define but when i consider that pious and learned theologians have spent long lives in explaining it and written libraries to explain their explanations
when i remember the nations have been divided and bloody battles caused
and the efficacy of prayer praise and a religious life
i stand appalled before the mighty problem of its signification
fearing to contemplate its portentous magnitude reverently uncover and humbly refer it to his eminence cardinal gibbons and his grace bishop potter forgetfulness
a gift of god bestowed upon doctors in compensation for their destitution of conscience fork
an instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth formerly the knife was employed for this purpose and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many advantages over the other tool
which however they do not altogether reject but use to assist in charging the knife
forma pauperis latin in the character of a poor person a method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately permitted to lose his case when adam
long ago in cupid's awful court for cupid ruled ere adam was invented sued for eve's favor says an ancient law report
actions can't here be that way prosecuted so all poor adam's motions coldly were denied he went away as he had come nonsuited
frankalmoigne
the tenure by which a religious corporation
in purgatory ay said the officer coldly
but look you my son persisted the good man this act hath rank as robbery of god nay nay good father my master the king doth but deliver him from the manifold temptations of too great wealth
freebooter
a conqueror in a small way of business
a political condition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtual monopoly
is not accurately known naturalists have never been able to find a living specimen of either freedom as every schoolboy knows
on every wind indeed that blows i hear her yell she screams whenever monarchs meet and parliaments as well to bind the chains about her feet and toll her knell
among themselves apportion heaven and give her hell
freemasons
an order with secret rites grotesque ceremonies and fantastic costumes
among working artisans of london
and is drumming up distinguished recruits among the pre creational inhabitants of chaos and formless void the order was founded at different times by charlemagne julius caesar cyrus solomon zoroaster confucious
and buddha its emblems and symbols have been found in the catacombs of paris and rome on the stones of the parthenon
among the temples of karnak and palmyra and in the egyptian pyramids always by a freemason friendless
a ship big enough to carry two in fair weather but only one in foul the sea was calm
merrily merrily sailed we two
maketh glad on the tipsy ship with a dreadful shout the tempest descended and we fell out o the walking is nasty bad
frog
a reptile with edible legs the first mention of frogs in profane literature is in homer's narrative of the war between them and the mice skeptical persons have doubted homer's authorship of the work
remarked with truly oriental stoicism that he could stand it as long as the frogs and the jews could so the programme was changed the frog is a diligent songster having a good voice but no ear
richard wagner horses have a frog in each hoof a thoughtful provision of nature enabling them to shine in a hurdle race frying pan
one part of the penal apparatus employed in that punitive institution a woman's kitchen the frying pan was invented by calvin and by him used in cooking span long infants
and observing one day the horrible torment of a tramp
from the waste dump and devoured it it occurred to the great divine to rob death of its terrors by introducing the frying pan into every household in geneva thence it spread to all corners of the world
and has been of invaluable assistance in the propagation of his sombre faith the following lines said to be from the pen of his grace bishop potter seem to imply that the usefulness of this utensil is not limited to this world
old nick was summoned to the skies said peter your intentions are good but you lack enterprise concerning new inventions now broiling in an ancient plan of torment
go get one fill it up with fat fry sinners brown and good in't i know a trick worth two o that said nick i'll cook their food in't funeral
a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker
the savage dies they sacrifice a horse to bear to happy hunting grounds the corse our friends expire we make the money fly
chapter twenty found and now i come to perhaps the strangest adventure that happened to us in all this strange business
and one which shows how wonderfully things are brought about i was walking along quietly some way in front of the other two down the banks of the stream which runs from the oasis till it is swallowed up in the hungry desert sands
when suddenly i stopped and rubbed my eyes as well i might there not twenty yards in front of me placed in a charming situation under the shade of a species of fig tree
and facing to the stream was a cosy hut built more or less on the kafir principle with grass and withes but having a full length door instead of a bee hole
even as i said it the door of the hut opened and there limped out of it a white man clothed in skins and with an enormous black beard i thought that i must have got a touch of the sun it was impossible
no hunter ever came to such a place as this certainly no hunter would ever settle in it i stared and stared and so did the other man and just at that juncture sir henry and good walked up
look here you fellows i said is that a white man or am i mad sir henry looked and good looked and then all of a sudden the lame white man with a black beard uttered a great cry
and began hobbling towards us when he was close he fell down in a sort of faint with a spring sir henry was by his side great powers he cried
it is my brother george at the sound of this disturbance another figure also clad in skins emerged from the hut a gun in his hand and ran towards us
macumazahn he halloed don't you know me baas i'm jim the hunter i lost the note you gave me to give to the baas
and the fellow fell at my feet and rolled over and over weeping for joy you careless scoundrel i said you ought to be well sjambocked that is hided meanwhile
it was evidently forgotten now my dear old fellow burst out sir henry at last i thought you were dead i have been over solomon's mountains to find you
i had given up all hope of ever seeing you again and now i come across you perched in the desert like an old assvoegel
i tried to cross solomon's mountains nearly two years ago was the answer spoken in the hesitating voice of a man who has had little recent opportunity of using his tongue but when i reached here
a boulder fell on my leg and crushed it and i have been able to go neither forward nor back then i came up how do you do mister neville i said do you remember me
george curtis told us his story which in its way was almost as eventful as our own and put shortly amounted to this a little less than two years before he had started from sitanda's kraal
as for the note i had sent him by jim that worthy lost it and he had never heard of it till to day but acting upon information he had received from the natives he headed not for sheba's breasts
but for the ladder like descent of the mountains down which we had just come which is clearly a better route than that marked out in old dom silvestra's plan in the desert he and jim had suffered great hardships
but finally they reached this oasis where a terrible accident befell george curtis on the day of their arrival he was sitting by the stream and jim was extracting the honey from the nest of a stingless bee
which is to be found in the desert on the top of a bank immediately above him in so doing he loosened a great boulder of rock which fell upon george curtis's right leg crushing it frightfully
from that day he had been so lame that he found it impossible to go either forward or back
to the certainty of perishing in the desert as for food however they got on pretty well for they had a good supply of ammunition and the oasis was frequented especially at night by large quantities of game
which came thither for water these they shot or trapped in pitfalls using the flesh for food and after their clothes wore out the hides for clothing
and so george curtis ended we have lived for nearly two years like a second robinson crusoe and his man friday hoping against hope that some natives might come here to help us away but none have come
and now you of all people in the world you who as i fancied had long ago forgotten all about me and were living comfortably in old england turn up
in a promiscuous way and find me where you least expected it is the most wonderful thing that i have ever heard of and the most merciful too then sir henry set to work and told him the main facts of our adventures
sitting till late into the night to do it by jove said george curtis when i showed him some of the diamonds well at least you have got something for your pains besides my worthless self
sir henry laughed they belong to quatermain and good it was a part of the bargain that they should divide any spoils there might be this remark set me thinking
and having spoken to good i told sir henry that it was our joint wish that he should take a third portion of the diamonds or if he would not that his share should be handed to his brother who had suffered even more than ourselves on the chance of getting them
finally we prevailed upon him to consent to this arrangement but george curtis did not know of it until some time afterwards
but we did accomplish it somehow and to give its details would only be to reproduce much of what happened to us on the former occasion
six months from the date of our re arrival at sitanda's where we found our guns and other goods quite safe though the old rascal in charge was much disgusted at our surviving to claim them
saw us all once more safe and sound at my little place on the berea near durban where i am now writing
a kafir came up my avenue of orange trees carrying a letter in a cleft stick which he had brought from the post it turned out to be from sir henry and as it speaks for itself i give it in full
fetched up all right in england we got off the boat at southampton and went up to town you should have seen what a swell
beautifully shaved frock coat fitting like a glove brand new eye glass et cetera et cetera i went and walked in the park with him where i met some people i know and at once told them the story of his beautiful white legs
he is furious especially as some ill natured person has printed it in a society paper to come to business good and i took the diamonds to streeter's to be valued as we arranged
and really i am afraid to tell you what they put them at it seems so enormous
as such stones have never to their knowledge been put on the market in anything like such quantities it appears that with the exception of one or two of the largest they are of the finest water
and recommended us to sell by degrees
for fear lest we should flood the market they offer however a hundred and eighty thousand for a very small portion of them you must come home quatermain and see about these things
his time is too much occupied in shaving and other matters connected with the vain adorning of the body
he told me that since he had been home he hadn't seen a woman to touch her either as regards her figure or the sweetness of her expression i want you to come home my dear old comrade
you can finish writing the story of our adventures on board ship we have refused to tell the tale till it is written by you for fear lest we shall not be believed if you start on receipt of this
you will reach here by christmas and i book you to stay with me for that good is coming and george and so by the way is your boy harry there's a bribe for you
and like him he is a cool young hand he shot me in the leg cut out the pellets and then remarked upon the advantages of having a medical student with every shooting party good bye old boy i can't say any more
but i know that you will come if it is only to oblige
if it is only to see you harry my boy and to look after the printing of this history which is a task that i do not like to trust to anybody else
allan quatermain by h rider haggard i inscribe this book of adventure to my son arthur john rider haggard in the hope that in days to come he
and many other boys whom i shall never know may in the acts and thoughts of allan quatermain and his companions
i have just buried my boy my poor handsome boy of whom i was so proud and my heart is broken
it is very hard having only one son to lose him thus but god's will be done who am i that i should complain the great wheel of fate
we do not prostrate ourselves before it like the poor indians we fly hither and thither we cry for mercy but it is of no use the black fate thunders on
and in its season reduces us to powder poor harry to go so soon just when his life was opening to him he was doing so well at the hospital
he had passed his last examination with honours and i was proud of them much prouder than he was i think and then he must needs go to that smallpox hospital he wrote to me that he was not afraid of smallpox
and wanted to gain the experience and now the disease has killed him and i old and grey and withered am left to mourn over him without a chick or child to comfort me
i might have saved him too i have money enough for both of us and much more than enough king solomon's mines provided me with that but i said no let the boy earn his living let him labour
that he may enjoy rest but the rest has come to him before the labour oh my boy my boy i am like the man in the bible who laid up much goods
and builded barns goods for my boy and barns for him to store them in and now his soul has been required of him and i am left desolate
i would that it had been my soul and not my boy's we buried him this afternoon under the shadow of the grey and ancient tower of the church of this village where my house is
it was a dreary december afternoon and the sky was heavy with snow but not much was falling the coffin was put down by the grave and a few big flakes lit upon it
they looked very white upon the black cloth there was a little hitch about getting the coffin down into the grave the necessary ropes had been forgotten so we drew back from it
and waited in silence watching the big flakes fall gently one by one like heavenly benedictions and melt in tears on harry's pall
but that was not all a robin redbreast came as bold as could be and lit upon the coffin and began to sing and then i am afraid that i broke down
and so did sir henry curtis strong man though he is and as for captain good i saw him turn away too even in my own distress i could not help noticing it
the above signed allan quatermain is an extract from my diary written two years and more ago i copy it down here because it seems to me
that it is the fittest beginning to the history that i am about to write if it please god to spare me to finish it if not well it does not matter that extract was penned seven thousand miles or so
i cannot help feeling that i am not far off harry when i was in england i used to live in a very fine house at least i call it a fine house speaking comparatively
but i could not eat much and soon i took to walking or rather limping being permanently lame from the bite of a lion up and down
up and down the oak panelled vestibule for there is a vestibule in my house in england on all the four walls of this vestibule were placed pairs of horns about a hundred pairs altogether
all of which i had shot myself they are beautiful specimens as i never keep any horns which are not in every way perfect unless it may be now and again on account of the associations connected with them
such as used to be owned by the dutchmen a roer they call it that gun the boer i bought it from many years ago told me had been used by his father at the battle of the blood river
just after dingaan swept into natal and slaughtered six hundred men women and children so that the boers named the place where they died weenen or the place of weeping
and so it is called to this day and always will be called and many an elephant have i shot with that old gun
and kicked like the very deuce well up and down i walked staring at the guns and the horns which the guns had brought low and as i did so there rose up in me a great craving
i would go away from this place where i lived idly and at ease back again to the wild land where i had spent my life where i met my dear wife and poor harry was born
and so many things good bad and indifferent had happened to me the thirst for the wilderness was on me i could tolerate this place no more i would go and die as i had lived
among the wild game and the savages yes as i walked i began to long to see the moonlight gleaming silvery white over the wide veldt and mysterious sea of bush
and watch the lines of game travelling down the ridges to the water the ruling passion is strong in death they say and my heart was dead that night but independently of my trouble
no man who has for forty years lived the life i have can with impunity go coop himself in this prim english country with its trim hedgerows and cultivated fields
its stiff formal manners and its well dressed crowds he begins to long ah how he longs for the keen breath of the desert air
he dreams of the sight of zulu impis breaking on their foes like surf upon the rocks and his heart rises up in rebellion against the strict limits of the civilized life ah this civilization
what does it all come to for forty years and more i lived among savages and studied them and their ways and now for several years i have lived here in england and have in my own stupid manner
done my best to learn the ways of the children of light and what have i found a great gulf fixed no only a very little one that a plain man's thought may spring across
is to a large extent free from the greed of money which eats like a cancer into the heart of the white man it is a depressing conclusion but in all essentials the savage
and the child of civilization are identical i dare say that the highly civilized lady reading this will smile at an old fool of a hunter's simplicity when she thinks of her black bead bedecked sister
they have a strong family resemblance especially when you wear that very low dress to the savage woman's beads your habit of turning round and round to the sound of horns and tom toms
your fondness for pigments and powders the way in which you love to subjugate yourself to the rich warrior who has captured you in marriage and the quickness with which your taste in feathered head dresses varies
all these things suggest touches of kinship and you remember that in the fundamental principles of your nature you are quite identical as for you sir who also laugh
let some man come and strike you in the face whilst you are enjoying that marvellous looking dish and we shall soon see how much of the savage there is in you
there i might go on for ever but what is the good civilization is only savagery silver gilt a vainglory is it
and like a northern light comes but to fade and leave the sky more dark out of the soil of barbarism it has grown like a tree and as i believe
into the soil like a tree it will once more sooner or later fall again as the egyptian civilization fell as the hellenic civilization fell and as the roman civilization and many others
of which the world has now lost count fell also do not let me however be understood as decrying our modern institutions representing as they do the gathered experience of humanity
applied for the good of all of course they have great advantages hospitals for instance but then remember we breed the sickly people who fill them in a savage land they do not exist
besides the question will arise how many of these blessings are due to christianity as distinct from civilization and so the balance sways and the story runs
here a gain there a loss and nature's great average struck across the two whereof the sum total forms one of the factors in that mighty equation
so that we may not be carried away by the pride of knowledge man's cleverness is almost indefinite and stretches like an elastic band
you can go round and round it you can polish it highly
whereby you will make it bulge out the other but you will never while the world endures and man is man increase its total circumference it is the one fixed unchangeable thing
fixed as the stars more enduring than the mountains as unalterable as the way of the eternal human nature is god's kaleidoscope and the little bits of coloured glass
which represent our passions hopes fears joys aspirations towards good and evil and what not are turned in his mighty hand
as surely and as certainly as it turns the stars and continually fall into new patterns and combinations but the composing elements remain the same
nor will there be one more bit of coloured glass nor one less for ever and ever this being so supposing for the sake of argument we divide ourselves into twenty parts
nineteen savage and one civilized we must look to the nineteen savage portions of our nature if we would really understand ourselves and not to the twentieth
is spread all over the other nineteen making them appear quite different from what they really are as the blacking does a boot or the veneer a table it is on the nineteen rough
serviceable savage portions that we fall back on emergencies not on the polished but unsubstantial twentieth civilization should wipe away our tears
civilization fails us utterly back back we creep and lay us like little children on the great breast of nature she that perchance may soothe us and make us forget
who gave us birth and will in a day to come give us our burial also and so in my trouble as i walked up and down the oak panelled vestibule of my house there in yorkshire
i longed once more to throw myself into the arms of nature not the nature which you know the nature that waves in well kept woods and smiles out in corn fields but nature
undefiled as yet by any human sinks of sweltering humanity i would go again where the wild game was back to the land whereof none know the history back to the savages whom i love
lying in the churchyard without feeling as though my heart would break in two and now there is an end of this egotistical talk and there shall be no more of it
but if you whose eyes may perchance one day fall upon my written thoughts have got so far as this i ask you to persevere since what i have to tell you is not without its interest
by that time night had come fully though fortunately it was clear but very cold he saw then on the right a faint coil of smoke rising against the dusky sky and he rode straight for it the smoke came from a strong double cabin standing about four hundred yards from the road
and the sight of the heavy log walls made dick all the more anxious to get inside them the cold had grown bitter and even his horse shivered as he approached two yellow curs rushed forth and began to bark furiously snapping at the horse's heels the usual mountain welcome
but when a kick from the horse grazed the ear of one of them they kept at a respectful distance hello hello called dick loudly this also was the usual mountain notification that a guest had come and the heavy board door of the house opened inward
a man elderly but dark and strong with the high cheek bones of an indian stood in the door the light of a fire blazing in the fireplace on the opposite side of the wall throwing him in relief his hair was coal black long and coarse increasing his resemblance to an indian
dick rode close to the door and without hesitation asked for a night's shelter and food this was his inalienable right in the hills or mountains of his state and he would be a strange man indeed who would refuse it
the man sharply bade the dogs be silent and they retreated behind the house their tails drooping then he said to dick in a tone that was not without hospitality light stranger an we'll put up your horse mandy will have supper ready by the time we finish the job
in fact you see many who are not older than fifteen or sixteen he had spoken hastily and incautiously and he realized it at once the man's keen gaze was turned upon him again you've seen the armies then he said mebbe you're a sojer yourself
i've been in the mountains looking after some land that belongs to my family said dick my name is mason richard mason and i live near pendleton which is something like a hundred miles from here he deemed it best to give his right name as it would have no significance there
my name's leffingwell seth leffingwell an i live here alone ceptin my old woman mandy all we ask of people is to let us be lots of us in the mountain feel that way let them lowlanders shoot one another up ez long ez they please but up here there ain't no slaves
and cut off an icy blast it'll make the fire an supper all the better we're just plain mountain people but you're welcome to the best we have ma this is mister mason who has been on lan business in the mountains an is back on his way to his home at pendleton
leffingwell's wife a powerful woman as large as her husband and with a pleasant face gave dick a large hand and a friendly grasp it's a good night to be indoors she said supper's ready seth will you an the stranger set
she had placed the pine table in the middle of the room and dick noticed that it was large enough for five or six persons he put his saddle bags and blankets in a corner and he and the man drew up chairs he had seldom beheld a more cheerful scene
in a great fireplace ten feet wide big logs roared and crackled corn cakes vegetables and two kinds of meat were cooking over the coals and a great pot of coffee boiled and bubbled no candles had been lighted but they were not needed the flames gave sufficient illumination set young man
i'm grateful said dick falling into the spirit of it
i don't understand it as he looks like a healthy man twouldn't do for me to be too hearty said leffingwell or i'd keep mandy here cookin all the time they seemed pleasant people to dick good honest mountain types and he was glad that he had found their house
the room in which they sat was large apparently used for all purposes kitchen dining room sitting room and bedroom an old fashioned squirrel rifle lay on hooks projecting from the wall but there was no other sign of a weapon
dick surmised that this bed would be assigned to him their appetites grew lax and finally ceased then leffingwell yawned and stretched his arms stranger he said we rise early an go to bed early in these parts
he murmured his excuses and said he believed he would like to retire don't you be bashful about sayin so exclaimed leffingwell heartily
there was a small window near the foot of the room and when he noticed it he resolved to let in a little air later on the mountaineers liked hot rooms all the time but he did not this window contained no glass but was closed with a broad shutter
the boy undressed and got into bed placing his saddle bags on the foot of it and the pistol that he carried in his belt under his head he fell asleep almost immediately and had he been asked beforehand he would have said that nothing could awake him before morning nevertheless he awoke before midnight
despite the languor produced by food and heat a certain nervous apprehension had been at work in the boy's mind and it followed him into the unknown regions of sleep his body was dead for a time and his mind too but this nervous power worked on almost independently of him
it had noted the sound of voices nearby and awakened him
he sat up in his bed and became conscious of a hot and aching head then he remembered the window and softly drawing two pegs that fastened it in order that he might not awaken his good hosts he opened it inward a few inches the cold air poured in at the crevice and felt like heaven on his face
grateful for the fresh air the same mysterious power gave him a second warning signal he heard the hum of voices and sat up again it was merely the leffingwells in the bed at the far end of the room talking
perhaps he had not been asleep more than an hour and it was natural that they should lie awake a while talking about the coming of this young stranger or any other event of the day that interested them then he caught a tone or an inflection that he did not remember to have been used by either of the leffingwells
a third signal of alarm was promptly registered on his brain he leaned from the bed and pulling aside the curtain a half an inch or so looked into the room the fire had died down except a few coals which cast but a faint light
all armed heavily and the resemblance of two of them to the leffingwells was so striking that he had no doubt they were their sons now he understood about those empty stalls the third man who had been sitting with his shoulder toward dick turned his face presently and the boy with difficulty repressed an exclamation
it was the one who had reined his horse across the road to stop him a fourth and conclusive signal of alarm was registered upon his brain he began to dress rapidly and without noise meanwhile he listened intently and could hear the words they spoke
the woman was pleading with them to let him go he was only a harmless lad and while these were dark days a crime committed now might yet be punished a harmless boy said the strange man he's quick an strong enough i tell you
s'pose we jest take the hoss and send the boy on a hoss like that would be knowed protested the woman what if sojers come lookin fur him we could run him off in the hills an keep him there a while said leffingwell i know places where sojers wouldn't find that hoss in a thousand years
now we know that this boy rode straight from the tent of general thomas hisself he's a union sojer an young as he is he's an officer he wouldn't be sent out by general thomas hisself less it was on big business he's got messages dispatches of some kind that are worth a heap to somebody
now we've got to get em an get the full worth of em from them to whom they're worth the most he's got a pistol said the elder leffingwell
the man kerins laughed he'll never get a chance to shoot he said why after all he went through today he'll sleep like a log till mornin that's so said one of the young leffingwells an kerins is right we ought to grab them dispatches
shut up jim you fool said his mother sharply do you want murder on your hands stealin hosses is bad enough but if that boy has got the big dispatches you say he has an he's missin don't you think that sojers will come after him
who protested again that it would be enough to take the horse as for the dispatches it wasn't wise for them to fool with such things but kerins insisted on going the whole route and the young leffingwells were with him
but his fear was greatest lest he might lose the precious dispatches that he bore for a few moments he did not know what to do he might take his pistols and fight but he could not fight them all with success then that pleasant flood of cold air gave him the key
they waited yet a little while longer and then the boom of a heavy gun in the forest told them that the enemy was advancing to begin the battle afresh
yet beauregard and his generals were still sanguine of completing the victory their scouts and skirmishers had failed to discover that the entire army of buell also was now in front of them bragg was gathering his division on the left to hurl it like a thunderbolt upon grant's shattered brigades
hardee and the bishop general were in the center and breckinridge led the right but as they moved forward to attack the union troops came out to meet them nelson had occupied the high ground between lick and owl creeks
and his and the southern troops met in a fierce clash shortly after dawn beauregard drawn by the firing at that point and noticing the courage and tenacity with which the northern troops held their ground sending in volley after volley
weary though the southern soldiers were their attack was made with utmost fire and vigor a long and furious combat ensued a southern division under cheatham rushed to the help of their fellows
fresh and with unbroken ranks not a man wounded or missing they had entered the battle and both grant and buell as well as their division commanders expected an easy victory where the army of the ohio stood buell to his amazement saw himself reduced to the defensive
he and grant had reckoned that the decimated brigades of the south could not stand at all before him but just as on the first day they came on with the fierce rebel yell hurling themselves upon superior numbers taking the cannon of their enemy losing them and retaking them and losing them again but never yielding
the great conflict increased in violence buell a man of iron courage saw that his soldiers must fight to the uttermost not for victory only but even to ward off defeat the dawn was now far advanced
the rain had ceased and the sun again shot down sheaves of fiery rays upon a vast low cloud of fire and smoke in which thousands of men met in desperate combat nine o'clock came
but for three hours buell had been fighting to keep himself from being swept away the southern troops seemed animated by that extraordinary battle fever and absolute contempt of death which distinguished them so often during this war
buell's army was driven in on both flanks and only the center held fast it began to seem possible that the south despite her reduced ranks might yet defeat both northern armies another battery dashed up to the relief of the men in blue
it was charged at once by the men in gray so fiercely that the gunners were glad to escape with their guns and once more the wild rebel yell of triumph swelled through the southern forest dick standing with his comrades on one of the ridges that they had defended so well listened to the roar of conflict on the wing
ever increasing in volume and watched the vast clouds of smoke gathering over the forest he could see from where he stood the flash of rifle fire and the blaze of cannon and both eye and ear told him that the battle was not moving back upon the south
it seems that we do not make headway sir he said to colonel winchester who also stood by him looking and listening not that i can perceive replied the colonel and yet with the rush of forty thousand fresh troops of ours upon the field i deemed victory quick and easy
how the battle grows how the south fights colonel winchester walked away presently and joined sherman who was eagerly watching the mighty conflict into which he knew that his own worn and shattered troops must sooner or later be drawn
he walked up and down in front of his lines saying little but seeing everything his tall form was seen by all his men he too must have felt a singular thrill at that moment he must have known that his star was rising
he more than any other with his valor penetrating mind and decision had saved the northern army from complete destruction the first day at shiloh he had not been able to avert defeat but he had prevented utter ruin his division alone had held together in the face of the southern attack until night came
but i don't think we can achieve any big victory look there's general grant himself grant was passing along his whole line while leaving the main battle to buell he retained general command and watched everything
he too observed the failure of buell's army to drive the enemy before them and he must have felt a sinking of the heart but he did not show it instead he spoke only of victory when he made any comment at all and sent the members of his staff to make new arrangements
he must bring into action every gun and man he had or he would yet lose it was now ten o'clock and the new battle had lasted with the utmost fury and desperation for four hours dick after general grant rode on felt as if a sudden thrill had run through the whole army
he saw men rising from the earth and tightening their belts he saw gunners gathering around their guns and making ready with the ammunition he knew the remains of grant's army were about to march upon the enemy helping the army of the ohio to achieve the task that had proved so great
sherman mc clernand and other generals now passed among their troops cheering them telling them that the time had come to win back what they had lost the day before and that victory was sure they called upon them for another great effort and a shout rolled along the line of willing soldiers
sherman's whole division now raised itself up and rushed at the enemy dick and his comrades in the front of their own regiment the whole northern line was now engaged grant true to his resolution had hurled every man and every gun upon his foe
the southern generals felt the immense weight of the numbers that were now driving down upon them their decimated ranks could not withstand the charge of two armies in the center where buell's men having stood fast from the first were now advancing
they were compelled to give way and lost several guns on the wings the heavy northern brigades were advancing also and the whole southern line was pushed back so much inferior was the south in numbers that her enemy began to overlap her on the flanks also
a tremendous shout of exultation swept through the northern ranks as they felt themselves advancing the promises of their generals were coming true and there is nothing sweeter than victory after defeat fortune after frowning upon her so long was now smiling upon the north
the exultant cheer swept through the ranks again and back came the defiant rebel yell a young soldier often feels what is happening with as true instinct as a general dick now knew that the north would recover the field and that the south cut down fearfully
though having performed prodigies of valor must fight to save herself he felt that the resistance in front of them was no longer invincible he saw in the flash of the firing that the southern ranks were thin very thin and he knew that there was no break in their own advance
once more the primitive church in the woods looked down upon one of the most sanguinary conflicts of the whole war if sherman could break through the southern line here beauregard's whole army would be lost but the southern soldiers were capable of another and a mighty effort
they gathered together their shattered brigades and hurled them like a thunderbolt upon the union left and center the shock was terrific sherman with all his staunchness and the valor of his men was compelled to give way mc clernand too reeled back others were driven in also
whole brigades and regiments were cut to pieces or thrown in confusion the southerners cut a wide gap in the northern army through which they rushed in triumph holding the corinth road against every attack and making their rear secure
the bugles sounded the retreat and reluctantly they gave up the ground which they had won with so much courage and daring they retreated rather as victors than defeated men presenting a bristling front to the enemy until their regiments were lost in the forest
and beating off every attempt of skirmishers or cavalry to molest them it was the middle of the afternoon when the last shot was fired and the southern army at its leisure resumed its march toward corinth protected on the flanks by its cavalry
and carrying with it the assurance that although not victorious over two armies it had been victorious over one and had struck the most stunning blow yet known in american history when the last of the southern regiments disappeared in the deep woods
dick and many of those around him sank exhausted upon the ground even had they been ordered to follow they would have been incapable of it complete nervous collapse followed such days and nights as those through which they had passed nor did grant and buell wish to pursue
their armies had been too terribly shaken to make another attack nearly fifteen thousand of their men had fallen and the dead and wounded still lay scattered widely through the woods the south had lost almost as many nearly a third of her army had been killed or wounded in the battle
and yet they retired in good order showing the desperate valor of these sons of hers the double army which had saved itself but which had yet been unable to destroy its enemy slept that night in the recovered camp the generals discussed in subdued tones their narrow escape
chapter sixteen the fierce finish of shiloh
dick who had been lying under cover just behind the crest of one of the low ridges suddenly heard the loud beating of his heart he did not know for a moment or two that the sound came so distinctly because the mighty tumult which had been raging around him all day had ceased
those blinding flashes of flame no longer came from the forest before him the shot and shell quit their horrible screaming and the air was free from the unpleasant hiss of countless bullets he stretched himself a little and stood up
not yet realizing to the full that the tumult of the battle had ceased the boy felt stiff and sore in every bone and muscle and although the cannon and rifles were silent there was still a hollow roaring in his ears his eyes were yet dim from the smoke and his head felt heavy and dull
and suddenly a gray squirrel hopped out on a bough and began to chatter wildly dick despite himself laughed but the laugh was hysterical he could appreciate the feelings of the squirrel which probably had been imprisoned in a hollow of the tree all day long listening to this tremendous battle
the twilight was fast deepening into night the last rosy glow of the sun faded and thick darkness enveloped the vast forest in which twenty thousand men had fallen and in which most of them yet lay the wounded with the dead
no dick my boy none for the present replied the colonel a little sadly half of my poor regiment is killed or wounded and the rest are so exhausted that they are barely able to move but they fought magnificently dick they had to or be crushed
and it is probable that we too would have gone had not night come to our help then we have been beaten yes dick we have been beaten and beaten badly it was the surprise that did it how on earth we could have let the southern army creep upon us and strike unaware i don't understand
some prisoners whom we have taken say that johnston has been killed and beauregard is no such leader as he will the army of general buell reach us tonight buell himself is here he has been with grant for some time and all his brigades are marching at the double quick
lew wallace arrived less than half an hour ago with seven thousand men fresh and eager for battle dick dick my boy we'll have forty thousand new troops on the field at the next dawn and before god we'll wipe out the disgrace of today listen to the big guns from the boats as they speak at intervals
the pupils of his eyes were dilated and a red spot glowed in either cheek like all the other officers he was stung by the surprise and defeat and he could barely wait for the morning and revenge colonel winchester walked away to a council that had been called
and dick turned to pennington and warner who were not hurt save for slight wounds warner had recovered his poise and was soon as calm and dry as ever dick he said we're some distance from where we started this morning there's nothing like being shoved along when you don't want to go
i had a number of looks at it replied warner and i should say from the way it acted that it numbered at least three million men i know that at times not less than ten thousand were aiming their rifles at my own poor and unworthy person what a waste of energy for so many men to shoot at me all at once
but in a few seconds he recovered himself and looked rather ashamed boys he said i apologize you needn't said pennington
sergeant daniel whitley was leaning against a stump and while he was calmly lighting a pipe he regarded the three boys with a benevolent gaze none of you need be ashamed of bein scared he said i've been in a lot of fights myself though all of them were mere skirmishes when put alongside of this
what is it dick asked warner i've realized all at once that i'm tremendously hungry the confederates broke up our breakfast we never had time to think of dinner and now its nothing to eat me too said pennington
if you were to hit me in the stomach i'd give back a hollow sound like a drum why don't somebody ring the supper bell but fires were soon lighted along their whole front and provisions were brought up from the rear and from the steamers the soldiers feeling their strength returning ate ravenously
they also talked much of the battle many of them were yet under the influence of hysterical excitement they told extraordinary stories of the things they had seen and done and they believed all they told were true
they ate fiercely at first almost like wolves but after a while they resolved into their true state as amiable young human beings and were ashamed of themselves all the while buell's army of the ohio was passing over the river and joining grant's army of the tennessee
regiment after regiment and brigade after brigade crossed the guns that nelson had been forced to leave behind were also brought up and were taken over with the other batteries
while the shattered remnants of the army of the tennessee were resting the fresh army of the ohio was marching by it in the late hours of the night in order to face the southern foe in the morning the southern army itself lay deep in the woods from which it had driven its enemy
always the assailant through the day its losses had been immense many thousands had fallen and no new troops were coming to take their place continual reinforcements came to the north throughout the night not a soldier came to the south
beauregard at dawn would have to face twice his numbers at least half of whom were fresh troops another conference was held by the southern generals in the forest but now the central figure the great johnston was gone
the others however summoned their courage anew and passed the whole night arranging their forces cheering the men and preparing for the morn their scouts and skirmishers kept watch on the northern camp and the southerners believed that while they had whipped only one army the day before they could whip two on the morrow
dick from a high point on which he lay saw the dark surface of the tennessee and the lights on the puffing steamers as they crossed bearing the army of the ohio his mind did not work actively now but he felt that they were saved
and it was in fact a barrier more and more as without its command the second union army could never have come to the relief of the first dick after a while saw colonel winchester and other officers near him they were talking of their losses
they gave the names of many generals and colonels who had been killed presently they moved away and he fell into an uneasy sleep or rather doze from which he was awakened after a while by a heavy rumbling sound of a distant cannonade the boy sprang up wondering why any one should wish to renew the battle in the middle of the night
and then he saw that it was no battle the sound was thunder rolling heavily on the southern horizon and the night had become very dark vivid flashes of lightning cut the sky and a strong wind rushed among the trees
their pulses became stronger and the blood flowed in a quickened torrent through their veins they let it pour upon them merely seeking to keep their ammunition dry ten thousand wounded were yet lying untouched in the forest but the rain was grateful to them too
when they could they turned their fevered faces up to it that it might beat upon them and bring grateful coolness deep in the night a council like that of the southern generals was held in the northern camp also grant his face an expressionless mask presided and said but little
grant after a day in which any one of a dozen chances would have wrecked him must have concluded that in very deed and truth he was the favorite child of fortune when one is saved again and again from the very verge he begins to believe that failure is impossible
the southern army must have suffered almost equally so and would face them at dawn with numbers far less than their own he had not displayed the greatest skill but he had shown the greatest moral courage and now on the night between battles it was that quality that was needed most
dick not having slept any the night before and having passed through a day of fierce battle was overcome after midnight and sank into a sleep that was mere lethargy he awoke once before dawn and remembered but vaguely all that had happened yet he was conscious that there was much movement in the forest
sent huge shells curving into the forest toward the camp of the southern army he also saw near him warner and pennington sound asleep on the ground and then he sank back into his own lethargic slumber
it was not yet dawn and a light rain was falling but smoldering fires disclosed the ground for some distance and also the river on which the gunboats and transports were now gathered in a fleet colonel winchester beckoned to him all right this morning dick he said
yes sir i'm ready for my duty and you too warner and pennington we are sir they replied together then keep close beside me i don't know when i may want you for a message daybreak will be here in a half hour
the entire army of the ohio led by general buell in person will be in position then or very shortly afterward and a new and we hope a very different battle will begin food and coffee were served to the men and while the rain was still falling they formed in line and awaited the dawn
the desire to retrieve their fortunes was as strong among the farmer lads as it was among the officers who took care to spread among them the statement that buell's army alone was as numerous as the southern force and probably more numerous since their enemy must have sustained terrible losses
chapter eight the mermaids lagoon if you shut your eyes and are a lucky one you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness then if you squeeze your eyes tighter
the pool begins to take shape and the colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire but just before they go on fire you see the lagoon this is the nearest you ever get to it on the mainland just one heavenly moment
if there could be two moments you might see the surf and hear the mermaids singing the children often spent long summer days on this lagoon swimming or floating most of the time playing the mermaid games in the water and so forth
you must not think from this that the mermaids were on friendly terms with them on the contrary it was among wendy's lasting regrets that all the time she was on the island she never had a civil word from one of them
when she stole softly to the edge of the lagoon she might see them by the score especially on marooners rock where they loved to bask combing out their hair in a lazy way that quite irritated her or she might even swim on tiptoe as it were to within a yard of them
but then they saw her and dived probably splashing her with their tails not by accident but intentionally they treated all the boys in the same way except of course peter who chatted with them on marooners rock by the hour
and sat on their tails when they got cheeky he gave wendy one of their combs the most haunting time at which to see them is at the turn of the moon when they utter strange wailing cries but the lagoon is dangerous for mortals then
wendy had never seen the lagoon by moonlight less from fear
than because she had strict rules about every one being in bed by seven she was often at the lagoon however on sunny days after rain when the mermaids come up in extraordinary numbers to play with their bubbles
the bubbles of many colours made in rainbow water they treat as balls hitting them gaily from one to another with their tails
the goals are at each end of the rainbow and the keepers only are allowed to use their hands sometimes a dozen of these games will be going on in the lagoon at a time and it is quite a pretty sight
but the moment the children tried to join in they had to play by themselves for the mermaids immediately disappeared nevertheless we have proof that they secretly watched the interlopers and were not above taking an idea from them
for john introduced a new way of hitting the bubble with the head instead of the hand and the mermaids adopted it this is the one mark that john has left on the neverland
it must also have been rather pretty to see the children resting on a rock for half an hour after their mid day meal wendy insisted on their doing this and it had to be a real rest even though the meal was make believe so they lay there in the sun
and their bodies glistened in it while she sat beside them and looked important it was one such day and they were all on marooners rock the rock was not much larger than their great bed but of course they all knew how not to take up much room and they were dozing
or at least lying with their eyes shut and pinching occasionally when they thought wendy was not looking she was very busy stitching while she stitched a change came to the lagoon little shivers ran over it
and the sun went away and shadows stole across the water turning it cold wendy could no longer see to thread her needle and when she looked up the lagoon that had always hitherto been such a laughing place seemed formidable and unfriendly
it was not she knew that night had come but something as dark as night had come no worse than that it had not come but it had sent that shiver through the sea to say that it was coming
what was it there crowded upon her all the stories she had been told of marooners rock so called because evil captains put sailors on it and leave them there to drown they drown when the tide rises for then it is submerged
of course she should have roused the children at once not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them but because it was no longer good for them to sleep on a rock grown chilly but she was a young mother and she did not know this
she thought you simply must stick to your rule about half an hour after the mid day meal so though fear was upon her and she longed to hear male voices she would not waken them even when she heard the sound of muffled oars
though her heart was in her mouth she did not waken them she stood over them to let them have their sleep out was it not brave of wendy it was well for those boys then that there was one among them who could sniff danger even in his sleep peter
sprang erect as wide awake at once as a dog and with one warning cry he roused the others he stood motionless one hand to his ear pirates he cried
the others came closer to him a strange smile was playing about his face and wendy saw it and shuddered while that smile was on his face no one dared address him
the order came sharp and incisive dive there was a gleam of legs and instantly the lagoon seemed deserted marooners rock stood alone in the forbidding waters as if it were itself marooned the boat drew nearer
it was the pirate dinghy with three figures in her smee and starkey and the third a captive no other than tiger lily her hands and ankles were tied and she knew what was to be her fate she was to be left on the rock to perish
an end to one of her race more terrible than death by fire or torture for is it not written in the book of the tribe that there is no path through water to the happy hunting ground yet her face was impassive she was the daughter of a chief she must die as a chief's daughter
it is enough they had caught her boarding the pirate ship with a knife in her mouth no watch was kept on the ship it being hook's boast that the wind of his name guarded the ship for a mile around now her fate would help to guard it also
in the gloom that they brought with them the two pirates did not see the rock till they crashed into it luff you lubber cried an irish voice that was s m e e here's the rock now then
and leave her here to drown it was the work of one brutal moment to land the beautiful girl on the rock she was too proud to offer a vain resistance quite near the rock but out of sight two heads were bobbing up and down peter's and wendy's
wendy was crying for it was the first tragedy she had seen peter had seen many tragedies but he had forgotten them all he was less sorry than wendy for tiger lily it was two against one that angered him and he meant to save her
but he was never one to choose the easy way
ahoy there you lubbers he called it was a marvellous imitation the captain said the pirates staring at each other in surprise he must be swimming out to us starkey said when they had looked for him in vain
we are putting the redskin on the rock smee called out set her free came the astonishing answer free yes cut her bonds and let her go but captain
at once d'ye hear cried peter
this is queer smee gasped better do what the captain orders said starkey nervously ay ay smee said and he cut tiger lily's cords at once like an eel she slid between starkey's legs into the water
of course wendy was very elated over peter's cleverness but she knew that he would be elated also and very likely crow and thus betray himself so at once her hand went out to cover his mouth but it was stayed even in the act for
rang over the lagoon in hook's voice and this time it was not peter who had spoken peter may have been about to crow
now wendy understood the real hook was also in the water he was swimming to the boat and as his men showed a light to guide him he had soon reached them in the light of the lantern wendy saw his hook grip the boat's side
she saw his evil swarthy face as he rose dripping from the water and quaking she would have liked to swim away but peter would not budge he was tingling with life and also top heavy with conceit am i not a wonder
oh i am a wonder he whispered to her and though she thought so also she was really glad for the sake of his reputation that no one heard him except herself he signed to her to listen the two pirates were very curious to know what had brought their captain to them
but he sat with his head on his hook in a position of profound melancholy captain is all well they asked timidly but he answered with a hollow moan he sighs said smee he sighs again said starkey
and yet a third time he sighs said smee then at last he spoke passionately the game's up he cried those boys have found a mother affrighted though she was wendy swelled with pride
o evil day cried starkey what's a mother asked the ignorant smee wendy was so shocked that she exclaimed he doesn't know and always after this she felt that if you could have a pet pirate smee would be her one
peter pulled her beneath the water for hook had started up crying what was that i heard nothing said starkey raising the lantern over the waters and as the pirates looked they saw a strange sight it was the nest i have told you of
floating on the lagoon and the never bird was sitting on it see said hook in answer to smee's question that is a mother what a lesson the nest must have fallen into the water but would the mother desert her eggs no there was a break in his voice
as if for a moment he recalled innocent days when but he brushed away this weakness with his hook smee much impressed gazed at the bird as the nest was borne past but the more suspicious starkey said if she is a mother
perhaps she is hanging about here to help peter hook winced ay he said that is the fear that haunts me he was roused from this dejection by smee's eager voice captain said smee
and make her our mother it is a princely scheme cried hook and at once it took practical shape in his great brain
again wendy forgot herself never she cried and bobbed what was that but they could see nothing they thought it must have been a leaf in the wind do you agree my bullies asked hook there is my hand on it they both said
and there is my hook swear they all swore by this time they were on the rock and suddenly hook remembered tiger lily where is the redskin he demanded abruptly
he had a playful humour at moments and they thought this was one of the moments
smee answered complacently we let her go let her go cried hook twas your own orders the bo'sun faltered you called over the water to us to let her go said starkey
brimstone and gall thundered hook
his face had gone black with rage but he saw that they believed their words and he was startled lads he said shaking a little
it is passing queer smee said and they all fidgeted uncomfortably hook raised his voice but there was a quiver in it spirit that haunts this dark lagoon to night he cried dost hear me
of course peter should have kept quiet but of course he did not he immediately answered in hook's voice odds bobs hammer and tongs i hear you in that supreme moment hook did not blanch even at the gills
but smee and starkey clung to each other in terror who are you stranger speak hook demanded i am james hook replied the voice captain of the jolly roger you are not you are not hook cried hoarsely
brimstone and gall the voice retorted say that again and i'll cast anchor in you hook tried a more ingratiating manner if you are hook he said almost humbly come tell me who am i
a codfish replied the voice only a codfish a codfish hook echoed blankly and it was then but not till then that his proud spirit broke he saw his men draw back from him
it is lowering to our pride they were his dogs snapping at him but tragic figure though he had become he scarcely heeded them against such fearful evidence it was not their belief in him that he needed it was his own
he felt his ego slipping from him don't desert me bully he whispered hoarsely to it in his dark nature there was a touch of the feminine as in all the great pirates and it sometimes gave him intuitions suddenly he tried the guessing game
hook he called have you another voice now peter could never resist a game and he answered blithely in his own voice i have and another name ay ay
vegetable asked hook no mineral no animal yes man no this answer rang out scornfully
boy yes ordinary boy no
to wendy's pain the answer that rang out this time was yes are you in england no are you here yes hook was completely puzzled
you ask him some questions he said to the others wiping his damp brow smee reflected i can't think of a thing he said regretfully can't guess can't guess crowed peter do you give it up
of course in his pride he was carrying the game too far
yes yes they answered eagerly well then he cried i am peter pan pan in a moment hook was himself again and smee and starkey were his faithful henchmen
now we have him hook shouted into the water smee starkey mind the boat take him dead or alive he leaped as he spoke and simultaneously came the gay voice of peter
are you ready boys ay ay from various parts of the lagoon
the fight was short and sharp first to draw blood was john who gallantly climbed into the boat and held starkey there was fierce struggle in which the cutlass was torn from the pirate's grasp he wriggled overboard and john leapt after him the dinghy drifted away
here and there a head bobbed up in the water and there was a flash of steel followed by a cry or a whoop in the confusion some struck at their own side the corkscrew of smee got tootles in the fourth rib
where all this time was peter he was seeking bigger game the others were all brave boys and they must not be blamed for backing from the pirate captain his iron claw made a circle of dead water round him from which they fled like affrighted fishes
but there was one who did not fear him there was one prepared to enter that circle strangely it was not in the water that they met hook rose to the rock to breathe and at the same moment peter scaled it on the opposite side
the rock was slippery as a ball and they had to crawl rather than climb neither knew that the other was coming each feeling for a grip met the other's arm in surprise they raised their heads
he had one feeling only gladness and he gnashed his pretty teeth with joy quick as thought he snatched a knife from hook's belt and was about to drive it home when he saw that he was higher up the rock that his foe it would not have been fighting fair
he gave the pirate a hand to help him up it was then that hook bit him not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed peter it made him quite helpless he could only stare horrified
every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly all he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness after you have been unfair to him he will love you again but will never afterwards be quite the same boy
no one ever gets over the first unfairness no one except peter he often met it but he always forgot it i suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest so when he met it now it was like the first time
and he could just stare helpless twice the iron hand clawed him a few moments afterwards the other boys saw hook in the water striking wildly for the ship no elation on the pestilent face now only white fear
for the crocodile was in dogged pursuit of him on ordinary occasions the boys would have swum alongside cheering but now they were uneasy for they had lost both peter and wendy and were scouring the lagoon for them calling them by name they found the dinghy and went home in it shouting
but no answer came save mocking laughter from the mermaids they must be swimming back or flying the boys concluded they were not very anxious because they had such faith in peter they chuckled boylike
when their voices died away there came cold silence over the lagoon and then a feeble cry help help two small figures were beating against the rock
the girl had fainted and lay on the boy's arm with a last effort peter pulled her up the rock and then lay down beside her even as he also fainted he saw that the water was rising he knew that they would soon be drowned but he could do no more
as they lay side by side a mermaid caught wendy by the feet and began pulling her softly into the water
but he had to tell her the truth we are on the rock wendy he said but it is growing smaller soon the water will be over it she did not understand even now
we must go she said almost brightly yes he answered faintly shall we swim or fly peter he had to tell her do you think you could swim or fly as far as the island wendy
without my help she had to admit that she was too tired he moaned what is it she asked anxious about him at once i can't help you wendy hook wounded me i can neither fly nor swim
look how the water is rising they put their hands over their eyes to shut out the sight they thought they would soon be no more as they sat thus something brushed against peter as light as a kiss
and stayed there as if saying timidly can i be of any use it was the tail of a kite which michael had made some days before it had torn itself out of his hand and floated away michael's kite peter said without interest
but next moment he had seized the tail and was pulling the kite toward him it lifted michael off the ground he cried why should it not carry you both of us it can't lift two michael and curly tried
let us draw lots wendy said bravely and you a lady never already he had tied the tail round her she clung to him she refused to go without him but with a good bye wendy he pushed her from the rock
and in a few minutes she was borne out of his sight peter was alone on the lagoon the rock was very small now soon it would be submerged pale rays of light tiptoed across the waters
and by and by there was to be heard a sound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world the mermaids calling to the moon peter was not quite like other boys but he was afraid at last a tremour ran through him
like a shudder passing over the sea but on the sea one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them and peter felt just the one next moment he was standing erect on the rock again with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him it was saying
from the necessity of the divine nature must follow an infinite number of things in infinite ways that is all things which can fall within the sphere of infinite intellect proof
this proposition will be clear to everyone who remembers that from the given definition of any thing the intellect infers several properties which really necessarily follow therefrom that is from the actual essence of the thing defined
and it infers more properties in proportion as the definition of the thing expresses more reality that is in proportion as the essence of the thing defined involves more reality now
it follows that from the necessity of its nature an infinite number of things that is everything which can fall within the sphere of an infinite intellect must necessarily follow
hence it follows that god is the efficient cause of all that can fall within the sphere of an infinite intellect
and not through an accident of his nature
that god is the absolutely first cause
and is not constrained by anyone proof
that solely from the necessity of the divine nature or what is the same thing solely from the laws of his nature an infinite number of things absolutely follow in an infinite number of ways
nothing can be nor be conceived but that all things are in god wherefore nothing can exist outside himself whereby he can be conditioned or constrained to act wherefore god acts solely by the laws of his own nature
and is not constrained by anyone
it follows one that there can be no cause which either extrinsically or intrinsically besides the perfection of his own nature moves god to act
that god is the sole free cause for god alone exists by the sole necessity of his nature
note others think that god is a free cause because he can as they think bring it about that those things which we have said follow from his nature that is which are in his power should not come to pass
or should not be produced by him but this is the same as if they said that god could bring it about that it should follow from the nature of a triangle that its three interior angles should not be equal to two right angles
or that from a given cause no effect should follow which is absurd moreover i will show below without the aid of this proposition that neither intellect nor will appertain to god's nature
i know that there are many who think that they can show that supreme intellect and free will do appertain to god's nature for they say they know of nothing more perfect which they can attribute to god than that which is the highest perfection in ourselves
further although they conceive god as actually supremely intelligent they yet do not believe that he can bring into existence everything which he actually understands for they think that they would thus destroy god's power if they contend
god had created everything which is in his intellect he would not be able to create anything more and this they think would clash with god's omnipotence therefore they prefer to asset that god is indifferent to all things
and that he creates nothing except that which he has decided by some absolute exercise of will to create however
that from god's supreme power or infinite nature an infinite number of things that is all things have necessarily flowed forth in an infinite number of ways or always flow from the same necessity in the same way
as from the nature of a triangle it follows from eternity and for eternity
wherefore the omnipotence of god has been displayed from all eternity and will for all eternity remain in the same state of activity this manner of treating the question attributes to god an omnipotence in my opinion
far more perfect for otherwise we are compelled to confess that god understands an infinite number of creatable things which he will never be able to create for if he created all that he understands he would according to this showing
exhaust his omnipotence and render himself imperfect wherefore in order to establish that god is perfect we should be reduced to establishing at the same time that he cannot bring to pass everything over which his power extends
this seems to be a hypothesis most absurd and most repugnant to god's omnipotence further
if intellect and will appertain to the eternal essence of god we must take these words in some significance quite different from those they usually bear for intellect and will which should constitute the essence of god
would perforce be as far apart as the poles from the human intellect and will in fact would have nothing in common with them but the name there would be about as much correspondence between the two as there is between the dog
on the contrary the truth and formal essence of things is as it is because it exists by representation as such in the intellect of god
wherefore the intellect of god in so far as it is conceived to constitute god's essence is in reality the cause of things both of their essence and of their existence
this seems to have been recognized by those who have asserted that god's intellect god's will and god's power are one and the same as therefore god's intellect is the sole cause of things namely both
of their essence and existence it must necessarily differ from them in respect to its essence and in respect to its existence for a cause differs from a thing it causes
precisely in the quality which the latter gains from the former for example a man is the cause of another man's existence but not of his essence for the latter is an eternal truth and therefore
the two men may be entirely similar in essence but must be different in existence and hence if the existence of one of them cease the existence of the other will not necessarily cease also
but if the essence of one could be destroyed and be made false the essence of the other would be destroyed also wherefore a thing which is the cause both of the essence and of the existence of a given effect
must differ from such effect both in respect to its essence and also in respect to its existence now the intellect of god is the cause both of the essence and the existence of our intellect
therefore the intellect of god in so far as it is conceived to constitute the divine essence differs from our intellect both in respect to essence and in respect to existence nor can it in anywise agree therewith save in name
god is the cause of those things which are in him this is our first point further besides god
that is nothing in itself external to god this is our second point god therefore is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things
god and all the attributes of god are eternal proof
existence appertains to its nature or what is the same thing follows from its definition therefore
that i say should be involved in the attributes of substance now eternity appertains to the nature of substance
therefore eternity must appertain to each of the attributes and thus all are eternal
note
i demonstrated the existence of god it is evident i repeat from that proof that the existence of god like his essence is an eternal truth further
i have proved the eternity of god in another manner which i need not here repeat
hence it follows that god's existence like his essence is an eternal truth
it follows that god and all the attributes of god are unchangeable for if they could be changed in respect to existence they must also be able to be changed in respect to essence
god or substance consisting of infinite attributes of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality necessarily exists proof if this be denied conceive if possible
that god does not exist then his essence does not involve existence
is absurd therefore god necessarily exists another proof of everything whatsoever a cause or reason must be assigned either for its existence or for its non existence
a reason or cause must be granted for its existence if on the contrary it does not exist a cause must also be granted which prevents it from existing or annuls its existence
this reason or cause must either be contained in the nature of the thing in question or be external to it for instance the reason for the non existence of a square circle is indicated in its nature namely
because it would involve a contradiction on the other hand the existence of substance follows also solely from its nature
from the latter it must follow either that a triangle necessarily exists or that it is impossible that it should exist so much is self evident
it follows therefrom that a thing necessarily exists if no cause or reason be granted which prevents its existence if then no cause or reason can be given which prevents the existence of god
drawn from another substance of another nature for if it were of the same nature god by that very fact would be admitted to exist but substance of another nature could have nothing in common with god
and therefore would be unable either to cause or to destroy his existence as then
such cause must perforce if god does not exist be drawn from god's own nature which would involve a contradiction to make such an affirmation about a being absolutely infinite and supremely perfect is absurd
another proof the potentiality of non existence is a negation of power and contrariwise the potentiality of existence is a power as is obvious if then
that which necessarily exists is nothing but finite beings such finite beings are more powerful than a being absolutely infinite which is obviously absurd therefore either nothing exists
or else a being absolutely infinite necessarily exists also now we exist either in ourselves or in something else which necessarily exists
therefore a being absolutely infinite in other words god
note in this last proof i have purposely shown god's existence a posteriori so that the proof might be more easily followed not because from the same premises god's existence does not follow a priori
for as the potentiality of existence is a power it follows that in proportion as reality increases in the nature of a thing so also will it increase its strength for existence
quickly come into existence quickly also disappear whereas they regard as more difficult of accomplishment that is not so easily brought into existence those things which they conceive as more complicated
however to do away with this misconception i need not here show the measure of truth in the proverb what comes quickly goes quickly nor discuss whether from the point of view of universal nature
all things are equally easy or otherwise i need only remark that i am not here speaking of things which come to pass through causes external to themselves
cannot be produced by any external cause things which are produced by external causes whether they consist of many parts or few owe whatsoever perfection or reality they possess solely to the efficacy of their external cause
wherefore the existence of substance must arise solely from its own nature which is nothing else but its essence
we cannot be more certain of the existence of anything than of the existence of a being absolutely infinite or perfect that is of god
and involves absolute perfection all cause for doubt concerning his existence is done away and the utmost certainty on the question is given this i think will be evident to every moderately attentive reader
proof the parts into which substance as thus conceived would be divided either will retain the nature of substance or they will not
will perforce consist of a different attribute so that in that case
would have nothing in common with their whole
could both exist and be conceived without its parts which everyone will admit to be absurd if we adopt the second alternative namely that the parts will not retain the nature of substance then
if the whole substance were divided into equal parts
substance absolutely infinite is indivisible proof if it could be divided the parts into which it was divided would either retain the nature of absolutely infinite substance or they would not
if the former we should have several substances of the same nature
substance absolutely infinite could cease to exist
is also absurd corollary it follows that no substance and consequently no extended substance in so far as it is substance is divisible note
the indivisibility of substance may be more easily understood as follows the nature of substance can only be conceived as infinite and by a part of substance nothing else can be understood than finite substance
proof as god is a being absolutely infinite of whom no attribute that expresses the essence of substance can be denied
if any substance besides god were granted it would have to be explained by some attribute of god and thus two substances with the same attribute would exist
is absurd therefore besides god no substance can be granted or consequently be conceived if it could be conceived it would necessarily have to be conceived as existent
but this by the first part of this proof is absurd therefore besides god no substance can be granted or conceived
only one substance can be granted in the universe and that substance is absolutely infinite as we have already indicated
two that extension and thought are either attributes of god
proof besides god
nothing which is in itself and is conceived through itself
can neither be nor be conceived without substance wherefore they can only be in the divine nature and can only through it be conceived
without god nothing can be or be conceived
note some assert that god like a man consists of body and mind and is susceptible of passions
how far such persons have strayed from the truth is sufficiently evident from what has been said but these i pass over for all who have in anywise reflected on the divine nature deny that god has a body
of this they find excellent proof in the fact that we understand by body a definite quantity so long so broad so deep bounded by a certain shape
and it is the height of absurdity to predicate such a thing of god a being absolutely infinite but meanwhile by other reasons with which they try to prove their point
they show that they think corporeal or extended substance wholly apart from the divine nature and say it was created by god wherefrom the divine nature can have been created they are wholly ignorant
thus they clearly show that they do not know the meaning of their own words i myself have proved sufficiently clearly at any rate in my own judgment
that no substance can be produced or created by anything other than itself further
that besides god no substance can be granted or conceived hence we drew the conclusion that extended substance is one of the infinite attributes of god however in order to explain more fully
i will refute the arguments of my adversaries which all start from the following points extended substance in so far as it is substance consists as they think in parts wherefore
they deny that it can be infinite or consequently that it can appertain to god this they illustrate with many examples of which i will take one or two if extended substance they say is infinite
let it be conceived to be divided into two parts each part will then be either finite or infinite if the former then infinite substance is composed of two finite parts which is absurd if the latter
then one infinite will be twice as large as another infinite which is also absurd further if an infinite line be measured out in foot lengths it will consist of an infinite number of such parts
it would equally consist of an infinite number of parts if each part measured only an inch therefore one infinity would be twelve times as great as the other lastly
if from a single point there be conceived to be drawn two diverging lines which at first are at a definite distance apart but are produced to infinity it is certain that the distance between the two lines will be continually increased
until at length it changes from definite to indefinable as these absurdities follow it is said from considering quantity as infinite
the conclusion is drawn that extended substance must necessarily be finite and consequently cannot appertain to the nature of god the second argument is also drawn from god's supreme perfection
cannot be passive but extended substance insofar as it is divisible is passive it follows therefore that extended substance does not appertain to the essence of god
such are the arguments i find on the subject in writers who by them try to prove that extended substance is unworthy of the divine nature
however i think an attentive reader will see that i have already answered their propositions for all their arguments are founded on the hypothesis that extended substance is composed of parts and such a hypothesis i have shown
moreover anyone who reflects will see that all these absurdities if absurdities they be which i am not now discussing from which it is sought to extract the conclusion that extended substance is finite do not
at all follow from the notion of an infinite quantity but merely from the notion that an infinite quantity is measurable and composed of finite parts therefore the only fair conclusion to be drawn is that infinite quantity
is not measurable and cannot be composed of finite parts
if from this absurdity of theirs they persist in drawing the conclusion that extended substance must be finite they will in good sooth be acting like a man who asserts that circles have the properties of squares
and finding himself thereby landed in absurdities proceeds to deny that circles have any center from which all lines drawn to the circumference are equal
for taking extended substance which can only be conceived as infinite one and indivisible
that it is finite that it is composed of finite parts and that it can be multiplied and divided so also others after asserting that a line is composed of points can produce many arguments to prove that a line cannot be infinitely divided
assuredly it is not less absurd to assert that extended substance is made up of bodies or parts than it would be to assert that a solid is made up of surfaces a surface of lines and a line of points
this must be admitted by all who know clear reason to be infallible and most of all by those who deny the possibility of a vacuum for if extended substance could be so divided that its parts were really separate
the others remaining joined together as before and why should all be so fitted into one another as to leave no vacuum surely in the case of things which are really distinct one from the other
it follows from this that the parts cannot really be distinguished and that extended substance in so far as it is substance cannot be divided if anyone asks me the further question why are we naturally so prone
to divide quantity i answer that quantity is conceived by us in two ways in the abstract and superficially as we imagine it or as substance as we conceive it solely by the intellect if then
we regard quantity as it is represented in our imagination which we often and more easily do we shall find that it is finite divisible and compounded of parts but if we regard it as it is represented in our intellect
this will be plain enough to all who make a distinction between the intellect and the imagination especially if it be remembered that matter is everywhere the same that its parts are not distinguishable except in so far as we conceive matter as diversely modified
whence its parts are distinguished not really but modally for instance water in so far as it is water we conceive to be divided and its parts to be separated one from the other
but not in so far as it is extended substance from this point of view it is neither separated nor divisible further water in so far as it is water is produced and corrupted
i think i have now answered the second argument it is in fact founded on the same assumption as the first namely that matter in so far as it is substance is divisible and composed of parts even if it were so
no substance can be granted wherefrom it could receive its modifications all things i repeat are in god and all things which come to pass come to pass solely through the laws of the infinite nature of god
and follow as i will shortly show from the necessity of his essence wherefore
that god is passive in respect to anything other than himself or that extended substance is unworthy of the divine nature even if it be supposed divisible so long as it is granted to be infinite and eternal
yet we cannot accept unconditionally his statement that in structure chopin is a child playing with a few simple types
in phraseology he is a master whose felicitous perfection of style is one of the abiding treasures of the art chopin then according to hadow
is no builder of the lofty rhyme but the poet of the single line the maker of the phrase exquisite this is hardly comprehensive with the more complex classical types of the musical organism chopin had little sympathy
but he contrived nevertheless to write two movements of a piano sonata that are excellent the first half of the b flat minor sonata the idealized dance forms he preferred
the polonaise mazurka and valse were already there for him to handle but the ballade was not here he is not imitator but creator not loosely jointed but compact structures glowing with genius and presenting definite unity of form and expression
in them he attains the acme of his power as an artist remarks niecks i am ever reminded of andrew lang's lines
it is the odyssey of chopin's soul that cello like largo with its noiseless suspension stays us for a moment in the courtyard of chopin's house beautiful then told in his most dreamy tones the legend begins
there is the tall lily in the fountain that nods to the sun it drips in cadenced monotone and its song is repeated on the lips of the slender hipped girl with the eyes of midnight and so might i weave for you a story of what i see in the ballade
and you would be aghast or puzzled with such a composition any programme could be sworn to even the silly story of the englishman who haunted chopin beseeching him to teach him this ballade
that chopin had a programme a definite one there can be no doubt
in leipzig karasowski relates that when schumann met chopin the pianist confessed having been incited to the creation of the ballades by the poetry of his fellow countryman
the true narrative tone is in this symmetrically constructed ballade the most spirited most daring work of chopin according to schumann
each one differs entirely from the others and they have but one thing in common their romantic working out and the nobility of their motives chopin relates in them not like one who communicates something really experienced
the anticipation of something longed for they may contain a strong element of national woe much outwardly expressed and inwardly burning rage over the sufferings of his native land yet they do not carry with a positive reality like that which in a
beethoven sonata will often call words to our lips which means that chopin was not such a realist as beethoven ehlert is one of the few sympathetic german chopin commentators
yet he did not always indicate the salient outlines of his art only the slav may hope to understand chopin thoroughly
is a logical well knit and largely planned composition the closest parallelism may be detected in its composition of themes its second theme in e flat is lovely in line color and sentiment
the return of the first theme in a minor and the quick answer in e of the second are evidences of chopin's feeling for organic unity development as in strict cyclic forms there is not a little after the cadenza built on a figure of wavering tonality
now augmented and treated with a broad brush the first questioning theme is heard again and with a perpendicular roar the presto comes upon us for two pages the dynamic energy displayed by the composer is almost appalling
a whirlwind i have called it elsewhere it is a storm of the emotions muscular in its virility i remember de pachmann a close interpreter of certain sides of chopin playing this coda piano pianissimo and prestissimo
the effect was strangely irritating to the nerves and reminded me of a tornado seen from the wrong end of an opera glass
according to his own lights the russian virtuoso was right his strength was not equal to the task and so imitating chopin he topsy turvied the shading it recalled moscheles description of chopin's playing
his piano is so softly breathed forth that he does not require any strong forte to produce the wished for contrast this g minor ballade was published in june eighteen thirty six and is dedicated to baron stockhausen
the last bar of the introduction has caused some controversy gutmann mikuli and other pupils declare for the e flat klindworth and kullak use it xaver scharwenka has seen fit to edit klindworth
and gives a d natural in the augener edition that he is wrong internal testimony abundantly proves even willeby who personally prefers the d natural thinks chopin intended the e flat and quotes a similar effect twenty eight bars later
he might have added that the entire composition contains examples look at the first bar of the valse episode in the bass as niecks thinks this dissonant e flat may be said to be the emotional keynote of the whole poem it is a questioning thought that
like a sudden pain shoots through mind and body there is other and more confirmatory evidence ferdinand von inten a new york pianist saw the original chopin manuscript at stuttgart
since deceased and in it without any question stands the much discussed e flat this testimony is final the d natural robs the bar of all meaning it is insipid colorless kullak gives sixty to the half note at the moderato
on the third page third bar he uses f natural in the treble so does klindworth although f sharp may be found in some editions on the last page second bar first line kullak writes the passage beginning with e flat in eighth notes
klindworth in sixteenths the close is very striking full of the splendors of glancing scales and shrill octave progressions it would inspire a poet to write words to it said robert schumann
perhaps the most touching of all that chopin has written is the tale of the f major ballade
it appears like some fairy tale that has become music the four voiced part has such a clearness withal it seems as if warm spring breezes were waving the lithe leaves of the palm tree
how soft and sweet a breath steals over the senses and the heart and how difficult it seems to be to write of chopin except in terms of impassioned prose
is the writer of the foregoing the second ballade although dedicated to robert schumann did not excite his warmest praise a less artistic work than the first he wrote but equally fantastic and intellectual
its impassioned episodes seem to have been afterward inserted i recollect very well that when chopin played this ballade for me it finished in f major it now closes in a minor willeby gives its key as f minor
it is really in the keys of f major a minor chopin's psychology was seldom at fault a major ending would have crushed this extraordinary tone poem written chopin admits
two such wholly dissimilar things can be compared and weighed in this fashion in truth they cannot the second ballade possesses beauties in no way inferior to those of the first he continues what can be finer than the simple strains of the opening section
they sound as if they had been drawn from the people's store house of song the entrance of the presto surprises and seems out of keeping with what precedes but what we hear after the return of tempo primo the development of those simple strains or rather the cogitations on them
justifies the presence of the presto the second appearance of the latter leads to an urging restless coda in a minor which closes in the same key and pianissimo with a few bars of the simple serene now veiled first strain
rubinstein bore great love for this second ballade this is what it meant for him is it possible that the interpreter does not feel the necessity of representing to his audience
a field flower caught by a gust of wind a caressing of the flower by the wind the resistance of the flower the stormy struggle of the wind the entreaty of the flower which at last lies there broken and paraphrased
the field flower a rustic maiden the wind a knight i can find no lack of affinity between the andantino and presto the surprise is a dramatic one withal rudely vigorous
chopin's robust treatment of the first theme results in a strong piece of craftmanship the episodical nature of this ballade is the fruit of the esoteric moods of its composer it follows a hidden story and has the quality
as the second impromptu in f sharp of great unpremeditated art it shocks one by its abrupt but by no means fantastic transitions the key color is changeful and the fluctuating themes are well contrasted
kullak gives eighty four to the quarter and for the opening sixty six to the quarter he also wisely marks crescendos in the bass at the first thematic development he prefers the e as does klindworth nine bars before the return of the presto
at the eighth bar after this return kullak adheres to the e instead of f at the beginning of the bar treble clef klindworth indicates both nor does kullak follow mikuli in using a d in the coda he prefers a d sharp instead of a natural
is too well known to analyze it is the schoolgirls delight who familiarly toy with its demon seeing only favor and prettiness in its elegant measures in it the refined gifted pole
is pre eminently to be recognized thus schumann forsooth it is aristocratic gay graceful piquant and also something more even in its playful moments there is delicate irony
a spiritual sporting with graver and more passionate emotions those broken octaves which usher in each time the second theme with its fascinating infectious rhythmical lilt what an ironically joyous fillip they give the imagination
a coquettish grace if we accept by this expression that half unconscious toying with the power that charms and fires that follows up confession with reluctance seems the very essence of chopin's being
it becomes a difficult task to transcribe the easy transitions full of an irresistible charm with which he portrays love's game who will not recall the memorable passage in the a flat ballade
where the right hand alone takes up the dotted eighths after the sustained chord of the sixth of a flat could a lover's confusion be more deliciously enhanced by silence and hesitation
ehlert above evidently sees a ballroom picture of brilliancy with the regulation tender avowal
that none but psychical meanings should be read into them the disputed passage is on the fifth page of the kullak edition after the trills a measure is missing in kullak who like klindworth
to my mind this repetition adds emphasis although it is a formal blur and what an irresistible moment it is this delightful territory before the darker mood of the c sharp minor part is reached
niecks becomes enthusiastic over the insinuation and persuasion of this composition the composer showing himself in a fundamentally caressing mood
the ease with which the entire work is floated proves that chopin in mental health was not daunted by larger forms there is moonlight in this music and some sunlight too
the prevailing moods are coquetry and sweet contentment contrapuntal skill is shown in the working out section chopin always wears his learning lightly it does not oppress us
the inverted dominant pedal in the c sharp minor episode reveals with the massive coda a great master kullak suggests some variants he uses the transient shake in the third bar instead of the appoggiatura which klindworth prefers
klindworth attacks the trill on the second page with the upper tone a flat kullak and mertke in the steingraber edition play the passage in this manner
here is klindworth musical score excerpt of the same passage in klindworth's edition
of the fourth and glorious ballade in f minor dedicated to baronne c de rothschild i could write a volume it is chopin in his most reflective yet lyric mood lyrism is the keynote of the work
a passionate lyrism with a note of self absorption suppressed feeling truly slavic this shyness and a concentration that is remarkable even for chopin the narrative tone is missing after the first page
a rather moody and melancholic pondering usurping its place it is the mood of a man who examines with morbid curious insistence the malady that is devouring his soul this ballade is the companion of the fantaisie polonaise
but as a ballade fully worthy of its sisters to quote niecks it was published december eighteen forty three the theme in f minor has the elusive charm of a slow mournful valse
the figuration sets off the idea in dazzling relief there are episodes transitional passage work distinguished by novelty and the finest art at no place is there display for display's sake the cadenza in a is a pause for breath
rather a sigh before the rigorously logical imitations which presage the re entrance of the theme how wonderfully the introduction comes in for its share of thoughtful treatment what a harmonist
musical score excerpt and what could be more evocative of dramatic suspense than the sixteen bars before the mad terrifying coda how the solemn splendors of the half notes weave an atmosphere of mystic tragedy
this soul suspension recalls maeterlinck here is the episode musical score excerpt a story of de lenz that lends itself to quotation is about this piece tausig impressed me deeply
in his interpretation of chopin's ballade in f minor it has three requirements the comprehension of the programme as a whole for chopin writes according to a programme to the situations in life best known to and understood by himself
and in an adequate manner the conquest of the stupendous difficulties in complicated figures winding harmonies and formidable passages tausig fulfilled these requirements presenting an embodiment of the signification and the feeling of the work
the ballade andante con moto six eighths begins in the major key of the dominant the seventh measure comes to a stand before a fermata on c major the easy handling of these seven measures tausig interpreted thus
the piece has not yet begun in his firmer nobly expressive exposition of the principal theme free from sentimentality to which one might easily yield the grand style found due scope
an essential requirement in an instrumental virtuoso is that he should understand how to breathe and how to allow his hearers to take breath
by this i mean a well chosen incision the cesura and a lingering letting in air tausig cleverly called it which in no way impairs rhythm and time but rather brings them into stronger relief
what remains will belong to the kitchen to natural history it is not otherwise with chopin the bloom consisted in tausig's treatment of the ballade he came to the first passage the motive among blossoms and leaves
a figurated recurrence to the principal theme is in the inner parts its polyphonic variant a little thread connects this with the chorale like introduction of the second theme the theme is strongly and abruptly modulated perhaps a little too much so
then followed a passage a tempo in which the principal theme played hide and seek how clear it all became as tausig played it of technical difficulties he knew literally nothing the intricate and evasive parts were as easy as the easiest
i might say easier i admired the short trills in the left hand which were trilled out quite independently as if by a second player
it swung itself into the higher register where it came to a stop before a major just as the introduction stopped before c major then after the theme has once more presented itself in a modified form variant
it comes under the pestle of an extremely figurate coda which demands the study of an artist the strength of a robust man the most vigorous pianistic health in a word tausig overcame this threatening group of terrific difficulties
whose appearance in the piece is well explained by the programme without the slightest effect the coda in modulated harp tones came to a stop before a fermata which corresponded to those before mentioned
in order to cast anchor in the haven of the dominant finishing with a witches dance of triplets doubled in thirds
the lingering mentioned by de lenz is tempo rubato so fatally misunderstood by most chopin players de lenz in a note quotes meyerbeer as saying meyerbeer who quarrelled with chopin about the rhythm of a mazurka can one reduce women to notation
it is chopin at the supreme summit of his art an art alembicated personal and intoxicating i know of nothing in music like the f minor ballade
bach in the chromatic fantasia be not deceived by its classical contours it is music hot from the soul beethoven in the first movement of the c sharp minor sonata
and possibly schumann in the opening of his c major fantaisie are as intimate as personal as the f minor ballade which is as subtly distinctive as the hands and smile of lisa gioconda
the carroll family aunt carroll is coming to dinner to day said dolly the next day with a serious face i know she is have a nice dinner for her i don't think she ever has a nice dinner at home
and the three eldest girls are coming three you asked them yourself on sunday very well they said their papa would be away on business it was understood that mister carroll was never asked to the manor house
business there is a club he belongs to where he dines and gets drunk once a month it's the only thing he does regularly they must have their dinner at any rate said mister grey
this had been a subject much discussed between them but on the present occasion miss grey would not renew it she despatched her father in a cab the cab having been procured because he was supposed to be a quarter of an hour late and then went to work to order her dinner
it has been said that miss grey hated the carrolls but she hated the daughters worse than the mother and of all the people she hated in the world she hated amelia carroll the worst amelia the eldest
entertained an idea that she was more of a personage in the world's eyes than her cousin that she went to more parties which certainly was true if she went to any that she wore finer clothes which was also true and that she had a lover
whereas dolly grey as she called her cousin behind her back had none this lover had something to do with horses and had only been heard of had never been seen at the manor house
sophy was a good deal hated also being a forward flirting tricky girl of seventeen who had just left the school at which uncle john had paid for her education georgina the third was still at school under similar circumstances
betsey had to prepare the dinner table down stairs and would have been sadly discomfited had she been driven to do it in the presence of three carroll girls
well aunt carroll how does the world use you very badly you haven't been up to see me for ten days i haven't counted but when i do come i don't often do any good how are minna and brenda and potsey
who was supposed to be her father's pet i hope his state of health will not debar him from dining with his friends to night said miss grey
nothing will ever keep him back when conviviality demands his presence this came from his afflicted wife who in spite of all his misfortunes would ever speak with some respect of her husband's employments
he wasn't at all in a fit state to go to night but he had promised and that was enough when they had waited three quarters of an hour amelia began to complain certainly not without reason
papa has unfortunately something to do with his time which is not altogether his own there was not much in these words but the tone in which they were uttered would have crushed any one more susceptible than amelia carroll
but at that moment the cab arrived and dolly went down to meet her father have they come he asked come she answered taking his gloves and comforter from him and giving him a kiss as she did so that girl up stairs is nearly famished
i won't be half a moment said the repentant father hastening up stairs to go through his ordinary dressing arrangement i wouldn't hurry for her said dolly but of course you'll hurry you always do don't you papa then they sat down to dinner
well girls what is your news we were out to day on the brompton road said the eldest and there came up prince chitakov's drag with four roans prince chitakov i didn't know there was such a prince
oh dear yes with very stiff mustaches turned up high at the corners and pink cheeks and a very sharp nobby looking hat with a light colored grey coat and light gloves you must know the prince upon my word i never heard of him my dear
he was tooling his own drag
i never saw anything more tasty than her dress
can either of you tell me what the wife of a prince of chitakov would call herself princess of chitakov of course said sophy it's the princess of wales but it isn't the princess of christian nor yet the princess of teck nor the princess of england
i don't see why the lady shouldn't be missus chitakov if there is such a lady papa don't bamboozle her said his daughter but continued the attorney why shouldn't the lady have been his wife don't married ladies wear little fluffy fur ornaments
he did said sophy it's the most impertinent thing i ever heard if my father had seen it he'd have had the prince off the box of the coach in no time
poor dolly during this conversation about the prince sat angry and silent thinking to herself in despair of what extremes of vulgarity even a first cousin of her own could be guilty that she should be sitting at table with a girl
who could boast that a reprobate foreigner had kissed his hand to her from the box of a fashionable four horsed coach for it was in that light that miss grey regarded it and did you have any farther adventures besides this memorable encounter with the prince
nothing nearly so interesting said sophy that was hardly to be expected said the attorney jane you will have a glass of port wine girls you must have a glass of port wine to support you after your disappointment with the prince
we were not disappointed in the least said amelia pray pray let the subject drop said dolly that is because the prince did not kiss his hand to you said sophy then miss grey sunk again into silence crushed beneath this last blow
in the evening when the dinner things had been taken away a matter of business came up and took the place of the prince and his mustaches missus carroll was most anxious to know whether her brother could lend her a small sum of twenty pounds
he doesn't have many but he must have some there had been other appeals on the same subject made not very long since and to tell the truth mister grey did require to have the subject argued
in fear of the subsequent remarks which would be made to him afterward by his daughter if he gave the money too easily
but the one auditor whom she feared was her niece on the present occasion miss grey simply took up her book to show that the subject was one which had no interest for her but she did undoubtedly listen to all that was said on the subject
there was never anything settled about poor patrick's clothes said missus carroll in a half whisper she did not care how much her own children heard
i dare say something ought to be done at some time said mister grey who knew that he would be told when the evening was over that he would give away all his substance to that man if he were asked
papa has not had a new pair of trousers this year said sophy except those green ones he wore at the races said georgina hold your tongue miss said her mother that was a pair i made up for him and sent them to the man to get pressed
when the hundred a year was arranged for all our dresses said amelia not a word was said about papa of course papa is a trouble i don't see that he is more of a trouble than any one else said sophy uncle john would not like not to have any clothes
no i should not my dear and his own income is all given up to the house uses here sophy touched imprudently on a sore subject his own income consisted of what had been saved out of his wife's fortune
and was thus named as in opposition to the larger sum paid to missus carroll by mister grey there was one hundred and fifty pounds a year coming from settled property which had been preserved by the lawyer's care and which was regarded in the family as papa's own
it certainly is essential for respectability that something should be set apart from a man's income for his wearing apparel and though the money was perhaps improperly so designated
in company with the green trousers she had her own means of obtaining information as to the carroll family it was very necessary that she should do so if the family was to be kept on its legs at all
i don't think any good can come from discussing what my uncle does with the money this was dolly's first speech if he is to have it let him have it but let him have as little as possible
your cousin dorothy is very fortunate said missus carroll she does not know what it is to want for anything she never spends anything on herself said her father it is dolly's only fault that she won't because she has it all done for her said amelia
dolly had gone back to her book and disdained to make any farther reply her father felt that quite enough had been said about it and was prepared to give the twenty pounds under the idea
he does want them very badly for decency's sake said the poor wife thus winding up her plea then mister grey got out his check book and wrote the check for twenty pounds but he made it payable not to mister but to missus carroll
i suppose papa nothing can be done about mister carroll this was said by dolly as soon as the family had withdrawn in what way done my dear as to settling some farther sum for himself he'd only spend it my dear
that would be intended said dolly and then he would come back just the same but in that case he should have nothing more though they were to declare that he hadn't a pair of trousers in which to appear at a race course he shouldn't have it my dear said mister grey
you needn't tell him but so it must be if i had my way said dolly after ten minutes silence i would punish him
it is not that i wish to avoid my share of the world's burdens but that justice should be done i don't know which i hate the worst uncle carroll or mister scarborough
the next day was sunday and dolly was very anxious before breakfast to induce her father to say that he would go to church with her but he was inclined to be obstinate and fell back upon his usual excuse
saying that there were scarborough papers which it would be necessary that he should read before he started for tretton on the following day
well yes i suppose it would that is the intention but somehow it fails with me sometimes do you think that you hate people when you go to church as much as when you don't i am not sure that i hate anybody very much i do that
but if you don't hate them it is because you won't take the trouble and that again is not right if you would come to church you would be better for it all round you'd hate uncle carroll's idleness and abominable self indulgence worse than you do
i know you would you dear sweet kind hearted but most un christian father you must come to church in order that some idea of what christianity demands of you may make its way into your heart
it is not what the clergyman may say of you but that your mind will get away for two hours from that other reptile and his concerns then mister grey with a loud long sigh
allowed his boots and his gloves and his church going hat and his church going umbrella to be brought to him it was in fact his aversion to these articles that dolly had to encounter it may be doubted whether the church services of that day did mister grey much good
but they seemed to have had some effect upon his daughter from the fact that in the afternoon she wrote a letter in kindly words to her aunt papa is going to tretton and i will come up to you on tuesday i have got a frock which i will bring with me as a present for potsey
and i will make her sew on the buttons for herself tell minna i will lend her that book i spoke of about those boots i will go with georgina to the boot maker but as to amelia and sophy she could not bring herself to say a good natured word
so deep in her heart had sunk that sin of which they had been guilty with reference to prince chitakov on that night she had a long discussion with her father respecting the affairs of the scarborough family the discussion was held in the dining room and may therefore
those at night in mister grey's own bedroom were generally the result of sudden thought i should lay down the law to him began dolly the law is the law said her father i don't mean the law in that sense i should tell him firmly what i advised
and should then make him understand that if he did not follow my advice i must withdraw if his son is willing to pay these money lenders what sums they have actually advanced and if by any effort on his part the money can be raised let it be done
there seems to be some justice in repaying out of the property that which was lent to the property when by mister scarborough's own doing the property was supposed to go into the eldest son's hands though the eldest son and the money lenders be spendthrifts and profligates alike
go there prepared with your opinion but if either father or son will not accept it then depart and shake the dust from your feet you propose it all as though it were the easiest thing in the world
easy or difficult i would not discuss anything of which the justice may hereafter be disputed
a curious mixture of joy and wonder filled her heart
chauvelin was still absolutely helpless far more so than he could even have been under a blow from the fist
blakeney was gone obviously to try and join the fugitives at the pere blanchard's hut for the moment true chauvelin was helpless
and given him that word of warning and of love which perhaps after all he needed he could not know of the orders which chauvelin had given for his capture and even now perhaps
his sneezing had become less violent and he had struggled to his feet he managed to reach the door just as desgas knock was heard on the outside chauvelin threw open the door
where citoyen
and you are just five minutes too late my friend said chauvelin with concentrated fury citoyen i you did what i ordered you to do
fortunately there's not much harm done or it had fared ill with you citoyen desgas desgas turned a little pale
the tall stranger citoyen he stammered was here in this room five minutes ago having supper at that table damn his impudence for obvious reasons i dared not tackle him alone
twenty went down to the beach he again assured me that the watch had been constant all day and that no stranger could possibly get to the beach or reach a boat without being sighted that's good do the men know their work
they have had very clear orders citoyen and i myself spoke to those who were about to start they are to shadow as secretly as possible any stranger they may see especially if he be tall or stoop as if he would disguise his height
that impudent scarlet pimpernel would slip through clumsy fingers we must let him get to the pere blanchard's hut now there surround and capture him the men understand that citoyen
and also that as soon as a tall stranger has been sighted he must be shadowed whilst one man is to turn straight back and report to you that is right said chauvelin rubbing his hands well pleased
i have further news for you citoyen what is it a tall englishman had a long conversation about three quarters of an hour ago with a jew reuben by name who lives not ten paces from here yes and
queried chauvelin impatiently the conversation was all about a horse and cart which the tall englishman wished to hire and which was to have been ready for him by eleven o'clock it is past that now where does that reuben live
not a word of this conversation between him and chauvelin had escaped marguerite and every word they had spoken seemed to strike at her heart with terrible hopelessness and dark foreboding she had come all this way
and with such high hopes and firm determination to help her husband and so far she had been able to do nothing but to watch with a heart breaking with anguish the meshes of the deadly net closing round the daring scarlet pimpernel
he could not now advance many steps without spying eyes to track and denounce him her own helplessness struck her with the terrible sense of utter disappointment the possibility of being the slightest use to her husband had become almost nil
and her only hope rested in being allowed to share his fate whatever it might ultimately be for the moment even her chance of ever seeing the man she loved again had become a remote one
still she was determined to keep a close watch over his enemy and a vague hope filled her heart that whilst she kept chauvelin in sight percy's fate might still be hanging in the balance
desgas left chauvelin moodily pacing up and down the room whilst he himself waited outside for the return of the man whom he had sent in search of reuben thus several minutes went by chauvelin was evidently devoured with impatience
apparently he trusted no one this last trick played upon him by the daring scarlet pimpernel had made him suddenly doubtful of success unless he himself was there to watch direct and superintend the capture of this impudent englishman
about five minutes later desgas returned followed by an elderly jew in a dirty threadbare gaberdine worn greasy across the shoulders his red hair which he wore after the fashion of the polish jews with the corkscrew curls each side of his face
was plentifully sprinkled with grey a general coating of grime about his cheeks and his chin gave him a peculiarly dirty and loathsome appearance he had the habitual stoop those of his race affected in mock humility in past centuries
before the dawn of equality and freedom in matters of faith and he walked behind desgas with the peculiar shuffling gait which has remained the characteristic of the jew trader in continental europe to this day
chauvelin who had all the frenchman's prejudice against the despised race motioned to the fellow to keep at a respectful distance the group of the three men were standing just underneath the hanging oil lamp and marguerite had a clear view of them all
the jew with characteristic patience stood humbly on one side leaning on the knotted staff his greasy broad brimmed hat casting a deep shadow over his grimy face waiting for the noble excellency to deign to put some questions to him
the citoyen tells me said chauvelin peremptorily to him
yes your excellency replied the jew who spoke the language with that peculiar lisp which denotes eastern origin i and reuben goldstein met a tall englishman on the road close by here this evening did you speak to him
to a place he wanted to reach to night what did you say i did not say anything said the jew in an injured tone reuben goldstein
and go on with your story he took the words out of my mouth your excellency when i was about to offer the wealthy englishman my horse and cart to take him wheresoever he chose reuben had already spoken
and offered his half starved nag and his broken down cart and what did the englishman do he listened to reuben goldstein your excellency
no choice your excellency protested the jew in a rasping voice did i not repeat to him a dozen times that my horse and cart would take him quicker and more comfortably than reuben's bag of bones he would not listen
reuben is such a liar and has such insinuating ways the stranger was deceived if he was in a hurry he would have had better value for his money by taking my cart you have a horse and cart too then asked chauvelin peremptorily
aye that i have your excellency
thoughtfully the jew rubbed his dirty chin marguerite's heart was beating well nigh to bursting she had heard the peremptory question she looked anxiously at the jew but could not read his face beneath the shadow of his broad brimmed hat
vaguely she felt somehow as if he held percy's fate in his long dirty hands there was a long pause whilst chauvelin frowned impatiently at the stooping figure before him
at last the jew slowly put his hand in his breast pocket and drew out from its capacious depths a number of silver coins he gazed at them thoughtfully then remarked in a quiet tone of voice
how many gold pieces are there in the palm of my hand he asked quietly evidently he had no desire to terrorize the man but to conciliate him for his own purposes for his manner was pleasant and suave
at least five i should say your excellency he replied obsequiously enough do you think to loosen that honest tongue of yours what does your excellency wish to know
your honour has guessed said the jew in astonishment you know the place which road leads to it the saint martin road your honour then a footpath from there to the cliffs you know the road repeated chauvelin roughly
one rolled away and he had some trouble to get it for it had lodged underneath the dresser chauvelin quietly waited while the old man scrambled on the floor to find the piece of gold when the jew was again on his feet chauvelin said
how soon can your horse and cart be ready they are ready now your honour where not ten meters from this door will your excellency deign to look i don't want to see it how far can you drive me in it
as far as the pere blanchard's hut your honour and further than reuben's nag took your friend i am sure that not two leagues from here we shall come across that wily reuben his nag his cart and the tall stranger all in a heap in the middle of the road
how far is the nearest village from here on the road which the englishman took miquelon is the nearest village not two leagues from here
said the jew simply that is my intention said chauvelin very quietly but remember if you have deceived me i shall tell off two of my most stalwart soldiers to give you such a beating
the jew again thoughtfully rubbed his chin
after a moment's pause he said deliberately i accept go and wait outside then said chauvelin
with a final most abject and cringing bow the old jew shuffled out of the room chauvelin seemed pleased with his interview
desgas went to the door and apparently gave the necessary orders for presently a soldier entered carrying chauvelin's coat boots and hat he took off his soutane beneath which he was wearing close fitting breeches and a cloth waistcoat
and began changing his attire you citoyen in the meanwhile he said to desgas
and tell him to let you have another dozen men and bring them with you along the saint martin road where i daresay you will soon overtake the jew's cart with myself in it there will be hot work presently if i mistake not in the pere blanchard's hut
we shall corner our game there i'll warrant for this impudent scarlet pimpernel has had the audacity or the stupidity i hardly know which to adhere to his original plans he has gone to meet de tournay saint just and the other traitors
which for the moment i thought perhaps he did not intend to do when we find them there will be a band of desperate men at bay some of our men will i presume be put hors de combat these royalists are good swordsmen
and the englishman is devilish cunning and looks very powerful still we shall be five against one at least
the englishman is ahead of us and not likely to look behind him whilst he gave these curt and concise orders he had completed his change of attire the priest's costume had been laid aside
and he was once more dressed in his usual dark tight fitting clothes at last he took up his hat i shall have an interesting prisoner to deliver into your hands he said with a chuckle
and led him towards the door we won't kill him outright eh friend desgas the pere blanchard's hut is an i mistake not a lonely spot upon the beach and our men will enjoy a bit of rough sport there with the wounded fox
choose your men well friend desgas
we must see that scarlet pimpernel
he made an expressive gesture whilst he laughed a low evil laugh which filled marguerite's soul with sickening horror
took his departure from gray forest leaving poor rhoda to the guardianship of her guilty stepmother and although she had seen so little of her father yet the very consciousness of his presence had given her a certain confidence and sense of security which vanished at the moment of his departure
fear stricken and wretched as he had been his removal nevertheless seemed to her to render the lonely and inauspicious mansion still more desolate and ominous than before she had with a vague and instinctive antipathy
avoided all contact and intercourse with missus marston or as for distinctness sake we shall continue to call her mademoiselle since her return
we must now follow mister marston in his solitary expedition to chester when he took his place in the stagecoach he had the whole interior of the vehicle to himself and thus continued to be its solitary occupant for several miles the coach however was eventually hailed
brought to and the door being opened doctor danvers got in and took his place opposite to the passenger already established there the worthy man was so busied in directing the disposition of his luggage from the window and in arranging the sundry small parcels with which he was charged
that he did not recognize his companion until they were in motion when he did so it was with no very pleasurable feeling and it is probable that marston too would have gladly escaped the coincidence which thus reduced them once more to the temporary necessity of a tate a tate
embarrassing as each felt the situation to be there was however no avoiding it and after a recognition and a few forced attempts at conversation they became by mutual consent silent and uncommunicative the journey though in point of space a mere trifle
doctor danvers i have been fifty times on the point of speaking to you confidentially of course while sitting here opposite to you what i believe i could scarcely bring myself to hint to any other man living yet i must tell it and soon too or i fear it will have told itself
doctor danvers intimated his readiness to hear and advise if desired and marston resumed abruptly after a pause pray doctor danvers have you heard any stories of an odd kind any surmises
i don't mean of a moral sort for those i hold very cheap to my prejudice indeed i should hardly say to my prejudice i mean i ought to say in short have you heard people remark upon any fancied eccentricities or that sort of thing about me
he put the question with obvious difficulty and at last seemed to overcome his own reluctance with a sort of angry and excited self contempt and impatience doctor danvers was a little puzzled by the interrogatory and admitted in reply
but of the immortal tenant of this body my mind sir is beginning to play me tricks my guide mocks and terrifies me there was a perceptible tinge of horror in the look of astonishment with which doctor danvers listened you are a gentleman sir
and a christian clergyman what i have said and shall say is confided to your honor to be held sacred as the confession of misery and hidden from the coarse gaze of the world i have become subject to a hideous delusion it comes at intervals i do not think any mortal suspects it
marston paused he was stooped forward and looking upon the floor of the vehicle so that his companion could not see his countenance a silence ensued which was interrupted by marston who once more resumed sir said he
i know not why but i have longed intensely longed for some trustworthy ear into which to pour this horrid secret why i repeat i cannot tell for i expect no sympathy and hate compassion it is i suppose the restless nature of the devil that is in me but be it what it may
for the present at least to you alone doctor danvers again assured him that he might repose the most entire confidence in his secrecy the human mind i take it must have either comfort in the past or hope in the future he continued otherwise it is in danger
to me sir the past is intolerably repulsive one boundless barren and hideous golgotha of dead hopes and murdered opportunities the future still blacker and more furious peopled with dreadful features of horror and menace
and losing itself in utter darkness sir i do not exaggerate between such a past and such a future i stand upon this miserable present
no sir there is no comfort from that quarter either said marston bitterly you but cast your seeds as the parable terms your teaching upon the barren sea in wasting them on me my fate be it what it may is as irrevocably fixed as though i were dead and judged a hundred years ago
that occurrence about wynston berkley he is the hero of the hellish illusion at certain times sir it seems to me as if he though dead were still invested with a sort of spurious life going about unrecognized except by me in squalor and contempt
and whispering away my fame and life laboring with the malignant industry of a fiend to involve me in the meshes of that special perdition from which alone i shrink
sir this is a monstrous and hideous extravagance a delusion but after all no more than a trick of the imagination the reason the judgment is untouched i cannot choose but see all the damned phantasmagoria but i do not believe it real
and this is the difference between my case and and madness they were now entering the suburbs of chester and doctor danvers pained and shocked beyond measure by this unlooked for disclosure and not knowing what remark or comfort to offer
but the fact is this beginning like a speck this one idea has gradually darkened and dilated until it has filled my entire mind the solitary consciousness of the gigantic mastery it has established there had grown intolerable i must have told it
the sense of solitude under this aggressive and tremendous delusion was agony hourly death to my soul that is the secret of my talkativeness my sole excuse for plaguing you with the dreams of a wretched hypochondriac
they bid one another farewell and parted at that time there resided in a decent mansion about a mile from the town of chester a dapper little gentleman whom we shall call doctor parkes this gentleman was the proprietor and sole professional manager
of a private asylum for the insane and enjoyed a high reputation and a proportionate amount of business in his melancholy calling it was about the second day after the conversation we have just sketched
that this little gentleman having visited according to his custom all his domestic patients was about to take his accustomed walk in his somewhat restricted pleasure grounds when his servant announced a visitor a gentleman he repeated you have seen him before eh no sir replied the man
he is in the study sir ha a professional call well we shall see so saying the little gentleman summoned his gravest look and hastened to the chamber of audience on entering he found a man dressed well but gravely
having in his air and manner something of high breeding in countenance striking dark featured and stern furrowed with the lines of pain or thought rather than of age although his dark hairs were largely mingled with white the physician bowed and requested the stranger to take a chair
he however nodded slightly and impatiently as if to intimate an intolerance of ceremony and advancing a step or two said abruptly my name sir is marston i have come to give you a patient the doctor bowed with a still deeper inclination
and paused for a continuance of the communication thus auspiciously commenced you are doctor parkes i take it for granted said marston in the same tone your most obedient humble servant sir replied he with the polite formality of the day and another grave bow doctor demanded marston
fixing his eye upon him sternly and significantly tapping his own forehead can you stay execution the physician looked puzzled hesitated and at last requested his visitor to be more explicit can you said marston with the same slow and stern articulation
hugh and his companions stood by the door of the dining hall on went the dance and through the atmosphere thick with tobacco smoke the native women were guided their bronzed faces speaking excitement come on in gentlemen the walls of the room were lined with men
squaws who had not yet learned the dance sat on boxes the three friends crowded into the room and stood with their backs against the wall frank corte was beating time with his foot and clapping his hands while he sang the calls in a weird drawl honours to the right
each man bowed most gravely to his partner who most respectfully returned it honours to the left
and the squaws were so excited they seemed to occupy more room than really they did
four hand round dos a balnette right hand to partner and grand dos a balnette every man took his partner's right hand and wheeled to the right and then her left hand this movement brought them opposite and so they were in a circle at which they balanced
the men facing outwards the women inwards on to the next the men wheeled and with their ladies pivoted to the left then the men took the hand of the ladies next on their right as they swung round the ladies holding the men by the left gave their right hand
the ladies outwards on the next again brought the men facing outwards the ladies inwards and so on the quadrille was concluded with promenade all around the hall and seat your ladies at the ball the faces of the crowd were wild with excitement
the music was weird and discordant yet john found it all very stimulating dance after dance was gone through while he stayed and watched till there came to his mind pictures of the old home his father's house in london and alice peel was she thinking of him
say why don't you fellows get in and dance dreams and fancies were reft away as reality in the person of haskins of the saw pits stood before john berwick
a beginner in the dance his hilarity provoked the squaw and as the dance paused for a second between her gasps and through her perspiration she hissed with a look of contempt che chac ka say you fellows will have to get in and dance in this next set
i saw a squaw looking at you and saying heap dam dood
haskins was again worrying them all right who will i ask to dance george was ready go and ask that squaw sitting in the corner said haskins pointing across the room she it was who had said heap dam dood george went and invited her to be his partner
ni ka halo introdux you have not been introduced she answered this was more than george could withstand in gravity
he only guessed the meaning of the words so he repeated them to haskins who the devil has taught these savages up here chinook it's a special lingo manufactured by the hudson bay company to suit the savages and when white men first came into british columbia
they found the savages with a lingo which was called white man's wa wa and which no person could understand
the siwash calls an englishman king george man and an american boston man the squaw in the corner was keeping her eye on george with evident dislike as john noticed this he recommended their departure so george and he went back to bed
john looked up and saw the smiling face of frank at his kitchen door
and realized that frank was something of a conundrum corte who was kneading bread took a seat on a box by the kitchen door say don't you think it would be a good thing for this country if uncle sam was really to come over and take it i hope not what's the matter with it as it is
too much police too much law and order you can never have a real live mining camp in canada that was a pretty good dance you had friday night yes it was all right
but say that was a good one when the squaw told the other king george man he had not been introduced to her frank chuckled and then as the prospect of an international argument did not seem good went on another tack do you believe there is a god
a flood of memories surged through berwick's brain he glanced at the dark sinister features of the man awaiting his reply and then looked at the sunlight should he give such an answer in such a tone as would discourage further argument no the question was too serious
he might not have felt called upon at one time to divulge his belief which in the past had been a burden of much questioning but here it was asked perhaps in levity by one who evidently could not fully believe he felt called upon to answer yes i do
realizing the seriousness with which berwick regarded the question he feared lest he had hurt the feelings of his guest the answer he received reassured him removing his big arms from the dough and gesticulating he answered well partner i don't now here's the proposition
those who say there is a god say what he set out to do the first thing god done was to build the world and after he done this
and then he puts adam and eve into it after having made them he tells them not to eat apples and then he goes and has a snake which tells them to eat apples and because they do eat apples he pulls up the ranch and kicks them out
but he brings all sorts of diseases and pains on earth that's what keeps me from believing in god now look here if god was able to make the earth and the stars and everything why should he not make man and let him enjoy all this seeing that he is doing it all more or less for amusement
without putting him in the middle of a lot of good things and then putting up a job on him i've talked to parsons on this thing and some of them says that after he bust up the home ranch he kind of got sorry and says he would send his son on earth to die
to fix up the big mistake adam and eve made in eating one apple now say if you was doing all this would you after you made man and put him on the earth and he did wrong would you send your son to fix things up so that the crowd would go and nail him to a big wooden cross
by driving big stakes through his hands and feet and then stick him up for the crows to peck at if god was not able to make a man the first go off who would stand a mill test why did he not kill him off body and soul
and try again without trying to fix things up by making his son suffer the whole proposition ain't natural and what would you think of a man who if he fell down on any proposition would make his son go and suffer to fix up his mistakes why did he not come on earth and die on the cross himself
and suffer and turn the earth and all the stars and the rest of it over to his son to run while he was gone john berwick was not by nature argumentative having seldom in his life allowed himself to be drawn into any but political controversy he had it is true
discussed doctrine at college with his class mates he had read much philosophy and had pondered deeply on the mystery of human suffering the deepest of all mysteries he had weighed the arguments of great minds which wanted belief in god and in his own mind
had done much to surmount the difficulty to justify the ways of god to man but the crude intellect before him had launched forth a proposition he could not confute his training in rhetoric and in the drawing of parallels was of use only against the cultured mind
the legend of the saxon king drawing the simile of life from the little bird which flew within the hall firelight and was gone again came to his mind but he put it aside as impotent he did not know what to say he said nothing frank corte was working at his bread again
his face twitching with a smile and then there's miskities and black flies and moose flies and bull dogs say wait a month or two till the miskities get busy and then try and figure out how any great and good god would put such things on earth
why should god because man went and eat an apple make animals suffer in trying to get even frank corte returned to the kneading while john berwick thoughtfully watched the sun flooded landscape frank he said after a pause
the proof of the pudding is the eating i have never heard any argument quite like yours but man's coming to the world how he came to the world and whether he has a soul have been the greatest subjects of study through the ages we know the christian religion
was taught back to within a few years of the time christ came on earth and from that time on has got bigger in power and influence over the minds of men so that the majority of civilized people give justice to their fellows because this religion tells them to do so the bible
tells a story of the origin of man which we may or may not believe the bible says there is a god and god sees best not to explain his schemes and why he makes man and animals suffer i believe there is a god
why not try to believe there is a god rather than argue with yourself and others that there is no god if the christian belief has made the world so much better as a whole it will make you and me better as single men and i know you would give a man a meal if he wanted it
or if a fellow were sick you would help him out all you could and you'd expect me to do the same if you saw a fellow drowning in the river you'd help him out but the chinaman who is not a christian would let him drown you're a christian all right but you don't know it
though i didn't like to say it serious like but that's a pretty good talk of yours and sure sounds natural say is that other king george man with you as good a fellow as you are say you've set me thinking
bertram thought billy had never looked prettier than she did this afternoon with the bronze sheen of her pretty house gown bringing out the bronze lights in her dark eyes and in the soft waves of her beautiful hair her countenance too
carried a peculiar something that the artist's eye was quick to detect and that the artist's fingers tingled to put on canvas jove billy he said low in her ear as he greeted her i wish i had a brush in my hand this minute
i'd have a face of a girl that would be worth while billy laughed and dimpled her appreciation but down in her heart she was conscious of a vague unrest billy wished sometimes that she did not so often seem to bertram a picture
she turned to cyril with outstretched hand oh yes marie's coming she smiled in answer to the quick shifting of cyril's eyes to the hall doorway and aunt hannah too they're up stairs and mary jane demanded william a little anxiously
will's getting nervous volunteered bertram airily he wants to see mary jane you see we've told him that we shall expect him to see that she doesn't bother us four too much you know he's expected always to remove her quietly but effectually
whenever he sees that she is likely to interrupt a tete a tete naturally then will wants to see mary jane billy began to laugh hysterically she dropped into a chair and raised both her hands palms outward don't
don't please don't she choked or i shall die i've had all i can stand already all you can stand what do you mean
impossible this last was from bertram spoken softly and with a hurried glance toward the hall billy dropped her hands and lifted her head by heroic effort she pulled her face into sobriety all but her eyes and announced
mary jane is a man
a man billy three masculine forms sat suddenly erect yes oh uncle william i know now just how you felt i know i know gurgled billy incoherently
only i had curling tongs and hair pins in it instead of guns and spiders
william's face was red a man mary jane cyril was merely cross
mean bertram had grown a little white billy began to laugh again yet she was plainly trying to control herself i'll tell you i must tell you aunt hannah is keeping him up stairs so i can tell you she panted but it was so funny when i expected a girl you know to see him with his
brown beard and he was so tall and big and of course it made me think how i came and was a girl when you expected a boy and missus carleton had just said to day that maybe this girl would even things up oh it was so funny
billy my my dear remonstrated uncle william mildly but what is his name demanded cyril did the creature sign himself mary jane exploded bertram i don't know his name except that it's m j
didn't he write again asked william yes well why didn't he correct the mistake then demanded bertram billy chuckled he didn't want to i guess he thought it was too good a joke joke scoffed cyril
now bertram's voice was almost savage oh no he isn't going to live here now interposed smooth tones from the doorway mister
breathed billy confusedly three crimson faced men sprang to their feet the situation for a moment threatened embarrassed misery for all concerned but arkwright with a cheery smile advanced straight toward bertram and held out a friendly hand
he hereby asks everybody's pardon for the annoyance his little joke has caused he might add that he's heartily ashamed of himself as well but if any of you arkwright turned to the three tall men still standing by their chairs
if any of you had suffered what he has at the hands of a swarm of youngsters for that name's sake you wouldn't blame him for being tempted to get what fun he could out of mary jane if there ever came a chance naturally after this there could be nothing stiff or embarrassing
billy laughed in relief and motioned mister arkwright to a seat near her william said of course of course and shook hands again bertram and cyril laughed shamefacedly and sat down somebody said
but what does the m j stand for anyhow nobody answered this however perhaps because aunt hannah and marie appeared just then in the doorway dinner proved to be a lively meal in the newcomer bertram met his match for wit and satire
he turned to a bookcase near him and began to take down and examine some of the books bertram twinkled and glanced at billy which is it cyril he called with cheerful impertinence stool piano or audience that is the matter to night
nonsense scorned cyril dropping his book and walking back to his chair i don't feel like playing to night that's all you see nodded bertram again i see bowed arkwright with quiet amusement i believe
he was coming to boston for to study music everybody laughed won't you sing please asked billy can you without your notes i have lots of songs if you want them for a moment
but only a moment arkwright hesitated then he rose and went to the piano with the easy sureness of the trained musician his fingers dropped to the keys and slid into preliminary chords and arpeggios to test the touch of the piano
then with a sweetness and purity that made every listener turn in amazed delight a well trained tenor began the thro the leaves the night winds moving of schubert's serenade
cyril's chin had lifted at the first tone he was listening now with very obvious pleasure bertram too was showing by his attitude the keenest appreciation william and aunt hannah resting back in their chairs
were contentedly nodding their approval to each other marie in her corner was motionless with rapture as to billy billy was plainly oblivious of everything but the song and the singer she seemed scarcely to move or to breathe till the song's completion
i wish i could sing like that i wish i could paint a face of a girl smiled the tenor as he turned from the piano oh but mister arkwright don't stop objected billy springing to her feet and going to her music cabinet by the piano
william and aunt hannah still smiled contentedly in their chairs though aunt hannah had reached for the pink shawl near her the music had sent little shivers down her spine cyril with marie had slipped into the little reception room across the hall
ostensibly to look at some plans for a house although as everybody knew they were not intending to build for a year bertram still sitting stiffly erect in his chair was not conscious of a vague irritation now
he was conscious of a very real and a very decided one an irritation that was directed against himself against billy and against this man arkwright but chiefly against music per se he hated music
he wished he could sing he wondered how long it took to teach a man to sing anyhow and he wondered if a man could sing who never had sung at this point the duet came to an end and billy and her guest left the piano almost at once after this
arkwright made his very graceful adieus and went off with his suit case to the hotel where as he had informed aunt hannah his room was already engaged william went home then and aunt hannah went up stairs
cyril and marie withdrew into a still more secluded corner to look at their plans and bertram found himself at last alone with billy he forgot then in the blissful hour he spent with her before the open fire how he hated music
when the difficulties between himself and alexis were first beginning to assume an alarming form this child was now about three years old but he was of a very weak and sickly constitution and the czar watched him with fear and trembling
he was seized with the convulsions to which he was subject when under any strong excitement his face was distorted and his neck was twisted and stiffened in a most frightful manner
he could not endure it for the sight of her renewed so vividly the anguish that he felt for the loss of their child that it made the convulsions and the suffering worse than before it is said that on this occasion
peter shut himself up alone for three days and three nights in his own chamber where he lay stretched on the ground in anguish and agony and would not allow any body to come in
and increasing the power and influence of his government among surrounding nations he had no farther serious difficulty with the opponents of his policy though he was always under apprehensions that difficulties might arise after his death
he had the right according to the ancient constitution of the monarchy to designate his own successor choosing for this purpose either one of his sons or any other person and now since both his sons were dead
his mind revolved anxiously the question what provision he should make for the government of the empire after his decease he finally concluded to leave it in the hands of catharine herself and to prepare the way for this he resolved to cause her
naraskin would be appointed to the succession the czar himself said nothing of his intention but waited until the time should arrive for carrying it into effect
and had even repeatedly encountered all the discomforts and dangers of the camp in following him in his military campaigns by so doing she had rendered him the most essential service
and on one occasion she had been the means of saving his whole army from destruction he therefore declared his intention of joining her with himself in the supreme power and to celebrate this event by a solemn coronation
and invitations to all the foreign embassadors to repair to that city and be ready on the appointed day to take part in the ceremony
the gorgeousness and splendor of the spectacle which the coronation afforded the scene of the principal ceremony was the cathedral
were covered with rich tapestry embroidered with gold and the seats on which the bishops and other ecclesiastical dignitaries were to sit were covered with crimson cloth
the canopy was ornamented too on every side with fringes ribbons tufts tassels and gold lace in the richest manner under the canopy was the double throne for the emperor and empress and near it seats for the royal princesses
when the appointed hour arrived the procession was formed at the royal palace and moved toward the cathedral through a dense and compact mass of spectators that every where thronged the way every window was filled
and the house tops wherever there was space for a footing were crowded there were troops of guards mounted on horseback and splendidly caparisoned there were bands of music and heralds
and great officers of state bearing successively on cushions ornamented with gold and jewels the imperial mantle the globe the sceptre and the crown
in this way the royal party proceeded to the cathedral and there after going through a great many ceremonies which from the magnificence of the dresses of the banners and the various regal emblems that were displayed
was very gorgeous to behold but which it would be tedious to describe the crown was placed upon catharine's head the moment being signalized to all moscow by the ringing of bells the music of trumpets and drums and the firing of cannon
the ceremonies were continued through two days by several other imposing processions and were closed on the night of the second day by a grand banquet held in a spacious hall which was magnificently decorated for the occasion
there were connected with it formal legal arrangements for transferring the supreme power into her hands on the death of the czar nor were these arrangements made any too soon
the third of catharine's children died a short time after her father and the bodies of both parent and child were interred together
the obsequies were so protracted that it was more than six weeks from the death of the czar before the bodies were finally committed to the tomb
for he was certainly one of the greatest as well as one of the most extraordinary men that ever lived
and he pursued the work during his whole lifetime through dangers difficulties and discouragements which it required a surprising degree of determination and energy to surmount
and by their exploits have secured for themselves the title of the great in this that while they acquired their renown by conquests gained over foreign nations which in most cases after the death of their conquerors lapsed again
into their original condition leaving no permanent results behind the triumphs which peter achieved were the commencement of a work of internal improvement and reform which is now after the lapse of a century and a half since he commenced it still going on
the work is in fact advancing at the present day with perhaps greater and more successful progress than ever before notwithstanding the stern severity of peter's character
which strongly marked his character and was seen continually coming out into action during the whole course of his life it was only two years before his death that a striking instance of this occurred the first vessel that was built in russia was a small skiff
which was planned and built almost entirely by peter's own hands this skiff was built at moscow where it remained for twenty or thirty years an object all this time in peter's mind of special affection and regard
at length when the naval power of the empire was firmly established peter conceived the idea of removing this skiff from moscow to petersburg and consecrating it solemnly there as a sort of souvenir to be preserved forever in commemoration
was the parent and progenitor of all the great frigates and ships of the line which were then at anchor in the roads about cronstadt and off the mouth of the neva a grand ceremony was accordingly arranged for the consecration of the little grandfather
the company embarked on board yachts provided for them and went down the river following the little grandfather which was borne on its galliot in the van drums beating trumpets sounding and banners waving all the way the next day the whole fleet
which had been collected in the bay for this purpose was arranged in the form of an amphitheatre
these grand officials were not required however to do much hard work at rowing for there were two shallops provided manned by strong men to tow the skiff in this way the skiff rowed to and fro over the sea and then passed along the fleet saluted every where
the empress catharine saw the show from an elevation on the shore where she sat with the ladies of her court in a pavilion or tent which had been erected for the purpose
at the close of the ceremonies the skiff was deposited with great ceremony in the place which had been prepared to receive it in the castle of cronstadt and there when one more day had been spent in banquetings and rejoicings
by a great many acts of clemency liberating prisoners recalling exiles removing bodies from gibbets and wheels and heads from poles and delivering them to friends for burial remitting the sentence of death pronounced upon political offenders and otherwise mitigating
in one of the churches of saint petersburg which she had been engaged ever since his death in constructing
the reader will perhaps recollect how desirous peter had long been to extend his dominions toward the west so as to have a sea port under his control on the baltic sea
and to the rivers flowing into them you will also recollect that when at the commencement of his tour he arrived at the town of riga which stands at the head of the gulf of riga
he had been much offended at the refusal of the governor of the place acting under the orders of the king of sweden to allow him to view the fortifications there he then resolved that riga and the whole province of which it was the capital should one day be his
the year after he returned from his travels that is in sixteen ninety nine the country being by that time restored to its ordinary state of repose after the suppression of the rebellion he concluded that the time had arrived
for carrying his resolution into effect so he set a train of negotiations on foot for making a long truce with the turks not wishing to have two wars on his hands at the same time when he had accomplished this object
he was however a prince of remarkable talents and energy and in his subsequent campaigns against peter and his allies he distinguished himself so much that he acquired great renown and
finally took his place among the most illustrious military heroes in history the first operation of the war was the siege of the city of narva narva was a port on the baltic
his ally the king of poland advanced from his own dominions to riga and was now prepared to attack that city at the same time that the czar was besieging narva
the only cause of quarrel which peter pretended to have against the king was the uncivil treatment which he had received at the hands of the governor of riga in refusing to allow him to see the fortifications when he passed through that city on his tour
still the negotiations had not been closed and the government of sweden had no idea that the misunderstanding would lead to war indeed the commissioners were still at the swedish court continuing the negotiations when the news arrived that peter
had at once brought the question to an issue by declaring war and invading the swedish territory
the preparations were made with great dispatch and the fleet sailed for riga the news too of this war occasioned great dissatisfaction among the governments of western europe
the government of holland was particularly displeased on account of the interference and interruption which the war would occasion to all their commerce in the baltic they immediately determined to remonstrate with the czar against the course which he was pursuing
and they induced king william of england to join them in the remonstrance they also at the same time sent a messenger to the king of poland
the king of sweden arrived at riga with his fleet at just about the same time that the remonstrance of the dutch government reached the king of poland who was advancing to attack it augustus for that was the name of the king of poland
finding that now since so great a force had arrived to succor and strengthen the place there was no hope for success in any of his operations against it concluded to make a virtue of necessity
and so he drew off his army and sent word to the dutch government that he did so in compliance with their wishes
he took a pride in entering the army at one of the very lowest grades and so advancing by
but he had made little progress in taking the town the place was strongly fortified and the garrison though comparatively weak defended it with great bravery
as soon as news of the coming of the king of sweden arrived the czar went off into the interior of the country to hasten a large re enforcement which had been ordered and at the same time general croy sent forward large bodies of men to lay
the surprise of the russians and the confusion consequent upon it were greatly increased by the state of the weather for there was a violent snow storm at the time and the snow blowing into the russians faces prevented their seeing what the numbers were of the enemy so suddenly assaulting them
or taking any effectual measures to restore their own ranks to order when once deranged when at length the swedes having thus driven in the advanced posts reached the russian camp itself they immediately made an assault upon it
the camp was defended by a rampart and by a double ditch but on went the assaulting soldiers over all the obstacles pushing their way with their bayonets and carrying all before them the russians were entirely defeated and put to flight
indeed the officers do not wish to arrest them until it is sure that the enemy is so completely overwhelmed that their rallying again is utterly impossible in this case twenty thousand of the russian soldiers were left dead upon the field the swedes on the other hand
lost only two or three thousand besides those who were killed immense numbers were taken prisoners general croy and all the other principal generals in command were among the prisoners it is very probable that
if peter had not been absent at the time he would himself have been taken too the number of prisoners was so very great that it was not possible for the swedes to retain them on account of the expense and trouble of feeding them and keeping them warm
they cut their clothes in such a manner that they could only be prevented from falling off by being held together by both hands and the weather was so cold the ground moreover being covered with snow that the men could only save themselves from perishing by
keeping their clothes around them in this pitiful plight the whole body of prisoners were driven off like a flock of sheep by a small body of swedish soldiery for a distance of about a league on the road toward russia
and then left to find the rest of the way themselves the czar when he heard the news of this terrible disaster did not seem much disconcerted by it he said that he expected to be beaten at first by the swedes they have beaten us once said he
and they may beat us again but they will teach us in time to beat them he immediately began to adopt the most efficient and energetic measures for organizing a new army he set about raising recruits in all parts of the empire
it will be recollected by the reader that peter before he set out on his tour took every possible precaution to guard against the danger of disturbances in his dominions during his absence
the princess sophia was closely confined in her convent all that portion of the old russian guards that he thought most likely to be dissatisfied with his proposed reforms and to take part with sophia
he removed to fortresses at a great distance from moscow
and the men who were to command them as well as the great civil officers to whom the administration of the government was committed during his absence were appointed on the same principle but notwithstanding all these precautions
ready to return at a moment's warning in case of necessity he often spoke on this subject to those with whom he was on terms of familiar intercourse on such occasions he would get into a great rage in denouncing his enemies
and in threatening vengeance against them in case they made any movement to resist his authority while he was away at such times he would utter most dreadful imprecations against those who should dare to oppose him
and would work himself up into such a fury as to give those who conversed with him an exceedingly unfavorable opinion of his temper and character
the ugly aspect which his countenance and demeanor exhibited at such times was greatly aggravated by a nervous affection of the head and face which attacked him particularly when he was in a passion
and which produced convulsive twitches of the muscles that drew his head by jerks to one side and distorted his face in a manner that was dreadful to behold
however this may have been the affection seemed to increase as he grew older and as the attacks of it were most decided and violent when he was in a passion
they had the effect in connection with his coarse and dreadful language and violent demeanor to make him appear at such times more like some ugly monster of fiction than like a man the result
in respect to the conduct of his enemies during his absence was what he feared after he had been gone away for some months they began to conspire against him the means of communication between different countries were quite imperfect in those days
so that very little exact information came back to russia in respect to the emperor's movements the nobles who were opposed to him began to represent to the people that he had gone nobody knew where and that it was wholly uncertain
that he would bring home with him in his train by these and similar representations the opposition so far increased and strengthened their party that at length they matured their arrangements for an open outbreak
their plan was first to take possession of the city by means of the guards who were to be recalled for this purpose from their distant posts and by their assistance to murder all the foreigners
they were then to issue a proclamation declaring that peter by leaving the country and remaining so long away had virtually abdicated the government and also a formal address to the princess sophia
in executing this plan negotiations were first cautiously opened with the guards and they readily acceded to the proposals made to them a committee of three persons was appointed to draw up the address to sophia
and the precise details of the movements which were to take place on the arrival of the guards at the gates of moscow were all arranged the guards of course required some pretext for leaving their posts and coming toward the city
independent of the real cause for the conspirators within the city were not prepared to rise and declare the throne vacant until the guards had actually arrived accordingly
the government that is the regency that peter had left in charge sent out deputies who attempted to pacify them but could not succeed the guards insisted that they would go with their complaints to moscow
they wished to know too they said what had become of the czar they could not depend upon the rumors which came to them at so great a distance and they were determined to inform themselves on the spot whether he were alive or dead and when
he was coming home the deputies returned with all speed to moscow and reported that the guards were on their march in full strength toward the city the whole city was thrown into a state of consternation many of the leading families
as soon as he came near to them he halted and sent forward a deputation from his camp to confer with the leaders in the hope of coming to some amicable settlement of the difficulty
they promised that if they would return to their duty the government would not only overlook the serious offense which they had committed in leaving their posts and marching upon moscow but would inquire into and redress all their grievances
but the guards refused to be satisfied they were determined they said to march to moscow they wished to ascertain for themselves whether peter was dead or alive and if alive what had become of him
they would fight it out and see which was the strongest in civil commotions of this kind occurring in any of the ancient non protestant countries in europe
and so do not add any thing to the physical strength of the party which they befriend but they add enormously to its moral strength that is to its confidence and courage
when the time comes for the actual collision the feeling that after all they are in the wrong in fighting against the government of their country weakens them extremely and makes them ready to abandon the struggle in panic and dismay on the first unfavorable turn of fortune
nerves their arms and gives them that confidence in the result which is almost essential to victory it was so in this case
there was no class in the community more opposed to the czar's proposed improvements and reforms than the church indeed it is always so the church and the clergy are always found in these countries on the side of opposition to progress and improvement
it is not that they are really opposed to improvement itself for its own sake but that they are so afraid of change they call themselves conservatives and wish to preserve every thing as it is
they hate the process of pulling down
when therefore you are asked whether you are a conservative or not reply that that depends upon the character of the institution or the usage which is attacked if it is good let it stand if it is bad
of course the plotters of the conspiracy in moscow were in communication with the patriarch and the leading ecclesiastics in forming their plans and in arranging for the marching of the guards to the capital they took care to have priests with them
they were serving the cause of god and religion by promoting the expulsion from the country of the infidel foreigners that were coming in in such numbers and subverting all the good old usages and customs of the realm
it was this sympathy on the part of the clergy which gave the officers and soldiers of the guards their courage and confidence in daring to persist in their march to moscow in defiance of the army of general gordon brought out to oppose them
the priests who had come into the army of the insurgents to encourage them in the fight told them that a miracle had been performed god had averted the balls from them they said
but these assurances of the priests proved unfortunately for the poor guards to be entirely unfounded when general gordon found that firing over the heads of the rebels did no good
merciless manner a furious battle followed in which the guards were entirely defeated two or three thousand of them were killed and all the rest were surrounded and made prisoners
and that the object was to subvert the present government and to liberate the princess sophia and place her upon the throne they also gave the names of a number of prominent persons in moscow who they said were the leaders of the conspiracy
it was in this state of the affair that the tidings of what had occurred reached peter in vienna as is related in the last chapter he immediately set out on his return to moscow in a state of rage and fury against the rebels
with his brandy before him which was his favorite drink and which he often drank to excess he caused them to be led one after another to the block that he might cut off their heads himself
this story is almost too horrible to be believed but unfortunately it comports too well with the general character which peter has always sustained in the opinion of mankind in respect to the desperate and reckless cruelty to which he could be aroused
when the fingers had stiffened around it the limb was fixed to the wall in sophia's chamber as if in the act of offering her the address and ordered to remain so until the address should drop of itself upon the floor
that the end could be effectually attained at all events the end was attained the rebellion was completely suppressed and all open opposition to the progress of the czar's proposed improvements and reforms ceased
the few leading nobles who adhered to the old customs and usages of the realm retired from all connection with public affairs and lived thenceforth in seclusion mourning like good conservatives
the old guards whom it had been proved so utterly impossible to bring over to peter's views were disbanded and other troops organized on a different system were embodied in their stead
by this time the english ship builders and the other mechanics and artisans that peter had engaged began to arrive in the country
condescends to mingle among the people and accept the hospitalities of such a place as hawkeye the honor is not considered a light one
all parties are flattered by it and politics are forgotten in the presence of one so distinguished among his fellows senator dilworthy who was from a neighboring state had been a unionist in the darkest days of his country
and had thriven by it but was that any reason why colonel sellers who had been a confederate and had not thriven by it should give him the cold shoulder
but you will mingle with our people and you will see here developments that will surprise you the colonel was so profuse in his hospitality that he must have made the impression upon himself that he had entertained the senator at his own mansion during his stay
at any rate he afterwards always spoke of him as his guest and not seldom referred to the senator's relish of certain viands on his table he did in fact press him to dine upon the morning of the day the senator was going away
and made many inquiries as to the progress of agriculture of education and of religion and especially as to the condition of the emancipated race providence he said
has placed them in our hands and although you and i general might have chosen a different destiny for them under the constitution
disinclined to work for white folks without security planning how to live by only working for themselves idle sir there's my garden just a ruin of weeds nothing practical in em
now a white man can conceive great operations and carry them out a niggro can't still replied the senator granting that he might injure himself in a worldly point of view his elevation through education
of course one of the entertainments offered the senator was a public reception held in the court house at which he made a speech to his fellow citizens
he marshalled the procession of masons of odd fellows and of firemen the good templars the sons of temperance the cadets of temperance the daughters of rebecca the sunday school children and citizens generally which followed the senator to the court house
the occasion was one to call out his finest powers of personal appearance and one he long dwelt on with pleasure this not being an edition of the congressional globe it is impossible to give senator dilworthy's speech in full
and confer in familiar converse with my friends in your great state the good opinion of my fellow citizens of all sections is the sweetest solace in all my anxieties
as i was saying when i can lay down the cares of office and retire to the sweets of private life in some such sweet peaceful intelligent wide awake and patriotic place as hawkeye applause
i have traveled much i have seen all parts of our glorious union but i have never seen a lovelier village than yours or one that has more signs of commercial and industrial and religious prosperity
more applause the senator then launched into a sketch of our great country and dwelt for an hour or more upon its prosperity and the dangers which threatened it
he then touched reverently upon the institutions of religion and upon the necessity of private purity if we were to have any public morality i trust he said that there are children within the sound of my voice
and after some remarks to them the senator closed with an apostrophe to the genius of american liberty walking with the sunday school in one hand and temperance in the other up the glorified steps of the national capitol
colonel sellers did not of course lose the opportunity to impress upon so influential a person as the senator the desirability of improving the navigation of columbus river
when however they reached stone's landing the senator looked about him and inquired is this napoleon this is the nucleus the nucleus said the colonel unrolling his map here is the deepo the church the city hall and so on
ah i see how far from here is columbus river does that stream empty that why that's goose run thar ain't no columbus thout'n it's over to hawkeye interrupted one of the citizens who had come out to stare at the strangers
a railroad come here last summer but it haint been here no mo yes sir the colonel hastened to explain in the old records columbus river is called goose run you see how it sweeps round the town forty nine miles to the missouri
sloop navigation all the way pretty much drains this whole country when it's improved steamboats will run right up here it's got to be enlarged deepened you see by the map columbus river this country must have water communication
i should say a million is that your figure mister brierly according to our surveys said harry a million would do it a million spent on the river would make napoleon worth two millions at least
i see nodded the senator but you'd better begin by asking only for two or three hundred thousand the usual way you can begin to sell town lots on that appropriation you know
the senator himself to do him justice was not very much interested in the country or the stream but he favored the appropriation and he gave the colonel and mister brierly to understand that he would endeavor to get it through
whatever i do will be for the public interest it will require a portion of the appropriation for necessary expenses and i am sorry to say that there are members who will have to be seen but you can reckon upon my humble services
and laid the appropriation scheme away among his other plans for benefiting the public it was on this visit also that the senator made the acquaintance of mister washington hawkins and was greatly taken with his innocence
be made to contribute to the general good and he did not doubt that this was an opportunity of that kind the result of several conferences with washington was that the senator proposed that he should go to washington with him
and become his private secretary and the secretary of his committee a proposal which was eagerly accepted the senator spent sunday in hawkeye and attended church
he cheered the heart of the worthy and zealous minister by an expression of his sympathy in his labors and by many inquiries in regard to the religious state of the region it was not a very promising state and the good man felt how much lighter his task would be
if he had the aid of such a man as senator dilworthy i am glad to see my dear sir said the senator that you give them the doctrines it is owing to a neglect of the doctrines that there is such a fearful falling away in the country
i wish that we might have you in washington as chaplain now in the senate the good man could not but be a little flattered and if sometimes thereafter in his discouraging work he allowed the thought that he might perhaps be called to washington
as chaplain of the senate to cheer him who can wonder the senator's commendation at least did one service for him it elevated him in the opinion of hawkeye
that he announced his intentions of paying his respects to her the next day an intention which harry received glumly and when the senator was out of hearing he called him an old fool fie said laura i do believe you are jealous harry
he is a very pleasant man he said you were a young man of great promise the senator did call next day and the result of his visit was that he was confirmed in his impression that there was something about him very attractive to ladies
he saw laura again and again during his stay and felt more and more the subtle influence of her feminine beauty which every man felt who came near her harry was beside himself with rage while the senator remained in town
he declared that women were always ready to drop any man for higher game and he attributed his own ill luck to the senator's appearance the fellow was in fact crazy about her beauty and ready to beat his brains out in chagrin
and gave them privileges equal to those of the macedonians and greeks who were the inhabitants
an argument for which you have in this
from the proper officers belonging to their exercises as the value of that oil which money when the people of antioch would have deprived them of in the last war mucianus who was then president of syria preserved it to them
and when the people of alexandria and of antioch did after that at the time that vespasian and titus his son governed the habitable earth pray that these privileges of citizens might be taken away
yet did not they take away any of their forementioned privileges belonging to them as citizens but restrained their anger and overcame the prayers of the alexandrians and antiochians who were a very powerful people
nor out of their old grudge at those whose wicked opposition they had subdued in the war nor would they alter any of the ancient favors granted to the jews but said that those who had borne arms against them and fought them
had suffered punishment already and that it was not just to deprive those
was of the like disposition towards the jews for when the people of ionia were very angry at them and besought agrippa that they and they only might have those privileges of citizens which antiochus the grandson of seleucus
who by the greeks was called the god had bestowed on them and desired that if the jews were to be joint partakers with them they might be obliged to worship the gods they themselves worshipped
but when these matters were brought to the trial the jews prevailed and obtained leave to make use of their own customs and this under the patronage of nicolaus of damascus for agrippa gave sentence that he could not innovate
and if any one hath a mind to know this matter accurately let him peruse the hundred and twenty third and hundred and twenty fourth books of the history of this nicolaus now as to this determination of agrippa
it is not so much to be admired for at that time our nation had not made war against the romans
it fell out that these nations were equally sufferers both when he was beaten and when he beat the others so that they were very like to a ship in a storm which is tossed by the waves on both sides
and when philopater was dead his son sent out a great army under scopas the general of his forces against the inhabitants of celesyria who took many of their cities and in particular our nation
and informed them what rewards he had resolved to bestow on them for that their behavior
went in haste to the superior parts of the country and in the winter time overthrew the nation of the jews
yet do i put off that history till another opportunity this it is which polybius relates but we will return to the series of the history when we have first produced the epistles of king antiochus
king antiochus to ptolemy sendeth greeting since the jews upon our first entrance on their country demonstrated their friendship towards us
and when we came to their city jerusalem received us in a splendid manner and came to meet us with their senate and gave abundance of provisions to our soldiers
and out of libanus tax free and the same i would have observed as to those other materials which will be necessary in order to render the temple more glorious
and let all of that nation live according to the laws of their own country and let the senate and the priests and the scribes of the temple and the sacred singers be discharged from poll money and the crown tax and other taxes also
i grant a discharge from taxes for three years to its present inhabitants and to such as shall come to it until the month hyperheretus we also discharge them for the future
from a third part of their taxes that the losses they have sustained may be repaired and all those citizens that have been carried away and are become slaves
he also published a decree through all his kingdom in honor of the temple which contained what follows it shall be lawful for no foreigner to come within the limits of the temple round about which thing is forbidden also to the jews
nor that of leopards or foxes or hares and in general that of any animal which is forbidden for the jews to eat nor let their skins be brought into it nor let any such animal be bred up in the city
let them only be permitted to use the sacrifices derived from their forefathers with which they have been obliged to make acceptable atonements to god and he that transgresseth any of these orders
let him pay to the priests three thousand drachmae of silver
having been informed that a sedition is arisen in lydia
for i am persuaded that they will be well disposed guardians of our possessions because of their piety towards god and because i know that my predecessors have borne witness to them that they are faithful
i will therefore though it be a laborious work that thou remove these jews under a promise that they shall be permitted to use their own laws and when thou shalt have brought them to the places forementioned
thou shalt give everyone of their families a place for building their houses and a portion of the land for their husbandry and for the plantation of their vines
chapter eight what other acts were done by agrippa until his death
he removed to tiberias a city of galilee now he was in great esteem among other kings accordingly there came to him antiochus king of commalena sampsigeratnus
by coming thus to see him however while these kings staid with him marcus the president of syria came thither so the king in order to preserve the respect that was due to the romans went out of the city to meet him
of so great a friendship of these kings one with another and did not think so close an agreement of so many potentates to be for the interest of the romans he therefore sent some of his domestics to every one of them
and enjoined them to go their ways home without further delay this was very ill taken by agrippa who after that became his enemy and now he took the high priesthood away from matthias and made elioneus
which was formerly called strato's tower and there he exhibited shows in honor of caesar upon his being informed that there was a certain festival celebrated to make vows for his safety
at which festival a great multitude was gotten together of the principal persons and such as were of dignity through his province on the second day of which shows he put on a garment made wholly of silver
and was so resplendent as to spread a horror over those that looked intently upon him and presently his flatterers cried out one from one place and another from another though not for his good that he was a god
and they added be thou merciful to us for although we have hitherto reverenced thee only as a man yet shall we henceforth own thee as superior to mortal nature upon this the king did neither rebuke them
nor reject their impious flattery but as he presently afterward looked up
to be hurried away by death but i am bound to accept of what providence allots as it pleases god for we have by no means lived ill but in a splendid and happy manner
when he said this his pain was become violent accordingly he was carried into the palace and the rumor went abroad every where that he would certainly die in a little time
now the king rested in a high chamber and as he saw them below lying prostrate on the ground he could not himself forbear weeping and when he had been quite worn out by the pain in his belly for five days he departed this life
being in the fifty fourth year of his age and in the seventh year of his reign for he reigned four years under caius caesar three of them were over philip's tetrarchy only and on the fourth
for he was so very liberal that his expenses exceeded his incomes
sent cuspius fadus to be procurator of judea
and drusilla to the king of commagena
forgot the kindnesses he had bestowed on them and acted the part of the bitterest enemies for they cast such reproaches upon the deceased as are not fit to be spoken of and so many of them as were then soldiers
which were a great number went to his house
they also laid themselves down in public places and celebrated general feastings with garlands on their heads and with ointments and libations to charon and drinking to one another for joy that the king was expired
and when caesar was informed that agrippa was dead
had abused him he was sorry for the first news and was displeased with the ingratitude of those cities he was therefore disposed to send agrippa junior away presently to succeed his father in the kingdom
and was willing to confirm him in it by his oath but those freed men and friends of his who had the greatest authority with him dissuaded him from it and said that it was a dangerous experiment
to permit so large a kingdom to come under the government of so very young a man and one hardly yet arrived at years of discretion who would not be able to take sufficient care of its administration
while the weight of a kingdom is heavy enough to a grown man so caesar thought what they said to be reasonable accordingly he sent cuspins fadus to be procurator of judea and of the entire kingdom
as not to introduce marcus who had been at variance with him into his kingdom but he determined in the first place to send orders to fadus
and sebaste for those abuses they had offered to him that was deceased and their madness towards his daughters that were still alive
a sad misfortune befell his house on the occasion following he had a daughter who was yet a virgin and very handsome insomuch that she surpassed all the most beautiful women her name was tamar
nay his grief so eat up his body that he grew lean and his color was changed now there was one jenadab a kinsman and friend of his who discovered this his passion
amnon confessed his passion that he was in love with a sister of his who had the same father with himself so jenadab suggested to him by what method and contrivance he might obtain his desires
for he persuaded him to pretend sickness and bade him when his father should come to him to beg of him that his sister might come and minister to him for if that were done he should be better and should quickly recover from his distemper
and fry them in a pan and do it all with her own hands because he should take them better from her hand
and endeavored to persuade her to lie with him whereupon the damsel cried out and said nay brother do not force me nor be so wicked as to transgress the laws and bring upon thyself the utmost confusion
and while it was light that she might meet with people that would be witnesses of her shame he commanded his servant to turn her out of his house whereupon she was sorely grieved at the injury and violence that had been offered to her
and when she had told him what injury had been offered her he comforted her and desired her to be quiet and take all patiently and not to esteem her being corrupted by her brother as an injury
and discovering the force offered her to the multitude
but because he had an extraordinary affection for him for he was his eldest son he was compelled not to afflict him but absalom watched for a fit opportunity of revenging this crime upon him for he thoroughly hated him
then absalom charged his own servants that when they should see amnon disordered and drowsy with wine
and were afraid for themselves so they immediately got on horseback and rode away to their father but somebody there was who prevented them and told their father they were all slain by absalom whereupon he was overcome with sorrow
when so very great and by that greatness so incredible a misfortune was related to him he rent his clothes and threw himself upon the ground and there lay lamenting the loss of all his sons
both those who as he was informed were slain and of him who slew them but jonadab the son of his brother shemeah entreated him not to indulge his sorrow so far
for as to the rest of his sons he did not believe that they were slain for he found no cause for such a suspicion
for it was not unlikely that absalom might venture to kill him on account of the injury he had offered to tamar in the mean time a great noise of horses and a tumult of some people that were coming turned their attention to them
they were the king's sons who were fled away from the feast so their father met them as they were in their grief and he himself grieved with them but it was more than he expected to see those his sons again
whom he had a little before heard to have perished however their were tears on both sides they lamenting their brother who was killed and the king lamenting his son who was killed also
and that one was smitten by the other and was dead and she desired him to interpose in this case and to do her the favor to save this her son from her kindred who were very zealous to have him that had slain his brother put to death
she made this reply to him i owe thee thanks for thy benignity to me in pitying my old age and preventing the loss of my only remaining child but in order to assure me of this thy kindness
be first reconciled to thine own son and cease to be angry with him for how shall i persuade myself that thou hast really bestowed this favor upon me while thou thyself continuest after the like manner in thy wrath to thine own son
for it is a foolish thing to add willfully another to thy dead son while the death of the other was brought about without thy consent and now the king perceived that this pretended story was a subornation derived from joab
and commanded him to retire to his own house for he was not yet in such a disposition as to think fit at present to see him accordingly upon the father's command
he avoided coming into his presence and contented himself with the respects paid him by his own family only now his beauty was not impaired either by the grief he had been under
however he dwelt in jerusalem two years and became the father of three sons and one daughter which daughter was of very great beauty and which rehoboam the son of solomon took to wife afterward
concentration in delivery attention is the microscope of the mental eye its power may be high or low its field of view narrow or broad when high power is used attention is confined within very circumscribed limits
that they can never be effaced attention of this sort is the prime condition of the most productive mental labor daniel putnam psychology try to rub the top of your head forward and backward
at the same time that you are patting your chest unless your powers of cooerdination are well developed you will find it confusing if not impossible the brain needs special training before it can do two or more things efficiently at the same instant
it may seem like splitting a hair between its north and northwest corner but some psychologists argue that no brain can think two distinct thoughts absolutely simultaneously that what seems to be simultaneous
is really very rapid rotation from the first thought to the second and back again just as in the above cited experiment the attention must shift from one hand to the other until one or the other movement becomes partly or wholly automatic whatever is the psychological truth of this contention
but an emphatic word needs emphatic expression and this is precisely what it does not get when concentration flags by leaping too soon to that which is next to be uttered concentrate all your mental energies on the present sentence
remember that the mind of your audience follows yours very closely and if you withdraw your attention from what you are saying to what you are going to say your audience will also withdraw theirs they may not do so consciously and deliberately
but they will surely cease to give importance to the things that you yourself slight it is fatal to either the actor or the speaker to cross his bridges too soon of course all this is not to say that in the natural pauses of your speech
the caution is of quite another sort while speaking one sentence do not think of the sentence to follow let it come from its proper source within yourself you cannot deliver a broadside without concentrated force
that is what produces the explosion in preparation you store and concentrate thought and feeling in the pauses during delivery you swiftly look ahead and gather yourself for effective attack during the moments of actual speech speak
don't anticipate divide your attention and you divide your power this matter of the effect of the inner man upon the outer needs a further word here particularly as touching concentration what do you read my lord
did you ever notice how hollow a memorized speech usually sounds you have listened to the ranting mechanical cadence of inefficient actors lawyers and preachers their trouble is a mental one they are not concentratedly thinking thoughts
hamlet's uncle he laments thus pointedly my words fly up my thoughts remain below words without thoughts never to heaven go
such speeches lose nothing by repetition for the perfectly patent reason that they arise from concentrated thought and feeling and not a mere necessity for saying something which usually means anything and that in turn is tantamount to nothing
if the thought beneath your words is warm fresh spontaneous a part of your self your utterance will have breath and life words are only a result do not try to get the result without stimulating the cause
do you ask how to concentrate think of the word itself and of its philological brother concentric think of how a lens gathers and concenters the rays of light within a given circle it centers them by a process of withdrawal
it may seem like a harsh saying but the man who cannot concentrate is either weak of will a nervous wreck or has never learned what will power is good for you must concentrate by resolutely withdrawing your attention from everything else
if you concentrate your thought on a pain which may be afflicting you that pain will grow more intense count your blessings and they will multiply center your thought on your strokes and your tennis play will gradually improve
to concentrate is simply to attend to one thing and attend to nothing else if you find that you cannot do that there is something wrong attend to that first remove the cause and the symptom will disappear
read the chapter on will power cultivate your will by willing and then doing at all costs concentrate and you will win questions and exercises one
select from any source several sentences suitable for speaking aloud deliver them first in the manner condemned in this chapter and second with due regard for emphasis toward the close of each sentence two
put into about one hundred words your impression of the effect produced three tell of any peculiar methods you may have observed or heard of by which speakers have sought to aid their powers of concentration
such as looking fixedly at a blank spot in the ceiling or twisting a watch charm four what effect do such habits have on the audience five what relation does pause bear to concentration
six tell why concentration naturally helps a speaker to change pitch tempo and emphasis seven read the following selection through to get its meaning and spirit clearly in your mind
then read it aloud concentrating solely on the thought that you are expressing do not trouble about the sentence or thought that is coming half the troubles of mankind arise from anticipating trials that never occur avoid this in speaking
make the end of your sentences just as strong as the beginning concentrate war the last of the savage instincts is war the cave man's club made law and procured food
might decreed right warriors were saviours in nazareth a carpenter laid down the saw and preached the brotherhood of man twelve centuries afterwards his followers marched to the holy land to destroy all who differed with them
in the worship of the god of love triumphantly they wrote in solomon's porch and in his temple our men rode in the blood of the saracens up to the knees of their horses history is an appalling tale of war in the seventeenth century
germany france sweden and spain warred for thirty years at magdeburg thirty thousand out of thirty six thousand were killed regardless of sex or age in germany schools were closed for a third of a century homes burned women outraged
towns demolished and the untilled land became a wilderness two thirds of germany's property was destroyed and eighteen million of her citizens were killed because men quarrelled about the way to glorify the prince of peace marching through rain and snow
sleeping on the ground eating stale food or starving contracting diseases and facing guns that fire six hundred times a minute for fifty cents a day this is the soldier's life at the window sits the widowed mother crying
little children with tearful faces pressed against the pane watch and wait their means of livelihood their home their happiness is gone fatherless children broken hearted women sick disabled and dead men
the financial loss resulting from destroying one another's homes in the civil war would have built fifteen million houses each costing two thousand dollars we pray for love but prepare for hate we preach peace
but equip for war were half the power that fills the world with terror were half the wealth bestowed on camp and court given to redeem this world from error there would be no need of arsenal and fort
war only defers a question no issue will ever really be settled until it is settled rightly like rival gun gangs in a back alley the nations of the world through the bloody ages have fought over their differences
denver cannot fight chicago and iowa cannot fight ohio why should germany be permitted to fight france or bulgaria fight turkey when mankind rises above creeds colors and countries when we are citizens not of a nation
but of the world the armies and navies of the earth will constitute an international police force to preserve the peace and the dove will take the eagle's place our differences will be settled by an international court with the power to enforce its mandates
in times of peace prepare for peace the wages of war are the wages of sin and the wages of sin is death editorial by d c leslie's weekly
the enchanted types one time a knook became tired of his beautiful life and longed for something new to do the knooks have more wonderful powers than any other immortal folk except perhaps the fairies and ryls
so one would suppose that a knook who might gain anything he desired by a simple wish could not be otherwise than happy and contented but such was not the case with popopo the knook we are speaking of he had lived thousands of years and had enjoyed all the wonders he could think of
yet life had become as tedious to him now as it might be to one who was unable to gratify a single wish finally by chance popopo thought of the earth people who dwell in cities and so he resolved to visit them and see how they lived this would surely be fine amusement
and serve to pass away many wearisome hours therefore one morning after a breakfast so dainty that you could scarcely imagine it popopo set out for the earth and at once was in the midst of a big city
this satisfied for a time his desire to visit the earth cities but soon the monotony of his existence again made him restless and gave him another thought at night the people slept and the cities would be quiet he would visit them at night
so at the proper time popopo transported himself in a jiffy to a great city where he began wandering about the streets everyone was in bed no wagons rattled along the pavements no throngs of busy men shouted and halloaed
even the policemen slumbered slyly and there happened to be no prowling thieves abroad his nerves being soothed by the stillness popopo began to enjoy himself he entered many of the houses and examined their rooms with much curiosity
locks and bolts made no difference to a knook and he saw as well in darkness as in daylight after a time he strolled into the business portion of the city stores are unknown among the immortals who have no need of money or of barter and exchange
so popopo was greatly interested by the novel sight of so many collections of goods and merchandise during his wanderings he entered a millinery shop and was surprised to see within a large glass case a great number of women's hats
annoyed and grieved popopo who had no idea they had purposely been placed upon the hats by the milliner so he slid back one of the doors of the case gave the little chirruping whistle of the knooks that all birds know well and called come friends
poor dears said the kind hearted knook you long to be in the fields and forests again then he opened the outer door for them and cried off with you fly away my beauties and be happy again the astonished birds at once obeyed
and when they had soared away into the night air the knook closed the door and continued his wandering through the streets by dawn he saw many interesting sights but day broke before he had finished the city and he resolved to come the next evening a few hours earlier
as soon as it was dark the following day he came again to the city and on passing the millinery shop noticed a light within entering he found two women one of whom leaned her head upon the table and sobbed bitterly while the other strove to comfort her of course
popopo was invisible to mortal eyes so he stood by and listened to their conversation cheer up sister said one even though your pretty birds have all been stolen the hats themselves remain alas cried the other
who was the milliner no one will buy my hats partly trimmed for the fashion is to wear birds upon them and if i cannot sell my goods i shall be utterly ruined then she renewed her sobbing and the knook stole away feeling a little ashamed to realized
that the poor woman might be happy again so he searched until he came upon a nearby cellar full of little gray mice who lived quite undisturbed and gained a livelihood by gnawing through the walls into neighboring houses and stealing food from the pantries
their morals would be much improved so he exercised a charm that drew all the mice from the cellar
where they occupied the places the birds had vacated and looked very becoming at least in the eyes of the unworldly knook to prevent their running about and leaving the hats popopo rendered them motionless
when she saw how daintily her hats were now trimmed she came in the early morning accompanied by her sister and her face wore a sad and resigned expression after sweeping and dusting the shop and drawing the blinds
but when she saw a tiny gray mouse nestling among the ribbons and laces she gave a loud shriek and dropping the hat sprang with one bound to the top of the table the sister knowing the shriek to be one of fear leaped upon a chair and exclaimed what is it oh what is it
a mouse gasped the milliner trembling with terror popopo seeing this commotion now realized that mice are especially disagreeable to human beings and that he had made a grave mistake in placing them upon the hats
so he gave a low whistle of command that was heard only by the mice instantly they all jumped from the hats dashed out the open door of the glass case and scampered away to their cellar but this action so frightened the milliner and her sister
that after giving several loud screams they fell upon their backs on the floor and fainted away popopo was a kind hearted knook but on witnessing all this misery caused by his own ignorance of the ways of humans he straightway wished himself at home
because i find the woman considers you her property and your loss has caused her much unhappiness answered popopo but remember how unhappy we were in her glass case said a robin redbreast gravely and as for being her property you are a knook
and the natural guardian of all birds so you know that nature created us free to be sure wicked men shot and stuffed us and sold us to the milliner but the idea of our being her property is nonsense popopo was puzzled
if i leave you free he said wicked men will shoot you again and you will be no better off than before
said popopo sternly for he felt the birds were getting the best of the argument the poor milliner's business will be ruined if i do not return you to her shop it seems you are necessary to trim the hats properly it is the fashion for women to wear birds upon their headgear so the poor milliner's wares
although beautified by lace and ribbons are worthless unless you are perched upon them fashions said a black bird solemnly are made by men what law is there among birds or knooks that requires us to be the slaves of fashion
what have we to do with fashions anyway screamed a linnet if it were the fashion to wear knooks perched upon women's hats
but popopo was in despair he could not wrong the birds by sending them back to the milliner nor did he wish the milliner to suffer by their loss so he went home to think what could be done after much meditation he decided to consult the king of the knooks
and going at once to his majesty he told him the whole story the king frowned this should teach you the folly of interfering with earth people he said but since you have caused all this trouble it is your duty to remedy it
our birds cannot be enslaved that is certain therefore you must have the fashions changed so it will no longer be stylish for women to wear birds upon their hats how shall i do that asked popopo easily enough
fashions often change among the earth people who tire quickly of any one thing when they read in their newspapers and magazines that the style is so and so they never question the matter but at once obey the mandate of fashion
so you must visit the newspapers and magazines and enchant the types enchant the types echoed popopo in wonder just so make them read that it is no longer the fashion to wear birds upon hats that will afford relief to your poor milliner
and at the same time set free thousands of our darling birds who have been so cruelly used popopo thanked the wise king and followed his advice the office of every newspaper and magazine in the city was visited by the knook and then he went to other cities
sometimes popopo enchanted the types so that whoever read the print would see only what the knook wished them to sometimes he called upon the busy editors and befuddled their brains until they wrote exactly what he wanted them to
mortals seldom know how greatly they are influenced by fairies knooks and ryls who often put thoughts into their heads that only the wise little immortals could have conceived the following morning when the poor milliner looked over her newspaper she was overjoyed to read
that no woman could now wear a bird upon her hat and be in style for the newest fashion required only ribbons and laces popopo after this found much enjoyment in visiting every millinery shop he could find and giving new life to the stuffed birds
which were carelessly tossed aside as useless and they flew to the fields and forests with songs of thanks to the good knook who had rescued them sometimes a hunter fires his gun at a bird and then wonders why he did not hit it
selecting the faculty by baynard rust hall our board of trustees it will be remembered had been directed by the legislature to procure as the ordinance called it teachers for the commencement of the state college at woodville that business by the board
was committed to doctor sylvan and robert carlton the most learned gentleman of the body and of the new purchase our honorable board will be more specially introduced hereafter at present we shall bring forward certain rejected candidates that
to find his own chair a vast saving to the state if the same chair i saw in mister whackum's school room for his chair there was one with a hickory bottom and doubtless he would have filled it and even lapped over its edges with equal dignity in the recitation room of big college
a m of new jersey and his answer had been affirmative yet for political reasons we had been obliged to invite competitors or make them and we found and created a right smart sprinkle hopes of success were built on many things for instance
on poverty a plea being entered that something ought to be done for the poor fellow on one's having taught a common school all his born days who now deserved to rise a peg on political or religious or fanatical partizan qualifications
and on pure patriotic principles such as a person's having been born in a canebrake and rocked in a sugar trough on the other hand a fat dull headed and modest englishman asked for a place because he had been born in liverpool
and had seen the world beyond the woods and waters too and another fussy talkative pragmatical little gentleman rested his pretensions on his ability to draw and paint maps not projecting them in roundabout scientific processes
nay so transcendent seemed mister merchator's claims when his show or sample maps were exhibited to us that some in our board and nearly everybody out of it were confident he would do for professor of mathematics and even principal
but of all our unsuccessful candidates we shall introduce by name only two mister james jimmy a s s and mister solomon rapid a to z
was master of a small school of all sexes near woodville at the first he was kindly yet honestly told his knowledge was too limited and inaccurate yet notwithstanding this and some almost rude repulses afterward he persisted in his application and his hopes
ah indeed mister jimmy yes indeed mister carlton on what new principle do you go sir why sir on the principles of nature and common sense
i allow school books for schools are all too powerful obstruse and hard like to be understood without exemplifying illustrations yes but mister jimmy how is a child's spelling book to be made any plainer why sir
by clear explifications of the words in one column by exemplifying illustrations in the other i do not understand you mister jimmy give me a specimen sir an example to be sure
a example you see for instance i put in the spelling column c r e a m cream and here in the explification column i put the exemplifying illustration unctious part of milk
with a party of friends mister jimmy hurrying out with a slate in his hand begged me to stop a moment and thus addressed me well mister carlton this algebra is a most powerful thing ain't it indeed it is mister jimmy have you been looking into it
when i tried by figures they every one of them came out right and brung the answer i mean to cypher by letters altogether mister jimmy my company is nearly out of sight if you can get along this way through simple and quadratic equations by our meeting
your chance will not be so bad good morning sir but our man of letters quit cyphering the new way and returned to plain figures long before reaching equations and so he could not become our professor yet anxious to do us all the good in his power
after our college opened he waited on me a leading trustee with a proposal to board our students and authorized me to publish
the most extraordinary candidate however was mister solomon rapid he was now somewhat advanced into the shaving age and was ready to assume offices the most opposite in character although justice compels us to say mister rapid was as fit for one thing as another
deeming it waste of time to prepare for any station till he was certain of obtaining it he wisely demanded the place first and then set to work to become qualified for its duties being i suspect the very man or some relation of his who is recorded as not knowing whether he could read greek
and besides mister solomon rapid contended that all offices from president down to fence viewer were open to every white american citizen and that every republican had a blood bought right to seek any that struck his fancy and if the profits were less
or the duties more onerous than had been anticipated that a man ought to resign and try another naturally therefore mister rapid thought he would like to sit in our chair of languages or have some employment in the state college and hence he called for that purpose on doctor sylvan who
knowing the candidate's character maliciously sent him to me accordingly the young gentleman presented himself and without ceremony instantly made known his business thus i heerd sir you wanted somebody to teach the state school
though i have heerd tell of them but i can soon larn them
but if you are now wholly unacquainted with the dead languages it is impossible for you or any other talented man to learn them under four or five years pshoo foo i'll bet i larn one in three weeks try me sir
how many are there mister rapid it is utterly impossible but if you insist i will loan you a latin book that's your sort let's have it that's all i want fair play accordingly
i handed him a copy of historiae sacrae with which he soon went away saying
if twas only sich a thin patch of a book as that in a few weeks to my no small surprise mister solomon rapid again presented himself and drawing forth the book began with a triumphant expression of countenance well sir i have done the latin
done the latin yes
read it as fast as english yes as fast as english and i didn't find it hard at all may i try you on a page try away try away that's what i've come for
please read here then mister rapid and in order to give him a fair chance i pointed to the first lines of the first chapter
that sir and then he read thus in prinspo
translate render it render it how's that forehead more wrinkled why yes render it into english give me the meaning of it meaning staring full in my face his eyes like saucers
to assemble at mantua about whitsuntide and afterwards transferred it from mantua so that it is not yet known where he will or can fix it and we on our part either had to expect that we would be summoned also to the council or
to fear that we would be condemned unsummoned i was directed to compile and collect the articles of our doctrine in order that it might be plain in case of deliberation as to what and how far we would be both willing and able to yield to the papists
and in what points we intended to persevere and abide to the end i have accordingly compiled these articles and presented them to our side they have also been accepted and unanimously confessed by our side
and it has been resolved that in case the pope with his adherents should ever be so bold as seriously and in good faith without lying and cheating to hold a truly free legitimate christian council
as indeed he would be in duty bound to do they be publicly delivered in order to set forth the confession of our faith but though the romish court is so dreadfully afraid of a free christian council
and shuns the light so shamefully that it has entirely removed even from those who are on its side the hope that it will ever permit a free council much less that it will itself hold one whereat as is just
they many papists are greatly offended and have no little trouble on that account are disgusted with this negligence of the pope since they notice thereby that the pope would rather see all christendom perish and all souls damned
than suffer either himself or his adherents to be reformed even a little and his their tyranny to be limited nevertheless i have determined meanwhile to publish these articles in plain print
so that should i die before there would be a council as i fully expect and hope because the knaves who flee the light and shun the day take such wretched pains to delay and hinder the council those who live and remain after me
may have my testimony and confession to produce in addition to the confession which i have issued previously whereby up to this time i have abided and by god's grace will abide for what shall i say
how shall i complain i am still living writing preaching and lecturing daily and yet there are found such spiteful men not only among the adversaries but also false brethren that profess to be on our side
as dare to cite my writings and doctrine directly against myself and let me look on and listen although they know well that i teach otherwise and as wish to adorn their venom with my labor
and under my name to deceive and mislead the poor people good god alas what first will happen when i am dead indeed i ought to reply to everything while i am still living but again
how can i alone stop all the mouths of the devil especially of those as they all are poisoned who will not hear or notice what we write but solely exercise themselves with all diligence how they may most shamefully pervert and corrupt our
word in every letter these i let the devil answer
i often think of the good gerson who doubts whether anything good should be written and published if it is not done many souls are neglected who could be delivered
but if it is done the devil is there with malignant villainous tongues without number which envenom and pervert everything so that nevertheless the fruit the usefulness of the writings is prevented
yet what they gain thereby is manifest for while they have lied so shamefully against us and by means of lies wished to retain the people god has constantly advanced his work and been making their following ever smaller
and ours greater and by their lies has caused and still causes them to be brought to shame i must tell a story there was a doctor sent here to wittenberg from france
who said publicly before us that his king was sure and more than sure that among us there is no church no magistrate no married life but all live promiscuously as cattle and each one does as he pleases
imagine now how will those who by their writings have instilled such gross lies into the king and other countries as the pure truth look at us on that day before the judgment seat of christ christ
the lord and judge of us all knows well that they lie and have always lied his sentence they in turn must hear that i know certainly god convert to repentance those who can be converted
regarding the rest it will be said woe and alas eternally but to return to the subject i verily desire to see a truly christian council assembled some time
in order that many matters and persons might be helped not that we need it for our churches are now through god's grace so enlightened and equipped with the pure word and right use of the sacraments with knowledge of the various callings
and of right works that we on our part ask for no council and on such points have nothing better to hope or expect from a council but we see in the bishoprics everywhere so many parishes vacant and desolate
that one's heart would break and yet neither the bishops nor canons care how the poor people live or die for whom nevertheless christ has died and who are not permitted to hear him speak with them as the true shepherd with his sheep
this causes me to shudder and fear that at some time he may send a council of angels upon germany utterly destroying us like sodom and gomorrah because we so wantonly mock him with the council
besides such necessary ecclesiastical affairs there would be also in the political estate innumerable matters of great importance to improve there is the disagreement between the princes and the states
usury and avarice have burst in like a flood and have become lawful are defended with a show of right wantonness lewdness extravagance in dress gluttony gambling idle display
with all kinds of bad habits and wickedness insubordination of subjects of domestics and laborers of every trade also the exactions and most exorbitant selling prices of the peasants and who can enumerate all
have so increased that they cannot be rectified by ten councils and twenty diets if such chief matters of the spiritual and worldly estates as are contrary to god would be considered in the council
they would have all hands so full that the child's play and absurdity of long gowns official insignia large tonsures broad cinctures or sashes bishops or cardinals hats or maces and like jugglery
would in the mean time be forgotten if we first had performed god's command and order in the spiritual and secular estate we would find time enough to reform food clothing
but if we want to swallow such camels and instead strain at gnats let the beams stand and judge the motes we also might indeed be satisfied with the council therefore i have presented
few articles for we have without this so many commands of god to observe in the church the state and the family that we can never fulfil them what then is the use
or what does it profit that many decrees and statutes thereon are made in the council especially when these chief matters commanded of god are neither regarded nor observed just as though he were bound to honor our jugglery
as a reward of our treading his solemn commandments under foot but our sins weigh upon us and cause god not to be gracious to us for we do not repent and besides wish to defend every abomination
o lord jesus christ do thou thyself convoke a council and deliver thy servants by thy glorious advent the pope and his adherents are done for they will have none of thee
do thou then help us who are poor and needy who sigh to thee and beseech thee earnestly according to the grace which thou hast given us through thy holy ghost who liveth and reigneth with thee and the father
finally for the sake of those to whom nothing can be stated so well but that they misunderstand and distort it we must add a word in case they can understand even that there are very many persons who when they hear of this liberty of faith
straightway turn it into an occasion of licence they think that everything is now lawful for them and do not choose to show themselves free men and christians in any other way than by their contempt and reprehension of ceremonies of traditions
of human laws as if they were christians merely because they refuse to fast on stated days or eat flesh when others fast or omit the customary prayers scoffing at the precepts of men
but utterly passing over all the rest that belongs to the christian religion on the other hand they are most pertinaciously resisted by those who strive after salvation solely by their observance of and reverence for ceremonies
as if they would be saved merely because they fast on stated days or abstain from flesh or make formal prayers talking loudly of the precepts of the church and of the fathers and not caring a straw about those things which belong to our genuine faith
both these parties are plainly culpable in that while they neglect matters which are of weight and necessary for salvation they contend noisily about such as are without weight and not necessary
how much more rightly does the apostle paul teach us to walk in the middle path condemning either extreme and saying let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth
you see here how the apostle blames those who not from religious feeling but in mere contempt neglect and rail at ceremonial observances and teaches them not to despise since this knowledge puffeth up
again he teaches the pertinacious upholders of these things not to judge their opponents for neither party observes towards the other that charity which edifieth in this matter we must listen to scripture
which teaches us to turn aside neither to the right hand nor to the left but to follow those right precepts of the lord which rejoice the heart for just as a man is not righteous merely because he serves and is devoted to works and ceremonial rites
so neither will he be accounted righteous merely because he neglects and despises them it is not from works that we are set free by the faith of christ but from the belief in works that is from foolishly presuming
to seek justification through works faith redeems our consciences makes them upright and preserves them since by it we recognise the truth that justification does not depend on our works
although good works neither can nor ought to be absent just as we cannot exist without food and drink and all the functions of this mortal body still it is not on them that our justification is based but on faith
and yet they ought not on that account to be despised or neglected thus in this world we are compelled by the needs of this bodily life but we are not hereby justified my kingdom is not hence nor of this world says christ
but he does not say my kingdom is not here nor in this world paul too says though we walk in the flesh we do not war after the flesh
and the life which i now live in the flesh i live by the faith of the son of god
thus our doings life and being in works and ceremonies are done from the necessities of this life and with the motive of governing our bodies
but by the faith of the son of god
and set these two classes of men before his eyes he may meet with hardened and obstinate ceremonialists who like deaf adders refuse to listen to the truth of liberty and cry up enjoin and urge on us their ceremonies
as if they could justify us without faith such were the jews of old who would not understand that they might act well these men we must resist
and be bold to give them offence lest by this impious notion of theirs they should deceive many along with themselves before the eyes of these men it is expedient to eat flesh to break fasts
and to do in behalf of the liberty of faith things which they hold to be the greatest sins we must say of them let them alone they be blind leaders of the blind
in this way paul also would not have titus circumcised though these men urged it and christ defended the apostles who had plucked ears of corn on the sabbath day and many like instances
or else we may meet with simple minded and ignorant persons weak in the faith as the apostle calls them who are as yet unable to apprehend that liberty of faith even if willing to do so these we must spare
lest they should be offended we must bear with their infirmity till they shall be more fully instructed for since these men do not act thus from hardened malice but only from weakness of faith
therefore in order to avoid giving them offence we must keep fasts and do other things which they consider necessary this is required of us by charity which injures no one but serves all men
but that of their pastors who by the snares and weapons of their own traditions have brought them into bondage and wounded their souls when they ought to have been set free and healed by the teaching of faith and liberty thus the apostle says
if meat make my brother to offend i will eat no flesh while the world standeth
and again i know and am persuaded by the lord jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean to him it is unclean it is evil for that man who eateth with offence
thus though we ought boldly to resist those teachers of tradition and though the laws of the pontiffs by which they make aggressions on the people of god deserve sharp reproof yet we must spare the timid crowd
who are held captive by the laws of those impious tyrants till they are set free fight vigorously against the wolves but on behalf of the sheep not against the sheep and this you may do
by inveighing against the laws and lawgivers and yet at the same time observing these laws with the weak lest they be offended until they shall themselves recognise the tyranny and understand their own liberty if you wish to use your liberty
do it secretly as paul says hast thou faith have it to thyself before god
but take care not to use it in the presence of the weak on the other hand in the presence of tyrants and obstinate opposers use your liberty in their despite and with the utmost pertinacity
that they too may understand that they are tyrants and their laws useless for justification nay that they had no right to establish such laws
since then we cannot live in this world without ceremonies and works since the hot and inexperienced period of youth has need of being restrained and protected by such bonds
and since every one is bound to keep under his own body by attention to these things therefore the minister of christ must be prudent and faithful in so ruling and teaching the people of christ in all these matters that no root of bitterness may spring up among them and
so many be defiled as paul warned the hebrews that is that they may not lose the faith and begin to be defiled by a belief in works as the means of justification
this is a thing which easily happens and defiles very many unless faith be constantly inculcated along with works it is impossible to avoid this evil when faith is passed over in silence and only the ordinances of men are taught
as has been done hitherto by the pestilent impious and soul destroying traditions of our pontiffs and opinions of our theologians an infinite number of souls have been drawn down to hell by these snares so that you may recognise the work of antichrist
in brief as poverty is imperilled amid riches honesty amid business humility amid honours abstinence amid feasting purity amid pleasures
so is justification by faith imperilled among ceremonies solomon says can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned
business honours pleasures feastings so must we among ceremonies that is among perils just as infant boys have the greatest need of being cherished in the bosoms and by the care of girls that they may not die
and yet when they are grown there is peril to their salvation in living among girls so inexperienced and fervid young men require to be kept in and restrained by the barriers of ceremonies even were they of iron
lest their weak minds should rush headlong into vice and yet it would be death to them to persevere in believing that they can be justified by these things they must rather be taught that they have been thus imprisoned
not with the purpose of their being justified or gaining merit in this way but in order that they might avoid wrong doing and be more easily instructed in that righteousness which is by faith
a thing which the headlong character of youth would not bear unless it were put under restraint hence in the christian life ceremonies are to be no otherwise looked upon than as builders and workmen look upon those preparations for building or working
which are not made with any view of being permanent or anything in themselves but only because without them there could be no building and no work when the structure is completed they are laid aside
but set the highest value on them a belief in them we do contemn because no one thinks that they constitute a real and permanent structure if any one were so manifestly out of his senses
as to have no other object in life but that of setting up these preparations with all possible expense diligence and perseverance while he never thought of the structure itself but pleased himself and made his boast of these useless preparations and props
should we not all pity his madness and think that at the cost thus thrown away some great building might have been raised thus too we do not contemn works and ceremonies nay we set the highest value on them
but we contemn the belief in works which no one should consider to constitute true righteousness as do those hypocrites who employ and throw away their whole life in the pursuit of works and yet never attain to that
for the sake of which the works are done as the apostle says they are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth
they appear to wish to build they make preparations and yet they never do build and thus they continue in a show of godliness but never attain to its power meanwhile they please themselves with this zealous pursuit
and even dare to judge all others whom they do not see adorned with such a glittering display of works while if they had been imbued with faith they might have done great things for their own and others salvation at the same cost
which they now waste in abuse of the gifts of god but since human nature and natural reason as they call it are naturally superstitious and quick to believe that justification can be attained by any laws or works proposed to them
and since nature is also exercised and confirmed in the same view by the practice of all earthly lawgivers she can never of her own power free herself from this bondage to works and come to a recognition of the liberty of faith
we have therefore need to pray that god will lead us and make us taught of god that is ready to learn from god and will himself as he has promised write his law in our hearts
otherwise there is no hope for us for unless he himself teach us inwardly this wisdom hidden in a mystery nature cannot but condemn it and judge it to be heretical she takes offence at it and it seems folly to her
just as we see that it happened of old in the case of the prophets and apostles and just as blind and impious pontiffs with their flatterers do now in my case and that of those who are like me upon whom
together with ourselves may god at length have mercy and lift up the light of his countenance upon them
o how canst thou renounce the boundless store of charms which nature to her vot'ry yields the warbling woodland the resounding shore the pomp of groves and garniture of fields
all that the genial ray of morning gilds and all that echoes to the song of even all that the mountain's shelt'ring bosom shields and all the dread magnificence of heaven
o how canst thou renounce and hope to be forgiven these charms shall work thy soul's eternal health and love and gentleness and joy impart the minstrel
chose one that winding over the heights afforded more extensive views and greater variety of romantic scenery
whom he found botanizing in the wood near his chateau and who when he was told the purpose of saint aubert's visit expressed a degree of concern such as his friend had thought it was scarcely possible for him to feel on any similar occasion
it would have been the pleasure of accompanying you on this little tour i do not often offer compliments you may therefore believe me when i say that i shall look for your return with impatience the travellers proceeded on their journey as they ascended the heights
from which melancholy reverie emily first awoke and her young fancy struck with the grandeur of the objects around gradually yielded to delightful impressions the road now descended into glens confined by stupendous walls of rock
the way led to the lofty cliffs from whence the landscape was seen extending in all its magnificence emily could not restrain her transport as she looked over the pine forests of the mountains upon the vast plains
that enriched with woods towns blushing vines and plantations of almonds palms and olives stretched along till their various colours melted in distance into one harmonious hue that seemed to unite earth with heaven
through the whole of this glorious scene the majestic garonne wandered descending from its source among the pyrenees
which gives to every object a mellower tint and breathes a sacred charm over all around they had provided against part of the evil to be encountered from a want of convenient inns
by carrying a stock of provisions in the carriage so that they might take refreshment on any pleasant spot in the open air and pass the nights wherever they should happen to meet with a comfortable cottage for the mind also they had provided
though its white foam was long seen amid the darkness of the pines below this was a spot well suited for rest and the travellers alighted to dine while the mules were unharnessed to browse on the savoury herbs that enriched this summit
the situation of great towns and the boundaries of provinces which science rather than the eye enabled him to describe notwithstanding this occupation when he had talked awhile he suddenly became silent thoughtful
to a favourite one of the late madame saint aubert within view of the fishing house they both observed this and thought how delighted she would have been with the present landscape while they knew that her eyes must never never more open upon this world
or even whether they were passable and saint aubert who did not intend to travel after sun set asked what village they could reach about that time the muleteer calculated that they could easily reach mateau which was in their present road
but that if they took a road that sloped more to the south towards rousillon there was a hamlet which he thought they could gain before the evening shut in saint aubert after some hesitation
and michael having finished his meal and harnessed his mules again set forward but soon stopped and saint aubert saw him doing homage to a cross that stood on a rock impending over their way
which it made the eye dizzy to look down emily was terrified almost to fainting and saint aubert apprehending still greater danger from suddenly stopping the driver was compelled to sit quietly
and discretion of the mules who seemed to possess a greater portion of the latter quality than their master for they carried the travellers safely into the valley and there stopped upon the brink of the rivulet that watered it
leaving the splendour of extensive prospects they now entered this narrow valley screened by rocks on rocks piled as if by magic spell here scorch'd by lightnings there with ivy green
had he then existed for his canvas saint aubert impressed by the romantic character of the place almost expected to see banditti start from behind some projecting rock and he kept his hand upon the arms
with which he always travelled as they advanced the valley opened its savage features gradually softened and towards evening they were among heathy mountains stretched in far perspective
except the fir was all the human habitation that yet appeared along the bottom of this valley the most vivid verdure was spread and in the little hollow recesses of the mountains under the shade of the oak and chestnut
its last light gleamed upon the water and heightened the rich yellow and purple tints of the heath and broom that overspread the mountains saint aubert enquired of michael the distance to the hamlet he had mentioned but the man could not with certainty tell
and emily began to fear that he had mistaken the road here was no human being to assist or direct them they had left the shepherd and his cabin far behind and the scene became so obscured in twilight
a glow of the horizon still marked the west and this was of some little use to the travellers michael seemed endeavouring to keep up his courage by singing his music however was not of a kind to disperse melancholy
and saint aubert at length discovered it to be a vesper hymn to his favourite saint they travelled on sunk in that thoughtful melancholy with which twilight and solitude impress the mind
michael had now ended his ditty and nothing was heard but the drowsy murmur of the breeze among the woods and its light flutter as it blew freshly into the carriage they were at length roused by the sound of fire arms
his gun was slung across his shoulders the hunter's horn hung from his belt and in his hand was a small pike which as he held it added to the manly grace of his figure and assisted the agility of his steps
after a moment's hesitation saint aubert again stopped the carriage and waited till he came up that they might enquire concerning the hamlet they were in search of the stranger informed him that it was only half a league distant
that he was going thither himself and would readily shew the way saint aubert thanked him for the offer and pleased with his chevalier like air and open countenance
which the stranger with an acknowledgment declined adding that he would keep pace with the mules but i fear you will be wretchedly accommodated said he the inhabitants of these mountains are a simple people who are not only without the luxuries of life
but almost destitute of what in other places are held to be its necessaries i perceive you are not one of its inhabitants sir
the carriage drove on and the increasing dusk made the travellers very thankful that they had a guide the frequent glens too that now opened among the mountains would likewise have added to their perplexity
emily as she looked up one of these saw something at a great distance like a bright cloud in the air what light is yonder sir said she saint aubert looked and perceived that it was the snowy summit of a mountain
so much higher than any around it that it still reflected the sun's rays while those below lay in deep shade at length the village lights were seen to twinkle through the dusk
and soon after some cottages were discovered in the valley or rather were seen by reflection in the stream on whose margin they stood and which still gleamed with the evening light
but not any sort of house of public reception the stranger however
for which further civility saint aubert returned his thanks and said that as the village was so near he would alight and walk with him emily followed slowly in the carriage
this dress too gives me an ostensible business and procures me that respect from the people which would perhaps be refused to a lonely stranger who had no visible motive for coming among them i admire your taste said saint aubert
and if i was a younger man should like to pass a few weeks in your way exceedingly i too am a wanderer but neither my plan nor pursuits are exactly like yours i go in search of health as much as of amusement
saint aubert sighed and paused and then seeming to recollect himself he resumed if i can hear of a tolerable road that shall afford decent accommodation it is my intention to pass into rousillon
and along the sea shore to languedoc you sir seem to be acquainted with the country and can perhaps give me information on the subject the stranger said that what information he could give was entirely at his service
and then mentioned a road rather more to the east which led to a town whence it would be easy to proceed into rousillon they now arrived at the village and commenced their search for a cottage that would afford a night's lodging
in several which they entered ignorance poverty and mirth seemed equally to prevail and the owners eyed saint aubert with a mixture of curiosity and timidity nothing like a bed could be found
and he had ceased to enquire for one when emily joined him who observed the languor of her father's countenance and lamented that he had taken a road so ill provided with the comforts necessary for an invalid other cottages
which they examined seemed somewhat less savage than the former consisting of two rooms if such they could be called the first of these occupied by mules and pigs the second by the family which generally consisted of six or eight children
with their parents who slept on beds of skins and dried beech leaves spread upon a mud floor here light was admitted and smoke discharged through an aperture in the roof and here the scent of spirits for the travelling smugglers who haunted the pyrenees
had made this rude people familiar with the use of liquors was generally perceptible enough emily turned from such scenes and looked at her father with anxious tenderness which the young stranger seemed to observe
but refused to accept it till the young stranger would take no denial do not give me the pain of knowing sir said he that an invalid like you lies on hard skins while i sleep in a bed besides sir
your refusal wounds my pride i must believe you think my offer unworthy your acceptance let me shew you the way i have no doubt my landlady can accommodate this young lady also
for he had not once offered the room for emily but she thought not of herself and the animated smile she gave him told how much she felt herself obliged for the preference of her father on their way
the stranger whose name was valancourt stepped on first to speak to his hostess and she came out to welcome saint aubert into a cottage much superior to any he had seen this good woman seemed very willing to accommodate the strangers
who were soon compelled to accept the only two beds in the place eggs and milk were the only food the cottage afforded but against scarcity of provisions saint aubert had provided
and he requested valancourt to stay and partake with him of less homely fare an invitation which was readily accepted and they passed an hour in intelligent conversation saint aubert was much pleased with the manly frankness simplicity
and keen susceptibility to the grandeur of nature which his new acquaintance discovered and indeed he had often been heard to say that without a certain simplicity of heart this taste could not exist in any strong degree
she persisted in refusing to let the animals have the same bed chamber with her children this was a tender point with the muleteer his honour was wounded when his mules were treated with disrespect and he would have received a blow perhaps with more meekness
i never knew them behave themselves amiss above once or twice in my life and then they had good reason for doing so once indeed they kicked at a boy's leg that lay asleep in the stable and broke it but i told them they were out there and by saint anthony
i believe they understood me for they never did so again he concluded this eloquent harangue with protesting that they should share with him go where he would
but this she thought it her duty to oppose and she felt it to be her inclination to disappoint the muleteer valancourt however was positive and the tedious affair was at length settled
and valancourt to his station at the door which at this mild season he preferred to a close cabin and a bed of skins
for rousillon which he hoped to reach before night fall
though he was this day also frequently obliged to alight
and to climb the steep and flinty mountain the wonderful sublimity and variety of the prospects repaid him for all this and the enthusiasm with which they were viewed by his young companions heightened his own
and awakened a remembrance of all the delightful emotions of his early days when the sublime charms of nature were first unveiled to him he found great pleasure in conversing with valancourt and in listening to his ingenuous remarks
the fire and simplicity of his manners seemed to render him a characteristic figure in the scenes around them and saint aubert discovered in his sentiments the justness and the dignity of an elevated mind unbiased by intercourse with the world
he perceived that his opinions were formed rather than imbibed were more the result of thought than of learning of the world he seemed to know nothing for he believed well of all mankind and this opinion gave him the reflected image of his own heart
saint aubert as he sometimes lingered to examine the wild plants in his path often looked forward with pleasure to emily and valancourt as they strolled on together he with a countenance of animated delight
pointing to her attention some grand feature of the scene and she listening and observing with a look of tender seriousness that spoke the elevation of her mind they appeared like two lovers who had never strayed beyond these their native mountains
whose situation had secluded them from the frivolities of common life whose ideas were simple and grand like the landscapes among which they moved and who knew no other happiness than in the union of pure and affectionate hearts
saint aubert smiled and sighed at the romantic picture of felicity his fancy drew
deprave the taste corrupt the heart and love cannot exist in a heart that has lost the meek dignity of innocence virtue and taste are nearly the same for virtue is little more than active taste
where selfishness dissipation and insincerity supply the place of tenderness simplicity and truth it was near noon when the travellers having arrived at a piece of steep and dangerous road alighted to walk
the road wound up an ascent that was clothed with wood and instead of following the carriage they entered the refreshing shade a dewy coolness was diffused upon the air which with the bright verdure of turf that grew under the trees
rendered this a most delicious retreat sometimes the thick foliage excluded all view of the country at others it admitted some partial catches of the distant scenery
valancourt often dropped suddenly from the most animating vivacity into fits of deep musing and there was sometimes an unaffected melancholy in his smile which emily could not avoid understanding for her heart was interested in the sentiment it spoke
while the road wound far away over the cliff above valancourt called loudly to michael but heard no voice except his own echoing among the rocks and his various efforts to regain the road were equally unsuccessful
he looked into the hut but no person was there and the eldest of the boys told him that their father was with his flocks and their mother was gone down into the vale but would be back presently as he stood considering what was further to be done
meanwhile
fastened between two pines which overshadowed it till valancourt whose steps they had observed should return the eldest of the children desisted from his play and stood still to observe the strangers
saint aubert looked with pleasure upon this picture of infantine simplicity till it brought to his remembrance his own boys whom he had lost about the age of these and their lamented mother and he sunk into a thoughtfulness which emily observing
and then tried to dissipate the melancholy reflections that lingered in his mind while she sung valancourt approached who was unwilling to interrupt her and paused at a little distance to listen when she had concluded
he joined the party and told them that he had found michael as well as a way by which he thought they could ascend the cliff to the carriage he pointed to the woody steeps above which saint aubert surveyed with an anxious eye he was already wearied by his walk and this ascent was formidable to him
he thought however it would be less toilsome than the long and broken road and he determined to attempt it but emily ever watchful of his ease proposing that he should rest and dine before they proceeded further
when they saw a young woman join the children and caress and weep over them the travellers interested by her distress stopped to observe her she took the youngest of the children in her arms and perceiving the strangers hastily dried her tears and proceeded to the cottage
learned that her husband who was a shepherd and lived here in the summer months to watch over the flocks he led to feed upon these mountains had lost on the preceding night his little all a gang of gipsies who had for some time infested the neighbourhood
had driven away several of his master's sheep jacques added the shepherd's wife had saved a little money and had bought a few sheep with it and now they must go to his master for those that are stolen
and what is worse than all his master when he comes to know how it is will trust him no longer with the care of his flocks for he is a hard man and then what is to become of our children the innocent countenance of the woman
and valancourt convinced that it was true asked eagerly what was the value of the stolen sheep on hearing which he turned away with a look of disappointment saint aubert put some money into her hand emily too gave something from her little purse
that it was a sum very little short of all he had about him he was perplexed and distressed this sum then said he to himself would make this poor family completely happy it is in my power to give it to make them completely happy
for a moment he stood unwilling to forego the luxury of raising a family from ruin to happiness yet considering the difficulties of pursuing his journey with so small a sum as would be left while he was in this state of perplexity
the shepherd himself appeared his children ran to meet him
he threw down all the money he had except a very few louis
their grey tints were well contrasted by the bright hues of the plants and wild flowers that grew in their fractured sides and were deepened by the gloom of the pines and cedars that waved above the steeps below
with its blueish smoke curling high in the air on every side appeared the majestic summits of the pyrenees some exhibiting tremendous crags of marble whose appearance was changing every instant as the varying lights fell upon their surface
others still higher displaying only snowy points while their lower steeps were covered almost invariably with forests of pine larch and oak that stretched down to the vale
this was one of the narrow vallies that open from the pyrenees into the country of rousillon and whose green pastures and cultivated beauty form a decided and wonderful contrast to the romantic grandeur that environs it
through a vista of the mountains appeared the lowlands of rousillon tinted with the blue haze of distance as they united with the waters of the mediterranean where on a promontory which marked the boundary of the shore stood a lonely beacon
over which were seen circling flights of sea fowl beyond appeared now and then a stealing sail white with the sun beam and whose progress was perceivable by its approach to the light house
immediately opposite to the spot where the travellers rested a rocky pass opened toward gascony here no sign of cultivation appeared the rocks of granite that screened the glen rose abruptly from their base and stretched their barren points to the clouds
this spot seemed the very haunt of banditti and emily as she looked down upon it almost expected to see them stealing out from some hollow cave to look for their prey soon after an object not less terrific struck her a gibbet
standing on a point of rock near the entrance of the pass and immediately over one of the crosses she had before observed these were hieroglyphics that told a plain and dreadful story
that they might with certainty reach rousillon before night fall it was necessary however that saint aubert should take some refreshment and seating themselves on the short dry turf they opened the basket of provisions while
by breezy murmurs cool'd broad o'er their heads the verdant cedars wave and high palmetos lift their graceful shade they draw ethereal soul
there drink reviving gales profusely breathing from the piney groves and vales of fragrance there at a distance hear the roaring floods and cataracts thomson
that he seemed to have forgotten he had any further to go having concluded their simple repast they gave a long farewell look to the scene and again began to ascend saint aubert rejoiced when he reached the carriage which emily entered with him
but valancourt willing to take a more extensive view of the enchanting country into which they were about to descend than he could do from a carriage loosened his dogs and once more bounded with them along the banks of the road
allowed him to overtake them with ease whenever a scene of uncommon magnificence appeared
sometimes made the chaise wait while emily went to the neighbouring cliff it was evening when they descended the lower alps that bind rousillon and form a majestic barrier round that charming country leaving it open only on the east to the mediterranean
the gay tints of cultivation once more beautified the landscape for the lowlands were coloured with the richest hues which a luxuriant climate and an industrious people can awaken into life groves of orange and lemon perfumed the air
they met with simple but neat accommodation and would have passed a happy evening after the toils and the delights of this day had not the approaching separation thrown a gloom over their spirit
since he was now nearly recovered and had no longer a pretence for continuing with his new friends resolved to leave them here
but did not repeat the invitation and valancourt had resolution enough to forego the temptation of accepting it
on the following morning therefore they were to part
and valancourt to explore new scenes among the mountains on his return home
saint aubert's manner towards him was affectionate though grave and emily was serious though she made frequent efforts to appear cheerful
gardening notes during the past month almost every paper with the exception of the agricultural journals has installed an agricultural department containing short articles by lord northcliffe
or some one else in the office who had an unoccupied typewriter telling the american citizen how to start and hold the interest of a small garden the seed catalogue has become the catechism of the patriot
and if you don't like to read the brusk prosy directions on planting as given there you may find the same thing done in verse in your favorite poetry magazine or a special department in the plumbing age under the heading
the plumber's garden how and when to plant
appear to be conducted by professionals for the benefit of the layman which seems to me to be a rather one sided way of going about the thing obviously the suggestions should come from a layman himself
in the nature of warnings to others i am qualified to put forth such an article because of two weeks service in my own back yard doing my bit for peter henderson
i would be willing to be quoted as saying that nature is wonderful in fact i would take it as a personal favor and would feel that anything that i might do in the future for nature
would be little enough in return for the special work she went to all the trouble of doing for me but all of this is on condition that something of mine grows into manhood otherwise nature can go her way and i go mine
just as we have gone up till now however although i am an amateur i shall have to adopt in my writing the tone of a professional or i shall never get any one to believe what i say
if therefore from now on i sound a bit cold and unfriendly you will realize that a professional agricultural writer has to have some dignity about his stuff and that beneath my rough exterior
i am a pleasant enough sort of person to meet socially preparing the ground for the garden this is one of the most important things that the young gardener is called upon to do in fact a great many young gardeners
never do anything further some inherited weakness something they never realized they had before may crop out during this process weak back tendency of shoulder blades to ossification
all are apt to be discovered for the first time during the course of one day's digging if on the morning following the first attempt to prepare the ground for planting you are able to walk in a semi erect position
as far as the bathtub and without outside assistance
as if you were impersonating an old colored waiter with the lumbago but there are two schools each with its own theory as to the less painful method one advocates bending over without once raising up
until the whole row is dug the others of whom i must confess that i am one feel that it is better to draw the body
the necessity for work of such a strenuous nature in the mere preliminaries of the process of planting a garden is due to the fact that the average back yard has up till the present time
been behaving less like a garden than anything else in the world you might think that a back yard possessed of an ordinary amount of decency and civic pride would at some time during its career have said to itself
now look here i may some day be called upon to be a garden and the least i can do is to get myself into some sort of shape so that when the time comes i will be fairly ready to receive a seed or two but no
year in and year out they have been drifting along in a fools paradise accumulating stones and queer indistinguishable cans and things
quarries iron mines
anything but gardens i have saved in a box all the things that i have dug from my back yard and when i have them assembled all i will need will be a good engine to make them into a pretty fairly decent runabout
things that perhaps in their hey dey were rather stunning but which have now assumed an air of indifference as if to say oh call me anything old fellow ice pick mainspring cigar lighter
anything i don't care i tell you it's enough to make a man stop and think but there i mustn't get sentimental in preparing the soil for planting you will need several tools
dynamite would be a beautiful thing to use but it would have a tendency to get the dirt into the front hall and track up the stairs this not being practicable there is no other way but for you to get at it with a fork oh don be silly
a spade and a rake if you have an empty and detached furnace boiler you might bring that along to fill with the stones you will dig up if it is a small garden you ought not to have to empty the boiler more than three or four times
any neighbor who is building a stone house will be glad to contract with you for the stones and those that are left over after he has got his house built can be sold to another neighbor who is building another stone house
your market is limited only by the number of neighbors who are building stone houses on the first day when you find yourself confronted by a stretch of untouched ground which is to be turned over technical phrase meaning to turn over
you may be somewhat at a loss to know where to begin such indecision is only natural and should cause no worry on the part of the young gardener it is something we all have to go through with
you may feel that it would be futile and unsystematic to go about digging up a forkful here and a shovelful there tossing the earth at random in the hope that in due time you will get the place dug up and so it would
the thing to do is to decide just where you want your garden and what its dimensions are to be this will have necessitated a previous drawing up of a chart showing just what is to be planted and where
as this chart will be the cause of considerable hard feeling in the family circle usually precipitating a fist fight over the number of rows of onions to be set out i will not touch on that in this article
there are some things too intimate for even a professional agriculturist to write of i will say however that those in the family who are standing out for onions might much better save their time and feelings
by pretending to give in and then later in the day sneaking out and slipping the sprouts in by themselves in some spot where they will know where to find them again having decided on the general plan and dimensions of the plot
gather the family about as if for a corner stone dedication and then make a rather impressive ceremony of driving in the first stake by getting your little boy to sing the first twelve words of some patriotic air if he doesn't know the first twelve
it may seem that i have spent most of my time in advice on preparing the ground for planting such may well be the case as that was as far as i got i then found a man who likes to do those things
and whose doctor has told him that he ought to be out of doors all the time he is an italian and charges really very little when you consider what he accomplishes
personally i class roast beef with watercress and vanilla cornstarch pudding as tasty articles of diet it undoubtedly has more than the required number of calories
but for all that i can't seem to feel that i am having a good time while i am eating it it stimulates the same nerve centers in me that a lantern slide lecture on palestine the old and the new does
however i have noticed that there are people who are not bored by it in fact i have seen them deliberately order it in a restaurant when they had the choice of something else so i thought that the only fair thing i could do would be to look into the matter and see if
in this great city there weren't some different ways of serving roast beef to vary its monotony roast beef is not the same price in all eating places what makes the difference
that makes it distinctive from the special to day roast beef and mashed potatoes of the bowery restaurant to answer these questions i started out on a tour of the representative eating places
of some of our best known strata of society and whatever my conclusions are you may be sure that they are thoroughly inexpert first i tried out what is known as the bay state lunch so called because on thursdays
they have a fishcake special it is one of the hundreds of self serving lunchrooms where you approach the marble counter and give your order in a low tone to a man in a barber's coat and then repeat it at intervals of one minute
each time louder and each time to a different man until you are forced to point to a tub of salmon salad and say some of that for which your ticket is punched and you are allowed to take your portion and nurse it on the over developed arm of a chair
here the roast beef shot through the punch and judy arrangement in the wall a piece of meat about as large around as a man's size mitten steeping in its own gravy
where business men are wont to gather for luncheon men who pride themselves on their acumen and adherence to the principles of efficiency the place has a french name
when i was a boy i used to have to dig escarole out of the front lawn with a trowel so that the grass could have a chance for seventy five cents the meat bulked a little larger than at the bay state lunch but when the fat had been cut away and trimmed off
the salvage was about the size of a boy's mitten as for the taste the only difference that i could detect was that one had been hot and the other cold and incidentally the waiter had some bosom friends in the next room
who fascinated him so that it was all i could do to make him see that if he didn't come around to me once in a while just as a matter of form there would be no way for me to tip him beef and salad plus tip ninety cents
busy home restaurant on a black board in front was written roast beef mashed potatoes and coffee ten cents my old hunger again seized me i said to myself look here be a man this thing is getting the best of you
but before i knew it i was inside and seated at an oilcloth covered table saying in a hoarse voice roast beef the waiter was dressed in an informal costume with his shirt sleeves rolled up
but he smiled genially when he took my order and was back with it in two minutes the article itself was of the regulation size cut somewhat thinner perhaps and bordering on the gray in hue but undoubtedly roast beef
it too had an affinity for its own gravy and hid itself modestly under an avalanche of mashed potatoes a cup of coffee was also included in the ten cents initial expense but i somehow wasn't coffee thirsty that night
and so didn't sample it but i did help myself to the plate piled high with fresh bread which was left in front of me all in all it was what i should call a representative roast beef dinner and i got more than ten cents worth of calories i know
but so far i had kept below the fourteenth street belt in my investigations roast beef is a cosmopolitan habit and knows no arbitrary boundaries so i went uptown into one of the larger of our largest hotels
as to be represented by a different assemblyman here i felt would be the test could roast beef come back surrounded by glittering chandeliers and rich tapestries snowy table linen and silver service
here was the chance for the ordinary roast beef to become a veritable dainty with some character some distinctive touch that should lift it above all that roast beef has ever meant before i entered the dining room in high hopes
clad in a walking suit of virile tweed i considered myself respectably dressed not ostentatiously respectable mind you but since most of the other diners were in evening dress rather distingue i thought
but apparently the hotel retainers weren't trained to look through a rough exterior and find the sterling qualities beneath they looked through my rough exterior all right but they didn't stop at my sterling qualities
they looked right through to the man behind me and gave him the signal that there was a seat for him not to be outdone however i got my place in the sun by cleverly tripping my rival as he passed me so that he fell into the fountain arrangement
five minutes later another man placed a knife and spoon at my plate later in the evening a boy with a basket of rolls wandered by and deposited one on my table with a pair of pincers personally i was rather glad that it was working out this way
but i might have really been in a hurry for my dinner it wasn't long as the crow flies before one of the third assistant waiters unloosened enough to drop round and see if there was anything else i wanted besides one roll and a knife and spoon
i looked over the menu as if i were in a pretty captious mood and then with the air of an epicure who has tasted to the dregs all the condiments of arabia and whose jaded palate refuses to thrill any longer i ordered
that looked enough sight better than his but there is no use in making a scene when it can be avoided during the next twenty minutes the orchestra played once and i ate my roll then the roast beef came on a silver platter
with a silver cover it was placed before me under the best possible scenic conditions but the thing that met my gaze when the cover was lifted might just as well have been the same property piece of roast beef
that was keeping company with a dab of mashed potato in the bay state lunch it had a trifle more fat was just a shade pinker and perhaps a micrometer could have detected a bit more bulk but so far as i was concerned
or so far as the calories were concerned it was the same i won't say that it was the same as the roast beef special of the bowery restaurant because the service in the bowery restaurant was infinitely better as a fitting garniture to such a dish
there was a corsage of watercress draped on the corner of the salver at any rate it could be said for it that it was not intoxicating and so could never cause any real misery in this world
i nibbled at my roast beef but my spirit was broken i had gone through a week of self denial ordering roast beef when i craved edibles eating at restaurants while my family waited for me at home
and here was the result of my researches roast beef is roast beef and nothing can prevent it from the ten cent order of the busy home restaurant up through to the piece i was then eating it was the same grim reality
the only justification for a difference in price being a silver salver or a waiter in a tuxedo but i said to myself eighty cents isn't so much at that
this quite reconciled me until my check was brought there added to the initial expense of eighty cents was the upkeep such as
and to this must be added the modest fee of twenty cents to the waiter and ten cents to the hat boy who gave me the wrong hat total expense for one piece of roast beef
these investigations may not prove to be much of a contribution to modern science or economics i doubt if they are ever incorporated in any textbook even if it should be a textbook on this very subject
but i must take credit to myself for one thing
it is not generally known that the newt although one of the smallest of our north american animals
from much lying in a research posture on my stomach over the inclosure in which they were confined i found myself developing what i feared might be rudimentary creepers
and so late this autumn i stood erect and walked into my house where i immediately set about the compilation of the notes i had made so much for the non technical introduction
in studying the more intimate phases of newt life one is chiefly impressed with the methods by means of which the males force their attentions upon the females with matrimony as an object for the newt is after all
only a newt and has his weaknesses just as any of the rest of us and i for one would not have it different
the peculiar thing about a newt's courtship is its restraint it is carried on at all times with a minimum distance of fifty paces newt measure between the male and the female
some of the bolder males may now and then attempt to overstep the bounds of good sportsmanship and crowd in to forty five paces but such tactics are frowned upon by the rules committee to the eye of an uninitiated observer
the pair might be dancing a few of the more open figures of the minuet the means employed by the males to draw the attention and win the affection of those of the opposite sex females
are varied and extremely strategic until the valuable researches by strudlehoff in eighteen eighty seven in his entwickelungsmechanik no one had been able to ascertain just what it was that the male newt did
to make the female see anything in him worth throwing herself away on it had been observed that the most personally unattractive newt could advance to within fifty paces of a female of his acquaintance and
in no uncertain terms indicate her willingness to go through with the marriage ceremony at an early date it was strudlehoff who discovered
questionable taste on his part without doubt but all is fair in pathological love that the male during the courting season the season opens on the tenth of march and extends through the following february
to the flash of a diamond scarfpin in a red necktie this glow according to strudlehoff so fascinates the female with its air of elegance and indication of wealth that she immediately falls a victim to its lure
but the little creature true to her sex instinct does not at once give evidence that her morale has been shattered she affects a coyness and lack of interest by hitching herself sideways along the bottom of the aquarium
with her head turned over her right shoulder away from the swain a trained ear might even detect her whistling in an indifferent manner the male in the meantime
is flashing his gleamer frantically two blocks away and is performing all sorts of attractive feats calculated to bring the lady newt to terms i have seen a male in the stress of his handicap courtship stand on his fore feet
gesticulating in amorous fashion with his hind feet in the air
recounts having observed a distinct and deliberate undulation of the body beginning with the shoulders and ending at the filament of the tail which might well have been the origin of what is known to day in scientific circles as the shimmy
the object seems to be the same except that in the case of the newt it is the male who is the active agent in order to test the power of observation in the male during these manuvers i carefully removed the female
for whose benefit he was undulating and put in her place in slow succession another but less charming female a paper weight of bronze shaped like a newt and finally a common rubber eraser
from the distance at which the courtship was being carried on the male who was it must be admitted a bit near sighted congenitally was unable to detect the change in personnel and continued
even in the presence of the rubber eraser to gyrate and undulate in a most conscientious manner still under the impression that he was making a conquest at last worn out by his exertions
and disgusted at the meagerness of the reaction on the eraser he gave a low cry of rage and despair and staggered to a nearby pan containing barley water from which he proceeded to drink himself into a gross stupor
thus little creature did your romance end and who shall say that its ending was one whit less tragic than that of camille not i for one in fact the two cases are not at all analogous
and now that we have seen how wonderfully nature works in the fulfilment of her laws even among her tiniest creatures let us study for a minute a cross section of the community life of the newt
and it takes the closest kind of community team work in the newt colony to get things anywhere near cleaned up by nightfall it is early morning and the workers are just appearing hurrying to the old log which is to be the scene of their labors
what a scampering what a bustle ah little scamperers ah little bustlers how lucky you are and how wise you work long hours without pay for the sheer love of working
an ideal existence i'll tell the scientific world over here on the right of the log are the master draggers of all the newt workers they are the most futile which is high praise indeed come
let us look closer and see what it is that they are doing the one in the lead is dragging a bit of gurry out from the water and up over the edge into the sunlight following him in single file come the rest of the master draggers
they are not dragging anything but are sort of helping the leader by crowding against him and eating little pieces out of the filament of his tail and now they have reached the top the leader by dint of much leg work
has succeeded in dragging his prize to the ridge of the log the little workers reaching the goal with their precious freight are now giving it over to the master pushers who have been waiting for them in the sun all this while
the master pushers work is soon accomplished for it consists simply in pushing the piece of gurry over the other side of the log until it falls with a splash into the water where it is lost
this part of their day's task finished the tiny toilers rest clustered together in a group waving their heads about from side to side as who should say there that's done
and my little master pushers and well done too would that my own work were as clean cut and as satisfying and so it goes day in and day out
the busy army of newts go on making the world a better place in which to live they have their little trials and tragedies it is true
a basket of fish fresh and tender the light of the mild spring afternoon caressed the little abandoned clearing in the wilderness at the back of the clearing beneath a solitary white birch tree
just bursting into green stood a squatter's log cabin long deserted its door and window gone its roof of poles and bark half fallen in
past the foot of the clearing with dancing sparkle and a crisp musical clamor ran a shallow stream some dozen yards in width its clear waters amber tawny from the far off cedar swamps in which it took its rise
along one side came the deeply rutted backwoods road skirting the clearing and making its precarious way across the stream by a rude bridge not lightly to be ventured after dark
from behind a corner of the ruined cabin peered craftily a red fox he eyed the wagon he eyed the horse beneath the birch tree he scrutinized the whole clearing the road
and the open stretch of the stream then his narrowed searching gaze returned to the wagon and to the fat basket in the back of the wagon at length he stepped forth mincingly into full view
trotted up and sniffed inquisitively as if in doubt he raised himself on his hind legs with his fore paws on the tire of the nearest wheel and took a long satisfying sniff
and anyhow he saw that the horse was tethered to the tree he settled himself back upon his haunches to spring into the wagon then a new idea flashed into his cunning red head
no one who valued fresh caught trout at their full worth would leave them thus unguarded unless for a sinister purpose they were surely left there as a trap
the fox wrinkled his nose with mingled regret and disdain he knew something of traps he had once been nipped he was not to be caught again not he
what fools these men were after all his satisfaction at having seen through their schemes almost compensated him for the loss of the expected meal he drew back sat down on his tail
then he trotted away into the forest again to hunt wood mice but it was just here that the red prowler's cunning overreached itself
the basket in the wagon was full of trout and there was no trap to be feared he might have feasted to his heart's content and incurred no penalty more serious than the disapproval of the tethered horse
had he not been quite so amazingly clever for even among the wild kindreds the prize is not always to him of nimble wit the trout were there in the basket simply because the fishing had been so good
fine vivid fish of good pan size were lying in the open dancing runs and about the tails of the rapids and they were rising freely to almost any bright fly though with a preference for a red hackle
toward noon the fishermen had returned to the clearing to lunch beneath the birch tree and to feed and water the horse they had emptied all their catch into one basket stowed the basket under the wagon seat
with its wide pools and long sunlit rapids below the bridge good fishermen but not expert woodsmen they had no idea that here in the solitude
still half full as the fishermen had provided themselves for another substantial meal he hurriedly devoured about half the contents of the lunch basket transferred the rest to his dirty bundle
and with huge satisfaction lighted a half burned cigar which one of the fishermen had left lying on a log next he investigated the fishing basket half a dozen of the finest fish he took out
and strung upon a forked twig this he did not regard as stealing but merely as the exaction of a small and reasonable tribute from a society which had of late neglected to feed him any too well
puffing his cigar butt in high good humor he went over and made friends with the horse feeding it with a few handfuls of fresh grass then with the string of fish dangling beside his bundle
feeling rather lonely neighed after him as he disappeared an abandoned clearing or a deserted log cabin something to which man has set his hand and then withdrawn it
seems always a place of peculiar fascination to the creatures of the wilderness they have some sense perhaps of having regained a lost dominion or possibly they think from these his leavings
up from the fringing bushes along the stream's edge came furtively a little low long bodied beast in shape much like an exaggerated weasel but almost black in color
its head was almost triangular its eyes set near together were bright and cruel it came half way across the meadow then stopped and eyed for some time the tethered horse and the deserted wagon
seeing nothing to take alarm at it made a wide circuit ran behind the cabin and reappeared as the fox had done at the corner nearest the wagon from this point of vantage it surveyed the situation anew
a little spark of blood red fire alternately glowing and fading in its eyes as its keen nostrils caught the scent of the fish satisfied at length that there was no danger within range the mink
glided up to the wagon the horse it paid no heed to it circled the wagon a couple of times in a nervous jerky run its head darting this way and that till its nose assured it beyond question
the hole in the top of the basket though he might have squeezed his head through it was not large enough to let him reach the fish
the back of the wagon consisted of a hinged flap and the fishermen had left it hanging down the basket dragged this way and that came presently to the edge toppled over and fell heavily to the ground on its bulging side
the fastening came undone and the cover flopped half open the mink dropped down beside it flung himself upon it furiously and began jerking forth and scattering the contents
tearing mouthfuls out of one fish after another in a paroxysm of greed as if he feared they were still alive and might get away from him the basket emptied and his first rage glutted
the mink now fell to the business of making a serious meal selecting a fish to his taste he ate it at great leisure leaving the head and the tail upon the grass then he picked out a larger one as if he regarded the first
as merely an appetizer as he gnawed luxuriously at the silver and buff vermilion spotted tit bit an immense shadow floated between him and the sun
furious at having missed her strike the great horned owl that tigress of the air flapped up again on her soundless downy wings and swooped suddenly at the basket as if trying to turn it over
as her talons clawed at the wickerwork feeling for a hold the head of the mink on its long snaky neck darted forth reached up and struck its fine white fangs into her thigh
for all his rage the mink kept his wits about him he knew the owl for one of his most dangerous rivals and adversaries he knew that he could kill her if once he could reach her throat
or get his grip fixed on one of her mighty wings close to the base but that if kept him prudent he was too well aware that in an open combat
he was more than likely to get his neck or his back into the clutch of those inexorable talons and that would be the end of him discreetly therefore he kept himself well within the basket
which was large enough to hold him comfortably he snarled shrilly through the little square hole in the cover while his assailant balked of her prey and furious with the smart of her wound
pounced once more upon the basket and strove to claw an entrance a chance blow of one of her pounding wings drove the lid the basket being still on its side completely to the sorrel horse under the birch tree
swung round on his tether and rolled his eyes and snorted deeply scandalized at such goings on about his familiar wagon it was just at this point in the mink's adventure that the fox returned to the clearing
he had had rather poor luck with the wood mice and his chaps watered with the memory of those trout in the wagon something of an expert in dealing with traps he made up his mind that he would try to circumvent this one
the sight that met his shrewd eyes as he emerged warily from the cover of the fir woods amazed him he halted to take it in thoroughly he saw the basket lying on the ground and the angry owl clawing at it
the fish he did not see he concluded that they were still in the basket and that the owl was trying to get at them this particular kind of owl as he knew was a most formidable antagonist
but the ears of an owl are a very miracle of sensitiveness they can catch the squeak of a mouse at a distance which for ordinary ears would make the sharp clucking of a chipmunk inaudible
moon pale eyes and then sailed off without a sound having no mind to try conclusions with the long jawed red stranger the fox was surprised to find the trout lying scattered about the grass
he drew back hastily and sat down on his tail ears cocked and head tilted to one side to consider it puzzled him greatly that there should be a mink in the basket tip toeing cautiously around it
he saw that the lid was slightly open so that the mink could come out if he wished but the fox did not want him to come out what the fox wanted was fish not a fight with an adversary who would give him a lot of trouble
the mink was raging irresolutely it galled him to the marrow to watch his big arrogant bush tailed rival complacently gulping down those fine fat trout but
well he had himself already eaten one of the trout and a good part of another his hunger was blunted he could rage within reason and his reason admonished him to keep out of this fight if it could be managed
he knew the whipcord muscle underlying that soft red fur the deadly grip of those long narrow jaws there is no peace counsellor like a contented belly so he snarled softly to himself and waited
the fox having swallowed as much as he could hold stood up stretched himself and licked his chaps the look which he kept upon the basket was no less vigilant than before but there was now a tinge of scorn in it
there were still some trout left but he wanted to get away he snatched up the two biggest fish in his jaws and trotted off with them to the woods glancing back over his shoulder as he went
the mink would now have fought but the fox had no thought of returning there was nothing to fight about he had got what he wanted he had no rooted objection to the mink having what was left he trotted away nonchalantly toward his burrow
he had not the fox's wit or providence to carry them off and hide them for future use he left them therefore with a collection of neatly severed heads and tails to mock the fishermen when they should return at sunset
he was feeling very drowsy at a deliberate pace quite unlike his usual eager and darting movements he made off down the clearing toward the water beneath the bank was an old musquash hole
which he was well acquainted with only the other day indeed he had cleared out its inhabitants devouring their litter of young he crawled into the hole curled up on the soft dead grass of the devastated nest
ailbe's babyhood this is the story of a poor little irish baby
but because they could not sell him nor give him away they tried to lose him they wrapped him in a piece of cloth and took him up on the mountain side and there they left him lying all alone on a bush of heather
now an old mother wolf was out taking her evening walk on the mountain after tending her cubs in the den all day and as she was passing the heather bush she heard a faint funny little cry she pricked up her pointed ears and said what's that
for she thought of her own little ones at home and how sad it would be to see them so helpless and lonely and forgotten so she picked the baby up in her mouth carefully and ran with him to her den in the rocks at the foot of the mountain
now one day a year or two after this a hunter came riding over the mountain on his way home from the chase
besides it did not hop the hunter jumped down from his horse and ran after the funny animal to find out what it was his long legs soon overtook it in a clump of bushes where it was hiding
and imagine the hunter's surprise when he found that it had neither fur nor horns nor four feet nor a tail but that it was a beautiful child who could not stand upright and whose little bare body ran on all fours like a baby wolf
but he was not quite able the hunter thought and he said to himself that he would carry the poor little thing home to his kind wife that she might take care of him
so he screamed and struggled to get away from the big hunter
nor get back her adopted son the little smooth skinned foundling so after following them for miles the five wolves gradually dropped farther and farther behind and at last as he stretched out his little arms to them over the hunter's velvet shoulder
panting with one last howl of farewell they had given up the hopeless chase and with their tails between their legs and their heads drooping low they slunk back to their lonely den where they would never see their little boy playmate any more
but she must have been a bad cruel woman his second mother was the kind wolf and this one the third was a beautiful princess for the hunter who had found the child was a prince and he lived in a grand castle by a lake near tipperary
with hundreds of servants and horses and dogs and
and here he lived and was very happy and here he learned all the things which in those days made a little boy grow up into a wise and great man he grew so wise and great that he was made a bishop and had a palace of his own in the town of emly
nor his four footed brothers in their coats of grey fur and sometimes when his visitors were stupid and stayed a long time or when they asked too many questions or when they made him presents which he did not like
he did not see any sport in killing poor creatures it was almost night and the people of emly were out watching for the hunters to return the bishop was coming down the village street on his way from church
a sad howl of fear and weariness and pain it spoke a language which he had almost forgotten but hardly had he time to think again and remember before down the village street
came a gaunt figure flying in long leaps from the foremost dogs who were snapping at her heels it was ailbe's wolf mother he recognized her as soon as he saw her green eyes and the patch of white on her right foreleg
and she recognized him too how i cannot say for he had changed greatly since she last saw him a naked little sun browned boy but at any rate in his fine robes of purple and linen and rich lace
and the good bishop was true to her for he drew his beautiful velvet cloak about her tired panting body and laid his hand lovingly on her head then in the other he held up his crook warningly to keep back the ferocious dogs
i will protect thee old mother he said tenderly when i was little and young and feeble thou didst nourish and cherish and protect me and now that thou art old and grey and weak shall i not render the same love and care to thee
none shall injure thee then the hunters came tearing up on their foaming horses some were angry and wanted even now to kill the poor wolf just as the dogs did which were prowling about snarling with disappointment
he forbade them to touch the wolf and he was so powerful and wise and holy that they dared not disobey him but had to be content with seeing their prey taken out of their clutches but before the hunters and their dogs rode away
and he bade all the curious towns folk who had gathered about him and the wolf listen he repeated the promise which he had made to the wolf and warned everyone henceforth not to hurt her or her children either in the village or in the woods or on the mountain
and turning to her once more he said see mother you need not fear they dare not hurt you now you have found your son to protect you come every day with my brothers to my table and you and yours shall share my food as once i so often shared yours
and so it was every day after that so long as she lived the old wolf mother brought her four children to the bishop's palace and howled at the gate for the porter to let them in and every day he opened to them and the steward showed the five into the great dining hall
and there with her five children about her in a happy circle the kind wolf mother sat and ate the good things which the bishop's friends had sent him but the child she loved best was none of those in furry coats and fine whiskers that looked like her
it was the blue eyed saint at the top of the table in his robes of purple and white
what a handsome family we are he would say and
bay ay ay said the goat from the brow of the hill as he cocked his head on one side and looked down but beside the goat there kneeled a little girl is it yours this goat she asked
four years old in the autumn two days after the frost nights i are you really he said
is it yours this goat asked the girl again
and looked up i have taken such a fancy to the goat you will not give it to me no that i won't she lay kicking her legs and looking down at him and then she said but if i give you a butter cake for the goat can i have him then
that was when grandpa came there and anything like it he had never eaten before or since he looked up at the girl let me see the butter cake first said he
he could not help tasting the very smallest and that was so good he had to taste another and before he knew it himself he had eaten up the whole cake now the goat is mine said the girl
could you not wait a little while begged the boy his heart began to beat then the girl laughed still more and got up quickly on her knees no the goat is mine she said and threw her arms round its neck
loosened one of her garters and fastened it round
pulled the string with the other and said gently come goat and you shall go into the room and eat out of mother's dish and my apron and then she sang come boy's goat come mother's calf come mewing cat
she saw the boy sitting with his legs crossed under him on the grass crying and she went up to him what are you crying about oh the goat the goat yes where is the goat asked his mother looking up at the roof
it will never come back again said the boy dear me how could that happen he would not confess immediately has the fox taken it
are you mad said his mother what has become of the goat
to to sell it for a cake as soon as he had uttered the word he understood what it was to sell the goat for a cake he had not thought of it before his mother said
he felt so sorry that he promised himself never again to do anything wrong never to cut the thread on the spinning wheel nor let the goats out nor go down to the sea alone he fell asleep where he lay and dreamed about the goat
suddenly there came something wet close up to his ear and he started up
saw the girl sitting on the greensward by his side
is it you who have come with it she sat tearing the grass up with her hands and said they would not let me keep it grandfather is sitting up there waiting
while the boy stood looking at her he heard a sharp voice from the road above call out now then she remembered what she was to do
put one of her muddy hands into his and turning her face away said
she turned around and looked first at the garter and then at him at last she came to a great resolution and said in a choked voice you may keep that he went over to her and taking her hand said thank you
the mountain talked to the stream and the stream to the river the river to the sea and the sea to the sky but then he asked if the sky did not talk to any one and the sky talked to the clouds the clouds to the trees the trees to the grass
the grass to the flies the flies to the animals the animals to the children the children to the grown up people and so it went on until it had gone round and no one could tell where it had begun
his mother sang at evening softly shines the sun the cat lies lazy on the stone two small mice cream thick and nice four bits of fish i stole behind a dish
and am so lazy and tired because so well i have fared says the cat but then came the cock with all the hens
his mother sang the mother hen her wings doth sink the cock stands on one leg to think that grey goose steers high her course but sure am i that never she as clever as a cock can be
dear lord how pleasant is life for those who have neither toil nor strife say the birds and she told him what they all said down to the ant who crawled in the moss and the worm who worked in the bark
she had covered her face with both hands and sat peeping at him through her fingers
seating himself at her side and then she laughed and he laughed too is it always like this here he whispered to marit yes just like this i have a goat now she said have you
why don't you come oftener up on the cliff said he grandpapa is afraid i shall fall over but it is not so very high
mother knows so many songs said he
yes but he does not know what mother does grandpapa knows one about a dance would you like to hear it
well then you must come farther over here and i will tell it to you he changed his place and then she recited a little piece of a song three or four times over so that the little boy learned it
shortly after our return to wrangell the missionaries planned a grand mission excursion up the coast of the mainland to the chilcat country which i gladly joined together with mister vanderbilt
his wife and a friend from oregon the river steamer cassiar was chartered and we had her all to ourselves ship and officers at our command to sail and stop where and when we would and of course
everybody felt important and hopeful the main object of the missionaries was to ascertain the spiritual wants of the warlike chilcat tribe with a view to the establishment of a church and school in their principal village
the merchant and his party were bent on business and scenery while my mind was on the mountains glaciers and forests
and the islands at their feet seemed to float and drowse on the shining mirror waters
gloriously arrayed in snow and ice some of the largest and most river like of the glaciers flowing through wide high walled valleys like yosemite their sources far back and concealed others in plain sight from their highest fountains to the level of the sea
cares of every kind were quickly forgotten and though the cassiar engines soon began to wheeze and sigh with doleful solemnity suggesting coming trouble we were too happy to mind them every face glowed with natural love of wild beauty
graduating into open silvery fields of light and lofty headlands with fine arching insteps dipping their feet in the shining water
forgotten now were the chilcats and missions while the word of god was being read in these majestic hieroglyphics blazoned along the sky the earnest childish wonderment with which this glorious page of nature's bible was contemplated
was delightful to see all evinced eager desire to learn is that a glacier they asked down in that canyon and is it all solid ice yes how deep is it
perhaps five hundred or a thousand feet you say it flows how can hard ice flow
from snow that is heaped up every winter on the mountains and how then is the snow changed into ice it is welded by the pressure of its own weight are these white masses we see in the hollows glaciers also
yes are those bluish draggled masses hanging down from beneath the snow fields what you call the snouts of the glaciers yes what made the hollows they are in the glaciers themselves
just as traveling animals make their own tracks how long have they been there numberless centuries
i answered as best i could
in general while busily engaged in sketching and noting my own observations preaching glacial gospel in a rambling way while the cassiar slowly wheezing and creeping along the shore
shifted our position so that the icy canyons were opened to view and closed again in regular succession like the leaves of a book about the middle of the afternoon we were directly opposite a noble group of glaciers some ten in number
flowing from a chain of crater like snow fountains guarded around their summits and well down their sides by jagged peaks and cols and curving mural ridges
from each of the larger clusters of fountains a wide sheer walled canyon opens down to the sea three of the trunk glaciers descend to within a few feet of the sea level the largest of the three probably about fifteen miles long
and from three to five hundred feet high forming a barrier across the valley from wall to wall it was to this glacier that the ships of the alaska ice company resorted for the ice they carried to san francisco and the sandwich islands
and i believe also to china and japan to load they had only to sail up the fiord within a short distance of the front and drop anchor in the terminal moraine another glacier a few miles to the south of this one
receives two large tributaries about equal in size and then flows down a forested valley to within a hundred feet or so of sea level the third of this low descending group is four or five miles farther south
the boilers of our little steamer were not made for sea water
in this particular we failed however
the supply of fifty tons of fresh water brought from wrangell having then given out
the captain repeatedly called for more steam which the engineer refused to furnish cautiously keeping the pressure low because the salt water foamed in the boilers and some of it passed over into the cylinders causing
in the cabin to consider what had better be done in the discussions that followed much indignation and economy were brought to light we had chartered the boat for sixty dollars per day and the round trip was to have been made in four or five days
but at the present rate of speed it was found that the cost of the trip for each passenger would be five or ten dollars above the first estimate therefore the majority ruled that we must return next day to wrangell
picea sitchensis tsuga heterophylla and t mertensiana with a few specimens of yellow cypress the ferns were developed in remarkable beauty and size aspidiums
one of which is about six feet high a woodsia
and several species of polypodium the underbrush is chiefly alder rubus ledum three species of vaccinium and echinopanax horrida the whole about from six to eight feet high
humanized terrestrialized and entering one's heart as to a home prepared for it go where we will all the world over we seem to have been there before
the stream was bridged at short intervals with picturesque moss embossed logs and the trees on its banks leaning over from side to side made high embowering arches
the log bridge i crossed was i think the most beautiful of the kind i ever saw the massive log is plushed to a depth of six inches or more with mosses of three or four species
their different tones of yellow shading finely into each other while their delicate fronded branches and foliage lie in exquisite order inclining outward and down the sides in rich furred clasping sheets overlapping and felted together
until the required thickness is attained the pedicels and spore cases give a purplish tinge and the whole bridge is enriched with ferns and a row of small seedling trees and currant bushes with colored leaves
every one of which seems to have been culled from the woods for this special use so perfectly do they harmonize in size shape and color with the mossy cover the width of the span and the luxuriant brushy abutments
next day i planned an excursion to the so called dirt glacier the most interesting to indians and steamer men of all the stickeen glaciers from its mysterious floods i left the steamer gertrude for the glacier delta an hour or two before sunset
the captain kindly loaned me his canoe and two of his indian deck hands who seemed much puzzled to know what the rare service required of them might mean and on leaving bade a merry adieu to their companions we camped on the west side of the river opposite
i had my supper before leaving the steamer so i had only to make a campfire spread my blanket and lie down the indians had their own bedding and lay beside their own fire
usually in the late summer the delta of this glacier stream is three or four miles wide where it fronts the river and the many rough channels with which it is guttered and the
uprooted trees and huge boulders that roughen its surface manifest the power of the floods that swept them to their places but under ordinary conditions the glacier discharges its drainage water into the river
through only four or five of the delta channels our camp was made on the south or lower side of the delta below all the draining streams so that i would not have to ford any of them on my way to the glacier the indians chose a sand pit to sleep in
i chose a level spot back of a drift log i had but little to say to my companions as they could speak no english nor i much thlinkit or chinook in a few minutes after landing they retired to their pit and were soon asleep and asnore
than by day and to be looking down like guardians of the valley while the waterfalls and the torrents escaping from beneath the big glacier roared in a broad low monotone sounding as if close at hand though
as it proved next day the nearest was three miles away after wrapping myself in my blankets i still gazed into the marvelous sky and made out to sleep only about two hours then without waking the noisy sleepers i arose
following a dry channel for about a mile
which in the imperfect light seemed as large as the river about one hundred and fifty feet wide and perhaps three or four feet deep a little farther up it was only about fifty feet wide and rushing on with impetuous roaring force in its rocky channel
sweeping forward sand gravel cobblestones and boulders the bump and rumble sounds of the largest of these rolling stones being readily heard in the midst of the roaring it was too swift and rough to ford and no bridge tree could be found
horridum making a jungle all but impenetrable
will not soon be forgotten at length arriving within a few hundred yards of the glacier full of panax barbs i found that both the glacier and its unfordable stream were pressing hard against a shelving cliff dangerously steep
but by sunrise all these cliff jungle and torrent troubles were overcome and i gladly found myself free on the magnificent ice river the curving
two hundred feet high and its surface for a mile or so above the front is strewn with moraine detritus giving it a strangely dirty dusky look hence its name the dirt glacier
a mile or two beyond the moraine covered part i was surprised to find alpine plants growing on the ice fresh and green some of them in full flower these curious glacier gardens the first i had seen were evidently planted by snow avalanches from the high walls
and in some places formed beds of considerable thickness seedling trees and bushes also were growing among the flowers admiring these novel floating gardens i struck out for the middle of the pure white glacier where the ice seemed smoother
and then held straight on for about eight miles where i reluctantly turned back to meet the steamer greatly regretting that i had not brought a week's supply of hardtack to allow me to explore the glacier to its head
and then trust to some passing canoe to take me down to buck station from which i could explore the big stickeen glacier altogether i saw about fifteen or sixteen miles of the main trunk the grade is almost regular
and the walls on either hand are about from two to three thousand feet high sculptured like those of yosemite valley
forming a dam which gives rise to a lake on the head of the detached tributary there are some five or six small residual glaciers the drainage of which with that of the snowy mountain slopes above them discharges into the lake
whose outlet is through a channel or channels beneath the damming glacier now these sub channels are occasionally blocked and the water rises until it flows alongside of the glacier but as the dam is a moving one
a grand outburst is sometimes made which draining the large lake produces a flood of amazing power sweeping down immense quantities of moraine material and raising the river all the way down to its mouth
large and small gliding swirling with wonderful grace of motion in their frictionless channels calling forth devout admiration at
looking ahead from the middle of the glacier you see the broad white flood though apparently rigid as iron sweeping in graceful curves between its high mountain like walls small glaciers hanging in the hollows on either side
and snow in every form above them and the great down plunging granite buttresses and headlands of the walls marvelous in bold massive sculpture forests in side canyons to within fifty feet of the glacier avalanche pathways overgrown with alder and willow
innumerable cascades keeping up a solemn harmony of water sounds blending with those of the glacier moulins and rills and as far as the eye can reach tributary glaciers at short intervals silently descending from their high
white fountains to swell the grand central ice river in the angle formed by the main glacier and the lake that gives rise to the river floods there is a massive granite dome sparsely feathered with trees
and the peak were flushed in the alpenglow a mile or two above this mountain on the opposite side of the glacier there is a rock like the yosemite sentinel and in general all the wall rocks as far as i saw them are more or less
yosemitic in form and color and streaked with cascades but wonderful as this noble ice river is in size and depth and in power displayed far more wonderful was the vastly greater glacier three or four thousand feet
or perhaps a mile in depth whose size and general history is inscribed on the sides of the walls and over the tops of the rocks in characters which have not yet been greatly dimmed by the weather
the indians had gone off picking berries but were on the watch for me and hailed me as i approached the captain had called for me and after waiting three hours departed for wrangell without leaving any food
here i remained to study the big stickeen glacier but the indians set out for wrangell soon after supper though i invited them to stay till morning
broad mountain gateway and expanding in the spacious river valley to a width of four or five miles while dim in the gray distance loomed its high mountain fountains so grand an invitation displayed in characters so telling was of course irresistible
and body care and weather care vanished mister choquette the keeper of the station ferried me across the river and i spent the day in getting general views and planning the work that
i first traced the broad complicated terminal moraine to its southern extremity climbed up the west side along the lateral moraine three or four miles making my way now on the glacier
glad rejoicing streams from the mountain side were hurrying as if going home
any time i replied i shall see as much as possible of the glacier and i know not how long it will hold me well but when will i come to look for you if anything happens
years ago russian officers from sitka went up the glacier from here and none ever returned it's a mighty dangerous glacier all full of damn deep holes and cracks
yes i have i said
though none so big as this one do not look for me until i make my appearance on the river bank never mind me
and so shouldering my bundle i trudged off through the moraine boulders and thickets my general plan was to trace the terminal moraine to its extreme north end pitch my little tent
roughened by concentric masses marking interruptions in the recession of the glacier of perhaps several centuries in which the successive moraines were formed and shoved together in closer or wider order
i traced the moraine to its northeastern extremity and ascended the glacier for several miles along the left margin then crossed it at the grand cataract and down the right side to the river and along the moraine to the point of beginning
on the older portions of this moraine i discovered several kettles in process of formation and was pleased to find that they conformed in the most striking way with the theory
i had already been led to make from observations on the old kettles which form so curious a feature of the drift covering wisconsin and minnesota and some of the larger moraines of the residual glaciers in the california sierra
i found a pit eight or ten feet deep with raw shifting sides countersunk abruptly in the rough moraine material and at the bottom on sliding down by the aid of a lithe spruce tree that was being undermined
the formation of this kettle by the slow melting of the buried ice block the moraine material of course was falling in as the ice melted and the sides maintained an angle as steep as the material would lie
all sorts of theories have been advanced for the formation of these kettles
at least as far as i was concerned
looking all the grander and more striking in the gray mist with all the rest of the glacier shut out until i came to a lake about two hundred yards wide and two miles long with scores of small bergs floating in it some aground close inshore against the moraine
the light playing on their angles and shimmering in their blue caves in ravishing tones this proved to be the largest of the series of narrow lakelets that lie in shallow troughs between the moraine and the glacier a miniature arctic ocean its ice cliffs
and its small berg floes drifting in its currents or with the wind or stranded here and there along its rocky moraine shore hundreds of small rills and good sized streams were falling into the lake from the glacier
singing in low tones some of them pouring in sheer falls over blue cliffs from narrow ice valleys
others gurgling out of arched openings at the base all these water streams were riding on the parent ice stream their voices joined in one grand anthem telling the wonders of their near and far off fountains
the lake itself is resting in a basin of ice and the forested moraine though seemingly cut off from the glacier and probably more than a century old is in great part resting on buried ice left behind as the glacier receded
and melting slowly on account of the protection afforded by the moraine detritus
these changes going on with marvelous deliberation until in fullness of
whole moraine settles down upon its bedrock foundation the outlet of the lake is a large stream almost a river in size one of the main draining streams of the glacier
here i found a spruce tree which i felled for a bridge it reached across about ten feet of the top holding in the bank brush but the force of the torrent acting on the submerged branches and the slender end of the trunk
fortunately i discovered another larger tree well situated a little farther down which i felled and though a few feet in the middle was submerged it seemed perfectly safe as it was now getting late
i started back to the lakeside where i had left my bundle and in trying to hold a direct course found the interlaced jungle still more difficult than it was along the bank of the torrent for over an hour i had to creep and struggle close to the rocky ground
like a fly in a spider web without being able to obtain a single glimpse of any guiding feature of the landscape finding a little willow taller than the surrounding alders i climbed it caught sight of the glacier front took a compass bearing
and sunk again into the dripping blinding maze of brush and at length emerged on the lake shore seven hours after leaving it all this time as wet as though i had been swimming thus completing a trying day's work
but everything was deliciously fresh and i found new and old plant friends and lessons on nature's alaska moraine landscape gardening that made everything bright and light it was now near dark
and i made haste to make up my flimsy little tent the ground was desperately rocky i made out however to level down a strip large enough to lie on and by means of slim alder stems bent over it and tied together soon had a home
rocking and wallowing in the waves it had raised as if enjoying its freedom after its long grinding work as part of the glacier after this fine last lesson i managed to make a small fire out of wet twigs got a cup of tea
stripped off my dripping clothing wrapped myself in a blanket and lay brooding on the gains of the day and plans for the morrow glad rich and almost comfortable it was raining hard when i awoke
but i made up my mind to disregard the weather
ate biscuits and a piece of dried salmon without attempting to make a tea fire filled a bag with hardtack slung it over my shoulder and with my indispensable ice axe plunged once more into the dripping jungle
i found my bridge holding bravely in place against the swollen torrent crossed it and beat my way around pools and logs and through two hours of tangle back to the moraine on the north side of the outlet a wet weary battle but not without enjoyment
more especially marked were the flat low toned bumps and splashes of large drops from the trees on the broad horizontal leaves of echinopanax horridum like the drumming of thundershower drops on veratrum and palm leaves
while the mosses were indescribably beautiful so fresh so bright so cheerily green and all so low and calm and silent
surely never a particle of dust has touched leaf or crown of all these blessed mosses
and the fruit of the dwarf cornel and the wet berries nature's precious jewelry how beautiful they were
red and yellow salmon berries with clusters of smaller drops
every drop a mirror with all the landscape in it a that and a that and twice as muckle's a that in this glorious alaska day recalling however different george herbert's sweet day so cool so calm so bright
in the gardens and forests of this wonderful moraine one might spend a whole joyful life
i tried to make my way along its side but finding the climbing tedious and difficult took to the glacier and fared well
when night was drawing nigh i scanned the steep mountainside in search of an accessible bench however narrow where a bed and a fire might be gathered for a camp
about dark great was my delight to find a little shelf with a few small mountain hemlocks growing in cleavage joints projecting knobs below it enabled me to build a platform for a fireplace and a bed
and spent the night in turning from side to side steaming and drying after being wet two days and a night fortunately this night it did not rain but it was very cold
pushing on next day i climbed to the top of the glacier by ice steps and along its side to the grand cataract two miles wide where the whole majestic flood of the glacier pours like a mighty surging river down a steep declivity in its channel
after gazing a long time on the glorious show
into which i crawled and enjoyed the novel and instructive view of a glacier pouring over my head showing not only its grinding polishing action but how it breaks off large angular boulder masses a most telling lesson in earth sculpture
confirming many i had already learned in the glacier basins of the high sierra of california i then crossed to the south side noting the forms of the huge blocks into which the glacier was broken in passing over the brow of the cataract
everywhere winter bound but thick forested however steep for a distance of at least fifteen miles from the front the trees hemlock and spruce clinging to the rock by root holds among cleavage joints
at his house i enjoyed a rest while writing out notes then examined the smaller glacier fronting the one i had been exploring
as the tsar rode up to one flank of the battalions which presented arms another group of horsemen galloped up to the opposite flank and at the head of them rostov recognized napoleon it could be no one else
he was riding a very fine thoroughbred gray arab horse with a crimson gold embroidered saddlecloth on approaching alexander he raised his hat and as he did so rostov with his cavalryman's eye
could not help noticing that napoleon did not sit well or firmly in the saddle the battalions shouted hurrah and vive l'empereur napoleon said something to alexander and both emperors dismounted and took each other's hands
napoleon's face wore an unpleasant and artificial smile alexander was saying something affable to him in spite of the trampling of the french gendarmes horses which were pushing back the crowd
rostov kept his eyes on every movement of alexander and bonaparte it struck him as a surprise that alexander treated bonaparte as an equal and that the latter was quite at ease with the tsar as if such relations with an emperor were an everyday matter to him
approached the right flank of the preobrazhensk battalion and came straight up to the crowd standing there the crowd unexpectedly found itself so close to the emperors that rostov standing in the front row was afraid he might be recognized
sire i ask your permission to present the legion of honor to the bravest of your soldiers said a sharp precise voice articulating every letter this was said by the undersized napoleon looking up straight into alexander's eyes
alexander listened attentively to what was said to him and bending his head smiled pleasantly to him who has borne himself most bravely in this last war added napoleon
will your majesty allow me to consult the colonel said alexander and took a few hasty steps toward prince kozlovski the commander of the battalion bonaparte meanwhile began taking the glove off his small white hand tore it in doing so and threw it away
an aide de camp behind him rushed forward and picked it up to whom shall it be given the emperor alexander asked koslovski in russian in a low voice to whomever your majesty commands
the emperor knit his brows with dissatisfaction and glancing back remarked but we must give him an answer kozlovski scanned the ranks resolutely and included rostov in his scrutiny can it be me thought rostov
casting a sidelong look at his colonel in alarm his face twitched as often happens to soldiers called before the ranks napoleon slightly turned his head and put his plump little hand out behind him as if to take something
the members of his suite guessing at once what he wanted moved about and whispered as they passed something from one to another and a page
ran forward and bowing respectfully over the outstretched hand and not keeping it waiting a moment laid in it an order on a red ribbon napoleon without looking pressed two fingers together and the badge was between them
and the small white hand holding the order touched one of lazarev's buttons it was as if napoleon knew that it was only necessary for his hand to deign to touch that soldier's breast for the soldier to be forever happy rewarded
and distinguished from everyone else in the world napoleon merely laid the cross on lazarev's breast and dropping his hand turned toward alexander as though sure that the cross would adhere there and it really did
looked again straight into alexander's eyes as if asking whether he should stand there or go away or do something else but receiving no orders he remained for some time in that rigid position the emperors remounted and rode away
the preobrazhensk battalion breaking rank mingled with the french guards and sat down at the tables prepared for them
two officers with flushed faces looking cheerful and happy passed by rostov
have you seen lazarev i have tomorrow i hear the preobrazhenskis will give them a dinner yes but what luck for lazarev twelve hundred francs pension for life
here's a cap lads shouted a preobrazhensk soldier donning a shaggy french cap it's a fine thing first rate have you heard the password asked one guards officer of another the day before yesterday it was napoleon france bravoure
yesterday alexandre russie grandeur one day our emperor gives it and next day napoleon tomorrow our emperor will send a saint george's cross to the bravest of the french guards it has to be done he must respond in kind
and could not refrain from asking what was the matter so strangely dismal and troubled was rostov's face nothing nothing replied rostov you'll call round yes i will rostov stood at that corner for a long time
watching the feast from a distance in his mind a painful process was going on which he could not bring to a conclusion terrible doubts rose in his soul now he remembered denisov with his changed expression his submission
and the whole hospital with arms and legs torn off and its dirt and disease
that he looked round to see where the smell came from next he thought of that self satisfied bonaparte with his small white hand who was now an emperor liked and respected by alexander then why those severed arms and legs and those dead men
then again he thought of lazarev rewarded and denisov punished and unpardoned he caught himself harboring such strange thoughts that he was frightened
two officers of his own division joined him the conversation naturally turned on the peace the officers his comrades like most of the army were dissatisfied with the peace concluded after the battle of friedland
nicholas ate and drank chiefly the latter in silence he finished a couple of bottles of wine by himself the process in his mind went on tormenting him without reaching a conclusion
he feared to give way to his thoughts yet could not get rid of them suddenly on one of the officers saying that it was humiliating to look at the french rostov began shouting with uncalled for wrath and therefore much to the surprise of the officers
how can you judge what's best he cried the blood suddenly rushing to his face how can you judge the emperor's actions what right have we to argue we cannot comprehend either the emperor's aims or his actions
but i never said a word about the emperor said the officer justifying himself and unable to understand rostov's outburst except on the supposition that he was drunk but rostov did not listen to him
if we're punished it means that we have deserved it it's not for us to judge if the emperor pleases to recognize bonaparte as emperor and to conclude an alliance with him it means that that is the right thing to do
third planet out from its primary epsilon eridani the fourth planet is nyjord
dis is a place you need a good reason to visit and no reason at all to leave too hot too dry the temperature in the temperate zones rarely drops below a hundred fahrenheit the planet is nothing but scorched rock and burning sand
most of the water is underground and normally inaccessible the surface water is all in the form of briny chemically saturated swamps undrinkable without extensive processing
all the facts and figures are here in the folder and you can study them later right now i want you just to get the idea that this planet is as loathsome and inhospitable as they come so are the people this is a solido of a disan
not at the physical aspects of the man
it was the man's pose the expression on his face tensed to leap his lips drawn back to show all of this teeth he looks as if he wanted to kill the photographer she said he almost did just after the picture was taken
like all disans he has an overwhelming hatred and loathing of offworlders not without good reason though
during the breakdown i'm not sure of the details but the overall picture is clear since the story of their desertion forms the basis of all the myths and animistic religions on dis apparently there were large scale mining operations carried on there once
the world is rich enough in minerals and mining them is very simple but water came only from expensive extraction processes and i imagine most of the food came from offworld
which was good enough until the settlement was forgotten the way a lot of other planets were during the breakdown all the records were destroyed in the fighting and the ore carriers were pressed into military service dis was on its own
what happened to the people there is a tribute to the adaptation possibilities of homo sapiens individuals died usually in enormous pain but the race lived changed a good deal but still human
they couldn't do it mechanically but by the time the last machine collapsed enough people were adjusted to the environment to keep the race going their descendants are still there completely adapted to the environment
their body temperatures are around a hundred and thirty degrees they have specialized tissue in the gluteal area for storing water these are minor changes compared to the major ones they have done in fitting themselves for this planet
i don't know the exact details but the reports are very enthusiastic about symbiotic relationships
perhaps from the abstract scientific point of view if you can keep notes perhaps you might write a book about it some time but i'm not interested i'm sure all these morphological changes and disgusting intimacies will fascinate you doctor morees
but while you are counting blood types and admiring your thermometers
we must either find out what makes these people tick or we are going to have to stand by and watch the whole lot blown up going to do what lea gasped destroy them wipe out this fascinating genetic pool
these aboriginal hotheads have managed to lay their hands on some primitive cobalt bombs
nothing said or done can convince them differently they demand unconditional surrender or else
the disans are out to commit racial suicide a nyjord fleet is now over dis and the deadline has almost expired for the surrender of the cobalt bombs the nyjord ships carry enough h bombs to turn the entire planet into an atomic pile
what looked like a piece of green vine was hooked over one shoulder from a plaited belt were suspended a number of odd devices made of hand beaten metal drilled stone and looped leather the only recognizable item was a thin knife of unusual design
loops of piping flared bells carved stones tied in senseless patterns of thonging gave the rest of the collection a bizarre appearance perhaps they had some religious significance
if they were used what in the universe could they be used for i can't believe it he finally concluded except for the exotic hardware this lowbrow looks as if he has sunk back into the stone age i don't see how his kind can be any real threat to another planet
since they are our employers we must do what they ask
dis has some spacers as well as the cobalt bombs though these aren't the real threat a tramp trader was picked up leaving dis
while essentially a peaceful and happy people the nyjorders were justifiably annoyed at this and convinced the tramp's captain to give them some more information
it's all here boiled down it gives a minimum deadline by which time the launcher can be set up and start throwing bombs when is that deadline lea asked in ten more days
i assure you they don't want to do it but they will drop the bombs in order to assure their own survival
i don't know a thing about nucleonics or jump space i'm an exobiologist with a supplementary degree in anthropology what help could i possibly be
my faith in our recruiters is restored he said that's a combination that is probably rare even on earth
but young enough to survive if we keep a close eye on you he cut off lea's angry protest with a raised hand no more bickering there isn't time the nyjorders must have lost over thirty agents trying to find the bombs
our foundation has had six people killed including my late predecessor in charge of the project he was a good man but i think he went at this problem the wrong way i think it is a cultural one not a physical one
all i hear is static it's the old problem of genesis like newton and the falling apple levy and the hysteresis in the warp field everything has a beginning if we can find out
you can count on me for complete cooperation
don't call me i'll call you when i want breakfast brion wasn't sure how much of her barbed speech was humor and how much was serious so he said nothing he showed her to an empty cabin she did lock the door
the winner was in the galley adding to his girth with an immense gelatin dessert that filled a good sized tureen
the top of her head is below my chin that's the norm earth is a reservoir of tired genes weak backs vermiform appendixes bad eyes if they didn't have the universities and the trained people we need i would never use them
why did you lie to her about the foundation because it's a secret isn't that reason enough ihjel rumbled angrily scraping the last dregs from the bowl better eat something build up the strength
but i doubt if she will like the way we operate particularly since i plan to drop some h bombs on dis myself if we can't turn off the war i don't believe it you heard me correctly don't bulge your eyes and look moronic
as a last resort i'll drop the bombs myself rather than let the nyjorders do it that might save them
not the disans i want to save the nyjorders stop clenching your fists and sit down and have some of this cake it's delicious the nyjorders are all that counts here they have a planet blessed by the laws of chance
not mechanical they weren't even using the wheel when they were rediscovered they became sort of cultural specialists digging deep into the philosophical aspects of interrelationship
not guiding so much as protecting them from any blows that might destroy this growing idea but we've fallen down on the job nonviolence is essential to these people
they have vitality without needing destruction but if they are forced to blow up dis for their own survival against every one of their basic tenets their philosophy won't endure
that may some day form the key to mankind's survival they are worth looking after now get below and study your disan and read the reports
one of the technicians was running and screaming the magter knocked him down and beat him into silence seeing this the other two men returned to work with shaking hands even if all life on the surface of the planet was dead
this would have no effect on the magter they would go ahead as planned without emotion or imagination enough to alter their set course as the technicians worked their attitude changed from shocked numbness to anger
right and wrong were forgotten they had been killed the invisible death of radiation must already be penetrating into the caves but they also had the chance for vengeance swiftly they brought their work to completion
what are those offworlders doing ulv asked brion stirred from his lethargy of defeat and looked across the cavern floor the men had a wheeled handtruck and were rolling one of the atomic warheads onto it
they pushed it over to the latticework of the jump field they are going to bomb nyjord now just as nyjord bombed dis that machine will hurl the bombs in a special way to the other planet
he had his deadly blowgun in his hand and his face was an expressionless mask brion almost smiled at the irony of the situation in spite of everything he had done to prevent it nyjord had dropped the bombs
and this act alone may have destroyed their own planet brion had it within his power now to stop the launching in the cavern should he should he save the lives of his killers
or should he practice the ancient blood oath that had echoed and destroyed down through the ages an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth it would be so simple he literally had to do nothing the score would be even
and his and the disans death avenged
or had he misread the disan entirely
how large was mankind's sense of obligation the caveman first had this feeling for his mate then for his family it grew until men fought and died for the abstract ideas of cities and nations
then for whole planets would the time ever come when men might realize that the obligation should be to the largest and most encompassing reality of all mankind and beyond that to life of all kinds
when he posed the question to himself in this way he found that it stated clearly its inherent answer he pulled his gun out
nyjord is medvirk ulv said raising his blowgun and sending a dart across the cavern it struck one of the technicians who gasped and fell to the floor brion's shots crashed into the control board shorting and destroying it
removing the menace to nyjord for all time medvirk ulv had said a life form that cooperates and aids other life forms it may kill in self defense but it is essentially not a killer or destroyer
he had killed the magter who were his own people because they were umedvirk against life and he had saved his enemies because they were medvirk with this realization came the painful knowledge that the planet and the people that had produced this understanding
to ulv the decision was much easier he was simply killing umedvirk a believer in life he destroyed the anti life they retreated into the darkness still firing
the magter had lights and ion rifles and were right behind them knowing the caverns better than the men they chased the pursuers circled brion saw lights ahead and dragged ulv to a stop
there is a cave with only one entrance and that is very narrow let's go running as silently as they could in the darkness they reached the deadend cavern without being seen
what noise they made was lost in other footsteps that sounded and echoed through the connecting caves once inside they found cover behind a ridge and waited the end was certain the magter ran swiftly into their cave
flashing his light into all the places of concealment the beam passed over the two hidden men and at the same instant brion fired the shot boomed loudly as the magter fell
before anyone else came into the cave brion ran over and grabbed the still functioning light propping it on the rocks so it shone on the entrance
it was not long in coming two magter rushed in and died more were outside brion knew and he wondered how long it would be before they remembered the grenades and rolled one into their shelter
an indistinct murmur sounded outside and sharp explosions in their hiding place brion and ulv crouched low and wondered why the attack didn't come then one of the magter came in the entrance
the man had backed in firing behind him as he came
only his darts couldn't penetrate the magter's thick clothing as the magter turned ulv's breath pulsed once and death stung the back of the other man's hand he collapsed into a crumpled heap don't shoot
a voice called from outside the cave and a man stepped through the swirling dust and smoke to stand in the beam from the light brion clutched wildly at ulv's arm dragging the blowgun from the disan's mouth the man in the light wore a protective helmet
thick boots and a pouch hung uniform he was a nyjorder the realization was almost impossible to accept
yet the nyjord soldier was here the two facts couldn't be accepted together
i know what those darts can do he pulled a microphone from one of his pockets and spoke into it more soldiers crowded into the cave and professor commander krafft came in behind them
he looked strangely out of keeping in the dusty combat uniform the gun was even more incongruous in his blue veined hand after giving the pistol to the nearest soldier with an air of relief
it is a profound and sincere pleasure to meet you in person he said
he was obsessed by the strange feeling that none of this could possibly be happening we will always remember you as the man who saved us from ourselves krafft said once again the professor instead of the commander
simply stated brion your plan succeeded krafft relayed your message to me and as soon as i heard it i turned back and met him on his ship
but he found what we were looking for i couldn't ignore his report of radioactive traces your girl friend arrived with the hacked up corpse at the same time i did and we all took a long look at the green leech in its skull
her explanation of what it is made significant sense we were already carrying out landings when we had your call about something having been stored in the magter tower after that it was just a matter of following tracks and the transmitter you planted
but the explosions at midnight brion broke in i heard them you were supposed to hys laughed not only you but the magter in this cave we figured they would be armed and the cave strongly defended
so at midnight we dropped a few large chemical explosive bombs at the entrance enough to kill the guards without bringing the roof down
the warmth of their intense relief and happiness it was a sensation he would never forget
knowing that the disan had understood nothing of the explanation
you couldn't have done it brion said you landed on this planet before you had my message about the tower that means you still expected the magter to be sending their bombs to nyjord and you made the landings in spite of this knowledge
of course professor krafft said astonished at brion's lack of understanding what else could we do the magter are sick hys laughed aloud at brion's baffled expression you have to understand nyjord psychology he said
when it was a matter of war and killing my planet could never agree on an intelligent course war is so alien to our philosophy that it couldn't even be considered correctly that's the trouble with being a vegetable eater in a galaxy of carnivores
you're easy prey for the first one that lands on your back any other planet would have jumped on the magter with both feet and shaken the bombs out of them we fumbled it so long it almost got both worlds killed your mind parasite drew us back from the brink
i don't understand brion said a simple matter of definition before you came we had no way to deal with the magter here on dis they really were alien to us nothing they did made sense
and nothing we did seemed to have the slightest effect on them but you discovered that they were sick and that's something we know how to handle we're united again
doctors and nurses are on the way here now plans were put under way to evacuate what part of the population we could until the bombs were found the planet is united again and working hard
because the magter are sick infected by a destructive life form brion asked exactly so professor krafft said we are civilized after all you can't expect us to fight a war
they did me the honour to consult me first and to take no notice of my advice for i begged that there might be a good sized cow on it so as to stamp our pats of butter before they went to market also a horse on the other side and a flock snowed up at the bottom
they inquired strictly into the annals of our family i told them of course all about king alfred upon which they settled that one quarter should be three cakes on a bar with a lion regardant done upon a field of gold
also i told them that very likely there had been a ridd in the battle fought not very far from plover's barrows by the earl of devon against the danes when hubba their chief was killed and the sacred standard taken
as some of the danes are said to be buried even upon land of ours and we call their graves if such they be even to this day barrows the heralds quite agreed with me that a ridd might have been there or thereabouts and if he was there
he was almost certain to have done his best being in sight of hearth and home
and good legs are an argument for good arms and supposing a man of this sort to have done his utmost as the manner of the ridds is it was next to certain that he himself must have captured the standard moreover the name of our farm was pure proof
a plover being a wild bird just the same as a raven is upon this chain of reasoning and without any weak misgivings
and the next thing which i mentioned possessing absolute certainty to wit that a pig with two heads had been born upon our farm not more than two hundred years agone although he died within a week my third quarter was made at once by a two headed boar with noble tusks
sable upon silver all this was very fierce and fine and so i pressed for a peaceful corner in the lower dexter and obtained a wheat sheaf set upright gold upon a field of green here i was inclined to pause and admire the effect
for even de whichehalse could not show a bearing so magnificent but the heralds said that it looked a mere sign board without a good motto under it and the motto must have my name in it they offered me first ridd non ridendus
but i said for god's sake gentlemen let me forget my latin then they proposed ridd readeth riddles but i begged them not to set down such a lie for no ridd ever had made or made out such a thing as a riddle since exmoor itself began
declined in the most decided manner to pay a farthing towards it and as i had now no money left the heralds became as blue as azure and as red as gules until her majesty the queen came forward very kindly and said that if his majesty gave me a coat of arms
i was not to pay for it therefore she herself did so quite handsomely and felt goodwill towards me in consequence now being in a hurry so far at least as it is in my nature to hurry to get to the end of this narrative
is it likely that i would have dwelled so long upon my coat of arms but for some good reason and this good reason is that lorna took the greatest pride in it and thought or at any rate said that it quite threw into the shade and eclipsed all her own ancient glories
and half in fun and half in earnest she called me sir john so continually that at last i was almost angry with her until her eyes were bedewed with tears and then i was angry with myself beginning to be short of money
from that awful circuit of shambles through which his name is still used by mothers to frighten their children into bed and right glad was i for even london shrank with horror at the news to escape a man so bloodthirsty savage
and even to his friends among whom i was reckoned malignant earl brandir was greatly pleased with me not only for having saved his life but for saving that which he valued more the wealth laid by for lord alan
praying my commendation demanded of me one thing only to speak of him as i found him as i had found him many a sunday furbishing up old furs for new with a glaze to conceal the moths ravages
i begged him to reconsider the point and not to demand such accuracy he said well well all trades had tricks especially the trick of business and i must take him if i were his true friend according to his own description
this i was glad enough to do because it saved so much trouble and i had no money to spend with him but still he requested the use of my name and i begged him to do the best with it as i never had kept a banker
with the rasp of winter bristles rising through and among the soft summer coat and when the new straw began to come in golden with the harvest gloss and smelling most divinely at those strange livery stables where the nags are put quite tail to tail
and when all the london folk themselves are asking about white frost from recollections of childhood then i say such a yearning seized me for moory crag and for dewy blade and even the grunting of our sheep when the sun goes down
that nothing but the new wisps of samson could have held me in london town lorna was moved with equal longing towards the country and country ways and she spoke quite as much of the glistening dew as she did of the smell of our oven
and here let me mention although the two are quite distinct and different
whether high or low but never found elsewhere the dew is so crisp and pure and pearly and in such abundance and the bread is so sweet so kind and homely you can eat a loaf and then another
now while i was walking daily in and out great crowds of men few of whom had any freedom from the cares of money and many of whom were even morbid with a worse pest called politics i could not be quit of thinking how we jostle one another
god has made the earth quite large with a spread of land large enough for all to live on without fighting also a mighty spread of water laying hands on sand and cliff with a solemn voice in storm time
such a man must be very wretched in this pure dearth of morality like a fisherman where no fish be and most of us have enough to do to attend to our own morals enough that i resolved to go
nearly everybody vowed that i was a great fool indeed to neglect so rudely which was the proper word they said the pushing of my fortunes but i answered that to push was rude and i left it to people who had no room and thought that my fortune must be heavy
lorna cried when i came away which gave me great satisfaction and she sent a whole trunkful of things for mother and annie and even lizzie and she seemed to think though she said it not that i made my own occasion for going
while all the time there was nothing whatever except my own love of adventure and sport to keep me from coming home again but i knew that my coat of arms and title would turn every bit of this grumbling into fine admiration
and so it fell out to a greater extent than even i desired for all the parishes round about united in a sumptuous dinner at the mother melldrum inn for now that good lady was dead and her name and face set on a sign post to which i was invited
it is needless to say that the real gentry for a long time treated my new honours with contempt and ridicule but gradually as they found that i was not such a fool as to claim any equality with them but went about my farm work and threw another man at wrestling
and touched my hat to the magistrates just the same as ever some gentlemen of the highest blood of which we think a great deal more than of gold around our neighbourhood actually expressed a desire to make my acquaintance
and when in a manner quite straightforward and wholly free from bitterness i thanked them for this which appeared to me the highest honour yet offered me
and themselves as well in a different way they did what nearly all englishmen do when a thing is right and sensible they shook hands with me and said that they could not deny but that there was reason in my view of the matter and although they themselves must be the losers which was a handsome thing to say
they would wait until i was a little older and more aware of my own value now this reminds me how it is that an english gentleman is so far in front of foreign noblemen and princes i have seen at times a little both of one and of the other
and making more than due allowance for the difficulties of language and the difference of training upon the whole the balance is in favour of our people and this because we have two weights solid and even in scale of manners outweighing all light complaisance to wit
the inborn love of justice and the power of abiding yet some people may be surprised that men with any love of justice whether inborn or otherwise could continue to abide the arrogance and rapacity and tyranny of the doones
and two hogsheads and a half of cider and a hundredweight of candles not to mention other things of almost every variety which they got by insisting upon it surely these might have sufficed to keep the people in their place with no outburst of wantonness
nevertheless it was not so they had made complaint about something too much ewe mutton i think it was and in spite of all the pledges given they had ridden forth and carried away two maidens of our neighbourhood
now these two maidens were known because they had served the beer at an ale house and many men who had looked at them over a pint or quart vessel especially as they were comely girls
and their mother although she had taken some money which the doones were always full of declared that it was a robbery and though it increased for a while the custom that must soon fall off again and who would have her two girls now clever as they were and good
before we had finished meditating upon this loose outrage for so i at least would call it though people accustomed to the law may take a different view of it we had news of a thing far worse which turned the hearts of our women sick
for he could run say two yards alone and perhaps four or five by holding to handles and he had a way of looking round and spreading his legs and laughing with his brave little body well fetched up after a desperate journey to the end of the table
which his mother said nothing could equal nevertheless he would come to be nursed as regular as a clock almost and inasmuch as he was the first both father and mother made much of him for god only knew whether they could ever compass such another one
christopher badcock was a tenant farmer in the parish of martinhoe renting some fifty acres of land with a right of common attached to them and at this particular time being now the month of february and fine open weather he was hard at work ploughing and preparing for spring corn
therefore his wife was not surprised although the dusk was falling that farmer christopher should be at work in blind man's holiday as we call it but she was surprised nay astonished when by the light of the kitchen fire brightened up for her husband
she saw six or seven great armed men burst into the room upon her and she screamed so that the maid in the back kitchen heard her but was afraid to come to help two of the strongest and fiercest men at once seized poor young margery and though she fought for her child and home
she was but an infant herself in their hands in spite of tears and shrieks and struggles they tore the babe from the mother's arms and cast it on the lime ash floor then they bore her away to their horses for by this time she was senseless
and telling the others to sack the house rode off with their prize to the valley and from the description of one of those two who carried off the poor woman i knew beyond all doubt that it was carver doone himself the other doones being left behind and grieved perhaps in some respects
in a word their taste being offended they came back to the kitchen and stamped and there was the baby lying by evil luck this child began to squeal about his mother having been petted hitherto and wont to get all he wanted by raising his voice but a little
now the mark of the floor was upon his head as the maid who had stolen to look at him when the rough men were swearing upstairs gave evidence and she put a dish cloth under his head and kissed him and ran away again
and she meant what was right by her master and mistress but could not help being frightened and many women have blamed her as i think unduly for her mode of forsaking baby so if it had been her own baby instinct rather than reason might have had the day with her
but the child being born of her mistress she wished him good luck and left him as the fierce men came downstairs and being alarmed by their power of language because they had found no silver she crept away in a breathless hurry and afraid how her breath might come back to her
for oftentime she had hiccoughs while this good maid was in the oven by side of back kitchen fireplace with a faggot of wood drawn over her and lying so that her own heart beat worse than if she were baking the men as i said before
fetch down the staves of the rack my boy what was farmer to have for supper naught but an onion or two and a loaf and a rasher of rusty bacon these poor devils live so badly they are not worth robbing no game
then let us have a game of loriot with the baby it will be the best thing that could befall a lusty infant heretic ride a cock horse to banbury cross bye bye baby bunting toss him up and let me see if my wrist be steady
the cruelty of this man is a thing it makes me sick to speak of enough that when the poor baby fell without attempt at cry or scream thinking it part of his usual play when they tossed him up to come down again
now i think that when we heard this story and poor kit badcock came all around in a sort of half crazy manner not looking up at any one but dropping his eyes and asking whether we thought he had been well treated and seeming void of regard for life
if this were all the style of it then having known him a lusty man and a fine singer in an ale house
why the hand may be dipped in molten metals
everybody knows that if it is not too hot the water will spread over the surface and evaporate but if it is too hot the water will glance off without wetting the iron and if this drop be allowed to fall on the hand it will be found that it is still cool
the fact is that the water never touches the hot iron at all provided the heat is sufficiently intense but assumes a slightly elliptical shape and is supported by a cushion of vapor
if instead of a flat iron we use a concave metal disk about the size and shape of a watch crystal some very interesting results may be obtained if the temperature of the disk is at or slightly above the boiling point
water dropped on it from a medicine dropper will boil
since the vapor is so rapidly evaporated from the surface of the drop that it forms the cushion just mentioned by a careful manipulation of the dropper the disk may be filled with water which notwithstanding the intense heat never reaches the boiling point
when in that state or nineteen degrees below the freezing point of water so that if a little water be dropped into the acid it will immediately freeze and the pellet of ice may be dropped into the hand from the still red hot disk
even mercury can be frozen in this way by a combination of chemicals through the action of this principle it is possible to dip the hand for a short time into melted lead
or even into melted copper the moisture of the skin supplying a vapor which prevents direct contact with the molten metal no more than an endurable degree of heat reaches the hand while the moisture lasts
the natural moisture of the hand is usually sufficient for this result but it is better to wipe the hand with a damp towel in david a wells things not generally known new york eighteen fifty seven
he adds that when the hand was dampened with ether there was no sensation of heat but on the contrary an agreeable feeling of coolness beckmann in his history of inventions vol two
he then squeezed the fingers of his horny hand close together put it for a few minutes under his armpit to make it sweat as he said and taking it again out drew it over a ladle filled with melted copper some of which he skimmed off
and moved his hand backwards and forwards very quickly by way of ostentation while i was viewing this performance i remarked a smell like that of singed horn or leather though his hand was not burnt
the workmen at the swedish melting house showed the same thing to some travellers in the seventeenth century for regnard saw it in sixteen eighty one at the copper works in lapland
saw the same stunt performed by workmen at the meridan brittania company's plant they told him that if the hand had been wet it would have been badly scalded
thus far our interest in heat resistance has uncovered secrets of no very great practical value however entertaining the uses to which we have seen them put but not all the investigation of these principles has been dictated by considerations of curiosity and entertainment
as long ago as eighteen twenty nine for instance an english newspaper printed the following proof against fire on tuesday week an experiment was made in presence of a committee of the academy of sciences at paris
so as to enable firemen to carry on their operations with safety his experiment is stated to have given satisfaction the pompiers were clothed in asbestos over which was a network of iron
some of them it was stated who wore double gloves of amianthus held a red hot bar during four minutes
gives a more detailed account of aldini from which the natural deduction is that the chevalier was a showman with an intellect fully up to the demands of his art sir david says
has been applied to the nobler purpose of saving human life and rescuing property from the flames
who has travelled through all europe to present this valuable gift to his species sir h davy had long ago shown that a safety lamp for illuminating mines containing inflammable air might be constructed of wire gauze alone
which prevented the flame within however large or intense from setting fire to the inflammable air without this valuable property which has been long in practical use he ascribed to the conducting and radiating power of the wire gauze which carried off the heat of the flame
the incombustible pieces of dress which he uses for the body arms and legs are formed out of strong cloth which has been steeped in a solution of alum while those for the head hands and feet are made of cloth of asbestos or amianthus
the head dress is a large cap which envelops the whole head down to the neck having suitable perforations for the eyes nose and mouth the stockings and cap are single but the gloves are made of double amianthus cloth
and five feet three inches wide which is much stronger than the ancient piece and possesses superior qualities in consequence of having been woven without the introduction of any foreign substance in this manufacture the fibers are prevented from breaking by action of steam
the metallic dress which is superadded to these means of defence consists of five principal pieces
with a mask large enough to leave a proper space between it and the asbestos cap a cuirass with its brassets a piece of armour for the trunk and thighs a pair of boots of double wire gauze
before the heat became inconvenient a fireman having his hand within a double asbestos glove and its palm protected by a piece of asbestos cloth seized with impunity a large piece of red hot iron
inflamed straw with it and brought it back again to the furnace on other occasions the fireman handled blazing wood and burning substances and walked during five minutes upon an iron grating placed over flaming fagots
in order to show how the head eyes and lungs are protected the fireman put on the asbestos and wire gauze cap and the cuirass and held the shield before his breast
a fire of shavings was then lighted and kept burning in a large raised chafing dish the fireman plunged his head into the middle of the flames with his face to the fuel and in that position went several times round the chafing dish for a period longer than a minute
in a subsequent trial at paris a fireman placed his head in the middle of a large brazier filled with flaming hay and wood and resisted the action of the fire during five or six minutes and even ten minutes
in the experiments which were made at paris in the presence of a committee of the academy of sciences two parallel rows of straw and brushwood supported by iron wires were formed at the distance of three feet from each other and extended thirty feet in length
when this combustible mass was set on fire
at this moment six firemen clothed in the incombustible dresses and marching at a slow pace behind each other repeatedly passed through the whole length between the two rows of flame which were constantly fed with additional combustibles
one of the firemen carried on his back a child eight years old in a wicker basket covered with metallic gauze and the child had no other dress than a cap made of amianthine cloth in february eighteen twenty nine
one of them with the basket and child rushed into a narrow place where the flames were raging eight yards high the violence of the fire was so great that he could not be seen while a thick black smoke spread around
throwing out a heat which was unsupportable by spectators the fireman remained so long invisible that serious doubts were entertained of his safety he at length however issued from the fiery gulf uninjured
and proud of having succeeded in braving so great a danger it is a remarkable result of these experiments that the firemen are able to breathe without difficulty in the middle of the flames
in consequence of which its temperature becomes supportable but also to the singular power which the body possesses of resisting great heats and of breathing air of high temperatures
and remained ten minutes but as the thermometer sunk very rapidly they resolved to enter the room singly
and sir joseph entered when the heat was two hundred eleven degrees though exposed to such an elevated temperature their bodies preserved their natural degree of heat whenever they breathed upon a thermometer it sunk several degrees
every expiration particularly if strongly made gave a pleasant impression of coolness to their nostrils and their cold breath cooled their fingers whenever it reached them on touching his side sir charles blagden found it cold like a corpse
hence they concluded that the human body possesses the power of destroying a certain degree of heat when communicated with a certain degree of quickness this power however varies greatly in different media
the same person who experienced no inconvenience from air heated to two hundred eleven degrees could just bear rectified spirits of wine at one hundred thirty degrees
cooling water at one hundred twenty three degrees
a familiar instance of this occurred in the heated room all the pieces of metal there even their watch chains felt so hot that they could scarcely bear to touch them for a moment while the air from which the metal had derived all its heat was only unpleasant
the same gentleman who performed the experiments above described ventured to expose themselves to still higher temperatures sir charles blagden went into a room where the heat was one degree or two degrees above two hundred sixty degrees
and remained eight minutes in this situation frequently walking about to all the different parts of the room but standing still most of the time in the coolest spot
the air though very hot gave no pain and sir charles and all the other gentlemen were of opinion that they could support a much greater heat
but after that time he felt an oppression in his lungs with a sense of anxiety which induced him to leave the room his pulse was then one hundred forty four double its ordinary quickness
in order to prove that there was no mistake respecting the degree of heat indicated by the thermometer and that the air which they breathed was capable of producing all the well known effects of such a heat on inanimate matter
they placed some eggs and a beef steak upon a tin frame near the thermometer but more distant from the furnace than from the wall of the room
and as they had noticed that the effect of the hot air was greatly increased by putting it in motion they blew upon the steak with a pair of bellows and thus hastened the dressing of it to such a degree that the greatest portion of it was found to be pretty well done in thirteen minutes
our distinguished countryman sir f chantrey has very recently exposed himself to a temperature still higher than any which we have mentioned the furnace which he employs for drying his moulds is about fourteen feet long twelve feet high and twelve feet broad
when it is raised to its highest temperature with the doors closed the thermometer stands at three hundred fifty degrees and the iron floor is red hot the workmen often enter it at a temperature of three hundred forty degrees walking over the iron floor with wooden clogs
which are of course charred on the surface on one occasion sir f chantrey accompanied by five or six of his friends entered the furnace and after remaining two minutes they brought out a thermometer which stood at three hundred twenty degrees
some threw themselves on their faces others got over the parapet and hung by their hands until he had passed while some squeezed themselves against the wall but the elephant passed on without doing harm to any
and avoiding the busy streets of the town directed its course towards the more quiet roads of the opulent quarter of megara the cries of the people at the approach of the elephant preceded its course and all took refuge in gardens or houses
the latter became less and less frequent until at a distance of two miles from the foot of the citadel the mahout on looking round perceived no one in sight he brought the elephant suddenly to a standstill quick my lord
he exclaimed now is the time
climbed out of the howdah and slipped down by the elephant's tail the usual plan for dismounting when an elephant is on its feet
leaped into a garden and hid himself among some bushes the mahout now turned the elephant and
slowly retraced his steps towards the citadel a minute or two later malchus issued out and quietly followed it he had gone some distance when he saw an arab approaching him and soon recognized nessus
they turned off together from the main road
at a spot near the port they found one of the arabs from above awaiting them and he at once led the way to the house inhabited by his family the scheme had been entirely successful
and in his arab garb he could now traverse the streets unsuspected nessus was overjoyed at the success of the stratagem and malchus himself could hardly believe that he had escaped from the terrible danger which threatened him
nessus and the arab at once returned to the citadel it was agreed that the former had better continue his work as usual until the evening
and the events which had occurred since his landing at carthage and asking him to receive him privately in two hours time in order that he might consult him as to the best plan to be followed nessus returned saying that manon was at home and was awaiting him
and the two at once set out for his house
received him most warmly and listened in astonishment to his story of what had befallen him malchus then explained the mission with which hannibal had charged him and asked his advice as to the best course to be adopted manon was silent for a time
hanno's faction is all powerful at present he said and were hannibal himself here i doubt whether his voice could stir the senate into taking action such as is needed the times have been hard
and hanno and his party have lavished money so freely among the lower classes that there is no hope of stirring the populace up to declare against him i think it would be in the highest degree dangerous were we as you propose
to introduce you suddenly to the senate as hannibal's ambassador to them and leave you to plead his cause you would obtain no hearing hanno would rise in his place and denounce you as one already condemned by the tribunals as an enemy to the republic
and would demand your instant execution and as he has a great majority of votes in the senate his demand would be complied with you would i am convinced throw away your life for no good purpose while your presence and your mysterious escape from prison
would be made the pretense for a fresh series of persecutions of our partisans i understand as well as you do the urgency for reinforcements being sent to italy but in order to do this the navy now rotting in our harbours must be repaired
the command of the sea must be regained and fresh levies of troops made to ask carthage to make these sacrifices in her present mood is hopeless we must await an opportunity i and my friends will prepare the way
will set our agents to work among the people and when the news of another victory arrives and the people's hopes are aroused and excited we will strike while the iron is hot and call upon them to make one great effort to bring the struggle to a conclusion and to finish with rome forever
such is in my opinion the only possible mode of proceeding to move now would be to ensure a rejection of our demands to bring fresh persecutions upon us and so to weaken us that we should be powerless to turn to good account
the opportunity which the news of another great victory would afford i will write at once to hannibal and explain all the circumstances of the situation and will tell him why i have counselled you to avoid carrying out his instructions
in the meantime you must for a short time remain in concealment while i arrange for a ship to carry you back to italy
for carthage with its hideous tyranny its foul corruption its forgetfulness of its glory its honour and even its safety is utterly hateful to me i trust that never again shall i set foot within its walls
manon said for the young blood runs hotly in your veins and your rage at seeing the fate which is too certainly impending over carthage and which you are powerless to prevent is in no way to be blamed
we old men bow more resignedly to the decrees of the gods you know the saying those whom the gods would destroy they first strike with madness carthage is such
she sees unmoved the heroic efforts which hannibal and his army are making to save her and she will not stretch out a hand to aid him she lives contentedly under the constant tyranny of hanno's rule
satisfied to be wealthy luxurious and slothful to carry on her trade to keep her riches caring nothing for the manly virtues indifferent to valour preparing herself slowly and surely to fall an easy prey to rome
the end probably will not come in my time it may come in yours but come it certainly and surely will a nation which can place a mere handful of its own citizens in the line of battle voluntarily dooms herself to destruction
i will be no sharer in the fate of carthage i have done with her and if i do not fall in the battlefield i will
where if the life is rough it is at least free and independent where courage and manliness and honour count for much and where the enervating influence of wealth is as yet unknown such is my firm resolution
such are the natural sentiments of your age and methinks were my own time to come over again i too would choose such a life in preference to an existence in the polluted atmosphere of ungrateful carthage and now
will you stop here with me or will you return to the place where you are staying i need not say how gladly i would have you here but i cannot answer certainly for your safety every movement of those belonging to our party is watched by hanno
and i doubt not that he has his spies among my slaves and servants
let your follower come nightly to me for instructions
i will come down and see him his visits were they known would excite suspicion bid him on his return watch closely to see that he is not followed and tell him to go by devious windings and to mix in the thickest crowds
in order to throw any one who may be following off his track before he rejoins you i trust to be able to arrange for a ship in the course of three or four days come again and see me before you leave here is a bag of gold you will need it to reward those who have assisted in your escape
and thanking manon for his kindness he returned with nessus who had been waiting without as they walked along malchus briefly related to his follower the substance of his interview with manon suddenly nessus stopped and listened and then resumed his walk
i think we are followed my lord he said one of hanno's spies in manon's household is no doubt seeking to discover who are the arabs who have paid his master a visit
if the man behind us be honest he will go straight on if he be a spy he will hesitate and stop at the corner to decide which of us he shall follow then i shall know what to do
accordingly at the next crossroad they came to nessus turned down and concealed himself a few paces away
a minute later nessus saw a dark figure come stealthily along he stopped at the junction of the roads and stood for a few seconds in hesitation
nessus issued from his hiding place and with steps as silent and stealthy as those of a tiger tracking his prey followed the man when within a few paces of him he gave a sudden spring and flung himself upon him
burying his knife between his shoulders without a sound the man fell forward on his face nessus coolly wiped his knife upon the garments of the spy and then proceeded at a rapid pace until he overtook malchus it was a spy he said
but he will carry no more tales to hanno two days later nessus on his return from his visit to manon brought news that the latter had arranged with the captain of a ship owned by a friend to carry them across to corinth
whence they would have no difficulty in taking a passage to italy they were to go on board late the following night and the ship would set sail at daybreak
paid a farewell visit to manon and repeated to him all the instructions of hannibal and manon handed him his letter for the general and again assured him that he would with his friends at once set to work to pave the way for an appeal to the populace at the first favourable opportunity
in the course of the day he had provided himself with the garments of a trader the character which he was now about to assume at midnight when all was quiet he and nessus set out and made their way down to the port where
at a little frequented landing stage a boat was awaiting them and they were at once rowed to the ship which was lying at anchor half a mile from the shore in readiness for an early start in the morning although it seemed next to impossible that they could have been traced
listening to every sound and it was not until the anchor was weighed the sails hoisted and the vessel began to draw away from carthage that he went into his cabin on the sixth day after leaving carthage the ship entered the port of corinth
there were several vessels there from italian ports but before proceeding to arrange for a passage malchus went to a shop and bought for himself and nessus such clothing and arms as would enable them to pass without difficulty
as fighting men belonging to one of the latin tribes then he made inquiries on the quay and finding that a small italian craft was to start that afternoon for brundusium he went on board and accosted the captain
we want to cross to italy he said but we have our reasons for not wishing to land at brundusium and would fain be put ashore at some distance from the town we are ready of course to pay extra for the trouble the request did not seem strange to the captain
the language with which all who traded on the mediterranean were familiar he supposed that they had in some way embroiled themselves with the authorities at brundusium and had fled for awhile until the matter blew over
he asked rather a high price for putting them ashore in a boat as they wished
as a readiness to pay an exorbitant price might have given rise to doubts in the captain's mind as to the quality of his passengers once or twice he made as if he would go ashore and the captain at last abated his demands to a reasonable sum when this was settled
but remained on board until the vessel sailed as he feared that he might again be recognized by some of the sailors of the carthaginian vessels in port the weather was fair and the wind light and on the second day after sailing
they had before embarking laid in a store of provisions not only for a voyage but for their journey across the country as the slight knowledge which malchus had of the latin tongue would have betrayed him at once were he obliged to enter a town or village to purchase food
carrying the provisions in bundles they made for the mountains and after three days journey reached without interruption or adventure the camp of hannibal he was still lying in his intrenched camp near geronium
the roman army was as before watching him at a short distance off malchus at once sought the tent of the general whose surprise at seeing him enter was great for he had not expected that he would return until the spring
malchus gave him an account of all that had taken place since he left him hannibal was indignant in the extreme at hanno having ventured to arrest and condemn his ambassador when he learned the result of the interview with manon
and heard how completely the hostile faction were the masters of carthage he agreed that the counsels of the old nobleman were wise and that malchus could have done no good whereas he would have exposed himself to almost certain death
by endeavouring further to carry out the mission with which he had been charged manon knows what is best and no doubt a premature attempt to excite the populace to force hanno into sending the reinforcements we so much need would have not only failed
but would have injured our cause he and his friends will doubtless work quietly to prepare the public mind and i trust that ere very long some decisive victory will give them the opportunity for exciting a great demonstration on our behalf
the remainder of the winter passed quietly malchus resumed his post as the commander of hannibal's bodyguard but his duties were very light the greater part of his time was spent in accompanying hannibal in his visits to the camps of the soldiers
where nothing was left undone which could add to the comfort and contentment of the troops there is no stronger evidence of the popularity of hannibal and of the influence which he exercised over his troops than the fact that the army under him
composed as it was of men of so many nationalities for the most part originally compelled against their will to enter the service of carthage maintained their discipline unshaken not only by the hardships and sacrifices of the campaigns
but through the long periods of enforced idleness in their winter quarters from first to last through the long war there was neither grumbling nor discontent nor insubordination among the troops they served willingly and cheerfully
they had absolute confidence in their general and were willing to undertake the most tremendous labours and to engage in the most arduous conflicts to please him knowing that he on his part
was unwearied in promoting their comfort and well being at all other times as the spring advanced the great magazines which hannibal had brought with him became nearly exhausted and no provisions could be obtained from the surrounding country
which had been completely ruined by the long presence of the two armies it became therefore necessary to move from the position which he had occupied during the winter the romans possessed the great advantage over him of having magazines in their rear
constantly replenished by their allies and move where they might they were sure of obtaining subsistence without difficulty thus upon the march they were unembarrassed by the necessity of taking a great baggage train with them and when halted
their general could keep his army together in readiness to strike a blow whenever an opportunity offered while hannibal on the other hand was forced to scatter a considerable portion of the army in search of provisions
the annual elections at rome had just taken place and terentius varro and emilius paulus had been chosen consuls emilius belonged to the aristocratic party
and had given proof of military ability three years before when he had commanded as consul in the illyrian war varro belonged to the popular party
as a coarse and brutal demagogue the son of a butcher and having himself been a butcher but he was unquestionably an able man and possessed some great qualities the praetor marcellus
while another praetor lucius postumius with one legion was in cisalpine gaul keeping down the tribes friendly to carthage but before the new consuls arrived to take the command of the army hannibal had moved from geronium
the great roman magazine of apulia was at cannae a town near the river aulidus this important place was but fifty miles by the shortest route across the plain from geronium but the romans were unable to follow directly across the plain
for at this time the carthaginians greatly outnumbered them in cavalry and they would therefore have to take the road round the foot of the mountains which was nearly seventy miles long and yet by some unaccountable blunder
they neglected to place a sufficient guard over their great magazines at cannae to defend them for even a few days against a sudden attack hannibal saw the opportunity and when spring was passing into summer
where the vast magazines of the romans at once fell into his hands he thus not only obtained possession of his enemy's supplies but interposed between the romans and the low lying district of southern apulia where alone at this early season of the year
the corn was fully ripe the romans had now no choice but to advance and fight a battle for the recovery of their magazines for had they retired the apulians who had already suffered terribly from the war
would in sheer despair have been forced to declare for carthage
while hannibal could victual his army from the country behind him the senate therefore having largely reinforced the army ordered the consuls to advance and give battle
they had under them eight full legions or eighty thousand infantry and seven thousand two hundred cavalry to oppose these hannibal had forty thousand infantry and ten thousand excellent cavalry of whom two thousand were numidians
on the second day after leaving the neighbourhood of geronium the romans encamped at a distance of six miles from the carthaginians here the usual difference of opinion at once arose between the roman consuls who commanded the army on alternate days
varro wished to march against the enemy without delay while emilius was adverse to risking an engagement in a country which being level and open was favourable to the action of hannibal's superior cavalry
on the following day varro whose turn it was to command marched towards the hostile camp hannibal attacked the roman advanced guard with his cavalry and light infantry but varro had supported his cavalry not only by his light troops
but by a strong body of his heavy armed infantry and after an engagement which lasted for several hours he repulsed the carthaginians with considerable loss that evening the roman army encamped about three miles from cannae
on the right bank of the aufidus the next morning emilius who was in command detached a third of his force across the river and encamped them there for the purpose of supporting the roman foraging parties on that side and of interrupting those of the carthaginians
the next day passed quietly but on the following morning hannibal quitted his camp and formed his army in order of battle to tempt the romans to attack but emilius sensible that the ground was against him would not move
but contented himself with further strengthening his camps hannibal seeing that the romans would not fight detached his numidian cavalry across the river to cut off the roman foraging parties and to surround and harass their smaller camp on that side of the river
and formed it in order of battle leaving eight thousand of his men to guard his camp by thus doing he obtained a position which he could the better hold with his inferior forces while the romans deeming that he intended to attack their camp on that side of the river
would be likely to move their whole army across and to give battle this in fact varro proceeded to do leaving ten thousand men in his own camp with orders to march out and attack that of hannibal during the engagement he led the rest of his troops over the river
and having united his force with that in the camp on the right bank marched down the river until he faced the position which hannibal had taken up this had been skillfully chosen the river whose general course was east and west made a loop
and across this hannibal had drawn up his army with both wings resting upon the river thus the romans could not outflank him and the effect of their vastly superior numbers in infantry would to some extent be neutralized
the following was the disposition of his troops the spaniards and gauls occupied the centre of the line of infantry the africans formed the two wings on his left flank between the africans and the river he placed his heavy african and gaulish horse
eight thousand strong while the two thousand numidians were posted between the infantry and the river on the right flank hannibal commanded the centre of the army in person hanno the right wing hasdrubal the left wing maharbal commanded the cavalry
varro placed his infantry in close and heavy order so as to reduce their front to that of the carthaginians the roman cavalry numbering two thousand four hundred men was on his right wing and was thus opposed to hannibal's heavy cavalry eight thousand strong
four thousand eight hundred strong was on the left wing facing the numidians emilius commanded the roman right varro the left the carthaginians faced north so that the wind which was blowing strongly from the south
swept clouds of dust over their heads full into the faces of the enemy the battle was commenced by the light troops on both sides who fought for some time obstinately and courageously but without any advantage to either
while this contest was going on hannibal advanced his centre so as to form a salient angle projecting in front of his line the whole of the gauls and spaniards took part in this movement while the africans remained stationary
at the same time he launched his heavy cavalry against the roman horse the latter were instantly overthrown and were driven from the field with great slaughter emilius himself was wounded but managed to join the infantry
while the carthaginian heavy horse were thus defeating the roman cavalry the numidians maneuvered near the greatly superior cavalry of the italian allies and kept them occupied until the heavy horse after destroying the roman cavalry
swept round behind their infantry and fell upon the rear of the italian horse while the numidians charged them fiercely in front thus caught in a trap the italian horse were completely annihilated and so before the heavy infantry of the two armies met each other
not a roman cavalry soldier remained alive and unwounded on the field the roman infantry now advanced to the charge and from the nature of hannibal's formation their centre first came in contact with the head of the salient angle
formed by the gauls and spaniards these resisted with great obstinacy the principes who formed the second line of the roman infantry came forward and joined the spearmen and even the triarii pressed forward and joined in the fight
fighting with extreme obstinacy the carthaginian centre was forced gradually back until they were again in a line with the africans on their flanks the romans had insensibly pressed in from both flanks upon the point where they had met with resistance
still further the gauls and spaniards were driven back until they now formed an angle in rear of the original line and in this angle the whole of the roman infantry in a confused mass pressed upon them this was the moment for which hannibal had waited
he wheeled round both his flanks and the africans who had hitherto not struck a blow now fell in perfect order upon the flanks of the roman mass while hasdrubal with his victorious cavalry charged down like a torrent upon their rear
then followed a slaughter unequalled in the records of history unable to open out to fight or to fly with no quarter asked or given the romans and their latin allies fell before the swords of their enemies till
of the seventy thousand infantry which had advanced to the fight forty thousand had fallen on the field three thousand were taken prisoners seven thousand escaped to the small camp and ten thousand made their way across the river to the large camp
where they joined the force which had been left there and which had in obedience to varro's orders attacked the carthaginian camp but had been repulsed with a loss of two thousand men all the troops in both camps were forced to surrender on the following morning
calliope catesby was in his humours again
this goodly promontory the earth
was to him no more than a pestilent congregation of vapours overtaken by the megrims the philosopher may seek relief in soliloquy my lady find solace in tears the flaccid easterner
scold at the millinery bills of his women folk such recourse was insufficient to the denizens of quicksand calliope especially
according to his lights over night calliope had hung out signals of approaching low spirits
and refused to apologise
while strolling about he reached often for twigs of mesquite and chewed the leaves fiercely that was always an ominous act another symptom alarming to those who were familiar with the different stages of his doldrums
was his increasing politeness and a tendency to use formal phrases a husky softness succeeded the usual penetrating drawl in his tones a dangerous courtesy marked his manners later
his smile became crooked the left side of his mouth slanting upward and quicksand got ready to stand from under at this stage calliope generally began to drink finally about midnight
he was seen going homeward saluting those whom he met with exaggerated but inoffensive courtesy not yet was calliope's melancholy at the danger point
he would seat himself at the window of the room he occupied over silvester's tonsorial parlours and there chant lugubrious and tuneless ballads until morning accompanying the noises by appropriate maltreatment
of a jangling guitar more magnanimous than nero he would thus give musical warning of the forthcoming municipal upheaval that quicksand was scheduled to endure
quiet to indolence and amiable to worthlessness at best he was a loafer and a nuisance at worst he was the terror of quicksand his ostensible occupation was something subordinate in the real estate line
he drove the beguiled easterner in buckboards out to look over lots and ranch property originally he came from one of the gulf states his lank six feet slurring rhythm of speech and sectional idioms giving evidence of his birthplace
and yet after taking on western adjustments this languid pine box whittler cracker barrel hugger shady corner lounger of the cotton fields and sumac hills of the south became famed as a bad man among men
at nine the next morning calliope was fit inspired by his own barbarous melodies and the contents of his jug he was ready primed to gather fresh laurels from the diffident brow of quicksand
encircled and criss crossed with cartridge belts abundantly garnished with revolvers and copiously drunk he poured forth into quicksand's main street too chivalrous to surprise and capture a town by silent sortie
he paused at the nearest corner and emitted his slogan that fearful brassy yell so reminiscent of the steam piano that had gained for him the classic appellation that had superseded his own baptismal name
following close upon his vociferation came three shots from his forty five by way of limbering up the guns and testing his aim
was stimulated to a sudden and admirable burst of speed still grasping the neck of the shattered bottle the new gilt weather cock on judge riley's lemon and ultramarine two story residence shivered flapped and hung by a splinter
the sport of the wanton breezes the artillery was in trim calliope's hand was steady the high calm ecstasy of habitual battle was upon him though slightly embittered by the sadness of alexander
in that his conquests were limited to the small world of quicksand down the street went calliope shooting right and left glass fell like hail dogs vamosed chickens flew squawking
and was drowned periodically by the brazen screech that quicksand knew so well the occasions of calliope's low spirits were legal holidays in quicksand all along the main street in advance of his coming
clerks were putting up shutters and closing doors business would languish for a space the right of way was calliope's and as he advanced observing the dearth of opposition and the few opportunities for distraction
perceptibly increased but some four squares farther down lively preparations were being made to minister to mister catesby's love for interchange of compliments and repartee
on the previous night numerous messengers had hastened to advise buck patterson the city marshal of calliope's impending eruption the patience of that official
often strained in extending leniency toward the disturber's misdeeds had been overtaxed in quicksand some indulgence was accorded the natural ebullition of human nature
providing that the lives of the more useful citizens were not recklessly squandered or too much property needlessly laid waste the community sentiment was against a too strict enforcement of the law but calliope had raised the limit
his outbursts had been too frequent and too violent to come within the classification of a normal and sanitary relaxation of spirit
buck patterson had been expecting and awaiting in his little ten by twelve frame office that preliminary yell announcing that calliope was feeling blue
when the signal came the city marshal rose to his feet and buckled on his guns two deputy sheriffs and three citizens who had proven the edible qualities of fire also stood up
ready to bandy with calliope's leaden jocularities gather that fellow in said buck patterson setting forth the lines of the campaign don't have no talk but shoot as soon as you can get a show
keep behind cover and bring him down he's a nogood un it's up to calliope to turn up his toes this time i reckon go to him all spraddled out boys and don't git too reckless
he hits buck patterson tall muscular and solemn faced with his bright city marshal badge shining on the breast of his blue flannel shirt gave his posse directions for the onslaught upon calliope
the plan was to accomplish the downfall of the quicksand terror without loss to the attacking party if possible the splenetic calliope unconscious of retributive plots was steaming down the channel
cannonading on either side when he suddenly became aware of breakers ahead
and opened fire at the same time the rest of the posse divided shelled him from two side streets up which they were cautiously manoeuvring from a well executed detour the first volley broke the lock of one of calliope's guns
cut a neat underbit in his right ear and exploded a cartridge in his crossbelt scorching his ribs as it burst feeling braced up by this unexpected tonic to his spiritual depression
calliope executed a fortissimo note from his upper register and returned the fire like an echo
but a trifle too late to save one of the deputies a bullet just above the elbow and the marshal a bleeding cheek from a splinter that a ball tore from the box he had ducked behind
choosing with a rapid eye the street from which the weakest and least accurate fire had come he invaded it at a double quick abandoning the unprotected middle of the street with rare cunning the opposing force in that direction
one of the deputies and two of the valorous volunteers waited concealed by beer barrels until calliope had passed their retreat and then peppered him from the rear in another moment they were reinforced by the marshal and his other men
and then calliope felt that in order to successfully prolong the delights of the controversy he must find some means of reducing the great odds against him his eye fell upon a structure that seemed to hold out this promise providing he could reach it
not far away was the little railroad station its building a strong box house ten by twenty feet resting upon a platform four feet above ground windows were in each of its walls
something like a fort it might become to a man thus sorely pressed by superior numbers calliope made a bold and rapid spurt for it the marshal's crowd smoking him as he ran he reached the haven in safety
the station agent leaving the building by a window like a flying squirrel as the garrison entered the door patterson and his supporters halted under protection of a pile of lumber and held consultations in the station was an unterrified desperado
who was an excellent shot and carried an abundance of ammunition for thirty yards on either side of the besieged was a stretch of bare open ground it was a sure thing that the man who attempted to enter that unprotected area
would be stopped by one of calliope's bullets the city marshal was resolved he had decided that calliope catesby should no more wake the echoes of quicksand with his strident whoop he had so announced
officially and personally he felt imperatively bound to put the soft pedal on that instrument of discord it played bad tunes standing near was a hand truck used in the manipulation of small freight
it stood by a shed full of sacked wool a consignment from one of the sheep ranches on this truck the marshal and his men piled three heavy sacks of wool stooping low buck patterson started for calliope's fort
slowly pushing this loaded truck before him for protection the posse scattering broadly stood ready to nip the besieged in case he should show himself in an effort to repel the juggernaut of justice that was creeping upon him
only once did calliope make demonstration he fired from a window and some tufts of wool spurted from the marshal's trustworthy bulwark the return shots from the posse pattered against the window frame of the fort no loss resulted
on either side the marshal was too deeply engrossed in steering his protected battleship to be aware of the approach of the morning train until he was within a few feet of the platform the train was coming up on the other side of it
what an opportunity it would offer to calliope he had only to step out the other door mount the train and away abandoning his breastwork buck with his gun ready dashed up the steps and into the room
driving upon the closed door with one heave of his weighty shoulder the members of the posse heard one shot fired inside and then there was silence at length the wounded man opened his eyes
after a blank space he again could see and hear and feel and think turning his eyes about he found himself lying on a wooden bench a tall man with a perplexed countenance wearing a big badge with city marshal engraved upon it stood over him
with a wrinkled face and sparkling black eyes was holding a wet handkerchief against one of his temples he was trying to get these facts fixed in his mind and connected with past events when the old woman began to talk
there now great big strong man that bullet never tetched ye
and sort of paralysed ye for a spell
cun cussion is what they names it abel wadkins used to kill squirrels that way barkin em abe called it you jest been barked sir and you'll be all right in a little bit feel lots better already don't ye
you just lay still a while longer and let me bathe your head you don't know me i reckon and tain't surprisin that you shouldn't i come in on that train from alabama to see my son big son ain't he
this is my son sir half turning the old woman looked up at the standing man her worn face lighting with a proud and wonderful smile she reached out one veined and calloused hand and took one of her son's
then smiling cheerily down at the prostrate man she continued to dip the handkerchief
she had the benevolent garrulity of old age i ain't seen my son before she continued in eight years one of my nephews elkanah price
i can stay a whole week on it and then it'll take me back again jest think now
a city marshal of a whole town
he didn't say nothin about it in his letters
i never was much of a hand to git skeered tain't no use
then i see son's face lookin out through the window
he met me at the door and squeezes me most to death and there you was sir a lyin there jest like you was dead
i think i'll sit up now said the concussion patient i'm feeling pretty fair by this time he sat somewhat weakly yet leaning against the wall he was a rugged man big boned and straight
his eyes steady and keen seemed to linger upon the face of the man standing so still above him his look wandered often from the face he studied to the marshal's badge upon the other's breast
yes yes you'll be all right said the old woman patting his arm
don't you take it as meddlesome fer an old woman with a son as big as you to talk about it
it's his duty and them that acts bad and lives wrong has to suffer don't blame my son any sir
he's always been a good boy good when he was growin up and kind and bedient and well behaved won't you let me advise you sir not to do so no more be a good man and leave liquor alone and live peaceably and goodly
keep away from bad company and work honest and sleep sweet the black mitted hand of the old pleader gently touched the breast of the man she addressed very earnest and candid her old worn face looked
in her rusty black dress and antique bonnet she sat near the close of a long life and epitomised the experience of the world still the man to whom she spoke gazed above her head contemplating the silent son of the old mother
what does the marshal say he asked does he believe the advice is good suppose the marshal speaks up and says if the talk's all right the tall man moved uneasily he fingered the badge on his breast for a moment
and then he put an arm around the old woman and drew her close to him she smiled the unchanging mother smile of three score years and patted his big brown hand with her crooked mittened fingers while her son spake
that if i was in your place i'd follow it if i was a drunken desp'rate character without shame or hope i'd follow it if i was in your place and you was in mine i'd say marshal
i'll drop the tanglefoot and the gun play and won't play hoss no more i'll be a good citizen and go to work and quit my foolishness so help me god that's what i'd say to you if you was marshal and i was in your place
hear my son talkin said the old woman softly hear him sir you promise to be good and he won't do you no harm forty one year ago his heart first beat ag'in mine and it's beat true ever since
the other man rose to his feet trying his limbs and stretching his muscles
he if you was in my place and said that and i was marshal i'd say go free and do your best to keep your promise lawsy exclaimed the old woman in a sudden flutter ef i didn't clear forget that trunk of mine
there's eight jars of home made quince jam in that trunk that i made myself i wouldn't have nothin happen to them jars for a red apple away to the door she trotted spry and anxious
and then calliope catesby spoke out to buck patterson i just couldn't help it buck i seen her through the window a comin in she never had heard a word bout my tough ways i didn't have the nerve to let her know i was a worthless cuss
bein hunted down by the community there you was lyin where my shot laid you like you was dead
and i fastened my reputation onto you i told her i was the marshal and you was a holy terror you can take your badge back now buck with shaking fingers calliope began to unfasten the disc of metal from his shirt
easy there said buck patterson you keep that badge right where it is calliope catesby don't you dare to take it off till the day your mother leaves this town you'll be city marshal of quicksand as long as she's here to know it
after i stir around town a bit and put em on i'll guarantee that nobody won't give the thing away to her
you follow that advice she give me
buck said calliope feelingly
who although evidently past fifty desired to be taken for not more than forty bent forwards from the carriage door on the panels of which were emblazoned the armorial bearings of a baron
whether the count of monte cristo resided there and if he were within while waiting the occupant of the carriage surveyed the house the garden as far as he could distinguish it and the livery of servants who passed to and fro
with an attention so close as to be somewhat impertinent his glance was keen but showed cunning rather than intelligence his lips were straight and so thin that as they closed they were drawn in over the teeth
his cheek bones were broad and projecting a never failing proof of audacity and craftiness while the flatness of his forehead and the enlargement of the back of his skull which rose much higher than his large and coarsely shaped ears
combined to form a physiognomy anything but prepossessing save in the eyes of such as considered that the owner of so splendid an equipage must needs be all that was admirable and enviable
more especially when they gazed on the enormous diamond that glittered in his shirt and the red ribbon that depended from his button hole the groom in obedience to his orders tapped at the window of the porter's lodge saying
pray does not the count of monte cristo live here his excellency does reside here replied the concierge but added he glancing an inquiring look at ali ali returned a sign in the negative
but what asked the groom his excellency does not receive visitors to day then here is my master's card the baron danglars you will take it to the count and say that although in haste to attend the chamber
my master came out of his way to have the honor of calling upon him i never speak to his excellency replied the concierge the valet de chambre will carry your message the groom returned to the carriage well asked danglars
the man somewhat crest fallen by the rebuke he had received repeated what the concierge had said bless me murmured baron danglars this must surely be a prince instead of a count by their styling him excellency
and only venturing to address him by the medium of his valet de chambre however it does not signify he has a letter of credit on me so i must see him when he requires his money
danglars called out to his coachman
apprised in time of the visit paid him monte cristo had from behind the blinds of his pavilion as minutely observed the baron by means of an excellent lorgnette as danglars himself had scrutinized the house garden and servants
that fellow has a decidedly bad countenance said the count in a tone of disgust as he shut up his glass into its ivory case how comes it that all do not retreat in aversion at sight of that flat receding
serpent like forehead round vulture shaped head and sharp hooked nose like the beak of a buzzard ali cried he striking at the same time on the brazen gong
almost immediately bertuccio entered the apartment
i did replied the count you no doubt observed the horses standing a few minutes since at the door certainly your excellency i noticed them for their remarkable beauty
there is another pair fully as fine as mine not in my stables at the look of displeasure added to the angry tone in which the count spoke ali turned pale and held down his head
it is not your fault my good ali said the count in the arabic language
either in voice or face it is not your fault you do not understand the points of english horses the countenance of poor ali recovered its serenity permit me to assure your excellency said bertuccio
that the horses you speak of were not to be sold when i purchased yours monte cristo shrugged his shoulders it seems sir steward said he that you have yet to learn that all things are to be sold to such as care to pay the price
a banker never loses an opportunity of doubling his capital is your excellency really in earnest inquired the steward monte cristo regarded the person who durst presume to doubt his words with the look of one equally surprised and displeased
i have to pay a visit this evening replied he i desire that these horses with completely new harness may be at the door with my carriage bertuccio bowed and was about to retire but when he reached the door he paused and then said
at what o'clock does your excellency wish the carriage and horses to be ready at five o'clock replied the count i beg your excellency's pardon interposed the steward in a deprecating manner
for venturing to observe that it is already two o'clock i am perfectly aware of that fact answered monte cristo calmly
let all the horses in my stables be led before the windows of your young lady that she may select those she prefers for her carriage request her also to oblige me by saying whether it is her pleasure to dine with me if so
let dinner be served in her apartments now leave me and desire my valet de chambre to come hither scarcely had ali disappeared when the valet entered the chamber
said the count you have been in my service one year the time i generally give myself to judge of the merits or demerits of those about me you suit me very well baptistin bowed low it only remains for me to know whether i also suit you
exclaimed baptistin eagerly listen if you please till i have finished speaking replied monte cristo
more than many a brave subaltern who continually risks his life for his country obtains you live in a manner far superior to many clerks who work ten times harder than you do for their money then
though yourself a servant you have other servants to wait upon you take care of your clothes
it would be long indeed ere you would find so lucrative a post as that you have now the good fortune to fill i neither ill use nor ill treat my servants by word or action an error i readily forgive
but wilful negligence or forgetfulness never my commands are ordinarily short clear and precise and i would rather be obliged to repeat my words twice or even three
i am rich enough to know whatever i desire to know and i can promise you i am not wanting in curiosity if then i should learn that you had taken upon yourself to speak of me to any one favorably or unfavorably
to comment on my actions or watch my conduct that very instant you would quit my service you may now retire i never caution my servants a second time remember that
baptistin bowed and was proceeding towards the door
those whom i am compelled to dismiss lose as a matter of course all participation in this money while their portion goes to the fund accumulating for those domestics who remain with me and among whom it will be divided at my death
you have been in my service a year your fund has already begun to accumulate let it continue to do so this address delivered in the presence of ali who not understanding one word of the language in which it was spoken
stood wholly unmoved produced an effect on m baptistin only to be conceived by such as have occasion to study the character and disposition of french domestics i assure your excellency said he
that at least it shall be my study to merit your approbation in all things and i will take m ali as my model by no means replied the count in the most frigid tones
he cannot possibly serve you as a pattern for your conduct not being as you are a paid servant but a mere slave a dog who should he fail in his duty towards me i should not discharge from my service but kill
baptistin opened his eyes with astonishment you seem incredulous said monte cristo who repeated to ali in the arabic language what he had just been saying to baptistin in french the nubian smiled
assentingly to his master's words then kneeling on one knee respectfully kissed the hand of the count
the count then motioned the valet de chambre to retire and to ali to follow to his study where they conversed long and earnestly together
the count struck thrice upon his gong when ali was wanted one stroke was given two summoned baptistin and three bertuccio the steward entered
they are at the door harnessed to the carriage as your excellency desired does your excellency wish me to accompany him
the count descended to the door of his mansion and beheld his carriage drawn by the very pair of horses he had so much admired in the morning as the property of danglars as he passed them he said they are extremely handsome certainly
and you have done well to purchase them although you were somewhat remiss not to have procured them sooner indeed your excellency i had very considerable difficulty in obtaining them and as it is
they have cost an enormous price does the sum you gave for them make the animals less beautiful inquired the count shrugging his shoulders nay if your excellency is satisfied it is all that i could wish
from which a flight of stone steps led to the carriage drive as bertuccio with a respectful bow was moving away
for instance between havre and boulogne you see i give you a wide range it will be absolutely necessary that the place you may select have a small harbor creek or bay
into which my corvette can enter and remain at anchor she draws only fifteen feet she must be kept in constant readiness to sail immediately i think proper to give the signal make the requisite inquiries for a place of this description
purchase it at once in your own name the corvette must now i think be on her way to fecamp must she not certainly your excellency i saw her put to sea the same evening we quitted marseilles and the yacht
was ordered to remain at martigues tis well i wish you to write from time to time to the captains in charge of the two vessels so as to keep them on the alert
very good when you have purchased the estate i desire i want constant relays of horses at ten leagues apart along the northern and southern road your excellency may depend upon me the count made a gesture of satisfaction
descended the terrace steps and sprang into his carriage which was whirled along swiftly to the banker's house danglars was engaged at that moment presiding over a railroad committee but the meeting was nearly concluded when the name of his visitor was announced
as the count's title sounded on his ear he rose and addressing his colleagues who were members of one or the other chamber he said gentlemen pardon me for leaving you so abruptly but a most ridiculous circumstance has occurred which is this thomson and french
the roman bankers have sent to me a certain person calling himself the count of monte cristo and have given him an unlimited credit with me i confess this is the drollest thing i have ever met with in the course of my extensive foreign transactions
and you may readily suppose it has greatly roused my curiosity i took the trouble this morning to call on the pretended count if he were a real count he wouldn't be so rich but would you believe it he was not receiving
millionaire or a capricious beauty
it was very decently kept up but pursued danglars with one of his sinister smiles an order for unlimited credit calls for something like caution on the part of the banker to whom that order is given i am very anxious to see this man
i suspect a hoax is intended
they laugh best who laugh last having delivered himself of this pompous address uttered with a degree of energy that left the baron almost out of breath he bowed to the assembled party and withdrew to his drawing room
with the purpose of overwhelming him at the sight of so much luxury he found the count standing before some copies of albano and fattore that had been passed off to the banker as originals but which mere copies as they were
seemed to feel their degradation in being brought into juxtaposition with the gaudy colors that covered the ceiling the count turned round as he heard the entrance of danglars into the room with a slight inclination of the head
danglars signed to the count to be seated pointing significantly to a gilded arm chair covered with white satin embroidered with gold the count sat down
and member of the chamber of deputies monte cristo repeated all the titles he had read on the baron's card
but you are aware that we are living under a popular form of government and that i am myself a representative of the liberties of the people so much so replied monte cristo that while you call yourself baron
i was made baron and also chevalier of the legion of honor in return for services rendered but
and lafayette that was a noble example to follow monsieur
with the servants you understand i see to your domestics you are my lord the journalists style you monsieur
while your constituents call you citizen these are distinctions very suitable under a constitutional government i understand perfectly again danglars bit his lips he saw that he was no match for monte cristo in an argument of this sort
and he therefore hastened to turn to subjects more congenial
that i have received a letter of advice from thomson and french of rome i am glad to hear it baron for i must claim the privilege of addressing you after the manner of your servants
from living in a country where barons are still barons by right of birth but as regards the letter of advice i am charmed to find that it has reached you that will spare me the troublesome and disagreeable task of coming to you for money myself
you have received a regular letter of advice yes said danglars but i confess i didn't quite comprehend its meaning
go on monsieur here i am ready to give you any explanation you desire
here he felt in his breast pocket yes here it is well this letter gives the count of monte cristo
nothing else certainly is not that word known in france the people who wrote are anglo germans you know oh as for the composition of the letter there is nothing to be said
but as regards the competency of the document i certainly have doubts is it possible asked the count assuming all air and tone of the utmost simplicity and candor
is it possible that thomson and french are not looked upon as safe and solvent bankers pray tell me what you think baron for i feel uneasy
thomson and french are perfectly solvent replied danglars with an almost mocking smile but the word unlimited in financial affairs is so extremely vague is in fact unlimited
now what is vague is doubtful and it was a wise man who said
that however thomson and french may be inclined to commit acts of imprudence and folly
he is a wise man according to his own showing
the extent of my resources has never yet been questioned
by what right sir
which certainly must have some motive once more danglars bit his lips it was the second time he had been worsted and this time on his own ground his forced politeness sat awkwardly upon him
and approached almost to impertinence monte cristo on the contrary preserved a graceful suavity of demeanor aided by a certain degree of simplicity he could assume at pleasure and thus possessed the advantage
well sir resumed danglars after a brief silence i will endeavor to make myself understood by requesting you to inform me for what sum you propose to draw upon me
why truly replied monte cristo determined not to lose an inch of the ground he had gained my reason for desiring an unlimited credit was precisely because i did not know how much money i might need
the banker thought the time had come for him to take the upper hand
let me beg of you not to hesitate in naming your wishes you will then be convinced that the resources of the house of danglars however limited are still equal to meeting the largest demands and were you even to require a million
i beg your pardon interposed monte cristo i said a million replied danglars with the confidence of ignorance but could i do with a million retorted the count my dear sir if a trifle like that could suffice me
excuse my smiling when you speak of a sum i am in the habit of carrying in my pocket book or dressing case and with these words monte cristo took from his pocket a small case containing his visiting cards
and drew forth two orders on the treasury for five hundred thousand francs each payable at sight to the bearer a man like danglars was wholly inaccessible to any gentler method of correction
the effect of the present revelation was stunning he trembled and was on the verge of apoplexy the pupils of his eyes as he gazed at monte cristo dilated horribly
confess honestly that you have not perfect confidence in thomson and french i understand and foreseeing that such might be the case i took in spite of my ignorance of affairs certain precautions see here are two similar letters
to one or other of these two firms the blow had struck home and danglars was entirely vanquished with a trembling hand he took the two letters from the count who held them carelessly between finger and thumb
and proceeded to scrutinize the signatures with a minuteness that the count might have regarded as insulting had it not suited his present purpose to mislead the banker
and rising as if to salute the power of gold personified in the man before him three letters of unlimited credit i can be no longer mistrustful but you must pardon me my dear count for confessing to some degree of astonishment
with the most gentlemanly air tis not for such trifling sums as these that your banking house is to be incommoded
and they have only been employed by me within the last few years
however you will be better informed as to me and my possessions ere long and the count while pronouncing these latter words accompanied them with one of those ghastly smiles that used to strike terror into poor franz d'epinay
with your tastes and means of gratifying them continued danglars you will exhibit a splendor that must effectually put us poor miserable millionaires quite in the shade if i mistake not you are an admirer of paintings
at least i judged so from the attention you appeared to be bestowing on mine when i entered the room if you will permit me i shall be happy to show you my picture gallery composed entirely of works by the ancient masters warranted as such
not a modern picture among them i cannot endure the modern school of painting you are perfectly right in objecting to them for this one great fault that they have not yet had time to become old
or will you allow me to show you several fine statues by thorwaldsen bartoloni and canova all foreign artists for as you may perceive i think but very indifferently of our french sculptors
but all this may come later when we shall be better known to each other for the present i will confine myself if perfectly agreeable to you to introducing you to the baroness danglars excuse my impatience my dear count
but a client like you is almost like a member of the family monte cristo bowed in sign that he accepted the proffered honor danglars rang and was answered by a servant in a showy livery
is the baroness at home inquired danglars yes my lord answered the man and alone no my lord madame has visitors have you any objection to meet any persons who may be with madame
as for my wife i must tell you she lowered herself by marrying me for she belongs to one of the most ancient families in france
i have not the honor of knowing madame danglars but i have already met
ah indeed said danglars and where was that
we were together a good deal during the carnival at rome
have i not heard talk of some strange adventure with bandits or thieves hid in ruins and of his having had a miraculous escape i forget how but i know he used to amuse my wife and daughter by telling them about it after his return from italy
who had gone to inquire the pleasure of his mistress
a siege and bed the children were sitting in the gloomy banqueting hall at the end of one of the long bare wooden tables there was now no hope
martha had brought in the dinner and the dinner was invisible and unfeelable too
they knew but too well that for them there was nothing there but table suddenly cyril felt in his pocket
biscuits three whole ones and a generous handful of crumbs and fragments i got them this morning cook and i'd quite forgotten he explained as he divided them with scrupulous fairness into four heaps
they were eaten in a happy silence though they tasted a little oddly
yes but look here squirrel said robert you're so clever at explaining about invisibleness and all that how is it the biscuits are here and all the bread and meat and things have disappeared
i don't know said cyril after a pause unless it's because we had them
then if we had the mutton it would be real said robert oh don't i wish we could find it but we can't find it i suppose it isn't ours till we've got it in our mouths
thinking of the biscuits who puts mutton in their pockets goose girl said cyril but i know at any rate i'll try it he leaned over the table with his face about an
it's no good said robert in deep dejection you'll only hullo cyril stood up with a grin of triumph holding a square piece of bread in his mouth it was quite real everyone saw it
it is true that directly he bit a piece off the rest vanished
the next moment all the others were following his example and opening and shutting their mouths an inch or so from the bare looking table robert captured a
painful scene it is enough to say that they all had enough mutton and that when martha came to change the plates she said she had never seen such a mess in all her born days
the pudding was fortunately
just plain please they said martha said well i never what next i wonder and went away then ensued another scene on which i will not dwell
for nobody looks nice picking up slices of suet pudding from the table in its mouth like a dog the great thing after all
and now everyone felt more courage to prepare for the attack that was to be delivered before sunset robert as captain insisted on climbing to the top of one of the towers to reconnoitre so up they all went
and could see too that beyond the moat on every side the tents of the besieging party were pitched
cleaning or sharpening their arms re stringing their bows and polishing their shields a large party came along the road with horses dragging along the great trunk of a tree and cyril felt quite pale
because he knew this was for a battering ram what a good thing we've got a moat he said and what a good thing the drawbridge is up i should never have known how to work it of course it would be up in a besieged castle
wouldn't you said robert you see
and all the provisions eaten and now
few intrepid survivors that's us
defending to the death i mean asked anthea we ought to be heavily armed and then shoot at them when they advance to the attack
they used to pour boiling lead down on besiegers when they got too close said anthea father showed me the holes on purpose for pouring it down through at bodiam castle and there are holes like it
in the gate tower here i think i'm glad it's only a game it is only a game isn't it said jane but no one answered
as cyril said armed heavily for these swords and lances and crossbows were far too weighty even for cyril's manly strength and as for the longbows none of the children could even begin to bend them the daggers were better
but jane hoped that the besiegers would not come close enough for daggers to be of any use never mind we can hurl them like javelins said cyril or drop them on people's heads
i say there are lots of stones on the other side of the courtyard if we took some of those up just to drop on their heads
so a heap of stones grew apace up in the room above the gate and another heap a shiny spiky dangerous looking heap of daggers and knives
as anthea was crossing the courtyard for more stones a sudden and valuable idea came to her she went to martha and said
we're going to play at besieged castles
put mine in my pocket please my hands are so dirty and i'll tell the others to fetch theirs this was indeed a happy thought for now with four generous handfuls of air which turned to biscuit as martha crammed it into their pockets
the garrison was well provisioned till sundown they brought up some iron pots of cold water to pour on the besiegers instead of hot lead with which the castle did not seem to be provided
to the others who had only seen the camp and the besiegers from a distance the whole thing seemed half a game of make believe and half a splendidly distinct and perfectly safe dream
eaten with water from the deep well in the courtyard drunk out of horns
anyone should feel faint in stress of battle
just as he was putting away the reserve biscuits in a sort of little stone cupboard without a door a sudden sound made him drop three it was the loud fierce cry of a trumpet you see
it is real said robert and they are going to attack all rushed to the narrow windows yes said robert
they looked at robert with surprised respect anthea said you really are brave robert rot cyril's pallor turned to redness now all in a minute
what does it matter which of you is the bravest i think cyril was a perfect silly to wish for a castle
it isn't robert was beginning sternly but anthea interrupted oh yes you do she said coaxingly it's a very nice game really because they can't possibly get in and if they do
of course they are anthea pointed cheerfully through the narrow window
on the grey horse jane consented to look and the scene was almost too pretty to be alarming
the flash of pennoned lances the gleam of armour
it was just like a splendid coloured picture the trumpets were sounding and when the trumpets stopped for breath
a trumpeter came forward to the edge of the moat which now seemed very much narrower than at first
a man who was with the trumpeter shouted what ho within there and
hullo there robert bellowed back at once in the name of our lord the king and of our good lord and trusty leader sir wulfric de talbot we summon this castle to surrender on pain of fire and sword and no quarter
no bawled robert of course we don't never
the man answered back
was getting rather dark in the room above the great
and jane took a very little courage as she remembered that sunset couldn't be far off now the moat is dreadfully thin said anthea but they can't get into the castle even if they do swim over
heavy feet and the clank of steel no one breathed for a moment the steel
then robert sprang softly to the door he pulled off his shoes
he peeped into the upper room the man was there and it was jakin all dripping with moat water and he was fiddling about with the machinery which robert felt sure worked the drawbridge robert banged the door suddenly
and turned the great key in the lock just as jakin sprang to the inside of the door
and his fingers were on the window ledge robert never knew how the man had managed to climb up out of the water but he saw the clinging fingers and hit them as hard as he could with an iron bar that he caught up from the floor the man fell
into the moat water in another moment robert was outside the little room
and calling to cyril to lend a hand then they stood in the arched gate house breathing hard and looking at each other jane's mouth was open cheer up jenny said robert
it won't last much longer there was a creaking above and something rattled and shook the pavement they stood on seemed to tremble then a crash told them that the drawbridge had been lowered to its place
that's that beast jakin said robert there's still the portcullis i'm almost certain that's worked from lower down and now the drawbridge rang and echoed hollowly to the hoofs of horses
and the tramp of armed men up quick cried robert let's drop things on them even the girls were feeling almost brave now they followed robert quickly and under his directions
there was a confused noise below and some groans oh dear
i'm afraid we've hurt somebody robert caught up the stone in a fury i should
i'd give something for a jolly good boiling kettle of lead
and the little room was almost quite dark we've held it cried robert we won't surrender the sun must set in a minute here they're all jawing underneath again pity there's no time to get more stones here pour that water down on them
oh dear said jane don't you think we'd better surrender never said robert we'll have a parley if you like but we'll never surrender
jane pleaded i don't believe the sun's going to set to night at all
so anthea tilted the pot over the nearest lead hole and poured they heard a splash below
and again the ram battered the great door anthea paused
lying flat on the floor and putting one eye to the lead hole of course the holes go straight down into the gate house that's for when the enemy has got past the door and the portcullis and almost all is lost here hand me the pot
in the middle of the wall and taking the pot from anthea poured the water out through the arrow slit and as he began to pour the noise of the battering ram and the trampling of the foe and the shouts of
and de talbot for ever all suddenly stopped and went out like the snuff of a candle the little dark room seemed to whirl round and turn topsy turvy and when the children came to themselves
big front bedroom of their own house
the moat and the tents
all gone and there was the garden with its tangle of dahlias and marigolds and asters and late roses and the spiky iron railings and the quiet white road everyone
drew a deep breath and that's all right said robert i told you so and i say we didn't surrender did we
i think i am now said anthea slowly but i wouldn't wish for it again i think squirrel dear oh it was simply splendid said jane unexpectedly i wasn't frightened a bit
oh i say cyril was beginning but anthea stopped him
this is the very first thing we've wished for that hasn't got us into a row and there hasn't been the least little scrap of a row about this nobody's raging downstairs we're safe and sound
she added hastily and jane as well and we haven't got into
with a single grown up the door was opened suddenly and fiercely you ought to be ashamed of yourselves said the voice of martha
i thought you couldn't last through the day without getting up to some doggery a person can't take a breath of air on the front doorstep but you must be emptying the wash hand jug on to their heads off you go to bed the lot of you
and try to get up better children in the morning now then don't let me have to tell you twice if i find any of you not in bed in ten minutes
a new cap and everything she flounced out amid a disregarded chorus of regrets and apologies the children were very sorry but really it was not their faults
you can't help it if you are pouring water on a besieging foe and your castle suddenly changes into your house
why should it asked robert water's water all the world over
the same as ours in the stable yard said jane
i thought we couldn't get through a wish day without a row said cyril it was much too good to be true come on bobs my military hero if we lick into bed sharp she won't be so frumious and perhaps she'll bong us up some supper
i'm jolly hungry good night kids good night i hope the castle won't come creeping back in the night said jane of course it won't said anthea briskly
wouldn't it have been degrading for sir wulfric de talbot said jane dreamily if he could have known that half the besieged garrison wore pinafores
i dropped into the nearest chair and tried to grapple with something far beyond words sandy i said as soon as i got my breath you're an incarnate devil you've given peter and me the fright of our lives it was the only way dick
if i hadn't come mewing like a tom cat at your heels yesterday rasta would have had you long before you got to your hotel
and it took some doing to get you safe here however that is all over now make yourselves at home my children
for my wits were still wool gathering what place is this you may call it my humble home' it was blenkiron's sleek voice that spoke we've been preparing for you major but it was only yesterday i heard of your friend i introduced peter
mister pienaar said blenkiron pleased to meet you well as i was observing you're safe enough here but you've cut it mighty fine officially a dutchman called brandt was to be arrested this afternoon and handed over to the german authorities
when germany begins to trouble about that dutchman she will find difficulty in getting the body
meantime the dutchman will be no more he will have ceased upon the midnight without pain as your poet sings but i don't understand i stammered who arrested us my men said sandy we have a bit of a graft here
and it wasn't difficult to manage it old moellendorff will be nosing after the business tomorrow but he will find the mystery too deep for him that is the advantage of a government run by a pack of adventurers but by jove dick we hadn't any time to spare
if rasta had got you or the germans had had the job of lifting you your goose would have been jolly well cooked i had some unquiet hours this morning the thing was too deep for me i looked at blenkiron shuffling his patience cards with his old sleepy smile
and sandy dressed like some bandit in melodrama his lean face as brown as a nut his bare arms all tattooed with crimson rings and the fox pelt drawn tight over brow and ears it was still a nightmare world but the dream was getting pleasanter
but i laid in some stores for i guessed you would want to stoke up some after your travels he brought out a couple of strassburg pies a cheese a cold chicken a loaf and three bottles of champagne fizz said sandy rapturously
we're in luck dick old man i never ate a more welcome meal for we had starved in that dirty hotel but i had still the old feeling of the hunted and before i began i asked about the door that's all right said sandy
my fellows are on the stair and at the gate if the metreb are in possession you may bet that other people will keep off your past is blotted out clean vanished away
blenkiron's the man you've got to thank for that
so he arranged that you should leak away and start fresh your name is richard hanau blenkiron said born in cleveland ohio of german parentage on both sides one of our brightest mining engineers and the apple of guggenheim's eye you arrived this afternoon from constanza
and i met you at the packet the clothes for the part are in your bedroom next door but i guess all that can wait for i'm anxious to get to business we're not here on a joy ride major so i reckon we'll leave out the dime novel adventures i'm just dying to hear them but they'll keep
i want to know how our mutual inquiries have prospered he gave peter and me cigars and we sat ourselves in armchairs in front of the blaze sandy squatted cross legged on the hearthrug and lit a foul old briar pipe which he extricated from some pouch among his skins
and so began that conversation which had never been out of my thoughts for four hectic weeks if i presume to begin said blenkiron it's because i reckon my story is the shortest i have to confess to you gentlemen that i have failed
if you were looking for something in the root of the hedge you wouldn't want to scour the road in a high speed automobile and still less would you want to get a bird's eye view in an aeroplane that parable about fits my case
but what i was wanting was in the ditch all the time and i naturally missed it i had the wrong stunt major i was too high up and refined i've been processing through europe like barnum's circus and living with generals and transparencies
not that i haven't picked up a lot of noos and got some very interesting sidelights on high politics but the thing i was after wasn't to be found on my beat for those that knew it weren't going to tell in that kind of society they don't get drunk and blab after their tenth cocktail
so i guess i've no contribution to make to quieting sir walter bullivant's mind except that he's dead right yes sir he has hit the spot and rung the bell there is a mighty miracle working proposition being floated in these parts but the promoters are keeping it to themselves
they aren't taking in more than they can help on the ground floor blenkiron stopped to light a fresh cigar he was leaner than when he left london and there were pouches below his eyes i fancy his journey had not been as fur lined as he made out
sir walter is a pretty bright eyed citizen and he sees it right enough if the worst happens kaiser will fling overboard a lot of ballast in europe and it will look like a big victory for the allies but he won't be beaten if he has the road to the east safe
germany's like a scorpion her sting's in her tail and that tail stretches way down into asia i got that clear and i also made out that it wasn't going to be dead easy for her to keep that tail healthy
but germany thinks she can manage it and i won't say she can't it depends on the hand she holds
i tried to find out but they gave me nothing but eyewash i had to pretend to be satisfied for the position of john s wasn't so strong as to allow him to take liberties
if i asked one of the highbrows he looked wise and spoke of the might of german arms and german organization and german staff work i used to nod my head and get enthusiastic about these stunts but it was all soft soap
i pray to god you boys have been cleverer his tone was quite melancholy and i was mean enough to feel rather glad he had been the professional with the best chance
i looked at sandy he filled his pipe again and pushed back his skin cap from his brows what with his long dishevelled hair his high boned face and stained eyebrows he had the appearance of some mad mullah i went straight to smyrna he said
it wasn't difficult for you see i had laid down a good many lines in former travels i reached the town as a greek money lender from the fayum but i had friends there i could count on and the same evening i was a turkish gipsy a member of the most famous fraternity in western asia
i had long been a member and i'm blood brother of the chief boss so i stepped into the part ready made but i found out that the company of the rosy hours was not what i had known it in nineteen ten then it had been all for the young turks and reform
it had no use for enver and his friends and it did not regard with pleasure the beaux yeux of the teuton
the companions could dance the heart out of the ordinary turk you saw a bit of one of our dances this afternoon dick pretty good wasn't it they could go anywhere and no questions asked they knew what the ordinary man was thinking
for they were the best intelligence department in the ottoman empire far better than enver's khafiyeh and they were popular too for they had never bowed the knee to the nemseh
it would have been as much as the life of the committee or its german masters was worth to lay a hand on us for we clung together like leeches and we were not in the habit of sticking at trifles
my dress and the pass word franked me anywhere i travelled from smyrna by the new railway to panderma
and got there just before christmas
and there an uncommon funny thing happened i got torpedoed it must have been about the last effort of a british submarine in those waters but she got us all right she gave us ten minutes to take to the boats
and then sent the blighted old packet and a fine cargo of six inch shells to the bottom there weren't many passengers
the submarine sat on the surface watching us
and i saw the captain quite close in the conning tower who do you think it was tommy elliot who lives on the other side of the hill from me at home i gave tommy the surprise of his life as we bumped past him i started the flowers of the forest the old version
on the antique stringed instrument i carried and i sang the words very plain tommy's eyes bulged out of his head
i hope to heaven he had the sense not to tell my father
well to make a long story short i got to constantinople and pretty soon found touch with blenkiron the rest you know and now for business
for i haven't got to the bottom of the thing nor anything like it but i've solved the first of harry bullivant's riddles i know the meaning of kasredin sir walter was right as blenkiron has told us there's a great stirring in islam something moving on the face of the waters
they make no secret of it those religious revivals come in cycles and one was due about now and they are quite clear about the details a seer has arisen of the blood of the prophet who will restore the khalifate to its old glories and islam to its old purity
his sayings are everywhere in the moslem world all the orthodox believers have them by heart that is why they are enduring grinding poverty and preposterous taxation and that is why their young men are rolling up to the armies and dying without complaint in gallipoli and transcaucasia
they believe they are on the eve of a great deliverance now the first thing i found out was that the young turks had nothing to do with this they are unpopular and unorthodox and no true turks but germany has how i don't know
it is not a case of enver and the rest carrying on their shoulders the unpopular teuton it is a case of the teuton carrying the unpopular committee and germany's graft is just this and nothing more that she has some hand in the coming of the new deliverer
they talk about the thing quite openly
the palladium of liberty the prophet himself is known as zimrud the emerald and his four ministers are called also after jewels sapphire ruby pearl and topaz
you will say what about kasredin that puzzled me dreadfully for no one used the phrase the home of the spirit it is an obvious cliche just as in england some new sect might call itself the church of christ only no one seemed to use it
that tale tells of the coming of a prophet and i found that the select of the faith spoke of the new revelation in terms of it the curious thing is that in that tale the prophet is aided by one of the few women who play much part in the hagiology of islam
now how on earth did you find out that he cried then i told them of stumm and gaudian and the whispered words i had not been meant to hear blenkiron was giving me the benefit of a steady stare unusual from one who seemed always to have his eyes abstracted
and sandy had taken to ranging up and down the room germany's in the heart of the plan that is what i always thought
the secret's in germany dick you should not have crossed the danube that's what i half feared i said but on the other hand it is obvious that the thing must come east and sooner rather than later i take it they can't afford to delay too long before they deliver the goods
if we can stick it out here we must hit the trail i've got another bit of evidence i have solved harry bullivant's third puzzle sandy's eyes were very bright and i had an audience on wires did you say that in the tale of kasredin a woman is the ally of the prophet
yes said sandy what of that only that the same thing is true of greenmantle i can give you her name i fetched a piece of paper and a pencil from blenkiron's desk and handed it to sandy write down harry bullivant's third word
good old harry said sandy softly he was a dashed clever chap hilda von einem who and where is she for if we find her we have done the trick then blenkiron spoke i reckon i can put you wise on that gentlemen he said
but blenkiron did not laugh at the mention of hilda von einem he had suddenly become very solemn and the sight of his face pulled me up short i don't like it gentlemen he said i would rather you had mentioned any other name on god's earth
i haven't been long in this city but i have been long enough to size up the various political bosses they haven't much to them i reckon they wouldn't stand up against what we could show them in the u nited states but i have met the frau von einem and that lady's a very different proposition
blenkiron's respect did not depress me
i asked where she lived that i don't know said blenkiron
i can find that out said sandy that's the advantage of having a push like mine meantime i've got to clear for my day's work isn't finished dick you and peter must go to bed at once why i asked in amazement sandy spoke like a medical adviser
because i want your clothes the things you've got on now i'll take them off with me and you'll never see them again you've a queer taste in souvenirs i said say rather the turkish police the current in the bosporus is pretty strong
and these sad relics of two misguided dutchmen will be washed up tomorrow about seraglio point
chapter ten the garden house of suliman the red we reached rustchuk on january tenth but by no means landed on that day something had gone wrong with the unloading arrangements or more likely with the railway behind them
and we were kept swinging all day well out in the turbid river
quite a competent man if he could have made the railways give him the trucks he needed there was a collection of hungry german transport officers always putting in their oars and being infernally insolent to everybody
after about two hours blasphemy got them quieted
a young officer in what i took to be a turkish uniform rode up with an aide de camp i noticed the german guards saluting him so i judged he was rather a swell he came up to me and asked me very civilly in german for the way bills
presently he said smiling and went off i said nothing reflecting that the stuff was for the turks and they naturally had to have some say in its handling the loading was practically finished when my gentleman returned he handed me a neatly typed new set of way bills
here this won't do i cried give me back the right set this thing's no good to me for answer he winked gently smiled like a dusky seraph and held out his hand in it i saw a roll of money
for yourself he said it is the usual custom it was the first time anyone had ever tried to bribe me and it made me boil up like a geyser i saw his game clearly enough turkey would pay for the lot to germany
probably had already paid the bill but she would pay double for the things not on the way bills and pay to this fellow and his friends this struck me as rather steep even for oriental methods of doing business now look here sir i said
i don't stir from this place till i get the correct way bills if you won't give me them i will have every item out of the trucks and make a new list but a correct list i have or the stuff stays here till doomsday
at that i fairly roared if you try to bribe me you infernal little haberdasher i'll have you off that horse and chuck you in the river he no longer misunderstood me he began to curse and threaten but i cut him short
he couldn't but agree with me but there was that wrathful oriental with his face as fixed as a buddha i am sorry rasta bey he said but this man is in the right i have authority from the committee to receive the stores he said sullenly
those are not my instructions was the answer they are consigned to the artillery commandant at chataldja
the man shrugged his shoulders very well
and many to this fellow who flouts the committee and he strode away like an impudent boy the harassed commandant grinned you've offended his lordship and he is a bad enemy
and have that blighter in the red hat loot the trucks on the road no thank you i am going to see them safe at chataldja
i said a good deal more but that is an abbreviated translation of my remarks my word for blighter was trottel but i used some other expressions which would have ravished my young turk friend to hear
but i didn't see that at the time my professional pride was up in arms and i couldn't bear to have a hand in a crooked deal well i advise you to go armed said the commandant you will have a guard for the trucks of course and i will pick you good men
they may hold you up all the same i can't help you once you are past the frontier
and he'll make trouble if anything goes wrong
as i was leaving he gave me a telegram here's a wire for your captain schenk
schenk was pretty sick so i left a note for him at one o'clock i got the train started with a couple of german landwehr in each truck and peter and i in a horse box presently i remembered schenk's telegram which still reposed in my pocket
for my back had fairly got stiffened about these munitions and i was going to take any risk to see them safely delivered to their proper owner peter couldn't understand me at all he still hankered after a grand destruction of the lot somewhere down the railway
we struck the real supineness of the east happily i found a german officer there who had some notion of hustling
it was the morning of the sixteenth after peter and i had been living like pigs on black bread and condemned tin stuff that we came in sight of a blue sea on our right hand and knew we couldn't be very far from the end it was jolly near the end in another sense
the turk swaggered up and addressed us you can get back to rustchuk he said i take over from you here hand me the papers is this chataldja i asked innocently it is the end of your affair he said haughtily quick or it will be the worse for you
now look here my son i said you're a kid and know nothing
you are in turkey he cried and will obey the turkish government i'll obey the government right enough i said but if you're the government i could make a better one with a bib and a rattle he said something to his men who unslung their rifles
please don't begin shooting i said there are twelve armed guards in this train who will take their orders from me besides i and my friend can shoot a bit fool he cried getting very angry i can order up a regiment in five minutes
i'll fire this stuff and i reckon they'll be picking up the bits of you and your regiment off the gallipoli peninsula he had put up a bluff a poor one and i had called it he saw i meant what i said and became silken good bye sir he said
you have had a fair chance and rejected it we shall meet again soon and you will be sorry for your insolence he strutted away and it was all i could do to keep from running after him i wanted to lay him over my knee and spank him
he was the regular gunner officer not thinking about anything except his guns and shells i had to wait about three hours while he was checking the stuff with the invoices and then he gave me a receipt which i still possess i told him about rasta
and he agreed that i had done right it didn't make him as mad as i expected because you see
i would have liked to hear what he had to say
but i did not dare to wait any moment there might arrive an incriminating wire from rustchuk finally he lent us a car to take us the few miles to the city so it came about that at five past three on the sixteenth day of january
with only the clothes we stood up in peter and i entered constantinople i was in considerable spirits
and roses and nightingales and some sort of string band discoursing sweet music
it was a drizzling day with a south east wind blowing
wooden houses and corrugated iron roofs and endless dirty sallow children there was a cemetery i remember with turks caps stuck at the head of each grave
by and by we crossed a bridge and paid a penny for the privilege
but i saw nothing save a lot of moth eaten barges and some queer little boats like gondolas then we came into busier streets where ramshackle cabs drawn by lean horses spluttered through the mud i saw one old fellow who looked like my notion of a turk
but most of the population had the appearance of london old clothes men all but the soldiers turk and german who seemed well set up fellows peter had paddled along at my side like a faithful dog
not saying a word but clearly not approving of this wet and dirty metropolis do you know that we are being followed cornelis he said suddenly ever since we came into this evil smelling dorp peter was infallible in a thing like that the news scared me badly
then i thought it couldn't be that
it was more likely my friend rasta i found the ferry of ratchik by asking a soldier and a german sailor there told me where the kurdish bazaar was he pointed up a steep street which ran past a high block of warehouses with every window broken
sandy had said the left hand side coming down so it must be the right hand side going up we plunged into it and it was the filthiest place of all the wind whistled up it and stirred the garbage it seemed densely inhabited
for at all the doors there were groups of people squatting with their heads covered though scarcely a window showed in the blank walls the street corkscrewed endlessly sometimes it seemed to stop then it found a hole in the opposing masonry and edged its way in
often it was almost pitch dark then would come a greyish twilight where it opened out to the width of a decent lane to find a house in that murk was no easy job and by the time we had gone a quarter of a mile i began to fear we had missed it
it was no good asking any of the crowd we met they didn't look as if they understood any civilized tongue at last we stumbled on it a tumble down coffee house with a kuprasso above the door in queer amateur lettering
there was a lamp burning inside and two or three men smoking at small wooden tables we ordered coffee thick black stuff like treacle which peter anathematized
he paid no attention so i shouted louder at him and the noise brought a man out of the back parts he was a fat oldish fellow with a long nose very like the greek traders you see on the zanzibar coast
i beckoned to him and he waddled forward smiling oilily then i asked him what he would take and he replied in very halting german that he would have a sirop you are mister kuprasso i said i wanted to show this place to my friend
he has heard of your garden house and the fun there the signor is mistaken i have no garden house rot i said i've been here before my boy i recall your shanty at the back and many merry nights there what was it you called it
oh i remember the garden house of suliman the red he put his finger to his lip and looked incredibly sly the signor remembers that
the place is long since shut the people here are too poor to dance and sing all the same i would like to have another look at it i said and i slipped an english sovereign into his hand he glanced at it in surprise and his manner changed
which was pitch dark and very unevenly paved then he unlocked a door and with a swirl the wind caught it and blew it back on us we were looking into a mean little yard with on one side a high curving wall evidently of great age
with bushes growing in the cracks of it some scraggy myrtles stood in broken pots and nettles flourished in a corner at one end was a wooden building like a dissenting chapel but painted a dingy scarlet
its windows and skylights were black with dirt and its door tied up with rope flapped in the wind behold the pavilion kuprasso said proudly that is the old place i observed with feeling what times i've seen there
he bent his head closer and said in a whisper the compagnie des heures roses oh indeed i said with a proper tone of respect though i hadn't a notion what he meant will the signor wish to come sure i said both of us
we're all for the rosy hours then the fourth hour after midday walk straight through the cafe and one will be there to unlock the door you are new comers here take the advice of angelo kuprasso and avoid the streets after nightfall
stamboul is no safe place nowadays for quiet men i asked him to name a hotel and he rattled off a list from which i chose one that sounded modest and in keeping with our get up it was not far off only a hundred yards to the right at the top of the hill
when we left his door the night had begun to drop we hadn't gone twenty yards before peter drew very near to me and kept turning his head like a hunted stag we are being followed close cornelis he said calmly
i could see in the waning light a crowd of people who seemed to be moving towards us i heard a high pitched voice cry out a jabber of excited words
but receiving aid from new allies still continued its resistance one of these allies was memnon
their valor and the fearful effect of their war cry penthesilea slew many of the bravest warriors but was at last slain by achilles
but when the hero bent over his fallen foe and contemplated her beauty youth and valor he bitterly regretted his victory thersites
an insolent brawler and demagogue ridiculed his grief and was in consequence slain by the hero achilles by chance had seen polyxena
daughter of king priam perhaps on the occasion of the truce which was allowed the trojans for the burial of hector he was captivated with her charms and to win her in marriage
agreed to use his influence with the greeks to grant peace to troy
negotiating the marriage paris discharged at him a poisoned arrow which guided by apollo wounded achilles in the heel the only vulnerable part about him
his mother had dipped him when an infant in the river styx which made every part of him invulnerable
the body of achilles so treacherously slain was rescued by ajax and ulysses
which represents the hyacinth of the poets in preserving the memory of this event
larkspur it was now discovered that troy could not be taken but by the aid of the arrows of hercules they were in possession
at the last and lighted his funeral pyre
and paris was the first victim of the fatal arrows in his distress paris bethought him of one whom in his prosperity he had forgotten
this was the nymph o enone
and had abandoned for the fatal beauty helen o enone remembering the wrongs she had suffered refused to heal the wound and paris went back to troy and died
o enone quickly repented
so long as this statue remained within it
entered the city in disguise and succeeded in obtaining the palladium which they carried off to the grecian camp but troy still held out
and the greeks began to despair of ever subduing it by force and by advice of ulysses resolved to resort to stratagem they pretended to be making preparations to abandon the siege
and a portion of the ships were withdrawn and lay hid behind a neighboring island the greeks then constructed an immense wooden horse which they gave out was intended
as if for a final departure the trojans seeing the encampment broken up and the fleet gone concluded the enemy to have abandoned the siege the gates were thrown open
all wondered what it could be for some recommended to take it into the city as a trophy others felt afraid of it while they hesitate
stupefied with terror he was brought before the chiefs who reassured him promising that his life should be spared on condition of his returning true answers to the questions asked him
he informed them that he was a greek sinon by name and that in consequence of the malice of ulysses he had been left behind by his countrymen at their departure
with regard to the wooden horse he told them that it was a propitiatory offering to minerva and made so huge for the express purpose of preventing its being carried within the city
and they began to think how they might best secure the monstrous horse and the favorable auguries connected with it when suddenly a prodigy occurred which left no room to doubt
they first attacked the children winding round their bodies
the father attempting to rescue them is next seized and involved in the serpents coils he struggles to tear them away but they overpower all his efforts and strangle him
and the children in their poisonous folds this event was regarded as a clear indication of the displeasure of the gods at laocoon's
of the wooden horse which they no longer hesitated
and triumphal acclamations and the day closed with festivity in the night the armed men who were enclosed in the body of the horse being let out by the traitor sinon
opened the gates of the city to their friends
the people overcome with feasting and sleep put to the sword and troy completely subdued one of the most celebrated groups of statuary in existence is that of laocoon
now turning to the vatican go see laocoon's torture dignifying pain a father's love and mortal's agony with an immortal's patience blending
vain the struggle vain against the coiling strain and gripe and deepening of the dragon's grasp the old man's clinch the long envenomed chain
rivets the living links the enormous asp enforces pang on pang and stifles gasp on gasp
the comic poets will also occasionally borrow a classical allusion the following is from swift's description of a city shower
the beau impatient sits
o'er the roof by fits and ever and anon with frightful din the leather sounds he trembles from within so when troy chairmen bore the wooden steed pregnant
those bully greeks who as the moderns do instead of paying chairmen run them through laocoon struck the outside with a spear and each imprisoned champion
and was slain at last on the fatal night when the greeks took the city he had armed himself and was about to mingle with the combatants
pursued by pyrrhus the son of achilles rushed in wounded
and her daughter cassandra were carried captives to greece cassandra had been loved by apollo and he gave her the gift of prophecy but afterwards offended with her
he rendered the gift unavailing by ordaining that her predictions should never be believed polyxena another daughter who had been loved by achilles
was demanded by the ghost of that warrior and was sacrificed by the greeks upon his tomb
the fair but guilty occasion of so much slaughter on the fall of troy
she aided the greeks secretly on several occasions and in particular
entered the city in disguise to carry off the palladium she saw and recognized ulysses but kept the secret and even assisted them in obtaining the image thus she became reconciled to her husband
and they were among the first to leave the shores of troy for their native land but having incurred the displeasure of the gods they were driven by storms from shore to shore of the mediterranean
visiting cyprus phoenicia and egypt in egypt they were kindly treated and presented with rich gifts of which helen's share was a golden spindle
and a basket on wheels the basket was to hold the wool and spools for the queen's work dyer in his poem of
thus alludes to this incident
many yet adhere to the ancient distaff at the bosom fixed casting the whirling spindle as they walk this was of old in no inglorious days
the mode of spinning when the egyptian prince a golden distaff gave that beauteous nymph too beauteous helen no uncourtly gift
milton also alludes to a famous recipe for an invigorating draught called nepenthe which the egyptian queen gave to helen
in safety at sparta resumed their royal dignity and lived and reigned in splendor and when telemachus the son of ulysses in search of his father arrived at sparta
celebrating the marriage of their daughter hermione to neoptolemus
the general in chief of the greeks
and who had been drawn into the quarrel to avenge his brother's wrongs not his own was not so fortunate in the issue during his absence his wife clytemnestra
orestes also a lad not yet old enough to be an object of apprehension but from whom
there might be danger electra the sister of orestes saved her brother's life by sending him secretly away to his uncle strophius king of phocis
in the palace of strophius orestes grew up
that ardent friendship which has become proverbial electra frequently reminded her brother by messengers
and when grown up he consulted the oracle of delphi which confirmed him in his design he therefore repaired in disguise to argos pretending to be a messenger from strophius
according to the rites of the ancients he made himself known to his sister electra and soon after
and clytemnestra this revolting act the slaughter of a mother by her son though alleviated by the guilt of the victim and the express command of the gods
did not fail to awaken in the breasts of the ancients
avenging deities seized upon orestes and drove him frantic from land to land
accompanied him in his wanderings and watched over him at length in answer to a second appeal to the oracle he was directed to go to tauris in scythia
went to tauris where the barbarous people were accustomed to sacrifice to the goddess all strangers who fell into their hands the two friends were seized and carried bound to the temple
to be made victims but the priestess of diana was no other than
the sister of orestes who our readers will remember was snatched away by diana at the moment when she was about to be sacrificed ascertaining from the prisoners who they were
iphigenia disclosed herself to them and the three made their escape with the statue of the goddess and returned to mycenae
at length he took refuge with minerva at athens the goddess afforded him protection and appointed the court of
areopagus to decide his fate
brought forward their accusation
his excuse when the court voted and the voices were equally divided orestes was acquitted by the command of minerva byron in childe harold
and round orestes bade them howl and hiss for that unnatural retribution just
is that in which sophocles represents the meeting of orestes and electra on his return from phocis orestes mistaking electra for one of the domestics
and desirous of keeping his arrival a secret till the hour of vengeance should arrive produces the urn in which his ashes are supposed to rest electra believing him to be really dead
takes the urn and embracing it pours forth her grief in language full of tenderness and despair milton in one of his sonnets says
the repeated air of sad electra's poet had the power to save the athenian walls from ruin bare
this alludes to the story that when on one occasion the city of athens was at the mercy of her spartan foes and it was proposed to destroy it
troy the facts relating to the city of troy are still unknown to history antiquarians have long sought for the actual city and some record of its rulers
the traditional site of troy he had uncovered the ancient capital schliemann excavated down below the ruins of three or four settlements each revealing an earlier civilization
and finally came upon some royal jewels and other relics said to be priam's treasure scholars are by no means agreed as to the historic value
chapter two origin of the anglo americans
chapter summary utility of knowing the origin of nations in order to understand their social condition and their laws america the only country
in which the starting point of a great people has been clearly observable in what respects all who emigrated to british america were similar in what they differed remark applicable to all europeans
who established themselves on the shores of the new world colonization of virginia colonization of new england original character of the first inhabitants of new england their arrival
their first laws their social contract penal code borrowed from the hebrew legislation religious fervor republican spirit intimate union of the spirit of religion
with the spirit of liberty origin of the anglo americans and its importance in relation to their future condition after the birth of a human being his early years are obscurely spent
and it is imagined that the germ of the vices and the virtues of his maturer years is then formed this if i am not mistaken is a great error we must begin higher up
we must watch the infant in its mother's arms we must see the first images which the external world casts upon the dark mirror of his mind
the first occurrences which he witnesses we must hear the first words which awaken the sleeping powers of thought and stand by his earliest efforts if we would understand the prejudices
the habits and the passions which will rule his life the entire man is so to speak to be seen in the cradle of the child the growth of nations presents something analogous to this
they all bear some marks of their origin and the circumstances which accompanied their birth and contributed to their rise affect the whole term of their being if we were able to go back to the elements of states
of all that constitutes what is called the national character we should then find the explanation of certain customs which now seem at variance with the prevailing manners of such laws
as conflict with established principles and of such incoherent opinions as are here and there to be met with in society like those fragments of broken chains which we sometimes see hanging from the vault of an edifice
and supporting nothing this might explain the destinies of certain nations which seem borne on by an unknown force to ends of which they themselves are ignorant but hitherto
facts have been wanting to researches of this kind the spirit of inquiry has only come upon communities in their latter days and when they at length contemplated their origin
time had already obscured it or ignorance and pride adorned it with truth concealing fables america is the only country in which it has been possible
to witness the natural and tranquil growth of society and where the influences exercised on the future condition of states by their origin is clearly distinguishable at the period when the peoples of europe
landed in the new world their national characteristics were already completely formed each of them had a physiognomy of its own and as they had already attained that stage of civilization
at which men are led to study themselves they have transmitted to us a faithful picture of their opinions their manners and their laws the men of the sixteenth century
conceals from our researches near enough to the time when the states of america were founded to be accurately acquainted with their elements and sufficiently removed from that period to judge
which our forefathers did not possess and has allowed us to discern fundamental causes in the history of the world which the obscurity of the past concealed from them
if we carefully examine the social and political state of america after having studied its history we shall remain perfectly convinced that not an opinion not a custom not a law
i may even say not an event is upon record which the origin of that people will not explain the readers of this book will find the germ of all that is to follow in the present chapter
and the key to almost the whole work the emigrants who came at different periods to occupy the territory now covered by the american union
their aim was not the same and they governed themselves on different principles these men had however certain features in common
and they were all placed in an analogous situation the tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind all the emigrants spoke the same tongue
they were all offsets from the same people born in a country which had been agitated for centuries by the struggles of faction and in which all parties had been obliged in their turn
and with it the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people had been introduced into the bosom of the monarchy of the house of tudor the religious quarrels which have agitated the christian world
were then rife england had plunged into the new order of things with headlong vehemence the character of its inhabitants which had always been sedate and reflective became argumentative
and austere general information had been increased by intellectual debate and the mind had received a deeper cultivation whilst religion was the topic of discussion
on the opposite shores of the atlantic another remark to which we shall hereafter have occasion to recur is applicable not only to the english but to the french the spaniards
and all the europeans who successively established themselves in the new world all these european colonies contained the elements if not the development of a complete democracy
the happy and the powerful do not go into exile and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune it happened however
on several occasions that persons of rank were driven to america by political and religious quarrels laws were made to establish a gradation of ranks
that the soil of america was opposed to a territorial aristocracy to bring that refractory land into cultivation the constant and interested exertions of the owner himself
were necessary and when the ground was prepared its produce was found to be insufficient to enrich a master and a farmer at the same time
the land was then naturally broken up into small portions which the proprietor cultivated for himself land is the basis of an aristocracy which clings to the soil that supports it
for it is not by privileges alone nor by birth but by landed property handed down from generation to generation that an aristocracy is constituted
he ate four meals a day slept twelve hours out of the twenty four and the only thing he ever did was to shoot at small birds with his bow and arrow still with all his practice he shot very badly he was so fat and heavy
and as he grew daily fatter he was at last obliged to give up walking and be dragged about in a wheel chair and the people made fun of him and gave him the name of my lord tubby now the only trouble that lord tubby had was about his son
whom he loved very much although they were not in the least alike for the young prince was as thin as a cuckoo and what vexed him more than all was that though the young ladies throughout all his lands did their best to make the prince fall in love with them he would have nothing to say to any of them
and told his father he did not wish to marry instead of chatting with them in the dusk he wandered about the woods whispering to the moon no wonder the young ladies thought him very odd but they liked him all the better for that
what is the matter with you his father often said to him you have everything you can possibly wish for a good bed good food and tuns full of beer the only thing you want in order to become as fat as a pig
is a wife that can bring you broad rich lands so marry and you will be perfectly happy
but i have never seen a woman that pleases me
my faith cried tubby do you want to marry a negress and give me grandchildren as ugly as monkeys and as stupid as owls no father nothing of the sort but there must be women somewhere in the world who are neither pink nor white
and i tell you once for all that i will never marry until i have found one exactly to my taste two some time afterwards it happened that the prior of the abbey of saint amand
with a beautifully written letter saying that these golden fruit then unknown in flanders came straight from a land where the sun always shone that evening tubby and his son ate the golden apples at supper and thought them delicious
next morning as the day dawned
then he went all dressed for a journey to the bedside of tubby and found him smoking his first pipe father he said gravely i have come to bid you farewell last night i dreamed that i was walking in a wood
where the trees were covered with golden apples i gathered one of them and when i opened it there came out a lovely princess with a golden skin that is the wife i want and i am going to look for her
then he became so diverted at the notion of his son marrying a yellow woman and a woman shut up inside an orange that he burst into fits of laughter
but as his father went on laughing and showed no signs of stopping the young man took his hand kissed it tenderly
he jumped lightly on his horse and was a mile from home before tubby had ceased laughing a yellow wife he must be mad fit for a strait waistcoat cried the good man when he was able to speak here quick bring him back to me
the servants mounted their horses and rode after the prince but as they did not know which road he had taken they went all ways except the right one and instead of bringing him back they returned themselves when it grew dark
he pulled his horse into a walk like a prudent man who knows he has far to go he travelled in this way for many weeks passing by villages towns mountains valleys and plains but always pushing south
where every day the sun seemed hotter and more brilliant at last one day at sunset
that he thought he must now be near the place of his dream he was at that moment close to the corner of a wood where stood a little hut before the door of which his horse stopped of his own accord an old man with a white beard was sitting on the doorstep enjoying the fresh air
the prince got down from his horse and asked leave to rest come in my young friend said the old man my house is not large but it is big enough to hold a stranger the traveller entered and his host put before him a simple meal
when his hunger was satisfied the old man said to him if i do not mistake you come from far may i ask where you are going
though most likely you will laugh at me i dreamed that in the land of the sun there was a wood full of orange trees and that in one of the oranges i should find a beautiful princess who is to be my wife it is she i am seeking
why should i laugh asked the old man madness in youth is true wisdom go young man follow your dream
the wood that you saw in your dream is not far from here said the old man it is in the depth of the forest and this road will lead you there you will come to a vast park surrounded by high walls in the middle of the park is a castle
where dwells a horrible witch who allows no living being to enter the doors behind the castle is the orange grove follow the wall till you come to a heavy iron gate don't try to press it open but oil the hinges with this
and the old man gave him a small bottle the gate will open of itself he continued and a huge dog which guards the castle will come to you with his mouth wide open but just throw him this oat cake next
you will see a baking woman leaning over her heated oven give her this brush lastly you will find a well on your left do not forget to take the cord of the bucket and spread it in the sun when you have done this do not enter the castle
but go round it and enter the orange grove then gather three oranges and get back to the gate as fast as you can once out of the gate leave the forest by the opposite side now attend to this whatever happens
do not open your oranges till you reach the bank of a river or a fountain out of each orange will come a princess and you can choose which you like for your wife your choice once made be very careful never to leave your bride for an instant and remember
that the danger which is most to be feared is never the danger we are most afraid of
and took the road he pointed out in less than an hour he arrived at the wall which was very high indeed he sprang to the ground fastened his horse to a tree and soon found the iron gate
then he took out his bottle and oiled the hinges when the gate opened of itself and he saw an old castle standing inside the prince entered boldly into the courtyard suddenly he heard fierce howls and a dog as tall as a donkey
with eyes like billiard balls came towards him showing his teeth which were like the prongs of a fork
which the great dog instantly snapped up and the young prince passed quietly on a few yards further he saw a huge oven with a wide red hot gaping mouth a woman as tall as a giant was leaning over the oven
then he went on to the well drew up the cord which was half rotten and stretched it out in the sun lastly he went round the castle and plunged into the orange grove there he gathered the three most beautiful oranges he could find
and turned to go back to the gate but just at this moment the sun was darkened
baker baker take him by his feet and throw him into the oven no replied the baker a long time has passed since i first began to scour this oven with my own flesh you never cared to give me a brush but he has given me one
and he shall go in peace rope o rope cried the voice again twine yourself round his neck and strangle him no replied the rope you have left me for many years past to fall to pieces with the damp
he has stretched me out in the sun let him go in peace dog my good dog cried the voice more and more angry jump at his throat and eat him up no replied the dog though i have served you long
you never gave me any bread he has given me as much as i want let him go in peace iron gate iron gate cried the voice growling like thunder fall on him and grind him to powder no replied the gate
it is a hundred years since you left me to rust and he has oiled me let him go in peace
once outside the young adventurer put his oranges into a bag that hung from his saddle mounted his horse and rode quickly out of the forest now as he was longing to see the princesses he was very anxious to come to a river or a fountain
but though he rode for hours a river or fountain was nowhere to be seen still his heart was light for he felt that he had got through the most difficult part of his task and the rest was easy about mid day he reached a sandy plain
scorching in the sun here he was seized with dreadful thirst he took his gourd and raised it to his lips but the gourd was empty in the excitement of his joy he had forgotten to fill it he rode on struggling with his sufferings
but at last he could bear it no longer he let himself slide to the earth and lay down beside his horse his throat burning his chest heaving and his head going round already
he felt that death was near him when his eyes fell on the bag where the oranges peeped out
who had braved so many dangers to win the lady of his dreams would have given at this moment all the princesses in the world were they pink or golden for a single drop of water ah he said to himself if only these oranges were real fruit
he had the strength to lift himself up and put his hand into his bag he drew out an orange and opened it with his knife out of it flew the prettiest little female canary that ever was seen give me something to drink i am dying of thirst said the golden bird
so much astonished that he forgot his own sufferings and to satisfy the bird he took a second orange and opened it without thinking what he was doing out of it flew another canary and she too began to cry i am dying of thirst give me something to drink
then tubby's son saw his folly and while the two canaries flew away he sank on the ground where exhausted by his last effort he lay unconscious
he had a pleasant feeling of freshness all about him it was night the sky was sparkling with stars and the earth was covered with a heavy dew the traveller having recovered mounted his horse
and at the first streak of dawn he saw a stream dancing in front of him and stooped down and drank his fill he hardly had courage to open his last orange then he remembered that the night before he had disobeyed the orders of the old man
perhaps his terrible thirst was a trick of the cunning witch and suppose even though he opened the orange on the banks of the stream that he did not find in it the princess that he sought he took his knife and cut it open
alas out of it flew a little canary just like the others who cried i am thirsty give me something to drink
however he was determined not to let this bird fly away so he took up some water in the palm of his hand and held it to its beak scarcely had the canary drunk when she became a beautiful girl tall and straight as a poplar tree with black eyes and a golden skin
on her side she seemed quite bewildered but she looked about her with happy eyes and was not at all afraid of her deliverer he asked her name she answered
she was about sixteen years old and for ten years of that time the witch had kept her shut up in an orange in the shape of a canary well then my charming zizi said the young prince who was longing to marry her let us ride away quickly
so as to escape from the wicked witch but zizi wished to know where he meant to take her to my father's castle he said he mounted his horse and took her in front of him and holding her carefully in his arms they began their journey
and in passing through mountains valleys and towns she asked a thousand questions
it is so delightful to teach those one loves once she inquired what the girls in his country were like they are pink and white he replied and their eyes are blue do you like blue eyes said the princess
so he did not answer and no doubt went on the princess one of them is your intended bride still he was silent and zizi drew herself up proudly no he said at last
none of the girls of my own country are beautiful in my eyes and that is why i came to look for a wife in the land of the sun was i wrong my lovely zizi this time it was zizi's turn to be silent
when they were about four stone throws from the gates they dismounted in the forest by the edge of a fountain my dear zizi said tubby's son we cannot present ourselves before my father like two common people who have come back from a walk we must enter the castle with more ceremony
wait for me here and in an hour i will return with carriages and horses fit for a princess don't be long replied zizi and she watched him go with wistful eyes when she was left by herself the poor girl began to feel afraid
she was alone for the first time in her life and in the middle of a thick forest suddenly she heard a noise among the trees fearing lest it should be a wolf she hid herself in the hollow trunk of a willow tree which hung over the fountain
it was big enough to hold her altogether but she peeped out and her pretty head was reflected in the clear water then there appeared not a wolf but a creature quite as wicked and quite as ugly let us see who this creature was
not far from the fountain there lived a family of bricklayers now fifteen years before this time the father in walking through the forest found a little girl who had been deserted by the gypsies he carried her home to his wife
and the good woman was sorry for her and brought her up with her own sons as she grew older the little gypsy became much more remarkable for strength and cunning than for sense or beauty she had a low forehead a flat nose thick lips
coarse hair and a skin not golden like that of zizi
as she was always being teased about her complexion she got as noisy and cross as a titmouse so they used to call her titty titty was often sent by the bricklayer to fetch water from the fountain and as she was very proud and lazy
the gypsy disliked this very much it was she who had frightened zizi by appearing with her pitcher on her shoulder just as she was stooping to fill it she saw reflected in the water the lovely image of the princess what a pretty face she exclaimed
why it must be mine how in the world can they call me ugly i am certainly much too pretty to be their water carrier so saying she broke her pitcher and went home where is your pitcher asked the bricklayer
well what do you expect the pitcher may go many times to the well but at last it is broken well here is a bucket that will not break
no i don't mean to be a beast of burden any longer and she flung the bucket so high in the air that it stuck in the branches of an oak i met a wolf she told the bricklayer and i broke the bucket across his nose
the bricklayer asked her no more questions but took down a broom and gave her such a beating that her pride was humbled a little
if you don't bring it back full your bones shall suffer for it
titty went off rubbing her sides but this time she did not dare to disobey and in a very bad temper stooped down over the well it was not at all easy to fill the milk can which was large and round it would not go down into the well
and the gypsy had to try again and again at last her arms grew so tired that when she did manage to get the can properly under the water she had no strength to pull it up and it rolled to the bottom on seeing the can disappear
she made such a miserable face that zizi who had been watching her all this time burst into fits of laughter titty turned round and perceived the mistake she had made and she felt so angry that she made up her mind to be revenged at once
what are you doing there you lovely creature she said to zizi i am waiting for my lover zizi replied and then with a simplicity quite natural in a girl who so lately had been a canary she told all her story
the gypsy had often seen the young prince pass by with his gun on his shoulder when he was going after crows she was too ugly and ragged for him ever to have noticed her but titty on her side had admired him though she thought he might well have been a little fatter
dear dear she said to herself so he likes yellow women why i am yellow too and if i could only think of a way it was not long before she did think of it
they are coming with great pomp to fetch you and you are not afraid to show yourself to so many fine lords and ladies with your hair down like that get down at once my poor child and let me dress your hair for you the innocent zizi came down at once
and stood by titty the gypsy began to comb her long brown locks when suddenly she drew a pin from her stays and just as the titmouse digs its beak into the heads of linnets and larks titty dug the pin into the head of zizi
no sooner did zizi feel the prick of the pin than she became a bird again and spreading her wings she flew away that was neatly done said the gypsy the prince will be clever if he finds his bride and arranging her dress
meanwhile the prince was coming as fast as his horse could carry him he was so impatient that he was always full fifty yards in front of the lords and ladies sent by tubby to bring back zizi at the sight of the hideous gypsy
he was struck dumb with surprise and horror ah me said titty so you don't know your poor zizi while you were away the wicked witch came and turned me into this but if you only have the courage to marry me i shall get back my beauty
and she began to cry bitterly
poor girl he thought to himself it is not her fault after all that she has grown so ugly it is mine oh why did i not follow the old man's advice why did i leave her alone and besides it depends on me to break the spell
and i love her too much to let her remain like this so he presented the gypsy to the lords and ladies of the court explaining to them the terrible misfortune which had befallen his beautiful bride they all pretended to believe it
and the ladies at once put on the false princess the rich dresses they had brought for zizi she was then perched on the top of a magnificent ambling palfrey and they set forth to the castle but unluckily the rich dress and jewels only made titty look uglier still
bells were pealing chimes ringing and the people filling the streets and standing at their doors to watch the procession go by and they could hardly believe their eyes as they saw what a strange bride their prince had chosen in order to do her more honour
tubby came to meet her at the foot of the great marble staircase at the sight of the hideous creature he almost fell backwards what he cried is this the wonderful beauty
but she has been bewitched by a wicked sorceress and will not regain her beauty until she is my wife does she say so well if you believe that you may drink cold water and think it bacon the unhappy tubby answered crossly
but all the same as he adored his son he gave the gypsy his hand and led her to the great hall where the bridal feast was spread
the feast was excellent but desire hardly touched anything however to make up the other guests ate greedily and as for tubby nothing ever took away his appetite when the moment arrived to serve the roast goose
there was a pause and tubby took the opportunity to lay down his knife and fork for a little but as the goose gave no sign of appearing he sent his head carver to find out what was the matter in the kitchen now this was what had happened while the goose was turning on the spit
good morning my fine cook she said in a silvery voice to the man who was watching the roast good morning lovely golden bird replied the chief of the scullions who had been well brought up i pray that heaven may send you to sleep said the golden bird
and that the goose may burn so that there may be none left for titty and instantly the chief of the scullions fell fast asleep and the goose was burnt to a cinder when he awoke
he was horrified and gave orders to pluck another goose to stuff it with chestnuts and put it on the spit while it was browning at the fire tubby inquired for his goose a second time the master cook himself mounted to the hall to make his excuses
and to beg his lord to have a little patience tubby showed his patience by abusing his son as if it wasn't enough he grumbled between his teeth that the boy should pick up a hag without a penny but the goose must go and burn now
the golden bird came again to perch on the window sill and called in his clear voice to the head scullion who was watching the spit good morning my fine scullion good morning lovely golden bird replied the scullion whom the master cook had forgotten in his excitement to warn
i pray heaven went on the canary
and that the goose may burn so that there may be none left for titty and the scullion fell fast asleep and when the master cook came back he found the goose as black as the chimney in a fury he woke the scullion who in order to save himself from blame told the whole story
it will end by getting me sent away come some of you and hide yourselves and if it comes again catch it and wring its neck he spitted a third goose lit a huge fire and seated himself by it
the bird appeared a third time and said good morning my fine cook good morning lovely golden bird replied the cook as if nothing had happened and at the moment that the canary was beginning i pray heaven that it may send
a scullion who was hidden outside rushed out and shut the shutters the bird flew into the kitchen then all the cooks and scullions sprang after it knocking at it with their aprons at length one of them caught it just at the very moment that tubby entered the kitchen
waving his sceptre he had come to see for himself why the goose had never made its appearance the scullion stopped at once just as he was about to wring the canary's neck
your excellency it is the bird replied the scullion and he placed it in his hand
and in stroking its head he touched a pin that was sticking between its feathers he pulled it out and lo the canary at once became a beautiful girl with a golden skin who jumped lightly to the ground gracious what a pretty girl said tubby
and he took her in his arms crying my darling zizi how happy i am to see you once more well and the other one asked tubby the other one was stealing quietly to the door stop her called tubby
we will judge her cause at once and he seated himself solemnly on the oven and condemned titty to be burned alive
all the boys in the country side were there armed with wooden swords and decorated with epaulets made of gilt paper zizi obtained titty's pardon and she was sent back to the brick fields followed and hooted at by all the boys
and this is why to day the country boys always throw stones at a titmouse on the evening of the wedding day all the larders cellars cupboards and tables of the people whether rich or poor were loaded as if by enchantment with bread wine
beer cakes and tarts roast larks and even geese so that tubby could not complain any more that his son had married famine
chapter eleven liberty of the press in the united states chapter summary difficulty of restraining the liberty of the press
particular reasons which some nations have to cherish this liberty the liberty of the press a necessary consequence of the sovereignty of the people as it is understood in america
violent language of the periodical press in the united states propensities of the periodical press illustrated by the united states
in another part of this work i shall attempt to determinate the degree of influence which the liberty of the press has exercised upon civil society in the united states
and to point out the direction which it has given to the ideas as well as the tone which it has imparted to the character and the feelings of the anglo americans
but at present i purpose simply to examine the effects produced by the liberty of the press in the political world i confess that i do not entertain that firm and complete attachment to the liberty of the press
which things that are supremely good in their very nature are wont to excite in the mind and i approve of it more from a recollection of the evils it prevents than from a consideration of the advantages it ensures
if any one could point out an intermediate and yet a tenable position between the complete independence and the entire subjection of the public expression of opinion i should perhaps be inclined to adopt it
but the difficulty is to discover this position if it is your intention to correct the abuses of unlicensed printing and to restore the use of orderly language
you may in the first instance try the offender by a jury but if the jury acquits him the opinion which was that of a single individual becomes the opinion of the country at large
too much and too little has therefore hitherto been done if you proceed you must bring the delinquent before a court of permanent judges
but even here the cause must be heard before it can be decided and the very principles which no book would have ventured to avow are blazoned forth in the pleadings
and what was obscurely hinted at in a single composition is then repeated in a multitude of other publications the language in which a thought is embodied is the mere carcass of the thought
and not the idea itself tribunals may condemn the form but the sense and spirit of the work is too subtle for their authority too much has still been done to recede
too little to attain your end you must therefore proceed if you establish a censorship of the press the tongue of the public speaker will still make itself heard
and you have only increased the mischief the powers of thought do not rely like the powers of physical strength upon the number of their mechanical agents
nor can a host of authors be reckoned like the troops which compose an army on the contrary the authority of a principle is often increased by the smallness of the number of men
orators and if it be allowed to speak freely in any public place the consequence is the same as if free speaking was allowed in every village
the liberty of discourse must therefore be destroyed as well as the liberty of the press this is the necessary term of your efforts
but if your object was to repress the abuses of liberty they have brought you to the feet of a despot you have been led from the extreme of independence to the extreme of subjection
without meeting with a single tenable position for shelter or repose there are certain nations which have peculiar reasons for cherishing the liberty of the press
independently of the general motives which i have just pointed out for in certain countries which profess to enjoy the privileges of freedom every individual agent of the government may violate the laws with impunity
since those whom he oppresses cannot prosecute him before the courts of justice in this case the liberty of the press is not merely a guarantee but it is the only guarantee of their liberty
and their security which the citizens possess if the rulers of these nations propose to abolish the independence of the press the people would be justified in saying
but in the countries in which the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people ostensibly prevails the censorship of the press is not only dangerous but it is absurd
when the right of every citizen to co operate in the government of society is acknowledged every citizen must be presumed to possess the power of discriminating between the different opinions of his contemporaries
just as the censorship of the press and universal suffrage are two things which are irreconcilably opposed and which cannot long be retained among the institutions of the same people
the first newspaper over which i cast my eyes upon my arrival in america contained the following article
in all this affair the language of jackson has been that of a heartless despot solely occupied with the preservation of his own authority ambition is his crime
and it will be his punishment too intrigue is his native element and intrigue will confound his tricks and will deprive him of his power he governs by means of corruption
and his immoral practices will redound to his shame and confusion his conduct in the political arena has been that of a shameless
he succeeded at the time but the hour of retribution approaches and he will be obliged to disgorge his winnings to throw aside his false dice
and to end his days in some retirement where he may curse his madness at his leisure for repentance is a virtue with which his heart is likely to remain forever unacquainted
and the general sense of consequent evil which prevail in that country and it is therefore supposed that as soon as society has resumed a certain degree of composure
the press will abandon its present vehemence i am inclined to think that the above causes explain the reason of the extraordinary ascendency it has acquired over the nation
but that they do not exercise much influence upon the tone of its language the periodical press appears to me to be actuated by passions and propensities
independent of the circumstances in which it is placed and the present position of america corroborates this opinion america is perhaps at this moment
it constitutes a singular power so strangely composed of mingled good and evil that it is at the same time indispensable to the existence of freedom and nearly incompatible with the maintenance of public order
its power is certainly much greater in france than in the united states though nothing is more rare in the latter country than to hear of a prosecution having been instituted against it
an evening news paper and even in so slight a performance exhibited peculiar talents
why i wish for it is this when doctor madden came to london he submitted that work to my castigation and i remember i blotted a great many lines and might have blotted many more without making the poem worse
however the doctor was very thankful and very generous
the father of his much valued friend but he did not accept of it
forty eight in seventeen fifty seven it does not appear that he published any thing except some of those articles in the literary magazine
and he dictated a speech on the subject of an address to the throne after the expedition to rochfort
or between the language of ireland and that of biscay deserves enquiry of these provincial and unextended tongues it seldom happens that more than one are understood by any one man
and therefore it seldom happens that a fair comparison can be made i hope you will continue to cultivate this kind of learning
and which if it be suffered to remain in oblivion for another century may perhaps never be retrieved as i wish well to all useful undertakings
i would not forbear to let you know how much you deserve in my opinion from all lovers of study and how much pleasure your work has given to sir your most obliged and most humble servant
sam johnson london april ninth seventeen fifty seven
in lynne norfolk sir that i may shew myself sensible of your favours and not commit the same fault a second time
the truth is the other likewise was received and i wrote an answer but being desirous to transmit you some proposals and receipts i waited till i could find a convenient conveyance
and day was passed after day till other things drove it from my thoughts yet not so but that i remember with great pleasure your commendation of my dictionary your praise was welcome
did not endeavour to depress me with threats of censure from the publick or with objections learned from those who had learned them from my own preface your's is the only letter of goodwill that i have received
i remember sir in some of the first letters with which you favoured me you mentioned your lady may i enquire after her
it is not much to tell you that i wish you and her
not to have been awakened by your letter none of your suspicions are true i am not much richer than when you left me and what is worse my omission of an answer to your first letter
will prove that i am not much wiser but i go on as i formerly did designing to be some time or other both rich and wise and yet cultivate neither mind nor fortune
do you take notice of my example and learn the danger of delay when i was as you are now towering in the confidence of twenty one little did i suspect
that i should be at forty nine what i now am
you are busy in acquiring and in communicating knowledge and while you are studying enjoy the end of study by making others wiser and happier
look with some degree of innocent envy on those who may be said to be born to friends and cannot see without wonder how rarely that native union is afterwards regarded
it sometimes indeed happens that some supervenient cause of discord may overpower this original amity but it seems to me more frequently thrown away with levity
or lost by negligence than destroyed by injury or violence we tell the ladies that good wives make good husbands i believe it is a more certain position
you dear sir remember your affectionate humble servant sam johnson
which i think do not profess more than i have hitherto performed i have printed many of the plays
with more importunity than may seem proper but that you may rather have more than fewer than you shall want the proposals you will disseminate as there shall be an opportunity
i once printed them at length in the chronicle and some of my friends i believe mister murphy
i have not the collection by me and therefore cannot draw out a catalogue of my own parts but will do it and send it
do not buy them for i will gather all those that have anything of mine in them and send them to missus burney as a small token of gratitude for the regard which she is pleased to bestow upon me
i am sir your most obliged and most humble servant sam johnson london march eighth seventeen fifty eight
doctor burney has kindly favoured me with the following memorandum which i take the liberty to insert in his own genuine easy style i love to exhibit sketches of my illustrious friend
by various eminent hands
soon after this mister burney during a visit to the capital
at the merchant of venice he observed to him that he seemed to be more severe on warburton than theobald o poor tib said johnson he was ready knocked down to my hands
warburton stands between me and him but sir said mister burney you'll have warburton upon your bones won't you no sir he'll not come out
he'll only growl in his den but you think sir that warburton is a superiour critick to theobald o sir he'd make two and fifty theobalds
that he has a rage for saying something
of which numbers thirty three ninety three and ninety six were written by mister thomas warton
and numbers seventy six seventy nine and eighty two by sir joshua reynolds
and pollute his canvas with deformity being added by johnson as sir joshua informed me
the idler is evidently the work of the same mind which produced the rambler but has less body
he then folded it up and sent it off yet there are in the idler
and labour of language as any of this great man's writings
death of a friend
domestick greatness unattainable
the usual trapping of periodical papers is prefixed to very few of the idlers as i have heard johnson commend the custom
nor on some occasions has he repressed that power of sophistry which he possessed in so eminent a degree
and live in dependence on the weather and the wind for the only blessings which nature has put into our power tranquillity and benevolence this distinction of seasons
is produced only by imagination operating on luxury to temperance every day is bright and every hour is propitious to diligence
he that shall resolutely excite his faculties or exert his virtues will soon make himself superiour to the seasons and may set at defiance the morning mist
the palsy and all other bodily disorders such boasting of the mind is false elevation his unqualified ridicule of rhetorical gesture or action
is not surely a test of truth yet we cannot help admiring how well it is adapted to produce the effect which he wished
neither the judges of our laws nor the representatives of our people
or believe any man the more because he rolled his eyes or puffed his cheeks or spread abroad his arms or stamped the ground or thumped his breast
or turned his eyes sometimes to the ceiling
poetry and prison pall mall gazette january third eighteen eighty nine
prison has had an admirable effect on mister wilfrid blunt as a poet the love sonnets of proteus
and their swift brilliant wit were but affected or fantastic at best they were simply the records of passing moods and moments of which some were sad
and others sweet and not a few shameful their subject was not of high or serious import they contained much that was wilful and weak
in vinculis upon the other hand is a book that stirs one by its fine sincerity of purpose its lofty and impassioned thought
its depth and ardour of intense feeling imprisonment
and the soul emerges from it stronger and more self contained to him certainly it has been a mode of purification the opening sonnets
and written down on the fly leaves of the prisoner's prayer book are full of things nobly conceived and nobly uttered and show that though mister balfour may enforce plain living
by his prison regulations he cannot prevent high thinking or in any way limit or constrain the freedom of a man's soul they are of course intensely personal in expression
and flame like passion such a sonnet as the following comes out of the very fire of heart and brain god knows
have warred with powers and principalities my natural soul ere yet these strifes began was as a sister diligent to please and loving all
with angers and alarms and this sonnet has all the strange strength of that despair which is but the prelude to a larger hope
i thought to do a deed of chivalry an act of worth which haply in her sight who was my mistress should recorded be and of the nations
and when thus the fight faltered and men once bold with faces white turned this and that way in excuse to flee i only stood and by the foeman's might
was overborne and mangled cruelly then crawled i to her feet in whose dear cause i made this venture and behold i said
how i am wounded for thee in these wars but she poor cripple would'st thou i should wed a limbless trunk and laughing turned from me
yet she was fair and her name liberty the sonnet beginning a prison is a convent without god
is powerful naked i came into the world of pleasure and naked come i to this house of pain here at the gate
i lay down my life's treasure my pride my garments and my name with men the world and i henceforth shall be as twain
no sound of me shall pierce for good or ill these walls of grief nor shall i hear the vain laughter and tears of those who love me still
within what new life waits me little ease cold lying hunger nights of wakefulness
harsh orders given no voice to soothe or please poor thieves for friends for books rules meaningless
this is the grave nay hell yet lord of might still in thy light my spirit shall see light
the longest poem in the book is a most masterly and dramatic description of the tragic life of the irish peasant literature is not much indebted to mister balfour
for his sophistical defence of philosophic doubt which is one of the dullest books we know but it must be admitted
he has converted a clever rhymer into an earnest and deep thinking poet the narrow confines of the prison cell seem to suit the sonnet's scanty plot of ground
and an unjust imprisonment for a noble cause strengthens as well as deepens the nature in vinculis
author of the wind and the whirlwind the love sonnets of proteus
the letter of paul to the colossians
and faithful brethren in christ
bringing forth fruit in every good work
the things in the heavens and the things on the earth the visible and the invisible whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers
having made peace through the blood of his cross through him whether the things on the earth
and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye heard which was preached in the whole creation which is under heaven
striving according to his working which works in me with power
paul remember my bonds grace be with you
chapter thirty two at nine o'clock the next morning melbury dressed himself up in shining broadcloth creased with folding and smelling of camphor and started for hintock house
he was the more impelled to go at once by the absence of his son in law in london for a few days to attend really or ostensibly some professional meetings he said nothing of his destination either to his wife or to grace
fearing that they might entreat him to abandon so risky a project and went out unobserved he had chosen his time with a view as he supposed of conveniently catching missus charmond when she had just finished her breakfast before any other business people should be about
if any came plodding thoughtfully onward he crossed a glade lying between little hintock woods and the plantation which abutted on the park and the spot being open he was discerned there by winterborne from the copse on the next hill where he and his men were working
knowing his mission the younger man hastened down from the copse and managed to intercept the timber merchant i have been thinking of this sir he said and i am of opinion that it would be best to put off your visit for the present
but melbury would not even stop to hear him his mind was made up the appeal was to be made and winterborne stood and watched him sadly till he entered the second plantation and disappeared
melbury rang at the tradesmen's door of the manor house and was at once informed that the lady was not yet visible as indeed he might have guessed had he been anybody but the man he was melbury said he would wait whereupon the young man informed him in a neighborly way that
between themselves she was in bed and asleep never mind said melbury retreating into the court i'll stand about here charged so fully with his mission he shrank from contact with anybody
but he walked about the paved court till he was tired and still nobody came to him at last he entered the house and sat down in a small waiting room from which he got glimpses of the kitchen corridor and of the white capped maids flitting jauntily hither and thither
they had heard of his arrival but had not seen him enter and imagining him still in the court discussed freely the possible reason of his calling they marvelled at his temerity for though most of the tongues which had been let loose attributed the chief blame worthiness to fitzpiers
these of her household preferred to regard their mistress as the deeper sinner melbury sat with his hands resting on the familiar knobbed thorn walking stick whose growing he had seen before he enjoyed its use
through this vision the incidents of the moment but gleamed confusedly here and there as an outer landscape through the high colored scenes of a stained window he waited thus an hour an hour and a half two hours
he began to look pale and ill whereupon the butler who came in asked him to have a glass of wine melbury roused himself and said no no is she almost ready she is just finishing breakfast said the butler
she will soon see you now i am just going up to tell her you are here what haven't you told her before said melbury oh no said the other you see you came so very early at last the bell rang missus charmond could see him
she was not in her private sitting room when he reached it but in a minute he heard her coming from the front staircase and she entered where he stood at this time of the morning missus charmond looked her full age and more she might almost have been taken for the typical
there being no fire in the room she came in with a shawl thrown loosely round her shoulders and obviously without the least suspicion that melbury had called upon any other errand than timber
felice was indeed the only woman in the parish who had not heard the rumor of her own weaknesses she was at this moment living in a fool's paradise in respect of that rumor though not in respect of the weaknesses themselves which if the truth be told
caused her grave misgivings do sit down mister melbury you have felled all the trees that were to be purchased by you this season except the oaks i believe yes said melbury how very nice
it must be so charming to work in the woods just now she was too careless to affect an interest in an extraneous person's affairs so consummately as to deceive in the manner of the perfect social machine hence her words very nice so charming
were uttered with a perfunctoriness that made them sound absurdly unreal yes yes said melbury in a reverie he did not take a chair and she also remained standing resting upon his stick he began missus charmond
i have called upon a more serious matter at least to me than tree throwing and whatever mistakes i make in my manner of speaking upon it to you madam do me the justice to set em down to my want of practice and not to my want of care
missus charmond looked ill at ease she might have begun to guess his meaning but apart from that she had such dread of contact with anything painful harsh or even earnest that his preliminaries alone were enough to distress her yes what is it
she said i am an old man said melbury whom somewhat late in life god thought fit to bless with one child and she a daughter her mother was a very dear wife to me but she was taken away from us when the child was young
and the child became precious as the apple of my eye to me for she was all i had left to love for her sake entirely i married as second wife a homespun woman who had been kind as a mother to her in due time the question of her education came on and i said
i will educate the maid well if i live upon bread to do it of her possible marriage i could not bear to think for it seemed like a death that she should cleave to another man and grow to think his house her home rather than mine
but i saw it was the law of nature that this should be and that it was for the maid's happiness that she should have a home when i was gone and i made up my mind without a murmur to help it on for her sake
and to make amends i determined to give her my most precious possession to my friend's son seeing that they liked each other well things came about which made me doubt if it would be for my daughter's happiness to do this inasmuch as the young man was poor
and she was delicately reared another man came and paid court to her one her equal in breeding and accomplishments in every way it seemed to me that he only could give her the home which her training had made a necessity almost
i urged her on and she married him but ma'am a fatal mistake was at the root of my reckoning i found that this well born gentleman i had calculated on so surely was not stanch of heart and that therein lay a danger of great sorrow for my daughter
madam he saw you and you know the rest i have come to make no demands to utter no threats i have come simply as a father in great grief about this only child and i beseech you to deal kindly with my daughter
and to do nothing which can turn her husband's heart away from her forever forbid him your presence ma'am and speak to him on his duty as one with your power over him well can do and i am hopeful that the rent between them may be patched up
for it is not as if you would lose by so doing your course is far higher than the courses of a simple professional man and the gratitude you would win from me and mine by your kindness is more than i can say
missus charmond had first rushed into a mood of indignation on comprehending melbury's story hot and cold by turns she had murmured leave me leave me but as he seemed to take no notice of this his words began to influence her
and when he ceased speaking she said with hurried hot breath what has led you to think this of me who says i have won your daughter's husband away from her some monstrous calumnies are afloat of which i have known nothing until now melbury started and looked at her simply
but surely ma'am you know the truth better than i her features became a little pinched and the touches of powder on her handsome face for the first time showed themselves as an extrinsic film will you leave me to myself she said
with a faintness which suggested a guilty conscience this is so utterly unexpected you obtain admission to my presence by misrepresentation as god's in heaven ma'am that's not true i made no pretence and i thought in reason you would know why i had come
this gossip i have heard nothing of it tell me of it i say tell you ma'am not i what the gossip is no matter what really is you know
but pardon me i speak roughly and i came to speak gently to coax you beg you to be my daughter's friend she loved you once ma'am you began by liking her then you dropped her without a reason and it hurt her warm heart more than i can tell ye
but you were within your right as the superior no doubt but if you would consider her position now surely surely you would do her no harm certainly i would do her no harm i melbury's eye met hers
it was curious but the allusion to grace's former love for her seemed to touch her more than all melbury's other arguments oh melbury she burst out you have made me so unhappy how could you come to me like this it is too dreadful now go away go go
mingled with better sentiments missus charmond's mobile spirit was subject to these fierce periods of stress and storm she had never so clearly perceived till now that her soul
was being slowly invaded by a delirium which had brought about all this that she was losing judgment and dignity under it becoming an animated impulse only a passion incarnate a fascination had led her on it was as if she had been seized by a hand of velvet
and this was where she found herself overshadowed with sudden night as if a tornado had passed by while she sat or rather crouched unhinged by the interview lunch time came and then the early afternoon almost without her consciousness
then a strange gentleman who says it is not necessary to give his name was suddenly announced i cannot see him whoever he may be i am not at home to anybody
the second letter of paul to timothy
paul an apostle of jesus christ by the will of god according to the promise of life which is in christ jesus
a beloved child grace mercy peace from god the father
which dwelt first in thy grandmother lois and thy mother eunice
and called us with a holy calling not according to our works
but i am not ashamed for i know whom i have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which i have committed to him
that all those in asia turned away from me
and in how many things he ministered to me at ephesus thou knowest very well
even unto bonds as an evil doer
for if we died with him
we shall also reign with him if we shall deny him
god's firm foundation stands having this seal the lord knew those who are his and
there are not only vessels of gold and of silver
sanctified useful for the master
but be gentle toward all apt in teaching
boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to parents unthankful
implacable false accusers incontinent fierce
but denying the power thereof and from these
so also do these withstand the truth men corrupted in mind
for their folly shall be fully manifest to all
manner of life purpose faith long suffering love
what things came upon me at antioch at iconium at lystra what persecutions i endured
and all who desire to live godly in christ jesus
thoroughly furnished unto all good works
apply thyself in season out of season reprove rebuke
i have finished my course
there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the lord the righteous judge will give me in that day and not to me only
forsook me having loved the present world
take mark and bring him with thee
when thou comest bring and the books
no one came forward with me but all forsook me
that through me the preaching might be fully accomplished and all the gentiles might hear
to whom be the glory forever and ever
eubulus salutes thee
the heart of new england it is a wonder that every new england boy does not turn out a poet or a missionary or a peddler most of them used to
there is everything in the heart of the new england hills to feed the imagination of the boy and excite his longing for strange countries i scarcely know what the subtle influence is that forms him and attracts him in the most fascinating and aromatic of all lands
and yet urges him away from all the sweet delights of his home to become a roamer in literature and in the world a poet and a wanderer there is something in the soil and the pure air i suspect that promises more romance than is forthcoming
that excites the imagination without satisfying it and begets the desire of adventure and the prosaic life of the sweet home does not at all correspond to the boy's dreams of the world in the good old days i am told the boys on the coast ran away and became sailors
the countryboys waited till they grew big enough to be missionaries and then they sailed away and met the coast boys in foreign ports
he was sent to make war on the bushes that constantly encroached upon the pastureland but john had no hostility to any growing thing and a very little bushwhacking satisfied him
when he had grubbed up a few laurels and young tree sprouts he was wont to retire into his favorite post of observation and meditation perhaps he fancied that the wide swaying stem to which he clung was the mast of a ship
that the tossing forest behind him was the heaving waves of the sea and that the wind which moaned over the woods and murmured in the leaves and now and then sent him a wide circuit in the air as if he had been a blackbird on the tip top of a spruce was an ocean gale
what life and action and heroism there was to him in the multitudinous roar of the forest and what an eternity of existence in the monologue of the river which brawled far far below him over its wide stony bed how the river sparkled and danced and went on
now in a smooth amber current now fretted by the pebbles but always with that continuous busy song john never knew that noise to cease and he doubted not if he stayed here a thousand years that same loud murmur would fill the air
on it went under the wide spans of the old wooden covered bridge swirling around the great rocks on which the piers stood spreading away below in shallows and taking the shadows of a row of maples that lined the green shore
save this roar no sound reached him except now and then the rumble of a wagon on the bridge or the muffled far off voices of some chance passers on the road seen from this high perch the familiar village sending its brown roofs and white spires up through the green foliage
had a strange aspect and was like some town in a book say a village nestled in the swiss mountains or something in bohemia and there beyond the purple hills of bozrah and not so far as the stony pastures of zoah
whither john had helped drive the colts and young stock in the spring might be perhaps jerusalem itself john had himself once been to the land of canaan with his grandfather when he was a very small boy and he had once seen an actual no mistake jew
a mysterious person with uncut beard and long hair who sold scythe snaths in that region and about whom there was a rumor that he was once caught and shaved by the indignant farmers who apprehended in his long locks a contempt of the christian religion
oh the world had vast possibilities for john away to the south up a vast basin of forest there was a notch in the horizon and an opening in the line of woods where the road ran through this opening john imagined an army might appear perhaps british
perhaps turks and banners of red and of yellow advance and a cannon wheel about and point its long nose and open on the valley he fancied the army after this salute winding down the mountain road deploying in the meadows and giving the valley to pillage and to flame
in which event his position would be an excellent one for observation and for safety while he was in the height of this engagement perhaps the horn would be blown from the back porch reminding him that it was time to quit cutting brush and go for the cows
as if there were no better use for a warrior and a poet in new england than to send him for the cows john knew a boy a bad enough boy i daresay who afterwards became a general in the war and went to congress
and got to be a real governor who also used to be sent to cut brush in the back pastures and hated it in his very soul and by his wrong conduct forecast what kind of a man he would be this boy as soon as he had cut about one brush would seek for one of several holes in the ground
and he was familiar with several in which lived a white and black animal that must always be nameless in a book but an animal quite capable of the most pungent defense of himself this young aspirant to congress would cut a long stick with a little crotch in the end of it
and run it into the hole and when the crotch was punched into the fur and skin of the animal he would twist the stick round till it got a good grip on the skin and then he would pull the beast out and when he got the white and black just out of the hole so that his dog could seize him
the boy would take to his heels and leave the two to fight it out content to scent the battle afar off and this boy who was in training for public life would do this sort of thing all the afternoon and when the sun told him that he had spent long enough time cutting brush
he would industriously go home as innocent as anybody there are few such boys as this nowadays and that is the reason why the new england pastures are so much overgrown with brush john himself preferred to hunt the pugnacious woodchuck
he bore a special grudge against this clover eater beyond the usual hostility that boys feel for any wild animal one day on his way to school a woodchuck crossed the road before him and john gave chase the woodchuck scrambled into an orchard and climbed a small apple tree
john thought this a most cowardly and unfair retreat and stood under the tree and taunted the animal and stoned it thereupon the woodchuck dropped down on john and seized him by the leg of his trousers john was both enraged and scared by this dastardly attack
the teeth of the enemy went through the cloth and met and there he hung john then made a pivot of one leg and whirled himself around swinging the woodchuck in the air until he shook him off but in his departure the woodchuck carried away a large piece of john's summer trousers leg the boy never forgot it
and whenever he had a holiday he used to expend an amount of labor and ingenuity in the pursuit of woodchucks that would have made his for tune in any useful pursuit there was a hill pasture down on one side of which ran a small brook and this pasture was full of woodchuck holes
it was first necessary by patient watching to ascertain that the woodchuck was at home when one was seen to enter his burrow then all the entries to it except one there are usually three were plugged up with stones
a boy and a dog were then left to watch the open hole while john and his comrades went to the brook and began to dig a canal to turn the water into the residence of the woodchuck this was often a difficult feat of engineering and a long job
often it took more than half a day of hard labor with shovel and hoe to dig the canal but when the canal was finished and the water began to pour into the hole the excitement began how long would it take to fill the hole and drown out the woodchuck
sometimes it seemed as if the hole was a bottomless pit but sooner or later the water would rise in it and then there was sure to be seen the nose of the woodchuck keeping itself on a level with the rising flood it was piteous to see the anxious look of the hunted half drowned creature as
it came to the surface and caught sight of the dog there the dog stood at the mouth of the hole quivering with excitement from his nose to the tip of his tail and behind him were the cruel boys dancing with joy and setting the dog on
the poor creature would disappear in the water in terror but he must breathe and out would come his nose again nearer the dog each time at last the water ran out of the hole as well as in and the soaked beast came with it and made a desperate rush
but in a trice the dog had him and the boys stood off in a circle with stones in their hands to see what they called fair play they maintained perfect neutrality so long as the dog was getting the best of the woodchuck but if the latter was likely to escape
they interfered in the interest of peace and the balance of power and killed the woodchuck this is a boy's notion of justice of course he'd no business to be a woodchuck an unspeakable woodchuck
i used the word aromatic in relation to the new england soil john knew very well all its sweet aromatic pungent and medicinal products and liked to search for the scented herbs and the wild fruits and exquisite flowers
but he did not then know and few do know that there is no part of the globe where the subtle chemistry of the earth produces more that is agreeable to the senses than a new england hill pasture and the green meadow at its foot the poets have succeeded in turning our attention from it
to the comparatively barren orient as the land of sweet smelling spices and odorous gums and it is indeed a constant surprise that this poor and stony soil elaborates and grows so many delicate and aromatic products
john it is true did not care much for anything that did not appeal to his taste and smell and delight in brilliant color and he trod down the exquisite ferns and the wonderful mosses without compunction
chapter six the deputy procureur du roi in one of the aristocratic mansions built by puget in the rue du grand cours opposite the medusa fountain a second marriage feast was being celebrated almost at the same hour
in this case however although the occasion of the entertainment was similar the company was strikingly dissimilar instead of a rude mixture of sailors soldiers and those belonging to the humblest grade of life
the present assembly was composed of the very flower of marseilles society
and younger members of families brought up to hate and execrate the man whom five years of exile would convert into a martyr and fifteen of restoration elevate to the rank of a god
the guests were still at table and the heated and energetic conversation that prevailed betrayed the violent and vindictive passions that then agitated each dweller of the south where unhappily
for five centuries religious strife had long given increased bitterness to the violence of party feeling the emperor now king of the petty island of elba after having held sovereign sway over one half of the world
counting as his subjects a small population of five or six thousand souls after having been accustomed to hear the vive napoleons of a hundred and twenty millions of human beings uttered in ten different languages was looked upon here as a ruined man
separated forever from any fresh connection with france or claim to her throne the magistrates freely discussed their political views the military part of the company talked unreservedly of moscow and leipsic
and the ladies snatching their bouquets from their fair bosoms strewed the table with their floral treasures in a word an almost poetical fervor prevailed ah said the marquise de saint meran
ah these revolutionists who have driven us from those very possessions they afterwards purchased for a mere trifle during the reign of terror would be compelled to own were they here that all true devotion was on our side
and station was truly our louis the well beloved
am i not right villefort i beg your pardon madame i really must pray you to excuse me but in truth i was not attending to the conversation marquise marquise interposed the old nobleman who had proposed the toast
let the young people alone let me tell you on one's wedding day there are more agreeable subjects of conversation than dry politics never mind dearest mother said a young and lovely girl with a profusion of light brown hair
and eyes that seemed to float in liquid crystal
he is your own for as long as you like
if the marquise will deign to repeat the words i but imperfectly caught
there is always one bright smiling spot in the desert of her heart and that is the shrine of maternal love i forgive you
they had however what supplied the place of those fine qualities
and that was fanaticism napoleon is the mahomet of the west and is worshipped by his commonplace but ambitions followers not only as a leader and lawgiver but also as the personification of equality he cried the marquise
nay madame i would place each of these heroes on his right pedestal
that of napoleon on the column of the place vendome the only difference consists in the opposite character of the equality advocated by these two men one is the equality that elevates the other is the equality that degrades
i do not mean to deny that both these men were revolutionary scoundrels and that the ninth thermidor and the fourth of april in the year eighteen fourteen were lucky days for france worthy of being gratefully remembered by every friend to monarchy and civil order
and that explains how it comes to pass that fallen as i trust he is forever napoleon has still retained a train of parasitical satellites
cromwell for instance who was not half so bad as napoleon had his partisans and advocates
but bear in mind if you please that our respective parents underwent persecution and proscription from diametrically opposite principles in proof of which i may remark that while my family remained among the stanchest adherents of the exiled princes
your father lost no time in joining the new government and that while the citizen noirtier was a girondin the count noirtier became a senator dear mother interposed renee
you know very well it was agreed that all these disagreeable reminiscences should forever be laid aside
what avails recrimination over matters wholly past recall for my own part i have laid aside even the name of my father and altogether disown his political principles he was nay probably may still be a bonapartist and is called noirtier
and condescend only to regard the young shoot which has started up at a distance from the parent tree without having the power any more than the wish to separate entirely from the stock from which it sprung
excellently well said come now i have hopes of obtaining what i have been for years endeavoring to persuade the marquise to promise namely a perfect amnesty and forgetfulness of the past with all my heart replied the marquise
and that at our recommendation the king consented to forget the past as i do and here she extended to him her hand as i now do at your entreaty but bear in mind that should there fall in your way any one guilty of conspiring against the government
as it is known you belong to a suspected family
my profession as well as the times in which we live compels me to be severe i have already successfully conducted several public prosecutions and brought the offenders to merited punishment but we have not done with the thing yet
do you indeed think so inquired the marquise i am at least fearful of it napoleon in the island of elba is too near france and his proximity keeps up the hopes of his partisans
who are daily under one frivolous pretext or other getting up quarrels with the royalists from hence arise continual and fatal duels among the higher classes of persons and assassinations in the lower
and where is it decided to transfer him to saint helena for heaven's sake where is that asked the marquise an island situated on the other side of the equator at least two thousand leagues from here replied the count
well said the marquise it seems probable that by the aid of the holy alliance we shall be rid of napoleon
the king is either a king or no king if he be acknowledged as sovereign of france he should be upheld in peace and tranquillity and this can best be effected by employing the most inflexible agents to put down every attempt at conspiracy
unfortunately madame
the strong arm of the law is not called upon to interfere until the evil has taken place then all he has got to do is to endeavor to repair it nay madame the law is frequently powerless to effect this all it can do is to avenge the wrong done
and the cherished friend of mademoiselle de saint meran do try and get up some famous trial while we are at marseilles i never was in a law court i am told it is so very amusing amusing certainly replied the young man
inasmuch as instead of shedding tears as at the fictitious tale of woe produced at a theatre you behold in a law court a case of real and genuine distress a drama of life the prisoner whom you there see pale agitated and alarmed
instead of as is the case when a curtain falls on a tragedy going home to sup peacefully with his family and then retiring to rest that he may recommence his mimic woes on the morrow is removed from your sight merely to be reconducted to his prison
and delivered up to the executioner i leave you to judge how far your nerves are calculated to bear you through such a scene of this however be assured that should any favorable opportunity present itself i will not fail to offer you the choice of being present
don't you see how you are frightening us and yet you laugh what would you have tis like a duel i have already recorded sentence of death five or six times against the movers of political conspiracies
and who can say how many daggers may be ready sharpened and only waiting a favorable opportunity to be buried in my heart
you surely are not in earnest indeed i am replied the young magistrate with a smile
suppose for instance the prisoner as is more than probable to have served under napoleon well can you expect for an instant
will scruple more to drive a stiletto into the heart of one he knows to be his personal enemy than to slaughter his fellow creatures
besides one requires the excitement of being hateful in the eyes of the accused in order to lash one's self into a state of sufficient vehemence and power i would not choose to see the man against whom i pleaded smile as though in mockery of my words
just the person we require at a time like the present said a second
i mean the trial of the man for murdering his father upon my word you killed him ere the executioner had laid his hand upon him oh as for parricides and such dreadful people as that interposed renee it matters very little what is done to them
but as regards poor unfortunate creatures whose only crime consists in having mixed themselves up in political intrigues why that is the very worst offence they could possibly commit for don't you see renee the king is the father of his people
and he who shall plot or contrive aught against the life and safety of the parent of thirty two millions of souls is a parricide upon a fearfully great scale i don't know anything about that replied renee
you and i will always consult upon our verdicts my love said the marquise
nowadays the military profession is in abeyance and the magisterial robe is the badge of honor there is a wise latin proverb that is very much in point cedant arma togae
i cannot speak latin responded the marquise well said renee i cannot help regretting you had not chosen some other profession than your own a physician for instance do you know i always felt a shudder at the idea of even a destroying angel
dear good renee
and one which will go far to efface the recollection of his father's conduct added the incorrigible marquise
for he has to atone for past dereliction while i have no other impulse than warm decided preference and conviction having made this well turned speech
cried the comte de salvieux that is exactly what i myself said the other day at the tuileries when questioned by his majesty's principal chamberlain touching the singularity of an alliance between the son of a girondin
and i assure you he seemed fully to comprehend that this mode of reconciling political differences was based upon sound and excellent principles then the king who without our suspecting it had overheard our conversation
observe that the king did not pronounce the word noirtier
who will be sure to make a figure in his profession i like him much and it gave me great pleasure to hear that he was about to become the son in law of the marquis and marquise de saint meran i should myself have recommended the match
had not the noble marquis anticipated my wishes by requesting my consent to it
i give you his very words and if the marquis chooses to be candid he will confess that they perfectly agree with what his majesty said to him when he went six months ago to consult him upon the subject of your espousing his daughter that is true
answered the marquis how much do i owe this gracious prince what is there i would not do to evince my earnest gratitude that is right cried the marquise i love to see you thus
now then were a conspirator to fall into your hands he would be most welcome for my part dear mother interposed renee i trust your wishes will not prosper and that providence will only permit petty offenders poor debtors
then i shall be contented just the same as though you prayed that a physician might only be called upon to prescribe for headaches measles and the stings of wasps or any other slight affection of the epidermis
if you wish to see me the king's attorney you must desire for me some of those violent and dangerous diseases from the cure of which so much honor redounds to the physician at this moment
a servant entered the room and whispered a few words in his ear
he soon however returned his whole face beaming with delight renee regarded him with fond affection and certainly his handsome features lit up as they then were with more than usual fire and animation
that i were a doctor instead of a lawyer well i at least resemble the disciples of esculapius in one thing that of not being able to call a day my own not even that of my betrothal and wherefore were you called away just now
burst simultaneously from all who were near enough to the magistrate to hear his words why if my information prove correct a sort of bonaparte conspiracy has just been discovered can i believe my ears cried the marquise
the king's attorney is informed by a friend to the throne and the religions institutions of his country
this day arrived from smyrna after having touched at naples and porto ferrajo has been the bearer of a letter from murat to the usurper and again taken charge of another letter from the usurper to the bonapartist club in paris
ample corroboration of this statement may be obtained by arresting the above mentioned edmond dantes who either carries the letter for paris about with him or has it at his father's abode should it not be found in the possession of father or son
then it will assuredly be discovered in the cabin belonging to the said dantes on board the pharaon but said renee this letter which after all is but an anonymous scrawl is not even addressed to you but to the king's attorney
true but that gentleman being absent his secretary by his orders opened his letters thinking this one of importance he sent for me but not finding me took upon himself to give the necessary orders for arresting the accused party
then the guilty person is absolutely in custody said the marquise nay dear mother say the accused person you know we cannot yet pronounce him guilty
come come my friend interrupted the marquise do not neglect your duty to linger with us you are the king's servant and must go wherever that service calls you o villefort
cried renee clasping her hands and looking towards her lover with piteous earnestness
the young man passed round to the side of the table where the fair pleader sat and leaning over her chair said tenderly to give you pleasure my sweet renee i promise to show all the lenity in my power
said the marquise she will soon get over these things
who while imprinting a son in law's respectful salute on it looked at renee as much as to say i must try and fancy tis your dear hand i kiss as it should have been these are mournful auspices to accompany a betrothal sighed poor renee
upon my word child exclaimed the angry marquise your folly exceeds all bounds i should be glad to know what connection there can possibly be between your sickly sentimentality and the affairs of the state o mother murmured renee
nay madame i pray you pardon this little traitor i promise you that to make up for her want of loyalty i will be most inflexibly severe then casting an expressive glance at his betrothed which seemed to say
chapter twenty eight the prison register the day after that in which the scene we have just described had taken place on the road between bellegarde and beaucaire a man of about thirty or two and thirty
dressed in a bright blue frock coat nankeen trousers and a white waistcoat having the appearance and accent of an englishman presented himself before the mayor of marseilles sir said he
i am chief clerk of the house of thomson and french of rome we are and have been these ten years connected with the house of morrel and son of marseilles we have a hundred thousand francs or thereabouts loaned on their securities
and we are a little uneasy at reports that have reached us that the firm is on the brink of ruin i have come therefore express from rome to ask you for information sir replied the mayor
he has lost four or five vessels and suffered by three or four bankruptcies but it is not for me although i am a creditor myself to the amount of ten thousand francs to give any information as to the state of his finances
he has i believe two hundred thousand francs in morrel's hands and if there be any grounds for apprehension as this is a greater amount than mine you will most probably find him better informed than myself
the englishman seemed to appreciate this extreme delicacy made his bow and went away proceeding with a characteristic british stride towards the street mentioned
made a gesture of surprise which seemed to indicate that it was not the first time he had been in his presence
he was in such a state of despair that it was evident all the faculties of his mind absorbed in the thought which occupied him at the moment did not allow either his memory or his imagination to stray to the past the englishman
with the coolness of his nation addressed him in terms nearly similar to those with which he had accosted the mayor of marseilles
your fears are unfortunately but too well founded and you see before you a man in despair i had two hundred thousand francs placed in the hands of morrel and son these two hundred thousand francs were the dowry of my daughter who was to be married in a fortnight
and these two hundred thousand francs were payable half on the fifteenth of this month and the other half on the fifteenth of next month
and he has been here within the last half hour to tell me that if his ship the pharaon did not come into port on the fifteenth he would be wholly unable to make this payment but said the englishman this looks very much like a suspension of payment
you yes i but at a tremendous discount of course no for two hundred thousand francs our house added the englishman with a laugh does not do things in that way and you will pay ready money
and the englishman drew from his pocket a bundle of bank notes
that is the affair of the house of thomson and french in whose name i act they have perhaps some motive to serve in hastening the ruin of a rival firm but all i know sir is that i am ready to hand you over this sum
in exchange for your assignment of the debt i only ask a brokerage
will you have two three five per cent or even more whatever you say sir replied the englishman laughing i am like my house and do not do such things no the commission i ask is quite different
to these registers there are added notes relative to the prisoners there are special reports on every prisoner well sir i was educated at home by a poor devil of an abbe who disappeared suddenly
i have since learned that he was confined in the chateau d'if and i should like to learn some particulars of his death what was his name
he was crazy so they said oh he was decidedly very possibly but what sort of madness was it he pretended to know of an immense treasure and offered vast sums to the government if they would liberate him poor devil
one of those who had contributed the most to the return of the usurper in eighteen fifteen a very resolute and very dangerous man indeed said the englishman
i myself had occasion to see this man in eighteen sixteen or eighteen seventeen and we could only go into his dungeon with a file of soldiers that man made a deep impression on me i shall never forget his countenance
the englishman smiled imperceptibly and you say sir he interposed that the two dungeons
this tunnel was dug no doubt with an intention of escape
that must have cut short the projects of escape
but not for the survivor on the contrary
he no doubt thought that prisoners who died in the chateau d'if were interred in an ordinary burial ground and he conveyed the dead man into his own cell took his place in the sack in which they had sewed up the corpse and awaited the moment of interment
it was a bold step and one that showed some courage remarked the englishman as i have already told you sir he was a very dangerous man and fortunately by his own act disembarrassed the government of the fears it had on his account
how was that how
well they fastened a thirty six pound ball to his feet and threw him into the sea really exclaimed the englishman yes sir continued the inspector of prisons you may imagine the amazement of the fugitive when he found himself flung headlong over the rocks
i should like to have seen his face at that moment that would have been difficult no matter replied de boville in supreme good humor at the certainty of recovering his two hundred thousand francs no matter i can fancy it and he shouted with laughter
so can i said the englishman and he laughed too but he laughed as the english do at the end of his teeth and so continued the englishman who first gained his composure he was drowned unquestionably
so that the governor got rid of the dangerous and the crazy prisoner at the same time precisely but some official document was drawn up as to this affair i suppose inquired the englishman yes yes the mortuary deposition
you understand dantes relations if he had any might have some interest in knowing if he were dead or alive so that now if there were anything to inherit from him they may do so with easy conscience
by no means it really seems to me very curious yes indeed so sir you wish to see all relating to the poor abbe who really was gentleness itself
each register had its number each file of papers its place the inspector begged the englishman to seat himself in an arm chair and placed before him the register and documents relative to the chateau d'if giving him all the time he desired for the examination
but it seemed that the history which the inspector had related interested him greatly for after having perused the first documents he turned over the leaves until he reached the deposition respecting edmond dantes there he found everything arranged in due order
the accusation examination morrel's petition
he folded up the accusation quietly and put it as quietly in his pocket read the examination and saw that the name of noirtier was not mentioned in it perused too the application dated tenth april eighteen fifteen
in which morrel by the deputy procureur's advice exaggerated with the best intentions for napoleon was then on the throne the services dantes had rendered to the imperial cause
then he saw through the whole thing this petition to napoleon kept back by villefort had become under the second restoration a terrible weapon against him in the hands of the king's attorney
he was no longer astonished when he searched on to find in the register this note placed in a bracket against his name
an inveterate bonapartist took an active part in the return from the island of elba to be kept in strict solitary confinement and to be closely watched and guarded beneath these lines was written in another hand see note above nothing can be done
as to the note which accompanied this the englishman understood that it might have been added by some inspector who had taken a momentary interest in dantes situation but who had
from the remarks we have quoted found it impossible to give any effect to the interest he had felt as we have said
thanks said the latter closing the register with a slam i have all i want now it is for me to perform my promise give me a simple assignment of your debt acknowledge therein the receipt of the cash and i will hand you over the money
immense blisters on every finger giving them the appearance of sausages to night ponting has photographed the hand as i expected some amendment of atkinson's tale as written last night is necessary
partly due to some lack of coherency in the tale as first told and partly a reconsideration of the circumstances by atkinson himself
it appears he first hit inaccessible island and got his hand frostbitten before he reached it it was only on arrival in its lee that he discovered the frostbite
he must have waited there some time then groped his way to the western end thinking he was near the ramp then wandering away in a swirl of drift to clear some irregularities at the ice foot
he completely lost the island when he could only have been a few yards from it he seems in this predicament to have clung to the old idea of walking up wind and it must be considered wholly providential that on this course
he next struck tent island it was round this island that he walked finally digging himself a shelter on its lee side under the impression that it was inaccessible island
when the moon appeared he seems to have judged its bearing well and as he travelled homeward he was much surprised to see the real inaccessible island appear on his left the distance of tent island
four to five miles partly accounts for the time he took in returning everything goes to confirm the fact that he had a very close shave of being lost altogether
for some time past some of the ponies have had great irritation of the skin i felt sure it was due to some parasite
thought the food responsible and changed it to day a tiny body louse was revealed under atkinson's microscope after capture from snatcher's coat
a dilute solution of carbolic is expected to rid the poor beasts of their pests but meanwhile one or two of them have rubbed off patches of hair which they can ill afford to spare in this climate
i hope we shall get over the trouble quickly the day has been gloriously fine again with bright moonlight all the afternoon it was a wondrous sight to see erebus
emerge from soft filmy clouds of mist as though some thin veiling had been withdrawn with infinite delicacy to reveal the pure outline of this moonlit mountain thursday july six
continued the temperature has taken a plunge
with a ten mile breeze from the south frostbiting weather
the surface is bad after the recent snowfall a new pair of sealskin overshoes for ski made by evans seem to be a complete success he has modified the shape of the toe to fit the ski irons better
i am very pleased with this arrangement i find it exceedingly difficult to settle down to solid work just at present and keep putting off the tasks which i have set myself
the sun has not yet risen a degree of the eleven degrees below our horizon which it was at noon on midwinter day and yet to day there was a distinct red in the northern sky
our record so far and likely to remain so one would think this morning it was fine and calm
never passing above that point i thought it a little too strenuous and so was robbed of my walk the dogs coats are getting pretty thick and they seem to take matters pretty comfortably the ponies are better i think
but i shall be glad when we are sure of having rid them of their pest i was the victim of a very curious illusion to day on our small heating stove stands a cylindrical ice melter which keeps up the supply of water
necessary for the dark room and other scientific instruments this iron container naturally becomes warm if it is not fed with ice and it is generally hung around with socks and mits which require drying
i put my hand on the cylindrical vessel this afternoon and withdrew it sharply with the sensation of heat to verify the impression i repeated the action two or three times
of the peril of burning to which they were exposed upon this meares said but they filled the melter with ice a few minutes ago and then coming over to feel the surface himself added why it's cold sir
and indeed so it was the slightly damp chilled surface of the iron had conveyed to me the impression of excessive heat there is nothing intrinsically new in this observation
it has often been noticed that metal surfaces at low temperatures give a sensation of burning to the bare touch but none the less it is an interesting variant of the common fact apropos
atkinson is suffering a good deal from his hand the frostbite was deeper than i thought fortunately he can now feel all his fingers though it was twenty four hours before sensation returned to one of them
monday
we have had the worst gale i have ever known in these regions and have not yet done with it the wind started at about mid day on friday and increasing in violence reached an average of sixty miles for one hour on saturday
has not been without parallel earlier in the year but the extraordinary feature of this gale was the long continuance of a very cold temperature
late yesterday it was in the minus twenties
i had literally to lean against the wind with head bent and face averted and so stagger crab like on my course in those two days of really terrible weather our thoughts often turned to absentees at cape crozier
with the devout hope that they may be safely housed they are certain to have been caught by this gale but i trust before it reached them they had managed to get up some sort of shelter
sometimes i have imagined them getting much more wind than we do yet at others it seems difficult to believe that the emperor penguins have chosen an excessively wind swept area for their rookery
to day with the temperature at zero one can walk about outside without inconvenience in spite of a fifty mile wind although i am loath to believe it there must be some measure of acclimatisation
tuesday
never was such persistent bad weather
and the moon a vague blue this is the fourth day of gale if one reflects on the quantity of transported air nearly four thousand miles
one gets a conception of the transference which such a gale effects and must conclude that potentially warm upper currents are pouring into our polar area from more temperate sources the dogs are very gay and happy in the comparative warmth
i have been going to and fro on the home beach and about the rocky knolls in its environment in spite of the wind it was very warm i dug myself a hole in a drift in the shelter of a large boulder and lay down in it
and covered my legs with loose snow it was so warm that i could have slept very comfortably i have been amused and pleased lately in observing the manners and customs of the persons in charge of our stores
quite a number of secret caches exist in which articles of value are hidden from public knowledge so that they may escape use until a real necessity arises
the policy of every storekeeper is to have something up his sleeve for a rainy day for instance evans p o after thoroughly examining the purpose of some individual who is pleading for a piece of canvas
will admit that he may have a small piece somewhere which could be used for it when as a matter of fact he possesses quite a number of rolls of that material tools metal material leather
straps and dozens of items are administered with the same spirit of jealous guardianship by day lashly oates and meares while our main storekeeper bowers even affects to bemoan imaginary shortages
all night and to day wild gusts of wind shaking the hut long ragged twisted wind cloud in the middle heights a watery moon shining through a filmy cirrostratus
the outlook wonderfully desolate with its ghostly illumination and patchy clouds of flying snow drift it would be hardly possible for a tearing raging wind to make itself more visible
at wind vane hill the anemometer has registered sixty eight miles between nine and ten a m a record
thursday
the wind continued to blow throughout the night with squalls of even greater violence than before
the snow is so hard blown that only the fiercest gusts raise the drifting particles it is interesting to note the balance of nature whereby one evil is eliminated by the excess of another
for an hour after lunch yesterday the gale showed signs of moderation and the ponies had a short walk over the floe out for exercise at this time i was obliged to lean against the wind
my light overall clothes flapping wildly and almost dragged from me later when the wind rose again it was quite an effort to stagger back to the hut against it this morning the gale still rages
but the sky is much clearer the only definite clouds are those which hang to the southward of erebus summit but the moon though bright still exhibits a watery appearance
showing that there is still a thin stratus above us the work goes on very steadily the men are making crampons and ski boots of the new style evans is constructing plans of the dry valley
and koettlitz glacier with the help of the western party the physicists are busy always
oates ridding the ponies of their parasites and ponting printing from his negatives science cannot be served by dilettante methods but demands a mind spurred by ambition or the satisfaction of ideals
our most popular game for evening recreation is chess so many players have developed that our two sets of chessmen are inadequate friday
we have had a horrible fright and are not yet out of the wood at noon yesterday one of the best ponies bones suddenly went off his feed
soon after it was evident that he was distressed and there could be no doubt that he was suffering from colic oates called my attention to it but we were neither much alarmed remembering the speedy recovery of jimmy pigg
under similar circumstances later the pony was sent out for exercise with crean i passed him twice and seemed to gather that things were well but crean afterwards told me that he had had considerable trouble
every few minutes the poor beast had been seized with a spasm of pain had first dashed forward as though to escape it and then endeavoured to lie down
and on his legs for he is a powerful beast when he returned to the stable he was evidently worse and oates and anton patiently dragged a sack to and fro under his stomach every now and again
he attempted to lie down and oates eventually thought it wiser to let him do so once down his head gradually drooped until he lay at length every now and again twitching very horribly with the pain
and from time to time raising his head and even scrambling to his legs when it grew intense i don't think i ever realised before how pathetic a horse could be under such conditions no sound escapes him
his misery can only be indicated by those distressing spasms and by dumb movements of the head turned with a patient expression always suggestive of appeal
remembering the care with which the animals are being fed i could not picture anything but a passing indisposition but as hour after hour passed without improvement it was impossible not to realise that the poor beast was dangerously ill
oates administered an opium pill and later on a second sacks were heated in the oven and placed on the poor beast beyond this nothing could be done except to watch oates and crean
never left the patient as the evening wore on i visited the stable again and again but only to hear the same tale no improvement towards midnight i felt very downcast
it is so very certain that we cannot afford to lose a single pony the margin of safety has already been far overstepped we are reduced to face the circumstance that we must keep all the animals alive
or greatly risk failure so far everything has gone so well with them that my fears of a loss had been lulled in a growing hope that all would be well therefore at midnight when poor bones
had continued in pain for twelve hours and showed little sign of improvement i felt my fleeting sense of security rudely shattered it was shortly after midnight when i was told that the animal seemed a little easier
the horse still lay on its side with outstretched head but the spasms had ceased its eye looked less distressed and its ears pricked to occasional noises
as i stood looking it suddenly raised its head and rose without effort to its legs then in a moment as though some bad dream had passed it began to nose at some hay and at its neighbour
within three minutes it had drunk a bucket of water and had started to feed i went to bed at three with much relief at noon to day the immediate cause of the trouble
and an indication that there is still risk were disclosed in a small ball of semi fermented hay covered with mucus and containing tape worms so far not very serious
but unfortunately attached to this mass was a strip of the lining of the intestine atkinson from a humanly comparative point of view does not think this is serious if great care is taken with the food for a week or so
and so one can hope for the best meanwhile we have had much discussion as to the first cause of the difficulty the circumstances possibly contributing are as follows fermentation of the hay
insufficiency of water overheated stable a chill from exercise after the gale
it can scarcely be coincidence that the two ponies which have suffered so far are those which are nearest the stove end of the stable in future the stove will be used more sparingly
a large ventilating hole is to be made near it and an allowance of water is to be added to the snow hitherto given to the animals in the food line we can only exercise such precautions as are possible
but one way or another we ought to be able to prevent any more danger of this description saturday
there was strong wind with snow this morning and the wind remained keen and cold in the afternoon but to night it has fallen calm with a promising clear sky outlook have been up the ramp
clambering about in my sealskin overshoes which seem extraordinarily satisfactory oates thinks a good few of the ponies have got worms and we are considering means of ridding them bones seems to be getting on well
though not yet quite so buckish as he was before his trouble a good big ventilator has been fitted in the stable it is not easy to get over the alarm of thursday night the situation is altogether too critical
sunday
another slight alarm this morning the pony china went off his feed at breakfast time and lay down twice he was up and well again in half an hour but what on earth is it that is disturbing these poor beasts
usual sunday routine quiet day except for a good deal of wind off and on the crozier party must be having a wretched time monday
the weather still very unsettled the wind comes up with a rush to fade in an hour or two clouds chase over the sky in similar fashion the moon has dipped during daylight hours
and so one way and another there is little to attract one out of doors yet we are only nine days off the light value of the day when we left off football i hope we shall be able to recommence the game in that time
i am glad that the light is coming for more than one reason the gale and consequent inaction not only affected the ponies ponting is not very fit as a consequence
his nervous temperament is of the quality to take this wintering experience badly atkinson has some difficulty in persuading him to take exercise he managed only by dragging him out to his own work digging holes in the ice
taylor is another backslider in the exercise line and is not looking well if we can get these people to run about at football all will be well anyway the return of the light should cure all ailments physical and mental
tuesday
very brilliant red sky at noon to day and enough light to see one's way about this fleeting hour of light is very pleasant but of course dependent on a clear sky very rare
went round the outer berg in the afternoon it was all i could do to keep up with snatcher on the homeward round speaking well for his walking powers wednesday
again calm and pleasant
which had been left near here before the gale the course of events is not very clear but it looks as though the gale pressed up the crack raising broken pieces of the thin ice formed after recent opening movements
these raised pieces had become nuclei of heavy snow drifts which in turn weighing down the floe had allowed water to flow in over the sledge level
it is surprising to find such a big disturbance from what appears to be a simple cause this crack is now joined
we have noticed a very curious appearance of heavenly bodies when setting in a north westerly direction about the time of midwinter the moon observed in this position
it might have been a red flare or distant bonfire but could not have been guessed for the moon yesterday the planet venus appeared under similar circumstances as a ship's side light or japanese lantern
but the latter was dominant thursday july twenty friday twenty one saturday
there is very little to record the horses are going on well all are in good form at least for the moment they drink a good deal of water in the morning saturday july twenty two
continued this and the better ventilation of the stable make for improvement we think perhaps the increase of salt allowance is also beneficial to day we have another raging blizzard
one way and another the crozier party must have had a pretty poor time
i am thankful to remember that the light will be coming on apace now monday
the blizzard continued throughout yesterday sunday
simpson finds the hill readings twenty per cent higher
to day nelson found that his sounding sledge had been turned over we passed a quiet sunday with the usual service to break the week day routine during my night watch last night
i could observe the rapid falling of the wind which on dying away
the temperature has remained comparatively high to day i went to see the crack at which soundings were taken a week ago then it was several feet open with thin ice between now it is pressed up into a sharp ridge
three to four feet high the edge pressed up shows an eighteen inch thickness this is of course an effect of the warm weather tuesday july twenty five wednesday
there is really very little to be recorded in these days life proceeds very calmly if somewhat monotonously everyone seems fit there is no sign of depression
to all outward appearance the ponies are in better form than they have ever been the same may be said of the dogs with one or two exceptions the light comes on apace to day wednesday
it was very beautiful at noon the air was very clear and the detail of the western mountains was revealed in infinitely delicate contrasts of light thursday july twenty seven
calmer days the sky rosier the light visibly advancing we have never suffered from low spirits so that the presence of day raises us above a normal cheerfulness to the realm of high spirits
the light merry humour of our company has never been eclipsed the good natured kindly chaff has never ceased since those early days of enthusiasm which inspired them
they have survived the winter days of stress and already renew themselves with the coming of spring if pessimistic moments had foreseen the growth of rifts in the bond forged by these amenities
they stand prophetically falsified there is no longer room for doubt that we shall come to our work with a unity of purpose and a disposition for mutual support
such a spirit should tide us over all minor difficulties
the next morning he had more of a struggle than ever to wash and dress her indeed at one time nothing but holding her by the scruff prevented her from getting away from him but at last he achieved his object and she was washed brushed scented and dressed
although to be sure this left him better pleased than her
still at breakfast she was well mannered though a trifle hasty with her food then his difficulties with her began for she would go out but as he had his housework to do he could not allow it
at first he tried coaxing her and wheedling gave her cards to play patience and so on but finding nothing would distract her from going out his temper began to rise and he told her plainly that she must wait his pleasure and that he had as much natural obstinacy as she had
but to all that he said she paid no heed whatever but only scratched the harder thus he let her continue until luncheon when she would not sit up or eat off a plate but first was for getting on to the table and when that was prevented snatched her meat and ate it under the table
to all his rebukes she turned a deaf or sullen ear and so they each finished their meal eating little either of them for till she would sit at table he would give her no more and his vexation had taken away his own appetite
in the afternoon he took her out for her airing in the garden she made no pretence now of enjoying the first snowdrops or the view from the terrace no there was only one thing for her now the ducks and she was off to them before he could stop her luckily
they were all swimming when she got there for a stream running into the pond on the far side it was not frozen there
which would not bear his weight and though he called her and begged her to come back she would not heed him but stayed frisking about getting as near the ducks as she dared but being circumspect in venturing on to the thin ice presently she turned on herself and began tearing off her clothes
then she ran hither and thither a stark naked vixen and without giving a glance to her poor husband who stood silently now upon the bank with despair and terror settled in his mind she let him stay there most of the afternoon till he was chilled through and through and worn out with watching her
at last he reflected how she had just stripped herself and how in the morning she struggled against being dressed and he thought perhaps he was too strict with her and if he let her have her own way they could manage to be happy somehow together even if she did eat off the floor
silvia come now be good you shan't wear any more clothes if you don't want to and you needn't sit at table neither i promise you shall do as you like in that but you must give up one thing
and that is you must stay with me and not go out alone for that is dangerous if any dog came on you he would kill you directly he had finished speaking she came to him joyously began fawning on him and prancing round him so that in spite of his vexation with her
and being cold he could not help stroking her oh silvia are you not wilful and cunning i see you glory in being so but i shall not reproach you but shall stick to my side of the bargain and you must stick to yours
he built a big fire when he came back to the house and took a glass or two of spirits also to warm himself up for he was chilled to the very bone then after they had dined to cheer himself he took another glass and then another and so on till he was very merry he thought
then he would play with his vixen she encouraging him with her pretty sportiveness he got up to catch her then and finding himself unsteady on his legs he went down on to all fours the long and the short of it is that by drinking he drowned all his sorrow
and then would be a beast too like his wife though she was one through no fault of her own and could not help it to what lengths he went then in that drunken humour i shall not offend my readers by relating but shall only say that he was so drunk and sottish that he had
a very imperfect recollection of what had passed when he woke the next morning there is no exception to the rule that if a man drink heavily at night the next morning will show the other side to his nature thus with mister tebrick for as he had been beastly
merry and a very dare devil the night before so on his awakening was he ashamed melancholic and a true penitent before his creator the first thing he did when he came to himself was to call out to god to forgive him for his sin
then he fell into earnest prayer and continued so for half an hour upon his knees then he got up and dressed but continued very melancholy for the whole of the morning being in this mood you may imagine it hurt him to see his wife running about naked
he had made a bargain and he would stick to it and so he let her be though sorely against his will for the same reason that is because he would stick to his side of the bargain he did not require her to sit up at table
but gave her her breakfast on a dish in the corner where to tell the truth she on her side ate it all up with great daintiness and propriety
but lay curled up in an armchair before the fire dozing after lunch he took her out and she never so much as offered to go near the ducks but running before him led him on to take her a longer walk this he consented to do very much to her joy and delight
he took her through the fields by the most unfrequented ways being much alarmed lest they should be seen by anyone but by good luck they walked above four miles across country and saw nobody all the way his wife kept running on ahead of him
and then back to him to lick his hand and so on and appeared delighted at taking exercise and though they startled two or three rabbits and a hare in the course of their walk she never attempted to go after them only giving them a look and then looking back to him laughing at him as it were for his warning cry of
just when they got home and were going into the porch they came face to face with an old woman mister tebrick stopped short in consternation and looked about for his vixen but she had run forward without any shyness to greet her
what are you doing here missus cork he asked her missus cork answered him in these words poor thing poor miss silvia
if you do she'll do her best to be a good wife to you
i saw her sir before i left and i've had no peace of mind i couldn't sleep thinking of her so i've come back to look after her as i have done all her life sir and she stooped down and took missus tebrick by the paw mister tebrick unlocked the door and they went in
when missus cork saw the house she exclaimed again and again the place was a pigstye they couldn't live like that
she would do it he could trust her with the secret had the old woman come the day before it is likely enough that mister tebrick would have sent her packing
moreover the old woman's words that it was a shame to let her run about like a dog moved him exceedingly being in this mood the truth is he welcomed her
but we may conclude that missus tebrick was as sorry to see her old nanny as her husband was glad if we consider that she had been brought up strictly by her when she was a child and was now again in her power
and that her old nurse could never be satisfied with her now whatever she did but would always think her wicked to be a fox at all there seems good reason for her dislike and it is possible too that there may have been another cause as well and that is jealousy
we know her husband was always trying to bring her back to be a woman or at any rate to get her to act like one may she not have been hoping to get him to be like a beast himself or to act like one
if we think that she had had a success of this kind only the night before when he got drunk can we not conclude that this was indeed the case and then we have another good reason why the poor lady should hate to see her old nurse
it is certain that whatever hopes mister tebrick had of missus cork affecting his wife for the better were disappointed she grew steadily wilder and after a few days so intractable with her that mister tebrick again took her under his complete control
the first morning missus cork made her a new jacket cutting down the sleeves of a blue silk one of missus tebrick's and trimming it with swan's down and directly she had altered it put it on her mistress and fetching a mirror would have her admire the fit of it
that is either a lady to whom she owed respect and who had rational powers exceeding her own or else a wild creature on whom words were wasted
and then ran gaily about waving her brush with only a few ribands still hanging from her neck so it was time after time for the old woman was used to having her own way until missus cork would i think have tried punishing her if she had not been afraid of missus tebrick's rows of white teeth
which she often showed her then laughing afterwards as if to say it was only play not content with tearing off the dresses that were fitted on her one day silvia slipped upstairs to her wardrobe and tore down all her old dresses and made havoc with them not sparing her wedding dress either
but tearing and ripping them all up so that there was hardly a shred or rag left big enough to dress a doll in on this mister tebrick who had let the old woman have most of her management to see what she could make of her took her back under his own control
he was sorry enough now that missus cork had disappointed him in the hopes he had had of her to have the old woman as it were on his hands true she could be useful enough in many ways to him by doing the housework the cooking and mending
but still he was anxious since his secret was in her keeping and the more now that she had tried her hand with his wife and failed for he saw that vanity had kept her mouth shut if she had won over her mistress to better ways and her love for her would have grown by getting her own way with her
but now that she had failed she bore her mistress a grudge for not being won over or at the best was become indifferent to the business so that she might very readily blab for the moment all mister tebrick could do was to keep her from going into stokoe to the village
where she would meet all her old cronies and where there were certain to be any number of inquiries about what was going on at rylands and so on but as he saw that it was clearly beyond his power however vigilant he might be to watch over the old woman and his wife
and to prevent anyone from meeting with either of them he began to consider what he could best do since he had sent away his servants and the gardener giving out a story of having received bad news and his wife going away to london where he would join her
their probably going out of england and so on he knew well enough that there would be a great deal of talk in the neighbourhood and as he had now stayed on contrary to what he had said there would be further rumour indeed
there was a story already going round the country that his wife had run away with major solmes and that he was gone mad with grief
but like most tittle tattle to fill a gap as few like to confess ignorance and if people are asked about such or such a man they must have something to say or they suffer in everybody's opinion are set down as dull or out of the swim
after talking some little while and not knowing me or who i was told me that david garnett was dead and died of being bitten by a cat after he had tormented it he had long grown a nuisance to his friends as an exorbitant sponge upon them and the world was well rid of him
hearing this story of myself diverted me at the time but i fully believe it has served me in good stead since for it set me on my guard as perhaps nothing else would have done against accepting for true all floating rumour and village gossip
so that now i am by second nature a true sceptic and scarcely believe anything unless the evidence for it is conclusive
there was so much of it that was either manifestly false and absurd or else contradictory to the ascertained facts it is therefore only the bare bones of the story which you will find written here for i have rejected all the flowery embroideries which would be entertaining reading enough i daresay for some
to get back to our story mister tebrick having considered how much the appetite of his neighbours would be whetted to find out the mystery by his remaining in that part of the country
it was thirty miles away from stokoe which in the country means as far as timbuctoo does to us in london then it was near tangley and his lady having known it from her childhood would feel at home there and also it was utterly remote
which was now untenanted for the greater part of the year nor did it mean imparting his secret to others for there was only missus cork's son a widower who being out at work all day would be easily outwitted the more so as he was stone deaf and of a slow and saturnine disposition
to be sure there was little polly missus cork's granddaughter but either mister tebrick forgot her altogether or else reckoned her as a mere baby and not to be thought of as a danger he talked the thing over with missus cork and they decided upon it out of hand
since so far she had got much work and little credit by it when it was settled mister tebrick disposed of the remaining business he had at rylands in the afternoon and that was chiefly putting out his wife's riding horse into the keeping of a farmer near by
for he thought he would drive over with his own horse and the other spare horse tandem in the dogcart the next morning they locked up the house and they departed having first secured missus tebrick in a large wicker hamper where she would be tolerably comfortable this was for safety
for in the agitation of driving she might jump out and on the other hand if a dog scented her and she were loose she might be in danger of her life mister tebrick drove with the hamper beside him on the front seat and spoke to her gently very often
she was overcome by the excitement of the journey and kept poking her nose first through one crevice then through another turning and twisting the whole time and peeping out to see what they were passing
it was a bitterly cold day and when they had gone about fifteen miles they drew up by the roadside to rest the horses and have their own luncheon for he dared not stop at an inn he knew that any living creature in a hamper even if it be only an old fowl always draws attention
there would be several loafers most likely who would notice that he had a fox with him and even if he left the hamper in the cart the dogs at the inn would be sure to sniff out her scent so not to take any chances he drew up at the side of the road and rested there though it was freezing hard and a north east wind howling
he took down his precious hamper unharnessed his two horses covered them with rugs and gave them their corn
running hither and thither bouncing up on him looking about her and even rolling over on the ground mister tebrick took this to mean that she was glad at making this journey and rejoiced equally with her as for missus cork she sat motionless on the back seat of the dogcart well wrapped up
when they had stayed there half an hour mister tebrick harnessed the horses again though he was so cold he could scarcely buckle the straps and put his vixen in her basket
they drove on again and then the snow began to come down and that in earnest so that he began to be afraid they would never cover the ground but just after nightfall they got in and he was content to leave unharnessing the horses and baiting them to simon missus cork's son
one day he tried taking with him the stereoscope and a pack of cards but though his silvia was affectionate and amiable enough to let him put the stereoscope over her muzzle yet she would not look through it but kept turning her head to lick his hand
it was the same too with the cards for with them she was pleased enough but only delighting to bite at them
and never considering for a moment whether they were diamonds or clubs or hearts or spades or whether the card was an ace or not so it was evident that she had forgotten the nature of cards too thereafter he only brought them things which she could better enjoy that is sugar grapes
raisins and butcher's meat by and bye as the summer wore on the cubs came to know him and he them
and then he christened them for this purpose he brought a little bowl of water sprinkled them as if in baptism and told them he was their godfather and gave each of them a name calling them sorel kasper selwyn esther and angelica
sorel was a clumsy little beast of a cheery and indeed puppyish disposition kasper was fierce the largest of the five even in his play he would always bite
esther was of a dark complexion a true brunette and very sturdy angelica the brightest red and the most exactly like her mother while selwyn was the smallest cub of a very prying inquisitive and cunning temper
but delicate and undersized thus mister tebrick had a whole family now to occupy him and indeed came to love them with very much of a father's love and partiality his favourite was angelica who reminded him so much of her mother in her pretty ways
because of a gentleness which was lacking in the others even in their play after her in his affections came selwyn
indeed he was so much more quick witted than the rest that mister tebrick was led into speculating as to whether he had not inherited something of the human from his dam thus very early he learnt to know his name
besides all this he was something of a young philosopher for though his brother kasper tyrannized over him he put up with it all with an unruffled temper he was not however above playing tricks on the others
and one day when mister tebrick was by he made believe that there was a mouse in a hole some little way off very soon he was joined by sorel and presently by kasper and esther when he had got them all digging it was easy for him to slip away
and then he came to his godfather with a sly look sat down before him and smiled and then jerked his head over towards the others and smiled again and wrinkled his brows so that mister tebrick knew as well as if he had spoken that the youngster was saying have i not made fools of them all
he was the only one that was curious about mister tebrick he made him take out his watch put his ear to it considered it and wrinkled up his brows in perplexity on the next visit it was the same thing he must see the watch again
little selwyn could never understand it and if his mother remembered anything about watches it was a subject which she never attempted to explain to her children one day mister tebrick left the earth as usual and ran down the slope to the road
when he was surprised to find a carriage waiting before his house and a coachman walking about near his gate mister tebrick went in and found that his visitor was waiting for him it was his wife's uncle
and mister tebrick led him into the house the clergyman looked about him a good deal at the dirty and disorderly rooms
the dust lay so thickly on all the furniture
i have called really to ask about my niece
she is quite happy now ah indeed i have heard she is not living with you any longer no she is not living with me she is not far away i see her every day now indeed where does she live
in the woods with her children i ought to tell you that she has changed her shape she is a fox
he was alarmed and everything mister tebrick said confirmed what he had been led to expect he would find at rylands when he was outside however he asked mister tebrick you don't have many visitors now eh no i never see anyone if i can avoid it
you are the first person i have spoken to for months quite right too my dear fellow i quite understand in the circumstances then the cleric shook him by the hand got into his carriage and drove away
he was relieved also because mister tebrick had said nothing about going abroad to disseminate the gospel canon fox had been alarmed by the letter had not answered it and thought that it was always better to let things be and never to refer to anything unpleasant
he did not at all want to recommend mister tebrick to the bible society if he were mad his eccentricities would never be noticed at stokoe besides that mister tebrick had said he was happy he was sorry for mister tebrick too
not an affectionate disposition then to his coachman no that's all right drive on hopkins when mister tebrick was alone he rejoiced exceedingly in his solitary life he understood or so he fancied what it was to be happy
and that he had found complete happiness now living from day to day careless of the future surrounded every morning by playful and affectionate little creatures whom he loved tenderly and sitting beside their mother whose simple happiness was the source of his own true happiness he said to himself
there is no such happiness as that of the mother for her babe unless i have attained it in mine for my vixen and her children with these feelings he waited impatiently for the hour on the morrow when he might hasten to them once more
when however he had toiled up the hillside to the earth taking infinite precaution not to tread down the bracken or make a beaten path which might lead others to that secret spot
and that there were no cubs to be seen either
for a long while as it seemed to him he lay very still with closed eyes straining his ears to hear every rustle among the leaves or any sound that might be the cubs stirring in the earth at last he must have dropped asleep for he woke suddenly with all his senses alert
and opening his eyes found a full grown fox within six feet of him sitting on its haunches like a dog and watching his face with curiosity mister tebrick saw instantly that it was not silvia when he moved the fox got up and shifted his eyes but still stood his ground
here was the real father of his godchildren who could be certain of their taking after him and leading over again his wild and rakish life mister tebrick stared for a long time at the handsome rogue who glanced back at him with distrust and watchfulness patent in his face
but not without defiance too and it seemed to mister tebrick as if there was also a touch of cynical humour in his look as if he said by gad we two have been strangely brought together and to the man at any rate it seemed strange that they were thus linked
and he wondered if the love his rival there bare to his vixen and his cubs were the same thing in kind as his own
we both of us are happy chiefly in their company what pride this fellow must feel to have such a wife and such children taking after him and has he not reason for his pride he lives in a world where he is beset with a thousand dangers
for half the year he is hunted everywhere dogs pursue him men lay traps for him or menace him he owes nothing to another but he did not speak
and then he trotted off as lightly as a gossamer veil blown in the wind and in a minute or two more back he comes with his vixen and the cubs all around him seeing the dog fox thus surrounded by vixen and cubs was too much for mister tebrick
in spite of all his philosophy a pang of jealousy shot through him he could see that silvia had been hunting with her cubs and also that she had forgotten that he would come that morning for she started when she saw him and though she carelessly licked his hand he could see that her thoughts were not with him
very soon she led her cubs into the earth the dog fox had vanished and mister tebrick was again alone he did not wait longer but went home now was his peace of mind all gone the happiness which he had flattered himself the night before he knew so well how to enjoy
a hundred times this poor gentleman bit his lip drew down his torvous brows and stamped his foot and cursed himself bitterly or called his lady bitch he could not forgive himself neither that he had not thought of the damned dog fox before
but all the while had let the cubs frisk round him each one a proof that a dog fox had been at work with his vixen yes jealousy was now in the wind and every circumstance which had been a reason for his felicity the night before was now turned into a monstrous feature of his nightmare
with all this mister tebrick so worked upon himself that for the time being he had lost his reason
all that night he was in this mood and in agony
some impressions of the great peace conference for a month the writer listened to the heartbeat of nations as their representatives were gathered in the city of paris no other city ever had within its borders so many of the statesmen of nations
there were worked out the beginnings of the great problems that will mean the life of civilization should the nations of the earth plan and make preparation for another war the race is imperilled it is either universal peace or universal doom
either some plan to stop war or preparation for the final judgment quit fighting or quit living peace or death the late war revealed the possibilities of human genius man's power to destroy has been discovered
and across the sky can be seen in letters of blood the warning abolish war or perish some say the war ended six months too soon but had it continued that much longer
the probable results are too awful to contemplate the angel of destruction had the sword lifted over germany but it was as though divine providence stayed his hand american genius was just coming into play for instance we are told
that a gas had been discovered that is so deadly that a few bombs filled with it and dropped upon a city would all but wipe it out of existence when the armistice was signed hundreds of tons of that gas were ready for use and on the way to the battle front
other inventions and discoveries have since been brought out that are too deadly to even talk about no one can describe the peace conference without giving great credit to our president for without him it seemed that the leaders were unable to get anywhere
when he said that the time had come when the civilized nations of the earth should form an organization to abolish war the enthusiasm of the common people knew no bounds
a committee was at once appointed to work out a constitution for such an organization and president wilson was made the chairman some problems touch only the rich and others have to do with the poor alone some interest only the capitalist
and others interest only those who toil with their hands some absorb the thought of only the white race while others have to do with the black and yellow races some have to do only with the educated while others reach none but the ignorant
but here is a problem that has to do with every family on the earth rich or poor capitalist or laboring man white black
in fact it touches every home and will do so as long as people live upon the earth to abolish war would rejoice the heart of every mother who has gone into the jaws of death to give birth to a son
it would bring gratitude from the heart of every wife and sweetheart whose face has been bathed with tears as the last good bys were on their lips it would be a blessing to every child now living as well as to the generations yet unborn
it would thrill the heart of every lover of justice and mercy and would answer the heart longings of millions who have prayed without ceasing for the reign of peace on earth among men of good will
when president wilson enunciated the fourteen points some wiseacres laughed and criticised but these very points formed the basis of the armistice and the good lord only knows how many american lives were saved
to say nothing of english french italian and all the rest no one knows how many are alive and well today who would have been sleeping in unknown and unmarked graves had the armistice been detained a single week
and it was really the birth chamber of the league of nations the nineteen men who made up the committee belonged to fourteen nations president wilson as chairman called them together in this room
the first meeting of this committee was held february third and was very brief in all ten meetings were held and all were held in this room president wilson presided at all but one of them
each man brought his suggestions in writing so there would be no chance for misunderstanding full discussion of all points was always encouraged when the entire constitution was worked out it was agreed to unanimously
and it was then ready to be presented to the peace conference until the peace treaty was ready to sign all meetings of the great conference were held in the foreign ministry building in paris
versailles is a city of some sixty thousand people and about ten miles from paris the old palace is there but the great hall of mirrors where the treaty was finally signed could not be comfortably heated in the winter time so for that
as well as other reasons the meetings were held in paris through mister ray stannard baker i received a pass to the peace conference these passes were only given to newspaper men and i represented people's popular monthly
the great day was february fourteenth nineteen nineteen on this date eighty four statesmen representing twenty seven nations the combined population of which is more than twelve hundred million people
were seated around one table clemenceau was the chairman of the conference and sat at the head of the table by his side sat our own president who at that time towered head and shoulders above the statesmen of the world
let politicians rave and senators criticize yet the fact remains that woodrow wilson will have a place in history by the side of the immortal lincoln and washington when he was introduced our president read the constitution
or covenant as it was called and then made some remarks concerning it while i stood listening to him as he thrilled the hearts and held almost breathless this company of statesmen and noted their faces as he said we are now seeing eye to eye
and learning that after all all men on this earth are brothers my eyes are swimming in tears and i don't know yet whether it was the man speaking what he said or the way he thrilled those men that caused it
near the end of the table sat the black man from liberia how his face shone and his eyes sparkled when he heard these words when he reached his homeland he no doubt told his people how the great american president
championed a plan to abolish war and told the statesmen of the peace conference that the world is learning that all men on this earth are brothers and the very hills of that black land echoed with praises for america
since that day the chinese who have never been warriors and love america anyway have talked in their tea rooms and joss houses about the american president's plan to abolish war in the villages of far away india
in the homes of the sea islanders and in fact wherever human beings have congregated they have talked of a world peace but it was the peoples of the downtrodden war stricken nations especially
who looked to our president as the great champion of liberty and freedom they believed that he was the big brother and that the country that he represented would see that they were treated fairly
representing the great western giant whose genius power and marvelous accomplishments of a few short months filled all europe with amazement and far out distanced anything they had done in the three years before
standing at the head of the only unexhausted nation and which could dictate the policies of the world for this man to go to the peace conference with a plan to forever abolish war it simply won for himself and our country
the admiration and confidence of the statesmen of the world nothing like it had ever been seen before and the gratitude of all knew no bounds then the modest dignified unselfish bearing of our president among them turned gratitude into love and devotion
without a single effort on his part to put himself forward he became the natural leader of all a single instance of his thoughtfulness will be given i was determined to see the tomb where general pershing stood when he uttered the famous words
lafayette we have come and which made the whole french nation doff its hat and cheer after hours of searching and miles of walking and inquiries galore the place was found but the door to the enclosure had to be unlocked with a silver key
there on the tomb was a wreath of flowers nearly as large as a wagon wheel and which when they were fresh must have been beautiful beyond words to described
the president of the united states of america in memory of the great lafayette from a fellow servant of liberty then came the months of haggling the work of selfish politicians both at home and abroad
and finally the rejection by our own people of the greatest piece of work since the beginning of the christian era all of which makes one who knows the real situation hang his head in shame
why any living mortal in america could oppose a plan that has for its object the abolition of war is simply amazing to the people of europe just before i left paris in nineteen nineteen a french business man said to me
and this effort to abolish war what kind of men have you got over there anyway go back and tell them that it is not only the greatest thing for america that he came over here
in the fall of nineteen twenty one i made another trip to europe and the change was beyond any power to describe people who looked upon america as the one great nation of the earth
almost sneered when they mentioned our attitude toward the league of nations they have almost lost confidence in us and it will be hard to regain it france is especially bitter perhaps the result of the disarmament conference
which is practically the same thing under another name will help them to forget some things but the french will be slow to take up with it we are all proud of the part our leaders had in this great meeting in washington
but had our government stood enthusiastically for the league of nations it would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars that we now have to dig up in taxes
chapter twenty seven the seven wonders of the world a few years ago the editor of one of the great magazines of america sent out a thousand letters to as many scientists and great men scattered among all civilized nations
in an effort to get the consensus of opinion as to what might be called the seven wonders of the modern world a ballot was prepared containing fifty six subjects of scientific and mechanical achievement and blank spaces in which other subjects might be written
each man was asked to designate the seven he felt were entitled to a place on the list he of course was not confined to the printed list and could write in others that were better entitled to a place than those on the printed list
about seventy per cent of these ballots were returned properly marked and the result was most interesting indeed
at once it was discovered that a complete change in human intelligence or judgment has taken place since the ancient greeks made their list of the seven wonders of the world
while in the old days the standard of measurement was or at least had largely to do with brute force it is not surprising therefore that wireless telegraphy should have the highest place on the list
guglielmo marconi is far more worthy to be remembered than the king who built the great pyramid in egypt this brilliant italian when but fifteen years of age was reveling in the dreamland wonders of electricity
and when but twenty had the theory practically worked out and his patience and enthusiasm were simply amazing he actually tried more than two thousand experiments along a single line before he was able to demonstrate the truth of one of his own theories
no one crosses the atlantic ocean these days who is not impressed with the marvels of this wonderful discovery through it the seven seas have became great whispering galleries
one of the greatest races the writer ever saw he did not see at all for three days and nights two great ocean liners raced across the deep and never came in sight of each other at all
yet every few hours we all knew just which ship was gaining and it was really a most exciting race a few hours after roosevelt was shot in milwaukee i heard the news by wireless
although i was on board a ship in the china sea on the other side of the world the telephone was given second place in the list of modern wonders it is hard to realize that the telephone only dates back to eighteen seventy five
it was during that year that alexander graham bell and his assistant thomas a watson were making experiments in a building in boston mister watson was in the basement with an instrument trying without success
to talk with mister bell in the room above finally the latter made a little change in the instrument and spoke and mister watson came rushing upstairs greatly excited saying why mister bell i heard your voice distinctly
and could almost understand what you were saying the next year the imperfect telephone was exhibited at the centennial in philadelphia but for a time it was the laughing stock of most people
and hardly anyone ever dreamed that it would ever be more than a mere plaything one day dom pedro the emperor of brazil who knew mister bell personally came in
with him was sir william thompson the great english scientist the emperor was given the receiver and placed it to his ear and was suddenly startled saying my god it speaks this amused all
but greatly interested the man of science and thus the telephone was brought into prominence while at the world's fair in san francisco i sat with a receiver and heard a man speaking in new york as plainly as though he were in the next room
sitting within the sound of the waves of the pacific i was connected up with atlantic city and heard the waves of the atlantic the third largest number of votes were given to the aeroplane
and since the birdmen played such a part in the world war these scientists were correct in giving the flying machine a place among the wonders of the modern world the fourth place was given to radium the fifth to antiseptics and antitoxines
the sixth to spectrum analysis and the seventh to the marvelous x ray had eight subjects been called for the panama canal would have had a place for it lacked but eleven votes of tie for seventh place
it can therefore be called the eighth wonder of the modern world how different were the ideas of men during the days of ancient greece it is a remarkable fact that among the seven wonders of the ancient world
only one of them was of any real service to humanity true
but it proved a curse rather than a blessing the one of real service was the pharos or lighthouse at alexandria egypt this was a gigantic structure more than four hundred feet high
on the top of which a great fire was kept burning at night thus serving as a lighthouse the structure was so large at the base and the winding roadway so spacious
the entire building has long since disappeared but while in alexandria its location was pointed out to me in the list of ancient wonders however the pyramids of egypt were given first place
there are seventy seven of these pyramids altogether three of them are located less than a dozen miles from cairo the others being up the river nile a half day's journey the largest is known as the pyramid of cheops
and is nearest cairo it covers thirteen acres of ground and is four hundred and fifty feet high my first sight of it was a disappointment for after all it is nothing but a pile of stone
when one walks along by its side
its immensity begins to grow and impress the mind heroditus the father of history says a hundred thousand men worked on this pyramid at one time and that it took twenty years to build it
it was scientifically and mathematically constructed ages before modern science or mathematics were born the one who planned it knew that the earth is a sphere and that its motion is rotary
it is said that in all the thousands of years since it was built not a single fact in astronomy or mathematics has been discovered to contradict the wisdom of those who constructed it on the north side of the pyramid
about fifty feet up there is a narrow tunnel that runs down at an angle of twenty six degrees to the center of the field that forms its base the tunnel is so true that from the bottom one can see the star that is near the north star
which is supposed to have been directly in the north when the structure was built after you have descended eighty five feet in this tunnel there is another tunnel that runs up to the center of the structure where there are some large rooms or chambers
in these rooms there are large mummy cases but they are empty at the present time one great satisfaction for me in visiting the pyramids was the fulfilling of a life long desire
to see all that is left of the seven wonders of the ancient world the third ancient wonder was the hanging gardens of babylon these gardens were in reality a great artificial mountain built upon massive arches
it was four hundred feet high and terraced on all sides and according to historians beautiful beyond description not only were beautiful flowers and shrubbery kept growing but large forest trees as well
on approaching it this great mountain seemed to be suspended or hanging in the air hence the name
and the ruins of these vast waterworks are said to be the marvel of civil engineers even to this day it seems that these hanging gardens were built to please the wife of one of the most powerful monarchs of the old days
this queen had been brought up among the hills and as babylon was located on a great level plain she was dissatisfied and pined away for the hills and forests of her home land to please her the king accomplished this mighty work
today the whole thing in fact the entire city of babylon is nothing but a pile of ruins portions of the city have been excavated however
and old records have been found in the ruins that throw light on many customs and phases of life in those days
can see samples of them today
it is said that this temple was two hundred years in building it was more than four hundred feet long and half as wide the foundation was made earthquake proof the temple proper was supported by one hundred and twenty seven columns
which were sixty feet high each of these columns was a gift from a king they tell us that the great stairway was carved from a single grapevine and that the cypress wood doors were kept in glue a lifetime before they were hung on their hinges
but in reality it was carved from ebony and the men who did the work were put to death so they could not deny its celestial origin it is said that around this image stood statues which by an ingenious invention
could be made to shed tears another invention moistened the air in the temple with sweet perfume the treasures of nations and the spoil of kingdoms were brought here for safe keeping and criminals from all nations fled to this temple
for when they reached it no law could touch them no wonder that when the preaching of the apostle paul interfered with the business of the tradesmen who sold souvenirs of the image that they gathered up a mob and cried out for the space of two hours
today this temple with the city itself is nothing but ruins passing not far from the island of rhodes some years ago i tried to at least imagine that i could see the great statue called the colossus of rhodes
which was given a place among these seven ancient wonders but as not a vestige of it remains on the island it required a great stretch of the imagination to behold it but although given this prominence
it was not as large or as beautiful as the statute of liberty that graces new york harbor it only took twelve years to build it and after standing fifty six years it was overthrown by an earthquake
and after nearly a thousand years the metal was used for other purposes the other ancient wonders were the statue of jupiter that was made of ivory and gold by phidias and the mausoleum of artemisia
both of these have long since passed out of existence brute force is no longer the measure of power or influence neither are towering structures or mighty tombs
the standard of measurement these days is the ability to serve we are learning that the galilean carpenter told the truth when he said he who would be great among you let him be servant of all
service is one of the greatest words in human language the man or the institution or the magazine that can render the greatest measure of service to the largest number of people
toward the faint light which glowed in the distance as he walked his feet splashed in a pool of greasy and slippery water which had such a heavy smell of fish fried in oil that pinocchio thought it was lent the farther on he went the brighter and clearer grew the tiny light
i give you a thousand guesses my dear children he found a little table set for dinner and lighted by a candle stuck in a glass bottle and near the table sat a little old man
eating live fish they wriggled so that now and again one of them slipped out of the old man's mouth and escaped into the darkness under the table at this sight the poor marionette was filled with such great and sudden happiness
that he almost dropped in a faint he wanted to laugh he wanted to cry he wanted to say a thousand and one things but all he could do was to stand still stuttering and stammering brokenly at last with a great effort
he threw them around the old man's neck
now i shall never never leave you again
answered the old man rubbing his eyes are you really my own dear pinocchio yes yes yes it is i look at me and you have forgiven me haven't you oh my dear father how good you are and to think that i
oh but if you only knew how many misfortunes have fallen on my head and how many troubles i have had just think that on the day you sold your old coat to buy me my a b c book so that i could go to school
i ran away to the marionette theater and the proprietor caught me and wanted to burn me to cook his roast lamb he was the one who gave me the five gold pieces for you
who took me to the inn of the red lobster there they ate like wolves and i left the inn alone and i met the assassins in the wood i ran and they ran after me always after me
if he is not dead then he is surely alive
when the judge heard i had been robbed he sent me to jail to make the thieves happy and when i came away i saw a fine bunch of grapes hanging on a vine the trap caught me and the farmer put a collar on me and made me a watchdog
he found out i was innocent when i caught the weasels and he let me go
and so i went back to the fairy's house she was dead and the pigeon seeing me crying said to me
to look for you in america and i said to him oh
do you want to go to your father and i said perhaps but how and he said get on my back i'll take you there we flew all night long and next morning the fishermen were looking toward the sea crying there is a poor little man drowning and i knew it was you
i knew you also
but how could i the sea was rough and the whitecaps overturned the boat then a terrible shark came up out of the sea and as soon as he saw me in the water swam quickly toward me put out his tongue and swallowed me as easily as if i had been a chocolate peppermint
and how long have you been shut away in here from that day to this two long weary years two years my pinocchio which have been like two centuries
a large ship also suffered the same fate the sailors were all saved but the ship went right to the bottom of the sea and the same terrible shark that swallowed me swallowed most of it what swallowed a ship asked pinocchio in astonishment
at one gulp the only thing he spat out was the main mast
to my own good luck that ship was loaded with meat preserved foods crackers bread bottles of wine raisins cheese coffee sugar wax candles and boxes of matches
but now i am at the very last crumbs today there is nothing left in the cupboard and this candle you see here is the last one i have and then and then my dear we'll find ourselves in darkness then my dear father said pinocchio
there is no time to lose we must try to escape escape how we can run out of the shark's mouth and dive into the sea you speak well but i cannot swim my dear pinocchio why should that matter you can climb on my shoulders and i
who am a fine swimmer will carry you safely to the shore dreams my boy answered geppetto shaking his head and smiling sadly
to have the strength to carry me on his shoulders and swim try it and see and in any case if it is written that we must die
not adding another word pinocchio took the candle in his hand and going ahead to light the way he said to his father follow me and have no fear they walked a long distance through the stomach and the whole body of the shark when they reached the throat of the monster they stopped for a while
to wait for the right moment in which to make their escape i want you to know that the shark being very old and suffering from asthma and heart trouble was obliged to sleep with his mouth open because of this pinocchio was able to catch a glimpse of the sky filled with stars
as he looked up through the open jaws of his new home the time has come for us to escape he whispered turning to his father the shark is fast asleep the sea is calm and the night is as bright as day follow me closely dear father and we shall soon be saved
chapter thirty six pinocchio finally ceases to be a marionette and becomes a boy my dear father we are saved cried the marionette
without another word he swam swiftly away in an effort to reach land as soon as possible all at once he noticed that geppetto was shivering and shaking as if with a high fever was he shivering from fear or from cold who knows perhaps a little of both
but pinocchio thinking his father was frightened tried to comfort him by saying courage father in a few moments we shall be safe on land but where is that blessed shore
asked the little old man more and more worried as he tried to pierce the faraway shadows here i am searching on all sides and i see nothing but sea and sky
that i am like a cat i see better at night than by day poor pinocchio pretended to be peaceful and contented but he was far from that he was beginning to feel discouraged
he felt he could not go on much longer and the shore was still far away he swam a few more strokes
father and son were really about to drown when they heard a voice like a guitar out of tune call from the sea what is the trouble it is i and my poor father i know the voice you are pinocchio
exactly and you i am the tunny your companion in the shark's stomach and how did you escape i imitated your example
tunny you arrived at the right moment i implore you for the love you bear your children the little tunnies to help us or we are lost with great pleasure indeed hang onto my tail both of you and let me lead you
geppetto and pinocchio as you can easily imagine did not refuse the invitation indeed instead of hanging onto the tail they thought it better to climb on the tunny's back are we too heavy asked pinocchio heavy not in the least
you are as light as sea shells answered the tunny who was as large as a two year old horse as soon as they reached the shore pinocchio was the first to jump to the ground to help his old father then he turned to the fish and said to him
dear friend you have saved my father and i have not enough words with which to thank you allow me to embrace you as a sign of my eternal gratitude the tunny stuck his nose out of the water and pinocchio knelt on the sand and kissed him most affectionately on his cheek
at this warm greeting the poor tunny who was not used to such tenderness wept like a child he felt so embarrassed and ashamed that he turned quickly plunged into the sea and disappeared in the meantime day had dawned
pinocchio offered his arm to geppetto who was so weak he could hardly stand and said to him lean on my arm dear father and let us go we will walk very very slowly and if we feel tired we can rest by the wayside
asked geppetto to look for a house or a hut where they will be kind enough to give us a bite of bread and a bit of straw to sleep on they had not taken a hundred steps when they saw two rough looking individuals sitting on a stone begging for alms
it was the fox and the cat but one could hardly recognize them they looked so miserable the cat after pretending to be blind for so many years
had even lost his tail that sly thief had fallen into deepest poverty and one day he had been forced to sell his beautiful tail for a bite to eat oh pinocchio
we are old tired and sick sick repeated the cat addio false friends answered the marionette you cheated me once but you will never catch me again believe us today we are truly poor and starving
starving repeated the cat if you are poor you deserve it remember the old proverb which says stolen money never bears fruit addio false friends have mercy on us on us
addio false friends remember the old proverb which says bad wheat always makes poor bread do not abandon us abandon us repeated the cat
remember the old proverb whoever steals his neighbor's shirt usually dies without his own
near a clump of trees a tiny cottage built of straw
said pinocchio let us see for ourselves
who is it said a little voice from within
answered the marionette turn the key and the door will open said the same little voice pinocchio turned the key and the door opened as soon as they went in they looked here and there and everywhere but saw no one
oh ho where is the owner of the hut cried pinocchio very much surprised here i am up here father and son looked up to the ceiling and there on a beam sat the talking cricket oh my dear cricket
said pinocchio bowing politely
you are right dear cricket throw a hammer at me now i deserve it but spare my poor old father i am going to spare both the father and the son i have only wanted to remind you of the trick you long ago played upon me
you are right little cricket you are more than right
this cottage was given to me yesterday by a little goat with blue hair and where did the goat go asked pinocchio i don't know
she will never come back yesterday she went away bleating sadly and it seemed to me she said poor pinocchio i shall never see him again the shark must have eaten him by this time
then it was she it was my dear little fairy cried out pinocchio sobbing bitterly after he had cried a long time he wiped his eyes and then he made a bed of straw for old geppetto he laid him on it and said to the talking cricket
tell me little cricket where shall i find a glass of milk for my poor father three fields away from here lives farmer john he has some cows go there and he will give you what you want pinocchio ran all the way to farmer john's house the farmer said to him
how much milk do you want i want a full glass a full glass costs a penny first give me the penny i have no penny answered pinocchio sad and ashamed very bad my marionette answered the farmer very bad
if you have no penny i have no milk too bad said pinocchio and started to go wait a moment said farmer john perhaps we can come to terms do you know how to draw water from a well i can try
then go to that well you see yonder and draw one hundred bucketfuls of water very well after you have finished i shall give you a glass of warm sweet milk i am satisfied
and showed him how to draw the water pinocchio set to work as well as he knew how but long before he had pulled up the one hundred buckets he was tired out and dripping with perspiration he had never worked so hard in his life
my donkey has drawn the water for me but now that poor animal is dying will you take me to see him said pinocchio gladly as soon as pinocchio went into the stable he spied a little donkey lying on a bed of straw in the corner of the stable
he was worn out from hunger and too much work after looking at him a long time he said to himself i know that donkey
and bending low over him he asked who are you
and answered in the same tongue i am lamp wick then he closed his eyes and died oh my poor lamp wick said pinocchio in a faint voice as he wiped his eyes with some straw he had picked up from the ground
said the farmer what should i do i who have paid my good money for him but you see he was my friend your friend a classmate of mine what shouted farmer john bursting out laughing
you had donkeys in your school how you must have studied the marionette ashamed and hurt by those words did not answer but taking his glass of milk returned to his father from that day on for more than five months
pinocchio got up every morning just as dawn was breaking and went to the farm to draw water and every day he was given a glass of warm milk for his poor old father who grew stronger and better day by day but he was not satisfied with this
he learned to make baskets of reeds and sold them with the money he received
among other things he built a rolling chair strong and comfortable to take his old father out for an airing on bright sunny days in the evening the marionette studied by lamplight
with some of the money he had earned he bought himself a secondhand volume that had a few pages missing and with that he learned to read in a very short time as far as writing was concerned he used a long stick
at one end of which he had whittled a long fine point ink he had none so he used the juice of blackberries or cherries little by little his diligence was rewarded he succeeded not only in his studies but also in his work
and a day came when he put enough money together to keep his old father comfortable and happy besides this he was able to save the great amount of fifty pennies with it he wanted to buy himself a new suit one day he said to his father
i am going to the market place to buy myself a coat a cap and a pair of shoes when i come back i'll be so dressed up you will think i am a rich man he ran out of the house and up the road to the village laughing and singing suddenly he heard his name called
he noticed a large snail crawling out of some bushes don't you recognize me said the snail yes and no do you remember the snail that lived with the fairy with azure hair do you not remember how she opened the door for you one night and gave you something to eat
i remember everything cried pinocchio answer me quickly pretty snail where have you left my fairy what is she doing has she forgiven me does she remember me does she still love me
at all these questions tumbling out one after another the snail answered calm as ever my dear pinocchio the fairy is lying ill in a hospital in a hospital yes indeed she has been stricken with trouble and illness
and she hasn't a penny left with which to buy a bite of bread really oh how sorry i am my poor dear little fairy if i had a million i should run to her with it but i have only fifty pennies here they are
i was just going to buy some clothes here take them little snail and give them to my good fairy what about the new clothes what does that matter i should like to sell these rags i have on to help her more go and hurry
until today i have worked for my father now i shall have to work for my mother also good by and i hope to see you soon the snail much against her usual habit began to run like a lizard under a summer sun
when pinocchio returned home his father asked him and where is the new suit i couldn't find one to fit me i shall have to look again some other day that night pinocchio instead of going to bed at ten o'clock waited until midnight
and instead of making eight baskets he made sixteen after that he went to bed and fell asleep as he slept he dreamed of his fairy beautiful smiling and happy who kissed him and said to him bravo pinocchio
in reward for your kind heart i forgive you for all your old mischief boys who love and take good care of their parents when they are old and sick deserve praise even though they may not be held up as models of obedience and good behavior
and you will be happy at that very moment pinocchio awoke and opened wide his eyes what was his surprise and his joy when on looking himself over he saw that he was no longer a marionette
but that he had become a real live boy he looked all about him and instead of the usual walls of straw he found himself in a beautifully furnished little room the prettiest he had ever seen in a twinkling
there he found a new suit a new hat and a pair of shoes as soon as he was dressed he put his hands in his pockets and pulled out a little leather purse on which were written the following words the fairy with azure hair returns
with many thanks for his kind heart the marionette opened the purse to find the money and behold there were fifty gold coins pinocchio ran to the mirror he hardly recognized himself the bright face of a tall boy
looked at him with wide awake blue eyes dark brown hair and happy smiling lips surrounded by so much splendor the marionette hardly knew what he was doing he rubbed his eyes two or three times wondering if he were still asleep
or awake and decided he must be awake and where is father he cried suddenly he ran into the next room and there stood geppetto grown years younger overnight spick and span in his new clothes and gay as a lark in the morning
he was once more mastro geppetto the wood carver hard at work on a lovely picture frame decorating it with flowers and leaves and heads of animals father father what has happened tell me if you can
cried pinocchio as he ran and jumped on his father's neck this sudden change in our house is all your doing my dear pinocchio answered geppetto what have i to do with it just this when bad boys become good and kind
they have the power of making their homes gay and new with happiness i wonder where the old pinocchio of wood has hidden himself there he is answered geppetto and he pointed to a large marionette leaning against a chair
head turned to one side arms hanging limp and legs twisted under him after a long long look pinocchio said to himself with great content how ridiculous i was as a marionette
but she had learned self control in the school of experience and her delay was a brief one mastering her emotions she walked steadily down the two flights of stairs opened the front door for herself
sensation throughout western canada there was no possibility of mistaking it though it was greatly changed for the worse five years had wrought terrible havoc upon it the scar on the left cheek
the man's clothes were patched and seedy and presented a general aspect of being desperately out at elbows his unsteady step indicated that he was at least half drunk at that moment he did not see
or at any rate did not take any notice of the woman who gazed into his face so intently as he staggered on his way upstairs he stumbled and narrowly escaped falling
could it be possible that this disreputable object was the man whom she had once loved as her husband she shuddered as she passed out on to the pavement truly his sin had found him out
she had no difficulty in finding her way back to the hotel without asking questions of anybody upon reaching it she conferred for a moment with the office clerk and then passed up to a small general sitting room
where she found her father the old gentleman was beginning to be anxious at her long absence well father i find there is an express for suspension bridge at midnight
when shall we start finding her really anxious to be gone the old man assented to her proposition and they started on their way homeward by the midnight train
but it had at any rate been made clear that he had absconded of his own free will and that in doing so he must have exercised a good deal of shrewdness and cunning the question as to
how far it was advisable to take the public into their confidence exercised the judgment of both father and daughter the conclusion arrived at was that as little as possible should be said about the matter
their errand to new york was already known and could not be wholly ignored the fact of savareen's existence would have to be admitted it would inevitably be chronicled by the sentinel and the record
would be transferred to the columns of other newspapers the subject would be discussed among the local quidnuncs and the excitement of five years since would to some extent be revived all this must naturally be expected
and would have to be endured as best it might but it was resolved that people should not be encouraged to ask questions and that they should be made to understand that the topic was not an agreeable one to the persons immediately concerned
it might reasonably be hoped that gossip would sooner or later wear itself out for the present it would be desirable for missus savareen to keep within doors and to hold as little communication with her neighbors as possible
this programme was strictly adhered to and everything turned out precisely as had been expected mister haskins reached millbrook on his way home to tennessee within a day or two after the return of father and daughter from new york
without seeking to probe further into matters in which he had no personal concern it was hardly to be supposed however that the local population would show equal forbearance curiosity was widespread
and was not to be suppressed from a mere sentiment of delicacy no sooner did it become known that the father and daughter had returned than the former was importuned by numerous friends and acquaintances to disclose the result of his journey
he so far responded to these importunities as to admit that the missing man was living in the states under an assumed name but he added that neither his daughter nor himself was inclined to talk about the matter he said
in effect my daughter's burden is a heavy one to bear and any one who has any consideration for either her or me will never mention the matter in the presence of either of us
their questions directly to himself he was promptly interviewed by the editor of the sentinel who received exactly the same information as other people and no more
the next number of the paper contained a leading article on the subject in which the silence of missus savareen and her father was animadverted upon the public it was said
were entitled to be told all that there was to tell savareen's disappearance had long since become public property and the family were not justified in withholding any information which might tend to throw light on that dark subject
this article was freely copied by other papers and for several weeks the topic was kept conspicuously before the little world of western canada nowhere was the interest in the subject more keenly manifested
than at the royal oak where it furnished the theme of frequent and all but interminable discussion not a day passed but mine host lapierre publicly congratulated himself upon his acumen
i respect her fery mooch put i think she might let us know sometings more apout her discoferies in new york scores of other persons harped to the same monotonous tune
i am not prepared to say whether the stepmother received further enlightenment than other people but if she did she kept her tongue between her teeth like a sensible woman as for missus savareen herself
she consistently refrained from speaking on the subject to anyone and even the most inveterate gossips showed sufficient respect for her feelings to ask her no questions she held the even tenor of her way
by the evening of the sixteenth the subtle hand of hurstwood had made itself apparent he had given the word among his friends and they were many and influential that here was something which they ought to attend
acting for the lodge had been large
these he had arranged for by the aid of one of his newspaper friends on the times mister harry mc garren the managing editor say harry hurstwood said to him one evening as the latter stood at the bar drinking before wending his belated way
homeward you can help the boys out i guess what is it
and they'd like a little newspaper notice you know what i mean a squib or two saying that it's going to take place certainly said mc garren i can fix that for you george at the same time hurstwood kept himself wholly in the background
mister harry quincel was looked upon as quite a star for this sort of work by the time the sixteenth had arrived hurstwood's friends had rallied like romans to a senator's call a well dressed good natured
flatteringly inclined audience was assured from the moment he thought of assisting carrie that little student had mastered her part to her own satisfaction much as she trembled for her fate
from her own individual liability she feared that she would forget her lines that she might be unable to master the feeling which she now felt concerning her own movements in the play at times
and stand white and gasping not knowing what to say and spoiling the entire performance in the matter of the company mister bamberger had disappeared
that hopeless example had fallen under the lance of the director's criticism missus morgan was still present but envious and determined if for nothing more than spite to do as well as carrie at least
cautioned though he was to maintain silence concerning his past theatrical relationships in such a self confident manner that he was like to convince every one of his identity by mere matter of circumstantial evidence
but she was too much the actress not to swallow his qualities with complaisance seeing that she must suffer his fictitious love for the evening at six she was ready to go theatrical paraphernalia had been provided over and above her care
a simple maiden to laura the belle of society the flare of the gas jets the open trunks suggestive of travel and display the scattered contents of the make up box rouge pearl powder whiting
since her arrival in the city many things had influenced her but always in a far removed manner this new atmosphere was more friendly it was wholly unlike the great brilliant mansions which waved her coldly away
permitting her only awe and distant wonder this took her by the hand kindly as one who says my dear come in it opened for her as if for its own
she had wondered at the greatness of the names upon the bill boards the marvel of the long notices in the papers the beauty of the dresses upon the stage the atmosphere of carriages flowers refinement here was no illusion
here was an open door to see all of that she had come upon it as one who stumbles upon a secret passage and behold she was in the chamber of diamonds and delight as she dressed with a flutter in her little stage room
hearing the voices outside seeing mister quincel hurrying here and there noting missus morgan and missus hoagland at their nervous work of preparation seeing all the twenty members of the cast moving about and worrying over what the result would be
it hummed in her ears as the melody of an old song outside in the little lobby another scene was being enacted without the interest of hurstwood the little hall would probably have been comfortably filled for the members of the lodge were
moderately interested in its welfare hurstwood's word however had gone the rounds it was to be a full dress affair the four boxes had been taken doctor norman mc neill hale and his wife were to occupy one
among the latter was drouet the people who were now pouring here were not celebrities nor even local notabilities in a general sense they were the lights of a certain circle
keep a barouche or carriage perhaps wear fine clothes and maintain a good mercantile position naturally hurstwood who was a little above the order of mind which accepted this standard as perfect
who had shrewdness and much assumption of dignity who held an imposing and authoritative position and commanded friendship by intuitive tact in handling people was quite a figure he was more generally known than most others in the same circle
who was just returning from a trip for more cigars all five now joined in an animated conversation concerning the company present and the general drift of lodge affairs who's here said hurstwood passing into the theatre proper
where the lights were turned up and a company of gentlemen were laughing and talking in the open space back of the seats why how do you do mister hurstwood came from the first individual recognised glad to see you said the latter grasping his hand lightly
yes indeed said the manager
how goes it with you excellent said the manager what brings you over here you're not a member of custer good nature returned the manager like to see the boys you know wife here
nothing serious i hope no just feeling a little ill
and here the newcomer launched off in a trivial recollection which was terminated by the arrival of more friends why george how are you said another genial west side politician and lodge member
he has a brick yard you know i didn't know that said the manager felt pretty sore i suppose over his defeat perhaps said the other winking shrewdly some of the more favoured of his friends whom he had invited
here we are said hurstwood turning to one from a group with whom he was talking that's right returned the newcomer a gentleman of about forty five and say he whispered jovially
the manager replied i don't know i don't suppose so then lifting his hand graciously for the lodge
yes look up shanahan he was just asking for you a moment ago it was thus that the little theatre resounded to a babble of successful voices the creak of fine clothes the commonplace of good nature
and all largely because of this man's bidding look at him any time within the half hour before the curtain was up he was a member of an eminent group a rounded company of five or more whose stout figures
large white bosoms and shining pins bespoke the character of their success the gentlemen who brought their wives called him out to shake hands seats clicked ushers bowed while he looked blandly on
he was evidently a light among them reflecting in his personality the ambitions of those who greeted him
and slow work it was tooseemed
before we got to the stern no sign of a boat jim said he didn't believe he could go any furtherso
but i said come on if we get left on this wreck we are in a fix sure so on we prowled again we struck for the stern of the texas and found it and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight hanging on from shutter to shutter
but just then the door opened one of the men stuck his head out only about a couple of foot from me and i thought i was gone but he jerked it in again and says heave that blame lantern out o sight bill
i couldn't hardly hang on to the shutters i was so weak but bill says hold on'd
no didn't you no so he's got his share o the cash yet well then come along no use to take truck and leave money say won't he suspicion what we're up to maybe he won't
come along so they got out
and in a half second i was in the boat and jim come tumbling after me i out with my knife and cut the rope and away we went we didn't touch an oar and we didn't speak nor whisper nor hardly even breathe
we went gliding swift along dead silent past the tip of the paddle box and past the stern then in a second or two more we was a hundred yards below the wreck and the darkness soaked her up
every last sign of her and we was safe and knowed it when we was three or four hundred yards down stream we see the lantern show like a little spark at the texas door for a second
and we knowed by that that the rascals had missed their boat and was beginning to understand that they was in just as much trouble now as jim turner was then jim manned the oars and we took out after our raft
now was the first time that i begun to worry about the men i reckon i hadn't had time to before i begun to think how dreadful it was even for murderers to be in such a fix
the first light we see we'll land a hundred yards below it or above it in a place where it's a good hiding place for you and the skiff
everybody in bed i reckon
after a long time the rain let up but the clouds stayed and the lightning kept whimpering and by and by a flash showed us a black thing ahead floating and we made for it it was the raft and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again
we seen a light now away down to the right on shore
we hustled it on to the raft in a pile and i told jim to float along down
and keep it burning till i come then i manned my oars and shoved for the light as i got down towards it three or four more showedup
as i went by i see it was a lantern hanging on the jackstaff of a double hull ferryboat i skimmed around for the watchman a wondering whereabouts he slept and by and by i found him roosting on the bitts forward
he took a good gap and stretch and then he says hello what's up don't cry bub what's the trouble i says
don't take on so we all has to have our troubles and this n ll come out all right what's the matter with em
not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top of it says i
who is why
good land what are they doin there for gracious sakes well they didn't go there a purpose i bet they didn't why
she was a visiting there at booth's landing and just in the edge of the evening she started over with her nigger woman in the horse ferry
and saddle baggsed on the wreck and the ferryman and the nigger woman and the horses was all lost but miss hooker she made a grab and got aboard the wreck well
he was the best cretur i most wish t it had been me i do my george it's the beatenest thing i ever struck and then what did you all do well we hollered and took on
but it's so wide there we couldn't make nobody hear so pap said somebody got to get ashore and get help somehow i was the only one that could swim so i made a dash for it and miss hooker she said if i didn't strike help sooner
come here and hunt up her uncle and he'd fix the thing i made the land about a mile below and been fooling along ever since trying to get people to do something but they said what in such a night and such a current
there ain't no sense in it go for the steam ferry now if you'll go and
and blame it i don't know but i will
looky here you break for that light over yonder way and turn out west when you git there
you'll come to the tavern tell em to dart you out to jim hornback's and he'll foot the bill
for i couldn't rest easy till i could see the ferryboat start but take it all around i was feeling ruther comfortable on accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang for not many would a done it
for helping these rapscallions because rapscallions and dead beats is the kind the widow and good people takes the most interest in well before long here comes the wreck dim and dusky sliding along down a kind of
cold shiver went through me and then i struck out for her she was very deep and i see in a minute
then here comes the ferryboat so i shoved for the middle of the river on a long down stream slant and when i judged i was out of eye reach i laid on my oars and looked back
and see her go and smell around the wreck for miss hooker's remainders because the captain would know her uncle hornback would want them and then pretty soon the ferryboat give it up
and i laid into my work and went a booming down the river
and when it did show it looked like it was a thousand mile off by the time i got there
so we struck for an island and hid the raft and sunk the skiff and turned in and slept
by and by when we got up we turned over the truck the gang had stole off of the wreck and found boots and blankets and clothes and all sorts of other things and a lot of books and a spyglass
and three boxes of seegars
the seegars was prime we laid off all the afternoon in the woods talking and me reading the books and having a general good time i told jim all about what happened inside the wreck and at the ferryboat
and i said these kinds of things was adventures but he said he didn't want no more adventures he said that when i went in the texas and he crawled back to get on the raft and found her gone
because he judged it was all up with him anyway it could be fixed
i hain't hearn bout none un um skasely but ole king sollermun
how much do a king git get i says
they don't do nothing why how you talk they just set around no
then they go to the war
sh d you hear a noise we skipped out and looked but it warn't nothing but the flutter of a steamboat's wheel away down coming around the point so we come back yes says i
harem what's de harem
don't you know about the harem solomon had one he had about a million wives
a harem's a bo'd'n house i reck'n
en dat crease de racket yit dey say sollermun
well but he was the wisest man anyway because the widow she told me so her own self
he warn't no wise man nuther he had some er de dad fetchedes ways i ever see
youdat's de yuther one i's sollermun en dish yer dollar bill's de chile
what does i do does i shin aroun mongs de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill do b'long to en han it over to de right one all safe en soun
en give half un it to you en de yuther half to de yuther woman dat's de way sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile now i want to ast you
can't buy noth'n wid it en what use is a half a chile
you've missed it a thousand mile who
go long doan talk to me bout yo pints
de spute was bout a whole chile en de man dat think he kin settle a spute
doan know enough to come in out'n de rain doan talk to me bout sollermun huck
mo er less warn't no consekens to sollermun dad fatch him i never see such a nigger if he got a notion in his head once there warn't no getting it out again
so i went to talking about other kings and let solomon slide i told about louis sixteenth that got his head cut off in france long time ago and about his little boy the dolphin
and some say he died there po little chap but some says he got out and got away and come to america
but he'll be pooty lonesomedey
no den he cain't git no situation
why huck doan de french people talk de same way we does
s'pose a man was to come to you and say
shucks it ain't calling you anything it's only saying do you know how to talk french well den why couldn't he say it why he is a saying it
that's a frenchman's way of saying it well
dey ain no sense in it looky here jim does a cat talk like we do no a cat don't well does a cow
does a cat talk like a cow or a cow talk like a cat no dey don't it's natural and right for em to talk different from each other ain't it course and ain't it natural and right
for a cat and a cow to talk different from us
to talk different from us you answer me that
chapter seventeen a world famous river the jordan the great mississippi and amazon rivers are noted for their length the hudson and the rhine for their scenery
the thames and tiber for the great cities on their banks the volga and the dneiper for their commerce the nile and the yellow rivers for their annual overflow the former to give life
and the latter to destroy and the euphrates and tigress for the ruins of mighty cities of other days but this chapter is a description of a river only a little more than two hundred miles in length
no scenery to speak of near it never a great city on its banks no sail or steamboat for commerce ever traveled upon its waters no one scarcely ever cared whether it was within its banks or not
and not even any ruins worth while along its shores and yet it is today and has been for centuries the most famous river on the face of the earth it is the river jordan
and a glimpse of it brings forth some of the most wonderful characteristics possessed by any river as well as many historical events that make their memories dear to the hearts of men and women
wherever civilization has found its way unlike all other rivers which rise in some elevated place and flow toward the sea level nearly every mile of this river is below the surface of the ocean
at the foot of mount herman in northern palestine there is a spring of water that is almost ice cold that spring is but a few hundred feet above sea level
the water from this spring is joined by that of several other springs and small rivulets caused by the melting snows on the mountain flows to the south a distance of a few miles and forms a small lake
which is about three miles wide and four miles long this lake is just on a level with the mediterranean sea which is only about thirty miles to the west this is spoken of in the bible
as the waters of merom from the southern end of this lake the jordan begins the first ten and one half miles the water falls six hundred and eighty feet to where it enters the sea of galilee
this pear shaped body of water is a little more than a dozen miles long and half that wide and is surrounded by mountains the river enters through a small canyon at the northwest
and passes out through another canyon at the south end sometimes the wind will rush down the canyon at the northwest and in a few moments the waters of the lake are like a great whirlpool
these sudden storms often imperil any small boats which may be out on the sea as was the case in bible times when the master was sleeping and his disciples awakened him saying lord save us we perish
from this body of water to the point where the jordan empties into the dead sea is only sixty five miles by airline but the way the river winds like a gigantic serpent
one would travel twice that distance were he to go in a boat this jordan valley is from four to fourteen miles wide and the mountains on each side rise to the height of from fifteen hundred
to three thousand feet within this jordan valley is what might be called an inner valley which is from a quarter of a mile to a mile wide and from fifty to something like seventy five feet deep
this might be called the river bottom and the river winds like a snake in this smaller valley that boy was a wise lad who wrote a description of the jordan as follows
the jordan is a river which runs straight down through the middle of palestine but if you look at it very closely it wriggles about when the river overflows it simply covers the bottom of this inner valley
as noted above the sea of galilee is six hundred and eighty feet below the level of the ocean during this sixty five miles airline to the dead sea it falls more than six hundred feet more
so that the dead sea itself is about thirteen hundred feet below the level of the mediterranean sea which is only forty miles west should a canal be cut across to the mediterranean which would let the water through
not only would the dead sea and the river jordan disappear but the sea of galilee be included in a great inland sea east of palestine while the jordan as well as other smaller streams flow continually into the dead sea
it is said that it never raises an inch this with the fact that this body of water has no outlet whatever makes a problem to which geologists and scientific men have failed to give a satisfactory solution
of course the water evaporates very rapidly but in the spring when the jordan overflows and pours a much greater volume of water into it how does it come that it evaporates so much faster than at any other time in the year
when the writer visited the dead sea the water was as smooth as glass the water is so salty that a human body will not sink in it at all should the body go under it will bob up again like a cork
i have never learned to swim in deep water simply cannot keep my feet up but in the dead sea they could not be kept down and of course i could swim like a duck nothing grows near this body of water
everything about it is dead like some people it is always receiving but never giving at the mouth of the jordan one can see dead fish floating on the water when carried by the swift current into this salty water
they soon die the river jordan runs very swiftly it is about the size of the des moines river in northern iowa not nearly so large as this river in the southern part of the state
at the fords of the jordan i waded out into the stream but the current was so swift that i did not attempt to go entirely across here at this ford occurred some of the greatest events of bible history
on the plain just east of the river the children of israel were encamped when moses went up on mount nebo looked over the promised land folded his arms and peacefully passed into the great beyond
it must have been an exciting day for the entire camp when they last saw their great leader become a mere speck on the mountain side and finally disappear altogether they not only never saw him again
but they never were able to find a trace of his body there must have been much speculation among these people as to what became of moses until in some miraculous way joshua was informed
that the great leader was dead and that he must now take charge and lead the people across the jordan into the promised land after thirty days mourning for moses the great company marched down to the river
it was opened for them and they crossed on dry ground the record also states that this crossing was at the time when the river was out of its banks and this whole bottom nearly a mile wide
was a rushing torrent perhaps this accounts for the fact that the enemies who had taken possession of the promised land were totally unprepared for their coming feeling secure
while the river was so high and dangerous another great event which occurred was when the old prophet elijah and the young prophet elisha crossed the river together
and the young man came back alone later on for elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind now fifty young men had followed the two prophets to the river
they simply couldn't believe it and finally went across and searched the mountains for three days trying to find his body failing to find the body
together with the fact that they had witnessed the parting of the waters when the two men went over
was sufficient evidence to them that the young prophet had told the truth evidently this event created a great impression all over the country and young men came to the school for the prophets which was located near
that the buildings had to be enlarged every student borrowed an ax and went to work felling trees along the river bank in one case the ax flew off the handle and went into the water
the young man was greatly troubled about this for it was a borrowed one
but perhaps the greatest of all events that occurred at this place was the baptism of christ john the baptist must have been the billy sunday of his day for the crowds that came to hear him were immense
one day among others who came was a fine looking young man who asked for baptism but the preacher knew him and refused saying that he was unworthy to do this
but the young man who was no other than the master himself explained the situation and the preacher hesitated no longer in connection with the river jordan and the bodies of water at each end
it is interesting to note that the first man to take the level and give to the world the remarkable facts about the physical characteristics of this wonderful and world famous river was an american
his name was lynch and he was a lieutenant in the american navy at the close of the mexican war our government permitted lieutenant lynch to take ten seamen and two small boats
the boats were taken overland to the sea of galilee and launched and this man and his helpers went down the river to the dead sea in them
chapter sixteen a world famous city jerusalem the history of the world is largely the story of the rise and fall of great cities
in these great centers one can feel the heart throb of civilization some of the great cities of today are famous for their size such as new york and london some for their beauty
like paris and rio janeiro some for their culture and learning as boston and oxford some for their manufacturing and commercial supremacy as detroit and liverpool
but there is one city on the globe not nearly as large as des moines not at all beautiful its people neither cultured nor learned has no factories and one narrow gauge railway
takes care of most of its commerce and yet it is by far the most famous city of all time it is the city of jerusalem
the site of the city was once owned by a farmer whose name was oman he had a threshing floor on the top of mount moriah the city as it is today is on top of two mountains
but the valley between has been filled up so that it is almost like one continuous mountain top higher mountains are practically on every side so that the moment one sees the city
he thinks of the scripture as the mountains are round about jerusalem so is the lord round about his people to get an idea of the city as it was when the war broke out
you must imagine a city of about sixty thousand people without street cars electric lights telephones waterworks sewer system or any modern improvements whatever
however general allenby's entrance into the city in december nineteen seventeen was the beginning of a new era in three months the english did more for the city than the turk did in a thousand years
there is an old arab legend which says not until the river nile flows into palestine will the turk be driven from palestine
of course this was their way of saying that such a thing would never come to pass for the turk actually believed that he had such a hold on that country that there was no power on earth that could make him give it up
but when the english started from egypt they not only built a railroad as they went toward jerusalem but not far from the nile they prepared a great filtering process to cleanse the water
and then laid a twelve inch pipe and brought the pure water along with them for both man and beast wherever they stopped for a length of time in the desert the glowing sands became pools
as the prophet had forecasted and the desert began to blossom as the rose sixty five days after general allenby entered the jaffa gate into the city of jerusalem the water pipe or system
was brought into the city and the canadian engineer had made the arab legend a reality bringing the sweet waters of the nile a hundred and fifty miles away into the city of the great king
jerusalem is to this day a walled city the walls average some thirty feet high and are about fifteen feet thick at the top
it is a little less than two and one half miles around the city wall but the city itself has outgrown these limitations quite a portion of it being on the outside of the wall
the hotel at which the writer stopped while visiting the city some years ago was located outside the wall as are many of the best buildings the streets are narrow the houses have flat tops
and many of them are but one or two stories high there was a time however when this city boasted of having the finest building ever erected by the hands of man viz solomon's temple
which was a great flat mountain top of uneven rock great arches were built around the sides and then the top leveled off until the large temple area was formed
below the sides of this area are still seen the massive rooms that are called solomon's stables the writer rambled for hours through these great underground vaults and saw the holes in the stone pillars
where the horses were tied here multiplied thousands took refuge during some of the memorable sieges that the city went through not far away are the great vaults known as solomon's quarries
here is where the massive stones were made ready and the master builder's plans were so perfect that there was neither hammer nor ax nor any tool of iron heard in the temple while it was in building
the marks of the mason's tools and the niches where their lamps were placed can be seen to this day it is a remarkable fact that in sinking shafts alongside the temple wall great stones have been discovered
but no stone chips are found by them there are numerals and quarry marks and special mason marks on some of these stones but they are all phoenician thus confirming the bible account that hiram
the great phoenician master builder prepared the stones and did the building for king solomon jerusalem has several large churches the most noted of which is the one built over the traditional tomb of christ
it is called the church of the holy sepulchre for sixteen hundred years there was no question but what this tomb was the identical one in which the body of christ was laid
this church as it stands today is a magnificent building with two great entrances the sad thing about it is the fact that it is divided up into various chapels each held by sects
of so called christians and a large armed guard has to be kept in the church to keep these fanatical people from killing each other before soldiers were placed there
scenes of conflict and bloodshed were very common indeed a sad spectacle for jews and moslems and other enemies of the christ to gaze upon
i counted the lord's prayer in thirty two different languages inscribed on marble slabs so that almost any person from any country can read this prayer in his own language
in this connection it is interesting to note that at the gate entrance to the pool of bethesda the scripture story of the healing of the impotent man is written or rather inscribed
beneath the arch in fifty one different languages one of the large churches in the city was dedicated by the ex kaiser when he visited the city in eighteen ninety eight it was later found out
that this german church was built for military purposes during the war a wireless outfit and great searchlights were found in its tower this self appointed world ruler
is represented on the ceiling of the chapel of a building on mount olivet in a companion panel with the deity in this same building the ex kaiser is represented as a crusader by a figure
and the psalmist is painted with the moustache of a german general when the ex kaiser entered the city of jerusalem a breach was made in the wall near the jaffa gate so instead of entering through the gate
like an ordinary mortal he went in through a hole in the wall he would no doubt be glad now to go through another hole in the wall to have his liberty
to the writer however perhaps the most interesting place in or about the entire city is the garden tomb and mount calvary this is almost north of the damascus gate
and on the great highway from jerusalem from the north mount calvary is only a small hill the jews speak of it as the hill of execution or the skull place as the outline of the hill
resembles the form of a gigantic skull it is said that no jew cares to pass this place after night and if he passes it in daylight he will mutter a curse upon the memory of him
who presumed to be the king of the jews near this skull place is an old tomb that just fits the bible narrative
now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden and in the garden a new sepulchre wherein never man was yet laid this tomb was discovered many years ago
by general gordon and is often spoken of as gordon's tomb also called the garden tomb when excavating about it a wall was found which proved to be a garden wall
the end of which butts up against mount calvary one writer who has examined every nook and corner says in regard to this tomb it stands in the mass of rock which forms the northern boundary of a garden
which literally runs into the hillside to the west of mount calvary itself one of the first things noted as the writer went into this tomb was the fact that it is a jewish tomb
they made their tombs different from those of any other people that it was a rich man's tomb is also very certain as is the fact that it dates back to the herodian period in which jesus lived
there is also some frescoed work upon it showing that it was held sacred by the early christians then the rolling stone and the groove in which it was placed is very interesting this was something
like a gigantic grindstone which rolled in the groove and was large enough to cover the opening when the tomb was closed while in and about jerusalem the writer visited the famous upper room
the jew's wailing place the mosque of omar which stands upon the very spot where solomon's temple used to stand the way of sorrows the ecco homo arch
the castle of antonio tower of david the pool of siloam
before the end of the month ruby had got respectably thin and diamond respectably stout they really began to look fit for double harness joseph and his wife got their affairs in order
and everything ready for migrating at the shortest notice
as for nanny she had been so happy ever since she left the hospital
till some time after she was taken to the hospital where he was too shy to go and inquire about her but when at length she went to live with diamond's family
during which they had been talking of her new prospects that nanny expressed to diamond her opinion of the country there ain't nothing in it but the sun and moon diamond there's trees and flowers said diamond
said mister raymond i am glad to see you
his opinion of him was very different from nanny's
he asked i'm always wanting something sir answered diamond well that's quite right so long as what you want is right everybody is always wanting something only we don't mention it
what is it now there's a friend of nanny's a lame boy called jim i've heard of him said mister raymond well nanny doesn't care much about going to the country sir
i know he can shine boots sir so much the better for us
they think i'm silly added diamond with one of his sweetest smiles what mister raymond thought i dare hardly attempt to put down here
people's kind to lame boys you know sir but after dark there ain't so much doing diamond succeeded in bringing jim to mister raymond and the consequence was that he resolved to give the boy a chance he provided new clothes for both him and nanny
and upon a certain day joseph took his wife and three children and nanny and jim
where they found a cart waiting to carry them and their luggage to the mound which was the name of mister raymond's new residence i will not describe the varied feelings of the party as they went or when they arrived all i will say is that diamond who is my only care was full of quiet delight
for mister raymond was an old bachelor no longer he was bringing his wife with him to live at the mound the moment nanny saw her she recognised her as the lady who had lent her the ruby ring that ring had been given her by mister raymond
the weather was very hot and the woods very shadowy there were not a great many wild flowers
and the most of the wild flowers rise early to be before the leaves because if they did not
and diamond's chief pleasure seemed to be to lie amongst them and breathe the pure air but all the time he was dreaming of the country at the back of the north wind and trying to recall the songs the river used to sing for this was more like being at the back of the north wind
all he could do was to sing these were very different times from those when he used to drive the cab but you must not suppose that diamond was idle he did not do so much for his mother now because nanny occupied his former place
but he helped his father still both in the stable and the harness room and generally went with him on the box that he might learn to drive a pair and be ready to open the carriage door mister raymond advised his father to give him plenty of liberty
a boy like that he said ought not to be pushed joseph assented heartily
after doing everything that fell to his share the boy had a wealth of time at his disposal and a happy sometimes a merry time it was
chapter four kirsty my father had a housekeeper a trusty woman he considered her we thought her very old i suppose she was about forty she was not pleasant for she was grim faced and censorious
with a very straight back and a very long upper lip indeed the distance from her nose to her mouth was greater than the length of her nose when i think of her first it is always as making some complaint to my father against us
perhaps she meant to speak the truth or rather perhaps took it for granted that she always did speak the truth but certainly she would exaggerate things and give them quite another look the bones of her story might be true
but she would put a skin over it after her own fashion
the consequence was that the older we grew the more our minds were alienated from her and the more we came to regard her as our enemy if she really meant to be our friend after the best fashion she knew it was at least an uncomely kind of friendship
that showed itself in constant opposition fault finding and complaint the real mistake was that we were boys there was something in her altogether antagonistic to the boy nature
you would have thought that to be a boy was in her eyes to be something wrong to begin with
by their very nature be about something amiss i have occasionally wondered how she would have behaved to a girl on reflection i think a little better but the girl would have been worse off because she could not have escaped from her as we did
my father would hear her complaints to the end without putting in a word except it were to ask her a question
would turn again to his book or his sermon saying very well missus mitchell
my impression is that he did not believe the half she told him at all events
he would ask our version of the affair and listen to that as he had listened to hers then he would set forth to us where we had been wrong if we were wrong and send us away with an injunction not to provoke missus mitchell who couldn't help being short in her temper poor thing
somehow or other we got it into our heads that the shortness of her temper was mysteriously associated with the shortness of her nose she was saving even to stinginess she would do her best to provide what my father liked
but for us she thought almost anything good enough she would for instance give us the thinnest of milk we said she skimmed it three times before she thought it blue enough for us my two younger brothers did not mind it so much as i did
for i was always rather delicate and if i took a dislike to anything would rather go without than eat or drink of it but i have told you enough about her to make it plain that she could be no favourite with us
and enough likewise to serve as a background to my description of kirsty kirsty was a highland woman who had the charge of the house in which the farm servants lived she was a cheerful gracious kind woman a woman of god's making one would say
we cannot deny that he made missus mitchell too it is very puzzling i confess i remember once that my youngest brother davie a very little fellow then for he could not speak plainly
came running in great distress to kirsty crying fee fee by which he meant to indicate that a flea was rendering his life miserable
said not in a questioning but in a concluding tone god didn't make the fees kirsty oh yes davie god made everything god did make the fleas said kirsty davie was silent for a while
then he opened his mouth and spake like a discontented prophet of old why doesn't he give them something else to eat then
with a wisdom i have since learned to comprehend though i remember it shocked me a little at the time all this set me thinking before the dressing of little davie was over i had my question to put to kirsty it was in fact the same question
oh she's not a bad sort said kirsty though i must say if i was her i would try to be a little more agreeable to return to kirsty she was our constant resort
which she claimed for all highland folk a light step a sweet voice and a most bounteous hand but there i come into the moral nature of her
for her face i think that was rather queer
whether she was nice looking or not
it was she who gave us something to eat as often and as much as we wanted
having many bleak moorland hills that lay about like slow stiffened waves of no great height but of much desolation and as far as the imagination was concerned it would seem that the minds of former generations had been as bleak as the country
but kirsty had come from a region where the hills were hills indeed hills with mighty skeletons of stone inside them
which were ever trying to get up a country where every cliff and rock and well had its story
chapter thirty two diamond and ruby it was friday night and diamond like the rest of the household had had very little to eat that day the mother would always pay the week's rent
before she laid out anything even on food his father had been very gloomy so gloomy that he had actually been cross to his wife it is a strange thing how pain of seeing the suffering of those we love will sometimes make us add to their suffering
by being cross with them this comes of not having faith enough in god and shows how necessary this faith is for when we lose it we lose even the kindness which alone can soothe the suffering
diamond in consequence had gone to bed very quiet and thoughtful a little troubled indeed it had been a very stormy winter
the north wind often blew when diamond went to his bed which was in a tiny room in the roof he heard it like the sea moaning and when he fell asleep he still heard the moaning all at once he said to himself
am i awake or am i asleep but he had no time to answer the question for there was north wind calling him
he jumped out of bed and looked everywhere but could not see her diamond come here she said again and again but where the here was he could not tell to be sure the room was all but quite dark
and she might be close beside him dear north wind said diamond i want so much to go to you but i can't tell where come here diamond was all her answer
diamond opened the door and went out of the room and down the stair and into the yard his little heart was in a flutter for he had long given up all thought of seeing her again neither now was he to see her when he got out
a great puff of wind came against him and in obedience to it he turned his back and went as it blew
and went on blowing she wants me to go into the stable
but the door is locked he knew where the key was in a certain hole in the wall far too high for him to get at he ran to the place however
he picked it up and ran back and opened the stable door and went in
a little light came through the dusty window from a gas lamp sufficient to show him diamond and ruby with their two heads up
the light showed the white mark on diamond's forehead but ruby's eye shone so bright that he thought more light came out of it than went in this is what he saw but what do you think he heard
he heard the two horses talking to each other in a strange language which yet somehow or other he could understand and turn over in his mind in english the first words he heard were from diamond who apparently had been already quarrelling with ruby
said old diamond you are so plump and your skin shines so you ought to be ashamed of yourself there's no harm in being fat said ruby in a deprecating tone no nor in being sleek i may as well shine as not
no harm retorted diamond
and as i hear get along no faster than a big dray horse with two tons behind him so they tell me your master's not mine said ruby i must attend to my own master's interests and eat all that is given me
and be sleek and fat as i can and go no faster than i need now really if the rest of the horses weren't all asleep poor things they work till they're tired
you make me ashamed of being a horse you dare to say my master ain't your master that's your gratitude for the way he feeds you and spares you pray where would your carcass be if it weren't for him
he doesn't do it for my sake if i were his own horse he would work me as hard as he does you and i'm proud to be so worked i wouldn't be as fat as you not for all you're worth
you're a disgrace to the stable look at the horse next you he's something like a horse all skin and bone and his master ain't over kind to him either he put a stinging lash on his whip last week but that old horse knows he's got the wife and children to keep
and he works like a horse i daresay he grudges his master the beer he drinks
well i don't grudge yours what he gets by me said ruby gets retorted diamond what he gets isn't worth grudging it comes to next to nothing what with your fat and shine
well at least you ought to be thankful you're the better for it you get a two hours rest a day out of it i thank my master for that not you you lazy fellow
you go along like a buttock of beef upon castors you do ain't you afraid i'll kick if you go on like that diamond
it's my belief once out they'd stick out for ever talk of kicking why don't you put one foot before the other now and then when you're in the cab the abuse master gets for your sake is quite shameful no decent horse would bring it on him
depend upon it ruby no cabman likes to be abused any more than his fare
indeed they are well you see diamond i don't want to go lame again i don't believe you were so very lame after all there oh but i was
there you are with your huge carcass crushing down your poor legs all night long you don't even care for your own legs so long as you can eat eat and sleep sleep you a horse indeed but i tell you i was lame
ankle indeed why should you ape your betters horses ain't got any ankles
better but fall asleep between every step you'll run a good chance of laming all your ankles as you call them one after another it's not your lively horse that comes to grief in that way
there i've done i'm going to sleep i'll try to think as well of you as i can if you would but step out a bit and run off a little of your fat here diamond began to double up his knees but ruby spoke again and as young diamond thought
in a rather different tone i say diamond i can't bear to have an honest old horse like you think of me like that i will tell you the truth it was my own fault that i fell lame i told you so returned the other
every possible privilege in their narrow circumstances i meant to do it diamond at the words the old horse arose with a scramble like thunder shot his angry head and glaring eye over into ruby's stall and said
keep out of my way you unworthy wretch or i'll bite you you a horse
because i wanted to grow fat you grease tub oh my teeth and tail i thought you were a humbug why did you want to get fat there's no truth to be got out of you but by cross questioning you ain't fit to be a horse because
once i am fat my nature is to keep fat for a long time and i didn't know when master might come home and want to see me you conceited good for nothing brute you're only fit for the knacker's yard you wanted to look handsome did you
hold your tongue or i'll break my halter and be at you with your handsome fat never mind diamond you're a good horse you can't hurt me can't hurt you just let me once try no you can't why then
but there's young diamond listening to all we're saying and he knows well enough there are horses in heaven for angels to ride upon as well as other animals lions and eagles and bulls in more important situations
joseph your master should grow lean i could have pretended to be lame but that no horse least of all an angel horse would do so i must be lame and so i sprained my ankle for the angel horses have ankles
they don't talk horse slang up there and it hurt me very much i assure you diamond though you mayn't be good enough to be able to believe it old diamond made no reply he had lain down again and a sleepy snort very like a snore
revealed that if he was not already asleep he was past understanding a word that ruby was saying when young diamond found this he thought he might venture to take up the dropt shuttlecock of the conversation i'm good enough to believe it ruby
he said but ruby never turned his head or took any notice of him i suppose he did not understand more of english than just what the coachman and stableman were in the habit of addressing him with finding however that his companion made no reply
he shot his head over the partition and looking down at him said you just wait till to morrow and you'll see whether i'm speaking the truth or not i declare the old horse is fast asleep diamond no i won't
ruby turned away and began pulling at his hayrack in silence diamond gave a shiver and looking round saw that the door of the stable was open
other defects of the present confederation for the independent journal wednesday december twelfth seventeen eighty seven hamilton
to the people of the state of new york having in the three last numbers taken a summary review of the principal circumstances and events which have depicted the genius and fate of other confederate governments
i shall now proceed in the enumeration of the most important of those defects which have hitherto disappointed our hopes from the system established among ourselves to form a safe and satisfactory judgment of the proper remedy it is absolutely necessary
have no powers to exact obedience or punish disobedience to their resolutions either by pecuniary mulcts
or by any other constitutional mode there is no express delegation of authority to them to use force against delinquent members
by which it is declared that each state shall retain every power jurisdiction and right
there is doubtless a striking absurdity in supposing that a right of this kind does not exist
or of contravening or explaining away a provision which has been of late a repeated theme of the eulogies of those who oppose the new constitution and the want of which in that plan has been the subject of much plausible animadversion and severe criticism
if we are unwilling to impair the force of this applauded provision we shall be obliged to conclude that the united states afford the extraordinary spectacle of a government destitute even of the shadow of constitutional power to enforce the execution of its own laws
it will appear from the specimens which have been cited that the american confederacy in this particular stands discriminated from every other institution of a similar kind and exhibits a new and unexampled phenomenon in the political world
the want of a mutual guaranty of the state governments is another capital imperfection in the federal plan there is nothing of this kind declared in the articles that compose it
must be renounced usurpation may rear its crest in each state and trample upon the liberties of the people while the national government could legally
a successful faction may erect a tyranny on the ruins of order and law while no succor could constitutionally be afforded by the union to the friends and supporters of the government
the inordinate pride of state importance has suggested to some minds an objection to the principle of a guaranty in the federal government
this right would remain undiminished
where the whole power of the government is in the hands of the people
the natural cure for an ill administration in a popular or representative constitution is a change of men a guaranty by the national authority would be as much levelled against the usurpations of rulers as against the ferments and outrages of faction and sedition in the community
is another fundamental error in the confederation
has been already pointed out and has sufficiently appeared from the trial which has been made of it i speak of it now solely with a view to equality among the states
which produce and constitute national wealth must be satisfied that there is no common standard or barometer by which the degrees of it can be ascertained
that the active wealth of king's county bears a much greater proportion to that of montgomery than it would appear to be if we should take either the total value of the lands or the total number of the people as a criterion the wealth of nations depends upon an infinite variety of causes
the genius of the citizens the degree of information they possess the state of commerce of arts of industry these circumstances and many more too complex minute or adventitious to admit of a particular specification
the consequence clearly is that there can be no common measure of national wealth and of course no general or stationary rule by which the ability of a state to pay taxes can be determined
the attempt therefore to regulate the contributions of the members of a confederacy by any such rule cannot fail to be productive of glaring inequality and extreme oppression this inequality would of itself
upon a principle which distributes the public burdens with so unequal a hand and which was calculated to impoverish and oppress the citizens of some states while those of others would scarcely be conscious of the small proportion of the weight they were required to sustain
will in a degree be at his own option and can be regulated by an attention to his resources the rich may be extravagant the poor can be frugal and private oppression may always be avoided by a judicious selection of objects
proper for such impositions if inequalities should arise in some states from duties on particular objects these will in all probability
in the course of time and things an equilibrium as far as it is attainable in so complicated a subject will be established everywhere
they would neither be so great in their degree so uniform in their operation nor so odious in their appearance as those which would necessarily spring from quotas upon any scale that can possibly be devised
that they contain in their own nature a security against excess they prescribe their own limit which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed that is an extension of the revenue when applied to this object
the saying is as just as it is witty that in political arithmetic two and two do not always make four if duties are too high they lessen the consumption the collection is eluded
this forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them impositions of this kind usually fall under the denomination of indirect taxes
and must for a long time constitute the chief part of the revenue raised in this country those of the direct kind which principally relate to land and buildings may admit of a rule of apportionment either the value of land
may serve as a standard the state of agriculture and the populousness of a country have been considered as nearly connected with each other and as a rule for the purpose intended numbers in the view of simplicity and certainty are entitled to a preference
in every country it is a herculean task
in a country imperfectly settled and progressive in improvement
in all situations a formidable objection in a branch of taxation where no limits to the discretion of the government are to be found in the nature of things the establishment of a fixed rule not incompatible with the end
may be attended with fewer inconveniences than to leave that discretion altogether at large
and there were spent upon him every day twelve great measures of fine flour and forty sheep
and went daily to adore it but daniel worshipped his own god and the king said unto him
because i may not worship idols made with hands but the living god who hath created the heaven and the earth
thinkest thou not that bel is a living god seest thou not
and said o king be not deceived for this is but clay within and brass without
so the king was wroth and called for his priests and said unto them if ye tell me not who this is that devoureth these expences
if ye can certify me that bel devoureth them then daniel shall die for he hath spoken blasphemy against bel and daniel said unto the king let it be according to thy word
beside their wives and children
lo we go out but thou o king set on the meat and make ready the wine
when thou comest in if thou findest not that bel hath eaten up all we will suffer death
for under the table they had made a privy entrance whereby they entered in continually
the king set meats before bel now daniel had commanded his servants to bring ashes
then went they out and shut the door and sealed it with the king's signet
came the priests with their wives and children as they were wont to do
daniel are the seals whole and he said yea o king
the king looked upon the table and cried with a loud voice great art thou o bel
and held the king that he should not go in and said behold now the pavement
i see the footsteps of men
the king went to bewail daniel and when he came to the den he looked in
at nine o'clock d'artagnan was at the hotel des gardes he found planchet all ready the fourth horse had arrived planchet was armed with his musketoon and a pistol d'artagnan had his sword and placed two pistols in his belt
then both mounted and departed quietly it was quite dark and no one saw them go out planchet took place behind his master and kept at a distance of ten paces from him
went out by the gate of la conference and followed the road much more beautiful then than it is now which leads to saint cloud as long as he was in the city planchet kept at the respectful distance he had imposed upon himself
but as soon as the road began to be more lonely and dark he drew softly nearer so that when they entered the bois de boulogne he found himself riding quite naturally side by side with his master in fact
we must not dissemble that the oscillation of the tall trees and the reflection of the moon in the dark underwood gave him serious uneasiness d'artagnan could not help perceiving that something more than usual was passing in the mind of his lackey and said well monsieur planchet
that woods are like churches
because we dare not speak aloud in one or the other but why did you not dare to speak aloud planchet because you are afraid afraid of being heard yes monsieur afraid of being heard
and no one could find fault with it ah monsieur
recurring to his besetting idea that monsieur bonacieux has something vicious in his eyebrows and something very unpleasant in the play of his lips what the devil makes you think of bonacieux monsieur we think of what we can
and not of what we will because you are a coward planchet monsieur we must not confound prudence with cowardice prudence is a virtue and you are very virtuous are you not planchet monsieur
is not that the barrel of a musket which glitters yonder had we not better lower our heads in truth murmured d'artagnan
this animal will end by making me afraid and he put his horse into a trot planchet followed the movements of his master as if he had been his shadow and was soon trotting by his side are we going to continue this pace all night
no you are at your journey's end how monsieur and you i am going a few steps farther and monsieur leaves me here alone you are afraid planchet no
i only beg leave to observe to monsieur that the night will be very cold that chills bring on rheumatism and that a lackey who has the rheumatism makes but a poor servant particularly to a master as active as monsieur well
you can go into one of those cabarets that you see yonder and be in waiting for me at the door by six o'clock in the morning monsieur i have eaten and drunk respectfully the crown you gave me this morning
here's half a pistole tomorrow morning d'artagnan sprang from his horse threw the bridle to planchet and departed at a quick pace folding his cloak around him good lord how cold i am
as soon as he had lost sight of his master and in such haste was he to warm himself that he went straight to a house set out with all the attributes of a suburban tavern and knocked at the door
who had plunged into a bypath continued his route and reached saint cloud but instead of following the main street he turned behind the chateau reached a sort of retired lane
it was situated in a very private spot a high wall at the angle of which was the pavilion ran along one side of this lane and on the other was a little garden connected with a poor cottage
he gained the place appointed and as no signal had been given him by which to announce his presence he waited not the least noise was to be heard it might be imagined that he was a hundred miles from the capital d'artagnan leaned against the hedge
after having cast a glance behind it beyond that hedge that garden and that cottage a dark mist enveloped with its folds that immensity where paris slept a vast void from which glittered a few luminous points the funeral stars of that hell
but for d'artagnan all aspects were clothed happily all ideas wore a smile all shades were diaphanous the appointed hour was about to strike in fact at the end of a few minutes the belfry of saint cloud let fall slowly
ten strokes from its sonorous jaws there was something melancholy in this brazen voice pouring out its lamentations in the middle of the night but each of those strokes which made up the expected hour vibrated harmoniously to the heart of the young man
his eyes were fixed upon the little pavilion situated at the angle of the wall of which all the windows were closed with shutters except one on the first story through this window shone a mild light
which silvered the foliage of two or three linden trees which formed a group outside the park there could be no doubt that behind this little window which threw forth such friendly beams
wrapped in this sweet idea d'artagnan waited half an hour without the least impatience his eyes fixed upon that charming little abode of which he could perceive a part of the ceiling with its gilded moldings attesting the elegance of the rest of the apartment
the belfry of saint cloud sounded half past ten this time without knowing why d'artagnan felt a cold shiver run through his veins perhaps the cold began to affect him and he took a perfectly physical sensation for a moral impression
that he had read incorrectly and that the appointment was for eleven o'clock he drew near to the window and placing himself so that a ray of light should fall upon the letter as he held it he drew it from his pocket and read it again but he had not been mistaken the appointment was for ten o'clock
he went and resumed his post beginning to be rather uneasy at this silence and this solitude eleven o'clock sounded
he clapped his hands three times the ordinary signal of lovers but nobody replied to him not even an echo he then thought with a touch of vexation that perhaps the young woman had fallen asleep while waiting for him he approached the wall and tried to climb it
but the wall had been recently pointed and d'artagnan could get no hold at that moment he thought of the trees upon whose leaves the light still shone and as one of them drooped over the road he thought that from its branches he might get a glimpse of the interior of the pavilion
the tree was easy to climb besides d'artagnan was but twenty years old and consequently had not yet forgotten his schoolboy habits in an instant he was among the branches and his keen eyes plunged through the transparent panes into the interior of the pavilion
it was a strange thing and one which made d'artagnan tremble from the sole of his foot to the roots of his hair to find that this soft light this calm lamp enlightened a scene of fearful disorder one of the windows was broken
the door of the chamber had been beaten in and hung split in two on its hinges a table which had been covered with an elegant supper was overturned the decanters broken in pieces and the fruits crushed strewed the floor
everything in the apartment gave evidence of a violent and desperate struggle d'artagnan even fancied he could recognize amid this strange disorder fragments of garments and some bloody spots staining the cloth and the curtains
he hastened to descend into the street with a frightful beating at his heart he wished to see if he could find other traces of violence the little soft light shone on in the calmness of the night d'artagnan then perceived a thing that he had not before remarked
for nothing had led him to the examination that the ground trampled here and hoofmarked there presented confused traces of men and horses besides the wheels of a carriage which appeared to have come from paris had made a deep impression in the soft earth
which did not extend beyond the pavilion but turned again toward paris at length d'artagnan in pursuing his researches found near the wall a woman's torn glove this glove wherever it had not touched the muddy ground
was of irreproachable odor it was one of those perfumed gloves that lovers like to snatch from a pretty hand as d'artagnan pursued his investigations a more abundant and more icy sweat rolled in large drops from his forehead
his heart was oppressed by a horrible anguish his respiration was broken and short and yet he said to reassure himself
that she might have been detained in paris by her duties or perhaps by the jealousy of her husband but all these reasons were combated destroyed overthrown by that feeling of intimate pain which on certain occasions takes possession of our being
and cries to us so as to be understood unmistakably that some great misfortune is hanging over us then d'artagnan became almost wild he ran along the high road took the path he had before taken and reaching the ferry
interrogated the boatman about seven o'clock in the evening the boatman had taken over a young woman wrapped in a black mantle who appeared to be very anxious not to be recognized
the boatman had paid more attention to her and discovered that she was young and pretty there were then as now a crowd of young and pretty women who came to saint cloud and who had reasons for not being seen
d'artagnan took advantage of the lamp which burned in the cabin of the ferryman
and satisfy himself that he had not been mistaken that the appointment was at saint cloud and not elsewhere before the d'estrees's pavilion and not in another street everything conspired to prove to d'artagnan that his presentiments had not deceived him
he again ran back to the chateau
and that fresh information awaited him the lane was still deserted
silent and obscure which had no doubt seen all and could tell its tale the gate of the enclosure was shut but he leaped over the hedge and in spite of the barking of a chained up dog went up to the cabin no one answered to his first knocking
a silence of death reigned in the cabin as in the pavilion but as the cabin was his last resource he knocked again it soon appeared to him that he heard a slight noise within a timid noise which seemed to tremble lest it should be heard
then d'artagnan ceased knocking and prayed with an accent so full of anxiety and promises terror and cajolery that his voice was of a nature to reassure the most fearful at length an old worm eaten shutter was opened or rather pushed ajar
but closed again as soon as the light from a miserable lamp which burned in the corner had shone upon the baldric sword belt and pistol pommels of d'artagnan nevertheless rapid as the movement had been d'artagnan had had time to get a glimpse of the head of an old man
listen to me i have been waiting for someone who has not come i am dying with anxiety has anything particular happened in the neighborhood speak the window was again opened slowly and the same face appeared only it was now still more pale than before
he told how he had a rendezvous with a young woman before that pavilion and how not seeing her come he had climbed the linden tree and by the light of the lamp had seen the disorder of the chamber the old man listened attentively
making a sign only that it was all so and then when d'artagnan had ended he shook his head with an air that announced nothing good what do you mean cried d'artagnan
oh monsieur said the old man ask me nothing for if i dared tell you what i have seen certainly no good would befall me you have then seen something replied d'artagnan in that case in the name of heaven continued he throwing him a pistole
tell me what you have seen
the old man read so much truth and so much grief in the face of the young man that he made him a sign to listen and repeated in a low voice it was scarcely nine o'clock when i heard a noise in the street and was wondering what it could be
when on coming to my door i found that somebody was endeavoring to open it as i am very poor and am not afraid of being robbed i went and opened the gate and saw three men at a few paces from it in the shadow was a carriage with two horses and some saddlehorses
these horses evidently belonged to the three men who were dressed as cavaliers ah my worthy gentlemen cried i what do you want
yes monsieur the one with which i gather my fruit
for you will look and you will listen i am quite sure however we may threaten you you are lost at these words he threw me a crown which i picked up and he took the ladder after shutting the gate behind them i pretended to return to the house
but i immediately went out a back door and stealing along in the shade of the hedge i gained yonder clump of elder from which i could hear and see everything the three men brought the carriage up quietly and took out of it a little man stout short elderly
and commonly dressed in clothes of a dark color who ascended the ladder very carefully looked suspiciously in at the window of the pavilion came down as quietly as he had gone up and whispered it is she immediately
he who had spoken to me approached the door of the pavilion opened it with a key he had in his hand closed the door and disappeared while at the same time the other two men ascended the ladder the little old man remained at the coach door the coachman took care of his horses
the lackey held the saddlehorses all at once great cries resounded in the pavilion and a woman came to the window and opened it as if to throw herself out of it but as soon as she perceived the other two men she fell back and they went into the chamber
then i saw no more but i heard the noise of breaking furniture the woman screamed and cried for help but her cries were soon stifled two of the men appeared bearing the woman in their arms and carried her to the carriage into which the little old man got after her
the leader closed the window came out an instant after by the door and satisfied himself that the woman was in the carriage his two companions were already on horseback he sprang into his saddle the lackey took his place by the coachman
the carriage went off at a quick pace escorted by the three horsemen and all was over from that moment i have neither seen nor heard anything d'artagnan entirely overcome by this terrible story remained motionless and mute
while all the demons of anger and jealousy were howling in his heart but my good gentleman resumed the old man upon whom this mute despair
do not take on so they did not kill her and that's a comfort can you guess said d'artagnan who was the man who headed this infernal expedition i don't know him but as you spoke to him you must have seen him
oh it's a description you want exactly so a tall dark man with black mustaches dark eyes
he is my demon apparently and the other which the short one oh he was not a gentleman i'll answer for it besides he did not wear a sword and the others treated him with small consideration some lackey murmured d'artagnan
you have promised to be secret my good monsieur said the old man and i renew my promise be easy i am a gentleman a gentleman has but his word and i have given you mine with a heavy heart d'artagnan again bent his way toward the ferry
and that he should find her next day at the louvre sometimes he feared she had had an intrigue with another who in a jealous fit had surprised her and carried her off his mind was torn by doubt grief and despair
oh if i had my three friends here cried he i should have at least some hopes of finding her but who knows what has become of them it was past midnight
d'artagnan went successively into all the cabarets in which there was a light
at the sixth he began to reflect that the search was rather dubious d'artagnan had appointed six o'clock in the morning for his lackey and wherever he might be he was right besides
it came into the young man's mind that by remaining in the environs of the spot on which this sad event had passed he would perhaps have some light thrown upon the mysterious affair at the sixth cabaret then as we said d'artagnan stopped
asked for a bottle of wine of the best quality and placing himself in the darkest corner of the room determined thus to wait till daylight but this time again his hopes were disappointed
who comprised the honorable society of which he formed a part which could put him upon the least track of her who had been stolen from him he was compelled then after having swallowed the contents of his bottle to pass the time as well as to evade suspicion
to fall into the easiest position in his corner and to sleep whether well or ill d'artagnan be it remembered was only twenty years old and at that age sleep has its imprescriptible rights which it imperiously insists upon even with the saddest hearts
toward six o'clock d'artagnan awoke with that uncomfortable feeling which generally accompanies the break of day after a bad night he was not long in making his toilet he examined himself to see if advantage had been taken of his sleep and
having found his diamond ring on his finger his purse in his pocket and his pistols in his belt he rose paid for his bottle and went out to try if he could have any better luck in his search after his lackey than he had had the night before
the princes stood up respectfully but quite at their ease and the sultan looked at them for a few moments without speaking then he asked who they were and where they lived sire replied prince bahman we are sons of your highness's late intendant of the gardens
and we live in a house that he built a short time before his death waiting till an occasion should offer itself to serve your highness you seem fond of hunting answered the sultan sire replied prince bahman
it is our usual exercise and one that should be neglected by no man who expects to comply with the ancient customs of the kingdom and bear arms the sultan was delighted with this remark and said at once
come choose what sort of beasts you would like to hunt the princes jumped on their horses and followed the sultan at a little distance they had not gone very far before they saw a number of wild animals appear at once and prince bahman started to give chase to a lion
and prince perviz to a bear both used their javelins with such skill that directly they arrived within striking range the lion and the bear fell pierced through and through then prince perviz pursued a lion and prince bahman a bear
and in a very few minutes they too lay dead as they were making ready for a third assault the sultan interfered and sending one of his officials to summon them he said smiling if i let you go on there will soon be no beasts left to hunt
but with many thanks for the honour done them they begged to be excused and to be suffered to remain at home the sultan who was not accustomed to see his offers rejected inquired their reasons and prince bahman explained that they did not wish to leave their sister
and were accustomed to do nothing without consulting all three together ask her advice then replied the sultan and to morrow come and hunt with me and give me your answer
the two princes returned home but their adventure made so little impression on them that they quite forgot to speak to their sister on the subject the next morning when they went to hunt they met the sultan in the same place and he inquired what advice their sister had given
the young men looked at each other and blushed at last prince bahman said sire we must throw ourselves on your highness's mercy neither my brother nor myself remembered anything about it
then be sure you do not forget to day answered the sultan and bring me back your reply to morrow when however the same thing happened a second time they feared that the sultan might be angry with them for their carelessness
but he took it in good part and drawing three little golden balls from his purse he held them out to prince bahman saying put these in your bosom and you will not forget a third time for when you remove your girdle to night the noise they will make in falling will remind you of my wishes
but it places me in a very awkward position it is on my account i know that you have resisted the sultan's wishes and i am very grateful to you for it but kings do not like to have their offers refused and in time he would bear a grudge against you
which would render me very unhappy consult the talking bird who is wise and far seeing and let me hear what he says so the bird was sent for and the case laid before him
the princes must on no account refuse the sultan's proposal said he and they must even invite him to come and see your house but bird objected the princess you know how dearly we love each other
not at all replied the bird it will make it all the closer then the sultan will have to see me said the princess the bird answered that it was necessary that he should see her and everything would turn out for the best
the sultan received their excuses with great kindness and told them that he was sure they would be equally faithful to him and kept them by his side for the rest of the day to the vexation of the grand vizir and the rest of the court
they look so distinguished and are about the same age that his sons would have been the sultan commanded that splendid apartments should be prepared for the two brothers and even insisted that they should sit at table with him
during dinner he led the conversation to various scientific subjects and also to history of which he was especially fond but whatever topic they might be discussing he found that the views of the young men were always worth listening to
and aloud he complimented them on their learning and taste for knowledge
the princess was of course most anxious to entertain the sultan in a fitting way but as she had no experience in court customs she ran to the talking bird and begged he would advise her as to what dishes should be served my dear mistress replied the bird
and as to the pearls if you go at dawn to morrow and dig at the foot of the first tree in the park on the right hand you will find as many as you want the princess had faith in the bird who generally proved to be right and taking the gardener with her early next morning
followed out his directions carefully after digging for some time they came upon a golden box fastened with little clasps these were easily undone and the box was found to be full of pearls
on the contrary replied the princess it is i who have found one and opening the box she showed her astonished brothers the pearls inside then on the way back to the palace she told them of her consultation with the bird and the advice it had given her
all three tried to guess the meaning of the singular counsel but they were forced at last to admit the explanation was beyond them and they must be content blindly to obey the first thing the princess did on entering the palace was to send for the head cook
and to order the repast for the sultan when she had finished she suddenly added besides the dishes i have mentioned there is one that you must prepare expressly for the sultan and that no one must touch but yourself
it consists of a stuffed cucumber and the stuffing is to be made of these pearls the head cook who had never in all his experience heard of such a dish stepped back in amazement you think i am mad
the hunt began and continued till mid day when the heat became so great that they were obliged to leave off
prince perviz rode on to warn his sister of their approach the moment his highness entered the courtyard the princess flung herself at his feet but he bent and raised her and gazed at her for some time struck with her grace and beauty
by this time the princess had recovered from the first embarrassment of meeting and proceeded to make her speech of welcome
it cannot compare with the great city mansions much less of course with the smallest of the sultan's palaces
and i will reserve my judgment until you have shown me the whole the princess then led the way from room to room and the sultan examined everything carefully
why if every country house was like this the towns would soon be deserted i am no longer astonished that you do not wish to leave it let us go into the gardens which i am sure are no less beautiful than the rooms
a small door opened straight into the garden and the first object that met the sultan's eyes was the golden water what lovely coloured water he exclaimed where is the spring and how do you make the fountain rise so high
i do not believe there is anything like it in the world he went forward to examine it and when he had satisfied his curiosity the princess conducted him towards the singing tree as they drew near the sultan was startled by the sound of strange voices but could see nothing
where have you hidden your musicians he asked the princess are they up in the air or under the earth surely the owners of such charming voices ought not to conceal themselves
and if you will deign to advance a few steps you will see that they become clearer the sultan did as he was told and was so wrapt in delight at what he heard that he stood some time in silence tell me madam i pray you he said at last
how this marvellous tree came into your garden it must have been brought from a great distance or else fond as i am of all curiosities i could not have missed hearing of it what is its name the only name it has sire replied she
is the singing tree and it is not a native of this country its history is mixed up with those of the golden water and the talking bird which you have not yet seen if your highness wishes i will tell you the whole story when you have recovered from your fatigue
and i am dying to see the talking bird the sultan could hardly tear himself away from the golden water which puzzled him more and more
neither is brought by pipes all i understand is that neither it nor the singing tree is a native of this country it is as you say sire answered the princess and if you examine the basin you will see that it is all in one piece
on approaching the house the sultan noticed a vast quantity of birds whose voices filled the air
sire answered the princess do you see that cage hanging in one of the windows of the saloon that is the talking bird whose voice you can hear above them all even above that of the nightingale
and the birds crowd to this spot to add their songs to his the sultan stepped through the window but the bird took no notice continuing his song as before my slave said the princess this is the sultan make him a pretty speech
the bird stopped singing at once and all the other birds stopped too the sultan is welcome he said i wish him long life and all prosperity
the sultan noticing that his favourite dish of cucumber was placed before him proceeded to help himself to it and was amazed to and that the stuffing was of pearls a novelty indeed cried he but i do not understand the reason of it
one cannot eat pearls sire replied the bird before either the princes or the princess could speak surely your highness cannot be so surprised at beholding a cucumber stuffed with pearls when you believed without any difficulty
not only as brothers and sister but as having in you the blood royal of persia which could flow in no nobler veins when the first moments of emotion were over the sultan hastened to finish his repast and then turning to his children he exclaimed
to day you have made acquaintance with your father to morrow i will bring you the sultana your mother be ready to receive her the sultan then mounted his horse and rode quickly back to the capital
without an instant's delay he sent for the grand vizir and ordered him to seize and question the sultana's sisters that very day this was done they were confronted with each other and proved guilty and were executed in less than an hour
and drawing the sultana with his own hand out of the narrow prison where she had spent so many years madam he cried embracing her with tears in his eyes i have come to ask your pardon for the injustice i have done you and to repair it as far as i may
i have already begun by punishing the authors of this abominable crime and i hope you will forgive me when i introduce you to our children who are the most charming and accomplished creatures in the whole world
and the news was passed from mouth to mouth in a few seconds early next day the sultan and sultana dressed in robes of state and followed by all the court set out for the country house of their children
here the sultan presented them to the sultana one by one and for some time there was nothing but embraces and tears and tender words then they ate of the magnificent dinner which had been prepared for them
and after they were all refreshed they went into the garden where the sultan pointed out to his wife the golden water and the singing tree as to the talking bird she had already made acquaintance with him in the evening they rode together back to the capital
the princes on each side of their father and the princess with her mother long before they reached the gates the way was lined with people
he dismounted from his horse and bowed low before the holy man saying by way of greeting my father may your days be long in the land and may all your wishes be fulfilled the dervish did his best to reply
but his moustache was so thick that his words were hardly intelligible and the prince perceiving what was the matter took a pair of scissors from his saddle pockets and requested permission to cut off some of the moustache as he had a question of great importance to ask the dervish
the dervish made a sign that he might do as he liked and when a few inches of his hair and beard had been pruned all round the prince assured the holy man that he would hardly believe how much younger he looked the dervish smiled at his compliments and thanked him for what he had done
gentle dervish replied prince bahman i come from far and i seek the talking bird the singing tree and the golden water i know that they are to be found somewhere in these parts
tell me i pray you if you can so that i may not have travelled on a useless quest while he was speaking the prince observed a change in the countenance of the dervish who waited for some time before he made reply
my lord he said at last i do know the road for which you ask
but why not inquired the prince what danger can there be the very greatest danger answered the dervish other men as brave as you have ridden down this road
i did my best to turn them also from their purpose but it was of no use not one of them would listen to my words and not one of them came back be warned in time and seek to go no further
i am grateful to you for your interest in me said prince bahman and for the advice you have given though i cannot follow it but what dangers can there be in the adventure which courage and a good sword cannot meet
and suppose answered the dervish that your enemies are invisible how then nothing will make me give it up replied the prince and for the last time i ask you to tell me where i am to go
it will roll on till it reaches the foot of a mountain and when it stops you will stop also you will then throw the bridle on your horse's neck without any fear of his straying and will dismount
on each side you will see vast heaps of big black stones and will hear a multitude of insulting voices but pay no heed to them and above all beware of ever turning your head
for those stones are in reality men like yourself who have been on the same quest and have failed as i fear that you may fail also if you manage to avoid this pitfall and to reach the top of the mountain you will find there
the talking bird in a splendid cage and you can ask of him where you are to seek the singing tree and the golden water that is all i have to say you know what you have to do and what to avoid but if you are wise you will think of it no more but return whence you have come
the prince smilingly shook his head and thanking the dervish once more he sprang on his horse and threw the ball before him the ball rolled along the road so fast that prince bahman had much difficulty in keeping up with it
and it never relaxed its speed till the foot of the mountain was reached then it came to a sudden halt and the prince at once got down and flung the bridle on his horse's neck
he paused for a moment and looked round him at the masses of black stones with which the sides of the mountain were covered and then began resolutely to ascend he had hardly gone four steps when he heard the sound of voices around him
him at once kill him shrieked others
he is such a beautiful young man i am sure the bird and the cage must have been kept for him
but continued to press forward on his way unfortunately this conduct instead of silencing the voices only seemed to irritate them the more and they arose with redoubled fury in front as well as behind
after some time he grew bewildered his knees began to tremble and finding himself in the act of falling he forgot altogether the advice of the dervish he turned to fly down the mountain and in one moment became a black stone
as may be imagined prince perviz and his sister were all this time in the greatest anxiety and consulted the magic knife not once but many times a day hitherto the blade had remained bright and spotless
and it is i who have killed you fool that i was to listen to the voice of that temptress
prince perviz's grief at his brother's loss was not less than that of princess parizade but he did not waste his time on useless lamentations
and what would have been her object in doing so
you will know that my brother's fate has befallen me still we must hope for better luck then he departed and on the twentieth day of his journey fell in with the dervish on the same spot as prince bahman had met him
as in the case of his brother the dervish tried to make him give up his project and even told him that only a few weeks since a young man bearing a strong resemblance to himself had passed that way but had never come back again
that holy dervish replied prince perviz was my elder brother who is now dead though how he died i cannot say he is changed into a black stone answered the dervish like all the rest who have gone on the same errand
and you will become one likewise if you are not more careful in following my directions then he charged the prince as he valued his life to take no heed of the clamour of voices that would pursue him up the mountain
and handing him a ball from the bag which still seemed to be half full he sent him on his way when prince perviz reached the foot of the mountain he jumped from his horse and paused for a moment to recall the instructions the dervish had given him
he and his horse were two black stones not a morning had passed since prince perviz had ridden away without princess parizade telling her beads and at night she even hung them round her neck so that if she woke she could assure herself at once of her brother's safety
she was in the very act of moving them through her fingers at the moment that the prince fell a victim to his impatience and her heart sank when the first pearl remained fixed in its place however she had long made up her mind
what she would do in such a case and the following morning the princess disguised as a man set out for the mountain as she had been accustomed to riding from her childhood she managed to travel as many miles daily as her brothers had done
and it was as before on the twentieth day that she arrived at the place where the dervish was sitting good dervish she said politely will you allow me to rest by you for a few moments and perhaps you will be so kind as to tell me if you have ever heard of a talking bird
madam said the dervish they are far more beautiful than any description but you seem ignorant of all the difficulties that stand in your way or you would hardly have undertaken such an adventure
you have spoken of difficulties tell me i entreat you what they are so that i may know if i can overcome them or see if they are beyond my strength so the dervish repeated his tale and dwelt more firmly than before
on the clamour of the voices the horrors of the black stones which were once living men and the difficulties of climbing the mountain and pointed out that the chief means of success was never to look behind till you had the cage in your grasp
as far as i can see said the princess the first thing is not to mind the tumult of the voices that follow you till you reach the cage and then never to look behind
but as it is quite possible that i might be frightened by the voices
let them make as much noise as they like i shall hear nothing madam cried the dervish out of all the number who have asked me the way to the mountain
but all the same the risk is great good dervish answered the princess i feel in my heart that i shall succeed and it only remains for me to ask you the way i am to go
in spite of the cotton some echoes of the voices reached her ears but not so as to trouble her indeed though they grew louder and more insulting the higher she climbed
the princess only laughed and said to herself that she certainly would not let a few rough words stand between her and the goal at last she perceived in the distance the cage and the bird whose voice joined itself in tones of thunder to those of the rest
return return never dare to come near me at the sight of the bird the princess hastened her steps and without vexing herself at the noise which by this time had grown deafening
she walked straight up to the cage and seizing it she said now my bird i have got you and i shall take good care that you do not escape as she spoke she took the cotton from her ears for it was needed no longer
some day you will put me to the proof for i know who you are better than you do yourself meanwhile tell me what i can do and i will obey you bird replied the princess who was
filled with a joy that seemed strange to herself when she thought that the bird had cost her the lives of both her brothers bird let me first thank you for your good will and then let me ask you where the golden water is to be found
the bird described the place which was not far distant and the princess filled a small silver flask that she had brought with her for the purpose she then returned to the cage and said bird there is still something else where shall i find the singing tree
behind you in that wood replied the bird and the princess wandered through the wood till a sound of the sweetest voices told her she had found what she sought but the tree was tall and strong and it was hopeless to think of uprooting it
when the princess parizade held in her hands the three wonders promised her by the old woman she said to the bird all that is not enough it was owing to you that my brothers became black stones i cannot tell them from the mass of others but you must know
and point them out to me i beg you for i wish to carry them away for some reason that the princess could not guess these words seemed to displease the bird and he did not answer the princess waited a moment and then continued in severe tones
have you forgotten that you yourself said that you are my slave to do my bidding and also that your life is in my power no i have not forgotten replied the bird but what you ask is very difficult however i will do my best
if you look round he went on you will see a pitcher standing near take it and as you go down the mountain scatter a little of the water it contains over every black stone and you will soon find your two brothers
princess parizade took the pitcher and carrying with her besides the cage the twig and the flask returned down the mountain side at every black stone she stopped and sprinkled it with water
and the black stones that were heaped up along the road look round and see if there is one left these gentlemen and yourselves and all your horses were changed into these stones and i have delivered you by sprinkling you with the water from this pitcher
as i could not return home without you even though i had gained the prizes on which i had set my heart i forced the talking bird to tell me how to break the spell on hearing these words prince bahman and prince perviz understood all they owed their sister
and the knights who stood by declared themselves her slaves and ready to carry out her wishes but the princess while thanking them for their politeness explained that she wished for no company but that of her brothers
but they found to their sorrow that he was dead whether from old age or whether from the feeling that his task was done they never knew as they continued their road their numbers grew daily smaller for the knights turned off one by one to their own homes
the princess carried the cage straight into the garden and as soon as the bird began to sing nightingales larks thrushes finches and all sorts of other birds mingled their voices in chorus the branch she planted in a corner near the house
as for the golden water it was poured into a great marble basin specially prepared for it and it swelled and bubbled and then shot up into the air in a fountain twenty feet high the fame of these wonders soon spread abroad
and people came from far and near to see and admire after a few days prince bahman and prince perviz fell back into their ordinary way of life and passed most of their time hunting one day it happened that the sultan of persia was also hunting in the same direction
as the girl turned to bid them good night she thought that she saw a shadowy form moving in the darkness beyond them
yes replied tarzan
it has been there for some time hadn't you noticed it before oh cried the girl breathing a sigh of relief is it our lion no said tarzan
he is replied the ape man smith oldwick fingered the grip of his pistol tarzan saw the involuntary movement and shook his head leave that thing where it is lieutenant he said the officer laughed nervously
i couldn't help it you know old man he said instinct of self preservation and all that it would prove an instinct of self destruction said tarzan
if we had a fire or the moon were up you would see their eyes plainly presently they may come after us but the chances are that they will not if you are very anxious that they should fire your pistol and hit one of them
what if they do charge asked the girl there is no means of escape why we should have to fight them replied tarzan what chance would we three have against them asked the girl the ape man shrugged his shoulders
one must die sometime he said to you doubtless it may seem terrible such a death but
few of us die of old age in the jungle nor should i care to die thus some day numa will get me or sheeta or a black warrior these or some of the others what difference does it make which it is
or whether it comes tonight or next year or in ten years after it is over it will be all the same the girl shuddered yes she said in a dull hopeless voice after it is over it will be all the same
then she went into the cavern and lay down upon the sand smith oldwick sat in the entrance and leaned against the cliff tarzan squatted on the opposite side may i smoke questioned the officer of tarzan
and if it won't attract those bouncers out there i would like to have one last smoke before i cash in will you join me and he proffered the ape man a cigarette no thanks said tarzan
no wild animal is particularly fond of the fumes of tobacco
smith oldwick lighted his cigarette and sat puffing slowly upon it he had proffered one to the girl but she had refused and thus they sat in silence for some time the silence of the night ruffled occasionally by the faint crunching of padded feet upon the soft sands of the gorge's floor
even charge just knowing that they are there and occasionally seeing something like a shadow in the darkness and the faint sounds that come to us from them are getting on my nerves but i hope he said that all three don't charge at once three said tarzan
there are seven of them out there now good lord exclaimed smith oldwick couldn't we build a fire asked the girl and frighten them away
said tarzan as i have an idea that these lions are a little different from any that we are familiar with and possibly for the same reason which at first puzzled me a little i refer to the apparent docility in the presence of a man
of the lion who was with us today a man is out there now with those lions it is impossible exclaimed smith oldwick they would tear him to pieces what makes you think there is a man there asked the girl
well said tarzan if you had been born without eyes you could not understand sense impressions that the eyes of others transmit to their brains and as you have both been born without any sense of smell i am afraid you cannot understand how i can know
that there is a man there you mean that you scent a man asked the girl tarzan nodded affirmatively and in the same way you know the number of lions asked the man yes said tarzan
no two lions look alike no two have the same scent the young englishman shook his head no he said i cannot understand i doubt if the lions or the man are here necessarily for the purpose of harming us said tarzan
what is it asked the girl
in other words we are under surveillance
we shall not be bothered but how are we to know where they don't want us to go asked smith oldwick we can't know replied tarzan and the chances are that the very place we are seeking is the place they don't wish us to trespass on you mean the water
asked the girl yes replied tarzan for some time they sat in silence which was broken only by an occasional sound of movement from the outer darkness it must have been an hour later that the ape man rose quietly and drew his long blade from its sheath
smith oldwick was dozing against the rocky wall of the cavern entrance while the girl exhausted by the excitement and fatigue of the day had fallen into deep slumber an instant after tarzan arose smith oldwick and the girl were aroused by a volley of thunderous roars
and the noise of many padded feet rushing toward them tarzan of the apes stood directly before the entrance to the cavern his knife in his hand awaiting the charge the ape man had not expected any such concerted action as he now realized had been taken by those watching them
who were with the lions earlier in the evening and when he arose to his feet it was because he knew that the lions and the men were moving cautiously closer to him and his party he might easily have eluded them
he owed nothing either of duty or friendship to the girl sleeping in the cavern nor could he longer be of any protection to her or her companion yet something held him there in futile self sacrifice the great tarmangani
had not even the satisfaction of striking a blow in self defense a veritable avalanche of savage beasts rolled over him and threw him heavily to the ground in falling his head struck the rocky surface of the cliff stunning him
it was daylight when he regained consciousness the first dim impression borne to his awakening mind was a confusion of savage sounds which gradually resolved themselves into the growling of lions and then little by little
he saw that a great lion stood straddling him a great lion who growled hideously at something which tarzan could not see with the full return of his senses tarzan's nose told him that the beast above him was numa of the wamabo pit thus reassured
and at the same time made a motion as though he would arise immediately numa stepped from above him as tarzan raised his head he saw that he still lay where he had fallen before the opening of the cliff
and that numa backed against the cliffside was apparently defending him from two other lions who paced to and fro a short distance from their intended victim and then tarzan turned his eyes into the cave and saw that the girl and smith oldwick were gone
his efforts had been for naught with an angry toss of his head the ape man turned upon the two lions who had continued to pace back and forth a few yards from him numa of the lion pit turned a friendly glance in tarzan's direction
rubbed his head against the ape man's side and then directed his snarling countenance toward the two hunters i think said tarzan to numa that you and i together can make these beasts very unhappy
he spoke in english which of course numa did not understand at all but there must have been something reassuring in the tone
come said tarzan suddenly and grasping the lion's mane with his left hand he moved toward the other lions his companion pacing at his side as the two advanced the others drew slowly back and finally separating moved off to either side
tarzan and numa passed between them but neither the great black maned lion nor the man failed to keep an eye upon the beast nearer him so that they were not caught unawares when as though at some preconcerted signal
would have been suicidal even for the giant tarmangani instead he resorted to methods of agility and cunning for quick as are the great cats even quicker is tarzan of the apes with outspread raking talons and bared fangs
numa sprang for the naked chest of the ape man throwing up his left arm as a boxer might ward off a blow tarzan struck upward beneath the left forearm of the lion at the same time rushing in with his shoulder beneath the animal's body
and simultaneously drove his blade into the tawny hide behind the shoulder
now indeed would he exterminate this presumptuous man thing
but as he wheeled his intended quarry wheeled with him brown fingers locked in the heavy mane on the powerful neck
so easy it had seemed before that he experienced a sharp feeling of resentment that he was unable to do so now
and presently to his dismay as the lion leaped and threw him about the ape man realized that he was swinging inevitably beneath those frightful talons with a final effort he threw himself from numa's back and sought by his quickness to elude the frenzied beast
for the fraction of an instant that would permit him to regain his feet and meet the animal again upon a more even footing but this time numa was too quick for him
and bowled him over as he fell he saw a black streak shoot above him and another lion close upon his antagonist rolling from beneath the two battling lions tarzan regained his feet
though he was half dazed and staggering from the impact of the terrible blow he had received behind him he saw a lifeless lion lying torn and bleeding upon the sand and before him numa of the pit was savagely mauling the second lion
he of the black coat tremendously outclassed his adversary in point of size and strength as well as in ferocity
and passes at each other before the larger succeeded in fastening his fangs in the other's throat and then as a cat shakes a mouse the larger lion shook the lesser and when his dying foe sought to roll beneath and rake his conqueror with his hind claws
the other met him halfway at his own game
and then were raked downward with all the terrific strength of the mighty hind legs the battle was ended as numa rose from his second victim and shook himself tarzan could not but again note the wondrous proportions and symmetry of the beast
than an ordinary black maned lion but the tawny shade on the balance of their coats predominated however
from any he had seen as though they had sprung originally from a cross between the forest lion of his acquaintance and a breed of which numa of the pit might be typical the immediate obstruction in his way having been removed
tarzan was for setting out in search of the spoor of the girl and smith oldwick that he might discover their fate he suddenly found himself tremendously hungry and as he circled about over the sandy bottom searching among the tangled network of innumerable tracks
for those of his proteges there broke from his lips involuntarily the whine of a hungry beast immediately numa of the pit pricked up his ears and regarding the ape man steadily for a moment he answered the call of hunger
and started briskly off toward the south stopping occasionally to see if tarzan was following the ape man realized that the beast was leading him to food and so he followed
and as he followed his keen eyes and sensitive nostrils sought for some indication of the direction taken by the man and the girl presently out of the mass of lion tracks
and men and lions in front and behind
but in the light of any previous experience he could not explain satisfactorily to himself what his perceptions indicated there was little change in the formation of the gorge it still wound its erratic course between precipitous cliffs
in places it widened out and again it became very narrow and always deeper the further south they traveled presently the bottom of the gorge began to slope more rapidly here and there were indications of ancient rapids and waterfalls
the trail became more difficult but was well marked and showed indications of great antiquity and in places the handiwork of man
when at a turning of the gorge tarzan saw before him a narrow valley cut deep into the living rock of the earth's crust with lofty mountain ranges bounding it upon the south how far it extended east and west he could not see
but apparently it was no more than three or four miles across from north to south that it was a well watered valley was indicated by the wealth of vegetation that carpeted its floor from the rocky cliffs upon the north to the mountains on the south
before him the trail wound onward toward the center of the valley raucous voiced birds of brilliant plumage screamed among the branches while innumerable monkeys chattered and scolded above him the forest teemed with life and yet there was borne in upon the ape man
proceeded to eat such of the fruit as he saw the monkeys ate in safety
tarzan and otobu were both equally confident that the xujans would not follow them beyond the gorge but though they scanned every inch of the frowning cliffs upon either hand noon came
and there was still no indication of any avenue of escape to right or left there were places where the ape man alone might have negotiated the ascent but none where the others could hope successfully to reach the plateau nor where tarzan powerful and agile as he was
and how greatly the hardships and dangers and the fatigue of the past weeks must have told upon her vitality he saw how bravely she attempted to keep up yet how often she stumbled and staggered as she labored through the sand and gravel of the gorge nor could he help but admire her fortitude
and the uncomplaining effort she was making to push on the englishman must have noticed her condition too for some time after noon he stopped suddenly and sat down in the sand it's no use he said to tarzan i can go no farther
you will have to go on without me no said the girl we cannot do that we have all been through so much together and the chances of our escape are still so remote that whatever comes let us remain together unless
and she looked up at tarzan you who have done so much for us to whom you are under no obligations will go on without us
and the nearest fertile country the ape man returned her serious look with a smile you are not dead he said to her nor is the lieutenant nor otobu nor myself one is either dead
which is the nearest spot at which we may expect to find game and water but we shall not give up on that account so far we have found a way let us take things as they come let us rest now because you and lieutenant smith oldwick need the rest and when you are stronger
we will go on again but the xujans she asked may they not follow us here yes he said they probably will but we need not be concerned with them until they come i wish said the girl that i possessed your philosophy
you were not born and reared in the jungle by wild beasts and among wild beasts or you would possess as i do the fatalism of the jungle and so they moved to the side of the gorge beneath the shade of an overhanging rock
and lay down in the hot sand to rest numa wandered restlessly to and fro and finally after sprawling for a moment close beside the ape man rose and moved off up the gorge to be lost to view a moment later beyond the nearest turn
for an hour the little party rested and then tarzan suddenly rose and motioning the others to silence listened for a minute he stood motionless his keen ears acutely receptive to sounds so faint and distant
that none of the other three could detect the slightest break in the utter and deathlike quiet of the gorge finally the ape man relaxed and turned toward them what is it asked the girl they are coming he replied
they are yet some distance away though not far for the sandaled feet of the men and the pads of the lions make little noise upon the soft sands what shall we do try to go on asked smith oldwick i believe i could make a go of it now for a short way
i am much rested how about you miss kircher oh yes she said i am much stronger yes surely i can go on tarzan knew that neither of them quite spoke the truth
that people do not recover so quickly from utter exhaustion but he saw no other way and there was always the hope that just beyond the next turn would be a way out of the gorge you help the lieutenant otobu he said turning to the black
and though the girl objected saying that he must not waste his strength he lifted her lightly in his arms and moved off up the canyon followed by otobu and the englishman they had gone no great distance when the others of the party became aware of the sounds of pursuit
for now the lions were whining as though the fresh scent spoor of their quarry had reached their nostrils i wish that your numa would return said the girl yes said tarzan but we shall have to do the best we can without him
i should like to find some place where we can barricade ourselves against attack from all sides possibly then we might hold them off smith oldwick is a good shot
provided they can only come at him one at a time the lions don't bother me so much sometimes they are stupid animals and i am sure that these that pursue us and who are so dependent upon the masters that have raised and trained them
will be easily handled after the warriors are disposed of you think there is some hope then she asked we are still alive was his only answer there he said presently i thought i recalled this very spot
he pointed toward a fragment that had evidently fallen from the summit of the cliff and which now lay imbedded in the sand a few feet from the base it was a jagged fragment of rock
leaving a narrow aperture between it and the cliff behind toward this they directed their steps and when finally they reached their goal they found a space about two feet wide and ten feet long between the rock and the cliff to be sure it was open at both ends
but at least they could not be attacked upon all sides at once they had scarcely concealed themselves before tarzan's quick ears caught a sound upon the face of the cliff above them and looking up he saw a diminutive monkey perched upon a slight projection
an ugly faced little monkey who looked down upon them for a moment and then scampered away toward the south in the direction from which their pursuers were coming otobu had seen the monkey too he will tell the parrots said the black and the parrots will tell the madmen
and then at last and almost with relief she knew that the pursuers were upon them she heard the angry roaring of the lions and the cries of the madmen for several minutes the men seemed to be investigating the stronghold which their quarry had discovered she could hear them both
to the north and south and then from where she lay she saw a lion charging for the ape man before her she saw the giant arm swing back with the curved saber and she saw it fall with terrific velocity and meet the lion as he rose to grapple with the man
then she heard footsteps running rapidly toward smith oldwick and as his pistol spoke there was a scream and the sound of a falling body evidently disheartened by the failure of their first attempt the assaulters drew off but only for a short time
which was not subdued until both he and smith oldwick had been mauled and the latter had succeeded in running the point of the saber the girl had carried into the beast's heart the man who opposed tarzan
once again the enemy withdrew but again only for a short time and now they came in full force the lions and the men
the men casting their spears and the lions waiting just behind evidently for the signal to charge is this the end asked the girl
in attempting to shield the girl tarzan received one of the shafts in the shoulder and so heavily had the weapon been hurled that it bore him backward to the ground smith oldwick fired his pistol twice when he too was struck down
the weapon entering his right leg midway between hip and knee only otobu remained to face the enemy for the englishman already weak from his wounds
one of the warriors leaped full upon his breast and bore him back as with fiendish shrieks he raised the point of his saber above the other's heart before he could drive it home the girl leveled smith oldwick's pistol and fired point blank at the fiend's face
simultaneously there broke upon the astonished ears of both attackers and attacked a volley of shots from the gorge with the sweetness of the voice of an angel from heaven the europeans heard the sharp barked commands of an english noncom
tarzan struggled to his feet the spear still protruding from his shoulder the girl rose too and as tarzan wrenched the weapon from his flesh and stepped out from behind the concealment of their refuge she followed at his side
seeing the fellow's actions and realizing instantly the natural error that tarzan's yellow tunic had occasioned the girl sprang between him and the soldier don't shoot she cried to the latter we are both friends hold up your hands you then
he commanded tarzan i ain't taking no chances with any duffer with a yellow shirt at this juncture the british sergeant who had been in command of the advance guard approached and when tarzan and the girl spoke to him in english explaining their disguises he accepted their word
since they were evidently not of the same race as the creatures which lay dead about them
smith oldwick's wounds were dressed as well as were those of the ape man and in half an hour they were on their way to the camp of their rescuers
as did otobu's and that they would travel together as far as the country of the wamabos you are not going back with us then asked the girl no replied the ape man
i will continue my journey in that direction she cast appealing eyes toward him you will go back into that terrible jungle she asked we shall never see you again he looked at her a moment in silence
never he said and without another word turned and walked away
tarzan was standing some distance away as the ship landed and the officer descended to the ground he saw the colonel greet his junior in command of the advance detachment and then he saw him turn toward bertha kircher
tarzan wondered how the german spy felt in this situation especially when she must know that there was one there who knew her real status he saw colonel capell walk toward her
although he could not hear the words of his greeting he saw that it was friendly and cordial to a degree tarzan turned away scowling and if any had been close by they might have heard a low growl rumble from his chest he knew that his country was at war with germany
and that not only his duty to the land of his fathers but also his personal grievance against the enemy people and his hatred of them demanded that he expose the girl's perfidy and yet he hesitated and because he hesitated he growled
the tommies their packs and accouterments slung were waiting the summons to continue their return march colonel capell had through a desire to personally observe the stretch of country between the camp of the advance detachment and the base
were only prompted by a sense of gratitude in considering my welfare
is that all you knew asked capell that is all said the ape man
one of the most valuable members of the british intelligence service attached to the east african forces her father and i served in india together and i have known her ever since she was born
single minded in the performance of her duty look
but as you see here is a military sketch map
the diary of hauptmann fritz schneider repeated tarzan in a constrained voice may i see it capell he is the man who murdered lady greystoke the englishman handed the little volume over to the other without a word
and when he found it he read rapidly suddenly a gasp of incredulity burst from his lips
god exclaimed the ape man can this be true listen and he read an excerpt from the closely written page played a little joke on the english pig when he comes home he will find the burned body of his wife in her boudoir
but he will only think it is his wife had von goss substitute the body of a dead negress and char it after putting lady greystoke's rings on it lady g will be of more value to the high command alive than dead she lives cried tarzan
but how could i know i even told smith oldwick who loves her that she was a german spy not only must i return to find my wife but i must right this wrong don't worry about that said capell she must have convinced him that she is no enemy spy
manzikert ten fifty seven
the moment that the last of the macedonian dynasty was gone the elements of discord seemed unchained and the double scourge of civil war and foreign invasion began to afflict the empire
in the twenty four years between ten fifty seven and ten eighty one were pressed more disasters than had been seen in any other period of east roman history save perhaps the reign of heraclius
for now came the second cutting short of the empire the blow that was destined to shear away half its strength
domestic troubles were the first inevitable consequence of the extinction of the macedonian dynasty the aged theodora had named as her successor on the throne michael stratioticus
and the empire was full of ambitious generals who would not tolerate a dotard on the throne
and replace him by isaac comnenus the chief of one of the ancient cappadocian houses and the most popular general of the east
over the empire the most terrible military danger that had been seen for four centuries the safety of the realm was entirely in the hands of its well paid and well disciplined national army
and anything that impaired the efficiency of the army was fraught with the deadliest peril the seljouk turks were now drawing near
in ten fifty they had penetrated to bagdad and their great chief togrul beg had declared himself defender of the faith and protector of the caliph armenia had next been overrun
and the bulwark which protected the byzantine empire from eastern invasions the reign of constantine ducas was troubled by countless seljouk invasions of the armeniac anatolic
and cappadocian themes sometimes the invaders were driven back sometimes they eluded the imperial troops and escaped with their booty but whether successful or unsuccessful they displayed a reckless cruelty
wherever they passed they not merely plundered to right and left but slew off the whole population
with his reduced army proved incompetent to hold them back all the more so that his operations were distracted by an invasion of the uzes a tartar tribe from the euxine shore who had burst into bulgaria
took a new husband and made him guardian of the young michael the new emperor regent was romanus
an asiatic noble whose brilliant courage displayed in the seljouk wars had dazzled the world and caused it to forget that caution and ability are far more regal virtues than headlong valour
in the endeavour to hunt down the marauding bands of the seljouks the operations of romanus were not entirely unsuccessful alp arslan the sultan of the seljouks contented himself at first with dispersing his hordes in scattered bands
and attacking many points of the frontier at once
and in the evening the fight was still undecided as the night was approaching romanus prepared to draw his troops back to the camp but an unhappy misconception of orders broke up the line
and the seljouks edged in between the two halves of the army either from treachery or cowardice andronicus ducas the officer who commanded the reserve led his men off without fighting
the emperor's division was beset on all sides by the enemy and broke up in the dusk romanus himself was wounded thrown from his horse
the emperor was treated with kindness and allowed after some months to ransom himself and return home he would have fared better however if he had remained the prisoner of the turk during his captivity
the conduct of affairs had fallen into the hands of john ducas uncle of the young emperor michael
and mount the throne again when the released captive reappeared john had him seized and blinded
every general in the empire seemed to think that the time had come for him to assume the purple buskins and proclaim himself emperor history records the names of no less than six pretenders to the throne during the next nine years
besides several rebels who took up arms without assuming the imperial title the young emperor michael ducas proved when he came of age to be a vicious nonentity
a fourth short of its proper contents his name and that of nicephorus botaniates the rebel who overthrew him
and the themes that were not overrun by the turks were in the hands of governors who each did what was right in his own eyes
at last a man of ability worked himself up to the surface this was alexius comnenus nephew of the emperor isaac comnenus whose short reign we related in the opening paragraph of this chapter
he was the most accomplished liar of his age and while winning and defending the imperial throne committed enough acts of mean treachery and swore enough false oaths to startle even the
courtiers of constantinople he could fight when necessary but he preferred to win by treason and perjury yet as a ruler he had many virtues and it will always be remembered to his credit
that he dragged the empire out of the deepest slough of degradation and ruin that it had ever sunk into
bore witness to the mildness of his rule
with the close of the permian the world of animal and vegetable life had so changed that the line is drawn here which marks the end of the old order and the beginning of the new and separates the paleozoic from the succeeding era the mesozoic the middle age of geological history
although the mesozoic era is shorter than the paleozoic as measured by the thickness of their strata yet its duration must be reckoned in millions of years
the mesozoic comprises three systems the triassic named from its threefold division in germany the jurassic which is well displayed in the jura mountains and the cretaceous which contains the extensive chalk latin creta deposits of europe in eastern north america
the mesozoic rocks are much less important than the paleozoic for much of this portion of the continent was land during the mesozoic era and the area of the mesozoic rocks is small in western north america on the other hand the strata of the mesozoic
the paleozoic rocks are buried quite generally from view
the triassic and jurassic eastern north america the sedimentary record interrupted by the appalachian deformation was not renewed in eastern north america until late in the triassic
hence during this long interval the land stood high the coast was farther out than now
evidently subsidence was in progress where these rocks were deposited the eastern border of appalachia was now depressed the oldland was warping and long belts of country lying parallel to the shore subsided forming troughs in which thousands of feet of sediment now gathered
these triassic rocks which are chiefly sandstones hold no marine fossils and hence were not laid in open arms of the sea but their layers are often ripple marked and contain many tracks of reptiles imprints of raindrops and some fossil wood
while an occasional bed of shale is filled with the remains of fishes we may conceive then of the connecticut valley
perhaps now and then the basins became long brackish estuaries whose low shores were swept by the incoming tide and were in turn left bare at its retreat to receive the rain prints of passing showers and the tracks of the troops of reptiles which inhabited these valleys
the triassic rocks are mainly red sandstones often feldspathic or arkose with some conglomerates and shales considering the large amount of feldspathic material in these rocks do you infer that they were derived from the adjacent crystalline and metamorphic rocks of the oldland of appalachia
or from the sedimentary paleozoic rocks which had been folded into mountains during the appalachian deformation if from the former was the drainage of the northern appalachian mountain region then as now eastward and southeastward toward the atlantic
the triassic sandstones are voluminous measuring at least a mile in thickness and are largely of coarse waste
in the southern basins as about richmond virginia are valuable beds of coal what was the physical geography of these areas when the coal was being formed interbedded with the triassic sandstones are contemporaneous lava beds which were fed from dikes
volcanic action which had been remarkably absent in eastern north america during paleozoic times was well marked in connection with the warping now in progress thick intrusive sheets have also been driven in among the strata as for example
the sheet of the palisades of the hudson
what effect have these sheets on the present topography and why assuming that the triassic deformation went on more rapidly than denudation what was its effect on the topography of the time are there any of its results remaining in the topography of to day
do the triassic areas now stand higher or lower than the surrounding country and why how do the triassic sandstones and shales compare in hardness with the igneous and metamorphic rocks about them
pennsylvania and farther southwest the lowest strata of the next period the cretaceous
the surface on which they lie is worn so even that we must believe that at the opening of the cretaceous the oldland of appalachia including the triassic areas had been baseleveled at least near the coast
when therefore did the deformation of the triassic rocks occur western north america triassic strata infolded in the sierra nevada mountains carry marine fossils and reach a thickness of nearly five thousand feet
california was then under water and the site of the sierra was a subsiding trough slowly filling with waste from the great basin land to the east over a long belt which reaches from wyoming across colorado into new mexico
no triassic sediments are found nor is there any evidence that they were ever present hence this area was high land suffering erosion during the triassic on each side of it
with some rock salt and gypsum fossils are very rare and none of them marine here then lay broad shallow lakes often salt and warped basins in which the waste of the adjacent uplands gathered
from the land lying to the east contemporaneous lava flows interbedded with the strata show that volcanic action accompanied the downwarp and that molten rock was driven upward through fissures in the crust and outspread over the sea floor in sheets of lava
the sierra deformation ever since the middle of the silurian the sierra trough had been sinking though no doubt with halts and interruptions until it contained nearly twenty five thousand feet of sediment
at the close of the jurassic it yielded to lateral pressure and the vast pile of strata was crumpled and upheaved into towering mountains the mesozoic muds were hardened and squeezed into slates the rocks were wrenched and broken
the british isles the triassic strata of the british isles are continental and include breccia beds of cemented talus deposits of salt and gypsum and sandstones whose rounded and polished grains are those of the wind blown sands of deserts
in triassic times the british isles were part of a desert extending over much of northwestern europe the cretaceous the third great system of the mesozoic includes many formations marine and continental
which record a long and complicated history marked by great oscillations of the crust and wide changes in the outlines of sea and land early cretaceous
in eastern north america the lowest cretaceous series comprises fresh water formations which are traced from nantucket across martha's vineyard and long island and through new jersey southward into georgia they rest unconformably on the triassic sandstones and the older rocks of the region
reaching from georgia northwestward into tennessee and thence across into arkansas and southward into texas in the southwest the subsidence continued until the transgressing sea covered most of mexico and texas and extended a gulf northward into kansas
in its warm and quiet waters limestones accumulated to a depth of from one thousand to five thousand feet in texas and of more than ten thousand feet in mexico meanwhile the lowlands where the great plains are now received continental deposits
coal swamps stretched from western montana into british columbia the middle cretaceous this was a land epoch the early cretaceous sea retired from texas and mexico
for its sediments are overlain unconformably by formations of the upper cretaceous so long was the time gap between the two series that no species found in the one occurs in the other the upper cretaceous
there now began one of the most remarkable events in all geological history the great cretaceous subsidence its earlier warpings were recorded in continental deposits wide sheets of sandstone shale and some coal which were spread from texas to british columbia
we may infer that as the depression of the continent continued the sea came in far and wide over the coast lands and the plains worn low during the previous epochs upper cretaceous formations show that south of new england
the waters of the atlantic somewhat overlapped the crystalline rocks of the piedmont belt and spread their waste over the submerged coastal plain the gulf of mexico again covered the mississippi embayment
reaching as far north as southern illinois and extended over texas a mediterranean sea now stretched from the gulf to the arctic regions and from central iowa to the eastern shore of the great basin land at about the longitude of salt lake city the colorado mountains rising from it in a chain of islands
the long belt lying west of the ancient axes of the colorado islands and east of the great basin land had been an area of deposition for many ages and in its subsiding troughs paleozoic and mesozoic sediments had gathered to the depth of many thousand feet
and now from mexico well nigh to the arctic ocean this belt yielded to lateral pressure the cretaceous limestones of mexico were folded into lofty mountains a massive range was upfolded where the wasatch mountains now are
and various ranges of the rockies in colorado and other states were upridged however slowly these deformations were effected they were no doubt accompanied by world shaking earthquakes and it is known that volcanic eruptions took place on a magnificent scale
outflows of lava occurred along the wasatch the laccoliths of the henry mountains were formed while the great masses of igneous rock which constitute the cores of the spanish peaks and other western mountains were thrust up amid the strata
the mesozoic era was long enough for the appalachian mountains
the same plain extended over southern new england
metamorphism and mineral veins under the action of internal agencies rocks of all kinds may be rendered harder
these processes are known as metamorphism and the rocks affected whether originally sedimentary or igneous are called metamorphic rocks we may contrast with metamorphism the action of external agencies in weathering
which render rocks less coherent by dissolving their soluble parts and breaking down their crystalline grains contact metamorphism
rocks beneath a lava flow or in contact with igneous intrusions are found to be metamorphosed to various degrees by the heat of the cooling mass the adjacent strata may be changed only in color hardness and texture
thus next to a dike bituminous coal may be baked to coke or anthracite and chalk and limestone to crystalline marble sandstone may be converted into quartzite and shale into argillite a compact massive clay rock
new minerals may also be developed in sedimentary rocks there may be produced crystals of mica and of garnet a mineral as hard as quartz commonly occurring in red twelve sided crystals
where the changes are most profound rocks may be wholly made over in structure and mineral composition in contact metamorphism thin sheets of molten rock produce less effect than thicker ones the strongest heat effects are naturally caused by bosses
and regional intrusions and the zone of change about them may be several miles in width in these changes heated waters and vapors from the masses of igneous rocks undoubtedly play a very important part which will be more strongly altered
the rocks about a closed dike in which lava began to cool as soon as it filled the fissure or the rocks about a dike which opened on the surface and through which the molten rock flowed for some time taking into consideration the part played by heated waters
metamorphic rocks occur wide spread in many regions often hundreds of square miles in area where such extensive changes cannot be accounted for by igneous intrusions such are the dissected cores of lofty mountains as the alps
and the worn down bases of ancient ranges as in new england large areas in the piedmont belt and the laurentian peneplain in these regions the rocks have yielded to immense pressure
and even their minute grains as one may see with a microscope have often been puckered broken and crushed to powder it is to these mechanical movements and strains which the rocks have suffered in every part that we may attribute their metamorphism
other factors however have played important parts rock crushing develops heat and allows a freer circulation of heated waters and vapors thus chemical reactions are greatly quickened minerals are dissolved and redeposited in new positions
or their chemical constituents may recombine in new minerals entirely changing the nature of the rock as when for example feldspar recrystallizes as quartz and mica early stages of metamorphism are seen in slate
under somewhat greater pressure slate becomes phyllite a clay slate whose cleavage surfaces are lustrous with flat lying mica flakes
the same pressure which has caused the rock to cleave has set free some of its mineral constituents along the cleavage planes to crystallize there as mica foliation under still stronger pressure the whole structure of the rock is altered
gneiss is the general name under which are comprised coarsely foliated rocks banded with irregular layers of feldspar and other minerals
these folia can be distinguished from the laminae of sedimentary rocks by their lenticular form and lack of continuity and especially by the fact that they consist of platy crystalline grains and not of particles rounded by wear
mica schist the most common of schists and in fact of all metamorphic rocks is composed of mica and quartz in alternating wavy folia all gradations between it and phyllite may be traced
it is widespread in new england and along the eastern side of the appalachians talc schist consists of quartz and talc a light colored magnesian mineral of greasy feel and so soft that it can be scratched with the thumb nail
hornblende schist resulting in many cases from the foliation of basic igneous rocks is made of folia of hornblende alternating with bands of quartz and feldspar hornblende schist is common over large areas in the lake superior region
may be metamorphosed into schists by crushing and shearing limestones however are metamorphosed by pressure into marble the grains of carbonate of lime recrystallizing freely to interlocking crystals of calcite
these few examples must suffice of the great class of metamorphic rocks as we have seen
but the change is often so complete that no trace of their original structure and mineral composition remains to tell whether the rocks from which they were derived were sedimentary or igneous or to what variety of either of these classes they belonged
in many cases however the early history of a metamorphic rock can be deciphered fossils not wholly obliterated may prove it originally water laid schists may contain rolled out pebbles
showing their derivation from a conglomerate dikes of igneous rocks may be followed into a region where they have been foliated by pressure the most thoroughly metamorphosed rocks may sometimes be traced out into unaltered sedimentary or igneous rocks
or among them may be found patches of little change where their history maybe read metamorphism is most common among rocks of the earlier geological ages and most rare among rocks of recent formation
no doubt it is now in progress where deep buried sediments are invaded by heat either from intrusive igneous masses or from the earth's interior
why do metamorphic rocks appear on the surface to day mineral veins in regions of folded and broken rocks fissures are frequently found to be filled with sheets of crystalline minerals deposited from solution by underground water
a heavy white mineral are abundant in many veins the gold bearing quartz veins of california traverse the metamorphic slates of the sierra nevada mountains
the latter containing threads and grains of native gold
the placer deposits of california and other regions are gold bearing deposits of gravel and sand in river beds the heavy gold is apt to be found mostly near or upon the solid rock
chalcopyrite a mineral softer than pyrite it can easily be scratched with a knife and deeper yellow in color
in our study of underground water we learned that it is everywhere circulating through the permeable rocks of the crust descending to profound depths under the action of gravity and again driven to the surface by hydrostatic pressure
now fissures wherever they occur form the trunk channels of the underground circulation water descends from the surface along these rifts it moves laterally from either side to the fissure plane
just as ground water seeps through the surrounding rocks from every direction to a well and it ascends through these natural water ways as in an artesian well whenever they intersect an aquifer in which water is under hydrostatic pressure
the solvent power of the water is thus greatly increased and it takes up into solution various substances from the igneous and sedimentary rocks which it traverses
for various reasons these substances stances are deposited in the vein as ores and vein stones on rising through the fissure the water cools and loses pressure and its capacity to hold minerals in solution is therefore lessened
besides as different currents meet in the fissure some ascending some descending and some coming in from the sides the chemical reaction of these various weak solutions upon one another and upon the walls of the vein precipitates the minerals of vein stuffs and ores
as an illustration of the method of vein deposits we may cite the case of a wooden box pipe used in the comstock mines nevada to carry the hot water of the mine from one level to another
the steamboat springs nevada furnish examples of mineral veins in process of formation the steaming water rises through fissures in volcanic rocks and is now depositing in the rifts a vein stone of quartz
the minerals of veins are therefore constantly being dissolved along their upper portions and carried down the fissures by ground water to lower levels where they are redeposited
lavas contain minute percentages of various metallic compounds and no doubt this was the case also with the igneous rocks which formed the original earth crust by the erosion of the igneous rocks the metals have been distributed among sedimentary strata
and even the sea has taken into solution an appreciable amount of gold and other metals but in this widely diffused condition they are wholly useless to man the concentration which has made them available is due to the interaction of many agencies
earth movements fracturing deeply the rocks of the crust the intrusion of heated masses the circulation of underground waters have all cooperated in the concentration of the metals of mineral veins
thus in soluble rocks such as limestones joints enlarged by percolating water are sometimes filled with metalliferous deposits as for example the lead and zinc deposits of the upper mississippi valley
off nantucket upon the authors of that commotion lanyard wasted no consideration whatever
let them knock and clamour he had more urgent work in hand and knew too well the penalty were he stupid enough to unbolt to them their bodies would dam the doorway hopelessly insistent hands would hinder him
innumerable importunate enquiries would be dinned at him all immaterial in contrast with this emergency a catechism one would need an hour to satisfy and all attempts would be futile to make them understand that while they plagued him with futile questions
a murderer and spy and thief was making good his escape being afforded ample opportunity to slough all traces of his recent work and resume unchallenged his place among them no if by any freak of good fortune
any exertion of wit or daring that one were to be apprehended it must be within the next few minutes it could only be through immediate pursuit nor did the adventurer waste time debating the better course with him
whose ways of life were ceaselessly beset by instant and mortal perils each with its especial and imperative demand upon his readiness and ingenuity action must ever press so hard upon the heels of thought as to make the two seem one
for that matter the whole transaction had been characterised by almost unbelievable rapidity and that square opening of the window port was hardly vacant when lanyard sprang to his feet the fugitive had barely time to find his own upon the outer deck
before lanyard leaped after him the first thumps upon the panels of his door were still echoing when he thrust head and shoulders out of the port and began to pump the automatic at a shadow fleeing aft upon that narrow breadth of planking between rail and wall then
at the third shot the automatic jammed upon a discharged shell exasperated the adventurer cast the weapon from him shrugged hastily out of his unfastened coat and waistcoat
and clambered through the port dropping to the deck he turned in time to see the fugitive dart round the shoulder of the superstructure as lanyard gained the after rail of the promenade deck a man standing on the boat deck at the head of the companion ladder
greeted him with pistol fire he dodged back untouched and instantaneously devised a stratagem to cope with this untoward development overhead at the side a lifeboat hung on its davits ready for emergency launching
spanned only by a length of line and the darkness in the shadow of the boat was dense an excellent screen climbing upon the rail lanyard grasped the edge of the deck overhead and drew himself up undetected by his quarry
hidden from the bridge by the after deck house standing ready to shoot lanyard should he attempt to renew the pursuit by that approach at the same time karl seemed mysteriously occupied with some object or objects
in whose manipulation he was hampered to a degree by the necessity under which he laboured of holding his pistol ready and dividing his attention a man of good stature broad at the shoulders slender at the hips he poised himself with athletic grace
the lower part of his face masked by what lanyard took to be a dark silk handkerchief lanyard heard him swearing in german then a brisk little spray of sparks jetted from the flint and steel of a patent cigar lighter in the hands of the spy
and as lanyard rose from his knees after ducking beneath the line a stream of fatter sparks spat from the end of a fuse the man leaned over the rail and cast a small black object to which the sputtering fuse was attached
down to the main deck as it struck midway between superstructure and stern it burst into brilliant flame releasing upon the night an electric blue glare that must have been visible from any point within the compass of the horizon
and throughout the brief passage that followed lanyard was conscious that pistols and rifles on the after deck below were making him and his antagonist their targets before the german could face about lanyard moving almost noiselessly in his bare feet
had covered more than half the intervening space in another breath he might have had the fellow at a disadvantage but the distance was too great twice the automatic blazed in his face as he closed in the bullets clearing narrowly
or else he fancied that their deadly cold breath fanned his cheek then the spy's weapon in turn went out of action half blinded lanyard clipped the man round the body and hugged him tight exerting all his skill and strength to effect a throw
that effort failed his onslaught was met with address and ability that all but matched his own the animal he embraced had muscles like tempered springs and the cunning and fury of a wild beast in a trap
for a moment lanyard was able to accomplish no more than to smother resistance in a rib crushing embrace no sooner did he relax it than all attempts to shift his hold were anticipated and met half way
forcing him back upon the defensive yet he was given little chance to prove himself the master the first phase of the struggle was still in contest when the rear door of the smoking room opened and a man stepped out paused
summed up the situation in a glance seized lanyard from behind the adventurer felt his arms grasped by hands whose strength seemed little short of superhuman and wrenched back so violently that his very bones cracked
fairly lifted from his feet he was held as helpless as an infant kicking in the arms of its nurse released the other spy stepped back and swung his left fist viciously to
something in the brain of the adventurer seemed to let go his head dropped weakly to one side the man who had struck him said quietly loose the fool ed
and followed as lanyard reeled away striking him repeatedly for a giddy moment lanyard was darkly conscious as one dreams an evil dream of blows raining mercilessly about his head and body
blows that drove him back athwartships toward a fate dark and terrible a great void of blackness
and was weakened by a sensation of nausea beneath him his knees buckled there fell one final blow ruthless as the wrath of god he was falling backward into nothingness
into an everlasting gulf of night that yawned for him as he shot under the guard rope and into space between the edge of the deck and the keel of the lifeboat the spy rounded smartly on a heel and darted to the smoking room door
his confederate was in the act of stepping across the raised threshold he followed closed the door the first officer charging aft from the bridge rounded the deck house and pulled up with a grunt of surprise to find the deck completely deserted
the shock of icy immersion reanimated lanyard he felt himself plunging headlong down down and down to inky depths unguessable the sheer habit
of an accustomed swimmer alone bade him hold his breath then came a pause he was no more descending for a time of indeterminate duration an age of anguish he seemed to float without motion
suspended in frigid purgatory against his ribs something hammered like a racing engine in his ears sounded a vast roaring the deafening voices of a thousand waterfalls his head felt swollen and enormous
on the point of bursting wide without warning expelled from those depths he shot full half length out of water and fell back into the milky welter of the assyrian's wake
instinctively he kept afloat with feeble strokes the cold was bitter as sharp as the teeth of death but his head was now clear
already the assyrian forging onward unchecked had left him well astern her progress distinctly disclosed by that infernal bluish glare spouting from her after deck she seemed absurdly small
incredulity infected lanyard's mind nothing so tiny so insignificant so make believe as that silhouette of a ship could conceivably be that great liner the assyrian
temporarily a burning pain in his left shoulder drove all other considerations out of mind the salt water was beginning to smart in the raw superficial wound made by that assassin's bullet back there in the stateroom
long ago then the cold began to bite into his marrow and he struggled manfully to swim taking long slow strokes at first comparatively powerful by insensible degrees losing force
just why he took this trouble he did not know for some dim reason it seemed desirable to live as long as possible withal he was aware he could not live
whether careless or utterly ignorant of his fate the assyrian was trudging on and on
lost beyond rescue in that weird bleak waste even were an alarm to be given were she to stop now and put out a boat it would find him if it found him at all too late
the cold was killing he felt very sleepy drowsily he apprehended the beginning of the end his senses growing numb with cold presently must cease to function altogether
then he would forget and nothing would matter any more yet the will to live persisted amazingly had lanyard wished it he could not have ceased to swim at least to keep afloat
vaguely he wondered how people ever managed to commit suicide by drowning it seemed to pass human power to resist that buoyancy which sustained one to let go let one's self go down
impossible to conceive how that was ever done why should he care to go on living no reading that riddle on obscure impulse he gave up swimming turned upon his back
floated face to the sky derelict resigning himself to the cradling arms of the sea
what must be must for all that life clutched at him with jealous hands more than ever sleepy before he slept that last long sleep he must somehow solve this enigma
athwart the drab texture of consciousness wild fancies played like heat lightning in a still midsummer night death's countenance was kind that wide field of stars
drooping low and lifting away with rhythmic motion would sometime dip swiftly down to the very sea itself and swinging back take with it his soul to some remote bourne
past him a huge pale monster swept at furious pace hissing grimly as it passed like some spectral nemesis pursuing the assyrian indifferently he speculated concerning the reality of this phenomenon
the heave of a swell enabled him to glance incuriously after the steamship she seemed smaller less genuine than ever a shadow shape that boasted visibility solely through that unearthly light on her after deck
even that now had waned to a mere glimmer
even as he that had been named michael lanyard was a lost light a tiny flame that guttered toward its swift extinction why live when one might die and dying find endless rest
like a blazing thunderbolt one word rent the slumbrous web of sentience ekstrom galvanised by the flood of hatred unpent by the syllables of that name lanyard began again to swim
flailing the water with frantic arms as if to win somewhither by the very violence of his efforts this the one cogent reason why he must not could not die unjust to require him to give up life
while that one lived unfair it must not be across the sea rolled a dull brutish detonation the swimmer swung high on the bosom of a great swell
saw a vast sheet of fire raving heavenward from the assyrian it vanished instantly when his dazzled vision cleared he could see no more of the ship
he imagined a faint wild rumour of panic voices conjured up scenes of horror indescribable as that great fabric sank almost instantaneously as if some gigantic hand plucked her under what had happened
had the accomplices of the dead baron von harden set off an infernal machine aboard the vessel in the name of reason why
that page torn from the book of doom then why and to what end had they exploded that light bomb on the after deck to make the assyrian a glaring target in the night what else a target for what
of a sudden all rational mental processes were erased from lanyard's consciousness a wave of pure fear flooded him body mind and soul he began to struggle like a maniac
fighting the waters that hindered his flight from some hideous thing that was lifting up from the ocean's ooze to drag him down he heard a voice screaming thinly and knew it was his own
the impossible was happening to him out there alone and helpless on the face of the waters a shape of horror was rising out of the deep to engorge him
he could feel distinctly the slow irresistible heave of its bulk beneath him his feet touched and slipped upon its horrible sleek flanks his most desperate efforts were all unavailing he could not escape
the thing came up too rapidly following that first mad thrill of contact with it underfoot he was lifted swiftly and irresistibly into the air almost instantly he was floundering in knee deep waters that parted
cascading away on either hand then elevated well above the sea he slid and fell prone upon a slimy wet surface his clawing hands clutched something solid and substantial an upright bar of metal
incredulously lanyard pawed the body of the monster beneath him his hands passed over a riveted joint of metal plates looking up
he made out the truncated cone of a conning tower with its antennae like periscope tubes stencilled black upon the soft purple of the star strewn sky slowly the truth came home a submarine had risen beneath him
he lay upon its after deck grasping a stanchion that supported the small raised bridge round the conning tower he sobbed a little in sheer hysteric gratitude that this miracle had been vouchsafed unto him
that he had thus been spared to live on against his hour with ekstrom but when he sought to drag himself up to the bridge he could not he was too weak and faint ceasing to struggle he rested in half stupour panting
with a harsh clang a hatch was thrown back rousing lanyard saw several figures emerge from the conning tower men uncouthly clothed in shapeless shiny leather garments straddled and stretched above him
filling their lungs with the sweet air he tried to call to them but evoked a mere rattle from his throat two came to the edge of the bridge and stood immediately over him fixing binoculars to their eyes their voices quite audible
a pang of despair shot through lanyard when he heard them conferring together in the german tongue death then was but a little delayed thereafter he lay in dumb apathy
save that he shivered and his teeth chattered uncontrollably through the torpor that rested like a black cloud upon his senses he caught broken phrases snatches of sentences sinking fast
struck square amidships broke her back trouble with her boats there goes one over fools jumping overboard like cattle what's that rocket do the swine want us to shell their boats
why not they're asking for it one of the officers lowered his glasses and barked a series of sharp commands the crew on deck leaped to attention one leaned over the conning tower hatch and shouted to his mates below
a hatch forward of the tower opened and a quick firing gun on a disappearing carriage swung smoothly and silently up from its lair
verdammt what's this the first rejoined him impossible impossible or not a man or a cadaver have him up and see by order two of the crew dragged lanyard up to the bridge
supporting him by main strength while the officers examined him at the last gasp but alive one announced
then he must have gone overboard before it struck or was thrown a cry of alarm from the group about the gun awaiting final orders to open fire upon the assyrian's boats interrupted the conference the officers swung away in haste
hell's fury what's that searchlight a yankee destroyer in all probability the one we dodged yesterday afternoon
forward there house that gun and get below quickly during a moment of apparent confusion one of the men sustaining lanyard caught the attention of an officer
leave him here to sink or swim as we go down snapped the officer and be damned to him with a supreme effort the adventurer sank his fingers deep into the arms of the two men wait he gasped faintly in german
on the emperor's service what's that the officer turned back sharply imperial secret service lanyard faltered personal division
twenty seven a brilliant glare settled suddenly upon the deck of the submarine and was welcomed by a panicky gust of oaths one officer had already popped through the conning tower hatch followed by several of the crew
there remained only those supporting lanyard and the second officer take him below the latter ordered he may be telling the truth if not in the distance a gun boomed
a shell shrieked over the submarine and dropped into the sea not a hundred yards to starboard
chapter six kingston instructive remarks on early english history instructive observations on carved oak and life in general sad case of stivvings junior
musings on antiquity i forget that i am steering interesting result hampton court maze harris as a guide it was a glorious morning
late spring or early summer as you care to take it when the dainty sheen of grass and leaf is blushing to a deeper green and the year seems like a fair young maid
trembling with strange wakening pulses on the brink of womanhood the quaint back streets of kingston
looked quite picturesque in the flashing sunlight the glinting river with its drifting barges the wooded towpath the trim kept villas on the other side harris in a red and orange blazer grunting away at the sculls
the distant glimpses of the grey old palace of the tudors all made a sunny picture so bright but calm so full of life and yet so peaceful that early in the day though it was
i felt myself being dreamily lulled off into a musing fit i mused on kingston or kyningestun
great caesar crossed the river there and the roman legions camped upon its sloping uplands caesar like in later years elizabeth seems to have stopped everywhere only he was more respectable than good queen bess
she was nuts on public houses was england's virgin queen there's scarcely a pub of any attractions within ten miles of london
harris had a glass of bitter in this house harris had two of scotch cold here in the summer of eighty eight harris was chucked from here in december eighteen eighty six
only house in south london that harris never had a drink in the people would flock to it to see what could have been the matter with it
hated kyningestun the coronation feast had been too much for him maybe boar's head stuffed with sugar plums did not agree with him it wouldn't with me i know
elgiva perhaps from the casement standing hand in hand they were watching the calm moonlight on the river
floated in broken bursts of faint heard din and tumult then brutal odo and saint dunstan force their rude way into the quiet room and hurl coarse insults at the sweet faced queen
back to the loud clamour of the drunken brawl years later to the crash of battle music saxon kings and saxon revelry were buried side by side
and kingston's greatness passed away for a time to rise once more when hampton court became the palace of the tudors and the stuarts and the royal barges strained at their moorings on the river's bank
and bright cloaked gallants swaggered down the water steps to cry what ferry ho gadzooks gramercy
and nobles and courtiers lived there near their king
with clanking steel and prancing palfreys and rustling silks and velvets and fair faces the large and spacious houses with their oriel latticed windows
breathe of the days of hose and doublet of pearl embroidered stomachers and complicated oaths they were upraised in the days when men knew how to build
the hard red bricks have only grown more firmly set with time and their oak stairs do not creak and grunt
speaking of oak staircases reminds me that there is a magnificent carved oak staircase in one of the houses in kingston it is a shop now in the market place but it was evidently once the mansion of some great personage
went in there to buy a hat one day and in a thoughtless moment put his hand in his pocket and paid for it then and there the shopman he knows my friend was naturally a little staggered at first
but quickly recovering himself and feeling that something ought to be done to encourage this sort of thing asked our hero if he would like to see some fine old carved oak my friend said he would and the shopman thereupon took him through the shop
and up the staircase of the house
and the wall all the way up was oak panelled with carving that would have done credit to a palace from the stairs they went into the drawing room which was a large bright room decorated with a
somewhat startling though cheerful paper of a blue ground there was nothing however remarkable about the apartment and my friend wondered why he had been brought there the proprietor went up to the paper and tapped it it gave forth a wooden sound
oak he explained all carved oak right up to the ceiling just the same as you saw on the staircase but great caesar man expostulated my friend
you don't mean to say you have covered over carved oak with blue wall paper yes was the reply it was expensive work
it was awful gloomy before
which is doubtless a great relief to his mind from his point of view which would be that of the average householder desiring to take life as lightly as possible and not that of the old curiosity shop maniac
there is reason on his side carved oak is very pleasant to look at and to have a little of
for those whose fancy does not lie that way it would be like living in a church no what was sad in his case was that he who didn't care for carved oak
while people who do care for it have to pay enormous prices to get it it seems to be the rule of this world
and other people have what he does want
and young single fellows cry out that they can't get them poor people who can hardly keep themselves have eight hearty children rich old couples with no one to leave their money to die childless
the girls that have lovers never want them
who are plain and elderly and haven't got any lovers they themselves don't want lovers they never mean to marry it does not do to dwell on these things it makes one so sad there was a boy at our school
we used to call him sandford and merton his real name was stivvings
used to get into awful rows for sitting up in bed and reading greek and as for french irregular verbs there was simply no keeping him away from them
unnatural notions about
and had all those sorts of weak minded ideas i never knew such a strange creature yet harmless mind you as the babe unborn well that boy used to get ill about twice a week so that he couldn't go to school
if there was any known disease going within ten miles of him he had it and had it badly he would take bronchitis in the dog days and have hay fever at christmas after a six weeks period of drought
he would be stricken down with rheumatic fever and he would go out in a november fog and come home with a sunstroke they put him under laughing gas one year poor lad
and gave him a false set because he suffered so terribly with toothache and then it turned to neuralgia and ear ache he was never without a cold
and he always had chilblains during the great cholera scare of eighteen seventy one
there was only one reputed case in the whole parish that case was young stivvings he had to stop in bed when he was ill
and took his german grammar away from him and we other boys who would have sacrificed ten terms of our school life for the sake of being ill for a day and had no desire whatever to give our parents
any excuse for being stuck up about us couldn't catch so much as a stiff neck we fooled about in draughts and it did us good and freshened us up and we took things to make us sick and they made us fat and gave us an appetite
nothing we could think of seemed to make us ill until the holidays began then on the breaking up day we caught colds and whooping cough and all kinds of disorders which lasted till the term recommenced when in spite of everything we could manoeuvre to the contrary
to go back to the carved oak question
why all our art treasures of to day are only the dug up commonplaces of three or four hundred years ago
that we prize so now or if it is only the halo of age glowing around them that gives them their charms in our eyes the old blue that we hang about our walls as ornaments
were the common every day household utensils of a few centuries ago and the pink shepherds and the yellow shepherdesses that we hand round now for all our friends to gush over and pretend they understand
were the unvalued mantel ornaments that the mother of the eighteenth century would have given the baby to suck when he cried will it be the same in the future will the prized treasures of to day always be the cheap trifles of the day before
will rows of our willow pattern dinner plates be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the years two thousand and odd
species unknown that our sarah janes now break in sheer light heartedness of spirit be carefully mended and stood upon a bracket
it is a white dog its eyes blue its nose is a delicate red with spots its head is painfully erect its expression is amiability carried to verge of imbecility
i do not admire it myself considered as a work of art i may say it irritates me thoughtless friends jeer at it and even my landlady herself has no admiration for it
and excuses its presence by the circumstance that her aunt gave it to her but in two hundred years time it is more than probable that that dog will be dug up from somewhere or other minus its legs and with its tail broken
and will be sold for old china and put in a glass cabinet
the bit of the tail that is lost no doubt was we in this age
it is like the sunset and the stars we are not awed by their loveliness because they are common to our eyes so it is with that china dog in twenty two eighty eight people will gush over it
our descendants will wonder how we did it and say how clever we were we shall be referred to lovingly as those grand old artists that flourished in the nineteenth century and produced those china dogs the
sampler that the eldest daughter did at school will be spoken of as tapestry of the victorian era and be almost priceless
will be hunted up all cracked and chipped and sold for their weight in gold and rich people will use them for claret cups and travellers from japan will buy up all the
presents from ramsgate and souvenirs of margate that may have escaped destruction and take them back to jedo as ancient english curios at this point
got up and left his seat and sat on his back and stuck his legs in the air
and all the things came out i was somewhat surprised
i said pleasantly enough hulloa what's that for what's that for why no on second thoughts
but nothing excuses violence of language and coarseness of expression especially in a man who has been carefully brought up as i know harris has been i was thinking of other things and forgot as any one might easily understand that i was steering
but we found out after a while and separated ourselves harris however said he had done enough for a bit and proposed that i should take a turn so as we were in i got out and took the tow line and ran the boat on past hampton court
i never pass it without feeling better for the sight of it such a mellow bright sweet old wall what a charming picture it would make
a shy young vine peeping over the top at this spot to see what is going on upon the busy river and the sober old ivy clustering a little farther down there are fifty shades and tints and hues
in every ten yards of that old wall if i could only draw and knew how to paint i could make a lovely sketch of that old wall i'm sure i've often thought i should like to live at hampton court
before many people are about but there i don't suppose i should really care for it when it came to actual practice it would be so ghastly dull and depressing in the evening
when your lamp cast uncanny shadows on the panelled walls and the echo of distant feet rang through the cold stone corridors and now drew nearer and now died away and all was death like silence
save the beating of one's own heart we are creatures of the sun we men and women we love light and life that is why we crowd into the towns and cities and the country grows more and more deserted every year
but in the night when our mother earth has gone to sleep and left us waking oh the world seems so lonesome and we get frightened like children in a silent house
and long for the gas lit streets and the sound of human voices
harris said he thought that map must have been got up as a practical joke because it wasn't a bit like the real thing and only misleading it was a country cousin that harris took in he said we'll just go in here
so that you can say you've been but it's very simple it's absurd to call it a maze you keep on taking the first turning to the right
they met some people soon after they had got inside
they picked up various other people who wanted to get it over as they went along until they had absorbed all the persons in the maze
or of ever seeing their home and friends again plucked up courage at the sight of harris and his party and joined the procession blessing him harris said he should judge there must have been twenty people following him in all
harris kept on turning to the right but it seemed a long way and his cousin said he supposed it was a very big maze oh one of the largest in europe said harris yes it must be replied the cousin
because we've walked a good two miles already harris began to think it rather strange himself but he held on until at last they passed the half of a penny bun on the ground that harris's cousin swore
he had noticed there seven minutes ago harris said oh impossible but the woman with the baby said not at all as she herself had taken it from the child and thrown it down there just before she met harris
and expressed an opinion that he was an impostor that made harris mad
the map may be all right enough said one of the party if you know whereabouts in it we are now harris didn't know
and so they turned and trailed after harris again in the opposite direction about ten minutes more passed and then they found themselves in the centre harris thought at first of pretending that that was what he had been aiming at
anyhow they had got something to start from then they did know where they were and the map was once more consulted and the thing seemed simpler than ever and off they started for the third time
whatever way they turned brought them back to the middle it became so regular at length
harris drew out his map again after a while but the sight of it only infuriated the mob and they told him to go and curl his hair with it harris said that he couldn't help feeling that to a certain extent
he had become unpopular they all got crazy at last and sang out for the keeper and the man came and climbed up the ladder outside and shouted out directions to them but all their heads were by this time in such a confused whirl
that they were incapable of grasping anything and so the man told them to stop where they were and he would come to them they huddled together and waited and he climbed down and came in he was a young keeper as luck would have it and new to the business
and when he got in he couldn't find them and he wandered about trying to get to them and then he got lost they caught sight of him every now and then rushing about the other side of the hedge and he would see them and rush to get to them
and they would wait there for about five minutes and then he would reappear again in exactly the same spot and ask them where they had been they had to wait till one of the old keepers came back from his dinner before they got out
when the baker after summing up what was due to him said i still owe thee two days bread replied good and went on to the butcher to whom he gave a gold piece and took meat saying
keep the rest of the dinar on account then he bought vegetables and going home found his brothers importuning their mother for victual whilst she cried have patience till your brother come home for i have naught
so he went in to them and said
and they fell on the food like cannibals then he gave his mother the rest of his gold saying if my brothers come to thee give them wherewithal to buy food and eat in my absence he slept well that night
and next morning he took his net and going down to lake karun stood there and was about to cast his net when behold there came up to him a second maghribi riding on a she mule more handsomely accoutred
than he of the day before and having with him a pair of saddle bags of which each pocket contained a casket
did there come to thee yesterday
and did he not say to thee if my hands appear above the water first cast thy net over me and drag me out in haste but if my feet show first know that i am dead and carry the mule to the jew shamayah
who shall give thee an hundred dinars quoth judar since thou knowest all this why and wherefore dost thou question me
i would have thee do with me as thou didst with my brother then he gave him a silken cord saying bind my hands behind me and throw me in and if i fare as did my brother
and i will content me with an hundred dinars for each dead man then he took the mule to the jew who seeing him asked the other is dead
may thy head live and the jew said this is the reward of the covetous then he took the mule and gave judar an hundred dinars with which he returned to his mother o my son
o son of omar and the fisherman saying in himself how comes it that they all know me returned his salute asked the maghribi have any moors passed by here two
and judar replied i pinioned their hands behind them and cast them into the lake where they were drowned and the same fate is in store for thee the moor laughed and rejoined saying o unhappy
every life hath its term appointed then he alighted and gave the fisherman the silken cord saying
presently the moor thrust both hands forth of the water and called out to him saying ho good fellow cast out thy net so judar threw the net over him and drew him ashore
and lo in each hand he held a fish as red as coral
bring me the two caskets that are in the saddle bags so judar brought them and opened them to him and he laid in each casket a fish and shut them up then he pressed judar to his bosom and kissed him on the right cheek and the left
by the almighty hadst thou not cast the net over me and pulled me out i should have kept hold of these two fishes till i sank and was drowned for i could not get ashore of myself quoth judar
o my lord the pilgrim allah upon thee tell me the true history of the two drowned men and the truth anent these two fishes and the jew
and ceased to say her permitted say when it was the six hundred and tenth night
and we divided amongst us his treasures and talismans till we came to the books when we fell out over a volume called the fables of the ancients whose like is not in the world
our father was wont to make use of this book of which we had some small matter by heart and each of us desired to possess it
he may therewith make himself master of the earth in all the length and breadth thereof as for the brand if its bearer draw it and brandish it against an army
as for the planisphere its possessor hath only to turn its face toward any country east or west with whose sight he hath a mind to solace himself
and therein he will see that country and its people as they were between his hands and he sitting in his place and if he be wroth with a city and have a mind to burn it
he hath but to face the planisphere towards the sun's disc saying let such a city be burnt and that city will be consumed with fire
whoso pencilleth his eyes therefrom
shall have any claim to take this book so we all agreed to this condition and he continued o my sons
whither he pursued them but could not prevail over them by reason of their stealing into that lake which was guarded by a spell
and ceased saying her permitted say when it was the six hundred and eleventh night she said it hath reached me o auspicious king that when the cohen al abtan had told the youths this much
he continued his tale as follows so your father returned empty handed
and after failing he complained to me of his ill success whereupon i drew him an astrological figure and found that the treasure could be achieved only by means of a young fisherman of cairo
we will wend and make trial although we perish and quoth i and i also will go but my brother abd al rahim he whom thou sawest in the habit of a jew said
and give the bearer an hundred dinars the first that came to thee the sons of the red king slew and so did they with my second brother but against me they could not prevail and i laid hands on them
didst thou not see me shut them in the caskets those were fishes
nay answered the maghribi
when it was the six hundred and seventeenth night she said it hath reached me o auspicious king
at once packed him off to suez
and she answered with the guests they rejoined haply he went away with them whilst we slept o mother it would seem that he had tasted of strangerhood and yearned to get at hidden hoards
and they said to him we will take thee with us and open the treasure to thee she enquired hath he then been in company with moors and they replied saying were they not our guests yester night and she
most like he hath gone with them but allah will direct him on the right way for there is a blessing upon him and he will surely come back with great good but she wept for it was grievous to her to be parted from her son
for since your father's death i have never seen any good in you
i have had abundant good of him and he hath heartened my heart and entreated me with honour wherefore it behoveth me to weep for him
and jewels from the other of the unenchanted saying this was our father's good said their mother not so by allah it belongeth to your brother judar
then they divided the gold and jewels between them but a brabble arose between them concerning the enchanted saddle bags
i will take them and they came to high words
ye have divided the gold and the jewels but this may not be divided nor can its value be made up in money and if it be cut in twain its spell will be voided so leave it with me and i will give you to eat from it at all times
and be content to take a morsel with you if ye allow me aught to clothe me
so he looked out and listening heard all the angry words that passed between them
also circumambulating and when the maghribi caught sight of him he saluted him and asked him of his state whereupon judar wept
so the moor carried him to his lodging and entreated him with honour clothing him in a dress of which the like was not and saying to him
then he drew out for him a geomantic figure
o my lord let me go and take leave of the merchant with whom i am and after i will come back to thee dost thou owe money asked the moor and he answered no said abd al samad
go thou and take leave of him and come back forth right
so he gave him the twenty ducats
with whom he abode till they had accomplished the pilgrimage rites
that he had taken from the treasure of al shamardal
said abd al samad this is become thy lord do thou serve him faithfully then he dismissed him and said to judar rub the ring and the servant will appear
and do thou command him to do whatever thou desirest for he will not gainsay thee now go to thine own country and take care of the ring for by means of it thou wilt baffle thine enemies
and be not ignorant of its puissance o my lord quoth judar with thy leave i will set out homewards quoth the maghribi summon the jinni and mount upon his back
saying adsum ask and it shall be given to thee
carry me to cairo this day and he replied thy will be done and taking him on his back flew with him from noon till midnight when he set him down in the courtyard of his mother's house and disappeared
judar went in to his mother who rose weeping and greeted him fondly and told him how the king had beaten his brothers
and taken the two pairs of saddle bags which when he heard it was no light matter to him and he said to her grieve not for the past i will show thee what i can do and bring my brothers hither forth right
so he rubbed the ring
how long shall we abide in this prison death would be relief as he spoke behold the earth clove in sunder
who took both up and plunged with them into the earth they swooned away for excess of fear and when they recovered they found themselves in their mother's house
how could you sell me but i comfort myself with the thought of joseph whose brothers did with him even more than ye did with me because they cast him into the pit
and ceased saying her permitted say when it was the six hundred and nineteenth night she continued it hath reached me o auspicious king
forgive us this time and if we return to our old ways do with us as thou wilt quoth he no harm shall befall you
fear nothing then said judar to the servant i command thee to bring me all that is in the king's treasury of goods and such let nothing remain and fetch the two pairs of saddle bags he took from my brothers i hear and i obey
gathered together all he found in the treasury and returned with the two pairs of saddle bags and the deposits therein
o my lord i have left nothing in the treasury judar gave the treasure to his mother bidding her keep it and laying the enchanted saddle bags before him said to the jinni i command thee to build me this night a lofty palace
and overlay it with liquid gold and furnish it with magnificent furniture and let not the day dawn ere thou be quit of the whole work replied he thy bidding shall be obeyed and sank into the earth
and they ate and took their ease and lay down to sleep
so some of them fell to hewing stones and some to building whilst others plastered and painted and furnished nor did the day dawn ere the ordinance of the palace was complete
and it confounded all minds with the goodliness of its ordinance judar was delighted with it while he was passing along the highway and withal it had cost him nothing then he asked his mother
say me wilt thou take up thine abode in this palace and she answered i will o my son and called down blessings upon him then he rubbed the ring and bade the jinni fetch him forty handsome white hand maids
to hind and sind and persia snatched up every beautiful girl and boy they saw till they had made up the required number moreover he sent other four score who fetched comely black girls
and forty others brought male chattels and carried them all to judar's house which they filled
so the jinni fetched all that was needed and clad the female slaves saying to them this is your mistress kiss her hands and cross her not
the mamelukes also dressed them selves and kissed judar's hands and he and his brothers arrayed themselves in the robes the jinni had brought them
and his brothers as wazirs now his house was spacious
he went in and found it altogether empty even as saith the poet twas as a hive of bees that greatly thrived but when the bee swarm fled
when he came to himself he left the door open
she had embarked on a social adventure of no little magnitude as compared with the accustomed seclusion and stagnation of her past life at the age of twenty eight
their neighbours had been elderly and few not much given to social intercourse but helpful or politely sympathetic in times of illness newspapers of the ordinary kind were a rarity
were devoted exclusively either to religion or to poultry and the world of politics was to her an unheeded unexplored region her ideas on life in general had been acquired through the medium of popular respectable novel writers
and modified or emphasised by such knowledge as her aunt the vicar and her aunt's housekeeper had put at her disposal and now in her twenty ninth year her aunt's death had left her well provided for as regards income
but somewhat isolated in the matter of kith and kin and human companionship she had some cousins who were on terms of friendly though infrequent correspondence with her but as they lived permanently in ceylon
a locality about which she knew little beyond the assurance contained in the missionary hymn that the human element there was vile they were not of much immediate use to her other cousins she also possessed
more distant as regards relationship but not quite so geographically remote seeing that they lived somewhere in the midlands she could hardly remember ever having met them but once or twice in the course of the last three or four years
they had expressed a polite wish that she should pay them a visit they had probably not been unduly depressed by the fact that her aunt's failing health had prevented her from accepting their invitation the note of condolence
she had written to propose herself as a guest for a definite date some week ahead the family she reflected with relief was not a large one the two daughters were married and away
and her son robert at home missus bludward was something of an invalid and robert was a young man who had been at oxford and was going into parliament further than that alethia's information did not go
her imagination founded on her extensive knowledge of the people one met in novels had to supply the gaps the mother was not difficult to place she would either be an ultra amiable old lady
bearing her feeble health with uncomplaining fortitude and having a kind word for the gardener's boy and a sunny smile for the chance visitor or else she would be cold and peevish with eyes that pierced you like a gimlet
there was sir jasper who was utterly vile and absolutely unscrupulous and there was nevil who was not really bad at heart but had a weak mouth and usually required the life work of two good women
to keep him from ultimate disaster it was probable alethia considered that robert came into the last category in which case she was certain to enjoy the companionship of one or two excellent women and might possibly catch glimpses
in the novel she had just been reading so she recognised that such a proceeding was out of the question the train which carried alethia towards her destination was a local one with the wayside station habit strongly developed
at most of the stations no one seemed to want to get into the train or to leave it but at one there were several market folk on the platform and two men of the farmer or small cattle dealer class entered alethia's carriage
apparently they had just foregathered after a day's business and their conversation consisted of a rapid exchange of short friendly inquiries as to health family stock and so forth and some grumbling remarks on the weather
suddenly however their talk took a dramatically interesting turn and alethia listened with wide eyed attention
did you see the way the argus showed him up this week properly exposed him hip and thigh i tell you and so on they ran in their withering indictment there could be no doubt that it was alethia's cousin and prospective host
to whom they were referring the allusion to a parliamentary candidature settled that what could robert bludward have done what manner of man could he be that people should speak of him with such obvious reprobation
he was hissed down at shoalford yesterday said one of the speakers
now alethia came to think of it in the eighth chapter of matterby towers while in the act of opening a wesleyan bazaar because he was suspected unjustly as it turned out afterwards of having beaten the german governess to death
what manner of evildoer was robert bludward the train stopped at another small station and the two men got out one of them left behind him a copy of the argus the local paper to which he had made reference
and this monster was going to meet her at derrelton station in a few short minutes she would know him at once he would have the dark beetling brows the quick furtive glance
the sneering unsavoury smile that always characterised the sir jaspers of this world it was too late to escape she must force herself to meet him with outward calm
it was a considerable shock to her to find that robert was fair with a snub nose merry eye and rather a schoolboy manner a serpent in duckling's plumage was her private comment
as they drove away from the station a dissipated looking man of the labouring class waved his hat in friendly salute good luck to you mister bludward he shouted you'll come out on top
so these were the sort of associates that robert bludward consorted with thought alethia who is the person he referred to as old chobham she asked sir john chobham the man who is opposing me
answered robert that is his house away there among the trees on the right so there was an upright man possibly a very hugo in character who was thwarting and defying the evildoer in his nefarious career
gave them no very friendly looks and alethia thought she heard a furtive hiss a moment later they came upon an errand boy riding a bicycle he had the frank open countenance neatly brushed hair and tidy clothes
that betoken a clear conscience and a good mother he stared straight at the occupants of the car and after he had passed them sang in his clear boyish voice
robert merely laughed that was how he took the scorn and condemnation of his fellow men he had goaded them to desperation with his shameless depravity till they spoke openly of putting him to a violent death
and he laughed missus bludward proved to be of the type that alethia had suspected thin lipped cold eyed and obviously devoted to her worthless son
from her no help was to be expected alethia locked her door that night and placed such ramparts of furniture against it that the maid had great difficulty in breaking in with the early tea in the morning
after breakfast alethia on the pretext of going to look at an outlying rose garden slipped away to the village through which they had passed on the previous evening she remembered
a graphic twelve days old a yet older copy of punch and one or two local papers lay upon the central table the other tables were stacked for the most part with chess and draughts boards and wooden boxes of chessmen and dominoes
listlessly she picked up one of the papers the sentinel and glanced at its contents suddenly she started and began to read with breathless attention a prominently printed article headed a little limelight on sir john chobham
a look of frightened despair crept into her eyes never in any novel that she had read had a defenceless young woman been confronted with a situation like this sir john the hugo of her imagination was
if anything rather more depraved and despicable than robert bludward he was mean evasive callously indifferent to his country's interests a cheat
hence no doubt the rivalry and enmity between these otherwise kindred souls one was seeking to have his enemy done to death the other was apparently trying to stir up his supporters to an act of lynch law
all this in order that there might be an unopposed election that one or other of the candidates might go into parliament with honeyed eloquence on his lips
were men really so vile i must go back to webblehinton at once alethia informed her astonished hostess at lunch time i have had a telegram a friend is very seriously ill and i have been sent for
it was dreadful to have to concoct lies but it would be more dreadful to have to spend another night under that roof alethia reads novels now with even greater appreciation than before she has been herself
in the world outside webblehinton the world where the great dramas of sin and villainy are played unceasingly
but what might have happened if she had gone unsuspectingly to visit sir john chobham and warn him of his danger
were my father mother my brother and two sisters and my uncle and aunt both unmarried in addition there was the district school master
eccentric with slight control over her violent temper which sometimes made her religious profession doubtful she was equally ready to exhort in school house prayer meetings and dance in a washington ball room
while her father was a member of congress she early embraced the doctrine of the second advent and felt it her duty to proclaim the lord's speedy coming with this message she crossed the atlantic
and asia she lived some time with lady hester stanhope a woman as fantastic and mentally strained as herself on the slope of mt lebanon
and of his sojourn in the french villages my uncle was ready with his record of hunting and fishing and it must be confessed with stories which he at least half believed
of witchcraft and apparitions my mother who was born in the indian haunted region of somersworth new hampshire between dover and portsmouth
and the narrow escape of her ancestors she described strange people who lived on the piscataqua and cocheco among whom was bantam the sorcerer i have in my possession the wizard's
who like michael scott had learned the art of glammorie in padua beyond the sea and who is famous in the annals of massachusetts where he was at one time a resident
as the first man who dared petition the general court for liberty of conscience the full title of the book is three books of occult philosophy by henry cornelius agrippa
knight doctor of both laws counsellor to caesar's sacred majesty and judge of the prerogative court as the spirits of darkness be stronger in the dark
so also this our fire of wood doth the same
occult philosophy
arrives the snow and
seems nowhere to alight the whited air hides hills and woods
slow tracing down the thickening sky
a portent seeming less than threat it sank from sight before it set a chill no coat however stout of homespun stuff could quite shut out
a hard dull bitterness of cold that checked mid vein the circling race of life blood in the sharpened face
the coming of the snow storm told the wind blew east we heard the roar of ocean on his wintry shore and felt the strong pulse throbbing there
beat with low rhythm our inland air meanwhile we did our nightly chores brought in the wood from out of doors
unwarmed by any sunset light the gray day darkened into night a night made hoary with the swarm and whirl dance of the blinding storm
as zigzag wavering to and fro crossed and recrossed the winged snow and ere the early bedtime came the white drift piled the window frame
the morning broke without a sun in tiny spherule traced with lines of nature's geometric signs in starry flake and pellicle all day the hoary
the blue walls of the firmament no cloud above no earth below a universe of sky and snow the old familiar sights of ours
took marvellous shapes strange domes and towers rose up where sty or corn crib stood or garden wall or belt of wood a smooth white
mound the brush pile showed a fenceless drift what once was road the bridle post an old man sat with loose flung coat and high cocked hat
a prompt decisive man no breath our father wasted boys a path well pleased for when did farmer boy
and to our own his name we gave with many a wish the luck were ours to test his lamp's supernal powers we reached the barn with merry din and roused the prisoned brutes within
and hooked and mild reproach of hunger looked the horned patriarch of the sheep like egypt's amun roused from sleep shook his sage head with gesture mute and emphasized
with stamp of foot all day the gusty north wind bore the loosening drift its breath before low circling round its southern zone
the sun through dazzling snow mist shone no church bell lent its christian tone to the savage air no social smoke curled over woods of snow hung oak
a solitude made more intense by dreary voiced elements the shrieking of the mindless wind the moaning tree boughs swaying blind and on the glass
and thought outside we minded that the sharpest ear the buried brooklet could not hear the music of whose liquid lip had been to us companionship and
in our lonely life had grown to have an almost human tone as night drew on and from the crest of wooded knolls that ridged the west
the sun a snow blown traveller sank from sight beneath the smothering bank we piled with care our nightly stack of wood against the chimney back
the oaken log green huge and thick and on its top the stout back stick the knotty forestick laid apart and filled between with curious art
the ragged brush then hovering near we watched the first red blaze appear heard the sharp crackle caught the gleam on whitewashed wall and sagging beam
until the old rude furnished room burst flower like into rosy bloom while radiant with a mimic flame
outside the sparkling drift became and through the bare boughed lilac tree our own warm hearth seemed blazing free the crane and pendent trammels showed
or the sombre green of hemlocks turned to pitchy black against the whiteness at their back for such a world and such a night most fitting that unwarming light
which only seemed where'er it fell to make the coldness visible shut in from all the world without we sat the clean winged hearth about
content to let the north wind roar in baffled rage at pane and door while the red logs before us beat the frost line back
with tropic heat and ever when a louder blast shook beam and rafter as it passed the merrier up its roaring draught
a couchant tiger's seemed to fall and for the winter fireside meet between the andirons straddling feet the mug of cider simmered slow
the apples sputtered in a row and close at hand the basket stood with nuts from brown october's wood what matter
how the night behaved what matter how the north wind raved blow high blow low
with hair as gray as was my sire's that winter day how strange it seems with so much gone of life and love to still live on ah brother
only i and thou are left of all that circle now the dear home faces whereupon that fitful firelight paled and shone henceforward
we tread the paths their feet have worn we sit beneath their orchard trees we hear like them the hum of bees and rustle of the bladed corn
no sign is made no step is on the conscious floor yet love will dream and faith will trust since he who knows our need is just
lays his dead away nor looks to see the breaking day across the mournful marbles play who hath not learned in hours of faith the truth to flesh and sense unknown
as if a far blown trumpet stirred the languorous sin sick air i heard does not the voice of reason cry claim the first right which nature gave
in trapper's hut and indian camp
hemlock trees again for him the moonlight shone on norman cap and bodiced zone again he heard the violin play which led the village dance away
and mingled in its merry whirl the grandam and the laughing girl or nearer home our steps he led
where salisbury's level marshes spread mile wide as flies the laden bee where merry mowers hale and strong swept scythe on scythe their swaths along
on the sand beach made dipped by the hungry steaming hot with spoons of clam shell from the pot we heard the tales of witchcraft old and dream and sign and marvel told
recalling in her fitting phrase so rich and picturesque and free the common unrhymed poetry of simple life and country ways
at the gray wizard's conjuring book the fame whereof went far and wide through all the simple country side we heard the hawks at twilight play
the loon's weird laughter far away we fished her little trout brook
what sunny hillsides autumn brown she climbed to shake the ripe nuts down saw where in sheltered cove and bay the ducks black squadron anchored lay
and heard the wild geese calling loud beneath the gray november cloud then haply with a look more grave and soberer tone
some tale she gave from painful sewell's ancient tome beloved in every quaker home
or chalkley's journal old and quaint gentlest of skippers rare sea saint who when the dreary calms prevailed and water butt and bread cask failed
under breath of casting lots for life or death offered if heaven withheld supplies to be himself the sacrifice then suddenly
as if to save the good man from his living grave a ripple on the water grew a school of porpoise flashed in view take eat he said and be content
these fishes in my stead are sent by him who gave the tangled ram to spare the child of abraham our uncle
innocent of books was rich in lore of fields and brooks the ancient teachers never dumb of nature's unhoused lyceum in moons and tides
to all the woodcraft mysteries himself to nature's heart so near that all her voices in his ear of beast or bird had meanings clear
whose girdle was the parish bounds whereof his fondly partial pride the common features magnified as surrey hills to mountains grew in white of selborne's loving view
the mink went fishing down the river brink in fields with bean or clover gay the woodchuck like a hermit gray peered from the doorway of his cell
next the dear aunt whose smile of cheer and voice in dreams i see and hear the sweetest woman ever fate perverse denied a household mate
whose presence seemed the sweet income and womanly atmosphere of home called up her girlhood memories the huskings and the apple bees
the sleigh rides and the summer sails weaving through all the poor details and homespun warp of circumstance a golden woof thread of romance
for well she kept her genial mood and simple faith of maidenhood before her still a cloud land lay the mirage loomed across her way
the morning dew that dries so soon with others glistened at her noon through years of toil and soil and care
from glossy tress to thin gray hair all unprofaned she held apart the virgin fancies of the heart be shame to him of woman born
our elder sister plied her evening task the stand beside a full rich nature free to trust truthful and almost sternly just
impulsive earnest prompt to act and make her generous thought a fact keeping with many a light disguise the secret of self sacrifice
and let her heart against the household bosom lean upon the motley braided mat our youngest and our dearest sat lifting her large sweet asking eyes
now bathed in the unfading green and holy peace of paradise oh looking from some heavenly hill or from the shade of saintly palms
for months upon her grave has lain and now when summer south winds blow and brier and harebell bloom again i tread the pleasant paths we trod
all the hills stretch green to june's unclouded sky but still i wait with ear and eye for something gone which should be nigh a loss in all familiar things
in flower that blooms and bird that sings and yet dear heart remembering thee am i not richer than of old
safe in thy immortality what change can reach the wealth i hold what chance can mar the pearl and gold thy love hath left in trust with me
and while in life's late afternoon where cool and long the shadows grow i walk to meet the night that soon
i cannot feel that thou art far since near at need the angels are and when the sunset gates unbar shall i not see thee waiting stand and
white against the evening star the welcome of thy beckoning hand brisk wielder of the birch and rule
held at the fire his favored place its warm glow lit a laughing face fresh hued and fair where scarce appeared the uncertain prophecy of beard
he teased the mitten blinded cat played cross pins on my uncle's hat sang songs and told us what befalls in classic dartmouth's college halls
born the wild northern hills among from whence his yeoman father wrung by patient toil subsistence scant not competence and yet not want
he early gained the power to pay his cheerful self reliant way could doff at ease his scholar's gown to peddle wares from town to town or
through the long vacation's reach
where all the droll experience found at stranger hearths in boarding round the moonlit skater's keen delight the sleigh drive through the frosty night the rustic party
with its rough accompaniment of blind man's buff and whirling plate and forfeits paid his winter task a pastime made happy the snow locked homes
wherein he tuned his merry violin or played the athlete in the barn or held the good dame's winding yarn or mirth provoking versions told of classic legends
and dread olympus at his will became a huckleberry hill
but at his desk he had the look and air of one who wisely schemed and hostage from the future took in trained thought and lore of book large brained
clear eyed of such as he shall freedom's young apostles be who following in war's bloody trail shall every lingering wrong assail
all chains from limb and spirit strike uplift the black and white alike scatter before their swift advance the darkness and the ignorance the pride
the lust the squalid sloth which nurtured treason's monstrous growth made murder pastime and the hell of prison torture possible the cruel lie of caste refute
old forms remould and substitute for slavery's lash the freeman's will for blind routine wise handed skill a school house plant on every hill
in peace a common flag salute and side by side in labor's free and unresentful rivalry harvest the fields wherein they fought
another guest that winter night flashed back from lustrous eyes the light unmarked by time and yet not young
our homeliness of words and ways a certain pard like treacherous grace swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash lent the white teeth
their dazzling flash and under low brows black with night rayed out at times a dangerous light the sharp heat lightnings of her face
in soul and sense she blended in a like degree
revealing with each freak or feint the temper of petruchio's kate the raptures of siena's saint her tapering hand and rounded wrist had facile power
to form a fist the warm dark languish of her eyes was never safe from wrath's surprise brows saintly calm and lips devout
knew every change of scowl and pout and the sweet voice had notes more high and shrill for social battle cry since then
through smyrna's plague hushed thoroughfares up sea set malta's rocky stairs gray olive slopes of hills that hem thy tombs and shrines jerusalem
four whether the image of god is in every man five whether the image of god is in man by comparison with the essence or with all the divine persons or with one of them
six whether the image of god is in man as to his mind only seven whether the image of god is in man's power or in his habits and acts eight whether the image of god is in man by comparison with every object
nine of the difference between image and likeness first article
whether the image of god is in man objection one it would seem that the image of god is not in man for it is written
to whom have you likened god or what image will you make for him
further to be the image of god is the property of the first begotten of whom the apostle says
but there is no species common to both god and man nor can there be a comparison of equality between god and man therefore there can be no image of god in man on the contrary it is written
let us make man to our own image and likeness
where an image exists there forthwith is likeness but where there is likeness there is not necessarily an image hence it is clear that likeness is essential to an image and that an image adds something to likeness
namely that it is copied from something else for an image is so called because it is produced as an imitation of something else wherefore for instance an egg however much like and equal to another egg
is not called an image of the other egg because it is not copied from it but equality does not belong to the essence of an image
where there is an image there is not necessarily equality as we see in a person's image reflected in a glass yet this is of the essence of a perfect image
for in a perfect image nothing is wanting that is to be found in that of which it is a copy now it is manifest that in man there is some likeness to god copied from god as from an exemplar yet this likeness is not one of equality
for such an exemplar infinitely excels its copy therefore there is in man a likeness to god not indeed a perfect likeness but imperfect
and scripture implies the same when it says that man was made to god's likeness for the preposition to signifies a certain approach as of something at a distance
the prophet speaks of bodily images made by man therefore he says pointedly what image will you make for him but god made a spiritual image to himself in man
the first born of creatures is the perfect image of god reflecting perfectly that of which he is the image and so he is said to be the image and never to the image
but man is said to be both image by reason of the likeness and to the image by reason of the imperfect likeness and since the perfect likeness to god cannot be except in an identical nature
the image of god exists in his first born son as the image of the king is in his son who is of the same nature as himself whereas it exists in man as in an alien nature as the image of the king is in a silver coin
as unity means absence of division a species is said to be the same as far as it is one now a thing is said to be one not only numerically specifically or generically but also according to a certain analogy or proportion
in this sense a creature is one with god or like to him but when hilary says of a thing which adequately represents another this is to be understood of a perfect image second article
whether the image of god is to be found in irrational creatures objection one it would seem that the image of god is to be found in irrational creatures for dionysius says
but god is the cause not only of rational but also of irrational creatures therefore the image of god is to be found in irrational creatures
further the more distinct a likeness is the nearer it approaches to the nature of an image
further the more perfect anything is in goodness the more it is like god but the whole universe is more perfect in goodness than man for though each individual thing is good all things together are called very good
therefore the whole universe is to the image of god and not only man
further boethius
says of god holding the world in his mind and forming it into his image therefore the whole world is to the image of god and not only the rational creature on the contrary augustine says
man's excellence consists in the fact that god made him to his own image by giving him an intellectual soul which raises him above the beasts of the field therefore things without intellect are not made to god's image
i answer that not every likeness not even what is copied from something else is sufficient to make an image for if the likeness be only generic or existing by virtue of some common accident
thus the image of the king exists in his son or at least in some specific accident and chiefly in the shape thus we speak of a man's image in copper
whence hilary says pointedly that an image is of the same species now it is manifest that specific likeness follows the ultimate difference but some things are like to god first and most commonly because they exist
secondly because they live and thirdly because they know or understand and these last as augustine says
approach so near to god in likeness that among all creatures nothing comes nearer to him it is clear therefore that intellectual creatures alone properly speaking are made to god's image
so dionysius says that effects are contingent images of their causes that is as much as they happen contingit to be so but not absolutely
dionysius compares the solar ray to divine goodness as regards its causality not as regards its natural dignity which is involved in the idea of an image
the universe is more perfect in goodness than the intellectual creature as regards extension and diffusion but intensively and collectively the likeness to the divine goodness is found rather in the intellectual creature
which has a capacity for the highest good or else we may say that a part is not rightly divided against the whole but only against another part wherefore when we say that the intellectual nature alone is to the image of god
we do not mean that the universe in any part is not to god's image but that the other parts are excluded
boethius here uses the word image to express the likeness which the product of an art bears to the artistic species in the mind of the artist thus every creature is an image of the exemplar type thereof in the divine mind
whether the angels are more to the image of god than man is objection one
further according to augustine
therefore the angels are not more to the image of god than man
i answer that we may speak of god's image in two ways first we may consider in it that in which the image chiefly consists that is the intellectual nature
and also in the fact that the whole human soul is in the whole body and again in every part as god is in regard to the whole world in these and the like things the image of god is more perfect in man than it is in the angels
but these do not of themselves belong to the nature of the divine image in man unless we presuppose the first likeness which is in the intellectual nature otherwise even brute animals would be to god's image
as fire is said to be specifically the most subtle of bodies while nevertheless one kind of fire is more subtle than another so we say that nothing is more like to god than the human soul in its generic and intellectual nature
because as augustine had said previously things which have knowledge are so near to him in likeness that of all creatures none are nearer wherefore this does not mean that the angels are not more to god's image
when we say that substance does not admit of more or less we do not mean that one species of substance is not more perfect than another but that one and the same individual does not participate in its specific nature at one time more than at another
further likeness belongs to the nature of the image as above explained
but by sin man becomes unlike god therefore he loses the image of god on the contrary it is written
surely man passeth as an image i answer that since man is said to be the image of god by reason of his intellectual nature
he is the most perfectly like god according to that in which he can best imitate god in his intellectual nature now the intellectual nature imitates god chiefly in this that god understands and loves himself
wherefore we see that the image of god is in man in three ways first inasmuch as man possesses a natural aptitude for understanding and loving god
and this aptitude consists in the very nature of the mind which is common to all men secondly inasmuch as man actually and habitually knows and loves god though imperfectly
the gloss distinguishes a threefold image of creation of re creation and of likeness the first is found in all men the second only in the just
the image of god in its principal signification namely the intellectual nature is found both in man and in woman hence after the words to the image of god he created him it is added male and female he created them
lest it should be thought that both sexes were united in one individual but in a secondary sense the image of god is found in man and not in woman for man is the beginning and end of woman
these reasons refer to the image consisting in the conformity of grace and glory fifth article
whether the image of god is in man according to the trinity of persons objection one it would seem that the image of god does not exist in man as to the trinity of persons for augustine says
and one is the image to which man was made and hilary
therefore the image of god in man is of the divine essence and not of the trinity of persons
further it is said de
therefore the image of god in man regards not the trinity of persons but the unity of the essence
further an image leads to the knowledge of that of which it is the image therefore if there is in man the image of god as to the trinity of persons since man can know himself by his natural reason
it follows that by his natural knowledge man could know the trinity of the divine persons which is untrue as was shown above question thirty two
further the name of image is not applicable to any of the three persons but only to the son for augustine says
the plurality of the divine persons is proved from the fact that man is said to have been made to the image of god i answer that as we have seen question forty
and therefore to be to the image of god by imitation of the divine nature does not exclude being to the same image by the representation of the divine persons but rather one follows from the other
we must therefore say that in man there exists the image of god both as regards the divine nature and as regards the trinity of persons for also in god himself there is one nature in three persons
thus it is clear how to solve the first two objections
there is a great difference between the trinity within ourselves and the divine trinity therefore as he there says we see rather than believe the trinity which is in ourselves whereas we believe rather than see that god is trinity
some have said that in man there is an image of the son only augustine rejects this opinion
first because as the son is like to the father by a likeness of essence it would follow of necessity if man were made in likeness to the son that he is made to the likeness of the father secondly
because if man were made only to the image of the son the father would not have said let us make man to our own image and likeness but to thy image when therefore it is written he made him to the image of god
the sense is not that the father made man to the image of the son only who is god as some explained it but that the divine trinity made man to its image that is of the whole trinity
when it is said that god made man to his image this can be understood in two ways first so that this preposition to points to the term of the making and then the sense is
let us make man in such a way that our image may be in him secondly this preposition to may point to the exemplar cause as when we say this book is made like to that one
three whether of man's rib four whether the woman was made immediately by god first article
whether the woman should have been made in the first production of things objection one it would seem that the woman should not have been made in the first production of things for the philosopher says
that the female is a misbegotten male but nothing misbegotten or defective should have been in the first production of things therefore woman should not have been made at that first production
further subjection and limitation were a result of sin
it is not good for man to be alone let us make him a helper like to himself i answer that it was necessary for woman to be made as the scripture says as a helper to man
not indeed as a helpmate in other works as some say since man can be more efficiently helped by another man in other works but as a helper in the work of generation
this can be made clear if we observe the mode of generation carried out in various living things some living things do not possess in themselves the power of generation but are generated by some other specific agent
such as some plants and animals by the influence of the heavenly bodies from some fitting matter and not from seed others possess the active and passive generative power together as we see in plants which are generated from seed
for the noblest vital function in plants is generation wherefore we observe that in these the active power of generation invariably accompanies the passive power
among perfect animals the active power of generation belongs to the male sex and the passive power to the female and as among animals there is a vital operation nobler than generation to which their life is principally directed
therefore the male sex is not found in continual union with the female in perfect animals but only at the time of coition so that we may consider that by this means the male and female are one as in plants they are always united
so that the female should be produced separately from the male although they are carnally united for generation therefore directly after the formation of woman it was said and they shall be two in one flesh
as regards the individual nature woman is defective and misbegotten for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex
on the other hand as regards human nature in general woman is not misbegotten but is included in nature's intention as directed to the work of generation
now the general intention of nature depends on god who is the universal author of nature therefore in producing nature god formed not only the male but also the female
subjection is twofold one is servile by virtue of which a superior makes use of a subject for his own benefit and this kind of subjection began after sin there is another kind of subjection which is called economic or civil
whereby the superior makes use of his subjects for their own benefit and good and this kind of subjection existed even before sin for good order would have been wanting in the human family if some were not governed by others wiser than themselves
so by such a kind of subjection woman is naturally subject to man because in man the discretion of reason predominates nor is inequality among men excluded by the state of innocence as we shall prove
especially as god is so powerful that he can direct any evil to a good end second article
whether woman should have been made from man objection one it would seem that woman should not have been made from man for sex belongs both to man and animals
but in the other animals the female was not made from the male therefore neither should it have been so with man
further woman was made to be a helpmate to man in the work of generation but close relationship makes a person unfit for that office hence near relations are debarred from intermarriage as is written
therefore woman should not have been made from man on the contrary
he created of him that is out of man a helpmate like to himself that is woman i answer that when all things were first formed
that as god is the principle of the whole universe so the first man in likeness to god was the principle of the whole human race wherefore paul says that god made the whole human race from one
acts seventeen twenty six secondly that man might love woman all the more and cleave to her more closely knowing her to be fashioned from himself hence it is written
she was taken out of man wherefore a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife this was most necessary as regards the human race in which the male and female live together for life
which is not the case with other animals thirdly because as the philosopher says
the human male and female are united not only for generation as with other animals but also for the purpose of domestic life in which each has his or her particular duty and in which the man is the head of the woman
this is a great sacrament but i speak in christ and in the church
wherefore from determinate matter it produces something in a determinate species on the other hand the divine power being infinite can produce things of the same species out of any matter such as a man from the slime of the earth and a woman from out of man
wherefore eve is not called the daughter of adam and so this argument does not prove third article
whether the woman was fittingly made from the rib of man objection one it would seem that the woman should not have been formed from the rib of man for the rib was much smaller than the woman's body
further a rib cannot be removed from man without pain but there was no pain before sin
that eve might be made from it on the contrary it is written
god built the rib which he took from adam into a woman i answer that it was right for the woman to be made from a rib of man first to signify the social union of man and woman
for the woman should neither use authority over man and so she was not made from his head nor was it right for her to be subject to man's contempt as his slave and so she was not made from his feet secondly
for the sacramental signification for from the side of christ sleeping on the cross the sacraments flowed namely blood and water on which the church was established
some say that the woman's body was formed by a material increase without anything being added in the same way as our lord multiplied the five loaves but this is quite impossible
for such an increase of matter would either be by a change of the very substance of the matter itself or by a change of its dimensions not by change of the substance of the matter
both because matter considered in itself is quite unchangeable since it has a potential existence and has nothing but the nature of a subject
we must admit an addition of matter either by creation
nevertheless we say that the crowds were fed with five loaves or that woman was made from the rib because an addition was made to the already existing matter of the loaves and of the rib
the rib belonged to the integral perfection of adam not as an individual but as the principle of the human race just as the semen belongs to the perfection of the begetter and is released by a natural and pleasurable operation
much more therefore was it possible that by the divine power the body of the woman should be produced from the man's rib from this it is clear how to answer the third objection fourth article
whether the woman was formed immediately by god objection one it would seem that the woman was not formed immediately by god
says that corporeal things are governed by god through the angels but the woman's body was formed from corporeal matter therefore it was made through the ministry of the angels and not immediately by god
further those things which pre exist in creatures as to their causal virtues are produced by the power of some creature and not immediately by god
therefore it was not produced immediately by god on the contrary augustine says in the same work god alone to whom all nature owes its existence could form or build up the woman from the man's rib
the natural generation of every species is from some determinate matter now the matter whence man is naturally begotten is the human semen of man or woman
wherefore from any other matter an individual of the human species cannot naturally be generated now god alone the author of nature can produce an effect into existence outside the ordinary course of nature
this argument is verified when an individual is begotten by natural generation from that which is like it in the same species
as augustine says
we do not know whether the angels were employed by god in the formation of the woman but it is certain that as the body of man was not formed by the angels from the slime of the earth so neither was the body of the woman formed by them from the man's rib
as augustine says
sands at seventy mannahatta my city's fit and noble name resumed choice aboriginal name with marvellous beauty meaning
stretch'd and basking one side thy inland ocean laving broad with copious commerce steamers sails and one the atlantic's wind caressing fierce or gentle
mighty hulls dark gliding in the distance isle of sweet brooks of drinking water healthy air and soil isle of the salty shore and breeze and brine
from montauk point i stand as on some mighty eagle's beak eastward the sea absorbing viewing nothing but sea and sky the tossing waves the foam
high high above the rest to all cut off before their time possess'd by some strange spirit of fire quench'd by an early death a carol closing sixty nine
a carol closing sixty nine a resume a repetition my lines in joy and hope continuing on the same
life nature freedom poetry of you my land your rivers prairies states you mottled flag i love your aggregate retain'd entire
the strange inertia falling pall like round me the burning fires down in my sluggish blood not yet extinct the undiminish'd faith the groups of loving friends
the bravest soldiers brave brave were the soldiers high named to day who lived through the fight but the bravest press'd to the front and fell unnamed unknown
brevier bourgeois long primer merely these ocean waves arousable to fury and to death or sooth'd to ease and sheeny sun and sleep within the pallid slivers slumbering
as i sit writing here as i sit writing here sick and grown old not my least burden is that dulness of the years querilities
ungracious glooms aches lethargy constipation
may filter in my dally songs my canary bird did we count great o soul to penetrate the themes of mighty books absorbing deep and full from thoughts plays
speculations but now from thee to me caged bird to feel thy joyous warble filling the air
parrot like and old with crack'd voice harping screeching the wallabout martyrs greater than memory of achilles or ulysses
more more by far to thee than tomb of alexander those cart loads of old charnel ashes scales and splints of mouldy bones once living men once resolute courage aspiration strength
strong ample fair enduring capable rich perennial with the earth with freedom law and love a grand sane towering seated mother chair'd in the adamant of time
memories how sweet the silent backward tracings the wanderings as in dreams the meditation of old times resumed their loves joys persons
voyages to day and thee the appointed winners in a long stretch'd game the course of time and nations egypt india greece and rome the past entire
or chorus or perfect band silent athwart my soul moves the symphony true abraham lincoln born february twelfth eighteen o nine to day
the yellow golden transparent haze of the warm afternoon sun the aspiring lilac bushes with profuse purple or white flowers
halcyon days not from successful love alone nor wealth nor honor'd middle age nor victories of politics or war
as the days take on a mellower light and the apple at last hangs really finish'd and indolent ripe on the tree then for the teeming quietest happiest days of all the brooding and blissful halcyon days
a heavy haze contends with daybreak again the trembling laboring vessel veers me i press through foam dash'd rocks that almost touch me again i mark where aft the small thin indian helmsman
looms in the mist with brow elate and governing hand two had i the choice had i the choice to tally greatest bards to limn their portraits stately beautiful
and emulate at will homer with all his wars and warriors hector achilles ajax or shakspere's woe entangled hamlet lear othello
would you the undulation of one wave its trick to me transfer or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse
three you tides with ceaseless swell you tides with ceaseless swell you power that does this work you unseen force
centripetal centrifugal through space's spread rapport of sun moon earth and all the constellations what are the messages by you from distant stars to us what sirius
last of ebb and daylight waning
hope's last words some suicide's despairing cry away to the boundless waste and never again return on to oblivion then on on and do your part
and yet not you alone twilight and burying ebb nor you ye lost designs alone nor failures aspirations i know divine deceitful ones your glamour's seeming
the rhythmus of birth eternal
proudly the flood comes in proudly the flood comes in shouting foaming advancing long it holds at the high with bosom broad outswelling all throbs dilates the farms woods
streets of cities workmen at work mainsails topsails jibs appear in the offing steamers pennants of smoke
freighted with human lives gaily the outward bound gaily the inward bound flaunting from many a spar the flag i love
by that long scan of waves myself call'd back resumed upon myself in every crest some undulating light or shade some retrospect joys travels studies silent panoramas
some wave or part of wave like one of yours ye multitudinous ocean
then last of all caught from these shores this hill of you o tides the mystic human meaning only by law of you your swell and ebb enclosing me the same the brain that shapes
if i should need to name o western world your powerfulest scene and show twould not be you niagara nor you ye limitless prairies nor your huge rifts of canyons colorado
texas to maine the prairie states vermont virginia california the final ballot shower from east to west the paradox and conflict the countless snow flakes falling a swordless conflict
it serves to purify while the heart pants life glows these stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships swell'd washington's jefferson's lincoln's sails
thy many tears a lack from all eternity in thy content naught but the greatest struggles wrongs defeats could make thee greatest no less could make thee thy lonely state something thou ever seek'st and seek'st yet never gain'st
and rhythmic rasping of thy sands and waves and serpent hiss and savage peals of laughter and undertones of distant lion roar sounding appealing to the sky's deaf ear but now
that lurid partial act of war and peace of old and new contending fought out through wrath fears dark dismays and many a long suspense all past and since in countless graves receding
mellowing victor's and vanquish'd lincoln's and lee's now thou with them man of the mighty days and equal to the days thou from the prairies tangled and many vein'd and hard has been thy part
to admiration has it been enacted red jacket from aloft upon this scene this show yielded to day by fashion learning wealth
nor in caprice alone some grains of deepest meaning haply aloft who knows from distant sky clouds blended shapes as some old tree or rock or cliff
looks down washington's monument february eighteen eighty five ah not this marble dead and cold
far from its base and shaft expanding the round zones circling comprehending thou washington
the indomitable heart and arm proofs of the never broken line courage alertness patience faith the same e'en in defeat defeated not the same wherever sails a ship
or house is built on land or day or night through teeming cities streets indoors or out factories or farms now or to come or past where patriot wills existed or exist
these snowy hairs my feeble arm my frozen feet for them thy faith thy rule i take and grave it to the last not summer's zones alone not chants of youth
what hurrying human tides or day or night what passions winnings losses ardors swim thy waters
what curious questioning glances glints of love leer envy scorn contempt hope aspiration thou portal thou arena thou of the myriad long drawn lines and groups
and now the close of all one struggling outbound brig one day baffled for long cross tides and much wrong going at last at nightfall strikes the breeze aright her whole luck veering
and swiftly bending round the cape the darkness proudly entering cleaving as he watches she's free she's on her destination these the last words when jenny came he sat there dead
with spanish hat and plumes and gait inimitable back from the fading lessons of the past i'd call i'd tell and own how much from thee the revelation of the singing voice from thee so firm so liquid soft
again that tremulous manly timbre the perfect singing voice deepest of all to me the lesson trial and test of all
how the rapt ears the soul of me absorbing fernando's heart manrico's passionate call ernani's sweet gennaro's i fold thenceforth or seek to fold within my chants transmuting
a wafted autumn leaf dropt in the closing grave the shovel'd earth to memory of thee continuities
nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain ample are time and space ample the fields of nature the body sluggish aged cold the embers left from earlier fires
the light in the eye grown dim shall duly flame again the sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual
amid the wilds the rocks the storm and wintry night to me such misty strange tableaux the syllables calling up yonnondio i see far in the west or north
a limitless ravine with plains and mountains dark i see swarms of stalwart chieftains medicine men and warriors as flitting by like clouds of ghosts they pass and are gone in the twilight
to day gives place and fades the cities farms factories fade a muffled sonorous sound a wailing word is borne through the air for a moment then blank and gone
and still and utterly lost life ever the undiscouraged resolute struggling soul of man have former armies fail'd
curious unconvinced at last struggling to day the same battling the same going somewhere my science friend my noblest woman friend
the world the race the soul in space and time the universes all bound as is befitting each all surely going somewhere small the theme of my chant
small the theme of my chant yet the greatest namely one's self a simple separate person that for the use of the new world i sing man's physiology complete from top to toe i sing
not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the muse i say the form complete is worthier far the female equally with the male i sing nor cease at the theme of one's self
i feel through every leaf the pressure of your hand which i return and thus upon our journey footing the road and more than once and link'd together let us go
true conquerors old farmers travelers workmen no matter how crippled or bent old sailors out of many a perilous voyage
trials fights to have emerged at all in that alone true conquerors o'er all the rest the united states to old world critics
amid the changing schools theologies philosophies amid the bawling presentations new and old the round earth's silent vital laws facts modes continue
thanks in old age thanks in old age thanks ere i go for health the midday sun the impalpable air for life mere life
for precious ever lingering memories of you my mother dear you father you brothers sisters friends for all my days not those of peace alone the days of war the same
countless unspecified readers belov'd we never met and neer shall meet and yet our souls embrace long close and long for beings groups love deeds words books
for colors forms for all the brave strong men devoted hardy men who've forward sprung in freedom's help all years all lands for braver stronger more devoted men
a special laurel ere i go to life's war's chosen ones the cannoneers of song and thought the great artillerists the foremost leaders captains of the soul
as soldier from an ended war return'd as traveler out of myriads to the long procession retrospective thanks joyful thanks a soldier's traveler's thanks
by each successive age insoluble pass'd on to ours to day and we pass on the same the voice of the rain
and who art thou said i to the soft falling shower which strange to tell gave me an answer as here translated i am the poem of earth said the voice of the rain
and forever by day and night i give back life to my own origin and make pure and beautify it for song issuing from its birth place after fulfilment wandering reck'd or unreck'd
duly with love returns soon shall the winter's foil be here soon shall the winter's foil be here
soon shall these icy ligatures unbind and melt a little while and air soil wave suffused shall be in softness bloom and growth a thousand forms shall rise
from these dead clods and chills as from low burial graves thine eyes ears all thy best attributes all that takes cognizance of natural beauty shall wake and fill thou shalt perceive the simple shows
the delicate miracles of earth dandelions clover the emerald grass the early scents and flowers the arbutus under foot the willow's yellow green the blossoming plum and cherry
amid these days of order ease prosperity amid the current songs of beauty peace decorum i cast a reminiscence likely twill offend you i heard it in my boyhood
more than a generation since a queer old savage man a fighter under washington himself large brave cleanly hot blooded no talker rather spiritualistic had fought in the ranks fought well
had been all through the revolutionary war lay dying sons daughters church deacons lovingly tending him sharping their sense their ears towards his murmuring half caught words
stronger lessons have you learn'd lessons only of those who admired you and were tender with you and stood aside for you
have you not learn'd great lessons from those who reject you and brace themselves against you or who treat you with contempt or dispute the passage with you a prairie sunset
shot gold maroon and violet dazzling silver emerald fawn the earth's whole amplitude and nature's multiform power consign'd for once to colors
pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last twenty years down on the ancient wharf
he shipp'd as green hand boy and sail'd away took some sudden vehement notion since twenty years and more have circled round and round while he the globe was circling round and round and now returns how changed the place
all the old land marks gone the parents dead yes he comes back to lay in port for good to settle has a well fill'd purse no spot will do but this the little boat that scull'd him from the sloop now held in leash i see
i hear the slapping waves the restless keel the rocking in the sand i see the sailor kit the canvas bag the great box bound with brass i scan the face all berry brown and bearded
the stout strong frame dress'd in its russet suit of good scotch cloth then what the told out story of those twenty years what of the future orange buds by mail from florida
a lesser proof than old voltaire's yet greater proof of this present time and thee thy broad expanse america to my plain northern hut in outside clouds and snow
some three days since on their own soil live sprouting now here their sweetness through my room unfolding
you lingering sparse leaves of me you lingering sparse leaves of me on winter nearing boughs and i some well shorn tree of field or orchard row
you tokens diminute and lorn not now the flush of may or july clover bloom no grain of august now you pallid banner staves you pennants valueless
mourning a good old man a faithful shepherd patriot as the greek's signal flame as the greek's signal flame by antique records told
rose from the hill top like applause and glory welcoming in fame some special veteran hero with rosy tinge reddening the land he'd served so i aloft from mannahatta's ship fringed shore
waggons from ups and downs with intervals from elder years mid age or youth in cabin'd ships or thee old cause or poets to come or paumanok song of myself calamus or adam
from fibre heart of mine from throat and tongue my life's hot pulsing blood the personal urge and form for me not merely paper automatic type and ink each song of mine
each utterance in the past having its long long history of life or death or soldier's wound of country's loss or safety o heaven what flash and started endless train of all
old age's lambent peaks the touch of flame the illuminating fire
o'er city passion sea
the earth itself the airy different changing hues of all in failing twilight objects and groups bearings faces reminiscences the calmer sight the golden setting clear and broad
the points of view the situations whence we scan bro't out by them alone so much perhaps the best unreck'd before the lights indeed from them old age's lambent peaks
they set him conundrums to guess when at length he sat up and was able to speak his sad story he offered to tell and the bellman cried silence not even a shriek
and excitedly tingled his bell there was silence supreme not a shriek not a scream scarcely even a howl or a groan as the man they called ho
told his story of woe in an antediluvian tone my father and mother were
to waste i skip forty years said the baker in tears and proceed without further remark to the day when you took me aboard of your ship to help you in hunting the snark
a dear uncle of mine after whom i was named remarked when i bade him farewell oh skip your dear uncle the bellman exclaimed as he angrily tingled his bell
he remarked to me then said that mildest of men if your snark be a snark that is right fetch it home by all means you may serve it with greens and it's handy for striking a light
you may seek it with thimbles and seek it with care you may hunt it with forks and hope you may threaten its life with a railway share you may charm it with smiles
and soap that's exactly the method the bellman bold in a hasty parenthesis cried that's exactly the way i have always been told that the capture of snarks should be tried but oh beamish nephew
if your snark be a boojum for then you will softly and suddenly vanish away and never be met with again it is this it is this
that oppresses my soul when i think of my uncle's last words and my heart is like nothing so much as a bowl brimming over with quivering curds it is this it is this
in a dreamy delirious fight i serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes and i use it for striking a light
but if ever i meet with a boojum that day in a moment of this i am sure i shall softly and suddenly vanish away and the notion i cannot endure
it's excessively awkward to mention it now with the snark so to speak at the door we should all of us grieve as you well may believe if you never were met with again but surely my man
when the voyage began you might have suggested it then it's excessively awkward to mention it now as i think i've already remarked and the man they called hi replied with a sigh
i informed you the day we embarked you may charge me with murder or want of sense we are all of us weak at times but the slightest
was never among my crimes i said it in hebrew i said it in dutch i said it in german and greek but i wholly forgot and it vexes me much that english
is what you speak tis a pitiful tale said the bellman whose face had grown longer at every word but now that you've stated the whole of your case more debate would be simply absurd
to threaten its life with a railway share to charm it with smiles and soap for the snark's a peculiar creature that won't be caught in a commonplace way do all that you know and
to rig yourselves out for the fight then the banker endorsed a blank cheque which he crossed and changed his loose silver for notes the baker with care combed his whiskers and hair
and shook the dust out of his coats the boots and the broker were sharpening a spade each working the grindstone in turn but the beaver went on making lace and displayed no interest in the concern
though the barrister tried to appeal to its pride and vainly proceeded to cite a number of cases in which making laces
the maker of bonnets ferociously planned a novel arrangement of bows while the billiard marker with quivering hand was chalking the tip of his nose but the butcher turned nervous
and dressed himself fine with yellow kid gloves and a ruff said he felt it exactly like going to dine which the bellman declared was all stuff introduce me now there's a good fellow he said
if we happen to meet it together and the bellman sagaciously nodding his head said that must depend on the weather the beaver went simply galumphing about at seeing the butcher so shy
fit the fifth the beaver's lesson they sought it with thimbles they sought it with care they pursued it with forks and hope they threatened its life
for making a separate sally and had fixed on a spot unfrequented by man a dismal
but the very same plan to the beaver occurred it had chosen the very same place yet neither betrayed by a sign or a word the disgust that appeared in his face
each thought he was thinking of nothing but snark and the glorious work of the day and each tried to pretend that he did not remark that the other was going that way
but the valley grew narrow and narrower still and the evening got darker and colder till merely from nervousness not from goodwill
they marched along shoulder to shoulder then a scream shrill and high rent the shuddering sky and they knew that some danger was near the beaver turned pale to the tip of its tail
and even the butcher felt queer he thought of his childhood left far far behind that blissful and innocent state the sound so exactly recalled to his mind
a pencil that squeaks on a slate tis the voice of the jubjub he suddenly cried this man that they used to call dunce as the bellman would tell you he added with pride
i have uttered that sentiment once tis the note of the jubjub keep count i entreat you will find i have told it you twice tis the song of the jubjub the proof is complete
if only i've stated it thrice the beaver had counted with scrupulous care attending to every word but it fairly lost heart and outgrabe in despair when the third repetition occurred
it felt that in spite of all possible pains it had somehow contrived to lose count and the only thing now was to rack its poor brains by reckoning up the amount
recollecting with tears how in earlier years it had taken no pains with its sums the thing can be done said the butcher i think the thing must be done i am sure
the thing shall be done bring me paper and ink the best there is time to procure the beaver brought paper portfolio pens and ink in unfailing supplies
and explained all the while in a popular style which the beaver could well understand taking three as the subject to reason about a convenient number to state we add seven and ten
and then multiply out by one thousand diminished by eight the result we proceed to divide as you see
then subtract seventeen and the answer must be exactly and perfectly true the method employed i would gladly explain while i have it so clear in my head if i had but the time and you had but the brain
but much yet remains to be said in one moment i've seen what has hitherto been enveloped in absolute mystery and without extra charge i will give you at large a lesson in natural history
in his genial way he proceeded to say forgetting all laws of propriety and that giving instruction without introduction would have caused quite a thrill in society
as to temper the jubjub's a desperate bird since it lives in perpetual passion its taste in costume is entirely absurd it is ages ahead of the fashion but it knows
any friend it has met once before it never will look at a bribe and in charity meetings it stands at the door and collects though it does not subscribe its flavour when cooked is more exquisite far
than mutton or oysters or eggs some think it keeps best in an ivory jar and some in mahogany kegs you boil it in sawdust you salt it in glue you condense it with locusts and tape
to preserve its symmetrical shape the butcher would gladly have talked till next day but he felt that the lesson must end and he wept with delight
in attempting to say he considered the beaver his friend while the beaver confessed with affectionate looks more eloquent even than tears it had learned in ten minutes
far more than all books would have taught it in seventy years they returned hand in hand and the bellman unmanned for a moment with noble emotion said
this amply repays all the wearisome days we have spent on the billowy ocean such friends as the beaver and butcher became have seldom if ever been known in winter or summer twas always the same
you could never meet either alone and when quarrels arose as one frequently finds quarrels will spite of every endeavour the song of the jubjub recurred to their minds
and cemented their friendship for ever fit the sixth the barrister's dream
they sought it with thimbles they sought it with care they pursued it with forks and hope they threatened its life with a railway share they charmed it
with smiles and soap but the barrister weary of proving in vain that the beaver's lace making was wrong fell asleep and in dreams saw the creature quite plain
that his fancy had dwelt on so long he dreamed that he stood in a shadowy court where the snark with a glass in its eye dressed in gown bands and wig was defending a pig
on the charge of deserting its sty the witnesses proved without error or flaw that the sty was deserted when found and the judge kept explaining the state of the law in a soft
under current of sound the indictment had never been clearly expressed and it seemed that the snark had begun and had spoken three hours
the jury had each formed a different view long before the indictment was read and they all spoke at once so that none of them knew one word that the others had said you must know said the judge but the snark exclaimed fudge
while the charge of insolvency fails it is clear
to sum up the case but the judge said he never had summed up before so the snark undertook it instead and summed it so well that it came to far more than the witnesses ever had said
when the verdict was called for the jury declined as the word was so puzzling to spell but they ventured to hope that the snark wouldn't mind undertaking that duty as well
and some of them fainted away then the snark pronounced sentence the judge being quite too nervous to utter a word when it rose to its feet there was silence like night
the jury all cheered though the judge said he feared that the phrase was not legally sound but their wild exultation was suddenly checked when the jailer informed them with tears
as the pig had been dead for some years the judge left the court looking deeply disgusted but the snark though a little aghast as the lawyer to whom the defense was entrusted
i will not as i might point to the strong moral purpose of this poem itself to the arithmetical principles so cautiously inculcated in it or to its noble teachings in natural history
of simply explaining how it happened the bellman who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished and it more than once happened when the time came for replacing it
he knew it was all wrong but alas rule forty two of the code no one shall speak to the man at the helm had been completed by the bellman himself with the words and the man at the helm shall speak to no one so remonstrance was impossible
and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day during these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed backwards as this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the jabberwock let me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me
humpty dumpty's theory of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau seems to me the right explanation for all for instance take the two words fuming and furious make up your mind that you will say both words but leave it unsettled
now open your mouth and speak if your thoughts incline ever so little towards fuming you will say fuming furious if they turn by even a hair's breadth towards furious you will say furious fuming but
a perfectly balanced mind you will say frumious supposing that when pistol uttered the well known words under which king bezonian speak or die
justice shallow had felt certain that it was either william or richard but
can it be doubted that rather than die he would have gasped out rilchiam fit the first the landing
just the place for a snark the bellman cried as he landed his crew with care supporting each man on the top of the tide by a finger entwined in his hair just the place for a snark
what i tell you three times is true the crew was complete it included a boots a maker of bonnets and hoods a barrister brought to arrange their disputes and a broker to value their goods
a billiard marker whose skill was immense might perhaps have won more than his share but a banker engaged at enormous expense had the whole of their cash in his care
there was also a beaver that paced on the deck or would sit making lace in the bow and had often the bellman said saved them from wreck though none of the sailors knew how
there was one who was famed for the number of things he forgot when he entered the ship his umbrella his watch all his jewels and rings and the clothes he had bought for the trip
the loss of his clothes hardly mattered because he had seven coats on when he came with three pairs of boots but the worst of it was he had wholly forgotten his name he would answer to hi
to what you may call um or what was his name but especially thing um a jig while for those who preferred a more forcible word he had different names from these
his intimate friends called him candle ends and his enemies toasted cheese his form is ungainly his intellect small so the bellman would often remark
but his courage is perfect and that after all is the thing that one needs with a snark he would joke with hyenas returning their stare with an impudent wag of the head and he once went a walk
no materials were to be had the last of the crew needs especial remark though he looked an incredible dunce he had just one idea but that one being snark
the good bellman engaged him at once he came as a butcher but gravely declared when the ship had been sailing a week he could only kill beavers the bellman looked scared and was
almost too frightened to speak but at length he explained in a tremulous tone there was only one beaver on board and that was a tame one he had of his own whose death would be deeply deplored
the beaver who happened to hear the remark protested with tears in its eyes that not even the rapture of hunting the snark could atone for that dismal surprise
it strongly advised that the butcher should be conveyed in a separate ship
navigation was always a difficult art though with only one ship and one bell and he feared he must really decline for his part undertaking another as well
the beaver's best course was no doubt to procure a second hand dagger proof coat so the baker advised it and next to insure its life in some office of note
this the banker suggested and offered for hire on moderate terms or for sale two excellent policies one against fire and one against damage from hail
yet still ever after that sorrowful day whenever the butcher was by the beaver kept looking the opposite way and appeared unaccountably shy
fit the second the bellman's speech the bellman himself they all praised to the skies such a carriage such
ease and such grace such solemnity too one could see he was wise the moment one looked in his face he had bought a large map representing the sea without the least vestige of land
and the crew were much pleased when they found it to be a map they could all understand what's the good of mercator's north poles and equators tropics zones and meridian lines
so the bellman would cry and the crew would reply they are merely conventional signs other maps are such shapes with their islands and capes but we've got our brave captain to thank so the crew would protest
that he's bought us the best a perfect and absolute blank this was charming no doubt but they shortly found out that the captain they trusted so well had only one notion for crossing the ocean
and that was to tingle his bell he was thoughtful and grave but the orders he gave were enough to bewilder a crew when he cried steer to starboard but keep her head larboard
what on earth was the helmsman to do then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes a thing as the bellman remarked that frequently happens in tropical climes when a vessel is
so to speak snarked but the principal failing occurred in the sailing and the bellman perplexed and distressed said he had hoped at least when the wind blew due east
that the ship would not travel due west but the danger was past they had landed at last with their boxes portmanteaus and bags yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view
which consisted of chasms and crags the bellman perceived that their spirits were low and repeated in musical tone some jokes he had kept for a season of woe
but the crew would do nothing but groan he served out some grog with a liberal hand and bade them sit down on the beach and they could not but own that their captain looked grand as he stood
and delivered his speech friends romans and countrymen lend me your ears they were all of them fond of quotations so they drank to his health and they gave him three cheers while he served out additional rations
seven days to the week i allow but a snark on the which we might lovingly gaze we have never beheld till now come listen my men while i tell you again
the five unmistakable marks by which you may know wheresoever you go the warranted genuine snarks let us take them in order the first is the taste which is meagre
and hollow but crisp like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist with a flavour of will o' the wisp its habit of getting up late you'll agree that it carries too far when i say
that it frequently breakfasts at five o'clock tea and dines on the following day the third is its slowness in taking a jest should you happen to venture on one it will sigh like a thing that is
deeply distressed and it always looks grave at a pun the fourth
and believes that they add to the beauty of scenes a sentiment open to doubt the fifth is ambition it next will be right to describe each particular batch
distinguishing those that have feathers and bite
almost the first decided taste in my life was the love of hymns committing them to memory was as natural to me as breathing i followed my mother about with the hymn book watts and select
reading or repeating them to her while she was busy with her baking or ironing and she was always a willing listener she was fond of devotional reading but had little time for it
and it pleased her to know that so small a child as i really cared for the hymns she loved i learned most of them at meeting i was told to listen to the minister but as i did not understand a word he was saying
and sometimes i learned two or three hymns in a forenoon or an afternoon finding it so easy i thought i would begin at the beginning and learn the whole there were about a thousand of them included in the psalms the first second and third books and the select hymns
but i had learned to read before i had any knowledge of counting up numbers and so was blissfully ignorant of the magnitude of my undertaking i did not i think change my resolution because there were so many but because little as i was
i discovered that there were hymns and hymns some of them were so prosy that the words would not stay in my memory at all so i concluded that i would learn only those i liked i had various reasons for my preferences
with some i was caught by a melodious echo or a sonorous ring with others by the hint of a picture or a story or by some sacred suggestion that attracted me i knew not why
of some i was fond just because i misunderstood them and of these i made a free version in my mind as i murmured them over one of my first favorites was certainly rather a singular choice for a child of three or four years
i had no idea of its meaning but made up a little story out of it with myself as the heroine it began with the words come humble sinner in whose breast a thousand thoughts revolve the second stanza read thus
i'll go to jesus though my sin hath like a mountain rose i did not know that this last line was bad grammar but thought that the sin in question was something pretty that looked like a mountain rose mountains i had never seen
they were a glorious dream to me and a rose that grew on a mountain must surely be prettier than any of our red wild roses on the hill sweet as they were i would pluck that rose and carry it up the mountain side into the temple
where the king sat and would give it to him and then he would touch me with his sceptre and let me through into a garden full of flowers there was no garden in the hymn i suppose the rose made me invent one but it did read
whatever may oppose and so i fancied there would be lions in the way as there were in the pilgrim's at the house beautiful but i should not be afraid of them they would no doubt be chained
and my heart beat a brave echo to the words as i started off in fancy on a pilgrim's progress of my own a happy little dreamer telling nobody the secret of my imaginary journey taken in sermon time
usually the hymns for which i cared most suggested nature in some way flowers trees skies and stars when i repeated there everlasting spring abides and never withering flowers
the dear little short lived children of our shivering spring they also would surely be found in that heavenly land blooming on through the cloudless endless year
the hill of zion yields a thousand sacred sweet before we reach the heavenly fields or walk the golden streets we were allowed to take a little nosegay to meeting sometimes a pink or two
i always wondered how a world could be beautiful where there was no more sea
one stanza that i used to croon over gave me the feeling of being rocked in a boat on a strange and beautiful ocean from whose far off shores the sunrise beckoned at anchor laid remote from home
toiling i cry sweet spirit come celestial breeze no longer stay but spread my sails and speed my way some of the chosen hymns of my infancy the world recognizes among its noblest treasures of sacred song
that one of doddridge's beginning with ye golden lamps of heaven farewell made me feel as if i had just been gazing in at some window of the many mansions above ye stars are but the shining dust of my divine abode
had i not known that ever since i was a baby but the light does not stream down even into a baby's soul with equal brightness all the time earth draws her dark curtains too soon over the windows of heaven
and understood as little as the thunder itself which my mother told me was god's voice so that i bent my ear and listened expecting to hear it shaped into words it still did give me an idea of the presence of one infinite being
that thrilled me with reverent awe and this was one of the best lessons taught in the puritan school the lesson of reverence the certainty that life meant looking up to something to some one greater than ourselves
to a life far above us which yet enfolded ours the thought of god when he was first spoken of to me seemed as natural as the thought of my father and mother that he should be invisible did not seem strange
and it was one of my favorite texts heaven seemed nearer because somebody i loved was up there looking at me a baby is not afraid of its father's eyes the first real unhappiness i remember to have felt
was when some one told me one day that i did not love god i insisted almost tearfully that i did but i was told that if i did truly love him i should always be good i knew i was not that
and the feeling of sudden orphanage came over me like a bewildering cloud yet i was sure that i loved my father and mother even when i was naughty was he harder to please than they then i heard of a dreadful dark somewhere
the horror of which was that it was away from him what if i should wake some morning and find myself there sometimes i did not dare to go to sleep for that dread and the thought was too awful to speak of to anybody
baby that i was i shut my lips in a sort of reckless despair and thought that if i could not be good i might as well be naughty and enjoy it but somehow i could not enjoy it i felt sorry and ashamed and degraded
whenever i knew that i had been cross or selfish i heard them talk about jesus as if he were a dead man one who died a great while ago whose death made a great difference to us i could not understand how
it seemed like a lovely story the loveliest in the world
something that had happened far away in the past but one day a strange minister came into the sabbath school in our little chapel and spoke to us children about him oh so differently children he said jesus is not dead he is alive
he loves you and wants you to love him he is your best friend and he will show you how to be good my heart beat fast i could hardly keep back the tears the new testament then did really mean what it said
jesus said he would come back again and would always be with those who loved him he is alive he loves me he will tell me how to be good i said it over to myself but not to anybody else i was sure that i loved him
it was like a beautiful secret between us two i felt him so alive and so near he wanted me to be good and i could be i would be for his sake that stranger never knew how his loving word had touched a child's heart
the doors of the father's house were opened wide again by the only hand that holds the key the world was all bright and fresh once more it was as if the may sun had suddenly wakened the flowers in an overshadowed wayside nook
i tried long afterward thinking that it was my duty to build up a wall of difficult doctrines over my spring blossoms as if they needed protection but the sweet light was never wholly stifled out
though i did not always keep my face turned towards it and i know now that just to let his lifegiving smile shine into the soul is better than any of the theories we can invent about him
and that only so can young or old receive the kingdom of god as a little child i believe that one great reason for a child's love of hymns such as mine was is that they are either addressed to a person
i think more gratefully now of the verses i learned from the bible and the hymn book than of almost anything that came to me in that time of beginnings the whole hymn book was not for me then any more than the whole bible
missus prime reads her recantation above an hour had passed after the interruption mentioned at the end of the last chapter before missus ray and rachel crossed back from the farm house to the cottage and when they went they went alone
during that hour they had been sitting in missus sturt's parlour and when at last they got up to go they did not press luke rowan to go with them missus prime was at the cottage
and it was necessary that everything should be explained to her before she was asked to give her hand to her future brother in law the farmer had come in and had joked his joke and missus sturt had clacked over them as though they were a brood of chickens of her own hatching
and missus ray had smiled and cried and sobbed and laughed till she had become almost hysterical then she had jumped up from her seat saying oh dear what will dorothea think has become of us after that rachel insisted upon going
and the mother and daughter returned across the green leaving luke at the farm house ready to take his departure as soon as missus ray and rachel should have safely reached their home i knew thee was minded stedfast to take her said missus sturt
in answer to this luke protested that he had not thought of rachel when he was making that speech and tried to explain that all that was soft sawder as he called it for the election but the words were too apposite to the event
and the sentiment too much in accordance with missus sturt's chivalric views to allow of her admitting the truth of any such assurance as this i know she said i know and when i read them words in the newspaper i said to the gudeman there
we shall have bridecake from the cottage now before christmas for the matter of that so you shall said luke shaking hands with her as he went or the fault will not be mine rachel as she followed her mother out from the farmyard gate had not a word to say
could it have been possible she would have wished to remain silent for the remainder of the evening and for the night so that she might have time to think of this thing which she had done and to enjoy the full measure of her happiness hitherto
and the action had been so quick that she had hardly found a moment for thought could it be that things were so fixed that there was no room for further disappointment she had been scalded so cruelly that she still feared the hot water
her heart was sore with the old hurt as the head that has ached will be still sore when the actual malady has passed away she longed for hours of absolute quiet in which she might make herself sure that her malady had also passed away
and that the soreness which remained came only from the memory of former pain but there was no such perfect rest within her reach as yet will you tell her or shall i said missus ray pausing for a moment at the cottage gate
you had better tell her mamma i suppose she won't set herself against it will she i hope not mamma i shall think her very ill natured if she does but it can't make any real difference now you
know no it can't make any difference only it will be so uncomfortable then with half frightened muffled steps they entered their own house and joined missus prime in the sitting room missus prime was still reading the serious book
but i am bound to say that her mind had not been wholly intent upon it during the long absence of her mother and sister she had struggled for a time to ignore the slight fact that her companions were away gossiping with the neighbouring farmer's wife
she had made a hard fight with her book pinning her eyes down upon the page over and over again as though in pinning down her eyes she could pin down her mind also but by degrees
according to the world's ordinary wickedness but she feared that it was wicked according to that tone of morals to which she was desirous of tying her mother down as a bond slave they were away talking about love and pleasure
and those heart throbbings in which her sister had so unfortunately been allowed to indulge she felt all but sure that some tidings of luke rowan had been brought in missus sturt's budget of news and she had never been able to think well of luke rowan
since the evening on which she had seen him standing with rachel in the churchyard she knew nothing against him but she had then made up her mind that he was pernicious and she could not bring herself to own that she had been wrong in that opinion
she had been loud and defiant in her denunciation when she had first suspected rachel of having a lover since that she had undergone some troubles of her own by which the tone of her remonstrances had been necessarily moderated
but even now she could not forgive her sister such a lover as luke rowan she would have been quite willing to see her sister married but the lover should have been dingy black coated lugubrious
having about him some true essence of the tears of the valley of tribulation alas her sister's taste was quite of another kind
said missus ray as she entered the room no mother i didn't think that but i thought you were staying late with missus sturt so we were and really
what the young man that was dismissed from mister tappitt's it was ill said of her very ill said and so she was herself aware as soon as the words were out of her mouth but she could not help it
she had taken a side against luke rowan and could not restrain herself from ill natured words rachel was still standing in the middle of the room when she heard her lover thus described but she would not condescend to plead in answer to such a charge
the colour came to her cheeks and she threw up her head with a gesture of angry pride but at the moment she said nothing missus ray spoke it seems to me dorothea she said that you are mistaken there
i think he has dismissed mister tappitt i don't know much about it said missus prime i only know that they've quarrelled but it would be well that you should learn
because i'm sure you will be glad to think as well of your brother in law as possible
when he came out here and drank tea with us that evening continued missus ray i took a liking to him most unaccountable unless it was that i had a foreshadowing that he was going to be so near and dear to me mother
only i don't think he'll ever do away with cider in devonshire because of the apple trees but if people are to drink beer it stands to reason that good beer will be better than bad all this time rachel had not spoken a word
nor had her sister uttered anything expressive of congratulation or good wishes now as missus ray ceased there came a silence in the room and it was incumbent on the elder sister to break it
if this matter is settled rachel it is settled i think said rachel if it is settled i hope that it may be for your lasting happiness and eternal welfare i hope it will said rachel
that's quite true my dear said missus ray a most important step and one that requires the most exact circumspection especially on the part of the young woman
i hope you may have known mister rowan long enough to justify your confidence in him it was still the voice of a raven missus prime as she spoke thus knew that she was croaking
and would have divested herself of her croak and spoken joyously had such mode of speech been possible to her but it was not possible though she would permit no such foreshadowings as those at which her mother had hinted
she said when they parted for the night you have my best wishes for your happiness i hope you do not doubt my love because i think more of your welfare in another world than in this then she kissed her sister and they parted for the night
rachel now shared her mother's room
you mustn't mind dorothea the widow said no mamma i do not i mean that you mustn't mind her seeming to be so hard she means well through it all and is as affectionate as any other woman why did she say that he had been dismissed
ah my dear can't you understand when she first heard of mister rowan call him luke mamma when she first heard of him she was taught to believe that he was giddy and that he didn't mean anything why should she think evil of people who taught her
i don't know how to be thankful enough when i think how things have turned out but when i first heard of him i thought he was dangerous too but you don't think he is dangerous now mamma no my dear of course i don't and i never did
after he drank tea here that night only mister comfort told me it wouldn't be safe not to see how things went a little before you you understand dearest yes i understand
she has behaved best through it all
that night and i almost doubt whether rachel slept at all it seemed to her that in the present condition of her life sleep could hardly be necessary
but why need she sleep now that every thought was a new pleasure there was no moment that she had ever passed with him that had not to be recalled there was no word of his that had not to be re weighed
she remembered or fancied that she remembered her idea of the man when her eye first fell upon his outside form she would have sworn that her first glance of him had conveyed to her
far more than had ever come to her from many a day's casual looking at any other man she could almost believe that he had been specially made and destined for her behoof she blushed even while lying in bed as she remembered how the gait of the man and the
tone of his voice had taken possession of her eyes and ears from the first day on which she had met him when she had gone to missus tappitt's party so consciously alive to the fact that he was to be there
but she now declared to herself that she had been a weak fool in thus attempting to deceive herself that she had loved him from the first or at any rate from that evening when he had told her of the beauty of the clouds
but that chance which had now been so wondrously decided in her favour when she came down to breakfast on the next morning she was very quiet so quiet that her sister almost thought she was frightened at her future prospects
but i think that there was no such fear she was so happy that she could afford to be tranquil in her happiness
missus ray i fear did not find the little tea party so agreeable on that evening as she had done on the previous occasion missus prime did make some effort at conversation she did endeavour to receive the young man as her future brother in law she was gracious to him with
but the duration of their meal was terribly long
when she had so obstinately refused that invitation and had instead gone out to meet the tappitt girls and had met with them the young man of whom her sister had
now he was there on purpose to take her with him and she went forth with him leaning lovingly on his arm while yet close under her sister's eyes
i think there must have been a gleam of triumph in her face as she put her hand with such confidence well round her lover's arm girls do triumph in their lovers in their acknowledged and permitted lovers as young men triumph in their loves which are not acknowledged or perhaps permitted
done up very prettily with blue and white ribbons round his horns but still an ox prepared for sacrifice but the girl feels herself to be exalted for those few weeks as a conqueror and to be carried along in an ovation of which that bucolic victim
tied round with blue ribbons on to his horns is the chief grace and ornament in this mood no doubt both rachel and luke rowan went forth leaving the two widows together in the cottage
it is pretty to see her so happy isn't it now said missus ray the question for the moment made missus prime uncomfortable and almost wretched but it gave her the opportunity which in her heart she desired
of recanting her error in regard to luke rowan's character she wished to give in her adhesion to the marriage to be known to have acknowledged its fitness so that she could with some true word of sisterly love wish her sister well
in rachel's presence she could not have first made this recantation though rachel spoke no triumph there was a triumph in her eye which prevented almost the possibility of such yielding on the part of dorothea
when she should once have owned that rachel was not wrong then gradually she could bring herself round to the utterance of some kindly expression pretty she said yes it is pretty i do not know that
she has had a sad time of it dorothea since we made her write that letter to him a very sad time of it
are we not taught that it is better for us that it should be so have not you and i mother had a sad time of it it would be all sad enough if this were to be the end of it
you wouldn't have thought it better for her or for him either that they should be kept apart seeing that they really love each other no i don't say that if they love one another of course it is right that they should marry i only wish we had known him longer
it seems to be certain that he is an industrious steady young man everybody seems to speak well of him now well mother i have nothing to say against him not a word and if it will give rachel any pleasure
though i don't suppose it will the least in the world but if it would she may know that i think she has done
and i hope they will be happy together for very many years i love rachel dearly though i fear she does not think so and anything i have said i have said in love not in anger i'm sure of that dorothea
now that she is to be settled in life as a married woman
amen said missus ray solemnly it was thus that missus prime read her recantation which was repeated on that evening to rachel with some little softening touches you won't be living together in the same house after a bit
she has only to put out her hand the least little bit in the world and i will go the rest of the way as for her living i don't know what will be best about that because luke says that of course you'll come and live with us
it was two or three days after this that rachel saw the tappitt girls for the first time since the fact of her engagement had become known it was in the evening and she had been again walking with luke when she met them but at that moment she was alone
augusta would have turned boldly away
but to this both martha and cherry objected we have heard of your engagement said martha and we congratulate you
yes said augusta the place isn't what it used to be and so we think it best to go
chapter eighteen the dog on the trap line some trappers will take issue in regard to the advantages and disadvantages of the dog on the trap line the subject holds sufficient interest however to warrant a chapter
and if some lonesome trappers benefit thereby our effort shall stand justified now we will say first that there is as much or more difference in the man who handles the dog as there is in the different breeds of dogs
we have heard men say that they wanted no dog on the trap line with them and that they didn't believe that any one who did want a dog on the trap line knew but very little about trapping at the best now those are the views and ideas of some trappers
while my experience has led me to see it otherwise one who is so constituted that they must give a dog the growl or perhaps a kick every time they come in reach will undoubtedly find a dog of but little use on the trap line
at the first sight or sound of their master this man's dog is usually more attached to a stranger than to his master the man who cannot treat his dog as a friend and companion will have good cause to say that a dog is a nuisance on the trap line
i have seen men training dogs for bird hunting who would treat the dog most cruelly and claim that a dog could not be trained to work a bird successfully under any other treatment
though i have seen others train the same breed of dogs to work a bird to perfection and that their most harsh treatment would be a tap or two with a little switch i will say that one who cannot understand the wag of a dog's tail
the wistful gaze of the eye the quick lifting of the ears the cautious raising of a foot and above all treat his dog as a friend need expect his dog to be but little else than a nuisance on the trap line
several years ago i had a partner who had a dog part stag hound and the other part just dog i think one day he my partner asked if i would object to his bringing the dog to camp
saying that his wife was going on a visit and he had no place to leave the dog i told him that if he had a good dog i would be glad to have him in camp in a day or two pard went home and brought in the dog
and looking as though he never heard a kind word in his life i asked if the animal was any good and he replied that he did not know how good he was i asked the name of the dog he said oh i call him pont
i spoke to the dog calling him by name he looked at me wistfully wagging his tail the look that dog gave me said to me as plainly as words that this was the first kind word he had ever heard
we went inside and the dog started to follow when his master in a harsh voice said get out of here i said where do you expect the dog to go i then took an old coat that was in the camp
placed it in the corner and called gently to pont patted the coat and told him to lay down on the coat which he did i patted him saying that is a good place for pont and i can see that wistful gaze the dog gave me now
after we had our supper i asked my partner if he wasn't going to fix pont some supper
i took a biscuit from the table spread some butter on it called the dog to me broke the biscuit in pieces and gave it to the dog from my hand then i found an old basin that chanced to be about the camp and fixed the dog a good supper
after the dog had finished his supper i went to the coat in the corner spoke gently to pont patted the coat and told him to lay down on the coat that was the end of that pont knew his place and took it without any further trouble
the next morning when we were about ready to start out on the trap line i asked pard what he intended to do with pont he said that he would tie him to a tree that stood against the shanty close to the door we were going to take different lines of traps
i said no am you won't break pout's neck while i am around it would not look nice i started on my way pont following after i had gone a little ways i spoke to pont patting him on the head and told him what a good dog he was
he jumped about and showed more ways than one how pleased he was and from that day until we broke camp pont stayed with me he showed plainly the disgust he had for his master
it so happened that the first trap i came to was a trap set in a spring run and it had a coon in it
that all that pont needed was kind treatment and proper training to make a good help on the trap line i was careful to let him know what i was doing when setting a trap and when he would go to smell at the bait after a trap had been set
i would speak to him in a firm voice and let him know that i did not approve of what he was doing when making blind sets i took the same pains to show and give him to understand what i was doing i would sometimes after giving him fair warning
mister trapper please do not persuade yourself to believe that the intelligent dog cannot understand if you go about it right in two weeks pont had advanced so far in his training that i no longer had to pay any attention to him on account of the traps
the third day pont was with me he found a coon that had escaped with a trap nearly two weeks before my route called me up a little draw from the main stream i had not gone far up this when pont took the trail of some animal
and began working it up the side of the hill i stood and watched him until the trail took him to an old log when pont began to sniff at a hole in the log he soon raised his head and gave a long howl as much as to say
he is here and i want help after running a stick in the hole i soon discovered that the log was hollow
until i thought i was at the right point and then chopped a hole in the log and as good luck would have it i made the opening right on to the coon and almost the first thing i saw on looking into the log was the trap pont soon had the coon out
but it was no go pont would not go with him then am put a rope on to him and tried to lead him but pont would sulk and would not be led then am lost his temper and wanted to break pont's neck again
when we came to the place where the fox had escaped with the trap am at once began to slap his hands and hiss pont on pont only crouched behind me for protection i persuaded am to go on down the run
and look at the traps down that way while i and pont would look after the escaped fox as soon as am was gone i began to look about where the fox had been caught and search for his trail and soon pont began to wag his tail
a little way up this we found where the fox had been fast in some bushes but had freed himself and left and gone up the hillside pont soon began to get uneasy and when i said hunt him out pont
i had some difficulty in teaching pont to let the porcupines alone but after a time he learned that they were not the kind of game that he wanted and he paid no more attention to them i have had many different dogs on the trap line with me
negro domination it is claimed that in states districts and counties in which the colored people are in the majority the suppression of the colored vote is necessary to prevent negro domination
to prevent the ascendency of the blacks over the whites in the administration of the state and local governments this claim is based upon the assumption that if the black vote were not suppressed in all such states
districts and counties black men would be supported and elected to office because they were black and white men would be opposed and defeated because they were white taking mississippi for purposes of illustration
it will be seen that there has never been the slightest ground for such an apprehension no colored man in that state ever occupied a judicial position above that of justice of the peace and very few aspired to that position
of seven state officers only one that of secretary of state was filled by a colored man until eighteen seventy three when colored men were elected to three of the seven offices lieutenant governor
of the two united states senators and the seven members of the lower house of congress not more than one colored man occupied a seat in each house at the same time of the thirty five members of the state senate
that was elected in eighteen seventy one was as follows total membership one hundred and fifteen republicans sixty six democrats forty nine colored members thirty eight white members seventy seven
but the colored men never at any time had control of the state government nor of any branch or department thereof nor even that of any county or municipality out of seventy two counties in the state at that time
it is safe to assert that not over five out of one hundred of such officers were colored men the state district county and municipal governments were not only in control of white men but white men who were to the manor born
or who were known as old citizens of the state those who had lived in the state many years before the war of the rebellion there was therefore never a time when that class of white men known as carpet baggers
had absolute control of the state government or that of any district county or municipality or any branch or department thereof there was never therefore
what is meant by negro domination the answer that the average reader would give to that question would be that it means the actual physical domination of the blacks over the whites but according to a high democratic authority
that would be an incorrect answer the definition given by that authority i have every reason to believe is the correct one the generally accepted one the authority referred to
is the late associate justice of the supreme court of the state of mississippi h h chalmers who in an article in the north american review about march eighteen eighty one explained and defined
what is meant or understood by the term negro domination according to judge chalmers definition in order to constitute negro domination it does not necessarily follow that negroes must be elected to office
but that in all elections in which white men may be divided if the negro vote should be sufficiently decisive to be potential in determining the result the white man or men that would be elected through the aid of negro votes
would represent negro domination in other words we would have negro domination whenever the will of a majority of the whites would be defeated through the votes of colored men
but in states districts and counties where they are few in numbers if that is the correct definition of negro domination to prevent which the negro vote should be suppressed then the suppression of that vote is not only necessary in states
districts and counties in which the blacks are in the majority but in every state district and county in the union for it will not be denied that the primary purpose of the ballot whether the voters be white or colored male or female
is to make each vote decisive and potential if the vote of a colored man or the vote of a white man determines the result of an election in which he participates then the very purpose for which he was given
the right and privilege will have been accomplished whether the result as we understand it be wise or unwise in this connection it cannot and will not be denied
that the colored vote has been decisive and potential in very many important national as well as local and state elections for instance in the presidential election of eighteen sixty eight general grant the republican candidate
lost the important and pivotal state of new york a loss which would have resulted in his defeat if the southern states that took part in that election had all voted against him
that they did not do so was due to the votes of the colored men in those states therefore grant's first administration represented negro domination again in eighteen seventy six hayes was declared elected president
by a majority of one vote in the electoral college this was made possible by the result of the election in the states of louisiana south carolina and florida about which there was much doubt and considerable dispute
and over which there was a bitter controversy but for the colored vote in those states there would have been no doubt no dispute no controversy the defeat of mister hayes
therefore the hayes administration represented negro domination again in eighteen eighty general garfield the republican candidate for president carried the state of new york by a plurality of about twenty thousand
without which he could not have been elected it will not be denied by those who are well informed
and with it the presidency therefore the garfield arthur administration represented negro domination again in eighteen eighty four mister cleveland the democratic candidate
the number of colored men that voted for mister cleveland was far in excess of the plurality by which he carried the state mister cleveland's first administration therefore represented negro domination
mister cleveland did not hesitate to admit and appreciate the fact that colored men contributed largely to his success hence he did not fail to give that element of his party appropriate and satisfactory official recognition
again in eighteen eighty eight general harrison the republican presidential candidate carried the state of new york by a plurality of about twenty thousand which resulted in his election
which he would have lost but for the votes of the colored men in that state therefore harrison's administration represented negro domination the same is true of important elections in a number of states
what was the motive the incentive that caused it it was not in the interest of good efficient and capable government for that we already had it was not on account of dishonesty
maladministration misappropriation of public funds for every dollar of the public funds had been faithfully accounted for it was not on account of high taxes
the story of prince charles edward stuart the bonnie prince charlie of song is too well known to need recapitulation here
notwithstanding the incontrovertible nature of these circumstances attempts have been made within the last thirty or forty years to prove that prince charles did leave a legitimate son the child of his wife the princess louisa
and that two brothers who until quite recently were residing in london under the pseudonyms of counts d'albanie were the children of this unknown royal prince and therefore grandchildren of charles the third
in a work entitled tales of the century or sketches of the romance of history between the years seventeen forty six and eighteen forty six
published in eighteen forty seven and purporting to be by john sobieski and charles edward stuart some suggestive hints it is true had been thrown out as early as eighteen twenty two in a volume of poems by one of these brothers
but that book was published as by john hay allen and no definite assumption of royal lineage would appear to have been made until the edinburgh publication of eighteen forty seven
according to the legend detailed in the three sections into which the work was divided in eighteen thirty one an ancient medical man of extreme jacobite views finding himself dying confided to a young highland gentleman
who was visiting him in london the long hoarded secret that the gaels have yet a king the young scotchman is naturally inquisitive as to the meaning of this mysterious communication
and has his curiosity gratified by a recital of the following romantic story by doctor beaton according to that deceased gentleman he chanced to be making a tour in italy in seventeen seventy three
by beholding the not to be forgotten countenance of his beloved prince charlie seated by a lady's side on the evening of the same day whilst meditating on what he had seen he was accosted by a man of military appearance
and asked whether he was doctor beaton the scotch physician on replying in the affirmative he was informed that his immediate attendance was required in a case of urgency and all his questions as to the nature of the patient's malady
that is to say prince charles after the usual style of such mystic tales doctor beaton was taken to a secluded palace and after being led through the usual corridors and apartments of such abodes
had his mask removed and was permitted to inspect the magnificent chamber into which he had been inducted his conductor did not allow much time for investigation but rang a silver bell
and his summons being responded to by a little page in scarlet he was enabled to inform the doctor after a short conversation in german with the boy
owing to the absence of her own regular medical attendant was over and apparently without more than exhaustion the news communicated through so uncustomary a channel
was followed by the request that he would render such services as were necessary he was taken into a gorgeous bedroom where a lady who spoke english led him towards the bed wherein he beheld the face of the lady he had seen in the carriage with prince charles
whilst by the bedside was a woman holding the newly born babe wrapped in a mantle the patient was in a somewhat critical condition so doctor beaton hastily turned to a writing table near at hand to write a prescription for her
and in so doing beheld among the trinkets on the table a miniature of prince charles attired in the very uniform the doctor had seen him in at culloden the lady who had spoken english approached the table as if looking for something
and when beaton looked again the portrait had been turned on its face having performed his duties the doctor was persuaded to take an oath on a crucifix never to speak of what he had seen heard or thought on that night
unless it should be in the service of his king king charles he was also desired to leave tuscany that night and then conducted from the dwelling in the same needlessly mysterious manner as he had been taken to it
the doctor obeyed his injunctions to the letter and at once departed from the neighbourhood a few days later he arrived at a certain seaport and one night soon after his arrival he was strolling along the beach when his attention was attracted
by an english looking vessel anchored off the coast upon inquiry this proved to be the albina an english frigate commanded by commodore o'haleran whilst he was watching the vessel
accompanied by a horseman whom he recognized as his guide on the night he was conducted to the residence of prince charles his curiosity aroused by this singular coincidence he stopped to watch what happened and beheld a lady
bearing a babe in her arms descend from the mysterious vehicle this lady and her infantile charge were then conveyed on board the frigate and no sooner had they got on board than the vessel hoisted sail and slowly disappeared
the babe it is implied was the legitimate son and heir of prince charles thus mysteriously smuggled off in order to preserve it from the machinations of the english government many years are supposed to have elapsed
and the boy born at saint rosalie in seventeen seventy three is next introduced as a grown man bearing the name of captain o'haleran and supposed to be the son of the admiral formerly introduced as the commodore of that name
one ancient chieftain indeed of somewhat clouded mind when he beholds the mysterious stranger who is known by the cognomen of the red eagle addresses him as prince charles and reminds his royal highness
that their last meeting was at the fatal fight of culloden moreover to make the reader understand the personage's rank beyond all question his french attendant styles him monseigneur and son altesse royal
in the final section of this fiction the red eagle makes a misalliance by marrying an untitled english lady and becomes the father it is natural to infer
the reader must not imagine that this marvellous romance was intended to be regarded as myth every effort was made to persuade the public into accepting it as fact and as fact several persons in great britain and abroad have accepted it
but in the quarterly review for june eighteen forty seven the whole story was thoroughly analysed and ruthlessly demolished by some one conversant with all the bearings of the whole case
he undeniably proved that the implied son of prince charles was no other than thomas younger son of admiral allen and himself an officer in the navy who married in seventeen ninety two catherine manning
a clergyman's daughter that in his will admiral allen termed him his son and that the sons of this thomas allen
had respectively published a volume of poems and had taken a wife in their proper names of allen thus completely ignoring their pretended royal ancestry even had not direct testimony been forthcoming
the circumstantial evidence against the allegation that prince charles had left a legitimate child is so strong that no amount of romance of history could upset it in his latter days when separated from his wife the princess louisa
prince charles sent for his illegitimate daughter by miss walkinshaw created her duchess of albany made her mistress of his household and left her by will almost everything that he possessed
including such family jewels and plate as were still in his possession not only did he omit to make any provision for or the slightest bequest to
neither did the princess louisa the child's mother ever appear to make any inquiry after it nor when she died in eighteen twenty four
did she give any sign that she was aware of his existence nor did he this son come forward at any period of time to prove his birth and assert his parentage after the death of prince charles who from the time of his father's decease
king of great britain and ireland many other proofs could be furnished of the utterly baseless nature of the claims of these pretenders to royalty but it is needless
should any one desire to peruse a fuller exposition of this romance he may be referred to the number of the quarterly review already alluded to
the eagles there was once a king who had lost his wife they had a family of thirteen twelve gallant sons and one daughter who was exquisitely beautiful
for twelve years after his wife's death the king grieved very much he used to go daily to her tomb and there weep and pray and give away alms to the poor
he thought never to marry again for he had promised his dying wife never to give her children a stepmother one day when visiting his dead wife's grave as usual he saw beside him a maiden so entrancingly fair
that he fell in love with her and soon made her his second queen but before long he found out that he had made a great mistake though she was so beautiful she turned out to be a wicked sorceress
and not only made the king himself unhappy but proved most unkind to his children whom she wished out of the way so that her own little son might inherit the kingdom one day when the king was far away at war against his enemies
the queen went into her stepchildren's apartments and pronounced some magical words on which every one of the twelve princes flew away in the shape of an eagle and the princess was changed into a dove
with a beard as white as snow what are you here for old man she asked to be witness of your deed he answered then you saw it i saw it then be what i command
she whispered some magical words the old man disappeared in a blaze of sunshine and the queen as she stood there dumb with terror was changed into a basilisk the basilisk ran off in fright
trying to hide herself underground but her glance was so deadly that it killed every one she looked at so that all the people in the palace were soon dead including her own son whom she slew by merely looking at him
and this once populous and happy royal residence quickly became an uninhabited ruin which no one dared approach for fear of the basilisk
blesses the princess meanwhile the princess who had been changed into a dove flew after her brothers the eagles but not being able to overtake them she rested under a wayside cross and began cooing mournfully
what are you grieving for pretty dove asked an old man with a snow white beard who just then came by i am grieving for my poor dear father who is fighting in the wars far away
for my loved brothers who have flown away from me into the clouds i am grieving also for myself not long ago i was a happy princess and now i must wander over the world as a dove to hide from the birds of prey
and be parted for ever from my dear father and brothers you may grieve and weep little dove but do not lose hope said the old man sorrow is only for a time and all will come right in the end so saying
he stroked the little dove and she at once regained her natural shape she kissed the old man's hand in her gratitude saying how can i ever thank you enough but since you are so kind will you not tell me how to rescue my brothers
the old man gave her an ever growing loaf and said this loaf is enough to sustain not only you but a thousand people for a thousand years without ever diminishing
go towards the sunset and weep your tears into this little bottle and when it is full and the old man told her what else to do blessed her and disappeared the princess travelled on towards the sunset
and in about a year she reached the boundary of the next world and stood before an iron door where death was keeping guard with his scythe stop princess he said you can proceed no
further for you are not yet parted by death from your own world but what am i to do she asked must i go back without my poor brothers
your brothers said death fly here every day in the guise of eagles they want to reach the other side of this door which leads into the other world for they hate the one they live in
nevertheless they and you also must remain there until your time be come therefore every day i must compel them to go back which they can do because they are eagles but how are you going to get back yourself
look there the princess looked around her and wept bitterly for though she had not perceived this before nor seen how she got there she saw now that she was in a deep abyss
shut in on all sides by such high precipices that she wondered how her brothers even with eagle wings could fly to the top but remembering what the mysterious old man had said she took courage and began to pray and weep
till she had filled the little bottle with her tears soon she heard the sound of wings over her head and saw twelve eagles flying the eagles dashed themselves against the iron portal beating their wings upon it
and imploring death to open it to them but death only threatened them with his scythe saying hence ye enchanted princes you must fulfil your penance on earth
till i come for you myself the eagles were about to turn and fly when all at once they perceived their sister they came round her and caressed her hands lovingly with their beaks
she at once began to sprinkle them with her tears from the lachrymatory and in one moment the twelve eagles were changed back into the twelve princes and joyfully embraced their sister
the princess then fed them all round from her ever growing loaf but when their hunger was appeased they began to be troubled as to how they were to ascend from the abyss since they had no longer eagles wings to fly up but the princess knelt down
and prayed bird of heavenly pity here by each labour prayer and tear come in thine unvanquished power come and aid us in this hour
carry us from this threshold of eternity to our own world i will but you must know princess that before i can reach the top of this precipice with you on my back three days and nights must pass
and i must have food on the way or my strength will fail me and i shall fall down with you to the bottom and we shall all perish i have an ever growing loaf which will suffice both for you and ourselves replied the princess
then climb upon my back and whenever i look round give me some bread to eat the bird was so large that all the princes and the princess in the midst of them could easily find place on his back
and he began to fly upwards he flew higher and higher and whenever he looked round at her she gave him bits of the loaf and he flew on and upwards so they went on steadily for two nights and days
but upon the third day when they were hoping in a short time to view the summit of the precipice and to land upon the borders of this world the bird looked round as usual for a piece of the loaf
the princess was just going to break off some to give him when a sudden violent gust of wind from the bottom of the abyss snatched the loaf from her hand and sent it whistling downwards
not having received his usual meal the bird became sensibly weaker and looked round once more the princess trembled with fear she had nothing more to give him and she felt that he was becoming exhausted
in utter desperation she cut off a piece of her flesh and gave it to him having eaten this the bird recovered strength and flew upwards faster than before but after an hour or two he looked round once more
so she cut off another piece of her flesh the bird seized it greedily and flew on so fast that in a few minutes he reached the ground at the top of the precipice when they alighted and he asked her princess
what were those two delicious morsels you gave me last
replied the princess in a faint voice for she was swooning away with pain and loss of blood the bird breathed upon her wounds and the flesh at once healed over and grew again as before then he flew up again to heaven
and was lost in the clouds the princess and her brothers resumed their journey this time towards the sunrise and at last arrived in their own country where they met their father returning from the wars
the king was coming back victorious over his enemies and on his way home had first heard of the sudden disappearance of his children and of the queen and how his palace was tenanted only by a basilisk with a death dealing glance
he was therefore most surprised and overjoyed to meet his dear children once more and on the way his daughter told him all that had come to pass
when they got back to the palace the king sent one of his nobles with a looking glass down into the underground vaults the basilisk saw herself reflected in this mirror and her own glance slew her immediately
they gathered up the remains of the basilisk and burnt them in a great fire in the courtyard afterwards scattering the ashes to the four winds
chapter four no holiday to day now constance that we have a moment alone what is this about you began mister yorke as they stood together in the garden annabel said the truth
that i do think of going out as daily governess she replied bending over a carnation to hide the blush which rose to her cheeks a very rival to the blushing flower
do you not see william that it is incumbent upon us all to endeavour to lighten this embarrassment those of us who can do so i must assume my share of the burden mister yorke was silent constance took it for granted that he was displeased
he was of an excellent family and she supposed he disliked the step she was about to take
have you fully made up your mind he at length asked yes i have talked it over with mamma for indeed she and i both seem to have anticipated this
she continued think of papa think of his strait it appears to be a plain duty thrown in my path by yourself constance not by myself she whispered lifting for a moment her large blue eyes
oh william william do not be displeased with me do not forbid it it is honourable to work it is right to do what we can strive to see it in the right light let that carnation alone constance give your attention to me
what if i do forbid it she walked a little forward leaving the carnation bed and halted under the shade of the dark cedar tree her heart and colour alike fading mister yorke followed and stood before her william i must do my duty
there is no other way open to me by which i can earn something to help in this time of need except that of becoming a governess many a lady better born than i has done it before me a daily governess i think you said
papa could not spare me to go out altogether annabel could not spare me either and i would not spare you he struck in filling up her pause was that what you were about to say constance
the rosy hue stole over her face again and a sweet smile to her lips oh william if you will only sanction it i shall go about it then with the lightest heart he looked at her with an expression she did not understand
and shook his head constance thought it a negative shake and her hopes fell again you did not answer my question said mister yorke what if i forbid it but it seems to be my duty she urged from between her pale and parted lips
constance that is no answer oh do not do not william do not you throw this temptation in my way that of choosing between yourself and a plain duty that lies before me the temptation as you call it
must be for a later consideration why will you not answer me what would be your course if i forbade it i do not know but oh william if you gave me up she could not continue
she turned away to hide her face from mister yorke he followed and obtained forcible view of it it was wet with tears nay but i did not mean to carry it so far as to cause you real grief my dearest he said in a changed tone
how did i bring it on myself by doubting me i saw you doubted me at the first when annabel spoke of it in the study constance if you
possessed as you are of great acquirements refused from any notion of false pride to exert them for your family in a time of need i should say you were little fitted for the wife of one whose whole duty it must be to do his master's work you will sanction the measure then
she rejoined her countenance lighting up how could you doubt me i wish i could make a home at once to take you to but as you must remain in this a little longer it is only fair that you should contribute to its maintenance
what could you be thinking of child forgive me william she softly pleaded but you looked so grave and were so silent mister yorke smiled
the truth is constance i was turning in my mind whether i could not help to place you and pondering the advantages and disadvantages of a situation i know of lady augusta is looking out for a daily governess
constance spoke hesitatingly the thought which had flashed over her own mind was whether lady augusta yorke could afford to pay her sufficient remuneration probably the same doubt had made one of the disadvantages hinted at by mister yorke
i called there yesterday and interrupted a scene between lady augusta and miss caroline he said unseemly anger on my lady's part and rebellion on carry's forming as usual its chief features but lady augusta is so indulgent to her children interrupted constance
perniciously indulgent generally and when the effects break out in insolence and disobedience then there ensues a scene if you go there you will witness them occasionally and i assure you they are not edifying
if i do go i knew how long it would last lady augusta's instructing them herself resumed mister yorke it is not a month since the governess left
why does she wish to take a daily governess instead of one in the house why lady augusta does a thing is scarcely ever to be accounted for by herself or by any one else replied mister yorke
some convenience or inconvenience she mentioned to me about sleeping arrangements shall i ascertain particulars for you constance touching salary and other matters if you please papa is somewhat fastidious but he could not object to my going there
and its being so very near our own house would be a great point of constance interrupted a voice at this juncture
he is here mamma replied constance walking forward to missus channing mister yorke attending her i thought i heard you enter she said as mister yorke took her hand mister channing will be pleased to see you if you will come in and chat with him
the children have told you the tidings it is a great blow to their prospects but they seem determined to bear it bravely he answered in a hearty tone you may be proud to have such children missus channing not proud she softly said thankful
constance halted for judith came out of the kitchen and spoke in a whisper and what's the right and the wrong of it miss constance is the money gone gone entirely judith
i should say for ill why does the queen let there be a lord chancellor it is not the lord chancellor's fault judith he only administers the law why couldn't he just as well have given it for your papa as against him
i suppose he considers that the law is on the other side sighed constance judith with a pettish movement returned to her kitchen and at that moment hamish came downstairs he had changed his dress and had a pair of new white gloves in his hand
are you going out to night hamish there was a stress on the word to night and hamish marked it
it could not improve things fare you well my pretty sister tell mamma i shall be home by eleven it'll be a sad cut down for em all muttered judith gazing at hamish round the kitchen door post where he'll find money for his white gloves and things now
is beyond my telling the darling boy if i could but get to that lord chancellor
and i can assure you you might live in a less privileged city it is possible that on the morning following the above events your peaceful slumbers might have been rudely broken by a noise loud enough to waken the seven sleepers of ephesus
before seven o'clock the whole school choristers and king's scholars assembled in the cloisters but instead of entering the schoolroom for early school they formed themselves into a dense mass
if you ever saw schoolboys march otherwise i have not and treading on each other's heels proceeded through the town to the lodgings of the judges in pursuance of a time honoured custom
there the head boy sent in his name to the very chamber of the lord chief justice who happened this time to have come to the helstonleigh circuit mister gaunt senior of the college school craving holiday for himself and the whole fry who had attended him
college boys cried his lordship winking and blinking as other less majestic mortals do when awakened suddenly out of their morning sleep yes my lord replied the servant all the school's come up such a lot of em
it's the holiday they are asking for oh
give one of my cards to the senior boy roberts my compliments to the head master and i beg he will grant the boys a holiday roberts did as he was bid he also had been to helstonleigh before with his master and delivered the card and message to gaunt
the consequence of which was the school tore through the streets in triumph shouting holiday in tones to be heard a mile off and bringing people in white garments from their beds to the windows the least they feared was that the town had taken fire
back to the house of the head master for the pantomime to be played through this usually was for the master as wise on the subject as they were would lie that morning in bed to send the master's servant into his room with the card and the message
upon which permission for the holiday would come out and the boys would disperse exercising their legs and lungs no such luck however on this morning the servant met them at the door and grinned dreadfully at the crowd
won't you catch it gentlemen the head master's gone into school and is waiting for you marking you all late of course gone into school repeated gaunt
was the reply upon which gaunt felt uncommonly inclined to knock him down but the man had a propensity for grinning and was sure to exercise it on all possible occasions
there's some row up and you are not to have holiday continued the servant the master said last night i was to call him this morning as usual at this unexpected reply the boys slunk away to the college schoolroom
figuratively speaking they could not understand it they had not the most distant idea what their offence could have been gaunt entered and the rest trooped in after him the head master sat at his desk in stern state the other masters were in their places
what is the meaning of this insubordination the master sharply demanded addressing gaunt you are three quarters of an hour behind your time we have been up to the judges as usual for holiday sir replied gaunt in a tone of deprecation
his lordship sends his card and compliments to you and holiday interrupted the master holiday he repeated with emphasis as if disbelieving his own ears do you consider that the school deserves it a pretty senior you must be if you do
what has the school done sir respectfully asked gaunt your memory must be conveniently short chafed the master have you forgotten the inked surplice gaunt paused but that was not the act of the whole school sir
it was probably the act of only one but so long as that one does not confess the whole school must bear it returned the master looking round on the assembly boys
understand me it is not for the fault itself that may have been as i said yesterday the result of accident but it is the concealment of the fault that makes me angry will you confess now he who did it no
the appeal brought forth no further result than the other had done the master continued
but let me remind you that the eye of god was upon you what you refuse to tell he can bring to light if it shall so please him in his own wonderful way his own good time there will be no holiday to day prayers
at breakfast time they were dismissed and gathered in the cloisters to give vent to their sentiments isn't it a stunning shame cried hot tom channing the school ought not to suffer for the fault of one boy the master has no right the fault lies in the boy
not in the master interrupted gaunt a sneak a coward if he has a spark of manly honour in him he'll speak up now as it has come to this i say charley channing should be made to declare what he knows said one he saw it done who says he did
quickly asked tom channing some one said so and that he was afraid to tell gaunt lifted his finger and made a sign to charles to approach now boy as the latter obeyed you will answer me remember
the master has called the seniors to his aid and i order you to speak did you see this mischief done no i did not fearlessly replied little channing if he doesn't know he suspects persisted hurst come miss channing
we don't declare things upon suspicion do we mister gaunt appealed charles i may suspect one hurst may suspect another bywater said he suspected two the whole school may be suspicious one of another where's the use of that
it is of no use decided gaunt you say you did not see the surplice damaged i did not upon my word of honour that's enough said gaunt depend upon it the fellow while he was at it took precious good precautions against being seen
once upon a time there lived a poor old man whose name was wali dad gunjay or wali dad the bald he had no relations but lived all by himself in a little mud hut some distance from any town
and made his living by cutting grass in the jungle and selling it as fodder for horses he only earned by this five halfpence a day but he was a simple old man and needed so little out of it that he saved up one halfpenny daily
so he set to work and with much trouble he pulled the bag out on to the floor and sat gazing in astonishment at the heap of coins which tumbled out of it what should he do with them all he wondered
with the respectful compliments of one who admires virtue far more than he desires wealth with that he pulled the bracelet from his waistband and handed it to his friend
and sent in the bracelet neatly packed in a little perfumed box provided by himself giving at the same time the message entrusted to him by wali dad the princess could not think who could have bestowed this present on her
and received from the princess a return present in the shape of a camel load or rich silks besides a present of money for himself with these he set out on his journey some months later he got home again from his journeyings
and proceeded to take wali dad the princess's present great was the perplexity of the good man to find a camel load of silks tumbled at his door what was he to do with these costly things but presently after much thought
he begged the merchant to consider whether he did not know of some young prince to whom such treasures might be useful of course cried the merchant greatly amused
i know them all and there lives none worthier than the gallant and wealthy young prince of nekabad very well then take the silks to him with the blessing of an old man said wali dad much relieved to be rid of them
and begged the young man to accept them as a humble tribute to his worth and greatness the prince was much touched by the generosity of the giver and ordered as a return present twelve of the finest breed of horses
for which his country was famous to be delivered over to the merchant to whom also before he took his leave he gave a munificent reward for his services as before the merchant at last arrived at home
and next day he set out for wali dad's house with the twelve horses when the old man saw them coming in the distance he said to himself here's luck a troop of horses coming they are sure to want quantities of grass
and i shall sell all i have without having to drag it to market thereupon he rushed off and cut grass as fast he could when he got back with as much grass as he could possibly carry
that the horses were all for himself at first he could not think what to do with them but after a little a brilliant idea struck him he gave two to the merchant
this time the princess sent for the merchant and questioned him about the giver now the merchant was usually a most honest man but he did not quite like to describe wali dad in his true light as an old man whose income was five halfpence a day
and who had hardly clothes to cover him so he told her that his friend had heard stories of her beauty and goodness
and he had to hire a number of armed men to defend it on the road against the robbers and he was glad indeed to find himself back again in wali dad's hut well now
i shall thank you heartily the merchant felt handsomely repaid for his trouble and wondered greatly how the matter would turn out
this time the prince too was embarrassed and questioned the merchant closely the merchant felt that his credit was at stake and whilst inwardly determining that he would not carry the joke any further
in such glowing terms that the old man would never have known himself had he heard them the prince like the king of khaistan determined that he would send in return a gift that would be truly royal
also twenty camels of the best breed which had the speed of race horses and could swing along at a trot all day without getting tired
coverings of silk embroidered with pearls to take care of these animals the merchant hired a little army of men and the troop made a great show as they travelled along when wali dad from a distance saw the cloud of dust which the caravan made
and the glitter of its appointments he said to himself by allah here's a grand crowd coming elephants too
and with that he hurried off to the jungle and cut grass as fast as he could
a little anxiously to tell him the news and to congratulate him upon his riches riches cried wali dad what has an old man like me with one foot in the grave to do with riches that beautiful young princess now
she'd be the one to enjoy all these fine things do you take for yourself two horses two camels and two elephants with all their trappings and present the rest to her
these embassies a little awkward of course he was himself richly repaid so far as expenses went but still he did not like going so often and he was getting nervous at length however he consented to go once more
but he promised himself never to embark on another such enterprise so after a few days rest the caravan started off once more for khaistan the moment the king of khaistan saw the gorgeous train of men and beasts entering his palace courtyard
and became dumb when he heard that these also were a present from the princely wali dad and were for the princess his daughter he went hastily off to her apartments and said to her i tell you what it is my dear this man wants to marry you
that is the meaning of all these presents there is nothing for it but that we go and pay him a visit in person
perhaps you might do worse than marry him the princess agreed with all that her father said and orders were issued for vast numbers of elephants and camels and gorgeous tents and flags and litters for the ladies and horses for the men
willingly would he have run away but he was treated with so much hospitality as wali dad's representative that he hardly got an instant's real peace and never any opportunity of slipping away
that all that happened was fate and that escape was impossible but he hoped devoutly some turn of fortune would reveal to him a way out of the difficulties which he had with the best intentions drawn upon himself
as he would have suffered if the king's executioners were already setting to work upon his neck at last they were only one day's march from wali dad's little mud home here
a great encampment was made and the merchant was sent on to tell wali dad that the king and princess of khaistan had arrived and were seeking an interview when the merchant arrived he found the poor old man eating his evening meal of onions and dry bread
and when he told him of all that had happened he had not the heart to proceed to load him with the reproaches which rose to his tongue for wali dad was overwhelmed with grief and shame for himself
for his friend and for the name and honour of the princess and he wept and plucked at his beard and groaned most piteously
of great height and determined to throw himself down and put an end to his life when he got to the place he drew back a few paces took a little run
he could not do it from below unseen in the blackness of the deep night shadows the water roared and boiled round the jagged rocks he could picture the place as he knew it only ten times more pitiless
and forbidding in the visionless darkness
and the bushes and grasses that grew in the ledges of the cliffs seemed to him like living creatures that danced and beckoned shadowy and indistinct an owl laughed hoo hoo almost in his face
presently he was aware of a gentle radiance that shed itself before him surely morning was not already coming to hasten and reveal his disgrace he took his hands from before his face
and saw before him two lovely beings whom his instinct told him were not mortal but were peris from paradise why do you weep old man said one in a voice as clear and musical as that of the bulbul
then the first stepped forward and laid a hand upon his shoulder and wali dad began to feel that something strange what he did not know was happening to him his old cotton rags of clothes were changed to beautiful linen and embroidered cloth
on his hard bare feet were warm soft shoes and on his head a great jewelled turban round his neck there lay a heavy golden chain and the little old bent sickle which he cut grass with and which hung in his waistband
and up an avenue of giant place trees the peris led him dumb with amazement at the end of the avenue on the very spot where his hut had stood a gorgeous palace appeared ablaze with myriads of lights
its great porticoes and verandahs were occupied by hurrying servants and guards paced to and fro and saluted him respectfully as he drew near along mossy walks and through sweeping grassy lawns where fountains were playing
and flowers scented the air wali dad stood stunned and helpless fear not said one of the peris go to your house and learn that god rewards the simple hearted with these words they both disappeared and left him
a great stretch of wild jungle country had in the night been changed into parks and gardens and if it had not been for some of wali dad's new servants who found him and brought him to the palace
down to the very humblest in the camp for three nights and days a great feast was held in honour of the royal guests every evening the king and his nobles were served on golden plates and from golden cups and the smaller people on silver plates and from silver cups
and dances and amusements of all sorts on the fourth day the king of khaistan took his host aside and asked him whether it was true as he had suspected that he wished to marry his daughter
the knights of the fish once upon a time there lived an old cobbler who worked hard at his trade from morning till night and scarcely gave himself a moment to eat
but industrious as he was he could hardly buy bread and cheese for himself and his wife and they grew thinner and thinner daily for a long while
that they had no appetite and that a few blackberries from the hedges were a great deal nicer than a good strong bowl of soup but at length there came a day when the cobbler could bear it no longer and he threw away his last
and borrowing a rod from a neighbour he went out to fish now the cobbler was as patient about fishing as he had been about cobbling from dawn to dark he stood on the banks of the little stream without hooking anything better than an eel
but the cobbler only laughed and told them it was no business of theirs and when they were safe in bed he stole out and buried the two pieces in the garden by and by two babies exactly alike lay in a cradle
and in the garden were two tall plants with two brilliant shields on the top years passed away and the babies were almost men they were tired of living quietly at home being mistaken for each other by everybody they saw
and determined to set off in different directions to seek adventures so one fine morning the two brothers left the hut and walked together to the place where the great road divided
there they embraced and parted promising that if anything remarkable had happened to either he would return to the cross roads and wait till his brother came the youth who took the path that ran eastwards arrived presently at a large city
where he found everybody standing at the doors wringing their hands and weeping bitterly what is the matter asked he pausing and looking round and a man replied in a faltering voice
but where is the princess said the young man once more and again the man answered him she is standing under a tree a mile away waiting for the dragon this time
she felt more forsaken than before but in reality it was not more than a few minutes before he came back galloping furiously on a horse he had borrowed and carrying a huge mirror across its neck i am in time then
when the flap of the dragon's wings could be plainly heard he tossed his head with delight at the sight of her and approached slowly to the place where she stood a little in front of the mirror then still looking the monster steadily in the face
the princess had not known when she obeyed the orders of the knight of the fish what she expected to happen would the dragon with snaky locks be turned to stone she wondered
or would some fiery spark dart from the heart of the mirror and strike him dead neither of these things occurred but instead the dragon stopped short with surprise and rage when he saw a monster before him as big and strong as himself
he shook his mane with rage and fury the enemy in front did exactly the same he lashed his tail and rolled his red eyes and the dragon opposite was no whit behind him opening his mouth to its very widest
he gave an awful roar but the other dragon only roared back this was too much and with another roar which made the princess shake in her shoes he flung himself upon his foe in an instant the mirror lay at his feet broken into a thousand pieces
but as every piece reflected part of himself the dragon thought that he too had been smashed into atoms it was the moment for which the knight of the fish had watched and waited and before the dragon could find out that he was not hurt at all
which was so large that it was three miles round the first wet day after their marriage the bridegroom begged the bride to show him all the rooms in the palace
it needed a brave man to approach it for it made your hair stand on end merely to look at it it was as dark as the night of a storm and as silent as the grave but the knight of the fish knew no fear
and had never turned his back on an enemy so he drew out his horn and blew a blast the sound awoke all the sleeping echoes in the castle and was repeated now loudly now softly now near and now far
which belonged to the ugliest old woman that ever was seen what do you want said she to enter he answered shortly can i rest here this night yes or no no no no
repeated the echoes between the fierce sun and his anger at being kept waiting the knight of the fish had grown so hot that he lifted his visor and when the old woman saw how handsome he was she began fumbling with the lock of the gate
come in come in said she so fine a gentleman will do us no harm harm repeated the echoes but again the young man paid no heed let us go in ancient dame but she interrupted him
you must call me the lady berberisca she answered sharply and this is my castle to which i bid you welcome you shall live here with me and be my husband but at these words the knight let his spear fall so surprised was he
i marry you why you must be a hundred at least cried he you are mad all i desire is to inspect the castle and then go as he spoke he heard the voices give a mocking laugh
but the old woman took no notice and only bade the knight follow her old though she was it seemed impossible to tire her there was no room however small she did not lead him into
i have kept my most precious treasure till the last said the old woman but let me go first for the stairs are steep and you might easily break your leg
so on she went now and then calling back to the young man in the darkness but he did not know that she had slipped aside into a recess till suddenly he put his foot on a trap door which gave way under him and he fell down
and had made herself ill with weeping at last it occurred to him that once more he had been taken for his brother i had better say nothing thought he perhaps i shall be able to help him after all
so he suffered himself to be borne in triumph to the palace where the princess threw herself into his arms and so you did go to the castle she asked yes of course i did answered he
i must was all he answered and the princess who was a wise woman only said well go to bed now for i am sure you must be very tired but the knight shook his head
the long nose of the old woman appeared at the grating but the moment she caught sight of his face she nearly fainted from fright as she thought it was the ghost of the youth whose bones were lying in the dungeon of the castle lady of all the ages
the woman did not stop to hear more she turned to fly but the knight's sword entered her body where is my brother cruel hag asked he sternly i will tell you said she but as i feel that i am going to die
i shall keep that piece of news to myself till you have brought me to life again the young man laughed scornfully how do you propose that i should work that miracle oh it is quite easy
she came out quite whole but uglier than ever she then told the young man what had become of his brother and he went down into the dungeon and brought up his body and the bodies of the other victims who lay there and when they were all washed in the magic water
their strength was restored to them and besides these he found in another cavern the bodies of the girls who had been sacrificed to the dragon and brought them back to life also
had not sir john reminded her of its existence a few days afterwards the spark of jealous passion had not fully died out after the incident referred to and awaiting silently its decease sir john almost had
he was informed of irene's recent exit and gently turning away he resolved to have a stroll in the tastefully laid out gardens with the sole object of meeting her walking leisurely along and stooping to pick up some fallen fruit
remaining breathless for a few seconds lest he might be deceived by the rippling sounds of the adjacent waves he again heard the same sweet strain
and quietly moving towards the spot whence it issued another sound met his ear in the distance which seemed to be the hasty tread of some one making good an escape before he got time to view the object he would eagerly have pursued
and brightened beyond conception with the instrument of humanity which gave origin to such pathetic and sweetened strains politely offering an apology for intruding on the private little palace of irene
at his unexpected visit sir john sat down irene held in her snowy palms a roll of italian music which she earnestly endeavoured to conceal from his penetrating stare
whatever or slightest allusion to the name and nature of the parchment she so firmly retained sir john chatted gaily until he gained good ground for delivering to her the message that instinct had so prompted him to utter
irene my beloved one he began it is now only about a score of days until i hoped for ever to call you mine
a hope which unmercifully has haunted me since i fortunately gazed on your lovely face a hope which i trusted should be fully appreciated by both you and me and which
i now must own can never be realised until the clearance of the barrier that since our engagement has been but too apparent the sole object of my visit my dear irene here sir john clasped her tender hand in his
tonight is to elicit from you a matter that lately has cast a shadowy gloom over my anticipated bright and cheerful future i am not one of those mortals who takes offence at trifles
neither am i a man of hasty temper or words quite the contrary i assure you but it has fortunately or unfortunately been probably a failing amongst my ancestors
and i must acknowledge i stray not from any of them in this particular point i must acquaint you though it pains me deeply to do so
that lately you have not treated me with such respect or attention as you certainly lavished upon me before the announcement of our engagement and for what reason or reasons i now wish to be apprised
you seem when in company with others to ignore my remarks to you entirely and treat them with proud disdain as if shame took the place of pride at my wordy approach i felt and do feel quite hurt
and am resolved that no such repetition shall take place in future i promised to be at the castle last night but unfortunately i felt indisposed and only that i wished to have a thorough understanding relative to your recent conduct
instead of being doubly rejoiced at my presence you on the contrary seem doubly annoyed i therefore pray my dearest irene that you will and i am persuaded honestly
knowing well she had been guilty grossly guilty of the charges with which he impeached her and which were mixed with child like simplicity descriptive only of a world famed bachelor
she pondered whether or not honesty should take the place of deceit
and concluded to adopt the latter weapon of defence raising her hazel eyes to his and clearing the weft of truth that had been mixing with the warp of falsehood to form an answer of plausible texture fringed with different shades of love
an honour revered in every respect by me an honour to which i at one time dare never aspire an honour coveted by many much more worthy than i whose parentage is as yet
when i trust it shall stand out boldly upon the brink of disclosure to dry its saturated form and watery wear with the heat of equality you are about to place me in a position which cannot fail to wring from jealousy and covetousness
their flaming torch of abuse yes sir john on me you have not ceased to lavish every available treasure and token of your unbounded love
to place me by your side as your equal whilst wealth in boundless store is thirsting for your touch you have elevated my unknown position to such a pitch as to defy taunt or jeer and at any time if i may have
and begging your forgiveness for my seeming neglect or indifference i hope the tide which until now has flown so gently may not be stayed on the eve of entering the harbour of harmony peace and love
the divine picture of innocence until at last when her reply was ended he found himself altogether unconsciously clasping her to his bosom
and according as this superiority encreases and surpasses the opposite chances the probability receives a proportionable encrease and begets still a higher degree of belief or assent to that side
it would be more probable that the former would turn up than the latter though if it had a thousand sides marked in the same manner and only one side different the probability would be much higher and our belief or expectation
of the event more steady and secure this process of the thought or reasoning may seem trivial and obvious but to those who consider it more narrowly it may perhaps afford matter for curious speculation
to render all the particular events comprehended in it entirely equal but finding a greater number of sides concur in the one event than in the other the mind is carried more frequently to that event and meets it oftener
in revolving the various possibilities or chances on which the ultimate result depends this concurrence of several views in one particular event begets immediately by an inexplicable contrivance of nature
and gives that event the advantage over its antagonist which is supported by a smaller number of views and recurs less frequently to the mind if we allow that belief is nothing but a firmer
and stronger conception of an object than what attends the mere fictions of the imagination this operation may perhaps in some measure be accounted for the concurrence of these several views or glimpses
imprints the idea more strongly on the imagination gives it superior force and vigour renders its influence on the passions and affections more sensible and in a word begets that reliance or security
which has hitherto admitted of no exception but there are other causes which have been found more irregular and uncertain nor has rhubarb always proved a purge or opium
but suppose that some secret causes in the particular structure of parts have prevented the operation our reasonings however and conclusions concerning the event
are the same as if this principle had no place being determined by custom to transfer the past to the future in all our inferences where the past has been entirely regular and uniform we expect the event with the greatest assurance
which are to appearance exactly similar all these various effects must occur to the mind in transferring the past to the future and enter into our consideration when we determine the probability of the event
though we give the preference to that which has been found most usual and believe that this effect will exist we must not overlook the other effects but must assign to each of them a particular weight and authority in proportion
as we have found it to be more or less frequent it is more probable in almost every country of europe that there will be frost sometime in january than that the weather will continue open throughout that whole month
though this probability varies according to the different climates and approaches to a certainty in the more northern kingdoms here then it seems evident that when we transfer the past to the future
in order to determine the effect which will result from any cause we transfer all the different events in the same proportion as they have appeared in the past and conceive one to have existed a hundred times for instance
another ten times and another once as a great number of views do here concur in one event they fortify and confirm it to the imagination beget that sentiment which we call belief and give its object
upon any of the received systems of philosophy and he will be sensible of the difficulty for my part i shall think it sufficient if the present hints excite the curiosity of philosophers
the way of the creating one wouldst thou go into isolation my brother wouldst thou seek the way unto thyself tarry yet a little and hearken unto me he who seeketh
may easily get lost himself all isolation is wrong so say the herd and long didst thou belong to the herd the voice of the herd will still echo in thee and when thou sayest
i have no longer a conscience in common with you then will it be a plaint and a pain lo that pain itself did the same conscience produce
and the last gleam of that conscience still gloweth on thine affliction but thou wouldst go the way of thine affliction which is the way unto thyself then show me thine authority and thy strength to do so
many a one hath cast away his final worth when he hath cast away his servitude free from what what doth that matter to zarathustra clearly however shall thine eye show unto me
free for what canst thou give unto thyself thy bad and thy good and set up thy will as a law over thee canst thou be judge for thyself and avenger of thy law
thou individual to day hast thou still thy courage unabated and thy hopes but one day will the solitude weary thee one day will thy pride yield and thy courage quail
thou wilt one day cry i am alone one day wilt thou see no longer thy loftiness and see too closely thy lowliness thy sublimity itself will frighten thee as a phantom
thou wilt one day cry all is false there are feelings which seek to slay the lonesome one if they do not succeed then must they themselves die but art thou capable of it
to be a murderer hast thou ever known my brother the word disdain and the anguish of thy justice in being just to those that disdain thee thou forcest many to think differently about thee
that charge they heavily to thine account thou camest nigh unto them and yet wentest past for that they never forgive thee thou goest beyond them but the higher thou risest
the smaller doth the eye of envy see thee most of all however is the flying one hated how could ye be just unto me must thou say i choose your injustice
as my allotted portion injustice and filth cast they at the lonesome one but my brother if thou wouldst be a star thou must shine for them none the less on that account
and just they would fain crucify those who devise their own virtue they hate the lonesome ones be on thy guard also against holy simplicity all is unholy to it that is not simple
fain likewise would it play with the fire of the fagot and stake and be on thy guard also against the assaults of thy love too readily doth the recluse reach his hand to any one who meeteth him
to many a one mayest thou not give thy hand but only thy paw and i wish thy paw also to have claws but the worst enemy thou canst meet wilt thou thyself always be
thou waylayest thyself in caverns and forests thou lonesome one thou goest the way to thyself and past thyself and thy seven devils leadeth thy way
a heretic wilt thou be to thyself and a wizard and a sooth sayer and a fool and a doubter and a reprobate and a villain ready must thou be to burn thyself in thine own flame
how couldst thou become new if thou have not first become ashes thou lonesome one thou goest the way of the creating one a god wilt thou create for thyself out of thy seven devils thou lonesome one
thou goest the way of the loving one thou lovest thyself and on that account despisest thou thyself as only the loving ones despise to create desireth the loving one
because he despiseth what knoweth he of love who hath not been obliged to despise just what he loved with thy love go into thine isolation my brother and with thy creating and late
only will justice limp after thee with my tears go into thine isolation my brother i love him who seeketh to create beyond himself and thus succumbeth
among men who are greedy
though we call nothing our own we shall be like the bright gods
for the conquered is unhappy he who has given up both victory and defeat he the contented
there is no losing throw like hatred there is no pain like this body
the body the greatest of pains if one knows this truly that is nirvana
contentedness the best riches trust is the best of relationships nirvana
is free from fear and free from sin while he tastes the sweetness
arya is good to live with them is always happiness if a man does not see fools
company with fools as with an enemy is always painful company with the wise is pleasure
one ought to follow the wise the intelligent the learned the much enduring the dutiful the elect one ought to follow a good and wise man
as the moon follows the path of the stars chapter sixteen
and does not give himself to meditation forgetting the real aim of life and grasping at pleasure will in time envy him
or what is unpleasant not to see what is pleasant is pain
no man love anything loss of the beloved is evil
from affection comes fear he who is free from affection
comes grief from greed comes fear he who is free from greed
who is just speaks the truth and does what is his own business
nirvana has sprung up who is satisfied in his mind and whose thoughts are not bewildered by love he is called
friends and lovers salute a man who has been long away
his good works receive him who has done good and has gone from this world to the other as kinsmen receive a friend on his return chapter seventeen
let him forsake pride let him overcome all bondage
there is no one on earth who is not blamed
and diction of a god did the world then seem to me coloured vapours before the eyes of a divinely dissatisfied one good and evil and joy and woe and i and thou
coloured vapours did they seem to me before creative eyes the creator wished to look away from himself thereupon he created the world
intoxicating joy and self forgetting did the world once seem to me this world the eternally imperfect an eternal contradiction's image and imperfect image an intoxicating joy to its imperfect creator
thus did the world once seem to me thus once on a time did i also cast my fancy beyond man like all backworldsmen beyond man forsooth ah ye brethren
and verily it came not unto me from the beyond what happened my brethren i surpassed myself the suffering one i carried mine own ashes to the mountain a brighter flame i contrived for myself and lo
thereupon the phantom withdrew from me to me the convalescent would it now be suffering and torment to believe in such phantoms suffering would it now be to me and humiliation
which seeketh to get to the ultimate with one leap with a death leap a poor ignorant weariness unwilling even to will any longer that created all gods and backworlds believe me my brethren
it was the body which despaired of the body it groped with the fingers of the infatuated spirit at the ultimate walls believe me my brethren it was the body which despaired of the earth
it heard the bowels of existence speaking unto it and then it sought to get through the ultimate walls with its head and not with its head only into the other world but that other world
and hard to make it speak tell me ye brethren is not the strangest of all things best proved yea this ego with its contradiction and perplexity speaketh most uprightly of its being
this creating willing evaluing ego which is the measure and value of things and this most upright existence the ego it speaketh of the body and still implieth the body
no longer to thrust one's head into the sand of celestial things but to carry it freely a terrestrial head which giveth meaning to the earth a new will
to choose that path which man hath followed blindly and to approve of it
like the sick and perishing the sick and perishing it was they who despised the body and the earth and invented the heavenly world and the redeeming blood drops but even those
sweet and sad poisons they borrowed from the body and the earth from their misery they sought escape and the stars were too remote for them then they sighed o
that there were heavenly paths by which to steal into another existence and into happiness then they contrived for themselves their by paths and bloody draughts beyond the sphere of their body and this earth
they now fancied themselves transported these ungrateful ones but to what did they owe the convulsion and rapture of their transport to their body and this earth gentle is zarathustra to the sickly verily
at their modes of consolation and ingratitude may they become convalescents and overcomers and create higher bodies for themselves
at a convalescent who looketh tenderly on his delusions and at midnight stealeth round the grave of his god but sickness
many sickly ones have there always been among those who muse and languish for god violently they hate the discerning ones and the latest of virtues which is uprightness
backward they always gaze toward dark ages then indeed were delusion and faith something different raving of the reason was likeness to god and doubt was sin
not in backworlds and redeeming blood drops but in the body do they also believe most and their own body is for them the thing in itself but it is a sickly thing to them and gladly
would they get out of their skin therefore hearken they to the preachers of death and themselves preach backworlds hearken rather my brethren to the voice of the healthy body it is a more upright
which leads us to expect from any cause the same events which we have observed to result from similar causes where the causes are entirely similar the analogy is perfect and the inference drawn from it
is regarded as certain and conclusive nor does any man ever entertain a doubt where he sees a piece of iron that it will have weight and cohesion of parts as in all other instances which have ever fallen under his observation
but where the objects have not so exact a similarity the analogy is less perfect and the inference is less conclusive though still it has some force in proportion to the degree of similarity and resemblance
the anatomical observations formed upon one animal are by this species of reasoning extended to all animals and it is certain that when the circulation of the blood for instance
of which we are now treating and any theory by which we explain the operations of the understanding or the origin and connexion of the passions in man will acquire additional authority if we find
endeavoured to account for all experimental reasonings and it is hoped that this new point of view
with the more obvious properties of external objects and gradually from their birth treasure up a knowledge of the nature of fire water earth stones heights depths
the ignorance and inexperience of the young are here plainly distinguishable from the cunning and sagacity of the old who have learned by long observation to avoid what hurt them and to pursue what gave ease or pleasure
a horse that has been accustomed to the field becomes acquainted with the proper height which he can leap and will never attempt what exceeds his force and ability an old greyhound
will trust the more fatiguing part of the chace to the younger and will place himself so as to meet the hare in her doubles nor are the conjectures which he forms on this occasion founded in any thing
may be taught any course of action and most contrary to their natural instincts and propensities is it not experience which renders a dog apprehensive of pain when you menace him or lift up the whip to beat him
is it not even experience which makes him answer to his name and infer from such an arbitrary sound that you mean him rather than any of his fellows and intend to call him when you pronounce it in a certain manner
and with a certain tone and accent in all these cases we may observe that the animal infers some fact beyond what immediately strikes his senses and that this inference is altogether founded on past experience
while the creature expects from the present object the same consequences which it has always found
it is impossible that this inference of the animal can be founded on any process of argument or reasoning by which he concludes that like events must follow like objects
and that the course of nature will always be regular in its operations for if there be in reality any arguments of this nature they surely lie too abstruse for the observation of such imperfect understandings
to discover and observe them animals therefore are not guided in these inferences by reasoning neither are children neither are the generality of mankind in their ordinary actions and conclusions
nature must have provided some other principle of more ready and more general use and application nor can an operation of such immense consequence in life as that of inferring effects from causes
be trusted to the uncertain process of reasoning and argumentation were this doubtful with regard to men it seems to admit of no question with regard to the brute creation and the conclusion being once firmly established in the one
we have a strong presumption from all the rules of analogy that it ought to be universally admitted without any exception
in that particular manner which we denominate belief no other explication can be given of this operation in all the higher as well as lower classes of sensitive beings which fall under our notice and observation
is derived merely from custom it may be asked how it happens that men so much surpass animals in reasoning and one man so much surpasses another has not the same custom the same influence on all
we shall here endeavour briefly to explain the great difference in human understandings after which the reason of the difference between men and animals
and have been accustomed to the uniformity of nature we acquire a general habit by which we always transfer the known to the unknown and conceive the latter to resemble the former by means of this general habitual principle
we regard even one experiment as the foundation of reasoning and expect a similar event with some degree of certainty where the experiment has been made accurately and free from all foreign circumstances
it is therefore considered as a matter of great importance to observe the consequences of things and as one man may very much surpass another in attention and memory and observation
one mind may be much larger than another and better able to comprehend the whole system of objects
is frequently involved in other circumstances which are foreign and extrinsic the separation of it often requires great attention accuracy
and nothing is more usual from haste or a narrowness of mind which sees not on all sides
the man who has the greater experience or the greater promptitude of suggesting analogies will be the better reasoner
education passion
books and conversation enlarge much more the sphere of one man's experience and thought than those of another it would be easy to discover many other circumstances
there are also many parts of it which they derive from the original hand of nature which much exceed the share of capacity they possess on ordinary occasions and in which they improve little or nothing
by the longest practice and experience these we denominate instincts and are so apt to admire as something very extraordinary and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human understanding
but our wonder will perhaps cease or diminish when we consider that the experimental reasoning itself which we possess in common with beasts and on which the whole conduct of life depends
is nothing but a species of instinct or mechanical power that acts in us unknown to ourselves and in its chief operations is not directed by any such relations or comparisons of ideas as are the proper objects
of our intellectual faculties though the instinct be different yet still it is an instinct
which increased as i advanced most of them small boats with some schooners sloops and larger craft the majority a ground and suddenly now i was conscious that mingling with that delicious odour of spring blossoms profoundly modifying yet not destroying it
i ran and stopped the engines and without anchoring got down into an empty boat that lay at the ship's side when she stopped and i paddled twenty yards toward the little quay there was a brigantine with all her courses set three jibs stay sails
and ten or twelve shallops and the sailing craft had all fore and aft sails set and about each as i passed among them brooded an odour that was both sweet and abhorrent an odour more suggestive of the very genius of mortality
and cord trousers with a belt and a cloth cap over my long hair and an old pair of yellow shoes without laces and without socks and i stood on the unhewn stones of the edge of the quay and looked abroad over a largish piece of unpaved ground
which lay between the first house row and the quay what i saw was not only most woeful but wildly startling woeful because a great crowd of people had assembled and lay dead there
and the something which told me this was a certain foreign air about that field of the dead as the eye rested on it something un northern southern and oriental two yards from my feet as i stepped to the top lay a group of three
one a norway peasant girl in skirt of olive green scarlet stomacher embroidered bodice scotch bonnet trimmed with silver lace and big silver shoe buckles the second was an old norway man in knee breeches
and the third was i decided an old jew of the polish pale in gaberdine and skull cap with ear locks i went nearer to where they lay thick as reaped stubble between the quay and a little stone fountain in the middle of the space
and i saw among those northern dead two dark skinned women in costly dress either spanish or italian and the yellower mortality of a mongolian probably a magyar
and some twenty five obvious french
northward and westward of all the tribes of man and this that i adam jeffson here see is but the far tossed spray of that monstrous infuriate flood well i passed up a street before me
but i paced on without stoppage traversed several streets and came out as it became dark upon a piece of grass land leading downward to a mountain gorge it was some distance along this gorge that i found myself sitting the next morning and how
and in what trance i passed that whole blank night is obliterated from my consciousness when i looked about with the return of light i saw majestic fir grown mountains on either hand almost meeting overhead at some points deeply shading the mossy gorge
and luxuriance of verdure and a noise of waters occasionally i saw little cataracts on high fluttering like white wild rags for they broke in the mid fall and were caught away and scattered patches
i had no thought of entering any house but as i passed by one open porte cochere something i know not what made me turn sharply in for my mind had become as fluff on the winds not working of its own action but the sport of impulses that seemed external
i went across the yard and ascended a wooden spiral stair by a twilight which just enabled me to pick my way among five or six vague forms fallen there in that confined place fantastic qualms beset me
i mounted to the second the door was open and with a chill reluctance i took a step inward where all was pitch darkness the window stores being drawn i hesitated it was very dark
a mighty and wide spread fleet over all that great expanse of the north sea where in its most populous days of trade the sailor might perhaps sight a sail or two i had now at every moment at least ten or twelve within scope of the glass
extremely slow was my advance for at first i would not leave any ship however remotely small without approaching sufficiently to investigate her at least with the spy glass and a strange multitudinous mixture of species they were
trawlers in hosts war ships of every nation used it seemed as passenger boats smacks feluccas liners steam barges great four masters with sails channel boats luggers
marseilles fishers a maltese speronare american off shore sail mississippi steam boats sorrento lug schooners rhine punts yawls
and so fair was the world about them too the brightest suavest autumn weather all the still air aromatic with that vernal perfume of peach yet not so utterly still but if i passed close to the lee of any floating thing
vague as was the offence that i began to shun rather than seek the ships and also i now dropped my twelve
one by one into the sea for now i had definitely passed into a zone of settled warmth i was convinced however that the poison whatever it might be had some embalming or antiseptic effect upon the bodies
hierarchies warring for the universe
for i suddenly remembered the great sun sets of the later nineteenth century witnessed in europe america and i believe over the world after the eruption of the volcano of krakatoa and whereas i had before said to myself
if now a wave from the deep has washed over this planetary ship of earth i said now a wave but not from the deep a wave rather which she had reserved and has spouted from her own un motherly entrails
i had some knowledge of morse telegraphy and of the manipulation of tape machines telegraphic typing machines and the ordinary wireless transmitter and coherer as of most little things of that sort which came within the outskirts of the interest of a man of science
and learn not only what he then was but how he had become that which he was happily it needs no long historical details or wearisome discussion of remote or doubtful causes to gain this necessary knowledge
from that date down to the present time we have a continuous record the whole course of which may be divided into three clearly distinguished periods of these the first was not only by far the longest but in every way the most brilliant
in it egypt was an independent country with a social system of an advanced type the spontaneous product of the genius of the people and it was the one in which under native rulers the land was filled with the marvellous pyramids temples
with the conquest of the country by cambyses
egypt was for a little more than three and half centuries in the hands of the greeks from whom in the thirtieth year of the christian era it passed to the roman empire
were in their turn succeeded by their revolting slaves under whom as the mameluk sultans it remained until in fifteen seventeen it became a province of the turkish empire
and are therefore monuments not of the country's glory but of its shame the third and present period began in seventeen ninety eight when the landing of bonaparte was the first of the series of events
has been lifted from an appalling condition of social and commercial destitution produced by the ruinous misgovernment and reckless tyranny of a dominant class to one of unexampled prosperity and of social and political freedom not exceeded in any country of the world
wherever we go in the nile valley or in the delta we meet with men and women whose faces and features are living reproductions of the portraits of the kings and people of the most ancient times as sculptured by the artists of their days
and in their habits manners and customs we find to day striking traces of those that seem to have prevailed when four thousand years before christ
now believed to be the oldest book in the world and from their building in those far off ages down to the present day the pyramids temples and tombs have stood surviving witnesses of the early greatness of the country and though but heedless spectators of its vicissitudes
persians greeks romans arabs turks all these have held the people in bondage but their influence never reached below the surface of the life of the country and has vanished completely with the men upon whom it depended and though some of these have left monuments all but imperishable of their greatness and glory
are indeed all that the whole history of the country presents to us as still clearly and prominently exerting an important and permanent influence upon both the character of the people and the existing circumstances and condition of their country of these six events
the two that belong to the second period are the conquest of the land by the arabs and its subsequent seizure by the turks the other four are the french invasion
each and all of these six events have played important parts in moulding the present day aspect of egypt and its people
and the more closely do we study the existing conditions the more strikingly do these six events stand out from all others as the great and dominating landmarks in the history of modern egypt compared with these all the other incidents of that story of seventy centuries
either to understand the present condition of the country or to forecast its future although therefore the third of these landmarks forms as we have already seen
in other words its history as history is commonly understood and written the record of the rise and fall of its rulers the tale of their triumph and of their failures and chronicle of their wars victories defeats and all the events that have made or marred their destinies the other the story of the people themselves
in the history of some countries the two stories if rightly told are so interwoven that they become as one but in the first and second periods of egyptian history they have scarce anything in common
but such changes were far too slight and their possible duration always far too uncertain for these benefits to be more to the people than as the grateful but passing pleasure a fleeting morning cloud brings to the traveller in a sunburnt desert hence such as the fellaheen or peasantry were
the history of the country has therefore in the first two periods little to say of the people in the modern period the two stories touch each other more closely for in it the people have begun to have a political existence
they have not indeed a representative government and so they have no direct power but they have a press the freedom of which is absolutely unrestricted and they have a legislative council as a body of elected representatives
through whom though they cannot control the action of the government they are at least able to make their voices heard and their wishes known more important still they have begun to comprehend the right of a people to be governed not only justly but with
a regard to their interests as well as to those of their rulers a fundamental principle that in the past would have been deemed an unpardonable heresy
though one for long wholly unproductive of any political benefit to the people was the arab conquest which by the resulting conversion of almost the whole population to the mahomedan religion brought about a change still fruitful in its influence upon their ideals and aspirations
to fully describe the importance of this event it would be necessary to enlarge upon the character and tendency of the mahomedan religion at a length my limits forbid and i must here therefore content myself with noting that
great as was the moral and mental revolution this conversion occasioned it was by no means commensurate with that which followed the introduction of islam into other countries on the everyday life of the people it seems indeed to have had but little effect other than that of altering their moral standard
and still gives it such vitality as it continues to possess christianity had been for a long time the state religion of the country but it seems clear that the great majority of the people were never more than mere nominal followers of the cross
and suffer less from the rapacious tyranny and heartless cruelty of those never resting oppressors his rulers and all who as officials or favourites were lifted even a little above his own level it was and is of the essence of islam
a nobler conception of life and of its duties and a stronger faith in a hereafter that should compensate him for all his sufferings and privations in this life as an individual therefore he was somewhat altered but as a member of the state
if we may apply that term to one who had no political existence save that involved in yielding to his rulers the utmost pennyworth of value they could wrest from him by tyranny and cruelty he was the same helpless hopeless downtrodden being less valued and less cared for than the beasts in his fields
if socially and otherwise the egyptians profited but little from the establishment of the caliphate they gained still less from the domination of the turks to the people indeed this change was scarcely more than a mere nominal one it left them practically under the same rulers
for though the system of government was modified it placed the executive power if not in the hands of the same men as before at least in those of men of the same stamp who ruled them as their predecessors had done in the same manner through the same agents and with the same cruelty and wanton oppression
the influence of which time has strengthened so that it is only second to that in the urgency of its bearing upon existing conditions under the arabs the egyptians had been ruled by foreigners but by foreigners who were in some degree allied to them
under the turks their sovereign was and is not only a foreigner but one of an utterly alien race wholly separated from them by language character habits by everything indeed save the bond of their common religion
their loyalty to him is largely due to the desire of peoples who have lost the place they once held in the comity of nations to associate themselves with such kindred peoples as have in some extent maintained their ancient status
within the only radiance they can claim to share while therefore the loyalty of the egyptians to the turkish empire is only a part of their loyalty to their religion it has this from the political point of view important difference that it is not irrevocable
but more or less dependent upon the sultan maintaining his political supremacy in the mahomedan world for should he lose the position he holds as the most powerful ruler in islam not only the egyptians
it would entirely depend upon circumstances that it is quite impossible to foresee whether the egyptians would or would not remain faithful to the empire
such then are the links that bind the egypt of the present day to the egypt of the past but important as has been and is the part that the arab and turkish conquests have played in shaping the present and will yet have in moulding the future of the people
it was not to these events but to others occurring outside the country that we owe the inauguration of the modern period of egyptian history
the writer of this book was temporarily attached to the british treasury during the war and was their official representative at the paris peace conference up to june seventh nineteen nineteen he also sat as deputy for the chancellor of the exchequer on the supreme economic council
very few of us realize with conviction the intensely unusual unstable complicated unreliable temporary nature of the economic organization by which western europe has lived for the last half century
we assume some of the most peculiar and temporary of our late advantages as natural permanent and to be depended on and we lay our plans accordingly on this sandy and false foundation we scheme for social improvement
the german people overturned the foundations on which we all lived and built but the spokesmen of the french and british peoples have run the risk of completing the ruin which germany began
we have now learnt that we can spend hundreds of millions and apparently not suffer for it evidently we did not exploit to the utmost the possibilities of our economic life we look therefore not only to a return to the comforts of nineteen fourteen
but to an immense broadening and intensification of them all classes alike thus build their plans the rich to spend more and save less the poor to spend more and work less but perhaps it is only in england and america
that it is possible to be so unconscious in continental europe the earth heaves and no one but is aware of the rumblings there it is not just a matter of extravagance or labor troubles but of life and death of starvation and existence
throb together and their structure and civilization are essentially one they flourished together
in spite of our enormous contributions and sacrifices like though in a less degree than america economically stood outside and they may fall together in this lies the destructive significance of the peace of paris
if the european civil war is to end with france and italy abusing their momentary victorious power to destroy germany and austria hungary now prostrate they invite their own destruction also
paris was a nightmare and every one there was morbid a sense of impending catastrophe overhung the frivolous scene the futility and smallness of man before the great events confronting him the mingled significance and unreality of the decisions
levity blindness insolence confused cries from without all the elements of ancient tragedy were there seated indeed amid the theatrical trappings of the french saloons of state
insignificant of no effect dissociated from events and one felt most strongly the impression described by tolstoy in war and peace or by hardy in the dynasts of events marching on to their fated conclusion uninfluenced and unaffected
and there amid the weak an impotent rage spirit of the pities why prompts the will so senseless shaped a doing spirit of the years i have told thee that it works unwittingly as one possessed not judging
in paris where those connected with the supreme economic council received almost hourly the reports of the misery disorder and decaying organization of all central and eastern europe allied and enemy alike
and learnt from the lips of the financial representatives of germany and austria unanswerable evidence of the terrible exhaustion of their countries
only added to the sense of nightmare yet there in paris the problems of europe were terrible and clamant and an occasional return to the vast unconcern of london a little disconcerting for in london these questions were very far away
but it is under the influence of paris not london that this book has been written by one who though an englishman feels himself a european also
and dog provisions for forty being now about three hundred forty miles from the pole we hoped to reach it in forty three days then turning south and feeding living dogs with dead make either franz josef land or spitzbergen
at which latter place we should very likely come up with a whaler well during the first days progress was very slow the ice being rough and laney and the dogs behaving most badly stopping dead at every difficulty and leaping over the traces
and last came i with a mixed freight but on the third day clark had an attack of snow blindness and mew took his place pretty soon our sufferings commenced and they were bitter enough the sun though constantly visible day and night gave no heat
our sleeping bags clark and mew slept together in one i in another were soaking wet all the night being thawed by our warmth and our fingers under wrappings of senne grass and wolf skin were always bleeding
sometimes our frail bamboo cane kayaks lying across the sledges would crash perilously against an ice ridge and they were our one hope of reaching land but the dogs were the great difficulty
we lost six mortal hours a day in harnessing and tending them on the twelfth day
our one secret thought now was food food our day long lust for the eating time mew suffered from arctic thirst under these conditions man becomes in a few days not a savage only
his disappearance had been explained by a hundred different guesses on the ship all plausible enough i had no idea that anyone connected me in any way with his death
our frames ready to drop and our mood ravenous and inflamed one of mew's dogs was sick it was necessary to kill it he asked me to do it oh said i you kill your own dog of course well i don't know he replied catching fire at once
you ought to be used to killing jeffson how do you mean mew said i with a mad start for madness and the flames of hell were instant and uppermost in us all you mean because my profession profession damn it no he snarled like a dog
go and dig up david wilson i dare say you know where to find him and he will tell you my meaning right enough i rushed at once to clark who was stooping among the dogs unharnessing and savagely pushing his shoulder i exclaimed
that beast accuses me of murdering david wilson well said clark i'd split his skull as clean go away adam jeffson and let me be snarled clark is that all you've got to say about it then you
however from that moment a deeper mood of brooding malice occupied my spirit indeed the humour of us all was one of dangerous even murderous fierceness in that pursuit of riches
and though sick to death both in spirit and body
beyond doubt cursed not meant to be penetrated by man and rapid and awful was the degeneration of our souls as for me
savagery so heinous could brood in a human bosom as now i felt it brood in mine if men could enter into a country specially set apart for the habitation of devils and there become possessed of evil
it was now that we began to encounter a succession of strange looking objects lying scattered over the ice whose number continually increased as we proceeded they had the appearance of rocks or pieces of iron
and they were of every size their incrustations we soon determined to be diamonds and other precious stones on our first twenty mile day mew picked up a diamond crystal as large as a child's foot
we thus found the riches which we sought beyond all dream but as the bear and the walrus find them for ourselves we had lost
meal clark grumbled something about their being meteor stones whose ferruginous substance had been lured by the magnetic pole and kept from frictional burning in their fall by the frigidity of the air
and they quickly ceased to interest our sluggish minds except in so far as they obstructed our way we had all along had good weather
that the heart quailed beneath it it lasted in its full power only an hour but during that time snatched two of our sledges long distances and compelled us to lie face downward we had travelled all the sun lit night
so as soon as the wind allowed us to huddle together our scattered things we crawled into the sleeping bags and instantly slept we knew that the ice was in awful upheaval around us we heard as our eyelids sweetly closed the slow booming of distant guns
in my sleep it was as though someone suddenly shook my shoulder with urgent up up it was neither clark nor mew but a dream merely for clark and mew when i started up i saw lying still in their sleeping bag
i suppose it must have been about noon i sat staring a minute and my first numb thought was somehow this that the countess clodagh had prayed me be first' for her
precious little for the fortune which she coveted millions on millions of fortunes lay unregarded around me but that thought be first was deeply suggested in my brain as if whispered there instinctively brutishly
as the gadarean swine rushed down a steep place i rubbing my daft eyes arose the first thing which my mind opened to perceive was that while the tempest was less strong the ice was now in extraordinary agitation
withdrawing in ravines like mutual backing curtsies then surging to clap together in passionate mountain peaks else jostling like the symplegades fluent and inconstant as billows of the sea grinding itself
piling itself pouring itself in cataracts of powdered ice while here and there i saw the meteor stones leap spasmodically in dusts and heaps like geysers or spurting froths in a steamer's wake
a tremendous uproar meantime filling all the air as i stood i plunged and staggered and i found the dogs sprawling with whimperings on the heaving floor
instinctively daftly brutishly
sent thin snow sweepings flying northward past me the odometer which i had with me had not yet measured four miles when i began to notice two things first that the jewelled meteor stones were now accumulating beyond all limit
filling my range of vision to the northern horizon with a dazzling glister in mounds and parterres and scattered disconnection they lay like largesse of autumn leaves spread out over those elysian fields and fairy uplands of wealth trillions of billions
so that i had need to steer my twining way among them now too i noticed that but for these stones all roughness had disappeared not a trace of the upheaval going on a little further south being here
i sped i spun with grinning teeth that chattered and gibbered and eyeballs of distraction for a fear too most cold and dreadful
chapter fourteen the making of a president selwyn now devoted himself to the making of enough conservative senators to control comfortably that body
the task was not difficult to a man of his sagacity with all the money he could spend newspapers were subsidized in ways they scarcely recognized themselves
honest officials who were in the way were removed by offering them places vastly more remunerative and in this manner he built up a strong intelligent and well constructed machine
it was done so sanely and so quietly that no one suspected the master mind behind it all selwyn was responsible to no one took no one into his confidence and was therefore in no danger of betrayal
it was a fascinating game to selwyn it appealed to his intellectual side far more than it did to his avarice he wanted to govern the nation with an absolute hand and yet not be known as the directing power
he arranged to have his name appear less frequently in the press and he never submitted to interviews laughingly ridding himself of reporters by asserting that he knew nothing of importance
he had a supreme contempt for the blatant self advertised politician and he removed himself as far as possible from that type
which he organized himself though largely under cover the opposition party had every reason to believe that they would be successful and it was a great intellectual treat to selwyn to overcome their natural advantages by the sheer force of ability
plus what money he needed to carry out his plans he put out the cry of lack of funds and indeed it seemed to be true for he was too wise to make a display of his resources to ward heelers
to the daily press and to professional stump speakers he gave scant comfort it was not to such sources that he looked for success he began by eliminating all states he knew the opposition party would certainly carry
but he told the party leaders there to claim that a revolution was brewing and that a landslide would follow at the election this would keep his antagonists busy and make them less effective elsewhere
he divided each of these states into units containing five thousand voters and at the national headquarters he placed one man in charge of each unit
of the five thousand he roughly calculated there would be two thousand voters that no kind of persuasion could turn from his party and two thousand that could not be changed from the opposition this would leave one thousand doubtful ones to win over
so he had a careful poll made in each unit and eliminated the strictly unpersuadable party men and got down to a complete analysis of the debatable one thousand information was obtained as to their race religion
so these two had only each other to consider and their duty was to bring to rockland a majority of the one thousand votes within their charge the local men gave the conditions the national men gave the proper literature and advice and the local man then applied it
the opposition was sending speakers at great expense from one end of the country to the other and the sound of their voices rarely fell on any but friendly and sympathetic ears
selwyn used the weekly press so that he could reach the fireside of every farmer and the dweller in the small country towns these were the ones that would read every line in their local papers and ponder over it
the opposition had its candidates going by special train to every part of the union making many speeches every day and mostly to voters that could not be driven from him either by force or persuasion the leaders in cities
both large and small would secure a date and having in mind for themselves a postmastership or collectorship would tell their followers to turn out in great force and give the candidate a big ovation
they wanted the candidate to remember the enthusiasm of these places and to leave greatly pleased and under the belief that he was making untold converts as a matter of fact his voice would seldom reach any but a staunch partisan
selwyn kept rockland at home and arranged to have him meet by special appointment the important citizens of the twelve uncertain states he would have the most prominent party leader in a particular state
go to a rich brewer or large manufacturer whose views had not yet been crystallized and say governor rockland has expressed a desire to know you and i would like to arrange a meeting
the man approached would be flattered to think he was of such importance that a candidate for the presidency had expressed a desire to meet him he would know it was his influence that was wanted but even so there was a subtle flattery in that
an appointment would be arranged just before he came into rockland's presence his name and a short epitome of his career would be handed to rockland to read
when he reached rockland's home he would at first be denied admittance his sponsor would say this is mister munting of muntingville oh pardon me mister munting governor rockland expects you
and in this way he is ushered into the presence of the great his fame up to a moment ago was unknown to rockland but he now grasps his hand cordially and says i am delighted to know you mister munting
i recall the address you made a few years ago when you gave a library to muntingville it is men of your type that have made america what it is to day and whether you support me or not
sane and conservative government when munting leaves he is stepping on air he sees visions of visits to washington to consult the president upon matters of state and perhaps he sees an ambassadorship in the misty future
the pay roll of the opposition was filled with incompetent political hacks that had been fastened upon the management by men of influence selwyn's force from end to end
was composed of able men who did a full day's work under the eye of their watchful taskmaster and selwyn won and rockland became the keystone of the arch he had set out to build there followed in orderly succession the inauguration
the selection of cabinet officers and the new administration was launched drunk with power and the adulation of sycophants once or twice rockland asserted himself and acted upon important matters without having first conferred with selwyn
but after he had been bitterly assailed by selwyn's papers and by his senators he made no further attempts at independence he felt that he was utterly helpless in that strong man's hands and so indeed he was
one of the supreme court justices died two retired because of age and all were replaced by men suggested by selwyn he now had the senate the executive and a majority of the court of last resort
that when his power was greatest it was most insecure he did not know could not know what force was working to his ruin and to the ruin of his system take heart therefore
you who had lost faith in the ultimate destiny of the republic for a greater than selwyn is here to espouse your cause
much will depend upon the hypothesis we hold if we assume with mister sinclair and most of his opponents that news and truth are two words for the same thing we shall i believe arrive nowhere we shall prove that on this point the newspaper lied
we shall prove that on that point mister sinclair's account lied we shall demonstrate that mister sinclair lied when he said that somebody lied and that somebody lied when he said mister sinclair lied we shall vent our feelings but we shall vent them into air
the hypothesis which seems to me the most fertile is that news and truth are not the same thing and must be clearly distinguished footnote when i wrote liberty and the news i did not understand this distinction clearly enough to state it
the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts to set them into relation with each other and make a picture of reality on which men can act
to make the charges of perversion or suppression more than a partisan judgment there is no defense no extenuation no excuse whatever for stating six times that lenin is dead when the only information the paper possesses
but helsingfors says lenin is dead and a newspaper can be asked to take the responsibility of not making lenin more dead than the source of the news is reliable if there is one subject on which editors are most responsible
it is in their judgment of the reliability of the source but when it comes to dealing for example with stories of what the russian people want no such test exists the absence of these exact tests accounts i think for the character of the profession
as no other explanation does there is a very small body of exact knowledge which it requires no outstanding ability or training to deal with the rest is in the journalist's own discretion
once he departs from the region where it is definitely recorded at the county clerk's office that john smith has gone into bankruptcy all fixed standards disappear the story of why john smith failed his human frailties
the analysis of the economic conditions on which he was shipwrecked all of this can be told in a hundred different ways there is no discipline in applied psychology as there is a discipline in medicine engineering or even law
his version of the truth is only his version how can he demonstrate the truth as he sees it he cannot demonstrate it any more than mister sinclair lewis can demonstrate that he has told the whole truth about main street
and the more he understands his own weaknesses the more ready he is to admit that where there is no objective test his own opinion is in some vital measure constructed out of his own stereotypes according to his own code and by the urgency of his own interest
he knows that he is seeing the world through subjective lenses he cannot deny that he too is as shelley remarked a dome of many colored glass which stains the white radiance of eternity and by this knowledge his assurance is tempered
he may have all kinds of moral courage and sometimes has but he lacks that sustaining conviction of a certain technic which finally freed the physical sciences from theological control it was the gradual development of an irrefragable method
that gave the physicist his intellectual freedom as against all the powers of the world his proofs were so clear his evidence so sharply superior to tradition that he broke away finally from all control
but the journalist has no such support in his own conscience or in fact the control exercised over him by the opinions of his employers and his readers is not the control of truth by prejudice but of one opinion by another opinion
between judge gary's assertion that the unions will destroy american institutions and mister gomper's assertion that they are agencies of the rights of man the choice has in large measure to be governed by the will to believe
the task of deflating these controversies and reducing them to a point where they can be reported as news is not a task which the reporter can perform it is possible and necessary for journalists to bring home to people the uncertain character of the truth
on which their opinions are founded and by criticism and agitation to prod social science into making more usable formulations of social facts and to prod statesmen into establishing more visible institutions the press in other words
as the quality of news in radical papers shows but to the fact that the press deals with a society in which the governing forces are so imperfectly recorded the theory that the press can itself record those forces is false
it can normally record only what has been recorded for it by the working of institutions everything else is argument and opinion and fluctuates with the vicissitudes the self consciousness and the courage of the human mind
if the press is not so universally wicked nor so deeply conspiring as mister sinclair would have us believe it is very much more frail than the democratic theory has as yet admitted it is too frail to carry the whole burden of popular sovereignty
to supply spontaneously the truth which democrats hoped was inborn and when we expect it to supply such a body of truth we employ a misleading standard of judgment we misunderstand the limited nature of news
if the newspapers then are to be charged with the duty of translating the whole public life of mankind so that every adult can arrive at an opinion on every moot topic they fail they are bound to fail in any future one can conceive they will continue to fail
it is not possible to assume that a world carried on by division of labor and distribution of authority can be governed by universal opinions in the whole population unconsciously the theory sets up the single reader as theoretically omnicompetent
and puts upon the press the burden of accomplishing whatever representative government industrial organization and diplomacy have failed to accomplish acting upon everybody for thirty minutes in twenty four hours the press is asked to create a mystical force called public opinion
that will take up the slack in public institutions the press has often mistakenly pretended that it could do just that it has at great moral cost to itself encouraged a democracy still bound to its original premises
to expect newspapers to supply spontaneously for every organ of government for every social problem the machinery of information which these do not normally supply themselves institutions having failed to furnish themselves with instruments of knowledge
have become a bundle of problems which the population as a whole reading the press as a whole is supposed to solve the press in other words has come to be regarded as an organ of direct democracy charged on a much wider scale and from day to day
it is not even thinkable for the news as we have seen is precise in proportion to the precision with which the event is recorded unless the event is capable of being named measured given shape made specific
it either fails to take on the character of news or it is subject to the accidents and prejudices of observation therefore on the whole the quality of the news about modern society is an index of its social organization the better the institutions
the more all interests concerned are formally represented the more issues are disentangled the more objective criteria are introduced the more perfectly an affair can be presented as news at its best the press is a servant and guardian of institutions
in the degree to which institutions fail to function the unscrupulous journalist can fish in troubled waters and the conscientious one must gamble with uncertainties the press is no substitute for institutions it is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about
bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone they cannot govern society by episodes incidents and eruptions it is only when they work by a steady light of their own
that the press when it is turned upon them reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision the trouble lies deeper than the press and so does the remedy it lies in social organization based on a system of analysis and record
by comparable record and analysis if at the centers of management there is a running audit which makes work intelligible to those who do it and those who superintend it issues when they arise are not the mere collisions of the blind then too
the news is uncovered for the press by a system of intelligence that is also a check upon the press that is the radical way for the troubles of the press like the troubles of representative government be it territorial or functional
like the troubles of industry be it capitalist cooperative or communist go back to a common source to the failure of self governing people to transcend their casual experience and their prejudice by inventing creating and organizing a machinery of knowledge
it is because they are compelled to act without a reliable picture of the world that governments schools newspapers and churches make such small headway against the more obvious failings of democracy against violent prejudice apathy
preference for the curious trivial as against the dull important and the hunger for sideshows and three legged calves
chapter one graduation day in the year nineteen twenty the student and the statesman saw many indications that the social financial
and industrial troubles that had vexed the united states of america for so long a time were about to culminate in civil war wealth had grown so strong that the few were about to strangle the many
and among the great masses of the people there was sullen and rebellious discontent the laborer in the cities the producer on the farm the merchant the professional man and all save organized capital and its satellites
saw a gloomy and hopeless future with these conditions prevailing the graduation exercises of the class of nineteen twenty of the national military academy at west point held for many a foreboding promise of momentous changes
but the twelfth of june found the usual gay scene at the great institution overlooking the hudson the president of the republic his secretary of war and many other distinguished guests were there to do honor to the occasion together with friends
relatives and admirers of the young men who were being sent out to the ultimate leadership of the nation's army the scene had all the usual charm of west point graduations and the usual intoxicating atmosphere of military display
there was among the young graduating soldiers one who seemed depressed and out of touch with the triumphant blare of militarism for he alone of his fellow classmen had there no kith nor kin to bid him god speed in his new career
he saw the gleaming brook that wound its way through the tangle of orchard and garden and parted the distant blue grass meadow he saw his aged mother sitting under the honeysuckle trellis book in hand but thinking he knew of him
was a close student of the affairs of his country and he saw that which raised grave doubts in his mind as to the outcome of his career he saw many of the civil institutions of his country
debased by the power of wealth under the thin guise of the constitutional protection of property he saw the army which he had sworn to serve faithfully becoming prostituted by this same power and used at times for purposes of intimidation
and petty conquests where the interests of wealth were at stake he saw the great city where luxury dominant and defiant existed largely by grace of exploitation exploitation of men women and children
the young man's eyes had become bright and hard when his day dream was interrupted and he was looking into the gray blue eyes of gloria strawn the one whose lot he had been comparing to that of her sisters in the city in the mills the sweatshops
the big stores and the streets he had met her for the first time a few hours before when his friend and classmate jack strawn had presented him to his sister no comrade knew dru better than strawn
and no one admired him so much therefore gloria ever seeking a closer contact with life had come to west point eager to meet the lithe young kentuckian and to measure him by the other men of her acquaintance
she forgot her disappointment and her interest revived for her sharp city sense caught the trail of a new experience to philip dru whose thought of and experience with women was almost nothing
so engrossed had he been in his studies military and economic gloria seemed little more than a child and yet her frank glance of appraisal when he had been introduced to her
suddenly turning from the commonplaces of the day gloria looked directly at philip and with easy self possession turned the conversation to himself i am wondering mister dru
she asked an american soldier has to fight so seldom that i have heard that the insurance companies regard them as the best of risks so what attraction mister dru can a military career have for you
and it surprised him that it should come from this slip of a girl but he answered her in the serious strain of his thoughts as far back as i can remember he said i have wanted to be a soldier i have no desire to destroy and kill
and yet there is within me the lust for action and battle it is the primitive man in me i suppose but sobered and enlightened by civilization i would do everything in my power to avert war and the suffering it entails fate
inclination or what not has brought me here and i hope my life may not be wasted but that in god's own way i may be a humble instrument for good
oftentimes our inclinations lead us in certain directions and it is only afterwards that it seems as if fate may from the first have so determined it the mischievous twinkle left the girl's eyes
and the languid tone of her voice changed to one a little more like sincerity but suppose there is no war she demanded suppose you go on living at barracks here and there and with no broader outlook than such a life entails
will you be satisfied is that all you have in mind to do in the world he looked at her more perplexed than ever such an observation of life his life seemed beyond her years for he knew but little of the women of his own generation
he wondered too if she would understand if he told her all that was in his mind gloria we are entering a new era the past is no longer to be a guide to the future
there arose in france a giant that had slumbered for untold centuries he knew he had suffered grievous wrongs but he did not know how to right them he therefore struck out blindly and cruelly and the innocent went down with the guilty
he was almost wholly ignorant for in the scheme of society as then constructed the ruling few felt that he must be kept ignorant otherwise they could not continue to hold him in bondage for him the door of opportunity was closed
and he struggled from the cradle to the grave for the minimum of food and clothing necessary to keep breath within the body his labor and his very life itself was subject to the greed the passion and the caprice of his over lord
so he was led by weak and selfish men who could only incite him to further wanton murder and demolition but out of that revelry of blood there dawned upon mankind the hope of a more splendid day the divinity of kings
the god given right to rule was shattered for all time the giant at last knew his strength and with head erect and the light of freedom in his eyes he dared to assert the liberty equality and fraternity of man
then throughout the western world one stratum of society after another demanded and obtained the right to acquire wealth and to share in the government here and there one bolder and more forceful than the rest acquired great wealth
and with it great power not satisfied with reasonable gain they sought to multiply it beyond all bounds of need they who had sprung from the people a short life span ago
were now throttling individual effort and shackling the great movement for equal rights and equal opportunity dru's voice became tense and vibrant and he talked in quick sharp jerks
jealousy at the close of the game there was another boy on the field who was quite as glum and downcast as hooker himself this was phil springer
who remained seated on the bench while his team mates and a portion of the enthusiastic crowd swarmed cheering around grant and lifted him to their shoulders
presently he realized that this behavior on his part must attract attention the moment the excitement relaxed and he got up with the intention of hurrying at once to the gymnasium
barely had he started however when something brought him to a halt and beneath his breath he muttered that won't do they'd notice that too and sus say i was jealous
he was jealous bitterly so but he forced himself to join the cheering crowd and to make a half hearted pretense of rejoicing all the while he was thinking that grant owed everything to him
and that perhaps he had been foolish in training a fellow to fill his shoes in such an emergency for phil had long entertained the ambition of becoming the first pitcher on the academy nine and this year he had been fully confident until the present hour
that the goal he sought was his beyond dispute the victors did not forget to cheer courteously for the vanquished and barville returned the compliment with a cheer for oakdale so many persons wished to shake hands with rodney grant
that he laughingly protested saying they would put his wing out of commission suddenly perceiving phil the texan pushed aside those between them sprang forward and placed a hand on springer's shoulder crying here's my mentor
only for him i'd never been able to do it i owe what little i know about pitching to springer let's give him a cheer fellows they did so but that cheer lacked the spontaneous enthusiasm and genuine admiration which had been thrown into the cheering for grant
something which springer did not fail to note oh thanks said phil weakly returning the warm grasp of rod's strong hand i didn't do anything except blow up
under cover of the chatter joking and laughter while they were changing their clothes in the dressing room of the gymnasium grant observing the dejection springer could not hide to save himself again uttered some friendly words of encouragement
don't you feel so bad about it old partner he said the best professional pitchers in the business get their bumps sometimes and i might have got mine all right if i'd started the game on the slab as you did you'll make up for that next time
you're very kind grant was springer's only response phil got away from the others as soon as he could and hurried home to brood over it it had been a hard blow and he had stood up poorly beneath it
thinking the matter over in solitude he was forced into a realization of the fact that he lacked in a great measure the confidence and steadiness characteristic of rodney grant and he could not put aside the conviction that it was grant
the fellow he had coached who was destined to become the star pitcher of the nine in spite of himself this thought aided by other unpleasant contemplations awoke in his heart a sensation of envious resentment toward rodney
he was sorry now that he had ever spent his time teaching the texan to pitch and it occurred to him that the same amount of coaching and encouragement bestowed upon hooker would not have resulted in the training of a man to outdo him upon the slab
and push him into the background that evening he was missing from the group of boys who gathered in the village to talk over the game and at school the following monday he kept away from grant as much as it was possible for him to do so
when practice time came after school was over he put on his suit and appeared upon the field but soon complained that he was not feeling well and departed the following morning shortly after breakfast
instantly springer sought his hat slipped hastily through the house and got out unperceived by the back door when he arrived at school a few minutes before time for the morning session to begin grant was waiting for him
what became of you after breakfast partner questioned rod i piked over to your ranch looking for you but you had disappeared your mother said you were around a few moments before and she thought you must be somewhere about
all the same i couldn't find hide or hair of you i i took a walk faltered phil flushing i've got a bub bad cold in evidence of which he coughed in a shamefully unnatural manner
said rodney sympathetically you caught it sitting on the bench during the last four innings of that game i reckon i remember now that you didn't even put on your sweater yes i guess that's when i got it agreed phil
well you've got to shake it in time for the game with clearport that's when you'll even things up all that day springer sought to avoid talking baseball with any of the fellows
for invariably they spoke of grant's surprisingly successful performance and when they did so something like a sickening poison seemed to bubble within the jealous youth who told himself that he could not long continue to join in this praise
but must soon betray himself by bursting forth into a tirade against the texan in a measure he did relieve his feelings by expressing his opinion of herbert rackliff who was brazenly seeking to ignore the open disdain of his schoolmates
he did not come out for practice that night and grant explained to the others that phil was knocked out by a cold whereupon cooper chucklingly remarked that he thought it was barville that had knocked springer out shortly before dark phil
chancing to take a cross cut from middle street to high street observed roy hooker pelting away with a baseball at the white shingle on the barn drawing near phil asked roy what he was doing and the latter startled and perspiring looked round
oh is it you said roy i thought perhaps it was rackliff i'm practicing a little by my lonesome that's a hard way to practice said springer you can't get much good out of that
i'm getting so i can hit that shingle once in a while and use a curve too i couldn't seem to hit it with a straight ball when i began you haven't given up the idea of pitching not quite after watching your performance saturday
seeing you soak a batter in the ribs and then hand out free passes enough to force a run i came to realize what control means i'm trying to get it phil felt his face burn control is necessary he admitted
but it isn't everything when i put the ball over they pup pounded it but they wouldn't if it hadn't been for choking as he realized what he had so nearly said hooker bit his tongue
then he hastened to make an observation that snapped springer's self restraint they didn't seem to pound grant much and he appeared able to put the ball just about where he wanted to grant snarled phil furiously
that's all i've heard since the game grant grant grant it makes me tired oh ho muttered roy it does does it well say didn't you realize what you were doing while you were coaching that fellow
i knew what would happen i knew the time would come when you'd be mighty sore with yourself i'm going to talk plain to you this fellow grant is practically an outsider he doesn't belong in oakdale he's a presuming cub too
always pushing himself forward here i am an oakdale boy but you pick up with rod grant and coach him to pitch so he can step into a game when you're batted out and show you up you won't be in it hereafter he'll be the whole show
oh i don't know returned springer sourly he may get his some time he may and then again he may not you can't be sure of it
i would have been willing to act as second string pitcher and you would not have been crowded out you put your foot in it all right old man i suppose i did but let's not talk about it you weren't at school to day no
how did that happen working working how careless i didn't know you ever did such a thing well said roy slowly this was a case of necessity you see
oh you needed the money eh no it wasn't that though i earned a dollar and a quarter helping shingle john holbrook's barn you see my mother she she lost some money recently lost it
yes lost it or or something roy replied stumblingly it wasn't much but it was all she had she'd saved up a little at a time to buy material for a new dress how did she happen to lul lose it
i can't tell she doesn't quite know herself she put it in a drawer in the house and when she went to look for it it was gone that sounds like a robbery instead of a loss
but it couldn't be a robbery protested hooker quickly and earnestly nobody would come into the house and take money out of that drawer nobody around here you never hear of such a thing happening around this town perhaps mother mislaid it somewhere
anyhow it's gone and i'm going to try to earn enough to replace it well say hooker exclaimed phil you're all right i didn't suppose you'd stoop to work even under such circumstances
do you know lots of times we're liable to misjudge some one until something happens to show us just the sort of a person he is yes i suppose that's right said roy
chapter fifteen plain talk from eliot how's your cold phil it was eliot who asked the question and springer pausing with one foot on the academy steps replied
oh it's some bub better i think glad to hear it said roger slipping his arm through springer's come on let's walk over yonder to the fence i want to have a little chin with you it will be ten minutes yet before school begins
together they walked to the fence at the back of the yard pausing beneath one of the tall old trees which was putting forth tender green leaves leaning against the fence the captain of the nine faced his companion as a rule he began
you've been a great enthusiast over baseball and i didn't think you'd let a slight cold keep you away from practice exercise is one of the best remedies for a cold if a person takes care of himself when he's through exercising
i know that said phil poking his toe into an ant's nest and declining to meet roger's steady level gaze but really i i was feeling pretty rotten you know and i didn't have mum much heart for practice
yes said the captain i'm afraid that was the principal trouble you didn't have much heart for it you lost heart in the game and you haven't braced up yet i hardly thought it of you phil i didn't expect you to play the baby
the baby exclaimed springer resentfully yes that's just what you've been doing i made up my mind to speak plainly to you and i'm going to do so for your own good you've been sulking old fellow it doesn't pay phil
you're hurting yourself far more than any one else i don't think you've got any right to call it sulking objected springer in a low tone i own up that i did feel bad about the way things went in that gug game
but i caught a cold and i decided to take care of myself in order to get back into my best condition is that the reason why you've been giving rod grant the cold shoulder i haven't been giving him what has he said to you eliot
has he been tut tut talking about me not a word then why should you say i'd given him the cold shoulder it was apparent to the dullest phil for some time before that game you and grant were very chummy
you were nearly always together so that everybody noticed it since the game you've not been together at all and i myself have plainly observed your efforts to avoid him
you're sore sore because he succeeded in holding barville down after you had failed weakly springer sought to protest against this but stopped in the midst of it fully comprehending how feeble his words were
it's folly springer said eliot sheer childish folly we were all sorry to see you get your bumps and lose control and i don't believe any one was any sorrier than grant himself
for somehow i've come firmly to believe that he's on the square he was reluctant about going on to the slab when i called him perhaps that was because he was afraid he'd get his too muttered springer
now that isn't generous and you know it if the score had been heavy against us at the time some fellows might have fancied grant's reluctance was prompted by fear and a disinclination to shoulder another man's load in the first game he pitched
i've not sized it up as anything of the sort you and he were close friends and knowing how you must feel to be batted out he was loath to go in you must realize it was a mighty lucky thing for us that we had a pitcher to take your place
barville had you going phil and you couldn't seem to steady down even old stagers get into that condition sometimes when pitching and it's not an infrequent occurrence that a slabman who is not thought so good steps in and stops the slaughter
every bub body seems to think grant is pretty good mumbled springer he certainly did amazingly well for which he generously gave you all the credit i suppose he'll be the whole shooting match now
those words betray you my boy you've been trapped by the green eyed monster come come phil you're too manly for that he put out a hand and rested it on springer's shoulder
the color mounted into phil's cheeks and slowly receded leaving him pale and still with downcast eyes eliot went on steadily and earnestly
we need two pitchers we must have them if we hope to make a decent showing in the series by and by we'll have to play two games a week and some of those games come so close together that one pitcher alone
unless he has an arm of iron can't do all the flinging you've been wonderfully successful in coaching grant and all the time you were training him to relieve you in a measure when the hardest work should come nobody wants to rob you of any credit
every one says you've done a mighty good turn with him but if you continue to sulk as you have for the past few days you'll lose the sympathy of your teammates but you won't hurt grant otherwise than his feelings
i don't believe it would hurt his feelings a great deal roger was vexed but he continued to maintain his calm manner you ought to know him better than any one else around here
you ought to know whether he's at all sensitive or not i'll tell you honestly if i were in his place to day i'd feel it now i'm your friend old fellow
forget it get out for practice treat grant the same as before
you'll have plenty of chances to show the stuff you're made of i don't suppose the fellows have much confidence in me now nonsense unless they're chumps they know every pitcher has his off days
we'll play against a picked up scrub team now i want to see you at the field in a suit and ready to do your part all right agreed phil but later conscience stricken and ashamed
he could not bring himself to seek rodney grant and own up manfully to his silly behavior and grant having begun to feel piqued made no further advances at noon that day roy hooker returned to school
bringing a written excuse from his mother having a chance to speak privately with springer he said i hear eliot has expressed his estimation of you and rod grant phil started you can near lots of things he retorted sharply
the fellows have been talking about it returned roy they say eliot has said grant will make a better pitcher than you because you lack heart it was a blow below the belt and in spite of himself phil could not help showing the effect
it doesn't disturb me nevertheless he was so much disturbed that in spite of his promise to roger he was not with the team when it took the field that night for the practice game
for he himself had vainly sought to put aside the depressing and unnerving conviction that in steadiness stamina and self confidence rodney grant was his superior something he had determined never to breathe to any one else
but which the keen judgment of the team captain had found out nevertheless when he reached home by a roundabout course and found it impossible to dismiss thoughts of the boys engaged in that practice game he eventually decided that he was a fool
having reached this conclusion he set off in great haste for the gymnasium running the greater part of the distance drawing near the gym he could hear the boys engaged in the game beyond the high board fence
it did not take him long to shed his outer clothes and get into a baseball suit the game was in the second inning with the regular team at bat and hooker pitching for the scrub which was made up partly of grammar school boys
everybody seemed to be watching roy and phil walked on to the field and toward one of the benches without attracting attention look at hook whooped chipper cooper he's actually trying to strike roger out
eliot was at bat and the umpire had just called the second strike on him there were no runners on the sacks
i guess that's got him puffed up some apparently not at all discomposed by these remarks hooker continued steadily about his business and presently rousing a shout of surprise he succeeded in fanning the captain of the nine
roger stepped back from the plate after striking out and stood there gazing at roy with one of his strange rare smiles crane followed
a moment later hooker pulled him handsomely on a wide one and the first strike was called cooper being again awakened to a wondering whooping state of merriment look out look out shouted the little fellow
he'll get you if you don't who said hooky couldn't pitch there's more pitch in him than you can find in a big chew of spruce gum crane setting his teeth made two fouls
you wanted to see it yelled cooper you got a look all right oh say where did this new christy mathewson come from anyhow look out for him roddy or he'll add you to his list list to my warning
rodney grant did not strike out but nevertheless he failed to meet one of hooker's shoots squarely and the grammar school shortstop gathered in an easy grounder and threw to first for the third put out
roger eliot lingered to speak a word to hooker and springer still unnoticed plainly heard what he said perhaps we've made a mistake in sizing you up roy old fellow
it's your work alone that has prevented us from scoring in either of these innings you've always had speed and curves but now you seem able to get the pill over keep it up old fellow and you'll make a pitcher yet
riverboro secrets mister simpson spent little time with his family owing to certain awkward methods of horse trading or the swapping of farm implements and vehicles of various kinds operations in which his customers were never long suited
after every successful trade he generally passed a longer or shorter term in jail for when a poor man without goods or chattels has the inveterate habit of swapping it follows naturally that he must have something to swap
and having nothing of his own it follows still more naturally that he must swap something belonging to his neighbors mister simpson was absent from the home circle for the moment because he had exchanged the widow rideout's sleigh for joseph goodwin's plough
goodwin had lately moved to north edgewood and had never before met the urbane and persuasive mister simpson the goodwin plough mister simpson speedily bartered with a man over wareham way
simpson fattened the aged animal keeping him for several weeks at early morning or after nightfall in one neighbor's pasture after another
she had not used it for fifteen years and might not sit in it for another fifteen but it was property and she did not intend to part with it without a struggle
her thought at once reverted to abner simpson
and so tortuous the paths of its progress partly owing to the complete disappearance of the owner of the horse who had gone to the west and left no address that it took the sheriff many weeks to prove mister simpson's guilt to the town's and to the widow rideout's satisfaction
abner himself avowed his complete innocence and told the neighbors how a red haired man with a hare lip and a pepper and salt suit of clothes had called him up one morning about daylight and offered to swap him a good sleigh for an old cider press he had layin out in the dooryard
the bargain was struck and he abner had paid the hare lipped stranger four dollars and seventy five cents to boot whereupon the mysterious one set down the sleigh took the press on his cart and vanished up the road never to be seen or heard from afterwards
if i could once ketch that consarned old thief exclaimed abner righteously i'd make him dance workin off a stolen sleigh on me an takin away my good money an cider press to say nothin o my character
and that there character and that there four seventy five o yourn nobody ever see any of em but you and you'll never see em again missus simpson who was decidedly abner's better half took in washing and went out to do days cleaning
and the town helped in the feeding and clothing of the children george a lanky boy of fourteen did chores on neighboring farms and the others samuel clara belle susan elijah and elisha went to school when sufficiently clothed and not otherwise more pleasantly engaged
there were no secrets in the villages that lay along the banks of pleasant river there were many hard working people among the inhabitants
under the trees at noon in the hayfield hanging over the bridge at nightfall seated about the stove in the village store of an evening these meeting places furnished ample ground for the discussion of current events as viewed by the masculine eye
while choir rehearsals sewing societies reading circles church picnics and the like gave opportunity for the expression of feminine opinion
all this was taken very much for granted as a rule but now and then some supersensitive person made violent objections to it as a theory of life
she fell ill and although attended by all the physicians in the neighborhood was sinking slowly into a decline when her cousin cyrus asked her to come and keep house for him in lewiston she went and in a year grew into a robust hearty cheerful woman
returning to riverboro on a brief visit she was asked if she meant to end her days away from home i do most certainly if i can get any other place to stay she responded candidly
i was bein worn to a shadder here tryin to keep my little secrets to myself an never succeedin first they had it i wanted to marry the minister and when he took a wife in standish i was known to be disappointed
then for five or six years they suspicioned i was tryin for a place to teach school and when i gave up hope an took to dressmakin they pitied me and sympathized with me for that
for that spites em worse than anything else
i gave good news of him for thirty years runnin
they knew when i had my teeth out and a new set made they knew when i put on a false front piece they knew when the fruit peddler asked me to be his third wife i never told em an you can be sure he never did but they don't need to be told in this village
they have nothin to do but guess an they'll guess right every time i was all tuckered out tryin to mislead em and deceive em and sidetrack em
cousin cyrus is an old man an consid'able trouble but he thinks my teeth are handsome an says i've got a splendid suit of hair there ain't a person in lewiston that knows about the minister or father's will
an if they should find out they wouldn't care an they couldn't remember
but it is easy to imagine that rebecca as well as all the other riverboro children had heard the particulars of the widow rideout's missing sleigh and abner simpson's supposed connection with it there is not an excess of delicacy or chivalry in the ordinary country school
rebecca randall was of precisely the same stock and had had much the same associations as her schoolmates so one can hardly say why she so hated mean gossip and so instinctively held herself aloof from it
who was anything but a general favorite she was a ferret eyed blond haired spindle legged little creature whose mind was a cross between that of a parrot and a sheep she was suspected of copying answers from other girls slates although she had never been caught in the act
because on those days she forsook the cheerful society of her mates and sought a safe solitude in the woods returning after a time with a jocund smile on her smug face after one of these private luncheons rebecca had been tempted beyond her strength
is your headache better minnie let me wipe off that strawberry jam over your mouth
rebecca confessed to emma jane that same afternoon that she felt ashamed of her prank i do hate her ways she exclaimed but i'm sorry i let her know we spected her and so to make up i gave her that little piece of broken coral i keep in my bead purse
you know the one it don't hardly seem as if she deserved that and her so greedy remarked emma jane i know it but it makes me feel better said rebecca largely
the coral had partly served its purpose as a reconciling bond
was returning home by way of the short cut
seesaw was not with them so she hastened her steps in order to secure company on her homeward walk
clara belle susan and the twins were running along the path and minnie was dancing up and down shrieking what made the sleigh love simpson so the eager children cried why simpson loved the sleigh you know the teacher quick replied
the last glimpse of the routed simpson tribe
the fall of one small stone cast by the valiant elijah known as the fighting twin did break the stillness of the woods for a moment but it did not come within a hundred yards of minnie who shouted jail birds
at the top of her lungs and then turned with an agreeable feeling of excitement to meet rebecca standing perfectly still in the path with a day of reckoning plainly set forth in her blazing eyes
is not an object of delight minnie smellie if
do you know what i'll do asked rebecca in a tone of concentrated rage i don't know and i don't care said minnie jauntily though her looks belied her i'll take that piece of coral away from you
and i think i shall slap you besides you wouldn't darst retorted minnie if you do i'll tell my mother and the teacher so there i don't care if you tell your mother
my mother and all your relations and the president said rebecca gaining courage as the noble words fell from her lips i don't care if you tell the town the whole of york county the state of maine
she finished grandiloquently
if you do it again and especially if you say jail birds if i think it's right and my duty i shall punish you somehow
the next morning at recess rebecca observed minnie telling the tale with variations to huldah meserve she threatened me whispered minnie but i never believe a word she says
the latter remark was spoken with the direct intention of being overheard for minnie had spasms of bravery when well surrounded by the machinery of law and order
this was the note of all the girls that are so mean there's none like minnie smellie i'll take away the gift i gave and pound her into jelly p s now do you believe me r randall
the effect of this piece of doggerel was entirely convincing
sunshine in a shady place
but it was fortunate that rebecca had her books and her new acquaintances to keep her interested and occupied
she tried to like her aunt miranda
but failed ignominiously in the attempt she was a very faulty and passionately human child with no aspirations towards being an angel of the house but she had a sense of duty and a desire to be good respectably decently good
whenever she fell below this self imposed standard she was miserable she did not like to be under her aunt's roof eating bread wearing clothes and studying books provided by her and dislike her so heartily all the time she felt instinctively that this was wrong and mean
and whenever the feeling of remorse was strong within her she made a desperate effort to please her grim and difficult relative but how could she succeed when she was never herself in her aunt miranda's presence the searching look of the eyes the sharp voice the hard knotty fingers
the thin straight lips the long silences the front piece that didn't match her hair the very obvious parting that seemed sewed in with linen thread on black net there was not a single item that appealed to rebecca
there are certain narrow unimaginative and autocratic old people who seem to call out the most mischievous and sometimes the worst traits in children miss miranda had she lived in a populous neighborhood would have had her doorbell pulled her gate tied up
or dirt traps set in her garden paths the simpson twins stood in such awe of her that they could not be persuaded to come to the side door even when miss jane held gingerbread cookies in her outstretched hands it is needless to say that rebecca irritated her aunt with every breath she drew
she left the dipper on the kitchen shelf instead of hanging it up over the pail
she was willing to go on errands but often forgot what she was sent for she left the screen doors ajar so that flies came in her tongue was ever in motion she sang or whistled when she was picking up chips
she was always messing with flowers putting them in vases pinning them on her dress and sticking them in her hat finally she was an everlasting reminder of her foolish worthless father whose handsome face and engaging manner had so deceived aurelia
and perhaps if the facts were known others besides aurelia the randalls were aliens
miranda would have allowed on compulsion that in the nature of things a large number of persons must necessarily be born outside this sacred precinct but she had her opinion of them and it was not a flattering one now if hannah had come
hannah took after the other side of the house she was all sawyer poor hannah that was true hannah spoke only when spoken to instead of first last and all the time hannah at fourteen was a member of the church hannah liked to knit
hannah was probably or would have been a pattern of all the smaller virtues instead of which here was this black haired gypsy
what sunshine in a shady place was aunt jane to rebecca aunt jane with her quiet voice her understanding eyes her ready excuses in these first difficult weeks when the impulsive little stranger was trying to settle down into the brick house ways she did learn them
in part and by degrees and the constant fitting of herself to these new and difficult standards of conduct seemed to make her older than ever for her years the child took her sewing and sat beside aunt jane in the kitchen
while aunt miranda had the post of observation at the sitting room window sometimes they would work on the side porch
to rebecca the lengths of brown gingham were interminable she made hard work of sewing broke the thread
pricked her finger wiped the perspiration from her forehead could not match the checks puckered the seams she polished her needles to nothing pushing them in and out of the emery strawberry but they always squeaked
still aunt jane's patience held good and some small measure of skill was creeping into rebecca's fingers fingers that held pencil paint brush and pen so cleverly and were so clumsy with the dainty little needle
when the first brown gingham frock was completed the child seized what she thought an opportune moment and asked her aunt miranda if she might have another color for the next one i bought a whole piece of the brown said miranda laconically that'll give you two more dresses with plenty for new sleeves
i know but mister watson says he'll take back part of it and let us have pink and blue for the same price did you ask him yes'm
pink keeps clean just as nice as brown and mister watson says it'll boil without fading
i don't approve of children being rigged out in fancy colors but i'll see what your aunt jane thinks i think it would be all right to let rebecca have one pink and one blue gingham said jane a child gets tired of sewing on one color
it's only natural she should long for a change
and it's dreadful unbecoming to her handsome is as handsome does say i
and there's no use in humoring her to think about her looks i believe she's vain as a peacock now without anything to be vain of
i remember well enough how i felt at her age you was considerable of a fool at her age jane yes i was thank the lord
to brighten my declining years there finally was a pink gingham and when it was nicely finished aunt jane gave rebecca a delightful surprise she showed her how to make a pretty trimming of narrow white linen tape
it'll be good fancy work for you rebecca for your aunt miranda won't like to see you always reading in the long winter evenings now if you think you can baste two rows of white tape round the bottom of your pink skirt and keep it straight by the checks
i'll stitch them on for you and trim the waist and sleeves with pointed tape trimming so the dress'll be real pretty for second best rebecca's joy knew no bounds i'll baste like a house afire she exclaimed it's a thousand yards round that skirt as well i know having hemmed it
oh do you think aunt mirandy'll ever let me go to milltown with mister cobb he's asked me again you know
i see susan simpson and the twins and emma jane perkins hiding behind the fence rebecca leaped off the porch snatched alice robinson from under the currant bushes
in getting emma jane away from the simpson party and giving them the slip altogether they were much too small for certain pleasurable activities planned for that afternoon but they were not to be despised for they had the most fascinating dooryard in the village
in it in bewildering confusion were old sleighs pungs horse rakes hogsheads settees without backs bed steads without heads in all stages of disability and never the same on two consecutive days
missus simpson was seldom at home and even when she was had little concern as to what happened on the premises a favorite diversion was to make the house into a fort
great care was used in apportioning the parts for there was no disposition to let anybody win but the americans seesaw simpson was usually made commander in chief of the british army and a limp and uncertain one he was
capable with his contradictory orders and his fondness for the extreme rear of leading any regiment to an inglorious death sometimes the long suffering house was a log hut and the brave settlers defeated a band of hostile indians
or occasionally were massacred by them but in either case the simpson house looked to quote a riverboro expression as if the devil had been having an auction in it next to this uncommonly interesting playground as a field of action came in the children's opinion the secret spot
as well as verdant levels on which to build houses a group of trees concealed it somewhat from view and flung a grateful shade over the dwellings erected there
here in soap boxes hidden among the trees were stored all their treasures wee baskets and plates and cups made of burdock balls bits of broken china for parties
deaths funerals weddings christenings a tall square house of stickins was to be built round rebecca this afternoon and she was to be charlotte corday leaning against the bars of her prison
it was a wonderful experience standing inside the building with emma jane's apron wound about her hair
that her eyes were no longer rebecca randall's but mirrored something of charlotte corday's hapless woe
it's been such a sight of work if you think you could move up some stones
suggested charlotte corday then leave the stones and you two can step down into the prison to morrow and be the two little princes in the tower and i can murder you what princes what tower asked alice and emma jane in one breath tell us about them
not now it's my supper time rebecca was a somewhat firm disciplinarian
though you are awful real when you murder or we could have elijah and elisha for the princes they'd yell when they was murdered objected alice you know how silly they are at plays all except clara belle
besides if we once show them this secret place they'll play in it all the time and perhaps they'd steal things like their father they needn't steal just because their father does argued rebecca and don't you ever talk about it before them if you want to be my secret partic'lar friends
my mother tells me never to say hard things about people's own folks to their face she says nobody can bear it and it's wicked to shame them for what isn't their fault
chapter seventeen a four winds winter winter set in vigorously after new year's big white drifts heaped themselves about the little house and palms of frost covered its windows
the harbor ice grew harder and thicker
the safe ways were bushed by a benevolent government and night and day the gay tinkle of the sleigh bells sounded on it on moonlit nights anne heard them in her house of dreams like fairy chimes the gulf froze over
and the four winds light flashed no more during the months when navigation was closed captain jim's office was a sinecure the first mate and i will have nothing to do till spring except keep warm and amuse ourselves
the last lighthouse keeper used always to move up to the glen in winter but i'd rather stay at the point the first mate might get poisoned or chewed up by dogs at the glen it's a mite lonely to be sure
with neither the light nor the water for company but if our friends come to see us often we'll weather it through captain jim had an ice boat and many a wild glorious spin gilbert and anne and leslie had over the glib harbor ice with him
anne and leslie took long snowshoe tramps together too over the fields or across the harbor after storms or through the woods beyond the glen they were very good comrades in their rambles and their fireside communings each had something to give the other
each felt life the richer for friendly exchange of thought and friendly silence each looked across the white fields between their homes with a pleasant consciousness of a friend beyond but in spite of all this
anne felt that there was always a barrier between leslie and herself a constraint that never wholly vanished i don't know why i can't get closer to her anne said one evening to captain jim i like her so much i admire her so much
i want to take her right into my heart and creep right into hers
you've been too happy all your life mistress blythe said captain jim thoughtfully i reckon that's why you and leslie can't get real close together in your souls
she ain't responsible for it and you ain't but it's there and neither of you can cross it my childhood wasn't very happy before i came to green gables said anne
mebbe not but it was just the usual unhappiness of a child who hasn't anyone to look after it properly there hasn't been any tragedy in your life mistress blythe and poor leslie's has been almost all tragedy
she feels i reckon though mebbe she hardly knows she feels it that there's a vast deal in her life you can't enter nor understand and so she has to keep you back from it hold you off so to speak from hurting her you know
if we've got anything about us that hurts we shrink from anyone's touch on or near it it holds good with our souls as well as our bodies i reckon leslie's soul must be near raw it's no wonder she hides it away
if that were really all i wouldn't mind captain jim i would understand
when i almost have to believe that leslie doesn't doesn't like me sometimes i surprise a look in her eyes that seems to show resentment and dislike it goes so quickly but i've seen it i'm sure of that and it hurts me captain jim
i'm not used to being disliked and i've tried so hard to win leslie's friendship you have won it mistress blythe don't you go cherishing any foolish notion that leslie don't like you
i know leslie moore too well not to be sure of that the first time i ever saw her driving her geese down the hill on the day i came to four winds she looked at me with the same expression persisted anne i felt it
even in the midst of my admiration of her beauty she looked at me resentfully she did indeed captain jim the resentment must have been about something else mistress blythe and you jest come in for a share of it because you happened past
leslie does take sullen spells now and again poor girl i can't blame her when i know what she has to put up with i don't know why it's permitted the doctor and i have talked a lot abut the origin of evil but we haven't quite found out all about it yet
there's a vast of onunderstandable things in life ain't there mistress blythe sometimes things seem to work out real proper like same as with you and the doctor and then again they all seem to go catawampus
there's leslie so clever and beautiful you'd think she was meant for a queen and instead she's cooped up over there robbed of almost everything a woman'd value
rather than the life she lived with dick before he went away that's something a clumsy old sailor's tongue mustn't meddle with but you've helped leslie a lot she's a different creature since you come to four winds
miss cornelia and me was talking it over the other day
anne could hardly discard it completely for there were undoubtedly times when she felt with an instinct that was not to be combated by reason that leslie harbored a queer indefinable resentment towards her
at times this secret consciousness marred the delight of their comradeship at others it was almost forgotten but anne always felt the hidden thorn was there and might prick her at any moment
she felt a cruel sting from it on the day when she told leslie of what she hoped the spring would bring to the little house of dreams leslie looked at her with hard bitter unfriendly eyes so you are to have that too she said in a choked voice
and without another word she had turned and gone across the fields homeward anne was deeply hurt for the moment she felt as if she could never like leslie again but when leslie came over a few evenings later she was so pleasant so friendly
so frank and witty and winsome that anne was charmed into forgiveness and forgetfulness only she never mentioned her darling hope to leslie again nor did leslie ever refer to it but one evening when late winter was listening for the word of spring
anne found it after she was gone and opened it wonderingly in it was a tiny white dress of exquisite workmanship delicate embroidery wonderful tucking sheer loveliness every stitch in it was handwork
and the little frills of lace at neck and sleeves were of real valenciennes lying on it was a card with leslie's love what hours of work she must have put on it said anne
and the material must have cost more than she could really afford it is very sweet of her but leslie was brusque and curt when anne thanked her and again the latter felt thrown back upon herself
leslie's gift was not alone in the little house miss cornelia had for the time being given up sewing for unwanted unwelcome eighth babies and fallen to sewing for a very much wanted first one
whose welcome would leave nothing to be desired philippa blake and diana wright each sent a marvellous garment and missus rachel lynde sent several in which good material and honest stitches took the place of embroidery and frills
anne herself made many desecrated by no touch of machinery spending over them the happiest hours of the happy winter captain jim was the most frequent guest of the little house and none was more welcome
he was as refreshing as a sea breeze as interesting as some ancient chronicle she was never tired of listening to his stories and his quaint remarks and comments were a continual delight to her
captain jim was one of those rare and interesting people who never speak but they say something the milk of human kindness and the wisdom of the serpent were mingled in his composition in delightful proportions
nothing ever seemed to put captain jim out or depress him in any way i've kind of contracted a habit of enj'ying things he remarked once when anne had commented on his invariable cheerfulness
the disagreeable things it's great fun thinking they can't last old rheumatiz says i when it grips me hard you've got to stop aching sometime the worse you are the sooner you'll stop mebbe i'm bound to get the better of you in the long run
anne thought what a treasure trove it would be to a writer every sentence was a nugget in itself the book had no literary merit
he came to pen and ink he could only jot roughly down the outline of his famous tales and both spelling and grammar were sadly askew but anne felt that if anyone possessed of the gift could take that simple record of a brave adventurous life
reading between the bald lines the tales of dangers staunchly faced and duty manfully done a wonderful story might be made from it rich comedy and thrilling tragedy were both lying hidden in captain jim's life book
waiting for the touch of the master hand to waken the laughter and grief and horror of thousands anne said something of this to gilbert as they walked home why don't you try your hand at it yourself anne anne shook her head
no i only wish i could but it's not in the power of my gift you know what my forte is gilbert the fanciful the fairylike the pretty to write captain jim's life book as it should be written
one should be a master of vigorous yet subtle style a keen psychologist a born humorist and a born tragedian a rare combination of gifts is needed paul might do it if he were older anyhow
come to this shore wrote anne to paul i am afraid you cannot find here nora or the golden lady or the twin sailors but you will find one old sailor who can tell you wonderful stories
paul however wrote back saying regretfully that he could not come that year he was going abroad for two year's study when i return i'll come to four winds dear teacher he wrote but meanwhile captain jim is growing old said anne sorrowfully
they journeyed for three and a half months they saw the grand canyon the adobe walls of sante fe and in a drive from el paso into mexico their first foreign land they jogged from san diego and la jolla to los angeles pasadena
riverside through towns with bell towered missions and orange groves they viewed monterey and san francisco and a forest of sequoias they bathed in the surf and climbed foothills and danced they saw a polo game and the making of motion pictures
they sent one hundred and seventeen souvenir post cards to gopher prairie
too damned wet to paint sit down and talk and so for ten minutes she lived in a romantic novel her only struggle was in coaxing kennicott not to spend all his time with the tourists from the ten thousand other gopher prairies
in winter california is full of people from iowa and nebraska ohio and oklahoma who having traveled thousands of miles from their familiar villages hasten to secure an illusion of not having left them
they hunt for people from their own states to stand between them and the shame of naked mountains they talk steadily in pullmans on hotel porches at cafeterias and motion picture shows about the motors and crops and county politics back home
kennicott discussed land prices with them he went into the merits of the several sorts of motor cars with them he was intimate with train porters and he insisted on seeing the luke dawsons at their flimsy bungalow in pasadena
where luke sat and yearned to go back and make some more money
he shouted in the pool at the coronado and he spoke of though he did nothing more radical than speak of buying evening clothes carol was touched by his efforts to enjoy picture galleries
and the dogged way in which he accumulated dates and dimensions when they followed monkish guides through missions she felt strong whenever she was restless she dodged her thoughts by the familiar vagabond fallacy of running away from them of moving on to a new place
and thus she persuaded herself that she was tranquil in march she willingly agreed with kennicott that it was time to go home she was longing for hugh they left monterey on april first on a day of high blue skies and poppies and a summer sea
as the train struck in among the hills she resolved i'm going to love the fine will kennicott quality that there is in gopher prairie the nobility of good sense it will be sweet to see vida and guy and the clarks
and i'm going to see my baby all the words he'll be able to say now it's a new start everything will be different thus on april first among dappled hills and the bronze of scrub oaks
while kennicott seesawed on his toes and chuckled wonder what hugh'll say when he sees us
no one met them and because of the icy roads the only conveyance at the station was the hotel bus which they missed while kennicott was giving his trunk check to the station agent the only person to welcome them
carol waited for him in the station among huddled german women with shawls and umbrellas and ragged bearded farmers in corduroy coats peasants mute as oxen in a room thick with the steam of wet coats the reek of the red hot stove
this is a useful market center an interesting pioneer post but it is not a home for me meditated the stranger carol kennicott suggested i'd phone for a flivver but it'd take quite a while for it to get here let's walk
they stepped uncomfortably from the safety of the plank platform and balancing on their toes taking cautious strides ventured along the road the sleety rain was turning to snow the air was stealthily cold beneath an inch of water was a layer of ice
so that as they wavered with their suit cases they slid and almost fell the wet snow drenched their gloves the water underfoot splashed their itching ankles they scuffled inch by inch for three blocks in front of harry haydock's kennicott sighed
we better stop in here and phone for a machine she followed him like a wet kitten the haydocks saw them laboring up the slippery concrete walk up the perilous front steps and came to the door chanting well well well back again eh
say this is fine have a fine trip my you look like a rose carol how did you like the coast doc well well well where all did you go but as kennicott began to proclaim the list of places achieved
harry interrupted with an account of how much he himself had seen two years ago when kennicott boasted we went through the mission at santa barbara harry broke in yeh that's an interesting old mission say i'll never forget that hotel there doc it was swell
juanita and i went from santa barbara to san luis obispo you folks go to san luis obispo no but well you ought to gone to san luis obispo and then we went from there to a ranch least they called it a ranch
kennicott got in only one considerable narrative which began say i never knew did you harry that in the chicago district the kutz kar sells as well as the overland i never thought much of the kutz but i met a gentleman on the train
and i was sitting on the back platform of the observation car
when he found out i came from minnesota he asked me if i knew doctor clemworth of red wing and of course while i've never met him i've heard of clemworth lots of times and seems he's this man's brother quite a coincidence
and we called the porter that was a pretty good porter on that car and we had a couple bottles of ginger ale
i don't remember the name of it carrie what the deuce was the name of that first stop we made the other side of albuquerque well anyway i guess
and i was glad to learn about it seems that the gear lever in the kutz is an inch longer even this chronicle of voyages harry interrupted with remarks on the advantages of the ball gear shift kennicott gave up hope of adequate credit for being a traveled man
and telephoned to a garage for a ford taxicab
which included seven distinct and proven scandals about missus swiftwaite and one considerable doubt as to the chastity of cy bogart they saw the ford sedan making its way over the water lined ice through the snow storm
like a tug boat in a fog the driver stopped at a corner the car skidded it turned about with comic reluctance crashed into a tree and stood tilted on a broken wheel
the kennicotts refused harry haydock's not too urgent offer to take them home in his car if i can manage to get it out of the garage terrible day stayed home from the store but if you say so i'll take a shot at it carol gurgled no
i think we'd better walk probably make better time and i'm just crazy to see my baby with their suit cases they waddled on their coats were soaked through carol had forgotten her
she looked about with impersonal eyes but kennicott through rain blurred lashes caught the glory that was back home
black branches the spongy brown earth between patches of decayed snow on the lawns the vacant lots were full of tall dead weeds stripped of summer leaves the houses were hopeless temporary shelters kennicott chuckled
chicken tight and dog tight that's certainly a dandy fence wonder how much it cost a yard yes sir they been building right along even in winter got more enterprise than these californians
she noted that all winter long the citizens had been throwing garbage into their back yards to be cleaned up in spring
clotted paint cans all half covered by the icy pools which filled the hollows of the yards the refuse had stained the water to vile colors of waste thin red sour yellow streaky brown kennicott chuckled
they got the feed store all fixed up and a new sign on it black and gold that'll improve the appearance of the block a lot she noted that the few people whom they passed wore their raggedest coats for the evil day
they were scarecrows in a shanty town to think she marveled of coming two thousand miles past mountains and cities to get off here and to plan to stay here what conceivable reason for choosing this particular place
she noted a figure in a rusty coat and a cloth cap kennicott chuckled look who's coming it's sam clark gosh all rigged out for the weather the two men shook hands a dozen times and in the western fashion bumbled well
hell hound you old devil how are you anyway
while sam nodded at her over kennicott's shoulder she was embarrassed perhaps i should never have gone away i'm out of practise in lying i wish they would get it over just a block more and my baby
they were home she brushed past the welcoming aunt bessie and knelt by hugh as he stammered o mummy mummy don't go away stay with me mummy she cried no i'll never leave you again he volunteered that's daddy
by golly he knows us just as if we'd never been away said kennicott you don't find any of these california kids as bright as he is at his age
the miniature junk and the oriental drum from san francisco chinatown the blocks carved by the old frenchman in san diego the lariat from san antonio will you forgive mummy for going away will you she whispered absorbed in hugh
asking a hundred questions about him had he had any colds did he still dawdle over his oatmeal what about unfortunate morning incidents
i hope you're going to settle down and be satisfied and not does he like carrots yet replied carol she was cheerful as the snow began to conceal the slatternly yards
she assured herself that the streets of new york and chicago were as ugly as gopher prairie in such weather she dismissed the thought but they do have charming interiors for refuge
the afternoon grew old and dark aunt bessie went home carol took the baby into her own room the maid came in complaining i can't get no extra milk to make chipped beef for supper
he had been spoiled by aunt bessie even to a returned mother his whining and his trick of seven times snatching her silver brush were fatiguing
the house reeked with a colorless stillness from the window she heard kennicott greeting the widow bogart as he had always done always every snowy evening guess this ll keep up all night she waited there they were
the furnace sounds unalterable eternal removing ashes shoveling coal yes she was back home nothing had changed she had never been away california had she seen it
had she for one minute left this scraping sound of the small shovel in the ash pit of the furnace but kennicott preposterously supposed that she had never had she been quite so far from going away as now when he believed she had just come back
she felt oozing through the walls the spirit of small houses and righteous people at that instant she knew that in running away she had merely hidden her doubts behind the officious stir of travel dear god don't let me begin agonizing again she sobbed
hugh wept with her wait for mummy a second she hastened down to the cellar to kennicott he was standing before the furnace
he had seen to it that the fundamental cellar should be large and clean the square pillars whitewashed and the bins for coal and potatoes and trunks convenient a glow from the drafts fell on the smooth gray cement floor at his feet
he was whistling tenderly staring at the furnace with eyes which saw the black domed monster as a symbol of home and of the beloved routine to which he had returned his gipsying decently accomplished
his duty of viewing sights and curios performed with thoroughness unconscious of her he stooped and peered in at the blue flames among the coals he closed the door briskly and made a whirling gesture with his right hand out of pure bliss
he saw her why hello old lady pretty darn good to be back eh yes she lied while she quaked not now i can't face the job of explaining now he's been so good he trusts me
and i'm going to break his heart she smiled at him
she mourned it's only the baby that holds me if hugh died
she saw a pencil mark on a window sill she had made it on a september day when she had been planning a picnic for fern mullins and erik fern and she had been hysterical with nonsense had invented mad parties for all the coming winter
she glanced across the alley at the room which fern had occupied a rag of a gray curtain masked the still window
chapter twelve the great dining room at hilcrest the old spencer homestead was perhaps the pleasantest room in the house the house itself crowned the highest hill that overlooked the town
one might see the town with its myriad roofs and tall chimneys but although these same tall chimneys represented the wealth that made possible the great spencer estate
had preferred the side that overlooked the town and that he spent long hours gloating over the visible results of his thrift and enterprise but old jacob was dead now and his son's sons reigned instead
and his son's sons no matter how much they might value the whiz and whir and smoke of the town preferred when at rest to gaze upon green hills and far reaching meadows this was indeed typical of the spencer code
the farther away they could get from the oil that made the machinery of life run easily and noiselessly the better pleased they were the dining room looked particularly pleasant this july evening a gentle breeze stirred the curtains at the open windows
and the setting sun peeped through the vines outside and glistened on the old family plate three generations of spencers looked down from the walls on the two men and the woman sitting at the great mahogany table the two men and the woman however
were not looking at the sunlight the vines or the swaying curtains they were looking at each other and their eyes were troubled and questioning you say she is coming next week asked the younger man glancing at the letter in the other's hand
yes tuesday afternoon but frank this is so sudden remonstrated the young fellow laughing a little as he uttered the trite phrase
how does it happen that i've heard so little of this young lady who is to be so unceremoniously dropped into our midst next tuesday frank spencer made an impatient gesture that showed how great was his perturbation
come come ned don't be foolish he protested you know very well that your brother's stepdaughter has been my ward for a dozen years yes but that is all i know rejoined the young man quietly i have never seen her and scarcely ever heard of her
and yet you expect me to take as a matter of course this strange young woman who is none of our kith nor kin and yet who is to be one of us from henceforth forevermore the boy is right interposed the low voice of the woman across the table
ned doesn't know anything about her he was a mere child himself when it all happened and he's been away from home most of the time since for that matter we don't know much about her ourselves we certainly don't sighed frank spencer
then he raised his head and squared his shoulders see here good people this will never do in the world he asserted with sudden authority i have offered the hospitality of this house to a homeless orphan girl and she has accepted it
there is nothing for us to do now but to try to make her happy after all we needn't worry it may turn out that she will make us happy but what is she how does she look catechized ned his brother shook his head i don't know
he replied simply you don't know but surely you have seen her yes oh yes i have seen her once or twice but margaret kendall is not a girl whom to see is to know besides the circumstances were such that well
and father was in bermuda that winter for his health missus kendall had a daughter margaret about ten years old who was at school somewhere in the berkshires
it was to that school that i went when the terrible news came that harry and his new wife had lost their lives in that awful railroad accident that was the first time that i saw margaret the poor child was of course heartbroken and inconsolable
but her grief took a peculiar turn the mere sight of me drove her almost into hysterics she would have nothing whatever to do with me or with any of her stepfather's people she reasoned that if her mother had not married
there would have been no wedding journey and if there had been no wedding journey there would have been no accident and that her mother would then have been alive and well arguments pleadings and entreaties were in vain she would not listen to me or even see me
she held her hands before her face and screamed if i so much as came into the room she was nothing but a child of course and not even a normal one at that for she had had a very strange life at five she was lost in new york city
and for four years she lived on the streets and in the sweat shops enduring almost unbelievable poverty and hardships by jove exclaimed ned under his breath it was only seven or eight months before the wedding that she was found went on frank
and of course the influence of the wild life she had led was still with her more or less and made her not easily subject to control there was nothing for me to do but to leave the poor little thing where she was particularly as there seemed to be no other place for her
she would not come with me and she had no people of her own to whom she could turn for love and sympathy as you know poor harry was conscious for some hours after the accident long enough to make his will and dictate the letter to me
leaving margaret to my care boy though i was i was only twenty you see but really there was no one else to whom he could leave her that was something over thirteen years ago margaret must be about twenty three now
she stayed at the berkshire school five years then with some fear and trembling i own i went to see her i found a grave eyed little miss who answered my questions with studied politeness
and who agreed without comment to the proposition that i place her in a school where she might remain until she was ready for college should she elect to go to college but her vacations did she never come then questioned ned no
at first i did not ask her of course it was out of the question as she was feeling some one of her teachers always looked out for her they all pitied her and naturally did everything they could for her as did her mates at school
later when i did dare to ask her to come here she always refused she wrote me stiff little notes in which she informed me that she was to spend the holidays with some blanche or dorothy or mabel of her acquaintance
she was nineteen when i saw her again i found now a charming graceful girl with peculiarly haunting blue eyes and heavy coils of bronze gold hair that kinked and curled about her little pink ears in a most distracting fashion
even now though she would not come to my home she was going abroad with friends the party included an irreproachable chaperon so of course i had nothing to say while as for money
she had all of her mother's not inconsiderable fortune besides everything that had been her stepfather's so of course there was no question on that score in the fall she entered college
when she came of age she specially requested me to make no change in her affairs but to regard herself as my ward for the present just as she had been so i still call myself her guardian this june was her graduation
i had forgotten the fact until i received the little engraved invitation a week or two ago i thought of running down for it but i couldn't get away very well and well i didn't go that's all
but i did write and ask her to make this house her home and here is her reply she thanks me and will come next tuesday there now you have it you know all that i do and frank spencer leaned back in his chair with a long sigh
neither do i oh but you've seen her yes and how
no i've been told this however he added it seems that immediately after her return to her mother's home she had the most absurd quixotic notions about sharing all she had with every ragamuffin in new york
she even carried her distress over their condition to such an extent that her mother really feared for her reason all her teachers therefore were instructed to keep from her all further knowledge of poverty and trouble
i do hope the child is well over those notions i shouldn't want her to mix up here with the mill people i never did quite like those settlement women anyway and only think what might happen with one in one's own family i don't think i should worry sister sweet
laughed frank i haven't seen much of the young lady but i think i have seen enough for that
and among the earliest shoppers in rochester on the east bank of the beaver where supplies were laid in for the day this busy prosperous looking place bears little resemblance to the squalid indian village which gist found here in november seventeen fifty
it was then the seat of barney curran an indian trader the same curran whom washington three years later employed in the mission to venango but the smaller sister town of beaver on the lower side of the mouth
or rather the western outskirts of beaver a mile below the mouth has the most ancient history on account of a ford across the beaver about where is now a slack water dam the neighborhood became of early importance to the french as a fur trading center
with customary liberality toward the indians whom they assiduously cultivated the french in seventeen fifty six built for them on this site a substantial town which the english indifferently called sarikonk sohkon
during the french and indian war the place was prominent as a rendezvous for the enemies of american borderers numerous bloody forays were planned here and hither were brought to be adopted into the tribes or to be cruelly tortured according to savage whim
many of the captives whose tales have made lurid the history of the ohio valley passing beaver river the ohio enters upon its grand sweep to the southwest
as heretofore all the way from brownsville the two ranges of undulating hills some three hundred and fifty feet high forming the rim of the basin are about a half mile apart while the river itself is perhaps a third of a mile in width
leaving narrow bottoms on alternate sides as the stream in gentle curves rebounds from the rocky base of one hill to that of another when winding about such a base
there is at this stage of the water a sloping stony beach some ten to twenty yards in width from which ascends the sharp steep for the most part heavily tree clad maples birches elms and oaks of goodly girth the latter as yet in but half leaf
on the bottom side of the river the alluvial terrace presents a sheer wall of clay rising from eight to a dozen feet above the beach which is often thick grown with willows whose roots hold the soil from becoming too easy a prey to the encroaching current
sycamores now begin to appear in the bottoms although of less size than we shall meet below sometimes the little towns we see occupy a narrow and more or less rocky bench upon the hill side of the stream
but settlement is chiefly found upon the bottoms shippingsport thirty two miles on the left bank where we stopped this noon for eggs butter and fresh water is on a narrow hill bench a dry woe begone hamlet
side tracked from the path of the world's progress while i was on shore negotiating with the sleepy storekeeper pilgrim and her crew waited alongside the flatboat which serves as the town ferry
there they were visited by a breezy red faced young man in a blue flannel shirt and a black slouch hat who was soon enough at his ease to lie flat upon the ferry gunwale his cheeks supported by his hands
enlarges the hole and often the output of the well is at once increased by several hundred per cent the young fellow had the air of a self confident rustic with little experience in the world
how fur down air yew fellers goin anyhow it was with some difficulty that he could comprehend the fact a hundred miles on the river was a great outing for this village lad nine hundred was rather beyond his comprehension although he finally compromised by
wouldn't the doctor go into partnership with him
they would regardless of ohio statutes
well yew fellers we'll part friends anyhow
there's right smart money in t n don yer fergit it by the middle of the afternoon we reached the boundary line forty miles between pennsylvania on the east and ohio and west virginia on the west
the last pennsylvania settlements are a half mile above the boundary smith's ferry right an old and somewhat decayed village
below which is a shelving stone beach of generous width two high iron towers supporting the cable of a current ferry add dignity to the twin settlements a stone monument six feet high just observable through the willows on the right shore marks the boundary
while upon the left bank surmounting a high rock strewn beach is the dilapidated frame house of a west virginia cracker through whose garden patch the line takes its way unobserved and unthought of by pigs chickens and children which in hopeless promiscuity swarm the interstate premises
for many days to come we are to have ohio on the right bank and west virginia on the left there is no perceptible change of course in the contour of the rugged hills which hem us in
yet somehow it stirs the blood to reflect that quite within the recollection of all of us in pilgrim's crew save the boy that left bank was the house of bondage and that right the land of freedom and this river of ours the highway between
are long stretches of pottery and tile making works both of them on the ohio shore there is nothing there to lure us however and we determined to camp on the banks of yellow creek fifty one miles a peaceful little ohio stream some two rods in width
its mouth crossed by two great iron spans for railway and highway but although yellow creek winds most gracefully and is altogether a charming bit of rustic water deep set amid picturesque slopes of field and wood
hence we retrace our path to the great river and dropping down stream for two miles find what we seek upon the lower end of the chief of kneistly's cluster two islands on the west virginia side of the channel
it is storied ground this neighborhood of ours over there at the mouth of yellow creek was a hundred and twenty years ago the camp of logan the mingo chief opposite on the west virginia shore
baker's bottom where occurred the treacherous massacre of logan's family the tragedy is interwoven with the history of the trans alleghany border and schoolboys have in many lands and tongues recited the pathetic defense of the poor mingo who more sinned against than sinning
was crushed in the inevitable struggle between savagery and civilization who is there to mourn for logan we are high and dry on our willowed island above
just out of sight are moored a brace of steam pile drivers engaged in strengthening the dam which unites us with baker's bottom to the left lies a broad stretch of gravel strand
with the lights and smoke of new cumberland and sloan's station faintly discernible near the horizon all about us lies a beautiful world of woodland the whistle of quails innumerable broke upon us in the twilight
now and then interrupted by the hoarse bark of owls there is a gentle tinkling of cowbells on the ohio shore and on both are human voices confused by distance all pervading is the deep sullen roar of a great wing dam
a half mile or so down stream the camp is gypsy like our washing lies spread on bushes where it will catch the first peep of morning sun perishable provisions rest in notches of trees where the cool evening breeze will strike them
he discusses the music cure good morning doctor said the idiot as capsule m d entered the dining room i am mighty glad you've come
those of paregoric are nit
you ought to submit your tongue to some scientific student of dynamics i am inclined to think from my own observation of its ways that it contains the germ of perpetual motion i will consider your suggestion replied the idiot meanwhile
let us consult harmoniously together on the original point is there anything in this music cure
outside of that mysterious realm which is bounded by the four corners of your own bright particular cerebellum what do you mean by the music cure why the papers have been full of it lately explained the idiot
the claim is made that in music lies the panacea for all human ills
it may not be able to perform a surgical operation like that which is required for the removal of a leg and i don't believe even wagner ever composed a measure that could be counted on successfully to eliminate one's vermiform appendix from its chief sphere of usefulness
said the doctor i never heard of the theory and as i said before i don't believe anybody else has barring your own sweet self i have seen a reference to it somewhere put in mister whitechoker coming to the idiot's rescue
and the general expectation seems to be that some day we shall find in music a cure for all our human ills as the idiot suggests thank you mister whitechoker said the idiot
i saw that same item and several others besides and i have only told the truth when i say that a large number of people are considering the possibilities of music as a substitute for drugs
i am surprised that doctor capsule has neither heard nor thought about it for i should think it would prove to be a pleasant and profitable field for speculation
even i who am only a dabbler in medicine and know no more about it than the effects of certain remedies upon my own symptoms have noticed that music of a certain sort is a sure emollient for nervous conditions for example said the doctor
of course we don't doubt your word but when a man makes a statement based upon personal observation it is profitable to ask him what his precise experience has been merely for the purpose of adding to our own knowledge well said the idiot
the first instance that i can recall is that of a wagner opera and its effects upon me for a number of years i suffered a great deal from insomnia i could not get two hours of consecutive sleep and the effect of my sufferings was to make me nervous and irritable
suddenly somebody presented me with a couple of tickets for a performance of parsifal and i went it began at five o'clock in the afternoon for twenty minutes all went serenely and then the music began to work
it was true the great auditorium was empty and was gradually darkening i put on my hat and walked out refreshed having slept from five twenty until twelve or six hours and forty minutes straight
that was one instance two weeks later i went again this time to hear goetterdaemmerung the results were the same only the effect was instantaneous the curtain had hardly risen before i retired to the little ante room of the box our party occupied
and dozed off into a fathomless sleep i didn't wake up this time until nine o'clock the next day the rest of the party having gone off without awakening me as a sort of joke clearly wagner according to my way of thinking then
deserves to rank among the most effective narcotics known to modern science i have tried all sorts of other things sulfonal trionel
bromide powders and all the rest and not one of them produced anything like the soporific results that two doses of wagner brought about in one instant and best of all there was no reaction no splitting headache or shaky hand the next day
but just the calm quiet contented feeling that goes with the sense of having got completely rested up you run a dreadful risk however said the doctor with a sarcastic smile
the wagner habit is a terrible thing to acquire mister idiot that may be said the idiot worse than the sulfonal habit by a great deal i am told
but i am in no danger of becoming a victim to it while it costs from five to seven dollars a dose in addition to this experience i have also the testimony of a friend of mine who was cured of a frightful attack of the colic by sullivan's lost chord
he was not fitted by temperament to assimilate anything quite so strenuously chromatic as that and as a consequence
the pain he suffered was awful agony was bliss alongside of the pangs that now afflicted him and all the palliatives and pain killers known to man were tried without avail and then just as he was about to give himself up for lost
an amateur cornetist who occupied a studio on the floor above began to play the lost chord a counter pain set in immediately at the second bar of the lost chord
the awful pain that was gradually gnawing away at his vitals seemed to lose its poignancy in the face of the greater suffering and physical relief was instant as the musician proceeded the internal disorder yielded gradually to the external and finally passed away
entirely leaving him so far from prostrate that by one a m he was out of bed and actually girding himself with a shot gun and an indian club to go up stairs for a physical encounter with the cornetist
it would seem so said the idiot while the music continued my friend was a well man ready to go out and fight like a warrior but when the cornetist stopped the colic returned
in these incidents in my own experience i find ample justification for my belief and that of others that some day the music cure for human ailments will be recognized and developed to the full families going off to the country for the summer
instead of taking a medicine chest along with them will be provided with a music box with cylinders for mumps measles summer complaint whooping cough chicken pox chills and fever and all the other ills the flesh is heir to
will go to the piano and give the child a dose of hiawatha if a small boy goes swimming and catches a cold in his head and is down with a fever his nurse an expert on the accordion
can bring him back to health again with three bars of under the bamboo tree after each meal instead of dosing the kids with cod liver oil when they need a tonic they will be set to work at a mechanical piano and braced up on narcissus
there'll be a hot time in the old town to night will become an effective remedy for a sudden chill people suffering from sleeplessness can dose themselves back to normal conditions with wagner the way i did tchaikowsky
to be well shaken before taken will be an effective remedy for a torpid liver and the man or woman who suffers from lassitude will doubtless find in the lively airs of our two step composers an efficient tonic to bring their vitality up to a high standard of activity
nothing in it why doctor there's more in it that's in sight to day that is promising and suggestive of great things in the future than there was of the principle of gravitation in the rude act of that historic pippin
that left the parent tree and swatted sir isaac newton on the nose and the drug stores will be driven out of business i presume said the doctor no said the idiot they will substitute music for drugs that is all
every man who can afford it will have his own medical phonograph or music box and the drug stores will sell cylinders and records for them instead of quinine carbonate of soda squills
what becomes of them demanded the doctor we'll have to have the doctor just the same to prescribe for us only he will have to be a musician
i'm afraid that will have to go said the idiot and why pray
the otter terrier how greedily they snuff the fishy steam that to each blade rank scenting clings see how the morning dews they sweep that from their feet
besprinkling drop dispersed and leave a track oblique behind now on firm land they range then in the flood they plunge tumultuous or through reedy pools rustling they work their way
no holt escapes their curious search with quick sensation now the fuming vapour stings flutter their hearts and joy redoubled bursts from every mouth in louder symphonies yon hollow trunk
that with its hoary head incurv'd salutes the passing wave must be the tyrant's fort and dread abode how these impatient climb while others at the root incessant bay they put him down
somerville the above is an animated and beautiful description of an otter hunt an old english sport fast falling into disuse and the breed of the real otter hound
is either extinct or very nearly so in stating this i am aware that there are still many dogs which are called otter hounds but it may be doubted whether they possess that peculiar formation
which belongs exclusively to the true breed few things in nature are more curious and interesting than this formation and it shows forcibly how beautifully everything has been arranged
for the instincts and several habits of animals the true otter hound is completely web footed even to the roots of its claws thus enabling it to swim with much greater facility and swiftness than other dogs
the ear possesses a sort of flap which covering the aperture excludes the entrance of the water and thus the dog is enabled to dive after the otter without that inconvenience which it would otherwise experience
what his lordship considers the last of the breed of the true otter hound it was a present from sir walter scott
but of a different sex but i believe without being able to procure one with those true marks which are confined to the authentic breed a gipsy was indeed said to have possessed one but he refused to part with it
those who saw the exhibition of pictures in the royal academy in eighteen forty four will recollect a large interesting and beautiful picture by sir edwin landseer
of a pack of otter hounds the picture describes the hunt at the time of the termination of the chase and the capture of the otter the animal is impaled on the huntsman's spear while the rough shaggy and picturesque looking pack
are represented with eyes intently fixed on the amphibious beast and howling in uncouth chorus round their agonized and dying prey an otter hunt is a cheerful and inspiriting sport
and it is still carried on in some of the lakes of cumberland indeed as lately as the year eighteen forty four a pack of otter hounds was advertised in the newspapers to be sold by private contract
the alleged cause of the owner's parting with them was in consequence of their having cleared the rivers of three counties staffordshire being one of all the otters
and will beat every tree root every osier bed and tuft of bulrushes nay sometimes they will take the water and beat it like a spaniel and by these means the otter can hardly escape you
the otter swims and dives with great celerity and in doing the latter it throws up sprots or air bubbles which enable the hunters to ascertain where it is and to spear it
it may frequently be traced by the dead fish and fish bones strewed along the banks of the river the prints also of the animal's feet called his seal
are of a peculiar formation and thus it is readily traced the otter preys during the night and conceals himself in the daytime under the banks of lakes and rivers
where he generally forms a kind of subterraneous gallery running for several yards parallel to the water's edge so that if he should be assailed from one end he flies to the other when he takes to the water
it is necessary that those who have otter spears should watch the bubbles for he generally vents near them when the otter is seized
he turns upon his pursuers with the utmost ferocity instances are recorded of dogs having been drowned by otters which they had seized under water for they can sustain the want of respiration
for a much longer time than the dog mister daniell in his rural sports remarks that hunting the otter was formerly considered as excellent sport and that hounds were kept solely for that purpose
the sportsmen went on each side of the river beating the banks and sedges with the dogs if an otter was not soon found it was supposed that he had gone to couch more inland
and was sought for accordingly if one was found
to find which way he had taken on the soft sand see there his seal impress'd and on that bank behold the glitt'ring spoils half eaten fish scales
fins and bones the leavings of his feast the spears were used in aid of the dogs when an otter is wounded he makes directly to land where he maintains an obstinate defence
lo to yon sedgy bank he creeps disconsolate his numerous foes surround him hounds and men pierc'd through and through on pointed spears they lift him high in air
bid the loud horns in gaily warbling strains proclaim the spoiler's fate he dies he dies the male otter never makes any complaint when seized by the dogs
or even when transfixed with a spear but the females emit a very shrill squeal in the year seventeen ninety six near bridgenorth on the river wherfe four otters were killed one stood three
another four hours before the dogs and was scarcely a minute out of sight in april eighteen o four the otter hounds of mister coleman of leominster killed an otter
and to have destroyed for the last five years a ton of fish annually the destruction of fish by this animal is indeed very great for he will eat none unless it be perfectly fresh and what he takes himself
for so soon as an otter catches a fish he drags it on shore devours it to the vent and unless pressed by extreme hunger always leaves the remainder and takes to the water in search of more in rivers
it is always observed to swim against the stream in order to meet its prey otters bite very severely and they will seize upon a dog with the utmost ferocity and will shake it as a terrier does a rat
the jaws of the otter are so constructed that even when dead it is difficult to separate them as they adhere with the utmost tenacity otters are frequently found on the banks of the thames
and a large one was caught in an eel basket near windsor
sir henry cole he was an old public functionary in the service of the british people when president buchanan spoke of himself as an old public functionary
he was a good deal laughed at by some of the newspapers and the phrase has since been frequently used in an opprobrious or satirical sense this is to be regretted for there is no character more respectable
and there are few so useful as an intelligent and patriotic man of long standing in the public service what one such man can do is shown by the example of sir henry cole
who died a few months ago in london after half a century of public life the son of an officer in the british army he was educated at that famous blue coat school
which is interesting to americans because lamb and coleridge attended it at the age of fifteen he received an appointment as clerk in the office of public records in due time
having proved his capacity and peculiar fitness he was promoted to the post of assistant keeper which gave him a respectable position and some leisure he proved to be in an eminent sense
the right man in the right place besides publishing from time to time curious and interesting documents which he discovered in his office he called attention by a series of vigorous pamphlets
catalogued rendered safe and made accessible to students this has already led to important corrections in history and to a great increase in the sum of historical knowledge
when the subject of cheap postage came up in eighteen forty the government offered four prizes of a hundred pounds each for suggestions in aid of sir rowland hill's plan
he had long lamented the backward condition of arts of design in england and the consequent ugliness of the various objects in the sight and use of which human beings pass their lives english furniture
wall papers carpets curtains cutlery garments upholstery ranged from the tolerable to the hideous and were inferior to the manufactures of france and germany
he organized a series of exhibitions on a small scale somewhat similar to those of the american institute in new york which has held a competitive exhibition of natural and manufactured objects
every autumn for the last fifty years his exhibitions attracted attention and they led at length to the crystal palace exhibition of eighteen fifty one the merit of that scheme
yes said prince albert and let us also invite competition from foreign countries on equal terms with native products the exhibition of eighteen fifty one was admirably managed
we all know how conceited people are apt to become who have no opportunity to compare themselves with superiors john bull never over modest surveyed the exhibition of eighteen fifty one
and discovered to his great surprise that he was not the unapproachable bull of the universe which he had fondly supposed he saw himself beaten in some things by the french in some by the germans
in others by the italians and in a few o wonder by the yankees happily he had the candor to admit this humiliating fact to himself and he put forth earnest and steadfast exertions
to bring himself up to the level of modern times henry cole was the life and soul of the movement it was he who called attention to the obstacles placed in the way of improvement by the patent laws
and some of those obstacles through him were speedily removed during this series of services to his country he remained in the office of public records
of the various institutions designed to promote the application of art to manufacture the chief of these now is the museum of south kensington which is to many americans
the most interesting object in london the creation of this wonderful museum was due more to him than to any other individual it came to pass in this way
after the close of the crystal palace in eighteen fifty one parliament gave five thousand pounds for the purchase of the objects exhibited
which were thought best calculated to raise the standard of taste in the nation these objects chiefly selected by cole were arranged by him for exhibition in temporary buildings
but by that energy which comes of strong conviction and patriotic feeling and of the opportunity given him by his public employment henry cole wrung from a reluctant parliament
the annual grants necessary to make south kensington museum what it now is magnificent buildings filled with a vast collection of precious and interesting objects greet the visitor
there are collections of armor relics porcelain enamel fabrics paintings statues
machines models and every conceivable object of use or beauty some of the most celebrated pictures in the world are there and there is an art library of thirty thousand volumes
there are schools for instruction in every branch of art and science which can be supposed to enter into the products of industry the prizes which are offered for excellence in design and invention
have attracted in some years as many as two hundred thousand objects during three days of every week admission to this superb assemblage of exhibitions is free and on the other three days
sixpence is charged the influence of this institution upon british manufactures has been in many branches revolutionary as the london times said some time ago
there is hardly a household in the country that is not the better for the change there is certainly no manufacture in which design has any place which has not felt its influence
the formation of this museum the chief work of sir henry cole's useful life was far from exhausting his energies he has borne a leading part in all the industrial exhibitions held in london
during the last quarter of a century and served as english commissioner at the paris exhibitions of eighteen fifty five and eighteen sixty seven
this man was enabled to render all this service to his country to europe and to us because he was not obliged to waste any of his energies in efforts to keep his place
administrations might change and parliaments might dissolve but he was a fixture as long as he did his duty when his duty was fairly done and he had completed the fortieth year of his public service
and he was granted an honorable title for a title is honorable when it is won by good service henceforth he was called sir henry cole k c b
to the end of his life he continued to labor in all sorts of good works a training school for music a training school for cookery guilds for the promotion of health and many others
he died in april eighteen eighty two
william b astor house owner in estimating the character and merits of such a man as the late mister astor we are apt to leave out of view the enormous harm he might have done
if he had chosen to do it the rich fool who tosses a dollar to a waiter for some trifling service debases the waiter injures himself and wrongs the public
by acting in that manner in all the transactions of life a rich man diffuses around him an atmosphere of corruption and raises the scale of expense to a point which is oppressive to many
ruinous to some and inconvenient to all the late mister astor with an income from invested property of nearly two millions a year could have made life more difficult
and he made his purchases with prudence and forethought as he lived for many years next door to the astor library the frequenters of that noble institution had an opportunity of observing
that he laid in his year's supply of coal in the month of june when coal is cheapest there was nothing which he so much abhorred as waste
but because he justly regarded waste as wicked his example in this particular in a city so given to careless and ostentatious profusion as new york was most useful
there is nothing so shocking to a republicanized mind as the awful contrast between the abodes of the poor and the establishments of the rich a magnificent park of a thousand acres of the richest land
set apart and walled in for the exclusive use of one family while all about it are the squalid hovels of the peasants to whom the use of a single acre to a family would be ease and comfort
is the most painful and shameful spectacle upon which the sun looks down this day nothing can make it right it is monstrous it curses equally the few who ride in the park
and the many who look over its walls for the great lord who can submit to be the agent of such injustice is as much its victim as the degraded laborer who drowns the sense of his misery in pot house beer
the mere fact that the lord can look upon such a scene and not stir to mend it is proof positive of a profound vulgarity
nor is it lords alone who thus waste the hard earned wealth of the toiling sons of men i read some time ago of a wedding in paris a thriving banker there
who is styled the baron alphonse de rothschild having a daughter of seventeen to marry appears to have set seriously to work to find out how much money a wedding could be made to cost
in pursuing this inquiry
and dowered a number of portionless girls expending in these ways a quarter of a million francs he gave his daughter a portion of five millions of francs
would not have conveniently held them for the conveyance of the wedding party from the house to the synagogue he caused twenty five magnificent carriages to be made such as monarchs use when they are going to be crowned
and these vehicles were drawn by horses imported from england for the purpose the bridal veil was composed of ineffable lace made from an original design expressly for this bride
who sang the prayer from moses in egypt a crowd of rabbis and assistant rabbis with the grand rabbi of paris at their head to complete the histrionic performance eight young girls
have thrown his millions about in this style he was one of a score or two of men in north america who could have maintained establishments in town and country on the dastardly scale so common among rich people in europe
he too could have had his park his half a dozen mansions his thirty carriages his hundred horses and his yacht as big as a man of war that he was above such atrocious vulgarity as this
some discredit also would have been cast upon those who live in moderate and modest ways every quarter day mister astor had nearly half a million dollars to invest in the industries of the country
to invest his surplus income in the best and safest manner was the study of his life his business was to take care of and increase his estate and that being his business
he was right in giving the necessary attention to it william will never make money his father used to say but he will take good care of what he has and so it proved the consequence was
that all his life he invested money in the way that was at once best for himself and best for the country no useless or premature scheme had had any encouragement from him
he invariably and by a certainty of judgment that resembled an instinct put his money where it would do most good political economists demonstrate
which is the best for the investor must of necessity be the best for the public here again we were lucky when we wanted houses more than we wanted coal he built houses for us
and when we wanted coal more than we wanted houses he set his money to digging coal charging nothing for his trouble but the mere cost of his subsistence one fault he had as a public servant
for we may fairly regard in that light a man who wields so large a portion of our common estate he was one of the most timid of men he was even timorous
nor can it be said that he was morally brave year after year he saw a gang of thieves in the city hall stealing his revenues under the name of taxes and assessments but he never led an assault upon them
nor gave the aid he ought to those who did unless he is grossly belied he preferred to compromise than fight and did not always disdain to court the ruffians who plundered him
this was a grave fault he who had the most immediate and the most obvious interest in exposing and resisting the scoundrels ought to have taken the lead in putting them down this he could not do
nature had denied him the qualities required for such a contest he had his enormous estate and he had mind enough to take care of it in ordinary ways but he had nothing more
how the monkey escaped being eaten once upon a time
then there came a time when the fruits and nuts became scarce people had to eat meat so they began killing the various beasts to see which ones were the best to eat they skinned them and cut them in pieces and cooked them over the fire
some of the beasts were good to eat and others were not good at all the ox was found to be very good
the monkey was playing his guitar
all the time the man was coming closer and closer to the monkey just as he was about to stretch out his hand and seize the monkey the monkey gave a sudden leap to the tree and hurried away to the tree top after that
every time the man heard the monkey play the guitar he would come near and try to catch him the monkey grew afraid of the man so afraid that he gave up playing his guitar at all
one day he felt that he just must have some music he hid in a hole in the ground and there he played upon his guitar he did not think that the man would hear him but the man had very sharp ears
when he got through playing he started to come out of the hole in the ground there was the man waiting for him he crawled quickly back
the monkey waited and waited for the man to go away but the man did not go away after a while the man became thirsty and went to get a drink he left his little boy in his place to watch for the monkey
just put your eyes down to the door of my little cave and i'll let you see the monkey dance little boy said the monkey the little boy put his eyes down close to the hole in the ground
when the little boy was rubbing his eyes to get the dirt out of them the monkey made a sudden dash out of the cave and escaped to the tree tops when the man returned the little boy did not dare to tell him that the monkey had escaped the man waited and waited and waited
there by the hole in the ground at last he became tired of waiting and went away after that the man tried harder than ever to catch the monkey
one day however he caught the monkey napping he shut him up in a box and carried him home to the children for supper the man put a big dish full of water over the fire ready to cook the monkey
the monkey and his guitar were shut up in the box and there inside the box the monkey played on his guitar
the children came crowding close to the box o children o children said the monkey don't you wish that you could see the monkey dance the children replied that they wished they could
said the monkey just let me out and i'll show you how well i can dance
so they let the monkey fill the pot as he liked he put into it some little dry sticks and an empty cocoanut shell then he said o children o children i cannot dance any more it is so hot here in this room the children
begged him to dance some more if you will open the door a little bit so that i can have more air to breathe i'll show you a new dance said the monkey the children opened the door
the monkey danced over to the door and out of the door away to the tree top that was the last they ever saw of him he moved to another part of the country after that experience
dare to tell him that the monkey had escaped they let him think that the sticks and the cocoanut shell in the pot was the monkey
after the pot had boiled a while he called the children to come to supper with him the children let him taste first he fished a hard stick out of the pot and bit into it
this is not the monkey's leg it is just a dry stick he said as he made a wry face then he fished the empty cocoanut shell out of the pot that is not the monkey's head he said as he tasted it
that is just an empty cocoanut shell he couldn't find a single trace of the monkey in that monkey stew
meantime the wise woman was busy as she always was and her business now was with the child of the shepherd and shepherdess away in the north her name was agnes her father and mother were poor and could not give her many things
rosamond would have utterly despised the rude simple playthings she had yet in one respect they were of more value far than hers the king bought rosamond's with his money
and while agnes had but few things not seeing many things about her and not even knowing that there were many things anywhere she did not wish for many things and was therefore neither covetous nor avaricious
she played with the toys her father made her and thought them the most wonderful things in the world windmills and little crooks and water wheels and sometimes lambs made all of wool and dolls made out of the leg bones of sheep which her mother dressed for her
and of such playthings she was never tired sometimes however she preferred playing with stones which were plentiful and flowers which were few or the brooks that ran down the hill of which
although they were many she could only play with one at a time and that indeed troubled her a little or live lambs that were not all wool or the sheep dogs which were very friendly with her and the best of playfellows as she thought for she had no human ones to compare them with
neither was she greedy after nice things but content as well she might be with the homely food provided for her nor was she by nature particularly self willed or disobedient she generally did what her father and mother wished and believed what they told her
but by degrees they had spoiled her and this was the way they were so proud of her that they always repeated every thing she said and told every thing she did even when she was present
and so full of admiration of their child were they that they wondered and laughed at and praised things in her which in another child would never have struck them as the least remarkable and some things even
which would in another have disgusted them altogether impertinent and rude things done by their child they thought so clever laughing at them as something quite marvellous
her commonplace speeches were said over again as if they had been the finest poetry and the pretty ways which every moderately good child has were extolled as if the result of her excellent taste and the choice of her judgment and will
they would even say sometimes that she ought not to hear her own praises for fear it should make her vain and then whisper them behind their hands but so loud that she could not fail to hear every word the consequence was
that she soon came to believe so soon that she could not recall the time when she did not believe as the most absolute fact in the universe that she was somebody that is she became most immoderately conceited
now as the least atom of conceit is a thing to be ashamed of you may fancy what she was like with such a quantity of it inside her at first it did not show itself outside in any very active form
but the wise woman had been to the cottage and had seen her sitting alone with such a smile of self satisfaction upon her face as would have been quite startling to her if she had ever been startled at any thing for through that smile
she could see lying at the root of it the worm that made it for some smiles are like the ruddiness of certain apples which is owing to a centipede or
only her worm had a face and
very image of her own and she looked so simpering and mawkish and self conscious and silly that she made the wise woman feel rather sick not that the child was a fool
had she been the wise woman would have only pitied and loved her instead of feeling sick when she looked at her she had very fair abilities and were she once but made humble would be capable not only of doing a good deal in time
but of beginning at once to grow to no end but if she were not made humble her growing would be to a mass of distorted shapes all huddled together so that although the body she now showed might grow up straight and well shaped and comely to behold
the new body that was growing inside of it and would come out of it when she died would be ugly and crooked this way and that like an aged hawthorn that has lived hundreds of years exposed upon all sides to salt sea winds
as time went on this disease of self conceit went on too gradually devouring the good that was in her for there is no fault that does not bring its brothers and sisters and cousins to live with it
by degrees from thinking herself so clever she came to fancy that whatever seemed to her must of course be the correct judgment and whatever she wished the right thing and grew so obstinate
that at length her parents feared to thwart her in any thing knowing well that she would never give in but there are victories far worse than defeats and to overcome an angel too gentle to put out all his strength
and ride away in triumph on the back of a devil is one of the poorest so long as she was left to take her own way and do as she would she gave her parents little trouble she would play about by herself in the little garden with its few hardy flowers
or amongst the heather where the bees were busy or she would wander away amongst the hills and be nobody knew where sometimes from morning to night nor did her parents venture to find fault with her she never went into rages like the princess
but she was no better for all that and was quite as ugly in the eyes of the wise woman who could not only see but read her face
and one distorted to silliness by self complacency true there is more hope of helping the angry child out of her form of selfishness than the conceited child out of hers but on the other hand the conceited child
was not so terrible or dangerous as the wrathful one the conceited one however was sometimes very angry and then her anger was more spiteful than the other's and again the wrathful one was often very conceited too
so that on the whole of two very unpleasant creatures i would say that the king's daughter would have been the worse had not the shepherd's been quite as bad but as i have said
the wise woman had her eye upon her she saw that something special must be done else she would be one of those who kneel to their own shadows till feet grow on their knees then go down on their hands till their hands grow into feet
then lay their faces on the ground till they grow into snouts when at last they are a hideous sort of lizards each of which believes himself the best wisest and loveliest being in the world yea the very centre of the universe
and so they run about forever looking for their own shadows that they may worship them and miserable because they cannot find them being themselves too near the ground to have any shadows and what becomes of them at last there is but one who knows
the wise woman therefore one day walked up to the door of the shepherd's cottage dressed like a poor woman and asked for a drink of water the shepherd's wife looked at her liked her and brought her a cup of milk
the wise woman took it for she made it a rule to accept every kindness that was offered her agnes was not by nature a greedy girl as i have said but self conceit will go far to generate every other vice under the sun
vanity which is a form of self conceit has repeatedly shown itself as the deepest feeling in the heart of a horrible murderess that morning at breakfast her mother had stinted her in milk just a little
that she might have enough to make some milk porridge for their dinner agnes did not mind it at the time but when she saw the milk now given to a beggar as she called the wise woman
and accept a draught of milk without being a beggar in any such sense as agnes's contemptuous use of the word implied a cloud came upon her forehead
and a double vertical wrinkle settled over her nose the wise woman saw it for all her business was with agnes though she little knew it and rising went and offered the cup to the child where she sat with her knitting in a corner
agnes looked at it did not want it was inclined to refuse it from a beggar but thinking it would show her consequence to assert her rights took it and drank it up
for whoever is possessed by a devil judges with the mind of that devil and hence agnes was guilty of such a meanness as many who are themselves capable of something just as bad will consider incredible the wise woman waited
till she had finished it then looking into the empty cup said you might have given me back as much as you had no claim upon agnes turned away and made no answer far less from shame than indignation
the wise woman looked at the mother you should not have offered it to her if you did not mean her to have it said the mother siding with the devil in her child against the wise woman and her child too some foolish people think they take another's part
when they take the part he takes the wise woman said nothing but fixed her eyes upon her and soon the mother hid her face in her apron weeping then she turned again to agnes who had never looked round but sat with her back to both
and suddenly lapped her in the folds of her cloak when the mother again lifted her eyes she had vanished
uncomfortable because of what she had said to the poor woman the mother went to the door and called after her as she toiled slowly up the hill but she never turned her head and the mother went back into her cottage
the wise woman walked close past the shepherd and his dogs and through the midst of his flock of sheep the shepherd wondered where she could be going right up the hill
and he followed her with his eyes as she went up and up it was near sunset and as the sun went down a gray cloud settled on the top of the mountain which his last rays turned into a rosy gold
straight into this cloud the shepherd saw the woman hold her pace and in it she vanished he little imagined that his child was under her cloak he went home as usual in the evening but agnes had not come in
they were accustomed to such an absence now and then and were not at first frightened but when it grew dark and she did not appear the husband set out with his dogs in one direction and the wife in another to seek their child
morning came and they had not found her then the whole country side arose to search for the missing agnes but day after day and night after night passed and nothing was discovered of or concerning her
until at length all gave up the search in despair except the mother although she was nearly convinced now that the poor woman had carried her off one day
she had wandered some distance from her cottage thinking she might come upon the remains of her daughter at the foot of some cliff when she came suddenly instead upon a disconsolate looking creature sitting on a stone by the side of a stream
her hair hung in tangles from her head her clothes were tattered and through the rents her skin showed in many places her cheeks were white and worn thin with hunger the hollows were dark under her eyes and they stood out scared and wild
at first sight the mother had taken her for her own child
full of compassion nevertheless she said to herself if she is not my agnes she is as much in need of help as if she were if i cannot be good to my own
i will be as good as i can to some other woman's and though i should scorn to be consoled for the loss of one by the presence of another i yet may find some gladness in rescuing one child from the death which has taken the other
perhaps her words were not just like these but her thoughts were she took up the child and carried her home
perhaps you do not know it but the monkeys think that all the bananas belong to them when brazilian children eat bananas they say i am a monkey i once knew a little boy in brazil who was very very fond of bananas
he always said i am very much of a monkey if you are fond of bananas the brazilian children would tell you that you are a monkey too this is the story they tell to show us how it all came about
once upon a time when the world had just been made and there was only one kind of banana but very many kinds of monkeys there was a little old woman who had a big garden full of banana trees
it was very difficult for the old woman to gather the bananas herself so she made a bargain with the largest monkey she told him that if he would gather the bunches of bananas for her she would give him half of them the monkey gathered the bananas
when he took his half he gave the little old woman the bananas which grow at the bottom of the bunch and are small and wrinkled the nice big fat ones he kept for himself and carried them home to let them ripen in the dark
the little old woman was very angry she lay awake all night trying to think of some way by which she could get even with the monkey at last she thought of a trick
the next morning she made an image of wax which looked just like a little black boy then she placed a large flat basket on the top of the image's head and in the basket
after a little while the biggest monkey passed that way he saw the image of wax and thought that it was a boy peddling bananas he had often pushed over boy banana peddlers upset their baskets and then had run away with the bananas
this morning he was feeling very good natured
the image of wax answered never a word again the monkey said this time in a little louder voice o peddler boy peddler boy please give me a banana just one little ripe little
sweet little banana the image of wax answered never a word then the monkey called out in his loudest voice o peddler boy peddler boy if you don't give me a banana i'll give you such a push that it will upset
the image of wax was silent the monkey ran toward the image of wax and struck it hard with his hand his hand remained firmly embedded in the wax o peddler boy peddler boy let go my hand
the monkey called out let go my hand and give me a banana or else i'll give you a hard hard blow with my other hand the image of wax did not let go the monkey gave the image a hard hard blow with his other hand
the other hand remained firmly embedded in the wax then the monkey called out o peddler boy peddler boy let go my two hands let go my two hands and give me a banana or else i will give you a kick with my foot the image of wax
did not let go the monkey gave the image a kick with his foot and his foot remained stuck fast in the wax
let go my foot let go my two hands and my foot
the image of wax did not let go then the monkey
did not let go then the monkey made such an uproar with his cries and shouts that very soon monkeys came running from all directions there were big monkeys and little monkeys and middle sized monkeys
a whole army of monkeys had come to the aid of the biggest monkey it was the very littlest monkey who thought of a plan to help the biggest monkey out of his plight
the monkeys were to climb up into the biggest tree and pile themselves one on top of another until they made a pyramid of monkeys the monkey with the very loudest voice of all was to be on top
and he was to shout his very loudest to the sun and ask the sun to come and help the biggest monkey out of his dreadful difficulty this is what all the big sized little sized middle sized monkeys did
the monkey with the loudest voice on top of the pyramid made the sun hear the sun came at once the sun poured his hottest rays down upon the wax
the monkey was at last able to pull out one of his hands the sun poured down more of his hottest rays and soon the monkey was able to pull out his two hands then he could pull out one foot then another and in a little while his body too
at last he was free when the little old woman saw what had happened
she decided to move to another part of the world where she raised cabbages instead of bananas the monkeys were left in possession of the big garden full of banana trees
hospitality under the arctic circle it ought to have been night time but under the sixty fifth parallel there was nothing surprising in the nocturnal polar light in iceland during the months of june and july the sun does not set
but the temperature was much lower i was cold and more hungry than cold
it was a peasant's house but in point of hospitality it was equal to a king's on our arrival the master came with outstretched hands and without more ceremony he beckoned us to follow him
therefore we followed as he bid us the building was constructed of roughly squared timbers with rooms on both sides four in number all opening out into the one passage these were the kitchen the weaving shop the badstofa or family sleeping room
of course hit his head several times against the beams that projected from the ceilings we were introduced into our apartment a large room with a floor of earth stamped hard down and lighted by a window the panes of which were formed of sheep's bladder not admitting too much light
the sleeping accommodation consisted of dry litter thrown into two wooden frames painted red and ornamented with icelandic sentences i was hardly expecting so much comfort the only discomfort proceeded from the strong odour of dried fish hung meat
and sour milk of which my nose made bitter complaints
the only room where a fire was lighted even in the severest cold my uncle lost no time in obeying the friendly call nor was i slack in following the kitchen chimney was constructed on the ancient pattern in the middle of the room was a stone for a hearth
the kitchen was also a dining room at our entrance the host as if he had never seen us
saellvertu which means be happy and came and kissed us on the cheek after him his wife pronounced the same words accompanied with the same ceremonial then the two placing their hands upon their hearts inclined profoundly before us
i hasten to inform the reader that this icelandic lady was the mother of nineteen children all big and little swarming in the midst of the dense wreaths of smoke with which the fire on the hearth filled the chamber
every moment i noticed a fair haired and rather melancholy face peeping out of the rolling volumes of smoke
my uncle and i treated this little tribe with kindness and in a very short time we each had three or four of these brats on our shoulders as many on our laps and the rest between our knees those who could speak kept repeating saellvertu
in every conceivable tone those that could not speak made up for that want by shrill cries
at that moment our hunter returned who had been seeing his horses provided for that is to say he had economically let them loose in the fields where the poor beasts had to content themselves with the scanty moss they could pull off the rocks and a few meagre sea weeds
saellvertu said hans then calmly automatically and dispassionately he kissed the host the hostess and their nineteen children this ceremony over we sat at table twenty four in number
and therefore one upon another the luckiest had only two urchins upon their knees but silence reigned in all this little world at the arrival of the soup and the national taciturnity resumed its empire even over the children
the host served out to us a soup made of lichen and by no means unpleasant then an immense piece of dried fish floating in butter rancid with twenty years keeping and therefore according to icelandic gastronomy much preferable to fresh butter
along with this we had skye a sort of clotted milk with biscuits and a liquid prepared from juniper berries for beverage we had a thin milk mixed with water called in this country blanda
it is not for me to decide whether this diet is wholesome or not all i can say is that i was desperately hungry and that at dessert i swallowed to the very last gulp of a thick broth made from buckwheat
as soon as the meal was over the children disappeared and their elders gathered round the peat fire which also burnt such miscellaneous fuel as briars cow dung and fishbones after this little pinch of warmth the different groups retired to their respective rooms
our hostess hospitably offered us her assistance in undressing according to icelandic usage but on our gracefully declining she insisted no longer and i was able at last to curl myself up in my mossy bed at five next morning we bade our host farewell
my uncle with difficulty persuading him to accept a proper remuneration and hans signalled the start at a hundred yards from gardaer the soil began to change its aspect
of which we were following the counter scarp or lesser steep often we were met by streams which we had to ford with great care not to wet our packages
sometimes a sharp turn would bring us suddenly within a short distance of one of these spectres and i was filled with loathing at the sight of a huge deformed head the skin shining and hairless and repulsive sores visible through the gaps in the poor creature's wretched rags
the unhappy being forbore to approach us and offer his misshapen hand he fled away but not before hans had saluted him with the customary saellvertu spetelsk said he a leper my uncle repeated this word produced a repulsive effect
the horrible disease of leprosy is too common in iceland it is not contagious but hereditary and lepers are forbidden to marry
the last tufts of grass had disappeared from beneath our feet not a tree was to be seen unless we except a few dwarf birches as low as brushwood
sometimes we could see a hawk balancing himself on his wings under the grey cloud
i felt melancholy under this savage aspect of nature and my thoughts went away to the cheerful scenes i had left in the far south we had to cross a few narrow fiords and at last quite a wide gulf the tide then high allowed us to pass over without delay
and to reach the hamlet of alftanes one mile beyond that evening after having forded two rivers full of trout and pike
we were obliged to spend the night in a deserted building worthy to be haunted by all the elfins of scandinavia the ice king certainly held court here and gave us all night long samples of what he could do no particular event marked the next day
bogs dead levels melancholy desert tracks wherever we travelled by nightfall we had accomplished half our journey and we lay at kroesolbt
we walked upon hardened lava this ground is called in the country hraun
sometimes stretched in length sometimes contorted together an immense torrent once liquid now solid ran from the nearest mountains now extinct volcanoes but the ruins around revealed the violence of the past eruptions
yet here and there were a few jets of steam from hot springs
we had to proceed on our way
our route now lay westward we had turned the great bay of faxa and the twin peaks of snaefell
the horses did their duty well no difficulties stopped them in their steady career i was getting tired but my uncle was as firm and straight as he was at our first start i could not help admiring his persistency
as well as the hunter's who treated our expedition like a mere promenade june twentieth at six p m we reached buedir a village on the sea shore and the guide there claiming his due my uncle settled with him
we were kindly received and without taxing too much the goodness of these folks i would willingly have tarried here to recruit after my fatigues but my uncle who wanted no recruiting would not hear of it and the next morning we had to bestride our beasts again the soil told of the neighbourhood of the mountain
whose granite foundations rose from the earth like the knotted roots of some huge oak we were rounding the immense base of the volcano the professor hardly took his eyes off it he tossed up his arms and seemed to defy it and to declare there stands the giant that i shall conquer
snaefell is five thousand feet high its double cone forms the limit of a trachytic belt which stands out distinctly in the mountain system of the island from our starting point we could see the two peaks boldly projected against the dark grey sky
i could see an enormous cap of snow coming low down upon the giant's brow we walked in single file headed by the hunter who ascended by narrow tracks where two could not have gone abreast there was therefore no room for conversation
after we had passed the basaltic wall of the fiord of stapi we passed over a vegetable fibrous peat bog left from the ancient vegetation of this peninsula
this vast turbary measured in certain ravines had in many places a depth of seventy feet and presented layers of carbonized remains of vegetation alternating with thinner layers of tufaceous pumice
and i constructed for myself a complete geological account of iceland this most curious island has evidently been projected from the bottom of the sea
possibly it may still be subject to gradual elevation if this is the case its origin may well be attributed to subterranean fires therefore in this case the theory of sir humphry davy saknussemm's document
and my uncle's theories would all go off in smoke this hypothesis led me to examine with more attention the appearance of the surface
that is to say an agglomeration of porous rocks and stones before the volcanoes broke out it consisted of trap rocks slowly upraised to the level of the sea by the action of central forces
through which was gradually forced out the trachyte which was to form a mountain chain no violence accompanied this change the matter thrown out was in vast quantities and the liquid material oozing out from the abysses of the earth slowly spread in extensive plains or in hillocky masses
increased materially and therefore also its powers of resistance it may easily be conceived what vast quantities of elastic gases what masses of molten matter accumulated beneath its solid surface whilst no exit was practicable after the cooling of the trachytic crust
therefore a time would come when the elastic and explosive forces of the imprisoned gases would upheave this ponderous cover and drive out for themselves openings through tall chimneys hence then the volcano would distend and lift up the crust
and then burst through a crater suddenly formed at the summit or thinnest part of the volcano to the eruption succeeded other volcanic phenomena through the outlets now made first escaped the ejected basalt of which the plain we had just left presented such marvellous specimens
we were moving over grey rocks of dense and massive formation which in cooling had formed into hexagonal prisms everywhere around us we saw truncated cones formerly so many fiery mouths
the power of which grew by the extinction of the lesser craters supplied an egress to lava
such was the succession of phenomena which produced iceland
and to suppose that the mass within did not still exist in a state of liquid incandescence was absurd and nothing could surpass the absurdity of fancying that it was possible to reach the earth's centre so i felt a little comforted as we advanced to the assault of snaefell
the way was growing more and more arduous the ascent steeper and steeper the loose fragments of rock trembled beneath us and the utmost care was needed to avoid dangerous falls hans went on as quietly as if he were on level ground
sometimes he disappeared altogether behind the huge blocks then a shrill whistle would direct us on our way to him sometimes he would halt pick up a few bits of stone build them up into a recognisable form
a very wise precaution in itself but as things turned out quite useless three hours fatiguing march had only brought us to the base of the mountain there hans bid us come to a halt and a hasty breakfast was served out
my uncle swallowed two mouthfuls at a time to get on faster
which came to pass in an hour the three icelanders
never spoke and ate their breakfasts in silence we were now beginning to scale the steep sides of snaefell its snowy summit by an optical illusion not unfrequent in mountains seemed close to us and yet how many weary hours it took to reach it
the stones adhering by no soil or fibrous roots of vegetation rolled away from under our feet and rushed down the precipice below with the swiftness of an avalanche at some places the flanks of the mountain formed an angle with the horizon of at least thirty six degrees
it was impossible to climb them and these stony cliffs had to be tacked round not without great difficulty then we helped each other with our sticks i must admit that my uncle kept as close to me as he could he never lost sight of me
he himself seemed to possess an instinct for equilibrium for he never stumbled the icelanders though burdened with our loads climbed with the agility of mountaineers to judge by the distant appearance of the summit of snaefell
it would have seemed too steep to ascend on our side fortunately after an hour of fatigue and athletic exercises in the midst of the vast surface of snow presented by the hollow between the two peaks a kind of staircase appeared unexpectedly
which greatly facilitated our ascent it was formed by one of those torrents of stones flung up by the eruptions called sting by the icelanders if this torrent had not been arrested in its fall by the formation of the sides of the mountain
such as it was it did us good service the steepness increased but these stone steps allowed us to rise with facility and even with such rapidity that having rested for a moment while my companions continued their ascent
i perceived them already reduced by distance to microscopic dimensions
three thousand two hundred feet below us stretched the sea we had passed the limit of perpetual snow which on account of the moisture of the climate
the cold was excessively keen the wind was blowing violently i was exhausted
and in spite of his impatience he decided on stopping he therefore spoke to the hunter who shook his head saying ofvanfoer it seems we must go higher said my uncle then he asked hans for his reason mistour replied the guide
look said my uncle i looked down upon the plain an immense column of pulverized pumice sand and dust was rising with a whirling circular motion like a waterspout the wind was lashing it on to that side of snaefell where we were holding on
this dense veil hung across the sun threw a deep shadow over the mountain if that huge revolving pillar sloped down it would involve us in its whirling eddies this phenomenon which is not unfrequent when the wind blows from the glaciers is called in icelandic mistour
hastigt hastigt cried our guide without knowing danish i understood at once that we must follow hans at the top of our speed he began to circle round the cone of the crater but in a diagonal direction so as to facilitate our progress
presently the dust storm fell upon the mountain which quivered under the shock the loose stones caught with the irresistible blasts of wind flew about in a perfect hail as in an eruption happily we were on the opposite side and sheltered from all harm
but for the precaution of our guide our mangled bodies torn and pounded into fragments
unknown meteor yet hans did not think it prudent to spend the night upon the sides of the cone we continued our zigzag climb the fifteen hundred remaining feet took us five hours to clear
the circuitous route the diagonal and the counter marches must have measured at least three leagues i could stand it no longer i was yielding to the effects of hunger and cold the rarefied air scarcely gave play to the action of my lungs
but arctics can be inhospitable too
it extends along the inner edge of a small fiord inclosed between basaltic walls of the strangest construction basalt is a brownish rock of igneous origin it assumes regular forms the arrangement of which is often very surprising
here nature had done her work geometrically with square and compass and plummet everywhere else her art consists alone in throwing down huge masses together in disorder you see cones imperfectly formed irregular pyramids with a fantastic disarrangement of lines
she has created a severely simple order of architecture never surpassed either by the splendours of babylon or the wonders of greece i had heard of the giant's causeway in ireland and fingal's cave in staffa one of the hebrides but i had never yet seen a basaltic formation
at stapi i beheld this phenomenon in all its beauty the wall that confined the fiord like all the coast of the peninsula was composed of a series of vertical columns thirty feet high
at intervals under this natural shelter there spread out vaulted entrances in beautiful curves into which the waves came dashing with foam and spray
lay along the soil like remains of an ancient temple in ruins for ever fresh and over which centuries passed without leaving a trace of age upon them this was our last stage upon the earth
hans had exhibited great intelligence and it gave me some little comfort to think then that he was not going to leave us on arriving at the door of the rector's house which was not different from the others
saellvertu said the hunter god dag said the blacksmith in good danish
the rector repeated the professor it seems axel that this good man is the rector our guide in the meanwhile was making the kyrkoherde aware of the position of things when the latter suspending his labours for a moment
uttered a sound no doubt understood between horses and farriers and immediately a tall and ugly hag appeared from the hut
i was in great alarm lest she should treat me to the icelandic kiss but there was no occasion to fear nor did she do the honours at all too gracefully the visitors room seemed to me the worst in the whole cabin it was close dirty and evil smelling but we had to be content
very far from it before the day was over i saw that we had to do with a blacksmith a fisherman a hunter a joiner but not at all with a minister of the gospel
i don't mean to say anything against these poor priests who after all are very wretched they receive from the danish government a ridiculously small pittance and they get from the parish the fourth part of the tithe
hence the necessity to work for their livelihood but after fishing hunting and shoeing horses for any length of time one soon gets into the ways and manners of fishermen hunters and farriers and other rather rude and uncultivated people
and that evening i found out that temperance was not among the virtues that distinguished my host
instead of a good and learned man he found a rude and coarse peasant he therefore resolved to commence the grand expedition at once and to leave this inhospitable parsonage
he cared nothing about fatigue and resolved to spend some days upon the mountain the preparations for our departure were therefore made the very day after our arrival at stapi hans hired the services of three icelanders to do the duty of the horses in the transport of the burdens
but as soon as we had arrived at the crater these natives were to turn back and leave us to our own devices this was to be clearly understood
hans merely nodded there or elsewhere down in the bowels of the earth or anywhere on the surface all was alike to him for my own part the incidents of the journey had hitherto kept me amused and made me forgetful of coming evils
but now my fears again were beginning to get the better of me but what could i do
one thought above all others harassed and alarmed me it was one calculated to shake firmer nerves than mine now thought i here we are about to climb snaefell
very good too others have done as much without dying for it but that is not all
if that ill advised saknussemm has told a true tale we shall lose our way amidst the deep subterranean passages of this volcano now there is no proof that snaefell is extinct who can assure us that an eruption is not brewing at this very moment
and if he wakes up presently where shall we be it was worth while debating this question and i did debate it i could not sleep for dreaming about eruptions now the part of ejected scoriae and ashes seemed to my mind a very rough one to act
so at last when i could hold out no longer i resolved to lay the case before my uncle as prudently and as cautiously as possible just under the form of an almost impossible hypothesis i went to him i communicated my fears to him
and drew back a step to give him room for the explosion which i knew must follow but i was mistaken i was thinking of that he replied with great simplicity
was he actually going to listen to reason was he contemplating the abandonment of his plans this was too good to be true
ever since we arrived at stapi
for we must not be guilty of imprudence no indeed i replied with forcible emphasis for six hundred years snaefell has been dumb
now eruptions are always preceded by certain well known phenomena i have therefore examined the natives i have studied external appearances and i can assure you axel that there will be no eruption at this positive affirmation i stood amazed and speechless
you don't doubt my word said my uncle well follow me i obeyed like an automaton coming out from the priest's house the professor took a straight road which through an opening in the basaltic wall led away from the sea
we were soon in the open country if one may give that name to a vast extent of mounds of volcanic products this tract seemed crushed under a rain of enormous ejected rocks of trap basalt granite and all kinds of igneous rocks
here and there i could see puffs and jets of steam curling up into the air called in icelandic reykir issuing from thermal springs and indicating by their motion the volcanic energy underneath this seemed to justify my fears
but i fell from the height of my new born hopes when my uncle said you see all these volumes of steam axel well they demonstrate that we have nothing to fear from the fury of a volcanic eruption
understand this clearly added the professor at the approach of an eruption these jets would redouble their activity but disappear altogether during the period of the eruption for the elastic fluids being no longer under pressure
go off by way of the crater instead of escaping by their usual passages through the fissures in the soil therefore if these vapours remain in their usual condition if they display no augmentation of force
and if you add to this the observation that the wind and rain are not ceasing and being replaced by a still and heavy atmosphere then you may affirm that no eruption is preparing but no more that is sufficient
when science has uttered her voice let babblers hold their peace i returned to the parsonage very crestfallen my uncle had beaten me with the weapons of science still i had one hope left and this was
that when we had reached the bottom of the crater it would be impossible for want of a passage to go deeper in spite of all the saknussemm's in iceland i spent that whole night in one constant nightmare in the heart of a volcano
and from the deepest depths of the earth i saw myself tossed up amongst the interplanetary spaces under the form of an eruptive rock the next day june twenty third hans was awaiting us with his companions carrying provisions tools and instruments
two iron pointed sticks two rifles and two shot belts were for my uncle and myself hans as a cautious man had added to our luggage a leathern bottle full of water which with that in our flasks would ensure us a supply of water for eight days
it was nine in the morning the priest and his tall megaera were awaiting us at the door we supposed they were standing there to bid us a kind farewell but the farewell was put in the unexpected form of a heavy bill
in which everything was charged even to the very air we breathed in the pastoral house infected as it was this worthy couple were fleecing us just as a swiss innkeeper might have done and estimated their imperfect hospitality at the highest price
the second had two eyes like other people and she was called two eyes the youngest had three eyes two like her second sister and one in the middle of her forehead like the eldest
and she bore the name of three eyes now because little two eyes looked just like other people her mother and sisters could not endure her they said to her
you are not better than common folks with your two eyes you don't belong to us so they pushed her about and threw all their old clothes to her for her to wear and gave her only the pieces that were left to eat
and did everything that they could to make her miserable it so happened that little two eyes was sent into the fields to take care of the goats and she was often very hungry although her sisters had as much as they liked to eat
so one day she seated herself on a mound in the field and began to weep and cry so bitterly that two little rivulets flowed from her eyes
who said what are you weeping for little two eyes i cannot help weeping she replied for because i have two eyes like other people my mother and sisters cannot bear me
so that i am always hungry to day they gave me so little that i am nearly starved dry up your tears little two eyes said the wise woman i will tell you something to do which will prevent you from ever being hungry again
you have only to say to your own goat little goat if you're able pray deck out my table and immediately there will be a pretty little table before you
full of all sorts of good things for you to eat as much as you like and when you have had enough and you do not want the table any more you need only say little goat when you're able remove my nice table
and it will vanish from your eyes then the wise woman went away now thought little two eyes i will try if what she says is true for i am hungry so she said little goat
if you're able come and deck my pretty table the words were scarcely spoken when a beautiful little table stood really before her it had a white cloth and plates and knives and forks and silver spoons
and such a delicious dinner smoking hot as if it had just come from the kitchen then little two eyes sat down and said the shortest grace she knew pray god be our guest for all time
amen before she allowed herself to taste anything but oh how she did enjoy her dinner and when she had finished she said as the wise woman had taught her little goat
when you're able remove my nice table in a moment the table and everything upon it had disappeared that is a pleasant way to keep house said little two eyes and felt quite contented and happy
in the evening when she went home with the goat she found an earthenware dish with some scraps which her sisters had left for her but she did not touch them the next morning she went away with the goat leaving them behind where they had been placed for her
the first and second times that she did so the sisters did not notice it but when they found it happened every day they said one to the other there is something strange about little two eyes
she leaves her supper every day and all that has been put for her has been wasted she must get food somewhere else so they determined to find out the truth and they arranged that when two eyes took her goat to the field
one eye should go with her to take particular notice of what she did and discover if anything was brought for her to eat and drink so when two eyes started with her goat one eye said to her
i am going with you to day to see if the goat gets her food properly while you are watching the rest but two eyes knew what she had in her mind so she drove the goat into the long grass and said come one eye
let us sit down here and rest and i will sing to you one eye seated herself and not being accustomed to walk so far or to be out in the heat of the sun she began to feel tired
and as little two eyes kept on singing she closed her one eye and fell fast asleep when two eyes saw this she knew that one eye could not betray her so she said little goat
if you are able come and deck my pretty table she seated herself when it appeared and ate and drank very quickly and when she had finished she said little goat when you are able
come and clear away my table it vanished in the twinkling of an eye and then two eyes woke up one eye and said little one eye you are a clever one to watch goats for
while you are asleep they might be running all over the world come let us go home so they went to the house and little two eyes again left the scraps on the dish untouched
tell her mother whether little two eyes had eaten anything in the field for she said to excuse herself i was asleep the next day the mother said to three eyes
for she must eat and drink secretly so when little two eyes started with her goat three eyes followed and said i am going with you to day to see if the goats are properly fed and watched
but two eyes knew her thoughts so she led the goat through the long grass to tire three eyes and at last she said let us sit down here and rest and i will sing to you three eyes
she was glad to sit down for the walk and the heat of the sun had really tired her and as her sister continued her song she was obliged to close two of her eyes and they slept but not the third
in fact three eyes was wide awake with one eye and heard and saw all that two eyes did for poor little two eyes thinking she was asleep said her speech to the goat and the table came with all the good things on it
and was carried away when two eyes had eaten enough and the cunning three eyes saw it all with her one eye but she pretended to be asleep when her sister came to wake her and told her she was going home
that evening when little two eyes again left the supper they placed aside for her three eyes said to her mother i know where the proud thing gets her good eating and drinking and then she described all she had seen in the field
i saw it all with one eye she said for she had made my other two eyes close with her fine singing but luckily the one in my forehead remained open then the envious mother cried out to poor little two eyes
you wish to have better food than we do you you shall lose your wish she took up a butcher's knife went out and stuck the good little goat in the heart and it fell dead
when little two eyes saw this she went out into the field seated herself on a mound and wept most bitter tears presently the wise woman stood again before her and said
ah she replied i must weep the goat who every day spread my table so beautifully has been killed by my mother and i shall have again to suffer from hunger and sorrow
little two eyes said the wise woman
go home and ask your sister to give you the heart of the slaughtered goat and then go and bury it in the ground in front of the house door on saying this the wise woman vanished
little two eyes went home quickly and said to her sister dear sister give me some part of my poor goat i don't want anything valuable only give me the heart
her sister laughed and said of course you can have that if you don't want anything else so little two eyes took the heart and in the evening when all was quiet buried it in the ground outside the house door as the wise woman had told her to do
the next morning when they all rose and looked out of the window there stood a most wonderful tree with leaves of silver and apples of gold hanging between them
nothing in the wide world could be more beautiful or more costly they none of them knew how the tree could come there in one night excepting little two eyes she supposed it had grown up from the heart of the goat
for it stood over where she had buried it in the earth then said the mother to little one eye climb up my child and break off some of the fruit from the tree one eye climbed up
but when she tried to catch a branch and pluck one of the apples it escaped from her hand and so it happened every time she made the attempt and do what she would she could not reach one three eyes said the mother climb up
and try what you can do perhaps you will be able to see better with your three eyes than one eye can one eye slid down from the tree and three eyes climbed up
but three eyes was not more skilful with all her efforts she could not draw the branches nor the fruit near enough to pluck even a leaf for they sprang back as she put out her hand
at last the mother was impatient and climbed up herself but with no more success for as she appeared to grasp a branch or fruit her hand closed upon thin air
may i try said little two eyes perhaps i may succeed you indeed cried her sisters you with your two eyes what can you do but two eyes climbed up
and the golden apples did not fly back from her when she touched them but almost laid themselves on her hand and she plucked them one after another till she carried down her own little apron full
the mother took them from her and gave them to her sisters as she said little two eyes did not handle them properly but this was only from jealousy because little two eyes was the only one who could reach the fruit
and she went into the house feeling more spiteful to her than ever it happened that while all three sisters were standing under the tree together a young knight rode by
run away quick and hide yourself little two eyes hide yourself somewhere for we shall be quite ashamed for you to be seen then they pushed the poor girl in great haste
under an empty cask which stood near the tree and several of the golden apples that she had plucked along with her as the knight came nearer they saw he was a handsome man and presently he halted
and looked with wonder and pleasure at the beautiful tree with its silver leaves and golden fruit at last he spoke to the sisters and asked to whom does this beautiful tree belong
this tree belongs to us said the two sisters and we will break off a branch for you if you like they gave themselves a great deal of trouble in trying to do as they offered but all to no purpose
for the branches and the fruit evaded their efforts and sprung back at every touch this is wonderful exclaimed the knight that the tree should belong to you and yet you are not able to gather even a branch
they persisted however in declaring that the tree was their own property at this moment little two eyes who was angry because her sisters had not told the truth
caused two of the golden apples to slip out from under the cask and they rolled on till they reached the feet of the knight's horse when he saw them he asked in astonishment where they came from
the two ugly maidens replied that they had another sister but they dared not let him see her for she had only two eyes like common people and was named little two eyes
but the knight felt very anxious to see her and called out little two eyes come here then came two eyes quite comforted from the empty cask and the knight was astonished to find her so beautiful
then he said little two eyes can you break off a branch of the tree for me oh yes she replied i can very easily for the tree belongs to me and she climbed up and without any trouble
broke off a branch with its silver leaves and golden fruit and gave it to the knight he looked down at her as she stood by his horse and said little two eyes what shall i give you for this ah she answered
i suffer from hunger and thirst and sorrow and trouble from early morning till late at night if you would only take me with you and release me i should be so happy
then the knight lifted the little maiden on his horse and rode home with her to his father's castle there she was given beautiful clothes to wear and as much to eat and drink as she wished and as she grew up the young knight loved her so dearly
that they were married with great rejoicings now when the two sisters saw little two eyes carried away by the handsome young knight they were overjoyed at their good fortune the wonderful tree belongs to us now they said
even if we cannot break off a branch yet everybody who passes will stop to admire it and make acquaintance with us and who knows we may get husbands after all but when they rose the next morning
lo the tree had vanished and with it all their hopes and on this very morning when little two eyes looked out of her chamber window of the castle she saw to her great joy that the tree had followed her
little two eyes lived for a long time in great happiness but she heard nothing of her sisters till one day two poor women came to the castle to beg for alms
little two eyes saw them and looking earnestly in their faces she recognized her two sisters who had become so poor that they were obliged to beg their bread from door to door
but the good sister received them most kindly and promised to take care of them and give them all they wanted and then they did indeed repent and feel sorry for having treated her so badly
there was once among the marshpees a small tribe who have their hunting grounds on the shores of the great lake near the cape of storms
she was rather silly and very idle for days together she would sit doing nothing then she was so ugly and ill shaped
that not one of the youths of the village would have aught to say to her by way of courtship or marriage she squinted very much her face was long and thin her nose excessively large and humped
her teeth crooked and projecting her chin almost as sharp as the bill of a loon and her ears as large as those of a deer altogether she was a very odd and strangely formed woman
and wherever she went she never failed to excite much laughter and derision among those who thought that ugliness and deformity were fit subjects for ridicule though so very ugly
there was one faculty she possessed in a more remarkable degree than any woman of the tribe it was that of singing
nothing unless such could be found in the land of spirits could equal the sweetness of her voice or the beauty of her songs her favorite place of resort was a small hill a little removed from the river of her people
and there seated beneath the shady trees she would while away the hours of summer with her charming songs so beautiful and melodious were the things she uttered that by the time she had sung a single sentence
the branches above her head would be filled with the birds that came thither to listen the thickets around her would be crowded with beasts and the waters rolling beside her would be alive with fishes
all attracted by the sweet sounds from the minnow to the porpoise from the wren to the eagle from the snail to the lobster from the mouse to the mole
all hastened to the spot to listen to the charming songs of the hideous marshpee maiden among the fishes which repaired every night to the vicinity of the little hillock which was the chosen resting place
of the ugly songstress was the great chief of the trouts a tribe of fish inhabiting the river near by the chief was of a far greater size than the people of his nation usually are
being as long as a man and quite as broad of all the creatures which came to listen to the singing of awashanks none appeared to enjoy it so highly as the chief of the trouts
as his bulk prevented him from approaching so near as he wished he from time to time in his eagerness to enjoy the music to the best advantage ran his nose into the ground and thus worked his way a considerable distance into the land
nightly he continued his exertions to approach the source of the delightful sounds he heard till at length he had plowed out a wide and handsome channel and so effected his passage from the river to the hill
a distance extending an arrow's flight thither he repaired every night at the commencement of darkness sure to meet the maiden who had become so necessary to his happiness
soon he began to speak of the pleasure he enjoyed and to fill the ears of awashanks with fond protestations of his love and affection instead of singing to him she now began to listen to his voice
it was something so new and strange to her to hear the tones of love and courtship a thing so unusual to be told she was beautiful that it is not wonderful her head was turned by the new incident
and that she began to think the voice of her lover the sweetest she had ever heard one thing marred their happiness this was that the trout could not live upon land nor the maiden in the water
this state of things gave them much sorrow they had met one evening at the usual place and were discoursing together lamenting that two who loved each other so should be doomed always to live apart
when a man appeared close to awashanks he asked the lovers why they seemed to be so sad the chief of the trouts told the stranger the cause of their sorrow be not grieved nor hopeless said the stranger
when the chief had finished the impediments can be removed i am the spirit who presides over fishes and though i cannot make a man or woman of a fish i can make them into fish
under my power awashanks shall become a beautiful trout with that he bade the girl follow him into the river when they had waded in some little depth
muttering some words of which none but himself knew the meaning immediately a change took place in her her body took the form of a fish and in a few moments she was a complete trout
having accomplished this transformation the spirit gave her to the chief of the trouts and the pair glided off into the deep and quiet waters she did not however forget the land of her birth every season on the same night
as that upon which her disappearance from her tribe had been wrought there were to be seen two trouts of enormous size playing in the water off the shore they continued their visits till the palefaces came to the country
but on this subject the high churchmen could count on the support of a large body of low churchmen those members who wished well to nottingham's plan saw that they were outnumbered and despairing of a victory began to meditate a retreat
the ancient usage was that a convocation should be summoned together with a parliament and it might well be argued that if ever the advice of a convocation could be needed
till the clergy had had an opportunity of declaring their opinion through the ancient and legitimate organ this proposition was received with general acclamation the tories were well pleased to see such honour done to the priesthood
probably for ever those whigs who were for the comprehension bill were well pleased to escape without a defeat many of them indeed were not without hopes that mild and liberal counsels might prevail in the ecclesiastical senate
an address requesting william to summon the convocation was voted without a division the concurrence of the lords was asked the lords concurred the address was carried up to the throne by both houses the king promised that he would at a convenient season do what his parliament desired
and nottingham's bill was not again mentioned many writers imperfectly acquainted with the history of that age have inferred from these proceedings that the house of commons was an assembly of high churchmen
but nothing is more certain than that two thirds of the members were either low churchmen or not churchmen at all a very few days before this time an occurrence had taken place unimportant in itself but highly significant as an indication of the temper of the majority
it had been suggested that the house ought in conformity with ancient usage to adjourn over the easter holidays the puritans and latitudinarians objected there was a sharp debate the high churchmen did not venture to divide and to the great scandal of many grave persons
the bill for settling the oaths had just come down from the lords framed in a manner favourable to the clergy all lay functionaries were required to swear fealty to the king and queen on pain of expulsion from office
unless the government should see reason to call on him specially for an assurance of his loyalty burnett had partly no doubt from the goodnature and generosity which belonged to his character and partly from a desire to conciliate his brethren
but in the lower house the feeling against the jacobite priests was irresistibly strong on the very day on which that house voted without a division the address requesting the king to summon the convocation a clause was proposed and carried
which required every person who held any ecclesiastical or academical preferment to take the oaths by the first of august sixteen eighty nine on pain of suspension six months to be reckoned from that day were allowed to the nonjuror for reconsideration
compromise after compromise was suggested from the imperfect reports which have come down to us it appears that every argument in favour of lenity was forcibly urged by burnet but the commons were firm time pressed
but about the terms of the oath which related to the spiritual institutions of the realm there was much debate should the chief magistrate promise simply to maintain the protestant religion established by law or should he promise to maintain that religion as it should be hereafter established by law
the majority preferred the former phrase the latter phrase was preferred by those whigs who were for a comprehension but it was universally admitted that the two phrases really meant the same thing and that the oath however it might be worded would bind the sovereign in his executive capacity only
this was indeed evident from the very nature of the transaction
it was never doubted by the most rigid casuist
may lawfully withhold payment if the creditor is willing to cancel the obligation
and was rapidly passed through every stage
provided always that episcopacy and a written form of prayer were retained the gross absurdity of this motion was exposed by several eminent members such a clause they justly remarked would bind the king under pretence of setting him free the coronation oath they said
was never intended to trammel him in his legislative capacity leave that oath as it is now drawn and no prince can misunderstand it no prince can seriously imagine that the two houses mean to exact from him a promise that he will put a veto on laws
which they may hereafter think necessary to the wellbeing of the country or if any prince should so strangely misapprehend the nature of the contract between him and his subjects any divine any lawyer
to whose advice he may have recourse will set his mind at ease but if this rider should pass it will be impossible to deny that the coronation oath is meant to prevent the king from giving his assent to bills which may be presented to him by the lords and commons
that the statesmen who framed the coronation oath
a conjuncture singularly auspicious a conjuncture at which wisdom and justice might perhaps have reconciled races and sects long hostile and might have made the british islands one truly united kingdom was suffered to pass away the opportunity once lost returned no more
two generations of public men have since laboured with imperfect success to repair the error which was then committed nor is it improbable that some of the penalties of that error may continue to afflict a remote posterity the bill by which the oath was settled passed the upper house without amendment
all the preparations were complete and on the eleventh of april the coronation took place in some things it differed from ordinary coronations the representatives of the people attended the ceremony in a body and were sumptuously feasted in the exchequer chamber
mary being not merely queen consort but also queen regnant was inaugurated in all things like a king was girt with the sword lifted up into the throne and presented with the bible the spurs and the orb of the temporal grandees of the realm and of their wives and daughters
the muster was great and splendid none could be surprised that the whig aristocracy should swell the triumph of whig principles but the jacobites saw with concern that many lords who had voted for a regency bore a conspicuous part in the ceremonial
the king's crown was carried by grafton the queen's by somerset the pointed sword emblematical of temporal justice was borne by pembroke ormond was lord high constable for the day and rode up the hall on the right hand of the hereditary champion
who thrice flung down his glove on the pavement and thrice defied to mortal combat the false traitor who should gainsay the title of william and mary among the noble damsels who supported the gorgeous train of the queen was her beautiful and gentle cousin the lady henrietta hyde whose father rochester
the primate did not make his appearance and his place was supplied by compton
on the other side sprat bishop of rochester lately a member of the high commission had charge of the chalice burnet the junior prelate preached with all his wonted ability and more than his wonted taste and judgment
his grave and eloquent discourse was polluted neither by adulation nor by malignity
with long life and mutual love with obedient subjects wise counsellors and faithful allies with gallant fleets and armies with victory with peace and finally with crowns more glorious and more durable than those which then glittered on the altar of the abbey
faint indeed and transient of the enthusiasm of the preceding december the day was in london and in many other places a day of general rejoicing the churches were filled in the morning the afternoon was spent in sport and carousing
and at night bonfires were lighted rockets discharged and windows lighted up the jacobites however contrived to discover or to invent abundant matter for scurrility and sarcasm they complained bitterly that the way from the hall to the western door of the abbey had been lined by dutch soldiers
was it seemly that an english king should enter into the most solemn of engagements with the english nation behind a triple hedge of foreign swords and bayonets little affrays such as at every great pageant almost inevitably take place between those who are eager to see the show
and those whose business it is to keep the communications clear were exaggerated with all the artifices of rhetoric one of the alien mercenaries had backed his horse against an honest citizen who pressed forward to catch a glimpse of the royal canopy
another had rudely pushed back a woman with the but end of his musket on such grounds as these the strangers were compared to those lord danes whose insolence in the old time had provoked the anglo saxon population to insurrection and massacre
but there was no more fertile theme for censure than the coronation medal which really was absurd in design and mean in execution a chariot appeared conspicuous on the reverse and plain people were at a loss to understand what this emblem had to do with william and mary
the disaffected wits solved the difficulty by suggesting that the artist meant to allude to that chariot which a roman princess lost to all filial affection and blindly devoted to the interests of an ambitious husband
three garters which happened to be at the disposal of the crown were given to devonshire ormond and schomberg prince george was created duke of cumberland several eminent men took new appellations by which they must henceforth be designated
danby became marquess of caermarthen churchill earl of marlborough
earl of portland mordaunt was made earl of monmouth not without some murmuring on the part of old exclusionists who still remembered with fondness their protestant duke and who had hoped that his attainder would be reversed and that his title would be borne by his descendants
it was remarked that the name of halifax did not appear in the list of promotions none could doubt that he might easily have obtained either a blue riband or a ducal coronet and though he was honourably distinguished from most of his contemporaries by his scorn of illicit gain
it was well known that he desired honorary distinctions with a greediness of which he was himself ashamed and which was unworthy of his fine understanding the truth is that his ambition was at this time chilled by his fears
to those whom he trusted he hinted his apprehensions that evil times were at hand the king's life was not worth a year's purchase the government was disjointed
the parliament torn by factions civil war was already raging in one part of the empire foreign war was impending at such a moment a minister whether whig or tory might well be uneasy but neither whig nor tory had so much to fear as the trimmer
persons whose gratitude might be useful in the event of a counterrevolution
and then they stood wagging and scattering panting blowing and bleeding that all that beheld them for the most part wept for pity so when they had rested them a while they yede to battle again tracing racing foining as two boars
and hurtled together that sometime they fell grovelling to the earth and at some time they were so amazed that either took other's sword instead of his own thus they endured till evensong time that there was none that beheld them might know whether was like to win the battle and their armour was so forhewn
that men might see their naked sides and in other places they were naked but ever the naked places they did defend and the red knight was a wily knight of war and his wily fighting taught sir beaumains to be wise
and to set them on again at their commandment and then when sir beaumains helm was off he looked up to the window and there he saw the fair lady dame lionesse and she made him such countenance that his heart waxed light and jolly
i will well said the knight and then they laced up their helms and their pages avoided and they stepped together and fought freshly but the red knight of the red launds awaited him and at an overthwart smote him within the hand that his sword fell out of his hand
and there they fought a new battle together but sir beaumains then doubled his strokes and smote so thick that he smote the sword out of his hand
and then he yielded him and asked mercy and said with a loud voice o noble knight i yield me to thy mercy then sir beaumains bethought him upon the knights that he had made to be hanged shamefully and then he said i may not with my worship save thy life
for the shameful deaths that thou hast caused many full good knights to die sir said the red knight of the red launds hold your hand and ye shall know the causes why i put them to so shameful a death say on said sir beaumains
and she prayed me as that i loved her heartily that i would make her a promise by the faith of my knighthood for to labour daily in arms unto i met with one of them and all that i might overcome i should put them unto a villainous death and this is the cause that i have put all these knights to death
and so i ensured her to do all the villainy unto king arthur's knights and that i should take vengeance upon all these knights
and there they sojourned ten days in their tents and the red knight made his lords and servants to do all the pleasure that they might unto sir beaumains
and put him in her grace and so she received him upon sufficient surety so all her hurts were well restored of all that she could complain
it seemeth by you said king arthur that ye know his name and from whence he is come and of what blood he is i suppose i do so said launcelot or else i would not have given him the order of knighthood but he gave me such charge at that time that i should never discover him until he required me
i have not deserved that ye should show me this strangeness and i had weened that i should have right good cheer with you and unto my power i have deserved thank and well i am sure i have bought your love with part of the best blood within my body fair courteous knight said dame lionesse
be not displeased nor over hasty for wit you well your great travail nor good love shall not be lost for i consider your great travail and labour your bounty and your goodness as me ought to do
and therefore go on your way and look that ye be of good comfort for all shall be for your worship and for the best and perdy a twelvemonth will soon be done and trust me fair knight i shall be true to you and never to betray you but to my death i shall love you and none other
and therewithal she turned her from the window and sir beaumains rode awayward from the castle making great dole and so he rode here and there and wist not where he rode till it was dark night and then it happened him to come to a poor man's house and there he was harboured all that night
and so upon the morrow he took his horse and rode until underne and then he came to a broad water and thereby was a great lodge and there he alighted to sleep and laid his head upon the shield and betook his horse to the dwarf and commanded him to watch all night
now turn we to the lady of the same castle that thought much upon beaumains and then she called unto her sir gringamore her brother and prayed him in all manner as he loved her heartily that he would ride after sir beaumains and ever have ye wait upon him
till ye may find him sleeping for i am sure in his heaviness he will alight down in some place and lie him down to sleep and therefore have ye your wait upon him and in the priviest manner ye can take his dwarf and go ye your way with him as fast as ever ye may or sir beaumains awake
unto the time that i know what is his right name and of what kindred he is come shall i never be merry at my heart sister said sir gringamore all this shall be done after your intent and so he rode all the other day and the night till that he found sir beaumains lying by a water
and this sir gringamore's arms were all black and that to him longeth
he cried unto his lord and prayed him of help
and therefore i rede you not follow him for he is one of the periloust knights of the world and his castle is here nigh hand but two mile therefore we advise you ride not after sir gringamore but if ye owe him good will
so leave we sir beaumains riding toward the castle and speak we of sir gringamore and the dwarf anon as the dwarf was come to the castle dame lionesse and dame linet her sister asked the dwarf where was his master born and of what lineage he was come
and but if thou tell me said dame lionesse thou shalt never escape this castle but ever here to be prisoner as for that said the dwarf i fear not greatly to tell his name and of what kin he is come wit you well he is a king's son
and his mother is sister to king arthur and he is brother to the good knight sir gawaine and his name is sir gareth of orkney and now i have told you his right name i pray you fair lady let me go to my lord again for he will never out of this country until that he have me again
and made them merry and well at ease and because the lady lionesse of the castle was there they made great joy truly madam said linet unto her sister well may he be a king's son for he hath many good tatches on him for he is courteous and mild
for i dare say there was never gentlewoman reviled man in so foul a manner as i have rebuked him and at all times he gave me goodly and meek answers again and as they sat thus talking
and cried aloud that all the castle might hear it saying thou traitor sir gringamore deliver me my dwarf again or by the faith that i owe to the order of knighthood i shall do thee all the harm that i can then sir gringamore looked out at a window and said sir gareth of orkney
leave thy boasting words for thou gettest not thy dwarf again thou coward knight said sir gareth bring him with thee and come and do battle with me and win him and take him so will i do said sir gringamore an me list but for all thy great words thou gettest him not
ah fair brother said dame lionesse i would he had his dwarf again for i would he were not wroth for now he hath told me all my desire i keep no more of the dwarf and also brother he hath done much for me and delivered me from the red knight of the red launds
and therefore brother i owe him my service afore all knights living and wit ye well that i love him before all other and full fain i would speak with him
and therefore i pray you that ye would alight and take such cheer as i can make you in this castle shall i have my dwarf said sir gareth yea sir and all the pleasaunce that i can make you
and what noble deeds ye have done in these marches then i repented of my deeds and then sir gareth alighted and there came his dwarf and took his horse o my fellow said sir gareth
there were all manner of games and plays of dancing and singing and ever the more sir gareth beheld that lady the more he loved her and so he burned in love that he was past himself in his reason and forth toward night they yede unto supper
and sir gareth might not eat for his love was so hot that he wist not where he was
and i will sister that ye wit he is a full noble knight and if ye can make him to abide here i will do him all the pleasure that i can
fair brother said dame lionesse i understand well that the knight is good and come he is of a noble house
howbeit i am most beholden to him of any earthly man for he hath had great labour for my love and passed many a dangerous passage right so sir gringamore went unto sir gareth and said sir make ye good cheer for ye shall have none other cause for this lady my sister
is yours at all times her worship saved for wit ye well she loveth you as well as ye do her and better if better may be an i wist that said sir gareth there lived not a gladder man than i would be upon my worship said sir gringamore trust unto my promise
and as long as it liketh you ye shall sojourn with me and this lady shall be with us daily and nightly to make you all the cheer that she can i will well said sir gareth for i have promised to be nigh this country this twelvemonth and well i am sure king arthur and other noble knights will find me where that i am within this twelvemonth
for i shall be sought and found if that i be alive and then the noble knight sir gareth went unto the dame lionesse which he then much loved and kissed her many times and either made great joy of other and there she promised him her love certainly to love him and none other the days of her life
the views of louvois incomparably the greatest statesman that france had produced since richelieu
the best thing louvois wrote that king james could do would be to forget that he had reigned in great britain and to think only of putting ireland into a good condition and of establishing himself firmly there whether this were the true interest of the house of stuart may be doubted
but it was undoubtedly the true interest of the house of bourbon about the scotch and english exiles and especially about melfort
melfort was in a singularly unfortunate position he was a renegade he was a mortal enemy of the liberties of his country he was of a bad and tyrannical nature and yet he was in some sense a patriot
the first question to be decided was whether james should remain at dublin or should put himself at the head of his army in ulster on this question the irish and british factions joined battle reasons of no great weight were adduced on both sides for neither party ventured to speak out
the point really in issue was whether the king should be in irish or in british hands if he remained at dublin it would be scarcely possible for him to withhold his assent from any bill presented to him by the parliament which he had summoned to meet there
as soon as londonderry had fallen and it was universally supposed that the fall of londonderry could not be long delayed he might cross the sea with part of his forces and land in scotland where his friends were supposed to be numerous when he was once on british ground and in the midst of british adherents
the ambassador pronounced what was meant to be a warm eulogy but may perhaps be more properly called an invective
the royal party set out leaving tyrconnel in charge at dublin and arrived at charlemont on the thirteenth of april the journey was a strange one the country all along the road had been completely deserted by the industrious population
those who were honoured with an invitation to the royal table
the roads were so bad and the horses so weak
the travellers had to pass several fords where the water was breast high some of the party fainted from fatigue and hunger all around lay a frightful wilderness in a journey of forty miles avaux counted only three miserable cabins every thing else was rock bog and moor
when at length the travellers reached omagh they found it in ruins the protestants who were the majority of the inhabitants had abandoned it
in one minute three messages were sent to summon avaux to the ruinous chamber in which the royal bed had been prepared there james half dressed and with the air of a man bewildered by some great shock announced his resolution to hasten back instantly to dublin
avaux listened wondered and approved melfort seemed prostrated by despair the travellers retraced their steps and late in the evening reached charlemont there the king received despatches very different from those which had terrified him a few hours before
his majesty had only to appear before the gates and they would instantly fly open james now changed his mind again blamed himself for having been persuaded to turn his face southward and though it was late in the evening called for his horses the horses were in a miserable plight
but weary and half starved as they were they were saddled melfort completely victorious carried off his master to the camp avaux after remonstrating to no purpose declared that he was resolved to return to dublin
it may be suspected that the extreme discomfort which he had undergone had something to do with this resolution for complaints of that discomfort make up a large part of his letters and in truth a life passed in the palaces of italy in the neat parlours and gardens of holland
and in the luxurious pavilions which adorned the suburbs of paris was a bad preparation for the ruined hovels of ulster he gave however to his master a more weighty reason for refusing to proceed northward
the journey of james had been undertaken in opposition to the unanimous sense of the irish and had excited great alarm among them they apprehended that he meant to quit them and to make a descent on scotland they knew that once landed in great britain
rosen confidently predicted that the mere sight of the irish army would terrify the garrison into submission but richard hamilton who knew the temper of the colonists better had misgivings the assailants were sure of one important ally within the walls
some have suspected that he was a concealed jacobite and that he had affected to acquiesce in the revolution only in order that he might be better able to assist in bringing about a restoration but it is probable that his conduct
is rather to be attributed to faintheartedness and poverty of spirit than to zeal for any public cause
the defences of londonderry appeared contemptible
indeed those who laid out the city had never meant that it should be able to stand a regular siege
against a tumultuary attack of the celtic peasantry avaux assured louvois that a single french battalion would easily storm such defences even if the place should notwithstanding all disadvantages be able to repel a large army
hunger must soon bring the contest to an end the stock of provisions was small
he talked so despondingly that the citizens and his own soldiers murmured against him he seemed they said to be bent on discouraging them meanwhile the enemy drew daily nearer and nearer
just at this moment a glimpse of hope appeared on the fourteenth of april ships from england anchored in the bay they had on board two regiments which had been sent under the command of a colonel named cunningham to reinforce the garrison
cunningham and several of his officers went on shore and conferred with lundy lundy dissuaded them from landing their men the place he said could not hold out to throw more troops into it would therefore be worse than useless
the best thing that the two regiments could do would be to sail back to england he meant he said to withdraw himself privately and the inhabitants must then try to make good terms for themselves
he went through the form of holding a council of war but from this council he excluded all those officers of the garrison whose sentiments he knew to be different from his own some who had ordinarily been summoned on such occasions and who now came uninvited were thrust out of the room
whatever the governor said was echoed by his creatures cunningham and cunningham's companions could scarcely venture to oppose their opinion to that of a person whose local knowledge was necessarily far superior to theirs and whom they were by their instructions directed to obey
one brave soldier murmured understand this he said to give up londonderry
with assurances that the city should be peaceably surrendered on the first summons but as soon as what had passed in the council of war was whispered about the streets the spirit of the soldiers and citizens swelled up high and fierce against the dastardly and perfidious chief who had betrayed them
many of his own officers declared that they no longer thought themselves bound to obey him voices were heard threatening some that his brains should be blown out some that he should be hanged on the walls
lundy had given orders that there should be no firing but his authority was at an end two gallant soldiers major henry baker and captain adam murray called the people to arms they were assisted by the eloquence of an aged clergyman george walker rector of the parish of donaghmore
who had with many of his neighbours taken refuge in londonderry the whole of the crowded city was moved by one impulse soldiers gentlemen yeomen artisans rushed to the walls and manned the guns james who confident of success had approached within a hundred yards of the southern gate
and with a fire from the nearest bastion an officer of his staff fell dead by his side
we are all wonderfully improved thank you brother
than we have ever known mister walcot's care will be new life to us whose care mister walcot's we brought him with us last night
now that she will be in good hands i shall feel that i have done my duty and pray does rowland know of your having brought this stranger here of course mister walcot is our guest till his own house can be prepared for him
or you have misinformed him of the true state of affairs here i suspect the latter to be the case
not one of missus rowland's prepared answers would suit in this place before she could think of anything to say
but it is your own doing mister hope must have justice and you have no one to blame but yourself that justice must be done at your expense i give you fair notice that i shall discharge my duty fully in the painful circumstances in which you have contrived
all deerbrook will thank me ignorant and stupid as deerbrook is about many things
you know that hope is an able and most humane man in his profession and that he does not steal dead bodies you know the falsehood of the whole set of vulgar stories
that you have put into circulation against him you know also that my mother has entire confidence in him and that it will go near to break her heart to have him dismissed for any one else this is the meaning of what i say
as for what i mean to do it is this i shall speak to mister walcot at once before his intention to settle here is known you are too late my dear sir every one in deerbrook knows it as well as if doctor levitt was to give notice of it from the pulpit to day
so much the worse for you priscilla i shall explain the whole of hope's case to mister walcot avoiding if possible all exposure of you oh pray do not disturb yourself about that mister walcot knows me very well i am not afraid
but not shrinking from the full statement of the facts if that should prove necessary to hope's justification if this gentleman be honourable he will decline attending my mother and go away more willingly than he came
is the kindest which under the circumstances can be entertained towards you sister i do it in the hope that before it is too late
leaving you opportunity to retrieve yourself to repair the mischief you have done and to alleviate the misery which i see is coming upon you you are very good but i know what i am about and i shall proceed in my own way
and known by you to be so
is a bad symptom priscilla a symptom of a malady which neither hope nor mister walcot nor any one but yourself can cure i would have you look to it
i said so because it is true
which is just the same thing i mean that it shall be true i have set my heart upon your marrying and upon your marrying mary bruce i know she would like it and stop there not another word about miss bruce
it would make no sort of impression upon me miss bruce knows little and cares less about me and beware how you say to the contrary and now for the plain fact i am engaged elsewhere no you are not yes i am
you will marry no one but mary bruce at last you will see whatever you may think now for heaven's sake priscilla if you have any of the regard you profess to have for miss bruce treat her name with some respect i am accepted by margaret ibbotson i dare say you are
they will be happy with their greatness and loveliness sister for it is heaven's decree that they should
why will you not throw off the restraint of bad feelings and do magnanimous justice to this family and having thus opened and freed your mind glory in their goodness the next best thing to being as good as they
you have power of mind to do this the very force with which you persist in persecuting them shows that you have power for better things
do but try thank you i am glad you are aware of my power if they forgive me for anything it shall be for my power that is not for you to determine happily to what extent they forgive is between god and themselves
very few for your sake scarcely any
that will hardly avail against my testimony it will when you are gone the deerbrook people always attend to the last speaker indeed i think i have the majority with me now as the events of last night pretty plainly show
is but the reaction of your internal suffering from witnessing the results of your influence in the outrages of last night confide this to me now and give yourself such ease as you yet can thank you
and it proved to mister walcot as i observed to him at the time how much he was wanted here now if you have nothing more to say to me i must go i shall deny your engagement everywhere
and returned him a stare which lasted till she reached the door there is something almost sublime in audacity like this thought he but it cannot last it comes from internal torture a thing as necessarily temporary as faith
he had arrived within sight and fortunately within rifle range of the spot at that critical moment when the jaguar was preparing to spring his bullet did not prevent the fierce brute from making the bound the last of its life
though it had passed right through the animal's heart this was a thing thought of afterwards there was no opportunity then on rushing into the water to make sure that his shot had proved fatal the hunter was himself attacked
not by the claws of the jaguar but the hands of the man just rescued from them
as rapidly as if the injured limb no longer impeded him the hunter suspected his intent standing over six feet he saw the bloody knife blade lying along the cloak it was for that the mustanger was making
in his bear like embrace drew him back from the tree
the young fellur hev tuck leeve o his seven senses thur's fever in the feel o him he air gone dullerious phelim instantly obeyed
and scrambling up the tree trunk took possession of the knife still the struggle was not over the delirious man wrestled with his rescuer
upon the grass and after a few tremulous shiverings accompanied by sighs heaved from the very bottom of his breast he lay still as if the last spark of life had departed from his body the galwegian believing it so
began uttering a series of lugubrious cries the keen of connemara
he's no more dead than you air only fented by the way he hev fit me i reck'n there ain't much the matter wi him no he continued after stooping down and giving a short examination
afore the spotted beest kim up
but they will when they gits the chance o one krippled as he air durn em the hunter had all the talking to himself
to know that his master still lived and furthermore was in no danger of dying suddenly changed his melancholy whine to a jubilant hullaballoo
and commenced dancing over the ground all the while snapping his fingers in the most approved connemara fashion his frenzied action provoked the hound
but once more bending over the prostrate form proceeded to complete the examination already begun becoming satisfied that there was no serious wound he rose to his feet and commenced taking stock of the odd articles around him
he had already noticed the panama hat that still adhered to the head of the mustanger and a strange thought at seeing it there had passed through his mind hats of guayaquil grass erroneously called panama
were not uncommon scores of southerners wore them in texas as elsewhere but he knew that the young irishman was accustomed to carry a mexican sombrero a very different kind of head gear it was possible he might have seen fit to change the fashion
still as zeb continued to gaze upon it he fancied he had seen that hat before and on some other head it was not from any suspicion of its being honestly in possession of him now wearing it that the hunter stooped down
and took it off with the design to examine it his object was simply to obtain some explanation of the mystery or series of mysteries
on looking inside the hat he read two names first that of a new orleans hatter whose card was pasted in the crown and then in writing another well known to him henry poindexter
the cloak now came under his notice it too carried marks by which he was able to identify it as belonging to the same owner
as he stood with his eyes turned upon the ground and apparently buried in a profound reflection hats heads an everythin
by the tarnal thur's somethin goed astray ef twa'nt that i feel a putty consid'able smartin whar the young fellur gin me a lick over the left eye
i mout be arter believin my own skull case wa'nt any longer atween my shoulders it air no use lookin to him he added glancing towards maurice
this dullerium thet's on him when that'll be ole nick only knows wal he continued after another interval spent in silent reflection it won't do no good our stayin hyur we must git him to the shanty
neer a mind i'd make him take his full share o the carryin when it kum to thet how air it to be done we must git him on a streetcher
or wi the blanket pheelum fetch'd from the shanty ye es a streetcher that's the eydentikul eyedee the connemara man was now summoned to lend assistance two saplings of at least ten feet in length were cut from the chapparal
and trimmed clear of twigs two shorter ones were also selected and lashed crosswise over the first
to give greater strength in this way a rude stretcher was constructed capable of carrying either an
the mare at the head the man bearing behind it was he of connemara who completed the ill matched team the old hunter had kept his promise that phelim should take his full share o the carryin
he was taking it or rather getting it
to the easier post of conductor the idea was not altogether original it was a rude copy from the mexican litera
differing from the latter only in being without screen and instead of two mules having for its atelage a mare and a man
though he made no reply to the kind questions addressed to him or only answered them with an inconsequence that might have provoked mirth but there were wild words upon his lips that forbade it suggesting only serious thoughts
his wounds received such rude dressing as his companions were capable of administering to them and nothing more could be done but await the return of day phelim went to sleep upon his shake down while the other sate up
to keep watch by the bedside
it was the name of louise's brother
and he had a mode of quickening her speed known only to himself and only employed upon extraordinary occasions it simply consisted in drawing the bowie knife from his belt and inserting about in inch of its blade into the mare's hip
close to the termination of the spine
or if you prefer the figure electricity so spurred zeb's critter could accomplish a mile in three minutes and more than once had she been called upon to show this capability when her owner was chased by comanches
while the mare was left panting upon the parade ground the old hunter had no difficulty in obtaining an interview with the military chief of fort inge looked upon by the officers as a sort of privileged character
ah mister stump glad to see you so soon have you made any discovery in this queer affair from your quick return i can almost say you have something i hope in favour of this unfortunate young fellow
in welcome what is it you have to say that ye'll keep back this trial as long's ye kin raisonably do so i know thur's a pressyur from the outside but i know too that ye've got the power to resist it
i have you speak quite truly about that mister stump and as to the power i have that too in a certain sense but as you are aware in our great republic the military power must always be subservient to the civil
which god forbid should ever be required among us even here in texas i can go so far as to hinder any open violation of the law but i cannot go against the law itself
only them as air like to take it into thur own hands
thur's them in this settlement as ud do thet ef they ain't rustrained
an i knows who thet one air leestwise i hev a tolable clur guess o him who
you may speak your mind freely then my mind air thet the man who hez dud this murder ain't maurice the mowstanger that's my own belief you know it already have you nothing more to communicate
though he may yield a little to my advice but there is a party who are crying out for vengeance and he may be ruled by them i know the party ye speak o
it's him i want to diskiver kin ye promise me three days three days for what afore the trial kims on
ye'd make a man a'most contented to live under marshul law no doubt thur air times when it air the best tho we independent citizens don't much like it all i've got to say air
than him who's now in the guard house someb'y who jest at this mom't hain't
hisself surspected don't ask me who only say ye'll streetch a pint an gi me three days
ceptin to axe thet ye'll not
thur's them outside who ef they only knew what this coon air arter
mister stump you may rely upon my pledged word
yer the right sort for texas with this complimentary leave taking the hunter strode out of head quarters and made his way back to the place where he had left his old mare once more mounting her he rode rapidly away
on reaching the outskirts of poindexter's plantation he left the low lands of the leona bottom and spurred his old mare gainst the steep slope ascending to the upper plain he reached it at a point where the chapparal impinged upon the prairie
nor show any sign of an intention to do so but sate in the saddle stooped forward his eyes turned upon the ground in that vacant gaze which denotes reflection dog gone my cats he drawled out in slow soliloquy
cousin he'd do that or any other villinous thing ef there war a reezun for it there ain't none as i kin think o
thur's a state o feelin twixt him an the gurl thet he don't like
an that shindy beout which she tolt me herself
wal there's no time to stan speklatin hyur
he looked round as if in search of some one to answer the interrogatory it air no use beginnin neer the fort or the town
as if fully satisfied on this score he took up his bridle rein muttered some words to his mare and commenced moving off along the edge of the chapparal having advanced about a mile in the direction of the nueces river he abruptly changed his course
but with a coolness that told of a predetermined purpose
in the expression of his features and his attitude in the saddle no longer looking listlessly around he sate stooping forward
leaving the old mare to ruminate upon this eccentric proceeding he advanced a pace or two and dropped down upon his knees
after adjusting the broken shoe to the imperfect hoof print and taking it up again
the rebel meanwhile billie was still haunting mona and shortly was able to tell the other three that fort had called taking the surgeon out in a machine large enough to hold them both
they proceeded to a near by park where a game of aerial punt ball was already in progress footnote the game is described more or less completely in various sporting publications
billie took great interest in the darting play of the little flylike machines the action of the mechanical catapults and the ease with which the twelve inch ball was usually caught in the baskets
on the machines prows she reported the score from time to time in a manner which would have made a telegrapher jealous returning from the game mona and fort became pretty confidential
the natural result of a common enthusiasm for their side won but fort was content for a while to merely watch mona who was driving
i asked your mother mona what she thought of me as a prospective son in law the girl was in no way rattled i suppose she told you that it wouldn't make any difference what she might say
do you love me well enough to marry me mona she pretended to be very busy with the driving so that billie never knew whether fort looked anxious or not presently mona said i think
i rather think i like you too well to marry you what i mean is i'm afraid it would spoil you my dear boy you're too well satisfied with yourself i don't want to marry a man who is content to fly around half the time
this makes everything very different he declared and even his voice was altered there was a determined purposeful ring about it which was altogether unlike his usual reckless tones thanks for not telling mister powart
fort went on in the same quiet way clearly i should tell him myself and i shall after that it is up to me next instant he had thrown off his seriousness and for the remainder of the flight
fort called upon the self made commander in chief as quickly as he could i have the honor to inform you said fort coming straight to the point that miss mona has seen fit to encourage my suit
in short sir with the strange new note of resolution in his voice i am your rival for her hand i thought it only right that you should know powart took this as he took everything standing
you are considerate he stated with the faintest trace of sarcasm let me call your attention to the fact that because of the position which recent events have forced upon me
it is quite within my power to dispose of your opposition significantly quite so i shall appreciate your consideration also then the athlete permitted himself a slight smile on second thoughts however
you can't afford to be other than considerate if anything happens to me now miss mona will naturally think of you for she knows i have come here a single exclamation escaped powart
and from the light in fort's eyes van emmon knew that the chief was sorely provoked however he spoke with his usual coolness and certainty under the circumstances you will be exempt mister fort
from the conscription which is now under way i shall do nothing that might hinder your activities in any way i take it evenly that you hope to accomplish something big fort bowed
it is my intention to set a mark even further than your own sir for the first time powart laughed it was a really hearty laugh as though fort's preposterous boast was so utterly ridiculous that sarcasm was out of place
mister fort when his mirth had subsided i only wish your judgment was as sound as your optimism tell me do you intend to make yourself ruler of a bigger world than this fort dropped his seriousness for an instant
to tell the truth powart i haven't any plan at all yet thanks for the exemption in return i assure you that whatever i do will be as truly in the interests of the people as what you have done
powart eyed him keenly for a moment van emmon thought he would try to learn if fort had any suspicions but he said nothing further than a curt the audience is ended
a few minutes later billie through mona knew that fort was reporting progress he did it by telephone thought you'd like to know he finished hope i didn't rouse you out of bed
it was night in mona's part of the world and billie had come upon the girl just as she was preparing for bed thank you she said
i was just about to retire good luck another yawn and good her voice changed mister fort sharply powart's declaration of war on alma
is a frame up never mind how i happen to know it is true they are not planning to invade us at all he trumped up this affair in order to make himself dictator what the athlete was astounded
are you sure of this mona the girl's manner had changed again i beg your pardon she inquired vastly confused did i say something that why i am not aware mister fort
that i had said anything more than good night you aren't his voice was strained and excited mona you just now said something of the most extraordinary surely incredulously you recall saying something don't you
then he stated with a soberness that was almost stern mona you told me something which could have come only through a supernatural agency i am sure of it from your manner you were temporarily possessed he paused again
she sensed his earnestness and spoke just as seriously it is not impossible i have heard of such things before i was sleepy and the point is what did i say she demanded i do not intend to tell you
what i learned gives me a great advantage over powart that's all i can say more would be dishonorable will you take my word for that mona certainly with swift decision and a grace that billie envied whereupon she went to bed
denying that the visitor was making any trouble fort's technical knowledge had delighted him come again any time you like which fort did the very next day and this time he brought a package of sweetmeats
during the eating of which the two men became pretty friendly you're different from most of the folks of your station reblong finally made bold to remark any harm in my saying so on the contrary laughed the athlete
secretary replied reblong a little dubiously was fort a secret investigator then you can tell me is there any dissatisfaction are the men entirely content with their treatment
as happy as i am and thus fort discovered just as another man had already discovered that the average capellan workman was entirely satisfied with what he knew to be unjust treatment
even when fort told reblong what he had learned about powart's trickery leaving out all details about mona of course the engineer would not listen to any hint of revolution
i don't like to question your word mister fort reblong was very uncomfortable but i have such confidence in the commission that well you understand and fort said just as the other fellow had said after talking with reblong
reblong the representative capellan workman reblong who voiced the opinions of his billions of fellow workmen when he refused to consider a rebellion fort said
conceivably if in the coming years a deliberate attempt were made to provide sound instruction in english to all who sought it and to all within the control of english speaking governments if honour and emolument were given to literary men instead of being left to them to most indelicately take
and if the present sordid trade of publishing were so lifted as to bring the whole literature the whole science and all the contemporary thought of the world not some selection of the world's literature not some obsolete encyclopaedia sold meanly and basely to choke hungry minds
but a real publication of all that has been and is being done within the reach of each man's need and desire who had the franchise of the tongue
and not only that but it might be the prevalent and everyday language of scandinavia and denmark and holland of all africa all north america of the pacific coasts of asia and of india the universal international language
and in a fair way to be the universal language of mankind but such an enterprise demands a resolve and intelligence beyond all the immediate signs of the times it implies a veritable renascence of intellectual life among the english speaking peoples
but here it is clear that upon the probability of such a renascence depends the extension of the language and not only that but the preservation of that military and naval efficiency upon which in this world of resolute aggression the existence of the english speaking communities finally depends
french and german will certainly be aggregating languages during the greater portion of the coming years of the two i am inclined to think french will spread further than german there is a disposition in the world which the french share
to grossly undervalue the prospects of all things french derived so far as i can gather from the facts that the french were beaten by the germans in eighteen seventy and that they do not breed with the abandon of rabbits or negroes these are considerations that affect the dissemination of french very little
the french reading public is something different and very much larger than the existing french political system the number of books published in french is greater than that published in english
and the french translators are the most alert and efficient in the world one has only to see a parisian bookshop and to recall an english one to realize the as yet unattainable standing of french
the serried ranks of lemon coloured volumes in the former have the whole range of human thought and interest there are no taboos and no limits you have everything up and down the scale from frank indecency to stark wisdom it is a shop for men
with its gaudy reach me downs of gilded and embossed cover its horribly printed novels
honestly sorry the thing is a book but who has done his best to remedy it anyhow and all the english shopful is either brand new fiction or illustrated travel of buns with the grand lama type
or gilded versions of the classics of past times done up to give away while the french bookshop reeks of contemporary intellectual life these things count for french as against english now and they will count for infinitely more in the coming years
and over german also french has many advantages in spite of the numerical preponderance of books published in germany it is doubtful if the german reader has quite such a catholic feast before him as the reader of french there is a mass of german fiction
probably as uninteresting to a foreigner as popular english and american romance and german compared with french is an unattractive language unmelodious unwieldy
and cursed with a hideous and blinding lettering that the german is too patriotic to sacrifice there has been in germany a more powerful parallel to what one may call the honest saxon movement among the english
that queer mental twist that moves men to call an otherwise undistinguished preface a foreword and find a pleasurable advantage over their fellow creatures in a familiarity with eftsoons this tendency in german has done much to arrest the simplification of idiom
and checked the development of new words of classical origin in particular it has stood in the way of the international use of scientific terms the englishman the frenchman and the italian have a certain community of technical scientific and philosophical phraseology
and it is frequently easier for an englishman with some special knowledge of his subject to read and appreciate a subtle and technical work in french than it is for him to fully enter into the popular matter of the same tongue
moreover the technicalities of these peoples being not so immediately and constantly brought into contrast and contact with their latin or greek roots as they would be if they were derived as are so many patriotic german technicalities
from native roots are free to qualify and develop a final meaning distinct from their original intention in the growing and changing body of science this counts for much
the indigenous german technicality remains clumsy and compromised by its everyday relations to the end of time it drags a lengthening chain of unsuitable associations and the shade of meaning
the limited qualification that a frenchman or englishman can attain with a mere twist of the sentence the german must either abandon or laboriously overstate with some colossal wormcast of parenthesis
moreover against the german tongue there are hostile frontiers there are hostile people who fear german preponderance and who have set their hearts against its use in roumania and among the slav bohemian and hungarian peoples
french attacks german in the flank and has as clear a prospect of predominance these two tongues must inevitably come into keen conflict
they will perhaps fight their battle for the linguistic conquest of europe and perhaps of the world in a great urban region that will arise about the rhine politically this region lies now in six independent states
but economically it must become one in the next fifty years it will almost certainly be the greatest urban region in all the world except that which will arise in the eastern states of north america and that which may arise somewhere about hankow
it will stretch from lille to kiel it will drive extensions along the rhine valley into switzerland and fling an arm along the moldau to prague it will be the industrial capital of the old world
it will stretch a spider's web of railways and great roads of the new sort over the whole continent even when the coal field industries of the plain give place to the industrial application of mountain born electricity
this great city region will remain i believe in its present position at the seaport end of the great plain of the old world considerations of transit will keep it where it has grown and electricity will be brought to it in mighty cables from the torrents of the central european mountain mass
its westward port may be bordeaux or milford haven or even some port in the south west of ireland unless which is very unlikely the velocity of secure sea travel can be increased beyond that of land locomotion
i do not see how this great region is to unify itself without some linguistic compromise the germanization of the french speaking peoples by force is too ridiculous a suggestion to entertain almost inevitably with travel
with transport communications with every condition of human convenience insisting upon it formally or informally a bi lingual compromise will come into operation and to my mind at least the chances seem even that french will emerge on the upper hand unless
indeed that great renascence of the english speaking peoples should after all so overwhelmingly occur as to force this european city to be tri lingual and prepare the way by which the whole world may at last speak together in one tongue
these are the aggregating tongues i do not think that any other tongues than these are quite likely to hold their own in the coming time italian may flourish in the city of the po valley but only with french beside it
they are i believe already judged by a d two thousand all these languages will be tending more and more to be the second tongues of bi lingual communities with french or english or less probably german winning the upper hand
but when one turns to china there are the strangest possibilities
it is in eastern asia alone that there seems to be any possibility of a synthesis sufficiently great to maintain itself arising outside of and independently of the interlocked system of mechanically sustained societies that is developing out of mediaeval christendom
throughout eastern asia there is still no doubt a vast wilderness of languages but over them all rides the chinese writing and very strong
strong enough to be very gravely considered is the possibility of that writing taking up an orthodox association of sounds and becoming a world speech the japanese written language the language of japanese literature
tends to assimilate itself to chinese and fresh chinese words and expressions are continually taking root in japan
the japanese are a people quite abnormal and incalculable with a touch of romance a conception of honour a quality of imagination and a clearness of intelligence that renders possible for them things inconceivable of any other existing nation
i may be the slave of perspective effects but when i turn my mind from the pettifogging muddle of the english house of commons for example that magnified vestry that is so proud of itself as a club when i turn from that to this race of brave and smiling people
abruptly destiny begins drawing with a bolder hand suppose the japanese were to make up their minds to accelerate whatever process of synthesis were possible in china
conall yellowclaw was a sturdy tenant in erin he had three sons there was at that time a king over every fifth of erin
that they themselves and the children of conall came to blows the children of conall got the upper hand and they killed the king's big son the king sent a message for conall and he said to him
but i see that though i follow you revengefully i shall not be much better for it and i will now set a thing before you and if you will do it i will not follow you with revenge
why said conall
hard is the matter you require of me but i will lose my own life and the life of my sons or else i will do the pleasure of the king after these words conall left the king and he went home when he got home he was under much trouble and perplexity
when he went to lie down he told his wife the thing the king had set before him his wife took much sorrow that he was obliged to part from herself while she knew not if she should see him more o conall
said she why didst not thou let the king do his own pleasure to thy sons rather than be going now while i know not if ever i shall see thee more when he rose on the morrow he set himself and his three sons in order and they took their journey towards lochlann
and they made no stop but tore through ocean till they reached it when they reached lochlann they did not know what they should do said the old man to his sons
when they went to the house of the king's miller the man asked them to stop there for the night conall told the miller that his own children and the children of his king had fallen out and that his children had killed the king's son and there was nothing that would please the king
but that he should get the brown horse of the king of lochlann
the thing is silly that you are come to seek said the miller for the king has laid his mind on him so greatly that you will not get him in any way unless you steal him but if you can make out a way i will keep it secret this is what i am thinking said conall
since you are working every day for the king you and your gillies could put myself and my sons into four sacks of bran the plan that has come into your head is not bad said the miller
the servants locked the door and they went away when they rose to lay hand on the brown horse said conall you shall not do that it is hard to get out of this let us make for ourselves four hiding holes
they made the holes then they laid hands on the horse
the king heard the noise it must be my brown horse said he to his gillies find out what is wrong with him the servants went out and when conall and his sons saw them coming they went into the hiding holes
the servants looked amongst the horses and they did not find anything wrong and they returned and they told this to the king and the king said to them that if nothing was wrong they should go to their places of rest when the gillies had time to be gone
conall and his sons laid their hands again on the horse if the noise was great that he made before the noise that he made now was seven times greater the king sent a message for his gillies again and said for certain there was something troubling the brown horse go and look well about him
the servants went out and the others went to their hiding holes the servants rummaged well and did not find a thing
that is marvellous for me said the king
when conall and his sons perceived that the gillies were gone they laid hands again on the horse and one of them caught him and if the noise that the horse made on the two former times was great he made more this time be this from me said the king
it must be that some one is troubling my brown horse he sounded the bell hastily and when his waiting man came to him he said to him to let the stable gillies know that something was wrong with the horse the gillies came and the king went with them
when conall and his sons perceived the company coming they went to the hiding holes the king was a wary man and he saw where the horses were making a noise be wary said the king there are men within the stable let us get at them somehow
the king followed the tracks of the men and he found them every one knew conall for he was a valued tenant of the king of erin and when the king brought them up out of the holes he said o conall is it you that are here i am o king
without question and necessity made me come i am under thy pardon and under thine honour and under thy grace he told how it happened to him and that he had to get the brown horse for the king of erin or that his sons were to be put to death
i knew that i should not get him by asking and i was going to steal him yes conall it is well enough but come in said the king he desired his look out men to set a watch on the sons of conall and to give them meat and a double watch was set that night on the sons of conall
now o conall said the king were you ever in a harder place than to be seeing your lot of sons hanged to morrow but you set it to my goodness and to my grace and say that it was necessity brought it on you so i must not hang you
tell me any case in which you were as hard as this and if you tell that you shall get the soul of your youngest son i will tell a case as hard in which i was said conall i was once a young lad and my father had much land
and he had parks of year old cows and one of them had just calved and my father told me to bring her home i found the cow and took her with us there fell a shower of snow we went into the herd's bothy
and we took the cow and the calf in with us and we were letting the shower pass from us who should come in but one cat and ten and one great one eyed fox coloured cat as head bard over them
when they came in in very deed i myself had no liking for their company strike up with you said the head bard why should we be still and sing a cronan to conall yellowclaw
said the head bard now o conall pay the reward of the cronan that the cats have sung to thee well then said i myself i have no reward whatsoever for you unless you should go down and take that calf
play up with you why should you be silent make a cronan to conall yellowclaw said the head bard i had no liking at all for the cronan but up came the one cat and ten and if they did not sing me a cronan then and there
pay them now their reward said the great fox coloured cat i am tired myself of yourselves and your rewards said i i have no reward for you unless you take that cow down there they betook themselves to the cow and indeed
go up and sing a cronan to conall yellowclaw said the head bard and surely o king i had no care for them or for their cronan for i began to see that they were not good comrades
pay now their reward said the head bard and for sure o king i had no reward for them and i said to them i have no reward for you and surely o king there was a catterwauling between them so i leapt out at a turf window that was at the back of the house
i took myself off as hard as i might into the wood i was swift enough and strong at that time and when i felt the rustling toirm of the cats after me i climbed into as high a tree as i saw in the place and one that was close in the top and i hid myself as well as i might
the cats began to search for me through the wood and they could not find me and when they were tired each one said to the other that they would turn back but said the one eyed fox coloured cat that was commander in chief over them
you saw him not with your two eyes and though i have but one eye there's the rascal up in the tree when he had said that
be this from me said the one eyed one
there is a shout of a man in extremity and i must not be without replying to it and the wisest of the men said let it alone till we hear it again the cats began again digging wildly
and i myself gave the next shout and in very deed it was not a weak one certainly said the priest it is a man in extremity let us move
and the cats arose on the tree and they broke the third root and the tree fell on her elbow then i gave the third shout the stalwart men hastened and when they saw how the cats served the tree they began at them with the spades and they themselves and the cats began at each other
till the cats ran away and surely o king i did not move till i saw the last one of them off and then i came home
och conall said the king you are full of words you have freed the soul of your son with your tale and if you tell me a harder case than that you will get your second youngest son and then you will have two sons
well then said conall on condition that thou dost that i will tell thee how i was once in a harder case than to be in thy power in prison to night let's hear said the king
i was then said conall quite a young lad and i went out hunting and my father's land was beside the sea and it was rough with rocks caves and rifts
when i was looking what should i do but fall and the place was so full of heather that neither bone nor skin was broken i knew not how i should get out of this
i was not looking before me but i kept looking overhead the way i came and thinking that the day would never come that i could get up there it was terrible for me to be there till i should die
i heard a great clattering coming and what was there but a great giant and two dozen of goats with him and a buck at their head and when the giant had tied the goats he came up and he said to me hao o
och said i it's not much you will be bettered by me though you should tear me asunder i will make but one meal for you but i see that you are one eyed i am a good leech and i will give you the sight of the other eye
the giant went and he drew the great caldron on the site of the fire i myself was telling him how he should heat the water
i am not said i but the ropes are so tight that i take long to loose them
but i see thee not i kept letting them out by the way of one and one as i flayed the buck and before the last one was out i had him flayed bag wise then i went and i put my legs in place of his legs
and my hands in place of his forelegs and my head in place of his head and the horns on top of my head so that the brute might think that it was the buck i went out when i was going out the giant laid his hand on me and he said
there thou art thou pretty buck thou seest me but i see thee not when i myself got out and i saw the world about me surely o king joy was on me when i was out and had shaken the skin off me i said to the brute
i am out now in spite of you aha said he hast thou done this to me
and it will do thee good i will not take the ring from you said i but throw it and i will take it with me he threw the ring on the flat ground i went myself and lifted the ring and i put it on my finger when he said to me then is the ring fitting thee
i said to him it is then he said where art thou ring and the ring said i am here the brute went and went towards where the ring was speaking and now i saw that i was in a harder case than ever i was i drew a dirk i cut the finger from off me
and i threw it from me as far as i could out on the loch and there was a great depth in the place he shouted where art thou ring and the ring said i am here
he gave a spring after the ring and out he went in the sea and i was as pleased then when i saw him drowning
when the giant was drowned i went in and i took with me all he had of gold and silver and i went home and surely great joy was on my people when i arrived and as a sign now look the finger is off me
yes indeed conall you are wordy and wise said the king i see the finger is off you you have freed your two sons
then went my father said conall and he got me a wife and i was married i went to hunt
and many precious things within her
when i went out of the boat the boat returned where she was before i did not know now what i should do the place was without meat or clothing without the appearance of a house on it i came out on the top of a hill then i came to a glen
i saw in it at the bottom of a hollow a woman with a child and the child was naked on her knee and she had a knife in her hand she tried to put the knife to the throat of the babe and the babe began to laugh in her face and she began to cry and she threw the knife behind her
i thought to myself that i was near my foe and far from my friends and i called to the woman what are you doing here and she said to me what brought you here i told her myself word upon word how i came well then said she
it was so i came also she showed me to the place where i should come in where she was i went in and i said to her what was the matter that you were putting the knife on the neck of the child it is that he must be cooked for the giant who is here
or else no more of my world will be before me just then we could be hearing the footsteps of the giant what shall i do what shall i do cried the woman i went to the caldron and by luck it was not hot so in it i got just as the brute came in
hast thou boiled that youngster for me he cried he's not done yet said she and i cried out from the caldron mammy mammy it's boiling i am
as fortune favoured me the brute slept beside the caldron there i was scalded by the bottom of the caldron when she perceived that he was asleep she set her mouth quietly to the hole that was in the lid and she said to me was i alive i said i was
i left the skin of my hips behind me but i came out when i got out of the caldron i knew not what to do and she said to me that there was no weapon that would kill him but his own weapon i began to draw his spear
but with every ill that befell me i got the spear loosed from him
and it was not agreeable for the like of me to attack him
and he fell cold dead where he was and you may be sure o king that joy was on me
i went and got the boat with which i came and she was no way lightened and took the woman and the child over on dry land and i returned home
and our enquiries in the course of two thousand years been able to pass from words to the true and real subject of the controversy for how easy may it seem to give exact definitions of the terms employed in reasoning
and make these definitions not the mere sound of words the object of future scrutiny and examination but if we consider the matter more narrowly we shall be apt to draw a quite opposite conclusion
from this circumstance alone that a controversy has been long kept on foot and remains still undecided we may presume that there is some ambiguity in the expression and that the disputants affix different ideas to the terms employed in the controversy
for as the faculties of the mind are supposed to be naturally alike in every individual otherwise nothing could be more fruitless than to reason or dispute together it were impossible
if men affix the same ideas to their terms that they could so long form different opinions of the same subject especially when they communicate their views and each party turn themselves on all sides
in search of arguments which may give them the victory over their antagonists it is true if men attempt the discussion of questions which lie entirely beyond the reach of human capacity
such as those concerning the origin of worlds or the economy of the intellectual system or region of spirits they may long beat the air in their fruitless contests and never arrive at any determinate conclusion but if the question regard
any subject of common life and experience nothing one would think could preserve the dispute so long undecided but some ambiguous expressions which keep the antagonists still at a distance
and to so remarkable a degree that if i be not much mistaken we shall find that all mankind both learned and ignorant have always been of the same opinion with regard to this subject and that a few intelligible definitions would immediately have put
an end to the whole controversy i own that this dispute has been so much canvassed on all hands and has led philosophers into such a labyrinth of obscure sophistry that it is no wonder
promises at least some decision of the controversy and will not much disturb his ease by any intricate or obscure reasoning i hope therefore to make it appear that all men have ever agreed in the doctrine
both of necessity and of liberty according to any reasonable sense which can be put on these terms and that the whole controversy has hitherto turned merely upon words
in all its operations is actuated by a necessary force and that every natural effect is so precisely determined by the energy of its cause that no other effect in such particular circumstances could possibly have resulted from it
the degree and direction of every motion is by the laws of nature prescribed with such exactness that a living creature may as soon arise from the shock of two bodies as motion in any other degree or direction than what is actually produced by it
would we therefore form a just and precise idea of necessity we must consider whence that idea arises when we apply it to the operation of bodies it seems evident that
if all the scenes of nature were continually shifted in such a manner that no two events bore any resemblance to each other but every object was entirely new without any similitude to whatever had been seen before we should never in that case have attained the least idea of necessity
that one object or event has followed another not that one was produced by the other the relation of cause and effect must be utterly unknown to mankind inference and reasoning concerning the operations of nature would from that moment
be at an end and the memory and senses remain the only canals by which the knowledge of any real existence could possibly have access to the mind our idea therefore of necessity and causation arises entirely from the uniformity observable
in the operations of nature where similar objects are constantly conjoined together and the mind is determined by custom to infer the one from the appearance of the other
which we ascribe to matter beyond the constant conjunction of similar objects and the consequent inference from one to the other we have no notion of any necessity or connexion if it appear therefore that all mankind have ever allowed
without any doubt or hesitation that these two circumstances take place in the voluntary actions of men and in the operations of mind it must follow that all mankind have ever agreed in the doctrine of necessity and that they have hitherto disputed
we may possibly satisfy ourselves by the following considerations it is universally acknowledged that there is a great uniformity among the actions of men in all nations and ages and that human nature remains still the same
in its principles and operations the same motives always produce the same actions the same events follow from the same causes ambition avarice self love vanity friendship
generosity public spirit these passions mixed in various degrees and distributed through society have been from the beginning of the world and still are the source of all the actions and enterprises which have ever been observed
among mankind would you know the sentiments inclinations and course of life of the greeks and romans study well the temper and actions of the french and english you cannot be much mistaken in transferring to the former most of the observations
which you have made with regard to the latter mankind are so much the same in all times and places that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature
by showing men in all varieties of circumstances and situations and furnishing us with materials from which we may form our observations and become acquainted with the regular springs of human action and behaviour these records of wars intrigues
factions and revolutions are so many collections of experiments by which the politician or moral philosopher fixes the principles of his science in the same manner as the physician or natural philosopher becomes acquainted with the nature of plants minerals
and other external objects by the experiments which he forms concerning them nor are the earth water and other elements examined by aristotle and hippocrates more like to those which at present lie under our observation than the men described by polybius and tacitus
are to those who now govern the world should a traveller returning from a far country bring us an account of men wholly different from any with whom we were ever acquainted men who were entirely divested of avarice ambition or revenge
who knew no pleasure but friendship generosity and public spirit we should immediately from these circumstances detect the falsehood and prove him a liar with the same certainty as if he had stuffed his narration with stories of centaurs and dragons
miracles and prodigies and if we would explode any forgery in history we cannot make use of a more convincing argument than to prove that the actions ascribed to any person are directly contrary to the course of nature and that no human motives in such circumstances
could ever induce him to such a conduct the veracity of quintus curtius is as much to be suspected when he describes the supernatural courage of alexander by which he was hurried on singly to attack multitudes as when he describes his supernatural force and activity
so readily and universally do we acknowledge a uniformity in human motives and actions as well as in the operations of body hence likewise the benefit of that experience acquired by long life and a variety of business and company
by means of this guide we mount up to the knowledge of men's inclinations and motives from their actions expressions and even gestures and again descend to the interpretation of their actions from our knowledge of their motives and inclinations
the general observations treasured up by a course of experience give us the clue of human nature and teach us to unravel all its intricacies pretexts and appearances no longer deceive us public declarations pass for the specious colouring of a cause
and though virtue and honour be allowed their proper weight and authority that perfect disinterestedness so often pretended to is never expected in multitudes and parties seldom in their leaders and scarcely even in individuals of any rank or station
but were there no uniformity in human actions and were every experiment which we could form of this kind irregular and anomalous it were impossible to collect any general observations concerning mankind and no experience
however accurately digested by reflection would ever serve to any purpose why is the aged husbandman more skilful in his calling than the young beginner but because there is a certain uniformity in the operation of the sun rain and earth
towards the production of vegetables and experience teaches the old practitioner the rules by which this operation is governed
expect that this uniformity of human actions should be carried to such a length as that all men in the same circumstances will always act precisely in the same manner without making any allowance for the diversity of characters prejudices and opinions
is found in no part of nature
this affords room for many general observations concerning the gradual change of our sentiments and inclinations and the different maxims which prevail in the different ages of human creatures even the characters which are peculiar to each individual have a uniformity in their influence
could never teach us their dispositions
which seem to have no regular connexion with any known motives
which have ever been established for the government of men but if we would willingly know what judgement should be formed of such irregular and extraordinary actions we may consider the sentiments commonly entertained with regard to those irregular events which appear in the course of nature
and the operations of external objects
an artificer who handles only dead matter may be disappointed of his aim as well as the politician who directs the conduct of sensible and intelligent agents the vulgar who take things according to their first appearance
attribute the uncertainty of events to such an uncertainty in the causes as makes the latter often fail of their usual influence
the contrariety of events may not proceed from any contingency in the cause but from the secret operation of contrary causes this possibility is converted into certainty by farther observation when they remark that upon an exact scrutiny
a contrariety of effects always betrays a contrariety of causes and proceeds from their mutual opposition a peasant can give no better reason for the stopping of any clock or watch than to say that it does not commonly go right but an artist
easily perceives that the same force in the spring or pendulum has always the same influence on the wheels but fails of its usual effect perhaps by reason of a grain of dust which puts a stop to the whole movement from the observation of several parallel instances
philosophers form a maxim that the connexion between all causes and effects is equally necessary and that its seeming uncertainty in some instances proceeds from the secret opposition of contrary causes thus for instance in the human body
when the usual symptoms of health or sickness disappoint our expectation when medicines operate not with their wonted powers when irregular events follow from any particular cause
by which the animal economy is conducted they know that a human body is a mighty complicated machine that many secret powers lurk in it which are altogether beyond our comprehension that to us
it must often appear very uncertain in its operations and that therefore the irregular events which outwardly discover themselves can be no proof that the laws of nature are not observed with the greatest regularity
a person of an obliging disposition gives a peevish answer but he has the toothache or has not dined a stupid fellow discovers an uncommon alacrity in his carriage but he has met with a sudden piece of good fortune
to some persons who have no fixed rule for their conduct but proceed in a continued course of caprice and inconstancy the internal principles and motives may operate in a uniform manner notwithstanding these seeming irregularities
in the same manner as the winds rain clouds and other variations of the weather are supposed to be governed by steady principles though not easily discoverable by human sagacity
not only that the conjunction between motives and voluntary actions is as regular and uniform as that between the cause and effect in any part of nature but also that this regular conjunction has been universally acknowledged among mankind and has never been the subject of dispute
or common life now as it is from past experience that we draw all inferences concerning the future and as we conclude that objects will always be conjoined together which we find to have always been conjoined it may seem superfluous to prove that this experienced uniformity in human actions
is a source whence we draw inferences concerning them but in order to throw the argument into a greater variety of lights we shall also insist though briefly on this latter topic the mutual dependence of men is so great in all societies
that scarce any human action is entirely complete in itself or is performed without some reference to the actions of others which are requisite to make it answer fully the intention of the agent the poorest artificer who labours alone expects at least the protection of the magistrate
to ensure him the enjoyment of the fruits of his labour he also expects that when he carries his goods to market and offers them at a reasonable price he shall find purchasers and shall be able by the money he acquires to engage others to supply him with those commodities which are requisite
for his subsistence in proportion as men extend their dealings and render their intercourse with others more complicated they always comprehend in their schemes of life a greater variety of voluntary actions which they expect from the proper motives to co operate with their own
and firmly believe that men as well as all the elements are to continue in their operations the same that they have ever found them a manufacturer reckons upon the labour of his servants for the execution of any work
in short this experimental inference and reasoning concerning the actions of others enters so much into human life that no man while awake is ever a moment without employing it
according to the foregoing definition
for not to mention that almost every action of their life supposes that opinion there are even few of the speculative parts of learning to which it is not essential what would become of history had we not a dependence on the veracity of the historian
according to the experience which we have had of mankind how could politics be a science if laws and forms of goverment had not a uniform influence upon society where would be the foundation of morals if particular characters had no certain
or determinate power to produce particular sentiments and if these sentiments had no constant operation on actions and with what pretence could we employ our criticism upon any poet or polite author
if we could not pronounce the conduct and sentiments of his actors either natural or unnatural to such characters and in such circumstances
it seems almost impossible therefore to engage either in science or action of any kind without acknowledging the doctrine of necessity and this inference from motive to voluntary actions from characters to conduct and indeed
when we consider how aptly natural and moral evidence link together and form only one chain of argument we shall make no scruple to allow that they are of the same nature and derived from the same principles
as well when he considers the obstinacy of the gaoler as the walls and bars with which he is surrounded
than upon the inflexible nature of the other the same prisoner when conducted to the scaffold foresees his death as certainly from the constancy and fidelity of his guards as from the operation of the axe or wheel
his mind runs along a certain train of ideas the refusal of the soldiers to consent to his escape the action of the executioner the separation of the head and body bleeding convulsive motions and death
here is a connected chain of natural causes and voluntary actions but the mind feels no difference between them in passing from one link to another nor is less certain of the future event than if it were connected with the objects present to the memory or senses by a train of causes
cemented together by what we are pleased to call a physical necessity the same experienced union has the same effect on the mind whether the united objects be motives volition and actions or figure and motion we may change the name of things
never change were a man whom i know to be honest and opulent and with whom i live in intimate friendship
i rest assured that he is not to stab me before he leaves it in order to rob me of my silver standish and i no more suspect this event than the falling of the house itself which is new and solidly built and founded
but he may have been seized with a sudden and unknown frenzy so may a sudden earthquake arise and shake and tumble my house about my ears i shall therefore change the suppositions i shall say that i know with certainty
that he is not to put his hand into the fire and hold it there till it be consumed and this event i think i can foretell with the same assurance as that
and meet with no obstruction he will not remain a moment suspended in the air no suspicion of an unknown frenzy can give the least possibility to the former event which is so contrary to all the known principles of human nature
a man who at noon leaves his purse full of gold on the pavement at charing cross
as that he will find it untouched an hour after above one half of human reasonings contain inferences of a similar nature attended with more or less degrees of certainty proportioned to our experience of the usual conduct of mankind
what could possibly be the reason why all mankind though they have ever without hesitation acknowledged the doctrine of necessity in their whole practice and reasoning have yet discovered such a reluctance to acknowledge it in words and have rather shown a propensity
in all ages to profess the contrary opinion
but though this conclusion concerning human ignorance be the result of the strictest scrutiny of this subject
when again they turn their reflections towards the operations of their own minds and feel no such connexion of the motive and the action they are thence apt to suppose that there is a difference between the effects which result from material force
and the consequent inference of the mind from one to another and finding that these two circumstances are universally allowed to have place in voluntary actions we may be more easily led to own the same necessity common to all causes
and though this reasoning may contradict the systems of many philosophers in ascribing necessity to the determinations of the will we shall find upon reflection that they dissent from it in words only not in their real sentiment
has never yet been rejected nor can ever i think be rejected by any philosopher it may only perhaps be pretended that the mind can perceive in the operations of matter some farther connexion between the cause and effect
and connexion that has not place in voluntary actions of intelligent beings now whether it be so or not can only appear upon examination and it is incumbent on these philosophers to make good their assertion by defining or describing that necessity
when they enter upon it by examining the faculties of the soul the influence of the understanding and the operations of the will let them first discuss a more simple question namely the operations of body and of brute unintelligent matter
and try whether they can there form any idea of causation and necessity except that of a constant conjunction of objects and subsequent inference of the mind from one to another
and if these circumstances be also universally acknowledged to take place in the operations of the mind the dispute is at an end at least must be owned to be thenceforth merely verbal
but as long as we will rashly suppose that we have some farther idea of necessity and causation in the operations of external objects
is the constant conjunction and inference above mentioned we may perhaps find that it is with difficulty we are induced to fix such narrow limits to human understanding but we can afterwards find no difficulty when we come to apply this doctrine to the actions of the will
for as it is evident that these have a regular conjunction with motives and circumstances and characters and as we always draw inferences from one to the other we must be obliged to acknowledge in words that necessity which we have already avowed in every deliberation of our lives
of liberty or indifference
the necessity of any action whether of matter or of mind is not properly speaking a quality in the agent but in any thinking or intelligent being who may consider the action and it consists chiefly in the determination
of his thoughts to infer the existence of that action from some preceding objects as liberty when opposed to necessity is nothing but the want of that determination and a certain looseness or indifference which we feel in passing or not passing from the idea of one object
to that of any succeeding one now we may observe that though in reflecting on human actions we seldom feel such a looseness or indifference but are commonly able to infer them with considerable certainty from their motives and from the dispositions of the agent
yet it frequently happens that in performing the actions themselves we are sensible of something like it and as all resembling objects are readily taken for each other this has been employed as a demonstrative and even intuitive proof of human liberty
we feel that our actions are subject to our will on most occasions and imagine we feel that the will itself is subject to nothing because when by a denial of it we are provoked to try we feel that it moves easily every way and produces an image of itself
even on that side on which it did not settle this image or faint motion we persuade ourselves could at that time have been compleated into the thing itself because should that be denied we find upon a second trial that
at present it can we consider not that the fantastical desire of shewing liberty is here the motive of our actions and it seems certain that however we may imagine we feel a liberty within ourselves
and the most secret springs of our complexion and disposition now this is the very essence of necessity according to the foregoing doctrine
for what is meant by liberty when applied to voluntary actions we cannot surely mean that actions have so little connexion with motives inclinations and circumstances that one does not follow with a certain degree of uniformity from the other
and that one affords no inference by which we can conclude the existence of the other for these are plain and acknowledged matters of fact by liberty then we can only mean a power of acting or not acting according to the determinations of the will
that is if we choose to remain at rest we may if we choose to move we also may now this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to every one who is not a prisoner and in chains here then
we should be careful to observe two requisite circumstances first
it is universally allowed that nothing exists without a cause of its existence and that chance when strictly examined is a mere negative word and means not any real power which has anywhere a being in nature
but it is pretended that some causes are necessary some not necessary here then is the advantage of definitions let any one define a cause without comprehending as a part of the definition
a necessary connexion with its effect and let him show distinctly the origin of the idea expressed by the definition and i shall readily give up the whole controversy but if the foregoing explication of the matter be received
we should have understood the terms for this is indeed all we know of the matter
and the half naked little children played upon the earthen floor
yes yes said katherine speaking of the matter of which they had already been talking
and i for one am of no mind to say no to that all the same it is a sad thing that a simple witted little child like the young baron should be so treated as the boy has been
i for one say that he should not be left there to die alone in that black cell fritz the swineherd gave a grunt at this without raising his eyes from the bowl yes good said katherine i know what thou meanest fritz
but to hear the way that dear little child spoke when she was here this morn
wilt thou not fritz the swineherd dropped his wooden spoon into the bowl with a clatter potstausand he cried art thou gone out of thy head to let thy wits run upon such things as this of which thou talkest to me
if it should come to our lord baron's ears
our lives are not as much to them as one of my black swine why should i trouble my head if they choose to lop and trim one another the fewer there are of them the better for us say i we poor folk have a hard enough life of it without
thrusting our heads into the noose to help them out of their troubles
nay said katherine
and what good would that do said fritz the swineherd i know not said katherine but i have promised the little one that thou wouldst find the baron conrad and tell him that much thou hast promised a mare's egg said her husband angrily
for it is not likely that he will keep far away from here whilst his boy is in such sore need of help i will have nothing to do with it said fritz and he got up from the wooden block whereon he was sitting and stumped out of the house
but then katherine had heard him talk in that way before and knew in spite of his saying no that sooner or later
two days later a very stout little one eyed man clad in a leathern jerkin and wearing a round leathern cap upon his head came toiling up the path to the postern door of trutz drachen his back bowed under the burthen of a great peddler's pack it was our old friend the one eyed hans
he waited for a while and then knocked again rap tap tap presently with a click a little square wicket that pierced the door was opened and a woman's face peered out through the iron bars the one eyed hans whipped off his leathern cap
good day pretty one said he and hast thou any need of glass beads ribbons combs or trinkets
here be rings and bracelets and necklaces that might be of pure silver and set with diamonds and rubies for anything that thy dear one could tell if he saw thee decked in them and all are so cheap that thou hast only to say i want them
and they are thine the frightened face at the window looked from right to left and from left to right hush said the girl and laid her finger upon her lips there
thou hadst best get away from here poor soul as fast as thy legs can carry thee for if the lord baron should find thee here talking secretly at the postern door he would loose the wolf hounds upon thee prut said one eyed hans with a grin
even though my stay be at the danger of my own hide
while the round face of the lass her eyes big with curiosity peered down at him through the grated iron bars hans held up a necklace of blue and white beads that glistened like jewels in the sun and from them
hung a gorgeous filigree cross didst thou ever see a sweeter thing than this said he and look
all the way through then in a soft wheedling voice canst thou not let me in my little bird
sure there are other lasses besides thyself who would like to trade with a poor peddler who has travelled all the way from gruenstadt just to please the pretty ones of trutz drachen nay
i cannot let thee in i know not what the baron would do to me
and she made as if she would clap to the little window in his face but the one eyed hans thrust his staff betwixt the bars and so kept the shutter open
do not go away from me too soon look dear one seest thou this necklace aye
then listen if thou wilt but let me into the castle so that i may strike a trade i will give it to thee for thine own without thy paying a barley corn for it
the girl looked and hesitated and then looked again the temptation was too great there was a noise of softly drawn bolts and bars the door was hesitatingly opened a little way and in a twinkling the one eyed hans had slipped inside the castle pack and all
the necklace said the girl in a frightened whisper hans thrust it into her hand it's thine said he and now wilt thou not help me to a trade i will tell my sister that thou art here said she
and away she ran from the little stone hallway carefully bolting and locking the further door behind her the door that the girl had locked was the only one that connected the postern hail with the castle the one eyed hans stood looking after her
if thou hadst but let me into the castle for only two little minutes i would have found somewhere to have hidden myself while thy back was turned but what shall i do now he rested his pack upon the floor and stood looking about him
as hans one eye wandered around the bare stone space his glance fell at last upon it and there it rested
finally he drew a deep breath and giving himself a shake as though to arouse himself from his thoughts and after listening a moment or two to make sure that no one was nigh he walked softly to the fireplace and stooping peered up the chimney
inky with the soot of years hans straightened himself and tilting his leathern cap to one side began scratching his bullet head at last he drew a long breath yes good he muttered to himself he who jumps into the river must e e n swim the best he can
he settled the cap more firmly upon his head spat upon his hands and once more stooping in the fireplace gave a leap and up the chimney he went with a rattle of loose mortar and a black trickle of soot
by and by footsteps sounded outside the door there was a pause a hurried whispering of women's voices
behind her broad heavy face were three others equally homely and stolid for a while all four stood there looking blankly into the room and around it nothing was there but the peddler's knapsack lying in the middle of the floor the man was gone
the light of expectancy slowly faded out of the girl's face and in its place succeeded first bewilderment and then dull alarm but dear heaven she said where then has the peddler man gone
a moment or two of silence followed her speech perhaps said one of the others in a voice hushed with awe perhaps it was the evil one himself to whom thou didst open the door again there was a hushed and breathless pause
yes said she in a voice trembling with fright at what she had done yes it must have been the evil one for now i remember he had but one eye the four girls crossed themselves and their eyes grew big and round with the fright suddenly
a shower of mortar came rattling down the chimney ach cried the four
he turned it over with his pike staff and saw that it was full of beads and trinkets and ribbons how came this here said he
she felt her knees shake under her and thought she was going to swoon she put out her disengaged hand to steady herself and if the face which was turned to him was pale there was a steadfast resolution in her dark eyes let me relieve you of that miss holland
he wrenched rather than took the box from her hand replaced it carefully in the drawer pushed the drawer to and locked it examining the key as he withdrew it then he closed the safe and locked that obviously he said presently
there are many courses which i can adopt he said slowly i can send for the police when my servants whom you have despatched so thoughtfully have returned or i can take your punishment into my own hands
so far as i am concerned said the girl coolly you may send for the police she leant back against the edge of the desk her hands holding the edge and faced him without so much as a quaver i do not like the police
mused kara when there came a knock at the door kara turned and opened it and after a low strained conversation he returned closing the door and laid a paper of stamps on the girl's table as i was saying i do not care for the police and i prefer my own method
am i right in supposing that you are one of mister t x meredith's accomplices i do not know mister t x meredith she replied calmly and i am not in any way associated with the police
nevertheless he persisted
and that removes any temptation i might have to place you in the hands of the law let me see he pursed his lips as he applied his mind to the problem she half sat half stood watching him without any evidence of apprehension but with a heart which began to quake a little
for three months she had played her part and the strain had been greater than she had confessed to herself
that was the sickening maddening thing about it all it was not the fear of arrest or of conviction which brought a sinking to her heart it was the despair of failure added to a sense of her helplessness against this man
if i had you arrested your name would appear in all the papers of course he said narrowly and your photograph would probably adorn the sunday journals he added expectantly she laughed
that doesn't appeal to me she said i am afraid it doesn't he replied and strolled towards her as though to pass her on his way to the window
he was abreast of her when he suddenly swung round and catching her in his arms he caught her close to him before she could realise what he planned he had stooped swiftly and kissed her full upon the mouth if you scream i shall kiss you again he said
for i have sent the maid to buy some more stamps to the general post office let me go she gasped now for the first time he saw the terror in her eyes and there surged within him that mad sense of triumph
for god's sake let me go she whispered he felt her shaking in his arms and suddenly he released her with a little laugh and she sank trembling from head to foot upon the chair by her desk
now you're going to tell me who sent you here he went on harshly and why you came i never suspected you i thought you were one of those strange creatures one meets in england a gentlewoman who prefers working for her living to the more simple business of getting married
and all the time you were spying clever very clever the girl was thinking rapidly in five minutes fisher would return
he must have read her thoughts for he came nearer and stood over her you needn't shrink my young friend he said with a little chuckle
get up he half lifted half dragged her to her feet and led her from the room they descended to the hall together and the girl spoke no word perhaps she hoped that she might wrench herself free and make her escape into the street
but in this she was disappointed the grip about her arm was a grip of steel and she knew safety did not lie in that direction she pulled back at the head of the stairs that led down to the kitchen where are you taking me she asked
i am going to put you into safe custody he said on the whole i think it is best that the police take this matter in hand and i shall lock you into my wine cellar and go out in search of a policeman the big wooden door opened revealing a second door
and this kara unbolted she noticed that both doors were sheeted with steel the outer on the inside and the inner door on the outside
he said pushing her back as she made a frantic attempt to escape he swung the outer door to as she raised her voice in a piercing scream and clapping his hand over her mouth held her tightly for a moment i have warned you he hissed
she saw his face distorted with rage she saw kara transfigured with devilish anger saw that handsome almost godlike countenance thrust into hers
when she recovered consciousness she found herself lying on a plain stretcher bed she sat up suddenly
the cellar was dry and clean and its walls were enamelled white
there was a table and a chair and a small washstand and air was evidently supplied through unseen ventilators
she examined the room carefully at the farthermost end was another door and this she pushed gently at first and then vigorously without producing the slightest impression she still had her bag a small affair of black moire which hung from her belt
in which was nothing more formidable than a penknife a small bottle of smelling salts and a pair of scissors the latter she had used for cutting out those paragraphs from the daily newspapers which referred to kara's movements
they would make a formidable weapon and wrapping her handkerchief round the handle to give it a better grip she placed it on the table within reach she was dimly conscious all the time that she had heard something about this wine cellar
something which if she could recollect it would be of service to her then in a flash she remembered that there was a lower cellar
it was approached from the outside down a circular flight of stairs there might be a way out from that direction and would there not be some connection between the upper cellar and the lower she set to work to make a closer examination of the apartment
the floor was of concrete covered with a light rush matting this she carefully rolled up starting at the door one half of the floor was uncovered without revealing the existence of any trap
obviously there was no need for the fixture and she tapped the floor with her little knuckle her heart started racing the sound her knocking gave forth was a hollow one
she sprang up took her bag from the table opened the little penknife and cut carefully through the thin rushes she might have to replace the matting and it was necessary she should do her work tidily soon the whole of the trap was revealed
there was an iron ring which fitted flush with the top and which she pulled the trap yielded and swung back as though there were a counterbalance at the other end as indeed there was she peered down there was a dim light below the reflection of a light in the distance
she was in a cellar slightly smaller than that above her the light she had seen came from an inner apartment which would be underneath the kitchen of the house she made her way cautiously along stepping on tip toe the first of the rooms she came to was well furnished
there was a thick carpet on the floor comfortable easy chairs a little bookcase well filled and a reading lamp this must be kara's underground study where he kept his precious papers
the room she was in was also without any light which came from the farthermost chamber as the girl strode softly across the well carpeted room she trod on something hard
the girl was bewildered almost panic stricken she shrunk back from the entrance of the inner room fearful of what she would see and then from the interior came a sound that made her tingle with horror it was a sound of a sigh long and trembling
she set her teeth and strode through the doorway and stood for a moment staring with open eyes and mouth at what she saw my god she breathed london
the goose girl once upon a time an old queen whose husband had been dead for many years had a beautiful daughter when she grew up she was betrothed to a prince who lived a great way off
now when the time drew near for her to be married and to depart into a foreign kingdom her old mother gave her much costly baggage and many ornaments gold and silver
for she loved her daughter very dearly she gave her a waiting maid also who was to ride with her and hand her over to the bridegroom and she provided each of them with a horse for the journey now the princess's horse was called falada and could speak
when the hour for departure drew near the old mother went to her bedroom and taking a small knife she cut her fingers till they bled then she held a white rag under them and letting three drops of blood fall into it she gave it to her daughter and said
dear child take great care of this rag it may be of use to you on the journey so they took a sad farewell of each other and the princess stuck the rag in front of her dress mounted her horse
and set forth on the journey to her bridegroom's kingdom after they had ridden for about an hour the princess began to feel very thirsty and said to her waiting maid pray get down and fetch me some water in my golden cup out of yonder stream i would like a drink
if you're thirsty said the maid dismount yourself and lie down by the water and drink i don't mean to be your servant any longer the princess was so thirsty that she got down
bent over the stream and drank for she wasn't allowed to drink out of the golden goblet as she drank she murmured oh heaven what am i to do and the three drops of blood replied if your mother only knew
her heart would surely break in two but the princess was meek and said nothing about her maid's rude behavior and quietly mounted her horse again they rode on their way for several miles but the day was hot
pray get down and give me a drink from my golden cup for she had long ago forgotten her maid's rude words
if you want a drink you can dismount and get it i don't mean to be your servant then the princess was compelled by her thirst to get down and bending over the flowing water she cried and said oh heaven what am i to do
and the three drops of blood replied if your mother only knew her heart would surely break in two and as she drank thus and leaned right over the water the rag containing the three drops of blood fell from her bosom and floated down the stream
and she in her anxiety never even noticed her loss but the waiting maid had observed it with delight as she knew it gave her power over the bride for in losing the drops of blood the princess had become weak and powerless
when she wished to get on her horse falada again the waiting maid called out i mean to ride falada
and this too she had to submit to then the waiting maid commanded her harshly to take off her royal robes
and finally she made her swear by heaven not to say a word about the matter when they reached the palace and if she hadn't taken this oath
but falada observed everything and laid it all to heart the waiting maid now mounted falada and the real bride the worse horse and so they continued their journey till at length they arrived at the palace yard
there was great rejoicing over the arrival and the prince sprang forward to meet them and taking the waiting maid for his bride he lifted her down from her horse and led her upstairs to the royal chamber in the meantime the real princess was left standing below in the courtyard
the old king who was looking out of his window beheld her in this plight and it struck him how sweet and gentle even beautiful she looked
and had left thus standing in the court below oh replied the bride i brought her with me to keep me company on the journey
but the old king had no work for her and couldn't think of anything so he said i've a small boy who looks after the geese she'd better help him the youth's name was curdken
and the real bride was made to assist him in herding geese soon after this the false bride said to the prince dearest husband i pray you grant me a favor he answered that i will
then let the slaughterer cut off the head of the horse i rode here upon
but the truth was she was afraid lest the horse should speak and tell how she had treated the princess she carried her point and the faithful falada was doomed to die when the news came to the ears of the real princess she went to the slaughterer
and secretly promised him a piece of gold if he would do something for her there was in the town a large dark gate through which she had to pass night and morning with the geese would he kindly hang up falada's head there that she might see it once again
the slaughterer said he would do as she desired chopped off the head and nailed it firmly over the gateway
as she and curdken were driving their flock through the gate she said as she passed under oh falada tis you hang there and the head replied tis you pass under princess fair if your mother only knew her heart would surely break in two
and when they had reached the common where the geese fed she sat down and unloosed her hair which was of pure gold curdken loved to see it glitter in the sun and wanted much to pull some hair out then she spoke wind wind gently sway
blow curdken's hat away let him chase o'er field and wold till my locks of ruddy gold now astray and hanging down be combed and plaited in a crown then a gust of wind blew curdken's hat away and he had to chase it over hill and dale
tis you pass under princess fair if your mother only knew her heart would surely break in two then she went on her way till she came to the common where she sat down and began to comb out her hair
then curdken ran up to her and wanted to grasp some of the hair from her head but she called out hastily wind wind gently sway blow curdken's hat away let him chase o'er field and wold till my locks of ruddy gold now astray and hanging down be combed and plaited in a crown
then a puff of wind came and blew curdken's hat far away so that he had to run after it and when he returned she had long finished putting up her golden locks and he couldn't get any hair so they watched the geese till it was dark
but that evening when they got home curdken went to the old king and said i refuse to herd geese any longer with that girl for what reason asked the old king because she does nothing but annoy me all day long replied curdken
and he proceeded to relate all her iniquities and said every morning as we drive the flock through the dark gate she says to a horse's head that hangs on the wall
and curdken went on to tell what passed on the common where the geese fed and how he had always to chase his hat the old king bade him go and drive forth his flock as usual next day and when morning came
he himself took up his position behind the dark gate and heard how the goose girl greeted falada then he followed her through the field and hid himself behind a bush on the common
and how after a time the maiden sat down and loosed her hair that glittered like gold and repeated wind wind gently sway blow curdken's hat away let him chase o'er field and wold
till my locks of ruddy gold now astray and hanging down be combed and plaited in a crown then a gust of wind came and blew curdken's hat away so that he had to fly over hill and dale after it and the girl in the meantime quietly combed and plaited her hair
all this the old king observed and returned to the palace without anyone having noticed him in the evening when the goose girl came home he called her aside and asked her why she behaved as she did i may not tell you why how dare i confide my woes to anyone
for i swore not to by heaven otherwise i should have lost my life the old king begged her to tell him all
at last he said well if you won't tell me confide your trouble to the iron stove there and he went away then she crept to the stove and began to sob and cry and to pour out her poor little heart and said here i sit deserted by all the world
i who am a king's daughter and a false waiting maid has forced me to take off my own clothes and has taken my place with my bridegroom while i have to fulfill the lowly office of goose girl if my mother only knew her heart would surely break in two
but the old king stood outside at the stove chimney and listened to her words then he entered the room again and bidding her leave the stove he ordered royal apparel to be put on her in which she looked amazingly lovely
then he summoned his son and revealed to him that he had got the false bride who was nothing but a waiting maid while the real one in the guise of the ex goose girl was standing at his side
the bridegroom sat at the head of the table the princess on one side of him
now when they had eaten and drunk and were merry the old king asked the waiting maid to solve a knotty point for him
and he proceeded to relate the whole story
now what sentence should be passed then the false bride answered she deserves to be put
you are the person said the king and you have passed sentence on yourself
mister bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year which unfortunately for his daughters was entailed in default of heirs male on a distant relation and their mother's fortune
though ample for her situation in life could but ill supply the deficiency of his her father had been an attorney in meryton and had left her four thousand pounds she had a sister married to a mister phillips
who were usually tempted thither three or four times a week to pay their duty to their aunt and to a milliner's shop just over the way the two youngest of the family catherine and lydia were particularly frequent in these attentions their minds were more vacant than their sisters
they were well supplied both with news and happiness by the recent arrival of a militia regiment in the neighbourhood it was to remain the whole winter and meryton was the headquarters their visits to missus phillips were now productive
of the most interesting intelligence every day added something to their knowledge of the officers names and connections their lodgings were not long a secret and at length they began to know the officers themselves mister phillips visited them all
they could talk of nothing but officers and mister bingley's large fortune the mention of which gave animation to their mother was worthless in their eyes when opposed to the regimentals of an ensign after listening one morning to their effusions on this subject
but lydia with perfect indifference continued to express her admiration of captain carter and her hope of seeing him in the course of the day as he was going the next morning to london i am astonished my dear said missus bennet
that you should be so ready to think your own children silly if i wished to think slightingly of anybody's children it should not be of my own however if my children are silly i must hope to be always sensible of it
yes but as it happens they are all of them very clever this is the only point i flatter myself on which we do not agree i had hoped that our sentiments coincided in every particular but i must so far differ from you
i remember the time when i liked a red coat myself very well and indeed so i do still at my heart and if a smart young colonel with five or six thousand a year should want one of my girls i shall not say nay to him
and i thought colonel forster looked very becoming the other night at sir william's in his regimentals mamma cried lydia my aunt says that colonel forster and captain carter do not go so often to miss watson's as they did when they first came
she sees them now very often standing in clarke's library missus bennet was prevented replying by the entrance of the footman with a note for miss bennet it came from netherfield and the servant waited for an answer missus bennet's eyes sparkled with pleasure
and she was eagerly calling out while her daughter read well jane who is it from what is it about what does he say well jane make haste and tell us make haste my love it is from miss bingley said jane and then read it aloud
come as soon as you can on receipt of this my brother and the gentlemen are to dine with the officers yours ever caroline bingley with the officers cried lydia i wonder my aunt did not tell us of that
dining out said missus bennet that is very unlucky can i have the carriage said jane no my dear you had better go on horseback because it seems likely to rain and then you must stay all night that would be a good scheme said elizabeth
they are wanted in the farm mister bennet are they not they are wanted in the farm much oftener than i can get them but if you have got them to day said elizabeth my mother's purpose will be answered
she did at last extort from her father an acknowledgment that the horses were engaged jane was therefore obliged to go on horseback and her mother attended her to the door with many cheerful prognostics of a bad day her hopes were answered
as if the credit of making it rain were all her own till the next morning however she was not aware of all the felicity of her contrivance breakfast was scarcely over when a servant from netherfield brought the following note for elizabeth my dearest lizzy i find myself
very unwell this morning which i suppose is to be imputed to my getting wet through yesterday my kind friends will not hear of my returning till i am better they insist also on my seeing mister jones
therefore do not be alarmed if you should hear of his having been to me and excepting a sore throat and headache there is not much the matter with me yours et cetera well my dear said mister bennet when elizabeth had read the note aloud
if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illness if she should die it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of mister bingley and under your orders oh i am not afraid of her dying people do not die of little trifling colds
she will be taken good care of as long as she stays there it is all very well i would go and see her if i could have the carriage elizabeth feeling really anxious was determined to go to her though the carriage was not to be had and as she was no horsewoman
walking was her only alternative she declared her resolution how can you be so silly cried her mother as to think of such a thing in all this dirt you will not be fit to be seen when you get there i shall be very fit to see jane which is all i want
is this a hint to me lizzy said her father to send for the horses no indeed i do not wish to avoid the walk the distance is nothing when one has a motive only three miles i shall be back by dinner
i admire the activity of your benevolence observed mary but every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason and in my opinion exertion should always be in proportion to what is required we will go as far as meryton with you
said catherine and lydia elizabeth accepted their company and the three young ladies set off together if we make haste said lydia as they walked along perhaps we may see something of captain carter before he goes in meryton they parted
and finding herself at last within view of the house with weary ankles dirty stockings and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise she was shown into the breakfast parlour where all but jane were assembled
and where her appearance created a great deal of surprise that she should have walked three miles so early in the day in such dirty weather and by herself was almost incredible to missus hurst and miss bingley
and elizabeth was convinced that they held her in contempt for it she was received however very politely by them and in their brother's manners there was something better than politeness there was good humour and kindness mister darcy said very little
her inquiries after her sister were not very favourably answered miss bennet had slept ill and though up was very feverish and not well enough to leave her room elizabeth was glad to be taken to her immediately
and jane who had only been withheld by the fear of giving alarm or inconvenience from expressing in her note how much she longed for such a visit was delighted at her entrance she was not equal however to much conversation
and when miss bingley left them together could attempt little besides expressions of gratitude for the extraordinary kindness she was treated with elizabeth silently attended her when breakfast was over they were joined by the sisters
and elizabeth began to like them herself when she saw how much affection and solicitude they showed for jane the apothecary came and having examined his patient said as might be supposed that she had caught a violent cold
and that they must endeavour to get the better of it advised her to return to bed and promised her some draughts the advice was followed readily for the feverish symptoms increased and her head ached acutely
elizabeth did not quit her room for a moment nor were the other ladies often absent the gentlemen being out they had in fact nothing to do elsewhere when the clock struck three elizabeth felt that she must go and very unwillingly said so
and then thought no more of the matter and their indifference towards jane
their brother indeed was the only one of the party whom she could regard with any complacency his anxiety for jane was evident
by whom elizabeth sat he was an indolent man who lived only to eat drink and play at cards who when he found her to prefer a plain dish to a ragout had nothing to say to her when dinner was over she returned directly to jane
and miss bingley began abusing her as soon as she was out of the room her manners were pronounced to be very bad indeed a mixture of pride and impertinence she had no conversation no style no beauty missus hurst thought the same and added
she has nothing in short to recommend her but being an excellent walker i shall never forget her appearance this morning she really looked almost wild she did indeed louisa i could hardly keep my countenance
very nonsensical to come at all why must she be scampering about the country because her sister had a cold her hair so untidy so blowsy yes and her petticoat i hope you saw her petticoat six inches deep in mud i am
i thought miss elizabeth bennet looked remarkably well when she came into the room this morning her dirty petticoat quite escaped my notice you observed it mister darcy i am sure said miss bingley and i am inclined to think that you would not wish to see your sister make such an exhibition
certainly not to walk three miles or four miles or five miles or whatever it is above her ankles in dirt and alone quite alone what could she mean by it it seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence
a most country town indifference to decorum it shows an affection for her sister that is very pleasing said bingley i am afraid mister darcy observed miss bingley in a half whisper
she is really a very sweet girl and i wish with all my heart she were well settled but with such a father and mother and such low connections i am afraid there is no chance of it i think i have heard you say that their uncle is an attorney in meryton yes
and they have another who lives somewhere near cheapside that is capital added her sister and they both laughed heartily if they had uncles enough to fill all cheapside cried bingley it would not make them one jot less agreeable
but it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world replied darcy to this speech bingley made no answer but his sisters gave it their hearty assent and indulged their mirth for some time at the expense of their dear friend's vulgar relations
with a renewal of tenderness however they returned to her room on leaving the dining parlour and sat with her till summoned to coffee she was still very poorly and elizabeth would not quit her at all till late in the evening
when she had the comfort of seeing her sleep and when it seemed to her rather right than pleasant that she should go downstairs herself on entering the drawing room she found the whole party at loo and was immediately invited to join them but suspecting them to be playing high she declined it
and making her sister the excuse said she would amuse herself for the short time she could stay below with a book mister hurst looked at her with astonishment do you prefer reading to cards said he that is rather singular
miss eliza bennet said miss bingley despises cards she is a great reader and has no pleasure in anything else i deserve neither such praise nor such censure cried elizabeth
i am not a great reader and i have pleasure in many things in nursing your sister i am sure you have pleasure said bingley and i hope it will be soon increased by seeing her quite well elizabeth thanked him from her heart
and then walked towards the table where a few books were lying he immediately offered to fetch her others all that his library afforded and i wish my collection were larger for your benefit and my own credit but i am an idle fellow and though i have not many i have more than i ever looked into
elizabeth assured him that she could suit herself perfectly with those in the room i am astonished said miss bingley that my father should have left so small a collection of books what a delightful library you have at pemberley mister darcy
it ought to be good he replied it has been the work of many generations and then you have added so much to it yourself you are always buying books i cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these
neglect i am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of that noble place charles when you build your house i wish it may be half as delightful as pemberley i wish it may
such a countenance such manners and so extremely accomplished for her age her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite it is amazing to me said bingley how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are
i cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen in the whole range of my acquaintance that are really accomplished nor i i am sure said miss bingley then observed elizabeth you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman
yes i do comprehend a great deal in it oh certainly cried his faithful assistant no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with a woman must have a thorough knowledge of music singing drawing dancing
all this she must possess added darcy and to all this she must yet add something more substantial in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading i am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women
i rather wonder now at your knowing any are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all this i never saw such a woman i never saw such capacity and taste and application and elegance as you describe united
elizabeth bennet said miss bingley when the door was closed on her is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own and with many men i dare say it succeeds
but in my opinion it is a paltry device a very mean art undoubtedly replied darcy to whom this remark was chiefly addressed there is a meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation
while his sisters convinced that no country advice could be of any service recommended an express to town for one of the most eminent physicians this she would not hear of but she was not so unwilling to comply with their brother's proposal
and it was settled that mister jones should be sent for early in the morning if miss bennet were not decidedly better bingley was quite uncomfortable his sisters declared that they were miserable they solaced their wretchedness however by duets after supper
the next day opened a new scene at longbourn mister collins made his declaration in form having resolved to do it without loss of time as his leave of absence extended only to the following saturday
and having no feelings of diffidence to make it distressing to himself even at the moment he set about it in a very orderly manner with all the observances which he supposed a regular part of the business on finding missus bennet elizabeth
and one of the younger girls together soon after breakfast he addressed the mother in these words may i hope madam for your interest with your fair daughter elizabeth when i solicit for the honour of a private audience with her in the course of this morning
before elizabeth had time for anything but a blush of surprise missus bennet answered instantly oh dear yes certainly i am sure lizzy will be very happy i am sure she can have no objection come kitty
and gathering her work together she was hastening away when elizabeth called out dear madam do not go i beg you will not go mister collins must excuse me he can have nothing to say to me that anybody need not hear i am going away myself
no no nonsense lizzy i desire you to stay where you are and upon elizabeth's seeming really with vexed and embarrassed looks about to escape she added lizzy i insist upon your staying and hearing mister collins
elizabeth would not oppose such an injunction and a moment's consideration making her also sensible that it would be wisest to get it over as soon and as quietly as possible she sat down again and tried to conceal
by incessant employment the feelings which were divided between distress and diversion missus bennet and kitty walked off and as soon as they were gone mister collins began believe me my dear miss elizabeth
that i have your respected mother's permission for this address you can hardly doubt the purport of my discourse however your natural delicacy may lead you to dissemble my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken
almost as soon as i entered the house i singled you out as the companion of my future life
perhaps it would be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying and moreover for coming into hertfordshire with the design of selecting a wife as i certainly did the idea of mister collins with all his solemn composure
like myself to set the example of matrimony in his parish secondly that i am convinced that it will add very greatly to my happiness and thirdly which perhaps i ought to have mentioned earlier
that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom i have the honour of calling patroness twice has she condescended to give me her opinion
on this subject and it was but the very saturday night before i left hunsford between our pools at quadrille while missus jenkinson was arranging miss de bourgh's footstool that she said mister collins you must marry
but able to make a small income go a good way this is my advice find such a woman as soon as you can bring her to hunsford and i will visit her allow me by the way to observe my fair cousin
that i do not reckon the notice and kindness of lady catherine de bourgh as among the least of the advantages in my power to offer you will find her manners beyond anything i can describe and your wit and vivacity i think must be acceptable to her
especially when tempered with the silence and respect which her rank will inevitably excite thus much for my general intention in favour of matrimony it remains to be told why my views were directed towards longbourn instead of my own neighbourhood
where i can assure you there are many amiable young women but the fact is that being as i am to inherit this estate after the death of your honoured father who however may live many years longer
this has been my motive my fair cousin and i flatter myself it will not sink me in your esteem and now nothing remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affection to fortune i am perfectly indifferent
since i am well aware that it could not be complied with and that one thousand pounds in the four per cents which will not be yours till after your mother's decease is all that you may ever be entitled to
on that head therefore i shall be uniformly silent and you may assure yourself that no ungenerous reproach shall ever pass my lips when we are married it was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now
you are too hasty sir she cried you forget that i have made no answer let me do it without further loss of time accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me i am very sensible of the honour of your proposals
but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than to decline them i am not now to learn replied mister collins with a formal wave of the hand that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man
whom they secretly mean to accept when he first applies for their favour and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second or even a third time i am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just said
and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long upon my word sir cried elizabeth your hope is a rather extraordinary one after my declaration i do assure you that i am not one of those young ladies if such young ladies there are
who are so daring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second time i am perfectly serious in my refusal you could not make me happy and i am convinced that i am the last woman in the world who could make you so nay
were your friend lady catherine to know me i am persuaded she would find me in every respect ill qualified for the situation were it certain that lady catherine would think so said mister collins very gravely
and you may be certain when i have the honour of seeing her again i shall speak in the very highest terms of your modesty economy and other amiable qualification indeed mister collins all praise of me will be unnecessary you must give me leave to judge for myself
and pay me the compliment of believing what i say i wish you very happy and very rich and by refusing your hand do all in my power to prevent your being otherwise in making me the offer you must have satisfied the delicacy of your feelings with regard to my family
and may take possession of longbourn estate whenever it falls without any self reproach this matter may be considered therefore as finally settled and rising as she thus spoke she would have quitted the room had mister collins not thus addressed her
when i do myself the honour of speaking to you next on the subject i shall hope to receive a more favourable answer than you have now given me though i am far from accusing you of cruelty at present
on the first application and perhaps you have even now said as much to encourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the female character really mister collins cried elizabeth with some warmth you puzzle me exceedingly
if what i have hitherto said can appear to you in the form of encouragement i know not how to express my refusal in such a way as to convince you of its being one you must give me leave to flatter myself my dear cousin that your refusal of my addresses is merely words of course
my reasons for believing it are briefly these it does not appear to me that my hand is unworthy your acceptance or that the establishment i can offer would be any other than highly desirable
my connections with the family of de bourgh and my relationship to your own are circumstances highly in my favour and you should take it into further consideration that in spite of your manifold attractions
it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you your portion is unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications
i shall choose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense according to the usual practice of elegant females i do assure you sir that i have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man
i would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere i thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals but to accept them is absolutely impossible my feelings in every respect forbid it can i speak plainer
do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart you are uniformly charming cried he with an air of awkward gallantry
and i am persuaded that when sanctioned by the express authority of both your excellent parents my proposals will not fail of being acceptable to such perseverance in wilful self deception elizabeth would make no reply
and immediately and in silence withdrew determined if he persisted in considering her repeated refusals as flattering encouragement to apply to her father whose negative might be uttered in such a manner as to be decisive
chapter twenty three a year later it was midsummer and miss berengaria's garden was a sight such splendid colors such magnificent blossoms
such triumphs of the floricultural art had never been seen outside the walls of a flower show the weather was exceedingly warm and on this particular day there was not a cloud in the sky miss plantagenet pottered about her garden clipping and arranging as usual
and seemed to be in the very best of spirits and well she might be for this was a red letter day with her under the shade of a large elm tree sat durham in the most unprofessional tweed suit
and beside him alice radiant in a white dress she looked particularly pretty and her face was a most becoming color every now and then she would glance at the watch on her wrist and durham laughed as he saw how frequently she referred to it
the train won't be here for another hour he said smiling you will see bernard soon enough miss malleson oh dear me sighed alice can i ever see him soon enough it seems like eleven years instead of eleven months since he went away i wish he hadn't gone well
said durham following with his eyes the spare little figure of miss berengaria flitting about amongst the flowers i didn't approve of it at the time and i told conniston so but now i think it was just as well bernard did keep to his original intention and go to the front
it is advisable there should be an interval between the new life and the old the new life asked alice flushing he is coming home to be married to you said durham and with a bullet in his arm sighed alice
i shall have to nurse him back to health before we can marry miss randolph will be occupied in the same pleasing task with conniston replied durham lazily and i envy both my friends you needn't laughed miss malleson
opening her sunshade which cast a delicate pink hue on her cheeks poor bernard has been wounded and lord conniston has been down with enteric fever i am glad they have got off so easily bernard might have been shot you know alice shuddered and grew pale
he has been mentioned for gallantry in the despatches
i quote from his own letter finished durham smiling and lord conniston he is coming also to marry miss randolph both weddings will take place on the same day and conniston has escaped the dangers of the war with a slight touch of fever
but why tell you all this you know it as well as i do what's that asked miss berengaria coming up to the pair i was only discussing miss malleson's future life said durham ah sighed the old lady sitting down
what i shall do without her i don't know dear aunt said alice kissing the faded cheek i shall not be far away the hall is within visiting distance that's all very well said miss berengaria but bernard will want you all to himself and small blame to him
i am glad both those boys are back you will have them as near neighbors miss berengaria said the lawyer bernard at gore hall and conniston at the castle i hope he and lucy won't live there said the old lady rubbing her nose a dreadfully damp place
i went over there the other day to tell missus moon about jerry have you had good reports of him so so
and he'll land in jail some day said alice shaking her head at least bernard seems to think so i fancy bernard is about right replied durham the lad is a born criminal
i wonder how he inherited such a tainted nature miss berengaria sat up briskly i can tell you she said missus moon informed me that her son jerry's father was a desperate scamp
to rope ends i suppose as jerry will come said durham however he is safe for the next three years in his reformatory when he comes out we will see what will happen what about your other protege miss berengaria michael gilroy
yes has he taken that name for good he has it's the only name he is entitled to how glad i am that the poor creature was acquitted after that dreadful trial i am sure there is good in him so bernard thought
and that was why he assisted him said alice i think you put in a good word for him miss malleson
i was sorry for the poor fellow while i nursed him i saw much good in him and remember that he had intended to tell me who he was when he arrived only he was so ill
i wonder he could have thought you so easily taken in knowing that you knew bernard so intimately well i don't think he was quite himself during that illness said alice pensively had he been better
he would certainly have doubted the fact of aunty's and my beliefs a few questions from me and he would have been exposed even had i truly believed he was bernard
perhaps but he thought i was considering his health however he spoke up well at the trial and quite explained bernard's innocence durham shrugged his shoulders the serpent in the bamboo he was forced to be honest at the trial for his own sake
don't be hard on him said miss berengaria suddenly i received a letter from him yesterday he is doing very well in america and with the money bernard gave him he has bought a farm also he hopes to marry i wonder will he tell his future wife
poor soul her end was a sad one i never heard though of what poison she died
the gipsies use it to poison pigs why do they wish to poison pigs because if they kill a pig in that way the farmer to whom it belongs thinking the animal has died a natural death gives it to the gipsies and they eat it ugh
miss berengaria shuddered i'll look well after my own pigs so the poor creature killed herself with that drug i don't know that it is a drug said durham i can't explain what it is she hinted that i would know what drows meant before the end of the day
and i did while i was telling inspector groom about her confession she poisoned herself in my office i thought she was asleep
evidently was watching for her opportunity to make away with herself ugh said miss berengaria again i wonder you can bear to sit in that office after such an occurrence how lucky it was that she signed that confession before she died
oh i think so said durham reflectively after all her confession meant hanging to her she wished to escape the gallows i am glad bernard did said miss berengaria emphatically even at the risk of all that scandal
it couldn't be kept out of the papers said durham with a shrug
well the public learned everything and were sorry for bernard they cheered him when he left the court and would have been quite as ready to hiss him had things turned out otherwise snapped miss berengaria the man who should have suffered was that wretch
beryl we couldn't catch him said durham victoria reached him on that very night and he cleared without loss of time of course he was afraid of being accused of the crime although he knew he was innocent but besides that there was the conspiracy to get the estate by means of the false will
by the way did missus moon say what had become of victoria miss berengaria nodded victoria is down in devonshire with an aunt and is being kept hard at work to take the bad out of her i understand she still believes in jerry
and will marry him when he comes out of the reformatory he will then be of a marriageable age the brat but regarding beryl what became of him i never could find out confessed durham then i can tell you durham michael saw him in new york
where in some low slum very ragged and poor
he has taken to drink i believe beryl i mean so some day he will die and a nice fate awaits him where he will go said miss berengaria grimly durham rose and removed his straw hat well said he looking down on the two ladies
the whole case is over and ended i don't see why we should revive such very unpleasant memories the past is past so let it rest bernard has the title and the money and here's lucy said alice rising dear girl how sweet she looks
it was indeed lucy tripping across the lawn in the lightest of summer frocks she looked charming and greeted alice with a kiss i am so anxious she whispered the train will be in soon you are anxious to see conniston said miss berengaria
durham bowed you have been an admirable lady of the manor he said but soon you will be lady conniston and alice will be lady of the manor laughed lucy oh by the way mister durham i forgot to tell you that signor tolomeo called at the hall yesterday
he thought bernard was back and came to thank him for his allowing him an income i thought he had gone back to italy said durham he is going next week and talks of marriage i don't envy his wife said miss berengaria rising girls
come into the house to see that everything is prepared for our heroes the girls laughed and tripped away durham left the garden and drove to the station to fetch back conniston and bernard they did not come by that train however much to the disappointment of those at the bower
it was seven before they arrived and then the three ladies came out to meet them on the lawn dear alice said bernard who had his arm in a sling but otherwise looked what conniston called fit how glad i am to see you and you lucy said conniston
taking his sweetheart in his arms really cried miss berengaria while durham stood by laughing it is most perplexing to assist at the meeting of a quartette of lovers gore how are you conniston your fever has pulled you down
with the most charming of wives said dick bowing we have miss berengaria took durham's arm i must look out a wife for you sir she said leading him to the house come away and let the turtle doves coo alone i expect dinner will be late
and dinner was late conniston with lucy on his arm strolled away in the twilight but bernard and alice remained under the elm when it grew quite dusk a red light was seen shining from the window of the drawing room gore pointed it out
that is the signal lucy used to set in the window at the hall to show that all was well he said putting his unwounded arm round the girl and now it gleams as a sign that there is a happy future for you and i dearest
a red light is a danger signal said alice laughing this is the exception that proves the rule said gore it once led me into trouble but now it shines upon me with my arms around you thank heaven that after all our trouble
we are at last in smooth waters there's the gong for dinner alice laughed
chapter seventeen the diary before miss berengaria could communicate with durham he had left the castle for town on hearing this from bernard the old lady at once sent up to him a full report of the arrival of michael at the bower
under the name of gore he is now a trifle better wrote miss berengaria but having suffered from great privations he is still ill and so far as i can see is likely to keep to his bed for some time payne is attending to him
and says he needs careful nursing and tonics he is so weak as to be scarcely able to talk which is perhaps all the better as alice and i might arouse his suspicions we have accepted him as bernard and when you come down you can question him either in that character or as michael
to tell you the truth i am sorry for the boy he is only twenty one or thereabouts and i think he has been misguided after all even he may not have committed the crime
i am much worried over it conniston comes over daily to see lucy randolph at the hall but he is so feather brained a creature that i don't care about entrusting such a secret to him nor do i wish bernard to know with his impetuosity
he would probably come over at once and run the chance of arrest the whole matter is in your hands durham so write and tell me what i am to do at all events i have a fast hold of bernard's double and you may be sure i shall not allow him to go until this mystery is cleared up
in reply to this pressing epistle durham wrote telling miss berengaria to wait for three or four days he was advertising for tolomeo and hoped to see him at his office if as durham thought
the italian had been with sir simon on that night something might be learned from him likely to prove the presence of michael in the room the examination of michael which durham proposed to make would then be rendered much easier the lawyer in conclusion quite agreed with miss plantagenet
that conniston and bernard should not be told i hope to be with you by the end of the week he finished deuce take the man said miss berengaria rubbing her nose does he think i can wait all that time
i don't see what else you can do aunt said alice when the letter was read and this poor creature is so weak that i do not think he will be able to speak much for a few days
perhaps that is why he holds his tongue said alice rising but we must wait aunt i suppose we must said miss berengaria dolefully drat the whole business was there ever such a coil well then aunt will you leave it alone certainly not
i intend to see the thing through owing to my reticence to sir simon about your parents alice i am really responsible for the whole business so i will keep working at it until bernard is out of danger and married to you ah sighed miss malleson
and when will that be sooner than you think perhaps every day brings a surprise one day certainly brought a surprise to lucy randolph she learned that conniston loved her though to be sure his frequent visits might have shown her how he was losing his heart
she was glad of this as she admired conniston exceedingly and moreover wished to escape from her awkward position at the hall when bernard came back and married alice she would have to leave the hall and live on the small income allotted to her by the generosity of the dead man
to marry conniston even though he was the poorest of peers one can do a lot with a title even without money and lucy was wise in her generation moreover she was truly in love with the young man and thought very rightly that he would make her a good husband
as usual conniston having taken into his head that lucy would be an ideal wife pursued his suit with characteristic impetuosity
and finally when lucy broke off her engagement to beryl he told her of the whereabouts of bernard lucy was overwhelmed and delighted to think that he should be alive after all she said i am so pleased so glad dear bernard
now he will be able to enjoy the fortune and the title and marry alice you forget said conniston a trifle dryly bernard has yet to prove his innocence we are all trying to help him will you also give a hand miss randolph
lucy stared at him with widely open eyes of course i will lord conniston she said heartily what do you wish me to do in the first place tell me if you sent a boy to bring bernard to crimea square no i know the boy you mean
he is a lad called jerry moon julius found him selling matches in town ragged and poor he helped him and the other day he procured him a situation with miss berengaria he is there now but he we have reason to believe
is the boy who lured bernard to crimea square i know nothing about that said lucy frankly why not ask the boy himself it would be easy we will ask the boy shortly replied conniston evasively
not wishing at this juncture to tell her that the great object of everyone was to prevent jerry thinking he was suspected should you meet the boy say nothing to him i will not and i am not likely to meet the boy
he is usually in miss plantagenet's poultry yard and i rarely go round there lucy paused it is strange that the boy should act like that i wonder if sir simon sent him to fetch bernard and arranged the red window as a sign which house it was
the red window ah yes missus webber saw the light and and julius afterwards didn't i know that it was my fault when we drove up in the carriage on that terrible night i saw the red light
and wondered if sir simon had arranged it as a sign to bernard when i saw bernard in the hall i was not astonished for i thought he had come in answer to the light i went upstairs and after attending to sir simon i went to the window the lamp was before it and
stretched across the pane was a red bandanna handkerchief of sir simon's i took that away so you see how it was julius did not see the light why did you remove the handkerchief asked the puzzled conniston well i wanted to save bernard if possible
and i thought if the red light which had drawn him were removed he could make some excuse julius knew about the red light and as he hated bernard i fancied he would use it against him but really added miss randolph wrinkling her pretty brows
i hardly knew what i was doing save that in some vague way i fancied the removal of the handkerchief might help bernard is that clear perfectly clear said conniston and i am glad i know this may i tell bernard and durham certainly
i want to do all i can to help bernard ah you are a good woman said conniston eagerly i wonder if you could make a chap good
said lucy shyly i know a chap who please stop lord conniston cried lucy starting up in confusion i have heaps and heaps to do you prevent my working her hurried flight prevented conniston from putting the question on that occasion
she was anxious that bernard should be cleared that he should take up his rightful position and should receive back the hall from her before lord conniston proposed of course lucy was ready to accept him but sure of her fish
she played with him until such time as she felt disposed to accept his hand and heart and title and what remained of the west fortune conniston more determined than ever to win this adorable woman came over regularly
but lucy skilfully kept him off the dangerous ground whereby he fell deeper in love than ever
but what did she know conniston wriggled uneasily he was not quite certain whether he ought to tell lucy all that had been discovered and had he not been in love with her
but after some reflection he decided to speak out you are of course on bernard's side he said yes and against julius who hates bernard i will do anything i can to help bernard i am sure you can see that
i know i know you are the truest and best woman in the world said conniston eagerly but what i have to tell you is not my own secret it concerns bernard then don't tell me
said lucy coloring angrily yes i will you have the diary and i want to read it to know why i do it is necessary that you should learn all that we have discovered what have you discovered who killed sir simon
missus gilroy is fighting for her son it is probable that she has set down the events of that night in her diary she would not be such a fool if her son is guilty oh people do all manner of queer things criminals who are very secretive in speech sometimes
give themselves away in writing you were at the theatre on that night yes with julius so neither of us had anything to do with the matter if that is what you mean i mean nothing of the sort said conniston quickly how can you think i should suspect you
you might suspect julius said lucy suspiciously and although we have quarrelled i don't want to harm him would you rather have bernard hanged oh lucy burst into tears and impulsively threw the book into conniston's lap
read it at once i would rather save bernard than julius conniston availed himself of this permission at once he took away the diary with lucy's permission and carried it in triumph to the castle here he and bernard sat down to master its contents
these astonished them considerably conniston made out a short and concise account of the events of that fatal night for the benefit of durham they were as follows missus gilroy it appears thought that her son michael was really and truly in america
she had no suspicion that the lover of jane riordan was her son but truly believed from the description that he was young gore whom she hated as she plainly stated in several pages when the presumed bernard went away before six
he did not call again at ten o'clock the man that called missus gilroy asserted was bernard and not her son he saw sir simon and after a stormy interview he departed why then doesn't she accuse me of the crime said gore
wait a bit said conniston who was reading his precis this diary is meant for her eye alone still she may have thought it might fall into the hands of another person and therefore made her son safe
michael saw sir simon and then missus gilroy pretending the man was you says he departed leaving your grandfather alive see here's the bit and he read sir simon was alive after mister gore left the house go on said bernard
if i am innocent why did she accuse me because i believe her son is guilty he left sir simon dead missus gilroy found the body knew what had occurred and then ran out on hearing jerry's whistle knowing she would meet you
it's all plain very plain said gore emphatically a regular trap go on afterwards and shortly before a quarter past ten there came a ring at the door missus gilroy went and there she found signor tolomeo
who asked to see sir simon she took him up the stairs and left him to speak with sir simon what took place she did not know but she was sitting below working and heard the door close it was just before a quarter to eleven that she heard this
about the time i came muttered bernard missus gilroy as appeared from the diary ran up to see if the master was all right she found him strangled and with the handkerchiefs tied over his mouth and round his neck then she ran out and found gore at the door
he had come back again and missus gilroy said she accused him she then stated in her diary that she looked upon bernard as an accessory after the fact he had hired guiseppe tolomeo to kill his grandfather and then
came to see if the deed had been executed thoroughly missus gilroy ended her diary by stating that she would do her best to get both the italian and his nephew hanged
very much obliged to her said bernard when conniston concluded reading and beginning to walk to and fro well it seems my uncle is the guilty person conniston i don't believe it said dick firmly missus gilroy is trying to shield her son
i believe he killed him if we could only find michael said bernard dolefully ah things would soon be put right then replied conniston and neither was aware that the man they wished to see
was at that very moment lying in the turret chamber at the bower or even missus gilroy could we see her and show her the diary she might put things straight i believe she left the diary behind on purpose said gore with some ill humor
i can't believe that tolomeo killed sir simon what kind of man is he a very decent chap in his own way his blood is hot and he has a temper something like the one i have inherited from my mother who was guiseppe's sister but tolomeo is not half bad
he has the credit for being a scamp but i don't think he deserves it can't you see him and show him the diary no i don't know his whereabouts however durham at my request has put an advertisement in the papers which may bring him to the office
i daresay tolomeo did see sir simon and did have a row as both he and grandfather were hot blooded but i don't believe my uncle killed sir simon said bernard striking the table well drawled conniston
i don't see what he had to gain tolomeo from your account of him would not commit a murder without getting some money from doing it but the best thing to do is to take this up to durham and see what he thinks i'll come too said gore excitedly i tell you dick
i'm dead tired of doing nothing it will be better to do what miss berengaria suggests and give myself up wait a bit persuaded dick let me take this up to durham and if he agrees you can be arrested bernard was unwilling to wait
but finally he yielded sullenly to conniston's arguments
preachin bill says
an would be too if folks cared half as much bout breeding folks as they do bout raising hogs an horses mister matthews was a giant fully six feet four inches in height
with big bones broad shoulders and mighty muscles at log rollings and chopping bees in the field or at the mill or in any of the games in which the backwoodsman tries his strength
no one had ever successfully contested his place as the strongest man in the hills and still throughout the country side the old folks tell with pride tales of the marvelous feats of strength performed in the days when old matt was young
of the son young matt the people called him it is enough to say that he seemed made of the same metal and cast in the same mold as the father a mighty frame softened yet by young manhood's grace
a powerful neck and well poised head with wavy red brown hair and blue eyes that had in them the calm of summer skies or the glint of battle steel it was a countenance fearless and frank but gentle and kind
and the eyes were honest eyes anyone meeting the pair as they walked with the long swinging stride of the mountaineer up the steep mill road that gray afternoon would have turned for a second look such men are seldom seen
when they reached the big log house that looks down upon the hollow the boy went at once with his axe to the woodpile while the older man busied himself with the milking and other chores about the barn
young matt had not been chopping long when he heard coming up the hill the sound of a horse's feet on the old trail the horse stopped at the house and a voice that stirred the blood in the young man's veins called
i am alright answered the voice i've come over t stop with you to night dad's away again mandy ford staid with me last night but she had to go home this evenin the big fellow at the woodpile drove his axe deeper into the log
it's about time you was a comin over replied the woman in the doorway i was a tellin the menfolks this mornin that you hadn't been nigh the whole blessed week mister matthews lowed maybe you was sick the other returned with a gay laugh
i was never sick a minute in my life that anybody ever heard tell i'm powerful hungry though you'd better put in another pan of corn bread she turned her pony's head toward the barn
seems like you are always hungry laughed the older woman in return well just go on out to the barn and the men will take your horse then come right in and i'll mighty soon have something to fill you up operations at the woodpile suddenly ceased
and young matt was first at the barn yard gate miss sammy lane was one of those rare young women whose appearance is not to be described one can of course put it down that she was tall beautifully tall with the trimness of a young pine
deep bosomed with limbs full rounded fairly tingling with the life and strength of perfect womanhood and it may be said that her face was a face to go with one through the years and to live still in one's dreams when the sap of life is gone
and withered and old one sits shaking before the fire a generous loving mouth red lipped full arched with the corners tucked in and perfect teeth between a womanly chin and nose with character enough to save them from being pretty
hair dark showing a touch of gold with umber in the shadows a brow full broad set over brown eyes that had never been taught to hide behind their fringed veils but looked always square out at you with a healthy look of good comradeship a gleam of mirth
or a sudden wide questioning gaze that revealed depth of soul within but what is the use when all this is written those who knew sammy will say tis but a poor picture for she is something more than all this
hit sure do ike greeting the girl the young man opened the gate for her to pass i've been a lookin for you over said sammy a teasing light in her eyes didn't you know that mandy was stoppin with me
she's been a dyin to see you i'm mighty sorry he replied fastening the gate and coming to the pony's side why didn't you tell me before i reckon she'll get over it alright though
he added with a smile as he raised his arms to assist the girl to dismount the teasing light vanished as the young woman placed her hands on the powerful shoulders of the giant
and as she felt the play of the swelling muscles that swung her to the ground so easily her face flushed with admiration for the fraction of a minute she stood facing him her hands still on his arms her lips parted as if to speak
then she turned quickly away and without a word walked toward the house while the boy pretending to busy himself with the pony's bridle watched her as she went when the girl was gone the big fellow led the horse away to the stable
where he crossed his arms upon the saddle and hid his face from the light mister matthews coming quietly to the door a few minutes later saw the boy standing there and the rugged face of the big mountaineer softened at the sight quietly
he withdrew to the other side of the barn to return later when the saddle and bridle had been removed and the young man stood stroking the pony as the little horse munched his generous feed of corn
the elder man laid his hand on the broad shoulder of the lad so like him and looked full into the clear eyes is it alright son he asked gruffly and the boy answered as he returned his father's look
it's alright dad then let's go to the house mother called supper some time ago just as the little company were seating themselves at the table the dog in the yard barked loudly young matt went to the door
the stranger whom jed had met on the old trail stood at the gate chapter three the voice from out the mists while young matt was gone to the corral in the valley
to see that the sheep were safely folded for the night and the two women were busy in the house with their after supper work mister matthews and his guest sat on the front porch my name is howitt daniel howitt
the man said in answer to the host's question but as he spoke there was in his manner a touch of embarrassment and he continued quickly as if to prevent further question you have two remarkable children sir
that boy is the finest specimen of manhood i have ever seen and the girl is remarkable remarkable sir you will pardon me i am sure but i am an enthusiastic lover of my kind and i certainly have never seen such a pair
the grim face of the elder matthews showed both pleasure and amusement you're mistaken mister the boy's mine alright an he's all that you say an more i reckon
i doubt if there's a man in the hills can match him to day not excepting wash gibbs an he's a mighty good boy too but the girl is a daughter of a neighbor and no kin at all indeed exclaimed the other
you have only one child then the amused smile left the face of the old mountaineer as he answered slowly there was six boys sir this one grant is the youngest
the others lie over there he pointed with his pipe to where a clump of pines not far from the house showed dark and tall against the last red glow in the sky the stranger glanced at the big man's face in quick sympathy
i had only two a boy and a girl he said softly the girl and her mother have been gone these twenty years the boy grew to be a man and now he has left me
the deep voice faltered pardon me sir for speaking of this but my lad was so like your boy there he was all i had and now
now i am very lonely sir there is a bond of fellowship in sorrow that knows no conventionalities as the two men sat in the hush of the coming night
their faces turned toward the somber group of trees they felt strongly drawn to one another the mountaineer's companion spoke again half to himself i wish that my dear ones had a resting place like that
in the crowded city cemetery the ground is always shaken by the tramping of funeral professions he buried his face in his hands for some time the stranger sat thus while his host spoke no word
then lifting his head the man looked away over the ridges just touched with the lingering light and the valley below wrapped in the shadowy mists i came away from it all because they said i must
and because i was hungry for this he waved his hand toward the glowing sky and the forest clad hills this is good for me it somehow seems to help me know how big god is one could find peace here
surely sir one could find it here peace and strength the mountaineer puffed hard at his pipe for a while then said gruffly seems that way mister to them that don't know
but many's the time i've wished to god i'd never seen these here ozarks i used to feel like you do but i can't no more they mind me now of him that blackened my life
he used to take on powerful about the beauty of the country and all the time he was a turnin it into a hell for them that had to stay here after he was gone as he spoke anger and hatred grew dark in the giant's face
and the stranger saw the big hands clench and the huge frame grow tense with passion then as if striving to be not ungracious the woodsman said in a somewhat softer tone
you can't see much of it this evening though count of the mists it'll fair up by morning i reckon you can see a long way from here of a clear day mister yes indeed
small wonder our lives have so little of god in them when we come in touch with so little that god has made you live in the city then when you are at home asked mister matthews looking curiously at his guest
i did when i had a home i cannot say that i live anywhere now old matt leaned forward in his chair as if to speak again then paused someone was coming up the hill
and soon they distinguished the stalwart form of the son sammy coming from the house with an empty bucket met the young man at the gate and the two went toward the spring together
in silence the men on the porch watched the moon as she slowly pushed her way up through the leafy screen on the mountain wall higher and higher she climbed until her rays fell into the valley below
and the drifting mists from ridge to ridge became a sea of ghostly light it was a weird scene almost supernatural in its beauty then from down at the spring a young girl's laugh rose clearly
and the big mountaineer said in a low tone mister howitt you've got education it's easy to see that i've always wanted to ask somebody like you do you believe in hants
the man from the city saw that his big host was terribly in earnest and answered quietly no i do not believe in such things mister matthews but if it should be true
i do not see why we should fear the dead the other shook his head i don't know i don't know sir i always said i didn't believe but some things is mighty queer
he seemed to be shaping his thought for further speech when again the girl's laugh rang clear along the mountain side the young people were returning from the spring
the mountaineer relighted his pipe while young matt and sammy seated themselves on the step and missus matthews coming from the house joined the group we've just naturally got to find somebody to stay with them sheep dad said the son
there ain't nobody there to night and as near as i can make out there's three ewes and their lambs missing there ain't a bit of use in us trying to depend on pete i'll ride over on bear creek to morrow and see if i can get that fellow buck told us about
returned the father you find it hard to get help on the ranch inquired the stranger yes sir we do answered old matt we had a good nough man till about a month ago
unless that one over on bear creek will come i reckon though he'll be like the rest he sat staring gloomily into the night is the work so difficult mister howitt asked
difficult no there ain't nothing to do but tendin to the sheep the man has to stay at the ranch of nights though mister howitt was wondering what staying at the ranch nights could have to do with the difficulty
when up from the valley below from out the darkness and the mists came a strange sound a sound as if someone were singing a song without words so wild and weird was the melody
so passionately sweet the voice it seemed impossible that the music should come from human lips it was more as though some genie of the forest clad hills wandered through the mists singing as he went with the joy of his possessions
missus matthews came close to her husband's side and placed her hand upon his shoulder as he half rose from his chair his pipe fallen to the floor young matt rose to his feet and moved closer to the girl who was also standing
the stranger alone kept his seat and he noted the agitation of the others in wonder for some moments the sound continued now soft and low with the sweet sadness of the wind in the pines
then clear and ringing
now pleadings as though a soul in darkness prayed a gleam of light again rising swelling exultingly as in glad triumph only to die away once more to that moaning wail
seeming at last to lose itself in the mists slowly old matt sank back into his seat and the stranger heard him mutter poor boy poor boy
aunt mollie was weeping suddenly sammy sprang from the steps and running down the walk to the gate sent a clear piercing call over the valley
again the girl called and yet again
it's no use honey said missus matthews breaking the silence it just ain't no use
in memory of that beautiful summer in the ozark hills when so often we followed the old trail around the rise of mutton hollow the trail that is nobody knows how old and from sammy's lookout
more laud than gilt o'er dusted troilus and cressida
chapter one the stranger it was corn planting time when the stranger followed the old trail into the mutton hollow neighborhood all day a fine rain had fallen steadily
and the mists hung heavy over the valley the lower hills were wrapped as in a winding sheet dank and cold the trees were dripping with moisture the stranger looked tired and wet
by his dress the man was from the world beyond the ridges and his carefully tailored clothing looked strangely out of place in the mountain wilderness his form stooped a little in the shoulders
perhaps with weariness but he carried himself with the unconscious air of one long used to a position of conspicuous power and influence and while his well kept hair and beard were strongly touched with white
the brown clear lighted eyes that looked from under their shaggy brows told of an intellect unclouded by the shadows of many years it was a face marked deeply by pride pride of birth of intellect
of culture the face of a scholar and poet but it was more it was the countenance of one fairly staggering under a burden of disappointment and grief as the stranger walked
he looked searchingly into the mists on every hand and paused frequently as if questioning the proper course suddenly he stepped quickly forward
his ear had caught the sharp ring of a horse's shoe on a flint rock somewhere in the mists on the mountain side above it was jed holland coming down the trail with a week's supply of corn meal in a sack across his horse's back
as the figure of the traveler emerged from the mists the native checked his horse to greet the newcomer with the customary salutation of the backwoods howdy the man returned jed's greeting cordially
and resting his satchel on a rock beside the narrow path added i am very glad to meet you i fear that i am lost the voice was marvelously pure deep and musical
and like the brown eyes betrayed the real strength of the man denied by his gray hair and bent form the tones were as different from the high keyed slurring speech of the backwoods as the gentleman himself was unlike any man jed had ever met
the boy looked at the speaker in wide eyed wonder he had a queer feeling that he was in the presence of a superior being throwing one thin leg over the old mare's neck and waving a long arm up the hill and to the left jed drawled
down yonder's mutton holler then turning a little to the right and pointing into the mist with the other hand he continued
whar was you tryin to git to mister where am i trying to get to as the man repeated jed's question he drew his hand wearily across his brow
i i it doesn't much matter boy i suppose i must find some place where i can stay to night do you live near here nope jed answered hit's a right smart piece to whar i live
this here's grindin day an i've been t mill over on fall creek the matthews mill hit is hit'll be plumb dark gin i git home
what might yer name be mister the other looking back over the way he had come seemed not to hear jed's question and the native continued mine's holland pap an mam they come from tennessee
very true very true indeed he mused then he turned to jed and asked is there a house near here jim lane lives up the trail bout half a quarter ever hear tell o jim
no i have never been in these mountains before i lowed maybe you'd heard tell o jim or sammy there's them that lows jim knows a heap more bout old man dewey's cave than he lets on his place bein so nigh
i'll hep you hunt hit if you want me to mister no said the other i am not looking for mines of lead or zinc there is greater wealth in these hills and forests young man
cause they're so dad burned rough lemme hep you mister i'd like mighty well t git some clothes like them i do not speak of gold my boy the stranger answered kindly but i must not keep you longer or darkness will overtake us
do you think this mister lane would entertain me jed pushed a hand up under his tattered old hat and scratched awhile before he answered
he turned and looked thoughtfully up the trail
you know the matthews's i reckon there was a hint of impatience now in the deep voice
will mister matthews keep me do you think jed who was still looking up the trail suddenly leaned forward and pointing into the timber to the left of the path said in an exciting whisper look at that mister
yonder thar by that big rock the stranger looking
flitting from tree to tree but even as he looked it vanished among the hundreds of fantastic shapes in the gray forest what is it he asked the native shook his head durned if i know mister you can't tell
there's mighty strange things stirrin on this here mountain an in the holler down yonder say mister did you ever see a hant the gentleman did not understand a hant a ghost some calls em explained jed
bud wilson he sure seed old matt's the other interrupted really young man i must go it is already late and you know i have yet to find a place to stay for the night law that's alright mister replied jed
stay anywhere whar do you live when you're to home again jed's question was ignored you think then that mister matthews will keep me law yes they'll take anybody in
i know they're to home cause they was a fixin t leave the mill when i left bout an hour ago was the river up much when you come acrost as the native spoke he was still peering uneasily into the woods i did not cross the river
how far is it to this matthews place and how do i go jest foller this old trail
bout three mile i'd say did you come from springfield or saint louis maybe the man lifted his satchel from the rock as he answered no i do not live in either springfield or saint louis thank you very much for your assistance
i will go on now for i must hurry or night will overtake me and i shall not be able to find the path
lowering his leg from the horse's neck and settling the meal sack preparatory to moving
reckon you must be from kansas city or chicago i heard tell they're mighty big towns the stranger's only answer was a curt good by as his form vanished in the mist
must be from new york sure slowly the old man toiled up the mountain up from the mists of the lower ground to the ridge above
and as he climbed unseen by him a shadowy form flitted from tree to tree in the dim dripping forest as the stranger came in sight of the lane cabin a young woman on a brown pony
rode out of the gate and up the trail before him and when the man reached the open ground on the mountain above and rounded the shoulder of the hill he saw the pony far ahead loping easily along the little path
a moment he watched and horse and rider passed from sight the clouds were drifting far away the western sky was clear with the sun still above the hills in an old tree that leaned far out over the valley
a crow shook the wet from his plumage and dried himself in the warm light while far below the mists rolled and on the surface of that gray sea the traveler saw a company of buzzards wheeling and circling above some dead thing hidden in its depth
wearily the man followed the old trail toward the matthews place and always as he went in the edge of the gloomy forest
twice that night rod was awakened by mukoki opening the cabin door the second time he raised himself upon his elbows and quietly watched the old warrior it was a brilliantly clear night and a flood of moonlight was pouring into the camp
he could hear mukoki chuckling and grunting as though communicating with himself and at last his curiosity getting the better of him
mukoki was peering up into space rod followed his gaze the moon was directly above the cabin the sky was clear of clouds and so bright was the light that objects on the farther side of the lake were plainly visible besides it was bitter cold
so cold that his face began to tingle as he stood there these things he noticed but he could see nothing to hold mukoki's vision in the sky above unless it was the glorious beauty of the night what is it mukoki he asked the old indian looked silently at him for a moment
some mysterious all absorbing joy revealed in every lineament of his face wolf night he whispered he looked back to where wabi was sleeping wolf night he repeated and slipped like a shadow to the side of the unconscious young hunter
rod regarded his actions with growing wonder he saw him bend over wabi shake him by the shoulders and heard him repeat again wolf night wolf night wabi awoke and sat up in his blankets and mukoki came back to the door
he had dressed himself before this and now with his rifle slipped out into the night the young indian had joined rod at the open door and together they watched mukoki's gaunt figure as it sped swiftly across the lake
up the hill and over into the wilderness desolation beyond when rod looked at wabi he saw that the indian boy's eyes were wide and staring with an expression in them that was something between fright and horror
without speaking he went to the table and lighted the candles and then dressed when he was done his face still bore traces of suppressed excitement he ran back to the door and whistled loudly from his shelter beside the cabin the captive wolf responded with a snarling whine
again he whistled a dozen times twenty but there came no reply more swiftly than mukoki the indian youth sped across the lake and to the summit of the hill mukoki had completely disappeared in the white brilliant vastness of the wilderness that stretched away at his feet
when wabi returned to the cabin rod had a fire roaring in the stove he seated himself beside it holding out a pair of hands blue with cold ugh it's an awful night he shivered he laughed across at rod a little uneasily
but with the old light back in his eyes suddenly he asked did minnetaki ever tell you anything queer about mukoki rod nothing more than you have told me yourself well
once in a great while mukoki has not exactly a fit but a little mad spell i have never determined to my own satisfaction whether he is really out of his head or not sometimes i think he is and sometimes i think he is not
but the indians at the post believe that at certain times he goes crazy over wolves wolves exclaimed rod yes wolves and he has good reason a good many years ago just about when you and i were born mukoki had a wife and child
he wouldn't hunt like other indians but would spend whole days at his shack playing with it and teaching it to do things and when he did go hunting he would often tote it on his back even when it wasn't much more than a squalling papoose he was the happiest indian at the post and one of the poorest
one day mukoki came to the post with a little bundle of fur and most of the things he got in exchange for it mother says were for the kid he reached the store at night and expected to leave for home the next noon which would bring him to his camp before dark
but something delayed him and he didn't get started until the morning after meanwhile late in the afternoon of the day when he was to have been home his wife bundled up the kid and they set out to meet him well a weird howl from the captive wolf interrupted wabi for a moment
well they went on and on and of course did not meet him and then the people at the post say the mother must have slipped and hurt herself anyway when mukoki came over the trail the next day he found them half eaten by wolves
from that day on mukoki was a different indian he became the greatest wolf hunter in all these regions soon after the tragedy he came to the post to live and since then he has not left minnetaki and me once in a great while when the night is just right
mukoki seems to go a little mad he calls this a wolf night no one can stop him from going out no one can get him to talk he will allow no one to accompany him when in such a mood he will walk miles and miles to night but he will come back
and when he returns he will be as sane as you and i
rod had listened in rapt attention to him as wabi proceeded with his story of the tragedy in mukoki's life the old indian was transformed into another being no longer was he a mere savage reclaimed a little from the wilderness
there had sprung up in rod's breast a great human throbbing sympathy for him and in the dim candle glow his eyes glistened with a dampness which he made no attempt to conceal what does mukoki mean by wolf night he asked
muky is a wizard when it comes to hunting wolves wabi went on he has studied them and thought of them every day of his life for nearly twenty years he knows more about wolves than all the rest of the hunters in this country together he can catch them in every trap he sets
which no other trapper in the world can do he can tell you a hundred different things about a certain wolf simply by its track and because of his wonderful knowledge he can tell by some instinct that is almost supernatural when a wolf night comes
something in the air to night something in the sky in the moon in the very way the wilderness looks tells him that stray wolves in the plains and hills are packing or banding together to night and that in the morning the sun will be shining and they will be on the sunny sides of the mountains
see if i am not right to morrow night if mukoki comes back by then we shall have some exciting sport with the wolves and then you will see how wolf out there does his work there followed several minutes of silence
the stove glowed red hot and the boys sat and looked and listened rod took out his watch it lacked only ten minutes of midnight yet neither seemed possessed with a desire to return to their interrupted sleep wolf is a curious beast mused wabi softly
you might think he was a sneaking traitorous cur of a wolf to turn against his own breed and lure them to death but he isn't wolf as well as mukoki has good cause for what he does you might call it animal vengeance
and if you thrust back his head you will find a terrible sear in his throat and from his left side just back of the fore leg a chunk of flesh half as big as my hand has been torn away we caught wolf in a lynx trap mukoki and i he wasn't much more than a whelp then
about six months old mukoki said and while he was in the trap helpless and unable to defend himself three or four of his lovely tribe jumped upon him and tried to kill him for breakfast we hove in sight just in time to drive the cannibals off
we kept wolf sewed up his side and throat tamed him and to morrow night you will see how mukoki has taught him to get even with his people it was two hours later when rod and wabigoon extinguished the candles and returned to their blankets
and for another hour after that the former found it impossible to sleep he wondered where mukoki was wondered what he was doing and how in his strange madness he found his way in the trackless wilderness when he finally fell asleep it was to dream of the indian mother and her child
and the woman changed into minnetaki and the ravenous wolves into men
pointing over and beyond him and nodding his head rod looked and caught his breath there was mukoki peeling potatoes hello muky he shouted the old indian looked up with a grin
his face bore no signs of his mad night on the trail he nodded cheerfully and proceeded with the preparation of breakfast as though he had just risen from his blankets after a long night's rest better get up he advised big day's hunt
much fine sunshine to day find wolves on mountain plenty wolves the boys tumbled from their blankets and began dressing what time did you get in asked wabi now replied mukoki
just make fire good wabi gave rod a suggestive look as the old indian bent over the stove what were you doing last night he questioned big moon might get shot grunted mukoki see lynx on hill
see wolf tracks on red deer trail no shot this was as much of the history of mukoki's night on the trail as the boys could secure but during their breakfast wabi shot another glance at rod and as mukoki left the table for a moment to close the damper in the stove
he found an opportunity to whisper see if i'm not right
i'm going with you mukoki mukoki who was somewhat flattered by this preference of the white youth grinned and chuckled and began to talk more volubly about the plans which were in his head
rod noticed that the captive wolf received no breakfast that morning and he easily guessed the reason the traps were now divided three different sizes had been brought from the post fifty small ones for mink marten and other small fur animals
fifteen fox traps and as many larger ones for lynx and wolves wabi equipped himself with twenty of the small traps and four each of fox and lynx traps
the sun was just beginning to show itself above the wilderness when the hunters left camp as mukoki had predicted it was a glorious day one of those bitterly cold cloudless days when as the indians believe
the great creator robs the rest of the world of the sun that it may shine in all its glory upon their own savage land from the top of the hill that sheltered their home rod looked out over the glistening forests and lakes in rapt and speechless admiration
at the foot of this hill mukoki and his companion struck the creek they had not progressed more than fifty rods when the old indian stopped and pointed at a fallen log which spanned the stream the snow on this log was beaten by tiny footprints
taking care not to touch the log on the opposite side the tracks spread out over a windfall of trees
continued mukoki t'ree mebby four mebby five build trap house right here never before had rod seen a trap set as the old indian now set his very near the end of the log over which the mink made their trail he quickly built a shelter of sticks
which when completed was in the form of a tiny wigwam at the back of this was placed a chunk of the caribou meat and in front of this bait so that an animal would have to spring it in passing
carefully covered with snow and a few leaves within twenty minutes mukoki had built two of these shelters and had set two traps why do you build those little houses asked rod as they again took up their trail much snow come in winter elucidated the indian
build house to keep snow off traps no do that be digging out traps all winter when mink heem smell meat go in house he got to go over trap make house for all small animal like heem no good for lynx he see house
smart fellow lynx wolf and fox too is a mink worth much fi dollar
seven eight dollar for good one during the next mile six other mink traps were set
no longer did he seem entirely absorbed in the discovery of signs of fur animals
he spoke in whispers and rod followed his example frequently the two would stop and scan the openings for signs of life twice they set fox traps where there were evident signs of runways in a wild ravine strewn with tumbled trees and masses of rock they struck a lynx track
and set a trap for him at each end of the ravine but even during these operations mukoki's interest was divided the hunters now walked abreast about fifty yards apart rod never forging a foot ahead of the cautious mukoki suddenly the youth heard a low call
wolf whispered mukoki as rod joined him
t'ree wolf continued the indian jubilantly travel early this morning somewhere in warm sun on mountain they followed now in the wolf trail a little way on rod found part of the carcass of a rabbit with fox tracks about it
here mukoki set another trap a little farther still they came across a fisher trail and another trap was laid caribou and deer tracks crossed and recrossed the creek but the indian paid little attention to them
a fourth wolf joined the pack and a fifth and half an hour later the trail of three other wolves cut at right angles across the one they were following and disappeared in the direction of the thickly timbered plains mukoki's face was crinkled with joy
many wolf near he exclaimed many wolf off there n off there n off there good place for night hunt soon the creek swung out from the ridge and cut a circuitous channel through a small swamp
in places the snow was literally packed with deer tracks trails ran in every direction the bark had been rubbed from scores of saplings and every step gave fresh evidence of the near presence of game the stealth with which mukoki now advanced was almost painful
every twig was pressed behind him noiselessly and once when rod struck his snow shoe against the butt of a small tree the old indian held up his hands in mock horror ten minutes fifteen twenty of them passed in this cautious breathless trailing of the swamp
suddenly mukoki stopped and a hand was held out behind him warningly he turned his face back and rod knew that he saw game inch by inch he crouched upon his snow shoes and beckoned for rod to approach slowly quietly
when the boy had come near enough he passed back his rifle and his lips formed the almost noiseless word shoot tremblingly rod seized the gun and looked into the swamp ahead mukoki doubling down in front of him
what he saw sent him for a moment into the first nervous tremor of buck fever not more than a hundred yards away stood a magnificent buck browsing the tips of a clump of hazel
with a powerful effort rod steadied himself the buck was standing broadside his head and neck stretched up offering a beautiful shot at the vital spot behind his fore leg at this the young hunter aimed and fired
with one spasmodic bound the animal dropped dead hardly had rod seen the effect of his shot before mukoki was traveling swiftly toward the fallen game unstrapping his pack as he ran
without explanation he now proceeded to thrust his knife into the quivering animal's throat and fill this flask with blood when he had finished his task he held it up with an air of unbounded satisfaction blood for wolf heem like blood smell um
come make big shoot to night no blood no bait no wolf shoot
and it was evident to rod that the indian considered his mission for that day practically accomplished after taking the heart liver and one of the hind quarters of the buck mukoki drew a long rope of babeesh from his pack tied one end of it around the animal's neck flung the other end over a near limb
and with his companion's assistance hoisted the carcass until it was clear of the ground if somethin happen we no come back to night heem safe from wolf he explained the two now continued through the swamp at its farther edge the ground rose gently from the creek toward the hills
and this sloping plain was covered with huge boulders and a thin growth of large spruce and birch just beyond the creek was a gigantic rock which immediately caught mukoki's attention
and even this one could not be climbed without the assistance of a sapling or two they could see however that the top of the rock was flat and mukoki called attention to this fact with an exultant chuckle fine place for wolf hunt he exclaimed many wolf off there in swamp an in hill
shoot from there he pointed to a clump of spruce a dozen rods away by rod's watch it was now nearly noon and the two sat down to eat the sandwiches they had brought with them only a few minutes were lost in taking up the home trail
beyond the swamp mukoki cut at right angles to their trap line until he had ascended to the top of the ridge that had been on their right and which would take them very near their camp from this ridge rod could look about him upon a wild and rugged scene
but on the other it fell in almost sheer walls forming at its base five hundred feet below a narrow and gloomy chasm through which a small stream found its way several times mukoki stopped and leaned perilously close to the dizzy edge of the mountain
peering down with critical eyes and once when he pulled himself back cautiously by means of a small sapling he explained his interest by saying plenty bear there in spring but rod was not thinking of bears
once more his head was filled with the thought of gold perhaps that very chasm held the priceless secret that had died with its owners half a century ago the dark and gloomy silence that hung between those two walls of rock the death like desolation the stealthy windings of the creek
everything in that dim and mysterious world between the two mountains unshattered by sound and impenetrable to the winter sun seemed in his mind to link itself with the tragedy of long ago did that chasm hold the secret of the dead men
until at last with a curious thrilling certainty that set his blood tingling he caught mukoki by the arm and pointing back said
the judges took their places in the midst of the most profound silence the jury took their seats
and we had almost said of general admiration sat in the arm chair and cast a tranquil glance around him every one looked with astonishment on that grave and severe face
his eye rested longer on the president and still more so on the king's attorney by the side of andrea was stationed the lawyer who was to conduct his defence and who had been appointed by the court for andrea disdained to pay any attention to those details to which he appeared to attach no importance
than that which characterized the prisoner the president called for the indictment revised as we know by the clever and implacable pen of villefort during the reading of this which was long the public attention was continually drawn towards andrea who bore the inspection with spartan unconcern
the crime was depicted in the most vivid colors
his transformation a review of his life from the earliest period were set forth with all the talent that a knowledge of human life could furnish to a mind like that of the procureur benedetto was thus forever condemned in public opinion before the sentence of the law could be pronounced
andrea paid no attention to the successive charges which were brought against him
and who no doubt practiced upon him all the psychological studies he was accustomed to use in vain endeavored to make him lower his eyes notwithstanding the depth and profundity of his gaze at length the reading of the indictment was ended accused said the president
your name and surname andrea arose excuse me mister president he said in a clear voice but i see you are going to adopt a course of questions through which i cannot follow you i have an idea
which i will explain by and by of making an exception to the usual form of accusation allow me then if you please to answer in different order or i will not do so at all the astonished president looked at the jury who in turn looked at villefort
the whole assembly manifested great surprise but andrea appeared quite unmoved your age said the president will you answer that question
your age repeated the president
raised his head at the mention of this date where were you born continued the president
looked at benedetto as if he had been gazing at the head of medusa and became livid as for benedetto he gracefully wiped his lips with a fine cambric pocket handkerchief your profession first i was a forger answered andrea as calmly as possible
then i became a thief and lately have become an assassin a murmur or rather storm of indignation burst from all parts of the assembly
and the jury manifested tokens of disgust for cynicism so unexpected in a man of fashion
which at first pale had become red and burning then he suddenly arose and looked around as though he had lost his senses he wanted air are you looking for anything mister procureur asked benedetto with his most ingratiating smile
and now prisoner will you consent to tell your name said the president the brutal affectation with which you have enumerated and classified your crimes calls for a severe reprimand on the part of the court both in the name of morality
you appear to consider this a point of honor and it may be for this reason that you have delayed acknowledging your name you wished it to be preceded by all these titles it is quite wonderful mister president how entirely you have read my thoughts said benedetto
in his softest voice and most polite manner this is indeed the reason why i begged you to alter the order of the questions the public astonishment had reached its height there was no longer any deceit or bravado in the manner of the accused
the audience felt that a startling revelation was to follow this ominous prelude well said the president your name i cannot tell you my name since i do not know it but i know my father's and can tell it to you
a painful giddiness overwhelmed villefort great drops of acrid sweat fell from his face upon the papers which he held in his convulsed hand repeat your father's name said the president not a whisper not a breath was heard in that vast assembly
every one waited anxiously my father is king's attorney replied andrea calmly king's attorney said the president stupefied
king's attorney yes and if you wish to know his name i will tell it
now burst forth like thunder from the breasts of all present the court itself did not seek to restrain the feelings of the audience the exclamations the insults addressed to benedetto who remained perfectly unconcerned the energetic gestures the movement of the gendarmes
the sneers of the scum of the crowd always sure to rise to the surface in case of any disturbance all this lasted five minutes before the door keepers and magistrates were able to restore silence in the midst of this tumult the voice of the president was heard to exclaim
and do you dare set your fellow citizens an example of disorder which even in these times has never been equalled
encouragement and protestations of zeal and sympathy order was re established in the hall except that a few people still moved about and whispered to one another
and she had recovered during the scene of tumult andrea had turned his smiling face towards the assembly then leaning with one hand on the oaken rail of the dock in the most graceful attitude possible he said gentlemen i assure you i had no idea of insulting the court
they ask my age i tell it
they ask my name i cannot give it since my parents abandoned me but though i cannot give my own name not possessing one i can tell them my father's
there was an energy a conviction and a sincerity in the manner of the young man which silenced the tumult all eyes were turned for a moment towards the procureur who sat as motionless as though a thunderbolt had changed him into a corpse gentlemen said andrea
commanding silence by his voice and manner i owe you the proofs and explanations of what i have said but said the irritated president you called yourself benedetto declared yourself an orphan and claimed corsica as your country
i said anything i pleased in order that the solemn declaration i have just made should not be withheld which otherwise would certainly have been the case i now repeat that i was born at auteuil on the night of the twenty seventh of september eighteen seventeen
do you wish for any further details i will give them
in a room hung with red damask my father took me in his arms telling my mother i was dead
a shudder ran through the assembly when they saw that the confidence of the prisoner increased in proportion to the terror
but how have you become acquainted with all these details asked the president i will tell you mister president a man who had sworn vengeance against my father and had long watched his opportunity to kill him had introduced himself that night into the garden in which my father buried me
he was concealed in a thicket he saw my father bury something in the ground and stabbed him then thinking the deposit might contain some treasure he turned up the ground
the man carried me to the foundling asylum where i was registered under the number thirty seven three months afterwards a woman travelled from rogliano to paris to fetch me and having claimed me as her son carried me away thus you see though born in paris i was brought up in corsica
there was a moment's silence during which one could have fancied the hall empty so profound was the stillness proceed said the president certainly i might have lived happily amongst those good people who adored me but my perverse disposition prevailed over the virtues
one day when i cursed providence for making me so wicked and ordaining me to such a fate my adopted father said to me
of your father who consigned you to hell if you died and to misery if a miracle preserved you alive
that is why i have uttered the words for which you blame me
if i have committed an additional crime punish me but if you will allow that ever since the day of my birth my fate has been sad bitter and lamentable then pity me but your mother asked the president my mother thought me dead she is not guilty
i did not even wish to know her name nor do i know it just then a piercing cry ending in a sob burst from the centre of the crowd who encircled the lady who had before fainted and who now fell into a violent fit of hysterics she was carried out of the hall the thick veil which concealed her face dropped off
and madame danglars was recognized notwithstanding his shattered nerves the ringing sensation in his ears and the madness which turned his brain villefort rose as he perceived her the proofs the proofs said the president remember this tissue of horrors must be supported by the clearest proofs
the proofs said benedetto laughing do you want proofs yes
every one turned towards the procureur who unable to bear the universal gaze now riveted on him alone advanced staggering into the midst of the tribunal with his hair dishevelled and his face indented with the mark of his nails the whole assembly uttered a long murmur of astonishment
father said benedetto i am asked for proofs do you wish me to give them no no it is useless stammered
no it is useless how useless cried the president what do you mean
gentlemen i know i am in the hands of an avenging god we need no proofs everything relating to this young man is true a dull gloomy silence like that which precedes some awful phenomenon of nature pervaded the assembly who shuddered in dismay
what are you no longer in possession of your senses this strange unexpected terrible accusation has disordered your reason come recover the procureur dropped his head his teeth chattered like those of a man under a violent attack of fever and yet he was deadly pale
i am in possession of all my senses sir he said my body alone suffers as you may suppose i acknowledge myself guilty of all the young man has brought against me and from this hour hold myself under the authority of the procureur who will succeed me
and as he spoke these words with a hoarse choking voice he staggered towards the door which was mechanically opened by a door keeper the whole assembly were dumb with astonishment at the revelation and confession which had produced a catastrophe so different
from that which had been expected during the last fortnight by the parisian world well said beauchamp let them now say that drama is unnatural ma foi said chateau renaud
and moreover it kills said beauchamp and to think that i had an idea of marrying his daughter said debray she did well to die poor girl the sitting is adjourned gentlemen said the president
as for andrea who was calm and more interesting than ever
who involuntarily paid him some attention
chapter one hundred seven the lions den one division of la force in which the most dangerous and desperate prisoners are confined is called the court of saint bernard the prisoners in their expressive language have named it the lions den
probably because the captives possess teeth which frequently gnaw the bars and sometimes the keepers also it is a prison within a prison the walls are double the thickness of the rest the gratings are every day carefully examined by jailers whose herculean proportions and
cold pitiless expression prove them to have been chosen to reign over their subjects for their superior activity and intelligence the court yard of this quarter is enclosed by enormous walls over which the sun glances obliquely when it deigns to penetrate into this gulf of moral and physical deformity
on this paved yard are to be seen pacing to and fro from morning till night pale careworn and haggard like so many shadows the men whom justice holds beneath the steel she is sharpening
there crouched against the side of the wall which attracts and retains the most heat they may be seen sometimes talking to one another but more frequently alone watching the door which sometimes opens to call forth one from the gloomy assemblage
or to throw in another outcast from society the court of saint bernard has its own particular apartment for the reception of guests it is a long rectangle divided by two upright gratings placed at a distance of three feet from one another
to prevent a visitor from shaking hands with or passing anything to the prisoners it is a wretched damp nay even horrible spot more especially when we consider the agonizing conferences which have taken place between those iron bars and yet
frightful though this spot may be it is looked upon as a kind of paradise by the men whose days are numbered it is so rare for them to leave the lions den for any other place
or the galleys in the court which we have attempted to describe and from which a damp vapor was rising a young man with his hands in his pockets who had excited much curiosity among the inhabitants of the den might be seen walking
the cut of his clothes would have made him pass for an elegant man if those clothes had not been torn to shreds still they did not show signs of wear and the fine cloth beneath the careful hands of the prisoner soon recovered its gloss in the parts which were still perfect
for the wearer tried his best to make it assume the appearance of a new coat he bestowed the same attention upon the cambric front of a shirt which had considerably changed in color since his entrance into the prison
and he polished his varnished boots with the corner of a handkerchief embroidered with initials surmounted by a coronet some of the inmates of the lions den were watching the operations of the prisoner's toilet with considerable interest
see the prince is pluming himself said one of the thieves he's a fine looking fellow said another if he had only a comb and hair grease he'd take the shine off the gentlemen in white kids his coat looks almost new and his boots shine like a nigger's face it's pleasant to have such well dressed comrades
he looks like a big bug said another dresses in fine style and then to be here so young oh what larks meanwhile the object of this hideous admiration approached the wicket against which one of the keepers was leaning
remember i have relations who possess more millions than you have deniers come i beseech you lend me twenty francs so that i may buy a dressing gown it is intolerable always to be in a coat and boots and what a coat sir for a prince of the cavalcanti
the keeper turned his back and shrugged his shoulders he did not even laugh at what would have caused any one else to do so he had heard so many utter the same things indeed he heard nothing else come said andrea you are a man void of compassion
i'll have you turned out this made the keeper turn around and he burst into a loud laugh the prisoners then approached and formed a circle i tell you that with that wretched sum continued andrea i could obtain a coat and a room in which to receive the illustrious visitor i am daily expecting
of course of course said the prisoners any one can see he's a gentleman
i am no comrade of these people said the young man proudly you have no right to insult me thus
the latter sure of quelling the tempest when the waves became too violent allowed them to rise to a certain pitch that he might be revenged on the importunate andrea and besides it would afford him some recreation during the long day
the thieves had already approached andrea some screaming la savate la savate a cruel operation which consists in cuffing a comrade who may have fallen into disgrace not with an old shoe but with an iron heeled one
others proposed the anguille another kind of recreation in which a handkerchief is filled with sand pebbles and two sous pieces when they have them
the handkerchief was thrown down and the iron heeled shoe replaced on the foot of the wretch to whom it belonged some voices were heard to say that the gentleman was right that he intended to be civil in his way and that they would set the example of liberty of conscience and the mob retired
the keeper was so stupefied at this scene that he took andrea by the hands and began examining his person attributing the sudden submission of the inmates of the lions den to something more substantial than mere fascination
andrea made no resistance although he protested against it suddenly a voice was heard at the wicket benedetto exclaimed an inspector the keeper relaxed his hold i am called said andrea to the visitors room said the same voice
you see some one pays me a visit ah my dear sir you will see whether a cavalcanti is to be treated like a common person and andrea gliding through the court like a black shadow rushed out through the wicket leaving his comrades and even the keeper lost in wonder
certainly a call to the visitors room had scarcely astonished andrea less than themselves for the wily youth instead of making use of his privilege of waiting to be claimed on his entry into la force had maintained a rigid silence
this sudden fortune the facility with which i have overcome all obstacles an unexpected family and an illustrious name awarded to me gold showered down upon me
the hand which has retreated for a while will be again stretched forth to save me at the very moment when i shall think myself sinking into the abyss why should i risk an imprudent step it might alienate my protector he has two means of extricating me from this dilemma
the one by a mysterious escape managed through bribery the other by buying off my judges with gold i will say and do nothing until i am convinced that he has quite abandoned me and then andrea had formed a plan which was tolerably clever
the unfortunate youth was intrepid in the attack and rude in the defence
still by degrees nature or rather custom had prevailed and he suffered from being naked dirty and hungry it was at this moment of discomfort that the inspector's voice called him to the visiting room andrea felt his heart leap with joy
it was too soon for a visit from the examining magistrate and too late for one from the director of the prison or the doctor it must then be the visitor he hoped for
he saw while his eyes dilated with surprise
who was also gazing with sad astonishment upon the iron bars the bolted doors and the shadow which moved behind the other grating ah said andrea deeply affected good morning benedetto said bertuccio with his deep hollow voice
you you said the young man looking fearfully around him do you not recognize me unhappy child silence be silent said andrea who knew the delicate sense of hearing possessed by the walls for heaven's sake do not speak so loud
oh yes that is well and bertuccio feeling in his pocket signed to a keeper whom he saw through the window of the wicket read he said what is that asked andrea an order to conduct you to a room and to leave you there to talk to me
oh cried andrea leaping with joy then he mentally added still my unknown protector i am not forgotten they wish for secrecy
i understand bertuccio has been sent by my protector the keeper spoke for a moment with an official then opened the iron gates and conducted andrea to a room on the first floor the room was whitewashed as is the custom in prisons but it looked quite brilliant to a prisoner
though a stove a bed a chair and a table formed the whole of its sumptuous furniture
the keeper retired now said the steward what have you to tell me and you said andrea you speak first
well be it so you have continued your course of villany you have robbed you have assassinated well i should say if you had me taken to a private room only to tell me this you might have saved yourself the trouble i know all these things
let us talk of those if you please who sent you come come you are going on quickly m
yes and to the point let us dispense with useless words who sends you no one how did you know i was in prison
the champs elysees come let us talk a little about my father who then am i you sir you are my adopted father
it was not you who manufactured an italian gentleman for my father
which i fancy i am eating at this moment in company with the most distinguished people in paris amongst the rest with a certain procureur whose acquaintance i did very wrong not to cultivate
it was not you in fact who bailed me for one or two millions when the fatal discovery of my little secret took place come speak my worthy corsican speak what do you wish me to say
well well in the champs elysees there resides a very rich gentleman at whose house you robbed and murdered did you not
oh these are fine words and there will be fine doings if you do not take care menaces i do not fear them i will say
and with so steadfast a look that andrea was moved to the very soul do you think you have to do with galley slaves or novices in the world benedetto you are fallen into terrible hands they are ready to open for you make use of them
but which they can take up again instantly if you attempt to intercept their movements my father i will know who my father is said the obstinate youth i will perish if i must but i will know it what does scandal signify to me what possessions what reputation
what pull as beauchamp says have i you great people always lose something by scandal notwithstanding your millions come who is my father i came to tell you ah cried benedetto his eyes sparkling with joy
just then the door opened and the jailer addressing himself to bertuccio said excuse me sir but the examining magistrate is waiting for the prisoner and so closes our interview said andrea to the worthy steward i wish the troublesome fellow were at the devil
i will return to morrow said bertuccio good gendarmes i am at your service ah sir do leave a few crowns for me at the gate that i may have some things i am in need of it shall be done replied bertuccio
andrea extended his hand bertuccio kept his own in his pocket and merely jingled a few pieces of money that's what i mean said andrea endeavoring to smile quite overcome by the strange tranquillity of bertuccio can i be deceived he murmured
as he stepped into the oblong and grated vehicle which they call the salad basket never mind we shall see to morrow then he added turning towards bertuccio
in addition to what has been already said of catherine morland's personal and mental endowments when about to be launched into all the difficulties and dangers of a six weeks residence in bath
it may be stated for the reader's more certain information lest the following pages should otherwise fail of giving any idea of what her character is meant to be that her heart was affectionate her disposition cheerful and open
without conceit or affectation of any kind her manners just removed from the awkwardness and shyness of a girl her person pleasing and when in good looks pretty
will be naturally supposed to be most severe a thousand alarming presentiments of evil to her beloved catherine from this terrific separation must oppress her heart with sadness
and drown her in tears for the last day or two of their being together and advice of the most important and applicable nature must of course flow from her wise lips in their parting conference in her closet
cautions against the violence of such noblemen and baronets as delight in forcing young ladies away to some remote farm house must at such a moment relieve the fulness of her heart who would not think so
but missus morland knew so little of lords and baronets that she entertained no notion of their general mischievousness and was wholly unsuspicious of danger to her daughter from their machinations
her cautions were confined to the following points i beg catherine
when you come from the rooms at night and i wish you would try to keep some account of the money you spend i will give you this little book on purpose sally or rather sarah
must from situation be at this time the intimate friend and confidante of her sister it is remarkable however that she neither insisted on catherine's writing by every post
with a degree of moderation and composure which seemed rather consistent with the common feelings of common life than with the refined susceptibilities the tender emotions which the first separation of a heroine from her family ought always to excite
her father instead of giving her an unlimited order on his banker or even putting an hundred pounds bank bill into her hands gave her only ten guineas and promised her more when she wanted it
under these unpromising auspices the parting took place and the journey began it was performed with suitable quietness and uneventful safety neither robbers nor tempests befriended them
nor one lucky overturn to introduce them to the hero nothing more alarming occurred than a fear on missus allen's side of having once left her clogs behind her at an inn
and that fortunately proved to be groundless they arrived at bath catherine was all eager delight her eyes were here there everywhere as they approached its fine and striking environs
and afterwards drove through those streets which conducted them to the hotel she was come to be happy and she felt happy already they were soon settled in comfortable lodgings in pulteney street
that the reader may be able to judge in what manner her actions will hereafter tend to promote the general distress of the work and how she will probably contribute to reduce poor catherine to all the desperate wretchedness
of which a last volume is capable whether by her imprudence vulgarity or jealousy whether by intercepting her letters ruining her character or turning her out of doors
missus allen was one of that numerous class of females whose society can raise no other emotion than surprise at there being any men in the world who could like them well enough to marry them
were all that could account for her being the choice of a sensible intelligent man like mister allen in one respect she was admirably fitted to introduce a young lady into public
being as fond of going everywhere and seeing everything herself as any young lady could be dress was her passion she had a most harmless delight in being fine and our heroine's entree into life
could not take place till after three or four days had been spent in learning what was mostly worn and her chaperone was provided with a dress of the newest fashion catherine too made some purchases herself
and when all these matters were arranged the important evening came which was to usher her into the upper rooms her hair was cut and dressed by the best hand her clothes put on with care
and both missus allen and her maid declared she looked quite as she should do with such encouragement catherine hoped at least to pass uncensured through the crowd as for admiration
it was always very welcome when it came but she did not depend on it missus allen was so long in dressing that they did not enter the ballroom till late the season was full the room crowded
missus allen made her way through the throng of men by the door as swiftly as the necessary caution would allow catherine however kept close at her side and linked her arm too firmly within her friend's to be torn asunder by any common effort of a struggling assembly
but to her utter amazement she found that to proceed along the room was by no means the way to disengage themselves from the crowd it seemed rather to increase as they went on
they saw nothing of the dancers but the high feathers of some of the ladies still they moved on something better was yet in view and by a continued exertion of strength and ingenuity
they found themselves at last in the passage behind the highest bench
and hence miss morland had a comprehensive view of all the company beneath her and of all the dangers of her late passage through them it was a splendid sight and she began for the first time that evening
to feel herself at a ball she longed to dance but she had not an acquaintance in the room missus allen did all that she could do in such a case by saying very placidly every now and then
i wish you could dance my dear i wish you could get a partner for some time her young friend felt obliged to her for these wishes but they were repeated so often
and proved so totally ineffectual that catherine grew tired at last and would thank her no more they were not long able however to enjoy the repose of the eminence they had so laboriously gained
that she could not relieve the irksomeness of imprisonment by the exchange of a syllable with any of her fellow captives and when at last arrived in the tea room she felt yet more the awkwardness of having no party to join
no acquaintance to claim no gentleman to assist them they saw nothing of mister allen and after looking about them in vain for a more eligible situation were obliged to sit down at the end of a table
at which a large party were already placed without having anything to do there or anybody to speak to except each other missus allen congratulated herself as soon as they were seated
on having preserved her gown from injury it would have been very shocking to have it torn
for my part i have not seen anything i like so well in the whole room i assure you how uncomfortable it is whispered catherine not to have a single acquaintance here
yes my dear replied missus allen with perfect serenity it is very uncomfortable indeed
i wish we had any it would be somebody to go to very true my dear and if we knew anybody we would join them directly the skinners were here last year i wish they were here now
here are no tea things for us you see no more there are indeed how very provoking
somebody gave me a push that has hurt it i am afraid no indeed it looks very nice but
i don't upon my word i wish i did i wish i had a large acquaintance here with all my heart and then i should get you a partner
how old fashioned it is look at the back after some time they received an offer of tea from one of their neighbours it was thankfully accepted and this introduced a light conversation with the gentleman who offered it
which was the only time that anybody spoke to them during the evening till they were discovered and joined by mister allen when the dance was over well miss morland said he directly i hope you have had an agreeable ball
very agreeable indeed she replied vainly endeavouring to hide a great yawn i wish she had been able to dance said his wife i wish we could have got a partner for her
i have been saying how glad i should be if the skinners were here this winter instead of last or if the parrys had come as they talked of once she might have danced with george parry i am so sorry she has not had a partner
we shall do better another evening i hope was mister allen's consolation the company began to disperse when the dancing was over enough to leave space for the remainder to walk about in some comfort
and now was the time for a heroine who had not yet played a very distinguished part in the events of the evening to be noticed and admired every five minutes by removing some of the crowd gave greater openings for her charms
she was now seen by many young men who had not been near her before not one however started with rapturous wonder on beholding her no whisper of eager inquiry ran round the room
nor was she once called a divinity by anybody yet catherine was in very good looks and had the company only seen her three years before they would now have thought her exceedingly handsome
she was looked at however and with some admiration for in her own hearing two gentlemen pronounced her to be a pretty girl such words had their due effect
she immediately thought the evening pleasanter than she had found it before her humble vanity was contented she felt more obliged to the two young men for this simple praise than a true quality heroine
would have been for fifteen sonnets in celebration of her charms and went to her chair in good humour with everybody
mistress mary quite contrary how does your garden grow with dingle bells and cockle shells and cowslips all in a row high upon a cliff that overlooked the sea was a little white cottage
in which dwelt a sailor and his wife with their two strong sons and a little girl the sons were also sailors and had made several voyages with their father in a pretty ship called the skylark
their names were hobart and robart the little girl's name was mary and she was very happy indeed when her father and her brothers were at home for they petted her and played games with her and loved her very dearly
and her mother and herself were left alone in the little white cottage the hours were very dull and tedious and mary counted the days until the sailors came home again one spring
just as the grasses began to grow green upon the cliff and the trees were dressing their stiff barren branches in robes of delicate foliage the father and brothers bade good bye to mary and her mother for they were starting upon a voyage to the black sea
and how long will you be gone papa asked mary who was perched upon her father's knee where she could nestle her soft cheek against his bushy whiskers
stroking her curls tenderly as he spoke well well my darling it will be a long time indeed do you know the cowslips that grow in the pastures mary oh yes i watch for them every spring she answered
and do you know the dingle bells that grow near the edge of the wood he asked again i know them well papa
and how about the cockle shells them also i know said mary eagerly for she was glad her father should find her so well acquainted with the field flowers there is nothing prettier than the big white flowers of the cockle shells
but tell me papa what have the flowers to do with your coming home why just this sweetheart returned the sailor gravely all the time that it takes the cowslips and dingle bells and cockle shells to sprout from the ground
then god willing we shall come back to you and by that time you may have grown wiser and bigger and i am sure you will have grown older so one more kiss sweetheart and then we must go for our time is up
the next morning when mary and her mother had dried their eyes which had been wet with grief at the departure of their loved ones the little girl asked earnestly mamma may i make a flower garden
a flower garden repeated her mother in surprise why do you wish a flower garden mary i want to plant in it the cockle shells and the cowslips and the dingle bells she answered and her mother
who had heard what the sailor had said to his little girl knew at once what mary meant so she kissed her daughter and replied yes mary you may have the flower garden if you wish we will dig a nice little bed just at the side of the house
and you shall plant your flowers and care for them yourself i think i d rather have the flowers at the front of the house said mary but why enquired her mother they will be better sheltered at the side
i want them in front persisted mary for the sun shines stronger there very well answered her mother make your garden at the front if you will
said mary for this is to be my own little flower garden and i want to do all the work myself now i must tell you that this little girl although very sweet in many ways had one serious fault
she was inclined to be a bit contrary and put her own opinions and ideas before those of her elders perhaps mary meant no wrong in this
and now she permitted mary to make her own garden and plant it as she would so mary made a long narrow bed at the front of the house and then she prepared to plant her flowers if you scatter the seeds said her mother
the flower bed will look very pretty now this was what mary was about to do but since her mother advised it she tried to think of another way for as i said she was contrary at times
and in the end she planted the dingle bells all in one straight row and the cockle shells in another straight row the length of the bed and she finished by planting the cowslips in another long row at the back her mother smiled but said nothing
and now as the days passed by mary watered and tended her garden with great care and when the flowers began to sprout she plucked all the weeds that grew among them and so in the mild spring weather the plants grew finely
when they have grown up big and strong said mary one morning as she weeded the bed and when they have budded and blossomed and faded away again then papa and my brothers will come home and i shall call the cockle shells papa
for they are the biggest and strongest and the dingle bells shall be brother hobart and the cowslips brother robart and now i feel as if the flowers were really my dear ones and i must be very careful that they come to no harm
she was filled with joy when one morning she ran out to her flower garden after breakfast and found the dingle bells and cowslips were actually blossoming while even the cockle shells were showing their white buds
they looked rather comical all standing in stiff straight rows one after the other but mary did not mind that while she was working she heard the tramp of a horse's hoofs and looking up
she nodded and smiled to him and the big bluff squire rode up to her side and looked down with a smile at her flowers then he said to her in rhyme for it was a way of speaking the jolly squire had
mistress mary so contrary how does your garden grow with dingle bells and cockle shells and cowslips all in a row and mary being a sharp little girl and knowing the squire's queer ways
replied to him likewise in rhyme saying i thank you squire that you enquire how well the flowers are growing the dingle bells and cockle shells and cowslips all are blowing
and then he continued t is aptly said but prithee maid why thus your garden fill when ev'ry field the same flowers yield to pluck them as you will that is a long story squire
said mary but this much i may tell you
the dingle bell i now must tell i ve named for brother hobart and when the flowers have lived their lives in sunshine and in rain and then do fade why papa said
asked the big bluff squire forgetting his poetry
and i think because the flowers are strong and hearty that you may know your father and brothers are the same
i shall come and see you again little one and watch the garden grow
to his gray mare and rode away the very next day to mary's great surprise and grief she found the leaves of the dingle bells curling and beginning to wither oh mamma she called come quick
something is surely the matter with brother hobart the dingle bells are dying said her mother after looking carefully at the flowers but the reason is that the cold winds from the sea swept right over your garden last night
and dingle bells are delicate flowers and grow best where they are sheltered by the woods if you had planted them at the side of the house as i wished you to the wind would not have killed them mary did not reply to this
how dingle bells and cockle shells and cowslips all are growing oh squire sobbed mary i am in great trouble each dingle bell i loved so well before my eyes is dying
i very much suspect the real reason they are dying is because the cold sea wind caught them last night dingle bells are delicate if you had scattered the cockle shells and cowslips all about them the stronger plants would have protected the weaker but you see my girl
the weather now began to change and the cold sea winds blew each night over mary's garden she did not know this for she was always lying snugly tucked up in her bed
and the warm morning sun usually drove away the winds but her mother knew it and feared mary's garden would suffer one day mary came into the house where her mother was at work and said gleefully
why do you think so asked her mother because the cockle shells and cowslips are both fading away and dying just as the dingle bells did and papa said when they faded and withered he and the boys would come back to us
mary's mother knew that the harsh winds had killed the flowers before their time but she did not like to disappoint her darling so she only said with a sigh i hope you are right mary
for we both shall be glad to welcome our dear ones home again but soon afterward the big bluff squire came riding up as was his wont to where mary stood by her garden and he at once asked
pray tell me dear though much i fear the answer sad i know how grow the sturdy cockle shells and cowslips all in a row and mary looked up at him with her bright smile and answered
and now my papa's coming home for so he surely said ah said the squire looking at her curiously i m afraid you are getting way ahead of time see here mary
and by the path that runs beside the wood so he gave the rein to his mare and they rode along chatting merrily together till they came to the wood then said the squire take a look within that nook and tell me what is there
and mary exclaimed a dingle bell and truth to tell in full bloom i declare the squire now clucked to his nag and as they rode away he said now come with me and you shall see a field with cowslips bright
and not a garden in the land can show so fair a sight and so it was for as they rode through the pastures the cowslips bloomed on every hand and mary's eyes grew bigger and bigger as she thought of her poor garden with its dead flowers
squire took her toward the little brook that wandered through the meadows flowing over the pebbles with a soft gurgling sound that was very nearly as sweet as music and when they reached it the big squire said if you will look beside the brook
you ll see i know quite well that hidden in each mossy nook is many a cockle shell this was indeed true and as mary saw them she suddenly dropped her head and began to weep
asked the squire in his kind bluff voice and mary answered although the flowers i much admire you know papa did say he won't be home again squire till all have passed away
gardens are all well enough for fancy flowers to grow in but the posies that god gave to all the world and made to grow wild in the great garden of nature
your father meant you to watch the flowers in the field and if you will come and visit them each day you will find the time waiting very short indeed mary dried her eyes and thanked the kindly old squire
and after that she visited the fields each day and watched the flowers grow and it was not so very long as the squire said before the blossoms began to wither and fall away and finally one day mary looked out over the sea
and saw a little speck upon the waters that looked like a sail and when it came nearer and had grown larger both she and her mother saw that it was the skylark come home again
and you can imagine how pleased and happy the sight of the pretty little ship made them and soon after when mary had been hugged by her two sunburned brothers and was clasped in her father's strong arms she whispered
i knew you were coming soon papa and how did you know sweetheart he asked giving her an extra kiss because i watched the flowers
are all withered and faded away and did you not say that god willing when this happened you would come back to us to be sure i did answered her father with a happy laugh and i must have spoken truly sweetheart
i was installed at bolivar lodge as head butler and steward my salary to consist of what i could make out of it on the side
from various tradesmen of the town i received presents of no little value in the form sometimes of diamond scarf pins gold link sleeve buttons cases of fine wines for my own use and in one or two instances checks of substantial value
there was also what was called a steward's rebate on the monthly bills which in circles where lavish entertainment is the order of the day amounted to a tidy little income in itself
with whom i was perforce required to associate this went very much against the grain at first for
and still retain the prejudice against inferior associations which an english gentleman whatever the vicissitudes of his career can never quite rid himself of i had to join their club an exclusive organization of butlers and gentlemen's gentlemen otherwise valets
and in order to quiet all suspicion of my real status in the van raffles household i was compelled to act the part in a fashion which revolted me otherwise the position was pleasant and
it did not take me many days to discover that henriette was a worthy successor to her late husband few opportunities for personal profit escaped her eye and i was able to observe as time went on and i noted the accumulation of spoons forks nutcrackers
and gimcracks generally that she brought home with her after her calls upon or dinners with ladies of fashion that she had that quality of true genius which never overlooks the smallest details the first big coup after my arrival as the result of her genius
and it has affected her usual calmness i must do something to warn her against this momentary weakness
this won't do henriette nerves will prove your ruin and if you can't stand your losses at bridge what will you do in the face of the greater crisis which in our profession is likely to confront us in the shape of an unexpected visit of police at any moment her answer was a ringing laugh
why my dear bunny i lost that money on purpose
for the good of our cause it is my task to lose steadily and with good grace this establishes my credit proves my amiability and confirms my popularity
no detectives i hope i replied paling at the thought no sir she laughed missus gaster's maid we must get her bunny
by getting in her fine work ahead of his explained henriette he pointed her out to me in piccadilly once and i have never forgotten her face i hope she did not recognize you i observed
but i knew her the minute she took my cloak said henriette she's dyed her hair
one of her fascinations remained unchanged
when i got the cloak back both were gone oh she's fiametta de belleville all right and we must get her what for to rob you
but there there bunny i'll manage this little thing myself it's a trifle too subtle for a man's intellect especially when that man is you
humph i said gloomily that cuts us out doesn't it does it
of the mysterious disappearance of missus gaster's jewels
she'll skip now said i not she said henriette to disappear now would be a confession of guilt if fiametta de belleville is the woman i take her for
where then i asked with missus a j van raffles replied henriette the fact is she added i have already engaged her she has acted her part well
that even missus gaster is disturbed over her condition
i couldn't madam she said when missus gaster asked her to stay
and i'd rather work in a factory or become a shop girl in a department store
result next tuesday fiametta de belleville comes to me as my maid
please remember that i warned you against this foolish act all right bunny i'll remember smiled missus van raffles and there the matter was dropped for the moment
as the maid of missus a j van raffles to her eagle eye it was another promising field for profit for henriette had spared neither pains nor money to impress fiametta with the idea that next to missus gaster she was about as lavish and financially capable a householder
as could be found in the social capital of the united states as for me i was the picture of gloom
raffles rang hurriedly for me yes madam i said responding immediately to her call bunny she said her hand trembling a little the hour for action has arrived
yes said i what of it i want you during her absence to go with me to her room the situation began to dawn on me yes i cried breathlessly and search her trunks no bunny no the eaves whispered henriette
then our turn will come oh that woman if i had not adored her before i but enough this is no place for sentiment
i followed out henriette's instructions to the letter and an hour later returned with the information that fiametta was indeed safely on her way good said missus raffles and now bunny for the gaster jewels mounting the stairs rapidly taking care of course
and then back to england for fiametta
when lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd one when lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd and the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night i mourn'd and yet shall mourn with ever returning spring ever returning spring
trinity sure to me you bring lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west and thought of him i love two o powerful western fallen star o shades of night o moody tearful night
stands the lilac bush tall growing with heart shaped leaves of rich green
with the perfume strong i love with every leaf a miracle and from this bush in the dooryard with delicate color'd blossoms and heart shaped leaves of rich green a sprig with its flower i break four
in the swamp in secluded recesses a shy and hidden bird is warbling a song solitary the thrush the hermit withdrawn to himself avoiding the settlements sings by himself a song
song of the bleeding throat death's outlet song of life for well dear brother i know
five over the breast of the spring the land amid cities amid lanes and through old woods where lately the violets peep'd from the ground spotting the gray debris amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes passing the endless grass
passing the yellow spear'd wheat every grain from its shroud in the dark brown fields uprisen
carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave night and day journeys a coffin six coffin that passes through lanes and streets through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land
with the show of the states themselves as of crape veil'd women standing
with all the mournful voices of the dirges pour'd around the coffin the dim lit churches and the shuddering organs where amid these you journey
here coffin that slowly passes i give you my sprig of lilac seven nor for you for one alone blossoms and branches green to coffins all i bring
for fresh as the morning thus would i chant a song for you o sane and sacred death all over bouquets of roses o death i cover you over with roses and early lilies
i break the sprigs from the bushes
eight o western orb sailing the heaven
as i saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night
as i stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool transparent night as i watch'd where you pass'd and was lost in the netherward black of the night
concluded dropt in the night and was gone nine sing on there in the swamp o singer bashful and tender i hear your notes i hear your call i hear i come presently i understand you
and how shall i deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone and what shall my perfume be for the grave of him i love
blown from the eastern sea and blown from the western sea till there on the prairies meeting these and with these and the breath of my chant i'll perfume the grave of him i love eleven o what shall i hang on the chamber walls
and what shall the pictures be that i hang on the walls to adorn the burial house of him i love pictures of growing spring and farms and homes with the fourth month eve at sundown and the gray smoke lucid and bright
burning expanding the air with the fresh sweet herbage under foot and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific in the distance the flowing glaze
with ranging hills on the banks with many a line against the sky and shadows and the city at hand with dwellings so dense and stacks of chimneys and all the scenes of life and the workshops and the workmen homeward returning twelve
lo body and soul this land
the varied and ample land the south and the north in the light ohio's shores and flashing missouri and ever the far spreading prairies cover'd with grass and corn lo the most excellent sun so calm and haughty
the violet and purple morn with just felt breezes the gentle soft born measureless light the miracle spreading bathing all the fulfill'd noon
the welcome night and the stars over my cities shining all enveloping man and land thirteen sing on sing on you gray brown bird sing from the swamps the recesses pour your chant from the bushes
limitless out of the dusk out of the cedars and pines sing on dearest brother warble your reedy song
o liquid and free and tender o wild and loose to my soul o wondrous singer you only i hear yet the star holds me but will soon depart yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me fourteen
now while i sat in the day and look'd forth in the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring and the farmers preparing their crops in the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and forests in the heavenly aerial beauty
after the perturb'd winds and the storms under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing and the voices of children and women the many moving sea tides and i saw the ships how they sail'd and the summer approaching with richness
and the fields all busy with labor and the infinite separate houses how they all went on each with its meals and minutia of daily usages and the streets how their throbbings throbb'd and the cities pent
appear'd the cloud appear'd the long black trail and i knew death its thought and the sacred knowledge of death then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me
and i in the middle as with companions and as holding the hands of companions i fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not down to the shores of the water the path by the swamp in the dimness
and the singer so shy to the rest receiv'd me the gray brown bird i know receiv'd us comrades three and he sang the carol of death and a verse for him i love from deep secluded recesses from the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still came the carol of the bird
as i held as if by their hands my comrades in the night and the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird come lovely and soothing death undulate round the world serenely arriving arriving in the day in the night to all to each
sooner or later delicate death prais'd be the fathomless universe for life and joy and for objects and knowledge curious and for love sweet love but praise praise praise
for the sure enwinding arms of cool enfolding death dark mother always gliding near with soft feet have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome then i chant it for thee i glorify thee above all
from me to thee glad serenades
and the sights of the open landscape and the high spread shy are fitting and life and the fields and the huge and thoughtful night the night in silence under many a star the ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice i know
over the dense pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways i float this carol with joy with joy to thee o death fifteen to the tally of my soul loud and strong kept up the gray brown bird
with pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night loud in the pines and cedars dim
and i with my comrades there in the night while my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed as to long panoramas of visions and i saw askant the armies i saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle flags
i saw battle corpses myriads of them
but i saw they were not as was thought they themselves were fully at rest they suffer'd not
and the armies that remain'd suffer'd sixteen passing the visions passing the night passing unloosing the hold of my comrades hands passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul
victorious song death's outlet song yet varying ever altering song as low and wailing yet clear the notes rising and falling flooding the night sadly sinking and fainting as
as that powerful psalm in the night i heard from recesses passing i leave thee lilac with heart shaped leaves i leave thee there in the door yard blooming returning with spring i cease from my song for thee
from my gaze on thee in the west fronting the west communing with thee
the song the wondrous chant of the gray brown bird
comrades mine and i in the midst and their memory ever to keep for the dead i loved so well for the sweetest wisest soul of all my days and lands and this for his dear sake lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul
o captain my captain o captain my captain our fearful trip is done the ship has weather'd every rack the prize we sought is won the port is near the bells i hear the people all exulting
where on the deck my captain lies fallen cold and dead o captain my captain rise up and hear the bells rise up for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills
for you they call the swaying mass their eager faces turning here captain dear father this arm beneath your head it is some dream that on the deck
my captain does not answer his lips are pale and still my father does not feel my arm he has no pulse nor will the ship is anchor'd safe and sound its voyage closed and done
but i with mournful tread walk the deck my captain lies fallen cold and dead hush'd be the camps to day may fourth eighteen sixty five hush'd be the camps to day and soldiers let us drape our war worn
weapons and each with musing soul retire to celebrate our dear commander's death no more for him life's stormy conflicts nor victory nor defeat no more time's dark events charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky but sing poet in our name
sing of the love we bore him because you dweller in camps know it truly
sing as they close the doors of earth upon him one verse for the heavy hearts of soldiers this dust was once the man
pussy cat sits by the fire how should she be fair
i thank you kindly little dog i fare as well as you old rhyme once upon a time there was a pussy cat called ribby who invited a little dog called duchess to tea come in good time my dear duchess said ribby's letter
a pie dish with a pink rim you never tasted anything so good and you shall eat it all i will eat muffins my dear duchess wrote ribby i will come very punctually my dear ribby wrote duchess and then at the end she added i hope it isn't mouse
and then she thought that did not look quite polite
and she gave her letter to the postman but she thought a great deal about ribby's pie
i really couldn't couldn't eat mouse pie and i shall have to eat it because it is a party and my pie was going to be veal and ham a pink and white pie dish and so is mine just like ribby's dishes they were both bought at tabitha twitchit's
she popped her pie into the oven there were two ovens one above the other some other knobs and handles were only ornamental and not intended to open
the top oven bakes too quickly said ribby to herself
then she went out with a can to the well for water to fill up the kettle then she began to set the room in order for it was the sitting room as well as the kitchen when ribby had laid the table she went out down the field to the farm to fetch milk and butter
when she came back she peeped into the bottom oven the pie looked very comfortable ribby put on her shawl and bonnet and went out again with a basket to the village shop to buy a packet of tea a pound of lump sugar and a pot of marmalade
and just at the same time duchess came out of her house at the other end of the village ribby met duchess half way down the street also carrying a basket covered with a cloth they only bowed to one another they did not speak because they were going to have a party
as soon as duchess had got round the corner out of sight she simply ran straight away to ribby's house ribby went into the shop and bought what
ribby went on to timothy baker's and bought the muffins then she went home there seemed to be a sort of scuffling noise in the back passage as she was coming in at the front door but there was nobody there
it is a very odd thing that ribby's pie was not in the oven when i put mine in and i can't find it anywhere i have looked all over the house i put my pie into a nice hot oven at the top i could not turn any of the other handles
duchess went home and brushed her beautiful black coat and then she picked a bunch of flowers in her garden as a present for ribby and passed the time until the clock struck four
she sat down before the fire to wait for the little dog
very punctually at four o'clock duchess started to go to the party
just a shade longer i will pour out the tea while we wait
she dropped the sugar in confusion and had to go hunting under the tea table so did not see which oven ribby opened in order to get out the pie ribby set the pie upon the table there was a very savoury smell duchess came out from under the table cloth munching sugar and sat up on a chair
i think thought duchess to herself i think it would be wiser if i helped myself to pie
i did not remember that i had minced it up so fine i suppose this is a quicker oven than my own the pie dish was emptying rapidly duchess had had four helps already and was fumbling with the spoon
patty pans and they are all in the cupboard duchess set up a howl i shall die i shall die i have swallowed a patty pan oh my dear ribby i do feel so ill it is impossible my dear duchess there was not a patty pan
yes there was my dear ribby i am sure i have swallowed it let me prop you up with a pillow my dear duchess where do you think you feel it oh i do feel so ill all over me my dear ribby
oh yes yes fetch doctor maggotty my dear ribby he is a pie himself he will certainly understand ribby settled duchess in an armchair before the fire and went out and hurried to the village to look for the doctor she found him at the smithy
ribby explained that her guest had swallowed a patty pan doctor maggotty hopped so fast that ribby had to run it was most conspicuous all the village could see that ribby was fetching the doctor but while ribby had been hunting for the doctor a curious thing had happened to duchess who had been left by herself
sitting before the fire sighing and groaning and feeling very unhappy how could i have swallowed it such a large thing as a patty pan she sat down again and stared mournfully at the grate
she opened the door of the top oven out came a rich steamy flavour of veal and ham and there stood a fine brown pie
little tin patty pan duchess drew a long breath then i must have been eating mouse no wonder i feel ill but perhaps i should feel worse if i had really swallowed a patty pan duchess reflected what a very awkward thing to have to explain to ribby
and take it away she put it outside the back door and sat down again by the fire and shut her eyes
i am truly glad to hear it he has brought you a pill my dear duchess i think i should feel quite well if he only felt my pulse said duchess backing away from the magpie who sidled up with something in his beak it is only a bread pill you had much better take it
perhaps it might be wise my dear duchess ribby and duchess said good bye affectionately and duchess started home half way up the lane she stopped and looked back ribby had gone in and shut her door
house and peeped into the yard upon the roof of the pig stye sat doctor maggotty and three jackdaws
the pearl rope of missus gushington andrews bunny said henrietta one morning
are you ready for a coup requiring a lot of it well i replied pluming myself a bit
but i think it is pretty good i managed to raise twenty seven hundred dollars on my own account by the use of it last night indeed said henriette with a slight frown how bunny you know you are likely to complicate matters for all of us if you work on the side what pray did you do last night
and then i unfolded to her the incidents of the night before when by assuming at a moment's notice the position of valet
when word came over the telephone to digby mister de pelt's valet that mister de pelt was at the rockerbilts and in no condition to go home alone it happened that it was i who took the message and observing that digby was engaged in a game of billiards and likely to remain so for some time to come
i decided to go after the gentleman myself without saying anything to digby about it muffling myself up so that no one could recognize me i hired a cab and drove out to the rockerbilt mansion sent in word that mister de pelt's man was waiting for him
i took him to his apartment dismissed the cab and letting ourselves into his room with his own latch key put him to bed his clothes i took as a well ordered valet should from his bed chamber into an adjoining room where after removing the contents of his pockets
i hung them neatly over a chair and departed taking with me of course everything of value the young gentleman had about him even down to the two brilliant rubies he wore in his garter buckles this consisted of two handfuls of crumpled twenty dollar bills from his trousers
three rolls of one hundred dollar bills from his waistcoat and sundry other lots of currency both paper and specie that i found stowed away in his overcoat and dinner coat pockets there were also ten twenty dollar gold pieces in a little silver chain bag he carried on his wrist
as i say there was about fifteen hundred dollars of this loose change and i reckon up the value of his studs garter rubies and finger rings at about twelve hundred dollars more or a twenty seven hundred dollars pull in all eh
suppose he had recognized you cried henriette oh he did or at least he thought he did i replied smiling broadly at the recollection
there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for me
again i laughed he won't said i with a conviction born of experience
i don't believe mister de pelt remembers now that he was at the rockerbilts last night and even if he does you know that i was in this house at eleven o'clock i bunny
so now that i have shown you in just what shape my nerve is what is the demand you are going to put upon it
you know missus gushington andrews yes said i she is the lady who asked me for the olives at your last dinner precisely observed henriette you possibly observed also that wherever she goes she wears about sixty nine yards of pearl rope upon her person
to twenty five hundred and i am to land a yard or two of the stuff for you in some mysterious way i demanded how is it to be by kidnapping the lady the snatch and run game or how sarcasm does not suit your complexion bunny retorted henriette
your best method is to follow implicitly the directions of wiser brains you are a first class tool but as a principal well
where most people nod she describes a complete circle with her head when a cold formal handshake is necessary she perpetrates an embrace and that is where we come in at my next tuesday tea she will be present she will wear her pearls she'll be strung with them from head to foot
a rope walk won't be in it with her
better call it the incident i put in
nothing of the sort bunny just do as i tell you
henriette was charming in her new gown specially imported from paris a gown of oriental design with row upon row of brilliantly shining crescent shaped ornaments firmly affixed to the front of it and every one of them as sharp as a steel knife i could see at a glance
that even if so little as one of these fastened its talons upon the pearl rope of missus gushington andrews nothing under heaven could save it from laceration what a marvellous mind there lay behind those exquisite childlike eyes of the wonderful henriette
remember bunny calm deliberation your gloves now were her last words to me
hush just watch me she replied whereupon this wonderful creature taking my white gloves deliberately smeared their palms and inner sides of the fingers
composed of talcum powder and liquid honey
oh dear how very unfortunate cried henriette
let james pour them into this and james otherwise myself did so to the extent of five teacups full of them and then he discreetly retired well bunny said henriette breathlessly two hours later when her last guest had gone
even then we'll be thirty five thousand dollars to the good and by the way bunny i want to congratulate you on one thing ah what's that my sang froid my nerve i asked airily
care will kill a cat one says and yet cats are said to have nine lives let us hope that poor pussy will never be put to a worse death a muffled cat is no good mouser that cat is out of kind that sweet milk will not lap
you can have no more of a cat than her skin this proverb seems to refer to the unfitness of her flesh for food formerly the fur of the cat was used in trimming coats and cloaks the cat gut used for rackets and for the fine strings of violins
is made from the dried intestines of the cat the larger strings being from the intestines of sheep and lambs fain would the cat fish eat but she is loth to wet her feet the cat sees not the mouse ever
when the cat winketh little wots the mouse what the cat thinketh though the cat winks a while yet sure she is not blind well might the cat wink when both her eyes were out how can the cat help it if the maid be a fool
which means how can it help breaking or stealing that which is left in its way that that comes of a cat will catch mice a cat may look at a king an old cat laps as much as a young kitten
when the cat is away the mice will play when candles are out all cats are grey otherwise joan is as good as my lady in the dark the cat knows whose lips she licks
cry you mercy killed my cat this is spoken to those who play one a trick and then try to escape punishment by begging pardon by biting and scratching cats and dogs come together i'll keep no more cats than will catch mice
who shall hang the bell about the cat's neck the mice at a consultation how to secure themselves from the cat resolved upon hanging a bell about her neck to give warning when she approached but when this was resolved on they were as far off as ever for who was to do it
john skelton says but they are lothe to mel and lothe to hang the bel about the catte's neck fro dred to have a checke a cat has nine lives and a woman has nine cats lives cats eat what hussies spare
cats hide their claws the wandering cat gets many a rap the cat is hungry when a crust contents her he lives under the sign of the cat's foot
again let hercules himself do what he may the cat will mew and dog will have his day the wisdom of our forefathers teaches us that if a cat be carried in a bag from its old home to a new house let the distance be several miles
it will be certain to return again but if it be carried backward into the new house this will not be the case a cat's eyes wax and wane as the moon waxes and wanes and the course of the sun is followed by the apples of its eyes
the brain of a cat may be used as a love spell if taken in small doses if a man swallow two or three cat's hairs it will cause him to faint as a cure for epilepsy take three drops of blood from under a cat's tail in water
the horse ridden by a man who has got any cat's hair on his clothing will perspire violently and soon become exhausted if the wind blows over a cat riding in a vehicle upon the horse drawing it it will weary the horse very much
to preserve your eyesight burn the head of a black cat to ashes
three times a day to cure a whitlow put the finger affected a quarter of an hour every day into a cat's ear
is good for curing epilepsy and lameness the skin of the wild cat worn as coverings will give strength to the limbs now about dreams if any one dreams that he hath encountered a cat or killed one
he will commit a thief to prison and prosecute him to the death for the cat signifies a common thief if he dreams that he eats cat's flesh he will have the goods of the thief that robbed him if he dreams that he hath the skin then he will have all the thief's goods
if any one dreams he fought with a cat that scratched him sorely that denotes some sickness or affliction if any shall dream that a woman became the mother of a cat instead of a well shaped baby it is a bad hieroglyphic and betokens no good to the dreamer
stevens states that in some counties of england it used to be thought a good bit of fun to close up a cat in a cask with a quantity of soot and suspend the cask on a line then he who could knock out the bottom of the cask as he ran under it
and was nimble enough to escape its falling contents was thought to be very clever after the first part had been performed the cat was hunted to death which finished this diverting pastime they were full of their fun once upon a time in merrie england
in an old fashioned treatise upon rat catching i find mentioned a means of alluring of very material efficacy which is the use of oil of rhodium
has a very extraordinary fascinating power on these animals among the sympathetic secrets in occult philosophy published in the conjurors magazine in seventeen ninety one i find a recipe to
draw cats together and fascinate them which is as follows in the new moon gather the herb nepe and dry it in the heat of the sun when it is temperately hot
hang these together in a net in a convenient place and when one of them has scented it her cry will soon call those about her that are within hearing and they will rant and run about leaping and capering to get at the net which must be hung or placed
so that they cannot easily accomplish it for they will certainly tear it to pieces near bristol there is a field that goes by the appellation of the field of cats from a large number of these animals being drawn together there by this contrivance
one of the frauds of witchcraft was the witch pretending to transform herself into a cat and this led to the cat being tormented by the ignorant vulgar
in sixteen eighteen margaret and philip flower were executed at lincoln their mother was also accused dying in goal before probably of fright added to old age and infirmity
it was asserted that they had procured the death of the lord henry mosse eldest son of the earl of rutland by procuring his right hand glove which after being rubbed on the back of their imp named rutterkin
and which lived with them in the form of a cat was plunged into boiling water pricked with a knife and buried in a dung hill so that as that rotted the liver of the young man might rot also which was affirmed to have come to pass
those were dreadful times for the ill looking old ladies and the more so if they were unfortunate enough to have an affection for the feline race a wrinkled hag of wicked fame beside a little smoky flame
sat hovering pinched with age and frost her shrivelled hands with veins embossed upon her knees her weight sustains while palsy shook her crazy brains she mumbles forth her backward prayer
an untamed scold of fourscore year about her swarmed a numerous brood of cats who lank with hunger mewed teased with their cries
and thus she sputtered ye crew fool that i was to entertain such imps such fiends a hellish train had ye been never housed and nursed i for a witch
to you i owe that crowd of boys worry me with eternal noise straws laid across my pace retard the horse shoes nailed each threshold's guard the stunted broom the wenches hide
the executions for witchcraft increased the pope had given sanction to the belief in this demoniacal power and had asserted their possession of it in fourteen eighty five forty one poor women were burnt as witches in germany
an inquisitor in piedmont burnt a hundred more and was proceeding so fast with others daily
and chased him out of the country about the same time five hundred witches were executed at geneva in the course of three months among the many who counterfeited possession by the devil for the purpose of attracting pity or obtaining money
were agnes bridges and rachel pinder who had counterfeited to be possessed by the devil and vomited pins and rags but were detected and stood before the preacher at saint paul's cross and acknowledged their hypocritical counterfeiting this happened in fifteen seventy four
in fifteen years from fifteen eighty to fifteen ninety five remigius burnt nine hundred reputed witches in lorraine in germany they tortured and burnt them daily until many unfortunates destroyed themselves for fear of a death by torment
and others fled the country ludovicus paramo states that the inquisition within the space of one hundred fifty years had burnt thirty thousand of these reputed witches
fifteen were condemned at chelmsford and hanged in that town and at manningtree many more at bury saint edmunds in sixteen forty five and sixteen forty six amounting to nearly forty in all at the several places of execution
and as many more in the country as made up threescore in this work he was aided by one john stern and a woman who with the rest pretended to have secret means of testing witchcraft nor was their zeal unrewarded by the weak and superstitious parliament
mister hopkins in a book published in sixteen forty seven owns that he had twenty shillings for each town he visited to discover witches and owns that he punished many testing them by a water ordeal to see if they would sink or swim
he says that he swam many and watched them for four nights together keeping them standing or walking till their feet were blistered the reason as he says was to prevent their couching down for indeed when they be suffered to couch
immediately come their familiars in the room and scareth the watchers and heartneth encourageth the witch this swimming experiment which was deemed a full proof of guilt if any one subjected to it did not sink but floated on the surface of the water
who in a work upon the subject among other things assigned this somewhat ridiculous reason for its pretended infallibility that as such persons had renounced their baptism by water so the water refuses to receive them
consequently those who were accused of diabolical practices were tied neck and heels together and tossed into a pond if they floated or swam they were guilty and therefore taken out and hanged or burnt if they were innocent they were drowned
of this method of trial by water ordeal scot observes that a woman above the age of fifty years and being bound both hand and foot her clothes being upon her and being laid softly upon the water sinketh not a long time
some say not at all and doctor hutchinson confirms this by saying not one in ten even sink in that position of their bodies its utter fallacy was shown when the witch finders themselves were thus tested and the last quoted writer says
that if the books written against witchcraft were tested by the same ordeal they would in no degree come off more safely one of the most cruel cases was that of mister lowes a clergyman who had reached the patriarchal age of eighty
he was one of those unfortunate ministers of the gospel whose livings were sequestered by the parliament and who was suspected as malignant
it would have been well for him had this been the only suspicion but he was accused of witchcraft and it was asserted that he had sunk ships at sea by the power he possessed
he was seized and tested they watched him and kept him awake at night and ran him backwards and forwards about the room
then they rested him a little and then ran him again and thus they did for several days and nights together
and was scarce sensible of what he said or did they swam him twice or thrice although that was no true rule to try him by for they sent in unsuspected people at the same time and they swam as well as he
yet was the unfortunate old clergyman condemned to death and executed in the book written some years after this by mister gaul he mentions their mode of discovering witches which was principally by marks or signs upon their bodies
which were in reality but moles scorbutic spots or warts which frequently grow large and pendulous in old age and were absurdly declared to be teats to suckle imps thus of one joane willimot in sixteen nineteen
it was sworn that she had two imps one in the form of a kitten and another in that of a mole and they leapt on her shoulder and the kitten sucked under her right ear on her neck and the mole on the left side in the like place and at another time a spirit was seen
sucking her under the left ear in the likeness of a little white dogge see the wonderful discovery of the witchcrafts of margare and philip flower sixteen nineteen another test was to place the suspected witch in the middle of a room upon a stool or table
cross legged or in some other uneasy posture and if she were refractory she was tied too by cords and kept without meat or sleep for a space of four and twenty hours all this time she was strictly watched
because it was believed that in the course of that time her imp would come to suck her for whom some hole or ingress was provided the watchers swept the room frequently so that nothing might escape them and should a fly or spider be found that had the activity to elude them
they were assured these were the imps in sixteen forty five one was hanged at cambridge who kept a tame frog which was sworn to be her imp and one at gloucester in sixteen forty nine who was convicted for having suckled a sow
in the form of a little black creature in a tryal of witches at bury saint edmunds sixteen sixty four a witness deposed to having caught one of these imps in a blanket waiting for her child who slept in it and was bewitched
that it was in the form of a toad and was caught and thrown into the fire where it made a great and horrible noise and after a space there was a flashing in the fire like gunpowder making a noise like the discharge of a pistol
and thereupon the toad was no more seen nor heard all of which was the simple natural result of this cruel proceeding but which was received by judge and jury at that time of the poor toad being an imp hutchinson in his essay on witchcraft says
it was very requisite that these witch finders should take care to go to no towns but where they might do what they would without being controlled by sticklers but if the times had not been as they were they would have found but few towns where they might be suffered to use the trial of the stool
which was as bad as most tortures do but imagine a poor old creature under all the weakness and infirmities of old age set like a fool in the middle of a room with a rabble of ten towns about her home then her legs tied across
that all the weight of her body might rest upon her seat by that means after some hours the circulation of the blood would be stopped and her sitting would be as painful as the wooden horse
without either sleep or meat and since this was their ungodly way of trial what wonder was it if when they were weary of their lives they confessed many tales that would please them and many times they knew not what hopkins favourite and ultimate method of proof was by swimming
as before narrated they tied together the thumbs and toes of the suspected person about whose waist was fastened a cord the ends of which were held on the banks of the river by two men whose power it was to strain or slacken it if they floated they were witches
testing all by these modes of trial and ending in the cruel deaths of many wretched old persons a reaction against him took place probably at the instigation of some whose friends had been condemned innocently or of those who were too wise to believe in his tests
and disgusted with his cold wickedness his own famous and conclusive evidence the experiment of swimming was tried upon himself and this wretch who had sacrificed so many by the same test was found to be guilty too
he was deservedly condemned and suffered death himself as a wizard doctor harsenet archbishop of york in his declaration of popish impostures says out of those is shap'd us the true idea of a witch
an old weather beaten crone having her chin and knees meeting for age walking like a bow leaning on a staff
going mumbling in the streets one that hath forgotten her pater noster and yet hath a shrewd tongue to call a drab a drab if she hath learned of an old wife in a chimney end pax max fax for a spell
benedicamus domino
if any of you have a sheep sick of the giddies or a hog of the mumps or a horse of the staggers or a knavish boy of the school or an idle girl of the wheel or a young drab of the sullens and hath not fat enough for her porridge or butter enough for her bread
and she hath a little help of the epilepsy or cramp to teach her to roll her eyes wry her mouth gnash her teeth startle with her body hold her arms and hands stiff et cetera and then when an old mother nobs hath by chance called her
idle young housewife or bid the devil scratch her then no doubt but mother nobs is the witch and the young girl is owl blasted et cetera they that have their brains baited and their fancies distempered
with the imaginations and apprehensions of witches conjurors and fairies
i find to be marshalled in one of these five ranks children fools women cowards sick or black melancholic discomposed wits many hundreds of poor old women and many a cat
were sacrificed to the zealous master hopkins for cats and kittens were frequently said to be imps who had taken that form however he was not the only scoundrel who made witch finding a trade in syke's local recorder mention is made of a scotchman
who pretended great powers of discovering witchcraft and was engaged by the townsmen of newcastle to practise there and one man and fifteen women were hanged by him but he ultimately shared as hopkins did the cruel fate he had awarded to so many others
when the witch finder had done in newcastle and received his wages he went into northumberland to try women there and got three pounds a piece
and required bond of him to answer at the sessions he escaped into scotland where he was made prisoner indicted arraigned and condemned for such like villany exercised in scotland and confessed at the gallows that he had been the death of above two hundred and twenty women
in england and scotland here is an account of the death of a famous witch's famous cat ye rats in triumph elevate your ears exult ye mice for fate's abhorred shears
henceforth he mews midst choirs of cats divine so sings mister huddesford in a monody on the death of dick an academical cat with this motto mi cat inter omnes
he brings his cat dick from the flood and consequently through rutterkin a cat who was
cater cousin to the great great great great great great great great great grandmother of grimalkin and first cat in the caterie of an old woman
the monodist connects him with cats of great renown in the annals of witchcraft
one of whom it appears on the authority of an old pamphlet entitled mewes from scotland et cetera
confessed that she took a cat and christened it et cetera and that in the night following the said cat was conveyed into the middest of the sea by all these witches sayling in their riddles
this done there did arise such a tempest at sea as a greater hath not been seen since againe it is confessed that the said christened cat was the cause of the kinge's majestie's shippe at his coming forthe of denmark had a contrarie winde to the rest of the shippes then being in his companie
as the kinge's majestie acknowledgeth for when the rest of the shippes had a fair and good winde then was the winde contrarie and altogether against his majestie et cetera all sorts of cats according to huddesford lamented the death of his favourite
whom he calls premier cat upon the catalogue and who preferring sprats to all other fish had swallow'd down a score without remorse and three fat mice slew for a second course but while the third his grinders dyed with gore
to grind no more and dire to tell commission'd by old nick a catalepsy made an end of dick
shrill cats whom fierce domestic brawls delight cross cats who nothing want but teeth to bite starch cats of puritanic aspect sad and learned cats who talk their husbands mad confounded cats who cough and croak and cry
and maudlin cats who drink eternally fastidious cats who pine for costly cates and jealous cats who catechise their mates cat prudes who when they're ask'd the question squall
uncleanly cats who never pare their nails cat gossips full of canterbury tales
and superstitious cats who curse their stars cats of each class craft calling and degree mourn dick's calamitous catastrophe yet while i chant the cause of richard's end ye sympathising cats your tears suspend
then shed enough to float a dozen whales and use for pocket handkerchiefs your tails
no vase thy relics rare to fame consign no rev'rend characters thy rank express nor hail thee dick d d nor f r s though no funereal cypress shade thy tomb
there while grimalkin's mew her richard greets a thousand cats shall purr on purple seats e'en now i see descending from his throne thy venerable cat o whittington the kindred excellence of richard hail
and wave with joy his gratulating tail there shall the worthies of the whiskered race
midst beds of aromatic marum stray or raptur'd rove beside the milky way kittens than eastern houris fairer seen whose bright eyes glisten with immortal green shall smooth for tabby swains their yielding fur
and to their amorous mews assenting purr there like alcmena's shall grimalkin's son in bliss repose his mousing labours done fate envy curs time tide and traps defy
to conclude this chapter an incident which took place only a few days ago in essex at a village within forty miles of london and which came under the personal knowledge of the writer may be adduced to show that
however witchcraft may have been laughed away and laughter has been more effectual to rid the world of it than rope or stake there are still to be found individuals who believe in the evil powers of hook nosed crones black cats and broom sticks in a squalid hut lived a miserable dame
whose only claims to a demoniacal connection were her excessive age and her sombre cat whether the neighbours thought the cat was more of a witch than the woman or whether they had a wholesome dread of the punishment inflicted upon murderers it was upon the animal
the bewitched ones determined to wreak their vengeance and then it was that the true satanic nature of poor puss appeared traps were set to catch her but she would not be caught ropes were purchased to hang her but she would not bow her head to the noose
and finally a blunderbuss was loaded to shoot her loaded to the very muzzle by conjurations and enchantments when that gun was fired it knocked the holder backwards and never injured the black cat another man tried with the same result and yet another
far away in the land to which the swallows fly when it is winter dwelt a king who had eleven sons and one daughter named eliza
and had a book full of pictures which had cost as much as half a kingdom oh these children were indeed happy but they were not to remain so always their father who was king of the country
married a very wicked queen who did not love the poor children at all they knew this from the very first day after the wedding in the palace there were great festivities
and the children played at receiving company but instead of having as usual all the cakes and apples that were left she gave them some sand in a teacup and told them to pretend it was cake
the week after she sent little eliza into the country to a peasant and his wife and then she told the king so many untrue things about the young princes that he gave himself no more trouble respecting them
go out into the world and get your own living said the queen fly like great birds who have no voice but she could not make them ugly as she wished
then with a strange cry they flew through the windows of the palace over the park to the forest beyond it was yet early morning when they passed the peasant's cottage
where their sister eliza lay asleep in her room they hovered over the roof twisted their long necks and flapped their wings but no one heard them or saw them so they were at last obliged to fly away
high up in the clouds and over the wide world they flew till they came to a thick dark wood which stretched far away to the seashore
poor little eliza was alone in her room playing with a green leaf for she had no other playthings and she pierced a hole through the leaf and looked through it at the sun
and would whisper to the roses who can be more beautiful than you but the roses would shake their heads and say
and when the old woman sat at the cottage door on sunday and read her hymn book the wind would flutter the leaves and say to the book who can be more pious than you and then the hymn book would answer
eliza and the roses and the hymn book told the real truth at fifteen she returned home but when the queen saw how beautiful she was
she became full of spite and hatred toward her willingly would she have turned her into a swan like her brothers but she did not dare to do so yet because the king wished to see his daughter
early one morning the queen went into the bathroom it was built of marble and had soft cushions trimmed with the most beautiful tapestry she took three toads with her
place yourself on her forehead that
and that her father may not know her rest on her heart she whispered to the third then she will have evil inclinations and suffer in consequence
so she put the toads into clear water and they turned green immediately she next called eliza and helped her to undress and get into the bath as eliza dipped her head under the water
one of the toads sat on her hair a second on her forehead and a third on her breast but she did not seem to notice them and when she rose out of the water
there were three red poppies floating upon it had not the creatures been venomous or been kissed by the witch they would have been changed into red roses at all events they became flowers
so that she was quite brown then she tangled her beautiful hair and smeared it with disgusting ointment till it was quite impossible to recognize the beautiful eliza when her father saw her
he was much shocked and declared she was not his daughter no one but the watchdog and the swallows knew her and they were only dumb animals and could say nothing then poor eliza wept
and thought of her eleven brothers who were all away sorrowfully she stole away from the palace and walked the whole day over fields and moors till she came to the great forest
and if she touched a twig with her hand ever so lightly the brilliant fireflies fell down around her like shooting stars all night long she dreamed of her brothers
she and they were children again playing together she saw them writing with their diamond pencils on golden slates while she looked at the beautiful picture book which had cost half a kingdom
they were not writing lines and letters as they used to do but descriptions of the noble deeds they had performed and of all they had discovered and seen in the picture book too
everything was living the birds sang and the people came out of the book and spoke to eliza and her brothers but as the leaves turned over they darted back again to their places that all might be in order
when she awoke the sun was high in the heavens yet she could scarcely see him for the lofty trees spread their branches thickly over her head
and his beams were glancing through the leaves here and there like a golden mist there was a sweet fragrance from the fresh verdure and the birds almost perched upon her shoulders
she heard water rippling from a number of springs all flowing into a lake with golden sands bushes grew thickly around the lake and at one spot
an opening had been made by a deer through which eliza went down to the water the lake was so clear that had not the wind rustled the branches of the trees and the bushes so that they moved
they would have appeared as if painted in the depths of the lake for every leaf was reflected in the water whether it stood in the shade or the sunshine as soon as eliza saw her own face
she was quite terrified at finding it so brown and ugly but when she wetted her little hand and rubbed her eyes and forehead the white skin gleamed forth once more
that the boughs bent beneath its weight here she held her noonday repast placed props under the boughs and then went into the gloomiest depths of the forest it was so still
that she could hear the sound of her own footsteps as well as the rustling of every withered leaf which she crushed under her feet not a bird was to be seen
not a sunbeam could penetrate through the large dark boughs of the trees the lofty trunks stood so close together that when she looked before her it seemed
not a single glowworm glittered in the moss sorrowfully she laid herself down to sleep and after a while it seemed to her as if the branches of the trees parted over her head
and that the mild eyes of angels looked down upon her from heaven when she awoke in the morning she knew not whether she had dreamed this or if it had really been so
then she continued her wandering but she had not gone many steps forward when she met an old woman with berries in her basket and begged a few to eat then eliza asked her
swimming on the river close by then she led eliza a little distance farther to a sloping bank at the foot of which wound a little stream
the trees on its banks stretched their long leafy branches across the water toward each other and where the growth prevented them from meeting naturally the roots had torn themselves away from the ground
before the young maiden's eyes lay the glorious ocean but not a sail appeared on its surface not even a boat could be seen how was she to go farther
she noticed how the countless pebbles on the seashore had been smoothed and rounded by the action of the water glass iron stones everything that lay there mingled together
had taken its shape from the same power and felt as smooth or even smoother than her own delicate hand
whether they were dewdrops or tears no one could say lonely as it was on the seashore she did not observe it for the ever moving sea showed more changes in a few hours
and the waves turned to white foam as they rolled when the wind slept and the clouds glowed with the red sunlight then the sea looked like a rose leaf
when the sun was about to set eliza saw eleven white swans with golden crowns on their heads flying toward the land one behind the other
like a long white ribbon then eliza went down the slope from the shore and hid herself behind the bushes the swans alighted quite close to her
and flapped their great white wings as soon as the sun had disappeared under the water the feathers of the swans fell off and eleven beautiful princes
stood near her she uttered a loud cry for although they were very much changed she knew them immediately she sprang into their arms and called them each by name
then how happy the princes were at meeting their little sister again for they recognized her
but as soon as it sinks behind the hills we recover our human shape
for if we should be flying toward the clouds at the time we recovered our natural form as men we should fall deep into the sea we do not dwell here but in a land just as fair that lies beyond the ocean
which we have to cross for a long distance there is no island in our passage upon which we could pass the night nothing but a little rock rising out of the sea upon which we can scarcely stand with safety
even closely crowded together if the sea is rough the foam dashes over us yet we thank god even for this rock we have passed whole nights upon it
or we should never have reached our beloved fatherland for our flight across the sea occupies two of the longest days in the year we have permission to visit our home once in every year and to remain eleven days
during which we fly across the forest to look once more at the palace where our father dwells and where we were born and at the church where our mother lies buried
the charcoal burners sing the old songs to which we have danced as children this is our fatherland to which we are drawn by loving ties and here we have found you our dear little sister
two days longer we can remain here and then must we fly away to a beautiful land which is not our home and how can we take you with us we have neither ship nor boat
her brothers were again changed to swans and they flew in circles wider and wider till they were far away but one of them the youngest swan remained behind
and laid his head in his sister's lap while she stroked his wings and they remained together the whole day toward evening the rest came back and as the sun went down they resumed their natural forms
and when the sun rose and her brothers again became wild swans they took up the net with their beaks and flew up to the clouds with their dear sister who still slept the sunbeams fell on her face
therefore one of the swans soared over her head so that his broad wing might shade her they were far from the land when eliza woke she thought she must still be dreaming
it seemed so strange to her to feel herself being carried so high in the air over the sea by her side lay a branch full of beautiful ripe berries and a bundle of sweet roots
the youngest of her brothers had gathered them for her and placed them by her side she smiled her thanks to him she knew it was the same who had hovered over her to shade her with his wings
they were now so high that a large ship beneath them looked like a white sea gull skimming the waves
it formed a more beautiful picture than she had ever seen but as the sun rose higher and the clouds were left behind the shadowy picture vanished away onward the whole day they flew
through the air like a winged arrow yet more slowly than usual for they had their sister to carry the weather seemed inclined to be stormy and eliza watched the sinking sun with great anxiety
when the sun set they would change to men fall into the sea and be drowned then she offered a prayer from her inmost heart but still no appearance of the rock
dark clouds came nearer
she believed they were falling but they again soared onward presently she caught sight of the rock just below them and by this time the sun was half hidden by the waves
the rock did not appear larger than a seal's head thrust out of the water they sank so rapidly that at the moment their feet touched the rock
the air became calm and still and at sunrise the swans flew away from the rock with eliza the sea was still rough and from their high position in the air
the white foam on the dark green waves looked like millions of swans swimming on the water as the sun rose higher eliza saw before her floating in the air
a range of mountains with shining masses of ice on their summits in the center rose a castle apparently a mile long with rows of columns rising one above another
while around it palm trees waved and flowers bloomed as large as mill wheels she asked if this was the land to which they were hastening the swans shook their heads for what she beheld
were the beautiful ever changing cloud palaces of the fata morgana into which no mortal can enter eliza was still gazing at the scene when mountains forests and castles melted away
and twenty stately churches rose in their stead with high towers and pointed gothic windows eliza even fancied she could hear the tones of the organ
she found it was only a sea mist gliding over the ocean so there continued to pass before her eyes a constant change of scene till at last
she saw the real land to which they were bound with its blue mountains its cedar forests and its cities and palaces long before the sun went down
she sat on a rock in front of a large cave on the floor of which the overgrown yet delicate green creeping plants looked like an embroidered carpet
now we shall expect to hear what you dream of to night said the youngest brother as he showed his sister her bedroom heaven grant that i may dream how to save you
she replied and this thought took such hold upon her mind that she prayed earnestly to god for help and even in her sleep she continued to pray then it appeared to her
and a fairy came out to meet her radiant and beautiful in appearance and yet very much like the old woman who had given her berries in the wood
true water is softer than your own delicate hands and yet it polishes stones into shapes it feels no pain as your fingers would feel it has no soul
and cannot suffer such agony and torment as you will have to endure do you see the stinging nettle which i hold in my hand quantities of the same sort grow around the cave in which you sleep
and they will become flax from which you must spin and weave eleven coats with long sleeves if these are then thrown over the eleven swans the spell will be broken but remember
that from the moment you commence your task until it is finished even should it occupy years of your life you must not speak the first word you utter
will pierce through the hearts of your brothers like a deadly dagger their lives hang upon your tongue remember all i have told you and as she finished speaking she touched her hand lightly with the nettle
it was broad daylight and close by where she had been sleeping lay a nettle like the one she had seen in her dream she fell on her knees and offered her thanks to god
then she went forth from the cave to begin her work with her delicate hands she groped in among the ugly nettles which burned great blisters on her hands and arms
but she determined to bear it gladly if she could only release her dear brothers so she bruised the nettles with her bare feet and spun the flax at sunset her brothers returned
and were very much frightened when they found her dumb they believed it to be some new sorcery of their wicked stepmother but when they saw her hands they understood what she was doing on their behalf
during the whole of the following day while her brothers were absent she sat in solitude but never before had the time flown so quickly one coat was already finished
into a bundle and sat upon them immediately a great dog came bounding toward her out of the ravine and then another and another they barked loudly ran back and then came again
in a very few minutes all the huntsmen stood before the cave and the handsomest of them was the king of the country he advanced toward her for he had never seen a more beautiful maiden
how did you come here my sweet child he asked but eliza shook her head she dared not speak at the cost of her brothers lives and she hid her hands under her apron
i will place a golden crown on your head and you shall dwell and rule and make your home in my richest castle and then he lifted her on his horse
she wept and wrung her hands but the king said i wish only your happiness a time will come when you will thank me for this and then he galloped away over the mountains
holding her before him on his horse and the hunters followed behind them as the sun went down they approached a fair royal city with churches and cupolas on arriving at the castle
the king led her into marble halls where large fountains played and where the walls and the ceilings were covered with rich paintings but she had no eyes for all these glorious sights she could only mourn and weep
patiently she allowed the women to array her in royal robes to weave pearls in her hair and draw soft gloves over her blistered fingers as she stood before them in all her rich dress
she looked so dazzlingly beautiful that the court bowed low in her presence then the king declared his intention of making her his bride but the archbishop shook his head and whispered that the fair young maiden
was only a witch who had blinded the king's eyes and enchanted his heart but the king would not listen to this he ordered the music to sound the daintiest dishes to be served
and the loveliest maidens to dance afterwards he led her through fragrant gardens and lofty halls but not a smile appeared on her lips or sparkled in her eyes
she looked the very picture of grief then the king opened the door of a little chamber in which she was to sleep it was adorned with rich green tapestry
and resembled the cave in which he had found her on the floor lay the bundle of flax which she had spun from the nettles and under the ceiling hung the coat she had made
these things had been brought away from the cave as curiosities by one of the huntsmen here you can dream yourself back again in the old home in the cave said the king
here is the work with which you employed yourself it will amuse you now in the midst of all this splendor to think of that time when eliza saw all these things which lay so near her heart
a smile played around her mouth and the crimson blood rushed to her cheeks she thought of her brothers and their release made her so joyful that she kissed the king's hand then he pressed her to his heart
very soon the joyous church bells announced the marriage feast and that the beautiful dumb girl out of the wood was to be made queen of the country then the archbishop whispered wicked words in the king's ear
chapter four two bazaars mother was really a great dear she was pretty and she was loving and most frightfully good when you were ill and always kind and almost always just
that is she was just when she understood things but of course she did not always understand things
the children knew that mother always wanted to do what was best for them even if she was not clever enough to know exactly what was the best that was why all of them but much more particularly anthea
and anthea whose inside mind was made so that she was able to be much more uncomfortable than the others had decided that she must tell her mother the truth however little likely it was that her mother would believe it
and if she doesn't believe me it won't be my fault will it not in the least said the golden bird and she won't so you're quite safe anthea chose a time when she was doing her home lessons they were algebra and latin german english and euclid
and she asked her mother whether she might come and do them in the drawing room
and that's not the real reason i hope i shan't grow up a liar mother said of course dearie and anthea started swimming through a sea of x's and y's and z's mother was sitting at the mahogany bureau writing letters
mother dear said anthea yes love a duck said mother about cook said anthea i know where she is do you dear said mother
well i wouldn't take her back after the way she has behaved it's not her fault said anthea
mother laid down her pen and her nice face had a resigned expression as you know a resigned expression always makes you want not to tell anybody anything it's like this said anthea in a hurry
that egg you know that came in the carpet we put it in the fire and it hatched into the phoenix and the carpet was a wishing carpet and a very nice game darling said mother taking up her pen now do be quiet i've got a lot of letters to write
i'm going to bournemouth to morrow with the lamb and there's that bazaar anthea went back to
but mother said anthea when mother put down the pen to lick an envelope the carpet takes us wherever we like and i wish it would take you where you could get a few nice eastern things for my bazaar said mother
the carpet took us to a place where you couldn't have whooping cough
and we took cook because she was so tiresome and then she would stay and be queen of the savages they thought her cap was a crown and darling one said mother you know i love to hear the things you make up but i am most awfully busy
but it's true said anthea desperately you shouldn't say that my sweet said mother gently and then anthea knew it was hopeless are you going away for long asked anthea i've got a cold said mother
and daddy's anxious about it and the lamb's cough he hasn't coughed since saturday the lamb's eldest sister interrupted i wish i could think so mother replied and daddy's got to go to scotland i do hope you'll be good children
we will we will said anthea fervently when's the bazaar on saturday said mother at the schools oh don't talk any more there's a treasure my head's going round and i've forgotten how to spell whooping cough
mother and the lamb went away and father went away and there was a new cook who looked so like a frightened rabbit that no one had the heart to do anything to frighten her any more than seemed natural to her the phoenix begged to be excused
it said it wanted a week's rest and asked that it might not be disturbed and it hid its golden gleaming self and nobody could find it
so that when wednesday afternoon brought an unexpected holiday and every one decided to go somewhere on the carpet the journey had to be undertaken without the phoenix
exacted in the agitation of parting that they would not be out after six at night except on saturday when they were to go to the bazaar and were pledged to put on their best clothes to wash themselves to the uttermost and to clean their nails
not with scissors which are scratchy and bad but with flat sharpened ends of wooden matches which do no harm to any one's nails let's go and see the lamb said jane
but every one was agreed that if they appeared suddenly in bournemouth it would frighten mother out of her wits if not into a fit so they sat on the carpet and thought and thought and thought till they almost began to squint look here said cyril i know
please carpet take us somewhere where we can see the lamb and mother and no one can see us except the lamb said jane quickly and the next moment they found themselves recovering from the upside down movement
there were green pine trees overhead and a swift clear little stream was running as fast as ever it could between steep banks and there sitting on the pine needle carpet was mother without her hat and the sun was shining brightly although it was november
and there was the lamb as jolly as jolly and not whooping at all the carpet's deceived us said robert gloomily mother will see us directly she turns her head but the faithful carpet had not deceived them
mother turned her dear head and looked straight at them and did not see them we're invisible cyril whispered what awful larks but to the girls it was not larks at all
as if she didn't care whether she saw us or not
and his precious face all dirty quite in the old familiar way
cried the lamb it was a delicious moment even the boys thumped their baby brother joyously on the back then anthea glanced at mother
and she was staring at the lamb as if she thought he had gone mad and indeed that was exactly what she did think my lamb my precious come to mother she cried and jumped up and ran to the baby
and to feel what you can't see is the worst sort of ghost feeling mother picked up the lamb and hurried away from the pinewood let's go home said jane after a miserable silence it feels just exactly as if mother didn't love us
but they couldn't bear to go home till they had seen mother meet another lady and knew that she was safe you cannot leave your mother to go green in the face in a distant pinewood far from all human aid and then go home on your wishing carpet as though nothing had happened
when mother seemed safe the children returned to the carpet and said home' and home they went i don't care about being invisible myself said cyril at least not with my own family
it would be different if you were a prince or a bandit or a burglar and now the thoughts of all four dwelt fondly on the dear greenish face of mother i wish she hadn't gone away said jane the house is simply beastly without her
i think we ought to do what she said anthea put in i saw something in a book the other day about the wishes of the departed being sacred that means when they've departed farther off said cyril
get indian things for my bazaar but i know she thought we couldn't and it was only play let's get them all the same said robert we'll go the first thing on saturday morning and on saturday morning the first thing they went
there was no finding the phoenix so they sat on the beautiful wishing carpet and said we want indian things for mother's bazaar will you please take us where people will give us heaps of indian things
the docile carpet swirled their senses away and restored them on the outskirts of a gleaming white indian town they knew it was indian at once by the shape of the domes and roofs and besides a man went by on an elephant
and two english soldiers went along the road talking like in mister kipling's books so after that no one could have any doubt as to where they were they rolled up the carpet and robert carried it and they walked bodily into the town
it was very warm and once more they had to take off their london in november coats and carry them on their arms the streets were narrow and strange and the clothes of the people in the streets were stranger and the talk of the people was strangest of all
i can't understand a word said cyril how on earth are we to ask for things for our bazaar and they're poor people too said jane i'm sure they are what we want is a rajah or something
robert was beginning to unroll the carpet but the others stopped him imploring him not to waste a wish we asked the carpet to take us where we could get indian things for bazaars said anthea and it will her faith was justified
just as she finished speaking a very brown gentleman in a turban came up to them and bowed deeply
my ranee she think you very nice childs she asks do you lose yourselves and do you desire to sell carpet she see you from her palkee
the old ranee sat on a low cushioned seat and there were a lot of other ladies with her all in trousers and veils and sparkling with tinsel and gold and jewels and the brown turbaned gentleman stood behind a sort of carved screen
and interpreted what the children said and what the queen said and when the queen asked to buy the carpet the children said no why asked the ranee and jane briefly said why and the interpreter interpreted the queen spoke and then the interpreter said
my mistress says it is a good story and you tell it all through without thought of time and they had to it made a long story especially as it had all to be told twice once by cyril and once by the interpreter cyril rather enjoyed himself
he warmed to his work and told the tale of the phoenix and the carpet and the lone tower and the queen cook in language that grew insensibly more and more arabian nightsy and the ranee and her ladies listened to the interpreter and rolled about on their fat cushions with laughter
when the story was ended she spoke and the interpreter explained that she had said little one thou art a heaven born teller of tales and she threw him a string of turquoises from round her neck oh how lovely cried jane and anthea
thank her very very much but i would much rather she gave me some of the cheap things in the bazaar tell her i want them to sell again and give the money to buy clothes for poor people who haven't any
tell him he has my leave to sell my gift and clothe the naked with its price said the queen when this was translated but cyril said very firmly no thank you the things have got to be sold to day at our bazaar and no one would buy a turquoise necklace at an english bazaar
they'd think it was sham or else they'd want to know where we got it so then the queen sent out for little pretty things and her servants piled the carpet with them i must needs lend you an elephant to carry them away she said laughing but anthea said
if the queen will lend us a comb and let us wash our hands and faces she shall see a magic thing we and the carpet and all these brass trays and pots and carved things and stuffs and things will just vanish away like smoke
the queen clapped her hands at this idea and lent the children a sandal wood comb inlaid with ivory lotus flowers and they washed their faces and hands in silver basins then cyril made a very polite farewell speech and quite suddenly he ended with the words
and i wish we were at the bazaar at our schools and of course they were and the queen and her ladies were left with their mouths open gazing at the bare space on the inlaid marble floor where the carpet and the children had been
that is magic if ever magic was said the queen delighted with the incident which indeed has given the ladies of that court something to talk about on wet days ever since
cyril's stories had taken some time so had the meal of strange sweet foods that they had had while the little pretty things were being bought and the gas in the schoolroom was already lighted
outside the winter dusk was stealing down among the camden town houses i'm glad we got washed in india said cyril we should have been awfully late if we'd had to go home and scrub besides robert said it's much warmer washing in india
i shouldn't mind it so much if we lived there the thoughtful carpet had dumped the children down in a dusky space behind the point where the corners of two stalls met the floor was littered with string and brown paper and baskets and boxes were heaped along the wall
but robert as he cautiously emerged was actually walked on by missus biddle who kept the stall her large solid foot stood firmly on the small solid hand of robert and who can blame robert if he did yell a little
a crowd instantly collected yells are very unusual at bazaars and every one was intensely interested it was several seconds before the three free children could make missus biddle understand
that what she was walking on was not a schoolroom floor or even as she presently supposed a dropped pin cushion but the living hand of a suffering child when she became aware that she really had hurt him she grew very angry indeed
we were looking at the things in the corner such nasty prying ways said missus biddle will never make you successful in life there's nothing there but packing and dust oh isn't there said jane that's all you know
little girl don't be rude said missus biddle flushing violet she doesn't mean to be but there are some nice things there all the same said cyril who suddenly felt how impossible it was to inform the listening crowd
that all the treasures piled on the carpet were mother's contributions to the bazaar no one would believe it and if they did and wrote to thank mother she would think well goodness only knew what she would think the other three children felt the same
i should like to see them said a very nice lady whose friends had disappointed her
she looked inquiringly at robert who said with pleasure don't mention it and dived back under missus biddle's stall i wonder you encourage such behaviour said missus biddle i always speak my mind as you know miss peasmarsh
and i must say i am surprised she turned to the crowd there is no entertainment here she said sternly a very naughty little boy has accidentally hurt himself but only slightly will you please disperse it will only encourage him in naughtiness if he finds himself the centre of attraction
the crowd slowly dispersed anthea speechless with fury heard a nice curate say poor little beggar and loved the curate at once and for ever
then robert wriggled out from under the stall with some benares brass and some inlaid sandalwood boxes liberty cried miss peasmarsh then charles has not forgotten after all
excuse me said missus biddle with fierce politeness these objects are deposited behind my stall some unknown donor who does good by stealth and would blush if he could hear you claim the things of course they are for me
my stall touches yours at the corner said poor miss peasmarsh timidly and my cousin did promise the children sidled away from the unequal contest and mingled with the crowd their feelings were too deep for words till at last robert said
that stiff starched pig and after all our trouble i'm hoarse with gassing to that trousered lady in india the pig lady's very very nasty said jane it was anthea who said in a hurried undertone
she isn't very nice and miss peasmarsh is pretty and nice too who's got a pencil it was a long crawl under three stalls but anthea did it a large piece of pale blue paper lay among the rubbish in the corner
all these indian things are for pretty nice miss peasmarsh's stall she thought of adding there is nothing for missus biddle but she saw that this might lead to suspicion so she wrote hastily from an unknown donna
and crept back among the boards and trestles to join the others so that when missus biddle appealed to the bazaar committee and the corner of the stall was lifted and shifted so that stout clergymen and heavy ladies could get to the corner without creeping under stalls
the blue paper was discovered and all the splendid shining indian things were given over to miss peasmarsh and she sold them all and got thirty five pounds for them i don't understand about that blue paper said missus biddle it looks to me like the work of a lunatic
and saying you were nice and pretty it's not the work of a sane person
miss peasmarsh was very willing for now her stall that had been so neglected was surrounded by people who wanted to buy and she was glad to be helped the children noted that missus biddle had not more to do in the way of selling than she could manage quite well
i hope they were not glad for you should forgive your enemies even if they walk on your hands and then say it is all your naughty fault but i am afraid they were not so sorry as they ought to have been it took some time to arrange the things on the stall
it was a happy and busy afternoon and when miss peasmarsh and the girls had sold every single one of the little pretty things from the indian bazaar far far away anthea and jane went off with the boys to fish in the fishpond and dive into the bran pie and hear the cardboard band
and the phonograph and the chorus of singing birds that was done behind a screen with glass tubes and glasses of water they had a beautiful tea suddenly presented to them by the nice curate and miss peasmarsh joined them before they had had more than three cakes each
we ought to get back to the stall said anthea when no one could possibly eat any more and the curate was talking in a low voice to miss peas marsh about after easter there's nothing to go back for said miss peasmarsh gaily
thanks to you dear children we've sold everything
oh said miss peasmarsh radiantly don't bother about the carpet i've sold even that missus biddle gave me ten shillings for it
for who brings carpets to bazaars the children were now thoroughly wretched but i am glad to say that their wretchedness did not make them forget their manners as it does sometimes even with grown up people who ought to know ever so much better
and as they went away they heard the curate say
ah do say you will and jane ran back and said before anthea could drag her away what are you going to do after easter miss peasmarsh smiled and looked very pretty indeed and the curate said
i hope i am going to take a trip to the fortunate islands i wish we could take you on the wishing carpet said jane thank you said the curate but i'm afraid i can't wait for that i must go to the fortunate islands before they make me a bishop i should have no time afterwards
his aprons would come in so useful wouldn't you like to marry a bishop miss peasmarsh it was then that they dragged her away as it was robert's hand that missus biddle had walked on it was decided that he had better not recall the incident to her mind
and so make her angry again anthea and jane had helped to sell things at the rival stall so they were not likely to be popular a hasty council of four decided that missus biddle would hate cyril less than she would hate the others so the others mingled with the crowd and it was he who said to her
missus biddle we meant to have that carpet would you sell it to us we would give you certainly not said missus biddle go away little boy there was that in her tone which showed cyril all too plainly the hopelessness of persuasion
he found the others and said it's no use she's like a lioness robbed of its puppies we must watch where it goes and anthea i don't care what you say it's our own carpet it wouldn't be burglary
it would be a sort of forlorn hope rescue party heroic and daring and dashing and not wrong at all the children still wandered among the gay crowd but there was no pleasure there for them any more the chorus of singing birds sounded just like glass tubes being blown through water
and hot people and cake and crumbs and all the children were very tired indeed they found a corner within sight of the carpet and there they waited miserably till it was far beyond their proper bedtime
and to jaw about it said robert
my hand is swollen as big as a pudding i expect the nails in her horrible boots were poisoned just then some one who seemed to have a right to interfere said everything is over now you had better go home so they went
and their feet slipped about in the greasy mud till missus biddle came out and was driven away in a cab with the many things she hadn't sold and the few things she had bought among others the carpet
the other stall holders left their things at the school till monday morning but missus biddle was afraid some one would steal some of them so she took them in a cab the children now too desperate to care for mud or appearances
hung on behind the cab till it reached missus biddle's house when she and the carpet had gone in and the door was shut anthea said don't let's burgle i mean do daring and dashing rescue acts till we've given her a chance
so they knocked and rang and a scared looking parlourmaid opened the front door while they were asking for missus biddle they saw her
i knew she didn't want it for her servants bedroom jane muttered anthea walked straight past the uncomfortable parlourmaid and the others followed her
missus biddle had her back to them and was smoothing down the carpet with the same boot that had trampled on the hand of robert
before she saw them who is it jane she asked in a sour voice
once more her face grew violet a deep dark violet you wicked daring little things she cried how dare you come here at this time of night too be off or i'll send for the police
don't be angry said anthea soothingly we only wanted to ask you to let us have the carpet
cried missus biddle and her voice shook with angriness you do look horrid said jane suddenly missus biddle actually stamped that booted foot of hers
anthea almost shook jane but jane pushed forward in spite of her it really is our nursery carpet she said
let's wish ourselves home said cyril in a whisper no go robert whispered back she'd be there too and raving mad as likely as not horrid thing i hate her
i wish missus biddle was in an angelic good temper cried anthea suddenly it's worth trying she said to herself missus biddle's face grew from purple to violet and from violet to mauve and from mauve to pink
then she smiled quite a jolly smile why so i am she said what a funny idea why shouldn't i be in a good temper my dears once more the carpet had done its work and not on missus biddle alone
the children felt suddenly good and happy you're a jolly good sort said cyril i see that now i'm sorry we vexed you at the bazaar to day not another word said the changed missus biddle
of course you shall have the carpet my dears if you've taken such a fancy to it no no i won't have more than the ten shillings i paid it does seem hard to ask you for it after you bought it at the bazaar said anthea but it really is our nursery carpet
it got to the bazaar by mistake with some other things did it really now how vexing said missus biddle kindly well my dears i can very well give the extra ten shillings
i'm so sorry i stepped on your hand my boy is it all right now yes thank you said robert i say you are good
and she helped them to roll up the carpet and the boys carried it away between them you are a dear said anthea and she and missus biddle kissed each other heartily well said cyril as they went along the street
yes said robert and the odd part is that you feel just as if it was real her being so jolly i mean and not only the carpet making her nice
perhaps it is real said anthea only it was covered up with crossness and tiredness and things and the carpet took them away i hope it'll keep them away said jane she isn't ugly at all when she laughs
the carpet has done many wonders in its day but the case of missus biddle is i think the most wonderful
chapter twenty the drift of politics the repeal of the missouri compromise made the slavery question paramount in every state of the union
the boasted finality was a broken reed the life boat of compromise a hopeless wreck if the agreement of a generation could be thus annulled in a breath was there any safety even in the constitution itself
this feeling communicated itself to the northern states at the very first note of warning and every man's party fealty was at once decided by his toleration of or opposition to slavery
while the fate of the nebraska bill hung in a doubtful balance in the house the feeling found expression in letters speeches meetings petitions and remonstrances
every other political subject was left in abeyance the measure once passed and the compromise repealed the first natural impulse was to combine organize and agitate for its restoration
this was the ready made common ground of cooperation it is probable that this merely defensive energy would have been overcome and dissipated
had it not at this juncture been inspirited and led by the faction known as the free soil party of the country composed mainly of men of independent anti slavery views
who had during four presidential campaigns been organized as a distinct political body with no near hope of success but animated mainly by the desire to give expression to their deep
personal convictions if there were demagogues here and there among them seeking merely to create a balance of power for bargain and sale they were unimportant in number
and only of local influence and soon became deserters there was no mistaking the earnestness of the body of this faction
a few fanatical men who had made it the vehicle of violent expressions had kept it under the ban of popular prejudice it had long been held up to public odium
abolitionists most of the abolitionists were doubtless in this party but the party was not all composed of abolitionists despite objurgation and contempt it had become since eighteen forty
a constant and growing factor in politics it had operated as a negative balance of power in the last three presidential elections causing by its diversion of votes and more especially
by its relaxing influence upon parties the success of the democratic candidate james k polk in eighteen forty four the whig candidate general taylor in eighteen forty eight
in eighteen fifty two this small party of antislavery veterans over one hundred fifty eight thousand voters in the aggregate and distributed in detachments of from three thousand
to thirty thousand in twelve of the free states now came to the front and with its newspapers and speakers trained in the discussion of the subject and its committees and affiliations
already in action and correspondence bore the brunt of the fight against the repeal hitherto its aims had appeared utopian and its resolves had been denunciatory and exasperating
now combining wisdom with opportunity it became conciliatory and abating something of its abstractions made itself the exponent of a demand for a present
and practical reform a simple return to the ancient faith and landmarks it labored specially to bring about the dissolution of the old party organizations and the formation of a new one
based upon the general policy of resisting the extension of slavery since however the repeal had shaken but not obliterated old party lines
this effort succeeded only in favorable localities illustration historical map of the united states in eighteen fifty four
the boundary between the united states and mexico previous to eighteen forty five and eighteen forty eight is indicated thus plus plus plus for the present
party disintegration was slow men were reluctant to abandon their old time principles and associations the united efforts of douglas and the administration held the body of the northern democrats to his fatal policy
though protests and defections became alarmingly frequent on the other hand the great mass of northern whigs promptly opposed the repeal and formed the bulk of the opposition
nevertheless losing perhaps as many pro slavery whigs as they gained antislavery democrats the real and effective gain therefore was the more or less thorough alliance of the whig party
and the free soil party of the northern states wherever that was successful it gave immediate and available majorities to the opposition which made their influence felt even in the very opening of the popular contest
following the congressional repeal it happened that this was a year for electing congressmen the nebraska bill did not pass till the end of may and the political excitement was at once transferred from washington
to every district of the whole country it may be said with truth that the year eighteen fifty four formed one continuous and solid political campaign from january to november
rising in interest and earnestness from first to last and engaging in the discussion more fully than had ever occurred in previous american history all the constituent elements of our population
in the southern states the great majority of people welcomed supported and defended the repeal of the missouri compromise
and apparently favorable to their pro slavery interests the democratic party in the south
was of course a unit in its favor the whig party however having carried two slave states for scott in eighteen fifty two and holding a strong minority in the remainder
was not so unanimous seven southern representatives and two southern senators had voted against the nebraska bill and many individual voters condemned it as an act of bad faith
as the abandonment of the accepted finality and as the provocation of a dangerous antislavery reaction but public opinion in that part of the union was fearfully tyrannical
and intolerant and opposition dared only to manifest itself to democratic party organization not to these democratic party measures
the whigs of the south were therefore driven precipitately to division those of extreme pro slavery views like dixon of kentucky who when he introduced his amendment declared
upon the question of slavery i know no whiggery and no democracy went boldly and at once over into the democratic camp
were sundered from their ancient allies in the northern states by the impossibility of taking up the latter's antislavery war cry at this juncture
the political situation was further complicated by the sudden rise of an additional factor in politics the american party
know nothings essentially it was a revival of the extinct native american faction based upon a jealousy of and discrimination against foreign born voters
desiring an extension of their period of naturalization and their exclusion from office also based upon a certain hostility to the roman catholic religion it had been reorganized as a secret order
in the year eighteen fifty three and seizing upon the political disappointments following general scott's overwhelming defeat for the presidency in eighteen fifty two
and profiting by the disintegration caused by the nebraska bill it rapidly gained recruits both north and south operating in entire secrecy
the country was startled by the sudden appearance in one locality after another on election day of a potent and unsuspected political power which in many instances pushed both the old organizations not only to disastrous
but even to ridiculous defeat both north and south its forces were recruited mainly from the whig party though malcontents from all quarters rushed to group themselves upon its narrow platform
and to participate in the exciting but delusive triumphs of its temporary and local ascendency when in the opening of the anti nebraska contest
they had because of their generally democratic antecedents with great unanimity
republican party thus reviving the distinctive appellation by which the followers of jefferson were known in the early days of the republic
in his draft of the ordinance of seventeen eighty four the name became singularly appropriate and wherever the free soilers succeeded in forming a coalition it was adopted without question
but the refusal of the whigs in many states to surrender their name and organization and more especially the abrupt appearance of the know nothings on the field of parties retarded the general coalition
between the whigs and the free soilers which so many influences favored as it turned out a great variety of party names were retained or adopted in the congressional and state campaigns of eighteen fifty four
the designation of anti nebraska being perhaps the most common and certainly for the moment the most serviceable since denunciation of the nebraska bill
was the one all pervading bond of sympathy and agreement
on almost all other political topics this affiliation however was confined exclusively to the free states in the slave states
and it was not only inclined but forced to make its battle either under the old name of whigs or as became more popular under the new appellation of americans which grew into a more
dignified synonym for know nothings thus confronted the nebraska and anti nebraska factions or more philosophically speaking the pro slavery and antislavery sentiment
of the several american states battled for political supremacy with a zeal and determination only manifested on occasions of deep and vital concern to the welfare of the republic
they do not shrink from it when they hear warning of real danger the alarm of the nation on the repeal of the missouri compromise was serious and startling all ranks and occupations
therefore joined with a new energy in the contest it provoked particularly was the religious sentiment of the north profoundly moved by the moral question involved
perhaps for the first time in our modern politics the pulpit vied with the press
in the work of debate and propagandism the very inception of the struggle had provoked bitter words before the third nebraska bill had yet been introduced into the senate
the then little band of free soilers in congress chase sumner giddings and three others had issued a newspaper address calling the repeal
a gross violation of a sacred pledge a criminal betrayal of precious rights an atrocious plot designed to cover up from public reprehension
et cetera douglas seizing only too gladly the pretext to use denunciation instead of argument replied in his opening speech in turn stigmatizing them as
abolition confederates assembled in secret conclave on the holy sabbath while other senators were engaged in divine worship plotting
in the name of the holy religion perverting and
to his courtesy to get time to circulate their document before its infamy could be exposed et cetera
globe march fourteenth eighteen fifty four
the key notes of the discussion thus given were well sustained on both sides and crimination and recrimination increased with the heat and intensity of the campaign
the gradual disruption of parties and the new and radical attitudes assumed by men of independent thought gave ample occasion to indulge in such epithets as apostates renegades
and traitors unusual acrimony grew out of the zeal of the church and its ministers the clergymen of the northern states not only spoke against the repeal from their pulpits
but forwarded energetic petitions against it to congress
of new england of different denominations joining their signatures in one protest we protest against it they said as a great moral wrong as a breach of faith eminently unjust
to the moral principles of the community and subversive of all confidence in national engagements as a measure full of danger to the peace and even the existence of our beloved union
and exposing us to the righteous judgment of the almighty in return douglas made a most virulent onslaught on their political action here we find
he retorted that a large body of preachers perhaps three thousand following the lead of a circular which was issued by the abolition confederates in this body calculated to deceive and mislead the public
have here come forward with an atrocious falsehood and an atrocious calumny against this senate desecrated the pulpit and prostituted the sacred desk to the miserable and corrupting influence
of party politics all his newspapers and partisans throughout the country caught the style and spirit of his warfare and boldly denied the moral right of the clergy to take part in politics
otherwise than by a silent vote but they on the other hand persisted all the more earnestly in justifying their interference in moral questions wherever they appeared
and were clearly sustained by the public opinion of the north though the repeal was forced through congress under party pressure and by the sheer weight of a large democratic majority in both branches
it met from the first a decided and unmistakable popular condemnation in the free states while the measure was yet under discussion in the house in march new hampshire led off by an election
completely obliterating the eighty nine democratic majority in her legislature connecticut followed in her footsteps early in april long before november it was evident that the political revolution
among the people of the north was thorough and that election day was anxiously awaited merely to record the popular verdict already decided the influence of this result upon parties
old and new is perhaps best illustrated in the organization of the thirty fourth congress chosen at these elections during the year eighteen fifty four which witnessed the repeal of the missouri compromise
each congress in ordinary course meets for the first time about one year after its members are elected by the people and the influence of politics during the interim
needs always to be taken into account in this particular instance this effect had if anything been slightly reactionary and the great contest for the speakership during the winter of eighteen fifty five
may therefore be taken as a fair manifestation of the spirit of politics in eighteen fifty four the strength of the preceding house of representatives which met in december eighteen fifty three
had been whigs seventy one free soilers four democrats
a clear democratic majority of eighty four in the new congress there were in the house as nearly as the classification could be made about one hundred eight anti nebraska members
nearly forty know nothings and about seventy five democrats the remaining members were undecided the proud democratic majority of the pierce election
was annihilated but as yet
its elements distrustful jealous and discordant the feuds and battles of a quarter of a century were not easily forgotten or buried the democratic members boldly nominating mister richardson
the house leader on the nebraska bill as their candidate for speaker made a long and determined push for success but his highest range of votes was about seventy four to seventy six
while through one hundred twenty one ballotings continuing from december third to january twenty third the opposition remained divided mister banks the anti nebraska favorite
within seven votes of an election at this point richardson finding it a hopeless struggle withdrew his name as a candidate and the democratic strength was transferred to another
but with no better prospects finally seeing no chance of otherwise terminating the contest the house yielded to the inevitable domination of the slavery question
and resolved on february second
to elect under the plurality rule after the next three ballotings under this rule notwithstanding the most strenuous efforts to rescind it nathaniel p banks of massachusetts
against one hundred votes for william aiken of south carolina
letter three the population of sweden has been estimated from two millions and a half to three millions a small number for such an immense tract of country of which only so much is cultivated and that in the simplest manner
as is absolutely requisite to supply the necessaries of life and near the seashore whence herrings are easily procured there scarcely appears a vestige of cultivation the scattered huts that stand shivering on the naked rocks
braving the pitiless elements are formed of logs of wood rudely hewn and so little pains are taken with the craggy foundation that nothing hike a pathway points out the door gathered into himself by the cold lowering his visage to avoid the cutting blast
especially if we take into the account that they mostly live on high seasoned provision and rye bread hard enough you may imagine as it is baked only once a year the servants also in most families eat this kind of bread
and have a different kind of food from their masters which in spite of all the arguments i have heard to vindicate the custom appears to me a remnant of barbarism in fact the situation of the servants in every respect
particularly that of the women shows how far the swedes are from having a just conception of rational equality they are not termed slaves yet a man may strike a man with impunity because he pays him wages
though these wages are so low that necessity must teach them to pilfer whilst servility renders them false and boorish still the men stand up for the dignity of man by oppressing the women
the most menial and even laborious offices are therefore left to these poor drudges much of this i have seen in the winter i am told they take the linen down to the river to wash it in the cold water
and though their hands cut by the ice are cracked and bleeding the men their fellow servants will not disgrace their manhood by carrying a tub to lighten their burden you will not be surprised to hear that they do not wear shoes or stockings
when i inform you that their wages are seldom more than twenty or thirty shillings per annum it is the custom i know to give them a new year's gift and a present at some other period but can it all amount to a just indemnity for their labour
the treatment of servants in most countries i grant is very unjust and in england that boasted land of freedom it is often extremely tyrannical i have frequently with indignation
heard gentlemen declare that they would never allow a servant to answer them and ladies of the most exquisite sensibility who were continually exclaiming against the cruelty of the vulgar to the brute creation
have in my presence forgot that their attendants had human feelings as well as forms i do not know a more agreeable sight than to see servants part of a family
by taking an interest generally speaking in their concerns you inspire them with one for yours we must love our servants or we shall never be sufficiently attentive to their happiness and how can those masters be attentive to their happiness who
living above their fortunes are more anxious to outshine their neighbours than to allow their household the innocent enjoyments they earn it is in fact much more difficult for servants who are tantalised by seeing and preparing the dainties of which they are not to partake
to remain honest than the poor whose thoughts are not led from their homely fare so that though the servants here are commonly thieves you seldom hear of housebreaking or robbery on the highway
the country is perhaps too thinly inhabited to produce many of that description of thieves termed footpads or highwaymen they are usually the spawn of great cities the effect of the spurious desires generated by wealth
brandy and coffee before the latter was prohibited and the former not allowed to be privately distilled the wars carried on by the late king rendering it necessary to increase the revenue
since then the burden has continually been growing heavier and the price of provisions has proportionately increased nay the advantage accruing from the exportation of corn to france and rye to germany will probably produce a scarcity in both sweden and norway
should not a peace put a stop to it this autumn for speculations of various kinds have already almost doubled the price such are the effects of war that it saps the vitals even of the neutral countries
who obtaining a sudden influx of wealth appear to be rendered flourishing by the destruction which ravages the hapless nations who are sacrificed to the ambition of their governors i shall not however dwell on the vices
though they be of the most contemptible and embruting cast to which a sudden accession of fortune gives birth because i believe it may be delivered as an axiom that it is only in proportion to the industry necessary to acquire wealth that a nation is really
benefited by it the prohibition of drinking coffee under a penalty and the encouragement given to public distilleries tend to impoverish the poor who are not affected by the sumptuary laws
for the regent has lately laid very severe restraints on the articles of dress which the middling class of people found grievous because it obliged them to throw aside finery that might have lasted them for their lives these may be termed vexatious
still the death of the king by saving them from the consequences his ambition would naturally have entailed on them may be reckoned a blessing besides the french revolution has not only rendered all the crowned heads more cautious but has so decreased everywhere
excepting amongst themselves a respect for nobility that the peasantry have not only lost their blind reverence for their seigniors but complain in a manly style of oppressions which before they did not think of denominating such
because they were taught to consider themselves as a different order of beings and perhaps the efforts which the aristocrats are making here as well as in every other part of europe to secure their sway will be the most effectual mode of undermining it
taking into the calculation that the king of sweden like most of the potentates of europe has continually been augmenting his power by encroaching on the privileges of the nobles the well bred swedes of the capital are formed on the ancient french model
and they in general speak that language for they have a knack at acquiring languages with tolerable fluency this may be reckoned an advantage in some respects but it prevents the cultivation of their own
and any considerable advance in literary pursuits a sensible writer has lately observed i have not his work by me therefore cannot quote his exact words that the americans very wisely let the europeans make their books and fashions for them
but i cannot coincide with him in this opinion the reflection necessary to produce a certain number even of tolerable productions augments more than he is aware of the mass of knowledge in the community desultory reading is commonly a mere pastime
but we must have an object to refer our reflections to or they will seldom go below the surface as in travelling the keeping of a journal excites to many useful inquiries that would not have been thought of had the traveller only determined to see all he could see
without ever asking himself for what purpose besides the very dabbling in literature furnishes harmless topics of conversation for the not having such subjects at hand though they are often insupportably fatiguing
renders the inhabitants of little towns prying and censorious idleness rather than ill nature gives birth to scandal and to the observation of little incidents which narrows the mind it is frequently only the fear
and with the basis of all moral principles respect for the virtues which are not merely the virtues of convention
i am my friend more and more convinced that a metropolis or an abode absolutely solitary is the best calculated for the improvement of the heart as well as the understanding
whether we desire to become acquainted with man nature or ourselves mixing with mankind we are obliged to examine our prejudices
and in the country growing intimate with nature a thousand little circumstances unseen by vulgar eyes give birth to sentiments dear to the imagination and inquiries which expand the soul
particularly when cultivation has not smoothed into insipidity all its originality of character i love the country yet whenever i see a picturesque situation chosen on which to erect a dwelling i am always afraid of the improvements
it requires uncommon taste to form a whole and to introduce accommodations and ornaments analogous with the surrounding scene it visited near gothenburg a house with improved land about it with which i was particularly delighted
it was close to a lake embosomed in pine clad rocks in one part of the meadows your eye was directed to the broad expanse in another you were led into a shade to see a part of it in the form of a river
rush amongst the fragments of rocks and roots of trees nothing seemed forced one recess particularly grand and solemn amongst the towering cliffs had a rude stone table and seat placed in it
that might have served for a druid's haunt whilst a placid stream below enlivened the flowers on its margin where light footed elves would gladly have danced their airy rounds
here the hand of taste was conspicuous though not obtrusive and formed a contrast with another abode in the same neighbourhood on which much money had been lavished where italian colonnades were placed to excite the wonder of the rude crags
and a stone staircase to threaten with destruction a wooden house venuses and apollos condemned to lie hid in snow three parts of the year seemed equally displaced and called the attention off from the surrounding sublimity
without inspiring any voluptuous sensations yet even these abortions of vanity have been useful
about this time a firm of merchants having dealings with the east put on the market little paper flowers which opened on touching water as it was the custom also to use finger bowls at the end of dinner the new discovery was found of excellent service
in these sheltered lakes the little coloured flowers swam and slid surmounted smooth slippery waves and sometimes foundered and lay like pebbles on the glass floor their fortunes were watched by eyes intent and lovely
it is surely a great discovery that leads to the union of hearts and foundation of homes the paper flowers did no less it must not be thought though that they ousted the flowers of nature
roses lilies carnations in particular looked over the rims of vases and surveyed the bright lives and swift dooms of their artificial relations mister stuart ormond made this very observation and charming it was thought
and kitty craster married him on the strength of it six months later but real flowers can never be dispensed with if they could human life would be a different affair altogether for flowers fade chrysanthemums are the worst perfect over night
yellow and jaded next morning not fit to be seen on the whole though the price is sinful carnations pay best it's a question however whether it's wise to have them wired some shops advise it
certainly it's the only way to keep them at a dance but whether it is necessary at dinner parties unless the rooms are very hot remains in dispute old missus temple used to recommend an ivy leaf just one dropped into the bowl
she said it kept the water pure for days and days but there is some reason to think that old missus temple was mistaken the little cards however with names engraved on them are a more serious problem than the flowers
more horses legs have been worn out more coachmen's lives consumed more hours of sound afternoon time vainly lavished than served to win us the battle of waterloo and pay for it into the bargain
the little demons are the source of as many reprieves calamities and anxieties as the battle itself sometimes missus bonham has just gone out at others she is at home
but even if the cards should be superseded which seems unlikely there are unruly powers blowing life into storms disordering sedulous mornings and uprooting the stability of the afternoon dressmakers that is to say and confectioners shops
six yards of silk will cover one body but if you have to devise six hundred shapes for it and twice as many colours in the middle of which there is the urgent question of the pudding with tufts of green cream and battlements of almond paste
it has not arrived the flamingo hours fluttered softly through the sky but regularly they dipped their wings in pitch black notting hill for instance or the purlieus of clerkenwell
no wonder that italian remained a hidden art and the piano always played the same sonata in order to buy one pair of elastic stockings for missus page widow aged sixty three in receipt of five shillings out door relief
and help from her only son employed in messrs mackie's dye works suffering in winter with his chest letters must be written columns filled up in the same round simple hand that wrote in mister letts's diary how the weather was
fine the children demons and jacob flanders unworldly clara durrant procured the stockings played the sonata filled the vases fetched the pudding
left the cards and when the great invention of paper flowers to swim in finger bowls was discovered was one of those who most marvelled at their brief lives nor were there wanting poets to celebrate the theme
edwin mallett for example wrote his verses ending and read their doom in chloe's eyes which caused clara to blush at the first reading and to laugh at the second saying that it was just like him to call her chloe when her name was clara
ridiculous young man but when between ten and eleven on a rainy morning edwin mallett laid his life at her feet she ran out of the room and hid herself in her bedroom and timothy below could not get on with his work all that morning on account of her sobs
which is the result of enjoying yourself said missus durrant severely surveying the dance programme all scored with the same initials or rather they were different ones this time r b instead of e m richard bonamy it was now
the young man with the wellington nose but i could never marry a man with a nose like that said clara nonsense said missus durrant but i am too severe she thought to herself for clara losing all vivacity tore up her dance programme and threw it in the fender
such were the very serious consequences of the invention of paper flowers to swim in bowls please said julia eliot taking up her position by the curtain almost opposite the door don't introduce me i like to look on
the amusing thing she went on addressing mister salvin who owing to his lameness was accommodated with a chair the amusing thing about a party is to watch the people coming and going coming and going
last time we met said mister salvin was at the farquhars poor lady she has much to put up with doesn't she look charming exclaimed miss eliot as clara durrant passed them
and which of them asked mister salvin dropping his voice and speaking in quizzical tones there are so many miss eliot replied three young men stood at the doorway looking about for their hostess
you don't remember elizabeth as i do said mister salvin dancing highland reels at banchorie clara lacks her mother's spirit clara is a little pale what different people one sees here said miss eliot
i never read them said miss eliot i know nothing about politics she added the piano is in tune said clara passing them but we may have to ask some one to move it for us are they going to dance asked mister salvin
nobody shall disturb you said missus durrant peremptorily as she passed julia eliot it is julia eliot said old lady hibbert holding out both her hands and mister salvin what is going to happen to us mister salvin
with all my experience of english politics my dear i was thinking of your father last night one of my oldest friends mister salvin never tell me that girls often are incapable of love
i had all shakespeare by heart before i was in my teens mister salvin you don't say so said mister salvin but i do said lady hibbert oh mister salvin i'm so sorry
i will remove myself if you'll kindly lend me a hand said mister salvin you shall sit by my mother said clara everybody seems to come in here mister calthorp let me introduce you to miss edwards
are you going away for christmas said mister calthorp if my brother gets his leave said miss edwards what regiment is he in said mister calthorp the twentieth hussars said miss edwards perhaps he knows my brother said mister calthorp
i am afraid i did not catch your name said miss edwards calthorp said mister calthorp but what proof was there that the marriage service was actually performed said mister crosby
there is no reason to doubt that charles james fox mister burley began but here missus stretton told him that she knew his sister well had stayed with her not six weeks ago and thought the house charming
dear me said mister bowley i will ask jimmy to breakfast but who could resist her cried rose shaw dearest clara i know we mustn't try to stop you
life is wicked life is detestable cried rose shaw there's not much to be said for this sort of thing is there said timothy durrant to jacob women like it like what said charlotte wilding coming up to them
where have you come from said timothy dining somewhere i suppose i don't see why not said charlotte people must go downstairs said clara passing take charlotte timothy how d'you do mister flanders
how d'you do mister flanders said julia eliot holding out her hand what's been happening to you who is silvia what is she that all our swains commend her sang elsbeth siddons every one stood where they were or sat down if a chair was empty
ah sighed clara who stood beside jacob half way through then to silvia let us sing that silvia is excelling she excels each mortal thing upon the dull earth dwelling to her let us garlands bring
sang elsbeth siddons ah clara exclaimed out loud and clapped her gloved hands and jacob clapped his bare ones and then she moved forward and directed people to come in from the doorway
yes said jacob in rooms yes there is mister clutterbuck you always see mister clutterbuck here he is not very happy at home i am afraid they say that missus clutterbuck she dropped her voice that's why he stays with the durrants
were you there when they acted mister wortley's play oh no of course not at the last moment did you hear you had to go to join your mother i remember at harrogate at the last moment as i was saying just as everything was ready the clothes finished and everything
now elsbeth is going to sing again clara is playing her accompaniment or turning over for mister carter i think no mister carter is playing by himself this is bach she whispered as mister carter played the first bars
are you fond of music said mister durrant yes i like hearing it said jacob i know nothing about it very few people do that said missus durrant i daresay you were never taught
why is that sir jasper sir jasper bigham mister flanders why is nobody taught anything that they ought to know sir jasper she left them standing against the wall neither of the gentlemen said anything for three minutes
though jacob shifted perhaps five inches to the left and then as many to the right then jacob grunted and suddenly crossed the room will you come and have something to eat he said to clara durrant yes an ice quickly
now she said downstairs they went but half way down they met mister and missus gresham herbert turner sylvia rashleigh and a friend whom they had dared to bring from america
knowing that missus durrant wishing to show mister pilcher mister pilcher from new york this is miss durrant whom i have heard so much of said mister pilcher bowing low
the next summer the truce for a year ended after lasting until the pythian games during the armistice the athenians expelled the delians from delos
concluding that they must have been polluted by some old offence at the time of their consecration and that this had been the omission in the previous purification of the island which as i have related
had been thought to have been duly accomplished by the removal of the graves of the dead the delians had atramyttium in asia given them by pharnaces and settled there as they removed from delos meanwhile
with twelve hundred heavy infantry and three hundred horse from athens
first touching at the still besieged scione and taking some heavy infantry from the army there he next sailed into cophos a harbour in the territory of torone which is not far from the town from thence
and that its garrison was not strong enough to give him battle he advanced with his army against the town sending ten ships to sail round into the harbour
in order to take in the suburb to do which he had pulled down part of the original wall and made it all one city to this point pasitelidas the lacedaemonian commander
pasitelidas began to be afraid that they might get up to the city before its defenders were there and the fortification being also carried he might be taken prisoner and so abandoned the outwork and ran into the town
but the athenians from the ships had already taken torone
killing some of the peloponnesians and toronaeans in the melee and making prisoners of the rest and pasitelidas their commander amongst them
and had only about four miles more to go when he heard of its fall on the road and turned back again
one by the harbour the other by the fortification and making slaves of the wives and children of the toronaeans sent the men with the peloponnesians and any chalcidians that were there to the number of seven hundred to athens
whence however they all came home afterwards the peloponnesians on the conclusion of peace and the rest by being exchanged against other prisoners with the olynthians about the same time panactum
a fortress on the athenian border
set sail with two colleagues as ambassador from athens to italy and sicily
a quarter of the town of leontini and bricinniae a strong place in the leontine country and being there joined by most of the exiled commons carried on war from the fortifications
the athenians hearing this sent phaeax to see if they could not by some means so convince their allies there and the rest of the sicilians of the ambitious designs of syracuse
and also fell in with some locrian settlers exiled from messina who had been sent thither when the locrians were called in by one of the factions that divided messina after the pacification of sicily
they were the only people of the allies who when the reconciliation between the sicilians took place had not made peace with her
nor indeed would they have done so now if they had not been pressed by a war with the hipponians and medmaeans who lived on their border and were colonists of theirs phaeax meanwhile
proceeded on his voyage and at length arrived at athens cleon
he now sent envoys to perdiccas to command his attendance with an army as provided by the alliance and others to thrace
who was to bring as many thracian mercenaries as possible
awaiting their arrival informed of this
despising the scanty numbers of his opponent would march against amphipolis with the force that he had got with him
calling to his standard fifteen hundred thracian mercenaries and all the edonians horse and targeteers he also had a thousand myrcinian and chalcidian targeteers besides those in amphipolis
and a force of heavy infantry numbering altogether about two thousand and three hundred hellenic horse
after remaining quiet for some time
his soldiers tired of their inactivity began also seriously to reflect on the weakness and incompetence of their commander and the skill and valour that would be opposed to him and on their own original unwillingness to accompany him
and broke up his camp and advanced the temper of the general was what it had been at pylos his success on that occasion having given him confidence in his capacity
he never dreamed of any one coming out to fight him but said that he was rather going up to view the place and if he waited for his reinforcements it was not in order to make victory secure in case he should be compelled to engage
and how the town lay on the side of thrace he thought to retire at pleasure without fighting as there was no one to be seen upon the wall or coming out of the gates all of which were shut indeed
he did not venture to go out in regular order against the athenians he mistrusted his strength and thought it inadequate to the attempt not in numbers these were not so unequal but in quality
the flower of the athenian army being in the field with the best of the lemnians and imbrians he therefore prepared to assail them by stratagem by showing the enemy the number of his troops and the shifts
which he had been put to to to arm them he thought that he should have less chance of beating him than by not letting him have a sight of them and thus learn how good a right he had to despise them
thinking that he should not have again such a chance of catching them alone if their reinforcements were once allowed to come up and so calling all his soldiers together in order to encourage them and explain his intention spoke as follows
peloponnesians the character of the country from which we have come one which has always owed its freedom to valour and the fact that you are dorians and the enemy you are about to fight ionians whom you are accustomed to beat
are things that do not need further comment but the plan of attack that i propose to pursue this it is as well to explain in order that the fact of our adventuring with a part instead of with the whole of our forces
may not damp your courage by the apparent disadvantage at which it places you i imagine it is the poor opinion that he has of us and the fact that he has no idea of any one coming out to engage him
that has made the enemy march up to the place and carelessly look about him as he is doing without noticing us but the most successful soldier will always be the man who most happily detects a blunder like this
and who carefully consulting his own means makes his attack not so much by open and regular approaches as by seizing the opportunity of the moment
have the most brilliant name in war therefore while their careless confidence continues and they are still thinking as in my judgment they are now doing more of retreat than of maintaining their position
while their spirit is slack and not high strung with expectation i with the men under my command will if possible take them by surprise and fall with a run upon their centre
as is likely dealing terror among them take with you the amphipolitans and the rest of the allies and suddenly open the gates and dash at them and hasten to engage as quickly as you can that
is our best chance of establishing a panic among them as a fresh assailant has always more terrors for an enemy than the one he is immediately engaged with show yourself a brave man as a spartan should
and do you allies follow him like men and remember that zeal honour and obedience mark the good soldier
or slaves of athens even if you escape without personal loss of liberty or life your bondage will be on harsher terms than before and you will also hinder the liberation of the rest of the hellenes
no cowardice then on your part seeing the greatness of the issues at stake and i will show that what i preach to others i can practise myself
meanwhile he had been seen coming down from cerdylium and then in the city which is overlooked from the outside sacrificing near the temple of athene in short all his movements had been observed
and word was brought to cleon who had at the moment gone on to look about him that the whole of the enemy's force could be seen in the town and that the feet of horses and men in great numbers were visible under the gates
as if a sally were intended upon hearing this he went up to look and having done so being unwilling to venture upon the decisive step of a battle before his reinforcements came up
and fancying that he would have time to retire
which was indeed the only way practicable this however not being quick enough for him he joined the retreat in person and made the right wing wheel round thus turning its unarmed side to the enemy
quick someone and open the gates i spoke of and let us be out and at them with no fears for the result accordingly issuing out by the palisade gate and by the first in the long wall then existing
he ran at the top of his speed along the straight road where the trophy now stands as you go by the steepest part of the hill and fell upon and routed the centre of the athenians panic stricken by their own disorder and astounded at his audacity
and also attacked the enemy the result was that the athenians suddenly and unexpectedly attacked on both sides fell into confusion
he received a wound but his fall was not perceived by the athenians
the athenian right made a better stand
who from the first had no thought of fighting at once fled and was overtaken and slain by a myrcinian targeteer
thus the athenian army was all now in flight and such as escaped being killed in the battle or by the chalcidian horse and the targeteers dispersed among the hills and with difficulty
stripped the dead and set up a trophy
in front of what is now the marketplace and the amphipolitans having enclosed his tomb ever afterwards sacrifice to him as a hero and have given to him the honour of games and annual offerings
they constituted him the founder of their colony and pulled down the hagnonic erections and obliterated everything that could be interpreted as a memorial of his having founded the place
about six hundred of the latter had fallen and only seven of the enemy owing to there having been no regular engagement but the affair of accident and panic that i have described after taking up their dead the athenians sailed off home
remained to arrange matters at amphipolis
whom they came to reinforce was dead they turned back home thinking that the moment had gone by the athenians being defeated and gone and themselves not equal to the execution of brasidas's designs
indeed it so happened that directly after the battle of amphipolis and the retreat of ramphias from thessaly both sides ceased to prosecute the war and turned their attention to peace
in the belief of ultimate victory which her success at the moment had inspired besides she was afraid of her allies being tempted by her reverses to rebel more generally
found the event of the war to falsify her notion that a few years would suffice for the overthrow of the power of the athenians by the devastation of their land she had suffered on the island a disaster hitherto unknown at sparta
she saw her country plundered from pylos and cythera the helots were deserting and she was in constant apprehension that those who remained in peloponnese would rely upon those outside and take advantage of the situation
to renew their old attempts at revolution besides this as chance would have it
and they refused to renew it
so that it seemed impossible to fight argos and athens at once she also suspected some of the cities in peloponnese of intending to go over to the enemy and that was indeed the case
these considerations made both sides disposed for an accommodation the lacedaemonians being probably the most eager as they ardently desired to recover the men taken upon the island
whom the athenians forthwith lodged in the neighbouring islands of their empire the athenians also made an expedition against the isle of melos with thirty ships of their own
and two lesbian vessels sixteen hundred heavy infantry three hundred archers and twenty mounted archers from athens and about fifteen hundred heavy infantry from the allies and the islanders
and at first remained neutral and took no part in the struggle but afterwards upon the athenians using violence and plundering their territory assumed an attitude of open hostility
encamping in their territory with the above armament before doing any harm to their land sent envoys to negotiate these the melians did not bring before the people
but bade them state the object of their mission to the magistrates and the few upon which the athenian envoys spoke as follows athenians since the negotiations are not to go on before the people
in order that we may not be able to speak straight on without interruption and deceive the ears of the multitude by seductive arguments which would pass without refutation for we know that this is the meaning of our being brought before the few
what if you who sit there were to pursue a method more cautious still make no set speech yourselves but take us up at whatever you do not like and settle that before going any farther
and first tell us if this proposition of ours suits you the melian commissioners answered melians to the fairness of quietly instructing each other as you propose
melians it is natural and excusable for men in our position to turn more ways than one both in thought and utterance however the question in this conference is as you say
while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must melians as we think at any rate it is expedient
the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and right and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid if they can be got to pass current and you are as much interested in this as any
as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an example for the world to meditate upon athenians the end of our empire if end it should does not frighten us
we will now proceed to show you that we are come here in the interest of our empire and that we shall say what we are now going to say for the preservation of your country as we would fain exercise that empire
over you without trouble and see you preserved for the good of us both melians and how pray could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to rule athenians
because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the worst and we should gain by not destroying you melians so that you would not consent to our being neutral
that are most of them your own colonists and some conquered rebels athenians as far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other and that if any maintain their independence
it is because they are strong and that if we do not molest them it is because we are afraid so that besides extending our empire we should gain in security by your subjection
the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of the sea melians but do you consider
that there is no security in the policy which we indicate for here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey your interest we also must explain ours
and subjects smarting under the yoke who would be the most likely to take a rash step and lead themselves and us into obvious danger melians well then
if you risk so much to retain your empire and your subjects to get rid of it
with honour as the prize and shame as the penalty but a question of self preservation and of not resisting those who are far stronger than you are melians
but we know that the fortune of war is sometimes more impartial than the disproportion of numbers might lead one to suppose to submit is to give ourselves over to despair
while action still preserves for us a hope that we may stand erect athenians hope danger's comforter may be indulged in by those who have abundant resources
only when they are ruined but so long as the discovery would enable them to guard against it it is never found wanting let not this be the case with you who are weak and hang on a single turn of the scale
nor be like the vulgar who abandoning such security as human means may still afford when visible hopes fail them in extremity turn to invisible to prophecies and oracles
and other such inventions that delude men with hopes to their destruction melians
unless the terms be equal but we trust that the gods may grant us fortune as good as yours since we are just men fighting against unjust
if only for very shame to come to the aid of their kindred our confidence therefore after all is not so utterly irrational athenians
of the gods we believe and of men we know that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can and it is not as if we were the first to make this law or to act upon it when made
knowing that you and everybody else having the same power as we have would do the same as we do thus as far as the gods are concerned we have no fear and no reason to fear that we shall be at a disadvantage
which leads you to believe that shame will make them help you here we bless your simplicity but do not envy your folly the lacedaemonians when their own interests or their country's laws are in question
but it is for this very reason that we now trust to their respect for expediency to prevent them from betraying the melians their colonists and thereby losing the confidence of their friends in hellas
and helping their enemies athenians then you do not adopt the view that expediency goes with security while justice and honour cannot be followed without danger
melians but we believe that they would be more likely to face even danger for our sake and with more confidence than for others as our nearness to peloponnese makes it easier for them to act
melians but they would have others to send the cretan sea is a wide one and it is more difficult for those who command it to intercept others than for those who wish to elude them to do so safely
some diversion of the kind you speak of you may one day experience only to learn as others have done that the athenians never once yet withdrew from a siege for fear of any
since in too many cases the very men that have their eyes perfectly open to what they are rushing into let the thing called disgrace by the mere influence of a seductive name
lead them on to a point at which they become so enslaved by the phrase as in fact to fall wilfully into hopeless disaster and incur disgrace more disgraceful as the companion of error
than when it comes as the result of misfortune this if you are well advised you will guard against and you will not think it dishonourable to submit to the greatest city in hellas
when it makes you the moderate offer of becoming its tributary ally without ceasing to enjoy the country that belongs to you nor when you have the choice given you between war and security
will you be so blinded as to choose the worse and it is certain that those who do not yield to their equals who keep terms with their superiors and are moderate towards their inferiors on the whole succeed best
as already coming to pass and as you have staked most on and trusted most in
so will you be most completely deceived the athenian envoys now returned to the army and the melians showing no signs of yielding
and drew a line of circumvallation round the melians dividing the work among the different states subsequently the athenians returned with most of their army
might plunder the athenians the corinthians also commenced hostilities with the athenians for private quarrels of their own but the rest of the peloponnesians stayed quiet meanwhile
the melians attacked by night and took the part of the athenian lines over against the market and killed some of the men and brought in corn and all else that they could find useful to them and so returned and kept quiet
while the athenians took measures to keep better guard in future summer was now over
when that happy day came in which unhallowed hands are forbidden to contaminate the shoulders of the unfortunate booth went early to the colonel's house and being admitted to his presence began with great freedom
why my dear colonel said he would you not acquaint me with that secret which this letter hath disclosed james read the letter at which his countenance changed more than once and then after a short silence said
mister booth i have been to blame i own it and you upbraid me with justice the true reason was that i was ashamed of my own folly
a very dupe to this woman and she hath a particular pleasure in making me so i know what the impertinence of virtue is and i can submit to it but to be treated thus by a whore you must forgive me dear booth
but your success was a kind of triumph over me which i could not bear i own i have not the least reason to conceive any anger against you and yet curse me if i should not have been less displeased at your lying with my own wife
nay i could almost have parted with half my fortune to you more willingly than have suffered you to receive that trifle of my money which you received at her hands however i ask your pardon
on the account of this woman but as for her d n me if i do not enjoy her by some means or other whatever it costs me
james gave her a hearty curse and said pox of her inclination i want only the possession of her person and that you will allow is a very fine one but besides my passion for her she hath now piqued my pride
for how can a man of my fortune brook being refused by a whore since you are so set on the business cries booth you will excuse my saying so i fancy you had better change your method of applying to her
for as she is perhaps the vainest woman upon earth your bounty may probably do you little service nay
vanity is plainly her predominant passion and if you will administer to that it will infallibly throw her into your arms to this i attribute my own unfortunate success while she relieved my wants and distresses
she was daily feeding her own vanity whereas as every gift of yours asserted your superiority it rather offended than pleased her indeed women generally love to be of the obliging side
and if we examine their favourites we shall find them to be much oftener such as they have conferred obligations on than such as they have received them from there was something in this speech which pleased the colonel and he said with a smile
however i hope i shall profit a little by your experience with miss matthews damnation seize the proud insolent harlot the devil take me if i don't love her more than i ever loved a woman the rest of their conversation turned on booth's affairs
the colonel again reassumed the part of a friend gave him the remainder of the money and promised to take the first opportunity of laying his memorial before a great man booth was greatly overjoyed at this success
at the same time strictly charging her not to acquaint her mistress with her having received any such orders a servant of any acuteness would have formed strange conjectures from such an injunction but this poor girl was of perfect simplicity
so great indeed was her simplicity that had not amelia been void of all suspicion of her husband the maid would have soon after betrayed her master one afternoon while they were drinking tea
came into the room and calling her master forth delivered him a card which was directed to amelia booth having read the card on his return into the room
if you can read child you must see it was directed to your mistress to this the girl answered pertly enough i am sure sir you ordered me to bring every letter first to you this hint with many women
would have been sufficient to have blown up the whole affair but amelia who heard what the girl said through the medium of love and confidence saw the matter in a much better light than it deserved and looking tenderly on her husband said indeed my love
i must blame you for a conduct which perhaps i ought rather to praise as it proceeds only from the extreme tenderness of your affection but why will you endeavour to keep any secrets from me believe me for my own sake you ought not
for as you cannot hide the consequences you make me always suspect ten times worse than the reality while i have you and my children well before my eyes i am capable of facing any news which can arrive
for what ill news can come unless indeed it concerns my little babe in the country which doth not relate to the badness of our circumstances and those i thank heaven we have now a fair prospect of retrieving besides dear billy
and having drest herself in the utmost hurry left her children to the care of her husband and ran away to pay her respects to her friend whom she loved with a most sincere affection but how was she disappointed
and exulting with the thoughts of presently seeing her beloved friend she was answered at the door that the lady was not at home nor could she upon telling her name obtain any admission this considering the account she had received of the lady's cold greatly surprized her
and which was attended with a slight fever this confined her several days to her house during which booth officiated as her nurse and never stirred from her in all this time she heard not a word from missus james which gave her some uneasiness
but more astonishment the tenth day when she was perfectly recovered about nine in the evening when she and her husband were just going to supper she heard a most violent thundering at the door and presently after a rustling of silk upon her staircase
bless me what am i to climb up another pair of stairs upon which amelia who well knew the voice presently ran to the door and ushered in missus james most splendidly drest
as if she had been her very distant acquaintance poor amelia who was going to rush into her friend's arms was struck motionless by this behaviour but re collecting her spirits as she had an excellent presence of mind
she presently understood what the lady meant and resolved to treat her in her own way down therefore the company sat and silence prevailed for some time during which missus james surveyed the room with more attention
than she would have bestowed on one much finer at length the conversation began in which the weather and the diversions of the town were well canvassed amelia who was a woman of great humour performed her part to admiration
so that a by stander would have doubted in every other article than dress which of the two was the most accomplished fine lady after a visit of twenty minutes during which not a word of any former occurrences was mentioned
during the rest of the evening she went from amelia directly to a rout where she spent two hours in a croud of company talked again and again over the diversions and news of the town played two rubbers at whist
and then retired to her own apartment where having past another hour in undressing herself she went to her own bed booth and his wife the moment their companion was gone sat down to supper on a piece of cold meat
the remains of their dinner after which over a pint of wine they entertained themselves for a while with the ridiculous behaviour of their visitant but amelia declaring she rather saw her as the object of pity than anger turned the discourse to pleasanter topics
the little actions of their children the former scenes and future prospects of their life furnished them with many pleasant ideas and the contemplation of amelia's recovery threw booth into raptures at length they retired happy in each other
it is possible some readers may be no less surprized at the behaviour of missus james than was amelia herself since they may have perhaps received so favourable an impression of that lady from the account given of her by mister booth
that her present demeanour may seem unnatural and inconsistent with her former character but they will be pleased to consider the great alteration in her circumstances
chapter one edith's home on the thames
looking up at the clock for the twentieth time during the last half hour and breaking off in the middle of the list of english kings and queens which she was trying to commit to memory which king came after henry the third in that far away time
seemed a small matter compared to the outing which she and her governess had planned to enjoy on the river that lovely afternoon miss green smiled indulgently as she closed her book
it does seem a shame to remain indoors a moment longer than one can help such a day as this
and pack them in the basket while you are getting ready you may imagine it did not take edith long to put away her books then giving her good natured governess a hug she skipped off for her hat and coat
she greeted her two little playmates from the vicarage all three were bubbling over with glee at the prospect of an outing this bright june afternoon upon the river thames they were to go up stream to a pretty little nook in a quiet backwater
which was a favourite spot with them and have a gipsy tea under the willows the children were soon seated on cushions in the neat little shallow punt towser the big collie dog was already in the boat
for he knew he was a welcome companion on these trips
poled the boat gracefully through the water this looks like an easy thing to do but it takes a great deal of skill to handle a punt does not the river look gay said eleanor there are lots of people out
the river indeed was covered with pleasure craft of all kinds
which flows through the very heart of england indeed it has been called the river of pleasure
the men in white flannel suits and straw hats there were many punts like their own also tiny sailboats some of them with bright red or blue sails
while every now and then a crew of young men from one of the colleges sculled past them practising for the forthcoming boat race all made way for these swift racing boats for one of the unwritten rules of the river
is that boat crews must not be interfered with while practising occasionally our party in the punt would get the effect of a gentle wave from an automobile boat or a steam launch as it rushed by in the midst of it all
were to be seen the swans gliding in and out among the boats the thames swans are as well known as the river itself they are very privileged birds and directly under the protection of the government itself
there are special keepers to look after them and any person who injured a swan in any way would be punished but no harm ever happens to them for the lovely white birds are great pets with every one and the children especially like nothing better
than to feed them along the banks under the shade of overhanging trees were merry boat loads of family parties making a picnic of their afternoon tea as our little party intended to do
you must know that everybody in england takes what is called five o'clock tea and would no more think of going without their tea in the afternoon than their dinner presently the punt glided behind a clump of trees
you would think it was going into some one's garden
a miniature bay quite apart from the main river this is called a backwater catching hold of a tree with the hook on the end of her pole miss green brought the punt up against the bank under the overhanging willows
then the tea basket was brought from the punt now clarence said miss green you fill the teakettle while the girls help me their kettle was especially constructed for these occasions
with a hollow space in the bottom into which fits a small spirit lamp this so the wind cannot blow out the flame my we have got a jolly lot of cake that's good
and clarence looked very approvingly at the nice plum cake and the madeira cake which is a sort of sponge cake with slices of preserved citron on top of it a favourite cake for teas in a few minutes the water boiled in spite of everybody watching it attentively
why do we always eat more out of doors said edith than when we are indoors eating in the proper way
perhaps the fresh air has more to do with it than anything else laughed miss green as she cut them the sixth piece of cake all around now you rest miss green and we will pack up everything said eleanor
where colonel and missus howard edith's parents were sitting in comfortable wicker garden chairs waiting for them oldham manor edith's home was a fine old house built in the tudor style
of red brick with stone doorways and windows and quaint tall ornamental chimneys with the lower story entirely covered with ivy colonel howard was a retired army officer
he had to leave the army on account of his health and now devoted himself to his wife and two children and his lovely home missus howard herself was a handsome and stately woman rather reserved in her manner but devoted to her children
tom edith's brother was at school at eton college so edith had a double share of petting and led a very happy existence with plenty of work and plenty of play she had a pretty little room with a little brass bed
and an old fashioned chest of drawers for her clothes the little dressing table
was draped with pink flowered muslin and the window curtains were of the same material the chairs were covered with a bright pretty pink green and white chintz and the carpet was pale green with pink roses
from the window of this delightful room one overlooked the rose garden adjoining was the schoolroom a big room where miss green and edith spent much of their time edith usually dressed quickly for when the weather was fine
colonel howard was very proud of his roses and the rose garden of the manor was quite famous many of the rose bushes were trained to form great arches over the walks another hobby of colonel howard's was his fancy chickens and ducks
of which he had a great variety edith had her pet chickens too and she and her papa could never agree as to whose chickens were the finest when they went to feed them in the morning edith would run each morning into the breakfast room
and waving loosely over her shoulders as all english girls wear their hair until they are quite young ladies her dress was very simply made and around the neck was a pink ribbon pink was her favourite colour tied in a bow
there was a good morning kiss for mamma and edith must help to fasten the rose in her hair which colonel howard always brought his wife edith had a good appetite for her breakfast of porridge and cream milk eggs and toast
and very good indeed always she finished with marmalade breakfast over then came the lessons in the schoolroom until one o'clock
after dinner she was free to walk or drive with her papa and mamma or miss green or play games with her little friends in the neighbourhood
curled up on the big green sofa near the window while miss green read or sewed beside her ready to help her out with a hard word finally she had tea with miss green in the schoolroom at six o'clock
and soon after this was ready for bed thursday was a red letter day for edith for in the afternoon she always took tea with mamma and papa in state in the drawing room
this was so that she should learn how to go through with it in the proper manner which is a very important part of a little english girl's education
while edith put on her real company manners
edith was a member and the money from the sales was given to help the very poor children in their neighbourhood
in fact about this time she always appears jollier than at any other apparently looking upon the whole business as a capital lark a rather enjoyable practical joke my own cat muffie
invariably gives due notice of the coming event by some of the most wonderful specimens of cantation i ever listened to in fact she becomes a small opera in herself chorus and all her song moreover
is interlarded with little hysterical squeaks as if she were brim full of some strange joy and running over at the same time she lavishes more caresses than usual upon nero
who not knowing what to make of it looks very foolish indeed cats eating their kittens numerous instances might be cited of cats eating their kittens as soon as born
these are curious examples of mistaken affection and may be put down to a species of feline mania somewhat analogous to that which is sometimes though rarely seen in human beings
but in the name of goodness said i what have you got in the pot french missionary no she said exhibiting no sort of surprise at my question for a dish of french missionary was by no means unknown in those parts
and she intimated to me that it was only the baby girl with whom she intended to feed the little baby boy as he had not got fair play and so the majesty of justice was maintained cats are greatly sensible of the honour of maternity
and when deprived of their kittens feel very wretched indeed under these circumstances they will nurse and suckle almost any creature cats rearing dogs a cat of mine a few years ago suckled and reared a beautiful pomeranian dog
i thought at the time this was rather surprising but i should not be surprised now at anything a cat did a gentleman the other day had a very nice fox terrier bitch the poor thing died giving birth to a litter of four puppies
immediately installed herself in the vacant bed and adopted the puppies she proved a good mother to them and successfully reared every one of them i know of another similar instance where a cat was house mate with a rather valuable bitch
this bitch brought forth a litter of seven pups the cat had five kittens at the same time
and persisted in that refusal until the expedient was tried of drowning the remaining kitten
one day she gave birth to her kittens in an out house and at once leaving them to shift for themselves she entered the dwelling house and insisted on giving suck to the dog of her first adoption as he was now a full grown dog
and had a great regard for his own respectability he didn't see the fun of it pussy went after him nevertheless lying down in front of him and mewing piteously up in his face when to get rid of her importunities the dog went out
she even followed him to the street and only ceased pestering him when her kittens were discovered and brought to her cat adopting her grand children a lady had two cats mother and daughter living in the same house with her
the mother was of a quiet domesticated turn of mind and preferred fire side enjoyments to out of door sports but the daughter was quite the reverse
she was a mighty huntress and it was no uncommon thing to see her coming waddling across the fields with a rabbit as big as herself in her mouth both these cats had kittens at the same time but the daughter seemed determined that nursing should not interfere with her hunting expeditions
her mangled remains were found a little way down the line where she had been run over by a railway train
when to our surprise we found that old grandmamma puss had adopted her ill fated daughter's children and was nursing and tending them with the same amount of care and attention she bestowed on her own
now these two mother cats were wise in their day and generation no one cat they thought could nurse and suckle ten kits and it was equally evident that three kittens did not require the services of two cats
so they concluded that the best plan would be to put the shattered remains of the two families your one kitty missus tom and my two together in one bed and take turn about in nursing them this was accordingly done
and turned out to be a very satisfactory arrangement for all parties concerned for either cat could now go abroad when she pleased happy in the thought that nothing could go wrong at home nursing a hare
a certain carpenter whom i knew had a cat which in due season as all cats will produced a litter of kittens which very cruel and thoughtless was the action were all drowned
besides i'm taking the milk fever but behold day is gently breaking i'll seek the mountain and be it what it may i'll have something to love something to suckle me
nursing squirrels this is by no means uncommon in cats
and a very pretty sight it is to see squirrels thus reared make most delightful little pets nursing chickens i know several instances of cats supplying the place of their lost kittens
one of these pussy watching her chance sprang upon and seized by the neck and although hotly pursued by the enraged mother managed to reach the house in safety and went straight to her own bed here she deposited the chicken
so it became a sort of household pet and when not eating it was always cuddling down beside its funny foster mother
but this time she did a wiser thing she found out that a cat belonging to one of the neighbours was the happy mother of three kittens which she had been allowed to keep off goes puss to this neighbour's house and having thrashed the mother to begin with
she kidnapped and carried home one of her family several times was the kitten taken back and each time pussy went and stole it again and as she never failed to give the other cat a preliminary hiding
once she had a cat nursing a litter of kittens and one of the chickens in the yard being rather deformed and not thriving miss g brought it and flung it to the cat thinking it would be a great treat to her it was a treat to her though hardly in the way she expected
for pussy commenced licking it all over and forthwith adopted it and nursed it along with her kittens she continued to do so until it grew into a large leggy and withal rather ungainly hen
there is no saying what the future may bring forth though for a much more gifted animal will be the coming cat i think the reader will now be prepared to hear of cats nursing hedgehogs yes
they were very tricky and funny but pussy soon found out that they didn't stand correction well if she lifted a paw to them pooh they were transformed into three round prickly balls before the blow fell and pussy's paw had the worst of it
then the poor cat would look sulkily from one little ball to another and turning about walk off in disgust but three pairs of bright beady eyes were keeking at her from among the thorns
suckling rats some years ago there was a cat in scotland who when three of her kittens were drowned supplied their place by bringing in three young rats to make up the number she must have known something of arithmetic too
for when one of the little rats died she went out and carried in another
but still another died and probably she could not find any more for she contented herself with nursing and tending the two remaining ones along with her own two kittens
philadelphia if you're off to philadelphia in the morning you mustn't take my stories for a guide there's little left indeed of the city you will read of and all the folk i write about have died
now few will understand if you mention talleyrand or remember what his cunning and his skill did and the cabmen at the wharf do not know count zinnendorf nor the church in philadelphia he builded
it is gone gone gone with lost atlantis never say i didn't give you warning in seventeen ninety three twas there for all to see but it's not in philadelphia this morning
if you're off to philadelphia in the morning you mustn't go by everything i've said bob bicknell's southern stages have been laid aside for ages but the limited will take you there instead
toby hirte can't be seen at one hundred and eighteen north second street no matter when you call and i fear you'll search in vain for the wash house down the lane
it is gone gone gone with thebes the golden never say i didn't give you warning in seventeen ninety four twas a famous dancing floor but it's not in philadelphia this morning
if you're off to philadelphia in the morning you must telegraph for rooms at some hotel you needn't try your luck at epply's or the buck though the father of his country liked them well
it is not the slightest use to inquire for adam goos or to ask where pastor meder has removed so you must treat as out of date the story i relate of the church in philadelphia he loved so
he is gone gone gone with martin luther never say i didn't give you warning in seventeen ninety five he was rest his soul alive but he's not in philadelphia this morning
if you're off to philadelphia this morning and wish to prove the truth of what i say i pledge my word you'll find the pleasant land behind unaltered since red jacket rode that way
still the pine woods scent the noon still the cat bird sings his tune still autumn sets the maple forest blazing still the grape vine through the dusk flings her soul compelling musk
still the fire flies in the corn make night amazing they are there there there with earth immortal citizens i give you friendly warning
and strolled over the downs towards the dull evening sea the tide was dead low under the chalk cliffs and the little wrinkled waves grieved along the sands up the coast to newhaven and down the coast to long grey brighton
whose smoke trailed out across the channel they walked to the gap where the cliff is only a few feet high a windlass for hoisting shingle from the beach below stands at the edge of it
the coastguard cottages are a little farther on and an old ship's figurehead of a turk in a turban stared at them over the wall this time tomorrow we shall be at home thank goodness said una i hate the sea
i believe it's all right in the middle said dan the edges are the sorrowful parts cordery the coastguard came out of the cottage levelled his telescope at some fishing boats shut it with a click and walked away
even on the darkest night where's cordery going said una
then he'll meet the newhaven coastguard and turn back he says if coastguards were done away with smuggling would start up at once a voice on the beach under the cliff began to sing
the moon she shined on telscombe tye on telscombe tye at night it was
a dark thin faced man in very neat brown clothes and broad toed shoes came up followed by puck three dunkirk boats was standin in the man went on
said puck you'll shock these nice young people oh shall i mille pardons he shrugged his shoulders almost up to his ears spread his hands abroad and jabbered in french no comprenny he said i'll give it you in low german
and he went off in another language changing his voice and manner so completely that they hardly knew him for the same person but his dark beady brown eyes still twinkled merrily in his lean face
and the children felt that they did not suit the straight plain snuffy brown coat brown knee breeches and broad brimmed hat his hair was tied in a short pigtail which danced wickedly when he turned his head
ha done said puck laughing be one thing or t'other pharaoh french or english or german no great odds which oh but it is though said una quickly we haven't begun german yet
aren't you english said dan we heard you singing just now aha
she was an aurette of course we lees mostly marry aurettes haven't you ever come across the saying aurettes and lees like as two peas what they can't smuggle they'll run over seas
and have you smuggled much said dan mister lee nodded solemnly mind you said he
mostly they can't make a do of it but i was brought up to the trade d'ye see in a lawful line o descent on' he waved across the channel
the aurettes used mostly to run the stuff across from boulogne
then where did you live said una
squatted by the windlass i remember a piece about the lees at warminghurst i do there was never a lee to warminghurst that wasn't a gipsy last and first i reckon that's truth pharaoh pharaoh laughed
admettin that's true he said my gipsy blood must be wore pretty thin for i've made and kept a worldly fortune
no in the tobacco trade you don't mean to say you gave up smuggling just to go and be a tobacconist dan looked so disappointed
i'm sorry but there's all sorts of tobacconists pharaoh replied how far out now would you call that smack with the patch on her foresail he pointed to the fishing boats a scant mile
said puck after a quick look just about it's seven fathom under her clean sand
and we fished em up and rowed em into the gap here for the ponies to run inland one thickish night in january of ninety three
which i put on then and there for the french was having their revolution in those days and red caps was all the fashion
and moreover the brest forts had fired on an english man o' war the news wasn't a week old that means war again when we was only just getting used to the peace says dad why can't king george's men
do on their uniforms and fight it out over our heads me too i wish that says uncle aurette but they'll be pressing better men than themselves to fight for em
you look out for yours i'll have to bide ashore and grow cabbages for a while after i've run this cargo but i do wish dad says
and young l'estrange holding the lantern i just do wish that those folk which make war so easy had to run one cargo a month all this winter
honest work means well i've warned ye says uncle aurette i'll be slipping off now before your revenue cutter comes give my love to sister and take care o the kegs it's thicking to southward
by the time we'd fished up the kegs the fog came down so thick dad judged it risky for me to row em ashore even though we could hear the ponies stamping on the beach
so he and uncle lot took the dinghy and left me in the smack playing on my fiddle to guide em back presently i heard guns two of em sounded mighty like uncle aurette's three pounders
then come more which i reckoned was captain giddens in the revenue cutter he was open handed with his compliments but he would lay his guns himself i stopped fiddling to listen and i heard a whole skyful o french up in the fog and a high bow
i hadn't time to call or think i remember the smack heeling over and me standing on the gunwale pushing against the ship's side as if i hoped to bear her off
with a lantern in it slid by in front of my nose i kicked back on our gunwale as it went under and slipped through that port into the french ship me and my fiddle gracious said una what an adventure
that's the next deck below the gun deck which by rights should not have been open at all the crew was standing by their guns up above i rolled on to a pile of dunnage in the dark and i went to sleep when i woke men was talking all round me
telling each other their names and sorrows just like dad told me pressed men used to talk in the last war
and left to sort emselves the ship she was the embuscade a thirty six gun republican frigate
they had been up all night clearing for action on account of hearing guns in the fog
and the frigate had drifted past em
seeing so many aboard was total strangers to each other i thought one more mightn't be noticed
and my hands in my pockets like the rest
what here's one of em that isn't sick says a cook take his breakfast to citizen bompard i carried the tray to the cabin but i didn't call this bompard citizen oh no mon capitaine was my little word
bompard he liked it he took me on for cabin servant and after that no one asked questions and thus i got good victuals and light work all the way across to america he talked a heap of politics and so did his officers
and when this ambassador genet got rid of his land stomach and laid down the law after dinner a rooks parliament was nothing compared to their cabin
through waiting at table and hearing talk about em
i used to play the fiddle between em sitting on the capstan
was going to join her to finish off the english in this war
he was a rude common man but i liked listening i always helped drink any healths that was proposed specially citizen danton's
an all englishman might have been shocked but that's where my french blood saved me it didn't save me from getting a dose of ship's fever though
and what was left of me after bleeding and pills took the dumb horrors from living tween decks
i was too weak to wait on bompard i don't remember much of any account for the next few weeks till i smelled lilacs and i looked out of the port and we was moored to a wharf edge
what's this i said to the sick bay man
philadelphia says pierre you've missed it all we're sailing next week i just turned round and cried for longing to be amongst the laylocks if that's your trouble says old pierre you go straight ashore none'll hinder you
they're all gone mad on these coasts french and american together
speechified to all and sundry about war with england they shouted down with england down with washington hurrah for france and the republic i couldn't make sense of it
i wanted to get out from that crunch of swords and petticoats and sit in a field one of the gentlemen said to me is that a genuine cap o liberty you're wearing
oh yes i says straight from france i'll give you a shilling for it he says and with that money in my hand and my fiddle under my arm i squeezed past the entry port and went ashore it was like a dream
meadows trees flowers birds houses and people all different i sat me down in a meadow and fiddled a bit
looking and smelling and touching like a little dog at a fair
and a girl threw me a handful of laylock sprays and when i said merci without thinking she said she loved the french they all was the fashion in the city
and every one was shouting for war with england
he was a horseback behaving as if the place belonged to him and commanding all and sundry to fight the british but i'd heard that before i got into a long straight street as wide as the broyle where gentlemen was racing horses
i'm fond o horses nobody hindered em and a man
but i left them to run after a great proud copper faced man with feathers in his hair and a red blanket trailing behind him a man told me he was a real red indian called red jacket
and bought some sugary cakes hearing what the price was i was going to have some too but the indian asked me in english if i was hungry oh yes i says i must have looked a sore scrattel
we walked into a dirty little room full of flutes and fiddles and a fat man fiddling by the window in a smell of cheese and medicines fit to knock you down i was knocked down too
what says toby i thought it was gert schwankfelder
you should have said that first said toby he pushed plates at me and the indian put bread and pork on them and a glass of madeira wine
that was true enough when you think of it and besides i saw that the french was all the fashion in philadelphia
no i says i've seen our ship's doctor roll too many of em ho he says
right he says
yet he cannot tell you like to fiddle he says he'd just seen my kit on the floor oh yes says i oho he says what note is this drawing his bow across he meant it for a so i told him it was
my brother he says to the indian i think this is the hand of providence i warned that gert if he went to play upon the wharves any more he would hear from me now look at this boy and say what you think
the indian looked me over whole minutes there was a musical clock on the wall and dolls came out and hopped while the hour struck he looked me over all the while they did it good he says at last
this boy is good good then says toby now i shall play my fiddle and you shall sing your hymn brother
the horses are in davy jones's locker if you ask any questions you shall hear from me i left em singing hymns and i went down to old conrad gerhard
he knew toby his wife she walked me into the back yard without a word and she washed me and she cut my hair to the edge of a basin and she put me to bed and oh how i slept how i slept in that little room behind the oven looking on the flower garden
and he reckoned i hadn't long to live so he put me down as discharged sick i like toby said una who was he said puck apothecary tobias hirte pharaoh replied one hundred and eighteen second street
the famous seneca oil man that lived half of every year among the indians
same as his brown mare used to go to lebanon then why did he keep her in davy jones's locker dan asked that was his joke he kept her under david jones's hat shop in the buck tavern yard
and his indian friends kept their ponies there when they visited him i looked after the horses when i wasn't rolling pills on top of the old spinet while he played his fiddle and red jacket sang hymns i liked it
they came in at one door and the men at another
and a nigger boy to blow the organ bellows i carried toby's fiddle and he played pretty much as he chose all against the organ and the singing he was the only one they let do it for they was a simple minded folk
which lord knows they didn't need how very queer said una pharaoh's eyes twinkled
nor will i ever forget my first sunday the service was in english that week with the smell of the flowers coming in from pastor meder's garden where the big peach tree is and me looking at all the clean strangeness
and thinking of tween decks on the embuscade only six days ago being a boy it seemed to me it had lasted for ever and was going on for ever but i didn't know toby then as soon as the dancing clock struck midnight that sunday
i was lying under the spinet i heard toby's fiddle he'd just done his supper which he always took late and heavy gert says he get the horses liberty and independence for ever
we are going to my country seat in lebanon
red jacket was there saddling his and when i'd packed the saddle bags we three rode up race street to the ferry by starlight so we went travelling it's a kindly softly country there back of philadelphia
and gave the french war news to folk along the roads him and his long hilted umberell was as well known as the stage coaches he took orders for that famous seneca oil which he had the secret of from red jacket's indians
and he slept in friends farmhouses but he would shut all the windows so red jacket and me slept outside there's nothing to hurt except snakes and they slip away quick enough if you thrash in the bushes i'd have liked that said dan
so's the puffs out of the pine woods of afternoons come sundown the frogs strike up and later on the fireflies dance in the corn oh me the fireflies in the corn we were a week or ten days on the road
tacking from one place to another such as lancaster bethlehem ephrata thou bethlehem ephrata
and so we jogged into dozy little lebanon by the blue mountains where toby had a cottage and a garden of all fruits
the seneca indians made for him they'd never sell to any one else and he doctored em with von swieten pills which they valued more than their own oil
toby took me up there and they treated me as if i was their own blood brother red jacket said the mark of my bare feet in the dust was just like an indian's and my style of walking was similar i know i took to their ways all over
maybe the gipsy drop in your blood helped you said puck sometimes i think it did pharaoh went on anyhow red jacket and cornplanter the other seneca chief
it's only a compliment of course
they gave me a side name which means two tongues because d'ye see i talked french and english they had their own opinions i've heard em about the french and the english and the americans they'd suffered from all of em during the wars
and they only wished to be left alone but they
cornplanter had had dealings with him in some french wars out west when general washington was only a lad his being president afterwards made no odds to em
and he was all of their notion of a white chief cornplanter ud sweep his blanket round him and after i'd filled his pipe he'd begin in the old days long ago when braves were many and blankets were few big hand said
if he didn't he'd blow through his nostrils then cornplanter ud stop and red jacket ud take on red jacket was the better talker of the two i've laid and listened to em for hours oh they knew general washington well
cornplanter used to meet him at epply's
i came at it by degrees after i was adopted into the tribe the talk up in lebanon and everywhere else that summer was about the french war with england
toby wanted peace so as he could go about the reservation buying his oils but most of the white men wished for war and they was angry because the president wouldn't give the sign for it the newspaper said men was burning guy fawkes images of general washington
and yelling after him in the streets of philadelphia you'd have been astonished what those two fine old chiefs knew of the ins and outs of such matters the little i've learned of politics i picked up from cornplanter and red jacket on the reservation
toby used to read the aurora newspaper he was what they call a democrat though our church is against the brethren concerning themselves with politics i hate politics too said una and pharaoh laughed
one hot evening late in august toby was reading the newspaper on the stoop and red jacket was smoking under a peach tree and i was fiddling of a sudden
too fond of my own comforts he says i will go to the church which is in philadelphia my brother lend me a spare pony
besides indians don't ask questions much and i wanted to be like em when the horses were ready i jumped up get off says toby stay and mind the cottage till i come back
i wish he hadn't he powders off down the lancaster road and i sat on the doorstep wondering after him when i picked up the paper to wrap his fiddle strings in i spelled out a piece about the yellow fever being in philadelphia
so dreadful every one was running away i was scared for i was fond of toby we never said much to each other but we fiddled together and music's as good as talking to them that understand did toby die of yellow fever
una asked not him there's justice left in the world still he went down to the city and bled em well again in heaps he sent back word by red jacket that if there was war or he died i was to bring the oils along to the city
but till then i was to go on working in the garden and red jacket was to see me do it
and neither him nor cornplanter when he relieved watch was a hard task master we hired a nigger boy to do our work and a lazy grinning runagate he was when i found toby didn't die the minute he reached town why boylike
i took him off my mind and went with my indians again
running races and gambling with the senecas or bee hunting in the woods or fishing in the lake
but it's best he went on suddenly after the first frosts you roll out o your blanket and find every leaf left green over night turned red and yellow
like sunsets splattered upside down on one of such days the maples was flaming scarlet and gold
cornplanter and red jacket came out in full war dress making the very leaves look silly feathered war bonnets yellow doeskin leggings fringed and tasselled
red horse blankets and their bridles feathered and shelled and beaded no bounds i thought it was war against the british till i saw their faces weren't painted and they only carried wrist whips
they told me they was going to visit big hand and find out for sure whether he meant to join the french in fighting the english or make a peace treaty with england i reckon those two would ha gone out on the war path at a nod from big hand
but they knew well if there was war twixt england and the united states their tribe ud catch it from both parties
that puzzled me because they always put their ponies up at the buck or epply's
and horse holding is a nigger's job besides i wasn't exactly dressed for it d'you mean you were dressed like an indian dan demanded pharaoh looked a little abashed this didn't happen at lebanon he said but a bit farther north on the reservation
so far as blanket hair band moccasins and sunburn went there wasn't much odds twix me and a young seneca buck you may laugh' he smoothed down his long skirted brown coat i told you i took to their ways all over
i said nothing though i was bursting to let out the war whoop
go on brother square toes we went on pharaoh's narrow dark eyes gleamed and danced we went on forty fifty miles a day for days on end we three braves
through thick timber without brushing a feather beats me my silly head was banged often enough by low branches but they slipped through like running elk we had evening hymn singing every night
after they'd blown their pipe smoke to the quarters of heaven where did we go i'll tell you but don't blame me if you're no wiser we took the old war trail from the end of the lake along the east susquehanna through the nantego country
gilding old ruins with her jasmine spray distilling warm moist perfume from chill winter shade out of the south she brought the whisperings of questing wings
then flame on flame the cardinals came blowing like driven brands up from the sultry lands where summer's happy fires always burn old silences that pain had held too close and long stirred to the mocker's song
and hope looked out again from tired eyes down where the white point gardens drank the sun and rippled to the lift of springing grass the women came and after them the aged and the lame that war had hurled back at them like a taunt
thrusting out of the mists like hostile fists waited the close blockade then dim to left and right the curving islands with their shattered mounds that had been forts
mounds which in spite of four long years of rending agony still held against the light faint wraiths of color for the breeze to lift and flatten into faded red and white these sunny islands were not meant for wars
see how they curve away before the bay bidding the voyager pause warm with the hoarded suns of centuries young with the garnered youth of many springs they laugh like happy bathers while the seas break in their open arms
and the slow moving breeze draws languid fingers down their placid brows even the surly ocean knows their charms and under the shrill laughter of the surf he booms and sings his heavy monotone two
there are rare nights among these waterways when spring first treads the meadows of the marsh leaving faint footprints of elusive green to glimmer as she strays breaking the winter silence with the harsh sharp call of waterfowl
rubbing dim shifting pastels in the scene with white of moon and blur of scudding cloud until the myrtle thickets and the sand the silent streams and the substantial land go drifting down the tide of night aswoon
on such a night as this i saw the last crew go out of a world too beautiful to leave only a chosen few beside the crew were gathered on the pier
and in the ebb and flow of dark and moon we saw them fare straight past the row of coffins where the fifth crew lay waiting their last short voyage across the bay and as they went not one among them swerved
but eyes went homing swiftly to the west where faint and very few the windows of the town called out to them yet held them nerved and ready for the test young every one they brought life at its best
in the taut stillness not a word was uttered but one heard the deep slow orchestration of the night swell and relapse as swiftly one by one cutting a silhouette against the gray they rose
then dropped out softly like a dream into the rocking shadows of the stream a sudden grind of metal scarred the hush a marsh hen threshed the water with her wings and for a breath the marsh life woke and throbbed
then down beneath our feet we caught the gleam of folded water flaring left and right while with a noiseless rush a shadow darker than the rest drew from its fellows swarming round the quay took an oncoming breaker
shook its shoulders free and faced the sea then came an interval that seemed to be part of eternity years might have passed or seconds no one knew close in the dark we huddled each to each
too stirred for speech our senses sharpened to an agony drew out across the water till the ache was more than we could bear till eyes could almost see ears almost hear
and waiting there i seemed to feel the beach slip from my reach while all the stars went blank the smell of oil and death enveloped me and i could feel the crouching figures straining at a crank knees under chins
the sob and gasp of breath against an air empty and damp and fetid as a tomb with them i seemed to reel beneath the spin and heel when combers took them fair
three a sudden flood of moonlight drenched the sea pointing the scene in sharp strong black and white sumter came shouldering through the night battered and grim
the curve of ships shook off their dim vague outlines of a dream and stood patient as death so certain in their pride so satisfied to wait the slow inevitableness of fate close where the channel narrowed to the bay
her wide high sweep of spars flaunting their arrogance among the stars darkness again swift winged and absolute gulping the stars folding the ships and sea holding us waiting mute
a ship of light out of a molten sea hang an unending pulse beat glowing stark while the hot clouds flung back a sullen roar then all her pride so confident and sure went reeling down the dark
out of the blackness wave on livid wave leapt into being thundered to our feet counting the moments for us beat by beat until the last and smallest dwindled past
trailing its pallor like a winding sheet over the last crew and its chosen grave
and the vessel hull down in the sea where the waters just stirring from sleep lifted bright hands to the sun hiding their lusty young dead holding them jealously close down to the cold harbor floor
each huddled dumbly to each but eyes could not lift from the sea only hands touched in the dawn he would have gone my man he was like that in the night when i awoke with a start and brought his voice up from my dream
that was goodbye and godspeed i know he is there with the rest brave but with quivering lips each alone in the press of the crowd was saying it over and over
the day flooded all of the sky and the ships of the sullen blockade weighed anchor and drew down the wind leaving their wreck to the waves hour heaved slowly on hour
yet how could the city rejoice with the women out there by the wall night grew under the wharves and crept through the listening streets until only the red of the tiles seemed warm from the breath of the day
and the faces that waited and watched blurred into a wavering line like foam on the curve of the dark down there by the reticent sea what if the darkness should bring the lean blockade runners across with food for the hungry and spent
when the ladies returned to the drawing room after dinner emma found it hardly possible to prevent their making two distinct parties with so much perseverance in judging and behaving ill did missus elton engross jane fairfax and slight herself
missus elton left them no choice if jane repressed her for a little time she soon began again and though much that passed between them was in a half whisper especially on missus elton's side there was no avoiding a knowledge of their principal subjects
the post office catching cold fetching letters and friendship were long under discussion and to them succeeded one which must be at least equally unpleasant to jane inquiries whether she had yet heard of any situation likely to suit her
and professions of missus elton's meditated activity here is april come said she i get quite anxious about you june will soon be here but i have never fixed on june or any other month
you are not aware of the difficulty of procuring exactly the desirable thing i not aware said jane shaking her head dear missus elton who can have thought of it as i have done
but you have not seen so much of the world as i have you do not know how many candidates there always are for the first situations i saw a vast deal of that in the neighbourhood round maple grove a cousin of mister suckling missus bragge
colonel and missus campbell are to be in town again by midsummer said jane i must spend some time with them i am sure they will want it afterwards i may probably be glad to dispose of myself but i would not wish you to take the trouble of making any inquiries at present
but my dear child the time is drawing near here is april and june or say even july is very near with such business to accomplish before us your inexperience really amuses me
a situation such as you deserve and your friends would require for you is no everyday occurrence is not obtained at a moment's notice indeed indeed we must begin inquiring directly excuse me ma'am but this is by no means my intention
i make no inquiry myself and should be sorry to have any made by my friends when i am quite determined as to the time i am not at all afraid of being long unemployed there are places in town offices where inquiry would soon produce something
offices for the sale not quite of human flesh but of human intellect oh my dear human flesh you quite shock me if you mean a fling at the slave trade i assure you mister suckling was always rather a friend to the abolition
i did not mean i was not thinking of the slave trade replied jane governess trade i assure you was all that i had in view widely different certainly as to the guilt of those who carry it on
but as to the greater misery of the victims i do not know where it lies but i only mean to say that there are advertising offices and that by applying to them i should have no doubt of very soon meeting with something that would do something that would do repeated missus elton
aye that may suit your humble ideas of yourself i know what a modest creature you are but it will not satisfy your friends to have you taking up with any thing that may offer any inferior commonplace situation
in a family not moving in a certain circle or able to command the elegancies of life you are very obliging but as to all that i am very indifferent it would be no object to me to be with the rich my mortifications i think would only be the greater
i should suffer more from comparison a gentleman's family is all that i should condition for i know you i know you you would take up with any thing but i shall be a little more nice and i am sure the good campbells will be quite on my side
with your superior talents you have a right to move in the first circle your musical knowledge alone would entitle you to name your own terms have as many rooms as you like and mix in the family as much as you chose that is i do not know
if you knew the harp you might do all that i am very sure but you sing as well as play yes i really believe you might even without the harp stipulate for what you chose and you must and shall be delightfully honourably and comfortably settled before the campbells or i have any rest
you may well class the delight the honour and the comfort of such a situation together said jane they are pretty sure to be equal however i am very serious in not wishing any thing to be attempted at present for me
i am exceedingly obliged to you missus elton i am obliged to any body who feels for me but i am quite serious in wishing nothing to be done till the summer for two or three months longer i shall remain where i am and as i am
in this style she ran on never thoroughly stopped by any thing till mister woodhouse came into the room her vanity had then a change of object and emma heard her saying in the same half whisper to jane
here comes this dear old beau of mine i protest only think of his gallantry in coming away before the other men what a dear creature he is i assure you i like him excessively
but i do not know whether it is not over trimmed i have the greatest dislike to the idea of being over trimmed quite a horror of finery i must put on a few ornaments now because it is expected of me a bride you know must appear like a bride
but my natural taste is all for simplicity a simple style of dress is so infinitely preferable to finery but i am quite in the minority i believe few people seem to value simplicity of dress show and finery are every thing
i have some notion of putting such a trimming as this to my white and silver poplin do you think it will look well the whole party were but just reassembled in the drawing room when mister weston made his appearance among them
john knightley only was in mute astonishment that a man who might have spent his evening quietly at home after a day of business in london should set off again and walk half a mile to another man's house for the sake of being in mixed company till bed time
of finishing his day in the efforts of civility and the noise of numbers was a circumstance to strike him deeply a man who had been in motion since eight o'clock in the morning and might now have been still who had been long talking and might have been silent
who had been in more than one crowd and might have been alone such a man to quit the tranquillity and independence of his own fireside and on the evening of a cold sleety april day rush out again into the world
could he by a touch of his finger have instantly taken back his wife there would have been a motive but his coming would probably prolong rather than break up the party john knightley looked at him with amazement then shrugged his shoulders and said
was making himself agreeable among the rest and having satisfied the inquiries of his wife as to his dinner convincing her that none of all her careful directions to the servants had been forgotten and spread abroad what public news he had heard was proceeding to a family communication
which though principally addressed to missus weston he had not the smallest doubt of being highly interesting to every body in the room he gave her a letter it was from frank and to herself he had met with it in his way and had taken the liberty of opening it
read it read it said he it will give you pleasure only a few lines will not take you long read it to emma
the two ladies looked over it together and he sat smiling and talking to them the whole time in a voice a little subdued but very audible to every body well he is coming you see good news i think well what do you say to it
i always told you he would be here again soon did not i anne my dear did not i always tell you so and you would not believe me in town next week you see at the latest i dare say for she is as impatient as the black gentleman when any thing is to be done
most likely they will be there to morrow or saturday as to her illness all nothing of course but it is an excellent thing to have frank among us again so near as town they will stay a good while when they do come and he will be half his time with us
this is precisely what i wanted well pretty good news is not it have you finished it has emma read it all put it up put it up we will have a good talk about it some other time but it will not do now
i shall only just mention the circumstance to the others in a common way missus weston was most comfortably pleased on the occasion her looks and words had nothing to restrain them
her congratulations were warm and open but emma could not speak so fluently she was a little occupied in weighing her own feelings and trying to understand the degree of her agitation which she rather thought was considerable
mister weston however too eager to be very observant too communicative to want others to talk was very well satisfied with what she did say
and soon moved away to make the rest of his friends happy by a partial communication of what the whole room must have overheard already it was well that he took every body's joy for granted or he might not have thought either mister woodhouse or mister knightley particularly delighted
they were the first entitled after missus weston and emma to be made happy from them he would have proceeded to miss fairfax but she was so deep in conversation with john knightley that it would have been too positive an interruption
cold and still looked the old house in the moonbeams never was the moon brighter it lighted the far stretching garden it illuminated even the weathercock aloft it shone upon the portico and upon one who appeared in it
what was it that had stepped out of that grove of trees and mysteriously beckoned to her as she stood at the window turning her heart to sickness as she gazed was it a human being one to bring more evil to the house where so much evil had already fallen
was it a supernatural visitant or was it but a delusion of her own eyesight not the latter certainly for the figure was now emerging again motioning to her as before
and a cry escaped her telling more of sorrow than of joy though betraying both she penetrated the trees and burst into tears as one in the dress of a farm laborer caught her in his arms
in spite of his smock frock and his straw wisped hat and his false whiskers black as erebus she knew him for her brother oh richard where have you come from what brings you here did you know me barbara was his rejoinder
should mamma see you it will kill her outright i can't live on as i am living he answered gloomily i have been working in london ever since in london interrupted barbara in london and have never stirred out of it
a stable yard she uttered in a deeply shocked tone richard did you expect it would be as a merchant or a banker or perhaps as secretary to one of her majesty's ministers or that i was a gentleman at large living on my fortune
retorted richard hare in a tone of chafed anguish painful to hear i get twelve shillings a week and that has to find me in everything poor richard poor richard she wailed caressing his hand and weeping over it
oh what a miserable night's work that was our only comfort is richard that you must have committed the deed in madness i did not commit it at all he replied what she exclaimed
barbara i swear that i am innocent i swear i was not present when the man was murdered i swear that from my own positive knowledge my eyesight i know no more who did it than you
the guessing at it is enough for me and my guess is as sure and true a one as that the moon is in the heavens barbara shivered as she drew close to him it was a shivering subject you surely do not mean to throw the guilt on bethel
bethel lightly returned richard hare he had nothing to do with it he was after his gins and his snares that night though poacher as he is bethel is no poacher richard is he not
rejoined richard hare significantly the truth as to what he is may come out some time not that i wish it to come out the man has done no harm to me and he may go on poaching with impunity till doomsday for all i care he and locksley
richard interrupted his sister in a hushed voice mamma entertains one fixed idea which she cannot put from her she is certain that bethel had something to do with the murder then she is wrong why should she think so
but you remember how weak and fanciful she is and since that dreadful night she is always having what she calls dreams' meaning that she dreams of the murder in all these dreams bethel is prominent
and she says she feels an absolute certainty that he was in some way or other mixed up in it barbara he was no more mixed up in it than you and you say that you were not
i was not even at the cottage at the time i swear it to you the man who did the deed was thorn thorn echoed barbara lifting her head who is thorn i don't know who
well returned richard it was not to discuss these things that i put myself in jeopardy and to assert my innocence can do no good it cannot set aside the coroner's verdict of wilful murder against richard hare the younger
is my father as bitter against me as ever quite he never mentions your name or suffers it to be mentioned
eliza could not or would not remember and she persisted in calling your room mister richard's i think the woman did it heedlessly not maliciously to provoke papa she was a good servant and had been with us three years you know
the first time she transgressed papa warned her the second he thundered at her as i believe nobody else in the world can thunder and the third he turned her from the doors never allowing her to get her bonnet
one of the others carrying her bonnet and shawl to the gate and her boxes were sent away the same day papa took an oath did you hear of it what oath he takes many this was a solemn one richard
after the delivery of the verdict he took an oath in the justice room in the presence of his brother magistrates that if he could find you he would deliver you up to justice and that he would do it though you might not turn up for ten years to come
you know his disposition richard and therefore may be sure he will keep it indeed it is most dangerous for you to be here i know that he never treated me as he ought cried richard bitterly
if my health was delicate causing my poor mother to indulge me ought that to have been a reason for his ridiculing me on every possible occasion public and private had my home been made happier i should not have sought the society i did elsewhere
barbara i must be allowed an interview with my mother barbara hare reflected before she spoke i do not see how it can be managed why can't she come out to me as you have done is she up or in bed
it is impossible to think of it to night returned barbara in an alarmed tone
it is hard to have been separated from her for eighteen months and to go back without seeing her returned richard and about the money it is a hundred pounds that i want you must be here again to morrow night richard
the money no doubt can be yours but i am not so sure about your seeing mamma i am terrified for your safety but if it is as you say that you are innocent she added after a pause could it not be proved
are you and i myths retorted richard so even you doubt me richard she suddenly exclaimed why not tell the whole circumstances to archibald carlyle
if any one can help you or take measures to establish your innocence he can and you know that he is true as steel there's no other man living should be trusted with the secret that i am here except carlyle where is it they suppose that i am barbara
some that you are in australia the very uncertainty has nearly killed mamma
besides a man that the police runners were after could be more safe in obscurity considering that he was a gentleman than barbara turned suddenly and placed her hand upon her brother's mouth be silent for your life she whispered here's papa
voices were heard approaching the gate those of justice hare and squire pinner the latter walked on the former came in the brother and sister cowered together scarcely daring to breathe you might have heard barbara's heart beating
mister hare closed the gate and walked on up the path i must go richard said barbara hastily i dare not stay another minute be here again to morrow night and meanwhile i will see what can be done
she was speeding away but richard held her back you did not seem to believe my assertion of innocence barbara we are here alone in the still night with god above us as truly as that you and i must sometime meet him face to face i told you the truth
it was thorn murdered hallijohn and i had nothing whatever to do with it barbara broke out of the trees and flew along but mister hare was already in locking and barring the door let me in papa she called out
gazed at barbara halloo what brings you out at this time of night young lady i went down to the gate to look for you she panted and had had strolled over to the side path did you not see me
off to the meet softly tom tiptoed into the room where his father lay at the bedside were the three doctors and the nurse followed the young inventor in missus baggert stood in the hall and near her was garret jackson
the aged housekeeper had been weeping but she smiled at tom through her tears i think he's going to get well she whispered she always looked on the bright side of things tom's heart felt better
you must only speak a few words to him cautioned the specialist who had performed such a rare and delicate operation near the heart of the invalid
mister swift opened his eyes as his son approached he looked around feebly
he asked in a whisper yes dad was the eager answer they tell me you you made a great trip to get doctor hendrix broken bridge came through the air with him is that right
yes dad but don't tire yourself you must get well and strong i will tom but tell me did you go in in the humming bird yes dad
mister swift spoke more strongly i because well i don't want to nonsense tom i know it's on my account i know it is but listen to me i want you to go in i want you to win that race
never mind about me i'm going to get well and i'll recover all the more quickly if you win that race now promise me you'll go in it and and win the invalid's strength was fast leaving him i i
began tom promise insisted the aged inventor trying to rise doctor hendrix made a hasty move toward the bed promise whispered the surgeon to tom i i promise exclaimed tom
and the aged inventor sank back with a smile of satisfaction on his pale face now you must go said doctor gladby to tom he has talked long enough he must sleep now and get up his strength will he get better asked tom anxiously
we can't say for sure was the answer we have great hopes i don't want to enter the race unless i know he is going to live went on tom as doctor gladby followed him out of the room
no one can say for a certainty that he will recover spoke the physician you will have to hope for the best that is all tom if i were you i'd go in the race it will occupy your mind
but suppose suppose something happens while i am away suggested the young inventor the doctor thought for a moment then he exclaimed you have a wireless outfit on your craft haven't you yes
then you can receive messages from here every hour if you wish garret jackson your engineer can send them and you can pick them up in mid air if need be so i can cried tom i will go to the meet i'll take the humming bird apart at once and ship it to eagle park
unless doctor hendrix wants to go back in it he added as an after thought
in case of an emergency by that time the bridge will have been repaired and he can go back by train i gather from what he said that though he liked the air trip he will not care for another one very well assented tom and mister damon and he were kept busy
packing the humming bird for shipment mister jackson helped them and eradicate and his mule boomerang were called on occasionally when boxes or crates were to be taken to the railroad station in the meanwhile
and that his father would recover doctor hendrix left saying there was nothing more he could do and that the rest depended on the local physicians and on the nurse
go mit a light heart how tom wished he could but it was out of the question the last of the parts of the humming bird had been sent away and our hero forwarded a telegram to mister sharp
until he could set up his own plant he would have two outfits one in the big tent where the humming bird was to be put together and another on the machine itself so that when in the air practicing or even in the great race itself there would be no break in the news that was to be flashed through space
the humming bird in the big cases and boxes had safely arrived and these were soon in the tent which had been assigned to tom it was still several days until the opening of the meet and the grounds presented a scene of confusion
workmen were putting up grand stands tents and sheds were being erected exhibitors were getting their machines in shape and excited contestants of many nationalities were hurrying to and fro
tom and mister damon with frank forker the young machinist were soon busy in their big tent which was a combined workshop and living quarters for tom had determined to stay right on the ground until the big race was over
i don't see anything of andy foger remarked mister damon on the second day of their residence in the park there are lots of new entries arriving but he doesn't seem to be on hand
i am afraid he's hanging back until the last minute
well i'll be on the lookout for him have you heard from home to day tom no i'm expecting a message any minute the young inventor glanced toward the wireless apparatus which had been set up in the tent
at that moment there came the peculiar sound which indicated a message coming through space and down the receiving wires there's something now exclaimed tom as he hurried over and clamped the telephone receiver to his ear he listened a moment good news he exclaimed
dad sat up a little to day i guess he's going to get well and he clicked back congratulations to his father and the others in shopton another day saw the humming bird almost in shape again and tom was preparing for a tryout of the engine
mister damon had gone over to the committee headquarters to consult with mister sharp about the steps necessary for tom to take in case andy did attempt to enter a craft that infringed on the ideas of the young inventor and on his way back he saw a newly erected tent
there was a young man standing in the entrance at the sight of whom the eccentric man murmured bless my skate strap his face looks very familiar the youth disappeared inside the tent suddenly
and as mister damon came opposite the canvas shelter he started in surprise for on a strip of muslin which was across the tent painted in gay colors were the words the foger aeroplane
chapter twenty four won by a length rising upward on a steep slant for he wanted to get into the upper currents as soon as possible tom looked down and off to his left and saw one machine going over the ground in curious leaps and bounds
it was the tiny demoiselle the smallest craft in the race and its peculiar style of starting was always thus manifested i don't believe he's going to make it thought tom he was right in another moment the tiny craft after rising a short distance
dove downward and was wrecked the young inventor saw the two men crawling out from the tangled planes and wings apparently uninjured one contestant less thought tom grimly though with pity in his heart for the unfortunates however he must think of himself and his own craft now
he glanced at mister damon sitting beside him that odd gentleman with never a thought of blessing anything now unless he did it silently was watching the lubricating system this was a vital part of the craft for if anything went wrong with it and the bearings overheated the race would have to be abandoned
so tom was not trusting to any automatic arrangement but had instituted almost at the last moment a duplicate hand worked system so that if one failed him he would have the other a good start shouted mister damon in his ear tom nodded and glanced behind him
on a line with the humming bird and at about the same elevation were the bleriot monoplane and a wright biplane below were the santos dumont and the antoinette where's the slugger called tom to his friend mister damon motioned upward
there in the air above tom's machine and slightly in advance was andy foger's craft he had gotten away in better shape than had the humming bird for a moment tom's heart misgave him then
he turned on more power and had the satisfaction of mounting upward and shooting onward until he was on even terms with andy the bully gave one glance over toward his rival and pulled a lever the slugger increased her speed but tom was not a second behind him
there was a roaring noise in the rear and up shot de tromp in the farman and loi tong the little japanese in the santos dumont truly the race was going to be a hotly contested one
after the first jockeying for a start and position the race settled down into what might be termed a grind the course was a large one but so favorable was the atmosphere that day and such was the location of eagle park in a great valley
that even on the far side of the great ellipse the contestants could be seen dimly with the naked eye but very plainly with glasses with which many of the spectators were provided around and around they went at no very great height for it was necessary to make out the signals set up by the race officials
so that the contestants would know when they were near the finish that they might use the last atom of speed so at varying heights the wonderful machines circled about the course the humming bird was working well and tom felt a sense of pride as he saw the ground slipping away below him
he felt sure that he would win even when alameda the spaniard in the antoinette came creeping up on him and even when andy foger with a burst of speed placed himself and his passenger in the lead i'll catch him muttered tom and he opened the throttle a trifle wider and went after andy passing him with ease
they had covered about thirty miles of the course when the humming and crackling of the wireless apparatus told tom that a message was coming he snapped the receiver to his ear adjusting the outer covering to shut out the racket of the motor and listened well
asked mister damon as tom took off the receiver dad isn't quite so well answered the lad mister jackson says they have sent for doctor hendrix again but dad is game he sends me word to go on and win and i'll do it too only tom paused and choked back a sob
of course you will cried mister damon bless my but they encountered an adverse current of wind at that moment and it required the attention of both of the aviators to manage the machine it was soon on an even keel again and once more was shooting forward around the course
at times tom would be in advance and again he would have to give place to the curtis the farman or the santos dumont as these speedy machines favored by a spurt from their motors or by some current of air shot ahead
but in general tom maintained the lead and among the spectators there began a series of guesses as to how much he would win by tom glanced at the barograph
he looked at the speed gage he was doing a trifle better than a hundred miles an hour he looked down at the signals there was twenty miles yet to go it was almost time for the spurt for which he had been holding back
yet he would wait until five miles from the end and then he felt that he could gain and maintain a lead andy seems to be doing well said mister damon yes he has a good machine conceded tom five miles more were reeled off then another five
another round of that distance and tom would key his motor up to the highest pitch and then the humming bird would show what she could do eagerly tom waited for the right signal suddenly the wireless began buzzing again quickly the young inventor clamped the receiver to his ear
mister damon saw him turn pale doctor gladby says dad has a turn for the worse there is little hope translated tom will you are
tom shook his head no he cried
but his last words were to me tell tom to win the race and i'm going to do it tom suddenly changed his plans there was to be no waiting for the signal now he would begin his final spurt and if possible finish the hundred miles at his utmost speed
win the race and then hasten to his father's side with a menacing roar the motor of the humming bird took up the additional power that tom sent into her she shot ahead like an eagle darting after his prey tom opened up a big gap between his machine and the one nearest him
which at that moment was the antoinette with the spaniard driving her now to win cried tom grimly surely no race was ever flown as was that one
the gage registered one hundred and thirty miles an hour down below in the grand stands and on the aviation field there were yells of approval of wonder of fear but tom and mister damon could not hear them they only heard the powerful song of the motor
he's going to try to catch me exulted tom then something happened the motor of the humming bird suddenly slackened its speed it missed explosions and the trim little craft began to drop behind what's the matter cried mister damon three of the cylinders are out of business yelled tom
we're done for i guess on came the other machines andy in the lead then the santos dumont then the farman and lastly the wright they saw the plight of the humming bird and determined to beat her tom cast a despairing look up at the motor there was nothing to be done
he could not reach it in mid air he could only keep on crippled as he was and trust to luck andy passed by his rival with an evil smile on his ugly face then the antoinette flashed by in turn all the others left tom in the rear his heart was like lead
mister damon gazed blankly forward they were beaten it did not seem possible there was but a single chance if tom shut off all power coasted for a moment and then ere the propeller had ceased revolving if he could start the motor on the spark
the silent cylinders might pick up with the others and begin again he would try it they could be no worse off than they were a mile behind gasped tom it's a long chance but i'll take it he shut off the power the motor was silent
the humming bird began to fall but ere she had gone down ten feet tom suddenly switched on the batteries there was a moment of silence and then came the welcome roar that told of the rekindled motor and such a roar as it was
opening up at full speed he sent the sky racer on the course to overtake and pass his rivals slowly he crept on them they looked back and saw him coming they tried to put on more speed but it was impossible andy foger was in the lead he was being slowly overhauled by the santos dumont
with the queer tail rudders i'll get him muttered tom i'll pass em all and he did with a wonderful burst of speed the little humming bird overtook one after another of her larger rivals and passed them then she crept up on andy's slugger
in an instant more it was done and a good length in advance of the foger craft tom shot over the finish line a winner richer by ten thousand dollars and not only that but he had picked up a mile that had been lost and had snatched victory from almost certain defeat
he brought his craft to a stop just as the wireless on it buzzed again he listened with a look of pain on his face my father is dying he said simply i must go to him mister damon will you fill the tanks with oil and gasoline while i send off a message
oil and gasoline murmured the odd man while hundreds pressed up to congratulate tom swift
i'm going to my father in the humming bird said tom it's the only way i can see him alive and he began to click off a message to mister jackson stating that he had won the race and was going to fly to shopton while mister damon and several others replenished the fuel and oil of the aeroplane
understand said tom i don't want to interfere unless i am convinced that andy is trying an underhand trick my plans are missing and i think he took them if his machine is made after those plans it is obviously a steal and i want him ruled out of the meet
and so he shall be exclaimed mister sharp get the evidence against him and we'll act quickly enough the committee met in about an hour and considered the case meanwhile tom and mister damon strolled past the tent with its flaring sign
there was a man on guard but andy was not in sight then tom was sent for and mister sharp told him what conclusion had been arrived at it was this
that is they need not bring them out until just before the races he added this is not a handicap affair and the speediest machine or the one that goes to the greatest height according to which class it enters will win
in consequence we cannot force any contestant to declare what kind of a machine he will use until he gets ready some are going to use the familiar type of biplanes and as you can see there is no secret about them they are trying them out now this was so
for several machines of this type were either in the air circling about or were being run over the ground but others continued mister sharp will not even take the committee into their confidence until just before the race they want to keep their craft a secret we can't compel them to do otherwise
i'm sorry tom but the only thing i see for you to do is to wait until the last minute then if you find andy has infringed on your machine lodge a protest that is unless you can get evidence against him before that time tom well knew the uselessness of the latter plan
he and mister damon had tried several times to get a glimpse of the craft andy had made but without success as to the other alternative that of waiting until the last moment tom feared that too would be futile for he reasoned
just before the race there will be a lot of confusion officials will be here and there scattered over the ground they will be hard to find and it will be almost useless to protest then andy will enter the race and there is a possibility that he may win almost any one could with a machine like the humming bird
that would be little good in case andy beat me the public would say i was a sorehead and jealous no i've either got to stop andy before the race or not at all i will try to think of a plan tom did think of several but abandoned them one after the other
he tried to get a glimpse inside the tent where the foger aeroplane was housed but it was too closely guarded andy himself was not much in evidence and tom only had fleeting glimpses of the bully meanwhile he and mister damon together with their machinist were kept busy
as tom's craft was fully protected by patents now he had no hesitation in taking it out and it was given several severe tests around the aerial course it did even better than tom expected of it and he had great hopes always though
there were two things that worried him one was his father's illness and the other the uneasiness he felt as to what andy foger might do as to the former the wireless reports indicated that mister swift was doing as well as could be expected but his improvement was not rapid
regarding the latter worry tom saw no way of getting rid of it i've just got to wait that's all he thought the day before the opening of the meet tom and mister damon had given the humming bird a grueling tryout they had taken her high up
so high that no prying eyes could time them and there tom had opened the motor for all the power in it they had flashed through space at the rate of one hundred and twenty miles an hour if we can only do that in the race the ten thousand dollars is mine exulted tom
as he slanted the nose of the aeroplane toward the earth the day of the race dawned clear and beautiful tom was up early for there remained many little things to do to get his craft in final trim for the contest then too
he wanted to be ready to act promptly as soon as andy's machine was wheeled out and he also wanted to get a message from home the wireless arrived soon after breakfast and did not contain very cheering news
poor night but doctor thinks day will show improvement don't worry don't worry i wonder who could help it mused poor tom well i'll hope for the best and he wired back to tell the engineer in shopton to keep in touch with him
and to flash the messages to the humming bird in the air after the big race started now i'll go out and see if i can catch a glimpse of what that sneak andy has to pit against me said tom the foger tent was tightly closed and tom turned back to his own place
having arranged with a messenger to come and let him know as soon as andy's craft was wheeled out all about was a scene of great activity the grand stands were filled and a big crowd stood about the field anxiously waiting for the first sight of the bird men in their wonderful machines
now and then the band blared out and cheers arose as one after another the frail craft were wheeled to the starting place men in queer leather costumes darted here and there they were the aviators who were soon to risk life and limb for glory and gold
most of them were nervously smoking cigarettes the air was filled with guttural german or nasal french while now and then the staccato russian was heard and occasionally the liquid tones of a japanese for men of many nations were competing for the prizes
the majority of the machines were monoplanes and biplanes though one triplane was entered and there were several freaks as the biplane and monoplane men called them craft of the helicopter or the wheel type there was also one witzig liore dutilleul biplane
with three planes behind tom was familiar with most of these types but occasionally he saw a new one that excited his curiosity however he was more interested in what andy foger would turn out andy's machine had not been tried and tom wondered how he dared risk flying in it
tom and mister damon had wheeled the humming bird out of her canvas nest there was a cheer as the crowd caught sight of the trim little craft the young inventor the eccentric man and the machinist were busy going over every part meanwhile
the meet had been officially opened and it was announced that the preliminary event would be some air evolutions at no great height and for no particular prize several biplanes and monoplanes took part in this it was very interesting
but he only laughed at that and coolly demanded another cigarette as he crawled out of the tangle of wires planes and the motor after this there was an exhibition flight by a french aviator in a curtis biplane who raced against one in a baby wright
it was a dead heat according to the judges then came a flight for height and while no records were broken the crowd was well satisfied
tom's heart gave a bound there were seven entrants in this contest besides tom and andy foger and as announced by the starter they were as follows contestant
alameda antoinette monoplane perique bleriot monoplane loi tong santos dumont monoplane wendell curtis biplane de tromp farman biplane
tom swift humming bird monoplane what is the style of the foger machine yelled some one in the crowd as the announcer lowered his megaphone it has not been announced was the reply it will at once be wheeled out though in accordance with the conditions of the race
there was a craning of necks and an uneasy movement in the crowd for tom's story was now generally known get ready to make your protest advised mister damon to the young inventor i'll stay by the machine here until you come back bless my radiator
the flaps were pulled back and a curious machine was wheeled into view tom rushed over toward it intent on getting the first view would it prove to be a copy of his speedy humming bird eagerly he looked but a curious sight met his eyes
the machine was totally unlike any he had expected to see it was large and to his mind rather clumsy but it looked powerful then as he took in the details he knew that it was the same one that had flown over his house that night it was the one from which the fire bomb had been dropped
he pushed his way through the crowd he saw andy standing near the curious biplane which type of air craft it nearest resembled though it had some monoplane features on the side was painted the name slugger andy caught sight of tom swift
i'm going to beat you the bully boasted and i haven't a machine like yours after all you were wrong so i see stammered tom hardly knowing what to think
like all the others his machine had two seats for in this race each operator must carry a passenger tom turned away both glad and sorry glad that his rival was not to race him in a duplicate of the humming bird but sorry that he had as yet no track of the strangely missing plans
i wonder where they can be mused the young inventor then came the firing of the preliminary gun tom rushed back to where mister damon stood waiting for him there was a last look at the humming bird she was fit to race any machine on the ground
mister damon took his place tom started the propeller the other contestants were in their seats with their passengers their assistants stood ready to shove them off the explosions of so many motors in action were deafening how much thrust cried tom to his machinist
twenty two hundred pounds good the report of the starting gun could not be heard but the smoke of it leaped into the air it was the signal to go tom's voice would not have carried five feet he waved his hands as a signal
his helper thrust the humming bird forward over the smooth ground it rushed tom looked eagerly ahead on a line with him were the other machines including andy foger's slugger tom pulled a lever he felt his craft soar upward the other machines also pointed their noses into the air
chapter two in the springtime a japanese house is a fairy like thing with only top and bottom of straw and a few upholding posts to give it a look of substance
yuki chan's house was typical the paper screens were carefully put away during the day that the breezes might play unobstructed through the house
at night the heavy wooden doors were fitted into grooves and served not only to keep out the night air but also the evil spirits that come abroad when the great sun ceases watching
yuki chan first learned to know her face in its reflections and alas by the same method had learned the saucy fascination of sticking out her small pink tongue
on the side of the porch toward the plum tree the child found her father and mother waiting the two old people sat on gay cushions with hands folded and feet crossed
their festal attire bore the marks of a once careless luxury but now shabbiness tried to hide itself under the bravery of tinsel where once had been pure gold
each year the struggle of obsolete methods of business and the intricacies of progress plowed the furrows a little deeper in the man's face and when his eyes
that in youth had blazed with ambition grew wistful and troubled he dropped them that his wife might not see
but what silence could hide from this frail woman any mood of the man she had served with mind and body and soul these many years when she came to him as a shy bride on trial
she knew no such word as love duty was her entire vocabulary and she asked nothing and gave all many little souls had come to her with hands all crimped and pink
like new blown cherry leaves only to close their eyes and pass out to the good god jizo who is always waiting to help little children across the river of death in years gone by
night after night sleep had flown before the terror that another woman would be brought into the house that the family name might not die out silently she would slip out to the little shrine
and pour out passionate words of prayer that just one little soul might be permitted to live no matter how long the night nor how bitter the struggle morning always found her bright and cheerful
acquiescing in his most trivial statements she planned that no slightest gap in the domestic arrangement should suggest itself to him the woman worked and prayed and waited
hand in hand with yuki chan came love and bound the hearts of the man and woman with ties of a desire fulfilled from that time to this love had prevailed
and as yuki chan climbed on the porch besmirching its shining surface with her muddy little feet that had been guiltless of sandals all day the faces of the two old people lighted up with sudden joy
yuki chan looked ruefully at the muddy prints she had made and realized that she had been a most impolite little girl remembering her recent resolve
she sought the eyes in which she had never seen any light for her save that of love she drew close and reaching down took her mother's hand hard and cracked by labor
and laying her cheek against it said with a voice sure of forgiveness and sweet desire for atonement go men nasai the mother with a courtly but playful air
granted her pardon with a low salutation then with a rush of affection that no convention could stem she folded the child to her heart and lived another moment of supreme joy
the father sat by making no comment his eyes bright and twinkling then he suggested that their majesties the dolls had been waiting long on the shelf
was it not time they were receiving a visit the years of toil were telling on both father and mother
and now as they each took one of her hands to go in to see the dolls they were so gay that the child suggested that instead of walking they should do the new one two three hop she had learned at the kindergarten
it was unheard of conduct but it was for yuki chan and father and mother stumped along cheered on by the small girl who was trying to keep time
but was breathless through sheer excess of happiness there was nothing in the room to impede their progress no chairs with treacherous legs to trip over no beds nor tables with sharp corners
nothing whatever but the matting soft and thick where yuki chan had practised all the gymnastics of childhood unbruised and unharmed half skipping half hopping
and wholly undone with laughter and exertion the three at last reached the place where for six years offerings had been made for the gift of the child who stood to these two for love
arranged in the best room in the house on five long red covered shelves
big dolls and little dolls thin ones and fat ones each one to represent some royal man or woman of the long ago and dressed in a fashion of a time almost forgotten
there was jimmu tenno the first real emperor his hair was done in a curious fashion and his dress was of a wonderful brocade while his hands clasped two fierce looking swords
there was jingo too who had won fame and lasting honor by her wonderful fighting and was so great she had to sit by the emperors and look down on the other empresses such a lot of them
others the more quickly forgotten the better yuki chan knew them all by heart and she lingered before those she liked and quickly passed those she did not care for
still it was well to be careful about handling them she might be turned into a lizard or a snake just as the old lodge keeper had said but her delight
was in the miniature toilet articles of solid silver costly gold lacquer and porcelain so tiny so beautifully carved they must have meant the eyesight of some workman
only too glad to shut out the sunlight forever if he might produce just one perfect thing the things however that made yuki chan clap her hands
so bow legged that their curves formed a big round o yuki chan made her red lips into the same shape and called her mother to look
she pretended to feed the dolls with real food and wine and actually played with the five court musicians because they were partly servants and it did not matter her tongue ran in ceaseless chatter
her father and mother hovered around her repeating the history of all those wonderful people yuki chan listened very little so concerned was she with her own comments
until she happened to see an anxious look creep into her mother's eyes it was something every little girl must know and if yuki chan's honorable ears refused to open how would she learn
the sails skimmed homeward on a silver sea as the west covered its rosy pink in a veil of deepest blue the young birds in the old plum tree
within the house yuki chan still dressed lay on the floor weary with the wonders of the day her mother took from a small inclosure beneath a shelf
many soft comforts with which she arranged the child's bed yuki chan talking all the time in a low monotone tried to unravel a tangle in her mind of birds and cats and dolls
it was all getting unmanageable and very hazy when her mother gathered her into her arms and quickly casting aside her two garments laid her gently in a bath of caressing warmth
a moment more and the little maiden lay like a rose leaf in her bed the night lamp made shadowy ghosts of all it touched and one gleam of light escaping the paper shade hung
like an aureole above the head of yuki chan's mother as she knelt with clasped hands before the buddha on the shelf her moving lips had only one refrain the child the child
the child yuki chan watched the play of the light in the half dark room what funny things those shadows made and strangely enough
and her mother sat by and kept time with her hand as she chanted rather than sang sleep little one sleep the sparrows are nodding
chapter twenty nine home at last fellows who knock about the world sailoring and so on
to have been miles and miles away separated perhaps by an ocean from yourself i had scarcely stepped into the train from southampton
having only landed from the mail steamer that brought me direct all the way from colon that very morning when whom should i see looking at me from the opposite corner of the railway carriage but a big
bushy haired brown bearded man whom i did not know from adam
a broad grin lighting up his face and his eyes twinkling with a comical expression that would alone have made me recognise him had i not heard his delightful to me at any rate irish brogue
i was as pleased to see him as may readily be believed as the genial irishman was to see me i was sure even without his telling me so
and how are you all getting on aboard the dear old barquey i want to hear about everybody
an thin i'll till ye ivverythin and then he continued in a bashful sort of way unlike his usual off hand manner
an sit up for a docther ashore on me own hook faith why i exclaimed in great surprise
impetuous as usual after a very short acquaintance my mother insisted as a first step to entertaining his suit that he should leave the sea as he had another profession by which he was quite capable of supporting a wife as well as himself
if he so pleased faith and i wint an bought a practis at onst havin a snig little sum stowed away in the bank continued garry
to avoid such a terrible contingency i there and then gave my hearty consent to the arrangement he and janet with my mother's concurrence had thus planned without my knowledge although really
after i had answered a lot of garry o'neil's questions concerning myself and the time i had passed in south america speaking too of poor colonel vereker whose death he had learnt from my mother
i began again asking in my turn all about my old shipmates and of course his own also faith the skipper is foine and flourishin he informed me
of course i do i said is he still chief no no he retired a year ago or more on a pinsion which the company gave him for his long service an little grummet ye rimimber him well
he's promoted sure to ould stokes billet
the sicond best boat but one to the line
sure now ye haven't forgot little conky faith no indeed said i amused at his query and the funny wink that accompanied it what has become of that spiteful little beggar
an broad in the b'ame in proporshi'n they make a purty couple bedad an they do say she kapes him in order do ye
an raise in lousianner this supercilious autocrat it must be borne in mind all the time being more than half a negro himself though for that matter
his heart was better and his disposition braver than many a white man who would have despised his coloured skin some of the other hands about whom i inquired had left the old barquey and shipped aboard other vessels so garry told me
which we reached the same evening but before we had quite exhausted our respective questions and answers respecting everybody we had ever met or known during the time he and i had been to sea together
my meeting with my dear mother and sister after so long an absence abroad can be well imagined and so too my first interview with elsie whom i should hardly have known again
for how can i describe her beauty and grace and though i had been prepared in some measure from accounts my mother had sent me still they exceeded my expectations
it would be impossible if i tried to picture her for a month of sundays as captain applegarth used to say on board the old barquey when he thought a fellow spent too much time over a job so to make a long story short
and to avoid all further explanation it need only be added that one fine day last summer when the trees were all green and leafy and the flowers abloom and happy birds filling the air with song
elsie and i were married garry o'neil joined his lot with that of my sister at the same time the two brides being given away respectively by the skipper who managed to run the star of the north home in time for the wedding
and old mister stokes the chief engineer of the old barquey who had only to cross the road instead of the atlantic to get to our house as he lived near to us now he also was present
captain applegarth who was a very old friend of my mother's and a kind one too likewise lived in a good substantial house surrounded by a lovely garden in our pretty picturesque old village to all whom it may concern
it may in conclusion be mentioned that
old fashioned non ritualistic semi gothic and many galleried old village church of which so few remain now in england situated close to our cottage and where our widowed mother had
in our childhood taught us to lisp our first prayers to heaven our dead father resting in the ivy grown and flower adorned graveyard adjoining the nuptial knot was tied by parson goldwire
as everybody called him in the neighbourhood assisted by matthew jacon
a christmas present every nook and corner of fort moultrie was searched for the missing sylvia and when no trace of her could be discovered
her friends became nearly certain that the little girl must have slipped from the landing place into the sea and that it was useless to search for her but it was late in the evening before mister fulton gave up the search
at about the time when estralla and sylvia were embarking upon their adventurous voyage to fort sumter no one had given a thought to the little darky girl she was supposed to be somewhere about the fort
grace warmly wrapped in a thick shawl sat beside mister fulton as the butterfly made its swift way across the dark harbor they could see the dark line of the guard boat
why i had entirely forgotten her responded mister fulton she ran off as soon as sylvia was missed grace continued earnestly and she will find her probably she has found her before this
i believe you are right estralla is a clever little darky and if she started in search of sylvia perhaps she has been able to find her i had not thought of it and mister fulton's voice had a new note of hope
thank you grace i will start back to the fort as soon as i have talked with sylvia's mother but on mister fulton's return to the wharf he found a sentry on guard who refused him permission to go to the fort
it was in vain that mister fulton explained that his little daughter was lost that he must be permitted to return to the fort the sentry wasted no words orders sir sorry was the only response he could get
of the assembling of soldiers in the city and the evident plan of the southerners to seize the forts in the harbor and force the government into war he realized that
in that case it would not be possible for his family to remain in charleston early the next morning sylvia was awakened and made ready for her return and when the sun shone brightly over the waters of the harbor
she and estralla with captain gerald and a strong negro servant were on board a boat sailing rapidly toward home they landed at the wharf where the butterfly was fastened
and in another moment her mother's arms were about her and she was telling as rapidly as possible the story of her adventures and of estralla coming to her rescue grace came running to meet sylvia as they came near their home
oh sylvia i wish i had been with you she exclaimed
we will hope that her next visit will not be as dangerous as this one said mister fulton soberly for several days sylvia could think and talk only of her wanderings among the sand hills and of her first sight of the guard boat
she began teaching estralla on the very day of her return and the little darky made rapid progress father when may we go to fort moultrie again she asked one morning a few days later
i do not know that we shall ever go to the forts again her father had replied did you not hear the bells ringing and the military music yesterday south carolina has seceded from the union
it seemed to sylvia that her mother was very glad at the thought of returning to her former home but sylvia was not glad what would become of estralla
she wouldn't leave me to be a slave mister and missus fulton looked at each other with puzzled eyes but estralla would not want to leave her mammy suggested mister fulton oh father
can't aunt connie and estralla go with us and sylvia lifted her head and looked hopefully at her father couldn't i buy estralla and then make her free i've got that gold money grandma gave me
i am afraid it wouldn't be much use for me to even try to buy a slave's freedom now mister fulton said a little sadly don't suggest such a thing to aunt connie sylvia when shall we go to boston sylvia asked
right away after christmas unless fort sumter is attacked before that time washington ought to send troops and provisions for the forts at once replied mister fulton after her father had left the house
sylvia and her mother went up to missus fulton's pleasant sitting room we must begin to pack at once declared sylvia's mother and do not go outside the gate alone sylvia i wish we could leave charleston immediately
won't i see missus carleton again sylvia asked anxiously i do not know dear child but run away and give estralla her lesson as usual it will not be a very gay christmas for any of us this year
responded missus fulton and sylvia went slowly to her own room where estralla was waiting for her the little colored girl had put the room in order there was a bright fire in the grate
won't de yankees come and set us free missy sylvia shook her head i don't know estralla let's not talk about it she replied
my mammy say we'll stay right here til massa fulton goes an den estralla stopped leaned a little nearer to sylvia and whispered an den my mammy an i
missus fulton was not in her room so sylvia went down the stairs to look for her she heard voices in the sitting room and turned in that direction oh she whispered as she stood in the open door
for her mother was sitting on the big sofa near the open fire and beside her sat mister robert waite while her father was standing in front of them
they were all talking so earnestly that they did not notice the surprised little girl standing in the doorway and sylvia heard mister waite say i shall be glad to protect your interests here mister fulton
as far as it is possible to do so and you had better leave charleston immediately the city is no longer a safe place for northern people the conflict may begin at any moment
probably it meant something dreadful she thought recalling the question period at miss rosalie's school just then mister waite glanced toward the door and saw sylvia in a second he was on his feet
and smiled with delight at mister waite's greeting as he led her toward her mother and with another polite bow gave her the seat on the sofa i was hoping to see miss sylvia he said i had meant to make her a little christmas gift
who began to be sure that mister waite and santa claus must be exactly alike as he spoke he handed sylvia a long envelope do not open it until to morrow if you please he added
speaking very slowly i think mister robert waite is just like the knights in that book the age of chivalry they always did exactly what was right
responded missus fulton grace came in that afternoon greatly excited that it was a holiday the whole city was rejoicing over the fact that south carolina had been the first of the southern states to secede from the union
the cure for love the excellent mister morris was an englishman and he lived in the days of queen victoria the good he was a prosperous and very sensible man he read the times and went to church and as he grew towards middle age an expression of quiet contented contempt
for all who were not as himself settled on his face he was one of those people who do everything that is right and proper and sensible with inevitable regularity he always wore just the right and proper clothes steering the narrow way between the smart and the shabby
and among other right and proper possessions this mister morris had a wife and children they were the right sort of wife and the right sort and number of children of course nothing imaginative or highty flighty about any of them so far as mister morris could see they wore perfectly correct clothing
neither smart nor hygienic nor faddy in any way but just sensible and they lived in a nice sensible house in the later victorian sham queen anne style of architecture with sham half timbering of chocolate painted plaster in the gables lincrusta walton sham carved oak panels
a terrace of terra cotta to imitate stone
his boys went to good solid schools and were put to respectable professions his girls in spite of a fantastic protest or so were all married to suitable steady oldish young men with good prospects and when it was a fit and proper thing for him to do so mister morris died
his tomb was of marble and without any art nonsense or laudatory inscription quietly imposing such being the fashion of his time he underwent various changes according to the accepted custom in these cases
and long before this story begins his bones even had become dust and were scattered to the four quarters of heaven
they too were dust and ashes and were scattered likewise it was a thing he could not have imagined
he had grave doubts indeed if there was any future for mankind after he was dead it seemed quite impossible and quite uninteresting to imagine anything happening after he was dead yet the thing was so and when even his great great grandson was dead and decayed and forgotten
when the sham half timbered house had gone the way of all shams and the times was extinct and the silk hat a ridiculous antiquity
or indeed of anything but their own selves and property as mister morris had been and strange to tell
all over the world there were scattered a multitude of people
in whose veins the blood of mister morris flowed just as some day the life which is gathered now in the reader of this very story may also be scattered far and wide about this world and mingled with a thousand alien strains beyond all thought and tracing
and among the descendants of this mister morris was one almost as sensible and clear headed as his ancestor he had just the same stout short frame as that ancient man of the nineteenth century from whom his name of morris he spelt it
he had the same half contemptuous expression of face he was a prosperous person too as times went
just as much as the ancestral morris had done
but the phonograph machine that talked to him as he made his toilet of a morning might have been the voice of a reincarnated blowitz when it dealt with the world's affairs this phonographic machine was the size and shape of a dutch clock and down the front of it were electric barometric indicators and an electric clock and calendar
and automatic engagement reminders
about the overnight accidents to the omnibus flying machines that plied around the world the latest arrivals at the fashionable resorts in tibet and of all the great monopolist company meetings of the day before while he was dressing
of course his toilet differed very much from that of his ancestor
mwres would certainly have sooner gone forth to the world stark naked than in the silk hat frock coat grey trousers and watch chain that had filled mister morris with sombre self respect in the past for mwres there was no shaving to do
a skilful operator had long ago removed every hair root from his face his legs he encased in pleasant pink and amber garments of an air tight material which with the help of an ingenious little pump he distended so as to suggest enormous muscles
above this he also wore pneumatic garments beneath an amber silk tunic so that he was clothed in air and admirably protected against sudden extremes of heat or cold over this he flung a scarlet cloak with its edge fantastically curved on his head which had been skilfully deprived of every scrap of hair
he adjusted a pleasant little cap of bright scarlet held on by suction and inflated with hydrogen and curiously like the comb of a cock so his toilet was complete and conscious of being soberly and becomingly attired he was ready to face his fellow beings with a tranquil eye
was one of the officials under the wind vane and waterfall trust the great company that owned every wind wheel and waterfall in the world and which pumped all the water and supplied all the electric energy that people in these latter days required he lived in a vast hotel near that part of london called seventh way
and indeed the steady rise in rents and land values
had rendered the separate domicile of victorian times impossible even had any one desired such a savage seclusion
there were doors at opposite ends each marked with a huge arrow pointing one one way and one the other
on some of these chairs were seated gaily dressed men and women he nodded to an acquaintance it was not in those days etiquette to talk before breakfast and seated himself on one of these chairs
it was a very different meal from a victorian breakfast
the still recognisable fragments of recently killed animals hideously charred and hacked the eggs torn ruthlessly from beneath some protesting hen
instead were pastes and cakes of agreeable and variegated design
but this was really an oxidised metallic surface and could be cleaned instantly after a meal there were hundreds of such little tables in the hall and at most of them were other latter day citizens singly or in groups
which had been resting during an interval resumed and filled the air with music
his eye wandered incessantly about the hall as though he expected a belated guest at last he rose eagerly and waved his hand and simultaneously across the hall appeared a tall dark figure in a costume of yellow and olive green
the pallid earnestness of his face and the unusual intensity of his eyes became apparent mwres reseated himself and pointed to a chair beside him i feared you would never come he said
had not only saved the human eyesight from decay
a prominent politician ahem suffering from overwork he glanced at the breakfast and seated himself i have been awake for forty hours
you hypnotists have your work to do the hypnotist helped himself to some attractive amber coloured jelly i happen to be a good deal in request he said modestly
ruminating the flavour of the jelly the world did very well without us for some thousands of years two hundred years ago even not one in practice that is physicians by the thousand of course frightfully clumsy brutes for the most part and following one another like sheep
but doctors of the mind except a few empirical flounderers there were none
the hypnotist shook his head it didn't matter then if they were a bit silly or faddy life was so easy going then no competition worth speaking of no pressure a human being had to be very lopsided before anything happened
then you know they clapped em away in what they called a lunatic asylum
i must confess i do said the hypnotist
when men were stout and women simple i like a good swaggering story before all things curious times they were with their smutty railways and puffing old iron trains their rum little houses and their horse vehicles i suppose you don't read books
phonographs are good enough for me of course said the hypnotist of course and surveyed the table for his next choice you know he said helping himself to a dark blue confection that promised well in those days our business was scarcely thought of
few people knew that an order made during a mesmeric trance
could be given so as to be obeyed after the trance was over
brings me ah to the matter i ah had in mind when i asked you when i expressed a wish to see you
i have a in fact a daughter well you know i have given her ah every educational advantage lectures not a solitary lecturer of ability in the world
dancing deportment conversation philosophy art criticism he indicated catholic culture by a gesture of his hand i had intended her to marry a very good friend of mine bindon of the lighting commission
plain little man you know and a bit unpleasant in some of his ways but an excellent fellow really an excellent fellow yes said the hypnotist go on how old is she
a dangerous age well
egyptians very probably hack about with swords and revolvers and things bloodshed galore horrible
and all sorts of irregular adventurers and she has got it into her head that she must marry for love and that poor little bindon
who is the other young man mwres maintained an appearance of resigned calm you may well ask he said he is and his voice sank with shame a mere attendant upon the stage on which the flying machines from paris alight
he has as they say in the romances good looks he is quite young and very eccentric affects the antique he can read and write so can she
tripped coming down from the flying machine from paris and fell into his arms the mischief was done in a moment yes well that's all things must be stopped
what must be done what can be done of course i'm not a hypnotist my knowledge is limited but you hypnotism is not magic said the man in green putting both arms on the table
precisely but the problem is to get her hypnotised of course no sort of proposal or suggestion must come from you
and by the bye is there any money in the affair mwres hesitated there's a sum in fact a considerable sum invested in the patent road company from her mother that's what makes the thing so exasperating
it was a lengthy interview and meanwhile
was sitting in a quiet waiting place beneath the great stage upon which the flying machine from paris descended and beside her sat her slender handsome lover reading her the poem he had written that morning while on duty upon the stage when he had finished they sat for a time in silence
the great machine that had come flying through the air from america that morning rushed down out of the sky at first it was a little oblong faint and blue amidst the distant fleecy clouds and then it grew swiftly large and white and larger and whiter until they could see the separate tiers of sails
and over the roof spaces of the city below its shadow leapt towards them they heard the whistling rush of the air about it and its yelling siren shrill and swelling to warn those who were on its landing stage of its arrival and abruptly the note fell down a couple of octaves
their silence ended and denton speaking in a little language of broken english that was they fancied their private possession though lovers have used such little languages since the world began told her how they too would leap into the air one morning out of all the obstacles and difficulties about them
they parted as lovers have been wont to part for thousands of years
all glazed in with glass from the weather and with incessant moving platforms that went to all parts of the city and by one of these she returned to her apartments in the hotel for women where she lived the apartments that were in telephonic communication with all the best lecturers in the world
but the sunlight of the flying stage was in her heart and the wisdom of all the best lecturers in the world seemed folly in that light she spent the middle part of the day in the gymnasium and took her midday meal with two other girls and their common chaperone
the chaperone had a visitor that day
who talked amazingly among other things he fell to praising a new historical romance that one of the great popular story tellers of the day had just put forth it was of course about the spacious times of queen victoria
and the author among other pleasing novelties made a little argument before each section of the story in imitation of the chapter headings of the old fashioned books as for example how the cabmen of pimlico stopped the victoria omnibuses
and of the great fight in palace yard and how the piccadilly policeman was slain in the midst of his duty the man in green and yellow praised this innovation these pithy sentences he said are admirable
they were still parts of the world absolutely unexplored nowadays we have almost abolished wonder we lead lives so trim and orderly that courage endurance faith all the noble virtues seem fading from mankind
and so on taking the girls thoughts with him until the life they led life in the vast and intricate london of the twenty second century a life interspersed with soaring excursions to every part of the globe
at first elizabeth did not join in the conversation but after a time the subject became so interesting that she made a few shy interpolations
he went on to describe a new method of entertaining people
it is a thing we have sought to do for years and years said the hypnotist it is practically an artificial dream and we know the way at last think of all it opens out to us the enrichment of our experience the recovery of adventure
the refuge it offers from this sordid competitive life in which we live think and you can do that said the chaperone eagerly the thing is possible at last the hypnotist said you may order a dream as you wish
the chaperone was the first to be hypnotised and the dream she said was wonderful when she came to again
and had plunges into the romantic past no one suggested that elizabeth should try this novel entertainment it was at her own request at last that she was taken into that land of dreams where there is neither any freedom of choice nor will and so the mischief was done
one day when denton went down to that quiet seat beneath the flying stage elizabeth was not in her wonted place he was disappointed and a little angry
and the next also he was afraid to hide his fear from himself he set to work to write sonnets for her when she should come again for three days he fought against his dread by such distraction and then the truth was before him clear and cold and would not be denied
she might be ill she might be dead
there followed a week of misery and then he knew she was the only thing on earth worth having
until she was found once more he had some small private means of his own and so he threw over his appointment on the flying stage and set himself to find this girl who had become at last all the world to him he did not know where she lived and little of her circumstances
even in victorian days london was a maze that little london with its poor four millions of people but the london he explored the london of the twenty second century was a london of thirty million souls at first he was energetic and headlong
taking time neither to eat nor sleep he sought for weeks and months he went through every imaginable phase of fatigue and despair over excitement and anger long after hope was dead by the sheer inertia of his desire he still went to and fro
peering into faces and looking this way and that in the incessant ways and lifts and passages of that interminable hive of men
he was hungry he had paid the inclusive fee and had gone into one of the gigantic dining places of the city he was pushing his way among the tables and scrutinising by mere force of habit every group he passed he stood still robbed of all power of motion
his eyes wide his lips apart elizabeth sat scarcely twenty yards away from him looking straight at him her eyes were as hard to him as hard and expressionless and void of recognition as the eyes of a statue
and then her gaze passed beyond him had he had only her eyes to judge by he might have doubted if it was indeed elizabeth but he knew her by the gesture of her hand by the grace of a wanton little curl that floated over her ear as she moved her head
something was said to her and she turned smiling tolerantly to the man beside her
and for a time he did not dare to look at her again when at last he did she and bindon and two other people were standing up to go
he sat as if incapable of action until the four figures were remote and small and then he rose up possessed with the one idea of pursuit
he could not control himself to patience he felt he must speak to her forthwith or die he pushed forward to where they were seated and sat down beside them his white face was convulsed with half hysterical excitement he laid his hand on her wrist
elizabeth he said she turned in unfeigned astonishment nothing but the fear of a strange man showed in her face elizabeth
dearest you know me elizabeth's face showed nothing but alarm and perplexity she drew herself away from him the chaperone a little grey headed woman with mobile features
and with a hand to her forehead speaking almost as one who repeats a lesson no i do not know him i know i do not know him but but not know me it is i denton denton
don't you remember the flying stages the little seat in the open air the verses no cried elizabeth no i do not know him
there is something but i don't know all i know is that i do not know him her face was a face of infinite distress
you see she said with the faint shadow of a smile she does not know you i do not know you said elizabeth of that i am sure but dear the songs the little verses she does not know you said the chaperone
you must not you have made a mistake you must not go on talking to us after that you must not annoy us on the public ways but said denton and for a moment his miserably haggard face appealed against fate
you must not persist young man protested the chaperone elizabeth he cried her face was the face of one who is tormented i do not know you she cried hand to brow oh i do not know you
for an instant denton sat stunned then he stood up and groaned aloud he made a strange gesture of appeal towards the remote glass roof of the public way
then turned and went plunging recklessly from one moving platform to another and vanished amidst the swarms of people going to and fro thereon the chaperone's eyes followed him and then she looked at the curious faces about her
i have never set eyes on him before never never dear do not trouble your mind about a thing like this and soon after this the celebrated hypnotist who dressed in green and yellow had another client
i want to forget he cried i must forget the hypnotist watched him with quiet eyes studied his face and clothes and bearing to forget anything pleasure or pain is to be by so much less
however you know your own concern my fee is high if only i can forget that's easy enough with you you wish it i've done much harder things quite recently i hardly expected to do it
the thing was done against the will of the hypnotised person a love affair too like yours a girl so rest assured
his manner was a forced calm he looked into the hypnotist's eyes i will tell you
well he stopped
in that instant he knew he stood up he seemed to dominate the seated figure by his side he gripped the shoulder of green and gold for a time he could not find words give her me back he said at last give her me back
in a moment the two men were locked in a clumsy wrestle neither had the slightest training for athleticism except for exhibition and to afford opportunity for betting
but denton was not only the younger but the stronger of the two they swayed across the room and then the hypnotist had gone down under his antagonist they fell together denton leaped to his feet dismayed at his own fury but the hypnotist lay still
for a space denton stood over him irresolute trembling a fear of the consequences entered his gently nurtured mind he turned towards the door no he said aloud and came back to the middle of the room
he knelt down beside his antagonist and felt his heart then he peered at the wound he rose quietly and looked about him he began to see more of the situation when presently the hypnotist recovered his senses his head ached severely
but presently he indicated by a gesture that in his opinion he had been sponged enough let me get up he said not yet said denton
there was an interval of thought unless i sponge said denton your forehead will develop a tremendous bruise you can go on sponging said the hypnotist sulkily there was another pause we might be in the stone age said the hypnotist violence struggle
in the stone age no man dared to come between man and woman said denton the hypnotist thought again
while you were insensible i found the girl's address on your tablets i did not know it before i telephoned she will be here soon then she will bring her chaperone that is all right but what
i looked about for a weapon also it is an astonishing thing how few weapons there are nowadays if you consider that in the stone age men owned scarcely anything but weapons i hit at last upon this lamp
he extended it over the hypnotist's shoulders with that i can quite easily smash your skull i will unless you do as i tell you violence is no remedy said the hypnotist quoting from the modern man's book of moral maxims
it's an undesirable disease said denton well
with the red hair and ferrety eyes i believe that's how things stand yes that's how things stand and pretending to do that you will restore her memory of me it's unprofessional look here if i cannot have that girl i would rather die than not
if anything goes wrong you shall not live five minutes this is a rude makeshift of a weapon and it may quite conceivably be painful to kill you
mainly because there is so little in life that is worth being violent about the chaperone will see you directly she comes
the hypnotist thought you are a determined young man he said and only half civilised i have tried to do my duty to my client but in this affair you seem likely to get your own way
and afterwards there is nothing a hypnotist or doctor hates so much as a scandal
and they may either carry the hero on their backs instruct him from time to time or come to his aid when called upon when a great national hero appealed by reason of his achievements to the imagination of a people all the floating legends of antiquity were attached to his memory
and he became identified with gods and giants and knight errants old in story
as chief of the seven sleepers similarly napoleon sleeps in france and skobeleff in russia
as those heroes had previously displaced the humanized spirits of fertility and growth who alternately battled fiercely against the demons of spring made love gorged and drank deep and went to sleep the sleep of winter
one journeys to the nether world to obtain the plant of birth and the other to obtain the plant of life the floating legends with which they were associated were utilized and developed by the priests when engaged in the process of systematizing and symbolizing religious beliefs
in one fragmentary legend which was preserved in the tablet library of ashur banipal the assyrian monarch
after a flight which extended over two hours the eagle asked etana to gaze downwards he did so and beheld the ocean surrounding the earth and the earth seemed like a mountainous island
then the hero saw that the sea resembled a girdle which clasped the land two hours later etana found that he had been raised to a height from which the sea appeared to be no larger than a pond
once upon a time we two brothers with the desire of outstripping each other flew towards the sun
nimrod then built a tower so as to ascend to heaven to see abraham's god and make war against him but the tower was overthrown he however persisted in his design the narrative states that he was carried to heaven in a chest borne by four monstrous birds
and he arrived in the heights of the heavens and he explored them
and i was a while that i did not know which was heaven or earth for me the hero died but curiously enough remained conscious of what was happening apparently exhausted the eagle flew to an island in the midst of the ocean it laid the hero on the sunny side the hero proceeds
sleep came upon herself the eagle and she slept
who was identified with tammuz was depicted as a lion headed eagle
the burning of straw figures representing gods of fertility on may day bonfires may have been a fertility rite and perhaps explains the use of straw birth girdles according to the commentators of the koran nimrod the babylonian king who cast victims in his annual bonfires at cuthah
the beating of nimrod recalls the beating of the corn spirit of the agricultural legend utilized by burns in his ballad of john barleycorn
they filled up a darksome pit with water to the brim they heaved in john barleycorn there let him sink or swim
for he crushed him between two stones
and was borne to olympus amidst peals of thunder
i was at the one called in the chart saddle hill the smallest of them i think and seldom have i had such sensations of peace as i lay a whole burning day in a rising vale deeply shaded in palm and tropical ranknesses
and the sea as absolutely calm as a lake roughened with breezes yet making a considerable noise in its breaking on the shore as i have noticed in these sorts of places i do not know why
nearly skeletons yet with limbs and vertebrae still in general cohering and in some cases dry skinned and mummified relics of flesh and never anywhere a sign of clothes
so that they were eager folk and the wayward dark earth was in them too as she should be in her children they had in many cases some reddish discoloration which may have been the traces of betel nut stains for betel nuts abound there and i was so pleased with these people
that i took on board with the gig one of their little tree canoes which was my foolishness for gig and canoe were only three nights later washed from the decks into the middle of the sea i passed down the straits of malacca and in that short distance between the andaman islands
was the unloosening afresh of all my evil passion for i said since they mean to slay me death shall find me rebellious and for weeks i could not sight some specially happy village or umbrageous spread of woodland
that i did not stop the ship and land the materials for their destruction so that nearly all those spicy lands about the north of australia will bear the traces of my hand for many a year for more and more my voyage became dawdling and zigzaged
as the merest whim directed it or the movement of the pointer on the chart and i thought of eating the lotus of surcease and nepenthe in some enchanted nook of this bowering summer
year after year and wonder what she was and whence and why she dozed so deep for ever and after an age of melancholy peace and burdened bliss i should note that sun and moon had ceased revolving and hung inert
opening anon a heavy lid to doze and drowse again and god would sigh enough and nod and being would swoon to sleep for that any old chinaman should be alive in pekin
was a thing so fantastically maniac as to draw from me at times sudden fits of wild red laughter that left me faint during a space of four months from the eighteenth june to the twenty third october
i visited the fijis where i saw skulls still surrounded with remnants of extraordinary haloes of stiff hair women clad in girdles made of thongs fixed in a belt and in samoa near bodies crowned with coronets of nautilus shell
and traces of turmeric paint and tattooing and in one townlet a great assemblage of carcasses
the people of new caledonia on the other hand went i should think naked confining their attention to the hair and in this resembling the fijians for they seemed to wear an artificial hair made of the fur of some creature like a bat
and also they wore wooden masks and great rings for the ear no doubt which must have fallen to the shoulders for the earth was in them all and made them wild perverse and various like herself i went from one to the other without any system whatever
a small semicircle of speranza gold plate before me and near above me the red shaded lamp with green conical reservoir whose creakings never cease in the stillest mid sea
and beyond the plates the array of preserved soups meat extracts meats fruit sweets wines nuts liqueurs coffee on the silver spirit tripod glasses cruet and so on
which it was always my first care to select from the store room open and lay out once for all in the morning on rising i was late seven being my hour for on that day i had been engaged in the occasionally necessary but always deferred task of overhauling the ship
brushing here a rope with tar there a board with paint there a crank with oil rubbing a door handle a brass fitting filling the three cabin lamps dusting mirrors and furniture dashing the great neat joinered plains of deck with bucketfulls
or high in air chopping loose with its rigging the mizzen top mast which since a month was sprained at the clamps all this in cotton drawers under loose quamis bare footed my beard knotted up the sun a blaze
the sea smooth and pale with the smooth pallor of strong currents the ship still enough no land in sight yet great tracts of sea weed making eastward
for i wished to have it all over in one obnoxious day i was therefore very tired when i went down lit the central chain lever lamp and my own two washed and dressed in my bedroom and sat to dinner in the dining hall corner
i ate voraciously with sweat as usual pouring down my eager brow using knife or spoon in the right hand but never the western fork licking the plates clean in the mohammedan manner and drinking pretty freely
still i was tired and went upon deck where i had the threadbare blue velvet easy chair with the broken left arm before the wheel
half asleep yet conscious the moon came up into a pretty cloudless sky and she was bright but not bright enough to out shine the enlightened flight of the ocean which that night was one continuous swamp of jack o' lantern phosphorescence
a wild but faint luminosity mingled with stars and flashes of brilliance the whole trooping unanimously eastward as if in haste with elfin momentous purpose a boundless congregation in the sweep of a strong oceanic current
probably at the rate of four to six knots but i did not care knowing very well that no land was within two hundred miles of my bows
and after a time the cigar drooped and dropped from my mouth and sleep overcame me and i slept there in the lap of the infinite so that something preserves me something someone and for what
and begums with spangled trains and all the air fragrant with that mortal scent and high and wide uplifted before me stretching from the northern to the southern limit
a row of eight or nine inflamed smokes as from the chimneys of some cyclopean foundry a work all night most solemn most great and dreadful in the solemn night
and sparks and flashes all veiled in a garish haze of light for the foundry worked though languidly and upon a rocky land four miles ahead which no chart had ever marked
the speranza drove straight with the current of the phosphorus sea as i rose i fell flat and what i did thereafter i did in a state of existence whose acts to the waking mind appear unreal as dream
i must at once i think have been conscious that here was the cause of the destruction of mankind that it still surrounded its own neighbourhood with poisonous fumes and that i was approaching it i must have somehow crawled
or dragged myself forward there is an impression on my mind that it was a purple land of pure porphyry there is some faint memory or dream of hearing a long drawn booming of waves upon its crags i do not know whence i have them
and i must have been back to untie the wheel in good time for when my senses came i was lying there my head against the under gimbal one foot on a spoke of the wheel no land in sight and morning breaking
and on the morning when i finally roused myself i did not know whether it was the second or the third morning so that my calendar so scrupulously kept may be a day out
for to this day i have never been at the pains to ascertain whether i am here writing now on the fifth or the sixth of june well on the fourth or the fifth evening after this just as the sun was sinking beyond the rim of the sea
without any sign of mast heavily water logged some relics of old rigging hanging over even her bowsprit apparently broken in the middle though i could not see it and she nothing more than a hirsute green mass of old weeds and sea things
from bowsprit tip to poop and from bulwarks to water line stout as a hedgehog only awaiting there the next high sea to founder it being near my dinner hour and night's rest i stopped the speranza some fifteen yards from her
their age and thought and way of life and beards till the desire arose within me to go to her and see and i threw off my outer garments uncovered and unroped the cedar cutter the only boat except the air pinnace left to me intact
and got her down by the mizzen five block pulley system but it was a ridiculous nonsense for having paddled to her i was thrown into paroxysms of rage by repeated failures to scale her bulwarks low as they were my hands indeed could reach
of which i had plenty to blow her to uttermost hell i had to return to the speranza get a half inch rope then back to the other for i would not be baulked in such a way though now the dark was come only slightly tempered by a half moon and i getting hungry
and from minute to minute more fiendishly ferocious finally by dint of throwing i got the rope loop round a mast stump drew myself up and made fast the boat my left hand cut by some cursed shell and all for what
here i experienced a singular ghostly awe and timorousness lest she should sink with me or something but striking matches i saw an ordinary cabin with some fungoids skulls bones and rags but not one cohering skeleton
in the second starboard berth was a small table and on the floor a thick round ink pot whose continual rolling on its side made me look down and there i saw a flat square book with black covers which curved half open of itself for it had been wet and stained
this i took and went back to the speranza for that ship was nothing but an emptiness and a stench of the crude elements of life nearly assimilated now to the rank deep to which she was wedded and soon to be absorbed into its nature
and being to become a sea in little as i in time my god shall be nothing but an earth in little during dinner and after i read the book with some difficulty for it was pen written in french and discoloured
and it turned out to be the journal of someone a passenger and voyager i imagine who called himself albert tissu and the ship the marie meyer
i suppose in the evening for he does not say and he writes monstrous event phenomenon without likeness the witnesses of which must for ever live immortalised in the annals of the universe an event which will make even mama henri
and juliette admit that i was justified in undertaking this most eventful voyage talking with captain tombarel on the poop when a sudden exclamation from him mon dieu his visage whitens
but ten hewn pillars of water with uniform diameter from top to bottom only a little twisted here and there and as i divine fifty metres in girth five ten stupendous minutes we look
doubtless still there can no more be seen for the ocean all about them is steaming hissing higher than the pillars a dense white vapour vast in extent whose venomous sibilation we at this distance can quite distinctly hear
it is affrighting it is intolerable the eyes can hardly bear to watch the ears to hear it seems unholy travail monstrous birth but it lasts not long all at once the marie meyer commences
to pitch and roll violently and the sea a moment since calm is now rough and at the same time through the white vapour we see a dark shadow slowly rising
the shadow of a mighty back a new born land bearing upwards ten flames of fire slowly steadily out of the sea into the clouds
at the moment when that sublime emergence ceases or seems to cease the grand thought that smites me is this i albert tissu am immortalised my name shall never perish from among men i rush down i write it
but i was saying that when clark left me i was drawing on my gloves to go to see my fiancee the countess clodagh when i heard the two voices most clearly sometimes the urgency of one or other impulse is so overpowering
breathe no word of the boreal and clark's visit and another shout tell tell hide nothing it seemed to last a month yet it was only some minutes before i was in hanover square and clodagh in my arms
she was in my opinion the most superb of creatures clodagh that haughty neck which seemed always scorning something just behind her left shoulder superb
a godless woman clodagh a bitter heart clodagh once confessed to me that her favourite character in history was lucrezia borgia and when she saw my horror immediately added well no i am only joking
by mine because her father and grandfather had died in lunatic asylums and by hers because forsooth i was neither a rich nor a noble match a sister of hers much older than herself had married a common country doctor
peters of taunton and this so called mesalliance made the so called mesalliance with me
who was to accompany the boreal expedition as doctor botanist and meteorological assistant on that day of clark's visit to me i had not been seated five minutes with clodagh when i said doctor clark ha ha ha has been talking to me about the expedition
but i could no more help it than i could fly clodagh was standing at a window holding a rose at her face for quite a minute she made no reply i saw her sharp cut florid face in profile steadily bent and smelling
i don't know that i have any special ambition that way i rejoined i am very happy in my warm eden with my clodagh i don't like the outer cold don't let me think little of you she answered pettishly
doubt it there is our marriage marriage indeed
to a ten times triumphant event you mean if i personally were the first to stand at the pole but there are many in an expedition it is very unlikely that i personally for me you will adam
they say she stopped she stopped they say what her voice dropped that peter takes atropine ah i started then she moved from the window sat in a rocking chair
and turned the leaves of a book without reading we were silent she and i i standing looking at her she drawing the thumb across the leaf edges and beginning again contemplatively
i easily might however he will be here presently
wilson was going as electrician of the expedition clodagh i said believe me you jest in a manner which does not please me do i really she answered with that haughty stiff half turn of her throat
she had been interested in the boreal knew the details of her outfitting and was acquainted with several members of the expedition but now suddenly her mind seemed wholly possessed my mention of clark's visit apparently setting her well a burn with the pole fever
the passion of her kiss as i tore myself from her embrace that day i shall not forget i went home with a pretty heavy heart the house of doctor peter peters was three doors from mine on the opposite side of the street
toward one that night his footman ran to knock me up with the news that peters was very ill i hurried to his bed side and knew by the first glance at his deliriums and his staring pupils that he was poisoned with atropine
wilson the electrician who had passed the evening with him at clodagh's in hanover square was there what on earth is the matter he said to me poisoned i answered good god what with atropine
i hesitated i hesitated but i said he is in the habit of taking atropine wilson three hours i remained there and god knows toiled hard for his life and when i left him in the dark of the fore day
i slept till eleven a m and then hurried over again to peters in the room were my two nurses and clodagh my beloved put her forefinger to her lips whispering
she came closer to my ear saying i heard the news early i am come to stay with him till the last we looked at each other some time eye to eye steadily she and i but mine dropped before clodagh's
presence at the bed side here somehow does not please me it is so unnecessary unnecessary certainly she replied but i always had a genius for nursing and a passion for watching the battles of the body since no one objects why should you
this is a case that i dislike i have half a mind to throw it to the devil then do so and you too go home go home clodagh but why if one does no harm
i find a sensuous pleasure almost a sensual in dabbling in delicate drugs like helen for that matter and medea and calypso and the great antique women who were all excellent chymists
i have still a nausea to write about it lucrezia borgia in her own age may have been heroic but lucrezia in this late century one could retch up the heart the man grew sick on that bed i say
the second week passed and only ten days remained before the start of the expedition at the end of that second week wilson the electrician was one evening sitting by peter's bedside when i entered
for wilson took up the deposited medicine glass elevated it looked at it smelled into it and he did it with a kind of hurried light fingered stealth and he did it with an under look and a meaningness of expression which
i thought proved mistrust meantime clark came each day he had himself a medical degree and about this time i called him in professionally together with alleyne of cavendish square
but we saw that his present symptoms were not atropine symptoms but it almost seemed of some other vegetable poison which we could not precisely name mysterious thing
said clark to me when we were alone i don't understand it i said who are the two nurses oh highly recommended people of my own at any rate my dream about you comes true jeffson
not a word i said to her that day about clark's invitation yet i asked myself repeatedly did she not know of it had she not listened and heard
however that was about midnight to my great surprise peters opened his eyes and smiled by noon the next day his fine vitality which so fitted him for an arctic expedition had re asserted itself
he was then leaning on an elbow talking to wilson and except his pallor and strong stomach pains there was now hardly a trace of his late approach to death for the pains i prescribed some quarter grain tablets of sulphate of morphia and went away
now david wilson and i never greatly loved each other and that very day he brought about a painful situation as between peters and me by telling peters that i had taken his place in the expedition
peters a touchy fellow at once dictated a letter of protest to clark and clark sent peters letter to me marked with a big note of interrogation in blue pencil now all peters preparations were made mine not
and he had six days in which to recover himself i therefore wrote to clark saying that the changed circumstances of course annulled my acceptance of his offer though i had already incurred the inconvenience of negotiating with a locum tenens
i was giving him three quarter grains of morphia a day that friday night at eleven p m i visited him and found clodagh there talking to him peters was smoking a cigar ah clodagh said i was waiting for you adam
i didn't know whether i was to inject anything to night is it yes or no what do you think peters i said any more pains well perhaps you had better give us another quarter he answered there's still some trouble in the tummy off and on
peters i cried you know you have no right to be doing things like that without consulting me do that once more and i swear i have nothing further to do with you rubbish said peters why all this unnecessary heat it was a mere flea bite
and gone to the mantel piece to melt one of the tablets in a little of the distilled water there her back was turned upon us and she was a long time i was standing peters in his arm chair smoking clodagh then began to talk about a charity bazaar which she had visited that afternoon
she was long she was long the crazy thought passed through some dim region of my soul why is she so long ah that was a pain went peters never mind the bazaar aunt think of the morphia
but at that instant a voice at the opened door behind me said well how is everything it was wilson the electrician who stood there with lightning swiftness i remembered an under look of mistrust which i had once seen on his face
she was my love i stood like marble clodagh went to meet wilson with frank right hand in the left being the fragile glass containing the injection my eyes were fastened on her face
it was full of reassurance of free innocence i said to myself i must surely be mad an ordinary chat began while clodagh turned up peters sleeve and kneeling there injected his fore arm
as she rose laughing at something said by wilson the drug glass dropped from her hand and her heel by an apparent accident trod on it she put the syringe among a number of others on the mantel piece
your friend has been naughty mister wilson she said again with that same pout he has been taking more atropine not really said wilson let me alone the whole of you answered peters i ain't a child
these were the last intelligible words he ever spoke he died shortly before one a m he had been poisoned by a powerful dose of atropine
from that moment to the moment when the boreal bore me down the thames all the world was a mere tumbling nightmare to me of which hardly any detail remains in my memory only i remember the inquest and how i was called upon to prove
well perhaps i know there i sat and heard him and most strangely have those words of his peroration planted themselves in my brain when rising to a passion of prophecy he shouted
and this second thing i remember that on reaching home i walked into my disordered library for i had had to hunt out some books where i met my housekeeper in the act of rearranging things
and that no doubt was the reason why such a start convulsed me for my listless eyes had chanced to rest upon some words the woman gave me of the tree and i did eat
and a third thing i remember in all that turmoil of doubt and flurry that as the ship moved down with the afternoon tide a telegram was put into my hand it was a last word from clodagh and she said only this
chapter one the point of view while there is a great deal of literary reference in all the following argument i realize looking back over many attempts to paraphrase it for various audiences
that its appeal is to those who spend the best part of their student life in classifying and judging and producing works of sculpture painting and architecture
i find the eyes of all others wandering when i make talks upon the plastic artist's point of view this book tries to find that fourth dimension of architecture painting and sculpture which is the human soul in action that arrow with wings
which is the flash of fire from the film or the heart of man or pygmalion's image when it becomes a woman the nineteen fifteen edition was used by victor o freeburg as one of the text books in the columbia university school of journalism
in his classes in photoplay writing i was invited several times to address those classes on my yearly visits to new york i have addressed many other academic classes the invitation being based on this book now i realize
that those who approach the theory from the general university standpoint or from the history of the drama had best begin with freeburg's book for he is not only learned in both matters but presents the special analogies with skill
freeburg has an excellent education in the history of music and some of the happiest passages in his work relate the photoplay to the musical theory of the world as my book relates it to the general art museum point of view of the world
emphatically my book belongs in the art institutes as a beginning or in such religious and civic bodies as think architecturally from there it must work its way out
of course those bodies touch on a thousand others the work is being used as one basis of the campaign for the new denver art museum and i like to tell the story of how george w eggers of denver
first began to apply the book when the director of the art institute chicago that it may not seem to the merely university type of mind a work of lost abstractions one of the most gratifying recognitions i ever received
was the invitation to talk on the films in fullerton hall chicago art institute then there came invitations to speak at chicago university and before the fortnightly club chicago all around nineteen sixteen seventeen
one difficulty was getting the film to prove my case from out the commercial whirl i talked at these three and other places but hardly knew how to go about crossing the commercial bridge
at last with the cooperation of director eggers we staged in the sacred precincts of fullerton hall mae marsh in the wild girl of the sierras the film was in battered condition and was turned so fast i could not talk with it satisfactorily
and fulfil the well known principles of chapter fourteen but at least i had converted one art institute director to the idea that an ex student of the institute could not only write a book about painting in motion
but the painting could be shown in an art museum as promise of greater things in this world it took a deal of will and breaking of precedent on the part of all concerned to show this film the wild girl of the sierras
and i retired from the field a long time but now this same eggers is starting in denver an art museum from its very foundations but on the same constructive scale so this enterprise in my fond and fatuous fancy
is associated with the sweet mae marsh as the wild girl of the sierras one of the loveliest bits of poetry ever put into screen or fable for about one year off and on i had the honor to be the photoplay critic of the new republic
this invitation also based on the first edition of this book looking back upon that experience i am delighted to affirm that not only the new republic constituency but the world of the college and the university where i moved at that time
were not only willing but eager to take the films with seriousness but when i was through with all these dashes into the field and went back to reciting verses again no one had given me any light as to who should make the disinterested non commercial film
for these immediate times the film that would class in our civilization with the new republic or the atlantic monthly or the poems of edwin arlington robinson that is the production not for the trade but for the soul
anita loos that good crusader came out several years ago with the flaming announcement
the school was to be largely devoted to producing music for the photoplay in defiance of chapter fourteen but incidentally there were to be motion pictures made to fit good music neither music nor films have as yet shaken the world
i liked this rochester idea i felt that once it was started the films would take their proper place and dominate the project disinterested non commercial films to be classed
with the dramas so well stimulated by the great drama department under professor baker of harvard as i look back over this history i see that the printed page had counted too much and the real forces of the visible arts in america
had not been definitely enlisted they should take the lead i would suggest as the three people to interview first on building any art museum photoplay project victor freeburg with his long experience of teaching the subject in columbia
and john emerson and anita loos who are as brainy as people dare to be and still remain in the department store film business no three people would more welcome opportunities to outline the idealistic possibilities of this future art
and a well known american painter was talking to me of a midnight scolding charlie chaplin gave to some los angeles producer in a little restaurant preaching the really beautiful film and denouncing commerce like a member of coxey's illustrious army
and i have heard rumors from all sides that charlie chaplin has a soul he is the comedian most often proclaimed an artist by the fastidious and most often forgiven for his slapstick he is praised for a kind of o henry double meaning to his antics
he is said to be like one of o henry's misquotations of the classics he looks to me like that artist edgar poe if poe had been obliged to make millions laugh i do not like chaplin's work
but i have to admit the good intentions and the enviable laurels let all the art museums invite him in
if not a chastened performer
i shall be proud to renew my acquaintance can you come to morrow oh yes said arabella rapturously there are difficulties and i ought to have written to you about them i am going with the fitzwilliam
now mistletoe was in lincolnshire not very far from peterborough not very far from stamford not very far from oakham a regular hunting man like lord rufford knew how to compass the difficulties of distance in all hunting countries
and a postchaise could meet him here or there but when a lady is added the difficulty is often increased fivefold is it very far asked arabella it is a little far i wonder who are going from here
heaven only knows i have passed my time in playing cat's cradle with sir jeffrey bunker for the amusement of the company and in confidential communications with my aunt and lady drummond i haven't heard hunting mentioned
have you anything on wheels going across to holcombe cross to morrow duke asked lord rufford the duke said that he did not know of anything on wheels going to holcombe cross then a hunting man who had heard the question
said that he and another intended to travel by train to oundle upon this lord rufford turned round and looked at arabella mournfully cannot i go by train to oundle she asked nothing on earth so jolly if your pastors and masters and all that will let you
i haven't got any pastors and masters the duchess suggested lord rufford i thought all that kind of nonsense was over said arabella i believe a great deal is over you can do many things that your mother and grandmother couldn't do but absolute freedom
what you may call universal suffrage hasn't come yet i fear it's twenty miles by road and the duchess would say something awful if i were to propose to take you in a postchaise but the railway i'm afraid that would be worse we couldn't ride back you know as we did at rufford
i'm afraid we must put it off to tell you the truth i'm the least bit in the world afraid of the duchess i am not at all said arabella angrily then lord rufford ate his dinner and seemed to think that that matter was settled
arabella knew that he might have hunted elsewhere that the cottesmore would be out in their own county within twelve miles of them and that the difficulty of that ride would be very much less the duke might have been persuaded to send a carriage that distance
but lord rufford cared more about the chance of a good run than her company for a while she was sulky for a little while till she remembered how ill she could afford to indulge in such a feeling then she said a demure word or two to the gentleman on the other side of her
and is that to be the end of jack as far as i'm concerned i have been thinking about it ever since this is thursday not a doubt about it
to morrow will be friday and the duke has his great shooting on saturday there's nothing within a hundred miles of us on saturday i shall go with the pytchley if i don't shoot but i shall have to get up just when other people are going to bed that wouldn't suit you
i wouldn't mind if i didn't go to bed at all at any rate it wouldn't suit the duchess i had meant to go away on sunday i hate being anywhere on sunday except in a railway carriage but if i thought the duke would keep me till tuesday morning we might manage peltry on monday
where is peltry it's a cottesmore meet about five miles this side of melton we could ride from here it's rather far for that but we could talk over the duke to send a carriage ladies always like to see a meet and perhaps we could make a party
if not we must put a good face on it and go in anything we can get i shouldn't fear the duchess so much for twelve miles as i should for twenty i don't mean to let the duchess interfere with me said arabella in a whisper
that evening lord rufford was very good natured and managed to arrange everything lady chiltern and another lady said that they would be glad to go to the meet
but nothing was said as to arabella's hunting because the question would immediately be raised as to her return to mistletoe in the evening it was however understood that she was to have a place in the carriage arabella had gained two things she would have her one day's hunting
and she had secured the presence of lord rufford at mistletoe for sunday with such a man as his lordship it was almost impossible to find a moment for confidential conversation he worked so hard at his amusements that he was as bad a lover as a barrister who has to be in court all day
almost as bad as a sailor who is always going round the world
on this evening it was ten o'clock before the gentlemen came into the drawing room and then lord rufford's time was spent in arranging the party for the meet on monday when the ladies went up to bed arabella had had no other opportunity than what fortune had given her at dinner and even then she had been watched
an arrangement which her grace had thought safe with reference to the rights of the minister to patagonia the duchess though she was at some distance down the table had seen that her niece and lord rufford were intimate and remembered immediately what had been said up stairs they could not have talked as they were then talking
sometimes whispering as the duchess could perceive very well unless there had been considerable former intimacy she began gradually to understand various things why arabella trefoil had been so anxious to come to mistletoe just at this time
why she had behaved so unlike her usual self before lord rufford's arrival and why she had been so unwilling to have mister morton invited the duchess was in her way a clever woman and could see many things she could see that though her niece might be very anxious to marry lord rufford
lord rufford might indulge himself in a close intimacy with the girl without any such intention on his part and as far as the family was concerned she would have been quite contented with the morton alliance she would have asked morton now
the duchess of omnium had since declared that she also would go and there were to be two carriages but still it never occurred to the duchess that arabella intended to hunt nor did arabella intend that she should know it till the morning came the friday was very dull
the hunting men of course had gone before arabella came down to breakfast she would willingly have got up at seven to pour out lord rufford's tea had that been possible but as it was she strolled into the breakfast room at half past ten
she could see by her aunt's eye and hear in her voice that she was in part detected and that she would do herself no further service by acting the good girl and she therefore resolutely determined to listen to no more twaddle she read a french novel which she had brought with her
and spent as much of the day as she could in her bedroom she did not see lord rufford before dinner and at dinner sat between sir jeffrey and an old gentleman out of stamford who dined at mistletoe that evening we've had no such luck to night lord rufford said to her in the drawing room
the old dragon took care of that replied arabella
because i can't very well tell you why but i dare say you know and do you think i am dangerous
of course there is a little danger but who is going to be stopped by that
he could make no reply to this because the duchess called him away to give some account to lady chiltern about goarly and the u r u lady chiltern's husband being a master of hounds and a great authority on all matters relating to hunting nasty old dragon
the saturday was the day of the great shooting and at two o'clock the ladies went out to lunch with the gentlemen by the side of the wood lord rufford had at last consented to be one of the party with logs of trees a few hurdles and other field appliances
a rustic banqueting hall was prepared and everything was very nice tons of game had been killed and tons more were to be killed after luncheon the duchess was not there and arabella contrived so to place herself that she could be waited upon by lord rufford or could wait upon him
of course a great many eyes were upon her but she knew how to sustain that nobody was present who could dare to interfere with her
when the eating and drinking were over she walked with him to his corner by the next covert not heeding the other ladies and she stood with him for some minutes after the slaughter had begun she had come to feel that the time was slipping between her fingers and that she must say something effective
to morrow is sunday i am quite aware of that but i didn't know whether you could live a day without sport the country is so full of prejudice that i am driven to sabbatical quiescence
than she had probably ever paid to any matter up to that time
but never so much in earnest as now those other men had perhaps been worthy worthy as far as her ideas went of worth
everything was there if she could only get it money rank fashion and an appetite for pleasure and he was handsome too and good humoured though these qualities told less with her than the others
and now she was to meet him in the house of her great relations in a position in which her rank and her fashion would seem to be equal to his own and she would meet him with the remembrance fresh in his mind as in her own of those passages of love at rufford
it would be impossible that he should even seem to forget them the most that she could expect would be four or five days of his company and she knew that she must be upon her mettle she must do more now
she must scruple at nothing that might bind him she would be in the house of her uncle and that uncle a duke
she thought of it all and made her plans carefully and even painfully
during that time she would curry favour with her uncle by all her arts and would if possible reconcile herself to her aunt she thought once of taking her aunt into her full confidence and balanced the matter much in her mind
the duchess she knew was afraid of her or rather afraid of the relationship and would of course be pleased to have all fears set at rest by such an alliance but her aunt was a woman who had never suffered hardships
whose own marriage had been easily arranged and whose two daughters had been pleasantly married before they were twenty years old
but she could not venture to ask for it she had stretched her means and her credit to the utmost in regard to her wardrobe and was aware that she had never been so well equipped since those early days of her career
in which her father and mother had thought that her beauty assisted by a generous expenditure would serve to dispose of her without delay a generous expenditure may be incurred once even by poor people but cannot possibly be maintained over a dozen years
now she had taken the matter into her own hands and had done that which would be ruinous if not successful
with the prospect of drowning herself on the way out to patagonia should the chances of the game go against her she forgot nothing she could hardly hope for more than one day's hunting and yet that had been provided for as though she were going to ride with the hounds through all the remainder of the season
when she reached mistletoe there were people going and coming every day so that an arrival was no event she was kissed by her uncle and welcomed with characteristic coldness by her aunt then allowed to settle in among the other guests
everybody knew that she was a trefoil and her presence therefore raised no question the duchess of omnium was among the guests the duchess knew all about her and vouchsafed to her the smallest possible recognition lady chiltern had met her before
and as lady chiltern was always generous she was gracious to arabella she was sorry to see lady drummond because she connected lady drummond with the foreign office and feared that the conversation might be led to patagonia and its new minister
the girl was his niece and the duke had an idea that he should be kind to the family of which he was the head his brother's wife had become objectionable to him but as to the girl if she wanted a home for a week or two he thought it to be his duty to give it to her
mistletoe is an enormous house with a frontage nearly a quarter of a mile long combining as it does all the offices coach houses and stables there is nothing in england more ugly or perhaps more comfortable
and six in london in which he gave dinners and dined out and regularly took his place in the house of lords without ever opening his mouth he was a grey haired comely man of sixty with a large body and a wonderful appetite
by many who understood the subject he was supposed to be the best amateur judge of wine in england
at all points lord mistletoe who had a large family of his own lived twenty miles off so that the father and son could meet pleasantly without fear of quarrelling during the first evening arabella did contrive to make herself very agreeable
she was much quieter than had been her wont when at mistletoe before and though there were present two or three very well circumstanced young men she took but little notice of them she went out to dinner with sir jeffrey bunker
and made herself agreeable to that old gentleman in a remarkable manner after dinner something having been said of the respectable old game called cat's cradle she played it to perfection with sir jeffrey till her aunt thought that she must have been unaware
that sir jeffrey had a wife and family she was all smiles and all pleasantness and seemed to want no other happiness than what the present moment gave her nor did she once mention lord rufford's name on the next morning after breakfast her aunt sent for her to come up stairs
such a thing had never happened to her before she could not recollect that on any of those annual visits which she had made to mistletoe for more years than she now liked to think of she had ever had five minutes conversation alone with her aunt
the message was whispered into her ear by her aunt's own woman as she was listening with great attention to lady drummond's troubles in regard to her nursery arrangements she nodded her head
that her aunt wanted her followed the maid up stairs my dear said her aunt when the door was closed i want to ask you whether you would like me to ask mister morton to come here while you are with us
a thunderbolt at her feet could hardly have surprised or annoyed her more if there was one thing that she wanted less than another it was the presence of the paragon at mistletoe it would utterly subvert everything and rob her of every chance
with a great effort she restrained all emotion and simply shook her head she did it very well and betrayed nothing i ask said the duchess because i have been very glad to hear that you are engaged to marry him lord drummond tells me that he is a most respectable young man
mister morton will be so much obliged to lord drummond and i thought that if it were so you would be glad that he should meet you here i could manage it very well as the drummonds are here and lord drummond would be glad to meet him
but still by the time that she was called on to speak she had fabricated her story thanks aunt it is so good of you and if everything was going straight there would be nothing of course that i should like so much
but papa and mamma and the lawyers think that he is not behaving well about money
would know anything about mister morton and now she was called upon to answer these horrid questions without a moment's notice i don't think i shall go with him aunt though i am unable to say anything certain just at present
i hope not you should think of it very seriously as for money you know you have none of your own and i am told that he has a very nice property in rufford there is a neighbour of his coming here to morrow and perhaps he knows him who is the neighbour aunt
asked arabella innocently lord rufford he is coming to shoot i will ask him about the property
i know lord rufford very well know lord rufford very well as one does know men that one meets about i thought it might settle everything if we had mister morton here i couldn't meet him aunt i couldn't indeed
to the duchess condemnation from lady augustus almost amounted to praise she felt sure that mister morton was a worthy man who would not probably behave badly and though she could not unravel the mystery and certainly had no suspicion in regard to lord rufford
she was sure that there was something wrong but there was nothing more to be said at present after what arabella had told her mister morton could not be asked there to meet her niece but all the slight feeling of kindness to the girl which had been created by the tidings of so respectable an engagement
were at once obliterated from the duchess's bosom arabella with many expressions of thanks and a good humoured countenance left the room cursing the untowardness of her fate which would let nothing run smooth lord rufford was to come that at any rate was now almost certain
up to the present she had doubted knowing the way in which such men will change their engagements at the least caprice but the duchess expected him on the morrow
she had prepared the way for meeting him as an old friend without causing surprise and had gained that step but should she succeed as she hoped
in exacting continued homage from the man homage for the four or five days of his sojourn at mistletoe this must be carried on with the knowledge on the part of many in the house that she was engaged to that horrid patagonian minister
was ever a girl called upon to risk her entire fate under so many disadvantages when she went up to dress for dinner on the day of his expected arrival lord rufford had not come since the interview in her aunt's room she had not heard his name mentioned
when she came into the drawing room a little late he was not there we won't wait duchess said the duke to his wife at three minutes past eight the duke's punctuality at dinner time was well known and everybody else was then assembled
within two minutes after the duke's word dinner was announced and a party numbering about thirty walked away into the dinner room arabella when they were all settled found that there was a vacant seat next herself if the man were to come fortune would have favoured her in that
the fish and soup had already disappeared and the duke was wakening himself to eloquence on the first entree when lord rufford entered the room
nor any part of the world in which hired horses travel so slowly i beg the duke's pardon but i suffer the less because i know his grace never waits for anybody certainly not said the duke having some regard for my friends dinners
and i find myself next to you said lord rufford as he took his seat
the glass fell slowly too and there appeared to be every prospect of our getting a taste of the quality of the weather for which cape horn is so notorious as the sun set
and we caught a glimpse of the great luminary hanging upon the verge of the horizon like a ball of molten copper his level beams shot for a few moments across the broad expanse of the heaving and wildly leaping waters
a few rays shot upward gleaming wildly among the flying scud and then the orb of day sank into the ocean shooting abroad as he did so
bob stood by my side watching the wild scene i have so feebly described and as the sun disappeared he turned to me and remarked my eyes harry
that we're booked for a reg'lar thorough bred cape horn gale of wind and my advice as chief mate of this here barkie is that we makes her just as snug as we knows how for depend upon it afore morning
my own idea bob replied i i have seldom seen a wilder sunset and if it does not mean wind and plenty of it too all my weather lore must go for nothing
ay ay you may say that returned he and i the same
thank god we've plenty of sea room
this floating anchor i will describe for the benefit of those who may not have seen such a thing for it is a most useful affair and no small craft should undertake a long cruise without one ours was formed of two flat bars of iron
each ten feet in length riveted together in the centre in such a way
so as to keep them spread at right angles
two in each bar about midway between each end and the centre rivet
as soon as the bars were spread open and the swifter passed and set up a square sheet of the stoutest canvas painted was spread over them the edges laced to the swifter with a stout lacing
with a sufficient amount of buoy rope to allow it to sink to the requisite depth
the buoy streamed overboard and the anchor let go i may as well state here that for the economisation of space the buoy for floating out anchor was an india rubber ball made of the same materials as an ordinary air cushion
and distended in the same way this was enclosed in a strong net of three strand sinnet which net was attached to the buoy rope we hove the craft to whilst we were preparing the anchor
that i was afraid once or twice when we were caught broadside to that we should be capsized we let go the anchor with only two fathoms of buoy rope so as to sink it just deep enough to keep us head to sea without materially interfering with the craft's drift
as we thought we should ride all the easier for such an arrangement and so it proved as soon as the anchor was let go we got our head sail in ran in the bowsprit and got our topmast on deck
the trysail was close reefed and the sheet trimmed amidships the anchor light hoisted well up on the fore stay and our preparations for the night were complete by this time it was blowing tremendously heavy and the howling of the gale overhead
mingled into such a deafening sound that bob and i had fairly to shout
at one moment all would be deep black pitchy night lighted up only by the pale unearthly shimmer of some foaming wave crest as it rolled menacingly down upon us gleaming with phosphorescent light
anon the canopy above would be rent asunder
the torn and shredded clouds would be revealed with a momentary vision of the writhing leaping and storm driven waters beneath them illumined by the ghastly glare of the levin brand
anchor was let go watching this grand manifestation of the power of the deity sublime as terrible terrible as sublime and then finding that no improvement suggested itself in our arrangements
and out over her taffrail we descended to the cabin to get our suppers for which by this time we were quite ready so easy was the motion of the little craft
and that we would therefore take advantage of the opportunity to get a good undisturbed night's rest leaving the sweet little cherub that sits up aloft to look out accordingly as soon as our meal was over i left bob to straighten up below while i went on deck to take
and our light burning brightly
however i could not help that so i went below again closing the companion after me and we both turned in chatted awhile
and finally dropped off to sleep i awoke two or three times during the night and once i
and the air was full of spindrift and scud water
again and tumbled once more into my comfortable hammock
and also with the comparative degrees of comfort between the decks and the cabin bob was the first to make a muster in the morning
blowing hard enough to blow the devil's horns off i heard him exclaim
and my precious eyes what a sea
hurrah young un that's your sort
and then slid down down down into the trough until it seemed as though she would sink to the very ocean's bed and don't the little hussy behave beautifully she's as floaty as a gull hal and drier than e'er a seventy four
that ever was launched would be in a sea like this now what lubber comes here with his eyes sealed up instead of looking before him jump up harry quick boy we are in a mess here and no mistake no no it's all right
and saw within forty fathoms of us over the ridge of a sea
she was not a large vessel about two hundred tons or thereabouts apparently painted all black down to her copper excepting a narrow red ribbon which marked the line of her sheer she was hove to on the port tack
under a storm staysail and her topgallant masts were down on deck everything was very trim and man o' warlike on board her but no government dockyard ever turned out such a beautiful model as she was
when i first caught sight of her she was heading directly for us but as we watched her
some ten or a dozen heads peered curiously at us over her weather bulwarks as she
seized a trumpet to hail us but whether he did so or not or if he did what he said
once more into the trough with a perfect mountain of water between us
open and adjusted ready for immediate use
and the first thing which caught my attention was her name painted on her stern which was now towards us
she was tossed about like the merest cockle shell and every time that she rose upon the crest of a sea the wind took her rag of a staysail distending it as though it would tear it clean out of the bolt ropes
and heeling the vessel over until we could see the whole of her bottom nearly down to her keel and then her sharp bows would cleave the wave crest in a perfect cataract of foam and spray
and away she would settle down once more with a heavy weather roll into the trough well exclaimed bob as we lost sight of her in the driving scud she's a pretty sea boat is yon brig
i am as surprised as i am delighted at her behaviour i could never have believed without seeing it myself that so small a craft would even live in such weather
shaking her feathers like a duck i'm afraid
never fear returned bob confidently our bit of a windlass and the mast breaks the force of it before it reaches the skylight
almost like the stem of a ship besides bein stronger than a square shaped consarn
but how's it to be pervented i have an idea said i and it's worth a trial
so saying i dived below and got out a bottle of oil
or four holes with a corkscrew but left the cork in
and then going forward i made fast the other end of the marline to one of the links of the chain cable by which we were riding to our floating anchor i then sung out to bob
and as he did so i hove the bottle overboard
either without breaking at all or if they did break it was with such diminished force that no more water came on board i had heard
so thoroughly practical a test
under weigh and whilst discussing the meal our conversation naturally turned upon the appearance of the albatross there can be no question i fear
johnson and his gang of desperadoes said i
but he was quite of my opinion no no said he
i noticed the name on his starn
for the simple reason that he hails from nowhere in particular besides a man with half an eye could tell by looking at that craft that she's strong handed
and worst luck she's bound the same road as ourselves
other coming down the coast for if we falls in with her ag'in
as ourselves a thought do you that's just what he's
he is not fool enough to suppose we're down here somewheres off the horn in this cockle shell on a pleasure trip and that we're not come down here to trade
or we should have a craft big enough to stow away something like a paying cargo and if we're here
he'll want to know what we are here for and depend upon it
and if we fall in with him again let's give him a wide berth
but give us weather in which we can carry a topsail even if it's no
than he can and still keep a good clean full and the square rigged craft that can beat us in going to wind'ard must be an out and out flyer and no mistake we must keep a
bright look out and not be caught napping that's all and give everything a good wide berth
i trust we shall not fall in with him again the pacific is a pretty big place
if we do meet with him again we must do all we can to avoid him and hope for the best ay ay returned bob hope for the best and prepare for the worst is a good maxim for any man
and with slack bowlines as for this here johnson i'd ask nothing better than to have him just out of gun shot under our lee with a nice breeze and not too much sea for the little lily and then let him catch us if he's man enough for the job
of bob's but it was satisfactory to find that he had such great confidence in the boat
especially as it seemed to afford him considerable entertainment and went on deck to take another look at the weather there was no sign of the gale breaking in fact
and the sea was something awful to contemplate it looked of course worse to us than it
allowing for that it was unquestionably running far higher than anything i had ever seen before i have read somewhere that scientific men assert that even in the heaviest gales and in mid ocean the sea never attains a greater height
than twenty feet from trough to crest but with all due respect to them and their science founded opinions i take leave to assert that they are in this instance mistaken an intelligent sailor and i modestly claim to be at least this much
of mortals and i am confident of this
indeed to satisfy myself thoroughly upon this point i climbed so high with the utmost difficulty and at very great risk of being blown overboard and whilst looking over the cross trees i saw the crest of more than one sea
rearing itself between my eye and the horizon so far the water lily had weathered the gale scatheless
and as there seemed to be no greater danger than there had been through the night and as i had taken a good look round when aloft without seeing anything we both went below to enjoy the comfort of the cabin
for on deck everything was cold wet and dismal in the extreme i was anxious to get a sight of the sun at noon if possible
to the southward of staten and i
in which case we might find ourselves very awkwardly situated it looked half inclined to break away two or three times during the morning but as mid day approached it became as bad as ever and i had the vexation
towards evening therefore
and especially to the northward there was nothing in sight and with this i was obliged to rest satisfied we noticed just about this time that the seas were beginning to break on board again so i concluded that our bottle of oil was exhausted
and accordingly got out another and having bored holes in the cork
more cable paid out and we again rode all the easier our anchor light was trimmed and lighted and hoisted up and we went below to our tea or supper as sailors generally term it we had found the day
dreadfully tedious cooped up as we were in our low cabin
a most welcome break in the monotony we sat long over this one therefore prolonging it to its utmost extent
to and cleared up the wreck by the time that all was done it was intensely dark but before settling down below for the night we both put our heads up through the companion to take a last look round
than he pulled it in again exclaiming in an awe struck tone look here harry what d'ye think of this
was a globe of pale sickly green light
tossed wildly over the mountainous seas
brilliant at the core and softening off and becoming more dim as the circumference of the globe was reached
and unearthly light of no great power i had never seen such a thing before but i had often heard of it and i recognised our strange visitors at once as corposants or lamps of saint elmo
what d'ye think of bein boarded by the likes of that again queried bob in a hoarse whisper old davy is out on a cruise to night i reckon
lanterns of his'n in our rigging did ye ever see anything like it afore harry lad never replied i but i have often heard them spoken of old man and though they certainly are rather queer to look at they are easily accounted for
at the moment that bob spoke but were now settling into the trough as
she was fearfully close but appeared to be at the moment sheering away from us she looked long enough
or what i thought more probable
as it were until it appeared as though the following wave would run clean over her but gradually
whilst her bow in its turn seemed weighed down
but poor chaps it's little of that we can give em
as he spoke the ship which was rushing forward furiously on the back of a sea suddenly sheered wildly to port until she lay broadside to the crest of the sea overtook her and breaking on board her
in one vast volume of wildly flashing foam
gazed in speechless horror at the dreadful catastrophe a loud piercing shriek rang out clear
she rolled completely bottom upwards and then disappeared broached to and capsized ejaculated we both in the same breath
collect my scattered faculties in an instant i had all four of the buoys ready
i could lay my hands on and in another that glorious bob appeared with a coil of ratline on his shoulder and a lighted blue light in his hand the stops were cut and the ends of the coil cleared in no time and the two remaining buoys bent on
for the double purpose of throwing the light as far as possible over the water and also to indicate our whereabouts to any strong swimmer who might be struggling for his life among the mountain surges
in the hope of seeing some poor soul
that the vessel sucked all hands down with her when she sank into her watery grave when at last we reluctantly desisted from our efforts and were in the act of securing the lifebuoys once more bob cast his eyes aloft
depend on't harry quoth he
but you see they did mean mischief and plenty of it too
i make no manner of doubt it was utterly in vain that i attempted to argue the honest fellow out of his belief
for his mind was deeply imbued with all those superstitious notions which appear to take such peculiarly firm hold on the ideas of sailors
as may readily be believed our slumbers that night after witnessing so distressing a scene were anything but sound bob and i were up and down between the deck and the cabin at least half a dozen times before morning
we found that the gale was breaking also by the time that breakfast was over there was a sensible diminution in the force of the wind
not a particularly good one certainly the sea was running far too high for that
sixty miles to the southward of staten about four p m
by it that our drift had not been anything like so great as i had calculated it would be
setting current there was still rather too much of both wind and sea to make us disposed to get under way that night
to the buoy of our floating anchor which we weighed and
and to take full advantage of the current the existence of which we suspected
as to leave no doubt on my mind that long ere this all europe is in an uproar all physics in a ferment all reason and astronomy together by the ears it appears that on the
i am not positive about the date a vast crowd of people for purposes not specifically mentioned were assembled in the great square of the exchange in the well conditioned city of rotterdam the day was warm
which chequered in a fitful manner the blue vault of the firmament nevertheless about noon a slight but remarkable agitation became apparent in the assembly the clattering of ten thousand tongues succeeded and in an instant afterward
ten thousand faces were upturned toward the heavens ten thousand pipes descended simultaneously from the corners of ten thousand mouths and a shout which could be compared to nothing but the roaring of niagara
resounded long loudly and furiously through all the environs of rotterdam the origin of this hubbub soon became sufficiently evident
from behind the huge bulk of one of those sharply defined masses of cloud already mentioned was seen slowly to emerge into an open area of blue space a queer heterogeneous but apparently solid substance
so oddly shaped so whimsically put together as not to be in any manner comprehended and never to be sufficiently admired by the host of sturdy burghers who stood open mouthed below
what could it be in the name of all the vrows and devils in rotterdam what could it possibly portend no one knew no one could imagine no one
had the slightest clew by which to unravel the mystery so as nothing more reasonable could be done every one to a man replaced his pipe carefully in the corner of his mouth and cocking up his right eye towards the phenomenon puffed
paused waddled about and grunted significantly then waddled back grunted paused and finally puffed again
came the object of so much curiosity and the cause of so much smoke in a very few minutes it arrived near enough to be accurately discerned it appeared to be yes it was undoubtedly a species of balloon
but surely no such balloon had ever been seen in rotterdam before
being little or nothing better than a huge foolscap turned upside down and this similitude was regarded as by no means lessened when upon nearer inspection there was perceived a large tassel depending from its apex
it is however somewhat remarkable that many citizens of rotterdam swore to having seen the same hat repeatedly before and indeed the whole assembly seemed to regard it with eyes of familiarity
had actually disappeared from rotterdam about five years before
had been lately discovered in a retired situation to the east of rotterdam and some people went so far as to imagine that in this spot a foul murder had been committed and that the sufferers were in all probability hans pfaall and his associates
but to return the balloon for such no doubt it was had now descended to within a hundred feet of the earth allowing the crowd below a sufficiently distinct view of the person of its occupant
this was in truth a very droll little somebody he could not have been more than two feet in height but this altitude little as it was would have been sufficient to destroy his equilibrium and tilt him over the edge of his tiny car
but for the intervention of a circular rim reaching as high as the breast and rigged on to the cords of the balloon the body of the little man was more than proportionately broad giving to his entire figure a rotundity highly absurd
his feet of course could not be seen at all although a horny substance of suspicious nature was occasionally protruded through a rent in the bottom of the car or to speak more properly in the top of the hat
this odd little gentleman was dressed in a loose surtout of sky blue satin with tight breeches to match fastened with silver buckles at the knees his vest was of some bright yellow material
a white taffety cap was set jauntily on one side of his head and to complete his equipment a blood red silk handkerchief enveloped his throat and fell down in a dainty manner upon his bosom
in a fantastic bow knot of super eminent dimensions having descended as i said before to about one hundred feet from the surface of the earth the little old gentleman was suddenly seized with a fit of trepidation
and appeared disinclined to make any nearer approach to terra firma throwing out therefore a quantity of sand from a canvas bag which he lifted with great difficulty he became stationary in an instant
he then proceeded in a hurried and agitated manner to extract from a side pocket in his surtout a large morocco pocket book this he poised suspiciously in his hand
then eyed it with an air of extreme surprise and was evidently astonished at its weight he at length opened it and drawing there from a huge letter sealed with red sealing wax and tied carefully with red tape
let it fall precisely at the feet of the burgomaster superbus von underduk his excellency stooped to take it up but the aeronaut still greatly discomposed
began at this moment to make busy preparations for departure and it being necessary to discharge a portion of ballast to enable him to reascend the half dozen bags which he threw out one after another
without taking the trouble to empty their contents tumbled every one of them most unfortunately upon the back of the burgomaster
to which he held fast the whole time with all his might and to which he intends holding fast until the day of his death in the meantime the balloon arose like a lark and soaring far away above the city
at length drifted quietly behind a cloud similar to that from which it had so oddly emerged and was thus lost forever to the wondering eyes of the good citizens of rotterdam
all attention was now directed to the letter the descent of which and the consequences attending thereupon had proved so fatally subversive of both person and personal dignity to his excellency the illustrious burgomaster
being actually addressed to himself and professor rub a dub in their official capacities of president and vice president of the rotterdam college of astronomy it was accordingly opened by those dignitaries upon the spot
in a manner which must have been considered by all parties at once sudden and extremely unaccountable if however it so please your excellencies i the writer of this communication am the identical hans pfaall himself
it is well known to most of my fellow citizens that for the period of forty years i continued to occupy the little square brick building at the head of the alley called sauerkraut in which i resided at the time of my disappearance
my ancestors have also resided therein time out of mind they as well as myself steadily following the respectable and indeed lucrative profession of mending of bellows
but as i was saying we soon began to feel the effects of liberty and long speeches and radicalism and all that sort of thing people who were formerly the very best customers in the world had now not a moment of time to think of us at all
or required the assistance of a hammer this was a state of things not to be endured i soon grew as poor as a rat and having a wife and children to provide for my burdens at length became intolerable
and i spent hour after hour in reflecting upon the most convenient method of putting an end to my life duns in the meantime left me little leisure for contemplation
my house was literally besieged from morning till night so that i began to rave and foam and fret like a caged tiger against the bars of his enclosure there were three fellows in particular who worried me beyond endurance
keeping watch continually about my door and threatening me with the law upon these three i internally vowed the bitterest revenge if ever i should be so happy as to get them within my clutches
and i believe nothing in the world but the pleasure of this anticipation prevented me from putting my plan of suicide into immediate execution by blowing my brains out with a blunderbuss i thought it best however to dissemble my wrath
and to treat them with promises and fair words until by some good turn of fate an opportunity of vengeance should be afforded me one day having given my creditors the slip and feeling more than usually dejected
i continued for a long time to wander about the most obscure streets without object whatever until at length i chanced to stumble against the corner of a bookseller's stall seeing a chair close at hand for the use of customers
reading it actually through twice before i awoke to a recollection of what was passing around me by this time it began to grow dark and i directed my steps toward home but the treatise had made an indelible impression on my mind
or inducing me to mistrust the many vague notions which had arisen in consequence merely served as a farther stimulus to imagination and i was vain enough or perhaps reasonable enough to doubt whether those crude ideas which
profundity itself might not in matters of a purely speculative nature be detected as a legitimate source of falsity and error
in other words i believed and still do believe that truth is frequently of its own essence superficial and that in many cases the depth lies more in the abysses where we seek her
than in the actual situations wherein she may be found nature herself seemed to afford me corroboration of these ideas in the contemplation of the heavenly bodies it struck me forcibly
and forgotten the bellows mender in far different occupations but at the epoch of which i speak the analogy which a casual observation of a star offered to the conclusions i had already drawn
i repaired eagerly to the bookseller's stall and laid out what little ready money i possessed in the purchase of some volumes of mechanics and practical astronomy having arrived at home safely with these
i devoted every spare moment to their perusal and soon made such proficiency in studies of this nature as i thought sufficient for the execution of my plan
in the intervals of this period i made every endeavor to conciliate the three creditors who had given me so much annoyance in this i finally succeeded partly by selling enough of my household furniture to satisfy a moiety of their claim
i found little difficulty in gaining them over to my purpose matters being thus arranged i contrived by the aid of my wife and with the greatest secrecy and caution to dispose of what property i had remaining
in the meantime i worked up the twine into a net work of sufficient dimensions rigged it with a hoop and the necessary cords bought a quadrant a compass a spy glass a common barometer with some important modifications
five iron bound casks to contain about fifty gallons each and one of a larger size six tinned ware tubes three inches in diameter properly shaped and ten feet in length a quantity of a particular metallic substance
or at least never applied to any similar purpose the secret i would make no difficulty in disclosing but that it of right belongs to a citizen of nantz in france
i found it however altogether too expensive and was not sure upon the whole whether cambric muslin with a coating of gum caoutchouc was not equally as good
on the spot which i intended each of the smaller casks to occupy respectively during the inflation of the balloon i privately dug a hole two feet deep the holes forming in this manner a circle twenty five feet in diameter
in the centre of this circle being the station designed for the large cask i also dug a hole three feet in depth in each of the five smaller holes i deposited a canister containing fifty pounds
these the keg and canisters i connected in a proper manner with covered trains and having let into one of the canisters the end of about four feet of slow match
besides the articles above enumerated i conveyed to the depot and there secreted one of m grimm's improvements upon the apparatus for condensation of the atmospheric air
i found this machine however to require considerable alteration before it could be adapted to the purposes to which i intended making it applicable
but with severe labor and unremitting perseverance i at length met with entire success in all my preparations my balloon was soon completed it would contain more than forty thousand cubic feet of gas
it had received three coats of varnish and i found the cambric muslin to answer all the purposes of silk itself quite as strong and a good deal less expensive
everything being now ready i exacted from my wife an oath of secrecy in relation to all my actions from the day of my first visit to the bookseller's stall and promising on my part to return as soon as circumstances would permit
i gave her what little money i had left and bade her farewell indeed i had no fear on her account she was what people call a notable woman and could manage matters in the world without my assistance
i believe to tell the truth she always looked upon me as an idle boy a mere make weight good for nothing but building castles in the air and was rather glad to get rid of me it was a dark night when i bade her good bye
we there found them all unmolested and i proceeded immediately to business it was the first of april the night as i said before was dark there was not a star to be seen and a drizzling rain falling at intervals
rendered us very uncomfortable but my chief anxiety was concerning the balloon which in spite of the varnish with which it was defended began to grow rather heavy with the moisture the powder also was liable to damage
i therefore kept my three duns working with great diligence pounding down ice around the central cask and stirring the acid in the others they did not cease however importuning me with questions as to what i intended to do with all this apparatus
and expressed much dissatisfaction at the terrible labor i made them undergo they could not perceive so they said what good was likely to result from their getting wet to the skin merely to take a part in such horrible incantations
i began to get uneasy and worked away with all my might for i verily believe the idiots supposed that i had entered into a compact with the devil and that in short what i was now doing was nothing better than it should be
i was therefore in great fear of their leaving me altogether i contrived however to pacify them by promises of payment of all scores in full as soon as i could bring the present business to a termination
to these speeches they gave of course their own interpretation fancying no doubt that at all events i should come into possession of vast quantities of ready money and provided i paid them all i owed and a trifle more in consideration of their services
i dare say they cared very little what became of either my soul or my carcass in about four hours and a half i found the balloon sufficiently inflated i attached the car therefore and put all my implements in it not forgetting the condensing apparatus
a copious supply of water and a large quantity of provisions such as pemmican in which much nutriment is contained in comparatively little bulk i also secured in the car a pair of pigeons and a cat it was now nearly daybreak
and i thought it high time to take my departure dropping a lighted cigar on the ground as if by accident i took the opportunity in stooping to pick it up of igniting privately the piece of slow match whose end as i said before
protruded a very little beyond the lower rim of one of the smaller casks this manoeuvre was totally unperceived on the part of the three duns and jumping into the car i immediately cut the single cord which held me to the earth
and was pleased to find that i shot upward carrying with all ease one hundred and seventy five pounds of leaden ballast and able to have carried up as many more scarcely however had i attained the height of fifty yards
when roaring and rumbling up after me in the most horrible and tumultuous manner came so dense a hurricane of fire and smoke and sulphur and legs and arms and gravel and burning wood and
blazing metal that my very heart sunk within me and i fell down in the bottom of the car trembling with unmitigated terror indeed i now perceived that i had entirely overdone the business
my situation directly above it and in the line of its greatest power but at the time i thought only of preserving my life the balloon at first collapsed then furiously expanded
and my face outwards by a piece of slender cord about three feet in length which hung accidentally through a crevice near the bottom of the wicker work and in which as i fell
it is impossible utterly impossible to form any adequate idea of the horror of my situation i gasped convulsively for breath
and the horrible blackness of the fingernails i afterward carefully examined my head shaking it repeatedly and feeling it with minute attention until i succeeded in satisfying myself that it was not
and not being able to do so felt inexpressibly chagrined it now occurred to me that i suffered great uneasiness in the joint of my left ankle and a dim consciousness of my situation began to glimmer through my mind
but strange to say i was neither astonished nor horror stricken if i felt any emotion at all it was a kind of chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness i was about to display in extricating myself from this dilemma
and i never for a moment looked upon my ultimate safety as a question susceptible of doubt for a few minutes i remained wrapped in the profoundest meditation
i have a distinct recollection of frequently compressing my lips putting my forefinger to the side of my nose and making use of other gesticulations and grimaces common to men who at ease in their arm chairs
meditate upon matters of intricacy or importance having as i thought sufficiently collected my ideas i now with great caution and deliberation put my hands behind my back
drawing now my body upwards with a prodigious exertion of muscular force i succeeded at the very first trial in throwing the buckle over the car and entangling it as i had anticipated in the circular rim of the wicker work
my body was now inclined towards the side of the car at an angle of about forty five degrees but it must not be understood that i was therefore only forty five degrees below the perpendicular so far from it
i still lay nearly level with the plane of the horizon for the change of situation which i had acquired had forced the bottom of the car considerably outwards from my position which was accordingly one of the most imminent and deadly peril
it should be remembered however that when i fell in the first instance from the car if i had fallen with my face turned toward the balloon instead of turned outwardly from it as it actually was or if in the second place
the cord by which i was suspended had chanced to hang over the upper edge instead of through a crevice near the bottom of the car i say it may be readily conceived that in either of these supposed cases
i should have been unable to accomplish even as much as i had now accomplished and the wonderful adventures of hans pfaall would have been utterly lost to posterity i had therefore
and hung for perhaps a quarter of an hour in that extraordinary manner without making the slightest farther exertion whatsoever and in a singularly tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment
but this feeling did not fail to die rapidly away and thereunto succeeded horror and dismay and a chilling sense of utter helplessness and ruin in fact
the blood so long accumulating in the vessels of my head and throat and which had hitherto buoyed up my spirits with madness and delirium had now begun to retire within their proper channels
and the distinctness which was thus added to my perception of the danger merely served to deprive me of the self possession and courage to encounter it but this weakness was luckily for me of no very long duration
in good time came to my rescue the spirit of despair and with frantic cries and struggles i jerked my way bodily upwards till at length clutching with a vise like grip the long desired rim
it was not until some time afterward that i recovered myself sufficiently to attend to the ordinary cares of the balloon i then however examined it with attention and found it to my great relief uninjured
my implements were all safe and fortunately i had lost neither ballast nor provisions indeed i had so well secured them in their places that such an accident was entirely out of the question
looking at my watch i found it six o'clock i was still rapidly ascending and my barometer gave a present altitude of three and three quarter miles immediately beneath me in the ocean lay a small black object
slightly oblong in shape seemingly about the size and in every way bearing a great resemblance to one of those childish toys called a domino
bringing my telescope to bear upon it i plainly discerned it to be a british ninety four gun ship close hauled and pitching heavily in the sea
it is now high time that i should explain to your excellencies the object of my perilous voyage your excellencies will bear in mind that distressed circumstances in rotterdam had at length driven me to the resolution of committing suicide
it was not however that to life itself i had any positive disgust but that i was harassed beyond endurance by the adventitious miseries attending my situation in this state of mind wishing to live
yet wearied with life the treatise at the stall of the bookseller opened a resource to my imagination i then finally made up my mind i determined to depart yet live to leave the world yet continue to exist
in short to drop enigmas i resolved let what would ensue to force a passage if i could to the moon
to effect an entrance and they consulted accordingly whether they should keep sicily on their right and risk sailing in by sea
that might agree to join them go to syracuse by land finally they determined to sail for himera
and they sent and appointed a place for the selinuntines to meet them with all their forces a few troops were also promised by the geloans and some of the sicels
owing to the recent death of archonidas a powerful sicel king in that neighbourhood and friendly to athens and owing also to the vigour shown
some light troops and cavalry from selinus a few geloans and sicels numbering a thousand in all and set out on his march for syracuse
made all haste to arrive and one of their commanders gongylus starting last with a single ship was the first to reach syracuse a little before gylippus gongylus found the syracusans on the point of holding an assembly to consider whether they
should put an end to the war this he prevented and reassured them by telling them that more vessels were still to arrive and that gylippus son of cleandridas had been dispatched by the lacedaemonians to take the command
his arrival chanced at a critical moment the athenians had already finished a double wall of six or seven furlongs to the great harbour with the exception of a small portion
meanwhile the athenians recovering from the confusion into which they had
of gylippus and the syracusans formed in order of battle gylippus halted at a short distance off and sent on a herald to tell them that if they would evacuate sicily with bag and baggage within five days time he was willing to make a truce accordingly
the athenians treated this proposition with contempt and dismissed the herald without an answer after this both sides began to prepare for action gylippus observing that the syracusans were in disorder and did not easily fall into line
and passed the night there on the following day he led out the main body of his army and drawing them up in order of battle before the walls of the athenians to prevent their going to the relief of any other quarter dispatched a strong force against fort labdalum and took it
to the sword the place not being within sight of the athenians
guard at this point themselves disposing their confederates along the remainder of the works
to put out against them from the bottom of the great harbour besides this he now began to pay more attention to the war by sea seeing that the coming of gylippus had diminished their hopes by land
this was the first and chief occasion of the losses which the crews experienced the water which they used was scarce and had to be fetched from far
to prevent plundering incursions on the part of the athenians at plemmyrium
on the look out for them about locris and rhegium and the approach to sicily gylippus meanwhile went on with the wall across epipolae using the stones which the athenians had laid down
and a hand to hand fight ensued between the lines where the syracusan cavalry could be of no use and the syracusans and their allies were defeated and took up their dead under truce while the athenians erected a trophy
while with respect to moral advantages it were intolerable
and islanders with the motley rabble that accompanied them and of driving them out of the country after this he embraced the first opportunity that offered of again leading them against the enemy
now nicias and the athenians held the opinion that even if the syracusans should not wish to offer battle it was necessary for them to prevent the building of the cross wall as it already
gylippus led out his heavy infantry further from the fortifications than on the former occasion and so joined battle posting his horse and darters upon the flank of the athenians in the open space where the works of the two walls terminated during the engagement
the cavalry attacked and routed the left wing of the athenians
and driven headlong within their lines the night following the syracusans carried their wall up to the athenian works and passed them thus putting it out of their power any longer to stop them and depriving them even if victorious in the field
after this the remaining twelve vessels of the corinthians ambraciots and leucadians sailed into the harbour under the command
in any way that might offer either in merchant vessels or transports or in any other manner likely to prove successful
for reinforcements while the syracusans proceeded to man a fleet and to exercise meaning to try their fortune in this way also and generally became exceedingly confident nicias perceiving this and seeing the strength of the enemy and his own difficulties daily increasing
himself also sent to athens he had before sent frequent reports of events as they occurred and felt it especially incumbent upon him to do so now as he thought that they were in a critical position and that unless speedily recalled
or strongly reinforced from home they had no hope of safety he feared however that the messengers either through inability to speak or through failure of memory or from a wish to please the multitude might not report the truth
without its being lost in transmission and be able to decide upon the real facts of the case his emissaries accordingly departed with the letter and the requisite verbal instructions and he attended to the affairs of the army
making it his aim now to keep on the defensive and to avoid any unnecessary danger
when gylippus arrived from lacedaemon with an army obtained from peloponnese and from some of the cities in sicily in our first battle with him we were victorious in the battle on the following day we were overpowered by a multitude of cavalry and darters and compelled to retire within our lines
we have now therefore been forced by the numbers of those opposed to us to discontinue the work of circumvallation and to remain inactive being unable to make use even of all the force we have since a large portion of our heavy infantry
as we are prevented by their cavalry from even going for any distance into the country besides this an embassy has been dispatched to peloponnese to procure reinforcements and gylippus has gone to the cities in sicily
for i understand that they contemplate a combined attack upon our lines with their land forces and with their fleet by sea you must none of you be surprised that i say by sea also
indeed they may be seen exercising and it lies with them to take the initiative and not having to maintain a blockade they have greater facilities for drying their ships
of exhausting all our strength upon the blockade
it would become impossible the losses which our crews have suffered and still continue to suffer arise from the following causes
syracusan cavalry the loss of our previous superiority emboldens our slaves to desert our foreign seamen are impressed by the unexpected appearance of a navy against us
take the first opportunity of departing to their respective cities
or other of the various facilities of escape which the magnitude of sicily affords them some even engage in trade themselves and prevail upon the captains to take hyccaric slaves on board in their place
thus they have ruined the efficiency of our navy now i need not remind you that the time during which a crew is in its prime is short and that the number of sailors who can start a ship on her way and keep the rowing in time is small
but are compelled to depend both for supplying the crews in service
for our present confederates naxos and catana are incapable of supplying us there is only one thing more wanting to our opponents i mean the defection of our italian markets if they were to see you neglect to relieve us from our present condition
if it is desirable for you to know the real state of things here before taking your measures
to be told the best side of things and then to blame the teller if the expectations which he has raised in your minds are not answered by the result and i therefore thought it safest to declare to you the truth
with a large sum of money and someone to succeed me as a disease in the kidneys unfits me for retaining my post i have i think some claim on your indulgence
as the enemy will obtain his sicilian reinforcements shortly those from peloponnese after a longer interval and unless you attend to the matter the former will be here before you while the latter will elude you as they have done before such were the
when the athenians had heard it they refused to accept his resignation but chose him two colleagues
they also voted to send out another army and navy drawn partly from the athenians on the muster roll partly from the allies
with ten ships a hundred and twenty talents of silver and instructions to tell the army that reinforcements would arrive and that care would be taken of them
and sent for troops to the allies and meanwhile got together money ships and heavy infantry at home the athenians also sent twenty vessels round peloponnese to prevent any one crossing over to sicily from corinth or peloponnese
had not been without its use were now preparing to dispatch a force of heavy infantry
and at the instigation of the syracusans and corinthians who wished for an invasion to arrest the reinforcements
and a vigorous prosecution of the war but the lacedaemonians derived most encouragement from the belief that athens with two wars on her hands
would be more easy to subdue and from the conviction that she had been the first to infringe the truce in the former war they considered the offence had been more on their own side both on account of the entrance of the thebans
and whatever else had befallen them but when besides the ravages from pylos which went on without any intermission the thirty athenian ships came out from argos and wasted part of epidaurus
when upon every dispute that arose as to the interpretation of any doubtful point in the treaty their own offers of arbitration were always rejected by the athenians the lacedaemonians at length decided that athens had now committed the very same offence
king of the lacedaemonians they began by devastating the parts bordering upon the plain and next proceeded
their countrymen at home sent off at about the same time the heavy infantry in the merchant vessels to sicily the lacedaemonians furnishing a picked force of helots and
or freedmen six hundred heavy infantry in all under the command of eccritus
the sicyonians also sent off two hundred heavy infantry at same time as the corinthians under the command of sargeus a sicyonian
thus fulfilling the object for which they had been manned originally which was to divert the attention of the athenians from the merchantmen to the galleys
at the same time they dispatched demosthenes to sicily as they had intended
and accordingly sailed to aegina and there waited for the remainder of his armament and for charicles to fetch the argive troops in sicily about the same time in this spring gylippus came to syracuse with as many troops as he could bring from the cities
calling the syracusans together he told them that they must man as many ships as possible
by which he hoped to achieve an advantage in the war not unworthy of the risk with him hermocrates actively joined in trying to encourage his countrymen to attack the athenians at sea
saying that the latter had not inherited their naval prowess nor would they retain it for ever
upon their inexperience he accordingly urged them to throw aside their fears and to try their fortune at sea and the syracusans under the influence of gylippus and hermocrates and perhaps some others made up their minds for the sea fight and began to man their vessels
when the fleet was ready gylippus led out the whole army by night his plan being to assault in person the forts on plemmyrium by land while thirty five syracusan galleys sailed according to appointment against the enemy from the great harbour
the athenians quickly manned sixty ships and with twenty five of these engaged the thirty five of the syracusans in the great harbour sending the rest to meet those sailing round from the arsenal
maintained with equal tenacity on both sides
seeing the largest so easily taken at the fall of the first fort the men from it who succeeded in taking refuge in their boats and merchantmen found great difficulty in reaching the camp as the syracusans
were having the best of it in the engagement in the great harbour and sent a fast sailing galley to pursue them
with more ease the syracusan ships fighting off the mouth of the harbour forced their way through the athenian vessels and sailing in without any order fell foul of one another and transferred the victory to the athenians
who not only routed the squadron in question but also that by which they were at first being defeated in the harbour sinking eleven of the syracusan vessels and killing most of the men except the crews of three ships whom they made prisoners
their own loss was confined to three vessels and after hauling ashore the syracusan wrecks and setting up a trophy upon the
they razed but put in order and garrisoned the two others in the capture of the forts a great many men were killed and made prisoners and a great quantity of property was taken in all
as the athenians had used them as a magazine there was a large stock of goods and corn of the merchants inside and also a large stock belonging to the captains the masts and other furniture of forty galleys being taken besides three galleys which had been drawn up on shore
and nothing could be brought in without fighting besides the general impression of dismay and discouragement produced upon the army after this the syracusans sent out twelve ships under the command of agatharchus a syracusan
one of these went to peloponnese with ambassadors to describe the hopeful state of their affairs and to incite the peloponnesians to prosecute the war there
while the eleven others sailed to italy hearing that vessels laden
territory a quantity of timber for shipbuilding which had
went to locri and one of the merchantmen from peloponnese coming in while they were at anchor there carrying thespian heavy infantry took these on board and sailed alongshore towards home
the athenians were on the look out for them with twenty ships at megara but were only able to take one vessel with its crew the rest getting clear off to syracuse
the athenians brought up to them a ship of ten thousand talents burden furnished with wooden turrets and screens and fastened ropes round the piles from their boats wrenched them up and broke them or dived down and sawed them in two
meanwhile the syracusans plied them with missiles from the docks
so that it was dangerous to sail up for fear of running the ships upon them just as upon a reef through not seeing them however divers went down and sawed off even these for reward although the syracusans drove in others
indeed there was no end to the contrivances to which they resorted against each other as might be expected between two hostile armies confronting each other at such a short distance and skirmishes and all kinds of other attempts were of constant occurrence
meanwhile the syracusans sent embassies to the cities composed of corinthians ambraciots and lacedaemonians
than to their own disorder and generally
as the athenians were expected with a fresh army and if the one already there could be destroyed before the other arrived the war would be at an end while the contending parties in sicily were thus engaged demosthenes having now got together
the armament with which he was to go to the island
a sort of isthmus to which the helots
and so to proceed without delay to sicily while charicles waited until he had completed the fortification of the place and leaving a garrison there returned home subsequently with his thirty ships and the argives also
this same summer arrived at athens thirteen hundred targeteers thracian swordsmen of the tribe of the dii who were to have sailed to sicily with demosthenes since they had come too late the athenians determined to send them back to thrace whence they had come
too expensive as the pay of each man was a drachma a day
rest of the time the enemy was now permanently fixed in attica at one time it was an attack in force at another it was the regular garrison
was in the field and diligently prosecuting the war great mischief was therefore done to the athenians they were deprived of their whole country more than twenty thousand slaves had deserted a great part of them artisans and all their sheep and beasts of burden were lost
and to guard the country their horses were either lamed by being constantly worked upon rocky ground or wounded by the enemy
the cavalry excepted at the different military posts or upon the wall but what
which no one would have believed possible if he had heard of it before it had come to pass for could any one have imagined that even when besieged by the peloponnesians entrenched in attica they would still instead of withdrawing from sicily
stay on there besieging in like manner syracuse a town taken as a town in no way inferior to athens or would so thoroughly upset the hellenic estimate of their strength and audacity as to give the spectacle of a people which at the beginning of the war
some thought might hold out one year some two none more than three if the peloponnesians invaded their country now seventeen years after the first invasion after having already suffered from all the evils of war
going to sicily and undertaking a new war nothing inferior to that which they already had with the peloponnesians these causes
produced their financial embarrassment and it was at this time that they imposed upon their subjects instead of the tribute the tax of a twentieth upon all imports and exports by sea which they thought would bring them in more money their expenditure being now
not the same as at first but having grown with the war while their revenues decayed accordingly not wishing to incur expense in their present want of money they sent back at once the thracians who came too late for demosthenes
to make use of them if possible in the voyage alongshore to injure the enemy
led them against mycalessus the night he passed unobserved near the temple of hermes not quite two miles from mycalessus and at daybreak assaulted and took the town which is not a large one the inhabitants being off their guard and not expecting that any one would ever come up
and unapproached by any in suddenness and in horror
where the vessels which brought them were lying the greatest slaughter took place while they were embarking as they did not know how to swim and those in the vessels on seeing
a good number who were after plunder were actually caught in the town and put to death altogether the thracians had two hundred and fifty killed out of thirteen hundred
boeotarchs the mycalessians lost a large proportion of their population while mycalessus thus experienced a calamity for its extent as lamentable as any that happened in the war
after this arriving at zacynthus and cephallenia he took a body of heavy infantry on board and sending for some of the messenians
to alyzia and to anactorium
during the winter with the money for the army
here also conon came to them the commander at naupactus with news that the twenty five corinthian ships stationed opposite to him far from giving over the war were meditating an engagement
demosthenes and eurymedon accordingly sent ten of their best sailers with conon
and meanwhile prepared for the muster of their forces
who escaped were conducted to syracuse about the same time the camarinaeans also came to the assistance of syracuse with five hundred heavy infantry three hundred darters and as many archers while the geloans sent crews for five ships four hundred darters and two hundred horse
indeed almost the whole of sicily except the agrigentines who were neutral now ceased merely to watch events as it had hitherto done and actively joined syracuse against the athenians while the syracusans after the sicel disaster
put off any immediate attack upon the athenians demosthenes and eurymedon
promontory and starting from thence
where they took on board a hundred and fifty
who had furnished them with the darters arrived at metapontium in italy here they persuaded their allies the metapontines to send with them three hundred darters and two galleys and with this reinforcement coasted on to thurii
where they found the party hostile to athens recently expelled
and accordingly remained there to muster and review the whole army to see if any had been left behind and to prevail upon the thurians resolutely to join them in their expedition
to sicily had got ready for engaging and manning some additional vessels so as to be numerically little inferior
the place off which they lay being in the form of a crescent the land forces furnished by the corinthians and their allies on the spot came up and ranged themselves upon the projecting headlands on either side while the fleet
a corinthian held the intervening space and blocked up the entrance the athenians under diphilus now sailed out against them with thirty three ships from naupactus and the corinthians
whose cheeks had been strengthened for this very purpose after an action of this even character in which either party could claim the victory
the corinthians not putting out again to meet them the two combatants parted no pursuit took place and no prisoners were made on either side
the athenians now sailed back to naupactus and the corinthians immediately set up a trophy as victors because they had disabled a greater number of the enemy's ships
about two miles and a quarter from erineus the corinthian station this was the termination
in addition to other improvements suggested by the former sea fight which they now adopted in the equipment of their navy they cut down their prows to a smaller compass to make them more solid and made their cheeks stouter and from these let stays into the vessels sides
in the same way as the corinthians had altered their prows before engaging the squadron at naupactus the syracusans thought that they would thus have an advantage over the athenian vessels which were not constructed with equal strength but were slight in the bows
from their being more used to sail round and charge the enemy's side than to meet him prow to prow
with a great many ships in not much room was also a fact in their favour charging prow to prow they would stave in the enemy's bows by
and secondly the athenians for want of room would be unable to use their favourite manoeuvre of breaking the line or of sailing round as the syracusans would do their best not to let them do the one and want of room would prevent their doing the other
this charging prow to prow which had hitherto been thought want of skill in a helmsman would be the syracusans chief manoeuvre as being that which they should find most useful
and that only for a little way and in the little space in front of their own camp
and the athenians if hard pressed by crowding together in a small space and all to the same point would run foul of one another
they not having like the syracusans the whole harbour to retreat over
a little the first and brought them up to the wall of the athenians
that is to say the heavy infantry that
and allies sailing out immediately afterwards
retiring from the lines the next day the syracusans remained quiet and gave no signs of what they were going to do but nicias seeing that the battle had been a drawn one and expecting that they would attack again compelled the captains to refit any of the ships that had suffered
from each other in order that any ship that was hard pressed might be able to retreat in safety and sail out again at leisure these preparations occupied the athenians all day until nightfall
to send to the officials in the city and tell them to move the sale market as quickly as they could down to the sea
and shortly afterwards the selfsame day to attack the athenians again when they were not expecting it in compliance with this advice a messenger was sent and the market got ready upon which the syracusans suddenly backed water and withdrew to the town
suddenly the syracusans had manned their ships and again sailed against them and the athenians in great confusion and most of them fasting got on board and with great difficulty put out to meet them for some time both parties remained on the defensive without engaging
until the athenians at last resolved not to let themselves be worn out by waiting where they were but to attack without delay and giving a cheer went into action the syracusans received them and charging prow to prow as they had intended
and sailed against their sides and discharged from thence their darts upon the sailors
at the sound of footsteps along the hall miss terry looked up from the letter which she was reading for the sixth time of course i would not see him she said pursing her lips into a hard line certainly not
as from an opposing knee did duty for a knock bring the box in here norah said miss terry holding open the door for her servant who was gasping under the weight of a packing case
set it down on the rug by the fire place i am going to look it over and burn up the rubbish this evening she glanced once more at the letter in her hand then with a sniff tossed it upon the fire yes'm
said norah as she set down the box with a thump she stooped once more to pick up something which had fallen out when the cover was jarred open
such as are often hung from the top of christmas trees as a crowning symbol norah stood holding it between thumb and finger staring amazedly who would think to find such a bit of frivolity in the house of miss terry
her mistress looked up from the fire where the bit of writing was writhing painfully and caught the expression of norah's face what have you there she asked frowning
as she took the object into her own hands the christmas angel she exclaimed under her breath i had quite forgotten it then as if it burned her fingers
she thrust the little image back into the box and turned to norah brusquely there that's all you can go now norah she said yes'm answered the maid she hesitated if you please'm
it's christmas eve well i believe so snapped miss terry who seemed to be in a particularly bad humor this evening what do you want norah flushed but she was hardened to her mistress's manner
only to ask if i may go out for a little while to see the decorations and hear the singing decorations singing fiddlestick retorted miss terry poker in hand what decorations
what singing why all the windows along the street are full of candles answered norah rows of candles in every house to light the christ child on his way when he comes through the city to night fiddlestick
again snarled her mistress and choir boys are going about the streets they say singing carols in front of the lighted houses continued norah enthusiastically it must sound so pretty
they had much better be at home in bed i believe people are losing their minds please'm may i go asked norah again norah had no puritanic traditions to her account
moreover she was young and warm and enthusiastic sometimes the spell of miss terry's sombre house threatened her to the point of desperation it was so this christmas eve
but she made her request with apparent calmness yes go along assented her mistress ungraciously thank you m said the servant demurely but with a brightening of her blue eyes and presently
muttered miss terry giving the fire a vicious poke she was alone in the house on christmas eve and not a man woman or child in the world cared well it was what she wanted
it was of her own doing if she had wished she sat back in her chair with thin long hands lying along the arms of it gazing into the fire a bit of paper there was crumbling into ashes
alone on christmas eve even norah had some relation with the world outside was there not a stalwart officer waiting for her on the nearest corner
even norah could feel a simple childish pleasure in candles and carols and merriment and the old old superstition stuff and nonsense mused miss terry scornfully
what is our christmas anyway a time for shopkeepers to sell and for foolish folks to kill themselves in buying christmas spirit no it is all humbug all selfishness and worry
i am glad i am out of it i am glad no one expects anything of me nor i of any one i am quite independent blessedly independent of the whole foolish business
it is a good time to begin clearing up for the new year i'm glad i thought of it i've long threatened to get rid of the stuff that has been accumulating in that corner of the attic now i will begin
she tugged the packing case an inch nearer the fire it was like miss terry to insist upon that nearer inch then she raised the cover
it was a box full of children's battered toys old fashioned and quaint the toys in vogue thirty forty fifty years earlier when miss terry was a child she gave a reminiscent sniff as she threw up the cover
she snorted there was a great deal in that humph it meant
while poor little angelina had to squeeze in as well as she could how like tom this accounted for everything even to his not being in his sister's house this very night how unreasonable he had been
miss terry shrugged impatiently why think of tom to night years ago he had deliberately cut himself adrift from her interests no need to think of him now it was too late to appease her
but here were all these toys to be got rid of the fire was hungry for them why not begin miss terry stooped to poke over the contents of the box with lean long fingers
in one corner thrust up a doll's arm in another an animal's tail pointed heavenward she caught glimpses of glitter and tinsel
what rubbish she said yes i'll burn them all they are good for nothing else i suppose some folks would try to give them away and bore a lot of people to death they seem to think they are saving something that way
nonsense i know better it is all foolishness this craze for giving most things are better destroyed as soon as you are done with them why nobody wants such truck as this
now could any child ever have cared for so silly a thing she pulled out a faded jumping jack and regarded it scornfully idiotic such toys are demoralizing for children weaken their minds
it is a shame to think how every one seems bound to spoil children especially at christmas time well no one can say that i have added to the shameful waste miss terry tossed the poor jumping jack on the fire
and eyed his last contortions with grim satisfaction but as she watched a quaint idea came to her she was famous for eccentric ideas i will try an experiment
she said i will prove once for all my point about the christmas spirit i will drop some of these old toys out on the sidewalk and see what happens it may be interesting
chapter two jack in the box miss terry rose and crossed two rooms to the front window looking out upon the street
a flare of light almost blinded her eyes every window opposite her along the block as far as she could see was illuminated with a row of lighted candles across the sash
the soft unusual glow threw into relief the pretty curtains and wreaths of green and gave glimpses of cosy interiors and flitting happy figures what a waste of candles scolded miss terry
folks are growing terribly extravagant the street was white with snow which had fallen a few hours earlier piled in drifts along the curb of the little traveled terrace
but the sidewalks were neatly shoveled and swept clean as became the eminently respectable part of the city where miss terry lived a long flight of steps with iron railing at the side led down from the front door
announced the name of terry miss terry returned to the play box and drew out between thumb and finger the topmost toy it happened to be a wooden box with a wire hasp for fastening the cover
half unconsciously she pressed the spring and a hideous jack in the box sprang out to confront her with a squeak a leering smile and a red nose miss terry eyed him with disfavor
i always did hate that thing she said tom was continually frightening me with it i remember as if to be rid of unwelcome memories she shut her mouth tight
even as she shut jack back into his box snapping the spring into place this will do to begin with she thought she crossed to the window which she opened quickly and tossed out the box
so that it fell squarely in the middle of the sidewalk then closing the window and turning down the lights in the room behind her miss terry hid in the folds of the curtain and watched to see what would happen to jack
the street was quiet few persons passed on either side at last she spied two little ragamuffins approaching
the smaller boy first caught sight of the box in the middle of the sidewalk
he grunted making a dash upon it gee wot's up responded the other who was instantly at his elbow gwan
the smaller boy drew away and pressed the spring of the box eagerly
out popped the jack into his astonished face whereupon he set up a guffaw give it here commanded the bigger boy naw you let it alone it's mine asserted the other
edging away along the curbstone i saw it first you can't have it give it here i saw it first myself hand it over or i'll smash you the bigger boy advanced threateningly
i won't the other whimpered clasping the box tightly under his jacket he started to run but the bigger fellow was too quick for him he pounced across the sidewalk
and soon the twain were struggling in the snowdrift pummeling one another with might and main i told you so commented miss terry from behind the curtain
here's the first show of the beautiful christmas spirit that is supposed to be abroad look at the little beasts fighting over something that neither of them really wants
just then miss terry spied a blue coated figure leisurely approaching at the same moment an instinct seemed to warn the struggling urchins cop said a muffled voice from the pile of arms and legs
and in an instant two black shadows were flitting down the street but not before the bigger boy had wrenched the box from the pocket of the little chap so that is the end of experiment number one
quoth miss terry smiling grimly it happened just about as i expected they will be fighting again as soon as they are out of sight they are jews but that doesn't make any difference about the christmas spirit
now let's see what becomes of the next experiment chapter three the flanton dog she returned to the play box by the fire
and rummaged for a few minutes among the tangled toys then with something like a chuckle she drew out a soft pale creature with four wobbly legs the flanton dog she said well i vow
i had forgotten all about him it was tom who coined the name for him because he was made of canton flannel she stood the thing up on the table as well as his weak legs would allow and inspected him critically
he certainly was a forlorn specimen one of the black beads which had served him for eyes was gone his ears which had originally stood up saucily on his head now drooped in limp dejection
one of them was a mere shapeless rag hanging by a thread he was dirty and discolored and his tail was gone but still he smiled with his red thread mouth and seemed trying to make the best of things
said miss terry contemptuously i know there isn't a child in the city who wants such a looking thing why even the animal rescue folks would give the boys a free shot at that
this isn't going to bring out any christmas spirit she sneered i will try it and see once more she lifted the window and tossed the dog to the sidewalk
he rolled upon his back and lay pathetically with crooked legs yearning upward still smiling hardly had miss terry time to conceal herself behind the curtain when she saw a figure approaching airily waving a stick
no ragamuffin this time she said hello it is that good for nothing young cooper fellow from the next block they say he is a millionaire well he isn't even going to see the flanton dog
the young man came swinging along debonairly he was whistling under his breath he was a dapper figure in a long coat and a silk hat under which the candles lighted a rather silly face
when he reached the spot in the sidewalk where the flanton dog lay he paused a moment looking down then he poked the object with his stick on the other side of the street a mother and her little boy were passing at the time
the child's eyes caught sight of the dog on the sidewalk and he hung back watching to see what the young man would do to it but his mother drew him after her just then an automobile came panting through the snow
with a quick movement cooper picked up the dog on the end of his stick and tossed it into the street under the wheels of the machine the baby across the street uttered a howl of anguish at the sight
miss terry herself was surprised to feel a pang shoot through her as the car passed over the queer old toy she retreated from the window quickly well that's the end of flanton
she said with half a sigh i knew that fellow was a brute i might have expected something like that but it looked so so she hesitated for a word and did not finish her sentence
but bit her lip and sniffed cynically chapter four
now what comes next miss terry rummaged in the box until her fingers met something odd shaped long and smooth sided with some difficulty she drew out the object
she said i wonder if all the animals are in there she lifted the cover and turned out into her lap the long imprisoned animals and their round bodied chief
missus noah and her sons had long since disappeared but the ark builder hatless and one armed still presided over a menagerie of sorry beasts
to few of them the years had spared a tail from their close resemblance in their misery it was not hard to believe in the kinship of all animal life she took them up and examined them curiously one by one
finally she selected a shapeless slate colored block from the mass this was the elephant she mused i remember when tom stepped on him and smashed his trunk
i guess i'm going to be an expressman when i grow up he said looking sorry tom was always full of his jokes now i'll try this and see what happens to the ark on its last voyage
just then there was a noise outside an automobile honked past and miss terry shuddered recalling the pathetic end of the flanton dog which had given her quite a turn
i hate those horrid machines she exclaimed they seem like juggernaut i'd like to forbid their going through this street she crowded the elephant with noah and the rest of his charge back into the ark
and closed the lid i can't throw this out of the window she reflected they would spill i must take it out on the sidewalk land the fire's going out
that girl doesn't know how to build fires so they will keep she laid the noah's ark on the table and going to the closet tugged out several big logs which she arranged geometrically
about laying fires as about most other things miss terry had her own positive theories taking the bellows in hand she blew furiously and was presently rewarded with a brisk blaze
she smiled with satisfaction and trotted upstairs to find her red knit shawl with this about her shoulders she was prepared to brave the december frost down the steps she went
and deposited the ark discreetly at their foot then returned to take up her position behind the curtains there were a good many people passing but they seemed too preoccupied to glance down at the sidewalk
they were nearly all hurrying in one direction some were running in the middle of the street they are in a great hurry sniffed miss terry disdainfully one would think they had something really important on hand
i suppose they are going to hear the singing fiddlestick a man hastened by under the window a woman two children a boy and a girl running and gesticulating eagerly
none of them noticed the noah's ark lying at the foot of the steps miss terry began to grow impatient are they all blind she fretted what is the matter with them
i wish somebody would find the thing i am tired of seeing it lying there she tapped the floor impatiently with her slipper just then a woman approached
she was dressed in the most uncompromising of mourning and she walked slowly with bent head never glancing at the lighted windows on either side she will see it commented miss terry
and sure enough she did she stopped at the doorstep drew her skirts aside and bent over to look at the strange shaped box at her feet finally she lifted it but immediately
she shivered and acted so strangely that miss terry thought she was about to break the toy in pieces on the steps or throw it into the street evidently she detested the sight of it just then
up came a second woman with two small boys hanging at her skirts they were ragged and sick looking there was something about the expression of even the tiny knot of hair at the back of the woman's head which told of anxious poverty
with envious curiosity she hurried up to see what a luckier mortal had found crowding to look over her shoulder the woman in black drew haughtily away and clutched the noah's ark with a gesture of proprietorship
miss terry read her expression and sniffed there is the christmas spirit coming out again she said to herself look at her face the black gowned woman prepared to move on with the toy under her arm
but the second woman caught hold of her skirt and began to speak earnestly she pointed to the noah's ark then to her two children her eyes were beseeching the little boys crowded forward eagerly
but some wicked spirit seemed to have seized the finder of the ark angrily she shook off the hand of the other woman and clutching the box yet more firmly under her arm she hurried away
once twice she turned and shook her head at the ragged woman who followed her then with a savage gesture at the two children she disappeared beyond miss terry's straining eyes
the poor woman and her boys followed forlornly at a distance they really wanted it that old noah's ark exclaimed miss terry in amazement i can scarcely believe it but why did that other creature keep the thing
but indicating both as i hobble down here and sit by the silent pond how different from the excitement amid which in the cities millions of people are now waiting news of yesterday's presidential election
or receiving and discussing the result in this secluded place uncared for unknown crows and crows
indeed a principal feature of the scene to day is these crows their incessant cawing far or near and their countless flocks and processions moving from place to place and at times almost darkening the air with their myriads
as i sit a moment writing this by the bank i see the black clear cut reflection of them far below flying through the watery looking glass by ones twos or long strings
all last night i heard the noises from their great roost in a neighboring wood a winter day on the sea beach one bright december mid day lately i spent down on the new jersey sea shore
how much better it makes the victuals taste and then assimilate strengthen you perhaps make the whole day comfortable afterwards five or six miles at the last our track enter'd a broad region of salt grass meadows intersected by lagoons
and cut up everywhere by watery runs the sedgy perfume delightful to my nostrils reminded me of the mash and south bay of my native island i could have journey'd contentedly till night
through these flat and odorous sea prairies from half past eleven till two i was nearly all the time along the beach or in sight of the ocean listening to its hoarse murmur and inhaling the bracing and welcome breezes
first a rapid five mile drive over the hard sand our carriage wheels hardly made dents in it then after dinner as there were nearly two hours to spare
a dry area of sedge and indian grass immediately before and around me space simple unornamented space distant vessels and the far off just visible trailing smoke
of an inward bound steamer more plainly ships
set to the firm and steady wind the attractions fascinations there are in sea and shore how one dwells on their simplicity even vacuity what is it in us arous'd by those indirections and directions
that spread of waves and gray white beach salt monotonous senseless such an entire absence of art books talk elegance
so indescribably comforting even this winter day grim yet so delicate looking so spiritual striking emotional impalpable depths subtler than all the poems paintings
music i have ever read seen heard yet let me be fair perhaps it is because i have read those poems and heard that music sea shore fancies
and each made portion of the other hours days in my long island youth and early manhood i haunted the shores of rockaway or coney island or away east to the hamptons or montauk once at the latter place
by the old lighthouse nothing but sea tossings in sight in every direction as far as the eye could reach i remember well i felt that i must one day write a book expressing this liquid mystic theme afterward
i recollect how it came to me that instead of any special lyrical or epical or literary attempt the sea shore should be an invisible influence a pervading gauge and tally for me in my composition
let me give a hint here to young writers i am not sure but i have unwittingly follow'd out the same rule with other powers besides sea and shores avoiding them
in the way of any dead set at poetizing them as too big for formal handling quite satisfied if i could indirectly show that we have met and fused even if only once but enough
that we have really absorb'd each other and understand each other there is a dream a picture that for years at intervals sometimes quite long ones but surely again in time has come noiselessly up before me
and i really believe fiction as it is has enter'd largely into my practical life certainly into my writings and shaped and color'd them it is nothing more or less than a stretch of interminable white brown sand
hard and smooth and broad with the ocean perpetually grandly rolling in upon it with slow measured sweep with rustle and hiss and foam
and many a thump as of low bass drums this scene this picture i say has risen before me at times for years sometimes i wake at night and can hear and see it plainly
spoken at lincoln hall philadelphia sunday january twenty eighth seventy seven for one hundred fortieth anniversary
some thirty five years ago in new york city at tammany hall of which place i was then a frequenter i happen'd to become quite well acquainted with thomas paine's perhaps most intimate chum
and certainly his later years very frequent companion a remarkably fine old man colonel fellows who may yet be remember'd by some stray relics of that period and spot if you will allow me i will first give
a description of the colonel himself he was tall of military bearing aged about seventy eight i should think hair white as snow clean shaved on the face dress'd very neatly
a tail coat of blue cloth with metal buttons buff vest pantaloons of drab color and his neck breast and wrists showing the whitest of linen under all circumstances fine manners
a good but not profuse talker his wits still fully about him balanced and live and undimm'd as ever he kept pretty fair health though so old for employment for he was poor
he had a post as constable of some of the upper courts i used to think him very picturesque on the fringe of a crowd holding a tall staff with his erect form and his superb bare thick hair'd closely cropt white head
and the instincts of absolute justice remain'd vital anywhere about new york city hall or tammany they were to be found in colonel fellows he liked young men and enjoy'd to leisurely talk with them over a social glass of toddy after his day's work
at one of our interviews he gave me a minute account of paine's sickness and death in short from those talks i was and am satisfied that my old friend with his mark'd advantages had mentally morally and emotionally gauged the author
of common sense and besides giving me a good portrait of his appearance and manners had taken the true measure of his interior character paine's practical demeanor and much of his theoretical belief
was a mixture of the french and english schools of a century ago and the best of both like most old fashion'd people he drank a glass or two every day but was no tippler nor intemperate let alone being a drunkard
he lived simply and economically but quite well was always cheery and courteous perhaps occasionally a little blunt having very positive opinions upon politics religion and so forth
that he labor'd well and wisely for the states in the trying period of their parturition and in the seeds of their character there seems to me no question i dare not say how much of what our union is owning and enjoying to day
i am sure of it of the foul and foolish fictions yet told about the circumstances of his decease the absolute fact is that as he lived a good life after its kind he died calmly and philosophically as became him
he served the embryo union with most precious service a service that every man woman and child in our thirty eight states is to some extent receiving the benefit of to day and i for one here cheerfully reverently
that she well preserve their fame if unquestion'd or if need be that she fail not to dissipate what clouds have intruded on that fame and burnish it newer truer and brighter continually
is also first point of all in a winter steamboat with long stretches of ice packs to tackle for over two hours we bump'd and beat about the invisible ebb sluggish but irresistible
for miles north and south ice ice ice mostly broken but some big cakes and no clear water in sight the shores
piers surfaces roofs shipping mantled with snow a faint winter vapor hung a fitting accompaniment around and over the endless whitish spread and gave it just a tinge
of steel and brown february six as i cross home in the six p m boat again the transparent shadows are filled everywhere with leisurely falling
slightly slanting curiously sparse but very large flakes of snow on the shores near and far the glow of just lit gas clusters at intervals
so distinctly spring overtures recreations
the first chirping almost singing of a bird to day then i noticed a couple of honey bees spirting and humming about the open window in the sun february eleven in the soft rose and pale gold of the declining light
standing on end february twenty a solitary and pleasant sundown hour at the pond exercising arms chest my whole body
by a tough oak sapling thick as my wrist twelve feet high pulling and pushing inspiring the good air after i wrestle with the tree awhile i can feel its young sap and virtue
or inflate my lungs and sing the wild tunes and refrains i heard of the blacks down south or patriotic songs i learn'd in the army i make the echoes ring i tell you as the twilight fell in a pause of these ebullitions
an owl somewhere the other side of the creek sounded too oo oo oo oo soft and pensive and i fancied a little sarcastic repeated four or five times
i never am and others tell me the same of themselves confidentially for somebody to appear or start up out of the earth or from behind some tree or rock is it a lingering inherited remains of man's primitive wariness
from the wild animals or from his savage ancestry far back it is not at all nervousness or fear seems as if something unknown were possibly lurking in those bushes or solitary places
nay it is quite certain there is some vital unseen presence an afternoon scene february twenty two
last night and to day rainy and thick till mid afternoon when the wind chopp'd round the clouds swiftly drew off like curtains the clear appear'd and with it the fairest grandest
most wondrous rainbow i ever saw all complete very vivid at its earth ends spreading vast effusions of illuminated haze violet yellow drab green
in all directions overhead through which the sun beam'd an indescribable utterance of color and light so gorgeous yet so soft such as i had never witness'd before then its continuance
dominating the esthetic and soul senses sumptuously tenderly full i end this note by the pond just light enough to see through the evening shadows the western reflections
in its water mirror surface with inverted figures of trees i hear now and then the flup of a pike leaping out and rippling the water the gates opening april sixth
palpable spring indeed or the indications of it i am sitting in bright sunshine at the edge of the creek the surface just rippled by the wind all is solitude morning freshness negligence
for companions my two kingfishers sailing winding darting dipping sometimes capriciously separate then flying together i hear their guttural twittering again and again for awhile nothing but that peculiar sound
as noon approaches other birds warm up the reedy notes of the robin and a musical passage of two parts one a clear delicious gurgle with several other birds i cannot place to which is join'd yes i just hear it
one low purr at intervals from some impatient hylas at the pond edge the sibilant murmur of a pretty stiff breeze now and then through the trees then a poor little dead leaf long frost bound
and over all a wonderfully fine dome of clear blue the play of light coming and going and great fleeces of white clouds swimming so silently the common earth
the soil the soil too let others pen and ink the sea the air as i sometimes try but now i feel to choose the common soil for theme naught else
the brown soil here just between winter close and opening spring and vegetation the rain shower at night and the fresh smell next morning the red worms wriggling out of the ground
the dead leaves the incipient grass and the latent life underneath the effort to start something already in shelter'd spots some little flowers the distant emerald show of winter wheat and the rye fields
the yet naked trees with clear insterstices giving prospects hidden in summer the tough fallow and the plow team
hopping or perch'd on trees never before have i seen heard or been in the midst of and got so flooded and saturated with them and their performances as this current month such oceans such successions of them
quawks wrens
chapter eighteen prince bagration having reached the highest point of our right flank began riding downhill to where the roll of musketry was heard but where on account of the smoke nothing could be seen
the nearer they got to the hollow the less they could see but the more they felt the nearness of the actual battlefield they began to meet wounded men one with a bleeding head and no cap was being dragged along by two soldiers
groaning aloud and swinging his arm which had just been hurt while blood from it was streaming over his greatcoat as from a bottle he had that moment been wounded and his face showed fear rather than suffering
crossing a road they descended a steep incline and saw several men lying on the ground they also met a crowd of soldiers some of whom were unwounded the soldiers were ascending the hill breathing heavily and despite the general's presence were talking loudly and gesticulating
in front of them rows of gray cloaks were already visible through the smoke and an officer catching sight of bagration rushed shouting after the crowd of retreating soldiers ordering them back
bagration rode up to the ranks along which shots crackled now here and now there drowning the sound of voices and the shouts of command the whole air reeked with smoke the excited faces of the soldiers were blackened with it
some were using their ramrods others putting powder on the touchpans or taking charges from their pouches while others were firing though who they were firing at could not be seen for the smoke which there was no wind to carry away
a pleasant humming and whistling of bullets were often heard what is this thought prince andrew approaching the crowd of soldiers it can't be an attack for they are not moving it can't be a square for they are not drawn up for that
he reported that his regiment had been attacked by french cavalry and that though the attack had been repulsed he had lost more than half his men he said the attack had been repulsed employing this military term
to describe what had occurred to his regiment but in reality he did not himself know what had happened during that half hour to the troops entrusted to him and could not say with certainty whether the attack had been repulsed or his regiment had been broken up
all he knew was that at the commencement of the action balls and shells began flying all over his regiment and hitting men and that afterwards someone had shouted cavalry and our men had begun firing they were still firing
he ordered him to bring down the two battalions of the sixth chasseurs whom they had just passed prince andrew was struck by the changed expression on prince bagration's face at this moment it expressed the concentrated
and happy resolution you see on the face of a man who on a hot day takes a final run before plunging into the water the dull sleepy expression was no longer there nor the affectation of profound thought
the round steady hawk's eyes looked before him eagerly and rather disdainfully not resting on anything although his movements were still slow and measured
glancing for support at an officer of the suite who turned away from him there you see and he drew attention to the bullets whistling singing and hissing continually around them
he spoke in the tone of entreaty and reproach that a carpenter uses to a gentleman who has picked up an ax we are used to it but you sir will blister your hands he spoke as if those bullets could not kill him
and his half closed eyes gave still more persuasiveness to his words the staff officer joined in the colonel's appeals but bagration did not reply he only gave an order to cease firing and re form
so as to give room for the two approaching battalions while he was speaking the curtain of smoke that had concealed the hollow
one could already see the soldiers shaggy caps distinguish the officers from the men and see the standard flapping against its staff they march splendidly remarked someone in bagration's suite
the head of the column had already descended into the hollow the clash would take place on this side of it the remains of our regiment which had been in action rapidly formed up and moved to the right
from behind it dispersing the laggards
in fine order before they had reached bagration the weighty tread of the mass of men marching in step could be heard on their left flank nearest to bagration marched a company commander a fine round faced man
with a stupid and happy expression the same man who had rushed out of the wattle shed at that moment he was clearly thinking of nothing but how dashing a fellow he would appear as he passed the commander
with the self satisfaction of a man on parade he stepped lightly with his muscular legs as if sailing along stretching himself to his full height without the smallest effort his ease contrasting
with the heavy tread of the soldiers who were keeping step with him he carried close to his leg a narrow unsheathed sword small curved and not like a real weapon and looked now at the superior officers
and now back at the men without losing step his whole powerful body turning flexibly it was as if all the powers of his soul were concentrated on passing the commander in the best possible manner
and feeling that he was doing it well he was happy left left left he seemed to repeat to himself at each alternate step and in time to this with stern but varied faces
a cannon ball cleaving the air flew over the heads of bagration and his suite and fell into the column to the measure of left left close up came the company commander's voice in jaunty tones
the soldiers passed in a semicircle round something where the ball had fallen and an old trooper on the flank a noncommissioned officer who had stopped beside the dead men ran to catch up his line and falling into step with a hop
looked back angrily and through the ominous silence and the regular tramp of feet beating the ground in unison one seemed to hear left left left well done lads said prince bagration
a morose soldier marching on the left turned his eyes on bagration as he shouted with an expression that seemed to say we know that ourselves another without looking round as though fearing to relax
shouted with his mouth wide open and passed on the order was given to halt and down knapsacks bagration rode round the ranks that had marched past him and dismounted
he gave the reins to a cossack took off and handed over his felt coat stretched his legs and set his cap straight the head of the french column with its officers leading appeared from below the hill forward
with god said bagration in a resolute sonorous voice turning for a moment to the front line and slightly swinging his arms he went forward uneasily over the rough field with the awkward gait of a cavalryman
prince andrew felt that an invisible power was leading him forward and experienced great happiness the french were already near prince andrew walking beside bagration
could clearly distinguish their bandoliers red epaulets and even their faces he distinctly saw an old french officer who with gaitered legs and turned out toes climbed the hill with difficulty
and musket shots sounded several of our men fell among them the round faced officer who had marched so gaily and complacently but at the moment the first report was heard bagration looked round and shouted
in a tiny cottage near the king's palace there once lived an old man his wife and his son a very lazy fellow who would never do a stroke of work he could not be got even to look after their one cow
but left her to look after herself while he lay on a bank and went to sleep in the sun for a long time his father bore with him hoping that as he grew older he might gain more sense but at last the old man's patience was worn out
and must go out into the world to seek his fortune
at length he came to a large house at the door of which he knocked what do you want asked the old man who opened it and the youth told him how his father had turned him out of his house because he was so lazy and stupid and he needed shelter for the night
that you shall have replied the man but to morrow i shall give you some work to do for you must know that i am the chief herdsman of the king the youth made no answer to this
but as he did not see any other way of getting a bed he went slowly in the herdsman's two daughters and their mother were sitting at supper and invited him to join them nothing more was said about work and when the meal was over they all went to bed
oh i am used to that answered the youth yes but this time you will have to do it properly said the herdsman and he took the youth to the place where the pigs were feeding
asked the old man in surprise when his son knocked at the door of the hut he had left only the day before they belong to the king's chief herdsman answered his son
now make the best of your good fortune and kill them and hang them up at once
cried the father pale with horror we should certainly both be put to death if i did any such thing no no do as i tell you and i will get out of it somehow replied the young man and in the end he had his way the pigs were killed and laid side by side in a row
then he cut off the tails and tied them together with a piece of cord and swinging the bundle over his back he returned to the place where they should have been feeding
and finding a large stone he fastened the rope to it and sank it in the swamp after which he arranged the tails carefully one by one so that only their points were seen sticking out of the water when everything was in order he hastened home to his master with such a sorrowful face
where are the pigs asked he oh don't speak of them answered the young man i really can hardly tell you the moment they got into the field they became quite mad and each ran in a different direction
i ran too hither and thither but as fast as i caught one another was off till i was in despair at last however i collected them all and was about to drive them back when suddenly they rushed down the hill into the swamp where they vanished completely
leaving only the points of their tails which you can see for yourself you have made up that story very well replied the herdsman
and they went together to the spot
yes your story was true after all it is a wonderful thing said the herdsman but i see it is no fault of yours and i must put up with my loss as well as i can now let us return home for it is time for supper next morning the herdsman said to the young man
to day you must take a hundred sheep to graze but be careful that no harm befalls them i will do my best replied the youth and he opened the gate of the fold where the sheep had been all night and drove them out into the meadow
but in a short time they grew as wild as the pigs had done and scattered in all directions the young man could not collect them try as he would and he thought to himself that this was the punishment for his laziness in refusing to look after his father's one cow
at last however the sheep seemed tired of running about and then the youth managed to gather them together and drove them as before straight to his father's house whose sheep are these and what are they doing here asked the old man in wonder and his son told him but when the tale was ended the father shook his head
no no answered the youth i am not so stupid as that we will kill them and have them for dinner you will lose your life if you do replied the father oh i am not sure of that said the son
but he cut off the head of the ram which always led the flock and had bells round its horns this he took back to the place where they should have been feeding for here he had noticed a high rock with a patch of green grass in the middle and two or three thick bushes growing on the edge
up this rock he climbed with great difficulty and fastened the ram's head to the bushes with a cord leaving only the tips of the horns with the bells visible as there was a soft breeze blowing the bushes to which the head was tied moved gently and the bells rang
when all was done to his liking he hastened quickly back to his master where are the sheep
oh don't speak of them answered he
in all directions and i i ran after them and nearly died of fatigue then i heard a a noise which i i thought was the wind but but it was the sheep which be before my very eyes were carried straight up up into the air i stood watching them as if i was turned to stone
that is nothing but a lie from beginning to end said the herdsman no it is as true as that there is a sun in heaven answered the young man then give me a proof of it cried his master well come with me said the youth
by this time it was evening and the dusk was falling the young man brought the herdsman to the foot of the great rock
still the sound of sheep bells rang softly from above and the herdsman knew them to be those he had hung on the horns of his ram do you hear asked the youth yes i hear
but to day i have something quite easy for you to do you must look after forty oxen and be sure you are very careful for one of them has gold tipped horns and hoofs and the king reckons it among his greatest treasures the young man drove out the oxen into the meadow
with his son and his own cow at their head whose cattle are these and why are they here he asked and his son told him the story
but the son only laughed and said no no
for a long while the old man refused to have anything to do with such a wicked scheme but his son talked him over in the end and they killed the oxen as they had killed the sheep and the pigs last of all they came to the king's cherished ox
the son had a rope ready to cast round its horns and throw it to the ground but the ox was stronger than the rope and soon tore it in pieces then it dashed away to the wood the youth following over hedges and ditches they both went till they reached the rocky pass which bordered the herdsman's land
then the young man who had been watching ran home to his master
it seemed to me that i heard sounds of bellowing and i thought i recognised the voice of the golden horned ox but when i got to the place from which the sounds had come i could neither see nor hear anything in the hole itself
wonder upon wonder he exclaimed so you really did speak the truth after all well i cannot reproach you though i shall have to pay heavily to my royal master for the value of that ox but come let us go home i will never set you to herd cattle again henceforward i will give you something easier to do
i have thought of exactly the thing for you said the herdsman as they walked along and it is so simple that you cannot make a mistake
for i want the grass mown in one of my meadows to morrow at these words the youth's heart sank for he had never been trained either as a smith or a joiner
slowly and sadly he went to bed but he could not sleep for wondering how the scythes were to be made
so listening to make sure that all was still he stole away to his parents and told them the whole story when they had heard everything they hid him where no one could find him time passed away and the young man stayed at home doing all his parents bade him
and showing himself very different from what he had been before he went out to see the world but one day he said to his father that he should like to marry and have a house of his own when i served the king's chief herdsman added he i saw his daughter and i am resolved to try if i cannot win her for my wife
it will cost you your life if you do answered the father shaking his head well i will do my best replied his son but first give me the sword which hangs over your bed
late in the evening he arrived at the house of the herdsman and knocked at the door which was opened by a little boy
so it is you cried the herdsman when he had received the message
then the young man went home to his parents and bade them get ready to welcome his bride and when the wedding was over he told his father in law the herdsman what he had done with the sheep and pigs and cattle by and by the story came to the king's ears
and he thought that a man who was so clever was just the man to govern the country
here we see god dealing in slaves giving them to his own favourite child abraham a man of superlative worth and as a reward for his eminent goodness
the condition of the negroes huckelby and snyder and especially how he liked the sermon of the latter mister peck was a kind of a patriarch in his own way to begin with he was a man of some talent
he not only had a good education but was a man of great eloquence and had a wonderful command of language he too either had or thought he had poetical genius and was often sending contributions to the natchez free trader and other periodicals
in the way of raising contributions for foreign missions he took the lead of all others in his neighbourhood everything he did he did for the glory of god as he said he quoted scripture for almost everything he did
being in good circumstances he was able to give to almost all benevolent causes to which he took a fancy he was a most loving father and his daughter exercised considerable influence over him and owing to her piety and judgment that influence had a beneficial effect
carlton though a schoolfellow of the parson's was nevertheless nearly ten years his junior and though not an avowed infidel was however a freethinker and one who took no note of to morrow and for this reason georgiana took peculiar interest in the young man
the young christian felt that she would not be living up to that faith that she professed and believed in if she did not exert herself to the utmost to save the thoughtless man from his downward career and in this she succeeded to her most sanguine expectations
georgiana's first object however was to awaken in carlton's breast a love for the lord jesus christ the young man had often sat under the sound of the gospel with perfect indifference he had heard men talk who had grown grey bending over the scriptures
and their conversation had passed by him unheeded but when a young girl much younger than himself reasoned with him in that innocent and persuasive manner that woman is wont to use when she has entered with her whole soul upon an object it was too much for his stout heart and he yielded
her next aim was to vindicate the bible from sustaining the monstrous institution of slavery she said god has created of one blood all the nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth to claim hold and treat a human being as property is felony against god and man
the christian religion is opposed to slaveholding in its spirit and its principles it classes menstealers among murderers and it is the duty of all who wish to meet god in peace to discharge that duty in spreading these principles
let us not deceive ourselves into the idea that slavery is right because it is profitable to us slaveholding is the highest possible violation of the eighth commandment to take from a man his earnings is theft but to take the earner is a compound life long theft
should do our utmost to extirpate slavery from the land for my own part i shall do all i can when the redeemer was about to ascend to the bosom of the father and resume the glory which he had with him before the world was he promised his disciples that the power of the holy ghost should come upon them
what was the effect upon their minds they all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women stimulated by the confident expectation that jesus would fulfil his gracious promise they poured out their hearts in fervent supplications
probably for strength to do the work which he had appointed them unto for they felt that without him they could do nothing and they consecrated themselves on the altar of god to the great and glorious enterprise of preaching the unsearchable riches of christ to a lost and perishing world
have we less precious promises in the scriptures of truth may we not claim of our god the blessing promised unto those who consider the poor
does not the language inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye did it unto me belong to all who are rightly engaged in endeavouring to unloose the bondman's fetters shall we not then do as the apostles did
continue in prayer and supplication that god will grant us the supplies of his spirit
to grant repentance to our guilty country and permit us to aid in preparing the way for the glorious second advent of the messiah by preaching deliverance to the captives and the opening of the prison doors to those who are bound
georgiana had succeeded in riveting the attention of carlton during her conversation and as she was finishing her last sentence she observed the silent tear stealing down the cheek of the newly born child of god at this juncture her father entered and carlton left the room dear papa
said georgiana will you grant me one favour or rather make me a promise i can't tell my dear till i know what it is replied mister peck if it is a reasonable request i will comply with your wish continued he i hope my dear answered she
why georgiana my dear you are mad ain't you exclaimed he in an excited tone the poor girl remained silent the father saw in a moment that he had spoken too sharply and taking her hand in his he said
for the argument from internal evidence is not only refuted but actually turned against the bible if the bible sanctions slavery then it misrepresents the character of god nothing would be more dangerous to the soul of a young convert
than to satisfy him that the scriptures favoured such a system of sin don't you suppose that i understand the scriptures better than you
yes answered he i did not know so much about it then
i don't think that the bible sanctions slavery
or if he be found in his band he shall surely be put to death and woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong that useth his neighbour's service without wages and giveth him not for his work
when also the new testament exhibits such words of rebuke as these behold the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud crieth
for menstealers for liars for perjured persons a more scathing denunciation of the sin in question is surely to be found on record in no other book i am afraid continued the daughter that the acts of the professed friends of christianity in the south
members in good and regular standing fellowshipped throughout christendom except by a few anti slavery churches generally despised as ultra and radical reduce their fellow men to the condition of chattels and by force keep them in that state of degradation
very generally defend the conduct of those who do and accord to them a fair christian character
and must not this conclusion be strengthened when they hear ministers of talent and learning declare that the bible does sanction slaveholding and that it ought not to be made a disciplinable offence in churches and must not all doubt be dissipated when one of the most learned professors in our theological seminaries
when he designed to do us good he took upon himself the form of a servant he took his station at the bottom of society he voluntarily identified himself with the poor and the despised the warning voices of jeremiah and ezekiel were raised in olden time against sin
let us not forget what followed therefore thus saith the lord ye have not harkened unto me in proclaiming liberty every one to his brother and every one to his neighbour behold i proclaim a liberty for you saith the lord to the sword to the pestilence and to the famine
then should our labour fail to accomplish the end for which we pray we shall stand acquitted at the bar of jehovah and although we may share in the national calamities which await unrepented sins yet that blessed approval will be ours
my dear georgiana said mister peck i must be permitted to entertain my own views on this subject and to exercise my own judgment believe me dear papa she replied
but only grant my request not to allude to the bible as sanctioning slavery when speaking with mister carlton well returned he
and no one was more able than herself to impress those views upon the hearts of all with whom she came in contact
that the german youth often visit saxony in quest of companions for life exclusive of their beauty and comeliness of appearance they are brought up in a knowledge of all those arts both useful and ornamental which are so brilliant an addition to their native attractions
but what chiefly enhances their value and gives it reality and duration is a sweetness of temper and festivity of disposition that never fail to endear them on a very slight acquaintance to crown all they are generally patterns of conjugal tenderness and fidelity
as they are commonly careful to improve their minds by reading and instructive conversation they have no small share of facetiousness and ingenuity
they excel in the allurements of dress and decoration and are in general skilful in music the character however of the women in most other parts of germany particularly of the austrian is very different from this notwithstanding the advantages of size and make
their looks and features though not unsightly betray a vacancy of that life and spirit without which beauty is uninteresting and like a mere picture becomes utterly void of that indication of sensibility which alone can awaken a delicacy of feeling
as their education is conducted by the rules of the grossest superstition and they are taught little else than set forms of devotion they arrive to the years of maturity uninstructed in the use of reason and usually continue profoundly ignorant the remainder of their days
and the prerogatives they enjoy over the inferior classes whom they treat with the utmost superciliousness and hold in the most unreasonable contempt in the mean time their domestic affairs are condemned to the most unaccountable neglect they dwell at home careless of what passes there
and suffer disorder and confusion to prevail without feeling the least uneasiness great frequenters of churches their piety consists in the strictest conformity to all the externals of religion
they profess the most boundless belief in all the silly legends with which their treatises of devotion are filled and these are the only books they ever read the coldness of their constitution occasions a species of regulated gallantry
are yet capable of the truest attachment and always warm and zealous in the cause of those whom they have admitted to their friendship though the germans are rather a dull and phlegmatic people and not greatly enslaved by the warmer passions yet at the court of vienna they are much given to intrigue
and we are well assured that in germany there are many women who do honor to humanity not by chastity only but also by a variety of other virtues the ladies at the principal courts differ not much in their dress from the french and english
dress in a very different manner and some of them inconceivably fantastic as may be seen in many prints published in books of travels but in this respect they are gradually reforming and many of them make quite a different appearance in their dress from what they did thirty or forty years ago
the inhabitants of vienna lived luxuriously a great part of their time being spent in feasting and carousing in winter when the different branches of the danube are frozen over and the ground covered with snow the ladies take their recreation in sledges of different shapes such as griffins
tigers swans scallop shells et cetera here the lady sits dressed in velvet lined with rich furs and adorned with laces and jewels having on her head a velvet cap the sledge is drawn by one horse stag or other creature
set off with plumes of feathers ribbons and bells as this diversion is taken chiefly in the night time servants ride before the sledge with torches and a gentleman standing on the sledge behind guides the horse
a view of matrimony in three different lights the marriage life is always an insipid a vexatious or a happy condition the first is when two people of no taste meet together
but she goes with her fortune rather than her fortune with her these make up the crowd or vulgar of the rich and fill up the lumber of the human race without beneficence towards those below them or respect towards those above them and lead a despicable independent and useless life
without sense of the laws of kindness good nature mutual offices and the elegant satisfactions which flow from reason and virtue the vexatious life arises from a conjunction of two people of quick taste and resentment put together for reasons well known to their friends
these good people live in a constant restraint before company and when alone revile each other's person and conduct in company they are in purgatory when by themselves in hell the happy marriage is where two persons meet
the former we may in some measure defend ourselves from the other is the common lot of humanity love has nothing to do with riches or state solitude with the person beloved has a pleasure even in a woman's mind beyond show or pomp
betrothing and marriage at a very early period families who lived in a friendly manner fell upon a method of securing their children to each other by what is called in the sacred writings betrothing
this was agreeing on a price to be paid for the bride the time when it should be paid and when she should be delivered into the hands of her husband there were according to the talmudists three ways of betrothing
the second by a verbal agreement accompanied with a piece of money and the third by the parties coming together and living as husband and wife which might as properly be called marriage as betrothing the written contract was in the following manner
which the said a doth promise to perform on the day of marriage and to this the said a doth hereby bind himself and all that he hath to the very cloak upon his back engages himself to love honor feed clothe and protect her
and to perform all that is generally implied in contracts of marriage in favor of the israelitish wives the verbal agreement was made in the presence of a sufficient number of witnesses by the man saying to the women
marriages among the jews say the rabbies were agreed on by the parents and relations of both sides when this was done the bridegroom was introduced to his bride presents were mutually exchanged
was sent away to the habitation of her husband in the night with singing dancing and the sound of musical instruments by the institution of moses the rabbies tell us the contract of marriage was read in the presence of and signed by at least ten witnesses
who were free and of age the bride who had taken care to bathe herself the night before appeared in all her splendor but veiled in imitation of rebecca who veiled herself when she came in sight of isaac she was then given to the bridegroom by her parents in words to this purpose
take her according to the law of moses and he received her by saying i take her according to that law some blessings were then pronounced on the young couple both by the parents and the rest of the company the blessings or prayers generally run in this style
blessed art thou o lord of heaven and earth who has created man in thine own likeness and hast appointed woman to be his partner and companion blessed art thou who fillest zion with joy for the multitude of her children blessed art thou who sendest gladness to the bridegroom and his bride
who hast ordained for them love joy tenderness peace and mutual affection be pleased to bless not only this couple but judah and jerusalem with songs of joy and praise for the joy that thou givest them by the multitudes of their sons and of their daughters
after the virgins had sung a marriage song the company partook of a repast the most magnificent the parties could afford after which they began a dance the men round the bridegroom the women round the bride they pretended that this dance was of divine institution
and an essential part of the ceremony the bride was then carried to the nuptial bed and the bridegroom left with her the company again returned to their feasting and rejoicing and the rabbies inform us that this feasting when the bride was a widow
lasted only three days but seven if she was a virgin at the birth of a son the father planted a cedar and at that of a daughter he planted a pine of these trees the nuptial bed was constructed when the parties at whose birth they were planted entered into the married state
it infallibly denoted separation and all the ills attending an unhappy marriage on the wedding day the bride and bridegroom were richly dressed and adorned with garlands of herbs and flowers the bride was conducted in the evening to the house of her husband in a chariot
seated between her husband and one of his relations when she alighted from the chariot the axle tree of it was burnt to show that there was no method for her to return back as soon as the young couple entered the house figs and other fruits were thrown upon their heads to denote plenty
and to sing epithalamia at the door of their bed chamber epithalamia were marriage songs anciently sung in praise of the bride or bridegroom wishing them happiness prosperity and a numerous issue among the romans there were three different kinds of marriage
the ceremony of the first consisted in the young couple eating a cake together made only of wheat salt and water the second kind was celebrated by the parties solemnly pledging their faith to each other by giving and receiving a piece of money
this was the most common way of marrying among the romans it continued in use even after they became christians
and hence perhaps the words in our marriage ceremony i thee endow the third kind of marriage was when a man and woman having cohabited for some time and had children found it expedient to continue together
in this case if they made up the matter between themselves it became a valid marriage and the children were considered as legitimate something similar to this is the present custom in scotland
the case is the same in holland and some parts of germany with this difference only
chapter seventeen aunt jane's heiress silas said aunt jane to her lawyer the next morning after her interview with patsy i'm ready to have you draw up my will mister watson gave a start of astonishment
in his own mind he had arrived at the conclusion that the will would never be executed and to have miss merrick thus suddenly declare her decision was enough to startle even the lawyer's natural reserve very well jane he said briefly
they were alone in the invalid's morning room phibbs having been asked to retire there is no use disguising the fact silas that i grow weaker every day and the numbness is creeping nearer and nearer to my heart said miss merrick in her usual even tones
it is folly for me to trifle with these few days of grace yet allowed me
yes he said enquiringly and drew from his pocket a pencil and paper i shall leave to my niece louise five thousand dollars yes jane jotting down the memorandum and to elizabeth a like sum
the lawyer seemed disappointed he tapped the pencil against his teeth musingly for a moment and then wrote down the amount also to my brother john merrick the sum of five thousand dollars she resumed to your brother
jane did you hear me yes then do as i bid you silas watson he leaned back in his chair and looked at her thoughtfully i am not only your lawyer jane i am also your friend and counsellor
do you realize what this bequest means he asked gently it means that patricia will inherit elmhurst and a fortune besides why not silas i liked the child from the first she's frank and open and brave
she is very young and unsophisticated said the lawyer and of all your nieces she will least appreciate your generosity you are to be my executor and manage the estate until the girl comes of age you will see that she is properly educated and fitted for her station in life
as for appreciation or gratitude i don't care a snap of my finger for such fol de rol the lawyer sighed but the boy jane you seem to have forgotten him he said drat the boy i've done enough for him already
there is a great deal of money jane declared the lawyer impressively we have been fortunate in our investments and you have used but little of your ample income to spare fifty thousand dollars to kenneth who is tom's sole remaining relative would be no hardship to patricia
indeed she would scarcely miss it you remind me of something silas she said looking at him with friendly eyes make a memorandum of twenty thousand dollars to silas watson
thank you jane he wrote down the amount as calmly as he had done the others and the boy he asked persistently aunt jane sighed wearily and leaned against her pillows give the boy two thousand she said
i want to sign it today if possible he bowed gravely and left the room toward evening the lawyer came again bringing with him a notary from the village doctor eliel who had come to visit patricia was also called into jane merrick's room
said the old woman with a sigh of intense relief i can die in peace
but the beginning of an era of unusual comfort on the following morning she awakened brighter than usual having passed a good night freed from the worries and anxieties that had beset her for weeks she felt more like her old self than at any time since the paralysis had overtaken her
and passed the morning most enjoyably in her sunshiney garden here patricia was also brought in her wheel chair by beth who then left the two invalids together they conversed genially enough for a time until an unfortunate remark of aunt jane's
which seemed to asperse her father's character aroused patricia's ire
and in her voluable irish way berated her aunt until poor phibbs stood aghast at such temerity and even mister watson who arrived to enquire after his client and friend was filled with amazement he cast a significant look at miss merrick who answered it in her usual emphatic way
patricia is quite right silas she declared and i deserve all that she has said if the girl were fond enough of me to defend me as heartily as she does her father i would be very proud indeed patricia cooled at once and regarded her aunt with a sunny smile
forgive me she begged i know you did not mean it and i was wrong to talk to you in such a way so harmony was restored and mister watson wondered more and more at this strange perversion of the old woman's character
but now she seemed delighted to have patsy fly at her and excused the girl's temper instead of resenting it but patsy was a little ashamed of herself this morning realizing perhaps that aunt jane had been trying to vex her just to enjoy her indignant speeches
after that it became the daily program for patsy to spend her mornings in aunt jane's little garden and although they sometimes clashed and as phibbs told beth had dreadful fights they both enjoyed these hours very much
and louise redoubled her solicitious attentions to her aunt in order to offset the influence patricia seemed to be gaining over her louise had also become by this time the managing housekeeper of the establishment
and it was certain that aunt jane looked upon her eldest and most competent niece with much favor beth with all her friends to sing her praises
nor as amusing as patricia so aunt jane pays little attention to me she's a dreadful old woman and i can't bring myself to appear to like her that probably accounts for my failure
in a fortnight more patricia abandoned her chair and took to crutches on which she hobbled everywhere as actively as the others walked she affected her cousins society more from this time and aunt jane's society less
for she had come to be fond of the two girls who had nursed her so tenderly and it was natural that a young girl would prefer to be with those of her own age rather than a crabbed old woman like aunt jane kenneth also now became patsy's faithful companion
for the boy had lost his former bashfulness and fear of girls and had grown to feel at ease even in the society of beth and louise the four had many excursions and picnics into the country together but kenneth and patsy were recognized as especial chums
in a good natured way the boy's old acquaintances could hardly recognize him as the same person they had known before patricia's adventure on the plank his fits of gloomy abstraction and violent bursts of temper had alike vanished or only prevailed at brief intervals
nor was he longer rude and unmannerly to those with whom he came in contact awkward he still was and lacking in many graces that education and good society can alone confer but he was trying hard to be as he confided to old uncle john like other people
and succeeded in adapting himself very well to his new circumstances although he had no teacher as yet he had begun to understand color a little and succeeded in finishing one or two water color sketches which patsy who knew nothing at all of such things
pronounced wonderfully fine of course the boy blushed with pleasure and was encouraged to still greater effort the girl was also responsible for kenneth's sudden advancement in the household at elmhurst one day she said calmly to aunt jane i've invited kenneth to dinner this evening
the woman flew angry in an instant who gave you such authority she demanded no one i just took it said patsy saucily he shall not come declared aunt jane sternly i'll have no interference from you miss
tell them not to lay a plate for me and ask oscar to be ready with the wagon at five o'clock i'm going home louise hesitated and looked from miss jane to patsy and back again they were glaring upon each other like two gorgons then she burst into laughter
she could not help it the sight was too ridiculous a moment later patsy was laughing too and then aunt jane allowed a grim smile to cross her features never mind louise she said with remarkable cheerfulness we'll compromise matters how asked patsy
and was so gentle and unobstrusive that aunt jane looked at him with surprise
patsy was radiant with delight and the next day aunt jane remarked casually that she did not object to the boy's presence at dinner at all and he could come whenever he liked this arrangement gave great pleasure to both uncle john and mister watson
the latter of whom was often present at the state dinner and both men congratulated patsy upon the distinct victory she had won no more was said about her leaving elmhurst the major wrote that he was having a splendid time with the colonel and begged for an extension of his vacation
two clerks were writing at tables with scratching pens the appurtenances of the writing tables about which alexey alexandrovitch was himself very fastidious were exceptionally good he could not help observing this
and he pointed with his pen at the persons waiting and went on writing can't he spare time to see me said alexey alexandrovitch he has no time free he is always busy kindly wait your turn
alexey alexandrovitch was in principle in favor of the publicity of legal proceedings though for some higher official considerations he disliked the application of the principle in russia
and disapproved of it as far as he could disapprove of anything instituted by authority of the emperor his whole life had been spent in administrative work and consequently when he did not approve of anything
his disapproval was softened by the recognition of the inevitability of mistakes and the possibility of reform in every department
but till then he had had nothing to do with the law courts and so had disapproved of their publicity simply in theory now his disapprobation was strengthened by the unpleasant impression made on him in the lawyer's waiting room
coming immediately said the clerk and two minutes later there did actually appear in the doorway the large figure of an old solicitor who had been consulting with the lawyer himself
the lawyer was a little squat bald man with a dark reddish beard light colored long eyebrows and an overhanging brow he was attired as though for a wedding
his face was clever and manly but his dress was dandified and in bad taste pray walk in said the lawyer addressing alexey alexandrovitch and gloomily ushering karenin in before him he closed the door
won't you sit down he indicated an armchair at a writing table covered with papers he sat down himself and rubbing his little hands with short fingers covered with white hairs he bent his head on one side
opened his hands caught the moth and resumed his former attitude before beginning to speak of my business said alexey alexandrovitch following the lawyer's movements with wondering eyes i ought to observe that the business about which i have to speak to you is to be strictly private
i should not be a lawyer if i could not keep the secrets confided to me but if you would like proof alexey alexandrovitch glanced at his face and saw that the shrewd gray eyes were laughing and seemed to know all about it already
you know my name alexey alexandrovitch resumed i know you and the good again he caught a moth work you are doing like every russian said the lawyer bowing alexey alexandrovitch sighed
plucking up his courage but having once made up his mind he went on in his shrill voice without timidity or hesitation accentuating here and there a word i have the misfortune alexey alexandrovitch began
to have been deceived in my married life and i desire to break off all relations with my wife by legal means that is to be divorced but to do this so that my son may not remain with his mother
the lawyer's gray eyes tried not to laugh but they were dancing with irrepressible glee and alexey alexandrovitch saw that it was not simply the delight of a man who has just got a profitable job there was triumph and joy
there was a gleam like the malignant gleam he saw in his wife's eyes you desire my assistance in securing a divorce yes precisely so but i ought to warn you that i may be wasting your time and attention
i have come simply to consult you as a preliminary step i want a divorce but the form in which it is possible is of great consequence to me it is very possible that if that form does not correspond with my requirements i may give up a legal divorce
oh that's always the case said the lawyer and that's always for you to decide he let his eyes rest on alexey alexandrovitch's feet feeling that he might offend his client by the sight of his irrepressible amusement
i should be glad to have an idea of the forms in which such things are done in practice you would be glad the lawyer without lifting his eyes responded adopting with a certain satisfaction the tone of his client's remarks
for me to lay before you all the methods by which you could secure what you desire and on receiving an assuring nod from alexey alexandrovitch he went on stealing a glance now and then at alexey alexandrovitch's face which was growing red in patches
said a few words to him and sat down again in the following cases physical defect in the married parties desertion without communication for five years he said crooking a short finger covered with hair adultery
this word he pronounced with obvious satisfaction subdivided as follows he continued to crook his fat fingers though the three cases and their subdivisions could obviously not be classified together physical defect of the husband or of the wife
as by now all his fingers were used up he uncrooked all his fingers and went on this is the theoretical view but i imagine you have done me the honor to apply to me in order to learn its application in practice
and therefore guided by precedents i must inform you that in practice cases of divorce may all be reduced to the following there's no physical defect i may assume nor desertion
alexey alexandrovitch bowed his head in assent may be reduced to the following adultery of one of the married parties and the detection in the fact of the guilty party by mutual agreement and failing such agreement
accidental detection it must be admitted that the latter case is rarely met with in practice said the lawyer and stealing a glance at alexey alexandrovitch he paused as a man selling pistols after enlarging on the advantages of each weapon
might await his customer's choice but alexey alexandrovitch said nothing and therefore the lawyer went on the most usual and simple the sensible course i consider is adultery by mutual consent
so perturbed that he did not immediately comprehend all the good sense of adultery by mutual consent and his eyes expressed this uncertainty but the lawyer promptly came to his assistance people cannot go on living together here you have a fact
and if both are agreed about it the details and formalities become a matter of no importance and at the same time this is the simplest and most certain method alexey alexandrovitch fully understood now
but he had religious scruples which hindered the execution of such a plan that is out of the question in the present case he said only one alternative is possible undesigned detection supported by letters which i have
letters may of course be a partial confirmation but detection in the fact there must be of the most direct kind that is by eyewitnesses in fact if you do me the honor to intrust your confidence to me
if one wants the result one must admit the means if it is so alexey alexandrovitch began suddenly turning white but at that moment the lawyer rose and again went to the door to speak to the intruding clerk
on his way back he caught unobserved another moth nice state my rep curtains will be in by the summer he thought frowning and so you were saying he said
i will communicate my decision to you by letter said alexey alexandrovitch getting up and he clutched at the table after standing a moment in silence he said from your words i may consequently conclude that a divorce may be obtained
i would ask you to let me know what are your terms it may be obtained if you give me complete liberty of action said the lawyer not answering his question when can i reckon on receiving information from you he asked moving towards the door
his eyes and his varnished boots shining in a week's time your answer as to whether you will undertake to conduct the case and on what terms you will be so good as to communicate to me very good
chapter twenty seven the impostor the sun newly sunk behind the yeldo hills had stained the sky with rose and amber and it was very peaceful in the darkening grounds of the palace of corbo
the woods were alive with the evening songs of the birds and a light wind that blew in from the sea brought with it the chimes from the cathedral belfry the shrubberies loomed big in the violet twilight and afar out the sea lay placid
steel blue and mysterious edward povey surveying the scene from the comfort of a bath chair was putting to himself a few pertinent and very necessary questions some lines which he had heard years back came into his mind
he couldn't remember them exactly but they had to do with what the devil would do when he was sick amongst other thoughts which crowded into the brain of mister povey were the warm feelings he had experienced towards charlotte when as he thought he lay dying in enrico's death chamber
and he told himself that they were very right thoughts to have he remembered also the events of the past few months galva's unremitting care and tenderness to him during the period of his convalescence
the thought that the time had now come when his part in her affairs was done was a very bitter one but as day followed day the feeling that he was an impostor grew stronger he had long thought that he must get away from it all
the thought of the disgust that might show in her face unnerved him he felt very thankful that his fears of death had been premature and that he had been spared to witness the reception by the corbians of their new queen but at the same time
the grim visitor would at least have put him out of his predicament his recovery had not been rapid enough to allow of his attending the festivities of the coronation which had taken place with much pomp and circumstance a few weeks after enrico had been laid in the cathedral
the kindly doctor however had permitted the invalid's couch to be wheeled out on to one of the balconies of his room from there he had seen the procession leave the palace had noted the enthusiasm of the holiday crowd and best of all
had seen galva turn in her carriage and wave her bouquet of orchids at his balcony then the cavalcade winding like a gaily coloured stream of ribbon had been swallowed up in the twistings and turnings of the old town and povey
lying there in the genial afternoon sunshine had been left to imagine the rest by the aid of his field glasses he had seen the bunting and banners fluttering bravely on the buildings in the town which lay spread out beneath him shining like a jeweller's tray of gems in the sun rays
he had seen the yachts in the bay gay with little flags he had heard too the bells pealing joyously from the tall belfry of the cathedral the firing of the guns on the fort and the distant murmur of the people cheering their queen
he had said a little prayer for everybody and had fallen asleep there on the flower decked balcony when he awoke he was again in his room and the candles were being lit
the queen of san pietro stood there before him flushed with her happiness and resplendent in her finery of state her little head was thrown slightly back and she appeared taller than she really was in the sweeping mantle of crimson and ermine
nothing but sun and cheers and flowers and joy she turned to her husband who was standing a little behind her for the ceremonies in the cathedral had been twofold that day and the archbishop who had placed the crown on the little head had in the little private chapel
placed a circlet of gold also on the queen's finger i didn't see a single house armand she ran on that was not flying a flag and to think that we owe all this to guardy here if he had died and we really thought he was going to didn't we
as he sat in his bath chair he remembered all these things and sighed regretfully as he told himself that there was only one way left for him in honour to take it was time for him to leave the stage to take off the motley for he had no part in the next act of the drama
the attendant who in the gorgeous estrato livery was slowly propelling the chair pulled up rather suddenly as turning into one of the alley ways which led back to the palace he came in sight of the figure of a woman
anna paluda turned at the sound of the wheels on the gravel
speaking of commonplaces on subjects ranging from the politics such as they were of san pietro to the evening light shining in the western windows of the palace then a sudden thought came to the man in the chair and he turned to the lady by his side
this chair is quite light anna do you think you could or better still i will walk the rest of the distance it isn't far you'll do nothing of the sort i know you can walk but you will find the air chilly after all those rugs
she turned to the attendant you can go juan i will attend to mister sydney with a bow the man left them
had edward been facing anna as he spoke he would have noticed a curious light creep into the black eyes as though something had occurred suddenly to her
as she felt the paper under her fingers she smiled but some one will have to go with you you have had an illness it isn't safe is it for you to travel alone tut tut anna
why i walked twice round the palace this morning besides i'm not going to morrow now that his departure had been decided on and he had burnt his boats he felt disposed to allow himself the luxury of delay it may be a month before i really go he added
again edward would have seen a look come into anna's eyes disappointment this time unmistakable disappointment at his last words but the woman said nothing and before edward spoke again the chair had reached the doorway of the palace and footmen were assisting him to alight
then she turned and made her way swiftly to her own room entering she locked the door and crossed to the large wardrobe which took up one side of the apartment wall from beneath some clothes in a drawer she lifted her leather jewel case
and carrying it over to the dressing table lit the candles which stood on either side of the draped mirror she selected a tiny key from the bunch at her waist and opening the case took out a box a little cardboard box which had once contained chocolates
the lid was broken here and there and had been carefully pasted together with scraps of plaster paper
perhaps i may weep silently she put away the baby relics back into the wardrobe drawer then from the reticule she took the letter she had been reading when edward had come upon her in the grounds
she smoothed out the creases and held it to the light on the dressing table it was headed from the offices of the imparcial and read madam acting under your instructions i have caused inquiries to be made by my correspondents in paris
has been watching as you suggested the places of entertainment and the restaurants on the boulevards your idea that our man would appear sooner or later at one or the other of these was quite correct
curiously enough dasso seemed to scent danger for he left hurriedly but dupine succeeded in following him he tells me he dupine was reading a copy of my paper at the time he saw dasso and attributes the latter's flight to that fact
dasso left the gare saint lazare the next morning
and so across the channel dupine being now known by sight to dasso wisely refrained from following him on to the boat
but wired comprehensively to a confrere in brighton to motor over to newhaven and take up the chase i have heard only this morning that this gentleman has been successful
and beg to assure you of my devoted services i am madam yours obediently alfonso pinzato editor for a long time the excuse that she would have to make to galva before she could leave the island had been worrying anna
she thought of edward as she folded the letter and put it away
berry hill dorsetshire
since it proves at least that this wretched woman is at length awakened to remorse in regard to my answer i must humbly request your ladyship to write to this effect that i would not upon any account
that she meets with the utmost attention and tenderness that her education however short of my wishes almost exceeds my abilities and i flatter myself when the time arrives that she shall pay her duty to her grand mother
she is at once uneducated and unprincipled ungentle in temper and unamiable in her manners i have long known that she has persuaded herself to harbour an aversion for me
unhappy woman i can only regard her as an object of pity i dare not hesitate at a request from missus mirvan yet in complying with it i shall for her own sake be as concise as i possibly can
then a waiting girl at a tavern
among whom i was myself the most urgent induced him to abandon his native land and fix his abode in france thither he was followed by shame and repentance feelings which his heart was not framed to support
for notwithstanding he had been too weak to resist the allurements of beauty which nature though a niggard to her of every other boon had with a lavish hand bestowed on his wife yet he was a young man of excellent character
and till thus unaccountably infatuated of unblemished conduct he survived this ill judged marriage but two years upon his death bed with an unsteady hand he wrote me the following note
had my circumstances permitted me i should have answered these words by an immediate journey to paris but i was obliged to act by the agency of a friend who was upon the spot and present at the opening of the will
till she was able to act with propriety for herself but in regard to fortune he left her wholly dependent on her mother to whose tenderness he earnestly recommended her
could fail in affection or justice miss evelyn madam from the second to the eighteenth year of her life was brought up under my care and except when at school under my roof
she loved me as her father nor was missus villars less valued by her while to me she became so dear that her loss was little less afflicting than that which i have since sustained of missus villars herself
at that period of her life we parted
sent for her to paris how often have i since regretted that i did not accompany her thither protected and supported by me the misery and disgrace which awaited her might perhaps have been avoided but to be brief
madame duval at the instigation of her husband earnestly or rather tyrannically endeavoured to effect a union between miss evelyn and one of his nephews and when she found her power inadequate to her attempt
enraged at her non compliance she treated her with the grossest unkindness and threatened her with poverty and ruin miss evelyn to whom wrath and violence had hitherto been strangers
he promised to conduct her to england he did o madam you know the rest disappointed of the fortune he expected by the inexorable rancour of the duvals he infamously burnt the certificate of their marriage
and denied that they had ever been united she flew to me for protection with what mixed transports of joy and anguish did i again see her by my advice she endeavoured to procure proofs of her marriage but in vain
her credulity had been no match for his art every body believed her innocent from the guiltless tenor of her unspotted youth and from the known libertinism of her barbarous betrayer yet her sufferings were too acute
abated not while this injured victim of cruelty yet drew breath she probably intended in time to have pardoned her but time was not allowed when she was informed of her death i have been told
that the agonies of grief and remorse with which she was seized occasioned her a severe fit of illness but from the time of her recovery to the date of her letter to your ladyship i had never heard that she manifested any desire
and supported her from her earliest infancy to her sixteenth year and so amply has she repaid my care and affection
and then sinking to eternal rest in her arms thus it has happened that the education of the father daughter and grand daughter has devolved on me what infinite misery have the two first caused me
but being such as she is not only my affection but my humanity
indeed i could but ill support her former yearly visits to the respectable mansion at howard grove pardon me dear madam and do not think me insensible of the honour which your ladyship's condescension confers upon us both
but so deep is the impression which the misfortunes of her mother have made on my heart that she does not even for a moment quit my sight without exciting apprehensions and terrors which almost overpower me such madam is my tenderness
and such my weakness but she is the only tie i have upon earth and i trust to your ladyship's goodness not to judge of my feelings with severity i beg leave to present my humble respects to missus and miss mirvan
and have the honour to be madam your ladyship's most obedient and most humble servant
berry hill may second your letter madam has opened a source of anxiety
and which to see closed i scarcely dare expect i am unwilling to oppose my opinion to that of your ladyship nor indeed can i but by arguments which i believe will rather rank me as a hermit ignorant of the world
and fit only for my cell than as a proper guardian in an age such as this for an accomplished young woman yet thus called upon it behoves me to explain and endeavour to vindicate the reasons by which i have been hitherto guided
the mother of this dear child who was led to destruction by her own imprudence the hardness of heart of madame duval and the villany of sir john belmont was once what her daughter is now
the best beloved of my heart and her memory so long as my own holds i shall love mourn and honour on the fatal day that her gentle soul left its mansion and not many hours ere she ceased to breathe
i solemnly plighted my faith that her child if it lived should know no father but myself or her acknowledged husband you cannot madam suppose that i found much difficulty in adhering to this promise
and forbearing to make any claim upon sir john belmont could i feel an affection the most paternal for this poor sufferer and not abominate her destroyer could i wish to deliver to him who had so basely betrayed the mother
the helpless and innocent offspring who born in so much sorrow seemed entitled to all the compassionate tenderness of pity for many years the name alone of that man accidentally spoken in my hearing
almost divested me of my christianity and scarce could i forbear to execrate him yet i sought not neither did i desire to deprive him of his child had he with any appearance of contrition or indeed of humanity
endeavoured to become less unworthy such a blessing but he is a stranger to all parental feelings and has with a savage insensibility forborne to enquire even into the existence of this sweet orphan though the situation of his injured wife
and demanding the justice which is her due yet at other times i have both disdained and feared the application disdained lest it should be refused and feared lest it should be accepted lady belmont
who was firmly persuaded of her approaching dissolution frequently and earnestly besought me that if her infant was a female i would not abandon her to the direction of a man so wholly unfit to take the charge of her education
and often would she say should the poor babe have any feelings correspondent with its mother's it will have no want while under your protection alas she had no sooner quitted it herself than she was plunged into a gulph of misery
i was in a perpetual conflict between the desire that she should have justice done her and the apprehension that while i improved her fortune i should endanger her mind however as her character began to be formed
and her disposition to be displayed my perplexity abated the road before me seemed less thorny and intricate and i thought i could perceive the right path from the wrong for when i observed the artless openness
the ingenuous simplicity of her nature when i saw that her guileless and innocent soul fancied all the world to be pure and disinterested as herself and that her heart was open to every impression
inevitably encircling a house of which the master is dissipated and unprincipled without the guidance of a mother or any prudent and sensible female seemed to me no less than suffering her to stumble into some dreadful pit when the sun is in its meridian
my plan therefore was not merely to educate and to cherish her as my own but to adopt her the heiress of my small fortune and to bestow her upon some worthy man with whom she might spend her days in tranquility
but also to justify the conduct which has resulted from them it now remains to speak of the time to come and here indeed i am sensible of difficulties which i almost despair of surmounting according to my wishes
which it is extremely painful to me not to concur with yet i am so well acquainted with your goodness that i presume to hope it would not be absolutely impossible for me to offer such arguments as might lead you to think with me
that this young creature's chance of happiness seems less doubtful in retirement than it would be in the gay and dissipated world but why should i perplex your ladyship with reasoning that can turn to so little account
with any prospect of success to such a woman as madame duval her character and the violence of her disposition intimidate me from making the attempt she is too ignorant for instruction too obstinate for intreaty
and too weak for reason i will not therefore enter into a contest from which i have nothing to expect but altercation and impertinence as soon would i discuss the effect of sound with the deaf
or the nature of colours with the blind as aim at illuminating with conviction a mind so warped by prejudice so much the slave of unruly and illiberal passions unused as she is to control persuasion would but harden
and opposition incense her i yield therefore to the necessity which compels my reluctant acquiescence and shall now turn all my thoughts upon considering of such methods for the conducting this enterprise
as may be most conducive to the happiness of my child and least liable to wound her sensibility the law suit therefore i wholly and absolutely disapprove
will you my dear madam forgive the freedom of an old man if i own myself greatly surprised that you could even for a moment listen to a plan so violent so public so totally repugnant to all female delicacy
i am satisfied your ladyship has not weighed this project there was a time indeed when to assert the innocence of lady belmont and to blazon to the world the wrongs not guilt by which she suffered
i proposed nay attempted a similar plan but then all assistance and encouragement was denied how cruel to the remembrance i bear of her woes is this tardy resentment of madame duval
she was deaf to the voice of nature though she has hearkened to that of ambition never can i consent to have this dear and timid girl brought forward to the notice of the world by such a method
a method which will subject her to all the impertinence of curiosity the sneers of conjecture and the stings of ridicule and for what the attainment of wealth which she does not want and the gratification of vanity which she does not feel
a child to appear against a father no madam old and infirm as i am i would even yet sooner convey her myself to some remote part of the world though i were sure of dying in the expedition
far different had been the motives which would have stimulated her unhappy mother to such a proceeding all her felicity in this world was irretrievably lost her life was become a burthen to her and her fair fame
which she had early been taught to prize above all other things had received a mortal wound therefore to clear her own honour and to secure from blemish the birth of her child was all the good which fortune had reserved herself the power of bestowing
but even this last consolation was withheld from her let milder measures be adopted and since it must be so let application be made to sir john belmont but as to a law suit
i hope upon this subject never more to hear it mentioned with madame duval all pleas of delicacy would be ineffectual her scheme must be opposed by arguments better suited to her understanding
i will not therefore talk of its impropriety but endeavour to prove its inutility have the goodness then to tell her
since should the lawsuit be commenced and even should the cause be gained sir john belmont would still have it in his power and if irritated no doubt in his inclination to cut off her grand daughter with a shilling
the long and mutual animosity between her and sir john will make her interference merely productive of debates and ill will
though i will with unwearied zeal devote all my thoughts to giving counsel but in truth i have neither inclination nor spirits adequate to engaging personally with this man
my opinion is that he would pay more respect to a letter from your ladyship upon this subject than from any other person i therefore advise and hope that you will yourself take the trouble of writing to him in order to open the affair
i have for him a posthumous letter
if ever such a meeting should take place the views of the branghtons in suggesting this scheme are obviously interested
to induce madame duval to settle her own upon themselves in this however they would probably be mistaken for little minds have ever a propensity to bestow their wealth upon those who are already in affluence and therefore
that her child should never be owned but with her self must be inviolably adhered to i am dear madam with great respect your ladyship's most obedient servant
and i blush to incur the imputation of selfishness in detaining my young charge thus long with myself in the country i consulted not solely my own inclination destined in all probability to possess a very moderate fortune
i wished to contract her views to something within it the mind is but too naturally prone to pleasure but too easily yielded to dissipation it has been my study to guard her against their delusions by preparing her to expect
i shall rejoice myself with the assurance of having largely contributed to her welfare she is now of an age that happiness is eager to attend
but can your ladyship be serious in proposing to introduce her to the gaieties of a london life permit me to ask for what end or for what purpose a youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition
to curb that is the first step to contentment since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment i apprehend nothing more than too much raising her hopes and her views
of her disposition would render but too easy to effect the town acquaintance of missus mirvan are all in the circle of high life this artless young creature with too much beauty to escape notice has too much sensibility to be indifferent to it
but she has too little wealth to be sought with propriety by men of the fashionable world consider madam the peculiar cruelty of her situation only child of a wealthy baronet
whose person she has never seen whose character she has reason to abhor and whose name she is forbidden to claim entitled as she is to lawfully inherit his fortune and estate is there any probability that he will properly own her
and while he continues to persevere in disavowing his marriage with miss evelyn
receive a part of her right as the donation of his bounty and as to mister evelyn's estate i have no doubt but that madame duval and her relations will dispose of it among themselves
it seems therefore as if this deserted child though legally heiress to two large fortunes must owe all her rational expectations to adoption and friendship yet her income will be such as may make her happy
if she is disposed to be so in private life though it will by no means allow her to enjoy the luxury of a london fine lady let miss mirvan then madam shine in all the splendour of high life
but suffer my child still to enjoy the pleasures of humble retirement with a mind to which greater views are unknown i hope this reasoning will be honoured with your approbation and i have yet another motive which has some weight with me
i would not willingly give offence to any human being and surely madame duval might accuse me of injustice if while i refuse to let her grand daughter wait upon her i consent that she should join a party of pleasure to london
in sending her to howard grove not one of these scruples arise and therefore missus clinton a most worthy woman formerly her nurse and now my housekeeper shall attend her thither next week
though i have always called her by the name of anville and reported in this neighbourhood that her father my intimate friend left her to my guardianship yet i have thought it necessary she should herself be acquainted
to shock her gentle nature with a tale of so much sorrow you must not madam expect too much from my pupil she is quite a little rustic and knows nothing of the world
yet i shall not be surprised if you should discover in her a thousand deficiencies of which i have never dreamt she must be very much altered since she was last at howard grove but i will say nothing of her
and am dear madam with great respect your obedient and most humble servant
that innocence the first best gift of heaven should of all others be the blindest to its own danger the most exposed to treachery and the least able to defend itself in a world where it is little known less valued
your peace of mind is at stake and every chance for your future happiness may depend upon the conduct of the present moment hitherto i have forborne to speak with you upon the most important of all concerns the state of your heart
alas i need no information i have been silent indeed but i have not been blind long and with the deepest regret have i perceived the ascendancy which lord orville has gained upon your mind
you will start at the mention of his name you will tremble every word you read
but i dare not any longer spare her your first meeting with lord orville was decisive lively fearless free from all other impressions
such a man as you describe him could not fail of exciting your admiration and the more dangerously because he seemed as unconscious of his power as you of your weakness and therefore you had no alarm either from his vanity
young animated entirely off your guard and thoughtless of consequences imagination took the reins and reason slow paced though sure footed
how rapid was then my evelina's progress through those regions of fancy and passion whither her new guide conducted her she saw lord orville at a ball and he was the most amiable of men
and he had every virtue under heaven i mean not to depreciate the merit of lord orville who one mysterious instance alone excepted
but it was not time it was not the knowledge of his worth obtained your regard your new comrade had not patience to wait any trial her glowing pencil dipt in the vivid colours of her creative ideas
painted to you at the moment of your first acquaintance all the excellencies all the good and rare qualities which a great length of time and intimacy could alone have really discovered
you flattered yourself that your partiality was the effect of esteem founded upon a general love of merit and a principle of justice and your heart which fell the sacrifice of your error
was totally gone ere you expected it was in danger a thousand times have i been upon the point of showing you the perils of your situation but the same inexperience which occasioned your mistake i hoped
with the assistance of time and absence would effect a cure i was indeed most unwilling to destroy your illusion while i dared hope it might itself contribute to the restoration of your tranquillity since your ignorance of the danger
and force of your attachment might possibly prevent that despondency with which young people in similar circumstances are apt to persuade themselves that what is only difficult is absolutely impossible
but now since you have again met and have become more intimate than ever all my hope from silence and seeming ignorance is at an end
awake to the sense of your danger and exert yourself to avoid the evils with which it threatens you evils which to a mind like yours are most to be dreaded secret repining and concealed yet consuming regret
you must quit him
his society is death to your future tranquillity believe me my beloved child my heart aches for your suffering while it dictates its necessity
could i flatter myself that lord orville would indeed be sensible of your worth and act with a nobleness of mind which should prove it congenial to your own
of a man she so greatly admires
and imprudence is much sooner regretted than repaired your health you tell me is much mended can you then consent to leave bristol not abruptly that i do not desire but in a few days from the time you receive this
i will write to missus selwyn and tell her how much i wish your return and missus clinton can take sufficient care of you i have meditated upon every possible expedient
ere i fixed upon exacting from you a compliance which i am convinced will be most painful to you but i can satisfy myself in none this will at least be safe
his own name not being known
by reason of his long residence in brasil hence he was forced to fly when the portuguese retook those countries from the dutch several nations then inhabiting at brasil as english french dutch and others
they made him captain within a few days after he took a great ship coming from new spain which had a great quantity of plate on board and carried it to jamaica this action got him a great reputation at home
and though in his private affairs he governed himself very well he would oftentimes appear brutish and foolish when in drink running up and down the streets beating and wounding those he met no person daring to make any resistance to the spaniards he was always very
barbarous and cruel out of an inveterate hatred against that nation of these he commanded several to be roasted alive on wooden spits for not showing him hog yards where he might steal swine after many of these cruelties as he was cruising on the coasts of campechy
a dismal tempest surprised him so violently that his ship was wrecked upon the coasts the mariners only escaping with their muskets and some few bullets and powder which were the only things they could save
here they got ashore in a canoe and marching along the coast with all the speed they could
the common refuge of the pirates being upon his journey and all very hungry and thirsty as is usual in desert places they were pursued by a troop of an hundred spaniards brasiliano perceiving their imminent danger encouraged his companions
telling them they were better soldiers and ought rather to die under their arms fighting as it became men of courage than surrender to the spaniards who would take away their lives with the utmost torments the pirates were but thirty
yet seeing their brave commander oppose the enemy with such courage resolved to do the like hereupon they faced the troop of spaniards and discharged their muskets on them so dextrously that they killed one horseman almost with every shot
having vanquished the enemy they mounted on horses they found in the field and continued their journey brasiliano having lost but two of his companions in this bloody fight and had two wounded prosecuting their way before they came to the port they spied a boat at anchor from campechy
well manned protecting a few canoes that were lading wood hereupon they sent six of their men to watch them who next morning by a wile possessed themselves of the canoes having given notice to their companions they boarded them and also took the little man of war their convoy
being thus masters of this fleet they wanted only provisions of which they found little aboard those vessels but this defect was supplied by the horses which they killed and salted with salt which by good fortune the wood cutters had brought with them with which they supported themselves till they could get better
laden with divers sorts of merchandise and pieces of eight designed to buy cocoa nuts for their lading home
giving themselves to all manner of debauchery such of these pirates will spend two or three thousand pieces of eight in a night not leaving themselves a good shirt to wear in the morning my own master would buy sometimes a pipe of wine
and placing it in the street would force those that passed by to drink with him
and very often he would throw these liquors about the streets and wet peoples clothes without regarding whether he spoiled their apparel among themselves these pirates are very liberal if any one has lost all which often happens in their manner of life
but at jamaica they ought not to run very deep in debt seeing the inhabitants there easily sell one another for debt
this man had within three months before three thousand pieces of eight in ready cash all which he wasted in that little time and became as poor as i have told you
after having spent all was forced to go to sea again to seek his fortune he set forth towards the coast of campechy his common rendezvous fifteen days after his arrival
intending to hang them every one and doubtless he had done so but for a stratagem of brasiliano which saved their lives he wrote a letter to the governor in the names of other pirates that were abroad at sea telling them he should have a care how he used those persons he had in custody
for if he hurt them in the least they swore they would never give quarter to any spaniard that should fall into their hands these pirates having been often at campechy and other places of the west indies in the spanish dominions the governor feared what mischief their companions abroad might do
if he should punish them hereupon he released them exacting only an oath on them
and withal he sent them as common mariners in the galleons to spain they got in this voyage all together five hundred pieces of eight so that they tarried not long there after their arrival providing themselves with necessaries they returned to jamaica from whence they set forth again to sea
but especially abusing the poor spaniards who fell into their hands with all sorts of cruelty the spaniards finding they could gain nothing on these people nor diminish their number daily resolved to lessen the number of their trading ships but neither was this of any service
after scot came another named mansvelt who invaded granada and penetrated even to the south sea till at last for want of provision he was forced to go back he assaulted the isle of saint catherine which he took with a few prisoners these directed him to carthagena
a principal city in neuva granada but the bold attempts and actions of john davis born at jamaica ought not to be forgotten being some of the most remarkable especially his rare prudence and valour showed in the fore mentioned kingdom of granada this pirate having long cruised in the gulf of pocatauro
and not meeting any of them resolved at last to land in nicaragua leaving his ship hid on the coast this design he soon executed for taking eighty men out of ninety which he had in all and the rest he left to keep the ship he divided them equally into three canoes
his intent was to rob the churches and rifle the houses of the chief citizens of nicaragua thus in the dark night they entered the river leading to that city rowing in their canoes by day they hid themselves and boats under the branches of trees on the banks
which grow very thick along the river sides in those countries and along the sea coast being arrived at the city the third night the sentinel who kept the post of the river thought them to be fishermen that had been fishing in the lake and most of the pirates understanding spanish
he doubted not as soon as he heard them speak they had in their company an indian who had run away from his master
he went first ashore and instantly killed the sentinel this done they entered the city and went directly to three or four houses of the chief citizens where they knocked softly these believing them to be friends opened the doors and the pirates suddenly possessing themselves of the houses
so that the whole city was in an uproar and all the citizens rallied in order to a defence
and some prisoners these they led away that if any of them should be taken by the spaniards they might use them for ransom thus they got to their ship and with all speed put to sea forcing the prisoners before they let them go
but no sooner had they weighed anchor when they saw a troop of about five hundred spaniards all well armed at the sea side against these they let fly several guns wherewith they forced them to quit the sands
with all this they arrived at jamaica soon after but this sort of people being never long masters of their money they were soon constrained to seek more by the same means and captain john davis presently after his return was chosen admiral of seven or eight vessels
as they forced the pirates to retire but the smoke of the powder continuing thick as a dark fog or mist with four canoes well manned they boarded the ship with great agility and forced the spaniards to surrender the ship being taken they found not in her what they thought
being already almost unladen all they got was only fifty bars of iron a small parcel of paper some earthen jars of wine and other things of small importance then lolonois called a council of war and told them he intended for guatemala
hereupon they divided into several sentiments
especially a party of them who were but raw in those exercises and who imagined at their setting forth from tortuga that pieces of eight were gathered as easy as pears from a tree but finding most things contrary to their expectation they quitted the fleet and returned
but the major part judging the propounded voyage little to their purpose separated from lolonois and the rest of these one moses vanclein was ringleader captain of the ship taken at puerto cavallo
with him joined another comrade of his by name pierre le picard who seeing the rest leave lolonois thought fit to do the same these runaways having thus parted company steered homewards coasting along the continent till they came to costa rica here they landed a strong party nigh the river veraguas
and marched in good order to the town of the same name this they took and totally pillaged though the spaniards made a strong resistance they brought away some of the inhabitants as prisoners with all they had
the pirates gaining in this adventure but seven or eight pounds weight of gold they returned giving over the design to go to the town of nata situate on the coasts of the south sea
being deterred by the multitudes of spaniards gathered on all sides to fall upon them whereof they had timely advice
his ship being too great to get out at the reflux of those seas there he sustained great want of provisions so as they were constrained to go ashore every day to seek sustenance and not finding anything else they were forced to kill and eat monkeys and other animals such as they could find
his ship struck on a bank of sand where it stuck so fast as no art could get her off again though they unladed all the guns iron and other weighty things as much as they could hereupon they were forced to break the ship in pieces and with planks and nails
whence they gather abundance of fruits as potatoes bananas racoven ananas and many others they have no houses to dwell in as at other places in the indies some say they eat human flesh which is confirmed by what happened when lolonois was there
the nimble frenchman escaped but the spaniard being not so swift was taken and heard of no more some days after twelve pirates set forth well armed to seek their companion among whom was the frenchman
without taking some boats such as he looked for to this effect he determined to go on to the coasts of carthagena but god almighty the time of his divine justice being now come had appointed the indians of darien to be the instruments and executioners thereof
these indians of darien are esteemed as bravoes or wild savage indians by the neighbouring spaniards who never could civilize them hither lolonois came brought by his evil conscience that cried for punishment thinking to act his cruelties
but the indians within a few days after his arrival took him prisoner and tore him in pieces alive throwing his body limb by limb into the fire and his ashes into the air that no trace or memory might remain of such an infamous inhuman creature
one of his companions gave me an exact account of this tragedy affirming that himself had escaped the same punishment with the greatest difficulty
who were taken in that encounter by those indians were as their cruel captain torn in pieces and burnt alive thus ends the history the life
who full of horrid execrable and enormous deeds and debtor to so much innocent blood died by cruel and butcherly hands such as his own were in the course of his life those that remained in the island de las pertas
waiting for the return of them who got away only to their great misfortune hearing no news of their captain nor companions at last embarked on the ship of a certain pirate who happened to pass that way
and take the city of carthagena these two crews of pirates being now joined were infinitely glad at the presence and society of one another
wherein they had lived ten entire months these because they were now considerably strengthened to effect with greater satisfaction their designs
they all put themselves into canoes and entered the river being five hundred men leaving only five or six persons in each ship to keep them they took no provisions being persuaded they should find everywhere sufficient but these their hopes were found totally vain not being grounded on almighty god
for he ordained it so that the indians aware of their coming all fled not leaving in their houses or plantations which for the most part border on the sides of rivers any necessary provisions or victuals
yet all this courage and vigour lasted but a fortnight when their hearts as well as bodies began to fail for hunger insomuch as they were forced to quit the river and betake themselves to the woods seeking out some villages where they might find relief
but all in vain for having ranged up and down the woods for some days without finding the least comfort they were forced to return to the river
the sheaths of their swords knives and other such things being almost ravenous and eager to meet some indians
otherwise she looked none the worse for recent experiences well you seem to have gotten yourself repaired miss quinton he greeted her feel better now miss quinton this is lieutenant governor blount eric miss paula quinton delighted miss quinton blount said
fighting like a commando how is mohammed by the way no danger i hope we all like him mohammed ferriera was still unconscious the girl reported he had a minor concussion
but the medics were not greatly disturbed and expected him to be fully recovered in a few weeks von schlichten invited her and her escort to join him and blount colonel o'leary was carrying a cocktail jug and a couple of glasses finding a table out of the worst of the noise
they all sat down together i suppose you think it's a joke our being nearly murdered by the people we came to help paula began a trifle defensively not a very funny joke von schlichten told her it's been played on us till it's lost its humor yes
you stay on this planet very long and you'll see what i mean you call them that too she asked as though disappointed in him maybe if you stopped calling them geeks they wouldn't resent you the way they do you know that's a nasty name
in the first century pre atomic it designated a degraded person who performed some sort of revolting public exhibition biting off live chickens heads in a sideshow wild man act hideyoshi o'leary supplied
when you get up north watch how the peasants kill these little things like six legged iguanas that they raise for food that isn't the reason though von schlichten said as we use it the word's pure onomatopoeia
you know what they sound like geek geek geek as far as that goes you know what the geek name for a terran is blount asked
she looked puzzled for a moment then slipped in her enunciator
taking out the geek speaker she put it away why that's exactly how they'd pronounce it and don't tell me you haven't heard it before o'leary said
she leaned toward the lighter flame o'leary had snapped into being i suspect that of being a principle you'd like me to bear in mind at the polar mines when i see let's say some laborer being beaten by a couple of overseers with three foot lengths of three quarter inch steel cable
it's a fact you can easily verify that permission to join the labor companies at the polar mines is regarded as a privilege granted as a reward or denied as a punishment and most of the geek landowners are bitterly critical of the way we treat our labor at the mines
they claim we make them dissatisfied with the treatment they get at home of course they're always glad to have the peasants taken off their hands during a slack agricultural season blount added and we train workers to handle contragravity power equipment
now look you just came here from niflheim von schlichten objected the company employs quite a few geeks there how much brutality did you run into there well i must admit the ullerans who work there are very well treated except that i don't think it's right to employ any people with silicone body tissues
the terran federation space navy discovered and explored both uller and niflheim which made both planets public domain the company was originally formed to exploit uller alone but the federation insisted that both planets would have to be franchised to the same company
and not more than five hundred geeks all employed on construction work and in the mines on the planet itself working directly under terran supervision we use them because they have four hands and in the power driven contragravity armor that's necessary there
they can manipulate more controls and do more things at once than we can here on uller at the polar mines
not as rich or as accessible blount said you know what the seasons are like at the poles of this planet
there will be violent circular storms of hot wind blowing away the light sand and dust and leaving the heavier particles of metallic ores and metals behind
in the north metallurgy and food preparation have always been combined that way yes if you think the natives who work at the mines feel themselves ill treated you might propose closing them down entirely and see what the native reaction would be von schlichten told her
independently hired free workers can make themselves rich by native standards in a couple of seasons many of the serfs pick up enough money from us in incentive pay to buy their freedom after one season well if the company's doing so much good on this planet
when we came to uller we found a culture roughly like that of europe during the seventh century pre atomic or more closely like that of japan before the beginning of the first century p a we initiated a technological and economic revolution here
and such revolutions have their casualties too a number of classes and groups got squeezed pretty badly like the horse breeders and harness manufacturers on terra by the invention of the automobile
you know it's a shame that geek messiah isn't a smart crook instead of an honest fanatic he could take in the equivalent of a couple of million sols a year off the north uller merchants and the equatorial zone shipowners but it is a fact which not even rakkeed can successfully deny
that we've raised the general living standard of this planet by about two hundred percent rakkeed is a zirk von schlichten said they're the nomads who hire out to the northern merchants as caravan drivers and also prey or used to prey on the caravans as brigands
since our air freighters got into operation neither caravan driving nor caravan raiding has been a paying business and our air patrols have made caravan raiding suicidal as well so the zirks don't like us the only thing they know or are willing to learn is handling these six legged riding and pack animals we call hipposaurs
the merchants in the north don't like us beside spoiling the caravan trade we're spoiling their local business because the land owning barons who used to deal with them are now dealing directly with us
so he's been currying favor with the urban merchants that makes him as pro rakkeed and as anti terran as they are at krink king jonkvank has the support of his barons but he's afraid of his urban bourgeoisie and we pay him a handsome subsidy so he's pro terran and anti rakkeed
and we can believe oh up to eighty percent of what he tells us and that's sixty percent better than any of the other native princes
the kragans are the only real friends we have on this planet he thought for a moment
blount told him ha she's been reading that thing of stanley browne's he said what's the matter with stanley browne paula demanded
being all come aboard they consider where to get provisions especially flesh seeing they scarce eat anything else and of this the most common sort is pork the next food is tortoises which they salt a little
sometimes they rob such or such hog yards where the spaniards often have a thousand head of swine together they come to these places in the night and having beset the keeper's lodge they force him to rise and give them as many heads as they desire threatening to kill him if he refuses
here they allow twice a day every one as much as he can eat without weight or measure nor does the steward of the vessel give any more flesh or anything else to the captain than to the meanest mariner the ship being well victualled
they deliberate whither they shall go to seek their desperate fortunes and likewise agree upon certain articles which are put in writing which every one is bound to observe and all of them or the chiefest part do set their hands to it
here they set down distinctly what sums of money each particular person ought to have for that voyage the fund of all the payments being what is gotten by the whole expedition for otherwise it is the same law among these people as with other pirates no prey no pay
first therefore they mention how much the captain is to have for his ship next the salary of the carpenter or shipwright who careened mended and rigged the vessel this commonly amounts to one hundred or one hundred and fifty pieces of eight according to the agreement
afterwards for provisions and victualling they draw out of the same common stock about two hundred pieces of eight also a salary for the surgeon and his chest of medicaments
which usually is rated at two hundred or two hundred and fifty pieces of eight lastly they agree what rate each one ought to have that is either wounded or maimed in his body suffering the loss of any limb as for the loss of a right arm six hundred pieces of eight or six slaves
for the left arm five hundred pieces of eight or five slaves for a right leg five hundred pieces of eight or five slaves for the left leg four hundred pieces of eight or four slaves for an eye one hundred pieces of eight or one slave
for a finger the same as for an eye all which sums are taken out of the common stock of what is gotten by their piracy and a very exact and equal dividend is made of the remainder they have also regard to qualities and places
to what the ordinary seamen have the master's mate only two and other officers proportionately to their employ after which
the boys not being omitted who draw half a share because when they take a better vessel than their own it is in the boys duty to fire their former vessel and then retire to the prize they observe among themselves very good orders
for in the prizes which they take it is severely prohibited to every one to take anything to themselves hence all they take is equally divided as hath been said before yea they take a solemn oath to each other
not to conceal the least thing they find among the prizes and if any one is found false to the said oath he is immediately turned out of the society they are very civil and charitable to each other so that if any one wants what another has
they commonly undertake some more hazardous enterprises one remarkable instance of which i shall here give you a certain pirate called pierre francois or peter francis waiting a long time at sea with his boat and twenty six men
and not being able to find any prey at last he resolved to direct his course to rancheiras near the river de la plata
twelve vessels with a man of war for their defence every vessel has at least two negroes in it who are very dextrous in diving to the depth of six fathoms where they find good store of pearls on this fleet
the man of war scarce half a league distant from the small ships and the wind very calm
he resolved to attempt the man of war with which addition he hoped to master the rest of the fleet to this end he presently sunk his own boat putting forth the spanish colours and weighed anchor with a little wind which then began to stir having with threats and promises compelled
most of the spaniards to assist him but so soon as the man of war perceived one of his fleet to sail he did so too fearing lest the mariners designed to run away with the riches they had on board
this unhappy event much encouraged those in the man of war they gaining upon the pirates every moment and at last overtook them but finding they had twenty two sound men the rest being either killed or wounded resolved to defend themselves as long as possible
this they performed very courageously for some time till they were forced by the man of war on condition that they should not be used as slaves to carry stones or be employed in other labours for three or four years as they served their negroes but that they should be set safe ashore on free land
on these articles they yielded with all they had taken which was worth in pearls alone
besides the vessel provisions goods
which he had certainly carried off if his main mast had not been lost as we said before another bold attempt like this no less remarkable i shall also give you
was cruising in a boat of thirty men and four small guns from jamaica
and carthagena bound for the havannah well provided with twenty great guns and seventy men passengers and mariners this ship he presently assaulted which they on board as resolutely defended
the pirate escaping the first encounter resolved to attack her more vigorously than before seeing he had yet suffered no great damage this he performed with so much resolution that at last after a long and dangerous fight he became master of it
the portuguese lost only ten men and had four wounded so that he had still remaining twenty fighting men whereas the spaniards had double the number
having possessed themselves of the ship the wind being contrary to return to jamaica they resolved to steer to cape saint anthony which lies west of cuba there to repair and take in fresh water of which they were then in great want being very near the cape
abovesaid they unexpectedly met with three great ships coming from new spain and bound for the havannah
two days after this misfortune there arose a great storm which separated the ships from one another the great vessel where the pirates were arrived at campechy
where he arrived within a fortnight after his escape during which time as also afterwards he endured extreme hunger and thirst having no other provision with him than a small calabaca with a little water besides the fears of falling again into the hands of the spaniards
them like knives though not so well
they presently granted his request and equipped him a boat accordingly
for being arrived at campechy with an undaunted courage and without any noise he assaulted the said ship
that in a little time they compelled the spaniards to surrender
bad feeding or bad grooming it is therefore a point of humanity not to speak of its obvious impolicy for the owner of horses to overlook any neglect in their feeding or grooming
his interest dictates that so valuable an animal should be well housed well fed and well groomed and he will do well to acquire so much of stable lore as will enable him to judge of these points himself
in a general way where a horse's coat is habitually rough and untidy there is a sad want of elbow grease in the stable when a horse of tolerable breeding is dull and spiritless he is getting ill or badly fed
stables the architectural form of the stables will be subject to other influences than ours we confine ourselves therefore to their internal arrangements they should be roomy in proportion to the number of stalls
warm with good ventilation and perfectly free from cold draughts the stalls roomy without excess with good and well trapped drainage so as to exclude bad smells
a sound ceiling to prevent the entrance of dust from the hayloft which is usually above them and there should be plenty of light coming however either from above or behind
although some grooms insist on a much higher temperature
ventilation is usually attained by the insertion of one or more tubes or boxes of wood or iron through the ceiling and the roof with a sloping covering over the opening to keep out rain
and valves or ventilators below to regulate the atmosphere with openings in the walls for the admission of fresh air this is still a difficulty however for the effluvium of the stable is difficult to dispel and draughts must be avoided
this is sometimes accomplished by means of hollow walls with gratings at the bottom outside for the exit of bad air which is carried down through the hollow walls and discharged at the bottom while for the admission of fresh air the reverse takes place
a hay rack placed within easy reach of the horse of wood or iron occupies either a corner or the whole breadth of the stall which should be about six feet for on ordinary sized horse a manger
formerly of wood but of late years more generally of iron lined with enamel occupies a corner of the stall the pavement of the stall should be nearly level with a slight incline towards the gutter to keep the bed dry
paved with hard dutch brick laid on edge or asphalte or smithy clinkers or rubble stones laid in strong cement in the centre about five feet from the wall
a grating should be firmly fixed in the pavement and in communication with a well trapped drain to carry off the water the gutter outside the stall should also communicate with the drains by trapped openings
the passage between the stall and the hall should be from five to six feet broad at least on the wall opposite to each stall
a harness room is indispensable to every stable it should be dry and airy and furnished with a fireplace and boiler both for the protection of the harness
and to prepare mashes for the horses when required the partition wall should be boarded where the harness goes with pegs to hang the various pieces of harness on with saddle trees to rest the saddles on
the furniture of a stable with coachhouse consists of coach mops jacks for raising the wheels horse brushes spoke brushes water brushes crest and bit brushes
dandy brushes currycombs birch and heath brooms trimming combs scissors and pickers oil cans and brushes harness brushes of three sorts leathers
sponges for horse and carriage stable forks dung baskets or wheelbarrow corn sieves and measures horse cloths and stable pails horn or glass lanterns
over the stables there should be accommodation for the coachman or groom to sleep accidents sometimes occur and he should be at hand to interfere
the establishment we have in view will consist of coachman groom and stable boy who are capable of keeping in perfect order four horses and perhaps the pony of this establishment the coachman is chief
besides skill in driving he should possess a good general knowledge of horses he has usually to purchase provender to see that the horses are regularly fed and properly groomed watch over their condition
apply simple remedies to trifling ailments in the animals under his charge and report where he observes symptoms of more serious ones which he does not understand he has either to clean the carriage himself
the groom's first duties are to keep his horses in condition but he is sometimes expected to perform the duties of a valet to ride out with his master on occasions to wait at table and otherwise assist in the house
in these cases he should have the means of dressing himself and keeping his clothes entirely away from the stables in the morning about six o'clock or rather before
the stables should be opened and cleaned out and the horses fed first by cleaning the rack and throwing in fresh hay putting it lightly in the rack that the horses may get it out easily
a short time afterwards their usual morning feed of oats should be put into the manger while this is going on the stable boy has been removing the stable dung and sweeping and washing out the stables
both of which should be done every day and every corner carefully swept in order to keep the stable sweet and clean the real duties of the groom follow where the horses are not taken out for early exercise
and curry him before on his breast and laying your right arm over his back join your right side to his left and curry him all under the belly near the fore bowels
and so all over from the knees and back upwards after that go to the far side and do that likewise then take a dead horse's tail or failing that a cotton dusting cloth
by a hair cloth with which rub him all over again very hard both to take away loose hairs and lay his coat then wash your hands in fair water and rub him
and rub all his legs exceeding well from the knees and hocks downwards to his hoofs picking and dressing them very carefully about the fetlocks
so as to remove all gravel and dust which will sometimes lie in the bending of the joints in addition to the practice of this old writer modern grooms add wisping which usually follows brushing
the best wisp is made from a hayband untwisted and again doubled up after being moistened with water this is applied to every part of the body as the brushing had been
by changing the hands taking care in all these operations to carry the hand in the direction of the coat stains on the hair are removed by sponging or when the coat is very dirty by the water brush
the horsecloth should now be put on by taking the cloth in both hands with the outside next you and with your right hand to the off side throw it over his back
placing it no farther back than will leave it straight and level which will be about a foot from the tail put the roller round and the pad piece under it about six or eight inches from the fore legs
watering usually follows dressing but some horses refuse their food until they have drunk the groom should not therefore lay down exclusive rules on this subject
exercise all horses not in work require at least two hours exercise daily and in exercising them a good groom will put them through the paces to which they have been trained
in the case of saddle horses he will walk trot canter and gallop them in order to keep them up to their work with draught horses
feeding must depend on their work but they require feeding three times a day with more or less corn each time according to their work in the fast coaching days it was a saying among proprietors that
his belly was the measure of his food but the horse's appetite is not to be taken as a criterion of the quantity of food under any circumstances
mixed up together under this the horses did their work well
twice a day a third feed and a rack full of hay
you cannot take up a paper without having the question put do you bruise your oats well that depends on circumstances a fresh young horse can bruise its own oats when it can get them
but aged horses after a time lose the power of masticating and bruising them and bolt them whole thus much impeding the work of digestion for an old horse then bruise the oats
for a young one it does no harm and little good oats should be bright and dry and not too new where they are new sprinkle them with salt and water otherwise they overload the horse's stomach
chopped straw mixed with oats in the proportion of a third of straw or hay is a good food for horses in full work and carrots of which horses are remarkably fond have a perceptible effect in a short time
the water given to a horse merits some attention it should not be too cold hard water is not to be recommended stagnant or muddy water is positively injurious
river water is the best for all purposes and anything is preferable to spring water which should be exposed to the sun in summer for an hour or two and stirred up before using it
with reasonable exercise will not be thrown away after this operation on reaching home very hot the groom should walk him about for a few minutes this done he should take off the moisture with the scraper
and afterwards wisp him over with a handful of straw and a flannel cloth if the cloth is dipped in some spirit all the better he should wash pick and wipe dry the legs and feet
take off the bridle and crupper and fasten it to the rack then the girths and put a wisp of straw under the saddle when sufficiently cool the horse should have some hay given him and then a feed of oats
if he refuse the latter offer him a little wet bran or a handful of oatmeal in tepid water when he has been fed he should be thoroughly cleaned and his body clothes put on
if very much harassed with fatigue a little good ale or wine will be well bestowed on a valuable horse
bridles every time a horse is unbridled the bit should be carefully washed and dried and the leather wiped to keep them sweet as well as the girths and saddle
the latter being carefully dried and beaten with a switch before it is again put on in washing a horse's feet after a day's work the master should insist upon the legs and feet being washed thoroughly with a sponge
until the water flows over them
harness if not carefully preserved very soon gets a shabby tarnished appearance where the coachman has a proper harness room and sufficient assistance this is inexcusable
and easily prevented the harness room should have a wooden lining all round and be perfectly dry and well ventilated around the walls hooks and pegs should be placed for the several pieces of harness
and every part of the harness should have its peg or hook one for the halters another for the reins and others for snaffles and other bits and metal work
and either a wooden horse or saddle trees for the saddles and pads all these parts should be dry clean and shining this is only to be done by careful cleaning and polishing
an excellent paste for polishing harness and the leather work of carriages
stirring it till completely dissolved into this pour one pounds of litharge of the shops which has been pounded up with water and dried and sifted through a sieve leaving the two when mixed
to simmer on the fire stirring them continually till all is melted when it is a little cool
place this again on the fire and stir till it boils anew and suffer it to cool when cooled a little add distilled turpentine till it has the consistence of a thickish paste
scenting it with any essence at hand thinning it when necessary from time to time
when the leather is old and greasy it should be cleaned before applying this polish with a brush wetted in a weak solution of potass and water washing afterwards with soft river water and drying thoroughly
if the leather is not black one or two coats of black ink may be given before applying the polish when quite dry the varnish should be laid on with a soft shoe brush
when the leather is very old it may be softened with fish oil and after putting on the ink a sponge charged with distilled turpentine passed over to scour the surface of the leather
for fawn or yellow coloured leather take a quart of skimmed milk pour into it one oz of sulphuric acid and when cold
shaking the bottle gently until it ceases to emit white vapours separate the coagulated from the liquid part by straining through a sieve and store it away till required
in applying it clean the leather by a weak solution of oxalic acid washing it off immediately
wheel grease is usually purchased at the shops but a good paste is made as follows melt eighty parts of grease and stir into it mixing it thoroughly and smoothly
the family carriage of the day being a modified form of the clarence adapted for family use the carriage is a valuable piece of furniture requiring all the care of the most delicate upholstery
with the additional disadvantage of continual exposure to the weather
and a coach house perfectly dry and well ventilated for the wood work swells with moisture it shrinks also with heat unless the timber has undergone a long course of seasoning it should also have a dry floor
a boarded one being recommended it must be removed from the ammoniacal influence of the stables from open drains and cesspools and other gaseous influences likely to affect the paint and varnish
when the carriage returns home it should be carefully washed and dried and that if possible before the mud has time to dry on it
this is done by first well slushing it with clean water so as to wash away all particles of sand having first closed the sashes to avoid wetting the linings
the body is then gone carefully over with a soft mop using plenty of clean water and penetrating into every corner of the carved work so that not an atom of dirt remains
the body of the carriage is then raised by placing the jack under the axletree and raising it so that the wheel turns freely this is now thoroughly washed with the mop until the dirt is removed
using a water brush for corners where the mop does not penetrate every particle of mud and sand removed by the mop and afterwards with a wet sponge the carriage is wiped dry and
as soon after as possible the varnish is carefully polished with soft leather using a little sweet oil for the leather parts and even for the panels so as to check any tendency of the varnish to crack
stains are removed by rubbing them with the leather and sweet oil if that fails
in preparing the carriage for use the whole body should be rubbed over with a clean leather and carefully polished the iron work and joints oiled the plated and brass work occasionally cleaned
the one with plate powder or with well washed whiting mixed with sweet oil and leather kept for the purpose the other with rottenstone mixed with a little oil and applied without too much rubbing until the paste is removed
but if rubbed every day with the leather little more will be required to keep it untarnished the linings require careful brushing every day the cushions being taken out and beaten
and the glass sashes should always be bright and clean the wheel tires and axletree are carefully seen to and greased when required the bolts and nuts tightened
these duties however are only incidental to the coachman's office which is to drive and much of the enjoyment of those in the carriage depends on his proficiency in his art much also of
the wear of the carriage and horses he should have sufficient knowledge of the construction of the carriage to know when it is out of order to know also the pace at which he can go over the road he has under him without risking the springs
having with or without the help of the groom or stable boy put his horses to the carriage and satisfied himself by walking round them that everything is properly arranged
the coachman proceeds to the off side of the carriage takes the reins from the back of the horses where they were thrown buckles them together and placing his foot on the step ascends to his box
having his horses now entirely under control in ordinary circumstances he is not expected to descend for where no footman accompanies the carriage
the doors are usually so arranged that even a lady may let herself out if she wishes it from the inside the coachman's duties are to avoid everything approaching an accident
the pace at which he drives will depend upon his orders in all probability a moderate pace of seven or eight miles an hour less speed is injurious to the horses getting them into lazy and sluggish habits
for it is wonderful how soon these are acquired by some horses the writer was once employed to purchase a horse for a country friend and he picked a very handsome gelding out of collins's stables which seemed to answer to his friend's wants
it was duly committed to the coachman who was to drive it after some very successful trials in harness and out of it and seemed likely to give great satisfaction after a time the friend got tired of his carriage and gave it up
as the easiest mode of getting rid of the horse it was sent up to the writer's stables a present only twelve months had elapsed the horse was as handsome as ever with plenty of flesh and a sleek glossy coat
and he was thankfully enough received but on trial it was found that a stupid coachman who was imbued with one of their old maxims that it's the pace that kills had driven the horse
at a jog trot of four miles or four and a half and now no persuasion of the whip could get more out of him after many unsuccessful efforts to bring him back to his pace in one of which a break down occurred
under the hands of a professional trainer he was sent to the hammer and sold for a sum that did not pay for the attempt to break him in this maxim therefore that it's the pace that kills
is altogether fallacious in the moderate sense in which we are viewing it in the old coaching days indeed when the shrewsbury wonder drove into the inn yard while the clock was striking week after week and mouth after month
with unerring regularity twenty seven hours to a hundred and sixty two miles when the quicksilver mail was timed to eleven miles an hour between london and plymouth
when the brighton age tool'd and horsed by the late mister stevenson used to dash round the square as the fifth hour was striking having stopped at the half way house while his servant handed a sandwich and a glass of sherry to his passengers
then the pace was indeed killing but the truth is horses that are driven at a jog trot pace lose that elan with which a good driver can inspire them
and they are left to do their work by mere weight and muscle therefore unless he has contrary orders a good driver will choose a smart pace but not enough to make his horses perspire
in choosing his horses every master will see that they are properly paired that their paces are about equal when their habits differ it is the coachman's duty to discover how he can with least annoyance to the horses
get that pace out of them some horses have been accustomed to be driven on the check and the curb irritates them others with harder mouths cannot be controlled with the slight leverage this affords he must therefore
the reins should always be held so that the horses are in hand but he is a very bad driver who always drives with a tight rein the pain to the horse is intolerable
and causes him to rear and plunge and finally break sway if he can he is also a bad driver when the reins are always slack the horse then feels abandoned to himself he is neither directed nor supported
the true coachman's hands are so delicate and gentle that the mere weight of the reins is felt on the bit and the directions are indicated by a turn of the wrist rather than by a pull
the horses are guided and encouraged and only pulled up when they exceed their intended pace or in the event of a stumble
in driving the coachman should never give way to temper how often do we see horses stumble from being conducted or at least allowed to go over bad ground by some careless driver
might with much more justice be applied to his own brutal shoulders
she was all respectful gratitude to missus sedley delighted beyond measure at the bazaars and in a whirl of wonder at the theatre whither the good natured lady took her one day amelia had a headache and could not go upon some party of pleasure to which the two young people were invited
nothing could induce her friend to go without her what you who have shown the poor orphan what happiness and love are for the first time in her life quit you never and the green eyes looked up to heaven and filled with tears
and missus sedley could not but own that her daughter's friend had a charming kind heart of her own as for mister sedley's jokes rebecca laughed at them with a cordiality and perseverance which not a little pleased and softened that good natured gentleman
sir and mister sambo to the delight of that attendant
once in looking over some drawings which amelia had sent from school rebecca suddenly came upon one which caused her to burst into tears and leave the room
amelia hastened after her friend to know the cause of this display of feeling and the good natured girl came back without her companion rather affected too you know her father was our drawing master mamma at chiswick and used to do all the best parts of our drawings
my love i'm sure i always heard miss pinkerton say that he did not touch them he only mounted them it was called mounting mamma rebecca remembers the drawing and her father working at it and the thought of it came upon her rather suddenly and
so you know she the poor child is all heart said missus sedley i wish she could stay with us another week said amelia she's devilish like miss cutler that i used to meet at dumdum only fairer
o joseph we know that story said amelia laughing never mind about telling that but persuade mamma to write to sir something crawley for leave of absence for poor dear rebecca here she comes her eyes red with weeping i'm better now said the girl with
the sweetest smile possible taking good natured missus sedley's extended hand and kissing it respectfully how kind you all are to me all she added with a laugh except you mister joseph me said joseph meditating an instant departure
you are not so good to me as dear amelia he doesn't know you so well cried amelia i defy anybody not to be good to you my dear said her mother the curry was capital indeed it was said joe quite gravely
no there was not and the chilis
i shall take care how i let you choose for me another time said rebecca as they went down again to dinner
no said she i know you wouldn't and then she gave him ever so gentle a pressure with her little hand and drew it back quite frightened and looked first for one instant in his face and then down at the carpet rods
it was an advance and as such perhaps some ladies of indisputable correctness and gentility will condemn the action as immodest but you see poor dear rebecca had all this work to do for herself
if a person is too poor to keep a servant though ever so elegant he must sweep his own rooms if a dear girl has no dear mamma to settle matters with the young man she must do it for herself and oh what a mercy it is that these women do not
exercise their powers oftener we can't resist them if they do let them show ever so little inclination and men go down on their knees at once old or ugly it is all the same and this i set down as a positive truth
a woman with fair opportunities and without an absolute hump may marry whom she likes only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field and don't know their own power they would overcome us entirely if they did
i exactly begin to feel as i did at dumdum with miss cutler many sweet little appeals half tender half jocular did miss sharp make to him about the dishes at dinner for by this time she was on a footing of considerable familiarity with the family
and as for the girls they loved each other like sisters young unmarried girls always do if they are in a house together for ten days as if bent upon advancing rebecca's plans in every way what must amelia do but remind her brother of a promise made last easter holidays
a promise that he joseph would take her to vauxhall now she said that rebecca is with us will be the very time o delightful said rebecca going to clap her hands but she recollected herself and paused like a modest creature as she was
and that a woman of your years and size is to catch cold in such an abominable damp place the children must have someone with them cried missus sedley let joe go said his father laughing he's big enough
at which speech even mister sambo at the sideboard burst out laughing and poor fat joe felt inclined to become a parricide almost undo his stays continued the pitiless old gentleman
fling some water in his face miss sharp or carry him upstairs the dear creature's fainting poor victim carry him up he's as light as a feather
order mister jos's elephant sambo cried the father send to exeter change sambo but seeing jos ready almost to cry with vexation the old joker stopped his laughter and said holding out his hand to his son
boney himself hasn't got such in his cellar my boy a goblet of champagne restored joseph's equanimity and before the bottle was emptied of which as an invalid he took two thirds he had agreed to take the young ladies to vauxhall
the girls must have a gentleman apiece said the old gentleman jos will be sure to leave emmy in the crowd
at this i don't know in the least for what reason missus sedley looked at her husband and laughed mister sedley's eyes twinkled in a manner indescribably roguish and he looked at amelia and amelia hanging down her head
blushed as only young ladies of seventeen know how to blush
amelia had better write a note said her father and let george osborne see what a beautiful handwriting we have brought back from miss pinkerton's
do you remember when you wrote to him to come on twelfth night emmy and spelt twelfth without the f that was years ago said amelia it seems like yesterday don't it john said missus sedley to her husband
and that night in a conversation which took place in a front room in the second floor in a sort of tent hung round with chintz of a rich and fantastic india pattern and double with calico of a tender rose colour
in the interior of which species of marquee was a featherbed on which were two pillows on which were two round red faces one in a laced nightcap and one in a simple cotton one ending in a tassel
missus sedley took her husband to task for his cruel conduct to poor joe it was quite wicked of you mister sedley said she to torment the poor boy so my dear said the cotton tassel in defence of his conduct
jos is a great deal vainer than you ever were in your life and that's saying a good deal though some thirty years ago in the year seventeen hundred and eighty what was it perhaps you had a right to be vain i don't say no
but i've no patience with jos and his dandified modesty it is out josephing joseph my dear and all the while the boy is only thinking of himself and what a fine fellow he is i doubt ma'am we shall have some trouble with him yet
here is emmy's little friend making love to him as hard as she can that's quite clear and if she does not catch him some other will that man is destined to be a prey to woman as i am to go on change every day
it's a mercy he did not bring us over a black daughter in law my dear but mark my words the first woman who fishes for him hooks him she shall go off to morrow the little artful creature said missus sedley with great energy
or were replaced by the gentle but unromantic music of the nose and save when the church bells tolled the hour and the watchman called it all was silent at the house of john sedley esquire of russell square and the stock exchange
when morning came the good natured missus sedley no longer thought of executing her threats with regard to miss sharp for though nothing is more keen nor more common nor more justifiable than maternal jealousy
yet she could not bring herself to suppose that the little humble grateful gentle governess would dare to look up to such a magnificent personage as the collector of boggley wollah
the petition too for an extension of the young lady's leave of absence had already been despatched and it would be difficult to find a pretext for abruptly dismissing her and as if all things conspired in favour of the gentle rebecca the very elements
for on the evening appointed for the vauxhall party george osborne having come to dinner and the elders of the house having departed according to invitation to dine with alderman balls at highbury barn there came on such a thunder storm as only happens on vauxhall nights
and as obliged the young people perforce to remain at home mister osborne did not seem in the least disappointed at this occurrence he and joseph sedley drank a fitting quantity of port wine tete a tete in the dining room
during the drinking of which sedley told a number of his best indian stories for he was extremely talkative in man's society and afterwards miss amelia sedley did the honours of the drawing room and these four young persons passed such a comfortable evening together
that they declared they were rather glad of the thunder storm than otherwise which had caused them to put off their visit to vauxhall osborne was sedley's godson and had been one of the family any time these three and twenty years
at six weeks old he had received from john sedley a present of a silver cup at six months old a coral with gold whistle and bells from his youth upwards he was tipped regularly by the old gentleman at christmas
in a word george was as familiar with the family as such daily acts of kindness and intercourse could make him do you remember sedley what a fury you were in when i cut off the tassels of your hessian boots and how miss hem
but vowed that he had totally forgotten it well do you remember coming down in a gig to doctor swishtail's to see me before you went to india and giving me half a guinea and a pat on the head i always had an idea that you were at least seven feet high
yes and after i had cut the tassels of his boots too boys never forget those tips at school nor the givers i delight in hessian boots said rebecca jos sedley who admired his own legs prodigiously
was extremely pleased at this remark though he drew his legs under his chair as it was made miss sharp said george osborne you who are so clever an artist you must make a grand historical picture of the scene of the boots
sedley shall be represented in buckskins and holding one of the injured boots in one hand by the other he shall have hold of my shirt frill amelia shall be kneeling near him with her little hands up and the picture shall have a grand allegorical title
as the frontispieces have in the medulla and the spelling book i shan't have time to do it here said rebecca i'll do it when when i'm gone and she dropped her voice and looked so sad and piteous
that everybody felt how cruel her lot was and how sorry they would be to part with her o that you could stay longer dear rebecca said amelia why answered the other still more sadly
was one of the defects of this silly little thing george osborne looked at the two young women with a touched curiosity and joseph sedley heaved something very like a sigh out of his big chest
as he cast his eyes down towards his favourite hessian boots let us have some music miss sedley amelia said george
who felt at that moment an extraordinary almost irresistible impulse to seize the above mentioned young woman in his arms and to kiss her in the face of the company and she looked at him for a moment
and if i should say that they fell in love with each other at that single instant of time i should perhaps be telling an untruth for the fact is that these two young people had been bred up by their parents for this very purpose
and their banns had as it were been read in their respective families any time these ten years they went off to the piano which was situated as pianos usually are
and as it was rather dark miss amelia in the most unaffected way in the world put her hand into mister osborne's who of course could see the way among the chairs and ottomans a great deal better than she could
those two have told theirs as soon as he gets his company said joseph i believe the affair is settled george osborne is a capital fellow and your sister the dearest creature in the world said rebecca
a great deal of confidence and intimacy is presently established between them there is no need of giving a special report of the conversation which now took place between mister sedley and the young lady for the conversation as may be judged from the foregoing specimen
though for the matter of that the couple in the next apartment would not have been disturbed had the talking been ever so loud so occupied were they with their own pursuits almost for the first time in his life mister sedley found himself talking
without the least timidity or hesitation to a person of the other sex miss rebecca asked him a great number of questions about india which gave him an opportunity of narrating many interesting anecdotes about that country and himself
he described the balls at government house and the manner in which they kept themselves cool in the hot weather with punkahs tatties and other contrivances
and he was very witty regarding the number of scotchmen whom lord minto the governor general patronised and then he described a tiger hunt and the manner in which the mahout of his elephant had been pulled off his seat by one of the infuriated animals
how delighted miss rebecca was at the government balls and how she laughed at the stories of the scotch aides de camp and called mister sedley a sad wicked satirical creature and how frightened she was at the story of the elephant
for your mother's sake dear mister sedley she said
promise never to go on one of those horrid expeditions pooh pooh miss sharp said he pulling up his shirt collars the danger makes the sport only the pleasanter
he had never been but once at a tiger hunt when the accident in question occurred and when he was half killed not by the tiger but by the fright and as he talked on he grew quite bold
and actually had the audacity to ask miss rebecca for whom she was knitting the green silk purse he was quite surprised and delighted at his own graceful familiar manner
for any one who wants a purse replied miss rebecca looking at him in the most gentle winning way sedley was going to make one of the most eloquent speeches possible and had begun
did you ever hear anything like your brother's eloquence whispered mister osborne to amelia why your friend has worked miracles the more the better said miss amelia who like almost all women who are worth a pin
was a match maker in her heart and would have been delighted that joseph should carry back a wife to india she had too in the course of this few days constant intercourse warmed into a most tender friendship for rebecca
and discovered a million of virtues and amiable qualities in her which she had not perceived when they were at chiswick together for the affection of young ladies is of as rapid growth as jack's bean stalk and reaches up to the sky in a night
it is what sentimentalists who deal in very big words call a yearning after the ideal and simply means that women are commonly not satisfied until they have husbands and children on whom they may centre affections which are spent elsewhere as it were
in small change having expended her little store of songs or having stayed long enough in the back drawing room it now appeared proper to miss amelia to ask her friend to sing you would not have listened to me she said to mister osborne
though she knew she was telling a fib had you heard rebecca first i give miss sharp warning though said osborne that right or wrong i consider miss amelia sedley the first singer in the world you shall hear said amelia
and joseph sedley was actually polite enough to carry the candles to the piano osborne hinted that he should like quite as well to sit in the dark but miss sedley laughing declined to bear him company any farther
and the two accordingly followed mister joseph rebecca sang far better than her friend though of course osborne was free to keep his opinion and exerted herself to the utmost and indeed to the wonder of amelia
who had never known her perform so well she sang a french song which joseph did not understand in the least and which george confessed he did not understand and then a number of those simple ballads which were the fashion forty years ago
and in which british tars our king poor susan blue eyed mary and the like were the principal themes they are not it is said very brilliant in a musical point of view but contain numberless good natured simple appeals to the affections
sospiri and felicita of the eternal donizettian music with which we are favoured now a days conversation of a sentimental sort befitting the subject was carried on between the songs to which sambo after he had brought the tea
the delighted cook and even missus blenkinsop the housekeeper condescended to listen on the landing place among these ditties was one the last of the concert and to the following effect ah
ah loud and piercing was the storm the cottage roof was shelter'd sure
the dawn is up the guest is gone the cottage hearth is blazing still heaven pity all poor wanderers lone hark to the wind upon the hill it was the sentiment of the before mentioned words when i'm gone
over again as she came to the last words miss sharp's deep toned voice faltered everybody felt the allusion to her departure and to her hapless orphan state joseph sedley who was fond of music and soft hearted
joseph sedley's bachelorhood would have been at an end and this work would never have been written but at the close of the ditty rebecca quitted the piano and giving her hand to amelia walked away into the front drawing room twilight
and at this moment mister sambo made his appearance with a tray containing sandwiches jellies and some glittering glasses and decanters on which joseph sedley's attention was immediately fixed
when the parents of the house of sedley returned from their dinner party they found the young people so busy in talking that they had not heard the arrival of the carriage and mister joseph was in the act of saying
jos instantly relapsed into an alarmed silence and quickly took his departure he did not lie awake all night thinking whether or not he was in love with miss sharp the passion of love never interfered with the appetite or the slumber of mister joseph sedley
but he thought to himself how delightful it would be to hear such songs as those after cutcherry what a distinguee girl she was how she could speak french better than the governor general's lady herself
and what a sensation she would make at the calcutta balls it's evident the poor devil's in love with me thought he she is just as rich as most of the girls who come out to india
and in these meditations he fell asleep how miss sharp lay awake thinking will he come or not to morrow need not be told here
sadly putting out amelia who was writing to her twelve dearest friends at chiswick mall and rebecca was employed upon her yesterday's work as joe's buggy drove up and while after his usual thundering knock and pompous bustle at the door
knowing glances were telegraphed between osborne and miss sedley and the pair smiling archly looked at rebecca who actually blushed as she bent her fair ringlets over her knitting how her heart beat as joseph appeared
joseph puffing from the staircase in shining creaking boots joseph in a new waistcoat red with heat and nervousness and blushing behind his wadded neckcloth it was a nervous moment for all
and as for amelia i think she was more frightened than even the people most concerned sambo who flung open the door and announced mister joseph followed grinning in the collector's rear
and bearing two handsome nosegays of flowers which the monster had actually had the gallantry to purchase in covent garden market that morning they were not as big as the haystacks which ladies carry about with them now a days in cones of filigree paper
but the young women were delighted with the gift as joseph presented one to each with an exceedingly solemn bow bravo jos cried osborne thank you dear joseph said amelia
quite ready to kiss her brother if he were so minded and i think for a kiss from such a dear creature as amelia i would purchase all mister lee's conservatories out of hand o heavenly heavenly flowers exclaimed miss sharp
and smelt them delicately and held them to her bosom and cast up her eyes to the ceiling in an ecstasy of admiration perhaps she just looked first into the bouquet to see whether there was a billet doux hidden among the flowers
but there was no letter do they talk the language of flowers at boggley wollah sedley asked osborne laughing pooh nonsense replied the sentimental youth bought em at nathan's very glad you like em
and eh amelia my dear i bought a pine apple at the same time which i gave to sambo let's have it for tiffin very cool and nice this hot weather rebecca said she had never tasted a pine and longed beyond everything to taste one
so the conversation went on i don't know on what pretext osborne left the room or why presently amelia went away perhaps to superintend the slicing of the pine apple
but jos was left alone with rebecca who had resumed her work and the green silk and the shining needles were quivering rapidly under her white slender fingers what a beautiful
said the collector it made me cry almost pon my honour it did because you have a kind heart mister joseph all the sedleys have i think it kept me awake last night and i was trying to hum it this morning in bed
i was upon my honour gollop my doctor came in at eleven for i'm a sad invalid you know and see gollop every day and gad there i was singing away like a robin o you droll creature do let me hear you sing it
no you miss sharp my dear miss sharp do sing it not now mister sedley said rebecca with a sigh my spirits are not equal to it besides i must finish the purse will you help me mister sedley
and before he had time to ask how mister joseph sedley of the east india company's service was actually seated tete a tete with a young lady looking at her with a most killing expression
his arms stretched out before her in an imploring attitude and his hands bound in a web of green silk which she was unwinding in this romantic position osborne and amelia found the interesting pair
when they entered to announce that tiffin was ready the skein of silk was just wound round the card but mister jos had never spoken i am sure he will to night dear amelia said as she pressed rebecca's hand
genie said aladdin build me a palace fit to receive the princess buddir al buddoor let its materials be made of nothing less than porphyry jasper agate lapis lazuli and the finest marble
let its walls be massive gold and silver bricks laid alternately let each front contain six windows and let the lattices of these except one which must be left unfinished be enriched with diamonds
rubies and emeralds so that they shall exceed everything of the kind ever seen in the world let there be an inner and outer court in front of the palace and a spacious garden but above all things provide a safe treasure house
and fill it with gold and silver let there be also kitchens and storehouses stables full of the finest horses with their equerries and grooms and hunting equipage officers attendants and slaves both men and women
to form a retinue for the princess and myself go and execute my wishes when aladdin gave these commands to the genie the sun was set the next morning at daybreak the genie presented himself
and having obtained aladdin's consent transported him in a moment to the palace he had made the genie led him through all the apartments where he found officers and slaves habited according to their rank and the services to which they were appointed
the genie then showed him the treasury which was opened by a treasurer where aladdin saw large vases of different sizes piled up to the top with money ranged all round the chamber the genie thence led him to the stables
and the grooms busy in dressing them from thence they went to the storehouses which were filled with all things necessary both for food and ornament when aladdin had examined every portion of the palace
and particularly the hall with the four and twenty windows and found it far to exceed his fondest expectations he said genie there is one thing wanting a fine carpet for the princess to walk upon from the sultan's palace to mine
lay one down immediately the genie disappeared and aladdin saw what he desired executed in an instant the genie then returned and carried him to his own home
when the sultan's porters came to open the gates they were amazed to find what had been an unoccupied garden filled up with a magnificent palace and a splendid carpet extending to it all the way from the sultan's palace
they told the strange tidings to the grand vizier who informed the sultan who exclaimed it must be aladdin's palace which i gave him leave to build for my daughter he has wished to surprise us and let us see
what wonders can be done in only one night aladdin on his being conveyed by the genie to his own home requested his mother to go to the princess buddir al buddoor and tell her that the palace would be ready for her reception in the evening she went
attended by her women slaves in the same order as on the preceding day shortly after her arrival at the princess's apartment the sultan himself came in and was surprised to find her
whom he knew as his suppliant at his divan in such humble guise to be now more richly and sumptuously attired than his own daughter this gave him a higher opinion of aladdin who took such care of his mother and made her share his wealth and honours
shortly after her departure aladdin mounting his horse and attended by his retinue of magnificent attendants left his paternal home forever and went to the palace in the same pomp as on the day before nor did he forget to take with him the wonderful lamp
and at night on the conclusion of the marriage ceremonies the princess took leave of the sultan her father bands of music led the procession followed by a hundred state ushers and the like number of black mutes in two files with their officers at their head
made it as light as day in this order the princess conveyed in her litter and accompanied also by aladdin's mother carried in a superb litter and attended by her women slaves proceeded on the carpet which was spread from the sultan's palace to that of aladdin
on her arrival aladdin was ready to receive her at the entrance and led her into a large hall illuminated with an infinite number of wax candles where a noble feast was served up
the dishes were of massy gold and contained the most delicate viands the vases basins and goblets were gold also and of exquisite workmanship and all the other ornaments and embellishments of the hall were answerable to this display
the princess dazzled to see so much riches collected in one place said to aladdin i thought prince that nothing in the world was so beautiful as the sultan my father's palace but the sight of this hall alone
is sufficient to show i was deceived when the supper was ended there entered a company of female dancers who performed according to the custom of the country singing at the same time verses in praise of the bride and bridegroom about midnight
aladdin's mother conducted the bride to the nuptial apartment and he soon after retired the next morning the attendants of aladdin presented themselves to dress him and brought him another habit as rich and magnificent as that worn the day before
he then ordered one of the horses to be got ready mounted him and went in the midst of a large troop of slaves to the sultan's palace to entreat him to take a repast in the princess's palace attended by his grand vizier
the sultan consented with pleasure rose up immediately and preceded by the principal officers of his palace and followed by all the great lords of his court accompanied aladdin the nearer the sultan approached aladdin's palace the more he was struck with its beauty
but when he entered it came into the hall and saw the windows enriched with diamonds rubies emeralds all large perfect stones he was completely surprised and said to his son in law this palace is one of the wonders of the world
for where in all the world besides shall we find walls built of massy gold and silver and diamonds rubies and emeralds composing the windows but what most surprises me is
that a hall of this magnificence should be left with one of its windows incomplete and unfinished sire answered aladdin the omission was by design since i wished that you should have the glory of finishing this hall
i take your intention kindly said the sultan and will give orders about it immediately after the sultan had finished this magnificent entertainment provided for him and for his court by aladdin
he was informed that the jewellers and goldsmiths attended upon which he returned to the hall and showed them the window which was unfinished i sent for you said he to fit up this window in as great perfection as the rest
examine them well and make all the dispatch you can the jewellers and goldsmiths examined the three and twenty windows with great attention
and presented themselves before the sultan whose principal jeweller undertaking to speak for the rest said sire we are all willing to exert our utmost care and industry to obey you
but among us all we cannot furnish jewels enough for so great a work i have more than are necessary said the sultan come to my palace and you shall choose what may answer your purpose
when the sultan returned to his palace he ordered his jewels to be brought out and the jewellers took a great quantity particularly those aladdin had made him a present of which they soon used without making any great advance in their work
they came again several times for more and in a month's time had not finished half their work in short they used all the jewels the sultan had and borrowed of the vizier but yet the work was not half done aladdin
who knew that all the sultan's endeavours to make this window like the rest were in vain sent for the jewellers and goldsmiths and not only commanded them to desist from their work but ordered them to undo what they had begun
and to carry all their jewels back to the sultan and to the vizier they undid in a few hours what they had been six weeks about and retired leaving aladdin alone in the hall he took the lamp which he carried about him rubbed it
and presently the genie appeared genie said aladdin i ordered thee to leave one of the four and twenty windows of this hall imperfect and thou hast executed my commands punctually now
i would have thee make it like the rest the genie immediately disappeared aladdin went out of the hall and returning soon after found the window as he wished it to be like the others in the mean time
the jewellers and goldsmiths repaired to the palace and were introduced into the sultan's presence where the chief jeweller presented the precious stones which he had brought back the sultan asked them if aladdin had given them any reason for so doing
aladdin had conducted himself in this manner several years when the african magician who had for some years dismissed him from his recollection determined to inform himself with certainty whether he perished as he supposed
in the subterranean cave or not after he had resorted to a long course of magic ceremonies and had formed a horoscope by which to ascertain aladdin's fate what was his surprise to find the appearances to declare that aladdin
instead of dying in the cave had made his escape and was living in royal splendour by the aid of the genie of the wonderful lamp on the very next day
where on his arrival he took up his lodgings in a khan he then quickly learnt about the wealth charities happiness and splendid palace of prince aladdin directly he saw the wonderful fabric he knew that none but the genies
he returned to the khan on his return he had recourse to an operation of geomancy to find out where the lamp was whether aladdin carried it about with him or where he left it
the result of his consultation informed him to his great joy that the lamp was in the palace well said he rubbing his hands in glee
i shall have the lamp and i shall make aladdin return to his original mean condition the next day the magician learnt from the chief superintendent of the khan where he lodged that aladdin had gone on a hunting expedition
he resolved at once on his plans he went to a coppersmith and asked for a dozen copper lamps the master of the shop told him he had not so many by him but if he would have patience till the next day he would have them ready the magician
appointed his time and desired him to take care that they should be handsome and well polished the next day the magician called for the twelve lamps paid the man his full price put them into a basket hanging on his arm and went directly to aladdin's palace
as he approached he began crying
a crowd of children collected who hooted and thought him as did all who chanced to be passing by a madman or a fool to offer to change new lamps for old ones
the african magician regarded not their scoffs hootings or all they could say to him but still continued crying
he repeated this so often walking backward and forward in front of the palace that the princess who was then in the hall with the four and twenty windows hearing a man cry something and seeing a great mob crowding about him sent one of her women slaves to know what he cried
the slave returned laughing so heartily that the princess rebuked her madam answered the slave laughing still who can forbear laughing
to see an old man with a basket on his arm full of fine new lamps asking to change them for old ones the children and mob crowding about him so that he can hardly stir make all the noise they can in derision of him
another female slave hearing this said now you speak of lamps i know not whether the princess may have observed it but there is an old one upon a shelf of the prince aladdin's robing room and whoever owns it
will not be sorry to find a new one in its stead if the princess chooses she may have the pleasure of trying if this old man is so silly as to give a new lamp for an old one without taking anything for the exchange
the princess who knew not the value of this lamp and the interest that aladdin had to keep it safe entered into the pleasantry and commanded a slave to take it and make the exchange the slave obeyed went out of the hall and no sooner got to the palace gates
than he saw the african magician called to him and showing him the old lamp said give me a new lamp for this the magician never doubted but this was the lamp he wanted there could be no other such in this palace where every utensil was gold or silver
and thrusting it as far as he could into his breast offered him his basket and bade him choose which he liked best the slave picked out one and carried it to the princess but the change was no sooner made than the place rung with the shouts of the children
deriding the magician's folly the african magician stayed no longer near the palace nor cried any more new lamps for old ones but made the best of his way to his khan his end was answered
and by his silence he got rid of the children and the mob as soon as he was out of sight of the two palaces
set all down in a spot where nobody saw him then going down another street or two he walked till he came to one of the city gates
which were very extensive at length reached a lonely spot where he stopped till the darkness of the night as the most suitable time for the design he had in contemplation when it became quite dark he pulled the lamp out of his breast and rubbed it at that summons
the genie appeared and said
and the slave of all those who have that lamp in their hands both i and the other slaves of the lamp i command thee replied the magician
to transport me immediately and the palace
to africa the genie made no reply but with the assistance of the other genies the slaves of the lamp immediately transported him and the palace entire to the spot whither he had been desired to convey it early the next morning
when the sultan according to custom went to contemplate and admire aladdin's place his amazement was unbounded to find that it could nowhere be seen he could not comprehend how so large a palace which he had seen plainly every day for some years
should vanish so soon and not leave the least remains behind in his perplexity he ordered the grand vizier to be sent for with expedition the grand vizier who in secret bore no good will to aladdin
intimated his suspicion that the palace was built by magic and that aladdin had made his hunting excursion an excuse for the removal of his palace with the same suddenness with which it had been erected
he induced the sultan to send a detachment of his guard and to have aladdin seized as a prisoner of state on his son in law being brought before him he would not hear a word from him but ordered him to be put to death
the decree caused so much discontent among the people whose affection aladdin had secured by his largesses and charities that the sultan fearful of an insurrection was obliged to grant him his life
when aladdin found himself at liberty he again addressed the sultan sire i pray you to let me know the crime by which i have thus lost the favour of thy countenance your crime answered the sultan
wretched man do you not know it follow me and i will show you the sultan then took aladdin into the apartment from whence he was wont to look at and admire his palace and said
you ought to know where your palace stood look mind and tell me what has become of it aladdin did so
at last recovering himself he said it is true i do not see the palace it is vanished but i had no concern in its removal i beg you to give me forty days and if in that time i cannot restore it
i will offer my head to be disposed of at your pleasure i give you the time you ask but at the end of the forty days forget not to present yourself before me aladdin went out of the sultan's palace in a condition of exceeding humiliation
the lords who had courted him in the days of his splendour now declined to have any communication with him for three days he wandered about the city exciting the wonder and compassion of the multitude
if they had seen his palace or could tell him anything of it on the third day he wandered into the country and as he was approaching a river he fell down the bank with so much violence that he rubbed the ring which the magician had given him so hard
by holding on the rock to save himself that immediately
said the genie i am ready to obey thee as thy slave and the slave of all those that have that ring on their finger both i
and the other slaves of the ring aladdin agreeably surprised at an offer of help so little expected replied genie show me where the palace i caused to be built now stands
tik tok tackles a tough task while shaggy and his companions stood huddled in a group at one side the army of oogaboo was approaching along the pathway the tramp of their feet being now and then accompanied by a dismal groan
as one of the officers stepped on a sharp stone or knocked his funnybone against his neighbor's sword handle then out from among the trees marched private files bearing the banner of oogaboo which fluttered from a long pole
this pole he stuck in the ground just in front of the well and then he cried in a loud voice i hereby conquer this territory in the name of queen ann soforth of oogaboo
there is no coast here was the reply
said general cone mustering courage to advance to the well but just then he caught a glimpse of tik tok and shaggy and at once fell upon his knees trembling and frightened and cried out
mercy kind enemies mercy spare us and we will be your slaves forever the other officers who had now advanced into the clearing likewise fell upon their knees and begged for mercy
examined them with much curiosity then discovering that three of the party were girls he lifted his cap and made a polite bow
as queen ann reached the place and beheld her kneeling army permit us to introduce ourselves replied shaggy stepping forward this is tik tok the clockwork man who works better than some meat people
and here is princess ozga of roseland just now unfortunately exiled from her kingdom of roses i next present polychrome a sky fairy who lost her bow by an accident and can't find her way home
said ann scornfully a pretty lot of vagabonds you are indeed all lost or strayed i suppose and not worth a queen's plundering i'm sorry i've conquered you but you haven't conquered us yet called betsy indignantly
no agreed files that is a fact but if my officers will kindly command me to conquer you
and converse more at our ease the officers had by this time risen from their knees and brushed the dust from their trousers to them the enemy did not look very fierce so the generals and colonels and majors and captains gained courage to face them
and are obstructing our journey it is necessary for us to conquer you unworthy though you may be of such high honor that's all right replied shaggy conquer us as often as you like we don't mind but we won't be anybody's slaves
and the beautiful rose princess and shook his head it would be impolite and i won't do it he asserted you must cried ann it is your duty to obey orders i haven't received any orders from my officers objected the private
but the generals now shouted forward and bind the prisoners and the colonels and majors and captains repeated the command yelling it as loud as they could all this noise annoyed hank who had been eyeing the army of oogaboo with strong disfavor
the mule now dashed forward and began backing upon the officers and kicking fierce and dangerous heels at them the attack was so sudden that the officers scattered like dust in a whirlwind
and polychrome danced with glee but ann was furious at this ignoble defeat of her gallant forces by one small mule private files i command you to do your duty she cried again
for hank made no distinction in favor of a lady who was an open enemy betsy grabbed her champion by the forelock however and so held him fast and when the officers saw that the mule was restrained from further attacks they crept fearfully back
and picked up their discarded swords private files seize and bind these prisoners screamed the queen no said files throwing down his gun and removing the knapsack which was strapped to his back i resign my position as the army of oogaboo
i enlisted to fight the enemy and become a hero but if you want some one to bind harmless girls you will have to hire another private then he walked over to the others and shook hands with shaggy and tik tok
shrieked ann and all the officers echoed her cry nonsense said files i've the right to resign if i want to indeed you haven't retorted the queen if you resign it will break up my army and then i cannot conquer the world
she now turned to the officers and said i must ask you to do me a favor i know it is undignified in officers to fight but unless you immediately capture private files and force him to obey my orders there will be no plunder for any of us
quite disconcerted by this unexpected effect of the magnet shaggy disengaged himself from the queen's encircling arms and quickly hid the talisman in his pocket the adventurers from oogaboo were now his firm friends
and there was no more talk about conquering and binding any of his party if you insist on conquering anyone said shaggy you may march with me to the underground kingdom of ruggedo to conquer the world as you have set out to do
you must conquer everyone under its surface as well as those upon its surface and no one in all the world needs conquering so much as ruggedo who is he asked ann the metal monarch king of the nomes is he rich
inquired major stockings in an anxious voice of course answered shaggy he owns all the metal that lies underground gold silver copper brass and tin
why don't you make one of your officers the private asked shaggy but at once every officer began to protest and the queen of oogaboo shook her head as she replied that is impossible a private soldier must be a terrible fighter
and my officers are unable to fight they are exceptionally brave in commanding others to fight but could not themselves meet the enemy and conquer
said colonel plum eagerly there are many kinds of bravery and one cannot be expected to possess them all
you see said ann how helpless i am had not private files proved himself a traitor and a deserter i would gladly have conquered this ruggedo but an army without a private soldier is like a bee without a stinger
but i and my companions would like the assistance of your army and if you help us to conquer ruggedo and to rescue my brother from captivity we will allow you to keep all the gold and jewels and other plunder you may find this prospect was so tempting
that the officers began whispering together and presently colonel cheese said your majesty by combining our brains we have just evolved a most brilliant idea we will make the clockwork man the private soldier who me asked tik tok
not for a sin gle sec ond i can not fight
at that time you had no gun said polychrome
you will carry the gun that mister files used a sol dier must be a ble to run as well as to fight protested tik tok
tik tok is the only one of our party fitted to undertake the job what must i do asked tik tok obey orders replied ann when the officers command you to do anything you must do it that is all
and that's enough too said files do i get a salary inquired tik tok you get your share of the plunder answered the queen yes remarked files one half of the plunder goes to queen ann
the other half is divided among the officers and the private gets the rest
said tik tok picking up the gun and examining it wonderingly for he had never before seen such a weapon then ann strapped the knapsack to tik tok's copper back and said now we are ready to march to ruggedo's kingdom and conquer it
officers give the command to march
yelled the generals drawing their swords
cried the colonels drawing their swords
shouted the majors drawing their swords fall in bawled the captains drawing their swords
shoulder your gun and stand ready to march advised files so tik tok held the gun straight and stood still what next he asked the queen turned to shaggy which road leads to the metal monarch's cavern
we don't know your majesty was the reply but this is absurd said ann with a frown if we can't get to ruggedo
they all stood looking from one road to another in perplexity the paths radiated from the little clearing like the rays of the midday sun and each path seemed like all the others files and the rose princess who had by this time become good friends
advanced a little way along one of the roads and found that it was bordered by pretty wild flowers why don't you ask the flowers to tell you the way he said to his companion the flowers returned the princess surprised at the question
of course said files the field flowers must be second cousins to a rose princess and i believe if you ask them they will tell you she looked more closely at the flowers there were hundreds of white daisies golden buttercups bluebells and daffodils growing by the roadside
and each flower head was firmly set upon its slender but stout stem there were even a few wild roses scattered here and there and perhaps it was the sight of these that gave the princess courage to ask the important question she dropped to her knees facing the flowers
i'm so glad you've come back she exclaimed the kangaroo was a little breathless and excited
so we must move and that will be more dangerous than staying where we are then let us stay said dot that won't do replied the kangaroo this is the conclusion i have jumped to if we stay here the blacks might come this way and their dingo dogs hunt us to death
to get to a safe place we must pass their camp that is a little risky but we must go that way we can do this easily if the dogs don't get scent of us as all the blacks are prancing about and making a noise having a kind of game in fact
and they are so amused that we ought to get past quite safely i've done it many times before at night dot looked round to say good bye to the koala but the little animal had heard the kangaroo speak of blacks and that word suggested to its empty little head
that it must keep its skin whole so without waiting to be polite to dot it had sneaked up its gum tree and was well out of sight without wasting time dot settled in the kangaroo's pouch and they started upon their perilous way
for some distance the kangaroo hopped along boldly with an occasional warning to dot to shut her eyes as they plunged through the bushes but after crossing a watercourse and climbing a stiff hill she whispered that they must both keep quite silent
no answered the kangaroo because past that place we can reach some very wild country
as cautiously as when they had visited the water hole the first night
and they neared the scene of the dance soon she could hear the stamping of feet the beating of weapons together and the wild chanting and sometimes there were the whimpering of dogs and the cry of children at the camp a little distance from the corroboree ground
and she knew that in that place the tribe of black men were having a festive dance if they had gone on their way it is possible that they would have slipped past the blacks without danger but although the kangaroo is as timid an animal as any in the bush it is also very curious
she whispered to dot that it would be nice for a little human to see some other humans after being so long amongst bush creatures and said also that there would be no great danger in hopping to a rock that would command a view of the open ground where the corroboree was being held
of course dot thought this would be great fun so the kangaroo took her to the rock where they peeped through the trees and saw before them the weird scene and dance dot nearly screamed with fright at the sight she had thought she would see a few black folk
not a crowd of such terrible people as she beheld they did not look like human beings at all but like dreadful demons they were so wicked and ugly in appearance the men who were dancing were without clothes
but their black bodies were painted with red and white stripes and bits of down and feathers were stuck on their skin some had only white stripes over the places where their bones were which made them look like skeletons flitting before the fire or in and out of the surrounding darkness
the dancing men were divided from the rest of the tribe by a row of fires which burning brightly lit the horrid scene with a lurid red light the firelight seemed to make the ferocious faces of the tribe still more hideous
the tribe people were squatting in rows on the ground beating boomerangs and spears together or striking bags of skin with sticks to make an accompaniment to the wailing song they sang sometimes the women would cease beating the skin bags to clap their hands and strike their sides
yelling the words of the corroboree song as the painted figures like fiends and skeletons danced before the row of fires it was a terrifying sight to dot oh kangaroo she whispered they are dreadful horrid creatures
they're just humans replied the kangaroo indulgently but white humans are not like that said dot all humans are the same underneath they all kill kangaroos said the kangaroo look there they are playing at killing us in their dance
one of the blackfellows had come from a little bower of trees and wore a few skins so arranged as to make him look as much like a kangaroo as possible whilst he worked a stick which he pretended was a kangaroo's tail and hopped about
the other painted savages were creeping in and out of the bushes with their spears and boomerangs as if they were hunting and the dressed up kangaroo made believe not to see them but stooped down nibbling grass what an idea of a kangaroo sniffed dot's friend
and have bounded away far out of sight by now but it's all sham said dot the black man couldn't be a real kangaroo then it just shows how stupid humans are to try and be one said her friend humans think themselves so clever she continued
but just see what bad kangaroos they make such a simple thing to do too but their legs bend the wrong way for jumping and that stick isn't any good for a tail
just see too how those skins fit why it's enough to make a kangaroo's sides split with laughter to see such foolery
the fellow tried to act the part of a white man although he had no more clothes on than the old hat and rags but after a great deal of dancing he strutted about pulled up the rag collar made a great fuss with his rag cuffs
and kept taking off his old straw hat to the other blackfellows and to the rest of the tribe who kept up the noise on the other side of the fires now this is better said the kangaroo with a smile it's very silly
black humans can act being white humans but they are of no good as kangaroos dot thought that if men behaved like that in towns it must be very strange she had not seen any like the acting blackfellow at her cottage home
and willy wagtails had a very poor opinion of white people
but all the same she sometimes wished she could be a noble kangaroo and not a despised human being i wish i were not a little white girl she whispered to the kangaroo the gentle animal patted her kindly with her delicate black hands
you are as nice now as my baby kangaroo she said sadly but you will have to grow into a real white human for some reason there have to be all sorts of creatures on the earth there are hawks snakes dingoes and humans and no one can tell for what good they exist
they must have dropped on to this world by mistake for another where there could only have been themselves after all said the kind animal it wouldn't do for every one to be a kangaroo for i doubt if there would be enough grass but you may become an improved human how could i be that
asked dot eagerly never wear kangaroo leather boots never use kangaroo skin rugs and here it hesitated a little
never do what enquired dot anxious to know all that she should do so as to be improved never never eat kangaroo tail soup
i will be an improved human
that they had quite forgotten the perilousness of their position perhaps this was because the kangaroo cannot think but it quickly jumped to the conclusion that they were in danger whilst they had been peeping at the corroboree and talking
the dingo dogs that had been prowling around the camp had caught scent of the kangaroo and following the trail had set up an angry snapping and howling
the officers thought he must have turned a corner so they kept on their way and all of them likewise disappeared one after another queen ann was rather surprised at this and in hastening forward to learn the reason she also vanished from sight
and held on for dear life all around was darkness and they were not falling directly downward but seemed to be sliding along a steep incline hank's hoofs were resting upon some smooth substance over which he slid with the swiftness of the wind
once betsy's heels flew up and struck a similar substance overhead they were indeed descending the hollow tube that led to the other side of the world stop hank stop cried the girl
but hank only uttered a plaintive hee haw for it was impossible for him to obey after several minutes had passed and no harm had befallen them betsy gained courage she could see nothing at all
there was tik tok flat upon his back and sliding headforemost down the incline and there were the officers of the army of oogaboo all tangled up in a confused crowd flapping their arms and trying to shield their faces from the clanking swords
which swung back and forth during the swift journey and pommeled everyone within their reach now followed queen ann who had struck the tube in a sitting position and went flying along with a dash and abandon that thoroughly bewildered the poor lady
who had no idea what had happened to her then a little distance away but unseen by the others in the inky darkness slid betsy and hank while behind them were shaggy and polychrome and finally files and the princess
when first they tumbled into the tube all were too dazed to think clearly but the trip was a long one because the cavity led straight through the earth to a place just opposite the nome king's dominions and long before the adventurers got to the end
they had begun to recover their wits this is awful hank cried betsy in a loud voice and queen ann heard her and called out
how could anyone be safe when she's going about sixty miles a minute then after a pause she added but where do you s'pose we're going to your maj'sty don't ask her that please don't said shaggy who was not too far away to overhear them
and please don't ask me why either why said betsy no one can tell where we are going until we get there replied shaggy and then he yelled ouch for polychrome had overtaken him and was now sitting on his head
the rainbow's daughter laughed merrily and so infectious was this joyous laugh that betsy echoed it
in a mild and sympathetic tone of voice
exclaimed the little girl be patient and you'll find out my dear said polychrome but isn't this an odd experience here am i whose home is in the skies making a journey through the center of the earth
where i never expected to be how do you know we're in the center of the earth asked betsy her voice trembling a little through nervousness why
replied polychrome i have often heard of this passage which was once built by a magician who was a great traveler he thought it would save him the bother of going around the earth's surface but he tumbled through the tube so fast
i believe the magician was going the other way and probably he went much faster than we are going it's fast enough to suit me remarked shaggy gently removing polychrome's heel from his left eye
couldn't you manage to fall all by yourself my dear i'll try laughed the rainbow's daughter all this time they were swiftly falling through the tube and it was not so easy for them to talk as you may imagine when you read their words
but although they were so helpless and altogether in the dark as to their fate the fact that they were able to converse at all cheered them considerably
and for more than an hour they continued their fearful journey then just as they began to fear the tube would never end tik tok popped out into broad daylight and after making a graceful circle in the air fell with a splash into a great marble fountain
what can all this mean for answer queen ann sailed up from the tube took a ride through the air as high as the treetops and alighted squarely on top of the peculiar person's head smashing a jeweled crown over his eyes and tumbling him to the ground
the mule was heavier and had betsy clinging to his back so he did not go so high up fortunately for his little rider he struck the ground upon his four feet betsy was jarred a trifle but not hurt
and when she looked around her she saw the queen and the peculiar person struggling together upon the ground where the man was trying to choke ann and she had both hands in his bushy hair and was pulling with all her might some of the officers when they got upon their feet
so that he could not attack their queen again by this time shaggy polychrome
and were curiously examining the strange country in which they found themselves
it was a lovely place indeed and seemed to be the garden of some great prince for through the vistas of trees and shrubbery could be seen the towers of an immense castle but as yet the only inhabitant to greet them was the peculiar person just mentioned
who had shaken off the grasp of the officers without effort and was now trying to pull the battered crown from off his eyes shaggy who was always polite helped him to do this and when the man was free and could see again he looked at his visitors with evident amazement
because all tubes are made that way but this tube is private property and everyone is forbidden to fall into it we didn't do it on purpose explained betsy and polychrome added i am quite sure that ruggedo the nome king pushed us down that tube ha
ruggedo did you say ruggedo cried the man becoming much excited that is what she said replied shaggy and i believe she is right
then you are enemies of ruggedo
cause we don't know him at all but we started out to conquer him which isn't as friendly as it might be true agreed the man he looked thoughtfully from one to another of them for a while
never mind the fire and pincers my good brothers it will be best to take these strangers to the private citizen very well tubekins responded a voice deep and powerful that seemed to come out of the air for the speaker was invisible all our friends gave a jump at this
but soon they gained courage to look more closely at the peculiar person as he was a type of all the inhabitants of this extraordinary land whom they afterward met i will try to tell you what he looked like his face was beautiful but lacked expression
he wore a robe of scarlet which did not cover his arms and extended no lower than his bare knees on the bosom of the robe was embroidered a terrible dragon's head as horrible to look at as the man was beautiful his arms and legs were left bare
and the skin of one arm was bright yellow and the skin of the other arm a vivid green he had one blue leg and one pink one while both his feet which showed through the open sandals he wore were jet black
here's another of them tubekins lying in the water of the fountain gracious cried betsy it must be tik tok and he'll drown water is a bad thing for his clockworks anyway agreed shaggy as with one accord they all started for the fountain
but before they could reach it invisible hands raised tik tok from the marble basin and set him upon his feet beside it water dripping from every joint of his copper body
he said and then his copper jaws clicked together and he could say no more he next made an attempt to walk but after several awkward trials found he could not move his joints peals of jeering laughter from persons unseen greeted tik tok's failure
and the new arrivals in this strange land found it very uncomfortable to realize that there were many creatures around them who were invisible yet could be heard plainly shall i wind him up asked betsy feeling very sorry for tik tok
i think his machinery is wound but he needs oiling replied shaggy at once an oil can appeared before him held on a level with his eyes by some unseen hand shaggy took the can and tried to oil tik tok's joints
as if to assist him a strong current of warm air was directed against the copper man which quickly dried him soon he was able to say
quite smoothly and his joints worked fairly well come commanded tubekins and turning his back upon them he walked up the path toward the castle shall we go asked queen ann uncertainly
but just then she received a shove that almost pitched her forward on her head so she decided to go the officers who hesitated received several energetic kicks but could not see who delivered them therefore they also decided very wisely to go
when she broke an almost sphinxlike silence with the extraordinary remark bunny i am sorry but i don't see any other way out of it you must get married to say that i was shocked by the observation is putting it mildly
as you must by this time have realized yourself there was only one woman in the world that i could possibly bring myself to think fondly of and that woman was none other than henriette herself i could not believe however
that this was at all the notion she had in mind and what little poise i had was completely shattered by the suggestion i drew myself up with dignity however in a moment and answered her very well dear i said whenever you are ready i am
you must have banked enough by this time to be able to support me in the style to which i am accustomed that is not what i meant bunny she retorted coldly frowning at me well it's what i mean said i
but as a guarantee of good faith she explained i don't understand said i affecting denseness for i understood only too well stupid cried henriette
i need a confidential maid bunny to help us in our business and i don't want to take a third party in at random if you had a wife i could trust her you could stay married as long as we needed her and then following the newport plan you could get rid of her and marry me later
that is er provided i was willing to marry you at all and i am not so sure that i shall not be some day when i am old and toothless i fail to see the necessity for a maid of that kind said i that's because you are a man bunny
said henriette there are splendid opportunities for acquiring the gems these newport ladies wear by one who may be stationed in the dressing room there is missus rockerbilt's tiara for instance
when she isn't wearing it it is kept in the vaults of the tiverton trust company
except in the vulgar commonplace way of sandbagging the lady and brutally stealing it and newport society hasn't quite got to the point where you can do a thing like that to a woman without causing talk unless you are married to her
well i'll tell you one thing henriette i returned with more positiveness than i commonly show i will not marry a lady's maid and that's all there is about it you forget that i am a gentleman it's only a temporary arrangement bunny she pleaded
it's done all the time in the smart set well the morals of the smart set are not my morals i retorted my father was a clergyman henriette and i'm something of a churchman myself and i won't stoop to such baseness
i hadn't thought of that it would be dangerous wouldn't it very said i the only safe way out of it would be to kill the young woman and my religious scruples are strongly against anything of the sort you must remember henriette that there are one or two of the commandments
then what shall we do bunny demanded missus van raffles i must have that tiara well
have a little play here reproduce missus rockerbilt's tiara in paste for one of the characters to wear substitute the spurious for the real and there you are that is a good idea said henriette
only i hate amateur theatricals i'll think it over a few days later my mistress summoned me again bunny you used to make fairly good sketches didn't you she asked pretty good said i chiefly architectural drawings however
when she is in the gardens to hide behind some convenient bit of shrubbery and make an exact detail sketch of the tiara
but in several different quarters of the garden i got her sufficiently well though unconsciously posed to accomplish my purpose once i nearly yielded to the temptation to reach my hand through the shrubbery
and snatch the superb ornament from missus rockerbilt's head for she was quite close enough to make this possible but the vulgarity of such an operation was so very evident
and i have always remembered dear old raffles's remark take everything in sight bunny he used to say but damn it do it like a gentleman not a professional the sketch made i took it to my room and colored it
next morning we went to new york and henriette taking my design to a theatrical property man we knew on union square left an order for its exact reproduction in gilt and paste
i am going to a little fancy dress dance mister sikes she explained as queen catharine of russia and this tiara is a copy of the very famous lost negligee crown of that unhappy queen
do you think you can let me have it by tuesday next easily madam said sikes it is a beautiful thing and it will give me real pleasure to reproduce it i'll guarantee it will be so like the original that the queen herself couldn't tell em apart
an absolutely faultless copy of missus rockerbilt's chiefest glory it was so like that none but an expert in gems could have told the copy from the original and when i bore the package back to newport and displayed its contents to my mistress
missus rockerbilt will sit at my left tommy dare to the right she will wear her famous coiffure surmounted by the tiara at the moment you are passing the poisson i will throw the room into darkness and you
by gad at the head of the table chatting as affably with the duke of snarleyow and tommy dare as though there was nothing in the wind nerved me to action
the moment came and instantly as i leaned over missus rockerbilt's side with the fish platter in my hand out went the light
her little well modulated scream of surprise rent the air and flash back came the lights again all was as henriette had foretold missus rockerbilt's lovely blond locks were frightfully demoralized and the famous tiara with it
had slid aslant athwart her cheek dear me cried henriette rising hurriedly and full of warm sympathy how very awkward oh don't speak of it laughed missus rockerbilt amiably
it is nothing dear missus van raffles these electric lights are so very uncertain these days and i am sure james is not at all to blame for hitting me as he has done it's the most natural thing in the world only
you most certainly shall said henriette and i will go with you my dear emily i am so mortified that if you will let me do penance in that way i will myself restore order out of this lovely chaos
anything out of the usual course of events in high social circles tommy dare gave three cheers for missus van raffles
said henriette the next morning as she held up the tiara to my admiring gaze a flashing coruscating bit of the jeweler's art that i verily believe would have tempted the soul of honor itself into rascally ways
magnificent i asserted but which is this the forty eight dollar one or the original the original said henriette caressing the bauble you see when we got to my room last night
and i had missus rockerbilt sitting before the mirror and despite her protestations was fixing her dishevelled locks with my own fair hands
my left hand was occupied with the busiest effort of its career in substituting the spurious tiara for the other and missus rockerbilt never even suspected
still if missus rockerbilt should ever discover she won't bunny said henriette she'll never have occasion to test the genuineness of her tiara these newport people have other sources of income than the vulgar pawnshops
the unbroken whiteness of the uplands told that and even as they spoke there came up the hill the dark figures of the farm men with shovels on their way to dig out the sheep in the summer the bailiff would have been the first to call the gipsies vagabonds and roost robbers
now they had women with them too the hares and foxes were down four days ago and the liquid manure pumps like a snow man the bailiff said yes you can lie in the laithes and welcome if you can find em
began that afternoon to weave the mats and baskets they hawked from door to door
the black haired soft voiced quean whom the bailiff had heard called annabel set her babe in the sling on her back tucked a bundle of long cane loops under her oxter and trudged down between eight foot walls of snow to the abbey farm
she stood in the latticed porch dark and handsome against the whiteness and then advancing put her head into the great hall kitchen has the lady any chairs for the gipsy woman to mend she asked in a soft and insinuating voice
they brought her the old chairs she seated herself on a box in the porch and there she wove the strips of cane in and out securing each one with a little wooden peg and a tap of her hammer
the child remained in the sling at her back taking the breast from time to time over her shoulder
the snow outside cast a pallid upward light on the heavy ceiling beams this was reflected in the polished stone floor and the children who at first had shyly stopped their play seeing the strange woman in the porch
the nearest thing they had seen to gipsies before had been the old itinerant glazier with his frame of glass on his back resumed it but still eyed her from time to time in the ancient walnut chair by the hearth sat the old old lady
who had told them to bring the chairs her hair almost as white as the snow itself was piled up on her head
the old lady said to one of the children and the child went to the porch with the message thank you little missie
the articulations of whose sawdust body were seams and whose boots were painted on her calves of fibrous plaster for the greater solemnity the children had made themselves sweeping trains of the garments of their elders
yes dear flora's dead the old lady when she smiled did so less with her lips than with her faded cheeks so sweet was her face that you could not help wondering when you looked on it
how many men had also looked upon it and loved it somehow you never wondered how many of them had been loved in return i'm so sorry dear aunt rachel who in reality was a great aunt said
brown titus n now she's going to be buried in a grave as little as her bed in a what dear as little dread as little as my bed you say it sabrina
she means aunt rachel teach me to live that i may dread the grave as little as my bed sabrina the eldest interpreted ah but won't you play at cheerful things dears
yes we will presently aunt rachel gee up horse shall we go and ask the chair woman if she's warm enough do dears again the message was taken and this time it seemed as if annabel the gipsy was not warm enough
tell the lady when she wakes that i will tack a strip of felt to the rocker and then it will make no noise at all said the low and wheedling voice and the child retired again the interment of flora proceeded
an hour later flora had taken up the burden of life again it was as angela the youngest was chastising her for some offence that sabrina the eldest looked with wondering eyes on the babe in the gipsy's sling she approached on tiptoe
ventured diffidently if i'm very careful may i hold it before replying the gipsy once more turned her almond eyes towards aunt rachel's chair
aunt rachel had been awakened for the conclusion of flora's funeral but her eyes were closed again now and once more her cheek was dropped in that tender suggestive little gesture and she rocked
but you could see that she was not properly asleep it was somehow less to sabrina still peering at the babe in the sling than to aunt rachel apparently asleep that the gipsy seemed to reply
you'll know some day little missis that a wean knows its own pair of arms her seductive voice came and aunt rachel heard she opened her eyes with a start the little regular noise of the rocker ceased
she turned her head quickly tremulously she began to knit again and as her eyes rested on the sidelong eyes of the gipsy woman there was an expression in them that almost resembled fright
annabel still came daily to the farm sat on the box they used to cover the sewing machine and wove mats as she wove them aunt rachel knitted and from time to time fragments of talk passed between the two women
it was always the white haired lady who spoke first and annabel made all sorts of salutes and obeisances with her eyes before replying i have not seen your husband aunt rachel said to annabel one day
the children at the other end of the apartment had converted a chest into an altar and were solemnising the nuptials of the resurrected flora and jack the raffish sailor doll annabel made roving play with her eyes
she replied is there anything annabel can bid him do nothing thank you said aunt rachel for a minute the gipsy watched aunt rachel and then she got up from the sewing machine box and crossed the floor
she leaned so close towards her that she had to put up a hand to steady the babe at her back lady dear she murmured with irresistible softness your husband died didn't he on aunt rachel's finger was a ring
but it was not a wedding ring it was a hoop of pearls i have never had a husband she said the gipsy glanced at the ring then that is that is a betrothal ring aunt rachel replied ah
her eyes avoided those of the gipsy sought them and avoided them again did what die she asked slowly and guardedly the child at the gipsy's back did not need suck nevertheless
annabel's fingers worked at her bosom and she moved the sling as the child settled annabel gave aunt rachel a long look why do you rock she asked slowly
aunt rachel was trembling she did not reply in a voice soft as sliding water the gipsy continued lady dear we are a strange folk to you and even among us there are those who shuffle the pack of cards
and read the palm when silver has been put upon it knowing nothing but some of us see some of us see it was more than a minute before aunt rachel spoke
aunt rachel had given a little start but had become quiet again when at last she spoke it was in a voice scarcely audible that cannot be i know what you mean but it cannot be
he died on the eve of his wedding for my bridal clothes they made me black garments instead it is long ago and now i wear neither black nor white but her hands made a gesture
aunt rachel always dressed as if to suit a sorrow that time had deprived of bitterness in such a tender and fleecy grey as one sees in the mists that lie like lawn over hedgerow
with my eyes these eyes she repeated pointing to them aunt rachel kept her own eyes obstinately on her knitting needles none except i have seen it it is not to be seen she said
the gipsy sat suddenly erect it is not so keep still in your chair she ordered and i will tell you when it was a curious thing that followed
aunt rachel sat very still and presently her hands fluttered and dropped the gipsy sat with her own hands folded over the mat on her knees several minutes passed then slowly once more
that sweetest of smiles stole over aunt rachel's cheeks once more her head dropped her hands moved noiselessly on the rockers that the gipsy had padded with felt the chair began to rock
annabel lifted one hand dovo se li she said it is there aunt rachel did not appear to hear her with that ineffable smile still on her face she rocked
then after some minutes there crossed her face such a look as visits the face of one who waking from sleep strains his faculties to recapture some blissful and vanishing vision jal
but again aunt rachel shook her head it never lived you were young and beautiful still the shake of the head he died on the eve of his wedding
they took my white garments away and gave me black ones how then could it have lived without the kiss no but sometimes a woman will lie through her life and at the graveside still will lie tell me the truth
it is a new kind but no more wonderful than the other the other i have seen now i have seen this also tell me does it come to any other chair it was his chair he died in it said aunt rachel
and you shall you die in it as god wills has other life visited it long many years but it is always small it never grows
to their mothers babes never grow they remain ever babes none other has ever seen it except yourself none i sit here presently it creeps into my arms it is small and warm
i rock and then it goes would it come to another chair i cannot tell i think not it was his chair annabel mused at the other end of the room
flora was now bestowed on jack the disreputable sailor the gipsy's eyes rested on the bridal party yet another might see it none has no but yet
the door does not always shut behind us suddenly perhaps one who has toddled but a step or two over the threshold might by looking back catch a glimpse what is the name of the smallest one angela
will you let annabel ask her if she sees what it is you hold in your arms again the voice was soft and wheedling no annabel said aunt rachel faintly will you rock again
aunt rachel made no reply rock urged the cajoling voice but aunt rachel only turned the betrothal ring on her finger over at the altar jack was leering at his new made bride
past decency and little angela held the wooden horse's head which had parted from its body rock and comfort yourself tempted the voice then slowly aunt rachel rose from her chair
no annabel she said gently you should not have spoken when the snow melts you will go and come no more why then did you speak it was mine it was not meant to be seen by another
aunt rachel rocked no more and with the packing and partial melting of the snow the gipsies up at the caravans judged it time to be off about their business it was on the morning of christmas eve that they came down in a body
to the abbey farm to express their thanks to those who had befriended them but the bailiff was not there he and the farm men had ceased work and were down at the church practising the carols only aunt rachel sat still and knitting
at any rate they sat on opposite sides of the room jack keeping boon company with the lead soldiers his spouse reposing her lead balanced eyes closed in the broken clockwork motor car
that hung from the centre beam in the intervals of kissing they told one another in whispers that aunt rachel was not very well and angela woke flora to tell her that aunt rachel had brown titus also
lady dear our thanks
and she entered the great hall kitchen she approached the chair in which aunt rachel sat there was obeisance in the bend of her body but command in her long almond eyes as she spoke
lady dear you must rock or you cannot live aunt rachel did not look up from her work rocking i should not live long she replied
annabel fears she has taken away your comfort only for a little while the door closes behind us but it opens again but for that little time rock aunt rachel shook her head
no it is finished another has seen say good bye to your companions they are very welcome to what they have had and god speed you they thank you lady dear
no more annabel stooped and kissed the hand that bore the betrothal hoop of pearls the other hand aunt rachel placed for a moment upon the smoky head of the babe in the sling it trembled as it rested there
but the tremor passed and annabel turning once at the porch gave her a last look then she departed with her companions that afternoon jack and flora had shaken down to wedlock as married folk should
the candles were lighted and then the children first borrowing the stockings of their elders to hang at the bed's foot were packed off early
aunt rachel had their good night kisses not as she had them every night but with the special ceremony of the mistletoe other folk grown folk sat with aunt rachel that evening
but the old walnut chair did not move upon its rockers there was merry talk but aunt rachel took no part in it the board was spread with ale and cheese and spiced loaf for the carol singers and the time drew near for their coming
when at midnight faintly on the air from the church below there came the chiming of christmas morning all bestirred themselves they'll be here in a few minutes they said somebody go and bring the children down
and within a very little while subdued noises were heard outside and the lifting of the latch of the yard gate the children were in their nightgowns hardly fully awake a low voice outside was heard giving orders
besought joseph to pluck the cherries for her babe and joseph refused and the voices of the singers that had begun hesitatingly grew strong and loud and free
the uppermost spray then bowed down to her knee thus you may see joseph these cherries are for me o eat your cherries mary give them your babe now o eat your cherries mary that grew upon the bough
the little angela within the arms that held her murmured it's the gipsies isn't it mother no darling the gipsies have gone it's the carol singers singing because jesus was born but mother it is
at aunt rachel mother the gipsy woman wouldn't go without her little baby would she no she wouldn't do that then has she lent it to aunt rachel like i lend my new toys sometimes
the mother glanced across at aunt rachel and then gathered the night gowned figure more closely the darling's only half awake she murmured poor aunt rachel's sleepy too
sensations and images the dualism of mind and matter if we have been right so far cannot be allowed as metaphysically valid nevertheless we seem to find a certain dualism perhaps not ultimate
within the world as we observe it the dualism is not primarily as to the stuff of the world but as to causal laws on this subject we may again quote william james he points out that when as we say we merely imagine things
there are no such effects as would ensue if the things were what we call real he takes the case of imagining a fire
i make for myself an experience of blazing fire i place it near my body but it does not warm me in the least i lay a stick upon it and the stick either burns or remains green as i please i call up water
and pour it on the fire and absolutely no difference ensues i account for all such facts by calling this whole train of experiences unreal a mental train mental fire
is what won't burn real sticks mental water is what won't necessarily though of course it may put out even a mental fire with real objects on the contrary consequences always accrue
just as much as physical phenomena do but their effects follow different laws for example dreams as freud has shown are just as much subject to laws as are the motions of the planets but the laws are different in a dream you may be transported from one place to another in a moment
or one person may turn into another under your eyes such differences compel you to distinguish the world of dreams from the physical world if the two sorts of causal laws could be sharply distinguished we could call an occurrence physical when it obeys causal laws appropriate to the physical world
and mental when it obeys causal laws appropriate to the mental world since the mental world and the physical world interact there would be a boundary between the two there would be events which would have physical causes and mental effects while there would be others which would have mental causes and physical effects
those that have physical causes and mental effects we should define as sensations those that have mental causes and physical effects might perhaps be identified with what we call voluntary movements but they do not concern us at present
if the distinction between physical and psychological causation were clear and sharp as a matter of fact however this distinction is as yet by no means sharp it is possible that with fuller knowledge it will be found to be no more ultimate
than the distinction between the laws of gases and the laws of rigid bodies it also suffers from the fact that an event may be an effect of several causes according to several causal laws
we cannot in general point to anything unique as the cause of such and such an event and finally it is by no means certain that the peculiar causal laws which govern mental events
the law of habit which is one of the most distinctive may be fully explicable in terms of the peculiarities of nervous tissue and these peculiarities in turn may be explicable by the laws of physics
it seems therefore that we are driven to a different kind of definition it is for this reason that it was necessary to develop the definition of perception with this definition we can define a sensation as the non mnemic elements in a perception
when following our definition we try to decide what elements in our experience are of the nature of sensations
everything is sensation that comes to us through the senses the sights we see the sounds we hear the smells we smell and so on also such things as headache or the feeling of muscular strain but in actual fact so much interpretation so much of habitual correlation
is mixed with all such experiences that the core of pure sensation is only to be extracted by careful investigation to take a simple illustration if you go to the theatre in your own country you seem to hear equally well in the stalls or the dress circle
in either case you think you miss nothing
you will seem to have grown partially deaf and you will find it necessary to be much nearer the stage than you would need to be in your own country
the reason is that in hearing our own language spoken we quickly and unconsciously fill out what we really hear with inferences to what the man must be saying and we never realize that we have not heard the words we have merely inferred in a foreign language these inferences are more difficult
and we are more dependent upon actual sensation if we found ourselves in a foreign world where tables looked like cushions and cushions like tables we should similarly discover how much of what we think we see is really inference
i remember in the early days of motor cars being with a friend when a tyre burst with a loud report he thought it was a pistol and supported his opinion by maintaining that he had seen the flash but of course there had been no flash nowadays no one sees a flash when a tyre bursts
in order therefore to arrive at what really is sensation in an occurrence which at first sight seems to contain nothing else we have to pare away all that is due to habit or expectation or interpretation
this is a matter for the psychologist and by no means an easy matter for our purposes it is not important to determine what exactly is the sensational core in any case it is only important to notice
that there certainly is a sensational core since habit expectation and interpretation are diversely aroused on diverse occasions and the diversity is clearly due to differences in what is presented to the senses
when you open your newspaper in the morning the actual sensations of seeing the print form a very minute part of what goes on in you but they are the starting point of all the rest and it is through them that the newspaper is a means of information or mis information
thus although it may be difficult to determine what exactly is sensation in any given experience
we deny all action of the outer world upon us sensations are obviously the source of our knowledge of the world including our own body
and until lately i did so regard it when say i see a person i know coming towards me in the street it seems as though the mere seeing were knowledge
it is of course undeniable that knowledge comes through the seeing but i think it is a mistake to regard the mere seeing itself as knowledge if we are so to regard it we must distinguish the seeing from what is seen we must say that when we see a patch of colour of a certain shape
the patch of colour is one thing and our seeing of it is another this view however demands the admission of the subject or act in the sense discussed in our first lecture if there is a subject it can have a relation to the patch of colour namely
the sort of relation which we might call awareness in that case the sensation as a mental event will consist of awareness of the colour while the colour itself will remain wholly physical and may be called the sense datum to distinguish it from the sensation
the subject however appears to be a logical fiction like mathematical points and instants it is introduced not because observation reveals it but because it is linguistically convenient and apparently demanded by grammar
nominal entities of this sort may or may not exist but there is no good ground for assuming that they do the functions that they appear to perform can always be performed by classes or series or other logical constructions consisting of less dubious entities
if we are to avoid a perfectly gratuitous assumption we must dispense with the subject as one of the actual ingredients of the world but when we do this the possibility of distinguishing the sensation from the sense datum vanishes
accordingly the sensation that we have when we see a patch of colour simply is that patch of colour an actual constituent of the physical world and part of what physics is concerned with
a patch of colour is certainly not knowledge and therefore we cannot say that pure sensation is cognitive through its psychological effects it is the cause of cognitions partly by being itself a sign of things that are correlated with it
and partly by giving rise to images and memories after the sensation is faded but in itself the pure sensation is not cognitive in the first lecture we considered the view of brentano
we are now concerned to show that it must be rejected in the particular case of sensations the kind of argument which formerly made me accept brentano's view in this case was exceedingly simple
while my seeing is not physical but psychical hence i concluded that the colour is something other than my seeing of the colour this argument to me historically was directed against idealism the emphatic part of it
i have set them forth before and i see no reason to modify them but it does not follow that the patch of colour is not also psychical unless we assume that the physical and the psychical cannot overlap which i no longer consider a valid assumption
if we admit as i think we should that the patch of colour may be both physical and psychical the reason for distinguishing the sense datum from the sensation disappears and we may say that the patch of colour and our sensation in seeing it are identical
this is the view of william james professor dewey and the american realists perceptions says professor dewey are not per se cases of knowledge but simply natural events with no more knowledge status than say a shower
let them the realists
of innumerable transient particulars such as occur in seeing hearing et cetera together with images more or less resembling these of which i shall speak shortly if physics is true there are besides the particulars that we experience others probably equally or almost equally transient
but this topic belongs to the philosophy of physics and need not concern us in our present inquiry sensations are what is common to the mental and physical worlds they may be defined as the intersection of mind and matter
this is by no means a new view it is advocated not only by the american authors i have mentioned but by mach in his analysis of sensations which was published in eighteen eighty six the essence of sensation according to the view i am advocating
is its independence of past experience it is a core in our actual experiences never existing in isolation except possibly in very young infants it is not itself knowledge but it supplies the data for our knowledge of the physical world including our own bodies
there are some who believe that our mental life is built up out of sensations alone this may be true but in any case i think the only ingredients required in addition to sensations are images what images are and how they are to be defined we have now to inquire
the distinction between images and sensations might seem at first sight by no means difficult when we shut our eyes and call up pictures of familiar scenes we usually have no difficulty so long as we remain awake in discriminating between what we are imagining and what is really seen
if we imagine some piece of music that we know we can go through it in our mind from beginning to end without any discoverable tendency to suppose that we are really hearing it but although such cases are so clear that no confusion seems possible
there are many others that are far more difficult and the definition of images is by no means an easy problem to begin with we do not always know whether what we are experiencing is a sensation or an image the things we see in dreams when our eyes are shut
must count as images yet while we are dreaming they seem like sensations hallucinations often begin as persistent images and only gradually acquire that influence over belief that makes the patient regard them as sensations
when we are listening for a faint sound the striking of a distant clock or a horse's hoofs on the road we think we hear it many times before we really do
two by our absence of belief in their physical reality three by the fact that their causes and effects are different from those of sensations
the other two are applicable in very many cases but cannot be used for purposes of definition because they are liable to exceptions nevertheless they both deserve to be carefully considered one
hume who gives the names impressions and ideas to what may for present purposes be identified with our sensations and images speaks of impressions as those perceptions which enter with most force and violence
while he defines ideas as the faint images of these
in thinking and reasoning his immediately following observations however show the inadequacy of his criteria of force and faintness
every one of himself will readily perceive the difference betwixt feeling and thinking the common degrees of these are easily distinguished though it is not impossible but in particular instances they may very nearly approach to each other
thus in sleep in a fever
as on the other hand it sometimes happens that our impressions are so faint and low that we cannot distinguish them from our ideas
the essential purpose of a definition is to provide a mark which is applicable even in marginal cases except of course when we are dealing with a conception like
has an aggressiveness which does not belong to the image it strikes the mind with varying degrees of force or liveliness
that suggestion whose horrid image doth unfix my hair and make my seated heart knock at my ribs against the use of nature
the whistle of a steam engine could hardly have a stronger effect than this a very intense emotion will often bring with it especially where some future action or some undecided issue is involved powerful compelling images
there must be just that force or liveliness which is supposed to be always absent from images the cases of dreams
i conclude therefore that the test of liveliness however applicable in ordinary instances cannot be used to define the differences between sensations and images two
we might attempt to distinguish images from sensations by our absence of belief in the physical reality of images when we are aware that what we are experiencing is an image
we do not think that it has the same power of producing knowledge of the external world images are imaginary in some sense they are unreal
what we call the unreality of images requires interpretation
when we call up a visual image of a chair we do not attempt to sit in it because we know that like macbeth's dagger it is not sensible to feeling as to sight
which it would have if it were a visual sensation and not merely a visual image but this means that the so called unreality of images consists merely in their not obeying the laws of physics
and thus brings us back to the causal distinction between images and sensations this view is confirmed by the fact that we only feel images to be unreal when we already know them to be images images cannot be defined by the feeling of unreality
because when we falsely believe an image to be a sensation as in the case of dreams it feels just as real as if it were a sensation our feeling of unreality results from our having already realized that we are dealing with an image
and cannot therefore be the definition of what we mean by an image as soon as an image begins to deceive us as to its status it also deceives us as to its correlations which are what we mean by its reality three
this brings us to the third mode of distinguishing images from sensations namely by their causes and effects i believe this to be the only valid ground of distinction james in the passage about the mental fire which won't burn real sticks
sensations come through sense organs while images do not we cannot have visual sensations in the dark or with our eyes shut but we can very well have visual images under these circumstances accordingly images have been defined as centrally excited sensations
not also in the sense organs and the nerves that run from the sense organs to the brain i think the phrase centrally excited sensations assumes more than is necessary since it takes it for granted that an image must have a proximate physiological cause
this is probably true but it is an hypothesis and for our purposes an unnecessary one it would seem to fit better with what we can immediately observe if we were to say that an image is occasioned through association
in other words that it has a mnemic cause which does not prevent it from also having a physical cause
it is governed by habit and past experience if you listen to a man playing the pianola without looking at him you will have images of his hands on the keys as if he were playing the piano
when habit and past experience play this part we are in the region of mnemic as opposed to ordinary physical causation and i think that if we could regard as ultimately valid the difference between physical and mnemic causation
we could distinguish images from sensations as having mnemic causes though they may also have physical causes sensations on the other hand will only have physical causes however this may be
the practically effective distinction between sensations and images is that in the causation of sensations but not of images the stimulation of nerves carrying an effect into the brain usually from the surface of the body plays an essential part
and this accounts for the fact that images and sensations cannot always be distinguished by their intrinsic nature images also differ from sensations as regards their effects sensations as a rule have both physical and mental effects
as you watch the train you meant to catch leaving the station
and the successive waves of fury and disappointment mental effects images on the contrary though they may produce bodily movements do so according to mnemic laws not according to the laws of physics
all their effects of whatever nature follow mnemic laws but this difference is less suitable for definition than the difference as to causes professor watson as a logical carrying out of his behaviourist theory
denies altogether that there are any observable phenomena such as images are supposed to be he replaces them all by faint sensations
when we think of a table say as opposed to seeing it what happens according to him is usually that we are making small movements of the throat and tongue such as would lead to our uttering the word table
i shall consider his view again in connection with words for the present i am only concerned to combat his denial of images this denial is set forth both in his book on behavior and in an article called image and affection in behavior
plain facts in the interests of a theory namely the supposed impossibility of introspection
i wish to reinforce the view that the facts are undeniable images are of various sorts according to the nature of the sensations which they copy
images of bodily movements such as we have when we imagine moving an arm or on a smaller scale pronouncing a word might possibly be explained away on professor watson's lines as really consisting in small incipient movements such as if magnified and prolonged
would be the movements we are said to be imagining whether this is the case or not might even be decided experimentally if there were a delicate instrument for recording small movements in the mouth and throat
we might place such an instrument in a person's mouth and then tell him to recite a poem to himself as far as possible only in imagination i should not be at all surprised if it were found that actual small movements take place while he is mentally saying over the verses
the point is important because what is called thought consists mainly though i think not wholly of inner speech if professor watson is right as regards inner speech this whole region is transferred from imagination to sensation
but since the question is capable of experimental decision it would be gratuitous rashness to offer an opinion while that decision is lacking but visual and auditory images are much more difficult to deal with in this way
because they lack the connection with physical events in the outer world which belongs to visual and auditory sensations suppose for example that i am sitting in my room in which there is an empty arm chair
i shut my eyes and call up a visual image of a friend sitting in the arm chair if i thrust my image into the world of physics it contradicts all the usual physical laws my friend reached the chair without coming in at the door in the usual way
subsequent inquiry will show that he was somewhere else at the moment if regarded as a sensation my image has all the marks of the supernatural my image therefore is regarded as an event in me
not as having that position in the orderly happenings of the public world that belongs to sensations by saying that it is an event in me we leave it possible that it may be physiologically caused its privacy may be only due to its connection with my body
but in any case it is not a public event like an actual person walking in at the door and sitting down in my chair and it cannot like inner speech be regarded as a small sensation since it occupies just as large an area in my visual field as the actual sensation would do
this view seems to me flatly to contradict experience if you try to persuade any uneducated person that she cannot call up a visual picture of a friend sitting in a chair but can only use words describing what such an occurrence would be like
she will conclude that you are mad this statement is based upon experiment galton as every one knows investigated visual imagery and found that education tends to kill it the fellows of the royal society turned out to have much less of it than their wives
i see no reason to doubt his conclusion that the habit of abstract pursuits makes learned men much inferior to the average in power of visualizing and much more exclusively occupied with words in their thinking and professor watson is a very learned man
i shall henceforth assume that the existence of images is admitted and that they are to be distinguished from sensations by their causes as well as in a lesser degree by their effects in their intrinsic nature
though they often differ from sensations by being more dim or vague or faint yet they do not always or universally differ from sensations in any way that can be used for defining them
their privacy need form no bar to the scientific study of them any more than the privacy of bodily sensations does bodily sensations are admitted by even the most severe critics of introspection although like images they can only be observed by one observer
there remains one very important point concerning images which will occupy us much hereafter and that is their resemblance to previous sensations they are said to be copies of sensations always as regards the simple qualities that enter into them
on this subject hume is the classic he says in the definitions already quoted
those perceptions which enter with most force and violence we may name impressions and under this name i comprehend all our sensations passions and emotions as they make their first appearance in the soul by ideas i mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning
but as regards simple ideas he states that every simple idea has a simple impression which resembles it
of knowledge generally the recognizable resemblance of images and sensations is of fundamental importance there are difficulties in establishing hume's principles and doubts as to whether it is exactly true
nevertheless it is impossible to doubt that in the main simple images are copies of similar simple sensations which have occurred earlier and that the same is true of complex images in all cases of memory as opposed to mere imagination
our power of acting with reference to what is sensibly absent is largely due to this characteristic of images although as education advances images tend to be more and more replaced by words
we shall have much to say in the next two lectures on the subject of images as copies of sensations what has been said now is merely by way of reminder that this is their most notable characteristic i am by no means confident
that the distinction between images and sensations is ultimately valid and i should be glad to be convinced that images can be reduced to sensations of a peculiar kind i think it is clear however that at any rate in the case of auditory and visual images
they do differ from ordinary auditory and visual sensations and therefore form a recognizable class of occurrences even if it should prove that they can be regarded as a sub class of sensations
the whirligigs are after it but it easily avoids them then comes a sudden surprise a fish pops up its mouth and closes its scissor jaws with a snap on the insect's legs
and it disappears in the centre of a rocking series of rings the lake is perfectly calm its green black surface smooth and shining
and full of drifting summer clouds the reeds are reflected in it and look double their height and the trees mirror their branches there seeming twice as leafy
and a red house with a white flagstaff on one of the banks becomes quite a little submarine palace more crane flies arrive
and circle after circle breaks the stillness of the water just as mole hills break the uniform smoothness of the meadow as fishes mouths dart up by the score side by side
it is in one of the valleys in the submarine mountainous region that this shoal of thousands of bleak lies it covers the area of a market place and makes the water alive for fathoms down
on the other the thick green water grass waves and bends like the corn on some fertile plain in hungary in front and behind
the water seethes and foams it is cleft incessantly from bottom to surface bubbles rise and whirlpools are formed and a long strip of lake foams and spurts
it is not like a single large animal darting forward with rapidly twisting tail and leaving a wake and waves behind it but a general effervescence that makes the depths gleam with millions of scales
the marauders of the lake on a hunting expedition they go together in a large company like soldiers in an army rows of them above beside and behind one another
there are hundreds upon hundreds of them and yet a single unit with their uppermost layer only a couple of inches below the surface of the water they hasten on then all turn at once
changing from the long narrow marching column into compact formation a fresh signal inaudible imperceptible to all but themselves and once more in a trice
the narrow smoothly gliding hunting column is reformed just as they twist and turn in the horizontal plane so do they in the vertical
while they pass through one of the narrows in the submarine mountainous region it is the shoal of bleak they are after now they are in the valley where it lies
the lively little freshwater herring as yet suspect no danger they are in constant motion occupied in snapping up the fallen half drowned insects
for when the upper layer is satiated it likes to enjoy its feeling of well being in peace until voracity once more makes them all rivals the splash of the waves on the surface lifts the gluttons up and down
while the ground swell rocks the satiated to rest the perch have quickened their pace involuntarily the speed is increased they already scent their prey
foremost of the company with a dark golden high backed leader at their head swim a couple of hundred of the finest perch they are at their strongest age and in best possible condition
after them comes the great mass of the horde big heavily laden craft their round backs and swelling bellies testifying to their success in their toil for material needs
there are perch among them of half an arm's length and the thickness of the biggest of wrists sheaves of silvery gleaming rays flicker far out in their wake the rest of the fierce horde are large and small mingled
and rank upon rank of others well over two pounds for the present the whole flock keeps to the bottom darting along with dorsal fin erect the stiff spines bristling menacingly
it is as well to have bayonets fixed in case of the sudden appearance of a pike all at once the van slips away from the rest and the latter have to exert themselves to catch up
twisting and turning their tails and unfurling the stiff sail of their dorsal fin there must be nothing now to check their speed fair weather sailing is over and the privateering expedition has begun
the certainty of booty fills them all the vanguard has led the marauders well they have come under their prey and now shoot up among the unfortunate unsuspecting bleak
all order among the assailants instantly ceases and each member thinks only of its own mouth and cares for nothing but getting it filled like yellow flashes of water lightning the perch dart into the shoal of little fish
and like grain among a flock of chickens masses of bleak disappear into their mouths they kill and devour and it will be still worse when the rear guard comes up now they arrive
and the alarm in the swarm of bleak below spreads with magical swiftness to the upper layers where the bewildered little creatures make off at full speed gleam after gleam flashes up as the little shining fish uncertain of their way
twist and turn about each makes itself as long and thin as it can so as to show as little as possible and disappear as it were in the water but now the fierce horde becomes still fiercer
the rear guard overtakes the fugitives and cuts off their retreat and smack after smack is heard after their charge the swarm of bleak scatters in wild panic
thousands of them in their terror make for the surface leaping into the air like jets from a fountain they tumble over one another and try in their bewilderment which can leap highest and farthest
they rise like flying fish out of the water with a flash and once more disappear with a splash into the water there is a splash when they rise and a splash when they again reach the surface of the water
making a sound like the falling of torrents of rain hell is beneath them in the water the yellow devils not only menace them from the side they come upon them from all directions
when they descend in crowds from their flight into the air they grow stiff with terror on finding themselves face to face with great amber eyes that seem starting out of their sockets to go greedily hunting on their own account
then a mouth opens shoots out a pair of concertina like lips and changes into a funnel and the poor little fish disappear into a chasm like threads into a vacuum cleaner
above the spot a cloud of terns is circling they fly low with half extended legs and drooping wings ready to dart down sometimes they make a catch
the birds hold them at all sorts of angles in their beak and fly away with them shrieking and screaming pursued by their fellows poor little bleak they were so pretty to look at
and the rims of their eyes when they blinked could sparkle and shine like the gem itself their shining breast was whiter than a swan's and their plump sides gleamed and sparkled like ice under a wintry moon
but from the time they left their creator's hand they were intended to serve as food for others a boat lay anchored a few hundred yards off in it was an elderly man
an angler this he had been out since early morning and had a delightful day not a single bite but what did that matter he was lying now at the bottom of the boat dreaming
he was a regular visitor to the lake his ancestors love of a free out of door life had entered into his blood it is well known that it takes three generations to make a gentleman
but it would take three times as many to create out of a race that ever since the morning of time had lived out of doors a generation that did not care to handle either gun or rod
in his youth his gun had been his best friend but the chase demands much of legs and muscles and heart when a man is no longer in his prime he should beware of paying ardent court to dame diana in her suite
it is useless to deny it the old man is seldom looked upon with favour he has had his day but father neptune clasps him rapturously in his wet embrace and sets the fish around his boat
and then drove out to the lake he fished in the good old fashioned way talked very little
the weather to day from a fisherman's point of view is the worst possible the july sun is shining hotly and sends its beams deep down into the water the lake slumbers
there is a bottle green hue above the deep water and a lilac shade in the shallows
far off a flock of wild ducks rising raise some little gentle waves that look so blue so blue
the angler who is a big sturdy man with large black rimmed spectacles upon his voluminous nose is in his customary fishing dress an old straw hat with an elastic under the chin
his coat off and no collar on his legs a pair of thick yellowish brown moleskin trousers his feet in a pair of felt shoes lined with straw he generally stays all day
and it is still far from evening he is now lying outstretched in midday drowsiness enjoying the great peace that rests on the lake
he has wound the ends of his lines round his wrist he waits patiently and if towards evening he is fortunate enough to haul in a pike he will be filled with a quiet intense joy
suddenly he awakes with a start he hears a rushing sound like that of the paddles of a distant steamer striking and tearing the water
he sees the terns flocking and the surface of the water broken again and again by bleak leaping high into the air he takes up his anchor and rows up until he hears the smack smack of the greedy perch all round him
and knows he is in the middle of the whirlpool of fish he gets four lines clear and has enough to do in throwing them out and pulling them in he throws off his hat and waistcoat and loosens his belt
but even then he is drenched with perspiration at last he can do no more and drops exhausted on to a thwart in less than twenty minutes he has caught more than fifty perch
weighing from one to three pounds apiece they are lying in a brassy heap in the boat then he opens his wallet takes out the bottle containing clear liquid and takes a nip
this he is accustomed to do every time he catches a fish of any importance he drinks to the health of the lake the lake with the fresh waves and the clear bright water
the harrier was sitting on her newly hatched young and the pair of crows were feeding theirs for the last time it was the time of the owls and the nightingales
silent and weary the cuckoo came from the meadow land to the bog where the twilight enveloped it and hid it on its branch
the water began to sparkle with strong bright colours and patches of yellow scarlet and blue floated about shot with brilliant flakes of emerald and purple
which gave darkened reflections of the birch tops only a few moments before all the sloping banks of the bog had been held by the sun it shone upon the flowers of the wild chervil
and upon a narrow strip of orange gravel that had been scraped out of one of the banks but now it was gone the fully opened hawthorn flowers reluctantly gave up their sunset blush
and begins to snarl a large otter with low set ears cautiously raises its head above the strip of gravel
as it stretches its round shaggy neck out over the ridge above the distant banks on the other side of the bog the first glow of the full moon peeps out
like a monster toadstool it grows up out of the horizon sending up a cloud of purple into the air up and up it goes and when almost half its disc is visible
a group of firs whose tops stand out against it
to a giant poppy just unfolding for a moment the flower stands out perfect large and round at the end of its slender black stalk
and then the illusion is shattered from a toadstool the poppy has turned into a moon then the otter comes right up out of the earth with body and tail and four legs
and shuffles down the slope a couple of herons fishing at the edge of the bog bend their necks and make off with hoarse shrill trumpetings and a herd of splashing heifers
scenting the approach of a beast of prey begin to growl and snort the otter came to the bog every two or three months when it was tired of hunting fish in the lake
a rover's blood flowed in its veins nature had endowed it with a peculiarly active power of assimilation which was probably necessary if it was to keep warm in the cold water
it needed daily its own weight in fish and therefore had to be incessantly changing its hunting ground it was timid and suspicious but a great glutton
which it used especially to catch in the bogs were somewhat dry it is true but after all one could not have salmon and trout every day
and reached the largest of the big pools it allowed itself to glide noiselessly from its slip a path trodden in the grass into its true element a few minutes later
there was an unusual disturbance in the water which splashed high up about the dunes and foamed over the banks a wild chase was going on in the depths and where it passed the rushes bowed their sheaves
and the flags their fans black mud was stirred up in whirlpools seething bubbles came to the surface and burst the otter with a newly caught fish in its mouth
had been on its way out to a little island intending to have its meal under a sallow when it was suddenly attacked and robbed of its prey it caught a glimpse of the indistinct outline of a great fish
and exasperated at such audacity determined to go in chase of the robber an attempt to get beneath grim in order to seize her round the gills or by the belly was unsuccessful
at the decisive moment grim had turned aside so that the otter had to set its teeth where it could and it needed a well placed grip to hold such a giant fish
the instant it has taken hold a little behind the neck grim darts into deep water with her assailant the otter backs extends his fore and hind legs far out from his body
and spreads his web so as to offer as much resistance as possible just as the weasel lets itself be carried away by the hare in whose neck it has fixed itself
so now the otter allowed himself to be dragged through the bog by the lynx of the waters grim soon sees that this pace is wearing out her strength and pauses for a moment
as she does so she feels as if an eel were winding its pliant body round her chest she rolls round unable to use her fins
and sets off with sudden twists and leaps from the bottom to the surface turning so suddenly that the fish snatcher's body swings out and hangs down in the water but the otter only keeps a firmer hold
he is used to these desperate rallies which always become fiercer and more violent as the quarry is on the point of giving in he takes care however in turning not to let any of his legs hang in front of the pike's mouth
he is too well acquainted with the teeth of the fresh water shark up and down the two well matched opponents dive incessantly
whenever grim goes to the surface a puffing and growling is heard the otter hastily gasps for breath and tightens his hold with his fore claws but when they are on their way down to the depths
and air bubbles like silver beads roll through the water behind him he has only to hold on and let himself go once grim is lucky an old snag sticks up in the water
and in turning the otter's body is dashed against it it sends a shock through the animal but as grim for the moment has exhausted her energy and succumbed to one of the well known fits of weakness common to her species
the otter once more apparently gets the upper hand thus with varying fortunes the battle rages for some time they lie fighting on the surface
a golden streaked slimy scaly fish twisted into a knot with a dark hairy furred body once more there is a pause in the fighting
unobserved by grim who has just fallen into one of her apathetic fits the otter endeavours carefully to float the pike up under one of the large mounds
in order to drag her up with an effort of strength on to dry land but the attempt fails utterly he is simply unable to manage so great a load
now grim's strength returns once more with a powerful stroke of her tail she disappears with lightning rapidity from the surface and goes to the bottom with her rider whose merry go round jaunt makes his head swim
she is trying to get hold of his leg or body and therefore twists round with him so that he flaps like a loose piece of strap on an axle but she is not sufficiently supple to reach him her back aches her flexor muscles hurt
her ingenuity and her endurance to the extreme test down on the bottom sticking out from the bank are the roots of the willow bushes on the edge in her mad rush down grim has come near these
and instinctively seeks shelter beneath them at full speed she runs her long body into the network and sticks fast rapidly twisting her tail screw both ahead and astern
the otter treads water now on the right now on the left side of her and tries by utilizing the roots as steps to lift her up with him but in vain he cannot even stir the huge fish
his teeth are still far from having forced their way through it seems as if short and rounded as they are they cannot reach the bottom but he makes tremendous exertions whipping his tail in under the peat bank
while with his hind paws he seeks for support in clefts and cracks suddenly he feels one of his feet seized the grasp tightens so that his whole leg aches he tries to draw in his foot
but it is held immovable a monster crayfish that has become so stiff with age that it can scarcely manage to strike a proper blow with its tail has made for itself in fear of grim
a reliable place of refuge in the hole for a long time it has patiently followed the battle through its feelers and hoped that some morsel would fall to its hungry stomach now with gratitude to providence
it closes its great claw upon the warm blooded fisher a growing uneasiness steals over the otter he had once been caught by the tip of one claw in an otter trap
and his eyes seem on the point of bursting up up with or without his prey he has let go of grim and now makes his escape from the hole with so sudden a jerk that the old crayfish accompanies him
and as he approaches the surface and finds the blessed light beating more and more strongly upon the mud about his eyes he hastens his flight until with an eager sniff he reaches the surface
grim is close behind him and as the otter lands there is a loud splash it would have been all over with the brown beast
if the old crayfish on its way down from the surface where it had at last let go its hold had not dropped like a stone straight into grim's mouth
the wound that the old giant pike had received was not a dangerous one true there were two rows of deep cuts
made by a pair of thick round toothed jaws in the flesh on one side of her back but they healed like so many others that she had had in her time her back however was tender for days after
and she found it a little difficult to leap the impudent four footed fisher never went hunting again in her water hole
the last light of sunset lay in the west and a sullen wrack of cloud was mounting into the windless sky
the old stone church with its square tower stood amid trees its eastern window faintly aglow with crimson and purple
a face was lifted in his direction and undisconcerted eyes calmly surveyed him i am afraid
not at all not at all said the stranger i have no privileges here at least as yet lawford again hesitated then slowly advanced it's astonishingly quiet and beautiful he said
the stranger turned his head to glance over the fields yes it is very he replied there was the faintest accent a little drawl of unfriendliness in the remark you often sit here lawford persisted
the stranger raised his eyebrows oh yes often he smiled it is my own modest fashion of attending divine service the congregation is rapt my visits said lawford have been very few
to tell you the truth he replied picking his way as it were from word to word it's history as people call it does not interest me in the least after all it's not when a thing is but what it is that much matters
he glanced with head bent across the shadowy stones is pretty evident of course age has its charms and is this very old oh yes it's old right enough as things go
but even age perhaps is mainly an affair of the imagination there's a tombstone near that little old hawthorn and there are two others side by side under the wall still even legibly late seventeenth century
that's pretty good weathering he smiled faintly of course the church itself is centuries older drenched with age but she's still sleep walking while these old tombstones dream glow worms and crickets are not such bad bedfellows
what interested me most i think said lawford haltingly was this he pointed with his stick to the grave at his feet ah yes sabathier's said the stranger
i know his peculiar history almost by heart lawford found himself staring with unusual concentration into the rather long and pale face not i suppose he resumed faintly
even if you don't a suicide said lawford under his breath yes a suicide that's why our christian countrymen have buried him outside of the fold dead or alive they try to keep the wolf out
is this then unconsecrated ground said lawford haven't you noticed drawled the other how green the grass grows down here and how very sharp are poor old sabathier's thorns
besides he was a stranger and they kept him out but surely said lawford was it so entirely a matter of choice the laws of the church if he did kill himself he did
has anything ever occurred occurred he raised his eyebrows i wish it had i come here simply as i have said because it's quiet because i prefer the company of those who never answer me back
it is possible one ever could one ever could answer back there was a low rotting wall of stone encompassing sabathier's grave on this the stranger sat down
he glanced up rather curiously at his companion seldom the time and the place and the revenant altogether
he ventured to add of course of course said lawford eagerly but it is an absolutely new one to me i don't mean that i have never had such an idea just in one's own superficial way but'
all quite dead call and see taunted the stranger softly ah yes i know said lawford but i believe in the resurrection of the body that is what we say
and supposing when a man dies supposing it was most frightfully against one's will that one hated the awful inaction that death brings shutting a poor devil up like a child kicking against the door in a dark cupboard
one might surely one might just quietly you know try to get out wouldn't you he added and surely he found himself beginning gently to argue again
he nodded towards the old and broken grave that lay between them what sabathier the other echoed laying his hand upon the stone and a sheer enormous abyss of silence seemed to follow the unanswerable question
he was a stranger it says so good god said lawford
he killed himself poor wretch think of the fret and fever he must have been in just before imagine it but it might you know suggested the other with a smile
nicholas sabathier stranger to this parish no no said lawford his heart beating as if it would choke him i don't fancy it was indifference it was almost too dark now to distinguish the stranger's features
it's narrow quarters how would he begin lawford sat quite still you say i hope i am not detaining you you say you have come here sat here often on this very seat have you ever had
milk pale in the rising moon the stranger turned away from him for in that sleep of death what dreams may come must give us pause he said slowly with a little satirical catch on the last word what did you dream
lawford glanced helplessly about him the moon cast lean grey beams of light between the cypresses but to his wide and wandering eyes it seemed that a radiance other than hers haunted these mounds and leaning stones
have you ever noticed it he said putting out his hand towards his unknown companion this stone is cracked from head to foot but there' he rose stiff and chilled
you came here for solitude and i have been trying to convince you that we are surrounded with witnesses you will forgive my intrusion there was a kind of old fashioned courtesy in his manner that he himself was dimly aware of he held out his hand
it's the old story of bluebeard and i confess i too should very much like a peep into his cupboard who wouldn't but there it's merely a matter of time i suppose he paused
and together they slowly ascended the path already glimmering with a heavy dew at the porch they paused once more and now it was the stranger that held out his hand perhaps he said you will give me the pleasure of some day continuing our talk
as for our friend below it so happens that i have managed to pick up a little more of his history than the sexton seems to have heard of
i think you would agree that mine is even but there i've talked too much about myself already perhaps to morrow why to morrow then said his companion it's a flat wooden house on the left hand side come at any time of the evening
he paused again and smiled third house after the rectory which is marked up on the gate my name is herbert herbert herbert to be precise lawford took out his pocket book and a card mine he said handing it gravely to his companion
is lawford at least it was really the first time that either had seen the other's face at close quarters and clear lit and on lawford's a moon almost at the full shone dazzlingly he saw an expression
dismay incredulity overwhelming astonishment start suddenly into the dark rather indifferent eyes what is it he cried hastily stooping close
lawford listened awhile before opening his door he heard voices in the dining room a light shone faintly between the blinds of his bedroom he very gently let himself in and unheard unseen
mounted the stairs he sat down in front of the fire tired out and bitterly cold in spite of his long walk home but his mind was wearier even than his body he tried in vain to catch up the thread of his thoughts
he only knew for certain that so far as his first hope and motives had gone his errand had proved entirely futile how could i possibly fall asleep with that fellow talking there he had said to himself angrily
but which he had not yet been able to put into words supposing though that he had really fallen into a deep sleep with none to watch or spy what then however ridiculous that idea
it was not more ridiculous more incredible than the actual fact if he had remained there he might it was just possible that he would by now have actually awakened just his own familiar every day self again and the thought of that
though he hardly realised its full import actually did send him on tip toe for a glance that more or less effectually set the question at rest and there looked out at him it seemed
that had so much appalled him only two nights ago expressionless cadaverous with shadowy hollows beneath the glittering eyes and even as he watched it its lips of their own volition drew together and questioned him
he started up i wish you would knock he said angrily you talk of quiet you tell me to rest and think and here you come creeping and spying on me as if i was a child in a nursery
i refuse to be watched and guarded and peeped on like this he knew that his hands were trembling that he could not keep his eyes fixed that his voice was nearly inarticulate sheila drew in her lips
has he had supper why do you ask he won't believe too bloated i think said sheila indignantly
well vulgar terms as that besides arthur as for believing without in the least desiring to hurt your feelings i must
come along said lawford with a faint gust of laughter let's see they went quickly downstairs sheila with less dignity perhaps than she had been surprised into since she had left a slimmer girlhood behind
and immovable hostility mister danton composed his chin in his collar and deliberately turned himself towards his companion his small eyes wandered and instantaneously met and rested on those of missus lawford
arthur thought he would prefer to come down and see you himself you take such formidable risks lawford said mister bethany in a dry difficult voice am i really to believe danton began huskily
i am too tired to care a jot either way and' he lifted a long arm
the remotest proof that i am not so far as i am personally aware even the man in the moon danton at heart was always an incorrigible sceptic aren't you t d you pride your dear old brawn on it in secret
firm unctuous subtle scepticism and to that end your body flourishes you were born fat you became fat and fat my dear danton has been deliberately thrust on you in layers
lampreys you'll perish of surfeit some day of sheer dantonism and fat postmortem danton
blow hot blow cold north south east west to have a weathercock for a wife is to marry the wind there's nothing to be got from poor sheila but lawford
the little man's voice was as sharp as the crack of a whip i forbid it do you hear me i forbid it some self command my dear good fellow remember remember it's only the will the will that keeps us breathing
lawford peered as if out of a gathering dusk that thickened and flickered with shadows before his eyes what's he mean then he muttered huskily coming here with his black still carcase peeping peeping
what's he mean i say there was a moment's silence then with lifted brows and wide eyes that to every one of his three witnesses left an indelible memory of clear and wolfish light within their glassy pupils
he turned heavily and climbed back to his solitude i suppose began danton with an obvious effort to disentangle himself from the humiliation of the moment i suppose he was wandering
bless me yes said mister bethany cordially
yes said danton taking refuge in missus lawford's white and intent gaze just think think danton the awful incessant strain of such an ordeal
i think i foresaw it and now just while we are all three alone here together in friendly conclave wouldn't it be as well don't you think to confront ourselves with the difficulties i know we all know
i own frankly at the first sheer shock it staggered me as i think for the moment it has staggered you but when i had seen the poor fellow face to face heard him talk and watched him there upstairs in the silence stir and awake
and come up again to his trouble out of his sleep i had no more doubt in my own mind and heart that he was he than i have in my mind that i am i we do in some mysterious way you'll own at once
grow so accustomed so inured if you like to each other's faces masks though they be that we hardly realise we see them when we are speaking together
and yet the slightest the most infinitesimal change is instantly apparent oh yes vicar but you see mister bethany raised a small lean hand one moment please
i have heard lawford's own account conscious or unconscious he has been through some terrific strain some such awful conflict with the unseen powers that we thank god have only read about and never perhaps until death is upon us
shall witness for ourselves what more likely more inevitable than that such a thing should leave its scar its cloud its masking shadow call it what you will a smile can turn a face we dread into a face we'd die for
some experience which would be nothing but a hideous cruelty and outrage to ask too closely about one perhaps which he could even if he would poor fellow give no account of has put him temporarily at the world's mercy
and that my dear danton is just where we come in we know the man himself and it is to be our privilege to act as a buffer state to be intermediaries between him and the rest of this deadly craving sheepish world
for the time being oh yes just for the time being other and keener and more knowledgeable minds than mine or yours will some day bring him back to us again we don't attempt to explain we can't
we simply believe but danton merely continued to stare as if into the quiet of an aquarium my dear good danton persisted mister bethany with cherubic patience how old are you
good said mister bethany and i'm seventy one and this child here' he pointed an accusing finger at sheila is youth perpetual so he briskly brightened say between us we're six score all told
are we can we deliberately with this mere pinch of years at our command out of the wheeling millions that have gone can we say this is impossible to any single phenomenon can we
no we can't of course said danton formidably not finally that's all very well but' he paused and nodded nodding his round head upward as if towards the inaudible overhead
i suppose he can't hear
personally i refuse to discuss the matter mere dull stubborn prejudice bigotry if you like i will only remark just this that missus lawford and i in our inmost hearts know
he'll win through and of his own sheer will and courage but now because i ask it and this poor child here entreats it you will say nothing to a living soul about the matter say till friday
what step by step creatures we are to be sure i say friday because it will be exactly a week then and what's a week to nature scarcely the unfolding of a rose but still friday be it then if nothing has occurred
we will we shall have to call a friendly gathering we shall be compelled to have a friendly consultation i'm not i hope a brute bethany said danton apologetically
but honestly speaking for myself simply as a man of the world it's a big risk to be taking on what shall we call it on mere intuition personally and even in a court of law though heaven forbid it ever reaches that stage
the very man but then i am a sceptic i own it and pon my word missus lawford there's plenty of room for sceptics in a world like this very well said mister bethany crisply that's settled then
doctor simon had come and gone optimistic and urbane
over a patient behind whose taciturnity a hint of mockery and subterfuge seemed to lurk even missus lawford had appeared to share her husband's reticence but doctor simon had happened on other cases in his experience
had floated up to the patient's open window sunlight had drawn across his room in one pale beam and vanished a few callers had called hothouse flowers waxen and pale had been left with messages of sympathy
with his face to the ceiling he had dozed and had awakened cold and torpid with dream he had hardly been aware of the process but every hour had done something it seemed towards clarifying his point of view
a consciousness had begun to stir in him that was neither that of the old easy lawford whom he had never been fully aware of before nor of this strange ghostly intelligence that haunted the hawklike restless face
and plucked so insistently at his distracted nerves he had begun in a vague fashion to be aware of them both could in a fashion discriminate between them almost as if there really were two spirits in stubborn conflict within him
it would of course wear him down in time there could be only one end to such a struggle the end all day he had longed for freedom on and on with craving for the open sky
for solitude for green silence beyond these maddening walls this heedful silken coming and going these sunday voices this reiterant yelp of a single peevish bell would they never cease
and above all betwixt dread and an almost physical greed he hungered for night he sat down with elbows on knees and head on his hands thinking of night its secrecy
he started up and the remembrance of the morning returned to him the glassy light the changing rays the beaming gilt upon the useless books now at last at the windows afternoon had begun to wane
you really must try to think of of us all are you going to church he asked in a low voice
but doctor simon advised me most particularly to go out at least once a day we must remember this is not the beginning of your illness long continued anxiety i suppose does tell on one in time anyhow he said that i looked worried and run down
i am worried let us both try for each other's sakes or even if only for alice's to to do all we can i must not harass you but is there any do you see the slightest change of any kind
sheila lowered her eyes softly on to the rich toned picture in the glass supposing she said watching her lips move supposing
what will you do honestly arthur when i think over it calmly the whole tragedy comes back on me with such a force it sweeps me off my feet i am for the moment scarcely my own mistress what would you do
she watched him curiously in spite of all her reason of her absolute certainty she wondered even again for a moment if this really could be arthur and for the first time she realised the power and mastery of that eager
and far too hungry face her mind seemed to pause fluttering in air like a bird in the wind she hastened rather unsteadily to the door
she asked her husband looked up over his little table is alice going with you oh yes poor child she looks so pale and miserable we are going to missus sherwin's and then on to church you will lock your door yes
i will lock my door and i do hope arthur nothing rash a change that seemed almost the effect of actual shadow came over his face i wish you could stay with me he said slowly
what i go through it was as if a child had asked on the verge of terror for a candle in the dark but an hour's terror is better than a lifetime of timidity sheila sighed i think she said
i too might say that but there giving way will do nothing for either of us
she'd worm a secret out of one's grave it's useless to discuss that arthur you have always consistently disliked my friends it's scarcely likely that you would find any improvement in them now oh well he began
he stood up it is useless to argue if i do not go out i shall certainly go mad as for criminal why that's a woman's word who on earth is to know me
that you are certain to be seen either going or returning that alice is bound to discover that you are well enough to go out and yet not even enough to say good night to your own daughter oh it's monstrous
it's a frantic a heartless thing to do her voice vaguely suggested tears lawford eyed her coldly and stubbornly thinking of the empty room he would leave awaiting his return its lamp burning
its fire flames shining it was almost a physical discomfort this longing unspeakable for the twilight the green secrecy and the silence of the graves keep them out of the way he said in a low voice
it will be dark when i come in his hardened face lit up it's useless to attempt to dissuade me why must you always be hurting me
husband and wife faced each other across the clear lit room he did not answer for the last time she said in a quiet hard voice i ask you not to go
miss kate and miss julia were there gossiping and laughing and fussing walking after each other to the head of the stairs peering down over the banisters and calling down to lily to ask her who had come it was always a great affair the misses morkan's annual dance
everybody who knew them came to it members of the family old friends of the family the members of julia's choir any of kate's pupils that were grown up enough and even some of mary jane's pupils too never once had it fallen flat
as long as anyone could remember ever since kate and julia after the death of their brother pat had left the house in stoney batter and taken mary jane their only niece to live with them in the dark gaunt house on usher's island the upper part of which they had rented from mister fulham the corn factor on the ground floor
mary jane who was then a little girl in short clothes was now the main prop of the household for she had the organ in haddington road she had been through the academy and gave a pupils concert every year in the upper room of the antient concert rooms
many of her pupils belonged to the better class families on the kingstown and dalkey line old as they were her aunts also did their share julia though she was quite grey was still the leading soprano in adam and eve's and kate being too feeble to go about much
gave music lessons to beginners on the old square piano in the back room lily the caretaker's daughter did housemaid's work for them though their life was modest they believed in eating well the best of everything diamond bone sirloins
three shilling tea and the best bottled stout but lily seldom made a mistake in the orders so that she got on well with her three mistresses they were fussy that was all but the only thing they would not stand was back answers of course
they had good reason to be fussy on such a night and then it was long after ten o'clock and yet there was no sign of gabriel and his wife besides they were dreadfully afraid that freddy malins might turn up screwed they would not wish for worlds that any of mary jane's pupils should see him under the influence
it was sometimes very hard to manage him freddy malins always came late but they wondered what could be keeping gabriel and that was what brought them every two minutes to the banisters to ask lily had gabriel or freddy come o mister conroy
said lily to gabriel when she opened the door for him miss kate and miss julia thought you were never coming good night missus conroy i'll engage they did said gabriel but they forget that my wife here takes three mortal hours to dress herself
he stood on the mat scraping the snow from his goloshes while lily led his wife to the foot of the stairs and called out miss kate here's missus conroy kate and julia came toddling down the dark stairs at once
both of them kissed gabriel's wife said she must be perished alive and asked was gabriel with her here i am as right as the mail aunt kate go on up i'll follow called out gabriel from the dark
he continued scraping his feet vigorously while the three women went upstairs laughing to the ladies dressing room a light fringe of snow lay like a cape on the shoulders of his overcoat
and as the buttons of his overcoat slipped with a squeaking noise through the snow stiffened frieze a cold fragrant air from out of doors escaped from crevices and folds is it snowing again mister conroy asked lily
she had preceded him into the pantry to help him off with his overcoat
and glanced at her she was a slim growing girl pale in complexion and with hay coloured hair the gas in the pantry made her look still paler gabriel had known her when she was a child and used to sit on the lowest step nursing a rag doll yes lily he answered
and i think we're in for a night of it he looked up at the pantry ceiling which was shaking with the stamping and shuffling of feet on the floor above listened for a moment to the piano and then glanced at the girl who was folding his overcoat carefully at the end of a shelf
tell me lily he said in a friendly tone
o no sir she answered i'm done schooling this year and more o then said gabriel gaily
the girl glanced back at him over her shoulder and said with great bitterness
gabriel coloured as if he felt he had made a mistake and without looking at her kicked off his goloshes and flicked actively with his muffler at his patent leather shoes he was a stout tallish young man
the high colour of his cheeks pushed upwards even to his forehead where it scattered itself in a few formless patches of pale red and on his hairless face there scintillated restlessly the polished lenses and the bright gilt rims of the glasses which screened his delicate and restless eyes
his glossy black hair was parted in the middle and brushed in a long curve behind his ears where it curled slightly beneath the groove left by his hat
then he took a coin rapidly from his pocket o lily he said thrusting it into her hands it's christmastime isn't it just here's a little he walked rapidly towards the door o no sir cried the girl following him really sir i wouldn't take it
the girl seeing that he had gained the stairs called out after him well thank you sir he waited outside the drawing room door until the waltz should finish listening to the skirts that swept against it and to the shuffling of feet
he was still discomposed by the girl's bitter and sudden retort it had cast a gloom over him which he tried to dispel by arranging his cuffs and the bows of his tie he then took from his waistcoat pocket a little paper and glanced at the headings he had made for his speech
he was undecided about the lines from robert browning for he feared they would be above the heads of his hearers some quotation that they would recognise from shakespeare or from the melodies would be better the indelicate clacking of the men's heels
and the shuffling of their soles reminded him that their grade of culture differed from his he would only make himself ridiculous by quoting poetry to them which they could not understand they would think that he was airing his superior education
his whole speech was a mistake from first to last an utter failure just then his aunts and his wife came out of the ladies dressing room his aunts were two small plainly dressed old women aunt julia was an inch or so the taller her hair
drawn low over the tops of her ears was grey and grey also with darker shadows was her large flaccid face though she was stout in build and stood erect her slow eyes and parted lips gave her the appearance of a woman who did not know where she was or where she was going
aunt kate was more vivacious her face healthier than her sister's was all puckers and creases like a shrivelled red apple and her hair braided in the same old fashioned way had not lost its ripe nut colour they both kissed gabriel frankly
t j conroy of the port and docks gretta tells me you're not going to take a cab back to monkstown tonight gabriel said aunt kate no said gabriel turning to his wife we had quite enough of that last year hadn't we
cab windows rattling all the way
very jolly it was gretta caught a dreadful cold aunt kate frowned severely and nodded her head at every word quite right gabriel quite right she said you can't be too careful but as for gretta there said gabriel she'd walk home in the snow if she were let
missus conroy laughed don't mind him aunt kate she said he's really an awful bother what with green shades for tom's eyes at night and making him do the dumb bells and forcing eva to eat the stirabout the poor child and she simply hates the sight of it
o but you'll never guess what he makes me wear now she broke out into a peal of laughter and glanced at her husband whose admiring and happy eyes had been wandering from her dress to her face and hair
the two aunts laughed heartily too for gabriel's solicitude was a standing joke with them goloshes said missus conroy that's the latest whenever it's wet underfoot i must put on my galoshes tonight even he wanted me to put them on but i wouldn't
the next thing he'll buy me will be a diving suit gabriel laughed nervously and patted his tie reassuringly while aunt kate nearly doubled herself so heartily did she enjoy the joke the smile soon faded from aunt julia's face and her mirthless eyes were directed towards her nephew's face
after a pause she asked and what are goloshes gabriel goloshes julia exclaimed her sister goodness me don't you know what goloshes are you wear them over your over your boots gretta isn't it yes said missus conroy guttapercha things
we both have a pair now gabriel says everyone wears them on the continent o on the continent murmured aunt julia nodding her head slowly gabriel knitted his brows and said as if he were slightly angered it's nothing very wonderful but
gretta thinks it very funny because she says the word reminds her of christy minstrels
of course you've seen about the room gretta was saying o the room is all right replied gabriel i've taken one in the gresham to be sure said aunt kate by far the best thing to do and the children gretta you're not anxious about them
o for one night said missus conroy besides bessie will look after them
what a comfort it is to have a girl like that one you can depend on there's that lily i'm sure i don't know what has come over her lately she's not the girl she was at all gabriel was about to ask his aunt some questions on this point but she broke off suddenly to gaze after her sister who had wandered down the stairs and
was craning her neck over the banisters now i ask you she said almost testily where is julia going julia julia where are you going julia who had gone half way down one flight came back and announced blandly here's freddy
at the same moment a clapping of hands and a final flourish of the pianist told that the waltz had ended the drawing room door was opened from within and some couples came out aunt kate drew gabriel aside hurriedly and whispered into his ear
slip down gabriel like a good fellow and see if he's all right and don't let him up if he's screwed i'm sure he's screwed i'm sure he is gabriel went to the stairs and listened over the banisters he could hear two persons talking in the pantry then he recognised freddy malins laugh he went down the stairs noisily
that gabriel is here i always feel easier in my mind when he's here julia there's miss daly and miss power will take some refreshment thanks for your beautiful waltz miss daly it made lovely time
a tall wizen faced man with a stiff grizzled moustache and swarthy skin who was passing out with his partner said and may we have some refreshment too miss morkan
and here's mister browne and miss furlong take them in julia with miss daly and miss power i'm the man for the ladies said mister browne pursing his lips until his moustache bristled and smiling in all his wrinkles you know miss morkan the reason they are so fond of me is
he did not finish his sentence but seeing that aunt kate was out of earshot at once led the three young ladies into the back room the middle of the room was occupied by two square tables placed end to end and on these aunt julia and the caretaker were straightening and smoothing a large cloth
on the sideboard were arrayed dishes and plates and glasses and bundles of knives and forks and spoons the top of the closed square piano served also as a sideboard for viands and sweets at a smaller sideboard in one corner
two young men were standing drinking hop bitters mister browne led his charges thither and invited them all in jest to some ladies punch hot strong and sweet as they said they never took anything strong he opened three bottles of lemonade for them
then he asked one of the young men to move aside and taking hold of the decanter filled out for himself a goodly measure of whisky the young men eyed him respectfully while he took a trial sip god help me he said smiling it's the doctor's orders
his wizened face broke into a broader smile and
swaying their bodies to and fro with nervous jerks of their shoulders the boldest said o now mister browne i'm sure the doctor never ordered anything of the kind mister browne took another sip of his whisky and said with sidling mimicry well you see
now mary grimes if i don't take it make me take it for i feel i want it his hot face had leaned forward a little too confidentially and he had assumed a very low dublin accent so that the young ladies with one instinct received his speech in silence miss furlong
who was one of mary jane's pupils asked miss daly what was the name of the pretty waltz she had played and mister browne seeing that he was ignored
a red faced young woman dressed in pansy came into the room excitedly clapping her hands and crying
two gentlemen and three ladies mary jane o here's mister bergin and mister kerrigan said mary jane mister kerrigan will you take miss power miss furlong may i get you a partner mister bergin o that'll just do now three ladies mary jane
the two young gentlemen asked the ladies if they might have the pleasure and mary jane turned to miss daly o miss daly you're really awfully good after playing for the last two dances but really we're so short of ladies tonight i don't mind in the least miss morkan
but i've a nice partner for you mister bartell d'arcy the tenor i'll get him to sing later on all dublin is raving about him
as the piano had twice begun the prelude to the first figure mary jane led her recruits quickly from the room they had hardly gone when aunt julia wandered slowly into the room looking behind her at something what is the matter julia asked aunt kate anxiously who is it
julia who was carrying in a column of table napkins
as if the question had surprised her it's only freddy kate and gabriel with him in fact right behind her gabriel could be seen piloting freddy malins across the landing the latter a young man of about forty was of gabriel's size and build with very round shoulders
his face was fleshy and pallid touched with colour only at the thick hanging lobes of his ears and at the wide wings of his nose he had coarse features a blunt nose a convex and receding brow tumid and protruded lips
his heavy lidded eyes and the disorder of his scanty hair made him look sleepy he was laughing
rubbing the knuckles of his left fist backwards and forwards into his left eye good evening freddy said aunt julia freddy malins bade the misses morkan good evening in what seemed an offhand fashion by reason of the habitual catch in his voice and then
seeing that mister browne was grinning at him from the sideboard crossed the room on rather shaky legs and began to repeat in an undertone the story he had just told to gabriel
o no hardly noticeable now isn't he a terrible fellow she said and his poor mother made him take the pledge on new year's eve
before leaving the room with gabriel she signalled to mister browne by frowning and shaking her forefinger in warning to and fro mister browne nodded in answer and when she had gone said to freddy malins now then teddy
freddy malins who was nearing the climax of his story waved the offer aside impatiently but mister browne having first called freddy malins attention to a disarray in his dress filled out and handed him a full glass of lemonade
freddy malins left hand accepted the glass mechanically his right hand being engaged in the mechanical readjustment of his dress
the match making virtues of a double garden anne was so flurried by the military incidents attending her return home that she was almost afraid to venture alone outside her mother's premises
moreover the numerous soldiers regular and otherwise that haunted overcombe and its neighbourhood were getting better acquainted with the villagers and the result was that they were always standing at garden gates walking in the orchards
or sitting gossiping just within cottage doors with the bowls of their tobacco pipes thrust outside for politeness sake
being gentlemen of a gallant and most affectionate nature they naturally turned their heads and smiled if a pretty girl passed by which was rather disconcerting to the latter if she were unused to society
and when the belles were all allotted those who scarcely deserved that title had their turn many of the soldiers being not at all particular about half an inch of nose more or less a trifling deficiency of teeth or a larger crop of freckles
than is customary in the saxon race thus with one and another courtship began to be practised in overcombe on rather a large scale and the dispossessed young men who had been born in the place were left to take their walks alone
anne watched these romantic proceedings from her window with much interest and when she saw how triumphantly other handsome girls of the neighbourhood walked by on the gorgeous arms of lieutenant knockheelmann
cornet flitzenhart and captain klaspenkissen of the thrilling york hussars who swore the most picturesque foreign oaths
and to look into a little drawer at something soft and brown that lay in a curl there wrapped in paper at last she could bear it no longer and went downstairs
where are you going said missus garland to see the folks because i am so gloomy certainly not at present anne why not mother said anne blushing with an indefinite sense of being very wicked
because you must not i have been going to tell you several times not to go into the street at this time of day why not walk in the morning there's young mister derriman would be glad to
don't mention him mother don't well then dear walk in the garden so poor anne who really had not the slightest wish to throw her heart away upon a soldier
turned into the inner garden from day to day and passed a good many hours there the pleasant birds singing to her and the delightful butterflies alighting on her hat and the horrid ants running up her stockings
this garden was undivided from loveday's the two having originally been the single garden of the whole house it was a quaint old place enclosed by a thorn hedge so shapely and dense from incessant clipping
that the mill boy could walk along the top without sinking in a feat which he often performed as a means of filling out his day's work the soil within was of that intense fat blackness
which is only seen after a century of constant cultivation the paths were grassed over so that people came and went upon them without being heard the grass harboured slugs
and on this account the miller was going to replace it by gravel as soon as he had time but as he had said this for thirty years without doing it the grass and the slugs seemed likely to remain
the miller's man attended to missus garland's piece of the garden as well as to the larger portion digging planting and weeding indifferently in both the miller observing with reason that it was not worth while for a helpless widow lady
and they talked from plot to plot with a zest and animation which missus garland could never have anticipated when she first removed thither after her husband's death
was the most snug and sheltered part of this snug and sheltered enclosure and it was well watered as the land of lot
three small brooks about a yard wide ran with a tinkling sound from side to side between the plots crossing the path under wood slabs laid as bridges and passing out of the garden through little tunnels in the hedge
the brooks were so far overhung at their brinks by grass and garden produce that had it not been for their perpetual babbling few would have noticed that they were there this was where anne liked best to linger
when her excursions became restricted to her own premises and in a spot of the garden not far removed the trumpet major loved to linger also having by virtue of his office no stable duty to perform
he came down from the camp to the mill almost every day and anne finding that he adroitly walked and sat in his father's portion of the garden whenever she did so in the other half could not help smiling and speaking to him
so his epaulettes and blue jacket and anne's yellow gipsy hat were often seen in different parts of the garden at the same time but he never intruded into her part of the enclosure nor did she into loveday's
she always spoke to him when she saw him there and he replied in deep firm accents across the gooseberry bushes or through the tall rows of flowering peas as the case might be he thus gave her accounts at fifteen paces
of his experiences in camp in quarters in flanders and elsewhere of the difference between line and column of forced marches billeting and such like together with his hopes of promotion anne listened at first indifferently
but knowing no one else so good natured and experienced she grew interested in him as in a brother by degrees his gold lace buckles and spurs lost all their strangeness and were as familiar to her as her own clothes
at last missus garland noticed this growing friendship and began to despair of her motherly scheme of uniting anne to the moneyed festus why she could not take prompt steps to check interference with her plans
arose partly from her nature which was the reverse of managing and partly from a new emotional circumstance with which she found it difficult to reckon the near neighbourhood that had produced the friendship of anne for john loveday
was slowly effecting a warmer liking between her mother and his father thus the month of july passed the troop horses came with the regularity of clockwork twice a day down to drink under her window
and as the weather grew hotter kicked up their heels and shook their heads furiously under the maddening sting of the dun fly the green leaves in the garden became of a darker dye the gooseberries ripened
and the three brooks were reduced to half their winter volume at length the earnest trumpet major obtained missus garland's consent to take her and her daughter to the camp which they had not yet viewed from any closer point than their own windows
so one afternoon they went the miller being one of the party the villagers were by this time driving a roaring trade with the soldiers who purchased of them every description of garden produce milk butter and eggs at liberal prices
the figures of these rural sutlers could be seen creeping up the slopes laden like bees to a spot in the rear of the camp where there was a kind of market place on the greensward missus garland anne and the miller
were conducted from one place to another and on to the quarter where the soldiers wives lived who had not been able to get lodgings in the cottages near the most sheltered place had been chosen for them and snug huts had been built for their use by their husbands
of clods hurdles a little thatch or whatever they could lay hands on the trumpet major conducted his friends thence to the large barn which had been appropriated as a hospital and to the cottage with its windows bricked up that was used as the magazine
then they inspected the lines of shining dark horses each representing the then high figure of two and twenty guineas purchase money standing patiently at the ropes which stretched from one picket post to another
a bank being thrown up in front of them as a protection at night they passed on to the tents of the german legion a well grown and rather dandy set of men with a poetical look about their faces
which rendered them interesting to feminine eyes hanoverians saxons prussians swedes hungarians and other foreigners were numbered in their ranks they were cleaning arms which they leant carefully against a rail when the work was complete
on their return they passed the mess house a temporary wooden building with a brick chimney as anne and her companions went by a group of three or four of the hussars were standing at the door talking to a dashing young man
who was expatiating on the qualities of a horse that one was inclined to buy anne recognized festus derriman in the seller and cripplestraw was trotting the animal up and down as soon as she caught the yeoman's eye
he came forward making some friendly remark to the miller and then turning to miss garland who kept her eyes steadily fixed on the distant landscape till he got so near that it was impossible to do so longer
he said to her in a low voice of repressed resentment no said anne when are you coming to the hall again never perhaps nonsense anne said missus garland
you can go at any time as usual let her come with me now missus garland i should be pleased to walk along with her
the widow looked unhappily in her daughter's face distressed between her desire that anne should encourage festus and her wish to consult anne's own feelings leave her alone leave her alone said festus his gaze blackening
now i think of it i am glad she can't come with me for i am engaged and he stalked away anne moved on with her mother young loveday silently following and they began to descend the hill
well where's mister loveday asked missus garland father's behind said john missus garland looked behind her solicitously and the miller who had been waiting for the event beckoned to her
i'll overtake you in a minute she said to the younger pair and went back
for the rencounter with festus had damped the spirits of both at last the widow's private talk with miller loveday came to an end and she hastened onward the miller going in another direction to meet a man on business
when she reached the trumpet major and anne she was looking very bright and rather flurried and seemed sorry when loveday said that he must leave them and return to the camp they parted in their usual friendly manner and anne and her mother were left to walk
the few remaining yards alone there i've settled it said missus garland anne what are you thinking about i have settled in my mind that it is all right what's all right said anne
that you do not care for derriman and mean to encourage john loveday what's all the world so long as folks are happy
what a weathercock you are mother why should you say that just now
putting on the look of a good woman but i have reasoned it out and at last thank god i have got over my ambition the lovedays are our true and only friends and mister festus derriman with all his money
a sailor enters the remaining fortnight of the month of september passed away with a general decline from the summer's excitements
the royal family left the watering place the first week in october the german legion with their artillery about the same time the dragoons still remained at the barracks just out of the town and john loveday brought to anne every newspaper that he could lay hands on
especially such as contained any fragment of shipping news this threw them much together and at these times john was often awkward and confused on account of the unwonted stress of concealing his great love for her
her interests had grandly developed from the limits of overcombe and the town life hard by to an extensiveness truly european during the whole month of october however not a single grain of information reached her or anybody else
concerning nelson and his blockading squadron off cadiz there were the customary bad jokes about buonaparte especially when it was found that the whole french army had turned its back upon boulogne and set out for the rhine
then came accounts of his march through germany and into austria but not a word about the victory at the beginning of autumn john brought news which fearfully depressed her the austrian general mack had capitulated with his whole army
but the week which had led off with such a dreary piping was to end in another key on the very day when mack's army was piling arms at the feet of its conqueror a blow had been struck by bob loveday and his comrades
which eternally shattered the enemy's force by sea four days after the receipt of the austrian news corporal tullidge ran into the miller's house to inform him that on the previous monday at eleven in the morning
the pickle schooner lieutenant lapenotiere had arrived at falmouth with despatches from the fleet that the stage coaches on the highway through wessex to london were chalked with the words great victory
glorious triumph and so on and that all the country people were wild to know particulars on friday afternoon john arrived with authentic news of the battle off cape trafalgar and the death of nelson
captain hardy was alive though his escape had been narrow enough his shoe buckle having been carried away by a shot it was feared that the victory had been the scene of the heaviest slaughter among all the ships engaged
but as yet no returns of killed and wounded had been issued beyond a rough list of the numbers in some of the ships the suspense of the little household in overcombe mill was great in the extreme
john came thither daily for more than a week but no further particulars reached england till the end of that time and then only the meagre intelligence that there had been a gale immediately after the battle
and that many of the prizes had been lost anne said little to all these things and preserved a superstratum of calmness on her countenance but some inner voice seemed to whisper to her that bob was no more
miller loveday drove to pos'ham several times to learn if the captain's sisters had received any more definite tidings than these flying reports but that family had heard nothing which could in any way relieve the miller's anxiety
when at last at the end of november there appeared a final and revised list of killed and wounded as issued by admiral collingwood it was a useless sheet to the lovedays to their great pain it contained no names but those of officers
who would avoid needless exposure and a hundred and fifty of the victory's crew had been disabled or slain anybody who had looked into her room at this time
was the office for the burial of the dead at sea beginning we therefore commit his body to the deep in these first days of december several of the victorious fleet came into port but not the victory
many supposed that that noble ship disabled by the battle had gone to the bottom in the subsequent tempestuous weather and the belief was persevered in till it was told in the town and port that she had been seen passing up the channel
then letters from survivors began to appear in the public prints which john so regularly brought to anne but though he watched the mails with unceasing vigilance there was never a letter from bob
it sometimes crossed john's mind that his brother might still be alive and well and that in his wish to abide by his expressed intention of giving up anne and home life he was deliberately lax in writing
it was a clear day in december the first slight snow of the season had been sifted over the earth and one side of the apple tree branches in the miller's garden was touched with white
though a few leaves were still lingering on the tops of the younger trees a short sailor of the royal navy who was not bob nor anything like him crossed the mill court and came to the door
the miller hastened out and brought him into the room where john missus loveday and anne garland were all present i'm from aboard the victory said the sailor my name's jim cornick and your lad is alive and well
they breathed rather than spoke their thankfulness and relief the miller's eyes being moist as he turned aside to calm himself while anne having first jumped up wildly from her seat sank back again
under the almost insupportable joy that trembled through her limbs to her utmost finger i've come from spithead to pos'ham the sailor continued and now i am going on to father at budmouth ah
i know your father cried the trumpet major old james cornick it was the man who had brought anne in his lerret from portland bill and bob hasn't got a scratch said the miller not a scratch said cornick
loveday then bustled off to draw the visitor something to drink anne garland with a glowing blush on her face had gone to the back part of the room where she was the very embodiment of sweet content as she slightly swayed herself without speaking
a little tide of happiness seemed to ebb and flow through her in listening to the sailor's words moving her figure with it the seaman and john went on conversing
but what it was i don't know for i was quartered at a gun some ways off
and was one of the men who carried him to the cockpit after that he and some other lads jumped aboard the french ship and i believe they was in her when she struck her flag what a did next i can't say
for the wind had dropped and the smoke was like a cloud but a got a good deal talked about and they say there's promotion in store for'n at this point in the story jim cornick stopped to drink
and a low unconscious humming came from anne in her distant corner the faint melody continued more or less when the conversation between the sailor and the lovedays was renewed we heard afore that the victory was near knocked to pieces said the miller
knocked to pieces you'd say so if so be you could see her gad her sides be battered like an old penny piece the shot be still sticking in her wales and her sails be like so many clap nets
we have run all the way home under jury topmasts and as for her decks you may swab wi hot water and you may swab wi cold
the cap'n had a narrow escape like many o the rest a shot shaved his ankle like a razor you should have seen that man's face in the het o battle his features were as if they'd been cast in steel
we rather expected a letter from bob before this well said jim cornick with a smile of toleration you must make allowances the truth o't is he's engaged just now at portsmouth
like a good many of the rest from our ship
and i make no doubt that she'll be an excellent wife for him ah said missus loveday in a warning tone courting wife said the miller they instinctively looked towards anne
anne had started as if shaken by an invisible hand and a thick mist of doubt seemed to obscure the intelligence of her eyes this was but for two or three moments very pale she arose and went right up to the seaman
john gently tried to intercept her but she passed him by do you speak of robert loveday as courting a wife she asked without the least betrayal of emotion i didn't see you miss replied cornick turning
a very nice young master baker's daughter honey a very wise choice of the young man's is she fair or dark her hair is rather light i like light hair and her name
but can it be that my story hurts ye
yes yes said john interposing anxiously we don't care for more just at this moment we do care for more said anne vehemently tell it all sailor that is a very pretty name caroline
when are they going to be married i don't know as how the day is settled answered jim even now scarcely conscious of the devastation he was causing in one fair breast
but from the rate the courting is scudding along at i should say it won't be long first if you see him when you go back give him my best wishes she lightly said as she moved away and she added with solemn bitterness
say that i am glad to hear he is making such good use of the first days of his escape from the valley of the shadow of death she went away expressing indifference by audibly singing in the distance
shall we go dance the round your sister is lively at the news observed jim cornick yes murmured john gloomily as he gnawed his lower lip and kept his eyes fixed on the fire well continued the man from the victory
as he might have picked up with a girl without a single copper nail to be sure there was a time we had when we got into port it was open house for us all and after mentally regarding the scene for a few seconds jim emptied his cup and rose to go
they found her lying insensible upon the floor the trumpet major his lips tightly closed lifted her in his arms and laid her upon the bed after which he went back to the door to give room to her mother who was bending over the girl with some hartshorn
she is only in a faint john and her colour is coming back
john left the room when he gained the lower apartment his father was standing by the chimney piece the sailor having gone the trumpet major went up to the fire and grasping the edge of the high chimney shelf stood silent
did i hear a noise when i went out asked the elder in a tone of misgiving yes you did said john it was she but her mother says she is better now father he added impetuously
bob is a worthless blockhead
john john not too fast said the miller that's a hard thing to say of your brother and you ought to be ashamed of it well he tries me more than i can bear good god what can a man be made of to go on as he does
why didn't he come home or if he couldn't get leave why didn't he write tis scandalous of him to serve a woman like that gently gently
the chap hev done his duty as a sailor and though there might have been something between him and anne her mother in talking it over with me has said many times that she couldn't think of their marrying
folks that gain victories must have a little liberty allowed em look at the admiral himself for that matter john continued looking at the red coals till hearing missus loveday's foot on the staircase he went to meet her
by the open window in the gable from the infinite west blew the evening air carrying with it the precious scent of honeysuckle to mingle with that of old books polwarth recounted and wingfold listened to a strange adventure
the trees hid the sky and the little human nest was dark around them i am going to make a confidant of you mister wingfold said the dwarf with troubled face and almost whispered word
involves the secret of another his large face grew paler as he spoke and something almost like fear grew in his eyes
and his voice did not tremble one night some weeks ago i can if necessary make myself certain of the date i was no uncommon thing with me unable to sleep
but more air through the bars of its lungs i rose dressed and went out it was a still warm night no moon but plenty of star light the wind blowing as now gentle and sweet and cool
to my soul i had breath and room and leisure and silence and loneliness and everything to make me more than usually happy and so i wandered on and on neither caring nor looking whither i went
so long as the stars remained unclouded i could find my way back when i pleased i had been out perhaps an hour when through the soft air came a cry apparently from far off there was something in the tone that seemed to me unusually frightful
from palpitation and choking i had not gone very far before i found myself approaching the hollow where stands the old house of glaston uninhabited for twenty years was it possible i thought that the cry came from the house
i stood and listened for a moment but all seemed still as the grave i must go in and see whether anyone was there in want of help you may well smile at the idea of my helping anyone for what could i do if it came to a struggle
on the contrary interrupted wingfold i was smiling with admiration of your pluck at least resumed polwarth i have this advantage over some that i cannot be fooled with the fancy that this poor miserable body of mine is worth thinking of
for i had often wandered all over it sometimes spending hours there before i reached the door however i heard some one behind me in the garden and instantly stepped into a thicket of gooseberry and currant bushes
the moment i stepped aside i was hidden that same moment the night seemed rent in twain by a most hideous cry from the house ere i could breathe again after it the tall figure of a woman rushed past me tearing its way through the bushes towards the door
i followed instantly saw her run up the steps and heard her open and shut the door i opened it as quietly as i could but just as i stepped into the dark hall came a third fearful cry through the echoes of which in the empty house
as i say i knew the house quite well
that for a few seconds i had to consider how it lay
when once more came the fearful cry and set me trembling from head to foot i cannot describe the horror of it it was as the cry of a soul in torture
as it echoed through the house clinging to the walls and driven along i was hurrying i knew not whither
when i caught a glimpse of a light shining from under a door i approached it softly and finding that door inside a small closet knew at once where i was as i was in office on the ground
and it could hardly be any thing righteous that led to such an outcry in the house which although deserted was still my master's i felt justified in searching further into the matter laying my ear therefore against the door
i heard what was plainly a lady's voice right sweet and womanly it was though full of pain even agony i thought but heroically suppressed she soothed she expostulated she condoled she coaxed
it was wild yet so low
and not a word from either could i distinguish hardly the less plain was it however that the youth spoke either in delirium
for his tones were those of one in despair i stood for a time bewildered fascinated terrified at length i grew convinced somehow that i had no right to be there doubtless the man was in hiding
and where a man hides there must he reason but was it any business of mine i crept out of the house and up to the higher ground there i drew deep breaths of the sweet night air
but i had no longer any pleasure in the world i went straight home and to bed again but had brought little repose with me i must do something but what the only result certain to follow was more trouble to the troubled already
might there not be innocent reasons for the questionable situation
and so suddenly that he could reach no other shelter and the lady might be his wife who had gone as soon as she could leave him to find help but had failed there must be some simple explanation of the matter however strange it showed
i might in the morning be of service to them and partly comforted by the temporary conclusion i got a little troubled sleep as soon as i had had a cup of tea i set out for the old house
i heard the sounds of the workmen's hammers on the new one as i went all else was silence the day looked so honest and so clear of conscience
yet in the broad light of the forenoon
when i got into the garden i began to sing and knock the bushes about
along every passage and into every room i went to give good warning ere i approached that in which i had heard the voices at length i stood at the door of it and knocked there was no answer i knocked again
still no answer i opened it and peeped in there was no one there an old bedstead was all i saw i searched every corner
except this behind the bed and it may have lain there as long as the mattress which i remember since the first time i ever went into the house as he spoke polwarth handed to the curate a small leather sheath which from its shape could not have belonged to a pair of scissors
would you mind taking care of it mister wingfold the gate keeper continued as the curate examined it i don't like having it i can't even bear to think of it even in the house and yet i don't quite care to destroy it
i don't in the least mind taking charge of it answered wingfold
the face of helen lingard rose before his mind's eye
pale with an inward trouble as it seemed large eyed and worn so changed yet so ennobled even then he had felt the deadening effect of its listlessness and had had to turn away
or into a desert where dwelt no voice of human response why should he think of her now was it that her troubled pallid face had touched him had set something near his heart a trembling
or with the tenderness of man for suffering woman certainly he had never till then thought of her with the slightest interest and why should she come up to him now could it be that good heavens there was her brother ill
what could it mean it was impossible of course but yet and yet do you think he said we are in any way bound to inquire further into the affair
if i had thought so i should not have left it unmentioned till now answered polwarth but without being busybodies we might be prepared in case the thing should unfold itself
the king of the golden river had hardly made the extraordinary exit related in the last chapter before hans and schwartz came roaring into the house very savagely drunk the discovery of the total loss of their last piece of plate
had the effect of sobering them just enough to enable them to stand over gluck beating him very steadily for a quarter of an hour at the expiration of which period they dropped into a couple of chairs and requested to know what he had to say for himself
gluck told them his story of which of course they did not believe a word they beat him again till their arms were tired and staggered to bed in the morning however the steadiness with which he adhered to his story
obtained him some degree of credence the immediate consequence of which was that the two brothers after wrangling a long time on the knotty question which of them should try his fortune first drew their swords and began fighting
and having drunk out his last penny the evening before was thrown into prison till he should pay when hans heard this he was much delighted
how to get the holy water was the question he went to the priest but the priest could not give any holy water to so abandoned a character so hans went to vespers in the evening for the first time in his life
and under pretence of crossing himself stole a cupful and returned home in triumph next morning he got up before the sun rose put the holy water into a strong flask and two bottles of wine and some meat in a basket
slung them over his back took his alpine staff in his hand and set off for the mountains on his way out of the town he had to pass the prison and as he looked in at the windows whom should he see but schwartz himself peeping out of the bars
and looking very disconsolate good morning brother said hans have you any message for the king of the golden river
but hans only laughed at him and advising him to make himself comfortable till he came back again shouldered his basket shook the bottle of holy water in schwartz's face till it frothed again and marched off in the highest spirits in the world
it was indeed a morning that might have made anyone happy even with no golden river to seek for level lines of dewy mist lay stretched along the valley out of which rose the massy mountains their lower cliffs in pale gray shadow
far above shot up red splintered masses of castellated rock jagged and shivered into myriads of fantastic forms with here and there a streak of sunlit snow traced down their chasms like a line of forked lightning
and far beyond and far above all these fainter than the morning cloud but purer and changeless slept in the blue sky the utmost peaks of the eternal snow the golden river
which sprang from one of the lower and snowless elevations was now nearly in shadow all but the uppermost jets of spray which rose like slow smoke above the undulating line of the cataract and floated away in feeble wreaths upon the morning wind
on this object and on this alone hans's eyes and thoughts were fixed forgetting the distance he had to traverse he set off at an imprudent rate of walking
which greatly exhausted him before he had scaled the first range of the green and low hills he was moreover surprised on surmounting them to find that a large glacier of whose existence notwithstanding his previous knowledge of the mountains
he had been absolutely ignorant lay between him and the source of the golden river he entered on it with the boldness of a practised mountaineer
the ice was excessively slippery
not monotonous or low but changeful and loud rising occasionally into drifting passages of wild melody then breaking off into short melancholy tones or sudden shrieks
about all their outlines a perpetual resemblance to living features distorted and scornful myriads of deceitful shadows and lurid lights played and floated about and through the pale blue pinnacles
with the constant gush and roar of the concealed waters these painful circumstances increased upon him as he advanced the ice crashed and yawned into fresh chasms at his feet tottering spires nodded around him
and fell thundering across his path and though he had repeatedly faced these dangers on the most terrific glaciers and in the wildest weather it was with a new and oppressive feeling of panic terror that he leaped the last chasm and flung himself
exhausted and shuddering on the firm turf of the mountain he had been compelled to abandon his basket of food which became a perilous incumbrance on the glacier
but by breaking off and eating some of the pieces of ice this however relieved his thirst an hour's repose recruited his hardy frame and with the indomitable spirit of avarice he resumed his laborious journey
it was past noon and the rays beat intensely upon the steep path while the whole atmosphere was motionless and penetrated with heat intense thirst was soon added to the bodily fatigue with which hans was now afflicted
glance after glance he cast on the flask of water which hung at his belt three drops are enough at last thought he i may at least cool my lips with it he opened the flask and was raising it to his lips
when his eye fell on an object lying on the rock beside him he thought it moved it was a small dog apparently in the last agony of death from thirst its tongue was out its jaws dry
its limbs extended lifelessly and a swarm of black ants were crawling about its lips and throat its eye moved to the bottle which hans held in his hand he raised it drank spurned the animal with his foot and passed on
and he did not know how it was but he thought that a strange shadow had suddenly come across the blue sky the path became steeper and more rugged every moment and the high hill air instead of refreshing him
seemed to throw his blood into a fever the noise of the hill cataracts sounded like mockery in his ears they were all distant and his thirst increased every moment another hour passed
stretched nearly lifeless on the rock its breast heaving with thirst its eyes closed and its lips parched and burning hans eyed it deliberately drank and passed on
and long snake like shadows crept up along the mountain sides hans struggled on the sun was sinking but its descent seemed to bring no coolness the leaden weight of the dead air pressed upon his brow and heart but
the goal was near he saw the cataract of the golden river springing from the hillside scarcely five hundred feet above him he paused for a moment to breathe and sprang on to complete his task
at this instant a faint cry fell on his ear he turned and saw a gray haired old man extended on the rocks his eyes were sunk his features deadly pale
water he stretched his arms to hans and cried feebly water i am dying i have none replied hans thou hast had thy share of life he strode over the prostrate body and darted on
and a flash of blue lightning rose out of the east shaped like a sword it shook thrice over the whole heaven and left it dark with one heavy impenetrable shade the sun was setting it plunged toward the horizon like a red hot ball
the roar of the golden river rose on hans's ear he stood at the brink of the chasm through which it ran
they shook their crests like tongues of fire and flashes of bloody light gleamed along their foam their sound came mightier and mightier on his senses his brain grew giddy with the prolonged thunder
shuddering he drew the flask from his girdle and hurled it into the centre of the torrent as he did so an icy chill shot through his limbs he staggered shrieked and fell
the waters closed over his cry and the moaning of the river rose wildly into the night as it gushed over
of the proceedings of the three brothers after the visit of southwest wind esquire and how little gluck had an interview with the king of the golden river southwest wind esquire was as good as his word
after the momentous visit above related he entered the treasure valley no more and what was worse he had so much influence with his relations the west winds in general and used it so effectually that they all adopted a similar line of conduct
so no rain fell in the valley from one year's end to another though everything remained green and flourishing in the plains below the inheritance of the three brothers was a desert
became a shifting heap of red sand and the brothers unable longer to contend with the adverse skies abandoned their valueless patrimony in despair to seek some means of gaining a livelihood among the cities and people of the plains
all their money was gone and they had nothing left but some curious old fashioned pieces of gold plate the last remnants of their ill gotten wealth suppose we turn goldsmiths said schwartz to hans as they entered the large city
the first that people did not approve of the coppered gold the second that the two elder brothers whenever they had sold anything used to leave little gluck to mind the furnace and go and drink out the money in the ale house next door
so they melted all their gold without making money enough to buy more and were at last reduced to one large drinking mug which an uncle of his had given to little gluck and which he was very fond of and would not have parted with for the world
though he never drank anything out of it but milk and water the mug was a very odd mug to look at the handle was formed of two wreaths of flowing golden hair
and these wreaths descended into and mixed with a beard and whiskers of the same exquisite workmanship which surrounded and decorated a very fierce little face of the reddest gold imaginable right in the front of the mug
and schwartz positively averred that once after emptying it full of rhenish seventeen times he had seen them wink
it half broke poor little gluck's heart but the brothers only laughed at him tossed the mug into the melting pot and staggered out to the ale house leaving him as usual to pour the gold into bars when it was all ready
and no wonder thought gluck after being treated in that way he sauntered disconsolately to the window and sat himself down to catch the fresh evening air and escape the hot breath of the furnace now
this window commanded a direct view of the range of mountains which as i told before overhung the treasure valley and more especially of the peak from which fell the golden river it was just at the close of the day
in a waving column of pure gold from precipice to precipice with the double arch of a broad purple rainbow stretched across it flushing and fading alternately in the wreaths of spray ah said gluck aloud
he looked round the room
but there was certainly nobody there and he sat down again at the window this time he didn't speak but he couldn't help thinking again
not at all my boy said the same voice louder than before bless me said gluck again what is that he looked again into all the corners and cupboards and then began turning round and round as fast as he could
in the middle of the room thinking there was somebody behind him when the same voice struck again on his ear it was singing now very merrily lala lira la no words only a soft running effervescent melody
something like that of a kettle on the boil gluck looked out of the window no it was certainly in the house upstairs and downstairs no it was certainly in that very room coming in quicker time and clearer notes every moment
lala lira la all at once it struck gluck that it sounded louder near the furnace he ran to the opening and looked in
when the singing stopped and the voice became clear and pronunciative hollo said the voice gluck made no answer hollo gluck my boy said the pot again
as he looked in he saw meeting his glance from beneath the gold the red nose and sharp eyes
a thousand times redder and sharper
said the voice out of the pot again i'm all right pour me out
took hold of the crucible and sloped it so as to pour out the gold but instead of a liquid stream there came out first a pair of pretty little yellow legs then some coat tails then a pair of arms stuck akimbo and finally
the well known head of his friend the mug all which articles uniting as they rolled out
that's right said the dwarf stretching out first his legs and then his arms
for five minutes without stopping apparently with the view of ascertaining if he were quite correctly put together while gluck stood contemplating him in speechless amazement he was dressed in a stashed doublet of spun gold so fine in its texture
that the prismatic colours gleamed over it as if on a surface of mother of pearl and over this brilliant doublet his hair and beard fell full halfway to the ground in waving curls so exquisitely delicate that gluck could hardly tell where they ended
the features of the face however were by no means finished with the same delicacy they were rather coarse slightly inclining to coppery in complexion and indicative in expression of a very pertinacious and intractable disposition
no it wouldn't gluck my boy said the little man this was certainly rather an abrupt and unconnected mode of commencing conversation
which had first produced the dwarf's observations out of the pot but whatever it referred to gluck had no inclination to dispute the dictum wouldn't it sir said gluck very mildly and submissively indeed no
lifting his legs up very high and setting them down very hard this pause gave time for gluck to collect his thoughts a little and seeing no great reason to view his diminutive visitor with dread and feeling his curiosity overcome his amazement
he ventured on a question of peculiar delicacy pray sir said gluck rather hesitatingly were you my mug on which the little man turned sharp round walked straight up to gluck
and drew himself up to his full height i said the little man
whereupon he turned about again and took two more turns some six feet long in order to allow time for the consternation which this announcement produced in his auditor to evaporate after which he again walked up to gluck and stood still
said gluck listen said the little man
the shape you saw me in was owing to the malice of a stronger king from whose enchantments you have this instant freed me what i have seen of you and your conduct to your wicked brothers renders me willing to serve you therefore attend to what i tell you
and shall cast into the stream at its source three drops of holy water for him and for him only the river shall turn to gold but no one failing in his first can succeed in a second attempt and if anyone shall cast unholy water into the river it will overwhelm him
and he will become a black stone so saying the king of the golden river turned away and deliberately walked into the centre of the hottest flame of the furnace his figure became red white transparent dazzling
rose trembled and disappeared the king of the golden river had evaporated
as the spanish ladies are under a greater seclusion from general society than the sex is in other european countries their desires of an adequate degree of liberty are consequently more strong and urgent
a free and open communication being denied them they make it their business to secure themselves a secret and hidden one hence it is that spain is the country of intrigue
the spanish women are little or nothing indebted to education but nature has liberally supplied them with a fund of wit and sprightliness which is certainly no small inducement to those who have only transient glimpses of their charms
this not being attainable in a lawful way of customary intercourse the natural propensity of men to overcome difficulties of this kind incites them to leave no expedient untried
to gain admittance to what perhaps was at first only the object of their admiration but which by their being refused an innocent gratification of that passion becomes at last the subject of a more serious one thus in spain
as in all countries where the sex is kept much out of sight the thoughts of men are continually employed in devising methods to break into their concealments there is in the spaniards a native dignity
which though the source of many inconveniences has nevertheless this salutary effect that it sets them above almost every species of meanness and infidelity
this quality is not peculiar to the men it diffuses itself in a great measure among the women also its effects are visible both in their constancy in love and friendship
in which respects they are the very reverse of the french women their affections are not to be gained by a bit of sparkling lace or a tawdry set of liveries their deportment is rather grave and reserved and on the whole
they have much more of the prude than the coquette in their composition being more confined at home and less engaged in business and pleasure they take more care of their children than the french
and have a becoming tenderness in their disposition to all animals except a heretic and a rival something more than a century ago the marquis d'astrogas
having prevailed on a young woman of great beauty to become his mistress the marchioness hearing of it went to her lodging with some assassins killed her tore out her heart carried it home
it it exceedingly good said he no wonder answered she since it was made of the heart of that creature you so much doated on and to confirm what she had said
she immediately drew out her head all bloody from beneath her hoop and rolled it on the floor her eyes sparkling all the time with a mixture of pleasure and infernal fury a lady to whom a gentleman pays his addresses
is sole mistress of his time and money and should he refuse her any request whether reasonable or capricious it would reflect eternal dishonor upon him among the men and make him the detestation of all the women
but in no situation does their character appear so whimsical or their power so conspicuous as when they are pregnant in this case whatever they long for whatever they ask
or whatever they have an inclination to do they must be indulged in english women the women of england are eminent for many good qualities both of the head and of the heart
there we meet with that inexpressible softness and delicacy of manners which cultivated by education appears as much superior to what it does without it as the polished diamond appears superior to that which is rough from the mine
in some parts of the world women have attained to so little knowledge and so little consequence that we consider their virtues as merely of the negative kind in england they consist not only in abstinence from evil
but in doing good there we see the sex every day exerting themselves in acts of benevolence and charity in relieving the distresses of the body and binding up the wounds of the mind
in reconciling the differences of friends and preventing the strife of enemies and to sum up all in that care and attention to their offspring which is so necessary and essential a part of their duty
a woman may succeed to the throne of england with the same power and privileges as a king and the business of the state is transacted in her name while her husband is only a subject the king's wife is considered as a subject
but is exempted from the law which forbids any married woman to possess property in her own right during the lifetime of her husband she may sue any person at law without joining her husband in the suit
may buy and sell lands without his interference and she may dispose of her property by will as if she were a single woman she cannot be fined by any court of law
but is liable to be tried and punished for crimes by peers of the realm the queen dowager enjoys nearly the same privileges that she did before she became a widow and if she marries
a subject still continues to retain her rank and title but such marriages cannot take place without permission from the reigning sovereign a woman who is noble in her own right retains her title when she marries a man of inferior rank
but if ennobled by her husband she loses the title by marrying a commoner a peeress can only be tried by a jury of peers in old times a woman who was convicted of being a common mischief maker and scold
was sentenced to the punishment of the ducking stool which consisted of a sort of chair fastened to a pole in which she was seated and repeatedly let down into the water amid the shouts of the rabble
at newcastle upon tyne a woman convicted of the same offence was led about the streets by the hangman with an instrument of iron bars fitted on her head like a helmet a piece of sharp iron entered the mouth
and severely pricked the tongue whenever the culprit attempted to move it a great deal of vice prevails in england among the very fashionable and the very low classes
misconduct and divorces are not unfrequent among the former because their mode of life corrupts their principles and they deem themselves above the jurisdiction of popular opinion the latter feel as if they were beneath the influence of public censure
and find it very difficult to be virtuous on account of extreme poverty and the consequent obstructions in the way of marriage but the general character of english women is modest reserved sincere and dignified
they have strong passions and affections which often develope themselves in the most beautiful forms of domestic life they are in general remarkable for a healthy appearance and an exquisite bloom of complexion
perhaps the world does not present a lovelier or more graceful picture than the english home of a virtuous family russian women it is only a few years since the russians emerged from a state of barbarity
a late empress of russia as a punishment for some female frailties ordered a most beautiful young lady of family to be publicly chastised in a manner which was hardly less indelicate than severe
it is said that the russian ladies were formerly as submissive to their husbands in their families as the latter are to their superiors in the field and that they thought themselves ill treated if they were not often reminded of their duty by the discipline of a whip
manufactured by themselves which they presented to their husbands on the day of their marriage the latest travellers however assert that they find no remaining traces of this custom at present
russian fathers of all classes generally arrange marriages for their children without consulting their inclinations among the peasantry if the girl has the name of being a good housewife her parents will not fail to have applications for her
whatever may be her age or personal endowments as soon as a young man is old enough to be married his parents seek a wife for him and all is settled before the young couple know any thing of the matter
their nuptial ceremonies are peculiar to themselves and formerly consisted of many whimsical rites some of which are now disused on her wedding day the bride is crowned with a garland of wormwood
and after the priest has tied the nuptial knot his clerk or sexton throws a handful of hops upon the head of the bride wishing that she might prove as fruitful as that plant she is then led home
which are now wearing off even among the lowest ranks and the barbarous treatment of wives by their husbands is either guarded against by the laws of the country or by particular stipulations in the marriage contract
in the conversation and actions of the russian ladies there is hardly any thing of that softness and delicacy which distinguishes the sex in other parts of europe even their exercises and diversions
have more of the masculine than the feminine the present empress with the ladies of her court sometimes divert themselves by shooting at a mark drunkenness the vice of almost every cold climate
they are so little ashamed of that not many years ago when a lady got drunk at the house of a friend it was customary for her to return next day and thank him for the pleasure he had done her females however in russia
possess several advantages they share the rank and splendor of the families from which they are sprung and are even allowed the supreme authority this a few years ago was enjoyed by an empress
whose head did honor to her nation and to her sex although on some occasions the virtues of her heart have been much suspected the sex in general are protected from insult by many salutary laws
and except among the peasants are exempted from every kind of toil and slavery
roman women among the romans a grave and austere people who during five hundred years were unacquainted with the elegancies and the pleasures of life and who in the middle of furrows and fields of battle
the manners of the women were a long time as solemn and severe as those of the men and without the smallest mixture of corruption or of weakness
the time when the roman women began to appear in public marks a particular era in history the roman women for many ages were respected over the whole world
their victorious husbands re visited them with transport at their return from battle they laid at their feet the spoils of the enemy and endeared themselves in their eyes by the wounds which they had received for them and for the state
those warriors often came from imposing commands upon kings and in their own houses accounted it an honor to obey
more powerful than the laws the women ruled their judges in vain the legislature foreseeing the wants which exist only among a corrupt people permitted divorce
the indulgence of the polity was proscribed by the manners such was the influence of beauty at rome before the licentious intercourse of the sexes had corrupted both
the roman matrons do not seem to have possessed that military courage which plutarch has praised in certain greek and barbarian women they partook more of the nature of their sex or at least they departed less from its character
their first quality was decency every one knows the story of cato the censor who stabbed a roman senator for kissing his own wife in the presence of his daughter to these austere manners
the roman women joined an enthusiastic love of their country which discovered itself upon many great occasions on the death of brutus they all clothed themselves in mourning in the time of coriolanus
they saved the city that incensed warrior who had insulted the senate and priests and who was superior even to the pride of pardoning could not resist the tears and entreaties of the women they melted his obdurate heart
the senate decreed them public thanks ordered the men to give place to them upon all occasions caused an altar to be erected for them on the spot where the mother had softened her son and the wife her husband
and the sex were permitted to add another ornament to their head dress the roman women saved the city a second time when besieged by brennus they gave up all their gold as its ransom
for that instance of their generosity the senate granted them the honor of having funeral orations pronounced in the rostrum in common with patriots and heroes
when rome had no other treasures but the virtues of her citizens the women sacrificed both their jewels and their gold a new decree rewarded their zeal valerius maximus who lived in the reign of tiberius
informs us that in the second triumvirate the three assassins who governed rome thirsting after gold no less than blood and having already practised every species of robbery and worn out every method of plunder
resolved to tax the women they imposed a heavy contribution upon each of them the women sought an orator to defend their cause but found none nobody would reason against those who had the power of life and death
the daughter of the celebrated hortensius alone appeared she revived the memory of her father's abilities and supported with intrepidity her own cause and that of her sex the ruffians blushed and revoked their orders
hortensia was conducted home in triumph and had the honor of having given in one day an example of courage to men a pattern of eloquence to women and a lesson of humanity to tyrants
during upwards of six hundred years the virtues had been found sufficient to please they now found it necessary to call in the accomplishments they were desirous to join admiration to esteem
till they learned to exceed esteem itself for in all countries in proportion as the love of virtue diminishes we find the love of talents to increase
a thousand causes concurred to produce this revolution of manners among the romans the vast inequality of ranks the enormous fortunes of individuals
the ridicule affixed by the imperial court to moral ideas all contributed to hasten the period of corruption there were still however some great and virtuous characters among the roman women portia
the daughter of cato and wife of brutus showed herself worthy to be associated with the first of human kind and trusted with the fate of empires
she would neither survive liberty nor brutus but died with the bold intrepidity of cato the example of portia was followed by that of arria
who seeing her husband hesitating and afraid to die in order to encourage him pierced her own breast and delivered to him the dagger with a smile
paulinia too the wife of seneca caused her veins to be opened at the same time with her husband's but being forced to live during the few years which she survived him she bore in her countenance says tacitus
the honorable testimony of her love a paleness which proved that part of her blood had sympathetically issued with the blood of her spouse to take notice of all the celebrated women of the empire
would much exceed the bounds of the present undertaking but the empress julia the wife of septimius severus possessed a species of merit so very different from any of those already mentioned as to claim particular attention
this lady was born in syria and a daughter of a priest of the sun it was predicted that she would rise to sovereign dignity and her character justified the prophecy julia while on the throne
loved or pretended passionately to love letters either from taste from a desire to instruct herself from a love of renown or possibly from all these together she spent her life with philosophers
her rank of empress would not perhaps have been sufficient to subdue those bold spirits but she joined to that the more powerful influences of wit and beauty these three kinds of empire
rendered less necessary to her that which consists only in art and which attentive to their tastes and their weaknesses govern great minds by little means it is said she was a philosopher
her philosophy however did not extend so far as to give chastity to her manners her husband who did not love her valued her understanding so much that he consulted her upon all occasions
she governed in the same manner under his son julia was in short an empress and a politician occupied at the same time about literature and affairs of state while she mingled her pleasures freely with both
she had courtiers for her lovers scholars for her friends and philosophers for her counsellors in the midst of a society where she reigned and was instructed julia arrived at the highest celebrity
but as among all her excellencies we find not those of her sex the virtues of a woman our admiration is lost in blame in her life time
she obtained more praise than respect and posterity while it has done justice to her talents and her accomplishments has agreed to deny her esteem laws and customs respecting the roman women
the roman women as well as the grecian were under perpetual guardianship and were not at any age nor in any condition ever trusted with the management of their own fortunes
every father had power of life and death over his own daughters but this power was not restricted to daughters only it extended also to sons
the oppian law prohibited women from having more than half an ounce of gold employed in ornamenting their persons from wearing clothes of divers colors and from riding in chariots either in the city
or a thousand paces round it they were strictly forbid to use wine or even to have in their possession the key of any place where it was kept for either of these faults they were liable to be divorced by their husbands
so careful were the romans in restraining their women from wine that they are supposed to have first introduced the custom of saluting their female relations and acquaintances on entering the house of a friend or neighbor
that they might discover by their breath whether they had tasted any of that liquor this strictness however began in time to be relaxed until at last luxury becoming too strong for every law
the women indulged themselves in equal liberties with the men but such was not the case in the earlier ages of rome romulus even permitted husbands to kill their wives if they found them drinking wine fabius pictor relates
that the parents of a roman lady having detected her picking the lock of a chest which contained some wine shut her up and starved her to death women were liable to be divorced by their husbands almost at pleasure
provided the portion was returned which they had brought along with them they were also liable to be divorced for barrenness which if it could be construed into a fault was at least the fault of nature
and might sometimes be that of the husband a few sumptuary laws a subordination to the men and a total want of authority do not so much affect the sex as to be coldly and indelicately treated by their husbands
such a treatment is touching them in the tenderest part such however we have reason to believe they often met with from the romans who had not learned as in modern times to blend the rigidity of the patriot
and roughness of the warrior with that soft and indulging behavior so conspicuous in our modern patriots and heroes husbands among the romans not only themselves behaved roughly to their wives
but even sometimes permitted their servants and slaves to do the same the principal eunuch of justinian the second threatened to chastise the empress his master's wife in the manner that children are chastised at school if she did not obey his orders
with regard to the private diversions of the roman ladies history is silent their public ones were such as were common to both sexes as bathing theatrical representations horse races shows of wild beasts
which fought against one another and sometimes against men whom the emperors in the plenitude of their despotic power ordered to engage them the romans of both sexes spent a great deal of time at the baths
which at first perhaps were interwoven with their religion but at last were only considered as refinements in luxury they were places of public resort where people met with their acquaintances and friends
where public libraries were kept for such as chose to read and where poets recited their works to such as had patience to hear in the earlier periods of rome separate baths were appropriated to each sex luxury
by degrees getting the better of decency the men and women at last bathed promiscuously together though this indecent manner of bathing was prohibited by the emperor adrian yet in a short time
inclination overcame the prohibition and in spite of every effort promiscuous bathing continued until the time of constantine who by the coercive force of the legislative authority and the rewards and terrors of the christian religion
the peterkins at the farm it may be remembered that the peterkins originally hesitated about publishing their family papers and were decided by referring the matter to the lady from philadelphia
a little uncertain of whether she might happen to be at philadelphia they determined to write and ask her solomon john suggested a postal card everybody reads a postal and everybody would read it as it came along and see its importance and help it on
if the lady from philadelphia were away
elizabeth eliza thought the postal a bright idea
agamemnon and solomon john took the postal card to the post office early one morning and by the afternoon of that very day and all the next day and for many days came streaming in answers on postals and on letters
their card had been addressed to the lady from philadelphia with the number of her street
but it must have been read by their neighbors in their own town post office before leaving it must have been read along its way for by each mail came piles of postals and letters from town after town in answer to the question and all in the same tone
yes yes publish the adventures of the peterkin family publish them of course and in time came the answer of the lady from philadelphia yes of course publish them this is why they were published
this was missus peterkin it was a mistake she had poured out a delicious cup of coffee and just as she was helping herself to cream
it tasted bad what should she do of course she couldn't drink the coffee so she called in the family
the family came in they all tasted and looked and wondered what should be done and all sat down to think at last agamemnon who had been to college said why don't we go over and ask the advice of the chemist
for the chemist lived over the way and was a very wise man missus peterkin said yes and mister peterkin said very well and all the children said they would go too
so the little boys put on their india rubber boots and over they went now the chemist was just trying to find out something
and he had a large glass bottle into which he put all kinds of gold and silver and many other valuable things and melted them all up over the fire till he had almost found what he wanted
he could turn things into almost gold but just now he had used up all the gold that he had round the house and gold was high he had used up his wife's gold thimble
and his great grandfather's gold bowed spectacles and he had melted up the gold head of his great great grandfather's cane
he was down on his knees before his wife asking her to let him have her wedding ring
and should be able to turn everything into gold and then she could have a new wedding ring of diamonds all set in emeralds and rubies and topazes and all the furniture could be turned into the finest of gold
now his wife was just consenting when the peterkin family burst in you can imagine how mad the chemist was he came near throwing his crucible that was the name of his melting pot at their heads but he didn't
he listened as calmly as he could to the story of how missus peterkin had put salt in her coffee at first he said he couldn't do anything about it but when agamemnon said they would pay in gold if he would only go
he packed up his bottles in a leather case and went back with them all first he looked at the coffee and then stirred it then he put in a little chlorate of potassium and the family tried it all round but it tasted no better
but missus peterkin didn't like that then he added some tartaric acid and some hypersulphate of lime but no it was no better i have it exclaimed the chemist a little ammonia is just the thing
no it wasn't the thing at all then he tried each in turn some oxalic cyanic acetic phosphoric chloric hyperchloric sulphuric boracic
missus peterkin tasted each and said the flavor was pleasant but not precisely that of coffee
ungratefully said it tasted of anything but coffee the chemist was not discouraged he put in a little belladonna and atropine some granulated hydrogen some potash
and a very little antimony finishing off with a little pure carbon but still missus peterkin was not satisfied
the theory remained the same although the experiment had failed perhaps a little starch would have some effect if not that was all the time he could give he should like to be paid and go they were all much obliged to him and willing to give him
so mister peterkin found in the newspaper this gave agamemnon a pretty little sum he sat himself down to do it but there was the coffee all sat and thought awhile till elizabeth eliza said
elizabeth eliza was the only daughter she was named after her two aunts elizabeth from the sister of her father eliza from her mother's sister now the herb woman was an old woman who came round to sell herbs
and knew a great deal they all shouted with joy at the idea of asking her and solomon john and the younger children agreed to go and find her too
so the boys put on their india rubber boots again and they set off it was a long walk through the village but they came at last to the herb woman's house at the foot of a high hill they went through her little garden
and a brandy cherry tree shaded the door and a luxuriant cranberry vine flung its delicious fruit across the window they went into a small parlor which smelt very spicy
all around hung little bags full of catnip and peppermint and all kinds of herbs and dried stalks hung from the ceiling and on the shelves were jars of rhubarb senna manna and the like
but there was no little old woman she had gone up into the woods to get some more wild herbs so they all thought they would follow her elizabeth eliza solomon john and the little boys
but the little boys had their india rubber boots at last they discovered the little old woman they knew her by her hat it was steeple crowned without any vane they saw her digging with her trowel round a sassafras bush
and wouldn't she come and see what she could do
and went back to her house there she stopped and stuffed her huge pockets with some of all the kinds of herbs she took some tansy and peppermint and caraway seed and dill spearmint and cloves
wild thyme and some of the other time such as you have in clocks sappermint and oppermint catnip valerian and hop
indeed there isn't a kind of herb you can think of that the little old woman didn't have done up in her little paper bags
with the children taking her stick meanwhile missus peterkin was getting quite impatient for her coffee
then she tried a little flagroot and snakeroot then some spruce gum and some caraway and some dill some rue and rosemary
and sour some oppermint and sappermint a little spearmint and peppermint some wild thyme and some of the other tame time
the children tasted after each mixture but made up dreadful faces missus peterkin tasted and did the same the more the old woman stirred and the more she put in
so the old woman shook her head and muttered a few words and said she must go she believed the coffee was bewitched she bundled up her packets of herbs and took her trowel
and her basket and her stick and went back to her root of sassafras that she had left half in the air and half out and all she would take for pay was five cents in currency
then the family were in despair and all sat and thought a great while
at last elizabeth eliza said they say that the lady from philadelphia who is staying in town is very wise suppose i go and ask her what is best to be done to this they all agreed it was a great thought
and off elizabeth eliza went she told the lady from philadelphia the whole story how her mother had put salt in the coffee how the chemist had been called in how he tried everything but could make it no better
and how they went for the little old herb woman and how she had tried in vain for her mother couldn't drink the coffee the lady from philadelphia listened very attentively and then said
after they had gone the family all came in to look at the piano but they found the carters had placed it with its back turned towards the middle of the room standing close against the window how could elizabeth eliza open it
and play upon the piano there so they tried this and they all thought it was a very pretty sight to see elizabeth eliza playing on the piano
with the honeysuckle vines behind her it was very pleasant too moonlight evenings
elizabeth eliza practiced in the mornings with her cloak on but she was obliged to give up her music in the evenings the family shivered so one day when she was talking with the lady from philadelphia she spoke of this trouble
the lady from philadelphia looked surprised and then said but why don't you turn the piano round one of the little boys pertly said it is a square piano
why did we not think of that before said missus peterkin what shall we do when the lady from philadelphia goes home again
the peterkins try to become wise they were sitting round the breakfast table and wondering what they should do because the lady from philadelphia had gone away if said missus peterkin
how could they manage it agamemnon had been to college and the children all went to school but still as a family they were not wise it comes from books said one of the family
people who have a great many books are very wise then they counted up that there were very few books in the house a few school books and missus peterkin's cook book were all that's the thing said agamemnon
we want a library we want a library said solomon john and all of them exclaimed we want a library let us think how we shall get one said missus peterkin
i have observed that other people think a great deal of thinking so they all sat and thought a great while then said agamemnon i will make a library there are some boards in the wood shed
and i have a hammer and some nails and perhaps we can borrow some hinges and there we have our library they were all very much pleased at the idea that's the book case part said elizabeth eliza
but where are the books so they sat and thought a little while when solomon john exclaimed i will make a book they all looked at him in wonder yes said solomon john
so they went into the parlor and sat down to make a book but there was no ink what should he do for ink elizabeth eliza said she had heard that nutgalls and vinegar made very good ink
so they decided to make some the little boys said they could find some nutgalls up in the woods so they all agreed to set out and pick some missus peterkins put on her cape bonnet
and the little boys got into their india rubber boots and off they went the nutgalls were hard to find
and they had to walk a great way before they found any nutgalls at last they came home with a large basket and two nutgalls in it then came the question of the vinegar
suppose we go and ask the minister's wife said elizabeth eliza so they all went to the minister's wife she said if they wanted some good vinegar they had better set a barrel of cider down in the cellar
and in a year or two it would make very nice vinegar but they said they wanted it that very afternoon
and gave them a cupful to carry home so they stirred in the nutgalls and by the time evening came they had very good ink then solomon john wanted a pen
agamemnon had a steel one but solomon john said poets always used quills
and get a quill but it was already dark they had however two lanterns and the little boys borrowed the neighbors they set out in procession for the poultry yard
there were shanghais and cochin chinas and guinea hens and barbary hens and speckled hens and poland roosters and bantams and ducks and turkeys but not one goose no geese but ourselves said missus peterkin wittily
the sight of this procession roused up the village a torchlight procession cried all the boys of the town and they gathered round the house shouting for the flag
that it was only his family visiting his hens after the crowd had dispersed solomon john sat down to think of his writing again agamemnon agreed to go over to the bookstore to get a quill
they all went over with him the bookseller was just shutting up his shop however he agreed to go in and get a quill which he did and they hurried home so solomon john sat down again but there was no paper and now the bookstore was shut up mister peterkin suggested
that the mail was about in and perhaps he should have a letter and then they could use the envelope to write upon so they all went to the post office and the little boys had their india rubber boots on and they all shouted when they found mister peterkin had a letter
and they all went back rejoicing so solomon john sat down and the family all sat round the table looking at him he had his pen his ink and his paper he dipped his pen into the ink and held it over the paper and thought a minute
and then said but i haven't got anything to say
missus peterkin wishes to go to drive one morning missus peterkin was feeling very tired as she had been having a great many things to think of and she said to mister peterkin i believe i shall take a ride this morning
and the little boys cried out oh may we go too missus peterkin said that elizabeth eliza and the little boys might go so mister peterkin had the horse put into the carryall and he and agamemnon went off to their business
and solomon john to school and missus peterkin began to get ready for her ride she had some currants she wanted to carry to old missus twomly and some gooseberries for somebody else
and elizabeth eliza wanted to pick some flowers to take to the minister's wife so it took them a long time to prepare the little boys went out to pick the currants and the gooseberries and elizabeth eliza went out for her flowers
and missus peterkin put on her cape bonnet and in time they were all ready the little boys were in their india rubber boots and they got into the carriage elizabeth eliza was to drive
elizabeth eliza shook the reins and pulled them and then she clucked to the horse and missus peterkin clucked and the little boys whistled and shouted but still the horse would not go we shall have to whip him said elizabeth eliza
now missus peterkin never liked to use the whip but as the horse would not go she said she would get out and turn her head the other way while elizabeth eliza whipped the horse and when he began to go she would hurry and get in
so they tried this but the horse would not stir perhaps we have too heavy a load said missus peterkin as she got in so they took out the currants and the gooseberries and the flowers but still the horse would not go
one of the neighbors from the opposite house looking out just then called out to them to try the whip there was a high wind and they could not hear exactly what she said i have tried the whip said elizabeth eliza she says whips
who swallowed it down very quickly that is just what he wanted said missus peterkin now he will certainly go so they all got into the carriage again and put in the currants and the gooseberries and the flowers
and elizabeth eliza shook the reins and they all clucked but still the horse would not go we must either give up our ride said missus peterkin mournfully or else send over to the lady from philadelphia and see what she will say
but when she was told what the trouble was she very kindly said they might draw up the curtain from the window at the foot of the bed and open the blinds and she would see then she asked for her opera glass and looked through it across the way up the street to missus peterkin's door
mister peterkin sat down to cut the ham but the ham turned out to be a very remarkable one the fat and the lean came in separate slices
first one of lean than one of fat then two slices of lean and so on mister peterkin began as usual by helping the children first according to their age now agamemnon who liked lean got a fat slice
and elizabeth eliza who preferred fat had a lean slice solomon john who could eat nothing but lean was helped to fat and so on nobody had what he could eat
so now although the children saw upon their plates apple sauce and squash and tomato and sweet potato and sour potato not one of them could eat a mouthful because not one was satisfied with the meat
mister and missus peterkin however liked both fat and lean and were making a very good meal when they looked up and saw the children all sitting eating nothing and looking dissatisfied into their plates what is the matter now
said mister peterkin but the children were taught not to speak at table agamemnon however made a sign of disgust at his fat and elizabeth eliza at her lean and so on and they presently discovered what was the difficulty
what shall be done now said missus peterkin
at last said missus peterkin rather uncertainly suppose we ask the lady from philadelphia what is best to be done but mister peterkin said he didn't like to go to her for everything let the children try and eat their dinner as it was
and they all tried but they couldn't very well then said mister peterkin let them go and ask the lady from philadelphia all of us cried one of the little boys in the excitement of the moment yes said missus peterkin
only put on your india rubber boots and they hurried out of the house the lady from philadelphia was just going in to her dinner but she kindly stopped in the entry to hear what the trouble was
agamemnon and elizabeth eliza told her all the difficulty and the lady from philadelphia said but why don't you give the slices of fat to those who like the fat and the slices of lean to those who like the lean
they looked at one another agamemnon looked at elizabeth eliza and solomon john looked at the little boys why didn't we think of that said they and ran home to tell their mother
why the peterkins had a late dinner the trouble was in the dumb waiter all had seated themselves at the dinner table and amanda had gone to take out the dinner she had sent up from the kitchen on the dumb waiter
but something was the matter she could not pull it up there was the dinner but she could not reach it all the family in turn went and tried all pulled together in vain the dinner could not be stirred
no dinner exclaimed agamemnon i am quite hungry said solomon john at last mister peterkin said i am not proud i am willing to dine in the kitchen this room was below the dining room all consented to this
each one went down taking a napkin the cook laid the kitchen table put on it her best table cloth and the family sat down amanda went to the dumb waiter for the dinner but she could not move it down the family were all in dismay
there was the dinner half way between the kitchen and dining room and there were they all hungry to eat it what is there for dinner asked mister peterkin roast turkey said missus peterkin mister peterkin lifted his eyes to the ceiling
squash tomato potato and sweet potato missus peterkin continued sweet potato exclaimed both the little boys i am very glad now that i did not have cranberry said missus peterkin
anxious to find a bright point let us sit down and think about it said mister peterkin i have an idea said agamemnon after a while let us hear it said mister peterkin let each one speak his mind
the turkey said agamemnon must be just above the kitchen door if i had a ladder and an axe i could cut away the plastering and reach it that is a great idea said missus peterkin if you think you could do it said mister peterkin
would it not be better to have a carpenter asked elizabeth eliza a carpenter might have a ladder and an axe and i think we have neither said missus peterkin a carpenter a carpenter exclaimed the rest
it was decided that mister peterkin solomon john and the little boys should go in search of a carpenter agamemnon proposed that meanwhile he should go and borrow a book for he had another idea
this affair of the turkey he said reminds me of those buried cities that have been dug out herculaneum for instance oh yes interrupted elizabeth eliza
yes said agamemnon they found there pots and kettles now i should like to know how they did it and i mean to borrow a book and read i think it was done with a pickaxe so the party set out but when mister peterkin reached the carpenter's shop
there was no carpenter to be found there he must be at his house eating his dinner suggested solomon john happy man exclaimed mister peterkin he has a dinner to eat they went to the carpenter's house
but found he had gone out of town for a day's job but his wife told them that he always came back at night to ring the nine o'clock bell we must wait till then said mister peterkin with an effort at cheerfulness at home he found agamemnon reading his book
a part of the family thought it would not do the rest wanted tea i suppose you remember the wise lady of philadelphia who was here not long ago said mister peterkin oh yes said missus peterkin
let us try to think what she would advise us said mister peterkin i wish she were here said elizabeth eliza i think said mister peterkin she would say let them that want tea have it the rest can go without
so they had tea and as it proved all sat down to it but not much was eaten
and found the carpenter they asked him to bring a ladder axes and pickaxe
when the matter was explained to him he went into the dining room
there was a family shout the trouble was in the weight said the carpenter that is why it is called a dumb waiter
transition from the common rational knowledge of morality to the philosophical nothing can possibly be conceived in the world or even out of it which can be called good without qualification except a good will
intelligence wit judgement and the other talents of the mind however they may be named or courage resolution perseverance as qualities of temperament are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects
if the will which is to make use of them and which therefore constitutes what is called character is not good it is the same with the gifts of fortune power riches honour even health
and the general well being and contentment with one's condition which is called happiness inspire pride and often presumption if there is not a good will to correct the influence of these on the mind
and with this also to rectify the whole principle of acting and adapt it to its end the sight of a being who is not adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will enjoying unbroken prosperity
can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness
and this qualifies the esteem that we justly have for them and does not permit us to regard them as absolutely good moderation in the affections and passions self control and calm deliberation
are not only good in many respects but even seem to constitute part of the intrinsic worth of the person but they are far from deserving to be called good without qualification although they have been so unconditionally praised by the ancients
than he would have been without it a good will is good not because of what it performs or effects not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end but simply by virtue of the volition that is
then like a jewel it would still shine by its own light as a thing which has its whole value in itself its usefulness or fruitlessness can neither add nor take away anything from this value
it would be as it were only the setting to enable us to handle it the more conveniently in common commerce or to attract to it the attention of those who are not yet connoisseurs but not to recommend it to true connoisseurs
of even common reason to the idea yet a suspicion must arise that it may perhaps really be the product of mere high flown fancy and that we may have misunderstood the purpose of nature in assigning reason
as the governor of our will therefore we will examine this idea from this point of view in the physical constitution of an organized being that is a being adapted suitably to the purposes of life
we assume it as a fundamental principle that no organ for any purpose will be found but what is also the fittest and best adapted for that purpose now in a being which has reason and a will
if the proper object of nature were its conservation its welfare in a word its happiness then nature would have hit upon a very bad arrangement in selecting the reason of the creature to carry out this purpose
and to feel thankful for it to the beneficent cause but not that it should subject its desires to that weak and delusive guidance and meddle bunglingly with the purpose of nature in a word nature would have taken care
that reason should not break forth into practical exercise nor have the presumption with its weak insight to think out for itself the plan of happiness and of the means of attaining it
nature would not only have taken on herself the choice of the ends but also of the means and with wise foresight would have entrusted both to instinct and in fact
we find that the more a cultivated reason applies itself with deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and happiness so much the more does the man fail of true satisfaction
and from this circumstance there arises in many if they are candid enough to confess it a certain degree of misology that is hatred of reason especially in the case of those who are most experienced in the use of it
that they have in fact only brought more trouble on their shoulders rather than gained in happiness and they end by envying rather than despising the more common stamp of men who keep closer to the guidance of mere instinct
and do not allow their reason much influence on their conduct and this we must admit that the judgement of those who would very much lower the lofty eulogies of the advantages which reason gives us in regard to the happiness
the idea that our existence has a different and far nobler end for which and not for happiness reason is properly intended and which must therefore be regarded as the supreme condition
to which the private ends of man must for the most part be postponed for as reason is not competent to guide the will with certainty in regard to its objects and the satisfaction of all our wants
as one which is to have influence on the will therefore admitting that nature generally in the distribution of her capacities has adapted the means to the end its true destination must be to produce a will
not merely good as a means to something else but good in itself for which reason was absolutely necessary this will then though not indeed the sole and complete good must be the supreme good
which is requisite for the first and unconditional purpose does in many ways interfere at least in this life with the attainment of the second which is always conditional namely happiness
nay it may even reduce it to nothing without nature thereby failing of her purpose for reason recognizes the establishment of a good will as its highest practical destination and in attaining this purpose
is capable only of a satisfaction of its own proper kind namely that from the attainment of an end which end again is determined by reason only notwithstanding that this may involve many a disappointment to the ends of inclination
and is good without a view to anything further a notion which exists already in the sound natural understanding requiring rather to be cleared up than to be taught and which in estimating the value of our actions
always takes the first place and constitutes the condition of all the rest in order to do this we will take the notion of duty which includes that of a good will although implying certain subjective restrictions and hindrances
these however far from concealing it or rendering it unrecognizable rather bring it out by contrast and make it shine forth so much the brighter
i omit here all actions which are already recognized as inconsistent with duty although they may be useful for this or that purpose for with these the question whether they are done from duty cannot arise at all
since they even conflict with it i also set aside those actions which really conform to duty but to which men have no direct inclination
for in this case we can readily distinguish whether the action which agrees with duty is done from duty or from a selfish view
and wherever there is much commerce the prudent tradesman does not overcharge but keeps a fixed price for everyone so that a child buys of him as well as any other men are thus honestly served
it is out of the question in this case to suppose that he might besides have a direct inclination in favour of the buyers so that as it were from love he should give no advantage to one over another accordingly the action was done neither from duty
nor from direct inclination but merely with a selfish view on the other hand it is a duty to maintain one's life and in addition everyone has also a direct inclination to do so but on this account
they preserve their life as duty requires no doubt but not because duty requires
if adversity and hopeless sorrow have completely taken away the relish for life if the unfortunate one strong in mind indignant at his fate rather than desponding or dejected wishes for death
and yet preserves his life without loving it not from inclination or fear but from duty then his maxim has a moral worth to be beneficent when we can is a duty and besides this
there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that without any other motive of vanity or self interest they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work
but i maintain that in such a case an action of this kind however proper however amiable it may be has nevertheless no true moral worth but is on a level with other inclinations
which if it is happily directed to that which is in fact of public utility and accordant with duty and consequently honourable deserves praise and encouragement but not esteem for
without any inclination to it but simply from duty then first has his action its genuine moral worth further still if nature has put little sympathy in the heart of this or that man
if he supposed to be an upright man is by temperament cold and indifferent to the sufferings of others perhaps because in respect of his own
would he not still find in himself a source from whence to give himself a far higher worth than that of a good natured temperament could be unquestionably it is just in this that the moral worth of the character is brought out
which is incomparably the highest of all namely that he is beneficent not from inclination but from duty
for discontent with one's condition under a pressure of many anxieties and amidst unsatisfied wants might easily become a great temptation to transgression of duty but here again without looking to duty
all men have already the strongest and most intimate inclination to happiness because it is just in this idea that all inclinations are combined in one total but the precept of happiness is often of such a sort
that it greatly interferes with some inclinations and yet a man cannot form any definite and certain conception of the sum of satisfaction of all of them which is called happiness
that a single inclination definite both as to what it promises and as to the time within which it can be gratified is often able to overcome such a fluctuating idea and that a gouty patient for instance
can choose to enjoy what he likes and to suffer what he may since according to his calculation on this occasion at least
to a possibly mistaken expectation of a happiness which is supposed to be found in health but even in this case if the general desire for happiness did not influence his will and supposing that in his particular case
health was not a necessary element in this calculation there yet remains in this as in all other cases this law namely that he should promote his happiness not from inclination but from duty and by this
would his conduct first acquire true moral worth it is in this manner undoubtedly that we are to understand those passages of scripture also in which we are commanded to love our neighbour even our enemy
for love as an affection cannot be commanded but beneficence for duty's sake may
nay are even repelled by a natural and unconquerable aversion this is practical love and not pathological a love which is seated in the will and not in the propensions of sense in principles of action
and not of tender sympathy and it is this love alone which can be commanded the second proposition is that an action done from duty derives its moral worth not from the purpose which is to be attained by it
it is clear from what precedes that the purposes which we may have in view in our actions or their effects regarded as ends and springs of the will cannot give to actions any unconditional or moral worth
in what then can their worth lie if it is not to consist in the will and in reference to its expected effect it cannot lie anywhere but in the principle of the will without regard to the ends which can be attained by the action
for the will stands between its a priori principle which is formal and its a posteriori spring which is material as between two roads
formal principle of volition when an action is done from duty in which case every material principle has been withdrawn from it the third proposition which is a consequence of the two preceding i would express thus
duty is the necessity of acting from respect for the law i may have inclination for an object as the effect of my proposed action but i cannot have respect for it just for this reason that it is an effect and not an energy of will
similarly i cannot have respect for inclination whether my own or another's i can at most if my own approve it if another's sometimes even love it i e look on it as favourable to my own interest
it is only what is connected with my will as a principle by no means as an effect what does not subserve my inclination but overpowers it or at least in case of choice excludes it from its calculation in other words
simply the law of itself which can be an object of respect and hence a command now an action done from duty must wholly exclude the influence of inclination and with it every object of the will
so that nothing remains which can determine the will except objectively the law and subjectively pure respect for this practical law and consequently the maxim that i should follow this law even to the thwarting of all my inclinations
a maxim is the subjective principle of volition
that which would also serve subjectively as a practical principle to all rational beings if reason had full power over the faculty of desire
for all these effects agreeableness of one's condition and even the promotion of the happiness of others could have been also brought about by other causes so that for this there would have been no need of the will of a rational being
whereas it is in this alone that the supreme and unconditional good can be found the pre eminent good which we call moral can therefore consist in nothing else than the conception of law in itself
which certainly is only possible in a rational being in so far as this conception and not the expected effect determines the will this is a good which is already present in the person who acts accordingly
it might be here objected to me that i take refuge behind the word respect in an obscure feeling instead of giving a distinct solution of the question by a concept of the reason but although respect is a feeling
it is not a feeling received through influence
and therefore is specifically distinct from all feelings of the former kind which may be referred either to inclination or fear
i recognise with respect this merely signifies the consciousness that my will is subordinate to a law without the intervention of other influences on my sense the immediate determination of the will by the law
and the consciousness of this is called respect
respect is properly
which thwarts my self love
the example of a law viz to become like him in this by exercise and this constitutes our respect all so called moral interest consists simply in respect for the law
but what sort of law can that be the conception of which must determine the will even without paying any regard to the effect expected from it in order that this will may be called good absolutely and without qualification
as i have deprived the will of every impulse which could arise to it from obedience to any law there remains nothing but the universal conformity of its actions to law in general which alone is to serve the will as a principle
that my maxim should become a universal law here now it is the simple conformity to law in general
that serves the will as its principle and must so serve it if duty is not to be a vain delusion and a chimerical notion the common reason of men in its practical judgements perfectly coincides with this
and always has in view the principle here suggested let the question be for example may i when in distress make a promise with the intention not to keep it i readily distinguish here between the two significations
but it must be well considered whether there may not hereafter spring from this lie much greater inconvenience than that from which i now free myself and as with all my supposed cunning the consequences cannot be so easily foreseen
but that credit once lost may be much more injurious to me than any mischief which i seek to avoid at present it should be considered whether it would not be more prudent to act herein
and to make it a habit to promise nothing except with the intention of keeping it but it is soon clear to me that such a maxim will still only be based on the fear of consequences now
it is a wholly different thing to be truthful from duty and to be so from apprehension of injurious consequences in the first case the very notion of the action
in the second case i must first look about elsewhere to see what results may be combined with it which would affect myself for to deviate from the principle of duty is beyond all doubt wicked
but to be unfaithful to my maxim of prudence may often be very advantageous to me although to abide by it is certainly safer the shortest way however and an unerring one to discover the answer to this question
whether a lying promise is consistent with duty is to ask myself should i be content that my maxim to extricate myself from difficulty by a false promise should hold good as a universal law
then i presently become aware that while i can will the lie i can by no means will that lying should be a universal law for with such a law there would be no promises at all
hence my maxim as soon as it should be made a universal law would necessarily destroy itself i do not therefore need any far reaching penetration to discern what i have to do
in order that my will may be morally good inexperienced in the course of the world incapable of being prepared for all its contingencies i only ask myself
and reason extorts from me immediate respect for such legislation i do not indeed as yet discern on what this respect is based this the philosopher may inquire but at least i understand this
because it is the condition of a will being good in itself and the worth of such a will is above everything thus then without quitting the moral knowledge of common human reason we have arrived at its principle
with this compass in hand men are well able to distinguish in every case that occurs what is good what bad conformably to duty or inconsistent with it if without in the least teaching them anything new we only like socrates
direct their attention to the principle they themselves employ and that therefore we do not need science and philosophy to know what we should do to be honest and good yea even wise and virtuous indeed
and therefore also to know would be within the reach of every man even the commonest here we cannot forbear admiration when we see how great an advantage the practical judgement has over the theoretical
in the common understanding of men in the latter if common reason ventures to depart from the laws of experience and from the perceptions of the senses it falls into mere inconceivabilities and self contradictions
obscurity and instability but in the practical sphere it is just when the common understanding excludes all sensible springs from practical laws that its power of judgement begins to show itself to advantage
and in the latter case it may even have as good a hope of hitting the mark as any philosopher whatever can promise himself nay it is almost more sure of doing so because the philosopher cannot have any other principle
while he may easily perplex his judgement by a multitude of considerations foreign to the matter and so turn aside from the right way would it not therefore be wiser in moral concerns to acquiesce in the judgement of common reason
but not so as to draw off the common understanding from its happy simplicity or to bring it by means of philosophy into a new path of inquiry and instruction innocence is indeed a glorious thing
only on the other hand it is very sad that it cannot well maintain itself and is easily seduced on this account even wisdom which otherwise consists more in conduct than in knowledge yet has need of science
and as it were with disregard and contempt for these claims which are so impetuous and at the same time so plausible and which will not allow themselves to be suppressed by any command hence there arises a natural dialectic
disposition to argue against these strict laws of duty and to question their validity or at least their purity and strictness and if possible to make them more accordant with our wishes and inclinations that is to say to corrupt them at their very source
practical philosophy not to satisfy any speculative want which never occurs to it as long as it is content to be mere sound reason but even on practical grounds in order to attain in it information and clear instruction
respecting the source of its principle and the correct determination of it in opposition to the maxims which are based on wants and inclinations so that it may escape from the perplexity of opposite claims
and not run the risk of losing all genuine moral principles through the equivocation into which it easily falls thus when practical reason cultivates itself there insensibly arises in it
which forces it to seek aid in philosophy just as happens to it in its theoretic use
she should have learned a lesson from her adventure in the air with the man but the qualifications were lacking her senses and her power of discrimination however had become keener and she grew more timid and watchful in regard to splashing and noise
indeed she quite lost her appetite when she was frightened the time was past when she would confidently approach the shadow of a boat she was exceedingly cautious now when she saw the great bird on the water
by this time she weighs about eighteen pounds and measures the length of a grown man's leg from hip to heel her dorsal fin measures more than two hand breadths and it would take a large hand to span her back
she loves peace and quiet and feels very irritable under the influence of others on the approach of storm and bad weather which she perceives a long time in advance she generally retires into deep water where the noise of the waves cannot reach her
she feels indisposed and ill and remains motionless in her watery lair day after day she stays thus without feeling hunger or any desire for action she sleeps and lets all her nerves and muscles rest only her gills and fins keep working mechanically
but she will not touch them one tempting little decoy fish after another may whisk past her nose but both palate and stomach easily withstand the temptations that are placed before her surfeited eyes
but when the weather calms down and the waves once more grow less she comes to life again and is then well and rested the storm has cleared her blood she needs food and exercise and is biting madly
he is smoking a pipe and listening to the loud karr karr of the grebes as usual he is alone in the boat he has anchored off his favourite bank a narrow reef which in the shelter of the wood runs far out into the lake
he has discovered himself it was hard work getting out to it the gusts of wind came down upon him unexpectedly as he bounded over the water in his little green painted boat
suddenly the lake assumed a wilder aspect the great wave mountains were broken up into small pieces and the valleys were filled with wrinkles
now the weather is clearing however and the lake is calming down
they are good samaritans to all the half dead bait he from time to time throws overboard
they want to hide because they feel weak they do not want to go down into deep water to oa then the terns snap them up and put them down their little red throats three or four of them are pursuing with shrieks and snarls another which is flying away with a little bleak like a piece of white stick in its jaws
and dips its point down into the water he seizes the rod and lifts it the line is running out at full speed he carefully checks it making the resistance stronger and stronger so as to prevent the fish from breaking the line with a sudden jerk
grim has taken the bait and is now darting about with it
and she opens her mouth and chokes and spits she gets rid of the fish she had snatched
she darts hither and thither turning and twisting now she is down in deep water rubbing her wounded mouth upon the bottom now she darts with the bubbles in her wake rising above her round a clump of water lilies
the angler sees an island of leaves as big as a dining table disappear then she is off again the reel shrieks and hums as if a giant grasshopper sat chirping in it
all at once grim leaps out of the water high into the air so that her golden black streaked body with the panther like spots and the trickling water drops casts a gleam over the lake never had the good man seen such a fish
then the old fisherman rejoices a marked fish one of his oldest perhaps his biggest he winds in lets the line run out and winds in again his big body is perspiring with his exertions
and he has to stand with his legs wide apart and his feet firmly fixed whenever the mighty fish gives one of its sudden jerks
so that fish hooks and line are lost
like the back of a cat about to spring the rod bends under its floundering burden
it is still in full vigour and there are many water plants and stalks in the way will he be able to draw it from the deep water with his fine fragile line
the angler chooses to let it go in the hope of picking it up on the other side it happens as he expected the rod appears floats up he leans over and reaches it the fight and nervous excitement recommence the quick exciting contest between man and fish
the wind plays its autumn hymn upon the rushes and ruffles the water between the yellow spotted water lily leaves
they gleam they sparkle they flash and great heavy september clouds drift over the lake
the fisherman reaches out with his arm and the upper part of his body as far as they will go but he forgets that he is in a boat and on unsafe ground loses his balance and falls overboard with a splash upsetting the boat as he does so
a solitary little sunbeam still now and again brightens up all the grey veiled colours and then the water takes the hues of a fallow deer and the water lily leaves become floating patches of rainbow in the muddy valley between the bottom springs oa is beginning to move
she blinks her cunning eyes and their blue black pupils become large and round then she sets out on a nocturnal expedition across the lake steals into the rocky grottos of the cloister cells and finds a new hiding place beneath the wreck of a boat a new arrival
until night closes in and all is dark and silent then she lets herself slowly drift along the edge to the reedy borders of the lake taking every drowned dog or cat as gifts from the creator's hand
everything that has no longer the power to keep above the water all that is dead and drifts about belongs to the crayfish and to her
the story of a prince's quest there was once a king who had an only son the years passed by and he did not marry so one day his father called him before him and said the time has come when you should marry my son
why is it that you have not already done this the prince replied i will wed no one except the daughter of the king of naples
asked the father no answered the son i do not know i should advise you to find out whether or not the king of naples happens to have a daughter before you decide to marry her remarked the king dryly
it was a difficult stormy voyage but finally they arrived safely the moment they landed the beggars came crowding about them the prince distributed alms among them most generously then he asked does any one know whether or not the king of naples has a daughter there was nobody who knew
i think that perhaps this was the daughter of the king of naples but i do not know she added go at once and find out ordered the prince you shall be richly rewarded the old woman hastened to the royal palace
lovely lady i want to talk to you she called out now it happened that day that the princess was feeling decidedly bored and out of tune with life
thus it came to pass that she opened the window graciously
she asked are you the daughter of the king of naples questioned the old woman i am replied the princess may i come some day to sell you pretty things
the princess appointed an hour the next day when she might come with her wares then the old woman hurried back to the waiting prince
he was so delighted that at last he had found this out that he could well afford to be generous the old woman thanked him i did something else for you kind sir she said i made an appointment to see the princess to morrow i am going to the palace at four o'clock to sell pretty things to her
well done good mother cried the prince again thrusting his hand into his purse let me go in your place the old woman gladly consented and the prince dressed himself as a peddler
it is a peddler with many interesting wares for sale said the servant who answered his knock he speaks of an appointment with your royal highness yes said the princess a peddler was to come to day at four o'clock with pretty things for me to buy
what lovely things you have she cried as she examined the tray full of ribbons and beads and trinkets
what is the price of these the prince would not set a price if your royal highness is pleased with these said he i have many more things at home which you will like even better i'll bring them to you to morrow that will be splendid cried the princess
come again to morrow at this hour the next day the prince again dressed himself as a peddler but underneath the outer garments he wore his own rich clothing when he was admitted to the royal palace he laid aside his peddler's disguise and stood before the princess looking like the true prince he was
he was very handsome in his rich suit of crimson velvet with his hat with the long plume in his hand the princess was so surprised that she turned pale who are you she cried you surely are not the peddler who came here yesterday
the prince smiled into her eyes and even without the peddler's garments which were rolled up on the tray she would have recognized him he told her of the quest which had led him there and she admired all the patience and diligence he had shown in finding out her existence
when he asked her to marry him at once she readily consented
all this sounded very romantic to the daughter of the king of naples she had never dreamed that a thing like this would ever happen
i'll gently deposit him on the ground and get away with his horse and saddle thought the thief as he stopped and regarded the horse with a critical eye just then however he saw something which made him change his mind about hurrying away after he had deposited the prince's sleeping form beneath a tree
there was the loveliest maiden he had ever seen creeping silently down the stairway she came straight up to him i'm ready beloved were her words the robber silently lifted her behind him on the horse's back and together they rode away where is your boat
asked the princess after they had ridden together for some time without speaking so it is a boat which the fair lady is looking for thought the thief i was expecting this good horse to carry us the whole distance a boat is a bit difficult to arrange but it can be done if necessary
there ought to be a boat around somewhere for me to steal
when he returned the light shone upon his face and the girl thought that he did not look the same as the day before of course i've seen him only twice she told herself in an effort to gain assurance it must be the prince my own true love here is our boat
said the robber and together they embarked
the robber laughed does my lady know with whom she is going away he asked
running away was not half so romantic and delightful as she had pictured it she heartily wished that she were back in the royal palace as for the prince he soon awoke and looked about the palace garden where he was lying under the tree how did i get here
he asked as he rubbed his eyes sleepily there was none to tell him so he decided that his horse must have thrown him off and run away it is queer that my fall did not awaken me he said to himself it is a bit awkward to lose my horse
however if the princess only keeps her promise and comes to me we shall manage to get to our ship somehow
the daughter of the king of naples sobbed and cried so loud when she found that it was not her own prince with whom she was sailing that the robber became quite disgusted with her
with her face all red and swollen with much weeping the robber decided that he did not want to bother with her any longer
the princess wandered about the place until night came without seeing a single soul nothing but the sea sky and rocks she was really however not far from the hut in which there lived the wife and daughter of a poor fisherman
in the stillness of the night they heard a cry some one is in trouble outside mother said the daughter perhaps the pirates have come and by this cry are trying to lure us out answered her mother cautiously there were often pirate ships which stopped there
the daughter listened carefully no mother she insisted i'm sure this is a girl's cry the two women opened their door and crept out in the darkness the sobs of the princess soon led them to the place upon the rocks where she lay crying as if her heart would break
now it happened that the prince's ship encountered a great storm and was driven about by the sea
the prince saw the fisherman's daughter and the princess standing on the rocks by the sea he stared hard at the princess then he spoke in a voice which shook you remind me of some one i used to know he said tell me your name i pray you fair maid
the princess looked down at the garments of the fisher maid which she wore she blushed the prince she had recognized the very moment she had seen him
we found her upon these very rocks
she is no more the daughter of the king of naples than i am
once upon a time there was a young king who went into the deep forest on a hunting expedition
as night approached they found the rude hut of a charcoal burner and begged for permission to pass the night there they were received most hospitably just at the hour of midnight the king was awakened from his sleep by a voice this is what it said
here in this hut is born to night the maiden of your fate you can't escape your lot young king your fate for you will wait tis fate
the king turned over on his pillow and tried to sleep but the strange voice kept ringing in his ears he rose early as soon as he saw the charcoal burner the man said a baby daughter was born to me last night at what time asked the king
it was just midnight replied the charcoal burner the king awakened his page and told him what had happened i refuse to wed any maid born in this poor hut he said
what can i do about it asked the page yawning you must steal this babe this very day and put it to death said the king sternly
he carried her away into the deep forest but he did not have the heart to put an innocent babe to death he left her in a hollow tree wrapped up in the bright red sash he wore
the king was angry take me to the baby he said i'll do the deed myself though they searched long and faithfully they were unable to find the hollow tree where the baby had been left
they of course did not wish to return to the hut of the charcoal burner and at length they found their way out of the deep forest
she will soon die without food said the page
here in this hut is born to night the maiden of your fate you can't escape your lot young king your fate for you will wait tis fate
now it happened that very day that a woodcutter was working in the forest suddenly he heard what sounded like the cry of a baby
the cry continued however and it sounded very near almost under the woodcutter's feet he looked into the hollow log and there he found a dimpled baby girl wrapped in a bright red sash poor little thing her own mother has abandoned her
my good wife will be a mother to her he said the woodcutter's wife had no children of her own and received the baby gladly she named her maria of the forest
the weeks and months passed and soon the little maria of the forest had grown into a lovely little girl five years old her kind foster mother made a bonnet for her out of the bright red sash which she had found wrapped about her the first time she saw her
it made maria's dark eyes look even brighter than before
the page noticed the pretty little girl and the red bonnet she wore he called her to him and examined it carefully there can be no doubt that material is from my own red sash
the king bade him make inquiries about the child and soon the page found out that the little maid was in truth the baby he had left in the hollow tree the king ordered him again to steal her this time the king plotted her death by drowning
i refuse to wed any girl brought up in a woodcutter's hut he raged
nevertheless he could not escape the memory of the strange voice which had said here in this hut is born to night the maiden of your fate you can't escape your lot young king your fate for you will wait tis fate
it was most annoying to remember it it happened soon after that a ship encountered the box floating upon the sea the sailors rescued it and opened it with interest inside they were surprised to find a pretty little dark eyed girl with a bright red bonnet on her head
she could not tell them where she had come from but she said her name was maria of the forest when the sailors arrived in their own country they told the story of finding the child and the king asked to see her
she was brought up as a lady of waiting to their own little daughter of about the same age
the king who had been lost in the forest came with the others at the feast there was no one more beautiful than maria of the forest the king danced with her
was the reply the king fell in love with the beautiful maid and gave her a ring the page however was suspicious when he heard her name
what he found out made him very sure that she was in truth the daughter of the charcoal burner he reported his suspicions to the king never mind said the king i'll wed the maid anyway
grim is with them and like a seal she helps herself to the flying bleak which in their terror rush blindly into her jaws it is quick work but nevertheless not quick enough the gluttony of the perch angers and irritates her she feels her belly growing larger and her throat widening
she has room for more fish mountains of fish with a jerk of her body she comes nearer and is now right in the whirlpool of bleak and perch
quivering and trembling the little fish fly in all directions as she tears among them and with strong beats of her tail to right and left pursues her victims her eyes gleam and her thin lips quiver with insatiable desire a big high backed perch coolie makes a capture right in front of her
snap snap there goes a bleak right before her nose this is more than she can endure she dislikes this insolent lake dog in a still greater degree than when as a young pike she stayed in the shelter of the creek
her jaws are already opened and the water is streaming in like a mill race she sees the bleak fat upon the mouth of her plump opponent and her ferocity and murderous lust are doubled
with an enormous development of energy intoxicated with the joy of capture she attacks the rasper with the full strength of both her serrated jaws opening them so wide and dashing at him with such force that they engulf him to far down his plump hog back
the hundreds of little teeth with which her palate is paved have the same desire the same purpose to bore right in and hold fast just as the pike's attack is at its height the rasper suddenly raises his twelve spined dorsal fin
during his chase of the little fish it had lain neatly folded like a fan along his back now it is transformed into a murderous weapon and its bony ribs into a bundle of hidden sword blades now stiff and sharp like polished bayonets now elastically pliable like rapiers
joyfully grim takes the big lump into her mouth
splendidly heavy and solid the rasper feels as he lies upon her tongue and yet his rough tile like scales and the very small amount of fat and slime on his skin make it unusually difficult for her to get the lump down
he is hurting her now she quickly takes a better hold even letting her prehensile teeth come into play and the long board like tongue warp in co operation but no matter what she does or how wide she opens her mouth her efforts are in vain
the high backed one refuses to move beyond a certain point incomprehensible impossible she tries again
colours dance before her eyes as the gullet opens and closes trying to draw in the perch's head but to no avail the wedge remains immovable the big mouthful is too big so there is nothing to be done but give it up
grim opens her mouth wide relaxes her prehensile teeth which as readily as an adder's turning on their hinges return to the perpendicular
there the torture in the spiked barrel is over the prison is graciously open to the great perch
and throwing grim from one side to the other suddenly notices the loosening of the strait jacket and backs with a jerk he thinks he is free so easily does he swim now although the darkness before his eyes is just as thick and oppressive
he is still in the pike's throat and cannot get away for he has his twelve stiffest dorsal spines bored into his enemy's palate and the more he worries and works with his dangerous opponent the deeper and more firmly do the spines fix themselves
has for a few moments lost nearly all her energy the spines begin to hurt her and her mouthful on the whole to incommode her she cannot get sufficient water over her gills and what does filter into her mouth in spite of the gag is needed by the gag itself
its gill covers open and close and take the lion's share of the water
and in ungovernable rage she begins to lash out with her tail
thus the combat continues now it is grim who has the mastery and shakes her opponent so that the perch's tail slaps her weakly on the cheeks and fetches her blow after blow upon the back of her neck
but no matter how much they exert themselves it is without result they do not succeed in getting away from one another faint and dead beat they fall over on their sides
but the rasper is half dead then they float up and drift over the surface of the water like dead fish
a scorching sun and oppressive heat have long foreboded the storm that is brewing and now at last it has burst the clouds and the water have met the celestial salute begins rumbling and crackling a long way off in the farthest corner where the reed forests rally round the mouth of the brook
the lightning ploughs long white glowing fibrous sparks out of the sombre purple horizon from which the showers come chasing and sweeping over the lake casting dark threatening shadows before them under the fringe of forest on the lee side
where all the grebes have crept together one of the big birds is lying at anchor
she has no lines or fishing tackle out she knows well that all angling is in vain
the grey troughs of the waves are full of bursting bubbles little slate coloured showers dart about and plough up the surface of the water like the scratching of a cat on the skin they dash themselves against the reedy margin and the edge of the wood cutting broad lanes through them
only the sheat fish the old water hyena is out roaming the wild weather puts life into oa it brings her great opportunities
it is corpse weather today the angry waves stir up carrion from the bottom or carry it out from bridge and bank she always gets so hungry in stormy weather and feels as if she must go to the surface for air
grim's white belly is not turned down now
now her flecked sides and black back make a distinct stripe in the water a cunning expression comes into oa's little eyes the queer fish with two tails attracts her the storm is abating the last heavy shower is over a
patch of blue sky peeps out like a smiling eye between the frayed swollen clouds
the boat takes advantage of the lull and is on her way home oa hearing the swish of her bow has only time to make a few hasty snaps at the big perch's already swollen belly her thick fleshy lips are still pulling at the rasper's intestines as she slowly dives down into deep water
involuntarily the angler's attention is attracted to them he takes out his glasses then rows nearer and in another moment he has the two fish in his landing net what a haul a pike that has gorged itself on a giant perch
grim is furious and tries to bite and snap while the happy angler makes a guess at her weight by swinging the landing net up and down in his hands
no throwing this one back again so she was once more in man's power between his fingers and nails
for the third time she was as it were in the heron's throat then at last she awoke her sight returned and the breath to her red gills
life was once more coursing through her veins she was in water and with a stroke of her tail she made for the bottom oh she had run her nose against a stone she turned away and tried to go to one side but there was another stone there were stones all round her
she would be all right there for the present the well was full of small fish which at her appearance immediately crowded together in a corner she scowled at them but although her stomach was empty she felt no desire to eat
she remained perfectly still in the darkest corner of the well and took note in her own way of what went on around her
she wanted to get away from the bush and started with a stroke of her tail but she ran straight into the landing net she could not tear the bushy plant its numerous thick tendrils were so absurdly strong and it increased her suspicion and gave her fresh experience
deep down oa follows the boat and listens to the ripple of the water against the keeled breast of the great swimming bird the old hyena who had fed on the carrion of the lake for more than fifty years knew all about the fishermen with her little blinking bronze coloured eyes
she gives careful attention to the refuse that the fisherman throws out when he cleans the dead perch she dares not venture up to the surface the sun is shining again and there is no archipelago of water lily leaves under which she can hide her head
who knows some day perhaps a young one might drop out as the angler neared the shore he lifted the lid of the well and stood rejoicing over his catch he saw the pike throw up her head and was glad to find her still as lively as ever
and to think that heaven should at last reward him for his magnanimity for the mark on the dorsal fin showed distinctly that this fish had been in his hands before
grim saw glimpses of the open water from which the dark land shadows in the form of the sides of the boat shut her off
such mishaps had befallen her before on her annual wedding tours up in narrow channels and bogs well then she knew what to do and she crouched in a corner where she lay awaiting her opportunity the angler should have replaced the lid before taking his usual nip
as we breakfasted i approached directly that matter which my growing liking for him was turning into strong desire drake i asked where are you going
he laughed i'm foot loose and fancy free
he might get away the idea seemed to appall him fine i exclaimed heartily and thrust out my hand to him i'm thinking of striking over the range soon to the manasarowar lakes there's a curious flora i'd like to study
mile after mile we trudged through the blue poppies discussing the enigmas of the twilight and of the night in the light of day their breath of vague terror was dissipated there was no place for mystery nor dread under this floor of brilliant sunshine
the smiling sapphire floor rolled ever on before us whispering little playful breezes flew down the slopes to gossip for a moment with the nodding flowers
an atmosphere so unique as to make almost anything of the kind possible but drake was not convinced i know he said
i admit it's all possible i'll even admit it's all probable but damn me doc if i believe it i had too clearly the feeling of a conscious force
the western mount was close the mouth of the gorge through which we must pass now plain before us it did not seem as though we could reach it before dusk and drake and i were reconciled to spending another night in the peaceful vale plodding along deep in thought
i was startled by his exclamation he was staring at a point some hundred yards to his right i followed his gaze the towering cliffs were a scant half mile away
at some distant time there had been an enormous fall of rock this disintegrating had formed a gently curving breast which sloped down to merge with the valley's floor willow and witch alder stunted birch and poplar had found roothold clothed it
until only their crowding outposts
a rectangle all of thirty feet wide two hundred long the heel faintly curved and from its hither end like claws
irresistibly was it like a footprint but what thing was there whose tread could leave such a print as this i ran up the slope drake already well in advance i paused at the base of the triangles where
as though by the stroke of a scimitar
bent down and stared in utter disbelief of what my own eyes beheld for stone and earth had been crushed compressed into a smooth microscopically grained
of the weird glow that had flashed about us when the mist arose to hide the chained aurora it was what we heard i said the sounds it was then that this was made
again i interpreted drake cast a calculating glance up to the cliff top two thousand feet about he mused
the length of this thing would give him just about a two thousand foot leg yes he could just about straddle that hill you're surely not serious i asked in consternation
a sigil a seal but why i asked what could be the purpose better ask where the devil such a force could be gotten together and how it came here he said
i peered about it was so except for the mark there was no slightest sign of the unusual the abnormal but the mark was enough
i'm for pushing up a notch or two and getting into the gorge before dark he was voicing my own thought i'm willing to face anything human
just at twilight we drew out of the valley into the pass we traveled a full mile along it before darkness forced us to make camp the gorge was narrow the far walls but a hundred feet away but we had no quarrel with them for their neighborliness
we dined within on bread and tea and then tired to the bone sought each his place upon the rocky floor i slept well waking only once or twice by chiu ming's groanings his dreams evidently were none of the pleasantest
my dread of again passing through that haunted vale i certainly do
drake don't you agree sure he replied sure i'll look after ruth er
the glint of amusement in ventnor's eyes at this faded abruptly his face grew somber wait he said i carried away some some exhibits from the crevice of the noises goodwin what kind of exhibits i asked eagerly
put em where they'd be safe he continued i've an idea they're far more curious than our armored men and of far more importance at any rate we must take them with us go with ruth you and drake and look at them
but hurry he turned back to his watch ordering chiu ming to stay with him i followed ruth and drake down the ruined stairway at the bottom she came to me laid little hands on my shoulders walter she breathed i'm frightened
i'm so frightened i'm afraid to tell even mart he doesn't like them either these little things you're going to see he likes them so little that he's afraid to let me know how little he does like them but what are they what's to fear about them
martin picked them up and dropped them in a sack before we ran through the hollow they're grotesque and they're almost cute and they make me feel as though they were the tiniest tippy tip of the claw of some incredibly large cat just
stealing around the corner a terrible cat a cat as big as a mountain she ended breathlessly we climbed through the crumbling masonry into a central open court here a clear spring bubbled up in a ruined and choked stone basin
close to the ancient well was their pony contentedly browsing in the thick grass that grew around it from one of its hampers ruth took a large cloth bag to carry them she said and trembled
and it was in better preservation the ceiling unbroken the light dim after the blazing sun of the court near its center she halted us before me ran a two feet wide ragged crack splitting the floor and dropping down into black depths
beyond was an expanse of smooth flagging almost clear of debris drake gave a low whistle i followed his pointing finger
in the dust covered floor not more than a foot in width
metallic bluish luster as though i thought it had been recently polished compared with the wall's tremendous winged figures this floor design was trivial ludicrously insignificant
separated from each other with mathematical exactness by another inch of space i counted them there were nineteen almost touching them with their bases were an equal number of pyramids of tetrahedrons as sharply angled and of similar length
they lay on their sides with tips pointing starlike to six spheres clustered like a conventionalized five petaled primrose in the exact center five of these spheres the petals
and stiffened the first touch of dread upon me for within the ring
it stood out from the dust with the same hint of crushing force the same die cut sharpness the same metallic suggestion and pointing toward the globes were the claw marks of the four spreading star points
i weighed it in my hand it was oddly heavy twice the weight i should say of platinum
yet it was as certainly metal it was striated slender filaments radiating from tiny dully lustrous points within the polished surface and suddenly i had the weird feeling that each of these points was an eye
the pyramids raised themselves stood bolt upright on their square bases the six rolling spheres touched them joined the spinning and with sleight of hand suddenness the ring drew together its units coalesced
a vaguely terrifying foot high shape squared and angled and pointed and animate as though a child should build from nursery blocks a fantastic shape which abruptly is filled with throbbing life
their shiftings were like the transformations one sees within a kaleidoscope and in each vanishing form was the suggestion of unfamiliar harmonies of a subtle a transcendental geometric art as though each swift shaping were a symbol a word
the five spheres followed it clustered like a ring just below it the other cubes raced up clicked two by two on the outer arc of each of the five balls at the ends of these twin blocks a pyramid took its place tipping each with a point
from which sprang a star of five arms the spheres began to revolve faster and faster they spun around the base of the crowning globe
clustered vanished only to reappear in greater number the troll swept toward me it glided the finger of panic touched me i sprang aside and swift as light it followed seemed to poise itself to leap drop it it was ruth's cry
but before i could let fall the pyramid i had forgotten was in my hand the little figure touched me and a paralyzing shock ran through me my fingers clenched locked i stood muscle and nerve bound unable to move the little figure paused
it was as though it cocked its head to look up at me and again i had the sense of innumerable eyes peering at me it did not seem menacing its attitude was inquisitive waiting almost as though it had asked for something and
wondered why i did not let it have it the shock still held me rigid
the disc tilted back to place bent toward me again i heard a shout heard a bullet strike the pigmy that now clearly menaced heard the bullet ricochet without the slightest effect upon it dick leaped beside me
and upon the instant he crashed down as though struck by a giant hand lay sprawling and inert upon the floor there was a scream from ruth
there was a curious sharp tang of ozone in the air a perceptible tightening as of electrical tension they swept to the edge of the fissure swam together and there hanging half over the gap was a bridge half spanning it a weird and fairy arch
made up of alternate cube and angle the shape at my feet disintegrated
i dropped it the tiny shape swept to the bridge ascended it dropped into the gap the arch was complete hanging in one flying span over the depths upon it over it as though they had but awaited this completion
rolled the six globes and as they dropped to the farther side
curved itself like a scorpion's tail drew itself into a closer circled arc and dropped upon the floor beyond again the sibilant rustling
goodwin he whispered what what were they metal i said it was the only word to which my whirling mind could cling metal
metal he echoed these things metal metal alive and thinking suddenly he was silent his face a page on which visibly
dread gathered slowly and ever deeper and as i looked at ruth white faced and at him i knew that my own was as pallid as terror stricken as theirs they were such little things muttered drake
such little things bits of metal little globes and pyramids and cubes just little things babes only babes it was ruth babes
bits of metal dick's gaze sought mine held it and they looked for each other they worked with each other thinkingly consciously they were deliberate purposeful little things
and with the force of a score of dynamos living thinking don't ruth laid white hands over his eyes don't don't you be frightened frightened he echoed i'm not afraid yes
for what we had beheld in the dusk of that dragoned ruined chamber was outside all experience beyond all knowledge or dream of science not their shapes that was nothing not even that being metal they had moved
but that being metal they had moved consciously thoughtfully deliberately they were metal things with minds that that was the incredible the terrifying thing that and their power
valley of the blue poppies in this great crucible of life we call the world in the vaster one we call the universe the mysteries lie close packed
uncountable as grains of sand on ocean's shores they thread gigantic the star flung spaces they creep atomic beneath the microscope's peering eye they walk beside us
asking why we are deaf to their crying blind to their wonder sometimes the veils drop from a man's eyes and he sees and speaks of his vision
then those who have not seen pass him by with the lifted brows of disbelief or they mock him or if his vision has been great enough they fall upon
and upon and about it shifting and changing adding to or taking away beat over legions of forces seen and unseen known and unknown and man an atom in the ferment
clings desperately to what to him seems stable nor greets with joy him who hazards that what he grips
if to the voyagers painfully plotting their course comes one who cries that their charts must be remade nor can tell why they must be that man is not welcome no
not of forgetfulness for that could never be but of anodyne for a sorrow which had held fast upon me since my return from the carolines a year before
it has been written nor shall i recite the reasons for my restlessness for these are known to those who have read that history of mine
i determined to return to that quiet forbidden land there if anywhere might i find something akin to forgetting
persia's mountainous chain that extends from azerbaijan in the west to khorasan in the east from thence i would follow its modified types in the hindu kush ranges and its migrations along the southern scarps of the trans himalayas the unexplored upheaval
higher than the himalayas themselves more deeply cut with precipice and gorge which sven hedin had touched and named on his journey to lhasa having accomplished this
i planned to push across the passes to the manasarowar lakes where legend has it the strange luminous purple lotuses grow an ambitious project undeniably fraught with danger
but it is written that desperate diseases require desperate remedies and until inspiration or message how to rejoin those whom i had loved so dearly came to me nothing less i felt could dull my heartache and frankly
and that i had found him he recommended himself to me as the best cook within ten thousand miles of pekin for almost three months we had journeyed chiu ming
to the hordes of the satraps the highways of the achaemenids yes and which before them had trembled to the tramplings of the myriads of the godlike dravidian conquerors
the feet of an american botanist a chinaman two tibetan ponies
until at last both fell before the turks over the highways and byways of persia's glory persia's shame and persia's death we four two men two beasts had passed for a fortnight we had met no human soul
seen no sign of human habitation game had been plentiful green things chiu ming might lack for his cooking but meat never about us was a welter of mighty summits we were i knew
serene majestic immutable like the untroubled calm which rests the burmese believe over every place which has guarded the buddha sleeping
far to the west another gray and ochreous giant reared its bulk closing the vale north and south the horizon was a chaotic sky land of pinnacles spired and minareted steepled and turreted and domed
each diademed with its green and argent of eternal ice and snow and all the valley was carpeted with the blue poppies in wide unbroken fields luminous as the morning skies of mid june
hastening presences like a vast prayer rug sapphire and silken the poppies stretched to the gray feet of the mountain between their southern edge and the clustering summits
a row of faded brown low hills knelt like brown robed withered and weary old men backs bent faces hidden between outstretched arms palms to the earth and brows touching earth within them
in the east's immemorial attitude of worship i half expected them to rise and as i watched a man appeared on one of the bowed rocky shoulders abruptly with the ever startling suddenness
which in the strange light of these latitudes objects spring into vision as he stood scanning my camp there arose beside him a laden pony and at its head a tibetan peasant
i'm dick drake he said holding out his hand richard keen drake
my name is goodwin i took his hand shook it warmly doctor walter t goodwin goodwin the botanist then i know you he exclaimed know all about you that is
my father admired your work greatly you knew him professor alvin drake i nodded so he was alvin drake's son
but what was his son doing in this wilderness wondering where i came from he answered my unspoken question short story war ended felt an irresistible desire for something different couldn't think of anything more different from tibet
always wanted to go there anyway went decided to strike over toward turkestan and here i am i felt at once a strong liking for this young giant no doubt subconsciously i had been feeling the need of companionship with my own kind
i even wondered as i led the way into my little camp whether he would care to join fortunes with me in my journeyings his father's work i knew well and although this stalwart lad was unlike what one would have expected alvin drake
ever the speculation grew in his face as he made away with chiu ming's artful concoctions drake sighed drawing out his pipe a cook a marvel of a cook where did you get him
briefly i told him then a silence fell upon us suddenly
valley's western gate the whole vale swiftly darkened a flood of crystal clear shadows poured within it it was the prelude to that miracle of unearthly beauty seen nowhere else on this earth the sunset of tibet
we turned expectant eyes to the west a little cool breeze raced down from the watching steeps like a messenger whispered to the nodding poppies sighed and was gone the poppies were still
rank upon rank of them thrusting their heads into the path of the setting sun they changed from mottled silver into faint rose deepened to crimson the dragons of the sky drink the blood of the sunset
said chiu ming as though a gigantic globe of crystal had dropped upon the heavens their blue turned swiftly to a clear and glowing amber then as abruptly shifted to a luminous violet
a soft green light pulsed through the valley under it
began to creep downward toward the eastern horizon where a nebulous pulsing splendor arose to meet it and as we watched i heard a gasp from drake and it was echoed by my own
for the six beams were swaying moving with ever swifter motion from side to side in ever widening sweep
faster and faster the six high flung beams swayed and then broke broke as though a gigantic unseen hand had reached up and snapped them an instant the severed ends ribboned aimlessly then bent
turned down and darted earthward
like threads i saw it i struggled with bewilderment i saw it but i never saw anything like it before i ended most inadequately it was purposeful
he whispered it was deliberate as though something reached up juggled with the rays broke them and drew them down like willow withes the devils that dwell here quavered chiu ming
some magnetic phenomenon i was half angry at myself for my own touch of panic light can be deflected by passage through a magnetic field of course that's it certainly i don't know
devils muttered the frightened chinese what's that drake gripped my arm and pointed to the north a deeper blackness had grown there while we had been talking
a pool of darkness against which the mountain summits stood out blade sharp edges faintly luminous a gigantic lance of misty green fire darted from the blackness and thrust its point into the heart of the zenith following it
and now the blackness was like an ebon hand brandishing a thousand javelins of tinseled flame
i said it ought to be a good one mused drake gaze intent upon it did you notice the big sun spot i shook my head the biggest i ever saw
some little aurora lighter that spot i told you look at that he cried the green lances had fallen back the blackness gathered itself together then from it began to pulse billows of radiance
spangled with infinite darting swarms of flashing corpuscles like uncounted hosts of dancing fireflies higher the waves rolled phosphorescent green and iridescent violet weird copperous yellows and metallic saffrons
and a shimmer of glittering ash of rose then wavered split and formed into gigantic sparkling marching curtains of splendor a vast circle of light sprang out upon the folds of the flickering rushing curtains
toward the ring from every side raced the majestic folds drew themselves together circled seethed around it like foam of fire about the lip of a cauldron and poured through the shining circle as though it were the mouth of that fabled cavern
into the ring's mouth the aurora flew cascading in a columned stream to earth then swiftly
breathed drake far to the west a sound came to us first a whisper then a wild rushing a prolonged wailing a crackling a great light flashed through the mist glowed about us and faded again the wailing
the clearer sight by ernest starr
he held a steady hand on the lever so that he might push it back instantly if he saw in the crucible too sudden a transformation as he watched the dull saffron powder took on a deeper hue about the edge the body of it remaining unchanged
for several minutes he peered with keen intentness at the evil inert little mass no further change appeared he leaned closer over it regardless of the thin choking haze that spread about his face
in his attitude there was a rigidity of controlled excitement out of keeping with the seeming harmlessness of the experiment he was as a man attuned to a tremendous hazard anticipation and mental endurance taut
all his force focused on one throbbing desire he bent closer and the hand on the lever trembled in nervous premonition the deepened hue touched only the edge following regularly the contour of the vessel
it made no advance toward the centre of the substance it shall noakes breathed and as if conning an oft repeated formula he said the entire mass should deepen in color regularly and evenly heat heat
his glance shifted to the control switch under his hand its metal knobs marking the degrees of intensity of the current it controlled caught the light and blinked like so many small baleful eyes
particularly one that which would be capped next in the orbit of the lever held him fascinated the winking potentiality of it thralled him as the troubled crystal devours the gaze of the hindu magi
he would increase the current the thought burned before him like a live thing and in the light of it he saw many pictures heliographs of happenings in and about the laboratories flame smoke dense and turgid
splintered wood metal hurtling through air bleeding hands lacerated breasts sightless eyes that's the trouble with high explosives he half groaned he turned away from the stand and went to the single window that lit the room
through it he saw shops store houses and small buildings similar to his own all a part of the plant of maxineff
each experimenter a bondman to ecstasy the whole frenzied gasping scheme a furtherance of the fame and power of henry maxineff already world known inventor of the deadliest high explosives
one of the buildings had been turned into a temporary hospital he thought of the pitiful occupant his face scarred one socket eyeless and shivered it isn't that i want to hedge he said i shall take the chance
but having risked everything i will go to her able and whole offering it all without an apology his gaze was drawn back to the crucible in the thin haze above it a face seemed to shine
avidly he gave himself to the spell his tight strung imagination had conjured a face oval and delicately tinted lips joyously curved gray eyes not large but brimming with enthusiasm fearlessness and truth
a white brow beneath simply arranged light hair let me bring with an avowal all that you have now more for in your life there can't be anything bigger than my love and it's that which makes the deal right don't judge me yet
wait until i've finished and grant me that it's worth while he whispered to the face and his breath made little swirls and eddies in the haze about it the filmy curves wafted toward him bringing it close to his lips the lids fluttered
then an acrid odor filled his throat and nostrils the face vanished he started back distraught a rushing recollection of maxineff's tragedies came to him more vivid even than the face
halsey who jarred the nitro had been annihilated ewell was mad from the violent termination of an experiment similar to that now in development a year ago noakes said and still ewell lives and raves
how alike the cases were the difference lay in the crucible if the mixture there were properly prepared added heat would metamorphose it calmly from its present harmlessness into something new wonderful deadly
it would become imbued with marvelous possibility a thing for which royal military bureaus imperial navies would pay a great price a twist of the lever would do it yet how alike and ewell was mad
injured gruesomely living dead again the blinking switch caught him but he shrugged away its evil suggestiveness he sought to flee the strain of the moment to make it seem natural and like the smaller risks of his daily occupation
he assumed a tottering bravado and as he put his hand to the lever he smiled crookedly a light quick tread sounded on the walk outside on the double step as the knob turned a voice said
his hand left the lever as if it pricked him you am i a wraith noakes looked at her silently in the moment's abstraction her presence seemed a manifestation of some psychic conduction which he tried lamely to understand
here now in a moment of danger of which she unknowingly was the moving force then exorcise me quickly but don't sprinkle me with acid it would be fatal to my clothes noakes warmed to the aura of light and cheer about her
there isn't an alkali in the shop i won't endanger you he replied easily she moved into the room and paused a moment near the stand missus max says you are confining yourself too closely i've been with her all morning
while she spoke she took off her hat and smoothed her hair i'm blown to pieces i drove cornish this morning he got by everything on the way he acted like a premiere danseuse when i passed the cooper's shop his joy at seeing her was discountenanced by his fear for her
and he was afraid of her her insinuated trust in him threw into murky relief the affair which occupied him when she turned to him a flushed joyful face and gray eyes clear and unsullied it flashed into his soul
that she would unhesitatingly brush out of her life path the dust of doubt that equivocation and willingness to balance motives were no part of her he knew that in her were no dim angles of cross grained purpose
no shadowy intersections of the lines of good and evil i say i'm blown to wisps couldn't you find me a mirror please what would i do with a mirror here but see he lifted the window sash pulled in one shutter and with a gesture of presentation said
as others see us she turned her back while she arranged her hair before the makeshift mirror relieved from her direct gaze he stepped quickly to the stand and looked into the crucible there was no change he had expected none but he could not be sure
maxineff himself could not be sure of this new mixture a run of the same temperature might bring about the change he looked for as readily as an increase the suspense was unbearable well cagliostro she called
you alchemists are capable of the utterest abstraction aren't you why have you come he said quickly frowning at her to take you driving with an enticing smile will you not go please at once
her manner lost something of its verve it isn't safe you know really he added and won't you come i cannot not this morning well she said with a little sigh as she thrust in her hat pins
missus max will be disappointed on her command i came to break up this seclusion of yours none of us have seen you for a week seven days what are you doing oh i've been working out some ideas but you are so quiet about it
what are the ideas noakes hesitated and she laughed merrily as she went toward the door we laity are hopeless aren't we you are thinking that i couldn't possibly understand no i wasn't because i scarcely understand myself
of course some secret formula mister max has you on indeed no he said mister max knows nothing about it that is he continued hurriedly it's the sort of thing at any rate i'll soon be through
she stood in the doorway outlined against the bright incoming mid daylight her face turned back to him and then you will come out into the world again missus max and cornish and i shall be honored then i shall be free
he spoke the words with singular feeling truly though mister noakes she said in a straightforward manner you are too busy missus max says you are to break out break out with the measles if nothing else will interrupt you and you are to have tea with her this afternoon
noakes looked doubtful she went down the steps and turned again oh i almost forgot here's a letter for you where it came in the maxineffs mail this morning missus max suggested my bringing it to you
noakes took the long foreign stamped envelope the typed superscription was noncommittal but at the berlin postmark his eyes narrowed and the knuckles of the hand by his side whitened he drew a quick breath and looked keenly at the girl
was mister maxineff at home this morning he asked quietly no i believe he is in the city oh he breathed thank you very much he slipped the letter into his pocket well i can't stay any longer noakes pressed her hand
and cagliostro when the puzzle's solved come to see me i'll sing away the worries good bye good bye miss becky excuse my untractableness won't you with a pat to her hat and a smile to noakes she was gone
he watched her a moment then strode rapidly to the stand looking through the faint haze he saw her pass down the straight path which led to the great gate of the maxineff work yard when she was close to it he grasped the switch lever with cramped fingers
his face was colorless he moved the lever forward with a jerk and lifting his eyes saw her pass out of the gate beyond reach of time he waited evenly insistently a dull brown suffused the mass still he waited
fearfully wondering at the stability of this new thing it kept its even coloring he pushed back the lever watched again and waited he was afire with joy he had succeeded
he had perfected the work of a week's exquisite danger he had won i am glad glad he said faintly as he straightened up he found himself suddenly weak
the strain had been galling and the madness of gratification consumed his strength he moved toward the door stepping very gently for he knew not how slight a vibration might shatter the delicate affinity in his discovery
it was good to be alive he thought free something accomplished with leave to tell a girl
noakes looked at him in a moment of amazement almost of stupefaction the necessity of instant action startled him to movement as quickly as he thought he pushed the door three quarters shut replaced the jars from which he had taken his materials
filled a second crucible with a harmless haphazard mixture and placed it over a dead furnace in a stand in the corner behind the door he lifted the window sash with all his strength he hurled his priceless crucible
by a marvel of speed he had the sash lowered and was behind the door when the building was shaken by an explosion what is that mister noakes came in deep calm tones from the door
good morning mister maxineff said noakes turning slowly the racket some half baked fulminate i put in the ditch out there an hour ago so long since said the older man advancing toward the window
yes sir i think the jarring of the wagon you see leaving the chemical house caused it a hole several feet in diameter marked the spot where the crucible fell the stuff had delayed not an instant in working its havoc
noakes was glad there was too little of it to cause a suspicious deal of damage maxineff looked reflectively about the yard while noakes nervously eyed his chief's expressive profile his eyes wandered to the fine gray head of this tall straight man
he could not fail to be impressed afresh by the forceful exterior significant of the inner attitude which had won for henry maxineff a name honored among nations what of your work he said noakes was glad those seeing eyes were not on him
i'm beat he said i've gone at it every way i know and i have been consistently and finally unsuccessful in the ensuing pause noakes realized that this was the first admission of failure he had ever made to his chief
the surprise it called forth was grateful to him what's the trouble but i think the trouble with you is that you have overreached yourself noakes oh no the idea is a fine tremendous one sheer stupidity is my trouble i think
his humility seemed real and perhaps the unusualness of it brought a curious expression to maxineff's face and into his eyes a contemplative light that noakes did not care to meet i met miss hallam as i entered maxineff said carelessly
yes she came to tell me that missus max will permit me to have tea with her this afternoon you are coming i hope indeed yes i confess i am tired out i gave up the experiment early this morning i understood the fulminate was running low
and spent my morning blundering over making some i couldn't do that even familiar as i am with the process well leave it all and come with me over the yard i am inspecting this morning be my secretary for a while
five o'clock had passed when they emerged upon the new england town's stolid main street they walked beneath the venerable flanking trees toward the maxineff villa which surmounted a wooded continuation of the street
in a high gray and white room they found missus maxineff she touched a bell as she said in an odd manner of inflecting but you are late moving to one end of the spindle legged sofa she made place at her side for maxineff
and motioned noakes to a chair near them ah i see it you will be a second max all science all absence and a woman waiting at home immolation you call it she continued
her hands moving quickly among the appurtenances of the tea table that is what you prefer my young mister noakes i am under orders you know missus max said noakes with a deferential inclination of the head toward maxineff
a servant brought in buttered rusks and served the men with tea orders for orders do you permit circles about your eyes as dark as they themselves are then you are easily immolate over his cup maxineff smiled encouragement to his wife
you are practical my friend confess now there is a reason for your your application noakes's attitude was uncompromising he placed his cup on the table before he spoke the reason you are thinking of missus max is not for a poor man
missus maxineff lifted her shoulders and displayed her palms in a manner that marked her nationality so science has made your dark skin white love for this business of killing men has kept you hid a week
of saving men maxineff corrected while his wife smiled as at the recurrence of a customary witticism and you gave the orders max you are to be blamed for this display of energy don't scold dear it will be a wonderful thing
a new explosive she interrupted do you remember the day we motored from stoneham i first thought of it then i have been too busy to work on it so i turned the idea over to noakes and i have made application to a home for the feeble minded missus max
noakes said mister max will never commission me again i'll be with you to morrow and we shall see wherein is the difficulty but max another now i see your scheme of universal peace quite puffed away
this will bring it nearer maxineff said enthusiastically missus maxineff shrugged her shoulders as she walked toward the long windows stay to dinner will you she said to noakes thanks but i couldn't with propriety
i forgot to have luncheon to day and your tea has given me a keen anticipation for dinner my zest would be embarrassing to you and past my control besides i shall take a half mile walk to night lucky becky then come again soon max dear she said
turning to her husband i cannot hear that again i shall be on the porch when she passed through the window noakes seated himself to listen to a new exposition of the subject which chiefly aroused maxineff's interest and loosed his speech
frequently he bent his head in acquiescence and occasionally interjected a pertinent question under the guidance of his secondary mind but his thoughts moved in a circle of smaller radius what to him was a policy of world peace
he cared not a jot what scheme of universal pacification men dreamed over maxineff's argument was not new to him when he gave it serious attention he doubted its practicability the older man's voice seemed far away as it said
each new explosive deals a blow at war war noakes had heard the same thing when his chief concluded with the government an agreement which secured to it the exclusive use of his latest product
this new thing will make war too dreadful a course for the least humanitarian nation to pursue that the variance of nations tends toward equilibrium is incontrovertible granted then noakes was practical he placed before himself a definite goal
he exerted every power to attain it and used the means at his disposal if he encompassed it he put it to the use for which it was intended he gave no thought to the extraneous influence it exerted on other phases upon which his life touched he had made a great discovery
not a fortunate accident like that of the man who discovered nitro with great danger to himself he had followed a line of reasoning to its proximate end the resulting discovery he would use to his individual advantage
he did not accord to himself the godlike privilege of casting discord among the nations and he did not care what peaceful zoo the lion the bear and the various species of eagle found as common refuge on the other hand if to each is given coextensive power
the voice slipped away as noakes humorously wondered why maxineff had never been a delegate to a peace conference the great man's argument was advanced step by step the light faded secure in the dusk noakes no longer maintained a semblance of attention
he weighed the chances of the present and actualized his long time dreams a servant clicked soft light from the wall and removed the tea table noakes rose uttered a commonplace and bade his chief good night
soon he was descending the village street keeping pace with his rapid thoughts from the exchange he dispatched a messenger to the house a half mile away he dressed quickly the while reading repeatedly his foreign letter
when dressed he sat on the bed chin in his palms and looked at the blank bedroom wall a frown hung between his brows later he sat before the shelves in his study absently scanning the backs of the books when when he said aloud
in the morning maxineff would come to search for that which he had found he might be there for weeks from morning till night in that case the work must be delayed and misguided the proportions were finely calculated the method could not be bettered
he could duplicate it in an hour if only he could repeat the experiment before to night he said and left the room with a firm step he dined well though with few words for the kindly lady in whose home he lived
he took the path by the side of the road which led in the opposite direction from the maxineff place he lit his first pipe since morning how good life was the town the plant maxineff were all behind him
ahead was a goal toward which he bore with increasing lightness of heart clearly defined decisions unregretted faded into the brightness of anticipation his pack of problems dropped from him one day more and he could speak one evening of companionable friendship
her yard was a gnomish alternation of unsullied light and alluring shade the moon utilized impartially natural and artificial features of landscape as detail for the picture of gray black and silver noakes traversed less rapidly the curved driveway
her head bent forward her mellow tinted hair coiled low she was singing softly she came to the door to meet him will duty call you back before you have been with me just a little while she asked as they entered the room
no duty has lost her voice at present she dropped into a big arm chair he turned his back to the light and sat facing her what have you been doing this week singing mostly sing now please no let's talk first
well how did cornish behave on your way back quite as well as if you had been with us noakes he leaned forward quickly do you know that's the first time you've called me noakes it slipped missus max says it you know i am weak about taking on colloquialisms
and you are sorry you have been so easily influenced noakes asked in ponderous aggrievement you do not seem to be overjoyed i am he said gently don't be hilarious over it i will i wish
well certainly noakes it shall be thanks miss beck haven't you done anything but work these days i have thought more or less strange what about you of course steady spring has passed
and to night i heard a queer thing about you what she asked in an engaging manner of invitation to confidence that you are to be married i have it on the word of my landlady i so it is rumored in the village
i am glad my family is not so anxious to thrust me off as my friends are and you are unwilling to be thrust off as you put it married no not unwilling unprepared it is so very final you know a woman gives up everything
not necessarily oh yes she does freedom family associations and in return
for now she can establish a system of responses on the part of the child that will show her when he perceives the sounds she uses in her tests in order to be certain that the little one knows what she wishes of him she must begin with some sensation that she is sure he feels
at least does not know the names of the numbers let the mother pat him once on the shoulder and then cause him to hold up one of his little fingers then pat him twice and make him hold up two fingers then three times and have him put up three fingers
now return to one pat and one finger repeat two pats and the holding up of two of his fingers and three pats and three fingers go over and over this little game until he has grasped the idea and will hold up as many fingers as he feels pats
simple as the idea seems it will often take a bright child some time to realize what you want him to do but you are sure that he feels the pats whereas if you began at once with sounds
he will weary of the exercise soon and then mother may as well turn to something else till he has rested having established this system of response on his part to sensations perceived
it is not difficult to shift from the number of pats to the number of times he hears a noise this once accomplished tests can be made with sounds of different kinds different pitch and different volume varying the distance the instruments and the vowel
when the articulate sounds are reached he can be shown a whistle then when it is blown behind his back he will hold up as many fingers as the times it was blown if he perceives the sound he can be asked to distinguish between a whistle a little bell and the clapping of the hands
the vowel sounds may be uttered not far from his ear but behind him
with unfailing accuracy or at least
a sufficiently accurate estimate can be formed of the degree of his hearing power so far as his present needs are concerned
if any ability to perceive sounds is found every effort should be made to lead the child to use it and as the most essential use of hearing is in the comprehension of spoken language the principal effort should be made along that line
take three objects the names of which are short with the principal vowels quite easily distinguished a little toy street car a cap and a toy sheep would do nicely to begin with as the three words car cap
and sheep are not easily confused place two of the objects before him the car and the sheep and speak the name of one of them car we will say loudly and distinctly close to his ear
but in such a way that he cannot see your mouth then show him the car repeat it with sheep and show him the sheep repeat car and take his little hand put it on the car then sheep
and make him put his hand on the sheep continue this process until he will indicate to you the object you name when he makes only occasional mistakes with two objects add the cap when he can get the right one about ninety per cent of the time
then take three new words returning occasionally to the first three very soon his own name and those of others with photographs to enable him to indicate which will prove of interest to him when he has successfully learned to distinguish a few single words
a beginning can be made on short sentences commands that he can execute are convenient shut your eyes open your mouth clap your hands can follow drill on the three words eyes mouth hands
open the window shut the window open the book shut the book
sit down when this beginning has been made the road is open to the gradual increase in a hearing vocabulary
so much at once as to confuse and discourage the child the suggestions already made should be studiously followed throughout his whole childhood if his hearing is not too seriously impaired
he will begin to attempt to imitate spoken sounds by the time he is twenty four to thirty months old but his ability to imitate sounds is not an accurate measure of his ability to hear he may perceive the sounds much better than he is able to reproduce them
distinct utterance comes slowly to the child with normal hearing and still more slowly and imperfectly to the child whose hearing is not good but the continued effort to make him hear words and sentences is a very valuable exercise for him
and should be faithfully continued till he is old enough to respond to the tests of hearing as outlined and it has been definitely proved that he cannot possibly tell
the question will naturally arise as to whether the child's hearing of speech can be aided by an electric or mechanical device when it is possible to make the child perceive the sound of the vowels with the unaided voice uttered very near the ear
i believe it to be better at first not to interpose any artificial device
although uttered loudly close to the ear i could awaken the attention of the child to sound and stimulate the dormant power by the use of an acousticon after a few months i have been able to dispense with the instrument and use only the unaided voice
at close range later when some vocabulary has been acquired through these auricular exercises it is often desirable to return to the acousticon and teach the child to use it in order to extend the distance at which sounds can be heard
by the use of the acousticon it then becomes possible to communicate by means of the ear without speaking at such short range it is not easy however to induce a child to use an acousticon at all times
in the case of the very slightly deaf child this visual training is not quite so important as the auricular training but when there is much deafness it is the more important of the two
the comprehension of much language can be given to the little deaf child by constantly talking just as any mother does to her hearing baby only being always careful to take a position facing the main source of light which should come from behind the child
mamma is coming mamma is here where is mamma do you love mamma
day after day week after week the mother does it for pleasure to play with and pet the dear baby she does not think of it as a teaching exercise but it is a very important one
the deaf baby will learn gradually to associate a meaning with the various sequences of movement of the lips if a little care is taken to watch his eyes and to speak when they are directed toward the speaker and to stand in such relation to the light that it falls upon the speaker's face
the speech should be the same as to the hearing child but it takes a little more care and watchfulness to have the deaf child see the same word or phrase as many times as the hearing child hears it if it is spoken when the baby is not looking it does not help
when the little one is learning to walk the mother says come to mamma go to daddy and gradually he learns come and go she has him play hide and seek with another child and she says where is tom where is the baby's mouth
and mouth and nose and the names of his playmates or brothers and sisters when he is sitting on the floor she picks him up saying up when she puts him from her lap to the floor she says down if he is naughty
she says naughty and perhaps spats his little hands and so on through the day a little care on her part a little added thought and watchfulness
perhaps a few more repetitions and little by little she will find her deaf baby learning to look at her always and to understand much that is said to him she must all this time remember also that the shades of feeling pleasure disappointment approval disapproval
doubt certainty love anger joy which are largely conveyed to the hearing child by intonation of voice must be conveyed to the deaf baby by facial expression and manner
they become very keen at interpreting moods by the look let the face be sunny and kind and interested if possible the first indication of impatience of being bored and weary will destroy much of one's influence with the deaf child
sometimes it is harder to disguise one's feelings in the face than in the voice do not be caught unawares interest cheerfulness and patience are tremendous forces to help the little deaf child some one has said
when you consent consent cordially when you refuse refuse finally when you punish
what about the baby's speech the hearing baby babbles because he gets some pleasure from the sounds and also because he desires to imitate the sounds of speech he hears around him he has his attention called constantly to sound
the sense of vibration is not as strong nor as instructive as that of sound but if the attention of the child is early called to it a watchfulness for vibration from within himself as well as from without can be aroused and a sensitiveness developed
that have been acquired when he was not conscious of any effort that will prepare him for a better and more fluent speech when the time comes for more exact articulation training but during the first two or three years of the child's life
the principal stress should be placed upon his learning to understand what is said to him without bothering much about his speaking himself in the case of the hearing child the understanding of language comes before he can himself utter it
this must also be the case with the deaf child and the period preceding utterance must be longer by reason of his handicap than in the case of a child with normal hearing
by the time he is two years old he has gained maturity and grasp enough to play many little educational games with his mother and his little brothers and sisters or playmates these games should be calculated to develop his various faculties
his powers of observation memory and concentration to develop a faculty is really to train the brain as a matter of fact we see and hear and taste and smell and feel with our brains the eye of a two year old child is practically
as perfect an optical instrument as the eye of a boy of ten and yet how much more the older boy seems to see
that even the baby eyes received but did not understand of course where the instrument is found to be imperfect we can assist it by means of additional lenses or perhaps by some one of the skillful operations now performed by oculists
and as the sight is of such increased importance to a deaf child the greatest care and watchfulness should be given to his eyes do not let him sleep or lie facing the sun or any other powerful light but throughout his life be careful that all his use of eyesight
be under conditions of ample and well directed light supposing that the simple tests referred to heretofore have shown that the eyes as optical instruments are sufficiently perfect our efforts need to be to train the brain to take cognizance of
and to interpret the impressions transmitted to it by the eyes we shall not be able to improve the working of the eye by our efforts but we can educate the brain color and form make the earliest appeal to the child's eyes and we can use them for our educational play
the duplicate set of worsted balls of the seven primal colors can be increased to include easily distinguishable shades the child can be sent on entertaining voyages of discovery around the room with a ball of a certain color to find other objects similar in color in the rugs books
mother picks up some one of the objects directs the attention of the little one to it and after he has observed it somewhat she puts it back in the pile and moves all the objects about till they are well mixed up
take it from him and while his eyes are still closed place it once more in the pile let him then open his eyes and see if he can indicate the object he had previously held
give the game another turn by asking him to find by means of touch alone while the eyes are still closed the object that he has been feeling after it is restored to the pile of other objects
still another turn can be given by first letting him see the object without touching it then having him close his eyes and by touch alone select it from the pile
a set of wooden forms such as spheres cubes pyramids cones cylinders and similar but truncated forms can be obtained at any school supply store to these can be added common household objects such as small frames
vases napkin rings spoons forks and other similar things as well as some of the forms included in a complete set of the montessori material the montessori weighted forms are excellent for training his muscular recognition of difference of weight
then hand the boy one of the weighted balls and after he has felt its weight put it back with the other similar appearing balls and see if he can again discover it an outfit for training his tactile sense can be made in any home by collecting duplicate pieces of cloth
having different textures such as velvet rough woolen tweeds or homespun
also by stretching on a wooden frame strings of varying sizes weaves and twists
the pieces that correspond each to each with those on the frame or on the cards if there is a guitar or mandolin or zither or a piano available perhaps by and by
the mother can teach the child to recognize the difference in the vibratory sensation perceived by his fingers touching the body of the instrument when a low note and a high note are struck alternately she can make a game of this too
by later having him close his eyes and place his fingers in contact with the instrument and then tell her approximately what string or key she struck the next step if she can take it is to place his little hands upon her chest
to feel the lowest notes of her voice and upon both the chest and the top of her head to feel the highest and endeavoring to get him to recognize the similarity in vibratory sensation between what he now feels and what he previously felt on the musical instruments
the last step in this series of exercises to awaken a recognition of vibratory sensations is to lead him to feel in his own chest and head the vibrations set up by his own voice in shouting and laughing crying or babbling
these hints that are so quickly and easily given require weeks and months of patient happy effort to carry out beware that no one of them is repeated or continued so long at a time as to become a thing dreaded and disliked
remember that the attention of a little child is like a constantly flitting butterfly that rests for only a moment or two on anything before dancing away to something else there are many little games with kindergarten materials that can be used to develop the powers of attention
observation imitation and obedience the laying in simple designs by watchful imitation of the mother of colored sticks
stringing of large beads weaving with wide strips of colored paper simple designs that a mother could invent with the material at hand or could learn from any kindergarten manual the point that must be firmly but pleasantly insisted upon in these exercises
is careful and obedient following by the child of the exact order of movement and manner of placing adopted by the mother teacher the entire value of these exercises for the purpose she wishes to accomplish depends upon accurate observation by the child
from the professional instruction that must come later will make no mistake in supplying herself with the set of materials and making herself intelligent on their use by the child
developing the lungs the tendency of the deaf child is to grow up with less development of lungs and of the imagination than hearing children in order to overcome this tendency the child must be encouraged
and taught to play games and use toys that will exercise the lungs and develop the power of imaginative thought in order to expand and strengthen the lungs through the child's play
also the rubber balloon toys even though the torturing squeak of the toys is only heard by those in the vicinity and not by himself
the more steadily the child blows the more mysteriously the ball remains at a fixed point whirling rapidly but without any apparent support blowing soap bubbles especially trying to blow big ones
for physical development in which the lungs come in for their share and the sense of mechanical rhythm is fostered
proud in boy scout uniform dancing is a very desirable accomplishment for the deaf child tops and tenpins cultivate dexterity as do playing ball and rolling hoop
to reproduce objects and animals and to construct models of imaginary houses yards
perhaps five feet square with sides six inches high and completely lined with enamel cloth to make it watertight is a wonderful implement for constructive play on the part of the child whole villages of farms fields and forests
ponds and brooks roads and railroads can be made here in miniature building blocks of wood or stone the metal construction toy called mechano
tell me about their children captain when their women have brought forth children they suckle and rear them in temples set apart for all they give milk for two years or more as the physician orders
if it is a female and to the masters if it is a male and then with other young children they are pleasantly instructed in the alphabet and in the knowledge of the pictures and in running walking and wrestling also in the historical drawings
and in languages and they are adorned with a suitable garment of different colors after their sixth year they are taught natural science and then the mechanical sciences the men who are weak in intellect are sent to farms
wherefore one is called beautiful pulcher another the big nosed naso another the fat legged
another crooked torvus another lean
and so on but when they have become very skilled in their professions and done any great deed in war or in time of peace a cognomen from art is given to them such as beautiful the great painter pulcher pictor magnus
the excellent one excellens or the strong
nason fortis or the cunning or the great or very great conqueror or from the enemy anyone has overcome africanus
etruscus or if anyone has overcome manfred or tortelius he is called
and so on all these cognomens are added by the higher magistrates and very often
and with the flourish of music for gold and silver are reckoned of little value among them except as material for their vessels and ornaments which are common to all
is there no jealousy among them or disappointment to that one who has not been elected to a magistracy or to any other dignity to which he aspires captain certainly not for no one wants either necessaries or luxuries moreover
the race is managed for the good of the commonwealth
that it is natural to man to recognize his offspring and to educate them and to use his wife and house and children as his own for they say that children are bred for the preservation of the species and not for individual pleasure as saint thomas also asserts
except in so far as they are constituents of the commonwealth and since individuals for the most part bring forth children wrongly and educate them wrongly they consider that they remove destruction from the state and therefore for this reason with most sacred fear
they commit the education of the children who as it were are the element of the republic to the care of magistrates for the safety of the community is not that of a few and thus they distribute male and female breeders
of the best natures according to philosophical rules plato thinks
lest some men seeing that they are kept away from the beautiful women should rise up with anger and hatred against the magistrates and he thinks further that those who do not deserve cohabitation with the more beautiful women should be deceived
while the lots are being led out of the city by the magistrates so that at all times the women who are suitable should fall to their lot not those whom they desire this shrewdness however is not necessary among the inhabitants of the city of the sun
for with them deformity is unknown when the women are exercised they get a clear complexion and become strong of limb
she is condemned to capital punishment but if the women should even desire them they have no facility for doing these things for who indeed would give them this facility further
they assert that among us abuses of this kind arise from the leisure and sloth of women by these means they lose their color and have pale complexions and become feeble and small for this reason they are without proper complexions use high sandals
and become beautiful not from strength but from slothful tenderness and thus they ruin their own tempers and natures and consequently those of their offspring furthermore if at any time a man is taken captive with ardent love for a certain woman
the two are allowed to converse and joke together and to give one another garlands of flowers or leaves and to make verses but if the race is endangered
moreover the love born of eager desire is not known among them only that born of friendship domestic affairs and partnerships are of little account because excepting the sign of honor each one receives what he is in need of
it is customary to give the pleasing gifts of honor beautiful wreaths sweet food or splendid clothes while they are feasting
but at night or outside the city they use red garments either of wool or silk they hate black as they do dung and therefore they dislike the japanese who are fond of black pride they consider the most execrable vice
and one who acts proudly is chastised with the most ruthless correction wherefore no one thinks it lowering
all work they call discipline and thus they say that it is honorable to go on foot to do any act of nature to see with the eye and to speak with the tongue and when there is need they distinguish philosophically
but with us alas it is not so in naples there exist seventy thousand souls and out of these
and they are always lean from overwork and are getting weaker every day the rest become a prey to idleness avarice ill health lasciviousness usury and other vices
and contaminate and corrupt very many families by holding them in servitude for their own use by keeping them in poverty and slavishness and by imparting to them their own vices therefore public slavery ruins them
useful works in the field in military service and in arts except those which are debasing are not cultivated the few who do practise them doing so with much aversion but in the city of the sun
while duty and work are distributed among all it only falls to each one to work for about four hours every day the remaining hours are spent in learning joyously in debating in reading in reciting in writing in walking
in exercising the mind and body and with play they allow no game which is played while sitting neither the single die nor dice nor chess nor others like these but they play with the ball with the sack with the hoop
with wrestling with hurling at the stake they say moreover that grinding poverty renders men worthless cunning sulky thievish insidious vagabonds liars
deceivers boasters wanting in affection
make up the community they are rich because they want nothing poor because they possess nothing and consequently they are not slaves to circumstances but circumstances serve them and on this point
they strongly recommend the religion of the christians and especially the life of the apostles
the holy roman clement says
and praises plato and socrates who thus teach but the glossary interprets this community with regard to obedience and tertullian agrees with the glossary that the first christians had everything in common except wives captain these things i know little of
the paradise of children long long ago when this old world was in its tender infancy there was a child named epimetheus who never had either father or mother and
that he might not be lonely another child fatherless and motherless like himself was sent from a far country to live with him and be his playfellow and helpmate her name was pandora
the first thing that pandora saw when she entered the cottage where epimetheus dwelt was a great box and almost the first question which she put to him after crossing the threshold was this epimetheus
but who gave it to you asked pandora and where did it come from
and the world nowadays is a very different sort of thing from what it was in their time then everybody was a child there needed no fathers and mothers to take care of the children because there was no danger nor trouble of any kind and no clothes to be mended
and there was always plenty to eat and drink whenever a child wanted his dinner he found it growing on a tree and if he looked at the tree in the morning he could see the expanding blossom of that night's supper
or at eventide he saw the tender bud of to morrow's breakfast it was a very pleasant life indeed no labour to be done no tasks to be studied
what was most wonderful of all the children never quarrelled among themselves neither had they any crying fits nor since time first began had a single one of these little mortals ever gone apart into a corner and sulked
the truth is those ugly little winged monsters called troubles which are now almost as numerous as mosquitoes had never yet been seen on the earth
but every day it grew more and more substantial until before a great while the cottage of epimetheus and pandora was less sunshiny than those of the other children
whence can the box have come pandora continually kept saying to herself and to epimetheus and what in the world can be inside of it
i wish dear pandora you would try to talk of something else come let us go and gather some ripe figs and eat them under the trees for our supper
always talking about grapes and figs cried pandora pettishly
let us run out and have a merry time with our playmates
and besides i never do have any this ugly box i am so taken up with thinking about it all the time i insist upon your telling me what is inside of it
as i have already said fifty times over i do not know replied epimetheus getting a little vexed how then can i tell you what is inside you might open it said pandora looking sideways at epimetheus and then we could see for ourselves
pandora what are you thinking of exclaimed epimetheus and his face expressed so much horror at the idea of looking into a box which had been confided to him on the condition of his never opening it that pandora thought it best not to suggest it any more
still however she could not help thinking and talking about the box
it was left at the door replied epimetheus just before you came by a person who looked very smiling and intelligent and who could hardly forbear laughing as he put it down
oh the most curious staff you ever saw cried epimetheus it was like two serpents twisting around a stick and was carved so naturally that i at first thought the serpents were alive i know him said pandora thoughtfully
nobody else has such a staff it was quicksilver and he brought me hither as well as the box no doubt he intended it for me and most probably it contains pretty dresses for me to wear or toys for you and me to play with
perhaps so answered epimetheus turning away but until quicksilver comes back and tells us so we have neither of us any right to lift the lid of the box
he went to gather figs and grapes by himself or to seek whatever amusement he could find in other society than his little playfellow's he was tired to death of hearing about the box and heartily wished that quicksilver or whatever was the messenger's name
had left it at some other child's door where pandora would never have set eyes on it
the box the box and nothing but the box it seemed as if the box were bewitched and as if the cottage were not big enough to hold it without pandora's continually stumbling over it and making epimetheus stumble over it likewise and bruising all four of their shins
well it was really hard that poor epimetheus should have a box in his ears from morning till night especially as the little people of the earth were so unaccustomed to vexations
thus a small vexation made as much disturbance then as a far bigger one would in our own times
pandora stood gazing at the box she had called it ugly above a hundred times but in spite of all that she had said against it it was positively a very handsome article of furniture and would have been quite an ornament to any room in which it should be placed
it was made of a beautiful kind of wood with dark and rich veins spreading over its surface which was so highly polished that little pandora could see her face in it
and the prettiest children ever seen reclining or sporting amid a profusion of flowers and foliage
and these various objects were so exquisitely represented and were wrought together in such harmony that flowers foliage and human beings seemed to combine into a wreath of mingled beauty but here and there peeping forth from behind the carved foliage
pandora once or twice fancied that she saw a face not so lovely or something or other that was disagreeable and which stole the beauty out of all the rest nevertheless on looking more closely and touching the spot with her finger
all wore a very lively and rather mischievous expression which looked almost as if it needs must burst out of the carved lips and utter itself in words had the mouth spoken it would probably have been something like this
do not be afraid pandora what harm can there be in opening the box
never was a knot so cunningly twisted nor with so many ins and outs which roguishly defied the skilfullest fingers to disentangle them and yet by the very difficulty that there was in it pandora was the more tempted to examine the knot
two or three times already she had stooped over the box and taken the knot between her thumb and forefinger but without positively trying to undo it
nay perhaps i could tie it up again after undoing it there would be no harm in that surely even epimetheus would not blame me for that i need not open the box and should not of course without the foolish boy's consent even if the knot were untied
great deal too much leisure they could not be forever playing at hide and seek among the flower shrubs or at blind man's buff with garlands over their eyes or at whatever other games had been found out while mother earth was in her babyhood
when life is all sport toil is the real play there was absolutely nothing to do a little sweeping and dusting about the cottage i suppose and the gathering of fresh flowers which were only too abundant everywhere
and arranging them in vases and poor little pandora's day's work was over and then for the rest of the day there was the box after all i am not quite sure that the box was not a blessing to her in its way
it supplied her with such a variety of ideas to think of and to talk about whenever she had anybody to listen
martin luther horror and fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages why then give a date to this story i have to tell
let it suffice to say that at the period of which i speak there existed in the interior of hungary a settled although hidden belief in the doctrines of the metempsychosis
of the doctrines themselves that is of their falsity or of their probability i say nothing i assert however that much of our incredulity
which were fast verging to absurdity they the hungarians differed very essentially from their eastern authorities for example the soul said the former
the origin of this enmity seems to be found in the words of an ancient prophecy a lofty name shall have a fearful fall when as the rider over his horse
the mortality of metzengerstein shall triumph over the immortality of berlifitzing to be sure the words themselves had little or no meaning but more trivial causes have given rise
and that no long while ago to consequences equally eventful besides the estates which were contiguous had long exercised a rival influence in the affairs of a busy government moreover
near neighbors are seldom friends and the inhabitants of the castle berlifitzing might look from their lofty buttresses into the very windows of the palace metzengerstein
should have succeeded in setting and keeping at variance two families already predisposed to quarrel by every instigation of hereditary jealousy the prophecy seemed to imply if it implied anything
a final triumph on the part of the already more powerful house and was of course remembered with the more bitter animosity by the weaker and less influential wilhelm count berlifitzing
although loftily descended was at the epoch of this narrative an infirm and doting old man remarkable for nothing but an inordinate and inveterate personal antipathy to the family of his rival and so passionate
a love of horses and of hunting that neither bodily infirmity great age nor mental incapacity prevented his daily participation in the dangers of the chase frederick baron metzengerstein
was on the other hand not yet of age his father the minister g died young his mother the lady mary followed him quickly after frederick was at that time in his fifteenth year
at the decease of the former entered immediately upon his vast possessions such estates were seldom held before by a nobleman of hungary his castles were without number
the chief in point of splendor and extent was the chateau metzengerstein the boundary line of his dominions was never clearly defined but his principal park embraced a circuit of fifty miles
upon the succession of a proprietor so young with a character so well known to a fortune so unparalleled little speculation was afloat in regard to his probable course of conduct
shameful debaucheries flagrant treacheries unheard of atrocities gave his trembling vassals quickly to understand that no servile submission on their part no punctilios of conscience on his own
were thenceforward to prove any security against the remorseless fangs of a petty caligula on the night of the fourth day the stables of the castle berlifitzing were discovered to be on fire
and the unanimous opinion of the neighborhood added the crime of the incendiary to the already hideous list of the baron's misdemeanors and enormities
the rich although faded tapestry hangings which swung gloomily upon the walls represented the shadowy and majestic forms of a thousand illustrious ancestors here
rich ermined priests and pontifical dignitaries familiarly seated with the autocrat and the sovereign put a veto on the wishes of a temporal king
there the dark tall statures of the princes metzengerstein their muscular war coursers plunging over the carcasses of fallen foes startled the steadiest nerves with their vigorous expression
but as the baron listened or affected to listen to the gradually increasing uproar in the stables of berlifitzing or perhaps pondered upon some more novel some more decided act of audacity
his eyes became unwittingly rivetted to the figure of an enormous and unnaturally colored horse represented in the tapestry as belonging to a saracen ancestor of the family of his rival
on frederick's lip arose a fiendish expression as he became aware of the direction which his glance had without his consciousness assumed yet he did not remove it
on the contrary he could by no means account for the overwhelming anxiety which appeared falling like a pall upon his senses it was with difficulty that he reconciled his dreamy and incoherent feelings with the certainty of being awake
the longer he gazed the more absorbing became the spell the more impossible did it appear that he could ever withdraw his glance from the fascination of that tapestry but the tumult without becoming suddenly more violent
with a compulsory exertion he diverted his attention to the glare of ruddy light thrown full by the flaming stables upon the windows of the apartment the action however was but momentary his gaze returned mechanically to the wall
to his extreme horror and astonishment the head of the gigantic steed had in the meantime altered its position the neck of the animal before arched as if in compassion over the prostrate body of its lord
was now extended at full length in the direction of the baron the eyes before invisible now wore an energetic and human expression while they gleamed with a fiery and unusual red
and the distended lips of the apparently enraged horse left in full view his gigantic and disgusting teeth stupified with terror the young nobleman tottered to the door
assuming the exact position and precisely filling up the contour of the relentless and triumphant murderer of the saracen berlifitzing to lighten the depression of his spirits the baron hurried into the open air
at the principal gate of the palace he encountered three equerries with much difficulty and at the imminent peril of their lives they were restraining the convulsive plunges of a gigantic and fiery colored horse
whose horse where did you get him demanded the youth in a querulous and husky tone of voice as he became instantly aware that the mysterious steed in the tapestried chamber was the very counterpart of the furious animal before his eyes
at least he is claimed by no other owner we caught him flying all smoking and foaming with rage from the burning stables of the castle berlifitzing
supposing him to have belonged to the old count's stud of foreign horses we led him back as an estray but the grooms there disclaim any title to the creature which is strange since he bears evident marks of having made a narrow escape from the flames
you are mistaken my lord the horse as i think we mentioned is not from the stables of the count if such had been the case we know our duty better than to bring him into the presence of a noble of your family true observed the baron dryly
and at that instant a page of the bedchamber came from the palace with a heightened color and a precipitate step he whispered into his master's ear an account of the sudden disappearance of a small portion of the tapestry in an apartment which he designated
entering at the same time into particulars of a minute and circumstantial character but from the low tone of voice in which these latter were communicated nothing escaped to gratify the excited curiosity of the equerries the young frederick
during the conference seemed agitated by a variety of emotions he soon however recovered his composure and an expression of determined malignancy settled upon his countenance
as he gave peremptory orders that a certain chamber should be immediately locked up and the key placed in his own possession have you heard of the unhappy death of the old hunter berlifitzing
the huge steed which that nobleman had adopted as his own plunged and curvetted with redoubled fury down the long avenue which extended from the chateau to the stables of metzengerstein no said the baron turning abruptly toward the speaker
and to a noble of your name will be i imagine no unwelcome intelligence a rapid smile shot over the countenance of the listener how died he in his rash exertions to rescue a favorite portion of his hunting stud
he has himself perished miserably in the flames
offered any thing congenial with those of the neighboring aristocracy he was never to be seen beyond the limits of his own domain and in this wide and social world was utterly companionless
unless indeed that unnatural impetuous and fiery colored horse which he henceforward continually bestrode had any mysterious right to the title of his friend
numerous invitations on the part of the neighborhood for a long time however periodically came in will the baron honor our festivals with his presence will the baron join us in a hunting of the boar
metzengerstein does not hunt metzengerstein will not attend were the haughty and laconic answers these repeated insults were not to be endured by an imperious nobility
such invitations became less cordial less frequent in time they ceased altogether the widow of the unfortunate count berlifitzing was even heard to express a hope
that the baron might be at home when he did not wish to be at home since he disdained the company of his equals and ride when he did not wish to ride since he preferred the society of a horse
and merely proved how singularly unmeaning our sayings are apt to become when we desire to be unusually energetic the charitable nevertheless attributed the alteration in the conduct of the young nobleman
to the natural sorrow of a son for the untimely loss of his parents forgetting however his atrocious and reckless behavior during the short period immediately succeeding that bereavement
some there were indeed who suggested a too haughty idea of self consequence and dignity others again among them may be mentioned the family physician did not hesitate in speaking of morbid melancholy
indeed the baron's perverse attachment to his lately acquired charger an attachment which seemed to attain new strength from every fresh example of the animal's ferocious and demon like propensities
at length became in the eyes of all reasonable men a hideous and unnatural fervor in the glare of noon at the dead hour of night in sickness or in health in calm or in tempest
there were circumstances moreover which coupled with late events gave an unearthly and portentous character to the mania of the rider and to the capabilities of the steed
the space passed over in a single leap had been accurately measured and was found to exceed by an astounding difference the wildest expectations of the most imaginative
his stable too was appointed at a distance from the rest and with regard to grooming and other necessary offices none but the owner in person had ventured to officiate or even to enter the enclosure of that particular stall
it was also to be observed that although the three grooms who had caught the steed as he fled from the conflagration at berlifitzing had succeeded in arresting his course by means of a chain bridle and noose
yet no one of the three could with any certainty affirm that he had during that dangerous struggle or at any period thereafter actually placed his hand upon the body of the beast
instances of peculiar intelligence in the demeanor of a noble and high spirited horse are not to be supposed capable of exciting unreasonable attention especially among men who
but there were certain circumstances which intruded themselves per force upon the most skeptical and phlegmatic
and it is said there were times when the animal caused the gaping crowd who stood around to recoil in horror from the deep and impressive meaning of his terrible stamp
times when the young metzengerstein turned pale and shrunk away from the rapid and searching expression of his earnest and human looking eye
among all the retinue of the baron however none were found to doubt the ardor of that extraordinary affection which existed on the part of the young nobleman for the fiery qualities of his horse
at least none but an insignificant and misshapen little page whose deformities were in everybody's way and whose opinions were of the least possible importance he if his ideas are worth mentioning at all had the effrontery
to assert that his master never vaulted into the saddle without an unaccountable and almost imperceptible shudder and that upon his return from every long continued and habitual ride an expression of triumphant malignity
distorted every muscle in his countenance one tempestuous night metzengerstein awaking from a heavy slumber descended like a maniac from his chamber and mounting in hot haste bounded away into the mazes of the forest
an occurrence so common attracted no particular attention but his return was looked for with intense anxiety on the part of his domestics when after some hours absence the stupendous and magnificent battlements of the chateau metzengerstein
were discovered crackling and rocking to their very foundation under the influence of a dense and livid mass of ungovernable fire
as the flames when first seen had already made so terrible a progress that all efforts to save any portion of the building were evidently futile the astonished neighborhood stood idly around in silent and pathetic wonder
than that brought about by the most appalling spectacles of inanimate matter up the long avenue of aged oaks which led from the forest to the main entrance of the chateau metzengerstein a steed
was seen leaping with an impetuosity which outstripped the very demon of the tempest the career of the horseman was indisputably on his own part uncontrollable
the agony of his countenance the convulsive struggle of his frame gave evidence of superhuman exertion but no sound save a solitary shriek escaped from his lacerated lips which were bitten through and through in the intensity of terror
one instant and the clattering of hoofs resounded sharply and shrilly above the roaring of the flames and the shrieking of the winds another and clearing at a single plunge the gate way and the moat
the steed bounded far up the tottering staircases of the palace and with its rider disappeared amid the whirlwind of chaotic fire the fury of the tempest immediately died away
and a dead calm sullenly succeeded a white flame still enveloped the building like a shroud and streaming far away into the quiet atmosphere shot forth a glare of preternatural light
while a cloud of smoke settled heavily over the battlements in the distinct colossal figure of
so i understand you wish me to go down at once said louis craven this is friday say monday wharton nodded he and craven were sitting in marcella's little sitting room
their hostess and edith craven had escaped through the door in the back kitchen communicating with the hurds tenement so that the two men might be left alone a while the interview between them had gone smoothly
and louis craven had accepted immediate employment on the labour clarion as the paper's correspondent in the midlands with special reference to the important strike just pending
wharton whose tendency in matters of business was always to go rather further than he had meant to go for the sake generally of making an impression on the man with whom he was dealing had spoken of a two years engagement
and had offered two hundred a year so far as that went craven was abundantly satisfied and i understand from you he said that the paper goes in for the strike that you will fight it through
he fixed his penetrating greenish eyes on his companion louis craven was now a tall man with narrow shoulders a fine oval head and face delicate features and a nervous look of short sight
producing in appearance and manner a general impression of thin grace and of a courtesy which was apt to pass unaccountably into sarcasm wharton had never felt himself personally at ease with him
either now or in the old days of venturist debates certainly we shall fight it through wharton replied with emphasis i have gone through the secretary's statement which i now hand over to you
and i never saw a clearer case the poor wretches have been skinned too long it is high time the public backed them up there are two of the masters in the house denny i should say belonged quite to the worst type of employer going
he spoke with light venom buttoning his coat as he spoke with the air of the busy public man who must not linger over an appointment oh denny said craven musing yes denny is a hard man
but a just one according to his lights there are plenty worse than he wharton was disagreeably reminded of the venturist habit of never accepting anything that was said quite as it stood of not even in small things swearing to the words of anybody
he was conscious of the quick passing feeling that his judgment with regard to denny ought to have been enough for craven one thing more said craven suddenly as wharton looked for his stick you see there is talk of arbitration
oh yes i know said wharton impatiently a mere blind the men have been done by it twice before they get some big wig from the neighbourhood not in the trade indeed but next door to it and of course the award goes against the men
then the paper will not back arbitration craven took out a note book no the quarrel itself is as plain as a pikestaff the men are asking for a mere pittance and must get it if they are to live
it's like all these home industries abominably ground down we must go for them i mean to go for them hot and strong poor devils did you read the evidence in that bluebook last year arbitration no indeed let them live first
craven looked up absently and i think he said you gave me mister thorpe's address mister thorpe was the secretary again wharton gulped down his annoyance
if he chose to be expansive it was not for craven to take no notice craven however except in print where he could be as vehement as anybody else never spoke but in the driest way of those workman's grievances which in reality burnt at the man's heart
a deep disdain for what had always seemed to him the cheapest form of self advertisement held him back it was this dryness combined with an amazing disinterestedness which had so far stood in his way
may we come in said marcella's voice by all means said wharton with a complete change of tone business is up and i am off he took up his hat as he spoke not at all
tea is just coming without which no guest departs said marcella taking as she spoke a little tray from the red haired daisy who followed her and motioning to the child to bring the tea table wharton looked at her irresolute
he had spent half an hour with her tete a tete before louis craven arrived and he was really due at the house but now that she was on the scene again he did not find it so easy to go away
how astonishingly beautiful she was even in this disguise she wore her nurse's dress for her second daily round began at half past four and her cloak bonnet and bag were lying ready on a chair beside her
the dress was plain brown holland with collar and armlets of white linen but to wharton's eye the dark italian head and the long slenderness of form had never shown more finely he hesitated and stayed
all well said marcella in a half whisper as she passed louis craven on her way to get some cake he nodded and smiled and she went back to the tea table with an eye all gaiety pleased with herself and everybody else
the quarter of an hour that followed went agreeably enough wharton sat among the little group far too clever to patronise a cat let alone a venturist but none the less master and conscious master of the occasion
because it suited him to take the airs of equality craven said little but as he lounged in marcella's long cane chair with his arms behind his head his serene and hazy air showed him contented
and marcella talked and laughed with the animation that belongs to one whose plots for improving the universe have at least temporarily succeeded
or did it betray perhaps a woman's secret consciousness of some presence beside her more troubling and magnetic to her than others well then friday said wharton at last when his time was more than spent
you must be there early for there will be a crush miss craven comes too excellent i will tell the doorkeeper to look out for you good bye good bye
and with a hasty shake of the hand to the cravens and one more keen glance first at marcella and then round the little workman's room in which they had been sitting he went he had hardly departed before anthony craven
the lame elder brother who must have passed him on the stairs appeared well any news he said as marcella found him a chair all right said louis whose manner had entirely changed since wharton had left the room
i am to go down on monday to report the damesley strike that is to be a month's trial and then a salary two hundred a year oh it'll do he fidgeted and looked away from his brother as though trying to hide his pleasure
but in spite of him it transformed every line of the pinched and worn face and you and anna will walk to the registry office next week said anthony sourly as he took his tea
it can't be next week said edith craven's quiet voice interposing anna's got to work out her shirt making time she only left the tailoresses and began this new business ten days ago and she was to have a month at each
marcella's lifted eyebrows asked for explanations she had not yet seen louis's betrothed but she was understood to be a character and a better authority on many labour questions than he
louis explained that anna was exploring various sweated trades for the benefit of an east end newspaper she had earned fourteen shillings her last week at tailoring
but the feat had exhausted her so much that he had been obliged to insist on two or three days respite before moving on to shirts
shirts were now brisk and the hours appallingly long in this heat it was on shirts they made acquaintance said edith pensively louis was lodging on the second floor she in the third floor back and they used to pass on the stairs
one day she heard him imploring the little slavey to put some buttons on his shirts the slavey tossed her head and said she'd see about it when he'd gone out anna came downstairs calmly demanded his shirts and having the slavey under her thumb got them
walked off with them and mended them all when louis came home he discovered a neat heap reposing on his table of course he wept whatever he may say but next morning
miss anna found her shoes outside her door blacked as they had never been blacked before with a note inside one of them affecting wasn't it thenceforward as long as they remained in those lodgings anna mended and louis blacked
naturally anthony and i drew our conclusions marcella laughed you must bring her to see me she said to louis i will said louis with some perplexity if i can get hold of her
but when she isn't stitching she's writing or trying to set up unions she does the work of six she'll earn nearly as much as i do when we're married oh we shall swim
anthony surveyed his radiant aspect so unlike the gentle or satirical detachment which made his ordinary manner with a darkening eye as though annoyed by his effusion two hundred a year he said slowly
about what mister harry wharton spends on his clothes i should think the labour men tell me he is superb in that line and for the same sum that he spends on his clothes he is able to buy you louis body and soul
and you seem inclined to be grateful never mind said louis recklessly he didn't buy some one else and i am grateful no by heaven you shan't be said anthony with a fierce change of tone you
the dependent of that charlatan i don't know how i'm to put up with it you know very well what i think of him and of your becoming dependent on him marcella gave an angry start louis protested nonsense
said anthony doggedly you'll have to bear it from me i tell you unless you muzzle me too with an anna but i don't see why i should bear it said marcella turning upon him i think you know that i owe mister wharton a debt
please remember it anthony looked at her an instant in silence a question crossed his mind concerning her
their mother was dead and their father had married again a woman who was most unkind and cruel to them one day the boy took his sister's hand and said to her dear little sister
since our mother died we have not had one happy hour our stepmother gives us dry hard crusts for dinner and supper she often knocks us about and threatens to kick us out of the house
even the little dogs under the table fare better than we do for she often throws them nice pieces to eat heaven pity us oh if our dear mother knew come let us go out into the wide world
so they went out and wandered over fields and meadows the whole day till evening at last they found themselves in a large forest it began to rain and the little sister said see brother
heaven and our hearts weep together at last tired out with hunger and sorrow and the long journey they crept into a hollow tree laid themselves down and slept till morning when they awoke
the sun was high in the heavens and shone brightly into the hollow tree so they left their place of shelter and wandered away in search of water oh i am so thirsty said the boy
if we could only find a brook or a stream he stopped to listen and said stay i think i hear a running stream so he took his sister by the hand and they ran together to find it
now the stepmother of these poor children was a wicked witch she had seen the children go away and following them cautiously like a snake had bewitched all the springs and streams in the forest
the pleasant trickling of a brook over the pebbles was heard by the children as they reached it and the boy was just stooping to drink when the sister heard in the babbling of the brook whoever drinks of me a tiger soon will be
then she cried quickly stay brother stay do not drink or you will become a wild beast and tear me to pieces thirsty as he was the brother conquered his desire to drink at her words and said dear sister
i will wait till we come to a spring so they wandered farther but as they approached she heard in the bubbling spring the words who drinks of me a wolf will be brother i pray you do not drink of this brook
you will be changed into a wolf and devour me again the brother denied himself and promised to wait but he said at the next stream i must drink say what you will my thirst is so great
not far off ran a pretty streamlet looking clear and bright but here also in its murmuring waters the sister heard the words who dares to drink of me turned to a stag will be dear brother do not drink
she began but she was too late for her brother had already knelt by the stream to drink and as the first drop of water touched his lips he became a fawn how the little sister wept over the enchanted brother
and the fawn wept also he did not run away but stayed close to her and at last she said stand still dear fawn don't fear i must take care of you but i will never leave you
so she untied her little golden garter and fastened it round the neck of the fawn then she gathered some soft green rushes and braided them into a soft string which she fastened to the fawn's golden collar
and then led him away into the depths of the forest after wandering about for some time they at last found a little deserted hut and the sister was overjoyed for she thought it would form a nice shelter for them both
so she led the fawn in and then went out alone to gather moss and dried leaves to make him a soft bed every morning she went out to gather dried roots nuts and berries for her own food and sweet fresh grass for the fawn
which he ate out of her hand and the poor little animal went out with her and played about as happy as the day was long when evening came and the poor sister felt tired
she would kneel down and say her prayers and then lay her delicate head on the fawn's back which was a soft warm pillow on which she could sleep peacefully
after they had been alone in the forest for some time and the little sister had grown a lovely maiden and the fawn a large stag a numerous hunting party came to the forest and amongst them the king of the country
the sounding horn the barking of the dogs the holloa of the huntsmen resounded through the forest and were heard by the stag who became eager to join his companions oh dear he said do let me go and see the hunt
i cannot restrain myself and he begged so hard that at last she reluctantly consented but remember she said i must lock the cottage door against those huntsmen
so when you come back in the evening and knock i shall not admit you unless you say dear little sister let me in he bounded off as she spoke scarcely stopping to listen
he had not run far when the king's chief hunter caught sight of the beautiful animal and started off in chase of him but it was no easy matter to overtake such rapid footsteps once when he thought he had him safe
the fawn sprang over the bushes and disappeared as it was now nearly dark he ran up to the little cottage knocked at the door and cried dear little sister let me in the door was instantly opened
and oh how glad his sister was to see him safely resting on his soft pleasant bed a few days after this the huntsmen were again in the forest and when the fawn heard the holloa he could not rest in peace
but begged his sister again to let him go she opened the door and said i will let you go this time but pray do not forget to say what i told you when you return this evening
pointed it out to the king and they determined to hunt it they chased him with all their skill till the evening but he was too light and nimble for them to catch till a shot wounded him slightly in the foot so that he was obliged to hide himself in the bushes
and after the huntsmen were gone limp slowly home one of them however determined to follow him at a distance and discover where he went what was his surprise at seeing him go up to a door and knock and to hear him say
dear little sister let me in the door was only opened a little way and quickly shut but the huntsman had seen enough to make him full of wonder when he returned and described to the king what he had seen
we will have one more chase to morrow said the king and discover this mystery in the meantime the loving sister was terribly alarmed at finding the stag's foot wounded and bleeding she quickly washed off the blood
and after bathing the wound placed healing herbs on it and said lie down on your bed dear fawn and the wound will soon heal if you rest your foot in the morning the wound was so much better that the fawn felt the foot almost as strong as ever
and so when he again heard the holloa of the hunters he could not rest oh dear sister i must go once more it will be easy for me to avoid the hunters now and my foot feels quite well
they will not hunt me unless they see me running and i don't mean to do that but his sister wept and begged him not to go if they kill you dear fawn i shall be here alone in the forest forsaken by the whole world
and i shall die of grief he said if i remain here listening to the hunter's horn so at length his sister with a heavy heart set him free and he bounded away joyfully into the forest
as soon as the king caught sight of him he said to the huntsmen follow that stag about but don't hurt him so they hunted him all day but at the approach of sunset the king said to the hunter who had followed the fawn the day before come
and show me the little cottage so they went together and when the king saw it he sent his companion home and went on alone so quickly that he arrived there before the fawn and going up to the little door knocked and said softly
dear little sister let me in as the door opened the king stepped in and in great astonishment saw a maiden more beautiful than he had ever seen in his life standing before him
but how frightened she felt to see instead of her dear little fawn a noble gentleman walk in with a gold crown on his head however he appeared very friendly and after a little talk he held out his hand to her and said
wilt thou go with me to my castle and be my dear wife
i would willingly but i cannot leave my dear fawn he must go with me wherever i am he shall remain with you as long as you live replied the king and i will never ask you to forsake him while they were talking
the fawn came bounding in looking quite well and happy then his sister fastened the string of rushes to his collar took it in her hand and led him away from the cottage in the wood to where the king's beautiful horse waited for him
the king placed the maiden before him on his horse and rode away to his castle the fawn following by their side soon after their marriage was celebrated with great splendour and the fawn was taken the greatest care of
and played where he pleased or roamed about the castle grounds in happiness and safety in the meantime the wicked stepmother who had caused these two young people such misery
supposed that the sister had been devoured by wild beasts and that the fawn had been hunted to death therefore when she heard of their happiness
such envy and malice arose in her heart that she could find no rest till she had tried to destroy it she and her ugly daughter came to the castle when the queen had a little baby
and one of them pretended to be a nurse and at last got the mother and child into their power they shut the queen up in the bath and tried to suffocate her and the old woman put her own ugly daughter in the queen's bed
that the king might not know she was away she would not however let him speak to her but pretended that she must be kept quite quiet the queen escaped from the bath room where the wicked old woman had locked her up but she did not go far
as she wanted to watch over her child and the little fawn for two nights the baby's nurse saw a figure of the queen come into the room and take up her baby and nurse it then she told the king
and he determined to watch himself the old stepmother who acted as nurse to her ugly daughter whom she tried to make the king believe was his wife had said that the queen was too weak to see him and never left her room
there cannot be two queens said the king to himself so to night i will watch in the nursery as soon as the figure came in and took up her baby he saw it was his real wife and caught her in his arms saying
you are my own beloved wife as beautiful as ever the wicked witch had thrown her into a trance hoping she would die and that the king would then marry her daughter but on the king speaking to her the spell was broken
the queen told the king how cruelly she had been treated by her stepmother and on hearing this he became very angry and had the witch and her daughter brought to justice they were both sentenced to die
the daughter to be devoured by wild beasts and the mother to be burnt alive no sooner however was she reduced to ashes than the charm which held the queen's brother in the form of a stag was broken
he recovered his own natural shape and appeared before them a tall handsome young man
chapter seven tells of an extraordinary incident in cullen mayle's bedroom i was very tired but in spite of my fatigue it was some while before i fell asleep
parmiter had thrown a new light upon the business tonight and by the help of that light i arrayed afresh my scanty knowledge the strangeness of my position besides kept me in some excitement
clutterbuck might well talk about impertinence and i could not but wonder what in the world i should find to say if dick was late in the morning finally there was the adventure of that night
i felt myself again slipping down the wet grass and dangling over the precipice i heard again that unearthly screeching which had so frightened dick and perplexed me it perplexed me still
i could not for a moment entertain dick's supposition of a spirit this was the middle of the eighteenth century you will understand and i had come fresh from london ghosts and bogies might do very well for the island of tresco
but mister berkeley was not to be terrified with any such old wives stories and so mister berkeley fell asleep at what precise hour the thing happened i do not know
the room was so dark that i could not have read my watch even if i had looked at it which i did not think to do but at some time during that night i woke up quite suddenly with a clear sense that i had been waked up
i sat up in my bed with my heart beating very quick
the fog was still thick about the house so that hardly a glimmer of light came from the window but there was some one in the room i knew for i could hear a rustle as of stealthy movements
and then straight in front of me between the two posts of the bed foot i saw something white that wavered and swayed this way and that
only an hour or so before i had been boasting to myself that i was london bred and lived in the middle of the eighteenth century but none the less my hair stirred upon my head
and all the moisture dried up in my throat as i stared at that dim white thing wavering and swaying between the bed posts it was taller than any human being that i had seen
i remembered the weird screeching sound which i had heard in the hollow i think that in my heart i begged dick parmiter's pardon for laughing at his fears
i know that i crouched back among the hangings and shuddered till the bed shook and shook again and then it made a sound and all the blood in my veins stood still i thought that my heart would stop or my brain burst
for the sound was neither a screech like that which rose from the hollow nor a groan nor any ghostly noise it was purely human it was a kecking sound in the throat such as one makes who gasps for breath
the white thing was a live thing of flesh and blood i sprang up on the bed and jumped to the foot of it it was very dark in the room but through the darkness i could see on a level with my face the face of a woman
her eyes were open and they stared into mine i could see the whites of them our heads were so near they almost touched even then i did not understand i wondered what it was on which she stood
i noticed a streak of white which ran straight up towards the ceiling from behind her head and i wondered what that was and then suddenly her body swung against my legs she was standing on nothing whatever
again the queer gasping coughing noise broke from her lips and at last i understood it it was a gasp of a woman strangling to death that white stiff streak above her head i knew what it was too
i caught her by the waist and lifted her up till her weight rested upon my arm with the other arm i felt about her neck a thick soft scarf silk it seemed to the touch was knotted tightly round it
and the end of the scarf ran up to the cross beam above the bed posts the scarf was the streak of white i fumbled at the knot with my fingers it was a slip knot and now that no weight kept it taut it loosened easily
i slipped the noose back over her head and left it dangling the woman i laid down upon the bed where she lay choking and moaning i flung up the window and the cold fog poured into the room
i had no candle to light and nothing wherewith to light it but i remembered that my foot had knocked against a chair to the right of the window as i climbed into the room i groped for the chair and set it to face the open night
then i carried the woman to the window and placed her in the chair and supported her so that she might not fall outside i could hear the surf booming upon the sand almost within arm's reach and the air was brisk with the salt of the sea
such light as there was glimmered upon the woman's face i saw that she was young little more than a girl indeed with hair and eyes of an extreme blackness
she was of a slight figure as i knew from the ease with which i carried her but tall i could not doubt who it was for one thing the white dress she wore was of some fine soft fabric
and even in that light it was easy to see that she was beautiful i held her thus with the cold salt air blowing upon her face and in a little she began to recover she moved her hands upon her lap
and finally lifted one and held her throat with it very likely there will be some water in the room said i if you are safe if you will not fall i will look for it thank you she murmured
my presence occasioned her no surprise and this i thought was no more than natural at the moment i took my arm from her waist and groped about the room for the water jug i found it at last and a glass beside it
these i carried back to the window the girl was still seated on the chair but she had changed her attitude she had leaned her arms upon the sill and her head upon her arms
i poured out the water from the jug into the tumbler she did not raise her head i spoke to her she did not answer me a horrible fear turned me cold
i knelt down by her side and setting down the water gently lifted her head she did not resist but sank back with a natural movement into my arms her eyes were closed but she was breathing
i could feel her breath upon my cheek and it came steadily and regular i cannot describe my astonishment she was in a deep sleep i pondered for a moment what i should do should i wake the household
should i explain what had happened and my presence in the house for helen mayle's sake i must not do that since helen mayle it surely was whom i held in my arms i propped her securely in the chair then crossed the room
opened the door and listened the house was very still so far no one had been disturbed a long narrow passage stretched in front of me with doors upon either side
remembering what dick parmiter had told me i mean that every sound reverberated through the house i crept down the landing on tiptoe i had only my stockings upon my feet
and i crept forward so carefully that i could not hear my own footfalls i had taken some twenty paces when the passage opened out to my right i put out my hand and touched a balustrade
a few yards farther on the balustrade ceased there was an empty space which i took to be the beginning of the stairs and beyond the empty space the passage closed in again i crept forward
and at last at the far end of the house and on the left hand of the passage i came to that for which i searched and which i barely hoped to find an open door i held my breath and listened in the doorway
but there was no sound of any one breathing so i stepped into the room the fog was less dense it hung outside the window a thin white mist and behind that mist the day was breaking i looked round the room
it was a large bedroom and the bed had not been slept in a glance at the toilette with its dainty knick knacks of silver proved to me that it was a woman's bedroom it had two big windows looking out towards the sea
and as i stood in the dim grey light i wondered whether it was from one of those windows that adam mayle had looked years before and seen the brigantine breaking up upon the golden ball reef
but the light was broadening with the passage of every minute with the same caution which i had observed before i stole back on tiptoe to cullen mayle's room helen mayle was still asleep and she had not moved from her posture
i raised her in my arms and still she did not wake i carried her down the passage through the open door and laid her on the bed there was a coverlet folded at the end of the bed and i spread it over her
she nestled down beneath it and her lips smiled very prettily and she uttered a little purring murmur of content but this she did in her sleep she slept with the untroubled sleep of a child
her face was pale but that i took to be its natural complexion her long black eyelashes rested upon her cheeks there was no hint of any trouble in her expression no trace of any passionate despair
i could hardly believe that this was the girl who had sought to hang herself whom i had seen struggling for her breath yet there was no doubt possible she had come into the empty room
had not a fisher boy burst one night into lieutenant clutterbuck's lodging off the strand
i suppose i ought to enjoy the joke of what's going on here i wrote but somehow it doesn't amuse me pessimism on the contrary possesses me and cynicism deeply engages
i positively feel my own flesh sore from the brass nails in neil paraday's social harness the house is full of people who like him as they mention awfully
and with whom his talent for talking nonsense has prodigious success i delight in his nonsense myself why is it therefore that i grudge these happy folk their artless satisfaction mystery of the human heart
abyss of the critical spirit missus wimbush thinks she can answer that question and as my want of gaiety has at last worn out her patience she has given me a glimpse of her shrewd guess
i'm made restless by the selfishness of the insincere friend i want to monopolise paraday in order that he may push me on to be intimate with him is a feather in my cap it gives me an importance that i couldn't naturally pretend to
and i seek to deprive him of social refreshment because i fear that meeting more disinterested people may enlighten him as to my real motive all the disinterested people here are his particular admirers
and have been carefully selected as such there's supposed to be a copy of his last book in the house and in the hall i come upon ladies in attitudes bending gracefully over the first volume
i discreetly avert my eyes and when i next look round the precarious joy has been superseded by the book of life there's a sociable circle or a confidential couple and the relinquished volume lies open on its face
and as dropped under extreme coercion somebody else presently finds it and transfers it with its air of momentary desolation to another piece of furniture every one's asking every one about it all day
and every one's telling every one where they put it last i'm sure it's rather smudgy about the twentieth page i've a strong impression too that the second volume is lost has been packed in the bag of some departing guest
and yet everybody has the impression that somebody else has read to the end you see therefore that the beautiful book plays a great part in our existence why should i take the occasion of such distinguished honours
to say that i begin to see deeper into gustave flaubert's doleful refrain about the hatred of literature i refer you again to the perverse constitution of man
the princess is a massive lady with the organisation of an athlete
she contrives to commit herself extraordinarily little in a great many languages and is entertained and conversed with in detachments and relays like an institution which goes on from generation to generation
or a big building contracted for under a forfeit she can't have a personal taste any more than when her husband succeeds she can have a personal crown and her opinion on any matter is rusty and heavy and plain
made in the night of ages to last and be transmitted
she has been told everything in the world and has never perceived anything and the echoes of her education respond awfully to the rash footfall i mean the casual remark in the cold valhalla of her memory
missus wimbush delights in her wit and says there's nothing so charming as to hear mister paraday draw it out he's perpetually detailed for this job and he tells me it has a peculiarly exhausting effect
every one's beginning at the end of two days to sidle obsequiously away from her and missus wimbush pushes him again and again into the breach none of the uses i have yet seen him put to
infuriate me quite so much he looks very fagged and has at last confessed to me that his condition makes him uneasy has even promised me he'll go straight home instead of returning to his final engagements in town
last night i had some talk with him about going to day cutting his visit short so sure am i that he'll be better as soon as he's shut up in his lighthouse he told me that this is what he would like to do
reminding me however that the first lesson of his greatness has been precisely that he can't do what he likes missus wimbush would never forgive him if he should leave her before the princess has received the last hand
when i hint that a violent rupture with our hostess would be the best thing in the world for him he gives me to understand that if his reason assents to the proposition his courage hangs woefully back
he makes no secret of being mortally afraid of her and when i ask what harm she can do him that she hasn't already done he simply repeats i'm afraid i'm afraid don't enquire too closely he said last night
only believe that i feel a sort of terror it's strange when she's so kind
as tell her i must go before my date it sounds dreadfully weak but he has some reason and he pays for his imagination which puts him i should hate it in the place of others and makes him feel even against himself
their feelings their appetites their motives it's indeed inveterately against himself that he makes his imagination act what a pity he has such a lot of it he's too beastly intelligent
besides the famous reading's still to come off and it has been postponed a day to allow guy walsingham to arrive it appears this eminent lady's staying at a house a few miles off
which means of course that missus wimbush has forcibly annexed her she's to come over in a day or two missus wimbush wants her to hear mister paraday to day's wet and cold and several of the company at the invitation of the duke
have driven over to luncheon at bigwood i saw poor paraday wedge himself by command into the little supplementary seat of a brougham in which the princess and our hostess were already ensconced
if the front glass isn't open on his dear old back perhaps he'll survive bigwood i believe is very grand and frigid all marble and precedence and i wish him well out of the adventure
i can't tell you how much more and more your attitude to him in the midst of all this shines out by contrast i never willingly talk to these people about him but see what a comfort i find it to scribble to you
i appreciate it it keeps me warm there are no fires in the house missus wimbush goes by the calendar the temperature goes by the weather the weather goes by god knows what and the princess is easily heated
i've nothing but my acrimony to warm me and have been out under an umbrella to restore my circulation coming in an hour ago i found lady augusta minch rummaging about the hall when i asked her what she was looking for
she said she had mislaid something that mister paraday had lent her i ascertained in a moment that the article in question is a manuscript and i've a foreboding that it's the noble morsel he read me six weeks ago
when i expressed my surprise that he should have bandied about anything so precious i happen to know it's his only copy in the most beautiful hand in all the world lady augusta confessed to me that she hadn't had it from himself
but from missus wimbush who had wished to give her a glimpse of it as a salve for her not being able to stay and hear it read is that the piece he's to read i asked when guy walsingham arrives
it's not for guy walsingham they're waiting now it's for dora forbes lady augusta said she's coming i believe early to morrow meanwhile missus wimbush has found out about him and is actively wiring to him she says he also must hear him
the clear thing is that missus wimbush doesn't guard such a treasure so jealously as she might poor dear she has the princess to guard mister paraday lent her the manuscript to look over
she spoke you mean as if it were the morning paper lady augusta stared my irony was lost on her she didn't have time so she gave me a chance first because unfortunately i go to morrow to bigwood
and your chance has only proved a chance to lose it i haven't lost it i remember now it was very stupid of me to have forgotten i told my maid to give it to lord dorimont or at least to his man
and lord dorimont went away directly after luncheon of course he gave it back to my maid or else his man did said lady augusta i dare say it's all right
the conscience of these people is like a summer sea they haven't time to look over a priceless composition they've only time to kick it about the house i suggested that the man fired with a noble emulation
had perhaps kept the work for his own perusal and her ladyship wanted to know whether if the thing shouldn't reappear for the grand occasion appointed by our hostess the author wouldn't have something else to read that would do just as well
their questions are too delightful i declared to lady augusta briefly that nothing in the world can ever do so well as the thing that does best and at this she looked a little disconcerted
but i added that if the manuscript had gone astray our little circle would have the less of an effort of attention to make the piece in question was very long it would keep them three hours three hours
oh the princess will get up said lady augusta i thought she was mister paraday's greatest admirer i dare say she is she's so awfully clever but what's the use of being a princess
if you can't dissemble your love i asked as lady augusta was vague
and an account which he gave in the gentlemen's magazine of mister tytler's acute and able vindication of mary queen of scots the generosity of johnson's feelings shines forth in the following sentence
it has now been fashionable for near half a century to defame and vilify the house of stuart and to exalt and magnify the reign of elizabeth the stuarts have found few apologists
for the dead cannot pay for praise and who will without reward oppose the tide of popularity
a zeal for truth a desire of establishing right in opposition to fashion
i have not discovered a single private letter written by him to any of his friends it should seem however
that he had at this period a floating intention of writing a history of the recent and wonderful successes of the british arms in all quarters of the globe for among his resolutions or memorandums september eighteenth
send for books for hist of war
was not fulfilled his majestick expression would have carried down to the latest posterity the glorious achievements of his country with the same fervent glow which they produced on the mind of the time
and consecrated lies for instance we are told that on the arrival of the news of the unfortunate battle of fontenoy every heart beat and every eye was in tears now we know
have been all this concern and to say there was
may be reckoned a consecrated lie
this year mister murphy having thought himself ill treated by the reverend doctor francklin who was one of the writers of the critical review published an indignant vindication in
a poetical epistle to samuel johnson a m in which he compliments johnson in a just and elegant manner
transcendant genius whose prolific vein ne'er knew the frigid poet's toil and pain to whom apollo opens all his store and every muse presents her sacred lore say pow'rful johnson
whence thy verse is fraught with so much grace and such energy of thought whether thy juvenal instructs the age in chaster numbers and new points his rage or fair irene sees alas too late
her innocence exchang'd for guilty state whatever you write in every golden line
say where the nine thy lonely musings meet where warbles to thy ear the sacred throng thy moral sense thy dignity of song tell for you can by what unerring art
you wake to finer feelings every heart in each bright page some truth important give and bid to future times thy rambler live
during the publication of the grays inn journal a periodical paper which was successfully carried on by mister murphy alone when a very young man he happened to be in the country with mister foote
and having mentioned that he was obliged to go to london in order to get ready for the press in one of the numbers of that journal foote said to him
you need not to go on that account here is a french magazine in which you will find a very pretty oriental tale translate that and send it to your printer
mister murphy having read the tale was highly pleased with it and followed foote's advice when he returned to town this tale was pointed out to him in the rambler from whence it had been translated into the french magazine
have more materials for letters than i who stay at home and should therefore write with frequency equal to your opportunities i should be glad to have all england surveyed by you if you would impart your observations in narratives as agreeable as your last
knowledge is always to be wished to those who can communicate it well while you have been riding and running and seeing the tombs of the learned and the camps of the valiant i have only staid at home and intended to do great things which i have not done
mister sharpe is of opinion that the tedious maturation of the cataract is a vulgar errour and that it may be removed as soon as it is formed
i doubt whether it be universally true but if it be true in some cases and those cases can be distinguished
of dear missus langton you give me no account
who have little of either in common life can exhibit on the stage his voice when strained is unpleasing and when low is not always heard
but what advances he made in it cannot be ascertained he certainly was at this time not active for in his scrupulous examination of himself on easter eve he laments in his too rigorous mode of censuring his own conduct
that his life since the communion of the preceding easter had been
dissipated and useless
however contributed this year the preface to rolt's dictionary of trade and commerce in which he displays such a clear and comprehensive knowledge of the subject
as might lead the reader to think that its authour had devoted all his life to it i asked him whether he knew much of rolt and of his work
said he i never saw the man and never read the book the booksellers wanted a preface to a dictionary of trade and commerce i knew very well what such a dictionary should be and i wrote a preface accordingly
rolt who wrote a great deal for the booksellers was as johnson told me
i am just come from sam johnson
this was a sufficient specimen of his vanity and impudence but he gave a more eminent proof of it in our sister kingdom as doctor johnson informed me when akenside's pleasures of the imagination
first came out he did not put his name to the poem rolt went over to dublin published an edition of it and put his own name to it upon the fame of this he lived for several months
the ingenious mister rolt
but it was recollected that both addison and thomson were equally dull till excited by wine akenside having been informed of this imposition vindicated his right by publishing the poem with its real authour's name
several instances of such literary fraud have been detected
the manuscript of which he sent to mister innes a clergyman in england
very much surprised to see a pompous edition of it in folio dedicated to the princess dowager of wales by a doctor douglas as his own some years ago a little novel entitled
the man of feeling was assumed by mister eccles a young irish clergyman
with blottings interlineations and corrections that it might be shewn to several people as an original it was in truth the production of mister henry mackenzie
an attorney in the exchequer at edinburgh who is the authour of several other ingenious pieces but the belief with regard to mister eccles became so general that it was thought necessary
to publish an advertisement in the newspapers contradicting the report
the filiation of a literary performance is difficult of proof seldom is there any witness present at its birth a man either in confidence or by improper means
obtains possession of a copy of it in manuscript and boldly publishes it as his own the true authour in many cases
that i design to recompence rarity by length a short letter to a distant friend is in my opinion an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation a proof of unwillingness to do much
even where there is a necessity of doing something yet it must be remembered that he who continues the same course of life in the same place will have little to tell one week and one year
the silent changes made by time are not always perceived and if they are not perceived cannot be recounted i have risen and lain down talked and mused
though perhaps i have envied others his company and i am glad to have other nations made acquainted with the character of the english by a traveller who has so nicely inspected our manners and so successfully studied our literature
i received your kind letter from falmouth in which you gave me notice of your departure for lisbon and another from lisbon in which you told me that you were to leave portugal in a few days to either of these
how could any answer be returned i have had a third from turin complaining that i have not answered the former your english style still continues in its purity and vigour with vigour your genius will supply it
to use two languages familiarly and without contaminating one by the other is very difficult and to use
may be sufficient to excite industry but can hardly generate confidence i know not whether i can heartily rejoice at the kind reception which you have found or at the popularity to which you are exalted
i am willing that your merit should be distinguished but cannot wish that your affections may be gained i would have you happy wherever you are yet i would have you wish to return to england if ever you visit us again
you will find the kindness of your friends undiminished to tell you how many enquiries are made after you would be tedious or if not tedious would be vain because you may be told in a very few words
that all who knew you wish you well
will caress you at your return therefore do not let italian academicians nor italian ladies drive us from your thoughts you may find among us what you will leave behind soft smiles and easy sonnets
as may come within your power his relations will thank you for any such gratuitous attention at least they will not blame you for any evil that may happen whether they thank you or not for any good
you know that we have a new king and a new parliament
we were so weary of our old king
of whom we are so much inclined to hope great things that most of us begin already to believe them the young man is hitherto blameless but it would be unreasonable to expect much from the immaturity of juvenile years
and the ignorance of princely education he has been long in the hands of the scots and has already favoured them more than the english will contentedly endure
but perhaps he scarcely knows whom he has distinguished or whom he has disgusted
this year was the second exhibition they please themselves much with the multitude of spectators and imagine that the english school will rise in reputation reynolds is without a rival
and continues to add thousands to thousands which he deserves among other excellencies by retaining his kindness for baretti
i have not since the day of our separation suffered or done any thing considerable the only change in my way of life is that i have frequented the theatre more than in former seasons
but i have gone thither only to escape from myself we have had many new farces and the comedy called
was yet so well adapted to the stage and so well exhibited by the actors that it was crowded for near twenty nights i am digressing from myself to the play house
but a barren plan must be filled with episodes of myself i have nothing to say but that i have hitherto lived without the concurrence of my own judgment yet i continue to flatter myself that when you return
you will find me mended i do not wonder that where the monastick life is permitted every order finds votaries and every monastery inhabitants men will submit to any rule
by which they may be exempted from the tyranny of caprice and of chance they are glad to supply by external authority their own want of constancy and resolution
my curiosity would be more attracted by convents than by palaces though i am afraid that i should find expectation in both places equally disappointed and life in both places supported with impatience and quitted with reluctance
is a powerful remedy against impatience but what shall free us from reluctance those who have endeavoured to teach us to die well have taught few to die willingly yet i cannot but hope that a good life might end at last in a contented death
you see to what a train of thought i am drawn by the mention of myself let me now turn my attention upon you i hope you take care to keep an exact journal
you have given us good specimens in your letters from lisbon
but the quickness of your discernment
at least you will know by my letters whatever else they may have or want that i continue to be your most affectionate friend sam johnson
is the result of what we have thought it is founded on our thoughts it is made up of our thoughts if a man speaks or acts with an evil thought pain follows him
is the result of what we have thought it is founded on our thoughts it is made up of our thoughts if a man speaks or acts with a pure thought happiness follows him
in those who harbour such thoughts
he defeated me he robbed me in those who do not harbour such thoughts
hatred ceases by love this
but those who know it their quarrels
idle and weak mara the tempter will certainly overthrow him
his senses well controlled moderate in his food faithful and strong him mara will certainly not overthrow
who disregards temperance and truth
is well grounded in all virtues and regards also temperance and truth he
and see untruth in truth never arrive at truth
and untruth in untruth arrive at truth
passion will not break through
and he mourns in the next he mourns in both
and he delights in the next he delights in both he delights and rejoices when he sees the purity
and he suffers in the next he suffers in both he suffers when he thinks of the evil he has done he suffers more
even if he can recite a large portion of the law but is not a doer of it has no share in the priesthood but is like a cowherd
even if he can recite only a small portion of the law but having forsaken passion and hatred and foolishness possesses true knowledge and serenity of mind he caring for nothing in this world or that to come
has indeed a share in the priesthood chapter two
is the path of immortality nirvana thoughtlessness the path of death those who are in earnest do not die those who are thoughtless
having understood this clearly delight in earnestness and rejoice in the knowledge of the ariyas
meditative steady always possessed of strong powers attain to nirvana
if he is not forgetful if his deeds are pure if he acts with consideration if he restrains himself and lives according to law
men of evil wisdom the wise man keeps earnestness
nor after the enjoyment of love and lust he who is earnest and meditative obtains
he the wise climbing the terraced heights of wisdom looks down upon the fools
as one that stands on a mountain looks down upon them
awake among the sleepers the wise man advances like a racer
rise to the lordship of the gods people praise earnestness thoughtlessness
who looks with fear on thoughtlessness moves about like fire
who looks with fear on thoughtlessness cannot fall away from his perfect state he is close upon nirvana chapter three
a wise man makes straight his trembling and unsteady thought which is difficult to guard
which is difficult to hold in and flighty rushing wherever it listeth a tamed mind
for they are difficult to perceive very artful and they rush wherever they list thoughts well guarded
moves about alone is without a body and hides in the chamber of the heart will be free from the bonds of mara
if he does not know the true law if his peace of mind is troubled
if his mind is not perplexed if he has ceased to think of good or evil then there is no fear for him
and making this thought firm like a fortress one should attack mara the tempter with the weapon of knowledge one should watch him when conquered
alas this body will lie on the earth despised without understanding like a useless
or an enemy to an enemy a wrongly directed mind
not a father will do so much nor any other relative a well directed mind will do us greater service
chapter four
and the world of yama the lord of the departed and the world of the gods who shall find out the plainly shown path of virtue
and the world of yama and the world of the gods the disciple will find out the plainly shown path of virtue as a clever man
and has learnt that it is as unsubstantial as a mirage will break the flower pointed arrow of mara
and departs without injuring the flower
so let a sage dwell
not their sins of commission or omission but his own misdeeds and negligences
are the fine but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly
like a beautiful flower
are the fine and fruitful words
so many good things may be achieved by a mortal
nor that of sandal wood or of tagara and mallika flowers but the odour of good people travels even against the wind
a lotus flower or a vassiki among these sorts of perfumes the perfume of virtue
will grow full of sweet perfume and delight thus the disciple of the truly enlightened buddha shines forth by his knowledge among those who are like rubbish among the people that walk
which may be briefly described as a gnawer
it is extremely numerous in some parts of the country but it is difficult to be procured and never i believe comes out of the ground it throws up at the mouth of its burrows hillocks of earth like those of the mole but smaller
considerable tracts of country are so completely undermined by these animals that horses in passing over sink above their fetlocks the tucutucos appear to a certain degree to be gregarious
they are nocturnal in their habits and their principal food is the roots of plants which are the object of their extensive and superficial burrows this animal is universally known by a very peculiar noise which it makes when beneath the ground
a person the first time he hears it is much surprised for it is not easy to tell whence it comes nor is it possible to guess what kind of creature utters it
the noise consists in a short but not rough nasal grunt which is monotonously repeated about four times in quick succession
where this animal is abundant it may be heard at all times of the day and sometimes directly beneath one's feet when kept in a room the tucutucos move both slowly and clumsily
which appears owing to the outward action of their hind legs and they are quite incapable from the socket of the thigh bone not having a certain ligament of jumping even the smallest vertical height they are very stupid in making any attempt to escape
when angry or frightened they utter the tucutuco of those i kept alive several even the first day became quite tame not attempting to bite or to run away others were a little wilder
the man who caught them asserted that very many are invariably found blind a specimen which i preserved in spirits was in this state mister reid considers it to be the effect of inflammation in the nictitating membrane
when the animal was alive i placed my finger within half an inch of its head and not the slightest notice was taken it made its way however about the room nearly as well as the others considering the strictly subterranean habits of the tucutuco
the blindness though so common cannot be a very serious evil yet it appears strange that any animal should possess an organ frequently subject to be injured lamarck would have been delighted with this fact had he known it
on the gradually acquired
and of the proteus a reptile living in dark caverns filled with water in both of which animals the eye is in an almost rudimentary state and is covered by a tendinous membrane and skin
in the common mole the eye is extraordinarily small but perfect though many anatomists doubt whether it is connected with the true optic nerve its vision must certainly be imperfect though probably useful to the animal when it leaves its burrow
in the tucutuco which i believe never comes to the surface of the ground the eye is rather larger but often rendered blind and useless though without apparently causing any inconvenience to the animal no doubt lamarck would have said
that the tucutuco is now passing into the state of the asphalax and proteus birds of many kinds are extremely abundant on the undulating grassy plains around maldonado
one of these molothrus niger is remarkable from its habits several may often be seen standing together on the back of a cow or horse and while perched on a hedge pluming themselves in the sun they sometimes attempt to sing or rather to hiss
the noise being very peculiar resembling that of bubbles of air passing rapidly from a small orifice under water so as to produce an acute sound according to azara this bird like the cuckoo deposits its eggs in other birds nests
i was several times told by the country people that there certainly is some bird having this habit and my assistant in collecting who is a very accurate person found a nest of the sparrow of this country zonotrichia matutina
with one egg in it larger than the others
in north america there is another species of molothrus
even in such trifling peculiarities as standing on the backs of cattle it differs only in being a little smaller and in its plumage and eggs being of a slightly different shade of colour this close agreement in structure and habits
whose animal heat brings their young into life whose food they live upon and whose death would cause theirs during the period of infancy it is remarkable that some of the species but not all both of the cuckoo and molothrus
should agree in this one strange habit of their parasitical propagation whilst opposed to each other in almost every other habit the molothrus like our starling is eminently sociable and lives on the open plains without art or disguise the cuckoo as every one knows
is a singularly shy bird it frequents the most retired thickets and feeds on fruit and caterpillars in structure also these two genera are widely removed from each other
he finds that the female cuckoo which according to most observers lays at least from four to six eggs must pair with the male each time after laying only one or two eggs now if the cuckoo was obliged to sit on her own eggs she would either have to sit on all together
and therefore leave those first laid so long that they probably would become addled or she would have to hatch separately each egg or two eggs as soon as laid
she certainly would not have time enough for the successive hatchings hence we can perceive in the fact of the cuckoo pairing several times and laying her eggs at intervals the cause of her depositing her eggs in other birds nests
from having been independently led as we shall hereafter see to an analogous conclusion with regard to the south american ostrich the females of which are parasitical if i may so express it on each other each female laying several eggs in the nests of several other females
and the male ostrich undertaking all the cares of incubation like the strange foster parents with the cuckoo i will mention only two other birds which are very common and render themselves prominent from their habits
the saurophagus sulphuratus is typical of the great american tribe of tyrant flycatchers in its structure it closely approaches the true shrikes but in its habits may be compared to many birds
hovering over one spot like a hawk and then proceeding on to another when seen thus suspended in the air it might very readily at a short distance be mistaken for one of the rapacious order
at other times the saurophagus haunts the neighbourhood of water and there like a kingfisher remaining stationary it catches any small fish which may come near the margin these birds are not unfrequently kept either in cages or in courtyards
with their wings cut they soon become tame and are very amusing from their cunning odd manners which were described to me as being similar to those of the common magpie their flight is undulatory for the weight of the head and bill appears too great for the body
in the evening the saurophagus takes its stand on a bush often by the roadside
which somewhat resembles articulate words the spaniards say it is like the words bien te veo i see you well and accordingly have given it this name
a mocking bird mimus orpheus called by the inhabitants calandria is remarkable from possessing a song far superior to that of any other bird in the country
indeed it is nearly the only bird in south america which i have observed to take its stand for the purpose of singing the song may be compared to that of the sedge warbler but is more powerful some harsh notes and some very high ones
being mingled with a pleasant warbling it is heard only during the spring at other times its cry is harsh and far from harmonious near maldonado these birds were tame and bold they constantly attended the country houses in numbers
to pick the meat which was hung up on the posts or walls if any other small bird joined the feast the calandria soon chased it away on the wide uninhabited plains of patagonia another closely allied species o patagonica
of d'orbigny which frequents the valleys clothed with spiny bushes is a wilder bird and has a slightly different tone of voice it appears to me a curious circumstance as showing the fine shades of difference in habits
when i first saw this second species i thought it was different from the maldonado kind having afterwards procured a specimen and comparing the two without particular care they appeared so very similar that i changed my opinion
a conclusion in conformity with the trifling difference of habit
the number tameness and disgusting habits of the carrion feeding hawks of south america make them pre eminently striking to any one accustomed only to the birds of northern europe
as many as are here assembled dig up the root of thirst
look at that man
when they have cut this at last
brings great reward chapter twenty five the bhikshu
good is restraint in the ear
leave the five rise above the five a bhikshu who has escaped from the five fetters he is called
chapter three treachery the day following the coming of vas kor to the palace of the prince of helium great excitement reigned throughout the twin cities
reaching its climax in the palace of carthoris word had come of the abduction of thuvia of ptarth from her father's court and with it the veiled hint that the prince of helium might be suspected of considerable knowledge of the act
jeddak of helium mors kajak his son jed of lesser helium carthoris and a score of the great nobles of the empire there must be no war between ptarth and helium my son
said john carter that you are innocent of the charge that has been placed against you by insinuation we well know
there is but one who may convince him and that one be you you must hasten at once to the court of ptarth and by your presence there as well as by your words assure him that his suspicions are groundless
bear with you the authority of the warlord of barsoom and of the jeddak of helium to offer every resource
and punish her abductors whomsoever they may be go i know that i do not need to urge upon you the necessity for haste carthoris left the council chamber and hastened to his palace
here slaves were busy in a moment setting things to rights for the departure of their master several worked about the swift flier that would bear the prince of helium rapidly toward ptarth at last all was done
but two armed slaves remained on guard the setting sun hung low above the horizon in a moment darkness would envelop all one of the guardsmen
a giant of a fellow across whose right cheek there ran a thin scar from temple to mouth approached his companion his gaze was directed beyond and above his comrade when he had come quite close he spoke
what strange craft is that he asked the other turned about quickly to gaze heavenward scarce was his back turned toward the giant than the short sword of the latter was plunged beneath his left shoulder blade
straight through his heart voiceless the soldier sank in his tracks stone dead quickly the murderer dragged the corpse into the black shadows within the hangar then he returned to the flier
drawing a cunningly wrought key from his pocket pouch he removed the cover of the right hand dial of the controlling destination compass for a moment he studied the construction of the mechanism beneath then he returned the dial to its place
set the pointer and removed it again to note the resultant change in the position of the parts affected by the act a smile crossed his lips with a pair of cutters he snipped off the projection which extended through the dial from the external pointer
now the latter might be moved to any point upon the dial without affecting the mechanism below in other words the eastern hemisphere dial was useless now he turned his attention to the western dial
this he set upon a certain point afterward he removed the cover of this dial also and with keen tool cut the steel finger from the under side of the pointer as quickly as possible he replaced the second dial cover
and the device was set immovably upon a destination of the slave's own choosing presently came carthoris accompanied by but a handful of his gentlemen
he cast but a casual glance upon the single slave who stood guard the fellow's thin cruel lips and the sword cut that ran from temple to mouth aroused the suggestion of an unpleasant memory within him
then the matter faded from his thoughts and in another moment the prince of helium was laughing and chatting with his companions though below the surface his heart was cold with dread for what contingencies confronted thuvia of ptarth
he could not even guess first to his mind naturally had sprung the thought that astok of dusar had stolen the fair ptarthian but almost simultaneously with the report of the abduction
had come news of the great fetes at dusar in honour of the return of the jeddak's son to the court of his father it could not have been he thought carthoris for on the very night that thuvia was taken astok had been in dusar
and yet he entered the flier exchanging casual remarks with his companions as he unlocked the mechanism of the compass and set the pointer upon the capital city of ptarth
with a word of farewell he touched the button which controlled the repulsive rays and as the flier rose lightly into the air the engine purred in answer to the touch of his finger upon a second button
and carthoris prince of helium was off into the gorgeous martian night beneath the hurtling moons and the million stars scarce had the flier found its speed ere the man
wrapping his sleeping silks and furs about him stretched at full length upon the narrow deck to sleep but sleep did not come at once at his bidding instead his thoughts ran riot in his brain
driving sleep away he recalled the words of thuvia of ptarth words that had half assured him that she loved him for when he had asked her if she loved kulan tith she had answered only that she was promised to him
now he saw that her reply was open to more than a single construction it might of course
and so by inference be taken to mean that she loved another but what assurance was there that the other was carthoris of helium the more he thought upon it
the more positive he became that not only was there no assurance in her words that she loved him but none either in any act of hers no the fact was she did not love him she loved another
she had not been abducted she had fled willingly with her lover with such pleasant thoughts filling him alternately with despair and rage
carthoris at last dropped into the sleep of utter mental exhaustion the breaking of the sudden dawn found him still asleep his flier was rushing swiftly above a barren ochre plain
the world old bottom of a long dead martian sea in the distance rose low hills toward these the craft was headed as it approached them
a great promontory might have been seen from its deck stretching out into what had once been a mighty ocean and circling back once more to enclose the forgotten harbour of a forgotten city which still stretched back from its deserted quays
an imposing pile of wondrous architecture of a long dead past the countless dismal windows vacant and forlorn stared sightless from their marble walls
the whole sad city taking on the semblance of scattered mounds of dead men's sun bleached skulls the casements having the appearance of eyeless sockets the portals grinning jaws
within a hundred yards of the ground it came to rest floating gently in the light air and at the same instant an alarm sounded at the sleeper's ear carthoris sprang to his feet below him
beside him already there should have been an air patrol he gazed about in bewildered astonishment
but it was not ptarth no multitudes surged through its broad avenues no signs of life broke the dead monotony of its deserted roof tops no gorgeous silks
no patrol boat lay ready with its familiar challenge silent and empty lay the great city empty and silent the surrounding air what had happened
carthoris examined the dial of his compass the pointer was set upon ptarth could the creature of his genius have thus betrayed him he would not believe it quickly he unlocked the cover
turning it back upon its hinge a single glance showed him the truth or at least a part of it the steel projection that communicated the movement of the pointer upon the dial to the heart of the mechanism beneath had been severed
who could have done the thing and why carthoris could not hazard even a faint guess but the thing now was to learn in what portion of the world he was
and then take up his interrupted journey once more if it had been the purpose of some enemy to delay him he had succeeded well thought carthoris as he unlocked the cover of the second dial the first having shown that its pointer had not been set at all
beneath the second dial he found the steel pin severed as in the other but the controlling mechanism had first been set for a point upon the western hemisphere
he had just time to judge his location roughly at some place south west of helium and at a considerable distance from the twin cities when he was startled by a woman's scream beneath him
leaning over the side of the flier he saw what appeared to be a red woman being dragged across the plaza by a huge green warrior one of those fierce cruel denizens
the green man was hurrying his captive toward a huge thoat that browsed upon the ochre vegetation of the once scarlet gorgeous plaza at the same instant a dozen red warriors leaped from the entrance of a nearby ersite palace
pursuing the abductor with naked swords and shouts of rageful warning once the woman turned her face upward toward the falling flier
i found the palace of green porcelain when we approached it about noon deserted and falling into ruin only ragged vestiges of glass remained in its windows
of what might have happened or might be happening to the living things in the sea the material of the palace proved on examination to be indeed porcelain
and along the face of it i saw an inscription in some unknown character i thought rather foolishly that weena might help me to interpret this but i only learned that the bare idea of writing had never entered her head
she always seemed to me i fancy more human than she was perhaps because her affection was so human within the big valves of the door which were open and broken
we found instead of the customary hall a long gallery lit by many side windows at the first glance i was reminded of a museum the tiled floor was thick with dust
and a remarkable array of miscellaneous objects was shrouded in the same grey covering then i perceived standing strange and gaunt in the centre of the hall what was clearly the lower part of a huge skeleton
i recognized by the oblique feet that it was some extinct creature after the fashion of the megatherium the skull and the upper bones lay beside it in the thick dust and in one place where rain water had dropped through a leak in the roof
the thing itself had been worn away further in the gallery was the huge skeleton barrel of a brontosaurus my museum hypothesis was confirmed going towards the side
i found what appeared to be sloping shelves and clearing away the thick dust i found the old familiar glass cases of our own time but they must have been air tight to judge from the fair preservation of some of their contents
though the inevitable process of decay that had been staved off for a time and had through the extinction of bacteria and fungi lost ninety nine hundredths of its force was nevertheless
with extreme sureness if with extreme slowness at work again upon all its treasures here and there i found traces of the little people in the shape of rare fossils broken to pieces or threaded in strings upon reeds
and the cases had in some instances been bodily removed by the morlocks as i judged the place was very silent the thick dust deadened our footsteps weena
presently came as i stared about me and very quietly took my hand and stood beside me and at first i was so much surprised by this ancient monument of an intellectual age that i gave no thought to the possibilities it presented
even my preoccupation about the time machine receded a little from my mind to judge from the size of the place this palace of green porcelain had a great deal more in it than a gallery of palaeontology
possibly historical galleries it might be even a library to me at least in my present circumstances these would be vastly more interesting than this spectacle of oldtime geology in decay
exploring i found another short gallery running transversely to the first this appeared to be devoted to minerals and the sight of a block of sulphur set my mind running on gunpowder but i could find no saltpeter
indeed no nitrates of any kind doubtless they had deliquesced ages ago yet the sulphur hung in my mind and set up a train of thinking as for the rest of the contents of that gallery
though on the whole they were the best preserved of all i saw i had little interest i am no specialist in mineralogy and i went on down a very ruinous aisle running parallel to the first hall i had entered apparently
this section had been devoted to natural history but everything had long since passed out of recognition a few shrivelled and blackened vestiges of what had once been stuffed animals
a brown dust of departed plants that was all i was sorry for that because i should have been glad to trace the patent readjustments by which the conquest of animated nature had been attained
then we came to a gallery of simply colossal proportions but singularly ill lit the floor of it running downward at a slight angle from the end at which i entered at intervals white globes hung from the ceiling
many of them cracked and smashed which suggested that originally the place had been artificially lit here i was more in my element for rising on either side of me were the huge bulks of big machines all greatly corroded
and many broken down but some still fairly complete you know i have a certain weakness for mechanism and i was inclined to linger among these the more so as for the most part they had the interest of puzzles
and i could make only the vaguest guesses at what they were for i fancied that if i could solve their puzzles i should find myself in possession of powers that might be of use against the morlocks suddenly weena came very close to my side
so suddenly that she startled me had it not been for her i do not think i should have noticed that the floor of the gallery sloped at all footnote it may be of course that the floor did not slope
and was lit by rare slit like windows as you went down the length the ground came up against these windows until at last there was a pit like the area of a london house before each and only a narrow line of daylight at the top
i went slowly along puzzling about the machines
until weena's increasing apprehensions drew my attention then i saw that the gallery ran down at last into a thick darkness i hesitated and then as i looked round me i saw that the dust was less abundant
and its surface less even further away towards the dimness it appeared to be broken by a number of small narrow footprints my sense of the immediate presence of the morlocks revived at that
i felt that i was wasting my time in the academic examination of machinery i called to mind that it was already far advanced in the afternoon
no refuge and no means of making a fire and then down in the remote blackness of the gallery i heard a peculiar pattering and the same odd noises i had heard down the well i took weena's hand
then struck with a sudden idea i left her and turned to a machine from which projected a lever not unlike those in a signal box clambering upon the stand and grasping this lever in my hands
i put all my weight upon it sideways suddenly weena deserted in the central aisle began to whimper i had judged the strength of the lever pretty correctly for it snapped after a minute's strain
and i rejoined her with a mace in my hand more than sufficient i judged for any morlock skull i might encounter and i longed very much to kill a morlock or so
restrained me from going straight down the gallery and killing the brutes i heard well mace in one hand and weena in the other i went out of that gallery and into another and still larger one
which at the first glance reminded me of a military chapel hung with tattered flags the brown and charred rags that hung from the sides of it i presently recognized as the decaying vestiges of books
they had long since dropped to pieces and every semblance of print had left them but here and there were warped boards and cracked metallic clasps that told the tale well enough had i been a literary man i might
perhaps have moralized upon the futility of all ambition but as it was the thing that struck me with keenest force was the enormous waste of labour to which this sombre wilderness of rotting paper testified
at the time i will confess that i thought chiefly of the philosophical transactions and my own seventeen papers upon physical optics then going up a broad staircase
we came to what may once have been a gallery of technical chemistry and here i had not a little hope of useful discoveries except at one end where the roof had collapsed this gallery was well preserved
i went eagerly to every unbroken case and at last in one of the really air tight cases i found a box of matches very eagerly i tried them they were perfectly good they were not even damp
i turned to weena dance i cried to her in her own tongue for now i had a weapon indeed against the horrible creatures we feared and so in that derelict museum upon the thick soft carpeting of dust
to weena's huge delight i solemnly performed a kind of composite dance whistling the land of the leal as cheerfully as i could in part it was a modest cancan in part a step dance in part a skirt dance
so far as my tail coat permitted and in part original for i am naturally inventive as you know now i still think
that for this box of matches to have escaped the wear of time for immemorial years was a most strange as for me it was a most fortunate thing yet oddly enough i found a far unlikelier substance
i found it in a sealed jar that by chance i suppose had been really hermetically sealed i fancied at first that it was paraffin wax and smashed the glass accordingly
in the universal decay this volatile substance had chanced to survive perhaps through many thousands of centuries
that must have perished and become fossilized millions of years ago
but i remembered that it was inflammable and burned with a good bright flame was in fact an excellent candle and i put it in my pocket i found no explosives however nor any means of breaking down the bronze doors
as yet my iron crowbar was the most helpful thing i had chanced upon nevertheless i left that gallery greatly elated i cannot tell you all the story of that long afternoon
it would require a great effort of memory to recall my explorations in at all the proper order i remember a long gallery of rusting stands of arms and how i hesitated between my crowbar and a hatchet or a sword i could not carry both
however and my bar of iron promised best against the bronze gates there were numbers of guns pistols and rifles the most were masses of rust but many were of some new metal and still fairly sound
one corner i saw was charred and shattered perhaps i thought by an explosion among the specimens in another place was a vast array of idols polynesian mexican grecian phoenician
every country on earth i should think and here yielding to an irresistible impulse i wrote my name upon the nose of a steatite monster from south america that particularly took my fancy
as the evening drew on my interest waned i went through gallery after gallery dusty silent often ruinous the exhibits sometimes mere heaps of rust and lignite sometimes fresher
in one place i suddenly found myself near the model of a tin mine and then by the merest accident i discovered in an air tight case two dynamite cartridges i shouted eureka and smashed the case with joy
then came a doubt i hesitated then selecting a little side gallery i made my essay i never felt such a disappointment as i did in waiting five ten
of course the things were dummies as i might have guessed from their presence i really believe that had they not been so i should have rushed off incontinently and blown sphinx bronze doors and
as it proved my chances of finding the time machine all together into non existence it was after that i think that we came to a little open court within the palace it was turfed and had three fruit trees
so we rested and refreshed ourselves towards sunset i began to consider our position night was creeping upon us
but that troubled me very little now i had in my possession a thing that was perhaps the best of all defences against the morlocks i had matches i had the camphor in my pocket too if a blaze were needed
but now with my growing knowledge i felt very differently towards those bronze doors up to this i had refrained from forcing them largely because of the mystery on the other side they had never impressed me as being very strong
after i began to go to the country school i saw less of the bohemians we were sixteen pupils at the sod schoolhouse and we all came on horseback and brought our dinner my schoolmates were none of them very interesting but i somehow felt that by making comrades of them
i was getting even with antonia for her indifference since the father's death ambrosch was more than ever the head of the house and he seemed to direct the feelings as well as the fortunes of his women folk antonia often quoted his opinions to me
and she let me see that she admired him while she thought of me only as a little boy before the spring was over there was a distinct coldness between us and the shimerdas it came about in this way
it was a beautiful blue morning the buffalo peas were blooming in pink and purple masses along the roadside and the larks perched on last year's dried sunflower stalks were singing straight at the sun their heads thrown back and their yellow breasts a quiver
the wind blew about us in warm sweet gusts we rode slowly with a pleasant sense of sunday indolence we found the shimerdas working just as if it were a week day marek was cleaning out the stable and antonia and her mother were making garden
off across the pond in the draw head ambrosch was up on the windmill tower oiling the wheel he came down not very cordially when jake asked for the collar he grunted and scratched his head
ambrosch shrugged his shoulders and sauntered down the hill toward the stable i could see that it was one of his mean days presently he returned carrying a collar that had been badly used trampled in the dirt and gnawed by rats until the hair was sticking out of it
this what you want he asked surlily jake jumped off his horse i saw a wave of red come up under the rough stubble on his face that ain't the piece of harness i loaned you ambrosch or if it is you've used it shameful
i ain't a going to carry such a looking thing back to mister burden ambrosch dropped the collar on the ground all right he said coolly took up his oil can and began to climb the mill jake caught him by the belt of his trousers and yanked him back
ambrosch's feet had scarcely touched the ground when he lunged out with a vicious kick at jake's stomach fortunately jake was in such a position that he could dodge it this was not the sort of thing country boys did when they played at fisticuffs and jake was furious
he landed ambrosch a blow on the head it sounded like the crack of an axe on a cow pumpkin ambrosch dropped over stunned we heard squeals and looking up saw antonia and her mother coming on the run
they did not take the path around the pond but plunged through the muddy water without even lifting their skirts they came on screaming and clawing the air
law law she shrieked after us law for knock my ambrosch down i never like you no more jake and jim burden antonia panted no friends any more
jake stopped and turned his horse for a second well you're a damned ungrateful lot the whole pack of you he shouted back i guess the burdens can get along without you you've been a sight of trouble to them anyhow
we rode away feeling so outraged that the fine morning was spoiled for us i had n't a word to say and poor jake was white as paper and trembling all over it made him sick to get so angry
these foreigners ain't the same you can't trust em to be fair it's dirty to kick a feller you heard how the women turned on you
they ain't to be trusted i don't want to see you get too thick with any of em
grandfather heard our story with a twinkle in his eye he advised jake to ride to town to morrow
then if missus shimerda was inclined to make trouble her son was still under age she would be forestalled
on monday about an hour after jake had started we saw missus shimerda and her ambrosch proudly driving by looking neither to the right nor left as they rattled out of sight down the black hawk road
grandfather chuckled saying he had rather expected she would follow the matter up jake paid his fine with a ten dollar bill grandfather had given him for that purpose but when the shimerdas found that jake sold his pig in town that day
ambrosch worked it out in his shrewd head that jake had to sell his pig to pay his fine this theory afforded the shimerdas great satisfaction apparently for weeks afterward whenever jake and i met antonia on her way to the post office
or going along the road with her work team she would clap her hands and call to us in a spiteful crowing voice
otto pretended not to be surprised at antonia's behavior he only lifted his brows and said you can't tell me anything new about a czech i'm an austrian grandfather was never a party to what jake called our feud with the shimerdas
ambrosch and antonia always greeted him respectfully and he asked them about their affairs and gave them advice as usual he thought the future looked hopeful for them ambrosch was a far seeing fellow he soon realized that his oxen were too heavy for any work except breaking sod
and he succeeded in selling them to a newly arrived german with the money he bought another team of horses which grandfather selected for him marek was strong and ambrosch worked him hard but he could never teach him to cultivate corn i remember
the one idea that had ever got through poor marek's thick head was that all exertion was meritorious he always bore down on the handles of the cultivator and drove the blades so deep into the earth that the horses were soon exhausted
and took marek with him at full wages missus shimerda then drove the second cultivator she and antonia worked in the fields all day and did the chores at night while the two women were running the place alone one of the new horses got colic and gave them a terrible fright
antonia had gone down to the barn one night to see that all was well before she went to bed and she noticed that one of the roans was swollen about the middle and stood with its head hanging she mounted another horse without waiting to saddle him
and hammered on our door just as we were going to bed grandfather answered her knock he did not send one of his men but rode back with her himself
he found missus shimerda sitting by the horse with her lantern groaning and wringing her hands it took but a few moments to release the gases pent up in the poor beast and the two women heard the rush of wind and saw the roan visibly diminish in girth
if i lose that horse mister burden antonia exclaimed i never stay here till ambrosch come home i go drown myself in the pond before morning
when ambrosch came back from mister bushy's we learned that he had given marek's wages to the priest at black hawk for masses for their father's soul grandmother thought antonia needed shoes more than mister shimerda needed prayers but grandfather said tolerantly
if he can spare six dollars pinched as he is it shows he believes what he professes it was grandfather who brought about a reconciliation with the shimerdas
one morning he told us that the small grain was coming on so well he thought he would begin to cut his wheat on the first of july he would need more men and if it were agreeable to every one he would engage ambrosch for the reaping and thrashing as the shimerdas had no small grain of their own
i think emmaline he concluded i will ask antonia to come over and help you in the kitchen she will be glad to earn something and it will be a good time to end misunderstandings i may as well ride over this morning and make arrangements
his tone told me that he had already decided for me after breakfast we set off together
grandfather smiled to himself while he tied his horse and we followed her behind the barn we came upon a funny sight the cow had evidently been grazing somewhere in the draw missus shimerda had run to the animal pulled up the lariat pin
and when we came upon her she was trying to hide the cow in an old cave in the bank
good morning missus shimerda can you tell me where i will find ambrosch which field he with the sod corn she pointed toward the north still standing in front of the cow as if she hoped to conceal it
his sod corn will be good for fodder this winter said grandfather encouragingly and where is antonia she go with missus shimerda kept wiggling her bare feet about nervously in the dust very well i will ride up there
i want them to come over and help me cut my oats and wheat next month i will pay them wages good morning by the way missus shimerda
she started and clutched the rope tighter seeing that she did not understand grandfather turned back you need not pay me anything more no more money the cow is yours pay no more
keep cow she asked in a bewildered tone her narrow eyes snapping at us in the sunlight exactly pay no more keep cow he nodded
missus shimerda dropped the rope ran after us and crouching down beside grandfather she took his hand and kissed it i doubt if he had ever been so much embarrassed before i was a little startled too somehow that seemed to bring the old world very close
we rode away laughing and grandfather said
jake laughed sheepishly i don't want to have no trouble with ambrosch if he'll let me alone i'll let him alone if he slap you we ain't got no pig for pay the fine she said insinuatingly
when spring came after that hard winter one could not get enough of the nimble air every morning i wakened with a fresh consciousness that winter was over there were none of the signs of spring for which i used to watch in virginia no budding woods or blooming gardens
there was only spring itself the throb of it the light restlessness
rising suddenly sinking suddenly impulsive and playful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down to be petted if i had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie i should have known that it was spring everywhere now there was the smell of burning grass
our neighbors burned off their pasture before the new grass made a start so that the fresh growth would not be mixed with the dead stand of last year those light swift fires running about the country seemed a part of the same kindling that was in the air
the shimerdas were in their new log house by then the neighbors had helped them to build it in march it stood directly in front of their old cave which they used as a cellar the family were now fairly equipped to begin their struggle with the soil
they had four comfortable rooms to live in a new windmill bought on credit a chicken house and poultry missus shimerda had paid grandfather ten dollars for a milk cow and was to give him fifteen more as soon as they harvested their first crop
when i rode up to the shimerdas one bright windy afternoon in april yulka ran out to meet me it was to her now that i gave reading lessons antonia was busy with other things
i tied my pony and went into the kitchen where missus shimerda was baking bread chewing poppy seeds as she worked by this time she could speak enough english to ask me a great many questions about what our men were doing in the fields
she seemed to think that my elders withheld helpful information and that from me she might get valuable secrets on this occasion she asked me very craftily when grandfather expected to begin planting corn
i told her adding that he thought we should have a dry spring and that the corn would not be held back by too much rain as it had been last year she gave me a shrewd glance he not jesus she blustered he not know about the wet
and the dry i did not answer her what was the use as i sat waiting for the hour when ambrosch and antonia would return from the fields i watched missus shimerda at her work she took from the oven a coffee cake which she wanted to keep warm for supper
and wrapped it in a quilt stuffed with feathers i have seen her put even a roast goose in this quilt to keep it hot when the neighbors were there building the new house they saw her do this and the story got abroad that the shimerdas kept their food in their feather beds
when the sun was dropping low antonia came up the big south draw with her team how much older she had grown in eight months she had come to us a child and now she was a tall strong young girl although her fifteenth birthday had just slipped by
i ran out and met her as she brought her horses up to the windmill to water them she wore the boots her father had so thoughtfully taken off before he shot himself and his old fur cap her outgrown cotton dress switched about her calves over the boot tops
her neck came up strongly out of her shoulders like the bole of a tree out of the turf
she greeted me gayly and began at once to tell me how much ploughing she had done that day ambrosch she said was on the north quarter breaking sod with the oxen jim you ask jake how much he ploughed to day i don't want that jake get more done in one day than me
i want we have very much corn this fall while the horses drew in the water and nosed each other and then drank again antonia sat down on the windmill step and rested her head on her hand you see the big prairie fire from your place last night
i hope your grandpa ain't lose no stacks no we did n't i came to ask you something tony grandmother wants to know if you can't go to the term of school that begins next week over at the sod schoolhouse she says there's a good teacher and you'd learn a lot
antonia stood up lifting and dropping her shoulders as if they were stiff i ain't got time to learn i can work like mans now my mother can't say no more how ambrosch do all and nobody to help him i can work as much as him
school is all right for little boys i help make this land one good farm she clucked to her team and started for the barn i walked beside her feeling vexed was she going to grow up boastful like her mother i wondered
before we reached the stable i felt something tense in her silence and glancing up i saw that she was crying she turned her face from me and looked off at the red streak of dying light over the dark prairie i climbed up into the loft and threw down the hay for her
while she unharnessed her team we walked slowly back toward the house ambrosch had come in from the north quarter and was watering his oxen at the tank antonia took my hand
sometime you will tell me all those nice things you learn at the school won't you jimmy she asked with a sudden rush of feeling in her voice my father he went much to school
so many books that the priests in bohemie
you won't forget my father jim no i said i will never forget him missus shimerda asked me to stay for supper after ambrosch and antonia had washed the field dust from their hands and faces at the wash basin by the kitchen door
don't be mad i know it's awful hard work for break sod i milk the cow for you to morrow if you want missus shimerda turned quickly to me that cow not give so much milk like what your grandpa say
if he make talk about fifteen dollars i send him back the cow
he say i break his saw when we build and i never grumbled ambrosch i knew he had broken the saw and then hid it and lied about it i began to wish i had not stayed for supper everything was disagreeable to me
as if they ached grandmother had said heavy field work'll spoil that girl she'll lose all her nice ways and get rough ones she had lost them already after supper i rode home through the sad soft spring twilight
since winter i had seen very little of antonia she was out in the fields from sun up until sun down if i rode over to see her where she was ploughing
making me feel that she was now grown up and had no time for me on sundays she helped her mother make garden or sewed all day grandfather was pleased with antonia when we complained of her he only smiled and said
nowadays tony could talk of nothing but the prices of things or how much she could lift and endure
indeed he was never the same horse afterward
fuchs brought home with him a stranger a young bohemian who had taken a homestead near black hawk and who came on his only horse to help his fellow countrymen in their trouble that was the first time i ever saw anton jelinek
he was a strapping young fellow in the early twenties then handsome warm hearted and full of life
i remember exactly how he strode into our kitchen in his felt boots and long wolfskin coat his eyes and cheeks bright with the cold at sight of grandmother he snatched off his fur cap greeting her in a deep rolling voice which seemed older than he
i want to thank you very much missus burden for that you are so kind to poor strangers from my kawn tree he did not hesitate like a farmer boy but looked one eagerly in the eye when he spoke everything about him was warm and spontaneous
at dinner grandfather talked to jelinek more than he usually did to strangers will they be much disappointed because we cannot get a priest he asked jelinek looked serious
their father has done a great sin he looked straight at grandfather our lord has said that grandfather seemed to like his frankness we believe that too jelinek but we believe that mister shimerda's soul will come to its creator as well off without a priest
too much we asked him what he meant he glanced around the table you want i shall tell you when i was a little boy like this one i begin to help the priest at the altar i make my first communion very young
what the church teach seem plain to me by n by war times come when the austrians fight us we have very many soldiers in camp near my village and the cholera break out in that camp and the men die like flies
all day long our priest go about there to give the sacrament to dying men and i go with him to carry the vessels with the holy sacrament everybody that go near that camp catch the sickness but me and the priest but we have no sickness we have no fear
because we carry that blood and that body of christ and it preserve us he paused looking at grandfather that i know mister burden for it happened to myself all the soldiers know too when we walk along the road
and i feel sad for his family we had listened attentively it was impossible not to admire his frank manly faith i am always glad to meet a young man who thinks seriously about these things said grandfather
and i would never be the one to say you were not in god's care when you were among the soldiers after dinner it was decided that young jelinek should hook our two strong black farmhorses to the scraper and break a road through to the shimerdas so that a wagon could go when it was necessary
fuchs who was the only cabinet maker in the neighborhood was set to work on a coffin jelinek put on his long wolfskin coat and when we admired it he told us that he had shot and skinned the coyotes and the young man who batched with him
our heavy carpenter's bench had to be brought from the barn and carried down into the kitchen fuchs selected boards from a pile of planks grandfather had hauled out from town in the fall to make a new floor for the oats bin when at last the lumber and tools were assembled
and the doors were closed again and the cold drafts shut out grandfather rode away to meet the coroner at the shimerdas and fuchs took off his coat and settled down to work i sat on his work table and watched him
he did not touch his tools at first but figured for a long while on a piece of paper and measured the planks and made marks on them while he was thus engaged he whistled softly to himself or teasingly pulled at his half ear
grandmother moved about quietly so as not to disturb him at last he folded his ruler and turned a cheerful face to us
was for a fellow in the black tiger mine up above silverton colorado
two swedes had fell out of that bucket once and hit the water feet down
we was snowed in then like we are now and i happened to be the only man in camp that could make a coffin for him it's a handy thing to know when you knock about like i've done
grandmother said yes m fuchs admitted with modest pride so few folks does know how to make a good tight box that'll turn water i sometimes wonder if there'll be anybody about to do it for me
all afternoon wherever one went in the house one could hear the panting wheeze of the saw or the pleasant purring of the plane they were such cheerful noises seeming to promise new things for living people
it was a pity that those freshly planed pine boards were to be put underground so soon the lumber was hard to work because it was full of frost and the boards gave off a sweet smell of pine woods as the heap of yellow shavings grew higher and higher
i wondered why fuchs had not stuck to cabinet work he settled down to it with such ease and content he handled the tools as if he liked the feel of them and when he planed his hands went back and forth over the boards in an eager beneficent way as if he were blessing them
he broke out now and then into german hymns as if this occupation brought back old times to him at four o'clock mister bushy the postmaster with another neighbor who lived east of us stopped in to get warm they were on their way to the shimerdas
the news of what had happened over there had somehow got abroad through the snow blocked country grandmother gave the visitors sugar cakes and hot coffee
before these callers were gone the brother of the widow steavens who lived on the black hawk road drew up at our door and after him came the father of the german family our nearest neighbors on the south they dismounted and joined us in the dining room
they were all eager for any details about the suicide and they were greatly concerned as to where mister shimerda would be buried the nearest catholic cemetery was at black hawk
there was a burying ground over by the norwegian church west of squaw creek perhaps the norwegians would take mister shimerda in
until this afternoon grandmother always talked dear woman to herself or to the lord if there was no one else to listen but grandfather was naturally taciturn
and jake and otto were often so tired after supper that i used to feel as if i were surrounded by a wall of silence now every one seemed eager to talk that afternoon fuchs told me story after story about the black tiger mine
most men were game and went without a grudge the postmaster going home stopped to say that grandfather would bring the coroner back with him to spend the night the officers of the norwegian church he told us
had held a meeting and decided that the norwegian graveyard could not extend its hospitality to mister shimerda grandmother was indignant if these foreigners are so clannish mister bushy we'll have to have an american graveyard that will be more liberal minded
i'll get right after josiah to start one in the spring if anything was to happen to me i don't want the norwegians holding inquisitions over me to see whether i'm good enough to be laid amongst em soon grandfather returned bringing with him anton jelinek and that important person the coroner
he was a mild flurried old man a civil war veteran with one sleeve hanging empty he seemed to find this case very perplexing and said
the way he acted and the way his axe fit the wound was enough to convict any man
he was badly frightened certainly and perhaps he even felt some stirrings of remorse for his indifference to the old man's misery and loneliness at supper the men ate like vikings and the chocolate cake which i had hoped would linger on until to morrow in a mutilated condition
disappeared on the second round they talked excitedly about where they should bury mister shimerda i gathered that the neighbors were all disturbed and shocked about something it developed that missus shimerda and ambrosch wanted the old man buried on the southwest corner of their own land
grandfather had explained to ambrosch that some day when the country was put under fence and the roads were confined to section lines two roads would cross exactly on that corner but ambrosch only said it makes no matter
grandfather asked jelinek whether in the old country there was some superstition to the effect that a suicide must be buried at the cross roads
he seemed to remember hearing there had once been such a custom in bohemia missus shimerda is made up her mind he added i try to persuade her and say it looks bad for her to all the neighbors but she say so it must be
there i will bury him if i dig the grave myself she say i have to promise her i help ambrosch make the grave to morrow grandfather smoothed his beard and looked judicial
janni and the draken once there was a man who shunned the world and lived in the wilderness he owned nothing but a flock of sheep whose milk and wool he sold and so procured himself bread to eat
and on the way he met a monk who begged him for a night's lodging this the man willingly granted and took him home with him there being no one far nor near to baptize the child the man asked the monk to do him this service
and he and his sister were left alone in the world soon affairs went badly with them so they determined to wander away to seek their fortune in packing up the sister found a knife which the monk had left for his godson
and this she gave to her brother then they went on their way taking with them the three sheep which were all that remained of their flocks after wandering for three days they met a man with three dogs
in which dwelt forty draken who when they heard that janni had come fled forty fathoms underground so janni found the castle deserted and abode there with his sister
and every day went out to hunt with the weapons the draken had left in the castle one day when he was away hunting one of the draken came up to get provisions not knowing that there was anyone in the castle
unknown to janni they got married then when it was too late the sister repented and was afraid of janni's wrath when he found it out one day the drakos came to her and said
and when janni asks what ails you and what you want you must answer cherries and when he inquires where these are to be found you must say
for there dwell three of my brothers
then the sister did as the drakos advised and next day janni set out to fetch the cherries taking his three dogs with him when he came to the garden where the cherries grew he jumped off his horse
drank some water from the spring which rose there and fell directly into a deep sleep the draken came round about to eat him but the dogs flung themselves on them and tore them in pieces
and scratched a grave in the ground with their paws and buried the draken so that janni might not see their dead bodies when janni awoke and saw his dogs all covered with blood he believed that they had caught somewhere a wild beast
and was angry because they had left none of it for him but he plucked the cherries and took them back to his sister when the drakos heard that janni had come back he fled for fear forty fathoms underground
and the sister ate the cherries and declared herself well again the next day when janni was gone to hunt the drakos came out and advised the sister that she should pretend to be ill again
and when her brother asked her what she would like she should answer quinces and when he inquired where these were to be found she should say in a garden distant about
two days journey then would janni certainly be destroyed for there dwelt six brothers of the drakos each of whom had two heads the sister did as she was advised
and when these three had been worried by the dogs there came three others who were worried in like manner then the dogs again dug a grave and buried the dead draken that their master might not see them
when janni awoke and beheld the dogs all covered with blood he thought as before that they had killed a wild beast and was again angry with them for leaving him nothing but he took the quinces and brought them back to his sister
the drakos went to the sister and advised that she should again pretend to be ill and should beg for some pears which grew in a garden three days journey from the castle from this quest
janni would certainly never return for there dwelt nine brothers of the drakos each of whom had three heads the sister did as she was told and next day janni taking his three dogs with him
went to get the pears when he came to the garden he laid himself down to rest and soon fell asleep then first came three draken to eat him and when the dogs had worried these
and took them to his sister who when she had eaten them declared she felt better when however the drakos heard that janni had come back yet a third time safe and sound he fled for fright
forty fathoms deeper underground and next day when janni was away hunting he crept out and said to the sister
she begged him to tell her wherein lay his strength and he answered it lies in my two fingers if these are bound together then all my strength disappears that i will not believe said the sister
unless i see it for myself then he let her tie his fingers together with a thread and immediately he became powerless then the sister called up the drakos who when he had come forth
when they had brought him there he sent to beg the princess to come to him but she did not recognise him till he had shown her the ring she had given him then she remembered him and took him with her into the castle
when she learnt what had befallen him she called together all the sorceresses in the country in order that they should tell her where the eyes were at last she found one who declared that she knew where they were and that she could restore them
this sorceress then went straight to the castle where dwelt the sister and the drakos and gave something to the dogs to eat which caused the eyes to reappear
so that he saw as well as before then he returned to the castle of the drakos whom he slew as well as his sister
he commanded his servants to pitch tents in the open field and there await the cool of the evening suddenly a frightful thirst seized the king and as he saw no water near
he mounted his horse and rode through the neighbourhood looking for a spring before long he came to a well filled to the brim with water clear as crystal and on the bosom of which a golden jug was floating
king kojata at once tried to seize the vessel but though he endeavoured to grasp it with his right hand and then with his left the wretched thing always eluded his efforts and refused to let itself be caught
but like a fish the goblet always slipped through his fingers
who's there let me go cried king kojata but there was no answer only an awful face looked up from the bottom of the well
i will only let you go on condition that you give me something you know nothing about and which you will find on your return home the king didn't pause to ponder long for what thought he
the thing is absurd so he answered quickly yes i promise that you shall have it the voice replied very well
holding a little cradle in his hands
then the whole thing dawned on the king and groaning deeply he muttered to himself
and the tears rolled down his cheeks all the courtiers standing round were much amazed at the king's grief but no one dared to ask him the cause of it he took the child in his arms and kissed it tenderly
then laying it in its cradle he determined to control his emotion and began to reign again as before the secret of the king remained a secret though his grave careworn expression escaped no one's notice
in the constant dread that his child would be taken from him poor kojata knew no rest night or day however time went on and nothing happened days and months and years passed
and found himself quite alone in the middle of a dark wood
that it was almost impossible to see through them only straight in front of him lay a little patch of meadowland overgrown with thistles and rank weeds in the centre of which a leafy lime tree reared itself
suddenly a rustling sound was heard in the hollow of the tree and an extraordinary old man with green eyes and chin crept out of it a fine day prince milan he said
you've kept me waiting a good number of years it was high time for you to come and pay me a visit who are you in the name of wonder demanded the astonished prince you'll find out soon enough
farewell for the present we shall meet again with these words the old man disappeared into the tree and the prince returned home rather startled and told his father all that he had seen and heard
the king grew as white as a sheet when he heard the prince's story and said woe is me my son the time has come when we must part
and after much weeping and lamentation the prince bade them all farewell and set forth on his journey he rode straight on for two days and on the third he came to a lake as smooth as glass
and as clear as crystal not a breath of wind moved not a leaf stirred all was silent as the grave only on the still bosom of the lake thirty ducks with brilliant plumage
swam about in the water not far from the shore prince milan noticed thirty little white garments lying on the grass and dismounting from his horse he crept down under the high bulrushes took one of the garments
and hid himself with it behind the bushes which grew round the lake the ducks swam about all over the place dived down into the depths and rose again and glided through the waves at last
that he came out from behind the bulrushes to see if he could be of any help as soon as the duck perceived him it cried in a human voice oh dear prince milan for the love of heaven give me back my garment
and i will be so grateful to you the prince lay the little garment on the bank beside her and stepped back into the bushes in a few seconds a beautiful girl in a white robe stood before him
so fair and sweet and young that no pen could describe her she gave the prince her hand and spoke many thanks prince milan for your courtesy i am the daughter of a wicked magician
and my name is hyacinthia my father has thirty young daughters and is a mighty ruler in the underworld with many castles and great riches he has been expecting you for ages but you need have no fear
and curses and swears i'll attend to the rest and in the meantime we had better be off with these words the beautiful hyacinthia stamped on the ground with her little foot and the earth opened
and they both sank down into the lower world the palace of the magician was all hewn out of a single carbuncle lighting up the whole surrounding region and prince milan walked into it gaily
he flung himself on his knees the magician stamped loudly with his feet glared frightfully out of his green eyes and cursed so loudly that the whole underworld shook but the prince mindful of the counsel he had been given
wasn't the least afraid and approached the throne still on his knees at last the magician laughed aloud and said
i won't be your enemy any more welcome to the underworld all the same for your delay in coming here we must demand three services from you
early the next morning the magician sent for him and said
with fish ponds and artistic waterfalls if you do all this i will reward you richly but if you don't you shall lose your head
oh you wicked monster thought prince milan you might as well have put me to death at once sadly he returned to his room and with bent head
and as soon as the bee had entered it changed into the beautiful hyacinthia good evening prince milan
how can i help being sad your father threatens me with death and i see myself already without a head and what have you made up your mind to do there's nothing to be done and after all
i suppose one can only die once now don't be so foolish my dear prince but keep up your spirits for there is no need to despair go to bed
and when you wake up to morrow morning the palace will be finished then you must go all round it giving a tap here and there on the walls to look as if you had just finished it
and so it all turned out just as she had said as soon as it was daylight prince milan stepped out of his room and found a palace which was quite a work of art down to the very smallest detail
now i must see if you are equally accomplished with your head
all beautiful princesses to morrow i will place the whole thirty in a row you must walk past them three times and the third time you must show me which is my youngest daughter hyacinthia
why that is the easiest thing in the world not so easy as you think cried the little bee who was flying past if i weren't to help you you'd never guess we are thirty sisters so exactly alike
that our own father can hardly distinguish us apart then what am i to do asked prince milan listen answered hyacinthia
you will recognise me by a tiny fly i shall have on my left cheek but be careful for you might easily make a mistake
his daughters were all arranged in a straight row in front of him dressed exactly alike
hyacinthia prince milan went past them and looked at them closely but they were all so precisely alike that they looked like one face reflected in thirty mirrors
and the fly was nowhere to be seen the second time he passed them
but the third time he perceived a little fly stealing down one cheek causing it to blush a faint pink then the prince seized the girl's hand and cried out this is the princess hyacinthia
but i've still another task for you to do before this candle which i shall light burns to the socket you must have made me a pair of boots reaching to my knees
if they aren't finished in that time off comes your head the prince returned to his room in despair then the princess hyacinthia
came to him once more changed into the likeness of a bee and asked him why so sad prince milan how can i help being sad your father has set me this time an impossible task
before a candle which he has lit burns to the socket i am to make a pair of boots but what does a prince know of shoemaking if i can't do it i lose my head and
what do you mean to do asked hyacinthia well what is there to be done what he demands i can't and won't do
not so dearest i love you dearly and you shall marry me and i'll either save your life or die with you we must fly now as quickly as we can
for there is no other way of escape with these words she breathed on the window and her breath froze on the pane then she led milan out of the room with her shut the door and threw the key away
the horse no sooner recognized his master than it neighed loudly with joy and springing towards him it stood as if rooted to the ground while prince milan and hyacinthia jumped on its back
then it sped onwards like an arrow from a bow in the meantime the magician was waiting impatiently for the prince enraged by the delay he sent his servants to fetch him for the appointed time was past
the servants came to the door and finding it locked they knocked but the frozen breath
i am coming directly with this answer they returned to the magician but when the prince still did not appear after a time he sent his servants a second time to bring him the frozen breath
out of his mind with rage the magician ordered the prince to be pursued then a wild chase began i hear horses hoofs behind us said hyacinthia to the prince
milan sprang from the saddle put his ear to the ground and listened yes he answered they are pursuing us and are quite close then no time must be lost said hyacinthia
and she immediately turned herself into a river prince milan into an iron bridge and the charger into a blackbird behind the bridge the road branched off into three ways
the magician's servants hurried after the fresh tracks but when they came to the bridge they stood not knowing which road to take as the footprints stopped suddenly and there were three paths for them to choose from
fools the river and bridge were they go back and bring them to me at once or it will be the worse for you then the pursuit began afresh i hear horses hoofs
where a thousand paths and roads crossed each other their pursuers entered the forest but searched in vain for prince milan and his bride at last they found themselves back at the same spot they had started from
once more the beautiful hyacinthia murmured i hear horses hoofs quite near and the prince answered they are pursuing us hotly and are quite close
we are lost now for that is my father himself but at the first church we come to his power ceases he may chase us no further hand me your cross
prince milan loosened from his neck the little gold cross his mother had given him and as soon as hyacinthia grasped it she had changed herself into a church milan into a monk and the horse into a belfry
he asked the monk prince milan and princess hyacinthia have just gone on this minute they stopped for a few minutes in the church to say their prayers and bade me light this wax candle for you and give you their love
said the magician and made all haste home where he had every one of his servants beaten to within an inch of their lives prince milan rode on slowly with his bride without fearing any further pursuit
the sun was just setting and its last rays lit up a large city they were approaching prince milan was suddenly seized with an ardent desire to enter the town oh my beloved implored hyacinthia
what are you afraid of asked the prince we'll only go and look at what's to be seen in the town for about an hour and then we'll continue our journey to my father's kingdom the town is easy to get into
but more difficult to get out of sighed hyacinthia but let it be as you wish go and i will await you here but i will first change myself into a white milestone
only i pray you be very careful the king and queen of the town will come out to meet you leading a little child with them whatever you do don't kiss the child or you will forget me
and all that has happened to us i will wait for you here for three days the prince hurried to the town but hyacinthia remained behind disguised as a white milestone on the road the first day passed
into a little blue field flower she said i will grow here on the wayside till some passer by tramples me under foot
and one of her tears remained as a dewdrop and sparkled on the little blue flower now it happened shortly after this that an old man passed by
he pulled it up carefully by the roots and carried it home here he planted it in a pot and watered and tended the little plant carefully and now the most extraordinary thing happened
at first he was so surprised he didn't know what to think but after a time he grew a little uncomfortable and went to an old witch to ask for advice the witch said get up before the cock crows
and watch carefully till you see something move and then throw this cloth quickly over it and you'll see what will happen all night the old man never closed an eye when the first ray of light entered the room
the beautiful hyacinthia cried bitterly when she heard this then she dried her tears and went into the town dressed as a peasant woman she went straight to the king's kitchen
where the white aproned cooks were running about in great confusion the princess went up to the head cook and said dear cook please listen to my request and let me make a wedding cake for prince milan
the busy cook was just going to refuse her demand and order her out of the kitchen but the words died on his lips when he turned and beheld the beautiful hyacinthia and he answered politely
and i myself will lay it before prince milan the cake was soon made the invited guests were already thronging round the table when the head cook entered the room bearing a beautiful wedding cake
milan sighed deeply when he heard what the little dove said then he jumped up suddenly from the table and ran to the door where he found the beautiful hyacinthia waiting for him
the silent house chapter two shadows on the blind the landlady of denzil
she inclined to plumpness was lively in the extreme wore very fashionable garments of the brightest colours and although somewhat elderly still cherished a hope that some young man would elevate her to the rank of a matron
at present miss julia greeb was an unwedded damsel of forty summers who with the aid of art was making desperate but ineffectual efforts to detain the youth which was slipping from her
she pinched her waist dyed her hair powdered her face and affected juvenile dress of the white frock and blue sash kind in the distance she looked a girlish twenty
close at hand various artifices aided her to pass for thirty and it was only in the solitude of her own room that her real age was apparent never did woman wage a more resolute fight with time than did miss greeb
but this was the worst and most frivolous side of her character for she was really a good hearted cheery little woman with a brisk manner and a flow of talk unequalled in geneva square
she had been born in the house she occupied after the death of her father and had grown up to assist her mother in ministering to the exactions of a continuous procession of lodgers these came and went married and died
but not one of the desirable young men had borne miss greeb to the altar so that when her mother died the fair julia almost despaired of attaining to the dignity of wifehood nevertheless she continued to keep boarders
and to make attempts to captivate the hearts of such bachelors as she judged weak in character hitherto all her efforts had been more or less of a mercantile character with an eye to money but when lucian denzil appeared on the scene
but in strange contrast to her other efforts miss greeb never for a moment deemed
her ideal of manhood and to him she offered worship and burnt incense after the manner of her kind denzil occupied a bedroom and sitting room both pleasant airy apartments looking out on to the square
miss greeb attended to his needs herself and brought up his breakfast with her own fair hands
then miss greeb would retire to her own sitting room and indulge in day dreams which she well knew would never be realised
and the comedy of her husband hunting youth was now changing into the lonely tragedy of disappointed spinsterhood she was one of the world's unknown martyrs and her fate merits tears rather than laughter
on the morning after his meeting with berwin the young barrister sat at breakfast with miss greeb in anxious attendance having poured out his tea and handed him his paper and ascertained that his breakfast was to his liking
miss greeb lingered about the room putting this straight and that crooked in the hope that lucian would converse with her in this she was gratified as denzil wished to learn details about the strange man he had assisted on the previous night
and he knew that no one could afford him more precise information than his brisk landlady to whom was known all the gossip of the neighbourhood his first word made miss greeb flutter back to the table like a dove to its nest
asked lucian stirring his tea do i
live in it that they do do you call mister berwin a ghost no nor nothing half so respectable he is a mystery sir that's what mister berwin is and i don't care if he hears me commit myself so far
and the way in which mister berwin lives is enough to make one think him a coiner
but what grounds have you to believe him any one of the three this question also puzzled the landlady as she had no reasonable grounds for her wild statements nevertheless she made a determined attempt to substantiate them by hearsay evidence
lives all alone in that haunted house why not every man has the right to be a misanthrope if he chooses he has no right to behave so in a respectable square replied miss greeb shaking her head
there's only two rooms of that large house furnished and all the rest is given up to dust and ghosts mister berwin won't have a servant to live under his roof
only coming out at night like an owl if he ain't a criminal mister denzil why does he carry on so he may dislike his fellow men and desire to live a secluded life miss greeb still shook her head
he may dislike his fellow men she said with emphasis
that it don't is there anything wrong in that said lucian contemptuous of these cobweb objections perhaps not mister denzil but where do those he sees come from
they don't go in by the front door that's certain continued the little woman darkly there's only one entrance to this square sir and blinders the policeman is frequently on duty there
two or three of them on the sitting room blind now sir
perhaps by the back conjectured lucian again miss greeb shook her head
there's a yard and a fence but no entrance to get in there you have to go in by the front door
i thought of that myself and as my duty to the square i have inquired that i have on two occasions i've asked the day policeman and he says no one passed then said lucian rather puzzled
mister berwin cannot live alone in the house begging your pardon i'm sure cried the pertinacious woman but he does missus kebby has been all over the house and there isn't another soul in it no mister denzil
take it what way you will there's something that ain't right about mister berwin
tossing her head and gliding towards the door it ain't for me to say what i think i am the last person in the world to meddle with what don't concern me that i am and thus ending the conversation miss greeb vanished with significant look and pursed up lips
which she was quite unable to define save in terms more or less vague lucian dismissed such hints of criminality from his mind as the outcome of miss greeb's very lively imagination yet even though he reduced her communications to bare facts
he held that he had no right to pry into the secrets of the stranger
but such dismissal of unworthy curiosity was more difficult to effect than he expected for the next week lucian resolutely banished the subject from his thoughts and declined to discuss the matter further with miss greeb that little woman
all on fire with curiosity made various inquiries of her gossips regarding the doings of mister berwin and in default of reporting the same to her lodger occupied herself in discussing them with her neighbours
in expectation of some catastrophe although no one knew exactly what was going to happen this undefinable feeling of impending disaster communicating itself to lucian stimulated his curiosity to such a pitch that
with some feeling of shame for his weakness he walked round the square on two several evenings in the hope of meeting berwin but on both occasions he was unsuccessful on the third evening he was more fortunate
overhead the sky was clear and frosty with chill glittering stars and a wintry moon a thin covering of snow lay on the pavement
on coming to the house of berwin the barrister saw that the sitting room was lighted up and the curtains undrawn so that the window presented a square of illuminated blind even as he looked two shadows darkened the white surface
the shadows of a man and a woman evidently they had come between the lamp and the window and so quite unknowingly revealed their actions to the watcher curious to see the end of this shadow pantomime
the two figures seemed to be arguing for their heads nodded violently and their arms waved constantly they retreated out of the sphere of light and again came into it still continuing their furious gestures
unexpectedly the male shadow seized the female by the throat and swung her like a feather to and fro the struggling figures reeled out of the radiance and lucian heard a faint cry thinking that something was wrong
he rushed up the steps and rang the bell violently almost before the sound died away the light in the room was extinguished and he could see nothing more again and again he rang but without attracting attention
so lucian finally left the house and went in search of blinders the policeman to narrate his experience at the entrance of geneva square he ran against a man whom he recognised in the clear moonlight
the intensity of the question the compelling self forgetful passion of the man
with one accord and without stopping to pick their way they made for the open doorway knocking the smaller pieces of furniture about and creating havoc generally some fled the house
of combined movement and sound she stepped within the line of his vision and lifted her feeble and ineffectual hand in an effort to attract his attention to herself but he did not notice her any more than he had noticed the others
she stood there the woman stood there and i saw her where is she now she is no longer in the house came in gentle reply from the only one in or out of the room courageous enough to speak
she went out when she saw us coming we knew that she had no right to be here that is why we intruded ourselves sir we did not like the looks of her and so followed her in to prevent mischief ah
nor explain to himself she was here then a woman with a little child
and thundered out in great indignation how dared you
and how even if you had the temerity
did you manage to pass my gates they are never open bela sees to that bela
which blanched her small tense features as this name fell so naturally from his lips
for as she watched she saw his eyes fixed up to now upon her face leave it and pass furtively
towards that spot behind him where lay the source of her great terror
she knew just where his glances fell without following them with her own she saw them pass the door where so many faces yet peered in he saw them not
inch by inch breathlessly and with dread till finally with fatal precision they reached the point where the screen had stood and not finding it
when that something else huddled in oozing blood on the floor beneath drew them unto itself with the irresistibleness of grim reality and he forgot all else in the horror of a sight for which his fears however great
had failed to prepare him dead
the rest may have been no dream but this was surely one or his eyes
grasping the table at his side to steady his failing limbs
which for so many years had been the embodiment
did the truth of his great misfortune burst upon his bewildered soul and with a cry which tore the ears of all hearers and was never forgotten by any one there he flung himself down beside the dead negro
was that a sob yes thus much the heart gave
and bounding to his feet with the cry killed killed at his post he confronted the one witness of his anguish of whose presence he was aware and fiercely demanded
no single arm could have knocked down bela he has been set upon
and here his thought was caught up by another and that one so fearsome and unsettling that bewilderment again followed rage and with the look of a haunted spirit he demanded in a voice made low by awe and dread of its own sound and where was i
when all this happened you you were seated there murmured the little woman pointing at the great chair you were not quite quite yourself she softly explained wondering at her own composure
then quickly as she saw his thoughts revert to the dead friend at his feet bela was not hurt here he was down town when it happened but he managed to struggle home and gain this place which he tried to hold against the men who followed him
he thought you were dead you sat there so rigid and so white and before he quite gave up he asked us all to promise not to let any one enter this room till your son oliver came understanding partly
the judge sighed and stooping again straightened the faithful negro's limbs then with a side long look in her direction he felt in one of the pockets of the dead negro's coat and drawing out a small key held it in one hand
while he fumbled in his own for another which found he became on the instant his own man again miss weeks seeing the difference in him and seeing too that the doorway was now clear of the wondering awestruck group which had previously blocked it
bowed her slight body and proceeded to withdraw
she waited patiently near one of the book racks against which she had stumbled to hear what he had to say i must have had an attack of some kind he calmly remarked will you be good enough to explain exactly what occurred here that i may
she knew nothing of what had happened down town she could only tell what had passed before her eyes but there was one thing she could make clear to him and that was how the seemingly impassable gates had been made ready for the woman's entrance
and afterwards taken such advantage of by herself and others a pebble had done it all a pebble placed in the gateway by bela's hands as she described this and insisted upon the fact in face of the judge's almost frenzied disclaimer
from the other end of the room at the moment consciousness had left him evidently this intrusive little body did not know bela or his story or why should interruption come then
and bewailed the sudden access of sounds in the rooms without
the library again but how changed evening light now instead of blazing sunshine and evening light so shaded that the corners seemed far and the many articles of furniture
cumbering the spaces between larger for the shadows in which they stood hidden perhaps the man who sat there in company with the judge regretted this perhaps he would have preferred to see more perfectly that portion of the room where bela had taken his stand
and finally fallen it would have been interesting to note whether the screen had been replaced before the mysterious door
had protected to his last gasp curiosity is admissible even in a man when the cause is really great
and so with every appearance of satisfaction at being allowed in the room at all sergeant doolittle from headquarters drank the judge's wine and listened for the judge's commands these were slow in coming and they were unexpected when they came
sergeant i have lost a faithful servant under circumstances which have called an unfortunate attention to my house i should like to have this place guarded carefully guarded you understand
may i rely upon the police to do this beginning to night at an early hour there are loiterers already at the corner and in front of the two gates
two men are already detailed for the job your honour i heard the order given just as i left headquarters the judge showed small satisfaction indeed in his silence there was the hint of something like displeasure
this surprised sergeant doolittle and led him to attempt to read its cause in his host's countenance but the shade of the lamp intervened too completely and he had to be content to wait till the judge chose to speak which he presently did
he felt an emotion of wonder a sense of something more nearly approaching the uncanny than was usual to his matter of fact mind he had heard often enough what store the judge set on his privacy
but that a man even if he aped the hermit should consider three men necessary to hold the public away from a two hundred and fifty foot lot argued apprehensions of a character verging on the ridiculous
if two men are not enough to ensure you a quiet sleep you shall have three or four or even more judge ostrander do you want one of them to stay inside that might do the business better than a dozen out no
while bela lies above ground we want no third here when he is buried i may call upon you for a special to watch my room door
only who is to protect me against your men what do you mean by that your honour they are human are they not they have instincts of curiosity like the rest of us
how can i be made sure that they won't yield to the temptation of their position and climb the fences they are detailed to guard
a smile tempered the suggestion it would be a breach of trust which would greatly disturb me i want nobody on my grounds nobody at all has not my long life of solitude within these walls sufficiently proved this
i want to feel that these men of yours would no more climb my fence than they would burst into my house without a warrant judge i will be one of the men you can trust me thank you sergeant i appreciate the favour
the coroner's inquiry has decided that the injuries which bela received in the street were of a fatal character and would have killed him within an hour even if he had not exhausted his strength in the effort
but i shall always suffer from regret that i was not in a condition to receive his last sigh he was a man in a thousand
he was a very powerfully built man it took a sixty horse power racing machine going at a high rate of speed to kill him a spasm of grief or unavailing regret crossed the judge's face as his head sank back again against the high back of his chair
enough said he tread softly when you go by the sofa on which he lies will you fill your glass again sergeant the sergeant declined not if my watch is to be effective to night he smiled and rose to depart
the judge grown suddenly thoughtful rapped with his finger tips on the table edge he had not yet risen to show his visitor out i should like to ask a question he finally observed motioning the other to re seat himself
you were not at the inquiry this afternoon and may not know that just as bela and the crowd about him turned this corner they ran into a woman leading a small child who stopped the whole throng in order to address him no one heard what she said
and no one could give any information as to who she was or in what direction she vanished but i saw that woman myself earlier she was in this house she was in this room she came as far as that open space just inside the doorway
i cannot describe her features for she was heavily veiled neither can i describe her figure except to say that she is tall and slender but her dress i remember to the last detail though i am not usually so observant
she wore purple not an old woman's purple but a soft shade which did not take from her youth
in age it appeared to be about six or that was the impression i received before
leaned forward with a hasty inquiring glance expressive of something like consternation
was he destined to witness in this solitary meeting a return of the phenomenon which had so startled the intruding populace that morning no or if he had been witness to something of the kind it was for a moment only
for the eyes which had gone blank had turned his way again and only a disconnected expression which fell from the judge's lips showed that his mind had been wandering it's not the same but another one that's all
do you think you can find her with such insufficient data a woman dressed in purple leading a little child without any hat judge i not only feel sure that i can find her but i think she is found already
do you remember the old tavern on the rushville road i believe they call it an inn now or some such fancy name the judge sat quiet but the sergeant who dared not peer too closely
with which his host fingered a paper cutter lying on the table between them the one where i respect your hesitation judge yes the one run by the man you sentenced a gesture had stopped him
he waited respectfully for the judge's next words they came quickly and with stern and solemn emphasis for a hideous and wholly unprovoked crime why do you mention it and and his tavern
the proprietor's name is yardley we have nothing against him the place is highly respectable but it harbours a boarder a permanent one i believe who has occasioned no little comment no one has ever seen her face unless it is the landlord's wife
perhaps she's your visitor of to day hadn't i better find out has she a child is she a mother i haven't heard of any child but missus yardley has seven
after you hear from me again make no move to night let me feel that all your energies are devoted to securing my privacy
but the arrangement of light was such as to hold in shadow all but the central portion of the room and this central portion held nothing out of the common nothing to explain the mysteries of the dwelling or the apprehensions of its suspicious owner
with a sigh the sergeant dropped his eyes from the walls he could barely distinguish and following judge ostrander's lead passed with him under the torn folds of the curtain and through the narrow vestibule whose door was made of iron into the room where
in a stronger blaze of light than they had left lay the body of the dead negro awaiting the last rites would the judge pass this body or turn away from it towards a door leading front the sergeant had come in at the rear
unexpectedly to himself the judge's intentions were in the direction of his own wishes he was led front and entering an old fashioned hall dimly lighted passed a staircase and two closed doors
both of which gave him the impression of having been shut upon a past it had pleasured no one to revive in many years
many years had passed since judge ostrander had played the host but he had not lost a sense of its obligations it was for him to shoot the bolts and lift the bars but he went about it so clumsily
and with such evident aversion to the task that the sergeant instinctively sprang to help him i shall miss bela at every turn remarked the judge turning with a sad smile as he finally pulled the door open this is an unaccustomed effort for me
excuse my awkwardness something in his attitude something in the way he lifted his hand to push back a fallen lock from his forehead impressed itself upon the sergeant's mind so vividly that he always remembered the judge as he appeared to him at that minute
of a commanding personality by reason of his height
and the apprehensions which he displayed in these multiplied and extraordinary arrangements for personal security was forcible enough to arouse any man's interest the sergeant was so occupied by the mystery of the man and the mystery of the house that they had passed the first gate
ere the second gate swung open and he found himself again in the street he had built up more than one theory in explanation of this freak of parallel fences with the strip of gloom between
would he have felt the suggestion of the spot still more deeply had it been given him to see the anxious and hesitating figure which immediately upon his departure entered this dark maze and with feeling hands and cautious step
wound its way from corner to corner now stopping abruptly to listen now shrinking from some imaginary presence a shadow among shadows till it stood again between the gates from which it had started
mina harker's journal twenty three september jonathan is better after a bad night i am so glad that he has plenty of work to do for that keeps his mind off the terrible things
and oh i am rejoiced that he is not now weighed down with the responsibility of his new position i knew he would be true to himself and now how proud i am to see my jonathan rising to the height of his advancement
and keeping pace in all ways with the duties that come upon him he will be away all day till late for he said he could not lunch at home my household work is done so i shall take his foreign journal
and lock myself up in my room and read it twenty four september i hadn't the heart to write last night that terrible record of jonathan's upset me so
poor dear how he must have suffered whether it be true or only imagination i wonder if there is any truth in it at all did he get his brain fever and then write all those terrible things
or had he some cause for it all i suppose i shall never know for i dare not open the subject to him and yet that man we saw yesterday he seemed quite certain of him poor fellow
unless some solemn duty come upon me to go back to the bitter hours asleep or awake mad or sane there seems to be through it all some thread of continuity that fearful count was coming to london
if it should be and he came to london with his teeming millions there may be a solemn duty and if it come we must not shrink from it i shall be prepared i shall get my typewriter this very hour
and begin transcribing then we shall be ready for other eyes if required and if it be wanted then perhaps if i am ready poor jonathan may not be upset for i can speak for him
and never let him be troubled or worried with it at all if ever jonathan quite gets over the nervousness he may want to tell me of it all and i can ask him questions and find out things and see how i may comfort him letter
van helsing to missus harker twenty four september confidence dear madam i pray you to pardon my writing in that i am so far friend as that i sent to you sad news of miss lucy westenra's death
by the kindness of lord godalming i am empowered to read her letters and papers for i am deeply concerned about certain matters vitally important
that may be more great than you can know may it be that i see you you can trust me i am friend of doctor john seward and of lord godalming that was arthur of miss lucy i must keep it private for the present from all
so i pray you if it may be enlighten him not lest it may harm again your pardon and forgive me van helsing telegram missus harker to van helsing
twenty five september come to day by quarter past ten train if you can catch it can see you any time you call wilhelmina harker mina harker's journal twenty five september
i cannot help feeling terribly excited as the time draws near for the visit of doctor van helsing for somehow i expect that it will throw some light upon jonathan's sad experience and as he attended poor dear lucy in her last illness he can tell me all about her
that is the reason of his coming it is concerning lucy and her sleep walking and not about jonathan then i shall never know the real truth now how silly i am
that awful journal gets hold of my imagination and tinges everything with something of its own colour of course it is about lucy that habit came back to the poor dear and that awful night on the cliff must have made her ill
i hope i did right in not saying anything of it to missus westenra i should never forgive myself if any act of mine were it even a negative one brought harm on poor dear lucy
i hope too doctor van helsing will not blame me i have had so much trouble and anxiety of late that i feel i cannot bear more just at present i suppose a cry does us all good at times
clears the air as other rain does perhaps it was reading the journal yesterday that upset me and then jonathan went away this morning to stay away from me a whole day and night the first time we have been parted since our marriage
i do hope the dear fellow will take care of himself and that nothing will occur to upset him it is two o'clock and the doctor will be here soon now i shall say nothing of jonathan's journal
if i had not read jonathan's journal first i should never have accepted even a possibility poor poor dear jonathan how he must have suffered
and if they brought him all the way from holland to look after lucy i feel from having seen him that he is good and kind and of a noble nature when he comes to morrow i shall ask him about jonathan
that you must be able to put down exactly almost every word spoken even if you had to refine some of it afterwards here was a rare interview i shall try to record it verbatim
it was half past two o'clock when the knock came i took my courage a deux mains and waited in a few minutes mary opened the door and announced doctor van helsing i rose and bowed and he came towards me
a man of medium weight strongly built with his shoulders set back over a broad deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk
the head is noble well sized broad and large behind the ears the face clean shaven shows a hard square chin a large resolute mobile mouth a good sized nose rather straight but with quick sensitive nostrils
that seem to broaden as the big bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens the forehead is broad and fine rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart
he said to me missus harker is it not i bowed assent that was miss mina murray again i assented it is mina murray that i came to see that was friend of that poor dear child lucy westenra
madam mina it is on account of the dead i come sir i said you could have no better claim on me than that you were a friend and helper of lucy westenra and i held out my hand
he took it and said tenderly oh madam mina i knew that the friend of that poor lily girl must be good but i had yet to learn he finished his speech with a courtly bow
i asked him what it was that he wanted to see me about so he at once began i have read your letters to miss lucy forgive me but i had to begin to inquire somewhere and there was none to ask i know that you were with her at whitby
she sometimes kept a diary you need not look surprised madam mina it was begun after you had left and was in imitation of you and in that diary
she traces by inference certain things to a sleep walking in which she puts down that you saved her in great perplexity then i come to you and ask you out of your so much kindness to tell me all of it that you can remember
i can tell you i think doctor van helsing all about it ah then you have good memory for facts for details it is not always so with young ladies no doctor but i wrote it all down at the time
i can show it to you if you like oh madam mina i will be grateful you will do me much favour
so i handed him the shorthand diary he took it with a grateful bow and said may i read it if you wish i answered as demurely as i could he opened it and for an instant his face fell then he stood up and bowed
by this time my little joke was over and i was almost ashamed so i took the typewritten copy from my workbasket and handed it to him forgive me i said i could not help it but
i had been thinking that it was of dear lucy that you wished to ask and so that you might not have time to wait not on my account but because i know your time must be precious i have written it out on the typewriter for you he took it and his eyes glistened
you are so good he said and may i read it now i may want to ask you some things when i have read by all means i said read it over whilst i order lunch and then you can ask me questions whilst we eat
is as sunshine it opens the gate to me
and yet clouds roll in behind the light every time but that you do not cannot comprehend oh but i am grateful to you you so clever woman madam he said this very solemnly
if ever abraham van helsing can do anything for you or yours i trust you will let me know it will be pleasure and delight if i may serve you as a friend as a friend but all i have ever learned all i can ever do
shall be for you and those you love
not know you i who am old and who have studied all my life men and women i who have made my specialty the brain and all that belongs to him and all that follow from him
and i have read your diary that you have so goodly written for me and which breathes out truth in every line i who have read your so sweet letter to poor lucy of your marriage and your trust not know you
oh madam mina good women tell all their lives and by day and by hour and by minute such things that angels can read and we men who wish to know have in us something of angels eyes
your husband is noble nature and you are noble too for you trust and trust cannot be where there is mean nature and your husband tell me of him is he quite well
is all that fever gone and is he strong and hearty i saw here an opening to ask him about jonathan so i said he was almost recovered but he has been greatly upset
he thought he saw some one who recalled something terrible something which led to his brain fever and here the whole thing seemed to overwhelm me in a rush the pity for jonathan the horror which he experienced the whole fearful mystery of his diary
and the fear that has been brooding over me ever since all came in a tumult i suppose i was hysterical for i threw myself on my knees and held up my hands to him and implored him to make my husband well again
he took my hands and raised me up and made me sit on the sofa and sat by me he held my hand in his and said to me with oh such infinite sweetness
that i have not had much time for friendships but since i have been summoned to here by my friend john seward i have known so many good people and seen such nobility that i feel more than ever
to make his life strong and manly and your life a happy one now you must eat you are overwrought and perhaps over anxious husband jonathan would not like to see you so pale
and what he like not where he love is not to his good therefore for his sake you must eat and smile
and so now we shall not speak of it lest it distress i shall stay in exeter to night for i want to think much over what you have told me and when i have thought i will ask you questions if i may and then too
you will tell me of husband jonathan's trouble so far as you can but not yet you must eat now afterwards you shall tell me all after lunch when we went back to the drawing room he said to me
and now tell me all about him when it came to speaking to this great learned man i began to fear that he would think me a weak fool and jonathan a madman
that journal is all so strange and i hesitated to go on but he was so sweet and kind and he had promised to help and i trusted him so i said
and not think me foolish that i have even half believed some very strange things he reassured me by his manner as well as his words when he said oh my dear if you only know how strange is the matter regarding which i am here
i have tried to keep an open mind and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it but the strange things the extraordinary things the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane
it is the copy of his journal when abroad and all that happened i dare not say anything of it you will read for yourself and judge and then when i see you perhaps
jonathan will be here at half past eleven and you must come to lunch with us and see him then you could catch the quick three thirty four train which will leave you at paddington before eight he was surprised at my knowledge of the trains off hand
letter by hand van helsing to missus harker twenty five september sixth o'clock dear madam mina i have read your husband's so wonderful diary you may sleep without doubt strange and terrible as it is it is true
i will pledge my life on it it may be worse for others but for him and you there is no dread he is a noble fellow and let me tell you from experience of men that one who would do as he did in going down that wall and to that room ay and going a second time
is not one to be injured in permanence by a shock his brain and his heart are all right this i swear before i have even seen him so be at rest i shall have much to ask him of other things i am blessed that to day i come to see you
a thousand thanks for your kind letter which has taken a great weight off my mind and yet if it be true what terrible things there are in the world and what an awful thing if that man that monster
be really in london i fear to think
mina harker jonathan harker's journal twenty six september i thought never to write in this diary again but the time has come when i got home last night mina had supper ready
and when we had supped she told me of van helsing's visit and of her having given him the two diaries copied out and of how anxious she has been about me she showed me in the doctor's letter that all i wrote down was true it seems to have made a new man of me
mina is dressing and i shall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring him over he was i think surprised to see me when i came into the room where he was and introduced myself
he took me by the shoulder and turned my face round to the light and said after a sharp scrutiny but madam mina told me you were ill that you had had a shock
it was so funny to hear my wife called madam mina by this kindly strong faced old man i smiled and said i was ill i have had a shock but you have cured me already and how
and so had only to keep on working in what had hitherto been the groove of my life the groove ceased to avail me and i mistrusted myself doctor you don't know what it is to doubt everything even yourself no
you don't you couldn't with eyebrows like yours he seemed pleased and laughed as he said so you are physiognomist i learn more here with each hour i am with so much pleasure coming to you to breakfast and oh sir
you will pardon praise from an old man but you are blessed in your wife i would listen to him go on praising mina for a day so i simply nodded and stood silent
and that let me tell you is much in this age so sceptical and selfish and you sir i have read all the letters to poor miss lucy and some of them speak of you so i know you since some days from the knowing of others
but i have seen your true self since last night you will give me your hand will you not and let us be friends for all our lives we shook hands and he was so earnest and so kind that it made me quite choky
and now he said may i ask you for some more help i have a great task to do and at the beginning it is to know you can help me here can you tell me what went before your going to transylvania
but i shall get the bundle of papers you can take them with you and read them in the train after breakfast i saw him to the station when we were parting he said
we shall both come when you will i said i had got him the morning papers and the london papers of the previous night and while we were talking at the carriage window waiting for the train to start he was turning them over his eyes suddenly seemed to catch something in one of them the westminster gazette
so soon i do not think he remembered me at the moment just then the whistle blew and the train moved off this recalled him to himself and he leaned out of the window and waved his hand calling out love to madam mina
i shall write so soon as ever i can doctor seward's diary twenty six september truly there is no such thing as finality
i had a letter from arthur written on sunday and from it i gather
quincey wrote me a line too and from him i hear that arthur is beginning to recover something of his old buoyancy so as to them all my mind is at rest as for myself i was settling down to my work with the enthusiasm which i used to have for it
so that i might fairly have said that the wound which poor lucy left on me was becoming cicatrised everything is however now reopened and what is to be the end god only knows
i have an idea that van helsing thinks he knows too but he will only let out enough at a time to whet curiosity he went to exeter yesterday and stayed there all night to day he came back and almost bounded into the room at about half past five o'clock
and thrust last night's westminster gazette into my hand what do you think of that he asked as he stood back and folded his arms i looked over the paper for i really did not know what he meant
but he took it from me and pointed out a paragraph about children being decoyed away at hampstead it did not convey much to me until i reached a passage where it described small punctured wounds on their throats an idea struck me and i looked up
well he said it is like poor lucy's and what do you make of it simply that there is some cause in common whatever it was that injured her has injured them i did not quite understand his answer
that is true indirectly but not directly how do you mean professor i asked i was a little inclined to take his seriousness lightly for after all
tell me i said i can hazard no opinion i do not know what to think and i have no data on which to found a conjecture
as to what poor lucy died of not after all the hints given not only by events but by me of nervous prostration following on great loss or waste of blood
or think they know some things which other men have told them ah it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all and if it explain not then it says there is nothing to explain
i suppose now you do not believe in corporeal transference no nor in materialisation no nor in astral bodies no
nor in hypnotism yes i said charcot has proved that pretty well he smiled as he went on then you are satisfied as to it yes
and reject the thought reading let me tell you my friend that there are things done to day in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very men who discovered electricity
as wizards there are always mysteries in life
can you tell me why when other spiders die small and soon that one great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old spanish church and grew and grew
till on descending he could drink the oil of all the church lamps can you tell me why in the pampas ay and elsewhere
how in some islands of the western seas there are bats which hang on the trees all day and those who have seen describe as like giant nuts or pods and that when the sailors sleep on the deck because that it is hot flit down on them and then
and that such a thing is here in london in the nineteenth century he waved his hand for silence and went on
and corn sowed on it and the corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again and then men come and take away the unbroken seal and that there lie the indian fakir not dead but that rise up and walk amongst them as before
here i interrupted him i was getting bewildered he so crowded on my mind his list of nature's eccentricities and possible impossibilities that my imagination was getting fired
i had a dim idea that he was teaching me some lesson as long ago he used to do in his study at amsterdam
i feel like a novice lumbering through a bog in a mist jumping from one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to move on without knowing where i am going
well i shall tell you my thesis is this i want you to believe to believe what to believe in things that you cannot
let me illustrate i heard once of an american who so defined faith that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue for one i follow that man
he meant that we shall have an open mind and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of a big truth like a small rock does a railway truck we get the small truth first good
we keep him and we value him but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe then you want me not to let some previous conviction
do i read your lesson aright ah you are my favourite pupil still it is worth to teach you now that you are willing to understand you have taken the first step to understand
i suppose so he stood up and said solemnly then you are wrong oh would it were so but alas no it is worse far far worse
what do you mean i cried he threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair and placed his elbows on the table covering his face with his hands as he spoke
a handsome young king in the neighbourhood although he had never seen this princess fell so deeply in love with her from what he had heard
now at his court there was a young man called avenant he was as beautiful as the sun and a more finely made fellow than any in the kingdom everybody loved him except a few envious people
and these words were repeated to the king in such a manner that they made him very angry and he ordered avenant to be shut up in a high tower to die of hunger in this sad plight avenant exclaimed one day how have i offended his majesty
avenant pitied the poor thing and put her carefully back into the water recovering directly the carp dived to the bottom but returning to the edge of the river said avenant i thank you you have saved my life i will repay you
another day as avenant journeyed he noticed a raven who was pursued by an eagle what right has that eagle to persecute the raven
shortly before he arrived at his destination purchasing a beautiful little dog named cabriole when avenant reached the palace of the princess goldenhair and saw the princess seated upon her throne
she looked so lovely that at first all his fine speeches forsook him and he could not utter a word however taking courage he addressed her in exquisitely chosen language begging her to become the king's bride
to this the princess replied most graciously saying that his petition moved her more than any other could do but know she added as i was walking by the river a month ago as i took off my glove a ring that i greatly value fell into the water
my dear master do not despair you are too good to be unhappy early to morrow morning let us go to the river side avenant patted him but did not answer and still sad fell asleep
they wandered down to the river and there avenant heard a voice calling him and what should he see but the golden carp with the princess's ring in her mouth
thanking her a thousand times avenant going at once to the palace said princess your command is fulfilled may it please you to receive the king my master as your husband the princess thought she must be dreaming when she saw the ring but she set avenant another task
not far from here there is a prince named galifron said she
he is a giant taller than my highest tower he eats a man as a monkey would eat a chestnut and when he speaks his voice is so loud that it deafens those who hear him he will not take my refusal but kills my subjects
avenant set out for galifron's country asking news of the giant as he went along and the more he heard the more he feared him
where are the children small so small with my teeth i will crush them all on so many would i feed feed feed the whole world can't supply my need
only a raven from above flew at his head and pecked him straight in the eyes so violently that he was blinded he began striking out on all sides but avenant avoided his blows and with his sword pierced him so many times that at last he fell to the ground
i have not forgotten how you rescued me from the eagle
responded avenant as holding galifron's head he rode off when he entered the town crowds followed him crying here is the brave avenant who has slain the monster avenant advanced to the princess and said madam your enemy is dead
i hope you will no more refuse the king my master
at the entrance there are two dragons with fire in their eyes and mouths inside the grotto there is a deep pit into which you must descend it is full of toads scorpions and serpents at the bottom of this pit there is a little cave where flows the fountain of beauty and health
positively i must possess the water all who wash in it if they are beautiful continue so always if they are ugly they become beautiful if they are young they remain young if they are old they regain their youth you cannot wonder avenant
that i will not leave my kingdom without taking it with me
they journeyed on until they came to a rock black as ink from which smoke was issuing and a moment later there appeared one of the dragons belching forth fire from his eyes and mouth he was a frightful looking creature with a green and yellow body
and his tail was so long that it went into a hundred curves avenant saw all this but resolved to die he drew his sword and carrying the flask the princess had given to him to hold the water he said to cabriole
my days are ended i can never obtain that water the dragons are guarding when i am dead fill this flask with my blood and carry it to the princess that she may know what it has cost me then go to the king my master and tell him of my misfortune
the time has now come give me your flask i will bring you the water of beauty and carrying the flask the owl entered the grotto unhindered returning in less than a quarter of an hour with it full to the brim avenant thanked the owl heartily and joyously started for the town
where he presented the flask to the princess who immediately gave orders to prepare for her departure but as she considered avenant altogether charming before she set out she several times said to him if you wish we need not go for i will make you king of my country
then the envious courtiers counselled the king and avenant was cast once more into the tower chained hand and foot when princess goldenhair heard of this imprisonment she fell on her knees before the king
so that she became saddened and would speak no more
but the liquid in this flask was really that which was used when the princes or great lords were condemned to death for instead of being beheaded their faces were washed with this water and they fell asleep and did not wake again and
so the king using this water one evening thinking it to be the beauty water and hoping and expecting to be made more handsome went to sleep and awoke no more
who asked him to go to the princess goldenhair and beseech her to remember the poor prisoner
and placing a crown of gold upon his head and a royal mantle upon his shoulders said come dear avenant i will make you king
local governors who had become rich and having returned from different provinces sounded the princess to see if she were inclined to part with her residence but this she always refused to do saying that however unfortunate she might be
but such people appeared only contemptible to her as she looked upon them as proposing such a thing solely because they knew she was poor her attendants sometimes suggested to her that it was by no means an uncommon occurrence for one to dispose of such articles
allowing them to become the ornament of the dwellings of some lowborn upstarts scarcely anyone paid a visit to her dwelling her only occasional visitor being her brother a priest who came to see her when he came to the capital
but he was a man of eccentric character and was not very flourishing in his circumstances such being the state of affairs with the princess hitachi the grounds of her mansion became more and more desolate and wild
and carried away part of the shingle roof only one blessing remained there no thief intruded into the enclosure as no temptation was offered to them for their attack but never did the princess lose her accustomed reserve
these with their illustrations were her chief resources now a sister of the princess's mother had married a durio and had already borne him a daughter this marriage had been considered an unequal match by the father of the princess
and for this reason she was not very friendly with the family
and who still remained with the princess used to go to her
it seems to me that where a lady of ordinary degree is elevated to a higher position
but there are other women who when degraded from their rank spoil their taste and habits just like the lady in question
senior secretary to the lord lieutenant and they were to go down to tzkushi
but the princess still clung to the hope that the time would come when genji would remember her and renew his kindness winter came one day quite unexpectedly the aunt arrived at the mansion bringing as a present a dress for the princess
her carriage dashed into the garden in a most pompous style and drove right up to the southern front of the building jijiu went to meet her and conducted her into the princess's apartment i must soon be leaving the capital said the visitor
it is not my wish to leave you behind but you would not listen to me and now there is no help but this one this jijiu at least i wish to take with me i have come to day to fetch her i cannot understand how you can be content with your present condition
here she manifested a certain sadness but her delight at her husband's promotion was unmistakable and she continued when your father was alive i was looked down upon by him which caused a coolness between us
which made me abstain from visiting you often but fortune is fickle for those in a humble position often enjoy comfort and those that are higher in station are not quite so well circumstanced i do really feel sorry to leave you behind
but it is simply foolish to abandon one's self and to bury one's life under such a mass of dilapidation
all his old favorites being now abandoned how then can you expect him to say that because you have been faithful to him
these words touched the princess but she gave no vent to her feelings the visitor therefore hurried jijiu to get ready saying that they must leave before the dusk
that also seems natural
made of the hair which had fallen from her own head this she put into an old casket
was very trying to the princess who said to her that though she could not blame her for leaving she still felt sorry to lose her to this jijiu replied that she never forgot the wishes of her mother and was only too happy to share joy and sorrow with the princess
yet she was sorry to say that circumstances obliged her to leave her for some time but before she could say much she was hurried away by the visitor it was one evening in april of the following year that genji happened to be going to the villa of the falling flowers
koremitz entered and proceeding to the door called out
koremitz recognized her as an aunt of the latter he then asked her about the princess and told her of genji's intention to his inquiries he soon obtained a satisfactory answer
and duly reported it to genji who now felt a pang of remorse for his long negligence of one so badly circumstanced he descended from his carriage but the pathway was all but overgrown with tall mugwort which was wet with a passing shower
only i heard nothing from you so i waited till now and here i find myself once more the princess as usual said very little only thanking him for his visit he then addressed her in many kind and affectionate words
who was by no means distinguished for her beauty and who still bore a mark on her nose which might remind one of a well ripened fruit carried by mountaineers how was this it might have been preordained to be so
i would fain describe the astonishment of her aunt when she returned from the western island and saw the princess's happy condition and how jijiu regretted having left her too hastily
chapter fourteen the beacon genji well remembered the dream which he had dreamt at suma and in which his father the late ex emperor had made a faint allusion to his fallen state
he was always thinking of having solemn service performed for him which might prove to be a remedy for evils he was now in the capital and at liberty to do anything he wished
in october therefore he ordered the grand ceremony of mihakko to be performed for the repose of the dead meanwhile the respect of the public towards genji had now returned to its former state
and he himself had become a distinguished personage in the capital the empress mother though indisposed regretted she had not ruined genji altogether while the emperor who had not forgotten the injunction of the late ex emperor
felt satisfied with his recent disposition towards his half brother which he believed to be an act of goodness this he felt the more
he did not however believe he should be long on the throne and when he found himself lonely he often sent for genji and spent hours conversing with him without any reserve on public affairs
the new reign opened with several changes in public affairs genji had been made naidaijin
or the udaijin he was to take an active part in the administration but as he was not yet disposed to engage in the busy cares of official life
he at first declined to accept the office on the ground that he was advanced in age that he had already retired from official life and that the decline of his life left him insufficient energy there was however an example in a foreign state
when their country was in a disturbed state came forth from their retreat with their snow crowned heads and took part in the administration of affairs nor was it an unusual thing for a statesman who had retired from political scenes to assume again a place under another government
and hence when he accepted his new post he at once showed how capable he was of being a responsible minister to no chiujio his eldest son was also made the gon chiunagon his daughter by his wife
the fourth daughter of udaijin was now twelve years old and was shortly expected to be presented at court while his son who had sung the high sand at a summer day reunion at genji's mansion received a title
the young genji too the son of the late lady aoi was admitted to the court of the emperor and of the heir apparent the attendants who faithfully served the young genji and those in the mansion at nijio
had all received a satisfactory token of appreciation from genji who now began to have a mansion repaired
and which had formerly belonged to his father this he did with a notion of placing there some of his intimate friends
he despatched a messenger there on the first of march as he deemed the happy event would take place about that time when the messenger returned he reported that she was safely delivered of a girl on the sixteenth of the month
he remembered the prediction of an astrologer who had told him that an emperor would be born to him and another son who would eventually become a dajiodaijin he also remembered that a daughter
when he reflected on this prediction and on the series of events
and as he thought of sending for her as soon as the condition of the young mother's health would admit he hurried forward the repairs of the eastern mansion he also thought that as there might not be a suitable nurse at akashi for the child
when she arrived the priest was intensely delighted and the young mother who had been gradually improving in health felt great consolation the child was very healthy and the nurse at once began to discharge her duties most faithfully
hitherto genji did not confide the story of his relations with the maiden of akashi to violet but he thought he had better do so as the matter might naturally reach her ears he now therefore informed her of all the circumstances and of the birth of the child saying
if you feel any unpleasantness about the matter i cannot blame you in any way it was not the blessing which i desired how greatly do i regret that in the quarter where i wished to see the heavenly gift there is none but see it in another
where there was no expectation the child is merely a girl too and i almost think that i need pay no further attention but this would make me heartless towards my undoubted offspring i shall send for it and show it to you and hope you will be generous to her
pray don't attribute any blame to me i never thought of it how miserable am i and he began to drop tears when he came to reflect how faithful she had been all the time and how affectionate and also how regular had been her correspondence
he felt sorry for her and continued in my anxious thoughts about this child i have some intentions which may be agreeable to you also only i will not tell you too hastily since if i do so now they might not be taken in a favorable light
the attractions of the mother seem only to have arisen from the position in which she was placed you must not think of the matter too seriously
he then briefly sketched her character and her skill in music but on the part of violet she could not but think that it was cruel to her to give away part of his heart while her thoughts were with no one but him and she was quite cast down for some time
genji tried to console her he took up a kin and asked her to play and sing with him but she did not touch it saying that she could not play it so well as the maiden of akashi
the fifth of may was the fiftieth day of the birth of the child so genji sent a messenger to akashi a few days before the time when he would be expected
a liberal allowance was granted to her and a becoming household was established for her private use she however still continued her devotion to religion now and then coming to court to see her son where she was received with all cordiality so that her rival
the mother of the ex emperor whose influence was overwhelming till lately now began to feel like one to whom the world had become irksome in the meantime public affairs entirely changed their aspects
and his son in law genji by whose influence all things in public were swayed in august of this year the daughter of gon chiunagon formerly to no chiujio was introduced at court she took up her abode in the kokiden
but genji took no interest in this what will he eventually do about this matter in the same autumn genji went to the temple of sumiyoshi to fulfil his vows
his party consisted of many young nobles and court retainers besides his own private attendants by a coincidence the maiden of akashi who had been prevented from coming to the temple since the last year happened to arrive there on the same day
and koremitz in fine uniforms of different colors blue green or scarlet according to their different ranks formed the procession contrasting with the hue of the range of pine trees on both sides of the road
genji was in a carriage which was followed by ten boy pages granted by the court in the same way as a late sadaijin kawara had been honored
the maiden of akashi witnessed the procession but she avoided making herself known she thought she had better not go up to the temple on that day but she could not sail back to akashi
for the night as to genji he knew nothing of the maiden being a spectator of the procession and spent the whole night in the temple with his party in performing services which might please the god
and as yon beacon meets our eye to dream perchance of days gone by a few words more the change of the ruler had brought a change of the saigu and the lady of rokjio with her daughter returned to the capital
her health however began to fail and she became a nun and after some time died
notice of an armed expedition action of the confederate government bombardment and surrender of fort sumter its reduction required by the exigency of the case disguise thrown off
president lincoln's call for seventy five thousand men his fiction of combinations palpable violation of the constitution action of virginia of citizens of baltimore
left the united states capital to report the result of their mission to the confederate government the notice received that an armed expedition had sailed for operations against the state of south carolina in the harbor of charleston
induced the confederate government to meet as best it might this assault in the discharge of its obligation to defend each state of the confederacy to this end the bombardment of the formidable work fort sumter was commenced
the event however was seized upon to inflame the mind of the northern people and the disguise which had been worn in the communications with the confederate commissioners was now thrown off and it was cunningly attempted to show that the south
which had been pleading for peace and still stood on the defensive
but it should be stated that the threats implied in the declarations that the union could not exist part slave and part free and that the union should be preserved
and the denial of the right of a state peaceably to withdraw were virtually a declaration of war and the sending of an army and navy to attack was the result to have been anticipated as the consequence of such declaration of war
on the fifteenth day of the same month president lincoln introducing his farce of combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings
called forth the military of the several states to the number of seventy five thousand and commanded the persons composing the combinations to disperse et cetera it can but surprise any one in the least degree conversant with the history of the union
to find states referred to as persons composing combinations and that the sovereign creators of the federal government the states of the union should be commanded by their agent to disperse the levy of so large an army could only mean war
it must have been according to the constitution against the state and the power of the president to call forth the militia to suppress it was dependent upon an application from the state for that purpose
each state against invasion and against domestic violence whenever application shall have been made by the legislature or by the executive when the legislature can not be convened and that to fail to give protection against any invasion whatsoever
of the united states is but to repeat what has been said on the absence of any authority in the general government to coerce a state in any possible view of the case therefore the conclusion must be
that the calling on some of the states for seventy five thousand militia to invade other states which were asserted to be still in the union was a palpable violation of the constitution
and the usurpation of undelegated power or in other words of power reserved to the states or to the people it might therefore have been anticipated that virginia one of whose sons wrote the declaration of independence
and another of whose sons mainly contributed to the adoption of the constitution of the union would not have been slow in the face of such events to reclaim the grants she had made to the general government
two days had elapsed between the surrender of fort sumter and the proclamation of president lincoln calling for seventy five thousand militia as before stated
the bold stand then and thereafter taken extorted a promise from the executive authorities that no more troops should be sent through the city of baltimore which promise however
was only observed until by artifice power had been gained to disregard it virginia as has been heretofore stated passed her ordinance of secession on the seventeenth of april
it was however subject to ratification by the people at an election to be held on the fourth thursday of may she was in the mean time like her southern sisters the object of northern hostilities and having a common cause with them
which was ratified by the convention on the twenty fifth of april the convention for that alliance set forth that virginia looking to a speedy union with the confederate states
agreed that the whole military force and military operations offensive and defensive of said commonwealth in the impending conflict with the united states
to send to her troops organized and equipped
that knightly soldier general bonham of south carolina went with his brigade to richmond and throughout the southern states there was a prevailing desire to rush to virginia
i telegraphed to governor letcher that in addition to the forces heretofore ordered requisitions had been made for thirteen regiments eight to rendezvous at lynchburg four at richmond and one at harper's ferry
a mast was made of two poles spliced together a yard was made of a third a blanket borrowed from our coverings made a tolerable sail there was no want of cordage for the rigging and everything was well and firmly made
the provisions the baggage the instruments the guns and a good quantity of fresh water from the rocks around all found their proper places on board and at six the professor gave the signal to embark
hans had fitted up a rudder to steer his vessel he took the tiller and unmoored the sail was set and we were soon afloat at the moment of leaving the harbour
my uncle who was tenaciously fond of naming his new discoveries wanted to give it a name and proposed mine amongst others but i have a better to propose i said grauben let it be called
port graeuben it will look very well upon the map port graeuben let it be then and so the cherished remembrance of my virlandaise became associated with our adventurous expedition
the wind was from the north west we went with it at a high rate of speed the dense atmosphere acted with great force and impelled us swiftly on in an hour my uncle had been able to estimate our progress
at this rate he said we shall make thirty leagues in twenty four hours and we shall soon come in sight of the opposite shore i made no answer but went and sat forward the northern shore was already beginning to dip under the horizon
the eastern and western strands spread wide as if to bid us farewell before our eyes lay far and wide a vast sea shadows of great clouds swept heavily over its silver grey surface
the glistening bluish rays of electric light here and there reflected by the dancing drops of spray shot out little sheaves of light from the track we left in our rear soon we entirely lost sight of land
and but for the frothy track of the raft i might have thought we were standing still about twelve immense shoals of seaweeds came in sight
i was aware of the great powers of vegetation that characterise these plants which grow at a depth of twelve thousand feet reproduce themselves under a pressure of four hundred atmospheres
and sometimes form barriers strong enough to impede the course of a ship but never i think were such seaweeds as those which we saw floating in immense waving lines
three or four thousand feet long undulating like vast serpents beyond the reach of sight i found some amusement in tracing these endless waves always thinking i should come to the end of them
and for hours my patience was vying with my surprise what natural force could have produced such plants and what must have been the appearance of the earth in the first ages of its formation when under the action of heat and moisture
the vegetable kingdom alone was developing on its surface evening came and as on the previous day i perceived no change in the luminous condition of the air it was a constant condition
the permanency of which might be relied upon after supper i laid myself down at the foot of the mast and fell asleep in the midst of fantastic reveries hans keeping fast by the helm
let the raft run on which after all needed no steering the wind blowing directly aft since our departure from port graeuben professor liedenbrock had entrusted the log to my care
i was to register every observation make entries of interesting phenomena the direction of the wind the rate of sailing the way we made in a word every particular of our singular voyage
coast thirty leagues to leeward nothing in sight before us intensity of light the same weather fine that is to say that the clouds are flying high are light
at noon hans prepared a hook at the end of a line he baited it with a small piece of meat and flung it into the sea for two hours nothing was caught are these waters then bare of inhabitants
no there's a pull at the line hans draws it in and brings out a struggling fish a sturgeon i cried a small sturgeon the professor eyes the creature attentively
and his opinion differs from mine the head of this fish was flat but rounded in front and the anterior part of its body was plated with bony angular scales it had no teeth
its pectoral fins were large and of tail there was none the animal belonged to the same order as the sturgeon but differed from that fish in many essential particulars
after a short examination my uncle pronounced his opinion this fish belongs to an extinct family of which only fossil traces are found in the devonian formations what i cried
is a happy event for a naturalist but to what family does it belong it is of the order of ganoids of the family of the cephalaspidae and a species of pterichthys
but this one displays a peculiarity confined to all fishes that inhabit subterranean waters it is blind and not only blind but actually has no eyes at all i looked nothing could be more certain
but supposing it might be a solitary case we baited afresh and threw out our line surely this ocean is well peopled with fish for in another couple of hours
as well as of others belonging to the extinct family of the dipterides but of which my uncle could not tell the species none had organs of sight this unhoped for catch recruited our stock of provisions
thus it is evident that this sea contains none but species known to us in their fossil state in which fishes as well as reptiles are the less perfectly and completely organised the farther back their date of creation
perhaps we may yet meet with some of those saurians which science has reconstructed out of a bit of bone or cartilage i took up the telescope and scanned the whole horizon and found it everywhere a desert sea
flap their sail broad vans in this dense and heavy atmosphere there are sufficient fish for their support i survey the whole space that stretches overhead it is as desert as the shore was
found in the caverns of brazil the merycotherium
a gigantic tapir hides behind the rocks to dispute its prey with the anoplotherium
a strange creature which seemed a compound of horse rhinoceros camel and hippopotamus the colossal mastodon
is climbing up the steep ascents higher yet the pterodactyle
darts in irregular zigzags to and fro in the heavy air in the uppermost regions of the air immense birds more powerful than the cassowary and larger than the ostrich spread their vast breadth of wings
and strike with their heads the granite vault that bounds the sky all this fossil world rises to life again in my vivid imagination i return to the scriptural periods or ages of the world
then the zoophytes of the transition period also return to nothing i am the only living thing in the world all life is concentrated in my beating heart alone there are no more seasons
climates are no more the heat of the globe continually increases and neutralises that of the sun vegetation becomes accelerated i glide like a shade amongst arborescent ferns
treading with unsteady feet the coloured marls and the particoloured clays i lean for support against the trunks of immense conifers i lie in the shade of sphenophylla
and lycopods a hundred feet high ages seem no more than days i am passed against my will in retrograde order through the long series of terrestrial changes plants disappear
granite rocks soften intense heat converts solid bodies into thick fluids the waters again cover the face of the earth they boil they rise in whirling eddies of steam
which by imperceptible degrees dissolves into a gaseous mass glowing fiery red and white as large and as shining as the sun
vast globular volumes of vaporous mists which roll upon their flaming orbits through infinite space but is it not a dream whither is it carrying me my feverish hand has vainly attempted to describe upon paper
its strange and wonderful details i have forgotten everything that surrounds me the professor the guide the raft are all gone out of my ken an illusion has laid hold upon me
what is the matter my uncle breaks in my staring eyes are fixed vacantly upon him take care axel or you will fall overboard at that moment i felt the sinewy hand of hans
do you feel ill my uncle asked no but i have had a strange hallucination it is over now is all going on right
preparations for a voyage of discovery the next morning i awoke feeling perfectly well i thought a bathe would do me good and i went to plunge for a few minutes into the waters of this mediterranean sea
for assuredly it better deserved this name than any other sea i came back to breakfast with a good appetite hans was a good caterer for our little household he had water and fire at his disposal
for high tide and we must not lose the opportunity to study this phenomenon what the tide i cried can the influence of the sun and moon be felt down here why not
are not all bodies subject throughout their mass to the power of universal attraction this mass of water cannot escape the general law and in spite of the heavy atmospheric pressure on the surface you will see it rise like the atlantic itself
and judging by these ridges of foam you may observe that the sea will rise about twelve feet this is wonderful i said no it is quite natural you may say so uncle but to me it is most extraordinary
well replied my uncle is there any scientific reason against it no i
so then thus far he answered the theory of sir humphry davy is confirmed evidently it is and now there is no reason why there should not be seas and continents in the interior of the earth no doubt
said my uncle and inhabited too to be sure said i and why should not these waters yield to us
at any rate he replied we have not seen any yet
we will try axel for we must penetrate all secrets of these newly discovered regions but where are we uncle for i have not yet asked you that question and your instruments must be able to furnish the answer
horizontally three hundred and fifty leagues from iceland so much as that i am sure of not being a mile out of my reckoning
would you then conclude i said that the magnetic pole is somewhere between the surface of the globe and the point where we are exactly so and it is likely enough that if we were to reach the spot beneath the polar regions
about that seventy first degree where sir james ross has discovered the magnetic pole to be situated we should see the needle point straight up therefore that mysterious centre of attraction is at no great depth
what depth have we now reached we are thirty five leagues below the surface so i said examining the map the highlands of scotland are over our heads
and the grampians are raising their rugged summits above us yes answered the professor laughing it is rather a heavy weight to bear but a solid arch spans over our heads the great architect has built it of the best materials
and never could man have given it so wide a stretch what are the finest arches of bridges and the arcades of cathedrals compared with this far reaching vault with a radius of three leagues
oh i am not afraid that it will fall down upon my head but now what are your plans are you not thinking of returning to the surface now return
we will continue our journey everything having gone on well so far but how are we to get down below this liquid surface
but if all oceans are properly speaking but lakes
so that we have no time to lose and we shall set sail to morrow i looked about for a ship set sail shall we but i should like to see my boat first it will not be a boat at all
don't you hear the hammer at work hans is already busy at it what has he already felled the trees oh the trees were already down come and you will see for yourself
after half an hour's walking on the other side of the promontory which formed the little natural harbour i perceived hans at work in a few more steps i was at his side to my great surprise
a half finished raft was already lying on the sand made of a peculiar kind of wood and a great number of planks straight and bent and of frames were covering the ground enough almost for a little fleet
a variety of brown coal or lignite found chiefly in iceland but surely then like other fossil wood it must be as hard as stone and cannot float
returned to the surface and oscillated to and fro with the waves are you convinced said my uncle i am quite convinced although it is incredible by next evening
a new mare internum at first i could hardly see anything my eyes unaccustomed to the light quickly closed when i was able to reopen them
and i don't suppose any other discoverer will ever dispute my claim to name it after myself as its first discoverer a vast sheet of water
the deeply indented shore was lined with a breadth of fine shining sand softly lapped by the waves and strewn with the small shells which had been inhabited by the first of created beings
on this slightly inclining shore about a hundred fathoms from the limit of the waves came down the foot of a huge wall of vast cliffs which rose majestically to an enormous height
some of these dividing the beach with their sharp spurs formed capes and promontories worn away by the ceaseless action of the surf farther on the eye discerned their massive outline
sharply defined against the hazy distant horizon it was quite an ocean with the irregular shores of earth but desert and frightfully wild in appearance
if my eyes were able to range afar over this great sea it was because a peculiar light brought to view every detail of it it was not the light of the sun
nor was it the pale and uncertain shimmer of the moonbeams the dim reflection of a nobler body of light no the illuminating power of this light its trembling diffusiveness its bright clear whiteness and its low temperature
showed that it must be of electric origin it was like an aurora borealis a continuous cosmical phenomenon filling a cavern of sufficient extent to contain an ocean
the vault that spanned the space above the sky if it could be called so seemed composed of vast plains of cloud shifting and variable vapours
which by their condensation must at certain times fall in torrents of rain i should have thought that under so powerful a pressure of the atmosphere there could be no evaporation and yet under a law unknown to me
there were broad tracts of vapour suspended in the air but then the weather was fine the play of the electric light produced singular effects upon the upper strata of cloud
deep shadows reposed upon their lower wreaths and often between two separated fields of cloud there glided down a ray of unspeakable lustre but it was not solar light and there was no heat
supremely melancholy instead of the shining firmament spangled with its innumerable stars shining singly or in clusters i felt that
by vast walls of granite which seemed to overpower me with their weight and that all this space great as it was would not be enough for the march of the humblest of satellites
then i remembered the theory of an english captain who likened the earth to a vast hollow sphere in the interior of which the air became luminous because of the vast pressure that weighed upon it while
two stars pluto and proserpine rolled within upon the circuit of their mysterious orbits
shut up inside an immeasurable excavation its width could not be estimated since the shore ran widening as far as eye could reach nor could its length for the dim horizon bounded the new as for its height it
must have been several leagues where this vault rested upon its granite base no eye could tell but there was a cloud hanging far above the height of which we estimated at twelve thousand feet
a greater height than that of any terrestrial vapour and no doubt due to the great density of the air the word cavern does not convey any idea of this immense space
in colombia visited by humboldt had not given up the whole of the secret of its depth to the philosopher who investigated it to the depth of two thousand five hundred feet it probably did not extend much farther
the immense mammoth cave in kentucky is of gigantic proportions
of an unfathomable lake and travellers have explored its ramifications to the extent of forty miles but what were these cavities compared to that in which i stood with wonder and admiration with its sky of luminous vapours its bursts of electric light
and a vast sea filling its bed my imagination fell powerless before such immensity i gazed upon these wonders in silence words failed me to express my feelings
he asked yes certainly and nothing could be more delightful well take my arm axel and let us follow the windings of the shore i eagerly accepted and we began to coast along this new sea
on the left huge pyramids of rock piled one upon another produced a prodigious titanic effect down their sides flowed numberless waterfalls which went on their way in brawling but pellucid streams
a few light vapours leaping from rock to rock denoted the place of hot springs and streams flowed softly down to the common basin gliding down the gentle slopes with a softer murmur
what matters replied the philosopher whether this or another serves to guide us i thought him rather ungrateful but at that moment my attention was drawn to an unexpected sight
at a distance of five hundred paces at the turn of a high promontory appeared a high tufted dense forest it was composed of trees of moderate height formed like umbrellas with exact geometrical outlines
i could not give any name to these singular creations were they some of the two hundred thousand species of vegetables known hitherto and did they claim a place of their own in the lacustrine flora no when we arrived under their shade
my surprise turned into admiration there stood before me productions of earth but of gigantic stature which my uncle immediately named
it is only a forest of mushrooms said he and he was right imagine the large development attained by these plants which prefer a warm moist climate
though a chill fell upon me as soon as i came under those cellular vaults for half an hour we wandered from side to side in the damp shades and it was a comfortable and pleasant change to arrive once more upon the sea shore
but the subterranean vegetation was not confined to these fungi farther on rose groups of tall trees of colourless foliage and easy to recognise they were lowly shrubs of earth
the transition period these humble garden plants with us were tall trees in the early ages look axel and admire it all never had botanist such a feast as this you are right my uncle
bones of extinct animals i had rushed upon these remains formed of indestructible phosphates of lime and without hesitation i named these monstrous bones which lay scattered about like decayed trunks of trees
well axel there is a very simple answer to your objection that this soil is alluvial what
according to the laws of attraction and gravitation probably there were subsidences of the outer crust when a portion of the sedimentary deposits was carried down sudden openings that may be i replied
and as this unpleasant notion got hold of me i surveyed with anxious scrutiny the open spaces before me but no living creature appeared upon the barren strand
i felt rather tired and went to sit down at the end of a promontory at the foot of which the waves came and beat themselves into spray thence my eye could sweep every part of the bay
within its extremity a little harbour was formed between the pyramidal cliffs where the still waters slept untouched by the boisterous winds a brig and
i almost fancied i should presently see some ship issue from it full sail and take to the open sea under the southern breeze but this illusion lasted a very short time
i then desired to pierce the distant haze and to rend asunder the mysterious curtain that hung across the horizon anxious queries arose to my lips where did that sea terminate where did it lead to
kismet the fifth heat in the free for all was just over lu lu had won and the crowd on the grand stand and the hangers on around the track were cheering themselves hoarse
clear through the noisy clamour shrilled a woman's cry ah i have dropped my scorecard a man in front of her turned i have an extra one madame will you accept it
her small modishly gloved hand closed eagerly on it before she lifted her eyes to his face both started convulsively the man turned very pale
but the woman's ripe tinted face coloured darkly you she faltered his lips parted in the coldly grave smile she remembered and hated
you are not glad to see me he said calmly but that i suppose was not to be expected i did not come here to annoy you this meeting is as unexpected to me as to you
i had no suspicion that for the last half hour i had been standing next to my she interrupted him by an imperious gesture still clutching the scorecard she half turned from him
again he smiled this time with a tinge of scorn and shifted his eyes to the track none of the people around them had noticed the little by play
all eyes were on the track which was being cleared for the first heat of another race the free for all horses were being led away blanketed the crowd cheered lu lu as she went past a shapeless oddity
the backers of mascot the rival favourite looked gloomy the woman noticed nothing of all this she was small very pretty still young
and gowned in a quite unmistakable way she studied the man's profile furtively he looked older than when she had seen him last
there were some silver threads gleaming in his close clipped dark hair and short pointed beard otherwise there was little change in the quiet features and somewhat stern grey eyes
she wondered if he had cared at all they had not met for five years she shut her eyes and looked in on her past it all came back very vividly
she had been eighteen when they were married a gay high spirited girl and the season's beauty he was much older and a quiet serious student her friends had wondered why she married him
sometimes she wondered herself but she had loved him or thought so the marriage had been an unhappy one she was fond of society and gaiety he
wanted quiet and seclusion she was impulsive and impatient he deliberate and grave the strong wills clashed after two years of an unbearable sort of life
they had separated quietly and without scandal of any sort she had wanted a divorce but he would not agree to that so she had taken her own independent fortune and gone back to her own way of life
in the following five years she had succeeded in burying all remembrance well out of sight no one knew if she were satisfied or not her world was charitable to her
and she lived a gay and quite irreproachable life she wished that she had not come to the races it was such an irritating encounter
the dusty track the flying horses the gay dresses of the women on the grandstand the cloudless blue sky the brilliant september sunshine the purple distances
all commingled in a glare that made her head
before it all she saw the tall figure by her side his face turned from her watching the track intently she wondered with a vague curiosity what induced him to come to the races
such things were not greatly in his line evidently their chance meeting had not disturbed him it was a sign that he did not care
when the heat was over he turned to her may i ask how you have been since since we met last you are looking extremely well has vanity fair palled in any degree
she was angry at herself and him where had her careless society manner and well bred composure gone she felt weak and hysterical
what if she should burst into tears before the whole crowd before those coldly critical grey eyes she almost hated him no why should it
i have found it very pleasant and i have been well very well and you he jotted down the score carefully before he replied i
i never cared for excitement you know i came down here to attend a sale of some rare editions and a well meaning friend dragged me out to see the races i find it rather interesting i must confess
much more so than i should have fancied sorry i can't stay until the end
if not before i have backed mascot you lu lu she answered quickly it almost seemed defiantly
how horribly unreal it was this carrying on of small talk as if they were the merest of chance met acquaintances she belongs to a friend of mine
she and mascot are ties now both have won two heats one more for either will decide it this is a good day for the races excuse me
he leaned over and brushed a scrap of paper from her grey cloak she shivered slightly you are cold this stand is draughty
what race is this oh the three minute one she bent forward with assumed interest to watch the scoring she was breathing heavily there were tears in her eyes
she bit her lips savagely and glared at the track until they were gone presently he spoke again in the low even tone demanded by circumstances this is a curious meeting is it not
quite a flavor of romance by the way do you read as many novels as ever she fancied there was mockery in his tone
she remembered how very frivolous he used to consider her novel reading besides she resented the personal tinge what right had he almost as many she answered carelessly
i was very intolerant wasn't i he said after a pause you thought so you were right you have been happier since you left me yes
she said defiantly looking straight into his eyes and you do not regret it he bent down a little his sleeve brushed against her shoulder something in his face
arrested the answer she meant to make i i did not say that she murmured faintly there was a burst of cheering the free for all horses were being brought out for the sixth heat
and seemed likely to have no end she was tired of it all it didn't matter a pin to her whether lu lu or mascot won what did matter
had vanity fair after all been a satisfying exchange for love he had loved her once and they had been happy at first she had never before said even in her own heart
i am sorry but suddenly she felt his hand on her shoulder and looked up their eyes met he stooped and said almost in a whisper
will you come back to me
she whispered breathlessly as one half fascinated we were both to blame but i the most i was too hard on you i ought to have made more allowance
we are wiser now both of us come back to me my wife his tone was cold and his face expressionless
it was on her lips to cry out no passionately but the slender scholarly hand on her shoulder was trembling with the intensity of his repressed emotion he did care then
a wild caprice flashed into her brain she sprang up see she cried they're off now this heat will probably decide the race if lu lu wins i will not go back to you
if mascot does i will that is my decision he turned paler but bowed in assent he knew by bitter experience how unchangeable
her whims were how obstinately she clung to even the most absurd she leaned forward breathlessly the crowd hung silently on the track
lu lu and mascot were neck and neck getting in splendid work half way round the course lu lu forged half a neck ahead and her backers went mad but one woman dropped her head in her hands
and dared look no more one man with white face and set lips watched the track unswervingly again mascot crawled up
by inch they were on the home stretch they were equal the cheering broke out then silence then another terrific burst shouts yells and clappings mascot had won the free for all
in the front row a woman stood up swayed and shaken as a leaf in the wind she straightened her scarlet hat and readjusted her veil unsteadily
and tears in her eyes no one noticed her a man beside her drew her hand through his arm in a quiet proprietary fashion they left the grand stand
dorani once upon a time there lived in a city of hindustan a seller of scents and essences who had a very beautiful daughter named dorani this maiden had a friend who was a fairy
and the two were high in favour with indra the king of fairyland because they were able to sing so sweetly and dance so deftly that no one in the kingdom could equal them for grace and beauty
dorani had the most lovely hair in the world for it was like spun gold and the smell of it was like the smell of fresh roses but her locks were so long and thick
that the weight of it was often unbearable and one day she cut off a shining tress and wrapping it in a large leaf threw it in the river which ran just below her window now it happened
that the king's son was out hunting and had gone down to the river to drink when there floated towards him a folded leaf from which came a perfume of roses the prince with idle curiosity
took a step into the water and caught the leaf as it was sailing by he opened it and within he found a lock of hair like spun gold and from which came a faint exquisite odour
when the prince reached home that day he looked so sad and was so quiet that his father wondered if any ill had befallen him
then the youth took from his breast the tress of hair which he had found in the river and holding it up to the light replied see my father was ever hair like this
and dorani heard of it with the rest and one day she said to her father if the hair is mine and the king requires me to marry his son i must do so but remember you must tell him that if after the wedding
i stay all day at the palace every night will be spent in my old home the old man listened to her with amazement but answered nothing as he knew she was wiser than he of course the hair was dorani's
who summoned the scent seller and told him that he wished for his daughter to be given in marriage to the prince the father bowed his head three times to the ground and replied your highness is our lord
the maiden asks this only that if after the wedding she stays all day at the palace she may go back each night to her father's house the king thought this a very strange request
his son's affair and the girl would surely soon get tired of going to and fro so he made no difficulty and everything was speedily arranged and the wedding was celebrated with great rejoicings at first
the condition attaching to his wedding with the lovely dorani troubled the prince very little for he thought that he would at least see his bride all day but to his dismay he found that she would do nothing but sit the whole time upon a stool
with her head bowed forward upon her knees and he could never persuade her to say a single word
and each morning she was brought back soon after daybreak and yet never a sound passed her lips nor did she show by any sign that she saw or heard or heeded her husband
one evening the prince very unhappy and troubled was wandering in an old and beautiful garden near the palace the gardener was a very aged man who had served the prince's great grandfather
and when he saw the prince he came and bowed himself to him and said child child why do you look so sad is aught the matter then the prince replied i am sad old friend
because i have married a wife as lovely as the stars but she will not speak to me and i know not what to do night after night she leaves me for her father's house
and day after day she sits in mine as though turned to stone and utters no word whatever i may do or say the old man stood thinking for a moment
and then he hobbled off to his own cottage a little later he came back to the prince with five or six small packets which he placed in his hands and said to morrow when your bride leaves the palace
sprinkle the powder from one of these packets upon your body and while seeing clearly you will become yourself invisible more i cannot do for you
and put the packets carefully away in his turban the next night when dorani left for her father's house in her palanquin the prince took out a packet of the magic powder and sprinkled it over himself and then hurried after her
he soon found that as the old man had promised he was invisible to everyone although he felt as usual and could see all that passed
and walked beside it to the scent seller's dwelling there it was set down and when his bride closely veiled left it and entered the house he too entered unperceived at the first door dorani removed one veil
then she entered another doorway at the end of a passage where she removed another veil next she mounted the stairs and at the door of the women's quarters removed a third veil after this she proceeded to her own room
one of attar of roses and one of water in these she washed herself and afterwards called for food a servant brought her a bowl of curds which she ate hastily and then arrayed herself
in a robe of silver and wound about her strings of pearls while a wreath of roses crowned her hair when fully dressed she seated herself upon a four legged stool over which was a canopy with silken curtains
these she drew around her and then called out fly stool to the palace of rajah indra instantly the stool rose in the air and the invisible prince
who had watched all these proceedings with great wonder seized it by one leg as it flew away and found himself being borne through the air at a rapid rate in a short while they arrived at the house of the fairy
who as i told you before was the favourite friend of dorani the fairy stood waiting on the threshold as beautifully dressed as dorani herself was and when the stool stopped at her door she cried in astonishment
why the stool is flying all crooked to day what is the reason of that i wonder
and so it will not fly straight but dorani declared that she had not spoken one word to him and she couldn't think why the stool flew as if weighed down at one side the fairy still looked doubtful
but made no answer and took her seat beside dorani the prince again holding tightly one leg then the stool flew on through the air until it came to the palace of indra the rajah
all through the night the women sang and danced before the rajah indra whilst a magic lute played of itself the most bewitching music till the prince who sat watching it all
was quite entranced just before dawn the rajah gave the signal to cease and again the two women seated themselves on the stool and with the prince clinging to the leg it flew back to earth
and bore dorani and her husband safely to the scent seller's shop here the prince hurried away by himself past dorani's palanquin with its sleepy bearers straight on to the palace and as he passed the threshold of his own rooms
and as it was all about you i am going to tell it you although you heed nothing the girl indeed took no notice of his words
that had happened the evening before leaving out no detail of all that he had seen or heard and when he praised her singing and his voice shook a little dorani just looked at him but she said naught
though in her own mind she was filled with wonder
could it have been a dream how could he have learnt in a dream
still she kept silent only she looked that once at the prince and then remained all day as before with her head bowed upon her knees when night came the prince again made himself invisible and followed her
the same things happened again as had happened before but dorani sang
told dorani all that she had done pretending that he had dreamt of it directly he had finished dorani gazed at him and said is it true that you dreamt this or were you really there
i was there answered the prince but why do you follow me asked the girl because replied the prince i love you and to be with you is happiness
this time dorani's eyelids quivered but she said no more and was silent the rest of the day however in the evening just as she was stepping into her palanquin
she said to the prince if you love me prove it by not following me to night and so the prince did as she wished and stayed at home that evening the magic stool flew so unsteadily
that they could hardly keep their seats and at last the fairy exclaimed there is only one reason that it should jerk like this you have been talking to your husband and dorani replied
yes i have spoken oh yes i have spoken but no more would she say that night dorani sang so marvellously that at the end the rajah indra rose up
and vowed that she might ask what she would and he would give it to her at first she was silent but when he pressed her she answered give me the magic lute the rajah when he heard this
was displeased with himself for having made so rash a promise because this lute he valued above all his possessions
you must never come here again said he for once having asked so much how will you in future be content with smaller gifts dorani bowed her head silently as she took the lute and passed with the fairy out of the great gate
where the stool awaited them more unsteadily than before it flew back to earth when dorani got to the palace that morning she asked the prince whether he had dreamt again he laughed with happiness
and he replied no but i begin to dream now not of what has happened in the past but of what may happen in the future that day dorani sat very quietly but she answered the prince when he spoke to her
and when evening fell and with it the time for her departure she still sat on then the prince came close to her and said softly are you not going to your house dorani
at that she rose and threw herself weeping into his arms whispering gently never again my lord never again would i leave thee
so the prince won his beautiful bride and though they neither of them dealt any further with fairies and their magic they learnt more daily of the magic of love which one may still learn
for awhile a very obscure one
on parting from alyosha went home to fyodor pavlovitch's house but strange to say he was overcome by insufferable depression which grew greater at every step he took towards the house there was nothing strange in his being depressed
he had often been depressed before and there was nothing surprising at his feeling so at such a moment
and was preparing that day to make a new start and enter upon a new unknown future he would again be as solitary as ever and though he had great hopes and great too great expectations from life
he could not have given any definite account of his hopes his expectations or even his desires yet at that moment though the apprehension of the new and unknown certainly found place in his heart what was worrying him was something quite different
is it loathing for my father's house he wondered quite likely i am so sick of it and though it's the last time i shall cross its hateful threshold still i loathe it no it's not that either
is it the parting with alyosha and the conversation i had with him for so many years i've been silent with the whole world and not deigned to speak and all of a sudden
youthful inexperience and vanity vexation at having failed to express himself especially with such a being as alyosha on whom his heart had certainly been reckoning no doubt that came in that vexation it must have done indeed
but yet that was not it that was not it either i feel sick with depression and yet i can't tell what i want better not think perhaps
not to think but that too was no use what made his depression so vexatious and irritating was that it had a kind of casual external character he felt that
some person or thing seemed to be standing out somewhere just as something will sometimes obtrude itself upon the eye and though one may be so busy with work or conversation that for a long time one does not notice it
yet it irritates and almost torments one till at last one realizes and removes the offending object often quite a trifling and ridiculous one some article left about in the wrong place a handkerchief on the floor a book not replaced on the shelf
and so on at last feeling very cross and ill humored
about fifteen paces from the garden gate he guessed what was fretting and worrying him on a bench in the gateway the valet smerdyakov was sitting enjoying the coolness of the evening
and that it was this man that his soul loathed it all dawned upon him suddenly and became clear just before when alyosha had been telling him of his meeting with smerdyakov he had felt a sudden twinge of gloom and loathing
which had immediately stirred responsive anger in his heart afterwards as he talked smerdyakov had been forgotten for the time but still he had been in his mind and as soon as ivan parted with alyosha and was walking home
the forgotten sensation began to obtrude itself again is it possible that a miserable contemptible creature like that can worry me so much he wondered with insufferable irritation
especially during the last few days he had even begun to notice in himself a growing feeling that was almost of hatred for the creature perhaps this hatred was accentuated by the fact that
then he had taken a marked interest in smerdyakov and had even thought him very original he had encouraged him to talk to him although he had always wondered at a certain incoherence or rather restlessness in his mind
and could not understand what it was that so continually and insistently worked upon the brain of the contemplative they discussed philosophical questions and even how there could have been light on the first day
when the sun moon and stars were only created on the fourth day and how that was to be understood
yet that it was quite secondary to smerdyakov and that he was looking for something altogether different in one way and another he began to betray a boundless vanity and a wounded vanity too
it had first given rise to his aversion later on there had been trouble in the house grushenka had come on the scene and there had been the scandals with his brother dmitri they discussed that too but though smerdyakov always talked of that with great excitement
putting certain indirect but obviously premeditated questions but what his object was he did not explain and usually at the most important moment he would break off and relapse into silence or pass to another subject
and confirmed his dislike for him was the peculiar revolting familiarity which smerdyakov began to show more and more markedly not that he forgot himself and was rude on the contrary he always spoke very respectfully
yet he had obviously begun to consider goodness knows why
he always spoke in a tone that suggested that those two had some kind of compact some secret between them that had at some time been expressed on both sides only known to them and beyond the comprehension of those around them
and he had only lately realized what was at the root of it with a feeling of disgust and irritation he tried to pass in at the gate without speaking or looking at smerdyakov but smerdyakov rose from the bench
that he wanted particularly to talk to him
get away miserable idiot what have i to do with you was on the tip of his tongue but to his profound astonishment he heard himself say is my father still asleep or has he waked he asked the question softly
and meekly to his own surprise and at once again to his own surprise sat down on the bench for an instant he felt almost frightened he remembered it afterwards smerdyakov stood facing him his hands behind his back
looking at him with assurance and almost severity his honor is still asleep he articulated deliberately you were the first to speak not i he seemed to say i am surprised at you sir
he added after a pause dropping his eyes affectedly setting his right foot forward and playing with the tip of his polished boot why are you surprised at me
doing his utmost to restrain himself and suddenly realizing with disgust that he was feeling intense curiosity and would not on any account have gone away without satisfying it why don't you go to tchermashnya sir
smerdyakov suddenly raised his eyes and smiled familiarly why i smile you must understand of yourself if you are a clever man his screwed up left eye seemed to say why should i go to tchermashnya
smerdyakov was silent again
he said at last slowly and apparently attaching no significance to his answer i put you off with a secondary reason he seemed to suggest simply to say something damn you speak out what you want
smerdyakov drew his right foot up to his left pulled himself up but still looked at him with the same serenity and the same little smile substantially nothing but just by way of conversation another silence followed
they did not speak for nearly a minute
and smerdyakov stood before him and seemed to be waiting as though to see whether he would be angry or not
at last he moved to get up smerdyakov seemed to seize the moment
i don't know how to help myself he said resolutely and distinctly and at his last word he sighed
they are both utterly crazy they are no better than little children smerdyakov went on i am speaking of your parent and your brother dmitri fyodorovitch here fyodor pavlovitch will get up directly and begin worrying me every minute
why hasn't she come when will she come as though i were to blame for it on the other side it's no better as soon as it gets dark or even before your brother will appear with his gun in his hands look out you rogue you soup maker
if you miss her and don't let me know she's been i'll kill you before any one when the night's over in the morning he too like fyodor pavlovitch begins worrying me to death why hasn't she come will she come soon
and he too thinks me to blame because his lady hasn't come and every day and every hour they get angrier and angrier so that i sometimes think i shall kill myself in a fright
and why have you meddled why did you begin to spy for dmitri fyodorovitch
i am going upstairs to my room not in to you good by and passed by trying not even to look at his father very possibly the old man was too hateful to him at that moment but such an unceremonious display of hostility
was a surprise even to fyodor pavlovitch and the old man evidently wanted to tell him something at once and had come to meet him in the drawing room on purpose receiving this amiable greeting he stood still in silence
and with an ironical air watched his son going upstairs till he passed out of sight what's the matter with him he promptly asked smerdyakov
all relating to his expected visitor and these questions we will omit half an hour later the house was locked and the crazy old man was wandering along through the rooms in excited expectation of hearing every minute the five knocks agreed upon
now and then he peered out into the darkness seeing nothing it was very late
he sat up late that night till two o'clock but we will not give an account of his thoughts and this is not the place to look into that soul its turn will come and even if one tried it would be very hard to give an account of them
for there were no thoughts in his brain but something very vague and above all intense excitement he felt himself that he had lost his bearings he was fretted too by all sorts of strange and almost surprising desires
for instance after midnight he suddenly had an intense irresistible inclination to go down open the door go to the lodge and beat smerdyakov but if he had been asked why he could not have given any exact reason
except perhaps that he loathed the valet as one who had insulted him more gravely than any one in the world on the other hand he was more than once that night overcome by a sort of inexplicable humiliating terror
which he felt positively paralyzed his physical powers his head ached and he was giddy a feeling of hatred was rankling in his heart as though he meant to avenge himself on some one he even hated alyosha
recalling the conversation he had just had with him at moments he hated himself intensely of katerina ivanovna he almost forgot to think and wondered greatly at this afterwards especially as he remembered perfectly that
when he had protested so valiantly to katerina ivanovna that he would go away next day to moscow something had whispered in his heart that's nonsense you are not going and it won't be so easy to tear yourself away as you are boasting now
remembering that night long afterwards
how he had suddenly got up from the sofa and had stealthily as though he were afraid of being watched opened the door gone out on the staircase and listened to fyodor pavlovitch stirring down below had listened a long while some five minutes
with a sort of strange curiosity holding his breath while his heart throbbed and why he had done all this why he was listening he could not have said that action all his life afterwards he called infamous
and at the bottom of his heart he thought of it as the basest action of his life for fyodor pavlovitch himself he felt no hatred at that moment but was simply intensely curious to know how he was walking down there below and what he must be doing now
he wondered and imagined how he must be peeping out of the dark windows and stopping in the middle of the room listening listening for some one to knock
about two o'clock when everything was quiet and even fyodor pavlovitch had gone to bed
firmly resolved to fall asleep at once as he felt fearfully exhausted and he did fall asleep at once and slept soundly without dreams but waked early at seven o'clock when it was broad daylight
opening his eyes he was surprised to feel himself extraordinarily vigorous he jumped up at once and dressed quickly then dragged out his trunk and began packing immediately
and his departure certainly was sudden
and smerdyakov that he was leaving next day yet he remembered that he had no thought of departure when he went to bed or at least had not dreamed that his first act in the morning would be to pack his trunk at last his trunk and bag were ready
it was about nine o'clock when marfa ignatyevna came in with her usual inquiry where will your honor take your tea in your own room or downstairs he looked almost cheerful but there was about him about his words and gestures
something hurried and scattered greeting his father affably and even inquiring specially after his health though he did not wait to hear his answer to the end he announced that he was starting off in an hour to return to moscow for good and begged him to send for the horses
his father heard this announcement with no sign of surprise and forgot in an unmannerly way to show regret at losing him instead of doing so he flew into a great flutter at the recollection of some important business of his own
what a fellow you are not to tell me yesterday never mind we'll manage it all the same do me a great service my dear boy go to tchermashnya on the way
it's only to turn to the left from the station at volovya only another twelve versts and you come to tchermashnya i'm sorry i can't it's eighty versts to the railway and the train starts for moscow at seven o'clock to night
i can only just catch it you'll catch it to morrow or the day after but to day turn off to tchermashnya it won't put you out much to humor your father if i hadn't had something to keep me here i would have run over myself long ago
for i've some business there in a hurry but here i it's not the time for me to go now you see i've two pieces of copse land there the maslovs an old merchant and his son will give eight thousand for the timber
but last year i just missed a purchaser who would have given twelve there's no getting any one about here to buy it the maslovs have it all their own way one has to take what they'll give for no one here dare bid against them
the priest at ilyinskoe wrote to me last thursday that a merchant called gorstkin a man i know had turned up what makes him valuable is that he is not from these parts so he is not afraid of the maslovs
he says he will give me eleven thousand for the copse do you hear but he'll only be here the priest writes for a week altogether so you must go at once and make a bargain with him well you write to the priest
he'll make the bargain he can't do it he has no eye for business he is a perfect treasure i'd give him twenty thousand to take care of for me without a receipt but he has no eye for business he is a perfect child
a crow could deceive him and yet he is a learned man would you believe it this gorstkin looks like a peasant he wears a blue kaftan but he is a regular rogue that's the common complaint he is a liar
he told me the year before last that his wife was dead and that he had married another and would you believe it there was not a word of truth in it
she is alive to this day and gives him a beating twice a week so what you have to find out is whether he is lying or speaking the truth when he says he wants to buy it and would give eleven thousand i shall be no use in such a business i have no eye either
stay wait a bit you will be of use for i will tell you the signs by which you can judge about gorstkin i've done business with him a long time you see you must watch his beard he has a nasty thin red beard
if his beard shakes when he talks and he gets cross it's all right he is saying what he means he wants to do business but if he strokes his beard with his left hand and grins he is trying to cheat you don't watch his eyes
but don't call him so he will be offended if you come to an understanding with him and see it's all right write here at once you need only write he's not lying
stand out for eleven thousand one thousand you can knock off but not more just think there's a difference between eight thousand and eleven thousand
it's not so easy to find a purchaser and i'm in desperate need of money only let me know it's serious and i'll run over and fix it up i'll snatch the time somehow but what's the good of my galloping over
what's a day or two to you where are you going now to venice your venice will keep another two days i would have sent alyosha but what use is alyosha in a thing like that i send you just because you are a clever fellow
you know nothing about timber but you've got an eye
nonsense decide at once my dear fellow decide if you settle the matter write me a line give it to the priest and he'll send it on to me at once and i won't delay you more than that you can go to venice
the priest will give you horses back to volovya station the old man was quite delighted he wrote the note and sent for the horses a light lunch was brought in with brandy when fyodor pavlovitch was pleased he usually became expansive
but to day he seemed to restrain himself of dmitri for instance he did not say a word he was quite unmoved by the parting and seemed in fact at a loss for something to say
he must be bored with me he thought only when accompanying his son out on to the steps the old man began to fuss about he would have kissed him
obviously avoiding the kiss his father saw it at once and instantly pulled himself up well good luck to you good luck to you he repeated from the steps you'll come again some time or other
mind you do come i shall always be glad to see you well christ be with you
don't be too hard on me the father called for the last time the whole household came out to take leave smerdyakov marfa and grigory
when he had seated himself in the carriage smerdyakov jumped up to arrange the rug you see i am going to tchermashnya
again as the day before the words seemed to drop of themselves and he laughed too a peculiar nervous laugh he remembered it long after it's a true saying then that it's always worth while speaking to a clever man
the carriage rolled away nothing was clear in ivan's soul but he looked eagerly around him at the fields at the hills at the trees at a flock of geese flying high overhead in the bright sky
and all of a sudden he felt very happy he tried to talk to the driver and he felt intensely interested in an answer the peasant made him but a minute later he realized that he was not catching anything
and that he had not really even taken in the peasant's answer he was silent and it was pleasant even so
they reached the station quickly changed horses and galloped to volovya why is it worth while speaking to a clever man what did he mean by that the thought seemed suddenly to clutch at his breathing
and why did i tell him i was going to tchermashnya they reached volovya station
i won't go to tchermashnya am i too late to reach the railway by seven brothers we shall just do it shall we get the carriage out at once will any one of you be going to the town to morrow
i've done with the old world for ever and may i have no news no echo from it to a new life new places and no looking back but instead of delight his soul was filled with such gloom
and his heart ached with such anguish as he had never known in his life before he was thinking all the night the train flew on and only at daybreak when he was approaching moscow he suddenly roused himself from his meditation
i am a scoundrel he whispered to himself fyodor pavlovitch remained well satisfied at having seen his son off for two hours afterwards he felt almost happy and sat drinking brandy
fortunately marfa ignatyevna was in the yard and heard him in time she did not see the fall but heard his scream the strange peculiar scream long familiar to her the scream of the epileptic falling in a fit
they could not tell whether the fit had come on him at the moment he was descending the steps so that he must have fallen unconscious or whether it was the fall and the shock that had caused the fit in smerdyakov who was known to be liable to them they found him at the bottom of the cellar steps
writhing in convulsions and foaming at the mouth it was thought at first that he must have broken something an arm or a leg and hurt himself but god had preserved him as marfa ignatyevna expressed it
nothing of the kind had happened but it was difficult to get him out of the cellar they asked the neighbors to help and managed it somehow fyodor pavlovitch himself was present at the whole ceremony he helped
evidently alarmed and upset the sick man did not regain consciousness the convulsions ceased for a time but then began again and every one concluded that the same thing would happen as had happened a year before when he accidentally fell from the garret
they remembered that ice had been put on his head then there was still ice in the cellar and marfa ignatyevna had some brought up in the evening fyodor pavlovitch sent for doctor herzenstube who arrived at once
that meanwhile he herzenstube did not fully understand it but that by to morrow morning if the present remedies were unavailing he would venture to try something else the invalid was taken to the lodge to a room next to grigory's
and marfa ignatyevna's then fyodor pavlovitch had one misfortune after another to put up with that day marfa ignatyevna cooked the dinner and the soup compared with smerdyakov's was no better than dish water
and the fowl was so dried up that it was impossible to masticate it to her master's bitter though deserved reproaches marfa ignatyevna replied that the fowl was a very old one to begin with and that she had never been trained as a cook
in the evening there was another trouble in store for fyodor pavlovitch he was informed that grigory who had not been well for the last three days was completely laid up by his lumbago
fyodor pavlovitch finished his tea as early as possible and locked himself up alone in the house he was in terrible excitement and suspense that evening he reckoned on grushenka's coming almost as a certainty
he had received from smerdyakov that morning an assurance that she had promised to come without fail the incorrigible old man's heart throbbed with excitement he paced up and down his empty rooms listening
he had to be on the alert dmitri might be on the watch for her somewhere and when she knocked on the window smerdyakov had informed him two days before that he had told her where and how to knock the door must be opened at once
after the death of uther pendragon reigned arthur his son the which had great war in his days for to get all england into his hand for there were many kings within the realm of england and in wales scotland and cornwall
if this be true said arthur it were great shame unto mine estate but that he were mightily withstood it is truth said the knight for i saw the host myself well said the king let make a cry
that all the lords knights and gentlemen of arms should draw unto a castle called camelot in those days and there the king would let make a council general and a great jousts
so when the king was come thither with all his baronage and lodged as they seemed best there was come a damosel the which was sent on message from the great lady lile of avelion and when she came before king arthur
she told from whom she came and how she was sent on message unto him for these causes then she let her mantle fall that was richly furred and then was she girt with a noble sword whereof the king had marvel and said damosel
for what cause are ye girt with that sword it beseemeth you not now shall i tell you said the damosel this sword that i am girt withal doth me great sorrow and cumbrance for i may not be delivered of this sword but by a knight
but he must be a passing good man of his hands and of his deeds and without villainy or treachery and without treason and if i may find such a knight that hath all these virtues he may draw out this sword out of the sheath
for i have been at king rience's it was told me there were passing good knights and he and all his knights have assayed it and none can speed this is a great marvel said arthur if this be sooth
not presuming upon myself that i am the best knight but that i will begin to draw at your sword in giving example to all the barons
then arthur took the sword by the sheath and by the girdle and pulled at it eagerly but the sword would not out sir said the damosel you need not to pull half so hard for he that shall pull it out shall do it with little might
for he must be a clean knight without villainy and of a gentle strain of father side and mother side most of all the barons of the round table that were there at that time assayed all by row but there might none speed
wherefore the damosel made great sorrow out of measure and said alas i weened in this court had been the best knights without treachery or treason by my faith said arthur here are good knights as i deem as any be in the world
but their grace is not to help you
for he was a good man named of his body and he was born in northumberland and so he went privily into the court and saw this adventure whereof it raised his heart
but for he was poor and poorly arrayed he put him not far in press but in his heart he was fully assured to do as well if his grace happed him as any knight that there was and as the damosel took her leave of arthur and of all the barons
so departing this knight balin called unto her and said damosel i pray you of your courtesy
though that i be so poorly clothed in my heart meseemeth i am fully assured as some of these others and meseemeth in my heart to speed right well
the damosel beheld the poor knight and saw he was a likely man but for his poor arrayment she thought he should be of no worship without villainy or treachery and then she said unto the knight sir it needeth not to put me to more pain or labour
for it seemeth not you to speed there as other have failed ah fair damosel said balin worthiness and good tatches and good deeds are not only in arrayment but manhood and worship is hid within man's person
well said the damosel ye are not wise to keep the sword from me for ye shall slay with the sword the best friend that ye have and the man that ye most love in the world and the sword shall be your destruction i shall take the adventure said balin
that god will ordain me but the sword ye shall not have at this time by the faith of my body ye shall repent it within short time said the damosel for i would have the sword more for your avail than for mine for i am passing heavy for your sake
nay said the king i suppose ye will not depart so lightly from this fellowship i suppose ye are displeased that i have shewed you unkindness blame me the less for i was misinformed against you but i weened ye had not been such a knight as ye are
of worship and prowess and if ye will abide in this court among my fellowship i shall so advance you as ye shall be pleased god thank your highness said balin your bounty and highness may no man praise half to the value
truly said the king i am right wroth for your departing i pray you fair knight that ye tarry not long and ye shall be right welcome to me and to my barons and i shall amend all miss that i have done against you
god thank your great lordship said balin and therewith made him ready to depart
and there asked him a gift that he promised her when she gave him the sword that is sooth said arthur a gift i promised you but i have forgotten the name of my sword that ye gave me the name of it said the lady is excalibur
or else the damosel's head that brought it i take no force though i have both their heads for he slew my brother a good knight and a true and that gentlewoman was causer of my father's death truly said king arthur
i may not grant neither of their heads with my worship therefore ask what ye will else and i shall fulfil your desire i will ask none other thing said the lady when balin was ready to depart he saw the lady of the lake
that by her means had slain balin's mother and he had sought her three years and when it was told him that she asked his head of king arthur he went to her straight and said evil be you found ye would have my head and therefore ye shall lose yours
and with his sword lightly he smote off her head before king arthur alas for shame said arthur why have ye done so ye have shamed me and all my court for this was a lady that i was beholden to
and hither she came under my safe conduct i shall never forgive you that trespass sir said balin me forthinketh of your displeasure for this same lady was the untruest lady living
and by enchantment and sorcery she hath been the destroyer of many good knights and she was causer that my mother was burnt through her falsehood and treachery what cause soever ye had said arthur ye should have forborne her in my presence
therefore think not the contrary ye shall repent it for such another despite had i never in my court therefore withdraw you out of my court in all haste ye may then balin took up the head of the lady and bare it with him to his hostelry
and there he met with his squire that was sorry he had displeased king arthur and so they rode forth out of the town now said balin we must depart take thou this head and bear it to my friends and tell them how i have sped
and tell my friends in northumberland that my most foe is dead also tell them how i am out of prison and what adventure befell me at the getting of this sword alas said the squire ye are greatly to blame for to displease king arthur
as for that said balin i will hie me in all the haste that i may to meet with king rience and destroy him either else to die therefore and if it may hap me to win him then will king arthur be my good and gracious lord
in king arthur's court said balin so his squire and he departed at that time then king arthur and all the court made great dole and had shame of the death of the lady of the lake
and to revenge the despite that he had done do your best said arthur i am right wroth with balin i would he were quit of the despite that he hath done to me and to my court then this lanceor went to his hostelry to make him ready
in the meanwhile came merlin unto the court of king arthur and there was told him the adventure of the sword and the death of the lady of the lake now shall i say you said merlin this same damosel that here standeth
that brought the sword unto your court i shall tell you the cause of her coming she was the falsest damosel that liveth say not so said they she hath a brother a passing good knight of prowess and a full true man
and this damosel loved another knight that held her to paramour and this good knight her brother met with the knight that held her to paramour and slew him by force of his hands
she went to the lady lile of avelion and besought her of help
i know it as well as ye would god she had not come into this court but she came never in fellowship of worship to do good but always great harm and that knight that hath achieved the sword shall be destroyed by that sword
for the which will be great damage for there liveth not a knight of more prowess than he is and he shall do unto you my lord arthur great honour and kindness and it is great pity he shall not endure but a while
for of his strength and hardiness i know not his match living so the knight of ireland armed him at all points and dressed his shield on his shoulder and mounted upon horseback and took his spear in his hand and rode after a great pace
as much as his horse might go and within a little space on a mountain he had a sight of balin and with a loud voice he cried abide knight for ye shall abide whether ye will or nill and the shield that is to fore you shall not help
when balin heard the noise he turned his horse fiercely and said fair knight what will ye with me will ye joust with me yea said the irish knight therefore come i after you
peradventure said balin it had been better to have holden you at home for many a man weeneth to put his enemy to a rebuke and oft it falleth to himself of what court be ye sent from said balin
i am come from the court of king arthur said the knight of ireland that come hither for to revenge the despite ye did this day to king arthur and to his court well said balin i see well i must have ado with you
that me forthinketh for to grieve king arthur or any of his court and your quarrel is full simple said balin unto me for the lady that is dead did me great damage and else would i have been loath as any knight that liveth for to slay a lady
make you ready said the knight lanceor and dress you unto me for that one shall abide in the field then they took their spears and came together as much as their horses might drive and the irish knight smote balin on the shield that all went shivers off his spear
and balin hit him through the shield and the hauberk perished and so pierced through his body and the horse's croup and anon turned his horse fiercely and drew out his sword and wist not that he had slain him
two bodies thou hast slain and one heart and two hearts in one body and two souls thou hast lost and therewith she took the sword from her love that lay dead and fell to the ground in a swoon
and when she arose she made great dole out of measure the which sorrow grieved balin passingly sore and he went unto her for to have taken the sword out of her hand but she held it so fast he might not take it out of her hand unless he should have hurt her
and ashamed that so fair a damosel had destroyed herself for the love of his death alas said balin me repenteth sore the death of this knight for the love of this damosel for there was much true love betwixt them both
and for sorrow might not longer behold him but turned his horse and looked toward a great forest
and when they were met they put off their helms and kissed together and wept for joy and pity
i little weened to have met with you at this sudden adventure i am right glad of your deliverance out of your dolorous prisonment for a man told me in the castle of four stones
so doth it me said balan but ye must take the adventure that god will ordain you
i am right heavy that my lord arthur is displeased with me for he is the most worshipful knight that reigneth now on earth and his love will i get or else will i put my life in adventure
and thither will we draw in all haste to prove our worship and prowess upon him
now go we hence said balin and well be we met the meanwhile as they talked there came a dwarf from the city of camelot on horseback as much as he might and found the dead bodies wherefore he made great dole and pulled out his hair for sorrow and said which of you knights have done this deed
for i would wit it said the dwarf it was i said balin that slew this knight in my defence for hither he came to chase me and either i must slay him or he me and this damosel slew herself for his love which repenteth me
and for her sake i shall owe all women the better love alas said the dwarf thou hast done great damage unto thyself for this knight that is here dead was one of the most valiantest men that lived and trust well balin
the kin of this knight will chase you through the world till they have slain you as for that said balin i fear not greatly but i am right heavy that i have displeased my lord king arthur for the death of this knight so as they talked together there came a king of cornwall riding
the which hight king mark and when he saw these two bodies dead and understood how they were dead by the two knights above said then made the king great sorrow for the true love that was betwixt them and said i will not depart till i have on this earth made a tomb
and there he pight his pavilions and sought through all the country to find a tomb and in a church they found one was fair and rich and then the king let put them both in the earth and put the tomb upon them and wrote the names of them both on the tomb
that at his own request was slain by the hands of balin
whose names were launcelot de lake and tristram thou art a marvellous man said king mark unto merlin that speakest of such marvels thou art a boistous man and an unlikely to tell of such deeds what is thy name said king mark
thou hast done thyself great hurt because that thou savest not this lady that slew herself that might have saved her an thou wouldest by the faith of my body said balin i might not save her for she slew herself suddenly me repenteth said merlin
because of the death of that lady thou shalt strike a stroke most dolorous that ever man struck except the stroke of our lord for thou shalt hurt the truest knight and the man of most worship that now liveth
if i wist it were sooth that ye say i should do such a perilous deed as that i would slay myself to make thee a liar therewith merlin vanished away suddenly
first said the king tell me your name sir said balan ye may see he beareth two swords thereby ye may call him the knight with the two swords and so departed king mark unto camelot to king arthur and balin took the way toward king rience
whither ride you said merlin we have little to do said the two knights to tell thee but what is thy name said balin at this time said merlin i will not tell it thee it is evil seen said the knights that thou art a true man that thou wilt not tell thy name
i can tell you wherefore ye ride this way for to meet king rience but it will not avail you without ye have my counsel ah said balin ye are merlin we will be ruled by your counsel come on said merlin ye shall have great worship
and look that ye do knightly for ye shall have great need
for the king was nigh them that was stolen away from his host with a three score horses of his best knights and twenty of them rode to fore to warn the lady de vance that the king was coming for that night king rience should have lain with her which is the king said balin
abide said merlin here in a strait way ye shall meet with him and therewith he showed balin and his brother where he rode anon balin and his brother met with the king and smote him down and wounded him fiercely and laid him to the ground
and there they slew on the right hand and the left hand and slew more than forty of his men and the remnant fled then went they again to king rience and would have slain him had he not yielded him unto their grace then said he thus
knights full of prowess slay me not for by my life ye may win and by my death ye shall win nothing then said these two knights ye say sooth and truth and so laid him on a horse litter
with that merlin was vanished and came to king arthur aforehand and told him how his most enemy was taken and discomfited by whom said king arthur by two knights said merlin that would please your lordship and to morrow ye shall know what knights they are
and brought with them king rience of north wales and there delivered him to the porters and charged them with him and so they two returned again in the dawning of the day king arthur came then to king rience and said sir king ye are welcome by what adventure come ye hither
sir said king rience i came hither by an hard adventure who won you said king arthur sir said the king the knight with the two swords and his brother which are two marvellous knights of prowess i know them not said arthur
ah said merlin i shall tell you it is balin that achieved the sword and his brother balan a good knight there liveth not a better of prowess and of worthiness and it shall be the greatest dole of him that ever i knew of knight for he shall not long endure
alas said king arthur that is great pity for i am much beholden unto him and i have ill deserved it unto him for his kindness nay said merlin he shall do much more for you
then nero had the vanguard with the most part of his people and merlin came to king lot of the isle of orkney and held him with a tale of prophecy till nero and his people were destroyed and there sir kay the seneschal did passingly well
that the days of his life the worship went never from him and sir hervis de revel did marvellous deeds with king arthur and king arthur slew that day twenty knights and maimed forty at that time came in the knight with the two swords and his brother balan
but they two did so marvellously that the king and all the knights marvelled of them and all they that beheld them said they were sent from heaven as angels or devils from hell and king arthur said himself they were the best knights that ever he saw
for they gave such strokes that all men had wonder of them in the meanwhile came one to king lot and told him while he tarried there nero was destroyed and slain with all his people alas said king lot i am ashamed
for by my default there is many a worshipful man slain for an we had been together there had been none host under the heaven that had been able for to have matched with us this faiter with his prophecy hath mocked me
all that did merlin for he knew well that an king lot had been with his body there at the first battle king arthur had been slain and all his people destroyed and well merlin knew that one of the kings should be dead that day
but of the twain he had liefer king lot had been slain than king arthur now what is best to do said king lot of orkney whether is me better to treat with king arthur or to fight for the greater part of our people are slain and destroyed
sir said a knight set on arthur for they are weary and forfoughten and we be fresh as for me said king lot i would every knight would do his part as i would do mine and then they advanced banners and smote together and all to shivered their spears
put king lot and his host to the worse but always king lot held him in the foremost front and did marvellous deeds of arms for all his host was borne up by his hands for he abode all knights
that of late time afore had been a knight of king arthur's and wedded the sister of king arthur and for king arthur lay by king lot's wife the which was arthur's sister and gat on her mordred therefore king lot held against arthur
so there was a knight that was called the knight with the strange beast and at that time his right name was called pellinore the which was a good man of prowess and he smote a mighty stroke at king lot as he fought with all his enemies and he failed of his stroke and smote the horse's neck
and there were slain many mothers sons but king pellinore bare the wite of the death of king lot wherefore sir gawaine revenged the death of his father the tenth year after he was made knight and slew king pellinore with his own hands
also there were slain at that battle twelve kings on the side of king lot with nero and all were buried in the church of saint stephen's in camelot
but of all these twelve kings king arthur let make the tomb of king lot passing richly and made his tomb by his own and then arthur let make twelve images of latten and copper and over gilt it with gold in the sign of twelve kings
and each one of them held a taper of wax that burnt day and night and king arthur was made in sign of a figure standing above them with a sword drawn in his hand and all the twelve figures had countenance like unto men that were overcome all this made merlin by his subtle craft
and there he told the king when i am dead these tapers shall burn no longer and soon after the adventures of the sangreal shall come among you and be achieved also he told arthur how balin the worshipful knight shall give the dolorous stroke whereof shall fall great vengeance
as for pellinore said merlin he will meet with you soon and as for balin he will not be long from you but the other brother will depart ye shall see him no more by my faith said arthur they are two marvellous knights
and namely balin passeth of prowess of any knight that ever i found for much beholden am i unto him would god he would abide with me sir said merlin look ye keep well the scabbard of excalibur for ye shall lose no blood while ye have the scabbard upon you
though ye have as many wounds upon you as ye may have so after for great trust arthur betook the scabbard to morgan le fay his sister and she loved another knight better than her husband king uriens or king arthur and she would have had arthur her brother slain
and therefore she let make another scabbard like it by enchantment and gave the scabbard excalibur to her love
after this merlin told unto king arthur of the prophecy that there should be a great battle beside salisbury
and saw a knight coming even by him making great dole
ye may little amend me said the knight and so passed forth to the castle of meliot anon after there came balin and when he saw king arthur he alighted off his horse and came to the king on foot and saluted him by my head said arthur ye be welcome
i will do more for your lordship than that said balin and so he rode more than a pace and found the knight with a damosel in a forest and said sir knight ye must come with me unto king arthur for to tell him of your sorrow
that will i not said the knight for it will scathe me greatly and do you none avail sir said balin i pray you make you ready
therefore take my horse that is better than yours and ride to the damosel and follow the quest that i was in as she will lead you and revenge my death when ye may that shall i do said balin and that i make vow unto knighthood
and so he departed from this knight with great sorrow so king arthur let bury this knight richly and made a mention on his tomb how there was slain herlews le berbeus
and told him all the cause how it was ah said the knight is this all here i ensure you by the faith of my body never to depart from you while my life lasteth and so they went to the hostelry and armed them and so rode forth with balin
and as they came by an hermitage even by a churchyard there came the knight garlon invisible and smote this knight perin de mountbeliard through the body with a spear alas said the knight i am slain by this traitor knight that rideth invisible
alas said balin it is not the first despite he hath done me and there the hermit and balin buried the knight under a rich stone and a tomb royal and on the morn they found letters of gold written
how sir gawaine shall revenge his father's death king lot on the king pellinore anon after this balin and the damosel rode till they came to a castle and there balin alighted
then he went up into the tower and leapt over walls into the ditch and hurt him not and anon he pulled out his sword and would have foughten with them and they all said nay they would not fight with him for they did nothing but the old custom of the castle
and told him how their lady was sick and had lain many years
of a clean maid and a king's daughter and therefore the custom of this castle is there shall no damosel pass this way but she shall bleed of her blood in a silver dish full well said balin she shall bleed as much as she may bleed
but i will not lose the life of her whiles my life lasteth and so balin made her to bleed by her good will but her blood helped not the lady and so he and she rested there all night and had there right good cheer and on the morn they passed on their ways
we must consider next the work of distinction in itself first the work of the first day secondly the work of the second day thirdly the work of the third day under the first head there are four points of inquiry one
whether the word light is used in its proper sense in speaking of spiritual things two whether light in corporeal things is itself corporeal three whether light is a quality four
whether light was fittingly made on the first day first article
whether the word light is used in its proper sense in speaking of spiritual things objection one it would seem that light is used in its proper sense in spiritual things for augustine says
and that christ is not called light in the same sense as he is called the stone the former is to be taken literally and the latter metaphorically
further dionysius
but such names are used in their proper sense in spiritual things therefore light is used in its proper sense in spiritual matters
further the apostle says
all that is made manifest is light
but to be made manifest belongs more properly to spiritual things than to corporeal therefore also does light on the contrary ambrose says
is among those things which are said of god metaphorically i answer that any word may be used in two ways that is to say either in its original application or in its more extended meaning
this is clearly shown in the word sight originally applied to the act of the sense and then as sight is the noblest and most trustworthy of the senses extended in common speech to all knowledge obtained through the other senses
or smells or burns further sight is applied to knowledge obtained through the intellect
eight and thus it is with the word light in its primary meaning it signifies that which makes manifest to the sense of sight afterwards it was extended to that which makes manifest to cognition of any kind
if then the word is taken in its strict and primary meaning it is to be understood metaphorically when applied to spiritual things as ambrose says
as applied to manifestation of every kind it may properly be applied to spiritual things the answer to the objections will sufficiently appear from what has been said second article
whether light is a body objection one it would seem that light is a body
further the philosopher says
but fire is a body and therefore so is light
further the powers of movement intersection reflection belong properly to bodies and all these are attributes of light and its rays moreover different rays of light as dionysius says
which seems impossible unless they are bodies therefore light is a body on the contrary two bodies cannot occupy the same place simultaneously but this is the case with light and air therefore light is not a body
i answer that light cannot be a body for three evident reasons first on the part of place for the place of any one body is different from that of any other nor is it possible naturally speaking
for any two bodies of whatever nature to exist simultaneously in the same place since contiguity requires distinction of place the second reason is from movement
for if light were a body its diffusion would be the local movement of a body now no local movement of a body can be instantaneous as everything that moves from one place to another
must pass through the intervening space before reaching the end whereas the diffusion of light is instantaneous nor can it be argued that the time required is too short to be perceived
for though this may be the case in short distances it cannot be so in distances so great as that which separates the east from the west yet as soon as the sun is at the horizon
the whole hemisphere is illuminated from end to end it must also be borne in mind on the part of movement that whereas all bodies have their natural determinate movement
that of light is indifferent as regards direction working equally in a circle as in a straight line hence it appears that the diffusion of light is not the local movement of a body
the third reason is from generation and corruption for if light were a body it would follow that whenever the air is darkened by the absence of the luminary the body of light would be corrupted
and its matter would receive a new form but unless we are to say that darkness is a body this does not appear to be the case neither does it appear from what matter a body can be daily generated large enough
to fill the intervening hemisphere also it would be absurd to say that a body of so great a bulk is corrupted by the mere absence of the luminary and should anyone reply
we may ask why it is that when a lighted candle is obscured by the intervening object the whole room is darkened it is not that the light is condensed round the candle when this is done
since it burns no more brightly then than it burned before since therefore these things are repugnant not only to reason but to common sense we must conclude that light cannot be a body
augustine takes light to be a luminous body in act in other words to be fire the noblest of the four elements
aristotle pronounces light to be fire existing in its own proper matter just as fire in aerial matter is flame or in earthly matter is burning coal
nor must too much attention be paid to the instances adduced by aristotle in his works on logic as he merely mentions them as the more or less probable opinions of various writers
all these properties are assigned to light metaphorically and might in the same way be attributed to heat for because movement from place to place is naturally first in the order of movement
we use terms belonging to local movement in speaking of alteration and movement of all kinds for even the word distance is derived from the idea of remoteness of place to that of all contraries
text thirteen third article
whether light is a quality objection one it would seem that light is not a quality for every quality remains in its subject though the active cause of the quality be removed as heat remains in water removed from the fire
but light does not remain in the air when the source of light is withdrawn therefore light is not a quality
further every sensible quality has its opposite as cold is opposed to heat blackness to whiteness but this is not the case with light since darkness is merely a privation of light
light therefore is not a sensible quality
further a cause is more potent than its effect but the light of the heavenly bodies is a cause of substantial forms of earthly bodies and also gives to colors their immaterial being
by making them actually visible light then is not a sensible quality but rather a substantial or spiritual form on the contrary
says that light is a species of quality i answer that some writers have said that the light in the air has not a natural being such as the color on a wall has but only an intentional being
as a similitude of color in the air but this cannot be the case for two reasons first because light gives a name to the air since by it the air becomes actually luminous but color does not do this
for we do not speak of the air as colored secondly because light produces natural effects for by the rays of the sun bodies are warmed
and natural changes cannot be brought about by mere intentions others have said that light is the sun's substantial form but this also seems impossible for two reasons first because substantial forms are not of themselves objects of the senses
had not these pages already proved to what an extent human credulity could go it would be almost useless to offer the following most extraordinary details as matters of fact
that a dead person might be personated by a living being is quite within the range of probability but that thirty or more totally different individuals should in this nineteenth century not only deem it but prove it possible to dupe
numbers of people into believing that they were a prince whose decease had been publicly certified and most zealously investigated into scarcely seems to come within the range of the possible
in order to better comprehend the various marvellous stories detailed by the impostors about to be referred to
on the twenty seventh march seventeen eighty five louis charles the second son of louis the sixteenth of france was born at the chateau de versailles the birth of this second son caused great rejoicings in the royal circle
where his earliest years were environed with all the care and adulation bestowed upon princes his father created the child duke of normandy whilst the death of his elder brother in seventeen eighty nine brought him next in succession to the throne
and if possible made him a greater idol than before in the eyes of the court at four years of age he is described as of slight but well shaped figure with a broad open forehead finely arched eyebrows and large blue eyes
curled naturally and fell in ringlets over his shoulders amid the gaieties of the french court at versailles doubtless the little lad's mental faculties were rapidly developed although it would be idle to place any credence
chiefly composed of women marched from paris invaded the regal precincts of versailles and deputed a few of their number to see the king louis the sixteenth received the deputation with great kindness
the people in their destitute condition could only think of bread and believing the king could command possession of it familiarly styled him the baker so that now seeing the royal family's return they shouted joyously no more poverty
we are bringing back the baker and his wife and the little shopboy the poor child so designated could not find anything better to say of the tuileries as they entered that place than everything is very ugly here
his mother endeavoured to console the prince for that by reminding him louis the fourteenth had lived there it is needless to recapitulate the well known story of the precarious state to which the royal family were speedily reduced in paris
and how they made secret preparations for leaving the capital in disguise on the twentieth of june seventeen ninety one the attempted flight was commenced
deeming he was being attired to play in a comedy the flight was indeed carried out but the royal party got no further than varennes where they were discovered and after being allowed to spend the night there were carried back to paris
although it was wonderful that they reached it alive and five days after their departure were again installed in the tuileries from that time until the thirteenth of august seventeen ninety two when the royal family were imprisoned in the temple
the whole of its members had been under close surveillance
from the date of their incarceration in the temple their doom was sealed and nothing but death released any one save the princess marie theresa from captivity after a while the king
was separated from his family and placed in a portion of the prison called the great tower
on the third of july seventeen ninety three a most terrible trial awaited the hapless boy
at a salary of twenty pounds a month conditionally upon his never leaving his youthful prisoner and never upon any pretence leaving the tower where the child was confined
the fearful and miserable life which the poor boy endured whilst in charge of the brutal simon and his scarcely less brutal wife is so well known that the saddening details need not be repeated suffice to recall the fact that by hard work
strong drinks close confinement improper food and even blows the unfortunate child was brought to the brink of the grave
to whom the world is chiefly indebted
the seventeenth's wretched fate has it
overdrawn the terrible picture but after making every allowance for royalist exaggeration enough of horror remains to excite the pity of the hardest hearted brutal and debasing as was simon's regimen
it was not rapid enough in its process to satisfy the committee of public safety they therefore dismissed him from his post and made different arrangements for the future the poor
to emerge either for exercise or fresh air he had a room to walk in and a bed to lie upon he had bread and water and linen and clothes but he had neither fire nor candle
for months this system of solitary confinement was endured by the child who reduced to a state of helpless stupidity no longer attempted to change his linen or cleanse himself and was allowed to drift into a condition of utter imbecility
ultimately an improvement was effected in the little captive's condition and under the better treatment accorded him he rallied for some time
in the month of may seventeen ninety five his jailers reported to the government that little capet was dangerously ill
on the eighth of june he told one of his keepers i have something to tell you but the man waited in vain for the revelation for whilst he listened the poor child's life had passed away
the members of the committee of public safety having concluded their day's sitting when the news was brought it was deemed advisable to conceal the event until the morrow
supper was prepared for the child as usual and gomin his attendant took it up to the room many years afterwards this man stated
the next morning four medical men came to examine the body and make their report which they did in somewhat ambiguous terms stating that at the temple on a bed in a room of the second floor of the tower
they had seen the dead body of a child apparently about ten years old
letter from adam smith
dear sir it is with a real though a very melancholy pleasure that i sit down to give you some account of the behavior of our late excellent friend mister hume during his last illness
though in his own judgment his disease was mortal and incurable yet he allowed himself to be prevailed upon by the entreaty of his friends to try what might be the effects of a long journey a few days before he set out
he wrote that account of his own life which together with his other papers he has left to your care my account therefore shall begin where his ends he set out for london towards the end of april and at morpeth
expecting to have found him at edinburgh mister home returned with him and attended him during the whole of his stay in england with that care and attention which might be expected from a temper so perfectly friendly and affectionate
as i had written to my mother that she might expect me in scotland i was under the necessity of continuing my journey his disease seemed to yield to exercise and change of air
that even he himself began to entertain what he was not apt to do a better opinion of his own health his symptoms however soon returned with their usual violence and from that moment
he gave up all thoughts of recovery but submitted with the utmost cheerfulness and the most perfect complacency and resignation upon his return to edinburgh though he found himself much weaker yet his cheerfulness never abated
and he continued to divert himself as usual with correcting his own works for a new edition with reading books of amusement with the conversation of his friends and sometimes in the evening with a party at his favorite game of whist
his cheerfulness was so great and his conversation and amusements ran so much in their usual strain that notwithstanding all bad symptoms many people could not believe he was dying i shall tell your friend colonel edmonstone
said doctor dundas to him one day that i left you much better and in a fair way of recovery doctor said he as i believe you would not choose to tell any thing but the truth you had better tell him
that i am dying as fast as my enemies if i have any could wish and as easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire colonel edmonstone soon afterwards came to see him and take leave of him
and on his way home he could not forbear writing him a letter bidding him once more an eternal adieu and applying to him as to a dying man the beautiful french verses
in expectation of his own death laments his approaching separation from his friend the marquis de la fare mister hume's magnanimity and firmness were such that his most affectionate friends knew
i told him that though i was sensible how very much he was weakened and that appearances were in many respects very bad yet his cheerfulness was still so great
when i lie down in the evening i feel myself weaker than when i rose in the morning and when i rise in the morning weaker than when i lay down in the evening i am sensible besides
he said that he felt that satisfaction so sensibly that when he was reading a few days before lucian's dialogues of the dead among all the excuses which are alleged to charon
for not entering readily into his boat he could not find one that fitted him he had no house to finish he had no daughter to provide for he had no enemies upon whom he wished to revenge himself i could not well imagine said he
what excuse i could make to charon in order to obtain a little delay i have done every thing of consequence which i ever meant to do and i could at no time expect to leave my relations and friends
in a better situation than that in which i am now likely to leave them i therefore have all reason to die contented he then diverted himself with inventing several jocular excuses which he supposed he might
and with imagining the very surly answers which it might suit the character of charon to return to them upon further consideration said he i thought i might say to him good charon
i have been correcting my works for a new edition allow me a little time that i may see how the public receives the alterations but charon would answer when you have seen the effect of these
there will be no end of such excuses so honest friend please step into the boat but i might still urge have a little patience good charon i have been endeavoring to open the eyes of the public if i live a few years longer
i may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of the prevailing systems of superstition but charon would then lose all temper and decency you loitering rogue that will not happen these many hundred years
of his magnanimity he never mentioned the subject but when the conversation naturally led to it and never dwelt longer upon it than the course of the conversation happened to require it was a subject indeed which occurred pretty frequently
who came to see him naturally made concerning the state of his health the conversation which i mentioned above and which passed on thursday the eighth of august was the last except one that i ever had with him
that the company of his most intimate friends fatigued him for his cheerfulness was still so great his complaisance and social disposition were still so entire that when any friend was with him he could not help talking more and with greater exertion
than suited the weakness of his body at his own desire therefore i agreed to leave edinburgh where i was staying partly upon his account and returned to my mother's house here at kirkaldy
upon condition that he would send for me whenever he wished to see me the physician who saw him most frequently doctor black undertaking in the mean time to write me occasionally an account of the state of his health
on the twenty second of august the doctor wrote me the following letter since my last mister hume has passed his time pretty easily but is much weaker he sits up goes down stairs once a day
and amuses himself with reading but seldom sees any body he finds that even the conversation of his most intimate friends fatigues and oppresses him and it is happy that he does not need it for he is quite free from anxiety
impatience or low spirits and passes his time very well with the assistance of amusing books i received the day after a letter from mister hume himself of which the following is an extract edinburgh
my dearest friend i am obliged to make use of my nephew's hand in writing to you as i do not rise to day i go very fast to decline and last night had a small fever which i hoped might put a quicker period
concerning the degree of strength which may from time to time remain with me adieu et cetera three days after i received the following letter from doctor black edinburgh monday twenty sixth august seventeen seventy six
dear sir yesterday about four o'clock afternoon mister hume expired the near approach of his death became evident in the night between thursday and friday when his disease became excessive
and soon weakened him so much that he could no longer rise out of his bed he continued to the last perfectly sensible and free from much pain or feelings of distress
that he had dictated a letter to you desiring you not to come when he became very weak it cost him an effort to speak and he died in such a happy composure of mind that nothing could exceed it thus died
concerning whose philosophical opinions men will no doubt judge variously
or disagree with his own but concerning whose character and conduct
his temper indeed seemed to be more happily balanced if i may be allowed such an expression
even in the lowest state of his fortune his great and necessary frugality never hindered him
it was a frugality founded not upon avarice but upon the love of independency the extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either the firmness of his mind or the steadiness of his resolutions
his constant pleasantry was the genuine effusion of good nature and good humor tempered with delicacy and modesty and without even the slightest tincture of malignity
even those who were the objects of it
the objects of it there was not perhaps any one of all his great and amiable qualities which contributed more to endear his conversation and that gayety of temper so agreeable in society
but which is so often accompanied with frivolous and superficial qualities was in him certainly attended with the most severe application the most extensive learning the greatest depth of thought and a capacity in every respect the most comprehensive
upon the whole i have always considered him both in his lifetime and since his death as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit i ever am dear sir
who had fallen pale and trembling into his chair while caderousse stammered out the words of a drinking song well my dear sir said danglars to fernand here is a marriage which does not appear to make everybody happy
it drives me to despair said fernand do you then love mercedes i adore her for long as long as i have known her always and you sit there
tearing your hair instead of seeking to remedy your condition i did not think that was the way of your people what would you have me do said fernand how do i know is it my affair i am not in love with mademoiselle mercedes
but for you in the words of the gospel seek and you shall find i have found already what i would stab the man but the woman told me that if any misfortune happened to her betrothed she would kill herself
pooh women say those things but never do them you do not know mercedes what she threatens she will do idiot muttered danglars whether she kill herself or not what matter
my dear fellow replied danglars you are three parts drunk finish the bottle and you will be completely so drink then and do not meddle with what we are discussing
and yet dantes need not die death alone can separate them remarked fernand you talk like a noodle my friend said caderousse and here is danglars who is a wide awake clever deep fellow who will prove to you that you are wrong
prove it danglars i have answered for you say there is no need why dantes should die it would indeed be a pity he should dantes is a good fellow i like dantes dantes your health fernand rose impatiently
let him run on said danglars restraining the young man drunk as he is he is not much out in what he says absence severs as well as death
he has not robbed or killed or murdered hold your tongue said danglars i won't hold my tongue replied caderousse i say i want to know why they should put dantes in prison i like dantes
dantes your health and he swallowed another glass of wine danglars saw in the muddled look of the tailor the progress of his intoxication and turning towards fernand said well you understand there is no need to kill him certainly not
if as you said just now you have the means of having dantes arrested have you that means it is to be found for the searching
i motives of hatred against dantes none on my word i saw you were unhappy and your unhappiness interested me that's all but since you believe i act for my own account adieu my dear friend get out of the affair as best you may
no no said fernand restraining him stay
whether you have any angry feeling or not against dantes i hate him i confess it openly do you find the means i will execute it provided it is not to kill the man for mercedes has declared she will kill herself if dantes is killed
caderousse who had let his head drop on the table now raised it and looking at fernand with his dull and fishy eyes he said kill dantes who talks of killing dantes i won't have him killed i won't
he's my friend and this morning offered to share his money with me as i shared mine with him i won't have dantes killed i won't
yes yes dantes good health said caderousse emptying his glass here's to his health his health hurrah but the means the means said fernand have you not hit upon any asked danglars no you undertook to do so
that the spaniards ruminate while the french invent do you invent then said fernand impatiently waiter said danglars pen ink and paper pen ink and paper muttered fernand
pen ink and paper are my tools and without my tools i am fit for nothing pen ink and paper then called fernand loudly there's what you want on that table said the waiter bring them here the waiter did as he was desired
when one thinks said caderousse letting his hand drop on the paper
to kill a man more sure than if we waited at the corner of a wood to assassinate him
the fellow is not so drunk as he appears to be said danglars give him some more wine fernand fernand filled caderousse's glass who like the confirmed toper he was lifted his hand from the paper and seized the glass
the catalan watched him until caderousse almost overcome by this fresh assault on his senses rested or rather dropped his glass upon the table well resumed the catalan
as he saw the final glimmer of caderousse's reason vanishing before the last glass of wine well then i should say for instance resumed danglars that if after a voyage such as dantes has just made in which he touched at the island of elba
some one were to denounce him to the king's procureur as a bonapartist agent i will denounce him exclaimed the young man hastily yes but they will make you then sign your declaration and confront you with him you have denounced
i will supply you with the means of supporting your accusation for i know the fact well
and the day when he comes out woe betide him who was the cause of his incarceration oh i should wish nothing better than that he would come and seek a quarrel with me yes and mercedes
mercedes who will detest you if you have only the misfortune to scratch the skin of her dearly beloved edmond
has been intrusted by murat with a letter for the usurper and by the usurper with a letter for the bonapartist committee in paris proof of this crime will be found on arresting him for the letter will be found upon him or at his father's
and danglars wrote the address as he spoke yes and that's all settled exclaimed caderousse who by a last effort of intellect had followed the reading of the letter and instinctively comprehended all the misery which such a denunciation must entail
yes and that's all settled only it will be an infamous shame
yes said danglars taking it from beyond his reach and as what i say and do is merely in jest and i amongst the first and foremost should be sorry if anything happened to dantes the worthy dantes look here
and taking the letter he squeezed it up in his hands
all right said caderousse dantes is my friend and i won't have him ill used and who thinks of using him ill certainly neither i nor fernand said danglars rising and looking at the young man who still remained seated
but whose eye was fixed on the denunciatory sheet of paper flung into the corner in this case replied caderousse let's have some more wine i wish to drink to the health of edmond and the lovely mercedes
and if you continue you will be compelled to sleep here because unable to stand on your legs i said caderousse rising with all the offended dignity of a drunken man i can't keep on my legs why i'll wager i can go up
very well let us go said caderousse but i don't want your arm at all come fernand
no said fernand i shall return to the catalans you're wrong come with us to marseilles come along i will not what do you mean you will not well just as you like my prince there's liberty for all the world
come along danglars and let the young gentleman return to the catalans if he chooses danglars took advantage of caderousse's temper at the moment to take him off towards marseilles by the porte saint victor staggering as he went
when they had advanced about twenty yards danglars looked back and saw fernand stoop pick up the crumpled paper and putting it into his pocket then rush out of the arbor towards pillon well said caderousse
and he is going to the city hallo fernand oh you don't see straight said danglars he's gone right enough
in the days of hezekiah and isaiah when it had come under the sway of the younger civilization of assyria on the north it was a land of corn and wine a land of bread and vineyards
this territory he wrote is of all that we know the best by far for producing grain it is so good that it returns as much as two hundredfold for the average and when it bears at its best it produces three hundredfold
the blades of the wheat and barley there grow to be full four fingers broad and from millet and sesame seed how large a tree grows i know myself but shall not record being well aware that even what has already been said relating to the crops produced
are in summer partly barren wastes and partly jungle and reedy swamp bedouins camp beside sandy heaps which were once populous and thriving cities and here and there the shrunken remnants of a people once great and influential
eke out precarious livings under the oppression of turkish tax gatherers who are scarcely less considerate than the plundering nomads of the desert this historic country is bounded on the east by persia and on the west by the arabian desert
in shape somewhat resembling a fish it lies between the two great rivers the tigris and the euphrates one hundred miles wide at its broadest part
the head converges to a point above basra where the rivers meet and form the shatt el arab which pours into the persian gulf after meeting the karun and drawing away the main volume of that double mouthed river
the distance from baghdad to basra is about three hundred miles and the area traversed by the shatt el arab is slowly extending at the rate of a mile every thirty years or so as a result of the steady accumulation of silt and mud carried down by the tigris and euphrates
when sumeria was beginning to flourish these two rivers had separate outlets and eridu
was a seaport at the head of the persian gulf a day's journey separated the river mouths when alexander the great broke the power of the persian empire in the days of babylonia's prosperity the euphrates was hailed as the soul of the land and the tigris as
the bestower of blessings skilful engineers had solved the problem of water distribution by irrigating sun parched areas and preventing the excessive flooding of those districts which are now rendered impassable swamps when the rivers overflow
a network of canals was constructed throughout the country which restricted the destructive tendencies of the tigris and euphrates and developed to a high degree their potentialities as fertilizing agencies the greatest of these canals appear to have been anciently river beds
one which is called shatt en nil to the north and shatt el kar to the south curved eastward from babylon
flowed like the letter s towards larsa and then rejoined the river it is believed to mark the course followed in the early sumerian period by the euphrates river which has moved steadily westward many miles beyond the sites of ancient cities that were erected on its banks
another important canal the shatt el hai crossed the plain from the tigris to its sister river which lies lower at this point and does not run so fast where the artificial canals were constructed on higher levels than the streams which fed them
the buckets or skin bags were roped to a weighted beam with the aid of which they were swung up by workmen and emptied into the canals
it is possible that this toilsome mode of irrigation was substituted in favourable parts by the primitive water wheels which are used in our own day by the inhabitants of the country who cultivate strips of land along the river banks
in babylonia there are two seasons the rainy and the dry rain falls from november till march and the plain is carpeted in spring by patches of vivid green verdure and brilliant wild flowers
then the period of drought ensues the sun rapidly burns up all vegetation and everywhere the eye is wearied by long stretches of brown and yellow desert
occasional sandstorms darken the heavens sweeping over sterile wastes and piling up the shapeless mounds which mark the sites of ancient cities meanwhile the rivers are increasing in volume being fed by the melting snows at their mountain sources far to the north
begins to rise early in march and reaches its highest level in may before the end of june it again subsides more sluggish in movement
shows signs of rising a fortnight later than the tigris and is in flood for a more extended period it does not shrink to its lowest level until early in september by controlling the flow of these mighty rivers preventing disastrous floods
and storing and distributing surplus water the ancient babylonians developed to the full the natural resources of their country and made it what it may once again become one of the fairest and most habitable areas in the world
nature conferred upon them bountiful rewards for their labour trade and industries flourished and the cities increased in splendour and strength then as now the heat was great during the long summer but remarkably dry and unvarying
while the air was ever wonderfully transparent under cloudless skies of vivid blue the nights were cool and of great beauty whether in brilliant moonlight or when ponds and canals were jewelled by the lustrous displays of clear and numerous stars which glorified that homeland of the earliest astronomers
babylonia is a treeless country and timber had to be imported from the earliest times the date palm was probably introduced by man as were certainly the vine and the fig tree which were widely cultivated especially in the north
stone suitable for building was very scarce and limestone alabaster marble and basalt had to be taken from northern mesopotamia where the mountains also yield copper and lead and iron
except eridu where ancient workers quarried sandstone from its sea shaped ridge all the cities were built of brick an excellent clay being found in abundance when brick walls were cemented with bitumen they were given great stability
this resinous substance is found in the north and south it bubbles up through crevices of rocks on river banks and forms small ponds two famous springs at modern hit on the euphrates have been drawn upon from time immemorial
from one writes a traveller flows hot water black with bitumen while the other discharges intermittently bitumen or after a rainstorm bitumen and cold water
and export it for coating boats and roofs
sumeria had many surplus products including corn and figs pottery fine wool and woven garments
it must therefore have had a brisk and flourishing foreign trade at an exceedingly remote period no doubt numerous alien merchants were attracted to its cities
and it may be that they induced or encouraged semitic and other raiders to overthrow governments and form military aristocracies so that they themselves might obtain necessary concessions and achieve a degree of political ascendancy it does not follow however
that the peasant class was greatly affected by periodic revolutions of this kind which brought little more to them than a change of rulers the needs of the country necessitated the continuance of agricultural methods and the rigid observance of existing land laws
indeed these constituted the basis of sumerian prosperity conquerors have ever sought reward not merely in spoil but also the services of the conquered in northern babylonia the invaders apparently found it necessary
to conciliate and secure the continued allegiance of the tillers of the soil law and religion being closely associated they had to adapt their gods to suit the requirements of existing social and political organizations
a deity of pastoral nomads had to receive attributes which would give him an agricultural significance one of rural character had to be changed to respond to the various calls of city life
besides local gods could not be ignored on account of their popularity as a result
it is probable that the complex character of certain deities was due to the process of adjustment to which they were subjected in new environments
each city was presided over by a deity who was the nominal owner of the surrounding arable land farms were rented or purchased from the priesthood and pasture was held in common as in egypt where we find for instance the artisan god ptah
supreme at memphis the sun god ra at heliopolis and the cat goddess bast at bubastis the various local sumerian and akkadian deities had distinctive characteristics
and similarly showed a tendency to absorb the attributes of their rivals the chief deity of a state was the central figure in a pantheon which had its political aspect and influenced the growth of local theology
cities however did not as a rule bear the names of deities which suggests that several were founded when sumerian religion was in its early animistic stages and gods and goddesses were not sharply defined from the various spirit groups
who was supreme at the ancient sea deserted port of eridu
a creature endowed with reason with a body like that of a fish with feet below like those of a man with a fish's tail this description recalls the familiar figures of egyptian gods and priests attired in the skins of the sacred animals
from whom their powers were derived and the fairy lore about swan maids and men and the seals and other animals who could divest themselves of their skin coverings and appear in human shape
the indian creative gods brahma and vishnu had fish forms in sanskrit literature manu the eponymous first man is instructed by the fish
the sage at once lifted up the fish and placed it in a jar of water it gradually increased in bulk and he transferred it next to a tank and then to the river ganges
the soul of the land was identified with a migrating fish the growth of the fish suggests the growth of the river rising in flood in celtic folk tales high tides and valley floods
are accounted for by the presence of a great beast in sea loch or river in a class of legends specially connected with the worship of atargatis wrote professor robertson smith the divine life of the waters resides in the sacred fish that inhabit them
plunged into the waters in the first case the euphrates in the second the sacred pool at the temple near the town and were changed into fishes the idea is that where a god dies that is ceases to exist in human form
his life passes into the waters where he is buried and this again is merely a theory to bring the divine water or the divine fish into harmony with anthropomorphic ideas the same thing was sometimes effected in another way
by saying that the anthropomorphic deity was born from the water as aphrodite sprang from sea foam or as atargatis in another form of the euphrates legend
the reference however according to jastrow is not to the salt ocean but the sweet waters flowing under the earth which feed the streams
in egypt the mother of mendes is depicted carrying a fish upon her head she links with isis and hathor
a form of ptah osiris and ra and as a god of fertility he is symbolized by the ram another egyptian fish deity was the god rem whose name signifies to weep
he wept fertilizing tears and corn was sown and reaped amidst lamentations he may be identical with remi who was a phase of sebek the crocodile god a developed attribute of nu
the vague primitive egyptian deity who symbolized the primordial deep the connection between a fish god and a corn god is not necessarily remote when we consider that in babylonia and egypt the harvest was the gift of the rivers
the euphrates indeed was hailed as a creator of all that grew on its banks o thou river who didst create all things when the great gods dug thee out they set prosperity upon thy banks
created his dwelling thou judgest the cause of mankind o river thou art mighty o river thou art supreme
the embodiment or the water spirit by leading him as the indian manu led the creator and preserver in fish form from river to water pot water pot to pond or canal and then again to river and ocean
the babylonians became expert engineers and experienced agriculturists the makers of bricks the builders of cities the framers of laws
to work metals to make pottery and bricks and to build temples he was the artisan god nun ura god of the potter kuski banda
he taught the people how to form and use alphabetic signs and instructed them in mathematics he gave them their code of laws like the egyptian artisan god ptah
ptah moulded the first man on his potter's wheel he also moulded the sun and moon he shaped the universe and hammered out the copper sky
not merely as a producer of crops his word became the creative force he named those things he desired to be and they came into existence
this change from artisan god to creator nudimmud may have been due to the tendency of early religious cults to attach to their chief god the attributes of rivals exalted at other centres
was identified with ya ya'u
the jah of the hebrews in ya daganu
rather than dagon with jah
two names which have every appearance of being etymologically connected jah's name is one of the words for god
lord of heaven and earth sa kalama ruler of the land as well as engur god of the abyss naqbu the deep
king of the river as rain fell from the waters above the firmament the god of waters was also a sky and earth god
the indian varuna was similarly a sky as well as an ocean god before the theorizing and systematizing brahmanic teachers relegated him to a permanent abode at the bottom of the sea
another babylonian deity named dagan
his worship was certainly of great antiquity hammurabi writes professor pinches seems to speak of the euphrates as being the boundary of dagan whom he calls his creator in later inscriptions the form daguna
which approaches nearer to the west semitic form dagon of the philistines
who was either imported from babylonia or was a sea god of more than one branch of the mediterranean race the authorities are at variance regarding the form and attributes of dagan our knowledge regarding him is derived mainly from the bible
he was a national rather than a city god
when the captured ark of the israelites was placed in it the image of dagon fell on his face with the result that the head of dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold
derive his name from the semitic dag a fish and suggest that after the idol fell only the fishy part dago was left on the other hand it was argued that dagon was a corn god
dagan and dagon are accidental
in the ashmolean museum oxford bearing an inscription which he reads as baal dagon near the name is an ear of corn and other symbols such as the winged solar disc a gazelle and several stars but there is no fish
it may be of course that baal dagon represents a fusion of deities
a fish god may also be a corn god a land animal god and a god of ocean and the sky
suggests that dagon was the fertilizing harvest god among other things whose usefulness had been impaired as they believed
the philistines came from crete and if their dagon was imported from that island he may have had some connection with poseidon whose worship extended throughout greece this god of the sea who is somewhat like the roman neptune
carried a lightning trident and caused earthquakes he was a brother of zeus the sky and atmosphere deity and had bull and horse forms as a horse he pursued demeter
but especially in the art of training horses in his train were the tritons half men half fishes and the water fairies the nereids bulls boars and rams were offered to this sea god of fertility
received oblations from those who depended for their agricultural prosperity on his gifts of fertilizing seaweed he is referred to in martin's western isles and is not yet forgotten the eddic sea god njord of noatun
dagda the irish corn god
the goddess of the river boyne osiris and isis of egypt were associated with the nile the connection between agriculture and the water supply was too obvious to escape the early symbolists and many other proofs of this than those referred to could be given
who was also called nin ki lady of the earth may ea make thee glad chanted the priests may damkina queen of the deep illumine thee with her countenance
exalt thy head merodach was their son in time he became the bel or lord of the babylonian pantheon
there are also references to sea maidens the babylonian mermaids or nereids we have a glimpse of sea giants which resemble the indian danavas and daityas of ocean in the chant
seven are they seven are they in the ocean deep seven are they battening in heaven seven are they bred in the depths of ocean of these seven the first is the south wind
these seven demons were also the messengers of anu who although specialized as a sky god in more than one pantheon
his name signifying the high one is derived from ana heaven he was the city god of erech
it is possible that he was developed as an atmospheric god with solar and lunar attributes the seven demons who were his messengers recall the stormy maruts the followers of indra they are referred to as
forcing their way with baneful windstorms mighty destroyers the deluge of the storm god
it is difficult to distinguish him from a demon
evil spirits according to a babylonian chant were the bitter venom of the gods those attached to a deity as attendants appear to represent the original animistic group from which he evolved
in each district the character of the deity was shaped to accord with local conditions
the chief god was enlil whose name is translated lord of mist lord of might and lord of demons by various authorities he was a storm god and a war god and lord of heaven and earth
an atmospheric deity he shares the attributes of the indian indra the thunder and rain god and vayu the wind god
or rimman who links with the hittite tarku all these are deities of tempest and the mountains wild huntsmen in the raging host
and the theory obtained for a time
he was the chief figure in a triad in which he figured as earth god with anu as god of the sky
this classification suggests that nippur had either risen in political importance and dominated the cities of erech and eridu or that its priests were influential at the court of a ruler who was the overlord of several city states
associated with bel enlil was beltis later known as beltu the lady she appears to be identical with the other great goddesses ishtar nana
of an early god with whom she was equal in power and dignity in the later systematized theology of the babylonians we seem to trace the fragments of a primitive mythology which was vague in outline
for the deities were not sharply defined and existed in groups enneads were formed in egypt by placing a local god at the head of a group of eight elder deities the sun god ra was the chief figure of the earliest pantheon of this character at heliopolis
while at hermopolis the leader was the lunar god thoth professor budge is of opinion that both the sumerians and the early egyptians derived their primeval gods from some common but exceedingly ancient source
nu and his consort nut
kekui and his consort kekuit and kerh and his consort kerhet man always has fashioned he says and probably always will fashion his god or gods in his own image and he has always having reached a certain stage in development
given to his gods wives and offspring but the nature of the position taken by the wives of the gods depends upon the nature of the position of women in the households of those who write the legends and the traditions of the gods
the gods of the oldest company in egypt were the writer believes invented by people in whose households women held a high position
nu was the spirit of the primordial deep and nut of the waters above the heavens the mother of moon and sun and the stars the others were phases of light and darkness and the forces of nature in activity and repose
and the third anshar and kishar
is of later characterization than the first pair of primitive deities who symbolized the deep
he rewarded mankind for the services they rendered to him he was their leader and instructor he achieved for them the victories over the destructive forces of nature in brief he was the dragon slayer a distinction by the way which was attached in later times to his son merodach
he resembled the indian vishnu the preserver while bel enlil resembled shiva the destroyer and anu the father supreme brahma the creator and father of all the difference in exact adjustment being due perhaps to sumerian political conditions
we shall find these elder demons figuring in the babylonian creation myth which receives treatment in a later chapter the ancient sumerian city of eridu which means on the seashore was invested with great sanctity from the earliest times
the priestly magicians of historic babylonia
in its temple tower built of brick was a marble stairway and evidences have been forthcoming that in the later sumerian period the structure was lavishly adorned
it is referred to in the fragments of early literature which have survived as the splendid house shady as the forest that none may enter the mythological spell exercised by eridu in later times
at the sacred city the first man was created there the souls of the dead passed towards the great deep its proximity to the sea
god of the sailor may have brought it into contact with other peoples and other early civilizations like the early egyptians
which some regard as the cradle of the mediterranean race
in a fragmentary babylonian charm there is a reference to a sacred tree or bush at eridu
that it is the biblical tree of life in the garden of eden his translations of certain vital words however
if eridu was not the cradle of the sumerian race it was possibly the cradle of sumerian civilization
chapter twelve averil's atonement what are you dreaming of anne the two girls were loitering one evening in a fairy hollow of the brook ferns nodded in it
white curtains around it anne roused herself from her reverie with a happy sigh i was thinking out my story diana oh have you really begun it cried diana all alight with eager interest in a moment
yes i have only a few pages written but i have it all pretty well thought out i've had such a time to get a suitable plot
couldn't you have changed her name no the thing was impossible i tried to but i couldn't do it any more than i could change yours
but finally i got a plot that matched her then came the excitement of choosing names for all my characters you have no idea how fascinating that is i've lain awake for hours thinking over those names the hero's name is perceval dalrymple
have you named all the characters asked diana wistfully
i'd feel as if i had a share in the story then you may name the little hired boy who lived with the lesters conceded anne he is not very important but he is the only one left unnamed call him raymond
fitzosborne suggested diana who had a store of such names laid away in her memory relics of the old story club which she and anne and jane andrews and ruby gillis had had in their schooldays anne shook her head doubtfully
i'm afraid that is too aristocratic a name for a chore boy diana
she was in pursuit of fame not filthy lucre and her literary dreams were as yet untainted by mercenary considerations you'll let me read it won't you pleaded diana when it is finished i'll read it to you and mister harrison and i shall want you to criticize it severely
how are you going to end it happily or unhappily i'm not sure
oh i like happy endings best you'd better let him marry her said diana
but you like to cry over stories oh yes in the middle of them but i like everything to come right at last i must have one pathetic scene in it
he belongs to me and i want him to live and flourish
in her literary pursuits now she would be jubilant over a brilliant idea now despairing because some contrary character would not behave properly diana could not understand this make them do as you want them to she said
she will do and say things i never meant her to then that spoils everything that went before and i have to write it all over again finally however the story was finished and anne read it to diana in the seclusion of the porch gable
she had achieved her pathetic scene without sacrificing robert ray and she kept a watchful eye on diana as she read it diana rose to the occasion and cried properly but when the end came she looked a little disappointed
why did you kill maurice lennox she asked reproachfully he was the villain protested anne he had to be punished i like him best of them all said unreasonable diana
well anyway it's a perfectly elegant story anne and will make you famous of that i'm sure have you got a title for it
i call it averil's atonement doesn't that sound nice and alliterative now diana tell me candidly do you see any faults in my story well
it's just what anybody might do heroines shouldn't do cooking i think why that is where the humor comes in and it's one of the best parts of the whole story said anne and it may be stated that in this she was quite right
diana prudently refrained from any further criticism but mister harrison was much harder to please first he told her there was entirely too much description in the story cut out all those flowery passages he said unfeelingly
i've left out all the descriptions but the sunset she said at last i simply couldn't let it go it was the best of them all it hasn't anything to do with the story said mister harrison
changing the name of course or else missus rachel lynde would probably think she was the heroine
i daresay there's been many a romance in avonlea and many a tragedy too said mister harrison drily but your folks ain't like real folks anywhere they talk too much and use too high flown language
there's one place where that dalrymple chap talks even on for two pages and never lets the girl get a word in edgewise if he'd done that in real life she'd have pitched him i don't believe it said anne flatly
would win any girl's heart completely
he did bad things but he did them perceval hadn't time for anything but mooning mooning that was even worse than pitching maurice lennox was the villain said anne indignantly i don't see why every one likes him better than perceval
she'd have reformed him you can reform a man
although she told him about it if it is a success you'll see it when it is published gilbert but if it is a failure nobody shall ever see it marilla knew nothing about the venture
in imagination anne saw herself reading a story out of a magazine to marilla entrapping her into praise of it for in imagination all things are possible and then triumphantly announcing herself the author one day
anne took to the post office a long bulky envelope addressed with the delightful confidence of youth and inexperience to the very biggest of the big magazines diana was as excited over it as anne herself
of course it will be accepted and they will likely ask you to send them more you may be as famous as missus morgan some day anne and then how proud i'll be of knowing you said diana who possessed at least the striking merit
on the table lay a long envelope and a crumpled manuscript anne your story hasn't come back cried diana incredulously yes it has said anne shortly
i suppose the editor is prejudiced against any one who isn't a yankee don't be discouraged anne remember how missus morgan's stories came back send yours to the canadian woman i believe i will said anne plucking up heart and if it is published
out came the sunset but in spite of this heroic mutilation the editor of the canadian woman sent averil's atonement back so promptly
anne took this second rejection with the calmness of despair she locked the story away in the garret trunk where the old story club tales reposed
this is the end of my literary ambitions she said bitterly she never mentioned the matter to mister harrison
no the editor wouldn't take it she answered briefly mister harrison looked sidewise at the flushed delicate profile well i suppose you'll keep on writing them he said encouragingly no
i shall never try to write a story again declared anne with the hopeless finality of nineteen when a door is shut in its face i wouldn't give up altogether said mister harrison reflectively
but i wouldn't pester editors with it i'd write of people and places like i knew
though missus lynde believes we're all bad but most of us have got a little decency somewhere in us keep on writing anne no
when i'm through redmond i'll stick to teaching i can teach i can't write stories
said mister harrison i don't believe in putting marrying off too long like i did
there were times when mister harrison was really intolerable
the round of life anne was back in avonlea with the luster of the thorburn scholarship on her brow
avonlea had not changed either at least so it seemed at first but as anne sat in the green gables pew
in the pews more than one familiar face was missing forever old uncle abe his prophesying over and done with missus peter sloane who had sighed it was to be hoped for the last time timothy cotton
who as missus rachel lynde said had actually managed to die at last after practicing at it for twenty years and old josiah sloane whom nobody knew in his coffin because he had his whiskers neatly trimmed
anne dropped her lids to hide her dancing eyes she recalled the stormy winter night of the christmas holidays when jane had proposed for billy he certainly had not broken his heart over his rejection anne wondered if jane had also proposed to nettie for him
or if he had mustered enough spunk to ask the fateful question himself all the andrews family seemed to share in his pride and pleasure from missus harmon in the pew to jane in the choir
don't you tell me but it was not at jane anne gazed that day in dismay and surprise it was at ruby gillis who sat beside her in the choir what had happened to ruby
she was even handsomer than ever but her blue eyes were too bright and lustrous and the color of her cheeks was hectically brilliant besides she was very thin the hands that held her hymn book were almost transparent in their delicacy
is ruby gillis ill anne asked of missus lynde as they went home from church ruby gillis is dying of galloping consumption
everybody knows it except herself and her family
but she says she's going to teach again in the fall and she's after the white sands school she'll be in her grave poor girl when white sands school opens that's what anne listened in shocked silence ruby gillis her old school chum dying
could it be possible of late years they had grown apart but the old tie of school girl intimacy was there and made itself felt sharply in the tug the news gave at anne's heartstrings ruby the brilliant the merry the coquettish
it was impossible to associate the thought of her with anything like death she had greeted anne with gay cordiality after church and urged her to come up the next evening i'll be away tuesday and wednesday evenings she had whispered triumphantly
but she promised to go and diana offered to go with her
she's fighting so hard for her life and yet she hasn't any chance at all they say the girls walked silently down the red twilit road the robins were singing vespers in the high treetops filling the golden air with their jubilant voices
and thrill to the sunshine and rain that had drifted over them the air was fragrant with the wild sweet wholesome smell of young raspberry copses white mists were hovering in the silent hollows and violet stars were shining bluely on the brooklands
what a beautiful sunset said diana
if we could sail to it in the moonshine boat paul wrote of in his old composition you remember how nice it would be said anne rousing from her reverie
if it is true that she is dying any other sad thing might be true too
she's father's aunt too her husband died last winter and she was left very poor and lonely so the wrights took her to live with them
but father put his foot down live with aunt atossa he would not is she so terrible asked anne absently you'll probably see what she's like before we can get away said diana significantly father says she has a face like a hatchet it cuts the air
but her tongue is sharper still late as it was aunt atossa was cutting potato sets in the wright kitchen she wore a faded old wrapper and her gray hair was decidedly untidy aunt atossa did not like being caught in a kilter
when diana introduced anne i've heard of you her tone implied that she had heard nothing good missus andrews was telling me you were home she said you had improved a good deal there was no doubt aunt atossa thought there was plenty of room for further improvement
she ceased not from cutting sets with much energy
far from well continued aunt atossa solemnly but still i keep a doing people who can't work aren't wanted here if it isn't too much trouble will you be condescending enough to set the jelly in the pantry
smiled anne i do it yet laughed diana
i wonder your mother allows you but she always spoiled you we all thought when george married her she wouldn't be a suitable wife for him aunt atossa sighed heavily as if all forebodings upon the occasion of george barry's marriage had been amply and darkly fulfilled
explained diana oh anything does for an excuse of course said aunt atossa amiably
it's college airs i s'pose you'd be wiser to keep away from ruby gillis the doctors say consumption's catching i always knew ruby'd get something gadding off to boston last fall for a visit people who ain't content to stay home always catch something
people who don't go visiting catch things too sometimes they even die said diana solemnly then they don't have themselves to blame for it retorted aunt atossa triumphantly
there is no truth in that report said diana blushing well don't put it off too long said aunt atossa significantly you'll fade soon you're all complexion and hair and the wrights are terrible fickle
oh isn't she dreadful gasped diana as they escaped down the lane she's worse than miss eliza andrews said anne
and the minister who hadn't heard a word she said immediately remarked in a very devout voice
speaking of stories diana remarked anne in a significant confidential tone
you used to write perfectly thrilling stories years ago in our old story club
i heard priscilla say once that all missus morgan's first stories were rejected but i'm sure yours wouldn't be anne for it's likely editors have more sense nowadays margaret burton one of the junior girls at redmond wrote a story last winter
ruby was dressed in white and her eyes and cheeks were very brilliant
i've a blue silk to make up yet but it's a little heavy for summer wear i think i'll leave it until the fall i'm going to teach in white sands you know
yesterday was real dinky but i like something brighter for myself did you notice those two ridiculous boys downstairs they've both come determined to sit each other out i don't care a single bit about either of them you know herb spencer is the one i like
i wish those two boys hadn't come tonight
ruby slipped her arm about anne's waist with a shallow little laugh but just for a moment their eyes met and behind all the luster of ruby's anne saw something that made her heart ache come up often won't you anne whispered ruby
come alone i want you are you feeling quite well ruby
that congestion last winter pulled me down a little but just see my color i don't look much like an invalid i'm sure ruby's voice was almost sharp
chapter thirteen the way of transgressors davy and dora were ready for sunday school they were going alone which did not often happen for missus lynde always attended sunday school
he had a cent in his pocket for the sunday school collection and a five cent piece for the church collection he carried his bible in one hand and his sunday school quarterly in the other he knew his lesson and his golden text
and his catechism question perfectly had he not studied them perforce in missus lynde's kitchen all last sunday afternoon davy therefore should have been in a placid frame of mind as a matter of fact
missus lynde limped out of her kitchen as he joined dora are you clean she demanded severely
davy answered with a defiant scowl missus rachel sighed she had her suspicions about davy's neck and ears but she knew that if she attempted to make a personal examination
davy would likely take to his heels and she could not pursue him today well be sure you behave yourselves she warned them don't walk in the dust don't stop in the porch to talk to the other children don't squirm or wriggle in your places
don't forget the golden text don't lose your collection or forget to put it in don't whisper at prayer time and don't forget to pay attention to the sermon davy deigned no response he marched away down the lane followed by the meek dora
but his soul seethed within davy had suffered or thought he had suffered many things at the hands and tongue of missus rachel lynde since she had come to green gables for missus lynde could not live with anybody whether they were nine or ninety
without trying to bring them up properly and it was only the preceding afternoon that she had interfered to influence marilla
davy was still boiling over this as soon as he was out of the lane davy stopped and twisted his countenance into such an unearthly and terrific contortion that dora although she knew his gifts in that respect
was honestly alarmed lest he should never in the world be able to get it straightened out again darn her exploded davy oh davy don't swear gasped dora in dismay
retorted davy recklessly well if you must say dreadful words don't say them on sunday pleaded dora davy was as yet far from repentance but in his secret soul he felt that perhaps he had gone a little too far
god will punish you if you do said dora solemnly then i
she expected that davy would be struck down dead on the spot but nothing happened anyway
in grim deliberate silence while dora watched him with the fascination of horror davy stepped off the green grass of the roadside ankle deep into the fine dust which four weeks of rainless weather had made on the road
and marched along in it shuffling his feet viciously until he was enveloped in a hazy cloud that's the beginning he announced triumphantly
and davy hurled cent and nickel
protested dora you've got to said davy if you don't come i'll tell marilla that frank bell kissed you in school last monday
cried dora blushing scarlet well you didn't slap him or seem a bit cross retorted davy i'll tell her that too if you don't come we'll take the short cut up this field i'm afraid of those cows protested poor dora seeing a prospect of escape
the very idea of your being scared of those cows scoffed davy why they're both younger than you they're bigger said dora they won't hurt you come along now this is great
you'll go to the other place if you break the sabbath day said unhappy dora following him sorely against her will but davy was not scared yet
and hailed davy's appearance with whoops of delight pete tommy adolphus and mirabel cotton were all alone their mother and older sisters were away dora was thankful mirabel was there at least
but at least she wore dresses we've come
they dared not of course go fishing on the pond where they would be seen by people going to church they had to resort to the brook in the woods behind the cotton house but it was full of trout and they had a glorious time that morning
at least the cottons certainly had and davy seemed to have it not being entirely bereft of prudence
thus accoutered bog and marsh and undergrowth had no terrors for him dora was frankly and manifestly miserable she followed the others in their peregrinations from pool to pool clasping her bible and quarterly tightly
instead here she was roaming the woods with those half wild cottons trying to keep her boots clean and her pretty white dress free from rents and stains mirabel had offered the loan of an apron but dora had scornfully refused
she sat primly on a hencoop in the yard while the others played an uproarious game of tag and then they all climbed to the top of the pig house roof and cut their initials on the saddleboard
they spent a splendid half hour climbing on the roof and diving off into the straw with whoops and yells but even unlawful pleasures must come to an end when the rumble of wheels over the pond bridge told that people were going home from church
davy knew they must go he discarded tommy's overalls resumed his own rightful attire and turned away from his string of trout with a sigh no use to think of taking them home well hadn't we a splendid time
he demanded defiantly as they went down the hill field i hadn't said dora flatly and i don't believe you had really either she added with a flash of insight that was not to be expected of her i had so
cried davy but in the voice of one who doth protest too much no wonder you hadn't just sitting there like a like a mule i ain't going to sociate with the cottons
there are lots of things you wouldn't dare say before everybody
there is too would you demanded dora gravely would you say tomcat before the minister this was a staggerer davy was not prepared for such a concrete example of the freedom of speech
but one did not have to be consistent with dora of course not he admitted sulkily tomcat isn't a holy word i wouldn't mention such an animal before a minister at all but if you had to persisted dora
thomas pussy said davy i think gentleman cat would be more polite reflected dora you thinking retorted davy with withering scorn davy was not feeling comfortable
though he would have died before he admitted it to dora now that the exhilaration of truant delights had died away his conscience was beginning to give him salutary twinges
missus lynde might be bossy but there was always a box of cookies in her kitchen cupboard and she was not stingy at this inconvenient moment davy remembered that when he had torn his new school pants the week before
missus lynde had mended them beautifully and never said a word to marilla about them but davy's cup of iniquity was not yet full
that one sin demands another to cover it they had dinner with missus lynde that day and the first thing she asked davy was were all your class in sunday school today yes'm
did you say your golden text and catechism yes'm did you put your collection in yes'm was missus malcolm mac pherson in church i don't know this at least was the truth thought wretched davy was the ladies
yes'm quakingly was prayer meeting i i don't know you should know you should listen more attentively to the announcements what was mister harvey's text davy took a frantic gulp of water
he glibly recited an old golden text learned several weeks ago fortunately missus lynde now stopped questioning him but davy did not enjoy his dinner
you look pale you'd better keep out of the sun this afternoon admonished missus lynde do you know how many lies you told missus lynde asked dora reproachfully as soon as they were alone after dinner davy
then poor davy betook himself to a secluded retreat behind the woodpile to think over the way of transgressors green gables was wrapped in darkness and silence when anne reached home she lost no time going to bed for she was very tired and sleepy
davy is that you what is the matter a white clad figure flung itself across the floor
i'm awful glad you're home i couldn't go to sleep till i'd told somebody told somebody what how mis'rubul i am why are you miserable dear
what did you do oh i'm afraid to tell you you'll never like me again anne
but he knew anyway davy that's what dora said
i'd rather tell you first what is it you did
i run away from sunday school and went fishing with the cottons
there was silence
do to me he whispered nothing dear you've been punished already i think
you bet said davy emphatically that was your conscience punishing you davy
no it's in your soul answered anne thankful for the darkness since gravity must be preserved in serious matters i s'pose i can't get clear of it then said davy with a sigh
and you'll never be bad like that again
added davy cautiously i might be bad some other way you won't say naughty words or run away on sundays or tell falsehoods to cover up your sins no it doesn't pay said davy well davy just tell god you are sorry and ask him to forgive you
have you forgiven me anne yes dear
section two it was with some surprise that doctor martineau received a fresh appeal for aid from sir richmond it was late in october and sir richmond was already seriously ill
but he was still going about his business as though he was perfectly well he had not mistaken his man doctor martineau received him as though there had never been a shadow of offence between them
he came straight to the point martineau he said i must have those drugs i asked you for when first i came to you now i must be bolstered up
i can't last out unless i am i'm at the end of my energy i come to you because you will understand the commission can't go on now for
more than another three weeks whatever happens afterwards i must keep going until then the doctor did understand he made no vain objections
he did what he could to patch up his friend for his last struggles with the opposition in the committee pro forma he said stethoscope in hand i must order you to bed you won't go
but i order you you must know that what you are doing is risking your life your lungs are congested the bronchial tubes already that may spread at any time if this open weather lasts
you may go about and still pull through but at any time this may pass into pneumonia and there's not much in you just now to stand up against pneumonia i'll take all reasonable care
is your wife at home she is in wales with her people but the household is well trained i can manage go in a closed car from door to door
wrap up like a mummy i wish the committee room wasn't down those abominable house of commons corridors they parted with an affectionate handshake section three
death approved of sir richmond's determination to see the committee through our universal creditor gave this particular debtor grace to the very last meeting then he brushed a gust of chilly rain
across the face of sir richmond as he stood waiting for his car outside the strangers entrance to the house for a couple of days sir richmond felt almost intolerably tired
but scarcely noted the changed timbre of the wheezy notes in his throat he rose later each day and with ebbing vigour jotted down notes and corrections upon the proofs of the minority report he found it
increasingly difficult to make decisions he would correct and alter back and then repeat the correction perhaps half a dozen times on the evening of the second day his lungs became painful and his breathing
difficult his head ached and a sense of some great impending evil came upon him his skin was suddenly a detestable garment to wear he took his temperature with a little clinical thermometer he kept by him
and found it was a hundred and one he telephoned hastily for doctor martineau and without waiting for his arrival took a hot bath and got into bed he was already thoroughly ill when the doctor arrived
forgive my sending for you he said not your line i know my wife's g p an exasperating sort of ass can't stand him no one else
he was lying on a narrow little bed with a hard pillow that the doctor replaced by one from lady hardy's room he had twisted the bed clothes into a hopeless muddle the sheet was on the floor
sir richmond's bedroom was a large apartment in which sleep seemed to have been an admitted necessity rather than a principal purpose on one hand
all the apparatus for the lonely intent industry of the small hours there was a bookcase of bluebooks books of reference and suchlike material and some files
upon which sir richmond had been working up to the moment of his hasty retreat to bed and lying among the proofs as though it had been taken out and looked at quite recently was the photograph of a girl
it was not his business to know these various observations printed themselves on doctor martineau's mind after his first cursory examination of his patient and while he cast about for anything
that would give this large industrious apartment a little more of the restfulness and comfort of a sick room i must get in a night nurse at once he said we must find a small table somewhere to put near the bed
i am afraid you are very ill he said returning to the bedside this is not as you say my sort of work will you let me call in another man
a man we can trust thoroughly to consult i'm in your hands said sir richmond i want to pull through he will know better where to get the right sort of nurse for the case
and everything the second doctor presently came with the right sort of nurse hard on his heels sir richmond submitted almost silently to his expert handling and was sounded and looked to and listened at
but he did not feel very deeply interested in what they were saying he began to think what a decent chap doctor martineau was how helpful and fine and forgiving his professional training had made him how completely
he had ignored the smothered incivilities of their parting at salisbury all men ought to have some such training not a bad idea to put every boy and girl through a year or so of hospital service
than i thought you were at first sir richmond's raised eyebrows conveyed that he accepted this fact i think lady hardy ought to be sent for
send then an expression of obstinate calm overspread sir richmond's face he seemed to regard the matter as settled he closed his eyes
may take very rapid and unexpected turns sir richmond cheek on pillow seemed to assent i think if you want to be sure that lady hardy sees you again
if you don't want to take risks about that one never knows in these cases probably there is a night train sir richmond manifested no surprise at the warning
but he stuck to his point his voice was faint but firm couldn't make up anything to say to her anything she'd like doctor martineau
rested on that for a little while then he said if there is anyone else not possible said sir richmond with his eyes on the ceiling
but to see sir richmond turned his head to doctor martineau his face puckered like a peevish child's they'd want things said to them things to remember i
can't i'm tired out don't trouble whispered doctor martineau suddenly remorseful but sir richmond was also remorseful give them my love
he said best love old martin love doctor martineau was turning away when sir richmond spoke again in a whisper best love
poor at the best he dozed for a time then he made a great effort i can't see them martineau until i've something to say
it's like that perhaps i shall think of some kind things to say after a sleep but if they came now i'd say something wrong be cross perhaps
hurt someone i've hurt so many people exaggerate people exaggerate importance these occasions yes yes
whispered doctor martineau i quite understand section four for a time sir richmond dozed then he stirred and muttered
poor at the best love work all it had been splendid work said doctor martineau and was not sure that sir richmond heard
those last few days lost my grip always lose my damned grip
put their backs up silly never never done anything well it's done done well or ill done
his voice sank to the faintest whisper done for ever and ever and ever and ever again he seemed to doze
doctor martineau stood up softly something beyond reason told him that this was certainly a dying man he was reluctant to go and he had an absurd desire that someone
someone for whom sir richmond cared should come and say good bye to him and for sir richmond to say good bye to someone
he hated this lonely launching from the shores of life of one who had sought intimacy so persistently and vainly it was extraordinary he saw it now for the first time
littered like a recent battlefield the photograph of the american girl drew his eyes what had happened was there not perhaps some word for her
he turned about as if to enquire of the dying man and found sir richmond's eyes open and regarding him in them he saw an expression he had seen there once or twice before
a faint but excessively irritating gleam of amusement oh
and turned away he went to the window and stared out as his habit was sir richmond continued to smile dimly at the doctor's back until his eyes closed again
it was their last exchange sir richmond died that night in the small hours so quietly that for some time the night nurse did not observe what had happened
fleeing girl of fifteen in male attire professors h and t offer their services captains b also are enlisted slave trader grasping tightly his prey
but she is rescued long conflict but great triumph arrival on thanksgiving day november twenty fifth eighteen fifty five
it was the business of the vigilance committee as it was clearly understood by the friends of the slave to assist all needy fugitives who might in any way manage to reach philadelphia but for various reasons
not to send agents south to incite slaves to run away or to assist them in so doing sometimes however this rule could not altogether be conformed to cases in some instances
at the same time it may be seen how much anxiety care hazard delay and material aid were required in order to effect the deliverance of some who were in close places
it will be necessary to present a considerable amount of correspondence in this case to bring to light the hidden mysteries of this narrative the first letter in explanation is the following
washington d c june twenty seventh eighteen fifty four
has been made chiefly on account of a female child of ten or eleven years old for whose purchase i have been authorized to offer
refused and for whose sister
and some one thousand dollars for their mother
which adds to the difficulty of removal she is some ten or twelve miles from the city so that really the chief hazard will be in bringing her safely to town and in secreting her
and his sister of perhaps seventeen both slaves but bright and clear headed as anybody the young man i have seen often the services of both
seem indispensable to the main object suggested but having once rendered the service they cannot and ought not return to slavery they look for freedom as the reward of what they shall now do
out of the three hundred dollars cheerfully offered for the whole enterprise i must pay some reasonable sum for transportation to the city and sustenance while here it cannot be much
for the balance i shall give a draft which will be promptly paid on their arrival in new york if i have been understood to offer the whole three hundred dollars it shall be paid
i find so much vigilance at the depot that i would not deem it safe though in any kind of carriage they might leave in safety at any time all the rest i leave to the experience and sagacity of the gentleman
who maps out the enterprise now i will thank you to reply to this and let me know that it reaches you in safety and is not put in a careless place whereby i may be endangered and state also
whether all my propositions are understood and acceptable and whether pretty quickly after i shall inform you that all things are ready the gentleman will make his appearance i live alone
are at the corner of e and seventh streets opposite the east end of the general post office where any one may call upon me it would of course be imprudent that this letter
or any other written particulars be in his pockets for fear of accident yours very respectfully j bigelow while this letter clearly brought to light the situation of things
of the numberless difficulties which stood in the way of success before the work could be accomplished the information which mister bigelow's letter contained of the painful situation of this young girl
were two or three captains who had on former occasions done good service in the cause one of these captains was known in underground rail road circles as the powder boy a
and immediately concluded to make a visit to washington to see how the land lay accordingly in company with another underground rail road captain he reported himself one day to mister bigelow
september ninth eighteen fifty five
dear sir i strongly hope the little matter of business so long pending and about which i have written you so many times will take a move now i have the promise
that the merchandize shall be delivered in this city to night like so many other promises this also may prove a failure though i have reason to believe that it will not i shall however
know before i mail this note in case the goods arrive here i shall hope to see your long talked of professional gentleman in washington as soon as possible
he will find me by the enclosed card which shall be a satisfactory introduction for him you have never given me his name nor am i anxious to know it
i suppose i accidentally learned it to be a certain doctor h well let him come i had an interesting call a week ago from two gentlemen masters of vessels
and brothers one of whom i understand you know as the powder boy i had a little light freight for them but not finding enough other freight to ballast their craft they went down the river looking for wheat
and promising to return soon i hope to see them often
had been on a visit to the fugitives to canada
i forwarded some of her things to boston a few days ago and had i known its importance in court i could have sent you one or two witnesses
who would prove that her freedom was intended by her before she left washington and that a man was engaged here to go on to philadelphia the same day with her to give notice there of her case
to use it rather tuesday eleventh september the attempt was made on sunday to forward the merchandize but failed through no fault of any of the parties that i now know of
it will be repeated soon and you shall know the result whorra for judge kane i feel so indignant at the man that it is not easy to write the foregoing sentence and yet
who is helping our cause like kane and douglas not forgetting stringfellow i hope soon to know that this reaches you in safety it often happens that light freight would be offered to captain b
but the owners cannot by possibility advance the amount of freight i wish it were possible in some such extreme cases that after advancing all they have
or at least lend it i wish here to caution you against the supposition that i would do any act or say a word towards helping servants to escape although i hate slavery so much
i keep my hands clear of any such wicked or illegal act yours very truly j b will you recollect hereafter that in any of my future letters in which i may use
whatever words may be within the brackets are intended to have no signification whatever to you only to blind the eyes of the uninitiated you will find an example at the close of my letter
up to this time the chances seemed favorable of procuring the ready services of either of the above mentioned captains who visited lawyer bigelow for the removal of the merchandize to philadelphia
providing the shipping master could have it in readiness to suit their convenience but as these captains had a number of engagements at richmond
to rely upon either of them consequently in order to be prepared in case of an emergency the matter was laid before two professional gentlemen who were each occupying chairs in one of the medical colleges of philadelphia
they were known to be true friends of the slave and had possessed withal some experience in underground rail road matters either of these professors was willing to undertake the operation
in this hopeful although painfully indefinite position the matter remained for more than a year but the correspondence and anxiety increased and with them disappointments and difficulties multiplied
the hope of freedom however buoyed up the heart of the young slave girl during the long months of anxious waiting and daily expectation for the hour of deliverance to come
washington d c october sixth eighteen fifty five
dear sir i regret exceedingly to learn by your favor of fourth instant that all things are not ready although i cannot speak of any immediate and positive danger
to have his house ransacked by constables and if others do it and commit the most outrageous depredations none but white witnesses can convict them
such outrages are always common here and no kind of property exposed to colored protection only can be considered safe i don't say that much liberty
should not be given to constables on account of numerous runaways but it don't always work for good before advertising they go round and offer rewards to sharp colored men
of perhaps one or two hundred dollars to betray runaways and having discovered their hiding place seize them and then cheat their informers out of the money
although a law abiding man i am anxious in this case of innocence to raise no conflict or suspicion
that the manumission is full and legal and as i am powerless without your aid i pray you don't lose a moment in giving me relief the idea of waiting yet for weeks
seems dreadful do reduce it to days if possible and give me notice of the earliest possible time the property is not yet advertised but will be and if we delay too long
may be sold and lost it was a great misunderstanding though not your fault that so much delay would be necessary i repeat again that i must have the thing done legally therefore
please get a good lawyer to draw up the deed of manumission
leyden the boys met at the museum and were soon engaged in examining its extensive collection of curiosities receiving a new insight into
ben and lambert had often visited the british museum but that did not prevent them from being surprised at the richness of the leyden collection there were household utensils wearing apparel weapons musical instruments
and cats ibexes and other creatures they saw a massive gold armlet that had been worn by an egyptian king at a time when some of these same mummies perhaps were nimbly treading the streets of thebes
relics of the days when the countrymen of julius caesar had settled there where have they not settled i for one would hardly be astonished if relics of the ancient romans should someday be found deep under the grass growing around the bunker hill monument
when the boys left this museum they went to another and saw a wonderful collection of fossil animals skeletons birds minerals precious stones and other natural specimens
but as they were not learned men they could only walk about and stare enjoy the little knowledge of natural history they possessed and wish with all their hearts they had acquired more even the skeleton of the mouse puzzled jacob what wonder
he was not used to seeing the cat fearing little creatures running about in their bones and how could he ever have imagined their necks to be so queer besides the museum of natural history there was saint peter's church to be visited
containing professor luzac's memorial and boerhaave's monument of white and black marble with its urn and carved symbols of the four ages of life and its medallion of boerhaave adorned with his favorite motto
simplex sigillum veri they also obtained admittance to a tea garden which in summer was a favorite resort of the citizens and passing naked oaks and fruit trees
ascended to a high mound which stood in the center this was the site of a round tower now in ruins said by some to have been built by hengist the anglo saxon king
and by others to have been the castle of one of the ancient counts of holland as the boys walked about on the top of its stone wall they could get but a poor view of the surrounding city
the tower stood higher when more than two centuries ago the inhabitants of beleaguered leyden shouted to the watcher on its top their wild despairing cries is there any help are the waters rising
what do you see and for months he could only answer no help i see around us nothing but the enemy ben pushed these thoughts away and resolutely looking down into the bare tea garden
filled it in imagination with gay summer groups he tried to forget old battle clouds and picture only curling wreaths of tobacco smoke rising from among men women and children enjoying their tea and coffee in the open air
but a tragedy came in spite of him poot was bending over the edge of the high wall it would be just like him to grow dizzy and tumble off ben turned impatiently away if the fellow with his weak head
knew no better than to be venturesome why let him tumble horror what mean that heavy crashing sound ben could not stir he could only gasp jacob jacob cried another startled voice
and another ready to faint ben managed to turn his head he saw a crowd of boys on the edge of the wall opposite but jacob was not there good heavens he cried springing forward where is my cousin
well i will tell you how it was there was a big stone lying on the wall and i put my my foot out just to push it a little you see and the first thing i knew
down went the stone all the way to the bottom and left me sitting here on top with both my feet in the air if i had not thrown myself back at that moment i certainly should have rolled over after the stone well it is no matter
but the boys spent a few pleasant moments in the stadhuis or town hall a long irregular structure somewhat in the gothic style uncouth in architecture but picturesque from age its little steeple tuneful with bells
seemed to have been borrowed from some other building and hastily clapped on as a finishing touch
than they were in the fact of its being a triptych that is painted on three divisions the two outer ones swung on hinges so as to close when required over the main portion
interested them for a while and ben had to be almost pulled away from the dingy old portrait of van der werf the town hall as well as the egyptian museum is on the breedstraat the longest and finest street in leyden
it has no canal running through it and the houses painted in every variety of color have a picturesque effect as they stand with their gable ends to the street some are very tall with half their height in their step like roofs
others crouch before the public edifices and churches being clean spacious well shaded and adorned with many elegant mansions
the city is intersected by numerous water roads formed by the river rhine there grown sluggish fatigued by its long travel but more than one hundred and fifty stone bridges reunite the dissevered streets
the same world renowned river degraded from the beautiful free flowing rhine serves as a moat from the rampart that surrounds leyden and is crossed by drawbridges at the imposing gateways that give access to the city
fine broad promenades shaded by noble trees border the canals and add to the retired appearance of the houses behind heightening the effect of scholastic seclusion that seems to pervade the place
ben as he scanned the buildings on the rapenburg canal was somewhat disappointed in the appearance of the great university of leyden but when he recalled its history how attended with all the pomp of a grand civic display
it had been founded by the prince of orange as a tribute to the citizens for the bravery displayed during the siege when he remembered the great men in religion learning and science who had once studied there
peter and jacob regarded the building with an even deeper more practical interest for they were to enter it as students in the course of a few months poor don quixote would have run a hopeless tilt in this part of the world
said ben after lambert had been pointing out some of the oddities and beauties of the suburbs it is all windmills you remember his terrific contest with one i suppose no said lambert bluntly
but there was something of that kind in his adventures and if there wasn't there should have been look at them how frantically they whirl their great arms just the thing to excite the crazy knight to mortal combat
it bewilders one to look at them help me to count all those we can see van mounen i want a big item for my notebook and after a careful reckoning
they rested awhile and then took another which for form's sake they called dinner after dinner the boys sat warming themselves at the inn all but peter who occupied the time in another fruitless search for doctor boekman
this over the party once more prepared for skating
my curiosity in a sense was stronger than my fear for i could not remain where i was but crept back to the bank again whence sheltering my head behind a bush of broom i might command the road before our door
i was scarcely in position ere my enemies began to arrive seven or eight of them running hard their feet beating out of time along the road and the man with the lantern some paces in front three men ran together hand in hand
and i made out even through the mist that the middle man of this trio was the blind beggar the next moment his voice showed me that i was right down with the door he cried aye aye sir answered two or three
and a rush was made upon the admiral benbow the lantern bearer following and then i could see them pause and hear speeches passed in a lower key as if they were surprised to find the door open
but the pause was brief for the blind man again issued his commands his voice sounded louder and higher as if he were afire with eagerness and rage in in in he shouted and cursed them for their delay
four or five of them obeyed at once two remaining on the road with the formidable beggar there was a pause then a cry of surprise and then a voice shouting from the house bill's dead
but the blind man swore at them again for their delay search him some of you shirking lubbers and the rest of you aloft and get the chest he cried i could hear their feet rattling up our old stairs so that the house must have shook with it
promptly afterwards fresh sounds of astonishment arose the window of the captain's room was thrown open with a slam and a jingle of broken glass and a man leaned out into the moonlight head and shoulders and addressed the blind beggar on the road below him
pew he cried they've been before us someone's turned the chest out alow and aloft is it there roared pew the money's there the blind man cursed the money
he cried we don't see it here nohow returned the man here you below there is it on bill cried the blind man again
at that another fellow probably him who had remained below to search the captain's body came to the door of the inn
said he nothin left it's these people of the inn it's that boy i wish i had put his eyes out cried the blind man pew
scatter lads and find em sure enough they left their glim here said the fellow from the window scatter and find em rout the house out reiterated pew striking with his stick upon the road
then there followed a great to do through all our old inn heavy feet pounding to and fro furniture thrown over doors kicked in until the very rocks re echoed
and the men came out again one after another on the road and declared that we were nowhere to be found
and from its effect upon the buccaneers a signal to warn them of approaching danger there's dirk again said one twice we'll have to budge mates
they must be close by they can't be far you have your hands on it scatter and look for them dogs oh shiver my soul he cried
this appeal seemed to produce some effect for two of the fellows began to look here and there among the lumber but half heartedly i thought and with half an eye to their own danger all the time while the rest stood irresolute on the road
you have your hands on thousands you fools and you hang a leg you'd be as rich as kings if you could find it and you know it's here and you stand there skulking there wasn't one of you dared face bill
and i did it a blind man and i'm to lose my chance for you i'm to be a poor crawling beggar sponging for rum when i might be rolling in a coach
squalling was the word for it pew's anger rose so high at these objections till at last his passion completely taking the upper hand he struck at them right and left in his blindness and his stick sounded heavily on more than one
threatened him in horrid terms and tried in vain to catch the stick and wrest it from his grasp this quarrel was the saving of us for while it was still raging another sound came from the top of the hill on the side of the hamlet
the tramp of horses galloping almost at the same time a pistol shot flash and report came from the hedge side and that was plainly the last signal of danger for the buccaneers turned at once and ran
separating in every direction one seaward along the cove one slant across the hill and so on so that in half a minute not a sign of them remained but pew
him they had deserted whether in sheer panic or out of revenge for his ill words and blows i know not but there he remained behind tapping up and down the road in a frenzy and groping and calling for his comrades
finally he took a wrong turn and ran a few steps past me towards the hamlet crying
just then the noise of horses topped the rise and four or five riders came in sight in the moonlight and swept at full gallop down the slope
at this pew saw his error turned with a scream and ran straight for the ditch into which he rolled but he was on his feet again in a second and made another dash now utterly bewildered right under the nearest of the coming horses
then gently collapsed upon his face and moved no more i leaped to my feet and hailed the riders they were pulling up at any rate
one tailing out behind the rest was a lad that had gone from the hamlet to doctor livesey's the rest were revenue officers whom he had met by the way and with whom he had had the intelligence to return at once
some news of the lugger in kitt's hole had found its way to supervisor dance and set him forth that night in our direction and to that circumstance my mother and i owed our preservation from death pew was dead
stone dead as for my mother when we had carried her up to the hamlet a little cold water and salts and that soon brought her back again and she was none the worse for her terror
in the meantime the supervisor rode on as fast as he could to kitt's hole but his men had to dismount and grope down the dingle leading and sometimes supporting their horses and in continual fear of ambushes
so it was no great matter for surprise that when they got down to the hole the lugger was already under way though still close in he hailed her a voice replied telling him to keep out of the moonlight or he would get some lead in him
and at the same time a bullet whistled close by his arm soon after the lugger doubled the point and disappeared mister dance stood there as he said like a fish out of water
and though nothing had actually been taken away except the captain's money bag and a little silver from the till i could see at once that we were ruined mister dance could make nothing of the scene they got the money you say
well then hawkins what in fortune were they after more money i suppose no sir not money i think replied i
and to tell you the truth i should like to get it put in safety to be sure boy quite right said he i'll take it if you like i thought perhaps doctor livesey i began perfectly right
he interrupted very cheerily perfectly right a gentleman and a magistrate and now i come to think of it i might as well ride round there myself and report to him or squire master pew's dead when all's done
but he's dead you see and people will make it out against an officer of his majesty's revenue if make it out they can now i'll tell you hawkins if you like i'll take you along i thanked him heartily for the offer
and we walked back to the hamlet where the horses were
coming to the top of a hill i saw all the country fall away before me down to the sea and in the midst of this descent on a long ridge
there was a flag upon the castle and ships moving or lying anchored in the firth both of which for as far away as they were i could distinguish clearly and both brought my country heart into my mouth presently after
i came by a house where a shepherd lived and got a rough direction for the neighbourhood of cramond and so from one to another worked my way to the westward of the capital by colinton till i came out upon the glasgow road and there to my great pleasure and wonder
the pride of life seemed to mount into my brain at the sight of the red coats and the hearing of that merry music a little farther on
at first i thought the plainness of my appearance in my country habit and that all dusty from the road consorted ill with the greatness of the place to which i was bound but after two or maybe three had given me the same look and the same answer
the better to set this fear at rest i changed the form of my inquiries and spying an honest fellow coming along a lane on the shaft of his cart i asked him if he had ever heard tell of a house they called the house of shaws
he stopped his cart and looked at me like the others ay said he what for it's a great house i asked doubtless says he
the house is a big muckle house ay said i but the folk that are in it folk cried he
what say i not mister ebenezer
says the man there's the laird to be sure if it's him you're wanting what'll like be your business mannie i was led to think that i would get a situation i said looking as modest as i could what
cries the carter in so sharp a note that his very horse started and then well mannie he added it's nane of my affairs but ye seem a decent spoken lad and if ye'll take a word from me ye'll keep clear of the shaws
the next person i came across was a dapper little man in a beautiful white wig whom i saw to be a barber on his rounds and knowing well that barbers were great gossips i asked him plainly what sort of a man was mister balfour of the shaws
hoot hoot hoot said the barber nae kind of a man nae kind of a man at all and began to ask me very shrewdly what my business was but i was more than a match for him at that
and he went on to his next customer no wiser than he came i cannot well describe the blow this dealt to my illusions the more indistinct the accusations were the less i liked them for they left the wider field to fancy
what kind of a great house was this that all the parish should start and stare to be asked the way to it or what sort of a gentleman that his ill fame should be thus current on the wayside if an hour's walking would have brought me back to essendean
but when i had come so far a way already mere shame would not suffer me to desist till i had put the matter to the touch of proof i was bound out of mere self respect to carry it through and little as i liked the sound of what i heard
and slow as i began to travel i still kept asking my way and still kept advancing
and she when i had put my usual question turned sharp about
and pointed to a great bulk of building standing very bare upon a green in the bottom of the next valley the country was pleasant round about running in low hills pleasantly watered and wooded and the crops to my eyes wonderfully good
no road led up to it no smoke arose from any of the chimneys nor was there any semblance of a garden my heart sank that i cried the woman's face lit up with a malignant anger
that is the house of shaws she cried blood built it blood stopped the building of it blood shall bring it down see here she cried again i spit upon the ground and crack my thumb at it black be its fall
if ye see the laird tell him what ye hear tell him this makes the twelve hunner and nineteen time that jennet clouston has called down the curse on him and his house byre and stable man guest and master wife miss or bairn
in those days folk still believed in witches and trembled at a curse and this one falling so pat like a wayside omen to arrest me ere i carried out my purpose took the pith out of my legs
and then right up against the yellow sky i saw a scroll of smoke go mounting not much thicker as it seemed to me than the smoke of a candle but still there it was and meant a fire and warmth and cookery
yet i saw no other presently it brought me to stone uprights with an unroofed lodge beside them and coats of arms upon the top a main entrance it was plainly meant to be but never finished instead of gates of wrought iron
it seemed like the one wing of a house that had never been finished what should have been the inner end stood open on the upper floors and showed against the sky with steps and stairs of uncompleted masonry many of the windows were unglazed
and bats flew in and out like doves out of a dove cote the night had begun to fall as i got close and in three of the lower windows which were very high up and narrow and well barred the changing light of a little fire began to glimmer
was this the palace i had been coming to was it within these walls that i was to seek new friends and begin great fortunes why in my father's house on essen waterside
the fire and the bright lights would show a mile away and the door open to a beggar's knock i came forward cautiously
but there was no sound of speech and not a dog barked
by this time my ears had grown so accustomed to the quiet that i could hear the ticking of the clock inside as it slowly counted out the seconds but whoever was in that house kept deadly still and must have held his breath
i was in two minds whether to run away but anger got the upper hand and i began instead to rain kicks and buffets on the door
i was in full career when i heard the cough right overhead and jumping back and looking up beheld a man's head in a tall nightcap and the bell mouth of a blunderbuss at one of the first storey windows it's loaded
said a voice i have come here with a letter i said to mister ebenezer balfour of shaws is he here from whom is it asked the man with the blunderbuss that is neither here nor there
said i for i was growing very wroth well
ye can put it down upon the doorstep and be off with ye i will do no such thing i cried i will deliver it into mister balfour's hands as it was meant i should it is a letter of introduction a what
cried the voice sharply i repeated what i had said who are ye yourself
i am not ashamed of my name said i they call me david balfour at that i made sure the man started
and with a curious change of voice that the next question followed
i was so much surprised at this that i could find no voice to answer but stood staring ay the man resumed he'll be dead no doubt and that'll be what brings ye chapping to my door
another pause and then defiantly
chapter nineteen duplicity aunt jane had a bad night as might have been expected after her trials of the previous day
the invalid's face seemed drawn and gray and she lay upon her cushions breathing heavily and without any appearance of vitality or strength even the sharpness and piercing quality of her hard gray eyes was lacking
and the glance she cast at her niece was rather pleading than defiant i want you to reconsider your decision of yesterday patricia she begun don't ask me to do that aunt replied the girl firmly my mind is fully made up
why did you wish to leave me your money because your nature is quite like my own child and i admire your independence and spirit but my cousins are much more deserving said she thoughtfully
louise is very sweet and amiable and loves you more than i do while beth is the most sensible and practical girl i have ever known it may be so returned aunt jane impatiently but i have left each a legacy
patricia and you alone are my choice for the mistress of elmhurst i told you yesterday i should not try to be just i mean to leave my property according to my personal desire and no one shall hinder me
perhaps you will tell me said aunt jane curiously with pleasure returned patsy mister bradley left you this property because he loved you and love blinded him to all sense of justice
who at that time was not married and had no son explained aunt jane calmly but he did not forget her and asked me to look after katherine bradley in case she or her heirs ever needed help i have done so
and you would be doing the right thing at last i won't said aunt jane angrily it would also be considerate and just to the memory of mister bradley continued the girl what's going to became of kenneth
but he ought to have elmhurst at least pleaded the girl won't you leave it to him aunt jane no then do as you please cried patsy
as a matter of justice the place should never have been yours and i won't accept a dollar of the money if i starve to death think of your father suggested aunt jane cunningly ah i've done that said the girl
and i know how many comforts i could buy for the dear major also i'd like to go to a girl's college like smith or wellesley and get a proper education but not with your money aunt jane it would burn my fingers
always i would think that if you had not been hard and miserly this same money would have saved my mother's life no i loathe your money keep it or throw it to the dogs if you won't give it to the boy it belongs to
and if i stay here i'll say things i shall be sorry for with these words she marched out of the room her cheeks flaming and aunt jane looked after her with admiring eyes she's right she whispered to herself
always the girl pleaded for kenneth to inherit and declared she would not accept the money and elmhurst and always aunt jane stubbornly refused to consider the boy and tried to tempt the girl
and although neither beth nor louise
and the firmness with which she maintained it with patsy out of the field it was quite possible the estate would be divided between her cousins or even go entire to one or the other of them
and this hope constantly buoyed their spirits and filled their days with interest as they watched the fight between their aunt and their cousin patricia never told them she was pleading so hard for the boy it would only pain her cousins
her natural cunning and determination to have her own way enhanced by her illness the woman decided to deceive patricia and enjoy her few remaining days in peace suppose she said to mister watson
my present will stands and after my death the estate becomes the property of patricia can she refuse it not legally returned the lawyer it would remain in her name but under my control during her minority
she could transfer it as she might choose by that time she will have gained more sense declared aunt jane much pleased with this aspect of the case and it isn't reasonable
that having enjoyed a fortune for a time any girl would throw it away i'll stick to my point silas but i'll try to make patricia believe she has won me over therefore
and if you long to see kenneth the owner of elmhurst i will have a new will drawn in his favor patricia could scarcely believe her ears do you really mean it aunt she asked flushing red with pleasure
that she could almost love aunt jane for her final if dilatory act of justice mister watson chanced to enter the room at that moment and the girl cried out tell him aunt let him get the paper ready at once
there is no reason for haste said aunt jane meeting the lawyer's questioning gaze with some embarrassment silas watson was an honorable and upright man and his client's frequent doubtful methods had in past years met his severe censure
yet he had once promised his dead friend tom bradley that he would serve jane merrick faithfully he had striven to do so bearing with her faults of character when he found that he could not correct them
his influence over her had never been very strong however and he had learned that it was the most easy as well as satisfactory method to bow to her iron will
but he had by no means understood her present object nor did she mean that he should so she answered his questioning look by saying i have promised patricia that you shall draw a new will leaving all my estate to kenneth forbes
except for the bequests that are mentioned in the present paper the lawyer regarded her with amazement then his brow darkened for he thought she was playing with the girl and was not sincere
tell him to draw up the paper right away aunt begged patricia with sparkling eyes as soon as you can silas said the invalid and aunt can't you spare a little more to louise and beth it would make them so happy
double the amount i had allowed to each of them the woman commanded her lawyer can it all be ready to sign tonight asked patsy excitedly i'll try my dear replied the old lawyer gravely then he turned to jane merrick are you in earnest he asked
patsy's heart suddenly sank yes was the reply i am tired of opposing this child's wishes what do i care what becomes of my money when i am gone all that i desire is to have my remaining days peaceful
i'm cured father he said when do i go back to the shop i'm ready the desolate and grim old man did not relax i was sittin up to give you a last chance to say something like that
it's the first o the month think you can get up in time six o'clock bibbs responded briskly and i want to tell you
as you said i'll go and i'll like it that's your lookout his father grunted they'll put you back on the clippin' machine you get nine dollars a week more than i'm worth too said bibbs cheerily
that reminds me i didn't mean you by midas in that nonsense i'd been writing i meant makes a hell of a lot o difference what you meant i just wanted you to know
and the house was quiet but presently as sheridan sat staring angrily at the fire the shuffling of a pair of slippers could be heard descending and missus sheridan made her appearance her oblique expression and the state of her toilette
he starts in at the shop again to morrow morning said sheridan just the same as he did before
he'll go back to the machine he couldn't learn to tend properly in the six months he was there and he'll stick to it till he does learn it do you suppose that lummix ever asked himself why i want him to learn it no and i ain't a goin to tell him either
simplest machine we got and he stuck there how much prospect would there be of his learnin to run the whole business if he can't run the easiest machine in it i sent him there to make him thorough
now labor ain't any more a simple question than what it was when we were young my idea is that outside o union troubles the man that can manage workin' men is the man that's been one himself
well i set bibbs to learn the men and to learn the business and he set himself to balk on the first job that's what he did and the balk's lasted close on to three years if he balks again i'm just done with him
i knew there was something else said missus sheridan blinking over a yawn you better let it go till to morrow and get to bed now
something happened to roscoe he said then what'd i have to look forward to then what could i depend on to hold things together a lummix a lummix that hasn't learned how to push a strip o zinc along a groove roscoe she yawned
you needn't worry about roscoe papa he's the strongest child we had i never did know anybody
let alone makin it grow the way i do i've seen too many estates hacked away in chunks big and little i tell you when a man dies the wolves come out o the woods pack after pack to see what they can tear off for themselves
night and day everything he built'll
carried off i've seen a big fortune behave like an ash barrel in a cyclone there wasn't even a dust heap left to tell where it stood i've seen it time and again my lord when i think o such things comin to me
i planned and planned and planned how to bring em up to be guards to drive the wolves off and how to be builders to build and build bigger i tell you this business life is no fool's job nowadays a man's got to have eyes in the back of his head
but it's frothin and bubblin in the boiler this country's been fillin up with it from all over the world for a good many years and the old camp meetin days are dead and done with church ain't what it used to be nothin's what it used to be
there's an awful ruction goin on and you got to keep hoppin if you're goin to keep your balance on the top of it and the schemers they run like bugs on the bottom of a board after any piece o money they hear is loose fool schemes and crooked schemes
the fool ones are the most and the worst
and the woods are full o mighty industrious men that's got only one motto get the other fellow's money before he gets yours
when he's built good and strong and made good things grow and prosper those are the fellows that lay for the chance to slide in and sneak the benefit of it and put their names to it and what's the use of my havin ever been born if such a thing
if it's all goin to be dispersed and scattered soon as i'm in the ground he strode up and down the long room gesticulating little regarding the troubled and drowsy figure by the fireside his throat rumbled thunderously the words came with stormy bitterness
you think this is a time for young men to be lyin on beds of ease i tell you there never was such a time before there never was such opportunity the sluggard is despoiled while he sleeps yes by george
this is the business man's day it used to be the soldier's day and the statesman's day but this is ours and it ain't a sunday to go fishin' it's turmoil turmoil
and that's what my son bibbs has been doin all his life
oh do stop worryin over such nonsense missus sheridan interrupted irritated into sharp wakefulness for the moment
aren't you ever goin to bed sheridan halted all right mamma he said with a vast sigh let's go up and he snapped off the electric light leaving only the rosy glow of the fire did you speak to roscoe she yawned rising lopsidedly in her drowsiness
no i will to morrow but roscoe did not come down town the next day nor the next nor did sheridan see fit to enter his son's house he waited then on the fourth day of the month roscoe walked into his father's office at nine in the morning
when sheridan happened to be alone they told me down stairs you'd left word you wanted to see me sit down said sheridan rising roscoe sat his father walked close to him sniffed suspiciously and then walked away smiling bitterly
boh he exclaimed still at it yes said roscoe i've had a couple of drinks this morning what about it i reckon i better adopt some decent young man his father returned i'd bring bibbs up here and put him in your place if he was fit i would
better do it roscoe assented sullenly when'd you begin this thing i always did drink a little ever since i grew up that is leave that talk out you know what i mean well i don't know as i ever had too much in office hours until the other day
sheridan began cutting it's a lie i've had ray wills up from your office he didn't want to give you away but i put the hooks into him and he came through you were drunk twice before and couldn't work
you been leavin your office for drinks every few hours for the last three weeks i been over your books your office is way behind you haven't done any work to count in a month all right said roscoe drooping under the torture it's all true
roscoe's head was sunk between his shoulders i can't stand very much talk about it father he said pleadingly no sheridan cried neither can i what do you think it means to me he dropped into the chair at his big desk groaning i can't stand to talk about it any more'n you
but i'm goin to find out what's the matter with you and i'm goin to straighten you out roscoe shook his head helplessly you can't straighten me out see here said sheridan can you go back to your office and stay sober to day while i get my
nothing nothing you can do anything about nothing i tell you we'll see about that said sheridan harshly
you bring your wife to dinner to morrow you didn't come last sunday but you come to morrow i'll talk this out with you when the women folks are workin the phonograph after dinner
chapter nineteen he emerged only upon a second summons to dinner two hours later and came to the table so white and silent that his wife made her anxiety manifest
from white jacket's salver here's another difference between midas and chicken sheridan remarked grimly midas can eat rooster but rooster can't eat midas i reckon you overlooked that midas looks to me like he had the advantage there
bibbs retained enough presence of mind to transfer the capon breast to his plate without dropping it and to respond yes he crows over it having returned his antagonists's fire in this fashion he blushed
for he could blush distinctly now and his mother looked upon him with pleasure thought the reference to midas and roosters was of course jargon to her
did you ever see anybody improve the way that child has she exclaimed i declare bibbs sometimes lately you look right handsome he's got to be such a gadabout edith giggled i found something of his on the floor up stairs this morning
before anybody was up said sheridan i reckon if people lose things in this house and expect to get em back they better get up as soon as i do what was it he lost asked edith
seems to me like i forgot to bring it home with me i looked it over thought probably it was something pretty important belongin to a busy man like him he affected to search his pockets what did i do with it now oh yes
seems to me like i remember leavin it down at the office in the waste basket good place for it bibbs murmured still red sheridan gave him a grin perhaps pretty soon you'll be gettin up early enough to find things before i do
they had come to know each other that well my time's here at last he said as they sat together in the melancholy gas light of the room which had been denuded of its piano that removal had left an emptiness so distressing to mister and missus vertrees
that neither of them had crossed the threshold since the dark day
nor could any room seem bare that knew the glowing presence of mary he spoke lightly not sadly yes it's come i've shirked and put off but i can't shirk and put off any longer
it's really my part to go to him at least it would save my face he means what he says and the time's come to serve my sentence hard labor for life i think mary shook her head i don't think so he's too kind
and bibbs stared at her yes i'm sure of it
it's only that he has to be kind in his own way because he can't understand any other way ah yes said bibbs if that's what you mean by kind she looked at him gravely earnest concern in her friendly eyes
it's going to be pretty hard for you isn't it
this has been just the last flicker of revolt nobody minds work if he likes the kind of work
man found the thing that he could do best but the only work i happen to want to do is useless so i have to give it up to morrow i'll be a day laborer what is it like exactly
i get up at six he said i have a lunch basket to carry with me which is aristocratic and no advantage the other workmen have tin buckets and tin buckets are better i leave the house at six thirty and i'm at work in my overalls at seven
i have an hour off at noon and work again from one till five but the work itself it wasn't muscularly exhausting not at all they couldn't give me a heavier job because i wasn't good enough
but what will you do i want to know when i left said bibbs i was on what they call over there a clipping machine
but what is it she insisted bibbs explained it's very simple and very easy i feed long strips of zinc into a pair of steel jaws and the jaws bite the zinc into little circles all i have to do
is to see that the strip goes into the jaws at a certain angle and yet i was a very bad hand at it he had kept his voice cheerful as he spoke but he had grown a shade paler and there was a latent anguish deep in his eyes
he may have known it and wished her not to see it for he turned away
you feeding a strip of zinc into a machine nine hours a day no wonder she broke off and then after a keen glance at his face she said i should think you would have been a bad hand at it he laughed ruefully
i think it's the noise though i'm ashamed to say it you see it's a very powerful machine and there's a sort of rhythmical crashing a crash every time the jaws bite off a circle
the thing should make about sixty eight disks a minute a little more than one a second and you're close to it oh the workman has to sit in its lap he said turning to her more gaily the others don't mind
you see it's something wrong with me i have an idiotic way of flinching from the confounded thing i flinch and duck a little every time the crash comes and i couldn't get over it i was a treat to the other workmen in that room
they'll be glad to see me back they used to laugh at me all day long mary's gaze was averted from bibbs now she sat with her elbow resting on the arm of the chair her lifted hand pressed against her cheek she was staring at the wall and her eyes had a burning brightness in them
it doesn't seem possible any one could do that to you she said in a low voice no he's not kind he ought to be proud to help you to the leisure to write books it should be his greatest privilege to have them published for you
that's because you've never seen the poor little things i've tried to do you wouldn't let me but i know you could ah it's a pity it isn't said bibbs honestly i never could
she gave him a flashing glance and it was as kind as he said she was that sounds wrong she said impulsively i mean miss vertrees i've thought of you by your first name ever since i met you wouldn't you rather call me mary
bibbs was dazzled he drew a long deep breath and did not speak wouldn't you she asked without a trace of coquetry if i can he said in a low voice ah that's very pretty she laughed you're such an honest person
it's pleasant to have you gallant sometimes by way of variety she became grave again immediately i hear myself laughing as if it were some one else it sounds like laughter on the eve of a great calamity
you've got to go back to that place he nodded and the other time you did it just over it said bibbs two years
so much as what she prompted as he stopped
i want to say it but but i come to a dead balk when i try i go on say it whatever it is she bade him you wouldn't know how to say anything i shouldn't like
i doubt if you'd either like or dislike what i want to say he returned moving uncomfortably in his chair and looking at his feet he seemed to feel awkward thoroughly you see all my life until i met you if i ever felt like
saying anything i wrote it instead saying things is a new trick for me and this well it's just this i used to feel as if i hadn't ever had any sort of a life at all
i'd never been of use to anything or anybody and i'd never had anything myself except a kind of haphazard thinking but now it's different i'm still of no use to anybody and i don't see any prospect of being useful but
i mean i'm glad i've lived
it's your letting me be near you sometimes as you have this strange beautiful happy little while he did not once look up and reached silence at the end of what he had to say with his eyes still awkwardly regarding his feet
she did not speak but a soft rustling of her garments let him know that she had gone back to her chair again the house was still the shabby old room was so quiet that the sound of a creaking in the wall seemed sharp and loud
and yet when mary spoke at last her voice was barely audible
you'd want to to make it last yes said bibbs as faintly you'd want to go on being my friend as long as we live wouldn't you yes he gulped but you make that kind of speech to me because you think it's over
you do think that she rose to her feet again and came and stood before him or you think it's going to send you back to the sanitarium don't deny it bibbs there
you see i'm a friend or i couldn't do it well if you meant what you said and you did mean it i know it you're not going to go back to the sanitarium
and now bibbs looked up she stood before him straight and tall splendid in generous strength her eyes shining and wet if i mean that much to you she cried they can't harm you go back to the shop but come to me when your day's work is done
let the machines crash their sixty eight times a minute but remember each crash that deafens you is that much nearer the evening and me he stumbled to his feet you say he gasped
he could only stare bewildered every evening i want you they sha'n't hurt you again and she held out her hand to him it was strong and warm in his tremulous clasp if i could i'd go and feed the strips of zinc to the machine with you she said
but all day long i'll send my thoughts to you you must keep remembering that your friend stands beside you and when the work is done won't the night make up for the day light seemed to glow from her he was blinded by that radiance of kindness
but all he could say was huskily to think you're there with me standing beside the old zinc eater and they laughed and looked at each other and at last bibbs found what it meant not to be alone in the world
missus sefton nodded abstractedly above her fancywork that is it is a very commonplace story indeed i don't believe the spirits of the departed trouble themselves to revisit the glimpses of the moon
surely mary i exclaimed you don't mean to say that you believe people ever do or can see spirits ghosts as the word goes
i never saw anything of the sort i neither believe nor disbelieve but you know queer things do happen at times things you can't account for at least people who you know wouldn't lie say so
in fact i think very few of us have i dare say you think i'm talking nonsense well yes i think you are you really surprise me mary
something must have come under your observation to develop such theories in your practical head tell me what it was to what purpose you would remain as sceptical as ever possibly not try me i may be convinced
no returned missus sefton calmly
that is my position but by the time it gets to the third person the outsider it loses power besides in this particular instance the story isn't very exciting
it's true you have excited my curiosity you must tell me the story well first tell me what you think of this suppose two people both sensitively organized individuals
loved each other with a love stronger than life if they were apart do you think it might be possible for their souls to communicate with each other in some inexplicable way and if anything happened to one
you're getting into too deep waters for me mary i said shaking my head i'm not an authority on telepathy or whatever you call it but i've no belief in such theories in fact i think they are all nonsense
i'm sure you must think so too in your rational moments i dare say it is all nonsense said missus sefton slowly but if you had lived a whole year in the same house with miriam gordon
you would have been tainted too not that she had theories' at least she never aired them if she had but there was simply something about the girl herself that gave a person strange impressions
when i first met her i had the most uncanny feeling that she was all spirit soul what you will no flesh anyhow that feeling wore off after a while but she never seemed like other people to me
she was mister sefton's niece her father had died when she was a child when miriam was twenty her mother had married a second time and went to europe with her husband miriam came to live with us while they were away
and i was absent from home when she came i returned in the evening and when i saw her first she was standing under the chandelier in the drawing room talk about spirits for five seconds i thought i had seen one
miriam was a beauty i had known that before though i think i hardly expected to see such wonderful loveliness she was tall and extremely graceful
dark at least her hair was dark but her skin was wonderfully fair and clear her hair was gathered away from her face and she had a high pure white forehead and the straightest finest blackest brows
her face was oval with very large and dark eyes i soon realized that miriam was in some mysterious fashion different from other people
i think everyone who met her felt the same way yet it was a feeling hard to define for my own part i simply felt as if she belonged to another world and that part of the time she her soul you know
was back there again you must not suppose that miriam was a disagreeable person to have in the house on the contrary it was the very reverse everybody liked her
she was one of the sweetest most winsome girls i ever knew and i soon grew to love her dearly as for what dick called her little queernesses'
miriam was engaged as i have told you to a young harvard man named sidney claxton i knew she loved him very deeply when she showed me his photograph i liked his appearance and said so
then i made some teasing remark about her love letters just for a joke you know miriam looked at me with an odd little smile and said quickly sidney and i never write to each other why miriam
no i did not say that i hear from him every day every hour we do not need to write letters there are better means of communication between two souls that are in perfect accord with each other
miriam you uncanny creature what do you mean i asked but miriam only gave another queer smile and made no answer at all whatever her beliefs or theories were she would never discuss them
she had a habit of dropping into abstracted reveries at any time or place no matter where she was this whatever it was would come over her she would sit there
perhaps in the centre of a gay crowd and gaze right out into space not hearing or seeing a single thing that went on around her i remember one day in particular we were sewing in my room
and she was leaning forward her lips apart her eyes gazing upward with an unearthly expression
miriam came out of her trance or reverie and said with a little laugh
she bent her head for a minute or two then she lifted it again and looked at me with a sudden contraction of her level brows that betokened vexation i wish you hadn't spoken to me just then she said
you interrupted the message i was receiving i shall not get it at all now miriam i implored i so wish my dear girl that you wouldn't talk so
sidney said miriam simply nonsense
miriam said nothing at the time but when we were alone i asked her what she thought of it i thought you were all merely talking against time she retorted evasively
well spirits then to return after death or to appear to anyone apart from the flesh
if anything were to happen to sidney if he were to die or be killed he would come to me himself and tell me one day miriam came down to lunch looking pale and worried after dick went out
i asked her if anything were wrong something has happened to sidney she replied some painful accident i don't know what
then as she looked at me strangely i added hastily you haven't been receiving any more unearthly messages have you
the first i had ever known her to receive in which he said he had been thrown from his horse and had broken his left arm it had happened the very morning miriam received her message
when one day she came into my room hurriedly she was very pale sidney is ill dangerously ill what shall i do
i knew she must have had another of those abominable messages or thought she had and really remembering the incident of the broken arm i couldn't feel as sceptical as i pretended to i tried to cheer her but did not succeed
was that she received no more messages she said it was because sidney was too ill to send them anyhow she had to content herself with the means of communication used by ordinary mortals
and at last good news came the crisis was over and the doctor in attendance thought sidney would recover miriam seemed like a new creature then and rapidly recovered her spirits for a week reports continued favourable
one night we went to the opera to hear a celebrated prima donna when we returned home miriam and i were sitting in her room chatting over the events of the evening suddenly she sat straight up with a sort of convulsive shudder
and at the same time you may laugh if you like
rang the bell and rushed to her in a few minutes the whole household was aroused and dick was off posthaste for the doctor for we could not revive miriam from her death like swoon she seemed as one dead
we worked over her for hours she would come out of her faint for a moment give us an unknowing stare and go shudderingly off again the doctor talked of some fearful shock but i kept my own counsel at dawn
miriam came back to life at last when she and i were left alone she turned to me sidney is dead she said quietly i saw him just before i fainted
i looked up and he was standing between me and you he had come to say farewell
he was dead he had died at the very hour at which miriam had seen him missus sefton paused and the lunch bell rang
do you know what the oak says asked the singing mouse as it sat upon my knee it had needed to nibble again at my fingers before it could waken me from the dream into which i had fallen gazing at the fading fire do you know what the oak says it repeated
do you hear it do you hear the talking of the leaves i know what the oak says said the singing mouse when the wind is soft the oak says peace peace when the breeze is sharp
it sighs and says pity pity pity and when the storm has fallen the oak sobs and cries woe woe woe
i gazed at the naked cheerless wall seamed and rent with cracks along its sallow width
and as i gazed more intently the map took on color and narrowed its semblance to that of a certain region and as i gazed yet more eagerly the map faded quite away and there lay in its stead
the smiling face of an enchanted land there was the little silver lake rippling on its shore of rushes around rose the long curved hills swelling back from the shore
rolled softly back dividing the two hills in peaceful separation and there were the oaks at the water's edge near the lesser spring the wild apple trees twisted but upon the hills and over the great glades
stood the reserved mysterious oaks
a mighty one now resolved itself more prominently forth did i not know it well could one forget the tortured but noble soul of this oak
could one forget the strong arm of comfort it extended over this most precious spot of all the glade
those who built this fire here so many times
each time first craved pardon of the green grass of that happy glade for they would not harm the grass but the grass said
this was sure for each year the tiny hearth spot was greener than any other spot
and each year the oak dropped down food enough for the little fire the oak took pay in the vast shadows the fire made for it that was the way the oak saw the spirits of the past and when it saw them it sighed
but still it welcomed the shadows of the past so the fire and the grass and the oak and the shadows of the past were friends and each year they met here it had been thus for many years
each year for many years the same hand had laid the little fire in the same place and so given back to the oak its past now the past is a very sad but tender thing
near by the little fire i saw a small table formed of straight laid boughs and at either side of this were seats made cunningly in the workshop of the woods there were two forms at this small table i saw them both
the bowed figure turned to the one that had become more strong i saw the savory vapors rise even it seemed to me i could note a faint clear odor of innocent potency
i saw the table laid not with gleam of snow and silver but with plain vessels which nevertheless seemed now to have a radiance of their own i knew all this it was as though there actually lay at hand these pleasant scenes
as though there actually arose the appealing fragrance of the evening meal now as i looked the gray figure bowed its head there under the arm of the oak and asked on the humble board the blessing of the god who made the oak and gave the fire
and spread the pleasant waters on the land every mealtime every year for many years it had been thus ever the oak knew the gray figure would first bow and ask the blessing of god and each time at the close the oak with rustling leaves pronounced distinct
amen let those jest who will i do not know i think perhaps the oak knows or it would not thus for years have whispered reverently its distinct amen i will not scoff it is perhaps we who are ignorant
but surely they were friends in shadow i could hear them talk in shadow i could see them smile these friends sat by the little fire a time before they went to rest in the tiny house of white
after they had gone the fire did strange things all men know that though you see the fire burned down when you go into the tent you will some time in the night see the walls lit up by a sudden flash or so now and then
from the fire which was thought to be dead that is the business of the fire and of the oaks and of the shadows i know that the shadows dance strangely and hover and come near at hand in those late hours of the night
but what then occurs i do not know these two friends never questioned this they knew it was the secret of the night and gave the oak its own request in pay for its protection and consent
in the night i have heard the oak sob yet in the morning when the sun was silvering the wake of all the leaping fishes the oak was always gentle and it said wake wake god is wise waken
waken god is good as pure shining beads upon a thread of gold i saw this small dear picture reiterant and unchanged year after year always with the same calm and pure surroundings
only as year added itself to year slipping forward on the golden string i saw the gray figure grow more gray more bowed more feeble alas
it seemed to me i saw the silver coming upon the head of the younger man and his eyes growing weary
yet the years came to the oaks and to the grasses and to the friends the grass dies every year but it is born again the oak dies in centuries but it is born again
man dies in three score years and ten but he too is born again as i looked i could see the passing of the years in all but the unaltering fire of friendship i could see change creeping on
grayer grayer more bent more feeble is it not so singing mouse and now this time what was this gentle warning that the oak tried to whisper softly down
perhaps the grayer friend heard it as he sat musing by the fire he rose and looked about him as one who had dreamed and was content he looked up at the solemn stars unafraid and so murmured to himself
day unto day uttereth speech he said night unto night showeth knowledge day unto day singing mouse day unto day woe is me singing mouse and these are bitter tears for that which you have shown i see it all again
the oaks the glade the tiny house of white the small pleasant fire here again is the little table and here is the evening meal the table is still spread for two
for all is not the same at this table there is but one form now the younger man is there although now he has grown gray and stooped year unto year day unto day the beads have slipped along the string
once young now old
hush the squirrels have grown still and even the oak is silent what is that opposite across the table at the seat long years held only by the elder of these two tell me singing mouse is it not true that i see there
sitting as of old at the table the same sturdy form the same simple innocent and believing face it is the gray ghost of one grown gray in goodness it is the shadow of a shadow
the apparition of a soul the one at the table pauses as was the wont before the beginning of a meal he looks across the table to the shadow as if the shadow were his friend the shadow bows its head
the living man bows also his head at the board the shadow moves its lips doubt not those words are heard this day see the sun rises through the trees the glorious day sets on once more
he instantly spilled his soup all down the front of his ermine and if by any chance a cat happened to stroll into the audience chamber he immediately jumped on to his throne gathering his robes around him and shrieking at the top of his lungs
now this king was a bachelor and his people didn't like it so being desirous of pleasing them he looked around among the neighbouring royal families and hit upon a very sweet and beautiful princess whom he asked in marriage without any delay
for he was a man of action her parents giving their hearty consent the pair were married at her father's palace and after the festivities were over the king sped home to see to the preparation of his wife's apartments
in due time she arrived bringing with her a cat when he saw her mounting the steps with the animal under her arm the king who was at the door to meet her uttering a horrid yell
fell in a swoon and had to be revived with spirits of ammonia the courtiers hastened to inform the queen of her husband's failing and when he came to he found her in tears i cannot exist without a cat
she wept and i my love replied the king cannot exist with one you must learn to bear it said she you must learn to live without it said he
but life would not be worth living without a cat she wailed well well my love we will see what we can do sighed the king suppose he went on you kept it in the round tower over there
then you could go to see it shut up my cat that has been used to running around in the open air cried the queen never suppose suggested the king again we made an enclosure for it of wire netting
and the queen went up three times a day to feed it and twice as many times to visit it
then the cat discovered that by making a spring to the limb of an overhanging oak tree
this it did making its appearance in the throne room where the king was giving audience to an important ambassador
the monarch leapt up screaming and was moreover so upset that the affairs of state had all to be postponed till the following day the tree was of course cut down and the next day the cat found crawling down the gutter to be just as easy
and jumped in the window while the court was at breakfast the king scrambled on to the breakfast table skilfully overturning the cream and the coffee with one foot while planting the other in the poached eggs and wreaking untold havoc among the teacups
again the affairs of state were postponed while the gutter was ripped off the roof to the fury of the head gardener who had just planted his spring seeds in the beds around the palace walls of course the next rain washed them all away
this sort of thing continued the wistaria vine which had covered the front of the palace for centuries was ruthlessly torn down the trellises along the wings soon followed and finally an ancient grape arbour had perforce to be removed
as it proved a sure means of descent for that invincible cat even then he cleverly utilized the balconies as a ladder to the ground but by this time the poor king's nerves were quite shattered and the doctor was called in
all he could prescribe was a total abstinence from cat and the queen tearfully finding a home for her pet composed herself to live without one the king well cared for soon revived and was himself again
would not eat could not sleep
dear dear he said disconsolately combing his long beard with his thin fingers this is a difficult situation indeed
yet the queen must have a cat or she will pine quite away with nostalgia i think i had best return to my family sobbed the poor queen dejectedly i bring you nothing but trouble my own
that is impossible my dearest love said the king decidedly here my people have so long desired me to marry and now that i am at last settled in the matrimonial way we must not disappoint them they enjoy a queen so much
it gives them something pretty to think about besides my love i am attached to you myself and could not possibly manage without you no my dear there may be a way out of our difficulties but that certainly is not it
and the doctor who was an old friend of the king's went away sadly he returned however the following day with a smile tangled somewhere in his long beard he found the king sitting mournfully by the queen's bedside
oh no cried he just so it doesn't look like a cat well said the doctor beaming i have a cat that is a cat and that doesn't look any more like a cat than a skillet
and i should be only too honoured to present it to the queen if she would be so gracious as to accept it both the king and the queen were overjoyed and thanked the doctor with tears in their eyes so the cat
for it was a cat though you never would have known it arrived and was duly presented to the queen who welcomed it with open arms and felt better immediately
brown fur short and coarse and large floppy feet it had a voice like a steam siren and its name was rosamund the king and queen were both devoted to it she because it was a cat
its lovely eyes in sooth so ugly a beast never had such a pampered and luxurious existence certainly never so royal a one appreciating its wonderful good fortune it never showed any inclination to depart
at what particular moment the strange doubt first crept into marguerite's mind she could not herself have said with the ring tightly clutched in her hand she had run out of the room down the stairs and out into the garden where
in complete seclusion alone with the flowers and the river and the birds she could look again at the ring and study that device more closely
stupidly senselessly now sitting beneath the shade of an overhanging sycamore she was looking at the plain gold shield with the star shaped little flower engraved upon it bah it was ridiculous she was dreaming
had not everybody about town recently made a point of affecting the device of that mysterious and heroic scarlet pimpernel did she herself wear it embroidered on her gowns set in gems and enamel in her hair
what was there strange in the fact that sir percy should have chosen to use the device as a seal ring he might easily have done that yes quite easily and besides what connection could there be between her exquisite dandy of a husband
with his fine clothes and refined lazy ways and the daring plotter who rescued french victims from beneath the very eyes of the leaders of a bloodthirsty revolution her thoughts were in a whirl her mind a blank
she did not see anything that was going on around her and was quite startled when a fresh young voice called to her across the garden cherie cherie where are you and little suzanne fresh as a rosebud
with eyes dancing with glee and brown curls fluttering in the soft morning breeze came running across the lawn they told me you were in the garden she went on prattling merrily and throwing herself with a pretty girlish impulse into marguerite's arms
indeed sweet one she said with a smile it is delightful to have you all to myself and for a nice whole long day you won't be bored oh bored margot how can you say such a wicked thing
why when we were in the dear old convent together we were always happy when we were allowed to be alone together and to talk secrets the two young girls had linked their arms in one another's and began wandering round the garden
oh how lovely your home is margot darling said little suzanne enthusiastically and how happy you must be aye indeed i ought to be happy oughtn't i sweet one said marguerite with a wistful little sigh how sadly you say it cherie
ah well i suppose now that you are a married woman you won't care to talk secrets with me any longer oh what lots and lots of secrets we used to have at school do you remember some we did not even confide to sister theresa of the holy angels though she was such a dear
and now you have one all important secret eh little one said marguerite merrily which you are forthwith going to confide in me nay you need not blush cherie she added as she saw suzanne's pretty little face crimson with blushes
faith there's naught to be ashamed of he is a noble and true man and one to be proud of as a lover and as a husband indeed cherie i am not ashamed rejoined suzanne softly
and it makes me very very proud to hear you speak so well of him i think maman will consent she added thoughtfully and i shall be oh so happy but of course nothing is to be thought of until papa is safe
and also from one or two of the members of the league that their mysterious leader had pledged his honour to bring the fugitive comte de tournay safely out of france whilst little suzanne unconscious of all save her own all important little secret
went prattling on marguerite's thoughts went back to the events of the past night armand's peril chauvelin's threat his cruel either or which she had accepted and then her own work in the matter which should have culminated
at one o'clock in lord grenville's dining room when the relentless agent of the french government would finally learn who was this mysterious scarlet pimpernel who so openly defied an army of spies and placed himself so boldly and for mere sport
on the side of the enemies of france since then she had heard nothing from chauvelin she had concluded that he had failed and yet she had not felt anxious about armand because her husband had promised her that armand would be safe
but now suddenly as suzanne prattled merrily along an awful horror came upon her for what she had done chauvelin had told her nothing it was true but she remembered how sarcastic and evil he looked when she took final leave of him after the ball
had he discovered something then had he already laid his plans for catching the daring plotter red handed in france and sending him to the guillotine without compunction or delay marguerite turned sick with horror
and her hand convulsively clutched the ring in her dress you are not listening cherie said suzanne reproachfully as she paused in her long highly interesting narrative yes yes darling indeed i am
said marguerite with an effort forcing herself to smile i love to hear you talking and your happiness makes me so very glad have no fear we will manage to propitiate maman
but now little one tell me what is the latest news about your father oh said suzanne with mad glee the best we could possibly hear
my lord hastings came to see maman early this morning he said that all is now well with dear papa and we may safely expect him here in england in less than four days yes said marguerite whose glowing eyes were fastened on suzanne's lips
as she continued merrily oh we have no fear now you don't know cherie that that great and noble scarlet pimpernel himself has gone to save papa he has gone cherie actually gone added suzanne excitedly
he was in london this morning he will be in calais perhaps to morrow where he will meet papa and then and then the blow had fallen she had expected it all along though she had tried for the last half hour to delude herself and to cheat her fears
he had gone to calais had been in london this morning he the scarlet pimpernel percy blakeney her husband whom she had betrayed last night to chauvelin percy percy her husband the scarlet pimpernel
oh how could she have been so blind she understood it all now all at once that part he played the mask he wore in order to throw dust in everybody's eyes and all for the sheer sport and devilry of course
had amused themselves for months in risking their lives for the sake of an innocent few perhaps he had meant to tell her when they were first married and then the story of the marquis de saint cyr had come to his ears and he had suddenly turned from her
thinking no doubt that she might someday betray him and his comrades who had sworn to follow him and so he had tricked her as he tricked all others whilst hundreds now owed their lives to him and many families owed him both life and happiness
the mask of an inane fop had been a good one and the part consummately well played no wonder that chauvelin's spies had failed to detect
in the apparently brainless nincompoop the man whose reckless daring and resourceful ingenuity had baffled the keenest french spies both in france and in england even last night when chauvelin went to lord grenville's dining room to seek that daring scarlet pimpernel
he only saw that inane sir percy blakeney fast asleep in a corner of the sofa had his astute mind guessed the secret then here lay the whole awful horrible amazing puzzle in betraying a nameless stranger to his fate in order to save her brother
had marguerite blakeney sent her husband to his death no no no a thousand times no surely fate could not deal a blow like that nature itself would rise in revolt her hand when it held that tiny scrap of paper last night
but what is it cherie said little suzanne now genuinely alarmed for marguerite's colour had become dull and ashen are you ill marguerite what is it nothing nothing child she murmured as in a dream wait a moment let me think
think you said the scarlet pimpernel had gone today marguerite cherie what is it you frighten me
i must be alone a minute and dear one i may have to curtail our time together to day i may have to go away you'll understand i understand that something has happened cherie and that you want to be alone i won't be a hindrance to you don't think of me
my maid lucile has not yet gone we will go back together don't think of me she threw her arms impulsively round marguerite child as she was she felt the poignancy of her friend's grief and with the infinite tact of her girlish tenderness she did not try to pry into it
but was ready to efface herself she kissed marguerite again and again then walked sadly back across the lawn marguerite did not move she remained there thinking wondering what was to be done
just as little suzanne was about to mount the terrace steps a groom came running round the house towards his mistress he carried a sealed letter in his hand suzanne instinctively turned back her heart told her that here perhaps was further ill news for her friend
and she felt that poor margot was not in a fit state to bear any more the groom stood respectfully beside his mistress then he handed her the sealed letter what is that asked marguerite just come by runner my lady
already her instinct told her what it contained and her eyes only glanced at it mechanically
the letter which chauvelin's spies had stolen at the fisherman's rest and which chauvelin had held as a rod over her to enforce her obedience now he had kept his word he had sent her back saint just's compromising letter for he was on the track of the scarlet pimpernel
marguerite's senses reeled her very soul seemed to be leaving her body she tottered and would have fallen but for suzanne's arm round her waist with superhuman effort she regained control over herself there was yet much to be done
bring that runner here to me she said to the servant with much calm he has not gone no my lady the groom went and marguerite turned to suzanne and you child run within
suzanne made no reply she kissed marguerite tenderly and obeyed without a word the child was overawed by the terrible nameless misery in her friend's face a minute later the groom returned followed by the runner who had brought the letter who gave you this packet asked marguerite
yes my lady a special coach he had ordered i understood from his man that he was posting straight to dover that's enough you may go then she turned to the groom my coach and the four swiftest horses in the stables to be ready at once
what's to be done what's to be done where to find him
but this was not the moment for remorse and despair she had done unwittingly an awful and terrible thing the very worst crime in her eyes that woman ever committed she saw it in all its horror
her very blindness in not having guessed her husband's secret seemed now to her another deadly sin she ought to have known she ought to have known how could she imagine that a man who could love with so much intensity as percy blakeney had loved her from the first
how could such a man be the brainless idiot he chose to appear she at least ought to have known that he was wearing a mask and having found that out she should have torn it from his face whenever they were alone together her love for him had been paltry and weak
easily crushed by her own pride and she too had worn a mask in assuming a contempt for him whilst as a matter of fact she completely misunderstood him but there was no time now to go over the past
by her own blindness she had sinned now she must repay not by empty remorse but by prompt and useful action percy had started for calais utterly unconscious of the fact that his most relentless enemy was on his heels
he had set sail early that morning from london bridge provided he had a favourable wind he would no doubt be in france within twenty four hours no doubt he had reckoned on the wind and chosen this route chauvelin on the other hand would post to dover
and undoubtedly reach calais much about the same time once in calais percy would meet all those who were eagerly waiting for the noble and brave scarlet pimpernel who had come to rescue them from horrible and unmerited death
with chauvelin's eyes now fixed upon his every movement percy would thus not only be endangering his own life but that of suzanne's father the old comte de tournay and of those other fugitives who were waiting for him and trusting in him
there was also armand who had gone to meet de tournay secure in the knowledge that the scarlet pimpernel was watching over his safety all these lives and that of her husband lay in marguerite's hands these she must save
if human pluck and ingenuity were equal to the task unfortunately she could not do all this quite alone once in calais she would not know where to find her husband whilst chauvelin in stealing the papers at dover
had obtained the whole itinerary above every thing she wished to warn percy she knew enough about him by now to understand that he would never abandon those who trusted in him that he would not turn his back from danger
and leave the comte de tournay to fall into the bloodthirsty hands that knew of no mercy but if he were warned he might form new plans be more wary more prudent unconsciously he might fall into a cunning trap
but once warned he might yet succeed and if he failed if indeed fate and chauvelin with all the resources at his command proved too strong for the daring plotter after all then at least she would be there by his side
to comfort love and cherish to cheat death perhaps at the last by making it seem sweet if they died both together locked in each other's arms with the supreme happiness of knowing that passion had responded to passion and that all misunderstandings were at an end
her whole body stiffened as with a great and firm resolution this she meant to do if god gave her wits and strength her eyes lost their fixed look they glowed with inward fire at the thought of meeting him again so soon in the very midst of most deadly perils
they sparkled with the joy of sharing these dangers with him of helping him perhaps of being with him at the last if she failed the childlike sweet face had become hard and set the curved mouth was closed tightly over her clenched teeth
she meant to do or die with him and for his sake a frown which spoke of an iron will and unbending resolution appeared between the two straight brows already her plans were formed
and marguerite remembered with a thrill with what blind enthusiasm the young man always spoke of his mysterious leader he would help her where she needed help her coach was ready a change of raiment and a farewell to little suzanne and she could be on her way
chapter seven the secret orchard once outside the noisy coffee room alone in the dimly lighted passage marguerite blakeney seemed to breathe more freely she heaved a deep sigh
like one who had long been oppressed with the heavy weight of constant self control and she allowed a few tears to fall unheeded down her cheeks outside the rain had ceased and through the swiftly passing clouds
the pale rays of an after storm sun shone upon the beautiful white coast of kent and the quaint irregular houses that clustered round the admiralty pier marguerite blakeney stepped on to the porch and looked out to sea silhouetted against the ever changing sky
a graceful schooner with white sails set was gently dancing in the breeze the day dream it was sir percy blakeney's yacht which was ready to take armand saint just back to france into the very midst of that seething bloody revolution
which was overthrowing a monarchy attacking a religion destroying a society in order to try and rebuild upon the ashes of tradition a new utopia of which a few men dreamed but which none had the power to establish
in the distance two figures were approaching the fisherman's rest one an oldish man with a curious fringe of grey hairs round a rotund and massive chin
and who walked with that peculiar rolling gait which invariably betrays the seafaring man the other a young slight figure neatly and becomingly dressed in a dark many caped overcoat
he was clean shaved and his dark hair was taken well back over a clear and noble forehead armand said marguerite blakeney as soon as she saw him approaching from the distance and a happy smile shone on her sweet face
even through the tears a minute or two later brother and sister were locked in each other's arms while the old skipper stood respectfully on one side how much time have we got briggs
we ought to weigh anchor before half an hour your ladyship replied the old man pulling at his grey forelock linking her arm in his marguerite led her brother towards the cliffs
half an hour she said looking wistfully out to sea half an hour more and you'll be far from me armand
these last few days whilst percy has been away and i've had you all to myself have slipped by like a dream i am not going far sweet one said the young man gently a narrow channel to cross a few miles of road i can soon come back
nay tis not the distance armand but that awful paris just now they had reached the edge of the cliff the gentle sea breeze blew marguerite's hair about her face and sent the ends of her soft lace fichu waving round her
our own beautiful country marguerite said armand who seemed to have divined her thoughts they are going too far armand she said vehemently you are a republican so am i we have the same thoughts the same enthusiasm for liberty and equality
hush said armand instinctively as he threw a quick apprehensive glance around him ah you see you don't think yourself that it is safe even to speak of these things here in england
she clung to him suddenly with strong almost motherly passion don't go armand she begged don't go back what should i do if if if her voice was choked in sobs her eyes tender
blue and loving gazed appealingly at the young man who in his turn looked steadfastly into hers you would in any case be my own brave sister he said gently who would remember that
when france is in peril it is not for her sons to turn their backs on her even as he spoke that sweet childlike smile crept back into her face pathetic in the extreme for it seemed drowned in tears
oh armand she said quaintly i sometimes wish you had not so many lofty virtues i assure you little sins are far less dangerous and uncomfortable but you will be prudent she added earnestly
as far as possible i promise you remember dear i have only you
to care for me nay sweet one you have other interests now percy cares for you a look of strange wistfulness crept into her eyes as she murmured he did once but surely there
there dear don't distress yourself on my account percy is very good nay he interrupted energetically i will distress myself on your account my margot listen dear i have not spoken of these things to you before
something always seemed to stop me when i wished to question you but somehow i feel as if i could not go away and leave you now without asking you one question
you need not answer it if you do not wish he added as he noted a sudden hard look almost of apprehension darting through her eyes what is it she asked simply does sir percy blakeney know that
i mean does he know the part you played in the arrest of the marquis de saint cyr she laughed a mirthless bitter contemptuous laugh which was like a jarring chord in the music of her voice that i denounced the marquis de saint cyr you mean
to the tribunal that ultimately sent him and all his family to the guillotine yes he does know i told him after i married him you told him all the circumstances which so completely exonerated you from any blame
it was too late to talk of circumstances he heard the story from other sources my confession came too tardily it seems i could no longer plead extenuating circumstances
i could not demean myself by trying to explain and and now i have the satisfaction armand of knowing that the biggest fool in england has the most complete contempt for his wife
she spoke with vehement bitterness this time and armand saint just who loved her so dearly felt that he had placed a somewhat clumsy finger upon an aching wound but sir percy loved you margot he repeated gently loved me
well armand i thought at one time that he did or i should not have married him i daresay she added speaking very rapidly as if she were about to lay down a heavy burden which had oppressed her for months
a clever man would naturally have other interests an ambitious man other hopes i thought that a fool would worship and think of nothing else and i was ready to respond armand i would have allowed myself to be worshipped
which should have made her youth one long perpetual holiday yet perhaps though he loved his sister dearly perhaps he understood he had studied men in many countries
and inwardly he understood what marguerite had left unsaid granted that percy blakeney was dull witted but in his slow going mind there would still be room for that ineradicable pride of a descendant of a long line of english gentlemen
a blakeney had died on bosworth field
and that same pride foolish and prejudiced as the republican armand would call it must have been stung to the quick on hearing of the sin which lay at lady blakeney's door she had been young misguided ill advised perhaps
armand knew that her impulses and imprudence knew it still better but blakeney was slow witted he would not listen to circumstances he only clung to facts
and these had shown him lady blakeney denouncing a fellow man to a tribunal that knew no pardon and the contempt he would feel for the deed she had done however unwittingly would kill that same love in him
this woman who had had half intellectual europe at her feet might perhaps have set her affections on a fool marguerite was gazing out towards the sunset armand could not see her face
but presently it seemed to him that something which glittered for a moment in the golden evening light fell from her eyes onto her dainty fichu of lace but he could not broach that subject with her he knew her strange passionate nature so well
and knew that reserve which lurked behind her frank open ways they had always been together these two
and marguerite but a child he some eight years her senior had watched over her until her marriage
and had seen her enter upon this new life of hers here in england with much sorrow and some foreboding
and the few months of separation had already seemed to have built up a slight thin partition between brother and sister the same deep intense love was still there on both sides but each now seemed to have a secret orchard into which the other dared not penetrate
there was much armand saint just could not tell his sister the political aspect of the revolution in france was changing almost every day she might not understand how his own views and sympathies might become modified
even as the excesses committed by those who had been his friends grew in horror and in intensity and marguerite could not speak to her brother about the secrets of her heart she hardly understood them herself
she would not spoil these last few sadly sweet moments by speaking about herself she led him gently along the cliffs then down to the beach their arms linked in one another's
this is the montpelier of the east to the dutch and portuguese settlements in india and from the salubrity of its air is the favourite resort of valetudinarians and invalids from batavia and other places
with hill and dale and equally beautiful as diversified with rotti and its appendant isles it is as large as the island of great britain its principal trade
is wax honey and sandlewood but the whole of its revenues do not defray the expence of the settlement to the company but from the locality of its situation it is convenient for their other islands
which is used in all temples mosques and places of worship in the east every chinese having a sprig of it burning day and night near their household gods the exclusive trade of sandlewood
was valuable and convenient to the dutch but from the vast extent of territory lately acquired in india we have plenty of that commodity without going to the dutch market close to the dutch town is a chinese town and temple
they have a governor of their own nation but pay large tribute to the dutch notwithstanding their trade is under very severe restrictions they soon make rich and as soon as they become independent return to their own country
the natives barter their produce and sell their prisoners of war who are carried to batavia as slaves and the natives of java sent from batavia to this place in return as they hold their tenure
gave him up as a slave
we felt more interested in the fate of this poor wretch on account of his having been a prince himself
to see that wedgewood's stoneware and birmingham goods
during our five weeks stay here the governor mynheer vanion by every act of politeness and attention endeavoured to make us spend our time agreeably we were sumptuously regaled at his table every day
and the evening was spent with cards and concerts i could dwell with pleasure for an age in praise of this honest dutchman it is the tribute of a grateful heart and his due this is the third time
he has had an opportunity of extending his hospitality to shipwrecked englishmen about a fortnight before we arrived a boat with eight men a woman and two children came on shore here who told him
part of the crew and passengers of an english brig wrecked in these seas his house which has ever been the asylum
was open for their reception they drew bills on the british government and were supplied with every necessary they stood in need of the captain of a dutch
east indiaman who spoke english hearing of the arrival of captain edwards and our unfortunate boat run to them with the glad tidings of their captain having arrived but one of them starting up in surprise said
we have no captain for they had reported that the captain and remainder of the crew had separated from them at sea in another boat this immediately led to a suspicion of their being impostors and they were ordered to be apprehended and put into the castle
one of the men and the woman fled into the woods but were soon taken they confessed they were english convicts and that they had made their escape from botany bay they had been supplied with a quadrant a compass a chart
and some small arms and ammunition from a dutch ship that lay there and the expedition was conducted by the governor's fisherman whose time of transportation was expired he was a good seaman and a tolerable navigator
they dragged along the coast of new south wales and as often as the hostile nature of the savage natives would permit hauled their boat up at night and slept on shore they met with several curious and interesting anecdotes
in this voyage in many places of the coast of south wales they found very good coal a circumstance that was not before known our men were now beginning to regain their strength
and captain dadleberg of the rembang indiaman was making every possible dispatch with his ship to carry us to batavia during this time the interment of balthazar
the governor lieutenant governor and all the europeans were invited six months had been spent in preparations for this fete at which an emperor and twenty five kings assisted and attended in person with all their body guards
standards and standard bearers were present when the corpse
the first toast after dinner was the dead king's health next they drank mynheer company's health which was accompanied with a volley of small arms and paterreros
company's health led us to request an explanation when we were informed they found it necessary to make them believe
was a great and powerful king lest they should not be inclined to pay that submission to a company of merchants the inaugural ceremony at the installation of the young king
was performed by his drinking a bumper of brandy and gunpowder stirred round with the point of a sword after being invested with the regal dignity he came down in state to pay his respects to the governor
as he was preceded by music and colours flying every one turned out to see him amongst the rest was a captive king in chains who was employed blowing the bellows to our armourer
whilst he was forging bolts and fetters for our prisoners and convicts here the sunshine of prosperity and the mutability of human greatness were excellently pourtrayed
and warlike stores feuds and dissentions are kindled amongst them and they are kept so completely engaged in civil war that they have no time to observe the encroachments of strangers that domestic strife serves
likewise amply to supply the slave trade from the prisoners of both parties they however some time since made head against the common enemy
or sheltering in the translucent stream from the fervour of meridian heat you are suddenly chilled with fear from the terrific aspect of the alligator
and a number of venomous reptiles with which this country abounds there is one in particular called the cowk cowk it is the most disgusting looking animal that creeps the ground and its bite is mortal
the alligators are daring and numerous there are instances of their devouring men and children when bathing in the shallow part of the river above the town the governor mynheer vanion
relates a circumstance that happened to him while hunting in crossing a shallow part of the river his black boy was snapped up by an alligator but the governor immediately dismounted rescued the boy out of his mouth
taking with us the prisoners and convicts
in passing the island of flores a most tremendous storm arose in a few minutes every sail of the ship was shivered to pieces
the leak gaining fast upon us and she was driving down
the impetuosity imaginable on a savage shore about seven miles
the dutch seamen were struck with horror and went below and the ship was preserved from destruction by the manly exertion of our english tars
that the transcendent worth of a british seaman is most conspicuous nor would i wish
to throw any stigma on the dutch who i believe would fight the devil
it may be remarked that the straits of alice
on the twenty first we got through alice
prow vessels who are a very daring set of pirates that infest those seas on the twenty second
next day we saw the island of madura on the twenty sixth saw the island of java and on the thirtieth anchored at samarang immediately on our coming to anchor
the commanding officer who had the good fortune to shoot him on not finding the ship next day they gave up all further hopes of her and steered for anamooka the rendezvous captain edwards had appointed
their distress for want of water if possible surpassed that of our own and had so strong an effect on one of the young gentlemen that the day following he became delirious and continued so for some months after it
they made an attempt to take the vessel from them which they always will to a small vessel when alone but they were soon overpowered with the fire arms
at those islands which were inhabited after much diversity of distress and similar encounters they at last made the reef that runs between new guinea and new holland where the pandora met her unhappy fate and after
and their vessel being built of foreign timber served to confirm them in their suspicions and as no officer in the british navy bears a commission or warrant under the rank of lieutenant where by seal of office
their person or quality may be identified
although they kept a strict guard over them nothing was withheld to render their situation agreeable and they were sent
is reckoned next to batavia and is so lucrative that the governor is changed every five years the present governor's name is overstraaten a gentleman of splendid taste and unbounded hospitality
has the happiness to join
a regiment of the duke of wirtemburg is doing duty here amongst whom were several men of rank and fashion who shewed us
the town is regular and beautiful and the houses are built in a style of architecture which has given loose to the most sportive fancy each street is terminated with some public building such as a great marine school
has not been neglected and those objects of national importance are placed in a proper point of view as the just pride and ornament of a great commercial people such is the effect of early prejudices that under the muzle of the sun
that in a year or two this beautiful town will be completely dammed in a few days we arrived at batavia the emporeum of the dutch in the east and our first care was employed in sending to the hospital
it is not the climate i am inveighing against it is the gothic diabolical ideas of the people i indite were they only dutchmen who supplied the ravenous maw of death it would be
impertinence in me to make any comment on it but when the whole globe lends its aid to supply this destructive settlement
for stagnant mud than from climate
when i tell them professionally that all the mortality of that place originates from marsh effluvia arising from their stagnant canals and pleasure grounds
and as soon as they make their fortune they go home let the amateurs of the republican system read and learn be not surprised
those vile hawkers of spice and nutmegs exact a submission that the most absolute and tyrannical monarch
would be ashamed of the compass of my work will not allow me to be particular but i must instance one among many others
or one of the supreme council meets a carriage the gentleman who meets him must alight and make him a perfect bow in spirit not one of bunburry's long bows but that bow
which carries humility and submission in it that sort of bow
in our passage from this to the cape before we left java one of the convicts had jumped over board in the night and swam to the dutch arsenal at honroost
we viewed the relics of lord cathcart we met nothing particular in passing the island of sumatra but experienced great death and sickness in going through the straits of sunda
arrived at the cape of good hope here we met with many civilities from colonel gordon a gentleman no less eminent for his private virtues than his extraordinary military and literary accomplishments from his labours
the town is gay and from length of habit the inhabitants partake
in which samarang is built it is gaudy and calculated to please the generality of observers allow me to mention the singular manner in which the monkeys
and when the alarm is given by the piquet guard
they have even contrived to carry canals to the top of a mountain the boors or country farmers are a species of the human race
to the rest of mankind in point of size and constitution that they may be called nondescripts their hospital as to scite surpasses any in the world it may be observed however that the architect
by the smallness of the windows
seems to have studied with much ingenuity to render it a cadaverous stinking prison after being refreshed at the cape we passed saint helena the island of ascension and arrived at holland
through the interposition of divine providence to be again landed on our native shore
which promises better anchorage than any other place in the friendly isles the natives told us there were excellent watering places in several different parts within the sound
than any we had seen for some time they have frequent intercourse with anamooka and their religion
by the natives all remarkable for the richness and variety of their plumage the group of islands was called howe's islands but were particularly distinguished by the names of barrington's sawyer's hotham's and jarvis's islands
the sound itself was called curtis's sound under the general denomination of howe's islands were included
to which we gave no particular name and two more islands to the westward called bickerton's islands including two small islands near the above
on the north west side of gardner's island all this part
has a most barren aspect there were evident marks of volcanic eruptions having happened the very singular appearance which this part of the island presented i cannot omit mentioning it bore the figure of a piece of flat table land
got some provisions here but found the water brackish on the twenty ninth we anchored again in the road of anamooka we were sorry to hear the tender had not been there on the fifth of august we again proceeded on our voyage
as the occurrences at this time bore some semblance to the transactions in our last visit to avoid wounding the delicate or satiating the licentious we shall conclude
in the torpid phraseology of the log with ditto repeated
we were now convinced that we were further to the westward than we imagined and therefore shaped a course to fall in to the eastward of wallis's island and next day fell in with it
may be called mountains they are cultivated to the top the reason of which i presume
it is about seven miles long and being a new discovery we called it grenville's island in honour of lord grenville the name the natives gave it is rotumah they came off in a fleet of canoes rested on their paddles
they were however perfectly ignorant of fire arms and seemed much startled at the report of a musket were too shy to stand the experiment of a great gun as they came off with hostile intentions they brought no women with them
and birds upon every part of them so that every man was a moving landscape these marks were all raised and done i suppose by pinching up the skin they were great adepts in thieving and uncommonly athletic and strong
and although five of the stoutest men in the ship were hanging upon him
he overpowered them all and jumped overboard with his prize
which we named mount temple
found no bottom this was called pandora's reef on the twelfth in the morning we discovered an island well wooded but not inhabited it had two remarkable promontories on it
and as this merciful escape was from the vigilance of one wells who was looking out ahead it was called wells's shoals those hair breadth escapes may point out the propriety of a consort
in the morning at day light we put about to examine the danger we were in and found we had got embayed in a double reef which will very soon be an island
and a mountain between them we named mount clarence after passing cape hood the land appears lower and to trench away about north west forming a deep bay and it may be doubted
whether it joins new guinea or not we pursued our course to the westward keeping endeavour straits open by which means we hoped to avoid the dangers captain cook met with in higher latitudes
on the twenty fifth saw breakers hauled up and passed to the westward of them the sea broke very gently on them to these we gave the name of look out shoals before noon we saw more breakers the reef of which
was composed of very large stones and called it stony reef island
to the southward stood to the westward where there appeared to be an opening we saw an island in that direction and a reef extending a considerable way to the north west
seeing our passage obstructed and stood off and on under an easy sail
to which the name of murray's islands was given
there was something resembling a fortification we saw at the same time three two masted boats we kept running along the reef and in the forenoon thought we saw an opening
to get ready to discover if there was a passage for the ship
before he left us it was judged necessary that he should take with him an axe some fuel provisions a little water and a compass previous to his departure it was now the twenty eighth of august
it had lately been our custom to lay to in the night
having represented this part of the ocean as exceedingly dangerous and it certainly is the boldest piece of navigation
we would gladly have continued the same custom but the great length of the voyage would not permit it
to the wastward of bougainville's track the ocean was perfectly unexplored at five in the afternoon a signal was made from the boat that a passage through the reef was discovered for the ship
but wishing to be well informed in so intricate a business and the day being far spent we waited the boats coming on board
were distinctly seen by us she was reasonably soon expected on board we now sounded but had no bottom with a hundred and ten fathom line till past seven o'clock when we got ground in fifty fathom
the boat was now seen close under the stern we were at the same time lying to to prevent the ship fore reaching immediately on sounding this last time
but before the tacks were hauled on board and the sails trimmed
struck on a reef of rocks and at that instant the boat got on board every possible effort was attempted to get her off by the sails
some of the prisoners were let out of irons and turned to the pumps at this dreadful crisis it blew very violently and she beat so hard upon the rocks that we expected her every minute to go to pieces
and the gloomy horrors of death
were employed thrumbing a topsail to haul under her bottom to endeavour to fodder her to add to our distress at this juncture one of the chain pumps gave way and she gained fast upon us
the scheme of the topsail was now laid aside and every soul fell to baling and pumping all the boats excepting one
on account of the broken water and the very high surf that was running near us we baled between life and death for had she gone down before day light every soul must have perished she now took a heel and some of the guns
run down to leeward which crushed one man to death about the same time a spare topmast came down from the booms and killed another man the people now became faint
this was tapped and served regularly to all hands which was much preferable to spirits as it gave them strength without intoxication during this trying occasion the men behaved with the utmost intrepidity and obedience
about half an hour before day break a council of war was held amongst the officers
to this minute the men never swerved from their duty she now took a very heavy heel
that the anchor on our bow was under water
and bidding him farewell jumped over the quarter into the water the captain then followed his example and jumped after him at that instant she took her last heel and while every one were scrambling to windward she sunk
was at first awful in the extreme but as they sunk and became faint it died away by degrees the boats who were at some considerable distance in the drift of the tide
had been thrown into the boat the heat of the sun and the reflection from the sand was now excruciating and our stomachs being filled with salt water from the great length of time we were swimming before we were picked up
two small wine glasses of water a day to each man for sixteen days a saw and hammer had fortunately been in one of the boats which enabled us with the greater expedition to make
in the night we were disturbed by the irregular behaviour of one connell which led us to suspect he had stole our wine and got drunk but on further inquiry we found that the excruciating torture he suffered from thirst
by which means he went mad and died in the sequel of the voyage next morning mister george passmore the master was dispatched in one of the boats to visit the wreck to see if any thing floated round her
that might be useful to us in our present distressed state he returned in two hours and brought with him a cat which he found clinging to the top gallant mast head a piece
which being copper we cut up and converted into nails for fitting out the boats some of the gigantic cockle was boiled and cut into junks
but our thirst was too excessive to bear any thing
this evening
the primeval man in offering the first garland to his maiden thereby transcended the brute
he entered the realm of art when he perceived the subtle use of the useless in joy or sadness flowers are our constant friends we eat drink sing dance and flirt with them we wed and christen with flowers we dare not die without them
we have worshipped with the lily we have meditated with the lotus we have charged in battle array with the rose and the chrysanthemum we have even attempted to speak in the language of flowers how could we live without them it frightens one to conceive of a world bereft of their presence
what solace do they not bring to the bedside of the sick what a light of bliss to the darkness of weary spirits their serene tenderness restores to us our waning confidence in the universe even as the intent gaze of a beautiful child recalls our lost hopes
at twenty a lunatic at thirty a failure at forty a fraud and at fifty a criminal perhaps he becomes a criminal because he has never ceased to be an animal nothing is real to us but hunger
ourselves our god is great and money is his prophet we devastate nature in order to make sacrifice to him we boast that we have conquered matter and forget that it is matter that has enslaved us
what atrocities do we not perpetrate in the name of culture and refinement tell me gentle flowers teardrops of the stars standing in the garden nodding your heads to the bees as they sing of the dews and the sunbeams are you aware of the fearful doom that awaits you
she may say how lovely you are while her fingers are still moist with your blood tell me will this be kindness it may be your fate to be imprisoned in the hair of one whom you know to be heartless or to be thrust into the buttonhole of one
it may even be your lot to be confined in some narrow vessel with only stagnant water to quench the maddening thirst that warns of ebbing life flowers if you were in the land of the mikado
you might some time meet a dread personage armed with scissors and a tiny saw he would call himself a master of flowers he would claim the rights of a doctor and you would instinctively hate him
he would burn you with red hot coals to stop your bleeding and thrust wires into you to assist your circulation he would diet you with salt vinegar alum and sometimes vitriol boiling water would be poured on your feet when you seemed ready to faint
it would be his boast that he could keep life within you for two or more weeks longer than would have been possible without his treatment would you not have preferred to have been killed at once when you were first captured
to be thrown away on the morrow must be something enormous if strung together they might garland a continent beside this utter carelessness of life the guilt of the flower master becomes insignificant
why were the flowers born so beautiful and yet so hapless insects can sting and even the meekest of beasts will fight when brought to bay the birds whose plumage is sought to deck some bonnet can fly from its pursuer
the furred animal whose coat you covet for your own may hide at your approach alas the only flower known to have wings is the butterfly all others stand helpless before the destroyer if they shriek in their death agony
their cry never reaches our hardened ears we are ever brutal to those who love and serve us in silence but the time may come when for our cruelty we shall be deserted by these best friends of ours
have you not noticed that the wild flowers are becoming scarcer every year it may be that their wise men have told them to depart till man becomes more human perhaps they have migrated to heaven
the man of the pot is far more humane than he of the scissors
his feuds with parasites his horror of frosts his anxiety when the buds come slowly his rapture when the leaves attain their lustre in the east the art of floriculture is a very ancient one
and the loves of a poet and his favorite plant have often been recorded in story and song with the development of ceramics during the tang and sung dynasties we hear of wonderful receptacles made to hold plants not pots but jewelled palaces
a special attendant was detailed to wait upon each flower and to wash its leaves with soft brushes made of rabbit hair
that a winter plum should be watered by a pale slender monk in japan one of the most popular of the no dances the hachinoki composed during the ashikaga period is based upon the story of an impoverished knight
who on a freezing night in lack of fuel for a fire cuts his cherished plants in order to entertain a wandering friar
and the sacrifice is not without its reward this opera never fails to draw tears from a tokio audience even to day great precautions were taken for the preservation of delicate blossoms
emperor huensung of the tang dynasty hung tiny golden bells on the branches in his garden to keep off the birds he it was who went off in the springtime with his court musicians to gladden the flowers with soft music
and appeals to us with the grim humour of a warlike age after referring to the beauty of the blossoms the inscription says whoever cuts a single branch of this tree shall forfeit a finger therefor
would that such laws could be enforced nowadays against those who wantonly destroy flowers and mutilate objects of art yet even in the case of pot flowers we are inclined to suspect the selfishness of man
of the western lake tis said that chowmushih slept in a boat so that his dreams might mingle with those of the lotus it was the same spirit which moved the empress komio
one of our most renowned nara sovereigns as she sang if i pluck thee
o flower standing in the meadows as thou art i offer thee to the buddhas of the past of the present of the future however let us not be too sentimental
let us be less luxurious but more magnificent said laotse heaven and earth are pitiless said kobodaishi flow flow flow flow the current of life is ever onward
die die die die death comes to all destruction faces us wherever we turn destruction below and above destruction behind and before change is the only eternal
why not as welcome death as life they are but counterparts one of the other the night and day of brahma through the disintegration of the old re creation becomes possible we have worshipped death
the mystic fire consumes our weakness the sacred sword cleaves the bondage of desire from our ashes springs the phoenix of celestial hope out of the freedom comes a higher realisation of manhood
why not destroy flowers if thereby we can evolve new forms ennobling the world idea we only ask them to join in our sacrifice to the beautiful we shall atone for the deed by consecrating ourselves to purity and simplicity
they do not cull at random but carefully select each branch or spray with an eye to the artistic composition they have in mind they would be ashamed should they chance to cut more than were absolutely necessary it may be remarked in this connection
that they always associate the leaves if there be any
in this respect as in many others their method differs from that pursued in western countries here we are apt to see only the flower stems heads as it were without body stuck promiscuously into a vase
when a tea master has arranged a flower to his satisfaction he will place it on the tokonoma the place of honour in a japanese room
not even a painting unless there be some special aesthetic reason for the combination it rests there like an enthroned prince and the guests or disciples on entering the room will salute it with a profound bow before making their addresses to the host
drawings from masterpieces are made and published for the edification of amateurs the amount of literature on the subject is quite voluminous when the flower fades the master tenderly consigns it to the river or carefully buries it in the ground
the birth of the art of flower arrangement seems to be simultaneous with that of teaism in the fifteenth century our legends ascribe the first flower arrangement to those early buddhist saints who gathered the flowers strewn by the storm
and in their infinite solicitude for all living things placed them in vessels of water it is said that soami the great painter and connoisseur of the court of ashikaga yoshimasa
with the perfecting of the tea ritual under rikiu in the latter part of the sixteenth century flower arrangement also attains its full growth rikiu and his successors
kobori enshiu katagiri sekishiu vied with each other in forming new combinations we must remember however that the flower worship of the tea masters formed only a part of their aesthetic ritual and was not a distinct religion by itself
was subordinated to the total scheme of decoration thus sekishiu ordained that white plum blossoms should not be made use of when snow lay in the garden noisy flowers were relentlessly banished from the tea room
the adoration of the flower for its own sake begins with the rise of flower masters toward the middle of the seventeenth century it now becomes independent of the tea room and knows no law save that the vase imposes on it
aimed at a classic idealism corresponding to that of the kano academicians we possess records of arrangements by the early masters of the school which almost reproduce the flower paintings of sansetsu and tsunenobu
thus we recognise in its works the same impulses which formed the
formulated by the various flower masters of this period showing as they would the fundamental theories which governed tokugawa decoration we find them referring to the leading principle heaven the subordinate principle earth the reconciling principle man
the former is art in its proper setting and appeals to us on account of its true intimacy with life we should like to call this school the natural in contradistinction to the naturalesque and formalistic schools
it is an echo of departing winter coupled with the prophecy of spring again if you go into a noon tea on some irritatingly hot summer day you may discover in the darkened coolness of the tokonoma a single lily in a hanging vase
dripping with dew it seems to smile at the foolishness of life a solo of flowers is interesting but in a concerto with painting and sculpture the combination becomes entrancing
sekishiu once placed some water plants in a flat receptacle to suggest the vegetation of lakes and marshes and on the wall above he hung a painting by soami of wild ducks flying in the air
and some wild flowers of the beach one of the guests has recorded that he felt in the whole composition the breath of waning autumn flower stories are endless we shall recount but one more
in the sixteenth century the morning glory was as yet a rare plant with us rikiu had an entire garden planted with it which he cultivated with assiduous care the fame of his convulvuli reached the ear of the taiko
and he expressed a desire to see them in consequence of which rikiu invited him to a morning tea at his house
the ground had been leveled and strewn with fine pebbles and sand with sullen anger the despot entered the tea room but a sight waited him there which completely restored his humour on the tokonoma in a rare bronze of sung workmanship
lay a single morning glory the queen of the whole garden in such instances we see the full significance of the flower sacrifice perhaps the flowers appreciate the full significance of it
they are not cowards like men some flowers glory in death certainly the japanese cherry blossoms do as they freely surrender themselves to the winds anyone who has stood before the fragrant avalanche at yoshino or arashiyama must have realized this
in religion the future is behind us in art the present is the eternal the tea masters held that real appreciation of art is only possible to those who make of it a living influence
thus they sought to regulate their daily life by the high standard of refinement which obtained in the tea room in all circumstances serenity of mind should be maintained
as never to mar the harmony of the surroundings the cut and color of the dress the poise of the body and the manner of walking could all be made expressions of artistic personality these were matters not to be lightly ignored
even the palaces and monasteries built after the sixteenth century have all been subject the many sided kobori enshiu has left notable examples of his genius in the imperial villa of katsura
and the monastery of kohoan all the celebrated gardens of japan were laid out by the tea masters our pottery would probably never have attained its high quality of excellence
the seven kilns of enshiu are well known to all students of japanese pottery many of our textile fabrics bear the names of tea masters who conceived their color or design it is impossible indeed to find any department of art
in which the tea masters have not left marks of their genius in painting and lacquer it seems almost superfluous to mention the immense services they have rendered one of the greatest schools of painting owes its origin to the tea master honnami koyetsu
is an expression of teaism in the broad lines of this school we seem to find the vitality of nature herself great as has been the influence of the tea masters in the field of art it is as nothing compared to that which they have exerted
they have taught us to dress only in garments of sober colors they have instructed us in the proper spirit in which to approach flowers they have given emphasis to our natural love of simplicity and shown us the beauty of humility
in fact through their teachings tea has entered the life of the people
are constantly in a state of misery while vainly trying to appear happy and contented we stagger in the attempt to keep our moral equilibrium and see forerunners of the tempest in every cloud that floats on the horizon
why not enter into their spirit
they were ever prepared to enter the unknown the last tea of rikiu will stand forth forever as the acme of tragic grandeur long had been the friendship between rikiu and the taiko hideyoshi
and high the estimation in which the great warrior held the tea master but the friendship of a despot is ever a dangerous honour it was an age rife with treachery and men trusted not even their nearest kin
it was whispered to hideyoshi that the fatal potion was to be administered to him with a cup of the green beverage prepared by the tea master with hideyoshi suspicion was sufficient ground for instant execution
in the tokonoma hangs a kakemon a wonderful writing by an ancient monk dealing with the evanescence of all earthly things the singing kettle as it boils over the brazier sounds like some cicada pouring forth his woes to departing summer
after all have expressed admiration of their beauty rikiu presents one of them to each of the assembled company as a souvenir the bowl alone he keeps
never again shall this cup polluted by the lips of misfortune be used by man he speaks and breaks the vessel into fragments the ceremony is over the guests with difficulty restraining their tears take their last farewell and leave the room
and witness the end rikiu then removes his tea gown and carefully folds it upon the mat thereby disclosing the immaculate white death robe which it had hitherto concealed tenderly he gazes on the shining blade of the fatal dagger
and in exquisite verse thus addresses it welcome to thee o sword of eternity through buddha and through dharuma alike thou hast cleft thy way
have you heard the taoist tale of the taming of the harp once in the hoary ages in the ravine of lungmen stood a kiri tree a veritable king of the forest it reared its head to talk to the stars its roots struck deep into the earth
for long the instrument was treasured by the emperor of china but all in vain were the efforts of those who in turn tried to draw melody from its strings in response to their utmost strivings there came from the harp but harsh notes of disdain
once more the sweet breath of spring played amidst its branches the young cataracts as they danced down the ravine laughed to the budding flowers anon were heard the dreamy voices of summer with its myriad insects the gentle pattering of rain
now winter reigns and through the snow filled air swirl flocks of swans and rattling hailstones beat upon the boughs with fierce delight then peiwoh changed the key and sang of love
the forest swayed like an ardent swain deep lost in thought on high like a haughty maiden swept a cloud bright and fair but passing trailed long shadows on the ground black like despair
again the mode was changed peiwoh sang of war of clashing steel and trampling steeds and in the harp arose the tempest of lungmen the dragon rode the lightning the thundering avalanche crashed through the hills
in ecstasy the celestial monarch asked peiwoh wherein lay the secret of his victory sire he replied others have failed because they sang but of themselves i left the harp to choose its theme and knew not truly whether the harp had been peiwoh
at the magic touch of the beautiful the secret chords of our being are awakened we vibrate and thrill in response to its call mind speaks to mind we listen to the unspoken we gaze upon the unseen
has left to us these memorable words approach a great painting as thou wouldst approach a great prince in order to understand a masterpiece
an eminent sung critic once made a charming confession said he in my young days i praised the master whose pictures i liked but as my judgement matured i praised myself for liking what the masters had chosen to have me like
it is to be deplored that so few of us really take pains to study the moods of the masters in our stubborn ignorance we refuse to render them this simple courtesy
and thus often miss the rich repast of beauty spread before our very eyes a master has always something to offer while we go hungry solely because of our own lack of appreciation
the masters are immortal for their loves and fears live in us over and over again it is rather the soul than the hand
chikamatsu our japanese shakespeare has laid down as one of the first principles of dramatic composition the importance of taking the audience into the confidence of the author
several of his pupils submitted plays for his approval but only one of the pieces appealed to him it was a play somewhat resembling the comedy of errors in which twin brethren suffer through mistaken identity
who can contemplate a masterpiece without being awed by the immense vista of thought presented to our consideration how familiar and sympathetic are they all how cold in contrast the modern commonplaces
in the former we feel the warm outpouring of a man's heart in the latter only a formal salute engrossed in his technique the modern rarely rises above himself like the musicians who vainly invoked the lungmen harp
he sings only of himself his works may be nearer science but are further from humanity we have an old saying in japan that a woman cannot love a man who is truly vain for their is no crevice in his heart for love to enter and fill up
in art vanity is equally fatal to sympathetic feeling whether on the part of the artist or the public nothing is more hallowing than the union of kindred spirits in art
in the old days the veneration in which the japanese held the work of the great artist was intense the tea masters guarded their treasures with religious secrecy and it was often necessary to open a whole series of boxes
the silken wrapping within whose soft folds lay the holy of holies rarely was the object exposed to view and then only to the initiated
suddenly takes fire through the negligence of the samurai in charge resolved at all hazards to rescue the precious painting he rushes into the burning building and seizes the kakemono only to find all means of exit cut off by the flames
thinking only of the picture he slashes open his body with his sword wraps his torn sleeve about the sesson and plunges it into the gaping wound the fire is at last extinguished
we must remember however that art is of value only to the extent that it speaks to us it might be a universal language if we ourselves were universal in our sympathies our finite nature
the power of tradition and conventionality as well as our hereditary instincts restrict the scope of our capacity for artistic enjoyment our very individuality establishes in one sense a limit to our understanding
and our aesthetic personality seeks its own affinities in the creations of the past it is true that with cultivation our sense of art appreciation broadens and we become able to enjoy many hitherto unrecognised expressions of beauty
but after all we see only our own image in the universe our particular idiosyncracies dictate the mode of our perceptions the tea masters collected only objects which fell strictly within the measure of their individual appreciation
one is reminded in this connection of a story concerning kobori enshiu enshiu was complimented by his disciples on the admirable taste he had displayed in the choice of his collection said they
rikiu was one in a thousand among tea masters
regardless of their feelings they want the costly not the refined the fashionable not the beautiful to the masses contemplation of illustrated periodicals the worthy product of their own industrialism
would give more digestible food for artistic enjoyment than the early italians or the ashikaga masters whom they pretend to admire the name of the artist is more important to them than the quality of the work
as a chinese critic complained many centuries ago people criticise a picture by their ear it is this lack of genuine appreciation that is responsible for the pseudo classic horrors that to day greet us wherever we turn
yet we allow our historical sympathy to override our aesthetic discrimination we offer flowers of approbation when the artist is safely laid in his grave the nineteenth century pregnant with the theory of evolution
has moreover created in us the habit of losing sight of the individual in the species a collector is anxious to acquire specimens to illustrate a period or a school
the sacrifice of the aesthetic to the so called scientific method of exhibition has been the bane of many museums the claims of contemporary art cannot be ignored in any vital scheme of life
the art of to day is that which really belongs to us it is our own reflection in condemning it we but condemn ourselves we say that the present age possesses no art
struggling artists weary souls lingering in the shadow of cold disdain in our self centered century what inspiration do we offer them the past may well look with pity at the poverty of our civilisation
so that out of doors and at table we children would say to ourselves in astonishment is this our schoolmaster but when in school we would ask is this mister trigg
but as i have related he had been forbidden to inflict corporal punishment on us and was finally got rid of because in one of his demoniacal moods he thrashed us brutally with his horsewhip
some restraint some teaching was still imposed upon us by our mother who took or rather tried to take this additional burden on herself accordingly we had to meet with our lesson books and spend three or four hours every morning with her
or in the schoolroom without her for she was constantly being called away and when present a portion of the time was spent in a little talk which was not concerned with our lessons for we moved and breathed and had our being in a strange moral atmosphere
where lawless acts were common and evil and good were scarcely distinguishable and all this made her more anxious about our spiritual than our mental needs
my two elder brothers did not attend as they had long discovered that their only safe plan was to be their own schoolmasters and it was even more than she could manage very well to keep the four smaller ones to their tasks
she sympathized too much with our impatience at confinement when sun and wind and the cries of wild birds called insistently to us to come out and be alive and enjoy ourselves in our own way
this priest who in his wanderings about the world had drifted hither and was anxious to find some place to stay at out on the plains while waiting for something to turn up as he was without means he said he would be glad of the position of schoolmaster in the house for a time that it would exactly suit him
father o'keefe who now appeared on the scene was very unlike mister trigg he was a very big man in black but rusty clerical garments he also had an extraordinarily big head and face all of a dull reddish colour
usually covered with a three or four days growth of grizzly hair although his large face was unmistakably intensely irish it was not the gorilla like countenance so common in the irish peasant priest the priest one sees every day in the streets of dublin
he was perhaps of a better class as his features were all good a heavy man as well as a big one he was not so amusing and so fluent a talker out of school as his predecessor nor as we were delighted to discover so exacting and tyrannical in school
on the contrary in and out of school he was always the same mild and placid in temper with a gentle sort of humour and he was also very absent minded
he would forget all about school hours roam about the gardens and plantations get into long conversations with the workmen and eventually when he found that he was somewhat too casual to please his employer he enjoined us to look him up and let him know when it was school time
looking him up usually took a good deal of time his teaching was not very effective
when lessons were not learned he would sympathize with and comfort us by saying we had done our best and more could not be expected he was also glad of any excuse to let us off for half a day
we found out that he was exceedingly fond of fishing that with a rod and line in his hand he would spend hours of perfect happiness even without a bite to cheer him and on any fine day that called us to the plain we would tell him that it was a perfect day for fishing and ask him to let us off for the afternoon
at dinner time he would broach the subject and say the children had been very hard at their studies all the morning and that it would be a mistake to force their young minds too much that all work and no play makes jack a dull boy
and so on and so forth and that he considered it would be best for them instead of going back to more lessons in the afternoon to go for a ride he always gained his point and dinner over we would rush out to catch and saddle our horses and one for father o'keefe
the younger of our two elder brothers the sportsman and fighter and our leader and master in all our outdoor pastimes and peregrinations had taken to the study of mathematics with tremendous enthusiasm
the same temper which he displayed in every subject and exercise that engaged him fencing boxing shooting hunting and so on and on father o'keefe's engagement he was anxious to know if the new master would be any use to him the priest had sent a most satisfactory reply
it was accordingly arranged that my brother was to have an early hour each morning with the master before school hours and an hour or two in the evening very soon it began to appear that the studies were not progressing smoothly
the priest would come forth as usual with a smiling placid countenance my brother with a black scowl on his face
then beginning to see it in a humorous light he would shout with laughter at the priest's pretentions to know anything and would say he was only fit to teach babies just out of the cradle to say their a b c
he only wished the priest had also pretended to some acquaintance with the manly art so that they could have a few bouts with the gloves on as it would have been a great pleasure to bruise that big humbugging face black and blue
the mathematical lessons soon ceased altogether but whenever an afternoon outing was arranged my brother would throw aside his books to join us and take the lead
the ride to the river he would say would give us the opportunity for a little cavalry training and lance throwing exercise in the cane brake he would cut long straight canes for lances which at the fishing ground would be cut down to a proper length for rods then
mounting we would set off o'keefe ahead absorbed as usual in his own thoughts while we at a distance of a hundred yards or so would form in line and go through our evolutions chasing the flying enemy o'keefe
and at intervals our commander would give the order to charge whereupon we would dash forward with a shout and when about forty yards from him we would all hurl our lances so as to make them fall just at the feet of his horse
but never once would he turn his head or have any inkling of our carryings on in the rear even when his horse lashed out viciously with his hind legs at the lances when they fell too near his feet we enjoyed the advantage of the o'keefe regime for about a year
then one day in his usual casual manner without a hint as to how his private affairs were going he said that he had to go somewhere to see some one about something and we saw him no more
however news of his movements and a good deal of information about him reached us incidentally from all which it appeared that during his time with us and for some months previously father o'keefe had been working out his own salvation in a quiet way in accordance with a rather elaborate plan which he had devised
and at length tired of waiting in vain he had quietly withdrawn himself from this society and had got into communication with one of the protestant clergymen of the town
he intimated or insinuated that he had long been troubled with certain scruples that his conscience demanded a little more liberty than his church would allow its followers
and this had caused him to cast a wistful eye on that other church whose followers were alas accorded a little more liberty than was perhaps good for their souls but he didn't know and in any case he would like to correspond on these important matters with one on the other side
this letter met with a warm response and there was much correspondence and meetings with other clerics anglican or episcopalian i forget which but there were also presbyterians lutherans and methodist ministers all with churches of their own in the town and he may have flirted a little with all of them
but the authorities of the church had not got rid of him they heard not infrequently from him and it was not pleasant hearing he had come he told them a roman catholic priest to a roman catholic country and had found himself a stranger in a strange land
he had waited patiently for months and had been put off with idle promises or thrust aside while every greedy pushing priest that arrived from spain and italy was received with open arms and a place provided for him
then when his patience and private means had been exhausted he had accidently been thrown among those who were not of the faith yet had received him with open arms
he had been humiliated and pained at the disinterested hospitality and christian charity shown to him by those outside the pale after the treatment he had received from his fellow priests
he did not go so far as to accept that offer he was wise in his generation and eventually got his reward our schoolmaster gone we were once more back in the old way
our parents probably thought that our life would be on the plains with sheep and cattle breeding for only vocations and that should any one of us like my mathematical minded brother take some line of his own
i had no inclination to do anything with books myself books were lessons therefore repellent and that any one should read a book for pleasure was inconceivable
the only attempt to improve our minds at this period came oddly enough from my masterful brother who despised our babyish intellects especially mine however one day he announced that he had a grand scheme to put before us
he had heard or read of a family of boys living just like us in some wild isolated land where there were no schools or teachers and no newspapers who amused themselves by writing a journal of their own which was issued once a week
there was a blue pitcher on a shelf in the house and into this pitcher every boy dropped his contribution and one of them of course the most intelligent one carefully went through them
selected the best and copied them all out in one large sheet and this was their weekly journal called the blue pitcher and it was read and enjoyed by the whole house
he proposed that we should do the same he of course would edit the paper and write a large portion of it it would occupy two or four sheets of quarto paper all in his beautiful handwriting which resembled copper plate and it would be issued for all of us to read every saturday
we all agreed joyfully and as the title had taken our fancy we started hunting for a blue pitcher all over the house but couldn't find such a thing and finally had to put up with a tin box with a wooden lid and a lock and key
the contributions were to be dropped in through a slit in the lid which the carpenter made for us and my brother took possession of the key the title of the paper was to be the tin box and we were instructed to write about the happenings of the week and anything in fact which had interested us
and not to be such little asses as to try to deal with subjects we knew nothing about i was to say something about birds there was never a week went by in which i didn't tell them a wonderful story of a strange bird i had seen for the first time well
i could write about that strange bird and make it just as wonderful as i liked we set about our task at once with great enthusiasm trying for the first time in our lives to put our thoughts into writing all went well for a few days
then our editor called us together to hear an important communication he wished to make first he showed us but would not allow us to read or handle a fair copy of the paper or of the portion he had done just to enable us to appreciate the care he was taking over it
and would not be much missed to this we all agreed at once except my younger brother aged about seven at that time then he was told he would not be allowed to contribute to the paper very well he wouldn't contribute to it he said
in vain we all tried to coax him out of his stubborn resolve he would not part with a copper of his money and would have nothing to do with the tin box
then the editor's wrath broke out and he said he had already written his editorial but would now as a concluding article write a second one in order to show up the person who had tried to wreck the paper in his true colours
he would exhibit him as the meanest most contemptible insect that ever crawled on the surface of the earth in the middle of this furious tirade my poor little brother burst out crying
then we all laughed and the angry editor laughed too proud of the effect his words had produced our little brother did not join us at play that afternoon
he was in hiding somewhere keeping watch on the movements of his enemy who was no doubt engaged already in writing that dreadful article which would make him a marked being for the rest of his life
in due time the editor his task finished came forth and mounting his horse galloped off and the little watcher came out and stealing into the room where the tin box was kept carried it off to the carpenter's shop
there with chisel and hammer he broke the lid to pieces and taking out all the papers set to work to tear them up into the minutest fragments which were carried out and scattered all over the place
when the big brother came home and discovered what had been done he was in a mighty rage and went off in search of the avaricious little rebel who had dared to destroy his work
but the little rebel was not to be caught at the right moment he fled from the coming tempest to his parents and claimed their protection
then the whole matter had to be inquired into and the big boy was told that he was not to thrash his little brother that he himself was to blame for everything on account of the extravagant language he had used which the poor little fellow had taken quite seriously
if he actually believed the tin box article was going to have that disastrous effect on him who could blame him for destroying it that was the end of the tin box
not a word about starting it afresh was said and from that day my elder brother never mentioned it but years later i came to think it a great pity that the scheme had miscarried
i believe from later experience that even if it had lasted but a few weeks it would have given me the habit of recording my observations and that is a habit without which the keenest observation and the most faithful memory are not sufficient for the field naturalist thus
through the destruction of the tin box i believe i lost a great part of the result of six years of life with wild nature
some of these were many miles away and were but faintly visible on the horizon others nearer and the nearest of all was but two miles from us on the hither side of that shallow river to which my first long walk was taken
where i was amazed and enchanted with my first sight of flamingoes this place was called los alamos or the poplars a name which would have suited a large majority of the estancia houses with trees growing about them
seeing that the tall lombardy poplar was almost always there in long rows towering high above all other trees and a landmark in the district it is about the people dwelling at los alamos i have now to write
when i first started on my riding rambles about the plain i began to make the acquaintance of some of our nearest neighbours but at first it was a slow process
as a child i was excessively shy of strangers and i also greatly feared the big savage house dogs that would rush out to attack any one approaching the gate
but a house with a grove or plantation fascinated me for where there were trees there were birds and i had soon made the discovery that you could sometimes meet with birds of a new kind in a plantation quite near to your own
also that the dogs in spite of all their noise and fury never really tried to pull me off my horse and tear me to pieces
in this way thinking of and looking only for the birds i became acquainted with some of the people individually and as i grew to know them better from year to year i sometimes became interested in them too and in this
and three or four succeeding chapters i will describe those i knew best or that interested me the most not only as i first knew or began to know them in my seventh year but in several instances i shall be able to trace their lives and fortunes for some years further on
when out riding i went oftenest in the direction of los alamos which was west of us or as the gauchos would say on the side where the sun sets
for just behind the plantation enclosed in its rows of tall old poplars was that bird haunted stream which was an irresistible attraction the sight of running water too was a never failing joy also the odours which greeted me in that moist green place
particularly that peculiar musky odour given out on hot days by large flocks of the glossy ibis the person owner or tenant i forget which who lived in the house was an old woman named dona pascuala
whom i never saw without a cigar in her mouth her hair was white and her thousand wrinkled face was as brown as the cigar and she had fun loving eyes a loud authoritative voice and a masterful manner and she was esteemed by her neighbours as a wise and good woman
i was shy of her and avoided the house while anxious to get peeps into the plantation to watch the birds and look for nests as whenever she caught sight of me she would not let me off without a sharp cross examination as to my motives and doings
also if it was true that all of us children even the girls when big enough were going to be taught to read the almanac
i remember once when we had been having a long spell of wet weather and the low lying plain about los alamos was getting flooded she came to visit my mother and told her reassuringly that the rain would not last much longer
saint anthony was the saint she was devoted to and she had taken his image from its place in her bedroom and tied a string round its legs and let it down the well and left it there with its head in the water he was her own saint she said and after all her devotion to him and all the candles and flowers this was how he treated her
it was all very well she told her saint to amuse himself by causing the rain to fall for days and weeks just to find out whether men would be drowned or turn themselves into frogs to save themselves now she dona pascuala was going to find out how he liked it
there with his head in the water he would have to hang in the well until the weather changed four years later in my tenth year dona pascuala moved away and was succeeded at los alamos by a family named barboza strange people
half a dozen brothers and sisters one or two married and one the head and leader of the tribe or family a big man aged about forty with fierce eagle like eyes under bushy black eyebrows that looked like tufts of feathers
but his chief glory was an immense crow black beard of which he appeared to be excessively proud and was usually seen stroking it in a slow deliberate manner now with one hand then with both pulling it out
dividing it then spreading it over his chest to display its full magnificence he wore at his waist in front a knife or facon with a sword shaped hilt and a long curved blade about two thirds the length of a sword
he was a great fighter at all events he came to our neighbourhood with that reputation and i at that time at the age of nine like my elder brothers had come to take a keen interest in the fighting gaucho
a duel between two men with knives their ponchas wrapped round their left arms and used as shields was a thrilling spectacle to us
i had already witnessed several encounters of this kind but these were fights of ordinary or small men and were very small affairs compared with the encounters of the famous fighters about which we had news from time to time
now that we had one of the genuine big ones among us it would perhaps be our great good fortune to witness a real big fight for sooner or later some champion duellist from a distance would appear to challenge our man or else some one of our own neighbours would rise up one day to dispute his claim to be cock of the walk
but nothing of the kind happened although on two occasions i thought the wished moment had come
a song or ballad consisting of four ten line stanzas now barboza was a singer but not a player on the guitar so that an accompanist had to be called for a stranger at the meeting quickly responded to the call
yes he could play to any man's singing any tune he liked to call he was a big loud voiced talkative man not known to any person present
he was a passer by and seeing a crowd at a rancho had ridden up and joined them ready to take a hand in whatever work or games might be going on
taking the guitar he settled down by barboza's side and began tuning the instrument and discussing the question of the air to be played and this was soon settled
his singing voice was inexpressibly harsh like that for example of the carrion crow when that bird is most vocal in its love season and makes the woods resound with its prolonged grating metallic calls
the interesting point was that his songs were his own composition and were recitals of his strange adventures mixed with his thoughts and feelings about things in general his philosophy of life
probably if i had these compositions before me now in manuscript they would strike me as dreadfully crude stuff nevertheless i am sorry i did not write some of them down and that i can only recall a few lines
the decima he now started to sing related to his early experiences and swaying his body from side to side and bending forward until his beard was all over his knees he began in his raucous voice
enrolados which roughly translated means eighteen hundred and forty was the year when all the enrolled were cited to appear
thus far he had got when the guitarist smiting angrily on the strings with his palm leaped to his feet shouting no no no more of that what do you sing to me of eighteen forty that cursed year i refuse to play to you
naturally every one was astonished and the first thought was what will happen now blood would assuredly flow and i was there to see and how my elder brothers would envy me
barboza rose scowling from his seat and dropping his hand on the hilt of his facon said who is this who forbids me basilio barboza to sing of eighteen forty i forbid you shouted the stranger in a rage and smiting his breast
do you know what it is to me to hear that date that fatal year it is like the stab of a knife i a boy was of that year and when the fifteen years of my slavery and misery were over there was no longer a roof to shelter me nor father nor mother nor land nor cattle
every one instantly understood the case of this poor man half crazed at the sudden recollection of his wasted and ruined life and it did not seem right that he should bleed and perhaps die for such a cause
and all at once there was a rush and the crowd thrust itself between him and his antagonist and hustled him a dozen yards away then one in the crowd an old man shouted do you think friend that you are the only one in this gathering who lost his liberty and all he possessed on earth in that fatal year
had he never heard of barboza the celebrated fighter who had killed so many men in fights perhaps he had heard and did not wish to die just yet
at all events a change came over his spirit he became more rational and even apologetic and barboza graciously accepted the assurance that he had no desire to provoke a quarrel and so there was no fight after all
the second occasion was about two years later a long period during which there had been a good many duels with knives in our neighbourhood but barboza was not in any of them no person had come forward to challenge his supremacy
it is commonly said among the gauchos that when a man has proved his prowess by killing a few of his opponents he is thereafter permitted to live in peace
owned by an old woman whom i used to think the oldest person in the world as she hobbled about supporting herself with two sticks bent nearly double with her half blind colourless eyes always fixed on the ground but she had granddaughters living with her who were not bad looking the eldest
that was what she was called because there was a solitary grand old ombu tree growing about a hundred yards from the house a well known landmark in the district
but yet since princes will have such things it is better they should be graced with elegancy than daubed with cost dancing to song is a thing of great state and pleasure i understand it that the song be in quire
placed aloft and accompanied with some broken music and the ditty fitted to the device acting in song especially in dialogues hath an extreme good grace i say acting not dancing
several quires placed one over against another and taking the voice by catches anthem wise give great pleasure turning dances into figure is a childish curiosity and generally let it be noted
that those things which i here set down are such as do naturally take the sense and not respect petty wonderments it is true the alterations of scenes so it be quietly and without noise are things of great beauty and pleasure
for they feed and relieve the eye before it be full of the same object let the scenes abound with light specially colored and varied and let the masquers or any other
have some motions upon the scene itself before their coming down for it draws the eye strangely and makes it with great pleasure to desire to see that it cannot perfectly discern
let the suits of the masquers be graceful and such as become the person when the vizors are off not after examples of known attires turke soldiers mariners and the like
is on the other side as unfit but chiefly let the music of them be recreative and with some strange changes some sweet odors suddenly coming forth without any drops falling are
in such a company as there is steam and heat things of great pleasure and refreshment double masques one of men another of ladies addeth state and variety but all is nothing except the room be kept clear and neat
for justs and tourneys and barriers the glories of them are chiefly in the chariots wherein the challengers make their entry especially if they be drawn with strange beasts as lions bears camels and the like
or in the devices of their entrance or in the bravery of their liveries or in the goodly furniture of their horses and armor but enough of these toys
of nature in men nature is often hidden sometimes overcome seldom extinguished force maketh nature more violent in the return doctrine and discourse
maketh nature less importune but custom only doth alter and subdue nature he that seeketh victory over his nature let him not set himself too great nor too small tasks
for the first will make him dejected by often failings and the second will make him a small proceeder though by often prevailings and at the first let him practise with helps as swimmers do with bladders or rushes
but after a time let him practise with disadvantages as dancers do with thick shoes for it breeds great perfection if the practice be harder than the use where nature is mighty and therefore the victory hard
the degrees had need be first to stay and arrest nature in time like to him that would say over the four and twenty letters when he was angry then to go less in quantity as if one should in forbearing wine
neither is the ancient rule amiss to bend nature as a wand to a contrary extreme whereby to set it right understanding it where the contrary extreme is no vice
let not a man force a habit upon himself with a perpetual continuance but with some intermission for both the pause reinforceth the new onset and if a man that is not perfect be ever in practice
he shall as well practise his errors as his abilities and induce one habit of both and there is no means to help this but by seasonable intermissions but let not a man trust his victory over his nature too far
for nature will lay buried a great time and yet revive upon the occasion or temptation like as it was with a esop's damsel turned from a cat to a woman who sat very demurely at the board's end till a mouse ran before her
therefore let a man either avoid the occasion altogether or put himself often to it that he may be little moved with it a man's nature is best perceived in privateness for there is no affectation
in passion for that putteth a man out of his precepts and in a new case or experiment for there custom leaveth him they are happy men whose natures sort with their vocations otherwise they may say
for his thoughts will fly to it of themselves so as the spaces of other business or studies will suffice a man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds therefore
let him seasonably water the one and destroy the other
of custom and education men's thoughts are much according to their inclination their discourse and speeches according to their learning and infused opinions but their deeds
are after as they have been accustomed and therefore as machiavel well noteth though in an evil favored instance there is no trusting to the force of nature nor to the bravery of words except it be corroborate by custom
only superstition is now so well advanced that men of the first blood are as firm as butchers by occupation and votary resolution is made equipollent to custom even in matter of blood
in other things the predominancy of custom is everywhere visible insomuch as a man would wonder to hear men profess protest engage give great words and then do just as they have done before
as if they were dead images and engines moved only by the wheels of custom we see also the reign or tyranny of custom what it is the indians i mean the sect of their wise men
were wont to be scourged upon the altar of diana without so much as queching i remember in the beginning of queen elizabeth's time of england an irish rebel condemned put up a petition to the deputy
that he might be hanged in a withe and not in an halter because it had been so used with former rebels there be monks in russia for penance that will sit a whole night in a vessel of water
till they be engaged with hard ice many examples may be put of the force of custom both upon mind and body therefore since custom is the principal magistrate of man's life
the tongue is more pliant to all expressions and sounds the joints are more supple to all feats of activity and motions in youth than afterwards for it is true that late learners cannot so well take the ply
except it be in some minds that have not suffered themselves to fix but have kept themselves open and prepared to receive continual amendment which is exceeding rare but if the force of custom simple and separate be great
the force of custom copulate and conjoined and collegiate is far greater for there example teacheth company comforteth emulation quickeneth glory raiseth so as in such places
the force of custom is in his exaltation certainly the great multiplication of virtues upon human nature resteth upon societies well ordained and disciplined
for commonwealths and good governments do nourish virtue grown but do not much mend the deeds but the misery is that the most effectual means are now applied to the ends least to be desired
of fortune it cannot be denied but outward accidents conduce much to fortune favor opportunity death of others occasion fitting virtue but chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands
comederit non fit draco overt and apparent virtues bring forth praise but there be secret and hidden virtues that bring forth fortune certain deliveries of a man's self which have no name
the spanish name desemboltura partly expresseth them when there be not stonds nor restiveness in a man's nature but that the wheels of his mind keep way with the wheels of his fortune
for so livy after he had described cato major in these words
falleth upon that that he had versatile ingenium therefore if a man look sharply and attentively he shall see fortune for though she be blind yet she is not invisible
the way of fortune is like the milken way in the sky which is a meeting or knot of a number of small stars not seen asunder but giving light together
so are there a number of little and scarce discerned virtues or rather faculties and customs that make men fortunate the italians note some of them such as a man would little think when they speak of one that cannot do amiss
therefore extreme lovers of their country or masters were never fortunate neither can they be for when a man placeth his thoughts without himself he goeth not his own way an hasty fortune maketh an enterpriser and remover
the french hath it better entreprenant or remuant but the exercised fortune maketh the able man fortune is to be honored and respected
and it be but for her daughters confidence and reputation for those two felicity breedeth the first within a man's self the latter in others towards him all wise men to decline the envy of their own virtues
use to ascribe them to providence and fortune for so they may the better assume them and besides it is greatness in a man to be the care of the higher powers so caesar said to the pilot in the tempest
portas et fortunam ejus so sylla chose the name of felix and not of magnus and it hath been noted that those who ascribe openly too much to their own wisdom and policy
never prospered in anything he undertook afterwards certainly there be whose fortunes are like homer's verses that have a slide and easiness more than the verses of other poets
as plutarch saith of timoleon's fortune in respect of that of
revenge is a kind of wild justice which the more man's nature runs to the more ought law to weed it out for as for the first wrong it doth but offend the law
which prick and scratch because they can do no other the most tolerable sort of revenge
else a man's enemy is still before hand and it is two for one some when they take revenge are desirous the party should know whence it cometh this is the more generous for the delight seemeth to be
not so much in doing the hurt as in making the party repent but base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark
cosmus duke of florence had a desperate saying against perfidious or neglecting friends as if those wrongs were unpardonable you shall read saith he that we are commanded to forgive our enemies
but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends but yet the spirit of job was in a better tune
take good at god's hands and not be content to take evil also and so of friends in a proportion this is certain that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green
which otherwise would heal and do well public revenges are for the most part fortunate as that for the death of caesar for the death of pertinax for the death of henry the third of france and many more
but in private revenges it is not so nay rather vindictive persons live the life of witches who as they are mischievous so end they infortunate
of adversity it was an high speech of seneca after the manner of the stoics that the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired
this would have done better in poesy where transcendences are more allowed and the poets indeed have been busy with it for it is in effect the thing which figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets
which seemeth not to be without mystery nay and to have some approach to the state of a christian that hercules when he went to unbind prometheus by whom human nature is represented
sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher lively describing christian resolution that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world but to speak in a mean
the virtue of prosperity is temperance the virtue of adversity is fortitude which in morals is the more heroical virtue prosperity is the blessing of the old testament adversity is the blessing of the new
which carrieth the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of god's favor yet even in the old testament if you listen to david's harp you shall hear as many hearse like airs as carols and the pencil of the holy ghost
we see in needle works and embroideries it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart
by the pleasure of the eye certainly virtue is like precious odors most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed for prosperity doth best discover vice but adversity doth best discover virtue
therefore it is the weaker sort of politics that are the great dissemblers tacitus saith livia sorted well with the arts of her husband and dissimulation of her son attributing arts or policy to augustus
and dissimulation to tiberius
to take arms against vitellius he saith we rise not against the piercing judgment of augustus nor the extreme caution or closeness of tiberius these properties of arts or policy
and what to be showed at half lights and to whom and when which indeed are arts of state and arts of life as tacitus well calleth them to him a habit of dissimulation is a hinderance and a poorness
certainly the ablest men that ever were have had all an openness and frankness of dealing
but then they were like horses well managed for they could tell passing well when to stop or turn and at such times when they thought the case indeed required dissimulation if then they used it it came to pass that the former opinion spread abroad
of their good faith and clearness of dealing made them almost invisible there be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self the first closeness reservation and secrecy
and assuredly the secret man heareth many confessions for who will open himself to a blab or a babbler but if a man be thought secret it inviteth discovery as the more close air sucketh in the more open
and as in confession the revealing is not for worldly use but for the ease of a man's heart so secret men come to the knowledge of many things in that kind while men rather discharge their minds than impart their minds
in few words mysteries are due to secrecy besides to say truth nakedness is uncomely as well in mind as body
and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions if they be not altogether open as for talkers and futile persons they are commonly vain and credulous withal for he that talketh what he knoweth
will also talk what he knoweth not therefore set it down that an habit of secrecy is both politic and moral and in this part it is good that a man's face give his tongue leave to speak
it followeth many times upon secrecy by a necessity so that he that will be secret must be a dissembler in some degree for men are too cunning to suffer a man to keep an indifferent carriage between both
they will gather as much by his silence as by his speech as for equivocations or oraculous speeches they cannot hold out long so that no man can be secret except he give himself a little scope of dissimulation which is
as it were but the skirts or train of secrecy but for the third degree which is simulation and false profession that i hold more culpable and less politic except it be in great and rare matters and therefore
a general custom of simulation which is this last degree is a vice using either of a natural falseness or fearfulness or of a mind that hath some main faults which because a man must needs disguise
it maketh him practise simulation in other things lest his hand should be out of use the great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three first to lay asleep opposition and to surprise
for where a man's intentions are published it is an alarum to call up all that are against them the second is to reserve to a man's self a fair retreat for if a man engage himself by a manifest declaration
he must go through or take a fall the third is the better to discover the mind of another for to him that opens himself men will hardly show themselves adverse but will fair let him go on and turn their freedom of speech to freedom of thought
and therefore it is a good shrewd proverb of the spaniard tell a lie and find a troth as if there were no way of discovery but by simulation there be also three disadvantages to set it even the first
that simulation and dissimulation commonly carry with them a show of fearfulness which in any business doth spoil the feathers of round flying up to the mark the second that it puzzleth and perplexeth the conceits of many
the best composition and temperature is to have openness in fame and opinion secrecy in habit dissimulation in seasonable use and a power to feign if there be no remedy
but memory merit and noble works are proper to men and surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men which have sought to express the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed
but of their work and so both children and creatures the difference in affection of parents towards their several children is many times unequal and sometimes unworthy especially in the mothers as solomon saith
a wise son rejoiceth the father but an ungracious son shames the mother a man shall see where there is a house full of children one or two of the eldest respected and the youngest made wantons but in the midst
who many times nevertheless prove the best the illiberality of parents in allowance towards their children is an harmful error makes them base acquaints them with shifts makes them sort with mean company
and makes them surfeit more when they come to plenty and therefore the proof is best when men keep their authority towards the children but not their purse men have a foolish manner both parents and schoolmasters and servants
in creating and breeding an emulation between brothers during childhood which many times sorteth to discord when they are men and disturbeth families
but so they be of the lump they care not though they pass not through their own body and to say truth in nature it is much a like matter insomuch that we see a nephew sometimes resembleth an uncle or a kinsman
and let them not too much apply themselves to the disposition of their children as thinking they will take best to that
it is true that if the affection or aptness of the children be extraordinary then it is good not to cross it but generally the precept is good optimum
should have greatest care of future times unto which they know they must transmit their dearest pledges some there are who though they lead a single life
yet their thoughts do end with themselves and account future times impertinences nay there are some other that account wife and children but as bills of charges nay more
there are some foolish rich covetous men that take a pride in having no children because they may be thought so much the richer for perhaps they have heard some talk such an one is a great rich man
and another except to it yea but he hath a great charge of children as if it were an abatement to his riches but the most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty
especially in certain self pleasing and humorous minds which are so sensible of every restraint as they will go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles unmarried men are best friends
for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool it is indifferent for judges and magistrates for if they be facile and corrupt you shall have a servant five times worse than a wife
for soldiers i find the generals commonly in their hortatives put men in mind of their wives and children and i think the despising of marriage amongst the turks maketh the vulgar soldier more base
because their means are less exhaust yet on the other side they are more cruel and hardhearted good to make severe inquisitors because their tenderness is not so oft called upon
grave natures led by custom and therefore constant are commonly loving husbands as was said of ulysses vetulam suam praetulit immortalitati chaste women
whether it be that it raiseth the price of their husband's kindness when it comes or that the wives take a pride in their patience but this never fails if the bad husbands were of their own choosing against their friends consent
could be seen the golden spires and many coloured cupolas the sprawling grey immensity of the capital spread along the dreary plain and beyond the steely gulf of finland there was no battle but kerensky made a fatal blunder
at seven in the morning he sent word to the second tsarskoye selo rifles to lay down their arms the soldiers replied that they would remain neutral but would not disarm kerensky gave them ten minutes in which to obey
petrograd woke to bursts of rifle fire and the tramping thunder of men marching under the high dark sky a cold wind smelt of snow at dawn the military hotel and the telegraph agency
occasionally an automobile passed in and out flying the red cross flag the sailors let it pass albert rhys williams was in the telephone exchange he went out with the red cross automobile which was ostensibly full of wounded
after circulating about the city
headquarters of the counter revolution a french officer in the court yard seemed to be in command by this means ammunition and supplies were conveyed to the telephone exchange scores of these pretended ambulances acted as couriers and ammunition trains for the yunkers
five or six armoured cars belonging to the disbanded british armoured car division were in their hands as louise bryant was going along saint isaac's square one came rolling up from the admiralty on its way to the telephone exchange
seven people were shot dead among them two little boys suddenly with a shout
later the newspapers told of another french officer
the french embassy promptly denied this but one of the city councillors told me that he himself had procured the officer's release from prison whatever the official attitude of the allied embassies individual french and british officers were active these days
played to crowded houses the street cars ran the telephones were all working when you called central shooting could be plainly heard over the wire
at seven in the morning the vladimir yunker school was visited by a patrol of soldiers sailors and red guards who gave the yunkers twenty minutes to lay down their arms the ultimatum was rejected
the pavlovsk school was surrounded
at half past eleven three field pieces arrived
now began a real bombardment
frenzied by defeat and their heaps of dead
their own officers could not stop the terrible bombardment a commissar from smolny named kirilov tried to halt it he was threatened with lynching the red guards blood was up at half past two the yunkers hoisted a white flag
the rest about two hundred were taken to peter paul under escort in small groups so as to avoid notice on the way a mob set upon one party killing eight more yunkers more than a hundred red guards and soldiers had fallen
shrieking the frightened telephone girls ran to and fro the yunkers tore from their uniforms all distinguishing marks and one offered williams anything for the loan of his overcoat as a disguise they will massacre us they will massacre us they cried
for many of them had given their word at the winter palace not to take up arms against the people williams offered to mediate if antonov were released this was immediately done antonov and williams made speeches to the victorious sailors inflamed by their many dead
and once more the yunkers went free all but a few who in their panic tried to flee over the roofs or to hide in the attic and were found and hurled into the street tired bloody triumphant the sailors and workers swarmed into the switchboard room
and finding so many pretty girls fell back in an embarrassed way and fumbled with awkward feet not a girl was injured not one insulted
and then finding themselves safe gave vent to their spite ugh the dirty ignorant people the fools the sailors and red guards were embarrassed brutes pigs shrilled the girls indignantly putting on their coats and hats
romantic had been their experience passing up cartridges and dressing the wounds of their dashing young defenders the yunkers
these were just common workmen peasants dark people the commissar of the military revolutionary committee little vishniak
he was effusively polite you have been badly treated he said the telephone system is controlled by the municipal duma you are paid sixty rubles a month and have to work ten hours and more from now on all that will be changed
the government intends to put the telephones
and your working hours reduced as members of the working class you should be happy members of the working class indeed did he mean to infer that there was anything in common between these these animals and us remain
volunteers were called for a hundred responded sailors soldiers workers the six girls scurried backward and forward instructing helping scolding so crippled halting but going
the wires slowly began to hum the first thing was to connect smolny with the barracks and the factories
late in the afternoon word of it spread through the city and hundreds of bourgeois called up to scream fools devils
but lenin won't get germany to make peace cried one a violent young soldier replied and whose fault is it your damn kerensky dirty bourgeois to hell with kerensky we don't want him we want lenin
one read to the population of petrograd at this dangerous hour when the municipal duma ought to use every means to calm the population to assure it bread and other necessities the right socialist revolutionaries and the cadets
forgetting their duty have turned the duma into a counter revolutionary meeting trying to raise part of the population against the rest so as to facilitate the victory of kornilov kerensky instead of doing their duty the right socialist revolutionaries and the cadets
have transformed the duma into an arena of political attack upon the soviets of workers soldiers and peasants deputies against the revolutionary government of peace bread and liberty citizens of petrograd we the bolshevik municipal councillors
elected by you we want you to know that the right socialist revolutionaries and the cadets are engaged in counter revolutionary action have forgotten their duty and are leading the population to famine to civil war
what is going on in the duma and declare that we disclaim all responsibility for the terrible but inevitable consequences far away still sounded occasional shots but the city lay quiet cold
as if exhausted by the violent spasms which had torn it
one after another the commissars reported capture of the telephone exchange street fighting the taking of the vladimir school the duma said trupp is on the side of the democracy in its struggle against arbitrary violence
but in any case whichever side wins the duma will always be against lynchings and torture
had voted lack of confidence in its officers the left wing was in control avksentiev had resigned a courier reported that the committee of welcome sent to meet kerensky at the railway station had been arrested
in the streets could be heard the dull rumble of distant cannonading south and southwest still kerensky did not come only three newspapers were out pravda dielo naroda
all of them devoted much space to the new coalition government the socialist revolutionary paper demanded a cabinet without either cadets or bolsheviki gorky was hopeful
our coalition is that of the proletariat and the revolutionary army with the poor peasants
threatening to strike if both sides did not compromise the conquerors of these riots the saviours of the wreck of our country these will be neither the bolsheviki nor the committee for salvation nor the troops of kerensky but we the union of railwaymen
red guards are incapable of handling a complicated business like the railways as for the provisional government it has shown itself incapable of holding the power we refuse to lend our services to any party
which does not act by authority of a government based on the confidence of all the democracy smolny thrilled with the boundless vitality of inexhaustible humanity in action
who said that the men were holding huge mass meetings condemning the action of their leaders all power to the soviets he cried pounding on the table the oborontsi in the central committee are playing kornilov's game they tried to send a mission to the stavka
but we arrested them at minsk our branch has demanded an all russian convention and they refuse to call it the same situation as in the soviets the army committees one after another the various democratic organisations all over russia
were cracking and changing the cooperatives were torn by internal struggles
into the terrible machine and came out limp blind with fatigue
above all counted on the suddenness of their attack their plan was discovered in time by sub lieutenant blagonravov thanks to the revolutionary vigilance of a soldier of the red guard whose name shall be made public
colonel polkovnikov was in command of their forces and the orders were signed by gotz former member of the provisional government allowed at liberty on his word of honour
the soviet forces complied and as they were leaving the kremlin were set upon and shot down small forces of bolsheviki had been driven from the telephone and telegraph offices
but all around them the soviet troops were mustering street fighting was slowly gathering way all attempts at compromise had failed on the side of the soviet ten thousand garrison soldiers and a few red guards
on the side of the government six thousand yunkers twenty five hundred cossacks and two thousand white guards the petrograd soviet was meeting
which came down in a steady stream from the council of people's commissars in session upstairs on the order in which laws are to be ratified and published establishing an eight hour days for workers and lunatcharsky's basis for a system of popular education
only a few hundred people were present at the two meetings most of them armed smolny was almost deserted except for the guards who were busy at the hall windows setting up machine guns to command the flanks of the building
we refuse to transport the troops of either party we have sent a committee to kerensky to say that if he continues to march on petrograd we will break his lines of communication he made the usual plea for a conference of all the socialist parties to form a new government
kameniev answered discreetly
the centre of gravity however lay not in composition of such a government but in its acceptance of the programme of the congress of soviets
and the social democrats internationalists and had accepted the proposition of proportional representation at the conference even including delegates from the army committees and the peasants soviets in the great hall trotzky recounted the events of the day
we offered the vladimir yunkers a chance to surrender he said we wanted to settle matters without bloodshed but now that blood has been spilled there is only one way pitiless struggle it would be childish to think we can win by any other means
the moment is decisive everybody must cooperate with the military revolutionary committee report where there are stores of barbed wire benzine guns we've won the power now we must keep it the menshevik yoffe tried to read his party's declaration
but trotzky refused to allow a debate about principle our debates are now in the streets he cried the decisive step has been taken
one from the death battalion four hundred eighty first artillery when the trenches hear of this they will cry this is our government
and when his comrades had returned from the defence of the winter palace they appointed him their commissar to go to smolny and offer their services to the real revolution then trotzky again fiery indefatigable giving orders answering questions
the petty bourgeoisie in order to defeat the workers soldiers and peasants would combine with the devil himself he said once
over dressed fashion aping little girls with pinched faces and leaky shoes girl after girl flushing with pleasure at the applause of the nice people of petrograd of the officers the rich the great names of politics
girl after girl to narrate her sufferings at the hands of the proletariat and proclaim her loyalty to all that was old established and powerful the duma was again in session in the nicolai hall
meanwhile all was not well on the revolutionary front the enemy had brought up armoured trains mounted with cannon
only five thousand regular soldiers had joined them the rest of the garrison was either busy suppressing the yunker revolt guarding the city or undecided what to do at ten in the evening lenin addressed a meeting of delegates from the city regiments
who voted overwhelmingly to fight a committee of five soldiers was elected to serve as general staff and in the small hours of the morning the regiments left their barracks in full battle array going home i saw them pass
swinging along with the regular tread of veterans bayonets in perfect alignment through the deserted streets of the conquered city
after bitter quarrelling a commission was elected to draw up a workable plan all that night the commission wrangled and all the next day and the next night once before on the ninth of november
the right wing of the mensheviki socialist revolutionaries and populist socialists suddenly withdrew now they were awed by the crushing of the yunker rebellion monday the twelfth was a day of suspense
the eyes of all russia were fixed on the grey plain beyond the gates of petrograd where all the available strength of the old order faced the unorganised power of the new the unknown in moscow a truce had been declared both sides parleyed
awaiting the result in the capital now the delegates to the congress of soviets hurrying on speeding trains to the farthest reaches of asia were coming to their homes carrying the fiery cross
in wide spreading ripples news of the miracle spread over the face of the land and in its wake towns cities and far villages stirred and broke soviets and military revolutionary committees against dumas zemstvos
red guards against white street fighting and passionate speech the result waited on the word from petrograd smolny was almost empty but the duma was thronged and noisy
the peaceful population recognises this fact the foreign embassies recognise only such documents as are signed by the mayor of the town the mind of a european does not admit of any other situation
as the municipal self government is the only organ which is capable of protecting the interests of the citizens the city is bound to show hospitality to all organisations which desire to profit by such hospitality
when the telephone exchange was occupied by the yunkers colonel polkovnikov ordered the telephones to smolny disconnected but i protested and the telephones were kept going at this there was ironic laughter from the bolshevik benches
and imprecations from the right and yet went on schreider they look upon us as counter revolutionaries and report us to the population they deprive us of our means of transport by taking away our last motor cars
had requisitioned the municipal automobiles
but every menshevik and socialist revolutionary here talks nothing but party propaganda and at the door they distribute their illegal newspapers iskri sparks soldatski golos and rabotchaya gazeta inciting to insurrection
what if we bolsheviki should also begin to distribute our papers here but this shall not be for we respect the duma we have not attacked the municipal self government and we shall not do so but you have addressed an appeal to the population
then two mensheviki internationalists declaring that the appeal of the bolshevik councillors was a direct incitement to massacre if everything that is against the bolsheviki is counter revolutionary said pinkevitch
then i do not know the difference between revolution and anarchy the bolsheviki are depending upon the passions of the unbridled masses we have nothing but moral force we will protest against massacres and violence from both sides as our task is to find a peaceful issue
the notice posted in the streets under the heading to the pillory which calls upon the people to destroy the mensheviki and socialist revolutionaries said nazariev is a crime which you bolsheviki will not be able to wash away
yesterday's horrors are but a preface to what you are preparing by such a proclamation
but at present i feel for you nothing but contempt the bolshevik councillors were on their feet shouting angrily assailed by hoarse hateful voices and waving arms
the menshevik gomberg and three or four reporters they were all in high spirits see they said the cowards are afraid of us they don't dare arrest the duma their military revolutionary committee doesn't dare to send a commissar into this building
why on the corner of the sadovaya to day i saw a red guard try to stop a boy selling soldatski golos the boy just laughed at him and a crowd of people wanted to lynch the bandit it's only a few hours more now even if kerensky wouldn't come they haven't the men to run a government
absurd i understand they're even fighting among themselves at smolny a socialist revolutionary friend of mine drew me aside
he said do you want to go and talk with them by this time it was dusk the city had again settled down to normal shop shutters up lights shining and on the streets great crowds of people slowly moving up and down and arguing
surrounded by tall apartment buildings
there was a sound of scuffling an inside door slammed then the front door opened a crack and a woman's face appeared
kyril it's all right in the dining room where a samovar steamed on the table and there were plates full of bread and raw fish a man in uniform emerged from behind the window curtains and another dressed like a workman from a closet
they were delighted to meet an american reporter with a certain amount of gusto both said that they would certainly be shot if the bolsheviki caught them
without taking offence the officer replied yes i know but what can we do he shrugged
the other man interrupted this is merely an adventure on the part of the bolsheviki they have no intellectuals the ministries won't work russia is not a city but a whole country
kerensky and help to restore order that is all very well i said but why do you combine with the cadets the pseudo workman smiled frankly to tell you the truth
we have no following now we can't mobilise a handful of soldiers there are no arms available
there are at this moment in russia only two parties with any force
who are all hiding under the coat tails of the cadets
when we smash the bolsheviki we shall turn against the cadets
he scratched his head that's a problem he admitted of course if they are not admitted they'll probably do this all over again
that is if there is a constituent and then too said the officer that brings up the question of admitting the cadets into the new government and for the same reasons you know the cadets do not really want the constituent assembly not if the bolsheviki can be destroyed now
he shook his head it is not easy for us russians politics you americans are born politicians you have had politics all your lives but for us well it has only been a year you know what do you think of kerensky i asked
oh kerensky is guilty of the sins of the provisional government answered the other man
and that we wanted to avoid but didn't it amount to that anyway yes but how were we to know
voted unanimously against it and what could i do it was a matter of party discipline in a week the bolshevik government will go to pieces if the socialist revolutionaries could only stand aside and wait the government would fall into their hands
at first they said they would come out if they had infantry support they said moreover that they had their men with kerensky and that they were doing their part
and finally the bolsheviki promise that they will not take away our land there is no danger to us we remain neutral during this talk people were constantly entering and leaving most of them officers their shoulder straps torn off
sat on the toilet writing something on a pad held in his lap i recognised colonel polkovnikov former commandant of petrograd
our programme said the officer this is it land to be turned over to the land committees workmen to have full representation in the control of industry
the two men looked at one another you will see in a few days
we shall not compromise with the bolsheviki if not perhaps we shall be forced to
which crawled with agonising slowness the long miles to smolny meshkovsky a neat frail little man was coming down the hall looking worried
and there is a decree just out ordering the private banks to open to morrow or we will open them ourselves the petrograd soviet was in full swing thronged with armed men trotzky reporting
sharp exultant cheering but the battle is only beginning at pulkovo heavy fighting is going on all available forces must be hurried there from moscow bad news the kremlin is in the hands of the yunkers and the workers have only a few arms
the result depends upon petrograd at the front the decrees on peace and land are provoking great enthusiasm kerensky is flooding the trenches with tales of petrograd burning and bloody of women and children massacred by the bolsheviki but no one believes him
i'm going now answered trotzky and left the platform his face a little paler than usual he passed down the side of the room surrounded by eager friends and hurried out to the waiting automobile kameniev now spoke
describing the proceedings of the reconciliation conference the armistice conditions proposed by the mensheviki he said had been contemptuously rejected
now that we've won the power and are sweeping all russia he declared all they ask of us are three little things one to surrender the power two to make the soldiers continue the war three to make the peasants forget about the land
lenin appeared for a moment to answer the accusations of the socialist revolutionaries they charge us with stealing their land programme if that is so we bow to them it is good enough for us so the meeting roared on leader after leader explaining
exhorting arguing soldier after soldier workman after workman standing up to speak his mind and his heart the audience flowed changing and renewed continually from time to time men came in yelling for the members of such and such a detachment to go to the front
it was almost three o'clock in the morning when as we left the hall holtzman of the military revolutionary committee came running down the hall with a transfigured face it's all right he shouted grabbing my hands telegram from the front
kerensky is smashed look at this he held out a sheet of paper scribbled hurriedly in pencil and then seeing we couldn't read it he declaimed aloud pulkovo staff
the night of october thirtieth to thirty first will go down in history the attempt of kerensky to move counter revolutionary troops against the capital of the revolution has been decisively repulsed kerensky is retreating we are advancing
the soldiers sailors and workers of petrograd
enforce the will and authority of the democracy the bourgeoisie tried to isolate the revolutionary army kerensky attempted to break it by the force of the cossacks both plans met a pitiful defeat
all the country from now on will be convinced that the power of the soviets is no ephemeral thing but an invincible fact the repulse of kerensky is the repulse of the land owners the bourgeoisie and the kornilovists in general
the repulse of kerensky is the confirmation of the right of the people to a peaceful free life to land bread and power the pulkovo detachment by its valorous blow has strengthened the cause of the workers and peasants's revolution there is no return to the past
before us are struggles obstacles and sacrifices but the road is clear and victory is certain revolutionary russia and the soviet power can be proud of their pulkovo detachment acting under the command of colonel walden
long live revolutionary popular socialist russia in the name of the council l trotzky people's commissar driving home across znamensky square
for a whole minute he stood there not daring to look up then he took a deep breath clenched his hands tightly and lifted his head there it was as dad had described it but infinitely more grand
it swept upward from the valley floor beautifully shaped and soaring so tall that its misty blue peak could surely talk face to face with the stars to david who had never seen a mountain before
the sight was almost too much to bear he felt so tight and shivery inside that he didn't know whether he wanted to laugh or cry or both and the really wonderful thing about the mountain was the way it looked at him
until the green and tawny faded into hazy heights of rock it was waiting for him come and climb it whispered come and climb but there was a great deal to do first they were going to move into the new house
everything was in confusion dad was pushing chairs and tables around in an aimless way mother was saying they'll all have to go out again we forgot to put down the rug first
aunt amy was making short dashes between the kitchen and the dining room muttering to herself and beckie was roaring in her crib because it was time for her bottle david asked
can i do anything hoping that the answer would be no c'mere aunt amy said grabbing him by the arm help me look for that ironing board when the ironing board was finally located mother had something for him to do
somehow in all the rush and confusion the afternoon had disappeared already the evening sun was throwing shadows across the side of the mountain
it was too late now he would have to wait until morning before he could climb as he gazed up miserably at the glowing summit he thought he saw a tiny speck soar out from it in a brief circle
was it a bird of some sort or just one of those dots that swim before your eyes when you stare too long at the sky it almost seemed like the mountain waving its hand as if to say that it was quite all right for him to wait until morning
he felt better then and returned more cheerfully to the moving it was long after dark before the moving van drove away beckie crooned happily over her bottle and the rest of them gathered in the kitchen for a late supper of sandwiches and canned soup
but david could not eat until he had found the courage to ask one question may i climb the mountain tomorrow aunt amy muttered something about landslides which were firmly fixed in her mind as the fate of people who climbed mountains
but dad said i don't see why not do you and looked to mother for agreement mother said well be very careful in a doubtful tone and that was that you never know what you will find when you climb a mountain
there were terraces ledges knolls ravines and embankments one after another the exciting part of it was that each feature concealed the ones above it
at the top of a rise would be an outcropping of strangely colored rock invisible from below beyond the outcropping a small stand of aspens would quiver in the breeze their quicksilver leaves hiding a tiny meadow on the slope behind
and when the meadow had been discovered there would be a something else beyond he was a real explorer now when he got to the top he thought he would build a little tower of stones the way explorers always do
and the distance he had already covered was a considerable one he looked back the town looked like a model of a town with little toy houses and different colored roofs among the trees that made a darker patch on the pattern of the valley floor
the mountains on the other side of the valley seemed like blue clouds stretching out over the edge of the world even the peak could not give him a better view than this david gazed up the face of a scarp
which rose like a cliff above him a smooth bare wall of rock that had halted his climb halfway up the scarp was a dark horizontal line of bushes something like a hedge apparently there was a ledge or shelf there and he decided to climb up to it before he returned home
to scale the rock face itself was impossible however there were no hand or foot holds so he turned and made his way through the grass until he reached the end of the bare stone then he started upward again it was hard work
he felt like shouting when at last he reached the ledge truly it was an enchanted place it was a long level strip of ground several yards wide carpeted with short grass and dandelions bushes grew along most of the outer edge
the inner edge was bounded by a second scarp a wall of red stone with sparkling points of light imbedded in its smooth surface david threw himself on the grass and rolled in it it was warm and soft and sweet smelling
it soothed away the hurt of his aching muscles and the sting of his scratches he rolled over on his back and cushioned his head in his hands the sky seemed to be slipping along overhead like a broad blue river the breeze ruffled his hair
and whispered the bushes murmured and gossiped to each other even the sunlight seemed to hum to him as it laid warm hands on his face but there was another sound which now and then rose above these murmurs
then it would fade and be drowned out by the breeze hard to say why but it just did not seem to fit there david propped himself up on his elbows and listened more intently the sound faded he had been imagining it
no he had not been imagining it there it was again he sat up now he noticed that the ledge was divided by a thicket which grew from the inner side to the outer the noise whatever it was came from the other side of the thicket
david's curiosity was aroused but it occurred to him that it might be wise to be cautious the noise did not sound dangerous but well he had never been up a mountain before and there was no telling what he might find
he dropped into a crouch and crept silently up to the tangle of bushes his heart began to pound and he swallowed to relieve the dryness in his throat the noise was much more distinct now and it sounded like like
the branches grew very low and the ground was full of lumps and knobs which dug into him with every movement there were vines too and some prickly things like thistles
he progressed by inches pushing with his toes pulling with his finger tips wriggling with the rest of his body
there was a thrashing sound in the thicket and the phoenix appeared looking very rumpled and yawning behind its wing greetings my boy it cried a splendid morning then the phoenix caught sight of the paper bag in david's hand and swallowed in a suggestive way
david thrust the bag of cookies behind his back now phoenix he said firmly you have to promise me you won't go away to south america you said last night that it could be arranged so let's arrange it right now until we do not one
the phoenix drew itself up indignantly my very dear fellow it said you wound me you cut me to the quick i will not be bribed i it stopped and swallowed again oh well it continued more mildly
one does not fight fate does one i suppose under these circumstances i must accept it's settled then david cried joyfully so they sat down on the grass together
words fail me i'm glad you like them david said politely and now my boy continued the phoenix as it settled back comfortably i have been thinking yesterday you showed an intelligent interest in my problems and asked intelligent questions
you did not scoff as others might have done you have very rare qualities david flushed and mumbled denials do not be so modest my boy i speak the truth it came to me that such a mind as yours having these qualities should be further cultivated and refined
and i should be avoiding my clear cut duty if i did not take this task in hand myself of course i suppose some attempt to educate you has already been made has it not well i go to school if that's what you mean not now though because it's summer vacation
and what do they teach you there oh reading and writing and arithmetic and things like that aha said the phoenix triumphantly just as i suspected a classical education
understand me i have nothing against a classical education as such i realize that mathematics greek and latin are excellent for the discipline of the mind but in the broad view a classical education is not a true education
life is real life is earnest one must face it with a practical education the problems of life my dear fellow classical education completely ignores them for example how do you tell a true unicorn from a false one i
oh said david do you mean are you going to give me lessons through his mind flashed a picture of the phoenix with spectacles on its beak and a ruler in its wing writing out sentences on a blackboard
the thought gave him a sinking feeling after all it was summer and summer was supposed to be vacation time and what an education it will be the phoenix went on ignoring his question absolutely without equal
the full benefit of my vast knowledge plus a number of trips to oh traveling said david suddenly feeling much better that's different oh phoenix that'll be wonderful where will we go everywhere my boy said the phoenix with an airy wave of its wing
gryffins gryffons gryffens excuse me david interrupted what were those last three please gryffins explained the phoenix are the small reddish friendly ones gryffons are the quick tempered proud ones
gryffens ah well the most anyone can say for them is that they are harmless they are very stupid i see said david doubtfully what do they look like each looks like the others my boy except that some are bigger and some are smaller
basilisks nymphs ah and many others all are of the better sort since as i have many times truly observed one is known by the company one keeps and your education will cost you nothing
of course it would be agreeable if you could supply me with cookies from time to time as many as you want phoenix will we go to africa naturally my boy your education will include and egypt and china and arabia yes your education will
do not be so dense my dear fellow i shall carry you on my back of course oh said david weakly on your on your back are you sure that isn't there some other i mean can you do it the phoenix drew itself up to its full height
he stepped back quickly with a shudder let's let's do it tomorrow he quavered nonsense said the phoenix firmly no time like the present
the great wings were outstretched david gulped clutched the phoenix's neck tightly and shut his eyes he felt a hopping sensation then a long sickening downward swoop that seemed to leave his stomach far behind
a tremendous rush of air snatched at his shirt he opened his eyes and choked with fright the ground below was rushing up to meet them swaying and revolving something was terribly wrong the phoenix was breathing in hoarse gasps
its wings were pounding the air frantically now they had turned back the scarp loomed before them solid and blank above them high above them was the ledge it looked as though they would not get back to it up up up
with a tremendous surge of its wings the phoenix managed to get one claw over the edge and to seize the branch of a bush in its beak david's legs slipped from the bird's back he dangled over the abyss from the outstretched neck and prayed
could have done even this much the truth of the matter is that you are a lot puff heavier than you look i hope you are not being overfed at home i i don't know said david wondering whether or not he was going to be sick
well my course is clear said the phoenix firmly i must practice setting up exercises roadwork and what not rigorous diet lots of sleep regular hours courage my dear fellow we shall do it yet
then there would be a fifteen minute rest and refreshment period and when that was over the phoenix would launch itself into the air this was the part david liked best it was a magnificent sight
wheeled in circles shot straight up like a rocket plunged hovered looped rolled soared fluttered now and then it would swoop back to the ledge beside david and wipe the sweat from its brow i trust you see signs of progress my boy
david would wrap the wet towel around the phoenix's neck you're doing better and better phoenix i especially like that part where you twist over on your back and loop and plunge all at the same time i do perform that rather well don't i
it is not easy but just the thing for acquiring ouch muscle tone are there any more cookies ah there are delicious as i was saying let this be a lesson to you my boy if at first you don't succeed try try again
the phoenix would take wing again and david would settle back against a rock and watch sometimes he thought of the education he was to get sometimes he thought how nice it would be if he could fly and sometimes he did not think at all but just sat with his eyes half shut
feeling the sunlight on his face and listening to the rustle of the wind in the thicket at the end of the week the phoenix after a brilliant display of acrobatics landed on the ledge clasped its wings behind its back and looked solemnly at david
i think they're open till six said david shaking the sand out of his shoes are we going to buy something precisely my boy a hardware store should have what we need now you will take our gold and purchase the following
what are we going to do with it my boy the feline's existence was terminated as a direct result of its inquisitiveness what did you say curiosity killed the cat explained the phoenix oh but
now run along my boy a very important thought has just come to me i must meditate a while the phoenix glanced at the thicket and hid a yawn behind one wing oh all right said david i'll see you in the morning then
it wasn't until he got home that he thought of something he couldn't spend pirate gold pieces or even show them to anyone without being asked a lot of embarrassing questions what to do ask dad or mother or aunt amy to lend him some money
more embarrassing questions well he would have to rob his bank but wait why hadn't he remembered just before they had moved uncle charles had given him a ten dollar bill as a farewell present he had been saving it for a model airplane
but the excitement of the last few days had driven it completely out of his mind of course the phoenix's plan was more important than any model plane could be so he kept the gold pieces tied up in his handkerchief and took his ten dollars to a hardware store
where he bought what the phoenix wanted a coil of rope an electric door bell a pushbutton and one hundred feet of insulated wire then he brought the package home
whatever the plan was they would have to carry it out as soon as possible two days had passed since the scientist had shown up the new gun he had ordered might arrive at any time now perhaps even today when they had been digging up the pirate treasure
early next morning david climbed up to the ledge bringing with him the coil of rope and the hatchet as an afterthought he had added a paper bag full of cookies here's the stuff phoenix he called out as he stepped onto the ledge where are you
there was a crash from the thicket as though someone had jumped up in it suddenly and the phoenix stumbled out rubbing its eyes ah splendid my boy yes i was just ah thinking phoenix said david i'm not going to ask you again what your plan is
because i know you'll tell me when it's time but whatever it is we'd better do it right now the scientist may show up any minute precisely my boy never put off until tomorrow what can be done today one of my favorite proverbs
we shall begin immediately here the phoenix caught sight of the bag in david's hand and added hastily but of course we must not forget that first things come first you might have brought more said the phoenix fifteen minutes later there weren't any more in the jar david said
phoenix please tell me what we're going to do i don't care if curiosity did kill the cat i've been thinking about the rope and wire and bell all night and i can't make heads or tails out of it the phoenix gave a pleased laugh
of course you cannot my boy the plan is far too profound for you to guess what it is but set your mind at rest i shall now explain the rope and hatchet david leaned forward eagerly now scientists you know have fixed habits
our particular scientist is a daytime creature that is to say he comes at dawn and goes at dusk his invariable habit my boy well there you are my boy said the phoenix triumphantly
we shall sleep during the day and continue your education at night oh said david he thought about this a while then asked but suppose the scientist comes up on the ledge during the day and catches you asleep aha that is where the rope and hatchet come in
never fear my boy i thought of that also we are going to construct a snare at each end of the ledge how hand me that twig my boy the phoenix took the twig found a bare spot of earth and sketched a picture
first we find a sapling and clear the branches from it with the hatchet like this next we get a stake cut a notch in it and drive it into the ground so the sapling is bent down to it and fitted into the notch which holds it down you see my boy
now we make a noose so from a piece of rope tie it to the end of the sapling and spread the loop out on the path this way the whole snare is hidden under grass and leaves
the phoenix beamed and flung out its wings in a dramatic gesture just picture it my dear chap
the unwary footstep the sapling jarred out of the notch springing upward the tightened noose and our archenemy dangling by the foot in mid air completely at our mercy magnificent golly phoenix said david that's pretty clever
clever my boy better to say a stroke of genius only i phoenix could have thought of it and consider the poetic justice of it this is exactly the sort of trap that the scientist once set for me
first they had to find the right kind of sapling springy and strong the sapling had to be in the right place one by the goat trail the other at the far end of the ledge when they had been chosen david had to shinny up them to lop off their branches
and fitting it into the notch it took the weight of both of them to bring the sapling to the ground if they got the slightest bit off balance it would spring up again once david fell off the sapling went swish back into the air
flinging the astonished phoenix thirty feet up the mountainside
they sat down and looked proudly at each other my boy said the phoenix i have had a wide and sometimes painful experience with traps
we shall burn that bridge when we reach it my boy now do you have the pliers wire cutters and screw driver below yes they're down in the cellar what are we going to do with them phoenix patience patience
you will be told when the time comes i shall meet you tonight after dark as soon as it is safe for me to come down i trust you will have everything ready are you coming down precisely my boy a risk i admit but a necessary one
there is a hedge at the back of your house is there not splendid you may await me there david sitting in the shadow of the hedge jumped when he heard the phoenix's quiet good evening my boy phoenix he whispered how did you do it
golly i didn't see you at all and it isn't even dark yet i have been hunted long enough my boy to have learned a few tricks it is merely a matter of gliding close to the ground selecting the best shadows and keeping a sharp lookout
and under cover of darkness i can do it quite safely the question now is how will you know when i have arrived that my boy is the nub or crux of the situation a difficult problem you will admit but i have worked out the solution
the phoenix lowered its voice impressively my boy we are going to install this bell in your room and the pushbutton on the base of that telephone pole
it did not seem very practical to david well phoenix that's a good idea he said carefully but how are we going to hide the wires and what about the noise of the bell nothing to it my boy the wires
just imagine it the phoenix continued enthusiastically perhaps later we can install another bell at this end then we could learn morse code and send messages to each other exactly like a private telephone line
put in this way the idea had a certain appeal and david found himself warming to it but there was another thing to consider how about electricity phoenix look above you my boy
the telephone pole is simply loaded down with power lines waiting to be tapped the phoenix was evidently set on carrying out the plan and david did not want to wear out the bird's patience with more objections and well why not
there should be no harm in trying it out anyway they gathered up the tools and walked along the hedge to the telephone pole which was in one corner of the yard the phoenix began to uncoil the wire
while david gazed up doubtfully at the shadowy maze of lines and insulators on the cross arms electricity said the phoenix thoughtfully is a complicated and profound subject
to the top of the pole david could hear the creak of the lines under the phoenix's weight and the rattling of the screw driver against the porcelain insulators for some minutes the phoenix investigated clicking and scraping about and muttering quite so and there we are
the covering on the lines is rather tough however we shall have to use the wire cutters the phoenix returned to the top of the pole with the cutters and worked on the wires for five more minutes bits of debris began to shower down on the hedge
where is our wire ah there we are the pliers please do you need any help up there david asked no everything is coming along beautifully thank you i shall have everything finished in a flash trailing one end of the wire in its beak
the phoenix flew up into the darkness once more the tinkering sounds began again and a spurt of falling debris rattled in the leaves of the hedge suddenly it happened
and a shower of sparks another blue flash blazed up the lights in the house and down the whole street flickered and went out in the blackness which followed each stage of the phoenix's descent could be heard as clearly as cannon shots
the twanging and snapping as it tumbled through the wires a drawn out squawk and the flop of wings in the air below the crash into the hedge the jarring thud against the ground broken wires began to sputter ominously and fire out sparks
the phoenix beat at the smoldering sparks in its tail and flew off leaving a trail of acrid smoke hanging in the air david had the presence of mind to gather up all the tools the wire bell and pushbutton
and one of the phoenix's feathers which had been torn out during the fall he slipped through a cellar window hid the equipment under a stack of old boxes and ran noisily up the stairs into the kitchen hey he shouted the lights are out
turning out all the lights so he can murder us in our beds look david shouted the line's broken in our back yard they could hear the wailing of sirens now fire trucks repair trucks
and police cars pulled up in front of the house everyone in the block turned out to see what had happened it took the repair men an hour to untangle the wires and fix them
appendix a homosexuality among tramps by josiah flynt
but i know it best in the states i have lived with the tramps there for eight consecutive months besides passing numerous shorter periods in their company and my acquaintance with them is nearly of ten years standing
my purpose in going among them has been to learn about their life in particular and outcast life in general this can only be done by becoming part and parcel of its manifestations there are two kinds of tramps in the united states
the out of works are not genuine vagabonds they really want work and have no sympathy with the hoboes the latter are the real tramps they make a business of begging a very good business too and keep at it as a rule to the end of their days
whisky and wanderlust or the love of wandering are probably the main causes of their existence but many of them are discouraged criminals men who have tried their hand at crime and find that they lack criminal wit
comes the nearest to the life they hoped to lead they have enough talent to do very well as beggars better generally speaking then the men who have reached the road simply as drunkards they know more about the tricks of the trade
there is a great deal to be said and i cannot attempt to tell all i have heard about it but merely to give a general account of the matter
talking about it freely and according to my finding every tenth man practises it and defends his conduct boys are the victims of this passion the tramps gain possession of these boys in various ways
a common method is to stop for awhile in some town and gain acquaintance with the slum children
how they can ride on the railways for nothing shoot indians and be perfeshunnels professionals and they choose some boy who specially pleases them by smiles and flattering caresses they let him know that the stories are meant for him alone
and before long if the boy is a suitable subject he smiles back just as slyly in time he learns to think that he is the favorite of the tramp who will take him on his travels and he begins to plan secret meetings with the man
the tramp of course continues to excite his imagination with stories and caresses and some fine night there is one boy less in the town
the majority of prushuns are between ten and fifteen years of age but i have known some under ten and a few over fifteen each is compelled by hobo law to let his jocker do with him as he will
and many i fear learn to enjoy his treatment of them they are also expected to beg in every town they come to any laziness on their part receiving very severe punishment
how the act of unnatural intercourse takes place is not entirely clear the hoboes are not agreed from what i have personally observed i should say that it is usually what they call leg work intercrural
but sometimes immissio penis in anum the boy in either case lying on his stomach i have heard terrible stories of the physical results to the boy of anal intercourse one evening near cumberland pennsylvania
in company with eight hoboes i was in a freight car attached to a slowly moving train a colored boy succeeded in scrambling into the car and when the train was well under way again he was tripped up and seduced to use the hobo euphemism
by each of the tramps he made almost no resistance and joked and laughed about the business as if he had expected it this indeed i find to be the general feeling among the boys when they have been thoroughly initiated
at first they do not submit and are inclined to run away or fight but the men fondle and pet them and after awhile they do not seem to care some of them have told me that they get as much pleasure out of the affair as the jocker does
even little fellows under ten have told me this and i have known them to willfully tempt their jockers to intercourse what the pleasure consists in i cannot say the youngsters themselves describe it as a delightful tickling sensation in the parts involved
and this is possibly all that it amounts to among the smallest lads those who have passed the age of puberty seem to be satisfied in pretty much the same way that the men are among the men the practice is decidedly one of passion
the majority of them prefer a prushun to a woman and nothing is more severely judged than rape one often reads in the newspapers that a woman has been assaulted by a tramp but the perverted tramp
i believe however that there are a few hoboes who have taken to boys because women are so scarce
for every woman in hoboland there are a hundred men that this disproportion has something to do with the popularity of boys is made clear by the following case
one of the prisoners said he had known her before she was married and had lived with her the tramp was soon to be discharged and he inquired where the woman lived on learning that she was still approachable he looked her up immediately after his release
and succeeded in staying with her for nearly a month he told me later that he enjoyed his life with her much more than his intercourse with boys i asked him why he went with boys at all and he replied cause there ain't women enough if i can't get them i've got to have the other
in the daytime the prisoners are let out into a long hall and can do much as they please at night they are shut up two and even four in a cell if there are any boys in the crowd they are made use of by all who care to have them
if they refuse to submit they are gagged and held down the sheriff seldom knows what goes on and for the boys to say anything to him would be suicidal
simply to be sure that their prushuns were not touched by other tramps such attachments frequently last for years and some boys remain with their first jockers
emancipation means freedom to snare some other boy and make him submit as the other had been obliged to submit when younger as a rule the prushun is freed when he is able to protect himself if he can defend his honor from all who come
this is the one reward held out to prushuns during their apprenticeship they are told that some day they can have a boy and use him as they have been used thus hoboland is always sure of recruits
it is difficult to say how many tramps are sexually inverted it is not even certainly known how many vagabonds there are in the country i have stated in one of my papers on tramps that counting the boys
there are between fifty and sixty thousand genuine hoboes in the united states a vagabond in texas who saw this statement wrote me that he considered my estimate too low the newspapers have criticised it as too high but they are unable to judge
if my figures are as i believe at least approximately correct the sexually perverted tramps may be estimated at between five and six thousand this includes men and boys
they say that it is now a risky business to be seen with a boy and that it is more profitable as far as begging is concerned to go without them whether this means that the passion is less fierce than it used to be or that the men find sexual satisfaction among themselves i cannot say definitely
but from what i know of their disinclination to adopt the latter alternative i am inclined to think that the passion may be dying out somewhat
that the change if real has not been caused by them so much for my finding in the united states in england where i have also lived with tramps for some time
in germany also excepting in prisons and work houses it seems very little known among vagabonds there are a few jewish wanderers sometimes peddlers who are said to have boys in their company and i am told that they use them
in england i have met a number of male tramps who had no hesitation in declaring their preference for their own sex and particularly for boys but i am bound to say that i have seldom seen them with boys as a rule they were quite alone
and they seem to live chiefly by themselves
or at all events so near it
in all the large cities there are women who are glad to do business for three or four pence
the general impression made on me by the sexually perverted men i have met in vagabondage is that they are abnormally masculine in their intercourse with boys they always take the active part the boys have in some cases
seemed to me uncommonly feminine but not as a rule in the main they are very much like other lads and i am unable to say whether their liking for the inverted relationship is inborn or acquired that it is however
a genuine liking in altogether too many instances i do not in the least doubt as such and all the more because it is such it deserves to be more thoroughly investigated and more reasonably treated
josiah flynt who wrote the foregoing account of tramp life for the second edition of this volume was well known as author sociologist and tramp he was especially and it would seem by innate temperament
the tramp which part he looked to perfection he himself referred to his
weasoned face and diminutive form
he was thus able to throw much light on the psychology of the tramp and his books such as tramping with tramps are valuable from this point of view his real name was f willard
and he was a nephew of miss frances willard he died in chicago in nineteen o seven at the age of thirty eight shortly after writing a frank and remarkable autobiography
i am able to supplement his observations on tramps so far as england is concerned by the following passages from a detailed record sent to me by an english correspondent
i am a male invert with complete feminine sexual inclinations different meetings with tramps led me to seek intimacy with them and for about twenty years i have gone on the tramp myself
so that i might come in the closest contact with them in england scotland and wales as in the united states there are two classes of tramps those who would work such as harvesters road makers et cetera and those who will not work
but make tramping a profession among both these classes my experience is that ninety per cent or i even would be bold enough to say one hundred per cent indulge in homosexuality when the opportunity occurs
and i do not make any distinction between the two classes there are numerous reasons for this and i will state a few a certain number may prefer normal connection with a female but except for those who tramp in vans and a limited number
who have donnas with them women are not available as prostitutes very seldom allow intimacy for
except when drunk tramps are also afraid of any venereal disease as it means the misery of the lock hospital
with this mate with whom he sleeps and rests and boozes when they are in funds sexual intimacy naturally takes place as my experience has been that one of the two is male and the other female in their sexual desires
but i have known instances where they have acted both roles then male prostitution is to be had for nothing
it is a means of earning money either fairly or otherwise i have never known a male tramp to refuse satisfaction if i offered a drink or two or a small sum of money
another one who told me that he had been twenty five years on the road said that he could not endure to sleep alone he was a pedlar
he had done time and he said the greatest punishment to him was not being able to have a make who would submit to penetration though he was not particular what form the sexual act took another fine young man
whom i chanced to meet the very day he had been released from a long sentence in prison for burglary and with whom i passed a night of incessant and almost brutal intimacy said his punishment was seeing men always about him
in the low lodging houses they are obliged to frequent a single bed is perhaps double to one with a bedmate whom perhaps he has never seen before and especially in hot weather
my sexual desires being for the male invert i have come most in contact with them and have found that they form much the larger class among harvesters and seafaring tramps it is seldom you find a
and as such i was eagerly courted and any suggestion of intimacy on my part quickly responded to
though i have known boys especially those belonging to vans or gypsies to prostitute themselves always for money on one occasion i saw a boy who created quite an outburst of lust of homosexual nature
the incident took place in a small seafaring town in scotland one evening before a fair was to be held it occurred in a low public house where a number of very rough and mostly drunken men were assembled
wearing a ragged kilt and with bare legs and feet he had long curling fair hair which reached to his shoulders and on it an old bonnet was perched he also wore an old velveteen shooting jacket
all eyes were turned on the pair and they were quickly offered drinks a remark was made by one man that he believed the youth was a lassie the boy said i will show you i am a laddie
and pulled up his kilt exposing his genitals and then his posterior boisterous laughter greeted this indecent exposure and suggestion and more drinks were provided the blind man then played his fiddle
and the boy danced with frequent recurrences of the same indecencies he was seized kissed and caressed by quite a number of men some of whom endeavored to masturbate him which he resisted but performed it for them after the closing time came
i and about ten or twelve men all occupied the same room the old man continued to play and the youth stark naked continued to dance and suggested we others should do so and an erotic scene took place which was only closed to view
by the boss who was present putting out the lamp two classes of tramps i have met openly declare their preference for homosexuality they are men who have been in the army and sailors and seafaring men in general
but i believe from my experience that the wife in many cases is of the male sex and this among those of all nationalities as is the case with soldiers among these also jealousy is more common than amongst ordinary tramps
and if you are dandy to a soldier if you make advances or receive them from a senior trouble is likely to occur between them
the rest of his ancestry being english of long standing in america with a very little admixture of dutch blood he is five feet eight inches in height and has brown hair and eyes
is subject to tonsillitis and a stubborn though not severe form of indigestion induced by sedentary habits he is of quick nervous temperament has an aversion from most outdoor sports but a great esthetic attraction to nature
a cousin five years older was in the bathroom seated and m o was feeling his sexual organs his mother called him out on another occasion he was in a wagonhouse with a girl of his own age they were lying on a carriage seat attempting intercourse
the girl's older sister came in and found them she said i am going to tell mamma you know she said for you not to do that any more with each of these clear memories comes the strong impression that it was but one among many five years ago
m o met a man of his own age who had lived in that neighborhood at the same time comparing notes they found that nearly all the small children in it had been given to such practices
from it m o removed to another of just about the same character and lived there until he was eleven years old of this period his memories are very fresh and abundant with a single exception
all the children between five and fourteen years of age appear to have indulged freely in promiscuous sexual play in little companies of from four to twelve they went where trees or long grass hid them from observation
and exhibited their persons to one another sometimes also they handled one another but not in the way of masturbation of this last m o was wholly ignorant
there was eager sexual curiosity and a more or less keen desire but actual contact brought no great satisfaction on two or three occasions girls practised fellatio and he then reciprocated with cunnilinctus but without pleasure
in all these plays he is sure that girls took the initiative as often as boys did during all this period
this was conventional among the children and was fostered by the banter of older persons
at this time however his homosexual interests appeared with a boy two or more years older he frequently went to some hiding place where they looked at each other's organs and handled them he and another boy were once in an abandoned garden
and they took off all their clothes the better to examine each other
it caused a surprisingly keen and distinctly sexual sensation the first sexual shock that he can remember experiencing
toward the end of this period there was a new and increasing development of another sort not recognized then as at all sexual in character he began to feel toward certain boys in a way very different and much keener than he had done thus far toward girls
although at the time he made no comparisons for instance there was a boy whom he considered very pretty they visited each other often and spent long times playing together in school they looked and looked at each other until delicious
uncontrollable giggling spells came on sexual matters were never discussed or thought of these experiences were in their way very sentimental and ideal m o is sure
that with himself the main consideration was always the other boy's beauty he began to recall with great fondness
he seldom saw him now and hardly sought to do so yet was immensely pleased by a casual word or look from him in the schoolyard and much interested when other people spoke of him
a cousin about two years younger than m o often visited him and slept with him they were very fond of each other and handled each other's organs when m o was about eleven years of age the family removed to a distant neighborhood
where there were almost no children of his own age
from this time until the changes of puberty were well under way his sexual life contrasted strongly in its solitude with the former promiscuity
he thinks they were not aware of his sexual impulses he flirted consciously flirted with certain school girls but never even suggested anything sexual to them he read a few family medical books one day
lying on an old uneven couch innocently enough at first he induced a new and delicious sensation altogether different from any he had ever dreamed of something far beyond the satisfaction of mere curiosity
he repeated the thing and before long produced emissions masturbation soon followed certain days he would perform the act two or three times but again he would avoid it for days
he began at once to fight the tendency and felt very guilty and very ashamed for indulging it he prayed for help and at times wept over his failures to break the habit so quickly formed
just then certain newspaper advertisements fell under his eye and these persuaded him that he had produced in himself a diseased condition
he never resorted to the remedies advertised but he was discouraged in his efforts to overcome the bad habit and since the evil effects appeared to consist only in the seminal losses he concluded that he might as well have the greater enjoyment of masturbation
for a short time he remembers that he had an intense but revolting interest in the sexual organs of animals especially horses the males were much more interesting
gradually he began to develop entirely from within the ideal of a male comrade a beautiful emotional boy between whom and himself there might exist a powerful romantic passion
he lay for hours dreaming of this and inventing thrilling situations suddenly at church he became acquainted with the very youth edmund who seemed to satisfy all his longings
a real wooing ensued edmund finally yielding to the physical appeals of m o after several fits of misgiving the yielding was in the end complete however the two spent night after night together
enjoying intercrural intercourse and sometimes mutual masturbation their parents may have been slightly uneasy at times
in the meantime m o occasionally had relations with other boys but never wavered in his real preference for edmund for girls he had no sexual desire whatever though he was much associated with them
then m o and edmund went to college at different places but they met in vacations and wrote frequent and ardent love letters both had genuine attacks of love sickness and of jealousy as m o looks back on this first love passion
he can by no means regret it it doubtless had great formative influence after the first year at college edmund transferred to another school farther away from m o and the opportunities for meeting became rarer
but their affection was maintained and the intercourse resumed whenever it was possible gradually however edmund became interested in women and finally married m o also formed relations repeatedly with college friends
and occasionally with others on the whole m o preferred boys a year or two younger than himself but as he grew older the age difference increased
one unusually mature however and much larger than himself m o is always unhappy unless his affections have fairly free course life has been very disappointing to him in other respects
his greatest joys have come to him in this way if he is able to consummate his present plan of union with the youth just referred to he will feel that his life has been crowned by what is for him the best possible end otherwise he declares
he would not care to live at all he admires male beauty passionately feminine beauty he perceives objectively as he would any design of flowing curves and delicate coloring
but it has no sexual charm for him whatever women have put themselves in his way repeatedly but he finds himself more and more irritated by their specifically feminine foibles with men generally he is much more patient and sympathetic
the first literature that appealed to him was plato's dialogues first read at twenty years of age until then he had not known but what he stood alone in his peculiarity he read what he could of classic literature he enjoys pater
appreciating his attitude toward his own sex four or five years later he came across raffalovich's book and ever since has felt a real debt of gratitude to its author m o has no wish to injure society at large
as an individual he holds that he has the same right to be himself that anyone else has he thinks that while boys of from thirteen to fifteen might possibly be rendered inverts those who reach sixteen without it cannot be bent that way
they may be devoted to an invert enough in other ways to yield him what he wishes sexually but they will remain essentially normal themselves his observations are based on about thirty homosexual relationships that have lasted various lengths of time
in a considerable town two persons dwelt in adjoining houses one of them conceived such a violent hatred against the other that the hated party resolved to remove to a distance being persuaded that their being neighbours was the only cause of this animosity
for though he had done him several pieces of service he found that his hatred was not diminished he therefore sold his house with what goods he had left and retired to the capital city of a kingdom which was not far distant here he bought a little spot of ground
intending to lead a retired life and caused several cells to be made in the house
he soon came to be publicly known by his virtue through which he acquired the esteem of many people as well of the commonalty as of the chief of the city in short he was much honoured and courted by all ranks
people came from afar to recommend themselves to his prayers and all who visited him published what blessings they received through his means the great reputation of this honest man
it touched the envious man so much to the quick that he left his house and affairs with a resolution to ruin him
who received him with all imaginable tokens of friendship the envious man told him that he was come on purpose to communicate a business of importance which he could not do but in private
and that nobody may hear us let us said he take a walk in your court and seeing night begins to draw on command your dervises to retire to their cells the chief of the dervises did as he was required
when the envious man saw that he was alone with this good man he began to tell him his errand walking side by side in the court till he saw his opportunity and getting the good man near the brink of the well he gave him a thrust and pushed him into it
without being seen by any one having done thus he returned got out at the gate of the convent without being known and reached his own house well satisfied with his journey being fully persuaded that the object of his hatred was no more
but he found himself mistaken this old well was inhabited by fairies and genies which happened luckily for the relief of the head of the convent for they received and supported him and carried him to the bottom so that he got no hurt
he perceived that there was something extraordinary in his fall which must otherwise have cost him his life but he neither saw nor felt anything he soon heard a voice however which said do you know what honest man this is
and has established himself in this place in hopes to cure one of his neighbours of the envy he had conceived against him he had acquired such a general esteem that the envious man not able to endure it came hither on purpose to ruin him
to recommend the princess his daughter to his prayers another voice asked what need had the princess of the dervise's prayers
you do not know it seems that she is possessed by genie maimoun the son of dimdim
but i well know how this good head of the dervises may cure her the thing is very easy and i will explain it to you he has a black cat in his convent with a white spot at the end of her tail about the bigness of a small piece of arabian money
let him only pull seven hairs out of the white spot burn them and smoke the princess's head with the fume she will not only be immediately cured but be so safely delivered from maimoun the son of dimdim
that he will never dare to approach her again the head of the dervises remembered every word of the conversation between the fairies and the genies who remained silent the remainder of the night the next morning as soon as daylight appeared
and he could discern the nature of his situation the well being broken down in several places he saw a hole by which he crept out with ease the other dervises who had been seeking for him were rejoiced to see him
and retired into his cell shortly after the black cat
came to fawn upon her master as she was accustomed to do he took her up and pulled seven hairs from the white spot that was upon her tail and laid them aside for his use when occasion should serve soon after sunrise the sultan
who would leave no means untried that he thought likely to restore the princess to perfect health arrived at the gate of the convent he commanded his guards to halt whilst he with his principal officers went in
the dervises received him with profound respect the sultan called their chief aside and said good sheik
yes sir replied he gravely if i do not mistake it is the disease of the princess which procures me this unmerited honour that is the real case replied the sultan you will give me new life if your prayers
and he had no sooner thrown the seven hairs upon the burning coals than the genie maimoun the son of dimdim uttered a great cry and without being seen left the princess at liberty upon which she took the veil from her face
and rose up to see where she was saying where am i
they all cried he deserves her in marriage that is what i had in my thoughts said the sultan and i make him my son in law from this moment some time after the prime vizier died
and the sultan conferred the place on the dervise the sultan himself also died without heirs male upon which the religious orders and the militia consulted together and the good man was declared and acknowledged sultan by general consent
having ascended the throne of his father in law as he was one day in the midst of his courtiers on a march
and calling one of the viziers that attended him
go bring me that man you see there but take care you do not frighten him the vizier obeyed and when the envious man was brought into his presence the sultan said friend i am extremely glad to see you
upon which he called an officer go immediately said he and cause to be paid to this man out of my treasury one hundred pieces of gold let him have also twenty loads of the richest merchandize in my storehouses
after he had given this charge to the officer he bade the envious man farewell and proceeded on his march when i had finished the recital of this story to the genie the murderer of the princess of the isle of ebene
i made an application of it to himself o genie said i this bountiful sultan was not satisfied with merely overlooking the design of the envious man to take away his life but also treated him kindly
and sent him back loaded with the favours i have enumerated in short i employed all my eloquence to persuade him to imitate so good an example and to grant me pardon but it was impossible to move his compassion
all that i can do for thee said he is to grant thee thy life but do not flatter thyself that i will allow thee to return safe and well i must let thee feel what i am able to do by my enchantments
he then descended again like lightning and alighted upon the summit of a mountain here he took up a handful of earth and pronouncing or rather muttering some words which i did not understand
the form of a man and take that of an ape he instantly disappeared and left me alone transformed into an ape and overwhelmed with sorrow in a strange country not knowing whether i was near or far from my father's dominions
i descended the mountain and entered a plain level country which took me a month to travel over and then i came to the sea side it happened at the time to be perfectly calm
i launched out in this posture and rowed towards the ship when i had approached sufficiently near to be seen i exhibited to the seamen and passengers on the deck an extraordinary spectacle
and all of them regarded me with astonishment in the meantime i got on board and laying hold of a rope jumped upon the deck but having lost my speech i found myself in great perplexity
i will shoot an arrow through his body and a third let us throw him into the sea
the wind that succeeded the calm was not strong but favourable it continued to blow in the same direction for fifty days and brought us safe to the port of a city well peopled and of great trade the capital of a powerful state
where we came to anchor our vessel was instantly surrounded with an infinite number of boats full of people who came to congratulate their friends on their safe arrival or to inquire for those they had left behind them in the country from whence they had come
or out of curiosity to see a ship that had performed so long a voyage amongst the rest some officers came on board desiring in the name of the sultan to speak with the merchants the merchants appearing one of the officers told them
you must know that we had a prime vizier who besides possessing great abilities for the management of public affairs could write in the highest perfection this minister a few days since died the event has greatly affected the sultan
and since he can never behold his writing without admiration he has made a solemn vow not to give the place to any one who cannot write equally well many have presented specimens of their skill but to this day
and took the roll out of the gentleman's hand but all the people especially the merchants cried out that i would tear it or throw it into the sea till they saw how properly i held the roll and made a sign that i would write in my turn
their apprehensions then changed into wonder however as they had never seen an ape that could write and could not be persuaded that i was more ingenious than others of my kind they wished to take the roll out of my hand
but the captain took my part once more let him alone said he allow him to write if he only scribbles the paper i promise you that i will immediately punish him if on the contrary he writes well as i hope he will
and so quick of apprehension i declare that i will adopt him as my son perceiving that no one opposed my design i took the pen and wrote six sorts of hands used among the arabians
and each specimen contained an extemporary distich or quatrain in praise of the sultan my writing not only excelled that of the merchants but was such as they had not before seen in that country when i had done the officers took the roll and carried it to the sultan
the sultan took little notice of any of the writings except mine which pleased him so much that he said to the officers
to put on the person who wrote the six hands and bring him thither at this command the officers could not forbear laughing
and would have punished them had they not explained sir said they we humbly beg your majesty's pardon these hands were not written by a man but by an ape what do you say exclaimed the sultan those admirable characters
are they not written by the hands of a man no sir replied the officers we assure your majesty that it was an ape who wrote them in our presence
and therefore said do what i command you and bring me speedily that wonderful ape the officers returned to the vessel and shewed the captain their order who answered the sultan's command must be obeyed
whereupon they clothed me with the rich brocade robe and carried me ashore where they set me on horseback whilst the sultan waited for me at his palace with a great number of courtiers whom he gathered together to do me the more honour the procession commenced
the harbour the streets the public places windows terraces palaces and houses were filled with an infinite number of people of all ranks who flocked from every part of the city to see me for the rumour was spread in a moment that the sultan had chosen an ape to be his grand vizier
and after having served for a spectacle to the people who could not forbear to express their surprise by redoubling their shouts and cries i arrived at the sultan's palace i found the prince on his throne in the midst of the grandees
and at last kneeled and kissed the ground before him and afterwards took my seat in the posture of an ape the whole assembly viewed me with admiration and could not comprehend how it was possible that an ape should so well understand how to pay the sultan his due respect
did not now yield me that privilege the sultan dismissed his courtiers and none remained by him but the chief of the eunuchs a little young slave and myself he went from his chamber of audience into his own apartment where he ordered dinner to be brought
as he sat at table he made me a sign to approach and eat with them to shew my obedience i kissed the ground arose and placed myself at the table and ate with discretion and moderation
which i made a sign to have brought me having got it i wrote upon a large peach some verses expressive of my acknowledgment to the sultan who having read them after i had presented the peach to him was still more astonished
when the things were removed they brought him a particular liquor of which he caused them to give me a glass i drank and wrote upon the glass some new verses which explained the state i was reduced to after many sufferings
the sultan read these likewise and said a man that was capable of doing so much would be above the greatest of his species
and would play with him i kissed the ground and laying my hand upon my head signified that i was ready to receive that honour he won the first game but i won the second and third and perceiving he was somewhat displeased at my success
i made a quatrain to satisfy him in which i told him that two potent armies had been fighting furiously all day but that they concluded a peace towards the evening and passed the remaining part of the night very amicably together upon the field of battle
so many circumstances appearing to the sultan beyond whatever had either been seen or known of the cleverness or sense of apes he determined not to be the only witness of these prodigies himself but having a daughter called the lady of beauty
on whom the chief of the eunuchs then present waited go said the sultan to him and bid your lady come hither i am desirous she should share my pleasure the eunuch went and immediately brought the princess who had her face uncovered
and said to the sultan sir your majesty must needs have forgotten yourself i am surprised that your majesty has sent for me to appear among men how daughter said the sultan you do not know what you say
your majesty shall soon understand that i am not in the wrong that seeming ape is a young prince son of a powerful sultan and has been metamorphosed into an ape by enchantment a genie son of the daughter of eblis
has maliciously done him this wrong after having cruelly taken away the life of the princess of the isle of ebene the sultan astonished at this declaration turned towards me and speaking no more by signs but in plain words
finding i could not speak i put my hand to my head to signify that what the princess spoke was correct upon this the sultan said again to his daughter how do you know that this prince has been transformed by enchantments into an ape
sir replied the lady of beauty your majesty may remember that when i was past my infancy
and taught me seventy rules of magic by virtue of which i can in the twinkling of an eye transport your capital into the midst of the sea or beyond mount caucasus by this science i know all enchanted persons at first sight
i know who they are and by whom they have been enchanted therefore do not be surprised if i should forthwith relieve this prince in spite of the enchantments from that which prevents his appearing in your sight in his natural form daughter said the sultan
sir replied the princess these things are curious and worth knowing but i think i ought not to boast of them since it is so said the sultan you can dispel the prince's enchantment yes sir said the princess
i can restore him to his original shape do it then said the sultan you cannot do me a greater pleasure for i will have him to be my vizier
went into her apartment and brought thence a knife which had some hebrew words engraven on the blade she made the sultan the master of the eunuchs the little slave and myself descend into a private court of the palace
and there left us under a gallery that went round it she placed herself in the middle of the court where she made a great circle and within it she wrote several words in arabian characters some of them ancient
when she had finished and prepared the circle as she thought fit she placed herself in the centre of it where she began incantations and repeated verses of the koraun the air grew insensibly dark
as soon as the princess perceived this monster dog said she instead of creeping before me dare you present yourself in this shape thinking to frighten me and thou replied the lion
wretch replied the princess i justly may reproach thee with having done so the lion answered fiercely thou shalt quickly have thy reward for the trouble thou hast given me with that he opened his monstrous jaws
and sprang forward to devour her but she being on her guard stepped back got time to pull out one of her hairs and by pronouncing three or four words changed it into a sharp sword with which she cut the lion in two through the middle
the two parts of the lion disappeared while the head changed into a large scorpion immediately the princess turned herself into a serpent and fought the scorpion who finding himself worsted took the shape of an eagle and flew away
but the serpent at the same time took also the shape of an eagle that was black and much stronger and pursued him so that we lost sight of them both some time after they had disappeared the ground opened before us
and out of it came forth a black and white cat with her hair standing on end and mewing in a frightful manner a black wolf followed close after her and gave her no time to rest the cat being thus hard pressed
changed into a worm and being near a pomegranate accidentally fallen from a tree on the side of a canal which was deep but not broad pierced the pomegranate in an instant and hid itself but the pomegranate swelled immediately and became as big as a gourd
which mounting up to the roof of the gallery rolled there for some time backward and forward
and broke into several pieces the wolf had in the meanwhile transformed itself into a cock and now fell to picking up the seeds of the pomegranate one after another but finding no more he came towards us with his wings spread
and turned into a little fish the cock leaped into the river turned into a pike and pursued the small fish they continued both under water above two hours and we knew not what was become of them
but suddenly we heard terrible cries which made us tremble and a little while after we saw the genie and princess all in flames they threw flashes of fire out of their mouths at each other till they came to close combat
then the two fires increased with a thick burning smoke which mounted so high that we had reason to apprehend it would set the palace on fire but we very soon had a more pressing occasion of fear for the genie having got loose from the princess
came to the gallery where we stood and blew flames of fire upon us we must all have perished had not the princess running to our assistance forced him to retire
she could not hinder the sultan's beard from being burnt and his face scorched
the sultan and i expected but death when we heard a cry of victory victory and instantly the princess appeared in her natural shape but the genie was reduced to a heap of ashes
the princess approached us and hastily called for a cup full of water which the young slave who had received no hurt brought her she took it and after pronouncing some words over it threw it upon me saying
if thou art become an ape by enchantment change thy shape and take that of a man which thou hadst before these words were hardly uttered when i again became a man in every respect as i was before my transformation excepting the loss of my eye
i was prepared to return the princess my thanks but she prevented me by addressing herself to her father sir i have gained the victory over the genie as your majesty may see but it is a victory that costs me dear i have but a few minutes to live
the fire has pierced me during the terrible combat and i find it is gradually consuming me this would not have happened had i perceived the last of the pomegranate seeds and swallowed it as i did the others when i was changed into a cock
the genie had fled thither as to his last intrenchment and upon that the success of the combat depended which would have been successful and without danger to me this oversight obliged me to have recourse to fire
to go on with the recital of her combat and when she had done addressed her in a tone that sufficiently testified his grief my daughter said he you see in what condition your father is alas i wonder that i am yet alive
your governor the eunuch is dead and the prince whom you have delivered from his enchantment has lost one of his eyes he could say no more for his tears sighs and sobs deprived him of the power of utterance
the effect of that fire was so extraordinary that in a few moments she was wholly reduced to ashes as the genie had been i cannot tell you madam how much i was grieved at so dismal a spectacle
i had rather all my life have continued an ape or a dog than to have seen my benefactress thus miserably perish the sultan being afflicted all that can be imagined cried piteously and beat himself on his head and breast
until being quite overcome with grief he fainted away which made me fear for his life in the mean time the eunuchs and officers came running at the sultan's lamentations and with much difficulty brought him to himself
it was not necessary that the prince or myself should relate the circumstances of the adventure to convince them of the affliction it had occasioned us the two heaps of ashes to which the princess and the genie had been reduced were a sufficient demonstration
the sultan was hardly able to stand but was under the necessity of being supported to his apartment when the knowledge of this tragical event had spread through the palace and the city all the people bewailed the misfortune of the princess the lady of beauty
and the urn was deposited in a superb mausoleum constructed for that purpose on the spot where the princess had been consumed the grief of the sultan for the loss of his daughter confined him to his chamber for a whole month
upon which he went on thus i have constantly lived in perfect felicity but by your arrival all the happiness i possessed has vanished my daughter is dead her governor is no more and it is only through a miracle that i am myself yet alive
no consideration whatever shall hinder me from making you repent your temerity should you violate my injunction i was going to speak but he prevented me by words full of anger and i was obliged to quit the palace rejected
i began my journey not so much deploring my own miseries as the death of the two fair princesses of which i have been the occasion i passed through many countries without making myself known at last i resolved to come to bagdad
you know the remaining part madam
zobeide to whom he had addressed his speech said it is well you are at liberty but instead of departing he also petitioned the lady to shew him the same favour vouchsafed to the first calender
the adventure of missus innitt's cook it is curious bunny said henriette the other morning after an unusually late breakfast to observe by what qualities certain of these newport families have arrived as the saying is
the gasters of course belong at the top by patent right having invented american society or at least the machine that at present controls it they are entitled to all the royalties it brings in the rockerbilts got there all of a sudden by the sheer lavishness of their entertainment
and their ability to give bonds to keep it up the van varick shadds flowed in through their unquestioned affiliation with the ever popular delaware shadds and the roe shadds of the hudson two of the oldest and most respected families of the united states
reinforced by the napoleonic qualities of the present missus shadd in the doing of unexpected things the gullets thanks to the fact that missus gullet is the acknowledged mother in law of three british dukes two italian counts and a french marquis
are safely anchored in the social haven where they would be and the rumor that missus gushington andrews has written a book that is a trifle risque fixes her firmly in the social constellation
the dedbroke hickses with nothing a year the oliver sloshingtons with an income of judgments the study of their arrival is mighty interesting it doesn't interest me much quoth i
bunny cried henriette with a silvery ripple of laughter do be careful an epigram from you my dear boy you'll be down with brain fever if you don't watch out humph said i with a shrug of my shoulders
neither you nor my dear old friend raffles ever gave me credit for any brains i have a few however which i use when occasion demands i drawled well don't waste them here bunny laughed henriette save em for some place where they'll be appreciated
maybe in your old age you'll be back in dear old london contributing to punch if you are careful of your wits but how do you suppose the oliver sloshingtons ever got in here he holds the divorce record i believe said i he's been married to four social leaders already hasn't he
yes well he got into the swim with each marriage so he's got a four ply grip said i and the dedbroke hickses asked henriette how do you account for them most attractive diners and weekenders said i
they got all the laughs at your dinner to the archbishop of decanterbury
she's that easy with men that even i tremble with anxiety whenever she comes into the house but how do they live they haven't a cent to their names said henriette simplicity itself said i he is dressed by his tailors and she by her dressmaker
and as for food they take home a suit case full of it from every house party they attend they're so gracious to the servants that they don't have to think of tips and as for smathers and missus dedbroke hicks's maid they're paid reporters on the staff of the town tattler
and are willing to serve for nothing for the opportunities for items the connection gives them well i don't envy them in the least said henriette poor things to be always taking and never giving must be an awful strain
exactly and with car fare and sandwiches and the champagne supplied free by the importers for the advertisement it cost them exactly twelve dollars and was set down as the jolliest affair of the season said i i call that genius of a pretty high order
i wouldn't pity them if i were you they're happy missus innitt though i envy her said henriette that is in a way
but her little dinners are the swellest things of the season never more than ten people at a time and everything cooked to a turn that's just it said i i hear enough at the club to know just what cinches missus innitt's position it's her cook that's what does it
there never were such pancakes such purees such made dishes as that woman gets up she turns hash into a confection and liver and bacon into a delicacy
corned beef in her hands is a discovery and her sauces are such that a bit of roast rhinoceros hide tastes like the tenderest of squab when served by her no wonder missus innitt holds her own a woman with a cook like norah sullivan could rule an empire
a moment later i was sorry i had spoken for my words electrified her i must have her cried henriette what missus innitt i asked no her cook said henriette i stood aghast
full of sympathy as i had always been with the projects of missus van raffles and never in the least objecting on moral grounds to any of her schemes of acquisition i could not but think that this time she proposed to go too far
to rob a millionaire of his bonds a national bank of its surplus a philanthropist of a library or a metropolitan boxholder of a diamond stomacher all that seemed reasonable to me and proper according to my way of looking at it
but to rob a neighbor of her cook if there is any worse social crime than that i don't know what it is you'd better think twice on that proposition henriette i advised with a gloomy shake of the head it is not only a mean crime but a dangerous one to boot
missus innitt would never forgive you and society at large society at large would dine with me instead of with missus innitt that's all said henriette i mean to have her before the season's over well i draw the line at stealing a cook said i coldly
but in this missus van raffles you'll have to go it alone oh don't you be afraid bunny she answered i'm not going to use your charms as a bait to lure this culinary phyllis into the arcadia in which you
it's worse than murder for it is prohibited twice in the decalogue while murder is only mentioned once what cried henrietta what pray does the decalogue say about cooks i'd like to know first thou shalt not steal you propose to steal this woman
second thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's maid servant how many times does that make i asked dear me bunny said henriette but you are a little tuppenny puritan aren't you anybody'd know you were the son of a clergyman
well let me tell you i sha'n't steal the woman and i sha'n't covet her i'm just going to get her that's all it was two weeks later that norah sullivan left the employ of missus innitt and was installed in our kitchen
having been discharged by missus innitt the friday before norah's arrival henriette requested me to get her a rusty nail a piece of gravel from the drive two hair pins and a steel nut from the automobile
what on earth i began but she shut me off with an imperious gesture do as i tell you she commanded you are not in on this venture and then apparently she relented but i'm willing to tell you just one thing bunny here her eyes began to twinkle joyously
i'm going to missus innitt's to dinner to morrow night so look out for norah by monday i turned sulkily away you know how i feel on that subject said i this business of going into another person's house as a guest
how would you like it if missus gaster stole me away from you
she was radiant and triumphant i won out bunny i won out she cried
on what grounds several said henriette unfastening her glove
and it nearly choked me to death i tried hard to keep missus innitt from seeing what had happened but she is watchful if not brainy and all my efforts went for naught she was much mortified of course and apologized profusely all went well until the fish
when one of the two hair pins turned up in the pompano to the supreme disgust of my hostess who was now beginning to look worried hair pin number two made its debut in my timbale this was too much for the watchful missus innitt self poised though she always is
and despite my remonstrances she excused herself from the table for a moment and i judge from the flushed appearance of her cheeks when she returned five minutes later that somebody had had the riot act read to her somewhere
i don't understand it at all missus van raffles she said with a sheepish smile cook's perfectly sober if anything of the kind ever happens again she shall go
even as missus innitt spoke i conveyed a luscious morsel of filet mignon with mushrooms to my mouth and nearly broke my tooth on a piece of gravel that went with it and norah was doomed for although we all laughed heartily
that she was very very angry forgive her this time for my sake missus innitt i pleaded
missus innitt burst into a flood of tears and well to morrow bunny norah leaves you will take her this ten dollar bill from me
indeed her mood was most receptive to the furtherance of henriette's plans the ten dollar bill was soothing and indicated that my mistress was a foine woman and surely norah would come round in the evening to ask her aid
it's ruined i am unless somebody'll be good to me and give me a riference which missus innitt bad cess to her
the adventure of missus shadd's musicale henriette was visibly angry the other morning when i took to her the early mail and she discovered that missus van varick shadd had got ahead of her in the matter of jockobinski the monkey virtuoso
society had been very much interested in the reported arrival in america of this wonderfully talented simian
and who as a performer on the piano was vastly the superior of paderewski because taken in his infancy and specially trained for the purpose he could play with his feet and tail as well as with his hands it had been reported by tommy dare the leading newport authority on monkeys
that he had heard him play brahm's variations on paganini with his paws on a piano hiawatha on a xylophone with his feet and home sweet home with his tail on a harp simultaneously in paris a year ago and that alongside of jockobinski
all other musical prodigies of the age became mere strummers
and is the only living creature that i know of who can tackle a whole symphony without the aid of a hired man
and all the wealthy families of newport vied with one another for the privilege of being first to welcome him to our shores not because he was a freak mind you but for art's sweet sake missus gushington andrews offered twenty five hundred dollars for him as a week end guest
and missus gaster immediately went her bid a hundred per cent better henriette in order to outdo every one else promptly put in a bid of ten thousand dollars for a single evening and had supposed the bargain closed when along came missus shadd's cards
announcing that she would be pleased to have missus van raffles at onyx house on friday evening august twenty seventh to meet herr jockobinski the eminent virtuoso it's very annoying said henriette as she opened and read the invitation
i had quite set my heart on having jockobinski here not that i care particularly about the music end of it but because there is nothing that gives a woman so assured a social position as being the hostess of an animal of his particular kind
i confessed to having read something about such an incident in high society well said henriette this would have thrown that little episode wholly in the shade
but it irritates me more than i can say to have her get it just the same heaven knows i was willing to pay for it if i had to abscond with a national bank to get the money it isn't too late is it i queried not too late echoed henriette
not too late with missus shadd's cards out and the whole thing published in the papers it's never too late for a woman of your resources to do anything she has a mind to do said i it seems to me that a person who could swipe a carnegie library the way you did
should have little difficulty in lifting a musicale of course i don't know how you could do it but with your mind well i should be surprised and disappointed if you couldn't devise some plan to accomplish your desires
bunny do you know that at times in spite of your supreme stupidity you are a source of positive inspiration to me she said looking at me fondly i ventured to think i am glad if it is so said i sometimes dear henriette
you will find the most beautiful flowers growing out of the blackest mud perhaps hid in the dull residuum of my poor but honest gray matter lies the seed of real genius that will sprout the loveliest blossoms of achievement well anyhow dear you have started me thinking
and maybe we'll have jockobinski at bolivar lodge yet she murmured i want to have him first of course or not at all to be second in doing a thing of that kind is worse than never doing it at all
and i began to feel that at last henriette had reached the end of her ingenuity though for my own part i could not blame her if she failed to find some plausible way out of her disappointment wednesday night came and consumed by curiosity to learn just how the matter stood
i attempted to sound henriette on the subject i should like friday evening off missus van raffles said i if you are going to missus shadd's musicale you will have no use for me shut up bunny she returned abruptly i shall need you friday night more than ever before
just take this note over to missus shadd this evening and leave it mind you don't wait for an answer but just leave it that's all she arose from the table and handed me a daintily scented missive addressed to missus shadd and i faithfully executed her errand bunderby the shadd's butler
but assuring him that i wasn't aware that an answer was expected i returned to bolivar lodge
which i immediately delivered is bunderby waiting asked henriette as she read the note
tell him to hand this to missus shadd the very first thing upon her return to morrow evening
which by chance she left unsealed so that on my way back below stairs i was able to read it what it said was that she would be only too happy to oblige missus shadd and was very sorry indeed to hear that her son had been injured in an automobile accident
while running into boston from bar harbor it closed with the line you must know my dear pauline that there isn't anything i wouldn't do for you come weal or come woe this i handed to bunderby and he made off on my return henriette was dressed for travel
i must take the first train for new york she said excitedly you will have the music room prepared at once bunny missus shadd's musicale will be given here i am going myself to make all the necessary arrangements at the new york end
i could only reflect that if a successful issue were dependent upon my ignorance i had a plentiful supply of it to fall back on henriette made off at once for providence by motor car and got the midnight train out of boston for the city where from what i learned afterwards
she must have put in a strenuous day on thursday at any rate a great sensation was sprung on newport on friday morning every member of the smart set in the ten o'clock mail received a little engraved card stating that owing to sudden illness in the shadd family
the shadd musicale for that evening would be held at bolivar lodge instead of in the onyx house ballroom friday afternoon jockobinski's private and particular piano arrived at the lodge and was set up promptly in the music room
and later when the caterers arrived with the supper for the four hundred odd guests bidden to the feast all was in readiness for them everything was running smoothly and although henriette had not yet arrived i felt easy and secure of mind until nearing five thirty o'clock
when missus shadd herself drove up to the front door her color was unusually high and had she been any but a lady of the grande monde i should have said that she was flustered she demanded rather than asked to see my mistress
missus van raffles went to new york wednesday evening said i and has not yet returned i am expecting her every minute madame she must be here for the musicale won't you wait
the musicale indeed humph and she plumped herself down in one of the drawing room chairs so hard that it was as much as i could do to keep from showing some very unbutlerian concern for the safety of the furniture i must say i did not envy henriette the meeting that was in prospect
for it was quite evident that missus shadd was mad all through in spite of my stupidity i rather thought i could divine the cause too she was not kept long in waiting for ten minutes later the automobile with henriette in it came thundering up the drive
i tried as i let her in to give her a hint of what awaited her
only however to be forestalled herself oh my dear pauline henriette cried
it is so good of you to come over i'm pretty well fagged out with all the arrangements for the night and i do hope your son is better my son is not ill missus van raffles said missus shadd coldly i have come to ask you what not ill cried henriette interrupting her
why am i giving the musicale to night then instead of you that is precisely what i have come to find out said missus shadd
surely you got my note saying that i would let jockobinski play here to night instead of i did receive a very peculiar note from you saying that you would gladly do as i wished said missus shadd beginning herself to look less angry and more puzzled
in reply to your note of wednesday evening said henriette
it was delivered by your own man blunderby i think his name is about half past seven o'clock it was wednesday yes bunderby did carry a note to you from me on wednesday said missus shadd but
that you might not be able to get back in time for to night's affair and wouldn't i take it over protested missus van raffles vehemently i said missus shadd showing more surprise than was compatible with her high social position and attend to all the details
your very words my dear pauline said henriette with an admirably timed break in her voice and i did and i told you i would i immediately put on my travelling gown motored to providence
went at once to herr jockobinski's agent and arranged the change
drove to tiffany's and had the cards rushed through and mailed to everybody on your list
and attended to the whole thing and now i come back to find it all a er a mistake why pauline it's positively awful what can we do henriette was a perfect picture of despair i don't suppose we can do anything now said missus shadd ruefully
it's too late the cards have gone to everybody you have all the supper not a sandwich has come to my house and i presume all of mister jockobinski's instruments as well have come here henriette turned to me all madame said i briefly well
said missus shadd tapping the floor nervously with her toe i don't understand it i never wrote that note oh but missus shadd i have it here said henriette
you can read it for yourself what else could i do after that innocence on a monument could have appeared no freer of guile than henriette at that moment she handed the note to missus shadd who perused it with growing amazement isn't that your handwriting and your crest and your paper
it certainly looks like it said missus shadd
where could it have come from i supposed it came from onyx house said henriette simply glancing at the envelope well it's a very mysterious affair said missus shadd rising and i oh well my dear woman i
i can't blame you indeed after all you have done i ought to be and really am very much obliged to you only whom did you have at dinner wednesday night dear asked henriette
who asked henriette
ejaculated missus shadd her eyes beginning to twinkle
it wouldn't be unlike him would it not a bit the naughty boy cried missus shadd that's it missus van raffles as certainly as we stand here suppose just to worry him we never let on that anything out of the ordinary has happened eh
splendid said henriette with enthusiasm
and best of all never even mention it to him or to bunderby his confederate neither of us eh
that's the best way out of it if we did we'd be the laughing stock of all newport
and so it was agreed and henriette successfully landed missus shadd's musicale incidentally jockobinski was very affable and the function went off well
everybody was there and no one would for a moment have thought that there was anything strange in the transfer of the scene from onyx house to bolivar lodge who wrote that letter henriette i asked late in the evening when the last guest had gone who do you suppose bunny my boy
she asked with a grin bunderby no said i you've guessed right said henriette as a postscript let me say that until he reads this i don't believe tommy dare ever guessed what a successful joke he perpetrated upon missus shadd and the fair henriette
the forest trees in general for the use of the ever increasing number of yosemite visitors who make extensive excursions into the mountains beyond the valley a sketch of the forest trees in general will probably be found useful
the different species are arranged in zones and sections which brings the forest as a whole within the comprehension of every observer these species are always found as controlled by the climates of different elevations
by soil and by the comparative strength of each species in taking and holding possession of the ground and so appreciable are these relations the traveler need never be at a loss in determining within a few hundred feet his elevation above sea level by the trees alone
for notwithstanding some of the species range upward for several thousand feet and all pass one another more or less yet even those species possessing the greatest vertical range are available in measuring the elevation
the trees grow so far apart that not one twentieth of the surface of the ground is in shade at noon after advancing fifteen or twenty miles towards yosemite and making an ascent of from two to three thousand feet
which sweep up to the feet of the summit peaks in a dwarfed fringe to a height of from ten to twelve thousand feet that this general order of distribution depends on climate as affected by height above the sea is seen at once
but there are other harmonies that become manifest only after observation and study one of the most interesting of these is the arrangement of the forest in long curving bands braided together into lace like patterns in some places
and out spread in charming variety the key to these striking arrangements is the system of ancient glaciers where they flowed the trees followed tracing their courses along the sides of canyons over ridges and high plateaus
the cedar of lebanon said sir joseph hooker occurs upon one of the moraines of an ancient glacier all the forests of the sierra are growing upon moraines
but moraines vanish like the glaciers that make them every storm that falls upon them wastes them carrying away their decaying disintegrating material into new formations until they are no longer recognizable
without tracing their transitional forms down the range from those still in process of formation in some places through those that are more and more ancient and more obscured by vegetation and all kinds of post glacial weathering it appears therefore
that the sierra forests indicate the extent and positions of ancient moraines as well as they do belts of climate one will have no difficulty in knowing the nut pine pinus sabiniana
its lower about from five hundred to eight hundred feet it is remarkable for its loose airy wide branching habit and thin gray foliage full grown specimens are from forty to fifty feet in height
their slender grayish needles are from eight to twelve inches long and inclined to droop contrasting with the rigid dark colored trunk and branches no other tree of my acquaintance so substantial in its body
nevertheless the little douglas squirrel can open them indians climb the trees like bears and beat off the cones or recklessly cut off the more fruitful branches with hatchets while the squaws gather and roast them until the scales open sufficiently
to allow the hard shell seeds to be beaten out the curious little pinus attenuata is found at an elevation of from fifteen hundred to three thousand feet growing in close groves and belts
it is exceedingly slender and graceful although trees that chance to stand alone send out very long curved branches making a striking contrast to the ordinary grove form
the foliage is of the same peculiar gray green color as that of the nut pine and is worn about as loosely so that the body of the tree is scarcely obscured by it
at the age of seven or eight years it begins to bear cones in whorls on the main axis and as they never fall off the trunk is soon picturesquely dotted with them branches also soon become fruitful
the average size of the tree is about thirty or forty feet in height and twelve to fourteen inches in diameter the cones are about four inches long and covered with a sort of varnish and gum rendering them impervious to moisture
after a running fire has scorched and killed it the cones open and the ground beneath it is then sown broadcast with all the seeds ripened during its whole life
of all the world's eighty or ninety species of pine trees the sugar pine pinus lambertiana is king surpassing all others not merely in size but in lordly beauty and majesty
in the yosemite region it grows at an elevation of from three thousand to seven thousand feet above the sea and attains most perfect development at a height of about five thousand feet the largest specimens are commonly about two hundred twenty feet high
and from six to eight feet in diameter four feet from the ground though some grand old patriarch may be met here and there that has enjoyed six or eight centuries of storms and attained a thickness of ten or even twelve feet
still sweet and fresh in every fiber the trunk is a remarkably smooth round delicately tapered shaft straight and regular as if turned in a lathe mostly without limbs
purplish brown in color and usually enlivened with tufts of a yellow lichen toward the head of this magnificent column long branches sweep gracefully outward and downward sometimes forming a palm like crown
how well they sing in the wind and how strikingly harmonious an effect is made by the long cylindrical cones depending loosely from the ends of the long branches the cones are about fifteen to eighteen inches long and three in diameter
green shaded with dark purple on their sunward sides they are ripe in september and october of the second year from the flower
and continue effectively beautiful even on the ground many years after they fall the wood is deliciously fragrant fine in grain and texture and creamy yellow as if formed of condensed sunbeams
the sugar from which the common name is derived is i think the best of sweets it exudes from the heart wood where wounds have been made by forest fires or the ax and forms irregular crisp
candy like kernels of considerable size something like clusters of resin beads when fresh it is white but because most of the wounds on which it is found have been made by fire
the sap is stained and the hardened sugar becomes brown indians are fond of it but on account of its laxative properties only small quantities may be eaten
no tree lover will ever forget his first meeting with the sugar pine in most pine trees there is the sameness of expression which to most people is apt to become monotonous
no two are alike and though they toss out their immense arms in what might seem extravagant gestures they never lose their expression of serene majesty
they are the priests of pines and seem ever to be addressing the surrounding forest the yellow pine is found growing with them on warm hillsides and the silver fir on cool northern slopes but
noble as these are the sugar pine is easily king and spreads his arms above them in blessing while they rock and wave in sign of recognition the main branches are sometimes forty feet long yet persistently simple
seldom dividing at all excepting near the end but anything like a bare cable appearance is prevented by the small tasseled branchlets that extend all around them and when these superb limbs sweep out symmetrically on all sides
a crown sixty or seventy feet wide is formed which gracefully poised on the summit of the noble shaft is a glorious object commonly however there is a preponderance of limbs toward the east
away from the direction of the prevailing winds although so unconventional when full grown the sugar pine is a remarkably proper tree in youth a strict follower of coniferous fashions
slim erect with leafy branches kept exactly in place each tapering in outline and terminating in a spiry point the successive forms between the cautious neatness of youth and the bold freedom of maturity
offer a delightful study at the age of fifty or sixty years the shy fashionable form begins to be broken up
its most constant companion is the yellow pine
the douglas spruce libocedrus sequoia and the silver fir are also more or less associated with it but on many deep soiled mountain sides at an elevation of about five thousand feet above the sea
it forms the bulk of the forest filling every swell and hollow and down plunging ravine the majestic crowns approaching each other in bold curves make a glorious canopy through which the tempered sunbeams pour
silvering the needles and gilding the massive boles and the flowery park like ground into a scene of enchantment on the most sunny slopes the white flowered fragrant chamaebatia is spread like a carpet
brightened during early summer with the crimson sarcodes the wild rose
but not so densely as to prevent the traveler from sauntering where he will
these parisians came
every one has seen such faces four specimens of humanity taken at random neither good nor bad neither wise nor ignorant neither geniuses nor fools handsome with that charming april which is called twenty years
they were four oscars for at that epoch arthurs did not yet exist
oscar advances oscar i shall behold him
elegance was scandinavian and caledonian the pure english style was only to prevail later and the first of the arthurs wellington had but just won the battle of waterloo
the last blachevelle of montauban naturally each of them had his mistress blachevelle loved favourite so named because she had been in england
who had taken for her nickname the name of a flower
somewhat disturbed by intrigues but still retaining on their faces something of the serenity of toil and in their souls that flower of honesty which survives the first fall in woman one of the four was called the young because she was the youngest of them
and one was called the old the old one was twenty three not to conceal anything the three first were more experienced more heedless and more emancipated into the tumult of life than fantine the blonde
who was still in her first illusions dahlia zephine and especially favourite could not have said as much there had already been more than one episode in their romance though hardly begun
had turned out to be alphonse in the second and gustave in the third poverty and coquetry are two fatal counsellors one scolds and the other flatters and the beautiful daughters of the people have both of them whispering in their ear
each on its own side these badly guarded souls listen hence the falls which they accomplish and the stones which are thrown at them they are overwhelmed with splendor of all that is immaculate and inaccessible alas
what if the jungfrau were hungry favourite having been in england
she had had an establishment of her own very early in life her father was an old unmarried professor of mathematics a brutal man and a braggart who went out to give lessons in spite of his age this professor when he was a young man
had one day seen a chambermaid's gown catch on a fender he had fallen in love in consequence of this accident
then the old woman opened the sideboard and ate and drank had a mattress which she owned brought in and installed herself
remained hours without uttering a word breakfasted dined and supped for four and went down to the porter's quarters for company where she spoke ill of her daughter
to others perhaps to idleness how could she make such nails work she who wishes to remain virtuous must not have pity on her hands
after making all due allowances for these little irregular households
while fantine was a good girl good some one will exclaim
solomon would reply that love forms a part of wisdom we will confine ourselves to saying that the love of fantine was a first love a sole love a faithful love she alone of all the four
was not called thou by a single one of them fantine was one of those beings who blossom so to speak from the dregs of the people though she had emerged from the most unfathomable depths of social shadow
she bore on her brow the sign of the anonymous and the unknown
who can say she had never known father or mother she was called fantine why fantine she had never borne any other name at the epoch of her birth the directory still existed she had no family name
she had no family no baptismal name the church no longer existed she bore the name which pleased the first random passer by who had encountered her when a very small child running bare legged in the street
she received the name as she received the water from the clouds upon her brow when it rained she was called little fantine no one knew more than that this human creature had entered life in just this way
at the age of ten fantine quitted the town and went to service with some farmers in the neighborhood at fifteen she came to paris to seek her fortune fantine was beautiful and remained pure as long as she could she was a lovely blonde with fine teeth
she had gold and pearls for her dowry but her gold was on her head and her pearls were in her mouth she worked for her living then still for the sake of her living for the heart also has its hunger she loved
an amour for him passion for her the streets of the latin quarter filled with throngs of students and grisettes saw the beginning of their dream
it was he who possessed the wit
he was rich he had an income of four thousand francs four thousand francs
he was wrinkled and toothless and he had the beginning of a bald spot of which he himself said with sadness the skull at thirty the knee at forty his digestion was mediocre and he had been attacked by a watering in one eye
he was dilapidated but still in flower his youth which was packing up for departure long before its time beat a retreat in good order bursting with laughter and no one saw anything but fire
he had had a piece rejected at the vaudeville he made a few verses now and then in addition to this he doubted everything to the last degree which is a vast force in the eyes of the weak being thus ironical and bald
he was the leader iron is an english word is it possible that irony is derived from it
fantine dahlia zephine and favourite have been teasing us for nearly a year to give them a surprise
they are forever talking about it to us to me in particular just as the old women in naples cry to saint januarius faccia gialluta fa o miracolo yellow face perform thy miracle so our beauties say to me incessantly
at the same time our parents keep writing to us pressure on both sides the moment has arrived it seems to me let us discuss the question
that a vast and enthusiastic grin broke out upon the four mouths simultaneously and blachevelle exclaimed that is an idea
birthdays monday for health tuesday for wealth wednesday best of all thursday for crosses friday for losses saturday no luck at all the lines refer to the days of the week as birthdays
monday's child is fair of face tuesday's child is full of grace wednesday's child is merry and glad thursday's child is sorry and sad friday's child is loving and giving
saturday's child must work for its living while the child that is born on the sabbath day is blithe and bonny and good and gay short grammar
three little words you often see are articles a an and the a noun's the name of any thing as school or garden hoop or swing adjectives tell the kind of noun
as great small pretty white or brown instead of nouns the pronouns stand his head her face your arm my hand verbs tell something to be done to read
how things are done the adverbs tell as slowly quickly ill or well conjunctions join the words together as men and women wind or weather the preposition stands before the noun as in or through the door
the interjection shows surprise as oh how pretty ah how wise the whole are called nine parts of speech which reading writing speaking teach to tell the age of horses
to tell the age of any horse inspect the lower jaw of course the six front teeth the tale will tell and every doubt and fear dispel two middle nippers you behold before the colt is two weeks old
before eight weeks will two more come eight months the corners cut the gum the outside grooves will disappear from middle two in just one year in two years from the second pair
in three the corners too are bare at two the middle nippers drop at three the second pair can't stop when four years old the third pair goes at five a full new set he shows
the deep black spots will pass from view at six years from the middle two the second pair at seven years at eight the spot each corner clears from middle nippers upper jaw
at nine the black spots will withdraw the second pair at ten are white eleven finds the corners light as time goes on the horsemen know the oval teeth three sided grow
they longer get project before till twenty when we know no more bees a swarm of bees in may is worth a load of hay a swarm of bees in june is worth a silver spoon
a swarm of bees in july is not worth a fly the cuckoo may sings all the day june changes his tune july prepares to fly
august go he must rules for riding keep up your head and your heart your hands and your heels keep down
and your elbows close to your own happiness defined wanting nothing and knowing it the mental sunshine of content
the prize at the top of a greasy pole which is continually slipping from one's grasp the only thing a man continues to search for after he has found it the bull's eye on the target at which all the human race are shooting
the goal erected for the human race which few reach being too heavily handicapped a wayside flower growing only by the path of duty a bright and beautiful butterfly
which many chase but few can take the interest we receive from capital invested in good works the birthright of contentment a treasure which we search for far and wide
the stars though appearing small to us because of their immense distance are in reality great and shining suns if we were to escape from the earth into space the moon jupiter saturn and eventually the sun
would become invisible mizar the middle star in the tail of the great bear is forty times as heavy as the sun to the naked eye there are five or six thousand of these heavenly bodies visible
in eight minutes a message would get to the sun and allowing for a couple of minutes delay one could send a message to the sun and get an answer all within twenty minutes but to reach alpha centauri it would take three years
and as this is the nearest of the stars what time must it take to get to the others if when wellington won the battle of waterloo in eighteen fifteen the news had been telegraphed off immediately there are some stars so remote
that it would not yet have reached them to go a step further if in ten sixty six the result of the norman conquest had been wired to some of these stars the message would still be on its way
senator vest's eulogy on the dog gentlemen of the jury the best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy
his son and daughter that he has reared with loving care may become ungrateful those who are nearest and dearest to us those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name may become traitors to their faith
the money that a man has he may lose it flies away from him when he may need it most man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill considered action
the people who are prone to fall on their knees and do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our head
the one absolutely unselfish friend a man may have in this selfish world the one that never deserts him the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is the dog gentlemen of the jury
a man's dog stands by him in prosperity and poverty in health and in sickness he will sleep on the cold ground when the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely if only he may be near his master's side
he will kiss the hand that has no food to offer he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world he guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince
when all other friends desert he remains when riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens
if fortune drives the master forth an outcast into the world friendless and homeless the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him to guard him against danger to fight against his enemies
and when the last scene of all comes and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground
the coral realm the next day i woke up with my head unusually clear much to my surprise i was in my stateroom
no doubt my companions had been put back in their cabin without noticing it any more than i had like me they would have no idea what took place during the night and to unravel this mystery
i then considered leaving my stateroom was i free or still a prisoner perfectly free i opened my door headed down the gangways and climbed the central companionway
hatches that had been closed the day before were now open i arrived on the platform ned land and conseil were there waiting for me i questioned them they knew nothing lost in a heavy sleep of which they had no memory
they were quite startled to be back in their cabin as for the nautilus it seemed as tranquil and mysterious as ever it was cruising on the surface of the waves at a moderate speed nothing seemed to have changed on board
ned land observed the sea with his penetrating eyes it was deserted the canadian sighted nothing new on the horizon neither sail nor shore a breeze was blowing noisily from the west
and disheveled by the wind long billows made the submersible roll very noticeably after renewing its air the nautilus stayed at an average depth of fifteen meters enabling it to return quickly to the surface of the waves
and contrary to custom it executed such a maneuver several times during that day of january nineteenth the chief officer would then climb onto the platform and his usual phrase would ring through the ship's interior
who served me with his usual mute efficiency near two o'clock i was busy organizing my notes in the lounge when the captain opened the door and appeared i bowed to him he gave me an almost imperceptible bow in return without saying a word to me
i resumed my work hoping he might give me some explanation of the previous afternoon's events he did nothing of the sort i stared at him his face looked exhausted his reddened eyes hadn't been refreshed by sleep
his facial features expressed profound sadness real chagrin he walked up and down sat and stood picked up a book at random discarded it immediately consulted his instruments without taking his customary notes
and seemed unable to rest easy for an instant finally he came over to me and said are you a physician professor aronnax this inquiry was so unexpected that i stared at him a good while without replying
several of your scientific colleagues took their degrees in medicine
moquin tandon and others that's right i said i am a doctor i used to be on call at the hospitals i was in practice for several years before joining the museum excellent sir
my reply obviously pleased captain nemo but not knowing what he was driving at i waited for further questions
professor aronnax the captain said to me would you consent to give your medical attentions to one of my men someone is sick yes i'm ready to go with you come
i admit that my heart was pounding lord knows why but i saw a definite connection between this sick crewman and yesterday's happenings
captain nemo led me to the nautilus's stern and invited me into a cabin located next to the sailors quarters on a bed there lay a man some forty years old with strongly molded features the very image of an anglo saxon
i bent over him not only was he sick he was wounded swathed in blood soaked linen his head was resting on a folded pillow i undid the linen bandages while the wounded man gazed with great staring eyes
and let me proceed without making a single complaint it was a horrible wound the cranium had been smashed open by some blunt instrument leaving the naked brains exposed and the cerebral matter had suffered deep abrasions
blood clots had formed in this dissolving mass taking on the color of wine dregs both contusion and concussion of the brain had occurred the sick man's breathing was labored and muscle spasms quivered in his face
cerebral inflammation was complete and had brought on a paralysis of movement and sensation i took the wounded man's pulse it was intermittent
after dressing the poor man's wound i redid the linen bandages around his head and i turned to captain nemo how did he get this wound i asked him that's not important the captain replied evasively
the nautilus suffered a collision that cracked one of the engine levers and it struck this man my chief officer was standing beside him this man leaped forward to intercept the blow a brother lays down his life for his brother a friend for his friend
what could be simpler that's the law for everyone on board the nautilus but what's your diagnosis of his condition i hesitated to speak my mind you may talk freely the captain told me this man doesn't understand french
i took a last look at the wounded man then i replied this man will be dead in two hours nothing can save him nothing
and tears slid from his eyes which i had thought incapable of weeping for a few moments more i observed the dying man whose life was ebbing little by little he grew still more pale under the electric light that bathed his deathbed
i looked at his intelligent head furrowed with premature wrinkles that misfortune perhaps misery had etched long before i was hoping to detect the secret of his life in the last words that might escape from his lips
you may go professor aronnax captain nemo told me
very moved by this scene all day long i was aquiver with gruesome forebodings that night i slept poorly and between my fitful dreams i thought i heard a distant moaning like a funeral dirge was it a prayer for the dead
murmured in that language i couldn't understand the next morning i climbed on deck captain nemo was already there as soon as he saw me he came over professor he said to me
would it be convenient for you to make an underwater excursion today with my companions i asked if they're agreeable we're yours to command captain then kindly put on your diving suits as for the dead or dying man
he hadn't come into the picture i rejoined ned land and conseil i informed them of captain nemo's proposition conseil was eager to accept and this time the canadian proved perfectly amenable to going with us it was eight o'clock in the morning
by eight thirty we were suited up for this new stroll and equipped with our two devices for lighting and breathing the double door opened
we set foot on the firm seafloor where the nautilus was resting ten meters down a gentle slope gravitated to an uneven bottom whose depth was about fifteen fathoms
this bottom was completely different from the one i had visited during my first excursion under the waters of the pacific ocean here i saw no fine grained sand no underwater prairies not one open sea forest
i immediately recognized the wondrous region in which captain nemo did the honors that day it was the coral realm in the zoophyte branch class alcyonaria one finds the order gorgonaria which contains three groups sea fans
isidian polyps and coral polyps it's in this last that precious coral belongs an unusual substance that at different times has been classified in the mineral vegetable and animal kingdoms medicine to the ancients
jewelry to the moderns it wasn't decisively placed in the animal kingdom until sixteen ninety four by peysonnel of marseilles
these polyps have a unique generating mechanism that reproduces them via the budding process and they have an individual existence while also participating in a communal life hence they embody a sort of natural socialism
i was familiar with the latest research on this bizarre zoophyte which turns to stone while taking on a tree form as some naturalists have very aptly observed
than to visit one of these petrified forests that nature has planted on the bottom of the sea we turned on our ruhmkorff devices and went along a coral shoal in the process of forming which given time will someday close off this whole part of the indian ocean
our path was bordered by hopelessly tangled bushes formed from snarls of shrubs all covered with little star shaped white streaked flowers only contrary to plants on shore these tree forms become attached to rocks on the seafloor by heading from top to bottom
our lights produced a thousand delightful effects while playing over these brightly colored boughs i fancied i saw these cylindrical membrane filled tubes trembling beneath the water's undulations i was tempted to gather their fresh petals
which were adorned with delicate tentacles some newly in bloom others barely opened while nimble fish with fluttering fins brushed past them like flocks of birds but if my hands came near the moving flowers of these sensitive lively creatures
an alarm would instantly sound throughout the colony the white petals retracted into their red sheaths the flowers vanished before my eyes and the bush changed into a chunk of stony nipples
sheer chance had placed me in the presence of the most valuable specimens of this zoophyte this coral was the equal of those fished up from the mediterranean off the barbary coast or the shores of france and italy
with its bright colors it lived up to those poetic names of blood flower and blood foam that the industry confers on its finest exhibits coral sells for as much as five hundred francs per kilogram and in this locality
the liquid strata hid enough to make the fortunes of a whole host of coral fishermen this valuable substance often merges with other polyparies forming compact hopelessly tangled units known as macciota
and i noted some wonderful pink samples of this coral but as the bushes shrank the tree forms magnified
the light from our glass coils produced magical effects at times lingering on the wrinkled roughness of some natural arch or some overhang suspended like a chandelier which our lamps flecked with fiery sparks
amid these shrubs of precious coral i observed other polyps no less unusual melita coral rainbow coral with jointed outgrowths then a few tufts of genus corallina some green and others red
actually a type of seaweed encrusted with limestone salts which after long disputes naturalists have finally placed in the vegetable kingdom but as one intellectual has remarked here perhaps is the actual point
where life rises humbly out of slumbering stone but without breaking away from its crude starting point finally after two hours of walking we reached a depth of about three hundred meters in other words
but here it was no longer some isolated bush or a modest grove of low timber it was an immense forest huge mineral vegetation enormous petrified trees linked by garlands of elegant hydras from the genus plumularia
those tropical creepers of the sea all decked out in shades and gleams we passed freely under their lofty boughs lost up in the shadows of the waves while at our feet organ pipe coral stony coral star coral fungus coral
and sea anemone from the genus caryophylia formed a carpet of flowers all strewn with dazzling gems what an indescribable sight oh if only we could share our feelings
why were we imprisoned behind these masks of metal and glass why were we forbidden to talk with each other at least let us lead the lives of the fish that populate this liquid element or better yet the lives of amphibians
which can spend long hours either at sea or on shore traveling through their double domain as their whims dictate meanwhile captain nemo had called a halt my companions and i stopped walking
and turning around i saw the crewmen form a semicircle around their leader looking with greater care i observed that four of them were carrying on their shoulders an object that was oblong in shape
at this locality we stood in the center of a huge clearing surrounded by the tall tree forms of this underwater forest our lamps cast a sort of brilliant twilight over the area making inordinately long shadows on the seafloor
past the boundaries of the clearing the darkness deepened again relieved only by little sparkles given off by the sharp crests of coral ned land and conseil stood next to me
we stared and it dawned on me that i was about to witness a strange scene observing the seafloor i saw that it swelled at certain points from low bulges that were encrusted with limestone deposits
and arranged with a symmetry that betrayed the hand of man in the middle of the clearing on a pedestal of roughly piled rocks there stood a cross of coral extending long arms you would have thought were made of petrified blood
one of his men stepped forward and a few feet from this cross detached a mattock from his belt and began to dig a hole i finally understood this clearing was a cemetery this hole a grave
that oblong object the body of the man who must have died during the night
no my mind was reeling as never before never had ideas of such impact raced through my brain i didn't want to see what my eyes saw meanwhile the grave digging went slowly
fish fled here and there as their retreat was disturbed i heard the pick ringing on the limestone soil its iron tip sometimes giving off sparks when it hit a stray piece of flint on the sea bottom the hole grew longer wider and soon
was deep enough to receive the body then the pallbearers approached wrapped in white fabric made from filaments of the fan mussel the body was lowered into its watery grave
captain nemo arms crossed over his chest knelt in a posture of prayer as did all the friends of him who had loved them my two companions and i bowed reverently
the grave was then covered over with the rubble dug from the seafloor and it formed a low mound when this was done
then they all approached the grave sank again on bended knee and extended their hands in a sign of final farewell then the funeral party went back up the path to the nautilus returning beneath the arches of the forest
through the thickets along the coral bushes going steadily higher finally the ship's rays appeared their luminous trail guided us to the nautilus by one o'clock we had returned
after changing clothes i climbed onto the platform and in the grip of dreadfully obsessive thoughts i sat next to the beacon
i stood up and said to him so as i predicted that man died during the night yes professor aronnax captain nemo replied and now he rests beside his companions in that coral cemetery yes
forgotten by the world but not by us we dig the graves then entrust the polyps with sealing away our dead for eternity and with a sudden gesture the captain hid his face in his clenched fists vainly trying to hold back a sob
then he added there lies our peaceful cemetery hundreds of feet beneath the surface of the waves at least captain your dead can sleep serenely there out of the reach of sharks
but telemachus could get no rest all night for thinking of his unhappy father so minerva went close up to him and said telemachus you should not remain so far away from home any longer nor leave your property with such dangerous people in your house
they will eat up everything you have among them and you will have been on a fool's errand
and has been greatly increasing his wedding presents i hope nothing valuable may have been taken from the house in spite of you but you know what women are they always want to do the best they can for the man who marries them
and never give another thought to the children of their first husband nor to their father either when he is dead and done with go home therefore and put everything in charge of the most respectable woman servant that you have until it shall please heaven to send you a wife of your own
let me tell you also of another matter which you had better attend to
and they mean to kill you before you can reach home i do not much think they will succeed it is more likely that some of those who are now eating up your property will find a grave themselves sail night and day and keep your ship well away from the islands
the god who watches over you and protects you will send you a fair wind as soon as you get to ithaca send your ship and men on to the town
he is well disposed towards you stay with him therefore for the night
then she went back to olympus
and let him say good bye to us in the usual way so long as he lives
as he spoke day began to break
said he let me go back now to my own country for i want to get home
if you insist on going i will not detain you i do not like to see a host either too fond of his guest or too rude to him moderation is best in all things and not letting a man go when he wants to do so is as bad as telling him to go if he would like to stay
one should treat a guest well as long as he is in the house and speed him when he wants to leave it wait then till i can get your beautiful presents into your chariot and till you have yourself seen them
i will tell the women to prepare a sufficient dinner for you of what there may be in the house it will be at once more proper and cheaper for you to get your dinner before setting out on such a long journey if moreover you have a fancy for making a tour in hellas or in the peloponnese
i will yoke my horses and will conduct you myself through all our principal cities no one will send us away empty handed every one will give us something a bronze tripod a couple of mules or a gold cup
for when i came away i left my property without protection and fear that while looking for my father i shall come to ruin myself or find that something valuable has been stolen during my absence
when he reached the place where the treasures of his house were kept he selected a double cup
i will now present you with the finest and most precious piece of plate in all my house it is a mixing bowl of pure silver except the rim which is inlaid with gold and it is the work of vulcan
i should like to give it to you with these words he placed the double cup in the hands of telemachus while megapenthes brought the beautiful mixing bowl and set it before him hard by stood lovely helen with the robe ready in her hand
i too my son said she have something for you as a keepsake from the hand of helen it is for your bride to wear upon her wedding day till then get your dear mother to keep it for you
so saying she gave the robe over to him and he received it gladly
and admired them all as he did so
and they both of them sat down to table a maid servant brought them water in a beautiful golden ewer and poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands and she drew a clean table beside them an upper servant brought them bread
and offered them many good things of what there was in the house eteoneus carved the meat and gave them each their portions while megapenthes poured out the wine then they laid their hands upon the good things that were before them
but as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink
and took their places in the chariot they drove out through the inner gateway and under the echoing gatehouse of the outer court
that they might make a drink offering before they set out he stood in front of the horses and pledged them saying farewell to both of you see that you tell nestor how i have treated you
we will be sure sir answered telemachus
i wish i were as certain of finding ulysses returned when i get back to ithaca that i might tell him of the very great kindness you have shown me and of the many beautiful presents i am taking with me
as he was thus speaking a bird flew on his right hand an eagle with a great white goose in its talons which it had carried off from the farm yard and all the men and women were running after it and shouting
it came quite close up to them and flew away on their right hands in front of the horses when they saw it they were glad and their hearts took comfort within them
has heaven sent this omen for us or for you
but helen was too quick for him and said i will read this matter as heaven has put it in my heart and as i doubt not that it will come to pass the eagle came from the mountain where it was bred and has its nest
will return to take his revenge if indeed he is not back already and hatching mischief for the suitors may jove so grant it replied telemachus if it should prove to be so
i will make vows to you as though you were a god even when i am at home as he spoke he lashed his horses and they started off at full speed through the town towards the open country they swayed the yoke upon their necks
and travelled the whole day long till the sun set and darkness was over all the land
where diocles lived who was son of ortilochus the son of alpheus there they passed the night and were treated hospitably when the child of morning rosy fingered dawn appeared they again yoked their horses and their places in the chariot
they drove out through the inner gateway and under the echoing gatehouse of the outer court
i hope you will promise to do what i am going to ask you you know our fathers were old friends before us moreover we are both of an age and this journey has brought us together still more closely
do not therefore take me past my ship but leave me there for if i go to your father's house he will try to keep me in the warmth of his good will towards me and i must go home at once
and in the end he deemed it best to turn his horses towards the ship
then he said go on board at once and tell your men to do so also before i can reach home to tell my father i know how obstinate he is and am sure he will not let you go
he will come down here to fetch you and he will not go back without you but he will be very angry with this he drove his goodly steeds back to the city of the pylians and soon reached his home
but telemachus called the men together and gave his orders now my men said he get everything in order on board the ship and let us set out home thus did he speak and they went on board even as he had said
but as telemachus was thus busied praying also and sacrificing to minerva in the ship's stern there came to him a man from a distant country a seer who was flying from argos because he had killed a man he was descended from melampus
but after making all proper allowances he still appears to have been a weak prince and unfit for government less for want of natural parts and capacity than of solid judgment and a good education
and consequently dangerous in a limited and mixed government had he possessed the talents of gaining and still more those of overawing his great barons he might have escaped all the misfortunes of his reign
but when the grandees were tempted by his want of prudence and of vigor to resist his authority and execute the most violent enterprises upon him he was naturally led to seek an opportunity of retaliation justice was neglected
the lives of the chief nobility were sacrificed and all these enormities seem to have proceeded less from a settled design of establishing arbitrary power than from the insolence of victory and the necessities of the king's situation
or if any difference may be remarked between them we shall find that the authority of the crown being more legal was commonly carried when it prevailed to less desperate extremities than was that of the aristocracy
on comparing the conduct and events of this reign with those of the preceding we shall find equal reason to admire edward and to blame richard but the circumstance of opposition surely will not lie in the strict regard paid by the former to national privileges
and the neglect of them by the latter on the contrary the prince of small abilities as he felt his want of power seems to have been more moderate in this respect than the other
till the assembling of his last parliament which was summoned by his inveterate enemies which dethroned him which framed their complaints during the time of the most furious convultions and whose testimony must therefore have on that account
and to sell some of his prerogatives for present supply but as they were acquainted with his genius and capacity they ventured not to demand any exorbitant concessions or such as were incompatible with regal and sovereign power
edward had no sooner gotten the supply than he departed from the engagements which had induced the parliament to grant it he openly told his people that he had but dissembled with them when he seemed to make them these concessions
it were happy for society did this contrast always depend on the justice or injustice of the measures which men embrace and not rather on the different degrees of prudence and vigor with which those measures are supported
there was a sensible decay of ecclesiastical authority during this period the disgust which the laity had received from the numerous usurpations both of the court of rome and of their own clergy
had very much weaned the kingdom from superstition and strong symptoms appeared from time to time
wickliffe himself as well as his disciples who received the name of wickliffites or lollards was distinguished by a great austerity of life and manners a circumstance common to almost all those who dogmatize in any new way
both because men who draw to them the attention of the public and expose themselves to the odium of great multitudes are obliged to be very guarded in their conduct and because few who have a strong propensity to pleasure or business will enter upon so difficult and laborious an undertaking
he denied the doctrine of the real presence the supremacy of the church of rome the merit of monastic vows he maintained that the scriptures were the sole rule of faith that the church was dependent on the state and should be reformed by it
cited him before his tribunal but the reformer had now acquired powerful protectors who screened him from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction the duke of lancaster who then governed the kingdom encouraged the principles of wickliffe
in order to give him countenance upon his trial he even insisted that wickliffe should sit in the bishop's presence while his principles were examined courteney exclaimed against the insult
the duke of lancaster however still continued his protection to wickliffe during the minority of richard and the principles of that reformer had so far propagated themselves
the university deliberated for some time whether they should receive the bull and they never took any vigorous measures in consequence of the papal orders
affirmed that they had no intention to bind themselves to the prelates further than their ancestors had done before them and required that the pretended statute should be repealed which was done accordingly
most of his followers imitated his cautious disposition and saved themselves either by recantations or explanations he died of a palsy in the year thirteen eighty five at his rectory of lutterworth in the county of leicester
and the clergy mortified that he should have escaped their vengeance took care besides assuring the people of his eternal damnation to represent his last distemper as a visible judgment of heaven upon him for his multiplied heresies and impieties
the parliament in the reign of richard enacted a law against this abuse and the king made a general remonstrance to the court of rome against all those usurpations which he calls horrible excesses of that court
it was usual for the church that they might elude the mortmain act to make their votaries leave lands in trust to certain persons
the french cardinals as soon as they recovered their liberty fled from rome and protesting against the forced election chose robert son of the count of geneva
all the kingdoms of christendom according to their several interests and inclinations were divided between these two pontiffs the court of france adhered to clement and was followed by its allies the king of castile and the king of scotland
england of course was thrown into the other party and declared for urban thus the appellation of clementines and urbanists distracted europe for several years and each party damned the other as schismatics and as rebels to the true vicar of christ
but this circumstance though it weakened the papal authority had not so great an effect as might naturally be imagined though any king could easily at first make his kingdom embrace the party of one pope or the other or even keep it some time in suspense between them
he could not so easily transfer his obedience at pleasure the people attached themselves to their own party as to a religious opinion and conceived an extreme abhorrence to the opposite party whom they regarded as little better than saracens or infidels
crusades were even undertaken in this quarrel and the zealous bishop of norwich in particular led over in thirteen eighty two near sixty thousand bigots into flanders against the clementines
but after losing a great part of his followers he returned with disgrace into england each pope sensible from this prevailing spirit among the people that the kingdom which once embraced his cause would always adhere to him boldly maintained all the pretensions of his see
we meet with this preamble to a law enacted at the very beginning of this reign
as well of esquires as of others in many parts of the realm giving to them hats and other livery of one suit
that no subject could trust to their protection men openly associated themselves under the patronage of some great baron for their mutual defence they wore public badges by which their confederacy was distinguished
hence the large discretionary prerogatives of the crown and the danger which might have ensued from the too great limitation of them if the king had possessed no arbitrary powers while all the nobles assumed and exercised them there must have ensued an absolute anarchy in the state
they enacted that no pardon for rapes or for murder from malice prepense should be valid unless the crime were particularly specified in it
the quality of patron naturally united itself to that of superior
but when by the various divisions and mixtures of property a man's superior came to live at a distance from him and could no longer give him shelter or countenance the tie gradually became more fictitious than real new connections from vicinity or other causes were formed
the appearance of valor spirit abilities in any great man extended his interest very far and if the sovereign were deficient in these qualities he was no less if not more exposed to the usurpations of the aristocracy than even during the vigor of the feudal system
the practice of levying benevolences is also first mentioned in the present reign this prince lived in a more magnificent manner than perhaps any of his predecessors or successors his household consisted of ten thousand persons
and the great change from a sovereign of consummate wisdom and experience to a boy of eleven years of age was not immediately felt by the people
the habits of order and obedience which the barons had been taught during the long reign of edward still influenced them and the authority of the king's three uncles the dukes of lancaster york and glocester sufficed to repress for a time
the turbulent spirit to which that order in a weak reign was so often subject the dangerous ambition too of these princes themselves was checked by the plain and undeniable title of richard by the declaration of it made in parliament
and by the affectionate regard which the people bore to the memory of his father and which was naturally transferred to the young sovereign upon the throne the different characters also of these three princes rendered them a counterpoise to each other
or give any immediate apprehensions to the lovers of their country but as edward though he had fixed the succession to the crown had taken no care to establish a plan of government during the minority of his grandson
naturally received an accession of power during the minority and as it was now becoming a scene of business the members chose for the first time a speaker who might preserve order in their debates and maintain those forms which are requisite in all numerous assembles
peter de la mare was the man pitched on the same person that had been imprisoned and detained in custody by the late king for his freedom of speech in attacking the mistress and the ministers of that prince
but though this election discovered a spirit of liberty in the commons and was followed by further attacks both on these ministers and on alice pearce they were still too sensible of their great inferiority to assume at first any immediate share in the administration of government
or the care of the king's person they were content to apply by petition to the lords for that purpose and desire them both to appoint a council of nine who might direct the public business
the lords complied with the first part of this request and elected the bishops of london carlisle and salisbury
but another part of their application that all the great officers should during the king's minority be appointed by parliament which seemed to require the concurrence of the commons as well as that of the upper house in the nomination was not complied with
of interposing in these more important matters of state on this footing then the government stood the administration was conducted entirely in the king's name no regency was expressly appointed
scotland whose throne was now filled by robert stuart nephew to david bruce and the first prince of that family maintained such close connections with france that war with one crown almost inevitably produced hostilities with the other
and scrupled not with his small army to enter into the heart of france and to continue his ravages through picardy champaigne the brie
the gatinois the orleanois till he reached his allies in the province of brittany the duke of burgundy at the head of a more considerable army came within sight of him
to impose a new and unusual tax of three groats on every person male and female above fifteen years of age and they ordained that in levying that tax the opulent should relieve the poor by an equitable compensation
this imposition produced a mutiny which was singular in its circumstances all history abounds with examples where the great tyrannize over the meaner sort
were the natural effects of this growing spirit of independence and the report of these events being brought into england where personal slavery as we learn from froissard was more general than in any other country in europe
their equal right to liberty and to all the goods of nature the tyranny of artificial distinctions
had doubtless occasioned many partialities and made the people more sensible of the unequal lot which fortune had assigned them in the distribution of her favors the first disorder was raised by a blacksmith in a village of essex
the tax gatherers came to this man's shop while he was at work and they demanded payment for his daughter whom he asserted to be below the age assigned by the statute one of these fellows offered to produce a very indecent proof to the contrary
and at the same time laid hold of the maid which the father resenting immediately knocked out the ruffian's brains with his hammer
they immediately flew to arms the whole neighborhood joined in the sedition
it soon propagated itself into that of kent of hertford surrey sussex suffolk norfolk cambridge and lincoln before the government had the least warning of the danger the disorder had grown beyond control or opposition
the populace had shaken off all regard to their former masters and being headed by the most audacious and criminal of their associates who assumed the feigned names of wat tyler jack straw hob carter and tom miller
by which they were fond of denoting their mean origin they committed every where the most outrageous violence on such of the gentry or nobility as had the misfortune to fall into their hands
they insulted her attendants and some of the most insolent among them to show their purpose of levelling all mankind forced kisses from her but they allowed her to continue her journey without attempting any further injury
cut off the heads of all the gentlemen whom they laid hold of expressed a particular animosity against the lawyers and attorneys and pillaged the warehouses of the rich merchants a great body of them quartered themselves at mile end
freedom of commerce in market towns without toll or impost and a fixed rent on lands instead of the services due by villainage these requests which though extremely reasonable in themselves the nation was not sufficiently prepared to receive
and which it was dangerous to have extorted by violence were however complied with
drew his sword and struck him so violent a blow as brought him to the ground where he was instantly despatched by others of the king's attendants the mutineers seeing their leader fall prepared themselves for revenge
the populace overawed by his presence implicitly followed him he led them into the fields to prevent any disorder which might have arisen by their continuing in the city
soon after the nobility and gentry hearing of the king's danger in which they were all involved flocked to london with their adherents and retainers and richard took the field at the head of an army forty thousand strong
some were even executed without process or form of law it was pretended that the intentions of the mutineers had been to seize the king's person to carry him through england at their head
to murder all the nobility gentry and lawyers and even all the bishops and priests except the mendicant friars to despatch afterwards the king himself and having thus reduced all to a level to order the kingdom at their pleasure
it is not impossible but many of them in the delirium of their first success might have formed such projects but of all the evils incident to human society the insurrections of the populace when not raised and supported by persons of higher quality
and john de vienne admiral of france had been sent over with a body of one thousand five hundred men at arms to support them in their incursions against the english the danger was now deemed by the king's uncles somewhat serious
the scots to the number of thirty thousand men attended by the french entered the borders of england by the west and carrying their ravages through cumberland westmoreland and lancashire collected a rich booty and then returned in tranquillity to their own country
richard meanwhile advanced towards edinburgh and destroyed in his way all the towns and villages on each side of him he reduced that city to ashes he treated in the same manner perth dundee and other places in the low countries
and he led back his army without effecting any thing by all these mighty preparations the scots soon after finding the heavy bodies of french cavalry very useless in that desultory kind of war to which they confined themselves
treated their allies so ill that the french returned home much disgusted with the country and with the manners of its inhabitants and the english though they regretted the indolence and levity of their king
all the nobility of france were engaged in this enterprise the english were kept in alarm great preparations were made for the reception of the invaders and though the dispersion of the french ships by a storm
there were two circumstances chiefly which engaged the french at this time to think of such attempts the one was the absence of the duke of lancaster who had carried into spain the flower of the english military force
the subjection in which richard was held by his uncles particularly by the duke of glocester a prince of ambition and genius
robert de vere earl of oxford a young man of a noble family of an agreeable figure but of dissolute manners had acquired an entire ascendant over him
the king set so little bounds to his affection that he first created his favorite marquis of dublin
fitz alan earl of arundel piercy earl of northumberland montacute earl of salisbury beauchamp earl of warwick were all connected with each other and with the princes by friendship or alliance
and the method which they took to redress the grievance complained of well suited the violence of the age and proves the desperate extremities to which every opposition was sure to be instantly carried
and was esteemed the person of greatest experience and capacity among those who were attached to the duke of ireland and the king's secret council the duke of glocester who had the house of commons at his devotion
a plain intimation of the fate which richard if he continued refractory had reason to expect from them the king finding himself unable to resist was content to stipulate that except finishing the present impeachment against suffolk
in the present plenitude of their power thought proper to object against him it was alleged that being chancellor and obliged by his oath to consult the king's profit he had purchased lands of the crown below their true value
that he had exchanged with the king a perpetual annuity of four hundred marks a year which he inherited from his father and which was assigned upon the customs of the port of hull for lands of an equal income
he had refused to admit this person whose title was not legal till he made a composition with his son and agreed to pay him a hundred pounds a year from the income of the benefice
but they immediately attacked himself and his royal dignity
and which had always been attended with extreme confusion by this commission which was ratified by parliament a council of fourteen persons was appointed
and though the term of the commission was limited it was easy to foresee that the intentions of the party were to render it perpetual and that power would with great difficulty be wrested from those grasping hands to which it was once committed richard however was obliged to submit
he signed the commission which violence had extorted from him he took an oath never to infringe it and though at the end of the session he publicly entered a protest that the prerogatives of the crown notwithstanding his late concession
though vastly rich received at the same time each of them a thousand pounds a year top support their dignity and to seek the means both of recovering his authority and of revenging himself on those who had invaded it
as the house of commons appeared now of weight in the constitution he secretly tried some expedients for procuring a favorable election he sounded some of the sheriffs who being at that time both the returning officers and magistrates of great power in the counties
made no scruple of answering in the way he desired they declared that the late commission was derogatory to the royalty and prerogative of the king that those who procured it or advised the king to consent to it were punishable with death
that those who necessitated and compelled him were guilty of treason that those were equally criminal who should persevere in maintaining it that the king has the right of dissolving parliaments at pleasure
that the parliament while it sits must first proceed upon the king's business and that this assembly cannot without his consent impeach any of his ministers and judges even according to our present strict maxims with regard to law and the royal prerogative
and as the great privileges of the commons particularly that of impeachment
the duke of glocester the king's uncle the earl of derby son of the duke of lancaster the earl of arundel the earl of warwick and the earl of nottingham
entered before the parliament an accusation or appeal as it was called
as soon as he came to london which they knew was well disposed to their party they secretly assembled their forces and appeared in arms at haringay park near highgate with a power which richard and his ministers were not able to resist
and demanded that the persons who had seduced him by their pernicious counsel and were traitors both to him and to the kingdom should be delivered up to them a few days after they appeared in his presence armed and attended with armed followers
they threw down their gauntlets before the king and fiercely offered to maintain the truth of their charge by duel the persons accused and all the other obnoxious ministers had withdrawn or had concealed themselves
glocester encountered him in oxfordshire with much superior forces routed him dispersed his followers and obliged him to fly into the low countries where he died in exile a few years after
the rest were cited to appear and upon their absenting themselves the house of peers after a very short interval without hearing a witness without examining a fact or deliberating on one point of law declared them guilty of high treason
many of the articles will appear not only to imply no crime in the duke of ireland and the ministers but to ascribe to them actions which were laudable and which they were bound by their allegiance to perform
the few articles impeaching the conduct of these ministers before that commission which subverted the constitution and annihilated all justice and legal authority are vague and general such as their engrossing the king's favor
no breach of any statute and their administration may therefore be concluded to have been so far innocent and inoffensive all the disorders indeed seem to have proceeded not from any violation of the laws or any ministerial tyranny
but merely from a rivalship of power which the duke of glocester and the great nobility agreeably to the genius of the times carried to the utmost extremity against their opponents without any regard to reason justice or humanity
though they pleaded the fear of their lives and the menaces of the king's ministers as their excuse lord beauchamp of holt sir james berners and john salisbury were also tried and condemned for high treason merely because they had attempted to defeat the late commission
but the life of the latter was spared the fate of sir simon burley was more severe
and had been appointed governor to richard by the choice of the late king and of the black prince he had attended his master from the earliest infancy of that prince
she remained three hours on her knees before the duke of glocester pleading for that gentleman's life
that they themselves were bound in their judicial capacity to follow the rules which they in conjunction with the king and commons
and never would recover the royal power without the most violent struggles and convulsions but the event proved contrary in less than a twelvemonth richard who was in his twenty third year
and when no one ventured to contradict so reasonable an intention he deprived fitz alan archbishop of canterbury of the dignity of chancellor and bestowed that high office on william of wickham bishop of winchester
the bishop of hereford was displaced from the office of treasurer the earl of arundel from that of admiral even the duke of glocester and the earl of warwick were removed for a time from the council and no opposition was made to these great changes
however this may be richard exercised with moderation the authority which he had resumed he seemed to be entirely reconciled to his uncles and the other great men of whom he had so much reason to complain
he never attempted to recall from banishment the duke of ireland whom he found so obnoxious to them he confirmed by proclamation the general pardon which the parliament had passed for all offences
that knowledge was very present to her as she went to her cousin's hotel the day after she had invited lord warburton to give a tangible proof of his sincerity and at this moment as at others she had a sufficient perception of the sources of osmond's opposition
he wished her to have no freedom of mind and he knew perfectly well that ralph was an apostle of freedom it was just because he was this isabel said to herself that it was a refreshment to go and see him
it will be perceived that she partook of this refreshment in spite of her husband's aversion to it that is partook of it as she flattered herself discreetly she had not as yet undertaken to act in direct opposition to his wishes
he was her appointed and inscribed master she gazed at moments with a sort of incredulous blankness at this fact it weighed upon her imagination however constantly present to her mind were all the traditionary decencies and sanctities of marriage
the idea of violating them filled her with shame as well as with dread for on giving herself away she had lost sight of this contingency in the perfect belief that her husband's intentions were as generous as her own
such a ceremony would be odious and monstrous she tried to shut her eyes to it meanwhile osmond would do nothing to help it by beginning first he would put that burden upon her to the end he had not yet formally forbidden her to call upon ralph
but she felt sure that unless ralph should very soon depart this prohibition would come how could poor ralph depart the weather as yet made it impossible she could perfectly understand her husband's wish for the event she didn't to be just
see how he could like her to be with her cousin ralph never said a word against him but osmond's sore mute protest was none the less founded if he should positively interpose if he should put forth his authority she would have to decide
and that wouldn't be easy the prospect made her heart beat and her cheeks burn as i say in advance there were moments when in her wish to avoid an open rupture she found herself wishing ralph would start even at a risk
and it was of no use that when catching herself in this state of mind she called herself a feeble spirit a coward it was not that she loved ralph less but that almost anything seemed preferable to repudiating the most serious act
the single sacred act of her life that appeared to make the whole future hideous to break with osmond once would be to break for ever any open acknowledgement of irreconcilable needs would be an admission that their whole attempt had proved a failure
for them there could be no condonement no compromise no easy forgetfulness no formal readjustment they had attempted only one thing but that one thing was to have been exquisite
once they missed it nothing else would do there was no conceivable substitute for that success for the moment
as often as she thought well the measure of propriety was in the canon of taste and there couldn't have been a better proof that morality was so to speak a matter of earnest appreciation
isabel's application of that measure had been particularly free to day for in addition to the general truth that she couldn't leave ralph to die alone she had something important to ask of him this indeed was gilbert's business as well as her own
she came very soon to what she wished to speak of i want you to answer me a question it's about lord warburton i think i guess your question ralph answered from his arm chair out of which his thin legs protruded at greater length than ever
very possibly you guess it please then answer it oh i don't say i can do that you're intimate with him she said you've a great deal of observation of him very true but think how he must dissimulate
why should he dissimulate that's not his nature
said ralph with an air of private amusement to a certain extent yes but is he really in love very much i think i can make that out ah said isabel with a certain dryness
ralph looked at her as if his mild hilarity had been touched with mystification you say that as if you were disappointed isabel got up slowly smoothing her gloves and eyeing them thoughtfully it's after all no business of mine
you're very philosophic said her cousin and then in a moment may i enquire what you're talking about isabel stared i thought you knew lord warburton tells me he wants of all things in the world to marry pansy
i've told you that before without eliciting a comment from you you might risk one this morning i think is it your belief that he really cares for her ah for pansy no cried ralph very positively but you said just now he did
ralph waited a moment that he cared for you missus osmond isabel shook her head gravely that's nonsense you know of course it is but the nonsense is warburton's not mine
that would be very tiresome she spoke as she flattered herself with much subtlety i ought to tell you indeed ralph went on that to me he has denied it it's very good of you to talk about it together has he also told you that he's in love with pansy
he has spoken very well of her very properly
really think it ah what warburton really thinks said ralph isabel fell to smoothing her gloves again they were long loose gloves on which she could freely expend herself
she cried abruptly and passionately it was the first time she had alluded to the need for help and the words shook her cousin with their violence he gave a long murmur of relief of pity of tenderness
it seemed to him that at last the gulf between them had been bridged it was this that made him exclaim in a moment how unhappy you must be he had no sooner spoken than she recovered her self possession
and the first use she made of it was to pretend she had not heard him when i talk of your helping me i talk great nonsense she said with a quick smile the idea of my troubling you with my domestic embarrassments the matter's very simple
lord warburton must get on by himself i can't undertake to see him through he ought to succeed easily said ralph isabel debated yes but he has not always succeeded very true
you know however how that always surprised me is miss osmond capable of giving us a surprise it will come from him rather i seem to see that after all he'll let the matter drop he'll do nothing dishonourable said ralph
i'm very sure of that nothing can be more honourable than for him to leave the poor child alone she cares for another person and it's cruel to attempt to bribe her by magnificent offers to give him up
cruel to the other person perhaps the one she cares for but warburton isn't obliged to mind that no cruel to her said isabel she would be very unhappy if she were to allow herself to be persuaded to desert poor mister rosier
he has the merit for pansy of being in love with pansy she can see at a glance that lord warburton isn't he'd be very good to her said ralph he has been good to her already
fortunately however he has not said a word to disturb her he could come and bid her good bye to morrow with perfect propriety how would your husband like that not at all and he may be right in not liking it
only he must obtain satisfaction himself has he commissioned you to obtain it ralph ventured to ask it was natural that as an old friend of lord warburton's an older friend that is than gilbert i should take an interest in his intentions
take an interest in his renouncing them you mean isabel hesitated frowning a little let me understand are you pleading his cause not in the least i'm very glad he shouldn't become your stepdaughter's husband
it makes such a very queer relation to you said ralph smiling but i'm rather nervous lest your husband should think you haven't pushed him enough isabel found herself able to smile as well as he
he knows me well enough not to have expected me to push he himself has no intention of pushing i presume i'm not afraid i shall not be able to justify myself she said lightly her mask had dropped for an instant
but she had put it on again to ralph's infinite disappointment he had caught a glimpse of her natural face and he wished immensely to look into it
hear her say that she should be held accountable for lord warburton's defection ralph was certain that this was her situation he knew by instinct in advance the form that in such an event osmond's displeasure would take
it could only take the meanest and cruellest he would have liked to warn isabel of it to let her see at least how he judged for her and how he knew it little mattered that isabel would know much better
it was for his own satisfaction more than for hers that he longed to show her he was not deceived he tried and tried again to make her betray osmond he felt cold blooded cruel dishonourable almost in doing so
but it scarcely mattered for he only failed what had she come for then and why did she seem almost to offer him a chance to violate their tacit convention why did she ask him his advice if she gave him no liberty to answer her
how could they talk of her domestic embarrassments as it pleased her humorously to designate them if the principal factor was not to be mentioned these contradictions were themselves but an indication of her trouble and her cry for help
just before was the only thing he was bound to consider you'll be decidedly at variance all the same he said in a moment and as she answered nothing looking as if she scarce understood
you'll find yourselves thinking very differently he continued that may easily happen among the most united couples she took up her parasol he saw she was nervous afraid of what he might say
it's a matter we can hardly quarrel about however she added for almost all the interest is on his side that's very natural pansy's after all his daughter not mine
ralph took an inward resolution that she shouldn't leave him without his letting her know that he knew everything it seemed too great an opportunity to lose do you know what his interest will make him say he asked as he took her hand
she shook her head rather dryly not discouragingly and he went on it will make him say that your want of zeal is owing to jealousy he stopped a moment her face made him afraid to jealousy to jealousy of his daughter
she blushed red and threw back her head you're not kind she said in a voice that he had never heard on her lips be frank with me and you'll see he answered but she made no reply she only pulled her hand out of his own
which he tried still to hold and rapidly withdrew from the room she made up her mind to speak to pansy and she took an occasion on the same day going to the girl's room before dinner pansy was already dressed she was always in advance of the time
it seemed to illustrate her pretty patience and the graceful stillness with which she could sit and wait at present she was seated in her fresh array before the bed room fire she had blown out her candles on the completion of her toilet
in accordance with the economical habits in which she had been brought up sand which she was now more careful than ever to observe so that the room was lighted only by a couple of logs the rooms in palazzo roccanera were as spacious as they were numerous
and pansy's virginal bower was an immense chamber with a dark heavily timbered ceiling its diminutive mistress in the midst of it appeared but a speck of humanity and as she got up with quick deference to welcome isabel
isabel had a difficult task the only thing was to perform it as simply as possible she felt bitter and angry but she warned herself against betraying this heat she was afraid even of looking too grave or at least too stern she was afraid of causing alarm
for after she had moved the chair in which she had been sitting a little nearer to the fire and isabel had taken her place in it she kneeled down on a cushion in front of her looking up and resting her clasped hands on her stepmother's knees
what isabel wished to do was to hear from her own lips that her mind was not occupied with lord warburton but if she desired the assurance she felt herself by no means at liberty to provoke it the girl's father would have qualified this as rank treachery
and indeed isabel knew that if pansy should display the smallest germ of a disposition to encourage lord warburton her own duty was to hold her tongue it was difficult to interrogate without appearing to suggest
pansy's supreme simplicity an innocence even more complete than isabel had yet judged it gave to the most tentative enquiry something of the effect of an admonition as she knelt there in the vague firelight with her pretty dress dimly shining
her hands folded half in appeal and half in submission her soft eyes raised and fixed full of the seriousness of the situation she looked to isabel like a childish martyr decked out for sacrifice
and scarcely presuming even to hope to avert it when isabel said to her that she had never yet spoken to her of what might have been going on in relation to her getting married but that her silence had not been indifference or ignorance
had only been the desire to leave her at liberty pansy bent forward raised her face nearer and nearer and with a little murmur which evidently expressed a deep longing answered that she had greatly wished her to speak and that she begged her to advise her now
it's difficult for me to advise you isabel returned i don't know how i can undertake that that's for your father you must get his advice and above all you must act on it at this pansy dropped her eyes
for a moment she said nothing i think i should like your advice better than papa's she presently remarked that's not as it should be said isabel coldly i love you very much but your father loves you better
it isn't because you love me it's because you're a lady pansy answered with the air of saying something very reasonable a lady can advise a young girl better than a man i advise you then to pay the greatest respect to your father's wishes
ah yes said the child eagerly i must do that but if i speak to you now about your getting married it's not for your own sake it's for mine isabel went on if i try to learn from you what you expect what you desire
it's only that i may act accordingly pansy stared and then very quickly will you do everything i want she asked before i say yes i must know what such things are
pansy presently told her that the only thing she wanted in life was to marry mister rosier he had asked her
isabel pronounced yes it's impossible said pansy without a sigh and with the same extreme attention in her clear little face you must think of something else then isabel went on but pansy sighing at this
told her that she had attempted that feat without the least success you think of those who think of you she said with a faint smile i know mister rosier thinks of me he ought not to said isabel loftily
your father has expressly requested he shouldn't he can't help it because he knows i think of him you shouldn't think of him
the girl exclaimed as if she were praying to the madonna i should be very sorry to attempt it said the madonna with unusual frigidity
would you think of him no one can think of me as mister rosier does no one has the right ah but i don't admit mister rosier's right isabel hypocritically cried pansy only gazed at her evidently much puzzled
and isabel taking advantage of it began to represent to her the wretched consequences of disobeying her father at this pansy stopped her with the assurance that she would never disobey him would never marry without his consent
and she announced in the serenest simplest tone that though she might never marry mister rosier she would never cease to think of him she appeared to have accepted the idea of eternal singleness
but isabel of course was free to reflect that she had no conception of its meaning she was perfectly sincere she was prepared to give up her lover this might seem an important step toward taking another
but for pansy evidently it failed to lead in that direction she felt no bitterness toward her father there was no bitterness in her heart there was only the sweetness of fidelity to edward rosier
and a strange exquisite intimation that she could prove it better by remaining single than even by marrying him your father would like you to make a better marriage said isabel mister rosier's fortune is not at all large
if that would be good enough and i have myself so little money why should i look for a fortune your having so little is a reason for looking for more with which isabel was grateful for the dimness of the room she felt as if her face were hideously insincere
it was what she was doing for osmond it was what one had to do for osmond pansy's solemn eyes fixed on her own almost embarrassed her she was ashamed to think she had made so light of the girl's preference what should you like me to do
her companion softly demanded the question was a terrible one and isabel took refuge in timorous vagueness to remember all the pleasure it's in your power to give your father to marry some one else you mean if he should ask me
for a moment isabel's answer caused itself to be waited for then she heard herself utter it in the stillness that pansy's attention seemed to make yes to marry some one else the child's eyes grew more penetrating
isabel believed she was doubting her sincerity and the impression took force from her slowly getting up from her cushion she stood there a moment with her small hands unclasped and then quavered out well i hope no one will ask me
there has been a question of that some one else would have been ready to ask you i don't think he can have been ready said pansy it would appear so if he had been sure he'd succeed
then he wasn't ready isabel thought this rather sharp she also got up and stood a moment looking into the fire lord warburton has shown you great attention she resumed of course you know it's of him i speak
she found herself against her expectation almost placed in the position of justifying herself which led her to introduce this nobleman more crudely than she had intended he has been very kind to me and i like him very much
but if you mean that he'll propose for me i think you're mistaken perhaps i am but your father would like it extremely pansy shook her head with a little wise smile lord warburton won't propose simply to please papa
your father would like you to encourage him isabel went on mechanically how can i encourage him i don't know your father must tell you that pansy said nothing for a moment she only continued to smile as if she were in possession of a bright assurance
there's no danger no danger she declared at last there was a conviction in the way she said this and a felicity in her believing it which conduced to isabel's awkwardness she felt accused of dishonesty and the idea was disgusting
to repair her self respect she was on the point of saying that lord warburton had let her know that there was a danger but she didn't she only said in her embarrassment rather wide of the mark that he surely had been most kind most friendly
yes he has been very kind pansy answered that's what i like him for why then is the difficulty so great i've always felt sure of his knowing that i don't want what did you say i should do to encourage him
that's the meaning of his kindness it's as if he said to me i like you very much but if it doesn't please you i'll never say it again i think that's very kind very noble pansy went on with deepening positiveness
isabel was touched with wonder at the depths of perception of which this submissive little person was capable she felt afraid of pansy's wisdom began almost to retreat before it you must tell your father that she remarked reservedly
i think i'd rather not pansy unreservedly answered you oughtn't to let him have false hopes perhaps not but it will be good for me that he should
and that will be an advantage for me said the child very lucidly there was something brilliant in her lucidity and it made her companion draw a long breath it relieved this friend of a heavy responsibility
pansy had a sufficient illumination of her own and isabel felt that she herself just now had no light to spare from her small stock nevertheless it still clung to her that she must be loyal to osmond that she was on her honour in dealing with his daughter
under the influence of this sentiment she threw out another suggestion before she retired a suggestion with which it seemed to her that she should have done her utmost your father takes for granted at least that you would like to marry a nobleman
chapter five basque and nicolette he had theories here is one of them when a man is passionately fond of women
undertakes the education of half share tenants and the training of farmers convokes lawyers presides over notaries harangues scriveners visits limbs of the law follows lawsuits draws up leases dictates contracts
and it had become his history his wife the second one had administered his fortune in such a manner that one fine day when
found himself a widower there remained to him just sufficient to live on by sinking nearly the whole of it in an annuity of fifteen thousand francs three quarters of which would expire with him
and for instance become national property he had been present at the avatars of consolidated three per cents and he had no great faith in the great book of the public debt
he bestowed on the men the name of their province nimois comtois
were called nicolette even the magnon of whom we shall hear more farther on
how much wages do you want a month asked
thirty francs what is your name olympie you shall have fifty francs and you shall be called nicolette chapter six in which magnon and her two children are seen with
as we have just hinted that he had remained a brisk spark and that he passed energetically for such this he called having royal renown
this royal renown sometimes drew down upon him singular windfalls one day there was brought to him in a basket as though it had been a basket of oysters a stout newly born boy who was yelling like the deuce
and duly wrapped in swaddling clothes which a servant maid dismissed six months previously attributed to him
he gazed at the brat with the amiable smile of a good man who is flattered by the calumny and said in an aside well what now what's the matter you are finely taken aback and really you are excessively ignorant
had at the age of eighty three by the maid of madame la presidente jacquin a son a real child of love who became a chevalier of malta and a counsellor of state one of the great men of this century
let him be taken care of it is not his fault this manner of procedure was good tempered the woman whose name was magnon sent him another parcel in the following year it was a boy again
he sent the two brats back to their mother promising to pay eighty francs a month for their maintenance on the condition that the said mother would not do so any more he added i insist upon it that the mother shall treat them well
i shall go to see them from time to time and this he did he had had a brother who was a priest and who had been rector of the academy of poitiers for three and thirty years and had died at seventy nine i lost him young said he
this brother of whom but little memory remains was a peaceable miser who being a priest thought himself bound to bestow alms on the poor whom he met
but he never gave them anything except bad or demonetized sous thereby discovering a means of going to hell by way of paradise
he never haggled over his alms giving but gave gladly and nobly he was kindly abrupt charitable and if he had been rich his turn of mind would have been magnificent
he desired that all which concerned him should be done in a grand manner even his rogueries one day having been cheated by a business man in a matter of inheritance in a gross and apparent manner
he uttered this solemn exclamation that was indecently done i am really ashamed of this pilfering everything has degenerated in this century even the rascals
this is not the way to rob a man of my standing i am robbed as though in a forest but badly robbed
through love or chance or otherwise a soldier of fortune
who had won the cross at austerlitz
he is the disgrace of my family said the old bourgeois he took an immense amount of snuff and had a particularly graceful manner of plucking at his lace ruffle with the back of one hand he believed very little in god
chapter seven rule receive no one except in the evening
who had not lost his hair which was gray rather than white and which was always dressed in dog's ears to sum up he was venerable in spite of all this he had something of the eighteenth century about him
frivolous and great in eighteen fourteen and during the early years of the restoration
the principal one and that which was invariable was to keep his door absolutely closed during the day and never to receive any one whatever except in the evening he dined at five o'clock
and after that his door was open that had been the fashion of his century and he would not swerve from it the day is vulgar said he and deserves only a closed shutter
fashionable people only light up their minds when the zenith lights up its stars and he barricaded himself against every one even had it been the king himself this was the antiquated elegance of his day
chapter eight two do not make a pair
they had come into the world ten years apart in their youth they had borne very little resemblance to each other either in character or countenance and had also been as little like sisters to each other as possible
the youngest had a charming soul which turned towards all that belongs to the light was occupied with flowers with verses with music which fluttered away into glorious space
enthusiastic ethereal and was wedded from her very youth in ideal to a vague and heroic figure
in the azure some very wealthy purveyor a contractor a splendidly stupid husband a million made man or even a prefect the receptions of the prefecture
an usher in the antechamber with a chain on his neck official balls the harangues of the town hall to be
and one of the most obtuse minds that it is possible to see a characteristic detail outside of her immediate family no one had ever known her first name she was called mademoiselle gillenormand
the elder in the matter of cant mademoiselle gillenormand could have given points to a miss her modesty was carried to the other extreme of blackness she cherished a frightful memory of her life
one day a man had beheld her garter age had only served to accentuate this pitiless modesty
and never ascended sufficiently high she multiplied clasps and pins where no one would have dreamed of looking the peculiarity of prudery is to place all the more sentinels in proportion as the fortress is the less menaced
nevertheless let him who can explain these antique mysteries of innocence she allowed an officer of the lancers her grand nephew named theodule to embrace her without displeasure
in spite of this favored lancer the label prude under which we have classed her suited her to absolute perfection
prudery is a demi virtue and a demi vice to prudery she added bigotry a well assorted lining she belonged to the society of the virgin
wore a white veil on certain festivals mumbled special orisons revered the holy blood venerated the sacred heart
remained for hours in contemplation before a rococo jesuit altar in a chapel which was inaccessible to the rank and file of the faithful and there allowed her soul to soar among little clouds of marble
beyond the agnus dei and ave maria mademoiselle vaubois had no knowledge of anything except of the different ways of making preserves mademoiselle vaubois perfect in her style was the
ermine of stupidity without a single spot of intelligence let us say it plainly mademoiselle gillenormand had gained rather than lost as she grew older this is the case with passive natures
she had never been malicious which is relative kindness and then years wear away the angles and the softening which comes with time had come to her
she was melancholy with an obscure sadness of which she did not herself know the secret there breathed from her whole person the stupor of a life that was finished and which had never had a beginning
she kept house for her father
as we have seen that monseigneur bienvenu had his sister with him these households comprised of an old man and an old spinster are not rare and always have the touching aspect of two weaknesses
leaning on each other for support there was also in this house between this elderly spinster and this old man a child a little boy who was always trembling and mute in the
and sometimes with uplifted cane here sir rascal scoundrel come here answer me you scamp just let me see you you good for nothing et cetera et cetera he idolized him this was his grandson
are for the most part built and laid out in excellent taste the trees are in the prime of their growth
picturesque and delightful variety of broken ground the rank fashion and beauty of the town make this place their evening promenade and when a stranger goes out for a drive if he leaves it to the coachman
the coachman starts by way of the common as a matter of course on the opposite side that is to say on the side furthest from the great house the suburbs in the year eighteen fifty one
were universally regarded as a sore subject by all persons zealous for the reputation of the town here nature was uninviting man was poor
into smaller and smaller houses and died away on the barren open ground into an atrophy of skeleton cottages builders hereabouts appeared to have universally abandoned their work in the first stage of its creation
land holders set up poles on lost patches of ground and plaintively advertising that they were to let for building raised sickly little crops meanwhile
if there was any intention in thorpe ambrose of sending a worn out horse to the knacker's
and the cats everywhere on the tiles the sun had set and the summer twilight was darkening the fretful children were crying in their cradles the horse
destined for the knacker dozed forlorn in the field of his imprisonment the cats waited stealthily in corners for the coming night but one living figure appeared in the lonely suburb the figure of mister bashwood
coasting carefully round the old iron and the broken tiles scattered here and there in his path
toward one of the unfinished streets of the suburb his personal appearance had been apparently made the object of some special attention his false teeth were brilliantly white his wig was carefully brushed
his watery eyes settled steadily for the first time on the view of the street before him the next instant he started his breath quickened he leaned trembling and flushing
against the unfinished wall at his side a lady still at some distance was advancing toward him down the length of the street she's coming he whispered with a strange mixture of rapture and fear
he burst ecstatically into those extravagant words with a concentrated intensity of delight in uttering them that actually shook his feeble figure from head to foot
smoothly and gracefully the lady glided nearer and nearer until she revealed to mister bashwood's eyes what mister bashwood's instincts had recognized in the first instance
the face of miss gwilt she was dressed with an exquisitely expressive economy of outlay the plainest straw bonnet procurable
trimmed sparingly with the cheapest white ribbon was on her head modest and tasteful poverty expressed itself in the speckless cleanliness and the modestly proportioned skirts of her light
print gown and in the scanty little mantilla
perfectly curled that dropped over her left shoulder her gloves fitting her like a second skin
one hand lifted her dress daintily above the impurities of the road the other held a little nosegay of the commonest garden flowers noiselessly and smoothly she came on
with a gentle and regular undulation of the print gown with the love lock softly lifted from moment to moment in the evening breeze with her head a little drooped and her eyes on the ground in walk and look and manner
in every casual movement that escaped her expressing that subtle mixture of the voluptuous and the modest which of the many attractive extremes that meet in women
is in a man's eyes the most irresistible of all mister bashwood she exclaimed in loud clear tones indicative of the utmost astonishment what a surprise to find you here
i thought none but the wretched inhabitants ever ventured near this side of the town hush she added quickly in a whisper you heard right when you heard that mister armadale was going to have me followed and watched
there's a man behind one of the houses we must talk out loud of indifferent things and look as if we had met by accident ask me what i am doing out loud directly you shall never see me again if you don't
instantly leave off trembling and do what i tell you she spoke with a merciless tyranny of eye and voice with a merciless use of her power over the feeble creature whom she addressed
in the voice intended to reach the spy's ears
your good word will oblige me have you been in the grounds to day she went on dropping her voice again in a whisper has mister armadale been near the cottage has miss milroy been out of the garden no are you sure
look out for them to morrow and next day and next day they are certain to meet and make it up again and i must
it's me the man's after not you louder than when you asked me what i was doing just now louder or i won't trust you any more i'll go to somebody else once more mister bashwood obeyed don't be angry with me he murmured
faintly when he had spoken the necessary words my heart beats so you'll kill me you poor old dear she whispered back with a sudden change in her manner with an easy satirical tenderness
have you with a heart at your age be here to morrow at the same time and tell me what you have seen in the grounds
don't let mister armadale out of your sight to morrow
and if i don't hear of it i'll frighten you to death if i do hear of it i'll kiss you hush
and leave me to go the other way i don't want you i'm not afraid of the man behind the houses
say goodnight and i'll let you shake hands say it louder and i'll give you one of my flowers
she raised her voice again goodnight mister bashwood don't forget my terms five shillings a lesson
which is an immense advantage isn't it she slipped a flower into his hand frowned him into obedience
at the same moment lifted her dress again above the impurities of the road and went on her way with a dainty and indolent deliberation
has exhausted the enjoyment of frightening a mouse left alone mister bashwood turned to the low cottage wall near which he had been standing and resting himself on it wearily looked at the flower in his hand
his past existence had disciplined him to bear disaster and insult as few happier men could have borne them
this good man was old when they were young this silhouette has not yet entirely disappeared for those who regard with melancholy that vague swarm of shadows which is called the past
he was over ninety years of age his walk was erect he talked loudly saw clearly drank neat
he was of an amorous disposition but declared that for the last ten years he had wholly and decidedly renounced women he could no longer please he said he did not add i am too old
but i am too poor he said if i were not ruined heee all he had left in fact was an income of about fifteen thousand francs his dream was to come into an inheritance
income for mistresses he did not belong as the reader will perceive to that puny variety of octogenaries who like
have been dying all their life his was no longevity of a cracked pot this jovial old man had always had good health he was superficial rapid easily angered
he flew into a passion at everything generally quite contrary to all reason when contradicted he raised his cane he beat people as he had done in the great century he had a daughter over fifty years of age and unmarried
whom he chastised severely with his tongue when in a rage and whom he would have liked to whip she seemed to him to be eight years old he boxed his servants ears soundly and said ah carogne
a pretty and coquettish barberess
admired his own discernment in all things and declared that he was extremely sagacious here is one of his sayings i have in truth some penetration
from what woman it came the words which he uttered the most frequently were the sensible man and nature he did not give to this last word the grand acceptation which our epoch has accorded to it but he made it enter
after his own fashion into his little chimney corner satires nature he said in order that civilization may have a little of everything gives it even specimens of its amusing barbarism europe
or magicians that they are they transform them into oysters and swallow them the caribbeans leave only the bones they leave only the shell such are our morals we do not devour we gnaw
we do not exterminate we claw chapter two like master like house
he owned the house this house has since been demolished and rebuilt and the number has probably been changed in those revolutions of numeration which the streets of paris undergo
he occupied an ancient and vast apartment on the first floor between street and gardens
and beauvais tapestries representing pastoral scenes the subjects of the ceilings and the panels were repeated in miniature on the arm chairs he enveloped his bed in a vast nine leaved screen of coromandel lacquer
long full curtains hung from the windows and formed great broken folds that were very magnificent the garden situated immediately under his windows was attached to that one of them which formed the angle
which the old gentleman ascended and descended with great agility in addition to a library adjoining his chamber he had a boudoir of which he thought a great deal a gallant and elegant retreat
and the most charming of lovers in existence he was a connoisseur of painting he had in his chamber a marvellous portrait of no one knows whom painted by jordaens executed with great dashes of the brush
with millions of details in a confused and hap hazard manner
he had thought himself young up to that period and had followed the fashions his coat was of light weight cloth with voluminous revers a long swallow tail and large steel buttons with this he wore knee breeches and buckle shoes
he always thrust his hands into his fobs he said authoritatively the french revolution is a heap of blackguards chapter three luc esprit at the age of sixteen
one evening at the opera he had had the honor to be stared at through opera glasses by two beauties at the same time ripe and celebrated beauties then and sung by voltaire the camargo and the salle
he abounded in memories he was accustomed to exclaim how pretty she was
i was dressed like a turk of the levant levantin said he
having seen him by chance when he was twenty had described him as a charming fool he was horrified by all the names which he saw in politics and in power regarding them as vulgar and bourgeois
humann casimir perier there's a minister for you
that would be a farce well they are so stupid that it would pass he merrily called everything by its name whether decent or indecent and did not restrain himself in the least before ladies he uttered coarse speeches
a centenarian aspirant
and he had been crowned by the hand of the duc de nivernais
nor the return of the bourbons nor anything else had been able to efface the memory of this crowning the duc de nevers was in his eyes the great figure of the century
and what a fine air he had with his blue ribbon
the elixir of gold he exclaimed the yellow dye of bestucheff general lamotte's drops in the eighteenth century this was the great remedy for the catastrophes of love the panacea against venus
and had a horror of seventeen eighty nine he was forever narrating in what manner he had saved himself during the terror and how he had been obliged to display a vast deal of gayety and cleverness in order to escape having his head cut off
according to what this doctor tells me he's a very intelligent fellow
it's not right for you not to go to the meetings and altogether to keep out of the district business if decent people won't go into it of course it's bound to go all wrong we pay the money and it all goes in salaries and there are no schools nor district nurses nor midwives nor drugstores
nothing well i did try you know levin said slowly and unwillingly i can't and so there's no help for it but why can't you i must own i can't make it out indifference incapacity i won't admit
surely it's not simply laziness none of those things i've tried and i see i can do nothing said levin he had hardly grasped what his brother was saying looking towards the plough land across the river he made out something black but
he could not distinguish whether it was a horse or the bailiff on horseback why is it you can do nothing you made an attempt and didn't succeed as you think and you give in how can you have so little self respect self respect said levin stung to the quick by his brother's words
i don't understand if they'd told me at college that other people understood the integral calculus and i didn't then pride would have come in but in this case one wants first to be convinced that one has certain qualifications for this sort of business
and especially that all this business is of great importance what do you mean to say it's not of importance said sergey ivanovitch stung to the quick too at his brother's considering anything of no importance that interested him
i don't think it important it does not take hold of me i can't help it answered levin
they were turning the plough over can they have finished ploughing he wondered come really though said the elder brother with a frown on his handsome clever face there's a limit to everything it's very well to be original and genuine and to dislike everything conventional
i know all about that but really what you're saying either has no meaning or it has a very wrong meaning how can you think it a matter of no importance whether the peasant whom you love as you assert i never did assert it thought konstantin levin dies without help
while you have at your disposal a means of helping them and don't help them because to your mind it's of no importance and sergey ivanovitch put before him the alternative
or you won't sacrifice your ease your vanity or whatever it is to do it konstantin levin felt that there was no course open to him but to submit or to confess to a lack of zeal for the public good and this mortified him and hurt his feelings
it's both he said resolutely i don't see that it was possible what was it impossible if the money were properly laid out to provide medical aid impossible as it seems to me for the three thousand square miles of our district
what with our thaws and the storms and the work in the fields i don't see how it is possible to provide medical aid all over and besides i don't believe in medicine oh well that's unfair i can quote to you thousands of instances
but the schools anyway why have schools what do you mean can there be two opinions of the advantage of education if it's a good thing for you it's a good thing for everyone konstantin levin felt himself morally pinned against a wall
and so he got hot and unconsciously blurted out the chief cause of his indifference to public business perhaps it may all be very good but why should i worry myself about establishing dispensaries which i shall never make use of and schools to which i shall never send my children
to which even the peasants don't want to send their children and to which i've no very firm faith that they ought to send them said he
but he promptly made a new plan of attack he was silent for a little drew out a hook threw it in again and turned to his brother smiling come now in the first place the dispensary is needed we ourselves sent for the district doctor for agafea mihalovna
no you can ask anyone you like
and mending the highroads is an impossibility and as soon as they put up bridges they're stolen still that's not the point said sergey ivanovitch frowning he disliked contradiction and still more arguments that were continually skipping from one thing to another
do you admit that education is a benefit for the people yes i admit it said levin without thinking and he was conscious immediately that he had said what he did not think he felt that if he admitted that it would be proved that he had been talking meaningless rubbish
how it would be proved he could not tell
the argument turned out to be far simpler than he had expected if you admit that it is a benefit said sergey ivanovitch then as an honest man you cannot help caring about it and sympathizing with the movement and so wishing to work for it
but i still do not admit this movement to be just said konstantin levin reddening a little what but you said just now that's to say i don't admit it's being either good or possible that you can't tell without making the trial
supposing that is so still i don't see all the same what i'm to worry myself about it for how so no since we are talking explain it to me from the philosophical point of view said levin
i can't see where philosophy comes in said sergey ivanovitch in a tone levin fancied
and that irritated levin i'll tell you then he said with heat i imagine the mainspring of all our actions is after all self interest now in the local institutions i as a nobleman see nothing that could conduce to my prosperity
and the roads are not better and could not be better
doctors and dispensaries are no use to me an arbitrator of disputes is no use to me i never appeal to him and never shall appeal to him the schools are no good to me but positively harmful as i told you
for every three acres to drive into the town sleep with bugs and listen to all sorts of idiocy and loathsomeness and self interest offers me no inducement excuse me sergey ivanovitch interposed with a smile
self interest did not induce us to work for the emancipation of the serfs but we did work for it no konstantin levin broke in with still greater heat the emancipation of the serfs was a different matter there self interest did come in
one longed to throw off that yoke that crushed us all decent people among us but to be a town councilor and discuss how many dustmen are needed and how chimneys shall be constructed in the town in which i don't live to serve on a jury and try a peasant who's stolen a flitch of bacon
and listen for six hours at a stretch to all sorts of jabber from the counsel for the defense and the prosecution and the president cross examining my old half witted alioshka do you admit prisoner in the dock the fact of the removal of the bacon
konstantin levin had warmed to his subject and began mimicking the president and the half witted alioshka it seemed to him that it was all to the point
i simply mean to say that those rights that touch me my interest i shall always defend to the best of my ability
i can understand compulsory military service which affects my children my brothers and myself i am ready to deliberate on what concerns me but deliberating on how to spend forty thousand roubles of district council money
i don't understand and i can't do it konstantin levin spoke as though the floodgates of his speech had burst open sergey ivanovitch smiled but tomorrow it'll be your turn to be tried would it have suited your tastes better to be tried in the old criminal tribunal
i'm not going to be tried i shan't murder anybody and i've no need of it well i tell you what he went on flying off again to a subject quite beside the point our district self government and all the rest of it it's just like the birch branches we stick in the ground on trinity day
for instance to look like a copse which has grown up of itself in europe and i can't gush over these birch branches and believe in them sergey ivanovitch merely shrugged his shoulders as though to express his wonder how the birch branches had come into their argument at that point
excuse me but you know one really can't argue in that way he observed but konstantin levin wanted to justify himself for the failing of which he was conscious of lack of zeal for the public welfare and he went on
if it is not founded on self interest that's a universal principle a philosophical principle he said repeating the word philosophical with determination as though wishing to show that he had as much right as any one else to talk of philosophy
sergey ivanovitch smiled he too has a philosophy of his own at the service of his natural tendencies he thought come you'd better let philosophy alone he said the chief problem of the philosophy of all ages
consists just in finding the indispensable connection which exists between individual and social interests but that's not to the point what is to the point is a correction i must make in your comparison the birches are not simply stuck in but some are sown and some are planted
and one must deal carefully with them it's only those peoples that have an intuitive sense of what's of importance and significance in their institutions and know how to value them that have a future before them it's only those peoples that one can truly call historical
and showed him all the incorrectness of his view as for your dislike of it excuse my saying so that's simply our russian sloth and old serf owner's ways and i'm convinced that in you it's a temporary error and will pass konstantin was silent
polly's big bundle the room was very quiet but presently phronsie strayed in and seeing polly studying climbed up in a chair by the window to watch the birds hop over the veranda and pick up worms in the grass beside the carriage drive
and then came missus pepper with the big mending basket and ensconced herself opposite by the table and nothing was to be heard but the tick tick of the clock and an occasional dropping of a spool of thread or scissors from the busy hands flying in and out among the stockings
all of a sudden there was a great rustling in cherry's cage that swung in the big window on the other side of the room
and otherwise acting in a very strange and unaccountable manner dear me said missus pepper what's that it's cherry said polly lifting up her head from fasquelle and oh dear me and flinging down the pile of books in her lap on a chair she rushed across the room
and flew up to the cage and began to wildly gesticulate and explain and shower down on him every endearing name she could think of what is the matter asked her mother turning around in her chair in perfect astonishment what upon earth polly
how could i cried polly in accents of despair not heeding her mother's question oh mamsie will he die do you think i guess not said missus pepper laying down her work and coming up to the cage while phronsie scrambled off from her chair and hurried to the scene why he does act queer don't he
p'raps he's been eating too much eating said polly oh mamsie he hasn't had anything and she pointed with shame and remorse to the seed cup with only a few dried husks in the very bottom oh polly began missus pepper but seeing the look on her face she changed her tone for one more cheerful
there isn't any mamsie in the house she stammered he had the last yesterday and you forgot him to day asked missus pepper with a look in her black eyes polly didn't like yes'm said poor polly in a low voice
well he must have something right away said missus pepper decidedly that's certain i'll run right down to fletcher's and get it cried polly twon't take me but a minute mamsie jasper's gone and thomas too so i've got to go she added as she saw her mother hesitate
if you could wait till ben gets home said missus pepper slowly i'm most afraid it will rain polly oh no mamsie cried polly feeling as if she could fly to the ends of the earth to atone and longing beside for the brisk walk down town
going up to the window she pointed triumphantly to the little bit of blue sky still visible there now see it can't rain yet awhile well said missus pepper while phronsie standing in a chair with her face pressed close to the cage was telling cherry through the bars
not to be hungry please don't which he didn't seem to mind in the least but went on screaming harder than ever and besides tisn't much use to wait for ben nobody knows where he'll get shoes to fit himself and joe and davie in one afternoon
oh mamsie said polly turning back just a minute i know the way to fletcher's just as easy as anything i couldn't get lost i know you do said missus pepper but it'll be dark early on account of the shower well she said pulling out her well worn purse from her pocket
if it does sprinkle you get into a car polly remember oh yes i will she cried taking the purse and there's ten cents for your bird seed in that pocket said missus pepper pointing to a coin racing away into a corner by itself yes'm said polly wild to be off
and there's a five cent piece in that one for you to ride up with said her mother tying up the purse carefully remember for you to ride up with well i guess you better ride up anyway polly come to think and then you'll get home all the quicker where you going asked phronsie
who on seeing the purse knew there was some expedition on foot and beginning to clamber down out of the chair oh i want to go too i do take me polly oh no pet i can't cried polly i've got to hurry like everything
now phronsie you and i ought to take care of cherry poor thing at this phronsie turned and wiped away two big tears while she gazed up at the cage in extreme commiseration i guess i'll give him a piece of bread said missus pepper to herself at this word bread
polly who was half way down the hall came running back oh mamsie don't she said it made him sick before don't you know it did so fat and stuffy well hurry along then said missus pepper and polly was off over the ground she sped
filled now with anxious crowds homeward rushing to avoid the threatening shower well here i am she said with a sigh of relief as she at last reached mister fletcher's big bird store here she steadily resisted all temptations to stop and look at the new arrivals of birds
and to feed the carrier pigeons who seemed to be expecting her and who turned their soft eyes up at her reproachfully
even the cunning blandishments of a very attractive monkey that always had entertained the children on their numerous visits failed to interest her now mamsie would be worrying she knew and besides the sight of so many birds eating their suppers out of generously full seed cups
only filled her heart with remorse as she thought of poor cherry and his empty one so she put down her ten cents silently on the counter and took up the little package of seed and went out but what a change
the cloud that had seemed but a cloud when she went in was now fast descending in big ominous sprinkles that told of a heavy shower to follow quick and fast they came making everybody fly to the nearest shelter i don't care said polly to herself holding fast her little package
then i'll be all right so she went on with nimble footsteps dodging the crowd and soon came to the corner a car was just in sight that was fine
which she allowed to pass by her pocket was empty
now what shall i do well i must hurry nothing for it but to run now and secretly glad at the chance for a good hearty run along the hard pavements a thing she had been longing to do ever since she came to the city
polly gathered her bundle of seed up under her arm and set out for a jolly race she was enjoying it hugely when a sudden turn of the corner brought her up against a gentleman who having his umbrella down to protect his face
and a gentleman's voice said in the deepest concern i beg your pardon it was extremely careless in me it's no matter said polly hopping up with a little laugh and straightening her hat only and she began to look for her parcel that had been sent spinning
what is it said the gentleman bending down and beginning to explore too in the darkness my bundle began polly oh dear no need to ask for it now there lay the paper wet and torn down at their feet the seed lay all over the pavement scattered far and wide even out to the puddles in the street
bird seed gasped polly is that all said the gentleman with a happy laugh i'm very glad all polly's heart stood still as she thought of cherry stark and stiff in the bottom of his cage if he didn't get it soon
now said the kind tones briskly come little girl we'll make this all right speedily let's see here's a bird store now then but sir began polly holding back even cherry
had better die than to do anything her mother wouldn't like but the gentleman already had her in the shop and was delighting the heart of the shop keeper by ordering him to do up a big package of all kinds of seed and then he added a cunning arrangement for birds to swing in
and two or three other things that didn't have anything to do with birds at all and then they came out on the wet slippery street again now then little girl said the gentleman tucking the bundle under his arm and opening the umbrella then he took hold of polly's hand who by this time was glad of a protector where do you live
for i'm going to take you safely home this time where umbrellas can't run into you oh said polly with a little skip thank you sir it's up to mister king's and
mister jasper king's i don't know sir said polly what his other name is yes it must be jasper that's what jappy's is anyway she added with a little laugh wishing very much that she could see jappy at that identical moment
jappy said the stranger still standing as if petrified and are there little whitney children in the same house oh yes said polly raising her clear brown eyes up at him the gas lighter was just beginning his rounds and the light from a neighboring lamp flashed full on polly's face as she spoke
showing just how clear and brown the eyes were there's percy and van and little dick oh he's so cunning she cried impulsively the gentleman's face looked very queer just then but he merely said why you must be polly
and then she told him how she'd forgotten cherry's seed and all about it and oh sir she said and her voice began to tremble mamsie'll be so frightened if i don't get there soon i'm going up there myself
commencing to start off briskly and grasping her hand tighter now then polly so off they went at a very fast pace she skipping through the puddles that his long even strides carried him safely over chattered away by his side under the umbrella and answered his many questions
and altogether got so very well acquainted that by the time they turned in at the old stone gateway she felt as if she had known him for years and there the first thing they either of them saw
he took a scythe from a peasant and began mowing he liked the work so much that he had several times tried his hand at mowing since he had cut the whole of the meadow in front of his house and this year
after the irritating discussion with his brother he pondered over this intention again i must have physical exercise or my temper'll certainly be ruined he thought and he determined he would go mowing however awkward he might feel about it with his brother or the peasants
towards evening konstantin levin went to his counting house gave directions as to the work to be done and sent about the village to summon the mowers for the morrow to cut the hay in kalinov meadow the largest and best of his grass lands
and send my scythe please to tit for him to set it and bring it round tomorrow i shall maybe do some mowing myself too he said trying not to be embarrassed the bailiff smiled and said yes sir
at tea the same evening levin said to his brother i fancy the fine weather will last tomorrow i shall start mowing i'm so fond of that form of field labor said sergey ivanovitch i'm awfully fond of it
i sometimes mow myself with the peasants and tomorrow i want to try mowing the whole day sergey ivanovitch lifted his head and looked with interest at his brother how do you mean just like one of the peasants all day long yes it's very pleasant said levin
it's splendid as exercise only you'll hardly be able to stand it said sergey ivanovitch without a shade of irony i've tried it it's hard work at first but you get into it i dare say i shall manage to keep it up really what an idea but tell me
how do the peasants look at it i suppose they laugh in their sleeves at their master's being such a queer fish no i don't think so but it's so delightful and at the same time such hard work that one has no time to think about it
to send you a bottle of lafitte and roast turkey out there would be a little awkward no i'll simply come home at the time of their noonday rest
with its grayish ridges of cut grass and the black heaps of coats taken off by the mowers at the place from which they had started cutting gradually as he rode towards the meadow the peasants came into sight some in coats some in their shirts mowing
they were mowing slowly over the uneven low lying parts of the meadow where there had been an old dam levin recognized some of his own men here was old yermil in a very long white smock bending forward to swing a scythe
there was a young fellow vaska who had been a coachman of levin's taking every row with a wide sweep here too was tit levin's preceptor in the art of mowing a thin little peasant
he was in front of all and cut his wide row without bending as though playing with the scythe levin got off his mare and fastening her up by the roadside went to meet tit who took a second scythe out of a bush and gave it to him it's ready sir
greeted the master they all stared at him but no one made any remark till a tall old man with a wrinkled beardless face wearing a short sheepskin jacket came out into the road and accosted him look'ee now master
i'll try not to let it go he said taking his stand behind tit and waiting for the time to begin
tit made room and levin started behind him the grass was short close to the road and levin who had not done any mowing for a long while and was disconcerted by the eyes fastened upon him cut badly for the first moments though he swung his scythe vigorously behind him he heard voices
it's not set right handle's too high see how he has to stoop to it said one press more on the heel said another never mind he'll get on all right the old man resumed he's made a start you swing it too wide you'll tire yourself out
the master sure does his best for himself but see the grass missed out for such work us fellows would catch it the grass became softer and levin listening without answering followed tit
and was making up his mind to ask tit to stop but at that very moment tit stopped of his own accord and stooping down picked up some grass rubbed his scythe and began whetting it levin straightened himself and drawing a deep breath looked round
the next time it was just the same tit moved on with sweep after sweep of his scythe not stopping nor showing signs of weariness
the moment came when he felt he had no strength left but at that very moment tit stopped and whetted the scythes so they mowed the first row
but when the end was reached and tit shouldering his scythe began with deliberate stride returning on the tracks left by his heels in the cut grass and levin walked back in the same way over the space he had cut in spite of the sweat that ran in streams over his face and fell in drops down his nose
and drenched his back as though he had been soaked in water he felt very happy what delighted him particularly was that now he knew he would be able to hold out his pleasure was only disturbed by his row not being well cut
i will swing less with my arm and more with my whole body he thought comparing tit's row which looked as if it had been cut with a line with his own unevenly and irregularly lying grass
the first row as levin noticed tit had mowed specially quickly probably wishing to put his master to the test and the row happened to be a long one the next rows were easier but still levin had to strain every nerve not to drop behind the peasants
he thought of nothing wished for nothing but not to be left behind the peasants and to do his work as well as possible
the crescent shaped curve of the cut grass the grass and flower heads slowly and rhythmically falling before the blade of his scythe and ahead of him the end of the row where would come the rest suddenly in the midst of his toil without understanding what it was or whence it came
he felt a pleasant sensation of chill on his hot moist shoulders he glanced at the sky in the interval for whetting the scythes a heavy lowering storm cloud had blown up and big raindrops were falling some of the peasants went to their coats and put them on
another row and yet another row followed long rows and short rows with good grass and with poor grass levin lost all sense of time and could not have told whether it was late or early now a change began to come
over his work which gave him immense satisfaction in the midst of his toil there were moments
and at those same moments his row was almost as smooth and well cut as tit's but so soon as he recollected what he was doing and began trying to do better he was at once conscious of all the difficulty of his task and the row was badly mown
on finishing yet another row he would have gone back to the top of the meadow again to begin the next but tit stopped and going up to the old man said something in a low voice to him they both looked at the sun what are they talking about
and why doesn't he go back thought levin not guessing that the peasants had been mowing no less than four hours without stopping and it was time for their lunch lunch sir said the old man is it really time
the proclamation for seventy five thousand men by president lincoln further examined the reasons presented by him to mankind for the justification of his conduct shown to be mere fictions having no relation to the question
what is the value of constitutional liberty of bills of rights of limitations of powers if they may be transgressed at pleasure secession of south carolina proclamation of blockade session of congress at montgomery
extracts from the president's message acts of congress spirit of the people secession of border states destruction of united states property by order of president lincoln
if any further evidence had been required to show that it was the determination of the northern people not only to make no concessions to the grievances of the southern states but to increase them to the last extremity it was furnished by the proclamation of president lincoln
issued on april fifteenth eighteen sixty one this proclamation which has already been mentioned requires a further examination
of the war which ensued in it the president called for seventy five thousand men to suppress combinations opposed to the laws and obstructing their execution in seven sovereign states which had retired from the union
seventy five thousand men organized and equipped are a powerful army and when raised to operate against these states nothing else than war could be intended the words in which he summoned this force were these
whereas the laws of the united states have been for some time past and now are opposed and the execution thereof obstructed in the states of south carolina georgia alabama florida mississippi louisiana and texas
by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the marshals by law now therefore i abraham lincoln by virtue of the power in me vested by the constitution and laws et cetera
candidates for membership were immediately nominated all were in favor of secession the convention assembled on december seventeenth and on the twentieth passed an ordinance to dissolve the union between the state of south carolina and other states united with her
the state authorities immediately conformed to this action of the convention and the laws and authority of the united states ceased to be obeyed within the limits of the state about four months afterward when the state in union with others which had joined her had possessed herself of the forts within her limits
which the united states government had refused to evacuate president lincoln issued the above mentioned proclamation the state of south carolina is designated in the proclamation as a combination too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings
or by the powers vested in the marshals by law this designation does not recognize the state or manifest any consciousness of its existence whereas south carolina was one of the colonies that had declared her independence and after a long and bloody war
she had been recognized as a sovereign state by great britain the only power to which she had ever owed allegiance the fact that she had been one of the colonies in the original congress had been a member of the confederation and subsequently of the union
strengthens but surely can not impair her claim to be a state though president lincoln designated her as a combination it did not make her a combination though he refused to recognize her as a state it did not make her any less a state
by assertion he attempted to annihilate seven states and the war which followed was to enforce the revolutionary edict and to establish the supremacy of the general government on the ruins of the blood bought independence of the states
by designating the state as a combination and considering that under such a name it might be in a condition of insurrection he assumed to have authority to raise a great military force and attack the state yet even if the fact had been as assumed
if an insurrection had existed the president could not lawfully have derived the power he exercised from such condition of affairs the provision of the constitution is as follows the united states shall guarantee to every state in this union
a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion and on application of the legislature or of the executive when the legislature can not be convened
which it was presented to excuse the fact being that a state and not an unlawful combination as asserted was the object of assault
for this evasion of the constitution of his country president lincoln in his message to congress of july fourth eighteen sixty one resorted to the artifice of saying it meaning the proceedings of the confederate states
presents to the whole family of man the question whether a constitutional republic or democracy a government of the people by the same people can or can not maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes
the answer to this question is very plain in the nature of things no union can be formed except by separate independent and distinct parties any other combination is not a union and upon the destruction of any of these elements in the parties
it is a wrong which no lapse of time or combination of circumstances can ever make right a forced union is a political absurdity no less absurd is president lincoln's effort to dissever the sovereignty of the people from that of the state
as if there could be a state without a people or a sovereign people without a state but the question which mister lincoln presents to the whole family of man deserves a further notice
the answer which he seems to infer would be given by the whole family of man is that such a government as he supposes can maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes and therefore he concluded that he was right in the judgment of
planting himself on this position he commenced the devastation and bloodshed which followed to effect our subjugation nothing could be more erroneous than such views the supposed case which he presents is entirely unlike the real case
the government of the united states is like no other government it is neither a constitutional republic or democracy nor has it ever been thus called
but it is known and designated as the government of the united states it is an anomaly among governments its authority consists solely of certain powers delegated to it as a common agent by an association of sovereign and independent states
these powers are to be exercised only for certain specified objects and the purposes declared in the beginning of the deed or instrument of delegation were to form a more perfect union establish justice insure domestic tranquillity
provide for the common defense promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity the beginning and the end of all the powers of the government of the united states are to be found in that instrument of delegation
all its powers are there expressed defined and limited it was only to that instrument mister lincoln as president should have gone to learn his duties that was the chart which he had just solemnly pledged himself to the country faithfully to follow
he soon deviated widely from it and fatally erroneous was his course the administration of the affairs of a great people at a most perilous period is decided by the answer which it is assumed the whole family of man would give
to a supposed condition of human affairs which did not exist and which could not exist this is the ground upon which the rectitude of his cause was placed he says no choice was left but to call out the war power of the government
and so to resist force employed for its destruction by force for its preservation here he says no choice was left but to call out the war power of the government for what purpose must he call out this war power he answers by saying
and so to resist force employed for its destruction by force for its preservation but this which he asserts is not a fact there was no force employed for its destruction
and peruse the fruitless efforts for peace which were made by us and which mister lincoln did not deign to notice the assertion is not only incorrect in stating that force was employed by us but also in declaring that it was for the destruction of the government of the united states
he now goes to the constitution for the exercise of his war power and here we have another fiction on april nineteenth four days later president lincoln issued another proclamation announcing a blockade of the ports of seven confederated states
which was afterward extended to north carolina and virginia it further declared that all persons who should under their authority molest any vessel of the united states or the persons or cargo on board should be treated as pirates in their efforts to subjugate us
the destruction of our commerce was regarded by the authorities at washington as a most efficient measure it was early seen that although acts of congress established ports of entry where commerce existed they might be repealed
in his discretion to close our ports
was an insurrection was it an insurrection when certain sovereign and independent states form a union with limited powers for some general purposes and any one or more of them in the progress of time
suffer unjust and oppressive grievances for which there is no redress but in a withdrawal from the association is such withdrawal an insurrection if so then of what advantage is a compact of union to states
within the union are oppressions and grievances and the attempt to go out brings war and subjugation the ambitious and aggressive states obtain possession of the central authority which having grown strong in the lapse of time asserts its entire sovereignty over the states
where will it end where is the value of constitutional liberty what strength is there in bills of rights in limitations of power what new hope for mankind is to be found in written constitutions what remedy which did not exist under kings or emperors
then look through either end of the political telescope and one sees only an empire
and the compact of union denounced as a flaunting lie those who submit to such consequences without resistance are not worthy of the liberties and the rights to which they were born and deserve to be made slaves such must be the verdict of mankind
men do not fight to make a fraternal union neither do nations these military preparations of the government of the united states signified nothing less than the subjugation of the southern states so that by one devastating blow
apparently contradictory as are the terms of this singular document one point is unmistakably evident
whose first service is to be the capture of our forts it is a plain declaration of war which i am not at liberty to disregard
the president is usurping a power granted exclusively to congress
and were actively engaged in levying troops for the purpose indicated in the proclamation meantime being deprived of the aid of congress i had been under the necessity of confining my action to a call on the states for volunteers for the common defense
in accordance with authority previously conferred on me i stated that there were then in the field at charleston pensacola forts morgan jackson saint philip and pulaski nineteen thousand men and sixteen thousand more were on their way to virginia
that it was proposed to organize and hold in readiness for instant action in view of the existing exigencies of the country an army of one hundred thousand men and that if a further force should be needed congress would be appealed to for authority to call it into the field finally
to invade our soil capture our forts blockade our ports and wage war against us rendered it necessary to raise means to a much larger amount than had been done to defray the expenses of maintaining independence and repelling invasion
a brief summary of the internal affairs of the government followed and notwithstanding frequent declarations of the peaceful intentions of the withdrawing states had been made in the most solemn manner it was deemed not to be out of place to repeat them once more and therefore the message closed with these words
we protest solemnly in the face of mankind that we desire peace at any sacrifice save that of honor in independence we seek no conquest no aggrandizement no concession of any kind from the states with which we have lately been confederated
all we ask is to be let alone that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms this we will we must resist to the direst extremity the moment that this pretension is abandoned
the sword will drop from our grasp and we shall be ready to enter into treaties of amity and commerce that can not but be mutually beneficial so long as this pretension is maintained with a firm reliance on that divine power which covers with its protection the just cause
we must continue to struggle for our inherent right to freedom independence and self government at this session congress passed acts authorizing the president to use the whole land and naval force to meet the necessities of the war thus commenced
to issue to private armed vessels letters of marque in addition to the volunteer force authorized to be raised to accept the services of volunteers to serve during the war to receive into the service various companies of the different arms
to make a loan of fifty millions of dollars in bonds and notes and to hold an election for officers of the permanent government under the new constitution an act was also passed to provide revenue from imports another relative to prisoners of war
and such others as were necessary to complete the internal organization of the government and establish the administration of public affairs in every portion of the country there was exhibited the most patriotic devotion to the common cause
transportation companies freely tendered the use of their lines for troops and supplies requisitions for troops were met with such alacrity that the number offering their services in every instance greatly exceeded the demand
the gravity of age and the zeal of youth rivaled each other in the desire to be foremost in the public defense the appearance of the proclamation of the president of the united states calling out seventy five thousand men was followed by the immediate withdrawal of the states of virginia
north carolina tennessee and arkansas and their union with the confederate states the former state thus placed on the frontier and exposed to invasion began to prepare for a resolute defense
volunteers were ordered to be enrolled and held in readiness in every part of the state colonel robert e lee having resigned his commission in the united states cavalry
commander in chief of the military and naval forces of the commonwealth already the northern officer in charge had evacuated harper's ferry after having attempted to destroy the public buildings there his report says i gave the order to apply the torch
in three minutes or less both of the arsenal buildings containing nearly fifteen thousand stand of arms together with the carpenter's shop which was at the upper end of a long and connected series of workshops of the armory proper were in a blaze there is every reason for believing the destruction was complete
i am directed by the president of the united states to communicate to you and through you to the officers and men under your command at harper's ferry armory the approbation of the government of your and their judicious conduct there
and to tender you and them the thanks of the government for the same at the same time the ship yard at norfolk was abandoned after an attempt to destroy it about midnight of april twentieth a fire was started in the yard
which continued to increase and before daylight the work of destruction extended to two immense ship houses one of which contained the entire frame of a seventy four gun ship and to the long ranges of stores and offices on each side of the entrance the great ship pennsylvania was burned
and the frigates merrimac and columbus and the delaware raritan plymouth and germantown were sunk a vast amount of machinery valuable engines small arms and chronometers was broken up and rendered entirely useless
as the president of the united states asserted where can he find a justification of these acts in explanation of his policy to the commissioners sent to him by the virginia state convention he said referring to his inaugural address
as he regarded it to the government how unreasonable how blind with rage must have been that administration of affairs which so quickly brought the government to the necessity of destroying its own means of defense in order as it publicly declared
to maintain its life it would seem as if the passions that rule the savage had taken possession of the authorities at the united states capital in the conflagrations of vast structures the wanton destruction of public property
and still more in the issue of lettres de cachet by the secretary of state who boasted of the power of his little bell over the personal liberties of the citizen the people saw or might have seen the rapid strides toward despotism made under the mask of preserving the union
an obstacle had arisen against successful taxation about two thirds of the entire taxable property of the confederate states consisted in land and slaves under the provisional constitution which ceased to be in force on february twenty second eighteen sixty two
all duties imposts and excises should be uniform throughout the states of the confederacy
but in the permanent constitution which took effect on the same day
representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons including those bound to service for a term of years and excluding indians not taxed
which had been acquiesced in for sixty years taxes on lands and slaves were direct taxes in repeating without modification in our constitution this language of the united states constitution our convention necessarily seems to have intended to attach to it
the meaning which had been sanctioned by long and uninterrupted acquiescence thus deciding that taxes on lands and slaves were direct taxes our constitution further ordered that a census should be made within three years after the first meeting of congress
so long as there seemed to be a probability of being able to carry out these provisions of the constitution fully and in conformity with the intentions of its authors there was an obvious difficulty in framing any system of taxation
a law which should exempt from the burden two thirds of the property of the country would be as unfair to the owners of the remaining third as it would be inadequate to meet the requirements of the public service the urgency of the need however was such that
after great embarrassment the law of april twenty fourth eighteen sixty three above mentioned was framed still a very large proportion of these resources was unavailable for some time and the intervening exigencies permitting of no delay
a resort to further issues of treasury notes became unavoidable
the earliest proposals on which this debt was contracted were issued in london and paris in march eighteen sixty three the bonds bore interest at seven per cent per annum in sterling payable half yearly they were exchangeable for cotton on application
at the option of the holder or redeemable at par in sterling in twenty years by half yearly drawings commencing march first eighteen sixty four the special security of these bonds was the engagement of the government to deliver cotton to the holders
each bond at the option of the holder was convertible at its nominal amount into cotton at the rate of sixpence sterling for each pound of cotton say four thousand pounds of cotton for each bond of a hundred pounds or twenty five hundred francs
and this could be done at any time not later than six months after the ratification of a treaty of peace between the belligerents sixty days after the notice the cotton was to be delivered if in a state of peace at the ports of charleston savannah
or new orleans if at war at points in the interior of the country within ten miles of a railroad or a stream navigable to the ocean the delivery was to be made free of all charges except the export duty of one eighth of one cent per pound
the quality of the cotton was to be the standard of new orleans middling an annual sinking fund of five per cent was provided for whereby two and a half per cent of the bonds unredeemed by cotton should be drawn by lot half yearly
so as finally to extinguish the loan in twenty years from the first drawing the bonds were issued at ninety per cent payable in installments the loan soon stood in the london market at five per cent premium the amount asked for was three million pounds
the amount of applications in london and paris exceeded fifteen million pounds
than whom no one knew better how false were the attempts to implicate my name in that charge the slanderous tongues of northern hatred even went so far as to style me
to raise a loan of money on the credit of the state or to pledge the faith of the state for the payment or redemption of any loan or debt
unless such law should be proposed and adopted by the legislature then published for three months previous to the next regular election and finally reenacted by the succeeding legislature the object was to enable the people of the state to consider the question intelligently
and to indicate and exercise their will upon it by the election of representatives to the ensuing legislature whose views upon the subject would be known and with such instructions express or implied as they might think proper to give in eighteen thirty seven
a law was passed by the legislature for incorporating the union bank of mississippi with a capital of fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars
to be raised by means of a loan to be obtained by the directors of the institution
this act was duly promulgated to the people and duly reenacted by the succeeding legislature on the fifth of february eighteen thirty eight in strict accordance with the constitution ten days afterward however viz on the fifteenth of february
the legislature passed an act supplemental to the act chartering the union bank which materially changed or abolished the essential conditions for the pledge of the credit of the state by this supplemental act
subscribe for in behalf of the state fifty thousand shares of the stock of the original capital of said bank to be paid for out of the proceeds of the state bonds to be executed to the said bank as already provided for in the said charter
this act was passed in the ordinary mode of legislation and was not referred published nor reenacted as prescribed by the constitution as soon as the directory was organized and the books of subscription were opened
and before the mortgages required by the charter were executed the governor in behalf of the state subscribed for fifty thousand shares of the stock and issued the bonds of the state for five million dollars payable to the order of the bank
these bonds were sold to nicholas biddle president of the united states bank of pennsylvania and by him sent to great britain as collateral security for a loan previously made
none of the money received for them went into the treasury of the state of mississippi nor was any of it used for a public improvement all the consideration ever received by the state was its stock in the union bank the bank soon failed
and the stock became utterly worthless before the bonds became due the governor of the state had declared them to be null and void among other causes in consequence of the failure to sell them at par as required by the supplemental act under which they were issued
it is not necessary here to discuss the question of the validity or nullity of the bonds the object is merely to state the principal facts while these events were occurring and until a period several years subsequent to their consummation i
and neither had nor could have had any part in shaping the policy of the state when brought out as a candidate for office my nomination was opposed by that section of my party which advocated repudiation on account of my opinions in favor of the payment of the bonds
as a private citizen it may be stated that i held that the question of the validity of the bonds should be decided by the courts the constitution of mississippi authorized suit to be brought against the state in such cases in her own courts
and this i regarded as the proper course to be pursued by the bondholders holding that the state would be bound by the judicial decision if it should sustain the validity of the claim this course however was not adopted until long afterward
mister buchanan went to london to propose to the bondholders an arrangement by which the claim or the greater portion of it might be paid by private subscription on consideration of the cancellation of the bonds
even at the antipodes it is convenient to have some money in one's pocket the carnatic setting sail from hong kong at half past six on the seventh of november directed her course at full steam towards japan
she carried a large cargo and a well filled cabin of passengers two state rooms in the rear were however unoccupied those which had been engaged by phileas fogg the next day a passenger with a half stupefied eye staggering gait
shortly after fix left the opium den
the poor fellow awoke and struggled against the stupefying influence of the narcotic
abode of drunkenness staggering and holding himself up by keeping against the walls falling down and creeping up again
he kept crying out the carnatic the carnatic
on the point of starting passepartout had but few steps to go and rushing upon the plank he crossed it and fell unconscious on the deck just as the carnatic was moving off
carried the poor frenchman down into the second cabin and passepartout did not wake until they were one hundred and fifty miles away from china thus he found himself the next morning on the deck of the carnatic and eagerly inhaling the exhilarating sea breeze the pure air sobered him
he began to collect his sense which he found a difficult task
fix's revelation and the opium house
what will mister fogg say at least i have not missed the steamer which is the most important thing then as fix occurred to him
a detective on the track of mister fogg accused of robbing the bank of england pshaw mister fogg is no more a robber than i am a murderer should he divulge fix's real errand to his master would it do to tell the part the detective was playing
would it not be better to wait until mister fogg reached london again
and have a good laugh over it no doubt at least it was worth considering the first thing to do was to find mister fogg and apologise for his singular behaviour
as well as he could with the rolling of the steamer to the after deck he saw no one who resembled either his master or aouda good muttered he aouda has not got up yet and mister fogg has probably found some partners at whist he descended to the saloon mister fogg was not there
and has with him a young lady there is no young lady on board interrupted the purser here is a list of the passengers you may see for yourself
ah am i on the carnatic yes
feared that he was on the wrong boat but though he was really on the carnatic his master was not there he fell thunderstruck on a seat he saw it all now
and detain the latter at hong kong had inveigled him into getting drunk he now saw the detective's trick
and began to study his situation it was certainly not an enviable one he found himself on the way to japan
his pocket was empty he had not a solitary shilling not so much as a penny
this is an important port of call in the pacific
and the oriental islands put in it is situated in the bay of yeddo and at but a short distance from that second capital of the japanese empire and the residence of the tycoon the civil emperor before the mikado the spiritual emperor absorbed his office in his own the carnatic
he had nothing better to do than taking chance for his guide to wander aimlessly through the streets of yokohama
the houses having low fronts and being adorned with verandas beneath which he caught glimpses of neat peristyles this quarter occupied with its streets squares docks and warehouses all the space between the promontory of the treaty and the river
here as at hong kong and calcutta were mixed crowds of all races americans and english chinamen and dutchmen mostly merchants ready to buy or sell anything
as chance did not favour him in the european quarter
determined if necessary to push on to yeddo the japanese quarter of yokohama is called benten after the goddess of the sea who is worshipped on the islands round about
there passepartout beheld beautiful fir and cedar groves sacred gates of a singular architecture bridges half hid in the midst of bamboos and reeds temples shaded by immense cedar trees holy retreats
and interminable streets where a perfect harvest of rose tinted and red cheeked children
and who were playing in the midst of short legged poodles and yellowish cats might have been gathered the streets were crowded with people priests were passing in processions beating their dreary tambourines police and custom house officers with pointed hats encrusted with lac and carrying two sabres
hung to their waists soldiers clad in blue cotton with white stripes and bearing guns the mikado's guards
and numbers of military folk of all ranks for the military profession is as much respected in japan as it is despised in china went hither and thither in groups and pairs
and simple civilians with their warped and jet black hair big heads long busts slender legs short stature
but never yellow like the chinese from whom the japanese widely differ
carriages and palanquins barrows supplied with sails and litters made of bamboo nor the women whom he thought not especially handsome who took little steps with their little feet whereon they wore canvas shoes straw sandals and clogs of worked wood
and who displayed tight looking eyes flat chests teeth fashionably blackened and gowns crossed with silken scarfs
looking in at the windows of the rich and curious shops the jewellery establishments glittering with quaint japanese ornaments the restaurants decked with streamers and banners the tea houses where the odorous beverage was being drunk with saki a liquor concocted from the fermentation of rice
but a very fine stringy tobacco he went on till he found himself in the fields in the midst of vast rice plantations there he saw dazzling camellias expanding themselves with flowers which were giving forth their last colours and perfumes
not on bushes but on trees and within bamboo enclosures cherry plum and apple trees which the japanese cultivate rather for their blossoms than their fruit and which queerly fashioned grinning scarecrows protected from the sparrows pigeons ravens and other voracious birds
on the branches of the cedars were perched large eagles amid the foliage of the weeping willows were herons solemnly standing on one leg and on every hand were crows ducks hawks wild birds and a multitude of cranes
and which to their minds symbolise long life and prosperity
good said he i'll have some supper but on smelling them he found that they were odourless no chance there thought he the worthy fellow had certainly taken good care to eat as hearty a breakfast as possible before leaving the carnatic
he made up his mind that meat was far from plentiful in yokohama nor was he mistaken and in default of butcher's meat
some game or fish which with rice the japanese eat almost exclusively
and to postpone the meal he craved till the following morning night came
where he wandered through the streets lit by vari coloured lanterns looking on at the dancers who were executing skilful steps and boundings and the astrologers who stood in the open air with their telescopes
the streets at last became quiet and the patrol the officers of which in their splendid costumes and surrounded by their suites passepartout thought seemed like ambassadors succeeded the bustling crowd
two or three of these letters may be of interest editor of the news dear sir i have been thinking for some time of changing my paper i want a journal that is up to the times progressive and enterprising supplying the public demand at all points
the recent freak of your paper in refusing to print the account of the famous contest at the resort has decided me finally to change my paper
edward norman
what is this sensation you have given the people of your burg what new policy have you taken up hope you don't intend to try the reform business through the avenue of the press it's dangerous to experiment much along that line
take my advice and stick to the enterprising modern methods you have made so successful for the news the public wants prize fights and such give it what it wants and let some one else do the reforming business yours here followed the name of one of norman's old friends the editor of a daily in an adjoining town
my dear mister norman i hasten to write you a note of appreciation for the evident carrying out of your promise
but not all your pastor henry maxwell one other letter which he opened immediately after reading this from maxwell revealed to him something of the loss to his business that possibly awaited him mister edward norman editor of the daily news dear sir
he had been in the habit of inserting a column of conspicuous advertising and paying for it a very large price
there was no connection implied in the tobacco merchant's letter between the omission of the prize fight
but he could not avoid putting the two together
was about to enter upon some queer reform policy
but the letter directed norman's attention to the advertising phase of his paper he had not considered this before as he glanced over the columns he could not escape the conviction that his master could not permit some of them in his paper
what would he do with that other long advertisement of choice liquors and cigars
no one thought anything about it it was all legitimate business why not raymond enjoyed a system of high license and the saloon and the billiard hall
he was simply doing what every other business man in raymond did and it was one of the best paying sources of revenue what would the paper do if it cut these out could it live that was the question but was that the question after all what would jesus do that was the question he was answering or trying to answer this week
would jesus advertise whiskey and tobacco in his paper
he handed the paper with the marked places over to clark
clark do you think if jesus was the editor and proprietor of a daily paper in raymond he would permit advertisements of whiskey and tobacco in it
we shall certainly bankrupt the paper with this sort of business policy do you think so norman asked the question not as if he expected an answer but simply as if he were talking with himself after a pause he said you may direct marks to do as i have said i believe it is what christ would do and as i told you clark
i cannot believe that by any kind of reasoning we could reach a conclusion justifying our lord in the advertisement
he could not grasp the meaning of it all he felt enraged and alarmed he was sure any such policy would ruin the paper as soon as it became generally known that the editor was trying to do everything by such an absurd moral standard what would become of business if this standard was adopted
it would upset every custom and introduce endless confusion it was simply foolishness it was downright idiocy
what was the matter with the chief was he insane was he going to bankrupt the whole business but edward norman had not yet faced his most serious problem when he came down to the office friday morning he was confronted with the usual program for the sunday morning edition
literary and religious items to thirty or forty pages of sport theatre gossip fashion society and political material this made a very interesting magazine of all sorts of reading matter and had always been welcomed by all the subscribers church members and all as a sunday morning necessity
and the working man especially who would not go to church any way
edward norman communed honestly with himself over the subject taking everything into account would jesus probably edit a sunday morning paper no matter whether it paid that was not the question
besides the regular subscribers had paid for a seven day paper
he was honestly perplexed by the question
it was a very unusual proceeding but they all agreed that the paper was being run on new principles anyhow and they all watched mister norman carefully as he spoke
i propose certain changes which i believe are necessary
i wish to state my motive in doing what i have done
i shall state in that issue my reasons for discontinuing in order to make up to the subscribers the amount of reading matter they may suppose themselves entitled to we can issue a double number on saturday as is done by many evening papers that make no attempt at a sunday edition
has been done by our sunday morning paper i do not believe that jesus would be responsible for it if he were in my place today it will occasion some trouble to arrange the details caused by this change with the advertisers and subscribers that is for me to look after the change itself is one that will take place
so far as i can see the loss will fall on myself neither the reporters nor the pressmen need make any particular changes in their plans he looked around the room and no one spoke
would jesus do that that is would he probably run a newspaper on some loving family plan
he caught himself drawing almost away from the facts of typographical unions and
and all the cold businesslike methods that make a great daily successful
clark was a very valuable man it would be difficult to fill his place but he was not able to give any reasons for continuing the sunday paper that answered the question what would jesus do by letting jesus print that edition
we might as well face that future fact i don't think we shall will you stay by the news until it is bankrupt asked norman with a strange smile
with his eyes open to all the possible results
he confronted it with a degree of hesitation and a feeling nearly akin to fear he had come down to the office very early and for a few minutes was by himself he sat at his desk in a growing thoughtfulness that finally became a desire which he knew was as great as it was unusual
he had yet to learn with all the others in that little company pledged to do the christlike thing that the spirit of life was moving in power through his own life as never before he rose and shut his door and then did what he had not done for years
he kneeled down by his desk and prayed for the divine presence and wisdom to direct him he rose with the day before him and his promise distinct and clear in his mind now for action he seemed to say
but he would be led by events as fast as they came on he opened his door and began the routine of the office work
one of the reporters there was pounding out something on a typewriter edward norman began to write an editorial the daily news was an evening paper and norman usually completed his leading editorial before nine o'clock he had been writing for fifteen minutes when the managing editor called out
here's this press report of yesterday's prize fight at the resort it will make up three columns and a half i suppose it all goes in
sometimes as in this case it was merely a nominal inquiry yes no let me see it
very hard thinking we won't run this today he said finally
and thought he had perhaps misunderstood him
leave it out we won't use it but the managing editor was simply dumbfounded he stared at norman as if the man was out of his mind i don't think clark that it ought to be printed and that's the end of it said norman looking up from his desk
clark seldom had any words with the chief
the circumstances now however seemed to be so extraordinary that clark could not help expressing himself
yes that's what i mean but it's unheard of
norman looked at clark thoughtfully the managing editor was a member of a church of a different denomination from that of norman's
come in here a minute clark and shut the door said norman
norman did not speak for a minute then he said abruptly clark
no i don't suppose he would well that's my only reason for shutting this account out of the news
that i honestly believe jesus would not do
in fact he did think something was wrong though mister norman was one of the last men in the world in his judgment to lose his mind
i think it will simply ruin the paper replied clark promptly he was gathering up his bewildered senses and began to remonstrate why it isn't feasible to run a paper nowadays on any such basis it's too ideal the world isn't ready for it you can't make it pay
just as sure as you live if you shut out this prize fight report you will lose hundreds of subscribers it doesn't take a prophet to see that the very best people in town are eager to read it
it will be a great mistake if you do in my opinion norman sat silent a minute then he spoke gently but firmly clark what in your honest opinion is the right standard for determining conduct is the only right standard for every one the probable action of jesus christ
what would jesus do and then doing it regardless of results
clark turned red and moved uneasily in his chair before he answered the editor's question why yes
but the question is what is feasible is it possible to make it pay
yes that's just what i mean it can't be done we'll go bankrupt in thirty days norman did not reply at once he was very thoughtful
meanwhile i think we ought to understand each other frankly
what would jesus do as honestly as possible i shall continue to do this in the belief that not only can we succeed
clark rose the report does not go in
no let the paper go to press as if there had been no such thing as a prize fight yesterday clark walked out of the room to his own desk feeling as if the bottom had dropped out of everything he was astonished bewildered excited and considerably angered
his great respect for norman checked his rising indignation and disgust but with it all was a feeling of growing wonder at the sudden change of motive which had entered the office of the daily news and threatened as he firmly believed to destroy it
that the paper was going to press without a word in it about the famous prize fight of sunday
every one in the stereotyping and composing rooms had something to say about the unheard of omission two or three times during the day when mister norman had occasion to visit the composing rooms the men stopped their work or glanced around their cases looking at him curiously
but said nothing and did not appear to note it
in several matters before he answered his ever present question in the right way it was not because there were not a great many things in the life of the paper that were contrary to the spirit of christ that he did not act at once but because he was yet honestly in doubt concerning
hundreds of men in the hotels and stores down town as well as regular subscribers eagerly opened the paper and searched it through for the account of the great fight
here boy what's the matter with your paper there's no prize fight here
then he whistled while a bewildered look crept over his face
here give me another paper shouted the customer one with the prize fight account he received it and walked off while the two boys remained comparing notes and lost in wonder at the result sump'n slipped a cog in the newsy sure said the first boy but he couldn't tell why and ran over to the news office to find out
what's the matter here george he asked the clerk as he noted the unusual confusion the boys say they can't sell any copies of the news tonight because the prize fight isn't in it replied george
on the way he could not avoid that constant query would jesus have done it
the newsboys were necessarily sufferers through the action he had taken
and brethren and sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my disciple and whosoever forsaketh not all that he hath he cannot be my disciple
when rachel winslow and virginia page separated after the meeting at the first church on sunday they agreed to continue their conversation the next day virginia asked rachel to come and lunch with her at noon
and rachel accordingly rang the bell at the page mansion about half past eleven virginia herself met her and the two were soon talking earnestly
i cannot reconcile it with my judgment of what christ would do i cannot tell another person what to do but i feel that i ought not to accept this offer what will you do then asked virginia with great interest
rachel picked up a letter that had been lying in her lap and ran over its contents again it was a letter from the manager of a comic opera offering her a place with a large traveling company of the season the salary was a very large figure
there's no great virtue in saying no to this offer when i have the other one rachel went on thoughtfully that's harder to decide but i've about made up my mind to tell the truth virginia i'm completely convinced in the first case
that jesus would never use any talent like a good voice just to make money but now take this concert offer here is a reputable company to travel with an impersonator and a violinist and a male quartet all people of good reputation
i'm asked to go as one of the company and sing leading soprano the salary i mentioned it didn't i is guaranteed to be two hundred dollars a month for the season but i don't feel satisfied that jesus would go what do you think
i believe mister maxwell was right
i am having a harder time than you are dear to decide what he would do are you rachel asked
virginia came and stood by her
and the two young women looked at it silently for a moment suddenly virginia broke out as rachel had never heard her before rachel
and occasionally to ease its conscience donating without any personal sacrifice a little money to charity
launched into society as an heiress supposed to be in a very enviable position i'm perfectly well i can travel or stay at home i can do as i please i can gratify almost any want or desire and yet when i honestly try to imagine
i have not looked out of this window for weeks without a feeling of horror toward myself as i see the humanity that passes by this house virginia turned away and walked up and down the room rachel watched her and could not repress the rising tide of her own growing definition of discipleship
of what christian use was her own talent of song was the best she could do to sell her talent for so much a month go on a concert company's tour dress beautifully enjoy the excitement of public applause and gain a reputation as a great singer
was that what jesus would do she was not morbid
and knew that if she went out into public life she could make a great deal of money and become well known
what she had just said smote rachel with great force because of the similar position in which the two friends found themselves lunch was announced and they went out and were joined by virginia's grandmother madam page a handsome stately woman of sixty five
and virginia's brother rollin a young man who spent most of his time at one of the clubs and had no ambition for anything but a growing admiration for rachel winslow
these three made up the page family virginia's father had been a banker and grain speculator her mother had died ten years before her father within the past year
of wealth and social standing that have never been disturbed she was a shrewd careful business woman of more than average ability
virginia's portion was without any restriction her own she had been trained by her father to understand the ways of the business world and even the grandmother had been compelled to acknowledge the girl's capacity for taking care of her own money
than madam page and rollin rachel who had known the family since she was a girl playmate of virginia's could not help thinking of what confronted virginia in her own home when she once decided on the course which she honestly believed jesus would take
today at lunch as she recalled virginia's outbreak in the front room she tried to picture the scene that would at some time occur between madam page and her granddaughter i understand that you are going on the stage miss winslow we shall all be delighted i'm sure said rollin during the conversation
which had not been very animated rachel colored and felt annoyed who told you she asked
you're mistaken i'm not going on the stage it's a great pity you'd make a hit everybody is talking about your singing this time rachel flushed with genuine anger before she could say anything virginia broke in whom do you mean by everybody
what other time do they hear her it's a great pity i say that the general public outside of raymond cannot hear her voice let us talk about something else said rachel a little sharply madam page glanced at her and spoke with a gentle courtesy my dear rollin never could
pay an indirect compliment he is like his father in that but we are all curious to know something of your plans we claim the right from old acquaintance you know and virginia has already told us of your concert company offer
i supposed of course that was public property said virginia smiling across the table i was in the news office day before yesterday yes yes replied rachel hastily i understand that madam page
concerning the concert company's offer
somehow what rollin page had said and his manner in saying it had hastened her decision in the matter would you mind telling us rachel your reasons for refusing the offer
don't you think the general public ought to hear you
she spoke now in reply to madam page in one of those rare moments of unreserve that added to the attractiveness of her whole character
looking into madam page's eyes with a clear earnest gaze madam page turned red and rollin stared before her grandmother could say anything virginia spoke her rising color showed how she was stirred virginia's pale clear complexion was that of health
mister maxwell's proposition was plain to all who heard it we have not been able to arrive at our decisions very rapidly
madam page looked sharply at virginia before she said anything of course i understand mister maxwell's statement
i have nothing to say about miss winslow's affairs but
i hope you have no foolish notions in this matter virginia i have a great many notions replied virginia quietly whether they are foolish or not depends upon my right understanding of what he would do as soon as i find out i shall do it
excuse me ladies said rollin rising from the table the conversation is getting beyond my depth
madam page waited until the servant had brought in something and then asked her to go out
i am older by several years than you young ladies she said and her traditional type of bearing seemed to rachel to rise up like a great frozen wall between her and every conception of jesus as a sacrifice what you have promised in a spirit of false emotion i presume is impossible of performance
do you mean grandmother that we cannot possibly act as our lord would
besides how can you act with any madam page paused broke off her sentence and then turned to rachel what will your mother say to your decision my dear is it not foolish
missus winslow was that woman oh
chapter twenty one some traits of life it was the night lady glencore received and as usual the street was crowded with equipages which somehow seemed to have got into inextricable confusion
some endeavoring to turn back while others pressed forward the court of the palace being closely packed with carriages which the thronged street held in fast blockade as the apartments which faced the street were not ever used for these receptions
the dark unlighted windows suggested no remark but they who had entered the courtyard were struck by the gloomy aspect of the vast building not only that the entrance and the stairs were in darkness but the whole suite of rooms usually brilliant as the day
were now in deep gloom from every carriage window heads were protruded wondering at this strange spectacle and eager inquiries passed on every side for an explanation the explanation of sudden illness was rapidly disseminated
but as rapidly contradicted and the reply given by the porter to all demands quickly repeated from mouth to mouth her ladyship will not receive can no one explain this mystery cried the old princess borinsky
a smash my dear princess nothing more or less said he in a voice which nature seemed to have invented to utter impertinences
as complete a smash as ever i heard of you can't mean that her fortune is in peril i suppose that must suffer also it is her character her station as one of us that's shipwrecked here
go on go on cried she impatiently i wish to hear it all all is very briefly related then said he
i used to know his father intimately never mind his father
i said you need n't believe it why how do we go anywhere nowadays except by not believing the evil stories that are told of our entertainers
yes yes but i repeat that this is an infamous calumny she a countess of a family second to none in all italy
said the major tartly though if a cracked reputation might have afforded any sympathy she might have admitted her what is to be done exclaimed the princess sorrowfully just what you suggested a few moments ago don't believe it
hang me but good houses and good cooks are growing too scarce to make one credulous of the ills that can be said of their owners
muttered the princess i'll tell you then
and go in a body and tell the countess your mind you know as well as i princess that social credit is as great a bubble as commercial we should all of us be bankrupts if our books were seen
not one however sincerely professed that he disbelieved it can it be as the french moralist asserts that we have a latent sense of satisfaction in the misfortunes of even our best friends or is it
as we rather suspect that true friendship is a rarer thing than is commonly believed and has little to do with those conventional intimacies which so often bear its name
assuredly of all this well bred well dressed and wellborn company now thronging the courtyard of the palace and the street in front of it the tone was as much sarcasm as sorrow
and many a witty epigram and smart speech were launched over a disaster which might have been spared such levity at length the space slowly began to thin slowly carriage after carriage drove off
the heaviest grief of their occupants often being over a lost soiree an unprofited occasion to display toilette and jewels while a few more reflective discussed what course was to be followed in future and what recognition extended to the victim
never was there a society less ungenerously prudish and yet there were cases this one of them which transgressed all conventional rule like a crime which no statute had ever contemplated
and many a jealous rival was not sorry at this hour of humiliation the despotism of beauty is not a very mild sway after all and perhaps the countess had exercised her rule right royally
at all events it was the young and the good looking who voted her exclusion and only those who could not enter into competition with her charms who took the charitable side they discussed and debated the question all day
but while they hesitated over the reprieve the prisoner was beyond the law the gate of the palace locked and barred all day refused entrance to every one at night it opened to admit the exit of a travelling carriage
i must really have those large sevres jars said one and i the small park phaeton cried another i hope she has not taken horace with her he was the best cook in italy splendid hock she had
it may seem small minded and narrow to stigmatize such conduct as this some may say that for the ordinary courtesies of society no pledges of friendship are required no real gratitude incurred be it so
still the revulsion from habits of deference and respect to disparagement and even sarcasm is a sorry evidence of human kindness and the threshold over which for years we had only passed as guests
had the double eminence of brilliancy in rank and brilliancy in wit her entertainments were cited as models of elegance and refinement and now she was gone the extreme of regret that followed her was the sorrow of those who were to dine there no more
the grief of him who thought he should never have a house like it the respectable vagabonds of society are a large family much larger than is usually supposed they are often well born almost always well mannered invariably well dressed
they do not at first blush appear to discharge any very great or necessary function in life but we must by no means from that infer their inutility naturalists tell us that several varieties of insect existence we rashly set down as mere annoyances
have their peculiar spheres of usefulness and good and doubtless these same loungers contribute in some mysterious manner to the welfare of that state which they only seem to burden
if good society only knew the debt it owes to these defenders of its privileges a vagabonds home and aged asylum would speedily figure amongst bur national charities
to the former he gave vent to all his sarcasm and bitterness they liked it just because they would n't condescend to it themselves to his own he put on the bullying air of one who said
i live amongst them i understand them i am aware that what would be very shocking in you is quite permissible to them they know how to be wicked you only know how to be gross
and thus scaresby talked and sneered and scoffed making such a hash of good and evil such a maelstrom of right and wrong that it were a subtle moralist who could have extracted one solitary scrap of uncontaminated meaning
and so she was forgotten ay good reader utterly forgotten the gay world for so it likes to be called has no greater element of enjoyment amongst all its high gifts than its precious power of forgetting
it forgets not only all it owes to others gratitude honor and esteem but even the closer obligations it has contracted with itself
to brace minds or appetites with the sweet mountain air while waiting for breakfast as they stood there a young countryman came by bearing on his hip a large basket of fruit and vegetables
o look at those lovely strawberries exclaimed constance evelyn running down the steps stop if you please where are you going with these marm responded the somewhat startled carrier what are you going to do with them
whose are they are they for sale well twon't deu no harm as i know said the young man making a virtue of necessity for the fingers of constance were already hovering over the dainty little leaf strewn baskets and her eyes complacently searching for the most promising
constance said missus evelyn from the piazza don't take that i dare say they are for mister sweet well mamma said constance with great equanimity mister sweet gets them for me and i only save him the trouble of spoiling them
my taste leads me to prefer the simplicity of primitive arrangements this morning young man called out the landlady's reproving voice won't you never recollect to bring that basket round the back way
does he send them here he doos not said philetus he doosn't keep to hum for a long spell
who doos it's miss fliddy ringgan
exclaimed constance looking up what does she have to do with it said missus evelyn there don't nobody else have nothin to deu with it i guess she's pretty much the hull said her coadjutor
her and me was a picking em afore sunrise all that basketful tain't all strawberries there's garden sass up to the top and does she send that too
said philetus succinctly but hasn't she any help in taking care of the garden said constance
she won't let no one into the front where she grows her posies but where is mister hugh he's to hum
does he leave it all to his cousin he's to the mill and miss ringgan manages farm and garden and all said missus evelyn she doos said philetus
and receiving a gratuity which he accepted without demonstration of any kind whatever the basket bearer at length released moved off poor fleda said miss evelyn as he disappeared with his load
she's a very clever girl said missus evelyn dismissing the subject she's too lovely for anything said constance mister carleton if you will just imagine we are in china and introduct a pair of familiar chop sticks into this basket
i shall be repaid for the loss of a strawberry by the expression of ecstasy which will immediately spread itself over your features i intend to patronize the natural mode of eating in future i find the ends of my fingers decidedly odoriferous
he smiled a little as he complied with the young lady's invitation but the expression of ecstasy did not come are mister rossitur's circumstances so much reduced he said drawing nearer to missus evelyn do you know them
i knew missus rossitur very well some years ago when she was in paris they are all broken to pieces said missus evelyn as mister carleton's eye went back to her for his answer mister rossitur failed and lost everything bankrupt a year or two after they came home
and what has he been doing since i don't know trying to farm it here but i am afraid he has not succeeded well i am afraid not they don't look like it missus rossitur will not see anybody and i don't believe they have done any more than struggle for a living since they came here
he has gone down hill sadly since his misfortunes i am very sorry for them and his niece takes care of his farm in the meantime do you know her asked both the miss evelyns again
i wish you had heard her yesterday it was beyond everything we were conversing very amicably regarding each other through a friendly vista formed by the sugar bowl and tea pot when a horrid man
fleda went off into a eulogium upon the intelligence of hay makers in general and the strength of mind barbarians are universally known to possess the manner still more than the matter of this speech was beyond the withstanding of any good natured muscles
though the gentleman's smile was a grave one and quickly lost in gravity missus evelyn laughed and reproved in a breath but the laugh was admiring and the reproof was stimulative
and this has been her life ever since mister rossitur lost his property entirely sacrificed said missus evelyn with a compassionately resigned air education advantages and everything given up
and set down here where she has seen nobody from year's end to year's end but the country people about very good people but not the kind of people she ought to have been brought up among oh mamma said the eldest miss evelyn in a deprecatory tone
you shouldn't talk so it isn't right i am sure she is very nice nicer now than anybody else i know and clever too nice said edith i wish i had such a sister
she is a good girl a very good girl said missus evelyn in a tone which would have deterred any one from wishing to make her acquaintance and happy mamma fleda don't look miserable she seems perfectly happy and contented
yes said missus evelyn she has got accustomed to this state of things it's her life
and raises vegetables for market and oversees her uncle's farmers and it isn't a hardship to her she finds her happiness in it she is a very good girl but she might have been made something much better than a farmer's wife
you may set your mind at rest on that subject mamma said constance still using her chop sticks with great complacency it's my opinion that the farmer is not in existence who is blessed with such a conjugal futurity
i think fleda's strong pastoral tastes are likely to develope themselves in a new direction missus evelyn looked with a partial smile at the pretty features which the business of eating the strawberries displayed in sundry novel and picturesque points of view
and asked what she meant i don't know said constance intent upon her basket i feel a friend's distress for mister thorn it's all your doing mamma you won't be able to look him in the face when we have fleda next fall
but she went away before anything was decided i don't think he has forgotten her i shouldn't think anybody could forget her said edith i am confident he would be here at this moment said constance if he wasn't in london
but what is all mamma's doing constance inquired her sister the destruction of the peace of the whole family of thorns shouldn't sleep sound in my bed if i were she with such a reflection
i look forward to heart rending scenes with a very disturbed state of mind but what have i done my child said missus evelyn didn't you introduce your favourite mister olmney to miss ringgan last summer
i don't know her native delicacy shrunk from making any disclosures and of course the tongue of friendship is silent but they were out ages yesterday while i was waiting for her and their parting at the gate was i feel myself unequal to the task of describing it
said constance ecstatically and she was in the most elevated tone of mind during our whole interview afterwards and took all my brilliant remarks with as much coolness as if they had been drops of rain more i presume considering that it was hay time
did you see him said missus evelyn only at that impracticable distance mamma but i introduced his name afterwards in my usual happy manner and i found that miss ringgan's cheeks were by no means indifferent to it i didn't dare go any further
i am very glad of it i hope it is so said missus evelyn energetically
you are exciting gloomy feelings in mister carleton's mind mamma by your felicitous suggestions mister carleton did your ears receive a faint announcement of ham and eggs which went quite through and through mine just now
he bowed and handed the young lady in but constance declared that though he sat beside her and took care of her at breakfast he had on one of his intangible fits which drove her to the last extreme of impatience and captivation
the sun was not much more than two hours high the next morning when a rider was slowly approaching mister rossitur's house from the bridge walking his horse like a man who wished to look well at all he was passing
mister sweet must send for them if he wants them philetus must make haste back for you know mister douglass wants him to help in the barn meadow lucas won't be here and now the weather is so fine i want to make haste with the hay well will you have the samp for breakfast no we'll keep that for dinner
to join his english friends at saratoga on their way to the falls and canada
british legation naples my dear harcourt
should it ever reach you you will perceive how unjustly you have charged me with neglecting your wishes i have ordered the sicilian wine for your friend
and i assure you it is rather a rare incident in my life to have forgotten nothing required of me perhaps you who know me well will do me this justice
it was quite a mistake sending me here for anything there is to be done spencer or lonsdale would perfectly suffice i ought to have gone to vienna and so they know at home but it's the old game played over again important questions
nor ask you to listen to speculations which even those in authority turn a deaf ear to it is very kind of you to think of my health i am still a sufferer the old pains rather aggravated than relieved by this climate
you are aware that though warm the weather here has some exciting property some excess or other of a peculiar gas in the atmosphere prejudicial to certain temperaments i feel it greatly
and though the season is midsummer i am obliged to dress entirely in a light costume of buckskin and take marsalla baths which refresh me at least for the while
steeped in arrack and think it agrees with me
but i do not mean to avail myself of the politeness
but i don't fancy leaving this just now where there is a doctor a certain luigi buffeloni who really seems to have hit off my case
his notion is highly ingenious and wonderfully borne out by the symptoms i wish you would ask brodie or any of our best men whether they have met with this affection what class it affects and what course it usually takes
my italian doctor implies that it is the passing malady of men highly excitable and largely endowed with mental gifts he may or may not be correct in this
there is a wonderful sameness over the world just now preluding i have very little doubt some great outburst of nationality from all the countries of europe just as periods of puritanism succeed intervals of gross licentiousness
well bred people like gold are current everywhere there is really little peculiar to observe i don't perceive that there is more levity than elsewhere the difference is perhaps that there is less shame about it since it is under the protection of the church
i have a few who come when i want them and go in like manner they tell me what is going on far better and more truthfully than paid employees and they cannot trace my intentions through my inquiries and hasten off to retail them at the ministry of foreign affairs
of my colleagues i see as little as possible though when we do meet i feel an unbounded affection for them so much for my life dear harcourt on the whole a very tolerable kind of existence
this boy of glencore's i rather like the account you give of him better than you do yourself imaginative and dreamy he may be but remember what he was and where we have placed him a moonstruck romantic youth at a german university
is it not painting the lily
always a difficulty if not abstracted from other and more dulcet sounds i never meant to have him domesticated with some rusty hochgelehrter eating sauer kraut in company with a green eyed fraulein
and imbibing love and metaphysics together let him moon away as you call it my dear harcourt it is wonderfully little consequence what any one does with his intellect till he be three or four and twenty
with a weak frame imagination will play the tyrant and never cease till it dominates over all the other faculties but where there is strength and activity there is no fear of this you amuse me with your account of the doctor
may they never make a worse blunder the man is eminently remarkable with his opportunities miraculous i am certain harcourt you never felt half the pleasure on arriving at a region well stocked with game
that he did on finding himself in a land of libraries museums and collections fancy the poor fellow's ecstasy at being allowed to range at will through all ancient literature of which hitherto a stray volume alone had reached him
imagine his delight as each day opened new stores of knowledge to him surrounded as he was by all that could encourage zeal and reward research
it smacks of the gentle blood in his veins poor lad there is something very sad in his case you need not have taken such trouble about accounts and expenditure of course whatever you have done i perfectly approve of
and perhaps no great difficulty in effecting his appointment but there is a serious obstacle in his position the young men who figure at embassies and missions are all cognate numbers they each of them know who and what the other is
whence he came and so on now our poor boy could not stand this ordeal nor would it be fair he should be exposed to it besides this it was never glencore's wish but the very opposite to it that he should be brought prominently forward in life
he even suggested one of the colonies as the means of withdrawing him at once and forever from public gaze you have interested me much by what you say of the boy's progress his tastes i infer lie in the direction which in a worldly sense are least profitable
but after all harcourt every one has brains enough and to spare for any career let us only decide upon that one most fitted for him and depend upon it his faculties will day by day conform to his duties and his tastes be merely dissipations
just as play or wine is to coarser natures if you really press the question of his coming to me i will not refuse seeing that i can take my own time to consider what steps subsequently should be adopted how is it that you know nothing of glencore
can he not be traced lord selby whom you may remember in the blues formerly dined here yesterday and mentioned a communication he had received from his lawyer with regard to some property entail
which if glencore should leave no heir male devolved upon him i tried to find out the whereabouts and the amount of this heritage but with the admirable indifference that characterizes him he did not know or care
as to my lady i can give you no information whatever her house at florence is uninhabited the furniture is sold off but no one seems even to guess whither she has betaken herself
the fast and loose of that pleasant city are as i hear actually houseless since her departure no asylum opens there with fire and cigars a number of the destitute have come down here in half despair amongst the rest scaresby
major scaresby an insupportable nuisance of flat stories and stale gossip one of those fellows who cannot make even malevolence amusing and who speak ill of their neighbors without a single spark of wit
he has left three cards upon me each duly returned but i am resolved that our inter change of courtesies shall proceed no farther i trust i have omitted nothing in reply to your last despatch
if as convenient to you you will of course write to me however meanwhile do not mention having heard from me at the clubs or in society i am as i have the right to be on the sick list
and it is as well my rest should remain undisturbed i wish you had any means of making it known that the article in the quarterly on our foreign relations is not mine the newspapers have coolly assumed me to be the author
the fellow who wrote it must be an ass
he who wants to bag his bird colonel never bangs away at nothing i have now completed a longer despatch to you than i intend to address to the noble secretary at f o and am yours very faithfully horace upton
on spain and a small box of those new blisters
they are to be had at atkinson's i have got so accustomed to their stimulating power that i never write without one or two on my forehead they tell me the cautery if dexterously applied is better
in the early morning it was the second morning after my recovery and i believe the fourth after i was picked up i awoke through an avenue of tumultuous dreams dreams of guns and howling mobs and became sensible of a hoarse shouting above me
i rubbed my eyes and lay listening to the noise doubtful for a little while of my whereabouts then came a sudden pattering of bare feet the sound of heavy objects being thrown about a violent creaking and the rattling of chains
i heard the swish of the water as the ship was suddenly brought round and a foamy yellow green wave flew across the little round window and left it streaming i jumped into my clothes and went on deck
as i came up the ladder i saw against the flushed sky for the sun was just rising the broad back and red hair of the captain and over his shoulder the puma spinning from a tackle rigged on to the mizzen spanker boom the poor brute seemed horribly scared
and crouched in the bottom of its little cage overboard with em bawled the captain overboard with em
he stood in my way so that i had perforce to tap his shoulder to come on deck he came round with a start and staggered back a few paces to stare at me it needed no expert eye to tell that the man was still drunk hullo
said he stupidly and then with a light coming into his eyes why it's mister mister prendick said i prendick be damned said he shut up that's your name mister shut up
it was no good answering the brute but i certainly did not expect his next move he held out his hand to the gangway by which montgomery stood talking to a massive grey haired man in dirty blue flannels who had apparently just come aboard
that way mister blasted shut up that way roared the captain montgomery and his companion turned as he spoke
that way mister blasted shut up that's what i mean overboard mister shut up and sharp we're cleaning the ship out
and overboard you go i stared at him dumfounded then it occurred to me that it was exactly the thing i wanted the lost prospect of a journey as sole passenger with this quarrelsome sot was not one to mourn over i turned towards montgomery
can't have you said montgomery's companion concisely you can't have me said i aghast he had the squarest and most resolute face i ever set eyes upon
look here i began turning to the captain overboard said the captain this ship aint for beasts and cannibals and worse than beasts any more overboard you go mister shut up
amen i've had enough of it but montgomery i appealed he distorted his lower lip and nodded his head hopelessly at the grey haired man beside him to indicate his powerlessness to help me i'll see to you presently
said the captain then began a curious three cornered altercation alternately i appealed to one and another of the three men first to the grey haired man to let me land and then to the drunken captain to keep me aboard
i even bawled entreaties to the sailors montgomery said never a word only shook his head you're going overboard i tell you was the captain's refrain law be damned i'm king here
at last i must confess my voice suddenly broke in the middle of a vigorous threat i felt a gust of hysterical petulance and went aft and stared dismally at nothing
meanwhile the sailors progressed rapidly with the task of unshipping the packages and caged animals a large launch with two standing lugs lay under the lea of the schooner and into this the strange assortment of goods were swung
for the hull of the launch was hidden from me by the side of the schooner neither montgomery nor his companion took the slightest notice of me but busied themselves in assisting and directing the four or five sailors who were unloading the goods
the captain went forward interfering rather than assisting i was alternately despairful and desperate once or twice as i stood waiting there for things to accomplish themselves i could not resist an impulse to laugh at my miserable quandary
i felt all the wretcheder for the lack of a breakfast hunger and a lack of blood corpuscles take all the manhood from a man i perceived pretty clearly that i had not the stamina either to resist what the captain chose to do to expel me
or to force myself upon montgomery and his companion so i waited passively upon fate
as if i did not exist presently that work was finished and then came a struggle i was hauled resisting weakly enough to the gangway even then i noticed the oddness of the brown faces of the men who were with montgomery in the launch
but the launch was now fully laden and was shoved off hastily a broadening gap of green water appeared under me and i pushed back with all my strength to avoid falling headlong
and then the captain the mate and one of the seamen helping him ran me aft towards the stern the dingey of the lady vain had been towing behind it was half full of water had no oars and was quite unvictualled
i refused to go aboard her and flung myself full length on the deck in the end they swung me into her by a rope for they had no stern ladder and then they cut me adrift i drifted slowly from the schooner in a kind of stupor i watched all hands
take to the rigging and slowly but surely she came round to the wind the sails fluttered and then bellied out as the wind came into them i stared at her weather beaten side heeling steeply towards me and then she passed out of my range of view
i did not turn my head to follow her at first i could scarcely believe what had happened i crouched in the bottom of the dingey stunned and staring blankly at the vacant oily sea then i realised that i was in that little hell of mine again now half swamped
and looking back over the gunwale i saw the schooner standing away from me with the red haired captain mocking at me over the taffrail and turning towards the island saw the launch growing smaller as she approached the beach
abruptly the cruelty of this desertion became clear to me i had no means of reaching the land unless i should chance to drift there
the locked door the reader will perhaps understand that at first everything was so strange about me and my position was the outcome of such unexpected adventures that i had no discernment of the relative strangeness of this or that thing
i followed the llama up the beach and was overtaken by montgomery who asked me not to enter the stone enclosure i noticed then that the puma in its cage and the pile of packages had been placed outside the entrance to this quadrangle
i turned and saw that the launch had now been unloaded run out again and was being beached and the white haired man was walking towards us he addressed montgomery and now comes the problem of this uninvited guest what are we to do with him
he knows something of science said montgomery i'm itching to get to work again with this new stuff said the white haired man nodding towards the enclosure his eyes grew brighter i daresay you are said montgomery in anything but a cordial tone
we can't send him over there and we can't spare the time to build him a new shanty and we certainly can't take him into our confidence just yet i'm in your hands said i
over there i've been thinking of the same things montgomery answered there's my room with the outer door that's it said the elder man promptly looking at montgomery and all three of us went towards the enclosure i'm sorry to make a mystery mister prendick
but you'll remember you're uninvited our little establishment here contains a secret or so is a kind of blue beard's chamber in fact nothing very dreadful really to a sane man but just now as we don't know you decidedly said i
i should be a fool to take offence at any want of confidence he twisted his heavy mouth into a faint smile he was one of those saturnine people who smile with the corners of the mouth down and bowed his acknowledgment of my complaisance
it was a heavy wooden gate framed in iron and locked with the cargo of the launch piled outside it and at the corner we came to a small doorway i had not previously observed the white haired man produced a bundle of keys from the pocket of his greasy blue jacket
opened this door and entered his keys and the elaborate locking up of the place even while it was still under his eye struck me as peculiar i followed him and found myself in a small apartment
plainly but not uncomfortably furnished and with its inner door which was slightly ajar opening into a paved courtyard this inner door montgomery at once closed a hammock was slung across the darker corner of the room
and a small unglazed window defended by an iron bar looked out towards the sea this the white haired man told me was to be my apartment and the inner door which for fear of accidents he said he would lock on the other side was my limit inward
he called my attention to a convenient deck chair before the window and to an array of old books chiefly i found surgical works and editions of the latin and greek classics languages i cannot read with any comfort on a shelf near the hammock
he left the room by the outer door as if to avoid opening the inner one again we usually have our meals in here said montgomery and then as if in doubt went out after the other moreau i heard him call and for the moment i do not think i noticed
then as i handled the books on the shelf it came up in consciousness where had i heard the name of moreau before i sat down before the window took out the biscuits that still remained to me and ate them with an excellent appetite moreau
through the window i saw one of those unaccountable men in white lugging a packing case along the beach presently the window frame hid him then i heard a key inserted and turned in the lock behind me
that had now been brought up from the beach they were not barking but sniffing and growling in a curious fashion i could hear the rapid patter of their feet and montgomery's voice soothing them
i was very much impressed by the elaborate secrecy of these two men regarding the contents of the place and for some time i was thinking of that and of the unaccountable familiarity of the name of moreau
but so odd is the human memory that i could not then recall that well known name in its proper connection from that my thoughts went to the indefinable queerness of the deformed man on the beach i never saw such a gait such odd motions as he pulled at the box
i recalled that none of these men had spoken to me though most of them i had found looking at me at one time or another in a peculiarly furtive manner quite unlike the frank stare of your unsophisticated savage indeed they had all seemed remarkably taciturn
and when they did speak endowed with very uncanny voices what was wrong with them then i recalled the eyes of montgomery's ungainly attendant just as i was thinking of him he came in he was now dressed in white and carried a little tray with some coffee and boiled vegetables thereon
bending amiably and placed the tray before me on the table
it jumped upon me suddenly close to my face the man had pointed ears
your breakfast sair he said i stared at his face without attempting to answer him he turned and went towards the door regarding me oddly over his shoulder i followed him out with my eyes
and as i did so by some odd trick of unconscious cerebration there came surging into my head the phrase the moreau hollows was it the moreau ah it sent my memory back ten years the moreau horrors
the phrase drifted loose in my mind for a moment
to read which made one shiver and creep then i remembered distinctly all about it that long forgotten pamphlet came back with startling vividness to my mind i had been a mere lad then and moreau was i suppose about fifty
a prominent and masterful physiologist well known in scientific circles for his extraordinary imagination and his brutal directness in discussion was this the same moreau he had published some very astonishing facts in connection with the transfusion of blood
then suddenly his career was closed he had to leave england a journalist obtained access to his laboratory in the capacity of laboratory assistant
if it was an accident his gruesome pamphlet became notorious on the day of its publication a wretched dog flayed and otherwise mutilated escaped from moreau's house it was in the silly season and a prominent editor a cousin of the temporary laboratory assistant
the doctor was simply howled out of the country it may be that he deserved to be but i still think that the tepid support of his fellow investigators and his desertion by the great body of scientific workers was a shameful thing
yet some of his experiments by the journalist's account were wantonly cruel he might perhaps have purchased his social peace by abandoning his investigations but he apparently preferred the latter as most men would who have once fallen under the overmastering spell of research
he was unmarried and had indeed nothing but his own interest to consider i felt convinced that this must be the same man everything pointed to it it dawned upon me to what end the puma and the other animals
which had now been brought with other luggage into the enclosure behind the house were destined and a curious faint odour the halitus of something familiar an odour that had been in the background of my consciousness hitherto suddenly came forward into the forefront of my thoughts
it was the antiseptic odour of the dissecting room i heard the puma growling through the wall and one of the dogs yelped as though it had been struck yet surely and especially to another scientific man there was nothing so horrible in vivisection
as to account for this secrecy and by some odd leap in my thoughts the pointed ears and luminous eyes of montgomery's attendant came back again before me with the sharpest definition i stared before me out at the green sea frothing under a freshening breeze
and let these and other strange memories of the last few days chase one another through my mind
but the islanders seeing that i was really adrift took pity on me i drifted very slowly to the eastward approaching the island slantingly and presently i saw with hysterical relief the launch come round and return towards me
broad shouldered companion sitting cramped up with the dogs and several packing cases in the stern sheets this individual stared fixedly at me without moving or speaking the black faced cripple was glaring at me as fixedly in the bows near the puma
there were three other men besides three strange brutish looking fellows at whom the staghounds were snarling savagely montgomery who was steering brought the boat by me and rising caught and fastened my painter to the tiller to tow me
for there was no room aboard i had recovered from my hysterical phase by this time and answered his hail as he approached bravely enough
i was jerked back as the rope tightened between the boats
for the water in the dingey had been shipped
the white haired man i found was still regarding me steadfastly
of some perplexity when my eyes met his he looked down at the staghound that sat between his knees he was a powerfully built man as i have said with a fine forehead and rather heavy features
but his eyes had that odd drooping of the skin above the lids which often comes with advancing years and the fall of his heavy mouth at the corners gave him an expression of pugnacious resolution he talked to montgomery in a tone too low for me to hear
from him my eyes travelled to his three men and a strange crew they were i saw only their faces yet there was something in their faces i knew not what that gave me a queer spasm of disgust i looked steadily at them
and the impression did not pass though i failed to see what had occasioned it they seemed to me then to be brown men
i have never seen men so wrapped up before and women so only in the east they wore turbans too and thereunder peered out their elfin faces at me faces with protruding lower jaws and bright eyes they had lank black hair
almost like horsehair and seemed as they sat
the white haired man who i knew was a good six feet in height sat a head below any one of the three i found afterwards that really none were taller than myself but their bodies were abnormally long and the thigh part of the leg short and curiously twisted
at any rate they were an amazingly ugly gang and over the heads of them under the forward lug peered the black face of the man whose eyes were luminous in the dark as i stared at them they met my gaze
and then first one and then another turned away from my direct stare and looked at me in an odd furtive manner
and i turned my attention to the island we were approaching it was low and covered with thick vegetation chiefly a kind of palm that was new to me from one point a thin white thread of vapour rose slantingly to an immense height
and then frayed out like a down feather we were now within the embrace of a broad bay flanked on either hand by a low promontory the beach was of dull grey sand and sloped steeply up to a ridge perhaps sixty or seventy feet above the sea level
and irregularly set with trees and undergrowth half way up was a square enclosure of some greyish stone which i found subsequently was built partly of coral and partly of pumiceous lava two thatched roofs peeped from within this enclosure
a man stood awaiting us at the water's edge i fancied while we were still far off that i saw some other and very grotesque looking creatures scuttle into the bushes upon the slope but i saw nothing of these as we drew nearer
he had a large almost lipless mouth extraordinary lank arms long thin feet and bow legs and stood with his heavy face thrust forward staring at us he was dressed like montgomery and his white haired companion in jacket and trousers of blue serge
as we came still nearer this individual began to run to and fro on the beach making the most grotesque movements at a word of command from montgomery the four men in the launch sprang up and with singularly awkward gestures struck the lugs
montgomery steered us round and into a narrow little dock excavated in the beach then the man on the beach hastened towards us this dock as i call it was really a mere ditch just long enough at this phase of the tide to take the longboat
i heard the bows ground in the sand staved the dingey off the rudder of the big boat with my piggin and freeing the painter landed the three muffled men with the clumsiest movements scrambled out upon the sand and forthwith set to landing the cargo
assisted by the man on the beach i was struck especially by the curious movements of the legs of the three swathed and bandaged boatmen not stiff they were but distorted in some odd way almost as if they were jointed in the wrong place
the dogs were still snarling and strained at their chains after these men as the white haired man landed with them the three big fellows spoke to one another in odd guttural tones and the man who had waited for us on the beach began chattering to them excitedly
a foreign language as i fancied as they laid hands on some bales piled near the stern
the white haired man stood holding in a tumult of six dogs and bawling orders over their din montgomery having unshipped the rudder landed likewise and all set to work at unloading
to offer any assistance presently the white haired man seemed to recollect my presence and came up to me you look said he as though you had scarcely breakfasted
i must apologise for that now you are our guest we must make you comfortable though you are uninvited you know he looked keenly into my face montgomery says you are an educated man mister prendick says you know something of science
may i ask what that signifies i told him i had spent some years at the royal college of science and had done some researches in biology under huxley he raised his eyebrows slightly at that
that alters the case a little mister prendick he said with a trifle more respect in his manner as it happens we are biologists here this is a biological station of a sort
on rollers towards the walled yard i and montgomery at least he added then when you will be able to get away i can't say we're off the track to anywhere
he left me abruptly and went up the beach past this group and i think entered the enclosure the other two men were with montgomery erecting a pile of smaller packages on a low wheeled truck the llama was still on the launch with the rabbit hutches
the pile of things completed all three men laid hold of the truck and began shoving the ton weight or so upon it after the puma presently montgomery left them and coming back to me held out his hand i'm glad said he for my own part
that captain was a silly ass he'd have made things lively for you it was you said i that saved me again that depends you'll find this island an infernally rum place i promise you i'd watch my goings carefully
if i were you he he hesitated and seemed to alter his mind about what was on his lips i wish you'd help me with these rabbits he said his procedure with the rabbits was singular i waded in with him and helped him lug one of the hutches ashore
no sooner was that done than he opened the door of it and tilting the thing on one end turned its living contents out on the ground
he clapped his hands and forthwith they went off with that hopping run of theirs fifteen or twenty of them i should think up the beach increase and multiply my friends said montgomery replenish the island hitherto we've had a certain lack of meat here
as i watched them disappearing the white haired man returned with a brandy flask and some biscuits something to go on with prendick said he in a far more familiar tone than before i made no ado but set to work on the biscuits at once
while the white haired man helped montgomery to release about a score more of the rabbits three big hutches however went up to the house with the puma
he thought to render the enterprise easier by not bearing the whole burden by himself alone on the eleventh of november fifteen hundred
a treaty by which the kings of france and spain divided by anticipation
terra di lavoro and the province of the abruzzi
he did not here as he had done for the conquest of milaness join himself to an ally of far inferior power to his own and of ambition confined within far narrower boundaries
mediocre men who desire to remain pretty nearly honest have always the worst of it and are always dupes when they ally themselves with men who are corrupt and at the same time able indifferent to good and evil to justice and iniquity
hidden opposition in the very midst of joint action and afterwards open treason and defection he forgot moreover that ferdinand had at the head of his armies a tried chieftain gonzalvo of cordova already known throughout europe as the great captain
who had won that name in campaigns against the moors the turks and the portuguese and who had the character of being as free from scruple as from fear lastly the supporters who at the very commencement of his enterprises in italy
were as little to be depended upon in the future as they were compromising at the present by reason of their reputation for unbridled ambition perfidy and crime the king of france whatever sacrifices he might already have made and might still make in order to insure their co operation could no more count upon it
fortified with this authority the army continued its march and arrived before capua on the sixth of july gonzalvo of cordova was already upon neapolitan territory with a spanish army which ferdinand the catholic had hastily sent thither
at the request of frederick three himself who had counted upon the assistance of his cousin the king of arragon against the french invasion great was his consternation when he heard that the ambassadors of france and spain had proclaimed at rome the alliance between their masters
at the first rumor of this news gonzalvo of cordova whether sincerely or not
but so soon as its certainty was made public he accepted it without hesitation and took equally with the french the offensive against the king already dethroned by the pope and very near being so by the two sovereigns who had made alliance for the purpose of sharing between them
the spoil they should get from him capua capitulated and was nevertheless plundered and laid waste a french fleet commanded by philip de ravenstein arrived off naples when d'aubigny was already master of it
he would willingly advise him as to his affairs according to his advice the best thing would be to surrender and place himself in the hands of the king of france and submit to his good pleasure he would find him so wise and so debonnair and so accommodating that he would be bound to be content
better or safer counsel for him he had not to give after taking some precautions on the score of his eldest son prince ferdinand whom he left at tarento in the kingdom he was about to quit
two months afterwards and not before he was conducted to the king himself who was then at blois louis welcomed him with his natural kindness and secured to him fifty thousand livres a year on the duchy of anjou
in giving the senate an account of his mission one of the ambassadors dominic of treviso
and temperate in eating taking scarcely anything but boiled beef he is by nature miserly and retentive his great pleasure is hawking from september to april he hawks
nothing however with out the cognizance of the king who has a far from stable mind saying yes and no i am of opinion that their lordships should remove every suspicion from his majesty's mind and aim at keeping themselves closely united with him
it was not without ground that the venetian envoy gave his government this advice
the king had more than once felt and testified some displeasure
by the pope's nephew caesar borgia to whom he had given the title of duke of valentinois
louis on his side showed anxiety as to the conduct which would be exhibited towards him by the venetians if he encountered any embarrassment in his expedition to naples
the french and the spaniards d'aubigny and gonzalvo of cordova at first gave their attention to nothing but establishing themselves firmly each in the interests of the king his master in those portions of the kingdom which were to belong to them but before long
disputes arose between the two generals as to the meaning of certain clauses in the treaty of november eleventh fifteen hundred
louis d'armagnac duke of nemours a brave warrior but a negotiator inclined to take umbrage and to give offence the disputes soon took the form of hostilities the french essayed to drive the spaniards from the points they had occupied in the disputed territories
and at first they had the advantage gonzalvo of cordova from necessity or in prudence concentrated his forces within barletta a little fortress with a little port on the adriatic
between the kings of spain and france made a change in the position reciprocally of the two sovereigns and must suspend the military operations of their generals within the kingdom of naples the french general declared his readiness to obey his king says guicciardini
but the spanish whether it were that he felt sure of victory or that he had received private instructions on that point said that he could not stop the war without express orders from his king and sallying forthwith from barletta he gained on the twenty eighth of april fifteen o three at cerignola
had also beaten on the twenty first of april at seminara a french corps commanded by d'aubigny the great captain was as eager to profit by victory as he had been patient in waiting for a chance of it he marched rapidly on naples and entered it on the fourteenth of may
capua and aversa followed its example gaeta was the only important place which still held out for the french and contained a garrison capable of defending it and thither the remnant of the troops beaten at seminara and at cerignola
the command devolved upon the marquis of mantua who marched on gaeta
either to invest the place or to repulse re enforcements that might arrive for it
the french army was dispersing about in search of shelter and provisions
gonzalvo who was kept well informed of his enemies condition threw on the twenty seventh of december a bridge over the garigliano
which they did not succeed in entering until they had lost artillery baggage and a number of prisoners the spaniards says john d'auton halted before the place made as if they would lay siege to it and so remained for two or three days the french who were there in great numbers
had scarcely any provisions and could not hold out for long however they put a good face upon it the captain gonzalvo sent word to them that if they would surrender their town he would on his part restore to them without ransom all prisoners and others of their party
would succeed him and that hope had a great deal to do with the shocking favor he showed caesar borgia that infamous son of a demoralized father
a four weeks pope pius the third
and when the holy see suddenly became once more vacant
louis concluded on the thirty first of march fifteen o four a truce for three years with the king of spain
in order to satisfy his grudge on account of the venetians demeanor towards him
with the design all three of them of wresting certain provinces from them with those political miscalculations was connected a more personal and more disinterested feeling
to prince charles of austria and of the enormous concessions he had made by two treaties one of april fifth fifteen o three and the other of september twenty second fifteen o four for the sake of this marriage he had assigned as dowry to his daughter first the duchy of milan
the titles of king of naples and of jerusalem and duke of milan
that he would pursue a pacific and conservative policy at home and a warlike and adventurous policy abroad
had by his sagacity and fertile mind by his taste for arts and sciences and the intelligent patronage he bestowed upon them by his ability in speaking and by his facile character obtained in italy a position far beyond his real power
and testifying great good will and the special courier who brought it declared that the king had written to nobody in italy except the pope the venetians and the florentines the venetians did not care to neglect such an opening
but at the fountain inn you will tell me that so great a king ought not to put up at an inn but i shall answer you that in this district of etampes the best houses are as yet the inns there is certainly a royal castle in the which lives the queen the wife of the deceased king
nevertheless his majesty was pleased to give audience in this hostelry all covered expressly with cloth of alexandrine velvet with lilies of gold at the spot where the king was placed as soon as the speech was ended
as his rightful and olden patrimony and on account of the charges and expenses which would be incurred by the venetian government whilst rendering assistance to the most christian king in the aforesaid war the most christian king bound himself to approve and consent that the city of cremona
and certain forts or territories adjacent specially indicated should belong in freehold and perpetuity to the venetian government the treaty at the same time regulated the number of troops and the military details of the war on behalf of the two contracting powers
and it provided for divers political incidents which might be entailed and to which the alliance thus concluded should or should not be applicable according to the special stipulations which were drawn up with a view to those very incidents in the month of august fourteen ninety nine
of whom five thousand were swiss invaded milaness duke ludovic sforza opposed to it a force pretty nearly equal in number but far less full of confidence and of far less valor in less than three weeks the duchy was conquered in only two cases was any assault necessary
all the other places were given up by traitors or surrendered without a show of resistance the venetians had the same success on the eastern frontier of the duchy milan and cremona alone remained to be occupied ludovic sforza
appeared before his troops and his people like the very spirit of lethargy says a contemporary unpublished chronicle with his head bent down to the earth and for a long while he remained thus pensive and without a single word to say
howbeit he was not so discomfited but that on that very same day he could get his luggage packed his transport train under orders his horses shod his ducats with which he had more than thirty mules laden put by
and in short everything in readiness to decamp next morning as early as possible just as he left milan he said to the venetian ambassadors you have brought the king of france to dinner with me
and yet they might have avoided this alliance which entailed their ruin for all his great and profound intellect machiavelli was wrong about this event and the actors in it the venetians did not deserve his censure
instituted at milan a court of justice analogous to the french parliaments loaded with favors the scholars and artists who were the honor of lombardy and recrossed the alps at the end of some weeks
on the twenty fifth of january fifteen hundred the insurrection broke out and two months later ludovic sforza had once more become master of milaness where the french possessed nothing but the castle of milan
in one of the fights brought about by this sudden revolution the young chevalier bayard carried away by the impetuosity of his age and courage pursued right into milan the foes he was driving before him without noticing
ludovic asked what it meant and was informed that a brave and bold gentleman younger than any of the others had entered milan pell mell with the combatants he was pursuing and had been taken prisoner by john bernardino casaccio one of the leaders of the insurrection
he resolved himself to be his conductor after having dressed him in one of his own robes and made him look like a gentleman marvelling to see bayard so young come hither my gentleman said ludovico who brought you into the city
i never imagined i was entering all alone and thought surely i was being followed of my comrades who knew more about war than i for if they had done as i did they would like me be prisoners
that you would surely be in as great safety in germany as you are here for your folks are not the sort to fight us with such assurance spoke the good knight that lord ludovico took pleasure there in though his say was enough to astound him on my faith my gentleman said he as it were in raillery
i have a good mind that the king of france's army and mine should come together in order that by battle it may be known to whom of right belongs this heritage for i see no other way to it by my sacred oath my lord said the good knight i would that it might be to morrow provided that i were out of captivity
and barring my duty to the king my master and saving my honor i would show my gratitude for it in whatsoever it might please you to command me in good faith said lord ludovico you shall have presently that which you do ask for
and lord ludovico had him armed before his eyes when he was accoutred the young knight leaped upon his horse without putting foot to stirrup
and raising his eyes he said to lord ludovico my lord i thank you for the courtesy you have done me please god to pay it back to you he was in a fine large court yard then he began to set spurs to his horse the which gave four or five jumps so gayly that it could not be better done
and the former capitulated surrendered the strong place of novara and promised to evacuate the country on condition of a safe conduct for themselves and their booty ludovic in extreme anxiety for his own safety was on the point of giving himself up to the french
a collaret round his neck a doublet of crimson satin scarlet hose and a halberd in his fist but whether it were that he was betrayed or that he was recognized he on the tenth of april fifteen hundred
who said no more than welcome lord next day april eleventh
whereat he was right joyous and had bonfires lighted together with devotional processions giving thanks to the prince of princes for the happy victory he had by the divine aid obtained over his enemies
at the entrance into the city a great number of gentlemen from the king's household were present to meet him
where he was lodged and placed in security there he passed a fortnight louis refused to see him but had him questioned as to several matters by the lords of his grand council and granted that he had committed nought but follies still he spoke right wisely
without books paper or ink but it was afterwards less severe he plays at tennis and at cards says a despatch of the venetian ambassador dominic of treviso and he is fatter than ever la diplomatic venitienne
by m armand baschet eighteen sixty two
he died in his prison at the end of eight years having to the very last great confidence in the future of his name for he wrote they say on the wall of his prison these words services rendered me will count for an heritage
and thus was the duchy of milan within seven months and a half twice conquered by the french says john d'auton in his claronique
the king says guicciardini departed from italy carrying away with him to france great glory by reason of so complete and so rapidly won a victory over the venetians nevertheless as in the case of things obtained after hope long deferred
men scarcely ever feel such joy and happiness as they had at first imagined they would the king took not back with him either greater peace of mind or greater security in respect of his affairs the beaten venetians accepted their defeat with such a mixture of humility
and dignity as soon changed their position in italy they began by providing all that was necessary for the defence of venice herself foreigners but only idle foreigners were expelled those who had any business which secured them means of existence
and ordered its commandants to evacuate such places as they still held nearly all such submitted without a struggle to the victor of agnadello and his allies of cambrai but at treviso when emperor maximilian's commissioner presented himself in order to take possession of it
they heard that the important town of padua which had fallen to the share of emperor maximilian was uttering passionate murmurs against its new master and wished for nothing better than to come back beneath the old sway and in spite of the opposition shown by the doge loredano
the venetians resolved to attempt the venture during the night between the sixteenth and seventeenth of july a small detachment well armed and well led arrived beneath the walls of padua which was rather carelessly guarded in the morning as soon as the gate was opened
a string of large wagons presented themselves for admittance behind one of these and partially concealed by its bulk advanced six venetian men at arms each carrying on his crupper a foot soldier armed with an arquebuse they fired on the guard each killed his man
the austrian garrison hurried up and fought bravely but other venetian troops arrived and the garrison was beaten and surrendered padua became venetian again
caused inexpressible joy in venice after so many disasters there was seen a gleans of hope the venetians hastened to provision padua well and to put it in a state of defence
a body of troops under the orders of james de chabannes
and provisioned it well and it was only on the fifteenth of september that he sat down before the place all the allies of the league of cambrai held themselves bound to furnish him with their contingent on sallying from milan for this campaign
la palisse fell in with the good knight bayard to whom he said my comrade my friend would you not like us to be comrades together bayard who asked nothing better answered him graciously that he was at his service to be disposed of at his pleasure
and from the fifteenth to the twentieth of september maximilian got together before padua an army with a strength it is said of about fifty thousand men men at arms or infantry
sent by the pope and by the duke of ferrara or recruited from all parts of italy at the first rumor of such a force there was great emotion in venice but an emotion tempered by bravery and intelligence the doge leonardo loredano
the same who had but lately opposed the surprisal of padua rose up and delivered in the senate a long speech of which only the essential and characteristic points can be quoted here everybody knows excellent gentlemen of the senate said he
are not sufficient either for the security of that town or for the dignity of our republic our ancient renown forbids us to leave the public safety
to save it who would refuse to risk his own life and that of his children if the defence of padua is the pledge for the salvation of venice who would hesitate to go and defend it and though the forces already there were sufficient is not our honor also concerned therein
the fortune of our city so willed it that in the space of a few days our empire slipped from our hands the opportunity has come back to us of recovering what we have lost by spontaneously facing the changes and chances of fate we shall prove that our disasters
have not been our fault or our shame but one of those fatal storms which no wisdom and no firmness of man can resist if it were permitted us all in one mass to set out for padua if we might without neglecting the defence of our own homes and our urgent public affairs
but venice may not be deserted by her public bodies which protect and defend padua by their forethought and their orders just as others do by their arms and a useless mob of graybeards would be a burden much more than a reenforcement there
and when the mercenary soldiers who are there see how prompt are our youth to guard the gates and everywhere face the battle they will be moved thereby to zeal and alacrity incalculable and not only will padua thus be defended and saved
of the noblest country in the world this generous advice was accepted by the fathers and carried out by the sons with that earnest prompt and effective ardor which accompanies the resolution of great souls
when the paduans before their city was as yet invested saw the arrival within their walls of these chosen youths of the venetian patriciate with their numerous troop of friends and followers they considered padua as good as saved
and when the imperial army posted before the place commenced their attacks upon it they soon perceived that they had formidable defenders to deal with five hundred years it was since in prince's camp had ever been seen such wealth as there was there
and never was a day but there filed off some three or four hundred lanzknechts who took away to germany oxen and kine beds corn silk for sewing and other articles in such sort that to the said country of padua was damage done to the amount of two millions of crowns in movables
went thither to look and he marvelled and thought it great shame to him with the number of men he had that he had not sooner delivered the assault on returning to his quarters he sent for a french secretary of his whom he bade write to the lord of la palisse a letter
whereof this was the substance dear cousin i have this morning been to look at the breach which i find more than practicable for whoever would do his duty i have made up my mind to deliver the assault to day i pray you so soon as my big drum sounds
which will be about midday that you do incontinently hold ready all the french gentlemen who are under your orders at my service by command of my brother the king of france to go to the said assault along with my foot and i hope that with god's help we shall carry it
i do not think there will be many who will not be obedient to that which the emperor shall be pleased to command
everybody was sent out of the room save the captains to whom the lord of la palisse made known the emperor's letter which was read twice for the better understanding of it they all looked at one another laughing for to see who would speak first then said the lord of ymbercourt to the lord of la palisse
it needs not so much thought my lord send word to the emperor that we are all ready i am even now a weary of the fields for the nights are cold and then the good wines are beginning to fail us whereat every one burst out a laughing all agreed to what was said by the lord of ymbercourt
gayly the good knight answered if we would all take my lord of ymbercourt's word we have only to go straight to the breach but it is a somewhat sorry pastime for men at arms to go afoot and i would gladly be excused howbeit since i must give my opinion i will
for to deliver the assault along with his
my opinion is that you my lord ought to send back to the emperor a reply of this sort that you have had a meeting of your captains who are quite determined to do his bidding according to the charge they have from the king their master
would be to make them of little account the emperor has loads of counts lords and gentlemen of germany let him set them afoot along with the men at arms of france who will gladly show them the road and then his lanzknechts will follow if they know that it will pay
that he was determined to go within an hour and deliver the assault on the town whereof he had notified the lords of france who were all most desirous of doing their duty therein right well and prayed him that along with them might go the gentlemen of germany to whom they would gladly show the road
wherefore my lords said the emperor i pray you as much as ever i can to be pleased to accompany them and set yourselves afoot with them and i hope with god's help that at the first assault we shall be masters of our enemies when the emperor had done speaking
on a sudden there arose among his germans a very wondrous and strange uproar which lasted half an hour before it was appeased and then one amongst them bidden to answer for all said that they were not folks to be set afoot
other answer the emperor could not get
and pleased him not at all he uttered no word beyond that he said good my lords we must advise then how we shall do for the best then forthwith he sent for a gentleman of his who from time to time went backwards and forwards as ambassador to the french and said to him
commend me to him and to all my lords the french captains you find with him and tell them that for to day the assault will not be delivered i know not says the chronicler how it was nor who gave the advice but the night after this speech was spoken the emperor went off
but he was coarse volatile inconsistent and not very able
a more serious and more skilful foe who was preparing for him much greater embarrassments julian bella rovera had before his elevation to the pontifical throne but one object which was to mount it
when he became pope he had three objects to recover and extend the temporal possessions of the papacy to exercise to the full his spiritual power and to drive the foreigner from italy he was not incapable of doubling and artifice
with the hope that the king's minister would become the head of christendom when once he was himself in possession of this puissant title he showed himself as he really was ambitious audacious imperious energetic stubborn and combining the egotism of the absolute sovereign
with the patriotism of an italian pope when the league of cambrai had attained success
let them have an inkling that he was not without suspicion of some new design
he has done everything at the moment he promised he has borne upon his shoulders the whole weight of this affair and i tell you he added with a fixed look at those whom he was addressing that his army is a large one which he will keep up and augment every day
louis for his part treated the florentines with great good will as friends on whom he counted and who were concerned in his success you have become the first power in italy he said to then one day before a crowd of people how are you addressed just now
are you most serene or most illustrious and when he was notified that distinguished venetians were going to meet emperor maximilian on his arrival in italy no matter said louis let them go whither they will
he had not felt very keenly over the matter of the sermons and certainly the mere fact that peter could eat sour apples without making faces did not cast any reflection on the honour or ability of the other competitors
but to felix everything suddenly became flat stale and unprofitable because peter continued to hold the championship of bitter apples it haunted his waking hours and obsessed his nights i heard him talking in his sleep about it
if anything could have made him thin the way he worried over this matter would have done it for myself i cared not a groat
and felt sore whenever i thought of my failure but i had no burning desire to eat sour apples without grimacing and i did not sympathize over and above with my brother when however he took to praying about it
i realized how deeply he felt on the subject and hoped he would be successful felix prayed earnestly that he might be enabled to eat a bitter apple without making a face and when he had prayed three nights after this manner
he contrived to eat a bitter apple without a grimace until he came to the last bite which proved too much for him but felix was vastly encouraged
he told felicity and felicity told me she said she thought it was real cute of him i think that is a dreadful way to talk about praying and i told her so
it isn't fair oh felix don't talk like that said cecily shocked god must be fair i'll tell you what i believe is the reason peter prays three times a day regular
in the morning and at dinner time and at night and besides that any time through the day when he happens to think of it he just prays standing up did you ever hear of such goings on well
he's got to stop praying against me anyhow said felix resolutely
felix marched over to uncle roger's and we trailed after scenting a scene we found peter shelling beans in the granary and whistling cheerily as with a conscience void of offence towards all men look here peter
said felix ominously they tell me that you've been praying right along that i couldn't eat a bitter apple now i tell you
i never mentioned your name i never prayed that you couldn't eat a bitter apple i just prayed that i'd be the only one that could well that's the same thing cried felix you've just been praying for the opposite to me out of spite
and you've got to stop it peter craig
even if you was brought up in toronto i s'pose you think a hired boy hasn't any business to pray for particular things but i'll show you i'll just pray for what i please and i'd like to see you try and stop me
said felix the girls gasped but dan and i were jubilant snuffing battle afar off all right i can fight as well as pray oh don't fight implored cecily i think it would be dreadful
but if he does there's no other way to settle it but how will that settle it asked cecily
i don't care what she would say he retorted felicity tried another tack you'll be sure to get whipped if you fight with peter she said you're too fat to fight
after that no moral force on earth could have prevented felix from fighting he would have faced an army with banners you might settle it by drawing lots said cecily desperately drawing lots is wickeder that fighting said dan
gambling what would aunt jane say if she knew you were going to fight cecily demanded of peter don't you drag my aunt jane into this affair said peter darkly you said you were going to be a presbyterian
persisted cecily good presbyterians don't fight oh don't they i heard your uncle roger say that presbyterians were the best for fighting in the world or the worst i forget which he said but it means the same thing
i guess you mean principle i suggested yes that's it agreed peter it's all right to fight for principle it's kind of praying with your fists oh can't you do something to prevent them from fighting sara
pleaded cecily turning to the story girl who was sitting on a bin swinging her shapely bare feet to and fro it doesn't do to meddle in an affair of this kind between boys said the story girl sagely
i may be mistaken but i do not believe the story girl wanted that fight stopped
it was ultimately arranged that the combat should take place in the fir wood behind uncle roger's granary it was a nice remote bosky place where no prowling grown up would be likely to intrude
and thither we all resorted at sunset i hope felix will beat said the story girl to me not only for the family honour but because that was a mean mean prayer of peter's do you think he will i don't know
and he's a year older than felix
did you ever fight asked the story girl once i said briefly dreading the next question which promptly came who beat it is sometimes a bitter thing to tell the truth
the other fellow i said with reluctant honesty well said the story girl i think it doesn't matter whether you get whipped or not so long as you fight a good square fight
her potent voice made me feel that i was quite a hero after all and the sting went out of my recollection of that old fight when we arrived behind the granary the others were all there
cecily was very pale and felix and peter were taking off their coats there was a pure yellow sunset that evening
a cool autumnal wind was whistling among the dark boughs and scattering blood red leaves from the maple at the end of the granary now said dan i'll count
cecily keep quiet now one two three peter and felix pitched in with more zeal than discretion on both sides as a result peter got what later developed into a black eye and felix's nose began to bleed
cecily gave a shriek and ran out of the wood we thought she had fled because she could not endure the sight of blood and we were not sorry for her manifest disapproval and anxiety were damping the excitement of the occasion
uncle alec walked around the corner of the granary with cecily behind him he was not angry there was a quizzical look in his eyes but he took the combatants by their shirt collars and dragged them apart this stops right here boys
peter no i don't want to hear about it said uncle alec sternly i don't care what you were fighting about but you must settle your quarrels in a different fashion remember my commands felix peter
roger is looking for you to wash his buggy be off
a preface to the first edition of jane eyre being unnecessary i gave none this second edition demands a few words both of acknowledgment and miscellaneous remark my thanks are due in three quarters
i say cordially gentlemen i thank you from my heart
i turn to another class a small one so far as i know but not therefore to be overlooked i mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as jane eyre in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong
whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry that parent of crime an insult to piety that regent of god on earth i would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions
conventionality is not morality self righteousness is not religion to attack the first is not to assail the last to pluck the mask from the face of the pharisee is not to lift an impious hand to the crown of thorns
these things and deeds are diametrically opposed
men too often confound them they should not be confounded appearance should not be mistaken for truth narrow human doctrines that only tend to elate and magnify a few should not be substituted for the world redeeming creed of christ
to let white washed walls vouch for clean shrines
but hate as it will it is indebted to him ahab did not like micaiah because he never prophesied good concerning him but evil
as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things because i think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that suits him the terms which rightly characterise his talent
note to the third edition
an honour is awarded where it is not merited and consequently denied where it is justly due
chapter two i resisted all the way a new thing for me and a circumstance which greatly strengthened the bad opinion bessie and miss abbot were disposed to entertain of me the fact is i was a trifle beside myself
or rather out of myself as the french would say i was conscious that a moment's mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties and like any other rebel slave i felt resolved in my desperation to go all lengths
cried the lady's maid what shocking conduct miss eyre to strike a young gentleman your benefactress's son your young master master how is he my master am i a servant
no you are less than a servant for you do nothing for your keep there sit down and think over your wickedness they had got me by this time into the apartment indicated by missus reed and had thrust me upon a stool
their two pair of hands arrested me instantly if you don't sit still you must be tied down said bessie
but it was always in her was the reply i've told missis often my opinion about the child
bessie answered not but ere long addressing me she said you ought to be aware miss that you are under obligations to missus reed she keeps you
i had nothing to say to these words they were not new to me my very first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind this reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing song in my ear
very painful and crushing but only half intelligible miss abbot joined in
added bessie in no harsh voice you should try to be useful and pleasant then perhaps you would have a home here but if you become passionate and rude missis will send you away i am sure besides said miss abbot
something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and fetch you away they went shutting the door and locking it behind them the red room was a square chamber very seldom slept in
i might say never indeed unless when a chance influx of visitors at gateshead hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it contained yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion
a bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany
stood out like a tabernacle in the centre the two large windows with their blinds always drawn down were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery the carpet was red the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth
the wardrobe the toilet table the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany
the piled up mattresses and pillows of the bed
scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy chair near the head of the bed also white with a footstool before it and looking as i thought like a pale throne this room was chill because it seldom had a fire
it was silent because remote from the nursery and kitchen solemn because it was known to be so seldom entered the house maid alone came here on saturdays to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week's quiet dust
and in those last words lies the secret of the red room the spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur mister reed had been dead nine years it was in this chamber he breathed his last
with subdued broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels to my left were the muffled windows a great looking glass between them repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room i was not quite sure whether they had locked the door
and when i dared move i got up and went to see alas yes no jail was ever more secure returning i had to cross before the looking glass my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed
all looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality and the strange little figure there gazing at me with a white face and arms specking the gloom
and appearing before the eyes of belated travellers i returned to my stool superstition was with me at that moment but it was not yet her hour for complete victory my blood was still warm
all his mother's aversion all the servants partiality turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well why was i always suffering always browbeaten
always accused for ever condemned why could i never please
eliza who was headstrong and selfish was respected georgiana who had a spoiled temper a very acrid spite
was universally indulged her beauty her pink cheeks and golden curls seemed to give delight to all who looked at her and to purchase indemnity for every fault john no one thwarted much less punished
he called his mother old girl too sometimes reviled her for her dark skin similar to his own bluntly disregarded her wishes not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire
and he was still her own darling i dared commit no fault
my head still ached and bled with the blow and fall i had received no one had reproved john for wantonly striking me and because i had turned against him to avert farther irrational violence
i was loaded with general opprobrium unjust unjust said my reason forced by the agonising stimulus into precocious though transitory power and resolve equally wrought up
as running away or if that could not be effected never eating or drinking more and letting myself die what a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon
a noxious thing cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment of contempt of their judgment i know that had i been a sanguine brilliant careless exacting handsome romping child though equally dependent and friendless
daylight began to forsake the red room it was past four o'clock and the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight i heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircase window and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall
and then my courage sank my habitual mood of humiliation self doubt
all said i was wicked and perhaps i might be so
that certainly was a crime and was i fit to die or was the vault under the chancel of gateshead church an inviting bourne in such vault i had been told did mister reed lie buried and led by this thought to recall his idea
i dwelt on it with gathering dread i could not remember him but i knew that he was my own uncle
a singular notion dawned upon me i doubted not never doubted that if mister reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly
i began to recall what i had heard of dead men troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed
and i thought mister reed's spirit harassed by the wrongs of his sister's child might quit its abode whether in the church vault or in the unknown world of the departed and rise before me in this chamber
i wiped my tears and hushed my sobs fearful lest any sign of violent grief might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me or elicit from the gloom some haloed face bending over me with strange pity
at this moment a light gleamed on the wall was it i asked myself a ray from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind no moonlight was still and this stirred
i can now conjecture readily that this streak of light was in all likelihood a gleam from a lantern carried by some one across the lawn but then prepared as my mind was for horror shaken as my nerves were by agitation
my head grew hot a sound filled my ears which i deemed the rushing of wings something seemed near me i was oppressed suffocated endurance broke down i rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort
bessie and abbot entered miss eyre are you ill said bessie
oh i saw a light and i thought a ghost would come i had now got hold of bessie's hand and she did not snatch it from me
and what a scream
but she only wanted to bring us all here i know her naughty tricks what is all this
pleaded bessie let her go was the only answer loose bessie's hand child you cannot succeed in getting out by these means be assured i abhor artifice particularly in children
it is my duty to show you that tricks will not answer you will now stay here an hour longer and it is only on condition of perfect submission and stillness that i shall liberate you then o aunt have pity
forgive me i cannot endure it let me be punished some other way i shall be killed if silence
and so no doubt she felt it i was a precocious actress in her eyes she sincerely looked on me as a compound of virulent passions mean spirit and dangerous duplicity bessie and abbot having retreated
missus reed impatient of my now frantic anguish and wild sobs abruptly thrust me back and locked me in without farther parley i heard her sweeping away and soon after she was gone i suppose i had a species of fit
there was no possibility of taking a walk that day we had been wandering indeed in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning but since dinner missus reed when there was no company dined early the cold winter wind had brought with it
and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to eliza john and georgiana reed the said eliza john and georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing room she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside
and could discover by her own observation that i was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition a more attractive and sprightly manner something lighter franker more natural as it were
what does bessie say i have done i asked jane i don't like cavillers or questioners besides there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner
be seated somewhere and until you can speak pleasantly remain silent a breakfast room adjoined the drawing room i slipped in there it contained a bookcase i soon possessed myself of a volume
i mounted into the window seat gathering up my feet i sat cross legged like a turk and having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close i was shrined in double retirement
at intervals while turning over the leaves of my book i studied the aspect of that winter afternoon afar it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud near a scene of wet lawn and storm beat shrub with ceaseless rain
i returned to my book
nor could i pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of lapland siberia spitzbergen nova zembla iceland greenland with the vast sweep of the arctic zone and those forlorn regions of dreary space
that reservoir of frost and snow where firm fields of ice the accumulation of centuries of winters
of these death white realms i formed an idea of my own
and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast
the two ships becalmed on a torpid sea i believed to be marine phantoms
each picture told a story mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings yet ever profoundly interesting as interesting as the tales bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings
when she chanced to be in good humour and when having brought her ironing table to the nursery hearth she allowed us to sit about it and while she got up missus reed's lace frills and crimped her nightcap borders
i feared nothing but interruption and that came too soon
tell mama she is run out into the rain bad animal it is well i drew the curtain thought i and i wished fervently he might not discover my hiding place nor would john reed have found it out himself he was not quick
either of vision or conception but eliza just put her head in at the door and said at once
but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh
and perhaps to pining after home john had not much affection for his mother and sisters and an antipathy to me he bullied and punished me not two or three times in the week
but continually every nerve i had feared him and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near there were moments when i was bewildered by the terror he inspired
she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me though he did both now and then in her very presence more frequently however behind her back
of him who would presently deal it
he struck suddenly and strongly i tottered and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair
and for the look you had in your eyes two minutes since you rat
my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult what were you doing behind the curtain he asked i was reading show the book i returned to the window and fetched it thence
you are a dependent mama says you have no money your father left you none you ought to beg and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us and eat the same meals we do
now i'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves for they are mine all the house belongs to me or will do in a few years
not soon enough however the volume was flung it hit me and i fell striking my head against the door and cutting it the cut bled the pain was sharp my terror had passed its climax other feelings succeeded
also i had drawn parallels in silence which i never thought thus to have declared aloud
did she say that to me did you hear her eliza and georgiana won't i tell mama but first he ran headlong at me i felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder he had closed with a desperate thing
i really saw in him a tyrant a murderer i felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering these sensations for the time predominated over fear and i received him in frantic sort
she now came upon the scene followed by bessie and her maid abbot
i knew then what had happened as well as i know it now but which was it father or mother i do not like to look back to the agony and suspense of that moment my father had died at new orleans during one of his weekly visits to the city
the letter bearing these tidings had reached rivermouth the evening of my flight had passed me on the road by the down train i must turn back for a moment to that eventful evening
when i failed to make my appearance at supper the captain began to suspect that i had really started on my wild tour southward a conjecture which sailor ben's absence helped to confirm i had evidently got off by the train
and sailor ben had followed me there was no telegraphic communication between boston and rivermouth in those days so my grandfather could do nothing but await the result even if there had been another mail to boston
he could not have availed himself of it not knowing how to address a message to the fugitives the post office was naturally the last place either i or the admiral would think of visiting
my grandfather however was too full of trouble to allow this to add to his distress he knew that the faithful old sailor would not let me come to any harm and even if i had managed for the time being to elude him
was sure to bring me back sooner or later our return therefore by the first train on the following day did not surprise him i was greatly puzzled as i have said by the gentle manner of his reception
and there was nothing left to tell me
irresolutely and then commenced reading it aloud
i can't read it tom said the old gentleman breaking down i thought i could he handed it to me i took the letter mechanically and hurried away with it to my little room
the week that followed the receipt of this letter is nearly a blank in my memory i remember that the days appeared endless that at times i could not realize the misfortune that had befallen us
and my heart upbraided me for not feeling a deeper grief that a full sense of my loss would now and then sweep over me like an inspiration and i would steal away to my chamber
i remember this but little more as the days went by my first grief subsided and in its place grew up a want which i have experienced at every step in life from boyhood to manhood often
even now after all these years when i see a lad of twelve or fourteen walking by his father's side and glancing merrily up at his face i turn and look after them and am conscious that i have missed companionship most sweet and sacred
i shall not dwell on this portion of my story there were many tranquil pleasant hours in store for me at that period and i prefer to turn to them
my mother had arrived at new york and would be with us the next day for the first time in weeks years it seemed to me something of the old cheerfulness mingled with our conversation round the evening lamp
i was to go to boston with the captain to meet her and bring her home i need not describe that meeting with my mother's hand in mine once more all the long years we had been parted appeared like a dream
very dear to me was the sight of that slender pale woman passing from room to room and lending a patient grace and beauty to the saddened life
everything was changed with us now there were consultations with lawyers and signing of papers and correspondence for my father's affairs had been left in great confusion
the evenings were not long enough for us to hear all my mother had to tell of the scenes she had passed through in the ill fated city then there were old times to talk over full of reminiscences of aunt chloe and little black sam
little black sam by the by had been taken by his master from my father's service ten months previously and put on a sugar plantation near baton rouge not relishing the change sam had run away
and by some mysterious agency got into canada
indecorous messages to his late owner
in one of the cholera hospital wards and the desmoulins near neighbors of ours had purchased the pretty stone house among the orange trees how all these simple details interested me will be readily understood
by any boy who has been long absent from home i was sorry when it became necessary to discuss questions
and send me to college for which i was nearly fitted but our means did not admit of this the captain too could ill afford to bear the expense for his losses by the failure of the new orleans business had been heavy
yet he insisted on the plan not seeing clearly what other disposal to make of me in the midst of our discussions a letter came from my uncle snow a merchant in new york generously offering me a place in his counting house
the case resolved itself into this if i went to college i should have to be dependent on captain nutter for several years and at the end of the collegiate course
if i accepted my uncle's offer i might hope to work my way to independence without loss of time it was hard to give up the long cherished dream of being a harvard boy but i gave it up
the decision once made it was uncle snow's wish that i should enter his counting house immediately the cause of my good uncle's haste was this he was afraid that i would turn out to be a poet before he could make a merchant of me
his fears were based upon the fact that i had published in the rivermouth barnacle some verses addressed in a familiar manner to the moon now the idea of a boy with his living to get
struck the mercantile mind as monstrous it was not only a bad investment it was lunacy we adopted uncle snow's views so far as to accede to his proposition forthwith
my mother i neglected to say was also to reside in new york i shall not draw a picture of pepper whitcomb's disgust when the news was imparted to him nor attempt to paint sailor ben's distress at the prospect
of losing his little messmate in the excitement of preparing for the journey i didn't feel any very deep regret myself but when the moment came for leaving and i saw my small trunk lashed up behind the carriage
and a mist filled my eyes shutting out the group of schoolfellows
who had come down to the house to see me off as the carriage swept round the corner i leaned out of the window to take a last look at sailor ben's cottage and there was the admiral's flag flying at half mast
the snow fort on slatter's hill the memory of man even that of the oldest inhabitant runneth not back to the time when there did not exist a feud between the north end and the south end boys of rivermouth
the origin of the feud is involved in mystery it is impossible to say which party was the first aggressor in the far off anterevolutionary ages
entertained a mortal hatred for each other and that this hatred had been handed down from generation to generation like miles standish's punch bowl i know not what laws natural or unnatural regulated the warmth of the quarrel
this winter both parties were unusually lively and antagonistic great was the wrath of the south enders when they discovered that the north enders had thrown up a fort on the crown of slatter's hill slatter's hill
or no man's land as it was generally called was a rise of ground covering perhaps an acre and a quarter situated on an imaginary line marking the boundary between the two districts an immense stratum of granite
which here and there thrust out a wrinkled boulder prevented the site from being used for building purposes the street ran on either side of the hill from one part of which a quantity of rock had been removed to form the underpinning of the new jail
this excavation made the approach from that point all but impossible especially when the ragged ledges were a glitter with ice
floating defiantly from the flag staff in less than an hour it was known all over town in military circles at least that the puddle dockers and the river rats
these were the derisive sub titles bestowed on our south end foes intended to attack the fort that saturday afternoon at two o'clock all the fighting boys of the temple grammar school and as many recruits as we could muster
lay behind the walls of fort slatter with three hundred compact snowballs piled up in pyramids awaiting the approach of the enemy the enemy was not slow in making his approach fifty strong
headed by one mat ames our forces were under the command of general j harris before the action commenced
it was stipulated that the south enders should assault it only on wednesday and saturday afternoons between the hours of two and six for them to take possession of the place at any other time was not to constitute a capture
but on the contrary was to be considered a dishonorable and cowardly act the north enders on the other hand agreed to give up the fort
a footing on the parapet and were able to hold the same for the space of two minutes
nor was it permissible to use frozen ammunition a snow ball soaked in water and left out to cool was a projectile which in previous years had been resorted to with disastrous results these preliminaries settled
the commanders retired to their respective corps the interview had taken place on the hillside between the opposing lines general harris divided his men into two bodies the first comprised the most skilful marksmen
or gunners the second the reserve force
was composed of the strongest boys whose duty it was to repel the scaling parties and to make occasional sallies for the purpose of capturing prisoners who were bound by the articles of treaty to faithfully serve under our flag until they were exchanged
the repellers were called light infantry but when they carried on operations beyond the fort they became cavalry it was also their duty when not otherwise engaged to manufacture snow balls the general's staff consisted of five templars
i among the number with the rank of major who carried the general's orders and looked after the wounded general mat ames a veteran commander was no less wide awake in the disposition of his army five companies
each numbering but six men in order not to present too big a target to our sharpshooters were to charge the fort from different points their advance being covered by a heavy fire from the gunners posted in the rear
each scaler was provided with only two rounds of ammunition which were not to be used until he had mounted the breastwork and could deliver his shots on our heads
a single ball from the dexterous band of general harris taking general ames in the very pit of his stomach a cheer went up from fort slatter
in an instant the air was thick with flying missiles in the midst of which we dimly descried the storming parties sweeping up the hill shoulder to shoulder the shouts of the leaders and the snowballs bursting like shells about our ears made it very lively
not more than a dozen of the enemy succeeded in reaching the crest of the hill five of these clambered upon the icy walls where they were instantly grabbed by the legs and jerked into the fort the rest retired confused and blinded by our well directed fire
said soldiers i am proud of you my heart swelled in my bosom
six north enders having rushed out to harass the discomfited enemy were gallantly cut off by general ames and captured among these were lieutenant p whitcomb
of general harris's staff whitcomb was one of the most notable shots on our side though he was not much to boast of in a rough and tumble fight owing to the weakness before mentioned general ames put him among the gunners
and we were quickly made aware of the loss we had sustained by receiving a frequent artful ball which seemed to light with unerring instinct on any nose that was the least bit exposed
fired pointblank to turn a corner and hit a boy who considered himself absolutely safe but we had no time for vain regrets the battle raged already there were two bad cases of black eye
and one of nosebleed in the hospital it was glorious excitement those pell mell onslaughts and hand to hand struggles twice we were within an ace of being driven from our stronghold when general harris and his staff
leaped recklessly upon the ramparts and hurled the besiegers heels over head down hill at sunset the garrison of fort slatter was still unconquered and the south enders in a solid phalanx marched off whistling
yankee doodle while we cheered and jeered them until they were out of hearing general ames remained behind to effect an exchange of prisoners we held thirteen of his men and he eleven of ours
general ames proposed to call it an even thing since many of his eleven prisoners were officers while nearly all our thirteen captives were privates a dispute arising on this point
the two noble generals came to fisticuffs and in the fracas our brave commander got his remaining well eye badly damaged this didn't prevent him from writing a general order the next day on a slate in which he complimented the troops
on their heroic behavior on the following wednesday the siege was renewed i forget whether it was on that afternoon or the next that we lost fort slatter but lose it we did with much valuable ammunition and several men
we forced general ames to capitulate
general ames handled his men with great skill his deadliest foe could not deny that once he outgeneralled our commander in the following manner he massed his gunners on our left and opened a brisk fire
under cover of which a single company six men advanced on that angle of the fort our reserves on the right rushed over to defend the threatened point meanwhile four companies of the enemy's scalers
made a detour round the foot of the hill and dashed into fort slatter without opposition at the same moment general ames's gunners closed in on our left and there we were between two fires of course we had to vacate the fort
a cloud rested on general harris's military reputation until his superior tactics enabled him to dispossess the enemy
at length the provision against using heavy substances in the snow balls was disregarded a ball stuck full of sand bird shot came tearing into fort slatter in retaliation general harris ordered a broadside of shells
after this both sides never failed to freeze their ammunition it was no longer child's play to march up to the walls of fort slatter nor was the position of the besieged less perilous at every assault three or four boys
on each side were disabled it was not an infrequent occurrence for the combatants to hold up a flag of truce while they removed some insensible comrade
matters grew worse and worse seven north enders had been seriously wounded and a dozen south enders were reported on the sick list the selectmen of the town awoke to the fact of what was going on and detailed a posse of police
to prevent further disturbance the boys at the foot of the hill south enders as it happened finding themselves assailed in the rear and on the flank turned round and attempted to beat off the watchmen
in this they were sustained by numerous volunteers from the fort who looked upon the interference as tyrannical the watch were determined fellows and charged the boys valiantly driving them all into the fort where we made common cause
fighting side by side like the best of friends in vain the four guardians of the peace rushed up the hill flourishing their clubs and calling upon us to surrender they could not get within ten yards of the fort our fire was so destructive
in one of the onsets a man named mugridge more valorous than his peers threw himself upon the parapet when he was seized by twenty pairs of hands and dragged inside the breastwork where fifteen boys sat down on him to keep him quiet
the watch sent for reinforcements their call was responded to not only by the whole constabulary force eight men but by a numerous body of citizens who had become alarmed at the prospect of a riot
this formidable array brought us to our senses we began to think that maybe discretion was the better part of valor general harris and general ames with their respective staffs held a council of war in the hospital
the event passed into a legend and afterwards when later instances of pluck and endurance were spoken of the boys would say
chapter twenty two exeunt omnes with the close of my school days at rivermouth this modest chronicle ends the new life upon which i entered the new friends and foes i encountered on the road
and what i did and what i did not are matters that do not come within the scope of these pages but before i write finis to the record as it stands
as if i were once more going away from my boyhood i have a word or two to say concerning a few of the personages who have figured in the story if you will allow me to call gypsy a personage
i am sure that the reader who has followed me thus far will be willing to hear what became of her and sailor ben and miss abigail and the captain first about gypsy
a month after my departure from rivermouth the captain informed me by letter that he had parted with the little mare according to agreement she had been sold to the ring master of a travelling circus
i had stipulated on this disposal of her and was about to set out on her travels she did not disappoint my glowing anticipations but became quite a celebrity in her way by dancing the polka to slow music
on a pine board ball room constructed for the purpose i chanced once a long while afterwards to be in a country town where her troupe was giving exhibitions
of zuleika the famed arabian trick pony but i failed to recognize my dear little mustang girl behind those high sounding titles and so alas did not attend the performance
i hope all the praises she received and all the spangled trappings she wore did not spoil her but i am afraid they did for she was always over much given to the vanities of this world
miss abigail regulated the domestic destinies of my grandfather's household until the day of her death which doctor theophilus tredick solemnly averred was hastened
by the inveterate habit she had contracted of swallowing unknown quantities of hot drops whenever she fancied herself out of sorts eighty seven empty phials were found in a bonnet box on a shelf in her bedroom closet
the old house became very lonely when the family got reduced to captain nutter and kitty and when kitty passed away my grandfather divided his time between rivermouth and new york
sailor ben did not long survive his little irish lass as he always fondly called her at his demise which took place about six years since he left his property in trust to the managers
of a home for aged mariners in his will which was a very whimsical document written by himself and worded with much shrewdness too he warned the trustees that when he got aloft
he intended to keep his weather eye on them and should send a speritual shot across their bows and bring them to if they didn't treat the aged mariners handsomely he also expressed a wish to have his body stitched up
in a shotted hammock and dropped into the harbor but as he did not strenuously insist on this and as it was not in accordance with my grandfather's preconceived notions of christian burial
the admiral was laid to rest beside kitty in the old south burying ground with an anchor that would have delighted him neatly carved on his headstone i am sorry the fire has gone out
for several months after leaving rivermouth i carried on a voluminous correspondence with pepper whitcomb but it gradually dwindled down to a single letter a month and then to none at all
he kept me advised of the current gossip of the town and the doings of the centipedes as one by one the boys left the academy adams harris marden blake and langdon to seek their fortunes elsewhere
there was less to interest me in the old seaport and when pepper himself went to philadelphia to read law i had no one to give me an inkling of what was going on there wasn't much to go on to be sure
great events no longer considered it worth their while to honor so quiet a place one fourth of july the temple grammar school burnt down set on fire it was supposed by an eccentric squib
that was seen to bolt into an upper window and mister grimshaw retired from public life married and lived happily ever after as the story books say
the widow conway i am able to state did not succeed in enslaving mister meeks the apothecary who united himself clandestinely to one of miss dorothy gibbs's young ladies and lost the patronage
and had half a mind to pop into the shop and shake hands with him and ask him if he wanted to fight i contented myself however with flattening my nose against his dingy shop window and beheld conway in red whiskers and blue overalls
giving him short weight i'll bet anything i have reserved my pleasantest word for the last it is touching the captain the captain is still hale and rosy and if he doesn't relate his exploit
in the war of eighteen twelve as spiritedly as he used to he makes up by relating it more frequently and telling it differently every time he passes his winters in new york
and his summers in the nutter house which threatens to prove a hard nut for the destructive gentleman with the scythe and the hour glass for the seaward gable has not yielded a clapboard to the eastwind these twenty years
the captain has now become the oldest inhabitant in rivermouth and so i don't laugh at the oldest inhabitant any more but pray in my heart that he may occupy the post of honor for half a century to come
so ends the story of a bad boy
the works of the lord he himself represents as given him of the father it matters little whether we speak of his resurrection as a miracle wrought by himself or wrought in him by the father if he was one with the father the question cannot be argued
seeing that jesus apart from the father is not a conceivable idea it is only natural that he who had power to call from the grave the body which had lain there for four days should have power over the body he had himself laid down to take it again with reanimating possession
suffered and yielded unto death in the same body not merely the same form in which he had taught them he appeared again to his disciples to give them the final consolations of a visible presence before departing for the sake of a yet higher presence in the spirit of truth
a presence no longer limited by even the highest forms of the truth it is not surprising that the records of such a marvel grounded upon the testimony of men and women bewildered first with grief
and next all but distracted with the sudden inburst of a gladness too great for that equanimity which is indispensable to perfect observation
all knew that the lord had risen indeed what matter whether some of them saw one or two angels in the tomb the first who came saw one angel outside and another inside the sepulchre one at a different time saw two inside
what wonder then that one of the records should say of them all that they saw two angels i do not care to set myself to the reconciliation of the differing reports their trifling disagreement is to me even valuable from its truth to our human nature
all i care to do is to suggest to any one anxious to understand the records the following arrangement of facts when mary magdalene found the tomb empty not seeing or heedless of the angel she forsook her companions
and ran to the chief of the disciples to share the agony of this final loss perhaps something might yet be done to rescue the precious form and lay it aside with all futile honours with peter and john she returned to the grave whence in the mean time her former companions
having seen and conversed with the angel outside and the angel inside had departed to find their friends peter and john having the one entered the other looked into the tomb and seen only the folded garments of desertion returned home
but mary lingered weeping by the place which was not now even the grave of the beloved so utterly had not only he but the signs of him vanished as she wept she stooped down into the sepulchre there sat the angels in holy contemplation
peter nor john had beheld them to the eyes of mary as of the other women they were manifest it is a lovely story that follows full of marvel as how should it not be woman why weepest thou said the angels
and i know not where they have laid him answered mary and turning away tear blinded saw the gardener as she thought woman why weepest thou repeats the gardener whom seekest thou hopelessness had dulled every sense
not even a start at the sound of his voice sir if thou have borne him hence tell me where thou hast laid him and i will take him away mary master touch me not for i am not yet ascended to my father
but go to my brethren and say unto them i ascend unto my father and your father and to my god and your god she had the first sight of him it would almost seem that arrested by her misery he had delayed his ascent
and shown himself sooner than his first intent touch me not for i am not yet ascended she was about to grasp him with the eager hands of reverent love why did he refuse the touch doubtless the tone of the words deprived them of any sting
doubtless the self respect of the woman was in no way wounded by the master's recoil for the rest we know so little of the new conditions of his bodily nature that nothing is ours beyond conjecture it may be for anything i know
but my impression is that after the hard work accomplished and the form in which he had wrought and suffered resumed he must have the father's embrace first as after a long absence any man would seek first the arms of his dearest friend
it may well be objected to this notion that he had never been absent from god that in his heart he was at home with him continually and yet the body with all its limitations with all its partition walls of separation is god's
and there must be some way in which even it can come into a willed relation with him to whom it is nearer even than to ourselves
or as the prophets of old would say the work of his hands that which god has invented and made which has its very origin in the depth of his thought can surely come nigh to god therefore i think that in some way which we cannot understand
jesus would now seek the presence of the father would having done the work which he had given him to do desire first of all to return in the body to him who had sent him by giving him a body hence although he might delay his return at the sound of the woman's grief
he would rather she did not touch him first if any one thinks this founded on too human a notion of the saviour i would only reply that i suspect a great part of our irreligion springs from our disbelief in the humanity of god there lie endless undiscovered treasures of grace
after he had once ascended to the father he not only appeared to his disciples again and again but their hands handled the word of life and he ate in their presence he had been to his father and had returned that they might know him lifted above the grave
and all that region in which death has power that as the elder brother free of the oppressions of humanity but fulfilled of its tenderness he might show himself captain of their salvation upon the body he inhabited death could no longer lay his hands
and from the vantage ground he thus held he could stretch down the arm of salvation to each and all for in regard of this glorified body of jesus we must note that it appeared and disappeared at the will of its owner and it would seem also that other matter yielded and gave it way
yes even that space itself was in some degree subjected to it upon the first of these the record is clear if any man say he cannot believe it my only answer is that i can if he ask how it could be
the nearest i can approach to an answer is to indicate the region in which it may be possible the border land where thought and matter meet is the region where all marvels and miracles are generated the wisdom of this world can believe that matter generates mind
what seems to me the wisdom from above can believe that mind generates matter that matter is but the manifest mind
much more if jesus be the son of god his own body must be subject to his will i doubt indeed if the condition of any man is perfect before the body he inhabits is altogether obedient to his will before through his own absolute obedience to the father
the realm of his own rule is put under him perfectly it may be objected that although this might be credible of the glorified body of even the human resurrection it is hard to believe that the body which suffered and died on the cross could become thus plastic to the will of the indwelling spirit
but i do not see why that which was born of the spirit of the father should not be so inter penetrated and possessed by the spirit of the son that without the loss of one of its former faculties it should be endowed with many added gifts of obedience
amongst the rest such as are indicated in the narrative before us why was this miracle needful perhaps for one thing that men should not limit him or themselves in him to the known forms of humanity and for another
that the best hope might be given them of a life beyond the grave that their instinctive desires in that direction might thus be infinitely developed and assured i suspect however that it followed just as the natural consequence of all that preceded if christ be risen
then is the grave of humanity itself empty we have risen with him and death has henceforth no dominion over us of every dead man and woman it may be said he she is not here but is risen and gone before us
ever since the lord lay down in the tomb and behold it was but a couch whence he arose refreshed we may say of every brother he is not dead but sleepeth he too is alive and shall arise from his sleep the way to the tomb may be hard
as it was for him but we who look on see the hardness and not the help
that is known only to the dying and god they can tell us little of this and nothing of the glad safety beyond with any theory of the conditions of our resurrection i have scarcely here to do it is to me a matter of positively no interest whether or not in any sense
the matter of our bodies shall be raised from the earth it is enough that we shall possess forms capable of revealing ourselves and of bringing us into contact with god's other works forms in which the idea so blurred and broken in these shall be carried out remaining so like
becoming so unlike that the tears of recognition shall be all for the joy of the gain and the gratitude of the loss not to believe in mutual recognition beyond seems to me a far more reprehensible unbelief than that in the resurrection itself
i can well understand how a man should not believe in any life after death i will confess that although probabilities are for it appearances are against it
should believe in the resurrection of the very same body of jesus who took pains that his friends should recognize him therein that they should regard his resurrection as their one ground for the hope of their own uprising
and yet not believe that friend shall embrace friend in the mansions prepared for them is to me astounding such a shadowy resumption of life i should count unworthy of the name of resurrection then indeed would the grave be victorious
not alone over the body not alone over all which made the life of this world precious and by which we arose towards the divine but so far victorious over the soul that henceforth it should be blind and deaf to what in virtue of loveliest memories
a new glow to the love that had wanted but that to make it perfect in truth i am ashamed of even combating such an essential falsehood
and we dare not allow sympathy to be swallowed up of even righteous disdain a contemptuous denial would be enough what seemed to the disciples the final acme of disappointment and grief the vanishing of his body itself
was in reality the first sign of the dawn of an illimitable joy
will you go to the store for me uncle wiggily asked nurse jane fuzzy wuzzy the muskrat lady housekeeper of the rabbit gentleman one day as he sat out on the porch of his hollow stump bungalow in the woods indeed i will miss fuzzy wuzzy said mister longears most politely
so the rabbit gentleman took his umbrella on his way to the store through the woods the bunny uncle came to a big beech tree which had nice shiny white bark on it and to his surprise the rabbit gentleman saw a big black bear
standing up on his hind legs and scratching at the tree bark as hard as he could ha that is not the right thing to do said uncle wiggily to himself if that bear scratches too much of the bark from the tree the tree will die
i must drive the bear away the bear scratching the bark with his sharp claws stood with his back to uncle wiggily and the rabbit gentleman thought he could scare the big creature away
so uncle wiggily picked up a stone and throwing it at the bear hit him on the back where the skin was so thick it hurt hardly at all and as soon as he had thrown the stone uncle wiggily in his loudest voice shouted bang bang bungity bang bung
the hunter man with his gun must be after me he has shot me once but the bullet did not hurt i had better run away before he shoots me again and the bear ran away
never once looking around for he thought the stone mister longears threw was a bullet from a gun you see and he thought when uncle wiggily said bang that it was a gun going off so the bunny gentleman scared the bear away thank you uncle wiggily said the beech tree
you saved my life by not letting the bear scratch off all my bark i am glad i did spoke the rabbit making a polite bow with his tall silk hat for mister longears was polite even to a tree the bear would not stop scratching my bark when i asked him to
went on the beech tree so i am glad you came along and scared him you did me a great favor and i will do you one if i ever can thank you spoke uncle wiggily and then he hopped on to the store to get the loaf of bread and the pound of sugar for nurse jane
and a balsam tree next door to it
or balsam on the places where the bear had scratched off the bark to make the cuts heal then all of a sudden out from behind a bush jumped the same bad bear that had done the scratching
as soon as he saw uncle wiggily you can't fool me again making believe a stone is a bullet and that your bang is a gun you can't fool me i know all about the trick you played on me a little bird sitting up in a tree
saw it and told me well said uncle wiggily slowly i'm sorry i had to fool you but it was all for the best i wanted to save the beech tree
i'm going to scratch as much as i like my goodness you're almost as bad as the ear scratching cat said uncle wiggily i guess i'd better run home to my hollow stump bungalow no you don't cried the bear and reaching out his claws
he caught hold of uncle wiggily who with his umbrella and the bread and sugar was standing under the beech tree
and the bear held tightly to the bunny uncle oh dear what are you going to do to me asked the rabbit gentleman first i'll bite you said the bear no i guess i'll first scratch you no i won't either i'll scrite you
that's what i'll do i'll scrite you what's scrite asked uncle wiggily curious like it's a scratch and a bite made into one said the bear and now i'm going to do it
suddenly cried the beech tree who had been thinking of a way to save uncle wiggily no you don't scrite my friend and with that the brave tree gave itself a shiver and shake and shook down on the bear a lot of sharp three cornered beech nuts
they fell on the bear's soft and tender nose and the sharp edges hurt him so that he cried
and away he ran from the shower of sharp beech nuts which didn't hurt uncle wiggily at all because he raised his umbrella and kept them off then he thanked the tree for having saved him from the bear and went safely home
jackie is not so well i'm sorry to say answered missus bow wow
not so well i am sorry to hear that spoke the bunny uncle what's seems to be the matter
but then jackie caught the epizootic and he has to stay in bed a week longer and take bitter medicine
exclaimed uncle wiggily i am sorry to hear that for i don't like bitter medicine myself neither does jackie continued missus bow wow
because we can't get him to take a drop said the puppy dog boy's mother
but he won't take it and doctor possum says he won't get well unless he takes the bitter medicine well doctor possum ought to know said uncle wiggily but why don't you ask him a good way to give the medicine to jackie
the poor boy really needs it to make him well of course he does agreed uncle wiggily and while you are waiting for doctor possum i'll see what i can do what are you going to do asked missus bow wow as the bunny uncle started for the dog kennel
i'm going to try to make jackie take his bitter medicine you just stay out here a little while well i hope you do it but i'm afraid you won't spoke missus bow wow with a sigh i've tried all the ways i know
who had the measles epizootic was in bed
not very well answered jackie the puppy dog boy but i'm glad to see you
in that cup on the chair and jackie pointed to it near his bed i see said uncle wiggily looking at it now jackie i'm a good friend of yours and you wouldn't mind just holding this cup of bitter medicine in your paw would you to please me
oh i'll do that for you uncle wiggily but i'll not take it jackie said never mind about that laughed the bunny uncle just hold the medicine in your paw so and jackie did as he was told
now would you mind holding it up to your lips as if you were going to make believe take it asked uncle wiggily mind you don't you dare take a drop of it just hold the cup to your lips but don't swallow any
because i want to draw a picture of you making believe take bitter medicine said the bunny as he took out pencil and paper i'll show it to any other of my little animal friends who may not like their medicine and i'll say to them
see how brave jackie is to take his bitter medicine of course i won't tell them you really were afraid to take it and without saying any more uncle wiggily began to draw the puppy dog boy's picture on the paper
hold the cup a little nearer to your lips and tip it up a bit jackie said the bunny man but mind you don't swallow a drop that's it higher up tip it more i want the picture to look natural
uncle wiggily longears the nice rabbit gentleman was walking along in the woods one day sort of hopping and leaning on his red white and blue striped rheumatism crutch and he was wondering whether or not he would have an adventure when all at once he heard a little voice crying oh
ha that sounds like some one who can't get out of bed exclaimed the bunny uncle i wonder who it can be perhaps i can help them
and had not heard anything after all when suddenly the voice sounded again and called out oh i can't get up i can't get up can't you shine on me this way no i am sorry to say i cannot answered another voice
but try to push your way through and then i can shine on you and make you grow there was silence for a minute and then the first voice said again oh it's no use i can't push the stone from over my head oh such trouble as i have
cried uncle wiggily here is where i come in who are you and what is the trouble he asked looking all around and seeing nothing but the shining sun
i find i cannot do it a big stone is in the way right over my head and i cannot push it aside to get up oh dear sighed the woodland flower oh don't worry about that cried uncle wiggily in his jolly voice
i'll lift the stone off your head for you and he did just as he once had helped a jack in the pulpit flower to grow up
there you are cried the bunny uncle but you don't look much like a flower oh i have only just begun to grow was the answer and i never would have been a flower if you had not taken the stone from me you see when i was a baby flower or seed
i was covered up in my warm bed of earth then came the cold winter and i went to sleep when spring came i awakened and began to grow but in the meanwhile this stone was put over me i don't know by whom but it held me down
but now i am free and my pale green leaves will turn to dark green and soon i will blossom out into a flower how will all that happen uncle wiggily asked when the sunbeam shines on me answered the blossom
that is why i wanted to get above the stone so the sunbeam could shine on me and warm me and i will begin to do it right now exclaimed the sunbeam
waiting for a chance to shine on the green plant and turn it into a beautiful flower thank you uncle wiggily for taking the stone off the leaves so i could shine on them went on the sunbeam who had known uncle wiggily for some time though i am strong i am not strong enough to lift stones
nor was the flower but now i can do my work i thank you and i hope i may do you a favor some time thank you uncle wiggily said with a low bow raising his tall silk hat
i suppose you sunbeams are kept very busy shining on and warming all the plants and trees in the woods yes indeed
who was a long straight chap we have lots of work to do but we are never too busy to shine for our friends then the sunbeam played about the little green plant turning the pale leaves a darker color and swelling out the tiny buds
uncle wiggily walked on through the woods glad that he had had even this little adventure it was a day or so after this that the bunny uncle went to the store for nurse jane fuzzy wuzzy the muskrat lady who kept his hollow stump bungalow so nice and tidy i want a loaf of bread
a yeast cake and three pounds of sugar said nurse jane it will give me great pleasure to get them for you answered the rabbit gentleman politely on his way home from the store with the sugar bread and yeast cake uncle wiggily thought he would hop past the place where he had lifted the stone off the head of the plant
to see how it was growing and as he stood there looking at the flower which was much taller than when the bunny uncle had last seen it all of a sudden there was a rustling in the bushes and out jumped a bad old fox ah ha
you want to see me exclaimed uncle wiggily i think you must be mistaken he went on politely oh no not at all barked the fox you have there some sugar some bread and a yeast cake have you not
i have answered uncle wiggily well then you may give me the bread and sugar and after i eat them i will start in on you i will take you off to my den to my dear little foxes eight nine and ten they have numbers instead of names you see
but i don't want to give you nurse jane's sugar and bread and go with you to your den said the rabbit gentleman i don't want to i don't like it you can't always do as you like barked the fox quick now the sugar and bread
what about the yeast cake asked uncle wiggily as he held it out all wrapped in shiny tinfoil like a looking glass
oh throw it away growled the fox no don't you do it whispered a voice in uncle wiggily's ear and there was the sunbeam he had met the other day hold out the yeast cake and i will shine on it very brightly and then i'll slant or bounce off from it
uncle wiggily longears the nice rabbit gentleman
and i don't want to go back to my hollow stump bungalow without having had an adventure to tell nurse jane fuzzy wuzzy about said mister longears but as i said the rabbit gentleman was feeling rather tired and seeing a nice log covered with a cushion of green moss he sat down on that to rest
and with the sun shining down upon him
he could not move his back away from the pine tree against which he had leaned to rest oh dear what has happened cried the bunny uncle
at first he thought perhaps the skillery scalery alligator with the humps on his tail had come softly up behind him as he slept and had him in his claws
but what is it holding me he cried as he tried again and again to get loose but could not
spoke a voice up over uncle wiggily's head i am holding you fast
i am the pine tree against which you leaned your back and on my bark was a lot of sticky pine gum it is that which is holding you fast the tree answered why why it's just like sticky flypaper isn't it
and now i can't get you loose for my limbs are so high over your head that i can not reach them down to you try to get loose yourself i will said uncle wiggily and he did but he could not get loose though he almost pulled out all his fur
the little bear boy and neddie had some butter which he had just bought at the store for his mother
if you will rub some butter on my sticky gum it will loosen and melt it so uncle wiggily will not be stuck any more neddie did so and soon the bunny uncle was free
i am a horrid creature of no use in this world uncle wiggily
oh yes you are said uncle wiggily kindly as for having stuck me fast that was my own fault
and as for your pine cones i dare say they are very useful no they are not said the tree sadly
oh i wish i were a peach tree or a rose bush never mind spoke uncle wiggily i like your pine cones and i am going to take some home with me and when i next see you i shall tell you how useful they were
don't feel so badly so uncle wiggily gathered a number of the pine cones
a few days later he was in the woods again and stopped near the pine tree which was sighing and wishing it were an umbrella plant or a gold fish hush cried uncle wiggily you must try to do the best you can for what you are
and i have come to tell you how useful your pine cones were really asked the tree in great surprise
really and truly answered uncle wiggily with some of your cones nurse jane started her kitchen fire when all the wood was wet with others i built a little play house and amused lulu wibblewobble the duck girl when she had the toothache
and other cones i threw at a big bear that was chasing me i hit him on the nose with them and he was glad enough to run away so you see how useful you are pine tree
i guess it is better to be just what you are and do the best you can
this part is related by peter hagstrom ph d the ability to communicate ideas from one individual to another said a professor of sociology to his class is the principal distinction
between human beings and their brute forbears
but upon two young men in the class it made a powerful impression it crystallized within them certain vague conceptions and brought them to a conscious focus enabling the young men to turn formless dreams into concrete acts
that is why i take the position that the above enthusiastic words of this sociology professor whose very name i have forgotten were the prime moving influence which many years later succeeded in saving occidental civilization
that we were a highly civilized pair of youngsters
but the passing years saw us engaged in widely and curiously divergent phases of the work thirty years later i was professor of the psychology of language at columbia university and benda was maintenance engineer of the bell telephone company of new york city
and on his knowledge and skill depended the continuity and stability of that stupendously complex traffic the telephone communication of greater new york since our ambitious cravings were satisfied in our everyday work
we no longer felt impelled to signal across the house tops with semaphores nor to devise ciphers that would defy solution but we still kept up our intimate friendship and our intense interest in our beloved subject
we were just as close chums at the age of fifty as we had been at ten and just as thrilled at new advances in communication at television at the international language at the supposed signals from mars
this for many reasons was a most amazing piece of news to myself and to anyone who knew benda of course it was commonly known that benda was being sought by universities and corporations
i know personally of several tempting offers he had received but the new york bell is a wealthy corporation and had thus far managed to hold benda both by the munificence of its salary and by the attractiveness of the work it offered him
but that it could outbid the new york bell was
well balanced habits of thinking and living supported by an intellect so clear and so keen that i knew of none to excel it what the science community was no one knew exactly but
that there was something abnormal fanatical about it no one doubted the science community situated in virginia in the foothills of the blue ridge had first been heard of many years ago when it was already a going concern
at the time of which i now speak the novelty had worn off and no one paid any more attention to it than they do to zion city or the dunkards by this time the science community was a city of a million inhabitants
and of all other resources provided by scientific progress so much visitors and reporters were able to say the rumors that it was a vast socialistic organization without private property
with equal sharing of all privileges were never confirmed it is a curious observation that it was possible in this country of ours for a city to exist about which we knew so little however it seemed evident from the vast number and elaboration of public buildings
the perfection of community utilities such as transportation streets lighting and communication from the absence of individual homes and the housing of people in huge dormitories that some different less individualistic type of social organization than ours was involved
he was not the type of man to leave a fifty thousand dollar job and join a communist city on an equal footing with the clerks in the stores as it happens i was also intimately acquainted with john edgewater smith
recently power commissioner of new york city and the most capable power engineer in north america who following benda by two or three months resigned his position and accepted what his letter termed the place of director of power in the science community
i was personally in a position to state that neither of these men could be lightly persuaded into such a step and that neither of them would work for a small salary benda's first letter to me stated that he was at the science community on a visit
he had heard of the place and while at washington on business had taken advantage of the opportunity to drive out and see it fascinated by the equipment he saw there he had decided to stay a few days and study it the next letter announced his acceptance of the position
i would give a month's salary to get a look at those letters now but i neglected to preserve them i should like to see them because i am curious as to whether they exhibit the characteristics of the subsequent letters some of which i now have as i have stated
benda and i had been on the most intimate terms for forty years his letters had always been crisp and direct and thoroughly familiar and confidential i do not know just how many letters i received from him from the science community before i noted the difference
but i have one from the third month of his stay there he wrote every two or three weeks characterized by a verbosity that sounded strange for him
there followed several months of letters like that a lot of words evasion of coming to the point about anything just
yet it was benda writing them gruff little expressions of his clear ways of looking at even the veriest trifles little allusion to our common past these things could neither have been written by anyone else nor written under compulsion from without
something had changed benda i pondered on it a good deal and could think of no hypothesis to account for it in the meanwhile new york city lost a third technical man to the science community
donald francisco commissioner of the water supply a sanitary engineer of international standing accepted a position in the science community as water director i did not know whether to laugh and compare it to the national baseball league's trafficking in big names
or to hunt for some sinister danger sign in it but as a result of my ponderings i decided to visit benda at the science community i wrote him to that effect
and almost decided to change my mind about the visit because of the cold evasiveness of the reply i received from him my first impulse on reading his indifferent lackadaisical comment on my proposed visit was to feel offended and determine to let him alone and never see him again
but my long years of training in psychological interpretation told me that a character and a friendship built during forty years does not change in six months
i wrote him that i was coming i found that the best way to reach the science community was to take a bus out from washington it involved a drive of about fifty miles northwest through a picturesque section of the country
the city of my destination was back in the hills and very much isolated during the last ten miles we met no traffic at all and i was the only passenger left in the bus suddenly the vehicle stopped
the driver said as he turned around and drove off leaving me standing there with my bag very much astonished at it all he was right a small neat looking bus drove through the pass and stopped for me
as i got in the driver mechanically turned around and drove into the hills again they took up my ticket on the other bus i said to the driver
nothing he said curtly fill that out he handed me a card an impertinent thing that card was
and by the time i was through the bus was out of the hills traveling up the valley of a small river
chapter seventeen under the great dome when glinda the good and her followers of the rescue expedition came in sight of the enchanted mountain of the flatheads
if we go to the mountain said the wizard we may get into trouble with that wicked su dic and then we would be delayed in rescuing ozma and dorothy so i think our best plan will be to go to the skeezer country
raise the sunken island and save our friends and the imprisoned skeezers afterward we can visit the mountain and punish the cruel magician of the flatheads that is sensible approved the shaggy man i quite agree with you
these were set closely together the branches which came quite to the ground being so tightly interlaced that even the glass cat could scarcely find a place to squeeze through the path which the flatheads used was some distance away
here's a job for the tin woodman said the scarecrow so the tin woodman who was always glad to be of use set to work with his sharp gleaming axe which he always carried
far from shore and directly in the center of the lake of course every eye was at first fixed upon this dome where ozma and dorothy and the skeezers were still fast prisoners but soon their attention was caught by a more brilliant sight
for here was the diamond swan swimming just before them its long neck arched proudly the amethyst eyes gleaming and all the diamond sprinkled feathers glistening splendidly under the rays of the sun that said glinda
i am sure coo ee oh is punished said glinda for she has lost all her magic power and her grand palace and can no longer misrule the poor skeezers
proposed the wizard so glinda beckoned the diamond swan which swam gracefully to a position near them before anyone could speak coo ee oh called to them in a rasping voice
for the voice of a swan is always harsh and unpleasant and said with much pride
handsome is as handsome does replied the scarecrow
deeds what deeds can a swan do but swim around and give pleasure to all beholders said the sparkling bird have you forgotten your former life have you forgotten your magic and witchcraft
inquired the wizard
i wouldn't go back to it if i could don't you admire my beauty strangers tell us coo ee oh
said glinda earnestly if you can recall enough of your witchcraft to enable us to raise the sunken island to the surface of the lake tell us that and i'll give you a string of pearls to wear around your neck and add to your beauty
but how can we raise the island
said button bright the old swan is too much in love with herself to think of anything else that's a fact agreed betsy with a sigh
added the scarecrow but how asked uncle henry in a grave voice for he could not bear to think of his dear niece dorothy being out there under water how shall we do it leave that to glinda
if it were just an ordinary sunken island said the powerful sorceress there would be several ways by which i might bring it to the surface again but this is a magic isle
it obeys certain commands of magic and will not respond to any other i do not despair in the least but it will require some deep study to solve this difficult problem
that there are three fishes in this lake that used to be adepts at magic and from whom coo ee oh stole much of her knowledge
you will understand of course that had glinda been at home in her castle where the great book of records was she would have known that ervic the skeezer already had taken the gold and silver and bronze fishes from the lake but that act had been recorded in the book
after glinda had set out on this journey so it was all unknown to her i think i see a boat yonder on the shore said ojo the munchkin boy pointing to a place around the edge of the lake
it was a mere shell of blackened steel with a collapsible roof that when in position made the submarine watertight but at present the roof rested in slots on either side of the magic craft
there were no oars or sails no machinery to make the boat go and although glinda promptly realized it was meant to be operated by witchcraft she was not acquainted with that sort of magic however
said she the boat is merely a boat and i believe i can make it obey a command of sorcery as well as it did the command of witchcraft
not all of us returned the wizard
but most noble sorceress provided you can make the boat go of what use will it be to us can't we use it
what i am trying to discover is how the boat came to be on this shore while the island on which it belongs is under water yonder did coo ee oh come here in the boat to meet the flatheads before the island was sunk or afterward
for we are in great trouble and need assistance if you belong on the island why are you here demanded glinda so they told her all the story
and how the boat had shot out from the basement of the sunken isle obeying a magic word and risen to the surface where it opened and floated upon the water then followed the account of how the su dic
while the boat in some strange manner had floated to the shore and stranded upon the beach that was all they knew they had searched in vain for three days for ervic as their island was under water and they could not get back to it
the three skeezers had no place to go and so had waited patiently beside their boat for something to happen being questioned by glinda and the wizard they told all they knew about ozma and dorothy
and declared the two girls were still in the village under the great dome they were quite safe and would be well cared for by lady aurex now that the queen who opposed them was out of the way when they had gleaned all the information they could from these skeezers
the wizard said to glinda if you find you can make this boat obey your sorcery you could have it return to the island submerge itself and enter the door in the basement from which it came but i cannot see that our going to the sunken island would enable our friends to escape
but what could they do then inquired another skeezer they would have no homes and no place to go and would be at the mercy of their enemies the flatheads that is true said glinda the good
i think she would refuse to escape with dorothy and leave the others behind or to abandon the island which is the lawful home of the skeezers i believe the best plan will be to summon the three fishes and learn from them how to raise the island
chapter twenty nine great smallpox epidemic saint mary's hall thanksgiving day in california another brother in law missus brunner has become too childish to have the responsibility of young girls
had been frequently remarked before elitha's visit and after her departure the same friends expressed regret that she had not taken us away with her these whispered comments which did not improve our situation suddenly ceased for the smallpox made its appearance in sonoma
and helpers were needed to care for the afflicted grandma had had the disease in infancy and could go among the patients without fear in fact she had such confidence in her method of treating it
that she would not have georgia and me vaccinated while the epidemic prevailed insisting that if we should take the disease she could nurse us through it without disfigurement and we would thenceforth be immune she did not expose us during what she termed the catching stage
but after that had passed she called us to share her work and become familiar with its details and taught us how to brew the teas make the ointments and apply them i do not remember a death among her patients
one was our pretty miss sallie lewis who had the dread disease in confluent form grandma was called hurriedly in the night because the afflicted girl in delirium had loosened the straps which held her upon her bed
but could not keep the cruel imprints from her face the other was our arch enemy castle who seemed so near death that one night as grandma was peering into the darkness for signal lights from the homes of the sick
she exclaimed impulsively hark children there goes the catholic bell count its strokes castle is a catholic and was very low when i saw him to day together we slowly counted the knells until she stopped us saying it's for somebody else
castle is not so old she was right later he came to us to recuperate and was the most exacting and profane man we ever waited on he conceived a special grudge against georgia
declaring that she hated castle and would not be sorry if something should happen to spoil his fine nose so when he came to us from the sick room soured and crestfallen because disease had deeply pitted and seamed that feature which had formerly been his pride she laughingly whispered
well i don't care my nose could never look like his even if i had the smallpox for there is not so much of it to spoil our dislike of the man became intense and later when we discovered that he was to be bartender at grandpa's bar and board at our house
this was more satisfaction to georgia than to me for she had the pleasure of declaring that if grandma took that man to board she would be a schweitzer child no longer
make her clothes like american children's and that she knew her friend missus bergwald would give her a home if grandma should send her away here the meeting was suddenly interrupted by the discovery that grandma was standing behind us
i felt that i had outgrown such correction nor had i deserved it and i told her that she should never never strike me again then i walked to the house alone a few moments later
georgia came up to our room and found me dressing myself with greatest care in amazement she asked eliza where are you going and was dumbfounded when i answered to find another home for us in the lower hall i encountered grandma
whose anger had cooled and she asked the question georgia had i raised my sleeve showed the welt on my arm and replied i am going to see if i can't find a home where they will treat me kindly poor grandma was conscience stricken
drew me into her own room and did not let me leave it until after she had soothed my hurts and we had become friends again georgia went to missus bergwald's and remained quite a while when she came back speaking english and insisting that she was an american
grandma became very angry and threatened to send her away among strangers then hesitated as if realizing how fully georgia belonged to me and i to her and that we would cling together whatever might happen
in her perplexity she besought missus bergwald's advice now missus bergwald was a native of stockholm a lady of rare culture and used the french language in conversing with grandma
she spoke feelingly of my little sister
anxious to learn the nicer ways of work and ladylike accomplishments she could see no harm in georgia wishing to remain an american since to love one's own people and country was natural thereafter grandma changed her methods
sometimes she would let us bring her from under the sofa her gorgeous prints illustrating wilhelm tell and would repeat the text relating to the scenes as we examined each picture with eager interest
we were also allowed to go to sunday school oftener and later she sent me part of the term to the select school for girls recently established by doctor ver mehr an episcopalian clergyman in fact
yet that did not lessen my enthusiasm i was eager for knowledge i also expected to meet familiar faces in that great building which had been the home of mister jacob leese but upon entering
i saw only finely dressed young ladies from other parts of the state promenading in the halls and small girls flitting about in the yard like bright winged butterflies some had received letters from home and were calling out the news others were engaged in games that were strange to me
the bell rang i followed to the recitation hall and was assigned a seat below the rest because i was the only small sonoma girl yet enrolled i made several life long friends at that institute
still it was easy to see that saint mary's hall was established for pupils who had been reared in the lap of wealth and ease not for those whose hands were rough like mine nor was there a class for me
grandma believing that i had gone to school long enough to be able to finish my studies without teachers georgia was more fortunate when miss hutchinson opened the young ladies seminary in the fall
grandma decided to lend it a helping hand by sending her a term as a day scholar my delighted sister was soon in touch with a crowd of other little girls and brought home many of their bright sayings for my edification
and i am to go and you also as her guest grandma was pleased that i was invited and declared that she would send a liberal donation of milk and cheese as a mark of appreciation i caught much of georgia's spirit of delight
for i had a vivid recollection of the grand dinner given in commemoration of our very first legally appointed thanksgiving day in california i had only to close my eyes and in thought would reappear the longest and most bountifully spread table i had ever seen
turkey chicken and wild duck at the ends a whole roasted pig in the centre and more than enough delicious accompaniments to cover the spaces between then the grown folk dining first and the flock of hungry children coming later
the speaking laughing and clapping of hands with which the old home customs were introduced in the new land there i wore a dark calico dress and sun bonnet
both made by poor missus mc cutchen of the donner party who had to take in sewing for a livelihood but to the seminary i should wear grandpa's gift a costly alpaca changeable in the sunlight to soft mingling bluish and greenish colors of the peacock
its wide skirt reached to my shoetops and the gathers to its full waist were gauged to a sharp peak in front a wide open v from the shoulder down to the peak displayed an embroidered white swiss chemisette
the sleeves small at the wrist were trimmed with folds of the material and a quilling of white lace at the hand on the all important morning grandma was anxious that i should look well
and quilled a soft white ruching around the face which emphasized the frenchy style and finish so pleasing to grandma did i look old fashioned yes for grandma said thou art like a picture i saw somewhere long ago
then she continued brightly here are thy mits and thy little embroidered handkerchief folded in a square
and come not back late for milking the seminary playground was so noisy with chatter and screams of joy that it was impossible to remember all the games we played and later the dining room and its offerings were so surprising and so beautifully decorated
that the sight nearly deprived me of my appetite mumps bite a pickle and see if it ain't so exclaimed a neighbor to whom georgia was showing her painful and swollen face true enough the least taste of anything sour produced the tell tale shock
and we had a hurried little talk with a closed window between us and were favorably impressed by our tall brother ben who had very blue eyes and soft brown hair he was the second of the three wilder brothers
who had been among the early gold seekers and tried roughing it in the mines though a native of rhode island and of puritan ancestry he was quite western in appearance though not a wealthy man
toby could scarcely restrain himself at the prospect of this golden future that had so suddenly opened before him he tried to express his gratitude but could only do so by
i don't believe he'd try to stop me said toby confidently
we won't take any chances my son was the reply in a very benevolent tone as he patted toby on the head and at the same time handed him a piece of pasteboard there's a ticket for the circus
your uncle daniel will have hard work to find you if toby had followed his inclinations
but not knowing exactly how such a show of thankfulness might be received he contented himself by repeatedly promising that he would be punctual to the time and place appointed
he would have loitered in the vicinity of the candy stand in order that he might gain some insight into the business but mister lord advised that he remain away lest his uncle daniel should see him and suspect where he had gone when he was missed in the morning
and to be able to see its many wonderful and beautiful attractions every day even the very tent ropes had acquired a new interest for him and the faces of the men at work seemed suddenly to have become those of friends
how hard it was for him to walk around unconcernedly and how especially hard to prevent his feet from straying toward that tempting display of dainties which he was to sell to those who came to see and enjoy
and who would look at him with wonder and curiosity it was very hard not to be allowed to tell his playmates of his wonderfully good fortune but silence meant success and he locked his secret in his bosom
not even daring to talk with any one he knew lest he should betray himself by some incautious word he did not go home to dinner that day and once or twice he felt impelled to walk past the candy stand
giving a mysterious shake of the head at the proprietor as he did so the afternoon performance passed off as usual to all of the spectators save toby he imagined that each one of the performers
a wink from mister lord must have been intended to convey a great deal because owing to the defect in his eyes it required no little exertion and even then could not be considered as a really first class wink
that night despite the fact that he was going to travel with the circus despite the fact that his home was not a happy or cheerful one toby was not in a pleasant frame of mind he began to feel for the first time that
and as he gazed at uncle daniel's stern forbidding looking face it seemed to have changed somewhat from its severity and caused a great lump of something to come up in his throat as he thought that perhaps
he should never see it again just then one or two kind words would have prevented him from running away bright as the prospect of circus life appeared it was almost impossible for him to eat anything
which was usually emptied so quickly are ye sick toby or
but i've been to the circus an i got a good deal to eat oho you spent that cent i give ye eh an got so much that it made ye sick
toby thought of the six pea nuts which he had bought with the penny uncle daniel had given him and amid all his homesickness he could not help wondering if uncle daniel ever made himself sick with only six pea nuts when he was a boy
as no one paid any further attention to toby he pushed back his plate arose from the table and went with a heavy heart to attend to his regular evening chores the cow the hens and
even the pigs came in for a share of his unusually kind attention and as he fed them all the big tears rolled down his cheeks as he thought that perhaps never again would he see any of them
these dumb animals had all been toby's confidants he had poured out his griefs in their ears and fancied when the world or uncle daniel had used him unusually hard that they sympathized with him
as he locked the stable door he could hear the sounds of music coming from the direction of the circus grounds and he was angry at it because it represented that which was taking him away from his home
down the road to the circus mister lord saw him as soon as he arrived on the grounds and as he passed another ticket to toby he took his bundle from him saying as he did so i'll pack up your bundle with my things
to know that they might be homesick on the eve of starting to travel with a circus and in order to make sure that toby would keep to his engagement he was unusually kind
that lump in his throat would remain there and the thoughts of what he was about to do would trouble him severely the performance failed to interest him
and the animals did not attract until he had visited the monkey cage for the third or fourth time then he fancied that the same venerable monkey who had looked so knowing in the afternoon was gazing at him with a sadness
it would not have surprised the boy just then if the animal had spoken but as he did not toby did the next best thing
a good time now but i s'pose i must cause
cause the candy man has got all my things the big tears had begun to roll down toby's cheeks and as he ceased speaking the monkey reached out one little paw
which toby took as earnestly as if it had been done purposely to console him you're real good you are continued toby
for it seems to me now when there hain't any folks around as if you was the only friend i've got in this great big world it's awful when a feller feels the way i do an when he don't seem to want anything to eat
and continued to gaze into the boy's face the fellers all say i don't amount to anything sobbed toby
i s'pose they know but
an don't forget that toby tyler is feelin worse to night than if he was twice as big an twice as good mister lord had come to summon him away and
he now told toby that he would show him with which man he was to ride that night toby looked another good bye at the venerable monkey who was watching him closely and then followed his employer out of the tent
the banner comes next says starlight tearing it open we shall have something short and sweet after the star how's this starlight again this mercurial brigand it would appear has paid turon another visit
but with the exception of what may be considered the legalised robbery of the betting ring has not levied contributions rather the other way indeed
a hasty note for mister dawson whom he had tricked into temporary association by adopting one of the disguises he can so wonderfully assume requested that gentleman to receive the handicap stakes won by his horse darkie alias rainbow
and to hand them over to the treasurer of the turon hospital which was accordingly done sir ferdinand and the police had been decoyed away previously nearly one hundred miles by false intelligence as to moran and his gang
our town and treasure were thus left undefended for forty eight hours while a daring criminal and his associates mingled unsuspected with all classes we have always regarded the present system
are confined to a short shrift and a high gallows for all who dare to obstruct the queen's highway
taking his pipe out of his mouth and laying it down that's the way they used to talk to us in the old days dashed if i don't think it's the best way after all you know where you are the rest's flummery
why says father getting up and glaring with his eyes because i was a blind ignorant dog when i was young as had never been taught nothing and knowed nothing not so much as him there pointing to crib
and falls backards and breaks his neck if he ain't watched whose business was it to have learned me better that i can't rightly say but it seemed it was the business of the government people to gaol me and iron me and flog me was that justice
it's been them and me for it since i got my liberty
we none of us felt in the humour to say much after that father had got into one of his tantrums and when he did he was fit to be tied only i'd not have took the contract for something
only every now and then he'd let out just as he did now as if nothing could ever set him straight again or keep him from fighting against them as he called the swells and the government and everybody almost that was straightgoing and honest
somehow or other we found that things had been made hotter for us than ever since we first turned out go where we would we found the police always quick on our trail
it looked as if our luck was dead out and we began to think our chance of getting across the border to queensland and clear out of the colony that way looked worse every day dad kept foraging about to get information
sir ferdinand was always on the move but we knew he couldn't do it all himself unless he got the office from some one who knew the ropes better than he did last of all we dropped on to it there was one of the goldfields commissioners
he'd lost some gold by us in the escort robbery and not forgotten it so it seems he'd been trying his best to fit us ever since just at first he wasn't able for much but later on he managed to get information about us and our beat
besides that we felt savage about his trying to run us in of course it was his duty and that of all magistrates and commissioners in a general way but he wasn't an officer of police and
so when all came to all we made up our minds to learn him a lesson to stick to his own work besides a thousand ounces of gold was no foolish touch and we could kill two birds with one stone
while we sneaked up we couldn't get near though without his knowing it for he always had a lot of sporting dogs
of course he was on his guard then and before long the bullets began to fly pretty thick among us and we had to take cover to return fire and keep as dark as we could
we blazed away too and as there was no stable at the back we surrounded the house and tried hard to find an opening
we all had a close shave more than once for being too fast
at last we drew lots which should try and get up close to the place
the lot fell upon patsey daly good bye all he said i'm dashed if i don't think knightley will bag me i don't half like charging him and that's god's truth
anyhow i'll try for that barrel there and if i get behind it i can fire from short range and make him come out he made a rush half on his hands and knees and managed to get behind this barrel where he was safe from being hit as long as he kept well behind it
then he peppered away right and left on the left of the verandah there was a door stood partly open and after a bit a man in a light overcoat and a white hat like mister knightley always wore showed himself for a second
daly raps away at this and the man staggers and falls patsey shows himself for a moment from behind the cask thinking to make a rush forward that minute mister knightley who was watching him from a window the other was only an image
lets drive at him cool and steady and poor patsey drops like a cock and never raised his head again he was shot through the body he lingered a bit but in less than an hour he was a dead man
only i could see that his face had that set look he only got now and then and his eyes began to show out a fierce light at last we began to see that the return fire was slacking off while ours was as brisk as ever
which had been fetched in for a sleeper or something of that sort we picked it up and taking a run back brought it with all its weight against the front door in it went like a sheet of bark
it seemed very queer and strange everything was so silent and quiet we half expected another volley but nothing came we could only stand and wait the others had gone round the side of the house
there's no saying what mister knightley might do if his wife had been here thank god she's away at bathurst said starlight i hate seeing women put out besides everybody bows down to missus knightley she's as good as she's handsome i believe and
that's saying a great deal just then moran and wall managed to find their way into the other side of the house and they came tearing into the hall like a pair of colts they looked rather queer when they saw us three and no one else
couldn't think of going before the captain says moran with a grin i'll follow where you lead all right says starlight here goes and he started to walk upstairs
when all of a sudden he stopped and looked up as if something had surprised him above a bit then he stepped back and waited i noticed he took off his hat and leaned against the wall it was an old fashioned house for that part of the world
built a good many years ago by a rich settler who was once the owner of all that side of the country the staircase was all stone ornamented every way it could be three or four people could walk abreast easy enough
all of a sudden appeared four people inclined by their ways to come down to where we were while we were all wondering for a reason you'll see afterwards
at any rate helping the others followed and they all walked quite solemn and steady like down the stairs together it was a strange sight
there we were standing and leaning about the dark hall staring and wondering and these people walking down to meet us like ghosts without speaking or anything else mister knightley was a tall handsome man
with a grand black beard that came down to his chest he walked like a lord and had that kind of manner with him that comes to people that have always been used to be waited on and have everything found for them in this world as for his wife
she was given in to be the handsomest woman in the whole countryside tall and graceful with a beautiful smile and soft fair hair everybody liked and respected her gentle and simple
and i can't say more than that so as i said before it was quite a picture to see them walk slowly and proudly down and sweep into the hall as if they'd been marching into a ballroom
and to make matters worse one of our band lay dead beside the inner wall killed by his hand what was to be his doom and who could say how such a play might end i looked at our men
as they stepped on to the floor of the hall and looked round missus knightley smiled she looked to me like an angel from heaven that had come by chance into the other place and hadn't found out her mistake i saw starlight start as he looked at her
he was still leaning against the wall and there was a soft sorrowful look in his eyes like i remember noticing once before while he was talking to aileen about his early days a thing he never did but once
it was pale but clear and bright looking and there was a thin streak of blood across her forehead that showed as she came underneath the lamp light from the landing above i looked over at moran
mister knightley was a man that always had the first word in everything and generally the best of an argument putting down anybody who differed from him in a quiet superior sort of way he began now
captain starlight i surrender my sword or should do so if i had one
i shall never forget the honour says starlight walking forward and bowing low permit me to offer you a chair madam you look faint as he did so she sank down in it and really looked as if she would faint away
then mister knightley began again he wanted to know how he stood he didn't like the look of moran and wall they were a deal too quiet for him and he could read men's faces like a book
this chance did not present itself
darya alexandrovna stayed alone in the country on the sunday in saint peter's week
in her family she was strict in carrying out all that was required by the church and not merely in order to set an example but with all her heart in it
for several days before darya alexandrovna was busily
frocks were made or altered and washed seams and flounces were let out buttons were sewn on and ribbons got ready one dress tanya's which the english governess had undertaken
cost darya alexandrovna much loss of temper the english governess in altering it had made the seams in the wrong place had taken up the sleeves too much and altogether spoilt the dress
it was so narrow on tanya's shoulders that it was quite painful to look at her but marya philimonovna had the happy thought of putting in gussets and adding a little shoulder cape
the dress was set right but there was nearly a quarrel with the english governess on the morning however all was happily arranged and towards ten o'clock
the time at which they had asked the priest to wait for them for the mass the children in their new dresses with beaming faces stood on the step before the carriage waiting for their mother to the carriage instead of the restive raven
they had harnessed thanks to the representations of marya philimonovna the bailiff's horse brownie and darya alexandrovna delayed by anxiety over her own attire came out and got in
dressed in a white muslin gown darya alexandrovna had done her hair and dressed with care and excitement in the old days she had dressed for her own sake to look pretty and be admired
now she did not dress for her own sake not for the sake of her own beauty but simply that as the mother of those exquisite creatures she might not spoil the general effect
but nice for the object which she now had in view in the church there was no one but the peasants the servants and their women folk but darya alexandrovna saw or fancied she saw
the sensation produced by her children and her the children were not only beautiful to look at in their smart little dresses but they were charming in the way they behaved aliosha it is true did not stand quite correctly
he kept turning round trying to look at his little jacket from behind but all the same he was wonderfully sweet tanya behaved like a grownup person and looked after the little ones
on the way home the children felt that something solemn had happened and were very sedate everything went happily at home too but at lunch grisha began whistling
and what was worse was disobedient to the english governess and was forbidden to have any tart darya alexandrovna would not have let things go so far on such a day had she been present
nikolinka had whistled too and he was not punished and that he wasn't crying for the tart he didn't care
darya alexandrovna made up her mind to persuade the english governess to forgive grisha and she went to speak to her but on the way as she passed the drawing room she beheld a scene
filling her heart with such pleasure that the tears came into her eyes and she forgave the delinquent herself the culprit was sitting at the window in the corner of the drawing room
beside him was standing tanya with a plate on the pretext of wanting to give some dinner to her dolls she had asked the governess's permission to take her share of tart to the nursery
eat it together together tanya had at first been under the influence of her pity for grisha then of a sense of her noble action and tears were standing in her eyes too
but she did not refuse and ate her share on catching sight of their mother they were dismayed but looking into her face they saw they were not doing wrong
but with tears in her eyes smiling a blissful rapturous smile the new frocks were taken off and orders were given for the little girls to have their blouses put on and the boys their old jackets
but this time she found a big one quite of herself and there was a general scream of delight lily has found a mushroom then they reached the river put the horses under the birch trees and went to the bathing place
while the never ceasing shrieks of delight of the children floated across to him from the bathing place though it was hard work to look after all the children and restrain their wild pranks
little breeches and shoes for the different legs and to undo and to do up again all the tapes and buttons darya alexandrovna who had always liked bathing herself and believed it to be very good for the children
enjoyed nothing so much as bathing with all the children to go over all those fat little legs pulling on their stockings
to take in her arms and dip those little naked bodies and to hear their screams of delight and alarm to see the breathless faces with wide open scared and happy eyes of all her splashing cherubs
was a great pleasure to her when half the children had been dressed some peasant women in holiday dress out picking herbs came up to the bathing shed and stopped shyly marya
no he's only three months old answered darya alexandrovna with pride you don't say so
i've had four i've two living a boy and a girl i weaned her last carnival how old is she why two years old why did you nurse her so long
did it often happen darya alexandrovna felt disinclined to leave the peasant women so interesting to her was their conversation so completely identical were all their interests
and offended the english governess because she was the cause of the laughter she did not understand one of the younger women kept staring at the englishwoman who was dressing after all the rest
chapter eighteen in which phileas fogg
blew a gale and retarded the steamer the rangoon rolled heavily and the passengers became impatient of the long monstrous waves which the wind raised before their path
a sort of tempest arose on the third of november
about with fury and the waves running high the rangoon reefed all her sails
rigging proved too much
the steamer was forced to proceed slowly and the captain estimated that she would reach hong kong
fix did not look at the state of things in the same light the storm greatly pleased him his satisfaction would have been complete had the rangoon been forced to retreat
some days at hong kong and now the heavens themselves became his allies with the gusts and squalls it mattered not that they made him sea sick
he made no account of this inconvenience and whilst his body was writhing under their effects his spirit bounded with hopeful exultation
enraged beyond expression by the
weather everything had gone so well till now earth and sea had seemed to be at his master's service steamers and railways obeyed him
into obedience poor fellow fix carefully concealed from him his own satisfaction for had he betrayed it
as long as the tempest lasted being unable to remain quiet below and taking it
whereupon he was referred to the
which seemed to have no intention of rising
but with no perceptible effect for neither shaking nor maledictions could prevail upon it to change its mind on the fourth however the sea became more calm
and the storm lessened its violence the wind veered southward and was once more favourable
signalled until five o'clock on the morning of the sixth the steamer was due on the fifth phileas fogg was twenty four hours behind hand and the yokohama steamer would of course be missed
the pilot went on board at six and took his place on the bridge to guide the rangoon through the channels to the port of hong kong
if the steamer had left for yokohama but he dared not for he wished to preserve the spark of hope which still remained till the last moment he had confided
his anxiety to fix who the sly rascal tried to console him by saying that mister fogg
mister fogg bolder than his servant did not hesitate to approach the pilot and tranquilly ask him if he knew when a steamer would leave hong kong for yokohama at high tide to morrow morning answered the pilot
ah said mister fogg without betraying any astonishment
who heard what passed would willingly have embraced the pilot while fix would have been glad to twist his neck what is the steamer's name asked mister fogg the carnatic
and so her departure was postponed till to morrow thank you returned mister fogg descending mathematically
in his delight exclaiming pilot you are the best of good fellows the pilot probably does not know to this day why his responses won him this enthusiastic greeting
he remounted the bridge and guided the steamer through the flotilla of junks
and the passengers were going ashore chance had strangely favoured phileas fogg
she would have left on the sixth of november and the passengers for japan would have
of the next steamer mister fogg was it is true twenty four hours behind his time but this could not seriously imperil the remainder of his tour the steamer
which crossed the pacific from yokohama to san francisco made a direct connection with that from hong kong and it could not sail until the latter reached yokohama
and if mister fogg was twenty four hours late on reaching yokohama this time would no doubt
in the voyage of twenty two days across the pacific he found himself then about twenty four hours behind hand thirty five days after leaving london the
the next morning mister fogg had sixteen hours in which to attend to his business there which was
to a palanquin
a room was engaged for the young woman and mister fogg after seeing that she wanted for nothing
to remain at the hotel until his return that aouda might not be left entirely alone mister fogg repaired to the exchange where he did not doubt every one
was no longer at hong kong but probably in holland
she passed her hand across her forehead and reflected a few moments
chapter six in which fix the detective
the circumstances under which this telegraphic dispatch about phileas fogg was sent were as follows
and oriental company built of iron of two thousand eight hundred tons burden and five hundred horse power was due at eleven o'clock a m
brindisi and bombay
always making more than ten knots an hour between brindisi and suez and nine and a half between suez and bombay two men
among the crowd of natives and strangers who were sojourning at this once straggling village now thanks to the enterprise of m lesseps a fast growing town
one was the british consul at suez who despite the prophecies of the english government and the unfavourable
seeing from his office window english ships daily passing to and fro on the great canal by which the old roundabout route from england to india by the cape of good hope was abridged
by at least a half the other was a small slight built personage with a nervous intelligent face and bright eyes peering out from under eyebrows which
nervously pacing up and down and unable to stand still for a moment this was fix one of the detectives who had been dispatched from england in search of the bank robber it was his task to narrowly watch every passenger
who arrived at suez and to follow up all who seemed to be suspicious characters or bore a resemblance to the description of the criminal which he had received two days before from the police headquarters at london
the detective was evidently inspired by the hope of obtaining the splendid reward which would be the prize of success and awaited with a feverish impatience
directly from brindisi she takes on the indian mails there and she left there saturday at five p m have patience mister fix she will not be late but really i don't see how
you must have a scent for them and a scent is like a sixth sense which combines hearing seeing and smelling i've arrested more than one of these gentlemen in my time and if my thief is on board
i'll answer for it he'll not slip through my fingers i hope so mister fix
a magnificent robbery consul fifty five thousand pounds we don't often have such windfalls burglars are getting to be so contemptible nowadays a fellow gets hung
great robbers always resemble honest folks fellows who have rascally faces have only one course to take and that is to remain honest otherwise they would be arrested off hand
but a real art mister fix evidently was not wanting
a jetty pier some two thousand yards along extended into the roadstead a number of fishing smacks and coasting boats
some retaining the fantastic fashion of ancient galleys were
on the red sea as he passed among the busy crowd fix according to habit scrutinised
as the port clock struck she can't be far off now returned his companion how long will she stop at suez four hours long enough to get in her coal
it is thirteen hundred and ten miles from suez to aden at the other end of the red sea and she has to take in a fresh coal supply and does she go from suez directly to bombay
in asia by some other route he ought to know that he would not be safe an hour in india which is english soil
he is exceptionally shrewd an english criminal you know
fix left alone was more impatient than ever having a presentiment that the robber was on board the mongolia if he had indeed left london intending to reach the new world
he would naturally take the route via india which was less watched and more difficult to watch than that of the atlantic but fix's reflections were soon interrupted by a succession of sharp
whistles which announced the arrival of the mongolia
and a dozen boats pushed off from the shore to go and meet the steamer soon her gigantic hull appeared passing along between the banks and eleven o'clock struck as she anchored in the road
fix took up a position and carefully examined each face and figure which made its appearance presently one of the passengers after vigorously pushing his way through the
importunate crowd of porters came up to him and politely asked if he could point out the english consulate at the same time showing a passport
asked he no it's my master's and your master is he stayed on board
so as to establish his identity
consulate there on the corner of the square said fix pointing to a house two hundred steps off i'll go and fetch my master who won't be much pleased however to be disturbed
burlington gardens the house in which sheridan died in eighteen fourteen he was one of the most noticeable members of the reform club though he seemed always to avoid attracting attention an enigmatical personage
about whom little was known except that he was a polished man of the world people said that he resembled byron
but he was a bearded tranquil byron who might live on a thousand years without growing old certainly an englishman it was more doubtful whether phileas fogg was a londoner
he was never seen on
his name was strange to the scientific and learned societies and he never was known to take part in the sage deliberations of the royal institution
or the london institution the artisan's association or the institution of arts and sciences he belonged in fact to none of the numerous societies
which swarm in the english capital from the harmonic to that of the entomologists founded mainly for the purpose of abolishing
insects phileas fogg was a member of the reform and that was all the way in which he got admission to this exclusive club was simple enough he was recommended by the barings with whom he had an open credit
at sight from his account current which was always flush was phileas fogg rich undoubtedly but those who knew him best could not imagine how he had made his fortune and mister fogg
was the last person to whom to apply for the information he was not lavish nor on the contrary
he talked very little and seemed all the more mysterious for his taciturn manner his daily habits were quite open to observation
that he had always done before
of the curious were fairly puzzled had he travelled it was likely for no one seemed to know the world more familiarly
that he did not appear to have an intimate acquaintance with it he often corrected with a few clear words the thousand conjectures advanced by members of the club as to lost
and unheard of travellers pointing out the true probabilities and seeming as if
with a sort of second sight so often did events justify his
he must have travelled everywhere at least in the spirit it was at least certain that phileas fogg had not absented himself from london for many years those who were honoured by a
better acquaintance with him than the rest declared that nobody could
being reserved as a fund for his charities mister fogg played not to win but for the sake of playing the game was in his eyes a contest
congenial to his tastes phileas fogg was not known to have either wife or children which may happen to the most honest people either relatives
or near friends which is certainly more unusual he lived alone in his house
never taking his meals with other members much less bringing a guest with him and went home at exactly midnight only to retire at once to bed he never used the cosy chambers
either in sleeping or making his toilet when he chose to take a walk it was with a regular step in the entrance hall with its mosaic flooring or in the circular gallery
or dined all the resources of the club its kitchens
its buttery and dairy aided to crowd his table with their most succulent stores he was served by the gravest waiters in dress coats and shoes with swan skin soles
and on the finest linen club decanters of a lost mould contained his sherry his port and his cinnamon spiced claret while his beverages were
not sumptuous was exceedingly comfortable
but phileas fogg required him to be almost superhumanly prompt and regular on this very second of october he had dismissed james forster
had brought him shaving water at eighty four degrees fahrenheit instead of eighty six and he was awaiting his successor who was due at the house between eleven
and half past phileas fogg was seated squarely in his armchair his feet close together like those of a grenadier on parade his hands resting on his knees his body straight his head erect
he was steadily watching a complicated clock which indicated the hours the minutes the seconds the days the months and the years
mister fogg would according to his daily habit
and repair to the reform a rap at this moment sounded on the door of the cosy apartment where phileas fogg was seated and james
asked phileas fogg and your name is john jean if monsieur pleases replied the newcomer
a surname which has clung to me because i have a natural aptness for going out of one business into another i believe i'm honest monsieur but to be outspoken i've had several trades
of gymnastics so as to make better use of my talents and then i was a sergeant fireman at paris
finding myself out of place and hearing that monsieur phileas fogg was the most exact
i have come to monsieur in the hope of living with him a tranquil life and forgetting even the name of
know my conditions yes monsieur good what time is it twenty two minutes after eleven
drawing an enormous silver watch from the depths of his pocket you are too slow said mister fogg pardon me monsieur it is impossible you are four minutes too slow no matter it's enough to mention the error
twenty nine minutes after eleven a m this wednesday second october you are in my service phileas fogg got up took his hat in his left hand put it on his head
with an automatic motion and went off without a word
it was his new master going out he heard it shut again it was his predecessor
chapter nine in which the red sea and the indian ocean prove propitious to the
now that a railway crosses the indian peninsula among the passengers was a number of officials and military officers of various grades
the latter being either attached to the regular british forces or
and receiving high salaries ever since the central government has assumed the powers of the east india company for the sub lieutenants
and generals of divisions four thousand pounds what with the military men a number of rich young englishmen on their travels and the hospitable efforts of the purser
the time passed quickly on the mongolia the best of fare was spread upon the cabin tables at breakfast lunch dinner and the eight o'clock supper and the ladies
then the ladies speedily disappeared below the pianos were silent singing and dancing suddenly ceased yet the good ship ploughed straight on unretarded
unvarying as the ship's chronometers and seldom having the curiosity even to go upon the deck he passed
and villages which along its borders raised their
he made his four hearty meals every day regardless of the most persistent rolling and pitching on the part of the steamer
indefatigably for he had found partners as enthusiastic in the game as himself
and took his meals conscientiously
he was pleased on the day after leaving suez to find on deck
if i am not mistaken said he approaching this person with his most amiable smile you are the gentleman who so kindly volunteered to guide me at suez ah i quite recognise you you are the servant of the strange englishman
just so monsieur fix
then you know india why yes replied fix who spoke cautiously a curious place this india
minarets temples fakirs pagodas tigers snakes elephants i hope you will have ample time to see the sights i hope so monsieur fix you see
ought not to spend his life jumping from a steamer upon a railway train and from a railway train upon a steamer again
in the world quite well and i too
it's the sea air but i never see your master on deck never
may conceal some secret errand
faith monsieur fix i assure you i know nothing about it nor would i give half a crown to find out
man's confidence he frequently offered him a glass of whiskey or pale ale in the steamer bar room
never failed to accept with graceful alacrity mentally pronouncing fix the best of good fellows meanwhile the mongolia was pushing forward rapidly on the thirteenth
ravished to behold this celebrated place and thought that with its circular walls and dismantled fort it looked like an immense coffee cup and saucer the following night
they passed through the strait of
to take in coal this matter of fuelling steamers is a serious one at such distances from the coal mines it
costs the peninsular company some eight hundred thousand pounds a year in these distant seas coal is worth three or four pounds sterling a ton the mongolia had still sixteen hundred and fifty miles to traverse
on the morning of the fifteenth when she was due arrived there on the evening of the fourteenth a gain of fifteen hours mister fogg
to have the passport again visaed fix unobserved followed them the visa procured mister fogg returned on board to resume his former habits
after the engineers of solomon
on returning to the steamer i see that it is by no means useless to travel if a man wants to see something new at six p m the mongolia slowly moved out of the roadstead and was soon once more on the indian ocean
was enchanted with the congenial
the person of the delightful fix on sunday october twentieth towards noon they came in sight of the indian coast two hours later the pilot came on board
stroke captured all thirteen of the tricks concluded this fine campaign with a brilliant victory the mongolia was due at bombay on the twenty second she arrived on the twentieth
this was a gain to phileas fogg of two days since his departure from london and he calmly entered the fact in the
my new master i shall never forget he had black eyes and a hooked nose his mouth was as full of teeth as a bull dog's and his voice was as harsh as the grinding of cart wheels
but i should say that feeling is believing
i never knew till now the utter misery of a cab horse's life skinner had a low set of cabs and a low set of drivers he was hard on the men and the men
were hard on the horses in this place we had no sunday rest
sometimes on a sunday morning a party of fast men would hire the cab for the day four of them inside and another with the driver and i had to take them ten or fifteen miles out into the country and back again
let it be ever so steep or the day ever so hot unless indeed when the driver was afraid i should not manage it and sometimes i was so fevered and worn
that i could hardly touch my food how i used to long for the nice bran mash with niter in it that jerry used to give us on saturday nights in hot weather
that used to cool us down and make us so comfortable then we had two nights and a whole day for unbroken rest and on monday morning we were as fresh as young horses again
but here there was no rest and my driver was just as hard as his master he had a cruel whip with something so sharp at the end that it sometimes drew blood
and he would even whip me under the belly and flip the lash out at my head indignities like these took the heart out of me terribly but still i did my best
and never hung back for as poor ginger said it was no use
so my driver pulled up at the back of some of the outside cabs to take the chance of a return fare it was a very heavy train and as all the cabs were soon engaged ours was called for
there was a party of four a noisy blustering man with a lady
oh he's all right miss said my driver he's strong enough the porter who was pulling about some heavy boxes suggested to the gentleman as there was so much luggage
can your horse do it or can't he said the blustering man
he could take more than that and he helped to haul up a box so heavy
a pretty thing it would be if a man of business had to examine every cab horse before he hired it the man knows his own business of course there get in and hold your tongue my gentle friend had to obey
and box after box was dragged up and lodged on the top of the cab or settled by the side of the driver at last all was ready and with his usual jerk at the rein and slash of the whip
he drove out of the station the load was very heavy and i had had neither food nor rest since morning
i was struggling to keep on goaded by constant chucks of the rein and use of the whip when in a single moment i cannot tell how
now i was going to die i heard a sort of confusion round me loud angry voices and the getting down of the luggage but it was all like a dream i thought i heard that sweet pitiful voice saying
some one came and loosened the throat strap of my bridle and undid the traces which kept the collar so tight upon me some one said he's dead he'll never get up again then
i could hear a policeman giving orders but i did not even open my eyes i could only draw a gasping breath now and then some cold water was thrown over my head
and some cordial was poured into my mouth and something was covered over me i cannot tell how long i lay there but i found my life coming back and a kind voiced man was patting me
and encouraging me to rise after some more cordial had been given me and after one or two attempts i staggered to my feet and was gently led to some stables which were close by
here i was put into a well littered stall and some warm gruel was brought to me which i drank thankfully in the evening
i was sufficiently recovered to be led back to skinner's stables where i think they did the best for me they could in the morning skinner came with a farrier to look at me he examined me very closely and said
this is a case of overwork more than disease
but now there is not an ounce of strength left in him
i have no meadows to nurse sick horses in he might get well or he might not that sort of thing don't suit my business my plan is to work em as long as they'll go and then sell em for what they'll fetch
at the knacker's or elsewhere
you had better have him killed out of hand but he is not there is a sale of horses coming off in about ten days if you rest him and feed him up he may pick up and you may get more than his skin is worth at any rate
upon this advice skinner rather unwillingly i think gave orders that i should be well fed and cared for and the stable man happily for me carried out the orders
ten days of perfect rest plenty of good oats hay bran mashes with boiled linseed mixed in them did more to get up my condition than anything else could have done
those linseed mashes were delicious and i began to think after all
there had been a great deal of rain and now the wind was very high and blew the dry leaves across the road in a shower we went along merrily till we came to the toll bar and the low wooden bridge
the river banks were rather high and the bridge instead of rising went across just level so that in the middle if the river was full the water would be nearly up to the woodwork and planks
but as the master's business engaged him a long time we did not start for home till rather late in the afternoon the wind was then much higher and i heard the master say to john that he had never been out in such a storm
and so i thought as we went along the skirts of a wood where the great branches were swaying about like twigs and the rushing sound was terrible i wish we were well out of this wood said my master
yes sir said john it would be rather awkward if one of these branches came down upon us the words were scarcely out of his mouth
when there was a groan and a crack and a splitting sound and tearing crashing down among the other trees came an oak torn up by the roots and it fell right across the road just before us
i will never say i was not frightened for i was i stopped still and i believe i trembled of course i did not turn round or run away i was not brought up to that john jumped out
and was in a moment at my head that was a very near touch said my master what's to be done now well sir we can't drive over that tree nor yet get round it
so back we went and round by the crossroads but by the time we got to the bridge it was very nearly dark we could just see that the water was over the middle of it
but as that happened sometimes when the floods were out master did not stop we were going along at a good pace but the moment my feet touched the first part of the bridge i felt sure there was something wrong i dare not go forward
and i made a dead stop go on beauty said my master and he gave me a touch with the whip but i dare not stir he gave me a sharp cut i jumped but i dare not go forward
there's something wrong sir said john and he sprang out of the dog cart and came to my head and looked all about he tried to lead me forward come on beauty what's the matter
of course i could not tell him but i knew very well that the bridge was not safe
thank god said my master you beauty said john and took the bridle and gently turned me round to the right hand road by the river side the sun had set some time
the wind seemed to have lulled off after that furious blast which tore up the tree it grew darker and darker stiller and stiller
i trotted quietly along the wheels hardly making a sound on the soft road for a good while neither master nor john spoke and then master began in a serious voice
i could not understand much of what they said but i found they thought if i had gone on as the master wanted me most likely the bridge would have given way under us and horse chaise master
and as the current was flowing very strongly and there was no light and no help at hand
i am sure he makes friends of them if ever a man did at last we came to the park gates and found the gardener looking out for us he said that mistress had been in a dreadful way ever since dark
fearing some accident had happened and that she had sent james off on justice the roan cob toward the wooden bridge to make inquiry after us we saw a light at the hall door and at the upper windows
and as we came up mistress ran out saying are you really safe my dear oh i have been so anxious
i heard no more as they went into the house and john took me to the stable oh what a good supper he gave me that night a good bran mash and some crushed beans with my oats and such a thick bed of straw
jakes and the lady i was sold to a corn dealer and baker whom jerry knew and with him he thought i should have good food and fair work in the first he was quite right
and if my master had always been on the premises i do not think i should have been overloaded but there was a foreman who was always hurrying and driving every one and frequently when i had quite a full load
he would order something else to be taken on my carter whose name was jakes often said it was more than i ought to take but the other always overruled him twas no use going twice when once would do
i found the work telling very much on my strength one day i was loaded more than usual and part of the road was a steep uphill i used all my strength
but i could not get on and was obliged continually to stop this did not please my driver and he laid his whip on badly get on you lazy fellow he said or i'll make you
again i started the heavy load and struggled on a few yards again the whip came down and again i struggled forward the pain of that great cart whip was sharp
but my mind was hurt quite as much as my poor sides to be punished and abused when i was doing my very best was so hard it took the heart out of me
a third time he was flogging me cruelly when a lady stepped quickly up to him and said in a sweet earnest voice
and the road is very steep i am sure he is doing his best if doing his best won't get this load up he must do something more than his best that's all i know ma'am said jakes
but is it not a heavy load she said
he said but that's not my fault the foreman came just as we were starting and would have three hundredweight more put on to save him trouble and i must get on with it as well as i can
he was raising the whip again when the lady said
the man laughed you see she said you do not give him a fair chance he cannot use all his power with his head held back as it is with that check rein
and in a moment i put my head down to my very knees what a comfort it was then i tossed it up and down several times to get the aching stiffness out of my neck
said she patting and stroking me with her gentle hand and now if you will speak kindly to him and lead him on i believe he will be able to do better jakes took the rein come on blackie
i put down my head and threw my whole weight against the collar i spared no strength the load moved on and i pulled it steadily up the hill and then stopped to take breath
the lady had walked along the footpath and now came across into the road she stroked and patted my neck as i had not been patted for many a long day you see he
and thank you ma'am but if he went without a check rein i should be the laughing stock of all the carters it is the fashion you see is it not better she said
to lead a good fashion than to follow a bad one a great many gentlemen do not use check reins now our carriage horses have not worn them for fifteen years
besides she added in a very serious voice we have no right to distress any of god's creatures
we call them dumb animals and so they are for they cannot tell us how they feel but they do not suffer less because they have no words but i must not detain you now
i thank you for trying my plan with your good horse and i am sure you will find it far better than the whip good day and with another soft pat on my neck she stepped lightly across the path and i saw her no more
and i must do him the justice to say that he let my rein out several holes and going uphill after that he always gave me my head but the heavy loads went on
good feed and fair rest will keep up one's strength under full work but no horse can stand against overloading and i was getting so thoroughly pulled down from this cause
that a younger horse was bought in my place i may as well mention here what i suffered at this time from another cause i had heard horses speak of it but had never myself had experience of the evil
this was a badly lighted stable there was only one very small window at the end and the consequence was that the stalls were almost dark besides the depressing effect this had on my spirits
it very much weakened my sight and when i was suddenly brought out of the darkness into the glare of daylight it was very painful to my eyes several times i stumbled over the threshold and could scarcely see where i was going
i believe had i stayed there very long i should have become purblind and that would have been a great misfortune for i have heard men say that a stone blind horse was safer to drive than one which had imperfect sight
however i escaped without any permanent injury to my sight
at this sale of course i found myself in company with the old broken down horses some lame some broken winded some old and some that i am sure it would have been merciful to shoot
the buyers and sellers too many of them looked not much better off than the poor beasts they were bargaining about there were poor old men trying to get a horse or a pony for a few pounds
some of them looked as if poverty and hard times had hardened them all over but there were others that i would have willingly used the last of my strength in serving poor and shabby but kind and human
with voices that i could trust there was one tottering old man who took a great fancy to me and i to him but i was not strong enough it was an anxious time
coming from the better part of the fair i noticed a man who looked like a gentleman farmer with a young boy by his side he had a broad back and round shoulders a kind ruddy face
and he wore a broad brimmed hat when he came up to me and my companions he stood still and gave a pitiful look round upon us i saw his eye rest on me
i had still a good mane and tail which did something for my appearance i pricked my ears and looked at him there's a horse willie that has known better days
poor old fellow said the boy do you think grandpapa he was ever a carriage horse oh yes my boy said the farmer coming closer he might have been anything when he was young
i put out my nose in answer to his kindness the boy stroked my face poor old fellow see grandpapa how well he understands kindness
could not you buy him and make him young again as you did with ladybird my dear boy i can't make all old horses young besides ladybird was not so very old as she was run down and badly used
look at his mane and tail i wish you would look into his mouth and then you could tell though he is so very thin his eyes are not sunk like some old horses the old gentleman laughed
bless the boy he is as horsey as his old grandfather but do look at his mouth grandpapa and ask the price i am sure he would grow young in our meadows
would set him right up being as how his wind was not broken i've had the tending of him these ten days past and a gratefuller pleasanter animal i never met with
and twould be worth a gentleman's while to give a five pound note for him and let him have a chance i'll be bound he'd be worth twenty pounds next spring the old gentleman laughed and the little boy looked up eagerly
oh grandpapa
the farmer slowly felt my legs which were much swelled and strained then he looked at my mouth thirteen or fourteen i should say just trot him out will you
i arched my poor thin neck raised my tail a little and threw out my legs as well as i could for they were very stiff what is the lowest you will take for him
said the farmer as i came back five pounds sir that was the lowest price my master set tis a speculation said the old gentleman shaking his head
but at the same time slowly drawing out his purse quite a speculation have you any more business here he said counting the sovereigns into his hand no sir
do so i am now going there they walked forward and i was led behind the boy could hardly control his delight and the old gentleman seemed to enjoy his pleasure i had a good feed at the inn
and was then gently ridden home by a servant of my new master's and turned into a large meadow with a shed in one corner of it mister thoroughgood for that was the name of my benefactor
gave orders that i should have hay and oats every night and morning and the run of the meadow during the day and you willie
i give him in charge to you the boy was proud of his charge and undertook it in all seriousness there was not a day when he did not pay me a visit sometimes picking me out from among the other horses
and giving me a bit of carrot or something good or sometimes standing by me while i ate my oats he always came with kind words and caresses and of course i grew very fond of him
he called me old crony as i used to come to him in the field and follow him about sometimes he brought his grandfather who always looked closely at my legs this is our point willie
he would say but he is improving so steadily that i think we shall see a change for the better in the spring the perfect rest the good food the soft turf and gentle exercise
soon began to tell on my condition and my spirits i had a good constitution from my mother and i was never strained when i was young so that i had a better chance than many horses who have been worked before they came to their full strength
the spring came round and one day in march mister thoroughgood determined that he would try me in the phaeton i was well pleased and he and willie drove me a few miles
my legs were not stiff now and i did the work with perfect ease he's growing young willie we must give him a little gentle work now and by mid summer he will be as good as ladybird he has a
beautiful mouth and good paces they can't be better oh grandpapa how glad i am you bought him so am i my boy but he has to thank you more than me
we must now be looking out for a quiet genteel place for him
and he was leaving her without any reference to the scene which had taken place when an idea struck him that this would be cruel mary he said i was very sorry for all that it was not my doing
if you mean by controlling myself holding my tongue he is the man i love whom i have promised to marry but mary do ladies generally embrace their lovers in public no nor should i
i never did such a thing in my life before but as he was there i had to show that i was not ashamed of him
if you all had not been there then again she burst into tears he did not quite know what to make of it
but yet as he thought of what he had seen he shuddered with vexation i was thinking of the governor he said he shall be told everything that you met tregear certainly and that i kissed him
i will do nothing that i am ashamed to tell everybody he will be very angry i cannot help it he should not treat me as he is doing mister tregear is a gentleman why did he let him come why did you bring him
but it is of no use the thing is settled papa can break my heart
on that night mary told the whole of her story to lady cantrip there was nothing that she tried to conceal i got up she said and threw my arms round him is he not all the world to me
now i want you to tell papa all about it lady cantrip began to think that it had been an evil day for her when she had agreed to take charge of this very determined young lady but she consented at once to write to the duke
i would rather you wrote the letter said lady mary but pray tell him that all along i have meant him to know all about it till lady cantrip seated herself at her writing table
but the duke's character added much to the severity of the task and then that embrace she knew that the duke would be struck with horror as he read of such a tale and she found herself almost struck with horror as she attempted to write it
when she came to the point she found she could not write it i fear there was a good deal of warmth shown on both sides she said feeling that she was calumniating the man as to whose warmth she had heard nothing
it is quite clear she added that this is not a passing fancy on her part
that silverbridge had taken mary he did understand and that they had together gone to lord grex's house he understood also that the meeting had taken place in the presence of silverbridge and of lady mabel no doubt it was all an accident
lady cantrip wrote how could it be an accident you had mary up in town on friday
it was simply an accident such an accident as must occur over and over again unless mary is to be locked up who talks of locking anybody up what right have you to speak in that way
i only meant that of course they will stumble across each other in london i think i will go abroad said the duke he was silent for awhile and then repeated his words i think i will go abroad not for long i hope sir
i knew he had a few horses there it is not the money but the absence of principle that a young man should have no feeling that he ought to live within certain prescribed means
not exactly sir it is different with you but a man let him be who he may should live within certain means as for your sister i think she will break my heart
silverbridge found it to be quite impossible to say anything in answer to this are you going to church asked the duke i was not thinking of doing so particularly do you not ever go
for it was i fear in that way that he had looked at it did not see any reason for performing a duty which his father himself omitted and there were various matters also which harassed him on the previous evening after dinner
he had allowed himself to back the prime minister for the leger to a very serious amount
and now stood to lose some twenty thousand pounds on the doings of the last night and he had made these bets under the influence of major tifto
he had so committed himself that the offer must now be made he did not specially regret that though he wished that he had been more reticent what a fool a man is to blurt out everything he said to himself a wife would be a good thing for him
and where could he possibly find a better wife than mabel grex in beauty she was no doubt inferior to miss boncassen there was something about miss boncassen which made it impossible to forget her but miss boncassen was an american and on many accounts out of the question
but still it seemed hard to him that this intention of marriage should stand in his way of having a good time with miss boncassen for a few weeks no doubt there were objections to marriage it clipped a fellow's wings but then if he were married
he might be sure that tifto would be laid aside
it meant complete independence in money matters then his mind ran away to a review of his father's affairs it was a genuine trouble to him that his father should be so unhappy of all the griefs which weighed upon the duke's mind
the money which gerald owed at cambridge would be nothing if that other sorrow could be conquered
if tregear could be got out of the way his father he thought might be reconciled to other things he felt very tender hearted about his father
but of whom you would say after due observation that he had not as yet put off all his childish ways he now sat with his legs stretched out with his cane in his hands
with all my heart said tregear sit down here said silverbridge
that was kind and i was determined to go to you all this about my sister must be given up must be given up it can never lead to any good i mean that there never can be a marriage then he paused
but tregear was determined to hear him out it is making my father so miserable that you would pity him if you could see him i dare say i should when i see people unhappy i always pity them what i would ask you to think of is this
you are quite at liberty to tell him that i say so i have no right to ask your father for a penny and i will never do so the power is all in his hands as far as i know my own purposes i shall not make any immediate attempt even to see her
we did meet as you saw the other day by the merest chance after that do you think that your sister wishes me to give her up as for supposing that girls are to have what they wish that is nonsense
for young men i suppose equally so life ought to be a life of self denial no doubt perhaps it might be my duty to retire from this affair if by doing so i should sacrifice only myself
i think i perhaps might express such an opinion well then i have to examine myself and find out whether i am guilty of the meanness which i might perhaps be too ready to impute to another i have done so
how the speckled hen got her speckles once upon a time ages and ages ago there was a little white hen one day she was busily engaged in scratching the soil
this must be a letter one time when the king the great ruler of our country
now i too even i the little white hen have a letter i am going to carry my letter to the king the next morning the little white hen started bravely out on her long journey
she carried the letter very carefully in her little brown basket it was a long distance to the royal palace where the king lived the little white hen had never been so far from home in all her life
after a while she met a friendly fox foxes and little white hens are not usually very good friends you know but this fox was a friend of the little white hen once upon a time
she had helped the fox to escape from a trap and the fox had never forgotten her kindness to him o little white hen where are you going asked the fox
to carry a letter to the king indeed little white hen said the fox
in my little brown basket the fox climbed into the little brown basket after the little white hen had gone on for some distance farther she met a river once upon a time the little white hen had done the river a kindness
he had with great difficulty thrown some ugly worms upon the bank and he was afraid they would crawl back in again the little white hen had eaten them for him always after that the river had been her friend
o little white hen where are you going the river called out as soon as he saw her
o little white hen may i go with you asked the river the little white hen told the river that he might go with her and asked him to ride in the little brown basket so the river climbed into the little brown basket
after the little white hen had journeyed along for a time she came to a fire once upon a time when the fire had been dying the little white hen had brought some dried grass the grass had given the fire new life
the little white hen bowed very low before the king so low in fact that it mussed up all her feathers who are you and what is your business asked the king in his big deep kingly voice
she handed the king the piece of paper which had remained all this time at the bottom of the little brown basket there were marks of dirt upon it where the friendly fox's feet had rested it was damp where the river had lain
i am highly offended i always knew that hens were stupid little creatures but you are quite the stupidest little hen i ever saw in all my life here and he turned to one of the attendants standing by the throne
take this stupid little white hen and throw her out into the royal poultry yard i think we will have her for dinner to morrow the little white hen was roughly seized by the tallest royal attendant and carried down the back stairs
through the back gate out into the royal poultry yard she still clung to the little brown basket which she had brought with her on her long journey to the royal palace and through all the sad experiences she had met there when the little white hen reached the royal poultry yard
all the royal fowls flew at her some plucked at her rumpled white feathers others tried to pick out her eyes one pulled off the cover of the little brown basket out sprang the fox from the little brown basket
he fell upon the fowls of the royal poultry yard not a single fowl was left alive there was such a great commotion that the king the queen the royal attendants and all the royal servants of the palace
the royal household all ran after her in swift pursuit they had almost caught her when the river suddenly sprang out of the little brown basket and flowed between the little white hen and her royal pursuers they couldn't get across without canoes
then the fire which had changed itself into hot ashes jumped out of the little brown basket it immediately became dark so dark that the royal household could not even see each other's faces and of course
which course he took also with those of other nations whom he had taken in the flower of their age and afforded them their diet from his own table and had them instructed in the institutes of the country and taught the learning of the chaldeans
and they had now exercised themselves sufficiently in that wisdom which he had ordered they should apply themselves to now among these there were four of the family of zedekiah of most excellent dispositions one of whom was called daniel
abednego these the king had in esteem and continued to love because of the very excellent temper they were of and because of their application to learning
and to abstain from those kinds of food which came from the king's table and entirely to forbear to eat of all living creatures
but to give them pulse and dates for their food and any thing else besides the flesh of living creatures that he pleased for that their inclinations were to that sort of food and that they despised the other
because it could not be avoided but their bodies and colors must be changed with their diet especially while they would be clearly discovered by the finer appearance of the other children who would fare better and thus they should bring him into danger and occasion him to be punished
he should reduce them to their former diet now when it appeared that they were so far from becoming worse by the use of this food that they grew plumper and fuller in body than the rest
arioch from that time securely took himself what the king sent every day from his supper according to custom to the children but gave them the forementioned diet
so they readily understood all the learning that was among the hebrews and among the chaldeans as especially did daniel who being already sufficiently skillful in wisdom was very busy about the interpretation of dreams
king nebuchadnezzar saw a wonderful dream the accomplishment of which god showed him in his sleep but when he arose out of his bed he forgot the accomplishment so he sent for the chaldeans and magicians and the prophets and told them that he had seen a dream
since they confessed they could not do what they were commanded to do now when daniel heard that the king had given a command that all the wise men should be put to death
himself and his three kinsmen were in danger
and desired to know of him what was the reason why the king had given command that all the wise men and chaldeans and magicians should be slain so when he had learned that the king had had a dream and had forgotten it and that when they were enjoined to inform the king of it
and to put off their slaughter so long for that he hoped within that time to obtain by prayer to god the knowledge of the dream accordingly arioch informed the king of what daniel desired
but the young man retired to his own house with his kinsmen and besought god that whole night to discover the dream and thereby deliver the magicians and chaldeans with whom they were themselves to perish from the king's anger
that they should now preserve their lives of which they despaired before and had their minds full of nothing but the thoughts of dying so when he had with them returned thanks to god who had commiserated their youth when it was day
he came to arioch and desired him to bring him to the king
when upon their entire inability to discover his dream he was undertaking to inform him of it for this was not by his own skill or on account of his having better cultivated his understanding than the rest but he said
but the legs and the feet of iron after which thou sawest a stone
that the whole earth beneath it seemed to be filled therewith this is the dream which thou sawest and its interpretation is as follows the head of gold denotes thee and the kings of babylon that have been before thee
but the two hands and arms signify this that your government shall be dissolved by two kings but another king that shall come from the west armed with brass shall destroy that government and another government
that shall be like unto iron shall put an end to the power of the former and shall have dominion over all the earth on account of the nature of iron which is stronger than that of gold of silver and of brass
since i have only undertaken to describe things past or things present but not things that are future yet if any one be so very desirous of knowing truth as not to wave such points of curiosity and cannot curb his inclination
and made him and his kinsmen rulers of his whole kingdom which kinsmen of his happened to fall into great danger by the envy and malice of their enemies for they offended the king upon the occasion following
he made an image of gold whose height was sixty cubits and its breadth six cubits and set it in the great plain of babylon and when he was going to dedicate the image he invited the principal men out of all the earth that was under his dominions
and commanded them in the first place that when they should hear the sound of the trumpet they should then fall down and worship the image
should be cast into a fiery furnace when therefore all the rest upon the hearing of the sound of the trumpet worshipped the image they relate that daniel's kinsmen did not do it because they would not transgress the laws of their country
so these men were convicted and cast immediately into the fire but were saved by divine providence
for the fire did not touch them and i suppose that it touched them not as if it reasoned with itself that they were cast into it without any fault of theirs and that therefore it was too weak to burn the young men when they were in it
this was done by the power of god
that it could not consume them this it was which recommended them to the king as righteous men and men beloved of god
for after he had continued in the wilderness the forementioned interval of time while no one durst attempt to seize his kingdom during those seven years he prayed to god that he might recover his kingdom and he returned to it
everything had gone wrong with polly that day it began with her boots of all things in the world that tried polly's patience most were the troublesome little black buttons that originally adorned those useful parts of her clothing
said polly sitting down on the floor and pulling on her stockings there now see that hateful old shoe mamsie and she thrust out one foot in dismay what's the matter with it
said missus pepper straightening the things on the bureau you haven't worn it out already polly oh no said polly with a little laugh
i wish they'd all go they might as well she cried tossing that boot on the floor in intense scorn while she investigated the state of the other one
nobody'll see me if i tuck my foot under the piano and i can sew em on afterwards there'll be plenty of time do just once mamsie no said missus pepper firmly there isn't any time but now
and piano playing isn't very nice when you've got to stick your toes under it to keep your shoes on well then grumbled polly
where is the work basket mamsie oh here it is on the window seat a rattle of spools scissors and necessary utensils showed plainly that polly had found it followed by a jumble of words and despairing ejaculations
with a little laugh beginning to be very much ashamed what could you do with your little mites of hands pulling this big thread through that old leather
said phronsie tucking up her toes under the night gown but polly hurried her into bed
watching her make a big knot but the knot didn't stay for when polly drew up the long thread triumphantly to the end out it flew and away the button hopped again as if glad to be released and then the thread kinked horribly
that took all polly's patience to unravel it's because you're in such a hurry said missus pepper
there now let mother see what's the matter oh dear said polly resigning the needle with a big sigh and leaning back to take a good stretch followed by phronsie's sympathizing eyes
and there goes the first bell as the loud sounds under jane's vigorous ringing pealed up over the stairs there won't be time anyway now i wish there wasn't such a thing as shoes in the world and she gave a flounce and sat up straight in front of her mother
polly said missus pepper sternly deftly fastening the little buttons tightly into place with quick firm stitches better be glad you've got them to sew at all there now here they are
oh mamsie cried polly ignoring for a moment the delights of the finished shoe to fling her arms around her mother's neck and give her a good hug you're just the splendidest goodest mamsie in all the world
and i'm a hateful cross old bear so i am she cried remorsefully buttoning herself into her boots
but twas all of no use the day seemed to be always just racing ahead of her and turning a corner before she could catch up to it and ben and the other boys only caught dissolving views of her as she flitted through halls or over stairs
why she said she'd make van and me our sails you know said percy holding up a rather forlorn looking specimen of a boat but which the boys had carved with the greatest enthusiasm
said jasper quickly you're always teasing her to do something he added i didn't tease said percy indignantly coming up to the sofa boat in hand to enforce his words
i couldn't come before mamsie wanted me now says i for the sails and she began to flap out a long white piece of cotton cloth on the table to trim into just the desired shape that isn't the way
said polly snipping away vigorously and longing to get back to mamsie
they're too big said percy surveying them critically
oh that corner's coming off cried polly cheerfully giving it a sharp cut
all hemmed and everything there as she held one up for inspection
is it asked percy looking with more respect at the piece of cloth polly was waving alluringly before him just exactly like it polly yes said polly
oh how does this go oh
that was when i was ever so little
and were theirs just like this asked percy laying his hand on the sail she had finished cutting out pre cisely said polly with a pin in her mouth just as like as two peas percy whitney then i like them cried percy
as van bounded in with a torrent of complaints and great disappointment in every line of his face oh now that's too bad he cried seeing polly fold up the remaining bits of cloth
you're a mean old hateful thing percy whitney oh don't
and you shan't have em so he cried making a lunge at the one on the table for i made most of the boat there oh no you didn't cried percy in the greatest alarm
what said van cooling off a little and allowing percy to edge into a corner with the beloved boat and one sail what will you polly i'll make you another pair of sails said polly
groaning within herself as she thought of the wasted minutes and then you can see me cut em van will you really he said delight coming all over his flushed face yes i will cried polly
wait a minute till i get some more cloth and she started for the door oh now that's too bad said jasper
oh no i won't i won't he cried in the greatest alarm
you did say so polly you know you did of course i did vanny said polly
and we'll have a splendid pair in just one minute she sang and so the sails were cut out and the hems turned down and basted and tucked away into polly's little work basket ready for the sewing on the morrow
and then mister king came in and took jasper off with him
conclusion of the thousand nights and a night
now during this time
so when she had made an end of the story of ma'aruf she rose to her feet and kissing ground before him said o king of the time and unique one of the age and the tide i am thine handmaid
and these thousand nights and a night have i entertained thee with stories of folk gone before and admonitory instances of the men of yore
he replied ask o shahrazad and it shall be granted to thee whereupon she cried out to the nurses and the eunuchs saying bring me my children so they brought them to her in haste
and they were three boy children one walking one crawling and one sucking she took them and setting them before the king again kissed ground and said o king of the age these are thy children
and i crave that thou release me from the doom of death as a dole to these infants for an thou kill me they will become motherless and will find none among women to rear them as they should be reared
when the king heard this he wept and straining the boys to his bosom said by allah o shahrazad i pardoned thee before the coming of these children for that i found thee chaste pure
ingenuous and pious allah bless thee and thy father and thy mother and thy root and thy branch i take
the almighty to witness against me that i exempt thee from aught that can harm thee so she kissed his hands and feet and rejoiced with exceeding joy saying the lord make thy life long
and increase thee in dignity and majesty presently adding
than that which hath befallen thee and indeed i have set forth unto thee that which happened to caliphs and kings and others with their women but the relation is longsome and hearkening groweth tedious
and admonishment for the wise then she ceased to speak and when king shahryar heard her speech and profited by that which she had said he summoned up his reasoning powers and cleansed his heart
and caused his understanding to revert and turned to allah almighty and said to himself
never whilst i live shall i cease to blame myself for the past as for this shahrazad her like is not found in the lands so praise be to him
who appointed her a means for delivering his creatures from oppression and slaughter then he arose from his seance and kissed her head whereat she rejoiced she and her sister dunyazad
with exceeding joy when the morning morrowed the king went forth and sitting down on the throne of the kingship summoned the lords of his land
whereupon the chamberlains and nabobs and captains of the host went in to him and kissed ground before him he distinguished the wazir shahrazad's sire with special favor and bestowed
on him a costly and splendid robe of honor and entreated him with the utmost kindness and said to him allah protect thee for that thou gavest me to wife thy noble daughter
who hath been the means of my repentance from slaying the daughters of folk indeed i have found her pure and pious
and allah hath vouchsafed me by her three boy children wherefore praised be he for his passing favor then he bestowed robes of honor
and chief officers and he set forth to them briefly that which had betided him
and how he had turned from his former ways and repented him of what he had done and proposed to take the wazir's daughter shahrazad to wife and let draw up the marriage contract with her
when those who were present heard this they kissed ground before him and blessed him
whereupon the folk dispersed to their dwelling places
then he proceeded to make ready the wedding gear and presently he sent after his brother king shah zaman who came
furthermore they decorated the city after the goodliest fashion and diffused scents from censers and burnt aloes wood and other perfumes in all the markets and thoroughfares
and rubbed themselves with saffron what while the drums beat and the flutes and pipes sounded and mimes and mountebanks played and plied their arts and the king lavished on them gifts and largesse
and in very deed it was a notable day when they came to the palace
to spread the table with beasts roasted whole
and bade the crier cry to the folk that they should come up to the diwan
so high and low great and small came up unto him and they abode on that wise eating and drinking seven days with their nights then the king
shut himself up with his brother and related to him that which had betided him with the wazir's daughter shahrazad during the past three years and told him what he had heard from her
of proverbs and parables chronicles and pleasantries quips and jests stories and anecdotes dialogues and histories and elegies and other verses
whereat king shah zaman marveled with the utmost marvel and said fain would i take her younger sister to wife
and they on like wise be sisters to us for that the calamity which befell me was the cause of our discovering that which befell thee
i have taken no delight in woman but now i desire to marry thy wife's sister dunyazad
he rejoiced with joy exceeding and arising forthright went in to his wife shahrazad and acquainted her with that which his brother purposed namely that he sought her sister dunyazad in wedlock
whereupon she answered o king of the age we seek of him one condition to wit that he take up his abode with us for that i cannot brook to be parted from my sister an hour
because we were brought up together and may not endure separation each from another if he accept this pact she is his handmaid
and he replied indeed this is what was in my mind for that i desire nevermore to be parted from thee one hour as for the kingdom allah the most high shall send to it
whomso he chooseth for that i have no longer a desire for the kingship
heard his brother's words he rejoiced exceedingly and said verily this is what i wished o my brother so alhamdolillah praised be allah who hath brought about union between us then he sent
captains and notables and they married the two brothers to the two sisters the contracts were written out and the two kings bestowed robes of honor of silk and satin on those who were present
whilst the city was decorated and the rejoicings were renewed the king commanded each emir and wazir and chamberlain and nabob to decorate his palace
and the folk of the city were gladdened by the presage of happiness and contentment
also bade slaughter sheep and set up kitchens and made bride feasts and fed all comers high and low and he gave alms to the poor and needy and extended his bounty to great and small
then the eunuchs went forth that they might perfume
so they scented it with rosewater and willow flower water and pods of musk and fumigated it with kakili eaglewood
then shahrazad entered she and her sister dunyazad
in the like whereof iskander rejoiced not for therein were great jewels such as amazed the wit and dazzled the eye and the imagination was bewildered at their charms for indeed each of them
was brighter than the sun and the moon before them they lighted brilliant flambeaux of wax in candelabra of gold but their faces outshone the flambeaux for that they had eyes
sharper than unsheathed swords and the lashes of their eyelids bewitched all hearts their cheeks were rosy red and their necks and shapes gracefully swayed
and their eyes wantoned like the gazelle's and the slave girls came to meet them with instruments of music then the two kings
and when they came forth they sat down on a couch set with pearls and gems whereupon the two sisters came up to them and stood between their hands
as they were moons bending and leaning from side to side in their beauty and loveliness presently they brought forward shahrazad and displayed her for the first dress
in a red suit whereupon king shahryar rose to look upon her and the wits of all present men and women were bewitched for that she was even as saith of her
one of her describers a sun on wand in knoll of sand she showed
of her lips honey dew she gave me drink and with her rosy cheeks quencht fire she set then they attired dunyazad in a dress of blue brocade
so they displayed her in this for the first dress before king shah zaman
for love longing and amorous desire yea he was distraught with passion for her whenas he saw her because she was as saith of her one of her describers in these couplets
she comes appareled in an azure vest ultramarine as skies are deckt and dight i view'd
unparall'd sight which showed my eyes a summer moon upon a winter night then they returned to shahrazad and displayed her
in the second dress a suit of surpassing goodliness and veiled her face with her hair like a chin veil moreover they let down her side locks and she was
even as saith of her one of her describers in these couplets o hail to him whose locks his cheeks o'ershade
who slew my life by cruel hard despight said i hast veiled the morn in night he said nay i but veil the moon in hue of night
then they displayed dunyazad in a second and a third and a fourth dress and she paced forward like the rising sun and swayed to and fro in the insolence of her beauty
and she was even as saith the poet of her in these couplets the sun of beauty she to all appears and lovely coy she mocks all loveliness
and when he fronts her favor and her smile a morn the sun of day in clouds must dress then they displayed shahrazad in the third dress
and the fourth and the fifth and she became as she were a ban branch snell of a thirsting gazelle lovely of face and perfect in attributes of grace
even as saith of her one in these couplets she comes like fullest moon on happy night taper of waist with shape of magic might
she hath an eye whose glances quell mankind and ruby on her cheeks reflects his light enveils her hips the blackness of her hair beware of curls that
bite with viper bite her sides are silken soft what while the heart mere rock behind that surface scapes our sight from the fringed curtains
of her cyne she shoots shafts that at furthest range on mark alight then they returned to dunyazad and displayed her in the fifth dress
and in the sixth which was green when she surpassed with her loveliness the fair of the four quarters of the world
the full moon at rising tide for she was even as saith of her the poet in these couplets a damsel twas the tirer's art had decked with snare and sleight
and robed with rays as though the sun from her had borrowed light
as veiled by his leafy screen pomegranate hides from sight and when he said how callest thou the fashion of thy dress she answered us in pleasant way
with double meaning dight we call this garment
for many a heart wi this we brake and harried many a sprite
and clad her in youth's clothing whereupon she came forward swaying from side to side and coquettishly moving and indeed she ravished wits
and hearts and ensorcelled all eyes with her glances she shook her sides and swayed her haunches then put her hair on sword hilt
who embraced her as hospitable host embraceth guest and threatened her in her ear with the taking of the sword and she was even as saith of her the poet in these words
were not the murk of gender male than feminines surpassing fair tire women they had grudged the bride who made her beard and whiskers wear
thus also they did with her sister dunyazad and when they had made an end of the display the king bestowed robes of honor on all who were present and sent the brides to their own apartments
and dunyazad to king shah zaman and each of them solaced himself with the company of his beloved consort and the hearts of the folk were comforted when morning morrowed
the wazir came in to the two kings and kissed ground before them wherefore they thanked him and were large of bounty to him presently they went forth and sat down upon couches of kingship
presented themselves and kissed ground king shahryar ordered them dresses of honor and largesse and they prayed for the permanence and prosperity of the king and his brother
then the two sovrans appointed their sire in law the wazir to be viceroy in samarcand and assigned him
to accompany him charging them attend him and do him service the minister kissed ground and prayed that they might be vouchsafed length of life then he went in to his daughters
whilst the eunuchs and ushers walked before him and saluted them and farewelled them they kissed his hands and gave him joy of the kingship and bestowed on him immense treasures
after which he took leave of them and setting out fared days and nights till he came near samarcand where the townspeople met him at a distance of three marches and rejoiced in him with exceeding joy
so he entered the city and they decorated the houses and it was a notable day he sat down on the throne of his kingship and the wazirs did him homage
and all prayed that he might be vouchsafed justice and victory and length of continuance so he bestowed on them robes of honor and entreated them with distinction and they made him
sultan over them as soon as his father in law had departed for samarcand
summoned the grandees of his realm and made them a stupendous banquet of all manner of delicious meats and exquisite sweetmeats he also bestowed on them robes of honor and guerdoned them
and divided the kingdoms between himself and his brother in their presence whereat the folk rejoiced then the two kings abode each ruling a day in turn
while on similar wise their wives continued
and in thanksgiving to him and the peoples and the provinces were at peace and the preachers prayed for them from the pulpits and their report was bruited abroad
and the travelers bore tidings of them to all lands in due time
chronicles and copyists and bade them write all that had betided him with his wife first and last so they wrote this and named it
the stories of the thousand nights and a night the book came to thirty volumes and these the king laid up in his treasure
and the two brothers abode with their wives in all pleasaunce and solace of life and its delights for that indeed allah the most high had changed their annoy into joy
and on this wise they continued till there took them
the desolator of dwelling places and garnerer of grave yards
their houses fell waste and their palaces lay in ruins and the kings inherited their riches then there reigned after them
a wise ruler who was just keen witted and accomplished and loved tales and legends especially those which chronicle the doings of sovrans
and sultans and he found in the treasury these marvelous stories and wondrous histories contained in the thirty volumes aforesaid so he read in them a first book and a second
and a third and so on to the last of them and each book astounded and delighted him more than that which preceded it till he came to the end of them then he admired
and rare traits and anecdotes and moral instances and reminiscences and bade the folk copy them and dispread them over all lands and climes wherefore their report
was bruited abroad and the people named them the marvels and wonders of the thousand nights and a night
this is all that hath come down to us of the origin of this book and allah is all knowing
so glory be to him whom the shifts of time waste not away nor doth aught of chance or change affect his sway
incredible treason after receiving this report and reassurances of support from the big bosses of the neighboring gangs hart determined to reestablish the wyoming valley community
a careful survey of the territory showed that it was only the northern sections and slopes that had been beamed by the first han ship the synthetic fabrics plant had been partially wiped out though the lower levels underground had not been reached by the dis ray
the forest screen above it however had been annihilated and it was determined to abandon it after removing all usable machinery and evidences of the processes that might be of interest to the han scientists should they return to the valley in the future
the ammunition plant and the rocket ship plant which had just been about to start operation at the time of the raid were intact as were the other important plants
for the phone plant had been one of the first to be put in operation and when it became evident that the hans did not intend any immediate reprisals the entire membership of the community was summoned back and normal life was resumed
wilma and i had been married the day after the destruction of the ships and spent this intervening period in a delightful honeymoon camping high in the mountains on our return we had a camp of our own
of course we were assigned to location ten seventeen and as might be expected we had a great deal of banter over which one of us was camp boss the title stood after my name
and those of the big camboss of course but wilma airily held that this meant nothing at all and generally succeeded in making me admit it whenever she chose i found myself a full fledged member of the gang now
for i had elected to search no farther for a permanent alliance much as i would have liked to familiarize myself with this twenty fifth century life in other sections of the country the wyomings had a high morale
and had prospered under the rule of big boss hart for many years but many of the gangs i found were badly organized lacked strong hands in authority and were rife with intrigue
on the whole i thought i would be wise to stay with a group which had already proved its friendliness
under these modern social and economic conditions the kind of individual freedom to which i had been accustomed in the twentieth century was impossible i would have been as much of a nonentity in every phase of human relationship by attempting to avoid alliances
as any man of the twentieth century would have been politically who aligned himself with no political party this entire modern life it appeared to me judging from my ancient viewpoint was organized along what i called
political lines and in this connection it amused me to notice how universal had become the use of the word boss the leader the person in charge or authority over anything was a boss
there was as little formality in his relations with his followers as there was in the case of the twentieth century political boss and the same high respect paid him by his followers as well as the same high consideration by him of their interests
he was just as much of an autocrat and just as much dependent upon the general popularity of his actions for the ability to maintain his autocracy the sub boss who could not command the loyalty of his followers
was as quickly deposed either by them or by his superiors as the ancient ward leader of the twentieth century who lost control of his votes as society was organized in the twentieth century
instead of by that rigid military discipline and complete assumption of the individual as a mere standardized cog in the machine but owing to the centuries of desperate suffering the people had endured at the hands of the hans
there developed a spirit of self sacrifice and consideration for the common good that made the scheme applicable and efficient in all forms of human co operation
my associates regard the thought with as much horror as many worthy people of the twentieth century felt in regard to any heretical suggestion that the original outline of government as laid down in the first constitution
did not apply as well to twentieth century conditions as to those of the early nineteenth in later years i felt that there was a certain softening of moral fiber among the people
since the hans had been finally destroyed with all their works and americans have developed a new luxury economy i have seen signs of the reawakening of greed of selfishness
the eternal cycle seems to be at work i fear that slowly though surely private wealth is reappearing codes of inflexibility are developing they will be followed by corruption degradation
and in the end some cataclysmic event
and usher in a new one all this however is wandering afar from my story which concerns our early battles against the hans and not our more modern problems of self control
our victory over the seven han ships had set the country ablaze the secret had been carefully communicated to the other gangs and the country was agog from one end to the other there was feverish activity in the ammunition plants
and the hunting of stray han ships became an enthusiastic sport the results were disastrous to our hereditary enemies from the pacific coast came the report of a great transpacific liner of seventy five thousand tons lift
being brought to earth from a position of invisibility above the clouds a dozen sacramentos had caught the hazy outlines of its rep rays approaching them head on in the twilight like ghostly pillars reaching into the sky
they had fired rockets into it with ease whereas they would have had difficulty in hitting it if it had been moving at right angles to their position they got one rep ray the other was not strong enough to hold it up
it floated to earth nose down and since it was unarmed and unarmored they had no difficulty in shooting it to pieces and massacring its crew and passengers it seemed barbarous to me
but then i did not have centuries of bitter persecution in my blood from the jersey beaches we received news of the destruction of a nu yok a lan a liner
the sand snipers practically invisible in their sand colored clothing and half buried along the beaches lay in wait for days risking the play of dis beams along the route and finally registering four hits within a week
the hans discontinued their service along this route and as evidence that they were badly shaken by our success sent no raiders down the beaches
one of them will become public property in a few days i think we aren't going to get any more han ships by shooting up their repellor rays unless we use much larger rockets they are wise to us now
they're putting armor of great thickness in the hulls of their ships below the rep ray machines
but did not penetrate as near as we can gather from their reports their laboratories have developed a new alloy of great tensile strength and elasticity which nevertheless
our reports indicate that the eries rockets bounced off harmlessly most of the party was wiped out as the dis rays went into action on them this is going to mean real business for all of the gangs before long
the big bosses have just held a national ultrophone council it was decided that america must organize on a national basis the first move is to develop sectional organization by zones i have been made superboss of the mid atlantic zone
we're in for it now the hans are sure to launch reprisal expeditions if we're to save the race we must keep them away from our camps and plants i'm thinking of developing a permanent field force
along the lines of the regular armies of the twentieth century you told me about its business will be twofold to carry the warfare as much as possible to the hans and to serve as a decoy
amazing and impossible as it seems there is a group or perhaps an entire gang somewhere among us that is betraying us to the hans it may be the bad bloods
or it may be one of those gangs who live near one of the han cities you know a hundred and fifteen or twenty years ago there were certain of these people's ancestors who actually degraded themselves by mating with the hans
sometimes even serving them as slaves in the days before they brought all their service machinery to perfection there is such a gang called the nagras up near bah flo and another in mid jersey
that men call the pineys but i hardly suspect the pineys there is little intelligence among them they wouldn't have the information to give the hans nor would they be capable of imparting it they're absolute savages
just what evidence is there that anybody has been clearing information to the hans i asked well he replied first of all there was that raid upon us
that first han ship knew the location of our plants exactly you remember it floated directly into position above the valley and began a systematic beaming then
the hans quite obviously have learned that we are picking up their electrophone waves for they've gone back to their old but extremely accurate system of directional control
but we've been getting them for the past week by installing automatic re broadcast units along the scar paths this is what the americans called those strips of country directly under the regular ship routes of the hans
but they've been beaming those paths so hard it looks as though they even had information of this strategy and in addition they've been using code finally
we've picked up three of their messages in which they discuss with some nervousness the existence of our mysterious ultrophone but they still have no knowledge of the nature and control of ultronic activity i asked
no said the big boss thoughtfully they don't seem to have a bit of information about it then it's quite clear i ventured that whoever is clearing us to them is doing it piecemeal
it sounds like a bit of occasional barter rather than an out and out alliance they're holding back as much information as possible for future bartering perhaps yes hart said
and it isn't information the hans are giving in return but some form of goods or privilege
the wyoming massacre they're coming out of the ship i spoke quietly with my hand over my mouth for fear they might hear me one two three four five six
seven eight nine that seems to be all
about ten if there are no passengers replied one of my men probably one of those on the hillside how are they armed i asked just knives came the reply they never permit hand rays on the ships
afraid of accidents have a ruling against it leave them to us then i said for i had a hastily formed plan in my mind you on the hillsides take the ships above abandon the ring target
divide up in training on those repellor rays you on the hilltops all train on the repellors of the ships to the south shoot at the word but not before wilma
these men are all walking around the wreck in a bunch when they're on the far side i'll give the word and you leap through that door in one bound i'll follow maybe we won't be seen
we'll overpower the guard inside but don't shoot we may escape being seen by both this crew and ships above they can't see over this wreck it was so easy that it seemed too good to be true
keenly interested in the wreck but quite unsuspicious at last they were on the far side in a moment they would be picking their way into the wreck wilma leap i almost whispered the order
the distance between wilma's hiding place and the door in the side of the han ship was not more than fifteen feet she was already crouched with her feet braced against a metal beam taking the lift of that wonderful inertron belt into her calculation
she dove headforemost like a green projectile through the door i followed in a split second more clumsily but no less speedily bruising my shoulder painfully as i ricocheted from the edge of the opening and brought up sliding against the unconscious girl
for she evidently had hit her head against the partition within the ship into which she had crashed we had made some noise within the ship shuffling footsteps were approaching down a well lit gangway
i asked my men on the hillsides not yet i heard the boss reply ships overhead still standing no beams have been broken out men on ground absorbed in wreck most of them have crawled into it out of sight good i said quickly
deering hit her head knocked out one or more members of the crew approaching we're not discovered yet i'll take care of them stand a bit longer but be ready i think my last words must have been heard by the man who was approaching
for he stopped suddenly i crouched at the far side of the compartment motionless i would not draw my sword if there were only one of them he would be a weakling i figured and i should easily overcome him with my bare hands
apparently reassured at the absence of any further sound a man came around a sort of bulkhead
i ran forward along the keel gangway searching for the control room i found it well up in the nose of the ship and it was deserted
what could i do to jam the controls of the ships that would not register on the recording instruments of the other ships i gazed at the mass of controls levers and wheels galore in the center of the compartment
on a massively braced universal joint mounting was what i took for the repellor generator a dial on it glowed and a faint hum came from within its shielding metallic case but i had no time to study it above all else
i was afraid that some automatic telephone apparatus existed in the room through which i might be heard on the other ships the risk of trying to jam the controls was too great i abandoned the idea and withdrew softly
i ran back to the entrance compartment wilma still lay where she had slumped down i heard the voices of the hans approaching it was time to act the next few seconds would tell whether the ships in the air would try or be able to melt us into nothingness
i asked creeping to a position opposite the door and drawing my hand gun again there was a chorus of assent then on the count of three shoot up those repellor rays all of them
and for god's sake don't miss and i counted i think my three was a bit weak i know it took all the courage i had to utter it for an agonizing instant nothing happened
except that the landing party from the ship strolled into my range of vision then startled they turned their eyes upward for an instant they stood frozen with horror at whatever they saw one hurled his knife at me
it grazed my cheek then a couple of them made a break for the doorway the rest followed but i fired pointblank with my hand gun pressing the button as fast as i could and aiming at their feet to make sure my explosive rockets would make contact and do their work
the spot on which the hans stood flashed into a blinding glare then there was nothing there except their torn and mutilated corpses they had been fairly bunched and i got them all
i ran to the door expecting any instant to be hurled into infinity by the sweep of a disintegrator ray some eighth of a mile away i saw one of the ships crash to earth a disintegrator ray came into my line of vision
wavered uncertainly for a moment and then began to sweep directly toward the ship in which i stood but it never reached it suddenly like a light switched off it shot to one side
and a moment later another vast hulk crashed to earth i looked out then stepped out on the ground the only han ships in the sky were two of the scouts to the south which were hanging perpendicularly and sagging slowly down
the others must have crashed down while i was deafened by the sound of the explosion of my own rockets somebody hit the other repellor ray of one of the two remaining ships and it fell out of sight beyond a hilltop the other farther away
his commands sending out jumpers in pursuit of the descending ship rang in my ears but i paid no attention to them i leaped back into the compartment of the han ship and knelt beside my wilma her padded helmet had absorbed much of the blow
i thought otherwise her skull might have been fractured oh my head she groaned coming to as i lifted her gently in my arms and strode out in the open with her
we must have won dearest did we we most certainly did i reassured her all but one crashed and that one is drifting down toward the south
and read as follows this is public intelligence office nu yok broadcasting warning to navigators of private ships and news of public interest the squadron of seven ships which left nu yok this morning
the phones viewplates and all other signaling devices of five of the seven ships ceased operating suddenly at approximately the same moment about seven four nine according to the han system of reckoning time
seven and forty nine one hundredths after midnight after violent disturbances the location finders went out of operation electroactivity registers applied to the territory of the wyoming valley remain dead
the intelligence office has no indication of the kind of disaster which overtook the squadron except certain evidences of explosive phenomena
which recently went dead while beaming the valley in a systematic effort to wipe out the works and camps of the tribesmen the office considers as obvious
the deduction that the tribesmen have developed a new and as yet undetermined technique of attack on airships and has recommended to the heaven born that immediate and unlimited authority be given the navigation intelligence division
to make an investigation of this technique and develop a defense against it in the meantime it urges that private navigators avoid this territory in particular
which now are being patrolled by the entire force of the military office which is beaming the routes generously to a width of ten miles the military office reports that it is at present considering no retaliatory raids against the tribesmen
with the navigation intelligence division it holds that unless further evidence of the nature of the disaster is developed in the near future the public interest will be better served
which may bring destruction on all ships engaging therein so unless further evidence actually is developed or the heaven born orders to the contrary the military will hold to a defensive policy
unofficial intimations from lo tan are to the effect that the heaven council has the matter under consideration
from the record of its location finder before it went dead recently
teleprojectoscope views of the wreck and the bowl of the valley showed no evidence of the presence of tribesmen neither ship registers nor base registers showed any indication of electroactivity except from the squadron itself
on orders from the base squadron commander
the gk forty three
the party debarked leaving one man on board in the control cabin
this meant the third projectoscope from the bow of the ship on the right hand side of the lower deck with which he followed the landing group as it walked around the wreck
recorded two green missiles of roughly cylindrical shape projected from the wreckage into the landing compartment of the ship at such close range these were not clearly defined
and saw him leave the control room in compliance with this order an instant later confused sounds reached the control room electrophone such as might be made by a man falling heavily and footsteps reapproached the control room
a figure entering and leaving the control room hurriedly the base captain now believes and the stills of the photorecord support his belief that this was not the crew member who had been left in the control room before the base captain could speak to him
now out of focus control dimly showed the landing party walking back toward the ship
then on both these instruments a number of blinding explosives in rapid succession were seen and the electrophone relays registered terrific concussions the ship's electronic apparatus and projectoscopes apparatus went dead
show the explosions as taking place in the midst of the landing party as it returned evidently unsuspicious to the ship then in rapid succession
they indicate that terrific explosions occurred inside and outside the three ships standing above close to their rep ray generators and all signals from these ships thereupon went dead of the three ships scouting to the south
at the same moment its records add little to the knowledge of the disaster
and that the ship hung stern down for a short space swinging like a pendulum the forward viewplates and indicators did not cease functioning but their records are chaotic except for one projectoscope still which shows the bowl of the valley
but no visible evidence of tribesmen the control room viewplate is also a chaotic record of the ship's crew tumbling and falling to the rear wall then the forward rep ray generator exploded and all signals went dead
and drifted on the wind southward as it slowly descended out of control as its control room was shattered verbal report from its action captain was precluded
the record of the interior rear viewplate shows members of the crew climbing toward the rear rep ray generator in an attempt to establish manual control of it and increase the lift the projectoscope relays
swinging in wide arcs recorded little of value except at the ends of their swings one of these from a machine which happened to be set in telescopic focus shows several views of great value in picturing the falls of the other ships
and all of the rear projectoscope records enable the reconstruction in detail of the pendulum and torsional movements of the ship and its sag toward the earth
i needed a position needed it badly while the others
she has passed me by my heart goes down down when suddenly her look returns and she singles me out miss saunders then i have a word to say to you there is a rustle about me
five disappointed girls sink back into their seats as i quickly rise and follow miss davies out in the hall she faced me with these words you are discreet and you evidently desire a position
well and good if not i shall expect you to forget all about him and his errand the moment you leave his presence you understand me i think so i replied meeting her steady look with one equally composed part of my strength
and i think i have some strength lies in the fact that i am quietest when most deeply roused i am not to talk whatever the outcome not even to me she emphasized stirred still further and therefore outwardly even more calm than before
i stopped her as she was moving on and ventured a single query this position involving secrecy is it one you would advise me to take even if i did not stand in need of it so badly yes
thank you was my abrupt but grateful rejoinder and obeying her silent gesture i opened the door of the sitting room and passed in
the man whose mission it was to seek my aid was one to inspire confidence and respect he was also a handsome man or no i will not go so far as that
he was only one in whom the lines of form and visage were fine enough not to interfere with the impression made by his strong nature and intense vitality a man to sway women and also quite capable of moving men
this was evident at a glance but a man under a cloud just at present a very heavy cloud which both irked and perplexed him
he surveyed me closely for an instant before speaking
and i was sure i caught the note of hope in his voice as he courteously remarked you are seeking a place young lady do you think you can fill the one i have to offer it has its difficulties but it is not an onerous one
it is that of companion to my wife i bowed possibly i smiled i do smile sometimes when a ray of real sunshine darts across my pathway
i should be very glad to try such a situation i replied a look of relief so vivid that it startled me altered at once the whole character of his countenance
and perceiving how intense was the power and fascination underlying his quiet exterior i asked myself who and what this man was no ordinary personage i was sure but who
had miss davies purposely withheld his name i began to think so i have had some experience i was proceeding
it is not experience which is so much needed as discretion again that word the case is not a common one or rather he caught himself up quickly the circumstances are not my wife is well but
she is not happy she is very unhappy deeply unaccountably so and i do not know why anxious to watch the effect of these words he paused a moment then added fervently would to god i did
the meaning the deep meaning in his tone if not in the adjuration itself was undeniable but my old habit of self control stood me in good stead and i remained silent and watchful
weighing every look and word a week ago she was the lightest hearted woman in town the happiest wife the merriest mother to day she is a mere wreck of her former self pallid drawn almost speechless
yet she is not ill she will not acknowledge to an ache or a pain will not even admit that any change has taken place in her but you have only to see her and i am as ignorant of the cause of it all
as you are he burst out still i remained silent waiting watchful i have talked with her physician he says there is something serious the matter with her but he can not help her
as if that had not been my first care i have also consulted her most intimate friends all who know her well but they can give me no clue to her distress they see the difference in her but can not tell the cause
and i am obliged to go away and leave her in this state for two weeks three weeks now
but she will neither consent to leave home without me nor to interrupt my plans in order that i may accompany her miss davies has not told me your name i made bold to interpolate
he stared shook himself together and quietly remarked i am henry packard the city's mayor and not only that the running candidate for governor i knew him well by name even if i did not know or
rather had not recognized his face i beg pardon i somewhat tremulously began but he waved the coming apology aside as easily as he had my first attempt at ingratiation in fact
he appeared to be impatient of every unnecessary word this i could in a dim sort of way understand he was at the crisis of his fate and so was his party
for several years a struggle had gone on between the two nearly matched elements in this western city which so far had resulted in securing him two terms of office possibly because his character appealed to men of all grades and varying convictions
but the opposite party was strong in the state and the question whether he could carry his ticket against such odds and thus give hope to his party in the coming presidential election was one yet to be tested forceful as a speaker
ignorant as i necessarily was of the exigencies of such a campaign i knew that not only his own ambition
in all parts of the state and now three weeks before election while every opposing force was coming to the surface this trouble had come upon him a mystery in his home and threatened death in his heart
for he loved his wife that was apparent to me from the first loved her to idolatry as such men sometimes do love often to their own undoing all this the thought of an instant
meanwhile he had been studying me well you understand my position he commented wednesday night
while she with an effort he pulled himself together miss saunders i put in miss saunders i can not leave her alone in the house some one must be there to guard and watch
has she no mother i suggested in the pause he made she has no living relatives and mine are uncongenial to her this to save another question i understood him perfectly
he pursued decisively she would not consent to it nor can i ask any of her friends that she does not wish either but i can hire a companion to that she has already consented
that she will regard as a kindness if the lady chosen should prove to be one of those rare beings who carry comfort in their looks without obtruding their services or displaying the extent of their interest
you know there are some situations in which the presence of a stranger may be more grateful than that of a friend apparently my wife feels herself so placed now here his eyes again read my face an ordeal out of which i came triumphant
the satisfaction he evinced rightly indicated his mind will you accept the position he asked we have one little child you will have no charge of her save as you may wish to make use of her in reaching the mother
the hint conveyed in the last phrase gave me courage to say you wish me to reach her with comfort said he and if in doing so i learn her trouble you will win my eternal gratitude
by telling it to one who would give ten years of his life to assuage it my head rose i began to feel that my next step must strike solid ground in other words to be quite honest
you wish me to learn her trouble if i can i believe you can be trusted to do so and then to reveal it to you if your sense of duty permits which i think it will
i might have uttered in reply a spy's duty but the high mindedness of his look forbade whatever humiliation his wishes put upon me
there could be no question of the uprightness of his motives regarding his wife i ventured one more question how far shall i feel myself at liberty to go in this attempt
as far as your judgment approves and circumstances seem to warrant i know that you will come upon nothing dishonorable to her or detrimental to our relations as husband and wife in this secret
which is destroying our happiness her affection for me is undoubted but something god knows what has laid waste her life to find and annihilate that something is my first and foremost duty
that is why i have called in help that is why i have called you in the emphasis was delicately but sincerely given it struck my heart and entered it
if so it was because he knew that a woman like myself works better when her feelings are roused answering with a smile i waited patiently while he talked terms and other equally necessary details
then dropping all these considerations somewhat in his own grand manner i made this remark if your wife likes me which very possibly she may fail to do
will you see that an opportunity is given me for doing this his assent was as frank as all the rest and the next moment he left the room as he passed out i heard him remark to miss davies i expect miss saunders at my house before nightfall
chapter two questions i knew all the current gossip about missus packard before i had parted with miss davies her story was a simple one bred in the west
to live with that mother's brother in detroit in doing this she had walked into a fortune her uncle was a rich man and when he died
and removal to c she found herself the recipient of an enormous legacy she was therefore a woman of independent means an advantage which
and manners at once dignified and winning caused her to be universally regarded as a woman greatly to be envied by all who appreciated a well founded popularity so much for public opinion
it differs materially from that just given me by her husband the mayor lived on franklin street in a quarter i had seldom visited as i entered this once aristocratic thoroughfare from carlton avenue
i was struck as i had been before by its heterogeneous appearance
and it was not uncommon to see mansion and hovel confronting each other from the opposite side of the street should i find the number i sought attached to one of the crude unmeaning dwellings i was constantly passing
if not to the taste of the city's mayor a little shop one story in height and old enough for its simple wooden walls to cry aloud for paint
directly opposite it were two conspicuous dwellings neither of them new and one of them ancient as the street itself they stood fairly close together with an alley running between from the number i had now reached it was evident that the mayor lived in one of these
happily it was in the fresher and more inviting one as i noted this i paused in admiration of its spacious front and imposing doorway the latter was in the best style of colonial architecture and though raised but one step from the walk
that i felt myself carried back to the days when such domiciles were few and denoted wealth the most solid and hospitality the most generous a light wall painted to match the house extended without break to the adjoining building
a structure equal to the other in age and dimensions but differing in all other respects as much as neglect and misuse could make it gray and forbidding
with cheerful composure what should i have thought if at that moment i had been told that appearances were deceitful and that there were many persons then living who if left to their choice would prefer life in the dismal walls from which i had instinctively turned
to a single night spent in the promising house i was so eager to enter an old serving man with a countenance which struck me pleasantly enough at the time opened the door in response to my ring
only to make instant way for mayor packard who advanced from some near by room to greet me by this thoughtful attention i was spared the embarrassment from which i might otherwise have suffered
said he as he led me around the stairs toward an opening at their rear but she's a kind woman
happily i was not called upon to answer
the woman who sat in its glow made an instant and permanent impression upon me no one could look intently upon her without feeling that here was a woman of individuality and power overshadowed at present by the deepest melancholy
as she rose and faced us i decided instantly that her husband had not exaggerated her state of mind emotion of no ordinary nature disturbed the lines of her countenance
of its dignity and grace and though she immediately controlled herself and assumed the imposing aspect of a highly trained woman ready
i could not easily forget the drawn look about mouth and eyes which in the first instant of our meeting had distorted features naturally harmonious and beautifully serene i am sure her husband had observed it also
for his voice trembled slightly as he addressed her i have brought you a companion olympia
do you not see reason for thanking me this last question he pointed with a glance in my direction
i met her eyes fairly they were large and gray and meant for smiling eyes that with a happy heart behind them would illumine her own beauty and create joy in those upon whom they fell but to day
i think i am sure that my thanks are due you she courteously replied with a quick turn toward her husband
as i thought of love i dreaded being left alone
then we talked a little after which mayor packard found some excuse for taking me from the room now for the few words you requested said he and preceding me down the hall he led me into what he called his study
i noted one thing and only one thing on entering this place that was the presence of a young man who sat at a distant table reading and making notes but as mayor packard took no notice of him knowing and expecting him to be there no doubt
withdrew my eyes from the handsomest face i had ever seen and
i took my place at his side without knowing very well what this move meant or what he expected me to do there i was not long left in doubt with a gesture toward the type writer
he asked me if i was accustomed to its use and when i acknowledged some sort of acquaintance with it he drew an unanswered letter from a pile on the table and requested me to copy it as a sample i immediately sat down before the type writer
as i proceeded to insert the paper and lay out the copy to hand he crossed over to the young man at the other end of the room and began a short conversation which ended in some trivial demand that sent the young man from the room
keep on with your work and never mind mistakes said he what i want is to hear the questions you told me to expect from you if you stayed seemingly mayor packard did not wish this young man to know my position in the house
was it possible he did not wholly trust him my hands trembled from the machine and i was about to turn and give my full thought to what i had to say but pride checked the impulse no i muttered in quick dissuasion to myself
he must see that i can do two things at once and do both well and so i went on with the letter when i asked did you first see the change in missus packard on tuesday afternoon at about this time
what had happened on that day had she been out yes i think she told me later that she had been out do you know where to some concert i believe i did not press her with questions miss saunders
i am a poor inquisitor click click the machine was working admirably have you reason to think i now demanded
no for when i returned home myself as i did earlier than usual that night i heard her laughing with the child in the nursery
that i came upon her sitting in such a daze of misery that she did not recognize me when i spoke to her i thought it was a passing mood at the time she is a sensitive woman and she had been reading
i saw the book lying on the floor at her side but when having recovered from her dejection a dejection mind you which she would neither acknowledge nor explain she accompanied me out to dinner she showed even more feeling on our return
shrinking unaccountably from leaving the carriage and showing not only in this way but in others
leave you my fingers paused my astonishment had got the better of me yes it is as bad as that i don't know what day you will send me a telegram of three words she has gone yet she loves me really
and truly loves me that is the mystery of it more than this her very heart strings are knit up with those of our child mayor packard i had resumed work was any letter delivered to her that day
fact one for me to establish the wives of men like you men much before the world men in the thick of strife social and political often receive letters of a very threatening character
she would have shown me any such if only to put me on my guard she is physically a very brave woman and not at all nervous those letters sometimes assume the shape of calumny
she believes in my character and would have given me an opportunity to vindicate myself i have every confidence in my wife's sense of justice i experienced a thrill of admiration for the appreciation he evinced in those words
yet i pursued the subject resolutely have you an enemy mayor packard any real and downright enemy capable of a deep and serious attempt at destroying your happiness none that i know of miss saunders
i have political enemies of course men who influenced by party feeling are not above attacking methods and possibly my official reputation but personal ones
wretches willing to stab me in my home life and affections that i can not believe
i have harmed no man knowingly and as far as i know no man has ever cherished a wish to injure me who constitute your household how many servants do you keep and how long have they been with you
now you exact details with which only missus packard is conversant i don't know anything about the servants i do not interest myself much in matters purely domestic
he has an uncommon face a handsome one do you mean yes and well what i should call distinctly clever he is clever my secretary miss saunders
he helps me in my increased duties has in a way charge of my campaign reads sorts and sometimes answers my letters just now he is arranging my speeches
fitting them to the local requirements of the several audiences i shall be called upon to address he knows mankind like a book i shall never give the wrong speech to the wrong people while he is with me do you like him
the man i mean not his work well yes he is very good company or would have been if in the week he has been in the house
came on last tuesday didn't he yes i believe that was the day toward afternoon no he came early soon after breakfast in fact does your wife like him
i doubt if missus packard more than knows of his presence
mister steele can safely be left out of our discussion he does not even sleep in the house the note i made at this was very emphatic you should know said i then quickly tuesday was the day missus packard first showed the change you observed in her
she takes no interest in this young man scarcely noticed him when i introduced him just bowed to him over her shoulder she was fastening on our little one's cap usually she is extremely courteous to strangers
but she was abstracted positively abstracted at that moment i wondered at it for he usually makes a stir wherever he goes but my wife cares little for beauty in a man i doubt if she noticed his looks at all
she did not catch his name i remember pardon me what is that you say she did not catch his name for later she asked me what it was tell me about that mister packard it is immaterial but i am ready to answer all your questions
she listened but not as closely as she did to the music oh she takes no interest in him i wish she did his stories might amuse her i did not pursue the subject taking out the letter i had been writing
fourth book the world as will second aspect
the matter which concerns every one directly and can be foreign or indifferent to none it is indeed so characteristic of the nature of man to relate everything else to action
that in every systematic investigation he will always treat the part that has to do with action as the result or outcome of the whole work so far at least as it interests him and will therefore give his most serious attention to this part
but in my opinion all philosophy is theoretical because it is essential to it that it should retain a purely contemplative attitude and should investigate not prescribe to become on the contrary practical
to guide conduct to transform character are old claims which with fuller insight it ought finally to give up for here where the worth or worthlessness of an existence where salvation or damnation are in question
the dead conceptions of philosophy do not decide the matter but the inmost nature of man himself the daemon that guides him and that has not chosen him but been chosen by him as plato would say
that is as feeling expresses itself comprehensibly to every one this however it does in every possible reference and from every point of view
now as this attempt has been made from other points of view in the three preceding books with the generality that is proper to philosophy in this book the action of men will be considered in the same way
and this side of the world might indeed be considered the most important of all not only subjectively as i remarked above but also objectively in considering it i shall faithfully adhere to the method i have hitherto followed
and shall support myself by presupposing all that has already been advanced there is indeed just one thought which forms the content of this whole work i have endeavoured to work it out in all other spheres and i shall now do so
with regard to human action i shall then have done all that is in my power to communicate it as fully as possible the given point of view and the method of treatment announced
are themselves sufficient to indicate that in this ethical book no precepts no doctrine of duty must be looked for still less will a general moral principle be given an universal receipt as it were for the production of all the virtues
neither shall we talk of an absolute ought for this contains a contradiction as is explained in the appendix nor yet of a law of freedom which is in the same position
so does its action and its world become both are the self knowledge of the will and nothing more the will determines itself and at the same time both its action and its world for besides it there is nothing and these are the will itself
only thus is the will truly autonomous and from every other point of view it is heteronomous our philosophical endeavours can only extend to exhibiting and explaining the action of men in its inner nature and content
the various and even opposite maxims whose living expression it is this we shall do in connection with the preceding portion of our work and in precisely the same way as we have hitherto explained the other phenomena of the world
and have sought to bring their inmost nature to distinct abstract knowledge our philosophy will maintain the same immanency in the case of action as in all that we have hitherto considered
notwithstanding kant's great doctrine it will not attempt to use the forms of the phenomenon the universal expression of which is the principle of sufficient reason as a leaping pole to jump over the phenomenon itself
which alone gives meaning to these forms and land in the boundless sphere of empty fictions but this actual world of experience in which we are and which is in us remains both the material and the limits of our consideration
a world which is so rich in content that even the most searching investigation of which the human mind is capable could not exhaust it
since then the real world of experience will never fail to afford material and reality to our ethical investigations
however plausibly disguised be historically comprehended is infinitely far from a philosophical knowledge of the world yet this is what is supposed whenever a becoming or a having become
either openly or disguisedly both sought for and found and the individual who philosophises even recognises his own position on that path such historical philosophising in most cases
produces a cosmogony which admits of many varieties or else a system of emanations a doctrine of successive disengagements from one being or finally driven in despair from fruitless efforts upon these paths to the last path of all
which is most shortly disposed of with the remark that at the present moment a whole eternity
so that everything that can or ought to become must have already done so for all such historical philosophy whatever airs it may give itself regards time just as if kant had never lived
as a quality of the thing in itself and thus stops at that which kant calls the phenomenon in opposition to the thing in itself which plato calls the becoming and never being in opposition to the being and never becoming and which finally
is called in the indian philosophy the web of maya it is just the knowledge which belongs to the principle of sufficient reason with which no one can penetrate to the inner nature of things
but endlessly pursues phenomena moving without end or aim like a squirrel in its wheel till tired out at last he stops at some point or other arbitrarily chosen and now desires to extort respect for it from others also
the genuine philosophical consideration of the world
and so leads us beyond the phenomenon is precisely that method which does not concern itself with the whence the whither and the why of the world but always and everywhere demands only the what
the method which considers things not according to any relation not as becoming and passing away in short not according to one of the four forms of the principle of sufficient reason
but on the contrary just that which remains when all that belongs to the form of knowledge proper to that principle has been abstracted the inner nature of the world which always appears unchanged in all the relations
but is itself never subject to them and has the ideas of the world as its object or material from such knowledge as this proceeds philosophy like art
half blind love of right and honest indignation at the sort of wrong which it can discern to be found in the class from which it emanates that class is a large one in our country villages
and these books reflect its thoughts and manners as half penny ballads do the life of the streets of london the ballads are not more true to the facts but they give us in a coarser form
far more of the spirit than we get from the same facts reflected in the intellect of a dickens for instance or of any writer far enough above the scene to be properly its artist so in this book we find what cooper
miss sedgwick and missus kirkland might see as the writer did but could hardly believe in enough to speak of it with such fidelity it is a current superstition that country people are more pure and healthy in mind and body
than those who live in cities it may be so in countries of old established habits where a genuine peasantry have inherited some of the practical wisdom and loyalty of the past with most of its errors
we have our doubts though from the stamp upon literature always the nearest evidence of truth we can get whether even there the difference between town and country life is as much in favor of the latter as is generally supposed
but in our land where the country is at present filled with a mixed population who come seeking to be purified by a better life and culture from all the ills and diseases of the worst forms of civilization
things often look worse than in the city perhaps because men have more time and room to let their faults grow and offend the light of day there are exceptions and not a few
but in a very great proportion of country villages the habits of the people as to food air and even exercise are ignorant and unhealthy to the last degree their want of all pure faith
both as to withdrawal from bad associations and nearness to good we heard inevitably from domestics work people and school children more ill of human nature than we could possibly sift
were we to elect such a task from all the newspapers of this city in the same space of time we believe the amount of ill circulated by means of anonymous letters as described in this book
to be as great as can be imported in all the french novels and that is a bold word we know ourselves of two or three cases of morbid wickedness displayed by means of anonymous letters
that may vie with what puzzled the best wits of france in a famous law suit not long since it is true there is to balance all this a healthy rebound
a surprise and a shame and there are heartily good people such as are described in this book
and cannot be bent downward nor aside but then the reverse of the picture is of a blackness that would appall one who came to it with any idyllic ideas of the purity and peaceful loveliness of agricultural life
but what does this prove only the need of a dissemination of all that is best intellectually and morally through the whole people
but the service of god and the destiny of man our people require a thoroughly diffused intellectual life a religious aim such as no people at large ever possessed before else they must sink till they become dregs
is one called metallek it may be in circulation in this city but we bought it in a country nook and from a pedlar and it seemed to belong to the country
had we met with it in any other way it would probably have been to throw it aside again directly for the author does not know how to write english and the first chapters give no idea of his power of apprehending the poetry of life
but happening to read on we became fixed and charmed and have retained from its perusal the sweetest picture of life lived in this land ever afforded us out of the pale of personal observation that such things are
but the writers of books rarely seem to have seen them rarely to have walked alone in an untrodden path long enough to hold commune with the spirit of the scene
only to shoot the poor animals that were happy there winning from the pure atmosphere little benefit except to good appetite sleeping at night in the dirty hovels
with people who burrow in them to lead a life but little above that of the squirrels end foxes there is throughout that air of room enough and free if low forms of human nature
which at such times makes bearable all that would otherwise be so repulsive but when we come to the girl who is the presiding deity or rather the tutelary angel of the scene how are all discords harmonized
how all its latent music poured forth it is a portrait from the life it has the mystic charm of fulfilled reality how far beyond the fairest ideals ever born of thought
shares while she sublimes its nature she plays round the most vulgar and rude beings gentle and caressing yet unsullied
in her wildness there is nothing cold or savage her elevation is soft and warm never have we seen natural religion more beautifully expressed never so well discerned the influence of the natural nun
her fearlessness her gay and sweet enjoyment of nature her intercourse with the old people of the neighborhood her sisterly conduct towards her suitors all seem painted from the life
but the death bed scene seems borrowed from some sermon and is not in harmony with the rest in this connection we must try to make amends for the stupidity of an earlier notice of the novel called
and did no justice to a work full of genius profound in its meaning and of admirable fidelity to nature in its details since then we have really read it and appreciated the sight and representation of soul realities
and we have lamented the long delay of so true a pleasure a fine critic said this is a yankee novel or rather let it be called the yankee novel
as nowhere else are the thought and dialect of our villages really represented another discovered that it must have been written in maine by the perfection with which peculiar features of scenery there are described
a mature reader one of the most spiritualized and harmonious minds we have ever met admires the depth and fulness in which the workings of the spirit through the maiden's life are seen by the author and shown to us
but laments the great apparatus with which the consummation of the whole is brought about and the formation of a new church and state before the time is yet ripe
but all these voices among those most worthy to be heard find in the book a real presence and draw from it auspicious omens that an american literature is possible even in our day
because there are already in the mind here existent developments worthy to see the light gold fishes amid the moss in the still waters
for ourselves we have been most charmed with the way the real and ideal are made to weave and shoot rays through one another in which margaret bestows on external nature what she receives through books
and wins back like gifts in turn till the pond and the mythology are alternate sections of the same chapter we delight in the teachings she receives through chilion and his violin till on the grave of one who tried to love his fellow men
we have much more to think and to say of the book as a whole and in parts and should the mood and summer leisure ever permit a familiar and intimate acquaintance with it we trust they will be both thought and said
for the present we will only add that it exhibits the same state of things and strives to point out such remedies as we have hinted at in speaking of the little book which heads this notice itself a rude charcoal sketch
as everyone knows the mussel and the oyster live between two hinged shells in the last lesson we called them bi valve molluscs which is only another way of saying soft bodied animals with two shells
have you ever opened an oyster it is a tug of war your skill and strength against the muscles of the animal inside the tight shells like the periwinkle and other shell builders these creatures
owe their strong houses to a wonderful mantle but in this case the mantle is in two pieces instead of one you can imagine the periwinkle's mantle as a tube enclosing the animal's body
oysters and their two shelled cousins cannot do this for the simple reason that they have no heads in some places you see that the rocks at low tide are covered with mussels
in dense black masses they cling to the rocks and though heavy waves bang them like so many hammers they stick tight little mussels and big ones they form a mass so thick that baby crabs and other creatures
he uses a bunch of threads like so many cables or tiny ropes it is interesting to know how these threads are made the mussel is as a rule a stay at home but he can move from place to place if he likes
he has a long slender foot which can be pushed out of the shells now the threads are fixed by the foot just where the mussel wishes to anchor himself they are made from a liquid which forms in the body of the creature
but those of some kinds are so long that they can be woven into silky purses or stockings the mussel which makes such long anchor threads might be called the silkworm of the sea
if the mussel is such a stay at home how does he find his food the answer is that the food comes to him brought by the ever moving water there are countless specks floating in the sea
mostly specks of vegetable stuff these settle on the floor of the sea just as dust settles on our house floors and the waves wash this sea dust hither and thither
the mussel or oyster with shells gaping wide open is bound to get some of this food with the water which enters the shells the oyster has no foot and is fixed in one place nearly all its life
it is an interesting animal and one of such value as food that hundreds of thousands of oysters are reared in special beds and sent to the market at the proper season our british oysters were famous even in the time of the romans
they were carefully packed and sent to rome and at the roman feasts surprising quantities of them were eaten many sea animals have wonderfully large families but the oyster
with its millions and millions of eggs beats most of them strangely enough its eggs are not sent into the sea at once but are kept between the oyster's shells until they hatch
needless to say these babies are very small indeed else their nursery could not contain them all though so small that thousands of them together look more like a pinch of dust than anything else
yet each one has two thin shells so that if you eat the parent oyster they grate on your teeth like sand oysters at this time are out of season that is unfit for food
at the right moment the oyster gets rid of its numerous family it opens its shells then shuts them rapidly and each time this happens a cloud of young oysters is puffed out like smoke
now these mites must fend for themselves in a sea full of foes they have no defence and countless numbers of them are
if this did not happen the sea would soon be paved with oysters for a time the baby oysters which are known as spat are able to swim here and there
and there they remain for life only a very few out of each million become grown ups the rest are eaten by enemies or smothered in mud or sand
their shells open and shut like a trap you may have seen a picture of an inquisitive mouse trapped by an oyster thinking to have a nice taste of oyster the mouse had poked its head into the open shells
but they were snapped together and the mouse was firmly held in the trap between the hinge of the two shells there is a pad which acts like an elastic spring and forces the shells open
the oyster can close them by means of a strong muscle they are its only defence so it closes them at the least hint of danger
even these thick walls are sometimes of no avail as we saw in our talk on five fingered jack we saw how the starfish forces the shells open with the help of its strong tube feet
like the other animals which are useful as food oysters have been carefully studied and cultivated by man for many many years the story of the oyster beds is a long and interesting one
oysters feed in rather a strange way you may have looked inside the shells and seen two delicate dark edged fringes known as the beard
this fringe is the oyster's gills or breathing arrangement trace the beard as far as the hinge of the shells and you see the mouth with its white lips
the gills are covered with very tiny lashes like little hairs there are so many of them that as they keep moving they force the water along over the gills and towards the mouth
the oyster fixed in its bed unable to hunt for food thus makes its dinner come to it what a strange use for a beard it not only serves as lungs but also helps the animal to catch its daily bread
another mollusc used as food is the cockle and its shell is one of the commonest found along the shore especially near sandy places it lives in sand and can bury itself so quickly
that you would have to use your spade with all your might in order to keep pace with this little shell fish where cockles have buried themselves you will see spurts of water and sand showing where they are busy down below in the wet sand
besides being so skilful at digging the cockle is a first rate jumper if left on the beach it jumps over the sand towards the sea in the funniest way it is strange to see a quiet looking shell
suddenly take to hopping and jumping like an acrobat to perform this astonishing feat the cockle makes use of its foot which is worked by very strong muscles it is large and pointed and bent
fitted with a hard file hard rocks and wood are perforated by these little molluscs indeed they are a positive danger for they pierce the wooden piles of piers and weaken them
they cannot pierce through iron however and so iron plates or nails are used to protect the piles from their onslaughts you will often see stones and rocks riddled by the piddock as if they were as soft as cheese
chalk sandstone or oak it is all the same to the piddock which rasps them away with its file when the points of this strange instrument are worn out with all this hard wear a new set takes their place
exercises one how does the mussel anchor itself two describe how the shells of the oyster are opened and closed three
what is the food of the mussel four of what use is the beard of the oyster five why is the oyster called a bi valve
and so when sir dinas went out a hunting she slipped down by a towel and took with her two brachets and so she yede to the knight that she loved and he her again
and when sir dinas came home and missed his paramour and his brachets then was he the more wrother for his brachets than for the lady so then he rode after the knight that had his paramour and bade him turn and joust
said sir dinas i shall never trust them that once betrayed me and therefore as ye have begun so end for i will never meddle with you and so sir dinas departed and took his brachets with him
and so rode to his castle now will we turn unto sir launcelot that was right heavy that he could never hear no tidings of sir tristram for all this while he was in prison with sir darras palomides and dinadan
and sir launcelot sir kay and sir gaheris rode to seek sir tristram in the country of surluse now speaketh this tale of sir tristram and of his two fellows
and said language against sir tristram i marvel said sir dinadan of thee
and wit thou well said sir dinadan this same is sir tristram at a word
and let see now if ye can skift it with your hands
then said sir tristram i have heard much of your maugre against me but i will not meddle with you
us in governance for an i dread him not more than i do thee soon it should be skift so they peaced themself right so came in a damosel and said knights be of good cheer
so a damosel came in to them and found them mourning then she went unto sir darras and told him how that mighty knight that bare the black shield was likely to die that shall not be said sir darras for god defend when knights come to me for succour
howbeit that thou hast slain three of my sons whereby i was greatly aggrieved but now shalt thou go and thy fellows and your harness and horses have been fair and clean kept and ye shall go where it liketh you
as for me my name is sir tristram de liones and in cornwall was i born and nephew i am unto king mark and as for the death of your sons i might not do withal
that all that ye did was by force of knighthood and that was the cause i would not put you to death but sith ye be sir tristram the good knight i pray you heartily to be my good friend and to my sons
sir said sir tristram i promise you by the faith of my body ever while i live i will do you service for ye have done to us but as a natural knight ought to do then sir tristram reposed him there till that he was amended of his sickness
and when he was big and strong they took their leave and every knight took their horses and so departed and rode together till they came to a cross way now fellows said sir tristram
and therefore i require you of knighthood to avenge me
let him come said sir dinadan and because of honour of all women i will do my part with this came sir breuse and when he saw a knight with his lady he was wood wroth and then he said
sir knight keep thee from me so they hurtled together as thunder and either smote other passing sore but sir dinadan put him through the shoulder a grievous wound
and so sir dinadan brought her there and she was welcome for the lord of that castle was her uncle and so sir dinadan rode his way upon his adventure now turn we this tale unto sir tristram that by adventure he came to a castle to ask lodging
but he left it for shame then the queen said to sir tristram tell me thy name and i shall suffer you to depart when ye will upon that covenant i tell you my name is sir tristram de liones ah
said morgan le fay an i had wist that thou shouldst not have departed so soon as thou shalt but sithen i have made a promise i will hold it with that thou wilt promise me to bear upon thee
this is a fair shield and a mighty but what signifieth this king and this queen and the knight standing upon both their heads i shall tell you said morgan le fay
and a knight who holdeth them both in bondage and in servage who is that knight said sir tristram that
and he made him ready to follow sir tristram fair friend said morgan ride not after that knight for ye shall not win no worship of him
said sir hemison for i wist never good knight come out of cornwall but if it were sir tristram de liones what an that be he said she nay nay said he he is with la beale isoud
and this is but a daffish knight alas my fair friend ye shall find him the best knight that ever ye met withal for i know him better than ye do for your sake said sir hemison
and when he came nigh to sir tristram he cried on high sir knight keep thee from me then they rushed together as it had been thunder and sir hemison brised his spear upon sir tristram but his harness was so good that he might not hurt him
and sir tristram smote him harder and bare him through the body and he fell over his horse's croup then sir tristram turned to have done more with his sword but he saw so much blood go from him that him seemed he was likely to die
leap thou up behind me when thou hast holpen me up and hold me fast that i fall not and bring me to queen morgan le fay for deep draughts of
for i would fain speak with her or i died
great peril an i die for thwith with great pain his varlet brought him to the castle and there sir hemison fell down dead when morgan le fay saw him dead she made great sorrow out of reason
and then she let despoil him unto his shirt and so she let him put into a tomb and about the tomb she let write
and the first is sir launcelot du lake call him the best knight and sir bors de ganis sir bleoberis sir blamore de ganis and sir gaheris nay said his host sir gawaine is a better knight than he
that is not so said sir tristram for i have met with them both and i felt sir gaheris for the better knight and sir lamorak i call him as good as any of them except sir launcelot why name ye not sir tristram said his host
and rode toward the roche dure and none adventure had sir tristram but that and so he rested not till he came to the castle
wherefore she was heavy then was there a damosel of queen morgan in a chamber by king arthur and when she heard king arthur speak of that shield then she spake openly unto king arthur sir king
wit ye well this shield was ordained for you to warn you of your shame and dishonour and that longeth to you and your queen and then anon that damosel picked her away privily that no man wist where she was become
then was king arthur sad and wroth and asked from whence came that damosel there was not one that knew her nor wist where she was become
and there she made her complaint to him and said i wot well this shield was made by morgan le fay in despite of me and of sir launcelot wherefore i dread me sore lest i should be destroyed and ever the king beheld sir tristram
that did so marvellous deeds of arms that he wondered sore what knight he might be and well he wist it was not sir launcelot and it was told him that sir tristram was in petit britain with isoud la blanche mains
and bade him arm him and make him ready so anon king arthur and sir uwaine dressed them before sir tristram and required him to tell them where he had that shield sir he said i had it of queen morgan le fay sister unto king arthur
take your horse and come forth with me out of this country and ye shall love a lady that shall love you i will well said sir pelleas
hath done me great despite and shame and there he told her the beginning and ending and how he had purposed never to have arisen till that he had been dead and now such grace god hath sent me
and commanded his men to bring after his pavilions and his stuff where the damosel of the lake would assign
and by fortune they were nighted and rode long in a deep way and at the last they came unto a courtelage and there they asked harbour but the man of the courtelage would not lodge them for no treatise that they could treat
ye shall wit when ye come there said the good man sir what adventure so it be bring me thither i pray thee said sir marhaus for i am weary
so the good man went and opened the gate and within an hour he brought him unto a fair castle and then the poor man called the porter and anon he was let into the castle and so he told the lord how he brought him a knight errant
and a damosel that would be lodged with him let him in said the lord it may happen he shall repent that they took their lodging here so sir marhaus was let in with torchlight
and there was a goodly sight of young men that welcomed him and then his horse was led into the stable
and my name is sir marhaus and born i am in ireland and then said the duke to him
is there no remedy but that i must have ado with you and your six sons at once said sir marhaus no said the duke for this cause i made mine avow for sir gawaine slew my seven sons in a recounter
therefore i made mine avow there should never knight of king arthur's court lodge with me or come thereas i might have ado with him but that i would have a revenging of my sons death
what is your name said sir marhaus i require you tell me an it please you wit thou well i am the duke of south marches ah said sir marhaus
that shall ye feel to morn said the duke shall i have ado with you said sir marhaus yea said the duke thereof shalt thou not choose and therefore take you to your chamber
and so sir marhaus arose and armed him and then there was a mass sung afore him and brake his fast and so mounted on horseback in the court of the castle where they should do the battle so there was the duke all ready on horseback
clean armed and his six sons by him and everych had a spear in his hand and so they encountered whereas the duke and his two sons brake their spears upon him but sir marhaus held up his spear
or else i will do the uttermost to you all then the duke saw he might not escape the death he cried to his sons and charged them to yield them to sir marhaus and they kneeled all down
and thereupon at whitsuntide after to come he and his sons and put them in the king's grace then sir marhaus departed and within two days his damosel brought him whereas was a great tournament
and who that did best should have a rich circlet of gold worth a thousand besants and there sir marhaus did so nobly that he was renowned and had sometime down forty knights
and so the circlet of gold was rewarded him then he departed from them with great worship and so within seven nights
by him that hight taulurd and he had another brother in cornwall that hight taulas that sir tristram slew when he was out of his mind
and so he was for he saw him sit under a tree of holly and many clubs of iron and gisarms about him so this knight dressed him to the giant putting his shield afore him and the giant took an iron club in his hand
and there he was in great peril for the giant was a wily fighter but at last sir marhaus smote off his right arm above the elbow then the giant fled and the knight after him
and so he drove him into a water but the giant was so high that he might not wade after him and then sir marhaus made the earl fergus man to fetch him stones and with those stones the knight gave the giant many sore knocks
and there he had great riches without number so that the days of his life he was never poor man then he returned to the earl fergus the which thanked him greatly and would have given him half his lands
and so by adventure he met with four knights of arthur's court the first was sir sagramore le desirous sir osanna
and sir felot of listinoise and there sir marhaus with one spear smote down these four knights and hurt them sore so he departed to meet
sir uwaine smote down thirty knights therefore was given him the prize
they are to blame for they do against the high order of knighthood and the oath that they made and if it like you i will speak with them because i am a knight of king arthur's and i will entreat them with fairness
and if they will not i shall do battle with them and in the defence of your right gramercy said the lady and thereas i may not acquit you god shall
so on the morn the two knights were sent for that they should come thither to speak with the lady of the rock and wit ye well they failed not for they came with an hundred horse but when this lady saw them in this manner so big
nor for no fair language but she made him speak with them over a tower but finally these two brethren would not be entreated and answered that they would keep that they had well said sir uwaine then will i fight with one of you
and prove that ye do this lady wrong that will we not said they for an we do battle we two will fight with one knight at once and therefore if ye will fight so
and brake his fast and so he rode unto the plain without the gates where hoved the two brethren abiding him so they rode together passing sore
he kneeled down and yielded him to sir uwaine and he of his gentleness received his sword and took him by the hand and went into the castle together then the lady of the rock was passing glad
for it was long or he might be whole of his great hurts and so when it drew nigh the term day that sir gawaine sir marhaus and sir uwaine should meet at the cross way then every knight drew him thither
and charged if ever he might find sir gawaine and sir uwaine to bring them to the court again and then were they all glad and so prayed they sir marhaus to ride with them to the king's court
and so within twelve days they came to camelot and the king was passing glad of their coming and so was all the court then the king made them to swear upon a book
and he was named one of the best knights living against the feast of pentecost came the damosel of the lake and brought with her sir pelleas and at that high feast there was great jousting of knights
and of all knights that were at that jousts sir pelleas had the prize and sir marhaus was named the next but sir pelleas was so strong there might but few knights sit him a buffet with a spear
and at that next feast sir pelleas and sir marhaus were made knights of the table round for there were two sieges void for two knights were slain that twelvemonth and great joy had king arthur of sir pelleas and of sir marhaus
but pelleas loved never after sir gawaine but as he spared him for the love of king arthur but ofttimes at jousts and tournaments sir pelleas quit sir gawaine for so it rehearseth in the book of french
so sir tristram many days after fought with sir marhaus in an island and there they did a great battle but at the last sir tristram slew him so sir tristram was wounded
and lay at a nunnery half a year and sir pelleas was a worshipful knight and was one of the four that achieved the sangreal and the damosel of the lake
made by her means that never he had ado with sir launcelot de lake for where sir launcelot was at any jousts or any tournament she would not suffer him be there that day but if it were on the side of sir launcelot
and when he came to the land he took off his harness and sat roaring and crying as a man out of his mind
that was sent from sir gawaine and his brother unto sir mordred that lay sick in the same place with that old knight where sir tristram was for as the french book saith
and had it hot been for the love of sir gawaine and his brother
and there she told that old knight how she met with the woodest knight by adventure that ever she met withal what bare he in his shield said sir tristram it was indented with white and black
for well i know him said sir tristram for one of the best knights living in this realm then that old knight took a little hackney
and brought him unto his own manor
i marvel said sir dinadan that ye boast behind sir tristram for it is but late that he was in your hands and ye in his hands why would ye not hold him when ye had him
for i saw myself twice or thrice that ye gat but little worship of sir tristram
so leave we them a little while in the old castle with the old knight sir darras now shall we speak of king arthur that said to sir launcelot had not ye been we had not lost sir tristram
for he was here daily unto the time ye met with him and in an evil time said arthur ye encountered with him my lord arthur said launcelot ye put upon me that i should be cause of his departition
god knoweth it was against my will but when men be hot in deeds of arms oft they hurt their friends as well as their foes and my lord said sir launcelot
and as for me said sir launcelot i promise you upon this book that an i may meet with him either with fairness or foulness i shall bring him to this court or else i shall die therefore
and the names of these ten knights that had undertaken this quest were these following first was sir launcelot
sir bors de ganis and bleoberis and sir blamore de ganis and lucan the butler
sir galihud lionel and galiodin so these ten noble knights departed from the court of king arthur and so they rode upon their quest together
until they came to a cross where departed four ways and there departed the fellowship in four to seek sir tristram and as sir launcelot rode by adventure he met with dame bragwaine
hold you nigh me said sir launcelot
false knight destroyer of ladies and damosels now thy last days be come
and also abide when him list and then sir launcelot returned unto dame bragwaine and she thanked him
and sir lucan smote down sir daname over his horse's croup and then he fled into that place and sir lucan rode after him and asked after him many times then sir dinadan said to sir tristram
it is shame to see the lord's cousin of this place defoiled abide said sir tristram and i shall redress it and in the meanwhile sir dinadan was on horseback and he jousted with lucan the butler
and there sir lucan smote dinadan through the thick of the thigh and so he rode his way and sir tristram was wroth that sir dinadan was hurt and followed after and thought to avenge him
and within a while he overtook sir lucan and bade him turn and so they met together so that sir tristram hurt sir lucan passing sore and gave him a fall with that came sir uwaine a gentle knight
and when he saw sir lucan so hurt he called sir tristram to joust with him fair knight said sir tristram tell me your name i require you
said sir tristram by my will i would not have ado with you at no time ye shall not so said sir uwaine but ye shall have ado with me and then sir tristram saw none other bote but rode against him
and overthrew sir uwaine and hurt him in the side and so he departed unto his lodging again and when sir dinadan understood that sir tristram had hurt sir lucan he would have ridden after sir lucan for to have slain him
but sir tristram would not suffer him then sir uwaine let ordain an horse litter and brought sir lucan to the abbey of ganis and the castle thereby hight the castle of ganis
and at that castle sir launcelot promised all his fellows to meet in the quest of sir tristram so when sir tristram was come to his lodging there came a damosel that told sir darras that three of his sons were slain at that tournament
and two grievously wounded that they were never like to help themself and all this was done by a noble knight that bare the black shield and that was he that bare the prize
and there he found his shield and showed it to the damosel ah sir said the damosel that same is he that slew your three sons
and sir dinadan within a strong prison and there sir tristram was like to have died of great sickness
then was he heavy for him and comforted him in all the best wise he could and as the french book saith there came forty knights to sir darras that were of his own kin and they would have slain sir tristram and his two fellows
but sir darras would not suffer that but kept them in prison and meat and drink they had so sir tristram endured there great pain for sickness had undertaken him and that is the greatest pain a prisoner may have
for all the while a prisoner may have his health of body he may endure under the mercy of god and in hope of good deliverance
what tidings there were in the realm of logris sir said sir gaheris the king reigneth as a noble knight and now but late there was a great jousts and tournament as ever i saw any in the realm of logris
the water ghost of harrowby hall by john kendrick bangs the trouble with harrowby hall was that it was haunted
and what was worse the ghost did not content itself with merely appearing at the bedside of the afflicted person who saw it but persisted in remaining there for one mortal hour before it would disappear
it never appeared except on christmas eve and then as the clock was striking twelve
the owners of harrowby hall had done their utmost to rid themselves of the damp and dewy lady who rose up out of the best bedroom floor at midnight but without avail they had tried stopping the clock so that the ghost would not know when it was midnight
but she made her appearance just the same with that fearful miasmatic personality of hers and there she would stand until everything about her was thoroughly saturated
then the owners of harrowby hall caulked up every crack in the floor with the very best quality of hemp and over this were placed layers of tar and canvas the walls were made waterproof and the doors and windows likewise
the proprietors having conceived the notion that the unexorcised lady would find it difficult to leak into the room after these precautions had been taken but even this did not suffice
the following christmas eve she appeared as promptly as before and frightened the occupant of the room quite out of his senses by sitting down alongside of him and gazing
with her cavernous blue eyes into his and he noticed too that in her long aqueously bony fingers bits of dripping seaweed were entwined
the ends hanging down and these ends she drew across his forehead until he became like one insane and then he swooned away and was found unconscious in his bed the next morning by his host
simply saturated with sea water and fright from the combined effects of which he never recovered dying four years later of pneumonia and nervous prostration at the age of seventy eight
the next year the master of harrowby hall decided not to have the best spare bedroom opened at all thinking that perhaps the ghost's thirst for making herself disagreeable would be satisfied by haunting the furniture but the plan was
as unavailing as the many that had preceded it the ghost appeared as usual in the room that is it was supposed she did for the hangings were dripping wet the next morning and in the parlor below the haunted room a great damp spot appeared on the ceiling
finding no one there she immediately set out to learn the reason why and she chose none other to haunt than the owner of the harrowby himself
and felicitating himself upon having foiled her ghost ship when all of a sudden the curl went out of his hair his whiskey bottle filled and overflowed and he was himself in a condition similar to that of a man
who has fallen into a water butt when he recovered from the shock which was a painful one he saw before him the lady of the cavernous eyes and seaweed fingers
the sight was so unexpected and so terrifying that he fainted but immediately came to because of the vast amount of water in his hair which trickling down over his face restored his consciousness
now it so happened that the master of harrowby was a brave man and while he was not particularly fond of interviewing ghosts especially such quenching ghosts as the one before him he was not to be daunted by an apparition
and now that he had come to he intended to find out a few things he felt he had a right to know he would have liked to put on a dry suit of clothes first but the apparition declined to leave him for an instant until her hour was up
and he was forced to deny himself that pleasure every time he would move she would follow him with the result that everything she came in contact with got a ducking in an effort to warm himself up he approached the fire
an unfortunate move as it turned out because it brought the ghost directly over the fire which immediately was extinguished the whiskey became utterly valueless as a comforter to his chilled system
because it was by this time diluted to a proportion of ninety per cent of water the only thing he could do to ward off the evil effects of his encounter he did
and that was to swallow ten two grain quinine pills which he managed to put into his mouth before the ghost had time to interfere having done this he turned with some asperity to the ghost and said
far be it from me to be impolite to a woman madam but i'm hanged if it wouldn't please me better if you'd stop these infernal visits of yours to this house
and saturate him and his possessions in this way it is damned disagreeable henry hartwick oglethorpe said the ghost in a gurgling voice you don't know what you are talking about
madam returned the unhappy householder i wish that remark were strictly truthful i was talking about you it would be shillings and pence nay pounds in my pocket madam if i did not know you
that is a bit of specious nonsense returned the ghost throwing a quart of indignation into the face of the master of harrowby
but as a comment upon my statement that you do not know what you are talking about it savors of irrelevant impertinence you do not know that i am compelled to haunt
this place year after year by inexorable fate it is no pleasure to me to enter this house and ruin and mildew everything i touch i never aspired to be a shower bath but it is my doom
do you know who i am no i don't returned the master of harrowby i should say you were the lady of the lake or little sallie waters
returned the master no doubt i'm never dry i am the water ghost of harrowby hall and dryness is a quality entirely beyond my wildest hope
i have been the incumbent of this highly unpleasant office for two hundred years to night how the deuce did you ever come to get elected asked the master
i should have been your great great great great great aunt if i had lived henry hartwick oglethorpe for i was the own sister of your great great great great
grandfather but what induced you to get this house into such a predicament i was not to blame sir returned the lady it was my father's fault
he it was who built harrowby hall and the haunted chamber was to have been mine my father had it furnished in pink and yellow knowing well that blue and gray formed the only combination of color i could tolerate
he did it merely to spite me and with what i deem a proper spirit i declined to live in the room whereupon my father said i could live there or on the lawn he didn't care which that night i ran from the house and jumped over the cliff into
the sea that was rash said the master of harrowby so i've heard returned the ghost if i had known what the consequences were to be i should not have jumped but i really never realized what i was doing
until after i was drowned i had been drowned a week when a sea nymph came to me and informed me that i was to be one of her followers forever afterwards adding that it should be my doom to haunt harrowby hall
for one hour every christmas eve throughout the rest of eternity i was to haunt that room on such christmas eves as i found it inhabited and if it should turn out not to be inhabited i was and am
to spend the allotted hour with the head of the house i'll sell the place that you cannot do for it is also required of me that i shall appear as the deeds are to be delivered to any purchaser
and divulge to him the awful secret of the house do you mean to tell me that on every christmas eve that i don't happen to have somebody in that guest chamber
extinguishing my fire and soaking me through to the skin demanded the master you have stated the case oglethorpe and what is more said the water ghost it doesn't make the slightest difference where you are
if i find that room empty wherever you may be i shall douse you with my spectral pres here the clock struck one and immediately the apparition faded away
it was perhaps more of a trickle than a fade but as a disappearance it was complete by saint george and his dragon ejaculated the master of harrowby wringing his hands
but the master of harrowby would have lost his wager had there been anyone there to take him up for when christmas eve came again he was in his grave never having recovered from the cold contracted that awful night
everything in his rooms was ruined his clocks were rusted in the works a fine collection of water color drawings was entirely obliterated by the onslaught of the water ghost and what was worse
the apartments below his were drenched with the water soaking through the floors a damage for which he was compelled to pay and which resulted in his being requested by his landlady to vacate the premises immediately
the story of the visitation inflicted upon his family had gone abroad and no one could be got to invite him out to any function save afternoon teas and receptions
fathers of daughters declined to permit him to remain in their houses later than eight o'clock at night not knowing but that some emergency might arise in the supernatural world which would require the unexpected appearance of the water ghost
in this on nights other than christmas eve and before the mystic hour when weary churchyards ignoring the rules which are supposed to govern polite society begin to yawn nor would the maids themselves have aught to do with him
fearing the destruction by the sudden incursion of aqueous femininity of the costumes which they held most dear so the heir of harrowby hall resolved as his ancestors for several generations before him had resolved
that something must be done his first thought was to make one of his servants occupy the haunted room at the crucial moment but in this he failed because the servants themselves knew the history of that room and rebelled
nor was there to be found in all england a man so poor as to be willing to occupy the doomed chamber on christmas eve for pay then the thought came to the heir to have the fireplace in the room enlarged
so that he might evaporate the ghost at its first appearance and he was felicitating himself upon the ingenuity of his plan when he remembered what his father had told him how that no fire could withstand the lady's extremely contagious dampness
and then he bethought him of steam pipes these he remembered could lie hundreds of feet deep in water and still retain sufficient heat to drive the water away in vapor
the haunted room was heated by steam to a withering degree and
so that when christmas eve came he could himself withstand the awful temperature of the room the scheme was only partially successful the water ghost appeared at the specified time and found the heir of harrowby prepared
but hot as the room was it shortened her visit by no more than five minutes in the hour during which time the nervous system of the young master was well nigh shattered and the room itself was cracked and warped to an extent
which required the outlay of a large sum of money to remedy and worse than this as the last drop of the water ghost was slowly sizzling itself out on the floor she whispered to her would be conqueror
that his scheme would avail him nothing because there was still water in great plenty where she came from and that next year would find her rehabilitated and as exasperatingly saturating as ever
it was then that the natural action of the mind in going from one extreme to the other suggested to the ingenious heir of harrowby the means by which the water ghost was ultimately conquered and happiness once more came within the grasp
of the house of oglethorpe the heir provided himself with a warm suit of fur under clothing donning this with the furry side in he placed over it a rubber garment tight fitting
which he wore just as a woman wears a jersey on top of this he placed another set of under clothing this suit made of wool and over this was a second rubber garment like the first upon his head he placed a light and comfortable diving helmet and so clad
on the following christmas eve he awaited the coming of his tormentor it was a bitterly cold night that brought to a close this twenty fourth day of december the air outside was still but the temperature was below zero
within all was quiet the servants of harrowby hall awaiting with beating hearts the outcome of their master's campaign against his supernatural visitor the master himself was lying on the bed in the haunted room
and then the clock clanged out the hour of twelve there was a sudden banging of doors a blast of cold air swept through the halls the door leading into the haunted chamber flew open a splash was heard and the water ghost was seen
standing at the side of the heir of harrowby from whose outer dress there streamed rivulets of water but whose own person deep down under the various garments he wore was as dry and as warm as he could have wished ha
you are the most original man i've met if that is true returned the ghost may i ask where did you get that hat certainly madam returned the master courteously
it is a little portable observatory i had made for just such emergencies as this but tell me is it true that you are doomed to follow me about for one mortal hour to stand where i stand to sit where i sit
that is my delectable fate returned the lady we'll go out on the lake said the master starting up you can't get rid of me that way returned the ghost
nevertheless said the master firmly we will go out on the lake but my dear sir returned the ghost with a pale reluctance
oh no i'll not replied the master i am very warmly dressed come this last in a tone of command that made the ghost ripple and they started
they had not gone far before the water ghost showed signs of distress
my knees are so stiff now i can hardly move i beseech you to accelerate your step i should like to oblige a lady returned the master courteously
but my clothes are rather heavy and a hundred yards an hour is about my speed indeed i think we would better sit down here on this snowdrift and talk matters over
cried the ghost let me move on i feel myself growing rigid as it is if we stop here i shall be frozen stiff that madam said the master slowly and seating himself on an ice cake
that is why i have brought you here we have been on this spot just ten minutes we have fifty more take your time about it madam but freeze that is all i ask of you
i cannot move my right leg now cried the ghost in despair and my overskirt is a solid sheet of ice oh good kind mister oglethorpe light a fire and let me go free from these icy fetters
never madam it cannot be i have you at last alas cried the ghost a tear trickling down her frozen cheek help me
i beg i congeal congeal madam congeal returned oglethorpe coldly you have drenched me and mine
to night you have had your last drench ah but i shall thaw out again and then you'll see instead of the comfortably tepid genial ghost i have been in my past sir i shall be iced water cried the lady threateningly
no you won't either returned oglethorpe for when you are frozen quite stiff i shall send you to a cold storage warehouse and there shall you remain an icy work of art forever more
but warehouses burn so they do but this warehouse cannot burn
the temperature is now and shall forever be four hundred sixteen degrees below the zero point low enough to make an icicle of any flame in this world or the next the master added with an ill suppressed chuckle
for the last time let me beseech you i would go on my knees to you oglethorpe were they not already frozen i beg of you do not doo
and the clock struck one there was a momentary tremor throughout the ice bound form and the moon coming out from behind a cloud shone down on the rigid figure of a beautiful woman sculptured in clear
transparent ice there stood the ghost of harrowby hall conquered by the cold a prisoner for all time the heir of harrowby had won at last
and to day in a large storage house in london stands the frigid form of one who will never again flood the house of oglethorpe with woe and sea water
of the inconvenience of greatness since we cannot attain unto it let us revenge our selves by railing at it and yet
it is not absolutely railing against anything to proclaim its defects because they are in all things to be found how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever
greatness has in general this manifest advantage that it can lower itself when it pleases and has very near the choice of both the one and the other condition for a man does not fall from all heights
there are several from which one may descend without falling down it does indeed appear to me that we value it at too high a rate
and also overvalue the resolution of those whom we have either seen or heard have contemned it or displaced themselves of their own accord
its essence is not so evidently commodious that a man may not with out a miracle refuse it i find it a very hard thing to undergo misfortunes
and to avoid greatness i think a very easy matter tis methinks a virtue to which i who am no conjuror could without any great endeavour arrive
what then is to be expected from them that would yet put into consideration the glory attending this refusal wherein there may lurk worse ambition than even in the desire itself
and fruition of greatness forasmuch as ambition never comports itself better according to itself than when it proceeds by obscure and unfrequented ways
i incite my courage to patience but i rein it as much as i can towards desire i have as much to wish for as another and allow my wishes as much liberty and indiscretion
but yet it never befell me to wish for either empire or royalty or the eminency of those high and commanding fortunes i do not aim that way i love myself too well
when i think to grow greater tis but very moderately and by a compelled and timorous advancement such as is proper for me in resolution in prudence in health in beauty
and even in riches too but this supreme reputation this mighty authority oppress my imagination and quite contrary to that other julius caesar i should peradventure rather choose to be
the second or third in perigord than the first at paris at least without lying rather the third at paris than the first
i would neither dispute with a porter a miserable unknown nor make crowds open in adoration as i pass i am trained up to a moderate condition
all natural constitution is equally just and easy my soul is such a poltroon that i measure not good fortune by the height but by the facility
but if my heart be not great enough tis open enough to make amends at any one's request freely to lay open its weakness
should any one put me upon comparing the life of l thorius balbus a brave man handsome learned healthful understanding and abounding in all sorts of conveniences and pleasures
leading a quiet life and all his own his mind well prepared against death superstition pain and other incumbrances of human necessity dying at last in battle with his sword in his hand
for the defence of his country on the one part and on the other part the life of m regulus
end admirable the one without name and without dignity the other exemplary and glorious to a wonder i should doubtless say as cicero did could i speak as well as he
but if i was to compare them with my own i should then also say that the first is as much according to my capacity and from desire which i conform to my capacity as the second is far beyond it
that i could not approach the last but with veneration the other i could readily attain by use let us return to our temporal greatness from which we are digressed
i disrelish all dominion whether active or passive
did as i should willingly have done which was that he gave up to his competitors his right of being promoted to it either by election or by lot provided that he and his might live in the empire
out of all authority and subjection those of the ancient laws excepted and might enjoy all liberty that was not prejudicial to these being as impatient of commanding as of being commanded
the most painful and difficult employment in the world in my opinion is worthily to discharge the office of a king i excuse more of their mistakes than men commonly do
in consideration of the intolerable weight of their function which astounds me tis hard to keep measure in so immeasurable a power yet so it is that it is
even to those who are not of the best nature a singular incitement to virtue to be seated in a place where you cannot do the least good that shall not be put upon record
and where the least benefit redounds to so many men and where your talent of administration like that of preachers principally addresses itself to the people no very exact judge
easy to deceive and easily content there are few things wherein we can give a sincere judgment by reason that there are few wherein we have not in some sort a private interest
superiority and inferiority dominion and subjection are bound to a natural envy and contest and must of necessity perpetually intrench upon one another
i believe neither the one nor the other touching the rights of the other party let reason therefore which is inflexible and without passion determine when we can avail ourselves of it
two scottish authors contending upon this subject of whom he who stands for the people makes the king to be in a worse condition than a carter he who writes for monarchy places him some degrees above god in power and sovereignty
than the trials that we make against one another out of emulation of honour and worth whether in the exercises of the body or in those of the mind wherein sovereign greatness can have no true part
and in earnest i have often thought that by force of respect itself men use princes disdainfully and injuriously in that particular for the thing i was infinitely offended at in my childhood
that they who exercised with me forbore to do their best because they found me unworthy of their utmost endeavour is what we see happen to them daily every one finding himself unworthy to contend with them
if we discover that they have the least desire to get the better of us
and who will not rather betray his own glory than offend theirs and will therein employ so much force only as is necessary to save their honour what share have they then in the engagement
where every one is on their side methinks i see those paladins of ancient times presenting themselves to jousts and battle
but he ought to have had him whipped
learned nothing right but to manage horses by reason that in all their other exercises every one bends and yields to them but a horse that is neither a flatterer nor a courtier throws the son of a king
with no more ceremony than he would throw that of a porter homer was fain to consent that venus so sweet and delicate a goddess as she was should be wounded at the battle of troy
thereby to ascribe courage and boldness to her qualities that cannot possibly be in those who are exempt from danger the gods are made to be angry to fear to run away to be jealous to grieve
to be transported with passions to honour them with the virtues that amongst us are built upon these imperfections who does not participate in the hazard and difficulty
that all things must give way to him fortune therein sets you too remote from society and places you in too great a solitude this easiness and mean facility of making all things bow under you
is an enemy to all sorts of pleasure tis to slide not to go tis to sleep and not to live conceive man accompanied with omnipotence
you overwhelm him he must beg disturbance and opposition as an alms his being and his good are in indigence evil to man is in its turn good and good
evil neither is pain always to be shunned nor pleasure always to be pursued their good qualities are dead and lost
for they can only be perceived by comparison and we put them out of this they have little knowledge of true praise having their ears deafened with so continual and uniform an approbation
have they to do with the stupidest of all their subjects they have no means to take any advantage of him if he but say tis because he is my king
he thinks he has said enough to express that he therefore suffered himself to be overcome this quality stifles and consumes the other true and essential qualities they are sunk in the royalty
the outer glare that environs him conceals and shrouds him from us our sight is there repelled and dissipated being filled and stopped by this prevailing light
the senate awarded the prize of eloquence to tiberius he refused it esteeming that though it had been just he could derive no advantage from a judgment so partial
and that was so little free to judge as we give them all advantages of honour so do we soothe and authorise all their vices and defects
not only by approbation but by imitation also every one of alexander's followers carried his head on one side as he did and the flatterers of dionysius
and stumbled at and overturned whatever was under foot
i have seen deafness affected and because the master hated his wife plutarch
has seen his courtiers repudiate theirs whom they loved
who as their master pretended to the honour of a good physician came to him to have incisions and cauteries made in their limbs for these others suffered the soul a more delicate and noble part to be cauterised
but to end where i began the emperor adrian disputing with the philosopher favorinus about the interpretation of some word
favorinus soon yielded him the victory for which his friends rebuking him you talk simply said he would you not have him wiser than i who commands thirty legions augustus wrote verses against asinius
pollio and i said pollio say nothing for it is not prudence to write in contest with him who has power to proscribe and they were right
the farmer and the cranes some cranes saw a farmer plowing a large field when the work of plowing was done they patiently watched him sow the seed
it was their feast they thought so as soon as the farmer had finished planting and had gone home down they flew to the field and began to eat as fast as they could
the farmer of course knew the cranes and their ways he had had experience with such birds before he soon returned to the field with a sling but he did not bring any stones with him
he expected to scare the cranes just by swinging the sling in the air and shouting loudly at them at first the cranes flew away in great terror but they soon began to see that none of them ever got hurt
and as for words they would kill nobody at last they paid no attention whatever to the farmer the farmer saw that he would have to take other measures
that hard fists are lacking the farmer and his sons a rich old farmer who felt that he had not many more days to live
called his sons to his bedside my sons he said heed what i have to say to you do not on any account part with the estate that has belonged to our family for so many generations
somewhere on it is hidden a rich treasure i do not know the exact spot but it is there and you will surely find it spare no energy and leave no spot unturned
in your search the father died and no sooner was he in his grave than the sons set to work digging with all their might turning up every foot of ground with their spades
but at harvest time when they had settled their accounts and had pocketed a rich profit
they understood that the treasure their father had told them about was the wealth of a bountiful crop and that in their industry had they found the treasure industry is itself
two pots one of brass and the other of clay stood together on the hearthstone one day the brass pot proposed to the earthen pot that they go out into the world together
but the earthen pot excused himself saying that it would be wiser for him to stay in the corner by the fire it would take so little to break me he said you know how fragile i am
the least shock is sure to shatter me don't let that keep you at home urged the brass pot i shall take very good care of you if we should happen to meet anything hard i will step between and save you
so the earthen pot at last consented and the two set out side by side jolting along on three stubby legs first to this side then to that and bumping into each other at every step
the earthen pot could not survive that sort of companionship very long they had not gone ten paces before the earthen pot cracked and at the next jolt
he flew into a thousand pieces equals make the best friends the goose and the golden egg
there was once a countryman who possessed the most wonderful goose you can imagine for every day when he visited the nest the goose had laid a beautiful glittering golden egg
the countryman took the eggs to market and soon began to get rich but it was not long before he grew impatient with the goose because she gave him only a single golden egg a day
he was not getting rich fast enough then one day after he had finished counting his money the idea came to him that he could get all the golden eggs at once by killing the goose
and cutting it open but when the deed was done not a single golden egg did he find and his precious goose was dead
beethorpe was an ancient town mysteriously sown centuries ago like a wandering thistle down of human life amid the silence and the nibbling sheep of the great chalk downs
it stood in a hollow of the long smooth billows of pale pasture that suavely melted into the sky on every side the evening was so still
that the little river running across the threshold of the town and encircling what remained of its old walls was the noisiest thing to be heard dominating with its talkative murmur the bedtime hum of the high street
suddenly as the flamboyance of the sky was on the edge of fading and the world beginning to wear a forlorn forgotten look a trumpet sounded from the western heights above the town
as though the sunset itself had spoken and the people in beethorpe looking up saw three horsemen against the lurid sky three times the trumpet blew and the simple folk of beethorpe
tumbling out into the street at the summons and looking to the west with sleepy bewilderment asked themselves was it the last trumpet or was it the long threatened invasion of the king of france
again the trumpet blew and then the braver of the young men of the town hastened up the hill to learn its meaning as they approached the horsemen they perceived that the center of the three
was a young man of great nobility of bearing richly but somberly dressed and with a dark beautiful face filled with a proud melancholy he kept his eyes on the fading sunset
was clad after the manner of a steward and the three horsemen sat motionless awaiting the bewildered ambassadors of beethorpe
when these had approached near enough the herald once more set the trumpet to his lips and blew and then unfolding a parchment scroll read in a loud voice to the folk of beethorpe
we hereby issue proclamation that whosoever hath a sorrow let him or her bring it forth and we out of our private purse will purchase the said sorrow according to its value
that the hearts of our people be lightened of their burdens and when the herald had finished reading he blew again upon the trumpet three times and the villagers looked at one another in bewilderment
but some ran down the hill to tell their neighbors of the strange proposal of their lord thus presently nearly all the village of beethorpe was making its way up the hill to where those three horsemen loomed against the evening sky
never was such a sorrowful company up the hill they came
noted a kindly ironic flicker of a smile in his eyes as he saw apparently seeing nothing the poor little raked up sorrows of his village
he was a fantastic young lord of many sorrows his heart had been broken in a very strange way death and pity were his closest friends he was so sad himself
that he had come to realize that sorrow is the only sincerity of life thus sorrow had become a kind of passion with him even a kind of connoisseurship and he had come so to say
to be a collector of sorrows it was partly pity and partly an odd form of dilettanteism for his own sad heart made him pitiful for and companionable with any other sad heart
but the sincerity of his sorrow made him jealous of the sanctity of sorrow and at the same time sternly critical of and sadly amused by the hypocrisies of sorrow
so as he sat his horse and gazed at the sunset he smiled sadly to himself as he heard without seeming to hear the small insincere sorrows of his village of beethorpe
sorrows forgotten long ago but suddenly rediscovered in old drawers and unopened cupboards at the sound of his lordship's trumpet and the promise of his strange proclamation
was there a sorrow in the world that no money could buy it was to find such a sorrow that lord mortimer thus
far and wide he had ridden over his estates seeking so rare a sorrow but as yet he had found no sorrow that could not be bought with a little bag of gold and silver coins
so he sat his horse while the villagers of beethorpe were paid out of a great leathern bag by the steward for the steward understood the mind of his master and without troubling him paid each weeping and whimpering peasant
as he thought fit in another great bag the steward had collected the sorrows of the village of beethorpe and by this the moon was rising and with another blast of trumpet by way of farewell
the three horsemen took the road again to lord mortimer's castle when out of the great leathern bag in lord mortimer's cabinet they poured upon the table the sorrows of beethorpe
the young lord smiled to himself turning over one sorrow after the other as though they had been precious stones for there was not one genuine sorrow among them but later
there came news to him that there was one real sorrow in beethorpe and he rode alone on horseback to the village and found a beautiful girl laying flowers on a grave she was so beautiful
that he forgot his ancient grief and he thought that all his castles would be but a poor exchange for her face maiden said he let me buy your sorrow with three counties and seven castles
and the girl looked up at him from the grave with eyes of forget me not and said my lord you mistake this is not sorrow
l'apprenti sorcier suddenly there came to me the music of a mighty sea that on a bare and iron shore thundered with a deeper roar than all the tides that leap and run
with us below the real sun because the place was far away above beyond our homely day neighbouring close the frozen clime where out of all the woods of time amid the frightful seraphim
the fierce cold eyes of godhead gleam revolving hate and misery and wars and famines yet to be and in my dreams i stood alone upon a shelf of weedy stone
and saw before my shrinking eyes the dark enormous breakers rise and hover and fall with deafening thunder of thwarted foam that echoed under the ledge through many a cavern drear
with hollow sounds of wintry fear and through the waters waste and grey thick strown for many a league away out of the toiling sea arose many a face and form of those
thin elemental people dear who live beyond our heavy sphere and all at once from far and near they all held out their arms to me crying in their melody
leap in leap in and take thy fill of all the cosmic good and ill be as the living ones that know enormous joy enormous woe pain beyond thought and fiery bliss
for all thy study hunted this on wings of magic to arise and wash from off thy filmed eyes the cloud of cold mortality to find the real life and be as are the children of the deep
be bold and dare the glorious leap or to thy shame go slink again back to the narrow ways of men so all these mocked me as i stood striving to wake because i feared the flood
alexandrines there is a house that most of all on earth i hate though i have passed through many sorrows and have been
in bloody fields sad seas and countries desolate yet most i fear that empty house where the grasses green grow in the silent court the gaping flags between
and down the moss grown paths and terrace no man treads where the old old weeds rise deep on the waste garden beds
like eyes of one long dead the empty windows stare and i fear to cross the garden i fear to linger there for in that house i know a little silent room
where someone's always waiting waiting in the gloom to draw me with an evil eye and hold me fast yet thither doom will drive me and he will win at last
in praise of solid people thank
who water flowers and roll the lawn and sit an sew and talk and smoke and snore all through the summer dawn who pass untroubled nights and days full fed and sleepily content
rejoicing in each other's praise respectable and innocent who feel the things that all men feel and think in well worn grooves of thought whose honest spirits never reel
before man's mystery overwrought yet not unfaithful nor unkind with work day virtues surely staid theirs is the sane and humble mind and dull affections undismayed
o happy people i have seen no verse yet written in your praise and truth to tell the time has been i would have scorned your easy ways but now thro weariness and strife
i learn your worthiness indeed the world is better for such life as stout suburban people lead too often have i sat alone when the wet night falls heavily and fretting winds around me moan
and homeless longing vexes me for lore that i shall never know and visions none can hope to see till brooding works upon me so a childish fear steals over me i look around the empty room
the clock still ticking in its place and all else silent as the tomb till suddenly i think a face grows from the darkness just beside i turn and lo it fades away
and soon another phantom tide of shifting dreams begins to play and dusky galleys past me sail full freighted on a faerie sea i hear the silken merchants hail across the ringing waves to me
then suddenly again the room familiar books about me piled and i alone amid the gloom by one more mocking dream beguiled and still no neared to the light
and still no further from myself alone and lost in clinging night the clock's still ticking on the shelf then do i envy solid folk who sit of evenings by the fire
along time ago there lived an old poet a thoroughly kind old poet as he was sitting one evening in his room a dreadful storm arose without and the rain streamed down from heaven
but the old poet sat warm and comfortable in his chimney corner where the fire blazed and the roasting apple hissed those who have not a roof over their heads will be wetted to the skin said the good old poet
oh let me in let me in i am cold and i'm so wet exclaimed suddenly a child that stood crying at the door and knocking for admittance while the rain poured down and the wind made all the windows rattle
poor thing said the old poet as he went to open the door there stood a little boy quite naked and the water ran down from his long golden hair he trembled with cold
and had he not come into a warm room he would most certainly have perished in the frightful tempest poor child said the old poet as he took the boy by the hand come in come in and i will soon restore thee
thou shalt have wine and roasted apples for thou art verily a charming child and the boy was so really his eyes were like two bright stars and although the water trickled down his hair
it waved in beautiful curls he looked exactly like a little angel but he was so pale and his whole body trembled with cold he had a nice little bow in his hand but it was quite spoiled by the rain
and the tints of his many colored arrows ran one into the other the old poet seated himself beside his hearth and took the little fellow on his lap he squeezed the water out of his dripping hair
warmed his hands between his own and boiled for him some sweet wine then the boy recovered his cheeks again grew rosy he jumped down from the lap where he was sitting
and danced round the kind old poet you are a merry fellow said the old man what's your name my name is cupid answered the boy don't you know me
that were sad indeed said the boy and he took the bow in his hand and examined it on every side oh it is dry again and is not hurt at all the string is quite tight
i will try it directly and he bent his bow took aim and shot an arrow at the old poet right into his heart you see now that my bow was not spoiled said he laughing
and away he ran the naughty boy to shoot the old poet in that way he who had taken him into his warm room who had treated him so kindly
and who had given him warm wine and the very best apples the poor poet lay on the earth and wept for the arrow had really flown into his heart
i will tell all children about him that they may take care and not play with him for he will only cause them sorrow and many a heartache
and all good children to whom he related this story took great heed of this naughty cupid but he made fools of them still for he is astonishingly cunning
when the university students come from the lectures he runs beside them in a black coat and with a book under his arm it is quite impossible for them to know him
and they walk along with him arm in arm as if he too were a student like themselves and then unperceived he thrusts an arrow to their bosom when the young maidens come from being examined by the clergyman
or go to church to be confirmed there he is again close behind them yes he is forever following people at the play he sits in the great chandelier and burns in bright flames
so that people think it is really a flame but they soon discover it is something else he roves about in the garden of the palace and upon the ramparts yes once he even shot your father and mother right in the heart
ask them only and you will hear what they'll tell you oh he is a naughty boy that cupid you must never have anything to do with him he is forever running after everybody only think
he shot an arrow once at your old grandmother but that is a long time ago and it is all past now however a thing of that sort she never forgets
the red shoes there was once a little girl who was very pretty and delicate but in summer she was forced to run about with bare feet
she was so poor and in winter wear very large wooden shoes which made her little insteps quite red and that looked so dangerous
a little pair of shoes out of old red strips of cloth they were very clumsy but it was a kind thought they were meant for the little girl the little girl was called karen
on the very day her mother was buried karen received the red shoes and wore them for the first time they were certainly not intended for mourning but she had no others
and with stockingless feet she followed the poor straw coffin in them suddenly a large old carriage drove up and a large old lady sat in it she looked at the little girl felt compassion for her
and then said to the clergyman here give me the little girl i will adopt her and karen believed all this happened on account of the red shoes but the old lady thought they were horrible and they were burnt
but karen herself was cleanly and nicely dressed she must learn to read and sew and people said she was a nice little thing but the looking glass said thou art more than nice thou art beautiful
now the queen once travelled through the land and she had her little daughter with her and this little daughter was a princess and people streamed to the castle and karen was there also and the little princess stood in her fine white dress
in a window and let herself be stared at she had neither a train nor a golden crown but splendid red morocco shoes they were certainly far handsomer
nothing in the world can be compared with red shoes now karen was old enough to be confirmed she had new clothes and was to have new shoes also
the rich shoemaker in the city took the measure of her little foot this took place at his house in his room where stood large glass cases filled with elegant shoes and brilliant boots
all this looked charming but the old lady could not see well and so had no pleasure in them in the midst of the shoes stood a pair of red ones just like those the princess had worn how beautiful they were
the shoemaker said also they had been made for the child of a count but had not fitted that must be patent leather said the old lady they shine so yes they shine said karen
and they fitted and were bought but the old lady knew nothing about their being red else she would never have allowed karen to have gone in red shoes to be confirmed yet such was the case
everybody looked at her feet and when she stepped through the chancel door on the church pavement it seemed to her as if the old figures on the tombs those portraits of old preachers and preachers wives
with stiff ruffs and long black dresses fixed their eyes on her red shoes and she thought only of them as the clergyman laid his hand upon her head and spoke of the holy baptism of the covenant with god
and the organ pealed so solemnly the sweet children's voices sang and the old music directors sang but karen only thought of her red shoes
in the afternoon the old lady heard from everyone that the shoes had been red and she said that it was very wrong of karen that it was not at all becoming and that in future karen should only go in black shoes to church
even when she should be older the next sunday there was the sacrament and karen looked at the black shoes looked at the red ones looked at them again and put on the red shoes
the sun shone gloriously karen and the old lady walked along the path through the corn it was rather dusty there at the church door stood an old soldier with a crutch and with a wonderfully long beard
which was more red than white and he bowed to the ground and asked the old lady whether he might dust her shoes and karen stretched out her little foot see what beautiful dancing shoes
said the soldier sit firm when you dance and he put his hand out towards the soles
and went into the church with karen and all the people in the church looked at karen's red shoes and all the pictures and as karen knelt before the altar and raised the cup to her lips
she only thought of the red shoes and they seemed to swim in it and she forgot to sing her psalm and she forgot to pray our father in heaven now all the people went out of church
and the old lady got into her carriage karen raised her foot to get in after her when the old soldier said look what beautiful dancing shoes and karen could not help dancing a step or two
and when she began her feet continued to dance it was just as though the shoes had power over them she danced round the church corner she could not leave off the coachman was obliged to run after and catch hold of her
and he lifted her in the carriage but her feet continued to dance so that she trod on the old lady dreadfully at length she took the shoes off and then her legs had peace
the shoes were placed in a closet at home but karen could not avoid looking at them now the old lady was sick
she must be nursed and waited upon and there was no one whose duty it was so much as karen's but there was a great ball in the city to which karen was invited she looked at the old lady who could not recover
she looked at the red shoes and she thought there could be no sin in it she put on the red shoes she might do that also she thought but then she went to the ball and began to dance
when she wanted to dance to the right the shoes would dance to the left and when she wanted to dance up the room the shoes danced back again down the steps into the street and out of the city gate she danced
and was forced to dance straight out into the gloomy wood then it was suddenly light up among the trees and she fancied it must be the moon for there was a face
he sat there nodded his head and said look what beautiful dancing shoes then she was terrified and wanted to fling off the red shoes but they clung fast
and she pulled down her stockings but the shoes seemed to have grown to her feet and she danced and must dance over fields and meadows in rain and sunshine by night and day but at night it was the most fearful
she danced over the churchyard but the dead did not dance they had something better to do than to dance
where the bitter tansy grew but for her there was neither peace nor rest and when she danced towards the open church door she saw an angel standing there he wore long white garments
he had wings which reached from his shoulders to the earth his countenance was severe and grave and in his hand he held a sword broad and glittering dance shalt thou said he
dance in thy red shoes till thou art pale and cold till thy skin shrivels up and thou art a skeleton dance shalt thou from door to door
and where proud vain children dwell thou shalt knock that they may hear thee and tremble dance shalt thou mercy cried karen but she did not hear the angel's reply
for the shoes carried her through the gate into the fields across roads and bridges and she must keep ever dancing one morning she danced past a door which she well knew within sounded a psalm
a coffin decked with flowers was borne forth then she knew that the old lady was dead and felt that she was abandoned by all and condemned by the angel of god she danced
and she was forced to dance through the gloomy night the shoes carried her over stack and stone she was torn till she bled she danced over the heath till she came to a little house
here she knew dwelt the executioner and she tapped with her fingers at the window and said come out come out i cannot come in for i am forced to dance and the executioner said
thou dost not know who i am i fancy i strike bad people's heads off and i hear that my axe rings don't strike my head off said karen then i can't repent of my sins
but strike off my feet in the red shoes and then she confessed her entire sin and the executioner struck off her feet with the red shoes but the shoes danced away with the little feet across the field into the deep wood
and he carved out little wooden feet for her and crutches taught her the psalm criminals always sing and she kissed the hand which had wielded the axe and went over the heath
now i have suffered enough for the red shoes said she now i will go into the church that people may see me and she hastened towards the church door but when she was near it the red shoes danced before her
and she was terrified and turned round the whole week she was unhappy and wept many bitter tears but when sunday returned she said well now i have suffered and struggled enough
and holds her head so high and away she went boldly but she had not got farther than the churchyard gate before she saw the red shoes dancing before her and she was frightened and turned back
and repented of her sin from her heart and she went to the parsonage and begged that they would take her into service she would be very industrious she said and would do everything she could
she did not care about the wages only she wished to have a home and be with good people
and she was industrious and thoughtful she sat still and listened when the clergyman read the bible in the evenings all the children thought a great deal of her but when they spoke of dress and grandeur and beauty
she shook her head the following sunday when the family was going to church they asked her whether she would not go with them but she glanced sorrowfully with tears in her eyes at her crutches
the family went to hear the word of god but she went alone into her little chamber there was only room for a bed and chair to stand in it and here she sat down with her prayer book
and whilst she read with a pious mind the wind bore the strains of the organ towards her and she raised her tearful countenance and said o god help me and the sun shone so clearly
and straight before her stood the angel of god in white garments the same she had seen that night at the church door but he no longer carried the sharp sword but in its stead a splendid green spray full of roses
and he touched the ceiling with the spray and the ceiling rose so high and where he had touched it there gleamed a golden star and he touched the walls and they widened out and she saw the organ which was playing
she saw the old pictures of the preachers and the preachers wives the congregation sat in cushioned seats and sang out of their prayer books for the church itself had come to the poor girl in her narrow chamber
or else she had come into the church she sat in the pew with the clergyman's family and when they had ended the psalm and looked up they nodded and said it is right that thou art come it was through mercy she said
and the organ pealed and the children's voices in the choir sounded so sweet and soft the clear sunshine streamed so warmly through the window into the pew where karen sat her heart was so full of sunshine peace
and joy that it broke
the wesleyan bazaar the greatest undertaking of its kind ever known in bursley gradually became a cloud which filled the entire social horizon missus sutton
organiser of the sunday school stall pressed all her friends into the service and a fortnight after the death of sarah vodrey anna and even agnes gave much of their spare time to the work
which was carried on under pressure increasing daily as the final moments approached this was well for anna in that it diverted her thoughts by keeping her energies fully engaged one morning however
it occurred to missus sutton to reflect that anna at such a period of life should be otherwise employed anna had called at the suttons to deliver some finished garments my dear she said
i am very much obliged to you for all this industry but i've been thinking that as you are to be married in february you ought to be preparing your things my things anna repeated idly and then she remembered
can you be ready by that time yes said missus sutton but possibly you've been getting forward with them on the quiet tell me said anna with an air of interest i've meant to ask you before
is it the bride's place to provide all the house linen and that sort of thing it was in my day but those things alter so the bride took all the house linen to her husband and as many clothes for herself
as would last a year that was the rule we used to stitch everything at home in those days everything and we had what we called a bottom drawer to store them in
as soon as a girl passed her fifteenth birthday she began to sew for the bottom drawer but all those things change so i dare say it's different now how much will it cost to buy everything do you think anna asked
just then beatrice entered the room beatrice
and the house linen what do you say oh beatrice replied without any hesitation a couple of hundred at least missus sutton reading anna's face smiled reassuringly
nonsense bee i dare say you could do it on a hundred with care anna
anna went straight across the road to her father and asked him for a hundred pounds of her own money she had not spoken to him save under necessity since the evening spent at the suttons what's afoot now
he questioned savagely i must buy things for the wedding clothes and things father ay clothes clothes what clothes dost want a few pounds will cover them there'll be all the linen for the house
linen for it's none thy place for buy that yes father it is
what business an ye for go blabbing thy affairs all over bosley i say it isna thy place for buy linen
go and get dinner it's nigh on twelve now that evening when agnes had gone to bed she resumed the struggle father i must have that hundred pounds i really must i mean it
thou means it what i mean i must have a hundred pounds
thou means it but you needn't give it me all at once she pursued he gazed at her glowering i shanna give it thee
father it isn't her voice broke but only for an instant i'm asking you for my own money you seem to want to make me miserable just before my wedding i wish to god thou dst never seen henry mynors
it's given thee pride and made thee undutiful i'm only asking you for my own money her calm insistence maddened him jumping up from his chair he stamped out of the room
and she heard him strike a match in his office presently he returned and threw angrily on to the table in front of her a cheque book and pass book the deposit book she had always kept herself for convenience of paying into the bank
here he said scornfully tak thy traps and ne'er speak to me again i wash my hands of ye tak em and do what ye'n a mind chuck thy money
the next evening henry came up she observed that his face had a grave look but intent on her own difficulties she did not remark on it and proceeded at once to do what she resolved to do
it was a cold night in november yet the miser wrathfully sullen chose to sit in his office without a fire agnes was working sums in the kitchen henry anna began
i've had a difficulty with father and i must tell you not about the wedding i hope he said it was about money of course henry i can't get married without a lot of money why not he inquired
i've my own things to get she said and i've all the house linen to buy oh you buy the house linen do you she saw that he was relieved by that information of course
well i told father i must have a hundred pounds
and when i stuck to him he got angry you know he can't bear to see money spent and at last he get a little savage and gave me my bank books and said he'd have nothing more to do with my money
henry's face broke into a laugh and anna was obliged to smile capital he said couldn't be better i want you to tell me how much i've got in the bank she said
i only know i'm always paying in odd cheques he examined the three books a very tidy bit he said something over two hundred and fifty pounds so you can draw cheques at your ease
draw me a cheque for twenty pounds she said and then while he wrote henry after we're married i shall want you to take charge of all this yes of course i will do that dear but your money will be yours
there ought to be a settlement on you still if your father says nothing it is not for me to say anything father will say nothing now she said you've never shown any interest in it henry
but as we're talking of money i may as well tell you that father says i'm worth fifty thousand pounds the man of business was astonished and enraptured beyond measure his countenance shone with delight
surely not he protested formally that's what father told me and he made me read a list of shares and so on
he had not expected more than fifteen or twenty thousand pounds and even this sum had dazzled his imagination he was glad that he had only taken the house at toft end on a yearly tenancy
he now saw himself the dominant figure in all the five towns later in the evening he disclosed perfunctorily the matter which had been a serious weight on his mind when he entered the house
but which this revelation of vast wealth had diminished to a trifle titus price had been the treasurer of the building fund which the bazaar was designed to assist mynors had assumed the position of the dead man
and that day in going through the accounts he had discovered that a sum of fifty pounds was missing it's a dreadful thing for willie if it gets about he said a tale of that sort would follow him to australia
oh henry it is she exclaimed sorrow stricken but we mustn't let it get about let us pay the money ourselves you must enter it in the books and say nothing that is impossible he said firmly
i can't alter the accounts at least i can't alter the bank book and the vouchers the auditor would detect it in a minute besides i should not be doing my duty if i kept a thing like this from the superintendent minister
he at any rate must know and perhaps the stewards but you can urge them to say nothing tell them that you will make it good i will write a cheque at once
i had meant to find the fifty myself he said it was a peddling sum to him now
if you like he urged smiling faintly at her eagerness the thing is bound to be kept quiet it would create such a frightful scandal poor old chap he added carelessly
i suppose he was hard run and meant to put it back as they all do mean but it was useless for mynors to affect depression of spirits or mournful sympathy with the errors of a dead sinner
the fifty thousand danced a jig in his brain that night anna was absorbed in contemplating the misfortune of willie price she prayed wildly that he might never learn the full depth of his father's fall
the miserable robbery of sarah's wages was buried for evermore and this new delinquency which all would regard as flagrant sacrilege must be buried also a soul less loyal than anna's might have feared
that willie a self convicted forger had been a party to the embezzlement but anna knew that it could not be so
the first intoxication having passed he made no further reference of any kind to anna's fortune the arrangements for their married life were planned on a scale which ignored the fifty thousand pounds
he did not precisely anticipate trouble but the fact had not escaped him
he was in no hurry to enlarge his borders he knew that there were twenty four hours in every day three hundred and sixty five days in every year and thirty good years in life still left to him and therefore
that there would be ample time after the wedding for the execution of his purposes in regard to that fifty thousand pounds meanwhile he told anna that he had set aside
two hundred pounds for the purchase of furniture for the priory a modest sum but he judged it sufficient his method was to buy a piece at a time always second hand but always good
the bargain hunt was up and anna soon yielded to its mild satisfactions in the matter of her trousseau and the house linen anna having obtained the needed money at so dear a cost
found yet another obstacle in the imminent bazaar which occupied missus sutton and beatrice so completely that they could not contrive any opportunity to assist her in shopping it was decided between them
that every article should be bought ready made and seamed and that the first week of the new year if indeed missus sutton survived the bazaar should be entirely and absolutely devoted to anna's business
at nights when she had leisure to think anna was astonished how during the day she had forgotten her preoccupations
but she never slept without thinking of willie price and hoping that no further disaster might overtake him the incident of the embezzled fifty pounds had been closed
he had acquainted the minister with the facts and mister banks had decided that the two circuit stewards must be informed beyond these the scandalous secret was not to go but anna wondered whether a secret shared by five persons
could long remain a secret the bazaar was a triumphant and unparalleled success and of the seven stalls the sunday school stall stood first each night in the nightly returns the scene in the town hall
on the fourth and final night a saturday was as delirious and gay as a carnival four hundred and twenty pounds had been raised up to tea time and it was the impassioned desire of everyone to achieve five hundred
the price of admission had been reduced to threepence in order that the artisan might enter and spend his wages in an excellent cause the seven stalls ranged round the room like so many bowers of beauty
draped and frilled and floriated and still laden with countless articles of use and ornament were continually reinforced with purchasers by emissaries canvassing the crowd
which filled the middle of the paper strewn floor the horse was not only taken to the water but compelled to drink and many a man who outside would have laughed at the risk of being robbed was robbed openly
shamelessly under the gaze of ministers and class leaders bouquets were sold at a shilling each and at the refreshment stall a glass of milk cost sixpence the noise rivalled that of a fair
there was no quiet anywhere save in the farthest recess of each stall where the lady in supreme charge of it like a spider in the middle of its web watched customers and cash box with equal cupidity
missus sutton at seven o'clock had not returned from tea and anna and beatrice who managed the sunday school stall in her absence feared that she had at last succumbed under the strain
but shortly afterwards she hurried back breathless to her place see that anna it will be reckoned in our returns she said exhibiting a piece of paper
promised months ago
she has the secret of persuading him thought anna why have i never found it then agnes in a new white frock came up with three shillings proceeds of bouquets
but you must take that to the flower stall my pet said missus sutton can't i give it to you the child pleaded i want your stall to be the best mynors arrived next
with something concealed in tissue paper he removed the paper and showed in a frame of crimson plush a common white plate decorated with a simple band and line and a monogram in the centre
anna blushed recognising the plate which she had painted that afternoon in july
can you sell this mynors asked missus sutton i'll try to said missus sutton doubtfully not in the secret what's it meant for try to sell it to me said mynors
well she laughed what will you give
he paid the money and requested anna to keep the plate for him at nine o'clock it was announced that though raffling was forbidden the bazaar would be enlivened by an auction a licensed auctioneer was brought
and the sale commenced the auctioneer however failed to attune himself to the wild spirit of the hour and his professional efforts would have resulted in a fiasco
perceiving the danger leaped to the platform and masterfully assumed the hammer mynors surpassed himself in the kind of wit that amuses an excited crowd
and the auction soon monopolised the attention of the room it was always afterwards remembered as the crowning success of the bazaar the incredible man took ten pounds in twenty minutes during this episode
anna who had been left alone in the stall first noticed willie price in the room his ship sailed on the monday but steerage passengers had to be aboard on sunday and he was saying good bye to a few acquaintances
he seemed quite cheerful as he walked about with his hands in his pockets chatting with this one and that
that precedes a final separation as soon as he saw anna he came towards her well good bye miss tellwright he said jauntily i leave for liverpool to morrow morning wish me luck nothing more
no word no accent to recall the terrible but sublime past i do she answered they shook hands others approaching he drifted away her glance followed him
like a beneficent influence for three days she had carried in her pocket
intending by some device to force it on him as a parting gift now the last chance was lost and she had not even attempted this difficult feat of charity such futility she reflected
self scorning was of a piece with her life he hasn't really gone he hasn't really gone she kept repeating and yet knew well that he had gone
do you know what they are saying anna said beatrice when after eleven o'clock the bazaar was closed to the public and the stall holders and their assistants were preparing to depart their movements hastened by the stern aspect
of the town hall keeper no what said anna and in the same moment guessed they say old titus price embezzled fifty pounds from the building fund and henry made it up privately
so that there shouldn't be a scandal just fancy do you believe it the secret was abroad she looked round the room and saw it in every face
it's all over the place miss dickinson told me you will be glad to know ladies mynors voice sang out from the platform that the total proceeds so far as we can calculate them now
exceed five hundred and twenty five pounds there was clapping of hands which died out suddenly now agnes anna called come along quick you're as white as a sheet
good night missus sutton good night bee
the next morning at half past seven anna was standing in the garden doorway of the priory the sun had just risen the air was cold roof and pavement were damp
rain had fallen and more was to fall a door opened higher up the street and willie price came out carrying a small bag he turned to speak to some person within the house
and then stepped forward as he passed anna she sprang forth
i had just come up here to see if the workmen had locked up properly we have some of our new furniture in the house you know she was as red as the sun over hillport he glanced at her
have you heard he asked simply about what she whispered about my poor old father yes i was hoping hoping you would never know
by a common impulse they went into the garden of the priory and he shut the door never know he repeated oh they took care to tell me
a silence followed is that your luggage she inquired he lifted up the handbag and nodded all of it yes he said i'm only an emigrant
i've got a note here for you she said i should have posted it to the steamer but now you can take it yourself i want you not to read it till you get to melbourne
very well he said
into his pocket he was not thinking of the note at all
why didn't you tell me about my father if i had to hear it i'd sooner have heard it from you you must try to forget it she urged him you are not your father
i wish i had never been born he said i wish i'd gone to prison now was the moment when if ever the mother's influence should be exerted be a man she said softly
i did the best i could for you i shall always think of you in australia getting on she put a hand on his shoulder yes she said again passionately i shall always remember you
always the hand with which he touched her arm shook like an old man's hand as their eyes met in an intense and painful gaze to her at least it was revealed that they were lovers
what he had learnt in that instant can only be guessed from his next action anna ran out of the garden into the street and so home never looking behind to see if he pursued his way
to the station some may argue that anna knowing she loved another man
but she did not reason thus such a notion never even occurred to her
nothing else was possible she who had never failed in duty did not fail then she who had always submitted and bowed the head submitted and bowed the head then
she had sucked in with her mother's milk the profound truth that a woman's life is always a renunciation greater or less hers by chance was greater
facing the future calmly and genially she took oath with herself to be a good wife to the man whom
she had never loved her thoughts often dwelt lovingly on willie price whom she deemed to be pursuing in australia an honourable and successful career quickened at the outset by her hundred pounds
this vision of him was her stay
or elsewhere ever heard of willie price again and well might none hear the abandoned pitshaft does not deliver up its secret and so the bank of england
is the richer by a hundred pounds unclaimed and the world the poorer by a simple and meek soul stung to revolt
the florentines go to war with lucca discourse of a citizen of lucca to animate the plebeians against the florentines the lucchese resolve to defend themselves they are assisted by the duke of milan treaty between the florentines and the venetians
peace between the florentines and the lucchese the florentines effect a reconciliation between the pope and the count di poppi the pope consecrates the church of santa reparata council of florence
the count commenced operations against lucca in april fourteen thirty seven and the florentines desirous of recovering what they had themselves lost before they attacked others retook santa maria in castello
the inhabitants of which although faithful to their rulers being influenced more by immediate danger than by attachment to their distant friends surrendered in the same manner they obtained massa and serezana toward the end of may they proceeded in the direction of lucca
and leaving nothing undone to injure the enemy the lucchese finding themselves abandoned by the duke and hopeless of defending the open country forsook it entrenched and fortified the city which they doubted not being well garrisoned they would be able to defend for a time
and that in the interim some event would occur for their relief as had been the case during the former wars which the florentines had carried on against them their only apprehension arose from the fickle minds of the plebeians who becoming weary of the siege
if you should accuse us of having caused the present war by receiving the ducal forces into the city and allowing them to commit hostilities against the florentines you are greatly mistaken you are well acquainted with the ancient enmity of the florentines against you
which is not occasioned by any injuries you have done them or by fear on their part but by our weakness and their own ambition for the one gives them hope of being able to oppress us and the other incites them to attempt it
but if we had not received him they would have done the same and assigned some other ground for it and if the evil had been delayed it would most probably have been greater
therefore you must not imagine it to be occasioned by his arrival but rather by your own ill fortune and their ambition
and being come we could not prevent their aggressions you know that without the aid of some powerful ally we are incapable of self defense and that none can render us this service more powerfully or faithfully than the duke
he restored our liberty it is reasonable to expect he will defend it he has always been the greatest foe of our inveterate enemies if therefore to avoid incensing the florentines we had excited his anger we should have lost our best friend
and rendered our enemy more powerful and more disposed to oppress us so that it is far preferable to have this war upon our hands and enjoy the favor of the duke than to be in peace without it
besides we are justified in expecting that he will rescue us from the dangers into which we are brought on his account if we only do not abandon our own cause you all know how fiercely the florentines have frequently assailed us
and with what glory we have maintained our defense we have often been deprived of every hope except in god and the casualties which time might produce and both have proved our friends and as they have delivered us formerly
for they will not willingly see the power of florence increased on a former occasion the florentines were more at liberty they had greater hope of assistance and were more powerful in themselves while we were in every respect weaker
for then a tyrant governed us now we defend ourselves then the glory of our defense was another's now it is our own then they were in harmony now they are disunited all italy being filled
for all seek their own glory and your ruin above all others you have to dread the florentines for they would not be satisfied by submission and tribute or the dominion of our city but they would possess our entire substance and persons
the rest will be saved as a matter of course if we lose her
or submit to any terms that could violate their liberty they then made arrangements for the defense of the city in the meantime the florentine forces were not idle and after innumerable mischiefs done to the country
took monte carlo by capitulation they then besieged uzzano
might despair of assistance and be compelled to submission by famine the fortress was very strong and defended by a numerous garrison so that its capture would be by no means an easy undertaking
the lucchese as might be expected seeing the imminent peril of their situation had recourse to the duke and employed prayers and remonstrances to induce him to render them aid they enlarged upon their own merits and the offenses of the florentines
and showed how greatly it would attach the duke's friends to him to find they were defended and how much disaffection it would spread among them if they were left to be overwhelmed by the enemy
so that if he were unmoved by gratitude to them he might be induced to their defense by motives of compassion the duke influenced by his inveterate hostility against the florentines his new obligation to the lucchese
than from their desire to frustrate this expedition the count on the other hand was ready to pass into lombardy whenever the league might require him but would not alter the tenor of his engagement
the count would not consent to pass the po and the venetians refused to accept him on any other condition seeing no other method of arrangement than that each should make liberal concessions the florentines induced the count to cross the river
would be compelled to proceed and that the evil apprehended by the florentines would be averted to the venetians on the other hand they averred that this private letter was sufficiently binding and therefore they ought to be content
for if they could save the count from breaking with his father in law it was well to do so and that it could be of no advantage either to themselves or the venetians to publish it without some manifest necessity it was thus determined that the count should pass into lombardy
and having taken uzzano and raised bastions about lucca to restrain in her inhabitants placed the management of the siege in the hands of the commissaries crossed the apennines and proceeded to reggio when the venetians
alarmed at his progress and in order to discover his intentions insisted upon his immediately crossing the po and joining the other forces the count refused compliance and many mutual recriminations took place between him and andrea
but found him indisposed to do so for the duke having been informed that out of regard to him he had refused to cross the po thought that by this means he might also save the lucchese
and begged the count to endeavor to effect an accommodation between the florentines and the lucchese including himself in it if he were able declaring at the same time the promised marriage should be solemnized whenever he thought proper
the prospect of this connection had great influence with the count for as the duke had no sons it gave him hope of becoming sovereign of milan for this reason he gradually abated his exertions in the war
for they found their expedition against lucca frustrated and trembled for the safety of their own territories if ever the count and the duke should enter into a mutual alliance to induce the venetians to retain the count in the command
cosmo de medici went to venice hoping his influence would prevail with them and discussed the subject at great length before the senate pointing out the condition of the italian states the disposition of their armies and the great preponderance possessed by the duke
and that of the italians and thought themselves able at all events to provide for their own defense that it was not their custom to pay soldiers for serving others that as the florentines had used the count's services they must pay him themselves
it therefore seemed necessary to curb his insolence and not allow it to increase till it became incorrigible and that if the florentines from fear or any other motive wished to preserve his friendship they must pay him themselves cosmo returned
that any trivial accident would have been sufficient to determine his course as indeed shortly happened the count had left his territories in la marca to the care of il furlano one of his principal condottieri
who was so far influenced by the duke as to take command under him and quit the count's service this circumstance caused the latter to lay aside every idea but that of his own safety and to come to agreement with the duke
and so convinced them of the necessity of this that seeing no better course to adopt they complied in april fourteen thirty eight by which treaty the lucchese retained their liberty and the florentines monte carlo and a few other fortresses
at the decease of his son in law held the borgo san sepolcro and other fortresses of that district and while niccolo lived governed them in his name claiming them as his daughter's portion
he refused to give them up to the pope who demanded them as property held of the church and who upon his refusal sent the patriarch with forces to take possession of them the count finding himself unable to sustain the attack offered them to the florentines
who declined them but the pope having returned to florence they interceded with him in the count's behalf difficulties arising the patriarch attacked the casentino took prato vecchio and romena and offered them also to the florentines
who refused them likewise unless the pope would consent they should restore them to the count to which after much hesitation he acceded on condition that the florentines should prevail with the count di poppi to restore the borgo to him
which had been commenced long ago as to enable them to perform divine service in it requested his holiness to consecrate it to this the pontiff willingly agreed and the florentines to exhibit the wealth of the city and the splendor of the edifice and do greater honor to the pope
erected a platform from santa maria novella where he resided to the cathedral he was about to consecrate six feet in height and twelve feet wide covered with rich drapery for the accommodation of the pontiff and his court
upon which they proceeded to the building accompanied by those civic magistrates and other officers who were appointed to take part in the procession the usual ceremonies of consecration having been completed the pope to show his affection for the city
conferred the honor of knighthood upon giuliano davanzati their gonfalonier of justice and a citizen of the highest reputation and the signory not to appear less gracious than the pope granted to the new created knight
the government of pisa for one year there were at that time certain differences between the roman and the greek churches which prevented perfect conformity in divine service and at the last council of bale
the prelates of the western church having spoken at great length upon the subject it was resolved that efforts should be made to bring the emperor and the greek prelates to the council at bale to endeavor to reconcile the greek church with the roman
assembled at bale came to venice
this the traders did when they invented the chinook lingo for use over british columbia alaska and the northwest territory so with the lingo of the kroo boys of africa the pigeon english of the far east
and the beche de mer of the westerly portion of the south seas this latter is often called pigeon english but pigeon english it certainly is not to show how totally different it is mention need be made only of the fact that the classic piecee
you go top side catchee one piecee king had the steward been a new hibridean or a solomon islander the command would have been hey you fella boy
belong you along deck bring m me fella one big fella marster belong black man it was the first white men who ventured through melanesia after
the sandalwood traders the pearl hunters and the labour recruiters in the solomons for instance scores of languages and dialects are spoken unhappy the trader who tried to learn them all for in the next group to which he might wander he would find
was the product of conditions and circumstances function precedes organ
preceded beche de mer english beche de mer was purely fortuitous but it was fortuitous in the deterministic way also from the fact that out of the need the lingo arose beche de mer english is a splendid argument for the esperanto enthusiasts
a primitive vocabulary means primitive expression thus the continuance of rain is expressed as rain he stop sun he come up cannot possibly be misunderstood
while the phrase structure itself can be used without mental exertion in ten thousand different ways as for instance a native who desires to tell you that there are fish in the water and who says fish he stop
i wanted two or three pairs of the large clam shells measuring three feet across but i did not want the meat inside
kai kai is the polynesian for food meat eating and to eat
or by the polynesian westward drift walk about is a quaint phrase thus if one orders a solomon sailor to put a tackle on a boom he will suggest that fella boom he walk about too much
and if the said sailor asks for shore liberty he will state that it is his desire to walk about or if said sailor be seasick he will explain his condition by stating belly belong me walk about too much
thus if a native is asked the distance to a certain village his answer will be one of these four close up long way little bit long way big bit or long way too much
long way too much does not mean that one cannot walk to the village it means that he will have to walk farther than if the village were a long way big bit gammon is to lie to exaggerate to joke mary is a woman
any woman is a mary all women are marys doubtlessly the first dim white adventurer whimsically called a native woman mary and of similar birth
sing sing is a song the native christian does not think of god calling for adam in the garden of eden in the natives mind god sings out for adam savvee or catchee
it was not until he showed me a handful of hens eggs that i understood his meaning my word as an exclamation with a thousand significances
a paddle a sweep or an oar is called washee and washee is also the verb here is a letter dictated by one peter a native trader at santa anna and addressed to his employer
harry the schooner captain started to write the letter but was stopped by peter at the end of the second sentence thereafter the letter runs in peters own words for peter was afraid that harry gammoned too much and he wanted the straight story of his needs to go to headquarters
santa anna trader peter has worked twelve months for your firm and has not received any pay yet
at this point peter began dictation harry he gammon along him all the time too much i like him six tin biscuit four bag rice twenty four tin bullamacow
me savvee look out along boat some place me go man he no good he kai kai along me
made a practice of introducing seeds plants and domestic animals amongst the natives
they thought he was giving the name of the breed and from that day to this beef on the hoof and beef in the tin is called bullamacow a solomon islander cannot say fence so in beche de mer it becomes fennis
store is sittore and box is bokkis just now the fashion in chests which are known as boxes is to have a bell arrangement on the lock so that the box cannot be opened without sounding an alarm
a box so equipped is not spoken of as a mere box but as the bokkis belong bell fright is the beche de mer for fear
me fright along you too much or the native may be fright along storm or wild bush or haunted places cross covers every form of anger a man may be cross at one when he is feeling only petulant
or he may be cross when he is seeking to chop off your head and make a stew out of you
he was clad in all kinds of gay and sportive garments on his head was a top hat he possessed a trade box full of calico beads porpoise teeth and tobacco hardly was the anchor down when the villagers were on board
no belong me was the answer then why in jericho do you let him take the box the captain demanded indignantly quoth the recruit me speak along him say bokkis he stop
gods wrath when he sent the flood was merely a case of being cross along mankind what name is the great interrogation of beche de mer it all depends on how it is uttered it may mean what is your business
imagine the predicament of the germans on the plantations of bougainville island who are compelled to learn beche de mer english in order to handle the native labourers it is to them an unscientific polyglot and there are no text books by which to study it
and short cuts of a language that has no grammar and no dictionary some years ago large numbers of solomon islanders were recruited to labour on the sugar plantations of queensland a missionary urged one of the labourers who was a convert
he chose for his subject the fall of man and the address he gave became a classic in all australasia it proceeded somewhat in the following manner altogether you boy belong solomons you no savvee white man me fella me savvee him
me fella me savvee talk along white man
god big fella marster belong white man him fella he make m altogether god big fella marster belong white man he make m big fella garden he good fella too much along garden plenty yam he stop plenty cocoanut
he make m one fella man and put m along garden belong him he call m this fella man adam he name belong him he put him this fella man adam along garden and he speak this fella garden he belong you
head belong him god say what name me no savvee what name this fella adam he want
me fella me savvee him fella adam him want m mary so he make adam he go asleep he take one fella bone belong him and he make m one fella mary along bone he call him this fella mary eve
eve she come along adam and she speak more good you me two fella we eat m this fella apple
and eve she speak what name you no like m me
so these two fella they go eat m when they finish eat m my word they fright like hell and they go hide along scrub and god he come walk about along garden and he sing out adam adam he no speak
he too much fright my word and god he sing out adam and adam he speak you call m me god he speak me call m you too much adam he speak me sleep strong fella too much
and god he speak you been eat m this fella apple adam he speak no me no been eat m god he speak
and on two occasions proved capable of furnishing juice for the search light the storage batteries worked four or five times in the course of two years the fourteen foot launch was rumoured to work at times but it invariably broke down whenever i stepped on board
but the snark sailed it was the only way she could get anywhere she sailed for two years and never touched rock reef nor shoal she had no inside ballast her iron keel weighed five tons but her deep draught and high freeboard made her very stiff
she steered easily and she could run day and night without steering close by full and by and with the wind abeam
she steered herself within two points and with the wind almost astern she required scarcely three points for self steering
as it was partly built she cost four times what she ought to have cost the snark was born unfortunately she was libelled in san francisco had her cheques protested as fraudulent in hawaii and was fined for breach of quarantine in the solomons
to save themselves the newspapers could not tell the truth about her when i discharged an incompetent captain they said i had beaten him to a pulp when one young man returned home to continue at college it was reported that i was a regular wolf larsen
but neither of us was seriously maimed the voyage was our idea of a good time i built the snark and paid for it and for all expenses i contracted to write thirty five thousand words descriptive of the trip for a magazine which was to pay me the same rate i received for stories written at home
promptly the magazine advertised that it was sending me especially around the world for itself it was a wealthy magazine and every man who had business dealings with the snark charged three prices because forsooth the magazine could afford it
down in the uttermost south sea isle this myth obtained and i paid accordingly to this day everybody believes that the magazine paid for everything and that i made a fortune out of the voyage
it is hard after such advertising to hammer it into the human understanding that the whole voyage was done for the fun of it i went to australia to go into hospital where i spent five weeks i spent five months miserably sick in hotels
with seven dead and dying skins peeling off at the same time there were times when my toe nails in twenty four hours grew as thick as they were long after filing them off inside another twenty four hours they were as thick as before
the australian specialists agreed that the malady was non parasitic and that therefore it must be nervous it did not mend and it was impossible for me to continue the voyage the only way i could have continued it would have been by being lashed in my bunk
also i said to myself that while there were many boats and many voyages i had but one pair of hands and one set of toe nails still further i reasoned that in my own climate of california i had always maintained a stable nervous equilibrium
so back i came since my return i have completely recovered
effects of tropical light on white men then i knew later i met colonel woodruff and learned that he had been similarly afflicted himself an army surgeon
they know not what it goes they know not why without the use of drugs merely by living in the wholesome california climate my silvery skin vanished the only hope the doctors had held out to me was a spontaneous cure
and such a cure was mine a last word the test of the voyage it is easy enough for me or any man to say that it was enjoyable but there is a better witness the one woman who made it from beginning to end
nineteen eleven footnotes
mate down with fever ngora ngora sunday march fifteenth nineteen o eight at daybreak found that the boy bagua had died during the night on dysentery he was about fourteen days sick at sunset
second anchor ready lasting one hour and thirty minutes at sea monday march sixteenth nineteen o eight set course for sikiana at four p m wind broke off heavy squalls during the night
at sea wednesday march eighteenth nineteen o eight big sea lee rail under water all the time ship under reefed mainsail staysail and inner jib skipper and three men dysentery mate fever
at sea thursday march nineteenth nineteen o eight too thick to see anything
turned back from sikiana squalls all day with heavy rain and sea skipper and best part of crew on dysentery mate fever and so day by day with the majority of all on board prostrated the eugenies log goes on
smoking in the restoration period the indian weed withered quite green at noon cut down at night shows thy decay all flesh is hay thus think then drink tobacco
that had long been absent from english life the following song in praise of tobacco taken from a collection which was printed in sixteen sixty is touched with the spirit of the time though it is really founded on and to no small extent taken from
some verses in praise of tobacco written by samuel rowlands in his knave of clubs sixteen eleven to feed on flesh is gluttony it maketh men fat like swine but is not he a frugal man
that on a leaf can dine he needs no linnen for to foul his fingers ends to wipe that has his kitchin in a box and roast meat in a pipe the cause wherefore few rich men's sons
prove disputants in schools is that their fathers fed on flesh and they begat fat fools this fulsome feeding cloggs the brain and doth the stomach choak but he's a brave spark that can dine with one light dish
of smoak there is nothing to show that king charles smoked nor what his personal attitude towards tobacco may have been his majesty was pleased however in a letter to cambridge university
officially to condemn smoking by parsons as at the same time he condemned the practice of wig wearing and of sermon reading by the clergy but the royal frown was without effect wigs soon covered nearly every clerical head from the bench of bishops downwards
and it is very doubtful indeed whether a single parson put his pipe out
at lambeth palace one sunday in february sixteen seventy two john eachard the author of the famous book or tract on the contempt of the clergy sixteen seventy which macaulay turned to such account dined with archbishop sheldon
drink and smoak if the restored king did not himself smoke tobacco was far from unknown at the palace of whitehall we get a curious glimpse of one aspect of life there in the picture which lilly the notorious astrologer
paints in his story of his arrest in january sixteen sixty one he was taken to whitehall at night and kept in a large room with some sixty other prisoners till daylight when he was transferred to the guardroom which he says i thought to be hell
some therein were sleeping others swearing others smoaking tobacco in the chimney of the room i believe there was two bushels of broken tobacco pipes almost half one load of ashes what would the king's grandfather the author of the counterblaste have said
but the practice can never have been common tobacco was still the symbol of good fellowship
winstanley who was an enemy of what he called this heathenish weed and who thought the folly of smoking might never have spread so much if stringent means of prevention had been exercised yet had to declare in sixteen sixty that
tobacco it self is by few taken now as medicinal it is grown a good fellow and fallen from a physician to a complement he's no good fellow that's without burnt pipes tobacco and his tinder box
within the lid was a picture of the restored king
while on the inside of the bottom of the box was a representation of oliver cromwell leaning against a post
and about his neck a halter tied to the tree while beside him was pictured the devil wide mouthed another form of memorial tobacco box is described in an advertisement in the london gazette of september fifteenth sixteen eighty seven
this was a silver box which had either been taken out of the bull's head tavern cheapside or left in a hackney coach it was ingraved on the lid with a coat of arms et cetera and a medal of charles the first fastened to the inside of the lid and engraved on the inside to
jacob smith it doth belong at the black lyon in high holborn date august sixteen seventy one smokers of the period were often curious in tobacco boxes
mister richard stapley gentleman of twineham sussex whose diary is full of curious information was presented in sixteen ninety one by his friend mister john hill with a tobacco box made of tortoise seven years earlier stapley had sold to hill
the rest of the value of the box he noted i freely forgave him for writing at our first commission for me and for copying of answers and ye like in our law concerns
and i had his steel box with the bargain and full of smoake
in december sixteen eighty five for
in sixteen fifty six and again in sixteen sixty two
and the squire the cheaper virginian at the annual parish feast held at saint bride's fleet street london on may twenty fourth sixteen sixty six
this too was doubtless virginian or colonial tobacco the north elmham church accounts norfolk
butter cheese bread cakes beere and tobacco and tobacco pipes at the goeing of the rounds of the towne on the occasion of a similar perambulation of the parish boundaries in seventeen fourteen fifteen
as the price of a pound of tobacco these entries and many others of similar import
mayoral and other and smoking was made a particular feature of the lord mayor's show of sixteen seventy two a contemporary pamphleteer says that in the show of that year were two extreme great giants each of them at least fifteen foot high that do sit
and are drawn by horses in two several chariots moving talking and taking tobacco as they ride along to the great admiration and delight of all the spectators among the guests at a wedding in london in sixteen eighty three were the lord mayor sheriff and aldermen of the city
the lord chief justice the afterwards notorious jeffreys and other bigwigs
taking tobacco and talking much beneath the gravity of judges who had but a day or two before condemned mister algernon sidney
although smoking was general among parsons yet attacks on tobacco were occasionally heard from pulpits a lancashire preacher named thomas jollie who was one of the ministers ejected from church livings by the act of uniformity
has left a manuscript diary relating to his religious work in it under date sixteen eighty seven he mentions that he had spoken against the inordinate affection to and the immoderate use of tobacco which did caus much trouble in some of my hearers
and some reformation did follow he then goes on to record two remarkable examples of such reformation examples he says which did stirr me up in that case more than ordinary the one i had from my reverend brother mister robert whittaker
who could not follow his calling without his pipe in his mouth but that text isaiah fifty five two coming into his mind hee layd aside his taking of tobacco the other instance was of a profane person living nigh haslingdon who was but poor
and took up his time in the trade of smoking and also spent what should reliev his poor family this man dreamed that he was taking tobacco
the morning hee fell to his old cours notwithstanding thinking it was but a dream but when hee came to take his pipe hee had such an apprehension that the devill did indeed stand by him and doe the office as hee dreamed that hee was struck speechless for a time and when hee came to himself
hee threw his tobacco in the fire and his pipes at the walls resolving never to meddle more with it soe much money as was formerly wasted by the week in to serving his family afterward weekly
as a preservative from contagion at times of plague hearne the antiquary writing early in seventeen twenty one said that he had been told that in the great plague of london of sixteen sixty five
none of those who kept tobacconists shops suffered from it and this belief no doubt enhanced the medical reputation of the weed i have also seen it stated that during the cholera epidemics of eighteen thirty one eighteen forty nine and eighteen sixty six not one london tobacconist died from that disease
but good authority for the statement seems to be lacking hutton in his history of derby says that when that town was visited by the plague in sixteen sixty five that at the headless cross the market people having their mouths primed with tobacco as a preservative
brought their provisions it was observed that this cruel affliction never attempted the premises of a tobacconist a tanner or a shoemaker whatever ground there may have been for the belief in the prophylactic effect of smoking
howell in one of his familiar letters dated january first sixteen forty six says that the smoke of tobacco is one of the wholesomest sents that is against all contagious airs for it overmasters all other smells
it hath singular and contrary effects it is good to warm one being cold and will cool one being hot all ages all sexes all constitutions young and old men and women the sanguine the cholerick the melancholy the phlegmatick
take it without any manifest inconvenience it quencheth thirst and yet will make one more able and fit to drink it abates hunger and yet will get one a good stomach it is agreeable with mirth or sadness with feasting and with fasting
it hath an offensive smell to some and is more desirable than any perfume to others that it is a most excellent preservative both experience and reason do teach it corrects the air by fumigation and it avoids corrupt humours by salivation
for when one takes it either by chewing it in the leaf or smoaking it in the pipe
and from thence rising up to the mouth of the tobacconist as to the helme of a sublimatory are voided and spitten out when plague was abroad even children were compelled to smoke
at the time of the dreadful visitation of sixteen sixty five all the boys at eton were obliged to smoke in school every morning one of these juvenile smokers a certain tom rogers
years afterwards declared to hearne the oxford antiquary that he never was whipped so much in his life as he was one morning for not smoking times have changed at eton since this anti tobacconist martyr received his whipping
and that at a stated hour each morning lessons were laid aside and masters and scholars alike produced their pipes and proceeded to smoke tobacco but i know of no authority for this wider statement it seems to have grown out of hearne's record of the practice at eton
and the words lord have mercy upon us chalked upon the doors he felt so ill at ease
which considering his proficiency in the arts of good fellowship is perhaps a little surprising
never had the distemper at all but lived about twenty years after it and was sexton of the parish to the time of his death
never used any preservative against the infection
when excavations were in progress early in nineteen o one preparatory to the construction of kingsway and aldwych they included the removal of bodies from the burying grounds of saint clement danes
by those whose office it was to bury the dead these pipes have been dug up from time to time in numbers so large that one antiquary mister h syer cuming has ventured to infer that almost every person who ventured from home invoked the protection of tobacco
these seventeenth century pipes were largely made in holland of pipe clay imported from england to the disgust and loss of english pipe makers in sixteen sixty three the company of tobacco pipe makers
petitioned parliament to forbid the export of tobacco pipe clay since by the manufacture of pipes in holland their trade is much damaged further they asked for the confirmation of their charter of government so as to empower them to regulate abuses
as many persons engage in the trade without licence the company's request was granted
and their threatened ruin because cooks bakers and ale house keepers and others make pipes but so unskilfully that they are brought into disesteem they request to be comprehended in the statute of labourers of five elizabeth
so that none may follow the trade who have not been apprentices seven years tobacco pipe making was a flourishing industry at this period and throughout the seventeenth and following century in most of the chief provincial towns and cities
as well as in london old english clays says mister t p cooper are exceedingly interesting as most of them are branded with the maker's initials monograms and designs were stamped or moulded upon the bowls and on the stems
but more generally upon the spur or flat heel of the pipe many pipes display on the heels various forms of lines hatched and milled which were perhaps the earliest marks of identification adopted by the pipe makers
in a careful examination of the monograms we are able to identify the makers of certain pipes found in quantities at various places by reference to the freeman and burgess rolls and parish registers during the latter half of the seventeenth century english pipes
were presented by colonists in america to the indians they subsequently became valuable as objects of barter or part purchase value in exchange for land in sixteen seventy seven one hundred and twenty pipes and one hundred jew's harps were given for a strip of country near timber creek
in new jersey william penn the founder of pennsylvania purchased a tract of land and three hundred pipes were included in the articles given in the exchange the french traveller sorbiere who visited london in sixteen sixty three
declared that the english were naturally lazy and spent half their time in taking tobacco they smoked after meals he observed and conversed for a long time there is scarce a day passes he wrote but a tradesman goes to the ale house or tavern to smoke with some of his friends
and therefore public houses are numerous here and business goes on but slowly in the shops but curiously enough he makes no mention of coffee houses a little later they were too common and too much frequented to be overlooked
an english writer on thrift in sixteen seventy six said that it was customary for a mechanic tradesman to go to the coffee house or ale house in the morning to drink his morning's draught and there he would spend twopence
and consume an hour in smoking and talking spending several hours of the evening in similar fashion country gentlemen smoked just as much as town mechanics and tradesmen in sixteen eighty eight hervey afterwards earl of bristol
wrote to mister thomas cullum of hawsted place
a later cullum sir john
and in describing hawsted place which was rebuilt about fifteen seventy says that there was a small apartment called the smoking room a name he says it acquired probably soon after it was built
as long as it stood i should like to know on what authority sir john cullum could have made the assertion that the room was called the smoking room from so early a date as the end of the sixteenth century no mention in print of a smoking room has been found for the purposes of the oxford dictionary
who loves to tell of his early meetings with ben jonson and other literary heroes of a bygone day while all the beau monde as my daughter says are with us in the drawing room you have none but ill bred witless drunkards with you in your smoking room
as mister oldwit himself in another scene of the same play says to his friends we'll into my smoking room and sport about a brimmer there was probably some excuse for his wife's remark
these country smoking rooms were known in later days as stone parlours the floor being flagged for safety's sake and the stone parlour in many a squire's house was the scene of much conviviality including no doubt abundant smoking
opened a new field for the victories of tobacco the first house was opened in saint michael's alley cornhill in sixteen fifty two others soon followed and in a short time the new beverage had captured the town and coffee houses had been opened in every direction
they sold many things besides coffee and served a variety of purposes but primarily they were temples of talk and good fellowship
to reduce bulges in a metal powder flask fill it up with indian corn or dry peas of any other sort of hard grain then pour water into it and screw down the lid tightly
the grain will swell at first slowly and then very rapidly and the flask will resume its former dimensions or burst if it is not watched peas do not begin to swell for a couple of hours or more powder horn to make
saw off the required length from an ox's horn flatten it somewhat by heat see horn fit a wooden bottom into it caulk it well and sew raw hide round the edge to keep all tight the mouth must be secured by a plug
which may be hollowed to make a charger pieces of cane of large diameter and old gunpowder canisters sewn up in hide make useful powder flasks percussion caps
caps may be carried very conveniently by means of a ring with two dozen nipple shaped beads made of some metal strung upon it each bead being intended to be covered by a percussion cap
without this contrivance to keep caps free from sand crumbs and dirt yet always at hand when required i can confidently recommend it though as it is old fashioned and not well suited for sportsmen in england it is rarely to be met with
spring cap holders are i am sure too delicate for rough travel to protect caps from the rain before stalking or watching at night in rainy weather wax or grease the edge of the cap as it rests on the nipple
it will thus become proof against water and damp air some persons carry a piece of grease with them when shooting in wet weather and with it they smear the top of the nipple after each loading before putting on the fresh cap
it is said that the grease does not prevent the full action of the cap upon the powder a sportsman has recommended to me a couple of well marked caps into the heads of which small wads of cork have been fitted
he uses them for loaded guns that are to be laid by for some hours or days a broad leaf wrapped loosely round the lock of a gun will protect it during a heavy shower
on account of its elasticity and lightness a little binding with waxed thread may be put on as shown in the sketch to prevent the quill from splitting wadding
some birds nests are excellent for the purpose i am told that a dry hide will not serve as materials for wads flints
the best stones to choose for making gun flints are those that are not irregular in shape they should have when broken a greasy lustre and be particularly smooth and fine grained
the colour is of no importance but it should be uniform in the same lump and the more transparent the stones the better gun flints are made with a hammer and a chisel of steel that is not hardened
the stone is chipped by the hammer alone into pieces of the required thickness which are fashioned by being laid upon the fixed chisel and hammered against it
to make one gun flint gunpowder to carry gunpowder wrap it up in flannel or leather not in paper cotton or linen because these will catch fire or smoulder like tinder whilst the former will do neither
the one nor the other gunpowder carried in a goat skin bag travels very safely mister gregory carried his in the middle of his flour
during his north australian expedition had a tin of gunpowder in the middle of it to make gunpowder it is difficult to make good gunpowder
every peasant manufactures it for himself
take one pounds of charcoal one pounds of sulphur
with one stone on another just as travellers usually make meal or grind coffee
which is well shaken about and in this way the grains run each other smooth the fine dust that is then found mixed with the grains must be winnowed away lastly the grains are dried recapitulation
pound the ingredients separately
mix them three add a little water and knead the mass four press it five
and then proceed as already described
light woods that give a porous charcoal are the best as poplar alder lime horse chestnut willow hazel nut and elder it should be made with the greatest care and used as soon as possible afterwards
it is the most important ingredient in gunpowder sulphur the lumps must be melted over a gentle fire
flower of sulphur is quite pure saltpetre dissolve the saltpetre that you wish to purify in an equal measure of boiling water a cupful of one to a cupful of the other
it is also found copiously on the ground in many places in saltpans or simply as an effloresence rubbish such as old mud huts and mortar generally abounds with it
it is made by the action of the air on the potash contained in the earths the taste which is that of gunpowder is the best test of its presence to extract it pour hot water on the mass then evaporate and purify
it must not be forgotten that when rockets are charged with the composition a hollow tube must be left down their middle blue fire
two parts nitre three parts sulphur three parts zinc bengal fire
two parts sulphur one part antimony bullets sportsmen fresh from england and acknowledged as good shots at home begin by shooting vilely with balls at large game
for the latter penetrate much more deeply and break bones instead of flattening against them a mixture of very little tin or pewter which is lead and tin with lead hardens it
we read of sportsmen melting up their spoons and dishes for this purpose a little quicksilver has the same effect sir samuel baker who is one of the most experienced sportsmen
latterly used a mixture of nine tenths lead and one tenth quicksilver for his bullets he says this is superior to all other mixtures for that purpose as it combines hardness with extra weight
the lead must be melted in a pot by itself to a red heat and the proportion of quicksilver must be added a ladleful at a time and stirred quickly with a piece of iron just in sufficient quantity to make three or four bullets
if the quicksilver is subjected to red heat in the large leadpot it will evaporate proper alloy or spelter had best be ordered at a gun maker's shop and taken from england instead of lead different alloys of spelter
vary considerably in their degree of hardness and therefore more than one specimen should be tried shape of bullets round iron bullets are worthless except at very close quarters on account of the lightness of the metal
for the resistance of the air checks their force extremely whether elongated iron bullets would succeed remains to be tried some savages as for instance those of timor when in want of bullets use stones two or three inches long
some good sportsmen insist on the advantage for shooting at very close quarters of cleaving a conical bullet nearly down to its base into four parts these partly separate and make a fearful wound
when it strikes it acts like chain shot bullets to carry bullets should be carried sewn up in their patches for the convenience of loading and they should not fit too tight
a few may be carried bare for the sake of rapid loading recovering bullets when ammunition is scarce make a practice of recovering the bullets that may have been shot into a beast if they are of spelter
they will be found to have been very little knocked out of shape and may often be used again without recasting shot and slugs travellers frequently omit to take enough shot which is a great mistake as birds are always to be found
and the more pellets the more execution if birds are to be killed for stuffing dust shot will also be wanted otherwise it is undoubtedly better to take only one size of shot
the shot are sorted by sieves
and pour it down the gun then take a bullet wet out of your mouth and drop it into the barrel using no ramrod the wet will cake the bullet pretty firmly in its right place firing in firing do not bring the gun to your shoulder
is one of comparative steadiness and is therefore the proper instant for pulling the trigger on water boat shooting a landing net should be taken in the boat as colonel hawker well advises
to pick up the dead birds as they float on the water while the boat passes quickly by them shooting over water when shooting from a river bank without boat or dog take a long light string with a stick tied to one end of it
the other being held in the hand by throwing the stick beyond the floating bird it can gradually be drawn in the stick should be one and a half or two feet long two inches in diameter and notched at either end
and attached to the hand line by a couple of strings each six feet long tied round either notch thus the hand line terminates in a triangle see the figure i have given of a rude stirrup the two sides of which are of string
with the stick for a base a stout stick of this kind can be thrown to a great distance either it may be heaved as a sailor's deep sea lead or it may be whirled round the head and then let fly night shooting
tie a band of white paper round the muzzle of the gun behind the sight mister andersson who has had very great experience ties the paper not round the smooth barrel but over the sight and all and if the sight does not happen to be a large one
he ties a piece of thick string round the barrel or uses other similar contrivance to tilt up the fore end of the paper by this means the paper is not entirely lost sight of at the moment when the aim is being taken
mister andersson also pinches the paper into a ridge along the middle of the gun to ensure a more defined foresight nocturnal animals
there are a large number of night feeding animals upon whose flesh a traveller might easily support himself but of whose existence he would have few indications by daylight observation only the following remarks of professor owen
it prefers the early morning dawn or the short twilight and above all the bright moonlight nights with regard to most of the other australian forms of marsupial animals they are most strictly nocturnal
so that if a traveller were not aware of that peculiarity he might fancy himself traversing a country destitute of the mammalian grade of animal life if however after a weary day's journey he could be awakened
were to be met with in places where there was not the slightest appearance of them in the daytime battues in sweden where hundreds of people are marshalled each man has a number and the number is chalked upon his hat
scarecrows a string with feathers tied to it at intervals like the tail of a boy's kite will scare most animals of the deer tribe by their fluttering and in want of a sufficient force of men passes may be closed by this contrivance
viz pieces of canvas of half the height of a man painted in glaring colours and left to flutter from a line mister lloyd tells us of a peasant who when walking without a gun saw a glutton up in a tree
he at once took off his hat and coat and rigged out a scarecrow the counterpart of himself which he fixed close by for the purpose of frightening the beast from coming down he then went leisurely home to fetch his gun
this notable expedient succeeded perfectly stalking horses artificial a stalking horse or cow is made by cutting out a piece of strong canvas into the shape of the animal and painting it properly
loops are sewn in different places through which sticks are passed to stretch the curves into shape a stake planted in the ground serves as a buttress to support the apparatus at a proper height
they are said to enter into the spirit of the thing and to show wonderful craft walking round and round the object in narrowing circles and stopping to graze unconcernedly on witnessing the least sign of alarm
oxen are taught to obey a touch on the horn the common but cruel way of training them is to hammer and batter the horns for hours together
pan hunting used at salt licks pan hunting is a method of hunting deer at night an iron pan attached to a long stick serving as a handle is carried in the left hand over the left shoulder
forming a fork on which to rest the rifle when firing the pan is filled with burning pine knots which being saturated with turpentine shed a brilliant and constant light all around
shining into the eyes of any deer that may come in that direction and making them look like two balls of fire the effect is most curious to those unaccumstomed to it the distance between the eyes of the deer as he approaches appears gradually to increase
is far more easily avoided than is usually supposed the way the spanish bull fighters play with the bull is well known any man can avoid a mere headlong charge even the speed of a racer
does not exceed thirty miles an hour or four times the speed of a man the speed of an ordinary horse is not more than twenty four miles an hour now even the fastest wild beast is unable to catch an ordinary horse
by dodging to one side or other of a bush few animals turn if the rush be unsuccessful the buffalo is an exception he regularly hunts a man and is therefore peculiarly dangerous
unthinking persons talk of the fearful rapidity of a lion or tiger's spring it is not rapid at all it is a slow movement as must be evident from the following consideration no wild animal can leap ten yards
and they all make a high trajectory in their leaps now think of the speed of a ball thrown or rather pitched with just sufficient force to be caught by a person ten yards off it is a mere nothing the catcher can play with it as he likes
he has even time to turn after it if thrown wide but the speed of a springing animal is undeniably the same as that of a ball thrown so as to make a flight of equal length and height in the air the corollary to all this is that if charged
you must keep cool and watchful and your chance of escape is far greater than non sportsmen would imagine the blow of the free paw is far swifter than the bound dogs kept at bay a correspondent assures me
that a dog flying at a man may be successfully repelled by means of a stout stick held horizontally a hand at each end and used to thrust the dog backwards over by meeting him across the throat or breast
if followed by a blow on the nose as the brute is falling the result will be sooner attained a watch dog usually desists from flying at a stranger when he seats himself quietly on the ground like ulysses
the dog then contents himself with barking and keeping guard until his master arrives hiding game in hiding game from birds of prey brush it over and they will seldom find it out birds cannot smell well but they have keen eyes
see scarecrows tying up your horse you may tie your horse on a bare plain to the horns of an animal that you have shot while you are skinning him but it is better to hobble the horse with a stirrup leather see shooting horse
division of game some rules are necessary in these matters to avoid disputes especially between whites and natives and therefore the custom of the country must be attended to but it is a very general and convenient rule
it must however be understood that the man who gave the first wound should not thenceforward withdraw from the chase if he does so his claim is lost in america the skin belongs to the first shot the carcase is divided equally among the whole party
it is convenient to sink a large barrel into the flat marsh or mud as a dry place to stand or sit in when waiting for the birds to come a lady suggests to me that if the sportsman took a bottle of hot water to put under his feet
it would be a great comfort to him and in this i quite agree i would take a keg of hot water when about it
i killed several crocodiles by digging pits on the sand islands and sleeping a part of the night in them a dry shred of palm branch the colour of the sand round the hole formed a screen to put the gun through their flesh was most excellent eating
half way between meat and fish i had it several times the difficulty of shooting them was that the falcons and spurwing plovers would hover round the pit when the crocodiles invariably took to the water their sight and hearing were good
but if the ground be hard sprinkle sand over it in order to show the tracks more clearly it is related in the apocrypha that the prophet daniel did this when he wished to learn who it really was who every night consumed the meat
which was placed before the idol of bel and which the idol itself was supposed to eat he thus discovered that the priests and their families had a secret door by which they entered the temple and convinced the king of the matter by showing him their footprints
carrying game to carry small game as fallow deer make a long slit with your knife between the back sinew and the bone of both of the hind legs cut a thick pole of wood and a stout wooden skewer eight inches long
in animals whose back sinew is not very prominent it is best to cross the legs as above and to lash them together always take the bowels out of game before carrying it it is so much weight saved
having first performed an incision between the bone and the sinews with the couteau de chasse according to colonial usage cumming's life in south africa
he cut away the flesh from the bones in one piece without separating the limbs so as to leave suspended from the tree merely the skeleton of the deer this it appeared was the turkish fashion in use upon long journeys
in order to relieve travellers from the useless burden of bones huc's tartary see also the section on heavy weights to raise and carry especially mister wyndham's plan to float carcases of game across a river
sir s baker recommends stripping off the skin of the animal as though it were intended to make a water skin of it putting a stone up the neck end of the skin thus forming a water tight sack open at one end only
all the flesh is now to be cut off the bones and packed into the sack which is then to be inflated and secured by tying up the open end the skin of a large antelope thus inflated will not only float the whole of the flesh
but will also support several swimmers to carry ivory on pack animals the north african traders use nets slinging two large teeth on each side of an ass small teeth are wrapped up in skins and secured with rope mungo park
setting a gun as a spring gun general remarks the string that goes across the pathway should be dark coloured and so fine that if the beast struggles against it it should break rather than cause injury to the gun i must however add
being set with success for large beasts of prey i have never known of injury occurring to the gun the height of the muzzle should be properly arranged with regard to the height of the expected animal thus the heart of a hyena is the height of a man's knee above the ground
the bottom of the lever stick is tied to the trigger and the top of it to a long fine dark coloured string which is passed through the empty ramrod tubes
to the outer side over the comb and let the long end of the lever rest against the stake the pressure of the hammer will keep the lever steady against the stake to prevent the lower end of the stake flying out from the pressure of the lever on the upper part
place a log or stone against the foot an animal pushing against the black string draws the upper end of the stake towards the muzzle until the lever is disengaged and releases the hammer in laying the long arm of the lever against the stake
and enable the levers to disengage without entangling the carcase or live bait must be hedged round and means adopted to guide the leopard across the string by running out a short hedge on one side in this case
and some four inches from the line of fire the breast than catches the string and the push releases the hammer when the muzzle is in line with the chest on this principle two or more guns can be set slightly varying in elevation
to allow of one barrel at least being effective bow and arrow set for beasts the chinese have some equivalent contrivance with bows and arrows m huc tells us that a simply constructed machine is sold in the shops
by which when sprung a number of poisoned arrows are fired off in succession
they use spring guns and used to have spring bows in sweden and in many other countries knives hunting knife a great hunting knife is a useless encumbrance no old sportsman or traveller cares to encumber himself with one
if a traveller wants a pocket knife full of all kinds of tools he had best order a very light one of two and three quarters inches long in a tortoise shell handle without the usual turnscrew at the end it should have a light picker to shut over its back
this will act as a strike light and a file also if its under surface be properly roughened underneath the picker there should be a small triangular borer for making holes in leather and a gimlet
the front of the knife should contain a long narrow pen blade of soft steel a cobbler's awl slightly bent and a packing needle with a large eye to push thongs and twine through holes in leather between the tortoise shell part of the handle
and the metal frame of the knife should be a space to contain three flat thin pieces of steel turning on the same pivot the ends of these are to be ground to form turnscrews of brass instruments when this excellent contrivance is used
it must be opened out like the letter t the foot of which represents the turnscrew in use and the horizontal part represents the other two turnscrews which serve as the handle it may be thought advisable to add a button hook a corkscrew and a large blade
but that is not my recommendation because it increases the size of the knife and makes it heavy now a heavy knife is apt to be laid by and not to be at hand when wanted while a light knife is a constant pocket companion
otherwise he holds it between his teeth substitutes for knives steel is no doubt vastly better than iron but it is not essential for the ordinary purposes of life indeed most ancient civilized nations
had nothing better than iron any bit of good iron may be heated as hot as the camp fire admits hammered flat lashed into a handle and sharpened on a stone a fragment of flint or obsidian may be made fast to a handle
opera glasses are invaluable as night glasses for by their aid the sight of man is raised nearly to a par with that of night roving animals therefore a sportsman would find them of great service when watching for game at night
although the first two chapters of this new history have been devoted to the fortunes and personal attributes of lady eustace the historian begs his readers not to believe
is to assume the dignity of heroine in the forthcoming pages
poor lizzie greystock as men double her own age and who had known her as a forward capricious spoilt child in her father's lifetime would still call her she did so many things made so many efforts
caused so much suffering to others and suffered so much herself throughout the scenes with which we are about to deal that the story can hardly be told without giving her that prominence of place
nor does the chronicler dare to put forward lucy morris as a heroine
shall stalk in among us at some considerably later period of the narrative
and have worked himself up to a state of mind fit for the reception of noble acting and noble speaking in the meantime let it be understood that poor little lucy morris was a governess in the house of old lady fawn
when our beautiful young widow established herself in mount street lady eustace and lucy morris had known each other for many years had indeed been children together
there having been some old family friendship between the greystocks and the morrises when the admiral's wife was living lucy had as a little girl of eight or nine been her guest she had often been a guest at the deanery
when lady eustace had gone down to the bishop's palace at bobsborough in order that an heir to the eustaces might be born under an auspicious roof lucy morris was with the greystocks
lucy who was a year younger than lizzie had at that time been an orphan for the last four years she too had been left penniless
the dean and the dean's wife and the dean's daughters had been her best friends but they were not friends on whom she could be dependent they were in no way connected with her by blood
therefore at the age of eighteen she had gone out to be a child's governess then old lady fawn had heard of her virtues lady fawn who had seven unmarried daughters running down from seven and twenty to thirteen
and lucy morris had been hired to teach english french german and something of music to the two youngest miss fawns during that visit at the deanery when the heir of the eustaces was being born
lucy was undergoing a sort of probation for the fawn establishment the proposed engagement with lady fawn was thought to be a great thing for her lady fawn was known as a miracle of virtue benevolence and persistency
every good quality that she possessed was so marked as to be worthy of being expressed with a capital but her virtues
no getting over them no perverting them with follies or even exaggerations when she heard of the excellencies of miss morris from the dean's wife
she expressed herself willing to take lucy into her house on special conditions she must be able to teach music up to a certain point then it's all over said lucy to the dean with her pretty smile
that smile which caused all the old and middle aged men to fall in love with her it's not over at all said the dean you've got four months
and he shall teach you so lucy went to bobsborough and was afterwards accepted by lady fawn while she was at the deanery there sprung up a renewed friendship between her and lizzie
who was quick and unconsciously capable of reading that book to which we alluded in a previous chapter was somewhat afraid of the rich widow and when lizzie talked to her of their old childish days and quoted poetry and spoke of things romantic
as she was much given to do lucy felt that the metal did not ring true and then lizzie had an ugly habit of abusing all her other friends behind their backs
now lucy did not like to hear the greystocks abused and would say so that's all very well you little minx lizzie would say playfully
this one was frank greystock the barrister of frank greystock some special but let it be hoped very short description must be given by and by for the present it will be sufficient to declare that
during that short easter holiday which he spent at his father's house in bobsborough he found lucy morris to be a most agreeable companion remember her position said missus dean to her son
her position well and what is her position mother you know what i mean frank she is as sweet a girl as ever lived and a perfect lady but with a governess unless you mean to marry her
you should be more careful than with another girl because you may do her such a world of mischief
if lady fawn knew that she had an admirer lady fawn would not let her come into her house then lady fawn is an idiot
of course she will be admired who can hinder it you know what i mean frank yes i do well i don't suppose i can afford to marry lucy morris at any rate mother i will never say a word to raise a hope in her
if it would be a hope of course it would be a hope i don't know that at all but i will never say any such word to her
oh frank it would be impossible said missus dean missus dean was a very good woman but
or at least on behalf of this special child and she did think it would be very nice if frank would marry an heiress this however was a long time ago nearly two years ago
the youngest fawn girl was not yet fifteen and it was understood that lucy was to remain with the fawns for some quite indefinite time to come
and it was quite probable that lucy might be transferred lady fawn fully appreciated her treasure and was and ever had been conscientiously anxious to make lucy's life happy
but she thought that a governess should not be desirous of marrying at any rate till a somewhat advanced period of life a governess if she were given to falling in love could hardly perform her duties in life no doubt
not to be a governess but a young lady free from the embarrassing necessity of earning bread free to have a lover and a husband
lady fawn could talk excellent sense on this subject by the hour and always admitted that
she was very fond of lucy morris and treated her dependent with affectionate consideration but she did not approve of visits from mister frank greystock lucy blushing up to the eyes
had once declared that she desired to have no personal visitors at lady fawn's house but that as regarded her own friendships the matter was one for her own bosom
lady fawn had said we understand each other so perfectly and you are so good that i am quite sure everything will be as it ought to be lady fawn lived down at richmond all the year through
in a large old fashioned house with a large old fashioned garden called fawn court after that speech of hers to lucy frank greystock did not call again at fawn court for many months
but lady eustace with her pretty little pair of grey ponies would sometimes drive down to richmond to see her dear little old friend lucy and her visits were allowed
lady fawn had expressed an opinion among her daughters that she did not see any harm in lady eustace
but then lady fawn hated lady linlithgow as only two old women can hate each other and she had not heard the story of the diamond necklace lucy morris certainly was a treasure a treasure though no heroine
she was a sweetly social genial little human being whose presence in the house was ever felt to be like sunshine she was never forward but never bashful she was always open to familiar intercourse without ever putting herself forward
and she could do the same with any child she was an active mindful bright energetic little thing to whom no work ever came amiss she had catalogued the library
she had planned the new flower garden
when the girls got up charades they had to acknowledge that everything depended on miss morris they were good natured plain unattractive girls who spoke of her to her face as one who could easily do anything to which she might put her hand
lady fawn did really love her lord fawn the eldest son a young man of about thirty five a peer of parliament and an under secretary of state
of whom his mother and sisters stood in great awe consulted her frequently and made no secret of his friendship the mother knew her awful son well and was afraid of nothing wrong in that direction lord fawn had suffered a disappointment in love
but he had consoled himself with blue books and mastered his passion by incessant attendance at the india board the lady he had loved had been rich and lord fawn was poor but nevertheless he had mastered his passion
there was no fear that his feelings towards the governess would become too warm nor was it likely that miss morris should encounter danger in regard to him it was quite an understood thing in the family that lord fawn must marry money
lucy morris was indeed a treasure no brighter face ever looked into another to seek sympathy there either in mirth or woe
though it were but for a moment lord fawn was pompous slow dull and careful but even he had given way to it at once
of course lucy would be made over to the hittaways whose mother lived in warwick square and whose father was chairman of the board of civil appeals the hittaways were the only grandchildren with whom lady fawn had as yet been blessed
and of course lucy must go to the hittaways she was but a little thing and it cannot be said of her as of lady eustace that she was a beauty the charm of her face consisted in the peculiar watery brightness of her eyes
in the corners of which it would always seem that a diamond of a tear was lurking whenever any matter of excitement was afoot her light brown hair was soft and smooth and pretty as hair it was very well but it had no speciality
her mouth was somewhat large but full of ever varying expression her forehead was low and broad with prominent temples on which it was her habit to clasp tightly her little outstretched fingers as she sat listening to you
of listeners she was the very best for she would always be saying a word or two just to help you
there are listeners who show by their mode of listening that they listen as a duty not because they are interested lucy morris was not such a one she would take up your subject whatever it was and make it her own
there was forward just then a question as to whether the sawab of mygawb should have twenty millions of rupees paid to him and be placed upon a throne or whether he should be kept in prison all his life
the british world generally could not be made to interest itself about the sawab but lucy positively mastered the subject and almost got lord fawn into a difficulty by persuading him to stand up against his chief on behalf of the injured prince
what else can be said of her face or personal appearance that will interest a reader when she smiled
and when she laughed that little nose which was not as well shaped a nose as it might have been would almost change its shape and cock itself up in its mirth her hands were very thin and long and so were her feet
by no means models as were those of her friend lady eustace she was a little thin quick graceful creature whom it was impossible that you should see without wishing to have near you a most unselfish little creature she was but one
who had a well formed idea of her own identity she was quite resolved to be somebody among her fellow creatures not somebody in the way of marrying a lord or a rich man or somebody in the way of being a beauty or somebody as a wit but
somebody as having a purpose and a use in life she was the humblest little thing in the world in regard to any possible putting of herself forward or needful putting of herself back and yet to herself nobody was her superior
or the wit which nature had given her
she coveted no man's possessions and no woman's but she was minded to hold by her own of present advantages or disadvantages whether she had the one or suffered from the other she thought not at all
it was her fault that she had nothing of feminine vanity but
to persuade to obtain belief sympathy and co operation not for any result personal to herself but because by obtaining these things she could be effective in the object then before her be it what it might
one other thing may be told of her she had given her heart for good and all as she owned to herself to frank greystock she had owned to herself that it was so and had owned to herself that nothing could come of it
frank was becoming a man of mark but was becoming a man of mark without much money of all men he was the last who could afford to marry a governess and then moreover he had never said a word to make her think that he loved her
lady fawn however had not complained but just said a word a word in season how good is it lucy did not much regard the word spoken to herself
otherwise how should it have been that he never came again that she did not like in herself she regarded this passion of hers as a healthy man regards the loss of a leg or an arm
it is a great nuisance a loss that maims the whole life a misfortune to be much regretted but because a leg is gone everything is not gone a man with a wooden leg may stump about through much action and may enjoy the keenest pleasures of humanity
he has his eyes left to him and his ears and his intellect he will not break his heart for the loss of that leg and so it was with lucy morris she would still stump about and be very active
eyes ears and intellect were left to her looking at her position she told herself that a happy love could hardly have been her lot in life lady fawn she thought was right a governess should make up her mind to do without a lover
when on one dull dark afternoon as she was thinking of all this
she went to work upon it immediately as she read it
if the privilege of pleading it could be given to him the spring had come round with may and the london butterflies
and during six months frank greystock had not been at fawn court then one day
miss macnulty while miss macnulty was being honoured by lady fawn
have you seen frank lately said lady eustace referring to her cousin the barrister not for ever so long said lucy with her cheeriest smile he is not going to prove a false knight
asked lady eustace in her lowest whisper i don't know that mister greystock is much given to knighthood at all said lucy unless it is to being made sir francis by his party nonsense my dear as if i didn't know
she is not an old cat lizzie and i won't hear her called so
then she has interfered said lady eustace
asked the man oh i'm going out into the world to try and get a place said the lad will you come and serve me said the man oh yes just as soon you as any one else said the lad
well you'll have a good place with me said the man for you'll only have to keep me company and do nothing at all else beside so the lad stopped with him and lived on the fat of the land both in meat and drink and had little or nothing to do
but he never saw a living soul in that man's house so one day the man said now i'm going off for eight days
but you must not go into any one of these four rooms here if you do i'll take your life when i come back no said the lad he'd be sure not to do that
but when the man had been gone three or four days the lad couldn't bear it any longer but went into the first room and when he got inside he looked round but he saw nothing but a shelf over the door where a bramble bush rod lay
well indeed thought the lad a pretty thing to forbid my seeing this so when the eight days were out the man came home and the first thing he said was you haven't been into any of these rooms of course
and said he should be away fourteen days but before he went he forbade the lad to go into any of the rooms he had not been in before as for that he had been in he might go into that and welcome well it was the same story over again
except that the lad stood out eight days before he went in in this room too he saw nothing but a shelf over the door and a big stone and a pitcher of water on it well after all there's not much to be afraid of my seeing here thought the lad
no the lad hadn't done anything of the kind well well i'll soon see that said the man and when he saw the lad had been in them after all he said ah now i'll spare you no longer now you must lose your life
but the lad begged and prayed for himself again and so this time too he got off with stripes though he got as many as his skin would carry but when he got sound and well again he led just as easy a life as ever
and he and the man were just as good friends so a while after the man was to take another journey and now he said he should be away three weeks and he forbade the lad anew to go into the third room
for if he went in there he might just make up his mind at once to lose his life then after fourteen days the lad couldn't bear it but crept into the room but he saw nothing at all in there but a trap door on the floor
and when he lifted it up and looked down there stood a great copper cauldron which bubbled up and boiled away down there but he saw no fire under it well i should just like to know if it's hot thought the lad
and struck his finger down into the broth and when he pulled it out again lo it was gilded all over so the lad scraped and scrubbed it but the gilding wouldn't go off so he bound a piece of rag round it and when the man came back
he only gave him such a thrashing that he had to keep his bed three days after that the man took down a pot from the wall and rubbed him over with some stuff out of it and so the lad was as sound and fresh as ever
with a manger of red hot coals at his head and a truss of hay at his tail then the lad thought this all wrong so he changed them about and put the hay at his head then said the horse since you are so good at heart as to let me have some food
when he came back the horse told him to pull off his clothes and get into the cauldron which stood and boiled in the other room and bathe himself there if i do thought the lad i shall look an awful fright but for all that he did as he was told
and then we'll be off as fast as we can so when the lad had got on the horse off they went at such a rate he couldn't at all tell how they went but when he had ridden awhile the horse said i think i hear a noise look round can you see anything yes
there are ever so many coming after us at least a score said the lad aye aye that's the troll coming said the horse now he's after us with his pack so they rode on a while until those who followed were close behind them
now throw your bramble bush rod behind you over your shoulder said the horse but mind you throw it a good way off my back so the lad did that and all at once a close thick bramblewood grew up behind them
but at last the horse said again look behind you can you see anything now yes ever so many said the lad as many as would fill a large church aye aye that's the troll and his crew
and while the troll did that
all the pains he took he still spilt one drop on the horse's flank so it became a great deep lake and because of that one drop the horse found himself far out in it but still he swam safe to land
but when the trolls came to the lake they lay down to drink it dry and so they swilled and swilled till they burst
said the horse so when they had gone a long long while they came to a green patch in a wood now strip off all your arms said the horse and only put on your ragged clothes and take the saddle off me and let me loose
and as soon as ever he put on the wig of moss he became so ugly and pale and miserable to look at no one would have known him again then he went up to the king's palace and begged first for leave to be in the kitchen and bring in wood and water for the cook
cried the cook away with you to the coachman you're best fit to go and clean the stable but when the coachman begged him to take his wig off he got the same answer and he wouldn't have him either you'd best go down to the gardener said he
you're best fit to go about and dig in the garden so he got leave to be with the gardener but none of the other servants would sleep with him and so he had to sleep by himself under the steps of the summer house it stood upon beams and had a high staircase
and then he was so handsome it was a joy to look at him so the princess saw from her window the lovely gardener's boy and thought she had never seen any one so handsome then she asked the gardener why he lay out there under the steps
since it's her will i suppose i must go so when he was to go up the steps in the evening he tramped and stamped so on the way that they had to beg him to tread softly lest the king should come to know it
lay down and began to snore at once then the princess said to her maid go gently and just pull his wig off
and he got so wroth he almost took the lad's life he didn't do that however but he threw him into the prison tower and as for his daughter he shut her up in her own room whence she never got leave to stir day or night
all that she begged and all that she prayed for the lad and herself was no good the king was only more wroth than ever some time after came a war and uproar in the land
and the king had to take up arms against another king who wished to take the kingdom from him
and begged the king to let him have an old worn out suit
there he sat and dug his spurs in and cried gee up gee up to his hack and all the rest had their fun out of this and laughed and made game of the lad as they rode past him
and the king was in a sad pinch but no sooner had the lad rushed into the thick of it than the foe was beaten back and put to flight the king and his men wondered and wondered who it could be who had come to help them
no only just look they said there the fool sits still the next day when they went out to battle they saw the lad sitting there still so they laughed again and made game of him but as soon as ever they had ridden by
the lad ran again to the lime tree and all happened as on the first day every one wondered what strange champion it could be that had helped them but no one got so near him as to say a word to him
and no one guessed it could be the lad that's easy to understand so when they went home at night and saw the lad still sitting there on his hack they burst out laughing at him again and one of them shot an arrow at him and hit him in the leg
so he began to shriek and to bewail twas enough to break one's heart and so the king threw his pocket handkerchief to him to bind his wound when they went out to battle the third day the lad still sat there
he said to his hack nay nay said the king's men if he won't stick there till he's starved to death and then they rode on and laughed at him till they were fit to fall from their horses when they were gone he ran again to the lime
and came up to the battle just in the very nick of time this day he slew the enemy's king and then the war was over at once when the battle was over the king caught sight of his handkerchief which the strange warrior had bound round his leg
no one can believe it here comes my own true love she said then he took the pot of ointment and rubbed himself on the leg and after that he rubbed all the wounded and so they all got well again in a moment
for he was now a king and had got half the kingdom spoke to him and asked what ailed him the horse said now i have helped you on and now i won't live any longer so just take the sword and cut my head off
no i'll do nothing of the kind said the young king but you shall have all you want and rest all your life well said the horse if you don't do as i tell you see if i don't take your life somehow
so the king had to do what he asked but when he swung the sword and was to cut his head off he was so sorry he turned away his face for he would not see the stroke fall but as soon as ever he had cut off the head
in the perusal of the following pages your sensibility will be most severely tried ah what were the misfortunes i had before experienced and which i have already related to you to the one i am now going to inform you of
the death of my father and my mother and my husband though almost more than my gentle nature could support were trifles in comparison to the misfortune i am now proceeding to relate
but by supposing that the bodily exertions i had undergone in my repeated fits of frenzy had so effectually circulated and warmed my blood as to make me proof against the chilling damps of night
whereas sophia lying totally inactive on the ground must have been exposed to all their severity i was most seriously alarmed by her illness which trifling as it may appear to you
a certain instinctive sensibility whispered me would in the end be fatal to her alas my fears were but too fully justified she grew gradually worse and i daily became more alarmed for her
amidst all my lamentations for her and violent you may suppose they were i yet received some consolation in the reflection of my having paid every attention to her that could be offered in her illness
i had wept over her every day had bathed her sweet face with my tears and had pressed her fair hands continually in mine my beloved laura
if too often repeated and at improper seasons prove destructive to your constitution my fate will teach you this i die a martyr to my greif for the loss of augustus
one fatal swoon has cost me my life beware of swoons dear laura a frenzy fit is not one quarter so pernicious it is an exercise to the body
it was her dieing advice to her afflicted laura who has ever most faithfully adhered to it after having attended my lamented freind to her early grave i immediately tho late at night
that i could not distinguish the number of my fellow travellers i could only perceive that they were many regardless however of anything concerning them i gave myself up to my own sad reflections
a general silence prevailed a silence which was by nothing interrupted but by the loud and repeated snores of one of the party what an illiterate villain must that man be thought i to myself
what a total want of delicate refinement must he have who can thus shock our senses by such a brutal noise he must i am certain be capable of every bad action there is no crime too black for such a character
imagine my surprise at finding myself thus seated amongst my old acquaintance great as was my astonishment it was yet increased when on looking out of windows i beheld the husband of philippa with philippa by his side
on the coachbox and when on looking behind i beheld philander and gustavus in the basket oh heavens exclaimed i is it possible that i should so unexpectedly be surrounded by my nearest relations and connections
these words roused the rest of the party and every eye was directed to the corner in which i sat oh my isabel continued i throwing myself across lady dorothea into her arms
receive once more to your bosom the unfortunate laura alas when we last parted in the vale of usk i was happy in being united to the best of edwards
i had then a father and a mother and had never known misfortunes but now deprived of every freind but you what interrupted augusta is my brother dead then tell us i intreat you
what is become of him yes cold and insensible nymph replied i that luckless swain your brother is no more and you may now glory in being the heiress of sir edward's fortune
although i had always despised her from the day i had overheard her conversation with my edward yet in civility i complied with hers and sir edward's intreaties that i would inform them of the whole melancholy affair
they were greatly shocked even the obdurate heart of sir edward and the insensible one of augusta were touched with sorrow by the unhappy tale at the request of your mother
and barbarous treatment of us in obliging us to leave the house of our lamentations on the loss of edward and augustus and finally of the melancholy death of my beloved companion
faultless as my conduct had certainly been during the whole course of my late misfortunes and adventures she pretended to find fault with my behaviour in many of the situations in which i had been placed
i paid little attention to what she said and desired her to satisfy my curiosity by informing me how she came there instead of wounding my spotless reputation with unjustifiable reproaches
i applied to augusta for the same information respecting herself sir edward and lady dorothea she told me that having a considerable taste for the beauties of nature
her curiosity to behold the delightful scenes it exhibited in that part of the world had been so much raised by gilpin's tour to the highlands that she had prevailed on her father to undertake a tour to scotland and had persuaded lady dorothea to accompany them
that they had arrived at edinburgh a few days before and from thence had made daily excursions into the country around in the stage coach they were then in from one of which excursions they were at that time returning
my next enquiries were concerning philippa and her husband the latter of whom i learned having spent all her fortune had recourse for subsistence to the talent in which he had always most excelled namely driving
and that having sold every thing which belonged to them except their coach
and in order to be removed from any of his former acquaintance had driven it to edinburgh from whence he went to sterling every other day that philippa still retaining her affection for her ungratefull husband had followed him to scotland
and generally accompanied him in his little excursions to sterling it has only been to throw a little money into their pockets continued augusta
for it would certainly have been much more agreable to us to visit the highlands in a postchaise than merely to travel from edinburgh to sterling and from sterling to edinburgh every other day in a crowded and uncomfortable stage
i perfectly agreed with her in her sentiments on the affair and secretly blamed sir edward for thus sacrificing his daughter's pleasure for the sake of a ridiculous old woman whose folly in marrying so young a man ought to be punished
laura letter the fifteenth laura in continuation when we arrived at the town where we were to breakfast i was determined to speak with philander and gustavus and to that purpose as soon as i left the carriage
expressing my fears of the uneasiness of their situation at first they seemed rather confused at my appearance dreading no doubt that i might call them to account for the money which our grandfather had left me and which they had unjustly deprived me of
but finding that i mentioned nothing of the matter they desired me to step into the basket as we might there converse with greater ease accordingly i entered and whilst the rest of the party were devouring green tea and buttered toast
we feasted ourselves in a more refined and sentimental manner by a confidential conversation i informed them of every thing which had befallen me during the course of my life and at my request they related to me every incident of theirs
we are the sons as you already know of the two youngest daughters which lord saint clair had by laurina an italian opera girl our mothers could neither of them exactly ascertain who were our father
but as they had always lived on the principal of it when we were fifteen it was diminished to nine hundred this nine hundred they always kept in a drawer in one of the tables which stood in our common sitting parlour for the convenience of having it always at hand
whether it was from this circumstance of its being easily taken or from a wish of being independant or from an excess of sensibility for which we were always remarkable i cannot now determine
but certain it is that when we had reached our fifteenth year we took the nine hundred pounds and ran away having obtained this prize we were determined to manage it with eoconomy and not to spend it either with folly or extravagance
the fourth to carriages the fifth to horses the sixth to servants the seventh to amusements the eighth to cloathes and the ninth to silver buckles having thus arranged our expences for two months
as it consisted only of the manager his wife and ourselves but there were fewer to pay and the only inconvenience attending it was the scarcity of plays which for want of people to fill the characters we could perform
and philander acted all the rest to say the truth this tragedy was not only the best but the only play that we ever performed and after having acted it all over england and wales we came to scotland to exhibit it over the remainder of great britain
we agreed to endeavour to get something from him by discovering the relationship you know how well it succeeded having obtained the two hundred pounds we instantly left the town leaving our manager and his wife to act macbeth by themselves
and such my dear cousin is our history i thanked the amiable youth for his entertaining narration and after expressing my wishes for their welfare and happiness left them in their little habitation and returned to my other freinds who impatiently expected me
my adventures are now drawing to a close my dearest marianne at least for the present when we arrived at edinburgh sir edward told me that as the widow of his son
i graciously promised that i would but could not help observing that the unsimpathetic baronet offered it more on account of my being the widow of edward than in being the refined and amiable laura
where i have ever since continued and where i can uninterrupted by unmeaning visits indulge in a melancholy solitude my unceasing lamentations for the death of my father my mother my husband and my freind
at the same time married lady dorothea his wishes have been answered philander and gustavus after having raised their reputation by their performances in the theatrical line at edinburgh removed to covent garden
where they still exhibit under the assumed names of luvis and quick philippa has long paid the debt of nature her husband however still continues to drive the stage coach from edinburgh to sterling adeiu my dearest marianne
one day as he ate some while he sat at work the flies collected in such numbers that with one blow he killed forty
one of whom came to the spring to draw water there he found lazarus sleeping and read what was written on his sword then he went back to his people and told them what he had seen and they all advised him to make fellowship with this powerful stranger
so the draken returned to the spring awoke lazarus and said that if it was agreeable to him they should make fellowship together lazarus answered that he was willing
we will no more plague ourselves by carrying water every day i will bring the entire spring home at once and so we shall be freed from this burden but the draken called out on no account herr lazarus else we shall all die of thirst
again the draken sent one of them after him to see what had become of him and when this one asked what he was about lazarus answered i will bring the entire forest home at once so that after that we may have rest
and let you be free and then the draken tore up one tree threw it over his shoulder and so carried it home when they had lived together some time the draken became weary of lazarus and agreed among themselves to kill him
laid it in the place where he usually slept and then hid himself in the night the draken came and each one hit the log a blow with his hatchet till it flew in pieces then they believed their object was gained and they lay down again
thereupon lazarus took the log threw it away and laid himself down in its stead towards dawn he began to groan and when the draken heard that they asked what ailed him to which he made answer
the gnats have stung me horribly this terrified the draken for they believed that lazarus took their blows for gnat stings and they determined at any price to get rid of him next morning therefore
and said that if he would like to go and visit them they would give him a bag of gold to take away with him he agreed willingly to this but asked further that one of the draken should go with him to carry the bag of gold they consented and one was sent with him
when they had come to within a short distance of lazarus's house he said to the draken stop here in the meantime for i must go on in front and tie up my children lest they eat you
and you bring me only one when the draken heard that he made off to the rightabout at once and ran so fast that the fox was dashed in pieces against the stones
when lazarus had got quit of the draken he built himself with their gold a magnificent house
the first building erected for hull house contained an art gallery well lighted for day and evening use and our first exhibit of loaned pictures was opened in june eighteen ninety one by mister and missus barnett of london
it is always pleasant to associate their hearty sympathy with that first exhibit and thus to connect it with their pioneer efforts at toynbee hall to secure for working people the opportunity to know the best art
and with their establishment of the first permanent art gallery in an industrial quarter we took pride in the fact that our first exhibit contained some of the best pictures chicago afforded
and we conscientiously insured them against fire and carefully guarded them by night and day we had five of these exhibits during two years after the gallery was completed two of oil paintings one of old engravings and etchings
one of water colors and one of pictures especially selected for use in the public schools these exhibits were surprisingly well attended and thousands of votes were cast for the most popular pictures
their value to the neighborhood of course had to be determined by each one of us according to the value he attached to beauty and the escape it offers from dreary reality into the realm of the imagination
miss starr always insisted that the arts should receive adequate recognition at hull house and urged that one must always remember the hungry individual soul which without art will have passed unsolaced and unfed
followed by other souls who lack the impulse his should have given the exhibits afforded pathetic evidence that the older immigrants do not expect the solace of art in this country an italian expressed great surprise when he found that we
although americans still liked pictures and said quite naively that he didn't know that americans cared for anything but dollars that looking at pictures was something people only did in italy
the extreme isolation of the italian colony was demonstrated by the fact that he did not know that there was a public art gallery in the city nor any houses in which pictures were regarded as treasures
a greek was much surprised to see a photograph of the acropolis at hull house because he had lived in chicago for thirteen years and had never before met any americans who knew about this foremost glory of the world before he left greece
but although from his fruit stand near one of the large railroad stations he had conversed with many americans and had often tried to lead the conversation back to ancient greece no one had responded and he had at last concluded that
in time even these parties were discontinued as the galleries became better known in all parts of the city and the art institute management did much to make pictures popular
from the first a studio was maintained at hull house which has developed through the changing years under the direction of miss benedict one of the residents who is a member of the faculty in the art institute
buildings on the hull house quadrangle furnish studios for artists who find something of the same spirit in the contiguous italian colony that the french artist is traditionally supposed to discover in his beloved latin quarter
these artists uncover something of the picturesque in the foreign colonies which they have reproduced in painting etching and lithography they find their classes filled not only by young people possessing facility and sometimes talent
but also by older people to whom the studio affords the one opportunity of escape from dreariness a widow with four children who supplemented a very inadequate income by teaching the piano
for six years never missed her weekly painting lesson because it was her one pleasure another woman whose youth and strength had gone into the care of an invalid father poured into her afternoon in the studio once a week
have been used in many an experiment as has a set of beautiful type loaned to hull house by a bibliophile the work of the studio almost imperceptibly merged into the crafts and well within the first decade a shop was opened at hull house
this shop is not merely a school where people are taught and then sent forth to use their teaching in art according to their individual initiative and opportunity but where those who have already been carefully trained may express the best they can in wood or metal
the settlement soon discovers how difficult it is to put a fringe of art on the end of a day spent in a factory we constantly see young people doing overhurried work
wrapping bars of soap in pieces of paper might at least give the pleasure of accuracy and repetition if it could be done at a normal pace but when paid for by the piece
speed becomes the sole requirement and the last suggestion of human interest is taken away in contrast to this the hull house shop affords many examples of the restorative power in the exercise of a genuine craft
a young russian who like too many of his countrymen had made a desperate effort to fit himself for a learned profession and who had almost finished his course in a night law school used to watch constantly the work being done in the metal shop at hull house
one evening in a moment of sudden resolve he took off his coat sat down at one of the benches and began to work obviously as a very clever silversmith he had long concealed his craft because he thought it would hurt his efforts as a lawyer
and because he imagined an office more honorable and more american than a shop as he worked on during his two leisure evenings each week his entire bearing and conversation registered the relief of one who abandons the effort he is not fitted for
and becomes a man on his own feet expressing himself through a familiar and delicate technique miss starr at length found herself quite impatient with her role of lecturer on the arts
beauty and thoroughness are taught to a small number of apprentices from the very first winter concerts which are still continued were given every sunday afternoon in the hull house drawing room and later as the audiences increased in the larger halls
for these we are indebted to musicians from every part of the city mister william tomlins early trained large choruses of adults as his assistants did of children
and the response to all of these showed that while the number of people in our vicinity caring for the best music was not large they constituted a steady and appreciative group
it was in connection with these first choruses that a public spirited citizen of chicago offered a prize for the best labor song competition to be open to the entire country the responses to the offer literally filled three large barrels
and speaking at least for myself as one of the bewildered judges we were more disheartened by their quality than even by their overwhelming bulk apparently the workers of america are not yet ready to sing
although i recall a creditable chorus trained at hull house for a large meeting in sympathy with the anthracite coal strike in which the swinging lines who was it made the coal our god as well as theirs
seemed to relieve the tension of the moment miss eleanor smith the head of the hull house music school who had put the words to music performed the same office for the sweatshop of the yiddish poet
the translation of which presents so graphically the bewilderment and tedium of the new york shop that it might be applied to almost any other machinery industry as the first verse indicates the roaring of the wheels has filled my ears
the clashing and the clamor shut me in myself my soul in chaos disappears i cannot think or feel amid the din
it may be that this plaint explains the lack of labor songs in this period of industrial maladjustment when the worker is overmastered by his very tools in addition to sharing with our neighborhood the best music we could procure
we have conscientiously provided careful musical instruction that at least a few young people might understand those old usages of art that they might master its trade secrets for after all it is only through a careful technique
that artistic ability can express itself and be preserved from the beginning we had classes in music and the hull house music school which is housed in quarters of its own in our quieter court was opened in eighteen ninety three
the school is designed to give a thorough musical instruction to a limited number of children from the first lessons they are taught to compose and to reduce to order the musical suggestions which may come to them
and in this wise the school has sometimes been able to recover the songs of the immigrants through their children some of these folk songs have never been committed to paper
but have survived through the centuries because of a touch of undying poetry which the world has always cherished as in the song of a russian who is digging a post hole and finds his task dull and difficult until he strikes a stratum of red sand
many cases indisputably illustrate this a bohemian girl who in order to earn money for pressing family needs first ruined her voice in a six months constant vaudeville engagement returned to her trade working overtime
in a vain effort to continue the vaudeville income another young girl whom hull house had sent to the high school so long as her parents consented because we realized that a beautiful voice is often unavailable through lack of the informing mind
later extinguished her promise in a tobacco factory a third girl who had supported her little sisters since she was fourteen eagerly used her fine voice for earning money at entertainments held late after her day's work until exposure
and fatigue ruined her health as well as a musician's future a young man whose music loving family gave him every possible opportunity
in the little service held at hull house in his memory when the children sang his composition how sweet is the shepherd's sweet lot it was hard to realize that such an interpretive pastoral could have been produced by one whose childhood
it required but little penetration to see that during the eight years the class of fifteen school children had come together to the music school they had approximately an even chance
could endure the strain of long hours and bad air thus the average human youth with all the sweetness of the common dawn is flung into the vortex of industrial life wherein the everyday tragedy escapes us
save when one of them becomes conspicuously unfortunate twice in one year we were compelled to find the inheritance of this poor child his little kingdom of a forced grave
it has been pointed out many times that art lives by devouring her own offspring and the world has come to justify even that sacrifice
but we are unfortified and unsolaced when we see the children of art devoured not by her but by the uncouth stranger modern industry who needlessly ruthless and brutal to her own children
is quickly fatal to the offspring of the gentler mother and so schools in art for those who go to work at the age when more fortunate young people are still sheltered and educated constantly epitomize one of the haunting problems of life
why do we permit the waste of this most precious human faculty this consummate possession of civilization when we fail to provide the vessel in which it may be treasured
it runs out upon the ground and is irretrievably lost the universal desire for the portrayal of life lying quite outside of personal experience evinces itself in many forms one of the conspicuous features of our neighborhood
as of all industrial quarters is the persistency with which the entire population attends the theater the very first day i saw halsted street a long line of young men and boys stood outside the gallery entrance of the bijou theater
waiting for the sunday matinee to begin at two o'clock although it was only high noon this waiting crowd might have been seen every sunday afternoon during the twenty years which have elapsed since then our first sunday evening in hull house
when a group of small boys sat on our piazza and told us about things around here their talk was all of the theater and of the astonishing things they had seen that afternoon
but quite as it was difficult to discover the habits and purposes of this group of boys because they much preferred talking about the theater to contemplating their own lives so it was all along the line
the young men told us their ambitions in the phrases of stage heroes and the girls so far as their romantic dreams could be shyly put into words possessed no others but those soiled by long use in the melodrama
all of these young people looked upon an afternoon a week in the gallery of a halsted street theater as their one opportunity to see life the sort of melodrama they see there has recently been described as
the ten commandments written in red fire certainly the villain always comes to a violent end and the young and handsome hero is rewarded by marriage with a beautiful girl usually the daughter of a millionaire
but after all that is not a portrayal of the morality of the ten commandments any more than of life itself nevertheless the theater such as it was
appeared to be the one agency which freed the boys and girls from that destructive isolation of those who drag themselves up to maturity by themselves and it gave them a glimpse of that order and beauty into which even the poorest drama
endeavors to restore the bewildering facts of life the most prosaic young people bear testimony to this overmastering desire
a striking illustration of this came to us during our second year's residence on halsted street through an incident in the italian colony where the men have always boasted that they were able to guard their daughters from the dangers of city life
and until evil italians entered the business of the white slave traffic their boast was well founded the first italian girl to go astray known to the residents of hull house
was so fascinated by the stage that on her way home from work she always loitered outside a theater before the enticing posters three months after her elopement with an actor her distracted mother received a picture of her dressed in the men's clothes in which she appeared in vaudeville
her family mourned her as dead and her name was never mentioned among them nor in the entire colony in further illustration of an overmastering desire to see life as portrayed on the stage are two young girls whose sober parents did not approve of the theater
and would allow no money for such foolish purposes in sheer desperation the sisters evolved a plot that one of them would feign a toothache and while she was having her tooth pulled by a neighboring dentist the other would steal the gold crowns from his table
and with the money thus procured they could attend the vaudeville theater every night on their way home from work apparently the pain and wrongdoing did not weigh for a moment against the anticipated pleasure
the plan was carried out to the point of selling the gold crowns to a pawnbroker when the disappointed girls were arrested all this effort to see the play took place in the years before the five cent theaters had become a feature of every crowded city thoroughfare
the eagerness of the penniless children to get into these magic spaces is responsible for an entire crop of petty crimes made more easy because two children are admitted for one nickel at the last performance when the hour is late
and the theater nearly deserted the hull house residents were aghast at the early popularity of these mimic shows and in the days before the inspection of films and the present regulations for the five cent theaters we established at hull house a moving picture show
the successful efforts in this direction by the juvenile protective association however long before the five cent theater was even heard of we had accumulated much testimony as to the power of the drama and we would have been dull indeed
if we had not availed ourselves of the use of the play at hull house not only as an agent of recreation and education but as a vehicle of self expression for the teeming young life all about us
long before the hull house theater was built we had many plays first in the drawing room and later in the gymnasium the young people's clubs never tired of rehearsing and preparing for these dramatic occasions
to reduce to dramatic effects the great days of patriotism and religion at one of our early christmas celebrations longfellow's golden legend was given the actors portraying it with the touch of the miracle play spirit which it reflects
i remember an old blind man who took the part of a shepherd said at the end of the last performance kind heart a name by which he always addressed me it seems to me that i have been waiting all my life to hear some of these things said
i am glad we had so many performances for i think i can remember them to the end it is getting hard for me to listen to reading but the different voices and all made this very plain had he not perhaps made a legitimate demand upon the drama
that it shall express for us that which we have not been able to formulate for ourselves that it shall warm us with a sense of companionship with the experiences of others does not every genuine drama present our relations to each other
which have escaped from the restraining bond of one country into the land of the universal a large colony of greeks near hull house who often feel that their history and classic background are completely ignored by americans
welcome an occasion to present greek plays in the ancient text with expert help in the difficulties of staging and rehearsing a classic play they reproduced the ajax of sophocles upon the hull house stage
it was a genuine triumph to the actors who felt that they were showing forth the glory of greece to ignorant americans
the old church there are certain old fashioned people who find fault with the luxuriousness of our churches and ascribe to the warmth and comfort
which contrast so strongly with the hardships of early times the acknowledged sleepiness of modern congregations for my part i see no necessary connection between discomfort and devotion
my soul at least sympathizes so much with its physical adjunct that when the latter is uncomfortable the former is never quite free and active let me call to remembrance the church my childhood knew
with its capacious square pews in which half the audience turned their backs upon the minister the seats made to rise and fall for the convenience of standing
some with black silk caps to protect their bald heads from the freezing draughts of air from the porchless doors the old women's seats on the opposite side
and the envied position of certain little children who had an extensive prospect through the open pew top within doors and a view of the hay scales and the town pump through the window besides
those windows in a double row with the gallery between how regularly i counted the small panes always forgetting the number to make the same weary task necessary every sunday the singing seats
projecting from the central portion of the gallery furnished me with another hebdomadal study in large gilt letters of antique awkwardness which so impressed themselves on my mind that i see them now
very earnestly i used to gaze at the slender point by which it hung suspended and wished if it must come down that i might make the gilt ornament at the apex resembling a vase turned upside down my prize
the terrors of that dark mysterious cell had little effect on my conduct however as i was not entirely convinced of the existence of any such lynx eyed functionary
but in winter the vast airy space had a peculiar and searching chill no barn could be colder except that the numerous footstoves made some little change in the air during service
and the irreverent way in which he made his descent in view of the assembly after depositing his burden was thus rebuked by an old lady who was always droll and quaint why matthew
when you come down the pulpit stairs of a sunday you throw up your heels like a horse coming out of a stable door older grew the church and colder
and if people then staid at home on sunday afternoons they had a better excuse for doing so than their successors can muster the chorister even was
efforts were made to prevail upon the elderly part of the parish to permit the introduction of stoves with long funnels they scorned the enervating luxury their fathers had worshipped in the cold
and their sons might but ah how degenerate were the descendants of the noble old puritan church goers
the services curtailed to half their proper length yet finding the patience of the listeners all too short the degenerate descendants carried the day however
the most bigoted of their opposers becoming disabled by rheumatism the old sexton resignation to inevitable evils being a lesson he had had much opportunity to learn submitted with a good grace
the stoves were provided and an uncommonly full attendance the next sabbath showed the very general interest the matter had excited how would it seem would any one faint
there was by no means a superabundance of heat
no one could see across the church and the minister loomed up as if in a dense fog all eyes were fountains of tears
at last the old sexton went with a slow and subdued step up to the pulpit and wiping his eyes respectfully inquired in a whisper whether there was not a little too much smoke
this suggestion being very smilingly assented to he proceeded to extinguish the fires and for that day the services were not indebted to artificial warmth to promote their effect
how sad are improvements in places to which our childish recollections cling
how was my heart grieved when the old fashioned meeting house was converted into the modern temple time and decay had rendered the tall spire unsafe
yet its fall by force and premeditated purpose seemed a sacrilege i felt affronted for the huge weathercock reclining sulkily against a fence no more to point his beak to the east with obstinate preference
i mourned over the broad old fashioned dial on which young eyes could discern the time a mile off the old sexton lived to see this change
the beloved minister and many many who sat with trustful and devoted hearts under his teachings are gone to their reward a board from the old pulpit
chapter eighteen samuel went home walking upon air he had found a place for himself and a place for sophie and he had got the reforming of bertie lockman under way truly the church was a great institution
the solution of all the puzzles and problems of life and fortunate was samuel to be so close to the inner life of things then suddenly on a street corner he stopped short a sign had caught his eye
he's a good man even if he is a barkeeper samuel had often found himself thinking of finnegan for it had been altogether against his idea of things that a man so obviously well meaning should be selling liquor
and forgetting that it was time for his dinner he bade good by to sophie and went into the saloon well young feller exclaimed the irishman his face lighting up with pleasure and then seeing the boy's new collar and tie
samuel did not notice this irreverent remark he looked around the place and saw that they were alone then he said very earnestly mister finnegan may i have a few minutes talk with you sure said finnegan perplexed
what is it it's something i've been thinking about very often said samuel you were so kind to me and i saw that you were a good hearted man and so it has always seemed to me too bad
that you should be selling drink the other stared at him gee he said are you going to take me up in your airship mister finnegan said the boy i wish you wouldn't make fun of me
for i'm talking to you out of the bottom of my heart and samuel gazed with so much yearning in his eyes that the man was touched in spite of the absurdity of it go on he said i'll listen
it's wrong to sell liquor think what drink does to men i saw a man drunk the other night and it led to what was almost murder drink makes men cruel and selfish it takes away their self control
it's my trade it's all i know it seems such a terrible trade exclaimed the boy maybe said the other but take notice it ain't a princely one i'm on the job all day and a good part of the night
and standing up all the time and i don't get no holidays either and i only get twelve a week and i've a wife and a new baby so what's a man to do now strange as it may seem
suppose i were to find you some kind of honest work so that you could earn a living would you promise to reform do you mean would i quit callahan's why sure i would ah exclaimed the boy in delight
but it'd have to be a steady job put in the other i can take no chances with the baby that's all right said samuel i'll get you what you want gee young feller exclaimed finnegan do you carry em round in your pockets
but doctor vince asked me to help him and i'm going to tell him about you and so forthwith he made his way to the doctor's house and was ushered into the presence of the unhappy clergyman
he stated his case and the other threw up his hands in despair really he exclaimed this is too much samuel i can't find employment for everyone in lockmanville
i don't think you understand this man wants to lead a decent life and he can't because there's no way for him to earn a living i understand all that samuel
but doctor what's the use of trying to reform men if they're chained in that way there was a pause i'm afraid it's hopeless to explain to you said the clergyman
but you'll have to make up your mind to it samuel there are a great many men in the world who want jobs
yes said the other but that's what professor stewart taught men and you said it was wicked of him um said the doctor taken aback
if finnegan wouldn't be a barkeeper then he and his family would starve and somebody else would survive who was willing to be that bad the boy waited don't you see that doctor vince he persisted
yes i see that said the doctor and you told me that the only way to escape from that was to live for others to serve them and help them and isn't that what i'm trying to do
yes my boy that is so but what can we do why doctor aren't you the head of the church and the people come to you to be taught you must point out these things to them so that there can be a change
i don't know sir i'm groping around and trying to find out but i'm sure of one thing that some people have got too much money why doctor vince there are people right in your church
who have more than they could spend in hundreds of years perhaps so said the other but what harm does that do why that's the reason that so many others have nothing only realize it
right at this very moment there are people starving to death and here in lockmanville they want to work and there is no work for them i could take you to see them sir girls who want a job in mister wygant's cotton mill
there are too many people who need good clothes look at poor sophie for instance
but they haven't money to buy the cloth and samuel sat forward in his excitement yes yes he cried and isn't that just what i said before they have no money because the rich people have it all
there was no reply and after a moment samuel rushed on surely it is selfish of mister wygant to shut poor people out of his mill just because they have no money why couldn't he let them make cloth for themselves
look at what's wasted in a place like master albert's and there's land enough at fairview to raise food for the whole town
and it's used to keep a lot of race horses that nobody ever rides samuel said the clergyman gravely that is true and that is very wrong but what can i do
and samuel stared at him doctor he exclaimed i can't tell you how it hurts me to have you talk to me like that
you told me that we must sacrifice ourselves and help others you said that was our sole duty and i believed you i was ready to go with you and here i am i want to follow you
and you won't lead those words were like a stab the doctor winced visibly and samuel winced also his heart was wrung it hurts me more than i can tell you he cried
but think of the people who are suffering nobody spares them and how can you be silent doctor how can the shepherd of christ be silent while some of his flock are living in luxury and others are starving to death
there was a long pause doctor vince sat rigid clutching the arms of his chair
you are right i will preach on this unemployed question next sunday ah thank you sir thank you exclaimed samuel with tears of gratitude in his eyes
and he took his friend's hand and wrung it then suddenly a new thought came to him
but he couldn't stay away he could not bring himself to believe that he was separated from saint matthew's forever he turned and came back to the church and stood gazing at it choking with his sobs
then as he waited he saw an automobile draw up in front of the side entrance and saw mister wygant step out and enter the sight was like a blow in the face to him
there was the proud rich man defiant and unpunished seated in the place of authority
was turned out of the door a blaze of rebellion flamed up in him no no they should not cast him off he would fight them he would fight to the very end
the church was not their church it was the church of god and he had a right to belong to it and to speak the truth in it too and so
gentlemen he cried i demand a hearing doctor vince sprang to his feet in terror samuel prescott he exclaimed
i have been ordered out of the church proclaimed samuel and i will not submit to it i have spoken the truth and i will not permit the evil doers in saint matthew's to silence me
mister hickman had sprung up boy he commanded leave this room i will not leave the room shouted samuel i demand a hearing from the vestry of this church i have a right to a hearing
i have spoken the truth and nothing but the truth what is the boy talking about demanded another of the vestrymen this was mister hamerton a young lawyer whose pleasant face samuel had often noticed
sprang toward him don't let them turn me out without a hearing he cried boy exclaimed mister hickman i command you to leave this room
i have talked with one of the men who got the money cried samuel there was two thousand dollars paid to ten of the supervisors who is this man cried the other furiously
he told me in confidence
doctor vince you know that i am telling the truth what reason would i have for making it up i have told you samuel exclaimed doctor vince that i would have nothing to do with this matter
i will take any member of this vestry to talk with that man declared the boy anybody can find out about these things if he wants to why mister wygant told me himself that he had paid money to slattery to get franchises
didn't you tell me this very afternoon i told you nothing of the sort declared the man you told me everybody did it that there was no way to help doing it you called it the competition of capital
i submit that this is an outrage exclaimed mister hickman leave this room sir
and they are being robbed and oppressed and are these things to go on forever
but why not sir the guilty men are high in the councils of this church they hold the church up to disgrace before all the world and this is the church of christ sir but yours is not the way to go about it boy
exclaimed mister hamerton who was alarmed because samuel kept looking at him
did not christ drive out the money changers from the temple with whips this was an uncomfortable saying there was a pause after it as if everyone were willing to let his neighbor speak first
are we not taught to follow christ's example doctor vince asked the boy hardly in that sense samuel said the terrified doctor christ was god and we can hardly be expected
ah that is a subterfuge broke in samuel passionately
but i don't believe that he was god in any such sense as that he was a man like you and me he was a poor man who suffered and starved and the rich men of his time despised him and spit upon him and crucified him
here a new member of the vestry entered the arena this was the venerable mister curtis who looked like a statue of the olympian jove boy he said sternly you object to being put out of the church
and yet you confess to being an infidel i may be an infidel mister curtis replied the other quickly but i never paid two hundred dollars to slattery so that the police would let me block the sidewalks of the town
and it was the rich and powerful in the church who did it and he used about them language far more violent than i have ever used woe unto you scribes and pharisees hypocrites he said
woe unto you also you lawyers ye serpents ye generation of vipers
and if he were here tonight he would be on my side and the rich evil doers who sit on this board would cast him out again you have cast him out already you have shut your ears to the cry of the oppressed
you are crucifying him again every day this is outrageous cried mister hickman it is blasphemy it must stop instantly put in mister wygant
and samuel knew that when mister wygant spoke he meant to be obeyed then there is no one here who will hear me he exclaimed mister hamerton won't you help me what do you want us to do demanded mister hamerton
i want the vestry to investigate these charges i want you to find out whether it is true that members of saint matthew's have been corrupting the government of lockmanville and if it is true i want you to drive such men from the church
such men degrade the church and drag it from its mission they are the enemies the church exists to fight are we here to listen to a sermon from this boy shouted mister hickman furiously
then there is no one here who will help me i told you you could accomplish nothing by such behavior leave the room very well then cried the boy wildly
i will go but i tell you i will not give up without a fight i will expose you and denounce you to the world the people shall know you for what you are cowards and hypocrites faithless to your trust
you are the worst of them all you the great lawyer the eminent statesman i have been among the lowest i have been with saloon keepers and criminals with publicans and harlots and thieves
but never yet have i met a man as merciless and as hard as you
you might be the roman soldier who spat in jesus face and with that last thunderbolt samuel turned and went out slamming the door with a terrific bang in the great lawyer's face
for at least a couple of hours samuel paced the streets of lockmanville to let his rage and grief subside and then he went home
and to his astonishment found that sophie stedman had been waiting up for him all this while she listened breathlessly to the story of his evening's adventures then she said i have been trying to do something too
what have you done he asked i went to see little ethel she replied ethel vince he gasped yes said she she is your friend you know and i went to ask her not to let her father turn you off
and what came of it she cried said sophie she was terribly unhappy she said that she knew that you were a good boy and that she would never rest until her father had taken you back
she scolded me she was very angry with me she said i had no right to fill the child's mind with falsehoods about her uncle and she wouldn't listen to me she turned me out of the house
there was a long silence i don't think i did any good at all said sophie in a low voice
the local met in an obscure hall over a grocery shop there were present those whom samuel had met the night before and about a score of others most of them were working men
but there were several who appeared to be well to do shopkeepers and clerks samuel noticed that they all called one another comrade and several of them addressed him thus which gave him a queer feeling
also he noted that there were women present and that one of them presided at the meeting everley made a speech reading samuel's manifesto and telling how it had been given out then he called upon samuel
for the past year i have been urging that the local must make a fight for free speech in this town and it seems to me that the occasion has now come if we do not take up this fight we might just as well give up
that's right cried beggs the old carpenter i took the liberty of ordering circulars continued everley there was no time to be lost and i felt sure that the comrades would back me
i now move that the local take charge of the meeting to morrow evening and that the two thousand circulars i have here be given out secretly to night i second that motion said missus barton
it must be understood added everley that we can't expect help from the papers and our people ought to hear this story as well as the members of the church and then he read the circulars
and the motion was put and carried unanimously now said everley i suggest that the local make this the occasion of a contest for the right to hold street meetings in lockmanville as you know
and that we continue to hold a meeting every night thereafter until we have made good our right samuel could see from the faces of the men what a serious proposition this was to them
everley launched into an impassioned speech the workingmen of the town had lost their last hope in the unions they were suffering from the hard times and now if ever was the time to open their eyes to the remedy
we shall probably have to go several times but if we make up our minds from the beginning we can win we shall have the sympathy of the people and also we can break the conspiracy of silence of the newspapers
that is the thing we must think of said the woman in the chair i am ready to do what i can added the lawyer i will give my services free to defend the speakers or i will be the first man to be arrested
here were poor people people with no more resources than he and at the mercy of the same forces which had been crushing him here was one man who had lost an eye in the glass works and another a railroad brakeman
who was just out of the hospital after losing a leg here were men pale and haggard from hunger men with wives and children dependent upon them yet they were giving their time and their money
he had thought that he was alone that he had all the burdens of humanity upon his own shoulders and now here were people who were ready to hold up his hands
they published many newspapers and magazines and books and they were part of an army of men who were banded together in every civilized nation wherever capitalism had come there men were uniting against it
and every day their power grew there was nothing that could stop them these men had seen the vision of the new time that was coming and there burned in them a fire of conviction
suddenly samuel realized the import of that word comrade which they gave one another they were men bound together by the memory of persecutions and by the presence of ruthless enemies
they knew what they were facing at this moment not only chief mc cullagh with his policemen and their clubs not only the subsidized express with its falsehoods and ridicule
but all the political and business power of the hickmans and wygants they were facing arrest and imprisonment humiliation and disgrace perhaps ruin and starvation
only in this way could they reach the ears of the people comrades the young lawyer was saying every step that has been taken in the progress of humanity has been taken because men have been willing to give their lives
until we have vindicated our rights as american citizens there was a solemn hush when he finished one by one the men and women arose and offered themselves
i have been out of work for four months said one and i have been promised a job next week if i am arrested i know that i will not get it but still i will speak
and i am in wygant's cotton mill said another and i'm not young and when i'm turned out it will not be easy for me but i will help and i too
put in lippman the cigar store keeper my wife can tend the shop there was a general laugh at this and then friedrich bremer sprang up my father has been warned he cried but i will speak also
i think i am going to be a socialist will you let me help no one's help will be refused in a crisis like this said everley we must stand by our guns for if they can crush us this time
it may be years before we can be heard and then somewhere in the hall a voice began to sing others took it up until the walls of the building shook with a mighty chant
listening while they sang hark to the thunder hark to the tramp a myriad army comes an army sprung from a hundred lands speaking a hundred tongues and overhead a portent new
the hope that ye hold on high we come from the fields we come from the forge we come from the land and sea we come in the right of our new born might to set the people free
and now with a dread in our hearts we stand and gaze at the work of the years we have builded a temple with pillars white ye have stained it with blood and tears
and so for the sign of our murdered hopes our blood red banner see we come in the right of our new born might to set the people free tremble oh masters
tremble all who live by others toil we come your dungeon walls to raze your citadel to spoil yours is the power of club and jail yours is the axe and fire
but ours is the hope of human hearts and the strength of the soul's desire ours is the blazing banner sweeping the sky along ours the host the marching host
hark to our battle song chanting of brotherhood chanting of freedom dreaming the world to be
all the eventful scenes of the past and these were all intermingled in the wildest confusion the cannibals beckoned to us from the peak and we landed between the two volcanoes there the body of the dead sailor received us and afterward chased us to the boat
then came snow and volcanic eruptions and we drifted amid icebergs and molten lava until we entered an iron portal and plunged into darkness here there were vast swimming monsters and burning orbs of fire and thunderous cataracts
falling from inconceivable heights and the sweep of immeasurable tides and the circling of infinite whirlpools while in my ears there rang the never ending roar of remorseless waters that came after us with all their waves and billows rolling upon us
it was a dream in which all the material terrors of the past were renewed but these were all as nothing when compared with a certain deep underlying feeling that possessed my soul a sense of loss irretrievable an expectation of impending doom
in the midst of this i awoke it was with a sudden start and i looked all around in speechless bewilderment the first thing of which i was conscious was a great blaze of light light so lately lost and supposed to be lost forever
but now filling all the universe bright brilliant glowing bringing hope and joy and gladness with all the splendor of deep blue skies and the multitudinous laughter of ocean waves that danced and sparkled in the sun
i flung up my arms and laughed aloud then i burst into tears and falling on my knees i thanked the almighty ruler of the skies for this marvellous deliverance rising from my knees i looked around and once more amazement overwhelmed me
i saw a long line of mountains towering up to immeasurable heights their summits covered with eternal ice and snow there the sun blazed low in the sky elevated but a few degrees above the mountain crests
which gleamed in gold and purple under its fiery rays the sun seemed enlarged to unusual dimensions and the mountains ran away on every side like the segment of some infinite circle
which ran up the sides of the mountains till they reached the limits of vegetation and the regions of snow and ice here in all directions there were unmistakable signs of human life the outlines of populous cities and busy towns and hamlets
roads winding far away along the plain or up the mountain sides and mighty works of industry in the shape of massive structures terraced slopes long rows of arches ponderous pyramids and battlemented walls
from the land i turned to the sea i saw before me an expanse of water intensely blue an extent so vast that never before in all my ocean voyages had anything appeared at all comparable with it
out at sea wherever i had been the water had always limited the view the horizon had never seemed far away ships soon sank below it and the visible surface of the earth was thus always contracted but here to my bewilderment
the horizon appeared to be removed to an immeasurable distance and raised high in the air while the waters were prolonged endlessly starting from where i was they went away to inconceivable distances
and the view before me seemed like a watery declivity reaching for a thousand miles till it approached the horizon far up in the sky nor was it any delusion of the senses that caused this unparalleled spectacle
i was familiar with the phenomena of the mirage and knew well that there was nothing of that kind here for the mirage always shows great surfaces of stillness or a regular vibration glassy tides and indistinct distances
brought with it such exhilarating influences that it acted upon me like some reviving cordial from the works of nature i turned to those of man these were visible everywhere on the land
in cities and cultivated fields and mighty constructions on the sea in floating craft which appeared wherever i turned my eyes boats like those of fishermen ships long and low some like galleys propelled by a hundred oars
others provided with one huge square sail which enabled them to run before the wind they were unlike any ships which i had ever seen for neither in the mediterranean nor in chinese waters were there any craft like these
and they reminded me rather of those ancient galleys which i had seen in pictures i was lost in wonder as to where i was and what land this could be to which i had been brought i had not plunged into the interior of the earth
but i had been carried under the mountains and had emerged again into the glad light of the sun could it be possible i thought that agnew's hope had been realized and that i had been carried into the warm regions of the south pacific ocean
yet in the south pacific there could be no place like this no immeasurable expanse of waters no horizon raised mountain high it seemed like a vast basin shaped world for all around me the surface appeared to rise
and i was in what looked like a depression yet i knew that the basin and the depression were an illusion and that this appearance was due to the immense extent of level surface with the environment of lofty mountains i had crossed the antarctic circle
i had been borne onward for an immense distance over all the known surface of the earth no one had ever seen anything like this there were but two places where such an immeasurable plain was possible and those were at the flattened poles
where i was i now knew well i had reached the antarctic pole here the earth was flat an immense level with no roundness to lessen the reach of the horizon but an almost even surface that gave an unimpeded view for hundreds of miles
the subterranean channel had rushed through the mountains and had carried me here here came all the waters of the northern ocean pouring into this vast polar sea perhaps to issue forth from it by some similar passage here then was the south pole
a world by itself and how different from that terrible that iron land on the other side of the mountains not a world of ice and frost but one of beauty and light with a climate that was almost tropical in its warmth
and lands that were covered with the rank luxuriance of a teeming vegetable life i had passed from that outer world to this inner one and the passage was from death unto life from agony and despair to sunlight and splendor and joy
above all in all around me that which most impressed me now was the rich and superabundant life and a warmth of air which made me think of india it was an amazing and an unaccountable thing
and i could only attribute it to the flattening of the poles which brought the surface nearer to the supposed central fires of the earth and therefore created a heat as great as that of the equatorial regions here i found a tropical climate
a land warmed not by the sun but from the earth itself or another cause might be found in the warm ocean currents whatever the true one might be i was utterly unable to form a conjecture but i had no time for such speculations as these
after the first emotions of wonder and admiration had somewhat subsided i began to experience other sensations i began to remember that i had eaten nothing for a length of time that i had no means of calculating
and to look around to see if there was any way of satisfying my hunger the question arose now what was to be done after my recent terrible experience i naturally shrank from again committing myself to the tender mercies of strange tribes
yet further thought and examination showed me that the people of this strange land must be very different from those frightful savages on the other side of the mountains everywhere i beheld the manifest signs of cultivation and civilization
my hunger was beginning to be insupportable i had reached a place where i had to choose between starvation on the one hand or a venture among these people on the other to go back was impossible who could breast those waters in the tremendous subterranean channel
or force his way back through such appalling dangers or if that were possible who could ever hope to breast those mighty currents beyond or work his way amid everlasting ice and immeasurable seas no return was impossible
i had been flung into this world of wonders and here would be my home for the remainder of my days though i could not now imagine whether those days would be passed in peace or in bitter slavery and sorrow yet the decision must be made
and the risk must be run it must be so i must land here venture among these people and trust in that providence which had hitherto sustained me having thus resolved at all hazards to try my fate i rowed in toward the shore
thus far i had seen galleys passing and small boats but they had taken no notice of me for the reason that they were too far away to perceive anything about me that differed from any other boat but now as i rowed i noticed a galley coming down toward me
she seemed to be going in toward the shore at the very point at which i was aiming and her course and mine must soon meet if i continued to row after some hesitation i concluded to make signals to her so as to attract attention
the stem was raised and covered in like a cabin at length i ceased rowing and sat watching her i soon saw that i was noticed but this did not occur till the galley was close by me so close indeed that i thought they would pass without perceiving me
i raised my hands waved them and gave a cry the galley at once stopped a boat was lowered and some men descended and rowed toward me they were men of strange appearance very small in stature and slender in frame
invariably come to a halt holding their breath in a sudden catch of wonder as they pass through the half ruinous gateway which admits to the close of wrychester nowhere else in england is there a fairer prospect of old world peace
there before their eyes set in the centre of a great green sward fringed by tall elms and giant beeches rises the vast fabric of the thirteenth century cathedral its high spire piercing the skies
in which rooks are for ever circling and calling the time worn stone at a little distance delicate as lacework is transformed at different hours of the day into shifting shades of colour varying from grey to purple
the massiveness of the great nave and transepts contrasts impressively with the gradual tapering of the spire rising so high above turret and clerestory that it at last becomes a mere line against the ether in morning as in afternoon
or in evening here is a perpetual atmosphere of rest and not around the great church alone but in the quaint and ancient houses which fence in the close little less old than the mighty mass of stone on which their ivy framed windows look
and the elm shadowed lawn nothing one would think could possibly exist but leisured and pleasant existence even the busy streets of the old city outside the crumbling gateway seem for the moment far off
a long low ceilinged room with oak panelling around its walls and oak beams across its roof a room of old furniture and old pictures and old books its antique atmosphere relieved by great masses of flowers
set here and there in old china bowls through its wide windows the casements of which were thrown wide open there was an inviting prospect of a high edged flower garden and seen in vistas through the trees and shrubberies
but on the garden and into this flower scented room the sun was shining gaily through the trees and making gleams of light on the silver and china on the table and on the faces of the three people who sat around it
of these three two were young and the third was one of those men whose age it is never easy to guess a tall clean shaven bright eyed alert looking man good looking in a clever professional sort of way
a man whom no one could have taken for anything but a member of one of the learned callings in some lights he looked no more than forty a strong light betrayed the fact that his dark hair had a streak of grey in it and was showing a tendency to whiten about the temples
a strong intellectually superior man this scrupulously groomed and well dressed as befitted what he really was a medical practitioner with an excellent connection amongst the exclusive society of a cathedral town
around him hung an undeniable air of content and prosperity as he turned over a pile of letters which stood by his plate or glanced at the morning newspaper which lay at his elbow it was easy to see that he had no cares beyond those of the day
and that they so far as he knew then were not likely to affect him greatly seeing him in these pleasant domestic circumstances at the head of his table with abundant evidences of comfort and refinement and modest luxury about him
any one would have said without hesitation that doctor mark ransford was undeniably one of the fortunate folk of this world the second person of the three was a boy of apparently seventeen
a well built handsome lad of the senior schoolboy type who was devoting himself in business like fashion to two widely differing pursuits one the consumption of eggs and bacon and dry toast
the other the study of a latin textbook which he had propped up in front of him against the old fashioned silver cruet his quick eyes wandered alternately between his book and his plate now and then he muttered a line or two to himself
a girl of nineteen or twenty was the boy's sister each had a wealth of brown hair inclining in the girl's case to a shade that had tints of gold in it each had grey eyes in which there was a mixture of blue each had a bright vivid colour
each was undeniably good looking and eminently healthy no one would have doubted that both had lived a good deal of an open air existence the boy was already muscular and sinewy
the girl looked as if she was well acquainted with the tennis racket and the golf stick nor would any one have made the mistake of thinking that these two were blood relations of the man at the head of the table between them and him there was not the least resemblance of feature
while the boy learnt the last lines of his latin and the doctor turned over the newspaper the girl read a letter evidently from the large sprawling handwriting the missive of some girlish correspondent
she was deep in it when from one of the turrets of the cathedral a bell began to ring at that she glanced at her brother there's martin dick she said you'll have to hurry many a long year before that
they should cause to be rung a bell from its smaller bell tower for three minutes before nine o'clock every morning all the year round
but this bell served to remind young gentlemen going to offices and boys going to school that the hour of their servitude was near and dick bewery without a word bolted half his coffee snatched up his book
grabbed at a cap which lay with more books on a chair close by and vanished through the open window the doctor laughed laid aside his newspaper and handed his cup across the table i don't think you need bother yourself about dick's ever being late mary
he said you are not quite aware of the power of legs that are only seventeen years old dick could get to any given point in just about one fourth of the time that i could for instance moreover he has a cunning knowledge of every short cut in the city
it's the beginning of bad habits oh well said ransford indulgently he's pretty free from anything of that sort you know i haven't even suspected him of smoking yet
that's because he thinks smoking would stop his growth and interfere with his cricket answered mary he would smoke if it weren't for that that's giving him high praise then said ransford you couldn't give him higher
know how to repress his inclinations an excellent thing and most unusual i fancy most people don't he took his refilled cup rose from the table and opened a box of cigarettes which stood on the mantelpiece
and the girl instead of picking up her letter again glanced at him a little doubtfully that reminds me of of something i wanted to say to you she said you're quite right about people not repressing their inclinations i
i wish some people would ransford turned quickly from the hearth and gave her a sharp look beneath which her colour heightened her eyes shifted their gaze away to her letter and she picked it up and began to fold it nervously
putting a quick suggestion of meaning inquiry into his voice bryce he asked the girl nodded her face showing distinct annoyance and dislike before saying more ransford lighted a cigarette
been at it again he said at last since last time twice she answered i didn't like to tell you i've hated to bother you about it but what am i to do i dislike him intensely
i can't tell why but it's there and nothing could ever alter the feeling and though i told him before that it was useless he mentioned it again yesterday at missus folliot's garden party confound his impudence growled ransford
oh well i'll have to settle with him myself it's useless trifling with anything like that i gave him a quiet hint before and since he won't take it all right but what shall you do she asked anxiously not send him away
if he's any decency about him he'll go after what i say to him answered ransford don't you trouble yourself about it i'm not at all keen about him he's a clever enough fellow and a good assistant but i don't like him personally never did
i don't want to think that anything that i say should lose him his situation or whatever you call it she remarked slowly that would seem no need to bother interrupted ransford he'll get another in two minutes so to speak
at least so i was always given to believe nowadays you forget that mister pemberton bryce is what most people would call a very pushing young man said mary if he doesn't get what he wants in this world it won't be for not asking for it
but if you must speak to him and i really think you must will you tell him that he is not going to get me perhaps he'll take it finally from you as my guardian
but i won't have him annoying you and i suppose it has come to annoyance it's very annoying to be asked three times by a man
at any time ever she answered it's irritating all right said ransford quietly i'll speak to him there's going to be no annoyance for you under this roof
the girl gave him a quick glance and ransford turned away from her and picked up his letters thank you she said but there's no need to tell me that because i know it already now i wonder if you'll tell me something more
ransford turned back with a sudden apprehension well he asked brusquely what when are you going to tell me all about dick and myself she asked you promised that you would you know some day
and a whole year's gone by since then and dick's seventeen he won't be satisfied always just to know no more than that our father and mother died when we were very little and that you've been guardian and
all that you have been to us will he now ransford laid down his letters again and thrusting his hands in his pockets squared his shoulders against the mantelpiece don't you think you might wait until you're twenty one he asked
but what has that got to do with it she persisted is there any reason why i shouldn't be told everything she was looking at him with a certain amount of demand and ransford who had always known that some moment of this sort must inevitably come
felt that she was not going to be put off with ordinary excuses he hesitated and she went on speaking you know she continued almost pleadingly we don't know anything at all i never have known
i told you always have told you that he was an early friend of mine a man of business who with your mother died young and i as their friend became guardian to you and dick is is there anything much more that i could tell
there's something i should very much like to know personally she answered after a pause which lasted so long that ransford began to feel uncomfortable under it don't be angry or hurt if i tell you plainly what it is
i'm quite sure it's never even occurred to dick but i'm three years ahead of him it's this have we been dependent on you ransford's face flushed and he turned deliberately to the window
and for a moment stood staring out on his garden and the glimpses of the cathedral and just as deliberately as he had turned away he turned back no he said since you ask me i'll tell you that you've both got money due to you when you're of age
it it's in my hands not a great lot but sufficient to to cover all your expenses education everything when you're twenty one i'll hand over yours when dick's twenty one his
perhaps i ought to have told you all that before but i didn't think it necessary i i dare say i've a tendency to let things slide you've never let things slide about us she replied quickly with a sudden glance which made him turn away again
and i only wanted to know because i'd got an idea that well that we were owing everything to you not from me he exclaimed no that would never be she said but don't you understand i
wanted to know something thank you i won't ask more now i've always meant to tell you a good deal remarked ransford after another pause you see i can scarcely yet realize that you're both growing up
are are you more satisfied now he went on anxiously if not i'm quite satisfied she answered perhaps some day you'll tell me more about our father and mother but never mind even that now you're sure you haven't minded my asking
what i have asked of course not of course not he said hastily i ought to have remembered and but we'll talk again i must get into the surgery and have a word with bryce too
if you could only make him see reason and promise not to offend again she said wouldn't that solve the difficulty ransford shook his head and made no answer he picked up his letters again and went out and down a long stone walled passage
he was alone there when he had shut the door and he relieved his feelings with a deep groan heaven help me if the lad ever insists on the real truth and on having proofs and facts given to him he muttered i shouldn't mind telling her when she's a bit older
but he wouldn't understand as she would anyway thank god i can keep up the pleasant fiction about the money without her ever knowing that i told her a deliberate lie just now but what's in the future
here's one man to be dismissed already and there'll be others and one of them will be the favoured man that man will have to be told and so will she then and my god she doesn't see and mustn't see
that i'm madly in love with her myself she's no idea of it and she shan't have i must must continue to be only the guardian he laughed a little cynically as he laid his letters down on his desk and proceeded to open them
dost thou then see the consequence of all that we have said nay what consequence that absolutely every fortune is good fortune and how can that be said i attend said she since every fortune welcome and unwelcome alike has for its object the reward
or trial of the good and the punishing or amending of the bad every fortune must be good since it is either just or useful the reasoning is exceeding true said i the conclusion so long as i reflect upon the providence and fate of which thou hast taught me
yet with thy leave we will count it among those
because ordinary speech is apt to assert and that frequently that some men's fortune is bad
at thy good pleasure said i that which advantageth thou callest good dost thou not certainly and that which either tries or amends advantageth granted is good then of course
or turn from vice and lay hold on the path of virtue i cannot deny it what of the good fortune which is given as reward of the good do the vulgar adjudge it bad anything but that they deem it to be the best as indeed it is
what then of that which remains which though it is harsh puts the restraint of just punishment on the bad does popular opinion deem it good
observe then if in following popular opinion we have not ended in a conclusion quite paradoxical how so said i
the fortune is in every case good while for those who remain in their wickedness fortune is always utterly bad it is true said i yet no one dare acknowledge it
any more than it becomes a brave soldier to be offended
for the one to win glory for the other to perfect his wisdom hence indeed virtue gets its name because relying on its own efficacy it yieldeth not to adversity and ye who have taken your stand on virtue's steep ascent
it is not for you to be dissolved in delights or enfeebled by pleasure ye close in conflict yea in conflict most sharp with all fortune's vicissitudes lest ye suffer foul fortune to overwhelm or fair fortune to corrupt you
hold the mean with all your strength whatever falls short of this or goes beyond is fraught with scorn of happiness and misses the reward of toil it rests with you to make your fortune what you will verily every harsh seeming fortune unless it either disciplines or amends is punishment
ten years a tedious warfare raged ere ilium's smoking ruins paid
but when heaven's anger asked a life and baffling winds his course withstood the king put off his fatherhood and slew his child with priestly knife when by the cavern's glimmering light his comrades dear odysseus saw in the huge cyclops hideous maw
engulfed he wept the piteous sight but blinded soon and wild with pain in bitter tears and sore annoy for that foul feast's unholy joy grim polyphemus paid again his labours for alcides win a name of glory far and wide
and from the lion reft his skin the foul birds with sure darts he slew the golden fruit he stole in vain the dragon's watch with triple chain from hell's depths cerberus he drew
he fed the wild steeds hydra overcame with fire neath his own waves in shame maimed achelous hid his head huge cacus for his crimes was slain on libya's sands antaeus hurled the shoulders that upheld the world
the great boar's dribbled spume did stain last toil of all his might sustained the ball of heaven nor did he bend beneath this toil his labour's end the prize of heaven's high glory gained brave hearts press on lo heavenward lead
i quite agree said i truly all thy reasonings hold admirably together then said she what value wouldst thou put upon the boon shouldst thou come to the knowledge of the absolute good oh an infinite said i
if only i were so blest as to learn to know god also who is the good yet this will i make clear to thee on truest grounds of reason if only our recent conclusions stand fast they will
have we not shown that those things which most men desire are not true and perfect good precisely for this cause that they differ severally one from another and seeing that one is wanting to another
they cannot bestow full and absolute good but that they become the true good when they are gathered as it were into one form and agency so that that which is independence is likewise power reverence renown
and pleasant delight and unless they are all one and the same they have no claim to be counted among things desirable yes this was clearly proved and cannot in any wise be doubted now
when things are far from being good while they are different but become good as soon as they are one is it not true that these become good by acquiring unity it seems so said i
but dost not thou allow that all which is good is good by participation in goodness it is then thou must on similar grounds admit that unity and goodness are the same
their essence is one and the same there is no denying it now dost thou know said she that all which is abides and subsists so long as it continues one but so soon as it ceases to be one it perishes
and falls to pieces in what way why take animals for example
this is we say a living creature but when this unity is broken by the separation of these two the creature dies and is clearly no longer living
of its members presents a human appearance but if the separation and dispersal of the parts break up the body's unity it ceases to be what it was and if we extend our survey to all other things without doubt it will manifestly appear
well is there aught said she which in so far as it acts conformably to nature abandons the wish for life and desires to come to death and corruption
i find none that without external compulsion forego the will to live and of their own accord hasten to destruction for every creature diligently pursues the end of self preservation and shuns death and destruction
as to herbs and trees and inanimate things generally i am altogether in doubt what to think and yet there is no possibility of question about this either since thou seest how herbs and trees grow in places suitable for them
they cannot quickly wither and die some spring up in the plains others in the mountains some grow in marshes others cling to rocks and others again find a fertile soil in the barren sands
and if you try to transplant these elsewhere they wither away nature gives to each the soil that suits it and uses her diligence to prevent any of them dying so long as it is possible for them to continue alive
why do they all draw their nourishment from roots as from a mouth dipped into the earth and distribute the strong bark over the pith why are all the softer parts like the pith deeply encased within
while the external parts have the strong texture of wood and outside of all is the bark to resist the weather's inclemency like a champion stout in endurance again
how great is nature's diligence to secure universal propagation by multiplying seed who does not know all these to be contrivances not only for the present maintenance of a species but for its lasting continuance
generation after generation for ever and do not also the things believed inanimate on like grounds of reason seek each what is proper to itself why do the flames shoot lightly upward
while the earth presses downward with its weight if it is not that these motions and situations are suitable to their respective natures moreover each several thing is preserved by that which is agreeable to its nature
even as it is destroyed by things inimical things solid like stones resist disintegration by the close adhesion of their parts things fluid like air and water yield easily to what divides them
but swiftly flow back and mingle with those parts from which they have been severed while fire again refuses to be cut at all
of an intelligent soul but of the drift of nature
and draw our breath unconsciously in sleep nay even in living creatures the love of life cometh not of conscious will
for oftentimes in the stress of circumstances will chooses the death which nature shrinks from and contrarily in spite of natural appetite
will restrains that work of reproduction by which alone the persistence of perishable creatures is maintained so entirely does this love of self come from drift of nature not from animal impulse
providence has furnished things with this most cogent reason for continuance they must desire life so long as it is naturally possible for them to continue living wherefore in no way mayst thou doubt
but that things naturally aim at continuance of existence and shun destruction i confess said i that what i lately thought uncertain i now perceive to be indubitably clear
now that which seeks to subsist and continue desires to be one for if its oneness be gone its very existence cannot continue true said i all things then desire to be one i agree
but we have proved that one is the very same thing as good we have all things then seek the good indeed you may express the fact by defining good as that which all desire
nothing could be more truly thought out either there is no single end to which all things are relative or else the end to which all things universally hasten must be the highest good of all then she
exceedingly do i rejoice dear pupil thine eye is now fixed on the very central mark of truth moreover herein is revealed that of which thou didst erstwhile profess thyself ignorant what is that said i
surely it is that which is desired of all and since we have concluded the good to be such we ought to acknowledge the end and aim of the whole universe to be the good
who from false ways his heedful steps would keep by inward light must search within in meditation deep all outward bent he must repress his soul's true treasure to possess
then all that error's mists obscured shall shine more clear than light this fleshly frame's oblivious weight hath quenched not reason quite the germs of truth still lie within whence we by learning
all may win else how could ye the answer due
were't not that deep within the soul truth's secret sparks do live if plato's teaching erreth not we learn
chapter seventeen there are whose changing lineaments express each guileless passion of the breast where love and hope
and tender hearted pity are seen reflected as from a mirror's face but cold experience can veil these hues with looks invented shrewdly to encompass
the cunning purposes of base deceit duo the officer to whose keeping dunwoodie
had committed the peddler transferred his charge to the custody of the regular sergeant of the guard the gift of captain wharton had not been lost on the youthful lieutenant
that had taken possession of objects before his eyes gave him warning of the necessity of recruiting nature by sleep after admonishing the noncommissioned guardian of harvey to omit no watchfulness in securing the prisoner
the youth wrapped himself in his cloak and stretched on a bench before a fire soon found the repose he needed a rude shed extended the whole length of the rear of the building
and from off one of its ends had been partitioned a small apartment
for many of the lesser implements of husbandry the lawless times had however occasioned its being stripped of everything of value and the searching eyes of betty flanagan selected this spot on her arrival
and a sanctuary for her person the spare arms and baggage of the corps had also been deposited here and the united treasures were placed under the eye of the sentinel who paraded the shed as a guardian of the rear of the headquarters
a second soldier who was stationed near the house to protect the horses of the officers could command a view of the outside of the apartment and as it was without window or outlet of any kind excepting its door
the considerate sergeant thought this the most befitting place in which to deposit his prisoner until the moment of his execution several inducements urged sergeant hollister to this determination among which was the absence
of the washerwoman who lay before the kitchen fire dreaming that the corps was attacking a party of the enemy
that proceeded from her own nose for the bugles of the virginians sounding the charge another was the peculiar opinions that the veteran entertained of life and death and by which he was distinguished in the corps
as a man of most exemplary piety and holiness of life the sergeant was more than fifty years of age and for half that period he had borne arms
had produced an effect on him differing greatly from that which was the usual moral consequence of such scenes
captain lawton had rewarded his fidelity by making him its orderly followed by birch the sergeant proceeded in silence to the door of the intended prison and throwing it open with one hand he held a lantern with the other to light the peddler to his prison
seating himself on a cask that contained some of betty's favorite beverage the sergeant motioned to birch to occupy another in the same manner the lantern was placed on the floor when the dragoon after looking his prisoner steadily in the face observed
you look as if you would meet death like a man and i have brought you to a spot where you can tranquilly arrange your thoughts and be quiet and undisturbed tis a fearful place to prepare for the last change in said harvey gazing around his little prison with a vacant eye
in the great account where a man parades his thoughts for the last review so that he finds them fit to pass the muster of another world i have a small book here which i make it a point to read a little in whenever we are about to engage
and i find it a great strengthener in time of need while speaking he took a bible from his pocket and offered it to the peddler birch received the volume with habitual reverence but there was an abstracted air about him and a wandering of the eye
that induced his companion to think that alarm was getting the mastery of the peddler's feelings accordingly
if anything lies heavy on your mind now is the best time to get rid of it
i promise you on the word of an honest dragoon to lend you a helping hand to see them righted
one would not wish to die with any very heavy sin on his conscience after all
thoroughly examined the place in which he was to pass the night and saw no means of escape
the peddler gave the dragoon more of his attention fixing on his sunburned features such searching looks that sergeant hollister lowered his eyes before the wild expression which he met in the gaze of his prisoner
why yes all that is well enough returned the other but justice should be done while there is opportunity there have been stirring times in this country since the war began and many have been deprived of their rightful goods
these hands said the peddler stretching forth his meager bony fingers
and no doubt you now feel it a great consolation there are three great sins that if a man can keep his conscience clear of why by the mercy of god he may hope to pass muster with the saints in heaven
they are stealing murdering and desertion
of such a deed you know falls on the nation and a man receives his punishment here with the rest of the people
i never was a soldier therefore never could desert said the peddler resting his face on his hand in a melancholy attitude why desertion consists of more than quitting your colors though that is certainly the worst kind
a man may desert his country in the hour of need
but good feelings soon got the better of his antipathies and he continued more mildly but still that is a sin which i think may be forgiven if sincerely repented of and it matters but little
i recommend you to say your prayers and then to get some rest in order that you may do both there is no hope of your being pardoned for colonel singleton
no no nothing can save you you say the truth cried birch it is now too late i have destroyed my only safeguard but he will do my memory justice at least what safeguard asked the sergeant with awakened curiosity
tis nothing replied the peddler
nothing and no one can avail but little now said the sergeant rising to go lay yourself on the blanket of missus flanagan and get a little sleep i will call you betimes in the morning
a man hung up like a dog then you might save me from this ignominious death said birch springing to his feet and catching the dragoon by the arm and oh what will i not give you in reward
in what manner asked the sergeant looking at him in surprise see said the peddler producing several guineas from his person
were you the man whose picture is on the gold i would not listen to such a crime
go go poor wretch and make your peace with god for it is he only that can be of service to you now the sergeant took up the lantern and with some indignation in his manner he left the peddler to sorrowful meditations on his approaching fate
hollister concluded his injunctions to the man in the shed by saying your life will depend on his not escaping let none enter or quit the room till morning but said the trooper my orders are to let the washerwoman pass in and out as she pleases
well let her then but be careful that this wily peddler does not get out in the folds of her petticoats
until the dragoon at his door heard his loud breathings
the man continued walking his post musing on an indifference to life which could allow nature its customary rest even on the threshold of the grave harvey birch had however been a name too long held in detestation by every man in the corps
to suffer any feelings of commiseration to mingle with these reflections of the sentinel
there probably was not another man of his rank in the whole party who would have discovered equal benevolence to the prisoner or who would not have imitated the veteran in rejecting the bribe although probably from a less worthy motive
there was something of disappointed vengeance in the feelings of the man who watched the door of the room on finding his prisoner enjoying a sleep of which he himself was deprived and at his exhibiting such obvious indifference to the utmost penalty that military rigor
could inflict on all his treason to the cause of liberty and america more than once he felt prompted to disturb the repose of the peddler
his meditations were however soon interrupted by the appearance of the washerwoman
muttering execrations against the servants of the officers who by their waggery had disturbed her slumbers before the fire the sentinel understood enough of her maledictions to comprehend the case
and he suffered her to enter her room without explaining that it contained another inmate the noise of her huge frame falling on the bed was succeeded
as if no interruption had occurred the relief arrived at this moment the sentinel who felt nettled at the contempt of the peddler after communicating his orders while he was retiring exclaimed to his successor
you may keep yourself warm by dancing john the peddler spy has tuned his fiddle you hear and it will not be long before betty will strike up in her turn the joke was followed by a general laugh from the party who marched on in performance of their duty
staggering back again toward her former quarters stop said the sentinel catching her by her clothes
can't you hear the rascal snoring in my room you dirty blackguard sputtered betty her whole frame shaking with rage and is it so ye would sarve a
that a man must be put to sleep in the room wid her ye rapscallion pooh do you mind a fellow who's to be hanged in the morning you see he sleeps already to morrow he'll take a longer nap hands off ye villain cried the washerwoman
relinquishing a small bottle that the trooper had succeeded in wresting from her but i'll go to captain jack and know if it's orders to put a hang gallows spy in my room aye even in my widowed bed you tief
said the fellow with a laugh taking the bottle from his mouth to breathe or you will wake the gentleman would you disturb a man in his last sleep i'll awake captain jack you reprobate villain and bring him here to see me righted
he will punish ye all for imposing on a dacent widowed body you marauder with these words which only extorted a laugh from the sentinel betty staggered round the end of the building and made the best of her way towards the quarters
of her favorite captain john lawton in search of redress
who to the astonishment of the different sentinels
after we had all returned to greenwich the princess and brandon were together frequently upon several occasions he was invited with others to her parlor for card playing but we spent two evenings with only four of us present
prior to the disastrous events which changed everything and of which i am soon to tell you during these two evenings the sailor lass was in constant demand this pair who should have remained apart
met constantly in and about the palace and every glance added fuel to the flame part of the time it was the princess with her troublesome dignity and part of the time it was mary simply girl
notwithstanding these haughty moods anyone with half an eye could see that the princess was gradually succumbing to the budding woman that brandon's stronger nature had dominated her with that half fear
which every woman feels who loves a strong man stronger than herself one day the rumor spread through the court that the old french king
anne of brittany had just died had asked mary's hand in marriage it was this probably which opened brandon's eyes to the fact that he had been playing with the very worst sort of fire and first made him see
that in spite of himself and almost without his knowledge the girl had grown wonderfully sweet and dear to him he now saw his danger and struggled to keep himself beyond the spell of her perilous glances and siren song
this modern ulysses made a masterful effort but alas had no ships to carry him away and no wax with which to fill his ears wax is a good thing and no one should enter the siren country without it
ships too are good with masts to tie one's self to and sails and rudder and a gust of wind to waft one quickly past the island in fact one cannot take too many precautions when in those enchanted waters
matters began to look dark to me love had dawned in mary's breast that was sure and for the first time with all its fierce sweetness not that it had reached its noon or anything like it
in truth it might i hoped die in the dawning for my lady was as capricious as a may day but it was love love as plain as the sun at rising
she sought brandon upon all occasions and made opportunities to meet him not openly at any rate not with brandon's knowledge nor with any connivance on his part but apparently caring little
what he or any one else might see love lying in her heart had made her a little more shy than formerly in seeking him but her straightforward way of taking whatever she wanted
made her transparent little attempts at concealment very pathetic as for brandon the shaft had entered his heart too poor fellow as surely as love had dawned in mary's but there was this difference
with our princess at least i so thought at the time the sun of love might dawn and lift itself to mid heaven and glow with the fervent ardor of high noon for her blood was warm with the spark of her grandfather's fire
and then sink into the west and make room for another sun to morrow but with brandon's stronger nature the sun would go till noon and there would burn for life the sun however had not reached its noon with brandon either
since he had set his brain against his heart and had done what he could to stay the all consuming orb at its dawning he knew the hopeless misery such a passion would bring him and helped the good lord in so far as he could
to answer his prayer and lead him not into temptation as soon as he saw the truth he avoided mary as much as possible as i said we had spent several evenings with mary after we came home from windsor
some women are so expressive under strong emotion that every gesture a turn of the head a glance of the eyes the lifting of a hand or the poise of the body speaks with a tongue of eloquence
and such was mary her eyes would glow with a soft fire when they rested upon him and her whole person told all too plainly what in truth it seemed she did not care to hide
when others were present she would restrain herself somewhat but with only jane and myself she could hardly maintain a seemly reserve during all this time brandon remained cool
and really seemed unconscious of his wonderful attraction for her it is hard to understand why he did not see it but i really believe he did not although he was quite at ease in her presence too much so mary sometimes thought
and strangely enough sometimes told him in a fit of short lived quickly repented anger that always set him laughing yet there was never a word or gesture that could hint of undue familiarity it would probably have met a rebuff from the princess part of her
for what a perversity both royal and feminine she wanted all the freedom for herself in short like any other woman she would rather love than be loved that is until surrender day should come
then of course after these last two meetings although the invitations came frequently none was accepted brandon had contrived to have his duties ostensibly at least occupy his evenings
and did honestly what his judgment told him was the one thing to do that is remain away from a fire that could give no genial warmth but was sure to burn him to the quick i saw this only too plainly
but never a word of it was spoken between us the more i saw of this man the more i respected him and this curbing of his affections added to my already high esteem the effort was doubly wise in brandon's case
should love with his intense nature reach its height his recklessness would in turn assert itself and these two would inevitably try to span the impassable gulf between them when brandon at least
would go down in the attempt his trouble however did not make a mope of him and he retained a great deal of his brightness and sparkle undimmed by what must have been an ache in his heart though he tried
to see as little of mary as possible their meeting once in a while could not be avoided especially when one of them was always seeking to bring it about after a time mary began to suspect his attempts to avoid her
and she grew cold and distant through pique her manner however had no effect upon brandon who did not or at least appeared not to notice it this the girl could not endure
soon returned to the attack mary had not seen brandon for nearly two weeks and was growing anxious when one day she and jane met him in a forest walk near the river brandon was sauntering along reading when they overtook him
jane told me afterwards that mary's conduct upon coming up to him was pretty and curious beyond the naming at first she was inclined to be distant and say cutting things but when brandon began to grow restive under them
and showed signs of turning back she changed front in the twinkling of an eye and was all sweetness she laughed and smiled and dimpled as only she could and was full of bright glances and gracious words
she tried a hundred little schemes to get him to herself for a moment the hunting of a wild flower or a four leaved clover or the exploration of some little nook in the forest toward which she would lead him
but jane did not at first take the hint and kept close at her heels mary's impulsive nature was not much given to hinting she usually nodded and most emphatically at that so after a few failures to rid herself of her waiting lady
she said impatiently jane in the name of heaven don't keep so close to us you won't move out of reach of my hand and you know how often it inclines to box your ears
jane did know i am sorry for mary's sake to say how often the fair hand was given to such spasms so with this emphasized hint she walked on ahead half sulky at the indignity put upon her and half amused at her whimsical mistress
mary lost no time but began the attack at once now sir i want you to tell me the truth why do you refuse my invitations and so persistently keep away from me i thought at first i would simply let you go your way
and then i thought i would not don't deny it i know you won't with all your faults you don't tell even little lies not even to a woman i believe now there is a fine compliment is it not when i intended to scold you
she gave a fluttering little laugh and with hanging head continued tell me is not the king's sister of quality sufficient to suit you perhaps you must have the queen
tell me now and she looked up at him half in banter half in doubt my duties began brandon oh bother your duties tell me the truth i will if you let me
returned brandon who had no intention whatever of doing anything of the sort my duties now occupy my time in the evening that will not do interrupted mary who knew enough of a guardsman's duty to be sure it was not onerous
you might as well come to it and tell the truth that you do not like our society and she gave him a vicious little glance without a shadow of a smile in god's name lady mary that is not it answered brandon who was on the rack
please do not think it i cannot bear to have you say such a thing when it is so far from the real truth then tell me the real truth i cannot i cannot
and sounded sullen and ill humored although of course it was not so intended he had been so perilously near speaking words which would probably have lighted to their destruction to his certainly
the smoldering flames within their breast that it frightened him and the manner in which he spoke was but a tone giving utterance to the pain in his heart mary took it as it sounded and in unfeigned surprise exclaimed angrily
leave you do i hear aright i never thought that i
your highness began brandon but she was gone before he could speak he did not follow her to explain knowing how dangerous such an explanation would be but felt that it was best for them both that she should remain offended
painful as the thought was to him of course mary's womanly self esteem to say nothing of her royal pride was wounded to the quick and no wonder poor brandon sat down upon a stone
and as he longingly watched her retiring form wished in his heart he were dead this was the first time he really knew how much he loved the girl and he saw that with him at least
it was a matter of bad to worse and at that rate would soon be worst now that he had unintentionally offended her and had permitted her to go without an explanation she was dearer to him than ever
and as he sat there with his face in his hands he knew that if matters went on as they were going the time would soon come when he would throw caution to the dogs and would try the impossible to win her for his own
caution and judgment still sat enthroned and they told him now what he knew full well they would not tell him after a short time that failure was certain to follow the attempt and disaster sure to follow failure
first the king would in all probability cut off his head upon an intimation of mary's possible fondness for him and second if he should be so fortunate as to keep his head
mary could not and certainly would not marry him even if she loved him with all her heart the distance between them was too great and she knew too well what she owed to her position there was but one thing left
new spain and he determined while sitting there to sail with the next ship the real cause of brandon's manner had never occurred to mary although she knew her beauty and power as she could not help but know it
yet love had blinded her where brandon was concerned and that knowledge failed to give her light as to his motives however brightly it might illumine the conduct of other men toward whom she was indifferent
so mary was angry this time angry in earnest and jane felt the irritable palm more than once i too came in for my share of her ill temper as most certainly would brandon
had he allowed himself to come within reach of her tongue which he was careful not to do an angry porcupine would have been pleasant company compared with mary during this time there was no living with her in peace
even the king fought shy of her and the queen was almost afraid to speak probably so much general disturbance was never before or since collected within one small body as in that young tartar venus mary
she did not tell jane the cause of her vexation but only said she verily hated brandon and that of course was the key to the whole situation after a fortnight this ill humor began to soften in the glowing warmth of her heart
which was striving to reassert itself and the desire to see brandon began to get the better of her sense of injury brandon tired of this everlasting watchfulness to keep himself out of temptation and dreading at any moment that lapse from strength
which is apt to come to the strongest of us had resolved to quit his place at court and go to new spain at once he had learned upon inquiry that a ship would sail from bristol in about twenty days and another six weeks later
so he chose the former and was making his arrangements to leave as soon as possible he told me of his plans and spoke of his situation you know the reason for my going he said even if i have never spoken of it i am not much of a joseph
and am very little given to running away from a beautiful woman but in this case i am fleeing from death itself and to think what a heaven it would be you are right caskoden no man can withstand the light of that girl's smile
i am unable to tell how i feel toward her it sometimes seems that i can not live another hour without seeing her yet thank god i have reason enough left to know
that every sight of her only adds to an already incurable malady what will it be when she is the wife of the king of france does it not look as if wild life in new spain is my only chance
excepting jane in mental reservation i told jane what brandon was about to do knowing full well she would tell mary which she did at once poor mary the sighs began to come now
and such small vestiges of her ill humor toward brandon as still remained were frightened off in a hurry by the fear that she had seen the last of him she had not before fully known that she loved him
she knew he was the most delightful companion she had ever met and that there was an exhilaration about his presence which almost intoxicated her and made life an ecstasy yet she did not know it was love
it needed but the thought that she was about to lose him to make her know her malady and meet it face to face upon the evening when mary learned all this she went into her chamber very early and closed the door
no one interrupted her until jane went in to robe her for the night and to retire she then found that mary had robed herself and was lying in bed with her head covered apparently asleep
and lay down in her own bed the girls usually shared one couch but during mary's ill temper she had forced jane to sleep alone after a short silence jane heard a sob from the other bed
then another and another mary are you weeping she asked yes
so jane went over and lay beside mary who gently put her arms about her neck when will he leave whispered mary shyly confessing all by her question
i do not know responded jane but he will see you before he goes
i know it
after this for a few days mary was quiet enough her irritable mood had vanished but jane could see that she was on the lookout for some one all the time
although she made the most pathetic little efforts to conceal her watchfulness at last a meeting came about in this way next to the king's bed chamber was a luxuriously furnished little apartment with a well selected library
here brandon and i often went afternoons to read as we were sure to be undisturbed late one day brandon had gone over to this quiet retreat and having selected a volume
took his place in a secluded little alcove half hidden in arras draperies there was a cushioned seat along the wall and a small diamond shaped window to furnish light he had not been there long when in came mary
i can not say whether she knew brandon was there or not but she was there and he was there which is the only thing to the point and finding him she stepped into the alcove before he was aware of her presence
brandon was on his feet in an instant and with a low bow was backing himself out most deferentially to leave her in sole possession if she wished to rest master brandon you need not go
i will not hurt you besides if this place is not large enough for us both i will go i would not disturb you she spoke with a tremulous voice and a quick uneasy glance and started to move backward out of the alcove
you know you must know oh i beg you but she interrupted him by taking his arm and drawing him to a seat beside her on the cushion she could have drawn down the colossus of rhodes with the look she gave brandon
so full was it of command entreaty and promise that's it i don't know but i want to know and i want you to sit here beside me and tell me
i am going to be reconciled with you despite the way you treated me when last we met i am going to be friends with you whether you will or not now what do you say to that sir
she spoke with a fluttering little laugh of uneasy non assurance
poor brandon usually so ready had nothing to say to that but sat in helpless silence was this the sum total of all his wise determinations made at the cost of so much pain and effort
was this the answer to all his prayers lead me not into temptation he had done his part for he had done all he could heaven had not helped him since here was temptation thrust upon him when least expected
and when the way was so narrow he could not escape but must meet it face to face mary soon recovered her self possession women are better skilled in this art than men and continued
that day over in the forest although it was very bad and you have acted abominably ever since now is not that kind in me and she softly laughed as she peeped up at the poor fellow from beneath those sweeping lashes
with the premeditated purpose of tantalizing him i suppose she was beginning to know her power over him and it was never greater than at this moment her beauty had its sweetest quality
chapter twenty two a proposal she shrank back with a great dread in her heart marlanx of all men why was he in the park at this hour of the night there could be but one answer
and the very thought of it almost suffocated her he was drawing the net with his own hands he was spying with his own eyes for a full minute it seemed to her that her heart would stop beating how long had he been standing there
what had he seen or heard
he had gone out into the darkness missing the men at the lamp post either by choice or through pure good fortune a throb of thankfulness assailed her heart she was not thinking of her position but of his
again she drew stealthily away from the rail possessed of a ridiculous feeling that her form was as plain to the vision as if it were broad daylight
marlanx was coming toward the verandah she fled swiftly pausing at the window to lower the friendly but forgotten umbrella
once more she stopped to listen the hist was repeated and then her own name was called softly but imperatively it was beyond the power of woman to keep from laughing it struck her as
once she was inside however it did not seem so amusing still it gave her an immense amount of satisfaction to slam the windows loudly as if in pure defiance then she closed the blinds
shutting out the night completely turning up the light at her dressing table she sat down in a state of sudden collapse for a long time she stared at her face in the mirror she saw the red of shame and embarrassment mount to her cheeks
and then she covered her eyes with her hands oh what a fool you've been she half sobbed shrinking from the mirror as if it were an accuser she prepared for bed with frantic haste
a shocking thought came to her the next she was at the windows and the slats were closed with a rattle like a volley of firearms then she jumped into bed she wondered if the windows were locked
in this rain poor fellow i wonder where he is now goodness it's raining cats and dogs but in spite of the rain she could not go to sleep vague fears began to take possession of her
he was there she knew it
and raven lay upon a stool near the bedside every night consumed by the fear that the window might open slowly at any moment she reached forth and clutched the weapon then she shrank back in the bed
her eyes fixed upon the black space across the room for hours she shivered and waited for the window to open dozing away time and again only to come back to wakefulness with a start the next morning
she confessed to herself that her fears had been silly her first act after breakfasting alone in her room was to seek out colonel quinnox commander of the castle guard in her mind
she was greatly troubled over the fate of the bold visitor of the night before there was a warm red glow in her face and a quick beat in her heart as she crossed the parade ground vagabond though he was
but he could give beverly no promise of leniency in regard to baldos instructions had come to him from general marlanx and he could not set them aside at will her plea that he might once more be assigned to old time duties
upon the distressed colonel and marched defiantly back to the castle down in her rebellious insulted heart she was concocting all sorts of plans for revenge chief among them
she came to the castle doors before she saw who was waiting for her upon the great verandah as she mounted the steps
the early hour was responsible for the bright solitude which marked the place but few signs of life were in evidence about the castle she stopped with a sharp exclamation of surprise
then scorn and indignation rushed in to fill the place of astonishment she faced the smiling old man with anger in her eyes good morning he said extending his hand which she did not see
she was wondering how much he had seen and heard at midnight i thought the troops were massing this morning she said coldly don't you mass too there is time enough for that my dear i came to have a talk with you in private
he said meaningly it is sufficiently private here count marlanx what have you to say to me
you were very reckless to do what you did
she asked scornfully an involuntary observer believe me and a jealous one i had hoped to win the affections of an innocent girl
what do you mean i mean that i saw everything that occurred well i'm not ashamed of it obstinately good bye count marlanx one moment please
i cannot let you off so easily what right had you to take that man into your room a place sacred in the palace of graustark answer me miss calhoun
into my room she gasped let us waste no time in subterfuge i saw him come from your window and i saw all that passed between you in the balcony love's eyes are keen
what occurred in your chamber i can only stop how dare you say such a thing to me she fiercely cried you miserable coward you know he was not in my room take it back take back every word of that lie
and to think that i have spared him from death to have it come to this you need not look so horrified your secret is safe with me i come to make terms with you my silence in exchange for your beauty
it's worth it to you one word from me you are disgraced and baldos dies come my fair lady give me your promise it's a good bargain for both beverly was trembling
like a leaf this phase of his villainy had not occurred to her she was like a bird trying to avoid the charmed eye of the serpent oh you you miserable wretch she cried hoarse with anger and despair
it has been a pretty game of love for you and the excellent baldos
what will the princess say when she hears of last night's merry escapade what will she say when she learns who was hostess to a common guardsman at the midnight hour it is no wonder that you look terrified
it is for you to say whether she is to know or not you can bind me to silence you have lost baldos take me and all that i can give you in his stead and the world never shall know the truth you love him i know
and there is but one way to save him say the word and he goes free to the hills decline and his life is not worth a breath of air and pretending to believe this of me you still ask me to be your wife
my wife
don't you try to stop me i shall go to the princess myself she shall know what manner of beast you are she was racing up the steps flaming with anger and shame remember i can prove what i have said beware what you do
i must have my answer to night or you know what will happen he snarled but he felt in his heart that he had lost through his eagerness she flew to yetive's boudoir consumed by rage and mortification
between sobs and feminine maledictions she poured the whole story in all its ugliness into the ears of the princess now yetive
you have to stand by me in this announced the narrator conclusively her eyes beaming hopefully through her tears i cannot prevent general marlanx from preferring serious charges against baldos dear
you may depend upon me to protect you from marlanx he can make it very unpleasant for baldos but he shall pay dearly for this insult to you he has gone too far
i don't think he has any proof against baldos said beverly thinking only of the guardsman but it is so easy to manufacture evidence my dear the iron count has set his heart upon having you and he is not the man
he seems to think he can get wives as easily as he gets rid of them i observe i was going back to washington soon yetive
he can't scare a calhoun no sir ee i'll telegraph for my brother dan to come over here and punch his head to pieces now now don't be so high and mighty dear
whereupon the hot headed girl from dixie suspended hostilities and became a very demure young woman before long she was confessing timidly then boldly that she loved baldos better than anything in all the world
i'm sure he won't i shan't give him a chance but if he does ask me i'll just keep putting him off i've done it before you know you see for a long long time i fancied he might be a prince but he isn't at all
i've had his word for it he's just an ordinary person like like well like i am only he doesn't look so ordinary isn't he handsome yetive and dear me he is so impulsive
wouldn't that have surprised old marlanx beverly gave a merry laugh the troubles of the morning seemed to fade away under the warmth of her humor yetive sat back and marvelled at the manner in which this blithe young american
cast out the blue devils you must not do anything foolish beverly she cautioned your parents would never forgive me if i allowed you to marry or even to fall in love with any tom dick or harry over here
but he also may be the worst of adventurers one can never tell dear i wish now that i had not humored you in your plan to bring him to the castle i'm afraid i have done wrong you have seen too much of him and
oh well you will be sensible won't you dear there was real concern in the face of the princess beverly kissed her rapturously don't worry about me yetive i know how to take care of myself
worry about your old gabriel if you like but don't bother your head about me she cried airily now let's talk about the war marlanx won't do anything until he hears from me what's the use worrying
nightfall brought general marlanx in from the camps outside the gates
that he must speak to her at once she promptly answered that she did not want to see him and would not without a moment's hesitation he appealed for an audience with the princess and it was granted he proceeded
with irate coolness to ask how far she believed herself bound to protect the person of baldos the guard he understood that she was under certain obligations to miss calhoun
and he wanted to be perfectly sure of his position before taking a step which now seemed imperative
marlanx cited instances in which baldos had been seen talking to a strange old man inside the grounds and professed to have proof that he had gone so far as to steal away by night to meet men beyond the city walls
he was now ready to seize the guard but would not do so until he had conferred with his sovereign miss calhoun tells me that you have made certain proposals to her count marlanx said yetive coldly
her eyes upon his hawkish face i have asked her to be my wife your highness you have threatened her count marlanx she has exposed herself to you i would not have told what i saw last night
would it interest you to know that i saw everything that passed on the balcony last night you will allow me to say general that you have behaved in a most outrageous manner in approaching my guest with such
foul proposals stop sir she has told me everything and i believe her i believe my own eyes there is no need to discuss the matter further you have lost the right to be called a man for the present
i have only to say that you shall be relieved of the command of my army the man who makes war on women is not fit to serve one as for baldos you are at liberty to prefer the charges he shall have a fair trial rest assured
your highness hear me implored marlanx white to the roots of his hair i will hear what you have to say when my husband is at my side i can but stand condemned then your highness without a hearing
my vindication will come however with your permission i retire to contrive the arrest of this spy you may depose me but you cannot ask me to neglect my duty to graustark i have tried to save him for miss calhoun's sake
but her hand was pointing to the door ten minutes later beverly was hearing everything from the lips of the princess and marlanx was cursing his way toward the barracks vengeance in his heart
but a swift messenger from the castle reached the guard room ahead of him colonel quinnox was reading an official note from the princess when marlanx strode angrily into the room bring this fellow baldos to me colonel quinnox he said without greeting
i regret to say that i have but this instant received a message from her highness commanding me to send him to the castle said quinnox with a smile the devil what foolishness is this snarled the iron count
have a care sir said quinnox stiffly it is of the princess you speak bah i am here to order the man's arrest it is more important than nevertheless sir
he goes to the castle first this note says that i am to disregard any command you may give until further notice marlanx fell back amazed and stunned at this juncture baldos entered the room
quinnox handed him an envelope telling him that it was from the princess and that he was to repair at once to the castle baldos glanced at the handwriting and his face lit up proudly
chapter fourteen a visit and its consequences that same afternoon baldos blissfully ignorant of the stir he had created in certain circles
rode out for the first time as a member of the castle guard he and haddan were detailed by colonel quinnox to act as private escort to miss calhoun until otherwise ordered
if haddan thought himself wiser than baldos in knowing that their charge was not the princess he was very much mistaken if he enjoyed the trick that was being played on his fellow guardsman
his enjoyment was as nothing as compared to the pleasure baldos was deriving from the situation the royal victoria was driven to the fortress conveying the supposed princess and the countess dagmar to the home of count marlanx
the two guards rode bravely behind the equipage resplendent in brilliant new uniforms baldos was mildly surprised and puzzled by the homage paid the young american girl
it struck him as preposterous that the entire population of edelweiss could be in the game to deceive him who is the princess's companion he inquired of haddan as they left the castle grounds
baldos you behaved very nicely yesterday in exposing the duplicity of those young women she said i am happy to have pleased your highness he said steadily
it may interest you to know that they ceased to be ladies in waiting after that exposure yes your highness it certainly is interesting he said as he fell back into position beside haddan
during the remainder of the ride he caught himself time after time gazing reflectively at the back of her proud little head possessed of an almost uncontrollable desire to touch the soft brown hair
you can't fool that excellent young man much longer my dear said the countess recalling the look in his dark eyes the same thought had been afflicting beverly with its probabilities for twenty four hours and more
count marlanx welcomed his visitors with a graciousness that awoke wonder in the minds of his staff his marked preference for the american girl did not escape attention
some of the bolder young officers indulged in surreptitious grimaces and all looked with more or less compassion upon the happy faced beauty from over the sea marlanx surveyed baldos steadily and coldly
deep disapproval in his sinister eyes he had not forgotten the encounter of the day before i see the favorite is on guard he said blandly has he told you of the lesson in manners he enjoyed last night
he was leading his guests toward the quarters baldos and haddan following the new guard could not help hearing the sarcastic remark you didn't have him beaten cried beverly stopping short no
baldos halted near by his face was as impassive as marble his eyes set straight before him his figure erect and soldierly an occasional sarcastic remark by the iron count
meant for his ears made no impression upon the deadly composure of the new guard who had had his lesson miss calhoun was conscious of a vague feeling that she had served baldos an ill turn when she put him into this position
the count provided a light luncheon in his quarters after the ladies had gone over the fortress beverly calhoun with all of a woman's indifference to things material could not but see how poorly equipped the fort was
as compared to the ones she had seen in the united states she and the countess visited the armory the arsenal and the repair shops before luncheon reserving the pleasures of the clubhouse the officers quarters
and the parade ground until afterwards count marlanx's home was in the southeast corner of the enclosure near the gates several of the officers lunched with him and the young ladies marlanx was assiduous in his attention to beverly calhoun
so much so in fact that the countess teased her afterwards about her conquest of the old and well worn heart beverly thought him extremely silly and sentimental much preferring him in the character of the harsh implacable martinet
at regular intervals she saw the straight martial form of baldos pass the window near which she sat he was patrolling the narrow piazza which fronted the house toward the close of the rather trying luncheon
she was almost unable to control the impulse to rush out and compel him to relax that imposing machine like stride she hungered for a few minutes of the old time freedom with him
he had collected in the south the luncheon was over and the countess had strolled off toward the bastions with the young officers
leaving beverly alone with the host servants came in to clear the tables but the count harshly ordered them to wait until the guests had departed it is the dearest thing i have seen said beverly holding a rare old candlestick at arm's length
the count's eyes followed the graceful curves of her white forearm with an eagerness that was annoying i prize it more dearly than any other piece in my collection he said it came from rome
it has a history which i shall try to tell you some day and which makes it almost invaluable a german nobleman offered me a small fortune if i would part with it and you wouldn't sell it
i was saving it for an occasion your highness he said his steely eyes glittering the glad hour has come when i can part with it for a recompense far greater than the baron's gold
oh isn't it lucky you kept it she cried then she turned her eyes away quickly for his gaze seemed greedily endeavoring to pierce through the lace insertion covering her neck and shoulders outside the window
the steady tramp of the tall guard went on monotonously the recompense of a sweet smile a tender blush and the unguarded thanks of a pretty woman the candlestick is yours miss calhoun
if you will repay me for my sacrifice by accepting it without reservation slowly beverly calhoun set the candlestick down upon the table her eyes meeting his with steady disdain
we must hurry along you know she and i have promised to play tennis with the princess at three o'clock the count's glare of disappointment lasted but a moment the diplomacy of egotism came to his relief
and he held back the gift for another day but not for another woman it grieves me to have you hurry away my afternoon is to be a dull one unless you permit me to watch the tennis game he said
his eyes for the moment held her spellbound he was drawing the hand to his lips when a shadow darkened the french window and a saber rattled warningly count marlanx looked up instantly
a scowl on his face baldos stood at the window in an attitude of alert attention beverly drew her arm away spasmodically and took a step toward the window the guard saw by her eyes that she was frightened
but if his heart beat violently his face was the picture of military stoniness what are you doing there snarled the count did your highness call
she did not call fellow said the count with deadly menace in his voice report to me in half an hour you still have something to learn i see beverly was alarmed by the threat in his tones
she saw what was in store for baldos for she knew quite as well as marlanx that the guard had deliberately intervened in her behalf he cannot come in half an hour she cried quickly
i have something for him to do count marlanx besides i think i did call both men stared at her my ears are excellent said marlanx stiffly i fancy baldos's must be even better for he heard me
now go commanded the count wait a minute baldos we are going out too will you open that window for me baldos gladly took it as a command and threw open the long french window
if we could renounce our sageness and discard our wisdom it would be better for the people a hundredfold if we could renounce our benevolence and discard our righteousness the people would again become filial and kindly
if we could renounce our artful contrivances and discard our scheming for gain there would be no thieves nor robbers
those three methods of government thought olden ways in elegance did fail and made these names their want of worth to veil but simple views and courses plain and true
when we renounce learning we have no troubles the ready yes and flattering yea small is the difference they display but mark their issues good and ill
what space the gulf between shall fill what all men fear is indeed to be feared but how wide and without end is the range of questions asking to be discussed
the multitude of men look satisfied and pleased as if enjoying a full banquet as if mounted on a tower in spring i alone seem listless and still my desires having as yet given no indication of their presence
i am like an infant which has not yet smiled
the multitude of men all have enough and to spare i alone seem to have lost everything my mind is that of a stupid man i am in a state of chaos
ordinary men look bright and intelligent while i alone seem to be benighted they look full of discrimination while i alone am dull and confused i seem to be carried about as on the sea
drifting as if i had nowhere to rest all men have their spheres of action while i alone seem dull and incapable like a rude borderer thus i alone am different from other men
but i value the nursing mother the tao
the grandest forms of active force from tao come their only source who can of tao the nature tell our sight it flies our touch as well
eluding sight eluding touch the forms of things all in it crouch eluding touch eluding sight there are their semblances all right
profound it is dark and obscure things essences all there endure those essences the truth enfold of what when seen shall then be told now it is so twas so of old
its name what passes not away so in their beautiful array things form and never know decay how know i that it is so with all the beauties of existing things by this nature of the tao
the partial becomes complete the crooked straight the empty full the worn out new he whose desires are few gets them he whose desires are many goes astray
therefore the sage holds in his embrace the one thing of humility and manifests it to all the world he is free from self display and therefore he shines from self assertion and therefore he is distinguished
from self boasting and therefore his merit is acknowledged from self complacency and therefore he acquires superiority it is because he is thus free from striving that therefore no one in the world is able to strive with him
that saying of the ancients that the partial becomes complete was not vainly spoken all real completion is comprehended under it
abstaining from speech marks him who is obeying the spontaneity of his nature a violent wind does not last for a whole morning a sudden rain does not last for the whole day to whom is it that these two things are owing
to heaven and earth if heaven and earth cannot make such spasmodic actings last long how much less can man
therefore when one is making the tao his business those who are also pursuing it agree with him in it and those who are making the manifestation of its course their object agree with him in that
while even those who are failing in both these things agree with him where they fail
hence those with whom he agrees as to the tao have the happiness of attaining to it those with whom he agrees as to its manifestation have the happiness of attaining to it and those with whom he agrees in their failure
have also the happiness of attaining to the tao but when there is not faith sufficient on his part a want of faith in him ensues on the part of the others
he who stands on his tiptoes does not stand firm he who stretches his legs does not walk easily so he who displays himself does not shine he who asserts his own views is not distinguished
he who vaunts himself does not find his merit acknowledged he who is self conceited has no superiority allowed to him such conditions viewed from the standpoint of the tao
are like remnants of food or a tumour on the body which all dislike hence
there was something undefined and complete coming into existence before heaven and earth how still it was and formless standing alone and undergoing no change reaching everywhere and in no danger of being exhausted
it may be regarded as the mother of all things
making an effort further to give it a name i call it the great
great it passes on in constant flow passing on it becomes remote having become remote it returns
heaven is great earth is great and the sage king is also great in the universe there are four that are great and the sage king is one of them
man takes his law from the earth the earth takes its law from heaven heaven takes its law from the tao the law of the tao is its being what it is
gravity is the root of lightness stillness the ruler of movement
therefore a wise prince marching the whole day does not go far from his baggage waggons although he may have brilliant prospects to look at he quietly remains in his proper place indifferent to them
how should the lord of a myriad chariots carry himself lightly before the kingdom if he do act lightly he has lost his root of gravity if he proceed to active movement he will lose his throne
the skilful traveller leaves no traces of his wheels or footsteps the skilful speaker says nothing that can be found fault with or blamed the skilful reckoner uses no tallies
the skilful closer needs no bolts or bars while to open what he has shut will be impossible the skilful binder uses no strings or knots while to unloose what he has bound will be impossible
in the same way the sage is always skilful at saving men and so he does not cast away any man he is always skilful at saving things and so he does not cast away anything this is called hiding the light of his procedure
therefore the man of skill is a master to be looked up to by him who has not the skill and he who has not the skill is the helper of the reputation of him who has the skill
if the one did not honour his master and the other did not rejoice in his helper an observer though intelligent might greatly err about them
he who has in himself abundantly the attributes of the tao is like an infant poisonous insects will not sting him fierce beasts will not seize him birds of prey will not strike him
the infant's bones are weak and its sinews soft but yet its grasp is firm it knows not yet the union of male and female and yet its virile member may be excited
showing the perfection of its physical essence all day long it will cry without its throat becoming hoarse showing the harmony in its constitution
to him by whom this harmony is known the secret of the unchanging tao is shown and in the knowledge wisdom finds its throne all life increasing arts to evil turn
where the mind makes the vital breath to burn false is the strength and o'er it we should mourn
when things have become strong they then become old which may be said to be contrary to the tao whatever is contrary to the tao soon ends
he who knows the tao does not care to speak about it he who is ever ready to speak about it does not know it
he who knows it will keep his mouth shut and close the portals of his nostrils he will blunt his sharp points and unravel the complications of things he will attemper his brightness and bring himself into agreement
with the obscurity of others this is called the mysterious agreement
such an one cannot be treated familiarly or distantly he is beyond all consideration of profit or injury of nobility or meanness he is the noblest man under heaven
a state may be ruled by measures of correction weapons of war may be used with crafty dexterity but the kingdom is made one's own only by freedom from action and purpose
how do i know that it is so by these facts in the kingdom the multiplication of prohibitive enactments increases the poverty of the people the more implements to add to their profit that the people have
the more acts of crafty dexterity that men possess the more do strange contrivances appear the more display there is of legislation the more thieves and robbers there are
therefore a sage has said i will do nothing of purpose and the people will be transformed of themselves i will be fond of keeping still and the people will of themselves become correct
i will take no trouble about it and the people will of themselves become rich i will manifest no ambition and the people will of themselves attain to the primitive simplicity
the government that seems the most unwise oft goodness to the people best supplies that which is meddling touching everything will work but ill and disappointment bring
misery happiness is to be found by its side happiness misery lurks beneath it who knows what either will come to in the end
shall we then dispense with correction the method of correction shall by a turn become distortion and the good in it shall by a turn become evil the delusion of the people on this point has indeed subsisted for a long time
therefore the sage is like a square which cuts no one with its angles like a corner which injures no one with its sharpness he is straightforward but allows himself no license he is bright but does not dazzle
for regulating the human in our constitution and rendering the proper service to the heavenly there is nothing like moderation
it is only by this moderation that there is effected an early return to man's normal state that early return is what i call the repeated accumulation of the attributes of the tao
with that repeated accumulation of those attributes there comes the subjugation of every obstacle to such return of this subjugation we know not what shall be the limit and when one knows not what the limit shall be
he may be the ruler of a state
he who possesses the mother of the state may continue long his case is like that of the plant of which we say that its roots are deep and its flower stalks firm this is the way to secure that its enduring life shall long be seen
governing a great state is like cooking small fish
let the kingdom be governed according to the tao and the manes of the departed will not manifest their spiritual energy it is not that those manes have not that spiritual energy but it will not be employed to hurt men
it is not that it could not hurt men but neither does the ruling sage hurt them
when these two do not injuriously affect each other their good influences converge in the virtue of the tao
what makes a great state is its being like a low lying down flowing stream it becomes the centre to which tend all the small states under heaven
to illustrate from the case of all females the female always overcomes the male by her stillness stillness may be considered a sort of abasement
thus it is that a great state by condescending to small states gains them for itself and that small states by abasing themselves to a great state win it over to them
in the one case the abasement leads to gaining adherents in the other case to procuring favour
the great state only wishes to unite men together and nourish them a small state only wishes to be received by and to serve the other each gets what it desires but the great state must learn to abase itself
tao has of all things the most honoured place no treasures give good men so rich a grace bad men it guards and doth their ill efface
its admirable words can purchase honour its admirable deeds can raise their performer above others even men who are not good are not abandoned by it
therefore when the sovereign occupies his place as the son of heaven and he has appointed his three ducal ministers
and that as the precursor of the team of horses in the court yard such an offering would not be equal to a lesson of this tao which one might present on his knees
why was it that the ancients prized this tao so much was it not because it could be got by seeking for it and the guilty could escape from the stain of their guilt by it
this is the reason why all under heaven consider it the most valuable thing
it is the way of the tao to act without thinking of acting to conduct affairs without feeling the trouble of them to taste without discerning any flavour to consider what is small as great and a few as many
and to recompense injury with kindness
the master of it anticipates things that are difficult while they are easy and does things that would become great while they are small all difficult things in the world are sure to arise from a previous state in which they were easy
and all great things from one in which they were small therefore the sage while he never does what is great is able on that account to accomplish the greatest things
he who lightly promises is sure to keep but little faith he who is continually thinking things easy is sure to find them difficult
who knows his manhood's strength yet still his female feebleness maintains as to one channel flow the many drains all come to him yea all beneath the sky thus he the constant excellence retains
the simple child again free from all stains who knows how white attracts yet always keeps himself within black's shade the pattern of humility displayed
displayed in view of all beneath the sky he in the unchanging excellence arrayed endless return to man's first state has made who knows how glory shines yet loves disgrace
nor e'er for it is pale behold his presence in a spacious vale to which men come from all beneath the sky the unchanging excellence completes its tale the simple infant man in him we hail
the unwrought material when divided and distributed forms vessels the sage when employed becomes the head of all the officers of government and in his greatest regulations he employs no violent measures
if any one should wish to get the kingdom for himself and to effect this by what he does i see that he will not succeed the kingdom is a spirit like thing and cannot be got by active doing
he who would so win it destroys it he who would hold it in his grasp loses it
the course and nature of things is such that what was in front is now behind what warmed anon we freezing find strength is of weakness oft the spoil
the store in ruins mocks our toil hence the sage puts away excessive effort extravagance and easy indulgence
he who would assist a lord of men in harmony with the tao will not assert his mastery in the kingdom by force of arms such a course is sure to meet with its proper return
wherever a host is stationed briars and thorns spring up in the sequence of great armies there are sure to be bad years
a skilful commander strikes a decisive blow and stops he does not dare by continuing his operations to assert and complete his mastery he will strike the blow
but will be on his guard against being vain or boastful or arrogant in consequence of it he strikes it as a matter of necessity he strikes it but not from a wish for mastery
when things have attained their strong maturity they become old this may be said to be not in accordance with the tao and what is not in accordance with it soon comes to an end
now arms however beautiful are instruments of evil omen hateful it may be said to all creatures therefore they who have the tao do not like to employ them
the superior man ordinarily considers the left hand the most honourable place but in time of war the right hand those sharp weapons are instruments of evil omen and not the instruments of the superior man
he uses them only on the compulsion of necessity calm and repose are what he prizes victory by force of arms is to him undesirable to consider this desirable
would be to delight in the slaughter of men and he who delights in the slaughter of men cannot get his will in the kingdom
on occasions of festivity to be on the left hand is the prized position on occasions of mourning the right hand the second in command of the army has his place on the left the general commanding in chief has his on the right
his place that is is assigned to him as in the rites of mourning he who has killed multitudes of men should weep for them with the bitterest grief and the victor in battle has his place rightly according to those rites
the tao considered as unchanging has no name
though in its primordial simplicity it may be small the whole world dares not deal with one embodying it as a minister if a feudal prince or the king could guard and hold it
all would spontaneously submit themselves to him
heaven and earth under its guidance unite together and send down the sweet dew which without the directions of men reaches equally everywhere as of its own accord
as soon as it proceeds to action it has a name when it once has that name men can know to rest in it when they know to rest in it they can be free from all risk of failure and error
the relation of the tao to all the world is like that of the great rivers and seas to the streams from the valleys
he who knows other men is discerning he who knows himself is intelligent he who overcomes others is strong he who overcomes himself is mighty he who is satisfied with his lot is rich
he who goes on acting with energy has a firm will
he who does not fail in the requirements of his position continues long he who dies and yet does not perish has longevity
all pervading is the great tao it may be found on the left hand and on the right
all things depend on it for their production which it gives to them not one refusing obedience to it when its work is accomplished it does not claim the name of having done it it clothes all things as with a garment
and makes no assumption of being their lord it may be named in the smallest things all things return to their root and disappear and do not know that it is it which presides over their doing so it may be named in the greatest things
hence the sage is able in the same way to accomplish his great achievements it is through his not making himself great that he can accomplish them
to him who holds in his hands the great image of the invisible tao the whole world repairs men resort to him and receive no hurt but find rest peace and the feeling of ease
music and dainties will make the passing guest stop for a time but though the tao as it comes from the mouth seems insipid and has no flavour though it seems not worth being looked at or listened to
the use of it is inexhaustible
when one is about to take an inspiration he is sure to make a previous expiration when he is going to weaken another he will first strengthen him when he is going to overthrow another he will first have raised him up
when he is going to despoil another he will first have made gifts to him this is called hiding the light of his procedure
the soft overcomes the hard and the weak the strong
fishes should not be taken from the deep instruments for the profit of a state should not be shown to the people
the tao in its regular course does nothing for the sake of doing it and so there is nothing which it does not do
if princes and kings were able to maintain it all things would of themselves be transformed by them
if this transformation became to me an object of desire i would express the desire by the nameless simplicity simplicity without a name is free from all external aim
chapter thirty two of the reply don quixote gave his censurer with other incidents grave and droll don quixote then having risen to his feet
trembling from head to foot like a man dosed with mercury said in a hurried agitated voice the place i am in the presence in which i stand and the respect i have and always have had for the profession to which your worship belongs
hold and bind the hands of my just indignation and as well for these reasons as because i know as everyone knows that a gownsman's weapon is the same as a woman's the tongue i will with mine engage in equal combat with your worship
from whom one might have expected good advice instead of foul abuse pious well meant reproof requires a different demeanour and arguments of another sort at any rate to have reproved me in public and so roughly exceeds the bounds of proper reproof
for that comes better with gentleness than with rudeness and it is not seemly to call the sinner roundly blockhead and booby without knowing anything of the sin that is reproved come tell me for which of the stupidities you have observed in me do you condemn and abuse me
and bid me go home and look after my house and wife and children without knowing whether i have any is nothing more needed than to get a footing by hook or by crook in other people's houses to rule over the masters
and that perhaps after having been brought up in all the straitness of some seminary and without having ever seen more of the world than may lie within twenty or thirty leagues round to fit one to lay down the law rashly for chivalry and pass judgment on knights errant
is it haply an idle occupation or is the time ill spent that is spent in roaming the world in quest not of its enjoyments but of those arduous toils whereby the good mount upwards to the abodes of everlasting life
if gentlemen great lords nobles men of high birth were to rate me as a fool i should take it as an irreparable insult but i care not a farthing if clerks who have never entered upon or trod the paths of chivalry should think me foolish knight i am and knight i will die
if such be the pleasure of the most high some take the broad road of overweening ambition others that of mean and servile flattery others that of deceitful hypocrisy and some that of true religion but i led by my star follow the narrow path of knight errantry
and in pursuit of that calling i despise wealth but not honour i have redressed injuries righted wrongs punished insolences vanquished giants and crushed monsters i am in love for no other reason than that it is incumbent on knights errant to be so
but though i am i am no carnal minded lover but one of the chaste platonic sort my intentions are always directed to worthy ends to do good to all and evil to none and if he who means this does this and makes this his practice deserves to be called a fool
good by god
say no more in your own defence master mine for there's nothing more in the world to be said thought or insisted on and besides when this gentleman denies as he has
is it any wonder if he knows nothing of what he has been talking about perhaps brother said the ecclesiastic you are that sancho panza that is mentioned to whom your master has promised an island
and what's more i am one who deserves it as much as anyone i am one of the sort
and of those not with whom thou art bred but with whom thou art fed and of those who leans against a good tree a good shade covers him i have leant upon a good master and i have been for months going about with him and please god
i shall be just such another long life to him and long life to me for neither will he be in any want of empires to rule or i of islands to govern
for in the name of senor don quixote i confer upon you the government of one of no small importance that i have at my disposal
sancho obeyed and on seeing this the ecclesiastic stood up from table completely out of temper exclaiming
no wonder they are mad when people who are in their senses sanction their madness i leave your excellence with them for so long as they are in the house i will remain in my own and spare myself the trouble of reproving what i cannot remedy
and without uttering another word or eating another morsel he went off the entreaties of the duke and duchess being entirely unavailing to stop him not that the duke said much to him for he could not because of the laughter his uncalled for anger provoked
when he had done laughing he said to don quixote
that there is no occasion to seek further satisfaction for this which though it may look like an offence is not so at all for as women can give no offence no more can ecclesiastics as you very well know that is true said don quixote
and the reason is that he who is not liable to offence cannot give offence to anyone women children and ecclesiastics as they cannot defend themselves though they may receive offence cannot be insulted because between the offence and the insult there is as your excellence very well knows
this difference the insult comes from one who is capable of offering it and does so and maintains it the offence may come from any quarter without carrying insult to take an example a man is standing unsuspectingly in the street and ten others come up armed and beat him
he draws his sword and quits himself like a man but the number of his antagonists makes it impossible for him to effect his purpose and avenge himself this man suffers an offence but not an insult another example will make the same thing plain a man is standing with his back turned
another comes up and strikes him and after striking him takes to flight without waiting an instant and the other pursues him but does not overtake him he who received the blow received an offence but not an insult because an insult must be maintained if he who struck him
though he did so sneakingly and treacherously had drawn his sword and stood and faced him
offence because he was struck treacherously insult because he who struck him maintained what he had done standing his ground without taking to flight and so according to the laws of the accursed duel i may have received offence but not insult
for neither women nor children can maintain it nor can they wound nor have they any way of standing their ground and it is just the same with those connected with religion for these three sorts of persons are without arms offensive or defensive
and so though naturally they are bound to defend themselves they have no right to offend anybody and though i said just now i might have received offence i say now certainly not for he who cannot receive an insult can still less give one
for which reasons i ought not to feel nor do i feel aggrieved at what that good man said to me i only wish he had stayed a little longer that i might have shown him the mistake he makes in supposing and maintaining that there are not and never have been any knights errant in the world
i will take my oath of that
they would have given him a slash that would have slit him down from top to toe like a pomegranate or a ripe melon they were likely fellows to put up with jokes of that sort by my faith
ay let him tackle them and he'll see how he'll get out of their hands
was ready to die with laughter and in her own mind she set him down as droller and madder than his master and there were a good many just then who were of the same opinion don quixote finally grew calm and dinner came to an end
and as the cloth was removed four damsels came in one of them with a silver basin another with a jug also of silver a third with two fine white towels on her shoulder and the fourth with her arms bared to the elbows and in her white hands for white they certainly were
a round ball of naples soap the one with the basin approached and with arch composure and impudence thrust it under don quixote's chin who wondering at such a ceremony
said never a word supposing it to be the custom of that country to wash beards instead of hands he therefore stretched his out as far as he could and at the same instant the jug began to pour and the damsel with the soap rubbed his beard briskly raising snow flakes for the soap lather was no less white
and over the eyes of the submissive knight so that they were perforce obliged to keep shut the duke and duchess who had not known anything about this waited to see what came of this strange washing the barber damsel when she had him a hand's breadth deep in lather
pretended that there was no more water and bade the one with the jug go and fetch some while senor don quixote waited she did so and don quixote was left the strangest and most ludicrous figure that could be imagined all those present and there were a good many
were watching him and as they saw him there with half a yard of neck and that uncommonly brown his eyes shut and his beard full of soap it was a great wonder and only by great discretion that they were able to restrain their laughter the damsels the concocters of the joke
kept their eyes down not daring to look at their master and mistress and as for them laughter and anger struggled within them and they knew not what to do whether to punish the audacity of the girls or to reward them for the amusement they had received from seeing don quixote in such a plight
at length the damsel with the jug returned and they made an end of washing don quixote and the one who carried the towels very deliberately wiped him and dried him and all four together making him a profound obeisance and curtsey they were about to go when the duke
lest don quixote should see through the joke called out to the one with the basin saying come and wash me and take care that there is water enough the girl sharp witted and prompt came and placed the basin for the duke as she had done for don quixote and they soon had him well soaped and washed
and having wiped him dry they made their obeisance and retired it appeared afterwards that the duke had sworn that if they had not washed him as they had don quixote he would have punished them for their impudence which they adroitly atoned for by soaping him as well
sancho observed the ceremony of the washing very attentively and said to himself god bless me
for by god and upon my soul i want it badly and if they gave me a scrape of the razor besides i'd take it as a still greater kindness what are you saying to yourself sancho asked the duchess i was saying senora he replied
don't be uneasy friend sancho said the duchess i will take care that my damsels wash you and even put you in the tub if necessary
at any rate for the present and as for the future god has decreed what is to be attend to worthy sancho's request seneschal said the duchess and do exactly what he wishes
the seneschal replied that senor sancho should be obeyed in everything
while the duke and duchess and don quixote remained at table discussing a great variety of things but all bearing on the calling of arms and knight errantry the duchess begged don quixote as he seemed to have a retentive memory
to describe and portray to her the beauty and features of the lady dulcinea del toboso for judging by what fame trumpeted abroad of her beauty she felt sure she must be the fairest creature in the world nay in all la mancha
don quixote sighed on hearing the duchess's request and said if i could pluck out my heart and lay it on a plate on this table here before your highness's eyes it would spare my tongue the pain of telling what can hardly be thought of for in it your excellence would see her portrayed in full
but why should i attempt to depict and describe in detail and feature by feature the beauty of the peerless dulcinea the burden being one worthy of other shoulders than mine
and the graver of lysippus ought to be employed to paint it in pictures and carve it in marble and bronze and ciceronian and demosthenian eloquence to sound its praises what does demosthenian mean senor don quixote said the duchess
it is a word i never heard in all my life demosthenian eloquence said don quixote means the eloquence of demosthenes
who were the two most eloquent orators in the world true said the duke you must have lost your wits to ask such a question nevertheless senor don quixote would greatly gratify us if he would depict her to us for never fear even in an outline or sketch
she will be something to make the fairest envious i would do so certainly said don quixote had she not been blurred to my mind's eye by the misfortune that fell upon her a short time since one of such a nature that i am more ready to weep over it than to describe it
for your highnesses must know that going a few days back to kiss her hands and receive her benediction approbation and permission for this third sally i found her altogether a different being from the one i sought i found her enchanted and changed from a princess into a peasant
from fair to foul from an angel into a devil from fragrant to pestiferous from refined to clownish from a dignified lady into a jumping tomboy and in a word from dulcinea del toboso
god bless me said the duke aloud at this who can have done the world such an injury who can have robbed it of the beauty that gladdened it of the grace and gaiety that charmed it of the modesty that shed a lustre upon it who
replied don quixote who could it be but some malignant enchanter of the many that persecute me out of envy
the achievements of the good and glorify and exalt the deeds of the wicked
and they injure and wound me where they know i feel it most for to deprive a knight errant of his lady is to deprive him of the eyes he sees with of the sun that gives him light of the food whereby he lives
and i say it now once more a knight errant without a lady is like a tree without leaves a building without a foundation or a shadow without the body that causes it there is no denying it said the duchess but still
if we are to believe the history of don quixote that has come out here lately with general applause it is to be inferred from it if i mistake not that you never saw the lady dulcinea and that the said lady is nothing in the world but an imaginary lady
one that you yourself begot and gave birth to in your brain and adorned with whatever charms and perfections you chose there is a good deal to be said on that point said don quixote
or whether she is imaginary or not imaginary these are things the proof of which must not be pushed to extreme lengths i have not begotten nor given birth to my lady though i behold her as she needs must be a lady who contains in herself all the qualities to make her famous throughout the world
beautiful without blemish dignified without haughtiness tender and yet modest gracious from courtesy and courteous from good breeding and lastly of exalted lineage because beauty shines forth and excels with a higher degree of perfection upon good blood
than in the fair of lowly birth that is true said the duke but senor don quixote will give me leave to say what i am constrained to say by the story of his exploits that i have read from which it is to be inferred that granting there is a dulcinea in el toboso
or out of it and that she is in the highest degree beautiful as you have described her to us as regards the loftiness of her lineage she is not on a par with the orianas alastrajareas
madasimas or others of that sort with whom as you well know the histories abound to that i may reply said don quixote that dulcinea is the daughter of her own works and that virtues rectify blood
and that lowly virtue is more to be regarded and esteemed than exalted vice dulcinea besides has that within her that may raise her to be a crowned and sceptred queen for the merit of a fair and virtuous woman is capable of performing greater miracles
and virtually though not formally she has in herself higher fortunes i protest senor don quixote said the duchess
henceforth i will believe myself and i will take care that everyone in my house believes even my lord the duke if needs be that there is a dulcinea in el toboso and that she is living to day
and that she is beautiful and nobly born and deserves to have such a knight as senor don quixote in her service and that is the highest praise that it is in my power to give her or that i can think of but i cannot help entertaining a doubt
that the aforesaid history declares that the said sancho panza when he carried a letter on your worship's behalf to the said lady dulcinea found her sifting a sack of wheat and more by token it says it was red wheat a thing which makes me doubt the loftiness of her lineage
to this don quixote made answer senora your highness must know that everything or almost everything that happens me
whether it be that it is directed by the inscrutable will of destiny or by the malice of some jealous enchanter now it is an established fact that all or most famous knights errant have some special gift one that of being proof against enchantment
another that of being made of such invulnerable flesh that he cannot be wounded as was the famous roland one of the twelve peers of france of whom it is related that he could not be wounded except in the sole of his left foot and that it must be with the point of a stout pin and not with any other sort of weapon whatever
and so when bernardo del carpio slew him at roncesvalles finding that he could not wound him with steel he lifted him up from the ground in his arms and strangled him calling to mind seasonably the death which hercules inflicted on antaeus the fierce giant that they say was the son of terra
i would infer from what i have mentioned that perhaps i may have some gift of this kind not that of being invulnerable because experience has many times proved to me that i am of tender flesh and not at all impenetrable nor that of being proof against enchantment
for i have already seen myself thrust into a cage in which all the world would not have been able to confine me except by force of enchantments but as i delivered myself from that one i am inclined to believe that there is no other that can hurt me and so these enchanters
seeing that they cannot exert their vile craft against my person revenge themselves on what i love most and seek to rob me of life by maltreating that of dulcinea in whom i live and therefore i am convinced that when my squire carried my message to her they changed her into a common peasant girl
engaged in such a mean occupation as sifting wheat i have already said however that that wheat was not red wheat nor wheat at all but grains of orient pearl
though sancho my squire saw her in her own proper shape which is the fairest in the world to me she appeared to be a coarse ill favoured farm wench and by no means a well spoken one she who is propriety itself
and so as i am not and so far as one can judge cannot be enchanted she it is that is enchanted that is smitten that is altered changed and transformed in her have my enemies revenged themselves upon me
and for her shall i live in ceaseless tears until i see her in her pristine state i have mentioned this lest anybody should mind what sancho said about dulcinea's winnowing or sifting for as they changed her to me it is no wonder if they changed her to him
dulcinea is illustrious and well born and of one of the gentle families of el toboso which are many ancient and good therein most assuredly not small is the share of the peerless dulcinea through whom her town will be famous and celebrated in ages to come
as troy was through helen and spain through la cava though with a better title and tradition for another thing i would have your graces understand that sancho panza is one of the drollest squires that ever served knight errant sometimes there is a simplicity about him so acute
that it is an amusement to try and make out whether he is simple or sharp he has mischievous tricks that stamp him rogue and blundering ways that prove him a booby he doubts everything and believes everything when i fancy he is on the point of coming down headlong from sheer stupidity
he comes out with something shrewd that sends him up to the skies after all i would not exchange him for another squire though i were given a city to boot
though i perceive in him a certain aptitude for the work of governing so that with a little trimming of his understanding he would manage any government as easily as the king does his taxes and moreover we know already ample experience that it does not require much cleverness or much learning to be a governor
the main point is that they should have good intentions and be desirous of doing right in all things for they will never be at a loss for persons to advise and direct them in what they have to do like those knight governors who being no lawyers pronounce sentences with the aid of an assessor
my advice to him will be to take no bribe and surrender no right and i have some other little matters in reserve that shall be produced in due season for sancho's benefit and the advantage of the island he is to govern the duke duchess and don quixote had reached this point in their conversation
with a straining cloth by way of a bib and followed by several servants or more properly speaking kitchen boys and other underlings one of whom carried a small trough full of water that from its colour and impurity was plainly dishwater
the one with the trough pursued him and followed him everywhere he went endeavouring with the utmost persistence to thrust it under his chin while another kitchen boy seemed anxious to wash his beard what is all this brothers asked the duchess what is it
do you forget he is a governor elect to which the barber kitchen boy replied the gentleman will not let himself be washed as is customary and as my lord and the senor his master have been
the customs of countries and princes palaces are only good so long as they give no annoyance but the way of washing they have here is worse than doing penance i have a clean beard
i mean to say my beard with all due respect be it said i'll give him a punch that will leave my fist sunk in his skull
the duchess was ready to die with laughter when she saw sancho's rage and heard his words but it was no pleasure to don quixote to see him in such a sorry trim with the dingy towel about him and the hangers on of the kitchen all round him
so making a low bow to the duke and duchess as if to ask their permission to speak
holloa gentlemen you let that youth alone and go back to where you came from or anywhere else if you like my squire is as clean as any other person and those troughs are as bad as narrow thin necked jars to him take my advice and leave him alone
for neither he nor i understand joking sancho took the word out of his mouth and went on nay let them come and try their jokes on the country bumpkin
as that it's now midnight let them bring me a comb here or what they please and curry this beard of mine and if they get anything out of it that offends against cleanliness let them clip me to the skin upon this the duchess laughing all the while said sancho panza is right
and always will be in all he says he is clean and as he says himself he does not require to be washed and if our ways do not please him he is free to choose besides you promoters of cleanliness have been excessively careless and thoughtless
i don't know if i ought not to say audacious to bring troughs and wooden utensils and kitchen dishclouts instead of basins and jugs of pure gold and towels of holland to such a person and such a beard
but after all you are ill conditioned and ill bred and spiteful as you are you cannot help showing the grudge you have against the squires of knights errant the impudent servitors and even the seneschal who came with them took the duchess to be speaking in earnest so they removed the straining cloth from sancho's neck
and with something like shame and confusion of face went off all of them and left him whereupon he seeing himself safe out of that extreme danger as it seemed to him ran and fell on his knees before the duchess saying from great ladies great favours may be looked for
this which your grace has done me today cannot be requited with less than wishing i was dubbed a knight errant to devote myself all the days of my life to the service of so exalted a lady i am a labouring man my name is sancho panza i am married
i have children and i am serving as a squire if in any one of these ways i can serve your highness i will not be longer in obeying than your grace in commanding it is easy to see sancho replied the duchess
that you have learned to be polite in the school of politeness itself i mean to say it is easy to see that you have been nursed in the bosom of senor don quixote who is of course the cream of good breeding and flower of ceremony or cirimony as you would say yourself
fair be the fortunes of such a master and such a servant the one the cynosure of knight errantry the other the star of squirely fidelity
i will repay your courtesy by taking care that my lord the duke makes good to you the promised gift of the government as soon as possible with this the conversation came to an end and don quixote retired to take his midday sleep
to serve her excellence he would try with all his might not to sleep even one that day and that he would come in obedience to her command and with that he went off
houses have their own ways of dying falling as variously as the generations of men some with a tragic roar some quietly but to an after life in the city of ghosts while from others
and thus was the death of wickham place the spirit slips before the body perishes it had decayed in the spring disintegrating the girls more than they knew and causing either to accost unfamiliar regions by september it was a corpse
void of emotion and scarcely hallowed by the memories of thirty years of happiness through its round topped doorway passed furniture and pictures and books until the last room was gutted and the last van had rumbled away
it stood for a week or two longer open eyed as if astonished at its own emptiness then it fell navvies came and spilt it back into the grey with their muscles and their beery good temper
the furniture with a few exceptions went down into hertfordshire mister wilcox having most kindly offered howards end as a warehouse mister bryce had died abroad an unsatisfactory affair
but tibby accepted the offer gladly it saved him from coming to any decision about the future the plate and the more valuable pictures found a safer home in london but the bulk of the things went country ways and were entrusted to the guardianship of miss avery
shortly before the move our hero and heroine were married
to have no illusions and yet to love what stronger surety can a woman find she had seen her husband's past as well as his heart she knew her own heart with a thoroughness that commonplace people believe impossible
the heart of missus wilcox was alone hidden and perhaps it is superstitious to speculate on the feelings of the dead they were married quietly really quietly for as the day approached she refused to go through another oniton
her brother gave her away her aunt who was out of health presided over a few colourless refreshments the wilcoxes were represented by charles who witnessed the marriage settlement
paul did send a cablegram in a few minutes and without the aid of music the clergyman made them man and wife and soon the glass shade had fallen that cuts off married couples from the world she a monogamist
regretted the cessation of some of life's innocent odours he whose instincts were polygamous felt morally braced by the change and less liable to the temptations that had assailed him in the past they spent their honeymoon near innsbruck
henry knew of a reliable hotel there and margaret hoped for a meeting with her sister in this she was disappointed as they came south helen retreated over the brenner and wrote an unsatisfactory postcard from the shores of the lake of garda
saying that her plans were uncertain and had better be ignored evidently she disliked meeting henry two months are surely enough to accustom an outsider to a situation which a wife has accepted in two days
and margaret had again to regret her sister's lack of self control
so little is known about them it is hard enough for those who are personally touched to judge then how futile must be the verdict of society i don't say there is no standard for that would destroy morality
only that there can be no standard until our impulses are classified and better understood helen thanked her for her kind letter rather a curious reply she moved south again and spoke of wintering in naples
mister wilcox was not sorry that the meeting failed helen left him time to grow skin over his wound there were still moments when it pained him had he only known that margaret was awaiting him margaret so lively and intelligent
and yet so submissive he would have kept himself worthier of her incapable of grouping the past he confused the episode of jacky with another episode that had taken place in the days of his bachelorhood the two made one crop of wild oats
for which he was heartily sorry and he could not see that those oats are of a darker stock which are rooted in another's dishonour unchastity and infidelity were as confused to him as to the middle ages his only moral teacher
ruth poor old ruth did not enter into his calculations at all for poor old ruth had never found him out his affection for his present wife grew steadily her cleverness gave him no trouble
and indeed he liked to see her reading poetry or something about social questions it distinguished her from the wives of other men he had only to call and she clapped the book up and was ready to do what he wished then they would argue so jollily
and once or twice she had him in quite a tight corner but as soon as he grew really serious she gave in man is for war woman for the recreation of the warrior but he does not dislike it if she makes a show of fight
she showed her annoyance and asked rather crossly why she had not been consulted i didn't want to bother you he replied besides i have only heard for certain this morning where are we to live said margaret trying to laugh
i loved the place extraordinarily don't you believe in having a permanent home henry he assured her that she misunderstood him it is home life that distinguishes us from the foreigner but he did not believe in a damp home this is news
in the first place the grange is on clay and built where the castle moat must have been
steaming all night like a kettle feel the cellar walls look up under the eaves ask sir james or anyone those shropshire valleys are notorious the only possible place for a house in shropshire is on a hill
he drew his head back and grew rather angry why have we come to the tyrol if it comes to that one might go on asking such questions indefinitely one might but he was only gaining time for a plausible answer
out it came and he believed it as soon as it was spoken the truth is i took oniton on account of evie don't let this go any further certainly not i shouldn't like her to know that she nearly let me in for a very bad bargain
no sooner did i sign the agreement than she got engaged poor little girl she was so keen on it all and wouldn't even wait to make proper inquiries about the shooting afraid it would get snapped up just like all of your sex well no harm's done
she has had her country wedding and i've got rid of my house to some fellows who are starting a preparatory school where shall we live then henry i should enjoy living somewhere i have not yet decided
margaret was silent marriage had not saved her from the sense of flux london was but a foretaste of this nomadic civilization which is altering human nature so profoundly
and throws upon personal relations a stress greater than they have ever borne before under cosmopolitanism if it comes we shall receive no help from the earth trees and meadows and mountains will only be a spectacle
and the binding force that they once exercised on character must be entrusted to love alone may love be equal to the task it is now what continued henry
i see your point said margaret getting up if oniton is really damp it is impossible and must be inhabited by little boys only in the spring let us look before we leap
what's it been reading theo theo how much theosophy
a pleasant enough fate the house being only a little larger than wickham place trained her for the immense establishment that was promised in the spring they were frequently away but at home life ran fairly regularly in the morning henry went to the business
and his sandwich a relic this of some prehistoric craving was always cut by her own hand he did not rely upon the sandwich for lunch but liked to have it by him in case he grew hungry at eleven when he had gone there was the house to look after
and the servants to humanize and several kettles of helen's to keep on the boil her conscience pricked her a little about the basts she was not sorry to have lost sight of them no doubt leonard was worth helping but being henry's wife she preferred to help someone else
as for theatres and discussion societies they attracted her less and less she began to miss new movements and to spend her spare time re reading or thinking rather to the concern of her chelsea friends they attributed the change to her marriage
and perhaps some deep instinct did warn her not to travel further from her husband than was inevitable yet the main cause lay deeper still she had outgrown stimulants and was passing from words to things
chapter thirteen concerning politics said i how do you manage with politics said hammond smiling i am glad that it is of me that you ask that question
i do believe that anybody else would make you explain yourself or try to do so till you were sickened of asking questions indeed i believe i am the only man in england who would know what you mean and since i know
i will answer your question briefly by saying that we are very well off as to politics because we have none if ever you make a book out of this conversation put this in a chapter by itself after the model of old horrebow's snakes in iceland
i will said i chapter fourteen how matters are managed said i how about your relations with foreign nations
i will not affect not to know what you mean said he but i will tell you at once that the whole system of rival and contending nations which played so great a part in the government of the world of civilisation has disappeared along with the inequality betwixt man and man in society
does not that make the world duller said i why said the old man the obliteration of national variety said i nonsense he said somewhat snappishly cross the water and see
how should it add to the variety or dispel the dulness to coerce certain families or tribes often heterogeneous and jarring with one another into certain artificial and mechanical groups and call them nations and stimulate their patriotism
said i that's right said hammond cheerily you can easily understand that now we are freed from this folly it is obvious to us that by means of this very diversity the different strains of blood in the world can be serviceable and pleasant to each other
without in the least wanting to rob each other we are all bent on the same enterprise making the most of our lives and i must tell you whatever quarrels or misunderstandings arise
no not at all said he somewhat snappishly but i do say that differences of opinion about real solid things need not and with us do not crystallise people into parties permanently hostile to one another
isn't that what politics used to mean
said he i take you neighbour they only pretended to this serious difference of opinion for if it had existed they could not have dealt together in the ordinary business of life couldn't have eaten together bought and sold together gambled together cheated other people together
but must have fought whenever they met which would not have suited them at all the game of the masters of politics was to cajole or force the public to pay the expense of a luxurious life and exciting amusement for a few cliques of ambitious persons
and the pretence of serious difference of opinion belied by every action of their lives was quite good enough for that what has all that got to do with us said i why nothing i should hope but i fear
cried the old boy impetuously what human nature the human nature of paupers of slaves of slave holders or the human nature of wealthy freemen which come tell me that
amongst us our differences concern matters of business and passing events as to them and could not divide men permanently as a rule the immediate outcome shows which opinion on a given subject is the right one it is a matter of fact not of speculation
for instance it is clearly not easy to knock up a political party on the question as to whether haymaking in such and such a country side shall begin this week or next when all men agree that it must at latest begin the week after next
and when any man can go down into the fields himself and see whether the seeds are ripe enough for the cutting said i and you settle these differences great and small by the will of the majority i suppose certainly said he
you see in matters which are merely personal which do not affect the welfare of the community how a man shall dress what he shall eat and drink what he shall write and read and so forth there can be no difference of opinion and everybody does as he pleases
and the doing or not doing something affects everybody the majority must have their way unless the minority were to take up arms and show by force that they were the effective or real majority which however in a society of men who are free and equal is little likely to happen
because in such a community the apparent majority is the real majority and the others as i have hinted before
especially as they have had plenty of opportunity of putting forward their side of the question how is that managed said i well said he let us take one of our units of management a commune or a ward or a parish
for we have all three names indicating little real distinction between them now though time was there was a good deal in such a district as you would call it some neighbours think that something ought to be done or undone a new town hall built
a clearance of inconvenient houses or say a stone bridge substituted for some ugly old iron one there you have undoing and doing in one well at the next ordinary meeting of the neighbours or mote as we call it
according to the ancient tongue of the times before bureaucracy a neighbour proposes the change and of course if everybody agrees there is an end of discussion except about details equally if no one backs the proposer
the matter drops for the time being a thing not likely to happen amongst reasonable men however as the proposer is sure to have talked it over with others before the mote but supposing the affair proposed and seconded if a few of the neighbours disagree to it
if they think that the beastly iron bridge will serve a little longer and they don't want to be bothered with building a new one just then they don't count heads that time but put off the formal discussion to the next mote and meantime arguments pro and con are flying about
and some get printed so that everybody knows what is going on and when the mote comes together again there is a regular discussion and at last a vote by show of hands if the division is a close one the question is again put off for further discussion
if the division is a wide one the minority are asked if they will yield to the more general opinion which they often nay most commonly do if they refuse the question is debated a third time when if the minority has not perceptibly grown they
very good said i but what happens if the divisions are still narrow said he as a matter of principle and according to the rule of such cases the question must then lapse and the majority if so narrow
has to submit to sitting down under the status quo but i must tell you that in point of fact the minority very seldom enforces this rule but generally yields in a friendly manner but do you know said i that there is something in all this very like democracy
and i thought that democracy was considered to be in a moribund condition many many years ago the old boy's eyes twinkled i grant you that our methods have that drawback but what is to be done
we can't get anyone amongst us to complain of his not always having his own way in the teeth of the community when it is clear that everybody cannot have that indulgence what is to be done well said i i don't know said he
the only alternatives to our method that i can conceive of are these first that we should choose out or breed a class of superior persons capable of judging on all matters without consulting the neighbours
that in short we should get for ourselves what used to be called an aristocracy of intellect or secondly that for the purpose of safe guarding the freedom of the individual will we should revert to a system of private property again and have slaves and slave holders once more
what do you think of those two expedients well said i there is a third possibility to wit that every man should be quite independent of every other and that thus the tyranny of society should be abolished
and then burst out laughing very heartily and i confess that i joined him when he recovered himself he nodded at me and said yes yes i quite agree with you and so we all do yes i said
but dear neighbour that is not a very effective salve for the wound caused by the tyranny of a majority in our society because all work that is done is either beneficial or hurtful to every member of society the man is benefited by the bridge building if it turns out a good thing
and hurt by it if it turns out a bad one whether he puts a hand to it or not and meanwhile he is benefiting the bridge builders by his work whatever that may be in fact i see no help for him except the pleasure of saying i told you so
when for every well fed contented person you saw a thousand miserable starvelings whereas for us we grow fat and well liking on the tyranny a tyranny to say the truth not to be made visible by any microscope i know don't be afraid my friend
we are not going to seek for troubles by calling our peace and plenty and happiness by ill names whose very meaning we have forgotten
chapter eight at five o'clock the two ladies retired to dress and at half past six elizabeth was summoned to dinner to the civil inquiries which then poured in and amongst which she had the pleasure of distinguishing the much superior solicitude of mister bingley's
she could not make a very favourable answer jane was by no means better the sisters on hearing this repeated three or four times how much they were grieved how shocking it was to have a bad cold and how excessively they disliked being ill themselves
and then thought no more of the matter and their indifference towards jane when not immediately before them restored elizabeth to the enjoyment of all her former dislike their brother indeed was the only one of the party whom she could regard with any complacency
his anxiety for jane was evident and his attentions to herself most pleasing and they prevented her feeling herself so much an intruder as she believed she was considered by the others she had very little notice from any but him miss bingley was engrossed by mister darcy
her sister scarcely less so and as for mister hurst by whom elizabeth sat he was an indolent man who lived only to eat drink and play at cards who when he found her to prefer a plain dish to a ragout had nothing to say to her
when dinner was over she returned directly to jane and miss bingley began abusing her as soon as she was out of the room her manners were pronounced to be very bad indeed a mixture of pride and impertinence she had no conversation no style no beauty
she really looked almost wild she did indeed louisa i could hardly keep my countenance very nonsensical to come at all
be scampering about the country
six inches deep in mud i am absolutely certain and the gown which had been let down to hide it not doing its office your picture may be very exact louisa said bingley
and alone quite alone what could she mean by it it seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence a most country town indifference to decorum
it shows an affection for her sister that is very pleasing said bingley i am afraid mister darcy observed miss bingley in a half whisper that this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes
cried bingley it would not make them one jot less agreeable but it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world replied darcy to this speech bingley made no answer but his sisters gave it their hearty assent
and indulged their mirth for some time at the expense of their dear friend's vulgar relations with a renewal of tenderness however they returned to her room on leaving the dining parlour and sat with her till summoned to coffee she was still very poorly and elizabeth would not quit her at all
till late in the evening when she had the comfort of seeing her sleep and when it seemed to her rather right than pleasant that she should go downstairs herself on entering the drawing room she found the whole party at loo and was immediately invited to join them but suspecting them to be playing high
she declined it and making her sister the excuse said she would amuse herself for the short time she could stay below with a book mister hurst looked at her with astonishment do you prefer reading to cards said he
said miss bingley despises cards she is a great reader and has no pleasure in anything else i deserve neither such praise nor such censure cried elizabeth i am not a great reader
and i have pleasure in many things in nursing your sister i am sure you have pleasure said bingley
and though i have not many i have more than i ever looked into elizabeth assured him that she could suit herself perfectly with those in the room i am astonished said miss bingley that my father should have left so small a collection of books
what a delightful library you have at pemberley mister darcy it ought to be good he replied it has been the work of many generations and then you have added so much to it yourself you are always buying books
i cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these
i wish it may be half as delightful as pemberley i wish it may but i would really advise you to make your purchase in that neighbourhood and take pemberley for a kind of model
with all my heart i will buy pemberley itself if darcy will sell it
i should think it more possible to get pemberley by purchase than by imitation elizabeth was so much caught with what passed as to leave her very little attention for her book and soon laying it wholly aside she drew near the card table
and stationed herself between mister bingley and his eldest sister to observe the game
she is now about miss elizabeth bennet's height or rather taller how i long to see her again
such a countenance such manners
said bingley how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are all
your list of the common extent of accomplishments said darcy has too much truth
i cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen in the whole range of my acquaintance that are really accomplished
said miss bingley then observed elizabeth you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman yes i do comprehend a great deal in it oh certainly cried his faithful assistant
singing drawing dancing and the modern languages to deserve the word
and to all this she must yet add something more substantial in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading i am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women
i never saw such a woman i never saw such capacity and taste and application and elegance as you describe united missus hurst and miss bingley both cried out against the injustice of her implied doubt and were both protesting that they knew many women who answered this description
when mister hurst called them to order with bitter complaints of their inattention to what was going forward as all conversation was thereby at an end elizabeth soon afterwards left the room elizabeth bennet
and with many men i dare say it succeeds but in my opinion it is a paltry device a very mean art undoubtedly replied darcy to whom this remark was chiefly addressed
preoccupied as i was by the condition of the patient the professional habit of rapid and close observation caused me to direct a searching glance at the man before me it was only a brief glance for mister weiss
between the pallor of his face and the redness of his nose and by the peculiar stiff bristly character of his eyebrows but there was another fact and a very curious one
that was observed by me subconsciously and instantly forgotten to be revived later when i reflected on the events of the night it was this as mister weiss stood with his head slightly turned
i was able to look through one glass of his spectacles at the wall beyond on the wall was a framed print and the edge of the frame seen through the spectacle glass appeared quite unaltered and free from distortion magnification or reduction
as if seen through plain window glass and yet the reflections of the candle flame in the spectacles showed the flame upside down proving conclusively that the glasses were concave on one surface at least
the strange phenomenon was visible only for a moment or two and as it passed out of my sight it passed also out of my mind no i said replying to the last question
i can think of no way in which he could have effectually hidden a store of morphine judging by the symptoms he has taken a large dose and if he has been in the habit of consuming large quantities his stock would be pretty bulky
i suppose you consider him quite out of danger now
i think we can pull him round if we persevere but he must not be allowed to sink back into a state of coma
if you will put him into his dressing gown we will walk him up and down the room for a while but is that safe mister weiss asked anxiously quite safe i answered i will watch his pulse carefully
with obvious unwillingness and disapproval mister weiss produced a dressing gown and together we invested the patient in it then we dragged him very limp but not entirely unresisting out of bed and stood him on his feet
and mumbled a few unintelligible words of protest regardless of which we thrust his feet into slippers and endeavoured to make him walk at first he seemed unable to stand
and we had to support him by his arms as we urged him forward but presently his trailing legs began to make definite walking movements and after one or two turns up and down the room he was not only able partly to support his weight
i will go now and attend to some rather important business that i have had to leave unfinished missus schallibaum will be able to give you all the assistance that you require and will order the carriage when you think it safe to leave the patient in case i should not see you again
i will say good night i hope you won't think me very unceremonious he shook hands with me and went out of the room leaving me as i have said profoundly astonished that he should consider any business
of more moment than the condition of his friend whose life even now was but hanging by a thread however it was really no concern of mine i could do without him and the resuscitation of this unfortunate half dead man
gave me occupation enough to engross my whole attention the melancholy progress up and down the room re commenced and with it the mumbled protests from the patient as we walked and especially as we turned
i caught frequent glimpses of the housekeeper's face but it was nearly always in profile
and on each of these occasions her eyes were directed at me in a normal manner without any sign of a squint nevertheless i had the impression that when her face was turned away from me she squinted
the swivel eye the left was towards me as she held the patient's right arm and it was almost continuously turned in my direction
though of course her right eye was invisible to me it struck me even at the time as an odd affair but i was too much concerned about my charge to give it much consideration meanwhile the patient continued to revive apace
and the more he revived the more energetically did he protest against this wearisome perambulation but he was evidently a polite gentleman for muddled as his faculties were he managed to clothe his objections in courteous
and even gracious forms of speech singularly out of agreement with the character that mister weiss had given him i thangyou he mumbled thickly
he looked wistfully at the bed but i wheeled him about and marched him once more down the room he submitted unresistingly but as we again approached the bed he reopened the matter
sh'like to lie down now f'you'd be s'good you must walk about a little longer mister graves i said it would be very bad for you to go to sleep again he looked at me with a curious
dull surprise and reflected awhile as if in some perplexity then he looked at me again and said thing sir you are mistake mistaken me mist here missus schallibaum interrupted sharply
the doctor thinks it's good for you to walk about you've been sleeping too much he doesn't want you to sleep any more just now
you must walk about for a few minutes more and you'd better not talk just walk up and down
apparently he took in the very broad hint contained in the concluding sentence for he trudged wearily and unsteadily up and down the room for some time without speaking
though he continued to look at me from time to time as if something in my appearance puzzled him exceedingly at length his intolerable longing for repose overcame his politeness and he returned to the attack
feeling very tired am really
missus schallibaum asked i felt his pulse and decided that he was really becoming fatigued
and turned him round in that direction whereupon he tottered gleefully towards his resting place like a tired horse heading for its stable as soon as he was tucked in i gave him a full cup of coffee which he drank with some avidity as if thirsty
then i sat down by the bedside and with a view to keeping him awake began once more to ply him with questions does your head ache mister graves i asked the doctor says does your head ache missus schallibaum squalled
so loudly that the patient started perceptibly
he answered with a faint smile not deaf you know yes head aches a good deal but i thing this gennleman mistakes he says you are to keep awake you mustn't go to sleep again and you are not to close your eyes
keep'm open and he proceeded forthwith to shut them with an air of infinite peacefulness i grasped his hand and shook it gently on which he opened his eyes and looked at me sleepily
i looked doubtfully at the patient i was loath to leave him distrusting these people as i did but i had my work to do on the morrow with perhaps a night call or two in the interval
and the endurance even of a general practitioner has its limits i think i heard the carriage some time ago missus schallibaum added i rose hesitatingly and looked at my watch it had turned half past eleven
you understand i said in a low voice that the danger is not over if he is left now he will fall asleep and in all human probability will never wake you clearly understand that
yes quite clearly i promise you he shall not be allowed to fall asleep again as she spoke she looked me full in the face for a few moments and i noted that her eyes had a perfectly normal appearance
without any trace whatever of a squint very well i said on that understanding i will go now and i shall hope to find our friend quite recovered at my next visit
i turned to the patient who was already dozing and shook his hand heartily good bye mister graves i said i am sorry to have to disturb your repose so much but you must keep awake you know won't do to go to sleep
he replied drowsily sorry t give you all this trouble l keep awake
now it's of no use for you to ask a lot of questions missus schallibaum said playfully we'll talk to you to morrow good night doctor i'll light you down the stairs but i won't come down with you or the patient will be falling asleep again
when i perceived through the open door along the passage a glimmer of light from the carriage lamps the coachman was standing just outside
he remarked in his scotch dialect that i
but it seemed rather unnecessary to take a fresh set of notes and to tell the truth i rather shirked the labour tired as i was after my late exertions besides i wanted to think over the events of the evening while they were fresh in my memory
accordingly i put away the notebook filled and lighted my pipe and settled myself to review the incidents attending my second visit to this rather uncanny house considered in leisurely retrospect
that visit offered quite a number of problems that called for elucidation there was the patient's condition for instance any doubt as to the cause of his symptoms was set at rest by the effect of the antidotes
mister graves was certainly under the influence of morphine and the only doubtful question was how he had become so that he had taken the poison himself was incredible no morphinomaniac would take such a knock down dose
it was practically certain that the poison had been administered by someone else and on mister weiss's own showing there was no one but himself and the housekeeper who could have administered it and to this conclusion
all the other very queer circumstances pointed what were these circumstances they were as i have said numerous though many of them seemed trivial to begin with
mister weiss's habit of appearing some time after my arrival and disappearing some time before my departure was decidedly odd but still more odd was his sudden departure this evening on what looked like a mere pretext
that departure coincided in time with the sick man's recovery of the power of speech could it be that mister weiss was afraid that the half conscious man might say something compromising to him in my presence it looked rather like it
and yet he had gone away and left me with the patient and the housekeeper but when i came to think about it i remembered that missus schallibaum had shown some anxiety to prevent the patient from talking
she had interrupted him more than once and had on two occasions broken in when he seemed to be about to ask me some question i was mistaken about something what was that something that he wanted to tell me
it had struck me as singular that there should be no coffee in the house but a sufficiency of tea germans are not usually tea drinkers and they do take coffee but perhaps there was nothing in this
why could he not be sent to fetch the coffee and why did not he rather than the housekeeper come to take the place of mister weiss when the latter had to go away there were other points too i recalled the word that sounded like pol'n
which mister graves had used in speaking to the housekeeper apparently it was a christian name of some kind but why did mister graves call the woman by her christian name when mister weiss addressed her formally as missus schallibaum
i had detected the displacement when she had tried to maintain the effort too long and the muscular control had given way but why had she done it was it only feminine vanity
and here i met with a real poser i had certainly seen through those spectacles as clearly as if they had been plain window glass and they had certainly given an inverted reflection of the candle flame
like that thrown from the surface of a concave lens now they obviously could not be both flat and concave but yet they had the properties peculiar to both flatness and concavity
and there was a further difficulty if i could see objects unaltered through them so could mister weiss but the function of spectacles is to alter the appearances of objects by magnification reduction or compensating distortion
if they leave the appearances unchanged they are useless i could make nothing of it after puzzling over it for quite a long time i had to give it up
had no apparent bearing on the case on arriving home i looked anxiously at the message book and was relieved to find that there were no further visits to be made having made up a mixture for mister graves and handed it to the coachman
i raked the ashes of the surgery fire together and sat down to smoke a final pipe while i reflected once more on the singular and suspicious case in which i had become involved but fatigue soon put an end to my meditations
during the weeks immediately following darrell's departure the daily routine of life at the pines continued in the accustomed channels but there was not a member of the family including mister underwood himself
to whom it did not seem strangely empty as though some essential element were missing to kate her present life compared with the first months of her return home was like the narrow current
creeping sluggishly beneath the icy fetters of winter as compared with the same stream laughing and singing on its way under summer skies but she was learning the lesson that all must learn that the world sweeps relentlessly onward
with no pause for individual woe and each must keep step in its ceaseless march no matter how weary the brain or how heavy the heart walcott's visits continued with the same frequency
but he was less annoying in his attentions than formerly it had gradually dawned upon him that kate was no longer a child but a woman and a woman with a will as indomitable as her father's once it was aroused
he was not displeased at the discovery on the contrary he looked forward with all the keener anticipation to the pleasure of what he mentally termed the taming process once she was fairly within his power
sitting evening after evening either in conversation with her father or listening while she played and sang but always watching her every movement scanning every play of her features a loose rein for the present
he seated himself beside her and began one of his entertaining tales of travel an hour or more passed pleasantly and walcott inquired casually by the way miss underwood
duke is at the mining camp kate answered with a faint smile walcott raised his eyebrows incredulously possible with my other admirer mister darrell he is with mister darrell
not to say safer i neither claim nor accept your gratitude mister walcott kate replied with cool dignity since i did it simply out of regard for duke's welfare and not out of any consideration whatever for your wishes in the matter
i might have known as much said walcott with a mock sigh of resignation settling back comfortably among the pillows on the divan and fixing his eyes on kate's face
but there was not the quiver of an eyelash on her part even then you will have the audacity to tell me that you gave it for any other reason under heaven than consideration for me or my wishes mister walcott
for the love i bear him out of consideration for his wishes and with no more thought of you than if you did not exist conflicting emotions filled walcott's breast at these words but he preserved a calm smiling exterior
but he reflected that the more difficult the keener would be his enjoyment of the final victory a novel situation surely he commented with a low musical laugh decidedly unique
but my dear miss underwood he continued a moment later if your love for your father and regard for his wishes are to constitute your sole reasons for consenting to become my wife why need you withhold that consent longer
i am sure his wishes in the matter will remain unchanged as will also your love for him why then should our marriage be further delayed after what i have just told you mister walcott do you still ask me to be your wife
kate demanded indignantly i do miss underwood and pardon me i feel that you have trifled with me long enough i must have your answer she rose drawing herself proudly to her full height
take me to my father she said imperiously walcott offered his arm which she refused with a gesture of scorn and they proceeded to the adjoining room where mister underwood and his sister were seated together before the fire
as kate advanced towards her father both looked up simultaneously and each read in her white face and proud bearing that a crisis was at hand missus dean at once arose and noiselessly withdrew from the room
walcott paused at a little distance from mister underwood assuming a graceful attitude as he leaned languidly over the large chair just vacated by missus dean but kate did not stop till she reached her father's side
where she bowed coldly to walcott to proceed with what he had to say some time ago mister underwood he began smoothly and easily i asked you for your daughter's hand in marriage and you honored me with your consent
although finding that she was not inclined to look upon me with favor i have hitherto refrained from pressing my suit
i have this evening asked her to become my wife and insisted that i was entitled to a decision instead however of giving me a direct answer she has suggested that we refer the matter to yourself
her father asked not unkindly i supposed you and i had settled this matter long ago her voice was clear her tones unfaltering as she replied
whether knowing the circumstances as you do and how i regard mister walcott it is still your wish that i marry him it is and i expect my child to be governed by my wishes in this matter rather than by her own feelings
have i ever gone contrary to your wishes papa or disobeyed you no my child no then i shall not attempt it at this late day i only wanted to be sure that this was still your wish i desire it above all things
said mister underwood delighted to find kate so ready to accede to his wishes rising and taking her hand in his and the day that i see my little girl settled in the home which she will receive as a wedding gift from her old father
will be the proudest and happiest day of my life kate smiled sadly no home can ever seem to me like the pines papa but i appreciate your kindness and i want you to know that i am taking this step
solely for your happiness she then turned facing walcott who advanced slightly while mister underwood made a movement as though to place her hand in his not yet papa she said gently
name it walcott replied there can be no love between us either in our engagement or our marriage for as i have told you i can never love you and you yourself are incapable of love in its best sense
you have not even the slightest knowledge of what it is for this reason any token of love between us would be only a mockery a farce and true wedded love is something too holy too sacred to be travestied in any such manner
and that no word or sign of love ever pass between us kate interposed her father sternly this is preposterous i cannot allow such absurdity
but walcott silenced him with a deprecatory wave of his hand and taking kate's hand in his replied with smiling indifference i accept the condition imposed by miss underwood since it is no more unique than the entire situation
and i congratulate her upon her decided originality i suppose he added addressing kate at the same time producing a superb diamond ring you will not object to wearing this
she replied allowing him to place it on her finger there is no need to advertise the situation publicly besides
then turning to mister underwood who stood looking on frowningly somewhat troubled by the turn matters had taken walcott added playfully
but my lady might not approve of anything so commonplace before her father could reply kate spoke for him glancing at him with an affectionate smile
said her father reseating himself with kate in her accustomed place on the arm of his chair while walcott took the large chair on the other side of the fire and you neither of you need
any assurance of my good wishes or good intentions towards you but he continued doubtfully shaking his head
kate answered gravely and decidedly i admit said walcott it will be quite a departure from the mode of procedure ordinarily laid down for newly engaged and newly wedded couples but really
come to think it over i am inclined to think that miss underwood's proposition will save us an immense amount of boredom which is the usual concomitant of engagements and honeymoons that sort of thing you know he added his lip curling just perceptibly
kate watching him from under level brows saw the slight sneer and inwardly rejoiced at the stand she had taken well said mister underwood resignedly
kate replied with dignity what i have said to night was said simply to let you and mister walcott know just where i stand and just what you may and may not expect of me but this is only between us three
and you can rest assured that i shall never wear my heart upon my sleeve or take the public into my confidence regarding my home life i think myself you need have no fear on that score
mister underwood walcott remarked with a smile of amusement i believe miss underwood is entirely capable of carrying out to perfection any role she may assume
i shall be only too delighted to render her any assistance within my power as walcott bade kate good night at a late hour he inquired
what do you think of the little comedy i suggested to night for our future line of action does it meet with your approval she was quick to catch the significance of the question and
it will answer as well as any i suppose
to join in the festivities at count william's court not one that approached her father in nobility of bearing or manly strength not even her husband her husband yes
for this little maid of thirteen had been for eight years the wife of the dauphin of france the young prince john of touraine to whom she had been married when she was scarce five years old and he barely nine surrounded by all the pomp of an age of glitter and display
when they were not as at the time of our story
nobles and pages and little ladies in waiting and there was much of the stately ceremonial and flowery talk that in those days of knighthood clothed alike the fears of cowards and the desires of heroes for there have always been heroes and cowards in the world
and so between all these young folk there was much boastful talk and much harmless gossip how the little lady of courtrai had used the wrong corner of the towel yesterday
how the fat duchess of enkhuysen had violated the laws of all etiquette by placing the wrong number of finger bowls upon her table on saint jacob's day and how the stout young hubert of malsen had scattered the rascal merchants of dort at their shrovetide fair
then uprose the young lord of arkell hold there he cried hotly this hubert of malsen is but a craven sirs if he doth say the merchants of dort are rascal cowards had they been fairly mated he had no more dared to put his nose within the gates of dort
than dare one of you here to go down yonder amid count william's lions have a care friend otto said the little lady of holland with warning finger there is one here at least who dareth to go amid the lions my father sir
i said nothing of him madam replied count otto i did mean these young red hats here who do no more dare to bait your father's lions than to face the cods of dort in fair and equal fight at this bold speech there was instant commotion
for the nobles and merchants of holland four centuries and a half ago were at open strife with one another the nobles saw in the increasing prosperity of the merchants the end of their own feudal power and tyranny the merchants
recognized in the arrogant nobles the only bar to the growth of holland's commercial enterprise so each faction had its leaders its partisans its badges and its followers
as the nobles or hooks as they were called
and the merchants or cods with their slouch hats of quiet gray struggled for the lead in the state and how they did hate one another certain of the younger nobles however who were opposed to the reigning house of holland
of which count william young jacqueline's father was the head had espoused the cause of the merchants seeing in their success greater prosperity and wealth for holland among these had been the young lord of arkell now a sort of half prisoner at count william's court
because of certain bold attempts to favor the cods in his own castle of arkell his defiant words therefore raised a storm of protests
you who prate so loudly would better prove your words by some sign of your own valor you may have dared fight your lady mother who so roundly punished you therefor but a lion hath not the tender ways of a woman
face you the lions lord count and i will warrant me they will not prove as forbearing as did she it was common talk at count william's court that the brave lady of arkell mother of the count otto had made her way disguised into we castle of her son
had herself lowered the drawbridge admitted her armed retainers overpowered and driven out her rebellious son and that then relenting she had appealed to count william to pardon the lad and to receive him at court as hostage for his own fealty
so this fling of the dauphin's cut deep but before the young otto could return an angry answer jacqueline had interfered nay nay my lord she said to her husband the dauphin t is not a knightly act thus to impeach the honor of a noble guest
but now the lord of arkell had found his tongue my lord prince he said bowing low with stately courtesy if as my lady mother and good count william would force me i am to be loyal vassal to you my lieges here i should but follow where you dare to lead
go you into the lions den lord prince and i will follow you though it were into old hercules very teeth it was a shrewd reply and covered as good a double dare as ever one boy made to another some of the manlier of the young courtiers indeed even dared to applaud
but the dauphin john was stronger in tongue than in heart peste he cried contemptuously t is a fool's answer and a fool's will
see lord of arkell you who can prate so loudly of cods and lions here before all i dare you to face count william's lions yourself the young lord of arkell was in his rich court suit a tight fitting great sleeved silk jacket
and pointed shoes but without a word with scarce a look toward his challenger he turned to his nearest neighbor a brave zealand lad afterward noted in dutch history francis von borselen lend me your gabardine friend franz will you not he said
the young von borselen took from the back of the settle over which it was flung his gabardine the long loose gray cloak that was a sort of overcoat in those days of queer costume it is here my otto he said
the lord of arkell drew the loose gray cloak over his rich silk suit and turned toward the door otto von arkell lets no one call him fool or coward lord prince he said what i have dared you all to do i dare do if you do not
see now i will face count william's lions the princess jacqueline sprang up in protest no no you shall not she cried my lord prince did but jest as did we all john she said turning appealingly to her young husband who sat sullen and unmoved
tell him you meant no such murderous test my father she cried turning now toward count william whose attention had been drawn to the dispute
count william of holland dearly loved pluck and nerve well daughter mine he said
friend otto is a brave young gallant else had he never dared raised spear and banner as he did against his rightful liege but my father persisted the gentle hearted girl spear and banner are not lions jaws and surely you may not in honor permit the wilful murder of a hostage
nay madam have no fear the lord of arkell said bending in courteous recognition of her interest that which i do of mine own free will is no murder even should it fail and he hastened from the hall
a raised gallery looked down into the spacious inclosure in which count william kept the living specimens of his own princely badge of the lion and here the company gathered to see the sport with the gray gabardine drawn but loosely over his silken suit so that he might if need be
easily slip from it otto von arkell boldly entered the inclosure soho juno up hercules hollo up ajax cried count william from the balcony here cometh a right royal playfellow up up my beauties and the great brutes roused by the voice of their master
pulled themselves up shook themselves awake and stared at the intruder boldly and without hesitation while all the watchers had eyes but for him alone the young lord of arkell walked straight up to hercules the largest of the three
and laid his hand caressingly upon the shaggy mane close to his side pressed juno the lioness and so says the record of the old dutch chronicler von hildegaersberch the lions did him no harm
but ajax fiercest of the three took no notice of the lad straight across his comrades he looked to where scarce a rod behind the daring lad came another figure a light and graceful form
in clinging robes of blue and undergown of cloth of gold the princess jacqueline herself the watchers in the gallery followed the lion's stare and saw with horror the advancing figure of this fair young girl
a cry of terror broke from every lip the dauphin john turned pale with fright and count william of holland calling out down ajax back girl back
but before he could act
with a bound he cleared the intervening space and crouched at the feet of the fair young princess jacqueline
for as the records tell us they did no harm to their visitors ajax slowly rose and looked up into the girl's calm face then the voice of jacqueline rang out fresh and clear as standing with her hand buried in the lion's tawny mane
she raised her face to the startled galleries you who could dare and yet dared not to do she cried it shall not be said that in all count william's court none save the rebel lord of arkell dared to face count william's lions
the lord of arkell sprang to his comrade's side with a hurried word of praise he flung the gabardine about her grasped her arm and bade her keep her eyes firmly fixed upon the lions then step by step those two foolhardy young persons backed slowly out of the danger
into which they had so thoughtlessly and unnecessarily forced themselves the lions gate closed behind them with a clang
and over all they heard the voice of the lord of holland mingling commendation and praise with censure for the rashness of their action and it was a rash and foolish act but we must remember that those were days when such feats were esteemed as brave and valorous
was reared in the school of so called chivalry and romance which in her time was fast approaching its end she was indeed as one historian declares the last heroine of knighthood
she was daughter of holland countess of ponthieu duchess of berry lady of crevecoeur of montague and arloeux brought up in the midst of tilts and tournaments of banquets and feasting and all the lavish display of the rich bavarian court
she was as we learn from her chroniclers the leader of adoring knights and vassals the idol of her parents the ruler of her soft hearted boy husband an expert falconer a daring horsewoman and a fearless descendant of those woman warriors of her race
margaret the empress and philippa the queen and of a house that traced its descent through the warlike hohenstaufens back to charlemagne himself all girls admire bravery even though not themselves personally courageous
it is not therefore surprising that this intrepid and romance reared young princess the wife of a lad for whom she never especially cared and whose society had for political reasons been forced upon her should have placed as the hero of her admiration
next to her own fearless father not the dauphin john of france but this brave young rebel lad otto the lord of arkell
and the hague were fast drawing to a close on the fourth of april fourteen seventeen the dauphin john died by poisoning in his father's castle at compiegne
that were then disgracing and endangering the feeble throne of france the dream of future power and greatness as queen of france in which the girl wife of the dauphin had often indulged was thus rudely dispelled and jacqueline returned to her father's court in holland
no longer crown princess and heiress to a throne but simply lady of holland but in holland too sorrow was in store for her swiftly following the loss of her husband the dauphin
came the still heavier blow of her father's death on the thirtieth of may fourteen seventeen count william died in his castle of bouchain in hainault and his sorrowing daughter jacqueline now a beautiful girl of sixteen
succeeded to his titles and lordship as countess and lady supreme of hainault of holland and of zealand for years however there had been throughout the low countries a strong objection to the rule of a woman
the death of count william showed the cods a way toward greater liberty rebellion followed rebellion and the rule of the countess jacqueline was by no means a restful one and chief among the rebellious spirits as leader and counsellor among the cods
appeared the brave lad who had once been the companion of the princess in danger the young lord of arkell it was he who lifted the standard of revolt against her regency placing the welfare of holland above personal friendship and sinking in his desire for glory
even the chivalry of that day which should have prompted him to aid rather than annoy this beautiful girl he raised a considerable army among the knights of the cods or liberal party and the warlike merchants of the cities took possession of many strong positions in holland
and occupied among other places the important town of gorkum on the maas the stout citadel of the town was however garrisoned with loyal troops this the lord of arkell beseiged and demanding its surrender
sent also a haughty challenge to the young countess who was hastening to the relief of her beleaguered town jacqueline's answer was swift and unmistakable with three hundred ships and six thousand knights and men at arms
she sailed from the old harbor of rotterdam and the lion flag of her house soon floated above the loyal citadel of gorkum her doughty dutch general von brederode counselled immediate attack but the girl countess though full of enthusiasm and determination hesitated
from her station in the citadel she looked over the scene before her here along the low bank of the river maas stretched the camp of her own followers and the little gayly colored boats that had brought her army up the river from the red roofs of rotterdam
there stretching out into the flat country beyond the straggling streets of gorkum lay the tents of the rebels and yet they were all her countrymen rebels and retainers alike hollanders all they were ever ready to combine for the defence of their homeland
when threatened by foreign foes or by the destroying ocean floods jacqueline's eye caught the flutter of the broad banner of the house of arkell that waved over the rebel camp again she saw the brave lad who alone of all her father's court save she
had dared to face count william's lions again the remembrance of how his daring had made him one of her heroes filled her heart and a dream of what might be possessed her her boy husband the french dauphin was dead
and she was pledged by her dying father's command to marry her cousin whom she detested duke john of brabant but how much better so she reasoned that the name and might of her house as rulers of holland should be upheld by a brave and fearless knight
on the impulse of this thought she summoned a loyal and trusted vassal to her aid von leyenburg she said go you in haste and in secret to the lord of arkell and bear from me this message for his ear alone thus says the lady of holland
were it not better otto of arkell that we join hands in marriage before the altar than that we spill the blood of faithful followers and vassals in a cruel fight it was a singular and perhaps to our modern ears a most unladylike proposal
but it shows how even in the heart of a sovereign countess and a girl general warlike desires may give place to gentler thoughts to the lord arkell however this unexpected proposition came as an indication of weakness
my lady countess fears to face my determined followers he thought let me but force this fight and the victory is mine in that is greater glory and more of power than being husband to the lady of holland and so he returned a most ungracious answer
tell the countess jacqueline he said to the knight of leyenburg that the honor of her hand i cannot accept i am her foe and would rather die than marry her all the hot blood of her ancestors flamed in wrath as young jacqueline heard this reply of the rebel lord
crush we these rebel curs von brederode she cried pointing to the banner of arkell for by my father's memory they shall have neither mercy nor life from me fast upon the curt refusal of the lord of arkell came his message of defiance hear ye countess of holland rang out the challenge of the
herald of arkell as his trumpet blast sounded before the gate of the citadel the free lord of arkell here giveth you word and warning that he will fight against you on the morrow and from the citadel came back this ringing reply as the knight of leyenburg made answer for his sovereign lady
hear ye sir herald and answer thus to the rebel lord of arkell for the purpose of fighting him came we here and fight him we will until he and his rebels are beaten and dead long live our sovereign lady of holland on the morrow
a murky december day in the year fourteen seventeen the battle was joined as announced on the low plain beyond the city knights and men at arms archers and spearmen closed in the shock of battle and a stubborn and bloody fight it was
seven times did the knights of jacqueline glittering in their steel armor clash into the rebel ranks seven times were they driven back until at last the lord of arkell with a fiery charge forced them against the very gates of the citadel
the brave von brederode fell pierced with wounds and the day seemed lost indeed to the lady of holland then jacqueline the countess seeing her cause in danger like another joan of arc though she was indeed a younger and much more beautiful girl general
seized the lion banner of her house and at the head of her reserve troops charged through the open gate straight into the ranks of her victorious foes there was neither mercy nor gentleness in her heart then as when she had cowed with a look ajax the lion
so now with defiance and wrath in her face she dashed straight at the foe her disheartened knights rallied around her and following the impetuous girl they wielded axe and lance for the final struggle the result came quickly
the ponderous battle axe of the knight of leyenburg crashed through the helmet of the lord of arkell and as the brave young leader fell to the ground his panic stricken followers turned and fled the troops of jacqueline pursued them through the streets of gorkum and out into the open country
and the vengeance of the countess was sharp and merciless but in the flush of victory wrath gave way to pity again and the young conqueror is reported to have said sadly and in tears ah i have won and yet how have i lost
but the knights and nobles who followed her banner loudly praised her valor and her fearlessness and their highest and most knightly vow thereafter was to swear by the courage of our princess the brilliant victory of this girl of sixteen was not however
to accomplish her desires peace never came to her harassed by rebellion at home and persecuted by her relentless and perfidious uncles count john of bavaria rightly called the pitiless and duke philip of burgundy falsely called the good
she who had once been crown princess of france and lady of holland died at the early age of thirty six stripped of all her titles and estates it is however pleasant to think that she was happy in the love of her husband
the baron of the forests of the duke of burgundy a plain dutch gentleman francis von borselen the lad who years before had furnished the gray gabardine that had shielded count william's daughter from her father's lions
the story of jacqueline of holland is one of the most romantic that has come down to us from those romantic days of the knights happy only in her earliest and latest years she is nevertheless a bright and attractive figure against the dark background of feudal tyranny and crime
the story of her womanhood should indeed be told if we would study her life as a whole but for us who can in this paper deal only with her romantic girlhood her young life is to be taken as a type of the stirring and extravagant days of chivalry
and we cannot but think with sadness upon the power for good that she might have been in her land of fogs and floods if instead of being made the tool of party hate and the ambitions of men her frank and fearless girl nature
to be the most picturesque figure in the history of holland as she has been called is distinction indeed but higher still must surely be that gentleness of character and nobility of soul that in these days of ours
may be acquired by every girl and boy who reads this romantic story of the countess jacqueline
the native troops organized by lord glenarvan consisted of three men and a boy the captain of the muleteers was an englishman
converse with his countrymen and a lucky thing it was for them as lord glenarvan found it far easier to give orders than to see them executed
understood the catapez as he was called in chilian had two natives called peons and a boy about twelve years of age under him the peons took care of the baggage mules and the boy led the madrina
a young mare adorned with rattle and bells which walked in front followed by ten mules the travelers rode seven of these and the catapez another the remaining two carried provisions and a few bales of goods
of the plain the peons walked according to their usual habit every arrangement had been made to insure safety and speed for crossing the andes is something more than an ordinary journey it could not be accomplished without the help of the hardy mules of
the far famed argentine breed those reared in the country are much superior to their progenitors they are not particular about their food and only drink once a day and they can go with ease ten leagues in eight hours there are no inns
glenarvan an experienced traveler
costume for himself and his whole party paganel and robert both alike children though of different growth were wild with delight as they inserted their heads in the national poncho an immense plaid with a hole in center
and their legs in high leather boots the mules were richly caparisoned with the arab bit in their mouths and long reins of plaited leather which served as a whip the headstall of the bridle was decorated with metal ornaments
his inseparable telescope on his shoulder belt he held on well enough keeping his feet fast in the stirrups and trusting entirely to the sagacity
of the parallel thirty miles south no one spoke much the first day for the smoke of the duncan was still visible on the horizon and the pain of parting too keenly felt paganel talked to himself in spanish
asking and answering questions the catapez moreover was a taciturn man naturally and had not been rendered
loquacious by his calling he hardly spoke to his peons they understood their duties perfectly if one of the mules stopped they urged it on with a guttural cry and if that proved unavailing a good sized pebble
soon cured the animal's obstinacy if a strap got loose or a rein fell a peon came forward instantly and throwing off his poncho
and they should keep on from there toward the east in a straight line since the weather was so favorable and the whole party even robert were in perfect health and altogether the journey had commenced under such favorable auspices
it was deemed advisable to push forward as quickly as possible accordingly the next day
the country still presented the same fertile aspect and abounded in flowers but animals of any sort only came in sight occasionally and there were no birds visible except a solitary heron or owl
that captain grant must have been dragged right over the andes into the pampas and that it would be useless to search for him elsewhere
and came rushing noisily down the slopes paganel consulted his maps
which often happened all the fire of a geographer burned in his veins and he would exclaim
of geographical law he christened them forthwith without the least hesitation and marked them down on the map qualifying them with the most high sounding adjectives he could find in the spanish language what a language he said
and for want of better work paganel whiled away the time along the road by practising the difficulties in pronunciation repeating all the break jaw words he could though still making geographical observations
ask the catapez was sure to be answered by the learned frenchman before he could reply to the great astonishment of the guide who gazed at him in bewilderment about two o'clock that same day they came to a cross road and naturally enough
he added you have traveled in these parts before sir oh yes said paganel quite gravely on a mule no in an easy chair the catapez could not make him out
anyone else but mc nabbs
it was covered with snow and scarcely distinguishable from the surrounding rocks but wilson and mulrady succeeded in digging it out and clearing the opening after half an hour's hard work to the great joy of the whole party
stone stair led up to the door the only opening and narrow as this door was the hurricane and snow
which according to the thermometer was ten degrees below zero besides there was a sort of fireplace in it with a chimney of bricks badly enough put together certainly but still it allowed of a fire being lighted
for we are quite as cold as we are hungry for my part i would rather see a good faggot just now than a slice of venison well tom we'll try and get some combustible or other said paganel combustibles
on the top of the cordilleras exclaimed mulrady in a dubious tone since there is a chimney in the casucha said the major the probability is that we shall find something to burn in it
our friend mc nabbs is right said glenarvan get everything in readiness for supper and i'll go out and turn woodcutter wilson and i will go with you said paganel do you want me asked robert getting up
no my brave boy rest yourself you'll be a man when others are only children at your age replied glenarvan on reaching the little mound of porphyry glenarvan
in spite of the perfect calmness of the atmosphere the cold was stinging paganel consulted his barometer and found that the depression of the mercury corresponded to an elevation of eleven thousand feet
on reaching a little mound of porphyry glenarvan and paganel stopped to gaze about them and scan the horizon on all sides they were now on the summit of the nevadas of the cordilleras
and peaks and glaciers flashed back his golden beams with dazzling radiance on the south the view was magnificent
of antuco the mountain roared like some enormous monster and vomited red smoke mingled with torrents of sooty flame the surrounding peaks appeared on fire showers of red hot stones
if the more practical wilson had not reminded them of the business on hand there was no wood to be found however but fortunately the rocks were covered with a poor dry species of lichen of this they made an ample provision
coffee was soon ready and eagerly gulped down by everybody the dry meat certainly seemed poor fare and paganel couldn't help saying i tell you what some grilled llama wouldn't be bad with this would it
should like to know if it is in an alimentary respect what replied the major you're not content with your supper most learned paganel enchanted with it my brave major
probably not and if you were asked to lie in wait for a llama notwithstanding the cold and the darkness you would do it without the least hesitation of course and if it will give you the slightest pleasure
his companions had hardly time to thank him for his obliging good nature when distant and prolonged howls broke on their ear plainly not proceeding from one or two solitary animals
that is regular howling let us go out and see said glenarvan yes and be ready for hunting replied mc nabbs arming himself with his carbine
save the fantastic silhouette of some towering rocks here and there the howls and clearly the howls of terrified animals were redoubled they proceeded from that part of the cordilleras which lay in darkness
suddenly a furious avalanche came down an avalanche of living animals mad with fear the whole plateau seemed to tremble there were hundreds perhaps thousands of these animals and in spite of the rarefied atmosphere
glenarvan mc nabbs robert
had just time to throw themselves flat on the ground before they swept past like a whirlwind
like a small camel without a hump the head was small and the body flattened the legs were long and slender the skin fine and the hair the color of cafe au lait paganel had scarcely looked at it before he exclaimed a guanaco
what sort of an animal is that asked glenarvan one you can eat and it is good savory meat i assure you a dish of olympus i knew we should have fresh meat for supper and such meat
asked robert i should think so my boy i'm a frenchman and in every frenchman there is a cook five minutes afterward paganel began to grill
and in about ten minutes a dish was ready which he served up to his companions by the tempting name of guanaco cutlets no one stood on ceremony but fell to with a hearty good will
the first mouthful was greeted with a general grimace and such exclamations as tough it is horrible
the poor savant was obliged to own that his cutlets could not be relished even by hungry men they began to banter him about his olympian dish and indulge in jokes at his expense
but all he cared about was to find out how it happened that the flesh of the guanaco which was certainly good and eatable food had turned out so badly in his hands at last light broke in on him and he called out
have forgotten that what do you mean asked tom austin i mean this the guanaco is only good for eating when it is killed in a state of rest if it has been long hunted
asked glenarvan absolutely certain but what could have frightened the creatures so and driven them from their haunts when they ought to have been quietly sleeping that's a question my dear glenarvan
and the fire was made up for the night loud snores in every tune and key soon resounded from all sides of the hut the deep bass contribution of paganel completing the harmony but glenarvan could not sleep
then his presentiments returned in greater strength than before and he listened anxiously to the sounds outside the hut at certain intervals he fancied he could hear rumbling noises in the distance dull and threatening like the mutter ings
there surely must be a storm raging down below at the foot of the mountains he got up and went out to see the moon was rising the atmosphere was pure and calm not a cloud visible either above or below
they seemed to meet together and cross the chain of the andes glenarvan returned to the casucha
himself as to the connection between these sounds and the flight of the guanacos he looked at his watch and found the time was about two in the morning as he had no certainty however of any immediate danger
he felt the ground giving way beneath him and the casucha rocked to and fro and opened he shouted to his companions but they were already awake and tumbling pell mell over each other
as if some trap had opened at their base owing to a peculiar phenomenon of the cordilleras an enormous mass many miles in extent had been displaced entirely
and was speeding down toward the plain an earthquake exclaimed paganel he was not mistaken it was one of those cataclysms frequent in chili and in this very region where
holding on by tufts of lichen and giddy and terrified in the extreme was rushing down the declivity with the swiftness of an express at the rate of fifty miles an hour not a cry was possible
nor an attempt to get off or stop they could not even have heard themselves speak
the fall of masses of granite and basalt and the whirlwind of pulverized snow made all communication impossible sometimes they went perfectly smoothly along without jolts or jerks and sometimes
as if with the keen edge of an immense scythe every projection of the declivity how long this indescribable descent would last no one could calculate nor what it would end in ultimately
none of the party knew whether the rest were still alive whether one or another were not already lying in the depths of some abyss almost breathless with the swift motion frozen with the cold air
a tremendous shock pitched them right off and sent them rolling to the very foot of the mountain the plateau had stopped for some minutes no one stirred at last one of the party picked himself up
chapter five wool and water she caught the shawl as she spoke and looked about for the owner in another moment the white queen came running wildly through the wood with both arms stretched out wide
as if she were flying and alice very civilly went to meet her with the shawl i'm very glad i happened to be in the way alice said as she helped her to put on her shawl again the white queen only looked at her in a helpless frightened sort of way
and kept repeating something in a whisper to herself that sounded like bread and butter bread and butter and alice felt that if there was to be any conversation at all she must manage it herself so she began rather timidly
am i addressing the white queen well yes if you call that a dressing the queen said it isn't my notion of the thing at all alice thought it would never do to have
so she smiled and said if your majesty will only tell me the right way to begin i'll do it as well as i can but i don't want it done at all groaned the poor queen i've been a dressing myself for the last two hours
it would have been all the better as it seemed to alice if she had got some one else to dress her she was so dreadfully untidy every single thing's crooked alice thought to herself and she's all over pins
it can't go straight you know if you pin it all
the brush has got entangled in it the queen said with a sigh and i lost the comb yesterday alice carefully released the brush and did her best to get the hair into order come you look rather better now
it's very good jam said the queen well i don't want any to day at any rate you couldn't have it if you did want it the queen said the rule is jam to morrow and jam yesterday but never jam to day
it must come sometimes to jam to day alice objected no it can't said the queen it's jam every other day to day isn't any other day you know i don't understand you said alice it's dreadfully confusing
that's the effect of living backwards the queen said kindly it always makes one a little giddy at first living backwards alice repeated in great astonishment i never heard of such a thing
but there's one great advantage in it that one's memory works both ways i'm sure mine only works one way alice remarked i can't remember things before they happen
the queen replied in a careless tone for instance now she went on
but it wouldn't be all the better his being punished you're wrong there at any rate said the queen were you ever punished only for faults said alice and you were all the better for it i know the queen said triumphantly yes
but then i had done the things i was punished for said alice that makes all the difference but if you hadn't done them the queen said that would have been better still better and better and better
her voice went higher with each better till it got quite to a squeak at last alice was just beginning to say there's a mistake somewhere when the queen began screaming so loud that she had to leave the sentence unfinished
i haven't pricked it yet the queen said but i soon shall oh oh oh
when i fasten my shawl again the poor queen groaned out the brooch will come undone directly oh oh
the brooch flew open and the queen clutched wildly at it and tried to clasp it again take care cried alice you're holding it all crooked and she caught at the brooch but it was too late the pin had slipped and the queen had pricked her finger
coming on i wish i could manage to be glad the queen said only i never can remember the rule you must be very happy living in this wood and being glad whenever you like only it is so very lonely here
even in the midst of her tears can you keep from crying by considering things she asked that's the way it's done the queen said with great decision nobody can do two things at once you know let's consider your age to begin with
five months and a day i can't believe that said alice can't you the queen said in a pitying tone try again
alice laughed there's no use trying she said one can't believe impossible things i daresay you haven't had much practice said the queen when i was your age i always did it for half an hour a day
why sometimes i've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast there goes the shawl again the brooch had come undone as she spoke and a sudden gust of wind
blew the queen's shawl across a little brook the queen spread out her arms again and went flying after it and this time she succeeded in catching it for herself
now you shall see me pin it on again all by myself then i hope your finger is better now alice said very politely as she crossed the little brook after the queen oh much better cried the queen her voice rising to a squeak as she went on
was it really a sheep that was sitting on the other side of the counter rub as she could she could make nothing more of it she was in a little dark shop leaning with her elbows on the counter
and opposite to her was an old sheep sitting in an arm chair knitting and every now and then leaving off to look at her through a great pair of spectacles what is it you want to buy the sheep said at last
if you like said the sheep but you can't look all round you unless you've got eyes at the back of your head but these as it happened alice had not got so she contented herself with turning round looking at the shelves as she came to them
but the oddest part of it all was that whenever she looked hard at any shelf
that particular shelf was always quite empty though the others round it were crowded as full as they could hold things flow about so here she said at last in a plaintive tone after she had spent a minute or so in vainly pursuing a large bright thing
that looked sometimes like a doll and sometimes like a work box and was always in the shelf next above the one she was looking at and this one is the most provoking of all but i'll tell you what she added as a sudden thought struck her
i'll follow it up to the very top shelf of all it'll puzzle it to go through the ceiling i expect but even this plan failed the thing went through the ceiling as quietly as possible
gliding along between banks so there was nothing for it but to do her best
as every now and then the oars got fast in it and would hardly come out again feather feather the sheep cried again taking more needles you'll be catching a crab directly a dear little crab thought alice i should like that
didn't you hear me say feather the sheep cried angrily taking up quite a bunch of needles indeed i did said alice you've said it very often and very loud please where are the crabs in the water of course said the sheep
sticking some of the needles into her hair as her hands were full feather i say why do you say feather so often alice asked at last rather vexed i'm not a bird you are said the sheep
and sometimes under trees but always with the same tall river banks frowning over their heads oh please there are some scented rushes alice cried in a sudden transport of delight
there really are and such beauties you needn't say please to me about em the sheep said without looking up from her knitting i didn't put em there and i'm not going to take em away
no but i meant please may we wait and pick some alice pleaded if you don't mind stopping the boat for a minute
if you leave off rowing it'll stop of itself so the boat was left to drift down the stream as it would till it glided gently in among the waving rushes and then the little sleeves were carefully rolled up
with just the ends of her tangled hair dipping into the water while with bright eager eyes she caught at one bunch after another of the darling scented rushes i only hope the boat won't tipple over she said to herself oh
what a lovely one only i couldn't quite reach it and it certainly did seem a little provoking almost as if it happened on purpose she thought that though she managed to pick plenty of beautiful rushes
as the boat glided by there was always a more lovely one that she couldn't reach the prettiest are always further she said at last with a sigh at the obstinacy of the rushes in growing so far off
as with flushed cheeks and dripping hair and hands she scrambled back into her place and began to arrange her new found treasures
just as if nothing had happened that was a nice crab you caught she remarked as alice got back into her place very much relieved to find herself still in the boat was it i didn't see it said alice
are there many crabs here said alice crabs and all sorts of things said the sheep plenty of choice only make up your mind now what do you want to buy to buy alice echoed in a tone
that would never do you must get it for yourself and so saying she went off to the other end of the shop and set the egg upright on a shelf i wonder why it wouldn't do thought alice as she groped her way among the tables and chairs
for the shop was very dark towards the end the egg seems to get further away
i ever saw so she went on wondering more and more at every step
an unusual honor
the ordeal of the next few days was a severe one on the one hand jeff wain's infatuation had rapidly increased in view of her speedy departure from missus tryon's remark about wain's wife amanda
and from things rena had since learned she had every reason to believe that this wife was living and that wain must be aware of the fact in the light of this knowledge
wain's former conduct took on a blacker significance than upon reflection she had charitably clothed it with after the first flush of indignation
and with amanda alive his attentions always offensive since she had gathered their import became in her eyes the expression of a villainous purpose of which she could not speak to others and from which she felt safe
only so long as she took proper precautions against it in a week her school would be over and then she would get elder johnson or some one else than wain to take her back to patesville
she would lose her salary for the month explanations would be necessary and would not be forthcoming she might feign sickness indeed it would scarcely be feigning for she felt far from well
she had never since her illness quite recovered her former vigor but the inconvenience to others would be the same and her self sacrifice would have had at its very first trial a lame and impotent conclusion
she had as yet no fear of personal violence from wain but under the circumstances his attentions were an insult he was evidently bent upon conquest and vain enough to think he might achieve it by virtue of his personal attractions
if he could have understood how she loathed the sight of his narrow eyes with their puffy lids his thick tobacco stained lips his doubtful teeth and his unwieldy person wain a monument of conceit that he was
might have shrunk even in his own estimation to something like his real proportions rena believed that to defend herself from persecution at his hands it was only necessary that she never let him find her alone
this however required constant watchfulness relying upon his own powers and upon a woman's weakness and aversion to scandal from which not even the purest may always escape unscathed
and convinced by her former silence that he had nothing serious to fear wain made it a point to be present at every public place where she might be he assumed in conversation with her which she could not avoid
and stated to others that she had left his house because of a previous promise to divide the time of her stay between elder johnson's house and his own he volunteered to teach a class in the sunday school which rena conducted at the colored methodist church
and when she remained to service occupied a seat conspicuously near her own in addition to these public demonstrations which it was impossible to escape or it seemed with so thick skinned an individual as wain even to discourage
she found it necessary to crush once or twice a wild hope that her secret being still unknown save to a friendly few he might return and claim her now such an outcome would be impossible
he would never have forgotten her in three short months three long months they had heretofore seemed to her for in them she had lived a lifetime of experience another impassable barrier lay in the fact that his mother had met her
and that she was known in the neighborhood thus cut off from any hope that she might be anything to him she had no wish to meet her former lover no possible good could come of such a meeting and yet her fluttering heart told her that if he should come
as his letter foreshadowed that he might if he should come the loving george of old with soft words and tender smiles and specious talk of friendship ah then her heart would break she must not meet him
at any cost she must avoid him but this heaping up of cares strained her endurance to the breaking point toward the middle of the last week she knew that she had almost reached the limit
and was haunted by a fear that she might break down before the week was over now her really fine nature rose to the emergency though she mustered her forces with a great effort
you may go with me to morrow plato answered the teacher after school plato met an anxious eyed young man in the woods a short distance from the schoolhouse well plato what news
how very fortunate i wanted you to go to town to morrow to take an important message for me i'm sorry plato you might have earned another dollar to lie is a disgraceful thing
and yet there are times when to a lover's mind love dwarfs all ordinary laws plato scratched his head disconsolately but suddenly a bright thought struck him
den i'll haf ter ax er ter lemme go nex day said plato with resignation the honor might be postponed or if necessary foregone the opportunity to earn a dollar was the chance of a lifetime and must not be allowed to slip
no plato
i shouldn't want to deprive you of so great a pleasure
he would have given many a dollar to be sure of plato's place and plato's welcome rena's letter had re inflamed his smouldering passion only opposition was needed to fan it to a white heat
wherein lay the great superiority of his position if he was denied the right to speak to the one person in the world whom he most cared to address he felt some dim realization of the tyranny of caste
but he must see her he was conscious of a certain relief at the thought that he had not asked blanche leary to be his wife his hand was unpledged he could not marry the other girl of course but they must meet again
the rest he would leave to fate which seemed reluctant to disentangle threads which it had woven so closely i think plato that i see an easier way out of the difficulty
of whom plato had heard more or less
the teacher was a great woman no doubt and looked white
mars geo'ge had never been known to go with a black woman before and the teacher would doubtless thank plato for arranging that so great an honor should fall upon her
fortunate teacher happy plato very well plato i think we can arrange it so that you can kill the two rabbits at one shot suppose that we go over the road that she will take to go home
they soon arrived at the schoolhouse school had been out an hour and the clearing was deserted plato led the way by the road through the woods to a point where amid somewhat thick underbrush another path
but when you and she get here drop behind and run along this path until you meet me i'll be waiting a few yards down the road and then run to town as fast as your legs will carry you as soon as you are gone
i'll come out and tell the teacher that i've sent you away on an errand and will myself take your place
but you mustn't say a word about it plato or you won't get the dollar
missus phillips stepped to the front door to meet the half dozen young people who were cheerily coming up the walk cope looking at the fallen cushions with an unseeing eye
remained within the drawing room door to compose a further paragraph for the behoof of his correspondent in wisconsin several girls helped entertain me they came on as thick as spatter
one played a few things on the violin another set up her easel and painted a picture for us a third wrote a poem and read it to us and a few sophomores hung about in the background it was all rather too much
i found myself preferring those hours together in dear old winnebago only one of the sophomores if the young men were really of that objectionable tribe came indoors with the young ladies
the others either engaged elsewhere or consciously unworthy went away after a moment or two on the front steps perhaps they did not feel encouraged
and in fact missus phillips looked back toward cope with the effect of communicating the idea that she had enough men for to day she even conveyed to him the notion that he had made the others superfluous but
hum he thought if there's to be a lot of entertaining the more there are to be entertained the better it might turn out he met hortense and carolyn with due stress laid on their respective patronymics
and he made an early acquaintance with amy's violin and further on missus phillips said now amy before you really stop do play that last little thing the dear child she said to cope in a lower tone
composed it herself and dedicated it to me the last little thing was a kind of meditation written very simply and performed quite seriously and unaffectedly and it gave of course a good chance for the arms
there said missus phillips at its close isn't it too sweet and it inspired carolyn too she wrote a poem after hearing it a copy of verses corrected carolyn with a modest catch in her breath
she was a quiet sedate girl with brown eyes and hair her eyes were shy and her hair was plainly dressed oh you're so sweet so old fashioned protested missus phillips slightly rolling her eyes
the poem consisted of some six or seven brief stanzas its title was read formally by the writer and quite as formally the dedication which intervened between title and first stanza
a dedication to medora townsend phillips of course said cope to himself and as the reading went on he ran his eyes over the dusky darkening walls he knew what he expected to find
but kept his eye on one of the walls you're looking at my portrait declared missus phillips as the poetess sank deeper into the big chair hortense did it of course she did said cope under his breath
he transferred an obligatory glance from the canvas to the expectant artist but it's getting almost too dark to see it said his hostess and suddenly pressed a button this brought into play a row of electric bulbs near the top edge of the frame
and into full prominence the dark plumpness of the subject he looked back again from the painter who also had black hair and eyes to her work i am on parnassus
but he made it a boreal parnassus one set in relief by the cold flare and flicker of northern lights isn't he the dear comical chap exclaimed missus phillips with unction glancing upward and backward at the girls
they smiled discreetly as if indulging in a silent evaluation of the sincerity of the compliment yet one of them hortense formed her black brows into a frown and might have spoken resentfully
save for a look from their general patroness meanwhile
asked missus phillips suddenly roddy to the sophomore if you will help clear that table the youth hastened to get into action cope went on with his letter to arthur it was an afternoon in lesbos
with sappho and her band of appreciative maidens
a poor lad of nineteen swept some pamphlets and paper cutters off the center table and we all plunged into the ocean of oolong the best thing we do on this island he was lingering in a smiling abstractedness on his fancy
when bertram cope a voice suddenly said do you do nothing nothing he suddenly came to
he had not offered to help with the tea service he had preferred no appropriate remark of an individual nature to any of the three ancillae i mean proceeded missus phillips can you do nothing whatever to entertain
do there's the open piano can you play your own accompaniments some of the simpler ones some of the simpler ones do you hear that girls he is quite prepared to wipe us all out shall we let him
very well the room was now in dusk save for the bulbs which made the portrait shine forth like a wayside shrine roddy the possible sophomore helped a maid find places for the cups and saucers
and the three girls still formed in a careful group about the sofa silently waited of course you realize that this is not such a very large room said missus phillips meaning well
your speaking voice is resonant you know meaning then that i am not to raise the roof nor jar the china i'll try not to nor did he he sang with care rather than with volume
but it seemed as if a voice essentially promising had slipped through some teacher's none too competent hands or what was quite as serious as if some temperamental brake were operating to prevent the complete expression of the singer's nature
lassen grieg rubinstein all these were carried through rather cautiously perhaps a little mechanically and there was a silence hortense broke it parnassus yes
and finally comes apollo she reached over and murmured to missus phillips none too skillful on the lyre and none too strong in the lungs medora spoke up loudly and promptly do you know i think i've heard you sing before
possibly cope said turning his back on the keyboard i sang in the university choir for a year or two in gown and mortar board come holy spirit and all that yes i sang solos now and then
of course she said i remember now but i never saw you before without your mortar board that changes the forehead yes you're yourself
she went on adding to her previous pleasure the further pleasure of recognition you've earned your tea she added hortense she said over her shoulder to the dark girl behind the sofa will you no i'll pour myself
she slid into her place at table and got things to going there was an interval which cope might have employed in praising the artistic aptitudes of this variously gifted household but he found no appropriate word to say or at least uttered none
and none of the three girls made any further comment on his own performance missus phillips accompanied him on his way out as far as the hall she looked up at him questioningly you don't like my poor girls she said you don't find them clever
you don't find them interesting on the contrary he rejoined i have spent a delightful hour must he go on and confess that he had developed no particular dexterity in dealing with the younger members of the opposite sex
no you don't care for them one bit she insisted she tried to look rebuking reproachful yet some shade of expression conveyed to him a hint that her protest was by no means sincere if he really didn't
it was no loss it was even a possible gain it's you who don't care for me he returned i'm vieux jeu nonsense she rejoined if you have a slight past that only makes you the more atmospheric
he was continuing his letter to dear arthur i think he wrote with his mind's finger that you might as well come down i miss you even more than i thought i should the term is young
and you can enter for spanish or psychology or something there's nothing for you up there the bishop can spare you your father will be reasonable we can easily arrange some suitable quarters
there was a note for five hundred dollars many years overdue but not yet outlawed by lapse of time a contract covering the transaction out of which the note had grown and several letters and copies of letters
the judge was unable to connect this letter with the transaction which formed the subject of his examination age had dimmed his perceptions somewhat and it was not until he had finished the letter and read it over again
it dawned upon him slowly that he held also one of the links in a chain of possible tragedy which he himself he became uncomfortably aware had had a hand in forging it is the walden woman's daughter as sure as fate her name is rena
her brother goes by the name of warwick she has come to visit her sick mother my young client green's relation is her lover is engaged to marry her is in town and is likely to meet her
the judge was so absorbed in the situation thus suggested that he laid the papers down and pondered for a moment the curious problem involved he was quite aware that two races had not dwelt together side by side for nearly three hundred years
without mingling their blood in greater or less degree he was old enough and had seen curious things enough to know that in this mingling the current had not always flowed in one direction certain old decisions with which he was familiar
old scandals that had crept along obscure channels old facts that had come to the knowledge of an old practitioner who held in the hollow of his hand the honor of more than one family made him know that there was dark blood among the white people
not a great deal and that very much diluted and so long as it was sedulously concealed or vigorously denied or lost in the mists of tradition or ascribed to a foreign or an aboriginal strain
having no perceptible effect upon the racial type such people were for the most part merely on the ragged edge of the white world seldom rising above the level of overseers or slave catchers or sheriff's officers
who could usually be relied upon to resent the drop of black blood that tainted them and with the zeal of the proselyte to visit their hatred of it upon the unfortunate blacks that fell into their hands
one curse of negro slavery was and one part of its baleful heritage is that it poisoned the fountains of human sympathy under a system where men might sell their own children without social reprobation or
loss of prestige it was not surprising that some of them should hate their distant cousins there were not in patesville half a dozen persons capable of thinking judge straight's thoughts upon the question before him
he now pursued toward this anomalous family in the house behind the cedars well here we are again as the clown in the circus remarks murmured the judge ten years ago in a moment of sentimental weakness and of
i violated the traditions of my class and stepped from the beaten path to help the misbegotten son of my old friend
in which he had learned in some strange way that he was floundering ten years later the ghost of my good deed returns to haunt me and makes me doubt whether i have wrought more evil than good i wonder he mused
if he will find her out the judge was a man of imagination he had read many books and had personally outlived some prejudices he let his mind run on the various phases of the situation
if he found her out would he by any possibility marry her it is not likely he answered himself if he made the discovery here the facts would probably leak out in the town
it is something that a man might do in secret but only a hero or a fool would do openly the judge sighed as he contemplated another possibility he had lived for seventy years under the old regime
the young man was a gentleman so had been the girl's father conditions were changed but human nature was the same would the young man's love turn to disgust and repulsion or would it merely sink from the level of worship to that of desire
would the girl denied marriage accept anything less her mother had but conditions were changed yes conditions were changed so far as the girl was concerned
chose to flow toward the weaker party in this unequal conflict a young woman fighting for love and opportunity against the ranked forces of society against immemorial tradition against pride of family and of race
it may be the unwisest thing i ever did he said to himself turning to his desk and taking up a quill pen and may result in more harm than good but i was always from childhood in sympathy with the under dog
there is certainly as much reason in my helping the girl as the boy for being a woman she is less able to help herself he dipped his pen into the ink and wrote the following lines madam if you value your daughter's happiness
keep her at home for the next day or two this note he dried by sprinkling it with sand from a box near at hand signed with his own name and with a fine courtesy addressed to missus molly walden
he stepped to the open door and spied playing marbles on the street near by a group of negro boys one of whom the judge called by name here billy he said handing the boy the note take this to mis molly walden
do you know where she lives down on front street in the house behind the cedars yas suh i knows de place make haste now when you come back and tell me what she says i'll give you ten cents on second thoughts
i shall be gone to lunch so here's your money he added handing the lad the bit of soiled paper by which the united states government acknowledged its indebtedness to the bearer in the sum of ten cents just here however the judge made his mistake
very few mortals can spare the spring of hope the motive force of expectation the boy kept the note in his hand winked at his companions who had gathered as near as their awe of the judge would permit and started down the street
as soon as the judge had disappeared billy beckoned to his friends who speedily overtook him when the party turned the corner of front street and were safely out of sight of judge straight's office the capitalist entered the grocery store and invested his unearned increment
in gingerbread when the ensuing saturnalia was over
he reached the house behind the cedars went round to the back door and handed the envelope to mis molly who was seated on the rear piazza propped up by pillows in a comfortable rocking chair laws a massy
she exclaimed weakly what is it
whose expanding nostrils had caught a pleasant odor from the kitchen and who was therefore in no hurry to go away who's it fur she asked
an who's it from she inquired turning the envelope over and over and examining it with the impotent curiosity of one who cannot read
all right never mind she laid the letter carefully on the chimney piece of the kitchen
hale opened his eyes next morning on the little old woman in black moving ghost like through the dim interior to the kitchen a wood thrush was singing when he stepped out on the porch and its cool notes had the liquid freshness of the morning
breakfast over he concluded to leave the yellow mule with the red fox to be taken back to the county town and to walk down the mountain but before he got away the landlord's son turned up with his own horse still lame
but well enough to limp along without doing himself harm so leading the black horse hale started down the sun was rising over still seas of white mist and wave after wave of blue virginia hills
in the shadows below it smote the mists into tatters leaf and bush glittered
and down hale went under a trembling dew drenched world and along a tumbling series of water falls that flashed through tall ferns blossoming laurel and shining leaves of rhododendron once
he heard something move below him and then the crackling of brush sounded far to one side of the road he knew it was a man who would be watching him from a covert and straightway to prove his innocence of any hostile or secret purpose he began to whistle
farther below two men with winchesters rose from the bushes and asked his name and his business he told both readily everybody it seemed was prepared for hostilities and
though the news of the patched up peace had spread it was plain that the factions were still suspicious and on guard then the loneliness almost of lonesome cove itself set in
for miles he saw nothing alive but an occasional bird and heard no sound but of running water or rustling leaf at the mouth of the creek his horse's lameness had grown so much better that he mounted him and rode slowly up the river
within an hour he could see the still crest of the lonesome pine
and whittling at the door outside was the old miller uncle billy beams who when he heard the coming of the black horse's feet looked up and showed no surprise at all when he saw hale i heard you was comin he shouted hailing him cheerily by name
no said hale not this time
june'll be here in a minute an you can ride back with her i reckon you air goin that a way june shore my but she'll be glad to see ye
you told her you was comin back an ever'body told her you wasn't but that leetle gal al'ays said she knowed you was because you said you was she's growed some an if she ain't purty well i'd tell a man
the old man knew all about the trouble in town the day before
keep yo mouth plum shut about this here war i'm jestice of the peace
an hit's the only way you can keep outen it thank you
hyeh she comes his kind old face creased into a welcoming smile and between the logs of the mill hale inside could see an old sorrel horse slowly coming through the lights and shadows down the road
behind the old nag's withers she was looking sidewise quite hidden by a scarlet poke bonnet and at the old man's shout she turned the smiling face of little june
with an answering cry she struck the old nag with a switch and before the old man could rise to help her down slipped lightly to the ground why honey he said
shaft's broke an i can't do no grindin till to morrow well uncle billy
the little girl was pushing her bonnet back when hale stepped into sight and unstartled unsmiling unspeaking she looked steadily at him one hand motionless for a moment on her bronze heap of hair
and then slipping down past her cheek to clench the other tightly
howdye june said hale who was no less puzzled and still she gave no sign that she had ever seen him before except reluctantly to give him her hand then she turned sullenly away
and sat down in the door of the mill with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands dumfounded the old miller pulled the sack of corn from the horse and leaned it against the mill then he took out his pipe
filled and lighted it slowly and turned his perplexed eyes to the sun well honey he said as though he were doing the best he could with a difficult situation i'll have to git you that meal at the house bout dinner time now
i got to get on back home said june rising no you ain't i bet you got dinner fer yo step mammy afore you left an i jes know you was aimin to take a snack with me an ole hon the little girl hesitated
she had no denial and the old fellow smiled kindly come on now little june walked on the other side of the miller from hale back to the old man's cabin two hundred yards up the road
answering his questions but not hale's and never meeting the latter's eyes with her own ole hon the portly old woman whom hale remembered with brass rimmed spectacles and a clay pipe in her mouth came out on the porch and welcomed them heartily under the honeysuckle vines
and the little girl keenly the miller and hale leaned chairs against the wall while the girl sat at the entrance of the porch suddenly hale went out to his horse and took out a package from his saddle pockets
i've got some candy in here for you he said smiling
she said still not looking at him and with a little movement of her knees away from him
i thought ye was great friends the little girl rose hastily
hale put the package back with some embarrassment and the old miller laughed well well she's a quar little critter mebbe she's mad because you stayed away so long at the table
june wanted to help ole hon and wait to eat with her but uncle billy made her sit down with him and hale
and that was when uncle billy with a shake of his head said he's a bad un he was speaking of rufe tolliver and at the mention of his name there was a frightened look in the little girl's eyes when she quickly raised them that made hale wonder
an hour later they were riding side by side hale and june on through the lights and shadows toward lonesome cove uncle billy turned back from the gate to the porch
he ain't come back hyeh jes fer coal said ole hon shucks said uncle billy you women folks can't think bout nothin cept one thing he's too old fer her
she'll git ole enough fer him an you menfolks don't think less you jes talk less and she went back into the kitchen and on the porch the old miller puffed on a new idea in his pipe
you've forgotten me june no i hain't nuther you said you'd be waiting for me june's lashes went lower still i was well what's the matter
she showed no curiosity no surprise and still she did not look up at him i met your cousin loretta over there and i carried her home behind me on an old mule hale paused smiling at the remembrance and still she betrayed no interest
she's a mighty pretty girl and whenever i'd hit that old she hain't the words were so shrieked out that hale was bewildered and then he guessed that the falling out between the fathers was more serious than he had supposed
but she isn't as nice as you are he added quickly and the girl's quivering mouth steadied the tears stopped in her vexed dark eyes and she lifted them to him at last she ain't
no indeed she ain't for a while they rode along again in silence june no longer avoided his eyes now and the unspoken question in her own presently came out
you won't let uncle rufe bother me no more will ye no indeed i won't said hale heartily
and she shook her head as though she were already threatening her bad uncle with what hale would do to him and she was so serious and trustful that hale was curiously touched by and by he lifted one flap of his saddle pockets again
i've got some candy here for a nice little girl he said as though the subject had not been mentioned before it's for you won't you have some i reckon i will she said with a happy smile
hale watched her while she munched a striped stick of peppermint her crimson bonnet had fallen from her sunlit hair and straight down from it to her bare little foot with its stubbed toe just darkening with dried blood
a sculptor would have loved the rounded slenderness in the curving long lines that shaped her brown throat her arms and her hands which were prettily shaped
and her dangling bare leg her teeth were even and white and most of them flashed when her red lips smiled her lashes were long and gave a touching softness to her eyes even when she was looking quietly at him
but there were times as he had noticed already when a brooding look stole over them and then they were the lair for the mysterious loneliness that was the very spirit of lonesome cove
some day that little nose would be long enough and some day he thought she would be very beautiful
june's teeth snapped viciously through the stick of candy and then she turned on him and behind the long lashes and deep down in the depth of those wonderful eyes he saw an ageless something that bewildered him more than her words
i hate her she said fiercely why little girl he said gently
and then the tears came in earnest and she turned her head sobbing hale helplessly reached over and patted her on the shoulder but she shrank away from him go away she said
digging her fist into her eyes until her face was calm again they had reached the spot on the river where he had seen her first and beyond
straightway her face was a ray of sunlight would i like to go over she stopped suddenly and pulled in her horse but hale had heard nothing hello
shouted a voice from the bushes and devil judd tolliver issued from them with an axe on his shoulder i heerd you'd come back an i'm glad to see ye he came down to the road and shook hale's hand heartily whut you been cryin about
did she git mad with ye bout somethin said the old man to hale she never cries cept when she's mad hale laughed
i reckon you can't stamp the ground that fer away from it said the old man dryly
an then i'll have to spank you agin
i'm a gittin too big the old man opened eyes and mouth with an indulgent roar of laughter come on up to the house he said to hale turning to lead the way the little girl following him
the old step mother was again a bed small bub the brother still unafraid sat down beside hale and the old man brought out a bottle of moonshine
i reckon you can laughed hale the liquor was as fiery as ever but it was grateful and again the old man took nearly a tumbler full plying hale meanwhile about the happenings in town the day before
but hale could tell him nothing that he seemed not already to know it was quar the old mountaineer said
but i never heerd of sech a ring around the rosy as eight fellers with bead on one another and not a shoot shot i'm glad i wasn't thar he frowned when hale spoke of the red fox
but i've been plum sick o these doin's a long time now and sometimes i think i'll just pull up stakes and go west and git out of hit altogether how did you learn so much about yesterday so soon
little dave tolliver come over here last night yes broke in bub
and she jest a sassin you an as how she said she was a goin to git you fer her sweetheart hale glanced by chance at the little girl her face was scarlet and a light dawned
a little brown hand had whacked him across the mouth and the girl flashed indoors without a word bub got to his feet howling with pain and rage and started after her but the old man caught him
set down boy sarved you right fer blabbin things that hain't yo business he shook with laughter jealousy great heavens hale thought in that child and for him
she sets a great store by you an she's studied them books you sent her plum to pieces while you was away
but in sartain ways she's as old as her mother was when she died the amazing secret was out and the little girl appeared no more until supper time
but at no time would she look at hale or speak to him again for a while the two men sat on the porch talking of the feud and the gap and the coal on the old man's place
and hale had no trouble getting an option for a year on the old man's land just as dusk was setting he got his horse you'd better stay all night no i'll have to get along
the little girl did not appear to tell him goodby and when he went to his horse at the gate he called tell june to come down here i've got something for her go on baby
the old man said and the little girl came shyly down to the gate hale took a brown paper parcel from his saddle bags unwrapped it and betrayed the usual blue eyed flaxen haired rosy cheeked doll
only june did not know the like of it
some day he never guessed it but there were a child and a woman before him now and both answered i'll go with ye anywhar
hale stopped a while to rest his horse at the base of the big pine he was practically alone in the world
the little girl back there was born for something else than slow death in that god forsaken cove and whatever it was why not help her to it if he could with this thought in his brain
he rode down from the luminous upper world of the moon and stars toward the nether world of drifting mists and black ravines
that little girl she was a part of its mists its lights and shadows its fresh wild beauty and its mystery only once did his mind shift from her to his great purpose
and that was when the roar of the water through the rocky chasm of the gap made him think of the roar of iron wheels that rushing through some day would drown it into silence
at the mouth of the gap he saw the white valley lying at peace in the moonlight and straightway from it sprang again as always his castle in the air
but before he fell asleep in his cottage on the edge of the millpond that night
my second stage bear not false witness slander not nor lie truth is the speech of inward purity the light of asia
in my first stage the reader will perceive that i was a comparatively weak and harmless little slander with merely that taint of original sin which was to be expected in one of such parentage
but i developed with great rapidity and i believe men of science will tell you that this is always the case with low organisms that for instance while it takes years to develop the man from the baby and months to develop the dog from the puppy
the baby monad will grow to maturity in an hour personally i should have preferred to linger in missus o'reilly's pleasant drawing room for as i said before my victim interested me
and i wanted to observe him more closely and hear what he talked about but i received orders to attend evensong at the parish church and to haunt the mind of lena houghton as we passed down the high street
but the strange stillness and quiet oppressed me i did not feel nearly so much at home as in missus o'reilly's drawing room to use a terrestrial simile i felt like a fish out of water
and the moment he opened his mouth i knew that my time had come and that there was a very fair chance of victory before me
i cannot say but his reading was more lugubrious than the wind in an equinoctial gale
i have since observed that he was only a degree worse than many other clerical readers and that a strange and delightfully mistaken notion seems prevalent that the bible must be read in a dreary and unnatural tone of voice
or with a sort of mournful monotony it is intended as a sort of reverence but i suspect that it often plays into the hands of my progenitor as it most assuredly did in the present instance
hardly had the rector announced here beginneth the forty fourth verse of the sixteenth chapter of the book of the prophet ezekiel than a sort of relaxation took place in the mind i was attacking
lena houghton's attention could only have been given to the drearily read lesson by a very great effort she was a little lazy and did not make the effort she thought how nice it was to sit down again
and then the melancholy voice lulled her into a vague interval of thoughtless inactivity i promptly seized my opportunity and in a moment her whole mind was full of me
she was an excitable impressionable sort of girl and when once i had obtained an entrance into her mind i found it the easiest thing in the world to dominate her thoughts
though she stood and sat and knelt and curtseyed and articulated words her thoughts were entirely absorbed in me i crowded out the magnificat with a picture of zaluski and gertrude morley
i led her through more terrible future possibilities in the second lesson than would be required for a three volume novel i entirely eclipsed the collects with reflections on unhappy marriages
took her off via russia and nihilism in the state prayers and by the time we arrived at saint chrysostom had become so powerful that i had worked her mind into exactly the condition i desired
the congregation rose lena houghton still dominated by me knelt longer than the rest but at last she got up and walked down the aisle and i felt a great sense of relief and satisfaction
we were out in the open air once more and i had triumphed i was quite sure that she would tell the first person she met for as i have said before she was entirely taken up with me
and to have kept me to herself would have required far more strength and unselfishness than she at that moment possessed
she walked slowly through the churchyard feeling much pleased to see that the curate had just left the vestry door and that in a few moments their paths must converge
mister blackthorne had only been ordained three or four years and was a little younger and much less experienced in the ways of the world than sigismund zaluski he was a good well meaning fellow
a little narrow a little prejudiced a little spoiled by the devotion of the district visitors and sunday school teachers but he was honest and energetic and as a worker among the poor few could have equalled him
he seemed to fancy however that with the poor his work ended and he was not always so wise as he might have been in muddleton society good afternoon miss houghton he exclaimed
do you happen to know if your brother is at home i want just to speak to him about the choir treat
said lena and they walked home together i am so glad to have this chance of speaking to you she began rather nervously i wanted particularly to ask your advice
mister blackthorne being human and young was not unnaturally flattered by this remark true he was becoming well accustomed to this sort of thing
since the ladies of muddleton were far more fond of seeking advice from the young and good looking curate than from the elderly and experienced rector they said it was because mister blackthorne was so much more sympathetic
and understood the difficulties of the day so much better but i think they unconsciously deceived themselves for the rector was one of a thousand and the curate though he had in him the makings of a fine man
was as yet altogether crude and young was it about anything in your district
you won't tell any one that i told you on no account said the curate warmly well you know mister zaluski and how the morleys have taken him up every one has taken him up
said the curate with the least little touch of resentment in his tone i knew that the morleys were his special friends i imagine that he admires miss morley yes every one thinks they are either engaged or on the brink of it
for it seems such a dreadful fate for poor gertrude the curate looked startled why i don't profess to like mister zaluski he said but i don't know anything exactly against him but i do
missus o'reilly has just been telling me what did she tell you he asked with some curiosity why she has found out that he is really a nihilist
just think of a nihilist going about loose like this and playing tennis at the rectory and all the good houses and not only that but she says he is altogether a dangerous unprincipled man with a dreadful temper
you can't think how unhappy she is about poor gertrude and so am i
yes that is the worst of it she replied with a sigh i suppose we can do nothing still it has been a great relief just to tell you about it and get it off my mind
i suppose we can only hope that something may put a stop to it all we must just leave it to chance this sentiment amused me not a little leave it to chance indeed
i knew well enough that i should be able to dominate his thoughts as i had done hers finding me burdensome she had passed me on to somebody else with additions that vastly increased my working powers
and then she talked of leaving it to chance
and yet lena houghton was a good sort of girl and had from her childhood repeated the catechism words which proclaim that my duty to my neighbour is to love him as myself
to keep my tongue from evil speaking lying and slandering what is more she took great pains to teach these words to a big class of sunday school children
and went rain or shine to spend two hours each sunday in a stuffy school room for that purpose it was strange that she should be so ready to believe evil of her neighbour
and so eager to spread the story but my progenitor is clever and doubtless knows very well whom to select as his tools
in the next apartment into which mister wiseman conducted us we saw the cub of a bear who lay upon the floor to which he was chained without having the good manners to rise when we entered
but when the bramin applied his wand to young bruin's buttocks he heaved up his shaggy hide with a kind of lazy resentment and saluted us with a reluctant grin and a savage growl
which plainly intimated that he did not think himself much beholden to us for our company this young brute said our conductor is animated by the soul of the late
of clownish memory his father was a gentleman of rank and fortune and greatly beloved and respected by all his acquaintance
young rustick's character was entirely the reverse of his father's he was of an awkward clumsy make and the heaviness of his disposition and the coarseness of his manners perfectly corresponded with the shape of his body
and much longer before he could read with tolerable accuracy and even then he pronounced every thing with such a clownish accent and such a drawling tone
and so unmercifully blotted and bedawbed that you would have thought it had been the elegant epistle of tony clodhopper to his grandmother goody linsey woolsey as for his mamma poor gentlewoman
when she first opened it she thought it had been sent to her by some impudent shoe black or chimney sweeper but when she had directed her eyes to the bottom and read though not i assure you without the greatest difficulty
rickard rostick she was so much oppressed with shame and vexation that she tore the letter into a thousand pieces and was ready to burst into tears
he was alike remarkable for the politeness of his manners and his agreeable address for he had such a treacherous memory
though he had been frequently reminded of the propriety and indeed the necessity of observing those little punctilios of good behaviour that he seldom remembered when any company entered the room in which he happened to be sitting either to rise from his chair
or take off his hat and when he was told of it either by his parents or his master he would
grinning and leering the whole time
and even then he would generally forget to finish the rude ceremony by making one of his ducking bows it is true indeed he had been under the hands of a dancing master
but notwithstanding the utmost care and assiduity of his teacher who was esteemed a very excellent one he was never able to perform a whit better than he does in his present shape in short
you might as well have kept a hog in training for newmarket races or an ox for his majesty to ride upon at a grand review as have attempted to initiate master dicky rustick in the elements of politeness and good breeding
with such a delicate disposition and such amiable talents you will readily perceive that he must have been a most agreeable play fellow
his favorite diversion was that which has been distinguished by the vulgar by the well known name of pully hawly in which he so much excelled that whenever he was invited by the young gentlemen and ladies in the neighbourhood to play with them
he generally rewarded their civility by tearing their coats or pulling their clothes off their backs before he returned home so that at last they bestowed upon him by general consent the honourable title of
it must however be acknowledged that he was a youth of such impartial justice
for what with climbing up old trees and rambling over hedges and ditches to seek for birds nests he commonly appeared by dinner time how well soever he had been dressed in the morning in as ragged a coat
as he wears at present it must also be remarked that if the young gentlemen and ladies soon grew weary as indeed they did of such a rough play fellow he in his turn
with these he could pull and hawl and romp and tear as long as he pleased and the more active he became in this raggamuffin species of diversion the more they relished his company
but upon occasion he could fight as well as play i mean when he either was provoked to it by his equals or tempted to it by the hopes of defrauding of their little property
he was very far from confining himself to any rules of honour or to the established laws of war for instead of boxing fairly he would kick pull hair bite
and scratch most unmercifully and never fail to take every advantage of his antagonist after he had brought him to the ground for these reasons
dick bear even by the vulgar boys in the streets and most of them afterwards took care never to engage with him unless when there were several other boys present to see fair play
but whoever draws such a conclusion in favour of our hero dicky rustick is greatly mistaken
though his father always kept a handsome table it afforded scarcely any thing which was good enough for the palate of master richard nothing would go down with him but tarts custards and the most costly cakes and puddings
for as to good roast and boiled meat and plain and wholesome pies or dumplings he would turn up his nose at them as if they were fit only for vagabonds and beggars nay even to this very hour
and in his present clumsy shape he is almost as dainty as ever for he is remarkably fond of honey and if permitted would often expose his shaggy head and his eyes to the resentment of the bees
by disturbing their hives to rob them of their delicious store it was his fondness for niceties of every kind which shortened his days and eased his parents of their apprehensions for a son who
he so well understands what i have been saying and is so much vexed at the character i have given of him which he knows to be a very just one that if you will promise to quit the room and leave him to himself
he will pleasure you with one of his best dances before you go accordingly after thanking the bramin for the account he had given us we all promised to leave mister bruin to his own meditation upon which
after taking two or three sulkey rounds the young savage reared himself upon his buttocks and shuffled a saraband which lasted a few minutes when he had finished his dance
he swaggered down again upon his fore paws and by a sullen growl seemed to claim the performance of our promise
frithiof the bold frithiof was a norwegian hero grandson of viking who was the largest and strongest man of his time viking had sailed the sea in a dragon ship
meeting with many adventures and thorsten frithiof's father had likewise sailed abroad capturing many priceless treasures and making a great name for himself
frithiof was entrusted to the care of hilding his foster father and in his care also were halfdan and helge king
and as the lad increased in bravery and strength the girl increased in beauty and loveliness of soul hilding noticing how each day they became fonder of each other
called frithiof to him and bade him remember that he was only a humble subject and could never hope to wed ingeborg the king's only daughter descended from the great god odin
for frithiof already loved the fair maiden and vowed that he would have her for his bride at any cost soon after this the king died leaving his kingdom to his two sons
and giving instructions that his funeral mound should be erected in sight
which the kings of sogn and their sister ingeborg among many other guests attended frithiof and ingeborg were much together and frithiof was very happy to learn that ingeborg returned his affection
great was his grief when the time came for her to sail away not long had she been gone however
his chief companion that he would follow after her and ask for her hand his ship was prepared
his request was not granted and helge dismissed him contemptuously in a rage at the insult frithiof lifted his sword
he spared the king only cutting his heavy shield in two to show the strength of his blade soon after his departure another suitor the aged king ring of norway sought the hand of ingeborg in marriage
but he hastened at once to ingeborg
and although it was considered a sin for a man and woman to exchange words in the sacred temple he spoke to her again making known his love the kings her brothers were away at war but frithiof stayed near ingeborg
and when they returned promised to free them from the oppression of sigurd ring if in return they would promise him the hand of their sister but the kings had heard of how frithiof had spoken to ingeborg in the temple
and although they feared sigurd they would not grant the request instead he was condemned in punishment to sail away to the orkney islands to claim tribute from the king
bidding them stir up such a tempest on the sea that even the god given ship ellida could not withstand its fury but no tempest could frighten the brave frithiof singing a cheery song he stood at the helm
caring nothing for the waves that raged about the ship he comforted his crew and then climbed the mast to keep a sharp lookout for danger from there he spied a huge whale upon which the two witches were seated
delighted at the tempest they had stirred up speaking to his good ship which could both hear and obey he bade it run down the whale and the witches
whale and witches sank the sea grew red with their blood the waves were calmed again the sun smiled over the hardy sailors
but many of the crew were worn out by the battle with the elements and had to be carried ashore by frithiof and bjoern when they reached the orkney islands
could weather such a storm one of his vassals
caught up his weapons and hurried forth to challenge the great hero frithiof had no weapons but with a turn of his wrist he threw his opponent go and get your weapons
but when he returned and found his opponent calmly awaiting death he was generous
angantyr vowed that he owed no tribute to helge and would pay him none but to frithiof he gave a vast treasure telling him that he might dispose of it as he would so frithiof
sailed back to the kings of sogn confident that he could win ingeborg what was his dismay therefore
to sigurd ring in a rage he bade his men destroy all the vessels in the harbor
where helge and his wife were
and seeing the ring he had given to ingeborg on the hand of helge's wife snatched it roughly from her in trying to get it back
which she had just been anointing into the fire it was quickly consumed while the rising flames set fire to the temple horror stricken frithiof tried to stop the blaze and when he could not
hurried away to his ship so frithiof became an exile and a wanderer on the face of the earth
or viking exacting tribute from other ships or sacking them if they would not pay tribute for this occupation in the days of frithiof was considered wholly respectable it was followed again and again by the brave men of the north
but frithiof was often homesick and longed to enter a harbor and lead again a life of peace at last he decided to visit the court of sigurd ring and find out whether ingeborg was really happy
landing he wrapped himself in an old cloak and approached the court he found a seat on a bench near the door as beggars usually did
and swung him high over his head at this sigurd ring invited the old man to remove his mantle and take a seat near him with surprise
and i have grown to manhood in the land of sorrow sigurd invited him to remain and he soon became the almost constant companion of the king and queen one spring day
sigurd and frithiof had ridden away on a hunting expedition and the old king being tired from the chase lay down on the ground to rest feigning sleep the birds and beasts of the forest
drew near and whispered to frithiof that he should slay the king and have ingeborg for his own wife but frithiof was too fine and loyal to listen to such suggestions awaking
sigurd ring called frithiof to him you are frithiof the bold he said and from the first i knew you be patient now a little longer and you shall have ingeborg
for my end is near soon after this sigurd died commending his wife to the young hero's loving care and at his own request the funeral feast was closed by the public betrothal
of ingeborg and frithiof the people admiring his bravery wanted to make frithiof king but he would not listen to their pleadings instead
and later so the story runs he returned to his own country and built again the temple of balder
as soon as she was left alone agnes set to work tidying and dusting the cottage made up the fire watered the bed and cleaned the inside of the windows the wise woman herself always kept the outside of them clean
when she had done she found her dinner of the same sort she was used to at home but better in the hole of the wall when she had eaten it she went to look at the pictures by this time her old disposition had begun to rouse again
she had been doing her duty and had in consequence begun again to think herself somebody however strange it may well seem to do one's duty will make any one conceited who only does it sometimes
those who do it always would as soon think of being conceited of eating their dinner as of doing their duty what honest boy would pride himself on not picking pockets a thief who was trying to reform would
to be conceited of doing one's duty is then a sign of how little one does it and how little one sees what a contemptible thing it is not to do it could any but a low creature be conceited of not being contemptible
until our duty becomes to us common as breathing we are poor creatures so agnes began to stroke herself once more forgetting her late self stroking companion and never reflecting that she was now doing what she had then abhorred
and in this mood she went into the picture gallery the first picture she saw represented a square in a great city one side of which was occupied by a splendid marble palace with great flights of broad steps leading up to the door
between it and the square was a marble paved court with gates of brass at which stood sentries in gorgeous uniforms and to which was affixed the following proclamation in letters of gold large enough for agnes to read
by the will of the king from this time until further notice every stray child found in the realm shall be brought without a moment's delay to the palace whoever shall be found having done otherwise
shall straightway lose his head by the hand of the public executioner agnes's heart beat loud and her face flushed can there be such a city in the world she said to herself
if i only knew where it was i should set out for it at once there would be the place for a clever girl like me her eyes fell on the picture which had so enticed rosamond it was the very country where her father fed his flocks
just round the shoulder of the hill was the cottage where her parents lived where she was born and whence she had been carried by the beggar woman ah she said they didn't know me there they little thought what i could be if i had the chance
if i were but in this good kind loving generous king's palace i should soon be such a great lady as they never saw then they would understand what a good little girl i had always been
and i shouldn't forget my poor parents like some i have read of i would be generous i should never be selfish and proud like girls in story books as she said this she turned her back with disdain upon the picture of her home
stared at it with wide ambitious eyes and a heart whose every beat was a throb of arrogant self esteem the shepherd child was now worse than ever the poor princess had been for the wise woman had given her a terrible lesson
one of which the princess was not capable and she had known what it meant yet here she was as bad as ever therefore worse than before the ugly creature whose presence had made her so miserable had indeed crept out of sight
and mind too but where was she nestling in her very heart where most of all she had her company and least of all could see her the wise woman had called her out that agnes might see what sort of creature she was herself
but now she was snug in her soul's bed again and sue did not even suspect she was there after gazing a while at the palace picture during which her ambitious pride rose and rose
she turned yet again in condescending mood and honored the home picture with one stare more what a poor miserable spot it is compared with this lordly palace she said
but presently she spied something in it she had not seen before and drew nearer it was the form of a little girl building a bridge of stones over one of the hill brooks ah there i am myself she said
that is just how i used to do no she resumed it is not me that snub nosed little fright could never be meant for me it was the frock that made me think so
i declare i can see the smoke of the cottage rising from behind the hill what a dull dirty insignificant spot it is and what a life to lead there she turned once more to the city picture
and now a strange thing took place in proportion as the other to the eyes of her mind receded into the background this to her present bodily eyes appeared to come forward and assume reality
she gave a cry of conviction and said aloud i do believe it is real that frame is only a trick of the woman to make me fancy it a picture lest i should go and make my fortune she is a witch the ugly old creature
and have her punished for not taking me to the palace one of his poor lost children he is so fond of i should like to see her ugly old head cut off anyhow i will try my luck without asking her leave
how she has ill used me but at that moment she heard the voice of the wise woman calling agnes and smoothing her face she tried to look as good as she could and walked back into the cottage
there stood the wise woman looking all round the place and examining her work she fixed her eyes upon agnes in a way that confused her and made her cast hers down for she felt as if she were reading her thoughts
the wise woman however asked no questions but began to talk about her work approving of some of it which filled her with arrogance and showing how some of it might have been done better which filled her with resentment
but the wise woman seemed to take no care of what she might be thinking and went straight on with her lesson by the time it was over the power of reading thoughts would not have been necessary to a knowledge of what was in the mind of agnes
that is up into her face which is the surface of the mind ere it had time to sink down again the wise woman caught up the little mirror and held it before her agnes saw her somebody
the very embodiment of miserable conceit and ugly ill temper she gave such a scream of horror that the wise woman pitied her and laying aside the mirror took her upon her knees and talked to her most kindly and solemnly
in particular about the necessity of destroying the ugly things that come out of the heart so ugly that they make the very face over them ugly also and what was agnes doing all the time the wise woman was talking to her
would you believe it instead of thinking how to kill the ugly things in her heart she was with all her might resolving to be more careful of her face that is to keep down the things in her heart so that they should not show in her face
she was resolving to be a hypocrite as well as a self worshipper her heart was wormy and the worms were eating very fast at it now then the wise woman laid her gently down upon the heather bed and she fell fast asleep
and had an awful dream about her somebody when she woke in the morning instead of getting up to do the work of the house she lay thinking to evil purpose in place of taking her dream as a warning
and thinking over what the wise woman had said the night before she communed with herself in this fashion
the old witch shows me horrible things in the day to set me dreaming horrible things in the night if i don't run away that frightful blue prison and the disgusting girl will come back and i shall go out of my mind
i shall go and look at the picture again if it be a picture as soon as i've got my clothes on the work can wait it's not my work it's the old witch's and she ought to do it herself
she jumped out of bed and hurried on her clothes there was no wise woman to be seen and she hastened into the hall there was the picture with the marble palace and the proclamation shining in letters of gold
upon its gates of brass she stood before it and gazed and gazed and all the time it kept growing upon her in some strange way until at last she was fully persuaded that it was no picture but a real city
square and marble palace seen through a framed opening in the wall she ran up to the frame stepped over it felt the wind blow upon her cheek
free was she with that creature inside her the same moment a terrible storm of thunder and lightning wind and rain came on the uproar was appalling agnes threw herself upon the ground
hid her face in her hands and there lay until it was over as soon as she felt the sun shining on her she rose there was the city far away on the horizon without once turning to take a farewell look
of the place she was leaving she set off as fast as her feet would carry her in the direction of the city so eager was she that again and again she fell
hurry anita i feared that potan might come up from the hull at any moment and stop us the duty man over us gazed down his huge head and shoulders blocking the small signal room window brotow called up in martian
telling him to let us come he scowled but when we reached the trap in the room floor grid we found him standing aside to admit us i flung a swift glance around it was a metallic cubby not much over fifteen feet square
with an eight foot arched ceiling there were instrument panels the range finder for the giant projector was here its telescope with the trajectory apparatus and the firing switch were unmistakable and the signaling apparatus was here
not a martian set but a fully powerful botz ultra violet sender with its attendant receiving mirrors the planetara had used the botz system so i was thoroughly familiar with it i saw too what seemed to be weapons
a row of small fragile glass globes hanging on clips along the wall bombs each the size of a man's fist and a broad belt with bombs in its padded compartments my heart was pounding as my first quick glance took in these details
i saw also that the room had four small oval window openings they were breast high above the floor from the deck below i knew that the angle of vision was such that the men down there could not see into this room except to glimpse its upper portion near the ceiling
and the helio set was banked on a low table near the floor in a corner of the room a small ladder led through a ceiling trap to the cubby roof this upper trap was open four feet above the room's roof was the arch of the dome
with the entrance to the exit lock directly above us the weapons and the belt of bombs were near the ascending ladder evidently placed here as equipment for use from the top of the dome i turned to the solitary duty man
i must gain his confidence at once anita had laid her helmet aside she spoke first
in the wreck of the planetara you heard of it we know where the treasure is this duty man was a full seven feet tall and the most heavy set martian i had ever seen a tremendous beetle browed scowling fellow he stood with hands on his hips
his leather garbed legs spread wide and as i confronted him i felt like a child he was silent glaring down at me as i drew his attention from anita you speak english i asked we are not skilled with martian
i wondered if at the next time of sleep this fellow would be on duty here i hoped not it would not be easy to trick him and find an opportunity to flash a signal but that task was some hours away as yet i would worry about it when the time came
who at any moment might arrive in sight if we could persuade this duty man to turn the projector on them he answered me in ready english you are the man gregg haljan and this is the sister of george prince
i am a navigator brotow wants me to pilot the ship when we advance to attack grantline this is not the control room no i know it isn't i put my helmet carefully on the floor beside anita's
i straightened to find the brigand gazing at her he did not speak he was still scowling but in the dim blue glow of the cubby i caught the look in his eyes i said hastily grantline knows your ship has landed here on archimedes
he sent up a signal you saw it didn't you just before miss prince and i came aboard he was trying to pretend he was your earth party miko and coniston why the fellow turned his scowl on me
but anita brought his gaze back to her she put in quickly grantline as brother always said has no great cunning i believe now he plans to creep up on us unawares
if he does that i said we will turn this electronic projector on him and his party and annihilate them you have its firing mechanism here who told you so he shot at me i gestured i see it here
it's obvious i'm skilled at trajectory firing if grantline appears down there now i'll help you is it connected anita demanded boldly yes he said you have on your erentz suits are you going to the dome roof then go
but that was what we did not want to do anita's glance seemed to tell me to let her handle this i turned toward one of the cubby windows she said sweetly are you in charge of this room show me how the projector is operated
i had my back to them for a moment through the breast high oval i could see down across the deck space and out through the side dome windows and my heart suddenly leaped into my throat it seemed that down there in the earthlit shadows
where the spreading base of the giant crater joined the plains a light was bobbing i gazed stricken miko's lights was he advancing preparing to signal i tried to gauge the distance it was not over two miles from here
or was it not a light at all with the naked eye i could not be sure perhaps there was a telescope finder here in the cubby i was subconsciously aware of the voices of anita and the duty man behind me
then abruptly i heard anita's low cry i whirled around the giant martian had gathered her into his huge arms his heavy jowled gray face with a leering grin close to hers he saw me coming
he held her with one arm his other flung at me caught me knocked me backward he rasped get out of here go up to the dome anita was silently struggling with her little hands at his thick throat
but i held my feet i was partly behind him i leaped again and as he tried to disengage himself from anita to front me her clutching fingers impeded him my projector was in my hand
but in that second as i leaped i had the sense to realize i should not fire it because its noise would alarm the ship i grasped its barrel reached upward and struck with its heavy metal butt the blow caught the martian on the skull
and simultaneously my body struck him we went down together falling partly upon anita
i lay panting anita squirmed silently from under us blood from the giant's head was welling out hot and sticky against my face as i lay sprawled on him i cast him off he was dead
his fragile martian skull split open by my blow there had been no alarm the slight noise we made had not been heard down on the busy deck anita and i crouched by the floor from the deck all this part of the room could not be seen
dead oh gregg it forced our hand
but i could flash the earth signal now and then we would have to make our run to escape then i remembered that light down by the base i kept anita out of sight down on the floor and went cautiously to a window the deck was in turmoil with brigands moving about excitedly
not because of what had happened in our tower signal room they were unaware of that miko's signals were showing i could see them now plainly down at the crater base a group of hand lights and small waving helio beam
and they were being answered from the ship potan was on the deck a babble of voices above which his rose with roars of command at one of the dome windows a brigand with a hand searchbeam was sending its answering light
and i saw that potan was working over a deck telescope finder it had all come so suddenly that i was stunned but i did not wait to read the signals i swung back at anita who stared helplessly at me
it's miko and they are answering him get your helmet i'll try firing the projector or would i instead try and send a brief flash signal to earth there would be no time to do both we must escape out of here
the route up through the dome was the only feasible one now this range mechanism of the projector was reasonably familiar and i felt that i could operate it the range finder and the switch were on a ledge at one of the windows i rushed to it
as i swung the telescope training it down on miko's lights i could see the huge projector on the deck swinging similarly its movement surprised the men who were attending it one of them called up to me but i ignored him
then potan looked up and saw me he shouted in martian at the duty man whom he doubtless thought was behind me be ready we may fire on them i'll give you the word the signals were proceeding it had only been a moment
i caught something like haljan is imposter i was aiming the projector i was aware of anita at my elbow i pushed her back put on your helmet i had the range i flung the firing switch
at the deck window the giant projector spat its deadly electronic stream the men down there leaped away from it in surprise i heard potan's voice his shout of protest and anger but down in the earth glow at the crater base
miko's lights had not vanished i had missed an error in the range abruptly i knew it was not that miko's lights were still there his signals still coming and i noticed now a faint distortion about them
the glow of his little group of hand lights faintly distorted and vaguely shot with a greenish cast benson curve lights my thoughts whirled in the few seconds while i stood there at the tower window
he had gone back to his camp equipped all his lights with the benson curve he was somewhere at the crater base now but not where i thought i saw him the benson curve light changed the path of the light rays traveling from him to me
i could not even approximate his true position anita was plucking at me gregg come i can't hit him i gasped should i try the flash signal to earth did we dare linger here
i stood another few seconds at the window i saw potan down in the confusion of the deck training a telescope he had shouted up violently at his duty man here not to fire again and now he let out a roar i can see them
by the almighty his giant stature brotow look that's not an earth man he flung aside his telescope finder disconnect that projector
this haljan is a trickster where is he
are haljan and the girl up there with you but the duty man lay in his blood at our feet i had dropped back from the window anita and i crouched for an instant in confusion fumbling with our helmets
it has been gravely asserted that the confession of sin and the doctrine of absolution tend to the spread of crime and immorality
statistics are produced to show that murder and illegitimate births are largely in excess in countries under catholic influence and that this prevalence of wickedness is the result of confession and easy absolution
as all our catechisms teach and as every catholic knows there is no pardon of sin without sorrow of heart and purpose of amendment
it is a great mistake to suppose that the most ignorant catholic believes he can procure the pardon of his sins by simply confessing them without being truly sorry for them
the estimate which so many protestants set on the virtue of even the lower classes of roman catholics is clearly enough evinced in the preference which they constantly manifest in their employment of catholics practical catholics
nights among romanists and similar absolutely unreliable compilations the false statements of which have been again and again refuted
but how do these statements compare with the official records which i submit to the unprejudiced reader recent returns from the hand book for france and thom's official directory for england and ireland eighteen sixty nine are as follows
these figures which are from authenticated sources do not bear out our accusers in their assertion that murders are more prevalent in catholic than in protestant countries the statistics of this crime are limited
or they are not in very general circulation
here again we shall meet statistics with counter statistics to refute unjust declarations we do not wish to be understood as advocating the immaculateness of catholic communities
the journal of the statistical society of london of the years eighteen sixty sixty two sixty five sixty seven gives the number of illegitimate births in england and wales as
whilst in the catholic kingdom of sardinia the number is slightly over two in the hundred and in ireland three in every hundred if the test of illegitimacy is a correct index of the morality of a country
i will here insert as correct a table as can be made from the latest reports
france seven point two prussia
among the protestants it runs up to ten per cent and the same remark is applicable to ireland the scotman whose statements are based on the report of the british registrar general publishes the following statistics
the proportion of illegitimate births to the total number of births is in ireland three point eight per cent in england the proportion is six point four
the division showing this lowest figure is the western being substantially the province of connaught where about nineteen twentieths of the population are celtic and roman catholic
the division showing the highest proportion of illegitimacy is the north eastern which comprises or almost consists of the province of ulster where the population is almost equally divided between protestants and roman catholics
and where the great majority of protestants are of scotch blood and of the presbyterian church the sum of the whole matter is that semi presbyterian and semi scotch ulster
is fully three times more immoral than wholly popish and wholly irish connaught which corresponds with wonderful accuracy to the more general fact that scotland as a whole is three times more immoral than ireland as a whole
it is worthy too of notice that in the tabular statement above presented the percentage of illegitimacy in holland and switzerland where there are large catholic minorities is lower than in any other protestant country
of the two thousand seven hundred fourteen children born in stockholm one thousand five hundred seventy seven were legitimate one thousand one hundred thirty seven illegitimate making only a balance of four hundred forty chaste mothers
out of two thousand seven hundred fourteen and the proportion of illegitimate to legitimate children not as one to two and three tenths but as one to one and a half
but we are not disposed to parade these monstrous vices no matter by whom committed we allude to them with feelings of shame not of pleasure
which their religion affords ought to be much better than they are yet we will add quoting the words of the catholic world
the difficult odd and most inconstant humours of others although they may find it very difficult at times to do so no matter how regular and perfect we may be
we have always need of compassion and indulgence for others to be borne with we must bear with others to be loved we must love to be helped we must help
to be joyful ourselves we must make others so surrounded as we are by so many different minds characters and interests how can we live in peace for a single day
if we are not condescending accommodating yielding self denying ready to renounce even a good project
and to take no notice of those faults and shortcomings which are beyond our power or duty to correct charity patiently listens to a bore answers a useless question
renders service even when the need is only imaginary without ever betraying the least signs of annoyance it never asks for exceptions or privileges for fear of exciting jealousy
through a motive of bitter zeal it seeks to find in oneself the faults it notices in others and perhaps greater ones and tries to correct them
we would have others strictly corrected but are not fond of being corrected ourselves the large liberty of others displeases us and yet we do not wish to be denied anything we ask for
we are willing that others be bound up by laws and we suffer not ourselves to be restrained by any means thus it is evident how seldom we weigh our neighbour in the same balance with ourselves
to refuse no reasonable service and to accept or refuse in an affable manner charity is generous it does everything it can when even it can do little it wishes to be able to do more
it never lets slip an opportunity of comforting helping and taking the most painful part after the example of its divine model who came to serve not to be served
one religious seemingly in pain seeks comfort another desires some book instrument et cetera a third bends under a burden while a fourth is afflicted in all these cases
charity comes to the aid by consoling the one procuring little gratifications for the other and helping another without complaining of the increased labour or the carelessness of others
it finishes the work left undone by them too happy to diminish their trouble while augmenting its own reward does the hunter says saint john chrysostom who finds splendid game
blame those who beat the brushwood before him or does the traveller who finds a purse of gold on the road neglect to pick it up because others who preceded him took no notice of it
it would be a strange thing to find religious uselessly giving themselves to ardent desires of works of charity abroad such as nursing in a hospital or carrying the gospel into uncivilized lands
several offend in giving because they do so with a bad grace others in refusing do not offend because they know how to temper their refusal by sweetness of manner
charity possesses this art in a high degree and besides raises a mere worldly art into a virtue and fruit of the holy ghost
so charity in the religious community places everything in common content affliction material goods driving out of existence the words mine and thine
it lavishes kind words and consolations on all who suffer in any way through ill humour sickness want of success et cetera it rejoices when they are successful honoured and trusted
or endowed with gifts of nature or grace felicitates them on their good fortune and thanks god for them if on the one hand compassion sweetens pains to the sufferer by sharing them
when david returned after he slew the philistines the women came out of all the cities of israel singing and dancing to meet king saul and the women sang as they played
saul slew his thousands and david his ten thousands saul was exceedingly angry and this word was displeasing in his eyes and he said they have given david ten thousand
and to me they have given but a thousand and saul did not look on david with a good eye from that day forward and saul held a spear in his hand and threw it thinking to nail david to the wall
one kings thus it is that the jealous complain of their brethren who are more successful learned or praised thus it is that they lance darts of calumny denunciation and revenge
not to be irritated when others wrong us we must pardon and do good for evil as god has pardoned us and rendered good for evil in jesus christ
it always strives to throw its mantle over the evil doings of others persuading itself that they were the effects of surprise inadvertence or at most very slight malice
if an explanation is necessary it is the first to accuse itself never does it permit the keeping of a painful thought against any of the brethren and does all in its power to hinder them from the same
charity gives no occasion to others to suffer but suffers all patiently not once but all through life every day and almost every hour
eighth characteristic to practise moderation and consideration tell tales nasty names cold answers lies mockery harsh words et cetera
are all contrary to charity saint john chrysostom says when anyone loads you with injuries close your mouth because if you open it you will only cause a tempest
when in a room between two open doors through which a violent wind rushes and throws things in disorder if you close one door the violence of the wind is checked and order is restored
those then who receive the holy of holies without doing penance for the sins of the tongue are like those who would keep a heap of stones at their doors to stone a friend on arrival
if we touch them on these points it will be like playing an accompaniment to an instrument with one string out of tune
care of the sick and infirm charity lavishes care on the sick and infirm on the old on guests and new comers it requires that we visit those who are ill
to cheer and console them to foresee their wants and thereby to spare them the pain or humiliation of asking for anything
esteem the sick love them respect and honour them as being consecrated by the unction of the cross and marked with the character of a suffering jesus charity pays honour to the aged in every respect
coincides with their sentiments consults them forestalls their desires and attempts not to reform in them what cannot be reformed charity receives fraternally all guests and new comers
it also causes us to lavish testimonies of affection on those who are setting out and warns us to be very careful of saying or doing anything that may in the least degree offend even the most susceptible
or like a useless piece of furniture in reality what are they doing they pray and do penance for the community turn away the scourge of god
draw down his graces and blessings merit perhaps the grace of perseverance for several whose vocation is shaking hand down to the younger members the traditions and spirit of the institute
and finally practise and cause to be practised a thousand acts of virtue did our divine lord work less efficaciously for the church when he hung on the cross
is that we speak so little of them we try to change the discourse as if it were hurtful we let the dead bury their dead their memory perishes with us like the sound of the funeral knell
without thinking that a friendship which perishes with death is not true it is a sign of piety to speak of their virtues as it urges us to imitate them
a third quotes some of their sayings while a fourth adds some other edifying fact and who is the religious that will not on such occasions breathe a silent prayer to god
and apply some indulgence or other satisfactory work for the happy repose of their souls charity also prays for those who want help most and who are often known to god alone
those whose constancy is wavering those who are led by violent temptations to the edge of the precipice it expands pent up souls by consolations or advice
can there be anything more agreeable to god more useful to the church or more meritorious than to foster thus amongst the well beloved children of god peace joy
to have a lively interest in the whole order in its works its success and its failures
religious who have the family spirit wish to know everything which concerns the well being of the different houses they willingly take their pens to contribute to the edification
and satisfy the lawful curiosity of their brethren they bless god when they hear good news and grieve at bad news losses by death and above all scandalous losses of vocation
becomes associated at the same time in the merit it shares in a certain manner in the gifts and labours of others it is at the same time the eye the hand the tongue and the foot
since it rejoices at what is done by the eye the hand the tongue et cetera or rather it is as the soul which presides over all and to whom nothing is a stranger in the body over which it presides
mutual edification be edified at the sight of your brethren's virtues and edify them by your own in other words be alternately disciple and master
profit by the labours of others and make them profit by your own receive from all in order to be able to give to all borrow humility from one obedience from another
union with god and the practice of mortification from others by charity we store up in ourselves the gifts of grace enjoyed by every member of the community
in order to dispense them to all by a happy commerce and admirable exchange as the bee draws honey from the sweetest juices contained in each flower
as the artist studies the masterpieces to reproduce their marvellous tints in pictures which in their turn become models
as a mirror placed in a focus receives the rays of brilliancy from a thousand others placed around it to re invest them with a dazzling brilliancy
final advice in regard to holy communion a cause of frequent error and trouble particularly in regard to holy communion is that feelings are confused with acts of the will
hence it follows that it is by the will alone that we can in reality acquire merit or commit sin the natural virtues are gratuitous gifts of god
the world is right in esteeming them for they come from him but it errs when it esteems them exclusively for they do not of themselves give us any title to heaven
god has placed them at the disposal of our will as means to an end and we can make a good or bad use of them just as we can of all god's other gifts
we may be deprived of these natural virtues and live by the will alone spiritually dry and devoid of sentiment and yet in a state of intimate union with god
this explanation is intended to reassure such persons as are disposed to feel anxious when they find nothing in their hearts to correspond with the effusions of sensible love
these usually make the mistake of taking for granted the invariable existence of sentiment and of addressing it exclusively
how many souls do we not see who in consequence grow alarmed about their condition believing they are devoid of grace notwithstanding their firm will to shun sin and to please god
they should however not give way to anxiety nor exhaust themselves by vain efforts to excite in their hearts a sensibility that god has not given them when he has granted us this gift
we owe him homage for it as for all others but god only requires that each of his creatures should render an account of what he has received
and free will is the one thing that has been accorded indiscriminately to all men thus we find saint francis de sales who possessed in such a high degree sensible love of god
they will then see how the will alone without the aid of feeling can produce acts of all the christian virtues
but nothing can dispense from the nuptial garment therefore when i turn my eyes on myself after having raised them to thee i doubt i hesitate i tremble
for if i go from thee i flee from life and if i approach unworthily
for if thou hast not willed that certain of thy grace we should ever advance with the assurance of the pharisee and say like him i come to the altar of the lord because i know i am just in his eyes
i wish to follow implicitly the guidance of him whom thou hast appointed to lead me to thee i shall approach the holy table without wishing for any other warrant than the words spoken by my confessor
or rather by thee you may receive holy communion i accept o my god be it a well merited punishment or a salutary trial this privation of light and sensible devotion
this coldness and distraction which accompany me even into thy presence when all the faculties of my soul should be absorbed and confounded in sentiments of adoration and of love
in order that the precious remembrance of it should serve me as support in the days of trial and temptation act of hope
in spite of these vague fears that seem to extinguish hope within my soul i know that although thou art the mighty and strong god before whom the cherubim veil themselves with their wings
the just and all seeing god who discovers blemishes in the purest souls still thou wishest to be in the most holy sacrament only the victim whose blood effaces the sins of the world
and therefore i hope act of love
i know that i love thee o my god since my will prefers thy service to all the joys of this world since thy grace is the sole good to which i aspire
and because i suffer so much by reason of my lack of sensible love for thee act of desire no i am not indifferent thou knowest o my god
that i am not indifferent to this most holy sacrament which i approach unmoved by any sensible feeling
i would yet make any sacrifice in order to receive it act of contrition i feel neither hatred nor horror of sins to which the world does not attach shame and contempt
i experience no sensible sorrow for the sins i have committed but i know o my god that with the assistance of thy grace my will denounces them for i am resolved to commit them no more
i have taken this resolution because sin displeases thee and because all that swerves from eternal order is abhorrent to thy infinite sanctity i believe then that i am contrite o my god
because i believe in thy promises and if thou dost not always grant us the consolation of realizing our contrition thou wilt never refuse its justifying virtue to those who humbly implore it
and this i do no my god i shall not pray thee to grant me sensible enjoyment
which is the true happiness of our souls is not to be acquired by the reflections of our minds or the natural efforts of our hearts but by the gratuitous infusion of the holy ghost
chapter seven the home of wash ing ton
he met and fell in love with missus mar tha cus tis her home was known as the white house and here she dwelt in fine style for she had great wealth she had a boy six years of age and a girl of four
such were her charms that men of wealth and rank sought for her hand but wash ing ton so calm and grave and with his way yet to make in the world won her heart and they were to be wed at the close of the war
she had heard of the brave deeds he had done and was proud to be the wife of such a man
seventeen fifty nine the two were made one in the course of a few months wash ing ton went to live at mount ver non where he spent much of his time in the care of his own lands and those of his wife he had a seat with those who made laws for the state
and no man was thought more of than george wash ing ton wash ing ton loved to be at mount ver non where he had spent a great part of his boy hood with his bro ther law rence of whom he was so fond the house stood on a knoll
he would go out two or three times a week with dogs and horns and trained steeds in search of the sly fox who would lead him and his friends a fine run some times he would go out with his gun and shoot wild ducks
great flocks of which might be found on the streams close at hand or he would scour the woods for the game with which they were filled
a man who had a bad name and paid no heed to the laws that were made was wont to make his way to the grounds near mount ver non and shoot just what game he chose
but he paid no more heed than if he had been deaf and was sure to take his pick from the best kind of ducks one day when wash ing ton was out on horse back he heard the sound of a gun down near the edge of the stream he put spurs to his horse
and soon came up to the rogue who had just time to jump in his boat and push from shore then the bad man raised his gun cocked it and took aim at wash ing ton whom he would no doubt have shot down in cold blood
but wash ing ton rode at once in to the stream and seized the prow of the boat and drew it to shore then he sprang from his horse wrenched the gun from the thief's hand and laid on the lash in such a way that the rogue took to his heels when let loose and came no more near mount ver non
dwelt on the shores of the po to mac and kept house in fine style they had a large force of slaves and made great feasts for their friends one of them used to come out in a rich barge to meet wash ing ton this barge was rowed by six black men
in check shirts and black vel vet caps wash ing ton had a coach and four with black foot men for missus wash ing ton to use when she drove out but he chose to go on horse back some times he and his wife went to an na po lis
to a ball or feast of some sort where wash ing ton took part in the dance and all the belles of the day were proud to dance with him for he had a grand style that made him seem like no one else in the room when storms kept him in the house
but was quick to see that they did not shirk their work he knew too just the kind of work each one was fit for and which he could do the best four of his slaves set out to hew and shape a large log wash ing ton kept his eye on them
and thought they loafed too much so he sat down took out his watch and timed them how long it took them to get their cross cut saw and the rest of their tools
how long to hew and saw it what time they spent in talk and how much work they did while he sat there and took notes in this way he found out just how much work four men could do in the course of a day and take their ease
wash ing ton was quick to lend a hand in time of need and once when word was brought him that the dam had broke loose and the mill would soon be swept off he ran at the head of all his slaves and work men and toiled as hard as they in a fierce rain storm
to check the force of the flood the cares of home and state made such calls on his time and thoughts that he could not be said to live quite at his ease and he left his mark a high one on all that he did his crops were of the best and he sought to cheat no one
was held at a high rate in the west in di a ports quite a trade was kept up with eu rope where all the goods had to be bought that were used in the house or on the farm
horse goods and clothes for all the house hold for these last he had to give size and height name and age of those who were to wear them in one of these lists wash ing ton who had need of a new suit of clothes
said he was six feet in height quite thin and had long limbs he was then thirty one years old you will see by what i have told you just how wash ing ton spent much of his time for at least five years
they were five sweet years to him full of peace and rest and joy he was fond of his home
and did not gain in strength though she had the best of care her death took place
seventeen seventy three when she was but seventeen years of age this was a sad blow to wash ing ton as well as to his wife and then all their hopes were placed on the son who bade fair to be a fine strong man
but he died in the year seventeen eighty one at the age of twenty eight while wash ing ton dwelt in peace at mount ver non war was rife in the land but as he had with drawn from those who bore arms he took no part in it
it was called pon ti ac's war as it was led by a chief of that name but the o hi o tribes were with him and the plot was deep laid large tracts of wood land were laid waste homes were burnt
and those who dwelt in them robbed and slain and so sly and shrewd were the red skins that it was some time ere the white men could put a stop to their deeds of blood it was in seventeen sixty that king george the third
made up his mind to tax the folks in a mer ca for all the goods they bought in eng land the trade was large and in this way the king could add much to his wealth but the scheme did not work well it was first tried in bos ton and set all the folks there by the ears
they claimed that they had rights as well as the king they had come to this land to be free and free they would be they would do with out tea and such things and dress as well as they could in clothes made out of home made goods
the king next said that goods bought from eng land must bear the king's stamp for which a sum was to be paid more than the cost of the goods this was known as the stamp act the folks in a mer ca were poor they had not the means to pay this tax
the thought of it filled them with rage and for five years there was much talk of the wrong the king had done to those who dwelt in a mer ca on the first day of no vem ber seventeen sixty five the stamp act was to go in to force
and all new eng land was in arms at bos ton bells were tolled flags were hung at half mast shops were shut and bon fires built in new york the act in clear print was borne through the streets on a pole on top of which was a death's head
whose place it was to serve out the stamps had to flee to the fort round which was placed a strong guard from a ship of war the mob broke in to his coach house drew out his coach put in it a form
and marched up to the park where they hung it on a tree at night they took the form down put it in a coach and bore it back to bow ling green where the whole thing coach and all was burnt right in range of the guns of the fort where the king's troops were
in march seventeen sixty six the king drew back the stamp act which gave great joy to those who had the good of a mer ca at heart and to none more than to george wash ing ton but he made it known that he felt it to be his right
as their king to tax them as he chose and this hurt the pride of those who wished to make their own laws and be in bonds to no one wash ing ton as did most of those who had eng lish blood in their veins looked up on that land as his home
and was loath to break the chain that bound him to it but he did not think well of the stamp act and saw what was sure to come to pass if the king pressed too hard on the a mer cans on sep tem ber five seventeen seventy four a band of true men
and wash ing ton set out from mount ver non on horse back to take his seat with them
and ed mund pen dle ton and as they rode side by side they talked of the land they loved and of the hopes they had that all would be well the band met with closed doors each man wore a grave face
where are your land marks they are all thrown down he said he did not call him self by the name of the state in which he was born but by the name of the land which gave him birth then known as the land of the free
wash ing ton was not a man of words but of deeds but what he said was of great weight as it came from a wise brain and a true heart pat rick hen ry said there was no man in the whole band so great as george wash ing ton
the band broke up in no vem ber and wash ing ton went back to mount ver non but not to the gay times and good cheer he once had known george fair fax who had been his friend from boy hood had gone to eng land to live and bel voir
men came to talk with wash ing ton and to find out what he thought was the best thing to do
march twentieth seventeen seventy five and wash ing ton was called on for some plan as to what their course should be he told them that he thought there was but one thing to do
we must fight i repeat it sir we must fight an ap peal to arms and the god of hosts is all that is left us
chapter two youth george was a great pet with his bro ther law rence wash ing ton who thought it would be a nice thing for him to serve on board one of the king's ships of war
he was on good terms with gen er al went worth
and he had no doubt they would do their best to get his bro ther a good place he spoke to george a bout it and the boy was wild with joy
and at first she did not put a straw in his way but gave him all the help she could but as the time drew near her heart which had been so strong and brave and full of pride gave way and she felt that she could not part with her dear boy
one of her friends wrote to law rence that missus wash ing ton had made up her mind not to let george go to sea she said that some of her friends had told her it was a bad plan and i find said he
so they gave up the scheme and george was sent back to school he would on fine days go out in the fields and tracts of land a round the school house and with line and rod take the size and shape the length and width
and mark it all down in one of his books and so much pains did he take that from the first to the last page not a blot or blur is to be seen these neat ways formed in his youth were kept up through all his life
and what seems strange is that day books and such books as you will find in great use now a days were not known at that time the plan had been thought out by george wash ing ton when a boy of sixteen and shows the cast of his mind
near this time george was sent to live with his bro ther law rence at his fine place on the po to mac which he had called mount ver non
here george had a chance to make friends with those of high rank and he spent much of his time with george fair fax who made his home at bel voir near mount ver non lord fair fax a man of wealth and worth was much at bel voir at that time
he had bought large tracts of land in vir gin a which had not been staked out or set off in to lots in fact he did not know their size or shape but he had heard that men had sought out some of the best spots and had built homes there
and laid out farms for which they paid no rent and he thought it quite time to put a stop to such things in march seventeen forty eight george wash ing ton who had been picked out by lord fair fax for this task
went on his first trip with george fair fax to stake off these wild lands he wrote down what was done from day to day
they came to the house where they were to be fed and lodged the wood men went to bed with their clothes on but george took his off and as he turned in he found his bed was of loose straw with not a thing on it but the thread bare blank et he was to wrap him self in
the fleas and bugs soon forced george to get up and put on his clothes and lie as the rest of the men did and had we not been so tired he says i am sure we should not have slept much that night he made a vow then
that he would sleep out of doors near a fire when on such tramps and run no more such risks on march eighteenth they reached a point on the po to mac which they were told they could not ford there had been a great rain fall and the stream
had not been so high by six feet as it was at that time they made up their minds to stay there for a day or two went to see the warm springs
the men crossed in birch bark boats and rode all the next day in a rain storm to a place two score miles from where they had set out that morn wash ing ton writes that the road was
the worst that had ever been trod by man or beast on march twenty third they fell in with a score or two of red men who had been off to war and brought home but one scalp and they had a chance to see a war dance
the red men cleared a large space and built a fire in the midst of it round which they all sat one of the men then made a grand speech in which he told them how they were to dance when he had done the one who could dance the best sprang up
as if he had just been roused from sleep and ran and jumped round the ring in a queer kind of way the rest soon joined him and did just as he did by this time the band made it self heard
and i shall have to tell you what a fine band it was there was a pot half full of water with a piece of deer skin stretched tight on the top and a gourd with some shot in it and a piece of horse's tail tied to it to make it look fine
late in the day of march twenty sixth they came to a place where dwelt a man named hedge who was in the pay of king george as justice of the peace here they camped and at the meal that was spread there was not a knife
nor a fork to eat with but such as the guests had brought with them on the night of the first of a pril the wind blew and the rain fell the straw on which they lay took fire and george was saved by one of the men who woke him when it was in a blaze
i have not slept for four nights in a bed wrote wash ing ton at this time to one of his young friends at home but when i have walked a good deal in the day i lie down on a heap of straw
and he is in luck who gets the place next the fire for three years he kept up this mode of life but as it was a hard life to lead he could be out but a few weeks at a time his pay was a doub loon a day
a doub loon is a gold coin of spain worth not quite sixteen dol lars a pis tole is a small gold coin of spain worth not quite four dol lars this rough kind of life though he did not know it was to fit him for the toils and ills of war
of which he may have dreamt in those days as he still kept up his love for war like things while at work on the land round the blue ridge he now and then made his way to green way court where lord fair fax dwelt at this time
here he had a chance to read choice books for lord fair fax had a fine mind though his tastes were queer he lived on a knoll in a small house not more than twelve feet square
black and white red men half breeds and wood men thronged the place where they were sure they would get a good meal he had steeds of fine breed and hounds of keen scent for he was fond of the chase and the woods and hills were full of game
which he took with him to the woods and read with great care and in this way stored his mind with rich thoughts in vir gin a there were some few men who had served in the late war twixt eng land and spain and they put george through such a drill with sword and with gun
that he learned to use them both with great skill a dutch man named van bra am was one of these men and he claimed to know a great deal of the art of war he it was that took george in hand to teach him the use of the sword and how to fence
when he was nineteen years of age the red men and the french had made such in roads on the front that it was thought best to place men on guard to keep back these foes
there was need of some one to take charge of a school of arms at one of the chief out posts where the french sought to get a foot hold and the choice fell on george wash ing ton who set to work at once to fit him self for the place
his broth er's ill health caused this scheme to be dropped for a time
and begged george to go with him george gave up all thought of self
at sea he kept a log book took notes of the course of the winds and if the days were fair or foul and learned all he could of the ways of a ship and how to sail one
and were pleased with the place and all the strange sights that met their gaze on all sides were fields of corn and sweet cane and groves of trees rich in leaves and fruit
whose lungs were in a weak state they had been but two weeks in bar ba does when george fell ill with small pox and this for a time put an end to all their sports but he had the best of care and at the end of three weeks
was so well that he could go out of doors law rence soon tired of this place and longed for a change of scene they had to ride out by the first dawn of day for by the time the sun was half an hour high it was as hot as at mid day
he was lone some with out his wife
and reached vir gin a at the end of five weeks he must have been glad to step on shore once more
made life on ship board some thing of a hard ship law rence did not gain in health and ere his wife could join him he wrote her that he would start for home to his grave
in time to die neath his own roof
chapter five as aide de camp
wash ing ton thought it a wild scheme for the snow lay deep on the hills his men were worn out and had no arms nor tents nor clothes nor food such as would fit them to take the field
it would need gold to buy these things as well as to pay for fresh troops
our force was spread out in to ten bands of one hundred men each the king's troops were put in high rank
this of course was more than he could bear so he left the ar my at once and with a sad heart
wash ing ton felt that he could be of great use as he knew the land and the ways of red men
ben ja min frank lin who had charge of the mails lent his aid to the cause
in a pril seventeen fifty five
which he soon found out was not meant for use on rough roads but he had fought with dukes and men of high rank and was fond of show and liked to put on a great deal of style he thought that this would make the troops look up to him and would add much to his fame
in may the troops went in to camp and wash ing ton had a chance to learn much of the art of war that was new and strange to him and to see some things that made him smile all the rules and forms of camp life were kept up one of the head men who died while in camp
was borne to the grave in this style a guard marched in front of the corpse the cap tain of it in the rear each man held his gun up side down as a sign that the dead would war no more and the drums beat the dead march when near the grave
the guard formed two lines that stood face to face let their guns rest on the ground and leaned their heads on the butts the corpse was borne twixt these two rows of men with the sword and sash on the top of the box in which he lay
and in the rear of it the men of rank marched two and two when the corpse was put in the ground the guard fired their guns three times and then all the troops marched back to camp the red men the del a wares and shaw nees came to aid gen er al brad dock
with them were white thun der who had charge of the speech belts and sil ver heels who was swift of foot half king was dead and white thun der reigned in his stead the red men had a camp to them selves
where they would sing and dance and howl and yell for half the night it was fun for the king's troops to watch them at their sports and games
in the day time the red men and their squaws rigged up in their plumes and war paint
but they did not keep their word wash ing ton was sent to will iams burg to bring the gold of which there was need
he would give no heed to those who knew more of the back woods than he did nor call on the red men to serve as scouts and guides he was not used to that kind of war fare and scorned to be taught by such a youth as george wash ing ton
the march was a hard one for man and beast up steep hills and through rough roads they had to drag the guns
on which he had been wont to fight hard as it was for his pride to seek the aid of so young a man he was at last forced to ask wash ing ton to help him out of these straits
wash ing ton said there was no time to lose they must push on at once while at this place cap tain jack and his brave band of hunts men came in to camp
cap tain jack stepped in front of his band and said that he and his men were used to rough work and knew how to deal with the red men and would be glad to join the force
and spoke to him in a way that roused the ire of cap tain jack he told his men what had been said and the whole band turned their backs on the camp and went through the woods to their old haunts where they were known and prized at their true worth
in the mean time wash ing ton who had had a head ache for some days grew so ill that he could not ride on his horse and had to be borne part of the time in a cart
by that time he could move but not with out much pain for he was still quite weak it was his wish to join the troops in time for the great blow and while yet too weak to mount his horse he set off with his guards in a close cart
by sun rise the next day the troops turned out in fine style and marched off to the noise of drum and fife
though still weak and ill he rode his horse and took his place on the staff as aide de camp at one o'clock the whole force had crossed the ford north of the fort and were on their way up the bank
when they were met by a fierce and sharp fire from foes they could not see wild war whoops and fierce yells rent the air what wash ing ton feared had come to pass
who fired and took no aim those in the front rank were killed by those in the rear
but he thought there was but one way for troops to fight and that brave men ought not to skulk in that way
and called them hard names and struck them with the flat of his sword all day long wash ing ton rode here and there in the midst of the fight he was in all parts of the field a fine mark for the guns of the foe and yet not a shot struck him to do him harm
four small shots went through his coat two of his steeds were shot down and though those who stood near him fell dead at his side wash ing ton had not one wound the fight raged on death swept through the ranks of the red coats
the men at the guns were seized with fright wash ing ton sprang from his horse wheeled a brass field piece with his own hand and sent a good shot through the woods but this act did not bring the men back to their guns
but most of his head men had been slain in his sight
wash ing ton had been sent to a camp forty miles off and was on his way back when he heard the sad news
and when he made up his mind to do a thing he would do it at all risks through this fault he missed the fame he hoped to win lost his life and found a grave in a strange land his loss was a great gain to wash ing ton
for all felt that he so calm so grave so free from fear was the right sort of man to lead troops to war those who had seen him in the field thought that he bore a charmed life for though he stood where the shot fell thick
and fast he was not hurt and showed no signs of fear but wash ing ton was weak and in need of rest
he went back to mount ver non where he thought to spend the rest of his days
in the middle of the room on a table lay the coffin with wax candles burning all round it on tall silver candelabra in the further corner sat the chanter reading the psalms in a low monotonous voice
i stopped at the door and tried to look but my eyes were so weak with crying and my nerves so terribly on edge that i could distinguish nothing every object seemed to mingle together in a strange blur
the candles the brocade the velvet the great candelabra the pink satin cushion trimmed with lace the chaplet of flowers the ribboned cap and something of a transparent
i mounted a chair to see her face yet where it should have been i could see only that wax like transparent something i could not believe it to be her face yet
as i stood grazing at it i at last recognised the well known beloved features i shuddered with horror to realise that it was she why were those eyes so sunken
what had laid that dreadful paleness upon her cheeks and stamped the black spot beneath the transparent skin on one of them
why were the lips so white and their outline so beautiful so majestic so expressive of an unnatural calm that as i looked at them a chill shudder ran through my hair
and down my back somehow as i gazed an irrepressible incomprehensible power seemed to compel me to keep my eyes fixed upon that lifeless face i could not turn away
and my imagination began to picture before me scenes of her active life and happiness i forgot that the corpse lying before me now
the thing at which i was gazing unconsciously as at an object which had nothing in common with my dreams was she i fancied i could see her now here now there
alive happy and smiling then some well known feature in the face at which i was gazing would suddenly arrest my attention and in a flash i would recall the terrible reality and shudder
though still unable to turn my eyes away then again the dreams would replace reality then again the reality put to flight the dreams at last the consciousness of both left me
and for a while i became insensible how long i remained in that condition i do not know nor yet how it occurred i only know that for a time i lost all sense of existence
and experienced a kind of vague blissfulness which though grand and sweet was also sad it may be that as it ascended to a better world her beautiful soul had looked down with longing at the world in which she had left us
that it had seen my sorrow and pitying me had returned to earth on the wings of love to console and bless me with a heavenly smile of compassion
the noise awakened me and my first thought was that seeing me standing on the chair in a posture which had nothing touching in its aspect
he might take me for an unfeeling boy who had climbed on to the chair out of mere curiosity wherefore i hastened to make the sign of the cross to bend down my head and to burst out crying
as i recall now my impressions of that episode i find that it was only during my moments of self forgetfulness that my grief was wholehearted true both before and after the funeral i never ceased to cry
and to look miserable yet i feel conscience stricken when i recall that grief of mine seeing that always present in it there was an element of conceit of a desire to show that i was more grieved than any one else
of an interest which i took in observing the effect produced upon others by my tears and of an idle curiosity leading me to remark mimi's bonnet and the faces of all present
the mere circumstance that i despised myself for not feeling grief to the exclusion of everything else and that i endeavoured to conceal the fact shows that my sadness was insincere and unnatural
i took a delight in feeling that i was unhappy and in trying to feel more so consequently this egotistic consciousness completely annulled any element of sincerity in my woe
that night i slept calmly and soundly as is usual after any great emotion and awoke with my tears dried and my nerves restored
at ten o'clock we were summoned to attend the pre funeral requiem the room was full of weeping servants and peasants who had come to bid farewell to their late mistress during the service i myself wept a great deal
made frequent signs of the cross and performed many genuflections but i did not pray with my soul and felt if anything almost indifferent my thoughts were chiefly centred upon the new coat which i was wearing
a garment which was tight and uncomfortable and upon how to avoid soiling my trousers at the knees also i took the most minute notice of all present papa stood at the head of the coffin
he was as white as snow and only with difficulty restrained his tears his tall figure in its black frockcoat his pale expressive face the graceful assured manner in which as usual
he made the sign of the cross or bowed until he touched the floor with his hand a custom of the greek funeral rite or took the candle from the priest or went to the coffin all were exceedingly effective yet for some reason or another
i felt a grudge against him for that very ability to appear effective at such a moment mimi stood leaning against the wall as though scarcely able to support herself her dress was all awry and covered with feathers
and her cap cocked to one side while her eyes were red with weeping her legs trembling under her and she sobbed incessantly in a heartrending manner as ever and again she buried her face in her handkerchief or her hands
i imagine that she did this to check her continual sobbing without being seen by the spectators i remember too her telling papa the evening before
that mamma's death had come upon her as a blow from which she could never hope to recover that with mamma she had lost everything but that the angel as she called my mother had not forgotten her when at the point of death
mimi's and katenka's fortunes secure for ever mimi had shed bitter tears while relating this and very likely her sorrow if not wholly pure and disinterested was in the main sincere
lubotshka in black garments and suffused with tears stood with her head bowed upon her breast she rarely looked at the coffin yet whenever she did so her face expressed a sort of childish fear
katenka stood near her mother and despite her lengthened face looked as lovely as ever woloda's frank nature was frank also in grief he stood looking grave
and as though he were staring at some object with fixed eyes then suddenly his lips would begin to quiver and he would hastily make the sign of the cross and bend his head again
such of those present as were strangers i found intolerable
such for instance as that she is better off now she was too good for this world and so on awakened in me something like fury what right had they to weep over or to talk about her
some of them in referring to ourselves called us orphans just as though it were not a matter of common knowledge that children who have lost their mother are known as orphans probably i thought
they liked to be the first to give us that name just as some people find pleasure in being the first to address a newly married girl as madame in a far corner of the room
and almost hidden by the open door of the dining room stood a grey old woman with bent knees with hands clasped together and eyes lifted to heaven she prayed only not wept
her soul was in the presence of god and she was asking him soon to reunite her to her whom she had loved beyond all beings on this earth and whom she steadfastly believed that she would very soon meet again
there stands one who sincerely loved her i thought to myself and felt ashamed the requiem was over they uncovered the face of the deceased
and all present except ourselves went to the coffin to give her the kiss of farewell one of the last to take leave of her departed mistress was a peasant woman who was holding by the hand
a pretty little girl of five whom she had brought with her god knows for what reason just at a moment when i chanced to drop my wet handkerchief and was stooping to pick it up again a loud piercing scream startled me
and filled me with such terror that were i to live a hundred years more i should never forget it even now the recollection always sends a cold shudder through my frame i raised my head
standing on the chair near the coffin was the peasant woman while struggling and fighting in her arms was the little girl and it was this same poor child who had screamed with such dreadful desperate frenzy
as straining her terrified face away she still continued to gaze with dilated eyes at the face of the corpse i too screamed in a voice perhaps more dreadful still and ran headlong from the room
only now did i understand the source of the strong oppressive smell which mingling with the scent of the incense filled the chamber while the thought that the face which but a few days ago had been full of freshness and beauty
the face which i loved more than anything else in all the world was now capable of inspiring horror at length revealed to me as though for the first time
the letter on the sixteenth of april nearly six months after the day just described papa entered our schoolroom and told us that that night we must start with him for our country house
i felt a pang at my heart when i heard the news and my thoughts at once turned to mamma the cause of our unexpected departure was the following letter petrovskoe twelfth april only this moment
have i received your dear letter of the third of april but as usual i answer it at once
but as it was late he did not give it to mimi till this morning and mimi since i was unwell kept it from me all day i have been a little feverish in fact to tell the truth
this is the fourth day that i have been in bed yet do not be uneasy i feel almost myself again now
i think of getting up to morrow on friday last i took the girls for a drive and close to the little bridge by the turning on to the high road the place which always makes me nervous
the horses and carriage stuck fast in the mud well the day being fine i thought that we would walk a little up the road until the carriage should be extricated but no sooner had we reached the chapel
than i felt obliged to sit down i was so tired and in this way half an hour passed while help was being sent for to get the carriage dug out i felt cold for i had only thin boots on and they had been wet through
after luncheon too i had alternate cold and hot fits yet still continued to follow our ordinary routine
you would be astonished to hear what progress she has made but imagine my surprise when i found that i could not count the beats several times i began to do so yet always felt confused in my head
and kept hearing strange noises in my ears i would begin one two three and then suddenly go on eight fifteen and so on as though i were talking nonsense and could not help it
at last mimi came to my assistance and forced me to retire to bed that was how my illness began and it was all through my own fault the next day i had a good deal of fever
he has not left us since but promises soon to restore me to the world what a wonderful old man he is
while i was feverish and delirious he sat the whole night by my bedside without once closing his eyes and at this moment since he knows i am busy writing he is with the girls in the divannaia
and i can hear him telling them german stories and them laughing as they listen to him la belle flamande as you call her is now spending her second week here as my guest her mother having gone to pay a visit somewhere
and she is most attentive and attached to me she even tells me her secret affairs under different circumstances her beautiful face good temper and youth might have made a most excellent girl of her
but in the society in which according to her own account she moves she will be wasted the idea has more than once occurred to me that had i not had so many children of my own it would have been a deed of mercy to have adopted her
lubotshka had meant to write to you herself but she has torn up three sheets of paper saying i know what a quizzer papa always is if he were to find a single fault in my letter he would show it to everybody
katenka is as charming as usual and mimi too is good but tiresome now let me speak of more serious matters you write to me that your affairs are not going well this winter
and that you wish to break into the revenues of chabarovska it seems to me strange that you should think it necessary to ask my consent surely what belongs to me belongs no less to you you are so kind hearted dear
that for fear of worrying me you conceal the real state of things but i can guess that you have lost a great deal at cards as also that you are afraid of my being angry at that yet so long as you can tide over this crisis
i shall not think much of it and you need not be uneasy i have grown accustomed to no longer relying so far as the children are concerned upon your gains at play nor yet excuse me for saying so
upon your income therefore your losses cause me as little anxiety as your gains give me pleasure what i really grieve over is your unhappy passion itself for gambling
a passion which bereaves me of part of your tender affection and obliges me to tell you such bitter truths as god knows with what pain i am now telling you i never cease to beseech him that he may preserve us
not from poverty for what is poverty but from the terrible juncture which would arise should the interests of the children which i am called upon to protect ever come into collision with our own
hitherto god has listened to my prayers you have never yet overstepped the limit beyond which we should be obliged either to sacrifice property which would no longer belong to us but to the children or
yes it is the heavy cross which god has given us both to carry also you write about the children and come back to our old point of difference by asking my consent to your placing them at a boarding school
you know my objection to that kind of education i do not know dear whether you will accede to my request but i nevertheless beseech you by your love for me to give me your promise that never so long as i am alive
nor yet after my death if god should see fit to separate us shall such a thing be done also you write that our affairs render it indispensable for you to visit saint petersburg the lord go with you
go and return as soon as possible without you we shall all of us be lonely spring is coming in beautifully we keep the door on to the terrace always open now while the path to the orangery
is dry and the peach trees are in full blossom only here and there is there a little snow remaining the swallows are arriving and to day lubotshka brought me the first flowers
the doctor says that in about three days time i shall be well again and able to take the open air and to enjoy the april sun now au revoir my dearest one do not be alarmed
i beg of you either on account of my illness or on account of your losses at play end the crisis as soon as possible and then return here with the children for the summer i am making wonderful plans for our passing of it
and i only need your presence to realise them the rest of the letter was written in french as well as in a strange uncertain hand on another piece of paper i transcribe it word for word
do not believe what i have just written to you about my illness it is more serious than any one knows i alone know that i shall never leave my bed again do not therefore delay a minute in coming here with the children
perhaps it may yet be permitted me to embrace and bless them it is my last wish that it should be so i know what a terrible blow this will be to you but you would have had to hear it sooner or later if not from me
at least from others let us try to bear the calamity with fortitude and place our trust in the mercy of god let us submit ourselves to his will do not think that what i am writing is some delusion of my sick imagination
on the contrary i am perfectly clear at this moment and absolutely calm nor must you comfort yourself with the false hope that these are the unreal confused feelings of a despondent spirit
for i feel indeed i know since god has deigned to reveal it to me that i have now but a very short time to live will my love for you and the children cease with my life i know that that can never be
at this moment i am too full of that love to be capable of believing that such a feeling which constitutes a part of my very existence can ever perish my soul can never lack its love for you
and i know that that love will exist for ever since such a feeling could never have been awakened if it were not to be eternal i shall no longer be with you yet i firmly believe that my love will cleave to you always
and from that thought i glean such comfort that i await the approach of death calmly and without fear yes i am calm and god knows that i have ever looked and do look now
upon death as no more than the passage to a better life yet why do tears blind my eyes why should the children lose a mother's love
why must you my husband experience such a heavy and unlooked for blow why must i die when your love was making life so inexpressibly happy for me but his holy will be done
the tears prevent my writing more it may be that i shall never see you again i thank you my darling beyond all price for all the felicity with which you have surrounded me in this life
soon i shall appear before god himself to pray that he may reward you farewell my dearest remember that if i am no longer here
farewell woloda farewell my pet farewell my benjamin my little nicolinka surely they will never forget me with this letter had come also a french note from mimi
in which the latter said the sad circumstances of which she has written to you are but too surely confirmed by the words of the doctor yesterday evening she ordered the letter to be posted at once
but thinking at she did so in delirium i waited until this morning with the intention of sealing and sending it then hardly had i done so when natalia nicolaevna asked me what i had done with the letter
and told me to burn it if not yet despatched she is forever speaking of it and saying that it will kill you do not delay your departure for an instant if you wish to see the angel before she leaves us pray excuse this scribble
but i have not slept now for three nights you know how much i love her later i heard from natalia savishna who passed the whole of the night of the eleventh april at mamma's bedside that after writing the first part of the letter
i confess said natalia savishna that i too fell asleep in the arm chair and let my knitting slip from my hands suddenly towards one o'clock in the morning i heard her saying something
whereupon i opened my eyes and looked at her my darling was sitting up in bed with her hands clasped together and streams of tears gushing from her eyes it is all over now she said
and hid her face in her hands i sprang to my feet and asked what the matter was ah natalia savishna if you could only know what i have just seen she said
yet for all my asking she would say no more beyond commanding me to hand her the letter to that letter she added something
for the most part save incidentally we have hitherto been concerned with education as it may exist in any social group we have now to make explicit the differences in the spirit material and method of education as it operates in different types of community life
to say that education is a social function securing direction and development in the immature through their participation in the life of the group to which they belong is to say in effect that education will vary with the quality of life which prevails in a group particularly
will have different standards and methods of education from one which aims simply at the perpetuation of its own customs to make the general ideas set forth applicable to our own educational practice it is therefore necessary to come to closer quarters
with the nature of present social life one the implications of human association society is one word but many things men associate together in all kinds of ways and for all kinds of purposes
one man is concerned in a multitude of diverse groups in which his associates may be quite different it often seems as if they had nothing in common except that they are modes of associated life within every larger social organization
there are numerous minor groups not only political subdivisions but industrial scientific religious associations there are political parties with differing aims social sets cliques gangs corporations partnerships
groups bound closely together by ties of blood and so on in endless variety in many modern states and in some ancient there is great diversity of populations of varying languages
the former connotation is almost always uppermost society is conceived as one by its very nature the qualities which accompany this unity praiseworthy community of purpose and welfare loyalty to public ends mutuality of sympathy
are emphasized but when we look at the facts which the term denotes instead of confining our attention to its intrinsic connotation we find not unity but a plurality of societies good and bad men banded together in a criminal conspiracy
business aggregations that prey upon the public while serving it political machines held together by the interest of plunder are included if it is said that such organizations are not societies because they do not meet the ideal requirements of the notion of society
the answer in part is that the conception of society is then made so ideal as to be of no use having no reference to facts and in part that each of these organizations no matter how opposed to the interests of other groups
has something of the praiseworthy qualities of society which hold it together there is honor among thieves and a band of robbers has a common interest as respects its members gangs are marked by fraternal feeling
and narrow cliques by intense loyalty to their own codes family life may be marked by exclusiveness suspicion and jealousy as to those without and yet be a model of amity and mutual aid within
any education given by a group tends to socialize its members but the quality and value of the socialization depends upon the habits and aims of the group hence once more the need of a measure for the worth of any given mode of social life
in seeking this measure we have to avoid two extremes we cannot set up out of our heads something we regard as an ideal society we must base our conception upon societies which actually exist
but as we have just seen the ideal cannot simply repeat the traits which are actually found the problem is to extract the desirable traits of forms of community life which actually exist
and employ them to criticize undesirable features and suggest improvement now in any social group whatever even in a gang of thieves we find some interest held in common
and we find a certain amount of interaction and cooperative intercourse with other groups from these two traits we derive our standard how numerous and varied are the interests which are consciously shared
how full and free is the interplay with other forms of association if we apply these considerations to say a criminal band we find that the ties which consciously hold the members together are few in number
reducible almost to a common interest in plunder and that they are of such a nature as to isolate the group from other groups with respect to give and take of the values of life hence the education such a society gives is partial and distorted
if we take on the other hand the kind of family life which illustrates the standard we find that there are material intellectual aesthetic interests in which all participate and that the progress of one member
has worth for the experience of other members it is readily communicable and that the family is not an isolated whole but enters intimately into relationships with business groups with schools with all the agencies of culture as well as with other similar groups
and that it plays a due part in the political organization and in return receives support from it in short there are many interests consciously communicated and shared and there are varied and free points of contact with other modes of association
let us apply the first element in this criterion to a despotically governed state it is not true there is no common interest in such an organization between governed and governors
the authorities in command must make some appeal to the native activities of the subjects must call some of their powers into play talleyrand said that a government could do everything with bayonets except sit on them
this cynical declaration is at least a recognition that the bond of union is not merely one of coercive force it may be said however that the activities appealed to are themselves unworthy and degrading
that such a government calls into functioning activity simply capacity for fear in a way this statement is true but it overlooks the fact that fear need not be an undesirable factor in experience caution circumspection
prudence desire to foresee future events so as to avert what is harmful these desirable traits are as much a product of calling the impulse of fear into play as is cowardice and abject submission the real difficulty is that the appeal to fear is isolated
in evoking dread and hope of specific tangible reward say comfort and ease many other capacities are left untouched or rather they are affected but in such a way as to pervert them instead of operating on their own account
they are reduced to mere servants of attaining pleasure and avoiding pain this is equivalent to saying that there is no extensive number of common interests there is no free play back and forth among the members of the social group stimulation and response are exceedingly one sided
in order to have a large number of values in common all the members of the group must have an equable opportunity to receive and to take from others there must be a large variety of shared undertakings and experiences otherwise
the influences which educate some into masters educate others into slaves and the experience of each party loses in meaning when the free interchange of varying modes of life experience is arrested
a separation into a privileged and a subject class prevents social endosmosis the evils thereby affecting the superior class are less material and less perceptible but equally real their culture tends to be sterile
to be turned back to feed on itself their art becomes a showy display and artificial their wealth luxurious their knowledge overspecialized their manners fastidious rather than humane
diversity of stimulation means novelty and novelty means challenge to thought the more activity is restricted to a few definite lines as it is when there are rigid class lines preventing adequate interplay of experiences
the more action tends to become routine on the part of the class at a disadvantage and capricious aimless and explosive on the part of the class having the materially fortunate position plato defined a slave as one who accepts from another the purposes which control his conduct
this condition obtains even where there is no slavery in the legal sense it is found wherever men are engaged in activity which is socially serviceable but whose service they do not understand and have no personal interest in
much is said about scientific management of work it is a narrow view which restricts the science which secures efficiency of operation to movements of the muscles the chief opportunity for science is the discovery of the relations of a man to his work
including his relations to others who take part which will enlist his intelligent interest in what he is doing efficiency in production often demands division of labor but it is reduced to a mechanical routine unless workers see the technical intellectual
involved in what they do and engage in their work because of the motivation furnished by such perceptions the tendency to reduce such things as efficiency of activity and scientific management to purely technical externals is evidence of the one sided stimulation of thought
given to those in control of industry those who supply its aims because of their lack of all round and well balanced social interest there is not sufficient stimulus for attention to the human factors and relationships in industry
intelligence is narrowed to the factors concerned with technical production and marketing of goods no doubt a very acute and intense intelligence in these narrow lines can be developed but the failure to take into account the significant social factors
means none the less an absence of mind and a corresponding distortion of emotional life
this illustration whose point is to be extended to all associations lacking reciprocity of interest brings us to our second point
brings its antisocial spirit into relief
it marks nations in their isolation from one another families which seclude their domestic concerns as if they had no connection with a larger life schools when separated from the interest of home and community the divisions of rich and poor learned and unlearned
the essential point is that isolation makes for rigidity and formal institutionalizing of life for static and selfish ideals within the group that savage tribes regard aliens and enemies as synonymous is not accidental
it springs from the fact that they have identified their experience with rigid adherence to their past customs on such a basis it is wholly logical to fear intercourse with others for such contact might dissolve custom it would certainly occasion reconstruction
it is a commonplace that an alert and expanding mental life depends upon an enlarging range of contact with the physical environment but the principle applies even more significantly to the field where we are apt to ignore it the sphere of social contacts
every expansive era in the history of mankind has coincided with the operation of factors which have tended to eliminate distance between peoples and classes previously hemmed off from one another even the alleged benefits of war
spring from the fact that conflict of peoples at least enforces intercourse between them and thus accidentally enables them to learn from one another and thereby to expand their horizons travel economic and commercial tendencies
have at present gone far to break down external barriers to bring peoples and classes into closer and more perceptible connection with one another it remains for the most part to secure the intellectual and emotional significance
of this physical annihilation of space two the democratic ideal the two elements in our criterion both point to democracy
the first signifies not only more numerous and more varied points of shared common interest but greater reliance upon the recognition of mutual interests as a factor in social control the second means not only freer interaction between social groups
once isolated so far as intention could keep up a separation but change in social habit its continuous readjustment through meeting the new situations produced by varied intercourse
and these two traits are precisely what characterize the democratically constituted society upon the educational side we note first that the realization of a form of social life in which interests are mutually interpenetrating
and where progress or readjustment is an important consideration makes a democratic community more interested than other communities have cause to be in deliberate and systematic education the devotion of democracy to education is a familiar fact
the superficial explanation is that a government resting upon popular suffrage cannot be successful unless those who elect and who obey their governors are educated since a democratic society repudiates the principle of external authority
it must find a substitute in voluntary disposition and interest these can be created only by education but there is a deeper explanation a democracy is more than a form of government it is primarily a mode of associated living
of conjoint communicated experience the extension in space of the number of individuals who participate in an interest so that each has to refer his own action to that of others and to consider the action of others to give point and direction to his own
is equivalent to the breaking down of those barriers of class race and national territory which kept men from perceiving the full import of their activity these more numerous and more varied points of contact
they consequently put a premium on variation in his action they secure a liberation of powers which remain suppressed as long as the incitations to action are partial as they must be in a group which in its exclusiveness shuts out many interests
the widening of the area of shared concerns and the liberation of a greater diversity of personal capacities which characterize a democracy are not of course the product of deliberation and conscious effort on the contrary
they were caused by the development of modes of manufacture and commerce travel migration and intercommunication which flowed from the command of science over natural energy but after greater individualization on one hand and a broader community of interest on the other have come into existence
obviously a society to which stratification into separate classes would be fatal must see to it that intellectual opportunities are accessible to all on equable and easy terms
a society marked off into classes need he specially attentive only to the education of its ruling elements a society which is mobile which is full of channels for the distribution of a change occurring anywhere
must see to it that its members are educated to personal initiative and adaptability otherwise they will be overwhelmed by the changes in which they are caught and whose significance or connections they do not perceive
the result will be a confusion in which a few will appropriate to themselves the results of the blind and externally directed activities of others three the platonic educational philosophy
subsequent chapters will be devoted to making explicit the implications of the democratic ideas in education in the remaining portions of this chapter we shall consider the educational theories which have been evolved in three epochs
when the social import of education was especially conspicuous the first one to be considered is that of plato
no one could better express than did he the fact that a society is stably organized when each individual is doing that for which he has aptitude by nature in such a way as to be useful to others or to contribute to the whole to which he belongs
and that it is the business of education to discover these aptitudes and progressively to train them for social use much which has been said so far is borrowed from what plato first consciously taught the world
but conditions which he could not intellectually control led him to restrict these ideas in their application he never got any conception of the indefinite plurality of activities which may characterize an individual and a social group
plato's starting point is that the organization of society depends ultimately upon knowledge of the end of existence if we do not know its end we shall be at the mercy of accident and caprice unless we know the end the good
we shall have no criterion for rationally deciding what the possibilities are which should be promoted nor how social arrangements are to be ordered we shall have no conception of the proper limits and distribution of activities what he called justice
as a trait of both individual and social organization but how is the knowledge of the final and permanent good to be achieved in dealing with this question we come upon the seemingly insuperable obstacle
that such knowledge is not possible save in a just and harmonious social order everywhere else the mind is distracted and misled by false valuations and false perspectives
a disorganized and factional society sets up a number of different models and standards under such conditions it is impossible for the individual to attain consistency of mind only a complete whole is fully self consistent
a society which rests upon the supremacy of some factor over another irrespective of its rational or proportionate claims inevitably leads thought astray it puts a premium on certain things and slurs over others
and creates a mind whose seeming unity is forced and distorted education proceeds ultimately from the patterns furnished by institutions customs and laws only in a just state will these be such as to give the right education
and only those who have rightly trained minds will be able to recognize the end and ordering principle of things we seem to be caught in a hopeless circle however plato suggested a way out
a few men philosophers or lovers of wisdom or truth may by study learn at least in outline the proper patterns of true existence if a powerful ruler should form a state after these patterns then its regulations could be preserved
an education could be given which would sift individuals discovering what they were good for and supplying a method of assigning each to the work in life for which his nature fits him each doing his own part and never transgressing
the order and unity of the whole would be maintained it would be impossible to find in any scheme of philosophic thought a more adequate recognition on one hand of the educational significance of social arrangements and on the other
of the dependence of those arrangements upon the means used to educate the young it would be impossible to find a deeper sense of the function of education in discovering and developing personal capacities and training them so that they would connect with the activities of others
yet the society in which the theory was propounded was so undemocratic that plato could not work out a solution for the problem whose terms he clearly saw
while he affirmed with emphasis that the place of the individual in society should not be determined by birth or wealth or any conventional status but by his own nature as discovered in the process of education
he had no perception of the uniqueness of individuals for him they fall by nature into classes and into a very small number of classes at that consequently the testing and sifting function of education
there being no recognition that each individual constitutes his own class there could be no recognition of the infinite diversity of active tendencies and combinations of tendencies of which an individual is capable
there were only three types of faculties or powers in the individual's constitution hence education would soon reach a static limit in each class
in some individuals appetites naturally dominate they are assigned to the laboring and trading class which expresses and supplies human wants others reveal upon education
that over and above appetites they have a generous outgoing assertively courageous disposition they become the citizen subjects of the state its defenders in war its internal guardians in peace but their limit is fixed by their lack of reason
which is a capacity to grasp the universal those who possess this are capable of the highest kind of education and become in time the legislators of the state for laws are the universals which control the particulars of experience
thus it is not true that in intent plato subordinated the individual to the social whole but it is true that lacking the perception of the uniqueness of every individual his incommensurability with others
and consequently not recognizing that a society might change and yet be stable his doctrine of limited powers and classes came in net effect to the idea of the subordination of individuality
the fight in the dark he dropped down softly to the causeway within the city he heard a sound such as he had never heard before as if some ancient prophecy of doom had been fulfilled a wailing
it was the death keening of proud atlantis queen of the atlantic for fifty thousand years she was dying in darkness for with the blinding of the eye all the soft lights within the city had gone out dense
utter impenetrable darkness reigned and even the gibbous moon floating overhead seemed to give no light jim dropped to the causeway and began running in the direction of the city
but feeling the drag of his wings he unbuckled the strap and flung them away he might need them but his one thought was to get to lucille if she were still alive and he felt that each moment lost might mean that he would be too late
but behind him he heard another sound and shuddered at it all his hopes suddenly reversed for that sound was the shouting of the drilgoes as they rushed forward to conquest
and now it seemed a monstrous thing that proud atlantis should be at the mercy of these hordes he had let loose destruction upon the world but it was to save lucille that was his consolation
yet he hardly checked the racing thoughts within his mind even for a moment to meditate on what he had done those thoughts were all of lucille he must get to her before the drilgoes entered and he ran faster panting gasping
till of a sudden the portals loomed before him and he saw a crowd of frenzied atlanteans struggling to pass through and a file of soldiers struggling to keep them back he could distinguish nothing more than the confused struggle
he hurled himself into the midst of the crowd and swept it back he was within the walls now and struggling to pass through the mob of people that was swarming like homeless bees he fought them with flailing fists he clove a pathway through them
until he found himself in a great shadowy space that he recognized as the central assembly of the city more by instinct than design he hit upon the narrow court that was the elevator but the court was filled with another mob of struggling people
and in the darkness there was no possibility of discovering the secret of raising it he blundered about raging forcing a path now here now there he ran into blind alleys into small threading streets about the court
which led him back into the central place of assembly it was like a nightmare that blind search under the pale three quarter moon and the black star blotched sky
suddenly jim found himself wedged by the pressure of the crowd into a sort of recess leading off the elevator court so strong was the pressure here that he was unable to move an inch wedged bolt upright he could only wait and let the frenzied mob stream past him
and louder above the sound of wailing came the roars of the drilgoes swarming along the causeway suddenly something gave behind him a door as it seemed broken off its hinges by the mob pressure jim was hurled backward
and fell heavily down a flight of stone stairs bringing up against a stone balustrade he got up unconscious of his bruises ran to the top of the flight and saw the dim square of palest twilight where the door had been
but over him he could faintly see the stairs and the balustrade winding away to what seemed immeasurable height that stairway must lead to the top of the building and thence there should be some access to the amphitheatre jim turned toward it
suddenly a tremendous uproar filled the streets yells the clicking grunts of the drilgoes the screams of the panic stricken populace the invaders had arrived and they were sweeping all before them no chance of recognition in that darkness
lucille shouting her name jim began to ascend the stairs in leaps of three at a time but long before he reached the top he was ascending one by one with straining limbs and laboring breath red slaughter down below
a very inferno of sound above that shadowy stairway still extending almost to the heavens step after step flight beyond flight jim's lungs were bursting and his heart hammering as if it would break his chest
one flight more one more another suddenly he realized that his task was ended in place of the stairs stood a vast hall and beyond that another hall dim in the faint light that filtered through the glass above
jim thought he remembered where he was beyond that next hall there should be the tongue of flooring crossing the amphitheatre and joining the platform of the idols but he stopped suddenly as he emerged not upon the tongue but upon still another stairway
he had gone astray and out of his bursting lungs a cry of rage and despair went up for a moment he stood still what use to proceed further and then amazingly there came what might have been a sign from heaven
down through a small square opening overhead no larger than a ventilator it came a glimmer of violet flame and jim hurled himself like a madman against the stairs and surmounted them with two bounds there were no more
instead jim found himself looking down into the amphitheatre the thick walls had cut off all sound from his ears save a confused murmur but now a hideous uproar assailed them the whole floor of the amphitheatre was a mass of moving shadows
of slayers and slain the drilgoes had broken in and trapped the multitudes that had taken refuge there their fearful stone tipped spears thrust in and out to the accompaniment of their savage howls and the screams of the dying
never has such a shadow play been seen perhaps as that below where death stalked in dense darkness and the slayer did not even see his victim only the thrust of spears the soft yielding flesh that they encountered
the scream the wrench of stone from tissue and the blended howl of triumph and scream of despair yet only for a moment did jim turn his eyes upon that sight for he knew where he was now
he had emerged upon the other side of the amphitheatre upon the platform where he had seen the priests and dignitaries gathered when he was led forward to be sacrificed there in the rear were the hideous shadowy gods looming up out of the darkness
their outstretched arms interlaced and there upon the platform was the atom smasher a little thread of violet light seeping out of the central tube beside it stood a group of figures impossible to distinguish in the darkness
but of a sudden lucille's scream rang out above the din below with three leaps jim was at her side he saw the girl tode and parrish struggling in the grasp of a dozen priests they were dragging them toward the idols
and jim understood what that scene portended in despair at the irruption of the drilgoes the priests were seeking to propitiate their gods by sacrificing the three strangers whom they held responsible for all their woes
jim caught lucille in his arms shouting her name she knew him turned toward him then one of the priests armed with a great stone headed club for no metal is permitted within the precincts of the god cruk
struck at him furiously jim leaped aside letting the club descend harmlessly upon the floor he shot out his right with all his strength behind it catching the priest upon the jaw and the man crumpled
whirling the club around his head he fought back the fanatics all the while shouting to tode to start the atom smasher in such a moment he only remembered that tode was a white man and of his own generation he struck down three of the priests
then he was seized around the knees from behind and fell heavily the club was wrenched from his hand in another moment jim found himself helpless in the grasp of the atlanteans
he heard a whir overhead and saw the arms of the stone gods begin their horrible revolution the priests had started the machinery and high above the din below rang out the wild chant of the high priest
jim saw him now a figure poised upon a platform behind the arms his own arms raised heavenward
with lucille beside him old parrish following still making a futile struggle for life while pitiful screeches issued from his mouth jim saw the revolving arms descend within a foot of his head one more fight one more
the last suddenly with loud yells a band of drilgoes leaped forward from the head of the stairs and rushed upon the struggling priests and victims and dark as it was jim recognized their leader cain
and cain knew lucille as the priests rallied for a desperate resistance cain hurled his great body through the air landing squarely upon the shoulders of the priest nearest the revolving arms and knocking him flat
then the arms caught priest and drilgo and the steel hooks dug deep into their flesh a screech of terror a howl that reverberated through the amphitheatre and nothing remained of either but a heap of macerated flesh
but in that instant jim had fought free again he caught lucille and dragged her back toward the atom smasher tode had already broken from his captors and was working at it frantically hold on screeched old parrish hold on
they had a moment's leeway the drilgoes had driven the priests back into the hooks with awful shrieks the fanatics were yielding up their lives in the place of their selected victims but more drilgoes were pouring up the stairs
a moment's leeway and no more before the savage band would impale the four upon their stone pointed spears there was not the slightest chance that they would be able to make their identity known for god's sake hurry jim yelled in tode's ear
the wheels were revolving a stream of violet light leaping out of the central tunnel cast a lurid illumination upon the scene but it was too late a score of drilgoes with leveled spears were rushing on the four hold tight screeched parrish
he thrust his arm into his breast and pulled out a little lever jim recognized it and remembered it was the instrument of universal death
a roar that seemed to rend the heavens followed roar upon roar as the infinite momentum of the disintegrating uranium struck obstacle after obstacle the drilgoes vanished
the amphitheatre melted away walls and roof overhead were the moon and stars and proud atlantis was sinking into the depths of the sea not as a ship sinks but piecemeal
her walls and towers crumbling and toppling as a child's sand castle crumbles under the attack of the lapping waves
down they crashed carrying their freight of black clinging human ants while from the sea's depths a wave a mile high rose and battered the fragments to destruction from the crater of the volcano a huge wave of fire fanned forward
and where fire and water met a cloud of steam rose up a boiling chaos in which water and earth and fire were blended spread over land and sea and then suddenly it was ended where the last island of the atlantean continent had been
only the ocean was to be seen placid beneath the stars the atom smasher was vibrating at tremendous speed jim with one arm round lucille faced tode at the instrument board near by sat parrish watching him too
that took a whole year said tode that pretty little scene of destruction we've just witnessed the good old atom smasher has been doing some lively stunts or we'd have been engulfed too we're not likely to see anything so pretty in history again
unless we go to watch the destruction of herculaneum and pompeii by lava from vesuvius but that would be quite tame in comparison with this tode's jeering tone grated on jim's ears immeasurably
suppose you take us back to peconic bay we'll dump the atom smasher into the pond and try to forget that we've had anything except a bad nightmare don't trust him jim whispered lucille
thank you he answered scowling but seriously dent we can't go back with nothing to show for all our trouble those fools tried to betray me and then the eye went out perhaps i have you to thank for that performance
however the sensible thing is to let bygones be bygones but we must make a little excursion
how about picking up a little treasure from the hoards of solomon or genghis khan a few pounds of precious stones would make a world of difference in our social status when we reach long island jim felt a cold fury permeating him
tode saw his grim look and laughed malignantly well dent i'm ready to be frank with you he said the game's still in my hands i want lucille i'm willing to take you and parrish back provided you agree she shall be mine
i'll have to trust you but i shall have means of evening up if you play crooked why don't you ask my girl herself piped old parrish he needn't trouble he knows the answer cried lucille scornfully
there's your answer said jim now what's the alternative the alternative is that i have already set the dial to eternity dent grinned tode eternity in the fifth dimension
didn't know i'd worked that out did you a pleasant little surprise no don't try to move my hand is on the lever i have only to press it and we're there jim stood stock still in horror
tode's voice rang true he believed tode had the power he claimed yes the fifth dimension and eternity said tode where time and space reel into functionlessness don't ask me what it's like there
i've never been there but my impression of it is that it's a fairly good representation of the place popularly known as hell you fool dent tode's voice rang out with vicious snarling emphasis i gave you your chance to come in with me
together we'd have made ourselves masters of atlantis and brought back her plunder to our twentieth century world you refused because of a girl a girl dent who loved me long before you came upon the scene
that's a lie lucius answered lucille steadily and you can do your worst there's one factor you haven't reckoned in your calculations and that's called god the dark blur on the spectral lines old parrish muttered
come make your choice dent he mocked it's merely to press this lever you'll find yourself well we won't go into that i don't know where you'll find yourself you'll disappear so shall i but i'm desperate
i must have lucille choose his voice rang out in maniac tones choose all of you lucille has answered you jim retorted
go to your own hell you dev a blinding light a frantic oscillation of the atom smasher a sense of death awful and indescribable and stark unconsciousness rushed over jim
his last thought was that lucille's arms were about him and that he was holding her nothing mattered therefore even though they two were plunged into that awful nothingness of the fifth dimension where neither space nor time recognizably exists love could exist there
solid earth he's coming around lucille thank god for it jim opened his eyes for a few moments he looked about him without understanding then the outlines of a room etched themselves against the clouded background
and in the foreground lucille's face the girl was bending over jim one hand soothing his forehead where am i jim muttered back on earth jim the good old earth never again to leave it answered lucille with a catch in her voice
with an effort she composed herself you mustn't talk she said but what place is this it's andy lumm's house now rest and i'll explain everything later but the first explanation came from andy lumm
well mister dent my wife and me sure were glad to be on the spot when you and miss parrish got bogged on the edge of the black pool he said mean treacherous place it is thar was a cow got mired thar last month up to her belly if us hadn't found her
granpop dawes says thar's underground springs around the edge and that it runs straight down to hell though that seems sorter far fetched to me yessir and if i hadn't heard w n y c giving miss parrish on the list of missing persons and as having been seen near here
made me and my wife uneasy that did andy she says i got an inkling you oughter go to the vanishing place and see if she ain't there and there i found you two mired to the waist and mister parrish dancing around and fretting
and his clothes burned to cinders it sure seems strange to me to think mister parrish got away safe after that explosion five years ago and of his wandering around with loss of memory till you found him and brung him back here to restore it but thar's strange things in the world
yes sir thar surely is in the happiness of being back on earth once more jim was content to let further explanations go the return of parrish had been duly chronicled in the newspapers and had provoked a mild interest
but fortunately the public mind was so occupied at the moment with the trial of a night club hostess that after the first rush of newspaper men the three were left alone day after day in the brilliant autumn weather jim and lucille would roam the tinted woods
recharging themselves with the feel of earth until the memory of those dread experiences grew dim well jim i reckon i'd better tell you and get it over said old parrish one morning parrish quite his old jaunty self again
tode had got the dials pointing to the fifth dimension eternity he called it though actually i believe it's nothing more than annihilation a grand smash well he pressed that lever but something had gone wrong
you remember how poor cain seemed to take great interest in the atom smasher there's no way of telling what had been going on in that brain of his but it looks to me like he'd known that that lever meant death
it was sealed up in wax and tode had got it free on the way out of atlantis well this it what i made out from examining the thing afterward cain had been monkeying with the lever he'd pried loose one of the wires that hooked to the transformer
and short circuited it not knowing of course just what he was doing the result was that when tode pressed that lever instead of blowing the whole contraption to pieces he got a couple of billion volts of electricity through his body combined with a larger amperage than has ever been imagined
it burned him to a few grease spots he simply vanished you don't remember what you did at the moment boy i don't seem to remember anything said jim well your response was an automatic one you jumped him
old parrish snapped his fingers but you must have got into the field of magnetic force any way you were almost electrocuted lucille and i thought you were dead for hours we laid you down and set a course for home i used those dial numberings tode had given me
he'd said they wouldn't work but he'd lied they did work they brought us back to the vanishing place we carried you out and then i saw your eyelid twitch we worked over you with artificial respiration till it looked as if there was a chance for you
then i shut off the power and let the waters rush in over the atom smasher and swam ashore and there it lies at the bottom of the pool and may it lie there till the judgment day tode was a genius said jim but he never understood that character counts for more than genius
let's think no more about him said lucille she had come up to them and the two looked at each other and smiled love is self centred other things it forgets very quickly to morrow we go back to new york said jim
i think so jim said lucille you're not remembering him after all no jim i was thinking of poor cain he died for me but that was twelve thousand years ago my dear and to day's to day said jim
and to morrow a new life begins for you and me
approaching still nearer to the end jones being now completely dressed attended his uncle to mister western's he was indeed one of the finest figures ever beheld
and his person alone would have charmed the greater part of womankind but we hope it hath already appeared in this history that nature when she formed him did not totally rely as she sometimes doth
on this merit only to recommend her work
appeared so extremely beautiful that even allworthy when he saw her could not forbear whispering western that he believed she was the finest creature in the world
to which western answered in a whisper overheard by all present
sophia was all over scarlet at these words while tom's countenance was altogether as pale and he was almost ready to sink from his chair
the tea table was scarce removed before western lugged allworthy out of the room telling him he had business of consequence to impart and must speak to him that instant in private before he forgot it
the lovers were now alone and it will i question not appear strange to many readers that those who had so much to say to one another when danger and difficulty attended their conversation
and who seemed so eager to rush into each other's arms when so many bars lay in their way now that with safety they were at liberty to say or do whatever they pleased should both remain for some time silent and motionless
they were mutually indifferent but so it was however strange it may seem both sat with their eyes cast downwards on the ground and for some minutes continued in perfect silence
but was absolutely incapable muttering only or rather sighing out some broken words when sophia at length partly out of pity to him
and partly to turn the discourse from the subject which she knew well enough he was endeavouring to open said sure sir you are the most fortunate man in the world in this discovery
and can you really madam think me so fortunate said jones sighing while i have incurred your displeasure nay sir says she as to that you best know whether you have deserved it indeed madam answered he
you yourself are as well apprized of all my demerits missus miller hath acquainted you with the whole truth o my sophia am i never to hope for forgiveness i think mister jones said she
justice i know must condemn me yet not for the letter i sent to lady bellaston of that i most solemnly declare you have had a true account he then insisted much on the security given him by nightingale
if contrary to their expectations her ladyship should have accepted his offer but confest that he had been guilty of a great indiscretion to put such a letter as that into her power
i have dearly paid for in the effect it has upon you i do not i cannot says she believe otherwise of that letter than you would have me
my conduct i think shews you clearly i do not believe there is much in that and yet mister jones have i not enough to resent after what past at upton so soon to engage in a new amour with another woman
while i fancied and you pretended your heart was bleeding for me indeed you have acted strangely can i believe the passion you have profest to me to be sincere
or if i can what happiness can i assure myself of with a man capable of so much inconstancy o my sophia cries he
do not doubt the sincerity of the purest passion that ever inflamed a human breast think most adorable creature of my unhappy situation of my despair could i my sophia have flattered myself with the most distant hopes
it would not have been in the power of any other woman to have inspired a thought which the severest chastity could have condemned inconstancy to you o sophia if you can have goodness enough to pardon what is past
do not let any cruel future apprehensions shut your mercy against me no repentance was ever more sincere o let it reconcile me to my heaven in this dear bosom
sincere repentance mister jones answered she will obtain the pardon of a sinner but it is from one who is a perfect judge of that sincerity a human mind may be imposed on
nor is there any infallible method to prevent it you must expect however that if i can be prevailed on by your repentance to pardon you
name any proof in my power answered jones eagerly time replied she time alone mister jones can convince me that you are a true penitent
and have resolved to abandon these vicious courses which i should detest you for if i imagined you capable of persevering in them do not imagine it cries jones
a confidence which it shall be the business of my life to deserve let it then said she be the business of some part of your life to shew me you deserve it
that shape those eyes that mind which shines through these eyes can the man who shall be in possession of these be inconstant impossible my sophia
when i am out of your sight than it will in this glass when i am out of the room by heaven by all that is sacred said jones it never was out of my heart
the delicacy of your sex cannot conceive the grossness of ours nor how little one sort of amour has to do with the heart
i will never marry a man replied sophia very gravely who shall not learn refinement enough
i will learn it said jones i have learnt it already the first moment of hope that my sophia might be my wife taught it me at once and all the rest of her sex
from that moment became as little the objects of desire to my sense as of passion to my heart well says sophia the proof of this must be from time your situation mister jones is now altered
and i assure you i have great satisfaction in the alteration you will now want no opportunity of being near me and convincing me that your mind is altered too o my angel cries jones
how shall i thank thy goodness and are you so good to own that you have a satisfaction in my prosperity believe me
my sophia let it not be a distant one i will be all obedience to your commands i will not dare to press anything further than you permit me yet
let me intreat you to appoint a short trial o tell me when i may expect you will be convinced of what is most solemnly true
nay i will not o don't look unkindly thus my sophia cries he
yet permit me at least once more to beg you would fix the period o consider the impatience of love
if your passion for me be what i would have it i think you may now be easy easy sophia call not such an exulting happiness as mine by so cold a name
o my dear my divine angel cried he these words have made me mad with joy but i must i will thank those dear lips which have so sweetly pronounced my bliss
he then caught her in his arms and kissed her with an ardour he had never ventured before at this instant western who had stood some time listening burst into the room and with his hunting voice and phrase cried out
to her boy to her go to her that's it little honeys o that's it well what is it all over hath she appointed the day boy what shall it be to morrow or next day
it shan't be put off a minute longer than next day i am resolved let me beseech you sir says jones don't let me be the occasion beseech mine a
cries western i thought thou hadst been a lad of higher mettle than to give way to a parcel of maidenish tricks
come confess and be an honest girl for once what art dumb why dost not speak why should i confess sir says sophia since it seems you are so well acquainted with my thoughts
that's a good girl cries he and dost consent then no indeed sir says sophia i have given no such consent
indeed sir says she i have no such intention but i can tell
then it was all nothing but sighing and whining and languishing and writing now i am vor thee she is against thee all the spirit of contrary that's all she is above being guided and governed by her father that is the whole truth on't
it is only to disoblige and contradict me
well sir says sophia i will obey you there is my hand mister jones well
i will be obedient to you sir cries she
why then to morrow morning shall be the day papa since you will have it so says sophia jones then fell upon his knees and kissed her hand in an agony of joy while western began to caper and dance about the room
left the lovers to enjoy a few tender minutes alone but he soon returned with allworthy saying if you won't believe me you may ask her yourself hast nut gin thy consent sophy to be married to morrow
of the great honour you have done my family an alliance with so charming and so excellent a young lady would indeed be an honour to the greatest in england yes cries western
but if i had suffered her to stand shill i shall i dilly dally you might not have had that honour yet a while i was forced to use a little fatherly authority to bring her to
i hope there is not the least constraint why there cries western you may bid her unsay all again if you will dost repent heartily of thy promise dost not sophia indeed papa cries she
i do not repent nor do i believe i ever shall of any promise in favour of mister jones then nephew cries allworthy i felicitate you most heartily for i think you are the happiest of men
and madam you will give me leave to congratulate you on this joyful occasion indeed i am convinced you have bestowed yourself on one who will be sensible of your great merit and who will at least use his best endeavours to deserve it
odzookers answered the squire i will go with thee and so shall sophy for i won't part with thee to night and it would be barbarous to part tom and the girl
this offer was presently embraced by allworthy and sophia consented having first obtained a private promise from her father that he would not mention a syllable concerning her marriage
young nightingale had been that afternoon by appointment to wait on his father who received him much more kindly than he expected there likewise he met his uncle who was returned to town in quest of his new married daughter
this marriage was the luckiest incident which could have happened to the young gentleman for these brothers lived in a constant state of contention about the government of their children both heartily despising the method which each other took
and to aggravate the match of the other this desire of triumphing over his brother added to the many arguments which allworthy had used so strongly operated on the old gentleman that he met his son with a smiling countenance
he was no sooner informed by his nephew where his daughter and her husband were than he declared he would instantly go to her and when he arrived there he scarce suffered her to fall upon her knees before he took her up
and embraced her with a tenderness which affected all who saw him and in less than a quarter of an hour was as well reconciled to both her and her husband as if he had himself joined their hands
in this situation were affairs when mister allworthy and his company arrived to complete the happiness of missus miller who no sooner saw sophia than she guessed everything that had happened
where every one was so perfectly happy as in this company
for notwithstanding his affection for his son notwithstanding the authority and the arguments of allworthy together with the other motive mentioned before
he could not so entirely be satisfied with his son's choice and perhaps the presence of sophia herself tended a little to aggravate and heighten his concern as a thought now and then suggested itself
that his son might have had that lady or some other such not that any of the charms which adorned either the person or mind of sophia created the uneasiness it was the contents of her father's coffers
which set his heart a longing these were the charms which he could not bear to think his son had sacrificed to the daughter of missus miller the brides were both very pretty women
but so totally were they eclipsed by the beauty of sophia that had they not been two of the best tempered girls in the world it would have raised some envy in their breasts for neither of their husbands could long keep his eyes from sophia
who sat at the table like a queen receiving homage or rather like a superior being receiving adoration from all around her but it was an adoration which they gave not which she exacted
for she was as much distinguished by her modesty and affability as by all her other perfections the evening was spent in much true mirth all were happy
their former sufferings and fears gave such a relish to their felicity as even love and fortune in their fullest flow could not have given without the advantage of such a comparison
yet as great joy especially after a sudden change and revolution of circumstances is apt to be silent and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue
which western observed with great impatience
nay he would have proceeded so far on that topic as to have driven her out of the room if mister allworthy had not checkt him sometimes by looks
he began indeed once to debate the matter and assert his right to talk to his own daughter as he thought fit but as nobody seconded him
notwithstanding this little restraint he was so pleased with the chearfulness and good humour of the company that he insisted on their meeting the next day at his lodgings they all did so
and the lovely sophia who was now in private become a bride too officiated
or in the polite phrase did the honours of the table she had that morning given her hand to jones in the chapel at doctors' commons where mister allworthy mister western and missus miller were the only persons present
sophia had earnestly desired her father that no others of the company who were that day to dine with him should be acquainted with her marriage the same secrecy was enjoined to missus miller
and jones undertook for allworthy this somewhat reconciled the delicacy of sophia to the public entertainment which
in confidence of this secrecy she went through the day pretty well till the squire who was now advanced into the second bottle could contain his joy no longer but filling out a bumper
drank a health to the bride the health was immediately pledged by all present to the great confusion of our poor blushing sophia and the great concern of jones upon her account
to say truth there was not a person present made wiser by this discovery for missus miller had whispered it to her daughter her daughter to her husband her husband to his sister and she to all the rest
sophia now took the first opportunity of withdrawing with the ladies and the squire sat in to his cups in which he was by degrees deserted by all the company except the uncle of young nightingale
thus reader we have at length brought our history to a conclusion in which to our great pleasure though contrary perhaps to thy expectation mister jones appears to be the happiest of all humankind
for what happiness this world affords equal to the possession of such a woman as sophia i sincerely own i have never yet discovered
as to the other persons who have made any considerable figure in this history as some may desire to know a little more concerning them we will proceed in as few words as possible to satisfy their curiosity
allworthy hath never yet been prevailed upon to see blifil but he hath yielded to the importunity of jones backed by sophia
to which jones hath privately added a third upon this income he lives in one of the northern counties about two hundred miles distant from london
which he has bargained for with an attourney there he is also lately turned methodist in hopes of marrying a very rich widow of that sect whose estate lies in that part of the kingdom
square died soon after he writ the before mentioned letter and as to thwackum he continues at his vicarage he hath made many fruitless attempts to regain the confidence of allworthy
or to ingratiate himself with jones both of whom he flatters to their faces and abuses behind their backs but in his stead mister allworthy hath lately taken mister abraham adams into his house
of whom sophia is grown immoderately fond and declares he shall have the tuition of her children missus fitzpatrick is separated from her husband and retains the little remains of her fortune
she lives in reputation at the polite end of the town and is so good an economist that she spends three times the income of her fortune without running into debt
she maintains a perfect intimacy with the lady of the irish peer and in acts of friendship to her repays all obligations she owes her husband missus western was soon reconciled to her niece sophia
and hath spent two months together with her in the country lady bellaston made the latter a formal visit at her return to town where she behaved to jones as a perfect stranger and with great civility
wished him joy on his marriage mister nightingale hath purchased an estate for his son in the neighbourhood of jones where the young gentleman his lady missus miller and her little daughter reside
and the most agreeable intercourse subsists between the two families as to those of lower account missus waters returned into the country
and is married to parson supple on whom at the instance of sophia western hath bestowed a considerable living black george hearing the discovery that had been made ran away and was never since heard of
and jones bestowed the money on his family but not in equal proportions for molly had much the greatest share
and he hath again set up a school in which he meets with much better encouragement than formerly and there is now a treaty of marriage on foot between him and miss molly seagrim which
through the mediation of sophia is likely to take effect we now return to take leave of mister jones and sophia who within two days after their marriage
attended mister western and mister allworthy into the country western hath resigned his family seat and the greater part of his estate to his son in law and hath retired to a lesser house of his in another part of the country
which is better for hunting indeed he is often as a visitant with mister jones who as well as his daughter hath an infinite delight in doing everything in their power to please him
and this desire of theirs is attended with such success that the old gentleman declares he was never happy in his life till now
and his daughter is still as ready as formerly to play to him whenever he desires it for jones hath assured her that as next to pleasing her one of his highest satisfactions is to contribute to the happiness of the old man
so the great duty which she expresses and performs to her father renders her almost equally dear to him with the love which she bestows on himself
sophia hath already produced him two fine children a boy and a girl of whom the old gentleman is so fond that he spends much of his time in the nursery where he declares the tattling of his little grand daughter
who is above a year and a half old is sweeter music than the finest cry of dogs in england allworthy was likewise greatly liberal to jones on the marriage and hath omitted no instance
of shewing his affection to him and his lady who love him as a father whatever in the nature of jones had a tendency to vice has been corrected by continual conversation with this good man
and by his union with the lovely and virtuous sophia he hath also by reflection on his past follies acquired a discretion and prudence very uncommon in one of his lively parts
to conclude as there are not to be found a worthier man and woman than this fond couple so neither can any be imagined more happy they preserve the purest and tenderest affection for each other
an affection daily encreased and confirmed by mutual endearments and mutual esteem nor is their conduct towards their relations and friends less amiable than towards one another
and such is their condescension their indulgence and their beneficence to those below them that there is not a neighbour
me thus often the evil monsters thronging threatened with thrust of my sword the darling i dealt them due return
vengeful creatures seated to banquet at bottom of sea but at break of day
on the edge of ocean up they lay put to sleep by the sword and since by them on the fathomless sea ways sailor folk are never molested light from east came bright god's beacon the billows sank
so that i saw the sea cliffs high windy walls
and so it came that i killed with my sword nine of the nicors of night fought battles ne'er heard i a harder neath heaven's dome nor adrift on the deep a more desolate man
yet i came unharmed from that hostile clutch though spent with swimming the sea upbore me flood of the tide on finnish land the welling waters no wise of thee have i heard men tell such terror of falchions
thy closest kin whence curse of hell awaits thee well as thy wit may serve for i say in sooth thou son of ecglaf never had grendel these grim deeds wrought monster dire on thy master dear
such havoc if heart of thine were as battle bold as thy boast is loud but he has found no feud will happen from sword clash dread of your danish clan he vaunts him safe from the victor scyldings he forces pledges
favors none of the land of danes but lustily murders fights and feasts nor feud he dreads from spear dane men
blithe to mead go he that listeth when light of dawn
from the south shall beam joyous then was the jewel giver hoar haired war brave help awaited the bright danes prince from beowulf hearing folk's good shepherd such firm resolve then was laughter of liegemen
loud resounding with winsome words
heedful of courtesy gold decked greeting the guests in hall and the high born lady handed the cup first to the east danes heir and warden bade him be blithe at the beer carouse the land's beloved one
lustily took he banquet and beaker battle famed king through the hall then went the helmings lady to younger and older everywhere carried the cup till come the moment when the ring graced queen the royal hearted to beowulf bore the beaker of mead
god she thanked in wisdom's words that her will was granted that at last on a hero her hope could lean for comfort in terrors the cup he took hardy in war
beowulf spake bairn of ecgtheow this was my thought when my thanes and i bent to the ocean and entered our boat that i would work the will of your people fully or fighting fall in death
bright with gold the stately dame by her spouse sat down again as erst began in hall warriors wassail and words of power
hastened to seek rest for the night he knew there waited fight for the fiend in that festal hall when the sheen of the sun they saw no more and dusk of night sank darkling nigh and shadowy shapes came striding on
wan under welkin the warriors rose man to man he made harangue hrothgar to beowulf bade him hail let him wield the wine hall a word he added never to any man erst i trusted
if thou bidest the battle with bold won life
then hrothgar went with his hero train
couch of his queen the king of glory against this grendel a guard had set so heroes heard a hall defender who warded the monarch and watched for the monster in truth
his might the mercy of god cast off then his corselet of iron helmet from head to his henchman gave choicest of weapons the well chased sword bidding him guard the gear of battle
spake then his vaunt the valiant man
of force in fight no feebler i count me in grim war deeds than grendel deems him not with the sword then to sleep of death his life will i give though it lie in my power no skill is his to strike against me
as he deemeth right reclined then the chieftain and cheek pillows held the head of the earl while all about him seamen hardy on hall beds sank none of them thought that thence their steps to the folk and fastness that fostered them
to the land they loved would lead them back full well they wist that on warriors many battle death seized in the banquet hall of danish clan but comfort and help war weal weaving
came the walker in shadow warriors slept whose hest was to guard the gabled hall all save one twas widely known that against god's will
the monster was minded of mankind now sundry to seize in the stately house under welkin he walked
not first time this that he the home of hrothgar sought yet ne'er in his life day late or early such hardy heroes such hall thanes found to the house the warrior walked apace
when his fists had struck it and baleful he burst in his blatant rage the house's mouth
ireful he strode there streamed from his eyes fearful flashes like flame to see he spied in hall the hero band kin and clansmen clustered asleep hardy liegemen then laughed his heart for the monster was minded
how he would fare in fell attack not that the monster was minded to pause straightway he seized a sleeping warrior for the first and tore him fiercely asunder the bone frame bit drank blood in streams swallowed him piecemeal
swiftly thus the lifeless corse was clear devoured e e n feet and hands then farther he hied for the hardy hero with hand he grasped felt for the foe with fiendish claw for the hero reclining
who clutched it boldly prompt to answer propped on his arm
that never he met in this middle world
with heavier hand gripe at heart he feared sorrowed in soul none the sooner escaped fain would he flee his fastness seek the den of devils no doings now such as oft he had done in days of old
up he bounded grasped firm his foe whose fingers cracked the fiend made off but the earl close followed the monster meant if he might at all to fling himself free and far away fly to the fens
knew his fingers power in the gripe of the grim one gruesome march to heorot this monster of harm had made din filled the room the danes were bereft castle dwellers and clansmen all earls of their ale
angry were both those savage hall guards the house resounded wonder it was the wine hall firm in the strain of their struggle stood
to earth the fair house fell not too fast it was within and without by its iron bands craftily clamped though there crashed from sill many a mead bench men have told me gay with gold where the grim foes wrestled
how folk against folk the fight had wakened the ancient king with his atheling band sought his citadel sorrowing much
would prove it no longer defied no more those fighting wanderers nor hoped from the seamen to save his hoard his bairn and his bride so he bent him again old to his earth walls
no fear felt he stout old scylfing but straightway repaid in better bargain that bitter stroke and faced his foe with fell intent nor swift enough was the son of wonred
answer to render the aged chief too soon on his head the helm was cloven blood bedecked he bowed to earth and fell adown not doomed was he yet and well he waxed though the wound was sore
giants sword crashing through giants' helm across the shield wall sank the king his folk's old herdsman fatally hurt there were many to bind the brother's wounds and lift him
the iron breastplate hard sword hilted and helmet too
nor at less price reckoned mid earth men such mighty deeds
that our warrior leader lifeless lies who land and hoard ever defended from all his foes
finished his course a hardy hero now haste is best
and bear the bountiful breaker of rings to the funeral pyre no fragments merely shall burn with the warrior wealth of jewels gold untold and gained in terror treasure at last with his life obtained
all of that booty the brands shall take fire shall eat it no earl must carry memorial jewel no maiden fair shall wreathe her neck with noble ring nay sad in spirit and shorn of her gold
now our lord all laughter has laid aside all mirth and revel many a spear morning cold shall be clasped amain lifted aloft nor shall lilt of harp those warriors wake
when he and the wolf were wasting the slain
ending day had dawned on the doughty one death had seized in woful slaughter the weders king
by it there stood the stoups and jars dishes lay there and dear decked swords eaten with rust as on earth's lap resting a thousand winters they waited there
save that heaven's king god himself might give whom he would helper of heroes the hoard to open
wondrous seems it what manner a man of might and valor oft ends his life when the earl no longer in mead hall may live with loving friends so beowulf when that barrow's warden he sought and the struggle himself knew not
in what wise he should wend from the world at last
so that marked with sin the man should be hedged with horrors in hell bonds fast racked with plagues who should rob their hoard
at the mandate of one oft warriors many sorrow must suffer and so must we the people's shepherd showed not aught of care for our counsel king beloved that guardian of gold he should grapple not urged we
but let him lie where he long had been in his earth hall waiting the end of the world
and my path was made in no pleasant wise under the earth wall eager i seized such heap from the hoard as hands could bear and hurriedly carried it hither back to my liege and lord alive was he still
the while he had joy of his jewels and burg let us set out in haste now the second time to see and search this store of treasure these wall hid wonders the way i show you
where gathered near ye may gaze your fill at broad gold and rings let the bier soon made be all in order when out we come our king and captain to carry thither man beloved
where long he shall bide safe in the shelter of sovran god
hardy chief to heroes many that owned their homesteads hither to bring firewood
for the famed one's funeral fire shall devour and wan flames feed on the fearless warrior who oft stood stout in the iron shower
the shaft held firm featly feathered followed the barb
and surges swallowed that shepherd of gems then the woven gold on a wain was laden
in heavy mood their misery moaned they their master's death
her hair upbound for beowulf's death sung in her sorrow and said full oft she dreaded the doleful days to come deaths enow and doom of battle and shame the smoke by the sky was devoured
the folk of the weders fashioned there on the headland a barrow broad and high by ocean farers far descried in ten days time their toil had raised it the battle brave's beacon round brands of the pyre
a wall they built the worthiest ever that wit could prompt in their wisest men they placed in the barrow that precious booty the rounds and the rings they had reft erewhile hardy heroes from hoard in cave
trusting the ground with treasure of earls gold in the earth where ever it lies useless to men as of yore it was then about that barrow the battle keen rode
atheling born a band of twelve lament to make to mourn their king chant their dirge and their chieftain honor they praised his earlship his acts of prowess worthily witnessed
and well it is that men their master friend mightily laud heartily love when hence he goes from life in the body forlorn away thus made their mourning
for their hero's passing his hearth companions quoth that of
to his kin the kindest
how oft he guides the friendless wight and i fought with that brand felling in fight since fate was with me
battle sweat hot but the hilt i brought back from my foes so avenged i their fiendish deeds death fall of danes as was due and right and this is my hest
with thy soldier band and every thane of all thy folk both old and young no evil fear
from that side again aught ill for thy earls as erst thou must then the golden hilt for that gray haired leader hoary hero in hand was laid giant wrought old
so owned and enjoyed it after downfall of devils the danish lord wonder smiths work since the world was rid of that grim souled fiend the foe of god murder marked and his mother as well
now it passed into power of the people's king best of all that the oceans bound
hrothgar spake the hilt he viewed heirloom old where was etched the rise of that far off fight
that this earl belongs to the better breed
far and wide o'er folksteads many firmly thou shalt all maintain mighty strength with mood of wisdom love of mine will i assure thee as awhile ago i promised thou shalt prove a stay in future
in far off years to folk of thine to the heroes a help
his breast hoard grew no bracelets gave he to danes as was due he endured all joyless strain of struggle and stress of woe long feud with his folk here find thy lesson
this verse i have said for thee wise from lapsed winters wondrous seems how to sons of men almighty god in the strength of his spirit sendeth wisdom estate high station he swayeth all things
whiles he letteth right lustily fare the heart of the hero of high born race
illness or age no evil cares shadow his spirit no sword hate threatens from ever an enemy all the world wends at his will no worse he knoweth
yet in the end it ever comes that the frame of the body fragile yields fated falls and there follows another who joyously the jewels divides
but erelong it shall be that sickness or sword thy strength shall minish or fang of fire or flooding billow or bite of blade or brandished spear or odious age
death even thee in haste shall o'erwhelm thou hero of war
and warded them bravely from mighty ones many o'er middle earth from spear and sword till it seemed for me no foe could be found under fold of the sky lo sudden the shift to me seated secure came grief for joy when grendel began to harry my home
the hellish foe for those ruthless raids unresting i suffered heart sorrow heavy heaven be thanked lord eternal for life extended that i on this head all hewn and bloody
go to the bench now be glad at banquet warrior worthy
at dawn of day be dealt between us
afresh as before for the famed in battle for the band of the hall was a banquet dight nobly anew
the doughty ones rose for the hoary headed would hasten to rest aged scylding
for sleeping yearned him wander weary warrior guest from far a hall thane heralded forth who by custom courtly cared
bright came flying shine after shadow the swordsmen hastened athelings all were eager homeward forth to fare and far from thence the great hearted guest would guide his keel bade then the hardy one hrunting be brought
twas a big hearted man now eager for parting and armed at point warriors waited while went to his host that darling of danes the doughty atheling to high seat hastened and hrothgar greeted
we here have found hosts to our heart thou hast harbored us well if ever on earth i am able to win me more of thy love o lord of men aught anew than i now have done for work of war i am willing still
ward of his folk that though few his years
by word and by work that well i may serve thee wielding the war wood to win thy triumph and lending thee might when thou lackest men if thy hrethric
he will surely there find his friends a far off land each man should visit who vaunts him brave him then answering hrothgar spake these words of thine the wisest god sent to thy soul
thou art strong of main and in mind art wary art wise in words i ween indeed if ever it hap that hrethel's heir by spear be seized by sword grim battle by illness or iron
thine elder and lord people's leader and life be thine
at all to choose for their chief and king for hoard guard of heroes
thou hast brought it about that both our peoples
and from murderous strife such as once they waged from war refrain long as i rule this realm so wide let our hoards be common let heroes with gold each other greet o'er the gannet's bath
i trow my landfolk towards friend and foe
in the olden way to him in the hall
and hear him in hall was this hero so dear to him his breast's wild billows he banned in vain safe in his soul a secret longing locked in his mind for that loved man burned in his blood
then beowulf strode glad of his gold gifts
the wave roamer bode riding at anchor its owner awaiting as they hastened onward
that way he went with no will of his own in danger of life to the dragon's hoard but for pressure of peril some prince's thane he fled in fear the fatal scourge
at the awful sight tottered that guest and terror seized him yet the wretched fugitive rallied anon from fright and fear ere he fled away and took the cup from that treasure hoard
of such besides there was store enough heirlooms old the earth below which some earl forgotten in ancient years left the last of his lofty race heedfully there had hidden away dearest treasure
for death of yore had hurried all hence and he alone left to live the last of the clan weeping his friends yet wished to bide warding the treasure his one delight
the barrow new ready to strand and sea waves stood anear hard by the headland
and heaped hoard of heavy gold that warden of rings few words he spake now hold thou earth since heroes may not what earls have owned lo erst from thee brave men brought it
but battle death seized and cruel killing my clansmen all robbed them of life and a liegeman's joys
my brave are gone and the helmet hard all haughty with gold shall part from its plating polishers sleep who could brighten and burnish the battle mask and those weeds of war that were wont to brave over bicker
of shields the bite of steel rust with their bearer
no harp's delight no glee wood's gladness no good hawk now flies through the hall nor horses fleet stamp in the burgstead battle and death the flower of my race have reft away
mournful of mood thus he moaned his woe alone for them all and unblithe wept by day and by night till death's fell wave o'erwhelmed his heart his hoard of bliss
that old ill doer open found who blazing at twilight the barrows haunteth naked foe dragon flying by night folded in fire the folk of earth dread him sore tis his doom to seek
hoard in the graves and heathen gold to watch many wintered nor wins he thereby
held the house of the hoard in earth three hundred winters till one aroused wrath in his breast to the ruler bearing that costly cup and the king implored for bond of peace so the barrow was plundered
borne off was booty his boon was granted that wretched man and his ruler saw first time what was fashioned in far off days when the dragon awoke new woe was kindled
the stark heart found footprint of foe who so far had gone
no living thing would that loathly one leave as aloft it flew
the bale was told quickly and truly the king's own home of buildings the best in brand waves melted
to the good old man sad in heart twas heaviest sorrow the sage assumed that his sovran god he had angered breaking ancient law and embittered the lord his breast within with black thoughts welled as his wont was never
the folk's own fastness that fiery dragon with flame had destroyed and the stronghold all washed by waves but the warlike king prince of the weders plotted vengeance warriors' bulwark he bade them work
went seeking the dragon he had heard whence all the harm arose
in the throng was this one thirteenth man starter of all the strife and ill care laden captive cringing thence forced and reluctant
the barrow delved near billowy surges flood of ocean within twas full of wire gold and jewels a jealous warden warrior trusty the treasures held lurked in his lair
had me and held me hrethel the king with food and fee faithful in kinship ne'er while i lived there he loathlier found me bairn in the burg than his birthright sons
for the eldest of these by unmeet chance by kinsman's deed was the death bed strewn
his own dear liege laid low with an arrow missed the mark and his mate shot down one brother the other with bloody shaft
horror to hrethel yet hard as it was unavenged must the atheling die
horace greeley among the hills of new hampshire in a lonely unpainted house horace greeley was born february third eighteen eleven the third of seven children his father was a plain farmer
hard working yet not very successful but aided by a wife of uncommon energy and good spirits notwithstanding her many cares besides her housework and spinning and making the children's clothes she hoed in the garden
raked and loaded hay to help her husband laughing and singing all day long and telling her feeble little son horace stories and legends all the evening her first two children having died this boy was especially dear
missus greeley was a great reader of such books as she could obtain and remembered all she read it requires no great discernment to see from whence horace greeley derived his intense love for reading
when two years old he would pore over the bible as he lay on the floor and ask questions about the letters at three he went to the district school often carried through the deep snow on the shoulders of one of his aunts or on the back of an older boy
he soon stood at the head of his little class in spelling and reading and took it so much to heart when he did happen to lose his place that he would cry bitterly
when they had gained the right to get above him declined the honor because it hurt horace's feelings so before he was six years old he had read the bible through and pilgrim's progress their home contained only about twenty books
and these he read and re read as he grew older every book within seven miles was borrowed and perused after the hard day's work of farming was over he gathered a stock of pine knots and lighting one each night
lay down by the hearth and read oblivious to all around him the neighbors came and made their friendly visits and ate apples and drank cider as was the fashion but the lad never noticed their coming or their going
when really forced to leave his precious books for bed he would repeat the information he had learned or the lessons for the next day to his brother who usually most ungraciously fell asleep before the conversation was half completed
when horace was nearly ten years old his father who had speculated in a small way in lumber became a bankrupt his house and furniture were sold by the sheriff and he was obliged to flee from the state to avoid arrest
some of these debts were paid thirty years afterward by his noble son going to westhaven vermont mister greeley obtained work on a farm and moved his family thither they were very poor
the children sitting on the floor and eating their porridge together out of a tin pan but they were happy in the midst of their hard work and plain food the father and the boys chopped logs and the little sisters with the mother gathered them in heaps
and keep their children and themselves from getting soured with life everybody has troubles and very wise are they who do not tell them either in their faces or by their words horace earned a few pennies all his own
sometimes by selling nuts or bundles of the roots of pitch pine for kindling which he carried on his back to the store this money he spent in books buying missus hemans's poetry and shakspeare no wonder that the minister of the town said
mark my words that boy was not made for nothing he could go to school no longer and must now support himself from earliest childhood he had determined to be a printer so when eleven years of age
he walked nine miles to see the publisher of a newspaper and obtain a situation the editor looked at the small tow haired boy shook his head and said you are too young with a heavy heart
the child walked the long nine miles back again but he must do something and a little later with seventy five cents in his pocket and some food tied in a bundle which he hung on the end of a stick slung over his shoulder
he walked one hundred and twenty miles back to new hampshire to see his relatives after some weeks he returned with a few more cents in his purse than when he started
the father greeley ought to have foreseen that such energy and will would produce results but because horace in a fit of abstraction tried to yoke the off ox on the near side he said ah
that boy will never get along in the world he'll never know more than enough to come in when it rains alas for the blindness of zaccheus greeley whose name even would not be remembered but for his illustrious son
when horace was fourteen he read in a newspaper that an apprentice was wanted in a printing office eleven miles distant he hastened thither and though unprepossessing from his thin voice short pantaloons
lack of stockings and worn hat he was hired on trial the first day he worked at the types in silence finally the boys began to tease him with saucy remarks and threw type at him but he paid no attention
on the third day one of the apprentices took a large black ball used to put ink on the type and remarking that horace's hair was too light daubed his head four times
the pressman and editor both stopped their labors to witness a fight but they were disappointed for the boy never turned from his work he soon left his desk spent an hour in washing the ink from his hair
and returned to his duties seeing that he could not be irritated and that he was determined to work he became a great favorite when at his type he would often compose paragraphs for the paper
setting up the words without writing them out he soon joined a debating society composed of the best informed persons of the little town of east poultney the minister the doctor the lawyer the schoolteachers and the like
what was their surprise to find that the young printer knew almost every thing and was always ready to speak or read an essay he was often laughed at because of his poor clothes and pitied because slender and pale as he was
he never wore an overcoat but he used to say i guess i'd better wear my old clothes than run in debt for new ones ah they did not know that every penny was saved and sent to the father
struggling to clear a farm in the wilderness in pennsylvania during his four years apprenticeship he visited his parents twice though six hundred miles distant and walked most of the way
whom they had learned to love as their own he remained a few weeks with his family then walked fifty miles east to a town in new york state where he found plenty of work but no money and in six weeks returned to the log cabin
after trying various towns he found a situation in erie taking the place of a workman who was ill and for seven months he did not lose a day out of his wages eighty four dollars
he had used only six less than one dollar a mouth putting fifteen dollars in his pocket he took the balance of sixty three in a note and gave it to his father a noble son indeed
who would not buy a single garment for himself but carried the money home so as to make the poor ones a trifle more comfortable he had become tired of working in the small towns he determined to go to the great city of new york and
be somebody he walked a part of the way by the tow path along the canal and sometimes rode in a scow finally at sunrise friday august eighteenth eighteen thirty one he landed close to the battery with ten dollars in his pocket
knowing he says no human being within two hundred miles his first need was a boarding place over a saloon kept by an irishman he found room and board for two dollars and a half a week fortunately
horace was a teetotaler and despised chewing or smoking tobacco which he regarded
whereof depraved man is capable therefore he had no fear of temptation from these sources all day friday and saturday he walked the streets of new york looking for work
disgusted with new york and resolved to shake its dust from my feet next monday morning while i could still leave with money in my pocket and before its almshouse could foreclose upon me
on sunday he went to church both morning and afternoon late in the day a friend who called upon the owner of the house learning that the printer wanted work said he had heard of a vacancy at mister west's
eighty five chatham street the next morning horace was at the shop at half past five new york was scarcely awake even the newsboys were asleep in front of the paper offices he waited for an hour and a half
a day it seemed to him when one of the journey men arrived and finding the door locked sat down beside the stranger he too was a vermonter and he determined to help young greeley if possible he took him to the foreman
who decided to try him on a polyglot testament with marginal references such close work that most of the men refused to do it mister west came an hour or two later and said in anger did you hire that fool
yes we need help and he was the best i could get said the foreman well pay him off to night and let him go about his business
he could earn six dollars a week at first his fellow workmen called him the ghost from his white hair and complexion but they soon found him friendly and willing to lend money which as a rule was never returned to him
they therefore voted him to be a great addition to the shop as usual though always scrupulously clean he wore his poor clothes no stockings and his wristbands tied together with twine once
he bought a second hand black suit of a jew for five dollars but it proved a bad bargain his earnings were sent as before to his parents
business grew dull and he was without a place for some months he worked on various papers when a printer friend mister story suggested that they start in business their combined capital being one hundred and fifty dollars
young greeley now twenty three and deeply interested in politics determined to start a weekly paper fifteen of his friends promised to subscribe for it the new yorker was begun and so well conducted was it
that three hundred papers throughout the country gave it complimentary notices it grew to a subscription list of nine thousand persons but much of the business was done on trust times were hard and after seven years
the enterprise had to be abandoned this was a severe trial to the hard working printer who had known nothing but struggles all his life years after this he wrote through most of this time i was very poor
but the fear of involving my friends in my misfortunes was very bitter i would rather be a convict in a state prison a slave in a rice swamp than to pass through life under the harrow of debt hunger cold
rags hard work contempt suspicion unjust reproach are disagreeable but debt is infinitely worse than them all avoid pecuniary obligation as you would pestilence or famine
if you have but fifty cents and can get no more for a week buy a peck of corn parch it and live on it rather than owe any man a dollar meantime the young editor had married miss mary y cheney
a schoolteacher of unusual mind and strength of character it was of course a comfort to have some one to share his sorrows but it pained his tender heart to make another help bear his burdens beside editing the new yorker
he had also taken charge of the jeffersonian a weekly campaign paper published at albany and the log cabin established to aid in the election of general harrison to the presidency the latter paper was a great success
the circulation running up to ninety thousand though very little money was made but it gave mister greeley a reputation in all parts of the country for journalistic ability president harrison died after having been a month in office
and seven days after his death mister greeley started april tenth eighteen forty one a new paper the new york tribune with the dying words of harrison as its motto
but it had a true man at its head strong in his hatred of slavery and the oppression of the laboring man and fearless in the advocacy of what he believed to be right success did not come at first
of the five thousand copies published and to be sold at a cent each mister greeley says we found some difficulty in giving them away the expenses for the first week were five hundred and twenty five dollars receipts ninety two
but the boy who could walk nearly six hundred miles to see his parents and be laughed at for poor clothes while he saved his money for their use was not to be overcome at thirty years of age by the failure of one or of a dozen papers
some of the new york journals fought the new sheet but it lived and grew till on the seventh week it had eleven thousand subscribers a good business manager was obtained as partner
mister greeley worked sixteen hours a day he wrote four columns of editorial matter his copy wittily says junius henri browne strangers mistook for diagrams of boston dozens of letters
often forgot whether he had been to his meals and was ready to see and advise with everybody when told that he was losing time by thus seeing people he said i know it but i'd rather be beset by loafers and stopped in my work
than be cooped up where i couldn't be got at by men who really wanted to and had a right to see me so warm as this were his sympathies with all humanity in eighteen forty two when he was thirty one
he visited washington niagara and his parents in pennsylvania and wrote delightful letters back to his paper how proud the mother must have felt of the growing fame of her son what did zaccheus think now of his boy of whom he prophesied
would never know more than enough to come in when it rains the years passed on margaret fuller came upon the editorial staff for mister greeley was ever the advocate of the fullest liberty for woman in any profession
and as much pay for her work as for that of men and now came a great sorrow harder to bear than poverty his little son pickie called the glorious boy with radiant beauty never equalled
died suddenly when at length he said the struggle ended with his last breath and even his mother was convinced that his eyes would never again open upon the scenes of this world i knew that the summer of my life was over
that the chill breath of its autumn was at hand and that my future course must be along the down hill of life he wrote to margaret fuller in italy ah margaret the world grows dark with us
you grieve for rome is fallen i mourn for pickie is dead his hopes were centered in this child and his great heart never regained its full cheerfulness
in eighteen forty eight he was elected to congress for three months to fill out the unexpired term of a deceased member and did most effective work with regard to the mileage system and the use of the public lands
to a high position had come the printer boy at this time he was also prominently in the lecture field speaking twice a week to large audiences all over the country in eighteen fifty his first book was published by the harpers
hints toward reform composed of ten lectures and twenty essays the following year he visited england as one of the jury in the awarding of prizes and while there made a close study of philanthropic and social questions
he always said he who by voice or pen strikes his best blow at the impostures or vices whereby our race is debased and paralyzed may close his eyes in death consoled and cheered by the reflection
that he has done what he could for the emancipation and elevation of his kind in eighteen fifty five he again visited europe and four years later california where he was received with great demonstrations of honor and respect
in eighteen sixty he was at the chicago convention and helped to nominate abraham lincoln in preference to william h seward mister greeley had now become one of the leading men of the nation his paper molded the opinions of hundreds of thousands
he had fought against slavery with all the strength of his able pen but he advocated buying the slaves for four hundred million dollars rather than going to war a cheaper method than our subsequent conflict with enormous loss of life and money
when he found the war inevitable after general mc clellan's defeat at the chickahominy he urged upon mister lincoln immediate emancipation which was soon adopted the new york world said after his death
down with the old white coat mister greeley always wore a coat and hat of this hue had he been present doubtless he would have been killed at once when urged to arm the office he said no
because so constantly interrupted he went to the bible house
mister greeley while advocating impartial suffrage for black as well as white advocated also universal amnesty he believed nothing was to be gained by punishing a defeated portion of our nation
and wanted the past buried as quickly as possible he was opposed to the hanging of jefferson davis and with gerritt smith a well known abolitionist and about twenty others he signed mister davis's bail bond for one hundred thousand dollars
which released him from prison at fortress monroe where he had been for two years at once the north was aflame with indignation no criticism was too scathing but mister greeley took the denunciations like a hero
in resistance to their own sanguinary impulses out of a life earnestly devoted to the good of human kind your children will select my going to richmond and signing that bail bond as the wisest act
and nominated horace greeley for president the democratic party saw the hopelessness of nominating a man in opposition to grant and greeley and accepted the latter as their own candidate the contest was bitter and partisan in the extreme
mister greeley received nearly three million votes while general grant received a half million majority no doubt the defeat was a great disappointment to one who had served his country and the republican party for so many years
with very little political reward but just a month before the election came the crushing blow of his life in the death of his noble wife he left his speech making and for weeks attended her with the deepest devotion
a few days before she died he said i am a broken down old man i have not slept one hour in twenty four for a month if she lasts poor soul another week i shall go before her
after her death he could not sleep at all and brain fever soon set in friday november twenty ninth the end came at noon he said distinctly
his only remaining children ida and gabriella standing by his bedside i know that my redeemer liveth and at half past three it is done he was ready for the great change he had written only a short time before
not having had a good night's sleep in fifteen years when his death became known the whole nation mourned for him newspapers from maine to louisiana gave touching tributes to his greatness his purity
and his far sightedness as a leader of the people the union league club the lotos the typographical society the associated press german and colored clubs and temperance organizations passed resolutions of sorrow
cornell university of whose board he was a member did him honor saint louis albany indianapolis nashville and other cities held memorial meetings john bright sent regrets over
our friend horace greeley congress passed resolutions of respect for his eminent services and personal purity and worth and then came the sad and impressive burial
in the governor's room in the city hall draped in black surrounded by a guard of honor composed of the leading men of new york the body of the great journalist lay in state over fifty thousand persons
rich and poor maimed soldiers and working people passed in one by one to look upon the familiar face said one workman it is little enough to lose a day for horace greeley who spent many a day working for us
just as the doors of the room were being closed for the night a farmer made his way saying i've come a hundred miles to be at the funeral of horace greeley can't you possibly let me in to have one last look
the man stood a moment by the open coffin and then pulling his hat low down to hide the tears was lost in the crowd from there the body was taken to doctor chapin's church
with the words i know that my redeemer liveth and in front of the pulpit it is done the coffin was nearly hidden by floral gifts
on a ground of violets from the tribune workmen a gift to honor the man who honored labor and ennobled farm life at his country home at chappaqua a few miles from new york and then through an enormous concourse of people
fifth avenue being blocked for a mile the body was borne to greenwood cemetery stores were closed and houses along the route were draped in black flags on the shipping in the harbor were at half mast
and bells tolled from one to three o'clock two hundred and fifty carriages containing the president of the united states governors senators and other friends were in the procession by the side of his wife and their three little children
the great man was laid to rest the two daughters stepping into the vault and laying flowers tenderly upon the coffin the following sabbath clergymen all over the country preached about this wonderful life
its struggles succeeded by world wide honor mister greeley's one great wish was gratified i cherish the hope that the journal i projected and established
will live and flourish long after i shall have mouldered into forgotten dust and that the stone which covers my ashes may bear to future eyes the still intelligible inscription founder
chapter twenty three a reply in the dark the young inventor looked out of the wireless shack down on the beach he saw the little band of castaways they were gathered in a group about mister jenks who seemed to be talking earnestly to them
the two ladies were over near the small building that served as a kitchen
we've stripped the whizzer bare he glanced toward what remained of the airship i guess we'll have to go on short rations until help comes and wondering what the group of men could be talking about tom resumed his clicking out of his wireless message
he continued to send it into space for several minutes after ten o'clock the hour at which he usually stopped for the morning for he thought there might be a possible chance that the electrical impulses would be picked up by some vessel far out at sea or by some station operator who could send help
but there came no answering clicks to the e i station to earthquake island and after a little longer working of the key tom shut down the dynamo and joined the group on the beach i tell you it's our only chance mister jenks was saying
i must get off this island and that's the only way we can do it i have large interests at stake if we wait for a reply to this wireless message we may all be killed though i appreciate that mister swift is doing his best to aid us but it is hopeless
think about what why mister jenks has just proposed that we build a big raft and launch it he thinks we should leave the island it might be a good idea agreed the lad as he thought of the scant food supply
of course i can't say when a reply will be received to my calls for aid and it is best to be prepared especially as the island may sink any minute added mister parker
i think it would be a good plan to make one then anchor it some distance out from the island then we can make a small raft and paddle out to the big one in a hurry if need be yes that's a good idea too conceded tom
and we must stock it well with provisions said mister damon put plenty of water and food aboard we can't spoke tom quietly why not because we haven't plenty of provisions
that's what i came down to speak about and the lad related what missus nestor had said then there is but one thing to do declared mister fenwick what asked captain mentor we must go on half rations or quarter rations if need be
that will make our supply last longer and another thing we must not let the women folks know just pretend that we're not hungry but take only a quarter or at most not more than a half of what we have been in the habit of taking there is plenty of water thank goodness
and we may be able to live until help comes then shall we build the raft asked mister hosbrook it was decided that this would be a good plan and they started it that same day
trees were felled with axes and saws that had been aboard the whizzer and bound together in rude fashion with strong trailing vines from the forest a smaller raft as a sort of ferry was also made this occupied them all that day and part of the next
in the meanwhile tom continued to flash out his appeals for help but no answers came the men cut down their rations and when the two ladies joked them on their lack of appetite they said nothing
tom was glad that missus nestor did not renew her request to him to get out the reserve food supply from what remained in the wreck of the airship perhaps mister nestor had hinted to her the real situation
the large raft was towed out into a quiet bay of the island and anchored there by means of a heavy rock attached to a rope on board were put cans of water which were lashed fast but no food could be spared to stock the rude craft
all the castaways could depend on was to take with them in the event of the island beginning to sink what rations they had left when the final shock should come this done they could only wait and weary was that waiting
he heard message after message flash through space and click on his instrument
on his face there came a grim and hopeless look one afternoon a week following the erection of the wireless station mate fordam came upon a number of turtles he caught some by turning them over on their backs
and also located a number of nests of eggs under the warm sands this will be something to eat he said joyfully and indeed the turtles formed a welcome food supply some fish were caught and some clams were cast up by the tide
all of which eked out the scanty food supply that remained the two ladies suspected the truth now and they too cut down their allowance tom who had been sitting with the men in their sleeping shack that evening rose as the hour of ten approached
for the message saying that help was on the way well are you off asked mister damon kindly i wish some of us could relieve you tom oh i don't mind it answered the lad perhaps the message may come to night
we must be doomed cried mister parker the island is about to sink make for the raft wait and see how bad it is counseled mister hosbrook it may be only a slight shock indeed as he spoke the trembling of the island ceased and there was silence
the two ladies who had retired to their own private shack ran out screaming and mister anderson and mister nestor hastened over to be with their wives i guess it's passed over spoke mister fenwick an instant later there came another tremor
it was more like the rumble and vibration of an approaching train look cried tom pointing to the left their gaze went in that direction and under the light of a full moon they saw sliding into the sea a great portion of one of the rocky hills
a landslide cried captain mentor the island is slowly breaking up it confirms my theory said mister parker almost in triumph forget your theory for a while parker please begged mister hosbrook
we're lucky to have left a place on which to stand oh when will we be rescued he asked hopelessly the worst seemed to be over at least for the present and learning that the two ladies were quieted
to aid in starting the motor and dynamo then after the message had been clicked out as usual tom would begin his weary waiting they found that the earthquake shock had slightly disturbed the apparatus and it took them half an hour to adjust it
as there had been a delay on account of the landslide it was eleven o'clock before tom began sending out any flashes and he kept it up until midnight but there came no replies so he shut off the power and prepared to get a little rest
it looks pretty hopeless doesn't it said mister fenwick as he and mister damon were on their way back to the sleeping shack yes it does our signal hasn't been seen no ships have passed this way and our wireless appeal isn't answered
it does look hopeless but do you know i haven't given up yet why not because i have faith in tom swift's luck declared the eccentric man if you had been with him as much as i have up in the air and under the water
you'd feel the same too perhaps but here there doesn't seem to be anything to do it all depends on some one else that's all right you leave it to tom he'll get an answer yet you see if he doesn't
it was an hour past midnight tom tossed uneasily on the hard bed in the wireless shack the telephone receiver on his ear hurt him and he could not sleep i may as well sit up for a while he told himself and he arose
in the dimness of the shack he could see the outlines of the dynamo and the motor guess i'll start her up and send out some calls he murmured i might just happen to catch some ship operator who is up late i'll try it
the young inventor started the motor and soon the dynamo was purring away he tested the wireless apparatus it shot out great long sparks which snapped viciously through the air then in the silence of the night
tom clicked off his call for help for the castaways of earthquake island for half an hour he sent it away into space none of the others in their shacks below him awakening then tom having worked off his restless fit was about to return to bed but what was this
he listened it was not a jumble of dots and dashes conveying through space a message that meant nothing to him no it was his own call that was answered the call of his station e i earthquake island where are you what's wanted
that was the message that was clicked to tom from somewhere in the great void i get your message e i what's wanted do i hear you right repeat
with trembling fingers tom pressed his own key out into the darkness went his call for help
come quickly or we will be engulfed in the sea we are castaways from the yacht resolute and the airship whizzer can you save us came then this query what's that about airship never mind airship clicked tom send help quickly who are you
the answer flashed to him through space steamship cambaranian from rio de janeiro to new york just caught your message thought it a fake no fake tom sent back help us quickly how soon can you come
there was a wait and the wireless operator clicked to tom that he had called the captain then came the report we will be there within twenty four hours keep in communication with us you bet i will flashed back tom his heart beating joyously
and then he let out a great shout we are saved we are saved my wireless message is answered a steamer is on her way to rescue us he rushed from the shack calling to the others what's that demanded mister hosbrook
tom briefly told of how the message had come to him in the night tell them to hurry begged the rich yacht owner say that i will give twenty thousand dollars reward if we are taken off and i'll do the same cried mister jenks i must get to the place where
then he seemed to recollect himself and stopped suddenly tell them to hurry he begged tom the whole crowd of castaways save the women were gathered about the wireless shack they'll need to hurry spoke mister parker the gloomy scientist the island may sink before morning
mister hosbrook and the others glared at him but he seemed to take delight in his prediction
chapter twenty two anxious days after the first few minutes of watching tom click out the messages the little throng of castaways that had gathered about the shack moved away the matter had lost its novelty for them
though of course they were vitally interested in the success of tom's undertaking only mister damon and mister fenwick remained with the young inventor for he needed help occasionally in operating the dynamo or in adjusting the gasolene motor
missus nestor who with missus anderson was looking after the primitive housekeeping arrangements occasionally strolled up the hill to the little shed any answer yet mister swift she would ask
no was the reply we can hardly expect any so soon and missus nestor would depart with a sigh knowing that his supply of gasolene was limited tom realized that he could not run the dynamo steadily and keep flashing the wireless messages into space
he consulted with his two friends on the subject and mister damon said well the best plan i think would be only to send out the flashes over the wires at times when other wireless operators will be on the lookout or rather listening
there is no use wasting our fuel we can't get any more here that's true admitted tom but how can we pick out any certain time when we can be sure that wireless operators within a zone of a thousand miles
will be listening to catch clicks which call for help from the unknown we can't decided mister fenwick the only thing to do is to trust to chance
and could send out messages automatically it would be good tom shook his head i have to stay here to adjust the apparatus he said it works none too easily as it is for i didn't have just what i needed from which to construct this station anyhow
even if i could rig up something to click out c q d automatically i could hardly arrange to have the answer come that way and i want to be here when the answer comes have you any plan then asked mister damon
bless my shoe laces there are enough problems to solve on this earthquake island i thought of this said tom i'll send out our call for help from nine to ten in the morning then i'll wait and send out another call from two to three in the afternoon
around seven in the evening i'll try again and then about ten o'clock at night before going to bed that ought to be sufficient agreed mister fenwick certainly we must save our gasolene for there is no telling how long we may have to stay here and call for help
it won't be long if that scientist parker has his way spoke mister damon grimly bless my hat band but he's a most uncomfortable man to have around always predicting that the island is going to sink i hope we are rescued before that happens
i guess we all do remarked mister fenwick but tom here is another matter have you thought about getting an answer from the unknown from some ship or wireless station that may reply to your calls how can you tell when that will come in i can't
then won't you or some of us have to be listening all the while no for i think an answer will come only directly after i have sent out a call and it has been picked up by some operator still there is a possibility that some operator might receive my message
and report to his chief or some one in authority over him before replying in that time i might go away but to guard against that i will sleep with the telephone receiver clamped to my ear
do you mean you will sleep here asked mister damon indicating the shack where the wireless apparatus was contained yes answered tom simply can't we take turns listening for the answer inquired mister fenwick and so relieve you
i'm afraid not unless you understand the morse code replied tom you see there may be many clicks which result from wireless messages flying back and forth in space and my receiver will pick them up but they will mean nothing only the answer to our call for help will be of any service to us
do you mean to say that you can catch messages flying back and forth between stations now asked mister fenwick yes replied the young inventor with a smile here listen for yourself and he passed the head instrument over to the whizzer's former owner
the latter listened a moment all i can hear are some faint clicks he said but they are a message spoke tom wait i'll translate and he put the receiver to his ear
steamship falcon reports a slight fire in her forward compartment said tom slowly it is under control and we will proceed do you mean to say that was the message you heard cried mister damon bless my soul i never can understand it
it was part of a message answered tom i did not catch it all nor to whom it was sent but why can't you send a message to that steamship then and beg them to come to our aid asked mister fenwick even if they have had a fire it is out now and they ought to be glad to save life
they would come to our aid or send spoke tom but i can not make their wireless operator pick up our message either his apparatus is not in tune or in accord with ours or he is beyond our zone but you heard him insisted mister damon yes
but sometimes it is easier to pick up messages than it is to send them however i will keep on trying putting into operation the plan he had decided on for saving their supply of gasolene
tom sent out his messages the remainder of the day at the intervals agreed upon then the apparatus was shut down but the lad paid frequent visits to the shack and listened to the clicks of the telephone receiver
he caught several messages but they were not in response to his appeals for aid that night there was a slight earthquake shock but no more of the island fell into the sea though the castaways were awakened by the tremors and were in mortal terror for a while
three days passed days of anxious waiting during which time tom sent out message after message by his wireless and waited in vain for an answer there were three shocks in this interval two slight and one very severe
which last cast into the ocean a great cliff on the far end of the island there was a flooding rush of water but no harm resulted it is coming nearer said mister parker what is demanded mister hosbrook
the destruction of our island my theory will soon be confirmed and the scientist actually seemed to take pleasure in it oh you and your theory exclaimed the millionaire in disgust don't let me hear you mention it again
haven't we troubles enough whereat mister parker went off by himself to look at the place where the cliff had fallen each night tom slept with the telephone receiver to his ear but though it clicked many times
earthquake island in each appeal he sent out he had requested that if his message was picked up that the answer be preceded by the letters e i it was on the fourth day after the completion of the wireless station
that tom was sending out his morning calls missus nestor came up the little hill to the shack where tom was clicking away no replies yet i suppose she inquired and there was a hopeless note in her voice
none yet but they may come any minute and tom tried to speak cheerfully i certainly hope so added mary's mother but i came up more especially now mister swift to inquire where you had stored the rest of the food the rest of the food
yes the supply you took from the wrecked airship we have used up nearly all that was piled in the improvised kitchen and we'll have to draw on the reserve supply the reserve murmured tom
yes there is only enough in the shack where missus anderson and i do the cooking to last for about two days isn't there any more tom did not answer he saw the drift of the questioning their food was nearly gone
yet the castaways from the resolute thought there was still plenty as a matter of fact there was not another can except those in the kitchen shack get out wherever there is left some time to day if you will mister swift went on missus nestor as she turned away
oh all right answered tom weakly his hand dropped from the key of the instrument he sat staring into space food enough for but two days more with earthquakes likely to happen at any moment and no reply yet to his appeals for aid
truly the situation was desperate tom shook his head
cowper of what each one should be he sees the form and rule and till he reach to that his joy can ne'er be full ruckert
it was very well for margaret that the extreme quiet of the harley street house during edith's recovery from her confinement gave her the natural rest which she needed it gave her time to comprehend the sudden change
which had taken place in her circumstances within the last two months she found herself at once an inmate of a luxurious house where the bare knowledge of the existence of every trouble or care seemed scarcely to have penetrated
the wheels of the machinery of daily life were well oiled and went along with delicious smoothness missus shaw and edith could hardly make enough of margaret on her return to what they persisted in calling her home
and she felt that it was almost ungrateful in her to have a secret feeling that the helstone vicarage nay even the poor little house at milton with her anxious father and her invalid mother
and all the small household cares of comparative poverty composed her idea of home edith was impatient to get well in order to fill margaret's bed room with all the soft comforts and pretty nick knacks with which her own abounded
missus shaw and her maid found plenty of occupation in restoring margaret's wardrobe to a state of elegant variety captain lennox was easy kind and gentlemanly
sate with his wife in her dressing room an hour or two every day played with his little boy for another hour and lounged away the rest of his time at his club when he was not engaged out to dinner
just before margaret had recovered from her necessity for quiet and repose before she had begun to feel her life wanting and dull edith came down stairs and resumed her usual part in the household
and margaret fell into the old habit of watching and admiring and ministering to her cousin she gladly took all charge of the semblances of duties off edith's hands answered notes reminded her of engagements
and she was consequently rather inclined to fancy herself ill but all the rest of the family were in the full business of the london season and margaret was often left alone then her thoughts went back to milton
with a strange sense of the contrast between the life there and here she was getting surfeited of the eventless ease in which no struggle or endeavour was required
she was afraid lest she should even become sleepily deadened into forgetfulness of anything beyond the life which was lapping her round with luxury there might be toilers and moilers there in london but she never saw them
the very servants lived in an underground world of their own of which she knew neither the hopes nor the fears they only seemed to start into existence when some want or whim of their master and mistress needed them
there was a strange unsatisfied vacuum in margaret's heart and mode of life and once when she had dimly hinted this to edith the latter wearied with dancing the night before
languidly stroked margaret's cheek as she sat by her in the old attitude she on a footstool by the sofa where edith lay poor child said edith it is a little sad for you to be left night after night
just at this time when all the world is so gay but we shall be having our dinner parties soon as soon as henry comes back from circuit and then there will be a little pleasant variety for you no wonder it is moped poor darling
margaret did not feel as if the dinner parties would be a panacea but edith piqued herself on her dinner parties so different as she said from the old dowager dinners under mamma's regime
and missus shaw herself seemed to take exactly the same kind of pleasure in the very different arrangements and circle of acquaintances which were to captain and missus lennox's taste as she did in the more formal and ponderous entertainments which she herself used to give
captain lennox was always extremely kind and brotherly to margaret she was really very fond of him excepting when he was anxiously attentive to edith's dress and appearance with a view to her beauty making a sufficient impression on the world
then all the latent vashti in margaret was roused and she could hardly keep herself from expressing her feelings the course of margaret's day was this a quiet hour or two before a late breakfast an unpunctual meal
but yet at which in all its dragged out length she was expected to be present because directly afterwards came a discussion of plans at which although they none of them concerned her she was expected to give her sympathy
if she could not assist with her advice an endless number of notes to write which edith invariably left to her
a little play with sholto as he returned from his morning's walk besides the care of the children during the servants dinner a drive or callers and some dinner or morning engagement for her aunt and cousins which left margaret free it is true
but rather wearied with the inactivity of the day coming upon depressed spirits and delicate health she looked forward with longing though unspoken interest to the homely object of dixon's return from milton where until now
the old servant had been busily engaged in winding up all the affairs of the hale family it had appeared a sudden famine to her heart this entire cessation of any news respecting the people amongst whom she had lived so long
it was true that dixon in her business letters quoted every now and then an opinion of mister thornton's as to what she had better do about the furniture or how act in regard to the landlord of the crampton terrace house
but it was only here and there that the name came in or any milton name indeed and margaret was sitting one evening all alone in the lennoxes's drawing room not reading dixon's letters which yet she held in her hand
but thinking over them and recalling the days which had been and picturing the busy life out of which her own had been taken and never missed wondering if all went on in that whirl just as if she and her father had never been
questioning within herself if no one in all the crowd missed her not higgins she was not thinking of him when suddenly mister bell was announced and margaret hurried the letters into her work basket and started up
blushing as if she had been doing some guilty thing oh mister bell i never thought of seeing you but you give me a welcome i hope as well as that very pretty start of surprise have you dined
how did you come let me order you some dinner if you're going to have any otherwise you know there is no one who cares less for eating than i do but where are the others gone out to dinner left you alone
oh yes and it is such a rest i was just thinking but will you run the risk of dinner i don't know if there is anything in the house why to tell you the truth i dined at my club only they don't cook as well as they did
so i thought if you were going to dine i might try and make out my dinner but never mind never mind there aren't ten cooks in england to be trusted at impromptu dinners if their skill and their fires will stand it their tempers won't
you shall make me some tea margaret and now what were you thinking of you were going to tell me whose letters were those god daughter that you hid away so speedily only dixon's replied margaret
growing very red whew is that all who do you think came up in the train with me i don't know said margaret resolved against making a guess
what's the right name for a cousin in law's brother mister henry lennox asked margaret yes replied mister bell
i liked him long ago said margaret glancing down for a moment and then she looked straight up and went on in her natural manner you know we have been corresponding about frederick since but i have not seen him for nearly three years
and he may be changed what did you think of him i don't know he was so busy trying to find out who i was in the first instance and what i was in the second that he never let out what he was
unless indeed that veiled curiosity of his
and a fair indication of his character do you call him good looking margaret no certainly not do you not i but i thought perhaps you might is he a great deal here
i fancy he is when he is in town he has been on circuit now since i came but mister bell have you come from oxford or from milton from milton don't you see i'm smoke dried certainly
but i thought that it might be the effect of the antiquities of oxford come now be a sensible woman in oxford i could have managed all the landlords in the place and had my own way
with half the trouble your milton landlord has given me and defeated me after all he won't take the house off our hands till next june twelvemonth luckily mister thornton found a tenant for it why don't you ask after mister thornton margaret
he has proved himself a very active friend of yours i can tell you taken more than half the trouble off my hands and how is he how is missus thornton asked margaret hurriedly and below her breath though she tried to speak out
i suppose they're well i've been staying at their house till i was driven out of it by the perpetual clack about that thornton girl's marriage it was too much for thornton himself though she was his sister
he used to go and sit in his own room perpetually he's getting past the age for caring for such things either as principal or accessory
she would put on any assumption of feeling to veil her daughter's weakness said margaret in a low voice perhaps so you've studied her have you she doesn't seem over fond of you margaret i know it said margaret
oh here is tea at last exclaimed she as if relieved and with tea came mister henry lennox who had walked up to harley street after a late dinner and had evidently expected to find his brother and sister in law at home
margaret suspected him of being as thankful as she was at the presence of a third party on this their first meeting since the memorable day of his offer and her refusal at helstone she could hardly tell what to say at first
and was thankful for all the tea table occupations which gave her an excuse for keeping silence and him an opportunity of recovering himself for to tell the truth he had rather forced himself up to harley street this evening
with a view of getting over an awkward meeting awkward even in the presence of captain lennox and edith and doubly awkward now that he found her the only lady there and the person to whom he must naturally
and perforce address a great part of his conversation she was the first to recover her self possession she began to talk on the subject which came uppermost in her mind after the first flush of awkward shyness mister lennox
i have been so much obliged to you for all you have done about frederick i am only sorry it has been so unsuccessful replied he with a quick glance towards mister bell as if reconnoitring how much he might say before him
margaret as if she read his thought addressed herself to mister bell both including him in the conversation and implying that he was perfectly aware of the endeavours that had been made to clear frederick that horrocks
that very last witness of all has proved as unavailing as all the others mister lennox has discovered that he sailed for australia only last august only two months before frederick was in england and gave us the names of
frederick in england you never told me that exclaimed mister bell in surprise i thought you knew i never doubted you had been told of course it was a great secret and perhaps i should not have named it now
said margaret a little dismayed i have never named it to either my brother or your cousin said mister lennox with a little professional dryness of implied reproach never mind margaret
i am not living in a talking babbling world nor yet among people who are trying to worm facts out of me you needn't look so frightened because you have let the cat out of the bag to a faithful old hermit like me
i shall never name his having been in england i shall be out of temptation for no one will ask me stay interrupting himself rather abruptly was it at your mother's funeral
he was with mamma when she died said margaret softly to be sure to be sure why some one asked me if he had not been over then
who could it have been oh i recollect but he did not say the name and although margaret would have given much to know if her suspicions were right and it had been mister thornton who had made the enquiry
she could not ask the question of mister bell much as she longed to do so there was a pause for a moment or two then mister lennox said addressing himself to margaret
i suppose as mister bell is now acquainted with all the circumstances attending your brother's unfortunate dilemma i cannot do better than inform him exactly how the research into the evidence we once hoped to produce in his favour stands at present
so if he will do me the honour to breakfast with me to morrow we will go over the names of these missing gentry i should like to hear all the particulars if i may cannot you come here
i dare not ask you both to breakfast though i am sure you would be welcome but let me know all i can about frederick even though there may be no hope at present i have an engagement at half past eleven
but i will certainly come if you wish it replied mister lennox with a little afterthought of extreme willingness which made margaret shrink into herself and almost wish that she had not proposed her natural request
mister bell got up and looked around him for his hat which had been removed to make room for tea
but i'm disposed to be moving off homewards i've been a journey to day and journeys begin to tell upon my sixty and odd years i believe i shall stay and see my brother and sister said mister lennox
making no movement of departure margaret was seized with a shy awkward dread of being left alone with him the scene on the little terrace in the helstone garden was so present to her that she could hardly help believing it was so with him
he looked at her and saw the confusion stirring in her countenance he sate down again as if her little touch had been possessed of resistless strength you see how she overpowers me mister lennox said he
and i hope you noticed the happy choice of her expressions she wants me to see this cousin edith who i am told is a great beauty
missus lennox is to know me
he joked to give her time to recover from the slight flutter which he had detected in her manner on his proposal to leave and she caught the tone and threw the ball back mister lennox wondered how his brother the captain
could have reported her as having lost all her good looks to be sure in her quiet black dress she was a contrast to edith dancing in her white crape mourning and long floating golden hair all softness and glitter
she dimpled and blushed most becomingly when introduced to mister bell conscious that she had her reputation as a beauty to keep up and that it would not do to have a mordecai refusing to worship and admire
even in the shape of an old fellow of a college which nobody had ever heard of missus shaw and captain lennox each in their separate way gave mister bell a kind and sincere welcome
winning him over to like them almost in spite of himself especially when he saw how naturally margaret took her place as sister and daughter of the house what a shame that we were not at home to receive you said edith you too henry
and for mister bell for margaret's mister bell there is no knowing what sacrifices you would not have made said her brother in law even a dinner party and the delight of wearing this very becoming dress
edith did not know whether to frown or to smile but it did not suit mister lennox to drive her to the first of these alternatives so he went on will you show your readiness to make sacrifices to morrow morning
first by asking me to breakfast to meet mister bell and secondly by being so kind as to order it at half past nine instead of ten o'clock i have some letters and papers
i hope mister bell will make our house his own during his stay in london said captain lennox i am only so sorry we cannot offer him a bed room thank you i am much obliged to you
in spite of all the temptations of such agreeable company said mister bell bowing all round and secretly congratulating himself on the neat turn he had given to his sentence which if put into plain language
would have been more to this effect i couldn't stand the restraints of such a proper behaved and civil spoken set of people as these are it would be like meat without salt i'm thankful they haven't a bed
and how well i rounded my sentence i am absolutely catching the trick of good manners his self satisfaction lasted him till he was fairly out in the streets walking side by side with henry lennox
here he suddenly remembered margaret's little look of entreaty as she urged him to stay longer and he also recollected a few hints given him long ago by an acquaintance of mister lennox's as to his admiration of margaret
it gave a new direction to his thoughts you have known miss hale for a long time i believe
she strikes me as pale and ill i thought her looking remarkably well perhaps not when i first came in now i think of it but certainly when she grew animated she looked as well as ever i saw her do
she has had a great deal to go through said mister bell yes i have been sorry to hear of all she has had to bear not merely the common and universal sorrow arising from death
but all the annoyance which her father's conduct must have caused her and then her father's conduct said mister bell in an accent of surprise you must have heard some wrong statement he behaved in the most conscientious manner
perhaps i have been wrongly informed but i have been told by his successor in the living a clever sensible man and a thoroughly active clergyman that there was no call upon mister hale to do what he did relinquish the living
and throw himself and his family on the tender mercies of private teaching in a manufacturing town the bishop had offered him another living it is true but if he had come to entertain certain doubts he could have remained where he was
and so had no occasion to resign but the truth is these country clergymen live such isolated lives isolated i mean from all intercourse with men of equal cultivation with themselves by whose minds they might regulate their own
that they are very apt to disturb themselves with imaginary doubts as to the articles of faith and throw up certain opportunities of doing good for very uncertain fancies of their own
i differ from you i do not think they are very apt to do as my poor friend hale did mister bell was inwardly chafing perhaps i used too general an expression in saying very apt
but certainly their lives are such as very often to produce either inordinate self sufficiency or a morbid state of conscience replied mister lennox with perfect coolness you don't meet with any self sufficiency among the lawyers for instance
asked mister bell and seldom i imagine any cases of morbid conscience he was becoming more and more vexed and forgetting his lately caught trick of good manners mister lennox saw now that he had annoyed his companion
and as he had talked pretty much for the sake of saying something and so passing the time while their road lay together he was very indifferent as to the exact side he took upon the question and quietly came round by saying
to be sure there is something fine in a man of mister hale's age leaving his home of twenty years and giving up all settled habits for an idea which was probably erroneous but that does not matter an untangible thought
one cannot help admiring him with a mixture of pity in one's admiration something like what one feels for don quixote such a gentleman as he was too i shall never forget the refined and simple hospitality he showed to me
that last day at helstone only half mollified and yet anxious in order to lull certain qualms of his own conscience
mister bell growled out
such a change from helstone it is years since i have been at helstone but i'll answer for it it is standing there yet every stick and every stone as it has done for the last century while milton i go there every four or five years
and i was born there yet i do assure you i often lose my way aye among the very piles of warehouses that are built upon my father's orchard do we part here
and she pulled out her key and we walked a little in the pasture to look at the bull
that hurt the poor cook maid who is got pretty well again mister williams pointed at the sunflower but i was forced to be very reserved to him for the poor gentleman has no guard no caution at all
we have just supped together all three and i cannot yet think that all must be right only i am resolved not to marry if i can help it and i will give no encouragement i am resolved at least
for missus jewkes gives me leave to send a letter to my father which looks well and i am glad i can conclude after all my sufferings with my hopes to be soon with you which i know will give you comfort and so i rest
begging the continuance of your prayers and blessings your ever dutiful daughter my dear father and mother
i told her i was resolved to give no encouragement till i had talked to my father and mother she said he fancied i thought of somebody else or i could never be so insensible
i assured her as i could do very safely that there was not a man on earth i wished to have and as to mister williams he might do better by far and i had proposed so much happiness in living with my poor father and mother
that i could not think of any scheme of life with pleasure till i had tried that i asked her for my money and she said it was above in her strong box but that i should have it to morrow
but pray don't encourage him as i said for he is much too heady and precipitate as to this matter in my way of thinking though to be sure he is a very good man and i am much obliged to him
monday morning alas a day we have bad news from poor mister williams he has had a sad mischance fallen among rogues in his way home last night but by good chance has saved my papers
this is the account he gives of it to missus jewkes good missus jewkes i have had a sore misfortune in going from you when i had got as near the town as the dam and was going to cross the wooden bridge
and two or three letters i had in my pockets by good fortune the letter missus pamela gave me was in my bosom and so that escaped but they bruised my head and face and cursing me for having no more money tipped me into the dam
diligent search is making after the rogues my humble respects to good missus pamela if she pities my misfortunes i shall be the sooner well
though with great pain as i do this to be sure this good man can keep no secret and sending it away by a man and horse this morning i am good missus jewkes your most obliged humble servant
god be praised it is no worse and i find i have got no cold though miserably wet from top to toe my fright i believe prevented me from catching cold for i was not rightly myself for some hours
and know not how i got home i will write a letter of thanks this night if i am able to my kind patron for his inestimable goodness to me i wish i was enabled to say all i hope
with regard to the better part of his bounty to me incomparable missus pamela the wicked brute fell a laughing when she had read this letter till her fat sides shook said she
and without a hat and wig when he got home i warrant added she
i said i thought it was very barbarous to laugh at such a misfortune but she replied as he was safe she laughed otherwise she would have been sorry and she was glad to see me so concerned for him
it looked promising she said i heeded not her reflections
i cannot help saying that i don't like this thing and their taking his letters most alarms me how happy it was they missed my packet i knew not what to think of it but why should i let every accident break my peace
being a cunning artful woman i know not what to make of it i have refused her absolutely urging that except i intended to encourage his suit i ought not to do it and she is gone without me i have
strange temptations to get away in her absence for all these fine appearances tis sad to have nobody to advise with i know not what to do but alas for me i have no money if i should
to buy any body's civilities or to pay for necessaries or lodgings but i'll go into the garden and resolve afterwards i have been in the garden and to the back door and there i stood
my heart up at my mouth i could not see i was watched so this looks well but if any thing should go bad afterwards i should never forgive myself for not taking this opportunity well i will go down again
to be sure there is witchcraft in this house and i believe lucifer is bribed as well as all about me and is got into the shape of that nasty grim bull to watch me for i have been again and ventured to open the door
but there stood that horrid bull staring me full in the face with fiery saucer eyes as i thought so i got in again for fear he should come at me nobody saw me however
do you think there are such things as witches and spirits if there be i believe in my heart missus jewkes has got this bull of her side but yet what could i do without money or a friend'
o this wicked woman to trick me so every thing man woman and beast is in a plot against your poor pamela i think then i know not one step of the way nor how far to any house or cottage
and whether i could gain protection if i got to a house and now the robbers are abroad too i may run into as great danger as i want to escape nay greater much if these promising appearances hold
and sure my master cannot be so black as that they should not what can i do i have a good mind to try for it once more but then i may be pursued and taken and it will be worse for me
and i can more easily be induced with you when all my apprehensions are over to consider his proposal of mister williams than i could here and he pretends as you have read in his letter
he will leave me to my choice why then should i be afraid i will go down again i think but yet my heart misgives me because of the difficulties before me in escaping
and being so poor and so friendless o good god the preserver of the innocent direct me what to do
once more i'll venture god direct my footsteps and make smooth my path and my way to safety well here i am come back again frightened like a fool
out of all my purposes o how terrible every thing appears to me i had got twice as far again
and saw the bull as i thought between me and the door and another bull coming towards me the other way well thought i here is double witchcraft to be sure here is the spirit of my master in one bull
but as every thing is so frightful to me i find i am not fit to think of my escape
and i am persuaded that fear brings one into more dangers than the caution that goes along with it delivers one from i then locked the door and put the key in my pocket and was in a sad quandary
though missus jewkes is sometimes a little hard upon me yet i know not where i am without her i go up and i come down to walk about in the garden and not having her know scarcely what to do with myself ay said the ideot
so here i am again
to help myself any where else o why are poor foolish maidens tried with such dangers when they have such weak minds to grapple with them i will since it is so hope the best
and here is the bull it has as effectually frightened me as if i had been hurt by it instead of the cook maid and so these joined together as i may say to make a very dastard of me
but my folly was the worst of all because that deprived me of my money for had i had that i believe i should have ventured both the bull and the robbers monday afternoon
so missus jewkes is returned from her visit well said she i would have you set your heart at rest for mister williams will do very well again he is not half so bad as he fancied o these scholars said she
they have not the hearts of mice he has only a few scratches on his face which said she i suppose he got by grappling among the gravel at the bottom of the dam to try to find a hole in the ground to hide himself from the robbers
he says in his letter he was a frightful spectacle he might be so indeed when he first came in a doors but he looks well enough now and only for a few groans now and then when he thinks of his danger
and was contriving between you two this alarmed me prodigiously and the rather as i saw by two or three instances that his honest heart could keep nothing believing every one as undesigning as himself
ah missus jewkes missus jewkes this might have done with me had he had any thing that he could have told you of but
that had we been disposed we had no opportunity for it from your watchful care and circumspection no said she that's very true missus pamela not so much as for that declaration that he owned before me
he had found opportunity for all my watchfulness to make you come come said she no more of these shams with me you have an excellent head piece for your years but may be i am as cunning as you
however said she all is well now because my watchments are now over by my master's direction how have you employed yourself in my absence i was so troubled at what might have passed between mister williams and her
that i could not hide it and she said well missus pamela since all matters are likely to be so soon and so happily ended let me advise you to be a little less concerned at his discoveries and make me your confidant
as he has done and i shall think you have some favour for me and reliance upon me and perhaps you might not repent it she was so earnest that i mistrusted she did this to pump me and i knew how
now to account for her kindness to mister williams in her visit to him which was only to get out of him what she could why missus jewkes said i is all this fishing about for something where there is nothing
and then i'll give you an answer to your curiosity i don't care said she whether you do or not for i have as much as i wanted from him
well said i let him have said what he would i care not for i am sure he can say no harm of me and so let us change the talk i was the easier indeed because for all her pumps
she gave no hints of the key and the door et cetera
she would not have forborne giving me a touch of and so we gave up one another as despairing to gain our ends of each other but i am sure he must have said more than he should
she has now been actually these two hours shut up a writing though she pretended she had given me up all her stores of papers et cetera and that i should write for her
i begin to wish i had ventured every thing and gone off when i might o when will this state of doubt and uneasiness end she has just been with me and says
she shall send a messenger to bedfordshire and he shall carry a letter of thanks for me if i will write it for my master's favour to me indeed said i i have no thanks to give till i am with my father and mother
and besides i sent a letter as you know but have had no answer to it she said she thought that his letter to mister williams was sufficient and the least i could do was to thank him if but in two lines
no need of it said i for i don't intend to have mister williams what then is that letter to me well said she i see thou art quite unfathomable i don't like all this
o my foolish fears of bulls and robbers for now all my uneasiness begins to double upon me o what has this incautious man said that no doubt is the subject of her long letter
to both which points she returned suspicious answers saying as to the one why you are mighty earnest for your money i shan't run away with it and to the other good lack you need not be so willing as i know of
to part with me for a bed fellow till you are sure of one you like better this cut me to the heart and at the same time stopped my mouth tuesday wednesday
mister williams has been here but we have had no opportunity to talk together he seemed confounded at missus jewkes's change of temper and reservedness after her kind visit
and their freedom with one another and much more at what i am going to tell you he asked if i would take a turn in the garden with missus jewkes and him no said she i can't go
said he may not missus pamela take a walk no said she i desire she won't why missus jewkes said he i am afraid i have somehow disobliged you
not at all replied she but i suppose you will soon be at liberty to walk together as much as you please and i have sent a messenger for my last instructions about this and more weighty matters and when they come
but till then it is no matter how little you are together this alarmed us both
and he seemed to take me as i intended intimating the renewing of the correspondence by the tiles
and retired to my closet to write a letter for the tiles
i will give you the substance only i expostulated with him on his too great openness and easiness
that i thought there was the highest reason to resume our prospect of the escape by the back door i put this in the usual place in the evening and now wait with impatience for an answer thursday i have the following answer
dearest madam i am utterly confounded and must plead guilty to all your just reproaches i wish i were master of all but half your caution and discretion i hope after all
but it is not cannot be in him i have received a letter from john arnold in which he tells me that his master is preparing for his london journey and believes afterwards he will come into these parts
and is to accompany her brother to london or meet him there he knows not which he professes great zeal and affection to your service
but which is not come to my hand i think there can be no treachery for it is a particular friend at gainsborough that i have ordered him to direct to and this is come safe to my hands by this means
for well i know i durst trust nothing to brett at the post house here this gives me a little pain but i hope all will end well and we shall soon hear if it be necessary to pursue our former intentions
if it be i will lose no time to provide a horse for you and another for myself for i can never do either god or myself better service though i were to forego all my expectations for it here i am
your most faithful humble servant i was too free indeed with missus jewkes led to it by her dissimulation and by her pretended concern to make me happy with you i hinted
that i would not have scrupled to have procured your deliverance by any means and that i had proposed to you as the only honourable one marriage with me but i assured her though she would hardly believe me
that you discouraged my application which is too true
missus jewkes continues still sullen and ill natured and i am almost afraid to speak to her she watches me as close as ever and pretends to wonder why i shun her company as i do
i have just put under the tiles these lines inspired by my fears which are indeed very strong and i doubt not without reason sir
every thing gives me additional disturbance the missed letter of john arnold's makes me suspect a plot
as to suppose every one in a plot against me
and trust to providence to guide him for my safeguard for i would not endanger you now just upon the edge of your preferment yet sir i fear your fatal openness will make you suspected as accessary
my soul is of equal importance with the soul of a princess though my quality is inferior to that of the meanest slave save then my innocence good heaven and preserve my mind spotless
and see an end to all my troubles and anxieties forgive my impatience but my presaging mind bodes horrid mischiefs every thing looks dark around me and this woman's impenetrable sullenness and silence
without any apparent reason from a conduct so very contrary bid me fear the worst blame me sir if you think me wrong and let me have your advice what to do which will oblige
i think you are too apprehensive by much i am sorry for your uneasiness you may depend upon me and all i can do but i make no doubt of the london journey nor of john's contrition and fidelity
pray dearest madam lay aside your fears and wait a few days for the issue of missus jewkes's letter and mine of thanks to mister b things i hope must be better than you expect
providence will not desert such piety and innocence and be this your comfort and reliance
your most faithful humble servant
which has enabled thee to withstand so many temptations we have not yet had leisure to read through your long accounts of all your hardships i say long because i wonder how you could find time and opportunity for them
but otherwise they are the delight of our spare hours and we shall read them over and over as long as we live with thankfulness to god who has given us so virtuous and so discreet a daughter
in the same excellent course and we shall not envy the highest estate but defy them to produce such a daughter as ours i said we had not read through all yours in course
and your master's heart turned to see the folly of his ways and the injury he had intended to our dear child for to be sure my dear he would have ruined you if he could but seeing your virtue his heart is touched
no fortune to our dear child but rather must be a disgrace to her as the world will think yet i hope i do not sin in my pride to say that there is no good man of a common degree
especially as your late lady's kindness gave you such good opportunities which you have had the grace to improve but may think himself happy in you
far be it from us to offer violence to your inclination so much prudence as you have shewn in all your conduct
or to offer to direct you in your choice but alas my child what can we do for you to partake our hard lot and involve yourself into as hard a life would not help us but add to your afflictions
but it will be time enough to talk of these things
of seeing you with us which god grant amen amen say your most indulgent parents amen our humblest service and thanks to the worthy mister williams again we say
god bless him for ever o what a deal we have to say to you god give us a happy meeting we understand the squire is setting out for london he is a fine gentleman and has wit at will
i wish he was as good but i hope he will now reform
what is it you cannot do for your child you can give her the advice she has so much wanted and still wants and will always want you can confirm her in the paths of virtue into which you first initiated her
and you can pray for her with hearts so sincere and pure that are not to be met with in palaces oh
and receive from your own lips the blessings of such good parents but alas how are my prospects again overclouded to what they were when i closed my last parcel
as they are not the effect of my own vanity or presumption but i will proceed with my hopeless story i saw mister williams was a little nettled at my impatience and so i wrote to assure him i would be as easy as i could
and wholly directed by him especially as my father whose respects i mentioned had assured me my master was setting out for london which he must have somehow from his own family or he would not have written me word of it
saturday sunday mister williams has been here both these days as usual but is very indifferently received still by missus jewkes and to avoid suspicion i left them together
and she returned the less the better poor man he has got but little by his openness making missus jewkes his confidant as she bragged
i am more and more satisfied there is mischief brewing and shall begin to hide my papers and be circumspect
chapter fourteen afloat on the napo down the rapids
pratt on discipline forest music coca our craft and crew storm on the napo
we embarked november twentieth on our voyage down the river it is no easy matter to hire or cajole the indians for any service out of feast time
they are out of town and during the festival they are loth to leave or are so full of chicha they do not know what they want
by showing him the president's order and then used him to entice or to compel we know not his motive power eight indians including the governor to take us to santa rosa we paid them about twenty four yards of lienzo
they furnished three canoes two for baggage and one covered with a palm leaf awning for ourselves the canoes were of red cedar and flat bottomed the paddles had oval blades to which short
quick strokes were given perpendicularly to the water entering and leaving but there was little need of paddling on this trip the napo starts off in furious haste for the fall between napo village and santa rosa
a distance of eighty miles is three hundred and fifty feet we were about seven hours in the voyage down and it takes seven days to pole back the passage of the rapids is dangerous to all but an indian
as wallace says of a spot on the rio negro you are bewildered by the conflicting motions of the water whirling and boiling eddies burst as if from some subaqueous explosion
and an up current on the other now a cross stream at the bows and a diagonal one at the stern with a foaming scylla on your right and a whirling charybdis on the left but our nervousness gave way to admiration
as our popero or pilot the sedate governor gave the canoe a sheer with the swoop of his long paddle turning it gracefully around the corner of a rock against which it seemed we must be dashed and we felt like joining in the wild scream of the indians
as our little craft shot like an arrow past the danger and down the rapids and danced on the waters below in four hours we were abreast the little village of aguano on the opposite bank we could see the tambos
of the gold washers at five p m we reached the deserted site of old santa rosa the village having been removed a few years ago on account of its unhealthy location
it is now overgrown with sour orange and calabash trees the latter bearing large fruit shells so useful to the indians in making pilches or cups in pitch darkness and in a drizzling rain
we arrived at new santa rosa and swung our hammocks in the government house santa rosa once the prosperous capital of the provincia del oriente now contains about two hundred men women and children
the town is pleasantly situated on the left bank of the river about fifteen feet above the water level a little bamboo church open only when the missionary from archidona makes his annual visit
stood near our quarters the indians were keeping one of their seven feasts in a hut near by and their drumming was the last thing we heard as we turned into our hammocks and the first in the morning
is the only white inhabitant and he is an indian in every respect save speech and color his habitation is one of the largest structures on the napo the posts are of chonta palm the sides and roof of the usual material
split bamboo and palm leaves it is embowered in a magnificent grove of plantains and papayas in the spacious vestibule is a bench on which the indian governor and his staff seat themselves every morning
to confer with the alcalde in one corner stands a table the only one we remember seeing on the napo on the opposite side are heaped up jars pots kettles hunting and fishing implements paddles
bows and arrows between the posts swing two chambiri hammocks from santa rosa to para the hammock answers for chair sofa tete a tete and bed when a stranger enters
and at santa rosa we were always presented with a cup of guayusa in brazil with a cup of coffee sandoval wore nothing but shirt and pantaloons the dignity of the barefooted functionary
was confined to his spanish blood he had lived long among the zaparos and from him his daughter and a zaparo servant we obtained much valuable information respecting that wild
this was not easily done the indians seemed reluctant to quit their feasts and go on such a long voyage
and manufactured a host of lies and excuses he declared there was but one large canoe in town and that we must send to suno for another and for men to man it there were indeed few indians in santa rosa
for while we were disputing a largo number went off with shoutings down the river to spend weeks in the forest hunting monkeys
in the depths of the napo wilderness starting on a monkey crusade but it was still more stirring to think of paddling our own canoe down to brazil after some time lost in word fighting we tried the virtues of authority
we presented the president's order which commanded all civil and military powers on the napo to aid and not to hinder the expedition
sandoval was another man and the two canoes and four indians we wanted were forthcoming we had to wait however two days for the indians to prepare their chicha for the journey and to cover the canoes with palm awnings
the price of a canoe for the maranon is twenty five varas of lienzo and the same for each indian unfortunately we had only fifty varas left but through the influence of the now good natured alcalde
we induced the indians to take the balance in coin after many delays we put our baggage into one canoe and ourselves into the other and pushed off into the rapid current of the napo
we had three styles of valediction on leaving our indian quartet after several last drinks of chicha bade their friends farewell by clasping hands one kissing the joined hands and then the other
sandoval muttered adios in reply to ours meaning no doubt good riddance while we shouted a hearty good bye to edwards as he pushed his way up stream to continue his lonely but chosen indian life on the banks of the yusupino
the napo at santa rosa runs at least five miles an hour and we were soon picking our way now drifting now paddling through a labyrinth of islands and snags
the indians so accustomed to brutal violence from the hands of the whites had begged of us before our departure that we would not beat them but shortly after we left one of them who was literally filled with chicha
dropped his paddle and tumbled into a heap at the bottom of the canoe dead drunk pratt our gigantic mississippi boatman whom we had engaged at quito as captain and cook down the river and who was an awful goliath in the eyes of the red skins
seized the fellow and gave him a terrible shaking the like of which was never seen or heard of in all napo at once the liquor left the muddled brain of the astonished culprit and taking his paddle he became from that hour the best of the crew
this was the only case of discipline on the voyage always obsequious they obeyed us with fear and trembling none of them could speak spanish so we had provided ourselves with a vocabulary
but some english words like the imperative paddle were more effective than the tongue of the incas indeed when we mixed up our quichua with a little anglo saxon they evidently thought the latter
was a terrible anathema for they sprang to their places without delay in seven hours we arrived at suno a collection of half a dozen palm booths five feet high the miserable owners of which do a little fishing and gold washing
they gave us possession of their largest hut in which they had been roasting a sea cow and the stench was intolerable nevertheless one of our number bravely threw down his blanket within and went to sleep
two swung their hammocks between the trees and the rest slept in the canoe here for the first time since leaving guayaquil we were tormented by musquitoes bats were also quite numerous but none of them were blood thirsty
and we may add that nowhere in south america were we troubled by those diabolical imps of imaginative travelers the leaf nosed species so far as our experience goes we can say with bates that the vampire
so common on the amazon is the most harmless of all bats it has however a most hideous physiognomy a full grown specimen will measure twenty eight inches in expanse of wing
the voice of the latter sounds like the cracking of wood occasionally frogs owls and goat suckers croak hoot and wail between midnight and three a m almost perfect silence reigns
at early dawn the animal creation awakes with a scream pre eminent are the discordant cries of monkeys and macaws as the sun rises higher one musician after another seeks the forest shade
and the morning concert ends at noon in the heat of the day there is an all pervading rustling sound caused by the fluttering of myriad insects and the gliding of lizards and snakes at sunset
parrots and monkeys resume their chatter for a season and then give way to the noiseless flight of innumerable bats chasing the hawk moth and beetle there is scarcely a sound in a tropical forest which is joyous and cheering
the birds are usually silent those that have voices utter a plaintive song or hoarse shrill cry our door yards are far more melodious on a may morning the most common birds on the napo
are macaws parrots toucans and ciganas the parrots like the majority in south america are of the green type the toucan peculiar to the new world and distinguished by its enormous bill
is a quarrelsome imperious bird it is clumsy in flight but nimble in leaping from limb to limb it hops on the ground like a robin and makes a shrill yelping pia po o co
ecuadorians call it the predicador or preacher because it wags its head like a priest and seems to say god gave it you
orange and rose colors and the robes of the royal dames of europe
were trimmed with them the cigana or gypsy in peru called chansu resembles a pheasant the flesh has a musky odor and it is for this reason perhaps that they exist in such numbers throughout the country
the indians never eat them in no country as in the amazonian valley is there such a variety of insects nowhere do we find species of larger size or greater beauty
it is the richest locality for butterflies bates found twelve hundred species in brazil alone
the splendid metallic blue and the yellow and transparent winged are very abundant on the napo some rise high in the air others living in societies look like fluttering clouds moths are comparatively rare
the most conspicuous beetle on the river is a magnificent green species chrysophora chrysochlora always found arboreal like the majority of tropical coleopters they look like emerald gems clinging to the branches
which the napos name respectively
corn honey it is singular these indians have no term for bees but call them honey and distinguish them by their color the black species is said to make the most honey and the yellow the best
the quadrupeds of the oriente are few and far between in the dry season not a sloth nor armadillo did we see but when the rains descend the wilderness is a menagerie of tigers and tapirs pumas and bears
while a host of reptiles led by the gigantic boa creep forth from their hiding places the most ferocious carnivores are found in the mountains and the most venomous serpents haunt the lowlands
darwin says that we ought not to expect any closer similarity between the organic beings on the opposite sides of the andes than on the opposite shores of the ocean we will remark that we obtained a peccari
a number of birds not accustomed to high flights and five reptilian species on the pacific slope identical with species found on the napo breakfasting on fried yucas roasted plantains fish and guayusa
we set sail arriving at coca at two p m this little village the last we shall see till we come within sight of the amazon is beautifully located on the right bank twenty five feet above the river
and opposite the confluence of the rio coca though founded twenty years ago it contains only five or six bamboo huts a government house church alcalde's residence
for the manufacture of aguardiente and sirup from the cane
who spent most of his time swinging in a hammock slung between the posts of his veranda and playing with a tame parrot when not drunk or asleep this spot is memorable in history
and the coca halted and built a raft or canoe prescott says a brig in which orellana was sent down the river to reconnoitre but who never returned
but after receiving the coca it turns to the southeast we remained here two days to construct a more comfortable craft for our voyage to the amazon a distance of at least five hundred miles
and planted four stout chonta sticks to support a palm thatched roof a rudder a novel idea to our red skinned companions and a box of sand in the stern of one of the boats for a fire place completed our rig
with a hiccough declared we would be forever going down the river in such a huge craft and the indians smiled ominously but when our gallant ship left coca obediently to the helm and at the rate of six miles an hour when paddles and current worked together
they shouted bueno our trunks and provision cans were arranged along the two sides of the platform so that we had abundance of from for exercise by day and for sleeping under musquito tents at night a little canoe
which we bought of the alcalde floated alongside for a tender and was very serviceable in hunting gathering fuel et cetera in the forecastle the bows of the large canoes which projected beyond our cabin sat three indians to paddle
the fourth who was the governor of santa rosa we honored with the post of steersman and he was always to be seen on the poop behind the kitchen standing bolt upright on the alert and on the lookout on approaching any human habitation
the indians blew horns to indicate that they came as friends these horns must have come from brazil as there are no bovines on the napo
they blow their horns also to charm the yacu mama or mother of waters as they call the imaginary serpent at different points down the river they deposited pots of chicha for use on their return
the mass breeds worms so rapidly however as edwards informed us that after the lapse of a month or two it is a jumble of yuca scraps and writhing articulates but the owner of the heap coolly separates the animal from the vegetable
adds a little water and drinks his chicha without ceremony during leisure hours the indians busied themselves plaiting palm leaves into ornaments for their arms and heads not a note did they whistle or sing
yet they were always in good humor and during the whole voyage
at no time did we have the least fear of treachery or violence the napos are not savages their goodness however as bates says of the cucama tribe consists more in the absence of active bad qualities
than in the possession of good ones of an apathetic temperament and dull imagination we could not stir them into admiration or enthusiasm by any scientific wonder the utmost manifestation of surprise was a cluck with the tongue
upon presenting the governor with a vest he immediately cut off the buttons and dividing the cloth into four parts shared it with his fellows
but in all our intercourse with these wild men
and sirup and at coca we took in three fowls a bag of rice and a bunch of bananas so we fared sumptuously every day we left coca on thanksgiving day november twenty eighth
and to imitate our distant friends we sacrificed an extra meal fricasseed chicken jerked beef boiled yucas bananas oranges lemonade and guayusa
favored by a powerful current and the rhythmic paddling of our santa rosans we made this day sixty miles but our average daily run was fifty miles the winds doubtless the trades were almost unchangeably from the east
but an occasional puff would come from the northwest when we relieved our paddlers by hoisting a blanket for a sail six o'clock was our usual hour of departure and ten or twelve hours our traveling time always tying up at a plaia or island
of which there are hosts in the napo but never to the main land for fear of unfriendly indians and the still more unwelcome tiger our crew encamped at a respectful though hailing distance on the second day from coca
we were caught in a squall and to save our roof we ran ashore nearly every afternoon we were treated to a shower accompanied by a strong wind but seldom by thunder and lightning though at coca we had a brilliant thunder storm at night
and at a regular hour so that we learned when to expect them about noon the eastern horizon would become suddenly black and when this had spread to the zenith we heard the rush of a mighty wind sweeping through the forest and the crash of falling trees
and then down fell the deluge the indians have a saying that
the path of the sun is the path of the storm
these storm clouds moved rapidly for in half an hour all was quiet on the napo at quito two hundred miles west the usual afternoon shower occurs two hours later
to day we enjoyed our last glimpse of the andes far away across the great forest we had traversed we could see the beautiful cone of cotopaxi and the flat top of cayambi standing out in proud pre eminence
la mazzolata gentlemen said the count of monte cristo as he entered i pray you excuse me for suffering my visit to be anticipated but i feared to disturb you by presenting myself earlier at your apartments besides
you sent me word that you would come to me and i have held myself at your disposal franz and i have to thank you a thousand times count returned albert you extricated us from a great dilemma
that i did not sooner assist you in your distress he did not mention a syllable of your embarrassment to me when he knows that alone and isolated as i am i seek every opportunity of making the acquaintance of my neighbors
as soon as i learned i could in any way assist you i most eagerly seized the opportunity of offering my services the two young men bowed franz had as yet found nothing to say he had come to no determination
can you tell us where we can obtain a sight of the piazza del popolo ah said the count negligently looking attentively at morcerf is there not something like an execution upon the piazza del popolo yes returned franz
said he to franz with the employment of time and the means of simplifying the summoning your servants i have when i ring once it is for my valet
thrice for my steward thus i do not waste a minute or a word here he is a man of about forty five or fifty entered exactly resembling the smuggler who had introduced franz into the cavern
but he did not appear to recognize him it was evident he had his orders
said the count you have procured me windows looking on the piazza del popolo as i ordered you yesterday yes excellency returned the steward but it was very late did i not tell you i wished for one replied the count frowning
you have the window that is sufficient give orders to the coachman and be in readiness on the stairs to conduct us to it the steward bowed and was about to quit the room ah continued the count
be good enough to ask pastrini if he has received the tavoletta and if he can send us an account of the execution there is no need to do that said franz taking out his tablets for i saw the account and copied it down very well
but let us know when breakfast is ready these gentlemen added he turning to the two friends will i trust do me the honor to breakfast with me but my dear count said albert we shall abuse your kindness not at all
lay covers for three he then took franz's tablets out of his hand we announce he read in the same tone with which he would have read a newspaper that to day
will be executed andrea rondolo guilty of murder on the person of the respected and venerated don cesare torlini canon of the church of saint john lateran and peppino called rocca priori convicted of complicity
with the detestable bandit luigi vampa and the men of his band hum the first will be mazzolato the second decapitato yes continued the count it was at first arranged in this way
but i think since yesterday some change has taken place in the order of the ceremony really said franz yes i passed the evening at the cardinal rospigliosi's
and there mention was made of something like a pardon for one of the two men for andrea rondolo asked franz no replied the count carelessly for the other he glanced at the tablets as if to recall the name
for peppino called rocca priori you are thus deprived of seeing a man guillotined but the mazzuola still remains which is a very curious punishment when seen for the first time and even the second
while the other as you must know is very simple the mandaia never fails never trembles never strikes thirty times ineffectually like the soldier who beheaded the count of chalais and to whose tender mercy
had doubtless recommended the sufferer ah added the count in a contemptuous tone
replied franz one would think that you had studied the different tortures of all the nations of the world there are at least few that i have not seen said the count coldly
and you took pleasure in beholding these dreadful spectacles my first sentiment was horror the second indifference the third curiosity curiosity that is a terrible word
why so in life our greatest preoccupation is death is it not then curious to study the different ways by which the soul and body can part and how according to their different characters temperaments
different persons bear the transition from life to death from existence to annihilation as for myself i can assure you of one thing the more men you see die the easier it becomes to die yourself and in my opinion
death may be a torture but it is not an expiation i do not quite understand you replied franz pray explain your meaning for you excite my curiosity to the highest pitch listen said the count
and deep hatred mounted to his face as the blood would to the face of any other if a man had by unheard of and excruciating tortures destroyed your father your mother your betrothed a being who when torn from you
left a desolation a wound that never closes in your breast do you think the reparation that society gives you is sufficient
and allows him who has caused us years of moral sufferings to escape with a few moments of physical pain yes i know said franz that human justice is insufficient to console us she can give blood
in return for blood that is all
i will put another case to you continued the count that where society attacked by the death of a person avenges death by death
but are there not a thousand tortures by which a man may be made to suffer without society taking the least cognizance of them or offering him even the insufficient means of vengeance of which we have just spoken
are there not crimes for which the impalement of the turks the augers of the persians the stake and the brand of the iroquois indians are inadequate tortures and which are unpunished by society answer me
do not these crimes exist yes answered franz and it is to punish them that duelling is tolerated ah duelling cried the count a pleasant manner upon my soul of arriving at your end when that end is vengeance
a man has carried off your mistress a man has seduced your wife a man has dishonored your daughter he has rendered the whole life of one who had the right to expect from heaven
and remember moreover that it is often he who comes off victorious from the strife absolved of all crime in the eyes of the world no no continued the count had i to avenge myself
and the more so that thanks to my skill in all bodily exercises and the indifference to danger i have gradually acquired i should be almost certain to kill my man oh i would fight for such a cause but in return for a slow profound eternal torture
i would give back the same were it possible an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth as the orientalists say our masters in everything those favored creatures who have formed for themselves a life of dreams and a paradise of realities
of your own cause it would be difficult to adopt a course that would forever prevent your falling under the power of the law hatred is blind rage carries you away and he who pours out vengeance
on my word i almost regret that in all probability this miserable peppino will not be beheaded
how short a time the punishment lasts and whether it is worth even mentioning but really this is a most singular conversation for the carnival gentlemen how did it arise ah i recollect you asked for a place at my window you shall have it
for here comes the servant to inform us that breakfast is ready as he spoke a servant opened one of the four doors of the apartment saying al suo commodo the two young men arose and entered the breakfast room
during the meal which was excellent and admirably served franz looked repeatedly at albert in order to observe the impressions which he doubted not had been made on him by the words of their entertainer but whether with his usual carelessness he had paid but little attention to him
whether the explanation of the count of monte cristo with regard to duelling had satisfied him or whether the events which franz knew of had had their effect on him alone he remarked that his companion did not pay the least regard to them but on the contrary
ate like a man who for the last four or five months had been condemned to partake of italian cookery that is the worst in the world as for the count he just touched the dishes he seemed to fulfil the duties of a host by sitting down with his guests
and her firm conviction that the man in the opposite box was a vampire at the end of the breakfast franz took out his watch well said the count what are you doing you must excuse us count returned franz
what may that be we have no masks and it is absolutely necessary to procure them do not concern yourself about that we have i think a private room in the piazza del popolo i will have whatever costumes you choose
brought to us and you can dress there after the execution cried franz before or after whichever you please opposite the scaffold the scaffold forms part of the fete count i have reflected on the matter said franz
but i shall content myself with accepting a place in your carriage and at your window at the rospoli palace and i leave you at liberty to dispose of my place at the piazza del popolo but i warn you you will lose a very curious sight returned the count
you will describe it to me replied franz and the recital from your lips will make as great an impression on me as if i had witnessed it i have more than once intended witnessing an execution but i have never been able to make up my mind
and you albert i replied the viscount i saw castaing executed but i think i was rather intoxicated that day for i had quitted college the same morning and we had passed the previous night at a tavern besides
it is no reason because you have not seen an execution at paris that you should not see one anywhere else when you travel it is to see everything
and you reply i do not know and besides
who killed with a log of wood a worthy canon who had brought him up like his own son
well suppose it is a bull fight you are going to see recollect the ancient romans of the circus and the sports where they killed three hundred lions and a hundred men think of the eighty thousand applauding spectators
the sage matrons who took their daughters and the charming vestals who made with the thumb of their white hands the fatal sign that said come despatch the dying shall you go then albert asked franz
like you i hesitated but the count's eloquence decides me let us go then said franz since you wish it but on our way to the piazza del popolo i wish to pass through the corso
on foot yes in a carriage no i will go on foot then is it important that you should go that way yes there is something i wish to see well we will go by the corso
we will send the carriage to wait for us on the piazza del popolo by the strada del babuino for i shall be glad to pass myself through the corso to see if some orders i have given have been executed excellency
said a servant opening the door a man in the dress of a penitent wishes to speak to you ah yes returned the count i know who he is gentlemen will you return to the salon you will find good cigars on the centre table
i will be with you directly the young men rose and returned into the salon while the count again apologizing left by another door albert who was a great smoker and who had considered it no small sacrifice
to be deprived of the cigars of the cafe de paris approached the table and uttered a cry of joy at perceiving some veritable puros well asked franz
what do i think said albert evidently surprised at such a question from his companion i think he is a delightful fellow who does the honors of his table admirably who has travelled much read much
is like brutus of the stoic school and moreover added he sending a volume of smoke up towards the ceiling that he has excellent cigars such was albert's opinion of the count
and as franz well knew that albert professed never to form an opinion except upon long reflection he made no attempt to change it but said he did you observe one very singular thing what
how attentively he looked at you at me yes albert reflected ah replied he sighing that is not very surprising i have been more than a year absent from paris
and my clothes are of a most antiquated cut the count takes me for a provincial the first opportunity you have undeceive him i beg and tell him i am nothing of the kind franz smiled an instant after the count entered
with all my heart returned albert italian cigars are horrible when you come to paris i will return all this i will not refuse i intend going there soon and since you allow me i will pay you a visit
with as much indifference as he could assume the three last returned he with a negligence evidently unaffected for he could not imagine with what intention the question was put franz glanced rapidly towards the three windows
the side windows were hung with yellow damask and the centre one with white damask and a red cross the man in the mantle had kept his promise to the transteverin and there could now be no doubt that he was the count
the three windows were still untenanted preparations were making on every side chairs were placed scaffolds were raised and windows were hung with flags the masks could not appear
the carriages could not move about but the masks were visible behind the windows the carriages and the doors franz albert and the count continued to descend the corso as they approached the piazza del popolo
the crowd became more dense and above the heads of the multitude two objects were visible the obelisk surmounted by a cross which marks the centre of the square and in front of the obelisk at the point where the three streets
as you left the choice of your costumes to me said the count to the two friends i have had these brought as they will be the most worn this year and they are most suitable on account of the confetti sweetmeats as they do not show the flour
that was in the centre it was the first time franz had ever seen a guillotine we say guillotine because the roman mandaia is formed on almost the same model as the french instrument the knife which is shaped like a crescent
that cuts with the convex side falls from a less height and that is all the difference two men seated on the movable plank on which the victim is laid were eating their breakfasts while waiting for the criminal
their repast consisted apparently of bread and sausages one of them lifted the plank took out a flask of wine drank some and then passed it to his companion these two men were the executioner's assistants
at this sight franz felt the perspiration start forth upon his brow the prisoners transported the previous evening from the carcere nuovo to the little church of santa maria del popolo had passed the night
each accompanied by two priests in a chapel closed by a grating before which were two sentinels who were relieved at intervals a double line of carbineers placed on each side of the door of the church reached to the scaffold
and thus the children had the best view the monte pincio seemed a vast amphitheatre filled with spectators the balconies of the two churches at the corner of the via del babuino and the via di ripetta were crammed
the steps even seemed a parti colored sea that was impelled towards the portico every niche in the wall held its living statue what the count said was true the most curious spectacle in life is that of death and yet
laughter and jests arose from the crowd it was evident that the execution was in the eyes of the people only the commencement of the carnival suddenly the tumult ceased as if by magic and the doors of the church opened
a brotherhood of penitents clothed from head to foot in robes of gray sackcloth
and holding in their hands lighted tapers appeared first the chief marched at the head behind the penitents came a man of vast stature and proportions he was naked with the exception of cloth drawers
at the left side of which hung a large knife in a sheath and he bore on his right shoulder a heavy iron sledge hammer this man was the executioner he had moreover
each was accompanied by two priests neither had his eyes bandaged peppino walked with a firm step doubtless aware of what awaited him andrea was supported by two priests each of them from time to time kissed the crucifix
at this sight alone franz felt his legs tremble under him he looked at albert he was as white as his shirt and mechanically cast away his cigar although he had not half smoked it the count alone seemed unmoved nay
more a slight color seemed striving to rise in his pale cheeks his nostrils dilated like those of a wild beast that scents its prey and his lips half opened disclosed his white teeth small and sharp like those of a jackal
and as they approached their faces became visible peppino was a handsome young man of four or five and twenty bronzed by the sun he carried his head erect and seemed on the watch to see on which side his liberator would appear
andrea was short and fat his visage marked with brutal cruelty did not indicate age
replied he coldly and yet here are two culprits yes but only one of these two is about to die the other has many years to live if the pardon is to come there is no time to lose
and see here it is said the count at the moment when peppino reached the foot of the mandaia a priest arrived in some haste forced his way through the soldiers and advancing to the chief of the brotherhood gave him a folded paper
the piercing eye of peppino had noticed all the chief took the paper unfolded it and raising his hand heaven be praised and his holiness also
here is a pardon for one of the prisoners a pardon cried the people with one voice a pardon at this cry andrea raised his head pardon for whom cried he
peppino remained breathless a pardon for peppino called rocca priori said the principal friar and he passed the paper to the officer commanding the carbineers who read and returned it to him for peppino
cried andrea who seemed roused from the torpor in which he had been plunged why for him and not for me we ought to die together i was promised he should die with me you have no right to put me to death alone i will not die alone i will not
and he broke from the priests struggling and raving like a wild beast and striving desperately to break the cords that bound his hands the executioner made a sign and his two assistants leaped from the scaffold and seized him
is furious that his fellow sufferer does not perish with him and were he able he would rather tear him to pieces with his teeth and nails than let him enjoy the life he himself is about to be deprived of oh man
cried the count extending his clinched hands towards the crowd how well do i recognize you there and that at all times you are worthy of yourselves meanwhile andrea and the two executioners were struggling on the ground
and he kept exclaiming he ought to die he shall die i will not die alone look look cried the count seizing the young men's hands look for on my soul it is curious here is a man
who had resigned himself to his fate who was going to the scaffold to die like a coward it is true but he was about to die without resistance do you know what gave him strength do you know what consoled him it was that another partook of his punishment
that another partook of his anguish that another was to die before him
two oxen to the slaughterhouse and make one of them understand that his companion will not die the sheep will bleat for pleasure the ox will bellow with joy but man man whom god created in his own image
man upon whom god has laid his first his sole commandment to love his neighbor man to whom god has given a voice to express his thoughts what is his first cry when he hears his fellow man is saved a blasphemy
honor to man this masterpiece of nature this king of the creation and the count burst into a laugh a terrible laugh that showed he must have suffered horribly to be able thus to laugh however the struggle still continued
and it was dreadful to witness the people all took part against andrea and twenty thousand voices cried put him to death put him to death franz sprang back but the count seized his arm and held him before the window what are you doing
has yet murdered his benefactor and who now unable to kill any one because his hands are bound wishes to see his companion in captivity perish no no look look the command was needless
franz was fascinated by the horrible spectacle the two assistants had borne andrea to the scaffold and there in spite of his struggles his bites and his cries had forced him to his knees during this time the executioner had raised his mace
and signed to them to get out of the way the criminal strove to rise but ere he had time the mace fell on his left temple a dull and heavy sound was heard and the man dropped like an ox on his face
and then turned over on his back the executioner let fall his mace drew his knife and with one stroke opened his throat and mounting on his stomach stamped violently on it with his feet
at every stroke a jet of blood sprang from the wound this time franz could contain himself no longer but sank half fainting into a seat albert with his eyes closed was standing grasping the window curtains
she turned her head at davy's question and answered dreamily over the mountains of the moon down the valley of the shadow paul irving would have known the meaning of this or made a meaning out of it for himself if he didn't
but practical davy who as anne often despairingly remarked hadn't a particle of imagination was only puzzled and disgusted
believe you're just talking nonsense
for had she not in keen remembrance of many similar snubs administered in her own early years solemnly vowed that she would never tell any child it was too little to understand yet here she was doing it
if you mean economical it's a very different thing from being stingy it is an excellent trait in a person if she is economical if marilla had been stingy she wouldn't have taken you and dora when your mother died
davy was emphatic on that point nor i don't want to go out to uncle richard neither i'd far rather live here even if marilla is that long tailed word when it comes to jam cause you're here anne
they're all right for girls i s'pose but i want something exciting lots of killing and shooting in it
fortunately for anne marilla called out at this moment from her room anne diana's signaling at a great rate you'd better see what she wants anne ran to the east gable
and saw flashes of light coming through the twilight from diana's window in groups of five which meant according to their old childish code come over at once for i have something important to reveal anne threw her white shawl over her head
and i saw mary sentner from spencer vale in mister blair's store she says the old copp girls on the tory road have a willow ware platter and she thinks it's exactly like the one we had at the supper she says they'll likely sell it
for martha copp has never been known to keep anything she could sell but if they won't there's a platter at wesley keyson's at spencervale and she knows they'd sell it but she isn't sure it's just the same kind as aunt josephine's
i'll go right over to spencervale after it tomorrow said anne resolutely and you must come with me it will be such a weight off my mind for i have to go to town day after tomorrow and how can i face your aunt josephine without a willow ware platter
it would be even worse than the time i had to confess about jumping on the spare room bed both girls laughed over the old memory concerning which if any of my readers are ignorant and curious i must refer them to anne's earlier history
the next afternoon the girls fared forth on their platter hunting expedition it was ten miles to spencervale and the day was not especially pleasant for traveling it was very warm and windless
and the dust on the road was such as might have been expected after six weeks of dry weather oh i do wish it would rain soon sighed anne everything is so parched up the poor fields just seem pitiful to me
and the trees seem to be stretching out their hands pleading for rain as for my garden it hurts me every time i go into it i suppose i shouldn't complain about a garden when the farmers crops are suffering so
mister harrison says his pastures are so scorched up that his poor cows can hardly get a bite to eat and he feels guilty of cruelty to animals every time he meets their eyes after a wearisome drive
the girls reached spencervale and turned down the tory road a green solitary highway where the strips of grass between the wheel tracks bore evidence to lack of travel along most of its extent it was lined with thick set young spruces
crowding down to the roadway with here and there a break where the back field of a spencervale farm came out to the fence or an expanse of stumps was aflame with fireweed and goldenrod why is it called the tory road asked anne
mister allan says it is on the principle of calling a place a grove because there are no trees in it said diana for nobody lives along the road except the copp girls
just to show they were doing something diana's father was a liberal for which reason she and anne never discussed politics
finally the girls came to the old copp homestead a place of such exceeding external neatness that even green gables would have suffered by contrast the house was a very old fashioned one situated on a slope
which fact had necessitated the building of a stone basement under one end the house and out buildings were all whitewashed to a condition of blinding perfection and not a weed was visible in the prim kitchen garden surrounded by its white paling
that is the pantry window i feel sure she said
do you think it would be any harm no i don't think so decided anne after due reflection since our motive is not idle curiosity this important point of ethics being settled anne prepared to mount the aforesaid little house
a construction of lathes with a peaked roof which had in times past served as a habitation for ducks the copp girls had given up keeping ducks because they were such untidy birds
save as an abode of correction for setting hens although scrupulously whitewashed it had become somewhat shaky and anne felt rather dubious as she scrambled up from the vantage point of a keg placed on a box i'm afraid it won't bear my weight
she said as she gingerly stepped on the roof
advised diana and anne accordingly leaned much to her delight she saw as she peered through the pane a willow ware platter exactly such as she was in quest of on the shelf in front of the window
and the next moment she had crashed through the roof up to her armpits and there she hung quite unable to extricate herself diana dashed into the duck house and seizing her unfortunate friend by the waist
diana hastily dragged in the previously mentioned keg and anne found that it was just sufficiently high to furnish a secure resting place for her feet but she could not release herself
anne shook her head hopelessly no the splinters hurt too badly if you can find an axe you might chop me out though oh dear i do really begin to believe that i was born under an ill omened star diana searched faithfully
but no axe was to be found i'll have to go for help she said returning to the prisoner no indeed you won't said anne vehemently if you do the story of this will get out everywhere and i shall be ashamed to show my face
no we must just wait until the copp girls come home and bind them to secrecy they'll know where the axe is and get me out i'm not uncomfortable as long as i keep perfectly still not uncomfortable in body i mean
i wonder what the copp girls value this house at i shall have to pay for the damage i've done but i wouldn't mind that if i were only sure they would understand my motive in peeping in at their pantry window my sole comfort is that the platter is just the kind i want
or till tomorrow suggested diana if they're not back by sunset you'll have to go for other assistance i suppose said anne reluctantly but you mustn't go until you really have to
oh dear this is a dreadful predicament i wouldn't mind my misfortunes so much if they were romantic as missus morgan's heroines always are
and see a girl's head and shoulders sticking out of the roof of one of their outhouses listen is that a wagon
and diana having made a hasty pilgrimage around the house returned to announce that a very black cloud was rising rapidly in the northwest i believe we're going to have a heavy thunder shower she exclaimed in dismay
we must prepare for it said anne tranquilly a thunderstorm seemed a trifle in comparison with what had already happened you'd better drive the horse and buggy into that open shed fortunately my parasol is in the buggy here take my hat with you
and she was right as she always is diana untied the pony and drove into the shed just as the first heavy drops of rain fell there she sat and watched the resulting downpour which was so thick and heavy
that she could hardly see anne through it holding the parasol bravely over her bare head there was not a great deal of thunder but for the best part of an hour the rain came merrily down occasionally
anne slanted back her parasol and waved an encouraging hand to her friend but conversation at that distance was quite out of the question finally the rain ceased the sun came out and diana ventured across the puddles of the yard
did you get very wet she asked anxiously oh no returned anne cheerfully my head and shoulders are quite dry and my skirt is only a little damp where the rain beat through the lathes
don't pity me diana for i haven't minded it at all i kept thinking how much good the rain will do and how glad my garden must be for it and imagining what the flowers and buds would think when the drops began to fall
spread the wrapping paper on a shingle diana handed up and wrote out her garden idyl under conditions that could hardly be considered as favorable to literature nevertheless the result was quite pretty and diana was enraptured when anne read it to her oh
anne shook her head oh no it wouldn't be suitable at all there is no plot in it you see it's just a string of fancies i like writing such things but of course nothing of the sort would ever do for publication
for editors insist on plots so priscilla says oh there's miss sarah copp now please diana go and explain miss sarah copp was a small person
miss copp she said earnestly i assure you i looked into your pantry window only to discover if you had a willow ware platter i didn't see anything else i didn't look for anything else bless you that's all right
said miss sarah amiably you needn't worry there's no harm done thank goodness we copps keep our pantries presentable at all times and don't care who sees into them as for that old duckhouse i'm glad it's smashed
for maybe now martha will agree to having it taken down she never would before for fear it might come in handy sometime and i've had to whitewash it every spring but you might as well argue with a post as with martha she went to town today i drove her to the station
twenty dollars said anne who was never meant to match business wits with a copp or she would not have offered her price at the start well i'll see said miss sarah cautiously
as it is i daresay she'll raise a fuss martha's the boss of this establishment i can tell you i'm getting awful tired of living under another woman's thumb but come in come in you must be real tired and hungry
i'll do the best i can for you in the way of tea but i warn you not to expect anything but bread and butter and some cowcumbers martha locked up all the cake and cheese and preserves afore she went she always does because she says i'm too extravagant with them if company comes
but it's worth twenty five dollars it's a very old platter diana gave anne's foot a gentle kick under the table meaning don't agree she'll let it go for twenty if you hold out but anne was not minded to take any chances in regard to that precious platter
she promptly agreed to give twenty five and miss sarah looked as if she felt sorry she hadn't asked for thirty well i guess you may have it i want all the money i can scare up just now the fact is
but i was timid and frightened of father besides i didn't know men were so skurse when the girls were safely away diana driving and anne holding the coveted platter carefully on her lap
i've got the platter and that rain has laid the dust beautifully so all's well that ends well we're not home yet said diana rather pessimistically and there's no telling what may happen before we are you're such a girl to have adventures anne
finally the morning dawned pearly and lustrous in a sky full of silver sheen and radiance and the wonderful day had arrived diana appeared soon after breakfast with a basket of flowers over one arm and her muslin dress over the other
for it would not do to don it until all the dinner preparations were completed meanwhile she wore her afternoon pink print and a lawn apron fearfully and wonderfully ruffled and frilled and very neat and pretty and rosy she was
you look simply sweet said anne admiringly diana sighed
well let's forget our troubles and think of our mercies said anne gaily missus allan says that whenever we think of anything that is a trial to us we should also think of something nice that we can set over against it if you are slightly too plump
you've got the dearest dimples and if i have a freckled nose the shape of it is all right
which was full of airy shadows and wavering golden lights we'll decorate the parlor first we have plenty of time
so we'll have dinner at one there may have been two happier and more excited girls somewhere in canada or the united states at that moment but i doubt it every snip of the scissors as rose and peony and bluebell fell
missus morgan is coming today anne wondered how mister harrison could go on placidly mowing hay in the field across the lane just as if nothing were going to happen the parlor at green gables was a rather severe and gloomy apartment
except at such times as they clung to unfortunate people's buttons even anne had never been able to infuse much grace into it for marilla would not permit any alterations but it is wonderful what flowers can accomplish if you give them a fair chance
when anne and diana finished with the room you would not have recognized it a great blue bowlful of snowballs overflowed on the polished table the shining black mantelpiece was heaped with roses and ferns every shelf of the what not
held a sheaf of bluebells the dark corners on either side of the grate were lighted up with jars full of glowing crimson peonies and the grate itself was aflame with yellow poppies
made of the usually dismal little room
and even extorted a tribute of admiration from marilla who came in to criticize and remained to praise now we must set the table said anne in the tone of a priestess about to perform some sacred rite in honor of a divinity
we'll have a big vaseful of wild roses in the center and one single rose in front of everybody's plate and a special bouquet of rosebuds only by missus morgan's an allusion to the rosebud garden you know
the table was set in the sitting room with marilla's finest linen and the best china glass and silver you may be perfectly certain that every article placed on it was polished or scoured to the highest possible perfection of gloss and glitter
where the chickens were already sizzling splendidly anne prepared the potatoes and diana got the peas and beans ready then while diana shut herself into the pantry to compound the lettuce salad anne whose cheeks were already beginning to glow crimson
nobody objected to this at half past eleven the lettuce salad was made the golden circles of the pies were heaped with whipped cream and everything was sizzling and bubbling that ought to sizzle and bubble we'd better go and dress now said anne for they may be here by twelve
thanks either to the lemon juice or to the unusual flush on her cheeks when they were ready they looked quite as sweet and trim and girlish as ever did any of missus morgan's heroines i do hope i'll be able to say something once in a while
and not sit like a mute said diana anxiously all missus morgan's heroines converse so beautifully but i'm afraid i'll be tongue tied and stupid and i'll be sure to say i seen i haven't often said it since miss stacy taught here
but in moments of excitement it's sure to pop out anne if i were to say i seen before missus morgan i'd die of mortification and it would be almost as bad to have nothing to say i'm nervous about a good many things said anne
but i don't think there is much fear that i won't be able to talk and to do her justice there wasn't anne shrouded her muslin glories in a big apron and went down to concoct her soup marilla had dressed herself and the twins
and looked more excited than she had ever been known to look before at half past twelve the allans and miss stacy came everything was going well but anne was beginning to feel nervous it was surely time for priscilla and missus morgan to arrive
she made frequent trips to the gate and looked as anxiously down the lane as ever her namesake in the bluebeard story peered from the tower casement suppose they don't come at all she said piteously don't suppose it
said diana who however was beginning to have uncomfortable misgivings on the subject anne said marilla coming out from the parlor
she had in accordance with her promise to missus lynde written to miss barry of charlottetown asking for the loan of it miss barry was an old friend of anne's and she promptly sent the platter out with a letter exhorting anne to be very careful of it
for she had paid twenty dollars for it the platter had served its purpose at the aid bazaar and had then been returned to the green gables closet for anne would not trust anybody but herself to take it back to town
she carried the platter carefully to the front door where her guests were enjoying the cool breeze that blew up from the brook it was examined and admired then just as anne had taken it back into her own hands a terrific crash and clatter sounded from the kitchen pantry
marilla diana and anne fled out the latter pausing only long enough to set the precious platter hastily down on the second step of the stairs when they reached the pantry a truly harrowing spectacle met their eyes
where he already kept a score or so of similar balls which so far as could be discovered
davy had to climb on the table and reach over to the shelf at a dangerous angle something he had been forbidden by marilla to do as he had come to grief once before in the experiment the result in this instance was disastrous
davy slipped and came sprawling squarely down on the lemon pies his clean blouse was ruined for that time and the pies for all time it is however an ill wind that blows nobody good
said marilla pushing him toward the hall what shall we do for dessert asked anne looking regretfully at the wreck and ruin get out a crock of strawberry preserves said marilla consolingly
but couldn't be depended on to remain so for any length of time i don't believe they're coming after all said marilla crossly anne and diana sought comfort in each other's eyes at half past one marilla again emerged from the parlor
girls we must have dinner everybody is hungry and it's no use waiting any longer priscilla and missus morgan are not coming that's plain and nothing is being improved by waiting anne and diana set about lifting the dinner
with all the zest gone out of the performance i don't believe i'll be able to eat a mouthful said diana dolefully nor i
i put a spoonful of sugar in we always do don't you like it
said marilla who had listened to this dialogue with a rather guilty expression i didn't think you'd remember about the sugar anne for i'm perfectly certain you never did before so i put in a spoonful
let's carry the things in and get it over it cannot be said that that dinner was a notable success socially the allans and miss stacy exerted themselves to save the situation and marilla's customary placidity was not noticeably ruffled
but anne and diana between their disappointment and the reaction from their excitement of the forenoon could neither talk nor eat anne tried heroically to bear her part in the conversation for the sake of her guests but all the sparkle had been quenched in her for the time being
and in spite of her love for the allans and miss stacy she couldn't help thinking how nice it would be when everybody had gone home and she could bury her weariness and disappointment in the pillows of the east gable there is an old proverb that really seems at times to be inspired
it never rains but it pours the measure of that day's tribulations was not yet full just as mister allan had finished returning thanks there arose a strange ominous sound on the stairs as of some hard heavy object bounding from step to step
finishing up with a grand smash at the bottom everybody ran out into the hall
i set that platter there and forgot all about it i am properly punished for my carelessness but oh what will miss barry say well you know she only bought it so it isn't the same as if it was an heirloom
said diana trying to console the guests went away soon after feeling that it was the most tactful thing to do and anne and diana washed the dishes talking less than they had ever been known to do before then diana went home with a headache
and oh anne dear
for by the time aunty's ankle is well she will have to go back to toronto she has to be there by a certain date well sighed anne
while the twilight rained down out of a dappled sky i always thought it was too good to be true that missus morgan should really come but there that speech sounds as pessimistic as miss eliza andrews and i'm ashamed of making it
after all it was not too good to be true things just as good and far better are coming true for me all the time and i suppose the events of today have a funny side too perhaps when diana and i are old and gray we shall be able to laugh over them
for it has truly been a bitter disappointment you'll probably have a good many more and worse disappointments than that before you get through life
it seems to me anne that you are never going to outgrow your fashion of setting your heart so on things and then crashing down into despair because you don't get them i know i'm too much inclined that way agreed anne ruefully
i think it almost pays for the thud well maybe it does admitted marilla i'd rather walk calmly along and do without both flying and thud but everybody has her own way of living i used to think there was only one right way
but since i've had you and the twins to bring up i don't feel so sure of it what are you going to do about miss barry's platter pay her back the twenty dollars she paid for it i suppose i'm so thankful it wasn't a cherished heirloom because then no money could replace it
maybe you could find one like it somewhere and buy it for her i'm afraid not platters as old as that are very scarce missus lynde couldn't find one anywhere for the supper i only wish i could for of course miss barry would just as soon have one platter as another
if both were equally old and genuine marilla look at that big star over mister harrison's maple grove with all that holy hush of silvery sky about it it gives me a feeling that is like a prayer after all when one can see stars and skies like that
where's davy said marilla with an indifferent glance at the star in bed
of course the original agreement was that he must be good but he tried to be good and i hadn't the heart to disappoint him you'll drown yourself or the twins rowing about the pond in that flat grumbled marilla
i've lived here for sixty years and i've never been on the pond yet well it's never too late to mend said anne roguishly suppose you come with us tomorrow we'll shut green gables up and spend the whole day at the shore daffing the world aside
do you suppose there is any truth in the gossip that mister harrison is going to see isabella andrews no i'm sure there isn't he just called there one evening on business with mister harmon andrews and missus lynde saw him and said she knew he was courting because he had a white collar on
i don't believe mister harrison will ever marry he seems to have a prejudice against marriage well you can never tell about those old bachelors and if he had a white collar on i'd agree with rachel that it looks suspicious
i think he only put it on because he wanted to conclude a business deal with harmon andrews said anne i've heard him say that's the only time a man needs to be particular about his appearance because if he looks prosperous the party of the second part won't be so likely to try to cheat him
i really feel sorry for mister harrison
there was more excitement in the air of green gables than there had ever been before in all its history even marilla was so excited that she couldn't help showing it which was little short of being phenomenal
and his wife had a baby here but there's never been a wedding before it does seem so strange to think of anne being married in a way she just seems to me the little girl matthew brought home here fourteen years ago
i can't realize that she's grown up i shall never forget what i felt when i saw matthew bringing in a girl
i wonder what his fate was well it was a fortunate mistake said missus rachel lynde though mind you there was a time i didn't think so that evening i came up to see anne and she treated us to such a scene
i'm going to give anne two of my cotton warp spreads she resumed a tobacco stripe one and an apple leaf one she tells me they're getting to be real fashionable again
well fashion or no fashion i don't believe there's anything prettier for a spare room bed than a nice apple leaf spread that's what i must see about getting them bleached i've had them sewed up in cotton bags ever since thomas died
and no doubt they're an awful color but there's a month yet and dew bleaching will work wonders only a month marilla sighed and then said proudly i'm giving anne that half dozen braided rugs i have in the garret
i never supposed she'd want them they're so old fashioned and nobody seems to want anything but hooked mats now but she asked me for them said she'd rather have them than anything else for her floors they are pretty
i made them of the nicest rags and braided them in stripes it was such company these last few winters
it seems real strange
and i thought they might as well be cut down and this last spring they were white and such a crop of plums i never remember at green gables
it's what i've always prayed for said missus rachel in the tone of one who is comfortably sure that her prayers have availed much it was a great relief to find out that she really didn't mean to take the kingsport man
he was rich to be sure and gilbert is poor at least to begin with but then he's an island boy he's gilbert blythe said marilla contentedly marilla would have died the death before she would have
put into words the thought that was always in the background of her mind whenever she had looked at gilbert from his childhood up the thought that had it not been for her own wilful pride long long ago he might have been her son
marilla felt that in some strange way his marriage with anne would put right that old mistake good had come out of the evil of the ancient bitterness as for anne herself she was so happy that she almost felt frightened
the gods so says the old superstition do not like to behold too happy mortals it is certain at least that some human beings do not
two of that ilk descended upon anne one violet dusk and proceeded to do what in them lay to prick the rainbow bubble of her satisfaction if she thought she was getting any particular prize in young doctor blythe
it was surely their duty to put the matter before her in another light yet these two worthy ladies were not enemies of anne on the contrary they were really quite fond of her
human nature is not obliged to be consistent
came with her mother and missus jasper bell but in jane the milk of human kindness had not been curdled by years of matrimonial bickerings her lines had fallen in pleasant places in spite of the fact as missus rachel lynde would say
her marriage had been happy wealth had not spoiled her she was still the placid amiable pink cheeked jane of the old quartette sympathising with her old chum's happiness and as keenly interested in all the dainty details of anne's trousseau
jane was not brilliant and had probably never made a remark worth listening to in her life but she never said anything that would hurt anyone's feelings which may be a negative talent but is likewise a rare and enviable one
so gilbert didn't go back on you after all said missus harmon andrews contriving to convey an expression of surprise in her tone
red hair is very fashionable now said anne trying to smile but speaking rather coldly life had developed in her a sense of humor which helped her over many difficulties
but as yet nothing had availed to steel her against a reference to her hair so it is so it is conceded missus harmon there's no telling what queer freaks fashion will take
i hope you'll be very happy you have my best wishes i'm sure a long engagement doesn't often turn out well but of course in your case it couldn't be helped
gilbert looks very young for a doctor i'm afraid people won't have much confidence in him said missus jasper bell gloomily then she shut her mouth tightly as if she had said what she considered it her duty to say and held her conscience clear
she belonged to the type which always has a stringy black feather in its hat and straggling locks of hair on its neck anne's surface pleasure in her pretty bridal things was temporarily shadowed
but the deeps of happiness below could not thus be disturbed and the little stings of mesdames bell and andrews were forgotten when gilbert came later and they wandered down to the birches of the brook which had been saplings when anne had come to green gables
but were now tall ivory columns in a fairy palace of twilight and stars in their shadows anne and gilbert talked in lover fashion of their new home and their new life together i've found a nest for us anne oh where
but when we get a phone in that won't matter so much the situation is beautiful it looks to the sunset and has the great blue harbor before it the sand dunes aren't very far away the sea winds blow over them and the sea spray drenches them
but the house itself gilbert our first home what is it like not very large but large enough for us there's a splendid living room with a fireplace in it downstairs and a dining room that looks out on the harbor
it was well built to begin with i understand that there was some romantic story connected with its building but the man i rented it from didn't know it he said captain jim was the only one who could spin that old yarn now who is captain jim
who owns the house well it's the property of the glen saint mary presbyterian church now and i rented it from the trustees but it belonged until lately to a very old lady miss elizabeth russell
glen saint mary folks prefer plush brocade and sideboards with mirrors and ornamentations i fancy but miss russell's furniture is very good and i feel sure you'll like it anne so far good said anne
there is a big grove of fir trees behind it two rows of lombardy poplars down the lane and a ring of white birches around a very delightful garden our front door opens right into the garden
the hinges are on one trunk and the catch on the other their boughs form an arch overhead oh i'm so glad i couldn't live where there were no trees something vital in me would starve
that would be expecting too much but there is a brook and it actually cuts across one corner of the garden then said anne with a long sigh of supreme satisfaction
doctor chilton oh aunt polly i'd so love to have doctor chilton i've wanted him all the time but i was afraid you didn't on account of his seeing you in the sun parlor that day you know so i didn't like to say anything but
i'm so glad you do want him aunt polly's face had turned white then red then back to white again but when she answered she showed very plainly that she was trying to speak lightly and cheerfully
oh no dear it wasn't doctor chilton at all that i meant it is a new doctor a very famous doctor from new york who who knows a great deal about about hurts like yours
pollyanna's face fell i don't believe he knows half so much as doctor chilton oh yes he does i'm sure dear but it was doctor chilton who doctored mister pendleton's broken leg aunt polly
if if you don't mind very much i would like to have doctor chilton truly i would a distressed color suffused miss polly's face for a moment she did not speak at all
then she said gently though yet with a touch of her old stern decisiveness but i do mind pollyanna i mind very much i would do anything almost anything for you my dear
but i for reasons which i do not care to speak of now i don't wish doctor chilton called in on on this case and believe me he can not know so much about about your trouble as this great doctor does
who will come from new york to morrow pollyanna still looked unconvinced but aunt polly if you loved doctor chilton what pollyanna aunt polly's voice was very sharp now
her cheeks were very red too i say if you loved doctor chilton and didn't love the other one sighed pollyanna seems to me that would make some difference in the good he would do and i love doctor chilton
the nurse entered the room at that moment and aunt polly rose to her feet abruptly a look of relief on her face i am very sorry pollyanna she said a little stiffly
but i'm afraid you'll have to let me be the judge this time besides it's already arranged the new york doctor is coming to morrow as it happened however the new york doctor did not come to morrow
at the last moment a telegram told of an unavoidable delay owing to the sudden illness of the specialist himself
which would be so easy now you know but as before aunt polly shook her head and said no dear very decisively
that she would do anything anything but that to please her dear pollyanna as the days of waiting passed one by one it did indeed seem that aunt polly was doing everything but that
that she could do to please her niece i wouldn't a believed it you couldn't a made me believe it nancy said to old tom one morning
if tain't more than ter let in the cat an her what wouldn't let fluff nor buff up stairs for love nor money a week ago
she's sent timothy down ter cobb's greenhouse three times for fresh flowers an that besides all the posies fetched in ter her too an the other day if i didn't find her sittin
an miss pollyanna lookin on an bossin from the bed
an i declare ter goodness if miss polly hain't
old tom chuckled well it strikes me miss polly herself ain't lookin none the worse for wearin them ere curls round her forehead he observed dryly course she ain't retorted nancy indignantly
she looks like folks now she's actually almost keerful now nancy interrupted the old man with a slow grin
nancy shrugged her shoulders oh she ain't handsome of course but i will own up she don't look like the same woman what with the ribbons an lace jiggers miss pollyanna makes her wear round her neck
fore miss pollyanna come say mister tom who was her a lover i hain't found that out yet i hain't i hain't hain't ye asked the old man with an odd look on his face
well i guess ye won't then from me oh mister tom come on now wheedled the girl ye see there ain't many folks here that i can ask maybe not but there's one anyhow that ain't answerin
grinned old tom then abruptly the light died from his eyes how is she ter day the little gal nancy shook her head her face too had sobered just the same mister tom
there ain't no special diff'rence as i can see or anybody i guess she jest lays there an sleeps an talks some an tries ter smile an be glad cause the sun sets or the moon rises or some other such thing
oh yes she told me long ago the old man hesitated then went on his lips twitching a little i was growlin one day cause i was so bent up and crooked an what do ye s'pose the little thing said
i couldn't guess i wouldn't think she could find anythin about that ter be glad about she did she said i could be glad anyhow that i didn't have ter stoop so far ter do my weedin
cause i was already bent part way over nancy gave a wistful laugh well i ain't surprised after all you might know she'd find somethin we've been playin it that game since almost the first
cause there wa'n't no one else she could play it with though she did speak of her aunt miss polly nancy chuckled i guess you hain't got such an awful diff'rent opinion o the mistress than i have she bridled
old tom stiffened i was only thinkin twould be some of a surprise to her he explained with dignity
i'd believe anythin o the mistress now even that she'd take ter playin it herself but hain't the little gal told her ever she's told ev'ry one else i guess i'm hearin of it ev'rywhere now since she was hurted said tom
well she didn't tell miss polly rejoined nancy miss pollyanna told me long ago that she couldn't tell her cause her aunt didn't like ter have her talk about her father an twas her father's game
cause he took miss jennie away from em an miss polly young as she was couldn't never forgive him she was that fond of miss jennie in them days i see i see twas a bad mess he sighed as he turned away
yes twas all round all round sighed nancy in her turn as she went back to her kitchen for no one were those days of waiting easy the nurse tried to look cheerful
but her eyes were troubled the doctor was openly nervous and impatient miss polly said little but even the softening waves of hair about her face and the becoming laces at her throat could not hide the fact
that she was growing thin and pale as to pollyanna pollyanna petted the dog smoothed the cat's sleek head admired the flowers and ate the fruits and jellies that were sent in to her
and returned innumerable cheery answers to the many messages of love and inquiry that were brought to her bedside but she too grew pale and thin and the nervous activity of the poor little hands and arms
only emphasized the pitiful motionlessness of the once active little feet and legs now lying so woefully quiet under the blankets as to the game pollyanna told nancy these days how glad she was going to be
this time beldingsville did not literally welcome pollyanna home with brass bands and bunting perhaps because the hour of her expected arrival was known to but few of the townspeople
but there certainly was no lack of joyful greetings on the part of everybody from the moment she stepped from the railway train with her aunt polly and doctor chilton nor did pollyanna lose any time
in starting on a round of fly away minute calls on all her old friends indeed for the next few days according to nancy there wasn't no putting of your finger on her anywheres
she wa'n't there and always everywhere she went pollyanna met the question well how did you like boston perhaps to no one did she answer this more fully than she did to mister pendleton
as was usually the case when this question was put to her she began her reply with a troubled frown oh i liked it i just loved it some of it but not all of it smiled mister pendleton
no there's parts of it oh i was glad to be there she explained hastily i had a perfectly lovely time and lots of things were so queer and different you know
like eating dinner at night instead of noons when you ought to eat it but everybody was so good to me and i saw such a lot of wonderful things bunker hill and the public garden and the seeing boston autos
and miles of pictures and statues and store windows and streets that didn't have any end and folks i never saw such a lot of folks well i'm sure
i thought you liked folks commented the man i do pollyanna frowned again and pondered but what's the use of such a lot of them if you don't know em and missus carew wouldn't let me
she didn't know em herself she said folks didn't down there there was a slight pause then with a sigh pollyanna resumed
i reckon maybe that's the part i don't like the most that folks don't know each other it would be such a lot nicer if they did why just think mister pendleton there are lots of folks that live on dirty narrow streets
and have more things to eat and wear than they know what to do with now if those folks only knew the other folks but mister pendleton interrupted with a laugh my dear child did it ever occur to you
that these people don't care to know each other he asked quizzically oh but some of them do maintained pollyanna in eager defense
she sells bows lovely bows in a big store she wants to know people and i introduced her to missus carew and we had her up to the house and we had jamie and lots of others there too and she was so glad to know them
and that's what made me think that if only a lot of missus carew's kind could know the other kind but of course i couldn't do the introducing i didn't know many of them myself anyway but if they could know each other
so that the rich people could give the poor people part of their money but again mister pendleton interrupted with a laugh oh pollyanna pollyanna he chuckled i'm afraid you're getting into pretty deep water
i'd like to be one i don't doubt it pollyanna smiled the man but when it comes to this scheme of yours for the wholesale distribution of wealth you've got a problem on your hands that you might have difficulty with
bridled the little girl aggrievedly as the man began to laugh and anyway i don't understand why some folks should have such a lot and other folks shouldn't have anything and i don't like it
surrendered and laughed with him well anyway she reiterated when she had caught her breath i don't understand it all the same no dear i'm afraid you don't agreed the man
in talking of jamie pollyanna lost her worried baffled look pollyanna loved to talk of jamie here was something she understood here was no problem
that had to deal with big fearsome sounding words besides in this particular instance would not mister pendleton be especially interested in missus carew's taking the boy into her home
for who better than himself could understand the need of a child's presence for that matter pollyanna talked to everybody about jamie she assumed that everybody would be as interested as she herself was
on most occasions she was not disappointed in the interest shown but one day she met with a surprise it came through jimmy pendleton say look a here he demanded one afternoon irritably
wasn't there anybody else down to boston but just that everlasting jamie why jimmy bean what do you mean cried pollyanna the boy lifted his chin a little
i'm not jimmy bean i'm jimmy pendleton and i mean that i should think from your talk that there wasn't anybody down to boston but just that loony boy who calls them birds and squirrels lady lancelot
he is a very nice boy and he knows a lot books and stories why he can make stories right out of his own head besides it isn't lady lancelot it's sir lancelot
if you knew half as much as he does you'd know that too she finished with flashing eyes jimmy pendleton flushed miserably and looked utterly wretched
growing more and more jealous moment by moment still doggedly he held his ground well anyhow he scoffed i don't think much of his name jamie humph sounds sissy
and i know somebody else that said so too who was it there was no answer who was it demanded pollyanna more peremptorily dad
with his eyes turned away yet there was a curious softness in his voice that was always noticeable whenever he spoke of his father you yes twas just a little while before he died
we stopped most a week with a farmer dad helped about the hayin' and i did too some the farmer's wife was awful good to me and pretty quick she was callin me jamie i don't know why but she just did
and one day father heard her he got awful mad so mad that i remembered it always what he said he said jamie wasn't no sort of a name for a boy
it was not often that jimmy said much of that mysterious past life of his before she had known him and what happened next she prompted pollyanna had for the moment forgotten all about the original subject of the controversy
the name jamie that was dubbed sissy the boy sighed we just went on till we found another place and twas there dad died
and you've known me ever since repeated jimmy but in a far different voice jimmy had suddenly come back to the present and to his grievance but then i ain't jamie you know he finished with scornful emphasis
as he turned loftily away leaving a distressed bewildered pollyanna behind him well anyway i can be glad he doesn't always act like this sighed the little girl
shahrazad continued it hath reached me o auspicious king that sa'adan having broken into the palace of king jamak
the survivors cried out quarter quarter and sa'adan said to them pinion your king so they bound jamak and took him up and sa'adan drove them before him like sheep
after the most part of the citizens had perished by the enemy's swords when the king of babel came to himself he found himself bound and heard sa'adan say i will sup to night off this king jamak
and from the vengeance of the living one who ceaseth not so jamak professed al islam with heart and tongue and gharib bade loose his bonds then he expounded the faith to his people
and they all became true believers after which jamak returned to the city and despatched thence
and wine to the camp before babel where they passed the night on the morrow
gave the signal for the march and they fared on till they came
and had fled to cufa city and told ajib when he heard the news his doom day appeared to him and he assembled his braves and informing them of the enemy's approach ordered them
after which he numbered them and found them thirty thousand horse
he levied other fifty thousand men cavalry and infantry and taking horse amid a mighty host rode forwards till he came upon his brother's army encamped before mosul
and pitched his tents in face of their lines
who sendeth thee a writ so do thou return him a reply quoth ajib give me the letter accordingly sahim gave it to him and he tore it open and found therein in the name of allah the compassionating
the compassionate peace on abraham the friend await but afterwards as soon as this letter shall come to thy hand do thou confess the unity of the bountiful king causer of causes
an thou do this thing thou art my brother and ruler over us and i will pardon thee the deaths of my father and mother nor will i reproach thee with what thou hast done but an thou obey not my bidding
behold i will hasten to thee and cut off thy head and lay waste thy dominions verily i give thee good counsel and the peace be on those who pace the path of salvation and obey the most high king
then he tore the letter in pieces and threw it away which vexed sahim and he cried out upon ajib saying allah wither thy hand for the deed thou hast done with this ajib cried out to his men saying
but he bared blade and fell upon them and slew of them more than fifty braves after which he cut his way out though bathed in blood
so the fighting men donned their hauberks and coats of straitwoven mail and baldrick'd themselves with their swords the footmen drew out in battle array whilst the horsemen mounted their prancing horses
and dancing camels and levelled their long lances and the champions rushed into the field ajib and his men also took horse and host charged down upon host and shahrazad perceived
that when gharib and his merry men took horse ajib and his troops also mounted and host charged down upon host then ruled the kazi of battle in whose ordinance is no wrong for a seal is on his lips
and he speaketh not and the blood railed in rills and purfled earth with curious embroidery heads grew gray and hotter waxed battle and fiercer feet slipped
and returned to their tents where they righted next morning as soon as it was day the cymbals beat to battle and derring do and the warriors donned their harness of fight
was sahim who crave his destrier between the two lines and played with swords and spears and turned over all the capitula of combat till men of choicest wits were confounded
and he tare him in twain and a fourth and he did him to death nor did they cease sallying out to him and he left not slaying them till it was noon by which time he had laid low two hundred braves
then ajib cried to his men charge once more and sturdy host on sturdy host down bore and great was the clash of arms and battle roar the shining swords out rang
and the night came on in black array when they drew apart and returning to their tents passed the night there as soon as morning morrowed the two hosts mounted and sought the field of fight
and the moslems looked for gharib to back steed and ride under the standards as was his wont but he came not so sahim sent to his brother's pavilion a slave who finding him not
we know naught of him whereat he was greatly concerned and went forth and told the troops who refrained from battle saying
strange but true which we will set out in order due and it was thus when ajib returned to his camp on the preceding night he called one of his guardsmen by name sayyar and said to him
under the darkness of the night when all the men had gone to their places of rest
ere he fell down with head distancing heels whereupon sayyar wrapped him in his cloak and carrying him to ajib's tent threw him down at his feet quoth ajib
whereat ajib rejoiced and said the blessings of the idols light upon thee loose him and wake him so they made him sniff up vinegar and he came to himself and opened his eyes
and who shall be overthrown by the wrath of the almighty king who wotteth what is in hearts and who shall leave thee in gehenna tormented and confounded have ruth on thyself and say with me
there is no god but the god and abraham is the friend of god
and if we be beaten his being alive in our hands will be a strength to us
the minister speaketh sooth and shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say when it was the six hundred and thirty ninth night she continued
and chain him up in his own tent and set a thousand stout warriors to guard him meanwhile
and found not their king were as sheep sans a shepherd but sa'adan the ghul cried out at them saying o folk don your war gear and trust to your lord to defend you
so arabs and ajams mounted horse after clothing themselves in hauberks of iron and skirting themselves in straight knit mail and sallied forth to the field
then dashed out the ghul of the mountain with a club on his shoulder two hundred pounds in weight and wheeled and careered saying ho worshippers of idols
come ye out and renown it this day for tis a day of onslaught whoso knoweth me hath enough of my mischief and whoso knoweth me not i will make myself known to him i am sa'adan
who is for jousting who is for fighting let no faintheart come forth to me to day nor weakling and there rushed upon him a champion of the infidels as he were a flame of fire and drove at him
but sa'adan charged home at him and dealt him with his club a blow which broke his ribs and cast him lifeless to the earth then he called out to his sons and slaves saying light the bonfire
and whoso falleth of the kafirs do ye dress him and roast him well in the flame then bring him to me that i may break my fast on him so they kindled a fire midmost the plain
and laid thereon the slain till he was cooked when they brought him to sa'adan who gnawed his flesh and crunched his bones when the miscreants saw the mountain ghul do this deed they were frighted
with sore wright but ajib cried out to his men saying out on you fall upon the ogre and hew him in hunks with your scymitars so twenty thousand men ran at sa'adan whilst the footmen
thou speakest sooth o sa'adan but ajib passed the night in joy and he said to his men mount ye on the morrow and fall upon the moslems so shall not one of them be left alive
and they replied hearkening and obedience this is how it fared with them but as regards the moslems they passed the night dejected and weeping for their king and sa'adan but sahim said to them
o folk be not concerned for the aidance of almighty allah is nigh then he waited till midnight when he assumed the garb of a tent pitcher and repairing to ajib's camp
made his way between the tents and pavilions till he came to the king's marquee where he saw him seated on his throne surrounded by his princes so he entered and going up to the candles which burnt in the tent
snuffed them and sprinkled levigated henbane on the wicks after which he withdrew and waited without the marquee till the smoke of the burning henbane reached ajib and his princes
and they fell to the ground like dead men then he left them and went to the prison tent
and sa'adan also insensible he aroused them by making them smell and sniff at a sponge full of vinegar he had with him thereupon he loosed their bonds and collars
and when they saw him they blessed him and rejoiced in him after this they went forth and took all the arms of the guards and sahim said to them go to your own camp
and wrapping him in his cloak lifted him up and made for the moslem encampment and the lord compassionate protected him
so he made him smell the vinegar mixed with incense
the sun was setting once more over the virginia hills destined to be scarred so deeply by battle but attack and defense went on as night came the thudding of cannon added to the tumult
and masses of infantry supported by heavy batteries had turned to protect the crossing the southern vanguard could not assail such a powerful force and before the night was over the whole union army
as mc clellan's had been forced to draw back at the seven days and satisfaction that they were safe for the time being and could prepare for a new start but the feeling of exultation soon passed
and gave way wholly to chagrin they were retreating before an army not exceeding their own in numbers perhaps less they had another great force the army of the potomac which should have been there
and then they could have bade defiance to lee and jackson the north with its great numbers its fine courage and its splendid patriotism should never be retreating he felt once more as thousands of others felt
that the hand on the reins was neither strong nor sure and that the great trouble lay there they ought not to be hiding behind a river lee and jackson did not do it dick remembered that grim commander in the west
the silent grant and he did not believe he would be retreating long after darkness came the firing continued between skirmishers across the stream but finally it too waned
had not the crashes been so irregular he stood up rubbed his eyes and then looked in the direction whence came the cannonade he saw from the crest of a hill great numbers of confederate troops on the other side of the river
it was a strange sight to dick one that is not looked upon often two great armies gazing across a river at each other and sure to meet sooner or later in mortal combat
it was thrilling awe inspiring but it made his heart miss a beat or two at the thought of the wounds and death to come all the more terrible because those who fought together were of the same blood and the same nation
warner and pennington joined him on the height where he stood and they saw that in the early hours before dawn the northern generals had not been idle the whole army of pope was massed along the left bank of the river
and every high point was crowned with heavy batteries of artillery there had been a long drought and at some points the rappahannock could be forded but not in the face of such a defence as the north here offered
will they try to cross sir asked dick of the colonel i don't think so but if they do we ought to beat them back meanwhile dick my boy every day's delay is a fresh card in our hand
whence it can march in two days to a junction with us when we would become overwhelming and irresistible but i wish it didn't take so long to disembark an army the note of anxiety in his voice did not escape dick
you wish then to be sure of the junction between our two armies before lee and jackson strike yes dick that is what is on my mind the retreat of this army although it may have caused us chagrin was most opportune
lee and jackson they surely have a plan of some kind but what is it have we any definite news from the other side sir shepard came in this morning but little ever escapes him
and he says that the whole southern army is up all their best leaders are there lee and jackson and longstreet and the hills and early and lawton and the others
don't you think we could do it sir couldn't general pope retreat on washington then and as they continued to follow us we could turn and spring on them with both armies but colonel winchester shook his head
it would never do he said all europe eager to see the union split would then help the confederacy in every possible manner the old monarchies would say that
we'll triumph in the end it's my own feeling dick it cannot it must not be any other way dick remained upborne by a confidence in the future rather than in the present
and throughout the morning he remained with his comrades under arms but doing little save to hear the fitful firing which ran along a front of several miles but later in the day a heavy crash came from a ford
further up the stream under cover of a great artillery fire stuart's cavalry dashed into the ford and drove off the infantry and a battery posted to defend it then they triumphantly placed heavy lines of pickets
they charged with so much impetuosity that stuart's cavalry abandoned such dangerous ground all the pickets were drawn in and they retreated in haste across the stream
but throughout the afternoon they lay idle the pitiless august sun burned on and the dust that had been trodden up by the scores of thousands hung in clouds low but almost motionless
emptying into the rappahannock and bathed his face and hands hundreds of others were doing the same the water brought a great relief then he went back to colonel winchester and his comrades and waited patiently with them
until evening he remembered colonel winchester's words earlier in the day and as the darkness came he began to wonder what lee and jackson were thinking
but he distinguished only a black background and the dim light of fires dick was not wrong the confederate commanders did have a plan and the omens which seemed sinister to him were sinister in fact
and the army of the potomac nearer to richmond their own capital than they were nevertheless lee full of daring despite his years followed and the dangers were growing thicker every hour around pope
that he would not be able to cross the river again the hostile scouts and sharpshooters had become too vigilant yet he was sure that lee and jackson would attempt to force a passage higher up where the drought had made good fords
it's well that we're showing vigilance said colonel winchester to dick he had fallen into the habit of talking much and confidentially to the boy because he liked and trusted him and for another reason which
asked dick beyond a doubt they have every reason to strike before the army of the potomac can come besides it is in accord with the character of their generals both lee and jackson are always for the swift offensive
at a ford a mile above and also at another a mile or two further on the southern troops had begun a heavy fire and gathered in strong masses were threatening every moment to attempt the passage
but the union guns posted on hills made a vigorous reply and the time passed in heavy cannonades colonel winchester his brows knitted and anxious
he confided at last to his favorite aide his belief that what lay behind the cannonade was more important than the cannonade itself it must be a feint or a blind he said they fire a great deal
but they don't make any dash for the stream now the rebels haven't ammunition to waste then
they must be sending a heavy force higher up the river to cross where there is no resistance and we must meet them there with my regiment only if we can obtain no other men the colonel
obtained leave to go up the rappahannock until nightfall but only his own regiment now reduced to less than four hundred men was allotted to him in truth his division commander thought his purpose useless
but yielded to the insistence of winchester who was known to be an officer of great merit it seemed to the union generals that they must defend the fords where the southern army lay massed before them dick learned
had that ford in mind and he was glad to be with him on the march to it
which they learned afterward was being carried on by longstreet and followed the course of the stream as fast as they could over the hills and through the woods but with so many obstacles they made slow progress
but it applies just as it does on the great plains it means that a storm is coming anybody could tell that look there in the southwest see that cloud edging itself over the horizon
things will turn loose to night don't you say the same sergeant you've been out in my country sergeant whitley was standing near them regarding the cloud attentively yes mister pennington he replied
but he saw that he was very much in earnest nor was he one to underrate weather effects upon movements in war what will it mean to the two armies sergeant he asked
depends upon what happens before she busts if a rebel force is then across it's bad for us but if it ain't the more water between us an them the better this i take it is the end of the drought
and a flood will come tumbling down from the mountains the sun now darkened and the clouds gathered heavily on the western horizon colonel winchester's anxiety increased fast
it became evident that the regiment could not reach sulphur springs until far into the night and still full of alarms he resolved to take a small detachment chiefly of his staff
and ride forward at the utmost speed he chose about twenty men including dick warner pennington sergeant whitley and another veteran who were mounted on the horses of junior officers left behind
and pressed forward with speed a west virginian named shattuck knew something of the country and led them what is this place sulphur springs asked colonel winchester of shattuck
some big sulphur springs spout out of the bank and run down to the river they are fine and healthy to drink an there's a lot of cottages built up by people who come there to stay a while
it ain't no place for health just at this time that's a certainty said colonel winchester an then there's the bridge which as we know the cavalry has broke down fortunately but can't we go a little faster boys
there was a well defined road and shattuck now led them at a gallop as they approached the springs they checked their speed owing to the increasing darkness but dick's good ears soon told him that something was happening at the springs
and all listened intently it was very dark now and the wood was moaning but the columns of air came directly from the wood bearing clearly upon their crest the noises made by regiments
mister shattuck said colonel winchester how near do you think we can approach without being seen i know a neck of woods leading within a hundred yards of the cottages if we was to leave our horses here with a couple of men
we could slip down among the trees and bushes and there ain't one chance in ten that we'd be seen on so dark a night then you lead us pawley you and woodfall hold the horses now follow softly lads
and without noise but as they advanced the sounds of an army ahead of them increased and when they reached the edge of the covert they saw a great confederate division on their side of the stream in full possession
at the house of madame avogadro a woman full of wit in spite of her sixty years
of a young polish nobleman called zawoiski he was expecting money from poland but in the mean time the venetian ladies did not let him want for any being all very much in love with his handsome face and his polish manners
we soon became good friends my purse was his but twenty years later he assisted me to a far greater extent in munich zawoiski was honest he had only a small dose of intelligence but it was enough for his happiness
i will speak of him in another part of these memoirs this amiable young man who was a favourite with everybody and was thought a free thinker because he frequented the society of angelo querini and lunardo venier
presented me one day as we were out walking to an unknown countess who took my fancy very strongly we called on her in the evening and after introducing me to her husband count rinaldi she invited us to remain and have supper
the count made a faro bank in the course of the evening i punted with his wife as a partner
very much pleased with my new acquaintance i called alone on the countess the next morning the count apologizing for his wife who was not up yet took me to her room she received me with graceful ease
and her husband having left us alone she had the art to let me hope for every favour yet without committing herself when i took leave of her she invited me to supper for the evening after supper i played
still in partnership with her won again and went away very much in love i did not fail to pay her another visit the next morning but when i presented myself at the house i was told that she had gone out
and after she had excused herself for not having been at home in the morning the faro bank began and i lost all my money still having the countess for my partner after supper and when the other guests had retired i remained with zawoiski
count rinaldi having offered to give us our revenge as i had no more money i played upon trust and the count threw down the cards after i had lost five hundred sequins i went away in great sorrow
i was bound in honour to pay the next morning and i did not possess a groat love increased my despair for i saw myself on the point of losing the esteem of a woman by whom i was smitten
when we met in the morning he kindly encouraged me to confess my troubles to him i was conscious that it was my only chance and candidly related the whole affair and i ended by saying that i should not survive my disgrace
he consoled me by promising that my debt would be cancelled in the course of the day if i would swear never to play again upon trust i took an oath to that effect and kissing his hand i went out for a walk relieved from a great load
i had no doubt that my excellent father would give me five hundred sequins during the day and i enjoyed my anticipation the honour i would derive in the opinion of the lovely countess by my exactitude and prompt discharge of my debt
i felt that it gave new strength to my hopes and that feeling prevented me from regretting my heavy loss but grateful for the great generosity of my benefactor i was fully determined on keeping my promise
i dined with the three friends and the matter was not even alluded to but
and a parcel he read the letter asked me to follow him into his study and the moment we were alone he said here is a parcel for you i opened it and found some forty sequins seeing my surprise
the contents of which ran thus
may be sure that our playing last night was only a joke he owes me nothing my wife begs to send him half of the gold which he has lost in cash count rinaldi
perfectly amazed and he burst out laughing i guessed the truth thanked him and embracing him tenderly i promised to be wiser for the future the mist i had before my eyes was dispelled i felt that my love was defunct
and i remained rather ashamed when i realized that i had been the dupe of the wife as well as of the husband this evening said my clever physician you can have a gay supper with the charming countess this evening my dear respected benefactor
i will have supper with you you have given me a masterly lesson the next time you lose money upon trust you had better not pay it but i should be dishonoured never mind the sooner you dishonour yourself
the more you will save for you will always be compelled to accept your dishonour whenever you find yourself utterly unable to pay your losses it is therefore more prudent not to wait until then
it is much better still to avoid that fatal impossibility by never playing otherwise than with money in hand no doubt of it for then you will save both your honour and your purse but as you are fond of games of chance i advise you never to punt
make the bank and the advantage must be on your side yes but only a slight advantage as slight as you please but it will be on your side and when the game is over you will find yourself a winner and not a loser the punter is excited
the banker is calm the last says i bet you do not guess while the first says i bet i can guess which is the fool and which is the wise man the question is easily answered
if at the end you lose why an idiot fortune is very fickle
it is a natural consequence leave off playing believe me the very moment you see luck turning even if you should at that moment win but one groat i had read plato and i was astonished at finding a man who could reason like socrates
the next day zawoiski called on me very early to tell me that i had been expected to supper and that count rinaldi had praised my promptness in paying my debts of honour i did not think it necessary to undeceive him
but i did not go again to count rinaldi's whom i saw sixteen years afterwards in milan as to zawoiski i did not tell him the story till i met him in carlsbad old and deaf forty years later three or four months later
taught me another of his masterly lessons i had become acquainted through zawoiski with a frenchman called l'abbadie who was then soliciting from the venetian government the appointment of inspector of the armies of the republic the senate appointed
and i presented him to my protector who promised him his vote but the circumstance i am going to relate prevented him from fulfilling his promise
try him i am certain that he will be glad to lend you that sum i doubt it but i will try i called upon l'abbadie on the following day and after a short exchange of compliments i told him the service i expected from his friendship
he excused himself in a very polite manner drowning his refusal in that sea of commonplaces which people are sure to repeat when they cannot or will not oblige a friend zawoiski came in as he was still apologizing and i left them together
he merely remarked that the frenchman was deficient in intelligence it just happened that it was the very day on which the appointment of the inspectorship was to be brought before the senate i went out to attend to my business i ought to say to my pleasure
and as i did not return home till after midnight i went to bed without seeing my father in the morning i said in his presence that i intended to call upon l'abbadie to congratulate him upon his appointment you may spare yourself that trouble
the senate has rejected his nomination how so three days ago l'abbadie felt sure of his success he was right then for he would have been appointed if i had not made up my mind to speak against him
i have proved to the senate that a right policy forbade the government to trust such an important post to a foreigner i am much surprised for your excellency was not of that opinion the day before yesterday very true
i found out only yesterday that the man was not sufficiently intelligent to fill the position he was soliciting is he likely to possess a sane judgment when he refuses to lend you one hundred sequins
that refusal has cost him an important appointment and an income of three thousand crowns which would now be his when i was taking my walk on the same day i met zawoiski with l'abbadie and did not try to avoid them
l'abbadie was furious and he had some reason to be so
guarienti and my brother left venice for rome where jean remained in the studio of the celebrated painter raphael mengs whom we shall meet again hereafter
in the early part of october seventeen forty six the theatres being opened i was walking about with my mask on when i perceived a woman whose head was well enveloped in the hood of her mantle getting out of the ferrara barge which had just arrived
seeing her alone and observing her uncertain walk i felt myself drawn towards her as if an unseen hand had guided me i come up to her and offer my services if i can be of any use to her
but if you would be kind enough to come with me to a cafe
she hesitates i insist and she gives way the tavern was close at hand
i take off my mask and out of politeness she must put down the hood of her mantle a large muslin head dress conceals half of her face but her eyes her nose and her pretty mouth are enough to let me see on her features beauty
nobleness sorrow and that candour which gives youth such an undefinable charm i need not say that with such a good letter of introduction the unknown at once captivated my warmest interest
after wiping away a few tears which are flowing in spite of all her efforts
and then deceived her thus sealing her everlasting misery you have then some hope of recalling him to the path of duty i suppose he has promised you marriage he has engaged his faith to me in writing the only favour i claim from your kindness
is to take me to his house to leave me there and to keep my secret you may trust madam to the feelings of a man of honour i am worthy of your trust have entire confidence in me for i already take a deep interest in all your concerns
tell me his name alas sir i give way to fate with these words she takes out of her bosom a paper which she gives me i recognize the handwriting of zanetto steffani
it was a promise of marriage by which he engaged his word of honour to marry within a week in venice the young countess a s when i have read the paper i return it to her saying that i knew the writer quite well that he was connected with the chancellor's office known as a great libertine
and deeply in debt but that he would be rich after his mother's death for god's sake take me to his house i will do anything you wish but have entire confidence in me and be good enough to hear me i advise you not to go to his house
he has already done you great injury and even supposing that you should happen to find him at home he might be capable of receiving you badly if he should not be at home it is most likely that his mother would not exactly welcome you
if you should tell her who you are and what is your errand trust to me and be quite certain that god has sent me on your way to assist you i promise you that to morrow at the latest you shall know whether steffani is in venice what he intends to do with you
and what we may compel him to do until then my advice is not to let him know your arrival in venice good god where shall i go to night to a respectable house of course i will go to yours if you are married
i am a bachelor i knew an honest widow who resided in a lane and who had two furnished rooms i persuade the young countess to follow me and we take a gondola
i was unfortunate enough she continued to inspire him with love and he postponed his departure he remained one month in c never going out but in the evening and spending every night under my windows conversing with me
he swore a thousand times that he adored me that his intentions were honourable i entreated him to present himself to my parents to ask me in marriage
but he always excused himself by alleging some reason good or bad assuring me that he could not be happy unless i shewed him entire confidence he would beg of me to make up my mind to run away with him
shortly after our marriage alas sir what shall i say now love blinded me i fell into the abyss i believed him i agreed to everything he gave me the paper which you have read
and the following night i allowed him to come into my room through the window under which he was in the habit of conversing with me i consented to be guilty of a crime which i believed would be atoned for within three days and he left me
promising that the next night he would be again under my window ready to receive me in his arms could i possibly entertain any doubt after the fearful crime i had committed for him i prepared a small parcel and waited for his coming
but in vain oh what a cruel long night it was in the morning i heard that the monster had gone away with his servant one hour after sealing my shame you may imagine my despair i adopted the only plan that despair could suggest
and that of course was not the right one one hour before midnight i left my father's roof alone thus completing my dishonour
but resolved on death if the man who has cruelly robbed me of my most precious treasure and whom a natural instinct told me i could find here does not restore me the honour which he alone can give me back i walked all night and nearly the whole day without taking any food
until i got into the barge which brought me here in twenty four hours i travelled in the boat with five men and two women but no one saw my face or heard my voice i kept constantly sitting down in a corner holding my head down half asleep
and with this prayer book in my hands i was left alone no one spoke to me and i thanked god for it when i landed on the wharf you did not give me time to think how i could find out the dwelling of my perfidious seducer
but you may imagine the impression produced upon me by the sudden apparition of a masked man who abruptly and as if placed there purposely by providence offered me his services it seemed to me that you had guessed my distress
and far from experiencing any repugnance i felt that i was acting rightly in trusting myself in your hands in spite of all prudence which perhaps
ought to have made me turn a deaf ear to your words and refuse the invitation to enter alone with you the house to which you took me you know all now sir but i entreat you not to judge me too severely i have been virtuous all through my life
one month ago i had never committed a fault which could call a blush upon my face and the bitter tears which i shed every day will i hope wash out my crime in the eyes of god i have been carefully brought up but love and the want of experience
have thrown me into the abyss i am in your hands and i feel certain that i shall have no cause to repent it i needed all she had just told me to confirm me in the interest which i had felt in her from the first moment
i told her unsparingly that steffani had seduced and abandoned her of malice aforethought and that she ought to think of him only to be revenged of his perfidy my words made her shudder and she buried her beautiful face in her hands we reached the widow's house
i then took an affectionate leave of her promising to see her early in the morning on leaving this interesting but hapless girl i proceeded to the house of steffani
i heard from one of his mother's gondoliers that he had returned to venice three days before but that twenty four hours after his return he had gone away again without any servant and nobody knew his whereabouts not even his mother the same evening
happening to be seated next to an abbe from bologna at the theatre i asked him several questions respecting the family of my unfortunate protegee the abbe being intimately acquainted with them
i gathered from him all the information i required and amongst other things i heard that the young countess had a brother then an officer in the papal service very early the next morning i called upon her she was still asleep the widow told me that she had made a pretty good supper
as soon as she had opened her door i entered her room and cutting short her apologies for having kept me waiting i informed her of all i had heard her features bore the stamp of deep sorrow but she looked calmer and her complexion was no longer pale
without giving her time to answer i told her all the particulars i had learned concerning her honourable family which caused her real satisfaction i have no objection she said to your going to c and i thank you for the generosity of your offer
but i beg you will postpone your journey i still hope that steffani will return and then i can take a decision
will you allow me to have some breakfast with you
i should be very sorry to disturb you in any way how did you use to amuse yourself at home i am very fond of books and music my harpsichord was my delight
i left her after breakfast and in the evening i came back with a basket full of good books and music and i sent her an excellent harpsichord my kindness confused her but i surprised her much more when i took out of my pocket three pairs of slippers
she blushed and thanked me with great feeling she had walked a long distance her shoes were evidently worn out her feet sore and she appreciated the delicacy of my present as i had no improper design with regard to her i enjoyed her gratitude
and felt pleased at the idea she evidently entertained of my kind attentions i had no other purpose in view but to restore calm to her mind and to obliterate the bad opinion which the unworthy steffani had given her of men in general
i never thought of inspiring her with love for me and i had not the slightest idea that i could fall in love with her she was unhappy and her unhappiness a sacred thing in my eyes
situated as she was i could not suppose her heart susceptible of harbouring a new affection and i would have despised myself if i had tried to seduce her by any means in my power i remained with her only a quarter of an hour
i was thus engaged in a rather delicate adventure the end of which i could not possibly foresee but my warmth for my protegee did not cool down and having no difficulty in procuring the means to keep her i had no wish to see the last scene of the romance
that singular meeting which gave me the useful opportunity of finding myself endowed with generous dispositions
when i appeared before her with a mask on my face in a costume which did not indicate a very virtuous character it was easy for me madam i continued to guess that you were a beauty in distress when i observed your youth the nobleness of your countenance
and more than all your candour the stamp of truth was so well affixed to the first words you uttered that i could not have the shadow of a doubt left in me as to your being the unhappy victim of the most natural of all feelings and as to your having abandoned your home through a sentiment of honour
your fault was that of a warm heart seduced by love over which reason could have no sway and your flight the action of a soul crying for reparation or for revenge fully justifies you
your cowardly seducer must pay with his life the penalty due to his crime and he ought never to receive by marrying you an unjust reward
everything you say is true my brother i hope will avenge me you are greatly mistaken if you imagine that steffani will fight your brother steffani is a coward who will never expose himself to an honourable death as i was speaking
she put her hand in her pocket and drew forth after a few moments consideration a stiletto six inches long which she placed on the table
but you have opened my eyes take away i entreat you this stiletto which henceforth is useless to me i trust in your friendship and i have an inward certainty that i shall be indebted to you for my honour as well as for my life
i was struck by the words she had just uttered and i felt that those words as well as her looks had found their way to my heart besides enlisting my generous sympathy i took the stiletto
and left her with so much agitation that i had to acknowledge the weakness of my heroism which i was very near turning into ridicule yet i had the wonderful strength to perform at least by halves the character of a cato until the seventh day
i must explain how a certain suspicion of the young lady arose in my mind that doubt was heavy on my heart for if it had proved true i should have been a dupe and the idea was humiliating she had told me that she was a musician
she had not opened it once for the widow had told me so it seemed to me that the best way to thank me for my attentive kindness would have been to give me a specimen of her musical talent had she deceived me if so she would lose my esteem
but unwilling to form a hasty judgment i kept on my guard with a firm determination to make good use of the first opportunity that might present itself to clear up my doubts i called upon her the next day after dinner
which was not my usual time having resolved on creating the opportunity myself i caught her seated before a toilet glass while the widow dressed the most beautiful auburn hair i had ever seen i tendered my apologies for my sudden appearance at an unusual hour
she excused herself for not having completed her toilet and the widow went on with her work it was the first time i had seen the whole of her face her neck and half of her arms which the graces themselves had moulded i remained in silent contemplation
i praised quite by chance the perfume of the pomatum and the widow took the opportunity of telling her that she had spent in combs powder and pomatum the three livres she had received from her
i blushed for very shame for i ought to have thought of that as soon as the widow had dressed her hair she left the room to prepare some coffee for us i took up a ring which had been laid by her on the toilet table
and i saw that it contained a portrait exactly like her
with black hair you are mistaken she said it is a portrait of my brother he is two years older than i and is an officer in the papal army i begged her permission to put the ring on her finger she consented
and when i tried out of mere gallantry to kiss her hand she drew it back blushing i feared she might be offended and i assured her of my respect ah sir she answered in the situation in which i am placed
i must think of defending myself against my own self much more than against you the compliment struck me as so fine and so complimentary to me that i thought it better not to take it up
yet i felt my love taking such proportions that i did not know how to keep it a mystery any longer soon after that
as she was again thanking me for the books i had given her saying that i had guessed her taste exactly because she did not like novels she added i owe you an apology for not having sung to you yet knowing that you are fond of music these words
made me breathe freely without waiting for any answer she sat down before the instrument and played several pieces with a facility with a precision with an expression of which
i was in ecstacy i entreated her to sing after some little ceremony
and she sang at sight in a manner which fairly ravished me i begged that she would allow me to kiss her hand and she did not say yes but when i took it and pressed my lips on it she did not oppose any resistance
i had the courage to smother my ardent desires and the kiss i imprinted on her lovely hand was a mixture of tenderness respect and admiration i took leave of her smitten full of love
and almost determined on declaring my passion
miss marrable was that hardest of all born tyrants an only child she had never granted a constitutional privilege to her oppressed father and mother since the time when she cut her first tooth her seventeenth birthday was now near at hand
she had decided on celebrating it by acting a play had issued her orders accordingly and had been obeyed by her docile parents as implicitly as usual missus marrable gave up the drawing room to be laid waste for a stage and a theater
mister marrable secured the services of a respectable professional person to drill the young ladies and gentlemen and to accept all the other responsibilities incidental to creating a dramatic world out of a domestic chaos
having further accustomed themselves to the breaking of furniture and the staining of walls to thumping tumbling hammering and screaming to doors always banging and to footsteps perpetually running up and down stairs
the nominal master and mistress of the house fondly believed that their chief troubles were over innocent and fatal delusion it is one thing in private society to set up the stage and choose the play
it is another thing altogether to find the actors hitherto only the small preliminary annoyances proper to the occasion had shown themselves at evergreen lodge the sound and serious troubles were all to come
the rivals having been chosen as the play miss marrable as a matter of course appropriated to herself the part of lydia languish
and another laid violent hands on sir lucius o'trigger these two were followed by an accommodating spinster relative who accepted the heavy dramatic responsibility of missus malaprop
and there the theatrical proceedings came to a pause nine more speaking characters were left to be fitted with representatives and with that unavoidable necessity the serious troubles began
all the friends of the family suddenly became unreliable people for the first time in their lives after encouraging the idea of the play they declined the personal sacrifice of acting in it or they accepted
characters and then broke down in the effort to study them or they volunteered to take the parts which they knew were already engaged and declined the parts which were waiting to be acted
or they were afflicted with weak constitutions and mischievously fell ill when they were wanted at rehearsal or they had puritan relatives in the background and after slipping into their parts
became hysterical under the strain of perpetual anxiety the family doctor declined to answer for the nervous consequences if something was not done renewed efforts were made in every direction
actors and actresses were sought with a desperate disregard of all considerations of personal fitness necessity which knows no law either in the drama or out of it
accepted a lad of eighteen as the representative of sir anthony absolute the stage manager undertaking to supply the necessary wrinkles from the illimitable resources of theatrical art
a lady whose age was unknown and whose personal appearance was stout but whose heart was in the right place volunteered to act the part of the sentimental julia
and brought with her the dramatic qualification of habitually wearing a wig in private life thanks to these vigorous measures the play was at last supplied with representatives
always excepting the two unmanageable characters of lucy the waiting maid and falkland julia's jealous lover gentlemen came saw julia at rehearsal observed her stoutness and her wig
omitted to notice that her heart was in the right place quailed at the prospect apologized and retired ladies read the part of lucy remarked that she appeared to great advantage in the first half of the play
and faded out of it altogether in the latter half objected to pass from the notice of the audience in that manner when all the rest had a chance of distinguishing themselves to the end shut up the book apologized and retired
three full rehearsals were absolutely necessary
with this lamentable story and with the humblest apologies for presuming on a slight acquaintance the marrables appeared at combe raven to appeal to the young ladies for a lucy
and to the universe for a falkland with the mendicant pertinacity of a family in despair this statement of circumstances
addressed to an audience which included a father of mister vanstone's disposition and a daughter of magdalen's temperament produced the result which might have been anticipated from the first
for norah and himself missus vanstone declined accompanying them on account of her health and miss garth only engaged to make one among the audience conditionally on not being wanted at home the parts of lucy and falkland
were handed to their representatives on the spot frank's faint remonstrances were rejected without a hearing the days and hours of rehearsal were carefully noted down on the covers of the parts and the marrables took their leave
with a perfect explosion of thanks father mother and daughter sowing their expressions of gratitude broadcast from the drawing room door to the garden gates as soon as the carriage had driven away
magdalen presented herself to the general observation under an entirely new aspect if any more visitors call to day she said with the profoundest gravity of look and manner
this is a far more serious matter than any of you suppose
and read over your part and don't let your attention wander if you can possibly help it i shall not be accessible before the evening if you will come here with papa's permission
after tea my views on the subject of falkland will be at your disposal thomas whatever else the gardener does he is not to make any floricultural noises under my window
and the quieter the house is the more obliged i shall feel to everybody before miss garth's battery of reproof could open fire before the first outburst of mister vanstone's hearty laughter could escape his lips
she bowed to them with imperturbable gravity ascended the house steps for the first time in her life at a walk instead of a run and retired then and there to the bedroom regions
frank's helpless astonishment at her disappearance added a new element of absurdity to the scene he stood first on one leg and then on the other
rolling and unrolling his part and looking piteously in the faces of the friends about him i know i can't do it he said may i come in after tea and hear magdalen's views thank you
don't tell my father about this acting please i should never hear the last of it those were the only words he had spirit enough to utter he drifted away aimlessly in the direction of the shrubbery
with the part hanging open in his hand the most incapable of falklands and the most helpless of mankind frank's departure left the family by themselves
and was the signal accordingly for an attack on mister vanstone's inveterate carelessness in the exercise of his paternal authority
what could you possibly be thinking of andrew when you gave your consent
surely my silence was a sufficient warning to you to say no a mistake mister vanstone chimed in miss garth made with the best intentions but a mistake for all that
it may be a mistake said norah taking her father's part as usual but i really don't see how papa or any one else could have declined under the circumstances
quite right my dear observed mister vanstone the circumstances as you say were dead against me here were these unfortunate people in a scrape on one side and magdalen on the other mad to act
i couldn't say i had methodistical objections i've nothing methodistical about me what other excuse could i make the marrables are respectable people and keep the best company in clifton
what harm can she get in their house if you come to prudence and that sort of thing why shouldn't magdalen do what miss marrable does there there let the poor things act and amuse themselves
what is your head running on now thought miss garth casting a sharp look at norah's dark downcast face you're one of the impenetrable sort give me magdalen with all her perversities i can see daylight through her
and everywhere from the garret to the kitchen the house seemed hardly like itself with the one ever disturbing element in the family serenity suddenly withdrawn from it
and comfortably arrayed in her morning wrapper until it was time to dress for dinner and there behind her sat the lady's maid slowly combing out the long heavy locks of her young mistress's hair
with the sleepy resignation of a woman who had been engaged in that employment for some hours past the sun was shining and the green shutters outside the window were closed the dim light fell tenderly on the two quiet seated figures
which looped up its curtains and the bright dress for dinner laid ready across it on the gayly painted bath with its pure lining of white enamel on the toilet table with its sparkling trinkets its crystal bottles
the cool fragrance of flowers and perfumes in the atmosphere the rapt attitude of magdalen absorbed over her reading the monotonous regularity of movement in the maid's hand and arm as she drew the comb smoothly
through and through her mistress's hair all conveyed the same soothing impression of drowsy delicious quiet on one side of the door were the broad daylight and the familiar realities of life
the sanctuary of unruffled repose miss garth paused on the threshold and looked into the room in silence magdalen's curious fancy for having her hair combed at all times and seasons
was among the peculiarities of her character which were notorious to everybody in the house it was one of her father's favorite jokes that she reminded him on such occasions of a cat having her back stroked
the girl's fervid temperament intensified the essentially feminine pleasure that most women feel in the passage of the comb through their hair to a luxury of sensation which absorbed her in enjoyment
so serenely self demonstrative so drowsily deep that it did irresistibly suggest a pet cat's enjoyment under a caressing hand
intimately as miss garth was acquainted with this peculiarity in her pupil she now saw it asserting itself for the first time in association with mental exertion of any kind on magdalen's part
she ventured on putting the question first to the mistress and receiving no answer in that quarter secondly to the maid all the afternoon miss off and on was the weary answer
miss magdalen says it soothes her feelings and clears her mind knowing by experience that interference would be hopeless under these circumstances miss garth turned sharply and left the room
she smiled when she was outside on the landing the female mind does occasionally though not often project itself into the future miss garth was prophetically pitying magdalen's unfortunate husband
dinner time presented the fair student to the family eye in the same mentally absorbed aspect on all ordinary occasions magdalen's appetite would have terrified those feeble sentimentalists
who affect to ignore the all important influence which female feeding exerts in the production of female beauty on this occasion she refused one dish after another with a resolution which implied the rarest of all modern martyrdoms
gastric martyrdom i have conceived the part of lucy she observed with the demurest gravity the next difficulty is to make frank conceive the part of falkland i see nothing to laugh at you would
all be serious enough if you had my responsibilities no papa no wine to day thank you i must keep my intelligence clear water thomas and a little more jelly i think before you take it away
when frank presented himself in the evening ignorant of the first elements of his part she took him in hand as a middle aged schoolmistress might have taken in hand a backward little boy
the few attempts he made to vary the sternly practical nature of the evening's occupation by slipping in compliments sidelong
of a woman of twice her age she literally forced him into his part her father fell asleep in his chair missus vanstone and miss garth lost their interest in the proceedings
retired to the further end of the room and spoke together in whispers it grew later and later and still magdalen never flinched from her task still with equal perseverance norah who had been on the watch all through the evening
kept on the watch to the end the distrust darkened and darkened on her face as she looked at her sister and frank
taking leave of mister vanstone at the hall door i'm to come to morrow and hear more of her views if you have no objection i shall never do it don't tell her i said so
as fast as she teaches me one speech
discouraging isn't it goodnight
on the previous evening missus vanstone's spirits had been sadly depressed at a private interview with miss garth she had referred again of her own accord to the subject of her letter from london
had spoken self reproachfully of her weakness in admitting captain wragge's impudent claim to a family connection with her and had then reverted to the state of her health
and to the doubtful prospect that awaited her in the coming summer in a tone of despondency which it was very distressing to hear anxious to cheer her spirits miss garth had changed the conversation as soon as possible
had referred to the approaching theatrical performance and had relieved missus vanstone's mind of all anxiety in that direction by announcing her intention of accompanying magdalen to each rehearsal
accordingly when frank presented himself at combe raven on the eventful morning there stood miss garth prepared in the interpolated character of argus to accompany lucy and falkland to the scene of trial
the railway conveyed the three in excellent time to evergreen lodge
the old miner had evidently not written it but no less evidently the author of this second letter knew the overman's secret since it expressly contradicted the invitation to the
engineer to go to the yarrow shaft was it really true that the first communication was now without object did someone wish to prevent james starr from troubling himself either uselessly or otherwise
this was the conclusion at which james starr arrived after mature reflection the contradiction which existed between the two letters only wrought in him a more keen desire to visit the dochart pit and besides
if after all it was a hoax it was well worth while to prove it starr also thought it wiser to give more credence to the first letter than to the second that is to say to the request of such a man as simon ford
rather than to the warning of his anonymous contradictor indeed said he
shows that ford's communication must be of great importance to morrow at the appointed time i shall be at the rendezvous in the evening starr made his preparations for departure
as it might happen that his absence would be prolonged for some days he wrote to sir w elphiston
he went to bed more excited than the affair perhaps warranted the next day at five o'clock james starr jumped out of bed dressed himself warmly
to go to granton pier to catch the steamer which in three hours would take him up the forth as far as stirling for the first time in his life perhaps in passing along the canongate
the palace of the former sovereigns of scotland he did not notice the sentinels who stood before its gateways dressed in the uniform of their highland regiment tartan kilt plaid and sporran complete
his whole thought was to reach callander where harry ford was supposedly awaiting him the better to understand this narrative it will be as well to hear a few words on the origin of coal during the geological epoch
from the necks of thousands of millions of seltzer water bottles this liquid loaded with carbonic acid rushed in torrents over a deep soft soil subject to sudden or slow alterations of form
and maintained in its semi fluid state as much by the heat of the sun as by the fires of the interior mass the internal heat had not as yet been collected in the center of the globe the terrestrial crust thin and incompletely hardened
allowed it to spread through its pores
peculiar form of vegetation such as is probably produced on the surface of the inferior planets venus or mercury which revolve nearer than our earth around the radiant sun of our system
the soil of the continents was covered with immense forests carbonic acid so suitable for the development of the vegetable kingdom abounded the feet of these trees were drowned in a sort of immense lagoon
kept continually full by currents of fresh and salt waters they eagerly assimilated to themselves the carbon which they little by little extracted from the atmosphere as yet unfit for the function of life
and it may be said that they were destined to store it in the form of coal in the very bowels of the earth it was the earthquake period caused by internal convulsions which suddenly modified the unsettled features of the terrestrial surface
or settling together in a heap they formed a solid mass as the waters were contained in no bed
they rushed where they liked tearing from the scarcely formed rocks material with which to compose schists sandstones and limestones this the roving waves bore over the submerged and now peaty forests
under a thick carapace of pudding stone schist
the whole of the massive forests and what went on in this gigantic crucible where all this vegetable matter had accumulated sunk to various depths
a regular chemical operation a sort of distillation all the carbon contained in these vegetables had agglomerated and little by little coal was forming under the double influence of enormous pressure
and the high temperature maintained by the internal fires at this time so close to it thus there was one kingdom substituted for another in this slow but irresistible reaction the vegetable was transformed into a mineral
thus also shells zoophytes star fish polypi spirifores even fish and lizards brought by the water
thus in the lowest layers of the coal ground appears the anthracite which being almost destitute of volatile matter contains the greatest quantity of carbon
in the higher beds are found on the contrary lignite and fossil wood substances in which the quantity of carbon is infinitely less
between these two beds according to the degree of pressure to which they have been subjected are found veins of graphite and rich or poor coal it may be asserted that it is for want of sufficient pressure
so then the origin of coal mines in whatever part of the globe they have been discovered is this
and under the action of carbonic acid now at the time when the events related in this story took place some of the most important mines of the scottish coal beds had been exhausted by too rapid working
in the region which extends between edinburgh and glasgow for a distance of ten or twelve miles
of which the engineer james starr had so long directed the works for ten years these mines had been abandoned
although the soundings had been carried to a depth of fifteen hundred or even of two thousand feet and when james starr had retired it was with the full conviction that even the smallest vein had been completely exhausted
under these circumstances it was plain that the discovery of a new seam of coal would be an important event could simon ford's communication relate to a fact of this nature
this question james starr could not cease asking himself was he called to make conquest of another corner of these rich treasure fields fain would he hope it was so
the second letter had for an instant checked his speculations on this subject but now he thought of that letter no longer besides the son of the old overman was there waiting at the appointed rendezvous the anonymous letter was therefore worth nothing
are you harry ford asked the engineer quickly yes mister starr
i knew you directly sir replied the young miner cap in hand you have not changed you look just as you did when you bade us good by in the dochart pit i haven't forgotten that day put on your cap harry said the engineer
i am at your orders replied harry tell me harry is your father well very well mister starr and your mother she is well too
no it was i then did simon ford send me a second letter to contradict the first asked the engineer quickly
very well said starr without speaking of the anonymous letter then continuing
in the mine what in the dochart pit yes mister starr replied harry really has your family never left the old mine since the cessation of the works
not a day mister starr you know my father
and we have but few wants well harry said the engineer lead the way
janshah and his followers dismounted and boarding the boat made prize of the gazelle and were minded to return to shore with her
and said to his merry men i have a longing to visit yonder island they answered we hear and obey and sailed on till they came to the island where they landed and amused themselves with exploring the place
then they again embarked and taking with them the gazelle set out to return homeward but the murk of evening overtook them
where he abode in sore concern as for janshah's mother when she heard of his loss she buffeted her face and began the mourning ceremonies for her son making sure that he was dead meanwhile
janshah and his men ceased not driving before the wind and those in search of them cruised about for ten days
and rushed on janshah and his mamelukes to eat them when the voyagers saw this they turned and fled seawards but the cannibals pursued them and caught and ate three of the slaves leaving only three slaves
who with janshah reached the boat in safety then launching her made for the water and sailed nights and days without knowing whither their ship went they killed the gazelle and lived on her flesh till the winds drove them to a third island
which was full of trees and waters and flower gardens and orchards laden with all fashion of fruits and streams strayed under the tree shade brief the place was a garden of eden
the island pleased the prince and he said to his companions which of you will land and explore then said one of the slaves that will i do but he replied this thing may not be
you must all land and explore the place while i abide in the boat so he set them ashore and shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say
when it was the five hundred and second night she said it hath reached me o auspicious king that the prince set them ashore and they searched the island east and west but found no one
then they fared on inland to the heart thereof till they came to a castle compassed about with ramparts of white marble within which was a palace of the clearest crystal
both fresh and dry and flowers of grateful odour and trees and birds singing upon the boughs amiddlemost the garden was a vast basin of water and beside it a great open hall with a raised dais whereon stood
a number of stools surrounding a throne of red gold studded with all kinds of jewels and especially rubies and seeing the beauty of the castle and of the garden they entered and explored in all directions but found no one there
so after rummaging the castle they returned to janshah and told him what they had seen when he heard their report he cried needs must i solace myself with a sight of it
so he landed and accompanied them to the palace which he entered marvelling at the goodliness of the place they then visited every part of the gardens and ate of the fruits and continued walking till it waxed dark
here the serpent queen again broke off her recital saying
and what did janshah do with the apes so the queen resumed her tale
but a company of them came up to the throne whereon he sat and kissing the earth before him stood awhile in his presence with their paws upon their breasts in posture of respect
made signs to janshah and his men to eat the prince and his followers came down from their seats and ate and the apes ate with them till they were satisfied when the apes took away the meat and set on fruits of which they partook
and praised allah the most highest then janshah asked the apes by signs what they were and to whom the palace belonged and they answered him by signals know ye
that this island belonged of yore to our lord solomon son of david on both of whom be peace and he used to come hither once every year for his solace and shahrazad perceived the dawn of day
the four wazirs or captains of the apes presented themselves before him attended by their troops who ranged themselves about him rank after rank until the place was crowded
then the wazirs approached and exhorted him by signs to do justice amongst them and rule them righteously after which the apes cried out to one another and went away
all save a small party which remained in presence to serve him after awhile there came up a company of apes with huge dogs in the semblance of horses each wearing about his head a massive chain
some riding on dogs and others afoot till they came to the sea shore janshah looked for the boat which brought him and finding it scuttled turned to the wazirs
know o king that when thou camest to our island we kenned that thou wouldst be sultan over us and we feared lest ye all flee from us in our absence and embark in the boat so we sank it
when janshah heard this he turned to his mamelukes and said to them we have no means of escaping from these apes and we must patiently await the ordinance of the almighty
then they fared on inland and ceased not faring till they came to the banks of a river on whose other side rose a high mountain whereon janshah saw a multitude of ghuls so he turned to the apes and asked them
and was startled at the vastness of their bulk and the strangeness of their semblance for some of them had heads like bulls and others like camels
when there fell upon them sore dismay and they turned to flee but the apes seeing janshah's prowess forded the river and headed by their sultan chased the ghuls killing many of them in the pursuit till they reached the high mountain where they disappeared
and while exploring the said mountain janshah found a tablet of alabaster whereon was written o thou who enterest this land know that thou wilt become sultan over these apes
and that from them there is no escape for thee except by the passes that run east and west through the mountains if thou take the eastern pass thou wilt fare through a country swarming with ghuls and wild beasts
and thou wilt come after three months journeying to the ocean
when it was the five hundred and fourth night she said it hath reached me o auspicious king that janshah read this much upon the tablet
that he who wrote this tablet was the lord solomon son of david on both be peace
he wept sore and repeated them to his men then they mounted again and surrounded by the army of the apes who were rejoicing in their victory returned to the castle
and at the end of this time he one day commanded the ape army to mount and go forth a hunting with him
and fared on from place to place till they approached the wady of emmets
here he bade them dismount and they all abode there eating and drinking a space of ten days after which janshah took his men apart one night and said i purpose we flee through the valley of emmets
as they were about to enter the valley and hastened after them when janshah and his men saw them they fled into the emmet valley but the apes soon overtook them and would have slain them when behold
now an ant would go up to an ape and smite him and cut him in twain whilst ten apes could hardly master one ant and bear him away and tear him in sunder the sore battle lasted till the evening
and the angel and his burden without sensing it when allah created this serpent he said to it by inspiration
so open thy mouth the serpent replied do whatso thou wilt and opened his mouth and god placed hell into his maw saying keep it until the day of resurrection when that time comes
quoth he i am of the sons of adam a wanderer for the love of mohammed whom allah assain and save and i have strayed from my way then he asked them what they were and what was the gate before which they sat
bulukiya wondered and asked them what is within the gate and they answered we wot not then quoth he i conjure you by the truth of your glorious lord
open to me the gate that i may see that which is therein quoth they we cannot and none may open this gate of all created beings save gabriel the faithful one with whom be peace
then bulukiya lifted up his voice in supplication to allah saying o lord send me thy messenger gabriel the faithful one
and the almighty gave ear unto his prayer and commanded the archangel to descend to earth and open to him the gate of the meeting place of the two seas so gabriel descended and saluting bulukiya opened the gate to him saying
so he entered and gabriel locked the gate behind him and flew back to heaven when bulukiya found himself within the gate he looked and beheld a vast ocean half salt and half fresh
questioned them of the sea and the mountains replied they this place is situate under the arsh or empyreal heaven and this ocean causeth the flux and flow
but thou whence comest thou and whither art thou bound so he told them his story and asked them of the road they bade him traverse the surface of the ocean which lay before him
and their going was like the blinding lightning so he stationed himself in their road and when they came up to him he saluted them and said to them i ask you by the almighty the glorious to tell me your names and whither are ye bound
replied the first angel my name is gabriel
and azra'il there hath appeared in the east a mighty dragon which hath laid waste a thousand cities and devoured their inhabitants wherefore allah almighty hath commanded us to go to him
and seize him and cast him into jahannam bulukiya marvelled at the vastness of their stature and fared on as before days and nights till he came to an island where he landed and walked about for a while
when it was the four hundred and ninety eighth night she said it hath reached me o auspicious king
with light shining from his visage sitting weeping and lamenting between two built tombs so he saluted him and he returned his salutation and bulukiya said to him who art thou
and what are these two built tombs between which thou sittest and wherefore this wailing he looked at him and wept with sore weeping till he drenched his clothes with his tears then said
know thou o my brother
the whole of it and allah alone knoweth what will happen to me after this when the youth heard his story he sighed and said o thou unhappy how few things thou hast seen in thy life compared with mine
know o bulukiya that unlike thyself i have looked upon our lord solomon in his life and have seen things past count or reckoning indeed my story is strange and my case out of range
and i would have thee abide with me till i tell thee my history and acquaint thee how i come to be sitting here hearing this much hasib again interrupted the queen of the serpents and said to her
this is a thing which may not be nor will i believe thee upon thine oath when he heard this he wept and all the serpents wept on his account and took to interceding for him with their queen saying
after which she bade a serpent carry him forth to the surface of the earth the serpent made ready
she said it hath reached me o auspicious king that the queen continued when bulukiya ended his recount the youth said how few things of marvel hast thou seen in thy life o unhappy
now i have looked upon our lord solomon while he was yet living and i have witnessed wonders beyond compt and conception and he began to relate
that my sire was a king called teghmus who reigned over the land of kabul and the banu shahlan ten thousand warlike chiefs each ruling over an hundred walled cities and a hundred citadels
and he was suzerain also over seven vassal princes and tribute was brought to him from the broad lands between east and west he was just and equitable in his rule
and said draw me my horoscope and look if allah will grant me a son to succeed me
after which they said to him know o king that thou shalt be blessed with a son
hearing this teghmus joyed with exceeding joy and bestowing on the astrologers and wizards treasure beyond numbering or reckoning dismissed them his chief wazir
who was equal to a thousand cavaliers in battle
and demand for me the hand of its king bahrwan's daughter
and they tell us that we shall have boon of a boy child and that by none other than thy daughter
with great store of bridal gear and i have appointed him to stand in my stead and to enter into the marriage contract in my name furthermore i desire that of thy favour thou wilt grant him his request
without stay or delay for it is my own and all graciousness thou showest him i take for myself but beware of crossing me in this for know o king bahrwan
and shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say when it was the five hundredth night she said it hath reached me o auspicious king
and notified to him that his desire had been fulfilled and the wazir abode with him two months at the end of which time he said to him we beseech thee to bestow upon us that wherefore we came
so we may depart to our own land i hear and obey answered the king
and spread the streets with carpets then he equipped his daughter for the journey and gave her all manner of presents and rarities
so they made their calculations and found them favourable but that he would in his fifteenth year be exposed to perils and hardships and that if he survived he would be happy and fortunate and become a greater king than his father
and a more powerful the king rejoiced greatly in this prediction and named the boy janshah then he delivered him to the nurses wet and dry who reared him excellently well till he reached his fifth year
allah give thee his aid and render thee by his bounties independent of his creatures and vouchsafe thee abundant weal and bestow on thee what shall suffice thee without the need of any but himself
for whatso he willeth that he can and he is gracious with his servants and knoweth their wants so i went out from the twain and returned to abdallah with straitened breast
so i sat with him awhile when lo up came my servant who said to me o my lord there are at our door many laden mules
and with them a man who says he is the agent of al fazl and ja'afar bin yahya quoth abdallah i trust that relief is come to thee rise up and go see what is the matter so i left him
and hastening to my house found at the door a man who gave me a note wherein was written the following after thou hadst been with us and we heard thy case
and informed him that ill condition had reduced thee to the humiliation of begging where upon he ordered us to supply thee with a thousand thousand dirhams from the treasury we represented to him
so that thou hast now three thousand thousand and three hundred thousand dirhams wherewithal to order and amend thine estate see then the munificence of these magnificos
and a tale is told of the woman's trick against her husband a man brought his wife a fish one friday and bidding her to cook it against the end of the congregational prayers went out to his craft and business meanwhile
that the woman brought out the fish alive from the water jar and assembled the folk against her husband and told them her tale he also told his but they credited him not and said
where upon he shed tears in floods and recited these two couplets old hag of high degree in filthy life whose face her monstrous lewdness witnesses when menstuous she bawds when clean she whores
and all her time bawd or adulteress is and a tale is related
and in ages long gone before a virtuous woman among the children of israel who was pious and devout and used every day to go out to the place of prayer
two old men its keepers and both shaykhs fell in love with her and sought her favours but she refused whereupon said they unless thou yield thy body to us we will bear witness against thee of fornication
quoth she allah will preserve me from your frowardness then they opened the garden gate and cried out and the folk came to them from all places saying what aileth you quoth they
they were followed by a lad named daniel who was then only twelve years old and this was to be the first of his miracles upon our prophet and upon him the blessing and peace
and he ceased not following them to the place of execution till he came up with them and said to them hasten not to stone her till i judge between them
and on this wise the lord made manifest the innocence of the damsel such was the first of the miracles of the prophet daniel
she said it hath reached me o auspicious king that when ja'afar asked the man whence comest thou he answered from bassorah quoth ja'afar and whither goest thou quoth the other
to baghdad then ja'afar enquired and what wilt thou do there and the old man replied i go to seek medicine for my eye
and ja'afar answered take three ounces of wind breaths and the like of sunbeams and the same of moonshine and as much of lamp light mix them well together
and let them lie in the wind three months then place them three months in a mortar without a bottom
and after trituration set them in a cleft platter and let it stand in the wind other three months after which use of this medicine three drachms every night in thy sleep and inshallah
was sitting one day judging the folk and doing justice between his subjects attended by the best and wisest of his counsellors when there came up to him a youth comely and cleanly attired upon whom two very handsome youths had laid hold
whereupon the commander of the faithful omar looked at him
and bade them loose him then calling him near to himself asked the twain what is your case with him they answered o prince of true believers we are two brothers by one mother
our father was a man honoured by the tribes sound of baseness and renowned for goodliness who reared us delicately in childhood and loaded us with favours in manhood in fine a sea of noble and illustrious qualities
worthy of the poet's praise
quoth i nay by my life of him's shayban how many a sire rose high by a noble son as allah's prophet
to refresh himself amongst its trees and pluck the ripe fruits when this young man slew him wrongously and swerved from the road of righteousness wherefore we demand of thee the retribution of his crime
and call upon thee to pass judgement upon him according to the commandment of allah then omar cast a terrible look at the accused youth and said to him verily thou hearest the complaint these two young men prefer
what hast thou in reply to aver but he was brave of heart and bold of speech having doffed the robe of pusillanimity and put off the garb of cowardry so he smiled
and spake in the most eloquent and elegant words
till evil times my tribe befel when i came to the outskirts of this town with my family and whatso goods i own and as i went along one of the paths leading to its gardens orchards and garths
with my she camels highly esteemed and by me most precious deemed
a plenteous getter of brood by whom the females abundantly bore
one of the she camels broke away and running to the garden of these young men's father where the trees showed above the wall put forth her lips and began to feed as in stall i ran to her
to drive her away when behold there appeared at a breach of the wall an old man and grey whose eyes sparkled with angry ray holding in his right a stone to throw
and swaying to and fro with a swing like a lion ready for a spring he cast the stone at my stallion and it killed him for it struck a vital part when i saw the stallion drop dead beside me
i felt live coals of anger kindled in my heart so i took up the very same stone and throwing it at the old man it was the cause of his bane and ban thus
and the man was slain of that wherewith he slew when the stone struck him he cried out with a great cry and shrieked out a terrible shriek whereupon i hastened from the spot
but these two young men hurried after me and laid hands on me and before thee carried me quoth omar
i will appoint some guardian to administer the affairs of the boy and return to answer my debt and i have one who will be my surety for the fulfillment of this my promise so the commander of the faithful bowed his head awhile
then raised it and looking round upon those present said who will stand surety
grace darling the coast of northumberland in england is rocky and severe with lofty flint ledged cliffs where great waves thunder hurling the white foam high into the air
it is a coast that is feared by vessels and many wrecks have taken place there as is usual in such a locality it is the home of brave fishermen and daring boatmen
the bravest of all was performed by a girl whose name was grace darling a name that now is known not only in the places where she lived but all over the world grace horsley darling
was the daughter of a lighthouse keeper named william darling who tended a light on one of the farne islands as his father had done before him grace who was the seventh of nine children
was born in eighteen fifteen in bamborough and when she was a little girl of eleven years her father was given charge of the new light on longstone rock
which was one of a series of dangerous reefs where no vessel ever built could live when a gale was blowing the highest part of longstone rock was only four feet above the surface of the sea
and near at hand were twenty three other reefs or islands between which the ocean tides ran in curious currents and eddys and where the great rollers came racing in with a tremendous roaring
to burst upon the base of the lighthouse and throw the spray high above the light itself it was a wild spot even in calm weather but when a storm blew it became terrible
then all communication with the mainland was cut off and for days at a time
the only news that the outside world had from the lonely lighthouse keeper was the yellow beam of the lantern that shone from the top of the tower across the desolate expanse of ugly rocks and roaring waters
her father was an intelligent and kind hearted man who gave an eye to her education himself and taught her how to read and write he was also considered the best boatman on the whole northumberland coast
the bravest and most skilful and it was partly due to his reputation in these respects that he was made the keeper of the new light on the longstone with a large increase in pay
and a comfortable home for his family for the interior of the lighthouse held several large and pleasant rooms where the darlings lived all of his elder children had gone off to make their living
and william darling lived with his wife and his daughter grace who spent her time in reading helping her mother with the housework and when it was calm wandering over the rocks observing the gulls
the sea weeds and the strange sea creatures that the ocean brought to the surface or that crawled and swam among the more sheltered rock pools but the confinement of the life in the lighthouse
was not good for the growing girl and grace never was strong and robust as would be expected from the daughter of fishermen nor was she handsome but she possessed a kindly and winning nature and
as will be seen the ability to rise to heights of greatness when necessity called on her to do so when grace was a young woman of twenty three a terrible storm burst suddenly upon the coast
and in the twinkling of an eye the reefs about the lighthouse were a sea of churning foam while the great waves racing in from the ocean thundered so mightily at its base
that it seemed as though they must tear it from its foundations and sweep it away a short time before this gale broke the steamer forfarshire had sailed from hull for dundee in scotland
all told about sixty three persons including the passengers and crew she was a fine new steamer well and strongly built but she had put to sea with her boilers in poor condition
and it had been intended to give them a thorough overhauling in dundee when the steamer was off flamborough head the boilers commenced to leak
and the ship's fires were extinguished they were rekindled and the leak repaired but just as the forfarshire was off the farne islands the gale broke with great fury
while pitching in the heavy seas the boilers leaked terribly the fires were again put out and the ship became unmanageable sails were hoisted but were torn to ribbons by the wind
with no propelling power the forfarshire rolled helpless in the trough of the sea and was swiftly borne toward the rocks fog and rain made it impossible for the sailors to see until they were in the teeth of the breakers
and then the beam of the lighthouse showed them the wild rocks only a short distance away nothing could save them from destruction with a crash the steamer drove on the harcars rocks
and remained there the seas breaking completely over it some of the crew launched a boat and escaped deserting their captain
the rest clung to what supports they could find and held on expecting instant death a wave larger than the rest picked up the forfarshire bodily and drove it down again upon the rocks
breaking it in two the after half of the vessel was swept away by the seas with many passengers and the captain and his wife all were lost on the forward part of the ship
the wreck could be seen from the mainland but the misery of the unfortunate persons who survived was even more plain to william darling and his family grace begged her father to launch a boat and go to their assistance
but darling brave sailor as he was knew that there was little or no chance of his ever reaching the doomed ship and shook his head then grace began to plead with her father
telling him it would be better for him to lose his life than to pass by people in such distress and that she herself would go with him and bear a hand at the oars darling was no coward
and the prayers and entreaties of his daughter won the day he decided to risk launching a boat from the lighthouse with missus darling to help them in launching their boat
grace and her father put forth from the lighthouse running their boat into the sea in the lee of the rocks and pulling strongly for the wreck father and daughter both labored at the oars
unable to speak on account of the roar of the sea and wind and blinded by the spray that whirled over them their boat was tossed like a shuttlecock in the great waves and they knew that unless the shipwrecked persons could aid them
it would be impossible to return to the lighthouse they must succeed or die and their chance of success was small little by little they drew near the wreck by this time
the tide had ebbed sufficiently for the survivors to leave the ship and stand on the slippery rocks but already some of them had succumbed and the rest would certainly be washed away and drowned
as the rescuers drew near the reef darling leaped ashore and grace kept the frail rowboat from dashing itself to pieces against the rocks
then followed the difficult task of getting the survivors into the boat one after one waded out as far as he dared and was pulled over the gunwale when the last person was aboard darling clambered back
and with new hands at the oars the boat was rowed back to the lighthouse a trip that required great strength and much time for the current was against them and when the light was reached
the shipwrecked people were soon made comfortable and cared for by grace and missus darling and nine lives were thus saved by the determination of a single girl
a boat full of fishermen put out from the shore at a place called north sunderland and after nearly being swamped in the high seas succeeded in drawing near the wreck
and not daring to return to the mainland in the sea then running succeeded in reaching the lighthouse among them was grace's brother brooks darling and the heroism of his achievement and that of the other fishermen
all england rang with the fame of grace's exploit and letters and gifts poured in from every side scores of people visited the lighthouse grace was feted and admired
and a public subscription in her benefit resulted in a gift of seven hundred pounds or about thirty five hundred dollars of our money she also received four medals
and a large sum of money in private gifts grace and her family took their new prominence with great good sense and modesty and disliked the publicity which came to them
they were astonished at the commotion their exploit had caused for to them it appeared little more than a part of the day's work that duty required them to perform but grace did not live long after her exploit
her confined life at the lighthouse and the exposure she underwent there resulted in the disease of consumption from which she rapidly wasted away in spite of the best medical aid she steadily drooped
and two years after she had done her brave deed she died in the town of bamborough where she had been born again a subscription was collected and a monument was erected in her honor
her father and mother lived to a ripe old age reaping benefits from the money that grace had left them perhaps some of their descendants are still tending the light at the present day but at all events
the sacred milk of koumongoe far way in a very hot country there once lived a man and woman who had two children a son named koane and a daughter
early in the morning and late in the evenings the parents worked hard in the fields resting when the sun was high under the shade of some tree while they were absent the little girl kept house alone
when koane had slept later than usual his father and mother went to their work before him
busy making the bread for supper thakane he said i am thirsty give me a drink from the tree koumongoe which has the best milk in the world oh koane cried his sister
you know that we are forbidden to touch that tree
for he would be sure to know nonsense replied koane there is so much milk in koumongoe that he will never miss a little if you won't give it to me i sha'n't take the cattle out
they will just have to stay all day in the hut and you know that they will starve
it is getting hot had you better drive out the cattle now but koane only answered sulkily i told you i am not going to drive them out at all if i have to do without milk
she was afraid to disobey her parents who would most likely beat her yet the beasts would be sure to suffer if they were kept in and she would perhaps be beaten for that too so at last she took an axe
she cut a very small hole in the side of koumongoe and out gushed enough milk to fill the bowl here is the milk you wanted said she going up to koane who was still sulking in his corner
what is the use of that grumbled koane why there is not enough to drown a fly go and get me three times as much trembling with fright
and struck it a sharp blow with the axe in an instant there poured forth such a stream of milk that it ran like a river into the hut
and soon the milk was flowing through the hut downhill towards their parents in the fields below the man saw a white stream a long way off and guessed what had happened wife wife he called loudly to the woman
who was working at a little distance do you see koumongoe running fast down the hill that is some mischief of the children's i am sure i must go home and find out what is the matter and they both threw down their hoes
and hurried to the side of koumongoe kneeling on the grass the man and his wife made a cup of their hands and drank the milk from it and no sooner had they done this than koumongoe flowed back again up the hill and entered the hut
said the parents severely when they reached home panting from the heat of the sun what have you been doing why did koumongoe come to us in the fields instead of staying in the garden it was koane's fault
he would not take the cattle to feed until he drank some of the milk from koumongoe so as i did not know what else to do i gave it to him
but made no answer instead he went outside and brought in two sheepskins which he stained red and sent for a blacksmith to forge some iron rings
the rings were then passed over thakane's arms and legs and neck and the skins fastened on her before and behind when all was ready the man sent for his servants and said i am going to get rid of thakane
get rid of your only daughter they answered in surprise but why because she has eaten what she ought not to have eaten she has touched the sacred tree which belongs to her mother and me alone and turning his back
and they went down the road which led to the dwelling of an ogre they were passing along some fields where the corn was ripening when a rabbit suddenly sprang out at their feet and standing on its hind legs it sang
koumongoe to the keeper of beasts for without koumongoe they could not go to the meadows without koumongoe they would starve in the hut that was why i gave him the koumongoe of my father and when the rabbit heard that he cried
wretched man it is you whom the ogre should eat and not your beautiful daughter
by and by they met with a troop of great deer called elands
why do you give to the ogre your child so fair so fair
she is old enough to give you an answer then in her turn thakane sang i gave koumongoe to koane koumongoe to the keeper of beasts for without koumongoe they could not go to the meadows
it was nearly dark and the father said they could travel no further that night and must go to sleep where they were
when she heard this for she was very tired and found the two skins fastened round her almost too heavy to carry so in spite of her dread of the ogre she slept till dawn when her father woke her
and told her roughly that he was ready to continue their journey crossing the plain the girl and her father passed a herd of gazelles feeding they lifted their heads wondering who was out so early
they sang why do you give to the ogre your child so fair so fair you had better ask her replied the man she is old enough to answer for herself then in her turn thakane sang
i gave koumongoe to koane koumongoe to the keeper of beasts for without koumongoe they could not go to the meadows without koumongoe they would starve in the hut that was why i gave him the koumongoe of my father
and the gazelles all cried wretched man it is you whom the ogre should eat and not your beautiful daughter at last they arrived at the village where the ogre lived and they went straight to his hut
he was nowhere to be seen but in his place was his son masilo who was not an ogre at all but a very polite young man he ordered his servants to bring a pile of skins for thakane to sit on
he was struck by its beauty
and he instantly commanded that she should be taken to the hut of his mother and placed under her care while the man should be led to his father directly the ogre saw him he bade the servant throw him into the great pot
which always stood ready on the fire and in five minutes he was done to a turn after that the servant returned to masilo and related all that had happened now
the moment he saw her at first he did not know what to make of this strange feeling for all his life he had hated women and had refused several brides whom his parents had chosen for him however they were so anxious that he should marry
after some time a baby was born to her
but when her mother in law saw it was a girl she wrung her hands and wept saying o miserable mother miserable child alas for you why were you not a boy
asked the meaning of her distress and the old woman told her that it was the custom in that country that all the girls who were born should be given to the ogre to eat then thakane clasped the baby tightly in her arms
and cried but it is not the customer in my country there when children die they are buried in the earth no one shall take my baby from me that night when everyone in the hut was asleep
and carrying her baby on her back went down to a place where the river spread itself out into a large lake
here hidden from everyone she sat down on a stone and began to think what she should do to save her child suddenly she heard a rustling among the willows and an old woman appeared before her
what are you crying for my dear said she
i was crying for my baby i cannot hide her for ever and if the ogre sees her he will eat her and i would rather she was drowned than that what you say is true replied the old woman give me your child
and let me take care of it and if you will fix a day to meet me here i will bring the baby
and gladly accepted the old woman's offer when she got home she told her husband she had thrown it in the river and as he had watched her go in that direction
on the appointed day thakane slipped out when everybody was busy and ran down the path that led to the lake as soon as she got there she crouched down among the willows and sang softly bring to me dilah
dilah the rejected one dilah whom her father masilo cast out and in a moment the old woman appeared holding the baby in her arms
and gratitude and she stayed as long as she dared playing with her baby at last she felt she must return to the village lest she should be missed and the child was handed back to the old woman
who vanished with her into the lake children grow up very quickly when they live under water and in less time than anyone could suppose dilah had changed from a baby to a woman her mother came to visit her whenever she was able
and one day when they were sitting talking together they were spied out by a man who had come to cut willows to weave into baskets he was so surprised to see how like the face of the girl was to masilo
that he left his work and returned to the village masilo he said as he entered the hut i have just beheld your wife near the river with a girl who must be your daughter she is so like you we have been deceived
masilo tried to look shocked because his wife had broken the law but in his heart he was very glad but what shall we do now asked he make sure for yourself that i am speaking the truth
and waiting till the girl appears for some days
and her husband began to think that the man had been mistaken but at last she said to her husband i am going to bathe in the river well you can go answered he
and hid himself in the bushes an instant later
she sang bring to me dilah dilah the rejected one dilah whom her father masilo cast out then the old woman came out of the water holding the girl now tall and slender by the hand
and as masilo looked he saw that she was indeed his daughter and he wept for joy that she was not lying dead in the bottom of the lake the old woman however seemed uneasy
i feel as if someone was watching us i will not leave the girl to day but will take her back with me and sinking beneath the surface she drew the girl after her after they had gone
which masilo had managed to reach before her all the rest of the day he sat in a corner weeping and his mother who came in asked why are you weeping so bitterly my son
and his mother passed on and left him alone in the evening he said to his wife i have seen my daughter in the place where you told me you had drowned her instead she lives at the bottom of the lake
i don't know what you are talking about
i buried my child under the sand on the beach then masilo implored her to give the child back to him but she would not listen and only answered if i were to give her back you would only obey the laws of your country and
take her to your father the ogre and she would be eaten but masilo promised that he would never let his father see her and that now she was a woman no one would try to hurt her so thakane's heart melted
and she went down to the lake to consult the old woman
she asked when after clapping her hands the old woman appeared before her
and ever since he has entreated me to give him back his daughter if i let her go he must pay me a thousand head of cattle in exchange replied the old woman
why i would gladly give her two thousand cried he for she has saved my daughter and he bade messengers hasten to all the neighbouring villages and tell his people to send him at once all the cattle he possessed when they were all assembled
he chose a thousand of the finest bulls and cows and drove them down to the river followed by a great crowd wondering what would happen then thakane stepped forward in front of the cattle and sang bring to me dilah dilah the rejected one
dilah whom her father masilo cast out
i am glad you are pleased with it daughter returned mister dinsmore opening the morning paper which john had just brought up they
mister dinsmore and elsie rose and edward allison were occupying very comfortable quarters in a large hotel at one of our fashionable watering places a bedroom for each and a private parlor for the joint use of the party
had been secured in advance and late the night before they had arrived and taken possession it was now early in the morning
which was in the second story and opened upon a veranda shaded by tall trees and overlooking a large grassy yard at the side of the building beyond were green fields woods and hills
papa said elsie gazing longingly upon them as she stood by the open window can't we take a walk when miss rose is ready to go with us may i run to her door and ask if she is and if she isn't
may i wait for her out here on the veranda yes
almost immediately papa what do you think it's just too bad what is too bad daughter i think i never before saw so cross a look on my little girl's face he said peering at her over the top of his newspaper
come here and tell me what it is all about she obeyed hanging her head and blushing i think i have some reason to be cross papa she said i thought we were going to have such a delightful time here
and now it is all spoiled you could never guess who has the rooms just opposite ours on the other side of the hall miss stevens why papa did you know she was here i knew she was in the house
because i saw her name in the hotel book last night when i went to register ours and it just spoils all our pleasure i hope not daughter i think she will hardly annoy you when you are close at my side
and that is pretty much all the time isn't it yes papa and i'll stick closer than ever to you if that will make her let me alone she cried with a merry laugh putting her arm round his neck and kissing him two or three times
ah now i have my own little girl again he said drawing her to his knee and returning her caresses with interest but there i hear miss rose's step in the hall run to mammy and have your hat put on
miss stevens presence proved scarcely less annoying to elsie than the child had anticipated she tried to keep out of the lady's way but it was quite impossible she could scarcely step out on the veranda
go into the parlor or take a turn in the garden by herself but in a moment miss stevens was at her side fawning upon and flattering her telling her how sweet and pretty and amiable she was how dearly she loved her
and how much she thought of her papa too he was so handsome and so good everybody admired him and thought him such a fine looking gentleman so polished in his manners so agreeable
then she would press all sorts of dainties upon the little girl in such a way that it was next to impossible to decline them and occasionally even went so far as to suggest improvements or rather alterations in her dress
which she said was entirely too plain you ought to have more flounces on your skirts my dear she remarked one day skirt flounced to the waist are so very pretty and dressy
i am sure he would consent for any one can see that he is very fond of you he doesn't think of it we can't expect gentlemen to notice such little matters you ought to have a mamma to attend to such things for you
thank you ma'am i daresay you mean to be very kind replied elsie trying not to look annoyed but i don't want a mamma since my own dear mother has gone to heaven papa is enough for me and i like the way he dresses me
he always buys my dresses himself and says how they are to be made the dressmaker wanted to put more flounces on but papa didn't want them and neither did i he says he doesn't like to see little girls loaded with finery
and that my clothes shall be of the best material and nicely made but neat and simple
i didn't mean that at all it is quite expensive enough and some of your white dresses are beautifully worked but i would like a little more ornament you wear so little jewelry and your father could afford to cover you with it if he chose
a pair of gold bracelets like mine for instance would be very pretty and look charming on your lovely white arms those pearl ones you wear sometimes are very handsome any one could tell that they are the real thing
but you ought to have gold ones too with clasps set with diamonds couldn't you persuade your papa to buy some for you indeed miss stevens i don't want them i don't want anything but what papa chooses to buy for me of his own accord
ah there is miss rose looking for me i must go
who had come to the veranda where she and miss stevens had been standing to tell her that they were going out to walk and her papa wished to take her along elsie went in to get her hat and miss stevens came towards rose saying
i think i heard you say you were going to walk and i believe if you don't forbid me i shall do myself the pleasure of accompanying you i have just been waiting for pleasant company i will be ready in one moment
and before rose could recover from her astonishment sufficiently to reply she had disappeared through the hall door elsie was out again in a moment just as the gentlemen had joined rose
who excited their surprise and disgust by a repetition of miss stevens speech to her mister dinsmore looked excessively annoyed and edward pshawed and wished her at the bottom of the sea no brother
said rose smiling you don't wish any such thing on the contrary you would be the very first to fly to the rescue if you saw her in danger of drowning but before there was time for anything more to be said miss stevens had returned
and walking straight up to mister dinsmore she put her arm through his saying with a little laugh and what was meant for a very arch expression you see i don't stand upon ceremony with old friends mister dinsmore it isn't my way
no miss stevens i think it never was he replied offering the other arm to rose she was going to decline it on the plea that the path was too narrow for three but something in his look made her change her mind and accept and they moved on
while elsie almost ready to cry with vexation fell behind with edward allison for an escort edward tried to entertain his young companion but was too much provoked at the turn things had taken to make himself very agreeable to any one
and altogether it was quite an uncomfortable walk no one seeming to enjoy it but miss stevens who laughed and talked incessantly addressing nearly all her conversation to mister dinsmore
miss stevens had from the first conceived a great antipathy to rose whom she considered a dangerous rival and generally avoided excepting when mister dinsmore was with her but she always interrupted a tete a tete
between them when it was in her power to do so without being guilty of very great rudeness this and the covert sneers with which she often addressed miss allison had not escaped mister dinsmore's notice
and it frequently cost him quite an effort to treat miss stevens with the respectful politeness which he considered due to her sex and to the daughter of his father's old friend was it not too provoking papa exclaimed elsie
as she followed him into his room on their return from their walk what my dear why papa i thought we were going to have such a nice time and she just spoiled it all she who daughter
why papa surely you know i mean miss stevens then why did you not mention her name instead of speaking of her as she that does not sound respectful in a child of your age
and i wish my little girl always to be respectful to those older than herself i thought i heard you the other day mention some gentleman's name without the prefix of mister and i intended to reprove you for it at the time don't do it again
no sir i won't elsie answered with a blush but papa she added the next moment miss stevens does that constantly that makes no difference my daughter he said gravely miss stevens is the very last person
i would have you take for your model the less you resemble her in dress manners or anything else the better if you wish to copy any one let it be miss allison for she is a perfect lady in every respect
elsie looked very much pleased yes indeed papa she said i should be glad if i could be just like miss rose she is always kind and gentle to everybody even the servants whom miss stevens orders about
so crossly elsie what papa she asked blushing again for his tone was reproving come here and sit on my knee i want to talk to you i am afraid my little daughter is growing censorious
he said with a very grave look as he drew her to his side you forget that we ought not to speak of other people's faults i will try not to do it any more papa she replied the tears springing to her eyes
i have been near telling her several times that i did wish she would let me alone no daughter don't do that you must behave in a lady like manner whether she does or not
and must try to bear them with patience remembering that god sends the little trials as well as the great and that he has commanded us to let patience have her perfect work i fear it is a lack of the spirit of forgiveness
that makes it so difficult for us to bear these trifling vexations with equanimity and you must remember too dear that the bible bids us be courteous and teaches us to treat others as we ourselves would wish to be treated
i think you always remember the command to be courteous papa she said looking affectionately into his face i was wondering all the time how you could be so very polite to miss stevens
for i was quite sure you would rather not have had her along and then what right had she to take your arm without being asked and elsie's face flushed with indignation her father laughed a little and thus
deprive my little girl of her rights he said softly kissing the glowing cheek ah i doubt if you would have been angry had it been miss rose he added a little mischievously
exclaimed the little girl warmly ah well dear he said in a soothing tone we won't talk any more about it i acknowledge that i do not find miss stevens the most agreeable company in the world but i must treat her
politely and show her a little attention sometimes both because she is a lady and because her father once saved my father's life for which i owe a debt of gratitude to him and his children did he papa i am sure it was very good of him
and i will try to like miss stevens for that but won't you tell me about it it was when they were both quite young men said mister dinsmore before either of them was married they were skating together and your grandfather broke through the ice
and would have been drowned but for the courage and presence of mind of mister stevens who saved him only by very great exertion and at the risk of his own life a few days after this elsie was playing on the veranda with several other little girls
do you think you shall like your new mamma elsie asked one of them in a careless tone as she tied on an apron she had just been making for her doll and turned it around to see how it fitted
exclaimed elsie with unfeigned astonishment dropping the scissors with which she had been cutting paper dolls for some of the little ones what can you mean annie
asserted annie positively for i heard my mother say so only yesterday
what has she to do with my papa's affairs asked elsie indignantly the color rushing over face neck and arms well i should think she might know when she is going to marry him returned the other with a laugh
she isn't it's false my but elsie checked herself and shut her teeth hard to keep down the emotion that was swelling in her breast it's true you may depend upon it replied annie everybody in the house knows it and they are all talking
about what a splendid match miss stevens is going to make and mamma was wondering if you knew it and how you would like her and papa said he thought mister dinsmore wouldn't think much of her if he knew how she flirted and danced until he came
and now pretends not to approve of balls just because he doesn't elsie made no reply but dropping scissors paper and everything sprang up and ran swiftly along the veranda through the hall upstairs
and without pausing to take breath rushed into her father's room where he sat quietly reading why elsie daughter what is the matter he asked in a tone of surprise and concern as he caught sight of her flushed and agitated face
she cried throwing herself upon his breast and bursting into a fit of passionate weeping mister dinsmore said nothing for a moment but thinking tears would prove the best relief to her overwrought feelings contented himself with simply stroking her hair in a soothing way
and once or twice pressing his lips gently to her forehead you feel better now dearest do you not he asked presently as she raised her head to wipe away her tears yes papa now tell me what it was all about
miss stevens does say such hateful things papa he laid his finger upon her lips don't use that word again it does not sound at all like my usually gentle sweet tempered little girl i won't papa she murmured
blushing and hanging her head then hiding her face on his breast she lay there for several minutes perfectly silent and still what is my little girl thinking of he asked at length how everybody talks about you papa last evening i was out on the veranda
and i heard john and miss stevens maid phillis talking together it was moonlight you know papa she went on turning her face toward him again and they were out under the trees and john had his arm round her and he was kissing her
and telling her how pretty she was and then they began talking about miss stevens and you and john told phillis that he reckoned you were going to marry her who phillis asked mister dinsmore looking excessively amused
you know i mean miss stevens elsie answered in a tone of annoyance well dear and what of it all he asked soothingly i don't think the silly nonsense of the servants need trouble you john is a sad fellow i know
he courts all the pretty colored girls wherever he goes i shall have to read him a serious lecture on the subject but it is very kind of you to be so concerned for phillis oh papa don't she said turning away her face
please don't tease me so
but that isn't all and then she repeated what had passed between annie and herself he looked a good deal provoked as she went on with her story then very grave indeed he was quite silent for a moment after she had done
then drawing her closer to him he said tenderly my poor little girl i am sorry you should be so annoyed but you know it is not true daughter and why need you care what other people think and say i don't like them to talk so papa
i can't bear to have them say such things about you she exclaimed indignantly he was silent again for a little then said kindly i think i had better take you away from these troublesome talkers
oh yes papa do take me home she answered eagerly i wish we were there now i think it is the pleasantest place in the world and it seems such a long long while since we came away
let us start to morrow papa can't we but you know you will have to leave miss rose ah i forgot that she said a little sadly but brightening again she asked couldn't you invite her to go home with us and spend the winter ah papa do
it would be so pleasant to have her no my dear it wouldn't do he replied with a grave shake of the head why papa she asked with a look of keen disappointment you are too young to understand why he said in the same grave tone
and then relapsed into silence sitting there for some time stroking her hair in an absent way with his eyes on the carpet at last he said elsie in a soft low tone that quite made the little girl start and look up into his face
for she too had been in a deep reverie what papa she asked and she wondered to see how the color had spread over his face and how bright his eyes looked i have been thinking he said in a half hesitating way
that though it would not do to invite miss rose to spend the winter with us it might do very nicely to ask her to come and live at the oaks elsie looked at him for a moment with a bewildered expression then suddenly comprehending her face lighted up
would you like it dearest he asked or would you prefer to go on living just as we have been you and i together i would consult your happiness before my own for it lies very near my heart my precious one
i can never forgive myself for all i have made you suffer and when you were restored to me almost from the grave i made a vow to do all in my power to make your future life bright and happy his tones were full of deep feeling
and as he spoke he drew her closer and closer to him and kissed her tenderly again and again speak daughter and tell me what you wish he said as she still remained silent
at last she spoke and he bent down to catch the words dear papa she whispered would it make you happy and do you think mamma knows and that she would like it your mamma loves us both too well not to be pleased with anything
that would add to our happiness he replied gently dear papa you won't be angry if i ask another question no darling ask as many as you wish then papa will i have to call her mamma
and do you think my own mamma would like it if miss allison consents to take a mother's place to you i am sure your own mamma if she could speak to you would tell you she deserved to have the title
and it would hurt us both very much if you refused to give it indeed my daughter i cannot ask her to come to us unless you will promise to do so and to love and obey her just as you do me will you i will try to obey her papa
and i shall love her very dearly for i do already but i can not love anybody quite so well as i love you my own dear dear father she said throwing her arms around his neck he returned her caress saying tenderly
that is all i can ask dearest i must reserve the first place in your heart for myself do you think she will come papa she asked anxiously i don't know daughter i have not asked her yet
but shall i tell her that it will add to your happiness if she will be your mamma yes sir and that i will call her mamma and obey her and love her dearly oh papa ask her very soon won't you perhaps
but don't set your heart too much on it for she may not be quite so willing to take such a troublesome charge as miss stevens seems to be he said returning to his playful tone elsie looked troubled and anxious i hope she will papa
she said i think she might be very glad to come and live with you and in such a beautiful home too ah but everyone does not appreciate my society as highly as you do he replied laughing and pinching her cheek
and besides you forget about the troublesome little girl i have heard ladies say they would not marry a man who had a child but miss rose loves me papa
she said flushing and the tears starting to her eyes yes darling i know she does he answered soothingly i am only afraid she loves you better than she does me
a large party of equestrians were setting out from the hotel that evening soon after tea and elsie in company with several other little girls went out upon the veranda to watch them mount and ride away
she was absent but a few moments from the parlor where she had left her father but when she returned to it he was not there miss rose too was gone she found upon further search
and though she had not much difficulty in conjecturing why she had thus for the first time been left behind she could not help feeling rather lonely and desolate she felt no disposition to renew the afternoon's conversation with annie hart
so she went quietly upstairs to their private parlor and sat down to amuse herself with a book until chloe came in from eating her supper then the little girl brought a stool and seating herself in the old posture with her head in her nurse's lap
she drew her mother's miniature from her bosom and fixing her eyes lovingly upon it said as she had done hundreds of times before now mammy please tell me about my dear dear mamma the soft eyes were full of tears
for with all her joy at the thought of rose mingled a strange sad feeling that she was getting farther away from that dear precious unknown mother whose image had been since her earliest recollection
once on a time there was a poor poor widow who had an only son she dragged on with the boy till he had been confirmed
so the lad wandered out into the world and when he had walked a day or so a strange man met him whither away asked the man
will you come and serve me said the man oh yes just as soon you as any one else said the lad well you'll have a good place with me said the man for you'll only have to keep me company and do nothing at all else beside
so the lad stopped with him and lived on the fat of the land both in meat and drink and had little or nothing to do but he never saw a living soul in that man's house so one day the man said
now i'm going off for eight days and that time you'll have to spend here all alone
if you do i'll take your life when i come back no said the lad he'd be sure not to do that
the lad couldn't bear it any longer but went into the first room and when he got inside he looked round but he saw nothing but a shelf over the door where a bramble bush rod lay
well indeed thought the lad a pretty thing to forbid my seeing this so when the eight days were out the man came home and the first thing he said was
no no that i haven't said the lad i'll soon see that said the man and went at once into the room where the lad had been nay but you have been in here said he and now you shall lose your life
then the lad begged and prayed so hard that he got off with his life but the man gave him a good thrashing
they were as good friends as ever some time after the man set off again and said he should be away fourteen days
but before he went he forbade the lad to go into any of the rooms he had not been in before as for that he had been in he might go into that and welcome
except that the lad stood out eight days before he went in in this room too he saw nothing but a shelf over the door and a big stone and a pitcher of water on it
well after all there's not much to be afraid of my seeing here thought the lad but when the man came back he asked if he had been into any of the rooms
well well i'll soon see that said the man and when he saw that the lad had been in them after all he said ah now i'll spare you no longer now you must lose your life
but the lad begged and prayed for himself again and so this time too he got off with stripes though he got as many as his skin could carry but when he got sound and well again he led just as easy a life as ever
and he forbade the lad anew to go into the third room for if he went in there he might just make up his mind at once to lose his life then after fourteen days the lad couldn't bear it
but crept into the room but he saw nothing at all in there but a trap door on the floor and when he lifted it up and looked down there stood a great copper cauldron which
bubbled and boiled away down there but he saw no fire under it well i should just like to know if it's hot thought the lad and stuck his finger down into the broth and when he pulled it out again lo
and when the man came back and asked what was the matter with his finger the lad said he'd given it such a bad cut but the man tore off the rag and then he soon saw what was the matter with the finger
first he wanted to kill the lad outright but when he wept and begged he only gave him such a thrashing
the man started off again and this time he was to be away a month but before he went he said to the lad if he went into the fourth room he might give up all hope of saving his life
well the lad stood out for two or three weeks but then he couldn't holdout any longer he must and would go into that room and so in he stole there stood a great
black horse tied up in a stall by himself with a manger of red hot coals at his head and a truss of hay at his tail
then the lad thought this all wrong so he changed them about and put the hay at his head then said the horse since you are so good at heart as to let me have some food i'll set you free that i will
don't take any of the bright ones but the most rusty of all you see that's the one to take and sword and saddle you must choose for yourself just in the same way so the lad did all that
if i do thought the lad i shall look an awful fright but for all that he did as he was told so when he had taken his bath he became so handsome and sleek
and as red and white as milk and blood and much stronger than he had been before do you feel any change asked the horse yes said the lad try to lift me then said the horse oh yes
he could do that and as for the sword he brandished it like a feather now saddle me said the horse and put on the coat of mail and then take the bramble bush rod and the stone and the pitcher of water and the pot of ointment
and then we'll be off as fast as we can so when the lad had got on the horse off they went at such a rate he couldn't at all tell how they went
i think i hear a noise look round can you see anything yes there are ever so many coming after us at least a score said the lad aye aye that's the troll coming said the horse now he's after us with his pack
so they rode on a while until those who followed were close behind them now throw your bramble bush rod behind you over your shoulder said the horse but mind you throw it a good way off my back so the lad did that
and all at once a close thick bramble wood grew up behind them so the lad rode on a long long time while the troll and his crew had to go home to fetch something to hew their way through the wood
but at last the horse said again look behind you can you see anything now yes ever so many said the lad as many as would fill a large church aye aye that's the troll and his crew said the horse
now he's got more to back him but now throw down the stone and mind you throw it far behind me and as soon as the lad did what the horse said up rose a great black hill of rock behind him
so the troll had to be off home to fetch something to mine his way through the rock and while the troll did that the lad rode a good bit further on but still the horse begged him to look behind him
and then he saw a troop like a whole army behind him and they glistened in the sunbeams aye aye said the horse that's the troll and now he's got his whole band with him
so throw the pitcher of water behind you but mind you don't spill any of it upon me so the lad did that but in spite of all the pains he took he still spilt one drop on the horse's flank
so it became a great deep lake and because of that one drop the horse found himself far out in it but still he swam safe to land but when the trolls came to the lake
they lay down to drink it dry and so they swilled and swilled till they burst now we're rid of them said the horse so
they came to a green patch in a wood now strip off all your arms said the horse and only put on your ragged clothes and take the saddle off me and let me loose and hang all my clothing and your arms
up inside that great hollow lime tree yonder then make yourself a wig of fir moss and go up to the king's palace which lies close here and ask for a place
but then the kitchen maid asked him why do you wear that ugly wig off with it i won't have such a fright in here no i can't do that said the lad for i'm not quite right in my head do you think then i'll have you in here about the food cried the cook
away with you to the coachman you're best fit to go and clean the stable but when the coachman begged him to take his wig off he got the same answer and he wouldn't have him either you'd best go down to the gardener said he
you're best fit to go about and dig in the garden so he got leave to be with the gardener but none of the other servants would sleep with him and so he had to sleep by himself under the steps
of the summerhouse it stood upon beams and had a high staircase under that he got some turf for his bed and there he lay as well as he could
so when he had been some time at the palace it happened one morning just as the sun rose that the lad had taken off his wig and stood and washed himself and then he was so handsome it was a joy
to look at him so the princess saw from her window the lovely gardener's boy and thought she had never seen any one so handsome
and then they'll not refuse to sleep with him any more said the princess so the gardener told that to the lad do you think i'll do any such thing said the lad why they'd say next there was something between me and the princess
yes said the gardener you've good reason to fear any such thing you who are so handsome well well said the lad since it's her will i suppose i must go so when he was to go up the steps in the evening
he tramped and stamped so on the way that they had to beg him to tread softly lest the king should come to know it so he came into the princess bedroom lay down and began to snore at once
then the princess said to her maid go gently and just pull his wig off and she went up to him but just as she was going to whisk it off he caught hold of it with both hands
after that he lay down again and began to snore then the princess gave her maid a wink and this time she whisked off the wig and there lay the lad so lovely and white and red
just as the princess had seen him in the morning sun after that the lad slept every night in the princess bedroom
but threw him into the prison tower and as for his daughter he shut her up in her own room whence she never got leave to stir day or night all that she begged and all that she prayed for the lad and herself
was no good the king was only more wroth than ever some time after came a war and uproar in the land
and ask for a coat of mail and a sword and for leave to go to the war
and begged the king to let him have an old worn out suit that they might have the fun of seeing such a wretch in battle so he got that and an old broken down hack besides which went upon three legs
and dragged the fourth after it then they went out to meet the foe but they hadn't got far from the palace before the lad got stuck fast in a bog with his hack there he sat
and dug his spurs in and cried gee up gee up to his hack and all the rest had their fun out of this and laughed and made game of the lad as they rode past him
but they were scarcely gone before he ran to the lime tree threw on his coat of mail and shook the bridle and there came the horse in a trice and said do now your best and i'll do mine
but when the lad came up the battle had begun and the king was in a sad pinch but no sooner had the lad rushed into the thick of it than the foe was beaten back and put to flight
the king and his men wondered and wondered who it could be who had come to help them but none of them got so near him as to be able to talk to him and as soon as the fight was over he was gone when they went back
there sat the lad still in the bog and dug his spurs into his three legged hack and they all laughed again no only just look they said there the fool sits still
they saw the lad sitting there still so they laughed again and made game of him but as soon as ever they had ridden by the lad ran again to the lime tree and all happened as on the first day every one wondered
and saw the lad still sitting there on his hack they burst out laughing at him again and one of them shot an arrow at him and hit him in the leg so he began to shriek and to bewail twas enough to break one's heart
and so the king threw his pocket handkerchief to him to bind his wound when they went out to battle the third day the lad still sat there gee up gee up he said to his hack
nay nay said the king's men if he won't stick there till he's starved to death and then they rode on and laughed at him till they were fit to fall from their horses when they were gone he ran again to the lime
and came up to the battle just in the very nick of time this day he slew the enemy's king and then the war was over at once when the battle was over the king caught sight of his handkerchief
which the strange warrior had bound round his leg and so it wasn't hard to find him out so they took him with great joy between them to the palace and the princess who saw him from her window got so glad no one can believe it
here comes my own true love she said then he took the pot of ointment and rubbed himself on the leg and after that he rubbed all the wounded and so they all got well again in a moment
so he got the princess to wife but when he went down into the stable where his horse was on the day the wedding was to be there it stood so dull and heavy and hung its ears down
and wouldn't eat its corn so when the young king for he was now a king and had got half the kingdom spoke to him and asked what ailed him the horse said now i have helped you on
and now i won't live any longer so just take the sword and cut my head off no
but you shall have all you want and rest all your life well said the horse if you don't do as i tell you see if i don't take your life somehow
but when he swung the sword and was to cut his head off he was so sorry he turned away his face for he would not see the stroke fall but as soon as ever he had cut off the head
there stood the loveliest prince on the spot where the horse had stood why where in all the world did you come from asked the king it was i who was a horse said the prince
whose king you slew yesterday he it was who threw this troll's shape over me and sold me to the troll but now he is slain i get my own again and you and i will be neighbour kings but war
we will never make on one another
the best wish once on a time there were three brothers i don't quite know how it happened but each of them had got the right to wish one thing whatever he chose
and you shall soon hear how far better this was than gold and goods so when they had all wished their wishes the two elder were for setting out to see the world and boots their youngest brother
who haven't a penny and never will have one who do you think will care a bit about you
they came to an inn where the two who had the money alighted and called for fish and flesh and fowl and brandy and mead and everything that was good
but boots poor fellow had to look after their luggage and all that belonged to the two great people now as he went to and fro outside and loitered about in the inn yard
and saw the servant of the gentlemen upstairs and all at once she thought she had never set eyes on such a handsome chap so she stared and stared and the longer she looked
the handsomer he seemed why what by the deil's skin and bones
i think twould be better if you just looked how the sucking pig is getting on instead of hanging out of window in that way don't you know what grand folk we have in the house to day
we'll ask him to step in and treat him a little for poor lad he seems to have a hard fight of it have you lost the little brains you had goody said the husband whose eyes glistened with rage into the kitchen with you
and mind the fire but don't stand there glowering after strange men so the wife had nothing left for it but to go into the kitchen and look after the cooking as for the lad outside she couldn't get leave to ask him in or to treat him either
but just as she was about spitting the pig in the kitchen she made an excuse for running out into the yard and then and there she gave boots a pair of scissors of such a kind that they cut of themselves out of the air
the loveliest clothes any one ever saw silk and satin and all that was fine this you shall have because you are so handsome said the innkeeper's wife
there the two brothers again alighted and went indoors but boots who had no money they wouldn't have inside with them no he must wait outside and watch the luggage
but the same thing happened now as happened before while boots stood hanging about out in the yard the innkeeper's wife came to the window and saw him and she too fell in love with him just like the first innkeeper's wife
and there she stood and stared for she thought she could never have her fill of looking at him then her husband came running through the room with something the two princes had ordered
don't you see what grand people we have in the house to day i don't care a farthing for such a pack of rubbish said the wife if they don't like what they get they may lump it and eat what they brought with them but just do come here and see what you shall see
such a handsome fellow as walks here out in the yard i never saw in all my born days shan't we ask him in and treat him a little
and then she went on such a love such a love you never had much wit and the little you had is clean gone i can see said the man who was much more angry than the first innkeeper
which was such that it covered itself with the best dishes you could think of as soon as it was spread out this you shall have she said because you're so handsome
so when the two brothers had eaten and drank of all that was in the house and had paid the bill in hard cash they set off again and boots stood up behind their carriage
but when they had gone so far that they grew hungry again they turned into a third inn and called for the best and dearest they could think of
and as for our money it grows like grass well when the innkeeper heard that there was such a roasting and baking and boiling why you might smell the dinner at the next neighbour's house
though it wasn't so very near and the innkeeper was at his wits end to find all he wished to put before the two kings but boots he had to stand outside here too and look after the things in the carriage
so it was the same story over again the innkeeper's wife came to the window and peeped out and there she saw the servant standing by the carriage such a handsome chap she had never set eyes on before so she looked and looked
and the more she stared the handsomer he seemed to the innkeeper's wife then out came the innkeeper scampering through the room with some dainty which the travelling kings had ordered
and he wasn't very soft tongued when he saw his old dame standing and glowering out of the window don't you know better than to stand gaping and staring there when we have such great folk in the house he said back into the kitchen with you this minute
to your custards well well she said as for them i don't care a pin if they can't wait till the custards are baked they may go without that's all but do pray come here and you'll see such a lovely lad
of whatever kind you choose both mead and wine and brandy and this you shall have because you are so handsome
so when the two brothers had eaten and drunk all they could they started from the inn and boots stood up behind again as their servant and thus they drove far and wide
till they came to a king's palace there the two elder gave themselves out for two emperor's sons and as they had plenty of money and were so fine that their clothes shone again ever so far off
they were well treated they had rooms in the palace and the king couldn't tell how to make enough of them but boots who went about in the same rags he stood in when he left home
because he wouldn't have the mirth at the palace spoilt by those dirty blackguards and thither too only just as much food as would keep body and soul together was sent over everyday
now boots brothers saw very well that the guard was rowing him over to the island but they were glad to be rid of him and didn't pay the least heed to him
but when boots got over there he just pulled out his scissors and began to snip and cut in the air so the scissors cut out the finest clothes any one would wish to see
silk and satin both and all the beggars on the island were soon dressed far finer than the king and all his guests in the palace
and even his own family by rejecting all their gods alone and without help he resisted a powerful tribe a task which is neither simple nor easy it is as if in this day someone were to go to a christian people
who are attached to the bible and deny christ or in the papal court
these people believed not in one god but in many gods to whom they ascribed miracles therefore they all arose against him and no one supported him except lot his brother's son and one or two other people of no importance
at last reduced to the utmost distress by the opposition of his enemies he was obliged to leave his native land in reality they banished him in order that he might be crushed and destroyed
a jacob appeared among his posterity and a joseph who became ruler in egypt in consequence of his exile a moses and a being like christ were manifested from his posterity and hagar was found from whom ishmael was born one of whose descendants was muhammad
and so it will continue for ever and ever finally in consequence of his exile the whole of europe and most of asia came under the protecting shadow of the god of israel
see what a power it is that enabled a man who was a fugitive from his country to found such a family to establish such a faith and to promulgate such teachings
we must be just was this man an educator or not
we must consider what will be the effect of the exile of baha'u'llah
see what a perfect educator abraham was
made them contented brought them out from egypt and led them to the holy land this people from the depths of degradation were lifted up to the height of glory they were captive they became free
they were the most ignorant of peoples they became the most wise as the result of the institutions that moses gave them they attained a position which entitled them to honor among all nations and their fame spread to all lands to such a degree indeed
that among surrounding nations if one wished to praise a man one said surely he is an israelite
these gave life to the people of israel
later the people of greece rose in opposition to him accused him of impiety arraigned him before the areopagus and condemned him to death by poison now how could a man who was a stammerer who had been brought up in the house of pharaoh
who was known among men as a murderer who through fear had for a long time remained in concealment and who had become a shepherd establish so great a cause when the wisest philosophers on earth have not displayed one thousandth part of this influence
this is indeed a prodigy a man who had a stammering tongue who could not even converse correctly succeeded in sustaining this great cause
these facts are undeniable
each one of them having specialized in one branch of learning only thus galen and hippocrates became celebrated in medicine aristotle in logic and reasoning and plato in ethics and theology how is it that a shepherd could acquire all of this knowledge
it is beyond doubt that he must have been assisted by an omnipotent power consider also what trials and difficulties arise for people to prevent an act of cruelty moses struck down an egyptian
more notably because the man he had killed was of the ruling nation then he fled and it was after that that he was raised to the rank of a prophet in spite of his evil repute how wonderfully he was guided by a supernatural power
in establishing his great institutions and laws
christ afterward christ came saying i am born of the holy spirit though it is now easy for the christians to believe this assertion
arose with such great power that he abolished a religion that had lasted fifteen hundred years at a time when the slightest deviation from it exposed the offender to danger or to death
moreover in the days of christ the morals of the whole world and the condition of the israelites had become completely confused and corrupted and israel had fallen into a state of the utmost degradation misery and bondage
at one time they had been taken captive by the chaldeans and persians
then they became the subjects and vassals of the greeks
this young man christ by the help of a supernatural power abrogated the ancient mosaic law reformed the general morals and once again laid the foundation of eternal glory for the israelites moreover
he brought to humanity the glad tidings of universal peace and spread abroad teachings which were not for israel alone but were for the general happiness of the whole human race
to all outward appearances they overcame him and brought him into direst distress at last they crowned him with the crown of thorns and crucified him but christ while apparently in the deepest misery and affliction proclaimed
this sun will be resplendent this light will shine my grace will surround the world and all my enemies will be brought low and as he said so it was for all the kings of the earth have not been able to withstand him
nay all their standards have been overthrown
nature is governed by one universal law nature is that condition that reality which in appearance consists in life and death or in other words in the composition and decomposition of all things
this nature is subjected to an absolute organization to determined laws to a complete order and a finished design from which it will never depart to such a degree indeed
from the smallest invisible atom up to such large bodies of the world of existence as the globe of the sun or the other great stars and luminous spheres whether you regard their arrangement their composition their form or their movement
you will find that all are in the highest degree of organization
but when you look at nature itself you see that it has no intelligence no will for instance the nature of fire is to burn it burns without will or intelligence the nature of water is fluidity
it flows without will or intelligence the nature of the sun is radiance it shines without will or intelligence the nature of vapor is to ascend it ascends without will or intelligence
thus it is clear that the natural movements of all things are compelled there are no voluntary movements except those of animals and above all those of man
and to oppose nature because he discovers the constitution of things and through this he commands the forces of nature all the inventions he has made are due to his discovery of the constitution of things for example
he invented the telegraph which is the means of communication between the east and the west it is evident then that man rules over nature now when you behold in existence such organizations arrangements and laws
can you say that all these are the effect of nature though nature has neither intelligence nor perception if not it becomes evident that this nature which has neither perception nor intelligence is in the grasp of almighty god
who is the ruler of the world of nature whatever he wishes he causes nature to manifest one of the things which has appeared in the world of existence and which is one of the requirements of nature is human life
considered from this point of view man is the branch nature is the root then can the will and the intelligence and the perfections which exist in the branch be absent in the root
is in the grasp of the power of god who is the eternal almighty one he holds nature within accurate regulations and laws and rules over it
proofs and evidences of the existence of god one of the proofs and demonstrations of the existence of god is the fact that man did not create himself nay his creator and designer is another than himself
it is certain and indisputable that the creator of man is not like man because a powerless creature cannot create another being the maker the creator has to possess all perfections in order that he may create
can the creation be perfect and the creator imperfect can a picture be a masterpiece and the painter imperfect in his art for it is his art and his creation moreover the picture cannot be like the painter
otherwise the painting would have created itself however perfect the picture may be
the imperfections of the contingent world are in themselves a proof of the perfections of god for example when you look at man you see that he is weak
because if there were no power weakness could not be imagined then the weakness of the creature
for if there were no power there could be no weakness so from this weakness it becomes evident that there is power in the world again in the contingent world there is poverty
then necessarily wealth exists since poverty is apparent in the world in the contingent world there is ignorance
because ignorance is found for if there were no knowledge neither would there be ignorance ignorance is the nonexistence of knowledge and if there were no existence nonexistence could not be realized
it is certain that the whole contingent world is subjected to a law and rule which it can never disobey even man is forced to submit to death to sleep and to other conditions that is to say man in certain particulars is governed
because a characteristic of contingent beings is dependency and this dependency is an essential necessity therefore there must be an independent being whose independence is essential in the same way it is understood from the man who is sick
that there must be one who is in health
throughout the world of existence it is the same the smallest created thing proves that there is a creator for instance this piece of bread proves that it has a maker praise be to god
the least change produced in the form of the smallest thing proves the existence of a creator then can this great universe which is endless be self created and come into existence from the action of matter and the elements
these obvious arguments are adduced for weak souls but if the inner perception be open a hundred thousand clear proofs become visible thus when man feels the indwelling spirit
he is in no need of arguments for its existence but for those who are deprived of the bounty of the spirit it is necessary to establish external arguments
the need of an educator when we consider existence we see that the mineral vegetable animal and human worlds are all in need of an educator if the earth is not cultivated
it becomes a jungle where useless weeds grow but if a cultivator comes and tills the ground it produces crops which nourish living creatures it is evident therefore that the soil needs the cultivation of the farmer consider the trees
if they remain without a cultivator they will be fruitless and without fruit they are useless but if they receive the care of a gardener
and through cultivation fertilization and engrafting the trees which had bitter fruits yield sweet fruits these are rational proofs in this age the peoples of the world need the arguments of reason
the same is true with respect to animals notice that when the animal is trained it becomes domestic and also that man
becomes bestial and moreover if left under the rule of nature becomes lower than an animal
if there were no educator there would be no such things as comforts civilization
if a man be left alone in a wilderness where he sees none of his own kind he will undoubtedly become a mere brute it is then clear that an educator is needed but education is of three kinds material human
and spiritual material education is concerned with the progress and development of the body
this education is common to animals and man human education signifies civilization and progress that is to say government administration charitable works trades arts and handicrafts sciences
divine education is that of the kingdom of god it consists in acquiring divine perfections and this is true education
the manifestation of the words let us make man in our image
now we need an educator who will be at the same time a material human and spiritual educator and whose authority will be effective in all conditions so if anyone should say i possess perfect comprehension and intelligence
and i have no need of such an educator he would be denying that which is clear and evident as though a child should say i have no need of education i will act according to my reason and intelligence and so i shall attain the perfections of existence
or as though the blind should say i am in no need of sight because many other blind people exist without difficulty then it is plain and evident that man needs an educator
for any circumstances that may occur
that is to say he must educate intelligence and thought in such a way that they may attain complete development so that knowledge and science may increase and the reality of things the mysteries of beings and the properties of existence may be discovered
and from things perceptible to the senses conclusions as to intellectual things may be deduced he must also impart spiritual education so that intelligence and comprehension may penetrate the metaphysical world
and may receive benefit from the sanctifying breeze of the holy spirit and may enter into relationship with the supreme concourse he must so educate the human reality that it may become the center of the divine appearance
to such a degree that the attributes and the names of god shall be resplendent in the mirror of the reality of man
how can one solitary person without help and without support lay the foundations of such a noble construction he must depend on the help of the spiritual and divine power to be able to undertake this mission
one holy soul gives life to the world of humanity changes the aspect of the terrestrial globe causes intelligence to progress vivifies souls
brings nations and religions under the shadow of one standard delivers man from the world of imperfections and vices and inspires him with the desire and need of natural and acquired perfections certainly
nothing short of a divine power could accomplish so great a work we ought to consider this with justice for this is the office of justice a cause which all the governments and peoples of the world
with all their powers and armies cannot promulgate and spread one holy soul can promote without help or support can this be done by human power no in the name of god
a work which all the victorious governments with all their hosts are unable to accomplish consider what was the fate of so many and diverse empires and peoples the roman empire france germany russia england
all were gathered together under the same tent that is to say the appearance of christ brought about a union among these diverse nations some of whom under the influence of christianity
syrians egyptians phoenicians israelites and other peoples of europe
and he must possess a supernatural power so that he may hold the position of a divine teacher if he does not show forth such a holy power he will not be able to educate for if he be imperfect how can he give a perfect education
if he be ignorant how can he make others wise if he be unjust how can he make others just if he be earthly how can he make others heavenly now we must consider justly
they were not real educators therefore it must be our task to prove to the thoughtful by reasonable arguments the prophethood of moses of christ and of the other divine manifestations
it has now been proved by rational arguments that the world of existence is in the utmost need of an educator
chapter four a fire and a plan some people said that old johann heinrich never slept for no matter what hour of the night one passed his lonely little house a lamp was always burning
he was a queer old german naturalist living by himself in a cottage adjoining the mac intyre place he had been a professor in a large university until he grew too old to keep his position
they did not know that he had written two big books about the birds and insects he loved so well or that he could tell them facts more wonderful than fairy tales about these little wild creatures of the woodland to night he had read later than usual
while everybody else in the valley was sound asleep over in the cabin by the spring house where the boys had left the tramp and jonesy a puff of smoke went curling around the roof then a tongue of flame shot up through the cedars
it shone full across the window of virginia's room but she was dreaming of being chased by bears and only turned uneasily in her sleep the old professor on his way to the kitchen noticed that it seemed strangely light outside
somebody vill shust in his bed be burnt if old johann does not haste make not waiting to close the door behind him or even to catch up something to protect his old bald head from the intense cold of the winter night
he ran out across the garden his shuffling feet in their flapping old carpet slippers forgot their rheumatism and his shoulders dropped the weight of their seventy years he ran like a boy across the meadow
through the gap in the fence and down the hill to the cabin by the spring all one side of it was in flames the fire was curling around the front door and bursting through the windows with fierce cracklings
but something fell across the door sill in a limp little heap it was jonesy dragging the child to a safe distance from the burning building he ran back fearing that some one else might be in danger
and all danger of the fire spreading to other buildings was over while the professor was bending over jonesy trying to bring him back to consciousness miss allison came running down the path
the shouts had awakened her also and she had slipped out as quietly as possible not wishing to alarm her mother how did it happen she demanded breathlessly is the child badly burned is any one else hurt is the tramp in the cabin
no one gave any answer to her rapid questions the old professor shook his head but did not look up he was bending over jonesy trying to restore him to consciousness he seemed to know the right things to do for him
and looked around wonderingly in a few minutes he was able to tell what he knew about the fire it was not much only a horrible recollection of being awakened by a feeling that he was choking in the thick smoke that filled the room
of hearing the boss swear at him to be quick and follow him or he would be burned to death then there had been an awful moment of groping through the blinding choking smoke trying to find a way out the man sprang to a window and made his escape
but as the outside air rushed in through the opening he left it seemed to fan the smoke instantly into flame jonesy had struck out at the wall of fire with his helpless little hands and then half crazed by the scorching pain
dropped to the floor and crawled in the opposite direction just as the professor burst open the door the sight of the poor little blistered face brought the tears to miss allison's eyes and she called two of the coloured men
directing them to carry jonesy to the house and then go at once for a doctor but the professor interfered insisting that jonesy should be taken to his house he said that he knew how to prepare the cooling bandages that were needed
and that he would sit up all night to apply them he could not sleep anyhow he said after such great excitement but i feel responsible for him urged miss allison
and my little nephews brought him here it seems to me that we ought to have the care of him the professor waved her aside lifting jonesy's head as tenderly as a nurse could have done and motioned the coloured men to lift him up
no no fraulein he said i have had eggsperience it is besser the poor leedle knabe go mit me there was no opposing the old man's masterful way
lest some stray spark should be blown toward the other buildings dis yere ole niggah wa'n't mistaken aftah all he muttered
for footprints in the snow he found some tracks presently and followed them over the meadow in the starlight across the road and down the railroad track several rods there they suddenly disappeared
the tramp had evidently walked on the rail some distance if unc henry had gone quarter of a mile farther up the track he would have found those same sliding imprints
in his haste to get away jonesy stoutly denied that the man had set fire to the cabin we nearly froze to death that night he said when questioned about it afterward and the boss piled on an awful big lot of wood just before he went to bed
then what made him take to his heels so fast if he didn't some one asked i don't know answered jonesy he said that luck was always against him and maybe he thought nobody would believe him if he did say that he didn't do it
several days after that malcolm found the tramp's picture in the courier journal he was a noted criminal who had escaped from a northern penitentiary some two months before and had been arrested by the louisville police
there was no mistaking him that big ugly scar branded him on cheek and forehead like another cain and to think that that terrible man was harboured on my place exclaimed missus mac intyre when she heard of it
he isn't a fit companion for you not that the poor little unfortunate is to blame he cannot help being a child of the slums and he must be put in an orphan asylum or a reform school at once
it is probably the only thing that can save him from growing up to be a criminal like the man who brought him here i shall see what can be done about it as soon as possible a child of the slums malcolm and keith repeated the expression afterward
maybe if jonesy had been an attractive child with a sensitive mouth and big appealing eyes he might have found his way more easily into people's hearts but he was a lean snub nosed little fellow
with a freckled face and neglected hair no one would ever find his cheek a tempting one to kiss and no one would be moved by any feeling save pity to stoop and put affectionate arms around jonesy
as unlovely as he was unloved what a blessing that there are such places as orphan asylums for children of that class said missus maclntyre after one of her visits to him
i must make arrangements for him to be put into one as soon as he is able to be moved i think he will be very loath to leave the old professor answered miss allison he has been so good to the child amusing him by the hour with his microscopes
and collections of insects telling him those delightful old german folk lore tales and putting him to sleep every night to the music of his violin what a child lover he is and what a delightful old man in every way
i am glad we have discovered him yes said missus maclntyre and when this little tramp is sent away i want the children to go there often i asked him if he could not teach them this spring at least make a beginning with them in natural history
and he appeared much pleased he is as poor as a church mouse and would be very glad of the money that reminds me said miss allison he asked me if the boys could not come down to see jonesy this afternoon and bring the bear
and might help him to forget his suffering
the valentine party now we can tell ginger about the bear was keith's first remark when he awoke early next morning
you know we promised him that then let's go down before breakfast exclaimed keith springing out of bed and beginning to dress himself a little while later the old coloured coachman saw them run past the window where he was warming himself by the kitchen stove
daphne he called out to the cook who was beating biscuit in the adjoining pantry daphne what's dem chillun alluz racin down to de spring house fo in de snow peah's lak dee has a heap o business down yandah
daphne who had just been coaxed into filling a basket with a generous supply of cold victuals pretended not to hear until he repeated his question then she stopped pounding long enough to say sharply
lak enough dee's settin a rabbit trap boys has done such things befo
daphne had seen them setting rabbit traps there but she knew well enough that was not what they had gone for now and that the food they carried was not for the game of robinson crusoe which they had played in the deserted cabin the summer before
still she did not care to take unc henry into her confidence the food the warmth and the night's rest had so restored the bear that it was able to go through all its performances for the boys entertainment although it limped badly
i wish we had one it's nicer than any pets we ever had except the ponies something always happened to the dogs and the monkey was such a nuisance and the white rabbits were stolen and the guinea pigs died
haven't we had a lot of things when you come to think of it exclaimed malcolm squirrels and white mice and the coon that uncle harry brought us and the parrot from mexico
yes and the gold fish and the little baby alligator that froze to death in its tank added keith but a bear like this would be nicer than any of them
jonesy's nearly done for said the tramp pointing to the boy who lay curled up in the hay coughing at nearly every breath we ought to stay here another day
then we can bring ginger down to see the bear perform yes answered the man we'll give a free show to all your friends if you will only kindly wait till to morrow give us one more day to rest up and get in a little better trim
the poor beast's foot is still too lame for him to do his best and you're too kind hearted i am sure to want anything to suffer in order to give you pleasure of course answered both the boys
agreeing so quickly to all the man's smooth speeches that before they left the cabin they had renewed their promise to keep silent one more day the man was a shrewd one and knew well how to make these unsuspecting little souls serve his purpose
like puppets tied to a string miss allison was so busy with preparations for the party that she had no time all that day to notice what the boys were doing when they came back from reciting their lessons to the minister she sent them on several errands
but the rest of the time they divided between the cabin and the post office every mail brought a few valentines to each of them but it was not until the five o'clock train came that they found the long looked for letters
they were half way home when a happy thought came to malcolm keith he cried excitedly if you would put your money with mine that would make four dollars
turning a handspring in the snow to show his delight come on we'll ask the man now but the man shook his head when they dashed into the cabin and told their errand
i've raised that bear from the time it was a teeny cub i've taught it and fed it and looked to it for company when i hadn't nobody in the world to care for me couldn't sell that bear for no such sum as that
couldn't you raise any more money than that it was malcolm's turn to shake his head he turned away too disappointed to trust himself to answer any other way the tears sprang to keith's eyes
oh don't be in such a hurry young gen'lemen whined the man when he saw that they were really going i didn't say that i wouldn't sell it to you for that much you've been so kind to me
i happen to need four dollars very particular just now
if you'll keep mum about us being here for one more day you can leave the bear here till we go no no cried keith throwing his arms around the animal's neck he is ours now and we must take him with us
we can hide him away in the barn it is so dark out doors now that nobody will see us it wouldn't seem like he is really ours if we couldn't take him with us after some grumbling the man consented and pocketed the four dollars
first asking very particularly the exact spot in the barn where they expected to hide their huge pet unc henry coming up from the carriage house through the twilight
there was no answer and after peering intently through the dusk for a moment the old darkey concluded that he must have been mistaken and passed on as soon as he was gone the boys came out from behind the cedars and crept up the snowy hillside
they were leading the bear between them we'll put him away back in the hay mow where he'll be warm and comfortable to night whispered malcolm then in the morning we can tell everybody while they were busily scooping out a big hollow in the hay
they looked into each other's frightened faces and then glanced around the dark barn in alarm an old cap pushed up through the hay then a weak little cough betrayed jonesy he had followed them sh he said in a warning whisper
i'm afraid the boss will find out that i'm here he started to the store for some tobacco as soon as you left he's been wild fer some but didn't have no money don't you leave that bear out here to night if you ever expect to see it again
that wasn't true what he told you he never saw the bear till two months ago and he sold it to you cheap because he's a goin to steal it back again to night and make off up the road with it he went off a grinnin over the slick way he'd fooled you
i'll never forget the little kid's givin me the coat off his own back
is that man your father began keith but jonesy alarmed by some sudden noise sprang to the door and disappeared in the twilight
there was a hurried consultation in the hay mow a few moments later the boys were smuggling their new pet into the house and up the back stairs they scarcely dared breathe until it was safe in their own room
all the time that they were dressing for the party they were trying to decide where to put it for the night so that neither the tramp nor the family could discover it what jonesy had told them about the man's dishonest intention did not relieve them from their promise
they were amazed that any one could be so mean and longed to tell their aunt allison all about it still one of the conditions on which they had bought the bear was that they were to keep mum and they stuck strictly to that promise
by the time they were dressed they had decided to put it in the blue room a guest chamber in the north wing seldom used in winter because it was so hard to heat nobody will ever think of coming in here said malcolm
and it will be plenty warm for a bear if we turn on the furnace a little as he spoke he was tying the bear's rope around a leg of the big high posted bed won't ginger be surprised answered keith
we'll tell her that we have a valentine six feet long and keep her guessing there was no time for teasing however as the first guest arrived while they were still in the blue room i hate to go off and leave him in the dark said keith
with a final loving pat i guess he'll not mind though maybe he'll think he is in the woods if i put this good smelling pine pillow on the rug beside him oh boys called virginia from the hall down stairs
see what an enormous valentine pie aunt allison has made looking over the banisters the boys saw that a table had been drawn into the middle of the wide reception hall and on it sat the largest pie that they had ever seen
it was in a bright new tin pan and its daintily browned crust would have made them hungry even if their appetites had not been sharpened by the cold and exercise of the afternoon what a queer place to serve pie said malcolm
in a disapproving undertone to his brother why don't they have it in the dining room it looks mighty good
virginia pleased to have caught them so cleverly showed them the ends of twenty four pieces of narrow ribbon peeping from under the delicately brown top crust the white ones are for the girls
there is a valentine on the end of each one and those on the red ribbons match the ones on the white we'll all pull at once and the ones who have valentines alike
the guests came promptly they had been invited for half past six and dinner was to be served soon after that time the last to arrive was the little colonel she came in charge of an old coloured woman mom beck
who had been her mother's nurse as well as her own the child was so hidden in her wraps when mom beck led her up stairs that no one could tell how she looked
the star like beauty of her big dark eyes or the delicate colour in her cheeks that made them as pink as a wild rose as it was for the valentine costume she wore
it was of dainty white tulle sprinkled with hundreds of tiny red velvet hearts and there was a coronet of glittering rhinestones on her long fair hair the queen of hearts announced aunt allison leading her forward
and now she shall open the valentine pie and see if it is as good as her majesty's the big music box in the hall began playing one of its liveliest waltzes the children gathered around the great pie
and twenty four little hands reached out to grasp the floating ends of ribbon pull cried the little queen of hearts the paper crust flew off
while the gay music box played on in the midst of it virginia beckoned to the little colonel come up stairs with me for a minute lloyd she whispered and help me look for something aunt allison has forgotten where she put the box of arrows
that we are to use in the archery contest after dinner there is the prettiest prize for the one who hits the red heart in the centre of the target oh do you suppose you can hit it asked lloyd as she and virginia slipped their arms around each other
and went skipping up the stairs yes indeed answered virginia i used to practise so much with my indian bow and arrow out at the fort that i could hit centre nearly every time i am not going to shoot to night aunt allison thinks it wouldn't be fair
when they reached the top of the stairs virginia went into her room to light a wax taper in one of the tall silver candlesticks on her dressing table i think that aunt allison must have left those arrows in the blue room she said
leading the way down the cross hall which went to the north wing she made the pie in there this morning and all the other things were there nobody comes over in this part of the house much in winter unless there happens to be a great deal of company
the taper that virginia carried was the only light in that part of the house when she reached the door of the blue room she turned to lloyd hold the candle for me please she said while i look in the closet
down stairs malcolm and keith were almost quarrelling about her it began by malcolm taking his brother aside and offering to trade valentines with him why asked keith suspiciously cause yours matches the little colonel's
she is the prettiest girl here
i think you might trade coaxed malcolm it's mean not to when i'm the oldest i'll give you that chinese puzzle you've been wanting so long if you will keith shook his head just then a terrific scream sounded in the upper hall
followed by another that made every one down stairs turn pale with fright two voices were uttering piercing shrieks one after another so loud and frantic that even the servants in the back part of the house came running
virginia came flying down the steps white as a little ghost
malcolm and keith with guilty faces went dashing up the stairs and the whole party followed them at a respectful distance when they opened the door the room looked very big and shadowy
and the bear roused from its nap was standing on its hind legs beside the high posted bed the huge figure was certainly enough to frighten any one coming upon it unexpectedly in the dark
and when miss allison saw it she drew virginia's trembling hand into hers with a sympathetic clasp before she could ask any questions the boys began an excited explanation it was some time before they could make their story understood
their grandmother was horrified and insisted on sending the animal away at once the
we might have all been bitten or hugged to death but grandmother begged malcolm he isn't dangerous let me bring him into the light and show you what a kind old pet he is there was a scattering to the other end of the hall
as malcolm came out leading the bear but the children gradually drew nearer as the great animal began its performances keith whistled and kept time with his feet in a funny little shuffling jig he had learned from jonesy
and the bear obligingly went through all his tricks he was used to being pulled out to perform whenever a crowd could be collected virginia forgot her fear of him when he stood up and presented arms like a real soldier
and even went up and patted him when the show was over joining with the boys in begging that he might be allowed to stay in the house until morning missus maclntyre was determined to send a man down to the cabin at once to investigate
she had a horror of tramps but the boys begged her to wait until daylight for jonesy's sake the man will beat him if he finds out that jonesy warned us pleaded keith he was so earnest that the tears stood in his big trustful eyes
this is spoiling the party mother whispered miss allison and dinner is waiting i'll be responsible for any harm that may be done if you will let the boys have their way this once there seemed no other way to settle it just then
so bruin was allowed to go back to his rug in the blue room and the door was securely locked keith took lloyd down to dinner and his grandmother heard him apologising all the way down for having frightened her the little queen of hearts listened smilingly
all evening until after the archery contest it was when malcolm came up with the prize he had won a tiny silver arrow and pinned it in the knot of red ribbon on her shoulder will you keep it to remember me by he asked bashfully
bearing away the last smiling little guest that the children were almost too sleepy to undress it was not long until the last light was put out in every room and a deep stillness settled over the entire house
one by one the lights went out in every home in the valley and only the stars were left shining in the cold wintry sky no there was one lamp that still burned
ten days later at sagamore hill i was among my own birds and was much interested as i listened to and looked at them in remembering the notes and actions of the birds i had seen in england
on the evening of the first day i sat in my rocking chair on the broad veranda looking across the sound towards the glory of the sunset
the thickly grassed hillside sloped down in front of me to a belt of forest from which rose the golden leisurely chiming of the wood thrushes chanting their vespers through the still air came the warble of vireo and tanager
and after nightfall we heard the flight song of an ovenbird from the same belt of timber overhead an oriole sang in the weeping elm now and then breaking his song to scold like an overgrown wren song sparrows and catbirds sang in the shrubbery
and there was a chippy's nest in the wistaria vine by the stoop during the next twenty four hours i saw and heard either right around the house or while walking down to bathe through the woods the following forty two birds
night heron red tailed hawk yellow billed cuckoo kingfisher flicker humming bird swift meadow lark red winged blackbird sharp tailed finch
song sparrow chipping sparrow bush sparrow purple finch baltimore oriole cowbunting robin wood thrush thrasher catbird scarlet tanager
red eyed vireo yellow warbler black throated green warbler kingbird wood peewee crow blue jay cedar bird maryland yellowthroat chickadee
black and white creeper barn swallow white breasted swallow ovenbird thistlefinch vesperfinch indigo bunting towhee grasshopper sparrow and screech owl
the birds were still in full song for on long island there is little abatement in the chorus until about the second week of july when the blossoming of the chestnut trees patches the woodland with frothy greenish yellow
alas the blight has now destroyed the chestnut trees and robbed our woods of one of their distinctive beauties our most beautiful singers are the wood thrushes they sing not only in the early morning but throughout the long hot june afternoons
sometimes they sing in the trees immediately around the house and if the air is still we can always hear them from among the tall trees at the foot of the hill the thrashers sing in the hedgerows beyond the garden the catbirds everywhere
the catbirds have such an attractive song that it is extremely irritating to know that at any moment they may interrupt it to mew and squeal the bold cheery music of the robins always seems typical of the bold cheery birds themselves
the baltimore orioles nest in the young elms around the house and the orchard orioles in the apple trees near the garden and outbuildings among the earliest sounds of spring is the cheerful simple homely song of the song sparrow
among the finches one of the most musical and plaintive songs is that of the bush sparrow i do not know why the books call it field sparrow for it does not dwell in the open fields like the vesperfinch the savannah sparrow
and grasshopper sparrow but among the cedars and bayberry bushes and young locusts in the same places where the prairie warbler is found nor is it only the true songs that delight us we love to hear the flickers call
and we readily pardon any one of their number which as occasionally happens is bold enough to wake us in the early morning by drumming on the shingles of the roof in our ears the red winged blackbirds have a very attractive note
we love the screaming of the red tailed hawks as they soar high overhead and even the calls of the night heron that nest in the tall water maples by one of the wood ponds on our place and the little green herons that nest beside the salt marsh
a man who is worth anything can no more be entirely impartial in speaking of the bird songs with which from his earliest childhood he has been familiar than he can be entirely impartial in speaking of his own family
at sagamore hill we love a great many things birds and trees and books and all things beautiful and horses and rifles and children and hard work and the joy of life we have great fireplaces
as in every house there are things that appeal to the householder because of their associations but which would not mean much to others naturally any man who has been president and filled other positions accumulates such things
with scant regard to his own personal merits perhaps our most cherished possessions are a remington bronze the bronco buster given me by my men when the regiment was mustered out
and a big tiffany silver vase given to missus roosevelt by the enlisted men of the battleship louisiana after we returned from a cruise on her to panama it was a real surprise gift presented to her in the white house on behalf of the whole crew
when i was in company with admiral evans and captain cowles and again on the sylph and on the mayflower we also dined as guests of the crew when we finished our trip on the louisiana i made a short speech to the assembled crew
now then men three cheers for theodore roosevelt the typical american citizen that was the way in which they thought of the american president and a very good way too
it was an expression that would have come naturally only to men in whom the american principles of government and life were ingrained just as they were ingrained in the men of my regiment i need scarcely add but i will add for the benefit of those who do not know
that this attitude of self respecting identification of interest and purpose is not only compatible with but can only exist when there is fine and real discipline as thorough and genuine as the discipline that has always obtained
in the most formidable fighting fleets and armies
not antagonistic during the presidency all of us but especially the children became close friends with many of the sailor men the four bearers of the vase to missus roosevelt were promptly hailed as delightful big brothers by our two smallest boys
who at once took them to see the sights of washington in the landau the president's land ho as with seafaring humor our guests immediately styled it once after we were in private life again
and in answer to a question explained that he had left the navy in order to study dentistry and added a delicious touch that while thus preparing himself to be a dentist he was earning the necessary money to go on with his studies
by practicing the profession of a prize fighter being a good man in the ring there are various bronzes in the house saint gaudens's puritan a token from my staff officers when i was governor
proctor's cougar the gift of the tennis cabinet who also gave us a beautiful silver bowl which is always lovingly pronounced to rhyme with owl because that was the pronunciation used at the time of the giving by the valued friend who acted as spokesman for his fellow members
and who was himself the only non american member of the said cabinet there is a horseman by macmonnies and a big bronze vase by kemys an adaptation or development of the pottery vases of the southwestern indians
and a wonderful psalter from the emperor menelik to a priceless ancient samurai sword coming from japan in remembrance of the peace of portsmouth
and a beautifully inlaid miniature suit of japanese armor given me by a favorite hero of mine admiral togo when he visited sagamore hill there are things from european friends
a huge very handsome edition of the nibelungenlied a striking miniature of john hampden from windsor castle
a sioux buffalo robe with on it painted by some long dead sioux artist the picture story of custer's fight a bronze portrait plaque of joel chandler harris
where light and shadow meet the porcelain towers and the seats of the mighty he is dead now and he had scant recognition while he lived yet surely he was a great imaginative artist a wonderful colorist
and sketches of the white house by sargent and by hopkinson smith the books are everywhere there are as many in the north room and in the parlor is drawing room a more appropriate name than parlor as in the library
the gun room at the top of the house which incidentally has the loveliest view of all contains more books than any of the other rooms and they are particularly delightful books to browse among just because they have not much relevance to one another
this being one of the reasons why they are relegated to their present abode but the books have overflowed into all the other rooms too i could not name any principle upon which the books have been gathered books are almost as individual as friends
there is no earthly use in laying down general laws about them some meet the needs of one person and some of another and each person should beware of the booklover's besetting sin
of what mister edgar allan poe calls the mad pride of intellectuality taking the shape of arrogant pity for the man who does not like the same kind of books of course there are books which a man or woman uses as instruments of a profession
law books medical books cookery books and the like i am not speaking of these for they are not properly books at all they come in the category of time tables telephone directories and other useful agencies of civilized life
i am speaking of books that are meant to be read personally granted that these books are decent and healthy the one test to which i demand that they all submit is that of being interesting if the book is not interesting to the reader
of course any reader ought to cultivate his or her taste so that good books will appeal to it and that trash won't but after this point has once been reached the needs of each reader must be met in a fashion that will appeal to those needs
personally the books by which i have profited infinitely more than by any others have been those in which profit was a by product of the pleasure that is i read them because i enjoyed them because i liked reading them
and the profit came in as part of the enjoyment of course each individual is apt to have some special tastes in which he cannot expect that any but a few friends will share now i am very proud of my big game library
i suppose there must be many big game libraries in continental europe and possibly in england more extensive than mine but i have not happened to come across any such library in this country some of the originals go back to the sixteenth century
and there are copies or reproductions of the two or three most famous hunting books of the middle ages such as the duke of york's translation of gaston phoebus and the queer book of the emperor maximilian
it is only very occasionally that i meet any one who cares for any of these books on the other hand i expect to find many friends who will turn naturally to some of the old or the new books of poetry or romance
or history to which we of the household habitually turn let me add that ours is in no sense a collector's library each book was procured because some one of the family wished to read it
if he cannot also enjoy the hebrew prophets and the greek dramatists he should be sorry he ought to read interesting books on history and government and books of science and philosophy
and really good books on these subjects are as enthralling as any fiction ever written in prose or verse gibbon and macaulay herodotus
why there are scores and scores of solid histories the best in the world which are as absorbing as the best of all the novels and of as permanent value the same thing is true of darwin and huxley and carlyle and emerson and parts of kant
i do not for a minute mean that the statesman ought not to read a great many different books of this character just as every one else should read them but in the final event the statesman and the publicist and the reformer and the agitator for new things
and the upholder of what is good in old things all need more than anything else to know human nature to know the needs of the human soul and they will find this nature and these needs set forth as nowhere else by the great imaginative writers
whether of prose or of poetry the room for choice is so limitless that to my mind it seems absurd to try to make catalogues which shall be supposed to appeal to all the best thinkers
this is why i have no sympathy whatever with writing lists of the one hundred best books or the five foot library it is all right for a man to amuse himself by composing a list of a hundred very good books
and if he is to go off for a year or so where he cannot get many books it is an excellent thing to choose a five foot library of particular books which in that particular year and on that particular trip he would like to read
on different occasions extending over a number of years milton is best for one mood and pope for another because a man likes whitman or browning or lowell he should not feel himself debarred from tennyson or kipling or korner or heine or
tolstoy's novels are good at one time
each one of which if really read really assimilated by the person to whom it happens to appeal will enable that person quite unconsciously to furnish himself with much ammunition which he will find of use in the battle of life
a book must be interesting to the particular reader at that particular time
and some of them are sealed to some men and some are sealed to others and some stir the soul at some given point of a man's life and yet convey no message at other times
the reader the booklover must meet his own needs without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs should be he must not hypocritically pretend to like what he does not like
yet at the same time he must avoid that most unpleasant of all the indications of puffed up vanity which consists in treating mere individual and perhaps unfortunate idiosyncrasy as a matter of pride i happen to be devoted to macbeth
whereas i very seldom read hamlet though i like parts of it now i am humbly and sincerely conscious that this is a demerit in me and not in hamlet and yet it would not do me any good to pretend that i like hamlet as much as macbeth when as a matter of fact i don't
and the roland song through chevy chase and patrick spens and twa corbies to scott's poems and longfellow's
or moliere in order that i may not feel after finishing them a sense of virtuous pride in having achieved a task
now i would be the first to deny that even the most delightful old english ballad should be put on a par with any one of scores of dramatic works by authors whom i have not mentioned
i know that each of these dramatists has written what is of more worth than the ballad only i enjoy the ballad and i don't enjoy the drama and therefore the ballad is better for me
and this fact is not altered by the other fact that my own shortcomings are to blame in the matter i still read a number of scott's novels over and over again whereas if i finish anything by miss austen
i have a feeling that duty performed is a rainbow to the soul but other booklovers who are very close kin to me and whose taste i know to be better than mine read miss austen all the time and moreover
they are very kind and never pity me in too offensive a manner for not reading her myself aside from the masters of literature there are all kinds of books which one person will find delightful
and which he certainly ought not to surrender just because nobody else is able to find as much in the beloved volume there is on our book shelves a little pre victorian novel or tale called the semi attached couple it is told with much humor
books are all very well in their way and we love them at sagamore hill but children are better than books sagamore hill is one of three neighboring houses in which small cousins spent very happy years of childhood
in the three houses there were at one time sixteen of these small cousins all told and once we ranged them in order of size and took their photograph there are many kinds of success in life worth having
it is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man or railroad man or farmer or a successful lawyer or doctor or a writer or a president or a ranchman or the colonel of a fighting regiment
or to kill grizzly bears and lions but for unflagging interest and enjoyment a household of children if things go reasonably well
it may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching and as for a life deliberately devoted to pleasure as an end
why the greatest happiness is the happiness that comes as a by product of striving to do what must be done even though sorrow is met in the doing
do what you can with what you've got where you are the country is the place for children and if not the country a city small enough so that one can get out into the country
when our own children were little we were for several winters in washington and each sunday afternoon the whole family spent in rock creek park which was then very real country indeed
i would drag one of the children's wagons and when the very smallest pairs of feet grew tired of trudging bravely after us or of racing on rapturous side trips after flowers and other treasures the owners would clamber into the wagon one of these wagons by the way
their mother and i were just starting for a drive in the buggy and we promised the bereaved owner that we would visit a store we knew in east norwich a village a few miles away and bring back another spress wagon
when we reached the store we found to our dismay that the wagon which we had seen had been sold we could not bear to return without the promised gift for we knew that the brains of small persons are much puzzled when their elders seem to break promises
fortunately we saw in the store a delightful little bright red chair and bright red table and these we brought home and handed solemnly over to the expectant recipient explaining that as there unfortunately was not a spress wagon
we had brought him back a spress chair and spress table it worked beautifully the spress chair and table were received with such rapture that we had to get duplicates for the other small member of the family who was the particular crony of the proprietor of the new treasures
when their mother and i returned from a row we would often see the children waiting for us running like sand spiders along the beach they always liked to swim in company with a grown up of buoyant temperament and inventive mind
and the float offered limitless opportunities for enjoyment while bathing all dutiful parents know the game of stage coach each child is given a name such as the whip the nigh leader the off wheeler the old lady passenger
and under penalty of paying a forfeit must get up and turn round when the grown up who is improvising a thrilling story mentions that particular object and when the word stage coach is mentioned everybody has to get up and turn round
well we used to play stage coach on the float while in swimming and instead of tamely getting up and turning round the child whose turn it was had to plunge overboard when i mentioned stage coach the water fairly foamed with vigorously kicking little legs
and then there was always a moment of interest while i counted so as to be sure that the number of heads that came up corresponded with the number of children who had gone down no man or woman will ever forget the time when some child lies sick of a disease that threatens its life
moreover much less serious sickness is unpleasant enough at the time looking back however there are elements of comedy in certain of the less serious cases i well remember one such instance which occurred when we were living in washington in a small house
with barely enough room for everybody when all the chinks were filled measles descended on the household in the effort to keep the children that were well and those that were sick apart their mother and i had to camp out in improvised fashion
when the eldest small boy was getting well and had recovered his spirits i slept on a sofa beside his bed the sofa being so short that my feet projected over anyhow
to which the small boy responded most virtuously yes father will go to sleep and i'll play the organ which he did at a distance of two feet from my head
he was giving a vivid rendering of farragut at mobile bay from memories of how i had told the story my pasteboard rams and monitors were fascinating if a naval architect may be allowed to praise his own work
and as property they were equally divided between the little girl and the small boy the little girl looked on with alert suspicion from the bed for she was not yet convalescent enough to be allowed down on the floor
and then they steamed bang into the monitor little girl brother don't you sink my monitor little boy without heeding and hurrying toward the climax and the torpedo went at the monitor
my monitor was in bed and couldn't sink when i was assistant secretary of the navy leonard wood and i used often to combine forces and take both families of children out to walk and occasionally some of their playmates
leonard wood's son i found attributed the paternity of all of those not of his own family to me once we were taking the children across rock creek on a fallen tree
when i started for my regiment in ninety eight the stress of leaving home which was naturally not pleasant was somewhat lightened by the next to the youngest boy whose ideas of what was about to happen were hazy
clasping me round the legs with a beaming smile and saying and is my father going to the war and will he bring me back a bear when some five months later i returned of course in my uniform
although he greeted me affably with good afternoon colonel half an hour later somebody asked him where's father to which he responded i don't know but the colonel is taking a bath
of course the children anthropomorphized if that is the proper term their friends of the animal world among these friends at one period was the baker's horse and on a very rainy day i heard the little girl who was looking out of the window say
and the good natured owner would occasionally let him take pets home to play with on one occasion i was holding a conversation with one of the leaders in congress uncle pete hepburn about the railroad rate bill
the little boy's feelings overcame him he had been loaned a king snake which as all nature lovers know is not only a useful but a beautiful snake very friendly to human beings and he came rushing home to show the treasure
certainly i never knew small people to have a better time or a better training for their work in after life than the three families of cousins at sagamore hill it was real country and speaking from the somewhat detached point of view of the masculine parent
i should say there was just the proper mixture of freedom and control in the management of the children they were never allowed to be disobedient or to shirk lessons or work and they were encouraged to have all the fun possible
they often went barefoot especially during the many hours passed in various enthralling pursuits along and in the waters of the bay they swam they tramped they boated
they were intimate friends with the cows chickens pigs and other live stock
the department into which mike was sent was the cash or to be more exact that section of it which was known as paying cashier
did not belong to mike himself but to mister waller mike's work was less ostentatious and was performed with pen ink and ledgers in the background occasionally when mister waller was out at lunch mike had to act as substitute for him
and cash cheques but mister waller always went out at a slack time when few customers came in and mike seldom had any very startling sum to hand over he enjoyed being in the cash department he liked mister waller
the work was easy and when he did happen to make mistakes they were corrected patiently by the grey bearded one and not used as levers for boosting him into the presence of mister bickersdyke as they might have been in some departments the cashier seemed to have taken a fancy to mike
and mike as was usually the way with him when people went out of their way to be friendly was at his best mike at his ease and unsuspicious of hostile intentions was a different person from mike with his prickles out
psmith meanwhile was not enjoying himself it was an unheard of thing he said depriving a man of his confidential secretary without so much as asking his leave
it has caused me the greatest inconvenience he told mike drifting round in a melancholy way to the cash department during a slack spell one afternoon i miss you at every turn
your keen intelligence and ready sympathy were invaluable to me now where am i in the cart i evolved a slightly bright thought on life just now there was nobody to tell it to except the new man i told it him and the fool gaped
i tell you comrade jackson i feel like some lion that has been robbed of its cub i feel as marshall would feel if they took snelgrove away from him
comrade rossiter does his best we still talk brokenly about manchester united they got routed in the first round of the cup yesterday and comrade rossiter is wearing black but it is not the same
i try work but that is no good either from ledger to ledger they hurry me to stifle my regret and when they win a smile from me they think that i forget but i don't i am a broken man
that new exhibit they've got in your place is about as near to the extreme edge as anything i've ever seen one of nature's blighters well well i must away comrade rossiter awaits me
mike's successor a youth of the name of bristow was causing psmith a great deal of pensive melancholy his worst defect which he could not help was that he was not mike his others which he could
were numerous his clothes were cut in a way that harrowed psmith's sensitive soul every time he looked at them the fact that he wore detachable cuffs which he took off on beginning work and stacked in a glistening pile on the desk in front of him
was no proof of innate viciousness of disposition but it prejudiced the old etonian against him it was part of psmith's philosophy that a man who wore detachable cuffs had passed beyond the limit of human toleration
in addition bristow wore a small black moustache and a ring and that as psmith informed mike put the lid on it mike would sometimes stroll round to the postage department to listen to the conversations between the two
bristow was always friendliness itself he habitually addressed psmith as smithy a fact which entertained mike greatly but did not seem to amuse psmith to any overwhelming extent on the other hand when as he generally did he called mike
mister cricketer the humour of the thing appeared to elude mike though the mode of address always drew from psmith a pale wan smile as of a broken heart made cheerful against its own inclination
the net result of the coming of bristow was that psmith spent most of his time when not actually oppressed by a rush of work in the precincts of the cash department talking to mike and mister waller
the latter did not seem to share the dislike common among the other heads of departments of seeing his subordinates receiving visitors unless the work was really heavy in which case a mild remonstrance escaped him he offered no objection to mike being at home to psmith
it was this tolerance which sometimes got him into trouble with mister bickersdyke the manager did not often perambulate the office but he did occasionally and the interview which ensued upon his finding hutchinson the underling in the cash department at that time
with his stool tilted comfortably against the wall reading the sporting news from a pink paper to a friend from the outward bills department who lay luxuriously on the floor beside him did not rank among mister waller's pleasantest memories
but mister waller was too soft hearted to interfere with his assistants unless it was absolutely necessary the truth of the matter was that the new asiatic bank was over staffed there were too many men for the work
the london branch of the bank was really only a nursery new men were constantly wanted in the eastern branches so they had to be put into the london branch to learn the business whether there was any work for them to do or not
it was after one of these visits of psmith's that mister waller displayed a new and unsuspected side to his character psmith had come round in a state of some depression to discuss bristow as usual
that psmith stoutly refused to sit in the same department with it what with comrades bristow and bickersdyke combined said psmith plaintively the work is becoming too hard for me the whisper is beginning to circulate psmith's number is up
as a reformer he is merely among those present he is losing his dash but what can i do i cannot keep an eye on both of them at the same time the moment i concentrate myself on comrade bickersdyke for a brief spell and seem to be doing him a bit of good
what happens why comrade bristow sneaks off and buys a sort of woollen sunset i saw the thing unexpectedly i tell you i was shaken it is the suddenness of that waistcoat which hits you it's discouraging this sort of thing
i try always to think well of my fellow man as an energetic socialist i do my best to see the good that is in him but it's hard comrade bristow's the most striking argument against the equality of man i've ever come across
mister waller intervened at this point i think you must really let jackson go on with his work smith he said there seems to be too much talking my besetting sin said psmith sadly
well well i will go back and do my best to face it but it's a tough job he tottered wearily away in the direction of the postage department oh jackson said mister waller
will you kindly take my place for a few minutes i must go round and see the inward bills about something i shall be back very soon mike was becoming accustomed to deputizing for the cashier for short spaces of time
it generally happened that he had to do so once or twice a day strictly speaking perhaps mister waller was wrong to leave such an important task as the actual cashing of cheques to an inexperienced person of mike's standing but the new asiatic bank differed from most banks
in that there was not a great deal of cross counter work people came in fairly frequently to cash cheques of two or three pounds but it was rare that any very large dealings took place having completed his business with the inward bills
mister waller made his way back by a circuitous route taking in the postage desk he found psmith with a pale set face inscribing figures in a ledger
the old etonian greeted him with the faint smile of a persecuted saint who is determined to be cheerful even at the stake comrade bristow he said
hullo smithy said the other turning psmith sadly directed mister waller's attention to the waistcoat which was certainly definite in its colouring nothing said psmith i only wanted to look at you
funny ass said bristow resuming his work psmith glanced at mister waller as who should say see what i have to put up with and yet i do not give way oh er smith said mister waller
when you were talking to jackson just now say no more said psmith it shall not occur again why should i dislocate the work of your department in my efforts to win a sympathetic word i will bear comrade bristow like a man here
after all there are worse things at the zoo no no said mister waller hastily i did not mean that by all means pay us a visit now and then if it does not interfere with your own work but i noticed just now that you spoke to bristow as comrade bristow
it is too true said psmith i must correct myself of the habit he will be getting above himself and when you were speaking to jackson you spoke of yourself as a socialist socialism is the passion of my life said psmith
mister waller's face grew animated he stammered in his eagerness i am delighted he said really i am delighted i also a fellow worker in the cause said psmith er exactly psmith extended his hand gravely
mister waller shook it with enthusiasm i have never liked to speak of it to anybody in the office said mister waller but i too am heart and soul in the movement yours for the revolution said psmith just so just so exactly
the fact is i am in the habit of speaking on sundays in the open air and hyde park no no clapham common it is er handier for me where i live now as you are interested in the movement
i was thinking that perhaps you might care to come and hear me speak next sunday
i should like to excessively said psmith excellent bring jackson with you and both of you come to supper afterwards if you will thanks very much perhaps you would speak yourself
i seldom speak but it would be a treat to listen to you
oh well said mister waller pulling nervously at his beard
i am perhaps a little bitter yes yes a little mordant and ironical you would be agreed psmith i shall look forward to sunday with every fibre quivering and comrade jackson shall be at my side
ha ha ha but you know there is no such thing as choice in reality say what you like you will interpose with a chuckle science has succeeded in so far analysing man that we know already that choice and what is called freedom of will is nothing else than
stay gentlemen i meant to begin with that myself i confess i was rather frightened i was just going to say that the devil only knows what choice depends on and that perhaps that was a very good thing but i remembered the teaching of science
and pulled myself up and here you have begun upon it indeed if there really is some day discovered a formula for all our desires and caprices that is an explanation of what they depend upon by what laws they arise
how they develop what they are aiming at in one case and in another and so on that is a real mathematical formula then most likely man will at once cease to feel desire indeed he will be certain to for who would want to choose by rule
besides he will at once be transformed from a human being into an organ stop or something of the sort for what is a man without desires without free will and without choice if not a stop in an organ what do you think
our choice is usually mistaken from a false view of our advantage we sometimes choose absolute nonsense because in our foolishness we see in that nonsense the easiest means for attaining a supposed advantage
but when all that is explained and worked out on paper which is perfectly possible for it is contemptible and senseless to suppose that some laws of nature man will never understand then certainly so called desires will no longer exist
for if a desire should come into conflict with reason we shall then reason and not desire because it will be impossible retaining our reason to be senseless in our desires and in that way knowingly act against reason and desire to injure ourselves
and as all choice and reasoning can be really calculated because there will some day be discovered the laws of our so called free will so joking apart there may one day be something like a table constructed of them so that we really shall choose in accordance with it
if for instance some day they calculate and prove to me that i made a long nose at someone because i could not help making a long nose at him and that i had to do it in that particular way what freedom is left me
especially if i am a learned man and have taken my degree somewhere then i should be able to calculate my whole life for thirty years beforehand in short if this could be arranged there would be nothing left for us to do anyway we should have to understand that
and in fact we ought unwearyingly to repeat to ourselves that at such and such a time and in such and such circumstances nature does not ask our leave that we have got to take her as she is and not fashion her to suit our fancy
and if we really aspire to formulas and tables of rules and well even to the chemical retort there's no help for it we must accept the retort too or else it will be accepted without our consent
yes but here i come to a stop gentlemen you must excuse me for being over philosophical it's the result of forty years underground allow me to indulge my fancy
you see gentlemen reason is an excellent thing there's no disputing that but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man's nature while will is a manifestation of the whole life
that is of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses and although our life in this manifestation of it is often worthless yet it is life and not simply extracting square roots
here i for instance quite naturally want to live in order to satisfy all my capacities for life and not simply my capacity for reasoning that is not simply one twentieth of my capacity for life
what does reason know reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning some things perhaps it will never learn this is a poor comfort but why not say so frankly and human nature acts as a whole with everything that is in it
consciously or unconsciously and even if it goes wrong it lives i suspect gentlemen that you are looking at me with compassion you tell me again that an enlightened and developed man such in short as the future man will be
cannot consciously desire anything disadvantageous to himself that that can be proved mathematically i thoroughly agree it can by mathematics but i repeat for the hundredth time there is one case one only
when man may consciously purposely desire what is injurious to himself what is stupid very stupid simply in order to have the right to desire for himself even what is very stupid
of course this very stupid thing this caprice of ours may be in reality gentlemen more advantageous for us than anything else on earth especially in certain cases and in particular it may be more advantageous than any advantage
even when it does us obvious harm and contradicts the soundest conclusions of our reason concerning our advantage for in any circumstances it preserves for us what is most precious and most important that is our personality our individuality
some you see maintain that this really is the most precious thing for mankind choice can of course if it chooses be in agreement with reason and especially if this be not abused but kept within bounds
it is profitable and sometimes even praiseworthy but very often and even most often choice is utterly and stubbornly opposed to reason and and do you know that that too is profitable
sometimes even praiseworthy gentlemen let us suppose that man is not stupid indeed one cannot refuse to suppose that if only from the one consideration that if man is stupid then who is wise but if he is not stupid
phenomenally ungrateful
but that is not all that is not his worst defect his worst defect is his perpetual moral obliquity perpetual from the days of the flood to the schleswig holstein period
moral obliquity and consequently lack of good sense for it has long been accepted that lack of good sense is due to no other cause than moral obliquity put it to the test and cast your eyes upon the history of mankind
what will you see is it a grand spectacle grand if you like take the colossus of rhodes for instance that's worth something
that some say that it is the work of man's hands while others maintain that it has been created by nature herself is it many coloured may be it is many coloured too if one takes the dress uniforms military and civilian
of all peoples in all ages that alone is worth something and if you take the undress uniforms you will never get to the end of it no historian would be equal to the job is it monotonous
may be it's monotonous too it's fighting and fighting they are fighting now they fought first and they fought last you will admit that it is almost too monotonous in short one may say anything about the history of the world
anything that might enter the most disordered imagination the only thing one can't say is that it's rational the very word sticks in one's throat and indeed this is the odd thing that is continually happening
there are continually turning up in life moral and rational persons sages and lovers of humanity who make it their object to live all their lives as morally and rationally as possible to be so to speak
a light to their neighbours simply in order to show them that it is possible to live morally and rationally in this world and yet we all know that those very people sooner or later have been false to themselves playing some queer trick
often a most unseemly one now i ask you what can be expected of man since he is a being endowed with strange qualities shower upon him every earthly blessing
drown him in a sea of happiness so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface give him economic prosperity such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species
and even then out of sheer ingratitude sheer spite man would play you some nasty trick he would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish
the most uneconomical absurdity simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element it is just his fantastic dreams his vulgar folly that he will desire to retain
simply in order to prove to himself as though that were so necessary that men still are men and not the keys of a piano which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that soon one will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar
and that is not all even if man really were nothing but a piano key even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics even then he would not become reasonable
but would purposely do something perverse out of simple ingratitude simply to gain his point and if he does not find means he will contrive destruction and chaos will contrive sufferings of all sorts
only to gain his point he will launch a curse upon the world and as only man can curse it is his privilege the primary distinction between him and other animals may be by his curse alone he will attain his object
that is convince himself that he is a man and not a piano key if you say that all this too can be calculated and tabulated chaos and darkness and curses so that the mere possibility of calculating it all beforehand
would stop it all and reason would reassert itself then man would purposely go mad in order to be rid of reason and gain his point i believe in it i answer for it
for the whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano key it may be at the cost of his skin it may be by cannibalism and this being so
can one help being tempted to rejoice that it has not yet come off and that desire still depends on something we don't know you will scream at me that is if you condescend to do so that no one is touching my free will
with the laws of nature and arithmetic good heavens gentlemen what sort of free will is left when we come to tabulation and arithmetic when it will all be a case of twice two make four
lost my right eye and why i was obliged to put myself into a calender's habit i must tell you that i am a sultan's son born my father had a brother who reigned over a neighbouring kingdom
and the prince his son and i were nearly of the same age after i had learned my exercises the sultan my father granted me such liberty as suited my dignity i went regularly every year to see my uncle
at whose court i amused myself for a month or two and then returned again to my father's these journeys cemented a firm and intimate friendship between the prince my cousin and myself
the last time i saw him he received me with greater demonstrations of tenderness than he had done at any time before and resolving one day to give me a treat he made great preparations for that purpose
we continued a long time at table and after we had both supped cousin said he you will hardly be able to guess how i have been employed since your last departure from hence about a year past
i have had a great many men at work to perfect a design i have formed i have caused an edifice to be built which is now finished so as to be habitable you will not be displeased if i shew it you
but first you are to promise me upon oath that you will keep my secret according to the confidence i repose in you the affection and familiarity that subsisted between us would not allow me to refuse him any thing
i very readily took the oath required of me upon which he said to me stay here till i return i will be with you in a moment and accordingly he came with a lady in his hand of singular beauty and magnificently apparelled
he did not intimate who she was neither did i think it would be polite to enquire we sat down again with this lady at table where we continued some time conversing upon indifferent subjects
and now and then filling a glass to each other's health after which the prince said cousin we must lose no time therefore pray oblige me by taking this lady along with you and conducting her to such a place
where you will see a tomb newly built in form of a dome you will easily know it the gate is open enter it together and tarry till i come which will be very speedily being true to my oath i made no farther enquiry
but took the lady by the hand and by the directions which the prince my cousin had given me
we were scarcely got thither when we saw the prince following us carrying a pitcher of water a hatchet and a little bag of mortar the hatchet served him to break down the empty sepulchre in the middle of the tomb
he took away the stones one after another and laid them in a corner he then dug up the ground where i saw a trap door under the sepulchre which he lifted up and underneath perceived
the head of a staircase leading into a vault then my cousin speaking to the lady said madam it is by this way that we are to go to the place i told you of
upon which the lady advanced and went down and the prince began to follow but first turning to me said my dear cousin i am infinitely obliged to you for the trouble you have taken i thank you adieu dear cousin i cried what is the meaning of this
i could get nothing farther from him but was obliged to take my leave as i returned to my uncle's palace the vapours of the wine got up into my head however i reached my apartment and went to bed
next morning when i awoke i began to reflect upon what had happened and after recollecting all the circumstances of such a singular adventure i fancied it was nothing but a dream
full of these thoughts i sent to enquire if the prince my cousin was ready to receive a visit from me
that they knew not what was become of him and were in much trouble in consequence i conceived that the strange event of the tomb was too true i was sensibly afflicted
and went to the public burying place where there were several tombs like that which i had seen i spent the day in viewing them one after another but could not find that i sought for and thus i spent four days successively in vain
you must know that all this while the sultan my uncle was absent and had been hunting for several days i grew weary of waiting for him
and having prayed his ministers to make my apology at his return left his palace and set out towards my father's court i left the ministers of the sultan my uncle in great trouble surmising what was become of the prince
but because of my oath to keep his secret i durst not tell them what i had seen i arrived at my father's capital where contrary to custom i found a numerous guard at the gate of the palace who surrounded me as i entered
i asked the reason and the commanding officer replied
this rebel vizier had long entertained a mortal hatred against me for this reason
and being one day upon the terrace of the palace with my bow a bird happening to come by i shot but missed him and the ball by misfortune hit the vizier who was taking the air upon the terrace of his own house
and put out one of his eyes as soon as i understood this i not only sent to make my excuse to him but did it in person yet he never forgave me and as opportunity offered made me sensible
of his resentment but now that he had me in his power he expressed his feelings
and thus i became blind of one eye but the usurper's cruelty did not stop here he ordered me to be shut up in a machine and commanded the executioner to carry me into the country to cut off my head
and leave me to be devoured by birds of prey the executioner conveyed me thus shut up into the country in order to execute the barbarous sentence but by my prayers and tears i moved the man's compassion
i thanked him for the favour he did me and as soon as i was left alone comforted myself for the loss of my eye by considering that i had very narrowly escaped a much greater evil
being in such a condition i could not travel far at a time i retired to remote places during the day and travelled as far by night as my strength would allow me
and came to his capital i gave him a long detail of the tragical cause of my return and of the sad condition he saw me in alas cried he was it not enough for me to have lost my son
but must i have also news of the death of a brother i loved so dearly and see you reduced to this deplorable condition he told me how uneasy he was that he could hear nothing of his son notwithstanding all the enquiry he could make
at these words the unfortunate father burst into tears and was so much afflicted that pitying his grief it was impossible for me to keep the secret any longer so that notwithstanding my oath to the prince my cousin i told the sultan
his majesty listened to me with some sort of comfort and when i had done nephew said he what you tell me gives me some hope i knew that my son ordered that tomb to be built and i can guess pretty nearly the place
and with the idea you still have of it i fancy we shall find it but since he ordered it to be built privately and you took your oath to keep his secret i am of opinion that we ought to go in quest of it without other attendants
but he had another reason for keeping the matter secret which he did not then tell me and an important one it was as you will perceive by the sequel of my story
we disguised ourselves and went out by a door of the garden which opened into the fields and soon found what we sought for i knew the tomb and was the more rejoiced because i had formerly sought it a long time in vain
we entered and found the iron trap pulled down at the head of the staircase
from this antechamber we came into another very large supported by columns and lighted by several branched candlesticks there was a cistern in the middle and provisions of several sorts stood on one side of it but we were much surprised not to see any person
the sultan went up and opening the curtains perceived the prince his son and the lady in bed together but burnt and changed to cinder as if they had been thrown into a fire and taken out before they were consumed
but what surprised me most was that though this spectacle filled me with horror the sultan my uncle instead of testifying his sorrow to see the prince his son in such a condition
spat on his face and exclaimed with a disdainful air this is the punishment of this world but that of the other will last to eternity and not content with this he pulled off his sandal
and gave the corpse of his son a blow on the cheek i cannot adequately express how much i was astonished when i saw the sultan my uncle abuse his son thus after he was dead sir said i whatever grief this dismal sight has impressed upon me
i am forced to suspend it to enquire of your majesty what crime the prince my cousin may have committed that his corpse should deserve such indignant treatment
as she did him i did not check their growing fondness because i did not foresee its pernicious consequence this tenderness increased as they grew in years and to such a height that i dreaded the end of it at last i applied such remedies as were in my power
i not only gave my son a severe reprimand in private laying before him the horrible nature of the passion he entertained
and the eternal disgrace he would bring upon my family if he persisted but i also represented the same to my daughter and shut her up so close that she could have no conversation with her brother but that unfortunate creature had swallowed so much of the poison
that all the obstacles which by my prudence i could lay in the way served only to inflame her love my son being persuaded of his sister's constancy on presence of building a tomb caused this subterraneous habitation to be made
in hopes of finding one day or other an opportunity to possess himself of that objets which was the cause of his flame and to bring her hither he took advantage of my absence
to enter by force into the place of his sister's confinement but this was a circumstance which my honour would not suffer me to make public and after so damnable an action he came and shut himself up with her in this place
which he has supplied as you see with all sorts of provisions that he might enjoy detestable pleasures which ought to be a subject of horror to all the world but god
who would not suffer such an abomination has justly punished them both at these words he melted into tears and i joined mine with his after a while casting his eyes upon me dear nephew cried he embracing me
if i have lost that unworthy son i shall happily find in you what will better supply his place the reflections he made on the doleful end of the prince and princess his daughter made us both weep afresh
we ascended the stairs again and departed at last from that dismal place we let down the trap door
so terrible an effect of the wrath of god we had not been long returned to the palace unperceived by any one but we heard a confused noise of trumpets drums and other instruments of war
we soon understood by the thick cloud of dust which almost darkened the air that it was the arrival of a formidable army
and usurped his place who with a vast number of troops was come to possess himself of that also of the sultan my uncle my uncle who then had only his usual guards about him could not resist so numerous an enemy
they invested the city and the gates being opened to them without any resistance soon became masters of it and broke into the palace where my uncle defended himself and sold his life at a dear rate
i fought as valiantly for a while but seeing we were forced to submit to a superior power i thought on my retreat which i had the good fortune to effect by some back ways
which was the only means left me to save my life i caused my beard and eye brows to be shaved and putting on a calender's habit i passed unknown by any out of the city after that by degrees i found it easy to quit
my uncle's kingdom by taking the bye roads
and considering what i was to do i resolved to come to bagdad intending to throw myself at the feet of that monarch whose generosity is renowned throughout the world i shall move him to compassion said i to myself
by the relation of my uncommon misfortunes and without doubt he will take pity on a persecuted prince and not suffer me to implore his assistance in vain in short
after a journey of several months i arrived yesterday at the gate of this city into which i entered about the dusk of evening and stopping a little while to consider which way i was to turn another calender came up he saluted me and i him
you appear said i to be a stranger as i am you are not mistaken replied he he had no sooner returned this answer than a third calender overtook us he saluted us and told us he was a stranger newly come to bagdad
so that as brethren we joined together resolving not to separate from one another it was now late and we knew not where to seek a lodging in the city where we had never been before but good fortune having brought us to your gate we made bold to knock
when you received us with so much kindness that we are incapable of rendering suitable thanks this madam said he is in obedience to your commands the account i was to give how i lost my right eye
wherefore my beard and eye brows are shaved and how i came to be with you at this time it is enough said zobeide you may retire to what place you think fit
the calender begged the ladies permission to stay till he had heard the relations of his two comrades whom i cannot said he leave with honour and that he might also hear those of the three other persons in company
the story of the first calender seemed wonderful to the whole company but especially to the caliph who notwithstanding the slaves stood by with their cimeters drawn could not forbear whispering to the vizier
many stories have i heard but never any that equalled in surprising incident that of the calender
story of the three calenders sons of sultans and of the five ladies of bagdad
in the reign of caliph haroon al rusheed there was at bagdad a porter who notwithstanding his mean and laborious business was a fellow of wit and good humour
one morning as he was at the place where he usually plyed with a great basket waiting for employment a handsome young lady covered with a great muslin veil accosted him and said with a pleasant air hark you porter take your basket and follow me
the porter charmed with these words pronounced in so agreeable a manner took his basket immediately set it on his head and followed the lady exclaiming o happy day o day of good luck in a short time the lady stopped before a gate that was shut and knocked
a christian with a venerable long white beard opened it and she put money into his hand without speaking but the christian who knew what she wanted went in and in a little time brought a large jug of excellent wine
take this jug said the lady to the porter and put it in your basket this being done she commanded him to follow her and as she proceeded the porter continued his exclamation o happy day this is a day of agreeable surprise and joy
the lady stopped at a fruit shop where she bought several sorts of apples apricots peaches quinces lemons citrons oranges
she bid the porter put all into his basket and follow her as she went by a butcher's stall she made him weigh her twenty five pounds of his best meat which she ordered the porter to put also into his basket at another shop
she took capers tarragon cucumbers sassafras and other herbs preserved in vinegar at another she bought pistachios walnuts filberts almonds kernels of pine apples and such other fruits and at another all sorts of confectionery
when the porter had put all these things into his basket and perceived that it grew full my good lady said he you ought to have given me notice that you had so much provision to carry and then i would have brought a horse or rather a camel for the purpose
for if you buy ever so little more i shall not be able to bear it the lady laughed at the fellow's pleasant humour and ordered him still to follow her
she then went to a druggist where she furnished herself with all manner of sweet scented waters cloves musk pepper ginger and a great piece of ambergris and several other indian spices this quite filled the porter's basket and she ordered him to follow her
they walked till they came to a magnificent house whose front was adorned with fine columns and had a gate of ivory there they stopped and the lady knocked softly while the young lady and the porter waited for the opening of the gate the porter
made a thousand reflections he wondered that such a fine lady should come abroad to buy provisions he concluded she could not be a slave her air was too noble and therefore he thought she must needs be a woman of quality
just as he was about to ask her some questions upon this head another lady came to open the gate and appeared to him so beautiful that he was perfectly surprised or rather so much struck with her charms
that he had nearly suffered his basket to fall for he had never seen any beauty that equalled her the lady who brought the porter with her perceiving his disorder and knowing the cause was greatly diverted and took so much pleasure in watching his looks
that she forgot the gate was opened pray sister said the beautiful portress come in what do you stay for
that he is scarcely able to stand
encompassed with an open gallery which had a communication with several apartments of extraordinary magnificence
at the farther end of the court there was a platform richly furnished with a throne of amber in the middle supported by four columns of ebony enriched with diamonds and pearls of an extraordinary size and covered with red satin embroidered with indian gold of admirable workmanship
in the middle of the court there was a fountain faced with white marble and full of clear water which was copiously supplied out of the mouth of a lion of brass the porter though heavy laden could not but admire the magnificence of this house
and the excellent order in which every thing was placed but what particularly captivated his attention was a third lady who seemed to be more beautiful than the second and was seated upon the throne just mentioned
she descended as soon as she saw the two others and advanced towards them he judged by the respect which the other ladies showed her that she was the chief in which he was not mistaken
and she who went to buy the provisions was named amene
then amene and safie took the basket the one before and the other behind zobeide also assisted
then emptied it and when they had done the beautiful amene took out money and paid the porter liberally the porter was well satisfied with the money he had received but when he ought to have departed he could not summon sufficient resolution for the purpose
he was chained to the spot by the pleasure of beholding three such beauties who appeared to him equally charming for amene having now laid aside her veil proved to be as handsome as either of the others
what surprised him most was that he saw no man about the house yet most of the provisions he had brought in as the dry fruits and the several sorts of cakes and confections were adapted chiefly for those who could drink and make merry
and turning to amene she continued sister give him something more that he may depart satisfied madam replied the porter it is not that which detains me i am already more than paid for my services i am sensible that i act rudely in staying longer than i ought
that i am astonished not to see a man with three ladies of such extraordinary beauty and you know that a company of women without men is as melancholy as a company of men without women to this he added several other pleasant things to prove what he said
and did not forget the bagdad proverb that the table is not completely furnished except there be four in company and so concluded that since they were but three they wanted another
and though you do not deserve that i should enter into any explanation with you i have no objection to inform you that we are three sisters who transact our affairs with so much secrecy that no one knows any thing of them
we have but too much reason to be cautious of acquainting indiscreet persons with our counsel and a good author that we have read says keep thy own secret and do not reveal it to any one he that makes his secret known it no longer its master
if thy own breast cannot keep thy counsel how canst thou expect the breast of another to be more faithful my ladies replied the porter by your very air i judged at first that you were persons of extraordinary merit
and i conceive that i am not mistaken though fortune has not given me wealth enough to raise me above my mean profession yet i have not omitted to cultivate my mind as much as i could by reading books of science and history and allow me i beseech you
to say that i have also read in another author a maxim which i have always happily followed we conceal our secret from such persons only as are known to all the world to want discretion
and would abuse our confidence but we hesitate not to discover it to the prudent because we know that with them it is safe
the key of which is lost and the door
you know that we have been making preparations to regale ourselves and that as you have seen at a considerable expense it is not just that you should now partake of the entertainment without contributing to the cost
the beautiful safie seconded her sister and said to the porter friend have you never heard the common saying if you bring something with you you shall carry something away but if you bring nothing you shall depart empty
the porter notwithstanding his rhetoric must in all probability have retired in confusion if amene had not taken his part and said to zobeide and safie my dear sisters i conjure you to let him remain i need not tell you that he will afford us some diversion
of this you perceive he is capable i assure you had it not been for his readiness his alacrity and courage to follow me i could not have done so much business in so short a time
most beautiful lady you began my good fortune to day and now you complete it by this generous conduct i cannot adequately express my acknowledgments
no i shall always look upon myself as one of your most humble slaves
what we have once given said she to reward those who have served us we never take back my friend in consenting to your staying with us i must forewarn you that it is not the only condition we impose upon you that you keep inviolable
the secret we may entrust to you but we also require you to attend to the strictest rules of good manners during this address the charming amene put off the apparel she went abroad with and fastened her robe to her girdle that she might act with the greater freedom
in the suffrage states when every one of them is a professing suffragist is utter folly so ran the comment of the political wise acres in the autumn of nineteen fourteen but the women had faith in their appeal
it is impossible to give in a few words any adequate picture of the anger of democratic leaders at our entrance into the campaign six weeks before election they woke up to find the issue of national suffrage injected into a campaign
which they had meant should be no more stirring than an orderly and perfunctory endorsement of the president's legislative program the campaign became a very hot one during which most of the militancy seemed to be on the side of the political leaders
heavy fists came down on desks harsh words were spoken violent threats were made in colorado where i was cam paigning i was invited politely but firmly by the democratic leader to leave the state the morning after i had arrived
you can do no good here i would advise you to leave at once besides your plan is impracticable and the women will not support it
you have no right to ask women to do this
of course the democratic leaders did not welcome an issue raised unexpectedly and one which forced them to spend an endless amount of time apologizing for and explaining the democratic party's record
nor did they relish spending more money publishing more literature in short adding greatly to the burdens of their campaign the candidates a little more suave than the party leaders proved most eloquently
one candidate even claimed a suffrage inheritance from his great grandmother this first entry of women into a national election on the suffrage amendment was little more than a quick brilliant dash
with all its sketchiness however it had immediate political results and when the election was over there came tardily a general public recognition that the congressional union had made a real contribution to these results
for forty three of these seats the democratic party ran candidates we opposed in our campaign all of these candidates out of the forty three democratic candidates running
while it was not our primary aim to defeat candidates it was generally conceded that we had contributed to these defeats our aim in this campaign was primarily to call to the attention of the public the bad suffrage record of the democratic party
the effect of our campaign was soon evident in congress
providing for a constitutional amendment permitting a national initiative and referendum on suffrage in the states thereby forcing upon women the very course we had sought to circumvent
this red herring drawn across the path had been accepted by the conservative suff ragists evidently in a moment of hopelessness and their strength put behind it
but the politicians who persuade them to back it knew that it was merely an attempt to evade the issue this made necessary a tremendous campaign throughout the country by the congressional union
with the result that the compromise measure was eventually abandoned during its life however politicians were happy in the opportunity to divide their support between it and the original amendment which was still pending
to offset this danger and to show again in dramatic fashion the strength and will of the women voters to act on this issue we made political work among the western women the principal effort of the year nineteen fifteen the year preceding the presidential election
we opened suffrage headquarters in the palace of education on the exposition grounds from there we called the first woman voters convention ever held in the world for the single purpose of attaching political strength to the movement
missus o h p belmont was chairman of the committee which signed the convention call
the convention went on record unanimously for further political action on behalf of national suffrage and for the original amendment without compromise and pledged itself to use all power to this end
without regard to the interests of any existing political party two emissaries sara bard field and frances joliffe both of california were commissioned by women voters at the final session
when more than ten thousand people were present to go to the president and congress bearing these resolutions and hundreds of thousands of signatures upon a petition gathered during the summer they would speak directly to the president
lest he should be inclined to take lightly the women voters resolutions the envoys symbolic of the new strength that was to come out of the west made their journey across continent by automobile they created a sensation all along the way
received as they were by governors by mayors by officials high and low and by the populace thousands more added their names to the petition and it was rolled up to gigantic proportions until in december
when unrolled it literally stretched over miles as it was borne to the capitol with honor escorts the action of the convention scarcely cold and the envoys mid way across the continent
the president hastened to new jersey to cast his vote for suffrage in a state referendum
he repeated his position putting the emphasis upon his opposition to national suffrage rather than on his belief in suffrage for his state
and that in no circumstances should it be made a party question
he knew women were asking the powerful aid of the president of the united states not the aid of mister wilson of princeton new jersey the state amendment in new jersey was certain to fail as president wilson well knew
casting a vote for it would help his case with women voters and still not bring suffrage in the east a step nearer the envoys reception at the capitol was indeed dramatic thousands of women escorted them amid bands and banners to the halls of congress
where they were received by senators and representatives and addressed with eloquent speeches the envoys replied by asking that their message be carried by friends of the measure to the floor of the senate and house and this was done
the envoys waited upon the president at the white house this visit of the representatives of women with power marked rather an advance in the president's position he listened with an eager attention to the story of the new found power and what women meant to do with it
on the question of national suffrage and would confer with his party colleagues the republican and democratic national committees heard the case of the envoys they were given a hearing before the senate suffrage committee and before the house judiciary
in one of the most lively and entertaining inquisitions in which women ever participated no more questions on mother and home no swan song on the passing of charm and womanly loveliness
only agile scrambling by each committee member to ask with eagerness and some heat
well if this amendment has not passed congress by then
it was with difficulty that the women were allowed to tell their story so eager was the committee to jump ahead to political consequences
sirs that depends upon what you gentlemen do
but they never got any further from the main base of their interest
and so the hearing passed in something of a verbal riot but with no doubt as to the fact that congressmen were alarmed by the prospect of women voting as a protest group the new year found the senate promptly reporting the measure favorably again
but the judiciary committee footballed it to its sub committee back to the whole committee postponed it marked time dodged defeated it the problem of neutrality toward the european war was agitating the minds of political leaders
nothing like suffrage for women must be allowed to rock the ship even slightly oh no indeed it was men's business to keep the nation out of war men never had shown marked skill at keeping nations out of war in the history of the world but never mind
logic must not be pressed too hard upon the reasoning sex this time men would do it the exciting national election contest was approaching
party conventions were scheduled to meet in june while the amendment languished at the capitol it was clear that more highly organized woman power would have to be called into action before the national government would speed its pace
the instant response which met this appeal surpassed the most optimistic hopes thousands of women assembled in chicago for this convention which became epoch making not only in the suffrage fight but in the whole woman movement
for the first time in history women came together to organize their political power into a party to free their own sex for the first time in history representatives of men's political parties came to plead before these women voters
for the support of their respective parties the republican party sent as its representatives john hays hammond and c s osborn formerly governor of michigan the democrats sent their most persuasive orator
president wilson's friend dudley field malone collector of the port of new york allan benson candidate for the presidency on the socialist ticket represented the socialist party edward polling prohibition leader spoke for the prohibition party
the democratic party made its suffrage plank specific against action by congress
we recommend the extension of the franchise to the women of the country by the states upon the same terms as men
it was openly stated at the democratic convention by leading administration democrats that the president himself had written this suffrage plank if the republicans could afford to write a vague and indefinite plank the president and his party could not
they as the party in power had been under fire and were forced to take sides they did so the president chose the plank and his subordinates followed his lead
it may be remarked in passing that this declaration so solidified the opposition within the president's party that when the president ultimately sought to repudiate it he met stubborn resistance protected by the president's plank
the democratic congress continued to block national suffrage it would not permit it even to be reported from the judiciary committee the party platform was written
to missus d e hooker of richmond virginia who as a delegate from the virginia federation of labor representing sixty thousand members went to him soon after to ask his support of the amendment the president said
i am opposed by conviction and political traditions to federal action on this question moreover after the plank which was adopted in the democratic platform at saint louis
president wilson could not act because the party plank which he had written prevented him from doing so meanwhile the women continued to protest miss mabel vernon of delaware beloved and gifted crusader
was the first member of the woman's party to commit a militant act president wilson speaking at the dedication services of the labor temple in washington was declaring his interest in all classes and all struggles
he was proclaiming his beliefs in the abstractions of liberty and justice when miss vernon who was seated on the platform from which he was speaking said in her powerful voice
mister president if you sincerely desire to forward the interests of all the people why do you oppose the national enfranchisement of women
instant consternation arose but the idea had penetrated to the farthest corner of the huge assembly that women were protesting to the president against the denial of their liberty
miss vernon repeated her question later and was ordered from the meeting by the police as the summer wore on women realized that they would have to enter the national contest in the autumn attention was focussed on the two rival presidential candidates
woodrow wilson and charles evans hughes the republican nominee upon whom the new woman's party worked
the next political result of the new solidarity of women was mister hughes declaration on august first nineteen sixteen
the democratic congress adjourned without even report ing the measure to that body for a vote and went forthwith to the country to ask reelection we also went to the country
we went to the women voters to lay before them again the democratic party's record now complete through one administration we asked women voters again to withhold their support nationally from president wilson and his party
the president accepted at once the opportunity to speak before a convention of suffragists at atlantic city in an effort to prove his great belief in suffrage
the tide is rising to meet the moon you can afford to wait
whatever we may have thought of his figure of speech we disagreed with his conclusion the campaign on democratic speakers throughout the west found an unexpected organized force among women demanding an explanation of the past conduct
of the democratic party and insisting on an immediate declaration by the president in favor of the amendment democratic orators did their utmost to meet this opposition
enticing doctrine to women the peace lovers of the human race
with a budget five times as large and with piled up evidence of democratic hostility
the people were excited to an almost unprecedented pitch over the issue of peace versus war in spite of the difficulty of competing with this emotional issue which meant the immediate disposal of millions of lives
it was soon evident that the two issues were running almost neck and neck in the western territory no less skilled a campaigner than william jennings bryan took the stump in the west against the woman's party
at least a third of each speech was devoted to suffrage he urged he exhorted he apologized he explained he pleaded he condemned often he was heckled
you cannot pick cherries before they are ripe
by the time he got to california however the cherries had ripened considerably for mister bryan came out publicly for the national amendment what was true of mister bryan was true of practically every democratic campaigner
against their wills they were forced to talk about suffrage
some merely apologized and explained
if only you women will stand by wilson and return him to power
space will not permit in this book to give more than a hint of the scope and strength of our campaign
you would agree that it was not peace alone that was the dominant issue but peace and suffrage it must be made perfectly clear that the woman's party did not attempt to elect mister hughes it did not feel strong enough to back a candidate in its first battle
and did not conduct its fight affirmatively at all no speeches were made for mister hughes and the republican party the appeal was to vote a vote of protest against mister wilson and his congressional candidates because he and his party
had had the power to pass the amendment through congress and had refused to do so that left the women free to choose from among the republicans socialists and prohibitionists it was to be expected that the main strength of the vote taken from mister wilson
would go to mister hughes as few women perhaps threw their votes to the minority parties but just as the progressive party's protest had been effective in securing progressive legislation without winning the election
so the woman's party hoped its protest would bring results in congress without attempting to win the election history will never know in round numbers how many women voted against the president and his party at this crisis for there are no records kept for men and women separately
except in one state in illinois the women there voted two to one against mister wilson and for mister hughes men outnumber women throughout the entire western territory in some states two and three to one in nevada still higher
in the nineteen sixteen election when the whole west was aflame for him because of his peace policy
enthusiasm for mister hughes in the west was not sufficiently marked to account entirely for the loss of these twelve electoral votes our claim that democratic opposition to suffrage had cost many of them
had only one democratic member from a suffrage state mister taggart of kansas standing for reelection this was the only spot where women could strike out against the action of this committee and mister taggart they struck with success
he was defeated almost wholly by the women's votes with a modest campaign fund of slightly over fifty thousand dollars raised almost entirely in small sums the women had forced the campaign committee of the democratic party to assume the defensive
and to practically double expenditure and work on this issue as much literature was used on suffrage as on peace in the suffrage states
the bird of prey brought down cold on the shore in the raw cold of that leaden crisis in the four and twenty hours when the vital force of all the noblest and prettiest things that live is at its lowest
the three watchers looked each at the blank faces of the other two
gaffer's boat gaffer in luck again and yet no gaffer so spake riderhood staring disconsolate
it was fainter and duller perhaps fire like the higher animal and vegetable life it helps to sustain has its greatest tendency towards death when the night is dying and the day is not yet born
if it was me that had the law of this here job in hand growled riderhood with a threatening shake of his head blest if i wouldn't lay hold of her at any rate ay but it is not you said eugene
with something so suddenly fierce in him that the informer returned submissively well well well t'other governor i didn't say it was a man may speak and vermin may be silent said eugene
hold your tongue you water rat astonished by his friend's unusual heat lightwood stared too and then said what can have become of this man can't imagine unless he dived overboard
the informer wiped his brow ruefully as he said it sitting in his boat and always staring disconsolate did you make his boat fast she's fast enough till the tide runs back i couldn't make her faster than she is
come aboard of mine and see for your own selves there was a little backwardness in complying for the freight looked too much for the boat but on riderhood's protesting
that he had had half a dozen dead and alive in her afore now and she was nothing deep in the water nor down in the stern even then to speak of they carefully took their places and trimmed the crazy thing while they were doing so riderhood still sat staring disconsolate
all right give way said lightwood give way by george repeated riderhood before shoving off if he's gone and made off any how lawyer lightwood it's enough to make me give way in a different manner
but he always was a cheat con found him he always was a infernal cheat was gaffer nothing straightfor'ard nothing on the square so mean so underhanded never going through with a thing nor carrying it out like a man hallo steady
as they bumped heavily against a pile and then in a lower voice reversed his late apostrophe by remarking i wish the boat of my honourable and gallant friend may be endowed with philanthropy enough not to turn bottom upward and extinguish us steady steady sit close mortimer
that he dropped under the lee of a tier of shipping and they lay there until it was over the squall had come up like a spiteful messenger before the morning there followed in its wake a ragged tear of light which ripped the dark clouds until they showed a great grey hole of day
they were all shivering and everything about them seemed to be shivering the river itself craft rigging sails such early smoke as there yet was on the shore black with wet and altered to the eye by white patches of hail and sleet
the huddled buildings looked lower than usual as if they were cowering and had shrunk with the cold very little life was to be seen on either bank windows and doors were shut
all the objects among which they crept were so huge in contrast with their wretched boat as to threaten to crush it not a ship's hull with its rusty iron links of cable run out of hawse holes long discoloured with the iron's rusty tears
but seemed to be there with a fell intention not a figure head but had the menacing look of bursting forward to run them down not a sluice gate
that's to drown you in my dears not a lumbering black barge with its cracked and blistered side impending over them but seemed to suck at the river with a thirst for sucking them under and everything so vaunted the spoiling influences of water
discoloured copper rotten wood honey combed stone green dank deposit that the after consequences of being crushed sucked under and drawn down looked as ugly to the imagination as the main event
some half hour of this work and riderhood unshipped his sculls stood holding on to a barge and hand over hand long wise along the barge's side gradually worked his boat under her head into a secret little nook of scummy water
and driven into that nook and wedged as he had described was gaffer's boat that boat with the stain still in it bearing some resemblance to a muffled human form now tell me i'm a liar said the honest man
with a morbid expectation murmured eugene to lightwood that somebody is always going to tell him the truth this is hexam's boat said mister inspector
look at the broken scull look at the t'other scull gone now tell me i am a liar said the honest man mister inspector stepped into the boat eugene and mortimer looked on and see now
added riderhood creeping aft and showing a stretched rope made fast there and towing overboard didn't i tell you he was in luck again haul in said mister inspector easy to say haul in answered riderhood
not so easy done his luck's got fouled under the keels of the barges i tried to haul in last time but i couldn't see how taut the line is
try easy now he tried easy now but the luck resisted wouldn't come i mean to have it and the boat too said mister inspector playing the line but still the luck resisted wouldn't come take care said riderhood
you'll disfigure or pull asunder perhaps i am not going to do either not even to your grandmother said mister inspector but i mean to have it come
it's no good this sort of game you know you must come up i mean to have you there was so much virtue in this distinctly and decidedly meaning to have it that it yielded a little even while the line was played i told you so quoth mister inspector pulling off his outer coat
and leaning well over the stern with a will come it was an awful sort of fishing but it no more disconcerted mister inspector than if he had been fishing in a punt on a summer evening by some soothing weir high up the peaceful river
after certain minutes and a few directions to the rest to ease her a little for'ard and now ease her a trifle aft and the like he said composedly all clear and the line and the boat came free together
accepting lightwood's proffered hand to help him up he then put on his coat and said to riderhood hand me over those spare sculls of yours and i'll pull this in to the nearest stairs go ahead you and keep out in pretty open water that i mayn't get fouled again
his directions were obeyed and they pulled ashore directly two in one boat two in the other now said mister inspector again to riderhood when they were all on the slushy stones you have had more practice in this than i have had
and ought to be a better workman at it undo the tow rope and we'll help you haul in riderhood got into the boat accordingly it appeared as if he had scarcely had a moment's time to touch the rope or look over the stern
when he came scrambling back as pale as the morning and gasped out by the lord he's done me
he pointed behind him at the boat and gasped to that degree that he dropped upon the stones to get his breath gaffer's done me it's gaffer they ran to the rope leaving him gasping there soon the form of the bird of prey
dead some hours lay stretched upon the shore with a new blast storming at it and clotting the wet hair with hail stones father was that you calling me father i thought i heard you call me twice before
words never to be answered those upon the earth side of the grave the wind sweeps jeeringly over father whips him with the frayed ends of his dress and his jagged hair
that he may be shamed the more a lull and the wind is secret and prying with him lifts and lets falls a rag hides palpitating under another rag runs nimbly through his hair and beard
then in a rush it cruelly taunts him father was that you calling me was it you the voiceless and the dead was it you thus buffeted as you lie here in a heap was it you
thus baptized unto death with these flying impurities now flung upon your face why not speak father soaking into this filthy ground as you lie here is your own shape did you never see such a shape soaked into your boat
speak father speak to us the winds the only listeners left you now see said mister inspector after mature deliberation kneeling on one knee beside the body when they had stood looking down on the drowned man
as he had many a time looked down on many another man the way of it was this of course you gentlemen hardly failed to observe that he was towing by the neck and arms they had helped to release the rope and of course not
and you will observe now that this knot which was drawn chock tight round his neck by the strain of his own arms is a slip knot holding it up for demonstration plain enough
it had the curves and indentations in it still
now see said mister inspector see how it works round upon him it's a wild tempestuous evening when this man that was stooping to wipe some hailstones out of his hair with an end of his own drowned jacket there
now he's more like himself though he's badly bruised when this man that was rows out upon the river on his usual lay he carries with him this coil of rope he always carries with him this coil of rope it's as well known to me as he was himself
sometimes it lay in the bottom of his boat sometimes he hung it loose round his neck he was a light dresser was this man you see lifting the loose neckerchief over his breast and taking the opportunity of wiping the dead lips with it
last evening he does this worse for him he dodges about in his boat does this man till he gets chilled his hands taking up one of them which dropped like a leaden weight get numbed
he sees some object that's in his way of business floating he makes ready to secure that object he unwinds the end of his coil that he wants to take some turns on in his boat and he takes turns enough on it to secure that it shan't run out
he makes it too secure as it happens he is a little longer about this than usual his hands being numbed
bends right over the stern and in one of these heavy squalls or in the cross swell of two steamers or in not being quite prepared or through all or most or some gets a lurch overbalances and goes head foremost overboard now see
he can swim can this man and instantly he strikes out
the object he had expected to take in tow floats by and his own boat tows him dead to where we found him all entangled in his own line
first i'll tell you more there was silver in em how do i make that out simple and satisfactory because he's got it here the lecturer held up the tightly clenched right hand what is to be done with the remains asked lightwood
if you wouldn't object to standing by him half a minute sir was the reply i'll find the nearest of our men to come and take charge of him i still call it him you see said mister inspector looking back as he went with a philosophical smile upon the force of habit
eugene said lightwood and was about to add we may wait at a little distance when turning his head he found that no eugene was there he raised his voice and called eugene holloa but no eugene replied
it was broad daylight now and he looked about but no eugene was in all the view mister inspector speedily returning down the wooden stairs with a police constable lightwood asked him if he had seen his friend leave them mister inspector
could not exactly say that he had seen him go but had noticed that he was restless singular and entertaining combination sir your friend
said lightwood can we get anything hot to drink we could and we did in a public house kitchen with a large fire
mister inspector having to mister riderhood announced his official intention of keeping his eye upon him stood him in a corner of the fireplace like a wet umbrella and took no further outward and visible notice of that honest man
as mortimer lightwood sat before the blazing fire conscious of drinking brandy and water then and there in his sleep and yet at one and the same time drinking burnt sherry at the six jolly fellowships and lying under the boat on the river shore and sitting in the boat that riderhood rowed
and listening to the lecture recently concluded and having to dine in the temple with an unknown man who described himself as m h f eugene gaffer harmon and said he lived at hailstorm
as he passed through these curious vicissitudes of fatigue and slumber arranged upon the scale of a dozen hours to the second he became aware of answering aloud a communication of pressing importance that had never been made to him and then turned it into a cough on beholding mister inspector
for he felt with some natural indignation that that functionary might otherwise suspect him of having closed his eyes or wandered in his attention here just before us you see said mister inspector i see said lightwood with dignity
and had hot brandy and water too you see said mister inspector and then cut off at a great rate who said lightwood your friend you know i know he replied again with dignity after hearing in a mist through which mister inspector loomed vague and large
that the officer took upon himself to prepare the dead man's daughter for what had befallen in the night and generally that he took everything upon himself mortimer lightwood stumbled in his sleep to a cab stand called a cab
and found guilty and had arranged his affairs and been marched out to be shot before the door banged hard work rowing the cab through the city to the temple for a cup of from five to ten thousand pounds value given by mister boffin
and hard work holding forth at that immeasurable length to eugene when he had been rescued with a rope from the running pavement for making off in that extraordinary manner but he offered such ample apologies and was so very penitent
that he had become a mere somnambulist he was too tired to rest in his sleep until he was even tired out of being too tired and dropped into oblivion late in the afternoon he awoke
why what bloodshot draggled dishevelled spectacle is this cried mortimer
but consider such a night for plumage such a night repeated mortimer what became of you in the morning my dear fellow said eugene sitting on his bed i felt that we had bored one another so long
that an unbroken continuance of those relations must inevitably terminate in our flying to opposite points of the earth i also felt that i had committed every crime in the newgate calendar so for mingled considerations of friendship and felony
two new servants mister and missus boffin sat after breakfast in the bower a prey to prosperity mister boffin's face denoted care and complication many disordered papers were before him
and he looked at them about as hopefully as an innocent civilian might look at a crowd of troops whom he was required at five minutes notice to manoeuvre and review he had been engaged in some attempts to make notes of these papers but being troubled as men of his stamp often are
with an exceedingly distrustful and corrective thumb
so a halfpenny worth of ink would blot mister boffin to the roots of his hair and the calves of his legs without inscribing a line on the paper before him or appearing to diminish in the inkstand mister boffin was in such severe literary difficulties
that his eyes were prominent and fixed and his breathing was stertorous when to the great relief of missus boffin who observed these symptoms with alarm the yard bell rang who's that i wonder said missus boffin
mister boffin drew a long breath laid down his pen looked at his notes as doubting whether he had the pleasure of their acquaintance and appeared on a second perusal of their countenances to be confirmed in his impression that he had not
when there was announced by the hammer headed young man mister rokesmith oh said mister boffin oh indeed our and the wilfers mutual friend my dear yes ask him to come in
mister rokesmith appeared sit down sir said mister boffin shaking hands with him missus boffin you're already acquainted with
i've been so busy with one thing and another that i've not had time to turn your offer over that's apology for both of us for mister boffin and for me as well said the smiling missus boffin but lor
we can talk it over now can't us mister rokesmith bowed thanked her and said he hoped so let me see then resumed mister boffin with his hand to his chin it was secretary that you named wasn't it
i said secretary assented mister rokesmith it rather puzzled me at the time said mister boffin and it rather puzzled me and missus boffin when we spoke of it afterwards because not to make a mystery of our belief
mostly of mahogany lined with green baize or leather with a lot of little drawers in it now you won't think i take a liberty when i mention that you certainly ain't that certainly not said mister rokesmith but he had used the word
in the sense of steward why as to steward you see returned mister boffin with his hand still to his chin the odds are that missus boffin and me may never go upon the water being both bad sailors we should want a steward if we did
but there's generally one provided mister rokesmith again explained defining the duties he sought to undertake as those of general superintendent or manager or overlooker or man of business now for instance come
if you entered my employment what would you do i would keep exact accounts of all the expenditure you sanctioned mister boffin i would write your letters under your direction
i would transact your business with people in your pay or employment i would
arrange your papers mister boffin rubbed his inky ear and looked at his wife and so arrange them as to have them always in order for immediate reference with a note of the contents of each outside it
i tell you what said mister boffin slowly crumpling his own blotted note in his hand if you'll turn to at these present papers and see what you can make of em i shall know better what i can make of you no sooner said than done
relinquishing his hat and gloves mister rokesmith sat down quietly at the table arranged the open papers into an orderly heap cast his eyes over each in succession folded it docketed it on the outside laid it in a second heap
and when that second heap was complete and the first gone took from his pocket a piece of string and tied it together with a remarkably dexterous hand at a running curve and a loop good said mister boffin very good now
let us hear what they're all about will you be so good john rokesmith read his abstracts aloud they were all about the new house decorator's estimate so much furniture estimate so much estimate for furniture of offices
so much coach maker's estimate so much horse dealer's estimate so much harness maker's estimate so much goldsmith's estimate so much total so very much then came correspondence
acceptance of mister boffin's offer of such a date and to such an effect rejection of mister boffin's proposal of such a date and to such an effect concerning mister boffin's scheme of such another date to such another effect all compact and methodical
apple pie order said mister boffin
and whatever you do with your ink i can't think for you're as clean as a whistle after it now as to a letter let's said mister boffin rubbing his hands in his pleasantly childish admiration let's try a letter next
to whom shall it be addressed mister boffin anyone yourself mister rokesmith quickly wrote and then read aloud mister boffin presents his compliments to mister john rokesmith
and begs to say that he has decided on giving mister john rokesmith a trial in the capacity he desires to fill mister boffin takes mister john rokesmith at his word in postponing to some indefinite period the consideration of salary it is quite understood
that mister boffin is in no way committed on that point mister boffin has merely to add that he relies on mister john rokesmith's assurance that he will be faithful and serviceable mister john rokesmith will please enter on his duties immediately
well now noddy cried missus boffin clapping her hands that is a good one mister boffin was no less delighted indeed in his own bosom he regarded both the composition itself and the device that had given birth to it
as a very remarkable monument of human ingenuity and i tell you my deary said missus boffin that if you don't close with mister rokesmith now at once and if you ever go a muddling yourself again with things never meant nor made for you
you'll have an apoplexy besides iron moulding your linen and you'll break my heart mister boffin embraced his spouse for these words of wisdom and then congratulating john rokesmith on the brilliancy of his achievements
gave him his hand in pledge of their new relations so did missus boffin now said mister boffin who in his frankness felt that it did not become him to have a gentleman in his employment five minutes without reposing some confidence in him
you must be let a little more into our affairs rokesmith i mentioned to you when i made your acquaintance or i might better say when you made mine
but that i didn't know how fashionable we might or might not grow well missus boffin has carried the day and we're going in neck and crop for fashion i rather inferred that sir replied john rokesmith
from the scale on which your new establishment is to be maintained yes said mister boffin it's to be a spanker the fact is my literary man named to me that a house with which he is as i may say
connected in which he has an interest as property inquired john rokesmith why no said mister boffin not exactly that
me and missus boffin went to look at it and finding it beyond a doubt eminently aristocratic
took it my literary man was so friendly as to drop into a charming piece of poetry on that occasion in which he complimented missus boffin on coming into possession of how did it go my dear missus boffin replied the gay
he likewise dropped into a very pretty piece of poetry to be sure respecting the extent to which he would be willing to put himself out of the way to bring missus boffin round in case she should ever get low in her spirits in the house missus boffin has a wonderful memory will you repeat it my dear
and how her broken spirit slept missus boffin and never woke again ma'am i'll tell thee if agreeable to mister boffin how the steed drew nigh and left his lord afar and if my tale
which i hope mister boffin might excuse should make you sigh i'll strike the light guitar correct to the letter said mister boffin and i consider that the poetry brings us both in in a beautiful manner
mister boffin was confirmed in his high opinion of it and was greatly pleased now you see rokesmith he went on a literary man with a wooden leg is liable to jealousy
i shall therefore cast about for comfortable ways and means of not calling up wegg's jealousy but of keeping you in your department and keeping him in his lor cried missus boffin what i say is the world's wide enough for all of us
the major's visit left old john sedley in a great state of agitation and excitement his daughter could not induce him to settle down to his customary occupations or amusements that night
which failed from a most unaccountable accident after commencing with the most splendid prospects the coal project which only a want of capital prevented from becoming the most successful scheme ever put before the public
the patent saw mills and sawdust consolidation project
he passed in the preparation of these documents trembling about from one room to another with a quivering candle and shaky hands here's the wine papers here's the sawdust here's the coals here's my letters to calcutta and madras
you don't know anything about business my dear answered the sire shaking his head with an important air and it must be confessed that on this point emmy was very ignorant
pity some people are so knowing all these twopenny documents arranged on a side table old sedley covered them carefully over with a clean bandanna handkerchief one out of major dobbin's lot
amelia found him up very early the next morning more eager more hectic and more shaky than ever i didn't sleep much emmy my dear he said i was thinking of my poor bessy i wish she was alive to ride in jos's carriage once again
she kept her own and became it very well and his eyes filled with tears which trickled down his furrowed old face amelia wiped them away and smilingly kissed him and tied the old man's neckcloth in a smart bow and put his brooch
into his best shirt frill in which in his sunday suit of mourning he sat from six o'clock in the morning awaiting the arrival of his son however when the postman made his appearance the little party were put out of suspense
amelia as she read out the letter to her father paused over the latter word her brother it was clear did not know what had happened in the family nor could he for the fact is
and holding on to little boys with the exceeding large eyes and curly hair ogle ladies in riding habits prancing by the statue of achilles at apsley house jos although provided with some of the most splendid vests that calcutta could furnish
thought he could not go to town until he was supplied with one or two of these garments and selected a crimson satin embroidered with gold butterflies and a black and red velvet tartan with white stripes and a rolling collar
i don't care about owning it waterloo sedley would say to his friends i am a dressy man and though rather uneasy if the ladies looked at him at the government house balls and though he blushed and turned away alarmed under their glances
it was chiefly from a dread lest they should make love to him that he avoided them being averse to marriage altogether but there was no such swell in calcutta as waterloo sedley i have heard say and he had the handsomest turn out gave the best bachelor dinners
his chests of mangoes chutney and curry powders his shawls for presents to people whom he didn't know as yet and the rest of his persicos apparatus at length he drove leisurely to london on the third day and in the new waistcoat
shuddering in a shawl on the box
cried hooray and many people thought he must be a governor general he i promise did not decline the obsequious invitation of the landlords to alight and refresh himself in the neat country towns
having partaken of a copious breakfast with fish and rice and hard eggs at southampton he had so far rallied at winchester as to think
of stewed eels veal cutlets and french beans with a bottle of claret he was cold over bagshot heath where the native chattered more and more
in fact when he drove into town he was as full of wine beer meat pickles cherry brandy and tobacco as the steward's cabin of a steam packet it was evening when his carriage thundered up to the little door in brompton
whither the affectionate fellow drove first and before hieing to the apartments secured for him by mister dobbin at the slaughters all the faces in the street were in the windows the little maidservant flew to the wicket gate
shaking all over jos descended from the post chaise and down the creaking swaying steps in awful state supported by the new valet from southampton and the shuddering native whose brown face was now livid with cold
the old man was very much affected so of course was his daughter nor was jos without feeling in that long absence of ten years the most selfish will think about home and early ties distance sanctifies both
long brooding over those lost pleasures exaggerates their charm and sweetness jos was unaffectedly glad to see and shake the hand of his father between whom and himself there had been a coolness glad to see his little sister
there was no need of this caution for the elder sedley himself began immediately to speak of the event and prattled about it and wept over it plenteously it shocked the indian not a little and made him think of himself less than the poor fellow was accustomed to do
and in the expansiveness and overflowing of heart occasioned by the first meeting declared that they should never suffer want or discomfort any more that he was at home for some time at any rate during which his house and everything he had should be theirs
when mister binny passed with his bride and the major learned that he had no longer a rival to fear
who told you those lies oh m'am polly said
and i'm sure he's grown grey athinking of you but amelia looking up at her bed over which hung the portraits of her husband and son told her young protegee never never to speak on that subject again
that major dobbin had been her husband's dearest friend and her own and george's most kind and affectionate guardian that she loved him as a brother but that a woman who had been married to such an angel as that and she pointed to the wall could never think of any other union
why miranda was even very kind to caliban and we may be pretty sure for the same reason not that she would encourage him in the least the poor uncouth monster of course not no more would emmy by any means encourage her admirer the major
she slept therefore very soundly that evening after the conversation with miss polly and was more than ordinarily happy in spite of jos's delaying
colonel o'dowd never could have a sister fit for such an accomplished man as major william who was there amongst her little circle who would make him a good wife not miss binny she was too old and ill tempered miss osborne too old too
little polly was too young missus osborne could not find anybody to suit the major before she went to sleep the same morning
the doctor was off to his family at portsea bragg
that he had been to see missus george osborne
he could enjoy his hookah there with such perfect ease and could swagger down to the theatres when minded so agreeably that perhaps he would have remained altogether at the slaughters had not his friend the major been at his elbow
the civilian was therefore an easy victim to the guileless arts of this good natured diplomatist and was ready to do to purchase hire or relinquish whatever his friend thought fit loll jewab
used to make cruel fun whenever he showed his dusky countenance in the street was sent back to calcutta in the lady kicklebury east indiaman
it was a matter of great delight and occupation to jos to superintend the building of a smart chariot which he and the major ordered in the neighbouring long acre and a pair of handsome horses were jobbed with which jos drove about in state in the park
or to call upon his indian friends amelia was not seldom by his side on these excursions when also major dobbin would be seen in the back seat of the carriage at other times old sedley and his daughter took advantage of it
even when missus clapp lost her own temper and pressed for the rent when the kind creature was going away for good and all the landlady reproached herself bitterly for ever having used a rough expression to her how she wept
from childhood upwards she had been with her daily and had attached herself so passionately to that dear good lady that when the grand barouche came to carry her off into splendour she fainted in the arms of her friend
who was indeed scarcely less affected than the good natured girl amelia loved her like a daughter during eleven years the girl had been her constant friend and associate the separation was a very painful one indeed to her
but it was of course arranged that mary was to come and stay often at the grand new house whither missus osborne was going and where mary was sure she would never be so happy as she had been in their humble cot as miss clapp called it
she never liked to come back to the house after she had left it or to face the landlady who had tyrannized over her when ill humoured and unpaid or when pleased had treated her with a coarse familiarity scarcely less odious
her servility and fulsome compliments when emmy was in prosperity were not more to that lady's liking she cast about notes of admiration all over the new house extolling every article of furniture or ornament
she fingered missus osborne's dresses and calculated their price nothing could be too good for that sweet lady she vowed and protested
to whom she had been forced to put up petitions for time when the rent was overdue
only taking away her pictures the two pictures over the bed and her piano
but which she loved for reasons of her own she was a child when first she played on it and her parents gave it her it had been given to her again since as the reader may remember when her father's house was gone to ruin and the instrument was recovered out of the wreck
major dobbin was exceedingly pleased when as he was superintending the arrangements of jos's new house which the major insisted should be very handsome and comfortable the cart arrived from brompton bringing the trunks and
bandboxes of the emigrants from that village and with them the old piano amelia would have it up in her sitting room a neat little apartment on the second floor adjoining her father's chamber and where the old gentleman sat commonly of evenings
i was afraid you didn't care about it i value it more than anything i have in the world said amelia do you amelia cried the major the fact was as he had bought it himself though he never said anything about it
it never entered into his head to suppose that emmy should think anybody else was the purchaser and as a matter of course he fancied that she knew the gift came from him do you amelia he said and the question the great question of all
was trembling on his lips when emmy replied can i do otherwise did not he give it me i did not know said poor old dob and his countenance fell
the next time that old sedley asked her to play she said it was shockingly out of tune that she had a headache that she couldn't play then according to her custom she rebuked herself
expressed to him but had felt for his piano a few days afterwards as they were seated in the drawing room where jos had fallen asleep with great comfort after dinner amelia said with rather a faltering voice to major dobbin
i have to beg your pardon for something about what said he about about that little square piano i never thanked you for it when you gave it me many many years ago before i was married i thought somebody else had given it
thank you william she held out her hand but the poor little woman's heart was bleeding and as for her eyes of course they were at their work but william could hold no more amelia amelia he said i did buy it for you
i loved you then as i do now i must tell you i think i loved you from the first minute that i saw you when george brought me to your house to show me the amelia whom he was engaged to you were but a girl in white with large ringlets you came down singing do you remember
and we went to vauxhall since then i have thought of but one woman in the world and that was you i think there is no hour in the day has passed for twelve years that i haven't thought of you i came to tell you this before i went to india
i know what you are feeling now you are hurt in your heart at the discovery about the piano and that it came from me and not from george i forgot or i should never have spoken of it so it is for me to ask your pardon for being a fool for a moment
and thinking that years of constancy and devotion might have pleaded with you it is you who are cruel now amelia said with some spirit george is my husband here and in heaven how could i love any other but him
i am his now as when you first saw me dear william it was he who told me how good and generous you were and who taught me to love you as a brother have you not been everything to me and my boy our dearest truest kindest friend and protector
though i wished and prayed for you to come and they took him too away from me isn't he a noble boy william be his friend still and mine and here her voice broke and she hid her face on his shoulder
the major folded his arms round her holding her to him as if she was a child and kissed her head i will not change dear amelia he said i ask for no more than your love
it was one of the many causes for personal pride with which old osborne chose to recreate himself that sedley his ancient rival enemy and benefactor
who had most injured and insulted him the successful man of the world cursed the old pauper and relieved him from time to time as he furnished george with money for his mother he gave the boy to understand by hints delivered in his brutal coarse way
that george's maternal grandfather was but a wretched old bankrupt and dependant and that john sedley might thank the man to whom he already owed ever so much money
a disposition naturally simple and demanding protection a long course of poverty and humility of daily privations and hard words of kind offices and no returns had been her lot ever since womanhood almost
the very thought of them is odious and low there must be classes there must be rich and poor dives says smacking his claret
on the contrary with something akin to gratitude amelia took the crumbs that her father in law let drop now and then and with them fed her own parent directly she understood it to be her duty it was this young woman's nature
it was i say her nature to sacrifice herself and to fling all that she had at the feet of the beloved object during what long thankless nights had she worked out her fingers for little georgy whilst at home with her
what buffets scorns privations poverties had she endured for father and mother
she did not respect herself any more than the world respected her but i believe thought in her heart that she was a poor spirited despicable little creature whose luck in life was only too good for her merits o you poor women
o you poor secret martyrs and victims whose life is a torture who are stretched on racks in your bedrooms and who lay your heads down on the block daily at the drawing room table
i recollect seeing years ago at the prisons for idiots and madmen at bicetre near paris a poor wretch bent down under the bondage of his imprisonment and his personal infirmity
to whom one of our party gave a halfpenny worth of snuff in a cornet or screw of paper the kindness was too much for the poor epileptic creature he cried in an anguish of delight and gratitude
we could not be so affected and so if you properly tyrannize over a woman
her some such boons as these were the best which fortune allotted to poor little amelia her life begun not unprosperously had come down to this
how many thousands of people are there women for the most part who are doomed to endure this long slavery who are hospital nurses without wages sisters of charity if you like
who strive fast watch and suffer unpitied and fade away ignobly and unknown the hidden and awful wisdom which apportions the destinies of mankind
is pleased so to humiliate and cast down the tender good and wise and to set up the selfish the foolish or the wicked oh be humble my brother in your prosperity be gentle with those who are less lucky if not more deserving think what right have you to be scornful
whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation whose success may be a chance whose rank may be an ancestor's accident whose prosperity is very likely a satire they buried amelia's mother in the churchyard at brompton
her little boy sat by her side in pompous new sables she remembered the old pew woman and clerk her thoughts were away in other times as the parson read but that she held george's hand in her own perhaps she would have liked to change places with
listened to his stories with untiring smiles and affectionate hypocrisy or sat musing by his side and communing with her own thoughts and reminiscences as the old man feeble and querulous sunned himself on the garden benches and prattled about his wrongs or his sorrows
what sad unsatisfactory thoughts those of the widow were the children running up and down the slopes and broad paths in the gardens reminded her of george who was taken from her the first george was taken from her
or a mouse to come out and play about latude's
or a subterranean passage under the castle dug by trenck with his nails and a toothpick the historian has no such enlivening incident to relate in the narrative of amelia's captivity fancy her if you please during this period very sad
but always ready to smile when spoken to in a very mean poor not to say vulgar position of life singing songs making puddings playing cards mending stockings for her old father's benefit so never mind whether she be a heroine or no
or you and i however old scolding and bankrupt may we have in our last days a kind soft shoulder on which to lean and a gentle hand to soothe our gouty old pillows
old sedley grew very fond of his daughter after his wife's death and amelia had her consolation in doing her duty by the old man but we are not going to leave these two people long in such a low and ungenteel station of life
better days as far as worldly prosperity went were in store for both perhaps the ingenious reader has guessed who was the stout gentleman who called upon georgy at his school in company with our old friend major dobbin
and at a time when his presence was likely to be of great comfort to his relatives there major dobbin having easily succeeded in getting leave from his good natured commandant to proceed to madras
his servants who accompanied him brought him to the house of the friend with whom he had resolved to stay until his departure for europe in a state of delirium and it was thought for many many days that he would never travel farther than the burying ground of the church of saint george's
where the troops should fire a salvo over his grave and where many a gallant officer lies far away from his home here as the poor fellow lay tossing in his fever the people who watched him might have heard him raving about amelia
and leaving the little property of which he was possessed to those whom he most desired to benefit the friend in whose house he was located witnessed his testament he desired to be buried with a little
after the death of george osborne on the plateau at mount saint john he recovered rallied relapsed again having undergone such a process of blood letting and calomel as showed the strength of his original constitution
our friend began to amend and he was quite well though as gaunt as a greyhound before they reached the cape kirk will be disappointed of his majority this time he said with a smile he will expect to find himself gazetted by the time the regiment reaches home
for it must be premised that while the major was lying ill at madras having made such prodigious haste to go thither
perhaps he was not inclined to put himself in his exhausted state again under the guardianship of glorvina i think miss o'dowd would have done for me he said laughingly to a fellow passenger
and the refreshment of brandy pawnee which he was forced to take there
a voyage to europe was pronounced necessary for him and having served his full time in india
to lay by a considerable sum of money he was free to come home and stay with a good pension or to return and resume that rank in the service to which his seniority and his vast talents entitled him
he was rather thinner than when we last saw him but had gained in majesty and solemnity of demeanour he had resumed the mustachios to which his services at waterloo entitled him
as long a time at his toilette as any fading beauty the youngsters among the passengers young chaffers of the one hundred fiftieth and poor little ricketts coming home after his third fever used to draw out sedley at the cuddy table
and make him tell prodigious stories about himself and his exploits against tigers and napoleon he was great when he visited the emperor's tomb at longwood when to these gentlemen and the young officers of the ship major dobbin not being by
he described the whole battle of waterloo and all but announced that napoleon never would have gone to saint helena at all but for him jos sedley after leaving saint helena he became very generous disposing of a great quantity of ship stores claret
he disappeared rather in a panic during a two days gale in which he had the portholes of his cabin battened down and remained in his cot reading the washerwoman of finchley common left on board the ramchunder by the right honourable the lady emily hornblower
when on their passage out to the cape where the reverend gentleman was a missionary but for common reading he had brought a stock of novels and plays which he lent to the rest of the ship and rendered himself agreeable to all by his kindness and condescension
in these conversations it was wonderful with what perseverance and ingenuity major dobbin would manage to bring the talk round to the subject of amelia and her little boy
was soothed down by the major who pointed out the elder's ill fortunes and old age he would not perhaps like to live with the old couple whose ways and hours might not agree with those of a younger man
how elegant how gentle she was and of what refined good manners
and in london where she was much admired by people of very great fashion and he then hinted how becoming it would be for jos to send georgy to a good school and make a man of him for his mother and her parents would be sure to spoil him
he did not know as yet what events had happened in the little sedley family and how death had removed the mother and riches had carried off george from amelia
and his whole heart was bent upon doing her good he coaxed wheedled cajoled and complimented jos sedley with a perseverance and cordiality of which he was not aware himself very likely but some men who have unmarried sisters or daughters even
on board much cheer him until after a conversation which they had one day
he said then he thought he was doomed he had left a little something to his godson in his will
they were two months later than the major's and the ship's surgeon congratulated himself upon the treatment adopted by him towards his new patient who had been consigned to shipboard by the madras practitioner with very small hopes indeed for from that day
the very day that he changed the draught major dobbin began to mend
and rendered himself so gay
that even captain bragg who thought there was nothing in his passenger and considered he was a poor spirited feller at first
he ain't got manners but there's something about him and thus captain bragg showed that he possessed discrimination as a man as well as ability as a commander but a calm taking place when the ramchunder was within ten days sail of england
dobbin became so impatient and ill humoured as to surprise those comrades who had before admired his vivacity and good temper he did not recover until the breeze sprang up again and was in a highly excited state when the pilot came on board
without standing up we stared in the direction of the forest my hand stopping halfway to my mouth ned land's completing its assignment stones don't fall from the sky conseil said or else they deserve to be called meteorites
a second well polished stone removed a tasty ringdove leg from conseil's hand giving still greater relevance to his observation we all three stood up rifles to our shoulders ready to answer any attack
apes maybe ned land exclaimed nearly conseil replied savages head for the skiff i said moving toward the sea indeed it was essential to beat a retreat
because some twenty natives armed with bows and slings appeared barely a hundred paces off on the outskirts of a thicket that masked the horizon to our right the skiff was aground ten fathoms away from us the savages approached without running
but they favored us with a show of the greatest hostility it was raining stones and arrows ned land was unwilling to leave his provisions behind and despite the impending danger he clutched his pig on one side
his kangaroos on the other and scampered off with respectable speed in two minutes we were on the strand loading provisions and weapons into the skiff pushing it to sea and positioning its two oars
were the work of an instant we hadn't gone two cable lengths when a hundred savages howling and gesticulating entered the water up to their waists i looked to see if their appearance might draw some of the nautilus's men onto the platform
but no lying well out that enormous machine still seemed completely deserted twenty minutes later we boarded ship the hatches were open after mooring the skiff we reentered the nautilus's interior i went below to the lounge
from which some chords were wafting captain nemo was there leaning over the organ deep in a musical trance captain i said to him he didn't hear me captain i went on touching him with my hand
he trembled and turning around ah it's you professor he said to me well did you have a happy hunt was your herb gathering a success yes captain i replied
but unfortunately we've brought back a horde of bipeds whose proximity worries me what sort of bipeds savages savages captain nemo replied in an ironic tone
you set foot on one of the shores of this globe professor and you're surprised to find savages there where aren't there savages and besides are they any worse than men elsewhere these people you call savages
but captain speaking for myself sir i've encountered them everywhere well then i replied if you don't want to welcome them aboard the nautilus you'd better take some precautions easy professor
no cause for alarm but there are a large number of these natives what's your count at least a hundred professor aronnax
the nautilus would still have nothing to fear from their attacks
and i noticed that he touched only its black keys which gave his melodies a basically scottish color soon he had forgotten my presence and was lost in a reverie that i no longer tried to dispel i climbed onto the platform
night had already fallen because in this low latitude the sun sets quickly without any twilight i could see gueboroa island only dimly but numerous fires had been kindled on the beach attesting that the natives had no thoughts of leaving it
for several hours i was left to myself sometimes musing on the islanders but no longer fearing them because the captain's unflappable confidence had won me over and sometimes forgetting them to marvel at the splendors of this tropical night
my memories took wing toward france in the wake of those zodiacal stars due to twinkle over it in a few hours the moon shone in the midst of the constellations at their zenith
i then remembered that this loyal good natured satellite would return to this same place the day after tomorrow to raise the tide and tear the nautilus from its coral bed near midnight seeing that all was quiet over the darkened waves as well as under the waterside trees
i repaired to my cabin and fell into a peaceful sleep the night passed without mishap no doubt the papuans had been frightened off by the mere sight of this monster aground in the bay
because our hatches stayed open offering easy access to the nautilus's interior at six o'clock in the morning january eighth i climbed onto the platform the morning shadows were lifting the island was soon on view
through the dissolving mists first its beaches then its summits the islanders were still there in greater numbers than on the day before perhaps five hundred or six hundred of them
i could easily distinguish them
athletic in build forehead high and broad nose large but not flat teeth white their woolly red tinted hair was in sharp contrast to their bodies which were black and glistening like those of nubians
generally these savages were naked i noted some women among them dressed from hip to knee in grass skirts held up by belts made of vegetation
armed with bows arrows and shields nearly all of them carried from their shoulders a sort of net which held those polished stones their slings hurl with such dexterity
one of these chieftains came fairly close to the nautilus examining it with care
because he paraded in a mat of banana leaves that had ragged edges and was accented with bright colors i could easily have picked off this islander he stood at such close range but i thought it best to wait for an actual show of hostility
between europeans and savages it's acceptable for europeans to shoot back but not to attack first during this whole time of low tide the islanders lurked near the nautilus but they weren't boisterous
i often heard them repeat the word assai and from their gestures i understood they were inviting me to go ashore an invitation i felt obliged to decline so the skiff didn't leave shipside that day
much to the displeasure of mister land who couldn't complete his provisions the adroit canadian spent his time preparing the meat and flour products he had brought from gueboroa island
having nothing better to do i decided to dredge these beautiful clear waters which exhibited a profusion of shells zoophytes and open sea plants besides it was the last day the nautilus would spend in these waterways
if tomorrow it still floated off to the open sea as captain nemo had promised so i summoned conseil who brought me a small light dragnet similar to those used in oyster fishing what about these savages conseil asked me
they don't strike me as very wicked they're cannibals even so my boy a person can be both a cannibal and a decent man conseil replied just as a person can be both gluttonous and honorable the one doesn't exclude the other
fine conseil and i agree that there are honorable cannibals who decently devour their prisoners however
i'm opposed to being devoured even in all decency so i'll keep on my guard especially since the nautilus's commander seems to be taking no precautions and now let's get to work
for two hours our fishing proceeded energetically but without bringing up any rarities our dragnet was filled with midas abalone
i had seen to that day we also gathered in a few sea cucumbers some pearl oysters and a dozen small turtles that we saved for the ship's pantry but just when i least expected it i laid my hands on a wonder a natural deformity i'd have to call it
something very seldom encountered conseil had just made a cast of the dragnet and his gear had come back up loaded with a variety of fairly ordinary seashells when suddenly he saw me plunge my arms swiftly into the net
pull out a shelled animal and give a conchological yell in other words the most piercing yell a human throat can produce
did master get bitten no my boy but i'd gladly have sacrificed a finger for such a find what find this shell i said displaying the subject of my triumph but that's simply an olive shell of the tent olive species
branch mollusca yes yes conseil but instead of coiling from right to left this olive shell rolls from left to right it can't be conseil exclaimed yes my boy it's a left handed shell
a left handed shell conseil repeated his heart pounding look at its spiral
but never have i felt such excitement and there was good reason to be excited in fact as naturalists have ventured to observe dextrality is a well known law of nature in their rotational and orbital movements
a shell isn't worth a human life i told him oh the rascal conseil exclaimed i'd rather he cracked my shoulder conseil was in dead earnest but
i didn't subscribe to his views however the situation had changed in only a short time and we hadn't noticed now some twenty dugout canoes were surrounding the nautilus
hollowed from tree trunks these dugouts were long narrow and well designed for speed keeping their balance by means of two bamboo poles that floated on the surface of the water they were maneuvered by skillful half naked paddlers and i viewed their advance with definite alarm
it was obvious these papuans had already entered into relations with europeans and knew their ships but this long iron cylinder lying in the bay with no masts or funnels what were they to make of it
now then it was precisely this familiarity that we needed to prevent since our weapons made no sound when they went off they would have only a moderate effect on these islanders who reputedly respect
nothing but noisy mechanisms without thunderclaps lightning bolts would be much less frightening although the danger lies in the flash not the noise just then the dugout canoes drew nearer to the nautilus and a cloud of arrows burst over us
fire and brimstone it's hailing conseil said and poisoned hail perhaps we've got to alert captain nemo i said reentering the hatch i went below to the lounge i found no one there i ventured a knock
at the door opening into the captain's stateroom the word enter answered me i did so and found captain nemo busy with calculations in which there was no shortage of x and other algebraic signs am i disturbing you
i said out of politeness correct professor aronnax the captain answered me but i imagine you have pressing reasons for looking me up very pressing native dugout canoes are surrounding us and in a few minutes we're
sure to be assaulted by several hundred savages ah captain nemo put in serenely they've come in their dugouts yes sir well sir closing the hatches should do the trick precisely and that's what i came to tell you
nothing easier captain nemo said and he pressed an electric button transmitting an order to the crew's quarters there sir all under control he told me after a few moments the skiff is in place and the hatches are closed
no captain but one danger still remains what's that sir tomorrow at about this time we'll need to reopen the hatches to renew the nautilus's air no argument sir since our craft breathes in the manner favored by cetaceans
but if these papuans are occupying the platform at that moment i don't see how you can prevent them from entering then sir you assume they'll board the ship i'm certain of it well sir let them come aboard
i see no reason to prevent them deep down they're just poor devils these papuans
on this note i was about to withdraw but captain nemo detained me and invited me to take a seat next to him he questioned me with interest on our excursions ashore and on our hunting but seemed not to understand the canadian's passionate craving for red meat
then our conversation skimmed various subjects and without being more forthcoming captain nemo proved more affable among other things we came to talk of the nautilus's circumstances aground in the same strait where captain dumont d'urville
had nearly miscarried then pertinent to this he was one of your great seamen the captain told me one of your shrewdest navigators that d'urville he was the frenchman's captain cook a man wise but unlucky
only to perish wretchedly in a train wreck if that energetic man was able to think about his life in its last seconds imagine what his final thoughts must have been as he spoke captain nemo seemed deeply moved an emotion i felt was to his credit
then chart in hand we returned to the deeds of the french navigator his voyages to circumnavigate the globe his double attempt at the south pole which led to his discovery of the
finally his hydrographic surveys of the chief islands in oceania what your d'urville did on the surface of the sea captain nemo told me i've done in the ocean's interior but more easily more completely than he
a quiet work room truly at rest in the midst of the waters even so captain i said there is one major similarity between dumont d'urville's sloops of war and the nautilus what's that sir
like them the nautilus has run aground the nautilus is not aground sir captain nemo replied icily the nautilus was built to rest on the ocean floor and i don't need to undertake the arduous labors the maneuvers d'urville had to attempt in order to float off
his sloops of war the zealous and the new astrolabe wellnigh perished but my nautilus is in no danger tomorrow on the day stated and at the hour stated the tide will peacefully lift it off and it will resume its navigating through the seas
captain i said i don't doubt tomorrow captain nemo added standing up tomorrow at two forty in the afternoon the nautilus will float off and exit the torres strait undamaged
pronouncing these words in an extremely sharp tone captain nemo gave me a curt bow this was my dismissal and i reentered my stateroom there i found conseil who wanted to know the upshot of my interview with the captain my boy i replied
so i've just one thing to say to you have faith in him and sleep in peace master has no need for my services no my friend what's ned land up to begging master's indulgence conseil replied
but our friend ned is concocting a kangaroo pie that will be the eighth wonder i was left to myself i went to bed but slept pretty poorly i kept hearing noises from the savages who were stamping on the platform and letting out deafening yells
the night passed in this way without the crew ever emerging from their usual inertia they were no more disturbed by the presence of these man eaters than soldiers in an armored fortress are troubled by ants running over the armor plate i got up at six o'clock in the morning
the hatches weren't open so the air inside hadn't been renewed but the air tanks were kept full for any eventuality and would function appropriately to shoot a few cubic meters of oxygen into the nautilus's thin atmosphere
i worked in my stateroom until noon without seeing captain nemo even for an instant nobody on board seemed to be making any preparations for departure
in ten minutes the tide would reach its maximum elevation
but some preliminary vibrations could soon be felt over the boat's hull i heard its plating grind against the limestone roughness of that coral base
at two thirty five captain nemo appeared in the lounge we're about to depart he said ah i put in i've given orders to open the hatches what about the papuans
won't they come inside the nautilus how will they manage that by jumping down the hatches you're about to open professor aronnax captain nemo replied serenely the nautilus's hatches aren't to be entered in that fashion even when they're open
i gaped at the captain you don't understand he said to me not in the least well come along and you'll see i headed to the central companionway there very puzzled ned land and conseil watched the crewmen opening the hatches
while a frightful clamor and furious shouts resounded outside the hatch lids fell back onto the outer plating twenty horrible faces appeared but when the first islander laid hands on the companionway railing
he ran off howling in terror and wildly prancing around ten of his companions followed him all ten met the same fate conseil was in ecstasy carried away by his violent instincts
ned land leaped up the companionway but as soon as his hands seized the railing he was thrown backward in his turn damnation he exclaimed i've been struck by a lightning bolt
it was a metal cable fully charged with the ship's electricity anyone who touched it got a fearsome shock
it could honestly be said that he had stretched between himself and his assailants a network of electricity no one could clear with impunity meanwhile crazed with terror the unhinged papuans beat a retreat as for us half laughing
we massaged and comforted poor ned land who was swearing like one possessed but just then lifted off by the tide's final undulations the nautilus left its coral bed at exactly that fortieth minute pinpointed by the captain
its propeller churned the waves with lazy majesty gathering speed little by little the ship navigated on the surface of the ocean
at dinner that evening madame de chantelle's slender monologue was thrown out over gulfs of silence owen was still in the same state of moody abstraction as when darrow had left him at the piano and even anna's face to her friend's vigilant eye
revealed not perhaps a personal preoccupation but a vague sense of impending disturbance she smiled she bore a part in the talk her eyes dwelt on darrow's with their usual deep reliance
but beneath the surface of her serenity his tense perceptions detected a hidden stir he was sufficiently self possessed to tell himself that it was doubtless due to causes with which he was not directly concerned
for a moment it occurred to darrow that anna might have employed her afternoon in preparing madame de chantelle for her grandson's impending announcement but a glance at the elder lady's unclouded brow showed that he must seek elsewhere the clue to owen's taciturnity
and his step mother's concern possibly anna had found reason to change her own attitude in the matter and had made the change known to owen but this again was negatived by the fact that during the afternoon's shooting
this obscured if it narrowed the field of conjecture and darrow's gropings threw him back on the conclusion that he was probably reading too much significance into the moods of a lad he hardly knew
and who had been described to him as subject to sudden changes of humour as to anna's fancied perturbation it might simply be due to the fact that she had decided to plead owen's cause the next day and had perhaps already had a glimpse of the difficulties awaiting her
such at any rate was the conclusion he had reached when shortly after the two ladies left the drawing room he bade owen good night and went up to his room
ever since the rapid self colloquy which had followed on his first sight of sophy viner he had known there were other questions to be faced behind the one immediately confronting him on the score of that one at least his mind if not easy was relieved
he had done what was possible to reassure the girl and she had apparently recognized the sincerity of his intention he had patched up as decent a conclusion as he could to an incident that should obviously have had no sequel
but he had known all along that with the securing of miss viner's peace of mind only a part of his obligation was discharged and that with that part his remaining duty was in conflict it had been his first business to convince the girl
his own ideas about sophy viner were too mixed and indeterminate for him not to feel the risk of such an experiment yet he found himself in the intolerable position of appearing to press it on the woman he desired above all others to protect
till late in the night his thoughts revolved in a turmoil of indecision his pride was humbled by the discrepancy between what sophy viner had been to him and what he had thought of her this discrepancy
which at the time had seemed to simplify the incident now turned out to be its most galling complication the bare truth indeed was that he had hardly thought of her at all either at the time or since and that he was ashamed to base his judgement of her
on his meagre memory of their adventure the essential cheapness of the whole affair as far as his share in it was concerned came home to him with humiliating distinctness he would have liked to be able to feel that at the time at least
he had staked something more on it and had somehow in the sequel had a more palpable loss to show but the plain fact was that he hadn't spent a penny on it which was no doubt the reason of the prodigious score it had since been rolling up
at any rate beat about the case as he would it was clear that he owed it to anna and incidentally to his own peace of mind to find some way of securing sophy viner's future
when he and his wife should depart for their new post the night brought no aid to the solving of this problem but it gave him at any rate the clear conviction that no time was to be lost his first step must be to obtain from miss viner
the chance of another and calmer talk and he resolved to seek it at the earliest hour he had gathered that effie's lessons were preceded by an early scamper in the park
and conjecturing that her governess might be with her he betook himself the next morning to the terrace whence he wandered on to the gardens and the walks beyond the atmosphere was still and pale
the muffled sunlight gleamed like gold tissue through grey gauze and the beech alleys tapered away to a blue haze blent of sky and forest
it was one of those elusive days when the familiar forms of things seem about to dissolve in a prismatic shimmer the stillness was presently broken by joyful barks and darrow tracking the sound
overtook effie flying down one of the long alleys at the head of her pack beyond her he saw miss viner seated near the stone rimmed basin beside which he and anna had paused on their first walk to the river the girl coming forward at his approach
returned his greeting almost gaily his first glance showed him that she had regained her composure and the change in her appearance gave him the measure of her fears for the first time he saw in her again the sidelong grace that had charmed his eyes in paris
but it's barely ten minutes past let's at least walk a little way toward the river she glanced down the long walk ahead of them and then back in the direction of the house if you like
but instead of taking the way he proposed she turned toward a narrow path which branched off obliquely through the trees darrow was struck and vaguely troubled by the change in her look and tone
there was in them an undefinable appeal whether for help or forbearance he could not tell then it occurred to him that there might have been something misleading in his so pointedly seeking her and he felt a momentary constraint
to ease it he made an abrupt dash at the truth i came out to look for you because our talk of yesterday was so unsatisfactory i want to hear more about you about your plans and prospects
his glance strayed down the gold roofed windings ahead of them it's delightful you couldn't be better placed only i wonder a little at your having so completely given up any idea of a different future
yet somehow i don't seem to see you permanently given up to forming the young what exactly do you seem to see me permanently given up to you know you warned me rather emphatically against the theatre
she threw off the statement without impatience as though they were discussing together the fate of a third person in whom both were benevolently interested darrow considered his reply if i did
it was because you so emphatically refused to let me help you to a start she stopped short and faced him and you think i may let you now darrow felt the blood in his cheek he could not understand her attitude
if i'd ever cared a straw for her i should know how to avoid hurting her now and his insensibility struck him as no better than a vulgar obtuseness but he had a fixed purpose ahead and could only push on to it
i hope at any rate you'll listen to my reasons there's been time on both sides to think them over since he caught himself back and hung helpless on the since
whatever words he chose he seemed to stumble among reminders of their past she walked on beside him her eyes on the ground then i'm to understand definitely that you do renew your offer she asked
with all my heart if you'll only let me she raised a hand as though to check him it's extremely friendly of you i do believe you mean it as a friend but i don't quite understand why finding me as you say
so well placed here you should show more anxiety about my future than at a time when i was actually and rather desperately adrift oh no not more if you show any at all it must at any rate be for different reasons
in fact it can only be she went on with one of her disconcerting flashes of astuteness for one of two reasons either because you feel you ought to help me or because for some reason you think you owe it to missus leath to let her know what you know of me
darrow stood still in the path behind him he heard effie's call and at the child's voice he saw sophy turn her head with the alertness of one who is obscurely on the watch
the look was so fugitive that he could not have said wherein it differed from her normal professional air of having her pupil on her mind effie sprang past them and darrow took up the girl's challenge
but the wish isn't due to to any past kindness on your part but simply to my own interest in you why not put it that our friendship gives me the right to intervene for what i believe to be your benefit
she took a few hesitating steps and then paused again darrow noticed that she had grown pale and that there were rings of shade about her eyes you've known missus leath a long time she asked him suddenly
then you might naturally feel yourself justified in telling her that you don't think i'm the right person for effie he uttered a sound of protest but she disregarded it i don't say you'd like to do it you wouldn't you'd hate it
and the natural alternative would be to try to persuade me that i'd be better off somewhere else than here but supposing that failed and you saw i was determined to stay then you might think it your duty to tell missus leath
she laid the case before him with a cold lucidity i should in your place i believe she ended with a little laugh i shouldn't feel justified in telling her behind your back if i thought you unsuited for the place
but i should certainly feel justified he rejoined after a pause in telling you if i thought the place unsuited to you and that's what you're trying to tell me now yes but not for the reasons you imagine
what then are your reasons if you please i've already implied them in advising you not to give up all idea of the theatre you're too various too gifted too personal to tie yourself down at your age
to the dismal drudgery of teaching and is that what you've told missus leath she rushed the question out at him as if she expected to trip him up over it he was moved by the simplicity of the stratagem
i've told her exactly nothing he replied and what exactly do you mean by nothing you and she were talking about me when i came into her sitting room yesterday darrow felt his blood rise at the thrust
and not that you've ever seen me since and not that i've ever seen you since and she believes you she completely believes you he uttered a protesting exclamation and his flush reflected itself in the girl's cheek
oh i beg your pardon i didn't mean to ask you that she halted and again cast a rapid glance behind and ahead of her then she held out her hand well then thank you and let me relieve your fears
i sha'n't be effie's governess much longer at the announcement darrow tried to merge his look of relief into the expression of friendly interest with which he grasped her hand you really do agree with me then
and you'll give me a chance to talk things over with you she shook her head with a faint smile i'm not thinking of the stage i've had another offer that's all the relief was hardly less great
you'll tell me about that then won't you her smile flickered up oh you'll hear about it soon i must catch effie now and drag her back to the blackboard
she walked on for a few yards and then paused again and confronted him i've been odious to you and not quite honest she broke out suddenly not quite honest he repeated caught in a fresh wave of wonder
for the same space of time the past surged up in him confusedly then a veil dropped between them here's effie now she exclaimed he turned and saw the little girl trotting back to them her hand in owen leath's
for a moment sophy viner's cheeks burned redder then they faded to the paleness of white petals she lost however nothing of the bright bravery which it was her way to turn on the unexpected
but her observer was less struck by this than by the corresponding change in owen leath the latter when he came in sight had been laughing and talking unconcernedly with effie
but as his eye fell on miss viner his expression altered as suddenly as hers the change for darrow was less definable but perhaps for that reason it struck him as more sharply significant
only just what did it signify owen like sophy viner had the kind of face which seems less the stage on which emotions move than the very stuff they work in
in moments of excitement his odd irregular features seemed to grow fluid to unmake and remake themselves like the shadows of clouds on a stream darrow through the rapid flight of the shadows could not seize on any specific indication of feeling
he merely perceived that the young man was unaccountably surprised at finding him with miss viner and that the extent of his surprise might cover all manner of implications darrow's first idea was that owen
if he suspected that the conversation was not the result of an accidental encounter might wonder at his step mother's suitor being engaged at such an hour in private talk with her little girl's governess
and he walked on in silence at miss viner's side presently he was struck by the fact that owen leath and the girl were silent also and this gave a new turn to his thoughts silence may be as variously shaded as speech
and that which enfolded darrow and his two companions seemed to his watchful perceptions to be quivering with cross threads of communication at first he was aware only of those that centred in his own troubled consciousness
then it occurred to him that an equal activity of intercourse was going on outside of it something was in fact passing mutely and rapidly between young leath and sophy viner
because he can't go at twice said the other professor the professor gently clapped his hands isn't he wonderful he said to sylvie
this remark woke up bruno suddenly and completely i don't want to be divided he said decisively it does very well on a diagram said the other professor i could show it you in a minute only the chalk's a little blunt
take care sylvie anxiously exclaimed as he began rather clumsily to point it you'll cut your finger off if you hold the knife so if oo cuts it off will oo give it to me please bruno thoughtfully added
it's like this said the other professor hastily drawing a long line upon the black board and marking the letters a b at the two ends and c in the middle let me explain it to you if a b were to be divided into two parts at c
it would be drownded bruno pronounced confidently the other professor gasped what would be drownded why the bumble bee of course said bruno and the two bits would sink down in the sea
here the professor interfered as the other professor was evidently too much puzzled to go on with his diagram when i said it would hurt him i was merely referring to the action of the nerves the other professor brightened up in a moment
the action of the nerves he began eagerly is curiously slow in some people i had a friend once that if you burnt him with a red hot poker it would take years and years before he felt it and if you only pinched him queried sylvie
then it would take ever so much longer of course in fact i doubt if the man himself would ever feel it at all his grandchildren might i wouldn't like to be the grandchild of a pinched grandfather would you mister sir bruno whispered it might come just when you wanted to be happy
that would be awkward i admitted taking it quite as a matter of course that he had so suddenly caught sight of me but don't you always want to be happy bruno not always bruno said thoughtfully sometimes when i's too happy i wants to be a little miserable
and sylvie sets me some lessons then it's all right i'm sorry you don't like lessons i said you should copy sylvie she's always as busy as the day is long
no no sylvie corrected him you're as busy as the day is short well what's the difference bruno asked mister sir isn't the day as short as it's long i mean isn't it the same length
never having considered the question in this light i suggested that they had better ask the professor and they ran off in a moment to appeal to their old friend the professor left off polishing his spectacles to consider my dears he said after a minute
if i was as wise as that i should have a head ache all day long i know i should you appear to be talking to somebody that isn't here the professor said turning round to the children who is it bruno looked puzzled
the professor looked anxiously in my direction and seemed to look through and through me without seeing me then who are you talking to he said there isn't anybody here you know except the other professor and he isn't here he added wildly turning round and round like a teetotum
and he began trotting round and round the room lifting up the chairs and shaking them bruno took a very small book out of the bookcase opened it and shook it in imitation of the professor he isn't here he said
i should have shooked him out if he'd been in there has he ever been lost before sylvie enquired turning up a corner of the hearth rug and peeping under it once before said the professor he once lost himself in a wood and couldn't he find his self again said bruno
why didn't he shout he'd be sure to hear his self cause he couldn't be far off oo know lets try shouting said the professor what shall we shout said sylvie on second thoughts don't shout the professor replied
the vice warden might hear you he's getting awfully strict
bruno sat down on the floor and began crying he is so cruel he sobbed
and such horrid meals what did you have for dinner to day said the professor a little piece of a dead crow was bruno's mournful reply he means rook pie sylvie explained
and i got nuffin but a crust and i asked for a orange and didn't get it and the poor little fellow buried his face in sylvie's lap who kept gently stroking his hair as she went on it's all true professor dear
they do treat my darling bruno very badly and they're not kind to me either she added in a lower tone as if that were a thing of much less importance the professor got out a large red silk handkerchief and wiped his eyes i wish i could help you dear children he said
but what can i do we know the way to fairyland where father's gone quite well said sylvie if only the gardener would let us out won't he open the door for you said the professor not for us said sylvie
but i'm sure he would for you do come and ask him professor dear i'll come this minute said the professor bruno sat up and dried his eyes isn't he kind mister sir he is indeed said i
but the professor took no notice of my remark he had put on a beautiful cap with a long tassel and was selecting one of the other professor's walking sticks from a stand in the corner of the room a thick stick in one's hand makes people respectful he was saying to himself
and secondly if he's seen the other professor we shall find him that way and if he hasn't we sha'n't
see said the professor pointing out a hole in the middle of the bull's eye his imperial fatness had only one shot at it and he went in just here bruno carefully examined the hole couldn't go in there he whispered to me
he are too fat we had no sort of difficulty in finding the gardener though he was hidden from us by some trees that harsh voice of his served to direct us and as we drew nearer
it might stick to something you know and that somefin would have to go by the post what ever it was bruno eagerly exclaimed suppose it was a cow wouldn't it be dreadful for the other things and all these things happened to him said the professor
that's what makes the song so interesting he must have had a very curious life said sylvie you may say that the professor heartily rejoined of course she may cried bruno by this time we had come up to the gardener
who was standing on one leg as usual and busily employed in watering a bed of flowers with an empty watering can it hasn't got no water in it bruno explained to him pulling his sleeve to attract his attention it's lighter to hold said the gardener
a lot of water in it makes one's arms ache and he went on with his work singing softly to himself the nights are very damp in digging things out of the ground which you probably do now and then the professor began in a loud voice
in making things into heaps which no doubt you often do
have you ever happened to notice another professor something like me but different never shouted the gardener so loudly and violently that we all drew back in alarm there ain't such a thing
we will try a less exciting topic the professor mildly remarked to the children you were asking we asked him to let us through the garden door said sylvie but he wouldn't but perhaps he would for you
the professor put the request very humbly and courteously i wouldn't mind letting you out said the gardener but i mustn't open the door for children d'you think i'd disobey the rules not for one and sixpence
the professor cautiously produced a couple of shillings that'll do it the gardener shouted as he hurled the watering can across the flower bed and produced a handful of keys one large one and a number of small ones
but look here professor dear whispered sylvie he needn't open the door for us at all we can go out with you true dear child the professor thankfully replied as he replaced the coins in his pocket that saves two shillings
and he took the children's hands that they might all go out together when the door was opened this however did not seem a very likely event though the gardener patiently tried all the small keys over and over again at last the professor ventured on a gentle suggestion
why not try the large one i have often observed that a door unlocks much more nicely with its own key the very first trial of the large key proved a success the gardener opened the door and held out his hand for the money
the professor shook his head you are acting by rule he explained in opening the door for me and now it's open we are going out by rule the rule of three the gardener looked puzzled and let us go out
but as he locked the door behind us we heard him singing thoughtfully to himself he thought he saw a garden door that opened with a key he looked again and found it was a double rule of three
and all its mystery he said is clear as day to me i shall now return said the professor when we had walked a few yards you see it's impossible to read here for all my books are in the house
but the children still kept fast hold of his hands do come with us sylvie entreated with tears in her eyes well well said the good natured old man perhaps i'll come after you some day soon but i must go back now
a rough low cabin of logs hastily thrown together housed through the winter months of the sierra foothills the two men who now in the warm days of early june sat by the primitive fireplace cooking a midday meal
for he had changed but little that his companion younger bearded dressed also in buckskins was will banion it would have taken closer scrutiny even of a friend to determine
so much had the passing of these few months altered him in appearance and in manner once light of mien now he smiled never at all for hours he would seem to go about his duties as an automaton
he spoke at last to his ancient and faithful friend kindly as ever and with his own alertness and decision let's make it our last meal on the trinity bill
why what's eatin ye boy
what we know we kin stay in here an git so rich that
why rich will hit's like you say plumb wrong we done hit so damned easy i lay awake nights plannin how ter spend my share o this pile we must have fifty sixty thousand dollars o dust buried under the floor don't ye think
yes more but if you'll agree i'll sell this claim to the company below us and let them have the rest they offer fifty thousand flat and it's enough more than enough i want two things to get jim bridger his share safe and sound
the old man paused in the act of splitting off a deer rib from his roast ye're one awful damn fool ain't ye will i did hope ter finish up here a
but no matter how plain an simple a man's tastes is allus somethin comes along ter bust em up well go on and finish your meal in this plain fireplace of ours bill
i think i'll go down to the sluice a while
below again lay the bared bed of the exploited water course floored with bowlders set in deep gravel at times with seamy dams of flat rock lying under and across the gravel stretches the bed rock ages old
holding in its hidden fingers the rich secrets of immemorial time
and unimportant rivulet more wealth than most could save in a lifetime of patient and thrifty toil yes fortune had been kind
so unagitating so matter of fact the hillside now looked like any other hillside innocent as a woman's eyes yet covering how much banion could not realize that now young though he was
he was a rich man he climbed down the side of the ravine the little stones rattling under his feet
there was a sharp bend in the ravine and here the unpaid toil of the little waterway had ages long carried and left especially deep strata of gold shot gravel
he hastened to get view of the cause whatever it might be and then fate chance the goddess of fortune which some men say does not exist but which all wilderness goers know does exist for one instant paused
not unhandsome but evil in its plain meaning now the eyes were narrowed the full lips drawn close as though some tense emotion now approached its climax the appearance was that of strain
of nerves stretched in some purpose long sustained and why not when a man would do murder
that purpose itself changes his very lineaments alters his whole cast of countenance other men avoid him knowing unconsciously what is in his soul because of what is written on his face
for months most men had avoided woodhull it was known that he was on a man hunt his questions his movements his changes of locality showed that and woodhull was one of those who cannot avoid asseverance
needing it for their courage sake now morose and brooding now loudly profane now laughing or now aloof his errand in these unknown hills was plain well
here stood his enemy unarmed delivered into his hands for one instant the two stood staring into one another's eyes banion's advance had been silent woodhull was taken as much unawares as he
it had been woodhull's purpose to get a stand above the sluices hidden by the angle where he could command the reach of the stream bed where banion and jackson last had been working he had studied the place before and meant to take no chances
at no time these last four hours had his opportunity been so close or so poor as precisely now he saw will banion's eyes suddenly startled quickly estimating looking into his own he knew that behind his own eyes
his whole foul soul lay bared the soul of a murderer woodhull made a swift spring down the hill scrambling half erect and caught some sort of stance for the work which now was his to do he snarled
for he saw banion stoop unarmed it would do his victim no good to run there was time even to exult and that was much better in a long deferred matter such as this now damn you i've got you he gave banion that much chance
his flung arm apparently had gained a weapon it was not more than the piece of rotten quartz he had picked up and planned to examine later he flung it straight at woodhull's face an act of chance of instinct by a hair it saved him
firing and missing at a distance of fifty feet woodhull remained not yet a murderer in deed in a flash banion gathered and sprang toward him as he stood in a half second of consternation at seeing his victim fall and rise again
the rifle carried but the one shot he flung it down reached for his heavy knife raising an arm against the second piece of rock which banion flung as he closed he felt his wrist caught in an iron grip
his own long rifle he snatched from its pegs at a long easy lope he ran along the path which carried across the face of the ravine his moccasined feet made no sound he saw no one in the creek bed or at the long turn
but new there came a loud wordless cry which he knew was meant for him it was will banion's voice the two struggling men grappled below him had no notion of how long they had fought it seemed an age
but to them came the sound of a voice git away will stand back it was jackson they both still gripped looked up the bank the long barrel of a rifle foreshortened to a black point above it a cold eye fronted and followed them as they swayed
the crooked arm of the rifleman was motionless save as it just moved that deadly circle an inch this way an inch back again banion knew that this was murder too but he knew that naught on earth could stay it now
to guard as much as he could against a last desperate knife thrust even of a dying man he broke free and sprang back as far as he could falling prostrate on his back as he did so tripped by an unseen stone but sam woodhull was not upon him now
was not willing to lose his own life in order to kill for just one instant he looked up at the death staring down on him then turned to run there was no place where he could run the voice of the man above him called out sharp and hard
halt sam woodhull look at me he did turn in horror in fascination at sight of the bright angel the rifle barrel to his last gaze became a small round circle large as a bottle top
and around it shone a fringed aura of red and purple light that might have been the eye steadily as when he had held his friend's life in his hand sighting five inches above his eyes the old hunter drew now above the eyes of his enemy
his mother worked hard for their daily bread please give me something to eat for i am very hungry he said to her one evening his mother let the work that she was sewing fall upon her knees and drew johnny toward her
as she kissed him the tears fell fast on his face while she said johnny my dear i have not a penny in the world there is not a morsel of bread in the house and i cannot give you any tonight
he will give it you never mind mama i shall soon be asleep and then i shall not feel hungry but you must sit here and sew hungry and cold poor mama he said as he threw his arms around her neck
the way in which his mother said these words made johnny's heart ache he stopped and looked at her and repeated with his eyes full of tears give us this day
now mother do not be afraid we shall never be hungry any more god is our father he has promised to hear us and i am sure he will then he went to bed before midnight he woke up
while his mother was still at work and asked if the bread had come yet she said no
in the morning before johnny was awake a gentleman called who wanted his mother to come to his house and take charge of his two motherless children she agreed to go he left some money with her
she went out at once to buy some things for breakfast and when johnny awoke the bread was there and all that he needed johnny is now a man but he has never wanted bread from that day
he has remembered god's promises and trusted in him lutheran herald triumphant death of a little child
the parents were devoted christians who had taught their children to love and honor god during little ella's illness she manifested wonderful patience and told of her love for jesus
the morning she died she called her papa and mama to her side and said i have been in heaven all night my room is full of angels and jesus is here i'm going to heaven then she asked them to promise to meet her there
as soon as they could control their feelings they made her the promise then she kissed them and called for her little brother and sister and other friends she talked with each one in turn telling them in substance
the same she had told her papa and mama asking each one to make her the same promise and kissing each one good bye that was a touching scene those who were there said it seemed more like heaven than earth to be in her presence
and also to dress her doll in white and put it by her side in her coffin then she folded her own little hands and closed her eyes and said jesus is calling me and i must go now good bye
and she was gone little ella's death was glorious and she is not the only one that has left us such bright joyous testimony we have ourselves known of many children and older ones
who had quite similar experiences and though we may not all see before we die all that ella saw if we love jesus and do what he asks us to he will surely fulfill to each of us his promise i go to prepare a place for you
and if i go and prepare a place for you i will come again and receive you unto myself
if thou art near me lord i pray thee to speak to me a still small voice she heard within her soul what is it child i hear thee tell the whole i pray thee lord she said that thou wilt condescend
to tarry in my heart and ever be my friend the path of life is dark i would not go astray oh let me have thy hand to lead me in the way fear not i will not leave thee child alone
she thought she felt a soft hand press her own they tell me lord that all the living pass away the aged soon must die and even children may oh let my parents live till i a woman grow for if they die what can a little orphan do
fear not my child whatever ill may come i'll not forsake thee till i bring thee home her little prayer was said and from her chamber now she passed forth with the light of heaven upon her brow
mother i've seen the lord his hand in mine i felt and oh i heard him say as by my chair i knelt fear not my child whatever ill may come i'll not forsake thee till i bring thee home
the cat came back jimmy was lying on an old cot out in the orchard getting some of the nice spring sunshine on his thin body
there was an anxious frown on his face now and every little while he would turn on his side look through the orchard and call kittv kitty kitty annette come
she felt perfectly fine then i know but she's an old cat she never strays away of her own accord and certainlv no one would steal an old blind cat
later on during the day a man came walking up to their house he introduced himself as the new neighbor who just moved across the little creek he made inquiries as to where he could buy fresh vegetables and milk
and just as he was about to leave he remarked i did a strange thing early this morning there was an old cat came over to my place one ear was almost gone and it was blind i'm not much of a hand to make way with things
but i felt so sorry for that poor old animal that i killed it oh with a strangled sob jimmy quickly left the room
he was very sorry but of course that did not bring the cat back when i saw it i just banged it over the head with a stick and then buried it you will never know how badly i feel about it
when he was gone mother went out to find jimmy and comfort him he was out in the orchard on his knees quietly she went up and knelt beside him slipping her arm about his shoulder he turned to her at once mother
there's something funny about annette i've been praying and i feel all happy inside it's just as if she wasn't dead at all
she said he does help us bear our burdens in a wonderful way i'll say he does this morning i felt so bad i didn't know what to do and then when that man said he had killed annette
and here i am happy as anything again and just because i took it all to jesus i think annette is all right now
but jimmy was running swiftly across the field toward an old blind cat that was staggering in his direction apparently the new neighbor had only stunned the cat and she had dug her way out of the shallow hole and come home again
it was years before she really died and long before she presented jimmy with a very tiny kitten with two whole ears and two very bright eyes this story may sound strange to you
that it is really true mary m naylor how god answered donald's prayer
god often uses children to win grown folks for christ little children not only have a deep faith but a childlike trust in believing that god answers their prayers all that ye ask in my name believing
as a young girl i went to sunday school and learned about jesus although i knew about my savior and what he had done to save me yet i never accepted him as my own redeemer and friend as years went by
for ten years i never entered a church house except to attend my father's funeral i saw him go into eternity without being able to point him to the lamb of god which taketh away the sin of the world during these years i had married and god had given us a dear little boy
donald began to attend sunday school early in years often on sunday mornings he would get ready for sunday school after a sleepless night wild parties were a part of the ungodly life we lived in our home
i promised him to come up soon but i continued on for some hours with the drunken crowd when i did come up to our apartment i found donald on his knees by his bed with his testament and an old hymn book of my mother in law's
the books were open on the bed he looked up through his tears and said mother i am praying for you i looked at the testament and hymnal which were wet with tears that he had shed for his ungodly mother
on september fifteenth following this experience i went to a mission that night a group of christians united in asking god for my soul when the song lord i'm coming home was sung after the service
i made my way to the altar while kneeling there i felt someone very close to my side it was donald who was praying for his mother god heard my prayer to be saved he was merciful and washed away my sins
psalm fifty one has become precious to me god saved me for service i marvel at his grace and mercy toward me
i am thankful also for my little boy who never ceased to pray for his mother now my life is in god's hands
i am especially burdened for others in the bondage of sin as i was
little mother she was a clear eyed fresh cheeked little maiden living on the banks of the great mississippi the oldest of four children and mother's little woman always
they called her so because of her quiet matronly care of the younger mayfields that was the father's name her own name was the beautiful one of elizabeth but they shortened it to bess
two days went by when daddy jim and mammy begged to be allowed to go to the quarters where the negroes lived to see their daughter jennie who was pow'ful bad wid the toothache they declared they would be back by evening so bess was willing
she put the little girls to bed and persuaded rob to go then seated herself by the table with her mother's work basket in quaint imitation of missus mayfield's industry in the evening time but what was this
what should she do mammy's stories of how homes had been washed away and broken in pieces were in her mind oh if i had a boat she exclaimed but there isn't anything of the sort on the place
the water was now several inches deep on the porch and she contrived to half float
without frightening the children she got them dressed in the warmest clothes they had she lined the oblong tub with a blanket and made ready bread and cold meat left from supper with rob's assistance she dragged the tub upstairs
there was a single large window in the room and they set the tub directly by it so that when the water rose the tub would float out there was no way for the children to reach the roof which was a very steep inclined one
it did not seem long before the water had very nearly risen to the top of the stairs leading from below bess flung the window open and made rob get into their novel boat then she lifted in kate
drew a long breath and kissed the children quietly
and that they must sit still goodbye dears say a prayer for sister rob if you ever see father and mother tell them i took care of you then the water seized the insecure vessel
discovered the tub lodged in the branches of a sycamore with the children weeping and chilled but safe and bess ah where was bess the little mother who in that brief moment resigned herself to death
he came in so very quietly closed the door gently and i think i even heard him go to the closet to hang up his books oh dear i hope he isn't going to have another attack of grippe and missus ellis shivered
as she glanced out at the snow covered landscape as her eyes turned once more to the warm luxurious room in which she was seated the portieres were pushed aside and a little boy of ten years of age entered little walter was all that remained of four beautiful children
who only a year ago romped gaily through the large halls that dread disease diphtheria had stolen the older brother and laughing little sisters in one short week's time so that now as the sad anniversary came near to hand
today his usually merry face was very grave and he looked very thoughtful as he gave his mother her kiss and allowed himself to be drawn upon her lap what ails mother's pet is he sick
she asked anxiously no mother dear i'm not sick but i feel so sad at heart you see he continued in answer to her questioning look robbie goodman and i always walk together going and coming from school
and i have noticed that he has never worn any overcoat this winter but you know its been unusually warm and i thought perhaps his mother did not make him wrap up like you did me
after awhile he said my i am so cold and i said
only then he would not have any and of course he must have one to wear when he goes to the chapel and to see sick people even that one is thin and patched
but they did not come at christmas like they thought they would
tonight mother continued walter he had an awful cold and coughed just like our harry did last year and the long pent up tears flowed from the child's eyes as mother and son dried their tears the child looked up with perfect confidence as he said
said missus ellis and sent the child off to the play room by the way my dear remarked missus ellis as they sat chatting at the tea table after walter had retired what has become of that preacher goodman
who preached for us once on trial oh he has a mission down on the other side of the city but he lives on this side as moore gives him the house rent free i met him the other day he looked very needy
the man had wonderful talents and might have a rich congregation and improve himself but he is persistent in his ideas concerning this holiness movement and of course a large church like ours wants something to attract and interest instead of such egotistical discourses
i for one go to sleep under them and mister ellis drew himself up with a pompous air as he went into the library whither his wife presently followed he had picked up a newspaper and was apparently absorbed
he wants me to give up buying him the fur trimmed overcoat and get a coat and shoes for goodman's children as they were praying so hard for them but i have enough to do without clothing other people's children
when you yourself are convinced that his doctrines are sound besides he must be doing a good work down among the poor classes of the city as it appears the rich don't want him then let the poor give enough to keep him
they do give far beyond their means but the lord calls on such as us to give i know it has been an unusually hard year but the lord has blessed us and he will hold us to an account i feel very sad as the anniversary of our darlings departure draws near
long and late paul ellis sat there and many things ghosts of the past rose before him as the midnight chimes rang out he knelt and prayed oh lord forgive me
robert goodman received a large package from an unknown friend containing a warm overcoat and three pairs of shoes his father also received a present it came through the mail and was an honest confession of a wrong done him also a check for one hundred dollars
one year later this church gave a unanimous call to brother goodman and the revival which broke out that winter was unprecedented in the annals of that church verily a little child shall lead them luella watson kinder
as the tall slim soldier paid his respects to lady henry and with a smiling word or two to the rest of those present took his place beside her in the circle well have you come for your letters
i think i came for conversation was warkworth's laughing reply as he looked first at his hostess and then at the circle
come and console me tell me what new follies the duchess has on foot
the great man plunged into a lively conversation with her sir wilfrid warkworth and a few other habitues endeavored meanwhile to amuse lady henry but it was not easy
her brow was lowering her talk forced throughout sir wilfrid perceived in her a strained attention directed towards the conversation on the other side of the room she could neither see it
nor hear it but she was jealously conscious of it
there was no doubt an element of malice in the court he was now paying to mademoiselle julie lady henry had been thorny over much during the afternoon even for her oldest friend she had passed bounds
he desired perhaps to bring it home to her meanwhile julie le breton after a first moment of reserve and depression had been beguiled carried away
found himself floating on a stream of talk which julie led first into one channel and then into another as she pleased and all to the flattery and glorification of the talker
no doubt but wilfrid bury uneasily aware every now and then
of this slow discrowning and was inclined once more rather to be sorry for the older woman than to admire the younger at last lady henry could bear it no longer
mademoiselle be so good as to return his father's letters to captain warkworth she said abruptly in her coldest voice
head thrown back and knees crossed was about to pour into the ears of his companion the whole confidential history of his appointment to office three years before julie le breton rose at once
she went towards a table at the farther end of the large room and captain warkworth followed her montresor perhaps repenting himself a little returned to lady henry
and though she received him with great coolness the circle round her now augmented by doctor meredith and another politician or two was reconstituted and presently with a conscious effort
visible at least to bury she exerted herself to hold it and succeeded suddenly just as bury had finished a very neat analysis of the shah's public and private character
and while the applauding laughter of the group of intimates amid which he sat told him that his epigrams had been good he happened to raise his eyes towards the distant settee where julie le breton was sitting
his smile stiffened on his lips like an icy wave a swift and tragic impression swept through him he turned away ashamed of having seen and hid himself as it were
on which sat lady henry's companion his hands in his pockets his handsome head bent towards her they had been talking earnestly wholly forgetting and apparently forgotten by the rest of the room
on his side there was an air of embarrassment he seemed to be choosing his words with difficulty his eyes on the floor julie le breton on the contrary was looking at him
looking with all her soul her ardent unhappy soul unconscious of aught else in the wide world good god she is in love with him
was the thought that rushed through sir wilfrid's mind poor thing poor thing sir wilfrid outstayed his fellow guests
i must have some private talk with you well i understand you walked home from the crowboroughs the other night with that woman she turned sharply upon him
the accent was indescribable and with a fierce hand she arranged the folds of her own thick silk dress as though for some relief to the stormy feeling within she would rather have torn than smoothed it
sir wilfrid seated himself beside her knees crossed finger tips lightly touching the fair eyelashes somewhat lowered calm beside tempest
to evelyn crowborough's bazaar and asked what she was to do i told her of course that i would put up with nothing of the kind
said sir wilfrid with a shrug i dare say said lady henry you see i guessed that it was not spontaneous
what else did you expect me to do cried sir wilfrid i seem indeed to have jolly well wasted my time oh no you were very kind and i dare say you might have done some good
i was beginning to to have some returns on myself when the duchess appeared on the scene oh the little fool ejaculated sir wilfrid under his breath
she offered me her valuable services for all sorts of superfluous things that i didn't want if only i would spare her julie for this ridiculous bazaar so then my back was put up again
that alone would be sufficient to justify me in dismissing her
oh yes murmured sir wilfrid if you want to dismiss her we shall come to that presently said lady henry shortly imagine please
because her mother broke the seventh commandment oh dear no that in my opinion doesn't touch people much nowadays insulted because they had been kept in the dark that's all
vanity not morals as far as i can ascertain said sir wilfrid meditatively
oh she shall go at once at once she breathed hard wait a little have you had any talk with jacob i should think not
evelyn of course brings him in perpetually jacob this and jacob that he seems to have been living in her pocket and the three have been intriguing against me morning noon and night
where julie has found the time i can't imagine i thought i had kept her pretty well occupied sir wilfrid surveyed his angry companion and held his peace
so you don't know what jacob thinks why should i want to know said lady henry disdainfully a lad whom i sent to eton and oxford when his father couldn't pay his bills
what does it matter to me what he thinks women are strange folk thought sir wilfrid a man wouldn't have said that then aloud
i thought you were afraid lest he should want to marry her oh let him cut his throat if he likes said lady henry with the inconsistency of fury what does it matter to me
by the way as to that he spoke as though feeling his way have you never had suspicions in quite another direction
lady henry laughed impatiently i dare say she is always wanting to patronize or influence somebody it's in her nature she's a born intrigante
if you knew her as well as i do you wouldn't think much of that oh no make your mind easy it's jacob she wants it's jacob she'll get very likely
what can an old blind creature like me do to stop it and as jacob's wife the wife perhaps of the head of the family you still mean to quarrel with her
and lady henry lifted herself in her chair a pale and quivering image of war
that her character is such that she forces comparisons between us between her and me that she pushes herself into a prominence that is intolerable considering who and what she is
to be in a temper like this at my age shortens one's life you know that and you can't subdue the temper he asked with a queer smile no i can't
that's flat she gets on my nerves and i'm not responsible c'est fini well he said slowly i hope you understand what it means
oh i know she has plenty of friends she said defiantly but her old hands trembled on her knee unfortunately they were and are yours at least
he entreated don't quarrel with everybody who may sympathize with her let them take what view they please ignore it be as magnanimous as you can on the contrary
she was now white to the lips whoever goes with her gives me up they must choose
my dear friend listen to reason and drawing his chair close to her he argued with her for half an hour at the end of that time her gust of passion had more or less passed away
her look of exhaustion distressed him and for all her unreason he felt himself astonishingly in sympathy with her the age in him held out secret hands to the age in her
i'll try again i'll try to hold my tongue she granted him sullenly but understand she sha'n't go to that bazaar
that's a great pity was his naive reply nothing would put you in a better position than to give her leave i shall do nothing of the kind she vowed and now
good night wilfrid good night you're a very good fellow and if i can take your advice i will lady henry sat alone in her brightly lighted drawing room for some time
she could neither read nor write nor sew owing to her blindness and in the reaction from her passion of the afternoon she felt herself very old and weary but at last the door opened
and julie le breton's light step approached may i read to you she said gently lady henry coldly commanded the observer and her knitting
she had no sooner however begun to knit than her very acute sense of touch noticed something wrong with the wool she was using
i suppose that was all they had
said julie hurriedly and she went for me i thought i had given her your message most carefully
her voice cut like a knife julie hesitated she had grown very white suddenly her face settled and steadied no she said calmly
i meant to have done all your commissions but i was persuaded by evelyn to spend a couple of hours with her and her maid undertook them lady henry flushed deeply so
i was trying to help the duchess in her plans for the bazaar indeed was any one else there answer me mademoiselle julie hesitated again
lady henry rose from her seat leaning on her stick surely no old face was ever more formidable more withering that whatever ambitions you may cherish
jacob delafield is not altogether the simpleton you imagine i know him better than you he will take some time before he really makes up his mind to marry a woman of your disposition
and your history julie le breton also rose i am afraid lady henry that here too you are in the dark she said quietly
though her thin arm shook against her dress i shall not marry mister delafield but it is because
feeling and excitement had blanched her no less than lady henry but her fine head and delicate form breathed a will so proud a dignity so passionate that lady henry shrank before her
why did you refuse him julie shrugged her shoulders that i think is my affair but if i had loved him
i have several times heard you say so said the other coldly lady henry looked at her long and keenly various things that wilfrid bury had said recurred to her
she thought of captain warkworth she wondered suddenly she held out her hand i dare say you won't take it mademoiselle
i suppose i've been insulting you but
in a good many ways we're quits still i confess i admire you a good deal anyway i offer you my hand
i apologize for my recent remarks shall we bury the hatchet and try and go on as before julie le breton turned slowly and took the hand without unction
i make you angry she said and her voice trembled without knowing how or why lady henry gulped
but we may as well have one more trial and mademoiselle i shall be delighted that you should assist the duchess with her bazaar julie shook her head
i don't think i have any heart for it she said sadly and then as lady henry sat silent she approached you look very tired shall i send your maid
chapter fourteen is this madness instantly there was wild confusion and half a dozen persons sprang forward to assist raymond with his burden but he waved them back
let her have air he said don't crowd so close she must have air and he moved towards a window the crowd separated to let him pass and allowed him the use of an entire bench while more water was brought
and the bottle of smelling salts was again produced in the meantime the coroner whispered to the chief of police who in turn whispered to a policeman and the two minions of the law followed raymond
a doctor for heaven's sake she is dying doctor bardon came forward followed by doctor bird and both looked at the unconscious one closely and critically there was no shamming here
the shock had been heavy the bolt had struck home this is serious truly murmured the older physician we had better remove her to a side room and loosen up her garments many were willing to assist
and she and the physician began to work over the suffering girl doctor raymond could scarcely speak she will will come around all right why i guess so
she has swooned that is all the trial was too much for her and then there was such a crowd and the ventilation being poor the young man waited five ten fifteen minutes
and saw that her eyes were wide open and she was staring hard at him margaret she did not answer but continued to stare turning from him to the nurse and then to the old doctor
why are you all staring at me in this manner what have i done where am i have i been sick margaret raymond came closer and took her hand margaret she stared at him and flung his hand away
i've had a horrible dream i dreamed papa was murdered that somebody had strangled him strangled him to get my engagement ring from me and there was blood there blood and nobody could come to the lawn party oh
if they knew and my poor head it swims so and the bottle the handkerchief margaret margaret don't go on so he caught her hand again and sank down on his knees beside her
be calm it will all come out right you fainted that's all don't you remember margaret yes yes i remember you said you would marry me and then you said you
she tore her hand away and pointed her finger at him you said i had murdered papa and murdered her oh the shame of it the shame and then she gave a shriek and began to rave
tearing at her clothes and her hair until the latter fell all over her face the paroxysm lasted for several minutes and then she fainted once more i shall have to give her something to quiet her said the doctor
i would not advise that mister my name is raymond case my home is a quiet one spoke up the nurse if you wish you can take her there it is not very far from here besides the old doctor paused
the coroner has something to say about it coroner busby has turned the prisoner over to me came from the chief of police and he advanced a few feet into the room the prisoner faltered raymond
oh yes i suppose that is right but you can't take her to jail
sorry mister case but they don't take bail on such a charge as murder but you can't lock her up in this condition
i'll have her taken to some quiet place and you can have a guard set i'll pay all the bills ask the coroner if that won't do she isn't going to run away she looks now more as if she might die and he gave a groan that came straight from his heart
the chief of police had once been young and in love with a pretty girl and his face softened then he remembered what raymond had said about paying the bills i'll fix it up with busby he said go ahead and do what you wish
but the physician gave her a quieting potion which put her in a sound but unnatural sleep she was placed in a pretty and comfortable bedroom on the second floor in the rear so that she might not be annoyed by those passing the house in front
and the curiosity seekers could scarcely be kept away from the place to which the poor girl had been taken the grand jury can't do anything but indict her said more than one and if there is any justice left she'll surely be electrocuted
it was a bitter blow to raymond to have margaret thought guilty but he did not think of that as he sat by her side or walked up and down in the little hallway just outside of her door
her staring eyes haunted him and he longed for a look that should tell him her reason had once more asserted itself the doctor had come and gone twice and had promised to come again that evening slowly the hours wore away
and raymond stood by the suffering one's bedside he saw the eyelids of the one he loved quiver slightly margaret he said softly bending over her there was no response
the doctor said you must be kept very quiet he smoothed down her hair you have had a terrible trial my dear a trial i don't remember it what was it she stared vacantly at him
oh how queer my head feels and she put one cold hand to her temple never mind trying to think now margaret just take it easy the doctor will come back in a little while and he will give you something that will make you all right again
how long have i been here only four hours now please don't worry i can't i can't think it's all like a terribly dark cloud raymond
margaret dearest you must try to keep quiet he interrupted soothingly it will all come out right i feel certain of it right i don't know what you mean by that word
was i on trial or what no not on trial it was simply the coroner's inquest but don't think of it dear he tried to brush back her hair but she stopped him
the wild look in her eyes was increasing the inquest oh yes i know now and they said they said she gave a piercing scream
margaret he interrupted appealingly no no it is too late too late her voice sank to a hoarse whisper i see it all
the blood on the ring the chloroform our quarrels and what she said to me and then and then she gave another scream go away go away you must not come near me again
but margaret dear no i cannot listen you must go away and let them take me to prison let them hang me if they will
they have cornered me have found me out yes they have found me out
and then with another scream she pitched back
he noted the remnants of the uniforms upon the blacks and immediately he demanded to know where were their officers they cannot understand you said the girl and so in the bastard tongue that is the medium of communication between the germans and the blacks of their colony
she repeated the white man's question usanga grinned you know where they are white woman he replied they are dead and if this white man does not do as i tell him he too will be dead what do you want of him asked the girl
i want him to teach me how to fly like a bird replied usanga bertha kircher looked her astonishment but repeated the demand to the lieutenant the englishman meditated for a moment he wants to learn to fly does he he repeated
the girl put the question to usanga who degraded cunning and entirely unprincipled was always perfectly willing to promise anything whether he had any intentions of fulfilling his promises or not and so immediately assented to the proposition
let the white man teach me to fly he said and i will take you back close to the settlements of your people but in return for this i shall keep the great bird and he waved a black hand in the direction of the aeroplane
when bertha kircher had repeated usanga's proposition to the aviator the latter shrugged his shoulders and with a wry face finally agreed i fancy there is no other way out of it he said in any event the plane is lost to the british government
if i refuse the black scoundrel's request there is no doubt but what he will make short work of me with the result that the machine will lie here until it rots if i accept his offer
and that he added is worth more to me than all the planes in the british air service the girl cast a quick glance at him
that might indicate that his sentiments toward her were more than those of a companion in distress she regretted that he had spoken as he had and he too regretted it almost instantly as he saw the shadow cross her face and realized that he had unwittingly added to the difficulties
of her already almost unbearable situation forgive me he said quickly please forget what that remark implied i promise you that i will not offend again if it does offend you
usanga was for taking his first lesson in aviation immediately the englishman attempted to dissuade him but immediately the black became threatening and abusive since like all those who are ignorant he was suspicious that the intentions of others
were always ulterior unless they perfectly coincided with his wishes all right old top muttered the englishman i will give you the lesson of your life and then turning to the girl persuade him to let you accompany us
possibly to carry him against his will back to the german masters he had traitorously deserted and glowering at her savagely he obstinately refused to entertain the suggestion the white woman will remain here with my people he said
they will not harm her unless you fail to bring me back safely tell him said the englishman that if you are not standing in plain sight in this meadow when i return i will not land but will carry usanga back to the british camp and have him hanged
usanga promised that the girl would be in evidence upon their return and took immediate steps to impress upon his warriors that under penalty of death they must not harm her then followed by the other members of his party he crossed the clearing toward the plane with the englishman
once seated within what he already considered his new possession the black's courage began to wane and when the motor was started and the great propeller commenced to whir he screamed to the englishman to stop the thing and permit him to alight
but the aviator could neither hear nor understand the black above the noise of the propeller and exhaust by this time the plane was moving along the ground and even then usanga was upon the verge of leaping out and would have done so
then the plane rose from the ground and in a moment soared gracefully in a wide circle until it topped the trees the black sergeant was in a veritable collapse of terror he saw the earth dropping rapidly from beneath him he saw the trees and river
and at a distance the little clearing with the thatched huts of numabo's village he tried hard not to think of the results of a sudden fall to the rapidly receding ground below he attempted to concentrate his mind upon the twenty four wives
which this great bird most assuredly would permit him to command
and presently much to his surprise usanga discovered that his terror was rapidly waning so that it was not long before there was forced upon him a consciousness of utter security and then it was that he began to take notice of the manner in which the white man guided and manipulated the plane
after half an hour of skillful maneuvering the englishman rose rapidly to a considerable altitude and then suddenly without warning he looped and flew with the plane inverted for a few seconds i said i'd give this beggar the lesson of his life he murmured
as he heard even above the whir of the propeller the shriek of the terrified negro a moment later smith oldwick had righted the machine and was dropping rapidly toward the earth he circled slowly a few times above the meadow
and apparently unharmed then he dropped gently to the ground so that the machine came to a stop a short distance from where the girl and the warriors awaited them it was a trembling and ashen hued usanga who tumbled out of the fuselage
yet with terra firma once more under foot he quickly regained his composure strutting about with great show and braggadocio he strove to impress his followers with the mere nothingness of so trivial a feat
that he had enjoyed every instant of the flight and was already far advanced in the art of aviation so jealous was the black of his new found toy that he would not return to the village of numabo but insisted on making camp close beside the plane
lest in some inconceivable fashion it should be stolen from him for two days they camped there and constantly during daylight hours
smith oldwick in recalling the long months of arduous training he had undergone himself
smiled at the conceit of the ignorant african who was already demanding that he be permitted to make a flight alone
i'd let the bounder take it up and break his fool neck as he would do inside of two minutes however he finally persuaded usanga to bide his time for a few more days of instruction but in the suspicious mind of the negro there was a growing conviction
that the white man's advice was prompted by some ulterior motive that it was in the hope of escaping with the machine himself by night that he refused to admit that usanga was entirely capable of handling it alone and therefore in no further need of help or instruction
it was with these thoughts in mind that usanga lay down to sleep in the evening of the second day constantly however the thought of naratu and her temper arose to take the keen edge from his pleasant imaginings if he could but rid himself of her
the thought having taken form persisted but always it was more than outweighed by the fact that the black sergeant was actually afraid of his woman so much afraid of her in fact that he would not have dared to attempt to put her out of the way unless he could do so secretly while she slept
however as one plan after another was conjured by the strength of his desires he at last hit upon one which came to him almost with the force of a blow and brought him sitting upright among his sleeping companions
when morning dawned usanga could scarce wait for an opportunity to put his scheme into execution and the moment that he had eaten he called several of his warriors aside and talked with them for some moments
saw now that the latter was explaining something in detail to his warriors and from his gestures and his manner it was apparent that he was persuading them to some new plan as well as giving them instructions as to what they were to do several times too
he saw the eyes of the negroes turned upon him and once they flashed simultaneously toward the white girl everything about the occurrence which in itself seemed trivial enough aroused in the mind of the englishman a well defined apprehension that something was afoot
that boded ill for him and for the girl he could not free himself of the idea and so he kept a still closer watch over the black although as he was forced to admit to himself he was quite powerless to avert any fate that lay in store for them
even the spear that he had had when captured had been taken away from him so that now he was unarmed and absolutely at the mercy of the black sergeant and his followers lieutenant harold percy smith oldwick
did not have long to wait before discovering something of usanga's plan for almost immediately after the sergeant finished giving his instructions a number of warriors approached the englishman while three went directly to the girl without a word of explanation
the warriors seized the young officer and threw him to the ground upon his face for a moment he struggled to free himself and succeeded in landing a few heavy blows among his assailants
bertha kircher had been similarly trussed smith oldwick lay in such a position that he could see nearly the entire expanse of meadow and the aeroplane a short distance away usanga was talking to the girl who was shaking her head in vehement negatives
and i am to be one of his wives and then to the englishman's surprise she turned a smiling face toward him but there is no danger she continued for we shall both be dead within a few minutes
i shall never need fear him more god cried the man
promise him anything anything that you want i have money more money than that poor fool could imagine there was in the whole world with it he can buy anything that money will purchase fine clothes and food and women all the women he wants
tell him this and tell him that if he will spare you
the girl shook her head it is useless she said he would not understand and if he did understand he would not trust you the blacks are so unprincipled themselves that they can imagine no such thing as principle or honor in others
and especially do these blacks distrust an englishman whom the germans have taught them to believe are the most treacherous and degraded of people no it is better thus i am sorry that you cannot go with us
for if he goes high enough my death will be much easier than that which probably awaits you usanga had been continually interrupting their brief conversation in an attempt to compel the girl to translate it to him for he feared that they were concocting some plan to thwart him
she told him that the englishman was merely bidding her farewell and wishing her good luck
will you do something for me she asked if i go willingly with you what is it you want he inquired tell your men to free the white man after we are gone he can never catch us that is all i ask of you if you will grant him his freedom and his life
i will go willingly with you you will go with me anyway growled usanga it is nothing to me whether you go willingly or not i am going to be a great king and you will do whatever i tell you to do he had in mind that he would start properly with this woman
there should be no repetition of his harrowing experience with naratu this wife and the twenty four others should be carefully selected and well trained hereafter usanga would be master in his own house bertha kircher saw that it was useless to appeal to the brute
and so she held her peace though she was filled with sorrow in contemplating the fate that awaited the young officer scarce more than a boy
and after usanga had clambered aboard they lifted her up and he reached down and drew her into the fuselage
and strapped her into her seat and then took his own directly ahead of her the girl turned her eyes toward the englishman she was very pale but her lips smiled bravely good bye she cried good bye and god bless you he called back
his voice the least bit husky and then the thing i wanted to say may i say it now we are so very near the end her lips moved but whether they voiced consent or refusal he did not know for the words were drowned in the whir of the propeller
the black had learned his lesson sufficiently well so that the motor was started without bungling and the machine was soon under way across the meadowland a groan escaped the lips of the distracted englishman as he watched the woman he loved being carried to almost certain death
he saw the plane tilt and the machine rise from the ground it was a good take off as good as lieutenant harold percy smith oldwick could make himself but he realized that it was only so by chance at any instant the machine might plunge to earth
and even if by some miracle of chance the black could succeed in rising above the tree tops and make a successful flight
for two days tarzan of the apes had been hunting leisurely to the north and swinging in a wide circle he had returned to within a short distance of the clearing where he had left bertha kircher and the young lieutenant he had spent the night in a large tree that overhung the river only a short distance from the clearing
and now in the early morning hours he was crouching at the water's edge waiting for an opportunity to capture pisah the fish thinking that he would take it back with him to the hut where the girl could cook it for herself and her companion motionless as a bronze statue was the wily ape man
for well he knew how wary is pisah the fish the slightest movement would frighten him away and only by infinite patience might he be captured at all tarzan depended upon his own quickness and the suddenness of his attack for he had no bait or hook
his knowledge of the ways of the denizens of the water told him where to wait for pisah it might be a minute or it might be an hour before the fish would swim into the little pool above which he crouched but sooner or later one would come that the ape man knew
so with the patience of the beast of prey he waited for his quarry at last there was a glint of shiny scales pisah was coming in a moment he would be within reach and then with the swiftness of light two strong brown hands would plunge into the pool and seize him but
there was a great crashing in the underbrush behind the ape man instantly pisah was gone and tarzan growling had wheeled about to face whatever creature might be menacing him the moment that he turned he saw that the author of the disturbance was zu tag
what does zu tag want asked the ape man zu tag comes to the water to drink replied the ape where is the tribe asked tarzan they are hunting for pisangs and scimatines farther back in the forest replied zu tag and the tarmangani she and bull asked tarzan
kudu has come out of his lair twice since they left did the tribe chase them away asked tarzan no replied the ape we did not see them go we do not know why they left tarzan swung quickly through the trees toward the clearing the hut and boma were as he had left them
but there was no sign of either the man or the woman crossing the clearing he entered the boma and then the hut both were empty and his trained nostrils told him that they had been gone for at least two days as he was about to leave the hut
and taking it down he read after what you told me about miss kircher and knowing that you dislike her i feel that it is not fair to her and to you that we should impose longer upon you i know that our presence is keeping you from continuing your journey to the west coast
and so i have decided that it is better for us to try and reach the white settlements immediately without imposing further upon you we both thank you for your kindness and protection if there was any way that i might repay the obligation i feel i should be only too glad to do so
they were gone and would forget but somehow he could not forget he walked out across the boma and into the clearing he felt uneasy and restless once he started toward the north in response to a sudden determination to continue his way to the west coast
and thus following the rivers he would be sure of game and water in plenty but he did not go far
he is an englishman he muttered and the other is a woman they can never reach the settlements without my help i could not kill her with my own hands when i tried and if i let them go on alone
just as surely as though i had run my knife into her heart no and again he shook his head tarzan of the apes is a fool
manu the monkey had seen the two tarmangani pass two days before chattering and scolding he told tarzan all about it they had gone in the direction of the village of the gomangani that much had manu seen with his own eyes so the ape man swung on through the jungle in a southerly direction
and though with no concentrated effort to follow the spoor of those he trailed he passed numerous evidences that they had gone this way faint suggestions of their scent spoor clung lightly to leaf or branch or bole that one or the other had touched or in the earth of the trail their feet had trod
and where the way wound through the gloomy depth of dank forest the impress of their shoes still showed occasionally in the damp mass of decaying vegetation that floored the way an inexplicable urge spurred tarzan to increasing speed
the same still small voice that chided him for having neglected them seemed constantly whispering that they were in dire need of him now tarzan's conscience was troubling him which accounted for the fact that he compared himself to a weak old woman for the ape man
reared in savagery and inured to hardships and cruelty disliked to admit any of the gentler traits that in reality were his birthright the trail made a detour to the east of the village of the wamabos and then returned to the wide elephant path nearer to the river
at last there came to the ears of the ape man a peculiar whirring throbbing sound for an instant he paused listening intently an aeroplane he muttered and hastened forward at greatly increased speed when tarzan of the apes finally reached the edge of the meadowland
where smith oldwick's plane had landed he took in the entire scene in one quick glance and grasped the situation although he could scarce give credence to the things he saw bound and helpless the english officer lay upon the ground at one side of the meadow
while around him stood a number of the black deserters from the german command tarzan had seen these men before and knew who they were coming toward him down the meadow was an aeroplane piloted by the black usanga and in the seat behind the pilot was the white girl bertha kircher
his knowledge of usanga together with the position of the white man told him that the black sergeant was attempting to carry off the white girl why he should be doing this when he had her in his power and had also captured and secured the only creature in the jungle who might wish to defend her
in so far as the black could know tarzan could not guess
his present mate he did not know then that usanga had determined to fly away with the white girl never to return
he had told them that he would take the captive to a sultan of the north and there obtain a great price for her and that when he returned they should have some of the spoils these things tarzan did not know all he knew was what he saw a negro attempting to fly away with a white girl
already the machine was slowly leaving the ground in a moment more it would rise swiftly out of reach at first tarzan thought of fitting an arrow to his bow and slaying usanga but as quickly he abandoned the idea because he knew that the moment the pilot was slain the machine running wild
would dash the girl to death among the trees
and yet he did not hesitate in an attempt to put it into execution usanga did not see him being too intent upon the unaccustomed duties of a pilot but the blacks across the meadow saw him
they saw a giant white man leap from the branches of a tree to the turf and race rapidly toward the plane they saw him take a long grass rope from about his shoulders as he ran they saw the noose swinging in an undulating circle above his head
twenty feet above the running ape man soared the huge plane the open noose shot up to meet it and the girl half guessing the ape man's intentions reached out and caught the noose and bracing herself
simultaneously tarzan was dragged from his feet and the plane lurched sideways in response to the new strain usanga clutched wildly at the control and the machine shot upward at a steep angle dangling at the end of the rope the ape man swung pendulum like in space
the englishman lying bound upon the ground had been a witness of all these happenings his heart stood still as he saw tarzan's body hurtling through the air toward the tree tops among which it seemed he must inevitably crash but the plane was rising rapidly
so that the beast man cleared the top most branches then slowly hand over hand he climbed toward the fuselage the girl clinging desperately to the noose strained every muscle to hold the great weight dangling at the lower end of the rope usanga
all unconscious of what was going on behind him drove the plane higher and higher into the air tarzan glanced downward below him the tree tops and the river passed rapidly to the rear and only a slender grass rope
and the muscles of a frail girl stood between him and the death yawning there thousands of feet below it seemed to bertha kircher that the fingers of her hands were dead the numbness was running up her arms to her elbows
it seemed to her that those lifeless fingers must relax at any instant and then when she had about given up hope
instantly the weight upon the rope was removed and a moment later tarzan of the apes raised his body above the side and threw a leg over the edge he glanced forward at usanga and then placing his mouth close to the girl's ear he cried have you ever piloted a plane
the girl nodded a quick affirmative have you the courage to climb up there beside the black and seize the control while i take care of him the girl looked toward usanga and shuddered yes she replied but my feet are bound tarzan drew his hunting knife from its sheath and reaching down
severed the thongs that bound her ankles then the girl unsnapped the strap that held her to her seat with one hand tarzan grasped the girl's arm and steadied her as the two crawled slowly across the few feet which intervened between the two seats
a single slight tip of the plane would have cast them both into eternity
and yet he knew that that chance must be taken for in the brief moments since he had first seen the plane he had realized that the black was almost without experience as a pilot and that death surely awaited them in any event should the black sergeant remain at the control
the first intimation usanga had that all was not well with him was when the girl slipped suddenly to his side and grasped the control and at the same instant steel like fingers seized his throat a brown hand shot down with a keen blade and severed the strap about his waist
and giant muscles lifted him bodily from his seat usanga clawed the air and shrieked but he was helpless as a babe
for with the change of control it had taken a sudden dive they saw it right itself
return in their direction but it was so far above them and the light of the sun so strong that they could see nothing of what was going on within the fuselage but presently lieutenant smith oldwick gave a gasp of dismay as he saw a human body plunge downward from the plane
turning and twisting in mid air it fell with ever increasing velocity and the englishman held his breath as the thing hurtled toward them with a muffled thud it flattened upon the turf near the center of the meadow and when at last the englishman could gain the courage to again turn his eyes upon it
he breathed a fervent prayer of thanks
usanga had reaped his reward again and again the plane circled above the meadow the blacks at first dismayed at the death of their leader were now worked to a frenzy of rage and a determination to be avenged
the girl and the ape man saw them gather in a knot about the body of their fallen chief they saw as they circled above the meadow the black fists shaken at them and the rifles brandishing a menace toward them tarzan still clung to the fuselage directly behind the pilot's seat
engine and exhaust he screamed a few words of instruction into her ear as the girl grasped the significance of his words she paled
and her eyes shone with a sudden fire of determination as she dropped the plane to within a few feet of the ground and at the opposite end of the meadow from the blacks and then at full speed bore down upon the savages
it touched the ground just as it struck among them and mowed through them a veritable juggernaut of destruction when it came to rest at the edge of the forest the ape man leaped quickly to the ground and ran toward the young lieutenant and as he went he glanced at the spot where the warriors had stood
ready to defend himself if necessary but there was none there to oppose him dead and dying they lay strewn for fifty feet along the turf by the time tarzan had freed the englishman the girl joined them she tried to voice her thanks to the ape man but he silenced her with a gesture
you saved yourself he insisted for had you been unable to pilot the plane i could not have helped you and now he said you two have the means of returning to the settlements the day is still young you can easily cover the distance in a few hours if you have sufficient petrol
he looked inquiringly toward the aviator smith oldwick nodded his head affirmatively i have plenty he replied
neither of you belong in the jungle a slight smile touched his lips as he spoke the girl and the englishman smiled too this jungle is no place for us at least said smith oldwick and it is no place for any other white man why don't you come back to civilization with us tarzan shook his head
i prefer the jungle he said the aviator dug his toe into the ground and still looking down blurted something which he evidently hated to say if it is a matter of living old top he said er money er you know tarzan laughed no he said
it is not that i was born in the jungle i have lived all my life in the jungle and i shall die in the jungle i do not wish to live or die elsewhere the others shook their heads they could not understand him go said the ape man the quicker you go the quicker you will reach safety
they walked to the plane together smith oldwick pressed the ape man's hand and clambered into the pilot's seat good bye said the girl as she extended her hand to tarzan before i go won't you tell me you don't hate me any more tarzan's face clouded
her book of books is the old testament sometimes at noon or afternoon i may look abroad from the roof or galleries and see a remote figure sitting on the sward under the shade of plane or black cypress
i saw her passing homewards close to the lake and shouted down to her meaning to say good night but she thought that i had called her and came and sitting out on the top step we talked for hours she without the yashmak
we fell to talking about the bible and says she what did cain to abel he knocked him over i replied liking sometimes to use such idioms with the double object of teaching and perplexing her over what says she
over his heels said i i do not complehend he killed him then that i know but how did abel feel when he was killed what is it to be killed well said i you have seen bones all around you
and the bones of your mother and you can feel the bones in your fingers your fingers will become mere bone after you are dead as die you must those bones which you see around you are of course the bones of the men of whom we often speak
and the men and the butterfly feel the same after they are dead precisely the same they lie in a deep drowse and dream a nonsense dream that is not dleadful
i should not mind dying ah so much the better
because they were all such shocking cowards oh not all not all this girl i know not with what motive has now definitely set herself up against me as the defender of the dead race with every chance she is at it
nearly all said i tell me one who was not afraid there was isaac says she when ablaham laid him on the wood to kill him he did not jump up and lun to hide isaac was a great exception said i
in the bible and such books you understand you read of only the best sorts of people but there were millions and millions of others especially about the time of the poison cloud on a very much lower level putrid wretches
covetous false murderous mean selfish debased hideous diseased making the earth a very charnel of festering vices and crimes this for several minutes she did not answer
sitting with her back half toward me cracking almonds continually striking one step with the ball of her outstretched foot in the clarid gold of the platform
i saw her fez and corals reflected as an elongated blotch of florid red she turned and drank some wine from the great gold jarvan goblet which i had brought from the temple of boro budor her head quite covered in by it then
the little hairs at her lip corners still wet says she vices and climes climes and vices always the same what were these climes and vices robberies of a hundred sorts murders of ten hundred
but what made them do them their evil nature their base souls but you are one of them i am another yet you and i live here together and we do no vices and climes her astounding shrewdness
right into the inmost heart of a matter does her simple wit seem to pierce no i said we do no vices and crimes because we lack motive there is no danger that we should hate each other for we have plenty to eat and drink
dates wines and thousands of things our danger is rather the other way but they hated and schemed because they were very numerous and there arose a question among them of dates and wine
there was that question of dates and wine you see and there always must be on an earth where millions of men with varying degrees of cunning reside oh not at all necessalily she cries with conviction
since there are much more dates and wine than are enough for all if there should spling up more men now
and they made an allangement among themselves
and sent to dleam a nonsense dleam
it arose before it would arise again but no i can guess clearly how it alose before
that the men did not take the tlouble to make an allangement among themselves and afterwards the habit of carelessness was confirmed till at last the vely oliginal carelessness must have got to have the look of an allangement
and so the stleam which began in a little long ended in a big long the long glowing more and more fixed and fatal as the stleam lolled further flom the source i see it clearly can't you but now
if some more men would spling they would be taught ah but no more men will spling you see there is no telling i sometimes feel as if they must and shall the tlees blossom the thunder lolls
the air makes me lun and leap the glound is full of lichness and i hear the voice of the lord god
and as she looked it suddenly struck me what a noble temple of a brow the creature has almost pointed at the uplifted summit and widening down like a bell curved gothic arch draped in strings of frizzy hair
and she was a but tell me first cries she how did one know one's lover or one's wife flom all the others well by their faces but there must have been many faces all alike
not all alike each was different from the rest still it must have been vely clever to tell i can hardly conceive any face except yours and mine ah because you are a little goose you see what was a goose like
it was a thing like a butterfly only larger and it kept its toes always spread out with a skin stretched between leally how caplicious and am i like that
but what were you saying that your lover clodagh was she was a poisoner then why call me clodagh since i am not a poisoner i call you so to remind me lest you lest you should become my lover too
i am your lover already for i love you what girl do i not love you who are mine come come don't be a little maniac i went clodagh was a poisoner why did she poison had she not enough dates and wine
then i see how it was how was it the others had got spoiled the vices and climes must have begun with those who lacked things and then the others always seeing vices and climes alound them began to do them too
as when one rotten olive is in a bottle the whole mass soon becomes collupted but originally they were not rotten but only became so and all though a little carelessness at the first i am sure that if more men could spling now
but i told you didn't i that no more men will spring you understand clodagh that originally the earth produced men by a long process beginning with a very low type of creature and continually developing it
until at last a man stood up but that can never happen again for the earth is old old and has lost her producing vigour now so talk no more of men splinging and of things which you do not understand
instead go inside stop i will tell you a secret to day in the wood i picked some musk roses and wound them into a wreath meaning to give them you for your head when you came to morrow
and it is inside on the pearl tripod in the second room to the left go therefore and put it on and bring the harp and play to me my dear she ran quick with a little cry and coming again sat crowned
at midnight the cafe was crowded by some chance the little table at which i sat had escaped the eye of incomers and two vacant chairs at it extended their arms with venal hospitality to the influx of patrons
and i was glad for i held a theory that since adam no true citizen of the world has existed we hear of them and we see foreign labels on much luggage but we find travellers instead of cosmopolites i invoke your consideration of the scene
the sedulous and largess loving garcons the music wisely catering to all with its raids upon the composers
to the beak of a robber jay i was told by a sculptor from mauch chunk that the scene was truly parisian my cosmopolite was named e rushmore coglan
he is to establish a new attraction there he informed me offering kingly diversion and then his conversation rang along parallels of latitude and longitude he took the great round world in his hand so to speak
he derided the zones he mopped up the high seas with his napkin with a wave of his hand he would speak of a certain bazaar in hyderabad whiff he would have you on skis in lapland zip
with a hot infusion of the chuchula weed
and have mailed it feeling confident that it would be delivered to him i was sure that i had found at last the one true cosmopolite since adam and i listened to his worldwide discourse fearful lest i should discover in it
the local note of the mere globe trotter but his opinions never fluttered or drooped he was as impartial to cities countries and continents as the winds or gravitation and as e rushmore coglan prattled of this little planet i thought with glee
of a great almost cosmopolite who wrote for the whole world and dedicated himself to bombay in a poem he has to say that there is pride and rivalry between the cities of the earth and that the men that breed from them they traffic up and down
their bond upon their bond and my glee was roused because i had caught mister kipling napping here i had found a man not made from dust one who had no narrow boasts of birthplace or country
one who if he bragged at all would brag of his whole round globe against the martians and the inhabitants of the moon expression on these subjects was precipitated from e rushmore coglan by the third corner to our table
the orchestra glided into a medley the concluding air was dixie
it is worth a paragraph to say that this remarkable scene can be witnessed every evening in numerous cafes in the city of new york tons of brew have been consumed over theories to account for it some have conjectured hastily that all southerners in town
hie themselves to cafes at nightfall this applause of the rebel air in a northern city does puzzle a little but it is not insolvable the war with spain many years generous mint and watermelon crops
a few long shot winners at the new orleans race track and the brilliant banquets given by the indiana and kansas citizens who compose the north carolina society have made the south rather a fad in manhattan
your manicure will lisp softly that your left forefinger reminds her so much of a gentleman's in richmond virginia oh certainly but many a lady has to work now the war you know
and waved frantically his soft brimmed hat then he strayed through the smoke dropped into the vacant chair at our table and pulled out cigarettes the evening was at the period when reserve is thawed one of us mentioned three wuerzburgers to the waiter
the dark haired young man acknowledged his inclusion in the order by a smile and a nod i hastened to ask him a question because i wanted to try out a theory i had would you mind telling me i began whether you are from
the fist of e rushmore coglan banged the table and i was jarred into silence excuse me said he but that's a question i never like to hear asked what does it matter where a man is from
why i've seen kentuckians who hated whiskey virginians who weren't descended from pocahontas indianians who hadn't written a novel mexicans who didn't wear velvet trousers with silver dollars sewed along the seams
let a man be a man and don't handicap him with the label of any section pardon me i said but my curiosity was not altogether an idle one i know the south and when the band plays dixie i like to observe
i was about to put my opinion to the test by inquiring of this gentleman when you interrupted with your own larger theory i must confess and now the dark haired young man spoke to me
and it became evident that his mind also moved along its own set of grooves i should like to be a periwinkle said he mysteriously on the top of a valley and sing tooralloo ralloo
i know an esquimau in upernavik who sends to cincinnati for his neckties
and another in yokohama all the year around i've got slippers waiting for me in a tea house in shanghai and i don't have to tell em how to cook my eggs in rio de janeiro or seattle it's a mighty little old world
what's the use of bragging about being from the north or the south or the old manor house in the dale or euclid avenue cleveland or pike's peak or fairfax county virginia or hooligan's flats or any place
we are all brothers chinamen englishmen zulus patagonians and the people in the bend of the kaw river some day all this petty pride in one's city or state or section or country will be wiped out
the terrestrial globular planetary hunk of matter slightly flattened at the poles and known as the earth is my abode i've met a good many object bound citizens of this country abroad i've seen men from chicago sit in a gondola in venice on a moonlight night
and brag about their drainage canal i've seen a southerner on being introduced to the king of england hand that monarch without batting his eyes the information that his grand aunt on his mother's side was related by marriage to the perkinses of charleston
i knew a new yorker who was kidnapped for ransom by some afghanistan bandits his people sent over the money and he came back to kabul with the agent afghanistan the natives said to him through an interpreter well not so slow do you think
oh i don't know says he and he begins to tell them about a cab driver at sixth avenue and broadway those ideas don't suit me i'm not tied down to anything that isn't eight thousand miles in diameter just put me down as e rushmore coglan citizen of the terrestrial sphere
my cosmopolite made a large adieu and left me for he thought he saw some one through the chatter and smoke whom he knew so i was left with the would be periwinkle who was reduced to wuerzburger without further ability to voice his aspirations to perch
i sat reflecting upon my evident cosmopolite and wondering how the poet had managed to miss him he was my discovery and i believed in him how was it the men that breed from them they traffic up and down
but cling to their cities hem as a child to the mother's gown not so e rushmore coglan with the whole world for his my meditations were interrupted by a tremendous noise and conflict in another part of the cafe i saw above the heads of the seated patrons
e rushmore coglan and a stranger to me engaged in terrific battle they fought between the tables like titans and glasses crashed and men caught their hats up and were knocked down and a brunette screamed and a blonde began to sing teasing
and bore them outside still resisting
the may moon shone bright upon the private boarding house of missus murphy by reference to the almanac a large amount of territory will be discovered upon which its rays also fell
the parks were green with new leaves and buyers for the western and southern trade flowers and summer resort agents were blowing the air and answers to lawson were growing milder
the windows of missus murphy's boarding house were open a group of boarders were seated on the high stoop upon round flat mats like german pancakes in one of the second floor front windows missus mc caskey awaited her husband
supper was cooling on the table its heat went into missus mc caskey at nine mister mc caskey came he carried his coat on his arm and his pipe in his teeth and he apologised for disturbing the boarders on the steps as he selected spots of stone
as he opened the door of his room he received a surprise instead of the usual stove lid or potato masher for him to dodge came only words mister mc caskey reckoned that the benign may moon had softened the breast of his spouse
i heard ye came the oral substitutes for kitchenware
but ye'd walk on the neck of yer wife the length of a clothes line without so much as a kiss me fut and i'm sure it's that long from rubberin out the windy for ye and the victuals cold such as there's money to buy after drinkin up yer wages at gallegher's every saturday evenin
and the gas man here twice to day for his woman said mister mc caskey dashing his coat and hat upon a chair the noise of ye is an insult to me appetite when ye run down politeness ye take the mortar from between the bricks of the foundations of society
tis no more than exercisin the acrimony of a gentleman when ye ask the dissent of ladies blockin the way for steppin between them will ye bring the pig's face of ye out of the windy and see to the food missus mc caskey arose heavily and went to the stove
there was something in her manner that warned mister mc caskey when the corners of her mouth went down suddenly like a barometer it usually foretold a fall of crockery and tinware pig's face is it said missus mc caskey and hurled a stewpan full of bacon and turnips at her lord
he knew what should follow the entree on the table was a roast sirloin of pork garnished with shamrocks
and drew the appropriate return of a bread pudding in an earthen dish a hunk of swiss cheese accurately thrown by her husband struck missus mc caskey below one eye when she replied with a well aimed coffee pot full of a hot black semi fragrant liquid
the battle according to courses should have ended
let cheap bohemians consider coffee the end if they would
he was foxier still finger bowls were not beyond the compass of his experience they were not to be had in the pension murphy but their equivalent was at hand triumphantly he sent the granite ware wash basin at the head of his matrimonial adversary
missus mc caskey dodged in time she reached for a flatiron with which as a sort of cordial she hoped to bring the gastronomical duel to a close but a loud wailing scream downstairs caused both her and mister mc caskey
to pause in a sort of involuntary armistice
listening to the crash of household utensils tis jawn mc caskey and his missis at it again meditated the policeman i wonder shall i go up and stop the row i will not married folks they are and few pleasures they have
twill not last long sure they'll have to borrow more dishes to keep it up with and just then came the loud scream below stairs betokening fear or dire extremity tis probably the cat said policeman cleary and walked hastily in the other direction
the boarders on the steps were fluttered
he returned with the news that missus murphy's little boy mike was lost following the messenger out bounced missus murphy two hundred pounds in tears and hysterics clutching the air and howling to the sky for the loss of thirty pounds of freckles and mischief
bathos truly but mister toomey sat down at the side of miss purdy millinery and their hands came together in sympathy the two old maids misses walsh who complained every day about the noise in the halls
inquired immediately if anybody had looked behind the clock major grigg who sat by his fat wife on the top step arose and buttoned his coat the little one lost he exclaimed i will scour the city his wife never allowed him out after dark
but now she said go ludovic in a baritone voice whoever can look upon that mother's grief without springing to her relief has a heart of stone give me some thirty or sixty cents my love said the major lost children sometimes stray far
i may need carfares old man denny hall room fourth floor back who sat on the lowest step trying to read a paper by the street lamp turned over a page to follow up the article about the carpenters strike missus murphy shrieked to the moon
oh wailed missus murphy twas yisterday or maybe four hours ago i dunno but it's lost he is me little boy mike he was playin on the sidewalk only this mornin' or was it wednesday i'm that busy with work tis hard to keep up with dates
but i've looked the house over from top to cellar and it's gone he is oh for the love av hiven silent grim colossal the big city has ever stood against its revilers they call it hard as iron they say
no calamity so touches the common heart of humanity as does the straying of a little child their feet are so uncertain and feeble the ways are so steep and strange major griggs hurried down to the corner and up the avenue into billy's place
gimme a rye high he said to the servitor haven't seen a bow legged dirty faced little devil of a six year old lost kid around here anywhere have you
lost from his mother's side perhaps already fallen beneath the iron hoofs of galloping steeds oh isn't it dreadful ain't that right agreed mister toomey squeezing her hand say i start out and help look for um perhaps said miss purdy you should
but oh mister toomey you are so dashing so reckless suppose in your enthusiasm some accident should befall you then what old man denny read on about the arbitration agreement with one finger on the lines
in the second floor front mister and missus mc caskey came to the window to recover their second wind mister mc caskey was scooping turnips out of his vest with a crooked forefinger and his lady was wiping an eye that the salt of the roast pork had not benefited
tis little mike is lost said missus mc caskey in a hushed voice the beautiful little trouble making angel of a gossoon
why now that's bad enough entirely the childer they be different if twas a woman i'd be willin for they leave peace behind em when they go disregarding the thrust missus mc caskey caught her husband's arm
missis murphy's little bye is lost tis a great city for losing little boys
we never did said mister mc caskey lingering with the fact but if we had jawn think what sorrow would be in our hearts this night with our little phelan run away and stolen in the city nowheres at all ye talk foolishness said mister mc caskey tis pat he would be named
after me old father in cantrim ye lie said missus mc caskey without anger me brother was worth tin dozen bog trotting mc caskeys after him would the bye be named she leaned over the window sill and looked down at the hurrying and bustle below
jawn said missus mc caskey softly i'm sorry i was hasty wid ye twas hasty puddin as ye say said her husband and hurry up turnips and get a move on ye coffee twas what ye could call a quick lunch all right and tell no lie
missus mc caskey slipped her arm inside her husband's and took his rough hand in hers listen at the cryin of poor missus murphy she said tis an awful thing for a bit of a bye to be lost in this great big city if twas our little phelan jawn i'd be breakin me heart
awkwardly mister mc caskey withdrew his hand but he laid it around the nearing shoulder of his wife tis foolishness of course said he roughly but i'd be cut up some meself if our little pat was kidnapped or anything
sometimes i've been ugly and hard with ye judy forget it they leaned together and looked down at the heart drama being acted below long they sat thus people surged along the sidewalk crowding questioning filling the air with rumours
and inconsequent surmises missus murphy ploughed back and forth in their midst like a soft mountain down which plunged an audible cataract of tears couriers came and went loud voices and a renewed uproar were raised in front of the boarding house
what's up now judy asked mister mc caskey tis missis murphy's voice said missus mc caskey harking
mister mc caskey laughed loudly that's yer phelan he shouted sardonically divil a bit would a pat have done that trick
and see him hide out under the bed like a mangy pup
chapter four narcissus off duty during princeton's transition period that is during amory's last two years there while he saw it change and broaden and live up to its gothic beauty by better means than night parades
some of them had been freshmen and wild freshmen with amory some were in the class below
and around small tables at the nassau inn
first and partly by accident they struck on certain books a definite type of biographical novel that amory christened quest books in the quest book
the hero set off in life armed with the best weapons and avowedly intending to use them as such weapons are usually used to push their possessors ahead as selfishly and blindly as possible but the heroes of the quest books discovered
none other gods sinister street and the research magnificent were examples of such books it was the latter of these three that gripped burne holiday and made him wonder in the beginning of senior year
how much it was worth while being a diplomatic autocrat around his club on prospect avenue and basking in the high lights of class office it was distinctly through the channels of aristocracy that burne found his way amory through kerry
had had a vague drifting acquaintance with him
did their friendship commence heard the latest said tom
no somebody flunked out or another ship sunk worse than that
what actual fact why spirit of reform and all that burne holiday is behind it the club presidents are holding a meeting to night to see if they can find a joint means of combating it well what's the idea of the thing
oh clubs injurious to princeton democracy cost a lot draw social lines take time the regular line you get sometimes from disappointed sophomores
but this is the real thing absolutely i think it'll go through for pete's sake tell me more about it well began tom
and the point of abolishing the clubs was brought up by some one everybody there leaped at it it had been in each one's mind more or less and it just needed a spark to bring it out fine i swear i think it'll be most entertaining
wild of course every one's been sitting and arguing and swearing and getting mad and getting sentimental and getting brutal it's the same at all the clubs i've been the rounds they get one of the radicals in the corner and fire questions at him
oh moderately well burne's a damn good talker and so obviously sincere that you can't get anywhere with him it's so evident that resigning from his club means so much more to him than preventing it does to us that i felt futile when i argued
finally took a position that was brilliantly neutral in fact
call it a fourth and be safe lord who'd have thought it possible
hello amory hello tom amory rose evening burne don't mind if i seem to rush i'm going to renwick's burne turned to him quickly
and it isn't a bit private i wish you'd stay i'd be glad to
broad browed and strong chinned with a fineness in the honest gray eyes that were like kerry's burne was a man who gave an immediate impression of bigness and security stubborn that was evident
and when he had talked for five minutes amory knew that this keen enthusiasm had in it no quality of dilettantism the intense power amory felt later in burne holiday differed from the admiration he had had for humbird
this time it began as purely a mental interest
but that night amory was struck by burne's intense earnestness a quality he was accustomed to associate only with the dread stupidity and by the great enthusiasm that struck dead chords in his heart
never did they seem to have new experiences in common for tom and alec had been as blindly busy with their committees and boards as amory had been blindly idling
they had hashed and rehashed for many a frugal conversational meal that night they discussed the clubs until twelve and in the main they agreed with burne
dovetailed so completely with everything they had thought that they questioned rather than argued and envied the sanity that enabled this man to stand out so against all traditions then amory branched off and found that burne was deep in other things as well
how about religion amory asked him don't know i'm in a muddle about a lot of things i've just discovered that i've a mind and i'm starting to read read what everything i have to pick and choose of course but mostly things to make me think
i'm reading the four gospels now and the varieties of religious experience what chiefly started you wells i guess and tolstoi and a man named edward carpenter i've been reading for over a year now
on a few lines on what i consider the essential lines poetry well frankly not what you call poetry or for your reasons you two write of course and look at things differently whitman is the man that attracts me whitman
how about you tom tom nodded sheepishly well continued burne
but i mean the mass of his work he's tremendous like tolstoi they both look things in the face and somehow different as they are stand for somewhat the same things you have me stumped burne amory admitted i've read anna karenina
and the kreutzer sonata of course but tolstoi is mostly in the original russian as far as i'm concerned he's the greatest man in hundreds of years cried burne enthusiastically
they talked until three from biology to organized religion and when amory crept shivering into bed
burne holiday was so evidently developing
plotted the imperfectability of man and read shaw and chesterton enough to keep his mind from the edges of decadence
a petty consummation of himself and like a sombre background lay that incident of the spring before that filled half his nights with a dreary terror and made him unable to pray
the gaudy ritualistic paradoxical catholicism whose prophet was chesterton
with his adulation of thirteenth century cathedrals a catholicism which amory found convenient and ready made without priest or sacraments or sacrifice
so he turned on his reading lamp and taking down the kreutzer sonata searched it carefully for the germs of burne's enthusiasm being burne was suddenly so much realler than being clever yet he sighed here were other possible clay feet
quite submerged in his brother's personality
in the course of the altercation the dean remarked that he might as well buy the taxicab he paid and walked off but next morning he entered his private office to find the taxicab itself in the space usually occupied by his desk bearing a sign which read
property of dean hollister bought and paid for
which only goes to prove the rare energy of sophomore humor under efficient leadership then again that very fall burne had caused a sensation a certain phyllis styles an intercollegiate prom trotter had failed to get her yearly invitation to the harvard princeton game
if you ask me cried phyllis quickly of course i do said burne feebly
phyllis had pinned him down and served him up
and depressed him thoroughly aside from loathing phyllis
and entertain some harvard friends she'll see he informed a delegation who arrived in his room to josh him
burne you know you're secretly mad about her that's the real trouble what can you do burne what can you do against phyllis but burne only shook his head and muttered threats which consisted largely of the phrase she'll see she'll see
the blithesome phyllis bore her twenty five summers gayly from the train but on the platform a ghastly sight met her eyes
and gigantic padded shoulders on their heads were rakish college hats pinned up in front and sporting bright orange and black bands while from their celluloid collars blossomed flaming orange ties they wore black arm bands with orange p's and carried canes flying princeton pennants
torn between horrified pity and riotous mirth and as phyllis with her svelte jaw dropping approached the pair bent over and emitted a college cheer in loud far carrying voices thoughtfully adding the name phyllis to the end
she was vociferously greeted and escorted enthusiastically across the campus followed by half a hundred village urchins to the stifled laughter of hundreds of alumni and visitors half of whom had no idea that this was a practical joke
but thought that burne and fred were two varsity sports showing their girl a collegiate time phyllis's feelings as she was paraded by the harvard and princeton stands where sat dozens of her former devotees can be imagined she tried to walk a little ahead
she tried to walk a little behind but they stayed close that there should be no doubt whom she was with talking in loud voices of their friends on the football team until she could almost hear her acquaintances whispering
that had been burne dynamically humorous fundamentally serious
about a hundred juniors and seniors resigned from their clubs in a final fury of righteousness and the clubs in helplessness turned upon burne their finest weapon ridicule every one who knew him liked him but what he stood for and he began to stand for more all the time
came under the lash of many tongues until a frailer man than he would have been snowed under don't you mind losing prestige asked amory one night they had taken to exchanging calls several times a week of course i don't what's prestige at best
some people say that you're just a rather original politician he roared with laughter that's what fred sloane told me to day i suppose i have it coming one afternoon they dipped into a subject that had interested amory for a long time
of course health counts a healthy man has twice the chance of being good he said i don't agree with you i don't believe in muscular christianity i do i believe christ had great physical vigor
oh no amory protested he worked too hard for that i imagine that when he died he was a broken down man and the great saints haven't been strong half of them have well even granting that i don't think health has anything to do with goodness of course
but this fad of popular preachers rising on their toes in simulated virility
no burne i can't go that well let's waive it we won't get anywhere and besides i haven't quite made up my mind about it myself now here's something i do know personal appearance has a lot to do with it coloring
amory asked eagerly yes that's what tom and i figured amory agreed
but it does represent success here in a general way well i suppose only about thirty five per cent of every class here are blonds are really light yet two thirds of every senior council are light we looked at pictures of ten years of them mind you
one is on the senior council and of the dark haired men it's only one in fifty it's true burne agreed the light haired man is a higher type generally speaking
yet think of the preponderant number of brunettes in the race people unconsciously admit it said amory you'll notice a blond person is expected to talk if a blond girl doesn't talk we call her a doll if a light haired man is silent he's considered stupid
yet the world is full of dark silent men and languorous brunettes
but somehow are never accused of the dearth and the large mouth and broad chin and rather big nose undoubtedly make the superior face i'm not so sure amory was all for classical features oh yes i'll show you and burne pulled out of his desk
a photographic collection of heavily bearded shaggy celebrities tolstoi whitman carpenter and others aren't they wonderful amory tried politely to appreciate them and gave up laughingly burne
i think they're the ugliest looking crowd i ever came across
oh amory look at that forehead on emerson look at tolstoi's eyes his tone was reproachful amory shook his head no call them remarkable looking
unabashed burne ran his hand lovingly across the spacious foreheads and piling up the pictures put them back in his desk walking at night was one of his favorite pursuits and one night he persuaded amory to accompany him
i hate the dark amory objected i didn't use to except when i was particularly imaginative but now i really do i'm a regular fool about it that's useless you know quite possibly
we'll go east burne suggested and down that string of roads through the woods doesn't sound very appealing to me admitted amory reluctantly but let's go
i'm going to tell you why i can walk anywhere now and not be afraid go on amory urged eagerly they were striding toward the woods burne's nervous enthusiastic voice warming to his subject i used to come out here alone at night
oh three months ago and i always stopped at that cross road we just passed there were the woods looming up ahead just as they do now
of course i peopled the woods with everything ghastly just like you do don't you i do amory admitted well i began analyzing it
and let it look out at me i let it play stray dog or escaped convict or ghost and then saw myself coming along the road that made it all right as it always makes everything all right to project yourself completely into another's place
i knew that if i were the dog or the convict or the ghost i wouldn't be a menace to burne holiday any more than he was a menace to me then i thought of my watch i'd better go back and leave it and then essay the woods no i decided it's better on the whole that i should lose a watch
than that i should turn back and i did go into them not only followed the road through them but walked into them until i wasn't frightened any more
then i knew i was through being afraid of the dark lordy amory breathed
i'd have come in well burne said suddenly after a few moments silence we're half way through let's turn back on the return he launched into a discussion of will it's the whole thing he asserted
it's the one dividing line between good and evil i've never met a man who led a rotten life and didn't have a weak will how about great criminals they're usually insane if not they're weak there is no such thing as a strong sane criminal
burne i disagree with you altogether how about the superman well he's evil i think yet he's strong and sane i've never met him i'll bet though that he's stupid or insane i've met him over and over and he's neither
that's why i think you're wrong i'm sure i'm not and so i don't believe in imprisonment except for the insane on this point amory could not agree it seemed to him that life and history were rife with the strong criminal keen but often self deluding
in politics and business one found him and among the old statesmen and kings and generals
burne was drawing farther and farther away from the world about him he resigned the vice presidency of the senior class and took to reading and walking as almost his only pursuits he voluntarily attended graduate lectures in philosophy and biology
as if waiting for something the lecturer would never quite come to sometimes amory would see him squirm in his seat and his face would light up he was on fire to debate a point he grew more abstracted on the street
and was even accused of becoming a snob but amory knew it was nothing of the sort and once when burne passed him four feet off absolutely unseeingly his mind a thousand miles away amory almost choked with the romantic joy of watching him
burne seemed to be climbing heights where others would be forever unable to get a foothold i tell you amory declared to tom he's the first contemporary i've ever met
it's a bad time to admit it people are beginning to think he's odd he's way over their heads
good lord tom you used to stand out against people success has completely conventionalized you tom grew rather annoyed what's he trying to do be excessively holy no not like anybody you've ever seen
never enters the philadelphian society he has no faith in that rot he doesn't believe that public swimming pools and a kind word in time will right the wrongs of the world moreover he takes a drink whenever he feels like it he certainly is getting in wrong
have you talked to him lately no then you haven't any conception of him the argument ended nowhere
that the people who violently disapprove of burne's radicalism are distinctly the pharisee class i mean they're the best educated men in college
the younger professors the illiterate athletes like langueduc think he's getting eccentric but they just say good old burne has got some queer ideas in his head and pass on the pharisee class gee they ridicule him unmercifully
the next morning he met burne hurrying along mc cosh walk after a recitation whither bound tsar over to the prince office to see ferrenby
he wrote this editorial going to flay him alive
burne hurried on and it was several days before amory heard an account of the ensuing conversation burne had come into the editor's sanctum displaying the paper cheerfully hello jesse hello there savonarola
i just read your editorial good boy didn't know you stooped that low jesse you startled me how so
what like this morning what the devil
yes but that quotation jesse sat up what quotation you know he who is not with me is against me well what about it jesse was puzzled but not alarmed well you say here let me see
burne opened the paper and read he who is not with me is against me as that gentleman said who was notoriously capable of only coarse distinctions and puerile generalities what of it ferrenby began to look alarmed
oliver cromwell said it didn't he or was it washington or one of the saints good lord i've forgotten burne roared with laughter oh jesse oh good kind jesse who said it for pete's sake well said burne recovering his voice
a rich correctly used voice is the greatest physical factor of persuasiveness and power often over topping the effects of reason but a good voice well handled is not only an effective possession for the professional speaker
it is a mark of personal culture as well
gladstone himself the possessor of a deep musical voice has said ninety men in every hundred in the crowded professions will probably never rise above mediocrity
because the training of the voice is entirely neglected and considered of no importance these are words worth pondering
one ease signor bonci of the metropolitan opera company says that the secret of good voice is relaxation and this is true for relaxation is the basis of ease
in practising voice exercises and in speaking never force your tones ease must be your watchword the voice is a delicate instrument and you must not handle it with hammer and tongs don't make your voice go
let it go don't work let the yoke of speech be easy and its burden light your throat should be free from strain during speech
the throat must act as a sort of chimney or funnel for the voice
will not only harm its tones but injure its health nervousness and mental strain are common sources of mouth and throat constriction so make the battle for poise and self confidence for which we pleaded in the opening chapter
do not force your head around simply relax your neck and let gravity pull it around as your body moves again let your head fall forward on your breast raise your head letting your jaw hang relax until your jaw feels heavy
as though it were a weight hung to your face remember you must relax the jaw to obtain command of it it must be free and flexible for the moulding of tone and to let the tone pass out unobstructed
the lips also must be made flexible to aid in the moulding of clear and beautiful tones for flexibility of lips repeat the syllables mo me in saying mo bring the lips up to resemble the shape of the letter o
in repeating me draw them back as you do in a grin repeat this exercise rapidly giving the lips as much exercise as possible try the following exercise in the same manner
after this exercise has been mastered the following will also be found excellent for flexibility of lips memorize these sounds indicated not the expressions so that you can repeat them rapidly
a as in may e as in met u as in use a
you will observe that all the activity then centers around the diaphragm this is the natural and correct method of breathing by constant watchfulness make this your habitual manner
if the muscles of the throat are constricted the tone passage partially closed and the mouth kept half shut how can you expect the tone to come out bright and clear or even to come out at all sound is a series of waves and if you make a prison of your mouth
holding the jaws and lips rigidly it will be very difficult for the tone to squeeze through
open your mouth wide relax all the organs of speech and let the tone flow out easily start to yawn but instead of yawning speak while your throat is open make this open feeling habitual when speaking
we say make because it is a matter of resolution and of practise if your vocal organs are healthy your tone passages may be partly closed by enlarged tonsils adenoids or enlarged turbinate bones of the nose
if so a skilled physician should be consulted the nose is an important tone passage and should be kept open and free for perfect tones what we call talking through the nose is not talking through the nose
as you can easily demonstrate by holding your nose as you talk if you are bothered with nasal tones caused by growths or swellings in the nasal passages a slight painless operation will remove the obstruction this is quite important
sombre and unattractive the tone must be pitched forward but do not force it forward you will recall that our first principle was ease think the tone forward and out believe it is going forward and allow it to flow easily
you can tell whether you are placing your tone forward or not by inhaling a deep breath and singing ah with the mouth wide open trying to feel the little delicate sound waves strike the bony arch of the mouth just above the front teeth
the sensation is so slight that you will probably not be able to detect it at once but persevere in your practise always thinking the tone forward and you will be rewarded by feeling your voice strike the roof of your mouth
a correct forward placing of the tone will do away with the dark throaty tones that are so unpleasant inefficient and harmful to the throat close the lips
think the tone forward do you feel it strike the lips hold the palm of your hand in front of your face and say vigorously crash dash whirl buzz can you feel the forward tones strike against your hand practise until you can
remember the only way to get your voice forward is to put it forward how to develop the carrying power of the voice it is not necessary to speak loudly in order to be heard at a distance it is necessary only to speak correctly
remember to apply the principles of ease openness and forwardness they are the prime factors in enabling your voice to be heard at a distance do not gaze at the floor as you talk this habit not only gives the speaker an amateurish appearance
but if the head is hung forward the voice will be directed towards the ground instead of floating out over the audience voice is a series of air vibrations to strengthen it two things are necessary more air or breath and more vibration
usually ill health means a weak voice while abundant physical vitality is shown through a strong vibrant voice therefore anything that improves the general vitality is an excellent voice strengthener provided you use the voice properly
and developed lung power a hard fought basketball or tennis game is an efficient way of practising deep breathing when these methods are not convenient we recommend the following place your hands at your sides on the waist line
by trying to encompass your waist with your fingers and thumbs force all the air out of the lungs take a deep breath remember all the activity is to be centered in the middle of the body
repeat the exercise placing your hands on the small of the back and forcing them out as you inhale many methods for deep breathing have been given by various authorities get the air into your lungs that is the important thing
after a little practise they will vibrate giving a tickling sensation repeat this exercise throwing the humming sound into the nose hold the upper part of the nose between the thumb and forefinger can you feel the nose vibrate
placing the palm of your hand on top of your head repeat this humming exercise think the voice there as you hum in head tones can you feel the vibration there now place the palm of your hand on the back of your head repeating the foregoing process
then try it on the chest always remember to think your tone where you desire to feel the vibrations the mere act of thinking about any portion of your body will tend to make it vibrate
endeavoring to feel all portions of your body vibrate at the same time when you have attained this you will find that it is a pleasant sensation what ho my jovial mates come on we will frolic it like fairies frisking in the merry moonshine
purity of voice this quality is sometimes destroyed by wasting the breath carefully control the breath using only as much as is necessary for the production of tone utilize all that you give out
failure to do this results in a breathy tone take in breath like a prodigal in speaking give it out like a miser voice suggestions never attempt to force your voice when hoarse do not drink cold water when speaking
the sudden shock to the heated organs of speech will injure the voice avoid pitching your voice too high it will make it raspy this is a common fault
a wide range will give you facility in making numerous changes of pitch do not form the habit of listening to your voice when speaking you will need your brain to think of what you are saying reserve your observation for private practise
give some exercises for development of these conditions four why is range of voice desirable five tell how range of voice may be cultivated six
how much daily practise do you consider necessary for the proper development of your voice seven how can resonance and carrying power be developed eight what are your voice faults
chapter thirty two before vronsky's departure for the elections anna had reflected that the scenes constantly repeated between them each time he left home might only make him cold to her instead of attaching him to her
and resolved to do all she could to control herself so as to bear the parting with composure but the cold severe glance with which he had looked at her when he came to tell her he was going had wounded her and before he had started
her peace of mind was destroyed in solitude afterwards thinking over that glance which had expressed his right to freedom she came as she always did to the same point the sense of her own humiliation
shows the beginning of indifference and though she felt sure that a coldness was beginning there was nothing she could do she could not in any way alter her relations to him just as before
and she began to long for that and made up her mind to agree to it the first time
absorbed in such thoughts she passed five days without him the five days that he was to be at the elections walks
reading of one book after another filled up her time but on the sixth day when the coachman came back without him she felt that now she was utterly incapable of stifling the thought of him and of what he was doing there just at that time her little girl was taken ill
anna began to look after her but even that did not distract her mind especially as the illness was not serious however hard she tried she could not love this little child and to feign love was beyond her powers
towards the evening of that day still alone anna was in such a panic about him that she decided to start for the town but on second thoughts wrote him the contradictory letter that vronsky received
and without reading it through sent it off by a special messenger the next morning she received his letter and regretted her own she dreaded a repetition of the severe look he had flung at her at parting especially when he knew that the baby was not dangerously ill
let him weary of her but he would be here with her so that she would see him would know of every action he took she was sitting in the drawing room near a lamp with a new volume of taine and as she read listening to the sound of the wind outside
and every minute expecting the carriage to arrive several times she had fancied she heard the sound of wheels but she had been mistaken at last she heard not the sound of wheels but the coachman's shout and the dull rumble in the covered entry
even princess varvara playing patience confirmed this and anna flushing hotly got up but instead of going down as she had done twice before she stood still she suddenly felt ashamed of her duplicity
but even more she dreaded how he might meet her all feeling of wounded pride had passed now she was only afraid of the expression of his displeasure she remembered that her child had been perfectly well again for the last two days
she felt positively vexed with her for getting better from the very moment her letter was sent off then she thought of him that he was here all of him with his hands his eyes she heard his voice and forgetting everything
she ran joyfully to meet him well how is annie he said timidly from below looking up to anna as she ran down to him he was sitting on a chair and a footman was pulling off his warm over boot
she is better and you he said shaking himself she took his hand in both of hers and drew it to her waist never taking her eyes off him well i'm glad he said coldly scanning her
and are you well he said wiping his damp beard with his handkerchief and kissing her hand never mind she thought only let him be here and so long as he's here he cannot he dare not cease to love me
the evening was spent happily and gaily in the presence of princess varvara who complained to him that anna had been taking morphine in his absence what am i to do i couldn't sleep my thoughts prevented me
when he's here i never take it hardly ever he told her about the election and anna knew how by adroit questions to bring him to what gave him most pleasure his own success
she told him of everything that interested him at home and all that she told him was of the most cheerful description but late in the evening when they were alone anna seeing that she had regained complete possession of him
she said tell me frankly you were vexed at getting my letter and you didn't believe me as soon as she had said it she felt that however warm his feelings were to her he had not forgiven her for that yes he said
the letter was so strange first annie ill and then you thought of coming yourself it was all the truth oh i don't doubt it yes you do doubt it
the duty of going to a concert but we won't talk about it he said why not talk about it she said
i only meant to say that matters of real importance may turn up now for instance i shall have to go to moscow to arrange about the house oh anna why are you so irritable don't you know that i can't live without you
anna that's cruel i am ready to give up my whole life but she did not hear him if you go to moscow i will go too i will not stay here either we must separate or else live together
why you know that's my one desire but for that we must get a divorce i will write to him i see i cannot go on like this but i will come with you to moscow
ashamed of loving in the presence of all these people people are pitiless towards happy lovers they remain when the latter most desire to be left alone lovers have no need of any people whatever with cosette and behind her there had entered a man with white hair
who was grave yet smiling though with a vague and heartrending smile
as the porter had said entirely in black in perfectly new garments and with a white cravat
still his porter's scent was aroused
who did not like books demanded in a low tone of nicolette well
he's a learned man what then is that his fault
never walked out without a book under his arm either
inattention to proper names was an
that's settled said the grandfather and turning to marius and cosette with both arms extended in blessing he cried permission to adore each other they did not require him to repeat it twice
oh how wicked it was of you to go to that battle what had i done to you i pardon you but you will never do it again a little while ago when they came to tell us to come to you i still thought that i was about to die but it was from joy
i must frighten people with my looks what will your relatives say to see me in a crumpled collar do speak you let me do all the talking we are still in the rue de l'homme arme it seems that your shoulder was terrible they told me that you could put your fist in it
and then it seems that they cut your flesh with the scissors that is frightful i have cried till i have no eyes left it is queer that a person can suffer like that your grandfather has a very kindly air don't disturb yourself don't rise on your elbow
you will injure yourself oh how happy i am so our unhappiness is over i am quite foolish i had
angel is the only word in the language which cannot be worn out no other word could resist the merciless use which lovers make of it then as there were spectators they paused and said not a word more contenting themselves with softly touching each other's hands
she was born a marquise what eyelashes she has get it well fixed in your noddles my children that you are in the true road love each other be foolish about it love is the folly of men and the wit of god adore each other
what has mademoiselle euphrasie to do with the question inquired the startled grandfather i am she replied cosette
five hundred and eighty four thousand francs
five hundred and eighty four one might as well say six hundred thousand as for marius and cosette they were gazing at each other while this was going on they hardly heeded this detail
chapter five deposit your money in a forest rather than with a notary
chapter eleven fluency through preparation
at first blush it would seem that fluency consists in a ready easy use of words
not so the flowing quality of speech is much more for it is a composite effect with each of its prior conditions deserving of careful notice the sources of fluency
entirely a matter of preparation certainly native gifts figure largely here as in every art
but even natural facility is dependent on the very same laws of preparation that hold good for the man of supposedly small native endowment let this encourage you if like moses you are prone to complain that you are not a ready speaker
have you ever stopped to analyze that expression a ready speaker readiness in its prime sense is preparedness and they are most ready who are best prepared quick firing depends more on the alert finger than on the hair trigger
preparation may be either general or specific usually it should be both a life time of reading of companionship with stirring thoughts of wrestling with the problems of life this constitutes a general preparation of inestimable worth out of a well stored mind and richer still a broad experience and best of all a warmly sympathetic heart the speaker will have to draw much material that no immediate study could provide
general preparation consists of all that a man has put into himself all that heredity and environment have instilled into him
the talker gains as much from his conversation as the listener you sometimes begin to converse on a subject thinking you have very little to say but one idea gives birth to another and you are surprised to learn that the more you give the more you have to give
longfellow said a single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years study of books and holmes whimsically yet none the less truthfully declared that half the time he talked to find out what he thought but that method must not be applied on the platform
after all this enrichment of life by storage must come the special preparation for the particular speech this is of so definite a sort that it warrants separate chapter treatment later practise
but preparation must also be of another sort than the gathering organizing and shaping of materials it must include practise which like mental preparation must be both general and special
do not feel surprised or discouraged if practise on the principles of delivery herein laid down seems to retard your fluency for a time this will be inevitable while you are working for proper inflection for instance
inflection will be demanding your first thoughts and the flow of your speech for the time being will be secondary this warning however is strictly for the closet for your practise at home do not carry any thoughts of inflection with you to the platform
but subconsciously you will be attending to the points of technique which have become more or less habitual by practise a nice balance between these two kinds of attention is important you can no more escape this law than you can live without air
habit has established the order just so you must master the laws of efficiency in speaking until it is a second nature for you to speak correctly rather than otherwise
and make some crude strokes
the fluency of your speech will be at the speed of flow your practise has made habitual but this means work what good habit does not no philosopher's stone that will act as a substitute for laborious practise has ever been found if it were it would be thrown away because
it would kill our greatest joy the delight of acquisition if public speaking means to you a fuller life you will know no greater happiness than a well spoken speech
the time you have spent in gathering ideas and in private practise of speaking you will find amply rewarded questions and exercises one what advantages has the fluent speaker over the hesitating talker two
machinery has created a new economic world the socialist party is a strenuous worker for peace he was a crushed and broken man when he left prison war must ultimately give way to world wide arbitration
six put the sentiments of mister bryan's
seven take any of the following quotations and make a five minute speech on it without pausing to prepare
there lives more faith in honest doubt believe me than in half the creeds tennyson in memoriam
howe'er it be it seems to me tis only noble to be good kind hearts are more than coronets and simple faith than norman blood
campbell pleasures of hope his best companions innocence and health and his best riches ignorance of wealth goldsmith the deserted village beware of desperate steps the darkest day live till tomorrow will have passed away
paine rights of man trade it may help society extend
it matters not how strait the gate how charged with punishment the scroll i am the master of my fate i am the captain of my soul henley invictus the world is so full of a number of things i am sure we should all be happy as kings
make a two minute speech on any of the following general subjects but you will find that your ideas will come more readily if you narrow your subject by taking some specific phase of it
for instance instead of trying to speak on law in general take the proposition the poor man cannot afford to prosecute or instead of dwelling on leisure show how modern speed is creating more leisure in this way you may expand this subject list indefinitely
general themes law politics woman's suffrage initiative and referendum a larger navy war peace foreign immigration the liquor traffic
kindness justice progress machinery invention wealth poverty
science surgery haste leisure happiness health business america the far east mobs colleges sports
matrimony divorce child labor education books
literature electricity achievement failure public speaking ideals conversation the most dramatic moment of my life my happiest days things worth while
what i hope to achieve my greatest desire what i would do with a million dollars is mankind progressing
what cestius did against the jews and how upon his besieging jerusalem he retreated from the city without any just occasion in the world as also what severe calamities he under went from the jews in his retreat
one and now gallus seeing nothing more that looked towards an innovation in galilee
so they came and finding their camp deserted they burnt it as well as the villages that lay about it
he found the city empty of its men
and so marched forwards and ascending by betboron
fifty furlongs distant from jerusalem two but as for the jews when they saw the war approaching to their metropolis they left the feast and betook themselves to their arms
and taking courage greatly from their multitude went in a sudden and disorderly manner to the fight with a great noise and without any consideration had of the rest of the seventh day
with such violence therefore did they fall upon the romans as to break into their ranks and to march through the midst of them making a great slaughter as they went insomuch that unless the horsemen and such part of the footmen
as were not yet tired in the action had wheeled round and succored that part of the army which was not yet broken
however five hundred and fifteen of the romans were slain of which number four hundred were footmen and the rest horsemen while the jews lost only twenty two of whom the most valiant were the kinsmen of monobazus
when the front of the jewish army had been cut off the jews retired into the city but still simon the son of giora fell upon the backs of the romans as they were ascending up bethoron
and put the hindmost of the army into disorder and carried off many of the beasts that carried the weapons of war and led shem into the city but as cestius tarried there three days the jews seized upon the elevated parts of the city
and set watches at the entrances into the city and appeared openly resolved not to rest when once the romans should begin to march three and now when agrippa observed
that even the affairs of the romans were likely to be in danger while such an immense multitude of their enemies had seized upon the mountains round about he determined to try what the jews would agree to by words
as thinking that he should either persuade them all to desist from fighting or however that he should cause the sober part of them to separate themselves from the opposite party
to secure them of the romans entire forgiveness of what they had done amiss
accordingly they slew phebus before he said a word but borceus was only wounded and so prevented his fate by flying away and when the people were very angry at this they had the seditious beaten with stones and clubs
afforded him a proper opportunity to attack them took his whole army along with him and put the jews to flight and pursued them to jerusalem he then pitched his camp upon the elevation called scopus or watch tower
which was distant seven furlongs from the city
out of expectation that those within might perhaps yield a little
to seize upon their corn and on the fourth day
he brought it into the city now for the people they were kept under by the seditious but the seditious themselves were greatly affrighted at the good order of the romans and retired from the suburbs and retreated into the inner part of the city and into the temple
he set the part called bezetha
or the new city on fire as he did also to the timber market after which he came into the upper city and pitched his camp over against the royal palace and had he but at this very time attempted to get within the walls by force
he had won the city presently and the war had been put an end to at once
and a great number of the officers of the horse had been corrupted by florus
and that was the occasion that this war lasted so very long and thereby the jews were involved in such incurable calamities five
and were about to open the gates for him but he overlooked this offer partly out of his anger at the jews and partly because he did not thoroughly believe they were in earnest
whence it was that he delayed the matter so long that the seditious perceived the treachery and threw ananus and those of his party down from the wall and pelting them with stones drove them into their houses
but they stood themselves at proper distances in the towers and threw their darts at those that were getting over the wall thus did the romans make their attack against the wall for five days but to no purpose
and with them the archers and attempted to break into the temple at the northern quarter of it but the jews beat them off from the cloisters and repulsed them several times when they were gotten near to the wall
till at length the multitude of the darts cut them off and made them retire but the first rank of the romans rested their shields upon the wall and so did those that were behind them and the like did those that were still more backward
as though it were to be taken immediately but the people upon this took courage and where the wicked part of the city gave ground thither did they come in order to set open the gates
who had he but continued the siege a little longer had certainly taken the city but it was i suppose owing to the aversion god had already at the city and the sanctuary that he was hindered from putting an end to the war that very day
it then happened that cestius was not conscious either how the besieged despaired of success nor how courageous the people were for him and so he recalled his soldiers from the place
and by despairing of any expectation of taking it without having received any disgrace he retired from the city without any reason in the world but when the robbers perceived this unexpected retreat of his they resumed their courage
and destroyed a considerable number of both their horsemen and footmen
and as he went off farther next day he thereby invited the enemy to follow him who still fell upon the hindmost and destroyed them they also fell upon the flank on each side of the army
and threw darts upon them obliquely nor durst those that were hindmost turn back upon those who wounded them behind as imagining that the multitude of those that pursued them was immense
without being able to revenge themselves upon their enemies so they were galled all the way and their ranks were put into disorder and those that were thus put out of their ranks were slain among whom were priscus
the commander of the sixth legion and longinus the tribune and emilius secundus the commander of a troop of horsemen so it was not without difficulty
and was in great distress to know what he should do in these circumstances but when on the third day he saw a still much greater number of enemies and all the parts round about him full of jews he understood that his delay was to his own detriment
so they killed the mules and other creatures excepting those that carried their darts and machines which they retained for their own use and this principally because they were afraid lest the jews should seize upon them
over against the neck of the passage and covered the roman army with their darts in which circumstances as the footmen knew not how to defend themselves so the danger pressed the horsemen still more for they were so pelted
and the ascents were so high that the cavalry were not able to march against the enemy the precipices also and valleys into which they frequently fell and tumbled down were such on each side of them
and to such mournful cries as men use in the utmost despair the joyful acclamations of the jews also as they encouraged one another echoed the sounds back again these last composing a noise of those
that at once rejoiced and were in a rage indeed things were come to such a pass
had not the night come on when the romans fled to bethoron and the jews seized upon all the places round about them and watched for their coming out in the morning nine
contrived how he might best run away and when he had selected four hundred of the most courageous of his soldiers he placed them at the strongest of their fortifications and gave order that when they went up to the morning guard they should erect their ensigns
and marched without any noise thirty furlongs but when the jews perceived in the morning that the camp was empty they ran upon those four hundred who had deluded them and immediately threw their darts at them and slew them
and then pursued after cestius but he had already made use of a great part of the night in his flight and still marched quicker when it was day
and for throwing of stones and a great part of the instruments of war so the jews went on pursuing the romans as far as antipatris after which seeing they could not overtake them they came back
and took the engines and spoiled the dead bodies and gathered the prey together which the romans had left behind them and came back running and singing to their metropolis while they had themselves lost a few only
but had slain of the romans five thousand and three hundred footmen and three hundred and eighty horsemen
the calamities and slaughters that came upon the jews one
on the very same day and hour when the soldiers were slain which one would think must have come to pass by the direction of providence insomuch that in one hour's time above twenty thousand jews were killed
for florus caught such as ran away and sent them in bonds to the galleys
so they divided themselves into several parties and laid waste the villages of the syrians and their neighboring cities philadelphia and sebonitis and gerasa and pella
and falling upon gaulonitis some cities they destroyed there and some they set on fire and then went to kedasa belonging to the tyrians
two however the syrians were even with the jews in the multitude of the men whom they slew for they killed those whom they caught in their cities and that not only out of the hatred they bare them as formerly
but to prevent the danger under which they were from them so that the disorders in all syria were terrible and every city was divided into two armies
and the preservation of the one party was in the destruction of the other so the day time was spent in shedding of blood and the night in fear which was of the two the more terrible for when the syrians thought they had ruined the jews
they had the judaizers in suspicion also and as each side did not care to slay those whom they only suspected on the other so did they greatly fear them when they were mingled with the other as if they were certainly foreigners
moreover greediness of gain was a provocation to kill the opposite party even to such as had of old appeared very mild and gentle towards them for they without fear plundered the effects of the slain
it was then common to see cities filled with dead bodies still lying unburied and those of old men mixed with infants all dead and scattered about together
you might then see the whole province full of inexpressible calamities while the dread of still more barbarous practices which were threatened
three and thus far the conflict had been between jews and foreigners but when they made excursions to scythopolis
for as they stood in battle array with those of scythopolis and preferred their own safety before their relation to us they fought against their own countrymen nay their alacrity was so very great that those of scythopolis suspected them
these were afraid therefore lest they should make an assault upon the city in the night time and to their great misfortune should thereby make an apology for themselves to their own people for their revolt from them
so they commanded them that in case they would confirm their agreement and demonstrate their fidelity to them who were of a different nation they should go out of the city with their families to a neighboring grove
and when they had done as they were commanded without suspecting any thing the people of scythopolis lay still for the interval of two days to tempt them to be secure but on the third night they watched their opportunity and cut all their throats
some as they lay unguarded and some as they lay asleep the number that was slain was above thirteen thousand
four it will deserve our relation what befell simon he was the son of one saul a man of reputation among the jews this man was distinguished from the rest by the strength of his body and the boldness of his conduct
although he abused them both to the mischieving of his countrymen
and he frequently put them to flight and became himself alone the cause of his army's conquering but a just punishment overtook him for the murders he had committed upon those of the same nation with him for when the people of scythopolis threw their darts at them in the grove
for he saw that he could do nothing against such a multitude but he cried out after a very moving manner and said o you people of scythopolis i deservedly suffer for what i have done with relation to you when i gave you such security of my fidelity to you
by slaying so many of those that were related to me wherefore we very justly experience the perfidiousness of foreigners while we acted after a most wicked manner against our own nation
and let the same action be to me both a punishment for my great crimes and a testimony of my courage to my commendation that so no one of our enemies may have it to brag of that he it was that slew me
and no one may insult upon me as i fall now when he had said this he looked round about him upon his family with eyes of commiseration and of rage that family consisted of a wife and children and his aged parents
so in the first place he caught his father by his grey hairs and ran his sword through him and after him he did the same to his mother who willingly received it and after them he did the like to his wife and children
every one almost offering themselves to his sword as desirous to prevent being slain by their enemies so when he had gone over all his family he stood upon their bodies to be seen by all and stretching out his right hand
that his action might be observed by all he sheathed his entire sword into his own bowels this young man was to be pitied on account of the strength of his body and the courage of his soul but since he had assured foreigners of his fidelity
against his own countrymen he suffered deservedly five besides this murder at scythopolis the other cities rose up against the jews that were among them those of askelon slew two thousand five hundred
and those of ptolemais two thousand and put not a few into bonds those of tyre also put a great number to death but kept a greater number in prison
and apamians spared those that dwelt with them and would not endure either to kill any of the jews or to put them in bonds
they did no harm to those that abode with them and for those who had a mind to go away they conducted them as far as their borders reached six there was also a plot laid against the jews in agrippa's kingdom
to antioch but had left one of his companions whose name was noarus to take care of the public affairs which noarus was of kin to king sohemus
these desired to have an army put into their hands that if any tumult should happen they might have about them a guard sufficient to restrain such as might rise up against them this noarus sent out some of the king's armed men by night
and slew all those seventy men which bold action he ventured upon without the consent of agrippa and was such a lover of money that he chose to be so wicked to his own countrymen though he brought ruin on the kingdom thereby
and thus cruelly did he treat that nation and this contrary to the laws also until agrippa was informed of it who did not indeed dare to put him to death out of regard to sohemus but still he put an end to his procuratorship immediately
persuaded the romans who were in garrison to leave the place and deliver it up to them these romans being in great fear lest the place should be taken by force made an agreement with them to depart upon certain conditions
and when they had obtained the security they desired they delivered up the citadel into which the people of machaerus put a garrison for their own security and held it in their own power seven but for alexandria
the sedition of the people of the place against the jews was perpetual and this from that very time when alexander the great upon finding the readiness of the jews in assisting him against the egyptians
gave them equal privileges in this city with the grecians themselves which honorary reward continued among them under his successors who also set apart for them a particular place that they might live without being polluted by the gentiles
they also gave them this further privilege that they should be called macedonians nay when the romans got possession of egypt neither the first caesar nor any one that came after him
thought of diminishing the honors which alexander had bestowed on the jews but still conflicts perpetually arose with the grecians and although the governors did every day punish many of them yet did the sedition grow worse but at this time especially
a great number of jews came flocking to the theater but when their adversaries saw them they immediately cried out and called them their enemies and said they came as spies upon them upon which they rushed out and laid violent hands upon them
and as for the rest they were slain as they ran away but there were three men whom they caught and hauled them along in order to have them burnt alive but all the jews came in a body to defend them who at first threw stones at the grecians
but after that they took lamps and rushed with violence into the theater and threatened that they would burn the people to a man and this they had soon done unless tiberius alexander the governor of the city had restrained their passions
however this man did not begin to teach them wisdom by arms but sent among them privately some of the principal men and thereby entreated them to be quiet and not provoke the roman army against them
but the seditious made a jest of the entreaties of tiberius and reproached him for so doing eight now when he perceived that those who were for innovations would not be pacified till some great calamity should overtake them
he sent out upon them those two roman legions that were in the city and together with them five thousand other soldiers who by chance were come together out of libya to the ruin of the jews
they were also permitted not only to kill them but to plunder them of what they had and to set fire to their houses these soldiers rushed violently into that part of the city that was called delta where the jewish people lived together and did as they were bidden
though not without bloodshed on their own side also for the jews got together and set those that were the best armed among them in the forefront and made a resistance for a great while but when once they gave back they were destroyed unmercifully
which houses were first plundered of what was in them and then set on fire by the romans wherein no mercy was shown to the infants and no regard had to the aged
of every age till all the place was overflowed with blood and fifty thousand of them lay dead upon heaps nor had the remainder been preserved had they not be taken themselves to supplication so alexander commiserated their condition
and gave orders to the romans to retire accordingly these being accustomed to obey orders left off killing at the first intimation but the populace of alexandria bare so very great hatred to the jews
and it was a hard thing to make them leave their dead bodies nine and this was the miserable calamity which at this time befell the jews at alexandria
while the jews were everywhere up in arms so he took out of antioch the twelfth legion entire and out of each of the rest he selected two thousand with six cohorts of footmen and four troops of horsemen
besides those auxiliaries which were sent by the kings
and three thousand footmen with as many archers and agrippa sent the same number of footmen and one thousand horsemen sohemus also followed with four thousand a third part whereof were horsemen but most part were archers
and thus did he march to ptolemais
who indeed had not the same skill in martial affairs but made up in their alacrity and in their hatred to the jews what they wanted in skill there came also along with cestius agrippa himself both as a guide in his march over the country
and a director what was fit to be done
and marched hastily to zabulon a strong city of galilee which was called the city of men and divides the country of ptolemais from our nation this he found deserted by its men the multitude having fled to the mountains
but full of all sorts of good things those he gave leave to the soldiers to plunder and set fire to the city although it was of admirable beauty and had its houses built like those in tyre and sidon and berytus
after this he overran all the country and seized upon whatsoever came in his way and set fire to the villages that were round about them and then returned to ptolemais but when the syrians and especially those of berytus were busy in plundering
and fell upon those that were left behind unexpectedly and destroyed about two thousand of them
and gave order that if they could take that city by surprise they should keep it but that in case the citizens should perceive they were coming to attack them
that they then should stay for him and for the rest of the army so some of them made a brisk march by the sea side and some by land and so coming upon them on both sides they took the city with ease and as the inhabitants
nor had gotten any thing ready for fighting the soldiers fell upon them and slew them all with their families and then plundered and burnt the city the number of the slain was eight thousand four hundred in like manner
to the toparchy of narbatene
who destroyed the country and slew a great multitude of its people
the commander of the twelfth legion into galilee and delivered to him as many of his forces as he supposed sufficient to subdue that nation he was received by the strongest city of galilee which was sepphoris with acclamations of joy
which wise conduct of that city occasioned the rest of the cities to be in quiet while the seditious part and the robbers ran away to that mountain which lies in the very middle of galilee and is situated over against sepphoris it is called asamon
so gallus brought his forces against them but while those men were in the superior parts above the romans they easily threw their darts upon the romans as they made their approaches and slew about two hundred of them but when the romans had gone round the mountains
and were gotten into the parts above their enemies the others were soon beaten nor could they who had only light armor on sustain the force of them that fought them armed all over nor when they were beaten could they escape the enemies horsemen
among the mountains while the rest
carroll and thong proceeding along the lines they usually followed in cases like this
and some which they had worked out for themselves had in a comparatively short time ascertained the name age and somewhat of the personal history of missus amelia darcy together with that of her cousin as the detectives called him
though the relationship was not as close as that missus darcy who was sixty five years of age had carried on the jewelry business of her husband mortimer darcy after his death which preceded her more tragic one by about seven years
mortimer darcy had been a diamond salesman for a large new york house in his younger days and had come to be an expert in precious stones many good wishes and not a little trade had gone to him from his former employers
and some of their customers bought of him when he went into business for himself in the thriving city of colchester knowing that to start anew in a strange town would mean uphill work for him and his wife
mortimer darcy had awaited an opportunity to buy the business of a man whom he had known for a number of years and to whom he had sold many diamonds and other stones this man harrison van doren by name
had what was termed the best jewelry trade in colchester the old families not that any of them could trace their ancestry back very far liked to say that we get all our stuff at van doren's
this name on little white plush lined boxes containing pins or sparkling rings
young ladies counted it a point in the favor of their lovers if the engagement circlet came from van doren's and mortimer darcy knowing the value of that class of trade had when he purchased mister van doren's business fostered that spirit
missus darcy on the death of her husband had further catered to it so that the darcy establishment though it was not the richest or most showy in colchester was safely counted the most exclusive that is
it had a full line of the best goods be it clocks or diamonds and it had what in bygone days was called a carriage trade but which is now referred to as automobile
that is to say those aside from a casual trade with people who dropped in as they might have done to a grocery to get what they really needed in the way of jewelry came in gasolene or electric cars where their ancestors had come with horses and carriage
so darcy's jewelry store was known and though a bit old fashioned in a way was favorably known not only to the older members of the rich families of the place but to the younger set as well the pretty girls and their well groomed companions of the assembly ball set
liked to stop in there for their rings brooches scarf pins or cuff links and very frequent were the rather languid orders you may send it charge it was to that class of trade that missus darcy catered
she understood it and it understood her that was enough she took a personal interest in the business to the extent of being in the store almost every day as her husband had been before her to advise and be available for consultation
an engagement ring for the latest debutante a watch for son attaining his majority or perhaps new gold glasses for grandpapa or grandmama the store was not a large one and four clerks one a young woman
with james darcy and an assistant who looked after the repair work and made anything unusual in the way of pins or rings constituted the force but missus darcy was as good as a clerk herself and during the holiday rush she was in the store night and day
this was the easier for her since she owned the building in which her display was kept and lived in a quiet and tastefully furnished apartment over the store on the death of her husband she had sent for his second cousin
who at that time was in the employ of a well known new york jewelry house and he agreed to come to her rather more than a repair man and clerk was james darcy he was an expert jewelry designer and a setter of precious stones
and often when some fastidious customer did not seem to care for what was shown from the glittering trays in the showcases missus darcy or one of her clerks would say we will have mister darcy design something different for you
that's what i want the customer would say
something you don't see everywhere and so the darcy trade had grown and prospered well let's hear what you have to say said carroll after james darcy had given what the detectives considered was for the time
a sufficient history of himself and his relative and had hastily gone over such of the stock as was kept outside the safe the latter had not been forced open it did not take long to ascertain that is anything gone i can't say for sure answered the young man
he was this side of thirty his long artistic fingers were trembling and he felt weak and faint but if there has been a robbery they didn't get much the safe hasn't been opened and the best of the goods all the diamonds and other stones are in that
though i'd have to make a better search and go over the inventory to make certain well let that go for the time
and the detective fairly shot these questions at darcy i think not the front door was locked just as it is now i went out the side one that was locked with the spring catch from the inside wasn't it bolted came sharply from thong
you see i was all excited like yes assented thong there's a bolt on the door carroll snapped yes but missus darcy may have slipped it back herself she was down first though why i can't say
she seldom came down ahead of me especially of late years i generally opened the store
there's some of em now more knockings had sounded on the front door and the faces of two young men peered in through the misty glass the crowd having made a lane for them on learning that they worked in the place of death let em in sure assented thong
let em in darcy did so mulligan helping him keep back the crowd of curious ones
what's the matter is missus darcy dead killed i'm afraid the store won't open to day but the police want to see every one oh miss brill come in
and he held out his hand to the one young woman clerk who drew back in horrified fright as she saw the silent figure on the floor oh oh she gasped and then she went into hysterics
adding to the excitement and giving mulligan a bad five minutes while he fought to keep the crowd from surging in but when miss brill had been carried to a rear room and quieted and when the shades had been drawn to keep the curious ones from peering in the questioning of darcy was resumed
did you come directly down to the store from your room asked thong yes as soon as i awakened where is your room in the rear on the second floor the one next above missus darcy has her rooms in front
then come those of her maid jane metson sallie page sleeps on the top floor where the janitor's family lives and he of course sleeps up there also
then you came downstairs and found missus darcy lying here dead i wasn't sure she was dead oh she was dead all right broke in thong no question about that did you hear anything
only the watch ticking in her hand first i thought it was her heart beating no i mean did you hear anything in the night went on the detective any queer noise it's mighty funny if there was murder done and no robbery
but of course she might have heard a noise if you didn't and she might have come down to find out what it was about she might have caught a burglar at work and he may have killed her to get away but if it was a burglar it's funny you didn't hear any noise like a fall or something
how about that mister darcy well no i didn't exactly hear anything i went to bed about half past ten after working at my table down here awhile was missus darcy in bed then thong asked i couldn't say
i came straight up and went to bed at ten o'clock you say a little after it may have been a quarter to eleven and you didn't hear anything all night carroll shot this question at darcy suddenly no no not exactly i did hear something
and yet it was a noise what kind of talk is that demanded thong roughly either it was a noise or it wasn't now which was it well if you call a clock striking a noise then it was one
and thong settled back in his chair more at his ease
it was either three or four i can't be sure which darcy replied you know when you awaken in the night and hear the strokes
i heard three anyhow i'm sure of that well put it down as three suggested thong was it the striking of the clock that awakened you no not exactly it was more as if some one had been in my room
some one in your room exclaimed both detectives they were questioning darcy in the living room of missus darcy's suite the clerks being detained downstairs by mulligan the county physician who was also the coroner had not yet arrived
yes at first i thought some one had been in my room and then after i thought about it i wasn't quite sure all i know is i slept quite soundly sounder than usual in fact and all at once i heard a clock strike
three or four murmured thong yes three anyhow maybe four something awakened me suddenly but what i can't say i remember at the time it felt as though something had passed over my face
like a hand suggested carroll well i couldn't be sure it may have been i dreamed it but what did it feel like insisted thong well like a cloth brushing my face more than like a hand
or it may have been a hand with a glove on it yes it may have been that
what did you do next i awakened with a sudden start just before six o'clock i had not set an alarm though i wanted to get up early to do a little repair job i had promised for early this morning
but i have gotten so in the habit of rousing at almost any hour i mentally set for myself the night before that i don't need an alarm clock i had fixed my mind on the fact that i wanted to get up at five thirty and i think it was just a quarter to six when i got up
i was anxious to finish the repair job for a man who was to leave on an early train this morning he may be in any time now and i haven't it ready for him what sort of a repair job asked carroll on a watch where's the watch now
and the detective flicked the ashes from a cigar the reporter had given him daley was down in the jewelry store interviewing the clerks while darcy was on the grill up above the watch murmured darcy it it's in her hand
and he nodded in the direction of the silent figure downstairs the watch that is still ticking yes
and darcy seemed a bit confused a point not lost sight of by carroll
i've got to get that fixed anyhow i didn't do anything to the indian's watch more than look at it and i made up my mind to rise early and hurry it through so i didn't even wind it i can't understand what makes it go unless some one got in and wound it
and they wouldn't do that whose watch is it asked thong it belongs to singa phut singa phut ejaculated carroll crimps what a name who belongs to it
singa phut is an east indian explained darcy he has a curio store down on water street we have bought some odd things from him for our customers
he left the watch with my cousin who told me to repair it it needed a new case spring and some of the screws were loose
that i couldn't say what sort of a man is this indian singa singa began thong hesitatingly singa phut is a quiet studious indian answered darcy
he has done business with me for some years is he all right safe not one of them gars you know the fellows that use a silk cord to strangle you with asked thong who had some imagination regarding garroters
not at all like that said darcy and there was the trace of a smile on his face he is a gentleman oh said carroll and thong in unison there came another knock on the side door downstairs
there was less of a crowd about now and mulligan did not have to keep back a rush as he opened the portal doctor warren reported the policeman calling upstairs to carroll and thong the county physician explained carroll
better come down and meet him mister darcy he'll want to ask you some questions then we'll have another go at you got to ask a lot of questions in a case like this he half apologized oh sure assented the jewelry worker
mused thong to his partner as darcy preceded them downstairs now we'll know what killed her
maybe i think we've got something already observed carroll oh yes maybe and then again maybe not come on
cried the county physician as he shook the rain from his coat and tossed his auto gloves on a shiny glass showcase
he was smiling and cheerful was doctor warren murders and autopsies were all in the day's work with him he had been county physician for a number of years hum yes quite an old lady he mused as he took off his coat which carroll held for him
the doctor rolled up his shirt sleeves and stooped down head's badly cut let's see what we have here let's have a light it's too dark to see one of the clerks switched on more electric lights and they glinted and sparkled on the silver and cut glass
they flashed on the white still face and the gleams seemed to be swallowed up in that red blotch in the snowy hair um yes depressed fracture bad place too
and he glanced questioningly at the detectives carroll shook his head in negation
not if it's used right and he brought from his hip pocket one of the weapons in question a short stout flexible reed covered with leather the end forming a pocket in which was a chunk of lead
maybe not assented the doctor let's look a bit further he glanced at the floor about the body peered around the edge of a showcase underneath which there was a space for refuse odds and ends discarded wrapping paper and the like
a place into which neither of the detectives had as yet glanced doctor warren uttered an exclamation and drew out a metal statue about two feet high it was that of a hunter standing as though he had just delivered a shot and was peering to see the effect
the butt of his gun projected behind him and as doctor warren moved the statue into the light of the jewelry store chandeliers they all saw clinging to the stock of the gun some straggling white hairs that's what did it exclaimed the county physician
i'll wager when i try i can fit that gun butt into the depression of the fracture
swung this statue as a club it would make a deadly one using the foot end for a handle and doctor warren waved the ornament in the air over the dead woman's head to illustrate what he meant don't muttered darcy in a strained voice don't what
asked the physician sharply use the statue that way why not
but now oh i never want to see it in the house i couldn't bear to look at it nor could she she we what do you mean asked carroll quickly say do you know something about this killing that you're keeping back from us he took a step nearer darcy
a threatening step it would seem from the fact that the jewelry worker drew back as if in alarm no i don't know anything said darcy in a low voice then what's this talk about the statue not wanting it in the house whose house
the house i hope to live in with my wife miss amy mason answered darcy
i had asked missus darcy to set that statue aside for me miss mason admired it and i planned to buy it we had the place all picked out where it would stand but now he did not finish but a shudder seemed to shake his frame
it would be a rather grewsome object to have around after it had killed the old lady murmured the reporter but are you sure it did doc pretty sure yes i never make a statement though until after the autopsy no telling what that may develop
that wasn't your case doc observed carroll no it was before my time but i remember it that's why i'm saying nothing until i've made an examination better phone the morgue keeper he went on and have them come for the body
have you have you got to take her away faltered darcy
and the doctor motioned to the glittering array of cut glass and plate you won't keep the store open he inquired no i'll put a notice in the door now and darcy wrote out one which a clerk affixed to the front door for him
well that's all i can do now doctor warren said after his very perfunctory examination the rest will have to be at the morgue got a place where i can wash my hands he asked darcy indicated a little closet near his work bench doctor warren soon resumed his coat
accepted a cigarette from daley slipped into his still damp rain garment and was soon throbbing down the street in his automobile having announced that he was going to breakfast and would perform the autopsy immediately afterward soon a black wagon rattled up to the jewelry store
more reporters came and daley fraternized with them the newspaper men aside from the police and jim holiday a detective from prosecutor bardon's office being the only people admitted to the shop when the clerks had been sent home
the morgue keeper's men lifted the fast stiffening body and were about to place it in the wicker carrier when carroll who was watching them rather idly uttered an exclamation what's up asked thong quickly
he had been strolling about the shop and had come to a stop near darcy's work table a sort of bench against the wall and behind one of the showcases the bench was fitted with a lathe and on it were parts of watches like the dead specimens preserved in alcohol in a doctor's office
what's up bill look exclaimed carroll pointing the men from the morgue had the body raised in the air and then in the gleam from the electric lights there was revealed underneath and in the left side of the dead woman a clean slit through her light dress
a slit the edges of which were stained with blood another wound exclaimed daley his newspaper instincts quickly aroused by this addition of evidence of mystery this is getting interesting it's a cut
a deep one too murmured carroll as he drew nearer to look wonder what did it shouldn't wonder but it was done with this and thong held out on the palm of his large hand a slender dagger on the otherwise bright blade of which were some dark stains
where'd you get it demanded carroll over on the watch repair table darcy gasped is that your dagger snapped carroll at the jewelry worker it isn't a dagger it's a paper cutter a magazine knife well whatever it is who owns it
the words were as crisp as the steel of the stained blade darcy stared at the keen knife and then at the dead woman who owns it and the question snapped like a whip i don't it was left here by
there was a commotion at the side door which had been opened by mulligan in order that the men might carry out the body of missus darcy there was a shuffling of feet and a rather thick and unsteady voice asked
lo darcy went on a young man
been out al'night you know how tish
harry king and stewed to the gills again murmured pete daley wow he has some bun on
smiling in a fashion meant to be merry but which was fixed and glassy as to his eyes wheresh my li'l preshent for wifely got her name all graved on it nice an pretty
silently the jewelry worker pointed to the stained dagger it was really that though designed for a paper cutter the detective held it out and the red spots on it seemed to show brighter in the gleam of the electric lights is that your knife harry king demanded thong
p e a r l and he spelled it out laboriously and thickly my wife she likes them things me i got no use for em gimme oyster fork or clam for that matter
but gotta square wife somehow take her home nice preshent thatsh me
and carefully trying to balance himself he reached forward as though to take the stained dagger from the hand of the detective you got pearl's name graved on it darcy ole man asked king thickly licking his hot and feverish lips
no answered the jewelry worker hollowly then harry king seemingly for the first time
the sudden prospect which now opened out before sir richmond of talking about history and suchlike topics with a charming companion for perhaps two whole days instead of going on with this tiresome shamefaced
to the entire exclusion and disregard of doctor martineau's possible objections to any such modification of their original programme when they arrived in salisbury
the doctor did make some slight effort to suggest a different hotel from that in which the two ladies had engaged their rooms but on the spur of the moment and in their presence he could produce no sufficient reason for refusing the accommodation the old george had ready for him
he was reduced to a vague we don't want to inflict ourselves he could not get sir richmond aside for any adequate expression of his feelings about miss seyffert before the four of them were seated together at tea amidst the mediaeval modernity
of the old george smoking room and only then did he begin to realize the depth and extent of the engagements to which sir richmond had committed himself
these ladies were nearly missing it the thing took the doctor's breath away for the moment he could say nothing he stared over his tea cup dour faced an objection formulated itself very slowly but that dicky he whispered
his whisper went unnoted sir richmond was talking of the completeness of salisbury
it was essentially and purely that the church at its best in the full tide of its mediaeval ascendancy had called it into being he was making some extremely loose and inaccurate generalizations about the buildings and ruins each age had left for posterity
and miss grammont was countering with equally unsatisfactory qualifications our age will leave the ruins of hotels said sir richmond railway arches and hotels baths and aqueducts miss grammont compared rome of the empire comes nearest to it
as soon as tea was over doctor martineau realized they meant to walk round and about salisbury he foresaw that walk with the utmost clearness in front and keeping just a little beyond the range of his intervention
sir richmond would go with miss grammont he himself and miss seyffert would bring up the rear if i do he muttered i'll be damned an unusually strong expression for him you said asked miss seyffert
that i have some writing to do before the post goes said the doctor brightly oh come and see the cathedral cried sir richmond with ill concealed dismay he was if one may put it in such a fashion not looking at miss seyffert in the directest fashion when he said this
with the unspoken addition of you try her for a bit miss grammont stood up everybody stood up we can go first to look for shops she said there's those things you want to buy belinda a fountain pen and the little books
we can all go together as far as that and while you are shopping if you wouldn't mind getting one or two things for me it became clear to doctor martineau that sir richmond was to be let off belinda it seemed abominably unjust
well a quiet time in his room would not be disagreeable he could think over his notes but in reality he thought over nothing but the little speeches he would presently make to sir richmond about the unwarrantable
for a long time sir richmond had met no one so interesting and amusing as this frank minded young woman from america young woman was how he thought of her she didn't correspond to anything so prim and restrained and extensively reserved and withheld as a young lady
with the utmost mental profit and no particular tarnish or injury he could talk with her as if he talked with a man like himself
of a broad stream of alert thought they were no mere display specimens from one of those jackdaw collections of bright things so many clever women waste their wits in accumulating she was not talking for effect at all
she was talking because she was tremendously interested in her discovery of the spectacle of history and delighted to find another person as possessed as she was belinda
having been conducted to her shops the two made their way through the bright evening sunlight to the compact gracefulness of the cathedral a glimpse through a wrought iron gate of a delightful garden of spring flowers alyssum
snow upon the mountains daffodils narcissus and the like held them for a time
they stood for some moments surveying it it's a perfect little lady of a cathedral said sir richmond but why i wonder did we build it your memory ought to be better than mine she said with her half closed eyes blinking up at the sunlit spire sharp against the blue
i've been away for so long over there that i forget altogether why did we build it she had fallen in quite early with this freak of speaking and thinking as if he and she were all mankind it was as if
her mind had been prepared for it by her own eager exploration in europe my friend the philosopher he had said will not have it that we are really the individuals we think we are you must talk to him he is a very curious and subtle thinker
we are just thoughts in the mind of the race he says passing thoughts we are what does he call it man on his planet taking control of life man and woman she had amended but just as man on his planet taking control of life
had failed altogether to remember why the ditch at avebury was on the inside instead of the outside of the vallum so now miss grammont and sir richmond found very great difficulty in recalling why they had built salisbury cathedral we built temples by habit and tradition said sir richmond
but the impulse was losing its force she looked up at the spire and then at him with a faintly quizzical expression but he had his reply ready we were beginning to feel our power over matter we were already very clever engineers
what interested us here wasn't the old religion any more we wanted to exercise and display our power over stone we made it into reeds and branches we squirted it up in all these spires and pinnacles the priest and his altar were just an excuse
this artist's lark as they did in stonehenge i certainly do not remember that i ever worshipped here she said
is the spirit of the sky scrapers it is architecture in a mood of flaming ambition the freemasons on the building could hardly refrain from jeering at
he was just their excuse for doing it all sky scrapers she conceded an early display of the sky scraper spirit you are doing your best to make me feel thoroughly at home you are more at home here still than in that new country of ours over the atlantic
and my sky scrapers still the fun of building that is the thing i envy most about america it's still large enough mentally and materially to build all sorts of things over here the sites are frightfully crowded and what do you think we are building now
and what do you think you are building over here what are we building now i believe we have almost grown up i believe it is time we began to build in earnest for good but are we building anything at all a new world show it me she said
we're still only at the foundations said sir richmond nothing shows as yet i wish i could believe they were foundations but can you doubt we are scrapping the old it was too late in the afternoon to go into the cathedral
so they strolled to and fro round and about the west end and along the path under the trees towards the river exchanging their ideas very frankly and freely
after dinner our four tourists sat late and talked in a corner of the smoking room the two ladies had vanished hastily at the first dinner gong and reappeared at the second mysteriously and pleasantly changed from tweedy pedestrians to indoor company
they were quietly but definitely dressed pretty alterations had happened to their coiffure a silver band and deep red stones lit the dusk of miss grammont's hair and a necklace of the same colourings kept the peace between her jolly sun burnt cheek
and her soft untanned neck
her recent uniform had included a collar of great severity miss seyffert had revealed a plump forearm and proclaimed it with a clash of bangles doctor martineau thought her evening throat much too confidential the conversation drifted from topic to topic
miss seyffert's methods were too discursive and exclamatory she broke every thread that appeared the old george at salisbury is really old it shows it and miss seyffert laced the entire evening with her recognition of the fact just look at that old beam she would cry suddenly
to think it was exactly where it is before there was a cabot in america miss grammont let her companion pull the talk about as she chose after the animation of the afternoon a sort of lazy contentment had taken possession of the younger lady
she sat deep in a basket chair and spoke now and then miss seyffert gave her impressions of france and italy she talked of the cabmen of naples and the beggars of amalfi
in some parts of italy it is like mites on a cheese nobody seems to be living everyone is too busy keeping alive poor old women carrying loads big enough for mules said miss seyffert little children working like slaves said miss grammont
sufficient begging from foreigners is just a sport in italy said sir richmond it doesn't imply want but i agree that a large part of italy is frightfully overpopulated the whole world is don't you think so martineau well yes for its present social organization
i've no doubt of it said miss seyffert and added amazingly i'm out for birth control all the time a brief but active pause ensued
the world swarms with cramped and undeveloped lives said sir richmond which amount to nothing which do not even represent happiness and which help to use up the resources the fuel and surplus energy of the world i suppose they have a sort of liking for their lives miss grammont reflected
does that matter they do nothing to carry life on they are just vain repetitions imperfect dreary blurred repetitions of one common life all that they feel has been felt all that they do has been done better before
and as for liking their lives they need never have had the chance how many people are there in the world she asked abruptly i don't know twelve hundred fifteen hundred millions perhaps and in your world i'd have two hundred and fifty millions let us say at most
it would be quite enough for this little planet for a time at any rate don't you think so doctor i don't know said doctor martineau oddly enough i have never thought about that question before at least not from this angle
but could you pick out two hundred and fifty million aristocrats began miss grammont my native instinctive democracy need not be outraged said sir richmond any two hundred and fifty million would do they'd be able to develop fully all of them
as things are only a minority can do that the rest never get a chance that's what i always say said miss seyffert a new age said doctor martineau a new world we may be coming to such a stage when population as much as fuel will be under a world control
if one thing why not the other i admit that the movement of thought is away from haphazard towards control i'm for control all the time miss seyffert injected following up her previous success i admit the doctor began his broken sentence again with marked patience
that the movement of thought is away from haphazard towards control in things generally but is the movement of events the eternal problem of man said sir richmond can our wills prevail there came a little pause
miss grammont smiled an enquiry at miss seyffert if you are said belinda i wish i could imagine your world said miss grammont rising of two hundred and fifty millions of fully developed human beings
with room to live and breathe in and no need for wars will they live in palaces will they all be healthy machines will wait on them
perhaps i shall dream of it my dreaming self may be cleverer she held out her hand to sir richmond just for a moment they stood hand in hand appreciatively well said doctor martineau
this is a curious encounter that young woman has brains said sir richmond standing before the fireplace there was no doubt whatever which young woman he meant but doctor martineau grunted i don't like the american type the doctor pronounced judicially i do sir richmond countered the doctor thought for a moment or so
you are committed to the project of visiting avebury he said they ought to see avebury said sir richmond
ostentatiously amused by his thoughts and staring at the fire birth control i never did
i think said the doctor and paused i shall leave this avebury expedition to you we can be back in the early afternoon said sir richmond to give them a chance of seeing the cathedral the chapter house here is not one to miss and then i suppose we shall go on as you please said sir richmond insincerely
i must confess that four people make the car at any rate seem tremendously overpopulated and to tell the truth i do not find this encounter so amusing as you seem to do i shall not be sorry when we have waved good bye to those young ladies and resume our interrupted conversation
sir richmond considered something mulish in the doctor's averted face i find miss grammont an extremely interesting and stimulating human being evidently the doctor sighed stood up and found himself delivering one of the sentences he had engendered
during his solitary meditations in his room before dinner he surprised himself by the plainness of his speech let me be frank he said regarding sir richmond squarely considering the general situation of things and your position i do not care very greatly for the part of an accessory
to what may easily develop as you know very well into a very serious flirtation an absurd mischievous irrelevant flirtation you may not like the word you may pretend it is a conversation an ordinary intellectual conversation that is not the word
simply that is not the word you people eye one another flirtation i give the affair its proper name that is all merely that when i think but we will not discuss it now good night
she was stout and florid and had no scruples as to the avowal of her age which was forty three she had clear blue eyes which looked steadily upon a complicated world of affairs and a square heavy chin which showed her capacity for dealing with it
miss ursula winwood knew herself to be a notable person and the knowledge did not make her vain or crotchety or imperious she took her notability for granted as she took her mature good looks and her independent fortune
for some years she had kept house for her widowed brother colonel winwood conservative member for the division of the county in which they resided and helped him efficiently in his political work the little township of morebury half a mile from the great gates of drane's court
felt miss winwood's control in diverse ways another town a little further off with five or six millions of inhabitants was also through its newspapers aware of miss winwood many leagues societies associations claimed her as president vice president or member of council
she had sat on royal commissions her name under an appeal for charity guaranteed the deserts of the beneficiaries
she sat on platforms with royal princesses archbishops welcomed her as a colleague and cabinet ministers sought her counsel for some distance from the porch of the red brick creeper covered queen anne house the gravel drive between the lawns blazed in the afternoon sun for this reason the sunshade
but after a while came an avenue of beech and plane and oak casting delectable shade on the drive and its double edging of grass and the far stretching riot of flowers beneath the trees foxgloves and canterbury bells and campanulas and delphiniums
a knitted brow betrayed mathematical calculation it would take her five minutes to reach the lodge gate the train bringing her venerable uncle archdeacon winwood for a week's visit would not arrive at the station for another three minutes
and the two fat horses would take ten minutes to drag from the station the landau which she had sent to meet him she had therefore eight minutes to spare a rustic bench invited repose graciously she accepted the invitation
now it must be observed that it was not miss winwood's habit to waste time her appointments were kept to the minute and her appointment self made on this occasion was the welcoming of her uncle the archdeacon on the threshold of drane's court but miss winwood
was making holiday and allowed herself certain relaxations her brother's health having broken down he had paired for the rest of the session and gone to contrexeville for a cure she had therefore shut up her london house in portland place
and had come to her brother's house drane's court her home when her presence was not needed in london she was tired drane's court where she had been born and had lived all her girlhood's life was restful
the shiny mahogany coloured spaniel prescient of siesta leaped to her side and lay down with his chin on her lap and blinked his yellow eyes she lay back on the seat her hand on the dog's head looking contentedly at the opposite wilderness of bloom and the glimpses
through the screen of trees and shrubs of the sunlit stretches of park beyond she loved drane's court save for the three years of her brother's short married life it had been part of herself
a winwood a very younger son of the family the family being that of which the earl of harpenden is head these things can only be written of in capital letters had acquired wealth in the dark political days of queen anne
and had bought the land and built the house and the property had never passed into alien hands as for the name
viscountess drane in her own right
of a paramour they fought one spring dawn in the park the traditional spot could be seen from where ursula winwood was sitting ursula and her brother were proud of the romantic episode and would relate it to guests and point out the scene of the duel
happy and illusory days of romance now dead and gone it is not conceivable that generations hence the head of a family will exhibit with pride the stained newspaper cuttings containing the unsavoury details of the divorce case of his great great grandmother
this aspect of family history seldom presented itself to ursula winwood
starlings mindful of a second brood chattered in the old walnut trees far away on the lawn thrushes sang their deep throated bugle calls finches twittered a light breeze creeping up the avenue rustled the full foliage languorously
ursula winwood closed her eyes a bumble bee droned between visits to foxglove bells near by she loved bumble bees they reminded her of a summer long ago when she sat not on this seat
as a matter of fact it was in the old walled garden a quarter of a mile away with a gallant young fellow's arms about her and her head on his shoulder a bumble bee had droned round her while they kissed she could never hear a bumble bee without thinking of it
and ursula winwood's heart had been buried in his sandy grave that was the beginning and end of her sentimental history she had recovered from the pain of it all and now she loved the bumble bee for invoking the exquisite memory
the lithe sussex spaniel crept farther on her lap and her hand caressed his polished coat drowsiness disintegrated the exquisite memories miss ursula winwood fell asleep the sudden plunging of
strong young paws into her body and a series of sharp barks and growls awakened her with a start and for a second still dazed by the drowsy invocation of the bumble bee she saw approaching her the gallant fellow who had
she remained for a moment tense passively awaiting co ordination of her faculties then clear awake and sending scudding the dear ghosts of the past
she sat up and catching the indignant spaniel by the collar looked with a queer sudden interest at the newcomer he was young extraordinarily beautiful but he staggered and reeled like a drunken man the spaniel barked his respectable disapproval
with unparalleled moral courage he told him exactly what he thought of him but the trespasser did not hear he kept on advancing
and fell in a sprawling heap at her feet he lay very still ursula winwood looked down upon him the shiny brown spaniel took up a strategic position
his chin between his paws but the more miss winwood looked and her blue eyes were trained to penetrate the more was she convinced that both she and the dog were wrong in their diagnosis
for a moment or so she had a qualm of fear lest he might be dead she bent down took him in her capable grip and composed his inert body decently and placed the knapsack he was wearing beneath his head
the faintly beating heart proved him to be alive but her touch on his brow discovered fever kneeling by his side she wiped his lips with her handkerchief and gave herself up to the fraction of a minute's contemplation of the most beautiful youth she had ever seen so there he lay
a new endymion while the most modern of dianas hung over him stricken with great wonderment at his perfection
my dear uncle edward she wrung his hand i'm so glad to see you
sir thomas browne's religio medici and urn burial on the flyleaf paul savelli an undergraduate i should say on a walking tour miss winwood took the book from his hands a little cheap reprint i'm glad she said
why my dear ursula i'm very fond of sir thomas browne myself she replied presently the doctor came and made his examination he shook a grave head pneumonia
perhaps a touch of the sun as well the housekeeper smiled discreetly looks half starved too i'll send up the ambulance at once and get him to the cottage hospital miss winwood a practical woman was aware that the doctor gave wise counsel
its kind is not for people who carry about sir thomas browne in their pocket retorted the disingenuous lady if i turned him out of my house doctor and anything happened to him i should have to reckon with his people he stays here you'll kindly arrange for nurses
the red room wilkins no the green the one with the small oak bed you can't nurse people properly in four posters it has a south east aspect she turned to the doctor and so gets the sun most of the day that's quite right isn't it
ideal but i warn you miss winwood you may be letting yourself in for a perfectly avoidable lot of trouble i like trouble said miss winwood you're certainly looking for it replied the doctor glancing at paul and stuffing his stethoscope into his pocket and in this case i can promise you worry beyond dreams of anxiety
the word of ursula winwood was law for miles around doctor fuller rosy fat and fifty obeyed like everyone else
but during the process of law making he had often before now played the part of an urbane and gently satirical leader of the opposition she flashed round on him with a foolish pain through her heart that caused her to catch her breath is he as bad as that she asked quickly
as bad as that said the doctor with grave significance how he managed to get here is a mystery within a quarter of an hour the unconscious paul clad in a suit of colonel winwood's silk pyjamas lay in a fragrant room hung with green and furnished in old black oak
and the lady of the house being absurdly anxious for a great london specialist whose fee in doctor fuller's quiet eyes would be amusingly fantastic it seems horrible to search the poor boy's pockets said miss winwood when
but we must try to find out who he is and communicate with his people savelli i've never heard of them i wonder who they are there is an historical italian family of that name said the archdeacon i was sure of it said miss winwood
all right why are you sure ursula was very fond of her uncle he represented to her the fine flower of the church of england a gentleman a scholar an ideal physical type of the anglican dignitary a man of unquestionable piety and christian charity
of america or parisian apaches in him the branch of the family tree had burgeoned into the perfect cleric yet sometimes the play of light beneath the surface of those blue eyes so like her own and the delicately intoned challenges of his courtly voice
exasperated her beyond measure it's obvious to any idiot my dear she replied testily just look at him it speaks for itself the archdeacon put his thin hand on her plump shoulder and smiled the old man had a very sunny smile
i'm sorry to carry on a conversation so socratically said he but what is it i've never seen anything so physically beautiful save the statues in the vatican in all my life if he's not an aristocrat to the finger tips i'll give up all my work turn catholic and go into a nunnery
which will distress you exceedingly
he reads the religio medici
than he reads tertullian or the upanishads he also reads said the archdeacon stuffing his hand into paul's knapsack against whose canvas the stiff outline of a book revealed itself he also reads he held up a little fat duodecimo
that proves it cried miss winwood proves what his blue eyes twinkled having a sense of humour she laughed and flung her great arm round his frail shoulders it proves my venerable and otherwise distinguished dear that i am right and you are wrong my good ursula said he
disengaging himself i have not advanced one argument either in favour of
the gardens laid out with taste were adorned with fine marble statues the palace was beautifully built
the master of the house was a man of sixty and very rich he received the two travellers with polite indifference which put candide a little out of countenance but was not at all disagreeable to martin
first two pretty girls very neatly dressed served them with chocolate which was frothed exceedingly well candide could not refrain from commending their beauty grace and address they are good enough creatures said the senator
i make them lie with me sometimes for i am very tired of the ladies of the town of their coquetries of their jealousies of their quarrels of their humours of their pettinesses
of their prides of their follies and of the sonnets which one must make or have made for them
for my part i have long since renounced those paltry entertainments which constitute the glory of modern italy and are purchased so dearly by sovereigns
they sat down to table and after an excellent dinner they went into the library
there said he is a book that was once the delight of the great pangloss the best philosopher in germany it is not mine answered pococurante coolly
those gods that are always active without doing anything decisive that helen who is the cause of the war and who yet scarcely appears in the piece
that troy so long besieged without being taken all these together caused me great weariness i have sometimes asked learned men whether they were not as weary as i of that work
those who were sincere have owned to me that the poem made them fall asleep yet it was necessary to have it in their library as a monument of antiquity or like those rusty medals which are no longer of use in commerce
i grant said the senator that the second fourth and sixth books of his a eneid are excellent
i think there can be nothing more flat and disagreeable i prefer tasso a good deal or even the soporific tales of ariosto
there are maxims in this writer answered pococurante from which a man of the world may reap great benefit and being written in energetic verse they are more easily impressed upon the memory
but i care little for his journey to brundusium
and his account of a bad dinner or of his low quarrel between one rupilius whose words he says were full of poisonous filth and another whose language was imbued with vinegar i have read with much distaste his indelicate verses against old women and witches
fools admire everything in an author of reputation for my part i read only to please myself i like only that which serves my purpose
martin found there was a good deal of reason in pococurante's remarks
ha here are four score volumes of the academy of sciences cried martin perhaps there is something valuable in this collection
but in all these volumes there is nothing but chimerical systems and not a single useful thing and what dramatic works i see here said candide in italian spanish and french yes
replied the senator there are three thousand and not three dozen of them good for anything as to those collections of sermons which altogether are not worth a single page of seneca and those huge volumes of theology
you may well imagine that neither i nor any one else ever opens them martin saw some shelves filled with english books
this is the privilege of humanity in all our italy we write only what we do not think those who inhabit the country of the caesars and the antoninuses dare not acquire a single idea without the permission of a dominican friar
i should be pleased with the liberty which inspires the english genius if passion and party spirit did not corrupt all that is estimable in this precious liberty
and who while moses represents the eternal producing the world by a word makes the messiah take a great pair of compasses from the armoury of heaven to circumscribe his work how can i have any esteem
neither i nor any man in italy could take pleasure in those melancholy extravagances and the marriage of sin and death and the snakes brought forth by sin
are enough to turn the stomach of any one with the least taste and his long description of a pest house is good only for a grave digger
this obscure whimsical and disagreeable poem was despised upon its first publication and i only treat it now as it was treated in its own country by contemporaries for the matter of that
i say what i think and i care very little whether others think as i do
alas said he softly to martin i am afraid that this man holds our german poets in very great contempt there would not be much harm in that said martin
oh what a superior man said candide below his breath what a great genius is this pococurante nothing can please him
i know of nothing in so bad a taste said the master all you see here is merely trifling after to morrow i will have it planted with a nobler design
well said candide to martin when they had taken their leave you will agree that this is the happiest of mortals for he is above everything he possesses but do you not see answered martin that he is disgusted with all he possesses
in pointing out faults where others see nothing but beauties that is to say replied martin that there is some pleasure in having no pleasure well
he consulted pangloss martin and the faithful cacambo
martin was for throwing the baron into the sea cacambo decided that it would be better to deliver him up again to the captain of the galley after which they thought to send him back to the general father of the order at rome by the first ship
this advice was well received the old woman approved it they said not a word to his sister the thing was executed for a little money and they had the double pleasure of entrapping a jesuit and punishing the pride of a german baron
cacambo who worked in the garden and took vegetables for sale to constantinople was fatigued with hard work and cursed his destiny pangloss was in despair at not shining in some german university
for martin he was firmly persuaded that he would be as badly off elsewhere and therefore bore things patiently
coming to supply the place of the exiles and afterwards exiled in their turn they saw heads decently impaled for presentation to the sublime porte
such spectacles as these increased the number of their dissertations and when they did not dispute time hung so heavily upon their hands that one day the old woman ventured to say to them i want to know which is worse
to be ravished a hundred times by negro pirates to have a buttock cut off to run the gauntlet among the bulgarians to be whipped and hanged at an auto da fe
to be dissected to row in the galleys in short to go through all the miseries we have undergone or to stay here
this discourse gave rise to new reflections and martin especially concluded that man was born to live either in a state of distracting inquietude or of lethargic disgust
in extreme misery they had soon squandered their three thousand piastres parted were reconciled quarrelled again
paquette continued her trade wherever she went but made nothing of it
in the neighbourhood there lived a very famous dervish who was esteemed the best philosopher in all turkey and they went to consult him pangloss was the speaker
master said he we come to beg you to tell why so strange an animal as man was made
i was in hopes said pangloss that i should reason with you a little about causes and effects about the best of possible worlds the origin of evil the nature of the soul and the pre established harmony
at these words the dervish shut the door in their faces during this conversation the news was spread that two viziers and the mufti had been strangled at constantinople and that several of their friends had been impaled
this catastrophe made a great noise for some hours
i am entirely ignorant of the event you mention
their little plot of land produced plentiful crops
paquette worked at embroidery the old woman looked after the linen
but there was no news of cacambo
and yet the beautiful cunegonde has not arrived
and there is nothing for me but to die
you are in the right my dear martin all is misery and illusion he fell into a deep melancholy and neither went to see the opera nor any of the other diversions of the carnival
if he find her he will keep her to himself if he do not find her he will get another i advise you to forget your valet cacambo and your mistress cunegonde martin was not consoling
candide's melancholy increased and martin continued to prove to him that there was very little virtue or happiness upon earth except perhaps in el dorado where nobody could gain admittance while they were disputing on this important subject
she looked amorously at her theatin and from time to time pinched his fat cheeks
at least you will allow me said candide to martin that these two are happy hitherto i have met with none but unfortunate people in the whole habitable globe except in el dorado but as to this pair i would venture to lay a wager that they are very happy i lay you they are not said martin
immediately he accosted them
the girl blushed the theatin accepted the invitation and she followed him
and dropping a few tears no sooner had she set foot in candide's apartment than she cried out
candide had not viewed her as yet with attention his thoughts being entirely taken up with cunegonde but recollecting her as she spoke
alas it was i sir indeed answered paquette i see that you have heard all
i have been informed of the frightful disasters that befell the family of my lady baroness and the fair cunegonde i swear to you that my fate has been scarcely less sad
if a famous surgeon had not taken compassion on me i should have died
you know sir what a dangerous thing it is for an ill natured woman to be married to a doctor incensed at the behaviour of his wife
he one day gave her so effectual a remedy to cure her of a slight cold that she died two hours after in most horrid convulsions the wife's relations prosecuted the husband he took flight and i was thrown into jail
my innocence would not have saved me if i had not been good looking the judge set me free on condition that he succeeded the surgeon
i was soon supplanted by a rival turned out of doors quite destitute and obliged to continue this abominable trade
which appears so pleasant to you men while to us women it is the utmost abyss of misery i have come to exercise the profession at venice
a gondolier an abbe to be exposed to abuse and insults to be often reduced to borrowing a petticoat only to go and have it raised by a disagreeable man
to be robbed by one of what one has earned from another to be subject to the extortions of the officers of justice and to have in prospect only a frightful old age a hospital and a dung hill
you see that already i have won half the wager friar giroflee stayed in the dining room and drank a glass or two of wine while he was waiting for dinner but said candide to paquette you looked so gay and content when i met you
you sang and you behaved so lovingly to the theatin that you seemed to me as happy as you pretend to be now the reverse ah sir answered paquette
this is one of the miseries of the trade yesterday i was robbed and beaten by an officer yet to day i must put on good humour to please a friar candide wanted no more convincing he owned that martin was in the right
the flower of health shines in your face your expression makes plain your happiness you have a very pretty girl for your recreation and you seem well satisfied with your state as a theatin my faith sir said friar giroflee
i wish that all the theatins were at the bottom of the sea i have been tempted a hundred times to set fire to the convent and go and become a turk
my parents forced me at the age of fifteen to put on this detestable habit to increase the fortune of a cursed elder brother whom god confound jealousy discord and fury dwell in the convent
it is true i have preached a few bad sermons that have brought me in a little money of which the prior stole half while the rest serves to maintain my girls
and all my fellows are in the same case
well said he have i not won the whole wager
and one thousand to friar giroflee i'll answer for it said he that with this they will be happy i do not believe it at all said martin you will perhaps with these piastres only render them the more unhappy
let that be as it may said candide but one thing consoles me i see that we often meet with those whom we expected never to see more so that perhaps as i have found my red sheep and paquette
i wish said martin she may one day make you very happy but i doubt it very much
they included detective and missus george o miller and family and friends who had gathered to witness the burial of the former's bright little son harry as the casket rested upon the trestles there was a painful pause
broken only by the mother's sobs until the undertaker advanced toward a stout florid complexioned gentleman in the party and whispered to him the words being inaudible to the lookers on
this gentleman was colonel robert g ingersoll a friend of the millers who had attended the funeral at their request he shook his head when the undertaker first addressed him and then said suddenly does missus miller desire it
the undertaker gave an affirmative nod mister miller looked appealingly toward the distinguished orator and then colonel ingersoll advanced to the side of the grave made a motion denoting a desire for silence
and in a voice of exquisite cadence delivered one of his characteristic eulogies for the dead
the scene was intensely dramatic a fine drizzling rain was falling and every head was bent and every ear turned to catch the impassioned words of eloquence and hope that fell from the lips of the famed orator
colonel ingersoll was unprotected by either hat or umbrella
brightening and sobs becoming hushed the colonel said my friends i know how vain it is to gild a grief with words and yet i wish to take from every grave its fear
here in this world where life and death are equal kings all should be brave enough to meet what all have met the future has been filled with fear stained and polluted by the heartless past
from the wondrous tree of life the buds and blossoms fall with ripened fruit and in the common bed of earth patriarchs and babes sleep side by side
why should we fear that which will come to all that is we cannot tell we do not know which is the greatest blessing life or death
we cannot say that death is not good we do not know whether the grave is the end of this life or the door of another or whether the night here is not somewhere else a dawn
neither can we tell which is the more fortunate the child dying in its mother's arms before its lips have learned to form a word
or he who journeys all the length of life's uneven road painfully taking the last slow steps with staff and crutch every cradle asks us whence and every coffin whither
the poor barbarian weeping above his dead can answer the question as intelligently and satisfactorily as the robed priest of the most authentic creed
the tearful ignorance of the one is just as consoling as the learned and unmeaning words of the other
it may be that death gives all there is of worth to life if those who press and strain against our hearts could never die perhaps that love would wither from the earth
maybe a common faith treads from out the paths between our hearts the weeds of selfishness and i should rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is not
another life is naught unless we know and love again the ones who love us here they who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave need have no fear
the largest and the nobler faith in all that is and is to be tells us that death even at its worst is only perfect rest
almost of joy there is for them this consolation the dead do not suffer if they live again their lives will surely be as good as ours we have no fear
and the same fate awaits us all we too have our religion and it is this help for the living hope for the dead
most exquisite yet one of the most sad and mournful sermons the funeral of
took place at his residence in washington d c june second eighteen seventy nine the ceremonies were extremely simple consisting merely of viewing the remains by relatives and friends and a funeral oration by colonel robert g ingersoll
brother of the deceased a large number of distinguished gentlemen were present including secretary sherman assistant secretary hawley senators blaine vorhees paddock allison logan
the pall bearers were senators blaine vorhees david davis paddock and allison colonel ward h lamon hon jeremiah wilson of indiana and hon thomas a boyd of illinois
soon after mister ingersoll began to read his eloquent characterization of the dead his eyes filled with tears he tried to hide them behind his eye glasses
but he could not do it and finally he bowed his head upon the dead man's coffin in uncontrollable grief it was after some delay and the greatest efforts of self mastery that colonel ingersoll was able to finish reading his address
which was as follows my friends i am going to do that which the dead often promised he would do for me the loved and loving brother husband father friend
died where manhood's morning almost touches noon and while the shadows still were falling toward the west he had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point
but being weary for a moment he lay down by the wayside and using his burden for a pillow fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still
while yet in love with life and raptured with the world he passed to silence and pathetic dust yet after all it may be best
just in the happiest sunniest hour of all the voyage while eager winds are kissing every sail to dash against the unseen rock and in an instant hear the billows roar over a sunken ship
for whether in mid sea or among the breakers of the farther shore a wreck must mark at last the end of each and all and every life no matter if its every hour is rich with love
and every moment jeweled with a joy will at its close become a tragedy
this brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock but in the sunshine he was vine and flower he was the friend of all heroic souls
he climbed the heights and left all superstitions far below while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of a grander day he loved the beautiful
he sided with the weak and with a willing hand gave alms with loyal heart and with the purest hand he faithful discharged all public trusts he was a worshiper of liberty
and a friend of the oppressed a thousand times i have heard him quote the words for justice all place a temple and all season summer he believed that happiness was the only good
reason the only torch justice the only worshiper humanity the only religion and love the priest he added to the sum of human joy
but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing he who sleeps here when dying mistaking the approach of death for the return of health
whispered with his latest breath i am better now let us believe in spite of doubts and dogmas and tears and fears that these dear words
are true of all the countless dead and now to you who have been chosen from among the many men he loved to do the last sad office for the dead we give his sacred dust
speech can not contain our love there was there is no gentler stronger
newcastle's regiment alone resolute to conquer or to perish obstinately kept their ground and maintained by their dead bodies the same order in which they had at first been ranged in the other wing sir thomas fairfax
restoring order to his broken forces made a furious attack on the parliamentary cavalry threw them into disorder pushed them upon their own infantry and put that whole wing to rout when ready to seize on their carriages and baggage
and each army occupied the ground which had been possessed by the enemy at the beginning of the day this second battle was equally furious and desperate with the first but after the utmost efforts of courage by both parties
had been engaged contrary to the natural bent of his disposition into these military operations merely by a high sense of honor and a personal regard to his master the dangers of war were disregarded by his valor but its fatigues were oppressive to his natural indolence
munificent and generous in his expense polite and elegant in his taste courteous and humane in his behavior he brought a great accession of friends and of credit to the party which he embraced
but amidst all the hurry of action his inclinations were secretly drawn to the soft arts of peace in which he took delight and the charms of poetry music and conversation often stole him from his rougher occupations
he chose sir william devenant an ingenious poet for his lieutenant general the other persons in whom he placed confidence were more the instruments of his refined pleasures than qualified for the business which they undertook
and the severity and application requisite to the support of discipline were qualities in which he was entirely wanting when prince rupert contrary to his advice resolved on this battle and issued all orders without communicating his intentions to him
he took the field but he said merely as a volunteer and except by his personal courage which shone out with lustre he had no share in the action enraged to find that all his successful labors were rendered abortive by one act of fatal temerity
terrified with the prospect of renewing his pains and fatigue he resolved no longer to maintain the few resources which remained to a desperate cause and thought that the same regard to honor which had at first called him to arms
now required him to abandon a party where he met with such unworthy treatment next morning early he sent word to the prince that he was instantly to leave the kingdom and without delay he went to scarborough where he found a vessel which carried him beyond sea
and the least favorable censors of his merit allowed that the fidelity and services of a whole life had sufficiently atoned for one rash action into which his passion had betrayed him prince rupert with equal precipitation
lord fairfax remaining in the city
in order to join the earl of calender who was advancing with ten thousand additional forces and to reduce the town of newcastle
many speeches were made to the citizens by the parliamentary leaders
which had taken abingdon and had enclosed him on both sides he marched towards worcester and waller received orders from essex to follow him and watch his motions while he himself marched into the west in quest of prince maurice
of falling on the rear of the royalists he was repulsed routed and pursued with considerable loss stunned and disheartened with this blow his army decayed and melted away by desertion and the king thought he might safely leave it
and march westward against essex that general having obliged prince maurice to raise the siege of lyme having taken weymouth and taunton advanced still in his conquests and met with no equal opposition
the king followed him and having reenforced his army from all quarters appeared in the field with an army superior to the enemy essex retreating into cornwall informed the parliament of his danger and desired them to send an army which might fall on the king's rear
general middleton received a commission to execute that service but came too late essex's army cooped up in a narrow corner at lestithiel deprived of all forage and provisions and seeing no prospect of succor was reduced to the last extremity
the king pressed them on one side prince maurice on another sir richard granville on a third essex robarts and some of the principal officers escaped in a boat to plymouth balfour with his horse passed the king's outposts in a thick mist
offer battle to the king charles chose his post at newbury where the parliamentary armies under the earl of manchester attacked him with great vigor and that town was a second time the scene of the bloody animosities of the english
charles leaving his baggage and cannon in dennington castle near newbury forthwith retreated to wallingford and thence to oxford
strengthened by this reenforcement he ventured to advance towards the enemy now employed before dennington castle essex detained by sickness had not joined the army since his misfortune in cornwall
manchester who commanded though his forces were much superior to those of the king declined an engagement and rejected cromwell's advice who earnestly pressed him not to neglect so favorable an opportunity of finishing the war
the king's army by bringing off their cannon from dennington castle in the face of the enemy seemed to have sufficiently repaired the honor which they had lost at newbury
began to discover itself with high contest and animosity the independents who had at first taken shelter and concealed themselves under the wings of the presbyterians now evidently appeared a distinct party and betrayed very different views and pretensions
it was impossible to set bounds to these holy fervors or confine within any natural limits what was directed towards an infinite and a supernatural object every man as prompted by the warmth of his temper
excited by emulation or supported by his habits of hypocrisy endeavored to distinguish himself beyond his fellows and to arrive at a higher pitch of saintship and perfection in proportion to its degree of fanaticism
no interposition of the magistrate in religious concerns no fixed encouragement annexed to any system of doctrines or opinions according to their principles each congregation united voluntarily and by spiritual ties
and as all essential distinction was denied between the laity and the clergy no ceremony no institution no vocation no imposition of hands was as in all other churches supposed requisite to convey a right to holy orders
the enthusiasm of the presbyterians led them to reject the authority of prelates to throw off the restraint of liturgies to retrench ceremonies to limit the riches and authority of the priestly office the fanaticism of the
independents exalted to a higher pitch abolished ecclesiastical government disdained creeds and systems neglected every ceremony and confounded all ranks and orders the soldier the merchant
the mechanic indulging the fervors of zeal and guided by the illapses of the spirit resigned himself to an inward and superior direction and was consecrated in a manner by an immediate intercourse and communication with heaven the catholics
pretending to an infallible guide had justified upon that principle their doctrine and practice of persecution the presbyterians imagining that such clear and certain tenets as they themselves adopted could be rejected only from a criminal and pertinacious obstinacy
had hitherto gratified to the full their bigoted zeal in a like doctrine and practice the independents from the extremity of the same zeal were led into the milder principles of toleration
their mind set afloat in the wide sea of inspiration could confine itself within no certain limits and the same variations in which an enthusiast indulged himself he was apt by a natural train of thinking to permit in others
of all christian sects this was the first which during its prosperity as well as its adversity always adopted the principle of toleration and it is remarkable that so reasonable a doctrine owed its origin not to reasoning
but to the height of extravagance and fanaticism popery and prelacy alone whose genius seemed to tend towards superstition were treated by the independents with rigor the doctrines too of fate or destiny were deemed by them essential to all religion
in these rigid opinions the whole sectaries amidst all their other differences unanimously concurred the political system of the independents kept pace with their religious not content with confining to very narrow limits the power of the crown
and reducing the king to the rank of first magistrate which was the project of the presbyterians this sect more ardent in the pursuit of liberty aspired to a total abolition of the monarchy and even of the aristocracy and projected an entire equality of rank and order
that whoever draws the sword against his sovereign should throw away the scabbard by terrifying others with the fear of vengeance from the offended prince they had engaged greater numbers into the opposition against peace than had adopted their other principles with regard to government and religion
and oliver saint john the solicitor general were regarded as the leaders of the independents the earl of essex disgusted with a war of which he began to foresee the pernicious consequences adhered to the presbyterians and promoted every reasonable plan of accommodation
the earl of northumberland fond of his rank and dignity regarded with horror a scheme which if it took place
sir william waller hollis massey whitlocke
the earl of manchester provoked at the impeachment which the king had lodged against him had long forwarded the war with alacrity but being a man of humanity and good principles the view of public calamities and the prospect of a total subversion of government
that this nobleman had wilfully neglected at dennington castle a favorable opportunity of finishing the war by a total defeat of the royalists i showed him evidently said cromwell how this success might be obtained
and only desired leave with my own brigade of horse to charge the king's army in their retreat leaving it in the earl's choice if he thought proper
so full was cromwell of these republican projects that notwithstanding his habits of profound dissimulation he could not so carefully guard his expressions but that sometimes his favorite notions would escape him
it was in some measure owing to his popularity that they had ever been enabled to levy an army or make head against the royal cause manchester warwick and the other commanders
took care to treat of the reigning divisions in the parliament and ascribed them entirely to the selfish ends pursued by the members in the hands of those members they said are lodged all the considerable commands of the army
all the lucrative offices in the civil administration and while the nation is falling every day into poverty and groans under an insupportable load of taxes these men multiply possession on possession and will in a little time be masters of all the wealth of the kingdom
and operations in the field concurring in the same pernicious end with deliberations in the cabinet
sir henry vane told the commons that if ever god appeared to them it was in the ordinances of yesterday that as he was credibly informed by many who had been present in different congregations the same lamentations and discourses which the godly preachers had made before them
had been heard in other churches that so remarkable a concurrence could proceed only from the immediate operation of the holy spirit that he therefore entreated them in vindication of their own honor in consideration of their duty to god and their country
to lay aside all private ends and renounce every office attended with profit or advantage that the absence of so many members occupied in different employments had rendered the house extremely thin and diminished the authority of their determinations
and that he could not forbear for his own part accusing himself as one who enjoyed a gainful office that of treasurer of the navy and though he was possessed of it before the civil commotions and owed it not to the favor of the parliament
nothing which they undertook could possibly prosper the parliament no doubt continued he
had done wisely on the commencement of the war in engaging several of its members in the most dangerous parts of it and thereby satisfying the nation that they intended to share all hazards with the meanest of the people but affairs are now changed during the progress of military operations
yet he could assure them that their troops contained generals fit to command in any enterprise in christendom the army indeed he was sorry to say it did not correspond by its discipline to the merit of the officers nor were there any hopes
many of the presbyterians showed the inconvenience and danger of the projected alteration whitlocke in particular a man of honor who loved his country though in every change of government he always adhered to the ruling power said
that besides the ingratitude of discarding and that by fraud and artifice so many noble persons to whom the parliament had hitherto owed its chief support
they would find it extremely difficult to supply the place of men now formed by experience to command and authority that the rank alone possessed by such as were members of either house prevented envy retained the army in obedience and gave weight to military orders
that the greeks and romans the wisest and most passionate lovers of liberty had ever intrusted to their senators the command of armies
and for a long time rent the parliament and city into factions but at last by the prevalence of envy with some with others of false modesty with a great many of the republican and independent views it passed the house of commons and was sent to the upper house
the peers though the scheme was in part levelled against their order though all of them were at bottom extremely averse to it though they even ventured once to reject it yet possessed so little authority that they durst not persevere in opposing the resolution of the commons
and they thought it better policy by an unlimited compliance to ward off that ruin which they saw approaching the ordinance therefore having passed both houses
brereton and many others resigned their commands and received the thanks of parliament for their good services
it is remarkable that his commission did not run like that of essex in the name of the king and parliament but in that of the parliament alone and the article concerning the safety of the king's person was omitted so much had animosities increased between the parties
at the time when the other officers resigned their commissions care was taken that he should be sent with a body of horse to relieve taunton besieged by the royalists his absence being remarked orders were despatched for his immediate attendance in parliament
wrote to the parliament and desired leave to retain for some days lieutenant general cromwell whose advice he said would be useful in supplying the place of those officers who had resigned shortly after he begged with much earnestness
or principles derived from religious and party zeal he seems never in the course of his public conduct to have been diverted by private interest or ambition from adhering strictly to these principles sincere in his professions
disinterested in his views open in his conduct he had formed one of the most shining characters of the age
and his embarrassed and confused elocution on every occasion but when he gave orders diminished the lustre of his merit and rendered the part which he acted even when vested with the supreme command but secondary and subordinate cromwell
by whose sagacity and insinuation fairfax was entirely governed is one of the most eminent and most singular personages that occurs in history the strokes of his character are as open and strongly marked as the schemes of his conduct were during the time
dark and impenetrable his extensive capacity enabled him to form the most enlarged projects his enterprising genius was not dismayed with the boldest and most dangerous carried by his natural temper to magnanimity to grandeur
and by using well that authority which he had attained by fraud and violence he has lessened if not overpowered our detestation of his enormities by our admiration of his success and of his genius
during this important transaction of the self denying ordinance the negotiations for peace were likewise carried on though with small hopes of success the king having sent two messages
it now became necessary for him to retract his former declaration that the two houses at westminster were not a free parliament and accordingly he was induced though with great reluctance to give them in his answer the appellation of the parliament of england
is the most noted of those very few instances from which the enemies of this prince have endeavored to load him with the imputation of insincerity and have inferred that the parliament could repose no confidence in his professions and declarations not even in his laws and statutes
religion the militia and ireland and that these should be successively discussed in conference with the king's commissioners it was soon found impracticable to come to any agreement with regard to any of these articles in the summer of sixteen forty three
while the negotiations were carried on with scotland the parliament had summoned an assembly at westminster consisting of one hundred and twenty one divines and thirty laymen celebrated in their party for piety and learning
by their advice alterations were made in the thirty nine articles or in the metaphysical doctrines of the church and what was of greater importance the liturgy was entirely abolished and in its stead a new directory for worship was established
and a national engagement attended with every circumstance that could render a promise sacred and obligatory was entered into with the scots never to suffer its readmission all these measures showed little spirit of accommodation in the parliament
and he thought himself bound by more sacred ties than those of policy or even of honor to the support of that order his concessions therefore on this head
he judged sufficient when he agreed that an indulgence should be given to tender consciences with regard to ceremonies that the bishops should exercise no act of jurisdiction or ordination without the consent and counsel of such presbyters
the king's partisans had all along maintained that the fears and jealousies of the parliament after the securities so early and easily given to public liberty were either feigned or groundless and that no human institution could be better poised and adjusted
than was now the government of england by the abolition of the star chamber and court of high commission the prerogative they said has lost all that coercive power by which it had formerly suppressed or endangered liberty
by the establishment of triennial parliaments it can have no leisure to acquire new powers or guard itself during any time from the inspection of that vigilant assembly by the slender revenue of the crown
in this situation surely the nation governed by so virtuous a monarch may for the present remain in tranquillity and try whether it be not possible by peaceful arts to elude that danger with which it is pretended its liberties are still threatened
they were obliged to own that the progress of civil commotions had somewhat abated the force and evidence of this reasoning if the power of the militia said the opposite party be intrusted to the king it would not now be difficult for him to abuse that authority
by the rage of intestine discord
which in their apprehension have been the source of so much disorder were the arms of the state therefore put entirely into such hands what public security it may be demanded can be given to liberty
or what private security to those who in opposition to the letter of the law have so generously ventured their lives in its defence in compliance with this apprehension
but to be settled by bill or by common agreement between him and his parliament the king's commissioners asked whether jealousies and fears were all on one side and whether the prince from such violent attempts and pretensions as he had experienced
whether if unlimited power were intrusted to the parliament during so long a period it would not be easy for them to frame the subsequent bill in the manner most agreeable to themselves and keep forever possession of the sword as well as of every article of civil power and jurisdiction
to find security for both parties especially for that of the parliament amidst such violent animosities power alone could insure safety and the power of one side was necessarily attended with danger to the other
still more exorbitant which a little before had been transmitted to the king at oxford such ignominious terms were there insisted on that worse could scarcely be demanded were charles totally vanquished a prisoner and in chains
all lawyers and divines who had embraced the king's party should be rendered incapable of any office be forbidden the exercise of their profession be prohibited from coming within the verge of the court and forfeit the third of their estates to the parliament
that popular assemblies as by their very number they are in a great measure exempt from the restraint of shame so when they also overleap the bounds of law
had found no leisure to finish his impeachment and he had patiently endured so long an imprisonment without being brought to any trial after the union with scotland the bigoted prejudices of that nation revived the like spirit in england
and the sectaries resolved to gratify their vengeance in the punishment of this prelate who had so long by his authority and by the execution of penal laws kept their zealous spirit under confinement
the same violence and iniquity in conducting the trial are conspicuous throughout the whole course of this prosecution the groundless charge of popery though belied by his whole life and conduct was continually urged against the prisoner
and every error rendered unpardonable by this imputation which was supposed to imply the height of all enormities this man my lords said serjeant wilde concluding his long speech against him
we shall not enter into a detail of this matter which at present seems to admit of little controversy it suffices to say that after a long trial and the examination of above a hundred and fifty witnesses
notwithstanding the low condition into which the house of peers was fallen there appeared some intention of rejecting this ordinance and the popular leaders were again obliged to apply to the multitude and to extinguish by threats of new tumults
but though he had usually professed himself apprehensive of a violent death he found all his fears to be dissipated before that superior courage by which he was animated no one said he can be more willing to send me out of life than i am desirous to go
a zealot of the reigning sect and a great leader in the lower house this was the time he chose for examining the principles of the dying primate and trepanning him into a confession that he trusted for his salvation to the merits of good works
not to the death of the redeemer having extricated himself from these theological toils the archbishop laid his head on the block and it was severed from the body at one blow those religious opinions for which he suffered
while others thought that his conduct in these three particulars would admit of apology and extenuation that the letter of the law as much as the most flaming court sermon inculcates passive obedience is apparent
and though the spirit of a limited government seems to require in extraordinary cases some mitigation of so rigorous a doctrine it must be confessed that the presiding genius of the english constitution
savors strongly of the spirit of tyranny and proscription toleration had hitherto been so little the principle of any christian sect that even the catholics the remnant of the religion professed by their forefathers could not obtain from the english the least indulgence
this very house of commons in their famous remonstrance took care to justify themselves as from the highest imputation from any intention to relax the golden reins of discipline as they called them or to grant any toleration
and the enemies of the church were so fair from the beginning as not to lay claim to liberty of conscience which they called a toleration for soul murder they openly challenged the superiority and even menaced the established church with that persecution
laud and his associates by reviving a few primitive institutions of this nature corrected the error of the first reformers and presented to the affrightened and astonished mind some sensible exterior observances
which might occupy it during its religious exercises and abate the violence of its disappointed efforts the thought no longer bent on that divine and mysterious essence so superior to the narrow capacities of mankind
chapter fourteen wherein is continued the adventure of the knight of the grove among the things that passed between don quixote and the knight of the wood the history tells us he of the grove said to don quixote in fine sir knight
i would have you know that my destiny or more properly speaking my choice
whether it be in bodily stature or in the supremacy of rank and beauty this same casildea then that i speak of requited my honourable passion and gentle aspirations by compelling me as his stepmother did hercules
to engage in many perils of various sorts at the end of each promising me that with the end of the next the object of my hopes should be attained but my labours have gone on increasing link by link until they are past counting
on one occasion she bade me go and challenge the famous giantess of seville la giralda by name who is as mighty and strong as if made of brass and though never stirring from one spot is the most restless and changeable woman in the world
i came i saw i conquered and i made her stay quiet and behave herself for nothing but north winds blew for more than a week another time i was ordered to lift those ancient stones the mighty bulls of guisando
an enterprise that might more fitly be entrusted to porters than to knights again she bade me fling myself into the cavern of cabra an unparalleled and awful peril and bring her a minute account of all that is concealed in those gloomy depths
i lifted the bulls of guisando i flung myself into the cavern and brought to light the secrets of its abyss and my hopes are as dead as dead can be and her scorn and her commands as lively as ever to be brief
last of all she has commanded me to go through all the provinces of spain and compel all the knights errant wandering therein to confess that she surpasses all women alive to day in beauty and that i am the most valiant and the most deeply enamoured knight on earth
in support of which claim i have already travelled over the greater part of spain
but what i most plume and pride myself upon is having vanquished in single combat that so famous knight
and made him confess that my casildea is more beautiful than his dulcinea and in this one victory i hold myself to have conquered all the knights in the world for this don quixote that i speak of has vanquished them all and i having vanquished him
for the more the vanquished hath of fair renown the greater glory gilds the victor's crown
and was a thousand times on the point of telling him he lied and had the lie direct already on the tip of his tongue but he restrained himself as well as he could in order to force him to confess the lie with his own lips so he said to him quietly
as to what you say sir knight about having vanquished most of the knights of spain
it may have been some other that resembled him although there are few like him how not vanquished said he of the grove by the heaven that is above us i fought don quixote and overcame him and made him yield and he is a man of tall stature
gaunt features long lank limbs with hair turning grey
and large black drooping moustaches he does battle under the name of the countenance and he has for squire a peasant called sancho panza he presses the loins and rules the reins of a famous steed called rocinante and lastly he has for the mistress of his will
once upon a time called aldonza lorenzo just as i call mine casildea de vandalia because her name is casilda and she is of andalusia if all these tokens are not enough to vindicate the truth of what i say
here is my sword that will compel incredulity itself to give credence to it calm yourself sir knight said don quixote and give ear to what i am about to say to you i would have you know that this don quixote you speak of is the greatest friend i have in the world
unless indeed it be that as he has many enemies who are enchanters and one in particular who is always persecuting him some one of these may have taken his shape in order to allow himself to be vanquished
so as to defraud him of the fame that his exalted achievements as a knight have earned and acquired for him throughout the known world and in confirmation of this i must tell you too
into a foul and mean village lass and in the same way they must have transformed don quixote
here is don quixote himself who will maintain it by arms on foot or on horseback or in any way you please and so saying he stood up and laid his hand on his sword waiting to see what the knight of the grove would do
who in an equally calm voice said in reply pledges don't distress a good payer he who has succeeded in vanquishing you once when transformed sir don quixote
but as it is not becoming for knights to perform their feats of arms in the dark like highwaymen and bullies let us wait till daylight that the sun may behold our deeds
and the conditions of our combat shall be that the vanquished shall be at the victor's disposal to do all that he may enjoin
i am more than satisfied with these conditions and terms replied don quixote and so saying they betook themselves to where their squires lay
they roused them up and bade them get the horses ready as at sunrise they were to engage in a bloody and arduous single combat
trembling for the safety of his master because of the mighty deeds he had heard the squire of the grove ascribe to his but without a word the two squires went in quest of their cattle for by this time the three horses and the ass had smelt one another out and were all together
when they are godfathers in any quarrel not to stand idle with folded arms while their godsons fight i say so to remind you that while our masters are fighting we too have to fight and knock one another to shivers
that custom sir squire replied sancho may hold good among those bullies and fighting men you talk of
at least i have never heard my master speak of any custom of the sort and he knows all the laws of knight errantry by heart but granting it true that there is an express law that squires are to fight while their masters are fighting
i don't mean to obey it but to pay the penalty that may be laid on peacefully minded squires like myself for i am sure it cannot be more than two pounds of wax and i would rather pay that for i know it will cost me less than the lint i shall be at the expense of to mend my head
which i look upon as broken and split already there's another thing that makes it impossible for me to fight that i have no sword for i never carried one in my life
i have here two linen bags of the same size you shall take one and i the other and we will fight at bag blows with equal arms
so be it with all my heart said sancho
that will not do said the other for we must put into the bags to keep the wind from blowing them away half a dozen nice smooth pebbles all of the same weight
body of my father said sancho see what marten and sable and pads of carded cotton he is putting into the bags that our heads may not be broken and our bones beaten to jelly
let our masters fight that's their lookout and let us drink and live for time will take care to ease us of our lives without our going to look for fillips so that they may be finished off before their proper time comes and they drop from ripeness
still returned he of the grove
by no means said sancho
be it ever so small with one i have eaten and drunk with besides who the devil could bring himself to fight in cold blood without anger or provocation i can remedy that entirely said he of the grove and in this way
i will send yours so sound to sleep with whacks
where it is known that i am not a man to let my face be handled by anyone let each look out for the arrow though the surer way would be to let everyone's anger sleep for nobody knows the heart of anyone and a man may come for wool and go back shorn
god gave his blessing to peace and his curse to quarrels if a hunted cat surrounded and hard pressed turns into a lion god knows what i who am a man may turn into and so from this time forth i warn you sir squire
will be put down to your account very good said he of the grove god will send the dawn and we shall be all right
it is in fact stated
hooked in the middle covered with warts
it hung down two fingers length below his mouth
as he looked at him began to tremble hand and foot like a child in convulsions and he vowed in his heart to let himself be given two hundred buffets
don quixote examined his adversary and found that he already had his helmet on and visor lowered so that he could not see his face he observed however that he was a sturdily built man but not very tall in stature
over his armour he wore a surcoat or cassock of what seemed to be the finest cloth of gold all bespangled with glittering mirrors like little moons
above his helmet fluttered a great quantity of plumes green yellow and white and his lance which was leaning against a tree was very long and stout and had a steel point more than a palm in length
don quixote observed all and took note of all and from what he saw and observed he concluded that the said knight must be a man of great strength
with a composed and dauntless air he said to the knight of the mirrors if sir knight your great eagerness to fight has not banished your courtesy by it i would entreat you to raise your visor a little
in order that i may see if the comeliness of your countenance corresponds with that of your equipment whether you come victorious or vanquished out of this emprise sir knight replied he of the mirrors
and if now i do not comply with your request
in wasting time while i stopped to raise my visor before compelling you to confess what you are already aware i maintain well then said don quixote while we are mounting you can at least tell me if i am that don quixote whom you said you vanquished
but as you say enchanters persecute you i will not venture to say positively whether you are the said person or not that said don quixote is enough to convince me that you are under a deception however entirely to relieve you of it
let our horses be brought and in less time than it would take you to raise your visor
i shall see your face and you shall see that i am not the vanquished don quixote you take me to be with this cutting short the colloquy they mounted
in order to take a proper distance to charge back upon his adversary and he of the mirrors did the same but don quixote had not moved away twenty paces when he heard himself called by the other and each returning half way he of the mirrors said to him remember sir knight
shall be at the victor's disposal i am aware of it already said don quixote
be things that do not transgress the limits of chivalry that is understood replied he of the mirrors
insomuch that he set him down as a monster of some kind
seeing his master retiring to run his course did not like to be left alone with the nosy man fearing that with one flap of that nose on his own the battle would be all over for him and he would be left stretched on the ground either by the blow or with fright
so he ran after his master holding on to rocinante's stirrup leather and when it seemed to him time to turn about he said i implore of your worship senor before you turn to charge to help me up into this cork tree
from which i will be able to witness the gallant encounter your worship is going to have with this knight more to my taste and better than from the ground it seems to me rather sancho said don quixote that thou wouldst mount a scaffold in order to see the bulls without danger
to tell the truth returned sancho the monstrous nose of that squire has filled me with fear and terror and i dare not stay near him it is said don quixote such a one that were i not what i am
it would terrify me too so come i will help thee up where thou wilt while don quixote waited for sancho to mount into the cork tree he of the mirrors took as much ground as he considered requisite and
without waiting for any sound of trumpet or other signal to direct them
and at his top speed which was an easy trot he proceeded to charge his enemy
for which his horse was very grateful as he was already unable to go don quixote fancying that his foe was coming down upon him flying
digging his spurs into his horse up to buttons without being able to make him stir a finger's length from the spot where he had come to a standstill in his course at this lucky moment and crisis don quixote came upon his adversary
in trouble with his horse and embarrassed with his lance which he either could not manage or had no time to lay in rest don quixote however paid no attention to these difficulties and in perfect safety to himself and without any risk
encountered him of the mirrors with such force that he brought him to the ground in spite of himself over the haunches of his horse
the instant sancho saw him fall he slid down from the cork tree and made all haste to where his master was who dismounting from rocinante
went and stood over him of the mirrors and unlacing his helmet to see if he was dead and to give him air if he should happen to be alive he saw
he saw the history says the very countenance the very face the very look the very physiognomy the very effigy the very image of the bachelor samson carrasco as soon as he saw it he called out in a loud voice
and behold what thou art to see but not to believe
and when he saw the countenance of the bachelor carrasco he fell to crossing himself a thousand times and blessing himself as many more all this time the prostrate knight showed no signs of life
it is my opinion senor that in any case your worship should take and thrust your sword into the mouth of this one here that looks like the bachelor samson carrasco perhaps in him you will kill one of your enemies the enchanters
thy advice is not bad said don quixote for of enemies the fewer the better
when the squire of the mirrors came up now without the nose which had made him so hideous and cried out in a loud voice mind what you are about senor don quixote that is your friend the bachelor samson carrasco you have at your feet and i am his squire
to which he replied i have it here in my pocket
exclaimed aloud in a voice of amazement holy mary be good to me
returned the now unnosed squire tom cecial i am gossip and friend sancho panza and i'll tell you presently the means and tricks and falsehoods by which i have been brought here but in the meantime
beg and entreat of your master not to touch maltreat wound or slay the knight of the mirrors whom he has at his feet because beyond all dispute it is the rash and ill advised bachelor samson carrasco our fellow townsman
at this moment he of the mirrors came to himself and don quixote perceiving it held the naked point of his sword over his face and said to him
you must promise if you should survive this encounter and fall to go to the city of el toboso and present yourself before her on my behalf
and if she leaves you free to do yours you are in like manner to return and seek me out for the trail of my mighty deeds will serve you as a guide to lead you to where i may be and tell me what may have passed between you and her conditions which
in accordance with what we stipulated before our combat do not transgress the just limits of knight errantry i confess said the fallen knight that the dirty tattered shoe of the lady dulcinea del toboso is better than the ill combed though clean beard of casildea
you must also confess and believe added don quixote that the knight you vanquished was not and could not be don quixote of la mancha but some one else in his likeness just as i confess and believe that you
though you seem to be the bachelor samson carrasco are not so
in order that i may restrain and moderate the vehemence of my wrath and make a gentle use of the glory of my victory
postscript in writing my concluding lecture i had to aim so much at simplification that i fear that my general philosophic position received so scant a statement as hardly to be intelligible to some of my readers
i therefore add this epilogue which must also be so brief as possibly to remedy but little the defect in a later work i may be enabled to state my position more amply and consequently more clearly
originality cannot be expected in a field like this where all the attitudes and tempers that are possible have been exhibited in literature long ago and where any new writer can immediately be classed under a familiar head
if one should make a division of all thinkers into naturalists and supernaturalists i should undoubtedly have to go along with most philosophers into the supernaturalist branch
but there is a crasser and a more refined supernaturalism and it is to the refined division that most philosophers at the present day belong if not regular transcendental idealists
they at least obey the kantian direction enough to bar out ideal entities from interfering causally in the course of phenomenal events refined supernaturalism is universalistic supernaturalism
for the crasser variety piecemeal supernaturalism would perhaps be the better name it went with that older theology which to day is supposed to reign only among uneducated people
or to be found among the few belated professors of the dualisms which kant is thought to have displaced it admits miracles and providential leadings and finds no intellectual difficulty in mixing the ideal and the real worlds together
by interpolating influences from the ideal region among the forces that causally determine the real world's details
for them the world of the ideal has no efficient causality and never bursts into the world of phenomena at particular points the ideal world for them
is not a world of facts but only of the meaning of facts it is a point of view for judging facts it appertains to a different ology
and inhabits a different dimension of being altogether from that in which existential propositions obtain it cannot get down upon the flat level of experience and interpolate itself piecemeal between distinct portions of nature
as those who believe for example in divine aid coming in response to prayer are bound to think it must notwithstanding my own inability to accept either popular christianity or scholastic theism
and new departures are made here below subjects me to being classed among the supernaturalists of the piecemeal or crasser type universalistic supernaturalism surrenders it seems to me
too easily to naturalism it takes the facts of physical science at their face value and leaves the laws of life just as naturalism finds them with no hope of remedy in case their fruits are bad
it confines itself to sentiments about life as a whole sentiments which may be admiring and adoring but which need not be so as the existence of systematic pessimism proves
that we have a world of fact at all a world of fact that exactly is the trouble an entire world is the smallest unit with which the absolute can work whereas to our finite minds
work for the better ought to be done within this world setting in at single points our difficulties and our ideals are all piecemeal affairs but the absolute can do no piecework for us
so that all the interests which our poor souls compass raise their heads too late we should have spoken earlier prayed for another world absolutely before this world was born it is strange i have heard a friend say
but as i apprehend the buddhistic doctrine of karma i agree in principle with that all supernaturalists admit that facts are under the judgment of higher law
but for buddhism as i interpret it and for religion generally so far as it remains unweakened by transcendentalistic metaphysics the word judgment here
means no such bare academic verdict or platonic appreciation as it means in vedantic or modern absolutist systems it carries on the contrary execution with it is in rebus as well as post rem
and a complete discussion of all its metaphysical bearings will show it to be the hypothesis by which the largest number of legitimate requirements are met that of course would be a program for other books than this
what i now say sufficiently indicates to the philosophic reader the place where i belong if asked just where the differences in fact which are due to god's existence come in i should have to say that in general
i have no hypothesis to offer beyond what the phenomenon of prayerful communion
the appearance is that in this phenomenon something ideal which in one sense is part of ourselves and in another sense is not ourselves actually exerts an influence raises our centre of personal energy
and produces regenerative effects unattainable in other ways if then there be a wider world of being than that of our every day consciousness if in it there be forces whose effects on us are intermittent
we have the elements of a theory to which the phenomena of religious life lend plausibility i am so impressed by the importance of these phenomena that i adopt the hypothesis which they so naturally suggest
at these places at least i say it would seem as though transmundane energies god if you will produced immediate effects within the natural world to which the rest of our experience belongs
the difference in natural fact which most of us would assign as the first difference which the existence of a god ought to make would i imagine be personal immortality religion in fact
for the great majority of our own race means immortality and nothing else god is the producer of immortality and whoever has doubts of immortality is written down as an atheist without farther trial
i have said nothing in my lectures about immortality or the belief therein for to me it seems a secondary point if our ideals are only cared for in eternity
i do not see why we might not be willing to resign their care to other hands than ours yet i sympathize with the urgent impulse to be present ourselves and in the conflict of impulses
both of them so vague yet both of them noble i know not how to decide it seems to me that it is eminently a case for facts to testify facts i think are yet lacking to prove spirit return
though i have the highest respect for the patient labors of
and am somewhat impressed by their favorable conclusions i consequently leave the matter open with this brief word to save the reader from a possible perplexity as to why immortality got no mention in the body of this book
the god of ordinary men is both by ordinary men and by philosophers endowed with certain of those metaphysical attributes which in the lecture on philosophy i treated with such disrespect
he is assumed as a matter of course to be one and only and to be infinite
and still less to uphold nevertheless in the interests of intellectual clearness i feel bound to say that religious experience as we have studied it cannot be cited as unequivocally supporting the infinitist belief
and in that union find our greatest peace philosophy with its passion for unity and mysticism with its monoideistic bent both pass to the limit
and identify the something with a unique god who is the all inclusive soul of the world popular opinion respectful to their authority follows the example which they set meanwhile
beyond each man and in a fashion continuous with him there exists a larger power which is friendly to him and to his ideals all that the facts require is
that the power should be both other and larger than our conscious selves anything larger will do if only it be large enough to trust for the next step it need not be infinite it need not be solitary
our guarantee of security is left imperfect in the absolute and in the absolute only all is saved if there be different gods each caring for his part
some portion of some of us might not be covered with divine protection
have been wont to be and can suffer the notion of this world being partly saved and partly lost the ordinary moralistic state of mind makes the salvation of the world conditional upon the success with which each unit does its part
partial and conditional salvation is in fact a most familiar notion when taken in the abstract the only difficulty being to determine the details
some men are even disinterested enough to be willing to be in the unsaved remnant as far as their persons go if only they can be persuaded that their cause will prevail all of us are willing
whenever our activity excitement rises sufficiently high i think in fact that a final philosophy of religion will have to consider the pluralistic hypothesis more seriously than it has hitherto been willing to consider it
for practical life at any rate the chance of salvation is enough no fact in human nature is more characteristic
of all the islands in the eastern seas none are more interesting than our own philippines like the genuine pearl which is the result of a bruise and the outcome of suffering
these pearls of the far east are said by geologists to be the result of great volcanic forces that tore them away from the continent and set them out six hundred miles as gems in the ocean
more than three thousand there are of these islands all together and their combined area is nearly equal to that of japan or california
i visited the philippines a short time before the world war broke out and at that time there were seven million acres of arable land unoccupied
this is a land where the storms of winter never blow but where from month to month and age to age there is good old summer time children are born grow to manhood old age and die
without ever seeing fire to keep them warm for they never need it a range of twenty degrees is about all that the spirits in the thermometer ever show for the minimum is seventy two
and the maximum ninety two degrees while the nights are cool and the days warm yet a case of sunstroke was never known and but once in a generation has a hundred in the shade been recorded
about the most unpleasant feature is the little tiny ants they find their way into everything table legs must be placed in jars of water and yet they find their way to the top of the tables then
there is dampness everywhere books soon become mildewed or unglued and the finest library will soon have the appearance of a secondhand bookshop almost all kinds of tropical fruits can be raised in the philippines
who is a regular burbank he located on some of the worst soil to be found and undertook to demonstrate that anything that will grow on any spot on the earth will grow there and he practically succeeded
he has sent to india california egypt and nearly everywhere for the rarest orchids and most delicate plants
and hear him tell the story of plants and shrubs and trees in his garden of eden is an experience one cannot forget the story of how these islands came into our possession
find the spanish fleet and sink it to the bottom of the sea
as the great ship upon which i went into and out of this harbor plowed the waves i lived over again that marvelous may day in eighteen ninety eight it was one of the great days in our history
as the fleet entered the harbor word came to the flagship that they were entering a territory covered with submarine mines yet admiral dewey signaled steam ahead a little later
word came that they were in direct range of the guns at the fort and once more the admiral signaled steam ahead still later word came that they were entering the most dangerous mine infested district of all
and were liable any instant to be blown to atoms and once more the fearless admiral signaled steam ahead the result was that the long dark night of spanish rule was ended
and a new era was ushered in the transformation brought about since that memorable day is almost unbelievable the whole country has been revolutionized
railroads and macadamized roads have been built with steel and concrete bridges and where it used to be almost impassable it is now a pleasure to travel schools and colleges have been established
a bureau of labor has averted many strikes a constabulary force of nearly five thousand men has done wonders in suppressing brigandage bringing the savage tribes into subjection
and preserving the peace in general this force is somewhat similar to the mounted police system of saskatchewan in canada and is a terror to evil doers
a bureau of health has transformed the city of manila from a fever infested hotbed of contagious diseases to one of the most healthful cities on the globe six thousand lepers have been collected
and established in a colony on an island the number of cases of small pox has been reduced from forty thousand to a few hundred per year cholera which used to sweep away tens of thousands
is almost unknown with a dozen or more great hospitals and more than three hundred boards of health great things have been accomplished
i was much interested in the report of francis burton harrison who was a recent governor general of the philippines who said
during the war this race of people was intensely and devotedly loyal to the cause of the united states it raised a division of filipino volunteers for federal service
and presented destroyers and a submarine to the united states navy it oversubscribed its quota in liberty bonds and gave generously to red cross and other war work
america was criticised and even ridiculed for her altruism in dealing with this problem the idea of training tropical people for independence was thought to be idealistic and impracticable
the result was quite to the contrary once more idealism has been shown to be the moving force in working out the destinies of nations that is what america has done to the philippines
and is more densely populated per mile of street than new york when civil government was established in nineteen o one the conditions were deplorable the streets were narrow and filthy
and there was no sewer system to speak of the river and dirty canals divided and subdivided the city there was practically no water system and disease and death lurked in almost every shadow now
the city is fast becoming one of the world's great cities and one of the most healthful cities on the globe the streets have been widened many of them and are kept clean
covers hundreds of acres of ground the great y m c a buildings were thronged as in no other city the writer ever visited the fire department is up to date the police system well organized
the reforms introduced are second to none in any prison this prison covers seventeen acres of ground making it one of the largest in the world many of its fifty buildings are built around a circle
and in the tower at the center watchmen who can see the entire prison stand night and day through the kindness of the officials the writer was allowed to go into this tower one afternoon
as the five thousand prisoners came from the shops formed into companies and went through a thirty minute drill the band played throughout and as the men were formed into companies we from the tower
could see each individual company although they were hidden from each other the great body of men moved like the wheels of a great clock they stood knelt touched hands lay down arose walked and exercised
keeping time with the music in a way that was wonderful to behold cells for prisoners have long since been done away they mingle in companies in large sunny clean dormitories where they visit read and sing
of one of the most interesting spots in the eastern world it is the old old capital city and its story is the story of the philippines the old walls of this inner city
were built some four hundred years ago and could they speak the whole world would listen with amazement and horror there were seven gates in this old wall
and they were closed and opened by means of gigantic windlasses then too the story of the old fort santiago almost rivals that of the tower of london
mysterious underground passages store rooms and magazines dark and hidden chambers some of which were nearly half filled with skeletons the stories that center around this old fort
make one shudder to hear them possibly they are exaggerated but there are many today who believe them as an example we are told that a woman had been walled up in a cell
with only a small opening through which food was shoved in the day her baby was born and when the americans came they found her and her sixteen year old child in this dark room
the child had never had even a glimpse of the sunlight when i climbed upon this old fort and saw the stars and stripes waving in the breeze
i thought of the mighty changes that the american flag had brought that memorable day in eighteen ninety eight when our own general merritt met the spanish governor general and arranged for the surrender of the city
was one of the greatest days in the history of the orient people in manila slept but little that eventful night for somehow they had gotten the idea that the coming morning would be their day of doom
when the sun arose they hardly breathed for a whole week they were afraid to venture from their homes but there was no pillage no plunder and no bloodshed
when the amazed people found courage to venture out their astonishment knew no bounds it was almost too good to be true that american occupation meant the dawning of a new and for them
a glorious day and it is not surprising that such a report could be given as governor general harrison submitted in nineteen nineteen soon after he came from the philippines
as bishop of the methodist church he had been there about six months when one day
he insisted on having doors and windows closed and blinds all down mister stuntz said he had no idea what the man wanted
when they were alone with door locked and with evidence of great agitation the young man said i have come many miles to see you
the soldiers say it is but i cannot believe it to have a copy of the protestant bible in my house and read it to my family mister stuntz said the whole thing seemed so strange to him
that he was silent for a moment when the man continued sir this is a very important question to us filipinos you know the law under which we have lived here is this
or otherwise maintain any doctrine or doctrines not established by the state
and shall be punished at the discretion of the judge then to the amazement of mister stuntz the man continued under the operation of that law
my own father was dragged from our house and we never saw him alive again that was when i was eleven years old i have supported my mother as best i could and now i have a wife and two children
i want to know if it is safe it was with a heart thrilling with pride that this great american took the young man to the window and as he opened the blind and the window itself
and saw the stars and stripes proudly waving in the breeze and with tears running down his face said to him my dear man as long as yonder flag waves over the city
you may take the bible and climb up on the ridgeboard of your house at high noon each day three hundred and sixty five days in the year and read it as loud as you can and no man shall harm you
three months later mister stuntz went to that man's home city spoke from half past seven until midnight announced that he would speak in the same building at six o'clock the next morning
all the inhabitants of the valley treated me with great kindness but as to the household of marheyo with whom i was now permanently domiciled nothing could surpass their efforts to minister to my comfort
to the gratification of my palate they paid the most unwearied attention they continually invited me to partake of food
for the purpose of collecting various species of rare sea weed some of which among these people are considered a great luxury after a whole day spent in this employment he would return about nightfall with several cocoanut shells filled with different descriptions of kelp
in preparing these for use he manifested all the ostentation of a professed cook although the chief mystery of the affair appeared to consist in pouring water in judicious quantities upon the slimy contents of his cocoanut shells
i naturally thought that anything collected at such pains must possess peculiar merits but one mouthful was a complete dose and great was the consternation of the old warrior at the rapidity with which i ejected his epicurean treat
how true it is that the rarity of any particular article enhances its value amazingly in some part of the valley i know not where but probably in the neighbourhood of the sea
the girls were sometimes in the habit of procuring small quantities of salt a thimble full or so being the result of the united labours of a party of five or six employed for the greater part of the day this precious commodity they brought to the house
enveloped in multitudinous folds of leaves and as a special mark of the esteem in which they held me would spread an immense leaf on the ground and dropping one by one a few minute particles of the salt upon it invite me to taste them
from the extravagant value placed upon the article i verily believe that with a bushel of common liverpool salt all the real estate in typee might have been purchased with a small pinch of it in one hand
and a quarter section of a bread fruit in the other the greatest chief in the valley would have laughed at all luxuries of a parisian table the celebrity of the bread fruit tree and the conspicuous place it occupies in a typee bill of fare
induces me to give at some length a general description of the tree and the various modes in which the fruit is prepared the bread fruit tree in its glorious prime is a grand and towering object
forming the same feature in a marquesan landscape that the patriarchal elm does in new england scenery the latter tree it not a little resembles in height in the wide spread of its stalwart branches
the fleeting shades of the expiring dolphin the autumnal tints of our american forests glorious as they are sink into nothing in comparison with this tree
is often converted by the natives into a superb and striking head dress the principal fibre traversing its length being split open a convenient distance and the elastic sides of the aperture pressed apart the head is inserted between them
the leaf drooping on one side with its forward half turned jauntily up on the brows and the remaining part spreading laterally behind the ears
the fruit somewhat resembles in magnitude and general appearance one of our citron melons of ordinary size but unlike the citron it has no sectional lines drawn along the outside
its surface is dotted all over with little conical prominences looking not unlike the knobs on an antiquated church door the rind is perhaps an eighth of an inch in thickness and denuded of this
at the time when it is in the greatest perfection the fruit presents a beautiful globe of white pulp the whole of which may be eaten with the exception of a slender core which is easily removed
the bread fruit however is never used and is indeed altogether unfit to be eaten until submitted in one form or other to the action of fire the most simple manner in which this operation is performed and i think the best
consists in placing any number of the freshly plucked fruit when in a particular state of greenness among the embers of a fire in the same way that you would roast a potato after the lapse of ten or fifteen minutes the green rind embrowns and cracks
it has a mild and pleasing flavour sometimes after having been roasted in the fire the natives snatch it briskly from the embers and permitting it to slip out of the yielding rind into a vessel of cold water
stir up the mixture which they call bo a sho i never could endure this compound and indeed the preparation is not greatly in vogue among the more polite typees there is one form however in which the fruit is occasionally served
that renders it a dish fit for a king as soon as it is taken from the fire the exterior is removed the core extracted and the remaining part is placed in a sort of shallow stone mortar and briskly worked with a pestle of the same substance
while one person is performing this operation another takes a ripe cocoanut
proceeds to grate the juicy meat into fine particles this is done by means of a piece of mother of pearl shell lashed firmly to the extreme end of a heavy stick with its straight side accurately notched like a saw
the stick is sometimes a grotesquely formed limb of a tree with three or four branches twisting from its body like so many shapeless legs and sustaining it two or three feet from the ground the native
first placing a calabash beneath the nose as it were of his curious looking log steed for the purpose of receiving the grated fragments as they fall mounts astride of it as if it were a hobby horse
this preparation is called kokoo and a most luscious preparation it is the hobby horse and the pestle and mortar were in great requisition during the time i remained in the house of marheyo
and kory kory had frequent occasion to show his skill in their use but the great staple articles of food into which the bread fruit is converted by these natives are known respectively by the names of amar and poee poee
from whence they are drawn as occasion may require in this condition the tutao sometimes remains for years and even is thought to improve by age before it is fit to be eaten however it has to undergo an additional process
and overspread with another layer of leaves the whole is then quickly heaped up with earth and forms a sloping mound the tutao thus baked is called amar
the action of the oven having converted it into an amber coloured caky substance a little tart but not at all disagreeable to the taste by another and final process the amar is changed into poee poee
this is the form in which the tutao is generally consumed the singular mode of eating it i have already described were it not that the bread fruit is thus capable of being preserved for a length of time
this stately tree which is rarely met with upon the sandwich islands and then only of a very inferior quality and at tahiti does not abound to a degree that renders its fruit the principal article of food
once more the approach of the stranger was heralded and the intelligence operated upon me like magic again i should be able to converse with him in my own language and i resolve at all hazards to concert with him some scheme however desperate
to rescue me from a condition that had now become insupportable as he drew near i remembered with many misgivings the inauspicious termination of our former interview and when he entered the house i watched with intense anxiety
the reception he met with from its inmates to my joy his appearance was hailed with the liveliest pleasure and accosting me kindly he seated himself by my side and entered into conversation with the natives around him
his native valley and that he intended to return to it the same day at once it struck me that could i but reach that valley under his protection i might easily from thence reach nukuheva by water and animated by the prospect which this plan held out
i disclosed it in a few brief words to the stranger and asked him how it could be best accomplished my heart sunk within me when in his broken english he answered me that it could never be effected kanaka no let you go nowhere
he said you taboo why you no like to stay plenty moee moee sleep plenty ki ki eat plenty wahenee young girls oh very good place typee
suppose you no like this bay why you come you no hear about typee all white men afraid typee so no white men come these words distressed me beyond belief
you see ah by by you no mind you get well he kill you eat you hang you head up there like happar kanaka now you listen but no talk any more by by i go you see way i go
ah then some night kanaka all moee moee sleep you run away you come pueearka i speak pueearka kanaka he no harm you ah then i take you my canoe nukuheva
and you run away ship no more with these words enforced by a vehemence of gesture i cannot describe marnoo started from my side and immediately engaged in conversation with some of the chiefs who had entered the house
it would have been idle for me to have attempted resuming the interview so peremptorily terminated by marnoo
but the plan he had suggested struck me as one which might possibly be accomplished and i resolved to act upon it as speedily as possible accordingly when he arose to depart i accompanied him with the natives outside of the house
with a view of carefully noting the path he would take in leaving the valley
and looking significantly at me exclaimed now you see you do what i tell you ah then you do good you no do so ah then you die
was soon out of sight a mode of escape was now presented to me but how was i to avail myself of it i was continually surrounded by the savages i could not stir from one house to another without being attended by some of them
and even during the hours devoted to slumber the slightest movement which i made seemed to attract the notice of those who shared the mats with me in spite of these obstacles however i determined forthwith to make the attempt
it was also by night alone that i could hope to accomplish my object and then only by adopting the utmost precaution the entrance to marheyo's habitation was through a low narrow opening in its wicker work front
this passage for no conceivable reason that i could devise was always closed after the household had retired to rest by drawing a heavy slide across it composed of a dozen or more bits of wood ingeniously fastened together by seizings of sinnate
when any of the inmates chose to go outside the noise occasioned by the removing of this rude door awakened every body else and on more than one occasion i had remarked that the islanders were nearly as irritable as more civilized beings under similar circumstances
the difficulty thus placed in my way i determined to obviate in the following manner i would get up boldly in the course of the night and drawing the slide issue from the house and pretend that my object was merely to procure a drink from the calabash
i would purposely omit closing the passage after me and trusting that the indolence of the savages would prevent them from repairing my neglect would return to my mat and waiting patiently until all were again asleep i would then steal forth
and at once take the route to pueearka the very night which followed marnoo's departure i proceeded to put this project into execution about midnight as i imagined i arose and drew the slide
the natives just as i had expected started up while some of them asked
where are you going tommo wai water
grasping the calabash on hearing my reply they sank back again and in a minute or two i returned to my mat anxiously awaiting the result of the experiment one after another the savages turning restlessly
appeared to resume their slumbers and rejoicing at the stillness which prevailed i was about to rise again from my couch when i heard a slight rustling a dark form was intercepted between me and the doorway the slide was drawn across it
and the individual whoever he was returned to his mat this was a sad blow to me but as it might have aroused the suspicions of the islanders to have made another attempt that night i was reluctantly obliged to defer it until the next
several times after i repeated the same manoeuvre but with as little success as before as my pretence for withdrawing from the house was to allay my thirst kory kory either suspecting some design on my part
or else prompted by a desire to please me regularly every evening placed a calabash of water by my side even under these inauspicious circumstances i again and again renewed the attempt
but when i did so my valet always rose with me as if determined i should not remove myself from his observation for the present therefore i was obliged to abandon the attempt but i endeavoured to console myself with the idea that by this mode
i might yet effect my escape shortly after marnoo's visit i was reduced to such a state that it was with extreme difficulty i could walk even with the assistance of a spear and kory kory as formerly
gloomily pondering over the fate which it appeared now idle for me to resist when i thought of the loved friends who were thousands and thousands of miles from the savage island in which i was held a captive
when i reflected that my dreadful fate would for ever be concealed from them and that with hope deferred they might continue to await my return long after my inanimate form had blended with the dust of the valley
i could not repress a shudder of anguish how vividly is impressed upon my mind every minute feature of the scene which met my view during those long days of suffering and sorrow
at my request my mats were always spread directly facing the door opposite which and at a little distance was the hut of boughs that marheyo was building whenever my gentle fayaway and kory kory
laying themselves down beside me would leave me awhile to uninterrupted repose i took a strange interest in the slightest movements of the eccentric old warrior all alone during the stillness of the tropical mid day
he would pursue his quiet work sitting in the shade and weaving together the leaflets of his cocoanut branches or rolling upon his knee the twisted fibres of bark to form the cords with which he tied together the thatching of his tiny house
frequently suspending his employment and noticing my melancholy eye fixed upon him he would raise his hand with a gesture expressive of deep commiseration and then moving towards me slowly would enter on tip toes
fearful of disturbing the slumbering natives and taking the fan from my hand would sit before me swaying it gently to and fro and gazing earnestly into my face
were three magnificent bread fruit trees at this moment i can recap to my mind their slender shafts and the graceful inequalities of their bark on which my eye was accustomed to dwell day after day
in the midst of my solitary musings it is strange how inanimate objects will twine themselves into our affections especially in the hour of affliction even now
amidst all the bustle and stir of the proud and busy city in which i am dwelling the image of those three trees seems to come as vividly before my eyes as if they were actually present
sadly discursive as i have already been i must still further entreat the reader's patience as i am about to string together without any attempt at order a few odds and ends of things not hitherto mentioned
but which are either curious in themselves or peculiar to the typees there was one singular custom observed in old marheyo's domestic establishment which often excited my surprise every night before retiring
the inmates of the house gathered together on the mats
would commence a low dismal and monotonous chant accompanying the voice with the instrumental melody produced by two small half rotten sticks tapped slowly together a pair of which were held in the hands of each person present
thus would they employ themselves for an hour or two sometimes longer lying in the gloom which wrapped the further end of the house i could not avoid looking at them
the flickering rays of the armor nut just served to reveal their savage lineaments without dispelling the darkness that hovered about them
sometimes when after falling into a kind of doze and awaking suddenly in the midst of these doleful chantings my eye would fall upon the wild looking group engaged in their strange occupation with their naked tattooed limbs
and shaven heads disposed in a circle
the sounds produced by the natives on these occasions were of a most singular description and had i not actually been present i never would have believed that such curious noises could have been produced by human beings
to savages generally is imputed a guttural articulation this however is not always the case especially among the inhabitants of the polynesian archipelago
giving a musical prolongation to the final syllable of every sentence and chirping out some of the words with a liquid bird like accent was singularly pleasing
the men however are not quite so harmonious in their utterance and when excited upon any subject would work themselves up into a sort of wordy paroxysm during which all descriptions of rough sided sounds were projected from their mouths
with a force and rapidity which was absolutely astonishing although these savages are remarkably fond of chanting still they appear to have no idea whatever of singing
the king was delighted with the verse but the chorus fairly transported him at his solicitation i sang it again and again and nothing could be more ludicrous than his vain attempts to catch the air and the words
and in the end he gave it up and consoled himself by listening to my repetition of the sounds fifty times over previous to mehevi's making the discovery i had never been aware that there was anything of the nightingale about me
but i was now promoted to the place of court minstrel in which capacity i was afterwards perpetually called upon to officiate besides the sticks and the drums
there are no other musical instruments among the typees except one which might appropriately be denominated a nasal flute it is somewhat longer than an ordinary fife is made of a beautiful scarlet coloured reed
and has four or five stops with a large hole near one end which latter is held just beneath the left nostril the other nostril being closed by a peculiar movement of the muscles about the nose the breath is forced into the tube
and produces a soft dulcet sound which is varied by the fingers running at random over the stops this is a favourite recreation with the females and one in which fayaway greatly excelled awkward as such an instrument may appear
it was in fayaway's delicate little hands one of the most graceful i have ever seen a young lady in the act of tormenting a guitar strung about her neck by a couple of yards of blue ribbon is not half so engaging
as not one of the natives had soul enough in him to stand up like a man and allow me to hammer away at him for my own personal gratification and that of the king i was necessitated to fight with an imaginary enemy
whom i invariably made to knock under to my superior prowess sometimes when this sorely battered shadow retreated precipitately towards a group of the savages and following him up i rushed among them dealing my blows right and left
they would disperse in all directions much to the enjoyment of mehevi the chiefs and themselves the noble art of self defence appeared to be regarded by them as the peculiar gift of the white man
with which they set to in column and pummelled one another at the word of command one day in company with kory kory i had repaired to the stream for the purpose of bathing
when i observed a woman sitting upon a rock in the midst of the current and watching with the liveliest interest the gambols of something which at first i took to be an uncommonly large species of frog that was sporting in the water near her
attracted by the novelty of the sight i waded towards the spot where she sat and could hardly credit the evidence of my senses when i beheld a little infant the period of whose birth could not have extended back many days paddling about
and the next moment be clasped to its mother's bosom this was repeated again and again the baby remaining in the stream about a minute at a time once or twice it made wry faces at swallowing a mouthful of water
in the cool of the morning and evening and treating it to a bath no wonder that the south sea islanders are so amphibious a race when they are thus launched into the water as soon as they see the light
i am convinced that it is as natural for a human being to swim as it is for a duck and yet in civilized communities how many able bodied individuals die like so many drowning kittens from the occurrence of the most trivial accidents
whether against the express will of providence it is twisted upon the crown of the head and there coiled away like a rope on a ship's deck whether it be stuck behind the ears and hangs down like the swag of a small window curtain
or whether it be permitted to flow over the shoulders in natural ringlets it is always the pride of the owner and the glory of the toilette the typee girls devote much of their time to the dressing of their fair and redundant locks
after bathing as they sometimes do five or six times every day the hair is carefully dried and if they have been in the sea invariably washed in fresh water and anointed with a highly scented oil extracted from the meat of the cocoanut
this oil is obtained in great abundance by the following very simple process a large vessel of wood with holes perforated in the bottom is filled with the pounded meat and exposed to the rays of the sun
the oil undergoes a purifying process and is then poured into the small spherical shells of the nuts of the moo tree which are hollowed out to receive it these nuts are then hermetically sealed with a resinous gum
and the vegetable fragrance of their green rind soon imparts to the oil a delightful odour after the lapse of a few weeks the exterior shell of the nuts becomes quite dry and hard and assumes a beautiful carnation tint
and when opened they are found to be about two thirds full of an ointment of a light yellow colour and diffusing the sweetest perfume this elegant little odorous globe would not be out of place even upon the toilette of a queen
its merits as a preparation for the hair are undeniable
it was now the hunting season indian men with bows and arrows were wading waist deep amid the wild rice near by within their wigwams
the wives were roasting wild duck and making down pillows in the largest teepee sat a young mother wrapping red porcupine quills
about the long fringes of a buckskin cushion beside her lay a black eyed baby boy cooing and laughing reaching and kicking upward with his tiny hands and feet
he played with the dangling strings of his heavy beaded bonnet hanging empty on a tent pole above him at length
the mother laid aside her red quills and white sinew threads the babe fell fast asleep leaning on one hand and softly whispering a little lullaby she threw a light cover
over her baby it was almost time for the return of her husband remembering there were no willow sticks for the fire
she quickly girdled her blanket tight about her waist and with a short handled ax slipped through her belt she hurried away toward the wooded ravine she was strong
and swung an ax as skillfully as any man her loose buckskin dress was made for such freedom soon carrying easily a bundle of long willows on her back
with a loop of rope over both her shoulders she came striding homeward near the entrance way she stooped low
lifting the noose from over her head having thus dropped the wood to the ground she disappeared into her teepee in a moment she came running out again crying
my son my little son is gone
there was nowhere any sign of the child running with clinched fists to the nearest teepees she called has any one seen my baby he is gone
my little son is gone hinnu hinnu exclaimed the women rising to their feet and rushing out of their wigwams
we have not seen your child what has happened queried the women with great tears in her eyes the mother told her story we will search with you
they said to her as she started off they met the returning husbands who turned about and joined in the hunt for the missing child along the shore of the lakes
among the high grown reeds they looked in vain he was nowhere to be found after many days and nights the search was given up it was sad indeed
to hear the mother wailing aloud for her little son it was growing late in the autumn the birds were flying high toward the south the teepees around the lakes were gone
save one lonely dwelling till the winter snow covered the ground and ice covered the lakes the wailing woman's voice was heard from that solitary wigwam
singing a sad song thus ten summers and as many winters have come and gone since the strange disappearance of the little child every autumn
with the hunters came the unhappy parents of the lost baby to search again for him toward the latter part of the tenth season when one by one the teepees were folded
and the families went away from the lake region the mother walked again along the lake shore weeping one evening across the lake from where the crying woman stood a pair of bright
black eyes peered at her through the tall reeds and wild rice
his long loose hair hanging down his brown back and shoulders was carelessly tossed from his round face he wore a loin cloth of woven sweet grass
crouching low to the marshy ground he listened to the wailing voice
the eyes of the wild boy grew dim and wet at length when the moaning ceased he sprang to his feet and ran like a nymph with swift outstretched toes
mother mother tell me what voice it was i heard which pleased my ears but made my eyes grow wet said he breathless han my son grunted a big ugly toad
my son do not say you like it do not tell me it brought tears to your eyes you have never heard me weep i can please your ear and break your heart listen replied
the great old toad stepping outside she stood by the entrance way she was old and badly puffed out she had reared a large family of little toads
but none of them had aroused her love nor ever grieved her she had heard the wailing human voice and marveled at the throat which produced the strange sound now
in her great desire to keep the stolen boy awhile longer she ventured to cry as the dakota woman does in a gruff coarse voice she broke forth
hin hin doe skin hin hin ermine ermine hin hin red blanket with white border
not knowing that the syllables of a dakota's cry are the names of loved ones gone the ugly toad mother sought to please the boy's ear with the names of valuable articles
having shrieked in a torturing voice and mouthed extravagant names the old toad rolled her tearless eyes with great satisfaction
hopping back into her dwelling she asked my son did my voice bring tears to your eyes did my words bring gladness to your ears do you not
like my wailing better no no pouted the boy with some impatience i want to hear the woman's voice tell me mother why the human voice stirs all my feelings
the toad mother said within her breast the human child has heard and seen his real mother i cannot keep him longer i fear oh no
i cannot give away the pretty creature i have taught to call me mother all these many winters mother went on the child voice tell me one thing
tell me why my little brothers and sisters are all unlike me the big ugly toad looking at her pudgy children said the eldest is always best
this reply quieted the boy for a while very closely watched the old toad mother her stolen human son when by chance he started off alone
she shoved out one of her own children after him saying do not come back without your big brother thus the wild boy with the long loose hair
sits every day on a marshy island hid among the tall reeds but he is not alone always at his feet hops a little toad brother one day an indian hunter
wading in the deep waters spied the boy he had heard of the baby stolen long ago this is he murmured the hunter to himself as he ran to his wigwam
i saw among the tall reeds a black haired boy at play shouted he to the people at once the unhappy father and mother cried out
tis he our boy quickly he led them to the lake peeping through the wild rice he pointed with unsteady finger toward the boy playing all unawares
tis he tis he cried the mother for she knew him in silence the hunter stood aside while the happy father and mother caressed their baby boy
manstin was an adventurous brave but very kind hearted stamping a moccasined foot as he drew on his buckskin leggins he said grandmother beware of iktomi
do not let him lure you into some cunning trap i am going to the north country on a long hunt with these words of caution to the bent old rabbit grandmother
with whom he had lived since he was a tiny babe manstin started off toward the north he was scarce over the great high hills when he heard the shrieking of a human child
wan he ejaculated pointing his long ears toward the direction of the sound wan that is the work of cruel double face shameless coward
he delights in torturing helpless creatures muttering indistinct words manstin ran up the last hill and lo in the ravine beyond stood the terrible monster
with a face in front and one in the back of his head this brown giant was without clothes save for a wild cat skin about his loins
he held in his strong arm in a laughing voice he hummed an indian mother's lullaby
and at the same time he switched the naked baby with a thorny wild rose bush quickly manstin jumped behind a large sage bush on the brow of the hill
he bent his bow and the sinewy string twanged now
of double face it was a poisoned arrow and the giant fell dead then manstin took the little brown baby and hurried away from the ravine
soon he came to a teepee from whence loud wailing voices broke it was the teepee of the stolen baby and the mourners were its heart broken parents
when gallant manstin returned the child to the eager arms of the mother there came a sudden terror into the eyes of both the dakotas
the rabbit understood their fear and said i am manstin the kind hearted manstin the noted huntsman i am your friend do not fear that night
a strange thing happened while the father and mother slept manstin took the wee baby with his feet placed gently yet firmly upon the tiny toes of the little child
he drew upward by each small hand the sleeping child till he was a full grown man with a forefinger he traced a slit in the upper lip and
when on the morrow the man and woman awoke they could not distinguish their own son from manstin so much alike were the braves
henceforth we are friends to help each other said manstin shaking a right hand in farewell the earth is our common ear to carry from its uttermost extremes
one's slightest wish for the other ho be it so answered the newly made man upon leaving his friend manstin hurried away toward the north country
whither he was bound for a long hunt suddenly he came upon the edge of a wide brook his alert eye caught sight of a rawhide rope staked to the water's brink
which led away toward a small round hut in the distance the ground was trodden
beneath the loosely drawn rawhide rope hun he exclaimed manstin bending over the freshly made footprints in the moist bank of the brook
a man's footprints he said to himself a blind man lives in yonder hut this rope is his guide by which he comes for his daily water surmised manstin
who knew all the peculiar contrivances of the people at once his eyes became fixed upon the solitary dwelling and hither he followed his curiosity
a real blind man's rope quietly he lifted the door flap and entered in an old toothless grandfather blind and shaky with age
sat upon the ground he was not deaf however he heard the entrance and felt the presence of some stranger how grandchild he mumbled
for he was old enough to be grandparent to every living thing how i cannot see you pray speak your name grandfather i am manstin answered the rabbit
all the while looking with curious eyes about the wigwam grandfather what is it so tightly packed in all these buckskin bags placed against the tent poles he asked
my grandchild those are dried buffalo meat and venison these are magic bags which never grow empty
hence a kind maker has given me these magic bags of choicest foods
which lay by his right hand this leads me to the brook where i drink and this said he
and this takes me into the forest where i feel about for dry sticks for my fire grandfather i wish i lived in such sure luxury i would lean back against a tent pole
and with crossed feet i would smoke sweet willow bark the rest of my days sighed manstin my grandchild your eyes are your luxury you would be unhappy
without them the old man replied grandfather i would give you my two eyes for your place cried manstin how you have said it arise
henceforth you are at home here in my stead at once manstin took out both his eyes and the old man put them on rejoicing
the old grandfather started away with his young eyes while the blind rabbit filled his dream pipe
against the tent pole for a short time it was a most pleasant pastime to smoke willow bark and to eat from the magic bags manstin grew thirsty
but there was no water in the small dwelling taking one of the rawhide ropes he started toward the brook to quench his thirst he was young and unwilling to trudge slowly in the old man's footpath
he was full of glee for it had been many long moons since he had tasted such good food thus he skipped confidently along jerking the old weather eaten rawhide
spasmodically till all of a sudden it gave way and manstin fell headlong into the water en en he grunted kicking frantically amid stream
all along the slippery bank he vainly tried to climb till at last he chanced upon the old stake and the deeply worn footpath exhausted
and inwardly disgusted with his mishaps he crawled more cautiously on all fours to his wigwam door dripping with his recent plunge he sat with chattering teeth
within his unfired wigwam the sun had set and the night air was chilly but there was no fire wood in the dwelling hin murmured manstin and bravely tried the other rope
i go for some fire wood he said following the rawhide rope which led into the forest soon he stumbled upon thickly strewn dry willow sticks eagerly
with both hands he gathered the wood into his outspread blanket manstin was naturally an energetic fellow when he had a large heap he tied
and lifted the bundle of wood upon his back but alas he had unconsciously dropped the end of the rope and now he was lost in the wood hin hin he groaned
then pausing a moment he set his fan like ears to catch any sound of approaching footsteps there was none not even a night bird twittered to help him out of his predicament
with a bold face he made a start at random he fell into some tangled wood where he was held fast manstin let go his bundle
and began to lament having given away his two eyes friend my friend i have need of you the old oak tree grandfather has gone off with my eyes
and i am lost in the woods he cried with his lips close to the earth scarcely had he spoken when the sound of voices
was audible on the outer edge of the forest nearer and louder grew the voices one was the clear flute tones of a young brave and the other
of an old grandfather it was manstin's friend with the earth ear and the old grandfather here manstin take back your eyes said the old man
i knew you would not be content in my stead but i wanted you to learn your lesson i have had pleasure seeing with your eyes and trying your bow and arrows but since i am old and feeble
i much prefer my own teepee and my magic bags
the old grandfather crept into his wigwam which is often mistaken for a mere oak tree by little indian girls and boys manstin with his own bright eyes
fitted into his head again
sydney carton paused in the street not quite decided where to go at tellson's banking house at nine he said with a musing face shall i do well in the mean time to show myself i think so
it is a sound precaution and may be a necessary preparation but care care care let me think it out checking his steps which had begun to tend towards an object
he took a turn or two in the already darkening street and traced the thought in his mind to its possible consequences his first impression was confirmed it is best he said finally resolved
and he turned his face towards saint antoine defarge had described himself that day as the keeper of a wine shop in the saint antoine suburb it was not difficult for one who knew the city well to find his house without asking any question
having ascertained its situation carton came out of those closer streets again and dined at a place of refreshment and fell sound asleep after dinner for the first time in many years he had no strong drink
since last night he had taken nothing but a little light thin wine
who had done with it it was as late as seven o'clock when he awoke refreshed and went out into the streets again as he passed along towards saint antoine he stopped at a shop window where there was a mirror
and slightly altered the disordered arrangement of his loose cravat and his coat collar and his wild hair this done he went on direct to defarge's and went in there happened to be no customer in the shop but jacques three
of the restless fingers and the croaking voice this man whom he had seen upon the jury stood drinking at the little counter in conversation with the defarges man and wife the vengeance assisted in the conversation like a regular member of the establishment
and then advanced to him herself and asked him what it was he had ordered he repeated what he had already said english asked madame defarge inquisitively raising her dark eyebrows
after looking at her as if the sound of even a single french word were slow to express itself to him he answered in his former strong foreign accent yes madame yes i am english
defarge brought him the wine and gave him good evening how good evening oh good evening citizen filling his glass ah and good wine i drink to the republic
defarge went back to the counter and said certainly a little like madame sternly retorted i tell you a good deal like jacques three pacifically remarked
the amiable vengeance added with a laugh yes my faith and you are looking forward with so much pleasure to seeing him once more to morrow carton followed the lines and words of his paper with a slow forefinger
extermination is good doctrine my wife said defarge rather troubled in general i say nothing against it but this doctor has suffered much you have seen him to day you have observed his face when the paper was read
i have observed his face repeated madame contemptuously and angrily yes i have observed his face i have observed his face to be not the face of a true friend of the republic let him take care of his face
i have observed her to day and i have observed her other days i have observed her in the court and i have observed her in the street by the prison let me but lift my finger she seemed to raise it the listener's eyes were always on his paper
and to let it fall with a rattle on the ledge before her as if the axe had dropped the citizeness is superb croaked the juryman she is an angel said the vengeance and embraced her
as to thee pursued madame implacably addressing her husband if it depended on thee which happily it does not thou wouldst rescue this man even now no protested defarge
not if to lift this glass would do it but i would leave the matter there i say stop there see you then jacques said madame defarge wrathfully and see you too my little vengeance see you both listen
for other crimes as tyrants and oppressors i have this race a long time on my register doomed to destruction and extermination ask my husband is that so it is so assented defarge without being asked in the beginning of the great days
when the bastille falls he finds this paper of to day and he brings it home and in the middle of the night when this place is clear and shut we read it here on this spot by the light of this lamp ask him is that so
it is so assented defarge again i communicate to him that secret i smite this bosom with these two hands as i smite it now and i tell him defarge i was brought up among the fishermen of the sea shore
as that bastille paper describes is my family defarge that sister of the mortally wounded boy upon the ground was my sister that husband was my sister's husband that unborn child was their child
that brother was my brother that father was my father
and that summons to answer for those things descends to me ask him is that so it is so assented defarge once more then tell wind and fire where to stop returned madame but don't tell me
both her hearers derived a horrible enjoyment from the deadly nature of her wrath the listener could feel how white she was without seeing her and both highly commended it defarge a weak minority interposed a few words for the memory of the compassionate wife of the marquis
but only elicited from his own wife a repetition of her last reply tell the wind and the fire where to stop not me customers entered and the group was broken up the english customer paid for what he had had
perplexedly counted his change and asked as a stranger to be directed towards the national palace madame defarge took him to the door and put her arm on his in pointing out the road
the english customer was not without his reflections then that it might be a good deed to seize that arm lift it and strike under it sharp and deep but he went his way and was soon swallowed up in the shadow of the prison wall
at the appointed hour he emerged from it to present himself in mister lorry's room again where he found the old gentleman walking to and fro in restless anxiety he said he had been with lucie until just now
and had only left her for a few minutes to come and keep his appointment her father had not been seen since he quitted the banking house towards four o'clock she had some faint hopes that his mediation might save charles but they were very slight
he had been more than five hours gone where could he be mister lorry waited until ten but doctor manette not returning and he being unwilling to leave lucie any longer it was arranged that he should go back to her and come to the banking house again at midnight
they were discussing this question and were almost building up some weak structure of hope on his prolonged absence when they heard him on the stairs the instant he entered the room it was plain that all was lost
where is my bench i have been looking everywhere for my bench and i can't find it what have they done with my work time presses i must finish those shoes they looked at one another and their hearts died within them come
let me get to work give me my work receiving no answer he tore his hair and beat his feet upon the ground like a distracted child don't torture a poor forlorn wretch he implored them with a dreadful cry but give me my work
what is to become of us if those shoes are not done to night lost utterly lost it was so clearly beyond hope to reason with him or try to restore him that as if by agreement they each put a hand upon his shoulder
mister lorry saw him shrink into the exact figure that defarge had had in keeping affected and impressed with terror as they both were by this spectacle of ruin it was not a time to yield to such emotions
his lonely daughter bereft of her final hope and reliance appealed to them both too strongly again as if by agreement they looked at one another with one meaning in their faces carton was the first to speak
the last chance is gone it was not much yes he had better be taken to her but before you go will you for a moment steadily attend to me don't ask me why i make the stipulations i am going to make
and exact the promise i am going to exact i have a reason a good one i do not doubt it answered mister lorry say on the figure in the chair between them was all the time monotonously rocking itself to and fro and moaning
they spoke in such a tone as they would have used if they had been watching by a sick bed in the night carton stooped to pick up the coat which lay almost entangling his feet
carton took it up and there was a folded paper in it we should look at this he said mister lorry nodded his consent he opened it and exclaimed thank god what is it asked mister lorry eagerly
a moment let me speak of it in its place first he put his hand in his coat and took another paper from it that is the certificate which enables me to pass out of this city look at it you see sydney carton an englishman
mister lorry held it open in his hand gazing in his earnest face keep it for me until to morrow i shall see him to morrow you remember and i had better not take it into the prison why not i don't know i prefer not to do so
now take this paper that doctor manette has carried about him it is a similar certificate enabling him and his daughter and her child at any time to pass the barrier and the frontier you see yes
it is good until recalled but it may be soon recalled and i have reason to think will be they are not in danger they are in great danger they are in danger of denunciation by madame defarge
he knows that a wood sawyer living by the prison wall is under the control of the defarges and has been rehearsed by madame defarge as to his having seen her he never mentioned lucie's name making signs and signals to prisoners
it is easy to foresee that the pretence will be the common one a prison plot and that it will involve her life and perhaps her child's and perhaps her father's for both have been seen with her at that place don't look so horrified you will save them all
heaven grant i may carton but how i am going to tell you how it will depend on you and it could depend on no better man this new denunciation will certainly not take place until after to morrow
you know it is a capital crime to mourn for or sympathise with a victim of the guillotine she and her father would unquestionably be guilty of this crime and this woman the inveteracy of whose pursuit cannot be described
early to morrow have your horses ready so that they may be in starting trim at two o'clock in the afternoon it shall be done his manner was so fervent and inspiring that mister lorry caught the flame and was as quick as youth you are a noble heart
did i say we could depend upon no better man tell her to night what you know of her danger as involving her child and her father dwell upon that for she would lay her own fair head beside her husband's cheerfully
for the sake of her child and her father press upon her the necessity of leaving paris with them and you at that hour tell her that it was her husband's last arrangement
will submit himself to her do you not i am sure of it i thought so quietly and steadily have all these arrangements made in the courtyard here even to the taking of your own seat in the carriage
the moment i come to you take me in and drive away i understand that i wait for you under all circumstances you have my certificate in your hand with the rest you know and will reserve my place wait for nothing but to have my place occupied
and then for england why then said mister lorry grasping his eager but so firm and steady hand it does not all depend on one old man but i shall have a young and ardent man at my side by the help of heaven you shall
promise me solemnly that nothing will influence you to alter the course on which we now stand pledged to one another nothing carton remember these words to morrow change the course or delay in it for any reason and no life
can possibly be saved and many lives must inevitably be sacrificed i will remember them i hope to do my part faithfully and i hope to do mine now good bye
though he said it with a grave smile of earnestness and though he even put the old man's hand to his lips he did not part from him then he helped him so far to arouse the rocking figure before the dying embers as to get a cloak and hat put upon it
and to tempt it forth to find where the bench and work were hidden that it still moaningly besought to have he walked on the other side of it and protected it to the courtyard of the house where the afflicted heart so happy in the memorable time
when he had revealed his own desolate heart to it outwatched the awful night he entered the courtyard and remained there for a few moments alone looking up at the light in the window of her room before he went away he breathed a blessing towards it
the wretched wife of the innocent man thus doomed to die fell under the sentence as if she had been mortally stricken but she uttered no sound and so strong was the voice within her representing that it was she of all the world who must uphold him in his misery
and not augment it that it quickly raised her even from that shock the judges having to take part in a public demonstration out of doors the tribunal adjourned the quick noise and movement of the court's emptying itself
by many passages had not ceased when lucie stood stretching out her arms towards her husband with nothing in her face but love and consolation if i might touch him if i might embrace him once o good citizens if you would have so much compassion for us
along with two of the four men who had taken him last night and barsad the people had all poured out to the show in the streets barsad proposed to the rest let her embrace him then it is but a moment
it was silently acquiesced in and they passed her over the seats in the hall to a raised place where he by leaning over the dock could fold her in his arms farewell dear darling of my soul
my parting blessing on my love we shall meet again where the weary are at rest they were her husband's words as he held her to his bosom i can bear it dear charles i am supported from above
don't suffer for me a parting blessing for our child i send it to her by you i kiss her by you i say farewell to her by you my husband no a moment he was tearing himself apart from her
but i will do my duty while i can and when i leave her god will raise up friends for her as he did for me her father had followed her and would have fallen on his knees to both of them but that darnay put out a hand and seized him crying no no what have you done what have you done
we know now what you underwent when you suspected my descent and when you knew it we know now the natural antipathy you strove against and conquered for her dear sake
it could not be otherwise said the prisoner all things have worked together as they have fallen out it was the always vain endeavour to discharge my poor mother's trust that first brought my fatal presence near you good could never come of such evil
to so unhappy a beginning be comforted and forgive me heaven bless you as he was drawn away his wife released him and stood looking after him with her hands touching one another in the attitude of prayer
and with a radiant look upon her face in which there was even a comforting smile as he went out at the prisoners door she turned laid her head lovingly on her father's breast tried to speak to him and fell at his feet
then issuing from the obscure corner from which he had never moved sydney carton came and took her up only her father and mister lorry were with her his arm trembled as it raised her and supported her head yet
all of pity that had a flush of pride in it shall i take her to a coach i shall never feel her weight he carried her lightly to the door and laid her tenderly down in a coach her father and their old friend
got into it and he took his seat beside the driver when they arrived at the gateway where he had paused in the dark not many hours before to picture to himself on which of the rough stones of the street her feet had trodden he lifted her again
and carried her up the staircase to their rooms there he laid her down on a couch where her child and miss pross wept over her don't recall her to herself he said softly to the latter she is better so don't revive her to consciousness
while she only faints oh carton carton dear carton cried little lucie springing up and throwing her arms passionately round him in a burst of grief now that you have come i think you will do something to help mamma
something to save papa o look at her dear carton
he bent over the child and laid her blooming cheek against his face he put her gently from him and looked at her unconscious mother before i go he said and paused i may kiss her
it was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face with his lips he murmured some words the child who was nearest to him told them afterwards and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady that she heard him say a life you love
when he had gone out into the next room he turned suddenly on mister lorry and her father who were following and said to the latter you had great influence but yesterday doctor manette let it at least be tried
these judges and all the men in power are very friendly to you and very recognisant of your services are they not nothing connected with charles was concealed from me i had the strongest assurances that i should save him and i did
he returned the answer in great trouble and very slowly try them again the hours between this and to morrow afternoon are few and short but try i intend to try i will not rest a moment
that's well i have known such energy as yours do great things before now though never he added with a smile and a sigh together such great things as this but try
of little worth as life is when we misuse it it is worth that effort it would cost nothing to lay down if it were not i will go said doctor manette to the prosecutor and the president straight
and i will go to others whom it is better not to name i will write too and but stay there is a celebration in the streets and no one will be accessible until dark
i should like to know how you speed though mind i expect nothing when are you likely to have seen these dread powers doctor manette immediately after dark i should hope within an hour or two from this
it will be dark soon after four let us stretch the hour or two if i go to mister lorry's at nine shall i hear what you have done either from our friend or from yourself yes may you prosper mister lorry
followed sydney to the outer door and touching him on the shoulder as he was going away caused him to turn i have no hope said mister lorry in a low and sorrowful whisper nor have i if any one of these men
or all of these men were disposed to spare him which is a large supposition for what is his life or any man's to them i doubt if they durst spare him after the demonstration in the court and so do i i heard the fall of the axe in that sound
mister lorry leaned his arm upon the door post and bowed his face upon it don't despond said carton very gently don't grieve i encouraged doctor manette in this idea because i felt that it might one day be
consolatory to her
yes returned mister lorry drying his eyes you are right but he will perish there is no real hope yes he will perish there is no real hope echoed carton
keep it corked up in a bottle to season ice cream syrup of lemon juice dissolve three pounds of loaf sugar in three quarts of water squeeze and strain lemons enough to make a quart of juice boil it slowly with the water and sugar and take off the scum as it rises
and strain it to a pint of this juice put a pound of sugar boil it till it is a rich syrup and keep it corked up in bottles to season ice cream almond cream take a pound of blanched almonds and roll them fine with a bottle
one gallon of cream two pounds rolled loaf sugar one tea spoonful of oil of lemon if for vanilla cream use a table spoonful of tincture of vanilla two eggs beaten mix well and freeze in the usual way
take a bucket of ice and pound it fine mix with it two quarts of salt put your cream in a freezer cover it close and immerse it in the bucket draw the ice round it so as to touch every part after it has been in a few minutes put in a spoon and stir it from the edge to the centre
when the cream is put in a mould close it and move it in the ice as you cannot use a spoon without waste ice cream with lemon roll two fresh lemons in as much powdered loaf sugar as will sweeten a quart of cream
ice cream with fruit mix the juice of the fruit with as much sugar as will be wanted before you add the cream which need not be very rich pokeberry juice to stain ices mash and strain ripe pokeberries
to each pint of juice put a pound of sugar boil them together till it becomes a jelly when cold put it in a jar and tie it close use a small quantity of this to stain ice cream or jelly
put a quart of water boil it down to a pint and strain it through a flannel bag add some sugar and wine stir it and put it in glasses blancmange shave an ounce of isinglass and dissolve it in boiling water
then boil it in a quart of new milk strain it and sweeten it to your taste season as you prefer with rose water cinnamon or vanilla
to one pint of calf's foot jelly add a pint of cream a little mace and a quarter of a pound of loaf sugar boil it fifteen minutes stirring it constantly strain it through a flannel bag and when nearly cold put in n glass of white wine
strain it through a colander and skim off all the fat that is on the top set it away to cool and when the jelly is quite stiff wipe it with a towel to take off any grease that should remain
when eggs are used in calf's foot and other jellies care should be taken to have the ingredients cool
and peach kernels pour boiling water on them which will make them peel easily either roll them with a bottle on the cake board or pound in a mortar with a little loaf sugar they should not be pounded too much or they will be oily
season it with a few drops of essence of lemon or syrup of lemon peel and powdered white sugar and if you choose a spoonful of preserve syrup and just as you send it to table
feel his motives to deserve and acknowledging with perfect ingenuousness that his concession had been attended with such partial good as to make his judgment in it very doubtful he was anxious
while vindicating himself to say nothing unkind of the others but there was only one amongst them whose conduct he could mention without some necessity of defence or palliation we have all been more or less to blame said he
every one of us excepting fanny fanny is the only one who has judged rightly throughout who has been consistent her feelings have been steadily against it from first to last she never ceased to think of what was due to you
you will find fanny everything you could wish sir thomas saw all the impropriety of such a scheme among such a party and at such a time as strongly as his son had ever supposed he must
he felt it too much indeed for many words and having shaken hands with edmund meant to try to lose the disagreeable impression and forget how much he had been forgotten himself as soon as he could
after the house had been cleared of every object enforcing the remembrance and restored to its proper state he did not enter into any remonstrance with his other children he was more willing to believe they felt their error than to run the risk of investigation
the reproof of an immediate conclusion of everything the sweep of every preparation would be sufficient there was one person however in the house whom he could not leave to learn his sentiments merely through his conduct
he could not help giving missus norris a hint of his having hoped that her advice might have been interposed to prevent what her judgment must certainly have disapproved the young people had been very inconsiderate in forming the plan
they ought to have been capable of a better decision themselves but they were young
with greater surprise therefore he must regard her acquiescence in their wrong measures her countenance of their unsafe amusements than that such measures and such amusements should have been suggested
her only resource was to get out of the subject as fast as possible and turn the current of sir thomas's ideas into a happier channel she had a great deal to insinuate in her own praise
as to general attention to the interest and comfort of his family much exertion and many sacrifices to glance at in the form of hurried walks and sudden removals from her own fireside and many excellent hints of distrust and economy
to lady bertram and edmund to detail whereby a most considerable saving had always arisen and more than one bad servant been detected but her chief strength lay in sotherton her greatest support and glory
was in having formed the connexion with the rushworths there she was impregnable she took to herself all the credit of bringing mister rushworth's admiration of maria to any effect if i had not been active said she
and made a point of being introduced to his mother and then prevailed on my sister to pay the first visit i am as certain as i sit here that nothing would have come of it for mister rushworth is the sort of amiable modest young man who wants a great deal of encouragement
and there were girls enough on the catch for him if we had been idle but i left no stone unturned i was ready to move heaven and earth to persuade my sister and at last i did persuade her you know the distance to sotherton
it was in the middle of winter and the roads almost impassable but i did persuade her i know how great how justly great your influence is with lady bertram and her children
and am the more concerned that it should not have been my dear sir thomas if you had seen the state of the roads that day i thought we should never have got through them though we had the four horses of course
and this was such a day i could not help going to him up in his room before we set off to advise him not to venture he was putting on his wig so i said coachman
your lady and i shall be very safe you know how steady stephen is and charles has been upon the leaders so often now that i am sure there is no fear but however i soon found it would not do he was bent upon going
but my heart quite ached for him at every jolt and when we got into the rough lanes about stoke where what with frost and snow upon beds of stones it was worse than anything you can imagine i was quite in an agony about him
i did indeed it might not be saving them much but it was something and i could not bear to sit at my ease and be dragged up at the expense of those noble animals i caught a dreadful cold but that i did not regard my object was accomplished in the visit
i hope we shall always think the acquaintance worth any trouble that might be taken to establish it there is nothing very striking in mister rushworth's manners but i was pleased last night with what appeared to be his opinion on one subject
his decided preference of a quiet family party to the bustle and confusion of acting he seemed to feel exactly as one could wish yes indeed and the more you know of him the better you will like him he is not a shining character
if mister rushworth were a son of your own he could not hold sir thomas in greater respect sir thomas gave up the point foiled by her evasions disarmed by her flattery and was obliged to rest satisfied with the conviction
that where the present pleasure of those she loved was at stake her kindness did sometimes overpower her judgment it was a busy morning with him conversation with any of them occupied but a small part of it
he had to reinstate himself in all the wonted concerns of his mansfield life to see his steward and his bailiff to examine and compute and in the intervals of business to walk into his stables and his gardens and nearest plantations
but active and methodical he had not only done all this before he resumed his seat as master of the house at dinner
what had been so lately put up in the billiard room and given the scene painter his dismissal long enough to justify the pleasing belief of his being then at least as far off as northampton the scene painter was gone having spoilt only the floor of one room
of lovers vows in the house for he was burning all that met his eye mister yates was beginning now to understand sir thomas's intentions though as far as ever from understanding their source he and his friend had been out with their guns the chief of the morning
and tom had taken the opportunity of explaining with proper apologies for his father's particularity what was to be expected mister yates felt it as acutely as might be supposed
to be a second time disappointed in the same way was an instance of very severe ill luck and his indignation was such that had it not been for delicacy towards his friend and his friend's youngest sister
he believed he should certainly attack the baronet on the absurdity of his proceedings and argue him into a little more rationality he believed this very stoutly while he was in mansfield wood and all the way home
but there was a something in sir thomas when they sat round the same table which made mister yates think it wiser to let him pursue his own way and feel the folly of it without opposition he had known many disagreeable fathers before
but for his children's sake and he might be thankful to his fair daughter julia that mister yates did yet mean to stay a few days longer under his roof the evening passed with external smoothness though almost every mind was ruffled
and the music which sir thomas called for from his daughters helped to conceal the want of real harmony
it was of the utmost consequence to her that crawford should now lose no time in declaring himself and she was disturbed that even a day should be gone by without seeming to advance that point she had been expecting to see him the whole morning
mister rushworth had set off early with the great news for sotherton and she had fondly hoped for such an immediate eclaircissement as might save him the trouble of ever coming back again but they had seen no one from the parsonage not a creature
and had heard no tidings beyond a friendly note of congratulation and inquiry from missus grant to lady bertram it was the first day for many many weeks in which the families had been wholly divided four and twenty hours had never passed before
since august began without bringing them together in some way or other it was a sad anxious day and the morrow though differing in the sort of evil did by no means bring less a few moments of feverish enjoyment were followed by hours of acute suffering
henry crawford was again in the house he walked up with doctor grant who was anxious to pay his respects to sir thomas and at rather an early hour they were ushered into the breakfast room where were most of the family sir thomas soon appeared
her sensations were indefinable and so were they a few minutes afterwards upon hearing henry crawford who had a chair between herself and tom ask the latter in an undervoice whether there were any plans for resuming the play
after the present happy interruption with a courteous glance at sir thomas
he was going away immediately being to meet his uncle at bath without delay but if there were any prospect of a renewal of lovers vows he should hold himself positively engaged he should break through every other claim
he should absolutely condition with his uncle for attending them whenever he might be wanted the play should not be lost by his absence from bath norfolk london york wherever i may be said he
i will attend you from any place in england at an hour's notice it was well at that moment that tom had to speak and not his sister he could immediately say with easy fluency i am sorry you are going
entirely at an end looking significantly at his father the painter was sent off yesterday and very little will remain of the theatre to morrow i knew how that would be from the first it is early for bath you will find nobody there
it is about my uncle's usual time when do you think of going i may perhaps get as far as banbury to day whose stables do you use at bath was the next question
and while this branch of the subject was under discussion
who wanted neither pride nor resolution was preparing to encounter her share of it with tolerable calmness
the hand which had so pressed hers to his heart the hand and the heart were alike motionless and passive now her spirit supported her but the agony of her mind was severe she had not long to endure what arose from listening to language
which his actions contradicted or to bury the tumult of her feelings under the restraint of society for general civilities soon called his notice from her and the farewell visit as it then became openly acknowledged was a very short one he was gone
and so ended all the hopes his selfish vanity had raised in maria and julia bertram julia could rejoice that he was gone his presence was beginning to be odious to her and if maria gained him not
she was now cool enough to dispense with any other revenge she did not want exposure to be added to desertion henry crawford gone she could even pity her sister
with a purer spirit did fanny rejoice in the intelligence she heard it at dinner and felt it a blessing by all the others it was mentioned with regret and his merits honoured with due gradation of feeling
missus norris began to look about her and wonder that his falling in love with julia had come to nothing and could almost fear that she had been remiss herself in forwarding it but with so many to care for
sir thomas had been quite indifferent to mister crawford's going or staying
he left the house in all the soberness of its general character and sir thomas hoped in seeing him out of it to be rid of the worst object connected with the scheme and the last that must be inevitably reminding him of its existence
missus dashwood's visit to lady middleton took place the next day and two of her daughters went with her but marianne excused herself from being of the party under some trifling pretext of employment
and her mother who concluded that a promise had been made by willoughby the night before of calling on her
was perfectly satisfied with her remaining at home on their return from the park they found willoughby's curricle and servant in waiting at the cottage and missus dashwood was convinced that her conjecture had been just
so far it was all as she had foreseen but on entering the house she beheld what no foresight had taught her to expect they were no sooner in the passage than marianne came hastily out of the parlour apparently in violent affliction
where they found only willoughby who was leaning against the mantel piece with his back towards them he turned round on their coming in and his countenance shewed that he strongly partook of the emotion which over powered marianne
is she ill i hope not he replied
it is i who may rather expect to be ill for i am now suffering under a very heavy disappointment disappointment yes for i am unable to keep my engagement with you
are you going this morning almost this moment this is very unfortunate
he coloured as he replied you are very kind but i have no idea of returning into devonshire immediately my visits to missus smith are never repeated within the twelvemonth
and is missus smith your only friend is allenham the only house in the neighbourhood to which you will be welcome for shame willoughby can you wait for an invitation here
and with his eyes fixed on the ground he only replied you are too good missus dashwood looked at elinor with surprise elinor felt equal amazement for a few moments
every one was silent missus dashwood first spoke i have only to add my dear willoughby
for i will not press you to return here immediately because you only can judge how far that might be pleasing to missus smith and on this head i shall be no more disposed to question your judgment than to doubt your inclination
my engagements at present replied willoughby confusedly are of such a nature that i dare not flatter myself he stopt missus dashwood was too much astonished to speak
and another pause succeeded this was broken by willoughby who said with a faint smile it is folly to linger in this manner i will not torment myself any longer by remaining among friends whose society it is impossible for me now to enjoy
they saw him step into his carriage and in a minute it was out of sight missus dashwood felt too much for speech and instantly quitted the parlour to give way in solitude to the concern and alarm
which this sudden departure occasioned elinor's uneasiness was at least equal to her mother's she thought of what had just passed with anxiety and distrust
willoughby's behaviour in taking leave of them his embarrassment and affectation of cheerfulness and above all his unwillingness to accept her mother's invitation a backwardness so unlike a lover so unlike himself greatly disturbed her
one moment she feared that no serious design had ever been formed on his side and the next that some unfortunate quarrel had taken place between him and her sister
the distress in which marianne had quitted the room was such as a serious quarrel could most reasonably account for though when she considered what marianne's love for him was a quarrel seemed almost impossible
but whatever might be the particulars of their separation
said she as she sat down to work and with how heavy a heart does he travel it is all very strange
it seems but the work of a moment and last night he was with us so happy so cheerful so affectionate and now after only ten minutes notice gone too without intending to return
he did not speak he did not behave like himself you must have seen the difference as well as i what can it be can they have quarrelled why else should he have shewn such unwillingness to accept your invitation here
it was not inclination that he wanted elinor i could plainly see that he had not the power of accepting it i have thought it all over i assure you
and i can perfectly account for every thing that at first seemed strange to me as well as to you can you indeed yes
but you elinor who love to doubt where you can it will not satisfy you i know but you shall not talk me out of my trust in it i am persuaded that missus smith suspects his regard for marianne disapproves of it
perhaps because she has other views for him and on that account is eager to get him away and that the business which she sends him off to transact is invented as an excuse to dismiss him
he is moreover aware that she does disapprove the connection he dares not therefore at present confess to her his engagement with marianne and he feels himself obliged
and absent himself from devonshire for a while you will tell me i know that this may or may not have happened but i will listen to no cavil unless you can point out any other method of understanding the affair as satisfactory at this
and now elinor what have you to say nothing for you have anticipated my answer then you would have told me that it might or might not have happened
and is no allowance to be made for inadvertence or for spirits depressed by recent disappointment
and no reason in the world to think ill of to the possibility of motives unanswerable in themselves though unavoidably secret for a while and after all what is it you suspect him of
i can hardly tell myself but suspicion of something unpleasant is the inevitable consequence of such an alteration as we just witnessed in him
there is great truth however in what you have now urged of the allowances which ought to be made for him and it is my wish to be candid in my judgment of every body willoughby may undoubtedly have very sufficient reasons for his conduct
and i will hope that he has but it would have been more like willoughby to acknowledge them at once secrecy may be advisable but still i cannot help wondering at its being practiced by him
do not blame him however for departing from his character where the deviation is necessary but you really do admit the justice of what i have said in his defence i am happy and he is acquitted not entirely
it may be proper to conceal their engagement if they are engaged from missus smith and if that is the case
i want no proof of their affection said elinor but of their engagement i do i am perfectly satisfied of both yet not a syllable has been said to you on the subject by either of them
i have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly has not his behaviour to marianne and to all of us for at least the last fortnight declared that he loved and considered her as his future wife
and that he felt for us the attachment of the nearest relation have we not perfectly understood each other has not my consent been daily asked by his looks his manner his attentive and affectionate respect
should leave her and leave her perhaps for months without telling her of his affection that they should part without a mutual exchange of confidence i confess replied elinor
that every circumstance except one is in favour of their engagement but that one is the total silence of both on the subject and with me it almost outweighs every other how strange this is
you must think wretchedly indeed of willoughby if after all that has openly passed between them you can doubt the nature of the terms on which they are together has he been acting a part in his behaviour to your sister all this time
do you suppose him really indifferent to her no i cannot think that he must and does love her i am sure but with a strange kind of tenderness if he can leave her with such indifference
such carelessness of the future as you attribute to him you must remember my dear mother that i have never considered this matter as certain i have had my doubts i confess but they are fainter than they were
and they may soon be entirely done away if we find they correspond every fear of mine will be removed a mighty concession indeed if you were to see them at the altar
you would suppose they were going to be married ungracious girl but i require no such proof nothing in my opinion has ever passed to justify doubt no secrecy has been attempted all has been uniformly open and unreserved
you cannot doubt your sister's wishes it must be willoughby therefore whom you suspect but why is he not a man of honour and feeling has there been any inconsistency on his side to create alarm can he be deceitful
i hope not i believe not cried elinor i love willoughby sincerely love him and suspicion of his integrity cannot be more painful to yourself than to me it has been involuntary
but all this may be explained by such a situation of his affairs as you have supposed he had just parted from my sister had seen her leave him in the greatest affliction and if he felt obliged from a fear of offending missus smith
in such a case a plain and open avowal of his difficulties would have been more to his honour i think as well as more consistent with his general character but i will not raise objections against any one's conduct on so illiberal a foundation
as a difference in judgment from myself or a deviation from what i may think right and consistent you speak very properly willoughby certainly does not deserve to be suspected
though we have not known him long he is no stranger in this part of the world and who has ever spoken to his disadvantage had he been in a situation to act independently and marry immediately
it might have been odd that he should leave us without acknowledging everything to me at once but this is not the case it is an engagement in some respects not prosperously begun for their marriage must be at a very uncertain distance
and even secrecy as far as it can be observed may now be very advisable they were interrupted by the entrance of margaret and elinor was then at liberty to think over the representations of her mother
and it seemed as if her tears were even then restrained with difficulty she avoided the looks of them all could neither eat nor speak and after some time on her mother's silently pressing her hand with tender compassion her small degree of fortitude
was quite overcome she burst into tears and left the room this violent oppression of spirits continued the whole evening she was without any power because she was without any desire of command over herself
the slightest mention of anything relative to willoughby overpowered her in an instant
chapter ten don diego
and with languid eyes in aching head he looked round the cabin which was flooded with sunlight from the square windows astern then he uttered a moan and closed his eyes again impelled to this by the monstrous ache in his head
lying thus he attempted to think to locate himself in time and space but between the pain in his head and the confusion in his mind he found coherent thought impossible
an indefinite sense of alarm drove him to open his eyes again and once more to consider his surroundings
the low position of the sun flooding the cabin with golden light from those square ports astern suggested to him at first that it was early morning on the assumption that the vessel was headed westward then the alternative occurred to him
they might be sailing eastward in which case the time of day would be late afternoon that they were sailing he could feel from the gentle forward heave of the vessel under him but how did they come to be sailing and he the master
his mind went back over the adventure of yesterday if of yesterday it was he was clear on the matter of the easily successful raid upon the island of barbados every detail stood vividly in his memory up to the moment at which
returning aboard he had stepped on to his own deck again there memory abruptly and inexplicably ceased he was beginning to torture his mind with conjecture
when the door opened and to don diego's increasing mystification he beheld his best suit of clothes step into the cabin it was a singularly elegant and characteristically spanish suit of black taffetas
with silver lace that had been made for him a year ago in cadiz and he knew each detail of it so well that it was impossible he could now be mistaken the suit paused to close the door
then advanced towards the couch on which don diego was extended and inside the suit came a tall slender gentleman of about don diego's own height and shape seeing the wide startled eyes of the spaniard upon him
that regarded him out of a tawny sardonic face set in a cluster of black ringlets but he was too bewildered to make any answer the stranger's fingers touched the top of don diego's head
he took don diego's wrist between thumb and second finger and then at last the intrigued spaniard spoke are you a doctor among other things
don diego struggled up into a sitting position on the red velvet couch
and what the devil are you doing in my clothes and aboard my ship
you are still delirious i fear this is not your ship this is my ship and these are my clothes your ship quoth the other aghast and still more aghast he added your clothes but
then wildly his eyes looked about him they scanned the cabin once again scrutinizing each familiar object am i mad he asked at last
then the spaniard broke off his glance grew still more troubled
captain peter blood this ship like this handsome suit of clothes is mine by right of conquest just as you don diego are my prisoner startling as was the explanation
yet it proved soothing to don diego being so much less startling than the things he was beginning to imagine but are you not spanish then you flatter my castilian accent i have the honour to be irish
you were thinking that a miracle had happened so it has a miracle wrought by my genius which is considerable
it was a narrative that painted red and white by turns the spaniard's countenance he put a hand to the back of his head and there discovered in confirmation of the story a lump as large as a pigeon's egg
lastly he stared wild eyed at the sardonic captain blood and my son
don diego sank back on the couch his glittering dark eyes fixed upon the tawny face above him he composed himself after all he possessed the stoicism proper to his desperate trade
the dice had fallen against him in this venture the tables had been turned upon him in the very moment of success he accepted the situation with the fortitude of a fatalist
with the utmost calm he enquired and now senior capitan and
but is that necessary he asked without apparent perturbation captain blood's blue eyes approved his bearing ask yourself said he
ah but there is a difference don diego sat up to argue the matter it lies in the fact that you boast yourself a humane man
and i'll not allow a natural irish sentimentality to stand in the way of my doing what is necessary and proper
she is none so well found in water and provisions true we are fortunately a small number but you and your party inconveniently increase it
so that on every hand you see prudence suggests to us that we should deny ourselves the pleasure of your company and steeling our soft hearts to the inevitable invite you to be so obliging as to step over the side i see
said the spaniard pensively he swung his legs from the couch and sat now upon the edge of it his elbows on his knees
i confess he admitted that there is much force in what you say you take a load from my mind said captain blood i would not appear unnecessarily harsh especially since i and my friends owe you so very much for
to us your raid upon barbados was most opportune i am glad therefore that you agree
but my friend i did not agree so much
don diego stroked his pointed black beard can you give me until morning for reflection my head aches so damnably that i am incapable of thought and this you will admit
captain blood stood up from a shelf he took a half hour glass reversed it so that the bulb containing the red sand was uppermost
but one glass is all that i can give you
i shall most reluctantly be driven to ask you to go over the side with your friends captain blood bowed went out and locked the door
and what time he watched the lines in his lean brown face grew deeper
the spaniard sighed and sat upright to face the returning captain blood with the answer for which he came i have thought of an alternative sir captain but it depends upon your charity
it is that you put us ashore on one of the islands of this pestilent archipelago and leave us to shift for ourselves captain blood pursed his lips
i feared it would be so don diego sighed again and stood up let us say no more
the spaniard threw back his head a frown between his eyes
you do not desire to live ah that i can answer i do desire to live and even more do i desire that my son may live but the desire shall not make a coward of me for your amusement master mocker
it was the first sign he had shown of the least heat or resentment
as before he perched himself on the corner of the table
to earn life and liberty for yourself your son and the other spaniards who are on board to earn it said don diego and the watchful blue eyes did not miss the quiver that ran through him to
earn it do you say why if the service you would propose is one that cannot hurt my honour
i realize that even a pirate has his honour and forthwith he propounded his offer
that is the island of barbados well astern all day we have been sailing east before the wind with but one intent to set as great a distance between barbados and ourselves as possible but now almost out of sight of land we are in a difficulty
delirious in fact as a result of certain ill treatment he received ashore before we carried him away with us
and there are one or two men aboard who can assist me but of the higher mysteries of seamanship and of the art of finding a way over the trackless wastes of ocean we know nothing
to hug the land and go blundering about what you so aptly call this pestilent archipelago is for us to court disaster as you can perhaps conceive and so it comes to this
we desire to make for the dutch settlement of curacao as straightly as possible will you pledge me your honour if i release you upon parole that you will navigate us thither if so we will release you and your surviving men upon arrival there
don diego bowed his head upon his breast and strode away in thought to the stern windows there he stood looking out upon the sunlit sea
his ship which these english dogs had wrested from him his ship which he was asked to bring safely into a port where she would be completely lost to him and refitted perhaps to make war upon his kin that was in one scale
in the other were the lives of sixteen men fourteen of them mattered little to him but the remaining two were his own and his son's
theosophy much is said nowadays about theosophy which is really but another name for mysticism it is not a philosophy for it will have nothing to do with philosophical methods it might be called a religion
though it has never had a following large enough to make a very strong impression on the world's religious history the name is from the greek word theosophia divine wisdom
and the object of theosophical study is professedly to understand the nature of divine things it differs however from both philosophy and theology even when these have the same object of investigation for
in seeking to learn the divine nature and attributes philosophy employs the methods and principles of natural reasoning theology uses these adding to them certain principles derived from revelation
theosophy on the other hand professes to exclude all reasoning processes as imperfect and to derive its knowledge from direct communication with god himself it does not therefore
accept the truths of recorded revelation as immutable but as subject to modification by later and personal revelations the theosophical idea has had followers from the earliest times
since the christian era we may class among theosophists such sects as neo platonists the hesychasts of the greek church the mystics of mediaeval times and in later times the disciples of paracelsus
thalhauser bohme swedenborg and others recently a small sect has arisen which has taken the name of theosophists
taking a few of his followers to india they have been prosecuting their studies there certain individuals attracting considerable attention by a claim to miraculous powers
it need hardly be said that the revelations they have claimed to receive have been thus far without element of benefit to the human race the evolution theory
the evolution or development theory declares the universe as it now exists to be the result of a long series of changes which were so far related to each other as to form a series of growths analogous to the evolving of the parts of a growing organism
herbert spencer defines evolution as a progress from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous from general to special from the simple to the complex elements of life
and it is believed that this process can be traced in the formation of worlds in space in the multiplication of types and species among animals and plants in the origin and changes of languages and literature and the arts
asserting the general fact of progress in nature the evolution theory shows that the method of this progress has been one by the multiplication of organs and functions two
according to a defined unity of plan although with three intervention of transitional forms and four with modifications dependent upon surrounding conditions
but as a theory evolution belongs to the enlightenment of the nineteenth century leibnitz in the latter part of the seventeenth century first uttered the opinion that the earth was once in a fluid condition
and kant about the middle of the eighteenth century definitely propounded the nebular hypothesis which was enlarged as a theory by the herschels the first writer to suggest the transmutation of species among animals was buffon
about seventeen fifty and other writers followed out the idea the eccentric lord monboddo was the first to suggest the possible descent of man from the ape about seventeen seventy four in eighteen thirteen
doctor w c wells first proposed to apply the principle of natural selection to the natural history of man and in eighteen twenty two professor herbert first asserted the probable transmutation of species of plants
which though evidently not written by a scientific student yet attracted great attention by its bold and ingenious theories the authorship of this book was never revealed until after the death of robert chambers
a few years since it became known that this publisher whom no one would ever have suspected of holding such heterodox theories had actually written it but the two great apostles of the evolution theory
were charles darwin and herbert spencer the latter began his great work the first principles of philosophy
in eighteen fifty two in eighteen fifty nine appeared darwin's origin of species the hypothesis of the latter was that different species originated in spontaneous variation
and the survival of the fittest through natural selection and the struggle for existence this theory was further elaborated and applied by spencer darwin huxley
evolution as a principle is now acknowledged by nearly all scientists it is taken to be an established fact in nature a valid induction from man's knowledge of natural order the english sparrow
the first english sparrow was brought to the united states in eighteen fifty but it was not until eighteen seventy that the species can be said to have firmly established itself
since then it has taken possession of the country its fecundity is amazing in the latitude of new york and southward it hatches as a rule five or six broods in a season
with from four to six young in a brood assuming the average annual product of a pair to be twenty four young of which half are females and half males
and assuming further for the sake of computation that all live together with their offspring it will be seen that in ten years the progeny of a single pair
feminine height and weight it is often asked how stout a woman ought to be in proportion to her height a very young girl may becomingly be thinner than a matron
but the following table gives a fair indication of proper proportions
when a man becomes of age the question sometimes arises whether it man is entitled to vote at an election held on the day preceding the twenty first anniversary of his birth
full age in male or female is twenty one years which age is completed on the day preceding the anniversary of a person's birth
the late chief justice sharswood in his edition of blackstone's commentaries quotes christian's note
if he is born on the sixteenth day of february sixteen o eight he is of age to do any legal act on the morning of the fifteenth of february sixteen twenty nine though he may not have lived twenty one years by nearly forty eight hours
the reason assigned is that in law there is no fraction of a day and if the birth were on the last second of one day and the act on the first second of the preceding day twenty one years after
one hundred one if a person is very handsome it is a sign that he will have one of the infectious diseases of childhood measles whooping cough et cetera more than once massachusetts dimple
one hundred two dimple in chin devil within chestertown maryland one hundred three a dimple in the chin is lucky some say it shows you're no fool one hundred four
pennsylvania ears one hundred five small ears indicate that a person is stingy large ones show that he is generous general one hundred six
small ears show that one is truthful
one hundred seven long slim ears are a sign that you will steal chestertown maryland one hundred eight if the protuberance behind the ear is large it indicates generosity
massachusetts eyes and eyebrows one hundred nine hazel eyes betoken a good disposition
one hundred ten if your eyebrows meet you will be rich
one hundred eleven a well known children's rhyme runs blue eye beauty do your mammy's duty black eye pick a pie run around and tell a lie gray eye greedy gut eat all the world up
heavy eyebrows are a sign of long life
finger nails one hundred fifteen always keep your nails clean and you will be rich
hundred sixteen a white spot in the nail when it comes means a present you get the present when it grows to the end and is cut
one hundred seventeen white spots on the nails of the left hand denote the number of lies one has told maine and central illinois one hundred eighteen count on finger nail spots
begin with the first nail spotted and the noun falling to the last nail thus marked gives the sign
one hundred nineteen another formula first finger a friend second finger a foe third finger a gift fourth finger a beau fifth finger a journey to go
an almost identical variant is found in prince edward island foot one hundred twenty if your instep is high enough to have water flow under it you are of good descent
one hundred twenty one a mole on the sole of the left foot means trouble and hardships during life
forehead one hundred twenty two
it is one of the surest signs of early death maine and massachusetts one hundred twenty three vertical wrinkles in the brow show the number of husbands one will have horizontal ones show the number of children northern ohio
hair one hundred twenty four coarse hair indicates good nature fine hair quick temper northern ohio one hundred twenty five red hair indicates a spit fire massachusetts and chestertown maryland
beware of that man be he friend or brother whose hair is one color and moustache another portland me one hundred twenty seven the color of the hair growing on the neck indicates the color of the hair of one's future husband
one hundred twenty eight a single white hair means genius it must not be pulled out one hundred twenty nine if you pull out a white hair two will come in its place somewhat general in the united states
hair growing upon the upper lip of a woman means riches
one hundred thirty three draw a single hair from the head strongly between the thumb and finger nail if it curls up you are proud saint john n b and prince edward island
the same result indicates that you are cross cape breton one hundred thirty four hairy arms mean wealth northern ohio one hundred thirty five hairy arms mean strength general in the united states
scrape the finger nail and the thumb nail along a hair and if by the third time it curls up the owner is high tempered
one hundred thirty seven put some of your hair in the fire
if quickly a short one chestertown maryland hand
a straight line in the palm of the hand is an omen of early death massachusetts
the letter formed by the veins on the inside of the wrist is the initial of the name of the future husband or wife
a person with an initial in his hand will be very fortunate in selecting a companion for life alabama one hundred forty one in clasping your own hand you put uppermost either your right or your left thumb if the former
you are to rule vice versa you yield
if the thumb sticks up in the closed fist you are either capable or honest probably the latter as thieves are said to double theirs in new england
if you cannot make your thumb and one finger meet around your wrist you are a glutton province of quebec
if you cannot touch the tips of your little finger and first finger together behind the two middle fingers on both hands then you will not marry the man you want to marry province of quebec
clasp your fingers and if the right thumb lap over the left you were born in the daytime if the left overlap you were born at night
the number of folds on your wrist as you bend your hand shows the number of thirties you are to live massachusetts
if the ends of the fingers are capable of being bent far back it indicates a thief moles
a mole on the eyebrow denotes that one will be hanged on the ear it denotes that he will be drowned chestertown maryland
mole above breath means wealth
moles on the neck money by the peck prince edward island and northern ohio
a mole on the arm indicates riches
mole on your arm live on a farm alabama
a mole on the arm means that you will fight many battles and will be very successful in them prince edward island nose
a vein across the nose is an omen of short life
a broad space between the teeth indicates a liar
broad front teeth mean that one is generous biddeford me
a space between the two front upper incisors signifies wealth
if the front teeth are wide apart it means one can't keep a secret if overlapping one is close mouthed
do not trust people with pointed teeth chestertown maryland
if you have a space between your teeth it is a sign that you will die of consumption baltimore maryland
a lump enlarged papilla on the tongue is a sign one has told a lie
and taking the royal forces by surprise defeated them and seized the kingdom the dethroned king who had been severely wounded in battle was cast in prison where he soon died but his widow the queen
managed to escape from the palace before the usurper could lay hands upon her into the dark forest which lay behind the palace ran the queen holding her baby daughter in her arms it was winter time and a heavy snow had hidden the foot paths and the roads
all afternoon however she trudged bravely on through the silence and the cold her heart sinking as mile after mile revealed no sign of a house or a shelter but late in the afternoon
brought the little girl up as if she were his own child his brother the dwarf of the mountain made her the prettiest red leather shoes and his cousins the dwarfs of the pines made the little girl dresses from cloth woven on fairy looms now
seventeen years passed and marianna grew to be quite the loveliest lass in all the world her hair was as black as the raven's wing her eyes were as blue as the midsummer sea and her skin was fair as the petal of a rose one spring morning
the emperor of the elves has bidden me come to the great assembly of the dwarfs
alas what are we to do i can not take you with me dear child for it is forbidden on pain of death to bring mortals to the assembly nor can i leave you here in this lonely wood to this marianna replied do not fear dear father give me but yon crystal flask of the water of healing
over dale to the golden mountain
marianna followed her to the hamlet and found in a wretched hut lying on a wretched bed a beautiful young peasant girl dying of a fever so marianna touched the girl with the water of healing and in an instant she became well and strong dear lady said the peasant girl
beheld a little yellow bird crouching on the hearthstone every now and then he hid his head under his wings and cried unhappily
bending down and taking him up in her hands why criest thou so mournfully who hath done thee harm but the bird uttered only a forlorn little cry and hid his head again under his wings
i found him on the rocks at the mountaintop yesterday said the mother someone has wounded him
then the peasant girl threw open the casement and the yellow bird flew out into the streaming sun he is gone forever said the peasant girl nay
and perched in the sheltering bower of marianna's arms then accompanied by the peasant girl and the yellow bird who flew singing before her
when they reached the foot of the path the peasant girl cried farewell dear marianna may it some day be mine to repay thee into the world again went marianna and with her went the yellow bird presently she came to the fairest land which she had ever seen
because her father had been the last rightful king now
who had stolen the kingdom from marianna's father had died leaving his brother garabin in charge of the kingdom and of the interests of his little son prince desire
for some time he had enjoyed undisturbed the possession of his stolen throne but as desire grew taller and stronger every year garabin began to fear the day when he would be compelled to resign in favor of his nephew when the prince reached his twentieth year
garabin would certainly have killed him openly had he dared but fearing the people he resolved to use secret methods and bribed a cruel magician to afflict poor desire with a deadly and mysterious malady of this malady
desire was slowly dying for no medicine could cure him or even give him any relief from his constant pain
in the hope of finding his nephew dead would go to the sick room and you may be sure that his wicked heart rejoiced when he found the prince weaker and more feverish garabin had just returned from a visit to the prince who was rapidly failing
when the captain of the castle guard came to him
the little yellow bird sat on marianna's shoulder and never did maiden appear lovelier or more gentle scarcely had garabin set eyes on marianna
had he not been very old and crafty he would have started from his golden throne for he knew that the little golden heart set with diamonds
what was he to do with marianna whose right to the throne was superior even to his nephew's perplexed and with fear in his heart the king sought the cruel magician who had cast the spell on desire
great cauldron all the while and said do not fear i will destroy both claimants to the throne at once garabin rubbed his hands together with glee to night
and the prince will die
thinking that nobody had noticed him the yellow bird however had seen everything
the next morning marianna was once more led before the king welcome thrice welcome lovely maiden said garabin with the most
dreadful hypocrisy i have long hoped that you would turn your footsteps hither for my poor dear nephew prince desire only son of the late king
desire lay in a great old fashioned bed his face flushed with fever so weak was the poor prince that he could scarcely lift his head to look at his visitors
a great pity swept over marianna's heart the instant she saw him as for desire he fell madly in love with marianna at first sight now just as marianna bent over the prince to touch his forehead with the water of healing
nothing seemed changed the water within seemed as pure and diamond like as ever she touched the prince with the liquid alas in a moment so terrible was the magician's poison that the prince turned white as the driven snow
at high noon a trial was held and since the doctors declared that the prince was dying marianna was condemned to be thrown from the precipice when somebody asked about the yellow bird
garabin laughed and gave orders that the cook should wring its neck and toss it to the cat
and given to the cook here you wring its neck said the cook to one of her helpers while i go call the cat by great good fortune the cook's helper
let it fly out of the window the yellow bird flew to the window of the magician's room the magician was in the chamber stirring the giant cauldron the bird flew to the window of prince desire's room and saw that he was still insensible
and last of all a little group in which were garabin the magician
it roused the prince from his swoon and with his last measure of strength poor desire dragged himself to the window the procession was then passing directly underneath the window and desire's eyes
met the eyes of marianna stop stop cried the poor prince wildly i forbid an instant later he sank fainting to the floor the procession went on meanwhile the yellow bird had returned to the magician's chamber it was empty
clutching it in his claws the bird flew once more to the prince's room desire still lay in a heap by the window
the prince sprang up strong as a lion
he arrived at the cliff just as the poor maiden was about to be pushed off into space and standing by her side dared anyone to lay hands upon her garabin seeing his precious plot miscarry grew mad with rage seize them cried he
and toss them both over the precipice so the soldiers rushed at marianna and the prince intending to carry out their wicked master's orders but even as they did so there came a flash of flame and the little dwarf marianna's foster father took his place beside the lovers
the first one blowing the king and the magician head over heels over the precipice the second carrying away the soldiers and the third the rascally favorites
and it is thanks to him that i have returned in time with the storm at my heels you marianna are the rightful queen of this country dear queen said the honest and gallant desire let me be the first of your subjects to salute you and he knelt before her and humbly kissed her hand nay prince said the young queen
especially as to their intercourse with the lower irish most persons have an opportunity of becoming acquainted if they will with the lower classes of irish as they are so much employed among us in domestic service and other kinds of labor we feel say these persons
we have sometimes tried but the want of real gratitude which in them is associated with such warm and wordy expressions of regard with their incorrigible habits of falsehood and evasion have baffled and discouraged us
are both opposed to the formation of such views and habits as we think desirable to the citizen of the new world we answer first with regard to those who have grown up in another land and who soon after arriving here are engaged in our service
which make them rich in thoughts and enjoyment perhaps in money too certainly rich in comparison with the poor immigrants they employ
the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table might be received with gratitude and if any but the dogs came to tend the beggar's sores such might be received as angels but the institutions which sustained such ideas
have fallen to pieces it is understood even in europe that the rank is but the guinea's stamp
has a claim on this earth for something better than the nettles of which the french peasantry made their soup
under hiding turned to green the lips white before with famine
their hereditary degradation their long memories of black bread and stripes however little else they may understand believe they understand well this much such inequalities of privilege among men all born of one blood
owe to the master an account of stewardship
how did you give with religious joy
with joy and freedom as one who feels that it is the highest happiness of gift to us that we have something to give again didst thou put thyself into the position of the poor man
as i should myself and at the end of the quarter i will give you my old clothes and a new pocket handkerchief besides seeing that your mother is provided with fuel against christmas line upon line and precept upon precept the tender parent
which the expectation of being tyrannized over has rooted in their race for ages
if we look fairly into the history of their people and the circumstances under which their own youth was trained we cannot expect that anything short of the most steadfast patience and love can enlighten them as to the beauty and value of implicit truth and having done so fortify and refine them in the practice of it this we admit at the outset
not merely un educated but ill educated a treatment far more religious and patient than is demanded by your own children if they were born and bred under circumstances at all favorable second dismiss from your minds all thought of gratitude
upon principal left in your care
will not discourage you and you will welcome proofs of genuine attachment to yourself chiefly as tokens that your charge has risen into a higher state of thought and feeling so as to be enabled to value the benefits conferred through you
could we begin so there would be hope of our really becoming the instructors
the influence of the catholic priesthood must continue very great till there is a complete transfusion of character in the minds of their charge but as the irishman
will have to learn the duties of an american citizen he will live less and less for the church and more for the people till at last if there be catholicism still it will be under protestant influences
as begins to be the case in germany it will be not roman
but american catholicism a form of worship which relies much perhaps on external means and the authority of the clergy for such will always be the case with religion while there are crowds of men still living an external life and who have not learned to make full use of their own
faculties but where a belief in the benefits of confession and the power of the church as church to bind and loose atone for or decide upon sin with similar corruptions must vanish in the free and searching air
we are much worse situated than the same parties have been in europe
we must though unwillingly use these terms to designate the state of things as at present existing meals are taken separately work is seldom shared there is very little to bring the parties together except sometimes the farmer works with his hired
or the mother keeps the nurse maid of her baby in the room with her in this state of things the chances for instruction which come every day of themselves where parties share a common life instead of its results merely do not occur
neither is there opportunity to administer instruction in the best manner nor to understand when and where it is needed the farmer who works with his men in the field
who are in their employ and enjoy health of conscience in the relation secure that if they find cause for blame
it is not from faults induced by their own negligence the merchant who is from home all day the lady receiving visitors or working slippers in her nicely furnished parlor cannot be quite so sure that their demands or the duties involved in them
it is shocking to think to what falsehoods human beings like ourselves will resort to excuse a love of amusement to hide ill health while they see us indulging freely in the one yielding lightly to the other and yet we have or ought to have
far more resources in either temptation than they for us it is hard to resist to give up going to the places where we should meet our most interesting companions
but we have not people over us whose careless hasty anger drives us to seek excuses for our failures if so perhaps perhaps who knows we the better educated rigidly immaculately true as we are at present might tell falsehoods
but only a day or two since we saw what we see so often a nursery maid with the family to which she belonged in a public conveyance
they were having a pleasant time but in it she had no part except to hold a hot heavy baby and receive frequent admonitions to keep it comfortable
but her joys her sorrows her few thoughts her almost buried capacities would have been as unknown to them and they as little likely to benefit her as the emperor of china
let him become acquainted with the family circumstances and history of his new pupil he has now got some ground on which to stand for intercourse let instruction follow for the mind not merely by having the youngest daughter set now and then copies in the writing book
explain to them the relations of objects around them teach them to compare the old with the new life if you show a better way than theirs of doing work
if you yourself are refined and thoughtful but rather that the case requires far more care in the choice of a favorable opportunity when then the good time is come
bold sincerity and adherence to their word has crept over and become deeply rooted in the poorer people from the long oppressions they have undergone
show them what efforts and care will be needed to wash out the taint offer your aid as a faithful friend to watch their lapses
if they never mend if habit is too powerful still their nobler nature will not have been addressed in vain they will not forget the counsels they have not strength to follow
hello answered trot looking up surprised where did you come from philadelphia said he dear me said trot you're a long way from home then bout as far as i can get in this country the boy replied gazing out over the water
isn't this the pacific ocean of course
because it's the biggest lot of water in all the world how do you know cap'n bill told me she said who's cap'n bill an old sailorman who's a friend of mine he lives at my house too the white house you see over there on the bluff
oh is that your home yes said trot proudly isn't it pretty it's pretty small seems to me answered the boy but it's big enough for mother and me an for cap'n bill said trot haven't you any father
yes ndeed cap'n griffith is my father but he's gone most of the time sailin on his ship you mus be a stranger in these parts little boy not to know bout cap'n griffith she added looking at her new acquaintance intently
under his arm he held an old umbrella that was as tall as he was its covering had once been of thick brown cloth but the color had faded to a dull drab except in the creases and trot thought it looked very old fashioned and common
it was of wood and carved to resemble an elephant's head the long trunk of the elephant was curved to make a crook for the handle the eyes of the beast were small red stones and it had two tiny tusks of ivory
the boy's dress was rich and expensive even to his fine silk stockings and tan shoes but the umbrella looked old and disreputable
the boy glanced at his umbrella and hugged it tighter no he said but umbrellas are good for other things sides rain fraid of gett'n sun struck asked trot he shook his head still gazing far out over the water
i don't b'lieve this is bigger than any other ocean said he i can't see any more of it than i can of the atlantic you'd find out if you had to sail across it she declared
then it doesn't make any difference how big an ocean is he replied what are those buildings over there pointing to the right along the shore of the bay that's the town said trot
so it's bout a mile from my house to the town the boy sat down beside her on the flat rock do you like girls asked trot making room for him not very well the boy replied some of em are pretty good fellows but not many
the girls with brothers are bossy an the girls without brothers haven't any go to em but the world's full o both kinds
they can't help being girls of course do you like boys
much obliged laughed trot you aren't so bad either
he nodded rather absently and tossed a pebble into the water been to town he asked yes mother wanted some yarn from the store she's knittin cap'n bill a stocking
that's why he don't sailor any more i'm glad of it cause cap'n bill knows ev'rything i s'pose he knows more than anyone else in all the world
said the boy that's taking a good deal for granted a one legged sailor can't know much why not asked trot a little indignantly folks don't learn things with their legs do they no
the people in em knew and a lot besides he was shipwrecked on a desert island once and another time a cannibal king tried to boil him for dinner an one day a shark chased him seven leagues through the water an'
you know what is it then
i know some things cap'n bill don't know if you do you're pretty smart said trot no i'm not smart some folks think i'm stupid i guess i am
but i know a few things that are wonderful cap'n bill may know more'n i do a good deal more but i'm sure he can't know the same things say what's your name i'm mayre griffith
but ever'body calls me trot it's a nickname i got when i was a baby cause i trotted so fast when i walked an it seems to stick what's your name button bright how did it happen
such a funny name the boy scowled a little just like your own nickname happened he answered gloomily my father once said i was bright as a button an it made ever'body laugh so they always call me button bright
what's your real name she inquired
guess i'll call you button bright said trot sighing
an i don't like salads
thank you said trot oh
button bright turned also and looked solemnly at the old sailor
toward them cap'n bill wasn't a very handsome man he was old not very tall somewhat stout and chubby with a round face a bald head and a scraggly fringe of reddish whisker underneath his chin
one leg of which covered his wooden limb but did not hide it as he came pegging along the path as he himself described his hobbling walk his hands were pushed into his coat pockets a pipe was in his mouth
black neckscarf was fluttering behind him in the breeze like a sable banner button bright liked the sailor's looks there was something very winning something jolly and care free and honest and sociable about the
said she i did hurry when i was going cap'n bill but on my way home i sat down here to rest an watch the gulls the gulls seem awful busy to day cap'n bill an then i found this boy cap'n bill looked at the boy curiously
he remarked guess as you're a stranger my lad button bright nodded hain't walked the
no said button bright the sailor glanced around him don't see no waggin
no said button bright
button bright shook his head a boat can't land here the rocks is too thick an too sharp continued cap'n bill
no said button bright i didn't come by water trot laughed he must a dropped from the sky cap'n bill she exclaimed button bright nodded very seriously
cried cap'n bill in surprise
sky keeridges
i don't know said button bright i've never seen one both trot and cap'n bill now looked at the boy in astonishment
here's a riddle for us to guess trot he dropped from the sky he says an yet he did'nt come in a airship
what can the answer be trot looked the boy over carefully she didn't see any wings on him the only queer thing about him was his big umbrella oh she said suddenly clapping her hands together i know now
then you're some smarter ner i am mate he sailed down with the umbrel she cried he used his umbrel as a para para shoot
said cap'n bill they're called parashoots mate but why i can't say did you drop down in that way my lad he asked the boy
yes said button bright that was the way but how did you get up there asked trot you had to get up in the air before you could drop down an' oh cap'n bill
he says he's from phillydelfy which is a big city way at the other end of america are you asked the sailor surprised button bright nodded again i ought to tell you my story he said and then you'd understand
but i'm afraid you won't believe me and he suddenly broke off and looked toward the white house in the distance didn't you say you lived over there he inquired
won't you come home with us i'd like to replied button bright all right let's go then said the girl jumping up the three walked silently along the path the old sailorman had refilled his pipe and lighted it again
and he smoked thoughtfully as he pegged along beside the children know anyone around here he asked button bright no one but you two said the boy following after trot
with his umbrella tucked carefully underneath his arm and you don't know us very well remarked cap'n bill seems to me you're pretty young to be travelin so far from home an among strangers
but i won't say anything more till we've heard your story then if you need my advice or trot's advice
trot is we'll freely give it an be glad to help you thank you replied button bright
the method employed by one's opponents in baffling one's open and honorable efforts to do the right thing so plain the advantages of machination it constitutes a moral obligation and honest wolves who think upon't with loathing
so prospers still the diplomatic art and satan bows with hand upon his heart
macrobian
one forgotten of the gods and living to a great age history is abundantly supplied with examples from methuselah to old parr but some notable instances of longevity are less well known a calabrian peasant named
coloni born in seventeen fifty three lived so long that he had what he considered a glimpse of the dawn of universal peace scanavius relates that he knew an archbishop who was so old
that he could remember a time when he did not deserve hanging in fifteen sixty six a linen draper of bristol england declared that he had lived five hundred years and that in all that time he had never told a lie
there are instances of longevity macrobiosis in our own country senator chauncey depew is old enough to know better the editor of the american a newspaper in new york city
has a memory that goes back to the time when he was a rascal but not to the fact the president of the united states was born so long ago that many of the friends of his youth have risen to high political and military preferment without the assistance of personal merit
the verses following were written by a macrobian when i was young the world was fair and amiable and sunny a brightness was in all the air in all the waters honey the jokes were fine and funny the statesmen honest in their views
and in their lives as well and when you heard a bit of news twas true enough to tell men were not ranting shouting reeking nor women generally speaking the summer then was long indeed it lasted one whole season
the sparkling winter gave no heed when ordered by unreason to bring the early peas on now where the dickens is the sense in calling that a year which does no more than just commence before the end is near
when i was young the year extended from month to month until it ended i know not why the world has changed to something dark and dreary and everything is now arranged to make a fellow weary the weather man i fear he has
the air is not the same it chokes you when it is impure when pure it makes you lame with windows closed you are asthmatic open
well i suppose this new regime of dun degeneration seems eviler than it would seem to a better observation and has for compensation some blessings in a deep disguise
which mortal sight has failed to pierce although to angels eyes
if age is such a boon good land he's costumed by a master hand
mad
at odds with the majority in short unusual it is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute
for illustration this present and illustrious lexicographer is no firmer in the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any madhouse in the land yet for aught he knows to the contrary
instead of the lofty occupation that seems to him to be engaging his powers he may really be beating his hands against the window bars of an asylum and declaring himself noah webster to the innocent delight of many thoughtless spectators
magdalene
popularly a woman found out this definition of the word has the authority of ignorance mary of magdala being another person than the penitent woman mentioned by saint luke
it has also the official sanction of the governments of great britain and the united states in england the word is pronounced maudlin whence maudlin adjective unpleasantly sentimental
with their maudlin for magdalene and their bedlam for bethlehem the english may justly boast themselves the greatest of revisers magic
an art of converting superstition into coin there are other arts serving the same high purpose but the discreet lexicographer does not name them magnet
something acted upon by magnetism magnetism
something acting upon a magnet the two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists who have illuminated the subject with a great white light to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge
magnificent a d j
as the ears of an ass to a rabbit or the glory of a glowworm to a maggot magnitude
size magnitude being purely relative nothing is large and nothing small if everything in the universe were increased in bulk one thousand diameters nothing would be any larger than it was before
but if one thing remain unchanged all the others would be larger than they had been to an understanding familiar with the relativity of magnitude and distance the spaces and masses of the astronomer would be no more impressive than those of the microscopist
for anything we know to the contrary the visible universe may be a small part of an atom with its component ions floating in the life fluid luminiferous ether of some animal
are overcome with the proper emotion when contemplating the unthinkable distance from one of these to another magpie
a bird whose thievish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk
a young person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and views that madden to crime the genus has a wide geographical distribution being found wherever sought and deplored wherever found
the maiden is not altogether unpleasing to the eye nor without her piano and her views insupportable to the ear though in respect to comeliness distinctly inferior to the rainbow and with regard to the part of her that is audible
bleating out of the field by the canary which also is more portable a lovelorn maiden she sat and sang this quaint sweet song sang she
the captain he of a team to be
a monarch by right divine and never to roast on it me
majesty
the state and title of a king regarded with a just contempt by the most eminent grand masters grand chancellors great incohonees and imperial potentates
of the ancient and honorable orders of republican america male
a member of the unconsidered or negligible sex
to the female as mere man the genus has two varieties good providers and bad providers malefactor
the chief factor in the progress of the human race malthusian
malthus believed in artificially limiting population but found that it could not be done by talking one of the most practical exponents of the malthusian idea was herod of judea though all the famous soldiers have been of the same way of thinking
mammalia
but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse or use the bottle mammon
the god of the world's leading religion
is in the holy city of new york he swore that all other religions were gammon and wore out his knees in the worship of mammon
an animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be his chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species which
however multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and canada when the world was young and man was new and everything was pleasant distinctions nature never drew
mongst kings and priest and peasant we're not that way at present save here in this republic where we have that old regime for
their hunger and indeed each has a voice to accept the tyrant of his party's choice a citizen who would not vote and therefore was detested was one day with a tarry coat with feathers backed and breasted by patriots invested
he humbly bowed and explained his wicked past
manicheism
the ancient persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between good and evil when good gave up the fight the persians joined the victorious opposition manna
a food miraculously given to the israelites in the wilderness when it was no longer supplied to them they settled down and tilled the soil fertilizing it as a rule with the bodies of the original occupants marriage
the state or condition of a community consisting of a master a mistress and two slaves making in all two martyr
one who moves along the line of least reluctance to a desired death material
the final and funniest folly of the rich
one of the sauces which serve the french in place of a state religion me
the objectionable case of i the personal pronoun in english has three cases the dominative the objectionable and the oppressive each is all three
meander
to proceed sinuously and aimlessly the word is the ancient name of a river about one hundred and fifty miles south of troy which turned and twisted in the effort to get out of hearing when the greeks and trojans boasted of their prowess
medal
a small metal disk given as a reward for virtues attainments or services more or less authentic
that being asked the meaning of the medal he replied i save lives sometimes and sometimes he didn't medicine
a stone flung down the bowery to kill a dog in broadway
uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while m is for moses who slew the egyptian as sweet as a rose is the meekness of moses no monument shows his post mortem inscription
but m is for moses who slew the egyptian
the biographical alphabet
a fine white clay which for convenience in coloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked by the workmen engaged in that industry
there was a youth you've heard before this woeful tale may be
he shut himself from the world away nor any soul he saw he smoke by night he smoked by day as hard as he could draw his dog died moaning in the wrath of winds that blew aloof
he's gone afar he'll come no more the neighbors sadly say and so they batter in the door to take his goods away dead pipe in mouth the youngster lay nut brown in face and limb that pipe's a lovely white they say but it has colored him
don't play your game on any thing that is a gamester too
merchant
one engaged in a commercial pursuit a commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar mercy
an attribute beloved of detected offenders mesmerism
kept a carriage and asked incredulity to dinner metropolis
a stronghold of provincialism millennium
the period of a thousand years when the lid is to be screwed down with all reformers on the under side mind
a mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain
the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with from the latin mens a fact unknown to that honest shoe seller who observing that his learned competitor over the way had displayed the motto
men's women's and children's
mine
minister
an agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility in diplomacy and officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign's hostility
his principal qualification is a degree of plausible inveracity next below that of an ambassador minor
minstrel a d j
now a nigger with a color less than skin deep and a humor more than flesh and blood can bear miracle
an act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king
a person of the highest degree of unworth etymologically the word means unbeliever and its present
signification may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution to the development of our language misdemeanor
an infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society by misdemeanors he essays to climb into the aristocracy of crime
o woe was him with manner chill and grand captains of industry refused his hand kings of finance denied him recognition and railway magnates jeered his low condition he robbed a bank to make himself respected
they still rebuffed him for he was detected
the kind of fortune that never misses miss
the title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market
are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language in sound and sense two are corruptions of mistress the other of master in the general abolition of social titles in this our country
they miraculously escaped to plague us if we must have them let us be consistent and give one to the unmarried man i venture to suggest mush abbreviated to m h molecule
the ultimate indivisible unit of matter it is distinguished from the corpuscle also the ultimate indivisible unit of matter by a closer resemblance to the atom also the ultimate indivisible unit of matter
three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are the molecular the corpuscular and the atomic a fourth affirms
the condensation of precipitation of matter from ether whose existence is proved by the condensation of precipitation the present trend of scientific thought is toward the theory of ions
the ion differs from the molecule the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion
monad
the ultimate indivisible unit of matter see molecule according to leibnitz as nearly as he seems willing to be understood the monad has body without bulk and mind without manifestation
leibnitz knows him by the innate power of considering he has founded upon him a theory of the universe which the creature bears without resentment for the monad is a gentleman
small as he is the monad contains all the powers and possibilities needful to his evolution into a german philosopher of the first class altogether a very capable little fellow he is not to be confounded with the microbe or bacillus
by its inability to discern him a good microscope shows him to be of an entirely distinct species monarch
a person engaged in reigning formerly the monarch ruled as the derivation of the word attests and as many subjects have had occasion to learn in russia and the orient the monarch has still a considerable influence in public affairs
and in the disposition of the human head but in western europe political administration is mostly entrusted to his ministers he being somewhat preoccupied with reflections relating to the status of his own head monarchical government
government monday
in christian countries the day after the baseball game
a blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it an evidence of culture and a passport to polite society supportable property monkey
an arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees monosyllabic
for literary babes who never tire of testifying their delight in the vapid compound by appropriate googoogling the words are commonly saxon that is to say words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas
the man who writes in saxon is the man to use an ax on
judibras monsignor
a high ecclesiastical title of which the founder of our religion overlooked the advantages monument
the bones of agammemnon are a show and ruined is his royal monument but agammemnon's fame suffers no diminution in consequence the monument custom has its reductiones ad absurdum
in monuments to the unknown dead that is to say monuments to perpetuate the memory of those who have left no memory moral a d j conforming to a local and mutable standard of right having the quality of general expediency
conveenyenced for it is given to him to goe downe eyther way and act as it shall suite his moode withouten offence
mouse
an animal which strews its path with fainting women as in rome christians were thrown to the lions so centuries earlier in otumwee the most ancient and famous city of the world female heretics were thrown to the mice
whose writings have descended to us says that these martyrs met their death with little dignity and much exertion he even attempts to exculpate the mice such is the malice of bigotry by declaring that the unfortunate women
perished some from exhaustion some of broken necks from falling over their own feet and some from lack of restoratives the mice he avers
a child of two races ashamed of both multitude
in a republic the object of the statesman's adoration in a multitude of counsellors there is wisdom saith the proverb if many men of equal individual wisdom are wiser than any one of them
it must be that they acquire the excess of wisdom by the mere act of getting together whence comes it obviously from nowhere as well say that a range of mountains is higher than the single mountains composing it
a multitude is as wise as its wisest member if it obey him if not it is no wiser than its most foolish
an ancient egyptian formerly in universal use among modern civilized nations as medicine and now engaged in supplying art with an excellent pigment he is handy too in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity
that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals by means of the mummy mankind it is said attests to the gods its respect for the dead we plunder his tomb be he sinner or saint
exhibit for money his poor shrunken frame
for respecting the dead what's the limit of time
mustang
an indocile horse of the western plains in english society the american wife of an english nobleman
oh yes that conversation took place on the fourth of august nineteen thirteen i remember saying to her that on that day exactly nine years before i had made their acquaintance
i could quite confidently say that though we four had been about together in all sorts of places for all that length of time i had not for my part one single complaint to make of either of them and i added
that that was an unusual record for people who had been so much together you are not to imagine that it was only at nauheim that we met that would not have suited florence i find on looking at my diaries
that on the fourth of september nineteen o four edward accompanied florence and myself to paris
he made another short visit to us in december of that year the first year of our acquaintance it must have been during this visit that he knocked mister jimmy's teeth down his throat i daresay florence had asked him to come over for that purpose
in nineteen o five he was in paris three times once with leonora who wanted some frocks in nineteen o six we spent the best part of six weeks together at mentone
and edward stayed with us in paris on his way back to london that was how it went the fact was that in florence the poor wretch had got hold of a tartar compared with whom leonora was a sucking kid he must have had a hell of a time
for the good of her church as it were to show that catholic women do not lose their men let it go at that for the moment i will write more about her motives later perhaps but florence was sticking on to the proprietor of the home of her ancestors
no doubt he was also a very passionate lover but i am convinced that he was sick of florence within three years of even interrupted companionship and the life that she led him if ever leonora so much as mentioned in a letter
that they had had a woman staying with them or if she so much as mentioned a woman's name in a letter to me off would go a desperate cable in cipher to that poor wretch at branshaw
commanding him on pain of an instant and horrible disclosure to come over and assure her of his fidelity i daresay he would have faced it out i daresay he would have thrown over florence and taken the risk of exposure
she would wreak upon him the most terrible vengeance that she could think of and he did not have a very easy job florence called for more and more attentions from him as the time went on she would make him kiss her at any moment of the day
that he could prevent her from making a bolt of it with him in her train oh yes it was a difficult job for him for florence if you please gaining in time a more composed view of nature and overcome by her habits of garrulity
arrived at a frame of mind in which she found it almost necessary to tell me all about it nothing less than that she said that her situation was too unbearable with regard to me
she proposed to tell me all secure a divorce from me and go with edward and settle in california i do not suppose that she was really serious in this
that leonora who was as sound as a roach was consumptive she was always begging leonora before me to go and see a doctor but none the less poor edward seems to have believed in her
determination to carry him off he would not have gone he cared for his wife too much but if florence had put him at it that would have meant my getting to know of it and his incurring leonora's vengeance
and she could have made it pretty hot for him in ten or a dozen different ways and she assured me that she would have used every one of them she was determined to spare my feelings and she was quite aware that at that date
the hottest she could have made it for him would have been to refuse herself ever to see him again well i think i have made it pretty clear let me come to the fourth of august nineteen thirteen the last day of my absolute ignorance
and i assure you of my perfect happiness for the coming of that dear girl only added to it all on that fourth of august i was sitting in the lounge with a rather odious englishman called bagshawe who had arrived that night too late for dinner
leonora had just gone to bed and i was waiting for florence and edward and the girl to come back from a concert at the casino they had not gone there all together florence i remember had said at first that she would remain with leonora and me
and edward and the girl had gone off alone and then leonora had said to florence with perfect calmness i wish you would go with those two i think the girl ought to have the appearance of being chaperoned with edward in these places i think the time has come
so florence with her light step had slipped out after them she was all in black for some cousin or other americans are particular in those matters we had gone on sitting in the lounge till towards ten when leonora had gone up to bed
but there it was cool the man called bagshawe had been reading the times on the other side of the room but then he moved over to me with some trifling question as a prelude to suggesting an acquaintance
i fancy he asked me something about the poll tax on kur guests and whether it could not be sneaked out of he was that sort of person well he was an unmistakable man with a military figure
rather exaggerated with bulbous eyes that avoided your own and a pallid complexion that suggested vices practised in secret along with an uneasy desire for making acquaintance at whatever cost the filthy toad
he began by telling me that he came from ludlow manor near ledbury the name had a slightly familiar sound though i could not fix it in my mind then he began to talk about a duty on hops
about californian hops about los angeles where he had been he fencing for a topic with which he might gain my affection and then quite suddenly in the bright light of the street i saw florence running it was like that
i saw florence running with a face whiter than paper and her hand on the black stuff over her heart i tell you my own heart stood still i tell you i could not move she rushed in at the swing doors
she looked round that place of rush chairs cane tables and newspapers she saw me and opened her lips she saw the man who was talking to me she stuck her hands over her face as if she wished to push her eyes out
and she was not there any more i could not move i could not stir a finger and then that man said by jove florry hurlbird he turned upon me with an oily and uneasy sound meant for a laugh
he was really going to ingratiate himself with me do you know who that is he asked the last time i saw that girl she was coming out of the bedroom of a young man called jimmy at five o'clock in the morning in my house at ledbury
you saw her recognize me he was standing on his feet looking down at me i don't know what i looked like at any rate he gave a sort of gurgle and then stuttered oh i say those were the last words i ever heard of mister bagshawe's
a long time afterwards i pulled myself out of the lounge and went up to florence's room she had not locked the door for the first time of our married life she was lying quite respectably arranged unlike missus maidan on her bed
chapter twenty nine philip sterling was on his way to ilium in the state of pennsylvania ilium was the railway station nearest to the tract of wild land which mister bolton had commissioned him to examine
on the last day of the journey as the railway train philip was on was leaving a large city a lady timidly entered the drawing room car and hesitatingly took a chair that was at the moment unoccupied
philip saw from the window that a gentleman had put her upon the car just as it was starting in a few moments the conductor entered and without waiting an explanation said roughly to the lady now you can't sit there that seat's taken
go into the other car i did not intend to take the seat said the lady rising i only sat down a moment till the conductor should come and give me a seat there aint any car's full you'll have to leave but sir said the lady appealingly i thought
can't help what you thought you must go into the other car the train is going very fast let me stand here till we stop the lady can have my seat cried philip springing up
the conductor turned towards philip and coolly and deliberately surveyed him from head to foot with contempt in every line of his face turned his back upon him without a word and said to the lady come i've got no time to talk you must go now
the lady entirely disconcerted by such rudeness and frightened moved towards the door opened it and stepped out the train was swinging along at a rapid rate jarring from side to side
she would inevitably have gone down under the wheels if philip who had swiftly followed her had not caught her arm and drawn her up he then assisted her across found her a seat received her bewildered thanks and returned to his car
the conductor was still there taking his tickets and growling something about imposition philip marched up to him and burst out with you are a brute an infernal brute to treat a woman that way
philip's reply was a blow given so suddenly and planted so squarely in the conductor's face that it sent him reeling over a fat passenger who was looking up in mild wonder that any one should dare to dispute with a conductor and against the side of the car
he recovered himself reached the bell rope damn you i'll learn you stepped to the door and called a couple of brakemen and then as the speed slackened roared out get off this train
i shall not get off i have as much right here as you we'll see said the conductor advancing with the brakemen the passengers protested and some of them said to each other that's too bad as they always do in such cases
the men seized him wrenched him from his seat dragged him along the aisle tearing his clothes thrust him from the car and then flung his carpet bag overcoat and umbrella after him and the train went on the conductor
red in the face and puffing from his exertion
god save the mark attempted to force herself into the already full palatial car conductor slum who is too old a bird to be caught with chaff courteously informed her that the car was full and when she insisted on remaining he persuaded her to go into the car where she belonged
thereupon a young sprig from the east blustered like a shanghai rooster and began to sass the conductor with his chin music that gentleman delivered the young aspirant for a muss one of his elegant little left handers which so astonished him that he began to feel for his shooter
whereupon mister slum gently raised the youth carried him forth and set him down just outside the car to cool off whether the young blood has yet made his way out of bascom's swamp we have not learned conductor slum is one of the most gentlemanly and efficient officers on the road
but he ain't trifled with not much we learn that the company have put a new engine on the seven o'clock train and newly upholstered the drawing room car throughout it spares no effort for the comfort of the traveling public
philip never had been before in bascom's swamp and there was nothing inviting in it to detain him after the train got out of the way he crawled out of the briars and the mud and got upon the track he was somewhat bruised but he was too angry to mind that
he plodded along over the ties in a very hot condition of mind and body in the scuffle his railway check had disappeared and he grimly wondered as he noticed the loss if the company would permit him to walk over their track if they should know he hadn't a ticket
philip had to walk some five miles before he reached a little station where he could wait for a train and he had ample time for reflection at first he was full of vengeance on the company he would sue it he would make it pay roundly
was about the most hopeless in the world he then thought he would seek out that conductor lie in wait for him at some station and thrash him or get thrashed himself but as he got cooler that did not seem to him a project worthy of a gentleman exactly
was it possible for a gentleman to get even with such a fellow as that conductor on the letter's own plane and when he came to this point he began to ask himself if he had not acted very much like a fool he didn't regret striking the fellow
he hoped he had left a mark on him but after all was that the best way here was he philip sterling calling himself a gentleman in a brawl with a vulgar conductor about a woman he had never seen before
why should he have put himself in such a ridiculous position wasn't it enough to have offered the lady his seat to have rescued her from an accident perhaps from death suppose he had simply said to the conductor sir your conduct is brutal i shall report you
the passengers who saw the affair might have joined in a report against the conductor and he might really have accomplished something and now philip looked at his torn clothes and thought with disgust of his haste in getting into a fight with such an autocrat
at the little station where philip waited for the next train he met a man who turned out to be a justice of the peace in that neighborhood and told him his adventure he was a kindly sort of man and seemed very much interested
wal i guess tain't no use i hain't a mite of doubt of every word you say but suin's no use the railroad company owns all these people along here and the judges on the bench too spiled your clothes
least said's soonest mended you haint no chance with the company when next morning he read the humorous account in the patriot and clarion he saw still more clearly what chance he would have had before the public in a fight with the railroad company
still philip's conscience told him that it was his plain duty to carry the matter into the courts even with the certainty of defeat he confessed that neither he nor any citizen had a right to consult his own feelings or conscience in a case where a law of the land had been
violated before his own eyes he confessed that every citizen's first duty in such case is to put aside his own business and devote his time and his best efforts to seeing that the infraction is promptly punished and he knew
that no country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution nothing more
as a finality he was obliged to confess that he was a bad citizen and also that the general laxity of the time and the absence of a sense of duty toward any part of the community but the individual himself were ingrained in him
rest of the people the result of this little adventure was that philip did not reach ilium till daylight the next morning when he descended sleepy and sore from a way train and looked about him ilium was in a narrow mountain gorge
through which a rapid stream ran it consisted of the plank platform on which he stood a wooden house half painted with a dirty piazza unroofed in front and a sign board hung on a slanting pole bearing the legend
hotel p dusenheimer a sawmill further down the stream a blacksmith shop and a store and three or four unpainted dwellings of the slab variety
as philip approached the hotel he saw what appeared to be a wild beast crouching on the piazza it did not stir however and he soon found that it was only a stuffed skin
this cheerful invitation to the tavern was the remains of a huge panther which had been killed in the region a few weeks before philip examined his ugly visage and strong crooked fore arm as he was waiting admittance
having pounded upon the door yait a bit i'll shoost put on my trowsers shouted a voice from the window and the door was soon opened by the yawning landlord morgen
dem boys geeps me up zo spate gom right in philip was shown into a dirty bar room it was a small room with a stove in the middle set in a long shallow box of sand for the benefit of the spitters
a bar across one end a mere counter with a sliding glass case behind it containing a few bottles having ambitious labels and a wash sink in one corner on the walls were the bright yellow and black handbills of a traveling circus
with pictures of acrobats in human pyramids horses flying in long leaps through the air and sylph like women in a paradisaic costume balancing themselves upon the tips of their toes on the bare backs of frantic and plunging steeds
and kissing their hands to the spectators meanwhile as philip did not desire a room at that hour he was invited to wash himself at the nasty sink a feat somewhat easier than drying his face
for the towel that hung in a roller over the sink was evidently as much a fixture as the sink itself and belonged like the suspended brush and comb to the traveling public philip managed to complete his toilet by the use of his pocket handkerchief
and declining the hospitality of the landlord implied in the remark you won'd dake notin he went into the open air to wait for breakfast the country he saw was wild but not picturesque
the mountain before him might be eight hundred feet high and was only a portion of a long unbroken range savagely wooded which followed the stream behind the hotel and across the brawling brook
was another level topped wooded range exactly like it ilium itself seen at a glance was old enough to be dilapidated and if it had gained anything by being made a wood and water station of the new railroad it was only a new sort of grime and rawness
p dusenheimer standing in the door of his uninviting groggery when the trains stopped for water never received from the traveling public any patronage except facetious remarks upon his personal appearance perhaps a thousand times he had heard the remark
followed in most instances by a hail to himself as a eneas with the inquiry where is old anchises at first he had replied dere ain't no such man but irritated by its senseless repetition
you be dam philip was recalled from the contemplation of ilium by the rolling and growling of the gong within the hotel the din and clamor increasing till the house was apparently unable to contain it
when it burst out of the front door and informed the world that breakfast was on the table the dining room was long low and narrow and a narrow table extended its whole length upon this was spread a cloth which from appearance
might have been as long in use as the towel in the barroom upon the table was the usual service the heavy much nicked stone ware the row of plated and rusty castors the sugar bowls with the zinc tea spoons sticking up in them
the piles of yellow biscuits the discouraged looking plates of butter the landlord waited and philip was pleased to observe the change in his manner in the barroom he was the conciliatory landlord standing behind his guests at table
he had an air of peremptory patronage and the voice in which he shot out the inquiry as he seized philip's plate beefsteak or liver quite took away philip's power of choice he begged for a glass of milk
after trying that green hued compound called coffee and made his breakfast out of that and some hard crackers which seemed to have been imported into ilium before the introduction of the iron horse
and to have withstood a ten years siege of regular boarders greeks and others the land that philip had come to look at was at least five miles distant from ilium station a corner of it touched the railroad
but the rest was pretty much an unbroken wilderness eight or ten thousand acres of rough country most of it such a mountain range as he saw at ilium his first step was to hire three woodsmen to accompany him
by their help he built a log hut and established a camp on the land and then began his explorations mapping down his survey as he went along noting the timber and the lay of the land and making superficial observations as to the prospect of coal
the landlord at ilium endeavored to persuade philip to hire the services of a witch hazel professor of that region who could walk over the land with his wand and tell him infallibly whether it contained coal and exactly where the strata ran
and his knowledge of the geological formation he spent a month in traveling over the land and making calculations and made up his mind that a fine vein of coal ran through the mountain about a mile from the railroad
and that the place to run in a tunnel was half way towards its summit acting with his usual promptness philip with the consent of mister bolton broke ground there at once and before snow came had some rude buildings up
and was ready for active operations in the spring it was true that there were no outcroppings of coal at the place
mought as well dig for plug terbaccer there but philip had great faith in the uniformity of nature's operations in ages past and he had no doubt that he should strike at this spot the rich vein
chapter four josephus makes an attempt upon sepphoris but is repelled
and six thousand footmen under placidus the tribune
the foot were put into the city to be a guard to it but the horse lodged abroad in the camp
before they revolted from the rest of the galileans that the romans would have much ado to take it by which means he proved too weak and failed of his hopes both as to the forcing the place and as to his prevailing with the people of sepphoris to deliver it up to him
and stealing away the cattle that were in the country and killing whatsoever appeared capable of fighting perpetually and leading the weaker people as slaves into captivity so that galilee was all over filled with fire and blood
and that sooner than the winter season did usually permit so he took with him those forces he was sent for and marching with great expedition he came suddenly to ptolemais and there finding his father together with the two legions the fifth and the tenth
which were the most eminent legions of all he joined them to that fifteenth legion which was with his father eighteen cohorts followed these legions
with one troop of horsemen and five other troops of horsemen from syria now these ten cohorts had severally a thousand footmen but the other thirteen cohorts had no more than six hundred footmen apiece with a hundred and twenty horsemen
there were also a considerable number of auxiliaries got together that came from the kings antiochus and agrippa and sohemus each of them contributing one thousand footmen that were archers and a thousand horsemen
malchus also the king of arabia sent a thousand horsemen besides five thousand footmen the greatest part of which were archers
when all were united together amounted to sixty thousand besides the servants who as they followed in vast numbers
ought not to be distinguished from the fighting men for as they were in their masters service in times of peace so did they undergo the like dangers with them in times of war insomuch that they were inferior to none either in skill or in strength
only they were subject to their masters
in providing themselves of such household servants as might not only serve at other times for the common offices of life but might also be of advantage to them in their wars
but every soldier is every day exercised and that with great diligence as if it were in time of war which is the reason why they bear the fatigue of battles so easily
nor can fear affright them out of it nor can labor tire them which firmness of conduct makes them always to overcome those that have not the same firmness
nor would he be mistaken that should call those their exercises unbloody battles and their battles bloody exercises nor can their enemies easily surprise them with the suddenness of their incursions
nor is the fence they raise rashly made or uneven
nor do those that are in it take their places at random but if it happens that the ground is uneven it is first leveled their camp is also four square by measure
and where they lay all other engines that can annoy the enemy all ready for their several operations they also erect four gates one at every side of the circumference and those large enough for the entrance of the beasts
and wide enough for making excursions if occasion should require they divide the camp within into streets very conveniently and place the tents of the commanders in the middle
with its market place and place for handicraft trades and with seats for the officers superior and inferior where if any differences arise their causes are heard and determined the camp and all that is in it
for they neither sup nor dine as they please themselves singly but all together their times also for sleeping and watching and rising are notified beforehand by the sound of trumpets nor is any thing done without such a signal
to be by them carried to all that are under their command which is also observed when they go to fight
then do they lay their baggage suddenly upon their mules and other beasts of burden and stand as at the place of starting ready to march when also they set fire to their camp and this they do because it will be easy for them to erect another camp
then do the trumpets give a sound the third time that they are to go out in order to excite those that on any account are a little tardy
to which they reply as often with a loud and cheerful voice saying we are ready and this they do almost before the question is asked them they do this as filled with a kind of martial fury
they all march without noise and in a decent manner and every one keeps his own rank as if they were going to war the footmen are armed with breastplates and head pieces and have swords on each side
but the rest of the foot soldiers have a spear and a long buckler besides a saw and a basket a pick axe and an axe a thong of leather and a hook with provisions for three days
so that a footman hath no great need of a mule to carry his burdens the horsemen have a long sword on their right sides axed a long pole in their hand a shield also lies by them obliquely on one side of their horses
but when they are to fight they leave nothing without forecast nor to be done off hand
for which reason they seldom commit any errors and if they have been mistaken at any time they easily correct those mistakes
they also esteem any errors they commit upon taking counsel beforehand to be better than such rash success as is owing to fortune only because such a fortuitous advantage tempts them to be inconsiderate while consultation though it may sometimes fail of success
they are moreover hardened for war by fear for their laws inflict capital punishments not only for soldiers running away from the ranks but for slothfulness and inactivity though it be but in a lesser degree
as are their generals more severe than their laws for they prevent any imputation of cruelty toward those under condemnation by the great rewards they bestow on the valiant soldiers and the readiness of obeying their commanders is so great
but when they come to a battle the whole army is but one body so well coupled together are their ranks so sudden are their turnings about so sharp their hearing as to what orders are given them so quick their sight of the ensigns
and so nimble are their hands when they set to work whereby it comes to pass that what they do is done quickly and what they suffer they bear with the greatest patience
nor can we find any examples where they have been conquered in battle when they came to a close fight either by the multitude of the enemies
or by the difficulties in the places they were in no nor by fortune neither for their victories have been surer to them than fortune could have granted them
in a case therefore where counsel still goes before action and where after taking the best advice that advice is followed by so active an army what wonder is it that euphrates on the east the ocean on the west
the most fertile regions of libya on the south and the danube and the rhine on the north are the limits of this empire one might well say that the roman possessions are not inferior
this discourse of the roman military conduct may also perhaps be of use to such of the curious as are ignorant of it and yet have a mind to know it i return now from this digression
and had put his army in order but when placidus who had overrun galilee and had besides slain a number of those whom he had caught which were only the weaker part of the galileans and such as were of timorous souls
and bring a great advantage to them in their future campaign because if this strongest place of them all were once taken the rest would be so affrighted as to surrender themselves but he was mightily mistaken in his undertaking
and of great alacrity as esteeming their country their wives and their children to be in danger and easily put the romans to flight and wounded many of them and slew seven of them
be cause the strokes only touched the surface of their bodies which were covered with their armor in all parts
and because the jews did rather throw their weapons upon them from a great distance than venture to come hand to hand with them and had only light armor on while the others were completely armed however three men of the jews side were slain and a few wounded
he ordered those auxiliaries which were lightly armed and the archers to march first that they might prevent any sudden insults from the enemy and might search out the woods that looked suspiciously and were capable of ambuscades
and after them such as were to make the road even and straight and if it were any where rough and hard to be passed over to plane it and to cut down the woods that hindered their march that the army might not be in distress or tired with their march
next to these came the mules that carried the engines for sieges and the other warlike machines of that nature after these came the commanders of the cohorts and tribunes having about them soldiers chosen out of the rest
then came the ensigns encompassing the eagle which is at the head of every roman legion
which seems to them a signal of dominion and an omen that they shall conquer all against whom they march these sacred ensigns are followed by the trumpeters then came the main army in their squadrons and battalions
with six men in depth which were followed at last by a centurion who according to custom observed the rest as for the servants of every legion they all followed the footmen and led the baggage of the soldiers
which was borne by the mules and other beasts of burden
he also showed his army to the enemy in order to affright them and to afford them a season for repentance
and at the same time he got things ready for besieging their strong minds and indeed this sight of the general brought many to repent of their revolt and put them all into a consternation for those that were in josephus's camp
dispersed themselves and fled not only before they came to a battle but before the enemy ever came in sight while josephus and a few others were left behind and as he saw that he had not an army sufficient to engage the enemy that the spirits of the jews were sunk
and that the greater part would willingly come to terms if they might be credited he already despaired of the success of the whole war and determined to get as far as he possibly could out of danger so he took those that staid along with him
book three containing the interval of about one year from vespasian's coming to subdue the jews to the taking of gamala chapter one vespasian is sent into syria by nero
and as he thought it fit for him who bare the burden of the whole empire to despise such misfortunes
now it was in so great a commotion and who might be best able to punish the jews for their rebellion and might prevent the same distemper from seizing upon the neighboring nations also
seeing he was growing an old man already in the camp and from his youth had been exercised in warlike exploits
and that he had his sons as hostages for his fidelity to himself
perhaps also there was some interposition of providence which was paving the way for vespasian's being himself emperor afterwards upon the whole he sent this man to take upon him the command of the armies that were in syria
but this not without great encomiums and flattering compellations such as necessity required and such as might mollify him into complaisance
where he had been with nero to alexandria to bring back with him from thence the fifth and the tenth legions while he himself when he had passed over the hellespont came by land into syria
but like people blown up into a flame by their good fortune carried the war to remoter places accordingly they presently got together a great multitude of all their most hardy soldiers and marched away for ascalon
out of their anger marched faster than ordinary and as if they had come but a little way approached very near the city and were come even to it but antonius who was not unapprized of the attack they were going to make upon the city
drew out his horsemen beforehand and being neither daunted at the multitude nor at the courage of the enemy received their first attacks with great bravery and when they crowded to the very walls he beat them off
now the jews were unskillful in war but were to fight with those who were skillful therein they were footmen to fight with horsemen they were in disorder to fight those that were united together
they were poorly armed to fight those that were completely so they were to fight more by their rage than by sober counsel and were exposed to soldiers that were exactly obedient and did every thing they were bidden upon the least intimation
so they were easily beaten for as soon as ever their first ranks were once in disorder they were put to flight by the enemy's cavalry and those of them that came behind such as crowded to the wall fell upon their own party's weapons and became one another's enemies
which plain was wide and all fit for the horsemen which circumstance was very commodious for the romans and occasioned the slaughter of the greatest number of the jews for such as ran away they could overrun them and make them turn back
and when they had brought them back after their flight and driven them together they ran them through and slew a vast number of them
insomuch that others encompassed others of them and drove them before them whithersoever they turned themselves and slew them easily with their arrows
till ten thousand men of the jews side lay dead with two of their generals john and silas and the greater part of the remainder were wounded with niger their remaining general
called sallis some few also of the romans
but the losses they had sustained rather quickened their resolution for other attempts
so when they had lain still so little a while that their wounds were not yet thoroughly cured they got together all their forces
but their former ill fortune followed them as the consequence of their unskilfulness and other deficiencies in war for antonius laid ambushes for them in the passages they were to go through
however they were driven along together by the enemy who pressed hard upon them into a certain strong tower belonging to a village called bezedeh
and on the third day afterward he spake out of the ground to those that with great lamentation were searching for him in order to give him a decent funeral and when he was come out he filled all the jews with an unexpected joy as though he were preserved by god's providence to be their commander
where he found king agrippa with all his forces waiting for his coming and marched to ptolemais at this city also the inhabitants of sepphoris of galilee met him who were for peace with the romans
these citizens had beforehand taken care of their own safety and being sensible of the power of the romans they had been with cestius gallus before vespasian came and had given their faith to him
and received the security of his right hand and had received a roman garrison and at this time withal they received vespasian the roman general very kindly and readily promised that they would assist him against their own countrymen
now the general delivered them at their desire as many horsemen and footmen as he thought sufficient to oppose the incursions of the jews if they should come against them and indeed the danger of losing sepphoris would be no small one in this war that was now beginning
seeing it was the largest city of galilee and built in a place by nature very strong and might be a security of the whole nation's fidelity to the romans
to which mountain adjoins gaba which is called the city of horsemen because those horsemen that were dismissed by herod the king dwelt therein they are bounded on the south
its length is also from meloth to thella
of so great largeness and encompassed with so many nations of foreigners
by the richness of their soil that the very least of them
and its plains are planted with trees of all sorts while yet the olive tree the vine and the palm tree
and with springs that never fail to run even when the torrents fail them as they do in the dog days now the length of perea
and its breadth from philadelphia to jordan its northern parts are bounded by pella as we have already said as well as its western with jordan the land of moab is its southern border
it lies between judea and galilee it begins at a village that is in the great plain called ginea and ends at the acrabbene toparchy and is entirely of the same nature with judea
for both countries are made up of hills and valleys and are moist enough for agriculture and are very fruitful they have abundance of trees and are full of autumnal fruit both that which grows wild and that which is the effect of cultivation
they are not naturally watered by many rivers but derive their chief moisture from rain water of which they have no want and for those rivers which they have
than do those in other places and what is the greatest sign of excellency and of abundance
lies the village anuath which is also named borceos this is the northern boundary of judea the southern parts of judea if they be measured lengthways are bounded by a village adjoining to the confines of arabia
the jews that dwell there call it jordan however its breadth is extended from the river jordan to joppa the city jerusalem is situated in the very middle on which account some have with sagacity enough
called that city the navel of the country nor indeed is judea destitute of such delights as come from the sea since its maritime places extend as far as ptolemais it was parted into eleven portions
of which the royal city jerusalem was the supreme and presided over all the neighboring country as the head does over the body as to the other cities that were inferior to it they presided over their several toparchies
and idumea and engaddi and herodium and jericho and after them came jamnia and joppa as presiding over the neighboring people and besides these there was the region of gamala and gaulonitis
and reaches breadthways to the lake of tiberias and in length is extended from a village called arpha as far as julias
and opened a broad way for the army on the fifth day which was the twenty first of the month artemisius jyar josephus prevented him and came from tiberias and went into jotapata and raised the drooping spirits of the jews
and a certain deserter told this good news to vespasian that josephus had removed himself thither which made him make haste to the city as supposing that with taking that he should take all judea in case he could but withal get josephus under his power
so he took this news to be of the vastest advantage to him and believed it to be brought about by the providence of god that he who appeared to be the most prudent man of all their enemies had of his own accord shut himself up in a place of sure custody
and by marching till late in the evening arrived then at jotapata and bringing his army to the northern side of the city he pitched his camp on a certain small hill which was seven furlongs from the city and still greatly endeavored to be well seen by the enemy to put them into a consternation
which was indeed so terrible to the jews immediately that no one of them durst go out beyond the wall yet did the romans put off the attack at that time because they had marched all the day although they placed a double row of battalions round the city
and met them as having formed themselves a camp before the city walls but when vespasian had set against them the archers and slingers and the whole multitude that could throw to a great distance he permitted them to go to work while he himself with the footmen
got upon an acclivity whence the city might easily be taken josephus was then in fear for the city and leaped out and all the jewish multitude with him
these fell together upon the romans in great numbers and drove them away from the wall and performed a great many glorious and bold actions yet did they suffer as much as they made the enemy suffer
for as despair of deliverance encouraged the jews so did a sense of shame equally encourage the romans these last had skill as well as strength the other had only courage which armed them and made them fight furiously
and when the fight had lasted all day it was put an end to by the coming on of the night
thus did the romans try to make an impression upon the jews till the fifth day continually while the people of jotapata made sallies out and fought at the walls most desperately nor were the jews affrighted at the strength of the enemy
it is only to be come at on the north side where the utmost part of the city is built on the mountain as it ends obliquely at a plain this mountain josephus had encompassed with a wall when he fortified the city
that its top might not be capable of being seized upon by the enemies
as well as the bold defense of the jews made a resolution to prosecute the siege with vigor to that end he called the commanders that were under him to a council of war and consulted with them which way the assault might be managed to the best advantage
and when the resolution was there taken to raise a bank against that part of the wall which was practicable he sent his whole army abroad to get the materials together
besides the wood they had cut down some of them brought hurdles in order to avoid the effects of the darts that were shot from above them these hurdles they spread over their banks
under cover whereof they formed their bank and so were little or nothing hurt by the darts that were thrown upon them from the wall while others pulled the neighboring hillocks to pieces and perpetually brought earth to them
so that while they were busy three sorts of ways nobody was idle however the jews cast great stones from the walls upon the hurdles which protected the men with all sorts of darts also and the noise of what could not reach them was yet so terrible
at the same time such engines as were intended for that purpose threw at once lances upon them with a great noise
together with fire and a vast multitude of arrows which made the wall so dangerous that the jews durst not only not come upon it but durst not come to those parts within the walls which were reached by the engines
when they could not throw at the romans from a higher place for they then made sallies out of the city like private robbers by parties and pulled away the hurdles that covered the workmen and killed them when they were thus naked and when those workmen gave way
these cast away the earth that composed the bank and burnt the wooden parts of it together with the hurdles
till at length vespasian perceived that the intervals there were between the works were of disadvantage to him for those spaces of ground afforded the jews a place for assaulting the romans so he united the hurdles and at the same time joined one part of the army to the other
and brought nearer than ever to the battlements that belonged to the walls josephus thought it would be entirely wrong in him if he could make no contrivances in opposition to theirs
he invented this sort of cover for them
and the fire that was thrown would be quenched by the moisture that was in them and these he set before the workmen and under them these workmen went on with their works in safety
he also built a good number of towers upon the wall and fitted it to strong battlements
very long before the cat was kept in this country as a domesticated animal it was possessed by the ancient egyptians in a tame state and was moreover held in reverence by that remarkable and superstitious people being regarded sacred
to the goddess pasht at death the body was embalmed with devout care and specimens of cat mummies may be seen in the british museum the egyptian cat
and with more or less indistinct markings of the tabby character it is of about ordinary size the tail is in form somewhat like that of most of our cats and the ears are largish and pointed in a slightly lynx like fashion
it is supposed that domesticated animals spread from egypt with the tide of civilization westward
i may here notice that unlike the dog the cat has never been tamed by the savage races of mankind but by the civilized or even the semi civilized peoples of the world the cat
is at the present day more or less valued as a useful mouser or as a cherished household pet it is remarkable that at a time when the wild cat
the house cat was unknown it was evidently an animal of foreign importation and so highly valued as a mouser as to have been protected by royal statute
the earliest record of the tame cat in this country is as remote as a d
or howel the good enforced the very just but primitive fine of a milch ewe its fleece and lamb or as much wheat from the destroyer or robber of a cat at the royal granary
as would cover it to the tip of the tail the animal being suspended by that member with the head only touching the ground as the domestic cat in different parts of the world will breed occasionally with the wild races of the locality
and as cats are conveyed from country to country it is probable that our cats are of somewhat compound pedigree it is considered probable that our fine english tabbies have a trace
of the british wild cat blood in their veins although it may be obscure the domestic cat is not regarded in zoology as the typical form to represent
as might naturally be supposed and it might have justly been so but the animal chosen as the generic example is the common wild cat and therefore known in science as felis catus
which every reader will understand to signify cat it will be beyond the scope and aim of this chapter to describe all the known distinct species of wild cat in describing the true cats such as the pampas cat
or the colocolo of america the chaus or the serval of africa
or the leopard cat of india our subject would lead us on from these and other tiger cats as the ocelot and the riman dahan without power to define a clear line of distinction up to the leopards
and finally to the king of beasts himself
there are upwards of half a hundred distinct species known
which with regard to domestic animals are termed breeds and the casual sports
that is a native of this country and often termed by us the british wild cat although now almost totally extinct on our island
its last haunt here is in the remote parts of scotland and so scarce has it become that its existence even there is now somewhat doubtful but it is still now to be found with but slight local variations on the continent of europe
and northern asia and is therefore also known as the european wild cat it is not found very far north and neither in norway nor sweden there the lynx reigns supreme
the wild cat is a fine animal of larger growth than the cat of our familiar acquaintance and stands tall it is a strong muscular well built cat a perfect tabby and so fierce an animal
as to have been justly termed the british tiger an adult male measures about twenty eight inches in length from the nose to the root of the tail and the tail is about thirteen inches which is proportionately short
and it does not taper at the end as does that of our domestic cats but is about the same thickness throughout resembling somewhat that of the serval when the animal is excited and the tail enlarges after the manner of all cats
and we may add the smaller but not less destructive rodents and a variety of feathered game the barn door cat is sometimes tempted to abscond and take to a romantic and semi wild life in the woods
she cried and leaping off the camel's back she sprang upon the tiger who thereupon dried his tears and smiled in a most delightful manner we seldom have visitors in this valley he said
after he had wiped his eyes with a handkerchief that was sticking in his bridle so most of the time there is no one to ride us i don't see the good of a merry go round if it isn't used the queen now noticed some of the other animals looking discontented
so she and tot changed seats also and by the time mister split came to call them to supper they had ridden all the animals in turn
and the keeper noticed that his merry go round was bathed in one whirling smile of gladness and content it is good for my animals to have visitors he said happily it cheers them up
mister split had spread a white cloth upon the grass close to one edge of the forest and dot and tot and the queen sat around this and ate of the delicious fruit the queer man had gathered there were melons grapes
bananas oranges plums strawberries and pears and all were ripe and exquisitely flavored by the time they finished their meal it had become twilight and the queen declared it would soon be dark
i wonder where we can sleep said tot but dot looked around and saw that mister split was fastening three big hammocks between the trees at the edge of the forest
these hammocks were lined with soft silken cushions and looked very pleasant and cozy to the sleepy children the queen and dot and tot each climbed into one of the hammocks and were covered over with silk quilted comfortables
after which mister split turned a key at the end of each hammock and set them moving gently to and fro like the rocking of a cradle before she went to sleep dot looked over the edge of her hammock and saw
that the merry go round and the tin train were now motionless while all the animals seemed to have run down and were standing quite still waiting for morning when mister split would come and wind them up again
the little girl was awakened next morning by a sharp clicking sound near by and opening her eyes she saw a tin monkey running up and down a string fastened to a branch of the tree dear me she said looking at him intently
mister split was here some time ago i suppose nearly everyone in the valley must be going by this time
the queen now joined dot and they called tot to breakfast
he had to separate in order that he might use each hand in a different place and so get around quicker mister split's name suits him very well said dot who was enjoying the fruit
yes it would be hard to call him anything else replied the queen i suppose your own name fits you in the same way ventured the girl certainly it does
answered the queen dot's heart now began to beat rapidly for she thought she would at last discover what the queen's name was tot also looked interested and forgot his slice of melon as he listened
there is no reason in the world why you should not know my name then said tot sharply
just then they heard a great crash a whirling of wheels and the scream of a whistle springing to their feet they saw the tin train lying upside down near the track with its wheels whirling around like the wind
and near by was a wooden goat and cart completely wrecked and splintered into many pieces they all ran down to the place and the brave little queen picked up the tin train and set it upon its track
it started to run again in its usual rushing way
but it is wrecked now beyond repair so there is nothing more to worry about as she spoke the police patrol and the fire engine both dashed up to the spot and one of the officers asked
the trouble is all over then we may as well go back said the officer grumpily the trouble usually is over when we get anywhere that's why we take our time about coming well
they looked around for mister split but not seeing him they walked across the opening to the path that led through the forest to the river they each squeaked the alligator when they came to him and left him feeling joyful and contented
and i'm its ruler its king its sole royal potentate and dictator behold in the personage you have injured the mighty quitey righty boolooroo of the blues
here he strutted around in a very pompous manner and wagged his little head contemptuously at them glad to meet you sir said cap'n bill i allus had a likin for kings bein as they're summat unusual
not knowin as your toes were there i won't excuse you
punish you you may depend upon that seems to me said trot you're actin rather imperlite to strangers if anyone comes to our country to visit us we always treat em decent your country
exclaimed the boolooroo looking at them more carefully
we live on the earth when we're at home replied the girl the earth nonsense i've heard of the earth my child but it isn't inhabited no one can live there because it's just a round cold barren ball of mud and water
declared the blueskin oh you're wrong about that said button bright you surely are added cap'n bill why we live there ourselves cried trot i don't believe it i believe you are living in sky island where you have no right to be
i'm sorry for you replied trot
but if that don't satisfy you you'll have to make the most of it
an you can't skeer us for half a minute i'm an ol man myself but if you don't behave i'll spank you like i would a baby an it won't be any trouble at all to do it thank'e
as a matter o fact we've captured your whole bloomin blue island but we don't like the place very much and i guess we'll give it back it gives us the blues don't it trot so as soon as we eat a bite o lunch from our basket we'll sail away again sail away how
said the boolooroo nodding his funny head go ahead then and eat your lunch he retreated a little way to a marble seat beside the fountain but watched the strangers carefully cap'n bill feeling sure he had won the argument whispered to the boy and girl
that they must eat and get away as soon as possible as this might prove a dangerous country for them to remain in trot longed to see more of the strange blue island and especially wanted to explore the magnificent blue palace that adjoined the garden
and which had six hundred tall towers and turrets but she felt that her old friend was wise in advising them to get away quickly so she opened the basket
and they all three sat in a row on a stone bench and began to eat sandwiches and cake and pickles and cheese
and all the good things that were packed in the lunch basket they were hungry from the long ride and while they ate they kept their eyes busily employed in examining all the queer things around them
the boolooroo seemed quite the queerest of anything and trot noticed that when he pulled the long curl that stuck up from the top of his head a bell tinkled somewhere in the palace he next pulled at the bottom of his right ear and another far away bell tinkled
then he touched the end of his nose and still another bell was faintly heard the boolooroo said not a word while he was ringing the bells and trot wondered if that was the way he amused himself but now the frown died away from his face and was replaced by a
apples apples what are apples he asked trot took some from the basket have one she said they're awful good the boolooroo advanced a step and took the apple which he regarded with much curiosity
guess they don't grow anywhere but on the earth remarked cap'n bill are they good to eat asked the boolooroo try it and see
answered trot biting into an apple herself the blueskin sat down on the end of their bench next to button bright and began to eat his apple he seemed to like it for he finished it in a hurry and when it was gone he picked up the magic umbrella let that alone
said button bright making a grab for it but the boolooroo jerked it away in an instant and standing up he held the umbrella behind him and laughed aloud now then said he you can't get away until i'm willing to let you go
you are my prisoners i guess not returned cap'n bill and reaching out one of his long arms the sailorman suddenly grasped the boolooroo around his long thin neck and shook him until his whole body fluttered like a flag
drop that umbrel drop it yelled cap'n bill and the boolooroo quickly obeyed the magic umbrella fell to the ground and button bright promptly seized it then the sailor let go his hold and the king staggered to a seat choking and coughing to get his breath back
i told you to let things alone growled cap'n bill if you don't behave your majesty this blue island'll have to get another boolooroo why asked the blueskin because i'll prob'ly spoil you for a king
said trot cheerfully kill me why he couldn't do that
nothing can kill me why not
perhaps you don't know that every blueskin
no i didn't know that admitted the sailor it's a fact said the king nothing can kill us until we've lived to the last day of our appointed lives when the final minute is up we die but we're obliged to live all of the six hundred years whether we want to or not
so you needn't think of trying to kill anybody on sky island it can't be done never mind said cap'n bill i'm no murderer thank goodness and i wouldn't kill you if i could much as you deserve it
but i notice that whenever any of my subjects get near the end of their six hundred they grow nervous and say the life is altogether too short how long have you lived asked button bright the king coughed again and turned a bit bluer
that is considered an impertinent question in sky island
are your kings elected then
every man and every woman is a voter the boolooroo tells them whom to vote for and if they don't obey they are severely punished it's a fine system of government
and the only thing i object to is electing the boolooroo for only three hundred years it ought to be for life my successor has already been elected but he can't reign for a hundred years to come i think three hundred years is plenty long enough
that replied the king indignantly is a matter of opinion i like myself very much but i can't expect you to like me because you're deformed and ignorant i'm not cried trot yes you are
your color is most peculiar but there isn't a shade of blue about any of you except the deep blue color of the clothes the old ape that choked me wears also you are ignorant
and the only place anyone would care to live don't listen to him trot said button bright he's an ignorant himself cap'n bill packed up the lunch basket one end of the rope was still tied to the handle of the basket
and the other end to his swing seat which lay on the ground before them
said he let's go home
the pattern was of little bunches of pink roses peeping out through trellis work and it was these which she had just begun to cut out though tilling was noted for the ingenuity with which its more fashionable ladies devised novel and quaint effects in the dress in an economical manner
the hot weather had continued late into september and showed no signs of breaking yet and it would be agreeable to her and acutely painful to others that just at the end of the summer she should appear in a perfectly new costume
before the days of jumpers and heavy skirts and large woollen scarves came in she was preparing therefore to take the light white jacket which she wore over her blouse and cover the broad collar and cuffs of it with these pretty roses
the belt of the skirt would be similarly decorated and so would the edge of it if there were enough clean ones
but of a rich purple hue and by that time she would have hundreds of these little pink roses ready to be tacked on perhaps a piece of the chintz trellis and all could be sewn over the belt
of the jacket and if possible round the edge of the skirt
when carefully sewn on they looked as if they were a design in the stuff she let the circumcised roses fall on to the window seat and from time to time when they grew numerous swept them into a cardboard box
though she worked with zealous diligence she had an eye to the movements in the street outside for it was shopping hour and there were many observations to be made she had not anything like miss mapp's genius for conjecture but her memory was appallingly good
it was odd to go to your grocer's every day like that groceries twice a week was sufficient for most people from here on the floor above the street she could easily look into elizabeth's basket and she certainly was carrying nothing away with her from the grocer's
certainly came from the chemist's and was no doubt connected with too many plums
or rather not bringing in the second post but the announcement that there wasn't any second post this opening of the door caused a draught and the bunches of roses which littered the window seat rose brightly in the air
precisely then and at no other time miss mapp looked up and one settled on her face the other fell into her basket her trained faculties were all on the alert and she thrust them both inside her glove for future consideration
without stopping to examine them just then she only knew that they were little pink roses
and that she still popped as much as ever
pop in crude inverted commas so to speak for purposes of mockery and so she said it herself more than ever i'll tell my maid to pop down and open the door
for secrecy was an essential to the construction of these decorations but in order to appear naturally employed she pulled out the woollen scarf she was knitting for the autumn and winter
forgetting for the moment that the rose madder stripe at the end on which she was now engaged was made of that fatal worsted which miss mapp considered to have been feloniously appropriated
that was the sort of thing miss mapp never forgot even among her sweet flowers her eye fell on it the moment she entered the room and she tucked the two chintz roses more securely into her glove
i thought i would just pop across from the grocer's she said what a pretty scarf dear that's a lovely shade of rose madder where can i have seen something like it before this was clearly ironical and had best be answered by irony
couldn't say i'm sure she said miss mapp appeared to recollect and smiled as far back as her wisdom teeth
i have it she said it was the wool i ordered at heynes's and then he sold it you and i couldn't get any more
upset you a bit there was the wool in the shop i bought it yes dear i see you did but that wasn't what i popped in about this coal strike you know
they can take away every atom of coal you've got if so and fine you
rather forcing the indifference of this rude interjection yes love pooh by all means if you like poohing said miss mapp but i should have felt very unfriendly if one morning i found you were fined found you were fined
but how much do they allow you to have she asked oh quite a little enough to go on with but i daresay they won't discover you i just took the trouble to come and warn you
there had surely been dreadful exposures of prudent housekeepers in the papers which were very uncomfortable reading
tells me that he thinks we shall have plenty of food or anyhow sufficient for everybody for quite a long time provided that there's no hoarding not been hoarding food too
you shall see for yourself and then she suddenly remembered that the cupboard was full of chintz curtains and little bunches of pink roses neatly cut out of them and a pair of nail scissors
there was a perfectly perceptible pause during which miss mapp noticed that there were no curtains over the window there certainly used to be and they matched with the chintz cover of the window seat
which was decorated with little bunches of pink roses peeping through trellis this was in the nature of a bonus she had not up till then connected the chintz curtains with the little things that had fluttered down upon her and were now safe in her glove
that she humbly hoped that she had accomplished she got up must be going she said
gone to the wash said diva firmly liar thought miss mapp as she tripped downstairs
who was looking gloomily out of the window as soon as miss mapp had gained her garden room she examined the mysterious treasures in her left hand glove
and high time too for they were sadly shabby and was cutting the roses out of them but what on earth was she doing that for for what garish purpose could she want to use bunches of roses cut out of chintz curtains
miss mapp had put the two specimens of which she had so providentially become possessed in her lap and they looked very pretty against the navy blue of her skirt
and most of her ingenuity was devoted to dress
eureka said miss mapp aloud and though the telephone bell was ringing and the postulant might be one of the servants friends ringing them up at an hour when their mistress was usually in the high street
could bear to throw away broken basket chairs pieces of brown paper cardboard boxes without lids and cardboard lids without boxes old bags with holes in them keys without locks and locks without keys and worn chintz covers
there was one it had once adorned the sofa in the garden room covered with red poppies very easy to cut out and miss mapp dragged it dustily from its corner setting in motion a perfect cascade of cardboard lids and some door handles
withers had answered the telephone and came to announce that twemlow the grocer regretted he had only two large tins of corned beef but then say i will have the tongue as well withers said miss mapp just a tongue and then i shall want you and mary to do some cutting out for me
and by four o'clock that afternoon there were enough poppies cut out to furnish when in seed a whole street of opium dens the dress selected for decoration was apart from a few mildew spots
no one can work as neatly as you withers she said gaily and i shall ask you to do the most difficult part i want you to sew my lovely poppies over the collar and facings of the jacket just spacing them a little and making a dainty irregularity
will do the same with the waistband while i put a border of them round the skirt and my dear old dress will look quite new and lovely i shall be at home to nobody withers this afternoon even if the prince of wales came and sat on my doorstep again
we'll all work together in the garden shall we and you and mary must scold me if you think i'm not working hard enough it will be delicious in the garden thanks to this pleasant plan there was not much opportunity for withers and mary to be idle
just about the time that this harmonious party began their work a far from harmonious couple were being just as industrious in the grand spacious bunker in front of the tee to the last hole on the golf links
and solidly shored up with timber the navy had
its match in the afternoon with just the last hole to play was all square so captain puffin having the honour hit a low nervous drive that tapped loudly at the timbered wall of the bunker
bad place to top a ball give me the hole this insolent question needed no answer and major flint drove skying the ball to a prodigious height but it had to come to earth sometime
and it fell like lucifer son of the morning in the middle of the same bunker so the army played three more and sweating profusely got out
then it was the navy's turn and the navy had to lie on its keel above the boards of the bunker in order to reach its ball at all and missed it twice better give it up old chap said major flint unplayable
at his third attempt nothing happened at the fourth the ball flew against the boards rebounded briskly again into the bunker trickled down the steep sandy slope and hit the major's boot
major flint had a short fit of aphasia he opened and shut his mouth and foamed then he took a half crown from his pocket give that to the captain he said to his caddie
walked away in the direction of the tram he had not gone a hundred yards when the whistle sounded and it puffed away homewards with ever increasing velocity weak and trembling from passion
and the two no longer on speaking terms hobbled into the club house one after the other each unconscious of the other's presence summoning his last remaining strength major flint roared for whisky and was told that according to regulation
he could not be served until six there was lemonade and stone ginger beer you might as well have offered a man eating tiger bread and milk even the threat that he would instantly resign his membership unless provided with drink produced no effect on a polite steward
and he sat down to recover as best he might with an old volume of punch this seemed to do him little good his forced abstemiousness was rendered the more intolerable by the fact that captain puffin
and he wouldn't have been sorry if he had been able to get a drink he twirled his moustache a great many times and cleared his throat it wanted more than that to clear it and capitulated upon my word puffin
not taking my defeat better he said a man's no business to let a game ruffle him puffin gave his alto cackling laugh
he let this sink in then added have a drink old chap major flint flew to his feet well thank ye thank ye he said now where's that soda water you offered me just now he shouted to the steward
the speed and completeness of the reconciliation was in no way remarkable for when two men quarrel whenever they meet it follows that they make it up again with corresponding frequency else there could be no fresh quarrels at all
this one had been a shade more acute than most and the drop into amity again was a shade more precipitous major flint in his eagerness had put most of his moustache into the life giving tumbler and dried it on his handkerchief
after all it was a most amusing incident he said
i'll serve you with the same spoon some day at least i would if i thought it sportsmanlike well well enough said astonishing good whisky that of yours captain puffin helped himself to rather more than half of what now remained in the flask
help yourself major he said well thank ye i don't mind if i do he said reversing the flask over the tumbler there's a good tramp in front of us now that the last tram has gone tram and tramp upon my word i've half a mind to telephone for a taxi
this of course was a direct hint puffin ought clearly to pay for a taxi having won two half crowns to day this casual drink did not constitute the usual drink stood by the winner and paid for with cash over the counter a drink
puffin naturally saw it in another light he had paid for the whisky which major flink had drunk or owed for it in his wine merchant's bill that was money just as much as a florin pushed across the counter
done with you said the other their comradeship was now on its most felicitous level again and they sat on the bench outside the club house till the arrival of their unusual conveyance lunching at the poppit's to morrow
bridge afterwards i suppose sure to be wish there was a chance of more red currant fool that was a decent tipple all but the red currants
captain puffin was a great cynic in his own misogynistic way camouflage for the fair sex he said a woman will lick up half a bottle of brandy if it's called plum pudding and ask for more whereas if you offered her a small brandy and soda
she would think you were insulting her bless them the funny little fairies said the major well what i tell you is true major said puffin there's old mapp teetotaller she calls herself
bit rosy i thought her as we escorted her home so she was said the major so she was said good bye to us on her doorstep as if she thought she was a perfect venus ana ana something
now none of your sailor talk ashore captain said the major in high good humour i'm not a marrying man any more than you are better if i had been perhaps more years ago than i care to think about dear me my wound's going to trouble me to night
perhaps a hundred years hence the date i have named in my will for their publication someone may think them not so uninteresting but all this toasting and buttering and grilling and frying your friends and serving them up hot for all the old cats at a tea table to mew over pah
puffin was silent a moment in appreciation of these noble sentiments but you put in a lot of work over them he said at length often when i'm going up to bed i see the light still burning in your sitting room window
and if it comes to that rejoined the major i'm sure i've often dozed off when i'm in bed and woken again and pulled up my blind and what not and there's your light still burning powerful long roads those old romans must have made captain
the ice was not broken but it was cracking in all directions under this unexampled thaw the two had clearly indicated a mutual suspicion of each other's industrious habits after dinner
said major flint just so brain work's an exhausting process requires a little stimulant now and again said puffin
and then if there's something interesting in the evening paper perhaps i'll have a look at it and bless me if by that time it isn't already half past ten or eleven and it seems useless to tackle archology then and i just
just while away the time till i'm sleepy but there seems to be a sort of legend among the ladies here that i'm a great student of local topography and roman roads and all sorts of truck and i find it better to leave it at that tiresome to go into long explanations
in fact added puffin in a burst of confidence the study i've done on roman roads these last six months wouldn't cover a threepenny piece major flint gave a loud choking guffaw and beat his fat leg well
if that's not the best joke i've heard for many a long day he said there i've been in the house opposite you these last two years seeing your light burning late night after night and thinking to myself there's my friend puffin still at it
fine thing to be an enthusiastic archologist like that
and all the time you've been sitting snoozing and boozing in your chair with your glass handy to wash the dust down puffin added his falsetto cackle to this merriment
there's my friend the major in his study opposite with all his diaries round him making a note here and copying an extract there and conferring with the viceroy one day and reprimanding the maharajah
told me that i work too hard at night
six and eight in the morning that's a queer time of day to recommend an old campaigner to be awake at
and me on the other pulling a long face over my diaries and neither of us with a roman road or a diary to our names let's have an end to such unsociable arrangements old friend
never drink alone
but no more solitary confinement of an evening for benjamin flint as long as you're agreeable the advent of the taxi was announced and arm in arm they limped down the steep path together to the road
a little way off to the left was the great bunker which primarily was the cause of their present amity
it was late that night when miss mapp felt that she was physically incapable of tacking on a single poppy more to the edge of her skirt and went to the window of the garden room where she had been working to close it
she glanced to the right and concluded that her gardener had gone to bed finally she glanced down the street and saw with a pang of pleasure that the windows of the major's house showed no sign of midnight labour this was intensely gratifying
it indicated that her influence was at work in him for in response to her wish so often and so tactfully urged on him that he would go to bed earlier and not work so hard at night here was the darkened window and she dismissed as unworthy
the suspicion which had been aroused by the red currant fool the window of his bedroom was dark too he must have already put out his light and miss mapp made haste over her little tidyings so that she might not be found a transgressor to her own precepts
and that it was nothing else of less pure and innocent allurement that kept him up as she closed the window very gently it did just seem to her that there had been something equally baffling in major flint's egoistical vigils over his diaries
which kept his lights burning so late but she would now cross him dear man and his late habits out of the list of riddles about tilling which awaited solution whatever it had been diaries or what not that used to keep him up he had broken the habit now
whereas captain puffin had not she took her poppy bordered skirt over her arm and smiled her thankful way to bed she could allow herself to wonder with a little more definiteness now that the major's lights were out and he was abed
what it could be which rendered captain puffin so oblivious to the passage of time when he was investigating roman roads how glad she was that the major was not with him
having put her window open she trod softly so as not to disturb the slumberer next door across her room on her fat white feet to her big white bed good night major benjy she whispered as she put her light out
three tons in her cellar and as soon as her visitor had left her this morning she popped out to see mister wootten her coal merchant
she returned in a state of fury for there were no regulations whatever in existence with regard to the amount of coal that any householder might choose to amass and mister wootten complimented her on her prudence in having got in a reasonable supply for he thought it quite probable that
if the coal strike took place there would be some difficulty in a month's time from now in replenishing cellars but we've had a good supply all the summer added agreeable mister wootten and all my customers have got their cellars well stocked
oh but mister wootten she said miss mapp popped dropped in to see me just now told me she had hardly got any mister wootten turned up his ledger it was not etiquette to disclose the affairs of one client to another
but if there was a cantankerous customer one who was never satisfied with prices and quality that client was miss mapp he allowed a broad grin to overspread his agreeable face well ma'am
if in a month's time i'm short of coal there are friends of yours in tilling who can let you have plenty he permitted himself to say it was idle to attempt to cut out bunches of roses while her hand was so feverish and she trundled up and down the high street to cool off
had she not been so prudent as to make inquiries as likely as not she would have sent a ton of coal that very day to the hospital so strongly had elizabeth's perfidious warning inflamed her imagination as to the fate of hoarders
and all the time elizabeth's own cellars were glutted though she had asserted that she was almost fuelless
as the cooling process went on she began to wonder whether it was worsted alone that had prompted her friend's diabolical suggestion
and it was ever so like her to divert suspicion by pretending her cellar was next to empty she had been equally severe on any who might happen to be hoarding food in case transport was disarranged and supplies fell short and with a sudden flare of authentic intuition
luck ever attends the bold and constructive thinker the apple for instance fell from the tree precisely when newton's mind was groping after the law of gravity
for she had been occupied with roses ever since breakfast the attendant was at the telephone at the back of the shop he spoke in a lucid telephone voice
her voice was tremulous with anxiety and investigation got any big tins of corned beef the ones that contain six pounds
and they've just been ordered a small pot of ginger then please said diva recklessly will you send it round immediately yes ma'am the boy's just going out that was luck
for almost immediately the grocer's boy came out of the shop with a heavy basket on his arm
that led to miss mapp's house was very protracted at the corner he deliberately put down the basket altogether
having refreshed himself he turned up the steep street he passed the fishmonger's and the fruiterer's he did not take the turn down to the dentist's and mister wyse's he had no errand to the major's house or to the captain's then
he rang the bell at miss mapp's back door
and walking so slowly that the motion of her feet seemed not circular at all then the bell was answered and he delivered into withers's hands one two tins of corned beef and a round ox tongue
he put the basket on his head and came down the street again shrilly whistling
now she had already noticed that elizabeth had paid visits to the grocer's on three consecutive days three consecutive days think of it and given that her purchases on other occasions had been on the same substantial scale as to day
it became a matter of thrilling interest as to where she kept these stores she could not keep them in the coal cellar for that was already bursting with coal
the base one in making a prodigious quantity of jam that year from her well stocked garden was aware that the kitchen cupboards were like to be as replete as the coal cellar before those hoardings of dead oxen began
but that could scarcely be the site of this prodigious cache for it was full of cardboard and curtains and carpets and all the rubbishy accumulations which elizabeth could not bear to part with
then she had large cupboards in her bedroom and spare rooms full to overflowing of mouldy clothes
and she crushed her temples in her hands in the attempt to locate the hiding place of the hoard
and in her excitement snapped her scissors with so random a stroke that she completely cut in half the bunch of roses that she was engaged on there was another cupboard the best and biggest of all and the most secret and the most discreet
it lay embedded in the wall of the garden room cloaked and concealed behind the shelves of a false book case which contained no more than the simulacra of books just books with titles that had never yet appeared on any honest book
a shelf full of elegant extracts there were volumes simply called poems there were commentaries there were travels and astronomy and the lowest and tallest shelf was full of music
had noticed a modest catch let into the woodwork
doubt then the bookcase was the door of the cupboard and with a stroke of intuition too sure to be called a guess
and nothing but dark sky is visible around it except for the interference of the moon we should probably never have known that there is any more of the sun than our eyes ordinarily see but when an eclipse of the sun occurs
may be called the sun's atmosphere they consist of two very different parts first the red prominences which resemble tongues of flame ascending thousands of miles above the sun's surface and second the corona
which extends to distances of millions of miles from the sun and shines with a soft glowing light the two combined when well seen make a spectacle without parallel among the marvels of the sky
although many attempts have been made to render the corona visible when there is no eclipse all have failed and it is to the moon alone that we owe its revelation to cover the sun's disk with a circular screen
and the corona appears in all its surprising beauty the prominences however although they were discovered during an eclipse can now with the aid of the spectroscope be seen at any time but the prominences are rarely large enough to be noticed by the naked eye
while the streamers of the corona stretching far away in space like ghostly banners blown out from the black circle of the obscuring moon attract every eye and to this weird apparition much of the fear inspired by eclipses has been due
the story of the first scientific observation of the corona and the prominences is thrillingly interesting and in fact dramatic the observation was made during the eclipse of eighteen forty two
which fortunately was visible all over central and southern europe so that scores of astronomers saw it
where the english astronomer francis baily had set up his telescope the eclipse had begun and bailey was busy at his telescope when to quote his own words in the account which he wrote for the memoirs of the royal astronomical society
walking about the streets and squares or looking out of windows in order to witness this long talked of phenomenon and when the total obscuration took place which was instantaneous there was a universal shout from every observer which made the welkin ring
from any of the accounts of preceding eclipses that i had read to witness so magnificent an exhibition as that which took place splendid and astonishing however as this remarkable phenomenon really was
that there was at the same time something in its singular and wonderful appearance that was appalling but the most remarkable circumstance attending the phenomenon
apparently emanating from the circumference of the moon but evidently forming a portion of the corona
perhaps the color of the peach blossom would more nearly represent it
were visible even to the last moment of total obscuration and when the first ray of light was admitted from the sun they vanished with the corona altogether and daylight was instantly restored i have quoted nearly all of this remarkable description
not alone for its intrinsic interest but because it is the best depiction that can be found of the general phenomena of a total solar eclipse still not every such eclipse offers an equally magnificent spectacle
yet on both occasions
the south carolinians gave a cheer and the ladies waved their handkerchiefs when the corona ineffably delicate of form and texture melted into sight and then in two minutes melted away again the spaniards
crowded on the citadel hill of burgos with their king and his royal retinue in their midst
there are recognized two kinds of prominences the erruptive and the quiescent
appear to be associated with sun spots and appear only above the zones where spots abound either of them when seen in projection against the brilliant solar disk appears white not red as against a background of sky
the quiescent prominences whose elevation is often from forty thousand to sixty thousand miles consist as the spectroscope shows mainly of hydrogen and helium the latter it will be remembered
is an element which was known to be in the sun many years before the discovery that it also exists in small quantities on the earth a fact which may have a significance which we cannot at present see
is that the emanation from radium gradually and spontaneously changes into helium an alchemistical feat of nature that has opened many curious vistas to speculative thinkers the eruptive prominences
which do not spread horizontally like the others but ascend with marvelous velocity to elevations of half a million miles or more are apparently composed largely of metallic vapors i e metals
but which at solar temperatures are kept in a volatilized state the velocity of their ascent occasionally amounts to three hundred or four hundred miles per second it is known from mathematical considerations that the gravitation of the sun
so it is evident that some of the matter hurled forth in eruptive prominences may escape from solar control and go speeding out into space cooling and condensing into solid masses
might not reach the planets here then we have on a relatively small scale explosions
but they evidently have an intimate connection with eruptive prominences
evidences of a cyclonic tendency have been found
mira ceti a star which every eleven months or thereabout flames up with great brilliancy
the association of the corona with sun spots is less evident than that of the eruptive prominences still such an association exists for the form and extent of the corona vary with the sun spot period of which we shall presently speak
from a historical and picturesque point of view
is their effect upon the forms of the constellations
the constellations are formed by chance combinations of conspicuous stars like figures in a kaleidoscope
of cosmic existence we should perceive that the kaleidoscope of the heavens was ceaselessly turning and throwing the stars
even if the stars stood fast the motion of the solar system would gradually alter the configurations as the elements of a landscape dissolve and recombine in fresh groupings with the traveler's progress amid them but with the stars themselves
only the deliberation of geological movements can be contrasted with the evolution and devolution of the constellations and yet this secular fluctuation of the constellation figures is not without keen interest for the meditative observer
to the passing glance which is all that we can bestow upon these figures they appear so immutable
in the forms of the constellations
yet in a broad sense this scroll of human thought imprinted on the heavens
although more enduring than parchment tombs pyramids and temples
of what man has fancied and done before studying the effects that the motions of the stars have had and will have upon the constellations
to emphasize the importance of these effects it is only necessary to recall that the constellations register the oldest traditions of our race in the history of primeval religions
based on something older yet we may refer for illustration to that of the mysterious maya race of america at izamal in yucatan says mister stansbury hagar is a group of ruins perched after the mexican and central american plan
the figures and the names of course were not the same as those that we have derived from our aryan ancestors but the star groups were the same or nearly so for instance the loftiest of the temples at izamal
was connected with the sign of the constellation known to us as cancer
and consume the offerings left upon the altar our scorpio was known to the mayas as a sign of the death god our libra the balance
seems to be identical with the mayan constellation
with which was associated a temple where dwelt the priests whose special business it was to administer justice and to foretell the future by means of information obtained from the spirits of the dead orion the hunter of our celestial mythology
was among the mayas a warrior while sagittarius and others of our constellations were known to them under different names of course and all were endowed with a religious symbolism and the same star figures having the same significance were familiar to the peruvians
but in fact
employed them in some symbolic or representative capacity as handled by the greeks from prehistoric times the constellation myths became the very soul of poetry the imagination of that wonderful race idealized the principal star groups
so effectively that the figures and traditions thus attached to them have for civilized mankind displaced all others just as greek art in its highest forms stands without parallel and eclipses every rival
the romans translated no heroes and heroines of the mythical period of their history to the sky
zeus in the form of the white bull taurus bears the fair europa on his back through the celestial waves andromeda stretches forth her shackled arms in the star gemmed ether beseeching aid
professor young has significantly remarked that a great number of the constellations are connected in some way or other
that strangely fascinating legend of earliest greek story which has never lost its charm for mankind in view of all this we may well congratulate ourselves that the constellations will outlast our time and the time of countless generations to follow us
and yet they are very far from being eternal let us now study some of the effects of the stellar motions upon them we begin with the familiar figure of the great dipper he who has not drunk inspiration from its celestial bowl
this figure is made up of seven conspicuous stars in the constellation ursa major the greater bear the handle of the dipper
of the seven stars mentioned six are of nearly equal brightness ranking as of the second magnitude while the seventh is of only the third magnitude
there appears to be little doubt that the faint star which is situated at the junction of the bowl and the handle is a variable of long period since three hundred years ago
both the names and the greek letters which are attached to the seven stars beginning at the star in the upper outer edge of the rim of the bowl and running in regular order round the bottom and then out to the end of the handle
is the faint star already mentioned at the junction of the bowl and handle and mizar in the middle of the handle has a close naked eye companion which is named alcor
are called the pointers because an imaginary line drawn northward through them indicates the pole star
with its comrade are moving with practically the same speed in an easterly direction while the other two
benetnasch are simultaneously moving westward the motions of benetnasch being apparently more rapid the consequence of these opposed motions is of course that the figure of the dipper cannot always have existed
and will not continue to exist in the accompanying diagrams it has been thought interesting to show the relative positions of these seven stars as seen from the point which the earth now occupies both in the past and in the future
the time no doubt seems long but remember the vast stretch of ages through which the earth has passed and then reflect that no reason is apparent why our globe should not continue to be a scene of animation for ten thousand centuries yet to come
the fact that the little star alcor placed so close to mizar should accompany the latter in its flight is not surprising
is surprising in the highest degree and it recalls the strange theory of a double drift affecting all the stars to which attention was called in the preceding chapter
from the great dipper we turn to a constellation hardly less conspicuous and situated at an equal distance from the pole on the other side cassiopeia
was punished by the exposure of her daughter andromeda to the sea monster is well marked by five stars which form an irregular letter w with its open side toward the pole
four of them beta alpha delta and epsilon are traveling eastwardly at various speeds while the fifth gamma moves in a westerly direction
and different observers often vary considerably in their results in the beautiful northern crown
the alternate combining and scattering effects of the stellar motions are shown by comparing the appearance
with that which it has at present and that which it will have in the future the seven principle stars of the asterism forming a surprisingly perfect coronet have movements in three directions at right angles to one another
job's coffin delphinus the great square of pegasus the twins gemini the beautiful sickle in leo and the exquisite group of the hyades in taurus
aldebaran one of the finest of all stars both for its brilliance and its color is the most affected by the easterly motion in time it will drift entirely out of connection with its present neighbors
not because its stars are physically connected but because of their great distance which renders their movements too deliberate to be exactly ascertained two of the greatest of its stars
possess as far as has been ascertained no perceptible motion across the line of sight
at the present time this consists of an almost perfect straight line a row of second magnitude stars about equally spaced
in the course of time however the two right hand stars mintaka and alnilam
will approach each other and form a naked eye double
alnita will drift away eastward so that the belt will no longer exist for one more example let us go to the southern hemisphere whose most celebrated constellation the southern cross has found a place in all modern literatures
although it has no claim to consideration on account of association with ancient legends this most attractive asterism which has never ceased to fascinate the imagination of christendom since it was first devoutly described by the early explorers of the south
is but a passing collocation of brilliant stars yet even in its transfigurations it has been for hundreds of centuries and will continue to be for hundreds of centuries to come a most striking object in the sky
our figures show its appearance in three successive phases first as it was fifty thousand years ago viewed from the earth's present location second as it is in our day
the nearness of these bright stars to one another the length of the longer beam of the cross is only six degrees makes this group very noticeable whatever the arrangement of its components may be the largest star at the base of the cross
but since the motion of the solar system itself will in the course of so long a period as fifty thousand years produce a great change in the perspective of the heavens as seen from the earth by carrying us nearly nineteen trillion miles from our present place
why it may be asked seek to represent future appearances of the constellations which we could not hope to see even if we could survive so long the answer is
the constellations are more or less familiar to everybody
must at once strike the eye and the imagination and make clearer the significance of the movements of the stars
and if our race is destined to survive yet a million years then our remote descendents will see a new heavens
if our knowledge of the relative distances of the stars were more complete it would be an interesting exercise in celestial geometry to project the constellations probably visible
except perhaps in a few cases as seen for instance from the nearest known star alpha centauri
could only rank as a fifth or sixth magnitude star
come outside and look at the sky
we were dumbfounded to see the heavens filled with pale flames which ran licking and quivering over the stars instantly there sprang into my terrified mind the recollection of an awful description of
dreadfully in earnest preacher of the old fashioned type my heart literally sank at sight of the spectacle
when menacing spots of crimson appeared breaking out now here now there in the shuddering sky toward the north the spectacle was appalling a huge arch spanned an unnaturally dark segment resting on the horizon and above this arch
sprang up beams and streamers in a state of incessant agitation sometimes shooting up to the zenith with a velocity that took one's breath and sometimes suddenly falling into long ranks and marching marching marching
or were shaken to and fro as if by a mighty noiseless wind
is seldom seen with so much splendor i remember another similar one seen from the city of new york in november eighteen eighty two on this last occasion some observers saw a great upright beam of light which majestically moved across the heavens
stalking like an apparition in the midst
of whose general movements it seemed to be independent maintaining always its upright posture and following a magnetic parallel from east to west this mysterious beam was seen by no less than twenty six observers in different parts of the country
indicating that the apparition was about
when for months together the sun does not rise the strange coruscations in the sky often afford a kind of spectral daylight in unison with the weird scenery of the world of ice the pages in the narratives of arctic exploration
that are devoted to descriptions of the wonderful effects of the northern lights are second to none that man has ever penned in their fascination the lights as i have already intimated display astonishing colors particularly shades of red and green
the discovery that the magnetic needle is affected by the aurora quivering and darting about in a state of extraordinary excitement when the lights are playing in the sky only added to the mystery of the phenomenon until its electro magnetic nature had been established
this became evident as soon as it was known that the focus of the displays was the magnetic pole and when the far south was visited the aurora australis was found having its center at the south magnetic pole then
if not before it was clear that the earth was a great globular magnet having its poles of opposite magnetism and that the auroral lights whatever their precise cause might be were manifestations of the magnetic activity of our planet
and the ocean cables ceased to work
the ancient zurich chronicles extending from the year one thousand to the year eighteen hundred in which both sun spots visible to the naked eye
two intensely brilliant points suddenly broke out in a group of sun spots which were under observation by mister r c carrington at his observatory at redhill england the points remained visible for not more than five minutes during which interval
they moved thirty five thousand miles across the solar disk mister r hodgson happened to see the same phenomenon at his observatory at highgate and thus all possibility of deception was removed
history of astronomy during the nineteenth century
telegraphic communication was everywhere interrupted except indeed that it was in some cases found practicable to work the lines without batteries by the agency of the earth currents alone
sparks issued from the wires gorgeous auroras draped the skies in solemn crimson over both hemispheres and even in the tropics the magnetic needle lost all trace of continuity in its movements and darted to and fro as if stricken with inexplicable panic
the coincidence was even closer at the very instant of the solar outburst witnessed by carrington and hodgson the photographic apparatus at kew registered a marked disturbance
while shortly after the ensuing midnight the electric agitation culminated
and lighting up the atmosphere from pole to pole with coruscating splendors which perhaps dimly recall the times when our ancient planet itself shone as a star
of the assumed connection between solar outbursts and magnetic storms accompanied by auroral displays on the earth it is true that the late lord kelvin raised difficulties in the way of the hypothesis of a direct magnetic action of the sun upon the earth
because it seemed to him that an inadmissible quantity of energy was demanded to account for such action but no calculation like that
is final since all calculations depend upon the validity of the data and no authority is unshakable in science because no man can possess omniscience it was lord kelvin who but a few years before the thing was actually accomplished
declared that aerial navigation was an impracticable dream and demonstrated its impracticability by calculation however the connection may be brought about
and coincident in such a way as to make the inference
should it be so difficult to believe that the sun's enormous electric energies find a way to us also no doubt the impulse coming from the sun
for instance when the sun spot period shortens the auroral period shortens to precisely the same extent as the short sun spot periods usually bring the most intense outbreaks of solar activity so the corresponding short auroral periods
are attended by the most violent magnetic storms a secular period of about two hundred and twenty two years affecting sun spots is said to have its auroral duplicate a shorter period of fifty five and a half years
they begin to descend with the lines of force curving down to meet at the poles and encountering a part of the atmosphere comparable in density
they produce a glow of cathode rays this glow is conceived to represent the aurora which may consequently be likened to a gigantic exhibition of vacuum tube lights anybody who recalls his student days in the college laboratory
and who has witnessed a display of northern lights
before arrhenius elaborated his hypothesis without intending to treat his interesting theory as more than a possibly correct explanation of the phenomena of the aurora we may call attention to some apparently confirmatory facts
and fewer in june and december
thus one the particles issuing from the sun are supposed to come principally from the regions whose excitement is indicated by the presence of sun spots
that sun spots are columns of ionized vapors
the earth is directly over the solar equator
this as will be seen from what has been said above is in strict accord with the observed variations in the frequency of aurorae
in the winter than in the summer and the number of particles reaching it will vary like the intensity of light
the earth is never directly over the most active regions of the sun spots and consequently never suffers from the maximum bombardment of charged particles of which the sun is capable incessant auroral displays
for months on end crazing the magnetic needle and continually putting the telegraph and cable lines out of commission to say nothing of their effect upon wireless telegraphy would hardly add to the charms of terrestrial existence
first the number of aurorae according to his explanation
since the light of the aurora is never sufficiently intense to be visible in the presence of daylight but the records of the magnetic observatories can be and have been appealed to for information and they indicate that the facts actually accord with the theory
before than after midnight
is more frequent in years when aurorae are most abundant
in the atmosphere in an absolutely dustless atmosphere
like those supposed to come from the sun play a master part in the phenomena of cloud formation yet another singular fact almost mystical in its suggestions may be mentioned
in consequence of this
we shall however find one more application of it in the next chapter
because tom said we got to have some light to see how to dig by and a lantern makes too much and might get us into trouble what we must have was a lot of them rotten chunks that's called fox fire and just makes a soft kind of a glow when you lay them in a dark place
we fetched an armful and hid it in the weeds and set down to rest and tom says kind of dissatisfied blame it this whole thing is just as easy and awkward as it can be
there ain't no watchman to be druggednow there ought to be a watchman there ain't even a dog to give a sleeping mixture to and there's jim chained by one leg with a ten foot chain to the leg of his bed
and uncle silas he trusts everybody sends the key to the punkin headed nigger and don't send nobody to watch the nigger
jim could a got out of that window hole before this only there wouldn't be no use trying to travel with a ten foot chain on his leg why drat it huck it's the stupidest arrangement i ever see you got to invent all the difficulties
and you had to contrive them all out of your own head now look at just that one thing of the lantern when you come down to the cold facts we simply got to let on that a lantern's resky
why we could work with a torchlight procession if we wanted to i believe now whilst i think of it we got to hunt up something to make a saw out of the first chance we get what do we want of a saw
baron trenck nor casanova nor benvenuto chelleeny
no the way all the best authorities does is to saw the bed leg in two and leave it just so
and swallow the sawdust so it can't be found and put some dirt and grease around the sawed place so the very keenest seneskal can't see no sign of it's being sawed and thinks the bed leg is perfectly sound then the night you're ready fetch the leg a kick
down she goes slip off your chain and there you are nothing to do but hitch your rope ladder to the battlements shin down it break your leg in the moatbecause a rope ladder is nineteen foot too short you knowand
it's gaudy huck i wish there was a moat to this cabin if we get time the night of the escape we'll dig one i says what do we want of a moat when we're going to snake him out from under the cabin but he never heard me
he had forgot me and everything else he had his chin in his hand thinking pretty soon he sighs and shakes his head then sighs again and says
ain't necessity enough for it for what i says
why there ain't no necessity for it and what would you want to saw his leg off for anyway well some of the best authorities has done it they couldn't get the chain off so they just cut their hand off and shoved and a leg would be better still but we got to let that go
there ain't necessity enough in this case and besides jim's a nigger and wouldn't understand the reasons for it and how it's the custom in europe so we'll let it go but there's one thinghe
why tom sawyer how you talk i says jim ain't got no use for a rope ladder he has got use for it how you talk you better say you don't know nothing about it
they all do what in the nation can he do with it do with it he can hide it in his bed can't he that's what they all do and he's got to too
and don't you reckon they'll want clews of course they will and you wouldn't leave them any
well i says
because i don't wish to go back on no regulations
we're going to get into trouble with aunt sally just as sure as you're born now the way i look at it a hickry bark ladder don't cost nothing and don't waste nothing
well all right tom fix it your own way but if you'll take my advice you'll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothesline he said that would do and that gave him another idea and he says borrow a shirt too what do we want of a shirt tom
s'pose he can't writehe
why tom we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better one and quicker too
they wouldn't use a goose quill if they had it it
many makes it out of iron rust and tears but that's the common sort and women the best authorities uses their own blood jim can do that
and when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious message to let the world know where he's captivated
the iron mask always done that and it's a blame good way too jim ain't got no tin plates they feed him in a pan that ain't nothing we can get him some can't nobody read his plates
that ain't got anything to do with it huck finn all he's got to do is to write on the plate and throw it out you don't have to be able to read it
why half the time you can't read anything a prisoner writes on a tin plate or anywhere else well then what's the sense in wasting the plates
but it's somebody's plates ain't it well spos'n it is what does the prisoner care whose he broke off there because we heard the breakfast horn blowing so we cleared out for the house
along during the morning i borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of the clothes line and i found an old sack and put them in it and we went down and got the fox fire and put that in too i called it borrowing
it was stealing he said we was representing prisoners and prisoners don't care how they get a thing so they get it and nobody don't blame them for it either
he said if we warn't prisoners it would be a very different thing and nobody but a mean ornery person would steal when he warn't a prisoner so we allowed we would steal everything there was that come handy
tom said that what he meant was we could steal anything we needed well i says i needed the watermelon but he said i didn't need it to get out of prison with
he said if i'd a wanted it to hide a knife in and smuggle it to jim to kill the seneskal with it would a been all right
well as i was saying we waited that morning till everybody was settled down to business and nobody in sight around the yard then tom he carried the sack into the lean to whilst i stood off a piece to keep watch
why to dig with we ain't a going to gnaw him out are we ain't them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig a nigger out with i says he turns on me looking pitying enough to make a body cry and says
well then i says if we don't want the picks and shovels what do we want a couple of case knives to dig the foundations out from under that cabin with yes
confound it it's foolish tom it don't make no difference how foolish it is it's the right wayand it's the regular way
and it takes them weeks and weeks and weeks and for ever and ever why look at one of them prisoners in the bottom dungeon of the castle deef
i wish the bottom of this fortress was solid rock jim don't know nobody in china what's that got to do with it
why can't you stick to the main point
so he comes out and jim don't either i reckon but there's one thing anyway jim's too old to be dug out with a case knife
he won't last yes he will last too you don't reckon it's going to take thirty seven years to dig out through a dirt foundation do you how long will it take tom well we can't resk being as long as we ought to
because it mayn't take very long for uncle silas to hear from down there by new orleans he'll hear jim ain't from there then his next move will be to advertise jim or something like that so we can't resk being as long digging him out as we ought to
by rights i reckon we ought to be a couple of years but we can't things being so uncertain what i recommend is this that we really dig right in as quick as we can and after that we can let
then we can snatch him out and rush him away the first time there's an alarm yes
now there's sense in that i says letting on don't cost nothing letting on ain't no trouble and if it's any object i don't mind letting on we was at it a hundred and fifty year
it wouldn't strain me none after i got my hand in so i'll mosey along now and smouch a couple of case knives smouch three he says we want one to make a saw out of tom
there's an old rusty saw blade around yonder sticking under the weather boarding behind the smoke house
twas with thoughts like this that i was busy while the short afternoon was spent and the story went up and down the village
were come back to moonfleet and that the old lander was drowned saving the young man's life the dusk was creeping up as i turned back the sail from off his face and took another look at my lost friend my only friend
for who was there now to care a jot for me i might go and drown myself on moonfleet beach for anyone that would grieve over me what did it profit me to have broken bonds and to be free again what use was freedom to me now where was i to go
what was i to do my friend was gone so i went back and sat with my head in my hands looking into the fire when i heard someone step into the room but did not turn thinking it was master ratsey come back
then i felt a light touch on my shoulder and looking up saw standing by me a tall and stately woman girl no longer but woman in the full strength and beauty of youth i knew her in a moment for she had altered little
except her oval face had something more of dignity and the tawny hair that used to fly about her back was now gathered up she was looking down at me and let her hand rest on my shoulder john she said have you forgotten me
may i not share your sorrow did you not think to tell me you were come did you not see the light did you not know there was a friend that waited for you i said nothing not being able to speak
but marvelling how she had come just in the point of time to prove me wrong to think i had no friend and she went on is it well for you to be here grieve not too sadly for none could have died nobler than he died
and in these years that you have been away i have thought much of him and found him good at heart and if he did aught wrong twas because others wronged him more and while she spoke i thought how elzevir had gone to shoot her father
and only failed of it by a hair's breadth and yet she spoke so well i thought he never really meant to shoot at all but only to scare the magistrate
and then that he should save my life and now that maskew's daughter should be the one to praise elzevir when he lay dead and still i could not speak and again she said john have you no word for me have you forgotten
but of love i may not speak more to you nor you to me for we are no more boy and girl as in times past but you a noble lady and i a broken wretch
and why and showed her the iron ring upon my wrist and the brand upon my cheek at the brand she stared and said
but the mohunes badge to show that you are theirs and must do their bidding
but now i pray you with a greater earnestness seeing you bear this mark upon you touch no penny of that treasure if it should some day come back to you but put it to such uses as colonel mohune thought would help his sinful soul
and the outline of the body that lay under it after she was gone i pondered long over what she had said and what that should mean when she spoke of the treasure one day coming back to me but wondered much the most to find how constant is the love of woman
and how she could still find a place in her heart for so poor a thing as i but as to what she said i was to learn her meaning this very night master ratsey had come in and gone again not stopping with me very long because there was much doing on the beach
but bidding me be of good cheer and have no fear of the law for that the ban against me and the head price had been dead for many a year twas grace had made her lawyers move for this refusing herself to sign the hue and cry
and sitting up offered him what welcome i could he looked at me curiously at first as taking note of the bearded man that had grown out of the boy he remembered but gave me very kindly greeting and sat down beside me on a bench
first he lifted the sail from the dead body and looked at the sleeping face then he took out a common prayer reading the commendamus over the dead and giving me spiritual comfort and lastly he fell to talking about the past
so that i was another friend the less if indeed i should count her a friend for though she meant me well she showed her care with too much strictness to let me love her and so in my great sorrow for elzevir i found no room to grieve for her
and though i may by some be reprehended he said for presuming to refer to profane authors after citing holy scripture yet i cannot refrain from saying that even the great poet homer counsels moderation in mourning for quickly says he
cometh satiety of chilly grief after this i thought he was going but he cleared his throat in such a way that i guessed he had something important to say and he drew a long folded blue paper from his pocket my son he said
we should never revile fortune
and do not imply that there is any chance at all but what is subject to an over ruling providence we should never i say revile fortune
she may be only gone away to seek some richest treasure to bring back with her and that this is so let what i am about to read to you prove so light a candle and set it by me for my eyes cannot follow the writing in this dancing firelight
it was addressed to the reverend horace glennie perpetual curate of moonfleet
it set forth that one krispijn aldobrand jeweller and dealer in precious stones at the hague had sent for heer roosten to draw a will for him
that he aldobrand was desirous to leave all his goods to one
for that he had once obtained from the said john a diamond without paying the proper price for it which stone he aldobrand had sold and converted into money
these had forthwith melted through unfortunate ventures and speculations till he had little remaining to him but the money that this same diamond had brought
it was well heer roosten added that the will had been drawn in good time
he saw continually a tall man with a coppery face and black beard draw the bed curtains and mock him thus he came at length to his end
this information was however always postponed
and was then nowhere to be found after that heer roosten was advised to write to the minister of the parish and so addressed these lines to mister glennie this was the gist of the letter which mister glennie read and you may easily guess how such news moved me
he made a good end john he said rising from his knees and i pray that our end may be in as good cause when it comes for with the best of us the hour of death is an awful hour and we may well pray as every sunday
to be delivered in it but there is another time which those who wrote this litany thought no less perilous and bade us pray to be delivered in all time of our wealth so i pray that if after all this wealth comes to your hand you may be led to use it well
as colonel john mohune set apart this treasure it cannot be but that we shall do grievous wrong in putting them to other use so fare you well and remember that there are other treasures besides this and that a good woman's love
is worth far more than all the gold and jewels of the world as i once knew and with that he left me i guessed that he had spoken with grace that day and as i lay dozing in front of the fire alone in this old room i knew so well
alone with that silent friend who had died to save me i mourned him none the less but yet sorrowed not as one without hope
since you may know by my telling it that all went well for what man would sit down to write a history that ended in his own discomfiture all that great wealth came to my hands and if i do not say how great it was
and of that money i never touched penny piece having learnt a bitter lesson in the past but laid it out in good works with mister glennie and grace to help me first we rebuilt and enlarged the almshouses beyond all that colonel john mohune could ever think of
and so established them as to be a haven for ever for all worn out sailors of that coast next we sought the guidance of the brethren of the trinity and built a lighthouse on the snout to be a channel beacon for sea going ships
as maskew's match had been a light for our fishing boats in the past lastly we beautified the church turning out the cumbrous seats of oak and neatly pewing it with deal and baize that made it most commodious to sit in of the sabbath
there was also much old glass which we removed and reglazed all the windows tight against the wind so that what with a high pulpit reading desk and seat for master clerk and new commandment boards each side of the holy table
there was not a church could vie with ours in the countryside but that great vault below it with its memories was set in order and then safely walled up and after that nothing was more ever heard of blackbeard and his lost mohunes
and as for the landers i cannot say where they went and if a cargo is still run of a dark night upon the beach i know nothing of it being both lord of the manor and justice of the peace
the village too renewed itself with the new almshouses and church there were old houses rebuilt and fresh ones reared and all are ours except the why not which still remains the duchy inn
and came back to their old haunt and any shipwrecked or travel worn sailor found board and welcome within its doors and of the mohune hospital for that was what the alms houses were now called master glennie was first warden with fair rooms and a full library
that a man lay down his life for his friend and some of mister glennie's verses and of ourselves let me speak last the manor house is a stately home again with trim lawns and terraced balustrades
where we can sit and see the thin blue smoke hang above the village on summer evenings and in the manor woods my wife and i have seen a little grace and a little john and little elzevir our firstborn play and now our daughter is grown up
fair to us as the polished corners of the temple and our sons are gone out to serve king george on sea and land but as for us for grace and me we never leave this our happy moonfleet being well content to see the dawn tipping the long cliff line with gold
and the night walking in dew across the meadows to watch the spring clothe the beech boughs with green or the figs ripen on the southern wall while behind all is spread as a curtain the eternal sea ever the same and ever changing
yet i love to see it best when it is lashed to madness in the autumn gale
tis then i turn in bed and thank god more from the heart perhaps than any other living man that i am not fighting for my life on moonfleet beach and more than once i have stood rope in hand in that same awful place
and tried to save a struggling wretch but never saw one come through the surf alive
all day saturday the men had worked out upon the eaves of the house and the dolls facing the window could see them the men made quite a lot of noise with their hammers for they were putting new gutters around the eaves and pounding upon tin makes a great deal of noise
marcella had not played with the dolls all that day for she had gone visiting so when the men hammered and made a lot of noise
what are they doing now raggedy andy asked he was lying with his head beneath a little bed quilt just as marcella had dropped him when she left the nursery
answered uncle clem but they are putting new shingles or something on the roof after the men had left their work and gone home to supper and the house was quiet raggedy andy cautiously moved his head out from under the little bed quilt and
and raggedy andy took her in his rag hand and gave her a great swing which sent her scooting down the shiny tin gutter kerswish then raggedy andy climbed into the gutter himself and taking a few steps
spread out his feet and went scooting down the shiny tin the other dolls followed his example and scooted along behind him when raggedy andy came to the place where he expected to find the penny dolls lying they were nowhere about
he exclaimed when he had peeped around the corner of the roof the gutter
and there is nothing but a hole they must have scooted right into the hole henny the dutch doll said raggedy andy lay flat upon the shiny tin and looked down into the hole are you down there penny dolls he called there was no answer
raggedy andy cried as he brushed his hand over his shoe button eyes maybe if you hold to my feet
again he added uncle clem and henny each caught hold of a foot of raggedy andy and let him slide down into the hole it was a rather tight fit but raggedy andy wiggled and twisted
now henny and uncle clem thought that raggedy andy meant for them to let go of his feet
i can't find them he cried they have gone farther down the pipe now you can pull me up we can't reach you raggedy andy uncle clem called down the pipe
raggedy andy tried to wiggle backward up the pipe but his clothes caught upon a little piece of tin which stuck out from the inside of the pipe and there he stayed he could neither go down nor come back up what shall we do uncle clem cried
the folks will never find him down there for we can not tell them where he is and they will never guess it the dolls were all very sad they stayed out upon the shiny new tin gutter until it began raining and hoped and hoped that raggedy andy could get back up to them
then they went inside the nursery and sat looking out the window until it was time for the folks to get up and the house to be astir then they went back to the position each had been in when marcella had left them and although they were very quiet
sighed raggedy ann for all the water from the house runs down the shiny tin gutters and down the pipe into a rain barrel at the bottom then raggedy ann remembered that there was an opening at the bottom of the pipe tomorrow night if we have a chance
we dolls must take a stick and see if we can reach raggedy andy from the bottom of the pipe
marcella came up to the nursery and played all day watching the rain patter upon the new tin gutter she wondered where raggedy andy was although she did not get worried about him until she had asked mama where he might be he must be just where you left him mama said
i thought he was with all the other dolls in the nursery though all day sunday it rained and all of sunday night and monday morning when daddy started to work it was still raining as daddy walked out of the front gate
and all jammed together but when the man straightened out the funny little figure raggedy andy looked up at him with his customary happy smile the man laughed and carried little water soaked raggedy andy into the house
i guess your little girl must have dropped this rag doll down into the drain pipe the man said to mama i'm so glad you found him mama said to the man we have hunted all over the house for him marcella could not remember where she put him
and there he sat all afternoon steaming and drying out and as he sat there he smiled and smiled even though there was no one to see him he felt very happy within
and he liked to smile anyway because his smile was painted on and another reason raggedy andy smiled was because he was not lonesome inside his waist were the two little penny dolls
a story is told of sir walter raleigh by john aubrey which seems to imply that at first women not only did not smoke but that they disliked smoking by men aubrey says that raleigh standing in a stand at sir r poyntz's parke at acton tooke a pipe of tobacco
which made the ladies quitt it till he had done but this objection whether general or not soon vanished for as we have seen in a previous chapter the gallant of elizabethan and jacobean days
there is a tradition that queen elizabeth herself once smoked with unpleasant results
the queen had no selfish desire to monopolize the novel sensations caused by smoking
but these stories rest on vague tradition and probably have no foundation in fact
that either shee must also corrupt her sweete breath therewith or else resolve to live in a perpetuall stinking torment his majesty's style was forcible if not elegant
there are also one or two references in the early dramatists in ben jonson's every man in his humour for instance which was first acted in fifteen ninety eight six years before king james blew his royal counter blaste
prynne in his attack on the stage declared that women smoked pipes in theatres but the truth of this statement may well be doubted the habit was probably far from general among women although joshua sylvester a doughty opponent of the weed
the ballads of the period abound in rough woodcuts in which tavern scenes are often figured wherein pewter pots and tobacco pipes are shown lying on the table or in the hands or at the mouths of the male carousers
example in the shirburn ballads lies before me the cut which is very rough heads a bacchanalian ballad characteristic of the elizabethan period called a knotte of good fellows and beginning come hither mine host come hither come hither mine host come hither
the scene is a tavern interior around the table are four men and a woman while a boy approaches carrying two huge measures of ale one man is smoking furiously while on the table lie three other pipes one for each man and sundry pots and glasses
the woman is plainly a convivial soul but there is no pipe for her and such provision was no doubt unusual there is direct evidence too besides the story in the first paragraph of this chapter that women disliked the prevalence of smoking
faith kind uncle when men abandon jealousy forsake taking of tobacco and cease to wear their beards so rudely long oh to have a husband with a mouth continually smoking with a bush of furs on the ridge of his chin readie still to flop into his foaming chops
tis more than most intolerable and similar indications of dislike to smoking could be quoted from other plays on the other hand it is certain that from comparatively early in the seventeenth century there were to be found here and there women who smoked
in the record of an early libel action brought in the court of the archdeacon of essex some domestic scenes of sixteen twenty one are vividly represented we need not trouble about the libel action but two of the dramatis personae were a certain george thresher
who sold beer and tobacco at his shopp in romford and a good friend and customer of his named elizabeth savage who sad to say was described as much given to stronge drincke and tobacco
mistress savage had to tell her tale part of which is reported as follows george thresher kept a shoppe in romford and sold tobacco there
sometimes with the said george and sometimes with his father and his brothers
have dined there together and paid their share for their dinner shee being many times more willing to dine there than at an inne or taverne elizabeth was evidently of a sociable turn and though she turned her nose up at a tavern
and similar pleasures at an inn or tavern some of the references to women smokers occur in curious connexions when one george glapthorne of whittlesey j p was returned to parliament for the isle of ely in sixteen fifty four his return was petitioned against
and had also undertaken to grant her husband a licence to brew thus unduly influencing and corrupting the electors
the rev giles moore rector of horsted keynes sussex made a note in his journal and account book in sixteen sixty five of
as from other entries in mister moore's account book we know that two ounces cost him one shilling we may wonder what missus moore was going to do with her half ounce
possibly she was not a smoker at all but needed the tobacco for some medicinal purpose there is ample evidence to show that in the seventeenth century extraordinary medicinal virtues continued to be attributed to the divine weed
writing to her husband isaac appleton at his chamber in grayes inn as his afextinat wife the good susan whose spelling is marvellous tells her sweet hart i have done all the tobakcre you left mee
in sixteen thirty one edmond howes who edited stow's chronicles and continued them onto the end of this present yeare sixteen thirty one wrote that tobacco was at this day commonly used by most men and many women
and soe sit round the fire smoaking which was not delightful to me when i went down to talk with my landlady for information of any matter and customes amongst them what would king james have thought of these depraved cornish folk
dunton in that athenian oracle which was a kind of early forerunner of notes and queries alluded to pipe smoking by the good women and children in the west
says that the very women take it in abundance particularly in the western counties but why the very women what occasion is there for that very we wonder that in certain places it should be common for women to take tabacco and why should we wonder at it
and why should they wonder at it in truth our wonderments are very pleasant things
where he found he had to make himself quite at home with the family of his hostess
and if they have daughters these also are of the company to entertain the guests at table with pleasant conceits where they drink as much as the men but what quite disgusted our visitor was that when one drinks the health of any person in company
the custom of the country does not permit you to drink more than half the cup which is filled up and presented to him or her whose health you have drunk moreover the supper being finished they set on the table half a dozen pipes and a packet of tobacco for smoking
the same conclusion holds good for the eighteenth century among women of the lowest class smoking was probably common enough in fielding's amelia a woman of the lowest character is spoken of as smoking tobacco drinking punch talking obscenely and swearing and cursing
which accomplishments are all carefully noted because none of them would be applicable to the ordinary respectable female the fine lady disliked tobacco the author of a pipe of tobacco in dodsley's well known collection to which reference has already been made wrote
ladies when pipes are brought affect to swoon they love no smoke except the smoke of town citronia vows it has an odious stink she will not smoke ye gods but she will drink and the same writer describes tobacco as by ladies hated hated by the beaux
yet there were doubtless still to be found here and there respectable women who occasionally indulged in a smoke in an early spectator addison gives the rules of a twopenny club erected in this place for the preservation of friendship and good neighbourhood which met in a little ale house and was frequented by artisans and mechanics
if any member brings his wife into the club he shall pay for whatever she drinks or smokes
quotes an advertisement by a dublin tobacconist of mild pigtail for ladies which suggests the alarming question did irish ladies chew
on september twenty first seventeen ten he wrote i have the finest piece of brazil tobacco for dingley that ever was born
a fine snuff rasp of ivory given me by missus saint john for dingley and a large roll of tobacco which she must hide or cut shorter out of modesty
a luxury which in those days was as much enjoyed and as universally used by women as by men even quakeresses sometimes smoked
a list of the sea stores put on board the ship in which certain friends samuel fothergill mary peisly katherine payton and others sailed from philadelphia for england in june seventeen fifty six is still extant
in those days atlantic passages were long and might last for an indefinite period and passengers provisioned themselves accordingly on this occasion the passage though stormy was very quick for it lasted only thirty four days
the women's chest we are told contained among a host of other good and useful things balm sage summer savoury horehound tobacco and oranges
a jar of almond paste ginger bread samuel fothergill's new chest contained tobacco among many other things and a box of pipes was among the miscellaneous stores
there have always been pipe smokers among the women of the poorer classes
nor has the practice by any means yet died out
the darlington and stockton times in eighteen fifty six recorded the death on december tenth at wallbury in the north riding of yorkshire
missus garbutt had been twice married her husbands having been sailors during the napoleonic wars the old woman said the journal had dwindled into a small compass but she was free from pain retaining all her faculties to the last and enjoying her pipe
about a year ago the writer of this notice paid her a visit and took her as a brother piper a present of tobacco which ingredient of bliss was always acceptable from her visitors
in eighteen forty five there died at buxton at the age of ninety six a woman named pheasy molly who had been for many years an inveterate smoker her death was caused by the accidental ignition of her clothes as she was lighting her pipe at the fire
the old irishwomen who were once a familiar feature of london street life as sellers of apples and other small wares at street corners
an old seven dials ballad has the following choice stanza when first i saw miss bailey twas on a saturday at the corner pin she was drinking gin and smoking a yard of clay
was accustomed to venture upon a cigarette in puck eighteen seventy ouida represented one of her beautiful young men vy bruce as murmuring idlest nonsense to lilian lee as he lighted one of his cigarettes for her use
an amusing incident is related in forster's life of dickens which shows how entirely unknown was smoking among women of the middle and upper classes in england some ten years after queen victoria came to the throne
dickens was at lausanne and geneva in the autumn of eighteen forty six at his hotel in geneva he met a remarkable mother and daughter both english who admired him greatly and whom he had previously known at genoa
she asked dickens if he had ever read such infernal trash as missus gore's and exclaimed oh god what a sermon we had here last sunday dickens and his two daughters who were decidedly in the way as we agreed afterwards
dined by invitation with the mother and daughter the daughter asked him if he smoked yes said dickens i generally take a cigar after dinner when i'm alone
with us four in the centre pulling away bravely while american lady related stories of her hookah upstairs
but even this was not all for presently two frenchmen came in with whom and the american lady daughter sat down to whist the frenchmen smoked of course they were really modest gentlemen and seemed dismayed and daughter played for the next hour or two with a cigar continually in her mouth never out of it
she certainly smoked six or eight mother gave in soon i think she only did it out of vanity american lady had been smoking all the morning i took no more and daughter and the frenchmen had it all to themselves
conceive this in a great hotel with not only their own servants but half a dozen waiters coming constantly in and out i showed no atom of surprise but i never was so surprised
so ridiculously taken aback in my life for in all my experience of ladies of one kind and another i never saw a woman not a basket woman or a gipsy smoke before this last remark is highly significant
one of the freaks of fashion at paris was the giving of luncheon parties for ladies only at which cigars were handed round
in eighteen fifty one steady going folk were alarmed and shocked at a sudden and short lived outburst of bloomerism imported from the united states
masculine attire and to emancipate themselves from the usual conventions of feminine dress would naturally seek to imitate men in other ways also leech had a picture of a quiet smoke in punch which depicted five ladies in short wide skirts and bloomers in a tobacconist's shop
two smoking cigars and one a pipe while one of the inferior animals behind the counter was selling tobacco but this was satire and hardly had much relation to fact
when one hears of sly cigarettes between feminine lips at croquet parties there is no more to be said since that date cigarette smoking has become increasingly popular among women and the term sly has long ceased to be applicable
punch's pocket book for eighteen seventy eight had an amusing skit on a ladies reading party to which mister punch acted as coach after breakfast the reading ladies lounged on the lawn with cigarettes
of the extent to which cigarette smoking is indulged in now by women is a question quite unanswerable yet queen victoria once received a present of pipes and tobacco
by the hands of sir richard burton the queen had sent a damask tent a silver pipe and two silver trays to the king of dahomey that potentate told sir richard that the tent was very handsome but too small
and that though he liked the trays very much he thought them hardly large enough to serve as shields he hoped that the next gifts would include a carriage and pair and a white woman both of which he would appreciate very much
however he sent gifts in return to her britannic majesty and among them were a west african state umbrella a selection of highly coloured clothing materials and some native pipes and tobacco for the queen to smoke
many royal ladies of europe contemporaries of queen victoria and her son have had the reputation of being confirmed smokers
the late empress of austria king alfonso's mother formerly queen regent of spain the dowager queen margherita of italy
the newspapers reported not long ago from the other side of the atlantic that the smart women of chicago had substituted cigars for cigarettes according to an interview with a chicago hotel proprietor the fair smokers select their cigars as men do
either black and strong or light according to taste
for one thing it leaves too strong and too clinging an odour on the clothes one of the latest announcements however in the fashion pages of the newspapers is the advent of smoking jackets for ladies
we are informed in the usual style of such pages that the well dressed woman has begun to consider the little smoking jacket indispensable
being exquisitely draped and fashioned of the softest and most attractive of the season's beautiful fabrics
there are still many good people nowadays who are shocked at the idea of women smoking and to them may be commended the common sense words of bishop boyd carpenter formerly of ripon who arrived in new york early in nineteen thirteen
to deliver a series of lectures at harvard university the american newspapers reported him as saying with reference to this subject many women in england who are well thought of smoke i do not attempt to enter into the ethical part of this matter but this much i say
when i became governor the conscience of the people was in no way or shape aroused
the people accepted and practiced in a matter of course way as quite proper
and the high purpose sanely to achieve what was necessary in order to meet these needs i knew both the machine and the silk stocking reformers fairly well from many years close association with them the machine as such had no ideals at all
although many of the men composing it did have on the other hand the ideals of very many of the silk stocking reformers
and singularly enough in international matters these same silk stockings were no more to be trusted than the average ignorant demagogue or shortsighted spoils politicians i felt that these men would be broken reeds to which to trust
in any vital contest for betterment of social and industrial conditions i had neither the training nor the capacity that would have enabled me to match mister platt and his machine people on their own ground nor did i believe that the effort to build up a machine of my own
under the then existing conditions would meet the needs of the situation so far as the people were concerned i therefore made no effort to create a machine of my own and consistently adopted the plan of going over the heads of the men holding public office and of the men in control of the organization
and appealing directly to the people behind them the machine for instance had a more or less strong control over the great bulk of the members of the state legislature but in the last resort the people behind these legislators had a still greater control over them
i made up my mind that the only way i could beat the bosses whenever the need to do so arose and unless there was such need i did not wish to try was not by attempting to manipulate the machinery and not by trusting merely to the professional reformers
but by making my appeal as directly and as emphatically as i knew how to the mass of voters themselves to the people to the men who if waked up would be able to impose their will on their representatives
my success depended upon getting the people in the different districts to look at matters in my way and getting them to take such an active interest in affairs as to enable them to exercise control over their representatives
there were a few of the senators and assemblymen whom i could reach by seeing them personally and putting before them my arguments but most of them were too much under the control of the machine for me to shake them loose unless they knew that the people were actively behind me
in making my appeal to the people as a whole i was dealing with an entirely different constituency from that which especially in the big cities liked to think of itself as the better element the particular exponent of reform and good citizenship
i was dealing with shrewd hard headed kindly men and women chiefly concerned with the absorbing work of earning their own living and impatient of fads who had grown to feel that the associations with the word reformer were not much better than the associations with the word politician
i had to convince these men and women of my good faith and moreover of my common sense and efficiency they were most of them strong partisans and an outrage had to be very real and very great to shake them even partially loose from their party affiliations moreover
they took little interest in any fight of mere personalities they were not influenced in the least by the silk stocking reform view of mister platt i knew that if they were persuaded that i was engaged in a mere faction fight against him that it was a mere issue between his ambition and mine
they would at once become indifferent and my fight would be lost but i felt that i could count on their support wherever i could show them that the fight was not made just for the sake of the row that it was not made merely as a factional contest against senator platt and the organization
but was waged from a sense of duty for real and tangible causes such as the promotion of governmental efficiency and honesty and forcing powerful moneyed men to take the proper attitude toward the community at large
they stood by me when i insisted upon having the canal department the insurance department and the various departments of the state government run with efficiency and honesty they stood by me when i insisted upon making wealthy men who owned franchises
pay the state what they properly ought to pay they stood by me when in connection with the strikes on the croton aqueduct and in buffalo i promptly used the military power of the state to put a stop to rioting and violence in the latter case
my chief opponents and critics were local politicians who were truckling to the labor vote but in all cases coming under the first two categories i had serious trouble with the state leaders of the machine i always did my best in good faith
to get mister platt and the other heads of the machine to accept my views and to convince them by repeated private conversations that i was right i never wantonly antagonized or humiliated them i did not wish to humiliate them or to seem victorious over them
what i wished was to secure the things that i thought it essential to the men and women of the state to secure if i could finally persuade them to support me well and good in such case i continued to work with them in the friendliest manner if after
repeated and persistent effort i failed to get them to support me then i made a fair fight in the open and in a majority of cases i carried my point and succeeded in getting through the legislation which i wished in theory the executive has nothing to do with legislation
in practice as things now are the executive is or ought to be peculiarly representative of the people as a whole as often as not the action of the executive offers the only means by which the people can get the legislation they demand and ought to have
therefore a good executive under the present conditions of american political life must take a very active interest in getting the right kind of legislation in addition to performing his executive duties with an eye single to the public welfare
more than half of my work as governor was in the direction of getting needed and important legislation i accomplished this only by arousing the people and riveting their attention on what was done gradually
to the fact that the machine politicians were not giving them the kind of government which they wished as this waking up grew more general not merely in new york or any other one state but throughout most of the nation the power of the bosses waned
then a curious thing happened the professional reformers who had most loudly criticized these bosses began to change toward them newspaper editors college presidents corporation lawyers and big business men all alike
had denounced the bosses and had taken part in reform movements against them so long as these reforms dealt only with things that were superficial or with fundamental things that did not affect themselves and their associates
but the majority of these men turned to the support of the bosses when the great new movement began clearly to make itself evident as one against privilege in business no less than against privilege in politics
as one for social and industrial no less than for political righteousness and fair dealing the big corporation lawyer who had antagonized the boss in matters which he regarded as purely political stood shoulder to shoulder with the boss when the movement for betterment
took shape in direct attack on the combination of business with politics and with the judiciary which has done so much to enthrone privilege in the economic world the reformers who denounced political corruption and fraud
when shown at the expense of their own candidates by machine ward heelers of a low type hysterically applauded similar corrupt trickery when practiced by these same politicians against men with whose political and industrial programme the reformers were not in sympathy
i had always been instinctively and by nature a democrat but if i had needed conversion to the democratic ideal here in america
but of the bulk of the men who most prided themselves upon their education and culture when we began in good faith to grapple with the wrong and injustice of our social and industrial system and to hit at the men responsible for the wrong
no matter how high they stood in business or in politics at the bar or on the bench it was while i was governor and especially in connection with the franchise tax legislation that i first became thoroughly aware of the real causes of this attitude
among the men of great wealth and among the men who took their tone from the men of great wealth very soon after my victory in the race for governor i had one or two experiences with senator platt which showed in amusing fashion
how absolute the rule of the boss was in the politics of that day senator platt who was always most kind and friendly in his personal relations with me asked me in one day to talk over what was to be done at albany he had the two or three nominal heads of the organization with him
they were his lieutenants who counseled and influenced him whose advice he often followed but who when he had finally made up his mind merely registered and carried out his decrees after a little conversation the senator asked if i had any member of the assembly
whom i wished to have put on any committee explaining that the committees were being arranged i answered no
because i had not understood the speaker who appointed the committees had himself been agreed upon by the members elect oh responded the senator with a tolerant smile he has not been chosen yet but of course whoever we choose as speaker will agree beforehand to make the appointments we wish
i made a mental note to the effect that if they attempted the same process with the governor elect they would find themselves mistaken in a few days the opportunity to prove this arrived
the trans state canal and these scandals had been one of the chief issues in the campaign for the governorship the construction of this work was under the control of the superintendent of public works in the actual state of affairs his office was by far the most important office under me
and i intended to appoint to it some man of high character and capacity
but without regard to politics a week or so after the speakership incident senator platt asked me to come and see him he was an old and physically feeble man able to move about only with extreme difficulty on arrival
i found the lieutenant governor elect mister woodruff who had also been asked to come the senator informed me that he was glad to say that i would have a most admirable man as superintendent of public works as he had just received a telegram from a certain gentleman whom he named
saying that he would accept the position he handed me the telegram the man in question was a man i liked
but he came from a city along the line of the canal
and moreover what was far more important it was necessary to have it understood at the very outset that the administration was my administration and was no one else's but mine so i told the senator very politely that i was sorry but that i could not appoint his man
this produced an explosion but i declined to lose my temper merely repeating that i must decline to accept any man chosen for me and that i must choose the man myself although i was very polite i was also very firm and mister platt and his friends finally abandoned their position
a veteran of the civil war colonel partridge who had served in mayor low's administration he was an excellent man in every way he chose as his assistant actively to superintend the work
a man with no political backing at all picked simply because he was the best equipped man for the place the office the most important office under me was run in admirable fashion throughout my administration
run with a higher standard of efficiency and integrity but this was not all that had to be done about the canals evidently the whole policy hitherto pursued had been foolish and inadequate
i appointed a first class non partisan commission of business men and expert engineers who went into the matter exhaustively and their report served as the basis upon which our entire present canal system is based
and whom i had declined to reappoint had been guilty of any action because of which it would be possible to proceed against them criminally or otherwise under the law such criminal action had been freely charged against them during the campaign by the democratic
including the so called mugwump press to determine this matter i appointed two democratic lawyers messrs fox and mac farlane the latter federal district attorney for new york under president cleveland and put the whole investigation in their hands
these gentlemen made an exhaustive investigation lasting several months they reported that there had been grave delinquency in the prosecution of the work delinquency which justified public condemnation of those responsible for it who were out of office
but that there was no ground for criminal prosecution i laid their report before the legislature with a message in which i said there is probably no lawyer of high standing in the state who
after studying the report of counsel in this case and the testimony taken by the investigating commission would disagree with them as to the impracticability of a successful prosecution under such circumstances the one remedy was a thorough change in the methods and management
this change has been made when my successor in the governorship took office colonel partridge retired and elon hooker finding that he could no longer act with entire disregard of politics and with an eye single to the efficiency of the work also left
a dozen years later having in the meantime made a marked success in a business career he became the treasurer of the national progressive party my action in regard to the canals and the management of his office the most important office under me by colonel partridge
established my relations with mister platt from the outset on pretty nearly the right basis but besides various small difficulties we had one or two serious bits of trouble before my duties as governor ceased it must be remembered that mister platt was to all intents and purposes
a large part of and sometimes a majority of the legislature there were a few entirely independent men such as nathaniel elsberg regis post and alford cooley in each of the two houses the remainder were under the control of the republican and democratic bosses
the two machines were apt to make common cause if their vital interests were touched it was my business to devise methods by which either the two machines could be kept apart or else overthrown if they came together my desire was to achieve results
and not merely to issue manifestoes of virtue it is very easy to be efficient if the efficiency is based on unscrupulousness and it is still easier to be virtuous if one is content with the purely negative virtue which consists in not doing anything wrong
but being wholly unable to accomplish anything positive for good my favorite quotation from josh billings again applies it is so much easier to be a harmless dove than a wise serpent my duty was to combine both idealism and efficiency
at that time the public conscience was still dormant as regards many species of political and business misconduct as to which during the next decade it became sensitive i had to work with the tools at hand
and to take into account the feeling of the people which i have already described my aim was persistently to refuse to be put in a position where what i did would seem to be a mere faction struggle against senator platt my aim was to make a fight only when i could so manage it
that there could be no question in the minds of honest men that my prime purpose was not to attack mister platt or any one else except as a necessary incident to securing clean and efficient government in each case i did my best to persuade mister platt not to oppose me
i endeavored to make it clear to him that i was not trying to wrest the organization from him and i always gave him in detail the reasons why i felt i had to take the position i intended to adopt it was only after i had exhausted all the resources of my patience
that i would finally if he still proved obstinate tell him that i intended to make the fight anyhow as i have said the senator was an old and feeble man in physique and it was possible for him to go about very little
until friday evening he would be kept at his duties at washington while i was in albany if i wished to see him it generally had to be at his hotel in new york on saturday and usually i would go there to breakfast with him the one thing i would not permit
was anything in the nature of a secret or clandestine meeting i always insisted on going openly solemn reformers of the tom fool variety who according to their custom
were much exercised over my breakfasting with platt whenever i breakfasted with him they became sure that the fact carried with it some sinister significance the worthy creatures never took the trouble to follow the sequence of facts and events for themselves
if they had done so they would have seen that any series of breakfasts with platt
and that i was trying courteously and frankly to reconcile him to it my object was to make it as easy as possible for him to come with me as long as there was no clash between us there was no object in my seeing him
it was only when the clash came or was imminent that i had to see him a series of breakfasts was always the prelude to some active warfare in every instance i substantially carried my point
to illustrate my meaning i quote from a letter of mine to senator platt of december thirteenth eighteen ninety nine he had been trying to get me to promote a certain judge x over the head of another judge y i wrote
there is a strong feeling among the judges and the leading members of the bar that judge y ought not to have judge x jumped over his head and i do not see my way clear to doing it i am inclined to think that the solution i mentioned to you
is the solution i shall have to adopt remember the breakfast at douglas robinson's at eight thirty there were various measures to which he gave a grudging and querulous assent without any break being threatened i secured the reenactment of the civil service law
which under my predecessor had very foolishly been repealed i secured a mass of labor legislation including the enactment of laws to increase the number of factory inspectors to create a tenement house commission
whose findings resulted in further and excellent legislation to improve housing conditions to regulate and improve sweatshop labor to make the eight hour and prevailing rate of wages law effective
to secure the genuine enforcement of the act relating to the hours of railway workers to compel railways to equip freight trains with air brakes to regulate the working hours of women and protect both women and children from dangerous machinery
to provide seats for the use of waitresses in hotels and restaurants to reduce the hours of labor for drug store clerks to provide for the registration of laborers for municipal employment
i tried hard but failed to secure an employers liability law and the state control of employment offices there was hard fighting over some of these bills and what was much more serious there was effort to get round the law by trickery
and by securing its inefficient enforcement
men such as james bronson reynolds through whom i first became interested in settlement work on the east side once or twice i went suddenly down to new york city without warning any one and traversed the tenement house quarters visiting various sweat shops picked at random
jake riis accompanied me
we got not only an improvement in the law but a still more marked improvement in its administration thanks chiefly to the activity and good sense of doctor john h pryor of buffalo and by the use of every pound of pressure which as governor i could bring to bear
in legitimate fashion including a special emergency message we succeeded in getting through a bill providing for the first state hospital for incipient tuberculosis we got valuable laws for the farmer
laws preventing the adulteration of food products which laws were equally valuable to the consumer and laws helping the dairyman in addition to labor legislation i was able to do a good deal for forest preservation and the protection of our wild life
all that later i strove for in the nation in connection with conservation was foreshadowed by what i strove to obtain for new york state when i was governor and i was already working in connection with gifford pinchot and newell
i secured better administration and some improvement in the laws themselves the improvement in administration and in the character of the game and forest wardens was secured partly as the result of a conference
in the executive chamber which i held with forty of the best guides and woodsmen of the adirondacks as regards most legislation even that affecting labor and the forests i got on fairly well with the machine but on the two issues in which big business
and the kind of politics which is allied to big business were most involved we clashed hard and clashing with senator platt meant clashing with the entire republican organization and with the organized majority in each house of the legislature
one clash was in connection with the superintendent of insurance a man whose office made him a factor of immense importance in the big business circles of new york the then incumbent of the office was an efficient man the boss of an up state county
a veteran politician and one of mister platt's right hand men certain investigations which i made in the course of the fight showed that this superintendent of insurance
these operations had thrown him into a peculiarly intimate business contact of one sort and another with various financiers with whom i did not deem it expedient that the superintendent of insurance while such should have any intimate and secret money making relations
moreover the gentleman in question represented the straitest sect of the old time spoils politicians i therefore determined not to reappoint him unless i could get his successor confirmed however he would stay in under the law
and the republican machine with the assistance of tammany expected to control far more than a majority of all the senators mister platt issued an ultimatum to me that the incumbent must be reappointed or else that he would fight
and that if he chose to fight the man would stay in anyhow because i could not oust him for under the new york constitution the assent of the senate was necessary not only to appoint a man to office but to remove him from office as always with mister platt
i persistently refused to lose my temper no matter what he said he was much too old and physically feeble for there to be any point of honor in taking up any of his remarks and i merely explained good humoredly that i had made up my mind and that the gentleman in question would not be retained
as for not being able to get his successor confirmed i pointed out that as soon as the legislature adjourned i could and would appoint another man temporarily mister platt then said that the incumbent would be put back as soon as the legislature reconvened
i admitted that this was possible but added cheerfully that i would remove him again just as soon as that legislature adjourned and that even though i had an uncomfortable time myself i would guarantee to make my opponents more uncomfortable still
we parted without any sign of reaching an agreement there remained some weeks before final action could be taken and the senator was confident that i would have to yield his most efficient allies were the pretended reformers
most of them my open or covert enemies who loudly insisted that i must make an open fight on the senator himself and on the republican organization this was what he wished for at that time there was no way of upsetting him within the republican party
if i had permitted the contest to assume the shape of a mere faction fight between the governor and the united states senator i would have insured the victory of the machine so i blandly refused to let the thing become a personal fight explaining again and again
that i was perfectly willing to appoint an organization man
but also explaining that i would not retain the incumbent and would not appoint any man of his type meanwhile
it may seem odd to you but it was two days before i could follow up the new found clue in what was manifestly the proper way i felt a peculiar shrinking from those pallid bodies
they were just the half bleached colour of the worms and things one sees preserved in spirit in a zoological museum and they were filthily cold to the touch probably my shrinking was largely due to the sympathetic influence of the eloi
whose disgust of the morlocks i now began to appreciate the next night i did not sleep well probably my health was a little disordered i was oppressed with perplexity and doubt once or twice i had a feeling of
intense fear for which i could perceive no definite reason i remember creeping noiselessly into the great hall where the little people were sleeping in the moonlight that night weena was among them and feeling reassured by their presence
it occurred to me even then that in the course of a few days the moon must pass through its last quarter and the nights grow dark
i had the restless feeling of one who shirks an inevitable duty i felt assured that the time machine was only to be recovered by boldly penetrating these underground mysteries yet i could not face the mystery if
would have been different but i was so horribly alone and even to clamber down into the darkness of the well appalled me i don't know if you will understand my feeling but i never felt quite safe
at my back it was this restlessness this insecurity perhaps that drove me further and further afield in my exploring expeditions going to the south westward towards the rising country that is now called combe wood
i observed far off in the direction of nineteenth century banstead a vast green structure different in character from any i had hitherto seen it was larger than the largest of the palaces or ruins i knew
this difference in aspect suggested a difference in use and i was minded to push on and explore but the day was growing late and i had come upon the sight of the place after a long and tiring circuit
so i resolved to hold over the adventure for the following day and i returned to the welcome and the caresses of little weena but next morning i perceived clearly enough that my curiosity regarding the palace of green porcelain was a piece of self deception
to enable me to shirk by another day an experience i dreaded i resolved i would make the descent without further waste of time and started out in the early morning towards a well near the ruins of granite and aluminium
little weena ran with me she danced beside me to the well but when she saw me lean over the mouth and look downward she seemed strangely disconcerted
good bye little weena i said kissing her and then putting her down i began to feel over the parapet for the climbing hooks rather hastily i may as well confess for i feared my courage might leak away at first she watched me in amazement
i saw her agonized face over the parapet and smiled to reassure her then i had to look down at the unstable hooks to which i clung
i had to clamber down a shaft of perhaps two hundred yards the descent was effected by means of metallic bars projecting from the sides of the well and these being adapted to the needs of a creature much smaller and lighter than myself
i was speedily cramped and fatigued by the descent and not simply fatigued one of the bars bent suddenly under my weight and almost swung me off into the blackness beneath
disk in which a star was visible while little weena's head showed as a round black projection the thudding sound of a machine below grew louder and more oppressive
everything save that little disk above was profoundly dark and when i looked up again weena had disappeared i was in an agony of discomfort i had some thought of trying to go up the shaft again and leave the under world alone
swinging myself in i found it was the aperture of a narrow horizontal tunnel in which i could lie down and rest it was not too soon my arms ached my back was cramped and i was trembling with the prolonged terror of a fall
besides this the unbroken darkness had had a distressing effect upon my eyes the air was full of the throb and hum of machinery pumping air down the shaft i do not know how long i lay i was roused by a soft hand touching my face
living as they did in what appeared to me impenetrable darkness their eyes were abnormally large and sensitive just as are the pupils of the abysmal fishes
vanishing into dark gutters and tunnels from which their eyes glared at me in the strangest fashion i tried to call to them but the language they had was apparently different from that of the over world people
so that i was needs left to my own unaided efforts and the thought of flight before exploration was even then in my mind but i said to myself you are in for it now
and feeling my way along the tunnel i found the noise of machinery grow louder presently the walls fell away from me and i came to a large open space and striking another match saw that i had entered a vast arched cavern which stretched into utter darkness beyond the range of my light the view i had of it was as much as one could see in the burning of a match
the place by the by was very stuffy and oppressive and the faint halitus of freshly shed blood was in the air some way down the central vista was a little table of white metal laid with what seemed a meal
the heavy smell the big unmeaning shapes the obscene figures lurking in the shadows and only waiting for the darkness to come at me again then the match burned down and stung my fingers and fell a wriggling red spot in the blackness
i have thought since how particularly ill equipped i was for such an experience when i had started with the time machine i had started with the absurd assumption that the men of the future would certainly be infinitely ahead of ourselves in all their appliances
and four safety matches that still remained to me i was afraid to push my way in among all this machinery in the dark and it was only with my last glimpse of light i discovered that my store of matches had run low
a hand touched mine lank fingers came feeling over my face and i was sensible of a peculiar unpleasant odour i fancied i heard the breathing of a crowd of those dreadful little beings about me
the sudden realization of my ignorance of their ways of thinking and doing came home to me very vividly in the darkness i shouted at them as loudly as i could they started away
they clutched at me more boldly whispering odd sounds to each other i shivered violently and shouted again rather discordantly this time they were not so seriously alarmed and they made a queer laughing noise as they came back at me i will confess i was horribly frightened i determined to strike another match and escape under the protection of its glare i did so
and eking out the flicker with a scrap of paper from my pocket i made good my retreat to the narrow tunnel but i had scarce entered this when my light was blown out and in the blackness i could hear the morlocks rustling like wind among leaves and pattering like the rain as they hurried after me
in a moment i was clutched by several hands
but i did not stay to look i promise you i retreated again and when my second match had ended i struck my third it had almost burned through when i reached the opening into the shaft i lay down on the edge for the throb of the great pump below made me giddy
all but one little wretch who followed me for some way and well nigh secured my boot as a trophy that climb seemed interminable to me with the last twenty or thirty feet of it a deadly nausea came upon me
at last however i got over the well mouth somehow and staggered out of the ruin into the blinding sunlight i fell upon my face even the soil smelt sweet and clean then
i remember weena kissing my hands and ears and the voices of others among the eloi then for a time
but we know that for men like these there could be no question of danger besides they felt that the denouement of this second odyssey was at hand and that there remained but a single effort to make besides
there was no tranquillity in paris itself provisions began to fail and whenever one of the prince de conti's generals wished to gain more influence he got up a little popular tumult which he put down again
and thus for the moment gained a superiority over his colleagues in one of these risings the duc de beaufort pillaged the house and library of mazarin in order to give the populace as he put it something to gnaw at
which took place on the very evening of the day in which the parisians had been beaten at charenton they quitted paris beholding it abandoned to extreme want bordering on famine agitated by fear torn by faction
parisians and frondeurs as they were the two friends expected to find the same misery the same fears the same intrigue in the enemy's camp but what was their surprise after passing saint denis to hear that at saint germain
people were singing and laughing and leading generally cheerful lives the two gentlemen traveled by byways in order not to encounter the mazarinists scattered about the isle of france and also to escape the frondeurs
who were in possession of normandy and who never failed to conduct captives to the duc de longueville in order that he might ascertain whether they were friends or foes
this is capital said athos to aramis we were to have slept here but we cannot we must push on
there the great number of inns puzzled them they could not go to all how could they guess in which those whom they were seeking had stayed
if we had only been looking for porthos porthos would have stationed himself in one of the finest hotels and we could easily have traced him but d'artagnan is devoid of such weaknesses
they continued their route it had now become a weary and almost hopeless task and had it not been for the threefold motives of honor friendship and gratitude implanted in their hearts our two travelers would have given up many a time their rides over the sand
their interrogatories of the peasantry and their close inspection of faces they proceeded thus to peronne
with the awkwardness of a first attempt two cavaliers riding furiously one of them carried a roll of paper on which were written these words they are following us oh exclaimed athos
here it is as clear as day pursued as he was d'artagnan would not have tarried here five minutes had he been pressed very closely which gives us hopes that he may have succeeded in escaping aramis shook his head
you are right aramis let us travel on to describe the impatience and anxiety of these two friends would be impossible uneasiness took possession of the tender constant heart of athos and fearful forecasts were the torment of the impulsive aramis
they galloped on for two or three hours as furiously as the cavaliers on the wall all at once in a narrow pass they perceived that the road was partially barricaded by an enormous stone it had evidently been rolled across the pass by some arm of
giant strength aramis stopped oh he said looking at the stone this is the work of either hercules or porthos let us get down count and examine this rock they both alighted
upon the side next the ground were scratched the following words eight of the light dragoons are pursuing us if we reach compiegne
we shall stop at the peacock it is kept by a friend of ours at last we have something definite said athos let us go to the peacock yes answered aramis but if we are to get there we must rest our horses for they are almost broken winded
aramis was right they stopped at the first tavern and made each horse swallow a double quantity of corn steeped in wine they gave them three hours rest and then set off again the men themselves were almost dead with fatigue but hope supported them
in six hours they reached compiegne and alighted at the peacock the host proved to be a worthy man as bald as a chinaman they asked him if some time ago he had not received in his house two gentlemen who were pursued by dragoons
without answering he went out and brought in the blade of a rapier do you know that he asked athos merely glanced at it tis d'artagnan's sword he said does it belong to the smaller or to the larger of the two asked the host
to the smaller i see that you are the friends of these gentlemen well what has happened to them they were pursued by eight of the light dragoons who rode into the courtyard before they had time to close the gate
no sir they were carried off instantly and had not even time to tell me why but as soon as they were gone i found this broken sword blade as i was helping to raise two dead men and five or six wounded ones tis still a consolation that they were not wounded said aramis
where were they taken asked athos toward the town of louvres was the reply
resolved to take post horses and having snatched a hasty dinner they continued their journey to louvres here they found only one inn in which was consumed a liqueur which preserves its reputation to our time and which is still made in that town
let us alight here said athos d'artagnan will not have let slip an opportunity of drinking a glass of this liqueur and at the same time leaving some trace of himself they went into the town and asked for two glasses of liqueur
at the counter as their friends must have done before them the counter was covered with a plate of pewter upon this plate was written with the point of a large pin
had i been as great a friend of jonah as i am of d'artagnan i should have followed him even into the inside of the whale itself and you would have done the same aramis certainly but you make me out better than i am dear count
but where you go i go
here the deputies of the parliament had just arrived in order to enter upon those famous conferences which were to last three weeks and produced eventually that shameful peace at the conclusion of which the prince was arrested
besides the conferences implied a truce and to arrest two gentlemen even frondeurs at this time would have been an attack on the rights of the people the two friends mingled with the crowd and fancied that every one was occupied with the same thought that tormented them
they expected to hear some mention made of d'artagnan or of porthos but every one was engrossed by articles and reforms it was the advice of athos to go straight to the minister my friend said aramis take care our safety lies in our obscurity
if we were to make ourselves known we should be sent to rejoin our friends in some deep ditch from which the devil himself could not take us out let us try not to find them out by accident but from our notions arrested at compiegne
but what ails you you are pale
and the open places lakes after the great rains which fell in january the seine had overflowed its banks and the river inundated half the capital the two gentlemen were obliged therefore to get off their horses and take a boat
and in that strange manner they approached the louvre
crowded with ferry boats of every kind including those that glittered with the armed patrols with the watchword passing from post to post
paris presented such an aspect as to strongly seize the senses of aramis a man most susceptible to warlike impressions
they reached the queen's apartments but were compelled to stop in the ante chamber since her majesty was at that moment giving audience to gentlemen bringing her news from england
we too said athos to the footman who had given him that answer not only bring news from england but have just come from there what then are your names gentlemen the comte de la fere and the chevalier d'herblay said aramis
ah in that case gentlemen said the footman on hearing the names which the queen had so often pronounced with hope in that case it is another thing and i think her majesty will pardon me for not keeping you here a moment please follow me
madame he said i hope your majesty will forgive me for disobeying your orders when you learn that the gentlemen i have come to announce are the comte de la fere and the chevalier d'herblay
oh let them come in let them come in cried the young princess bounding to the door the poor child was constant in her attendance on her mother and sought by her filial attentions to make her forget the absence of her two sons and her other daughter
come in gentlemen repeated the princess opening the door herself the queen was seated on a fauteuil
the brother of the nobleman killed eight or nine years previously in a duel on account of madame de longueville on the place royale all these gentlemen had been noticed by athos and aramis in the guardhouse
and when the two friends were announced they started and exchanged some words in a low tone well sirs cried the queen on perceiving the two friends you have come faithful friends but the royal couriers have been more expeditious than you and here are monsieur de flamarens
who bring me from her majesty the queen anne of austria the very latest intelligence
go on with your recital sirs said the queen turning to the duc de chatillon you said that his majesty king charles my august consort had been condemned to death by a majority of his subjects yes madame chatillon stammered out
and that being conducted to the scaffold resumed the queen oh my lord oh my king and that being led to the scaffold he had been saved by an indignant people just so madame replied chatillon in so low a voice that
though the two friends were listening eagerly they could hardly hear this affirmation the queen clasped her hands in enthusiastic gratitude whilst her daughter threw her arms around her mother's neck and kissed her her own eyes streaming with tears
yes answered the queen one moment i beg for here are the chevalier d'herblay and the comte de la fere just arrived from london and they can give you as eye witnesses such details as you can convey to the queen my royal sister
speak gentlemen speak i am listening conceal nothing gloss over nothing since his majesty still lives since the honor of the throne is safe everything else is a matter of indifference to me
and laid his hand on his heart well exclaimed the queen who remarked this movement and his paleness speak sir i beg you to do so i beg you to excuse me madame i wish to add nothing to the recital of these gentlemen
until they perceive themselves that they have perhaps been mistaken mistaken cried the queen almost suffocated by emotion mistaken what has happened then sir interposed monsieur de flamarens
replied athos in his calm vibrating voice yes murmured flamarens lowering his eyes
sighed deeply or rather sir said aramis with his peculiar irritating politeness the error of the person who was with you when we met you in the guardroom for if the comte de la fere and i are not mistaken
your hands tremble oh my god my god what has happened lord ejaculated the young princess falling on her knees have mercy on us sir said chatillon if you bring bad tidings it will be cruel in you
sir said he with compressed lips and flashing eyes you have not the presumption to instruct the comte de la fere and myself what we ought to say here during this brief altercation athos with his hands on his heart his head bent low
approached the queen and in a voice of deepest sorrow said madame princes who by nature are above other men receive from heaven courage to support
queen destined as you are to endure every sorrow on this earth hear the result of our unhappy mission
drew from his bosom inclosed in the same case the order set in diamonds which the queen had given to lord de winter and the wedding ring which
he opened the case and offered them to the queen with deep and silent anguish the queen stretched out her hand seized the ring pressed it convulsively to her lips and without being able to breathe a sigh to give vent to a sob
deep impression on those around i the comte de la fere a gentleman who has never deceived any human being swear before god and before this unhappy queen
sir be so good as not to go away without giving me an opportunity to tell you something i cannot say before the queen chatillon bowed in token of assent and they all went out
and is still less so on the part of those who came to bring the queen the message of a liar sir cried de chatillon
there is an abundance of italian masks at the palais royal from harlequin even to pantaloon chevalier chevalier said athos leave me alone said aramis impatiently
aramis gentlemen resumed aramis any one but the comte de la fere and myself
for we have friends in paris but we are contented with another course come and converse with us for just five minutes sword in hand upon this deserted terrace
one moment gentlemen cried flamarens i know well that the proposition is tempting but at present it is impossible to accept it and why not said aramis in his tone of raillery is it mazarin's proximity that makes you so prudent
you will not reply however and these gentlemen i am sure will presently be of my opinion
willingly replied de chatillon duke said flamarens you forget that to morrow you are to command an expedition of the greatest importance projected by the prince assented to by the queen
swear first on your honor not to inform him of our return conditions
who do not command to morrow's expedition chatillon and flamarens looked at each other there was such irony in the words and in the bearing of aramis that the duke had great difficulty in bridling his anger
but at a word from flamarens he restrained himself and contented himself with saying you promise sir that's agreed that i shall find you to morrow at charenton oh don't be afraid sir replied aramis and the two gentlemen shortly afterward left the louvre
what have they done to you they did you not see what they did no they laughed when we swore that we had done our duty in england
now if they believed us they laughed in order to insult us if they did not believe it they insulted us all the more however i'm glad not to fight them until to morrow i hope we shall have something better to do to night than to draw the sword what have we to do
you know one cannot change his nature he said besides do you know what is our situation and whether mazarin's arrest wouldn't be rather an encumbrance than an advantage say at once you disapprove of my proposal
i think you ought to do nothing since you exacted a promise from these gentlemen not to let mazarin know that we were in france i have entered into no engagement and consider myself quite free come come where either to seek the duc de beaufort or
and to tell them about this yes but on one condition that we begin by the coadjutor he is a priest learned in cases of conscience and we will tell him ours
to see raoul they re entered the boat which had brought them to the louvre and thence
mourning customs there has been of late years a healthy revolt against the excessive use of crepe or the wearing of mourning for an undue period mourning is first of all a protection
for in these busy days and in a large city a death affecting our acquaintances is not always known to us if we meet a friend wearing black we are instantly apprised that she has suffered the loss of a near member of her family
it is easy to say under such circumstances i am very sorry to see you in black or i am afraid i have not heard of your loss for a father or mother full mourning that is black
unrelieved by any touch of white is worn for a year and at the end of that period half mourning consisting first of white with black and then violet and gray is worn for the second year
for a brother or sister or grandparent black is worn for six months and then half mourning for the six months preceding the wearing of ordinary colors what is called complimentary mourning
put on at the death of a relative by marriage consists of the wearing of black for a period of from six weeks
depending on the closeness of the personal relationship for instance in the case of the death of a mother in law residing in a distant city it would only be necessary for a woman to wear black for a few weeks following the funeral
if on the other hand she resides in the same place and is a great deal in the company of her husband's family it would show more tact and affection on her part to refrain from wearing colors for a longer period
crepe is no longer obligatory in even first mourning many widows only wear the crepe bordered veil hanging from the conventional bonnet for the funeral services and for a few weeks afterward
when it is replaced by an ordinary hat and veil of plain black net bordered with thin black silk widows wear neck and cuff bands of unstarched white book muslin
this being the only sort of white permitted during the first period of mourning young widows especially those who must lead an active life often lighten their mourning during the second year and discard it at the end of the second year
of course the conventional period of mourning for a widow is three years but if there should be any indication that a second marriage is contemplated black should gradually be put aside however
the discarding of mourning is no indication that a woman is about to change her name and the wearing of black is so much a matter of personal feeling
in this country it is not the custom for young children to wear mourning and with men the wearing of a black band about the hat or on the left arm is all that is deemed necessary
a woman wearing full mourning refrains from attending the theater or any large functions she may properly be seen at concerts club meetings or lectures and she may receive and visit her friends informally
etiquette of the visiting card the prevailing shape for a woman's card is nearly square
while the correct form for a man's card is slightly smaller the color should be pure white with a dull finish while the engraving plain script or more elaborate text is a matter of choice and fashion varying from time to time
it is safe to trust the opinion of a first class stationer in this matter for styles fluctuate and he should be constantly informed of what polite usage demands a woman's card should always bear the prefix miss or missus
there is no exception to this rule save in the case of women who have regularly graduated in medicine or theology and who are allowed therefore the use of doctor
before the name miss or missus should not be used in addition to either of these titles the card of a married woman is engraved with her husband's full name such as missus william eaton brown
but she has no right to any titles he may bear if he is a judge or colonel she is still missus james eaton brown and not missus judge or missus colonel brown a widow may with propriety
retain the same visiting card that she used during the lifetime of her husband especially if she has no grown son who bears his father's name in that case she generally has her cards engraved with a part of her full maiden name
before her husband's name such as missus mary baker brown in this country a divorced woman if she has children does not discard her husband's family name neither does she retain his given name
for social purposes she becomes missus mary baker brown or if she wishes missus baker brown the address is engraved in the lower right corner of the visiting card and
if a woman has any particular day for receiving her friends that fact is announced in the lower left corner as a rule even informal notes should not be written on a visiting card although when a card accompanies a gift it is quite proper to write
best wishes or greetings on it this is even done when a card does not accompany a gift but it should be borne in mind that a card message should not take the place of a note of thanks or be used when a more formal letter is necessary
a man's visiting card should bear his full name with the prefix mister unless he has a military title above the grade of lieutenant or is a doctor or clergyman
in these cases the proper title should be used in place of mister courtesy titles although they may be common usage in conversation and a man may be known by them are best abandoned on the visiting card
during the first year of marriage cards are engraved thus mister and missus william eaton brown and this card may be used in sending presents returning wedding civilities or making calls
even when the bride is not accompanied by her husband after the first year these cards are discarded and husband and wife have separate visiting cards
in some communities it is not the custom for a young girl to make formal calls without her mother to meet this requirement the girl's name with the prefix miss is engraved on her mother's card below her mother's name
it is no longer considered necessary to leave a number of cards at the same house when calling in person or sending cards
one card suffices if a woman wishes to leave her husband's card she should leave two one for the mistress and one for the man of the house a woman never leaves a card for a man unless she has called on him on a matter of business
and wishes him to be reminded of the fact
a card should be left in the hall as a guest departs so as to enable the hostess to preserve a record of those who have called on her if she is not able to attend she should send her visiting card so that it may arrive on the day of the function
after a dinner or any formal function she should make a personal call or leave her card in person when making an ordinary call
it is not necessary to send one's visiting card to the hostess by the servant who opens the door pronouncing the name distinctly is sufficient but if it is a first call and there is danger that the hostess may not be familiar with the caller's address
no matter if the hostess herself conducts her visitor to the door when one is invited but unable to attend a church wedding it is necessary to send on the day of the ceremony cards to those who issue the invitations
an invitation to a wedding reception or breakfast demands a more formal acceptance sent immediately on receipt of the invitation and couched in the same manner in which the invitation reads a newcomer in town
or a young married woman may receive a card from an older woman indicating her receiving days and hours this is a polite invitation to call and if she is unable to make a call at the time indicated she should send a card on that day
cards of condolence are left as soon as possible after learning of the affliction it is not necessary to write anything on the card in fact it is better not to do so for
if the acquaintance warrants a personal message it should take the form of a letter on the other hand it is quite proper in felicitating a friend on a happy event such as the announcement of an engagement in the family or the arrival of a new baby
to send a visiting card with congratulations written on it there are times when it seems necessary to send cards to practically all one's acquaintances this is wise after a long absence
or a change of residence and when one is leaving town for a long period it is proper to send cards with the french expression pour prendre
formalities in dress and etiquette costly thy habit as thy purse can buy was old polonius advice to his son and he counseled suitability as well
it is this question of suitability that is the hall mark of correct dressing a safe rule to follow especially in the case of a young woman is not to be conspicuous in attire
and to conform to the standards of dress as set down by older women of recognized standing in the town in which she lives and the community in which her social or business life is spent a young girl needs little adorning
her school or college dresses should be characterized by their neatness freshness correctness of cut and utility rather than by elaborate trimmings or costly materials her party gowns are simpler than those of a girl who has left school
she begins her social career under the pleasantest auspices and this is the opportunity for her first elaborate gown
it most commonly takes the form of an afternoon tea or reception to which her mother invites all of her friends as well as the younger set the debutante receives with her mother and wears an elaborate frock of light material and color
made high in the neck and with elbow sleeves long white gloves are worn and her hair is more elaborately arranged than it was during her school girl period in fact she is now a full fledged young lady and is dressed accordingly
such a gown may serve later as an informal evening gown or if it is made with a detachable yoke it may be worn as a dancing frock or for any evening occasion for which a full evening gown is expected
the receiving party at an afternoon function generally includes near relatives of the debutante and a number of her intimate girl friends are asked to assist in various ways
these receive with her and her mother in the early part of the afternoon and later assist at the tea table or mingle among the guests the ladies assisting do not wear hats and the young girls in the party are gowned much like the debutante
except that their gowns may be less elaborate if they choose and they do not carry flowers a popular girl or one with many family connections may count on a good many floral offerings on the occasion of her coming out party
these are scattered about the room either left in bunches or arranged in vases one large bunch she generally carries in her left hand and it is a wise girl who avoids singling out anyone of her men friends by carrying his flowers
a gift from her father or brother or the flowers sent by some friend of the family is the better choice the success a girl makes during her first year in society depends more on her general popularity than on the devotion of any one man
afternoon reception for an afternoon reception light refreshments consisting of tea coffee chocolate perhaps a light claret cup with cakes and delicate sandwiches are sufficient
and these are set out on a long table in a room adjoining the reception parlors if a large number of guests are expected it is necessary to have a maid or two in attendance to remove cups and saucers keep the tea urn replenished with hot water
one at each end to pour tea and chocolate and as this task is an arduous one and much of the success of the entertainment depends on its being well done it is advisable to relieve the ladies in charge during the afternoon this however
like every other feature of the entertainment should be arranged beforehand the charm of an afternoon reception lies in its apparent informality but every detail should be considered in advance and all contingencies provided for
the debutante and especially her mother should be relieved from all such responsibilities before the guests begin to come the mother's duties consist in welcoming her guests and presenting her daughter to them
if many people are arriving the guests are quickly passed on to some one of the ladies assisting whose duty it is to see that they meet some of those who are already in the room and are eventually asked to the tea table a part of the receiving party
and certainly the hostess and her daughter should remain together in a place where they may be easily found as the guests enter the room no more sympathetic act of friendship can be shown a debutante
than to contribute toward the success of her party girls who are asked to assist should remember that their first duty is not to entertain their own friends who may happen to be present
but to see that everyone is welcome and that especially those who are not acquainted with many in the room have an opportunity to become so anyone asked to assist at a function of this sort is in a sense a hostess
and it is quite within her province to enter into conversation with any unoccupied guest whether she has been introduced or not the usual hours for an afternoon tea are from four to six
but in the case of a coming out reception the hour is often prolonged to seven so as to allow more men to be present than would be the case if the time were restricted to the early afternoon
and it is always a compliment to a girl if her tea includes a sprinkling of black coats whatever hours are decided on they should be engraved on the cards sent out two weeks before the tea
these are of the form and size of an ordinary visiting card and include the daughter's name below that of her mother's if she is the eldest unmarried daughter or the only girl in the family the card reads as follows
miss blank december ninth nineteen eleven four to seven o'clock the daughter's given name is only used in case she has an older unmarried sister
ball and evening reception a more elaborate form of coming out party consists of a ball or of an evening reception followed by dancing
and in this case the card contains the word dancing below the date of the entertainment and the hours at which it is given few homes are large enough to provide for even a small dance and so a party of this sort is generally given at a hotel
the guests as well as the receiving party wear evening gowns without hats and men are expected to come in full evening clothes which means the long tailed coats and not the popular tuxedo white gloves and
although this is not obligatory white waistcoats after a girl has been introduced into society she has her individual visiting cards makes her own calls
social customs differ with locality and the chaperon is less customary in the west than in the east in many cities girls are allowed to go to the theater and to evening parties with a man friend without a married woman being included in the party
a wise girl however is careful that any man she meets shall be introduced as soon as possible to some older member of her family and to introduce a young man calling for the first time to either her mother or father
also when she accepts an invitation to an evening's entertainment she insists that her escort shall call for her at her own home and bring her directly home at the close of it dining or supping at a restaurant alone with a young man
is sure to expose a girl to criticism a woman's lunch there are many pleasant forms of entertainment offered to a young girl entering society in which men are not included
and the most popular of these is a woman's lunch this is a favorite form of entertainment for a young married woman to give in honor of some girl friend who has just come out in society or whose engagement has just been announced one o'clock
or half after is the usual hour and the meal is served in courses and is as elaborate as the household resources may allow the decorations of the table are important and three courses are sufficient if they are carefully arranged
handsome street costumes are worn for a function of this sort and the guest of honor if there is one dresses as the others do outer wraps are left in the hall or in a room put aside for this purpose and as a rule
hats are retained and gloves removed when the guests sit down at table the custom of wearing a hat during lunch is not an arbitrary one and it is not universal in france for example
where social customs are most carefully observed it is the custom to wear handsome afternoon gowns if invited for the noon meal and to remove hats the noon meal there is a social function and certain formalities are observed
in london on the contrary no matter if a number of guests are expected lunch is an informal occasion and women dress for lunch as they would for an afternoon tea hats are worn
and women are prepared to rush off afterwards to meet other engagements the english custom prevails now in the large cities in america and moreover
women seem disinclined to remove their hats after they are once dressed for the round of the day's social obligations it is simpler and really quite conventional to leave the wearing of hats to the individual
and she can at the same time intimate to her guest if she is a stranger in the town what the others will probably do in this connection true hospitality on the part of the hostess is to make her guests at ease
and true politeness on the part of the visitor is to conform to the rules governing the community that she is visiting proper apparel for men
american gentlemen are no longer dependent on english tailors or on english fashions as they were some years ago the american type of physique is a distinct one
and london tailors have never been able to fit american men as well as they do their own clients moreover social life is so different in the united states from what it is in england that men really need different clothes
and few of them have any time or inclination for anything save business clothes while daylight lasts for dinner or for the evening what are generally called evening clothes are permissible and in fact obligatory
in large cities for anything beyond the most informal home functions for the evening there is the informal and formal dress suit the former consists of the long tailed coat worn with either a white or black waistcoat
for a dancing party or formal dinner the white waistcoat is generally preferred and if it is worn it must be accompanied by a white lawn tie a made up bow is considered incorrect
the accompaniments to a suit of this sort are patent leather shoes and white kid gloves if dancing is a part of the evening programme the informal evening suit includes the shorter dinner jacket or tuxedo as it was formerly called
and strictly speaking this is only considered proper for the club or for parties where ladies are not expected to be present however men who commonly dress for dinner in the home circle generally prefer the dinner jacket to the long coat
and well dressed men are often seen wearing it at small dinner parties at the theater or at any informal evening event this coat is always worn with a black tie and waistcoat
and it is not a suitable apparel for a dance or any large formal evening affair the correct dress for a daytime wedding is a black frock coat with light trousers light fancy waistcoat
and gray gloves and gray ascot or four in hand tie
or when making afternoon calls many young men are adopting for afternoon wear the english morning suit which consists of a cutaway coat with trousers and waistcoat to match and made of some other color save black
wedding anniversaries first anniversary cotton wedding second anniversary paper wedding third anniversary
leather wedding fifth anniversary wooden wedding seventh anniversary woolen wedding tenth anniversary tin wedding
twelfth anniversary silk and fine linen wedding fifteenth anniversary crystal wedding twentieth anniversary china wedding
twenty fifth anniversary silver wedding thirtieth anniversary pearl wedding fortieth anniversary ruby wedding
fiftieth anniversary golden wedding seventy fifth anniversary
nothing is more usual than for philosophers to encroach upon the province of grammarians and to engage in disputes of words while they imagine that they are handling controversies of the deepest importance and concern
it was in order to avoid altercations so frivolous and endless that i endeavoured to state with the utmost caution the object of our present enquiry and proposed simply to collect on the one hand a list of those mental qualities which are the object of love or esteem
and form a part of personal merit and on the other hand a catalogue of those qualities which are the object of censure or reproach and which detract from the character of the person possessed of them subjoining some reflections concerning the origin of these sentiments of praise or blame
on all occasions where there might arise the least hesitation i avoided the terms virtue and vice because some of those qualities which i classed among the objects of praise receive in the english language the appellation of talents rather than of virtues
as some of the blameable or censurable qualities are often called defects rather than vices it may now perhaps be expected that before we conclude this moral enquiry we should exactly separate the one from the other
should mark the precise boundaries of virtues and talents vices and defects and should explain the reason and origin of that distinction but in order to excuse myself from this undertaking which would at last prove only a grammatical enquiry
i shall subjoin the four following reflections which shall contain all that i intend to say on the present subject first i do not find that in the english or any other modern tongue the boundaries are exactly fixed between virtues and talents vices and defects
or that a precise definition can be given of the one as contradistinguished from the other
we should soon recollect the qualities of courage equanimity patience self command with many others which almost every language classes under this appellation though they depend little or not at all on our choice
should we affirm that the qualities alone which prompt us to act our part in society are entitled to that honourable distinction it must immediately occur that these are indeed the most valuable qualities and are commonly denominated the social virtues
but that this very epithet supposes that there are also virtues of another species should we lay hold of the distinction between intellectual and moral endowments and affirm the last alone to be the real and genuine virtues because they alone lead to action
we should find that many of those qualities usually called intellectual virtues such as prudence penetration discernment discretion had also a considerable influence on conduct the distinction between the heart and the head may also be adopted
and these alone may be called the genuine virtues but industry frugality temperance secrecy perseverance and many other laudable powers or habits generally stilled virtues are exerted without any immediate sentiment in the person possessed of them
and are only known to him by their effects it is fortunate amidst all this seeming perplexity that the question being merely verbal cannot possibly be of any importance
a moral philosophical discourse needs not enter into all these caprices of language which are so variable in different dialects and in different ages of the same dialect but on the whole it seems to me that though it is always allowed that there are virtues of many different kinds
yet when a man is called virtuous or is denominated a man of virtue we chiefly regard his social qualities which are indeed the most valuable
it is at the same time certain that any remarkable defect in courage temperance economy industry understanding dignity of mind would bereave even a very good natured honest man of this honourable appellation
who did ever say except by way of irony that such a one was a man of great virtue but an egregious blockhead but secondly it is no wonder that languages should not be very precise in marking the boundaries between virtues and talents vices and defects
since there is so little distinction made in our internal estimation of them it seems indeed certain that the sentiment of conscious worth the self satisfaction proceeding from a review of a man's own conduct and character it seems certain i say that this sentiment
which though the most common of all others has no proper name in our language
footnote the term pride is commonly taken in a bad sense but this sentiment seems indifferent and may be either good or bad according as it is well or ill founded
they still haunt his solitary hours damp his most aspiring thoughts and show him even to himself in the most contemptible and most odious colours imaginable
what is there too we are more anxious to conceal from others than such blunders infirmities and meannesses or more dread to have exposed by raillery and satire
these we display with care if not with ostentation and we commonly show more ambition of excelling in them than even in the social virtues themselves which are in reality of such superior excellence
good nature and honesty especially the latter are so indispensably required that though the greatest censure attends any violation of these duties no eminent praise follows such common instances of them as seem essential to the support of human society
and hence the reason in my opinion why though men often extol so liberally the qualities of their heart they are shy in commending the endowments of their head because the latter virtues being supposed more rare and extraordinary
are observed to be the more usual objects of pride and self conceit and when boasted of beget a strong suspicion of these sentiments it is hard to tell whether you hurt a man's character most by calling him a knave or a coward
and whether a beastly glutton or drunkard be not as odious and contemptible as a selfish ungenerous miser give me my choice and i would rather for my own happiness and self enjoyment have a friendly humane heart than possess all the other virtues of demosthenes and philip united
but i would rather pass with the world for one endowed with extensive genius and intrepid courage and should thence expect stronger instances of general applause and admiration the figure which a man makes in life the reception which he meets with in company
the esteem paid him by his acquaintance all these advantages depend as much upon his good sense and judgement as upon any other part of his character had a man the best intentions in the world and were the farthest removed from all injustice and violence
he would never be able to make himself be much regarded without a moderate share at least of parts and understanding what is it then we can here dispute about if sense and courage temperance and industry wisdom and knowledge confessedly form a considerable part of personal merit
if a man possessed of these qualities is both better satisfied with himself and better entitled to the good will esteem and services of others than one entirely destitute of them if in short the sentiments are similar which arise from these endowments and from the social virtues
is there any reason for being so extremely scrupulous about a word or disputing whether they be entitled to the denomination of virtues
it may indeed be pretended that the sentiment of approbation which those accomplishments produce besides its being inferior is also somewhat different from that which attends the virtues of justice and humanity
but this seems not a sufficient reason for ranking them entirely under different classes and appellations
as drawn by sallust are both of them virtuous in the strictest and most limited sense of the word but in a different way nor are the sentiments entirely the same which arise from them the one produces love the other esteem the one is amiable the other awful
we should wish to meet the one character in a friend the other we should be ambitious of in ourselves in like manner the approbation which attends temperance or industry or frugality may be somewhat different from that which is paid to the social virtues without making them entirely of a different species
and indeed we may observe that these endowments more than the other virtues produce not all of them the same kind of approbation good sense and genius beget esteem and regard wit and humour excite love and affection footnote
love and esteem are nearly the same passion and arise from similar causes the qualities which produce both are such as communicate pleasures but where this pleasure is severe and serious
in all these cases the passion which arises from the pleasure is more properly denominated esteem than love benevolence attends both but is connected with love in a more eminent degree
there seems to be still a stronger mixture of pride in contempt than of humility in esteem
all these various mixtures and compositions and appearances of sentiment from a very curious subject of speculation but are wide for our present purpose throughout this enquiry we always consider in general what qualities are a subject of praise or of censure
as well as what is hated and we here endeavour to take objects according to their most simple views and appearances these sciences are but too apt to appear abstract to common readers even with all the precautions which we can take to clear them from superfluous speculations and bring them down to every capacity
for we scruple not to call them such bring misery unpitied and contempt on every one addicted to them achaeus a wise and prudent prince fell into a fatal snare which cost him his crown and life
to wit that the ancient moralists the best models made no material distinction among the different species of mental endowments and defects but treated all alike under the appellation of virtues and vices
our social duties form but one head in the general distribution of his subject footnote
or persuade him that no qualities were to be admitted as virtues or acknowledged to be a part of personal merit but what were recommended by the whole duty of man
we need only peruse the titles of chapters in aristotle's ethics to be convinced that he ranks courage temperance magnificence magnanimity modesty prudence and a manly openness among the virtues as well as justice and friendship
to sustain and to abstain that is to be patient and continent appeared to some of the ancients a summary comprehension of all morals epictetus has scarcely ever mentioned the sentiment of humanity and compassion but in order to put his disciples on their guard against it
and it were therefore difficult to determine whether he rendered himself dearer to the general or to the army to none would hasdrubal entrust more willingly the conduct of any dangerous enterprize under none did the soldiers discover more courage and confidence
great boldness in facing danger great prudence in the midst of it no labour could fatigue his body or subdue his mind cold and heat were indifferent to him
meat and drink he sought as supplies to the necessities of nature not as gratifications of his voluptuous appetites waking or rest he used indiscriminately by night or by day these great virtues were balanced by great vices
inhuman cruelty perfidy more than punic no truth no faith no regard to oaths promises or religion
in this pope says he there was a singular capacity and judgement admirable prudence a wonderful talent of persuasion and in all momentous enterprizes a diligence and dexterity incredible but these virtues were infinitely overbalanced by his vices
brought the carthaginian state into the utmost danger and at last died in old age and in possession of sovereign dignity must he not be allowed something prodigious and extraordinary
his historian therefore ought not to have alone related what tended to his reproach and infamy but also what might redound to his praise and honour
in suggesting the reason why modern philosophers have often followed a course in their moral enquiries so different from that of the ancients in later times philosophy of all kinds especially ethics
have been more closely united with theology than ever they were observed to be among the heathens and as this latter science admits of no terms of composition but bends every branch of knowledge to its own purpose without much regard to the phenomena of nature or to the unbiassed sentiments of the mind
philosophers or rather divines under that disguise
guarded by the sanctions of reward and punishment
every one may employ terms in what sense he pleases but this in the mean time must be allowed that sentiments are every day experienced of blame and praise which have objects beyond the dominion of the will or choice
and of which it behoves us if not as moralists as speculative philosophers at least to give some satisfactory theory and explication a blemish a fault a vice a crime these expressions seem to denote different degrees of censure and disapprobation
which are however all of them at the bottom pretty nearly all the same kind of species the explication of one will easily lead us into a just conception of the others and it is of greater consequence to attend to things than to verbal appellations
and in the rear of one of the most imposing mansions in this rich neighborhood where the various houses vie with each other for elegance of design and magnificence of construction extended a large garden
where the wide spreading chestnut trees raised their heads high above the walls in a solid rampart and with the coming of every spring scattered a shower of delicate pink and white blossoms
into the large stone vases that stood upon the two square pilasters of a curiously wrought iron gate
as they waved their variegated leaves in the wind and charmed the eye with their scarlet bloom had fallen into utter disuse the proprietors of the mansion had many years before thought it best to confine themselves to the possession of the house itself
with its thickly planted court yard opening into the faubourg saint honore and to the garden shut in by this gate which formerly communicated with a fine kitchen garden of about an acre for the demon of speculation drew a line
or in other words projected a street at the farther side of the kitchen garden the street was laid out a name was chosen and posted up on an iron plate but before construction was begun
it occurred to the possessor of the property that a handsome sum might be obtained for the ground then devoted to fruits and vegetables by building along the line of the proposed street and so making it a branch of communication with the faubourg saint honore itself
one of the most important thoroughfares in the city of paris in matters of speculation however though man proposes money disposes from some such difficulty the newly named street died almost in birth
and the purchaser of the kitchen garden having paid a high price for it and being quite unable to find any one willing to take his bargain off his hands without a considerable loss yet still clinging to the belief that at some future day he should obtain a sum for it that would repay him
not only for his past outlay but also the interest upon the capital locked up in his new acquisition contented himself with letting the ground temporarily to some market gardeners at a yearly rental of five hundred francs
and so as we have said the iron gate leading into the kitchen garden had been closed up and left to the rust which bade fair before long to eat off its hinges while to prevent the ignoble glances of the diggers and delvers of the ground
from presuming to sully the aristocratic enclosure belonging to the mansion the gate had been boarded up to a height of six feet true the planks were not so closely adjusted but that a hasty peep might be obtained through their interstices
but the strict decorum and rigid propriety of the inhabitants of the house left no grounds for apprehending that advantage would be taken of that circumstance horticulture seemed however to have been abandoned in the deserted kitchen garden
and where cabbages carrots radishes pease and melons had once flourished a scanty crop of lucerne alone bore evidence of its being deemed worthy of cultivation
a small low door gave egress from the walled space we have been describing into the projected street the ground having been abandoned as unproductive by its various renters
and had now fallen so completely in general estimation as to return not even the one half per cent it had originally paid towards the house the chestnut trees we have before mentioned rose high above the wall
without in any way affecting the growth of other luxuriant shrubs and flowers that eagerly dressed forward to fill up the vacant spaces as though asserting their right to enjoy the boon of light and air at one corner
where the foliage became so thick as almost to shut out day a large stone bench and sundry rustic seats indicated that this sheltered spot was either in general favor or particular use by some inhabitant of the house
which was faintly discernible through the dense mass of verdure that partially concealed it though situated but a hundred paces off whoever had selected this retired portion of the grounds as the boundary of a walk or as a place for meditation
was abundantly justified in the choice by the absence of all glare the cool refreshing shade the screen it afforded from the scorching rays of the sun that found no entrance there even during the burning days of hottest summer
the incessant and melodious warbling of birds and the entire removal from either the noise of the street or the bustle of the mansion on the evening of one of the warmest days spring had yet bestowed on the inhabitants of paris
might be seen negligently thrown upon the stone bench a book a parasol and a work basket from which hung a partly embroidered cambric handkerchief while at a little distance from these articles was a young woman standing close to the iron gate
endeavoring to discern something on the other side by means of the openings in the planks the earnestness of her attitude and the fixed gaze with which she seemed to seek the object of her wishes proving how much her feelings were interested in the matter
at that instant the little side gate leading from the waste ground to the street was noiselessly opened and a tall powerful young man appeared he was dressed in a common gray blouse and velvet cap but his carefully arranged hair beard and mustache
all of the richest and glossiest black ill accorded with his plebeian attire after casting a rapid glance around him in order to assure himself that he was unobserved he entered by the small gate and
carefully closing and securing it after him proceeded with a hurried step towards the barrier at the sight of him she expected though probably not in such a costume the young woman started in terror and was about to make a hasty retreat
but the eye of love had already seen even through the narrow chinks of the wooden palisades the movement of the white robe and observed the fluttering of the blue sash pressing his lips close to the planks he exclaimed don't be alarmed valentine it is i
again the timid girl found courage to return to the gate saying as she did so and why do you come so late to day it is almost dinner time and i had to use no little diplomacy to get rid of my watchful mother in law my too devoted maid and my troublesome brother
who is always teasing me about coming to work at my embroidery which i am in a fair way never to get done so pray excuse yourself as well as you can for having made me wait and after that tell me why i see you in a dress so singular that at first i did not recognize you
dearest valentine said the young man the difference between our respective stations makes me fear to offend you by speaking of my love but yet i cannot find myself in your presence without longing to pour forth my soul and tell you how fondly i adore you
if it be but to carry away with me the recollection of such sweet moments i could even thank you for chiding me for it leaves me a gleam of hope that if you did not expect me and that indeed would be worse than vanity to suppose
at least i was in your thoughts you asked me the cause of my being late and why i come disguised i will candidly explain the reason of both
i have chosen a trade a trade oh maximilian how can you jest at a time when we have such deep cause for uneasiness heaven keep me from jesting with that which is far dearer to me than life itself
but listen to me valentine and i will tell you all about it i became weary of ranging fields and scaling walls and seriously alarmed at the idea suggested by you that if caught hovering about here your father would very likely have me sent to prison as a thief
that would compromise the honor of the french army to say nothing of the fact that the continual presence of a captain of spahis in a place where no warlike projects could be supposed to account for it might well create surprise
so i have become a gardener and consequently adopted the costume of my calling what excessive nonsense you talk maximilian nonsense pray do not call what i consider the wisest action of my life by such a name
consider by becoming a gardener i effectually screen our meetings from all suspicion or danger i beseech of you maximilian to cease trifling and tell me what you really mean simply
there is nothing now to prevent my building myself a little hut on my plantation and residing not twenty yards from you only imagine what happiness that would afford me i can scarcely contain myself at the bare idea
such felicity seems above all price as a thing impossible and unattainable but would you believe that i purchase all this delight joy and happiness
henceforth we have nothing to fear i am on my own ground and have an undoubted right to place a ladder against the wall and to look over when i please without having any apprehensions of being taken off by the police as a suspicious character
clad in a blouse and cap a faint cry of mingled pleasure and surprise escaped from the lips of valentine who almost instantly said in a saddened tone as though some envious cloud darkened the joy which illumined her heart
alas no maximilian this must not be for many reasons we should presume too much on our own strength and like others perhaps be led astray by our blind confidence in each other's prudence
how can you for an instant entertain so unworthy a thought dear valentine have i not from the first blessed hour of our acquaintance schooled all my words and actions to your sentiments and ideas
and you have i am sure the fullest confidence in my honor when you spoke to me of experiencing a vague and indefinite sense of coming danger i placed myself blindly and devotedly at your service asking no other reward than the pleasure of being useful to you
and that your father was resolved upon completing the match
i kept in the background as you wished and waited not for the decision of your heart or my own
the house was of white stone and in a small court before it were two small beds full of beautiful flowers
but as he had but one eye and that eye had become somewhat dim in the course of nine years
the carriages that drove up to the door were compelled to turn to avoid a fountain that played in a basin of rockwork an ornament that had excited the jealousy of the whole quarter
it is needless to add that there were gold and silver fish in the basin the house with kitchens and cellars below had above the ground floor two stories and attics
the whole of the property consisting of an immense workshop two pavilions at the bottom of the garden and the garden itself had been purchased by emmanuel who had seen at a glance that he could make of it a profitable speculation
he had reserved the house and half the garden and building a wall between the garden and the workshops had let them upon lease with the pavilions at the bottom of the garden
there was a study for emmanuel who never studied and a music room for julie who never played the whole of the second story was set apart for maximilian it was precisely similar to his sister's apartments except that for the breakfast parlor he had a billiard room
where he received his friends he was superintending the grooming of his horse and smoking his cigar at the entrance of the garden when the count's carriage stopped at the gate
and monsieur maximilian morrel would see his excellency the count of monte cristo the count of monte cristo cried morrel throwing away his cigar and hastening to the carriage i should think we would see him ah a thousand thanks count for not having forgotten your promise
and the young officer shook the count's hand so warmly that monte cristo could not be mistaken as to the sincerity of his joy and he saw that he had been expected with impatience and was received with pleasure
come come said maximilian i will serve as your guide such a man as you are ought not to be introduced by a servant my sister is in the garden plucking the dead roses my brother is reading his two papers the presse and the debats within six steps of her
and reciprocally as they say at the polytechnic school at the sound of their steps a young woman of twenty to five and twenty dressed in a silk morning gown and busily engaged in plucking the dead leaves off a noisette rose tree raised her head
this was julie who had become as the clerk of the house of thomson and french had predicted madame emmanuel herbault she uttered a cry of surprise at the sight of a stranger and maximilian began to laugh
don't disturb yourself julie said he the count has only been two or three days in paris but he already knows what a fashionable woman of the marais is and if he does not you will show him
but he never has any regard for his poor sister penelon penelon an old man who was digging busily at one of the beds stuck his spade in the earth and approached cap in hand striving to conceal a quid of tobacco he had just thrust into his cheek
a few locks of gray mingled with his hair which was still thick and matted while his bronzed features and determined glance well suited an old sailor who had braved the heat of the equator and the storms of the tropics i think you hailed me
mademoiselle julie said he penelon had still preserved the habit of calling his master's daughter mademoiselle julie and had never been able to change the name to madame herbault
that i cause no small disturbance in your house look there said maximilian laughing there is her husband changing his jacket for a coat
i assure you you are well known in the rue meslay your family appears to be a very happy one said the count as if speaking to himself oh yes i assure you count they want nothing that can render them happy
they are young and cheerful they are tenderly attached to each other and with twenty five thousand francs a year they fancy themselves as rich as rothschild five and twenty thousand francs is not a large sum however replied monte cristo
with a tone so sweet and gentle that it went to maximilian's heart like the voice of a father but they will not be content with that your brother in law is a barrister a doctor he was a merchant monsieur and had succeeded to the business of my poor father
left five hundred thousand francs which were divided between my sister and myself for we were his only children her husband who when he married her had no other patrimony than his noble probity his first rate ability and his spotless reputation wished to possess as much as his wife
he labored and toiled until he had amassed two hundred fifty thousand francs six years sufficed to achieve this object oh i assure you sir it was a touching spectacle to see these young creatures destined by their talents for higher stations toiling together
and through their unwillingness to change any of the customs of their paternal house taking six years to accomplish what less scrupulous people would have effected in two or three marseilles resounded with their well earned praises at last one day emmanuel came to his wife who had just finished making up the accounts
that completes the two hundred fifty thousand francs we had fixed as the limits of our gains
listen to me our house transacts business to the amount of a million a year from which we derive an income of forty thousand francs
in which he offers to purchase the good will of the house to unite with his own for three hundred thousand francs advise me what i had better do
is it not worth three hundred thousand francs to save our father's name from the chances of evil fortune and failure
but i wished to have your advice is my counsel
all we have to do is to stop the issue of any more and close our office this was done instantly it was three o'clock at a quarter past a merchant presented himself to insure two ships it was a clear profit of fifteen thousand francs
maximilian had scarcely finished his story during which the count's heart had swelled within him when emmanuel entered wearing a hat and coat he saluted the count with the air of a man who is aware of the rank of his guest then after having led monte cristo around the little garden
he returned to the house a large vase of japan porcelain filled with flowers that loaded the air with their perfume stood in the salon julie suitably dressed and her hair arranged she had accomplished this feat in less than ten minutes received the count on his entrance
everything in this charming retreat from the warble of the birds to the smile of the mistress breathed tranquillity and repose the count had felt the influence of this happiness from the moment he entered the house and he remained silent and pensive
forgetting that he was expected to renew the conversation which had ceased after the first salutations had been exchanged the silence became almost painful when by a violent effort tearing himself from his pleasing reverie
but contentment is so new a sight to me that i could never be weary of looking at yourself and your husband we are very happy monsieur replied julie but we have also known unhappiness and few have ever undergone more bitter sufferings than ourselves
the count's features displayed an expression of the most intense curiosity oh all this is a family history as chateau renaud told you the other day observed maximilian
but such as we are we have experienced bitter sorrows and god has poured balm into your wounds as he does into those of all who are in affliction said monte cristo inquiringly yes count returned julie we may indeed say he has
for he has done for us what he grants only to his chosen he sent us one of his angels
those born to wealth and who have the means of gratifying every wish said emmanuel know not what is the real happiness of life just as those who have been tossed on the stormy waters of the ocean on a few frail planks can alone realize the blessings of fair weather
monte cristo rose and without making any answer for the tremulousness of his voice would have betrayed his emotion walked up and down the apartment with a slow step our magnificence makes you smile count said maximilian who had followed him with his eyes
no no returned monte cristo pale as death pressing one hand on his heart to still its throbbings while with the other he pointed to a crystal cover beneath which a silken purse lay on a black velvet cushion
i was wondering what could be the significance of this purse with the paper at one end and the large diamond at the other count replied maximilian with an air of gravity those are our most precious family treasures the stone seems very brilliant answered the count
he means that the articles contained in this purse are the relics of the angel i spoke of just now this i do not comprehend and yet i may not ask for an explanation madame replied monte cristo bowing
pardon me i had no intention of committing an indiscretion indiscretion oh you make us happy by giving us an excuse for expatiating on this subject if we wanted to conceal the noble action this purse commemorates we should not expose it thus to view
oh would we could relate it everywhere and to every one so that the emotion of our unknown benefactor might reveal his presence
monsieur returned maximilian raising the glass cover and respectfully kissing the silken purse this has touched the hand of a man who saved my father from suicide us from ruin and our name from shame and disgrace a man by whose matchless benevolence we poor children
doomed to want and wretchedness can at present hear every one envying our happy lot this letter as he spoke maximilian drew a letter from the purse and gave it to the count this letter was written by him the day that my father had taken a desperate resolution
and this diamond was given by the generous unknown to my sister as her dowry monte cristo opened the letter and read it with an indescribable feeling of delight it was the letter written as our readers know to julie and signed sinbad the sailor
unknown you say is the man who rendered you this service unknown to you yes we have never had the happiness of pressing his hand continued maximilian we have supplicated heaven in vain to grant us this favor
but the whole affair has had a mysterious meaning that we cannot comprehend we have been guided by an invisible hand a hand as powerful as that of an enchanter oh cried julie i have not lost all hope of some day kissing that hand as i now kiss the purse which he has touched
penelon count is the old sailor you saw in the garden and who from quartermaster has become gardener
saw on the quay an englishman who was on the point of embarking on board a yacht and he recognized him as the person who called on my father the fifth of june eighteen twenty nine and who wrote me this letter on the fifth of september he felt convinced of his identity but he did not venture to address him
an englishman said monte cristo who grew uneasy at the attention with which julie looked at him an englishman you say yes replied maximilian an englishman who represented himself as the confidential clerk of the house of thomson and french at rome
it was this that made me start when you said the other day
for god's sake tell me did you know this englishman but you tell me also that the house of thomson and french have constantly denied having rendered you this service yes then is it not probable that this englishman may be some one who grateful for a kindness your father had shown him
and which he himself had forgotten has taken this method of requiting the obligation everything is possible in this affair even a miracle what was his name asked monte cristo he gave no other name answered julie looking earnestly at the count
which is evidently not his real name but a fictitious one then noticing that julie was struck with the sound of his voice tell me continued he was he not about my height perhaps a little taller with his chin imprisoned as it were in a high cravat
his coat closely buttoned up and constantly taking out his pencil
no returned monte cristo i only guessed i knew a lord wilmore who was constantly doing actions of this kind without revealing himself he was an eccentric being and did not believe in the existence of gratitude
oh heaven exclaimed julie clasping her hands in what did he believe then he did not credit it at the period which i knew him said monte cristo touched to the heart by the accents of julie's voice but perhaps since then he has had proofs that gratitude does exist
and do you know this gentleman monsieur inquired emmanuel oh if you do know him cried julie can you tell us where he is where we can find him maximilian emmanuel if we do but discover him he must believe in the gratitude of the heart
monte cristo felt tears start into his eyes and he again walked hastily up and down the room in the name of heaven said maximilian if you know anything of him tell us what it is alas cried monte cristo striving to repress his emotion
if lord wilmore was your unknown benefactor i fear you will never see him again i parted from him two years ago at palermo and he was then on the point of setting out for the most remote regions so that i fear he will never return
oh monsieur this is cruel of you said julie much affected and the young lady's eyes swam with tears madame replied monte cristo gravely and gazing earnestly on the two liquid pearls that trickled down julie's cheeks
had lord wilmore seen what i now see he would become attached to life for the tears you shed would reconcile him to mankind and he held out his hand to julie who gave him hers carried away by the look and accent of the count
but continued she lord wilmore had a family or friends he must have known some one can we not oh it is useless to inquire returned the count perhaps after all he was not the man you seek for
he was my friend he had no secrets from me and if this had been so he would have confided in me and he told you nothing not a word nothing that would lead you to suppose nothing and yet you spoke of him at once ah in such a case one supposes
recollect what our excellent father so often told us it was no englishman that thus saved us monte cristo started
my father thought that this action had been miraculously performed he believed that a benefactor had arisen from the grave to save us oh it was a touching superstition monsieur and although i did not myself believe it i would not for the world have destroyed my father's faith
a friend lost to him forever and on his death bed when the near approach of eternity seemed to have illumined his mind with supernatural light this thought which had until then been but a doubt became a conviction and his last words were maximilian it was edmond dantes
which had for some time been increasing became alarming he could not speak
said a few hurried words to madame herbault and pressing the hands of emmanuel and maximilian madame said he i trust you will allow me to visit you occasionally i value your friendship and feel grateful to you for your welcome
for this is the first time for many years that i have thus yielded to my feelings and he hastily quitted the apartment this count of monte cristo is a strange man said emmanuel yes answered maximilian but i feel sure he has an excellent heart and that he likes us
i started to run toward the studio then recollection of my errand stopped me kennedy wished the blood smears and stomach contents and was anxious to get them before the arrival of the police
until i located the doctor and the body of the dead man with the little package for kennedy safely in my pocket i hurried out again into the sweltering heat beneath the glass of the big studio and to the side of kennedy and mackay in the banquet hall set
you have a sample of each article of food now he was asking the district attorney you are sure you have missed nothing as far as possible i took my samples from the table where werner sat mackay explained
when the prop boy gets here with an empty bottle and cork i'll have a sample of the wine i think it's the wine he added kennedy turned to me you've got in my pocket i interrupted then rather breathlessly i repeated the conversation i had overheard
good lord mackay flushed there it is shirley's the man and i'll take him now quick without waiting for a warrant see i ejaculated to kennedy he killed stella because she made a fool of him and then when werner discovered that
and followed him to tarrytown the other night it probably put him in a panic of fear and so to keep werner from talking easy walter not so fast what you overheard is insufficient ground for shirley's conviction
why this was mackay
at least kennedy as always was cautious in his statements
but his anger at stella i protested and marilyn's remark
not pique or anger the same cruel careful brain executed this second crime mackay i saw was three quarters convinced by kennedy
miss loring told us that shirley suspected some one and was watching and would not tell her or anyone else who it was it seems most likely to me that it is the truth mackay
i wondered if he really thought the heavy man innocent it's still my belief that shirley is guilty i asserted a sound of confusion from the courtyard beneath the heavy studio windows caught kennedy's ear and ended the colloquy
from some of those near enough to look out we received the explanation the police had arrived fully three quarters of an hour after werner's death
i don't see why that would have been any easier to poison than the food was my objection everyone was looking very simple the food was brought in quite late
besides it was dished out by the caterer before the eyes of forty or fifty people or more and there was no telling which plate would go to werner's place the drinks were poured last of all i remember seeing the bubbles rise and wondering whether they would register at the distance
kennedy did not look at me
he went on casually that the glasses were all set out empty at the various places long before and that there might easily have been a few drops of something if it were colorless placed in the bottom of werner's glass with scarcely a chance of its being discovered
especially by a man who had so much on his mind at the time as werner had he must have indicated where he would sit when he arranged the camera stands and the location of the tables i had not thought of that kennedy frowned
as he faced me i could read his disappointment walter i've made a most careful search of his chair and the table and everything about the space where he dropped the poison must have been in the wine
but there's not a tiny sliver of that glass left nothing but a thousand bits ground into the canvas too small to hold even a drop of the liquid just think a dried stain of the wine no matter how tiny might have served me in a chemical analysis
was the hollow stem of a champagne glass its base intact save for a narrow segment in the stem still were a couple of drops of the wine as if in a bulb or tube
i doubt whether any other glass was broken verify it quickly the police were entering now with manton following them was the physician
unquestionably we had a sample of the actual wine quaffed by the unfortunate werner elated we strolled to a corner so as to give the police full charge they'll waste time questioning everyone kennedy remarked
i have the real evidence he tapped his pocket
a point occurred to me you don't think the poison was planted later during the excitement hardly our criminal is too clever to take a long chance in such a case we would know it was some one near werner
and also there would be too many people watching foolhardiness is not boldness i took to observing the methods of the police which were highly efficient
developed nimble tongues in their answers to the city detectives the result was a perfect maze of conflicting versions of werner's cry and fall in fact one scene shifter insisted that shirley
as the black terror had reached werner's side and had struck him before the cry while an extra girl with a faint lisp described with sobering accuracy the flight of a mysterious missile through the air
the police sergeant knew kennedy by reputation and approached him after a visit to the dead man's body with the doctor his glance including mackay and myself was frankly triumphant well he exclaimed
i don't suppose it occurred to any of you scientific guys to search the fellow now did it kennedy smiled in good humor searching a man isn't always the scientific method you won't find the word frisk in any scientific dictionary
no the police officer's eyes twinkled there was enough of the irish in him to enjoy an encounter of this kind maybe not but you might find things in a chap's pocket which is better with a flourish he produced a hypodermic syringe
the duplicate of the one i had appropriated and a tiny bottle the man's a dope he added
where he usually took his shots and found no fresh mark of the needle that doesn't prove anything wait until the medical examiner gets here he'll find the fellow's heart all shot full of hop or something i guess it isn't so complicated after all
he was a hop fiend all right still there's nothing to indicate that he was a suicide not suicide accident overdose was the sergeant's reply
how could he have died from an overdose of the drug when he hasn't taken any recently well unabashed then he croaked because he hadn't had a shot the same thing heart failure either way
the idea of any drug addict ever forgetting to take his stimulant was too preposterous but kennedy checked me all were now keenly listening to the argument
better perhaps to let some one think that nothing was suspected than to disclose the cards in craig's hand i saw that he wished to get away and had not spoken seriously he turned to mackay
walter and i will have to hurry to the laboratory would you like to come along you bet i would the district attorney showed his delight i was just going to ask if i might do so
there's nothing for me in tarrytown to day and this is out of my jurisdiction as we turned away the police sergeant saw us and called across the floor not quite concealing a touch of professional jealousy
the three of you were here at the time weren't you no kennedy answered mister jameson and myself well you two then you're witnesses and i'll ask you to hold yourself in readiness to appear at the hearing
a little fling a bit of sarcasm which almost went over the other's head
philip romilly was accosted late that afternoon by two young women whose presence on board he had noticed with a certain amount of disapproval they were obviously of the chorus girl type a fact which they seemed to lack the ambition to conceal
after several would be ingratiating giggles they finally pulled up in front of him whilst he was promenading the deck you are mister romilly aren't you one of them asked bob millet told us you were going to be on this steamer you know bob don't you
philip for a moment was taken aback bob millet he repeated thoughtfully of course good old bob i don't mind confessing the young woman went on that though we were all out one night together trocadero empire and murray's afterwards
i should never have recognised you seems to me you've got thinner and more serious looking i am afraid my own memory is also at fault philip remarked a little stiffly i am violet fox the young woman who had accosted him continued
she's a dear girl but a little shy aren't you hilda that's just because i told her that we ought to wait until you remembered us the slighter young woman with the very obvious peroxidised hair protested
didn't seem to be any use waiting for that her friend retorted briskly hilda and i are dying for a cocktail mister romilly he led them with an unwillingness of which they seemed frankly unaware towards the lounge
they drank two cocktails and found themselves unfortunately devoid of cigarettes a misfortune which it became his privilege to remedy they were very friendly young ladies if a little slangy invited him around to their staterooms and offered to show him the runs around new york
that fellow romilly he declared irritably the other one i mean
if i am to be landed with any more of his ridiculous indiscretions i think i shall have to go overboard there was an enterprising gentleman named gayes in liverpool who nearly drove me crazy
then there's this mister lawton who wants to talk about lasts and finally it seems that i dined at the trocadero and spent the evening at the empire and murray's with the two very obvious looking young ladies who accosted me just now
she smiled at him tolerantly an unopened book lay by her side she seemed to have been spending the last quarter of an hour in thought i am rather relieved to hear she confessed that those two young people are a heritage from the other mister romilly
go into the library and on the left hand side as you enter you will see all the wireless news read the bottom item and then come back to me he turned slowly away all his new found buoyancy of spirits had suddenly left him
he cursed the imagination which lifted his feet from the white decks and dragged his eyes from the sparkling blue sea to the rain soaked smut blackened fields riven by that long thread of bleak turgid water
somehow or other he accomplished his errand
acting upon instructions received the police are investigating a somewhat curious case of disappearance philip romilly a teacher of art in a london school visited detton magna on friday afternoon and apparently started for a walk along the canal bank towards dusk
again his imagination was at work he saw the whole ghastly business the police on the canal banks watching the slow progress of the men with their drags bringing to the surface all the miserable refuse of the turgid waters the dripping black mud
perhaps at last he was back again on the deck walking quite steadily yet seeing little he made his way to the smoking room asked almost indifferently for a brandy and soda and drained it to the last drop
and dropped into a chair by her side so i am missing he remarked almost in his ordinary tone i really had no idea that i was a person of such importance fancy reading of my own disappearance within a few days of its taking place
in the middle of the atlantic there was probably some one there who gave information she suggested there was the young lady whom i went to visit he assented she probably watched me cross the road and turn in at that gate and take the path by the canal side
and found that i did not she knew too that i could only have had a few shillings in my pocket and that my living depended upon being in london for my school the next morning yes the whole thing was reasonable and they are going to drag the canal elizabeth said thoughtfully
a difficult business he assured her
it has been the garbage depository of the villages through which it makes its beastly way for generations i don't envy the men who have to handle the drags you do not believe then that they will find anything interesting he shrugged his shoulders
that type of man he continued must have a morbid mind there will be dead animals without a doubt worn out boots filthy and decomposed articles of clothing don't she interrupted you know what i mean do leave off painting your ghastly pictures
you know quite well what i mean philip romilly is here by my side what can they hope to find there in his place his evil moments for that afternoon were over he answered her almost carelessly not what they are looking for have you brought the paper and pencil you spoke of
she drew a little nearer to him he was conscious of a mysterious and unfamiliar perfume perhaps from the violets half hidden in her furs or was it something in her hair it reminded him a little of the world the keys into which he had gripped
the world of joyousness of light hearted pleasures the sunlit world into which he had only looked through other men's eyes perhaps you knew that i was somewhere across the threshold she suggested
did you drag your mona wholly from your brain or has she her prototype somewhere in your world he shook his head therein lies the weakness of all that i have ever written he declared
there have been so few in my world from whom i could garner even the gleanings of a personality they are all my men and women artificially made not born twenty three shillings a week has kept me well outside the locked doors
yet you know in many ways she reflected mona is like me
i suppose because in my solitude thoughts of my own weakness taunted me weakness because i couldn't break out i mean perhaps for that reason the thought of a strong woman fascinated me a woman large in thoughts and ways a woman to whom purposes and tendencies counted most
i dreamed of a woman sweetly omnipotent strong without a shadow of masculinity
don't think i am vain she went on i can assure you that my head isn't the least turned because i have been successful i simply know listen
i want to draft a new first act and a new last one not so very different from your version and yet with changes which i want to explain as we go on bring your chair a little nearer so now take down these notes they worked until the first gong for dinner rang
she shook her head i'd rather not she admitted my brain is too full i have a hundred fancies dancing about i even find myself as we sit here rehearsing my gestures tuning myself to a new outlook
couldn't we go into the library we could find a corner by ourselves she turned and looked at him standing up now the wind blowing her skirts her eyes glowing her lips a little parted then for the first time he understood her beauty
do you really wish to work she asked he looked away from her no he answered a little thickly we will talk if you will they neither of them moved
the atmosphere had suddenly become charged with a force indescribable almost numbing in the far distance they saw the level line of lights from a passing steamer
philip romilly on the last day of the voyage experienced to the full that peculiar sensation of unrest which seems inevitably to prevail when an oceangoing steamer is being slowly towed into port the winds of the ocean had been left behind
there was a new but pleasant chill in the frosty sunlit air the great buildings of new york at which he had been gazing for hours were standing heterogeneous but magnificent clear cut against an azure sky the ferry boats
with their amazing human cargo seemed to be screeching a welcome as they churned their way across the busy river wherever he looked there was something novel and interesting
since that brief wireless message on the first day out there had been nothing disquieting in the daily bulletins of news and he had been able to appreciate to the full the soothing sense of detachment the friendliness of his fellow voyagers immeasurably above all
he felt like one awaking from a dream as he realised that these things were over at the first sight of land it was as though a magician's wand had been waved a charm broken his fellow passengers
in unfamiliar costumes were standing about with their eyes glued upon the distant docks a queer sense of ostracism possessed him perhaps after all it had been a dream from which he was now slowly awaking
he wandered into the lounge to find elizabeth surrounded by a little group of journalists she nodded to him pleasantly and waved a great bunch of long stemmed pink roses which one of them had brought to her her greeting saved him from despair
i have discovered a new dramatist and i am going to produce a play of his within three months i hope i shan't tell you his name and i shan't tell you anything about the play except that i find more promise in it than anything i have seen or read for months
mister romilly please wait for me she called after him i want to point out some of the buildings to you a dark young man wearing eyeglasses with a notebook and pencil in his hand swung around is this mister douglas romilly he enquired of the romilly shoe company
pleased to meet you mister romilly you are over here on business we understand philip was taken aback and for the moment remained speechless
in your own words how long a trip do you intend to make anyway what might your output be in england per week women's shoes and misses isn't it elizabeth intervened swiftly shaking her finger at the journalist
mister harris she said mister romilly is my friend and i am not going to have him spend these few impressive moments when he ought to be looking about him at the harbour telling you silly details about his business
you can call upon him at his hotel if you like the waldorf he is going to i believe and i am sure he will tell you anything you want to know that's all right miss dalstan the young man declared soothingly
maybe you'll let us have a few of your impressions to work in with the other stuff romilly made light of the matter but there was a slight frown upon his forehead as they passed along the curiously stationary deck
i am afraid he observed that this is going to be a terribly hard country to disappear in don't you believe it she replied cheerfully you arrive here to day and you are in request everywhere to morrow you are forgotten some one else arrives
that newspaper man scarcely remembers your existence at the present moment he has discovered mister raymond greene tell me why do you look so white and unhappy i am sorry the voyage is over he confessed so am i for that matter she assented
i have loved every minute of the last few days but then we knew all the time didn't we that it was just an interlude the things which lie before us are so full of interest it is the next few hours which i fear he muttered gloomily she laughed at him foolish
and held us up don't think about that for a moment think instead of all the wonderful things we are going to do you will be occupied every minute of the time until i come back to new york and i shall be so anxious to see the result you won't disappoint me will you
i will not he promised it was only for just a moment that i felt an idiot it's exciting you know this new atmosphere and the voyage was so wonderful such a perfect rest it's like waking up and the daylight seems a little crude
she held out her hand you see the gangways are going down she pointed out i can see many of my friends waiting remember with your new life begins our new alliance good luck to you dear friend
their fingers were locked for a moment together he looked earnestly into her eyes whatever the new life may mean for me he said fervently i shall owe to you a little rush of people came up the gangway and elizabeth was speedily surrounded and carried off
they came across one another several times in the custom house and she waved her hand to him gaily philip went through the usual formalities superintended the hoisting of his trunks upon a clumsy motor truck
he looked back at the huge side of the steamer the floor of the custom house about which were still dotted little crowds of his fellow passengers it was the disintegration of a wonderful memory his farewell
at the waldorf he found himself greeted with unexpected cordiality the young gentleman to whom he applied after some hesitation for a room stretched out his hand and welcomed him to america so you are mister romilly he exclaimed
ninth floor philip gasped if you'd like to be higher up we can change you the young man continued amiably been several people here enquiring for you a young man from the boot and shoe trades reporter was here only half an hour ago
and here's a cable no mail yet he handed the key to a small boy and waved philip away the small boy proved fully equal to his mission you just step this way sir he invited encouragingly those packages of yours will be all right
your things will be up directly sir the small boy promised holding out his hand i'll see after them myself philip expressed his gratitude in a satisfactory manner and stood for a few moments at the window
although it was practically his first glimpse of new york the wonders of the panorama over which he looked failed even to excite his curiosity the clanging of the surface cars the roar and clatter of the overhead railway the hooting of streams of automobiles
everything depended upon their being carried out now without the slightest hitch he walked a dozen times to the door waiting for his luggage and when at last it arrived he was on the point of using the telephone he feed the linen coated porters
and dismissed them as rapidly as possible then he ransacked the trunks until he found amidst a pile of fashionable clothing a quiet and inconspicuous suit of dark grey in the bathroom he hastily changed his clothes
selected an ordinary homburg hat and filled a small leather case with various papers he was on the point of leaving the room when his eyes fell upon the cable he hesitated for a moment gazed at the superscription
he moved to the window and read it slowly word for word just seen henshaw most disturbing interview tells me you have had notice to reduce overdraft by february first absolutely declines any further advances
payments coming in insufficient meet wages and current liabilities no provision for fourth bills amounting sixteen thousand pounds have wired london for accountant await your instructions urgently
suggest you cable back the twenty thousand pounds lying our credit new york please reply very worried potts word by word philip read the cable twice over then it fluttered from his fingers on to the table
his cousin's great wealth was a fiction the business to which his own fortune and the whole of his grandfather's money had been devoted was even now tottering
his establishment in london the burden of his college debts and then a further light flashed in upon him twenty thousand pounds in america lying there too for douglas under a false name he drew out one of the documents which he had packed and glanced at it more carefully
then he replaced it a little dazed douglas had planned to leave england then with this crisis looming over him why philip for a moment sat down on the arm of an easy chair a grim sense of humour suddenly parted his lips he threw back his head and laughed
douglas romilly had actually been coming to america to disappear it was incredible but it was true he left the cable carefully open upon the dressing table and picking up the small leather case left the room he reached the lift
and descended into the hall once amongst the crowd of people who thronged the corridors
he walked to the corner of the street and drew a little breath
his spirits rising at every step he was free for ever from that other hateful personality
october how deeply your letter moved me above all when i compare our widely different destinies how brilliant is the world you are entering how peaceful the retreat where i shall end my modest career
in the castle of maucombe
i found my room almost exactly as i left it
which my childish eyes used to see without comprehending a fortnight after my arrival my father and mother took me along with my two brothers to dine with one of our neighbors
old gentleman of good family who has made himself rich after the provincial fashion by scraping and paring
after successfully eluding the conscription he was forced to send him to the army in eighteen thirteen to join the emperor's bodyguard after leipsic no more was heard of him
whom the father interviewed in eighteen fourteen declared that he had seen him taken by the russians
the baron a very pious old man practised that fine theological virtue which we used to cultivate at blois hope
he hoarded his income for him and guarded carefully the portion of inheritance which fell to him
at last it dawned upon me that the unexpected return of this son was the cause of my own who could have imagined whilst fancy was leading us a giddy dance
that my destined husband was slowly traveling on foot through russia poland and germany his bad luck only forsook him at berlin where the french minister helped his return to his native country
with the addition of the father's savings
not counting house and lands quite a considerable fortune in provence his worthy father had bought on the very eve of the chevalier's return a fine but badly managed estate where he designs to plant ten thousand mulberry trees
raised in his nursery with a special view to this acquisition the baron having found his long lost son has now but one thought to marry him and marry him to a girl of good family
my father and mother entered into their neighbor's idea with an eye to my interests so soon as they discovered that renee de maucombe would be acceptable without a dowry and that the money the said renee ought to inherit from her parents
would be duly acknowledged as hers in the contract in a similar way my younger brother jean de maucombe as soon as he came of age signed a document stating that he had received from his parents
a code which will drive as many girls of good family into convents as it will find husbands for the french nobility from the little i have been able to gather seem to be divided on these matters the dinner darling
was a first meeting between your sweetheart and the exile the comte de maucombe's servants donned their old laced liveries and hats the coachman his great top boots
we sat five in the antiquated carriage and arrived in state about two o'clock the dinner was for three at the grange which is the dwelling of the baron de l'estorade my father in law to be has you see no castle
only a simple country house standing beneath one of our hills at the entrance of that noble valley the pride of which is undoubtedly the castle of maucombe the building is quite unpretentious four pebble walls covered with a yellowish wash
and roofed with hollow tiles of a good red constitute the grange the rafters bend under the weight of this brick kiln the windows inserted casually without any attempt at symmetry have enormous shutters painted yellow
built of big round pebbles set in layers alternately sloping or upright according to the artistic taste of the mason which finds here its only outlet the mud in which they are set is falling away in places
thanks to an iron railing at the entrance facing the road this simple farm has a certain air of being a country seat
a flight of stone steps leads to the door which is protected by a pent house roof
for his coquettish white stone house with its blue roof glittering in the sun the garden and surrounding walks are horribly dusty and the trees seem burnt up
a provencal lad and the old woman who used to wait on his wife the rooms are scantily furnished nevertheless the house of l'estorade had done its best the cupboards had been ransacked and its last man beaten up for the dinner
which was served to us on old silver dishes blackened and battered the exile my darling pet is like the railing emaciated he is pale and silent and bears traces of suffering at thirty seven he might be fifty
his fine blue eyes are cavernous he is a little deaf which suggests the knight of the sorrowful countenance
but only on the express condition of being allowed to work my will upon the grange and make a park there i have demanded from my father in set terms a grant of water which can be brought thither from maucombe
for dear i have made a good impression after the snows of siberia a man is ready enough to see merit in those black eyes which according to you used to ripen fruit with a look
such is your friend's splendid title
and to queen it in paris your poor little sweetheart renee that child of the desert has fallen from the empyrean whither together we had soared into the vulgar realities of a life as homely as a daisy's
i have vowed to myself to comfort this young man who has never known youth but passed straight from his mother's arms to the embrace of war and from the joys of his country home to the frosts and forced labor of siberia
humble country pleasures will enliven the monotony of my future it shall be my ambition to enlarge the oasis round my house and to give it the lordly shade of fine trees
shall be always green i shall carry my park up the hillside and plant on the highest point some pretty kiosque whence perhaps my eyes may catch the shimmer of the mediterranean orange and lemon trees and all choicest things that grow
shall embellish my retreat and there will i be a mother among my children the poetry of nature which nothing can destroy shall hedge us round and standing loyally at the post of duty we need fear no danger
ah darling my life unrolls itself before my eyes like one of the great highways of france level and easy shaded with evergreen trees this century will not see another bonaparte
and my children if i have any will not be rent from me they will be mine to train and make men of the joy of my life if you also are true to your destiny
you who ought to find your mate amongst the great ones of the earth the children of your renee will not lack a zealous protectress farewell then for me at least to the romances and thrilling adventures in which we used ourselves to play the part of heroine
the whole story of my life lies before me now its great crises will be the teething and nutrition of the young masters de l'estorade and the mischief they do to my shrubs and me to embroider their caps
perhaps some day the country dame may go and spend a winter in marseilles but danger does not haunt the purlieus of a narrow provincial stage there will be nothing to fear not even an admiration such as could only make a woman proud
we shall take a great deal of interest in the silkworms for whose benefit our mulberry leaves will be sold we shall know the strange vicissitudes of life in provence and the storms that may attack even a peaceful household
that he will leave the reins in his wife's hands and as i shall do nothing to remind him of this wise resolve it is likely he may persevere in it you my dear louise will supply the romance of my life
so you must narrate to me in full all your adventures describe your balls and parties tell me what you wear what flowers crown your lovely golden locks and what are the words and manners of the men you meet
will he find out there are two i am writing nonsense now and as henceforth i can only be foolish by proxy i had better stop one kiss then on each cheek my lips are still virginal he has only dared to take my hand
oh our deference and propriety are quite disquieting i assure you there i am off again good bye dear p s i have just opened your third letter
la crampade february my dear louise i was bound to wait some time before writing to you but now i know or rather i have learned many things which for the sake of your future happiness i must tell you
the difference between a girl and a married woman is so vast that the girl can no more comprehend it than the married woman can go back to girlhood again
rather than return to the convent that at least is plain so soon as i realized that the convent was the only alternative to marrying louis i had as girls say to submit
and try to make the best of it the serious nature of what i was undertaking filled me at first with terror marriage is a matter concerning the whole of life whilst love aims only at pleasure
on the other hand marriage will remain when pleasures have vanished and it is the source of interests far more precious than those of the man and woman entering on the alliance might it not therefore be that the only requisite for a happy marriage was friendship
a friendship which for the sake of these advantages would shut its eyes to many of the imperfections of humanity now there was no obstacle to the existence of friendship between myself and louis de l'estorade
having renounced all idea of finding in marriage those transports of love on which our minds used so often and with such perilous rapture to dwell i found a gentle calm settling over me if debarred from love
why not seek for happiness i said to myself moreover i am loved and the love offered me i shall accept my married life will be no slavery but rather a perpetual reign
the important point of separating marriage from marital rights was settled in a conversation between louis and me in the course of which he gave proof of an excellent temper and a tender heart
retaining perfect independence what could be more attractive more honorable a contract of this kind directly opposed to the legal contract and even to the sacrament itself could be concluded only between louis and me
this difficulty the first which has arisen is the only one which has delayed the completion of our marriage although at first i may have made up my mind to accept anything rather than return to the convent it is only in human nature
having got an inch to ask for an ell and you and i sweet love are of those who would have it all i watched louis out of the corner of my eye and put it to myself has suffering had a softening or a hardening effect on him
by dint of close study i arrived at the conclusion that his love amounted to a passion once transformed into an idol whose slightest frown would turn him white and trembling i realized that i might venture anything
i drew him aside in the most natural manner on solitary walks during which i discreetly sounded his feelings i made him talk and got him to expound to me his ideas and plans for our future my questions betrayed so many preconceived notions
that louis has since confessed to me the alarm it caused him to find in me so little of the ignorant maiden then i listened to what he had to say in reply he got mixed up in his arguments as people do when handicapped by fear
and before long it became clear that chance had given me for adversary one who was the less fitted for the contest because he was conscious of what you magniloquently call my greatness of soul broken by sufferings and misfortune
in the next place he shares our views on the subject of my beauty and it is cruel for him to see how the hardships of his life have robbed him of youth finally he felt the superiority of my womanhood over his manhood
the consciousness of these three obvious drawbacks made him distrustful of himself he doubted his power to make me happy and guessed that he had been chosen as the lesser of two evils
one evening he tentatively suggested that i only married him to escape the convent i cannot deny it was my grave reply my dear it touched me to the heart to see the two great tears which stood in his eyes
the favor i am about to ask from you will demand unselfishness on your part far nobler than the servitude to which a man's love when sincere is supposed to reduce him the question is can you rise to the height of friendship such as i understand it
life gives us but one friend and i wish to be yours friendship is the bond between a pair of kindred souls united in their strength and yet independent let us be friends and comrades to bear jointly the burden of life
leave me absolutely free i would put no hindrance in the way of your inspiring me with a love similar to your own but i am determined to be yours only of my own free gift create in me the wish to give up my freedom
infuse with passion then if you will this friendship and let the voice of love disturb its calm on my part i will do what i can to bring my feelings into accord with yours one thing above all i would beg of you
spare me the annoyances to which the strangeness of our mutual position might give rise to our relations with others i am neither whimsical nor prudish and should be sorry to get that reputation
do not fancy i concluded that i ask this from any wish to be eccentric it is the great desire i have for your respect which prompts my request if you owe the crown of your love merely to the legal and religious ceremony
what gratitude could you feel to me later for a gift in which my goodwill counted for nothing if during the time that i remained indifferent to you yielding only a passive obedience such as my mother has just been urging on me a child were born to us
in a country life such as ours will be ought we not to bear in mind the evanescent nature of passion is it not simple prudence to make provision beforehand against the calamities incident to change of feeling
he was greatly astonished to find me at once so reasonable and so apt at reasoning but he made me a solemn promise after which i took his hand and pressed it affectionately we were married at the end of the week
secure of my freedom i was able to throw myself gaily into the petty details which always accompany a ceremony of the kind and to be my natural self perhaps i may have been taken for an old bird as they say at blois
dear the difficulties which would beset my life had appeared to me clearly as in a vision and i was sincerely anxious to make the happiness of the man i married now in the solitude of a life like ours
marriage soon becomes intolerable unless the woman is the presiding spirit a woman in such a case needs the charm of a mistress combined with the solid qualities of a wife
and invest her with an exhaustless power a redundancy of life that makes everything blossom around her the more she is mistress of herself the more certainly will the love and happiness she creates be fit to weather the storms of life
but above all i have insisted on the greatest secrecy in regard to our domestic arrangements a husband who submits to his wife's yoke is justly held an object of ridicule a woman's influence ought to be entirely concealed
in this task towards which my every energy shall be bent while it remains concealed from all but god and you i am very nearly happy now but should i be so without a friendly heart in which to pour the confession for how make a confidant of him
my happiness would wound him and has to be concealed he is sensitive as a woman like all men who have suffered much for three months we remained as we were before marriage as you may imagine
during this time i made a close study of many small personal matters which have more to do with love than is generally supposed in spite of my coldness louis grew bolder and his nature expanded i saw on his face a new expression
a look of youth the greater refinement which i introduced into the house was reflected in his person insensibly i became accustomed to his presence and made another self of him
by dint of constant watching i discovered how his mind and countenance harmonize the animal that we call a husband to quote your words disappeared and one balmy evening i discovered in his stead a lover
whose words thrilled me and on whose arm i leant with pleasure beyond words in short to be open with you as i would be with god before whom concealment is impossible the perfect loyalty with which he had kept his oath may have piqued me
bitterly ashamed i struggled with myself alas when pride is the only motive for resistance excuses for capitulation are soon found we celebrated our union in secret and secret it must remain between us
when you are married you will approve this reserve enough that nothing was lacking either of satisfaction for the most fastidious sentiment or of that unexpectedness which brings in a sense its own sanction
every witchery of imagination of passion of reluctance overcome of the ideal passing into reality played its part yet in spite of all this enchantment i once more stood out for my complete independence
i can't tell you all my reasons for this to you alone shall i confide even as much as this i believe that women whether passionately loved or not lose much in their relation with their husbands by not concealing their feelings about marriage and the way they look at it
my one joy and it is supreme springs from the certainty of having brought new life to my husband before i have borne him any children louis has regained his youth strength and spirits he is not the same man
with magic touch i have effaced the very memory of his sufferings it is a complete metamorphosis louis is really very attractive now feeling sure of my affection he throws off his reserve and displays unsuspected gifts
to be the unceasing spring of happiness for a man who knows it and adds gratitude to love ah dear one this is a conviction which fortifies the soul even more than the most passionate love can do
the force thus developed at once impetuous and enduring simple and diversified brings forth ultimately the family that noble product of womanhood which i realize now in all its animating beauty
even the old man would not be a blot upon my pretty home and has brought himself into line with all my improvements to please me he has adopted the dress and with the dress the manners of the day we have english horses
and obtaining for it the maximum of pleasure with the minimum of cost i have already convinced louis of the necessity of getting roads made in order that he may earn the reputation of a man interested in the welfare of his district
i insist too on his studying a great deal before long i hope to see him a member of the council general of the department through the influence of my family and his mother's i have told him plainly that i am ambitious
and that i was very well pleased his father should continue to look after the estate and practise economies because i wished him to devote himself exclusively to politics if we had children i should like to see them all prosperous and with good state appointments
under penalty therefore of forfeiting my esteem and affection he must get himself chosen deputy for the department at the coming elections my family would support his candidature and we should then have the delight of spending all our winters in paris
ah my love by the ardor with which he embraced my plans i can gauge the depth of his affection to conclude here is a letter he wrote me yesterday from marseilles where he had gone to spend a few hours my sweet renee
when i am with you love so transports me that i am powerless to express the depth of my affection i can but worship and admire only at a distance does the power of speech return
you are supremely beautiful renee and your beauty is of the statuesque and regal type on which time leaves but little impression no doubt the love of husband and wife depends less on outward beauty than on graces of character
which are yours also in perfection still let me say that the certainty of having your unchanging beauty on which to feast my eyes gives me a joy that grows with every glance there is a grace and dignity in the lines of your face
your favors to me however slight will always make my happiness in the far distant future as now for i am sensible how much dignity there is in our promise to respect each other's liberty
our own impulse shall with us alone dictate the expression of feeling we shall be free even in our fetters i shall have the more pride in wooing you again now that i know the reward you place on victory you cannot speak breathe
act or think without adding to the admiration i feel for your charm both of body and mind there is in you a rare combination of the ideal the practical and the bewitching which satisfies alike judgment a husband's pride desire and hope
i long for the day which shall make you a mother that i may see you content with the fulness of your life may hear you in the sweet voice i love and with the thoughts bless the love which has refreshed my soul and given new vigor to my powers
the love which is my pride and whence i have drawn as from a magic fountain fresh life
i shall take a leading part in the public life of the district and on you shall fall the rays of a glory which will owe its existence to the desire of pleasing you so much for my pupil dear do you suppose he could have written like this before
a year hence his style will have still further improved louis is now in his first transport what i look forward to is the uniform and continuous sensation of content which ought to be the fruit of a happy marriage
when a man and woman in perfect trust and mutual knowledge have solved the problem of giving variety to the infinite this is the task set before every true wife the answer begins to dawn on me and i shall not rest till i have made it mine
you see that he fancies himself vanity of men the chosen of my heart just as though there were no legal bonds nevertheless i have not yet got beyond that external attraction which gives us strength to put up with a good deal
yet louis is lovable his temper is wonderfully even and he performs as a matter of course acts on which most men would plume themselves in short if i do not love him i shall find no difficulty in being good to him
so here are my black hair and my black eyes whose lashes act according to you like venetian blinds my commanding air and my whole person raised to the rank of sovereign power ten years hence dear
why should we not both be laughing and gay in your paris whence i shall carry you off now and again to my beautiful oasis in provence oh louise don't spoil the splendid future which awaits us both don't do the mad things with which you threaten me
the life of some other child she was a little drudge and outcast she was given her lessons at odd times and expected to learn without being taught she was sent on errands by miss minchin miss amelia and the cook
nobody took any notice of her except when they ordered her about she was often kept busy all day and then sent into the deserted school room
or practise at night she had never been intimate with the other pupils and soon she became so shabby that taking her queer clothes together with her queer little ways they began to look upon her as a being of another world than their own
the fact was that as a rule miss minchin's pupils were rather dull matter of fact young people accustomed to being rich and comfortable and sara with her elfish cleverness
her desolate life and her odd habit of fixing her eyes upon them and staring them out of countenance was too much for them she always looks as if she was finding you out said one girl
i am said sara promptly when she heard of it that's what i look at them for i like to know about people i think them over afterward she never made any mischief herself or interfered with any one
she talked very little did as she was told and thought a great deal nobody knew and in fact nobody cared
unless perhaps it was emily who lived in the attic and slept on the iron bedstead at night sara thought emily understood her feelings though she was only wax and had a habit of staring herself sara used to talk to her at night
you are the only friend i have in the world she would say to her
why don't you speak sometimes
it ought to make you try to know you are the only thing i have if i were you i should try why don't you try it really was a very strange feeling she had about emily it arose from her being so desolate
she did not like to own to herself that her only friend her only companion could feel and hear nothing she wanted to believe or to pretend to believe that emily understood and sympathized with her
that she heard her even though she did not speak in answer she used to put her in a chair sometimes and sit opposite to her on the old red footstool and stare at her and think and pretend about her
until her own eyes would grow large with something which was almost like fear particularly at night when the garret was so still
when the only sound that was to be heard was the occasional squeak and scurry of rats in the wainscot there were rat holes in the garret and sara detested rats and was always glad emily was with her when she heard their hateful squeak and rush and scratching
one of her pretends was that emily was a kind of good witch and could protect her poor little sara everything was pretend with her she had a strong imagination there was almost more imagination than there was sara
was made up of imaginings she imagined and pretended things until she almost believed them and she would scarcely have been surprised at any remarkable thing that could have happened
as to answering she used to say i don't answer very often i never answer when i can help it when people are insulting you there is nothing so good for them as not to say a word just to look at them and think
miss minchin turns pale with rage when i do it miss amelia looks frightened so do the girls they know you are stronger than they are because you are strong enough to hold in your rage and they are not
and they say stupid things they wish they hadn't said afterward there's nothing so strong as rage except what makes you hold it in that's stronger it's a good thing not to answer your enemies i scarcely ever do
perhaps emily is more like me than i am like myself perhaps she would rather not answer her friends even she keeps it all in her heart but though she tried to satisfy herself with these arguments
sara did not find it easy when after a long hard day in which she had been sent here and there sometimes on long errands through wind and cold and rain and when she came in wet and hungry had been sent out again
because nobody chose to remember that she was only a child and that her thin little legs might be tired
proud desolate little heart needed
chair and stared one of these nights when she came up to the garret cold hungry tired and with a tempest raging in her small breast emily's stare seemed so vacant
that sara lost all control over herself i shall die presently she said at first emily stared i can't bear this said the poor child trembling
i know i shall die i'm cold i'm wet i'm starving to death i've walked a thousand miles to day
and because i could not find that last thing they sent me for they would not give me any supper some men laughed at me because my old shoes made me slip down in the mud
and they laughed do you hear she looked at the staring glass eyes and complacent wax face and suddenly a sort of heartbroken rage seized her
and knocked emily off the chair bursting into a passion of sobbing you are nothing but a doll she cried nothing but a doll doll doll you care for nothing you are stuffed with sawdust
you never had a heart nothing could ever make you feel you are a doll emily lay upon the floor with her legs ignominiously doubled up over her head and a new flat place on the end of her nose
but she was still calm even dignified sara hid her face on her arms and sobbed
but as i have already intimated sara was not in the habit of crying
who seemed to be gazing at her around the side of one ankle and actually with a kind of glassy eyed sympathy sara bent and picked her up remorse overtook her you can't help being a doll she said with a resigned sigh
any more than those girls downstairs can help not having any sense we are not all alike perhaps you do your sawdust best none of miss minchin's young ladies were very remarkable for being brilliant they were select
but some of them were very dull and some of them were fond of applying themselves to their lessons sara who snatched her lessons at all sorts of untimely hours from tattered and discarded books and who had a hungry craving for everything readable
was often severe upon them in her small mind
she had no books at all if she had always had something to read she would not have been so lonely she liked romances and history and poetry she would read anything there was a sentimental housemaid in the establishment
who bought the weekly penny papers and subscribed to a circulating library from which she got greasy volumes containing stories of marquises and dukes who invariably fell in love
maids and made them the proud brides of coronets and sara often did parts of this maid's work so that she might earn the privilege of reading these romantic histories there was also a fat dull pupil whose name was ermengarde saint john
who was one of her resources ermengarde had an intellectual father
his daughter constantly sent her valuable and interesting books
sara had once actually found her crying over a big package of them
perhaps rather disdainfully
and she could not help drawing near to them if only to read their titles what is the matter with you she asked my papa has sent me some more books answered ermengarde woefully
and he expects me to read them don't you like reading said sara i hate it replied miss ermengarde saint john and he will ask me questions when he sees me
how would you like to have to read all those i'd like it better than anything else in the world said sara ermengarde wiped her eyes to look at such a prodigy oh gracious she exclaimed
sara returned the look with interest a sudden plan formed itself in her sharp mind look here she said if you'll lend me those books i'll read them and tell you everything that's in them afterward
and i'll tell it to you so that you will remember it i know i can the a b c children always remember what i tell them oh goodness said ermengarde do you think you could
i like to read and i always remember i'll take care of the books too they will look just as new as they do now when i give them back to you ermengarde put her handkerchief in her pocket if you'll do that she said
and if you'll make me remember i'll give you i'll give you some money i don't want your money said sara i want your books i want them and her eyes grew big and queer and her chest heaved once
take them then said ermengarde i wish i wanted them but i am not clever and my father is and he thinks i ought to be sara picked up the books and marched off with them but when she was at the door she stopped and turned around
what are you going to tell your father
he needn't know he'll think i've read them sara looked down at the books her heart really began to beat fast i won't do it she said rather slowly
i don't like lies why can't you tell him i read them and then told you about them but he wants me to read them said ermengarde he wants you to know what is in them said sara
and if i can tell it to you in an easy way and make you remember
he would like it better if i read them myself replied ermengarde he will like it i dare say if you learn anything in any way said sara i should if i were your father
and though this was not a flattering way of stating the case ermengarde was obliged to admit it was true and after a little more argument gave in and so she used afterward always to hand over her books to sara
and sara would carry them to her garret and devour them and after she had read each volume she would return it and tell ermengarde about it in a way of her own she had a gift for making things interesting
her imagination helped her to make everything rather like a story and she managed this matter so well that miss saint john gained more information from her books than she would have gained if she had read them three times over by her poor stupid little self
she made the travellers and historical people seem real and ermengarde used to sit and regard her dramatic gesticulations her thin little flushed cheeks and her shining odd eyes with amazement
it sounds nicer than it seems in the book she would say i never cared about mary queen of scots before and i always hated the french revolution but you make it seem like a story it is a story sara would answer
they are all stories everything is a story everything in this world you are a story i am a story miss minchin is a story you can make a story out of anything i can't said ermengarde
sara stared at her a minute reflectively no she said at last i suppose you couldn't you are a little like emily who is emily sara recollected herself
she knew she was sometimes rather impolite in the candor of her remarks and she did not want to be impolite to a girl who was not unkind only stupid notwithstanding all her sharp little ways she had the sense to wish
just to everybody in the hours she spent alone she used to argue out a great many curious questions with herself one thing she had decided upon was that a person who was clever ought to be clever enough
not to be unjust or deliberately unkind to any one miss minchin was unjust and cruel miss amelia was unkind and spiteful the cook was malicious and hasty tempered
and made her despise them and she desired to be as unlike them as possible so she would be as polite as she could to people who in the least deserved politeness
a person i know she replied do you like her asked ermengarde yes i do said sara ermengarde examined her queer little face and figure again she did look odd she had on
that day a faded blue plush skirt which barely covered her knees a brown cloth sacque and a pair of olive green stockings
so that they would be long enough to be kept on and yet ermengarde was beginning slowly to admire her such a forlorn thin neglected little thing as that who could read and read and remember
who could speak french and who had learned german no one knew how one could not help staring at her and feeling interested particularly one to whom the simplest lesson was a trouble and a woe do you like me
said ermengarde finally at the end of her scrutiny sara hesitated one second then she answered i like you because you are not ill natured i like you for letting me read your books
i like you because you don't make spiteful fun of me for what i can't help it's not your fault that she pulled herself up quickly she had been going to say that you are stupid that what asked ermengarde
that you can't learn things quickly if you can't you can't if i can why i can that's all she paused a minute looking at the plump face before her and then rather slowly
one of her wise old fashioned thoughts came to her perhaps she said to be able to learn things quickly isn't everything to be kind is worth a good deal to other people
and if she was like what she is now she'd still be a detestable thing and everybody would hate her lots of clever people have done harm and been wicked look at robespierre
she stopped again and examined her companion's countenance do you remember about him she demanded i believe you've forgotten well i don't remember all of it admitted ermengarde
well said sara with courage and determination i'll tell it to you over again and she plunged once more into the gory records of the french revolution and told such stories of it and made such vivid pictures of its horrors
that miss saint john was afraid to go to bed afterward and hid her head under the blankets when she did go and shivered until she fell asleep but afterward she preserved lively recollections of the character of robespierre
and did not even forget marie antoinette and the princess de lamballe
but always on a pike with those furious people dancing and howling yes it was true to this imaginative child everything was a story and the more books she read
the more imaginative she became one of her chief entertainments was to sit in her garret or walk about it and suppose things on a cold night when she had not had enough to eat she would draw the red footstool up
before the empty grate and say in the most intense voice suppose there was a grate wide steel grate here and a great glowing fire a glowing fire
little dancing flickering flames suppose there was a soft deep rug and this was a comfortable chair all cushions and crimson velvet and suppose i had a crimson velvet frock on
and a deep lace collar like a child in a picture and suppose all the rest of the room was furnished in lovely colors and there were book shelves full of books which changed by magic as soon as you had read them
and suppose there was a little table here with a snow white cover on it and little silver dishes and in one there was hot hot soup and in another a roast chicken and in another some raspberry jam tarts with crisscross on them
and we could sit and eat our supper and then talk and read
and when we were tired we could go to sleep
the master thief once upon a time there was a poor cottager who had three sons he had nothing to leave them when he died and no money with which to put them to any trade so that he did not know what to make of them
at last he said he would give them leave to take to anything each liked best and to go whithersoever they pleased and he would go with them a bit of the way and so he did he went with them till they came to a place where three roads met and there each of them chose a road and their father bade them good bye
i have never heard tell what became of the two elder
he got bewildered and could not find either road or path but as he went on and on at last he saw a glimmering of light far far off in the wood
and saw an old dame bustling about and minding the house good evening said the youth good evening said the old dame hutetu it's such foul weather out of doors to night said he so it is said she
can i get leave to have a bed and shelter here to night asked the youth you'll get no good by sleeping here said the old dame
said the old dame they stole me away when i was little and have kept me as their housekeeper ever since well for all that i think i'll just go to bed said the youth
did you see if he had any money said the robbers such a one as he money said the old dame the tramper why if he had clothes to his back it was as much as he had then the robbers began to talk among themselves what they should do with him
if they should kill him outright or what else they should do meantime the youth got up and began to talk to them
well have you a mind to steal asked the robbers i don't care said the youth for he thought it would not take long to learn that trade now there lived a man a little way off who had three oxen
so they said to the youth if he were good to steal the ox from the man by the way without his knowing it and without doing him any harm they would give him leave to be their serving man well the youth set off and took with him a pretty shoe with a silver buckle on it which lay about the house
and he put the shoe in the road along which the man was going with his ox
so when the man came by he saw the shoe at once that's a nice shoe
then the youth took up the shoe and made all the haste he could to get before the man by a short cut through the wood and laid it down before him in the road again when the man came along with his ox he got quite angry with himself for being so dull as to leave the fellow to the shoe lying in the road instead of taking it with him
i may just as well run back and pick up the other and then i'll have a pair of good shoes for my old dame and so perhaps i'll get a kind word from her for once so he set off and hunted and hunted up and down for the shoe but no shoe did he find
but just then it came across his mind that he would go home and take the second ox and drive it to the town and not let his old dame know anything about the matter so he did this and went home and took the ox without his dame's knowing it and set off with it to the town
but the robbers knew all about it and they said to the youth if he could get this ox too without the man's knowing it and without his doing him any harm he should be as good as any one of them if that were all the youth said he did not think it a very hard thing this time
he took with him a rope and hung himself up under the arm pits to a tree right in the man's way so the man came along with his ox and when he saw such a sight hanging there he began to feel a little queer well said he
whatever heavy thoughts you had who have hanged yourself up there it can't be helped you may hang for what i care i can't breathe life into you again and with that he went on his way with his ox down slipped the youth from the tree and ran by a footpath and got before the man
and hung himself up right in his way again bless me said the man were you really so heavy at heart that you hanged yourself up there
aye aye you may hang for all i care whether you are a ghost or whatever you are so he passed on with his ox now the youth did just as he had done twice before he jumped down from the tree ran through the wood by a footpath and hung himself up right in the man's way again
but when the man saw this sight for the third time
well this is an ugly business is it likely now that they should have been so heavy at heart as to hang themselves all these three no i cannot think it is anything else than a piece of witchcraft that i see but now i'll soon know for certain
if the other two are still hanging there it must be really so but if they are not then it can be nothing but witchcraft that i see so he tied up his ox and ran back to see if the others were still really hanging there but while he went and peered up into all the trees
the youth jumped down and took his ox and ran off with it when the man came back and found his ox gone he was in a sad plight and as any one might know without being told he began to cry and bemoan but at last he came to take it easier and so he thought
there's no other help for it than to go home and take the third ox without my dame's knowing it and to try and drive a good bargain with it so that i may get a good sum of money for it so he went home and set off with the ox and his old dame knew never a word about the matter but the robbers
they knew all about it and they said to the youth that if he could steal this ox as he had stolen the other two then he should be master over the whole band well the youth set off and ran into the wood and as the man came by with his ox he set up a dreadful bellowing
just like a great ox in the wood when the man heard that you can't think how glad he was for it seemed to him that he knew the voice of his big bullock and he thought that now he should find both of them again
and ran off from the road to look for them in the wood but meantime the youth went off with the third ox now when the man came back and found he had lost this ox too he was so wild that there was no end to his grief he cried and roared and beat his breast
and to tell the truth it was many days before he dared go home for he was afraid lest his old dame should kill him outright on the spot as for the robbers they were not very well pleased either when they had to own that the youth was master over the whole band so one day
and they set off all together every man jack of them and left him alone at home now the first thing that he did when they were all well clear of the house was to drive the oxen out to the road
and right glad he was to see them as you may fancy next he took all the horses which the robbers had and loaded them with the best things he could lay his hands on gold and silver and clothes and other fine things and then he bade the old dame to greet the robbers when they came back and to thank them for him
and which was made just like a general's so he drove up to the door as if he were any other great man
no that he couldn't at any price how ever should i be able said the man to make room in my house for such a fine gentleman i who scarce have a rag to lie upon and miserable rags too you always were a stingy old hunks said the youth
and so you are still when you won't take your own son in what you my son said the man don't you know me again said the youth well after a little while he did know him again but what have you been turning your hand to
that you have made yourself so great a man in such haste asked the man oh i'll soon tell you said the youth
and now i've served my time out and am become a master thief now there lived a squire close by to his father's cottage and he had such a great house and such heaps of money he could not tell how much he had he had a daughter too and a smart and pretty girl she was
and he told his father to go to the squire and ask for his daughter for him if he asks by what trade i get my living you can say i'm a master thief i think you've lost your wits said the man for you can't be in your right mind when you think of such stuff
yes there was no help for it said the master thief he should go whether he would or no and if he did not go by fair means he would soon make him go by foul but the man was still loath to go
so he stepped after him and rubbed him down with a good birch cudgel and kept on till the man came crying and sobbing inside the squire's door how now my man what ails you said the squire so he told him the whole story how he had three sons who set off one day
that he's a master thief and so he fell to crying and sobbing again
flanked by von schlichten and eric blount he didn't look particularly regal even on that high seat with his ruddy outdoorsman's face and his ragged gray mustache and his old tweed coat spotted with pipe ashes
he might have been any of the dozen odd country gentleman neighbors of von schlichten's boyhood in the argentine but then to a terran any of the kings of uller would have looked like a freak birth in a lizard house at a zoo it was hard to guess what impression harrington would make on an ulleran
he took the false palate and tongue clicker officially designated as an enunciator ulleran and colloquially as a geek speaker out of his coat pocket and shoved it into his mouth von schlichten and blount put in theirs and harrington pressed the floor button with his toe
the wide doors at the other end of the hall slid open
and a guard of kragan rifles entered the honor guard advanced in two columns between them marched an unclad and heavily armed native carrying an ornate spear with a three foot blade upright in front of him with all four hands
he wore a gold helmet and a thing like a string vest made of gold wire and carried a long sword with a two hand grip
and a pair of matched daggers he was considerably past the ulleran prime of life seventy or eighty to judge from the worn appearance of his opal teeth the color of his skin
and the predominantly reddish tint of his quartz speckles an immature ulleran would be a very light gray white under the arms and his quartz specks would run from white to pale yellow the retinue of nobles behind gurgurk ran through the whole spectrum
from a princeling who was almost oyster gray to old ghroghrank
all of them carried about as much ironmongery as the prime minister the pistols were all terran and the swords and daggers were mostly made either on terra or at the terran operated steel works on volund
four slaves brought up the rear carrying an ornately inlaid box on poles when the spear bearer reached the exact middle of the hall he halted and grounded his regalia weapon with a thump
gurgurk came up and halted a couple of paces behind and to the left of the spear and all the other nobles drew up in two curved lines some ten paces to the rear
with overtones of weapon fingering about precedence all that is but ghroghrank and another noble who came up and planted themselves beside gurgurk von schlichten regarded the assemblage sourly through his monocle maybe sid harrington did look regal after all
spray the visitors with bullets without endangering the terrans welcome gurgurk harrington gibbered through his false palate
gurgurk squeaked and clicked i have the honor to bring with me the lord ghroghrank ambassador of king orgzild of keegark to the court of my royal master and i ghroghrank said after being suitably welcomed
who is in your city to receive the shipment of power metal my royal master has been honored to be permitted to purchase from the company more protocol about welcoming gorkrink then gurgurk cleared his throat with a series of barking sounds
were his sorrow not so overwhelming he would have come in his own sacred person to express the pain and shame which he feels that people of the company should be set upon and endangered in the streets of the royal city if he weren't doped to the ears
he probably hadn't even heard of the riot the soldiers of his sublime and ineffable majesty came most promptly to the aid of the troops of the company did they not general von schlichten harrington asked within minutes your excellency
von schlichten replied gravely their promptness valor and efficiency were most exemplary gurgurk spoke at length expressing himself as delighted on behalf of his royal master at hearing such high praise from so distinguished a soldier
eric blount then contributed a short speech beseeching the gods that the deep and beautiful friendship existing between the chartered uller company and his sublime etcetera would continue unimpaired and that his sublime etcetera would enjoy long life and peaceful reign managing
and managing to hint that things like that simply didn't happen at keegark the prince gorkrink then spoke briefly in sympathy for the great and good friend of all ulleran peoples mohammed ferriera who had been injured and hoping that he would soon enjoy full health again
he also managed to convey king orgzild's pleasure at having obtained the plutonium
a sure sign that he had not long ago been exposed to the fluorine tainted air which men and geeks alike breathed on niflheim
he did so for only one purpose to learn terran technologies gurgurk then announced that so enormous a crime against the friends of his sublime etcetera had not been allowed to go unpunished signaling behind him with one of his lower hands for the box to be brought forward
the three terrans looked at them gravely a double dozen heads was standard payment for an attack in which no terran had been killed ostensibly they were the heads of the ringleaders in practice they were usually lopped from the first two dozen prisoners or over age slaves at hand
without regard for whether the victims had even heard of the crime which they were expiating if the extraterrestrial's rights association were really serious about the rights of these geeks they'd advocate booting out all these native princes and turning the whole planet over to the company
that had been the terran federation's idea from the beginning why else give the company's chief representative the title of governor general there was another long speech from gurgurk with the nobles behind him murmuring antiphonal agreement standard procedure for which there was a standard pun
geek chorus and a speech of response from sid harrington standing stiffly through the whole rigamarole
as finally it did they walked back from the door whence they had escorted the delegation and stood looking down at the saurian heads on the rug harrington raised his voice and called to a kragan sergeant whose chevrons were painted on all four arms
von schlichten told the sergeant then he disgorged and pouched his geek speaker see that head there he asked rolling it over with his toe i killed that geek myself with my pistol
while them and hid were getting ferriera into the car miss quinton killed that one with the bolo see where she chopped him on the back of the neck the cut that took off the head was a little low and missed it
he walked around the rug turning heads over with his foot
they just slashed off two dozen heads at the scene of the riot i don't like this butchery of worn out slaves and petty thieves any better than anybody else but this i don't like either
six months ago gurgurk wouldn't have tried to pull anything like this now he's laughing up his non existent sleeve at us that's what i've been preaching all along eric blount took up after him these geeks need having the fear of terra thrown into them
oh nonsense eric you're just as bad as carlos here harrington tut tutted next you'll be saying that we ought to depose jaikark and take control ourselves well what's wrong with that for an idea von schlichten demanded don't you think we could
our kragans could go through that army of jaikark's like fast neutrons through toilet paper my god harrington exploded don't let me hear that kind of talk again we're not conquistadores we're employees of a business concern
here to make money honestly by exchanging goods and services with these people he turned and walked away out of the audience hall leaving von schlichten and blount to watch the removal of the geek heads you know i went a little too far von schlichten confessed
von schlichten nodded seriously did you notice the green specks in the hide of that prince gorkrink he asked
not on the pretoria i don't think probably on the canberra three months ago and he's here to get that plutonium and ship it to keegark on the oom paul kruger blount considered
i wonder just what's going on at keegark von schlichten said orgzild's pulled down a regular first century model iron curtain you know four of our best native intelligence operatives have been murdered in keegark in the last three months
and six more have just vanished there well i'm going there in a few days myself to talk to orgzild about this spaceport deal blount said
and i'll see what i can find out for myself
harrington had the white or center position blount sandy haired and considerably younger was playing black and his pieces were closing in relentlessly from the outer rim well then what harrington asked
von schlichten dropped ash from his cigarette into the tray that served all three of them nothing much he replied keeluk bugged out as soon as he saw my car let down we picked up a few of his ragtag and bobtail
and they're being questioned now but i doubt if they'll tell us anything we don't know already the dog had been kept in a lean to back of the house it had been removed probably as soon as keeluk called in his goon gang
at least one of the rabbits had been kept on the premises too some time ago no trace of the goat he watched blount move one of his pieces and nodded approvingly the riot's been put down he continued
and from the waterfront back to eighth avenue there is also the equivalent of a regiment of king jaikark's infantry spearmen crossbowmen and a few riflemen and two of those outsize cavalry companies of his helping hold the lid down they're making mass arrests
indiscriminately more slaves for jaikark's court favorite of course or else gurgurk wants them to use for patronage blount added he's been building quite a political organization lately getting ready to shove jaikark off the throne i'd say
harrington pushed one of his pieces out along a radial line toward the rim blount promptly took a pawn which under ulleran rules entitled him to a second move he shifted another piece a sort of combination knight and bishop to threaten the piece harrington had moved
oh gurgurk wouldn't dare try anything like that the governor general said
then why's gurgurk been supporting this damned rakkeed blount wanted to know hastily interposing a piece gurgurk can follow one of two lines of policy he can undertake to heave jaikark off the throne and seize power or he has to support jaikark on the throne
we're subsidizing jaikark rakkeed has been preaching this crusade against the terrans and against jaikark whom we control gurgurk has been subsidizing rakkeed you haven't any proof of that harrington protested my intelligence section has
blount said when the outbreak comes jaikark will be killed and then gurgurk will step in seize the palace and use the royal army to put down the revolt that he's incited in the first place that will put him in the position of the friend of the company and most of his dupes will be rounded up and sold as slaves
the only question is will rakkeed let himself be used that way i think rakkeed's bigger than gurgurk ever can be and more of a threat to the company everywhere we turn rakkeed's at the bottom of whatever happens to be wrong this business for instance keeluk's one of rakkeed's followers
eric you have rakkeed on the brain harrington exclaimed impatiently then moved the threatened piece counterclockwise on the circle where he had placed it he's just a barbarian caravan driver eric blount moved the piece that had taken harrington's pawn
your king's in danger he warned and hitler was just a paper hanger rakkeed has no following except among the rabble harrington puffed furiously at his pipe trying to figure the best protection for his king you just think he hasn't blount retorted
von schlichten stated intelligence got that from a spy we'd planted among the embassy servants you sure this spy wasn't just romancing harrington asked you get so confounded many wild stories about rakkeed
no mystery to that von schlichten said he travels on our ships in disguise coolie class on the geek deck be a good idea if he could be caught at it some time blount said making another move
one of the lower deck loading ports could be left unlocked by carelessness and he could blunder overboard at about five thousand feet he watched harrington make a deceptively pointless looking move sid this damn dog business worries me
well at risk of seeming heartless i'm not so much worried for stalin as i am about why keeluk was hiding him
to prevent our finding out that he had him a mister keeluk a clergyman von schlichten quoted he chain lit another cigarette and stubbed out the old one
ritual killing he asked or sympathetic magic von schlichten shrugged take your choice maybe rakkeed wanted the dog to kill before a congregation of his followers killing us by proxy or in effigy or maybe they think we worship stalin
i wish we knew a little more about ulleran psychology that wasn't the first time he'd made that wish even if sex weren't the paramount psychological factor the ancient freudians believed it was an extremely important one
and on uller most of the fundamental terms of terran psychology were meaningless at the same time the average ulleran probably had complexes and neuroses that would have had freud talking to himself and they certainly indulged in practices that would have
even stood krafft ebing's hair on end one thing blount said it doesn't take any ulleran psychologist to know that about eighty percent of them hate us poisonously oh rubbish harrington blew the exclamation out around his pipe stem with a gush of smoke
a few fanatics hate us and a few merchants who lost money when we replaced this primitive barter economy of theirs but nine tenths of them have benefited enormously from us and continue to benefit and hate us more deeply with each new benefit blount added they resent everything we've done for them
yes this spaceport proposition of king orgzild of keegark looks like it now doesn't it harrington retorted he hates and resents us so much that he's offered us a spaceport at his city what's it going to cost him blount asked
he furnishes the land sequestered from the estate of some noble he executed for treason and the labor all forced we furnish the structural steel the machine equipment the engineering we get a spaceport we don't really need
and he gets all the business it'll bring to keegark considering the fact that rakkeed is a welcome guest at his embassy here and at the royal palace at keegark i'm beginning to wonder if he isn't fomenting trouble for us here at konkrook to make us willing to move our main base to his city he made a move instantly
all purpose pieces and took a piece then moved again now look whose king's threatened he crowed yes i see blount brought a piece clockwise around the board and took the threatening piece then moved again i hope you see whose king's threatened now
harrington swore reached out to move a piece and then jerked his hand back as though the piece were radioactive for a while he sat puffing his pipe and staring at the board
that he's started building two new power reactors to handle the additional power demand that'll result from the increased business blount continued where's he getting the plutonium von schlichten asked where can he get it harrington replied
he just bought four tons of it from us off the city of pretoria that's a hell of a lot of plutonium blount said i wonder if he mightn't have some idea of what else plutonium can be used for beside generating power oh god i hope not harrington exclaimed
all addressed to skilkans known to be rakkeed disciples and rabidly anti terran von schlichten replied we radioed the list to skilk colonel cheng li our intelligence man there teleprinted us back a lot of material on them that looks like the newgate calendar
we turned the letters themselves over to doc petrie the ulleran philology sharp who is a pretty fair cryptanalyst he couldn't find any indications of cipher but there was a lot of gossip about keeluk's friends and parishioners which might have arbitrary code meanings
i'm going to explain the situation to miss quinton and advise her to have nothing to do with any of the people keeluk gave her letters to harrington had gotten his king temporarily out of danger losing a piece doing it think she'll listen to you he asked
these extraterrestrials rights association people are a lot of blasted fanatics themselves we're a gang of bloody handed flint hearted imperialistic sons of bitches in their book and anything we say's sure to be a hitler sized lie
oh they're not as bad as all that i never met the girl before today but old mohammed ferriera's a decent bloke and their association's really done a lot of good for one thing they put an end to the peonage system on yggdrasill
and i know what conditions were like there before they did a calculating look came into harrington's eye he puffed slowly at his pipe and slid a piece from the center toward the sector of the board nearest him blount whistled softly and made a quick re arrangement carlos
did you say she told you she was going to skilk in the near future harrington asked well look here you're going up that way yourself with that battalion of kragans on the aldebaran why don't you invite her to make the trip with you
i won't guarantee anything of course the intercom speaker on the table whistled several times harrington swore laid down his pipe and got up brushing ashes from the front of his coat he flipped a switch and spoke into the box
immediately blount took one of his pieces moved again took another and made the third move to which he was entitled
chapter nine scraps we did not laugh we did not even question her sanity at least i did not there was too much meaning in her manner
a specter her husband repeated with a suggestive glance at the brilliant sunshine in which we all stood yes the tone was one of utter conviction
i had never believed in such things never thought about them but it was a week ago in the library i have not seen a happy moment since my darling yes yes i know but imagine i was sitting reading
i had just come from the nursery and the memory of laura's good night kiss was more in my mind than the story i was finishing when
the page before me seemed to recede and the words fade away in a blue mist glancing up i beheld the outlines of a form between me and the lamp which a moment before had been burning brightly outlines henry i was conscious of no substance
and the eyes which met mine from that shadowy blood curdling something were those of the grave and meant a grave for you or for me oh i know what i say there was no mistaking their look as it burned into and through me
everything which had given reality to my life faded and seemed as far away and as unsubstantial as a dream nor has its power over me gone yet i go about amongst you i eat i sleep or try to i greet men talk with women
but it is all unreal all phantasmagoric even yourself and your love and o god my baby what is real and distinctive an absolute part of me and my life is that shape from the dead with its threatening eyes which pierce
pierce she was losing her self control her husband with a soothing touch on her arm brought her back to the present you speak of a form he said a shadowy outline the form of what a man or a woman
a man a man with the exclamation she seemed to shrink into herself and her eyes just now deprecating and appealing took on a hollow stare as if the vision she described had risen again before her in spite of himself
and the sympathy he undoubtedly felt for her an ejaculation of impatience left her husband's lips obligations very far removed from the fantasies of a disturbed mind
no doubt she heard it and to stop the matter of fact protest on his lips added quickly not the form face and eyes of a man as they usually appear hell was in his gaze and the message he gave if it was a message
was one of disaster if not death do you wonder that my happiness vanished before it that i can not be myself since that dreadful day the mayor was a practical man he kept close to the subject
you saw this form between you and the lighted lamp how long did it stay there and what became of it i can not tell you one moment it was there and the next it was gone and i found myself staring into vacancy
i seem to be staring there still waiting for the blow destined to shatter this household nonsense give me a kiss and fix your thoughts on something more substantial what we have to fear and all we have to fear is that i may lose my election
and that won't kill me whatever effect it may have on the party henry her voice had changed to one more natural also her manner the confidence expressed in this outburst the vitality
the masculine attitude he took were producing their effect you don't believe in what i saw or in my fears perhaps you are right i am ready to acknowledge this i will try to look upon it all as a freak of my imagination
if you will promise to forget these dreadful days and if people other people will leave me alone and not print such things about me i am ready to do my part was his glad reply and as for the other people you mention
we shall soon bring them to book raising his voice he called out his secretary's name as it rang loud and cheery down the hall the joy and renewed life which had been visible in her manner lost some of their brightness
what are you going to do she gasped with the quickness of doubt and strong if reasonless apprehension give an order he explained then as the secretary appeared at our end of the hall he held out the journal which he had taken from his wife
and indicating the offensive paragraph said find out who did that mister steele with a surprised look ran his eyes over the paragraph knitting his brows as he did
it is calumny fell from missus packard's lips as she watched him most certainly he assented with an energy which brought a flush of pleasure to the humiliated woman's cheek it will detain me two days or more to follow up this matter he remarked
with a look of inquiry directed at mayor packard never mind two days or a week it is all one i would rather lose votes than pass over such an insult pin me down the man who has dared attack me through my wife
and you will do me the greatest favor one man can show another mister steele bowed i can not forego the final consultation we had planned to hold on the train may i ride down with you to the station certainly most happy
mister steele withdrew after casting a glance of entirely respectful sympathy at the woman who up to this hour had faced the world without a shadow between her and it and marking the lingering nature of the look with which the mayor now turned on his wife
i followed the secretary's example and left them to enjoy their few last words alone verily the pendulum of events swung wide and fast in this house this conclusion was brought back to me with fresh insistence a few minutes later when
on hearing the front door shut i stepped to the balustrade and looked over to see if missus packard was coming up she was not for i saw her go into the library but plainly on the marble pavement below
i perceived the piece of paper she had brought with her from the dining room and had doubtless dropped in the course of the foregoing conversation running down in great haste i picked it up this scrap of i knew not what
but which had been the occasion of the enigmatic scene i had witnessed at the breakfast table necessarily interested me very much and i could not help giving it a look
as unlike as possible to the scrawl of a little child with no means of knowing whether they were legible or not these characters made a surprising impression upon me one indeed that was almost photographic
i also noted that these shapes or characters of which there were just seven were written on the face of an empty envelope this decided any doubts i may have had as to its identity with the paper she had brought down from the attic
that had been a square sheet which even if folded would fail to enter this long and narrow envelope the interest which i had felt when i thought the two identical was a false interest yet i could not but believe that this scrap had a value of its own
equal to the one with which under this misapprehension i had invested it carrying it back to missus packard i handed it over with the remark that i had found it lying in the hall she cast a quick look at it
gave me another look and tossed the paper into the grate as it caught fire and flared up the characters started vividly into view this second glimpse of them added to the one already given me fixed the whole indelibly in my mind
leap up the chimney missus packard remarked i wish i could destroy the memory of all my mistakes as completely as i can that old envelope i did not answer i was watching the weary droop of her hand over the arm of her chair
you are tired missus packard was my sympathetic observation will you not take a nap i will gladly sit by you and read you to sleep
look at that pile of correspondence half of it on charitable matters now that i feel better now that i have relieved my mind i must look over my letters and try to take up the old threads again can i help you i asked possibly
if you will go to my room up stairs i will join you after i have sorted and read my mail i was glad to obey this order i had a curiosity about her room it had been the scene of much i did not understand the night before
should i find any traces there of that search which had finally ended over my head in the attic i was met at the door by ellen she wore a look of dismay which i felt fully accounted for when i looked inside
disorder reigned from one end of the room to the other transcending any picture i may have formed in my own mind concerning its probable condition missus packard must have forgotten all this disarray or at least had supposed it to have yielded to the efforts of the maid
when she proposed my awaiting her there there were bureau drawers with their contents half on the floor boxes with their covers off cupboard doors ajar and even the closet shelves showing every mark of a frenzied search among them
her rich gown soiled to the width of half a foot around the bottom lay with cut laces and its trimmings in rags under a chair which had been knocked over and left where it fell even her jewels had not been put away but lay scattered on the dresser
ellen looked ashamed and when i retired to the one bare place i saw in the bay of the window muttered as she plunged to lift one of the great boxes it's as bad as the attic room up stairs all the trunks have been emptied on to the floor and
one held her best summer dresses what shall i do i have a whole morning's work before me let me help you i proposed rising with sudden alacrity my eyes had just fallen on a small desk at my right also on the floor beneath and around it
here there and everywhere above and below lay scraps of torn up paper and on many if not on all of them could be seen the broken squares and inverted angles which had marked so curiously the surface of the envelope she had handed to mister steele
and which i had afterward seen her burn a baby can make a deal of mess i remarked hurriedly collecting these scraps and making a motion of throwing them into the waste paper basket but hiding them in my blouse instead
the baby oh the baby never did that she's too young oh i didn't know i haven't seen much of the child though i heard her cry once in the nursery how old is she twenty months and such a darling you never saw such curls or such eyes
why look at this what i demanded hurrying to the closet where ellen stood bending over something invisible to me oh nothing she answered coming quickly out but in another moment her tongue getting the better of her discretion she blurted out
do you suppose missus packard had any idea of going with the mayor her bag is in there almost packed i was wondering where all her toilet articles were that accounts stopping she cast a glance around the room ending with a shake of the head and a shrug
the martian boy at the feet of the old man stirred his thin reddish feet in the soil and affixed his large green eyes upon the burial hill where the piper stood why does he do that asked the boy
the old man's leathery face rumpled into a maze of wrinkles he's crazy that's what stands up there piping on his music from sunset until dawn the thin piping sounds squealed in the dusk echoed back from the low hills
were lost in melancholy silence fading then louder higher insanely crying with shrill voice the piper was a tall gaunt man face as pale and wan as martian moons
eyes electrical purple standing against the soft of the dusking heaven holding his pipe to his lips playing the piper a silhouette a symbol a melody where did the piper come from
asked the martian boy from venus the old man took out his pipe and filled it oh some twenty years ago or more on the projectile with the terrestrians i arrived on the same ship coming from earth
we shared a double seat together what is his name again the boyish eager voice
a vague rustling sound came into existence the piper continued playing paying no heed to it from the darkness across the star jewelled horizon came mysterious shapes creeping creeping
mars is a dying world the old man said nothing ever happens of much gravity the piper i believe is an exile the stars trembled like reflections in water dancing with the music
an exile the old man continued something like a leper they called him the brilliant he was the epitome of all venerian culture
until the earthmen came with their greedy incorporations and licentious harlots the earthlings outlawed him sent him here to mars to live out his days mars is a dying world repeated the boy
a dying world how many martians are there sir the old man chuckled i guess maybe you are the last pure martian alive boy but there are millions of others
where do they live i have never seen them you are young you have much to see much to learn where do they live out there beyond the mountains beyond the dead sea bottoms
over the horizon and to the north in the caves far back in the subterrane why why now that's hard to say they were a brilliant race once upon a time
but something happened to them hybrided them they are unintelligent creatures now cruel beasts does earth own mars
the little boy's eyes were riveted upon the glowing planet overhead the green planet yes all of mars earth has three cities here each containing one thousand people the closest city is a mile from here down the road
a group of small metal bubble like buildings the men from earth move about among the buildings like ants enclosed in their space suits they are miners with their huge machines
they rip open the bowels of our planet and dig out our precious life blood from the mineral arteries is that all that is all the old man shook his head sadly no culture
no art no purpose greedy hopeless earthlings and the other two cities where are they one is up the same cobbled road five miles
the third is further still by some five hundred miles i am glad i live here with you alone the boy's head nodded sleepily i do not like the men from terra they are despoilers
they will meet their doom they have blasphemed enough have they they cannot own planets as they have and expect nothing but greedy luxury for their sluggishly squat bodies someday
his voice rose high in tempo and pitch with the piper's wild music wild music insane music stirring music music to stir the savage into life
music to effect man's destiny wild eyed piper on the hill crying out your rigadoons bring the savages to kill neath the waning martian moons
what is that asked the boy a poem said the old man a poem i have written in the last few days i feel something is going to happen very soon
the piper's song is growing more insistent every night at first twenty years ago he played on only a few nights of every year but now for the last three years he has played until dawn every night of
every autumn when the planet is dying bring the savages the boy sat up what savages there along the star glimmered mountain tops a vast clustering herd of black
murmuring advancing the music screamed higher and higher piper pipe that song again so he piped i wept to hear more of the poem asked the boy not my poem
but a poem from earth some seventy years ago i learned it in school music is strange the little boy's eyes were scintillant with thought it warms me inside
this music makes me angry why because it is music with a purpose what purpose we shall know by dawn
music is the language of all things intelligent or not savage or educated civilian this piper knows his music as a god knows his heaven
for twenty years he has composed his hymn of action and hate and finally tonight perhaps the finale will be reached at first many years ago when he played he received no answer from the subterrane
but the murmur of gibbering voices five years ago he lured the voices and the creatures from their caves to the mountain tops tonight for the first time
toward the cities of man music screaming higher faster insanely sending shock after macabre shock thru night air loosening the stars from their riveted stations
the piper stretched high six feet or more upon his hillock swaying back and forth his thin shape attired in brown cloth the black mass on the mountain came down like amoebic tentacles met and coalesced
muttering and mumbling go inside and hide said the old man you are young you must live to propagate the new mars tonight is the end of the old tomorrow begins the new
it is death for the men of earth higher still and higher death they come to overrun the earthlings destroy their cities take their projectiles then in the ships of man
to earth turnabout revolution and revenge a new civilization when monsters usurp men
and men's greediness crumbles at his demise shriller faster higher insanely tempoed the piper the brilliant one he who has waited for years for this night
back to venus to reinstall the glory of his civilization the return of art to humanity but they are savages these unpure martians the boy cried men are savages
i am ashamed of being a man the old man said tremblingly yes these creatures are savages but they will learn these brutes with music music in many forms music for peace
music for love music for hate and music for death the piper and his brood will set up a new cosmos he is immortal now hurrying muttering up the road
the first cluster of black things reminiscent of men a strange sharp odor in the air the piper from his hillock walking down the road over the cobbles to the city
go and kill and live again bring us love and art again piper pipe the song i weep then hide child hide quickly before they come hurry
and the child crying hurried to the small house and hid himself thru the night swirling jumping running leaping gamboling crying the new humanity surged to man's cities his rockets his mines
the piper's song stars shuddered winds stilled nightbirds sang no songs echoes murmured only the voices of the ones who advanced bringing new understanding the old man
then up the road by the awful thousands vomiting out of hills sprawling from caves curling huge fingers of beasts around and about and down to the man cities sighing leaping up
voices and destruction rockets across the sky guns death and finally in the pale advancement of dawn the memory the echoing of the old man's voice
and the little boy arose to start afresh a new world with a new mate echoing the old man's voice piper pipe that song again so he piped i wept to hear a new day dawned
there are three hundred and fifty five stories about suleiman bin daoud but this is not one of them it is not the story of the lapwing who found the water
it is not the story of the glass pavement or the ruby with the crooked hole or the gold bars of balkis it is the story of the butterfly that stamped now attend all over again and listen
suleiman bin daoud was wise he understood what the beasts said what the birds said what the fishes said and what the insects said he understood what the rocks said deep under the earth
when they bowed in towards each other and groaned and he understood what the trees said when they rustled in the middle of the morning he understood everything from the bishop on the bench to the hyssop on the wall
suleiman bin daoud was strong
when he turned it once afrits and djinns came out of the earth to do whatever he told them when he turned it twice fairies came down from the sky to do whatever he told them and when he turned it three times
the very great angel azrael of the sword came dressed as a water carrier and told him the news of the three worlds above below and here and yet suleiman bin daoud was not proud
he very seldom showed off and when he did he was sorry for it once he tried to feed all the animals in all the world in one day but when the food was ready an animal came out of the deep sea and ate it up in three mouthfuls
live for ever i am the smallest of thirty thousand brothers and our home is at the bottom of the sea we heard that you were going to feed all the animals in all the world and my brothers sent me to ask when dinner would be ready
suleiman bin daoud was more surprised than ever and said o animal you have eaten all the dinner that i made ready for all the animals in the world and the animal said o king live for ever but do you really call that a dinner
where i come from we each eat twice as much as that between meals then suleiman bin daoud fell flat on his face and said o animal i gave that dinner to show what a great and rich king i was
and not because i really wanted to be kind to the animals now i am ashamed and it serves me right suleiman bin daoud was a really truly wise man best beloved after that he never forgot
that it was silly to show off and now the real story part of my story begins he married ever so many wifes he married nine hundred and ninety nine wives
and they all lived in a great golden palace in the middle of a lovely garden with fountains he didn't really want nine hundred and ninety nine wives but in those days everybody married ever so many wives
and of course the king had to marry ever so many more just to show
but some were simply horrid and the horrid ones quarrelled with the nice ones and made them horrid too and then they would all quarrel with suleiman bin daoud and that was horrid for him
she loved him too much she sat in her rooms in the golden palace or walked in the palace garden and was truly sorry for him of course if he had chosen to turn his ring on his finger and call up the djinns and the afrits
when they quarrelled too much he only walked by himself in one part of the beautiful palace gardens and wished he had never been born
suleiman bin daoud went out for peace and quiet as usual and among the orange trees he met balkis the most beautiful very sorrowful because suleiman bin daoud was so worried and she said to him o my lord and light of my eyes
turn the ring upon your finger and show these queens of egypt and mesopotamia and persia and china that you are the great and terrible king but suleiman bin daoud shook his head and said o my lady and delight of my life remember the animal that came out of the sea
and made me ashamed before all the animals in all the world because i showed off now if i showed off before these queens of persia and egypt and abyssinia and china merely because they worry me i might be made even more ashamed than i have been
what will you do and suleiman bin daoud said o my lady and content of my heart i shall continue to endure my fate at the hands of these nine hundred and ninety nine queens who vex me with their continual quarrelling
so he went on between the lilies and the loquats and the roses and the cannas and the heavy scented ginger plants that grew in the garden till he came to the great camphor tree that was called the camphor tree of suleiman bin daoud
but balkis hid among the tall irises and the spotted bamboos and the red lillies behind the camphor tree
suleiman bin daoud presently two butterflies flew under the tree quarrelling suleiman bin daoud heard one say to the other i wonder at your presumption in talking like this to me don't you know that if i stamped with my foot
all suleiman bin daoud's palace and this garden here would immediately vanish in a clap of thunder
till the camphor tree shook at the butterfly's boast and he held out his finger and said little man come here the butterfly was dreadfully frightened but he managed to fly up to the hand of suleiman bin daoud and clung there fanning himself
suleiman bin daoud bent his head and whispered very softly little man you know that all your stamping wouldn't bend one blade of grass
yes i know little brother
i said that to quiet her and suleiman bin daoud said
and let me hear what you say back flew the butterfly to his wife who was all of a twitter behind a leaf and she said he heard you suleiman bin daoud himself heard you heard me said the butterfly of course he did i meant him to hear me
well said the butterfly fanning himself most importantly between you and me my dear
and the oranges are just ripening he asked me not to stamp and i promised i wouldn't gracious said his wife and sat quite quiet but suleiman bin daoud laughed till the tears ran down his face at the impudence of the bad little butterfly
among the red lilies and smiled to herself for she had heard all this talk she thought if i am wise i can yet save my lord from the persecutions of these quarrelsome queens
and she held out her finger and whispered softly to the butterfly's wife little woman come here
little woman do you believe what your husband has just said
and she picked up her courage with both wings and said o queen be lovely for ever you know what men folk are like
but next time he begins to boast take him at his word ask him to stamp and see what will happen we know what men folk are like don't we he'll be very much ashamed away flew the butterfly's wife to her husband
suppose you stamp now i promised suleiman bin daoud that i wouldn't said the butterfly and i don't want to break my promise it wouldn't matter if you did said his wife
i dare you to do it she said stamp stamp stamp suleiman bin daoud sitting under the camphor tree heard every word of this and he laughed as he had never laughed in his life before
on the other side of the tree smiled because her own true love was so joyful presently the butterfly very hot and puffy came whirling back under the shadow of the camphor tree and said to suleiman she wants me to stamp
she wants to see what will happen o suleiman bin daoud you know i can't do it and now she'll never believe a word i say she'll laugh at me to the end of my days no little brother said suleiman bin daoud
she will never laugh at you again and he turned the ring on his finger just for the little butterfly's sake not for the sake of showing off and lo and behold four huge djinns came out of the earth slaves said suleiman bin daoud
when he stamps again you will bring them back carefully now little brother he said
and she clapped her hands softly and said at last suleiman bin daoud will do for the sake of a butterfly what he ought to have done long ago for his own sake and the quarrelsome queens will be frightened
the djinns jerked the palace and the gardens a thousand miles into the air
oh i'll be good i'm so sorry i spoke only bring the gardens back my dear darling husband and i'll never contradict again the butterfly was nearly as frightened as his wife and suleiman bin daoud laughed so much
that it was several minutes before he found breath enough to whisper to the butterfly stamp again little brother give me back my palace most great magician yes give him back his palace said the butterfly's wife still flying about in the dark like a moth
give him back his palace and don't let's have any more horrid magic well my dear said the butterfly as bravely as he could you see what your nagging has led to of course
i'm used to this kind of thing but as a favour to you and to suleiman bin daoud i don't mind putting things right so he stamped once more and that instant the djinns let down the palace and the gardens without even a bump
the sun shone on the dark green orange leaves the fountains played among the pink egyptian lilies the birds went on singing and the butterfly's wife lay on her side under the camphor tree waggling her wings and panting
he leaned back all weak and hiccoughy and shook his finger at the butterfly and said o great wizard what is the sense of returning to me my palace if at the same time you slay me with mirth
then came a terrible noise for all the nine hundred and ninety nine queens ran out of the palace shrieking and shouting and calling for their babies they hurried down the great marble steps below the fountain
forward to meet them and said what is your trouble o queens they stood on the marble steps one hundred abreast and shouted what is our trouble we were living peacefully in our golden palace as is our custom
when upon a sudden the palace disappeared and we were left sitting in a thick and noisome darkness and it thundered and djinns and afrits moved about in the darkness that is our trouble o head queen
and we are most extremely troubled on account of that trouble for it was a troublesome trouble unlike any trouble we have known
suleiman bin daoud's very best beloved
and the rivers of the gold of the south from the desert of zinn to the towers of zimbabwe
it is nothing o queens a butterfly has made complaint against his wife because she quarrelled with him and it has pleased our lord suleiman bin daoud to teach her a lesson in low speaking and humbleness
for that is counted a virtue among the wives of the butterflies then up and spoke an egyptian queen the daughter of a pharoah and she said our palace cannot be plucked up by the roots like a leek for the sake of a little insect no
suleiman bin daoud must be dead and what we heard and saw was the earth thundering and darkening at the news then balkis beckoned that bold queen without looking at her and said to her and to the others come and see
they came down the marble steps one hundred abreast and beneath his camphor tree still weak with laughing they saw the most wise king suleiman bin daoud
and they heard him say o wife of my brother in the air remember after this to please your husband in all things lest he be provoked to stamp his foot yet again for he has said that he is used to this magic
and he is most eminently a great magician one who steals away the very palace of suleirnan bin daoud himself go in peace little folk and he kissed them on the wings and they flew away
who stood apart smiling fell flat on their faces for they said if these things are done when a butterfly is displeased with his wife what shall be done to us who have vexed our king with our loud speaking and open quarrelling through many days
then they put their veils over their heads and they put their hands over their mouths and they tiptoed back to the palace most mousy quiet
for we have taught the queens of egypt and ethiopia and abyssinia and persia and india and china with a great and a memorable teaching and suleiman bin daoud still looking after the butterflies where they played in the sunlight said
o my lady and jewel of my felicity when did this happen for i have been jesting with a butterfly ever since i came into the garden
o my lord and regent of my existence i hid behind the camphor tree and saw it all it was i who told the butterfly's wife to ask the butterfly to stamp
because i hoped that for the sake of the jest my lord would make some great magic and that the queens would see it and be frightened and she told him what the queens had said and seen and thought then suleiman bin daoud
rose up from his seat under the camphor tree and stretched his arms and rejoiced and said o my lady and sweetener of my days know that if i had made a magic against my queens for the sake of pride or anger
as i made that feast for all the animals i should certainly have been put to shame but by means of your wisdom i made the magic for the sake of a jest and for the sake of a little butterfly and behold
it has also delivered me from the vexations of my vexatious wives tell me therefore o my lady and heart of my heart how did you come to be so wise
looked up into suleiman bin daoud's eyes and put her head a little on one side just like the butterfly and said first o my lord because i loved you and secondly o my lord because i know what women folk are
then they went up to the palace and lived happily ever afterwards
from here to the wide world's end
as you would talk to a friend there was never a king like solomon not since the world began but solomon talked to a butterfly as a man would talk to a man
josie ran into the garden to gather flowers for the brides the sudden arrival of these interesting beings had quite enchanted the romantic girl and her head was full of heroic rescues tender admiration
dramatic situations and feminine wonder as to whether the lovely creatures would wear their veils or not she was standing before a great bush of white roses
and lay on the toilette tables of the new cousins as a delicate attention a step startled her and looking up she saw her brother coming down the path with folded arms bent head
and the absent air of one absorbed in deep thought sophy wackles said the sharp child with a superior smile as she sucked her thumb just pricked by a too eager pull at the thorny branches
what are you at here mischief asked demi with an irvingesque start as he felt rather than saw a disturbing influence in his day dream getting flowers for our brides
don't you wish you had one answered josie to whom the word mischief suggested her favourite amusement a bride or a flower asked demi calmly though he eyed the blooming bush as if it had a sudden and unusual interest for him
both you get the one and i'll give you the other wish i could and demi picked a little bud with a sigh that went to josie's warm heart why don't you then it's lovely to see people so happy
now's a good time to do it if you ever mean to she will be going away for ever soon who and demi pulled a half opened bud
own face which sign of confusion delighted little jo don't be a hypocrite you know i mean alice now jack i'm fond of you and want to help it's so interesting all these lovers and weddings and things
and showed that it suited him by saying blandly instead of snubbing her as usual you are very kind child since you are so wise could you give me a hint how i'd better speak up as you elegantly express it oh well there are various ways you know
in plays the lovers go down on their knees but that's awkward when they have long legs ted never does it well though i drill him for hours you could say be mine be mine like the old man who threw cucumbers over the wall to missus nickleby
if you want to be gay and easy or you could write a poetical pop you've tried it i dare say but seriously jo i do love alice and i think she knows it i want to tell her so but i lose my head when i try
and asked his little sister to teach him how to put the question which a single word can answer the arrival of his happy cousins had scattered all his wise plans and brave resolutions to wait still longer the christmas play had given him courage to hope
and the oration today had filled him with tender pride but the sight of those blooming brides and beaming grooms was too much for him and he panted to secure his alice without an hour's delay daisy was his confidante in all things but this
a brotherly feeling of sympathy had kept him from telling her his hopes because her own were forbidden his mother was rather jealous of any girl he admired but knowing that she liked alice he loved on and enjoyed his secret alone
meaning soon to tell her all about it now suddenly josie and the rose bush seemed to suggest a speedy end to his tender perplexities and he was moved to accept her aid as the netted lion did that of the mouse
i think i'll write he was slowly beginning after a pause during which both were trying to strike out a new and brilliant idea i've got it perfectly lovely just suit her and you too being a poet cried josie with a skip what is it
don't be ridiculous please begged the bashful lover eager but afraid of this sharp tongued bit of womanhood i read in one of miss edgeworth's stories about a man who offers three roses to his lady a bud
a half blown and a full blown rose i don't remember which she took but it's a pretty way and alice knows about it because she was there when we read it here are all kinds you've got the two buds pick the sweetest rose you can find
and i'll tie them up and put them in her room she is coming to dress with daisy so i can do it nicely demi mused a moment with his eyes on the bridal bush and a smile came over his face so unlike any it had ever worn before that josie was touched
and looked away as if she had no right to see the dawn of the great passion which while it lasts makes a young man as happy as a god do it was all he said and gathered a full blown rose to finish his floral love message
charmed to have a finger in this romantic pie josie tied a graceful bow of ribbon about the stems
while demi wrote upon a card dear alice you know what the flowers mean will you wear one or all tonight and make me still prouder fonder and happier than i am yours entirely john
and then she ran away to do her gentle spiriting like ariel leaving demi to dream among the roses like ferdinand mary and ludmilla were charmed with their bouquets and the giver had the delight of putting some of the flowers into the dark hair
and the light as she played maid at the toilettes of our brides which consoled her for a disappointment in the matter of veils no one helped alice dress for daisy was in the next room with her mother
nor the tears and smiles and blushes that came and went as she read the note and pondered what answer she should give there was no doubt about the one she wished to give but duty held her back
for at home there was an invalid mother and an old father she was needed there with all the help she could now bring by the acquirements four years of faithful study had given her love looked very sweet and a home of her own with john a little heaven on earth
to bind him by any promise or even to put into words the love and honour she felt for him no it would be more generous to make the sacrifice alone and spare him the pain of hope deferred he was young he would forget
and she would do her duty better perhaps if no impatient lover waited for her with eyes that saw but dimly and a hand that lingered on the stem he had stripped of thorns she laid the half blown flower by the rose and asked herself
if even the little bud might be worn it looked very poor and pale beside the others yet being in the self sacrificing mood which real love brings she felt that even a small hope was too much to give if she could not follow it up with more
as she sat looking sadly down on the symbols of an affection that grew dearer every moment she listened half unconsciously to the murmur of voices in the adjoining room open windows thin partitions
and the stillness of summer twilight made it impossible to help hearing and in a few moments more she could not refrain for they were talking of john so nice of ludmilla to bring us all bottles of real german cologne
just what we need after this tiring day be sure john has his he likes it so yes mother did you see him jump up when alice ended her oration he'd have gone to her if i hadn't held him back
i don't wonder he was pleased and proud i spoilt my gloves clapping and quite forgot my dislike of seeing women on platforms she was so earnest and unconscious and sweet after the first moment has he said anything to you dear no
and i guess why the kind boy thinks it would make me unhappy it wouldn't but i know his ways so i wait and hope all will go well with him it must no girl in her senses would refuse our john
daisy i've been longing to tell you what he did with his money he told me last night and i've had no time since to tell you he sent poor young barton to the hospital and kept him there till his eyes were saved a costly thing to do
he was in despair sick and poor and too proud to beg and our dear boy found it out and took every penny he had and never told even his mother till she made him alice did not hear what daisy answered
for she was busy with her own emotions happy ones now to judge from the smile that shone in her eyes and the decided gesture with which she put the little bud in her bosom as if she said he deserves some reward for that good deed
and he shall have it missus meg was speaking and still of john when she could hear again some people would call it unwise and reckless
little but i think his first investment a safe and good one for he who giveth to the poor lendeth to the lord and i was so pleased and proud i wouldn't spoil it by offering him a penny
it is his having nothing to offer that keeps him silent i think he is so honest
but he forgets that love is everything i know he's rich in that i see and feel it and any woman should be glad to get it right dear i felt just so
and was willing to work and wait with and for my john so she will be and i hope they will find it out but she is so dutiful and good i'm afraid she won't let herself be happy you would like it mother heartily
for a better nobler girl doesn't live she is all i want for my son
the long arm of coincidence go said ella as she hastened from the room and open the door while i go upstairs and take my hat off madge did as she was told there were two persons at the door
jack martyn and another this said jack referring to his companion is a friend of mine it was dark in the passage and madge was a little flurried she perceived that jack had a companion and that was all
go into the sitting room i'll bring you a lamp in a minute ella has gone to take her hat off presently returning with the lighted lamp in her hand placing it on the table she glanced at jack's companion and stared
in her astonishment she all but knocked the lamp over jack laughed i believe he said you two have met before madge continued speechless she passed her hand before her eyes as if to make sure she was not dreaming
jack laughed again i repeat that i believe you two have met before madge drew herself up to her straightest and her stiffest her tone was icy
this went on jack airily is a friend of mine bruce graham graham this is miss brodie madge acknowledged the introduction with an inclination of the head which was so faint as to be almost imperceptible
i beg you will not mention it she turned away i will go and tell ella you have come there came a voice from behind her you needn't ella is aware of it already as ella came into the room
she moved to leave it jack caught her by the arm madge don't go away in a fume you wait till you have heard what i have got to say do you know that we're standing in the presence of a romance in real life
on the verge of a blood curdling mystery fact aren't we graham mister graham's language was slightly less emphatic we are or rather we may be
jack waved his arm excitedly i say it's the most extraordinary thing
it certainly is rather a striking illustration of the long arm of coincidence listen to him isn't he cold blooded if you'd heard him an hour or two ago he was hot enough to melt all the ice cream in town
taking up his position on the hearthrug in front of the fireplace
his name's graham he digs in the same house i do to be perfectly frank
i say this because i don't want you to misunderstand the situation this morning he lunched at the same crib i did directly he came in i saw that he was below par so i said i always am a sympathetic soul
you won't forget to let me have an invitation to your funeral and in the meantime perhaps you'll let me know of what it is you're dying now he's not one of those men who wear their hearts upon their sleeves for daws to peck at
martyn i've been misbehaving myself i was not surprised and i told him so
that's nothing i replied i'm always insulting a lady i may explain that when i made that remark ella you were the lady i had in my mind's eye at this point i would pause to inquire why miss brodie
you did not take me into your confidence yesterday afternoon i did you did not i did you told me about the lunatic lady because i suppose you could not help it since you were caught in the act
but you said nothing about a lunatic gentleman he wagged his finger portentously don't think you deceive me madge brodie i smell a rat and one of considerable size jack do go on
this was ella i will go on in my own way if you bustle me i'll keep going on for ever don't i tell you this is my show do you want to queer it well as i was about to observe when i was interrupted
beginning to think that his yarn smelt somewhat fishy what house this was the place he replied as cool as a cucumber is called clover cottage what's that i cried i almost jumped out of my chair
i say that the place is called clover cottage i had to hold on to the hair of my head with both my hands and whereabouts may clover cottage be on wandsworth common when he said that
as calmly as if he were asking me to pass the salt i collapsed i daresay he thought that i'd gone mad i began to wonder this was graham did you let me tell you sir
in which case i should have proved myself mad because as you perceive for yourselves the man's a monster
that if the lady you insulted was not the lady whom i hope to make my wife it was that lady's friend which is the same thing is it interposed ella you hear him madge i hear
which is the same thing continued jack and therefore sir i must ask you to explain he explained i am bound to admit that he explained there and then
he gave me an explanation which i have no hesitation in asserting jack holding his left hand out in front of him brought his right list solemnly down upon his open palm was the most astonishing i ever heard
jack shook his head sadly i was about to point out several other things which that explanation shows with a view as i might phrase it of improving the occasion but having been interrupted for the third time i refrain
the explanation itself you will hear from graham's own lips after tea he is here for the purpose of giving you that explanation after tea i believe graham i am correct in saying so perfectly
only so far as i am concerned i am ready to give my explanation now i cannot but feel that i shall occupy an invidious position in at any rate miss brodie's eyes until i have explained then feel
i'll be hanged if you shall explain now dash it man i want my tea i want a high tea a good tea at once ella sprang up from her chair come madge let's give the man his tea
it was a curious meal if only because of the curious terms on which two members of the party stood toward each other the two girls sat at each end of the table the men on either side madge unlike her usual self was reserved and frosty
ella influenced by madge's attitude seemed as if she could not make up her mind how to treat him on her own account her bearing towards him to say the least was chilly on the other hand
and more than once before the meal was over mister graham must have heartily wished that he had never sat down to it still even madge might have admitted and perhaps in her heart she did admit that under the circumstances
he bore himself surprisingly well that he looked as if he was deserving of better treatment half unconsciously to herself and probably quite unconsciously to him she kept a corner of her eye upon him all the time
the lines of the mouth and jaw were bold and firm the man's whole person was suggestive of strength both physical and mental and when he came to tell the story which jack martyn had foreshadowed it was difficult as one listened
it was six o'clock already and so in order to be there quickly and at the same time not to drive with his own horses known to everyone vronsky got into yashvin's hired fly and told the driver to drive as quickly as possible
it was a roomy old fashioned fly with seats for four he sat in one corner stretched his legs out on the front seat and sank into meditation a vague sense of the order into which his affairs had been brought
a vague recollection of the friendliness and flattery of serpuhovskoy who had considered him a man that was needed and most of all the anticipation of the interview before him all blended into a general joyous sense of life
this feeling was so strong that he could not help smiling he dropped his legs crossed one leg over the other knee and taking it in his hand felt the springy muscle of the calf where it had been grazed the day before by his fall and leaning back he drew several deep breaths
i'm happy very happy he said to himself he had often before had this sense of physical joy in his own body but he had never felt so fond of himself of his own body as at that moment he enjoyed the slight ache in his strong leg
the scent of brilliantine on his whiskers struck him as particularly pleasant in the fresh air everything he saw from the carriage window everything in that cold pure air in the pale light of the sunset
was as fresh and gay and strong as he was himself the roofs of the houses shining in the rays of the setting sun the sharp outlines of fences and angles of buildings the figures of passers by the carriages that met him now and then
the motionless green of the trees and grass the fields with evenly drawn furrows of potatoes and the slanting shadows that fell from the houses and trees and bushes and even from the rows of potatoes
everything was bright like a pretty landscape just finished and freshly varnished get on get on he said to the driver putting his head out of the window and pulling a three rouble note out of his pocket he handed it to the man as he looked round
the driver's hand fumbled with something at the lamp the whip cracked and the carriage rolled rapidly along the smooth highroad i want nothing nothing but this happiness he thought
staring at the bone button of the bell in the space between the windows and picturing to himself anna just as he had seen her last time and as i go on i love her more and more here's the garden of the vrede villa
whereabouts will she be where how why did she fix on this place to meet me and why does she write in betsy's letter he thought wondering now for the first time at it but there was now no time for wonder
he called to the driver to stop before reaching the avenue and opening the door jumped out of the carriage as it was moving and went into the avenue that led up to the house there was no one in the avenue
you're not angry that i sent for you i absolutely had to see you she said and the serious and set line of her lips which he saw under the veil transformed his mood at once i angry but how have you come where from
never mind she said laying her hand on his come along i must talk to you he saw that something had happened and that the interview would not be a joyous one in her presence he had no will of his own
without knowing the grounds of her distress he already felt the same distress unconsciously passing over him what is it what he asked her squeezing her hand with his elbow and trying to read her thoughts in her face
she walked on a few steps in silence gathering up her courage then suddenly she stopped i did not tell you yesterday she began breathing quickly and painfully that coming home with alexey alexandrovitch i told him everything
that and told him everything he heard her unconsciously bending his whole figure down to her as though hoping in this way to soften the hardness of her position for her but directly she had said this he suddenly drew himself up
and a proud and hard expression came over his face yes yes that's better a thousand times better i know how painful it was he said but she was not listening to his words she was reading his thoughts from the expression of his face
she could not guess that that expression arose from the first idea that presented itself to vronsky that a duel was now inevitable the idea of a duel had never crossed her mind and so she put a different interpretation on this passing expression of hardness
when she got her husband's letter she knew then at the bottom of her heart that everything would go on in the old way that she would not have the strength of will to forego her position to abandon her son and to join her lover
the morning spent at princess tverskaya's had confirmed her still more in this but this interview was still of the utmost gravity for her she hoped that this interview would transform her position and save her
if on hearing this news he were to say to her resolutely passionately without an instant's wavering throw up everything and come with me she would give up her son and go away with him but this news had not produced what she had expected in him
he simply seemed as though he were resenting some affront it was not in the least painful to me it happened of itself she said irritably and see she pulled her husband's letter out of her glove
i understand i understand he interrupted her taking the letter but not reading it and trying to soothe her the one thing i longed for the one thing i prayed for was to cut short this position so as to devote my life to your happiness
do you suppose i can doubt it if i doubted who's that coming said vronsky suddenly pointing to two ladies walking towards them perhaps they know us and he hurriedly turned off drawing her after him into a side path
oh i don't care she said her lips were quivering and he fancied that her eyes looked with strange fury at him from under the veil i tell you that's not the point i can't doubt that but see what he writes to me read it
now while he held his letter in his hands he could not help picturing the challenge which he would most likely find at home today or tomorrow and the duel itself in which with the same cold and haughty expression that his face was assuming at this moment
he would await the injured husband's shot after having himself fired into the air and at that instant there flashed across his mind the thought of what serpuhovskoy had just said to him and what he had himself been thinking in the morning
that it was better not to bind himself and he knew that this thought he could not tell her having read the letter he raised his eyes to her and there was no determination in them she saw at once that he had been thinking about it before by himself
she knew that whatever he might say to her he would not say all he thought and she knew that her last hope had failed her this was not what she had been reckoning on you see the sort of man he is she said with a shaking voice he
forgive me but i rejoice at it vronsky interrupted for god's sake let me finish he added his eyes imploring her to give him time to explain his words
inevitable he thought things could not go on as before but he said something different it can't go on i hope that now you will leave him i hope he was confused and reddened that you will let me arrange and plan our life
tomorrow he was beginning she did not let him go on but my child she shrieked you see what he writes i should have to leave him and i can't and won't do that but for god's sake which is better leave your child
or keep up this degrading position to whom is it degrading to all and most of all to you you say degrading don't say that those words have no meaning for me she said in a shaking voice
she did not want him now to say what was untrue she had nothing left her but his love and she wanted to love him don't you understand that from the day i loved you everything has changed for me
proud she could not say what she was proud of tears of shame and despair choked her utterance she stood still and sobbed he felt too something swelling in his throat and twitching in his nose
and for the first time in his life he felt on the point of weeping he could not have said exactly what it was touched him so he felt sorry for her and he felt he could not help her and with that he knew that he was to blame for her wretchedness
and that he had done something wrong is not a divorce possible he said feebly she shook her head not answering couldn't you take your son and still leave him yes but it all depends on him
now i must go to him she said shortly her presentiment that all would again go on in the old way had not deceived her on tuesday i shall be in petersburg and everything can be settled yes she said but don't let us talk any more of it
voltaire some days before the expected fete lady juliana at the instigation of her adviser lady gerard resolved upon taking the field against the duchess of l
her grace had issued cards for a concert and after mature deliberation it was decided that her rival should strike out something new and announce a christening for the same night the first intimation douglas had of the honour intended him by this arrangement
was through the medium of the newspaper for the husband and wife were now much too fashionable to be at all au fait of each other's schemes his first emotion was to be extremely surprised the next to be exceedingly displeased
and the last to be highly gratified at the eclat with which his child was to be made a christian true he had intended requesting the general to act as godfather upon the occasion
but lady juliana protested she would rather the child never should be christened at all which already seemed nearly to have been the case than have that cross vulgar iooking man to stand sponsor her ladyship however so far conceded
that the general was to have the honour of giving his name to the next if a boy for she was now near her second confinement and with this promise henry was satisfied to slight the only being in the world to whom he looked for support to himself and his children
in the utmost delight the fond mother drove away to consult her confidants upon the name and decorations of the child whom she had not even looked at for many days everything succeeded to admiration
amid crowds of spectators in all the pomp of lace and satin surrounded by princes and peers and handed from duchesses to countesses the twin daughter of henry douglas and the heroine of future story
lady juliana glanced over the first line of the letter then looked at the signature resolved to read the rest as soon as she should have time to answer it and in the meantime tossed it into a drawer amongst old visiting cards and unpaid bills
after vainly waiting for an answer much beyond the accustomed time when children are baptized missus douglas could no longer refuse to accede to the desires of the venerable inmates of glenfern
and about a month before her favoured sister received her more elegant appellations the neglected twin was baptized by the name of mary
missus douglas's letter had been enclosed in the following one from miss grizzy and as it had not the good fortune to be perused by the person to whom it was addressed we deem it but justice to the writer to insert it here glenfern castle
my dearest niece lady juliana i am certain as indeed we all are that it will afford your ladyship and our dear nephew the greatest pleasure to see this letter franked by our worthy and respectable friend sir sampson maclaughlan bart
of dhunacrag and auchnagoil who you never have had the pleasure of seeing what renders his death particularly distressing is
this ought to be a warning to all young people to take care of wet feet and especially eating raw oysters which are certainly highly dangerous particularly where there is any tendency to gout
i am told raw oysters are much the fashion in london at present but when this fatal event comes to be known it will of course alarm people very much and put them upon their guard both as to damp feet and raw oysters
lady maclaughlan is in high spirits at sir sampson's success
and had sent him a large box of pills and a bottle of gout tincture only two days before he died
this will be a great thing for you and especially for henry my dear niece as sir sampson and lady maclaughlan are going to london directly to take his seat in parliament and she will make a point of paying you every attention and will matronise you to the play
and any other public places you may wish to go
i hope harry wont take it amiss if sir sampson does not pay him so much attention as he might expect but he says that he will not be master of a moment of his own time in london he will be so much taken up with the king and the duke of york
he himself wishes to move for a new subsidy to the emperor of germany
beennie has been prevented from finishing a most beautiful pair of bottle sliders for your ladyship by a whitlow but it is now mending and i hope will be done in time to go with babby's vase carpet which is extremely elegant by sir s and lady maclaughlan
and the new byre you will think a prodigious improvement our dear little grand niece is in great health and much improved we reckon her extremely like our family particularly becky though she has a great look of bella at the same time then she laughs
protesting all the while she dawdled over her evening breakfast the following day that there was nobody in the world so much to be envied as lady lindore such jewels such dresses such a house such a husband
so easy and good natured and rich and generous she was sure lindore did no care what his wife did she might give what parties she pleased go where she liked spend as much money as she chose and he would never trouble his head about the matter
she was quite certain lady lindore had not a single thing to wish for ergo she must be the happiest woman in the world
all this was addressed to henry who had however attained the happy art of not hearing above one word out of a hundred that happened to fall from the angel lips of his adored julia and having finished the newspapers
and made himself acquainted with all the blood horses thoroughbred fillies and brood mares therein set forth
requested she would return with him into the house as he wished to converse with her upon a subject of some importance he prevailed on her to return upon condition that he would not detain her above five minutes
when shutting the drawing room doors he said with earnestness i think julia you were talking of lady lindore this morning oblige me by repeating what you said as i was reading the papers and really did not attend much to what passed her ladyship
in extreme surprise wondered how harry could be so tiresome and absurd as to stop her airing for any such purpose she really did not know what she said how could she it was more than an hour ago
she looked so uncommonly well last night and was in such spirits in her fancy dress before she masked after that i quite lost sight of her as everyone else has done she has not been seen since her favourite saint leger is missing too
and there is hardly a doubt but that they are gone off together even lady juliana was shocked at this intelligence though the folly more than the wickedness of the thing seemed to strike her mind but henry was no nice observer
i dare say he would give me a thousand pounds if i were to ask him for he don't care about money lord lindore takes the matter very coolly understand replied her husband but don't be alarmed dear julia
your father has suffered a little from the violence of his feelings he has had a sort of apoplectic fit but is not considered in immediate danger
henry warmly commended the extreme propriety of these measures and not to be outdone in greatness of mind
x works itself out into perfectly good sense
molly carter said missus johnson just day before yesterday after the white dress judge wade episode that aunt adeline had gone to all the friends up and down the street to be consoled about
if you haven't got sense enough to appreciate your present blissful condition somebody ought to operate on your mind i was tempted to say why not my heart
i was glad she didn't know how good that heart did feel under my blouse when the boy brought that basket of fish from judge wade's fishing expedition saturday i have firmly determined not to blush any more at the thought of that gorgeous man
at least outwardly don't you think it is very very lonely to be a widow missus johnson i asked timidly to see what she would say about mister johnson who is really a kind hearted sort of man i think
lonely lonely molly you talk about the married state exactly like an old maid don't do it it's foolish and you will get the lone notion really fastened in your mind and let some man find out that is how you feel
i have only one regret and it is that if i ever should be a widow mister johnson wouldn't be here to see how quickly i turned into an old maid
and as she talked she was mending the sleeve of mister johnson's lounge coat i think an old maid is just a woman who has never been in love with a man who loves her lots of them have been married for years i said
just as innocently as the soft face of a pan of cream and went on darning one of billy's socks well be that as it may they are the blessed members of the women tribe she answered looking at me sharply
now i have often told mister johnson but here we were interrupted in what might have been the rehearsal of a glorious scrap by the appearance of aunt bettie pollard and with her came a long tall lovely vision of a woman in the most wonderful
close clingy dress and hat that you wanted to eat the minute you saw it i hated her instantly with the most intense adoration that made me want to lie down at her feet
and also made me feel as though i had gained all the more than twenty pounds that i have slaved off me and doubled them on again i would have liked to lead her that minute into doctor john's office and just to have looked at him and said one word
scarlet runner aunt betty introduced her as miss clinton from london oh my dear missus carter how glad i am to meet you she said as she towered over me in a willowy way and her voice was lovely and cool almost to slimness
he came down to cherbourg to see me off and almost the last thing he said to me was now don't fail to see missus carter as soon as you get to hillsboro and the more you see of her the more you'll enjoy your visit to missus pollard
isn't he the most delightful of men she asked me the question but she had the most wonderful way of seeming to be talking to everybody at one time so missus johnson got in the first answer delightful indeed
but alfred bennett is a man of sense not to marry any of the string of women who i suppose are running after him she said miss clinton looked at her in a mild kind of wonder but she went on hacking mister johnson's coat sleeve with the needle without noticing the glance at all
well well dearie i don't know about that
big darling fat self in the strong rocking chair i always kept for her alfred is not old enough to have proved himself entirely and from what i hear she paused with the big hearty smile that she always wears when she begins to tease or match make
and she does them both most of her time but at whom do you suppose she looked not me miss clinton that was cold tub number two for that day and i didn't react as quickly as i might
but when i did i was in the proper glow all over when i revived and saw the lovely pale blush on her face i felt like a cabbage rose beside a tea bud i was glad aunt adeline came in just then so i could go in and tell julia to bring out the tea and cakes
and put my finger down on a line with my eyes shut this was what it was and all these years i have walked the world blindfolded to its loveliness with the blackness that came to me when i found that you
i didn't read any more but pushed it back in a hurry and went back to the company comforted in a way
but feeling a little more in sympathy with missus johnson than i had before aunt bettie and her guest from london had interrupted our algebraic demonstration on the man subject you can't always be sure of the right answer to x in any proposition of life
that is a woman can't and furthermore i didn't like that next hour much just as a sample of life for instance aunt bettie had got her joining together humour well started and there before my face she made a present of
every nice man in hillsboro to that lovely distinguished strange girl who could have slipped through a bucket hoop if she had tried hard i had to sit there listen to the presentations
watch her drink two delicious cups of tea full of sugar and cream and consume without fear three of jane's puffy cakes while i crumbled mine in secret and set half the cup of tea out of sight behind a fern pot
it was bad enough to hear aunt bettie just offer her tom who if he is her own son is my favourite cousin but i believe the worst minute i almost ever faced was when she began on the judge
for i could see from aunt adeline's shoulder beyond miss clinton how she was enjoying that and she added another distinguished ancestor to his pedigree every time aunt bettie paused for breath i couldn't say a word about the fish and aunt adeline wouldn't
i almost loved missus johnson when she bit off a thread viciously and said humph as she rose to start the tea party home
i felt terribly old and ugly and dowdy and
for i just love that girl i want most awfully to hug her very slimness and it was more what she might think of poor dumpy me than what any man in hillsboro or paris could possibly feel on the subject that hurt so hard
for something made me sit up suddenly with a spark in my eyes and reach out to the desk for my pencil and cheque book it took me more than an hour to reckon it all up but i went to bed a happier though in prospects a poorer woman
as i sat in the train on my way to town early the next morning i thought a good deal about poor mister carter after this i shall always appreciate and admire him for the way he made money and his kindness in leaving it to me since
and i bought things
i had heard about her and i knew it meant a fortune but that didn't matter she came in and looked at me for about five minutes without saying a word and then she ran her hands down and down over me until i could feel the superfluous flesh just
walking off of me it was delicious then she and two girls wearing fashionable frocks and fashionable hair came in and did things to a corset they laced on me that i can't even write down for i didn't understand the process
i wasn't tight and i wasn't stiff and i looked
i was spellbound with delight
but i came to with a jolt when the prettiest girl began to get me into that black silk bag i had worn down to the west end i must have shrunk the whole remaining pounds i had felt obliged to lose for alfred and ruth clinton from the horror i felt when i looked at myself
shall i call a taxi for madame and have it take her to klein's
men do business well but when women enter the field they are geniuses at money extracting i felt myself already clothed perfectly when that girl said my figure commanded a proper dress
of course klein pays madame courtier a commission for the customers she passes on to him the one for me must have looked to her like a big transaction
only going to the hotel to sleep and most of the time i forgot to eat madame rene must have been madame courtier's twin sister in youth and madame telliers in the hat department was the triplet to them both
when women have genius it breaks out all over them like measles and they never recover from it those women had the confluent kind but i know that madame rene really approved of me
for when i blushed and asked her if she could recommend a good beauty doctor she held up her hands and shuddered never madame never pour vous
i thought klein was going to do the same thing or worse when i signed the cheque which would be enough to provide him with a new motor car but he didn't he only said politely and i am delighted that the trousseau is perfectly satisfactory to you madame
that was an awful shock and i hope i didn't show it as i murmured perfectly thank you the word trousseau can be spoken in a woman's presence for many years with no effect but it is an awful shock when she first really hears it
i felt queer all the afternoon as i packed those trunks for the five o'clock train yes the word trousseau ought to have a definite surname after it always and that's why my loyalty dragged poor mister carter out into the light of my conscience
i had laid out the dream in dark grey blue cloth tailored almost beyond endurance to wear in the train going home and had thrown the old black silk bag across the chair to give to the hotel maid
but the decision of the session between conscience and loyalty made me pack the precious blue wonder and put on once more the black rags of remembrance in a kind of panic of respect i would lots rather have bought poor mister carter the monument i have been planning for months
to keep up conversation with aunt adeline than wear that dress again
because i really ought to have stayed a day longer to buy that monument but to tell the truth i wanted to see billy so desperately that his sleep place above my heart hurt as if it might have prickly heat break out at any minute
so i hurried and stuffed the grey blue darling in the top tray
down to the butcher's in the high street i suppose that is about the only morning dissipation in hillsboro that i can think of and it all depends on whom you meet how much of a dissipation it is
the next thing that happens after you have done a noble deed is you either regard it as a reward of virtue or as a punishment for having been foolish i felt both ways when judge wade came down the platform at saint pancras
looking so much grander than any other man in sight that i don't see how they ever stand him at that minute the noble black silk deed felt foolish but at the next minute i was glad i had done it
it is nice to watch for a person to catch sight of you if you feel sure how they are going to take it and somehow in this case i felt sure i was not disappointed for his smile broke his face up into a joy laugh
off came his hat instantly so i could catch a glimpse of the fascinating frost over his temples and with a positive sigh of pleasure he got into the same carriage and took a seat beside me i turned with an echo smile all over me
missus carter he said very kindly in a voice that pitched me out of the carriage window and left me a mile behind on the rails all by myself i wish i had known of your sad errand to town
so that i could have offered you some assistance in your selection you know we have just had our family grave in the cemetery finally arranged and i found the dealers in memorial stones very confusing in their ideas and designs
missus henderson just told my mother of your absence from home last night and i could only come up to town for the day on important business or i would have arranged to see you i hope you found something that satisfied you
what is a woman going to say when she has a tombstone thrown in her face like that i didn't say anything but what i thought about aunt adeline filled in a dreadful pause
perfectly dumb and quiet i sat for a space of time and wondered just what i was going to do it was beyond me at the moment and the molly that is ready for life quick didn't know what to say i shut my eyes
counted three to myself as i do when i go over into the cold tub and then told him all about it we both got a satisfactory reaction and i never enjoyed myself so much as that before
i understand now why judge wade has had so many women martyr themselves over him and live unhappily ever afterward as everybody says henrietta mason is doing he's a very inspiring man and he fairly bristles with fascinations
while others are drawing and after you are drawn to them they will consider the question of taking you the judge is like that
i may get hurt but i shall at least have only myself to thank for it when we reached home the judge stopped under the old lilac bush that leans over my side gate and kissed my hand
old lilac shook a laugh of perfume all over us and i believe signalled the event with the top of his bough to the white clump on the other side of the garden i'm glad aunt adeline isn't in the flower fraternity suppose she had seen or heard
also for the last time inside of those buttons and run through the garden my heart singing billy billy in a perfect rapture of tune i ran past the surgery door and found him in his cot almost asleep
and we had a bear reunion in the wicker chair by the window that made us both breathless what did you bring me molly he finally kissed under my right ear a real cricket ball and bat lover and an engine with five carriages
a rake and a spade and a hoe two guns that pop a new way and something that squirts water and some other things will that be enough
and i might not have got the very thing he wanted
did any woman ever have a more lovely lover than that i don't know how long i should have rocked him in the twilight if doctor john's voice hadn't come across the hall in command
put him down now missus molly and come and say other how do you does he called softly
just where does that corset press you worst he asked in the tone of voice he uses to say put out your tongue so much of my bad temper rose to my face that it is a wonder it didn't make a scar but i was cold enough to all outward appearances
i said looking into his face as though i had never seen him before i beg your pardon molly he exclaimed and his face was redder than mine and then it went white with mortification i couldn't stand that
and had it in both of mine i know i look as if i was shrunk or laced but i'm not i was going to tell you all about it i'm really inches bigger in the right place and just just controlled the woman called it in the wrong place
the blood came back into his face and he laughed as he gave me a little shake that pushed me away from him don't you ever scare me like that again child or it might be serious he said in the
billy and me tone of voice that i like a little only i never will i said in a hurry i want you to ask me anything in the world you want to and i'll always do it well let me take you home through the garden then
and yes i believe i'll stay to supper with missus henderson don't you want to tell me what a little girl like you did in a big city and and read me part of that paris letter i saw the postman give jane this afternoon
but this torture book found that out about me and stopped it the very first thing on page three the command is to sleep as little as possible to keep the nerves in a good condition
eight hours at the most and seven would be better what earthly good would a seven hour nap do me i want ten hours to sleep and twelve if i get a good tired start
to see me stagger out of my perfectly nice bed at six o'clock every morning now would wring the sternest heart with compassion and admiration at my faithfulness to whom yes it was the day after poor mister carter's funeral
that aunt adeline moved up here into my house and settled herself in the big south room across the landing from mine her furniture weighs a ton each piece and aunt adeline is not light herself in disposition
vacant chair in a way that made me see that she was obviously trying to fill the vacancy i am sorry she worried herself about that anyhow it made me take a resolve after breakfast i went into the kitchen to speak to jane
jane i said looking past her head my health is not very good and you can bring my breakfast to me in bed after this poor mister carter always wanted breakfast on the stroke of seven jane has buried husbands
also her mother is our washerwoman and influenced by aunt adeline jane understands everything i say to her after i had closed the door i heard a laugh that sounded like a war whoop and i smiled to myself
but that was before my martyrdom to this book had begun i get up now but the day after i came from london i lay in bed just as long as i wanted to
and ignored the thought of the exercises and deep breathing and the icy unsympathetic tub i couldn't even take very much interest in the lonely egg on the lonely slice of dry toast i was thinking about things
hillsboro is a very peculiar little speck on the universe
it hasn't had any real excitement for a long time and i felt that it needed it i rolled over and laughed into my pillow the subject of the conduct of widows is a serious one of all the things
old tradition is most set about it is that and what was decided to be the proper thing a million years ago this town still dictates shall be done and spends a good deal of its time seeing its directions carried out
then sooner or later some neighbour is sure to see some man walk home from church with her or hear some masculine voice in her front garden mister blake gave missus caruther's little jessie a ride in his trap
and helped her out at her mother's gate just before last christmas and if the poor widow hadn't acted quickly the town would have noticed them to death before he proposed to her they were married the day after new year's day
and she lost lots of good friends because she didn't give them more time to talk about it i don't intend to run any risk of losing my friends that way and i want them to have all the enjoyment they can get out of it
i'm going to serve out doses of excitement until the dear old place is running as it did when it was a two year old why get annoyed when people are interested in you it's a compliment after all and gives them more to think about i remembered the
and hugged my knees up under my chin with pleasure at the thought of the town talk they contained
or the white chiffon with the rosebud embroidery as a first dose for my friends a sweetness came in through my window that took my breath away and i lay still with my hand over my heart and listened
it was billy singing right under my window and i've never heard him do it before in all his five years it was the dearest old fashioned tune ever written
my heart beat so it shook the lace on my breast like a breeze from heaven as he took the high note and then let it go on the last few words
a confused recollection of having heard the words and tune sung by my mother when i was at the rocking age myself brought the tears to my eyes as i flew to the window and parted the curtains
if you heard a little boy angel singing at your casement wouldn't you expect a cherub face upturned with heaven lights all over it billy's face was upturned as he heard me draw up the blind
but it was streaked like a wild indian's with decorations of brown mud and he held a slimy frog in one hand while he wiped his other grimy hand down the front of his linen blouse i say molly look at the frog i bringed you
he exclaimed as he came close under the sill which is not high from the ground if you put your face down to the mud and sing something to em they'll come out of their holes a beetle comed too but i couldn't ketch em both lift me up and i can put him in the waterglass on your table
he held up one muddy hand to me and promptly i lifted him up into my arms
he began to squirm out of my arms toward the table and the glass who taught it to you sugar sweet i persisted as i poured water in on the frog under his direction
father sings it to me when tilly nurse nor you aren't there to put me to bed he don't know no good songs like black eyed susan or little boy blue
as soon as he got it he climbed out of the window glass frog and all
i closed the blinds and drew the curtains again and flung myself on my pillow something warm and sweet seemed to be sweeping over me in great waves and i felt young and close up to some sort of big world good
it was delicious and i don't know how long i would have stayed there just feeling it if jane hadn't brought in my letter he had written from london and it was many pages of wonderful things all flavoured with me
and how much he hoped she would be in hillsboro when he got here he said that a great many of her dainty ways reminded him of his own slip of a girl especially the turn of her head like a flower on its stem
at that i got right out of bed like a jack jumping out of a box and looked at myself in the mirror there is one exercise here on page twenty that i hate worst of all you screw up your face tight until you look like a christmas mask
and then wobble your head round like a new born baby until it swims i did that one twenty extra times and all the others in proportion to make up for those two hours in bed hereafter i'll get up at the time directed on page three or maybe earlier
i won't let myself even think perfect flower and scarlet runner if i do i get warm and happy all over i try when i get hungry to think of myself in that blue muslin dress
and what madame rene did to it remade it into the loveliest thing i ever saw only i wouldn't let her alter the size one single inch i'm honourable as all women are at peculiar times i think she understood
but she seemed not to and worked a miracle on it with ribbon and lace i've put it away on the top shelf of a cupboard for it is a torment to look at it you can just take any recipe for a party and it will make a good debut for a girl
as quietly as my clothes would let me when a real conflagration was lighted inside me if tom pollard wasn't my own first cousin i would have loved him desperately even if i am a week older than he
he was about the only oasis in my childhood's days though i don't think anybody would think of calling him at all green he never stopped coming to see me occasionally and mister carter liked him
and when that conflagration was lighted in me about my debut tom did it i was sitting peaceably in my own summer house dressed in the summer before last that jane washes and irons every day while i am deciding how to hand out the first sip of my trousseau to the neighbours
when tom in a dangerous blue striped shirt with a tie that melted into it in tone jumped over my fence and landed at my side he kissed the lace ruffle on my sleeve while i reproved him severely and settled down to enjoy him
but i didn't have such a good time as i generally do with him he was too full of another woman and even a first cousin can be an exasperation in that condition
chapter nine grown up cyril had once pointed out that ordinary life is full of occasions on which a wish would be most useful
and this thought filled his mind when he happened to wake early on the morning after the morning after robert had wished to be bigger than the baker's boy and had been it the day that lay between these two days had been occupied entirely by getting the governess cart home from benenhurst
cyril dressed hastily he did not take a bath because tin baths are so noisy and he had no wish to rouse robert and he slipped off alone as anthea had once done and ran through the dewy morning to the sand pit
it replied politely and now what can i do for you it said i suppose you've come here so early to ask for something for yourself
now do be persuaded for your own good ask for a good fat megatherium and have done with it thank you not to day i think said cyril cautiously what i really wanted to say was you know how you're always wishing for things when you're playing at anything
i seldom play
well you know what i mean cyril went on impatiently what i want to say is
and just where we happen to be so that we don't have to come and disturb you again added the crafty cyril it'll only end in your wishing for something you don't really want like you did about the castle
it's always the same since people left off eating really wholesome things however have it your own way good bye good bye said cyril politely i'll tell you what
shooting out its long snail's eyes i'm getting tired of you all of you you have no more sense than so many oysters go along with you and cyril went what an awful long time babies stay babies
said cyril after the lamb had taken his watch out of his pocket while he wasn't noticing and with coos and clucks of naughty rapture had opened the case and used the whole thing as a garden spade
and when even immersion in a wash hand basin had failed to wash the mould from the works and make the watch go again cyril had said several things in the heat of the moment but now he was calmer and had even consented to carry the lamb part of the way to the woods
cyril had persuaded the others to agree to his plan and not to wish for anything more till they really did wish it meantime it seemed good to go to the woods for nuts and on the mossy grass under a sweet chestnut tree the five were sitting
the lamb was pulling up the moss by fat handfuls and cyril was gloomily contemplating the ruins of his watch he does grow said anthea doesn't oo precious me grow
an imagination or vocabulary gave out here but anyway it was the longest speech the lamb had ever made and it charmed everyone even cyril who tumbled the lamb over and rolled him in the moss to the music of delighted squeals
i suppose he'll be grown up some day anthea was saying dreamily looking up at the blue of the sky that showed between the long straight chestnut leaves but at that moment the lamb
there was a crack the innocent lamb had broken the glass of father's second best waterbury watch which cyril had borrowed without leave grow up some day said cyril bitterly plumping the lamb down on the grass i daresay he will when nobody wants him to
i wish to goodness he would oh take care cried anthea in an agony of apprehension but it was too late like music to a song her words and cyril's came out together anthea oh take care cyril grow up now
and there before the horrified eyes of its brothers and sisters the lamb suddenly and violently grew up it was the most terrible moment the change was not so sudden as the wish changes usually were the baby's face changed first
it grew thinner and larger lines came in the forehead the eyes grew more deep set and darker in colour the mouth grew longer and thinner most terrible of all a little dark moustache appeared on the lip of one who was still except as to the face
a two year old baby in a linen smock and white open work socks oh i wish it wouldn't oh i wish it wouldn't you boys might wish as well they all wished hard for the sight was enough to dismay the most heartless
they all wished so hard indeed that they felt quite giddy and almost lost consciousness but the wishing was quite vain for when the wood ceased to whirl round their dazzled eyes were riveted at once by the spectacle of a very proper looking young man in flannels and a straw hat
a young man who wore the same little black moustache which just before they had actually seen growing upon the baby's lip this then was the lamb grown up their own lamb it was a terrible moment
the grown up lamb moved gracefully across the moss and settled himself against the trunk of the sweet chestnut he tilted the straw hat over his eyes he was evidently weary he was going to sleep the lamb the original little tiresome beloved lamb
or had his mind grown up together with his body that was the question which the others in a hurried council held among the yellowing bracken a few yards from the sleeper debated eagerly whichever it is it'll be just as awful said anthea if his inside senses are grown up too
he won't stand our looking after him and if he's still a baby inside of him how on earth are we to get him to do anything and it'll be getting on for dinner time in a minute
said jane oh bother nuts said robert but dinner's different
a fat lot of dinner we should get if we went back without the lamb said cyril in scornful misery and it'll be just the same if we go back with him in the state he is now yes i know it's my doing don't rub it in i know i'm a beast and not fit to live
you can take that for settled and say no more about it the question is what are we going to do
take him repeated cyril yes do it's all my fault i don't deny that but you'll find you've got your work cut out for you if you try to take that young man anywhere the lamb always was spoilt but now he's grown up he's a demon simply
well then said robert let's wake him up and see what he'll do perhaps he'll take us to maidstone and stand sam he ought to have a lot of money in the pockets of those extra special bags we must have dinner anyway they drew lots with little bits of bracken
it fell to jane's lot to waken the grown up lamb she did it gently by tickling his nose with a twig of wild honeysuckle he said
twice and then opened his eyes
what's the giddy hour you'll be late for your grub i know we shall said robert bitterly then cut along home said the grown up lamb what about your grub though asked jane
blank misery fell like a pall on the four others the lamb
perhaps he would also have tea there perhaps sunset would come upon him amid the dazzling luxury of club land and a helpless cross sleepy baby would find itself alone amid unsympathetic waiters and would wail miserably for panty from the depths of a club arm chair
the picture moved anthea almost to tears oh no lamb ducky you mustn't do that she cried incautiously the grown up lamb frowned my dear anthea he said
a relic of foolish and far off childhood this was awful he was their elder brother now was he well of course he was if he was grown up since they weren't thus
were making the children wise beyond their years dear hilary said anthea
you know father didn't wish you to go to london he wouldn't like us to be left alone without you to take care of us oh deceitful beast that i am she added to herself look here said cyril if you're our elder brother
and we'll go on the river afterwards i'm infinitely obliged to you said the lamb courteously but i should prefer solitude go home to your lunch i mean your dinner perhaps i may look in about tea time
their beds speaking glances flashed between the wretched four much bed there would be for them if they went home without the lamb we promised mother not to lose sight of you if we took you out
look here jane said the grown up lamb
little girls should be seen and not heard you kids must learn not to make yourselves a nuisance run along home now and perhaps if you're good i'll give you each a penny to morrow look here said cyril in the best man to man tone at his command
where are you going old man you might let bobs and me come with you even if you don't want the girls this was really rather noble of cyril
who of course after sunset would be a baby again the man to man tone succeeded i shall just run over to maidstone on my bike said the new lamb airily fingering the little black moustache i can lunch at the crown and perhaps i'll have a pull on the river
run along home like good children the position was desperate
anthea detached a pin from her waistband a pin whose withdrawal left a gaping chasm between skirt and bodice and handed it furtively to robert with a grimace of the darkest and deepest meaning robert slipped away to the road
of course robert understood at once that if the lamb was grown up he must have a bicycle this had always been one of robert's own reasons for wishing to be grown up he hastily began to use the pin eleven punctures in the back tyre seven in the front
which warned him of the approach of the others
your bike's run down said robert wondering how he could so soon have learned to deceive so it is said cyril it's a puncture said anthea stooping down and standing up again with a thorn which she had got ready for the purpose look here
the grown up lamb or hilary as i suppose one must now call him fixed his pump and blew up the tyre the punctured state of it was soon evident i suppose there's a cottage somewhere near where one could get a pail of water said the lamb
there was and when the number of punctures had been made manifest it was felt to be a special blessing that the cottage provided teas for cyclists it provided an odd sort of tea and hammy meal for the lamb and his brothers
this was paid for out of the fifteen shillings which had been earned by robert when he was a giant for the lamb it appeared had unfortunately no money about him this was a great disappointment for the others but it is a thing that will happen even to the most grown up of us however
robert had enough to eat and that was something quietly but persistently the miserable four took it in turns to try to persuade the lamb or saint maur to spend the rest of the day in the woods there was not very much of the day left by the time he had mended the eighteenth puncture
he looked up from the completed work with a sigh of relief and suddenly put his tie straight there's a lady coming he said briskly for goodness sake get out of the way go home hide vanish somehow i can't be seen with a pack of dirty kids
his brothers and sisters were indeed rather dirty because earlier in the day the lamb in his infant state had sprinkled a good deal of garden soil over them the grown up lamb's voice was so tyrant like as jane said afterwards that they actually retreated to the back garden
and left him with his little moustache and his flannel suit to meet alone the young lady who now came up the front garden wheeling a bicycle the woman of the house came out and the young lady spoke to her
and the children could not hear what she said though they were craning round the corner by the pig pail and listening with all their ears they felt it to be perfectly fair as robert said with that wretched lamb in that condition when the lamb spoke in a languid voice heavy with politeness they heard well enough
a puncture he was saying can i not be of any assistance if you could allow me there was a stifled explosion of laughter behind the pig pail the grown up lamb otherwise devereux turned the tail of an angry eye in its direction
you're very kind said the lady looking at the lamb she looked rather shy but as the boys put it there didn't seem to be any nonsense about her but oh whispered cyril behind the pig pail i should have thought he'd had enough bicycle mending for one day
and if she only knew that really and truly he's only a whiny piny silly little baby he's not anthea murmured angrily he's a dear if people only let him alone it's our own precious lamb still whatever silly idiots may turn him into isn't he pussy
jane doubtfully supposed so now the lamb whom i must try to remember to call saint maur was examining the lady's bicycle and talking to her with a very grown up manner indeed no one could possibly have supposed to see and hear him
that only that very morning he had been a chubby child of two years breaking other people's waterbury watches devereux as he ought to be called for the future took out a gold watch when he had mended the lady's bicycle and all the onlookers behind the pig pail said oh
because it seemed so unfair that the baby who had only that morning destroyed two cheap but honest watches should now in the grown upness cyril's folly had raised him to have a real gold watch with a chain and seals hilary as i will now term him
withered his brothers and sisters with a glance and then said to the lady with whom he seemed to be quite friendly if you will allow me i will ride with you as far as the cross roads it is getting late and there are tramps about
no one will ever know what answer the young lady intended to give to this gallant offer for directly anthea heard it made she rushed out knocking against the pig pail
and caught the lamb i suppose i ought to say hilary by the arm the others followed and in an instant the four dirty children were visible beyond disguise don't let him said anthea to the lady and she spoke with intense earnestness he's not fit to go with anyone
go away little girl said saint maur as we will now call him in a terrible voice go home at once you'd much better not have anything to do with him the now reckless anthea went on he doesn't know who he is he's something very different from what you think he is
asked the lady not unnaturally while devereux as i must term the grown up lamb tried vainly to push anthea away the others backed her up and she stood solid as a rock you just let him go with you said anthea you'll soon see what i mean
how would you like to suddenly see a poor little helpless baby spinning along downhill beside you with its feet up on a bicycle it had lost control of the lady had turned rather pale who are these very dirty children she asked the grown up lamb
sometimes called saint maur in these pages i don't know he lied miserably
she explained turning to the lady who with trembling hands was now turning her bicycle towards the gate and we've got to take care of him and we must get him home before sunset or i don't know whatever will become of us you see he's sort of under a spell enchanted you know what i mean
again and again the lamb devereux i mean had tried to stop jane's eloquence but robert and cyril held him one by each leg and no proper explanation was possible the lady rode hastily away
and electrified her relatives at dinner by telling them of her escape from a family of dangerous lunatics the little girl's eyes were simply those of a maniac i can't think how she came to be at large she said when her bicycle had whizzed away down the road
cyril spoke gravely hilary old chap he said you must have had a sunstroke or something and the things you've been saying to that lady why if we were to tell you the things you've said when you are yourself again say to morrow morning you wouldn't even understand them let alone believe them
you trust to me old chap and come home now and if you're not yourself in the morning we'll ask the milkman to ask the doctor to come the poor grown up lamb saint maur was really one of his christian names seemed now too bewildered to resist
he said bitterly i suppose i had better take you home but you're not to suppose i shall pass this over
yes you will my lamb said anthea under her breath but it won't be at all the sort of thing you think it's going to be in her heart she could hear the pretty soft little loving voice of the baby lamb so different from the affected tones of the dreadful grown up lamb
one of whose names was devereux saying me love panty wants to come to own panty oh let's get home for goodness sake she said you shall say whatever you like in the morning if you can she added in a whisper
it was a gloomy party that went home through the soft evening during anthea's remarks robert had again made play with the pin and the bicycle tyre and the lamb whom they had to call saint maur or devereux or hilary
so the machine was wheeled the sun was just on the point of setting when they arrived at the white house the four elder children would have liked to linger in the lane till the complete sunsetting turned the grown up lamb whose christian names i will not further weary you by repeating
into their own dear tiresome baby brother but he in his grown upness insisted on going on and thus he was met in the front garden by martha now you remember that as a special favour
brought about by the wishes of the children therefore martha merely saw the usual party with the baby lamb about whom she had been desperately anxious all the afternoon trotting beside anthea on fat baby legs while the children of course still saw the grown up lamb
never mind what names he was christened by and martha rushed at him and caught him in her arms exclaiming come to his own martha then a precious poppet the grown up lamb whose names shall now be buried in oblivion struggled furiously
an expression of intense horror and annoyance was seen on his face but martha was stronger than he she lifted him up and carried him into the house none of the children will ever forget that picture
the neat grey flannel suited grown up young man with the green tie and the little black moustache fortunately he was slightly built and not tall struggling in the sturdy arms of martha who bore him away helpless imploring him as she went to be a good boy now
and come and have his nice bremmilk fortunately the sun set as they reached the doorstep the bicycle disappeared and martha was seen to carry into the house the real live darling sleepy two year old lamb the grown up lamb nameless hence forth
was gone for ever for ever said cyril because as soon as ever the lamb's old enough to be bullied we must jolly well begin to bully him for his own sake so that he mayn't grow up like that you shan't bully him said anthea stoutly
not if i can stop it we must tame him by kindness said jane you see said robert if he grows up in the usual way
the awful thing to day was his growing up so suddenly there was no time to improve him at all he doesn't want any improving said anthea as the voice of the lamb came cooing through the open door just as she had heard it in her heart that afternoon
is tempted to review the region left behind him and if aught deserving notice have escaped regard or been regarded with too careless eye strives from that height
to make the best amends he may so have we lingered now we start afresh with courage and new hope risen on our toil fair greetings to this shapeless eagerness whene'er it comes
by literature or elegance or rank distinguished scarcely was a year thus spent
the crowded solitude with less regret
than for the humble book stalls in the streets exposed to eye and hand where'er i turned france lured me forth
relinquishing the scrip and staff and all enjoyment which the summer sun sheds round the steps of those who meet the day with motion constant as his own i went prepared
through paris lay my readiest course and there sojourning a few days i visited in haste each spot of old or recent fame the latter chiefly
and from mont martyr southward to the dome of
i stared and listened with a stranger's ears to hawkers and haranguers hubbub wild and hissing factionists with ardent eyes in knots or pairs or single
where silent zephyrs sported with the dust of the bastille i sate in the open sun and from the rubbish gathered up a stone
recompense the traveller's pains less than the
there by novelties in speech domestic manners customs gestures looks and all the attire of ordinary life attention was engrossed
mid those concussions unconcerned tranquil almost and careless as a flower glassed in a green house or a parlour shrub that spreads its leaves in unmolested peace
indifference this which may seem strange but i was unprepared with needful knowledge had abruptly passed into a theatre
i had skimmed and sometimes read with care the master pamphlets of the day nor wanted such half insight as grew wild upon that meagre soil helped out by talk and public news
that might suffice to show whence the main organs of the public power had sprung their transmigrations when and how accomplished giving thus unto events a form and body
and the affections left without a vital interest at that time moreover the first storm was overblown and the strong hand of outward violence locked up in quiet
with so great a theme to speak as i must be compelled to do of one so unimportant night by night did i frequent the formal haunts of men whom in the city
societies polished in arts and in punctilio versed whence and from deeper causes all discourse of good and evil
seasoned in the wars and all were men well born the chivalry of france in age and temper differing
was the state of things meanwhile the chief of my associates stood prepared for flight
of nations and their passing interests if with unworldly ends and aims compared almost indifferent even the historian's tale
as it made the heart beat high and filled the fancy with fair forms old heroes and their sufferings and their deeds yet in the regal sceptre and the pomp of orders and degrees
than any other nook of english ground
to sanction the proud workings of the soul and mountain liberty it could not be but that one tutored thus should look with awe upon the faculties of man
and hail as best the government of equal rights and
confusion stricken by a higher power than human understanding
do tears start into mine eyes i do not say i weep i wept not then but tears have dimmed my sight
female fortitude at dearest separation patriot love and self devotion and terrestrial hope
and they seemed arguments sent from heaven to prove the cause good pure
when foot hath crushed them he through the events of that great change wandered in perfect faith
like that which he a soldier in his idler day had paid to woman
while he was intent on works of love or freedom or revolved complacently the progress of a cause whereof he was a part yet this was meek and placid
oft in solitude with him did i discourse about the end of civil government and its wisest forms
by objects over near not pressed upon
capable of clear truth the one to break bondage the other to build liberty on firm foundations
if nature then be standing on the brink of some great trial and we hear the voice of one devoted
his deep sense in action give it outwardly a shape and that of benediction to the world then doubt is not and truth is more than truth a hope it is and a desire
by an authority divine sanctioned of danger difficulty or death such conversation under attic shades did dion hold with plato o ripened thus for a deliverer's glorious task
when those two vessels with their daring freight
accoutred for the worst he perished fighting in supreme command upon the borders of the unhappy loire
oft amid those haunts from earnest dialogues i slipped in thought and let remembrance steal to other times
or a waveless sea some hermit from his cell forth strayed might pace in sylvan meditation undisturbed as on the pavement of a gothic church
the din of boisterous merriment and music's roar in sudden proclamation burst from haunt of satyrs in some viewless glade
by a brook side we came a roofless pile and not by reverential touch of time dismantled but by violence abrupt in spite of those
of hospitality and peaceful rest and when the partner of those varied walks
and of that barren pride in them who by immunities unjust
laid stronger hold daily upon me mixed with pity too and love for where hope is there love will be for the abject multitude and when we chanced
and at the sight my friend in agitation said tis against that that we are fighting
as sum and crown of all
whence better days to all mankind but these things set apart was not this single confidence enough to animate the mind that ever turned a thought to human welfare that henceforth
and open accusation lead to sentence in the hearing of the world and open punishment if not the air be free to breathe in
as a deadly mischief and a foul and black dishonour france was weary of oh happy time of youthful lovers thus the story might begin
how between heart and heart oppression thrust her mandates
which through france full speedily resounded public hope or personal memory of his own worst wrongs rouse him but hidden in those gloomy shades his days he wasted
the man was a right good man and he had a goodly share of this world's goods he had a wife but no family what did malcolm hear but that a soothsayer had come home to the place and as the man was a right good man he wished that the soothsayer might come near them
whether it was that he was invited or that he came of himself the soothsayer came to the house of malcolm are you doing any soothsaying says malcolm
well i do not mind taking soothsaying from you if you had soothsaying for me and you would be willing to do it well i will do soothsaying for you what kind of soothsaying do you want
well i am going out and when i return i will tell you
well said the soothsayer
that it is on account of a daughter of yours that the greatest amount of blood shall be shed that has ever been shed in erin since time and race began and the three most famous heroes that ever were found will lose their heads on her account
after a time a daughter was born to malcolm he did not allow a living being to come to his house only himself and the nurse he asked this woman will you yourself bring up the child to keep her in hiding
far away where eye will not see a sight of her nor ear hear a word about her the woman said she would so malcolm got three men and he took them away to a large mountain distant and far from reach without the knowledge or notice of any one
he caused there a hillock round and green to be dug out of the middle and the hole thus made to be covered carefully over so that a little company could dwell there together this was done deirdre and her foster mother dwelt in the bothy
mid the hills without the knowledge or the suspicion of any living person about them and without anything occurring until deirdre was sixteen years of age deirdre grew like the white sapling straight and trim as the rash on the moss
she was the creature of fairest form of loveliest aspect and of gentlest nature that existed between earth and heaven in all ireland whatever colour of hue she had before there was nobody that looked into her face
but she would blush fiery red over it the woman that had charge of her gave deirdre every information and skill of which she herself had knowledge and skill there was not a blade of grass growing from root nor a bird singing
in the wood nor a star shining from heaven but deirdre had a name for it but one thing she did not wish her to have either part or parley with any single living man of the rest of the world but on a gloomy winter night
with black scowling clouds a hunter of game was wearily travelling the hills and what happened but that he missed the trail of the hunt and lost his course and companions a drowsiness came upon the man as he wearily wandered over the hills
where deirdre was a troubled dream came to the man and he thought that he enjoyed the warmth of a fairy broch the fairies being inside playing music the hunter shouted out in his dream if there was any one in the broch to let him in for the holy one's sake
the bird asked to get inside for the sake of the god of the elements and you yourself tell me that anything that is asked in his name we ought to do if you will not allow the bird that is being benumbed with cold and done to death with hunger to be let in
i do not think much of your language or your faith but since i give credence to your language and to your faith which you taught me i will myself let in the bird and deirdre arose and drew the bolt from the leaf of the door and she let in the hunter
she placed a seat in the place for sitting food in the place for eating and drink in the place for drinking for the man who came to the house
you man that came in keep restraint on your tongue said the old woman it is not a great thing for you to keep your mouth shut and your tongue quiet when you get a home and shelter of a hearth on a gloomy winter's night well said the hunter i may do that
you have here hid away they would not long leave her with you i swear what men are these you refer to said deirdre well i will tell you young woman said the hunter
and allen and arden his two brothers what like are these men when seen if we were to see them said deirdre why the aspect and form of the men when seen are these said the hunter
over the rest of the people of erin however they are said the nurse be you off from here and take another road and king of light and sun in good sooth and certainty little are my thanks for yourself or for her that let you in
the hunter went away
he get directions from me as to where she is dwelling and will you direct me to where she dwells and the reward of your directing me will be as good as the reward of your message said the king well i will direct you o king
although it is likely that this will not be what they want said the hunter connachar king of ulster sent for his nearest kinsmen and he told them of his intent though early rose the song of the birds mid the rocky caves and the music of the birds in the grove
earlier than that did connachar king of ulster arise with his little troop of dear friends in the delightful twilight of the fresh and gentle may the dew was heavy on each bush and flower and stem as they went
to bring deirdre forth from the green knoll where she stayed many a youth was there who had a lithe leaping and lissom step when they started whose step was faint failing and faltering when they reached the bothy on account of
the length of the way and roughness of the road yonder now down in the bottom of the glen is the bothy where the woman dwells but i will not go nearer than this to the old woman said the hunter connachar with his band of kinsfolk
went down to the green knoll where deirdre dwelt and he knocked at the door of the bothy the nurse replied no less than a king's command and a king's army could put me out of my bothy to night and i should be obliged to you were you to tell who it is
and merry modest maidens fair that would lie down and rise with her that would play and speak with her deirdre was clever in maidenly duties and wifely understanding and connachar thought he never saw with bodily eye a creature that pleased him more
deirdre and her women companions were one day out on the hillock behind the house enjoying the scene and drinking in the sun's heat what did they see coming but three men a journeying deirdre was looking at the men that were coming and wondering at them
when the men neared them deirdre remembered the language of the huntsman and she said to herself
he having what was above the bend of the two shoulders above the men of erin all the three brothers went past without taking any notice of them without even glancing at the young girls on the hillock what happened but
of deirdre so that she could not but follow after him
went after the men that went past the base of the knoll leaving her women attendants there allen and arden had heard of the woman that connachar king of ulster had with him and they thought
they did so she cried
what piercing shrill cry is that the most melodious my ear ever heard and the shrillest that ever struck my heart of all the cries i ever heard it isn't anything else
but the wail of the wave swans of connachar said his brothers no
and a kiss each to his brothers with the confusion that she was in deirdre went into a crimson blaze of fire and her colour came and went as rapidly as the movement of the aspen by the stream side
that he never gave to thing to vision or to creature but to herself
and told his brothers to keep up their pace and they kept up their pace
that it would not be well for him to remain in erin on account of the way in which connachar king of ulster his uncle's son had gone against him because of the woman though he had not married her and he turned back to alba that is scotland
he reached the side of loch ness and made his habitation there he could kill the salmon of the torrent from out his own door and the deer of the grey gorge from out his window
and they were happy so long a time as they were there by this time the end of the period came at which deirdre had to marry connachar king of ulster connachar made up his mind to take deirdre
a great and gleeful feast he sent word far and wide through erin to all his kinspeople to come to the feast
and connachar said to ferchar
that i am setting forth a great and gleeful feast to my friends and kinspeople
and asked of him the news of erin the best news that i have for you said the hardy hero is that connachar king of ulster is setting forth a great sumptuous feast to his friends and kinspeople throughout the wide extent of erin all and he has vowed by the earth beneath him
by the high heaven above him and by the sun that wends to the west that he will have no rest by day nor sleep by night
the sons of his own father's brother will not come back to the land of their home and the soil of their nativity and to the feast likewise and he has sent us on embassy to invite you
we will said his brothers but deirdre did not wish to go with ferchar mac ro and she tried
and do you interpret it to me said deirdre then she sang
hear what was shown in a dream to me i saw three grey hawks out of the south come flying over the sea and the red drops they bare in their mouth they were dearer than life to me
the day that connachar sent the invitation to his feast will be unlucky for us if we don't go o deirdre you will go there said ferchar mac ro and if connachar show kindness to you show ye kindness to him
and if he will display wrath towards you display ye wrath towards him
will be with you we will said daring drop we will said hardy holly we will said fiallan the fair i have three sons
on live body in erin despite sword or helmet spear or shield blade or mail be they ever so good deirdre was unwilling to leave alba
despite the suspicion of deirdre the coracle was put to sea the sail was hoisted to it and the second morrow they arrived on the white shores of erin
landed in erin ferchar mac ro sent word to connachar king of ulster that the men whom he wanted were come and let him now show kindness to them well said connachar
and i am not quite ready to receive them but there is a house down yonder where i keep strangers and let them go down to it to day and my house will be ready before them to morrow but he that was up in the palace felt it long
that he was not getting word as to how matters were going on for those down in the house of the strangers go you gelban grednach son of lochlin's king go you down and bring me information as to whether her former hue and complexion are on deirdre
said connachar gelban the cheering and charming son of lochlin's king
he looked in through the bicker hole on the door leaf now she that he gazed upon used to go into a crimson blaze of blushes when any one looked at her
and knew that some one was looking at her from the back of the door leaf he seized one of the dice on the table before him and fired it through the bicker hole and knocked the eye out of gelban grednach the cheerful and charming right through the back of his head
and while i was looking at her through the bicker hole on the door
knocked out my eye with one of the dice in his hand but of a truth and verity although he put out even my eye it were my desire still to remain looking at her with the other eye were it not for the hurry you told me to be in said gelban
that is true said connachar let three hundred brave heroes go down to the abode of the strangers and let them bring hither to me deirdre and kill the rest connachar ordered three hundred active heroes
to go down to the abode of the strangers and to take deirdre up with them and kill the rest the pursuit is coming said deirdre yes
it is not you but we that will go said daring drop and hardy holly and fiallan the fair it is to us that our father entrusted your defence from harm and danger when he himself left for home and the gallant youths
full noble full manly full handsome with beauteous brown locks went forth girt with battle arms fit for fierce fight and clothed with combat dress for fierce contest fit which was burnished bright brilliant bladed
blazing on which were many pictures of beasts and birds and creeping things lions and lithe limbed tigers brown eagle and harrying hawk and adder fierce and the young heroes laid low three thirds of the company
connachar came out in haste and cried with wrath who is there on the floor of fight slaughtering my men we the three sons of ferchar mac ro well said the king
a free bridge to your father and a free bridge each to you three brothers if you come over to my side to night well connachar we will not accept that offer from you nor thank you for it greater by far do we prefer
to go home to our father and tell the deeds of heroism we have done than accept anything on these terms from you
though you are so keen to shed their blood and you would shed our blood also connachar and the noble manly handsome youths with beauteous brown locks returned inside we are now said they going home to tell our father that you are now safe
from the hands of the king and the youths all fresh and tall and lithe and beautiful
they must go away leave that house and return to alba
started to return to alba word came to the king that the company he was in pursuit of were gone the king then sent for duanan gacha druid
much wealth have i expended on you
to give schooling and learning and magic mystery to you i'll hold you to account if these people get away from me to day without care without consideration or regard for me without chance of overtaking them and without power to stop them
marched through the wood without halt or hesitation
what is the good of that that will not do yet said connachar they are off without bending of their feet or stopping of their step without heed or respect to me
or opportunity to turn them back this night i will try another plan on them said the druid and he placed before them a grey sea instead of a green plain the three heroes stripped and tied their clothes behind their heads
it will not make the heroes return said connachar they are gone without regard for me and without honor to me and without power on my part to pursue them
into hard rocky knobs the sharpness of sword being on the one edge and the poison power of adders on the other then arden cried that he was getting tired and nearly giving over
arden was not long in this posture when he died but though he was dead
allen then cried out that he was getting faint and well nigh giving up
he gave forth the piercing sigh of death
and i have done what you desired me
blessings for that upon you and may the good results accrue to me duanan i count it no loss what i spent in the schooling and teaching of you now dry up the flood and let me see if i can behold deirdre said connachar
dried up the flood from the plain and the three sons of uisnech were lying together dead without breath of life side by side on the green meadow plain and deirdre bending above showering down her tears
then deirdre said this lament fair one loved one flower of beauty beloved upright and strong beloved noble and modest warrior fair one blue eyed beloved of thy wife
lovely to me at the trysting place came thy clear voice through the woods of ireland i cannot eat or smile henceforth break not to day my heart soon enough shall i lie within my grave strong are the waves of sorrow
but stronger is sorrow's self connachar the people then gathered round the heroes bodies and asked connachar what was to be done with the bodies the order that he gave was that they should dig a pit and put the three brothers in it side by side
deirdre kept sitting on the brink of the grave constantly asking the gravediggers to dig the pit wide and free when the bodies of the brothers were put in the grave deirdre said
let arden close to allen lie if the dead had any sense to feel ye would have made a place for deirdre the men did as she told them
and the two shoots united in a knot above the loch the king ordered the shoots to be cut down and this was done twice until at the third time the wife whom the king had married caused him to stop this work of evil
rolling down its channel a huge rock tumbling from the hill side and falling in mid stream the baffled waters broken and confused pausing in their flow dash high against the rock foaming and murmuring
with divided impulse uncertain whether to turn to the right or the left even so winfried's bold deed fell into the midst of the thoughts and passions of the council they were at a standstill
anger and wonder reverence and joy and confusion surged through the crowd they knew not which way to move to resent the intrusion of the stranger as an insult to their gods or to welcome him
the old priest crouched by the altar silent conflicting counsels troubled the air let the sacrifice go forward the gods must be appeased nay the boy must not die
bring the chieftain's best horse and slay it in his stead it will be enough the holy tree loves the blood of horses not so there is a better counsel yet seize the stranger whom the gods have led hither
as a victim and make his life pay the forfeit of his daring the withered leaves on the oak rustled and whispered overhead
and let the stranger speak his words shall give us judgment whether he is to live or to die winfried lifted himself high upon the altar drew a roll of parchment from his bosom and began to read
trinitatis amen a murmur of awe ran through the crowd it is the sacred tongue of the romans the tongue that is heard and understood by the wise men of every land there is magic in it listen
and appointed him your bishop that he may teach you the only true faith and baptize you and lead you back from the ways of error to the path of salvation hearken to him in all things like a father
offer no more bloody sacrifices nor eat the flesh of horses but do as our brother boniface commands you build a house for him that he may dwell among you and a church where you may offer your prayers
to the only living god the almighty king of heaven it was a splendid message proud strong peaceful loving the dignity of the words imposed mightily upon the hearts of the people
they were quieted as men who have listened to a lofty strain of music tell us then said gundhar what is the word that thou bringest to us from the almighty what is thy counsel for the tribes of the woodland
this is the word and this is the counsel answered winfried not a drop of blood shall fall to night save that which pity has drawn from the breast of your princess in
love for her child not a life shall be blotted out in the darkness tonight
shall be swept away for this is the birth night of the white christ son of the all father
fairer is he than baldur the beautiful greater than odin the wise kinder than freya the good since he has come to earth the bloody sacrifices must cease the dark thor
on whom you vainly call is dead deep in the shades of niffelheim
the people stirred uneasily women covered their eyes hunrad lifted his head and muttered hoarsely
winfried beckoned to gregor bring the axes thine and one for me now young woodsman show thy craft the king tree of the forest must fall and swiftly or all is lost
firmly they grasped the axe helves and swung the shining blades tree god cried winfried art thou angry thus we smite thee tree god answered gregor
art thou mighty thus we fight thee clang clang the alternate strokes beat time upon the hard ringing wood the axe heads glittered in their rhythmic flight like fierce eagles
circling about their quarry the broad flakes of wood flew from the deepening gashes in the sides of the oak
there was a shuddering in the branches then the great wonder of winfried's life came to pass
a mighty rushing noise sounded overhead was it the ancient gods on their white battle steeds with their black hounds of wrath and their arrows of lightning sweeping through the air to destroy their foes
a strong whirling wind passed over the tree tops it gripped the oak by its branches and tore it from its roots backward it fell
winfried let his axe drop and bowed his head for a moment in the presence of almighty power then he turned to the people here is the timber he cried already felled and split for your new building
as his eyes fell on a young fir tree standing straight and green with its top pointing towards the stars amid the divided ruins of the fallen oak here is the living tree with no stain of blood upon it that shall be the sign of your new worship
let us call it the tree of the christ child
when there shall not be a home in all germany where the children are not gathered around the green fir tree to rejoice in the birth night of christ so they took the little fir from its place and carried it in joyous procession
to the edge of the glade and laid it on the sledge the horses tossed their heads and drew their load bravely as if the new burden had made it lighter when they came to the house of gundhar
they kindled lights among the branches until it seemed to be tangled full of fire flies the children encircled it wondering and
then winfried stood beside the chair of gundhar on the dais at the end of the hall and told the story of bethlehem
dear be still and listen the boy obeyed his eyes were heavy with sleep but he heard the last words of winfried as he spoke of the angelic messengers flying over the hills of judea
suddenly his face grew bright he put his lips close to irma's cheek again oh mother he whispered very low do not speak do you hear them those angels have come back again
they are singing now behind the tree and some say that it was true but others say that it was only gregor and his companions at the lower end of the hall chanting their christmas hymn
so dear so dear crooned the cardinal she had taken possession of the sumac the location was her selection and he loudly applauded her choice she placed the first twig and after examining it carefully
he peeled grape vines until she would have no more it never occurred to him
she was not a skilled architect
but she had built it and had allowed him to help her it was hers and he improvised a paean in its praise every morning he perched on the edge of the nest and gazed in songless wonder at each
beautiful new egg and whenever she came to brood she sat as if entranced eyeing her treasures in an ecstasy of proud possession then she nestled them against her warm breast
and turned adoring eyes toward the cardinal if he sang from the dogwood she faced that way if he rocked on the wild grape vine she turned in her nest if he went to the corn field for grubs
shy and timid beyond belief she had been during her courtship but she made reparation by being an
it was not enough that he brooded while she went to bathe and exercise the daintiest of every morsel he found was carried to her when she refused to swallow another particle he perched on a twig close by the nest
many times in a day and with sleek feathers and lowered crest gazed at her in silent worshipful adoration up and down the river bank he flamed and rioted
in the sumac he uttered not the faintest chip that might attract attention he was so anxious to be inconspicuous that he appeared only half his real size
always on leaving he gave her a tender little peck and ran his beak the length of her wing a characteristic caress that he delighted to bestow on her if he felt that he was disturbing her too often
he was improvising cradle songs and lullabies he was telling her how he loved her how he would fight for her how he was watching over her how he would signal if any danger were approaching how proud he was of her
how beautiful he thought her eggs what magnificent babies they would produce full of tenderness melting with love liquid with sweetness the cardinal sang to his patient
little brooding mate so dear so dear the farmer leaned on his corn planter and listened to him intently
if i can tell what he's saying every time the cardinal lifted his voice the clip of the corn planter ceased
one night he said to his wife maria have you been noticin the redbird of late he's changed to a new tune an this time i'm completely stalled
s'pose you step down to morrow an see if you can catch it for me i'd give a pretty to know maria felt flattered she always had believed that she had a musical ear
she hastened her work the following morning and very early slipped along the line fence hiding behind the oak with straining ear and throbbing heart she eagerly listened clip clip
and flying to the dogwood sang of the love that encompassed him as he trilled forth his tender caressing strain the heart of the listening woman translated as did that of the brooding bird
with shining eyes and flushed cheeks she sped down the fence
panting and palpitating with excitement she met abram half way on his return trip forgetful of her habitual reserve she threw her arms around his neck and drawing his face to hers
my own to me so dear so dear so dear so dear echoed the cardinal the bewilderment in abram's face melted into comprehension he swept maria
from her feet as he lifted his head on my soul you have got it honey that's what he's saying plain as gospel i can tell it plainer'n anything he's sung yet now i sense it
he gathered maria in his arms pressed her head against his breast with a trembling old hand while the face he turned to the morning was beautiful i wish to god he said quaveringly
across the corn field came the notes of the cardinal so dear so dear after that abram's devotion to his bird family became a mild mania
he carried food to the top rail of the line fence every day rain or shine with the same regularity that he curried and fed nancy in the barn from caring for and so loving the cardinal
for there was a chippy brooding in the opening where it fitted when closed alders and sweetbriers grew in his fence corners undisturbed that spring if he discovered that they sheltered an anxious eyed little mother
he left a square yard of clover unmowed because it seemed to him that the lark singing nearer the throne than any other bird was picking up stray notes dropped by the invisible choir
when he found it housed a pair of fine thrushes for the song of the thrush delighted him almost as much as that of the lark he left a hollow limb on the old red pearmain apple tree because when he came
to cut it there was a pair of bluebirds twittering around frantic with anxiety his pockets were bulgy with wheat and crumbs and his heart was big with happiness
the earth so beautiful the cardinal had opened the fountains of his soul
while every work of god manifested a fresh and heretofore unappreciated loveliness his very muscles seemed to relax and new strength arose to meet the demands of his uplifted spirit
he had not finished his day's work with such ease and pleasure in years
in maria she was flitting around her house with broken snatches of song even sweeter to abram's ears than the notes of the birds and in recent days he had noticed that she dressed particularly for her afternoon's sewing
a white apron he immediately went to town and bought her a finer collar
an them town creatures who call themselves sportsmen an kill a hummin' bird to see if they can hit it
any amount o rabbits an the fish fairly crowdin in the river i used to kill all the quail an wild turkeys about here a body needed to make an appetizing change it was always my plan to take a little
most out of my senses an as for the birds there are jest about a fourth what there used to be an the crops eaten to pay for it
for any bird because of its song an colour an pretty teeterin ways
up go these signs an it won't be a happy day for anybody i catch trespassin on my birds maria studied the signs meditatively
you shouldn't be forced to put em up she said conclusively if it's been decided
an laws made to protect em people ought to act with some sense an leave them alone i never was so int'rested in the birds in all my life an i'll jest do a little lookin out myself
he could hear the sharp incisive chip and the tender mellow love notes as he left the barn and all the way to the sumac they rang in his ears the cardinal met him
he made a light supper himself and then swinging on the grape vine he closed the day with an hour of music he repeatedly turned a bright questioning eye
he told her repeatedly with every tender inflection he could throw into his tones that she was
dear so dear the cardinal had not known that the coming of the mate he so coveted would fill his life with such unceasing gladness and yet
there was trouble in the sumac he had overstayed his time chasing a fat moth he particularly wanted for his mate and she growing thirsty past endurance left the nest and went to the river seeing her there
he made all possible haste to take his turn at brooding so he arrived just in time to see a pilfering red squirrel starting away with an egg with a vicious scream the cardinal struck him full force his rush
of rage cost the squirrel an eye but it lost the father a birdling for the squirrel dropped the egg outside the nest the cardinal mournfully carried away the tell tale bits of shell so that any one seeing them
would not look up and discover his treasures
torn and faded banners of the departed summer the bright crimson of autumn had long since disappeared bleached away by the storms and the cold but to night these tattered remnants of glory were red again
ancient bloodstains against the dark blue sky for an immense fire had been kindled in front of the tree tongues of ruddy flame fountains of ruby sparks ascended through the
not a beam of it sifted down ward through the branches of the oak it stood like a pillar of cloud between the still light of heaven and the crackling flashing fire of earth but the fire itself was invisible to winfried and his companions
their backs to the open glade their faces towards the oak seen against that glowing background it was but the silhouette of a crowd vague black formless mysterious
the travellers paused for a moment at the edge of the thicket and took counsel together it is the assembly of the tribe said one of the foresters the great night of the council i heard of it
all who swear by the old gods have been summoned they will sacrifice a steed to the god of war and drink blood and eat horse flesh to make them strong it will be at the peril of our lives if we approach them
at least we must hide the cross if we would escape death hide me no cross cried winfried lifting his staff for i have come to show it and to make these blind folk see its power
at his command the sledge was left in the border of the wood
a stranger claims the warmth of your fire in the winter night
they saw that the hue of the assemblage was not black but white dazzling radiant solemn white the robes of the women clustered together at the points of the wide crescent
white with awe and fear the faces of all who looked at them and over all the flickering dancing radiance of the flames played and glimmered like a faint vanishing tinge of blood on snow
who stood with his back to the fire and advanced slowly to meet the strangers who are you whence come you and what seek you here his voice was heavy and toneless as a muffled bell
and from england beyond the sea
of sacrifice and mighty fear this night the great thor the god of thunder and war
long since the roots of his holy tree have been fed with blood therefore its leaves have withered before the time and its boughs are heavy with death therefore the slavs and the wends have beaten us in battle therefore
the harvests have failed and the wolf hordes have ravaged the folds and the strength has departed from the bow and the wood of the spear has broken and the wild boar has slain the huntsman
o thor the thunderer
heave not thy hammer angry against us plague not thy people take from our treasure richest of ransom silver we send thee jewels and javelins goodliest garments
all our possessions priceless we proffer sheep will we slaughter steeds will we sacrifice bright blood shall bathe thee o tree of thunder
strong wood of wonder mighty have mercy smite us no more spare us and save us spare us thor thor with two great shouts the song ended
and a stillness followed so intense that the crackling of the fire was heard distinctly the old priest stood silent for a moment his shaggy brows swept down over his eyes like ashes quenching flame
then he lifted his face and spoke none of these things will please the god more costly is the offering that shall cleanse your sin more precious the crimson dew that shall send
new life into this holy tree of blood thor claims your dearest and your noblest gift
and the swarms of spark serpents darting upward they had heeded none of the priest's words and did not notice now that he approached them so eager were they to see which fiery snake
would go highest among the oak branches foremost among them and most intent on the pretty game was a boy like a sunbeam slender and quick with blithe brown eyes and laughing lips the priest's hand
here is the chosen one the eldest son of the chief the darling of the people hearken bernhard wilt thou go to valhalla where the heroes dwell with the gods to bear a message to thor
the boy answered swift and clear yes priest i will go if my father bids me is it far away shall i run quickly must i take my bow and arrows for the wolves
the boy's father the chieftain gundhar standing among his bearded warriors drew his breath deep and leaned so heavily on the handle of his spear that the wood cracked and his wife irma bending forward
from the ranks of women pushed the golden hair from her forehead with one hand the other dragged at the silver chain about her neck until the rough links pierced her flesh and the red drops
fell unheeded on the snow of her breast a sigh passed through the crowd like the murmur of the forest before the storm breaks yet no one spoke save hunrad yes my prince both bow and spear
shalt thou have for the way is long and thou art a brave huntsman but in darkness thou must journey for a little space and with eyes blindfolded fearest thou naught fear i said the boy
neither darkness nor the great bear nor the were wolf for i am gundhar's son and the defender of my folk then the priest led the child
unconsciously the wide arc
drew inward toward the centre as the ends of the bow draw together when the cord is stretched winfried moved noiselessly until he stood close behind the priest the old man stooped
to lift a black hammer of stone from the ground the sacred hammer of the god thor summoning all the strength of his withered arms he swung it high in the air it poised for an instant above the child's fair head
then turned to fall one keen cry shrilled out from where the women stood
sideways it glanced from the old man's grasp and the black stone striking on the altar's edge split in twain a shout of awe and joy rolled along the living circle
the branches of the oak shivered the flames leaped higher as the shout died away the people saw the lady irma with her arms clasped round her child
like a servant of the lord with his bible and his sword our general rode along us to form us for the fight macaulay
the civil war has left as all wars of brother against brother must leave terrible and heartrending memories
but there remains as an offset the glory which has accrued to the nation by the countless deeds of heroism performed by both sides in the struggle the captains and the armies that after long years of dreary campaigning and bloody stubborn fighting
brought the war to a close have left us more than a reunited realm north and south all americans now have a common fund of glorious memories we are the richer for each grim campaign for each hard fought battle
we are the richer for valor displayed alike by those who fought so valiantly for the right and by those who no less valiantly fought for what they deemed the right we have in us nobler capacities for what is great and good
because of the infinite woe and suffering and because of the splendid ultimate triumph we hold that it was vital to the welfare not only of our people on this continent but of the whole human race
that the union should be preserved and slavery abolished that one flag should fly from the great lakes to the rio grande that we should all be free in fact as well as in name and that the united states should stand as one nation
the greatest nation on the earth but we recognize gladly that south as well as north when the fight was once on the leaders of the armies and the soldiers whom they led displayed the same qualities of daring and steadfast courage
of disinterested loyalty and enthusiasm and of high devotion to an ideal the greatest general of the south was lee and his greatest lieutenant was jackson both were virginians and both were strongly opposed to disunion
lee went so far as to deny the right of secession while jackson insisted that the south ought to try to get its rights inside the union and not outside but when virginia joined the southern confederacy and the war had actually begun
both men cast their lot with the south it is often said that the civil war was in one sense a repetition of the old struggle between the puritan and the cavalier but puritan and cavalier types were common to the two armies
in dash and light hearted daring custer and kearney stood as conspicuous as stuart and morgan and on the other hand no northern general approached the roundhead type the type of the stern religious warriors who fought under cromwell
so closely as stonewall jackson he was a man of intense religious conviction who carried into every thought and deed of his daily life the precepts of the faith he cherished he was a tender and loving husband and father
yet in the times that tried men's souls he proved not only a commander of genius but a fighter of iron will and temper who joyed in the battle and always showed at his best when the danger was greatest
the vein of fanaticism that ran through his character helped to render him a terrible opponent he knew no such word as falter and when he had once put his hand to a piece of work he did it thoroughly and with all his heart
it was quite in keeping with his character that this gentle high minded and religious man should early in the contest have proposed to hoist the black flag neither take nor give quarter and make the war one of extermination
no such policy was practical in the nineteenth century and in the american republic but it would have seemed quite natural and proper to jackson's ancestors the grim scotch irish who defended londonderry against the forces of the stuart king
or to their forefathers the covenanters of scotland
from that time until his death less than two years afterward his career was one of brilliant and almost uninterrupted success whether serving with an independent command in the valley
or acting under lee as his right arm in the pitched battles with mc clellan pope and burnside few generals as great as lee have ever had as great a lieutenant as jackson he was a master of strategy and tactics
fearless of responsibility able to instil into his men his own intense ardor in battle and so quick in his movements so ready to march as well as fight that his troops were known to the rest of the army as the foot cavalry
in the spring of eighteen sixty three hooker had command of the army of the potomac like mc clellan he was able to perfect the discipline of his forces and to organize them and as a division commander he was better than mc clellan
but he failed even more signally when given a great independent command he had under him one hundred twenty thousand men when toward the end of april he prepared to attack lee's army which was but half as strong
the union army lay opposite fredericksburg looking at the fortified heights where they had received so bloody a repulse at the beginning of the winter
hooker decided to distract the attention of the confederates by letting a small portion of his force under general sedgwick attack fredericksburg while he himself took the bulk of the army across the river to the right hand
so as to crush lee by an assault on his flank all went well at the beginning and on the first of may hooker found himself at chancellorsville face to face with the bulk of lee's forces and sedgwick crossing the river and charging with the utmost determination
had driven out of fredericksburg the confederate division of early but when hooker found himself in front of lee he hesitated faltered instead of pushing on and allowed the consummate general to whom he was opposed to take the initiative
lee fully realized his danger and saw that his only chance was first to beat back hooker and then to turn and overwhelm sedgwick who was in his rear
he consulted with jackson and jackson begged to be allowed to make one of his favorite flank attacks upon the union army attacks which could have been successfully delivered only by a skilled and resolute general and by troops equally able to march and to fight
lee consented and jackson at once made off the country was thickly covered with a forest of rather small growth for it was a wild region in which there was still plenty of game
shielded by the forest jackson marched his gray columns rapidly to the left along the narrow country roads until he was square on the flank of the union right wing which was held by the eleventh corps under howard
the union scouts got track of the movement and reported it at headquarters but the union generals thought the confederates were retreating and when finally the scouts brought word to howard that he was menaced by a flank attack he paid no heed to the information
and actually let his whole corps be surprised in broad daylight yet all the while the battle was going on elsewhere and berdan's sharpshooters had surrounded and captured a georgia regiment
from which information was received showing definitely that jackson was not retreating and must be preparing to strike a heavy blow the eleventh corps had not the slightest idea that it was about to be assailed
the men were not even in line many of them had stacked their muskets and were lounging about some playing cards others cooking supper intermingled with the pack mules and beef cattle
while they were thus utterly unprepared jackson's gray clad veterans pushed straight through the forest and rushed fiercely to the attack the first notice the troops of the eleventh corps received did not come from the pickets but from the deer rabbits and foxes which
fleeing from their coverts at the approach of the confederates suddenly came running over and into the union lines in another minute the frightened pickets came tumbling back and right behind them came the long files of charging yelling confederates
with one fierce rush jackson's men swept over the union lines and at a blow the eleventh corps became a horde of panicstruck fugitives some of the regiments resisted for a few moments and then they too were carried away in the flight
for a while it seemed as if the whole army would be swept off but hooker and his subordinates exerted every effort to restore order it was imperative to gain time so that the untouched portions of the army could form across the line of the confederate advance
keenan's regiment of pennsylvania cavalry but four hundred sabers strong was accordingly sent full against the front of the ten thousand victorious confederates keenan himself fell pierced by bayonets
and the charge was repulsed at once but a few priceless moments had been saved and pleasanton had been given time to post twenty two guns loaded with double canister where they would bear upon the enemy
the confederates advanced in a dense mass yelling and cheering and the discharge of the guns fairly blew them back across the work's they had just taken
again they charged and again were driven back and when the battle once more began the union reinforcements had arrived it was about this time that jackson himself was mortally wounded he had been leading and urging on the advance of his men
cheering them with voice and gesture his pale face flushed with joy and excitement while from time to time as he sat on his horse he took off his hat and looking upward thanked heaven for the victory it had vouchsafed him
as darkness drew near he was in the front where friend and foe were mingled in almost inextricable confusion he and his staff were fired at at close range by the union troops and as they turned were fired at again
through a mistake by the confederates behind them jackson fell struck in several places he was put in a litter and carried back but he never lost consciousness and when one of his generals complained of the terrible effect of the union cannonade
he answered you must hold your ground for several days he lingered hearing how lee beat hooker in detail and forced him back across the river then the old puritan died at the end his mind wandered
and he thought he was again commanding in battle and his last words were let us cross over the river and rest in the shade
what flag is this you carry along the sea and shore the same our grandsires lifted up the same our fathers bore in many a battle's tempest it shed the crimson rain
what god has woven in his loom let no man rend in twain to canaan to canaan the lord has led us forth to plant upon the rebel towers the banners of the north holmes
on january twenty ninth eighteen sixty three general grant took command of the army intended to operate against vicksburg the last place held by the rebels on the mississippi
and the only point at which they could cross the river and keep up communication with their armies and territory in the southwest it was the first high ground below memphis was very strongly fortified and was held by a large army under general pemberton
the complete possession of the mississippi was absolutely essential to the national government because the control of that great river would cut the confederacy in two and do more probably than anything else
to make the overthrow of the rebellion both speedy and certain the natural way to invest and capture so strong a place defended and fortified as vicksburg was would have been if the axioms of the art of war had been adhered to
by a system of gradual approaches a strong base should have been established at memphis and then the army and the fleet moved gradually forward building storehouses and taking strong positions as they went
to do this however it first would have been necessary to withdraw the army from the positions it then held not far above vicksburg on the western bank of the river but such a movement at that time would not have been understood by the country
and would have had a discouraging effect on the public mind which it was most essential to avoid the elections of eighteen sixty two had gone against the government and there was great discouragement throughout the north
voluntary enlistments had fallen off a draft had been ordered and the peace party was apparently gaining rapidly in strength general grant looking at this grave political situation with the eye of a statesman decided as a soldier
that under no circumstances would he withdraw the army but that whatever happened he would press forward to a decisive victory in this determination he never faltered but drove straight at his object until five months later
the great mississippi stronghold fell before him efforts were made through the winter to reach vicksburg from the north by cutting canals and by attempts to get in through the bayous and tributary streams of the great river
all these expedients failed however one after another as grant from the beginning had feared that they would he therefore took another and widely different line
and determined to cross the river from the western to the eastern bank below vicksburg to the south with the aid of the fleet which ran the batteries successfully he moved his army down the west bank until he reached a point beyond the possibility of attack
while a diversion by sherman at haines bluff above vicksburg kept pemberton in his fortifications on april twenty sixth grant began to move his men over the river and landed them at bruinsburg when this was effected he writes
i felt a degree of relief scarcely ever equaled since vicksburg was not yet taken it is true nor were its defenders demoralized by any of our previous movements i was now in the enemy's country
with a vast river and the stronghold of vicksburg between me and my base of supplies but i was on dry ground on the same side of the river with the enemy
the situation was this the enemy had about sixty thousand men at vicksburg haines bluff and at jackson mississippi about fifty miles east of vicksburg grant when he started had about thirty three thousand men
it was absolutely necessary for success that grant with inferior numbers should succeed in destroying the smaller forces to the eastward and thus prevent their union with pemberton and the main army at vicksburg his plan in brief
was to fight and defeat a superior enemy separately and in detail he lost no time in putting his plan into action and pressing forward quickly met a detachment of the enemy at port gibson and defeated them
thence he marched to grand gulf on the mississippi which he took and which he had planned to make a base of supply when he reached grand gulf however he found that he would be obliged to wait a month
in order to obtain the reinforcements which he expected from general banks at port hudson he therefore gave up the idea of making grand gulf a base and sherman having now joined him with his corps grant struck at once into the interior
he took nothing with him except ammunition and his army was in the lightest marching order this enabled him to move with great rapidity but deprived him of his wagon trains and of all munitions of war except cartridges
everything however in this campaign depended on quickness and grant's decision as well as all his movements marked the genius of the great soldier which consists very largely in knowing just when to abandon the accepted military axioms
pressing forward grant met the enemy numbering between seven and eight thousand at raymond and readily defeated them he then marched on toward jackson fighting another action at clinton
and at jackson he struck general joseph johnston who had arrived at that point to take command of all the rebel forces johnston had with him at the moment about eleven thousand men and stood his ground
there was a sharp fight but grant easily defeated the enemy and took possession of the town this was an important point for jackson was the capital of the state of mississippi and was a base of military supplies
grant destroyed the factories and the munitions of war which were gathered there and also came into possession of the line of railroad which ran from jackson to vicksburg while he was thus engaged
an intercepted message revealed to him the fact that pemberton in accordance with johnston's orders had come out of vicksburg with twenty five thousand men and was moving eastward against him pemberton however instead of holding a straight line against grant
turned at first to the south with the view of breaking the latter's line of communication this was not a success for as grant says with grim humor i had no line of communication to break
and moreover it delayed pemberton when delay was of value to grant in finishing johnston after this useless turn to the southward pemberton resumed his march to the east as he should have done in the beginning in accordance with johnston's orders
but grant was now more than ready he did not wait the coming of pemberton leaving jackson as soon as he heard of the enemy's advance from vicksburg he marched rapidly westward and struck pemberton at champion hills
the forces were at this time very nearly matched and the severest battle of the campaign ensued lasting four hours grant however defeated pemberton completely and came very near capturing his entire force
with a broken army pemberton fell back on vicksburg grant pursued without a moment's delay and came up with the rear guard at big black river a sharp engagement followed and the confederates were again defeated
grant then crossed the big black and the next day was before vicksburg with his enemy inside the works when grant crossed the mississippi at bruinsburg and struck into the interior he of course passed out of communication with washington
and he did not hear from there again until may eleventh when just as his troops were engaging in the battle of black river bridge an officer appeared from port hudson with an order from general halleck
to return to grand gulf and thence cooperate with banks against port hudson grant replied that the order came too late the bearer of the despatch insisted that i ought to obey the order and was giving arguments to support the position
when i heard a great cheering to the right of our line and looking in that direction saw lawler in his shirt sleeves leading a charge on the enemy i immediately mounted my horse and rode in the direction of the charge and saw no more of the officer who had delivered the message
i think not even to this day when grant reached vicksburg there was no further talk of recalling him to grand gulf or port hudson the authorities at washington then saw plainly enough what had been done in the interior of mississippi
far from the reach of telegraphs or mail as soon as the national troops reached vicksburg an assault was attempted but the place was too strong and the attack was repulsed with heavy loss grant then settled down to a siege
and lincoln and halleck now sent him ample reinforcements he no longer needed to ask for them his campaign had explained itself and in a short time he had seventy thousand men under his command
his lines were soon made so strong that it was impossible for the defenders of vicksburg to break through them and although johnston had gathered troops again to the eastward an assault from that quarter on the national army now so largely reinforced
was practically out of the question tighter and tighter grant drew his lines about the city where every day the suffering became more intense it is not necessary to give the details of the siege on july fourth eighteen sixty three
vicksburg surrendered the mississippi was in control of the national forces from its source to its mouth and the confederacy was rent in twain
and these two great victories really crushed the rebellion although much hard fighting remained to be done before the end was reached grant's campaign against vicksburg deserves to be compared with that of napoleon which resulted in the fall of ulm
it was the most brilliant single campaign of the war with an inferior force and abandoning his lines of communication moving with a marvelous rapidity through a difficult country grant struck the superior forces of the enemy on the line from jackson to vicksburg
the invitations are sent down the long avenue that led from the house to the great entrance gate came the little colonel on her pony it was a sweet white way that morning filled with the breath of the locusts
white overhead where the giant trees locked branches to make an arch of bloom nearly a quarter of a mile in length and white underneath where the fallen blossoms lay like scattered snowflakes along the path
everybody in lloydsboro valley knew locust it is one of the prettiest places in all kentucky they were fond of saying and every visitor to the valley was taken past the great entrance gate
to admire the long rows of stately old trees and the great stone house at the end whose pillars gleamed white through the virginia creeper that nearly covered it everybody knew old colonel lloyd too the owner of the place
he also was often pointed out to the summer visitors some people called attention to him because he was an old confederate soldier who had given his good right arm to the cause he loved some because they thought he resembled napoleon
and others because they had some amusing tale to tell of the eccentric things he had said or done nearly every one who pointed out the imposing figure which was clad always in white duck or linen in the summer and wrapped in a picturesque military cape in winter
and he is the little colonel's grandfather to be the grandfather of such an attractive little bunch of mischief as lloyd sherman was when she first came to the valley was a distinction of which any man might well be proud
and colonel lloyd was proud of it he was proud of the fact that she had inherited his lordly manner his hot temper and imperious ways it pleased him that people had given her his title of colonel
on account of the resemblance to himself she had outgrown it somewhat since she had first been nicknamed the little colonel then she was only a spoiled baby of five but now his pride in her was even greater
since she had grown into a womanly little maid of eleven he was proud of her delicate flower like beauty of her dainty ways and all her little schoolgirl accomplishments
she is like those who have gone before he used to say to himself sometimes pacing slowly back and forth under the locusts and the bloom tipped branches above would nod to each other as if they understood
we know she's like amanthis
we were here when you brought her home a bride she's like amanthis like amanthis under the blossoms rode the little colonel all in white herself this may morning
except the little napoleon hat of black velvet set jauntily over her short light hair into the cockade she had stuck a spray of locust blossoms and as she rode slowly along
she fastened a bunch of them behind each ear of her pony whose coat was as soft and black as the velvet of her hat tarbaby she called him partly because he was so black
and partly because that was the name of her favourite uncle remus story there she exclaimed when the flowers were fastened to her satisfaction yo lookin mighty fine this mawnin tarbaby
and if bobby moore isn't ovah to my house by the time we get back home we'll go ovah to bobby's as she spoke she passed through the gate at the end of the avenue and turned into the public road
a wide pike with a railroad track on one side of it and a bridle path on the other two minutes brisk canter brought her to another gate one that had been closed all winter and one that she was greatly interested in
because it led to judge moore's house judge moore was rob's grandfather and she and rob had played together every summer since she could remember the wide white gate was standing open now
and she drew rein peering anxiously in she hoped for the sight of a familiar freckled face or the sound of a welcoming whoop but it was so still everywhere that all she saw was the squirrels playing hide and seek
in the beech grove around the house and all she heard was the fearless cry pewee pewee of a little bird perched in a tree overarching the gate it balanced itself on the limb
and the big hazel eyes had a roguish twinkle in them as they looked out fearlessly on the world from under the little napoleon hat with its nodding cockade of locust blossoms
a twelve year old boy was riding toward her as fast as his big gray horse could carry him he was riding bareback straight and lithe as a young indian his cap pushed to the back of his head
he snatched it off with a flourish as he came within speaking distance of the little colonel his freckled face all ashine with pleasure hello lloyd he called i was just going to your house and i was looking for you bobby
she answered as informally as if it were only yesterday they had parted instead of eight months before come and go down to the post office with me i must take these lettahs all right said rob wheeling the gray horse around beside the black pony
and the wild strawberries getting ripe and the horses just spoiling to be exercised it was more than i could stand what have you been doing all winter oh the same old things school and music lessons
as they jogged along side by side the little colonel chatting gaily of all that had happened since their last meeting rob kept casting curious glances at her what have you been doing to yourself lloyd sherman
he demanded finally you look so so different there was such a puzzled expression in his sharp gray eyes that the little colonel laughed then her hand flew up to her head don't you see i've had my
hair cut i had to beg and beg befo mothah and papa jack would let me have it done but it was so long away below my waist
i don't care answered lloyd her eyes flashing dangerously it's comfortable this way and grandfathah likes it
laughed rob teasingly what do you think you are now missy you're head and shoulders shorter than i am i'm eleven yeahs old anyway i'd have you to undahstand bobby moore
answered the little colonel with such dignity that rob wished he hadn't spoken i was eleven last week that was one of my birthday presents havin my own way about cuttin my hair
she cried every trace of displeasure vanishing at the thought
and i'm to have my house pahty in june to keep mothah and me from bein lonesome it will not be a very big one only three girls to spend june with me
and let him see the first address written in missus sherman's flowing hand miss eugenia forbes the waldorf astoria new york city well who is she he asked reading it aloud
then what did you do asked rob with a grin he had experimented with lloyd's temper himself in the past
answered lloyd laughing at the recollection
i remembah i did both those bad things and that we were
i didn't want mothah to invite her
she died three yeahs ago and since then she's been kept in a boa'din school most of the time when she's not away at school she stays in some big hotel with her fathah eithah in new york or at some summah resort
they are very wealthy and eugenia has had the best of everything so long that i'm afraid she'll find the valley dreadfully poah and poky i imagine she's stuck up too she used to be
and she's always had her own way about everything number one doesn't sound very inviting said rob with a sour grimace who is your number two lloyd held out the second envelope miss joyce ware plainsville
and they've written to each othah once a month for fifteen yeahs missus ware is a widow now
for they are poah and she has foah children youngah than joyce
one was about a christmas tree that they gave to thirty little peasant children and so many queer things happened behind a gate that they called the gate of the giant scissahs because there was a pair of enormous scissahs hanging ovah it you know
oh it was just like a fairy tale all the things that joyce did when she was in touraine how old is she interrupted rob just eugenia's age i believe
one flew east and one flew west so i s'pose this will fly into the cuckoo's nest said rob as he read the address miss elizabeth lloyd lewis jaynes's post office kentucky
why that's just what mothah calls the place cried the little colonel the cuckoo's nest she says that the cuckoo is the most careless bird in the world about the way it builds its nest they weave a few twigs and sticks togethah
just in any kind of way and nevah mind a bit if their poah little young ones fall out of the nest they seem to think that any kind of home is good enough
that elizabeth lewis has she is a poah little orphan and is livin on a farm up green rivah mother is her godmothah that's why she is named elizabeth lloyd missus lewis was an old school friend of mothah's too
and she wants joyce and elizabeth and me to be as deah friends as she and emily ware and joyce lewis were she says that's why she invited them and you don't know anything about this one
questioned rob not a thing i shouldn't be su'prised if she's mighty countrified for the farm is several miles from a railroad and the people she lives with don't think of anything but work
and one flew west and one flew into the cuckoo's nest lloyd added quickly eugenia joyce or elizabeth
joyce said rob promptly i think so too
well the invitations are off now come on tarbaby and see if you can't beat bobby moore's old gray hawse so bad it will be ashamed to evah race again
with that the little black pony was off like an arrow toward locust with the big gray horse thundering hard at its heels the dust flew dogs barked and chickens ran squawking across the road out of the way
heads were thrust out of the windows as the two vanished up the dusty pike and an old graybeard loafing in front of the corner grocery gave an amused chuckle
they ride like tarn o'shanter and i'll bet a quarter there's nothing on earth that either of em are afraid of a little while later the three white envelopes were jogging sociably along
side by side in a mail bag on their way to louisville
a man riding over from the nearest town twice a week brought the mail bag on horseback so few letters found their way into this particular bag that squire jaynes who kept the store and post office
there was no one in the store to answer the question but an overgrown boy who had stopped to get his father's weekly paper he sat on the counter dangling his big bare feet against a nail keg and catching flies in his sunburned hands
while he waited for the mail to be opened the squire peered inquiringly at him over the square bowed spectacles jake he asked ever hear tell of a miss elizabeth lloyd lewis up this way
that's betty the appletons betty don't you know she's that little orphan they're a bringin up
hump grunted the squire slipping the letter into the pigeon hole marked a if that's who it is i know all about her precious little bringing up she'll get at the appletons i can tell you that
they keep her because they're her nearest of living kin which isn't very near after all fourth or fifth cousins to her father or something like that any how they're all she's got and her father made some arrangement with them before he died
talk about bringin up she doesn't get any of it missus appleton has her hands so full of cookin for farm hands and all that she can't half tend to her own children let alone anybody else's it's betty that pears to be bringin up the little appletons
i'm glad there's somebody takes enough interest in the child to write to her continued the gossipy old squire who often talked to himself when he could find no other audience i wonder who it is lloydsboro valley it's postmarked
little betty will be mighty proud to get a real shore nuff letter all for herself i never got one in my life i'll take it up to her squire if you say so i'm goin by the appletons on my way home reckon you might as well
answered the old man giving a final close scrutiny before handing it to the boy it might lie here all week in case none of them happened to come to the store and it looks as if it might be important
and he took his time in going well for little betty that she did not know what wonderful surprise was on its way to her or she would have been in a fever of impatience for the letter to arrive it had been a tiresome day for the child
up before five in her bare little room in the west gable busy with morning chores until breakfast was ready she had earned a rest long before the little colonel's day had begun afterward she had helped with the breakfast dishes
with the water trickling out in a ceaseless drip drip on the cold stones she dabbled her fingers in the spring for a long time when the churning was done wishing she had nothing to do but sit there and listen to the secrets it was trying to tell
surely it must have learned a great many on its underground way among the roots of things and all else that lies hidden in the earth but she could not loiter long there was the dinner table to set for the hungry farm hands
and after the dinner was over more dishes to wash then there were some towels to iron it was two o'clock before her work was all done and she had time to go up to her little room in the west gable
the sun poured in through the shutterless windows so fiercely that she did not stay long only long enough to put on a clean apron and brush her curly hair as she stood in front of the little looking glass
it was such a tiny mirror that she could see only a part of her face at a time when her big brown eyes wistful and questioning as a fawn's were reflected in it there was no room for the sensitive little mouth
or if she stood on tiptoe so that she could see her plump round chin dimpled cheeks and white teeth the eyes were left out and she could see no more of her inquisitive little nose than lay below the big freckle in the middle of it
hastily tying back her curls with a bow of brown ribbon she slipped on her apron and ran down stairs buttoning it as she went she was free now to do as she pleased until supper time once out of the house
she walked slowly along through the shady orchard swinging her sunbonnet by the strings after the orchard came the long leafy lane with its double rows of cherry trees and then the gate at the end
leading into the public highway as she slipped her hand around the post to unfasten the chain that held the gate little bare feet came pattering behind her
betty's little lamb they called him and betty's shadow and betty's sticking plaster because everywhere she went there was davy just at her heels all the appleton children were boys three younger and two older than davy
whose last birthday cake should have had eight candles if there had been any celebration of the event but there never had been a birthday cake with candles on it on the appleton table it would have been considered a foolish waste of time and money
and birthdays came and went sometimes without the children knowing that they had passed davy was a queer little fellow he tagged along after betty switching at the grass with a whip he carried
as he caught up with her at the gate he did not even ask where she was going knowing that he would find out in due time if he only followed far enough he did not have to follow far to day
betty led the way across the road to a plain little wooden church set back in a grove of cedar trees behind the church was a graveyard where they often strolled on summer afternoons through the tangle of grass and weeds and myrtle vines
a little red bookcase inside the church was the attraction betty had only lately discovered it although it had stood for years on a back bench in a cobwebby corner it held all that was left of a scattered sunday school library
that had been in use two generations before queer little books they were time yellowed and musty smelling but to story loving little betty hungry for something new they seemed a veritable gold mine she had
found that no key barred her way into this little red treasure house of a bookcase and a board propped against the wall under the window outside gave her an easy entrance into the church
here she came day after day when her work was done to pore over the musty old volumes of tales forgotten long ago in betty's little room under the roof at home was a pile of handsomely bound books
lying on a chest beside her mother's bible they were twelve in all and had come in several different christmas boxes and each one had betty's name on the fly leaf with the date of the christmas on which it happened to be sent
underneath was always written from your loving godmother elizabeth lloyd sherman excepting a few school books and some out of date census reports they were the only books in the appleton house
betty guarded them like a little dragon they were the only things she owned that the children were not allowed to touch even davy when he was permitted to look at the wonderful pictures in her arabian nights or pilgrim's progress
and two volumes of fairy tales in green and gold with a gorgeous peacock on the cover eugene field's poems had come in the last box with riley's songs of childhood and kipling's jungle tales twelve beautiful books
all of missus sherman's giving and they were like twelve great windows to betty opening into a new strange world far away from the experiences of her every day life
she had read them over and over so many times that she always knew what was coming next even before she turned the page and she had read them to the other children so many times that they too knew them almost by heart
the little dog eared books in the meeting house proved poor reading sometimes after such entertainment so many of them were about unnaturally good children who never did wrong and unnaturally bad children who never did right
at the end there was always the word moral in big capital letters as if the readers were supposed to be too blind to find it for themselves and it had to be put directly across the path for them to stumble over
betty laughed at them sometimes but she touched the little books with reverent fingers when she remembered how old they were and how long ago their first childish readers laid them aside
the hands that had held them first had years before grown tired and wrinkled and old and had been lying for a generation under the myrtle and lilies of the churchyard outside
many an afternoon she had spent perched in the high window with her feet drawn up under her on the sill reading aloud to davy who lay outside on the grass staring up at the sky
davy's mind like his legs could not climb as far as betty's and she usually had to stop at the bottom of every page to explain something often he fell asleep in the middle of the most interesting part
and then betty read on to herself with nothing to break the stillness around her but the buzzing of the wasps as they darted angrily in and out of the open window above her head to day betty had read nearly an hour
and davy's eyelids were beginning to flutter drowsily when they heard the slow thud of a horse's hoofs in the thick dust of the road betty stopped reading to listen
and two brown hands were held up to receive the letter but jake preferred to deliver the important document himself here you are he said riding alongside the window and dropping the letter into her eager hands
if jake expected her to tear it open instantly and share the news with him before she had examined every inch of the big square envelope he was disappointed
then she spread the letter out on her knees drawing a long breath of pleasure as the faintest odour of violets floated up from the paper with its dainty monogram at the top davy waited in silence
watching a flush spread over betty's face as she read her breath came short and her heart beat fast oh davy she exclaimed in a low wondering tone what do you think
it is an invitation to a house party at locust lloyd sherman's house party oh it's like a lovely lovely fairy tale with me for the princess i've never travelled on the cars since i was old enough to remember it
i've never had any girls to play with in all my life and now there will be two besides lloyd and oh davy best of all i'll see my beautiful beautiful godmother i shall be there a whole month
and she knew my mamma and was her dearest friend i haven't seen her since i was a baby when she came to my christening
davy listened to her raptures without saying anything for awhile
there's a tear running down the side of your nose is there asked betty brushing it away with the back of her hand
a godmother must be the next best thing to a real mother you see davy because it's a mother that god gives you to take the place of your own when she is gone
then she walked slowly down the narrow aisle of the little meeting house between its double rows of narrow straight backed pews as she reached the bench like altar extending in front of the pulpit she slipped to her knees a moment
her sunbonnet had fallen back from her tousled curls and the late afternoon sun streamed across her shining little face thank you god
came in a happy whisper from the depths of a glad little heart it's the nicest surprise you ever sent me and i'm so much obliged then betty stood up and put on her sunbonnet
down the lane they went between the rows of cherry trees across the orchard and up the path somehow the world had never before seemed half so beautiful to betty as it did now
and then her voice responding yes oh it's you indeed i should of course then i'll expect you about three yes good bye till then
a few minutes later he heard her speaking to someone beneath his window and looking out saw her directing the removal of plants from a small garden bed to the major's conservatory for the winter there was an air of briskness about her
as she turned away to go into the house she laughed gaily with the major's gardener over something he said and this unconcerned cheerfulness of her was terrible to her son he went to his desk and searching the jumbled contents of a drawer
brought forth a large unframed photograph of his father upon which he gazed long and piteously till at last hot tears stood in his eyes it was strange how the inconsequent face of wilbur seemed to increase in high significance
during this belated interview between father and son and how it seemed to take on a reproachful nobility and yet under the circumstances nothing could have been more natural than that george having paid but the slightest attention to his father in life
should begin to deify him now that he was dead poor poor father the son whispered brokenly poor man i'm glad you didn't know he wrapped the picture in a sheet of newspaper put it under his arm and leaving the house hurriedly and stealthily
the room most used by isabel and fanny and himself then he went to a front window of the long reception room and sat looking out through the lace curtains the house was quiet though once or twice he heard his mother and fanny moving about upstairs
and a ripple of song in the voice of isabel a fragment from the romantic ballad of lord bateman lord bateman was a noble lord a noble lord of high degree and he sailed west and he sailed east far countries for to see
the words became indistinct the air was hummed absently the humming shifted to a whistle then drifted out of hearing and the place was still again george looked often at his watch but his vigil did not last an hour
at ten minutes of three peering through the curtain he saw an automobile stop in front of the house and eugene morgan jump lightly down from it the car was of a new pattern low and long with an ample seat in the tonneau facing forward and a professional driver sat at the wheel
a strange figure in leather goggled out of all personality and seemingly part of the mechanism eugene himself as he came up the cement path to the house was a figure of the new era which was in time to be so disastrous to stiff hats and skirted coats
eugene this afternoon was richly in the new outdoor mode
his cap and gloves were of gray suede
even with becoming hint of jauntiness
especially if his temper be genial eugene had begun to look like a millionaire but above everything else
the anticipation in his eyes could have been read by a stranger his look at the door of isabel's house was the look of a man who is quite certain that the next moment will reveal something ineffably charming inexpressibly dear
george went slowly to the front door and halted regarding the misty silhouette of the caller upon the ornamental frosted glass after a minute of waiting this silhouette changed outline so that an arm could be distinguished
an arm outstretched toward the bell as if the gentleman outside doubted whether or not it had sounded and were minded to try again but before the gesture was completed george abruptly threw open the door and stepped squarely upon the middle of the threshold
eugene was incredulous even when his second glance revealed how hot of eye was the haggard young man before him i beg your pardon i said i heard you said george you said you had an engagement with my mother and i told you no
eugene gave him a steady look
what is the the difficulty george kept his own voice quiet enough but that did not mitigate the vibrant fury of it
and with the last word he closed the door in eugene's face then not moving away he stood just inside door and noted that the misty silhouette remained upon the frosted glass for several moments
eugene got into his car slowly not looking back at the house which had just taught him such a lesson and it was easily visible even from a window seventy feet distant
observing the heaviness of his movements as he climbed into the tonneau george indulged in a sickish throat rumble which bore a distant cousinship to mirth the car was quicker than its owner it shot away as soon as he had sunk into his seat
and george having watched its impetuous disappearance from his field of vision ceased to haunt the window he went to the library and seating himself beside the table whereon he had placed the photograph of his father picked up a book and pretended to be engaged in reading it
presently isabel's buoyant step was heard descending the stairs and her low sweet whistling renewing the air of lord bateman she came into the library still whistling thoughtfully a fur coat over her arm ready to put on
and two veils round her small black hat her right hand engaged in buttoning the glove upon her left and as the large room contained too many pieces of heavy furniture and the inside shutters excluded most of the light of day she did not at once perceive george's presence
instead she went to the bay window at the end of the room which afforded a view of the street and glanced out expectantly then bent her attention upon her glove after that looked out toward the street again ceased to whistle and turned toward the interior of the room
a tinkling bell was audible and she moved to the doorway into the hall i'm going out driving dear i she interrupted herself to address the housemaid who was passing through the hall i think it's mister morgan mary tell him i'll be there at once yes ma'am
mary returned twas a pedlar ma'am another one isabel said surprised i thought you said it was a pedlar when the bell rang a little while ago mister george said it was ma'am he went to the door mary informed her disappearing
there seem to be a great many of them isabel mused what did yours want to sell george he didn't say you must have cut him off short she laughed and then still standing in the doorway she noticed the big silver frame upon the table beside him
gracious georgie she exclaimed you have been investing and as she came across the room for a closer view is it is it lucy she asked half timidly half archly
but the next instant she saw whose likeness was thus set forth in elegiac splendour and she was silent except for a long just audible oh he neither looked up nor moved
then as gently withdrew it and went out of the room but she did not go upstairs he heard the faint rustle of her dress in the hall and then the sound of her footsteps in the reception room
and she was looking out of the window expectantly a little troubled he went back to the library waited an interminable half hour then returned noiselessly to the same position in the hall where he could see her she was still sitting patiently by the window
alice adams by booth tarkington chapter one the patient an old fashioned man thought the nurse made a mistake in keeping both of the windows open
and her sprightly disregard of his protests added something to his hatred of her every evening he told her that anybody with ordinary gumption ought to realize that night air was bad for the human frame the human frame won't stand everything miss perry
he warned her resentfully even a child if it had just ordinary gumption ought to know enough not to let the night air blow on sick people yes nor well people either keep out of the night air no matter how well you feel that's what my mother used to tell me when i was a boy
keep out of the night air virgil she'd say keep out of the night air i expect probably her mother told her the same thing the nurse suggested of course she did my grandmother oh i guess your gran dmother thought so mister adams
that was when all this flat central country was swampish and hadn't been drained off yet
well we got screens in these windows and no mosquitoes are goin to bite us so just you be a good boy and rest your mind and go to sleep like you need to sleep he said likely he thought the night air worst of all in april
you poison a man and poison and poison him with this april night air can't poison you with much more of it miss perry interrupted him indulgently to morrow it'll be may night air and i expect that'll be a lot better for you don't you
now let's just sober down and be a good boy and get some nice sound sleep she gave him his medicine and having set the glass upon the center table returned to her cot where after a still interval she snored faintly
upon this his expression became that of a man goaded out of overpowering weariness into irony sleep oh certainly thank you however he did sleep intermittently
drowsed between times and even dreamed but forgetting his dreams before he opened his eyes and having some part of him all the while aware of his discomfort he believed as usual that he lay awake the whole night long
but was too powerful a growing thing ever to lie altogether still even while it strove to sleep it muttered with digestions of the day before and these already merged with rumblings of the morrow
owl cars bringing in last passengers over distant trolley lines now and then howled on a curve faraway metallic stirrings could be heard from factories in the sooty suburbs on the plain outside the city
east west and south switch engines chugged and snorted on sidings and everywhere in the air there seemed to be a faint voluminous hum as of innumerable wires trembling overhead to vibration of machinery underground
in his youth adams might have been less resentful of sounds such as these when they interfered with his night's sleep even during an illness he might have taken some pride in them as proof of his citizenship in a live town
but at fifty five he merely hated them because they kept him awake they pressed on his nerves as he put it and so did almost everything else for that matter he heard the milk wagon drive into the cross street beneath his windows and stop at each house
the milkman carried his jars round to the back porch while the horse moved slowly ahead to the gate of the next customer and waited there he's gone into pollocks adams thought following this progress i hope it'll sour on em before breakfast delivered the andersons
listen to the darn brute what's he care who wants to sleep his complaint was of the horse who casually shifted weight with a clink of steel shoes on the worn brick pavement of the street and then heartily shook himself in his harness
perhaps to dislodge a fly far ahead of its season light had just filmed the windows and with that the first sparrow woke chirped instantly and roused neighbours in the trees of the small yard including a loud voiced robin
sleep dang likely now ain't it night sounds were becoming day sounds the far away hooting of freight engines seemed brisker than an hour ago in the dark
a cheerful whistler passed the house even more careless of sleepers than the milkman's horse had been then a group of coloured workmen came by
loose aboriginal laughter preceded them afar and beat on the air long after they had gone by the sick room night light shielded from his eyes by a newspaper propped against a water pitcher
still showed a thin glimmering that had grown offensive to adams in his wandering and enfeebled thoughts which were much more often imaginings than reasonings the attempt of the night light to resist the dawn reminded him of something unpleasant
to sketch the painful little synopsis of an autobiography in spite of noises without he drowsed again not knowing that he did and when he opened his eyes the nurse was just rising from her cot he took no pleasure in the sight it may be said
she exhibited to him a face mismodelled by sleep
well isn't that grand we've had another good night she said as she departed to dress in the bathroom yes you had another he retorted though not until after she had closed the door
and so knew that she had risen he hoped she would come in to see him soon for she was the one thing that didn't press on his nerves he felt though the thought of her hurt him as indeed every thought hurt him but it was his wife who came first
she wore a lank cotton wrapper and a crescent of gray hair escaped to one temple from beneath the handkerchief she had worn upon her head for the night and still retained but she did everything possible to make her expression cheering
oh you're better again i can see that as soon as i look at you she said miss perry tells me you've had another splendid night he made a sound of irony which seemed to dispose unfavourably of miss perry and then in order to be more certainly intelligible he added
she slept well as usual but his wife's smile persisted it's a good sign to be cross it means you're practically convalescent right now oh i am am i no doubt in the world she exclaimed why you're practically a well man virgil
all except getting your strength back of course and that isn't going to take long you'll be right on your feet in a couple of weeks from now oh i will of course you will she laughed briskly and going to the table in the center of the room moved his glass of medicine an inch or two
turned a book over so that it lay upon its other side and for a few moments occupied herself with similar futilities having taken on the air of a person who makes things neat though she produced no such actual effect upon them of course you will she repeated absently
you'll be as strong as you ever were maybe stronger she paused for a moment not looking at him then added cheerfully so that you can fly around and find something really good to get into something important between them came near the surface here
for though she spoke with what seemed but a casual cheerfulness there was a little betraying break in her voice a trembling just perceptible in the utterance of the final word
and she still kept up the affectation of being helpfully preoccupied with the table and did not look at her husband perhaps because they had been married so many years
meanwhile he stared hard at her his lips beginning to move with little distortions not lacking in the pathos of a sick man's agitation so that's it he said that's what you're hinting at hinting
don't you call that hinting missus adams turned toward him now
you mustn't let yourself get nervous she said but of course when you get well there's only one thing to do you mustn't go back to that old hole again old hole that's what you call it is it in spite of his weakness anger made his voice strident
and upon this stimulation she spoke more urgently you just mustn't go back to it virgil it's not fair to any of us and you know it isn't don't tell me what i know please she clasped her hands suddenly carrying her urgency to plaintive entreaty
and what you know in your heart you ought to and if you have got into one of your stubborn fits
don't tell me so for i can't bear it he looked up at her fiercely you've got a fine way to cure a sick man he said but she had concluded her appeal for that time and instead of making any more words in the matter
let him see that there were tears in her eyes shook her head and left the room alone he lay breathing rapidly his emaciated chest proving itself equal to the demands his emotion put upon it fine he repeated with husky indignation
fine way to cure a sick man fine then after a silence he gave forth whispering sounds as of laughter his expression the while remaining sore and far from humour and give us our daily bread he added
but at twelve georgie was sent to a private school in the town and there came from this small and dependent institution no report or even rumour of georgie's getting anything that he was thought to deserve therefore the yearning still persisted
though growing gaunt with feeding upon itself for although georgie's pomposities and impudence in the little school were often almost unbearable the teachers were fascinated by him they did not like him he was too arrogant for that
with a comprehension not often shown by the pupils they taught and he passed his examinations easily in all without discernible effort he acquired at this school some rudiments of a liberal education and learned nothing whatever about himself
the yearners were still yearning when georgie at sixteen was sent away to a great prep school now they said brightly he'll get it he'll find himself among boys just as important in their home towns as he is and they'll knock the stuffing out of him when he puts on his airs with them
oh but that would be worth something to see they were mistaken it appeared for when georgie returned a few months later he still seemed to have the same stuffing he had been deported by the authorities the offense being stated as insolence and profanity
but he had not got his come upance and those who counted upon it were embittered by his appearance upon the down town streets driving a dog cart at criminal speed making pedestrians retreat from the crossings and behaving generally as if he owned the earth
a disgusted hardware dealer of middle age one of those who hungered for georgie's downfall was thus driven back upon the sidewalk to avoid being run over and so far forgot himself as to make use of the pet street insult of the year
then finding none commanded himself sufficiently to shout after the rapid dog cart turn down your pants you would be dude raining in dear ole lunnon git off the earth georgie gave him no encouragement to think that he was heard
the dog cart turned the next corner causing indignation there likewise
an old fashioned four story brick warren of lawyers offices insurance and realestate offices with a drygoods store occupying the ground floor georgie tied his lathered trotter to a telegraph pole and stood for a moment looking at the building critically
such as he had lately seen in new york when he stopped there for a few days of recreation and rest on his way home from the bereaved school about the entryway to the stairs were various tin signs announcing the occupation and location of upper floor tenants
and georgie decided to take some of these with him if he should ever go to college however he did not stop to collect them at this time but climbed the worn stairs there was no elevator to the fourth floor went down a dark corridor and rapped three times upon a door
it was a mysterious door its upper half of opaque glass bearing no sign to state the business or profession of the occupants within but overhead upon the lintel four letters had been smearingly inscribed partly with purple ink and partly with a soft lead pencil
f o t a and upon the plaster wall above the lintel there was a drawing dear to male adolescence a skull and crossbones three raps similar to georgie's sounded from within the room
georgie then rapped four times the rapper within the room rapped twice and georgie rapped seven times this ended precautionary measures and a well dressed boy of sixteen opened the door whereupon georgie entered quickly and the door was closed behind him
at one end of the room there was a battered sideboard and upon it were some empty beer bottles a tobacco can about two thirds full with a web of mold over the surface of the tobacco a dusty cabinet photograph not inscribed of miss lillian russell several withered old pickles
and a half petrified section of icing cake on a sooty plate at the other end of the room were two rickety card tables and a stand of bookshelves
robinson crusoe sappho mister barnes of new york a work by giovanni boccaccio a bible the arabian nights entertainment studies of the human form divine the little minister
and a clutter of monthly magazines and illustrated weeklies of about that crispness one finds in such articles upon a doctor's ante room table upon the wall above the sideboard was an old framed lithograph of miss della fox in wang
over the bookshelves there was another lithograph purporting to represent mister john l sullivan in a boxing costume and beside it a halftone reproduction of a reading from horner
a round shield with two battle axes and two cross hilted swords upon the wall over the little platform where stood the red haired presiding officer he addressed georgie in a serious voice welcome friend of the ace welcome friend of the ace georgie responded
look here charlie johnson what's fred kinney doing in the president's chair that's my place isn't it what you men been up to here anyhow didn't you all agree i was to be president just the same even if i was away at school well said charlie johnson uneasily
listen i didn't have much to do with it some of the other members thought that long as you weren't in town or anything and fred gave the sideboard why mister kinney presiding held in his hand in lieu of a gavel and considered much more impressive a civil war relic known as a horse pistol
he rapped loudly for order all friends of the ace will take their seats he said sharply i'm president of the f o t a now george minafer and don't you forget it you and charlie johnson sit down because i was elected perfectly fair and we're goin to hold a meeting here
oh you are are you said george skeptically charlie johnson thought to mollify him well didn't we call this meeting just especially because you told us to
the president de facto hammered the table this meeting will now proceed to no it won't said george and he advanced to the desk laughing contemptuously get off that platform this meeting will come to order mister kinney commanded fiercely
you put down that gavel said george whose is it i'd like to know it belongs to my grandfather and you quit hammering it that way or you'll break it and i'll have to knock your head off this meeting will come to order i was legally elected here and i'm not going to be bulldozed all right said georgie
georgie addressed the members i'd like to know who got up this thing in the first place he said
who got this room rent free who got the janitor to let us have most of this furniture you suppose you could keep this clubroom a minute if i told my grandfather i didn't want it for a literary club any more i'd like to say a word on how you members been acting too
when i went away i said i didn't care if you had a vice president or something while i was gone but here i hardly turned my back and you had to go and elect fred kinney president well if that's what you want you can have it
and bring some port wine like we drink at school in our crowd there and i was going to get my grandfather to give the club an extra room across the hall and prob'ly i could get my uncle george to give us his old billiard table because he's got a new one and the club could put it in the other room well you got a new president now
here georgie moved toward the door and his tone became plaintive though undeniably there was disdain beneath his sorrow i guess all i better do is resign and he opened the door apparently intending to withdraw all in favour of having a new election
all in favour of me being president instead of fred kinney shouted georgie say aye the ayes have it i resign said the red headed boy gulping as he descended from the platform i resign from the club
hot eyed he found his hat and departed jeers echoing after him as he plunged down the corridor georgie stepped upon the platform and took up the emblem of office ole red head fred'll be around next week said the new chairman
he'll be around boot lickin to get us to take him back in again but i guess we don't want him that fellow always was a trouble maker we will now proceed with our meeting
i don't know that i have much to say as i have already seen most of you a few times since i got back i had a good time at the old school back east but had a little trouble with the faculty and came on home my family stood by me as well as i could ask and i expect to stay right here in the old town until whenever i decide to enter college
now i don't suppose there's any more business before the meeting i guess we might as well play cards anybody that's game for a little quarter limit poker or any limit they say why i'd like to have em sit at the president's card table
when the diversions of the friends of the ace were concluded for that afternoon georgie invited his chief supporter mister charlie johnson to drive home with him to dinner and as they jingled up national avenue in the dog cart charlie asked what sort of men did you run up against at that school george
best crowd there finest set of men i ever met how'd you get in with em georgie laughed i let them get in with me charlie he said in a tone of gentle explanation it's vulgar to do any other way did i tell you the nickname they gave me
king minafer how'd they happen to do that his friend asked innocently
the quarrel between phineas finn and mister bonteen had now become the talk of the town and had taken many various phases the political phase though it was perhaps the best understood was not the most engrossing
there was the personal phase which had reference to the direct altercation that had taken place between the two gentlemen and to the correspondence between them which had followed as to which phase it may be said that though there were many rumours abroad very little was known
it was reported in some circles that the two aspirants for office had been within an ace of striking each other in some again that a blow had passed and in others further removed probably from the house of commons and the universe club
general social phase and which unfortunately dealt with the name of lady laura kennedy they all of course worked into each other and were enlivened and made interesting with the names of a great many big persons
mister gresham the prime minister was supposed to be very much concerned in this matter he it was said had found himself compelled to exclude phineas finn from the government because of the unfortunate alliance between him
and the wife of one of his late colleagues and had also thought it expedient to dismiss mister bonteen from his cabinet for it had amounted almost to dismissal because mister bonteen had made indiscreet official allusion to that alliance
in consequence of this working in of the first and third phase mister gresham encountered hard usage from some friends and from many enemies then of course the scene at macpherson's hotel was commented on very generally
an idea prevailed that mister kennedy driven to madness by his wife's infidelity which had become known to him through the quarrel between phineas and mister bonteen had endeavoured to murder his wife's lover who had with the utmost effrontery
invaded the injured husband's presence with a view of deterring him by threats from a publication of his wrongs this murder had been nearly accomplished in the centre of the metropolis by daylight as if that made it worse on a sunday
which added infinitely to the delightful horror of the catastrophe and yet no public notice had been taken of it the would be murderer had been a cabinet minister and the lover who was so nearly murdered had been an under secretary of state
and was even now a member of parliament and then it was positively known that the lady's father who had always been held in the highest respect as a nobleman favoured his daughter's lover and not his daughter's husband
all which things together filled the public with dismay and caused a delightful excitement
but he was not without his party in the matter to oblige a friend by inflicting an injury on his enemy is often more easy than to confer a benefit on the friend himself we have already seen how the young duchess failed in her attempt to obtain an appointment for phineas
and also how she succeeded in destroying the high hopes of mister bonteen having done so much of course she clung heartily to the side which she had adopted and equally of course madame goesler did the same
and that as lady laura and her husband certainly had long been separated there was probably something in it
lord bless you my dear the duchess said they were known to be lovers when they were at loughlinter together before she married mister kennedy it has been the most romantic affair she made her father give him a seat for his borough
he saved mister kennedy's life said madame goesler that was one of the most singular things that ever happened laurence fitzgibbon says that it was all planned that the garotters were hired
but unfortunately two policemen turned up at the moment so the men were taken i believe there is no doubt they were pardoned by sir henry coldfoot who was at the home office and was lord brentford's great friend i don't quite believe it all it would be too delicious
but not the less on that account did they take part with phineas finn they could not understand why he should be shut out of office because a lady had been in love with him and by no means seemed to approve the stern virtue of the prime minister
it was an interference with things which did not belong to him
lady cantrip though her husband was mister gresham's most intimate friend was altogether of this party as was also the duchess of saint bungay who understood nothing at all about it but who had once fancied herself to be rudely treated by missus bonteen
and the old duchess with many other matrons of high rank was made to believe that it was incumbent on her to be a phineas finnite one result of this was that though phineas was excluded from the liberal government all liberal drawing rooms were open to him
and that he was a lion additional zest was given to all this by the very indiscreet conduct of mister bonteen he did accept the inferior office of president of the board of trade
an office inferior at least to that for which he had been designated and agreed to fill it without a seat in the cabinet but having done so he could not bring himself to bear his disappointment quietly he could not work and wait and make himself agreeable to those around him
holding his vexation within his own bosom he was dark and sullen to his chief and almost insolent to the duke of omnium our old friend plantagenet palliser was a man who hardly knew insolence when he met it
there was such an absence about him of all self consciousness he was so little given to think of his own personal demeanour and outward trappings that he never brought himself to question the manners of others to him
contradiction he would take for simple argument strong difference of opinion even on the part of subordinates recommended itself to him he could put up with apparent rudeness without seeing it and always gave men credit for good intentions
and with it all he had an assurance in his own position a knowledge of the strength derived from his intellect his industry his rank and his wealth which made him altogether fearless of others
when the little dog snarls the big dog does not connect the snarl with himself simply fancying that the little dog must be uncomfortable mister bonteen snarled a good deal and the new lord privy seal thought that the new president of the board of trade
was not comfortable within himself but at last the little dog took the big dog by the ear and then the big dog put out his paw and knocked the little dog over mister bonteen was told that he had forgotten himself and there arose new rumours
in the house of commons of the president of the board of trade mister bonteen in his troubled spirit certainly did misbehave himself among his closer friends he declared very loudly that he didn't mean to stand it
he had not chosen to throw mister gresham over at once or to make difficulties at the moment but he would not continue to hold his present position or to support the government without a seat in the cabinet palliser had become quite useless
who thought they saw their way in encouraging the forlorn hope of the unhappy financier a leader of a party is nothing without an organ and an organ came forward to support mister bonteen
not very creditable to him as a liberal being a conservative organ
inasmuch as the organ not only supported him but exerted its very loudest pipes in abusing the man whom of all men he hated the most the people's banner was the organ and mister quintus slide was of course the organist
the following was one of the tunes he played and was supposed by himself to be a second thunderbolt and probably a conclusively crushing missile this thunderbolt fell on monday the third of may
early in last march we found it to be our duty to bring under public notice the conduct of the member for tankerville in reference to a transaction which took place at a small hotel in judd street
and as to which we then ventured to call for the interference of the police an attempt to murder the member for tankerville had been made by a gentleman once well known in the political world who as it is supposed
had been driven to madness by wrongs inflicted on him in his dearest and nearest family relations that the unfortunate gentleman is now insane we believe we may state as a fact
it had become our special duty to refer to this most discreditable transaction from the fact that a paper still in our hands had been confided to us for publication by the wretched husband before his senses had become impaired
we are far from imputing evil motives or even indiscretion to that functionary but we are of opinion that the moral feeling of the country would have been served by the publication
and we are sure that undue steps were taken by the member for tankerville to procure that injunction no inquiries whatever were made by the police in reference to that attempt at murder
and we do expect that some member will ask a question on the subject in the house would such culpable quiescence have been allowed had not the unfortunate lady whose name we are unwilling to mention
been the daughter of one of the colleagues of our present prime minister the gentleman who fired the pistol another of them and the presumed lover who was fired at also another we think that we need hardly answer that question
one piece of advice which we ventured to give mister gresham in our former article he has been wise enough to follow we took upon ourselves to tell him that if after what has occurred
he ventured to place the member for tankerville again in office the country would not stand it and he has abstained the jaunty footsteps of mister phineas finn are not heard ascending the stairs of any office at about two in the afternoon
that scandal is we think over and for ever the good looking irish member of parliament who had been put in possession of a handsome salary by feminine influences
again become a burden on the public purse but we cannot say that we are as yet satisfied in this matter or that we believe that the public has got to the bottom of it as it has a right to do in reference to all matters affecting the public service
and placed in an office made peculiarly subordinate by the fact of that exclusion we have never yet been told why this was done but we believe that we are justified in saying that it was managed through the influence of the member for tankerville
and we are quite sure that the public service of the country has thereby been subjected to grievous injury it is hardly our duty to praise any of that very awkward team of horses which mister gresham drives with an audacity which may atone for his
incapacity if no fearful accident should be the consequence but if there be one among them whom we could trust for steady work up hill it is mister bonteen
we were astounded at mister gresham's indiscretion in announcing the appointment of his new chancellor of the exchequer some weeks before he had succeeded in driving mister daubeny from office
but we were not the less glad to find that the finances of the country were to be entrusted to the hands of the most competent gentleman whom mister gresham has induced to follow his fortunes but mister phineas finn with his female forces
mister bonteen found himself at the head of the liberal party before the session be over if so evil would have worked to good
chapter thirty six seventy two on the next morning phineas with his speech before him was obliged for a while to forget or at least to postpone
mister bonteen and his injuries he could not now go to lord cantrip as the hours were too precious to him and as he felt too short though he had been thinking what he would say ever since the debate had become imminent
and knew accurately the line which he would take he had not as yet prepared a word of his speech
there should be nothing written he had tried that before in old days and had broken down with the effort he would load himself with no burden of words in itself so heavy that the carrying of it would incapacitate him for any other effort
after a late breakfast he walked out far away into the regent's park and there wandering among the uninteresting paths he devised triumphs of oratory for himself
let him resolve as he would to forget mister bonteen and that charge of having been untrue to his companions he could not restrain himself from efforts to fit the matter after some fashion into his speech
dim ideas of a definition of political honesty crossed his brain bringing with him however a conviction that his thought must be much more clearly worked out than it could be on that day
before he might venture to give it birth in the house of commons he knew that he had been honest two years ago in separating himself from his colleagues he knew that he would be honest now in voting with them apparently in opposition to the pledges he had given at tankerville
but he knew also that it would behove him to abstain from speaking of himself unless he could do so in close reference to some point specially in dispute between the two parties when he returned to eat a mutton chop at great marlborough street at three o'clock
he was painfully conscious that all his morning had been wasted he had allowed his mind to run revel instead of tying it down to the formation of sentences and construction of arguments he entered the house with the speaker at four o'clock
and took his seat without uttering a word to any man he seemed to be more than ever disjoined from his party hitherto since he had been seated by the judge's order the former companions of his parliamentary life the old men whom he had used to know
had to a certain degree admitted him among them many of them sat on the front opposition bench whereas he as a matter of course had seated himself behind but he had very frequently found himself next to some man who had held office
and was living in the hope of holding it again and had felt himself to be in some sort recognised as an aspirant now it seemed to him that it was otherwise he did not doubt but that bonteen had shown the correspondence to his friends
and that the ratlers and erles had conceded that he phineas was put out of court by it he sat doggedly still at the end of a bench behind mister gresham and close to the gangway
when mister gresham entered the house he was received with much cheering but phineas did not join in the cheer he was studious to avoid any personal recognition of the future giver away of places
though they two were close together and he then fancied that mister gresham had specially and most ungraciously abstained from any recognition of him mister monk who sat near him spoke a kind word to him
i shan't be very long said phineas not above twenty minutes i should think he was able to assume an air of indifference and yet at the moment he heartily wished himself back in dublin
it was not now that he feared the task immediately before him but that he was overcome by the feeling of general failure which had come upon him of what use was it to him or to any one else that he should be there in that assembly
he looked round the house and saw lord cantrip in the peers gallery alas of what avail was that he had always been able to bind to him individuals with whom he had been brought into close contact
for a second time he was attempting to earn his bread at half past four he was on his legs in the midst of a crowded house the chance perhaps the hope of some such encounter as that of the former day brought members into their seats
and filled the gallery with strangers we may say perhaps that the highest duty imposed upon us as a nation is the management of india
and we may also say that in a great national assembly personal squabbling among its members is the least dignified work in which it can employ itself but the prospect of an explanation or otherwise of a fight
between two leading politicians will fill the house and any allusion to our eastern empire will certainly empty it an aptitude for such encounters is almost a necessary qualification for a popular leader in parliament
as is a capacity for speaking for three hours to the reporters and to the reporters only a necessary qualification for an under secretary of state for india phineas had the advantage of the temper of the moment in a house thoroughly crowded
and he enjoyed it let a man doubt ever so much his own capacity for some public exhibition which he has undertaken yet he will always prefer to fail if fail he must before a large audience
but on this occasion there was no failure that sense of awe from the surrounding circumstances of the moment which had once been heavy on him and which he still well remembered had been overcome and had never returned to him
as it was he did succeed in alluding to his own condition in a manner that brought upon him no reproach he began by saying that he should not have added to the difficulty of the debate which was one simply of length
that such a measure should be carried by the gentlemen opposite in their own teeth at the bidding of the right honourable gentleman who led them he thought to be impossible
upon this he was hooted at from the other side with many gestures of indignant denial and was of course equally cheered by those around him such interruptions are new breath to the nostrils of all orators
and phineas enjoyed the noise he repeated his assertion that it would be an evil thing for the country that the measure should be carried by men who in their hearts condemned it and was vehemently called to order for this assertion about the hearts of gentlemen
but a speaker who can certainly be made amenable to authority for vilipending in debate the heart of any specified opponent may with safety attribute all manner of ill to the agglomerated hearts of a party
to have told any individual conservative sir orlando drought for instance that he was abandoning all the convictions of his life because he was a creature at the command of mister daubeny would have been an
but you can hardly be personal to a whole bench of conservatives to bench above bench of conservatives the charge had been made and repeated over and over again till all the orlando droughts were ready to cut some man's throat
whether their own or mister daubeny's or mister gresham's they hardly knew it might probably have been mister daubeny's for choice had any real cutting of a throat been possible
it was now made again by phineas finn with the ostensible object of defending himself and he for the moment became the target for conservative wrath
some one asked him in fury by what right he took upon himself to judge of the motives of gentlemen on that side of the house of whom personally he knew nothing
phineas replied that he did not at all doubt the motives of the honourable gentleman who asked the question which he was sure were noble and patriotic but unfortunately the whole country was convinced that the conservative party as a body
was supporting this measure unwillingly and at the bidding of one man and for himself he was bound to say that he agreed with the country and so the row was renewed and prolonged
and the gentlemen assembled members and strangers together passed a pleasant evening before he sat down phineas made one allusion to that former scuttling of the ship
an accusation as to which had been made against him so injuriously by mister bonteen he himself he said had been called impractical and perhaps he might allude to a vote which he had given in that house when last he had the honour of sitting there
as to have then foreseen the necessity of a measure which had since been passed and he did not doubt that he would hereafter be found to have been equally practical in the view that he had expressed on the hustings at tankerville
for he was convinced that before long the anomaly of which he had spoken would cease to exist under the influence of a government that would really believe in the work it was doing there was no doubt as to the success of his speech
to make him think that he had won his way back to elysium during the whole evening he exchanged not a syllable with mister gresham who indeed was not much given to converse with those around him in the house
but in reading the general barometer of the party as regarded himself he did not find that the mercury went up he was wretchedly anxious and angry with himself for his own anxiety he scorned to say a word that should sound like an entreaty
that they must be out of office before a month was over seemed to him the opinion of everybody his fate and what a fate it was would then be absolutely in the hands of mister gresham yet he could not speak a word of his hopes and fears even to mister gresham
he had given up everything in the world with the view of getting into office and now that the opportunity had come an opportunity which if allowed to slip could hardly return again in time to be of service to him the prize was to elude his grasp
he told his friend that a correspondence had taken place between himself and mister bonteen in which he thought that he had been ill used and as to which he was quite anxious to ask his lordship's advice
i heard that you and he had been tilting at each other said lord cantrip smiling have you seen the letters no but i was told of them by lord fawn who has seen them
i knew he would show them to every newsmonger about the clubs said phineas angrily you can't quarrel with bonteen for showing them to fawn if you intend to show them to me he may publish them at charing cross if he likes
exactly i am sure that there will have been nothing in them prejudicial to you what i mean is that if you think it necessary with a view to your own character to show them to me or to another friend you cannot complain that he should do the same
an appointment was made at lord cantrip's house for the next morning and phineas could but acknowledge to himself that the man's manner to himself had been kind and constant nevertheless the whole affair was going against him
lord cantrip had not said a word prejudicial to that wretch bonteen much less had he hinted at any future arrangements which would be comfortable to poor phineas they two lord cantrip and phineas
had at one period been on most intimate terms together had worked in the same office and had thoroughly trusted each other the elder of the two for lord cantrip was about ten years senior to phineas
and phineas had felt that in any emergency he could tell his friend all his hopes and fears but now he did not say a word of his position nor did lord cantrip allude to it they were to meet on the morrow in order that lord cantrip might read the correspondence
but phineas was sure that no word would be said about the government at five o'clock in the morning the division took place and the government was beaten by a majority of seventy two this was much higher than any man had expected
when the parties were marshalled in the opposite lobbies it was found that in the last moment the number of those conservatives who dared to rebel against their conservative leaders was swelled by the course which the debate had taken
senator douglas's proposition to evacuate the forts and extracts from his speech in support of it general scott's advice
protesting against the action of the federal government misstatements of the count of paris correspondence relative to proposed evacuation of the fort a crisis
the course pursued by the government of the united states with regard to the forts had not passed without earnest remonstrance from the most intelligent and patriotic of its own friends during the period of the events
which constitute the subject of the preceding chapter in the senate of the united states which continued in executive session for several weeks after the inauguration of mister lincoln it was the subject of discussion
mister douglas of illinois who was certainly not suspected of sympathy with secession
on the fifteenth of march offered a resolution recommending the withdrawal of the garrisons from all forts within the limits of the states which had seceded except those at key west and the dry tortugas in support of this resolution he said
much less the recapturing of those which have been taken unless we intend to reduce those states themselves into subjection i take it for granted no man will deny the proposition
that whoever permanently holds charleston and south carolina is entitled to the possession of fort sumter whoever permanently holds pensacola and florida is entitled to the possession of fort pickens
whoever holds the states in whose limits those forts are placed is entitled to the forts themselves unless there is something peculiar in the location of some particular fort
that makes it important for us to hold it for the general defense of the whole country its commerce and interests instead of being useful only for the defense of a particular city or locality it is true that forts taylor and jefferson
at key west and tortugas are so situated as to be essentially national
not so with moultrie johnson castle pinckney and sumter in charleston harbor not so with pulaski on the savannah river not so with morgan and other forts in alabama
not so with those other forts that were intended to guard the entrance of a particular harbor for local defense we can not deny that there is a southern confederacy de facto in existence with its capital at montgomery
we may regret it i regret it most profoundly but i can not deny the truth of the fact painful and mortifying as it is i proclaim boldly the policy of those with whom i act we are for peace
mister douglas in urging the maintenance of peace as a motive for the evacuation of the forts was no doubt aware of the full force of his words he knew that their continued occupation was virtually
a declaration of war the general in chief of the united states army also it is well known urgently advised the evacuation of the forts
but the most striking protest against the coercive measures finally adopted was that of major anderson himself the letter in which his views were expressed has been carefully suppressed in the partisan narratives of that period and wellnigh lost sight of
at various points on morris island and the vigorous prosecution of it this morning apparently strengthening all the batteries which are under the fire of our guns shows that they
i am preparing by the side of my barbette guns protection for our men from the shells which will be almost continually bursting over or in our work i had the honor to receive by yesterday's mail
the letter of the honorable secretary of war dated april fourth and confess that what he there states surprises me very greatly following as it does and contradicting so positively
the assurance mister crawford telegraphed he was authorized to make i trust that this matter will be at once put in a correct light as a movement made now when the south has been erroneously informed that none such would be attempted
would produce most disastrous results throughout our country it is of course now too late for me to give any advice in reference to the proposed scheme of captain fox i fear that its result
can not fail to be disastrous to all concerned even with his boat at our walls the loss of life as i think i mentioned to mister fox in unloading her will more than pay for the good to be accomplished by the expedition
which keeps us if i can maintain possession of this work out of position surrounded by strong works which must be carried to make this fort of the least value
i am colonel very respectfully your obedient servant robert anderson major first artillery commanding
this frank and manly letter although written with the reserve necessarily belonging to a communication from an officer to his military superiors expressing dissatisfaction with orders
fully vindicates major anderson from all suspicion of complicity or sympathy with the bad faith of the government which he was serving it accords entirely with the sentiments expressed in his private letter to me already mentioned as lost or stolen
and exhibits him in the attitude of faithful performance of a duty inconsistent with his domestic ties and repugnant to his patriotism
was already under way for charleston consisting according to their own statement of eight vessels carrying twenty six guns and about fourteen hundred men including the troops sent for reenforcement of the garrison
these facts became known to the confederate government and it was obvious that no time was to be lost in preparing for and if possible anticipating the impending assault the character of the instructions given
general beauregard in this emergency may be inferred from the ensuing correspondence which is here reproduced from contemporary publications
l p walker secretary of war
an authorized messenger from president lincoln just informed governor pickens and myself that provisions will be sent to fort sumter peaceably or otherwise by force signed g t beauregard
montgomery ten th general g t beauregard charleston if you have no doubt of the authorized character of the agent who communicated to you the intention of the washington government to supply fort sumter by force
you will at once demand its evacuation and if this is refused proceed in such a manner as you may determine to reduce it answer signed l p walker secretary of war charleston april tenth
the demand will be made to morrow at twelve o'clock signed g t beauregard montgomery april tenth
it is considered proper that you should make the demand at an early hour signed l p walker secretary of war
the reasons are special for twelve o'clock signed g t beauregard
april eleventh eighteen sixty one two p m
sir the government of the confederate states has hitherto forborne from any hostile demonstration against fort sumter in the hope that the government of the united states with a view to the amicable adjustment of all questions between the two governments
and to avert the calamities of war would voluntarily evacuate it there was reason at one time to believe that such would be the course pursued by the government of the united states and under that impression
but the confederate states can no longer delay assuming actual possession of a fortification commanding the entrance of one of their harbors and necessary to its defense and security
i am ordered by the government of the confederate states to demand the evacuation of fort sumter my aides colonel chesnut and captain lee are authorized to make such demand of you
all proper facilities will be afforded for the removal of yourself and command together with company arms and property and all private property to any post in the united states which you may elect the flag
which you have upheld so long and with so much fortitude under the most trying circumstances may be saluted by you on taking it down colonel chesnut and captain lee will
await your answer i am sir very respectfully your obedient servant signed g t beauregard brigadier general commanding
general i have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication demanding the evacuation of this fort
and of my obligations to my government prevents my compliance thanking you for the fair manly and courteous terms proposed and for the high compliment paid me
i am general very respectfully your obedient servant signed robert anderson major u s army commanding to brigadier general g t beauregard
we do not desire needlessly to bombard fort sumter if major anderson will state the time at which as indicated by him he will evacuate and agree that in the mean time he will not use his guns against us
unless ours should be employed against fort sumter you are thus to avoid the effusion of blood if this or its equivalent be refused reduce the fort as your judgment decides to be most practicable signed
eleven p m major
messrs chesnut and lee in relation to the condition of your supplies and that you would in a few days be starved out if our guns did not batter you to pieces or words to that effect and desiring no useless effusion of blood
i communicated both the verbal observation and your written answer to my government if you will state the time at which you will evacuate fort sumter and agree that in the mean time
you will not use your guns against us unless ours shall be employed against fort sumter we will abstain from opening fire upon you colonel chesnut and captain lee are authorized by me to enter into such an agreement with you
eighteen sixty one general i have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your second communication of the eleventh instant by colonel chesnut
and to state in reply that cordially uniting with you in the desire to avoid the useless effusion of blood i will if provided with the proper and necessary means of transportation evacuate fort sumter by noon on the fifteenth instant
should i not receive prior to that time controlling instructions from my government or additional supplies and that i will not in the mean time
open my fire upon your forces unless compelled to do so by some hostile act against this fort or the flag of my government by the forces under your command or by some portion of them or by the perpetration
sir by authority of brigadier general beauregard commanding the provisional forces of the confederate states
major anderson had been requested to state the time at which he would evacuate the fort if unmolested agreeing in the mean time not to use his guns against the city and the troops defending it
unless fort sumter should be first attacked by them on these conditions general beauregard offered to refrain from opening fire upon him
provided he should not before that time receive controlling instructions or additional supplies from his government he furthermore offers to pledge himself not to open fire upon the confederates
unless in the mean time compelled to do so by some hostile act against the fort or the flag of his government inasmuch as it was known to the confederate commander that the controlling instructions were already issued
and that the additional supplies were momentarily expected
introduce the supplies would compel the opening of fire upon the vessels bearing them under the flag of the united states thereby releasing major anderson from his pledge it is evident that his conditions could not be accepted
it would have been merely after the avowal of a hostile determination by the government of the united states to await an inevitable conflict with the guns of fort sumter
with no possible hope of averting it unless in the improbable event of a delay of the expected fleet for nearly four days longer in point of fact it arrived off the harbor on the same day
but was hindered by a gale of wind from entering it there was obviously no other course to be pursued than that announced in the answer given by general beauregard it should not be forgotten that
the attitude of which was at least offensive no restriction had been put upon their privilege of purchasing in charleston fresh provisions
the reader perhaps has not forgotten what was said in the third chapter concerning the division of labor and the speciality of talents
and their nature is always similar we are all born poets mathematicians philosophers artists artisans or farmers but we are not born equally endowed and between one man and another in society
or between one faculty and another in the same individual there is an infinite difference this difference of degree in the same faculties this predominance of talent in certain directions is we have said the very foundation of our society
intelligence and natural genius have been distributed by nature so economically and yet so liberally that in society there is no danger of either a surplus or a scarcity of special talents and that each laborer by devoting himself to his function
may always attain to the degree of proficiency necessary to enable him to benefit by the labors and discoveries of his fellows owing to this simple and wise precaution of nature the laborer is not isolated by his task
he communicates with his fellows through the mind before he is united with them in heart so that with him love is born of intelligence it is not so with societies of animals
the aptitudes of all the individuals though very limited are equal in number and when they are not the result of instinct in intensity
provides his food avoids the enemy burrows in the earth
no animal when free and healthy expects or requires the aid of his neighbor who in his turn is equally independent associated animals live side by side without any intellectual intercourse or intimate communication
all doing the same things having nothing to learn or to remember they see feel and come in contact with each other but never penetrate each other man continually exchanges with man ideas and feelings products and services
every discovery and act in society is necessary to him but of this immense quantity of products and ideas that which each one has to produce and acquire for himself is but an atom in the sun
and society is supported by the balance and harmony of the powers which compose it society among the animals is simple with man it is complex man is associated with man by the same instinct which associates animal with animal
but man is associated differently from the animal and it is this difference in association which constitutes the difference in morality i have proved at too great length perhaps
both by the spirit of the laws which regard property as the basis of society and by political economy that inequality of conditions is justified neither by priority of occupation nor superiority of talent service industry and capacity
but although equality of conditions is a necessary consequence of natural right of liberty of the laws of production of the capacity of physical nature and of the principle of society itself
it does not prevent the social sentiment from stepping over the boundaries of debt and credit the fields of benevolence and love extend far beyond and when economy has adjusted its balance the mind begins to benefit by its own justice
and the heart expands in the boundlessness of its affection the social sentiment then takes on a new character which varies with different persons in the strong it becomes the pleasure of generosity
among equals frank and cordial friendship in the weak the pleasure of admiration and gratitude the man who is superior in strength skill or courage knows that he owes all that he is to society
without which he could not exist he knows that in treating him precisely as it does the lowest of its members society discharges its whole duty towards him but he does not underrate his faculties he is no less conscious of his power and greatness
and it is this voluntary reverence which he pays to humanity this avowal that he is but an instrument of nature who is alone worthy of glory and worship it is i say this simultaneous confession of the heart and the mind
this genuine adoration of the great being that distinguishes and elevates man and lifts him to a degree of social morality to which the beast is powerless to attain hercules destroying the monsters and punishing brigands
for the safety of greece orpheus teaching the rough and wild pelasgians neither of them putting a price upon their services there we see the noblest creations of poetry the loftiest expression of justice and virtue
the joys of self sacrifice are ineffable if i were to compare human society to the old greek tragedies i should say that the phalanx of noble minds and lofty souls dances the strophe
and the humble multitude the antistrophe burdened with painful and disagreeable tasks but rendered omnipotent by their number and the harmonic arrangement of their functions the latter execute what the others plan guided by them
they owe them nothing they honor them however and lavish upon them praise and approbation gratitude fills people with adoration and enthusiasm but equality delights my heart
and admiration into servility friendship is the daughter of equality o my friends may i live in your midst without emulation and without glory let equality bring us together and fate assign us our places
may i die without knowing to whom among you i owe the most esteem friendship is precious to the hearts of the children of men generosity gratitude
it superadds esteem and thereby forms in man a third degree of sociability
and to make them our equals to pay to the strong a just tribute of gratitude and honor without enslaving ourselves to them to cherish our neighbors friends and equals for that which we receive from them even by right of exchange
or politeness which among certain nations sums up in a single word nearly all the social duties it is the just distribution of social sympathy and universal love now this feeling is unknown among the beasts
who love and cling to each other and show their preferences but who cannot conceive of esteem and who are incapable of generosity admiration or politeness this feeling does not spring from intelligence which calculates computes and balances
but does not love which sees but does not feel as justice is the product of social instinct and reflection combined
that is of our powers of judging and of idealizing this product the third and last degree of human sociability is determined by our complex mode of association in which inequality
or rather the divergence of faculties and the speciality of functions tending of themselves to isolate laborers demand a more active sociability that is why the force which oppresses while protecting is execrable
why the silly ignorance which views with the same eye the marvels of art and the products of the rudest industry excites unutterable contempt why proud mediocrity which glories in saying i have paid you i owe you nothing
is especially odious sociability justice
such in its triplicity is the exact definition of the instinctive faculty which leads us into communication with our fellows and whose physical manifestation is expressed by the formula equality in natural wealth and the products of labor
these three degrees of sociability support and imply each other
society without justice is a solecism if in order to reward talent i take from one to give to another in unjustly stripping the first i do not esteem his talent as i ought if in society
i award more to myself than to my associate we are not really associated justice is sociability as manifested in the division of material things susceptible of weight and measure
things which cannot be measured from this several inferences may be drawn one though we are free to grant our esteem to one more than to another and in all possible degrees
yet we should give no one more than his proportion of the common wealth because the duty of justice
must always take precedence of it the woman honored by the ancients who when forced by a tyrant to choose between the death of her brother and that of her husband sacrificed the latter on the ground that she could find another husband but not another brother that woman i say
because conjugal association is a closer relation than fraternal association and because the life of our neighbor is not our property by the same principle inequality of wages cannot be admitted by law on the ground of inequality of talents
because the just distribution of wealth is the function of economy not of enthusiasm finally as regards donations wills and inheritance society careful both of the personal affections and its own rights
must never permit love and partiality to destroy justice
and though the heir should be allowed the right of choice in case of more than one inheritance nevertheless society can tolerate no concentration of capital and industry for the benefit of a single man no monopoly of labor no encroachment
taken from the enemy and equal to twelve
if the two persons were equal their respective shares would be arithmetically equal achilles would have six
and if we should carry out this arithmetical equality
which would be unjust in the extreme to avoid this injustice the worth of the persons should be estimated and the spoils divided accordingly
the former's share is eight the latter four there is no arithmetical equality but a proportional equality
it is a geometrical proportion
settle that and you settle the whole question
instead of being associated are themselves in the service of agamemnon who pays them there is no objection to aristotle's method the slave owner who controls his slaves may give a double allowance of brandy to him who does double work
that is the law of despotism the right of slavery
they are equals what matters it that achilles has a strength of four
the latter may always answer that he is free that if achilles has a strength of four five could kill him finally that in doing personal service he incurs as great a risk as achilles
if he is unable to fight let him be cook purveyor or butler if he is good for nothing put him in the hospital in no case wrong him or impose upon him laws man must live in one of two states
either in society or out of it in society conditions are necessarily equal except in the degree of esteem and consideration which each one may receive out of society man is so much raw material
a capitalized tool and often an incommodious and useless piece of furniture two
can exist only between individuals of the same species they form no part of the relations of different races to each other for instance of the wolf to the goat of the goat to man of man to god much less of god to man
and the adjectives just merciful pitiful and the like should be stricken from our litanies god can be regarded as just equitable and good only to another god now god has no associate
consequently he cannot experience social affections
is the shepherd said to be just to his sheep and his dogs no and if he saw fit to shear as much wool from a lamb six months old as from a ram of two years or if he required as much work from a young dog as from an old one
they would say not that he was unjust but that he was foolish between man and beast there is no society though there may be affection man loves the animals as things as sentient things if you will but not as persons
philosophy after having eliminated from the idea of god the passions ascribed to him by superstition will then be obliged to eliminate also the virtues which our liberal piety awards to him
matrimonial legislation like civil legislation is a matter for the future to settle if god should come down to earth and dwell among us we could not love him unless he became like us nor give him any thing unless he produced something
nor listen to him unless he proved us mistaken nor worship him unless he manifested his power all the laws of our nature affectional economical and intellectual would prevent us from treating him as we treat our fellow men
he would have to become a man now if kings are images of god and executors of his will they cannot receive love wealth obedience and glory from us unless they consent to labor and associate with us produce as much as they consume
reason with their subjects and do wonderful things still more if as some pretend kings are public functionaries the love which is due them is measured by their personal amiability our obligation to obey them by the wisdom of their commands
and their civil list by the total social production divided by the number of citizens thus jurisprudence political economy and psychology agree in admitting the law of equality right and duty
and the course of events reveals it to us society advances from equation to equation to the eyes of the economist the revolutions of empires seem now like the reduction of algebraical quantities which are inter deducible
now like the discovery of unknown quantities induced by the inevitable influence of time figures are the providence of history undoubtedly there are other elements in human progress but in the multitude of hidden causes which agitate nations
there is none more powerful or constant none less obscure than the periodical explosions of the proletariat against property property acting by exclusion and encroachment while population was increasing
has been the life principle and definitive cause of all revolutions religious wars and wars of conquest when they have stopped short of the extermination of races have been only accidental disturbances soon repaired by the mathematical progression of the life of nations
the downfall and death of societies are due to the power of accumulation possessed by property in the middle ages take florence a republic of merchants and brokers always rent by its well known factions
who were after all only the people and the proprietors fighting against each other florence ruled by bankers and borne down at last by the weight of her debts
preyed upon from its birth by usury flourishing nevertheless as long as the known world furnished its terrible proletaires with labor stained with blood by civil war at every interval of rest
and dying of exhaustion when the people lost together with their former energy their last spark of moral sense carthage a commercial and financial city continually divided by internal competition tyre sidon jerusalem
nineveh babylon ruined in turn by commercial rivalry and as we now express it by panics in the market do not these famous examples show clearly enough the fate which awaits modern nations unless the people
unless france with a sudden burst of her powerful voice proclaims in thunder tones the abolition of the regime of property here my task should end i have proved the right of the poor i have shown the usurpation of the rich
i demand justice it is not my business to execute the sentence if it should be argued in order to prolong for a few years an illegitimate privilege that it is not enough to demonstrate equality that it is necessary also to organize it
and above all to establish it peacefully i might reply the welfare of the oppressed is of more importance than official composure equality of conditions is a natural law upon which public economy and jurisprudence are based the right to labor
and the principle of equal distribution of wealth cannot give way to the anxieties of power it is not for the proletaire to reconcile the contradictions of the codes still less to suffer for the errors of the government on the contrary
it is the duty of the civil and administrative power to reconstruct itself on the basis of political equality an evil when known should be condemned and destroyed the legislator cannot plead ignorance as an excuse for upholding a glaring iniquity
restitution should not be delayed justice justice recognition of right reinstatement of the proletaire when these results are accomplished then judges and consuls
you may attend to your police and provide a government for the republic for the rest i do not think that a single one of my readers accuses me of knowing how to destroy but of not knowing how to construct in demonstrating the principle of equality
i have laid the foundation of the social structure i have done more i have given an example of the true method of solving political and legislative problems of the science itself i confess that i know nothing more than its principle
and i know of no one at present who can boast of having penetrated deeper many people cry come to me and i will teach you the truth these people mistake for the truth their cherished opinion and ardent conviction which is usually any thing but the truth
the science of society like all human sciences will be for ever incomplete the depth and variety of the questions which it embraces are infinite we hardly know the a b c of this science
a certain philological society decided linguistic questions by a plurality of votes our parliamentary debates
would be even more ridiculous the task of the true publicist in the age in which we live is to close the mouths of quacks and charlatans and to teach the public to demand demonstrations instead of being contented with symbols and programmes
before talking of the science itself it is necessary to ascertain its object and discover its method and principle the ground must be cleared of the prejudices which encumber it such is the mission of the nineteenth century
for my part i have sworn fidelity to my work of demolition and i will not cease to pursue the truth through the ruins and rubbish i hate to see a thing half done and it will be believed without any assurance of mine that having dared to raise my hand against the holy ark
i shall not rest contented with the removal of the cover the mysteries of the sanctuary of iniquity must be unveiled the tables of the old alliance broken and all the objects of the ancient faith thrown in a heap to the swine
a resume of political science the monument of twenty legislatures a code has been written the pride of a conqueror and the summary of ancient wisdom well of this charter and this code not one article shall be left standing upon another
the time has come for the wise to choose their course and prepare for reconstruction but since a destroyed error necessarily implies a counter truth i will not finish this treatise without solving the first problem of political science
that which receives the attention of all minds
chapter twenty scrap wanted to know so much about her mother that arundel had presently to invent he would talk about anything she wished
in order to answer her inquires and keep her there to himself he proceeded to invent it was quite easy to fasten some of the entertaining things he was constantly thinking on to other people
and pretend they were theirs scrap who had that affection for her parents which warms in absence was athirst for news and became more and more interested by the news he gradually imparted
an unusual quality they became amusing mother said that scrap interrupted surprised and presently lady droitwich began to do amusing things as well as say them
and also any charming funny things that had been done or might have been done for he could imagine almost anything scrap's eyes grew round with wonder and affectionate pride in her mother
fancy mother what an old darling did she really do that how perfectly adorable of her and did she really say but how wonderful of her to think of it
what sort of a face did lloyd george make she laughed and laughed and had a great longing to hug her mother and the time flew and it grew quite dusk and it grew nearly dark
and mister arundel still went on amusing her and it was a quarter to eight before she suddenly remembered dinner oh good heavens she exclaimed jumping up yes it's late said arundel
arundel followed he did not wish to arrive too hot so had to go slowly fortunately he was near the top and francesca came down the pergola to pilot him indoors
drawing room door was open and the house was quiet with the hush that precedes dinner when the inhabitants are all shut up in their rooms dressing briggs in his room
was throwing away spoilt tie after spoilt tie scrap in hers was hurrying into a black frock with a vague notion that mister briggs wouldn't be able to see her so clearly in black
tied together by a blue enamel ribbon on which was written in gold letters esto perpetua mister wilkins was sitting on the edge of his bed brushing his wife's hair
thus far in this third week had he progressed in demonstrativeness while she for her part sitting on a chair in front of him put his studs in a clean shirt and rose
lotty would have removed it by the frank comments she made while she and rose sat together after tea on the wall lotty was delighted at more love being introduced into san salvatore even if it were only one sided
between tea and dinner thinking of him harder than ever
but of course it couldn't go on once caroline appeared rose knew her place she could see as well as any one the unusually
of lady caroline how warm though things like admiration and appreciation made one feel how capable of really deserving them how different how glowing
they seemed to quicken unsuspected faculties into life she was sure she had been a thoroughly amusing woman between lunch and tea and a pretty one too she was quite certain she had been pretty
she still buzzed she still tingled just at the remembrance what fun it had been having an admirer even for that little while no wonder people liked admirers
and very nearly she stuck a crimson camellia in her hair down by her ear she did hold it there for a minute and it looked almost sinfully attractive and was exactly the colour of her mouth
soon she would be back with them again and what would a camellia behind her ear seem like then simply fantastic but on one thing she was determined
the first thing she would do when she got home would be to have it out with frederick if he didn't come to san salvatore that is what she would do the very first thing long ago she ought to have done this
but always she had been handicapped when she tried to by being so dreadfully fond of him and so much afraid that fresh wounds were going to be given her wretched soft heart but now
let him wound her as much as he chose as much as he possibly could she would still have it out with him not that he ever intentionally wounded her she knew he never meant to
she knew he often had no idea of having done it for a person who wrote books thought rose frederick didn't seem to have much imagination anyhow she said to herself
getting up from the dressing table things couldn't go on like this she would have it out with him this separate life this freezing loneliness
she looked at her little clock still ten minutes before dinner tired of staying in her bedroom she thought she would go on to missus fisher's battlements which would be empty at this hour
and watch the moon rise out of the sea she went into the deserted upper hall with this intention but was attracted on her way along it by the firelight shining through the open door of the drawing room
how gay it looked the fire transformed the room a dark ugly room in the daytime it was transformed just as she had been transformed by the warmth of
and outside the deep slits of windows hung the blue curtain of the night how pretty what a sweet place san salvatore was and that gorgeous lilac on the table
she must go and put her face in it but she never got to the lilac she went one step towards it and then stood still for she had seen the figure looking out of the window in the farthest corner
so he needed her for he had come instantly so he too must have been thinking longing her heart which had seemed to stop beating was suffocating her now
the way it raced along frederick did love her then he must love her or why had he come something perhaps her absence had made him turn to her want her
but no sound came or if it did the crackling of the fire covered it up she must go nearer she began to creep towards him softly softly he did not move
he had not heard she stole nearer and nearer and the fire crackled and he heard nothing she stopped a moment unable to breathe she was afraid suppose he
chapter four it had been arranged that missus arbuthnot and missus wilkins traveling together should arrive at san salvatore on the evening of march thirty first
were to arrive on the morning of april second in this way everything would be got nicely ready for the two who seemed in spite of the equality of the sharing yet to have something about them of guests
when missus wilkins her heart in her mouth
terror and determination told her husband that she had been invited to italy and he declined to believe it of course he declined to believe it
but after what entreaties what passionate persuading missus arbuthnot had not imagined she would have to face mister wilkins and say things to him
one woman being happy and these piteous multitudes she was unable to look the vicar in the face he did not know nobody knew what she was going to do
and from the very beginning she was unable to look anybody in the face she excused herself from making speeches appealing for money how could she stand up and ask people for money
when she herself was spending so much on her own selfish pleasure nor did it help her or quiet her that having actually told frederick in her desire to make up for what she was squandering that she would be grateful
he asked no questions she was scarlet he looked at her a moment and then looked away it was a relief to frederick that she should take some money she gave it all immediately to the organization she worked with
and found herself more tangled in doubts than ever missus wilkins on the contrary had no doubts she was quite certain that it was a most proper thing to have a holiday and altogether right and beautiful
to spend one's own hard collected savings on being happy
with the unconscious mister wilkins coming back daily to his dinner and eating his fish in the silence of imagined security
there being five in that march and it being on the fifth of them that she and missus arbuthnot were to start she would tell mellersh of her invitation on the third sunday then after a very well cooked lunch
i am thinking of taking you to italy for easter and paused for her astounded and grateful ecstasy none came the silence in the room
and she had not yet even prepared the form of words in which she would break it mister wilkins who had not been abroad since before the war and was noticing with increasing disgust
as week followed week of wind and rain the peculiar persistent vileness of the weather and slowly conceived a desire to get away from england for easter
probably she was absorbed in some foolish day dream it was regrettable how childish she remained he turned his head their chairs were in front of the fire and looked at her
she was staring straight into the fire and it was no doubt the fire that made her face so red i am thinking he repeated raising his clear cultivated voice and speaking with acerbity
for inattention at such a moment was deplorable of taking you to italy for easter did you not hear me yes she had heard him
really most extraordinary
how she had been invited a friend had invited her easter too easter was in april wasn't it
a had a house there in fact missus wilkins driven by terror guilt and surprise had been more incoherent if possible than usual
it was a dreadful afternoon mellersh profoundly indignant besides having his intended treat coming back on him like a blessing to roost
cross examined her with the utmost severity he demanded that she refuse the invitation he demanded that since she had so outrageously accepted it without consulting him
we're not any longer real human beings real human beings aren't ever as good as we've been oh she clenched her thin hands to think that we ought to be so happy now
missus arbuthnot always silent about him had said nothing of this to missus wilkins frederick went too deep into her heart for her to talk about him
sure as she so miserably was that he would have no objection to anything she did she merely wrote him a note and put it on the hall table ready for him if and when he should come home
there was no reason why she should he would not be interested he would not care the day was wretched blustering and wet the crossing was atrocious and they were very sick
but after having been very sick just to arrive at calais and not be sick was happiness and it was there that the real splendour of what they were doing first began to warm their benumbed spirits
it got hold of missus wilkins first and spread from her like a rose coloured flame over her pale companion mellersh at calais where they restored themselves with soles
not a single official at calais cared a fig for mellersh in paris there was no time to think of him because their train was late
and by the afternoon of the next day when they got into italy england frederick mellersh the vicar the poor hampstead the club shoolbred
everybody and everything the whole inflamed sore dreariness
unrepudiated because of her conviction that here was another fellow creature in urgent need of her help and not just boots and blankets and better sanitary arrangements this time
living for others and prayer and the peace to be found in placing oneself unreservedly in god's hands to meet all these words missus wilkins had other words incoherent and yet
for the moment at least till one had had more time difficult to answer the exact right words were a suggestion that it would do no harm to answer the advertisement non committal mere inquiry
there she was accustomed to direct to lead to advise to support except frederick she long since had learned to leave frederick to god being led herself being influenced and thrown off her feet by just an advertisement
by just an incoherent stranger it was indeed disturbing she failed to understand her sudden longing
and all her waiting and dependent poor were listening and condemning it isn't as if it committed us to anything said missus wilkins also in a low voice but her voice shook
they got up simultaneously missus arbuthnot had a sensation of surprise that missus wilkins should be so tall and went to a writing table
box one thousand the times for particulars she asked for all particulars but the only one they really wanted was the one about the rent they both felt that it was missus arbuthnot who ought to write the letter and do the business part
suggested a great calm that could only proceed from wisdom but if she was wiser older and calmer missus arbuthnot's new friend
nevertheless seemed to her to be the one who impelled incoherent she yet impelled she appeared to have apart from her need of help an upsetting kind of character
she had a curious infectiousness she led one on and the way her unsteady mind leaped at conclusions wrong ones of course witness the one that she missus arbuthnot was miserable
and when the letter had been posted in the letter box in the hall and actually was beyond getting back again both she and missus wilkins felt the same sense of guilt it only shows
as they turned away from the letter box how immaculately good we've been all our lives
we feel guilty i'm afraid i can't say i've been immaculately good gently protested missus arbuthnot a little uncomfortable at this fresh example of successful leaping at conclusions
for she had not said a word about her feeling of guilt oh but i'm sure you have i see you being good and that's why you're not happy she shouldn't say things like that thought missus arbuthnot
i must try and help her not to aloud she said gravely i don't know why you insist that i'm not happy when you know me better i think you'll find that i am
and we are unhappy there are miserable sorts of goodness and happy sorts the sort we'll have at the mediaeval castle for instance is the happy sort that is supposing we go there said missus arbuthnot restrainingly
she felt that missus wilkins needed holding on to after all we've only written just to ask anybody may do that i think it quite likely we shall find the conditions impossible
missus arbuthnot as she presently splashed though the dripping streets on her way to a meeting she was to speak at was in an unusually disturbed condition of mind she had she hoped
shown herself very calm to missus wilkins very practical and sober concealing her own excitement but she was really extraordinarily moved and she felt happy and she felt guilty
and she felt afraid and she had all the feelings though this she did not know of a woman who was come away from a secret meeting with her lover that indeed was what she looked like
each one convinced that they needed contributions themselves she looked as though she were hiding something discreditable but delightful certainly her customary clear expression of candor was not there
and its place was taken by a kind of suppressed and frightened pleasedness which would have led a more worldly minded audience to the instant conviction of recent and probably impassioned lovemaking
or even to reflect were useless it yet influenced her missus wilkins's eyes had been the eyes of a seer some people were like that missus arbuthnot knew
missus arbuthnot spoke on and on
and at the end of the meeting her eyes
perhaps they need a holiday suggested missus arbuthnot an unsatisfactory a queer reply the vicar thought in february he called after her sarcastically
oh no not till april said missus arbuthnot over her shoulder very odd thought the vicar very odd indeed and he went home and was not perhaps quite christian
it could be the next nest egg whose original corruption would be purged away by the use to which it was finally put for missus arbuthnot who had no money of her own was obliged to live on the proceeds of frederick's activities
so that he had been able to publish a book of memoirs during each year of his married life and even so there were greater further piles of these ladies waiting to be dealt with missus arbuthnot was helpless
people would cease to want to read of wickedness and then frederick would need supporting on helping the poor the parish flourished because to take a handful at random
of learned maintenon the poor were the filter through which the money was passed to come out missus arbuthnot hoped purified she could do no more
she had tried in days gone by to think the situation out to discover the exact right course for her to take but had found it as she had found frederick too difficult and had left it
as she had left frederick to god nothing of this money was spent on her house or dress those remained except for the great soft sofa austere
it was the poor who profited their very boots were stout with sins but how difficult it had been missus arbuthnot groping for guidance prayed about it to exhaustion
he only began it after their marriage when she married him he had been a blameless official attached to the library of the british museum to publish the memoirs under another name so that she was not publicly branded hampstead read the books with glee
he told missus arbuthnot as a matter of honour not to mention it and at least her little house was not haunted by the loose lived ladies for frederick did his work away from home he had two rooms near the british museum
which was the scene of his exhumations and there he went every morning and he came back long after his wife was asleep sometimes he did not come back at all sometimes she did not see him for several days together
then he would suddenly appear at breakfast having let himself in with his latchkey the night before very jovial and good natured and free handed and glad if she would allow him to give her something a well fed man contented with the world
however much one tabulated was yet a mystery there were always some people it was impossible to place frederick was one of them he didn't seem to bear the remotest resemblance to the original frederick
he didn't seem to have the least need of any of the things he used to say were so important and beautiful love home complete communion of thoughts complete immersion in each other's interests
after those early painful attempts to hold him up to the point from which they had hand in hand so splendidly started attempts in which she herself had got terribly hurt and the frederick she supposed she had married was mangled out of recognition
she hung him up finally by her bedside as the chief subject of her prayers and left him except for those entirely to god she had loved frederick too deeply
she had nothing nobody of her own to lavish herself on the poor became her children and god the object of her love what could be happier than such a life she sometimes asked herself
but her face and particularly her eyes continued sad perhaps when we're old perhaps when we are both quite old
one day three very poor old men came begging to the door and just as he was going to let the fierce dogs loose on them his little daughter anastasia
in the next village the peasant ivan has just had his seventh son what shall we name him and what fortune shall we give him said the second the third whispered
who can be got to stand godfather to such a little beggar boy the merchant's heart beat fast and his mind was full of bad thoughts about that poor little baby he would be godfather himself he said and he ordered a fine christening feast
is that a bargain ivan scratched his head and thought and thought and then he agreed mark counted out the money
it seemed to come from the barrel which was bobbing about near the water's edge they drew it to land and opened it and there was a little child when the abbot heard the news he decided to bring up the boy and named him vassili
the boy lived on with the monks and grew up to be a clever gentle and handsome young man
when he went into the church the choir was singing and one voice was so clear and beautiful that he asked who it belonged to then the abbot told him of the wonderful way in which vassili had come to them
whom he had twice tried to kill he said to the abbot
and will present your monastery with twenty thousand crowns the abbot hesitated a good deal but he consulted all the other monks and at last they decided that they ought not to stand in the way of vassili's good fortune
i am going to the house of mark the merchant and have a letter for his wife replied vassili show us the letter vassili handed them the letter they blew on it and gave it back to him saying now go and give the letter to mark's wife
you will not be forsaken vassili reached the house and gave the letter when the mistress read it she could hardly believe her eyes and called for her daughter in the letter was written quite plainly when you receive this letter
when mark saw vassili he flew into a terrible rage with his wife how dared you marry my daughter without my consent he asked i only carried out your orders said she here is your letter mark read it
but i think i shall get the better of you now and he waited a month and was very kind and pleasant to his daughter and her husband at the end of that time he said to vassili one day
in his beautiful country at the world's end twelve years ago he built a castle on some land of mine
and set out i really cannot tell you whether the journey was long or short as he tramped along he suddenly heard a voice saying
vassili looked about him and seeing no one called out who spoke to me i did this old wide spreading oak tell me
he came to a river and got into the ferryboat the old ferryman asked are you going far my friend i am going to the serpent king then think of me and say to the king for thirty years the ferryman has rowed to and fro
will the tired old man have to row much longer very well said vassili i'll ask him and he walked on in time he came to a narrow strait of the sea and across it lay a great whale over whose back people walked and drove
as if it had been a bridge or a road as he stepped on it the whale said do tell me where you are going i am going to the serpent king and the whale begged think of me and say to the king
the poor whale has been lying three years across the strait and men and horses have nearly trampled his back into his ribs is he to lie there much longer i will remember said vassili and he went on he walked and walked
vassili walked in and went from one room to another astonished at all the splendour he saw when he reached the last room of all he found a beautiful girl sitting on a bed as soon as she saw him she said
oh vassili what brings you to this accursed place vassili told her why he had come and all he had seen and heard on the way the girl said
but for your own destruction and that the serpent may devour you
hissing groaning sound was heard the girl quickly pushed vassili into a chest under the bed locked it and whispered listen to what the serpent and i talk about then she rose up to receive the serpent king
that depends on himself if some one gets into the boat to be ferried across the old man has only to push the boat off and go his way without looking back the man in the boat will then have to take his place
then he may plunge back into the sea and heal his back and the serpent king closed his eyes turned round on his other side and began to snore so loud that the windows rattled in all haste the lovely girl helped vassili out of the chest and showed him part of his way back
he thanked her very politely and hurried off when he reached the strait the whale asked have you thought of me yes as soon as i am on the other side i will tell you what you want to know when he was on the other side vassili said to the whale
throw up those twelve ships of mark's which you swallowed three years ago the great fish heaved itself up and threw up all the twelve ships and their crews then he shook himself for joy and plunged into the sea
where the old man asked did you think of me
when they had crossed over vassili said let the next man who comes stay in the boat but do you step on shore push the boat off and you will be free and the other man must take your place then vassili went on further still
and soon came to the old oak tree pushed it with his foot and it fell over there at the roots was more gold and silver than even mark the rich had and now the twelve ships which the whale had thrown up came sailing along and anchored close by
the sailors carried all the gold and silver into the ship and then they set sail for home with vassili on board mark was more furious than ever he had his horses harnessed and drove off himself to see the serpent king
the ferryman however did not get in but pushed the boat off vassili led a good and happy life with his dear wife and his kind mother in law lived with them he helped the poor and fed and clothed the hungry and naked
which blossomed and bore fruit each night but every morning the fruit was gone and the boughs were bare of blossom without anyone being able to discover who was the thief at last the emperor said to his eldest son
and set out gaily at nightfall to watch the apple tree but no sooner had he lain himself down than his eyes grew heavy and when the sunbeams roused him from his slumbers there was not an apple left on the tree next came the turn of the youngest son
who made himself a comfortable bed under the apple tree and prepared himself to sleep towards midnight he awoke
the ninth fluttered to the ground where the prince lay and instantly was changed into a beautiful maiden more beautiful far than any lady in the emperor's court the prince at once fell in love with her and they talked together for some time
then she changed herself back into a pea hen and the whole nine flew away as soon as the sun rose the prince entered the palace and held out the apple to his father who was rejoiced to see it and praised his youngest son heartily for his cleverness
and everything passed as before and so it happened for several nights at length the other brothers grew angry at seeing that he never came back without bringing two golden apples with him and they went to consult an old witch who promised to spy after him
there was a rush of wings and the eight pea hens settled on the tree while the ninth became a maiden and ran to greet the prince then the witch stretched out her hand and cut off a lock of the maiden's hair and in an instant the girl sprang up
a pea hen once more spread her wings and flew away while her sisters
and wept his heart out for his lost love this went on for some time till the prince could bear it no longer and made up his mind he would search the world through for her in vain his father tried to persuade him that his task was hopeless
and through the bars he could see the streets of a town and even the palace the prince tried to pass in but the way was barred by the keeper of the gate
why he was there and how he had learnt the way and he was not allowed to enter unless the empress herself came and gave him leave a message was sent to her and when she stood at the gate the prince thought
for there was the maiden he had left his home to seek and she hastened to him and took his hand and drew him into the palace in a few days they were married and the prince forgot his father and his brothers
if you wish to enter the first eleven cellars said she you can but beware of even unlocking the door of the twelfth
soon got tired of being by himself and began to look about for something to amuse him what can there be in that twelfth cellar he thought to himself which i must not see and he went downstairs and unlocked the doors one after the other
and in another instant the key was turned and the cellar lay open before him it was empty save for a large cask bound with iron hoops and out of the cask a voice was saying entreatingly for goodness sake brother
fetch me some water i am dying of thirst the prince who was very tender hearted brought some water at once and pushed it through a hole in the barrel and as he did so one of the iron hoops burst
he was turning away when a voice cried the second time brother for pity's sake fetch me some water i'm dying of thirst so the prince went back and brought some more water and again a hoop sprang
and for the third time the voice still called for water and when water was given it the last hoop was rent the cask fell in pieces and out flew a dragon who snatched up the empress just as she was returning from her walk
and when you are in danger twist it in your fingers and i will come the prince picked up the fish and threw it into the water then he took off one of its scales as he had been told and put it in his pocket carefully wrapped in a cloth
twist it in your fingers and i will come so the prince unfastened the trap
and as he was going over the mountain he passed a wolf entangled in a snare who begged to be set at liberty
oh brother asked the prince tell me if you can where the dragon emperor lives the man told him where he would find the palace and how long it would take him to get there and the prince thanked him and followed his directions
as the dragon might return directly so they took two horses out of the stable and rode away at lightning speed hardly were they out of sight of the palace than the dragon came home and found that his prisoner had flown
give me your advice what shall i do have my supper as usual or set out in pursuit of them eat your supper with a free mind first answered the horse and follow them afterwards
and when he could eat no more he mounted his horse and set out after the fugitives in a short time he had come up with them and as he snatched the empress out of her saddle he said to the prince this time i will forgive you
there cannot be another like it in the whole world where did you get it from and he answered the way i got it
he is twin brother to my own horse and can fly as high as the clouds themselves but no one can ever get this horse without first serving the old woman for three whole days and besides the horses she has a foal and its mother
he will in the end get the choice of any horse as a present from the old woman but if he fails to keep the foal and its mother safe on any one of the three nights his head will pay the next day the prince watched till the dragon left the house
and then he crept in to the empress who told him all she had learnt from her gaoler
and on every post a man's head was stuck one post only was empty and as they passed it cried out woman give me the head i am waiting for the old woman made no answer
on the same conditions as you but not one was able to guard the mare but the prince did not waver and declared he would abide by his words
and the colt ran behind he managed to keep his seat for a long time in spite of all her efforts to throw him but at length he grew so weary that he fell fast asleep and when he woke he found himself sitting on a log
the sight of the water brought back to his mind the fish whom he had saved from death and he hastily drew the scale from his pocket it had hardly touched his fingers when the fish appeared in the stream beside him
but strike the water with the halter and say come here o mare of the mountain witch and she will come the prince did as he was bid and the mare and her foal stood before him then he put the halter round her neck and rode her home
not knowing that the prince had overheard her so when it began to grow dark the prince mounted the mare for the second time and rode into the meadows and the foal trotted behind its mother again he managed to stick on till midnight
what is it my brother asked the fox who instantly appeared before him the old witch's mare has run away from me and i do not know where to look for her
but strike the ground with a halter and say come here o mare of the mountain witch the prince did so and in a moment the fox became a mare and stood before him with the little foal at her heels
he mounted and rode back and the old woman placed food on the table and led the mare back to the stable you should have gone to the foxes as i told you said she striking the mare with a stick i did go to the foxes replied the mare but they are no friends of mine
and betrayed me well this time you had better go to the wolves
the third night the prince mounted the mare
oh she is with us answered the wolf and she has changed herself into a she wolf and the foal into a cub
come to me o mare of the mountain witch the prince did as he was bid and as the hair touched his fingers the wolf changed back into a mare with the foal beside her and when he had mounted and ridden her home the old woman was on the steps to receive them
you should have gone among the wolves said she striking her with a stick so i did replied the mare but they are no friends of mine and betrayed me the old woman made no answer and left the stable
you can have which you like give me instead that half starved creature in the corner asked the prince i prefer him to all those beautiful animals you can't really mean what you say replied the woman yes i do said the prince
and the old woman was forced to let him have his way so he took leave of her and put the halter round his horse's neck and led him into the forest where he rubbed him down till his skin was shining like gold then he mounted
he said to his horse what shall we do
or shall we follow the runaways and the horse replied whether you eat or don't eat drink or don't drink follow them or stay at home matters nothing now for you can never never catch them
and their hearts grew calm for they trusted his wisdom soon the dragon's horse was heard panting behind and he cried out oh my brother do not go so fast i shall sink to the earth if i try to keep up with you
and no one can well be a sojourner for any length of time in weymouth without discovering this fact for him or herself either through inquiry or by means of personal exploration and of those who have enjoyed a saunter through this lane
and commanding an unparalleled view of the roadstead of portland
he drove into weymouth bay and there under the eyes of his admiring fellow townsmen fought her in his good ship golden rose until she was fain to strike her colours and surrender to a craft of considerably
less than half her size the spaniards
from the time of its building down to the date of my story and under its roof i was born
poor soul for i was her only child and being a saint leger took naturally to the sea as a profession that i should do so was indeed so completely a foregone conclusion that i was especially educated for it at greenwich upon leaving which
and under him i had faithfully served my time and had risen to the position of second mate when death claimed him and he passed away in my arms commending my mother to my tenderest care with his last breath since that terrible time
the voyage which i had just concluded had been a singularly fortunate one for me for on our homeward passage when a short distance to the eastward of the cape we had fallen in with a derelict homeward bound from the moluccas and philippines with a cargo of almost
fabulous value on board and having taken possession of her
that when the settling day arrived my own share would fall very little short of three thousand pounds if indeed it did not fully reach that figure
that he was as good a man of business as he was a seaman acting under this impression he had relied entirely upon his own unaided judgment in the investment of his savings and anxious only to secure as generous a provision as possible for my mother
had been tempted to put his hard earned money into certain projects that offering in their inception a too alluring promise of continuous prosperity and generous dividends had failed to withstand the test of time and the altered conditions of trade
and that my poor mother would simply have to put up with the loss as best she might then arose the question of what was best to be done under our altered circumstances
and she therefore suggested that we should let it upon a lease if a suitable tenant could be found and that she should retire with her altered fortunes into the obscurity of some small cottage to this however
well i really don't know my boy
how can we know or suppose that any one has searched for it since hugh saint leger abandoned the quest yet there never appears to have been the slightest shadow of doubt in the minds of any of your ancestors that when richard saint leger died in the arms of his son hugh
he held the clue to the secret indeed he died in the act of endeavouring to communicate it so i have always understood answered i with languidly reviving interest but it is so long since i last heard the story
as far back as our family records go and richard saint leger who was born in sixteen eighty nine was perhaps the most daring and adventurous of them all he was a contemporary of the great captain afterwards lord anson
that he first became aware of the rumours which reached england from time to time of the fabulous value of the galleon which sailed annually from acapulco
these rumours which were no doubt greatly exaggerated were well calculated to excite the imagination and stimulate the enterprise of the bold and restless spirits of that period so much so indeed
that when the english in seventeen thirty nine declared war against spain
at length in the year seventeen forty two i think it was it became whispered about among those restless spirits that a galleon had actually been captured
richard saint leger was one of the first to hear the news and it so fired his imagination and probably his cupidity
obtained the fullest particulars relating to the adventure this done his next step was to organise a company of adventurers with himself as their head and leader to sail in search of the next year's galleon this was in the year seventeen forty two
the expedition was a failure so far as the capture of the galleon was concerned for she fell into the hands of commodore anson in other respects however the voyage proved fairly profitable for though they missed the great treasure ship
they fell in with and captured another spanish vessel which had on board sufficient specie to well recompense the captors for the time and trouble devoted to the adventure and now i come to the part of the story which relates to what has always been spoken of in the family as richard saint leger's buried treasure
it appears that on board the captured spanish ship of which i have just spoken certain english prisoners were found the survivors of the crew of an english ship that had fought with and been destroyed by the spanish ship only a few days prior to her own capture
where they received every care and their hurts
they had sought out a secluded spot and had there carefully concealed the treasure by burying it in the earth now however the poor man was dying and could never hope to enjoy his share of the spoil
or even insure its possession to his relatives he therefore made a compact with richard saint leger confiding to him the secret of the hiding place upon the condition that upon the recovery of the treasure
but contrary to usual experience they fought with the utmost valour and determination so that for some time after the ships had become engaged at close quarters the struggle was simply one for bare life on the part of the english
during which hugh saint leger had no leisure to think of treasure or of anything else save how to save his comrades and himself from the horrors of capture by their cruel enemies meanwhile
the consciousness gradually forced itself upon richard saint leger that he was wounded unto death and that time would soon be for him no more realising now no doubt
he despatched a messenger to hugh enjoining the latter to hasten to the side of his dying father forthwith at all risks the messenger however was shot dead ere he could reach hugh saint leger's side
and the urgent message remained undelivered at length the stubborn courage of the english prevailed and despite their vast superiority in numbers
were first driven back to their own deck and then below when further resistance being useless they flung down their arms and surrendered hugh now after giving a few hasty orders as to the disposal of the prisoners
the treasure buried island full particulars concealed in my when a torrent of blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils and with a last convulsive struggle
richard saint leger sank back upon his pallet dead he was buried at sea that same night
and some days afterwards when hugh saint leger had conquered his grief sufficiently to give his attention to other matters he set himself to the task of seeking for the particulars relating to the buried treasure
but though he patiently examined every document and scrap of paper contained in his father's desk
the quest was unavailing and the particulars have never been found to this day it is very curious i remarked when my mother had brought her narrative to a conclusion very curious and very interesting
but what you have related only strengthens my previous conviction
it would be found that richard saint leger kept the papers concealed somewhere about his clothing and that they were buried with him
rejoined my mother for it is distinctly stated that probably to obviate any such possibility hugh saint leger carefully preserved every article of clothing which his father wore when he died and the things exist to this day
and have those relics never been examined since my ancestor hugh abandoned the quest as hopeless i inquired they may have been i cannot say answered my mother
then if that be so i exclaimed they shall have another thorough overhaul from clew to earring before i am a day older if as you say every scrap of property belonging to richard saint leger was carefully collected and removed from the ship when she came home
and still exists stored away upstairs why the papers must be there too and if they are i will find them let them be hidden ever so carefully whereabouts do you say these things are mother
harmoniously the princes draw near with reverent tread assisting in his worship heaven's son the great and dread how exclaimed the master
can such words be appropriated in the ancestral hall of the three families where a man said he again has not the proper feelings due from one man to another how will he stand as regards the rules of propriety
and in such a case what shall we say of his sense of harmony
as to what was the radical idea upon which the rules of propriety were based the master exclaimed ah that is a large question as to some rules where there is likelihood of extravagance they would rather demand economy
in those which relate to mourning and where there is likelihood of being easily satisfied what is wanted is real sorrow speaking of the disorder of the times he remarked that
we had lost these distinctions
cannot you save him from this he replied it is beyond my power
of the superior man the master observed in him there is no contentiousness say even that he does certainly contend with others as in archery competitions yet mark in that case
how courteously he will bow and go up for the forfeit cup and come down again and give it to his competitor in his very contest he is still the superior man
what inference might be drawn from the lines dimples playing in witching smile beautiful eyes so dark so bright oh and her face may be thought the while
colored by art red rose on white coloring replied the master requires a pure and clear background then said the other rules of ceremony require to have a background
ah exclaimed the master you are the man to catch the drift of my thought such as you may well introduce a discussion on the odes said the master
so too i am able to describe the ceremonial of the yin dynasty although no more can the sung people show sufficient reason for its continuance amongst themselves and why cannot they do so because they have not documents enough
nor men learned enough if only they had such i could refer them to them in support of their usages
the master said from the pouring out of the oblation onwards i have no heart to look on some one asked what was the purport of this great sacrifice and the master replied
i cannot tell the position in the empire of him who could tell you is as evident as when you look at this pointing to the palm of his hand
he used to act as if they were present before him in offering to other spirits it was the same he would say if i do not myself take part in my offerings it is all the same as if i did not offer them
what says the proverb better to court favor in the kitchen than in the drawing room the master replied nay better say
of the chow dynasty the master remarked it looks back upon two other dynasties and what a rich possession it has in its records of those times i follow chow
on his first entry into the grand temple he inquired about every matter connected with its usages some one thereupon remarked
on entering the grand temple he inquired about everything this remark coming to the master's ears he said what i did is part of the ceremonial in archery he said
the great point to be observed is not simply the perforation of the leather for men have not all the same strength that was the fashion in the olden days once
the master said ah you grudge the loss of the sheep i grudge the loss of the ceremony to serve one's ruler nowadays he remarked fully complying with the rules of propriety
is regarded by others as toadyism when duke ting questioned him as to how a prince should deal with his ministers and how they in turn should serve their prince confucius said in reply
in serving his prince a minister should observe the duty of loyalty referring to the first of the odes he remarked that it was mirthful without being lewd and sad also without being painful
duke ngai asked the disciple tsai wo respecting the places for sacrificing to the earth the latter replied
chose a place of pine trees the yin founders chose cypresses and the chow founders chestnut trees solemn and majestic to inspire tis said the people with feelings of awe
the master on hearing of this exclaimed never an allusion to things that have been enacted in the past never a remonstrance against what is now going on he has gone away without a word of censure
was he miserly some one asked miserly indeed said he not that
how could he be miserly he knew the rules of propriety i suppose judge seeing that the feudal lords planted a screen at their gates he too would have one at his
seeing that when any two of the feudal lords met in friendly conclave they had an earthenware stand on which to place their inverted cups after drinking he must have the same if he knew the rules of propriety
who is there that does not know them in a discourse to the chief preceptor of music at the court of lu the master said music is an intelligible thing when you begin a performance
let all the various instruments produce as it were one sound inharmonious then as you go on bring out the harmony fully distinctly and with uninterrupted flow unto the end
and said when great men have come here i have never yet failed to obtain a sight of them the followers introduced him and on leaving he said to them sirs why grieve at his loss of office
the empire has for long been without good government and heaven is about to use your master as its edict announcer comparing the music of the emperor shun with the music of king wu the master said
that of shun is beautiful throughout and also good throughout that of wu is all of it beautiful but scarcely all of it good high station said the master
occupied by men who have no large and generous heart ceremonial performed with no reverence duties of mourning engaging the attention where there is absence of sorrow how should i look on where this is the state of things
waving plumes flags et cetera each line or rank of these contained eight men only in the sovereign's household should there have been eight lines of them a ducal family like the ki
should have had but six lines a great official had four and one of lower grade two these were the gradations marking the status of families
one of the five sacred mountains worshipped upon only by the sovereign
his father was governor of the town
a renowned statesman who flourished about two hundred years before confucius's time a philosophical work on law and government said to have been written by him is still extant
in his hours of recreation and refreshment the master's manner was easy and unconstrained affable and winning once he exclaimed alas i must be getting very feeble
tis long since i have had a repetition of the dreams in which i used to see the duke of chow
upon the good way maintain firm hold upon virtue rely upon philanthropy find recreation in the arts
i have never withheld instruction from any even from those who have come for it with the smallest offering no subject do i broach however to those who have no eager desire to learn
no encouraging hint do i give to those who show no anxiety to speak out their ideas nor have i anything more to say to those who after i have made clear one corner of the subject cannot from that give me the other three
if the master was taking a meal and there were any in mourning beside him he would not eat to the full on one day on which he had wept on that day he would not sing
addressing his favorite disciple he said to you only and myself it has been given to do this to go when called to serve and to go back into quiet retirement when released from office
hearing the remark said but if sir
the master answered not the one who'll rouse the tiger not the one who'll wade the ho not the man who can die with no regret he must be one who should watch over affairs with apprehensive caution a man fond of strategy
and of perfect skill and effectiveness in it
if wealth were an object that i could go in quest of i should do so even if i had to take a whip and do grooms work but seeing that it is not i go after those objects for which i have a liking
among matters over which he exercised great caution were times of fasting war and sickness when he was in the state of ts'i and had heard the ancient shau music
he lost all perception of the taste of his meat i had no idea said he that music could have been brought to this pitch
does the master take the part of the prince of wei
i will go and ask him that on going in to him that disciple began
had they any feelings of resentment was the next question their aim and object he answered was that of doing the duty which every man owes to his fellows and they succeeded in doing it what room further for feelings of resentment
the questioner on coming out said the master does not take his part
and with water to drink and my bent arm for my pillow even thus i can find happiness riches and honors without righteousness are to me as fleeting clouds give me several years more to live said he
i might come to be free from serious error the master's regular subjects of discourse were the books of the odes and history and the up keeping of the rules of propriety on all of these he regularly discoursed
hearing of this the master said why did you not say he is a man with a mind so intent on his pursuits that he forgets his food and finds such pleasure in them that he forgets his troubles and does not know that old age is coming upon him
deeds of lawlessness references to spiritual beings such like matters the master avoided in conversation let there he said be three men walking together
from that number i should be sure to find my instructors for what is good in them i should choose out and follow and what is not good i should modify on one occasion he exclaimed heaven begat virtue in me
what can man do unto me to his disciples he once said do you look upon me my sons as keeping anything secret from you i hide nothing from you i do nothing that is not manifest to your eyes
my disciples that is so with me four things there were which he kept in view in his teaching scholarliness conduct of life honesty faithfulness
it is not given to me he said to meet with a sage let me but behold a man of superior mind and that will suffice neither is it given to me to meet with a good man let me but see a man of constancy
and it will suffice it is difficult for persons to have constancy when they pretend to have that which they are destitute of to be full when they are empty
when the master fished with hook and line he did not also use a net when out with his bow he would never shoot at game in cover some there may be said he who do things in ignorance of what they do
i am not of these there is an alternative way of knowing things viz to sift out the good from the many things one hears and follow it and to keep in memory the many things one sees
one youth came to interview the master
why so much ado said the master at my merely permitting his approach and not rather at my allowing him to draw back if a man have cleansed himself in order to come and see me i receive him as such
but i do not undertake for what he will do when he goes away is the philanthropic spirit far to seek indeed the master exclaimed i wish for it and it is with me
the minister of crime in the state of ch'in asked confucius
and he answered yes he knows them when confucius had withdrawn
and motioned to him to come forward he said i have heard that superior men show no partiality are they too then partial that prince took for his wife a lady of the wu family
the elder if he knows the proprieties then who does not the disciple reported this to the master who thereupon remarked
others are sure to know of it when the master was in company with any one who sang and who sang well he must needs have the song over again and after that would join in it
although in letters he said i may have none to compare with me yet in my personification of the superior man i have not as yet been successful a sage and a philanthropist
how should i have the ambition said he all that i can well be called is this an insatiable student an unwearied teacher this and no more
once when the master was seriously ill tsz lu requested to be allowed to say prayers for him are such available asked the master yes said he
pray to the spirits above and to those here below my praying has been going on a long while said the master lavish living he said renders men disorderly
miserliness makes them hard better however the hard than the disorderly again the man of superior mind is placidly composed the small minded man is in a constant state of perturbation
requested to say more he added
chung kung on being made first minister to the chief of the ki family consulted the master about government and to him he said let the heads of offices be heads excuse small faults
promote men of sagacity and talent but he asked how am i to know the sagacious and talented before promoting them promote those whom you do know said the master as to those of whom you are uncertain
will others omit to notice them tsz lu said to the master as the prince of wei sir has been waiting for you to act for him in his government what is it your intention to take in hand first
one thing of necessity he answered the rectification of terms
a gentleman would be a little reserved and reticent in matters which he does not understand if terms be incorrect language will be incongruous and if language be incongruous
so again when deeds are imperfect propriety and harmony cannot prevail and when this is the case laws relating to crime will fail in their aim and if these last so fail the people will not know where to set hand or foot
hence a man of superior mind certain first of his terms is fitted to speak and being certain of what he says can proceed upon it in the language of such a person
for that said the master i am not equal to an old husbandman might he then learn something of gardening he asked i am not equal to an old gardener was the reply a man of little mind that said the master
and they will not presume to be disrespectful let him be a lover of righteousness and they will not presume to be aught but submissive let him love faithfulness and truth and they will not presume not to lend him their hearty assistance
could hum through the odes the three hundred yet should show himself unskilled when given some administrative work to do for his country though he might know much of that other lore yet if when sent on a mission to any quarter
what after all is he good for let a leader said he show rectitude in his own personal character and even without directions from him things will go well if he be not personally upright
his directions will not be complied with once he made the remark the governments of lu and of wei are in brotherhood of king a son of the duke of wei he observed that
on his coming into possession he thought what a strange conglomeration coming to possess a little more it was strange such a result and when he became wealthy strange such elegance
enrich them replied the master and after enriching them what more would you do for them instruct them were any one of our princes to employ me he said
again how true is that saying let good men have the management of a country for a century and they would be adequate to cope with evil doers and thus do away with capital punishments again
suppose the ruler to possess true kingly qualities then surely after one generation there would be good will among men again let a ruler but see to his own rectitude
and what trouble will he then have in the work before him if he be unable to rectify himself how is he to rectify others once when yen yu was leaving the court the master accosted him why so late he asked
busy with legislation yen replied the details of it suggested the master had it been legislation i should have been there to hear it even though i am not in office duke ting asked
if there were one sentence which if acted upon might have the effect of making a country prosperous confucius answered a sentence could hardly be supposed to do so much as that but there is a proverb people use which says
to play the prince is hard to play the minister not easy assuming that it is understood that to play the prince is hard would it not be probable that with that one sentence the country should be made to prosper is there then
he asked one sentence which if acted upon would have the effect of ruining a country confucius again replied a sentence could hardly be supposed to do so much as that but there is a proverb men have which says
assuming that the words were good and that none withstood them would not that also be good but assuming that they were not good and yet none withstood them would it not be probable that with that one saying he would work his country's ruin
where the near are gratified the far will follow
and consulted him about government he answered do not wish for speedy results do not look at trivial advantages if you wish for speedy results
and if you regard trivial advantages you will not successfully deal with important affairs the duke of sheh in a conversation with confucius said there are some straightforward persons in my neighborhood if a father has stolen a sheep
the son will give evidence against him
the father will hold a thing secret on his son's behalf and the son does the same for his father
in answer to tsz kung who asked how he would characterize one who could fitly be called learned official the master said he may be so called who in his private life is affected with a sense of his own unworthiness
and who when sent on a mission to any quarter of the empire would not disgrace his prince's commands may i presume said his questioner
him who is spoken of by his kinsmen as a dutiful son and whom the folks of his neighborhood call good brother may i still venture to ask whom you would place next in order such as are sure to be true to their word
and effective in their work who are given to hammering as it were upon one note of inferior calibre indeed but fit enough i think to be ranked next how would you describe those who are at present in the government service
mere peck and panier men not worth taking into the reckoning once he remarked
then i must of course take the impetuous and undisciplined the impetuous ones will at least go forward and lay hold on things
which needs to be brought out the southerners said he have the proverb the man who sticks not to rule will never make a charm worker or a medical man
will live to be ashamed of it without prognostication he added that will indeed be so
will be agreeable even when he disagrees the small minded man will agree and be disagreeable
what say you of a person who was liked by all in his village that will scarcely do he answered what then if they all disliked him that too said he is scarcely enough
better if he were liked by the good folk in the village and disliked by the bad the superior man he once observed is easy to serve but difficult to please try to please him by the adoption of wrong principles
and you will fail also when such a one employs others he uses them according to their capacity the inferior man is on the other hand difficult to serve but easy to please
try to please him by the adoption of wrong principles and you will succeed and when he employs others he requires them to be fully prepared for everything again the superior man can be high without being haughty
the inferior man can be haughty if not high the firm the unflinching the plain and simple the slow to speak said he once are approximating towards their duty to their fellow men
tsz lu asked how he would characterize one who might fitly be called an educated gentleman the master replied he who can properly be so called will have in him a seriousness of purpose
a habit of controlling himself and an agreeableness of manner among his friends and associates the seriousness and the self control and among his brethren the agreeableness of manner
for his sleep was aerie light from pure digestion bred and temperat vapors bland
and the shrill matin song of birds on every bough
as through unquiet rest he on his side leaning half rais'd with looks of cordial love hung over her enamour'd and beheld beautie which whether waking or asleep shot forth peculiar graces
her hand soft touching whisperd thus awake my fairest my espous'd my latest found heav'ns last best gift my ever new delight awake the morning shines and the fresh field calls us
we lose the prime to mark how spring our tended plants how blows the citron grove what drops the myrrhe and what the balmie reed
such whispering wak'd her but with startl'd eye on adam whom imbracing thus she spake o sole in whom my thoughts find all repose my glorie my perfection glad i see thy face and morn return'd for i this night
such night till this i never pass'd have dream'd if dream'd not as i oft am wont of thee works of day pass't or morrows next designe but of offence and trouble which my mind knew never till this irksom night
methought close at mine ear one call'd me forth to walk with gentle voice i thought it thine it said why sleepst thou eve now is the pleasant time the cool the silent
save where silence yields to the night warbling bird that now awake tunes sweetest his love labor'd song
in vain if none regard
in whose sight all things joy with ravishment attracted by thy beauty still to gaze i rose as at thy call but found thee not
to find thee i directed then my walk and on methought alone i pass'd through ways that brought me on a sudden to the tree of interdicted knowledge fair it seem'd much fairer to my fancie then by day
and as i wondring lookt beside it stood one shap'd and wing'd like one of those from heav'n by us oft seen his dewie locks distill'd ambrosia
with fruit surcharg'd deigns none to ease thy load and taste thy sweet nor god nor man
or envie or what reserve forbids to taste forbid who will none shall from me withhold longer thy offerd good why else set here this said he paus'd not but with ventrous arme he pluckt he tasted
mee damp horror chil'd at such bold words voucht with a deed so bold but he thus overjoy'd o fruit divine sweet of thy self but much more sweet thus cropt forbidd'n here
it seems as onely fit for gods yet able to make gods of men and why not gods of men since good the more communicated more abundant growes the author not impair'd
but honourd more here happie creature fair angelic eve partake thou also happie though thou art happier thou mayst be worthier canst not be
taste this and be henceforth among the gods thy self a goddess not to earth confind but somtimes in the air as wee somtimes ascend to heav'n by merit thine and see what life the gods live there
and such live thou so saying he drew nigh and to me held even to my mouth of that same fruit held part which he had pluckt the pleasant savourie smell so quick'nd appetite
that i methought could not but taste forthwith up to the clouds with him i flew and underneath beheld the earth outstretcht immense a prospect wide and various
wondring at my flight and change to this high exaltation suddenly my guide was gon and i me thought sunk down and fell asleep
thus eve her night related and thus adam answerd sad best image of my self and dearer half the trouble of thy thoughts this night in sleep affects me equally
nor can i like this uncouth dream of evil sprung i fear yet evil whence in thee can harbour none created pure but know that in the soule are many lesser faculties that serve reason as chief
among these fansie next her office holds of all external things which the five watchful senses represent she forms imaginations aerie shapes
which reason joyning or disjoyning frames all what we affirm or what deny
then retires into her private cell when nature rests oft in her absence mimic fansie wakes to imitate her but misjoyning shapes wilde work produces oft
and most in dreams ill matching words and deeds long past or late som such resemblances methinks i find of our last eevnings talk in this thy dream but with addition strange
yet be not sad evil into the mind of god or man may come and go so unapprov'd and leave no spot or blame behind
which gives me hope that what in sleep thou didst abhorr to dream waking thou never wilt consent to do be not disheart'nd then nor cloud those looks that wont to be more chearful and serene
then when fair morning first smiles on the world and let us to our fresh imployments rise among the groves the fountains and the flours
so all was cleard and to the field they haste but first from under shadie arborous roof soon as they forth were come to open sight of day spring and the sun who scarce up risen with wheels yet hov'ring o're the ocean brim
shot paralel to the earth his dewie ray discovering in wide lantskip all the east of paradise and edens happie plains lowly they bow'd adoring
for neither various style nor holy rapture wanted they to praise thir maker in fit strains pronounc't or sung unmeditated such prompt eloquence flowd from thir lips
in prose or numerous verse more tuneable then needed lute or harp to add more sweetness and they thus began these are thy glorious works parent of good almightie
thy self how wondrous then unspeakable who sitst above these heavens to us invisible or dimly seen in these thy lowest works yet these declare thy goodness beyond thought and power divine
speak yee who best can tell ye sons of light angels for yee behold him and with songs and choral symphonies day without night circle his throne rejoycing yee in heav'n
on earth joyn all yee creatures to extoll him first him last him midst and without end fairest of starrs last in the train of night if better thou belong not to the dawn
sure pledge of day that crownst the smiling morn with thy bright circlet praise him in thy spheare while day arises that sweet hour of prime thou sun
of this great world both eye and soule acknowledge him thy greater sound his praise in thy eternal course both when thou climb'st and when high noon hast gaind and when thou fallst moon that now meetst the orient sun
that move in mystic dance not without song resound his praise who out of darkness call'd up light aire and ye elements the eldest birth of natures womb
that in quaternion run perpetual circle multiform and mix and nourish all things let your ceasless change varie to our great maker still new praise ye mists and exhalations that now rise from hill or steaming lake
duskie or grey till the sun paint your fleecie skirts with gold in honour to the worlds great author rise
rising or falling still advance his praise his praise ye winds
and wave your tops ye pines with every plant in sign of worship wave fountains and yee that warble as ye flow melodious murmurs warbling tune his praise
joyn voices all ye living souls ye birds that singing up to heaven gate ascend bear on your wings and in your notes his praise yee that in waters glide and yee that walk the earth and stately tread or lowly creep
witness if i be silent morn or eeven to hill or valley fountain or fresh shade made vocal by my song and taught his praise hail universal lord be bounteous still to give us onely good
and if the night have gathered aught of evil or conceald disperse it as now light dispels the dark so pray'd they innocent and to thir thoughts firm peace recoverd soon and wonted calm
on to thir mornings rural work they haste among sweet dewes and flours where any row of fruit trees overwoodie reachd too farr thir pamperd boughes and needed hands to check fruitless imbraces or they led the vine to wed her elm
and with her brings her dowr
them thus imploid beheld with pittie heav'ns high king and to him call'd raphael the sociable spirit that deign'd to travel with tobias and secur'd his marriage with the seaventimes wedded maid
raphael said hee thou hear'st what stir on earth satan from hell scap't through the darksom gulf hath raisd in paradise and how disturbd this night the human pair
how he designes in them at once to ruin all mankind go therefore
to respit his day labour with repast or with repose and such discourse bring on as may advise him of his happie state happiness in his power left free to will left to his own free will
his will though free yet mutable whence warne him to beware he swerve not too secure tell him withall his danger and from whom what enemie late falln himself from heav'n is plotting now the fall of others from like state of bliss
by violence no for that shall be withstood but by deceit and lies this let him know least wilfully transgressing he pretend surprisal unadmonisht unforewarnd
and fulfilld all justice nor delaid the winged saint after his charge receivd but from among thousand celestial ardors where he stood vaild with his gorgeous wings
as by work divine the sov'ran architect had fram'd from hence no cloud or to obstruct his sight starr interpos'd however small he sees not unconform to other shining globes earth
down thither prone in flight he speeds
with steddie wing now on the polar windes then with quick fann winnows the buxom air till within soare of towring eagles to all the fowles he seems a phoenix
to aegyptian theb's he flies
six wings he wore to shade his lineaments divine the pair that clad each shoulder broad came mantling o're his brest with regal ornament the middle pair girt like a starrie zone his waste
and round skirted his loines and thighes with downie gold and colours dipt in heav'n the third his feet shaddowd from either heele with featherd maile
like maia's son he stood and shook his plumes that heav'nly fragrance filld the circuit wide strait knew him all the bands of angels under watch and to his state and to his message high in honour rise for on som message high they guessd him bound
a wilderness of sweets for nature here wantond as in her prime and plaid at will her virgin fancies pouring forth more sweet wilde above rule or art enormous bliss him through the spicie forrest onward com adam discernd
to warme earths inmost womb more warmth then adam need
and not disrelish thirst of nectarous draughts between from milkie stream berrie or grape to whom thus adam call'd haste hither eve and worth thy sight behold eastward among those trees
what glorious shape comes this way moving seems another morn ris'n on mid noon som great behest from heav'n to us perhaps he brings
but goe with speed and what thy stores contain bring forth and poure abundance fit to honour and receive our heav'nly stranger
where nature multiplies her fertil growth and by disburd'ning grows more fruitful which instructs us not to spare to whom thus eve adam earths hallowd mould of god inspir'd
small store will serve where store all seasons ripe for use hangs on the stalk save what by frugal storing firmness gains to nourish and superfluous moist consumes
but i will haste and from each bough and break each plant and juciest gourd will pluck such choice to entertain our angel guest as hee beholding shall confess that here on earth god hath dispenst his bounties as in heav'n
so saying with dispatchful looks in haste she turns on hospitable thoughts intent what choice to chuse for delicacie best what order so contriv'd as not to mix tastes not well joynd inelegant but bring taste after taste
upheld with kindliest change bestirs her then and from each tender stalk whatever earth all bearing mother yeilds in india east or west or middle shoare in pontus or the punic coast
in coate rough or smooth rin'd or bearded husk or shell she gathers tribute large and on the board heaps with unsparing hand for drink the grape she crushes inoffensive moust and meathes from many a berrie and from sweet kernels
prest she tempers dulcet creams nor these to hold wants her fit vessels pure
mean while our primitive great sire to meet his god like guest walks forth without more train accompani'd then with his own compleat perfections in himself was all his state more solemn then the tedious pomp that waits on princes
when thir rich retinue long of horses led and grooms besmeard with gold dazles the croud and sets them all agape neerer his presence adam though not awd yet with submiss approach and reverence meek as to a superior nature
bowing low thus said native of heav'n for other place none can then heav'n such glorious shape contain
since by descending from the thrones above those happie places thou hast deignd a while to want and honour these
who yet by sov'ran gift possess this spacious ground
till this meridian heat be over and the sun more coole decline
adam i therefore came nor art thou such created or such place hast here to dwell as may not oft invite though spirits of heav'n to visit thee
so to the silvan lodge they came that like pomona's arbour smil'd with flourets deck't and fragrant smells but eve undeckt save with her self more lovely fair then wood nymph or the fairest goddess feign'd of three
that in mount ida naked strove stood to entertain her guest from heav'n no vaile shee needed vertue proof no thought infirme alterd her cheek on whom the angel haile bestowd
second eve haile mother of mankind whose fruitful womb shall fill the world more numerous with thy sons then with these various fruits the trees of god have heap'd this table rais'd of grassie terf thir table was and mossie seats had round
and on her ample square from side to side
though spring and autumn here danc'd hand in hand a while discourse they hold no fear lest dinner coole when thus began our authour heav'nly stranger please to taste these bounties which our nourisher
from whom all perfet good unmeasur'd out descends to us for food and for delight hath caus'd the earth to yeild
may yet be at bottom hypothetical for instance when the precept is thou shalt not promise deceitfully and it is assumed that the necessity of this is not a mere counsel to avoid some other evil so that it should mean
then we cannot show with certainty in any example that the will was determined merely by the law without any other spring of action although it may appear to be so for it is always possible that fear of disgrace
but in such a case the so called moral imperative which as such appears to be categorical and unconditional would in reality be only a pragmatic precept drawing our attention to our own interests and merely teaching us to take these into consideration
the possibility of a categorical imperative as we have not in this case the advantage of its reality being given in experience so that the elucidation of its possibility should be requisite only for its explanation
not for its establishment in the meantime it may be discerned beforehand that the categorical imperative alone has the purport of a practical law all the rest may indeed be called principles of the will but not laws
since whatever is only necessary for the attainment of some arbitrary purpose may be considered as in itself contingent and we can at any time be free from the precept if we give up the purpose on the contrary
the difficulty of discerning its possibility is a very profound one
i connect the act with the will without presupposing any condition resulting from any inclination
and therefore necessarily though only objectively
this is accordingly a practical proposition which does not deduce the willing of an action by mere analysis from another already presupposed for we have not such a perfect will but connects it immediately with the conception of the will of a rational being
in this problem we will first inquire whether the mere conception of a categorical imperative may not perhaps supply us also with the formula of it containing the proposition which alone can be a categorical imperative
for even if we know the tenor of such an absolute command
which we postpone to the last section when i conceive a hypothetical imperative in general i do not know beforehand what it will contain until i am given the condition but when i conceive a categorical imperative
i know at once what it contains for as the imperative contains besides the law only the necessity that the maxims shall conform to this law while the law contains no conditions restricting it there remains nothing but the general statement
that the maxim of the action should conform to a universal law and it is this conformity alone that the imperative properly represents as necessary
by means of the very feeling whose special nature it is to impel to the improvement of life would contradict itself and therefore could not exist as a system of nature hence
that maxim cannot possibly exist as a universal law of nature and consequently would be wholly inconsistent with the supreme principle of all duty
now this principle of self love or of one's own advantage may perhaps be consistent with my whole future welfare but the question now is is it right
and state the question thus how would it be if my maxim were a universal law then i see at once that it could never hold as a universal law of nature but would necessarily contradict itself
for supposing it to be a universal law that everyone when he thinks himself in a difficulty should be able to promise whatever he pleases with the purpose of not keeping his promise
a third finds in himself a talent which with the help of some culture might make him a useful man in many respects but he finds himself in comfortable circumstances and prefers to indulge in pleasure rather than to take pains in enlarging
and improving his happy natural capacities he asks however whether his maxim of neglect of his natural gifts besides agreeing with his inclination to indulgence agrees also with what is called duty
he sees then that a system of nature could indeed subsist with such a universal law although men
should let their talents rest and resolve to devote their lives merely to idleness amusement and propagation of their species in a word to enjoyment
we need not wonder why they all failed it was seen that man was bound to laws by duty but it was not observed that the laws to which he is subject are only those of his own giving though at the same time they are universal
then this law required some interest either by way of attraction or constraint since it did not originate as a law from his own will
in contrast with every other which i accordingly reckon as heteronomy the conception of the will of every rational being as one which must consider itself as giving in all the maxims of its will
by a kingdom i understand the union of different rational beings in a system by common laws now since it is by laws that ends are determined as regards their universal validity hence
if we abstract from the personal differences of rational beings and likewise from all the content of their private ends we shall be able to conceive all ends combined in a systematic whole including both rational beings as ends in themselves
a kingdom which may be called a kingdom of ends since what these laws have in view is just the relation of these beings to one another as ends and means it is certainly only an ideal
a rational being belongs as a member to the kingdom of ends when although giving universal laws in it he is also himself subject to these laws he belongs to it
while giving laws he is not subject to the will of any other a rational being must always regard himself as giving laws either as member
which alone can render a kingdom of ends possible this legislation must be capable of existing in every rational being and of emanating from his will so that the principle of this will
which could not without contradiction be also a universal law and accordingly always so to act that the will could at the same time regard itself as giving in its maxims universal laws if now
duty duty does not apply to the sovereign in the kingdom of ends but it does to every member of it and to all in the same degree the practical necessity of acting on this principle
and also to every action towards oneself and this not on account of any other practical motive or any future advantage but from the idea of the dignity of a rational being obeying no law
is above all value and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity whatever has reference to the general inclinations and wants of mankind has a market value whatever without presupposing a want
corresponds to a certain taste that is to a satisfaction in the mere purposeless play of our faculties has a fancy value but that which constitutes the condition under which alone anything can be an end in itself
but an intrinsic worth that is dignity now morality is the condition under which alone a rational being can be an end in himself since by this alone is it possible that he should be a legislating member
thus morality and humanity as capable of it is that which alone has dignity skill and diligence in labour have a market value wit lively imagination and humour have fancy value
on the other hand fidelity to promises benevolence from principle not from instinct have an intrinsic worth neither nature nor art contains anything which in default of these it could put in their place
they exhibit the will that performs them as an object of an immediate respect
not to flatter it into them which in the case of duties would be a contradiction this estimation therefore shows that the worth of such a disposition is dignity and places it infinitely above all value
with which it cannot for a moment be brought into comparison or competition without as it were violating its sanctity what then is it which justifies virtue or the morally good disposition
in making such lofty claims it is nothing less than the privilege it secures to the rational being of participating in the giving of universal laws by which it qualifies him to be a member of a possible kingdom of ends
and obeying those only which he himself gives and by which his maxims can belong to a system of universal law to which at the same time he submits himself for nothing has any worth except what the law assigns it
now the legislation itself which assigns the worth of everything must for that very reason possess dignity that is an unconditional incomparable worth and the word respect alone supplies a becoming expression
for the esteem which a rational being must have for it autonomy then is the basis of the dignity of human and of every rational nature the three modes of presenting the principle of morality that have been adduced
are at bottom only so many formulae of the very same law and each of itself involves the other two there is however a difference in them but it is rather subjectively than objectively practical
and therefore an end in itself must in every maxim serve as the condition limiting all merely relative and arbitrary ends
a complete characterization of all maxims by means of that formula namely that all maxims ought by their own legislation to harmonize with a possible kingdom of ends as with a kingdom of nature
if however we wish to gain an entrance for the moral law it is very useful to bring one and the same action under the three specified conceptions and thereby as far as possible to bring it nearer to intuition
teleology considers nature as a kingdom of ends ethics regards a possible kingdom of ends as a kingdom nature in the first case the kingdom of ends is a theoretical idea
in the latter it is a practical idea adopted to bring about that which is not yet but which can be realized by our conduct namely if it conforms to this idea
we can now end where we started at the beginning namely with the conception of a will unconditionally good that will is absolutely good which cannot be evil in other words whose maxim
if made a universal law could never contradict itself this principle then is its supreme law act always on such a maxim as thou canst at the same time will
to be a universal law this is the sole condition under which a will can never contradict itself and such an imperative is categorical since the validity of the will as a universal law for possible actions
is analogous to the universal connexion of the existence of things by general laws which is the formal notion of nature in general the categorical imperative can also be expressed thus
act on maxims which can at the same time have for their object themselves as universal laws of nature such then is the formula of an absolutely good will
rational nature is distinguished from the rest of nature by this that it sets before itself an end this end would be the matter of every good will but since in the idea of a will
the end must be conceived not as an end to be effected but as an independently existing end consequently it is conceived only negatively
as that which we must never act against and which therefore must never be regarded merely as means but must in every volition be esteemed as an end likewise now this end can be nothing
but the subject of all possible ends since this is also the subject of a possible absolutely good will for such a will cannot without contradiction be postponed to any other object
by the condition of its holding good as a law for every subject this comes to the same thing as that the fundamental principle of all maxims of action
be never employed merely as means but as the supreme condition restricting the use of all means that is in every case as an end likewise it follows incontestably that
that he must always take his maxims from the point of view which regards himself and likewise every other rational being as law giving beings on which account they are called persons in this way a world of rational beings
mundus intelligibilis is possible as a kingdom of ends and this by virtue of the legislation proper to all persons as members therefore every rational being must so act as if he were by his maxims
in every case a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends the formal principle of these maxims is so act as if thy maxim were to serve likewise as the universal law
only by the laws of efficient causes acting under necessitation from without nevertheless although the system of nature is looked upon as a machine yet so far as it has reference to rational beings as its ends
nor expect that the kingdom of nature and its orderly arrangements shall be in harmony with him as a fitting member so as to form a kingdom of ends to which he himself contributes that is to say that it shall favour his expectation of happiness
still that law act according to the maxims of a member of a merely possible kingdom of ends legislating in it universally remains in its full force inasmuch as it commands categorically
and it is just in this that the paradox lies
without any other end or advantage to be attained thereby in other words respect for a mere idea should yet serve as an inflexible precept of the will and that it is precisely in this independence of the maxim
on all such springs of action that its sublimity consists and it is this that makes every rational subject worthy to be a legislative member in the kingdom of ends for otherwise
be always conceived as estimating the worth of rational beings only by their disinterested behaviour as prescribed to themselves from that idea the dignity of man alone
an action that is consistent with the autonomy of the will is permitted one that does not agree therewith is forbidden a will whose maxims necessarily coincide with the laws of autonomy is a holy will
good absolutely the dependence of a will not absolutely good on the principle of autonomy moral necessitation is obligation this then cannot be applied to a holy being
the objective necessity of actions from obligation is called duty from what has just been said it is easy to see how it happens that although the conception of duty implies subjection to the law
is the proper object of respect and the dignity of humanity consists just in this capacity of being universally legislative though with the condition that it is itself subject to this same legislation
the autonomy of the will as the supreme principle of morality autonomy of the will is that property of it by which it is a law to itself independently of any property of the objects of volition
this matter however does not belong to the present section but that the principle of autonomy in question is the sole principle of morals can be readily shown by mere analysis of the conceptions of morality
but it is given by the object through its relation to the will this relation whether it rests on inclination or on conceptions of reason only admits of hypothetical imperatives
i ought to do something because i wish for something else on the contrary the moral and therefore categorical imperative says i ought to do so and so even though i should not wish for anything else e g
the former says i ought not to lie if i would retain my reputation the latter says i ought not to lie although it should not bring me the least discredit the latter therefore
must so far abstract from all objects that they shall have no influence on the will in order that practical reason will may not be restricted to administering an interest not belonging to it
whether by immediate inclination or by any satisfaction indirectly gained through reason but simply because a maxim which excludes it cannot be comprehended as a universal law in one and the same volition
of an independent perfection the will of god as the determining cause of our will empirical principles are wholly incapable of serving as a foundation for moral laws
the unconditional practical necessity which is thereby imposed on them is lost when their foundation is taken from the particular constitution of human nature
the principle of private happiness however is the most objectionable not merely because it is false and experience contradicts the supposition that prosperity is always proportioned to good conduct
nor yet merely because it contributes nothing to the establishment of morality since it is quite a different thing to make a prosperous man and a good man or to make one prudent and sharp sighted for his own interests and to make him virtuous
but because the springs it provides for morality are such as rather undermine it and destroy its sublimity since they put the motives to virtue and to vice in the same class and only teach us to make a better calculation
the specific difference between virtue and vice being entirely extinguished on the other hand as to moral feeling this supposed special sense the appeal to it is indeed superficial when those who cannot think
i class the principle of moral feeling under that of happiness because every empirical interest promises to contribute to our well being by the agreeableness that a thing affords whether it be immediately and without a view to profit
or whether profit be regarded we must likewise with hutcheson class the principle of sympathy with the happiness of others under his assumed moral sense
amongst the rational principles of morality the ontological conception of perfection notwithstanding its defects is better than the theological conception which derives morality from a divine absolutely perfect will
in attempting to distinguish specifically the reality of which we are now speaking from every other it inevitably tends to turn in a circle and cannot avoid tacitly presupposing the morality which it is to explain
it is nevertheless preferable to the theological view first because we have no intuition of the divine perfection and can only deduce it from our own conceptions the most important of which is that of morality
and brings it to the court of pure reason and although even here it decides nothing it at all events preserves the indefinite idea of a will good in itself free from corruption until it shall be more precisely defined
for the rest i think i may be excused here from a detailed refutation of all these doctrines that would only be superfluous labour since it is so easy and is probably so well seen even by those whose office requires them to decide
for one of these theories because their hearers would not tolerate suspension of judgement but what interests us more here
is nothing but heteronomy of the will and for this reason they must necessarily miss their aim in every case where an object of the will has to be supposed in order that the rule may be prescribed
which is to determine the will there the rule is simply heteronomy the imperative is conditional namely if or because one wishes for this object one should act so and so hence it can never command morally
that is categorically whether the object determines the will by means of inclination as in the principle of private happiness or by means of reason directed to objects of our possible volition generally
as in the principle of perfection in either case the will never determines itself immediately by the conception of the action but only by the influence which the foreseen effect of the action has on the will i ought to do something
on this account because i wish for something else and here there must be yet another law assumed in me as its subject by which i necessarily will this other thing and this law again requires an imperative to restrict this maxim
for the influence which the conception of an object within the reach of our faculties can exercise on the will of the subject in consequence of its natural properties depends on the nature of the subject either the sensibility
inclination and taste or the understanding and reason the employment of which is by the peculiar constitution of their nature attended with satisfaction it follows that the law would be properly speaking
given by nature and as such it must be known and proved by experience and would consequently be contingent and therefore incapable of being an apodeictic practical rule such as the moral rule must be
and that as autonomy that is to say
is itself the only law which the will of every rational being imposes on itself without needing to assume any spring or interest as a foundation
was merely analytical now to prove that morality is no creation of the brain which it cannot be if the categorical imperative and with it the autonomy of the will is true
this supposes the possibility of a synthetic use
which however we cannot venture on without first giving a critical examination of this faculty of reason
in a particular trade into which machinery is suddenly introduced when as sometimes happens employers introduce machines for the immediate purpose of breaking a strike the workmen are convinced that machinery is the enemy of labor
because the extensive introduction of machinery in england was at first accompanied by the unhappy result of a lengthening of the hours of labor in factories this result was deemed to be necessary in all other cases it was in fact quite abnormal
and has not been seen elsewhere the owners of factories wished to keep their machines employed as many hours as possible the laboring classes of england
being at the same time demoralized and depressed by industrial and social influences that had no logical connection with machinery had no power to resist this movement in all other countries of europe and in america
and where this is common it is spoken of as the factory system in the ideal modern factory realized in few cases each smaller machine is a part of a larger organization of machinery
and out at the other without the loss of a single motion factories compel great numbers of laborers to live near each other and to work together the sudden crowding together of people into new social relations is usually bad for morals
men are moral under the eyes of their neighbors acquaintances and families habits become adjusted to right standards and the temptations in new conditions are always great until of late
and the early factories with their surroundings were most unsanitary under the degrading conditions that resulted in some places
whether this is its natural result is debatable but the factory worker in general does not appear to be less intelligent than the agricultural worker the alertness of the city dweller is due doubtless to social contact more than to the immediate work he does
this work may or may not be less thought awakening than work with simple tools there is a general improvement along all the lines of intelligence morals
peasant owners and small proprietors
seeking steadily a larger crop a larger income accomplish wonders in bringing waste land to a high state of cultivation working on the soil that is at once their livelihood and their home they do not consciously reckon the value of the labor they are putting upon it
no money can buy that which to them is beyond price but in our money economy efforts are largely directed toward the increase of the capital sum investment takes the form of putting in a sum of money in the hope of getting an income
bearing a certain relation to it the first thought is of the value of the wealth invested which has been carefully measured and expressed in dollars and cents wealth looked at in the older way was valued for what it did immediately for its owner
for its concrete fruits looked at in the modern way it is valued as a marketable income bearer
these are free goods because however much is used the supply is immediately renewed but they are undiminished only in a relative sense and in reference to present need the water in the western rivers long flowed on
undiminished by the uses made of it but progressing civilization required more water for cities for mining and for irrigation and now states and corporations are going to law over these formerly undiminished free goods
some kinds of goods are produced from such very common materials that it might seem possible by the substitution of agents to produce an unlimited supply how can bricks be limited in number
being made as they are from one of the commonest materials on the earth's surface but the largest clay banks are limited in size a large proportion of the places where bricks are needed are not near a supply of clay of good quality and after a brick yard has been used for a time
while therefore bricks are scarce and hard to get from the outset in some places the scarcity grows more marked in many places at first well supplied if materials are scarce in any degree their continued use for one purpose
increases their scarcity in all other uses economic goods are goods having value value implies scarcity
in any event without any limit ever appreciable to man without any increase in the cost or scarcity this class of goods was considered to be very large there is no such class of economic goods it is evidently impossible that there should be
whose increase is seen to be gained with increasing difficulty this is seen most clearly in the diminishing returns from land in the attempt to get some food products in greater quantity from a given area at a given time
increasing difficulty is met with at once this attempt
results in historical diminishing returns as was strikingly illustrated in english experience during the napoleonic wars when wheat rose in value because of the greater difficulty of producing the larger supply needed
some replenishing agents will restore themselves if given time the forest will grow up if left untouched by man the field will recover its fertile quality if allowed to lie fallow but this self replenishing of agents is a slow process
and time is costly man therefore tries in other ways to force more uses out of goods until checked by the increasing difficulty
as it was called formerly were considered to be a peculiar class comprising only a small portion of wealth but it can now be seen that the law may apply ultimately though in differing degrees
the thought that long obtained among economists it was said that the supply of certain things was absolutely fixed the chief of these being land used for agriculture the idea as held by malthus and ricardo was modified by john stuart mill
in somewhat inconsistent ways land it was said
therefore its supply is fixed the second part of the opening proposition expresses the view here held the supply of no important class of goods is absolutely fixed in any reasonable sense most if not all belong to the class that is increasable
although it may be with much difficulty even when the exact thing cannot be duplicated as a bust by an ancient sculptor or an autograph of a dead author many substitutes serving the same or closely related wants
affect and limit the demand and thus increase the supply men cannot it is true increase the stores of copper in the earth but they devise new processes to extract it from ores before worthless and invent methods of procuring aluminium
which yields some of the same utilities as copper even the supply of land as is shown elsewhere is constantly changing thus all kinds of wealth can be increased in some degree many kinds in the course of time
but the economic supply is significant there is danger of confusion between these two ideas
the word supply means the amount that is available at the moment or during the period spoken of the land in greenland is not and probably never can be a part of the supply of land in england the land in america for centuries was not
but now has become for some purposes a part of the supply in the same market as the land of england the question of importance in economic discussion is not whether the physical material can be brought into existence
any explanation of the economic occurrences of the last five centuries or of the immediate future that ignores this fact
must lead to false conclusions the rate of this movement has been more rapid in the past century than theretofore and perhaps more rapid than it will be henceforward but that this development will continue in large measure
and for a long period is not open to question undeveloped areas will be opened to the world and new geologic realms will be explored
increases the economic supply of most scarce goods and provides substitutes for the others some inventions increase economic supply by making available the uses in goods that were before unavailable
subsoil ploughing annexes to agricultural land new layers of soil that are just as important as new acres added to the surface if land could be used three times as deep it would be as good for many purposes
new trade routes and new means of transportation add to the supplies available in the older countries as effectively as if their areas were increased the building of railroads in western america had an effect on english rents
identical in nature with that which would have been produced had an equal area of somewhat less fertile land touching england risen out of the ocean
every country in europe has repeatedly felt the shock of these great economic changes which have compelled the recapitalization on a lower plane
the reclaiming of land in holland is a striking but far from isolated example among the larger undertakings of this kind are the draining of the haarlem lake in eighteen forty fifty eight by which forty thousand acres of rich land were made available
which is adding one million three hundred thousand acres though there have been many minor undertakings of the kind the area reclaimed is relatively small compared with the whole area of the land in the world used for agricultural purposes
there are still great areas of fens swamps and marshlands such as those on the jersey coast in this country which with moderate effort could be reclaimed
by means of such physical changes
as a producer of a supply of land is however of the greatest importance the pioneer annexes new areas to the economic world and to the market in which he has lived this is recognized of late by writers
that perhaps do not fully mark its significance to economic theory
great areas on the edge of civilization still await the pioneer the prospector and the miner here is a source of wealth and a field for enterprise the growth of society may cause some of the poorer agents in time to become the best
when men crossed the ocean to settle on manhattan island it was a wilderness
account must be taken of the fact that the number of bricks can be increased more easily than the amount of land but there must not be overlooked the possibility of increase in any of these forms of wealth nor the limits to the increase of any one of them
when one wishes to save or increase wealth he turns to these great unappropriated fields unused things or things imperfectly used and tries to convert them into effective agents
the different forms of wealth may be ranged on a scale according to the ease with which they can be increased by effort
and relatively increasable some natural resources belong at one end and some at the other end of this scale no hard and fast line divides the different kinds of goods
gervinus devotes the concluding chapter of his second volume about fifty pages to an explanation of this the ethical authority of this supreme teacher of life consists in the following
is that man is gifted with powers of activity and therefore first of all according to gervinus shakespeare regarded it as good and necessary for man that he should act as if it were possible for a man not to act
in other words he prefers death and murder due to ambition to abstinence and wisdom according to gervinus shakespeare believes that humanity need not set up ideals but that only healthy activity and the golden mean are necessary in everything indeed
he allows himself to deny even christian morality
exceed the reasonable limits of good is convincingly proved by shakespeare's words and examples thus excessive generosity ruins timon while antonio's moderate generosity confers honor
whereas it ruins percy in whom it has risen too high excessive virtue leads angelo to destruction and if in those who surround him excessive severity becomes harmful and can not prevent crime on the other hand the divine element in man even charity if it be excessive
by saying that shakespeare does not write for those classes for whom definite religious principles and laws are suitable
but for the educated there are classes of men whose morality is best guarded by the positive precepts of religion and state law to such persons shakespeare's creations are inaccessible they are comprehensible and accessible only to the educated
from whom one can expect that they should acquire the healthy tact of life and self consciousness by means of which the innate guiding powers of conscience and reason uniting with the will lead us to the definite attainment of worthy aims in life
but even for such educated people shakespeare's teaching is not always without danger the condition on which his teaching is quite harmless is that it should be accepted in all its completeness in all its parts
how could a man who so eloquently attracts people toward honors permit that the very aspiration toward that which was great be crushed together with rank and distinction for services and with the destruction of all degrees
the motives for all high undertakings be stifled even if the attraction of honors and false power treacherously obtained were to cease could the poet admit of the most dreadful of all violence that of the ignorant crowd
he saw that thanks to this equality now preached everything may pass into violence and violence into arbitrary acts and thence into unchecked passion which will rend the world as the wolf does its prey
from deceit and from the injury of others but evil and deceit are not always vices and even the evil caused to others is not necessarily a vice it is often merely a necessity a legitimate weapon a right and indeed
shakespeare always held that there are no unconditional prohibitions nor unconditional duties for instance he did not doubt hamlet's right to kill the king nor even his right to stab polonius to death
not to speak of a character do not depend upon their enactment or infringement the whole substance lies in the contents with which the separate individual at the moment of his decision and on his own responsibility
in other words shakespeare at last clearly saw that the moral of the aim is the only true and possible one so that according to brandes shakespeare's fundamental principle for which he extols him
is that the end justifies the means action at all costs the absence of all ideals moderation in everything the conservation of the forms of life once established and the end justifying the means
if you add to this a chauvinist english patriotism expressed in all the historical dramas
englishmen always vanquishing the french killing thousands and losing only scores joan of arc regarded as a witch and the belief that hector and all the trojans from whom the english came are heroes while the greeks are cowards and traitors and so forth
such is the view of life of the wisest teacher of life according to his greatest admirers and he who will attentively read shakespeare's works can not fail to recognize that the description of this shakespearian view of life by his admirers is quite correct
the merit of every poetic work depends on three things one the subject of the work
the more important it is to the life of mankind the higher is the work two the external beauty achieved by technical methods proper to the particular kind of art thus in dramatic art
and development of emotion and the feeling of measure in all that is represented three
if the author does not actually feel what he expresses then the recipient can not become infected with the feeling of the author does not experience any feeling and the production can no longer be classified as a work of art
the subject of shakespeare's pieces as is seen from the demonstrations of his greatest admirers is the lowest most vulgar view of life which regards the external elevation of the lords of the world as a genuine distinction
repudiates not only all religious but also all humanitarian strivings directed to the betterment of the existing order the second condition also with the exception of the rendering of the scenes in which the movement of feelings is expressed
is quite absent in shakespeare he does not grasp the natural character of the positions of his personages nor the language of the persons represented nor the feeling of measure without which no work can be artistic
as fast as fast might be
dost fear to ride with me burger there is one advantage in an accumulation of evils differing in cause and character that the distraction which they afford by their contradictory operation prevents the patient
and i was distressed by the news of mister tresham yet less so than if they had fully occupied my mind i was neither a false lover nor an unfeeling son
such were my reflections when i gained my apartment it seems from the illustration they already began to have a twang of commerce in them i set myself seriously to consider your father's letter it was not very distinct
and referred for several particulars to owen whom i was entreated to meet with as soon as possible at a scotch town called glasgow being informed moreover that my old friend was to be heard of at messrs mac vittie mac fin and company
it likewise alluded to several letters which as it appeared to me must have miscarried or have been intercepted and complained of my obdurate silence in terms which would have been highly unjust had my letters reached their purposed destination
i was amazed as i read that the spirit of rashleigh walked around me and conjured up these doubts and difficulties by which i was surrounded i could not doubt for one instant
however distressing it might in other respects and at another time have appeared to me sunk into a subordinate consideration when i thought of the dangers impending over my father i did not myself set a high estimation on wealth
and had the affectation of most young men of lively imagination
and the result of my deliberation was a firm resolution to depart from osbaldistone hall the next day and wend my way without loss of time to meet owen at glasgow i did not hold it expedient to intimate my departure to my uncle
in the extent and decided character of rashleigh's machinations that i had some apprehension of his having provided means to intercept a journey which was undertaken with a view to disconcert them if my departure were publicly announced at osbaldistone hall
was likely to prevent that speed which was the soul of my expedition i did not know the shortest nor indeed any road to glasgow and as in the circumstances in which i stood despatch was of the greatest consequence
i determined to consult andrew fairservice on the subject as the nearest and most authentic authority within my reach late as it was i set off with the intention of ascertaining this important point and after a few minutes walk reached the dwelling of the gardener
andrew's dwelling was situated at no great distance from the exterior wall of the garden a snug comfortable northumbrian cottage built of stones roughly dressed with the hammer and having the windows and doors decorated with huge heavy architraves
and a kitchen garden behind a paddock for a cow and a small field cultivated with several crops of grain rather for the benefit of the cottager than for sale announced the warm and cordial comforts which old england
led me to think that andrew according to the decent and meritorious custom of his countrymen had assembled some of his neighbours to join in family exercise as he called evening devotion
andrew had indeed neither wife child nor female inmate in his family the first of his trade he said had had eneugh o'thae cattle but notwithstanding he sometimes contrived to form an audience for himself
out of the neighbouring papists and church of englandmen brands as he expressed it snatched out of the burning on whom he used to exercise his spiritual gifts
and all the world of catholics around him who deemed his interference on such occasions an act of heretical interloping i conceived it likely therefore that the well disposed neighbours might have assembled to hold some chapel of ease of this nature
the noise however when i listened to it more accurately seemed to proceed entirely from the lungs of the said andrew and when i interrupted it by entering the house i found fairservice alone
with long words and hard names and reading aloud for the purpose of his own edification a volume of controversial divinity i was just taking a spell said he laying aside the huge folio volume as i entered
of the worthy doctor lightfoot lightfoot i replied looking at the ponderous volume with some surprise
lightfoot was his name sir
always i crave your pardon for keeping ye standing at the door but having been mistrysted gude preserve us with ae bogle the night already
trysted with a bogle said i what do you mean by that andrew i said mistrysted replied andrew
flay'd by a ghost andrew
and i wish to know whether you can direct me the nearest way to a town in your country of scotland called glasgow a town ca'd glasgow echoed andrew fairservice glasgow's a ceety man
particular business replied i
certainly if i could meet with any person going that way and your honour doubtless wad consider the time and trouble unquestionably my business is pressing and if you can find any guide to accompany me
i tell you all i want to know is the road i must travel i will pay the fellow to his satisfaction i will give him anything in reason
replied andrew is naething
and i have no time to talk about it andrew do you make the bargain for me your own way aha that's speaking to the purpose answered andrew i am thinking since sae be that sae it is i'll be the lad that will guide you mysell
you andrew how will you get away from your employment i tell'd your honour a while syne that it was lang that i hae been thinking o flitting maybe as lang as frae the first year i came to osbaldistone hall
you leave your service then but will you not lose your wages
had that bought them a wheen green trash and yet sir hildebrand's as keen to hae the siller that is the steward is as pressing about it
and then there's the siller for the seeds i'm thinking the wage will be in a manner decently made up but doubtless your honour will consider my risk of loss when we win to glasgow and ye'll be for setting out forthwith by day break in the morning
stay i ken just the beast that will answer me at five in the morning then andrew you will meet me at the head of the avenue deil a fear o me
replied andrew very briskly and if i might advise we wad be aff twa hours earlier
i highly approved of andrew's amendment on my original proposal and we agreed to meet at the place appointed at three in the morning at once however a reflection came across the mind of my intended travelling companion
there was in the days of which i write an old fashioned custom on the english road which i suspect is now obsolete or practised only by the vulgar journeys of length being made on horseback and of course by brief stages
a counterpart to this decent practice and a remnant of old english hospitality was that the landlord of a principal inn laid aside his character of a publican on the seventh day and invited the guests who chanced to be within his walls
to take a part of his family beef and pudding this invitation
that there was a scotch gentleman to dine with us a gentleman what sort of a gentleman said my companion somewhat hastily his mind i suppose running on gentlemen of the pad as they were then termed
why a scotch sort of a gentleman as i said before returned mine host they are all gentle ye mun know
answered my companion and then turning to me he gave vent to the tenor of his own reflections i respect the scotch sir i love and honour the nation for their sense of morality men talk of their filth and their poverty
but commend me to sterling honesty though clad in rags as the poet saith i have been credibly assured sir by men on whom i can depend that there was never known such a thing in scotland as a highway robbery
that's because they have nothing to lose
and how go markets in the south even in the ordinar replied mister campbell wise folks buy and sell and fools are bought and sold but wise men and fools both eat their dinner answered our jolly entertainer
and here a comes as prime a buttock of beef as e'er hungry men stuck fork in so saying he eagerly whetted his knife assumed his seat of empire at the head of the board and loaded the plates of his sundry guests with his good cheer
this was the first time i had heard the scottish accent or indeed that i had familiarly met with an individual of the ancient nation by whom it was spoken yet from an early period they had occupied and interested my imagination
my father as is well known to you was of an ancient family in northumberland from whose seat i was while eating the aforesaid dinner not very many miles distant the quarrel betwixt him and his relatives was such
that he scarcely ever mentioned the race from which he sprung and held as the most contemptible species of vanity the weakness which is commonly termed family pride his ambition was only to be distinguished as william osbaldistone the first
at least one of the first merchants on change and to have proved him the lineal representative of william the conqueror would have far less flattered his vanity than the hum and bustle
he wished no doubt that i should remain in such ignorance of my relatives and descent as might insure a correspondence between my feelings and his own on this subject but his designs as will happen occasionally to the wisest
were in some degree at least counteracted by a being whom his pride would never have supposed of importance adequate to influence them in any way his nurse an old northumbrian woman attached to him from his infancy
the care of nursing me during my childish illnesses
she poured herself forth to my infant ear in descriptions of the scenes of her youth
which i still prefer to all the opera airs ever minted by the capricious brain of an italian mus d oh the oak the ash and the bonny ivy tree they flourish best at home in the north countrie now
in the legends of mabel the scottish nation was ever freshly remembered with all the embittered declamation of which the narrator was capable the inhabitants of the opposite frontier served in her narratives to fill up the parts which ogres and giants
with seven leagued boots occupy in the ordinary nursery tales and how could it be otherwise was it not the black douglas who slew with his own hand the heir of the osbaldistone family the day after he took possession of his estate surprising him
and his vassals while solemnizing a feast
was it not wat the devil who drove all the year old hogs off the braes of lanthorn side in the very recent days of my grandfather's father and had we not many a trophy but according to old mabel's version of history far more honourably gained
all our family renown was acquired all our family misfortunes were occasioned by the northern wars warmed by such tales i looked upon the scottish people during my childhood
as a race hostile by nature to the more southern inhabitants of this realm and this view of the matter was not much corrected by the language which my father sometimes held with respect to them he had engaged in some large speculations concerning oak woods
the property of highland proprietors and alleged that he found them much more ready to make bargains and extort earnest of the purchase money than punctual in complying on their side with the terms of the engagements the scottish mercantile men
though without any fixed purpose of doing so they impressed my youthful mind with a sincere aversion to the northern inhabitants of britain as a people bloodthirsty in time of war treacherous during truce interested selfish avaricious
and tricky in the business of peaceful life and having few good qualities unless there should be accounted such a ferocity which resembled courage in martial affairs and a sort of wily craft which supplied the place of wisdom in the ordinary commerce of mankind
in justification or apology for those who entertained such prejudices i must remark that the scotch of that period were guilty of similar injustice to the english
he had the hard features and athletic form said to be peculiar to his country together with the national intonation and slow pedantic mode of expression arising from a desire to avoid peculiarities of idiom or dialect
i could also observe the caution and shrewdness of his country in many of the observations which he made and the answers which he returned but i was not prepared for the air of easy self possession and superiority with which he seemed to predominate over the company into which he was thrown
as it were by accident his dress was as coarse as it could be being still decent and at a time when great expense was lavished upon the wardrobe even of the lowest who pretended to the character of gentleman this indicated mediocrity of circumstances
if not poverty his conversation intimated that he was engaged in the cattle trade no very dignified professional pursuit and yet
under these disadvantages he seemed as a matter of course to treat the rest of the company with the cool and condescending politeness which implies a real or imagined superiority over those towards whom it is used when he gave his opinion on any point
it was with that easy tone of confidence used by those superior to their society in rank or information as if what he said could not be doubted
mine host and his sunday guests after an effort or two to support their consequence by noise and bold averment sunk gradually under the authority of mister campbell who thus fairly possessed himself of the lead in the conversation
i was tempted from curiosity to dispute the ground with him myself confiding in my knowledge of the world
and in the stores with which a tolerable education had possessed my mind in the latter respect he offered no competition and it was easy to see that his natural powers had never been cultivated by education
caustic and somewhat satirical remarks were those of a man who had been a close observer of the affairs of that country on the subject of politics
campbell observed a silence and moderation which might arise from caution the divisions of whig and tory then shook england to her very centre and a powerful party engaged in the jacobite interest
menaced the dynasty of hanover which had been just established on the throne every alehouse resounded with the brawls of contending politicians and as mine host's politics were of that liberal description which quarrelled with no good customer
his hebdomadal visitants were often divided in their opinion as irreconcilably as if he had feasted the common council the curate and the apothecary with a little man who made no boast of his vocation but who
strongly espoused the cause of high church and the stuart line the excise man as in duty bound and the attorney who looked to some petty office under the crown together with my fellow traveller who seemed to enter keenly into the contest
staunchly supported the cause of king george and the protestant succession dire was the screaming deep the oaths each party appealed to mister campbell anxious it seemed to elicit his approbation you are a scotchman sir
and confer on our friend mister quitam the preferment of solicitor general and he may also grant some good deed or reward to this honest gentleman who is sitting upon his portmanteau which he prefers to a chair and questionless
and when he gets his hand in play he may if he be so minded make this reverend gentleman archprelate of canterbury and doctor mixit chief physician to his household and commit his royal beard to the care of my friend latherum
if he lacked it i give my vote and interest to jonathan brown our landlord to be the king and prince of skinkers conditionally that he fetches us another bottle as good as the last this sally was received with general applause in which the landlord cordially joined
that beset him as he came from whitson tryste thou art deceived friend jonathan said campbell interrupting him they were but barely two and two cowardly loons as man could wish to meet withal and did you sir really
said my fellow traveller edging his chair i should have said his portmanteau nearer to mister campbell really and actually beat two highwaymen yourself alone in troth did i sir replied campbell
this piece of gratuitous information concerning the route he proposed to himself the first i had heard my companion bestow upon any one failed to excite the corresponding confidence of the scotchman we can scarce travel together he replied drily
you sir doubtless are well mounted and i for the present travel on foot or on a highland shelty that does not help me much faster forward so saying he called for a reckoning for the wine
and throwing down the price of the additional bottle which he had himself introduced rose as if to take leave of us
said the traveller in a tone as if he thought the argument should bear down all opposition it is quite impossible said campbell somewhat contemptuously i have business at rothbury but i am in no great hurry
i can ride out of the way and never miss a day or so for good company upon my faith sir said campbell i cannot render you the service you seem to desiderate i am he added drawing himself up haughtily travelling on my own private affairs
and coming up to me as the company were dispersing observed your friend sir is too communicative considering the nature of his trust that gentleman i replied looking towards the traveller is no friend of mine
he replied hastily that he seems a thought rash in conferring the honour of his company on those who desire it not the gentleman replied i knows his own affairs best and i should be sorry to constitute myself a judge of them in any respect
mister campbell made no farther observation but merely wished me a good journey and the party dispersed for the evening next day i parted company with my timid companion
his tremors ceased to amuse me and to say the truth
chapter four the spirit of fear when the days grow cold and the nights are clear there stalks abroad the spirit of fear lightfoot the deer
it is sad but true autumn is often called the sad time of the year and it is the sad time but it shouldn't be old mother nature never intended that it should be she meant it to be the glad time
it is the time when all the little people of the green forest and the green meadows have got over the cares and worries of bringing up families and teaching their children how to look out for themselves it is the season when food is plentiful and every one is fat and is
but instead of this a grim dark figure goes stalking over the green meadows and through the green forest and it is called the spirit of fear
it peers into every hiding place and wherever it finds one of the little people it sends little cold chills over him little chills which jolly round bright mister sun cannot chase away though he shine his brightest
all night as well as all day the spirit of fear searches out the little people of the green meadows and the green forest it will not let them sleep it will not let them eat in peace it drives them to seek new hiding places and then drives them out of those
it keeps them ever ready to fly or run at the slightest sound peter rabbit was thinking of this as he sat at the edge of the dear old briar patch looking over to the green forest the green forest was no longer just green
it was of many colors for old mother nature had set jack frost to painting the leaves of the maple trees and the beech trees and the birch trees and the poplar trees and the chestnut trees and he had done his work well
very very lovely were the reds and yellows and browns against the dark green of the pines and the spruces and the hemlocks the purple hills were more softly purple than at any other season of the year
it was all very very beautiful but peter had no thought for the beauty of it all for the spirit of fear had visited even the dear old briar patch and peter was afraid
it wasn't fear of reddy fox or redtail the hawk or hooty the owl or old man coyote they were forever trying to catch him but they did not strike terror to his heart because he felt quite smart enough to keep out of their clutches
to be sure they gave him sudden frights sometimes when they happened to surprise him but these frights lasted only until he reached the nearest bramble tangle or hollow log where they could not get at him
but the fear that chilled his heart now never left him even for a moment and peter knew that this same fear was clutching at the hearts of bob white hiding in the brown stubble of missus grouse squatting in the thickest bramble tangle in the green forest
of uncle billy possum and bobby coon in their hollow trees of jerry muskrat in the smiling pool of happy jack squirrel hiding in the tree tops of lightfoot the deer lying in the closest thicket he could find
it was even clutching at the hearts of granny and reddy fox and of great big buster bear it seemed to peter that no one was so big or so small that this terrible spirit of fear had not searched him out
far in the distance sounded a sudden bang peter jumped and shivered he knew that every one else who had heard that bang had jumped and shivered just as he had it was the season of hunters with terrible guns
it was man who had sent this terrible spirit of fear to chill the hearts of the little meadow and forest people at this very time when old mother nature had made all things so beautiful
and had intended that they should be happiest and most free from care and worry it was man who had made the autumn a sad time instead of a glad time the very saddest time of all the year
when old mother nature had done her best to make it the most beautiful i don't understand these men creatures said peter to little missus peter as they stared fearfully out from the dear old briar patch
they seem to find pleasure actually find pleasure in trying to kill us i don't understand them at all they haven't any hearts
as the field and its fertile qualities and those called artificial as improvements and machinery according as these resources are more or less developed as labor is employed in a fertile or a barren field with a sharp tool or a dull one
with a highly developed machine or a poor one the product is more or less if resources were much more abundant than at present many goods now scarce would become almost or quite free
due to material agents a certain part to labor
that are getting good wages enjoy abundant food and creature comforts poorly paid workers go scantily fed the question arises which is cause which effect
some maintain that all that is needed to make workmen more efficient is to feed them well in some cases this is probably true the porto ricans enlisted in the american regular army are reported to have increased at once in strength
weight and vigor the filipino recruits thanks to the american army rations soon outgrew their uniforms some employers in europe pay their workmen an extra sum on condition that it is spent for meat
but if wages increase it is by no means certain that more or better food will be bought or if it is that the workmen's powers will be increased there is a limit to the benefits of increasing food
there is some reason to believe that in america great numbers of our people perhaps even many manual laborers would be better off if they bought simpler and less costly food
the maximum of health and vigor may be attained with moderate outlay and beyond that point richer food
though alike in breed and age the groups began at once to differ in character one group squealed more another scratched more another waxed fat faster
and finally were butchered hung up and photographed at that same time at the elmira reformatory mister brockway was experimenting on some criminals of the lower class they were given daily baths special physical exercises
and were fed on a specially bountiful diet scientific philanthropy stopped there but photographs before and after reproduced in the printed reports show the great physical improvement that resulted
and a marked change occurred likewise in disposition and intelligence many laboratory experiments have been made of late to test the chemical nature and the physiological effects of foods
it is becoming more fully recognized that the quality and quantity of food and the cooking of it
the cost of clothing enough for comfort is however comparatively small the amount spent for ornament is comparatively high
sunshine good water and unbounded natural playgrounds for children where they can grow into strong and efficient manhood are free goods as population grows more dense these things become more difficult to secure
men are brought into unnatural conditions the evils of slum and factory life develop and the housing problem appears
if the individual chose to live and work in unsuitable places and under unsanitary conditions it was usually his own fault and he bore the consequences when the unsanitary conditions about each family are visited upon its neighbors
society must deal with them engineering sanitary science and medicine
men in high executive positions are able to make or mar the fortunes of their followers sometimes a legislator from a country town goes to the state capital poor and returns rich such things becoming generally known
tend to break down the motives to industry they breed the notion that wealth is more dependent on chance or jobbery than on efficient service dishonesty in private business means the use of energy not to produce wealth
it is not so hard to live says the hungry creole daughter in the grandissimes but it is hard to be ladies we are compelled not to make a living look at me i can cook but i must not cook i am skilful with the needle
but i must not take in sewing i could keep accounts i could nurse the sick but i must not nowhere in the world is there less caste than in america but it is here
the negro's low measure of industrial virtues is partly the cause of the prejudice against him but in turn doubtless inherited class feeling is in some measure the cause of his inefficiency
they lead to greater energy and to a faster working pace in all grades of labor than is found anywhere else in the world
to western eyes already the young men in the older east seem to be trammeled by social conventions in an older community there is less of hopeful ambition one's position depends more on what his fathers achieved
if four hours work a day would enable him to live will he work longer or will he stop the answer is determined by the balance of utility and disutility
will additional hours of labor yield more gratification than idleness yields does the pain of toil repel more than its fruits attract the use made of spare time differs according to climate race and temperament
in the tropics the margin is converted usually into loafing in the temperate zones largely into objective forms of enjoyment individual differences are plainly seen when each man labors on his own field the prudent man in the old maxims
individual preferences are still expressed however in irregularity of employment in the south some manufacturers have found that on an average the negroes will work in a factory not more than five or six hours a day
division of labor is a term expressing that complex arrangement of industrial society whereby individual workers are enabled to apply themselves to the production of certain kinds of goods securing others by exchange
the term division of labor is simple but the thought is a complex one its full discussion would cover the whole field of political economy but only its most essential aspects can here be touched upon
division of labor and exchange are counterparts and mutually determine each other division of labor depends on the extent of the market and in turn widens its limits
a increasing skill b saving time
saving tools and materials d improving quality e increasing knowledge f stimulating invention g encouraging enterprise h economizing talent
it is none too many as every reason for the modern as contrasted with the primitive organization of industry should be included the phrase division of labor is but a synonym for specialization
a word that expresses all that is most characteristic of our complex industrial society the headings just given may serve however to suggest the leading phases of the subject repetition of the same task trains the muscles forms a mental habit
and gives the swiftness and deftness of touch called skill specialization saves time by making unnecessary the physical change of place for the worker the frequent shifting of tools and the mental readjustment required for the undertaking of a new task
specialization saves tools for either each kind of work must be most ineffectively done or there must be provided for each worker a complete set of tools which thus will be used rarely
and will rust out rather than wear out if a few tools are thoroughly used they yield a larger income on the investment and require less care and repairs in proportion to their uses in fact
this fuller economic use of machinery and plant where a large product is turned out at one place is a prime factor in the advantages of large production a subject to be treated elsewhere much more fully than is here possible
by specialization is made possible a quality of goods never to be secured by the less skilled efforts of the jack of all trades the specialist steadily grows in knowledge of his materials and of the best processes
by dividing and simplifying processes specialization stimulates invention the most complex machines have been developed gradually by combinations and adaptations of simple tools and the more a process is subdivided
the greater is the chance of hitting upon a device to repeat mechanically the few simple movements division of labor increases the motives of emulation and enterprise by making possible the more exact comparison of results
it economizes talent by giving to each the highest task of which he is capable while fitting the less efficient workers into the minor places made possible by subdivision in an american wagon factory
a one armed man operating a machine is turning out as large a product and earning as high wages as any other employee
yet the slight reflection given to the choice of an occupation by most young people gives to this statement a very practical bearing the world is filled with industrial misfits round men in square holes good carpenters spoiled to make poor doctors
least considered unreasoning imitation family traditions parental wishes class pride social prejudice childish whim are often decisive of the life career
happily in some cases before too late the man finds himself but too often the poverty of the family and the obstacles to education preclude the exercise of intelligent choice
it is of importance to society as well as to the individual that talent should be discovered in time that tasks should be fitted to aptitudes that each member of society should attain to his highest efficiency
to take away the prospect of the enjoyment of goods is to take away all their value consumption involves generally the using up of a thing food is consumed quickly clothing more slowly and houses wear out after many years
the using up is in some cases due to the forces of nature and is not hastened by enjoyment a house goes to ruin more rapidly if uninhabited than with a careful tenant clothing is destroyed more quickly by moths than by wear
the use of many goods that give esthetic pleasures as art painting sculpture and the enjoyment of fine scenery or of beautiful building sites does not destroy the things that afford the pleasure
it was necessary in discussing the enterpriser to recognize that the buyer eventually dictates the direction of industry the enterpriser seeks to produce that for which there is most demand a change of taste affects the value of natural agents
an increase in the demand for meat affects the value of wheat and potatoes and also the land used for producing them a change in the national diet may be equivalent to the discovery or to the destruction of half a continent if one chooses to drink wine instead of buying statuary
the demand of different families will be for much the same kinds of goods if there were no rich men the demand for vineyards producing fine wines would be less the very best qualities of goods take on the highest prices when there is a small but very wealthy class of purchasers
inventions often shift demand and value follows the invention of the bicycle with pneumatic tires coincident with the adoption of electric traction for street cars reduced the price of horses between eighteen ninety and eighteen ninety five
the demand for lumber causes the disappearance of the forests whereas the demand for oranges stimulates the planting of orange trees the reckless exploitation of natural resources leaves society poorer
war is a use of wealth for ends believed at the time to be necessary and believed to forward social welfare better in the long run than would dishonorable submission but it causes misery and leaves industry prostrate
in war the savings of individuals are given to the government and used for destructive purposes the lender parts with his wealth and society uses it up while the lender has a claim on the industry and on the remaining property of the community society as a whole is the poorer
an influence also is exerted from the side of goods upon the price of labor a shift of demand from one kind of goods to another depresses the wage of the one kind of labor and raises that of the other
a low grade of labor that performs only simple tasks and those but badly is injured if demand shifts to better products back of the sweat shop shirt is the problem of the inefficient worker
progress takes place by the effort of labor to increase its efficiency and to move into higher paid callings
the market is a democracy where every penny gives a right of vote it is the thought of the society called the consumers league that through purchases pressure may be brought to bear upon the employer to provide better conditions of work
the members of the consumers league refuse to buy goods not made under sanitary conditions undoubtedly there is here a great economic force which an enlightened public opinion even without a formal association can make in large measure effective
every individual may organize a consumer's league leaguing himself with the powers of righteousness will he read a yellow journal or a pink or a white one a nickel or two will buy either he has a dollar will he go to the theater
food not merely appeased hunger and gratified the palate but it gave strength
in primitive societies there are few chances to seek pleasures that are not favorable to efficiency in the struggle for existence the more efficient tribes survive and those that develop many abnormal tastes must perish but the conditions of modern life are more complex
this subject already touched upon in the sections on the efficiency of labor deserves further notice from youth to age the foolish choice of goods yields its harvest of ultimate misery when babies are fed on crackers dipped in coffee
or as among the italian immigrants on stale bread dipped in sour wine there is a poor foundation laid for a vigorous manhood rich and poor cook too much for taste and too little for nutrition or digestion
much cooking is still done in ways fit only for our grandfathers who had cast iron stomachs and worked in the open air
the coin paid for the drink is the beginning of the expense
that was the historical order and it is the logical order in most minds to day how badly the two needs are harmonized no wonder that the savage suffers in adopting civilized dress travelers describe the african potentate
attired in a high hat and a bracelet striving to outshine his rival resplendent in full dress coat and a palm leaf fan civilization is making headway there
the dress of the higher classes often is chosen because of its unsuitableness for an active worker
this does not refer to the use made of spare time for regular study in night schools correspondence schools vacation work but to the use of time when seeking recreation the choice of recreation reacts upon the nature of the man
will he read a book or play billiards in proper proportions both may be good in excess both are evil liking realism does he read howells or the blood curdling serial entitled piping the mystery
does he devote his spare hours to the scientific american or to the police gazette at the moment there may be as much pleasure in one as in the other and one might add in hibernian phrase yes and more too
does he enjoy music the theater or the cheaper attractions of coney island and the bowery is his recreation permeated with a certain intellectual ambition
there may be just as much momentary joy in one choice as in another and life is shaped by the direction of one's enjoyments much depends on the natural bent some natures incline to the healthy as the plant grows toward the sun
with most characters much depends on the influences of neighborhood life thus the boy's clubs and college settlements of the cities the schools and playgrounds of the villages are tending to surround child life with healthier conditions that will mould it into better social habits
this is not a moral lecture it is a look at the economic side of the subject there are some moral qualities however that are closely connected with efficiency while others are not
some individuals are corrupt in private personal relations but square in business dealings but usually there is some connection between the two and under modern conditions this is becoming closer fitness for daily tasks is affected by the daily thoughts of the worker
while many pastimes leave the moral nature cleaner and stronger few can live a double life honorable conscientious and exact in one part of the day and corrupt in another doctor jekylls and mister hydes are not often found in real life
the habitual train of thought in leisure hours possesses and controls the man throughout his work it is said that a man is what his work makes him
the older writers such as ricardo and mill were inclined to take what john b clark has called the feed and work view the view that the workman is merely an agent of production a means to an end that his food
the workman's food is to gratify his hunger primarily not merely to make him a better working machine this reverses the order of the older reasoning the use made of the income is itself a kind of production
utility varies not only according to the kinds of good but according to the varying quantities of each every moment therefore the conditions of a choice are changing the best use of income forbids the purchase of an additional unit of any good unless it affords the highest gratification obtainable
at the moment at an equal price various circumstances prevent the exact application of this rule expenditure is a matter of habit in large measure rather than a matter of judgment the knowledge needed for a rational choice very often is lacking
if the utility of every kind of goods decreased uniformly as wealth increased desire would steadily decline in intensity but old wants vary and new wants develop with prosperity desire grows by what it feeds on
ambition passes on to other and higher peaks
are in the lessons of sacrifice and discipline and in its opportunities for experience and self expression the best result of the consumption of wealth is not the gratification of appetite but the strengthening of the spiritual forces within men
the result is a unit think of a dinner without butter or a cranberry pie without sugar or a dress suit without a linen collar certain combinations are essential to the requirements of developed taste and present a problem of complementary goods
combinations of complementary goods enhance the enjoyment inharmonious combinations decrease it that certain things go together is a fact that rests often in the nature of things complementary colors please the eye
well seasoned dishes please the palate again the harmony of goods is affected by the special nature of the occupation a farmer with his out of door life can use tobacco with far less danger than the sedentary worker
the harmony may rest on a still more complex social adjustment the loss to the man whose life is in the main on a higher plane is greater if he descends occasionally to a lower
a group of complementary deeds there can be no harmony without a central simple guiding principle the wise and moral use of goods and the economic use of them are therefore for the individual essentially the same life
is a unity the results of the choice of goods are reflected in the health intelligence happiness morality and progress of society
chapter nineteen plots and counterplots on hearing from tolomeo that beryl was the guilty person durham was not so surprised as he might have been he had always suspected that julius was in some way connected with the crime although he had not thought him personally guilty
durham remembered how conniston had always said that when the lost handkerchief was found the assassin would be identified apparently his prophecy had come true here was the handkerchief so fortunately picked up by tolomeo and it belonged to julius
also julius according to the italian had entered the house in crimea square about the time the murder was supposed to have been committed and there's no doubt that beryl sent jerry for bernard so that he might be brought to the spot for accusation thought the lawyer when tolomeo had gone
the whole thing was a plant i expect he arranged to go to the curtain theatre so as to have an alibi but the theatre is near crimea square and it would be easy for beryl to slip round between the acts humph evidently he did kill the old man
this handkerchief is proof enough to say nothing of tolomeo's evidence what's to be done next the question was answered next day while durham was still puzzling over the matter julius himself made his appearance as meek looking and mild as ever
the lawyer received him coldly and was on his guard it was difficult to know why beryl should pay a visit to an avowed enemy but julius soon explained the reason for his call i have something extremely private to say to you mister durham he remarked in a confidential way
i am not your legal adviser said durham quickly you are bernard's i was bernard's you mean does that intimate that you have quarrelled with bernard you forget said the solicitor looking at him sharply bernard is supposed to be dead
i don't think you ever believed that said beryl smiling that has nothing to do with you oh yes it has see here durham i wrote to miss malleson some time ago stating that i had seen bernard in london so i understand said durham calmly
why did you not stop him i was not quick enough he walked on the other side of the street and before i could cross over which was difficult on account of the traffic bernard disappeared
now i am indeed said durham with a qualm for he fancied julius might have learned of gore's whereabouts yes
but he suppressed this remark he firmly believed that julius was a murderer
he thought it would be best to give the man rope enough to hang himself in other words to listen quietly to what he had to say and act accordingly durham did not like having anything to do with such a scoundrel
but in the interests of gore he had to smother all feelings save strictly professional ones he therefore confined himself to silence and to looking inquiringly at beryl you don't seem surprised said julius annoyed because i can hardy believe your statement
jerry may be making a mistake oh no i went down on the receipt of his letter and insisted on seeing my cousin miss plantagenet as i knew she would denied that he was there but afterwards when i threatened to bring the police on to the scene
she gave way and let me see bernard you are sure then that bernard committed the crime wait one moment mister durham said beryl wagging his finger in a most irritating way let us understand one another clearly
you know and you have known for some time that bernard was at the bower i am not bound to answer that question said the lawyer stiffly bernard answered it for you he told me you had been to see him and that in spite of the change in his looks you knew who he was
durham drew figures on his blotting paper he wondered if julius really believed the man at the bower to be bernard gore or if he was trying to learn what he durham thought himself after some reflection the lawyer resolved to accept michael as the man in question
julius could not possibly know that the real bernard was alive and therefore it would be as wise to keep the knowledge from him until such time as light would come to show durham how to move yes he said at length throwing down his pen and taking up a position on the hearth rug
i was informed by miss plantagenet that bernard had sought refuge with her and i went down to see him why did you not tell me asked julius sharply durham shrugged his shoulders
why should i have summoned you to assist you to arrest him i do not wish him to be arrested said julius mildly on the contrary i wish the poor fellow to die in peace to die
his death is only a question of days mind you julius wagged his finger again i really believe he killed sir simon but as he is dying why i shall do nothing i am not a vindictive man
besides added julius looking sideways at the lawyer bernard and i are friends now i am also friendly with miss malleson indeed and how did you bring that about by acting straightforward and honorably as i always do said the meek julius
all the same she recognized him unfortunately the poor fellow is too feeble to tell her of the perils he underwent so she has not had an opportunity of talking much to him
it struck durham from this speech that julius was doubtful of the identity of bernard with the man at the bower else why should he make this remark about alice not having had time to question the sick man seeing that alice alone could prove if he were bernard or not
durham was perplexed and wondered what julius was driving at and how much he knew a clue came with the next words and being friends with bernard went on beryl he is sorry that we quarrelled feeling that he is not long for this world he wants to make his will in my favor
durham nearly uttered an exclamation for all of a sudden the whole rascally business became clear julius knew that the man at the bower was michael and he was prepared to extract from him a forged will in the hope that the real bernard was dead
having made use of michael to bring about the accusation of gore he now used him to the very last to get the money however durham kept his temper under and pretended to believe that julius was speaking in all good faith he simply bowed his head
every word that julius said was weaving a rope for his own neck are you surprised then at my calling said julius anxiously no said durham returning to his seat if gore wishes to make a will i suppose i am the man to draw it up
i must go down and receive his instructions i have them with me said julius bringing out a sealed letter durham inwardly boiling at this rascality
he found a long letter written in the same style as bernard gore usually wrote setting forth directions for the will these included an income of five hundred a year to alice malleson and the extra allowance of four hundred to missus gilroy
making her income five hundred in all the rest of the estate real and personal went to julius beryl durham smiled inwardly as he read this document it was exactly the kind of will julius wanted
michael was simply his instrument and durham shrewdly suspected that from some knowledge of the forged check beryl had obtained this extraordinary influence
i think she has quite enough said julius tartly then missus gilroy said durham pretending ignorance why should bernard leave her this extra money i can't say bernard will probably tell you himself will you please draw out the will mister durham
and bring it down to the bower for gore to sign for the sake of appearances durham went on making objections all these were met by julius with infernal cleverness until the lawyer on the face of it had not a leg to stand on as the saying goes
finally he consented to draw up the will as instructed by the letter and agreed to meet julius next day at liverpool street station to go down with him to the hall julius drew a long breath of relief when the lawyer so agreed
and apparently had no idea that he was being tricked all the time i am much obliged to you mister durham said he holding out his hand and when i come into possession of the estate you will find me a good client durham for the sake of keeping up the deception had to shake hands
although he loathed himself for doing so when the door closed on the arch plotter the solicitor went at once to wash his hands what a complete scoundrel said durham to himself and how confoundedly clever
of course if the real bernard were dead this will might stand at all events even if miss malleson could prove that michael is not her lover the new will might lead to litigation however as bernard is alive and well we can produce him at the eleventh hour to frighten beryl
i am afraid that young man will be hanged after all though i am unwilling for the sake of the family
however durham true to his appointment arrived at the station the next day and had the will in his pocket julius read it in the train going down
but on the previous night he had written a long letter to miss berengaria which was to be read to alice in it durham told the whole of beryl's scheme to get possession of the property but for obvious reasons he said nothing of tolomeo's story or beryl's real guilt
he thought very truly that even miss berengaria's nerves could not stand being brought into such close relationship with a proven murderer let alone that alice might reveal the truth out of sheer disgust but the letter prepared the minds of both ladies for the execution of the will
please missus says will you go into the drawing room said the infant casting down his eyes durham looked hard at the young scoundrel who was such a worthy instrument of beryl's he would have liked to examine him then and there touching his luring of bernard to crimea square
but the present moment was not propitious so he passed on julius however in a most benevolent way spoke to the boy i hope you are giving your good mistress satisfaction oh yes sir but she was angry at me writing and telling you about the poor sick gentleman
by the way jerry how did you find out about him asked durham i saw him arrive said jerry ingenuously i was in the garden when he came i wouldn't have written sir if i had known that my dear missus wanted it kept dark
how did you know this gentleman was sir bernard i heard james the coachman describe him and then i knew all the same jerry said julius benevolently if miss berengaria wished the fact of sir bernard's being here kept quiet you should not have disclosed it even to me
but i wished to set your mind at rest murmured jerry looking up with dove like eyes i owe you so much sir julius smiled and patting his head walked on to the drawing room it was a very pretty comedy but durham was not to be taken in
he knew well enough that the boy was a mere tool and a dangerous one as a matter of fact he did not know until later how dangerous the lad really could be miss berengaria and alice were in the drawing room and both smiled a welcome when the two men entered
alice darted a look of terror and repulsion at beryl but as he was shaking hands with the old lady he did not see it else he might have suspected durham guessed this and touched her hand she nodded and when julius shook hands with her she welcomed him again with a smile
although her very flesh crept when she touched him as for miss berengaria that indomitable old lady never turned a hair she smiled and chatted and was bland to julius he might have been her dearest friend from the amount of attention she bestowed on him
i hope he has left alice something five hundred a year and the like amount to missus gilroy indeed mister durham and why to missus gilroy bernard looks upon her as a second mother said julius hastily at least he told me so
of course i know nothing about her i hope however she will reappear to claim her legacy there may be no chance for anyone to claim legacies for a long time said miss berengaria tartly i hope bernard will not die
i hope so also said alice fervently and she really meant it even though she was thinking of the young scamp upstairs julius shook his head
yes you would be said miss berengaria ironically and she might have been rash enough to say more but that durham intervened i hope none of the servants know that bernard is here they all know by this time said miss berengaria calmly
we kept the matter from them as long as possible and with alice i waited on bernard myself but jerry told the servants as well as mister beryl will the knowledge go any further said the lawyer keeping up the comedy i don't want bernard arrested
my servants will not speak under pain of dismissal if that is what you mean said miss plantagenet sharply as to jerry he is one of your servants also said beryl softly but i have some influence over jerry and i will see that he holds his tongue
you can take him away altogether snapped miss berengaria i don't approve of having boys with long tongues in my house jerry had no right to be hanging round the garden when bernard arrived much less to write and tell you that he was here he thought i was anxious
i daresay you are said the old dame to see bernard hanged indeed no replied julius earnestly i wish him to die in peace having got all you can out of him muttered miss berengaria rubbing her nose well she added sharply
are we to go upstairs and witness this will yes mister beryl can't witness as he is the residuary legatee nor can miss alice since she is mentioned in the will but you miss plantagenet and and yourself no i am the executor
then maria can witness the will she is my own maid and can be depended upon are you coming julius thank you no said beryl with a gentle smile i think as i have such a large interest in the will that it is better i should remain away i shall stay here
and you miss malleson i shall stop also said alice in reply to a look from durham you go up with mister durham aunt come along then said miss berengaria hastening out of the room
they put me in mind of the family vault and i can't last long now the lawyer followed and miss berengaria led him up a narrow stair which conducted to the turret room in which the false bernard was lying at the foot of this stair she stopped durham she said abruptly
yes i wish julius beryl to commit himself beyond recall what will you do then i can't say one thing at a time when the will is executed we will watch beryl's attitude
something will happen added durham thinking of the incriminating handkerchief in his possession yes said miss berengaria climbing the stairs with a briskness surprising in a woman of her years something will happen this poor foresworn wretch upstairs will die
but i thought you said i know i did i could help him back to life with careful nursing and i wish to do so since i think there is good in the rascal but beryl having had the will made will kill him yes added she nodding
there will be a repetition of the crime i believe beryl himself killed simon the old no he is dead let us be just what makes you think julius beryl killed sir simon nothing snapped miss berengaria
he looks like a murderer durham smiled to himself as he went up the stairs and wondered at her acuteness in thus hitting the nail on the head when the will was executed julius certainly might attempt to get rid of the instrument he had used as he had rid himself of sir simon
but in the house of miss berengaria this would be a more difficult matter and if he tries anything of that sort on thought durham i'll have him arrested at once for the first murder
the young man lying in bed was very weak his face was thin and pale and his scrubby beard was now longer he looked haggard and anxious and started up when the door opened it is only mister durham and i bernard said miss berengaria in a soft voice
we have come about the will michael raised himself on his elbow have you got it he asked yes said durham producing the document miss plantagenet will you please call up your maid to witness it
while the old lady rang the bell and michael read the will the lawyer looked closely at the invalid
michael was clever enough to feign illness as an excuse for talking little as he evidently dreaded to say much lest alice or durham should question his identity the whole deception was cleverly carried out
michael even attempted to account for any difference in his signature i feel so weak i can't write as firmly as i used to he said when the maid entered the room
if it is as good as the writing in your letter i shan't complain said durham wheeling a small table near to the bed michael looked at him sharply and seemed relieved by this remark he evidently thought that all was well and safe and heard durham read the will with closed eyes
then raising himself on his elbow he signed his name with apparent difficulty it was wonderfully like the signature of bernard miss plantagenet and maria appended their signatures as witnesses
michael stopped him mark he said using the name bernard usually called the lawyer by don't you think i am looking better i think you are very ill said durham gently but you don't think i'll die i hope not
with nursing you may get better michael's face assumed an expression of terror i won't die he moaned sinking back
hush hush said miss berengaria folding the clothes round him no more of this unhealthy talk you will get well with durham they left the room while maria remained to attend on the patient
well said durham in a low voice you see he expects to get well now that he has signed the will i daresay he will disappear the body of bernard will be found and michael will share the estate with beryl i don't think so said miss plantagenet grimly
the effect of being dead he allowed marius to slide down upon the shore
the miasmas darkness horror lay behind him the pure healthful living joyous air that was easy to breathe inundated him everywhere around him reigned silence but that charming silence
twilight had descended night was drawing on the great deliverer the friend of all those who need a mantle of darkness that they may escape from an anguish the sky presented itself in all directions like an enormous calm
the river flowed to his feet with the sound of a kiss
a few stars daintily piercing the pale blue of the zenith and visible to revery alone formed imperceptible little splendors amid the immensity evening was unfolding over the head of jean valjean all the sweetness of the infinite
it was that exquisite and undecided hour which says neither yes nor no night was already sufficiently advanced to render it possible to lose oneself at a little distance and yet there was sufficient daylight to permit of recognition at close quarters
for several seconds jean valjean was irresistibly overcome by that august and caressing serenity such moments of oblivion do come to men suffering refrains from harassing the unhappy wretch everything is eclipsed in the thoughts
peace broods over the dreamer like night and beneath the twilight which beams and in imitation of the sky which is illuminated the soul becomes studded with stars
jean valjean could not refrain from contemplating that vast clear shadow which rested over him thoughtfully he bathed in the sea of ecstasy and prayer in the majestic silence of the eternal heavens then he bent down swiftly to marius
as though the sentiment of duty had returned to him and dipping up water in the hollow of his hand he gently sprinkled a few drops on the latter's face
but his half open mouth still breathed jean valjean was on the point of dipping his hand in the river once more when all at once he experienced an indescribable embarrassment such as a person feels when there is some one behind him
whom he does not see we have already alluded to this impression with which everyone is familiar he turned round some one was in fact behind him as there had been a short while before
a man of lofty stature enveloped in a long coat with folded arms and bearing in his right fist a bludgeon of which the leaden head was visible stood a few paces in the rear of the spot where jean valjean was crouching over marius
with the aid of the darkness it seemed a sort of apparition an ordinary man would have been alarmed because of the twilight a thoughtful man on account of the bludgeon jean valjean recognized javert
had betaken himself to the prefecture of police had rendered a verbal account to the prefect in person in a brief audience had then immediately gone on duty again which implied the note the reader will recollect which had been captured on his person
aroused the attention of the police there he had caught sight of thenardier and had followed him the reader knows the rest thus it will be easily understood that that grating
the man spied upon has a scent which never deceives him it was necessary to fling a bone to that sleuth hound an assassin
such an opportunity must never be allowed to slip thenardier by putting jean valjean outside in his stead provided a prey for the police forced them to relinquish his scent made them forget him in a bigger adventure
repaid javert for his waiting which always flatters a spy earned thirty francs and counted with certainty so far as he himself was concerned on escaping with the aid of this diversion
these two encounters this falling one after the other
no longer looked like himself he did not unfold his arms he made sure of his bludgeon in his fist by an imperceptible movement and said in a curt calm voice who are you i who
jean valjean javert thrust his bludgeon between his teeth bent his knees inclined his body laid his two powerful hands on the shoulders of jean valjean which were clamped within them as in a couple of vices
scrutinized him and recognized him their faces almost touched javert's look was terrible jean valjean remained inert beneath javert's grasp like a lion submitting to the claws of a lynx
moreover i have regarded myself as your prisoner ever since this morning i did not give you my address with any intention of escaping from you take me only grant me one favor
javert did not appear to hear him he kept his eyes riveted on jean valjean his chin being contracted thrust his lips upwards
a sign of savage revery at length he released jean valjean straightened himself stiffly up without bending grasped his bludgeon again firmly and as though in a dream he murmured rather than uttered this question what are you doing here
he still abstained from addressing jean valjean as thou jean valjean replied and the sound of his voice appeared to rouse javert
dispose of me as you see fit but first help me to carry him home
javert's face contracted as was always the case when any one seemed to think him capable of making a concession nevertheless he did not say no again he bent over
drew from his pocket a handkerchief which he moistened in the water
this man was at the barricade
a spy of the first quality who had observed everything listened to everything and taken in everything even when he thought that he was to die
he is wounded said jean valjean
said javert jean valjean replied no not yet so you have brought him thither from the barricade remarked javert
his preoccupation must indeed have been very profound for him not to insist on this alarming rescue through the sewer and for him not to even notice jean valjean's silence after his question jean valjean on his side
seemed to have but one thought he resumed
i do not recollect his name
pulled out his pocket book opened it at the page which marius had pencilled and held it out to javert there was still sufficient light to admit of reading besides this
javert possessed in his eye the feline phosphorescence of night birds he deciphered the few lines written by marius and muttered gillenormand
then he exclaimed coachman the reader will remember that the hackney coach was waiting in case of need
a moment later the carriage which had descended by the inclined plane of the watering place was on the shore marius was laid upon the back seat
the door slammed and the carriage drove rapidly away ascending the quays in the direction of the bastille they quitted the quays and entered the streets the coachman a black form on his box whipped up his thin horses
a glacial silence reigned in the carriage marius motionless with his body resting in the corner and his head drooping on his breast his arms hanging his legs stiff seemed to be awaiting only a coffin jean valjean seemed made of shadow
and in that vehicle full of night whose interior every time that it passed in front of a street lantern appeared to be turned lividly wan as by an intermittent flash of lightning
chance had united and seemed to be bringing face to face the three forms of tragic immobility the corpse the spectre
return of the son who was prodigal of his life
javert was the first to alight he made sure with one glance of the number on the carriage gate and raising the heavy knocker of beaten iron embellished in the old style with a male goat and a satyr confronting each other
he gave a violent peal the gate opened a little way and javert gave it a push the porter half made his appearance yawning vaguely awake and with a candle in his hand everyone in the house was asleep
people go to bed betimes in the marais
this good old quarter terrified at the revolution takes refuge in slumber as children when they hear the bugaboo coming hide their heads hastily under their coverlet in the meantime jean valjean and the coachman
had taken marius out of the carriage jean valjean supporting him under the armpits and the coachman under the knees
jean valjean slipped his hand under the latter's clothes which were broadly rent felt his breast and assured himself that his heart was still beating it was even beating a little less feebly as though the movement of the carriage had brought about a certain fresh access of life
in a tone befitting the government
the porter did not appear to understand either javert's words or jean valjean's sign javert continued
to the barricade ejaculated the porter
the porter did not stir
repeated javert and he added there will be a funeral here to morrow
the usual incidents of the public highway were categorically classed which is the beginning of foresight and surveillance and each contingency had its own compartment all possible facts were arranged in drawers as it were
whence they emerged on occasion in variable quantities in the street uproar revolt carnival
basque woke nicolette nicolette
as for the grandfather they let him sleep on thinking that he would hear about the matter early enough in any case marius was carried up to the first floor without any one in the other parts of the house being aware of the fact
and deposited on an old sofa
and while basque went in search of a physician and while nicolette opened the linen presses jean valjean felt javert touch him on the shoulder he understood and descended the stairs
having behind him the step of javert who was following him the porter watched them take their departure as he had watched their arrival in terrified somnolence they entered the carriage once more and the coachman mounted his box
inspector javert said jean grant me yet another favor what is it demanded javert roughly let me go home for one instant then you shall do whatever you like with me
javert remained silent for a few moments with his chin drawn back into the collar of his great coat then he lowered the glass and front driver said he
they did not open their lips again during the whole space of their ride what did jean valjean want to finish what he had begun to warn cosette to tell her where marius was
to give her possibly some other useful information to take if he could certain final measures as for himself so far as he was personally concerned all was over
and had not resisted any other man than himself in like situation would perhaps have had some vague thoughts connected with the rope which thenardier had given him and of the bars of the first cell that he should enter but
let us impress it upon the reader after the bishop
a profound hesitation in the presence of any violence even when directed against himself suicide that mysterious act of violence against the unknown which may contain in a measure the death of the soul
was impossible to jean valjean
the carriage halted the way being too narrow to admit of the entrance of vehicles javert and jean valjean alighted the coachman humbly represented to monsieur l'inspecteur
that the utrecht velvet of his carriage was all spotted with the blood of the assassinated man and with mire from the assassin that is the way he understood it he added that an indemnity was due him
at the same time drawing his certificate book from his pocket he begged the inspector to have the goodness to write him a bit of an attestation javert thrust aside the book which the coachman held out to him and said how much do you want
it comes to seven hours and a quarter
javert drew four napoleons from his pocket and dismissed the carriage jean valjean fancied that it was javert's intention to conduct him on foot to the post
or to the post of the archives both of which are close at hand they entered the street it was deserted as usual javert followed jean valjean
jean valjean knocked the door opened
go up stairs he added with a strange expression and as though he were exerting an effort in speaking in this manner
jean valjean looked at javert this mode of procedure was but little in accord with javert's habits however he could not be greatly surprised that javert should now have a sort of haughty confidence in him
the confidence of the cat which grants the mouse liberty to the length of its claws seeing that jean valjean had made up his mind to surrender himself and to make an end of it he pushed open the door entered the house
called to the porter who was in bed and who had pulled the cord from his couch it is i and ascended the stairs on arriving at the first floor he paused all sorrowful roads have their stations
the window on the landing place which was a sash window was open as in many ancient houses the staircase got its light from without and had a view on the street the street lantern situated directly opposite
cast some light on the stairs and thus effected some economy in illumination jean valjean either for the sake of getting the air or mechanically thrust his head out of this window he leaned out over the street
it is short and the lantern lighted it from end to end jean valjean was overwhelmed with amazement
chapter twelve the grandfather basque and the porter had carried marius into the drawing room
motionless on the sofa upon which he had been placed on his arrival the doctor who had been sent for had hastened thither
in affright wringing her hands and incapable of doing anything but saying heavens is it possible at times she added
and took form in the exclamation
she did not go so far as i told you so which is customary on this sort of occasion at the physician's orders a camp bed had been prepared beside the sofa the doctor examined marius
and after having found that his pulse was still beating that the wounded man had no very deep wound on his breast and that the blood on the corners of his lips proceeded from his nostrils he had him placed flat on the bed without a pillow
with his head on the same level as his body and even a trifle lower and with his bust bare in order to facilitate respiration
on perceiving that they were undressing marius withdrew she set herself to telling her beads in her own chamber the trunk had not suffered any internal injury a bullet deadened by the pocket book
had turned aside and made the tour of his ribs with a hideous laceration which was of no great depth and consequently not dangerous the long underground journey had completed the dislocation of the broken collar bone
and the disorder there was serious the arms had been slashed with sabre cuts not a single scar disfigured his face but his head was fairly covered with cuts what would be the result of these wounds on the head
would they stop short at the hairy cuticle or would they attack the brain as yet this could not be decided a grave symptom was that they had caused a swoon and that people do not always recover from such swoons
moreover the wounded man had been exhausted by hemorrhage from the waist down the barricade had protected the lower part of the body from injury basque and nicolette
nicolette sewed them basque rolled them as lint was lacking the doctor for the time being arrested the bleeding with layers of wadding beside the bed three candles burned on a table where the case of surgical instruments lay spread out
a full pail was reddened in an instant the porter candle in hand lighted them the doctor seemed to be pondering sadly from time to time he made a negative sign with his head
as though replying to some question which he had inwardly addressed to himself a bad sign for the sick man are these mysterious dialogues of the doctor with himself
and lightly touching his still closed eyes with his finger a door opened at the end of the drawing room and a long pallid figure made its appearance this was the grandfather the revolt had for the past two days deeply agitated
and he had been in a fever all day long in the evening he had gone to bed very early recommending that everything in the house should be well barred and he had fallen into a doze through sheer fatigue old men sleep lightly
the noise had awakened him surprised at the rift of light which he saw under his door he had risen from his bed and had groped his way thither he stood astonished on the threshold one hand on the handle of the half open door
with his head bent a little forward and quivering his body wrapped in a white dressing gown which was straight and as destitute of folds as a winding sheet and he had the air of a phantom who is gazing into a tomb he saw the bed
and on the mattress that young man bleeding white with a waxen whiteness with closed eyes and gaping mouth and pallid lips stripped to the waist slashed all over with crimson wounds motionless and brilliantly lighted up
the grandfather trembled from head to foot as powerfully as ossified limbs can tremble his eyes whose corneae were yellow on account of his great age were veiled in a sort of vitreous glitter
his whole face assumed in an instant the earthy angles of a skull his arms fell pendent as though a spring had broken and his amazement was betrayed by the outspreading of the fingers of his two aged hands which quivered all over
his knees formed an angle in front allowing through the opening in his dressing gown a view of his poor bare legs all bristling with white hairs and he murmured
sir said basque monsieur has just been brought back
ah the rascal
as it is always indispensable that internal eruptions should come to the light the sequence of words returned
we are compelled to assume that such transformation of scene has also taken place in intricate dreams though we do not know whether it has encountered any possible desire the dream instanced at the commencement which we analyzed somewhat thoroughly
did give us occasion in two places to suspect something of the kind analysis brought out that my wife was occupied with others at table and that i did not like it in the dream itself exactly the opposite occurs
for the person who replaces my wife gives me her undivided attention but can one wish for anything pleasanter after a disagreeable incident than that the exact contrary should have occurred just as the dream has it the stinging thought in the analysis
another manifestation of the dream work which all incoherent dreams have in common is still more noticeable choose any instance and compare the number of separate elements in it or the extent of the dream if written down
with the dream thoughts yielded by analysis and of which but a trace can be refound in the dream itself there can be no doubt that the dream working has resulted in an extraordinary compression or condensation
the more deeply you go into the analysis the more deeply you are impressed by it
which has not been pieced together out of two or more impressions and events for instance i once dreamt about a kind of swimming bath where the bathers suddenly separated in all directions at one place on the edge a person stood bending towards one of the bathers
each one of which had contributed to the dream content first of all came the little episode from the time of my courting of which i have already spoken the pressure of a hand under the table gave rise in the dream to the under the table
which i had subsequently to find a place for in my recollection there was of course at the time not a word about undivided attention analysis taught me that this factor is the realization of a desire
through its contradictory and related to the behavior of my wife at the table d'hote an exactly similar and much more important episode of our courtship
the intimacy the hand resting upon the knee refers to a quite different connection and to quite other persons this element in the dream becomes again the starting point of two distinct series of reminiscences and so on
there must be one or more common factors the dream work proceeds like francis galton with his family photographs the different elements are put one on top of the other what is common to the composite picture stands out clearly the opposing details cancel each other
this process of reproduction partly explains the wavering statements
as a separate outlet for a series of impressions when there is nothing in common between the dream thoughts the dream work takes the trouble to create a something in order to make a common presentation feasible in the dream the simplest way to approximate two dream thoughts
which have as yet nothing in common consists in making such a change in the actual expression of one idea as will meet a slight responsive recasting in the form of the other idea the process is analogous to that of rhyme when consonance supplies the desired common factor
which give rise to them in the analysis of our example of a dream
in following out the analysis i struck upon the thought i should like to have something for nothing but this formula is not serviceable to the dream
with its double meaning is appropriate to a table d'hote it moreover is in place through the special sense in the dream at home if there is a dish which the children decline their mother first tries gentle persuasion with a just taste it
that the dream work should unhesitatingly use the double meaning of the word is certainly remarkable ample experience has shown however that the occurrence is quite usual
are explicable which are peculiar to the dream life alone and which are not found in the waking state such are the composite and mixed persons the extraordinary mixed figures creations comparable with the fantastic animal compositions of orientals
a moment's thought and these are reduced to unity whilst the fancies of the dream are ever formed anew in an inexhaustible profusion every one knows such images in his own dreams manifold are their origins
i can build up a person by borrowing one feature from one person and one from another or by giving to the form of one the name of another in my dream i can also visualize one person
a comparison which can be also realized in the dream itself as a rule however the identity of the blended persons is only discoverable by analysis and is only indicated in the dream content by the formation of the combined person
their strangeness quite disappears when we resolve not to place them on a level with the objects of perception as known to us when awake
by an exclusion of unnecessary detail prominence is given to the common character of the combination analysis must also generally supply the common features the dream says simply all these things have an x in common the decomposition
of these mixed images by analysis is often the quickest way to an interpretation of the dream thus i once dreamt that i was sitting with one of my former university tutors on a bench which was undergoing a rapid continuous movement amidst other benches
he who keeps his hat in his hand will travel safely through the land by a slight turn the glass hat reminded me of auer's light
and i knew that i was about to invent something which was to make me as rich and independent as his invention had made my countryman doctor auer of welsbach then i should be able to travel instead of remaining in vienna in the dream i was traveling with my invention
with the it is true rather awkward glass top hat the dream work is peculiarly adept at representing two contradictory conceptions by means of the same mixed image thus for instance
each one of the elements of the dream content is overdetermined by the matter of the dream thoughts
discloses another side of the relationship between dream content and dream thoughts just as one element of the dream leads to associations with several dream thoughts so as a rule the one dream thought represents more than one dream element
condensation is the most important and most characteristic feature of the dream work we have as yet no clue as to the motive calling for such compression of the content in the complicated and intricate dreams
with which we are now concerned condensation and dramatization do not wholly account for the difference between dream contents and dream thoughts there is evidence of a third factor which deserves careful consideration
when i have arrived at an understanding of the dream thoughts by my analysis i notice above all that the matter of the manifest is very different from that of the latent dream content that is i admit only an apparent difference
which vanishes on closer investigation for in the end i find the whole dream content carried out in the dream thoughts nearly all the dream thoughts again represented in the dream content nevertheless there does remain a certain amount of difference
the essential content which stood out clearly and broadly in the dream must after analysis rest satisfied with a very subordinate role among the dream thoughts these very dream thoughts which going by my feelings have a claim to the greatest importance
i can thus describe these phenomena
there is no other process which contributes so much to concealment of the dream's meaning and to make the connection between the dream content and dream ideas irrecognizable during this process which i will call the dream displacement
the most important but often in some obscure element of the dream i can recognize the most direct offspring of the principal dream thought i could only designate this dream displacement as the transvaluation of psychical values
the phenomena will not have been considered in all its bearings unless i add that this displacement or transvaluation is shared by different dreams in extremely varying degrees there are dreams which take place almost without any displacement
these have the same time meaning and intelligibility as we found in the dreams which recorded a desire in other dreams not a bit of the dream idea has retained its own psychical value
or everything essential in these dream ideas has been replaced by unessentials whilst every kind of transition between these conditions can be found the more obscure and intricate a dream is the greater is the part to be ascribed to the impetus
the example that we chose for analysis shows at
has a different center of interest from that of the dream ideas in the forefront of the dream content the main scene appears as if a woman wished to make advances to me in the dream idea the chief interest rests on the desire to enjoy disinterested love
which are most disputed as to what provokes a dream at all and as to the connection of the dream with our waking life there are dreams which at once expose their links with the events of the day in others no trace of such a connection can be found
by the aid of analysis it can be shown
or perhaps it would be more correct to say of the day previous to the dream the impressions which have incited the dream may be so important that we are not surprised at our being occupied with them whilst awake
in this case we are right in saying that the dream carries on the chief interest of our waking life more usually however
it is so trivial unimportant and so deserving of oblivion that we can only recall it with an effort
to be concerned with those indifferent trifles of thought undeserving of our waking interest the depreciation of dreams is largely due to the predominance of the indifferent and the worthless in their content
which has been replaced by something indifferent with which it has entered into abundant associations
analysis reveals the numerous associative paths which connect the trivial with the momentous in the psychical estimation of the individual it is only the action of displacement if what is indifferent obtains recognition in the dream content
instead of those impressions which are really the stimulus or instead of the things of real interest in answering the question as to what provokes the dream as to the connection of the dream in the daily troubles we must say
in terms of the insight given us by replacing the manifest latent dream content the dream does never trouble itself about things which are not deserving of our concern during the day
what provoked the dream in the example which we have analyzed the really unimportant event that a friend invited me to a free ride in his cab the table d'hote scene in the dream contains an allusion to this indifferent motive
for in conversation i had brought the taxi parallel with the table d'hote
small wonder says the dream thought if this person is grateful to me for this this love is not cost free but love that shall cost nothing is one of the prime thoughts of the dream
the indifferent impression which by such ramifications provokes the dream is subservient to another condition which is not true of the real source of the dream the impression must be a recent one everything arising from the day of the dream
some point of contact are replaced in the dream content by a mixed image where the distinct germ corresponds to what is common and the indistinct secondary modifications to what is distinctive
which bears the same relationship to the individual elements as does the resultant in the parallelogram of forces to its components in one of my dreams for instance there is talk of an injection with propyl
on first analysis i discovered an indifferent but true incident where amyl played a part as the excitant of the dream i cannot yet vindicate the exchange of amyl for propyl
to the round of ideas of the same dream however there belongs the recollection of my first visit to munich when the propyloea struck me the attendant circumstances of the analysis render it admissible
and displacement the need of discovering some motive for this bewildering work of the dream
than in condensation although the work of displacement must be held mainly responsible if the dream thoughts are not refound or recognized in the dream content unless the motive of the changes be guessed it is another and milder kind of transformation
the first dream thoughts which are unravelled by analysis frequently strike one by their unusual wording they do not appear to be expressed in the sober form which our thinking prefers
like the figurative language of the poets it is not difficult to find the motives for this degree of constraint in the expression of dream ideas the dream content consists chiefly of visual scenes hence the dream ideas must in the first place
the scene of the dream is not infrequently nothing but a modified repetition complicated by interpolations of events that have left such an impression the dream but very seldom reproduces accurate and unmixed reproductions of real scenes
the dream content does not however consist exclusively of scenes but it also includes scattered fragments of visual images conversations and even bits of unchanged thoughts
it will be perhaps to the point if we instance in the briefest way the means of dramatization which are at the disposal of the dream work for the repetition of the dream thoughts in the peculiar language of the dream
their parts stand in the most diverse relationship to each other they form backgrounds and foregrounds stipulations digressions illustrations demonstrations and protestations
it may be said to be almost the rule that one train of thought is followed by its contradictory no feature known to our reason whilst awake is absent if a dream is to grow out of all this
the psychical matter is submitted to a pressure which condenses it extremely to an inner shrinking and displacement
having regard to the origin of this stuff the term regression can be fairly applied to this process
the dream is able to embody this matter into a single scene it upholds a logical connection as approximation in time and space just as the painter who groups all the poets for his picture of parnassus who though they have never been all together on a mountain peak
or replaced by two different long portions of dreams one after the other this presentation is frequently a reversed one the beginning of the dream being the deduction and its end the hypothesis
the dream never utters the alternative either or but accepts both as having equal rights in the same connection
we shall later on deal with another form of expressing disagreement the common dream sensation of movement checked serves the purpose of representing disagreement of impulses a conflict of the will
only one of the logical relationships that of similarity identity agreement is found highly developed in the mechanism of dream formation
drawing together everything which shows such agreement to a fresh unity these short
in the latter case they appear obscure intricate incoherent when the dream appears openly absurd when it contains an obvious paradox in its content it is so of purpose
through its apparent disregard of all logical claims it expresses a part of the intellectual content of the dream ideas
disdain in the dream thoughts as this explanation is in entire disagreement with the view that the dream owes its origin to dissociated uncritical cerebral activity
i will emphasize my view by an example one of my acquaintances mister m has been attacked by no less a person than goethe in an essay
with we all maintain unwarrantable violence mister m has naturally been ruined by this attack he complains very bitterly of this at a dinner party but his respect for goethe has not diminished through this personal experience
goethe died in eighteen thirty two as his attack upon mister m must of course have taken place before mister m must have been then a very young man it seems to me plausible that he was eighteen
i am not certain however what year we are actually in and the whole calculation falls into obscurity
without any poetical or literary interests
the dream has derived its material from three sources one mister m to whom i was introduced at a dinner party begged me one day to examine his elder brother who showed signs of mental trouble in conversation with the patient an unpleasant episode occurred
without the slightest occasion he disclosed one of his brother's youthful escapades i had asked the patient the year of his birth year of death in dream and led him to various calculations
of berlin from the pen of a very juvenile reviewer i communicated with the editor who indeed expressed his regret but would not promise any redress thereupon i broke off my connection with the paper
in my letter of resignation i expressed the hope that our personal relations would not suffer from this here is the real source of the dream the derogatory reception of my friend's work had made a deep impression upon me in my judgment it
contained a fundamental biological discovery which only now several years later
exclaiming nature nature had gone out of his mind the doctors considered that the exclamation arose from a study of goethe's beautiful essay
was to be taken in that sexual meaning known also to the less educated in our country it seemed to me that this view had something in it because the unfortunate youth afterwards mutilated his genital organs the patient was eighteen years old when the attack occurred
and amongst other things correlates goethe's duration of life with a number of days in many ways important to biology the ego is however represented as a general paralytic i am not certain what year we are actually in
this inversion obviously took place in the dream when goethe attacked the young man which is absurd whilst any one however young can to day easily attack the great goethe
when i follow out the dream thoughts closely i ever find only scorn and contempt as correlated with the dream's absurdity it is well known that the discovery of a cracked sheep's skull on the lido in venice gave goethe the hint for the so called vertebral theory of the skull
my friend plumes himself on having as a student raised a hubbub for the resignation of an aged professor who had done good work including some in this very subject of comparative anatomy but who on account of decrepitude had become quite incapable of teaching
the agitation my friend inspired was so successful because in the german universities
forces itself upon me here it was to this man that some youthful colleagues in the hospital
no schiller composed that et cetera we have not exhausted our valuation of the dream work in addition to condensation displacement and definite arrangement of the psychical matter we must ascribe to it yet another activity
one which is indeed not shared by every dream i shall not treat this position of the dream work exhaustively
probably unfairly that it only subsequently influences the dream content which has already been built up its mode of action thus consists in so cooerdinating the parts of the dream that these coalesce to a coherent whole
the misconception of the dream thoughts to which it gives rise is merely superficial and our first piece of work in analyzing a dream is to get rid of these early attempts at interpretation the motives for this part of the dream work are easily gauged
this final elaboration of the dream is due to a regard for intelligibility a fact at once betraying the origin of an action which behaves towards the actual dream content just as our normal psychical action behaves towards some proffered
perception that is to our liking the dream content is thus secured under the pretense of certain expectations is perceptually classified by the supposition of its intelligibility
thereby risking its falsification whilst in fact the most extraordinary misconceptions arise if the dream can be correlated with nothing familiar every one is aware that we are unable to look at any series of unfamiliar signs
without at once making perpetual changes through our regard for intelligibility through our falling back upon what is familiar we can call those dreams properly made up
the dream elaboration that we identify ourselves so far however as our analysis is concerned
all the same it would be an error to see in the dream facade nothing but the misunderstood and somewhat arbitrary elaboration of the dream carried out at the instance of our psychical life
wishes and phantasies are not infrequently employed in the erection of this facade which were already fashioned in the dream thoughts
day dreams as they are very properly called these wishes and phantasies which analysis discloses in our dreams at night often present themselves as repetitions and refashionings of the scenes of infancy
thus the dream facade may show us directly the true core of the dream distorted through admixture with other matter
beyond these four activities there is nothing else to be discovered in the dream work if we keep closely to the definition that dream work denotes the transference of dream thoughts to dream content we are compelled to say that the dream work is not creative
it develops no fancies of its own it judges nothing decides nothing it does nothing but prepare the matter for condensation and displacement and refashions it for dramatization
that of explanatory elaboration it is true that a good deal is found in the dream content which might be understood as the result of another and more intellectual performance but analysis shows conclusively every time that these intellectual operations were already present in the dream thoughts
and have only been taken over by the dream content a syllogism in the dream is nothing other than the repetition of a syllogism in the dream thoughts it seems inoffensive
it becomes absurd if in the dream work it has been transferred to other matter
whilst this is always correct the calculation in the dream can furnish the silliest results by the condensation of its factors and the displacement of the same operations to other things
are not new compositions they prove to be pieced together out of speeches which have been made or heard or read the words are faithfully copied but the occasion of their utterance is quite overlooked and their meaning is most violently changed
the butcher said to her when she asked him for something that is all gone and wished to give her something else remarking that's very good
thus i am the butcher the second remark
the day before she had herself called out in rebuke to the cook who moreover also appears in the dream behave yourself properly i don't know that that is i don't know this kind of behavior i won't have it
two a dream apparently meaningless relates to figures
but she says what are you doing it only cost twenty one kreuzers the dreamer was a stranger who had placed her child at school in vienna
the figures in the dream become important if it be remembered that time is money one year equals three hundred sixty five days or expressed in kreuzers three hundred sixty five kreuzers
this gave rise to the following dream she was sitting with her husband in the theater the one side of the stalls was quite empty her husband tells her elise l and her fiance had intended coming but could only get some cheap seats
three for one florin fifty kreuzers and these they would not take in her opinion that would not have mattered very much the origin of the figures from the matter of the dream thoughts and the changes the figures underwent are of interest
whence came the one florin fifty kreuzers from a trifling occurrence of the previous day
for the three concerned with the tickets the only link is that elise l is exactly three months younger than the dreamer the scene in the dream is the repetition of a little adventure for which she has often been teased by her husband
she was once in a great hurry to get tickets in time for a piece and when she came to the theater one side of the stalls was almost empty it was therefore quite unnecessary for her to have been in such a hurry
nor must we overlook the absurdity of the dream that two persons should take three tickets for the theater now for the dream ideas it was stupid to have married so early i need not have been in so great a hurry
elise l example shows me that i should have been able to get a husband later indeed one a hundred times better if i had but waited
on the following evening the view of the convent towers rising among the shadowy woods reminded emily of the nun whose condition had so much affected her and anxious to know how she was
as well as to see some of her former friends she and the lady blanche extended their walk to the monastery at the gate stood a carriage which from the heat of the horses
but a more than common stillness pervaded the court and the cloisters through which emily and blanche passed in their way to the great hall where a nun
replied to the enquiries of the former that sister agnes was still living and sensible but that it was thought she could not survive the night in the parlour they found several of the boarders who rejoiced to see emily
and told her many little circumstances that had happened in the convent since her departure and which were interesting to her only because they related to persons
while they thus conversed the abbess entered the room and expressed much satisfaction at seeing emily but her manner was unusually solemn and her countenance dejected
after the first salutations were over is truly a house of mourning a daughter is now paying the debt of nature you have heard perhaps that our daughter agnes is dying emily expressed her sincere concern
her death presents to us a great and awful lesson continued the abbess let us read it and profit by it let it teach us to prepare ourselves for the change that awaits us all
are the good deeds of our latter years if those of our early life have been evil emily would have said that good deeds she hoped
but she considered that it was the abbess who spoke and she remained silent the latter days of agnes resumed the abbess have been exemplary would they might atone for the errors of her former ones
her sufferings now alas are great let us believe that they will make her peace hereafter i have left her with her confessor and a gentleman whom she has long been anxious to see and who is just arrived from paris
they i hope will be able to administer the repose which her mind has hitherto wanted emily fervently joined in the wish during her illness she has sometimes named you resumed the abbess
perhaps it would comfort her to see you when her present visitors have left her we will go to her chamber if the scene will not be too melancholy for your spirits but indeed to such scenes however painful
we ought to accustom ourselves for they are salutary to the soul and prepare us for what we are ourselves to suffer emily became grave and thoughtful for this conversation brought to her recollection
the dying moments of her beloved father and she wished once more to weep over the spot where his remains were buried during the silence
many minute circumstances attending his last hours occurred to her his emotion on perceiving himself to be in the neighbourhood of chateau le blanc his request to be interred in a particular spot in the church of this monastery
and the solemn charge he had delivered to her to destroy certain papers without examining them she recollected also the mysterious and horrible words in those manuscripts
upon which her eye had involuntarily glanced and though they now and indeed whenever she remembered them revived an excess of painful curiosity concerning their full import and the motives for her father's command
it was ever her chief consolation that she had strictly obeyed him in this particular little more was said by the abbess who appeared too much affected by the subject she had lately left to be willing to converse
and her companions had been for some time silent from the same cause when this general reverie was interrupted by the entrance of a stranger monsieur bonnac who had just quitted the chamber of sister agnes
he appeared much disturbed but emily fancied that his countenance had more the expression of horror than of grief
and quitted the room the abbess soon after proposed going to the chamber of sister agnes to which emily consented though not without some reluctance and lady blanche remained with the boarders below at the door of the chamber
they met the confessor whom as he lifted up his head on their approach emily observed to be the same that had attended her dying father but he passed on without noticing her and they entered the apartment where
on a mattress was laid sister agnes with one nun watching in the chair beside her her countenance was so much changed that emily would scarcely have recollected her had she not been prepared to do so
till they stood at the bed side then turning her heavy eyes she fixed them in wild horror upon emily and screaming exclaimed ah that vision comes upon me in my dying hours
and looked for explanation to the abbess
and calmly said to agnes daughter i have brought mademoiselle saint aubert to visit you i thought you would be glad to see her agnes made no reply but still gazing wildly upon emily exclaimed
it is her very self oh there is all that fascination in her look which proved my destruction what would you have
retribution it will soon be yours it is yours already how many years have passed since last i saw you my crime is but as yesterday yet i am grown old beneath it while you are still young and blooming
blooming as when you forced me to commit that most abhorred deed o could i once forget it yet what would that avail the deed is done emily extremely shocked would now have left the room
taking her hand tried to support her spirits and begged she would stay a few moments when agnes would probably be calm whom now she tried to sooth but the latter seemed to disregard her
while she still fixed her eyes on emily and added what are years of prayers and repentance they cannot wash out the foulness of murder yes murder where is he where is he look there look there
see where he stalks along the room why do you come to torment me now continued agnes while her straining eyes were bent on air
o do not frown so sternly hah there again til she herself why do you look so piteously upon me and smile too smile on me what groan was that
agnes sunk down apparently lifeless and emily unable to support herself leaned against the bed
peace said the abbess when emily was going to speak the delirium is going off she will soon revive when was she thus before daughter not of many weeks madam replied the nun
but her spirits have been much agitated by the arrival of the gentleman she wished so much to see yes observed the abbess that has undoubtedly occasioned this paroxysm of frenzy when she is better
we will leave her to repose emily very readily consented but though she could now give little assistance she was unwilling to quit the chamber while any might be necessary when agnes recovered her senses
she again fixed her eyes on emily but their wild expression was gone and a gloomy melancholy had succeeded it was some moments before she recovered sufficient spirits to speak she then said feebly
surely it must be something more than fancy tell me i conjure you she added addressing emily
are you not the daughter of the marchioness what marchioness said emily in extreme surprise for she had imagined from the calmness of agnes's manner that her intellects were restored
but she repeated the question what marchioness exclaimed agnes i know but of one the marchioness de villeroi emily remembering the emotion of her late father upon the unexpected mention of this lady
now felt greatly interested and she entreated agnes to explain the reason of her question
would now have withdrawn emily from the room who being however detained by a strong interest repeated her entreaties bring me that casket sister said agnes i will shew her to you yet you need only look in that mirror
and you will behold her you surely are her daughter such striking resemblance is never found but among near relations
the baron saint foix whom anxiety for his friend had kept awake rose early to enquire the event of the night when as he passed the count's closet hearing steps within he knocked at the door
whose reserved answers first occasioned him to notice it the count then smiling endeavoured to treat the subject of his curiosity with levity but the baron was serious and pursued his enquiries so closely that the count
you will not question him on this topic my friend since you know my wish certainly not said the baron somewhat chagrined since it would be displeasing to you but methinks my friend you might rely on my discretion
and drop this unusual reserve however you must allow me to suspect
and my present reserve cannot make you question either my esteem or the sincerity of my friendship i will not doubt either said the baron though you must allow me to express my surprise at this silence
from the north chambers since henri and himself had been permitted to return from them in safety henri however was less successful in disguising his feelings from his countenance an expression of terror was not entirely faded
he was often silent and thoughtful and when he attempted to laugh at the eager enquiries of mademoiselle bearn it was evidently only an attempt in the evening the count called as he had promised
at the convent and emily was surprised to perceive a mixture of playful ridicule and of reserve in his mention of the north apartment of what had occurred there however he said nothing and when she ventured to remind him of his promise to tell her the result of his enquiries
and to ask if he had received any proof that those chambers were haunted his look became solemn for a moment then seeming to recollect himself he smiled and said my dear emily
she will teach you to expect a ghost in every dark room but believe me added he with a profound sigh the apparition of the dead comes not on light or sportive errands to terrify or to surprise the timid
soon after he took leave and when emily joined some of the nuns she was surprised to find them acquainted with a circumstance
and expressing their admiration of his intrepidity in having dared to pass a night in the apartment whence ludovico had disappeared for she had not considered with what rapidity a tale of wonder circulates the nuns had acquired their information from peasants
who brought fruit to the monastery and whose whole attention had been fixed since the disappearance of ludovico on what was passing in the castle emily listened in silence to the various opinions of the nuns
that the count had acted with the bravery of a virtuous mind he knew himself guiltless of aught that should provoke a good spirit and did not fear the spells of an evil one since he could claim the protection of an higher power
that shall dare to call himself innocent all earthly innocence is but comparative yet still how wide asunder are the extremes of guilt and to what an horrible depth may we fall oh
the nun as she concluded uttered a shuddering sigh that startled emily who looking up perceived the eyes of agnes fixed on hers after which the sister rose took her hand gazed earnestly upon her countenance
for some moments in silence and then said you are young you are innocent i mean you are yet innocent of any great crime but you have passions in your heart scorpions they sleep now beware how you awaken them
they will sting you even unto death emily affected by these words and by the solemnity with which they were delivered could not suppress her tears ah is it so exclaimed agnes her countenance softening from its sternness
we are sisters then indeed yet there is no bond of kindness among the guilty she added while her eyes resumed their wild expression no gentleness no peace no hope i knew them all once my eyes could weep but now they burn
who repent and turn to the true faith observed sister frances for all but me replied agnes solemnly who paused and then abruptly added my head burns i believe i am not well o
the figures that rise up like furies to torment me i see them when i sleep and when i am awake they are still before my eyes i see them now now she stood in a fixed attitude of horror
her straining eyes moving slowly round the room as if they followed something one of the nuns gently took her hand to lead her from the parlour agnes became calm drew her other hand across her eyes looked again and sighing
deeply said they are gone they are gone i am feverish i know not what i say i am thus sometimes but it will go off again i shall soon be better was not that the vesper bell no replied frances
the evening service is passed let margaret lead you to your cell you are right replied sister agnes i shall be better there good night my sisters remember me in your orisons when they had withdrawn frances
observing emily's emotion said do not be alarmed our sister is often thus deranged though i have not lately seen her so frantic her usual mood is melancholy this fit has been coming on for several days
seclusion and the customary treatment will restore her but how rationally she conversed at first observed emily her ideas followed each other in perfect order yes replied the nun this is nothing new nay
i have sometimes known her argue not only with method but with acuteness and then in a moment start off into madness her conscience seems afflicted said emily did you ever hear what circumstance reduced her to this deplorable condition
i have replied the nun who said no more till emily repeated the question when she added in a low voice and looking significantly towards the other boarders i cannot tell you now but if you think it worth your while
come to my cell to night when our sisterhood are at rest and you shall hear more but remember we rise to midnight prayers and come either before or after midnight emily promised to remember
that had subsisted too long to be easily subdued and which had already outlived the opposition of his friends m du pont had first seen emily in gascony during the lifetime of his parent who
on discovering his son's partiality for mademoiselle saint aubert his inferior in point of fortune
or to think of her more during the life of his father he had observed the first command but had found it impracticable to obey the second and had sometimes soothed his passion by visiting her favourite haunts
among which was the fishing house where once or twice he addressed her in verse concealing his name in obedience to the promise he had given his father there too he played the pathetic air to which she had listened with such surprise and admiration
that had since cherished a passion fatal to his repose during his expedition into italy his father died but he received his liberty at a moment when he was the least enabled to profit by it since the object that rendered it most valuable
was no longer within the reach of his vows by what accident he discovered emily and assisted to release her from a terrible imprisonment has already appeared and also the unavailing hope with which he then encouraged his love
which disappointment has left on her mind and she will be sensible of your merit your services have already awakened her gratitude and your sufferings her pity and trust me my friend in a heart so sensible as hers
gratitude and pity lead to love when her imagination is rescued from its present delusion
du pont sighed while he listened to these words and endeavouring to hope what his friend believed he willingly yielded to an invitation to prolong his visit at the chateau which we now leave for the monastery of saint claire
the dim lamp that gave light to the place turning her eyes as the door opened she beckoned to emily to come in who having done so seated herself in silence beside the nun's little mattress of straw
without observing her emotion sat down on the mattress by her saying your curiosity sister has made you punctual but you have nothing remarkable to hear in the history of poor agnes of whom i avoided to speak in the presence of my lay sisters
as the dignity of her air must already have informed you but i will not dishonour their name so much as to reveal it love was the occasion of her crime and of her madness she was beloved by a gentleman of inferior fortune and her father
as i have heard bestowing her on a nobleman whom she disliked an ill governed passion proved her destruction every obligation of virtue and of duty was forgotten
but her guilt was soon detected and she would have fallen a sacrifice to the vengeance of her husband had not her father contrived to convey her from his power by what means he did this i never could learn but he secreted her in this convent
where he afterwards prevailed with her to take the veil
i allow the story is uncommon but not i believe without a parallel pray proceed said emily i am interested the story is already told resumed the nun i have only to mention
that the long struggle which agnes suffered between love remorse
in becoming of our order at length unsettled her reason at first she was frantic and melancholy by quick alternatives then she sunk into a deep and settled melancholy which still however has at times
been interrupted by fits of wildness and of late these have again been frequent emily was affected by the history of the sister some parts of whose story brought to her remembrance that of the marchioness
de villeroi who had also been compelled by her father to forsake the object of her affections for a nobleman of his choice but from what dorothee had related there appeared no reason to suppose
that she had escaped the vengeance of a jealous husband or to doubt for a moment the innocence of her conduct but emily while she sighed over the misery of the nun could not forbear shedding a few tears to the misfortunes of the marchioness
and when she returned to the mention of sister agnes she asked frances if she remembered her in her youth and whether she was then beautiful i was not here at the time when she took the vows replied frances which is so long ago
that few of the present sisterhood i believe were witnesses of the ceremony nay ever our lady mother did not then preside over the convent but i can remember when sister agnes was a very beautiful woman she retains that air of high rank
which always distinguished her but her beauty you must perceive is fled
it is strange said emily but there are moments when her countenance has appeared familiar to my memory you will think me fanciful and i think myself so for i certainly never saw sister agnes before i came to this convent
and i must therefore have seen some person whom she strongly resembles though of this i have no recollection you have been interested by the deep melancholy of her countenance said frances and its impression has probably deluded your imagination
for i might as reasonably think i perceive a likeness between you and agnes as you that you have seen her any where but in this convent since this has been her place of refuge for nearly as many years as make your age
indeed said emily yes rejoined frances and why does that circumstance excite your surprise emily did not appear to notice this question but remained thoughtful for a few moments and then said
it was about that same period that the marchioness de villeroi expired that is an odd remark said frances emily recalled from her reverie smiled and gave the conversation another turn
but it soon came back to the subject of the unhappy nun and emily remained in the cell of sister frances till the mid night bell aroused her when apologizing for having interrupted the sister's repose till this late hour they quitted the cell together
emily returned to her chamber and the nun bearing a glimmering taper went to her devotion in the chapel several days followed during which emily saw neither the count or any of his family
that his air was unusually disturbed my spirits are harassed said he in answer to her anxious enquiries and i mean to change my residence for a little while an experiment which i hope will restore my mind to its usual tranquillity
my daughter and myself will accompany the baron saint foix to his chateau it lies in a valley of the pyrenees that opens towards gascony and i have been thinking
when you set out for la vallee we may go part of the way together it would be a satisfaction to me to guard you towards your home she thanked the count for his friendly consideration and lamented that the necessity for her going first to
would render this plan impracticable but when you are at the baron's residence she added you will be only a short journey from la vallee and i think sir you will not leave the country without visiting me
it is unnecessary to say with what pleasure i should receive you and the lady blanche i do not doubt it replied the count and i will not deny myself and blanche the pleasure of visiting you
about the time when we can meet you there when emily said that she should hope to see the countess also she was not sorry to learn that this lady was going accompanied by mademoiselle bearn to pay a visit for a few weeks
to a family in lower languedoc the count after some further conversation on his intended journey and on the arrangement of emily's took leave and many days did not succeed this visit
and having taken an affecting leave of the count's family in which m du pont was still included and of her friends at the convent
attended by the unhappy annette
they took a turn about the walls with the moon sinking over beyond silbury
there were long intervals of friendly silence i don't in the least want to go on talking about myself said sir richmond abruptly let it rest then said the doctor generously to day among these ancient memories has taken me out of myself wonderfully
to look at myself as a case now i can even see myself as a remote case that i needn't bother about further so far as that goes i think we have done all that there is to be done i shouldn't say that quite yet said the doctor
i don't think i'm a subject for real psychoanalysis at all i'm not an overlaid sort of person when i spread myself out there is not much indication of a suppressed wish or of anything masked or buried of that sort
what you get is a quite open and recognized discord of two sets of motives the doctor considered
your libido is i should say exceptionally free generally you are doing what you want to do overdoing in fact what you want to do and getting simply tired which is the theory i started with
i am a case of fatigue under irritating circumstances with very little mental complication or concealment yes said the doctor i agree you are not a case for psychoanalysis strictly speaking at all you are in open conflict with yourself
upon moral and social issues practically open your problems are problems of conscious conduct as i said of what renunciations you have consciously to make sir richmond did not answer that
this pilgrimage of ours he said presently has made for magnanimity this day particularly has been a good day when we stood on this old wall here in the sunset i seemed to be standing outside myself in an immense still sphere of past and future
i stood with my feet upon the stone age and saw myself four thousand years away and all my distresses as very little incidents in that perspective away there in london the case is altogether different
after three hours or so of the committee one concentrates into one little inflamed moment of personality there is no past any longer there is no future there is only the rankling dispute for all those three hours perhaps
just how i had to say it just how i looked while i said it just how much i was making myself understood how i might be misunderstood how i might be misrepresented challenged denied one draws in more and more as one is used up
at last one is reduced to a little raw bleeding desperately fighting pin point of self one goes back to one's home unable to recover fighting it over again all night sometimes i get up and walk about the room and curse martineau
how is one to get the avebury frame of mind to westminster when westminster is as dead as avebury said the doctor unhelpfully he added after some seconds milton knew of these troubles not without dust and heat he wrote
a great phrase but the dust chokes me said sir richmond he took up a copy of the green roads of england that lay beside him on the table but he did not open it
i do not think that i shall stir up my motives any more for a time better to go on into the west country cooling my poor old brain in these wide shadows of the past i can prescribe nothing better said doctor martineau
incidentally we may be able to throw a little more light on one or two of your minor entanglements i don't want to think of them said sir richmond let me get right away from everything until my skin has grown again chapter the sixth
the encounter at stonehenge section one next day in the early afternoon after a farewell walk over the downs round avebury they went by way of devizes and netheravon and amesbury to stonehenge doctor martineau had seen this ancient monument before
it looks sir richmond said as though some old giantess had left a discarded set of teeth on the hillside far more impressive than stonehenge itself were the barrows that capped the neighbouring crests the sacred stones were fenced about
at the side of the road stood a travel stained middle class automobile with a miscellany of dusty luggage rugs and luncheon things therein a family automobile with father no doubt at the wheel sir richmond left his own trim coupe at its tail
they were impeded at the entrance by a difference of opinion between the keeper of the turnstile and a small but resolute boy of perhaps five or six who proposed to leave the enclosure
she keeps on looking at it said the small boy it isunt anything
you won't see stonehenge every day young man said the custodian a little piqued it's only an old beach said the small boy with extreme conviction
the man at the turnstile mutely consulted the doctor
the two gentlemen lingered at the turnstile for a moment or so to watch his proceedings modern child said sir richmond old stones are just old stones to him but motor cars are gods you can hardly expect him to understand at his age
said the custodian jealous for the honor of stonehenge reminds me of martin's little girl said sir richmond as he and doctor martineau went on towards the circle when she encountered her first dragon fly she was greatly delighted
as they approached the grey old stones they became aware of a certain agitation among them a voice an authoritative bass voice was audible crying
a nurse appeared remotely going in the direction of the aeroplane sheds and her cry of
she was a black haired sun burnt individual and she stood with her arms akimbo quite frankly amused at the disappearance of master anthony and offering no sort of help for his recovery
and one or two other feminine personalities produced effects of movement rather than of individuality as they flitted among the stones
said the lady in grey with that rising intonation of humorous conclusion which is so distinctively american those druids have got him he's hiding said the automobilist
a great boy who is almost six
said sir richmond addressing himself to the lady on the rock rather than to the angry parent below he's perfectly safe and happy
indeed they've failed altogether to get him stonehenge he says is no good so he's gone back to clean the lamps of your car
said papa winnie go and tell price he's gone back to the car
the excitement about master anthony collapsed
the head of the family found some difficulty it would seem in readjusting his mind to the comparative innocence of anthony and sir richmond and the young lady on the rock sought as if by common impulse to establish a general conversation there were faint traces of excitement in her manner
but she insists on dates
said sir richmond well
said the young lady sir richmond sought a recognizable datum bronze got to britain somewhere between the times of moses and solomon ah said the young lady as who should say this man at least talks sense
i don't see the place said the young lady on the stone i can't imagine how they did it up not one bit
it's just the bones of a place they hung things round it they draped it but what things asked sir richmond oh they had things all right skins perhaps mats of rushes bast cloth
fibre of all sorts wadded stuff stonehenge draped it's really a delightful idea said the father of the family enjoying it it's quite a possible one said sir richmond or they may have used wicker
she seemed to concede a point wicker is likelier but surely said the father of the family with the expostulatory voice and gesture of one who would recall erring wits to sanity
but all this country may have been wooded then said sir richmond in which case it wouldn't have stood out it doesn't stand out so very much even now you came to it through a grove said the young lady eagerly picking up the idea probably beech
said the father of the family in the reproving tone of one who never allows a novel idea inside his doors if he can prevent it well said the young lady i guess there was some sort of show here anyhow
and no human being ever had a show yet without trying to shut people out of it in order to make them come in i guess this was covered in all right a dark hunched old place in a wood beech stems smooth like pillars and they came to it at night in procession
they came in there and went round the inner circle with their torches and so they were shown the torches were put out and the priests did their mysteries until dawn broke that is how they worked it
but even you can't tell what the show was v v said the lady in grey
he was not very good at feminine ages she had a clear sun browned complexion with dark hair and smiling lips her features were finely modelled with just that added touch of breadth in the brow and softness in the cheek bones
that faint flavour of the amerindian one sees at times in american women her voice was a very soft and pleasing voice
and when she had spoken doctor martineau noted that she looked at sir richmond as if she expected him at least to confirm her vision sir richmond was evidently prepared to confirm it with a queer little twinge of infringed proprietorship
the doctor saw sir richmond step up on the prostrate megalith and stand beside her the better to appreciate her point of view he smiled down at her now why do you think they came in there he asked
section three in the evening after dinner doctor martineau sought rather unsuccessfully to go on with the analysis of sir richmond but sir richmond was evidently a creature of moods
either he regretted the extent of his confidences or the slight irrational irritation that he felt at waiting for his car affected his attitude towards his companion or doctor martineau's tentatives were ill chosen at any rate
he would not rise to any conversational bait that the doctor could devise the doctor found this the more regrettable because it seemed to him that there was much to be worked upon in this martin leeds affair he was inclined to think that she and sir richmond were unduly obsessed by the idea that they had to stick together because of the child
because of the look of the thing and so forth and that really each might be struggling against a very strong impulse indeed to break off the affair it seemed evident to the doctor that they jarred upon and annoyed each other extremely
at the fifth sir richmond was suddenly conclusive it's no use he said i can't fiddle about any more with my motives to day an awkward silence followed on reflection sir richmond seemed to realize that this sentence needed some apology i admit
he said that this expedition has already been a wonderfully good thing for me these confessions have made me look into all sorts of things squarely but i'm not used to talking about myself or even thinking directly about myself
what i say i afterwards find disconcerting to recall i want to alter it i can feel myself wallowing into a mess of modifications and qualifications yes but i want a rest anyhow there was nothing for doctor martineau to say to that
the two gentlemen smoked for some time in a slightly uncomfortable silence doctor martineau cleared his throat twice and lit a second cigar they then agreed to admire the bridge and think well of maidenhead sir richmond communicated hopeful news about his car
sir richmond's car arrived long before ten brought down by a young man in a state of scared alacrity sir richmond had done some vigorous telephoning before turning in the charmeuse set off in a repaired and chastened condition to town
and after a leisurely breakfast our two investigators into the springs of human conduct were able to resume their westward journey they ran through scattered twyford with its pleasant looking inns and through the commonplace urbanities of reading
where they found the road heavy and dusty still in its war time state and so down a steep hill to the wide market street which is marlborough they lunched in marlborough and went on in the afternoon to silbury hill that british pyramid the largest artificial mound in europe
and were very learned and inconclusive about the exact purpose of this vast heap of chalk and earth this heap that men had made before the temples at karnak were built or babylon had a name then they returned to the car and ran round by a winding road into the wonder of avebury
and took two rooms for the night that they might the better get the atmosphere of the ancient place wonderful indeed it is a vast circumvallation that was already two thousand years old before the dawn of british history
and within this enclosure gigantic survivors of the great circles of unhewn stone that even as late as tudor days were almost complete a whole village a church a pretty manor house have been built for the most part out of the ancient megaliths
the great wall is sufficient to embrace them all with their gardens and paddocks four cross roads meet at the village centre
but for the most part the destruction was already done before the mayflower sailed to the southward stands the cone of silbury hill its shadow creeps up and down the intervening meadows as the seasons change
around this lonely place rise the downs now bare sheep pastures in broad undulations with a wart like barrow here and there and from it radiate creeping up to gain and hold the crests of the hills the abandoned trackways of that forgotten world
these trackways these green roads of england these roads already disused when the romans made their highway past silbury hill to bath can still be traced for scores of miles through the land running to salisbury and the english channel
eastward to the crossing at the straits and westward to wales to ferries over the severn and southwestward into devon and cornwall the doctor and sir richmond walked round the walls surveyed the shadow cast by silbury upon the river flats
strolled up the down to the northward to get a general view of the village had tea and smoked round the walls again in the warm april sunset the matter of their conversation remained prehistoric
clumsy treasure hunting sir richmond said they bore into silbury hill and expect to find a mummified chief or something sensational of that sort and they don't and they report nothing they haven't sifted finely enough
these walls of earth ought to tell what these people ate what clothes they wore what woods they used was this a sheep land then as it is now or a cattle land were these hills covered by forests i don't know these archaeologists don't know
or if they do they haven't told me which is just as bad i don't believe they know
so far as i know they had no beasts of burthen but suppose one day someone were to find a potsherd here from early knossos or a fragment of glass from pepi's egypt the place had stirred up his imagination
he wrestled with his ignorance as if he thought that by talking he might presently worry out some picture of this forgotten world without metals without beasts of burthen without letters without any sculpture that has left a trace and yet with a sense of astronomical fact clear enough to raise the great gnomon of silbury
and the traffic to which the green roads testify the doctor had not realized before the boldness and liveliness of his companion's mind sir richmond insisted that the climate must have been moister and milder in those days he covered all the downlands with woods
beneath the trees he restored a thicker richer soil these people must have done an enormous lot with wood this use of stones here was a freak
one thought too much of the stones of the stone age who would carve these lumps of quartzite when one could carve good oak or beech a most carvable wood especially when one's sharpest chisel was a flint it's wood we ought to look for
said sir richmond wood and fibre he declared that these people had their tools of wood their homes of wood
a peat bog here even a few feet of clay might have pickled some precious memoranda no such luck now in glastonbury marshes one found the life of the early iron age half way to our own times quite beautifully pickled
though they wrestled mightily with the problem neither sir richmond nor the doctor could throw a gleam of light upon the riddle why the ditch was inside and not outside the great wall and what was our mind like in those days said sir richmond
that i suppose is what interests you a vivid childish mind i guess with not a suspicion as yet that it was man ruling his planet or anything of that sort the doctor pursed his lips none he delivered judicially
if one were able to recall one's childhood at the age of about twelve or thirteen when the artistic impulse so often goes into abeyance and one begins to think in a troubled monstrous way about god and hell
one might get something like the mind of this place thirteen you put them at that already these people you think were religious intensely in that personal way that gives death a nightmare terror
and as for the fading of the artistic impulse they've left not a trace of the paintings and drawings and scratchings of the old stone people who came before them adults with the minds of thirteen year old children thirteen year old children with the strength of adults
and no one to slap them or tell them not to after all they probably only thought of death now and then and they never thought of fuel they supposed there was no end to that so they used up their woods and kept goats to nibble and kill the new undergrowth did these people have goats
i don't know said the doctor so little is known very like children they must have been the same unending days
like my damned committee does with their fuel wasting away and the climate changing imperceptibly century by century kings and important men followed one another here for centuries and centuries
said the doctor has left its traces in traditions in mental predispositions in still unanalyzed fundamental ideas archaeology is very like remembering said sir richmond presently we shall remember a lot more about all this
age by age out of the south we shall remember the sacrifices we made and the crazy reasons why we made them we sowed our corn in blood here we had strange fancies about the stars those we brought with us out of the south where the stars are brighter
and what like were those wooden gods of ours i don't remember but i could easily persuade myself that i had been here before
perhaps we shall come here again the doctor carried on sir richmond's fancy after another four thousand years or so with different names and fuller minds and then i suppose that this ditch won't be the riddle it is now
life didn't seem so complicated then sir richmond mused our muddles were unconscious we drifted from mood to mood and forgot there was more sunshine then more laughter perhaps and blacker despair
despair like the despair of children that can weep itself to sleep it's over was it battle and massacre that ended that long afternoon here or did the woods catch fire some exceptionally dry summer leaving black hills and famine
or did strange men bring a sickness measles perhaps or the black death or was it cattle pest or did we just waste our woods and dwindle away before the new peoples that came into the land across the southern sea i can't remember
sir richmond turned about i would like to dig up the bottom of this ditch here foot by foot and dry the stuff and sift it very carefully
by john kendrick bangs
said the idiot as capsule m d entered the dining room i am mighty glad you've come i've wanted for a long time to ask you about this music cure that everybody is talking about and get you if possible to write me out a list of musical nostrums for every day use
i noticed last night before going to bed that my medicine chest was about run out there's nothing but one quinine pill and a soda mint drop in it and if there's anything in the music cure i don't think i'll have it filled again i prefer wagner to squills
that it contains the germ of perpetual motion i will consider your suggestion replied the idiot meanwhile let us consult harmoniously together on the original point
is there anything in this music cure and is it true that our medical schools are hereafter to have conservatories attached to them in which aspiring young m d s are to be taught the materia musica in addition to the materia medica
and as for the music cure i don't know anything about it haven't heard everybody talking about it and
what do you mean by the music cure
explained the idiot the claim is made that in music lies the panacea for all human ills
it is said to be wonderfully efficacious what i wanted to find out from you was just what composers were best for which specific troubles you'll have to go to somebody else for the information said the doctor
i have seen a reference to it somewhere
and the general expectation seems to be that some day we shall find in music a cure for all our human ills as the idiot suggests thank you mister whitechoker said the idiot gratefully i saw that same item and several others besides
i am surprised that doctor capsule has neither heard nor thought about it for i should think it would prove to be a pleasant and profitable field for speculation
for example said the doctor of course we don't doubt your word but when a man makes a statement based upon personal observation it is profitable to ask him what his precise experience has been merely for the purpose of adding to our own knowledge
i could not get two hours of consecutive sleep and the effect of my sufferings was to make me nervous and irritable suddenly somebody presented me with a couple of tickets for a performance of parsifal and i went it began at five o'clock in the afternoon
for twenty minutes all went serenely and then the music began to work i fell into a deep and refreshing slumber the intermission came and still i slept on everybody else went home
i rubbed my eyes and looked about me it was true the great auditorium was empty and was gradually darkening i put on my hat and walked out refreshed having slept from five twenty until twelve or six hours and forty minutes straight that was one instance
two weeks later i went again this time to hear
the results were the same only the effect was instantaneous
and dozed off into a fathomless sleep i didn't wake up this time until nine o'clock the next day the rest of the party having gone off without awakening me as a sort of joke
then deserves to rank among the most effective narcotics known to modern science
that two doses of wagner brought about in one instant and best of all there was no reaction no splitting headache or shaky hand the next day
you run a dreadful risk however said the doctor with a sarcastic smile the wagner habit is a terrible thing to acquire mister idiot that may be said the idiot worse than the sulfonal habit by a great deal i am told
in addition to this experience
he had spent the day down at asbury park and had eaten not wisely but too copiously
a glass of fresh cider and a saucerful of pistache ice cream
he was not fitted by temperament to assimilate anything quite so strenuously chromatic as that
the conflicting tints began to get in their deadly work and within two hours he was completely doubled up the pain he suffered was awful agony was bliss alongside of the pangs that now afflicted him and all the palliatives and pain killers known to man were tried without avail
and then just as he was about to give himself up for lost an amateur cornetist who occupied a studio on the floor above began to play the lost chord a counter pain set in immediately
and physical relief was instant
sneered the doctor it would seem so said the idiot while the music continued my friend was a well man ready to go out and fight like a warrior
but when the cornetist stopped the colic returned and he had to fight it out in the old way in these episodes in my own experience i find ample justification for my belief and that of others that some day the music cure for human ailments will be recognized and developed to the full
scientific experiment will demonstrate before long what composition will cure specific ills
can bring him back to health again with three bars of under the bamboo tree after each meal instead of dosing kids with cod liver oil when they need a tonic they will be set to work at a mechanical piano and braced up on narcissus
there'll be a hot time in the old town to night will become an effective remedy for a sudden chill people suffering from sleeplessness can dose themselves back to normal conditions again with wagner the way i did tchaikowski to be well tshaken before taken
nothing in it why doctor there's more in it that's in sight to day that is promising and suggestive of great things in the future
and swatted sir isaac newton on the nose and the drug stores will be driven out of business i presume said the doctor
said the idiot they will substitute music for drugs that is all
squills paregoric and other nasty tasting things they have now this alone will serve to popularize sickness and instead of being driven out of business their trade will pick up and the doctor and the doctor's gig and all the appurtenances of his profession
what becomes of them demanded the doctor
but the gig i'm afraid that will have to go said the idiot and why pray asked the doctor
the steward shouted from the hospital porch that eagle wing the prisoner patient had escaped through the rear window despite its height above the sloping ground a little ladder borrowed from the quartermaster's corral was found a moment later
an indian pony saddled sioux fashion was caught running riderless toward the trader's back gate his horsehair bridle torn half way from his shaggy head
no sooner heard that moreau was gone than he rushed his stable guard to the saddleroom and in fifteen minutes had not only his own squad but half a dozen casual troopers circling the post in search of the trail
post ordnance quartermaster and commissary sergeants many of the post guard and most of the post laundresses had gathered some silent anxious and bewildered some excitedly babbling
esther dade very pale and somewhat out of breath was trying with quiet self possession to answer the myriad questions poured at her while doctor waller was ministering to the dazed and moaning sentry
the cloak and skirts of civilization had been found beneath the window of the deserted room and were exhibited as a means of bringing to his senses
and to an impulsive reply from the lips of missus hay
then rising and stepping aside the long suffering woman revealed the pallid senseless face
nanette la fleur a long lost sister's only child
he had unearthed an almost forgotten legend of old fort laramie
the discovery of the ladder and of the escape of the prisoner for whom he was accountable had filled him with dismay yet for the moment failed to stagger his indomitable self esteem
she was the general's protegee not his and the general must shoulder the blame even when flint saw nanette self convicted through her very garb and her presence at the scene of the final struggle even when assured it was she and not the little
all this would be endangered by his attempt to rejoin the warriors on the warpath the major ordered the instant arrest of the sentry stationed at the door of the hospital room shut out by the major's own act from all possibility of seeing what was going on within
demanded of doctor waller that he say in so many words that the gag and wrist thongs on the prostrate sentry had not been self applied waller impassively pointed to the huge lump at the base of the sufferer's skull
but these had realized their unpopularity after the battle on the elk and had departed for other climes crapaud was still under guard
and followed close by a moccasined man
and the moccasined feet of a man and woman had scurried down the bluff from the hospital window to meet them west of foster's shanty then there had been confusion trouble of some kind one pony pursued a short distance had broken away
the others had gone pounding out southeastward up the slope and out over the uplands then down again in wide sweep through the valley of the little rivulet
and along the low bench southwest of the fort crossing the rock springs road and striking further on diagonally the rawlins trail where crabb and his fellows had found it and followed
for at last it was found through the thick and lustrous hair that she too had been struck a harsh and cruel blow
that one reason probably why she had been able to oppose no stouter resistance to so slender a girl as esther dade was that she was already half dazed through the stroke of some blunt heavy weapon wielded probably by him she was risking all to save
meantime the major had been pursuing his investigations schmidt the soldier sentry in front of moreau's door a simple hearted teuton of irreproachable character tearfully protested against his incarceration
to presume to reopen it the major said to the lady he would return for her soon after ten and the lady smilingly schmidt did not say how smilingly how bewitchingly smilingly
and all that time the door was open the prisoner on the bed in his blankets the lamp brightly burning it was near tattoo when she returned
when the door opened and out she came the same cloak around her yet she looked different somehow and must have tiptoed
she didn't seem quite so tall either and that was all for he never knew anything more about it till the steward came running to tell of the escape so schmidt could throw but little light upon the situation save to flint himself
a lady came from the south of the building as though she were going down to sudstown missus foster had gone down not long before and hogan with a lantern and two officers ladies but this one came all alone and spoke to him pleasant like
and said she was so sorry he couldn't be at the dance she'd been seeing the sick and wounded in hospital she said and was going to bring some wine and jellies
then she laughed and said good night and went on to the hospital what became of the wine she had poured out this from the grim and hitherto silent doctor seated by the bedside she must have tossed it out or drunk it herself perhaps six didn't know
certainly no trace of it could be found in the snow then nothing happened for as much as twenty minutes or so and he was over toward the south end of his post but facing toward the hospital when she came again down the steps
and stars and bombs and that was all he knew till they began talking to him here in hospital something had hit him from behind but he couldn't tell what flint's nerve was failing him for here was confirmation of the general's theory
and twas the latter that bade the major summon the girl and demand of her
or a good imitation of one as on two occasions the maid had peeked and seen her down stairs at the back door in the dead hours of the night or the very early morning that was when she first came then since the recapture miss mc grath felt confident
the boys do be all talkin about the night in fact that stabber's band slipped away from the platte ray's troop following at dawn
miss mc grath hadn't been spying of course because her room was at the back of the house beyond the kitchen but how did the little heel tracks get on the veranda roof the road dust on the matting under the window the vine twigs in that quare made skirt never worn by day
everybody at frayne well knew by this time that she had so ridden at fort frayne was known to no officer or lady of the garrison then present but believed by miss mc grath because of certain inexpressibles
the morning captain blake was having his chase after the indians
all this and more did miss mc grath reveal before being permitted to return to the sanctity of her chamber and flint felt the ground sinking beneath his feet
this indian leader of whom example prompt and sharp would certainly have been made unless the general and the ends of justice were defeated but what stung the major most of all was that he had been fairly victimized hoodwinked
that the major sought her on the morrow
and that though he would not place the trader's niece within a garrison cell he should hold her prisoner beneath the trader's roof to await the action of superior authority on the grievous charges lodged at her door she was able to be up said miss mc grath
not only up but down down in the breakfast room looking blither and more like herself than she had been since she was brought home
cold stern and accusing the other looked squarely at him with fearless glittering eyes
and that you will never lay hands on him again that's where you are in error miss flower was the major's calm cold blooded yet rejoiceful reply it was for this indeed that he had come
blown spent and hopelessly out of the race soon lost to view among the distant swales and ravines then everyone turned to welcome the coming harbinger to congratulate him on his escape to demand the reason for his daring essay
orderly have my horse sent to the ford so followed by three or four of the younger officers the married men being restrained as a rule by protesting voices close at hand the commanding officer went slipping and sliding down a narrow winding pathway
a mere goat track many of the soldiers following at respectful distance while all the rest of the gathered throng remained at the crest eagerly almost breathlessly awaiting the result
they saw the trooper come speeding in across the flats from the northeast saw as he reached the bench that he was spurring hard heard even at the distance the swift batter of hoofs upon the resounding sod
could almost hear the fierce panting of the racing steed saw horse and rider come plunging down the bank and into the stream and shoving breast deep through the foaming waters then issue dripping on the hither shore
where turning loose his horse the soldier leaped from saddle and saluted his commander but only those about the major heard the stirring message captain gregg's compliments sir
out of reach of the post and probably face to face with if not already surrounded by the combined forces of the sioux not a second did he hesitate among the swarm that had followed him was a young trumpeter of k troop
reckless of the fact that he should be at barracks packing his kit as luck would have it there at his back hung the brazen clarion held by its yellow braid and cord boots and saddles kerry quick ordered the major
the men full run for the barracks and stables never stopping to reason why nearly half an hour later gray haired captain dade stood at the point of bluff near the flagstaff esther pale and tearful by his side
waving adieu and godspeed to webb who had halted in saddle on reaching the opposite bank and was watching his little column through the ford
but scorning disqualification of any kind now that danger menaced their beloved captain and their comrades of the sorrel troop in all the regiment
broke from the hold of the half hearted attendant tore over to k troop barracks demanding his kit of sergeant schreiber and finding the quarters deserted the men all gone to stables dared to burst into that magnate's own room
in search of his arms and clothing and thereby roused a heavily sleeping soldier who damned him savagely until through wild raving he gathered that some grave danger menaced captain ray even his befuddled senses could fathom that
and was off like a shot to the stables it was long before he found his horse for the guard had taken kilmaine to f troop's stables and kennedy had been housed by k
it was longer still before he could persuade the guard that he had a right as he put it to ride after the major not until captain dade had been consulted would they let him go
you follow the major's you can't miss him
you should catch him by noon then give him this this was a copy of a late despatch just in from laramie saying that the revolt had reached the sioux at the agencies and reservations on the white earth
and would demand the attention of every man at the post no reinforcement therefore could be looked for from that quarter until the general came it was no surprise to dade it could be none to webb for old red cloud had ever been an enemy
no wonder the old war chief backed him with abundant food ammunition and eager warriors sent from home but it was after eleven when kennedy drove his still wearied horse through the platte and far to the north saw the dun dust cloud
that told where webb's little column was trotting hard to the support of the sorrels his head was aching
at three in the morning he felt equal to fighting the whole sioux nation
the dust cloud was only partially visible now hidden by the ridge a few miles ahead when over that very ridge probably four miles away to the right front kennedy saw coming at speed a single rider and reined to the northeast to meet him
blake and his men had gone far in that direction
the little irish veteran sore headed and in evil mood and a big wild eyed scare faced trooper new to the frontier
he fairly whirled the big trooper around and despite fearsome protests bore him onward toward the ridge swift questioning as they rode
why the rookie gasped in explanation that he was on stable guard and the captain took the first six men in sight how happened it that the captain got so far ahead of him there was no keepin up with the captain
until all of a sudden as they filed round a little knoll the three indians they'd been chasin turned about and let em have it
twice would the big fellow have broken away and again spurred for home but the little game cock held him savagely to his work and so together at last they neared the curtaining ridge
of the low ground beyond half way down the long gradual slope in a shallow little dip possibly an old buffalo wallow two or three horses were sprawled and a tiny tongue of flame and blue smoke
behind this rolling parapet crouched a feathered warrior and farther still away sweeping and circling on their mettlesome steeds three more savage braves were darting at speed already they had sighted the coming reinforcements
and down they went full tilt at the sioux yet heading to cover and reach the beleaguered party in the hollow someone of the besieged waved a hat on high
and then came a pretty exhibit of savage daring and devotion disdainful of the coming troopers and of the swift fire now blazing at them from the pit the two mounted warriors lashed their ponies to mad gallop
and bore down straight for their imperilled brother crouching behind the stricken pinto never swerving never halting hardly checking speed but bending low over and behind their chargers necks the two young braves swept onward and with wild whoop of triumph
challenge and hatred gathered up and slung behind the rider of the heavier pony the agile and bedizened form on the turf
and fired thrice into empty space and a shout of wrath and renewed challenge to come back and fight it out rang out after the sioux for to the amaze of the lately besieged to the impotent fury of the irishman in unmistakable yet mostly unquotable english
the crippled warrior was yelling mingled threat and imprecation who was it kennedy and where did you ever see him before a moment later demanded captain blake almost before he could grasp the irishman's hands and shower his thanks
with long fringes and heavy crusting of brilliant beads picked it up by that pony yonder sir answered the corporal with a salute beg pardon sir but will the captain take my horse
two indeed of blake's horses were crippled and it was high time to be going
there were none to spare to send so far and though three warriors one of them raging and clamoring for further attempt despite his wounds hovered about the retiring party blake and his fellows within another hour were in sight of the sheltering walls of frayne
and after a last long range swapping of shots with blake and meisner footing it most of the way
the swift flowing platte they were still three miles out when blake found leisure to examine the contents of that beaded pouch
chapter seven blood will tell as webb had predicted even before nine o'clock came prompt spirited response from laramie where the colonel had ordered the four troops to prepare for instant march
wire further news north platte
so the note of preparation was joyous throughout the barracks on the eastward side and mournful among the married quarters elsewhere but even through the blinding tears with which so many loving women wrought
packing the field and mess kits of soldier husbands whose duties kept them with their men at barracks or stables there were some at least who were quick to see that matters of unusual moment called certain of the major's stanchest henchmen to the office
and that grave and earnest consultation was being held from which men came with sombre faces and close sealed lips first to note these indications was the indomitable helpmate of old wilkins the post quartermaster
she had no dread on his account for rheumatism and routine duties as the official in charge of uncle sam's huge stack of stores and supplies exempted her liege from duty in the field
she kept eyes and ears alert as ever and was speedily confiding to first one household then another her conviction that there was a big sensation bundled up in the bosom of the post commander
and his cronies and she knew she said it was something about field
well he realized this fact and dodging the first that sought to waylay him on the walk he had later intrenched himself as it were in his office where dade blake and the old post surgeon had sat with him in solemn conclave
while bill hay brought his clerk bar keeper store keeper pete
the halfbreed to swear in succession they had no idea who could have tampered with either the safe or the stables closely had they been cross examined and going away in turn
they told of the nature of the cross examination yet to no one of their number had been made known what had occurred to cause such close questioning hay had been forbidden to speak of it even to his household the officers of the day were sworn to secrecy
neither wilkins nor the acting adjutant was closeted with the council and neither therefore could do more than guess at the facts
he took blake and dade to see those significant bar shoe hoof prints every one of them had disappeared by jove said webb i know now i should have set a sentry with orders to let no man walk or ride about here
and this and here again
while blake meandered on musing over what he had been told it's a government heel not a cowboy's
that the major saw just what he said somebody about hay's place was mighty anxious to cover his tracks but a dozen somebodies besides the stablemen hung there at all hours of the day
of that same bar shoe just as described by webb then with long swift strides he came stalking up the hill again passing the watchful eyes about the corral without a stop and only checking speed as he neared the homestead of the hays
where once again he became engrossed in studying the road and the hard pathways at the side something that he saw or fancied that he saw perhaps a dozen yards from the trader's gate induced him to stop scrutinize turn and with searching eyes
and the radiant face and gleaming white teeth of nanette flower appeared between the opening blinds one might have said he expected both the sight and question lost anything captain blake
you saw it asked webb
more than that where's hay he broke off suddenly for voices were sounding in the adjoining room here with dade and the doctor then but blake got no further
breathless and eager little sandy ray came bounding through the hallway into the presence of the officers he could hardly gasp his news major you told me to keep watch and let you know there's a courier coming hard mother saw him too through the spyglass
right cried webb quick blake rush out half a dozen men to meet him those devils may indeed cut him off thank you my little man he added bending down and patting the dark curly head as blake went bounding away thank you sandy
where many of the men were now at work were signs that told unerringly of something stirring probably across the platte as luck would have it in anticipation of orders to move the troop horses had not been sent out to graze
and were still in the sunshiny corrals and long before the news was fully voiced through officers row blake and six of his men were in saddle
and darting away for the ford carbines advanced the instant they struck the opposite bank from the bluff webb had shouted his instructions we could see him a moment ago for half a dozen field glasses were already brought to bear
and he still retained some of the ways of the sea
level as appeared the northward prairie from the commanding height on which stood the throng of eager watchers it was in reality a low rolling surface
and when later seen by the major and certain others of the swift gathering spectators he was heading for frayne though still far east of the highroad and now missus ray on the north piazza with webb by her side
that stretched southward from the foothills beyond doubt they were off in hopes of bagging that solitary horseman speeding with warning of some kind for the shelter of fort frayne
or the swift dash of the intercepting sioux well out now and riding at the gallop blake and his half dozen widely separating so as to cover much of the ground were still in view and dade and his officers breathed more freely
they dare not cross that ridge short of three miles out it's my belief they'll see blake and never cross at all then up rose a sudden shout
four miles still away at least count and far to the right and front of blake's easternmost trooper every glass was instantly brought to bear upon the swiftly coming rider sandy's shrill young voice ringing out from the upper window
it isn't one of papa's men his horse is a gray who then could it be and what could it mean this coming of a strange courier from a direction so far to the east of the travelled road another moment and up rose another shout
look there they are sioux for certain
three other black dots had swept into view and were shooting eastward down the gradual slope another moment and they were swallowed up behind still another low divide but in that moment they had seen and been seen by the westernmost of blake's men
and now one after another as the signals swept from the left the seven swerved their line of direction had been west of north
they veered to the northeast and a grand race was on between the hidden three and the would be rescuers all heading for that part of the low rolling prairie
where the lone courier might next be expected to come into view friends and foes alike unconscious of the fact that following one of those crooked arroyos with its stiff and precipitous banks he had been turned from his true course full three quarters of a mile
and now with a longer run but a clear field ahead was steering straight for frayne thus the interest of the on lookers at the bluff became divided
and then fearfully scanned the ridge line between him and the northward sky
or loud barking carbine ran in sheer nervous frenzy up and down the bluffs staring only at blake's far distant riders swinging their hats and waving them on praying only for another sight of the sioux in front of the envied seven
and craving with all their soldier hearts to share in the fight almost sure to follow
other denizens of fort frayne hearing of the excitement came hurrying to the bluff hangers on from the trader's store and corral the shopman himself even the bar keeper in his white jacket and apron two or three panting low muttering halfbreeds
who that saw could ever forget her as she forced her way through the crowd and stood at the very brink saying never a word but swiftly focussing her ready glasses hardly had she reached the spot when wild sudden
exultant a cheer burst fiercely from the lips of the throng look look by god they've got em yelled man after man in mad excitement three black dots had suddenly swept into view well to the right of blake's men
still heading for the ridge the warriors had just left behind only for a second or two however a yell of fierce rejoicing went up from the crowd on the bluff as the easternmost of blake's black specks was seen suddenly to check
then to launch out again no longer to the north but straight to his right followed almost immediately by every one of the seven then too swerved the would be slayers in long graceful circles away from the wrath to come
and while the unconscious courier still rode steadily loping toward the desired refuge
the first printed version of the famous tales of margaret of navarre issued in paris in the year fifteen fifty eight under the title of
des amans fortunez was extremely faulty and imperfect it comprised but sixty seven of the seventy two tales written by the royal author and the editor pierre
boaistuau not merely changed the order of those narratives which he did print but suppressed numerous passages in them besides modifying much of margaret's phraseology
a somewhat similar course was adopted by claude gruget who a year later produced what claimed to be a complete version of the stories to which he gave the general title of the heptameron
although he reinstated the majority of the tales in their proper sequence he still suppressed several of them and inserted others in their place and also modified the queen's language
after the fashion set by boaistuau despite
when it served as the basis of the numerous editions of the heptameron
as the french phrased it which then began to make their appearance it served moreover in the one or the other form
for the english and other translations of the work and down to our own times was accepted as the standard version of the queen of navarre's celebrated tales although it was known that various contemporary m s s
no attempt was made to compare gruget's faulty version with the originals until the societe
entrusted this delicate task
whose labours led to some most valuable discoveries enabling him to produce a really authentic version of margaret's admired masterpiece with the suppressed tales restored
the omitted passages reinstated and the queen's real language given for the first time in all its simple gracefulness
that the present translation has been made without the slightest suppression or abridgment the work moreover contains
as well as numerous others from original sources and includes a resume of the various suggestions made by
paul lacroix and
and the principal actors in them with well known personages of the time an essay on the heptameron
saintsbury m a and a life of queen margaret are also given as well as the quaint prefaces of the earlier french versions and a complete bibliographical summary
of the various editions which have issued from the press
of a work so celebrated as the heptameron which besides furnishing scholars with a favourite subject for research and speculation has owing to its perennial freshness delighted so many generations of readers
such however is not the case only two fully illustrated editions claim the attention of connoisseurs the first of these was published at amsterdam in sixteen ninety eight
to day this edition is only valuable on account of its comparative rarity
illustrated by freudenberg
the lord of chateau noir it was in the days when the german armies had broken their way across france and when the shattered forces of the young republic had been swept away
and to the south of the loire three broad streams of armed men had rolled slowly but irresistibly from the rhine now meandering to the north now to the south dividing coalescing
and from this lake there welled out smaller streams one to the north one southward to orleans and a third westward to normandy
black and bitter were the thoughts of frenchmen when they saw this weal of dishonour slashed across the fair face of their country they had fought and they had been overborne
those countless footmen the masterful guns they had tried and tried to make head against them in battalions their invaders were not to be beaten but man to man or ten to ten they were their equals
a brave frenchman might still make a single german rue the day that he had left his own bank of the rhine thus unchronicled amid the battles and the sieges there broke out another war a war of individuals
with foul murder upon the one side and brutal reprisal on the other
of the twenty fourth posen infantry had suffered severely during this new development he commanded in the little norman town of les andelys and his outposts stretched amid the hamlets and farmhouses
of the district round no french force was within fifty miles of him and yet morning after morning he had to listen to a black report of sentries found dead at their posts or of foraging parties which had never returned
then the colonel would go forth in his wrath and farmsteadings would blaze and villages tremble but next morning there was still that same dismal tale to be told do what he might he could not shake off his invisible enemies
and yet it should not have been so hard for from certain signs in common in the plan and in the deed it was certain that all these outrages came from a single source
gold might be more successful he published it abroad
the peasants were incorruptible then goaded on by a murdered corporal he rose to a thousand
was a stronger passion than his french hatred you say that you know who did these crimes asked the prussian colonel eyeing with loathing the blue bloused rat faced creature before him yes colonel
and it was those thousand francs colonel not a sou until your story has been tested come who is it who has murdered my men it is count eustace of chateau noir
you lie cried the colonel angrily a gentleman and a nobleman could not have done such crimes the peasant shrugged his shoulders it is evident to me that you do not know the count it is this way colonel
what i tell you is the truth and i am not afraid that you should test it the count of chateau noir is a hard man even at the best time he was a hard man but of late he has been terrible it was his son's death you know
his son was under douay and he was taken and then in escaping from germany he met his death it was the count's only child and indeed we all think that it has driven him mad
with his peasants he follows the german armies i do not know how many he has killed but it is he who cut the cross upon the foreheads for it is the badge of his house it was true
the murdered sentries had each had a saltire cross slashed across their brows as by a hunting knife the colonel bent his stiff back and ran his forefinger over the map which lay upon the table
the chateau noir is not more than four leagues he said three and a kilometre colonel you know the place i used to work there
give this man food and detain him said he to the sergeant why detain me colonel i can tell you no more we shall need you as guide as guide but the count if i were to fall into his hands
ah colonel the prussian commander waved him away send captain baumgarten to me at once said he
as a soldier he was slow but reliable and brave the colonel could trust him where a more dashing officer might be in danger you will proceed to chateau noir to night captain said he a guide has been provided
you will arrest the count and bring him back if there is an attempt at rescue shoot him at once how many men shall i take colonel well we are surrounded by spies and our only chance is to pounce upon him
before he knows that we are on the way a large force will attract attention on the other hand you must not risk being cut off i might march north colonel as if to join general goeben
in that case with twenty men very good captain i hope to see you with your prisoner to morrow morning it was a cold december night when captain baumgarten marched out of les andelys with his twenty poseners
and took the main road to the north west two miles out he turned suddenly down a narrow deeply rutted track and made swiftly for his man a thin cold rain was falling
swishing among the tall poplar trees and rustling in the fields on either side the captain walked first with moser a veteran sergeant beside him
the sergeant's wrist was fastened to that of the french peasant and it had been whispered in his ear that in case of an ambush the first bullet fired would be through his head
behind them the twenty infantrymen plodded along through the darkness with their faces sunk to the rain and their boots squeaking in the soft wet clay
they knew where they were going and why and the thought upheld them for they were bitter at the loss of their comrades it was a cavalry job they knew
the wall in which it had been the opening had crumbled away but the great gate still towered above the brambles and weeds which had overgrown its base
at the top they halted and reconnoitred the black chateau lay in front of them the moon had shone out between two rain clouds and threw the old house into silver and shadow
it was shaped like an l with a low arched door in front and lines of small windows like the open ports of a man of war above was a dark roof breaking at the corners into little round overhanging turrets
the whole lying silent in the moonshine with a drift of ragged clouds blackening the heavens behind it a single light gleamed in one of the lower windows the captain whispered his orders to his men
some were to creep to the front door some to the back some were to watch the east and some the west he and the sergeant stole on tiptoe to the lighted window
it was a small room into which they looked very meanly furnished an elderly man in the dress of a menial was reading a tattered paper by the light of a guttering candle
he leaned back in his wooden chair with his feet upon a box while a bottle of white wine stood with a half filled tumbler upon a stool beside him
the sergeant thrust his needle gun through the glass and the man sprang to his feet with a shriek silence for your life the house is surrounded and you cannot escape come round and open the door or we will show you no mercy when we come in
he rushed from the room with his paper still crumpled up in his hand an instant later with a groaning of old locks and a rasping of bars the low door swung open and the prussians poured into the stone flagged passage
where is count eustace de chateau noir my master he is out sir
it was long however before captain baumgarten had satisfied himself upon the point it was a difficult house to search thin stairs which only one man could ascend at a time connected lines of tortuous corridors
the walls were so thick that each room was cut off from its neighbour huge fireplaces yawned in each
captain baumgarten stamped with his feet tore down curtains and struck with the pommel of his sword if there were secret hiding places he was not fortunate enough to find them
i have an idea said he at last speaking in german to the sergeant you will place a guard over this fellow and make sure that he communicates with no one yes captain and you will place four men in ambush at the front and at the back
it is likely enough that about daybreak our bird may return to the nest and the others captain let them have their suppers in the kitchen the fellow will serve you with meat and wine
it is a wild night and we shall be better here than on the country road and yourself captain i will take my supper up here in the dining hall the logs are laid and we can light the fire you will call me
if there is any alarm what can you give me for supper you alas monsieur there was a time when i might have answered what you wish but now it is all that we can do to find a bottle of new claret and a cold pullet
that will do very well let a guard go about with him sergeant and let him feel the end of a bayonet if he plays us any tricks captain baumgarten was an old campaigner in the eastern provinces and before that in bohemia
he had learned the art of quartering himself upon the enemy while the butler brought his supper he occupied himself in making his preparations for a comfortable night
he lit the candelabrum of ten candles upon the centre table the fire was already burning up crackling merrily and sending spurts of blue pungent smoke into the room the captain walked to the window and looked out
it was a sight which gave a zest to his comfortable quarters and to the cold fowl and the bottle of wine which the butler had brought up for him
he was tired and hungry after his long tramp so he threw his sword his helmet and his revolver belt down upon a chair and fell to eagerly upon his supper then with his glass of wine before him and his cigar between his lips
he tilted his chair back and looked about him he sat within a small circle of brilliant light which gleamed upon his silver shoulder straps and threw out his terra cotta face his heavy eyebrows and his yellow moustache
but outside that circle things were vague and shadowy in the old dining hall two sides were oak panelled and two were hung with faded tapestry across which huntsmen and dogs and stags were still dimly streaming
so like each other that only the dress could distinguish the crusader from the cavalier of the fronde captain baumgarten
heavy with his repast lay back in his chair looking up at them through the clouds of his tobacco smoke and pondering over the strange chance
which had sent him a man from the baltic coast to eat his supper in the ancestral hall of these proud norman chieftains but the fire was hot and the captain's eyes were heavy
his chin sank slowly upon his chest and the ten candles gleamed upon the broad white scalp suddenly a slight noise brought him to his feet for an instant it seemed to his dazed senses
that one of the pictures opposite had walked from its frame there beside the table and almost within arm's length of him was standing a huge man silent motionless with no sign of life save his
fierce glinting eyes he was black haired olive skinned with a pointed tuft of black beard and a great fierce nose towards which all his features seemed to run
his cheeks were wrinkled like a last year's apple but his sweep of shoulder and bony corded hands told of a strength which was unsapped by age
his arms were folded across his arching chest and his mouth was set in a fixed smile pray do not trouble yourself to look for your weapons he said as the prussian cast a swift glance at the empty chair in which they had been laid
you have been if you will allow me to say so a little indiscreet to make yourself so much at home in a house every wall of which is honeycombed with secret passages
you will be amused to hear that forty men were watching you at your supper ah what then captain baumgarten had taken a step forward with clenched fists
it is the very best in my cellars
drink sir and be happy there are cold joints below there are two lobsters fresh from honfleur will you not venture upon a second and more savoury supper the german officer shook his head
and his host filled it once more pressing him to give an order for this or that dainty there is nothing in my house which is not at your disposal you have but to say the word
well then you will allow me to tell you a story while you drink your wine i have so longed to tell it to some german officer
it is about my son my only child eustace who was taken and died in escaping it is a curious little story and i think that i can promise you that you will never forget it you must know then that my boy was in the artillery
a fine young fellow captain baumgarten and the pride of his mother she died within a week of the news of his death reaching us it was brought by a brother officer who was at his side throughout and who escaped while my lad died
i want to tell you all that he told me eustace was taken at weissenburg on the fourth of august the prisoners were broken up into parties and sent back into germany by different routes
eustace was taken upon the fifth to a village called lauterburg where he met with kindness from the german officer in command this good colonel had the hungry lad to supper
offered him the best he had opened a bottle of good wine as i have tried to do for you and gave him a cigar from his own case
the german again shook his head his horror of his companion had increased as he sat watching the lips that smiled and the eyes that glared the colonel as i say was good to my boy
but unluckily the prisoners were moved next day across the rhine into ettlingen they were not equally fortunate there the officer who guarded them was a ruffian and a villain captain baumgarten
he took a pleasure in humiliating and ill treating the brave men who had fallen into his power that night upon my son answering fiercely back to some taunt of his he struck him in the eye like this
the crash of the blow rang through the hall the german's face fell forward his hand up and blood oozing through his fingers the count settled down in his chair once more my boy was disfigured by the blow
and this villain made his appearance the object of his jeers by the way you look a little comical yourself at the present moment captain and your colonel would certainly say that you had been getting into mischief
to continue however my boy's youth and his destitution for his pockets were empty moved the pity of a kind hearted major and he advanced him ten napoleons from his own pocket without security of any kind
would not stoop to turn away his wrath by a feigned submission ay this cowardly villain whose heart's blood shall yet clot upon this hand
dared to strike my son with his open hand to kick him to tear hairs from his moustache to use him thus and thus and thus
he was helpless in the hands of this huge giant whose blows were raining upon him when at last blinded and half senseless he staggered to his feet it was only to be hurled back again into the great oaken chair
he sobbed in his impotent anger and shame my boy was frequently moved to tears by the humiliation of his position continued the count you will understand me when i say
which had been wounded by the brutality of his guard was bound up by a young bavarian subaltern who was touched by his appearance i regret to see that your eye is bleeding so will you permit me to bind it with my silk handkerchief
he leaned forward but the german dashed his hand aside i am in your power you monster he cried i can endure your brutalities but not your hypocrisy the count shrugged his shoulders
i am taking things in their order just as they occurred said he i was under vow to tell it to the first german officer with whom i could talk tete a tete let me see
i had got as far as the young bavarian at carlsruhe i regret extremely that you will not permit me to use such slight skill in surgery as i possess at carlsruhe
my lad was shut up in the old caserne where he remained for a fortnight the worst pang of his captivity was that some unmannerly curs in the garrison would taunt him with his position as he sat by his window in the evening
that reminds me captain that you are not quite situated upon a bed of roses yourself are you now you came to trap a wolf
my man and now the beast has you down with his fangs in your throat a family man too i should judge by that well filled tunic well a widow the more will make little matter
and they do not usually remain widows long get back into the chair you dog well to continue my story
at the end of a fortnight my son and his friend escaped i need not trouble you with the dangers which they ran or with the privations which they endured suffice it that to disguise themselves they had to take the clothes of two peasants
whom they waylaid in a wood hiding by day and travelling by night they had got as far into france as remilly and were within a mile a single mile captain
of crossing the german lines when a patrol of uhlans came right upon them ah it was hard was it not when they had come so far and were so near to safety the count blew a double call upon his whistle
and three hard faced peasants entered the room these must represent my uhlans said he well then
within the german lines proceeded to hang them without trial or ceremony i think jean that the centre beam is the strongest
the unfortunate soldier was dragged from his chair to where a noosed rope had been flung over one of the huge oaken rafters which spanned the room
the three peasants seized the other end and looked to the count for his orders the officer pale but firm folded his arms and stared defiantly at the man who tortured him
chapter ten only two or three days had elapsed since the funeral when something happened which was to change the drift of laura's life somewhat and influence in a greater or lesser degree the formation of her character
major lackland had once been a man of note in the state a man of extraordinary natural ability and as extraordinary learning he had been universally trusted and honored in his day
but had finally fallen into misfortune while serving his third term in congress and while upon the point of being elevated to the senate which was considered the summit of earthly aggrandizement in those days he had yielded to temptation
when in distress for money wherewith to save his estate and sold his vote his crime was discovered and his fall followed instantly nothing could reinstate him in the confidence of the people his ruin was irretrievable
his disgrace complete all doors were closed against him all men avoided him after years of skulking retirement and dissipation death had relieved him of his troubles at last
which revealed a fact not suspected by the villagers before viz that laura was not the child of mister and missus hawkins the gossips were soon at work
the gossips seemed to gain all the more freedom from it they supplied all the missing information themselves they filled up all the blanks the town soon teemed with histories of laura's origin and secret history no two versions precisely alike
laura began to encounter cold looks averted eyes and peculiar nods and gestures which perplexed her beyond measure but presently the pervading gossip found its way to her
but upon second thought held her peace she soon gathered that major lackland's memoranda seemed to refer to letters which had passed between himself and judge hawkins she shaped her course without difficulty the day that that hint reached her
that night she sat in her room till all was still and then she stole into the garret and began a search she rummaged long among boxes of musty papers relating to business matters of no interest to her
but at last she found several bundles of letters one bundle was marked private and in that she found what she wanted she selected six or eight letters from the package and began to devour their contents
heedless of the cold by the dates these letters were from five to seven years old they were all from major lackland to mister hawkins
the substance of them was that some one in the east had been inquiring of major lackland about a lost child and its parents and that it was conjectured that the child might be laura
another letter said that the poor soul broke completely down when he saw laura's picture and declared it must be she still another said
he was clinging to the starboard wheel of the burning wreck at the time a falling timber struck him on the head but i will write out his wonderful escape in full to morrow or next day of course
the physicians will not let me tell him now that our laura is indeed his child that must come later when his health is thoroughly restored his case is not considered dangerous at all he will recover presently the doctors say
but they insist that he must travel a little when he gets well they recommend a short sea voyage and they say he can be persuaded to try it if we continue to keep him in ignorance and promise to let him see l as soon as he returns
the letter that bore the latest date of all contained this clause it is the most unaccountable thing in the world the mystery remains as impenetrable as ever
i have hunted high and low for him and inquired of everybody but in vain all trace of him ends at that hotel in new york i never have seen or heard of him since up to this day he could hardly have sailed
for his name does not appear upon the books of any shipping office in new york or boston or baltimore how fortunate it seems now that we kept this thing to ourselves laura still has a father in you
that was all random remarks here and there being pieced together gave laura a vague impression of a man of fine presence about forty three or forty five years of age
with dark hair and eyes and a slight limp in his walk it was not stated which leg was defective and this indistinct shadow represented her father
she made an exhaustive search for the missing letters but found none they had probably been burned and she doubted not that the ones she had ferreted out would have shared the same fate if mister hawkins had not been a dreamer void of method
whose mind was perhaps in a state of conflagration over some bright new speculation when he received them she sat long with the letters in her lap thinking and unconsciously freezing
the age when there is a sad sweetness a dismal comfort to a girl to find out that there is a mystery connected with her birth which no other piece of good luck can afford
one never ceases to make a hero of one's self in private during life but only alters the style of his heroism from time to time as the drifting years belittle certain gods of his admiration and raise up others in their stead that seem greater
the recent wearing days and nights of watching and the wasting grief that had possessed her combined with the profound depression that naturally came with the reaction of idleness made laura peculiarly susceptible at this time
to romantic impressions she was a heroine now with a mysterious father somewhere she could not really tell whether she wanted to find him and spoil it all or not but still
as the usual and necessary course to follow therefore she would some day begin the search when opportunity should offer now a former thought struck her she would speak to missus hawkins and naturally enough
they would never end her daughter's love would wean itself away from her and her heart would break her grief so wrought upon laura that the girl almost forgot her own troubles for the moment in her compassion for her mother's distress
finally missus hawkins said speak to me child do not forsake me forget all this miserable talk say i am your mother i have loved you so long and there is no other i am your mother in the sight of god and nothing shall ever take you from me
and neither this foolish talk nor any other thing shall part us or make us less to each other than we are this hour there was no longer any sense of separation or estrangement between them indeed
the great secret was new to some of the younger children but their love suffered no change under the wonderful revelation it is barely possible that things might have presently settled down into their old rut
ostensibly upon visits of condolence and they pumped away at the mother and the children without seeming to know that their questionings were in bad taste they meant no harm they only wanted to know
villagers always want to know the family fought shy of the questionings and of course that was high testimony if the duchess was respectably born why didn't they come out and prove it
why did they stick to that poor thin story about picking her up out of a steamboat explosion under this ceaseless persecution laura's morbid self communing was renewed
at night the day's contribution of detraction innuendo and malicious conjecture would be canvassed in her mind and then she would drift into a course of thinking as her thoughts ran on the indignant tears would spring to her eyes
and she would spit out fierce little ejaculations at intervals but finally she would grow calmer and say some comforting disdainful thing something like this but who are they animals
let them talk i will not stoop to be affected by it i could hate nonsense nobody i care for or in any way respect is changed toward me i fancy
one day a friend overheard a conversation like this and naturally came and told her all about it ned they say you don't go there any more how is that
but you know how it is when a girl once gets talked about it's all up with her the world won't ever let her alone after that the only comment laura made upon this revelation was then it appears that if this trouble had not occurred
he is well favored in person and well liked too i believe and comes of one of the first families of the village he is prosperous too i hear has been a doctor a year now and has had two patients no three i think
i'm glad of it i never cared anything for him anyway
arrived at the finest dwelling in the town they entered it and were at home washington was introduced to missus boswell and his imagination was on the point of flitting into the vapory realms of speculation again
beauty had fascinated him before many times he had been in love even for weeks at a time with the same object but his heart had never suffered so sudden and so fierce an assault as this within his recollection
how her voice thrilled him when she first spoke how charmed the very air seemed by her presence blissful as the afternoon was delivered up to such a revel as this it seemed an eternity so impatient was he to see the girl again
other afternoons like it followed washington plunged into this love affair as he plunged into everything else upon impulse and without reflection as the days went by
and straightway his poverty became a torture to him which cast all his former sufferings under that held into the shade he longed for riches now as he had never longed for them before
he had been once or twice to dine with colonel sellers and had been discouraged to note that the colonel's bill of fare was falling off both in quantity and quality a sign he feared that the lacking ingredient in the eye water still remained undiscovered
though sellers always explained that these changes in the family diet had been ordered by the doctor or suggested by some new scientific work the colonel had stumbled upon but it always turned out that the lacking ingredient was still lacking
though it always appeared at the same time that the colonel was right on its heels every time the colonel came into the real estate office washington's heart bounded and his eyes lighted with hope
but it always turned out that the colonel was merely on the scent of some vast undefined landed speculation although he was customarily able to say that he was nearer to the all necessary ingredient than ever and could almost name the hour when success would dawn
and then washington's heart would sink again and a sigh would tell when it touched bottom about this time a letter came saying that judge hawkins had been ailing for a fortnight and was now considered to be seriously ill
it was thought best that washington should come home the news filled him with grief for he loved and honored his father the boswells were touched by the youth's sorrow and even the general unbent and said encouraging things to him
there was balm in this but when louise bade him good bye and shook his hand and said don't be cast down it will all come out right i know it will all come out right it seemed a blessed thing to be in misfortune
and the tears that welled up to his eyes were the messengers of an adoring and a grateful heart and when the girl saw them and answering tears came into her own eyes washington could hardly contain the excess of happiness that poured into the cavities of his breast
that were so lately stored to the roof with grief all the way home he nursed his woe and exalted it he pictured himself as she must be picturing him
a noble struggling young spirit persecuted by misfortune but bravely and patiently waiting in the shadow of a dread calamity and preparing to meet the blow as became one who was all too used to hard fortune
these thoughts made him weep and weep more broken heartedly than ever and he wished that she could see his sufferings now there was nothing significant in the fact that louise dreamy and distraught
stood at her bedroom bureau that night scribbling washington here and there over a sheet of paper but there was something significant in the fact that she scratched the word out every time she wrote it examined the erasure critically to see if anybody could guess at what the word had been
then buried it under a maze of obliterating lines and finally as if still unsatisfied burned the paper when washington reached home he recognized at once how serious his father's case was
the darkened room the labored breathing and occasional moanings of the patient the tip toeing of the attendants and their whispered consultations were full of sad meaning for three or four nights missus hawkins and laura had been watching by the bedside
clay had arrived preceding washington by one day and he was now added to the corps of watchers mister hawkins would have none but these three though neighborly assistance was offered by old friends
from this time forth three hour watches were instituted and day and night the watchers kept their vigils by degrees laura and her mother began to show wear but neither of them would yield a minute of their tasks to clay
clay is not good father he did not call me i would not have treated him so how could you do it clay clay begged forgiveness and promised not to break faith again
and as he betook him to his bed he said to himself it's a steadfast little soul whoever thinks he is doing the duchess a kindness by intimating that she is not sufficient for any undertaking she puts her hand to makes a mistake
than by trying to lighten her labor when that labor consists in wearing herself out for the sake of a person she loves a week drifted by and all the while the patient sank lower and lower
the night drew on that was to end all suspense it was a wintry one the darkness gathered the snow was falling the wind wailed plaintively about the house or shook it with fitful gusts
the doctor had paid his last visit and gone away with that dismal remark to the nearest friend of the family that he believed there was nothing more that he could do a remark which is always overheard by some one it is not meant for
and strikes a lingering half conscious hope dead with a withering shock the medicine phials had been removed from the bedside and put out of sight and all things made orderly and meet for the solemn event that was impending
the patient with closed eyes lay scarcely breathing the watchers sat by and wiped the gathering damps from his forehead while the silent tears flowed down their faces the deep hush was only interrupted by sobs from the children
the darkness grows let me see you all once more the group closed together at the bedside and their tears and sobs came now without restraint
i am leaving you in cruel poverty i have been so foolish so short sighted but courage a better day is
is coming never lose sight of the tennessee land be wary there is wealth stored up for you there wealth that is boundless
he closed his eyes and the signs of approaching dissolution multiplied rapidly he lay almost motionless for a little while then suddenly partly raised his head and looked about him as one who peers into a dim
uncertain light he muttered gone no i see you still it is it is over
the emaciated fingers began to pick at the coverlet a fatal sign after a time there were no sounds but the cries of the mourners within and the gusty turmoil of the wind without
its hopes or its ambitions clay buried his face in the coverlet of the bed when the other children and the mother realized that death was indeed come at last they threw themselves into each others arms
chapter eleven two months had gone by and the hawkins family were domiciled in hawkeye washington was at work in the real estate office again and was alternately in paradise or the other place
colonel sellers had asked him several times to dine with him when he first returned to hawkeye but washington for no particular reason had not accepted no particular reason except one which he preferred to keep to himself viz
it was a good idea especially as louise had absented herself from breakfast that morning and torn his heart he would tear hers now and let her see how it felt
the sellers family were just starting to dinner when washington burst upon them with his surprise for an instant the colonel looked nonplussed and just a bit uncomfortable
and missus sellers looked actually distressed but the next moment the head of the house was himself again and exclaimed all right my boy all right always glad to see you always glad to hear your voice and take you by the hand don't wait for special invitations
that's all nonsense among friends just come whenever you can and come as often as you can the oftener the better you can't please us any better than that washington the little woman will tell you so herself we don't pretend to style
in those old days the average man called his children after his most revered literary and historical idols consequently there was hardly a family at least in the west but had a washington in it and also a lafayette
of all the ages there was something thrilling about it to a stranger not to say awe inspiring stand off the cat's tail child can't you see what you're doing come come come
roderick dhu it isn't nice for little boys to hang onto young gentlemen's coat tails but never mind him washington he's full of spirits and don't mean any harm children will be children you know take the chair next to missus sellers washington
you are bigger than he is washington contemplated the banquet and wondered if he were in his right mind was this the plain family dinner and was it all present
it was soon apparent that this was indeed the dinner it was all on the table it consisted of abundance of clear fresh water and a basin of raw turnips nothing more
have anything from the casters no well you're right you're right some people like mustard with turnips but now there was baron poniatowski lord but that man did know how to live true russian you know russian to the back bone i say to my wife
help yourself there's plenty of it you'll find it pretty good i guess how does that fruit strike you washington said he did not know that he had ever tasted better
he did not add that he detested turnips even when they were cooked loathed them in their natural state no he kept this to himself and praised the turnips to the peril of his soul
why the asiatic plague that nearly depopulated london a couple of centuries ago but how does that concern us there is no plague here i reckon sh i've let it out
for he knows that he's got a reputation that covers the whole earth
but lord bless you he and i are just like brothers
that i am better read up in most sciences maybe than the general run of professional men in these days well the other day he let me into a little secret strictly on the quiet about this matter of the plague
you see it's booming right along in our direction follows the gulf stream you know
and within three months it will be just waltzing through this land like a whirlwind and whoever it touches can make his will and contract for the funeral well you can't cure it you know but you can prevent it how
turnips that's it turnips and water nothing like it in the world old mc dowells says just fill yourself up two or three times a day and you can snap your fingers at the plague sh keep mum
but just you confine yourself to that diet and you're all right i wouldn't have old mc dowells know that i told about it for anything he never would speak to me again take some more water washington the more water you drink the better
here let me give you some more of the turnips no no no now i insist there now absorb those they're mighty sustaining brim full of nutriment
just eat from four to seven good sized turnips at a meal and drink from a pint and a half to a quart of water
which he had blundered into within the past week and was now soaring along through some brilliant expectations born of late promising experiments upon the lacking ingredient of the eye water and at such a time
washington ought to have been a rapt and enthusiastic listener but he was not for two matters disturbed his mind and distracted his attention one was that he discovered to his confusion and shame
that in allowing himself to be helped a second time to the turnips he had robbed those hungry children he had not needed the dreadful fruit and had not wanted it
and when he saw the pathetic sorrow in their faces when they asked for more and there was no more to give them he hated himself for his stupidity and pitied the famishing young things with all his heart the other matter that disturbed him
was the dire inflation that had begun in his stomach it grew and grew it became more and more insupportable evidently the turnips were fermenting
the colonel followed him to the door promising over and over again that he would use his influence to get some of the early malcolms for him and insisting that he should not be such a stranger but come and take pot luck with him every chance he got
and then a blessed calm settled down upon him that filled his heart with gratitude weak and languid he made shift to turn himself about and seek rest and sleep and as his soul hovered upon the brink of unconciousness
he heaved a long deep sigh and said to himself that in his heart he had cursed the colonel's preventive of rheumatism before and now let the plague come if it must he was done with preventives
if ever any man beguiled him with turnips and water again let him die the death if he dreamed at all that night no gossiping spirit disturbed his visions to whisper in his ear of certain matters
just then in bud in the east more than a thousand miles away that after the lapse of a few years would develop influences
and it was characteristic of the forceful men as well as the extreme nature of the conflict that both were quiet in manner and speech perhaps the mayor the more so as he began the struggle by saying
is what missus packard says of your playing with her fears during these two weeks true mister steele without a droop of his eye or a tremor in his voice the answer came short sharp and emphatic yes
then you are a villain and i shall not feel myself called upon to show you any consideration beyond what justice demands have you any plea to urge beyond the natural one of her seemingly unprovoked desertion of you has not my wife
the nobility with which he emphasized those two words made my heart swell spoken the truth ah then the mask of disdainful serenity with which the other had hitherto veiled the burning anguish of his soul fell in one burst
of irresistible passion true yes it is true but what does that truth involve for me not two weeks
five of them devoted to grief for her loss and two to rage and bitter revulsion against her whole sex when i found her alive and myself the despised victim of her deception she wronged you she acknowledges that
just to feed your revenge yes i would do that jeopardize interests you have so often professed in my hearing to be far above personal consideration the success of your party the triumph of your political principles
my political principles oh the irony of his voice the triumph in his laugh and what do you know of them
your education as a politician has yet to be completed before you will be fit for the governorship of a state i am an adept at the glorification of the party of the man that it suits my present exigencies to promote
but it is a faculty which should have made you pause before you trusted me with the furtherance and final success of a campaign which may outlast those exigencies i have not always been of your party i am not so now at heart
the mayor outraged in every sentiment of honor as well as in the most cherished feelings of his heart lowered upon his unmoved secretary with a wrath which would have borne down any other man before it do you mean to say you
that your work is a traitor's work that the glorification you speak of is false that you may talk in my favor
i have succeeded in making myself intelligible the mayor flushed indignation gave him vehemence then he cried
the woman who has queened it so long in c society can not wish to undergo the charge of bigamy you will bring such a charge certainly if she does not voluntarily quit her false position
and accepting the protection of the man whose name is really hers go from this house at once at this alternative uttered with icy deliberation missus packard recoiled with a sharp cry
which name steele or brainard you acknowledged both my real name is brainard therefore it is also hers but i shall be content if she will take my present one of steele
till this matter can be legally settled i do not wish to make myself hateful to her for i anticipate the day when she will be my wife in heart as she is now in law never the word rang out in true womanly revolt
i will die before that day ever comes to separate me from the man i love and the child who calls me mother you may force me from this house you may plunge me into poverty into contumely
would not long run in obscure channels it was a sarcasm calculated to madden the proud man who only a few minutes before had designated the object of it by the sacred name of wife but beyond a hasty glance at the woman it had bowed almost to the ground
the mayor gave no evidence of feeling either its force or assumption
how old were you then he demanded with alarming incongruity the secretary started he answered however calmly enough i seven years ago i was twenty five i am thirty two now so i have heard you say
a man of twenty five is old enough to have made a record mister steele the mayor's tone hardened so did his manner
mister steele i do not mean you to disturb my house or to rob me of my wife what was your life before you met olympia brewster a pause the slightest in the world but the keen eye of the astute lawyer noted it
and his tone grew in severity and assurance you have known for two years that this woman whom you called yours was within your reach if not under your very eye and you forbore to claim her
has this delay had anything to do with the record of those years to which i have just alluded had the random shot told the secretary's eye did not falter
yet the impression made by his look and attitude were not the same the fire had gone out of them a blight had struck his soul the flush of his triumph was gone mayor packard was merciless
only two considerations could hold back a man like you from urging a claim he regarded as a sacred right the fact of a former marriage or the remembrance of a forfeited citizenship
which would delegalize whatever contract you may have entered into still the secretary's eye did not swerve
as if afraid of betraying a tremor in his rigidly drawn up figure was there the impediment of a former marriage no answer from the sternly set lips or was it that you once served a term a very short term cut short by a successful attempt at escape
over which of them should i waste my time then the tiger broke loose in the man who from the aggressor had become the attacked and he cried i shall never answer the devil has whispered his own suggestions in your ear the devil and nothing else
no not the devil but yourself you even the you of seven years back would not have lived in any country town if necessity or let us say safety had not demanded it you with your looks and your ambitions
to marry at twenty five a girl from the kitchen any girl even if she had the making of an olympia packard
or better prospects offered the cipher and the desirability you expressed of a means of communication unreadable save by you two all this was enough to start the suspicion your own manner has done the rest
mister steele you are both a villain and a bastard and have no right in law to this woman contradict me if you dare i dare but will not was the violent reply i shall not give you even that satisfaction
this woman who has gone through the ceremony of marriage with both of us shall never know to which of us she is the legal wife perhaps it is as good a revenge as the other it certainly will interfere as much with her peace oh oh not that i can not bear that
i looked to see the mayor spring and grasp him by the throat but that was left for another hand as the secretary bent to touch the door it suddenly flew violently open and nixon quivering in every limb and with his face afire
sprang in and seized upon the other with a violence of passion
yielded more and more to a sudden weakness sapping his life vigor till he fell prone and apparently lifeless on the lounge toward which
good good rang thrilling through the room
god has finished what these old arms had only strength enough to begin he is dead this time and it's a mercy thank god miss olympia thank god as i do now on my knees but here catching the mayor's eye
he faltered to his feet again saying humbly as he crept away i couldn't help it your honor
but i have loved miss olympia as we used to call her
and all i'm sorry for
the husband in the course of the maneuvres the n cavalry regiment halted for a night at the district town of k such an event as the visit of officers always has the most exciting and inspiring effect on the inhabitants of provincial towns
the inns and restaurants keep open all night the military commandant his secretary and the local garrison put on their best uniforms the police flit to and fro like mad while the effect on the ladies is beyond all description
the ladies of k hearing the regiment approaching forsook their pans of boiling jam and ran into the street forgetting their morning deshabille and general untidiness they rushed breathless with excitement to meet the regiment
and listened greedily to the band playing the march looking at their pale ecstatic faces one might have thought those strains came from some heavenly choir
the regiment they cried joyfully the regiment is coming what could this unknown regiment that came by chance to day and would depart at dawn to morrow mean to them afterwards when the officers were standing in the middle of the square
when a pock marked soldier in a red shirt darted past the windows they knew for certain that it was lieutenant rymzov's orderly running about the town trying to get some english bitter ale on tick for his master
at nine o'clock in the evening the military band was playing in the street before the club while in the club itself the officers were dancing with the ladies of k the ladies felt as though they were on wings
intoxicated by the dancing the music and the clank of spurs they threw themselves heart and soul into making the acquaintance of their new partners and quite forgot their old civilian friends
their fathers and husbands forced temporarily into the background crowded round the meagre refreshment table in the entrance hall all these government cashiers secretaries clerks and superintendents stale sickly looking clumsy figures
a narrow spiteful soul given to drink with a big closely cropped head and thick protruding lips
there had been a time when he used to read progressive literature and sing students songs but now as he said of himself he was a tax collector and nothing more he stood leaning against the doorpost his eyes fixed on his wife anna pavlovna
a little brunette of thirty with a long nose and a pointed chin tightly laced with her face carefully powdered she danced without pausing for breath danced till she was ready to drop exhausted but though she was exhausted in body
and never doubting that her husband was to be a prince or at the worst a baron the tax collector watched scowling with spite it was not jealousy he was feeling he was ill humoured first because the room was taken up with dancing
and there was nowhere he could play a game of cards secondly because he could not endure the sound of wind instruments and thirdly because he fancied the officers treated the civilians somewhat too casually and disdainfully
but what above everything revolted him and moved him to indignation was the expression of happiness on his wife's face it makes me sick to look at her he muttered going on for forty and nothing to boast of at any time
and she must powder her face and lace herself up and frizzing her hair flirting and making faces and fancying she's doing the thing in style
you're a pretty figure upon my soul
of course not where do we poor country bumpkins come in sneered the tax collector we are at a discount now we're clumsy seals unpolished provincial bears and she's the queen of the ball
they'd not object to making love to her i dare say during the mazurka the tax collector's face twitched with spite a black haired officer with prominent eyes and tartar cheekbones danced the mazurka with anna pavlovna
assuming a stern expression he worked his legs with gravity and feeling and so crooked his knees that he looked like a jack a dandy pulled by strings while anna pavlovna pale and thrilled bending her figure languidly and turning her eyes up
tried to look as though she scarcely touched the floor and evidently felt herself that she was not on earth not at the local club but somewhere far far away in the clouds
not only her face but her whole figure was expressive of beatitude the tax collector could endure it no longer he felt a desire to jeer at that beatitude to make anna pavlovna feel that she had forgotten herself
that life was by no means so delightful as she fancied now in her excitement you wait i'll teach you to smile so blissfully he muttered you are not a boarding school miss you are not a girl an old fright ought to realise she is a fright
petty feelings of envy vexation wounded vanity of that small provincial misanthropy engendered in petty officials by vodka and a sedentary life swarmed in his heart like mice waiting for the end of the mazurka
he went into the hall and walked up to his wife anna pavlovna was sitting with her partner and flirting her fan and coquettishly dropping her eyelids was describing how she used to dance in petersburg her lips were pursed up like a rosebud and she pronounced
she felt ashamed that she had such a sickly looking ill humoured ordinary husband let us go home repeated the tax collector why it's quite early i beg you to come home said the tax collector deliberately
with a spiteful expression why has anything happened anna pavlovna asked in a flutter nothing has happened but i wish you to go home at once i wish it that's enough and without further talk please
why go home why it's not eleven o'clock i wish it and that's enough come along and that's all about it don't be silly go home alone if you want to all right then i shall make a scene
the tax collector saw the look of beatitude gradually vanish from his wife's face saw how ashamed and miserable she was and he felt a little happier why do you want me at once asked his wife i don't want you
pale biting her lips and almost crying she went out to the entry and began putting on her things you are not going
her head aches said the tax collector for his wife coming out of the club the husband and wife walked all the way home in silence the tax collector walked behind his wife and watching her downcast sorrowful humiliated little figure
he recalled the look of beatitude which had so irritated him at the club and the consciousness that the beatitude was gone filled his soul with triumph he was pleased and satisfied and at the same time he felt the lack of something
so that all might know how stale and worthless life is when you walk along the streets in the dark and hear the slush of the mud under your feet and when you know that you will wake up next morning with nothing to look forward to but vodka and cards oh how awful it is
and anna pavlovna could scarcely walk she was still under the influence of the dancing the music the talk the lights and the noise she asked herself as she walked along why god had thus afflicted her
she felt miserable insulted and choking with hate as she listened to her husband's heavy footsteps she was silent trying to think of the most offensive biting and venomous word she could hurl at her husband
and at the same time she was fully aware that no word could penetrate her tax collector's hide what did he care for words her bitterest enemy could not have contrived for her a more helpless position
lady eustace did not leave the house during the saturday and sunday and engaged herself exclusively with preparing for her journey she had no further interview with missus carbuncle but there were messages between them and even notes were written they resulted in nothing
lizzie might have saved herself the trouble had it not been that it was a pleasure to her to insult her late friend even though in doing so new insults were heaped upon her own head as for the trumpery spoons they so said missus carbuncle
were the property of miss roanoke having been made over to her unconditionally long before the wedding as a part of a separate pecuniary transaction missus carbuncle had no power of disposing of miss roanoke's property
as to the money which lady eustace claimed missus carbuncle asserted that when the final accounts should be made up between them it would be found that there was a considerable balance due to missus carbuncle but even were there anything due to lady eustace
missus carbuncle would decline to pay it as she was informed that all moneys possessed by lady eustace were now confiscated to the crown by reason of the perjuries the word was doubly scored in missus carbuncle's note which lady eustace had committed
this of course was unpleasant but missus carbuncle did not have the honours of the battle all to herself lizzie also said some unpleasant things which perhaps were the more unpleasant because they were true
missus carbuncle had come pretty nearly to the end of her career whereas lizzie's income in spite of her perjuries was comparatively untouched the undoubted mistress of portray castle
could still despise and look down upon missus carbuncle
lizzie in sending to him had some half formed idea of a romantic farewell the man she thought had behaved very badly to her had accepted very much from her hands and had refused to give her anything in return
had become the first depository of her great secret and had placed no mutual confidence in her he had been harsh to her and unjust and then too he had declined to be in love with her she was full of spite against lord george and would have been glad to injure him
but nevertheless there would be some excitement in a farewell in which some mock affection might be displayed and she would have an opportunity of abusing missus carbuncle so you are off to morrow said lord george taking his place on the rug before her fire
and looking down at her with his head a little on one side lizzie's anger against the man chiefly arose from a feeling that he treated her with all a corsair's freedom without any of a corsair's tenderness
had there been any devotion but lord george was both impudent and indifferent yes she said thank goodness i shall get out of this frightful place to morrow and soon have once more a roof of my own over my head
we have all had an experience said lord george still looking at her with that half comic turn of his face
no woman ever intended to show a more disinterested friendship than i have done and what has been my return you mean to me disinterested friendship to me and lord george tapped his breast lightly with his fingers
covering her face with her hands they don't do much good do they it's better to take people as you find em and then make the best of em they're a queer lot ain't they the sort of people one meets about in the world
you are no more than a child to me but you have surprised me i hope i have not injured you lord george do you remember how you rode to hounds the day your cousin took that other man's horse that surprised me
oh lord george that was the happiest day of my life how little happiness there is for people and when tewett got that girl to say she'd marry him
for people who were nothing to you that surprised me i meant to be so kind to you all and when i found that you always travelled with ten thousand pounds worth of diamonds in a box that surprised me very much
i thought that you were a very dangerous companion pray don't talk about the horrid necklace then came the robbery and you seemed to lose your diamonds without being at all unhappy about them of course we understand that now
on hearing this lizzie smiled but did not say a word then i perceived that i
you you yourself couldn't have suspected me of taking the diamonds because because you'd got them you know all safe in your pocket but you might as well own the truth now didn't you think that it was i who stole the box
all that surprised me the police were watching me every day as a cat watches a mouse and thought that they surely had got the thief when they found that i had dealings with benjamin well you you were laughing at me in your sleeve all the time
not laughing lord george yes you were you had got the kernel yourself and thought that i had taken all the trouble to crack the nut and had found myself with nothing but the shell then when you found you couldn't eat the kernel that you couldn't get rid of the swag without assistance
unfortunately you didn't but i thought you did and you thought that i had done it mister benjamin was too clever for us both and now he is going to have penal servitude for the rest of his life i wonder who will be the better of it all
of course i would not give them up because they were my own
and sworn ever so many false oaths and have brought all your friends into trouble and have got nothing by it what was the good of being so clever you need not come here to tease me lord george i came here because you sent for me
is is oh lord george don't you know what she is i know that missus carbuncle is in a very bad way and that that girl has gone crazy and that poor griff has taken himself off to japan and that i am so knocked about that i don't know where to go
you see we have all of us been made remarkable haven't we you are always remarkable lord george
i wouldn't mind it so much if anybody were the better for it
though she believed that she hated him she would have liked to get up some show of an affectionate farewell some scene in which there might have been tears and tenderness and poetry and perhaps a parting caress but with his jeering words and sneering face he was as hard to her as a rock
he was now silent but still looking down upon her as he stood motionless upon the rug so that she was compelled to speak again i sent for you lord george because i did not like the idea of parting with you for ever without one word of adieu
i am going to portray on monday and never coming back any more you'll be up here before the season is over with fifty more wonderful schemes in your little head so lord fawn is done with is he
he attends you down to scotland does he does mister emilius go too i believe you are trying to insult me sir you can't expect but what a man should be a little jealous when he has been so completely cut out himself
there was a time you know when even cousin frank wasn't a better fellow than myself much you thought about it lord george well i did i thought about it a good deal my lady and i liked the idea of it very much
lizzie pricked up her ears in spite of all his harshness could it be that he should be the corsair still
you are pretty you know uncommonly pretty don't lord george and i'll acknowledge that the income goes for much i suppose that's real at any rate well i hope so of course it's real
and so is the prettiness lord george if there is any i never doubted that lady eustace
i'm not a man to stand on trifles but by george it wouldn't do then who wanted it to do said lizzie go away you are very unkind to me i hope i may never see you again
ah dear i have known her for many years lizzie and that both covers and discovers many faults one learns to know how bad one's old friends are but then one forgives them because they are old friends you can't forgive me
because i'm bad and only a new friend
i forgive you all and hope you may do well yet if i may give you one bit of advice at parting it is to caution you against being clever when there is nothing to get by it i ain't clever at all said lizzie beginning to whimper
good bye my dear good bye said lizzie he took her hand in one of his patted her on the head with the other as though she had been a child
men die nightly in their beds wringing the hands of ghostly confessors and looking them piteously in the eyes
now and then alas the conscience of man takes up a burthen so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave and thus the essence of all crime is undivulged
not long ago about the closing in of an evening in autumn i sat at the large bow window of the d coffee house in london for some months i had been ill in health but was now convalescent and with returning strength
moods of the keenest appetency when the film from the mental vision departs
the mad and flimsy rhetoric of gorgias merely to breathe was enjoyment and i derived positive pleasure even from many of the legitimate sources of pain i felt a calm but inquisitive interest in every thing
with a cigar in my mouth and a newspaper in my lap i had been amusing myself for the greater part of the afternoon now in poring over advertisements now in observing the promiscuous company in the room and now in peering through the smoky panes into the street
this latter is one of the principal thoroughfares of the city and had been very much crowded during the whole day but as the darkness came on the throng momently increased and by the time the lamps were well lighted
two dense and continuous tides of population were rushing past the door at this particular period of the evening i had never before been in a similar situation and the tumultuous sea of human heads filled me therefore with a delicious novelty of emotion
i gave up at length all care of things within the hotel and became absorbed in contemplation of the scene without at first my observations took an abstract and generalizing turn
i looked at the passengers in masses and thought of them in their aggregate relations soon however i descended to details and regarded with minute interest the innumerable varieties of figure
by far the greater number of those who went by had a satisfied business like demeanor and seemed to be thinking only of making their way through the press their brows were knit and their eyes rolled quickly
when pushed against by fellow wayfarers they evinced no symptom of impatience but adjusted their clothes and hurried on
others still a numerous class were restless in their movements had flushed faces and talked and gesticulated to themselves as if feeling in solitude on account of the very denseness of the company around
when impeded in their progress these people suddenly ceased muttering but re doubled their gesticulations and awaited with an absent and overdone smile upon the lips the course of the persons impeding them
if jostled they bowed profusely to the jostlers and appeared overwhelmed with confusion there was nothing very distinctive about these two large classes beyond what i have noted their habiliments belonged to that order which is pointedly termed the decent
they were undoubtedly noblemen merchants attorneys tradesmen stock jobbers the eupatrids and the common places of society men of leisure and men actively engaged in affairs of their own conducting business upon their own responsibility
they did not greatly excite my attention the tribe of clerks was an obvious one and here i discerned two remarkable divisions there were the junior clerks of flash houses young gentlemen with tight coats bright boots well oiled hair and supercilious lips
the manner of these persons seemed to me an exact fac simile of what had been the perfection of bon ton about twelve or eighteen months before they wore the cast off graces of the gentry and this i believe involves the best definition of the class
the division of the upper clerks of staunch firms or of the steady old fellows it was not possible to mistake
these were known by their coats and pantaloons of black or brown made to sit comfortably with white cravats and waistcoats broad solid looking shoes and thick hose or gaiters they had all slightly bald heads from which the right ears long used to pen holding
had an odd habit of standing off on end i observed that they always removed or settled their hats with both hands and wore watches with short gold chains of a substantial and ancient pattern theirs was the affectation of respectability
if indeed there be an affectation so honorable there were many individuals of dashing appearance whom i easily understood as belonging to the race of swell pick pockets with which all great cities are infested
i watched these gentry with much inquisitiveness and found it difficult to imagine how they should ever be mistaken for gentlemen by gentlemen themselves their voluminousness of wristband with an air of excessive frankness should betray them at once
the gamblers of whom i descried not a few were still more easily recognisable they wore every variety of dress from that of the desperate thimble rig bully
with velvet waistcoat fancy neckerchief gilt chains and filagreed buttons to that of the scrupulously inornate clergyman than which nothing could be less liable to suspicion
still all were distinguished by a certain sodden swarthiness of complexion a filmy dimness of eye and pallor and compression of lip there were two other traits moreover by which i could always detect them
a guarded lowness of tone in conversation and a more than ordinary extension of the thumb in a direction at right angles with the fingers very often in company with these sharpers i observed an order of men somewhat different in habits but still birds of a kindred feather
they may be defined as the gentlemen who live by their wits they seem to prey upon the public in two battalions that of the dandies and that of the military men of the first grade the leading features are long locks and smiles
of the second frogged coats and frowns descending in the scale of what is termed gentility i found darker and deeper themes for speculation
i saw jew pedlars with hawk eyes flashing from countenances whose every other feature wore only an expression of abject humility sturdy professional street beggars scowling upon mendicants of a better stamp whom despair alone had driven forth into the night for charity
feeble and ghastly invalids upon whom death had placed a sure hand and who sidled and tottered through the mob looking every one beseechingly in the face as if in search of some chance consolation some lost hope
modest young girls returning from long and late labor to a cheerless home and shrinking more tearfully than indignantly from the glances of ruffians whose direct contact even could not be avoided
women of the town of all kinds and of all ages the unequivocal beauty in the prime of her womanhood putting one in mind of the statue in lucian with the surface of parian marble and the interior filled with filth
the mere child of immature form yet from long association an adept in the dreadful coquetries of her trade and burning with a rabid ambition to be ranked the equal of her elders in vice
drunkards innumerable and indescribable some in shreds and patches reeling inarticulate with bruised visage and lack lustre eyes
some in whole although filthy garments with a slightly unsteady swagger thick sensual lips and hearty looking rubicund faces others clothed in materials which had once been good and which even now were scrupulously well brushed
men who walked with a more than naturally firm and springy step but whose countenances were fearfully pale whose eyes hideously wild and red and who clutched with quivering fingers as they strode through the crowd at every object which came within their reach
beside these pie men porters coal heavers sweeps organ grinders monkey exhibiters and ballad mongers those who vended with those who sang ragged artizans and exhausted laborers of every description
and gave an aching sensation to the eye as the night deepened so deepened to me the interest of the scene for not only did the general character of the crowd materially alter
its gentler features retiring in the gradual withdrawal of the more orderly portion of the people and its harsher ones coming out into bolder relief as the late hour brought forth every species of infamy from its den but the rays of the gas lamps feeble at first in their struggle with the dying day
had now at length gained ascendancy and threw over every thing a fitful and garish lustre all was dark yet splendid as that ebony to which has been likened the style of tertullian
the wild effects of the light enchained me to an examination of individual faces and although the rapidity with which the world of light flitted before the window prevented me from casting more than a glance upon each visage
still it seemed that in my then peculiar mental state i could frequently read even in that brief interval of a glance the history of long years
with my brow to the glass i was thus occupied in scrutinizing the mob when suddenly there came into view a countenance that of a decrepid old man some sixty five or seventy years of age
a countenance which at once arrested and absorbed my whole attention on account of the absolute idiosyncrasy of its expression any thing even remotely resembling that expression i had never seen before i well remember that my first thought upon beholding it
was that retzch had he viewed it would have greatly preferred it to his own pictural incarnations of the fiend as i endeavored during the brief minute of my original survey to form some analysis of the meaning conveyed
there arose confusedly and paradoxically within my mind the ideas of vast mental power of caution of penuriousness of avarice of coolness of malice of blood thirstiness of triumph of merriment of excessive terror
of intense of supreme despair i felt singularly aroused startled fascinated how wild a history i said to myself is written within that bosom
then came a craving desire to keep the man in view to know more of him hurriedly putting on an overcoat and seizing my hat and cane i made my way into the street and pushed through the crowd in the direction which i had seen him take for he had already disappeared
with some little difficulty i at length came within sight of him approached and followed him closely yet cautiously so as not to attract his attention i had now a good opportunity of examining his person
he was short in stature very thin and apparently very feeble his clothes generally were filthy and ragged but as he came now and then within the strong glare of a lamp i perceived that his linen although dirty was of beautiful texture
and my vision deceived me or through a rent in a closely buttoned and evidently second handed roquelaire which enveloped him i caught a glimpse both of a diamond and of a dagger
these observations heightened my curiosity and i resolved to follow the stranger whithersoever he should go it was now fully night fall and a thick humid fog hung over the city soon ending in a settled and heavy rain
this change of weather had an odd effect upon the crowd the whole of which was at once put into new commotion and overshadowed by a world of umbrellas the waver the jostle and the hum increased in a tenfold degree
for my own part i did not much regard the rain the lurking of an old fever in my system rendering the moisture somewhat too dangerously pleasant
for half an hour the old man held his way with difficulty along the great thoroughfare and i here walked close at his elbow through fear of losing sight of him never once turning his head to look back he did not observe me
by and bye he passed into a cross street which although densely filled with people was not quite so much thronged as the main one he had quitted here a change in his demeanor became evident he walked more slowly and with less object than before more hesitatingly
he crossed and re crossed the way repeatedly without apparent aim and the press was still so thick that at every such movement i was obliged to follow him closely the street was a narrow and long one and his course lay within it for nearly an hour
during which the passengers had gradually diminished to about that number which is ordinarily seen at noon in broadway near the park so vast a difference is there between a london populace and that of the most frequented american city
a second turn brought us into a square brilliantly lighted and overflowing with life the old manner of the stranger re appeared his chin fell upon his breast
while his eyes rolled wildly from under his knit brows in every direction upon those who hemmed him in he urged his way steadily and perseveringly i was surprised however to find upon his having made the circuit of the square that he turned and retraced his steps
still more was i astonished to see him repeat the same walk several times once nearly detecting me as he came round with a sudden movement in this exercise he spent another hour at the end of which we met with far less interruption from passengers than at first
the rain fell fast the air grew cool and the people were retiring to their homes with a gesture of impatience the wanderer passed into a bye street comparatively deserted
down this some quarter of a mile long he rushed with an activity i could not have dreamed of seeing in one so aged and which put me to much trouble in pursuit a few minutes brought us to a large and busy bazaar
with the localities of which the stranger appeared well acquainted and where his original demeanor again became apparent as he forced his way to and fro without aim among the host of buyers and sellers
during the hour and a half or thereabouts which we passed in this place it required much caution on my part to keep him within reach without attracting his observation
luckily i wore a pair of caoutchouc over shoes and could move about in perfect silence at no moment did he see that i watched him he entered shop after shop priced nothing spoke no word and looked at all objects with a wild and vacant stare
i was now utterly amazed at his behavior and firmly resolved that we should not part until i had satisfied myself in some measure respecting him a loud toned clock struck eleven and the company were fast deserting the bazaar
a shop keeper in putting up a shutter jostled the old man and at the instant i saw a strong shudder come over his frame he hurried into the street looked anxiously around him for an instant and then ran with incredible swiftness through many crooked and people less lanes
until we emerged once more upon the great thoroughfare whence we had started the street of the d hotel it no longer wore however the same aspect it was still brilliant with gas but the rain fell fiercely and there were few persons to be seen
the stranger grew pale he walked moodily some paces up the once populous avenue then with a heavy sigh turned in the direction of the river and plunging through a great variety of devious ways came out at length in view of one of the principal theatres
it was about being closed and the audience were thronging from the doors i saw the old man gasp as if for breath while he threw himself amid the crowd but i thought that the intense agony of his countenance had in some measure abated
his head again fell upon his breast he appeared as i had seen him at first i observed that he now took the course in which had gone the greater number of the audience but upon the whole i was at a loss to comprehend the waywardness of his actions
as he proceeded the company grew more scattered and his old uneasiness and vacillation were resumed for some time he followed closely a party of some ten or twelve roisterers
but from this number one by one dropped off until three only remained together in a narrow and gloomy lane little frequented the stranger paused and for a moment seemed lost in thought then with every mark of agitation pursued rapidly a route which brought us to the verge of the city
amid regions very different from those we had hitherto traversed it was the most noisome quarter of london where every thing wore the worst impress of the most deplorable poverty and of the most desperate crime
by the dim light of an accidental lamp tall antique worm eaten wooden tenements were seen tottering to their fall in directions so many and capricious that scarce the semblance of a passage was discernible between them
the paving stones lay at random displaced from their beds by the rankly growing grass horrible filth festered in the dammed up gutters the whole atmosphere teemed with desolation yet as we proceeded the sounds of human life revived by sure degrees
and at length large bands of the most abandoned of a london populace were seen reeling to and fro the spirits of the old man again flickered up as a lamp which is near its death hour once more he strode onward with elastic tread
suddenly a corner was turned a blaze of light burst upon our sight and we stood before one of the huge suburban temples of intemperance one of the palaces of the fiend gin
it was now nearly day break but a number of wretched inebriates still pressed in and out of the flaunting entrance with a half shriek of joy the old man forced a passage within resumed at once his original bearing and stalked backward and forward
without apparent object among the throng he had not been thus long occupied however before a rush to the doors gave token that the host was closing them for the night
it was something even more intense than despair that i then observed upon the countenance of the singular being whom i had watched so pertinaciously yet he did not hesitate in his career but with a mad energy retraced his steps at once to the heart of the mighty london
long and swiftly he fled while i followed him in the wildest amazement resolute not to abandon a scrutiny in which i now felt an interest all absorbing the sun arose while we proceeded and when we had once again reached that most thronged mart of the populous town
the street of the d hotel it presented an appearance of human bustle and activity scarcely inferior to what i had seen on the evening before and here long amid the momently increasing confusion did i persist in my pursuit of the stranger
but as usual he walked to and fro and during the day did not pass from out the turmoil of that street
gazed at him steadfastly in the face he noticed me not but resumed his solemn walk while i
everything was oppressively new the brilliantly varnished door cracked with a report like a pistol when it was opened the paper on the walls with its gaudy pattern of birds trellis work and flowers in gold red and green on a white ground looked hardly dry yet
the showy window curtains of white and sky blue and the still showier carpet of red and yellow seemed as if they had come out of the shop yesterday the round rosewood table was in a painfully high state of polish the morocco bound picture books that lay on it
not one leaf even of the music on the piano was dogs eared or worn never was a richly furnished room more thoroughly comfortless than this the eye ached at looking round it there was no repose anywhere
the print of the queen hanging lonely on the wall in its heavy gilt frame with a large crown at the top glared on you the paper the curtains the carpet glared on you the books the wax flowers in glass cases
all surrounding objects seemed startlingly near to the eye much nearer than they really were
before he had been in it a quarter of an hour i was not kept waiting long another violent crack from the new door announced the entrance of mister sherwin himself he was a tall thin man rather round shouldered
weak at the knees and trying to conceal the weakness in the breadth of his trowsers he wore a white cravat and an absurdly high shirt collar his complexion was sallow his eyes were small black bright and incessantly in motion
the mouth and the muscles of the cheek his hair had been black but was now turning to a sort of iron grey
and part of it projected almost horizontally over his forehead he had a habit of stretching it in this direction by irritably combing it out from time to time with his fingers his lips were thin and colourless
a great stickler for the conventional respectabilities of life and a great believer in his own infallibility but he was margaret's father and i was determined to be pleased with him he made me a low and rather a cringing bow
then looked to the window and seeing the carriage waiting for me at his door made another bow and insisted on relieving me of my hat with his own hand this done he coughed and begged to know what he could do for me
i felt some difficulty in opening my business to him it was necessary to speak however at once i began with an apology i am afraid mister sherwin that this intrusion on the part of a perfect stranger
not entirely a stranger sir if i may be allowed to say so indeed i had the great pleasure sir and profit and
very beautiful house i happen to be acquainted with the steward of your respected father he was kind enough to allow me to walk through the rooms a treat quite an intellectual treat the furniture and hangings and so on arranged in such a chaste style and
the pictures some of the finest pieces i ever saw i was delighted quite delighted indeed he spoke in under tones laying great stress upon particular words that were evidently favourites with him such as indeed
not only his eyes but his whole face seemed to be nervously blinking and winking all the time he was addressing me in the embarrassment and anxiety which i then felt this peculiarity fidgetted and bewildered me more than i can describe
i would have given the world to have had his back turned before i spoke to him again i am delighted to hear that my family and my name are not unknown to you mister sherwin i resumed
under those circumstances i shall feel less hesitation and difficulty in making you acquainted with the object of my visit
thank you in the first place mister sherwin i have reasons for wishing that this interview
may be considered strictly confidential i am sure i can depend on your favouring me thus far certainly most certainly the strictest secrecy of course pray go on he drew his chair a little nearer to me
i must also beg you to suspend your judgment until you have heard me to the end you may be disposed to view to view
he stopped half breathless bending forward towards me and crumpling my card between his fingers into the smallest possible dimensions
rather more than a week ago i continued i accidentally met miss sherwin in an omnibus accompanied by a lady older than herself my wife missus sherwin he said impatiently motioning with his hand
as if missus sherwin were some insignificant obstacle to the conversation which he wished to clear out of the way as fast as possible
the impression she made on me was something more however than a mere momentary feeling of admiration
you have heard of such a thing as love at first sight mister sherwin in books sir he tapped one of the morocco bound volumes on the table and smiled a curious smile partly deferential and partly sarcastic
you would be inclined to laugh i dare say if i asked you to believe that there is such a thing as love at first sight out of books but without dwelling further on that it is my duty to confess to you
in all candour and honesty that the impression miss sherwin produced on me was such as to make me desire the privilege of becoming acquainted with her in plain words i discovered her place of residence by following her to this house
upon my soul this is the most extraordinary proceeding pray hear me out mister sherwin you will not condemn my conduct i think if you hear all i have to say he muttered something unintelligible
his complexion turned yellower he dropped my card which he had by this time crushed into fragments and ran his hand rapidly through his hair until he had stretched it out like a penthouse over his forehead blinking all the time and regarding me
with a lowering sinister expression of countenance i saw that it was useless to treat him as i should have treated a gentleman he had evidently put the meanest and the foulest construction upon my delicacy and hesitation in speaking to him so i altered my plan
and came to the point abruptly came to business as he would have called it i ought to have been plainer mister sherwin i ought perhaps to have told you at the outset in so many words that i came to
i was about to say to ask your daughter's hand in marriage but a thought of my father moved darkly over my mind at that moment and the words would not pass my lips well sir to what the tone in which he said this was harsh enough to rouse me
it gave me back my self possession immediately to ask your permission to pay my addresses to miss sherwin or to be plainer still if you like to ask of you her hand in marriage the words were spoken
even if i could have done so i would not have recalled what i had just said but still i trembled in spite of myself as i expressed in plain blunt words what i had only rapturously thought over or delicately hinted at to margaret up to this time
highly indeed my dear sir don't suppose for one moment i ever doubted your honourable feeling
in short of those who are not in their rank exactly but that's not the question quite a misunderstanding extremely stupid of me to be sure pray let me offer you a glass of wine
in confidence how i am situated with regard to the proposals i have made there are certain circumstances yes yes he bent forward again eagerly towards me as he spoke
looking more inquisitive and more cunning than ever i have acknowledged to you mister sherwin that i have found means to speak to your daughter
now although in so many words she directly discouraged me it is her due that i should say this still i think i may without vanity venture to hope that she did so as a matter of duty more than as a matter of inclination
no doubt that was one reason why she received me as she did but she had another which she communicated to me in the plainest terms the difference in our rank of life
yes yes high principles sir high principles thank god
she made no objection and i am therefore i think justified in considering that if you authorised the removal of scruples which do her honour at present she would not feel the delicacy she does now at sanctioning my addresses
very proper a very proper way of putting it practical if i may be allowed to say so
it is exactly there that the difficulty lies my father on whom i am dependent as the younger son has very strong prejudices convictions i ought perhaps to call them on the subject of social inequalities quite so most natural
most becoming indeed on the part of your respected father i honour his convictions sir such estates such houses such a family as his connected i believe with the nobility especially on your late lamented mother's side
my dear sir i emphatically repeat it your father's convictions do him honour i respect them as much as i respect him i do indeed i am glad you can view my father's ideas on social subjects in so favourable a light mister sherwin
you will be less surprised to hear how they are likely to affect me in the step i am now taking he disapproves of it of course strongly perhaps
he ran his fingers rapidly through his hair and tried to look independent still i am prepared to admit under all the circumstances i say under all the circumstances that his disapproval is very natural
and was very much to be expected very much indeed he has expressed no disapproval mister sherwin you don't say so i have not given him an opportunity
my meeting with your daughter has been kept a profound secret from him and from every member of my family and a secret it must remain i speak from my intimate knowledge of my father when i say that i hardly know of any means that he would not be capable of employing
to frustrate the purpose of this visit if i had mentioned it to him he has been the kindest and best of fathers to me but i firmly believe that if i waited for his consent
no entreaties of mine or of any one belonging to me would induce him to give his sanction to the marriage i have come to you to propose bless my soul this is carrying things rather far though
we must keep both the courtship and the marriage secret secret good gracious i don't at all see my way yes secret
a profound secret among ourselves until i can divulge my marriage to my father with the best chance of but i tell you sir i can't see my way through it at all chance what chance would there be after what you have told me
there might be many chances for instance when the marriage was solemnised i might introduce your daughter to my father's notice without disclosing who she was and leave her gradually and unsuspectedly
to win his affection and respect as with her beauty elegance and amiability she could not fail to do while i waited until the occasion was ripe for confessing everything then if i said to him
if on the other hand i could only say this young lady is about to become my wife his prejudices would assuredly induce him to recall his most favourable impressions and refuse his consent in short mister sherwin before marriage it would be impossible to move him
after marriage when opposition could no longer be of any avail it would be quite a different thing we might be sure of producing sooner or later the most favourable results
this is why it would be absolutely necessary to keep our union secret at first i wondered then i have since wondered more how it was that i contrived to speak thus
rattling a bunch of keys in his pocket with an expression of considerable perplexity
to have a gentleman of your birth and breeding for a son in law is of course but then there is the money question suppose you failed with your father after all my money is out in my speculations i can do nothing
i have influential friends mister sherwin in many directions there are appointments good appointments which would be open to me if i pushed my interests i might provide in this way against the chance of failure
i can only assure you that my attachment to miss sherwin is not of a nature to be overcome by any pecuniary considerations i speak in all our interests when i say
that a private marriage gives us a chance for the future as opportunities arise of gradually disclosing it my offer to you may be made under some disadvantages and difficulties perhaps
for with the exception of a very small independence left me by my mother i have no certain prospects but i really think my proposals have some compensating advantages to recommend them certainly
most decidedly so i am not insensible my dear sir to the great advantage and honour and so forth but there is something so unusual about the whole affair
that could hardly happen i think with her accomplishments and education and manners too so distinguished though perhaps i ought not to say so
i am sure mister sherwin a school sir where it was a rule to take in no thing lower than the daughter of a professional man they only waived the rule in my case the most genteel school perhaps in all london a drawing room deportment day once every week
to practise the girls with the footman of the establishment in attendance in getting into a carriage and getting out again in a lady like manner no duchess has had a better education than my margaret permit me to assure you mister sherwin and then her knowledge of languages
her french and italian and german not discontinued in holidays or after she left school she has only just left it
may i ask who mister mannion is the tone in which i put this question cooled his enthusiasm about his daughter's education immediately he answered in his former tones and with one of his former bows
mister mannion is my confidential clerk sir
is he a young man young oh dear no mister mannion is forty or a year or two more if he's a day an admirable man of business as well as a great scholar
i beg your pardon but i think we are wandering away from the point a little i beg yours so we are well my dear sir i must be allowed a day or two say two days to ascertain what my daughter's feelings are
and to consider your proposals which have taken me very much by surprise as you may in fact see but i assure you i am most flattered most honoured most anxious i hope you will consider my anxieties mister sherwin
and between that time and this you will engage not to hold any communication with my daughter i promise not mister sherwin because i believe that your answer will be favourable
a little consideration and a little talk with my dear girl
no again very well then the day after tomorrow at five o'clock with a louder crack than ever the brand new drawing room door was opened to let me out the noise was instantly succeeded by the rustling of a silk dress and the banging of another door at the opposite end of the passage
and inquired whether he should tell her that i had come in i desired him not to disturb her as it was my intention to go out again immediately i went into my study and wrote a short note there to clara merely telling her that i should be absent in the country for two days
and was about to leave the room when i heard the library door open i instantly drew back and half closed my own door again clara had got the book she wanted and was taking it up to her own sitting room
i waited till she was out of sight and then left the house it was the first time i had ever avoided my sister my sister who had never in her life asked a question or uttered a word that could annoy me my sister who had confided
as i thought on what i had done i felt a sense of humiliation which was almost punishment enough for the meanness of which i had been guilty i went round to the stables and had my horse saddled immediately
no idea of proceeding in any particular direction occurred to me i simply felt resolved to pass my two days ordeal of suspense away from home far enough away to keep me faithful to my promise not to see margaret soon after i started
i left my horse to his own guidance and gave myself up to my thoughts and recollections as one by one they rose within me the animal took the direction which he had been oftenest used to take during my residence in london the northern road
it was not until i had ridden half a mile beyond the suburbs that i looked round me and discovered towards what part of the country i was proceeding i drew the rein directly and turned my horse's head back again
to follow the favourite road which i had so often followed with clara to stop perhaps at some place where i had often stopped with her was more than i had the courage or the insensibility to do at that moment
i rode as far as ewell and stopped there the darkness had overtaken me and it was useless to tire my horse by going on any greater distance the next morning i was up almost with sunrise and passed the greater part of the day in walking about among villages lanes and fields
just as chance led me during the night many thoughts that i had banished for the last week had returned those thoughts of evil omen under which the mind seems to ache just as the body aches under a dull heavy pain
to which we can assign no particular place or cause absent from margaret i had no resource against the oppression that now overcame me i could only endeavour to alleviate it by keeping incessantly in action by walking or riding
besides what i had observed of margaret's father especially during the latter part of my interview with him showed me plainly enough that he was trying to conceal under exaggerated surprise and assumed hesitation his secret desire to profit at once by my offer
which whatever conditions might clog it was infinitely more advantageous in a social point of view than any he could have hoped for it was not his delay in accepting my proposals but the burden of deceit
the fetters of concealment forced on me by the proposals themselves which now hung heavy on my heart that evening i left ewell and rode towards home again as far as richmond where i remained for the night and the forepart of the next day
i reached london in the afternoon and got to north villa without going home first about five o'clock the oppression was still on my spirits even the sight of the house where margaret lived failed to invigorate or arouse me
on this occasion when i was shown into the drawing room both mister and missus sherwin were awaiting me there on the table was the sherry which had been so perseveringly pressed on me at the last interview and by it a new pound cake
missus sherwin was cutting the cake as i came in while her husband watched the process with critical eyes the poor woman's weak white fingers trembled as they moved the knife under conjugal inspection
most happy to see you again most happy indeed my dear sir said mister sherwin advancing with hospitable smile and outstretched hand allow me to introduce my better half missus s his wife rose in a hurry and curtseyed
leaving the knife sticking in the cake upon which mister sherwin with a stern look at her ostentatiously pulled it out and set it down rather violently on the dish poor missus sherwin
i had hardly noticed her on the day when she got into the omnibus with her daughter it was as if i now saw her for the first time there is a natural communicativeness about women's emotions a happy woman
imperceptibly diffuses her happiness around her she has an influence that is something akin to the influence of a sunshiny day so again the melancholy of a melancholy woman is invariably though silently infectious
and missus sherwin was one of this latter order her pale sickly moist looking skin her large mild watery light blue eyes the restless timidity of her expression
the mixture of useless hesitation and involuntary rapidity in every one of her actions all furnished the same significant betrayal of a life of incessant fear and restraint
of a disposition full of modest generosities and meek sympathies which had been crushed down past rousing to self assertion past ever seeing the light there in that mild wan face of hers
in those painful startings and hurryings when she moved in that tremulous faint utterance when she spoke there i could see one of those ghastly heart tragedies laid open before me which are acted and re acted scene by scene
in the secret theatre of home tragedies which are ever shadowed by the slow falling of the black curtain that drops lower and lower every day that drops to hide all at last from the hand of death
said missus sherwin almost inaudibly looking as she spoke with anxious eyes towards her husband to see if she was justified in uttering even those piteously common place words very beautiful weather to be sure continued the poor woman
and had been ordered to say her first lesson in a stranger's presence delightful weather missus sherwin i have been enjoying it for the last two days in the country in a part of surrey the neighbourhood of ewell that i had not seen before there was a pause
mister sherwin coughed it was evidently a warning matrimonial peal that he had often rung before for missus sherwin started and looked up at him directly
as the lady of the house missus s it strikes me that you might offer a visitor like this gentleman some cake and wine without making any particular hole in your manners
that the decanter tinkled all the while against the glass though i wanted nothing i ate and drank something immediately in common consideration for missus sherwin's embarrassment mister sherwin filled himself a glass held it up admiringly to the light
said your good health sir your very good health
his wife to whom he offered nothing looked at him all the time with the most reverential attention you are taking nothing yourself missus sherwin i said
this sherry stands me in six shillings a bottle ought to be first rate wine at that price and so it is well if you won't have any more we will proceed to business ha ha business as i call it
missus sherwin coughed a very weak small cough half stifled in its birth
well sir the evening after you left me i had what you may call an explanation with my dear girl
here missus sherwin put her handkerchief to her eyes quite noiselessly for she had doubtless acquired by long practice the habit of weeping in silence her husband's quick glance turned on her however immediately
he said indignantly what is there to cry about
this is a most annoying circumstance and before a visitor too you had better leave me to discuss the matter alone you always were in the way of business and it's my opinion you always will be missus sherwin prepared without a word of remonstrance to leave the room
i sincerely felt for her but could say nothing in the impulse of the moment i rose to open the door for her and immediately repented having done so the action added so much to her embarrassment that she kicked her foot against a chair
mister sherwin helped himself to a second glass of wine without taking the smallest notice of this i hope missus sherwin has not hurt herself i said oh dear no not worth a moment's thought awkwardness and nervousness nothing else she always was nervous the doctors all humbugs
can do nothing with her it's very sad very sad indeed but there's no help for it by this time in spite of all my efforts to preserve some respect for him as margaret's father he had sunk to his proper place in my estimation well my dear sir he resumed
the adventure of the cantankerous old lady
i naturally made up my mind to go round the world it was my stepfather's death that drove me to it i had never seen my stepfather indeed
i owed him nothing except my poverty he married my dear mother when i was a girl at school in switzerland and he proceeded to spend her little fortune left at her sole disposal by my father's will in paying his gambling debts
after that he carried my dear mother off to burma and when he and the climate between them had succeeded in killing her he made up for his appropriations at the cheapest rate by allowing me just enough to send me to girton
so when the colonel died in the year i was leaving college i did not think it necessary to go into mourning for him especially as he chose the precise moment when my allowance was due
of course you will teach said elsie petheridge when i explained my affairs to her there is a good demand just now for high school teachers i looked at her aghast teach elsie
nature did not cut me out for a high school teacher i couldn't swallow a poker if i tried for weeks pokers don't agree with me between ourselves i am a bit of a rebel you are brownie she answered
pausing in her papering with her sleeves rolled up they called me brownie partly because of my dark complexion but partly because they could never understand me we all knew that long ago
i laid down the paste brush and mused do you remember elsie i said staring hard at the paper board when i first went to girton how all you girls wore your hair quite straight in neat smooth coils
and yet after all there isn't much harm in you i hope not i said devoutly i was before my time that was all at present even a curate's wife may blamelessly bicycle
but if you don't teach elsie went on gazing at me with those wondering big blue eyes of hers whatever will you do brownie her horizon was bounded by the scholastic circle
i haven't the faintest idea i answered continuing to paste only as i can't trespass upon your elegant hospitality for life
when we've finished the papering i couldn't teach teaching like mauve is the refuge of the incompetent and i don't if possible want to sell bonnets as a milliner's girl
though it looks at first sight like muddy flagstones london the greatest and richest city in the world where an adventurous soul ought surely to find some loophole for an adventure that piece is hung crooked dear
we shall have to take it down again i devise a plan therefore i submit myself to fate or if you prefer it i leave my future in the hands of providence i shall stroll out this morning
as soon as i've cleaned myself and embrace the first stray enterprise that offers our bagdad teems with enchanted carpets let one but float my way and hi presto i seize it
what will you do to find one put on my hat and walk out i answered nothing could be simpler this city bursts with enterprises and surprises
omnibuses traverse it from end to end even i am told to islington and putney within folk sit face to face who never saw one another before in their lives and who may never see one another again or on the contrary
may pass the rest of their days together i had a lovely harangue all pat in my head in much the same strain on the infinite possibilities of entertaining angels unawares in cabs on the underground
but elsie's widening eyes of horror pulled me up short like a hansom in piccadilly when the inexorable upturned hand of the policeman checks it oh brownie
you never will learn what i mean you don't understand the language no no i am going out simply in search of adventure what adventure may come i have not at this moment the faintest conception
i have never been to one elsie put in gracious heavens neither have i what on earth do you take me for but i mean to see where fate will lead me i may go with you elsie pleaded
certainly not my child i answered she was three years older than i so i had the right to patronise her that would spoil all your dear little face would be quite enough to scare away a timid adventure
she knew what i meant it was gentle and pensive but it lacked initiative so when we had finished that wall i popped on my best hat and popped out by myself into kensington gardens
i am told i ought to have been terribly alarmed at the straits in which i found myself a girl of twenty one alone in the world
without a friend to protect a relation to counsel her i don't count aunt susan who lurked in ladylike indigence at blackheath and whose counsel like her tracts was given away too profusely to everybody
to allow of one's placing any very high value upon it but as a matter of fact i must admit i was not in the least alarmed nature had endowed me with a profusion of crisp black hair and plenty of high spirits
if my eyes had been like elsie's that liquid blue which looks out upon life with mingled pity and amazement i might have felt as a girl ought to feel under such conditions but having large dark eyes with a bit of a twinkle in them
and being as well able to pilot a bicycle as any girl of my acquaintance i have inherited or acquired an outlook on the world which distinctly leans rather towards cheeriness than despondency i croak with difficulty
so i accepted my plight as an amusing experience affording full scope for the congenial exercise of courage and ingenuity how boundless are the opportunities of kensington gardens the round pond
and on the south by the amphitheatre of the albert hall but for a centre of adventure i choose the long walk it beckoned me somewhat as the north west passage beckoned my seafaring ancestors
the buccaneering mariners of elizabethan devon i sat down on a chair at the foot of an old elm with a poetic hollow prosaically filled by a utilitarian plate of galvanised iron
two ancient ladies were seated on the other side already very grand looking dames with the haughty and exclusive ugliness of the english aristocracy in its later stages
commend me to the noble dowager
she wore coffee coloured point lace in her bonnet with a complexion to match but what could i do my dear i simply couldn't put up with such insolence so i looked her straight back in the face oh she quailed i can tell you
and i said to her in my iciest voice you know how icy i can be when occasion demands it' the second old lady nodded an ungrudging assent as if perfectly prepared to admit her friend's rare gift of iciness
and half an hour to get out of this house and she dropped me a deep reverence and she answered oui madame merci beaucoup madame je ne desire pas mieux madame and out she flounced so there was the end of it
still you go to schlangenbad on monday that's the point on monday if it weren't for the journey i should have been glad enough to be rid of the minx i'm glad as it is indeed
for a more insolent upstanding independent answer you back again young woman with a sneer of her own i never saw amelia but i must get to schlangenbad now there the difficulty comes in on the one hand
you have to wait upon her instead of her waiting upon you she gets seasick on the crossing and when she reaches france or germany she hates the meals and she detests the hotel servants and she can't speak the language
so that she's always calling you in to interpret for her in her private differences with the fille de chambre and the landlord or else i must pick up a french maid in london and i know equally by experience that the french maids one engages in london
are invariably dishonest more dishonest than the rest even
then again on the other hand i can't wait to get a gretchen an unsophisticated little gretchen of the taunus at schlangenbad i suppose there are unsophisticated girls in germany still made in germany
they don't make em any longer in england i'm sure like everything else the trade in rustic innocence has been driven from the country i can't wait to get a gretchen as i should like to do of course
because i simply daren't undertake to cross the channel alone and go all that long journey
to schlangenbad you could get a temporary maid her friend suggested in a lull of the tornado the cantankerous old lady flared up yes and have my jewel case stolen
or find she was an english girl without one word of german or nurse her on the boat when i want to give my undivided attention to my own misfortunes no amelia i call it positively unkind of you to suggest such a thing you're so unsympathetic
i put my foot down there i will not take any temporary person i saw my chance this was a delightful idea why not start for schlangenbad with the cantankerous old lady
of course i had not the slightest intention of taking a lady's maid's place for a permanency nor even if it comes to that as a passing expedient but if i wanted to go round the world
how could i do better than set out by the rhine country the rhine leads you on to the danube the danube to the black sea the black sea to asia and so by way of india china and japan you reach the pacific and san francisco
i said in my suavest voice but i think i see a way out of your difficulty my first impression was that the cantankerous old lady would go off in a fit of apoplexy
she grew purple in the face with indignation and astonishment that a casual outsider should venture to address her so much so indeed
then she scanned me up and down as if i were a girl in a mantle shop and she contemplated buying either me or the mantle at last catching my eye she thought better of it and burst out laughing
she asked i flushed up in turn this is a public place i replied with dignity and you spoke in a tone which was hardly designed for the strictest privacy
if you don't wish to be overheard you oughtn't to shout besides i desired to do you a service the cantankerous old lady regarded me once more from head to foot i did not quail then
the girl has spirit she remarked in an encouraging tone as if she were discussing some absent person upon my word amelia i rather like the look of her well my good woman
i don't object to going to schlangenbad i would convoy you over as companion or lady help or anything else you choose to call it i would remain with you there for a week till you could arrange with your gretchen presumably unsophisticated
and then i would leave you salary is unimportant my fare suffices i accept the chance as a cheap opportunity of attaining schlangenbad the yellow faced old lady put up her long handled tortoise shell eyeglasses
and inspected me all over again well i declare she murmured what are girls coming to i wonder girton you say girton that place at cambridge you speak greek of course but how about german
like a native i answered with cheerful promptitude i was at school in canton berne
those little lips could never frame themselves to schlecht or wunderschoen they were not cut out for it pardon me i answered in german what i say that i mean the never to be forgotten music of the fatherland's speech
has on my infant ear from the first beginning impressed itself the old lady laughed aloud don't jabber it to me child she cried i hate the lingo
it's the one tongue on earth that even a pretty girl's lips fail to render attractive you yourself make faces over it what's your name young woman lois cayley lois what a name
i never heard of any lois in my life before except timothy's grandmother you're not anybody's grandmother are you not to my knowledge i answered gravely she burst out laughing again
well you'll do i think she said catching my arm that big mill down yonder hasn't ground the originality altogether out of you
lois cayley you say any relation of a madcap captain cayley whom i used once to know in the forty second highlanders his daughter i answered flushing
for i was proud of my father ha i remember he died poor fellow he was a good soldier and his' i felt she was going to say his fool of a widow but a glance from me quelled her
his widow went and married that good looking scapegrace jack watts morgan never marry a man my dear with a double barrelled name and no visible means of subsistence above all if he's generally known by a nickname
well well we can settle this little matter between us mind i'm a person who always expects to have my own way if you come with me to schlangenbad you must do as i tell you
do i look like a woman who cares about a reference what are called characters are usually essays in how not to say it you take my fancy that's the point and poor tom cayley
a faint red spot rose quaintly in the centre of the cantankerous old lady's sallow cheek my dear she murmured my name is the one thing on earth i'm really ashamed of
my parents chose to inflict upon me the most odious label that human ingenuity ever devised for a christian soul and i've not had courage enough to burst out and change it a gleam of intuition flashed across me
i have suppressed the georgina it ought to be made penal to send innocent girls into the world so burdened my opinion to a t you are really an exceptionally sensible young woman there's my name and address
i start on monday i glanced at her card the very copperplate was noisy lady georgina fawley forty nine fortescue crescent w it had taken us twenty minutes to arrange our protocols
as i walked off well pleased lady georgina's friend ran after me quickly you must take care she said in a warning voice you've caught a tartar so i suspect i answered
she has an awful temper that's nothing so have i appalling i assure you and if it comes to blows i'm bigger and younger and stronger than she is well i wish you well out of it thank you
it is kind of you to give me this warning but i think i can take care of myself i come you see of a military family i nodded my thanks and strolled back to elsie's
dear little elsie was in transports of surprise when i related my adventure will you really go and what will you do my dear when you get there i haven't a notion i answered that's where the fun comes in but anyhow i shall have got there
i kissed her fluffy forehead you good generous little elsie i cried i won't stop here one moment after i have finished the painting and papering i came here to help you
i couldn't go on eating your hard earned bread and doing nothing i know how sweet you are but the last thing i want is to add to your burdens now let us roll up our sleeves again and hurry on with the dado
now don't look at me like that be practical elsie and let me help you paint the dado
i cut out half her clothes for her her own ideas were almost entirely limited to differential calculus and cutting out a blouse by differential calculus is weary uphill work for a high school teacher
by monday i had papered and furnished the rooms and was ready to start on my voyage of exploration i met the cantankerous old lady at charing cross by appointment and proceeded to take charge of her luggage and tickets
you will drop that basket i hope you have got through tickets via malines not by brussels i won't go by brussels you have to change there now mind you notice how much the luggage weighs in english pounds
and make the man at the office give you a note of it to check those horrid belgian porters they'll charge you for double the weight unless you reduce it at once to kilogrammes i know their ways foreigners have no consciences
they just go to the priest and confess you know and wipe it all out and start fresh again on a career of crime next morning i'm sure i don't know why i ever go abroad the only country in the world fit to live in is england
no mosquitoes no passports no goodness gracious child don't let that odious man bang about my hat box have you no immortal soul porter that you crush other people's property as if it was blackbeetles no i will not let you take this lois
this is my jewel box it contains all that remains of the fawley family jewels i positively decline to appear at schlangenbad without a diamond to my back this never leaves my hands
i say continental because i couldn't quite make out whether he was french german or austrian who was anxious in every way to meet lady georgina's wishes did madame desire to have the window open oh certainly with pleasure the day was so sultry
closed a little more parfaitement there was a current of air il faut l'admettre madame would prefer the corner no then perhaps she would like this valise for a footstool permettez just thus
a cold draught runs so often along the floor in railway carriages this is kent that we traverse ah the garden of england as a diplomat he knew every nook of europe and he echoed the mot he had accidentally heard drop from madame's lips on the platform
no country in the world so delightful as england monsieur is attached to the embassy in london lady georgina inquired growing affable he twirled his grey moustache a waxed moustache of great distinction
no madame i have quitted the diplomatic service
i find it the most fascinating capital in europe what gaiety what movement what poetry what mystery if mystery means fog it challenges the world i interposed he gazed at me with fixed eyes
yes mademoiselle
whatever your great country attempts were it only a fog it achieves consummately i have quick intuitions i felt the foreign gentleman took an instinctive dislike to me
to make up for it he talked much and with animation to lady georgina they ferreted out friends in common and were as much surprised at it as people always are at that inevitable experience ah yes madame i recollect him well in vienna
he was a charming man you read his masterly paper on the central problem of the dual empire you were in vienna then the cantankerous old lady mused back lois my child don't stare'
and he handed it across to her she read it and passed it on
oh i remember your name well the cantankerous old lady broke in i think you knew my husband sir evelyn fawley and my father lord kynaston the count looked profoundly surprised and delighted
what you are then lady georgina fawley he cried striking an attitude indeed miladi your admirable husband was one of the very first to exert his influence in my favour at vienna
do i recall him ce cher sir evelyn if i recall him
i must have seen you some years ago at vienna miladi
but your face had impressed itself on my sub conscious self i did not learn till later that the esoteric doctrine of the sub conscious self was lady georgina's favourite hobby the moment chance led me to this carriage this morning
the diplomatic service some unnameable charm some faint touch of eccentricity ha i have it vienna a carriage with footmen in red livery a noble presence
a crowd of wits poets artists politicians pressing eagerly round the landau that was my mental picture as i sat and confronted you i understand it all now
i thought the cantankerous old lady who was a shrewd person in her way must surely see through this obvious patter but i had under estimated the average human capacity for swallowing flattery
not the obvious beauty of mere youth and health' he glanced across at me disdainfully the profounder beauty of deep character in a face that calm and serene beauty
i have had my moments lady georgina murmured with her head on one side
the count answered and ogled her thenceforward to dover they talked together with ceaseless animation the cantankerous old lady was capital company she had a tang in her tongue and in the course of ninety minutes
she had flayed alive the greater part of london society with keen wit and sprightliness i laughed against my will at her ill tempered sallies they were too funny not to amuse in spite of their vitriol as for the count
lady georgina resisted his ingenious efforts to gain possession of her precious jewel case as she descended the gangway she clung to it like grim death even in the chops of the channel fortunately i am a good sailor
and when lady georgina's sallow cheeks began to grow pale i was steady enough to supply her with her shawl and her smelling bottle she fidgeted and worried the whole way over she would be treated like a vertebrate animal
the impertinence of the hussies with the bright red hair
oh that placid old gentleman in the episcopal gaiters was their father was he well a bishop should bring up his daughters better having his children in subjection with all gravity
missus van brandt at home as i lifted my hand to ring the house bell the door was opened from within and no less a person than mister van brandt himself stood before me he had his hat on
we had evidently met just as he was going out my dear sir how good this is of you you present the best of all replies to my letter in presenting yourself missus van brandt is at home missus van brandt will be delighted pray walk in
he threw open the door of a room on the ground floor his politeness was if possible even more offensive than his insolence be seated mister germaine i beg of you
mary come down directly mary i knew her christian name at last and knew it through van brandt no words can tell how the name jarred on me spoken by his lips for the first time for years
past my mind went back to mary dermody and greenwater broad the next moment i heard the rustling of missus van brandt's dress on the stairs as the sound caught my ear
the old times and the old faces vanished again from my thoughts as completely as if they had never existed what had she in common with the frail shy little child her namesake of other days
what similarity was perceivable in the sooty london lodging house to remind me of the bailiff's flower scented cottage by the shores of the lake van brandt took off his hat and bowed to me with sickening servility
i have a business appointment he said which it is impossible to put off pray excuse me missus van brandt will do the honors good morning the house door opened and closed again the rustling of the dress came slowly nearer and nearer
she stood before me mister germaine she exclaimed starting back as if the bare sight of me repelled her is this honorable is this worthy of you you allow me to be entrapped into receiving you
and you accept as your accomplice mister van brandt oh sir i have accustomed myself to look up to you as a high minded man how bitterly you have disappointed me her reproaches passed by me unheeded
they only heightened her color they only added a new rapture to the luxury of looking at her if you loved me as faithfully as i love you i said you would understand why i am here
no sacrifice is too great if it brings me into your presence again after two years of absence she suddenly approached me and fixed her eyes in eager scrutiny on my face
there must be some mistake she said you cannot possibly have received my letter or you have not read it i have received it and i have read it and van brandt's letter you have read that too
yes she sat down by the table and leaning her arms on it covered her face with her hands my answers seemed not only to have distressed but to have perplexed her
are men all alike i heard her say i thought i might trust in his sense of what was due to himself and of what was compassionate toward me i closed the door
and seated myself by her side she removed her hands from her face when she felt me near her she looked at me with a cold and steady surprise
she asked i am going to try if i can recover my place in your estimation i said i am going to ask your pity for a man whose whole heart is yours whose whole life is bound up in you
she started to her feet and looked round her incredulously as if doubting whether she had rightly heard and rightly interpreted my last words before i could speak again she suddenly faced me
and struck her open hand on the table with a passionate resolution which i now saw in her for the first time stop she cried
and an end there shall be do you know who that man is who has just left the house answer me mister germaine i am speaking in earnest there was no choice but to answer her she was indeed in earnest vehemently in earnest
his letter tells me i said that he is mister van brandt she sat down again and turned her face away from me do you know how he came to write to you she asked
i thought of the suspicion that had crossed my mind when i read van brandt's letter i made no reply you force me to tell you the truth she went on he asked me who you were last night on our way home i knew that you were rich
i told him i knew nothing of your position in the world he was too cunning to believe me he went out to the public house and looked at a directory he came back and said mister germaine has a house in berkeley square and a country seat in the highlands
i mean to make a friend of him and i expect you to make a friend of him too he sat down and wrote to you i am living under that man's protection mister germaine his wife is not dead as you may suppose she is living
and i know her to be living i wrote to you that i was beneath your notice and you have obliged me to tell you why am i sufficiently degraded to bring you to your senses i drew closer to her
she tried to get up and leave me i knew my power over her and used it as any man in my place would have used it without scruple i took her hand i don't believe you have voluntarily degraded yourself i said
you have been forced into your present position there are circumstances which excuse you and which you are purposely keeping back from me nothing will convince me that you are a base woman should i love you as i love you
if you were really unworthy of me she struggled to free her hand i still held it she tried to change the subject there is one thing you haven't told me yet she said with a faint forced smile
have you seen the apparition of me again since i left you no have you ever seen me again as you saw me in your dream at the inn in edinburgh never our visions of each other have left us can you tell why
if we had continued to speak on this subject we must surely have recognized each other but the subject dropped instead of answering her question i drew her nearer to me i returned to the forbidden subject of my love
look at me i pleaded and tell me the truth can you see me can you hear me and do you feel no answering sympathy in your own heart do you really care nothing for me
have you never once thought of me in all the time that has passed since we last met i spoke as i felt fervently passionately she made a last effort to repel me and yielded
even as she made it her hand closed on mine a low sigh fluttered on her lips she answered with a sudden self abandonment she recklessly cast herself loose from the restraints
which had held her up to this time i think of you perpetually she said i was thinking of you at the opera last night my heart leaped in me when i heard your voice in the street you love me i whispered
love you she repeated my whole heart goes out to you in spite of myself degraded as i am unworthy as i am knowing as i do that nothing can ever come of it i love you i love you
she threw her arms round my neck and held me to her with all her strength
oh don't tempt me she murmured be merciful and leave me i was beside myself i spoke as recklessly to her as she had spoken to me prove that you love me i said
let me rescue you from the degradation of living with that man leave him at once and forever leave him and come with me to a future that is worthy of you your future as my wife never she answered crouching low at my feet why not
what obstacle is there i can't tell you i daren't tell you will you write it no i can't even write it to you go i implore you before van brandt comes back go if you love me and pity me
she had roused my jealousy i positively refused to leave her i insist on knowing what binds you to that man i said let him come back if you won't answer my question i will put it to him
she looked at me wildly with a cry of terror she saw my resolution in my face don't frighten me she said let me think she reflected for a moment her eyes brightened as if some new way
out of the difficulty had occurred to her have you a mother living she asked yes do you think she would come and see me i am sure she would if i asked her she considered with herself once more
i will tell your mother what the obstacle is she said thoughtfully when to morrow at this time she raised herself on her knees the tears suddenly filled her eyes she drew me to her gently
kiss me she whispered you will never come here again kiss me for the last time my lips had barely touched hers when she started to her feet and snatched up my hat from the chair on which i had placed it
take your hat she said he has come back my duller sense of hearing had discovered nothing i rose and took my hat to quiet her at the same moment the door of the room opened suddenly and softly
mister van brandt came in i saw in his face that he had some vile motive of his own for trying to take us by surprise and that the result of the experiment had disappointed him you are not going yet
he said speaking to me with his eye on missus van brandt i have hurried over my business in the hope of prevailing on you to stay and take lunch with us put down your hat mister germaine no ceremony you are very good i answered
my time is limited to day i must beg you and missus van brandt to excuse me i took leave of her as i spoke she turned deadly pale when she shook hands with me at parting
had she any open brutality to dread from van brandt as soon as my back was turned the bare suspicion of it made my blood boil but i thought of her in her interests the wise thing and the merciful thing to do
was to conciliate the fellow before i left the house i am sorry not to be able to accept your invitation i said as we walked together to the door perhaps you will give me another chance his eyes twinkled cunningly
what do you say to a quiet little dinner here he asked a slice of mutton you know and a bottle of good wine only our three selves and one old friend of mine to make up four we will have a rubber of whist in the evening
when shall it be shall we say the day after to morrow she had followed us to the door keeping behind van brandt while he was speaking to me when he mentioned the old friend and the rubber of whist
her face expressed the strongest emotions of shame and disgust the next moment when she had heard him fix the date of the dinner for the day after to morrow her features became composed again
as if a sudden sense of relief had come to her what did the change mean to morrow was the day she had appointed for seeing my mother did she really believe when i had heard what passed at the interview
that i should never enter the house again and never attempt to see her more and was this the secret of her composure when she heard the date of the dinner appointed for the day after to morrow asking myself these questions
i accepted my invitation and left the house with a heavy heart that farewell kiss that sudden composure when the day of the dinner was fixed weighed on my spirits
i would have given twelve years of my life to have annihilated the next twelve hours in this frame of mind i reached home and presented myself in my mother's sitting room
did the fine weather tempt you my dear she paused and looked at me more closely george she exclaimed
i told her the truth as honestly as i have told it here the color deepened in my mother's face she looked at me and spoke to me with a severity which was rare indeed in my experience of her
must i remind you for the first time in your life of what is due to your mother she asked is it possible that you expect me to visit a woman who by her own confession
i expect you to visit a woman who has only to say the word and to be your daughter in law i interposed surely i am not asking what is unworthy of you if i ask that my mother looked at me in blank dismay
do you mean george that you have offered her marriage yes and she has said no she has said no because there is some obstacle in her way
i have tried vainly to make her explain herself she has promised to confide everything to you the serious nature of the emergency had its effect my mother yielded she handed me the little ivory tablets
on which she was accustomed to record her engagements write down the name and address she said resignedly i will go with you i answered and wait in the carriage at the door
is it as serious as that george
chapter eleven the letter of introduction
it was an inn of no great size but of respectable appearance if i was to be of any use to her that night the time had come to speak of other subjects than the subject of dreams
only let me hear how i can relieve your most pressing anxieties what are your plans can i do anything to help them before you go to rest to night she thanked me warmly and hesitated
looking up the street and down the street in evident embarrassment what to say next do you propose staying in edinburgh i asked oh no i don't wish to remain in scotland i want to go much further away
i think i should do better in london at some respectable milliner's if i could be properly recommended i am quick at my needle and i understand cutting out or i could keep accounts if if anybody would trust me
she stopped and looked at me doubtingly as if she felt far from sure poor soul of winning my confidence to begin with i acted on that hint with the headlong impetuosity of a man who was in love
i can give you exactly the recommendation you want i said whenever you like now if you would prefer it her charming features brightened with pleasure oh you are indeed a friend to me she said impulsively
her face clouded again she saw my proposal in a new light have i any right she asked sadly to accept what you offer me let me give you the letter i answered and you can decide for yourself whether you will use it or not
i put her arm again in mine and entered the inn she shrunk back in alarm what would the landlady think if she saw her lodger enter the house at night in company with a stranger and that stranger a gentleman
the landlady appeared as she made the objection reckless what i said or what i did i introduced myself as her relative and asked to be shown into a quiet room in which i could write a letter
after one sharp glance at me the landlady appeared to be satisfied that she was dealing with a gentleman she led the way into a sort of parlor behind the bar placed writing materials on the table looked at my companion
as only one woman can look at another under certain circumstances and left us by ourselves it was the first time i had ever been in a room with her alone the embarrassing sense of her position
had heightened her color and brightened her eyes she stood leaning one hand on the table confused and irresolute her firm and supple figure falling into an attitude of unsought grace
which it was literally a luxury to look at i said nothing my eyes confessed my admiration the writing materials lay untouched before me on the table how long the silence might have lasted i cannot say
she abruptly broke it her instinct warned her that silence might have its dangers in our position she turned to me with an effort she said uneasily i don't think you ought to write your letter to night sir
why not you know nothing of me surely you ought not to recommend a person who is a stranger to you and i am worse than a stranger i am a miserable wretch who has tried to commit a great sin
perhaps the misery i was in might be some excuse for me if you knew it you ought to know it but it's so late to night and i am so sadly tired
in the presence of a man her head sunk on her bosom her delicate lips trembled a little she said no more the way to reassure and console her lay plainly enough before me if i chose to take it without stopping to think
i took it reminding her that she had herself proposed writing to me when we met that evening i suggested that she should wait to tell the sad story of her troubles until it was convenient to her to send me the narrative in the form of a letter
in the mean time i added i have the most perfect confidence in you and i beg as a favor that you will let me put it to the proof i can introduce you to a dressmaker in london who is at the head of a large establishment
and i will do it before i leave you to night i dipped my pen in the ink as i said the words let me confess frankly the lengths to which my infatuation led me the dressmaker to whom i had alluded
and had been established in business with money lent by my late step father mister germaine i used both their names without scruple and i wrote my recommendation in terms which the best of living women
and the ablest of existing dressmakers could never have hoped to merit will anybody find excuses for me those rare persons who have been in love and who have not completely forgotten it yet may perhaps find excuses for me
it matters little i don't deserve them i handed her the open letter to read she blushed delightfully she cast one tenderly grateful look at me which i remembered but too well for many and many
an after day the next moment to my astonishment this changeable creature changed again some forgotten consideration seemed to have occurred to her she turned pale the soft lines of pleasure in her face hardened
little by little she regarded me with the saddest look of confusion and distress putting the letter down before me on the table she said timidly would you mind adding a postscript sir
i suppressed all appearance of surprise as well as i could and took up the pen again would you please say she went on that i am only to be taken on trial at first i am not to be engaged for more
her voice sunk lower and lower so that i could barely hear the next words for more than three months certain it was not in human nature perhaps i ought to say it was not in the nature of a man who was in my situation
to refrain from showing some curiosity on being asked to supplement a letter of recommendation by such a postscript as this have you some other employment in prospect i asked none she answered with her head down and her eyes avoiding mine
an unworthy doubt of her the mean offspring of jealousy found its way into my mind have you some absent friend i went on who is likely to prove a better friend than i am if you only give him time
she lifted her noble head her grand guileless gray eyes rested on me with a look of patient reproach i have not got a friend in the world she said for god's sake ask me no more questions to night
i rose and gave her the letter once more with the postscript added in her own words we stood together by the table we looked at each other in a momentary silence how can i thank you she murmured softly
oh sir i will indeed be worthy of the confidence that you have shown in me her eyes moistened her variable color came and went her dress heaved softly over the lovely outline of her bosom
i don't believe the man lives who could have resisted her at that moment i lost all power of restraint i caught her in my arms i whispered i love you i kissed her passionately
for a moment she lay helpless and trembling on my breast for a moment her fragrant lips softly returned the kiss in an instant more it was over she tore herself away with a shudder that shook her from head to foot
and threw the letter that i had given to her indignantly at my feet how dare you take advantage of me how dare you touch me she said take your letter back sir i refuse to receive it
you don't know what you have done you don't know how deeply you have wounded me oh she cried throwing herself in despair on a sofa that stood near her shall i ever recover my self respect shall i ever forgive myself
for what i have done to night i implored her pardon i assured her of my repentance and regret in words which did really come from my heart the violence of her agitation more than distressed me
i was really alarmed by it she composed herself after a while she rose to her feet with modest dignity and silently held out her hand in token that my repentance was accepted
you will give me time for atonement i pleaded you will not lose all confidence in me
at your own time in the presence of another person if you like i will write to you she said to morrow to morrow i took up the letter of recommendation from the floor
make your goodness to me complete i said don't mortify me by refusing to take my letter i will take your letter she answered quietly thank you for writing it leave me now please good night
i left her pale and sad with my letter in her hand
which gradually resolved themselves into two master feelings as i walked on love that adored her more fervently than ever and hope
the morrow would see the destroyer floated out to carry her three hundred odd feet of menace into the blues and greys of the ocean blake was a man upon whom silence had descended as a blight heavy of build
slow of thought ponderous of movement he absorbed all and apparently gave out nothing his most acute emotion he expressed by fingering the right hand side of his ragged beard
whilst his eyes seemed to smoulder as his thoughts slowly took shape as he gazed down at the grey shape of the destroyer's hull there was in his eyes a strange look of absorption
for nearly two years he had lived for the destroyer
labour and recreation food and drink nothing else mattered because nothing else was the war existed only in so far as it was concerned with the destroyer
it was the mise en scene for this wonder boat it was to be her setting just as a stage is the setting for a play
as he gazed down at her he fumbled in the pocket of his pilot jacket and drew forth a cigar one of a box that john dene had sent him slowly and deliberately he pulled out his jack knife cut off the end
and taking a good grip of the cigar with his teeth lighted it all without once raising his eyes from the destroyer as he puffed clouds of smoke for the breeze to pick up and scurry off with to the west
he thought lovingly of the work of the last two years of the last month in particular never had men worked as had james blake and his boys it was not for country or for gain that they slaved and sweated
it was not patriotism or pride of race that caused them to work until forced by sheer inability to keep awake to lie down for a few hours sleep always within sound of their comrades hammers
often beside the destroyer herself it was the boss for whom they worked they were his men and this was their boat every time john dene wrote to blake
the boys i know the boys will show these britishers what canada can do he would write or see that the boys get all they want and plenty to smoke remembering was john dene's long suit
and his men would do anything for the boss blake had not spared himself when not engaged in the work of overseeing he had thrown off his coat and worked with the most vigorous he seemed never to sleep or rest
plans there had been in his shack but what were the use of plans to a man who had every line every bolt and nut engraved upon his brain he had them merely for reference
and now all was ready that morning the destroyer had been floated into the toronto to see that everything on the mother ship was in order
once floated out again there remained only the taking on board stores and munitions these lay piled upon the toronto's deck ready at the word of command to be transferred to the destroyer
tapering to a point fore and aft
but these were in the nature of an auxiliary armament her main armament consisted of eight pneumatic tubes two in the bows two in the stern one on either bow and one on either beam
these fired small arrow headed missiles rather like miniature torpedoes fitted with lance heads for cutting through nets they had sufficient power to penetrate the plates of a submarine
and were furnished with an automatic detonator which caused the bursting charge to explode three seconds after impact
large enough to ensure its immediate destruction these projectiles were rendered additionally deadly by the fact that their heads became automatically magnetic as they sped through the water
thus the target against which they were launched achieved its own destination they were fitted with small gyroscopes to keep them straight until the magnetic heads began to exert a dominating influence
amidships was the conning tower with its four searchlights so arranged as to be capable of being used singly or together thus it was possible to illuminate the waters for half a mile in every direction
above the conning tower were two collapsible periscopes and beneath it the central ballast
that john dene had boasted would send the destroyer to kingdom come should she ever be in danger of capture abaft the conning tower were the engines a switchboard and finally the berths of the engine room staff
for'ard of the conning tower were the berths of the crew and still further for'ard were those of john dene and the officers john dene's invention of a new and lighter storage battery
had enabled him to control the destroyer entirely by electricity she possessed an endurance of fifteen hundred miles and as for the most part she held a watching brief this would mean
that she could remain at sea for a month or more her speed submerged was fourteen knots which gave her a superiority over the fastest german craft and she could remain submerged for two days
she could then recharge her compressed air chambers without coming to the surface by means of a tube through which fresh air could be sucked from the surface and the foul discharged
these were weighted and floated in various parts in such a manner that they could be thrown out in a diagonal direction
the object of this was to protect the destroyer from depth charges in the event of her whereabouts being discovered by an enemy ship
and submarines fight and live under water and not on it consequently in designing the destroyer he had first considered the special requirements entailed by the novelty of the methods she would employ
she had deck guns periscopes and torpedo tubes but they were in every sense subsidiary to those qualities that rendered her unique among boats capable of submersion
under water there were only two dangers capable of threatening her mines and depth charges properly handled and without mishap
her most remarkable device however was the microphone so sensitive that with the aid of her searchlights it would enable the destroyer to account for any u boat that came within seven or eight miles of where she was lying
as blake stood surveying his handiwork he was joined by his second in command jasper quinton known among his intimates as spotty a nickname due to the irregularity of his complexion
quinton was an englishman who had gone to canada to make his fortune as a mining engineer soon after war broke out he had successfully applied to john dene for a job
and jasp as he called him had proved a cinch john dene made few mistakes about men and none about women the one he understood the other he avoided spotty quint
on spat meditatively upon the hull of the destroyer he was a man to whom words came infrequently and with difficulty but he could spit a whole gamut of emotions
anger contempt approval indifference all were represented by salivation if he were forced to speech he built up his phrases upon the foundation of a single word ruddy
but apparently with entire unconsciousness that it had its uses as an oath to spotty quinton john dene was the ruddy boss
ruddy destroyer the enemy the ruddy hun the ocean the ruddy water he served out his favourite adjective with entire impartiality
he no more meant reproach to the hun than to john dene he tacitly accepted them both the one as a power for evil the other as a power for good
blake turned and looked at him interrogatingly ruddy masterpiece exclaimed quinton
blake gazed upon the unprepossessing features of his subordinate and tugging a cigar from his pocket
bit off the end and spat it together with his thanks into the hold of the toronto he then proceeded to light the cigar the two men turned and made their way to the cabin allotted to them as a sort of office of works
both were thinking of the morrow when the destroyer would be floated out from the parent ship ready for her first voyage in addition to john dene and his second in command she would carry commander ryles
who had a distinguished record in submarine warfare he would represent the admiralty john dene had experienced some difficulty at the admiralty over the personnel of the destroyer's crew but he had stood resolutely to his guns
and the authorities had capitulated this was largely due to sir bridgman north's wise counsels when he remarked i have to choose between giving john dene his head and being gingered up
i prefer the first it's infinitely less painful sir lyster had been inclined to expostulate with his colleague upon the manner in which he gave way to john dene's demands
do you not think he had remarked in the early days of the descent of john dene upon the admiralty that it would be better for us to stand up to mister dene
for us undoubtedly sir bridgman had said drily personally i object to being gingered up look at poor blair there you see the results of the process
he ceased to be an imperialist within twenty four hours of john dene's coming upon the scene now he goes about with a hunted look in his eyes and a prayer in his heart that he may get through the day without being gingered up by the unspeakable john dene
blair and john dene represent two epochs blair is the british empire that was john dene is the british empire that is to be it's like one of nelson's old three deckers against a super dreadnought
and blair ain't the dreadnought he is certainly a remarkable man sir lyster had admitted conventionally referring to john dene he's more than that grayne said sir bridgman
he could have got literally millions for his invention from any of the big naval powers yet he chooses to give it to us for nothing and what's more he's not out for honours ginger or no ginger
john dene's a man worth meeting grayne on my soul he is blake and quinton seated themselves one on either side of the little wooden table in the cabin of the toronto
that answered as an office of works blake looking straight in front of him quinton absorbed in smoking and expectoration presently blake took from his pocket a large silver watch
gazed at it with deliberation then raising his eyes nodded to his companion with a final expectoration spotty rose and left the cabin
the man with the boat hook pushed off the motor was started and the boat throbbed her way to the entrance to the little harbour the crew of the destroyer had learned from blake the virtue of silence
for half an hour the motor boat tore her way over the waters heading due south from time to time quinton gazed ahead through a pair of binoculars starb'd he called to the helmsman
as he lowered the glass from his eyes for the twentieth time
the ruddy chaser steady he added a moment later a few minutes later a cloud of white spray indicated the approach of a small craft travelling at a high rate of speed
quinton continued to watch the approaching boat until the humped shoulders of a submarine chaser were distinguishable through the spume as the boats neared each other he gave a quick command to the engineer
and the speed of the motor boat decreased at the same moment the curtain of spray that screened the on coming chaser died down her fine and sinister lines becoming discernible dexterously
the helmsman brought the motor boat alongside the larger vessel and without a word there stepped on board a little man wearing motor goggles and a red beard of rather truculent shape
with a nod to the man with the boathook
james grant took his seat together with commander ryles beside quinton the motor boat pushed off and with a graceful sweep turned her nose northwards and proceeded to run up her own track
grant and quinton continued to talk in undertones grant asking questions quinton answering with great economy of words and prodigious salivation the chaser steering a south westerly course
was soon out of sight as the motor boat entered the little harbour grant's eyes eagerly fixed themselves upon the toronto
ready for the trial trip he enquired of quinton sure was the reply as he spat over the side jim there
for which the motor boat was making as they reached her the two men nimbly climbed up the side and quinton leading dived below to the office of works
as they entered blake was sitting exactly as quinton had left him an hour and a half previously at the sight of grant his eyes seemed to flash but he made no movement except to hold out his hand which grant gripped
through with everything he enquired as he seated himself and quinton threw himself on a locker sure replied blake i began grant then breaking off cast a swift look over his shoulder
quinton walked across and the three bent over studying it with absorbed interest
here i'm being trailed mister blair looked up from his writing table with a startled expression as john dene burst into his room
in entering a room john dene gave the impression of first endeavouring to break through the panels and appearing to turn the handle only as an afterthought trailed
john dene stood looking down at him accusingly as if he were responsible yes trailed watched tracked shadowed followed bumped into trodden on snapped john dene irritably
began mister blair oh shucks cried john dene and striding across to the door he passed into sir lyster's room morning he cried
someone's following me around again he announced and i want to know whether it's you or them me or who queried sir lyster whether it's some of your boys or the other lot
after a moment's reflection sir lyster seemed to grasp john dene's meaning i'll make enquiry he said suavely
if we were having you shadowed mister dene said sir lyster quietly and in any case it would be for your own safety
he'd better give up and start a dairy how is the destroyer progressing enquired sir lyster with the object of changing the conversation
your man had better be ready on friday
jim grant's his name sir goliath maggie has appointed commander ryles said sir lyster well let him be ready by friday
your man can't mistake him little chap with red hair all over him don't forget to call off your boys and with that john dene was gone ten minutes later
sir bridgman north found the first lord sitting at his table apparently deep in thought i can see john dene's been here laughed sir bridgman
you and blair both show all the outward visible signs of having been gingered up sir lyster smiled feebly he felt that sir bridgman was wearing the joke a little threadbare
he's been here about one of his men picking up ryles on his way to auchinlech said sir lyster a little man with red hair all over him was his description
they'll probably appreciate him there it's rather dull for em i take it that mister dene will follow in a day or two it sir lyster paused then seeing that he was expected to finish his sentence he added
it will really be something of a relief he quite upset rickards a few days ago over some requisitions i've never known him so annoyed profane you mean laughed sir bridgman what happened
apparently he objected to being called a dancing lizard and told to quit his funny work sir lyster smiled as if finding consolation in the fact that another had suffered at the hands of john dene
it's nothing to what he did to poor old rayner laughed sir bridgman a dear old chap you know but rather of the old blue water school sir lyster nodded
he remembered that admiral rayner seemed to take a delight in reminding him of his civilian status with sir lyster he was always as technical in his language as a midshipman back from his first cruise
and john dene told him to cut it out rayner protested that he was the better judge and all that sort of thing
that next time he'd better come in a dressing gown
rayner hasn't been civil to anyone since and sir bridgman laughed loudly i think my sympathies are with rayner smiled sir lyster as sir bridgman moved towards the door
frankly i don't like john dene don't like him why
he will persist in treating us as equals now i call that damned nice of him and sir bridgman left the first lord gazing at the panels of the door that closed behind him
whilst sir lyster and sir bridgman were discussing his unconventional methods with admirals john dene had returned to his office and was working at high pressure
rounded off as john dene phrased it during his absence dorothy was to be at the office each day until lunch time to attend to any matters that might crop up
if john dene required anything it was arranged that he would wireless for it and dorothy was to see that his instructions were carried out to the letter the quality about john dene
that had most impressed dorothy was his power of concentration he would become so absorbed in his work that nothing else seemed to have the power of penetrating to his brain
a question addressed to him that was unrelated to what was in hand he would ignore appearing not to have heard it on the other hand a remark germane to the trend of his thoughts would produce an instant reply
it appeared as if his mind were so attuned as to throw off all extraneous matter his quickness of decision and amazing vitality dorothy found bewildering
then make up your mind he had said on one occasion he had no use for a man who would wait until to morrow afternoon
i sleep on a bed
was another of his remarks that she remembered and once when commenting upon the cautiousness of sir lyster grayne he had said the man who takes risks makes dollars gradually
dorothy had fallen under the spell of john dene's masterful personality she found herself becoming critical of others by the simple process of comparing them with the self centred john dene
she would smile at his eccentricities his intolerance his supreme belief in himself and his almost fanatical determination to ginger up any
and how little that country was understood in england how blind british statesmen were to the fact that the eyes of many canadians were turned anxiously towards the great republic upon their borders
how in the rapid growth of the u s a they saw a convincing argument in favour of a tightening of the bonds that bound the dominion to the old country
when on the subject he would stride restlessly up and down the room snapping out short sharp sentences of protest and criticism his imperialism was that of the enthusiast
to him a canada lost to the british empire meant a british empire lost to itself his great idea was to see the old country control the world by virtue of its power its brain
and its justice his memory was amazing if dorothy found her notes obscure and to complete a sentence happened to insert a word that was not the one he had dictated
john dene would note it as he read the letter with a little grunt sometimes of approval sometimes of doubt or correction there were times when she felt
as she expressed it to her mother as if she had been dining off beef essence and oxygen
he was a small eater seeming to regard meals as a waste of time and he seldom drank anything but water at the end of the day dorothy would feel more tired than she had ever felt before
but she had caught something of john dene's enthusiasm which seemed to carry her along and defy the fatigues of the body had it not been for the saturday afternoons and the whole day's rest on sunday
she felt that she would not have been able to continue in his intolerance john dene was sometimes amusing sometimes monotonous but always uncompromising
one day dorothy ventured a word of expostulation he had just been expressing his unmeasured contempt for mister blair you mustn't judge the whole british navy by mister blair she said
looking up from her note book with a smile one fool makes many he had snapped decisively
people synonyms commonwealth
race state
and viewed as having common interests a commonwealth is such a body of persons having a common government especially a republican government as the commonwealth of massachusetts a community may be very small
a commonwealth is ordinarily of considerable extent a people is the aggregate of any public community either in distinction from their rulers or as including them
a race is a division of mankind in the line of origin and ancestry the people of the united states includes members of almost every race the use of people as signifying persons collectively as in the statement
the hall was full of people has been severely criticized but is old and accepted english
as dean alford suggests it would make a strange transformation of the old hymn all people that on earth do dwell to sing all persons that on earth do dwell a state is an organized political community
considered in its corporate capacity as a body politic and corporate as a legislative act is the act of the state every citizen is entitled to the protection of the state a nation
is an organized political community considered with reference to the persons composing it as having certain definite boundaries a definite number of citizens et cetera the members of a people are referred to as persons or individuals
the individual members of a state or nation are called citizens or subjects the population of a country is simply the aggregate of persons residing within its borders without reference to race
organization or allegiance unnaturalized residents form part of the population but not of the nation possessing none of the rights and being subject to none of the duties of citizens
in american usage state signifies one commonwealth of the federal union known as the united states tribe is now almost wholly applied to rude peoples with very imperfect political organization
as the indian tribes nomadic tribes compare mob perceive synonyms apprehend comprehend conceive understand
we perceive what is presented through the senses we apprehend what is presented to the mind whether through the senses or by any other means yet perceive is used in the figurative sense of seeing through to a conclusion
in a way for which usage would not allow us to substitute apprehend as sir i perceive that thou art a prophet
that which we apprehend we catch as with the hand that which we conceive we are able to analyze and recompose in our mind that which we comprehend we as it were grasp around
take together seize embrace wholly within the mind many things may be apprehended which can not be comprehended a child can apprehend the distinction between right and wrong
yet the philosopher can not comprehend it in its fulness we can apprehend the will of god as revealed in conscience or the scriptures we can conceive of certain attributes of deity as his truth and justice
but no finite intelligence can comprehend the divine nature in its majesty power and perfection compare anticipate arrest catch knowledge antonyms fail of
ignore lose misapprehend misconceive miss overlook perfect synonyms absolute
that is perfect to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken without impairing its excellence marring its symmetry or detracting from its worth
in this fullest sense god alone is perfect but in a limited sense anything may be perfect in its kind as a perfect flower a copy of a document is perfect when it is accurate in every particular
a vase may be called perfect when entire and unblemished even tho not artistically faultless
even the ideal is not perfect by reason of the imperfection of the human mind a human character faultlessly holy would be morally perfect tho finite that which is absolute is free from admixture
as absolute alcohol and in the highest and fullest sense free from imperfection or limitation as absolute holiness and love are attributes of god alone in philosophical language
absolute signifies free from all necessary or even from all possible relations not dependent or limited unrelated and unconditioned truth immediately known as intuitive truth is absolute
god as self existent and free from all limitation or dependence is called the absolute being or simply the absolute compare innocent infinite
as a permanent color buildings upon a farm are called permanent improvements enduring is a higher word applied to that which resists both time and change as enduring fame
antonyms see synonyms for transient permission synonyms
permit authority unites the right and power of control age wisdom and character give authority to their possessor a book of learned research has authority
and is even called an authority permission justifies another in acting without interference or censure and usually implies some degree of approval
authority gives a certain right of control over all that may be affected by the action there may be a failure to object which constitutes an implied permission tho this is more properly expressed by allowance
we allow what we do not oppose permit what we expressly authorize the noun permit implies a formal written permission license is a formal permission granted by competent authority to an individual
as a license to preach to solemnize marriages or to sell intoxicating liquors a license is permission granted rather than authority conferred the sheriff has authority
not permission nor license to make an arrest consent is permission by the concurrence of wills in two or more persons a mutual approval or acceptance of something proposed compare allow
antonyms denial
synonyms bad
signifies having the power of destroying or injuring tending to hurt or kill pernicious is stronger than injurious that which is injurious is capable of doing harm that which is pernicious is likely to be destructive
hurt is a stronger word than noisome as referring to that which is injurious or destructive noisome now always denotes that which is extremely disagreeable or disgusting especially to the sense of smell
as the noisome stench proclaimed the presence of noxious gases
confusion disturbance
through and plecto plait is the drawing or turning of the thoughts or faculties by turns in different directions or toward contrasted or contradictory conclusions
pour together is a state in which the mental faculties are as it were thrown into chaos so that the clear and distinct action of the different powers as of perception memory reason and will is lost
bewilderment is akin to confusion but is less overwhelming and more readily recovered from perplexity accordingly has not the unsettling of the faculties implied in confusion
nor the overwhelming of the faculties implied in amazement or astonishment it is not the magnitude of the things to be known but the want of full and definite knowledge that causes perplexity the dividing of a woodland path
may cause the traveler the greatest perplexity which may become bewilderment when he has tried one path after another and lost his bearings completely with an excitable person bewilderment may deepen into confusion that will make him unable to think clearly
or even to see or hear distinctly amazement results from the sudden and unimagined occurrence of great good or evil or the sudden awakening of the mind to unthought of truth astonishment often produces bewilderment
which the word was formerly understood to imply compare amazement anxiety doubt persuade synonyms
of these words convince alone has no direct reference to moving the will denoting an effect upon the understanding only one may be convinced of his duty without doing it
as of a mathematical proposition to persuade is to bring the will of another to a desired decision by some influence exerted upon it short of compulsion one may be convinced that the earth is round
he may be persuaded to travel round it but persuasion is so largely dependent upon conviction that it is commonly held to be the orator's work first to convince in order that he may persuade
coax is a slighter word than persuade seeking the same end by shallower methods
as a child coaxes a parent to buy him a toy one may be brought over induced or prevailed upon by means not properly included in persuasion as by bribery or intimidation
he is won over chiefly by personal influence compare influence antonyms deter discourage dissuade hinder hold back
repel restrain pertness synonyms
smartness is a limited and showy acuteness or shrewdness usually with unfavorable suggestion pertness and sauciness are these qualities overdone and regardless of the respect due to superiors
impertinence and impudence may be gross and stupid pertness and sauciness are always vivid and keen compare impudence antonyms bashfulness demureness
diffidence humility modesty shyness perverse synonyms
turned the wrong way signifies wilfully wrong or erring unreasonably set against right reason or authority the stubborn or obstinate person will not do what another desires or requires
the perverse person will do anything contrary to what is desired or required of him the petulant person frets but may comply the perverse individual may be smooth or silent but is wilfully intractable
wayward refers to a perverse disregard of morality and duty
untoward is rarely heard except in certain phrases as untoward circumstances compare obstinate antonyms
the twelve dancing princesses there was a king who had twelve beautiful daughters they slept in twelve beds all in one room and when they went to bed the doors were shut
and locked up but every morning their shoes were found to be quite worn through as if they had been danced in all night and yet nobody could find out how it happened or where they had been then the king made it known to all the land
that if any person could discover the secret and find out where it was that the princesses danced in the night he should have the one he liked best for his wife and should be king after his death
but whoever tried and did not succeed after three days and nights should be put to death a king's son soon came he was well entertained and in the evening
was taken to the chamber next to the one where the princesses lay in their twelve beds there he was to sit and watch where they went to dance and in order that nothing might pass without his hearing it the door of his chamber was left open
but the king's son soon fell asleep and when he awoke in the morning he found that the princesses had all been dancing for the soles of their shoes were full of holes the same thing happened the second and third night so the king
ordered his head to be cut off after him came several others
now it chanced that an old soldier who had been wounded in battle and could fight no longer passed through the country where this king reigned and as he was travelling through a wood he met an old woman who asked him where he was going
i hardly know where i am going or what i had better do said the soldier but i think i should like very well to find out where it is that the princesses dance and then in time i might be a king well said the old dame
only take care not to drink any of the wine which one of the princesses will bring to you in the evening and as soon as she leaves you pretend to be fast asleep then she gave him a cloak and said
as soon as you put that on you will become invisible and you will then be able to follow the princesses wherever they go
he determined to try his luck so he went to the king and said he was willing to undertake the task he was as well received as the others had been and the king ordered fine royal robes to be given him
and when the evening came he was led to the outer chamber just as he was going to lie down the eldest of the princesses brought him a cup of wine but the soldier threw it all away secretly taking care not to drink a drop
then he laid himself down on his bed and in a little while
as if he was fast asleep when the twelve princesses heard this they laughed heartily and the eldest said this fellow too might have done a wiser thing than lose his life in this way
then they rose up and opened their drawers and boxes and took out all their fine clothes and dressed themselves at the glass
but the youngest said i don't know how it is while you are so happy i feel very uneasy i am sure some mischance will befall us you simpleton said the eldest you are always afraid
have you forgotten how many kings sons have already watched in vain and as for this soldier even if i had not given him his sleeping draught
the eldest leading the way and thinking he had no time to lose he jumped up put on the cloak which the old woman had given him and followed them but in the middle of the stairs he trod on the gown of the youngest princess
and she cried out to her sisters all is not right
you silly creature said the eldest it is nothing but a nail in the wall then down they all went and at the bottom they found themselves in a most delightful grove of trees and the leaves were all of silver
and glittered and sparkled beautifully the soldier wished to take away some token of the place so he broke off a little branch and there came a loud noise from the tree then the youngest daughter said again
but the eldest said it is only our princes who are shouting for joy at our approach then they came to another grove of trees where all the leaves were of gold and afterwards to a third where the leaves were all glittering diamonds
and the soldier broke a branch from each and every time there was a loud noise which made the youngest sister tremble with fear but the eldest still said it was only the princes who were crying for joy
so they went on till they came to a great lake and at the side of the lake there lay twelve little boats with twelve handsome princes in them who seemed to be waiting there for the princesses one of the princesses went into each boat
and the soldier stepped into the same boat with the youngest as they were rowing over the lake the prince who was in the boat with the youngest princess and the soldier said i do not know why it is but though i am rowing with all my might
we do not get on so fast as usual and i am quite tired the boat seems very heavy today it is only the heat of the weather said the princess i feel it very warm too on the other side of the lake stood a fine illuminated castle
there they all landed and went into the castle and each prince danced with his princess and the soldier who was all the time invisible danced with them too and when any of the princesses had a cup of wine set by her he drank it all up
so that when she put the cup to her mouth it was empty at this too the youngest sister was terribly frightened but the eldest always silenced her
the soldier placed himself in the boat with the eldest princess and on the opposite shore they took leave of each other the princesses promising to come again the next night
when they came to the stairs the soldier ran on before the princesses and laid himself down and as the twelve sisters slowly came up very much tired they heard him snoring in his bed so they said
now all is quite safe then they undressed themselves put away their fine clothes pulled off their shoes and went to bed in the morning the soldier said nothing about what had happened
and every thing happened just as before the princesses danced each time till their shoes were worn to pieces and then returned home however on the third night the soldier carried away one of the golden cups as a token of where he had been
as soon as the time came when he was to declare the secret he was taken before the king with the three branches and the golden cup and the twelve princesses stood listening behind the door to hear what he would say
and when the king asked him where do my twelve daughters dance at night he answered with twelve princes in a castle under ground and then he told the king all that had happened and showed him the three branches and the golden cup
which he had brought with him then the king called for the princesses and asked them whether what the soldier said was true and when they saw that they were discovered
they confessed it all and the king asked the soldier
i am not very young so i will have the eldest and they were married that very day
the lady anne or a runaway horse early in the spring lord w and part of his family went up to london and took york with them
and the head groom was left in charge the lady harriet who remained at the hall was a great invalid and never went out in the carriage and the lady anne preferred riding on horseback with her brother or cousins
she was a perfect horsewoman and as gay and gentle as she was beautiful she chose me for her horse and named me black auster i enjoyed these rides very much in the clear cold air
sometimes with ginger sometimes with lizzie this lizzie was a bright bay mare almost thoroughbred and a great favorite with the gentlemen on account of her fine action and lively spirit
but ginger who knew more of her than i did told me she was rather nervous
staying at the hall he always rode lizzie and praised her so much that one day lady anne ordered the side saddle to be put on her and the other saddle on me when we came to the door the gentleman seemed very uneasy
how is this he said are you tired of your good black auster oh no not at all she replied but i am amiable enough to let you ride him for once
and i will try your charming lizzie you must confess that in size and appearance
let me beg you to have the saddles changed my dear cousin said lady anne laughing pray do not trouble your good careful head about me i have been a horsewoman ever since i was a baby
and i have followed the hounds a great many times though i know you do not approve of ladies hunting but still that is the fact and i intend to try this lizzie
so please help me to mount like a good friend as you are there was no more to be said he placed her carefully on the saddle looked to the bit and curb gave the reins gently into her hand and then mounted me
just as we were moving off a footman came out with a slip of paper
would they ask this question for her at doctor ashley's and bring the answer the village was about a mile off and the doctor's house was the last in it we went along gayly enough
till we came to his gate there was a short drive up to the house between tall evergreens blantyre alighted at the gate and was going to open it for lady anne but she said i will wait for you here
and was soon hidden among the trees lizzie was standing quietly by the side of the road a few paces off with her back to me my young mistress was sitting easily with a loose rein
humming a little song i listened to my rider's footsteps until they reached the house and heard him knock at the door there was a meadow on the opposite side of the road the gate of which stood open
just then some cart horses and several young colts came trotting out in a very disorderly manner while a boy behind was cracking a great whip the colts were wild and frolicsome
and whether it was the stupid colt or the loud cracking of the whip
but she gave a violent kick and dashed off into a headlong gallop it was so sudden that lady anne was nearly unseated but she soon recovered herself i gave a loud shrill neigh for help
again and again i neighed pawing the ground impatiently and tossing my head to get the rein loose i had not long to wait blantyre came running to the gate he looked anxiously about
and just caught sight of the flying figure now far away on the road in an instant he sprang to the saddle i needed no whip no spur for i was as eager as my rider
and leaning a little forward we dashed after them for about a mile and a half the road ran straight and then bent to the right after which it divided into two roads
long before we came to the bend she was out of sight which way had she turned a woman was standing at her garden gate shading her eyes with her hand and looking eagerly up the road
scarcely drawing the rein blantyre shouted which way to the right cried the woman pointing with her hand and away we went up the right hand road then for a moment we caught sight of her
another bend and she was hidden again several times we caught glimpses and then lost them we scarcely seemed to gain ground upon them at all an old road mender was standing near a heap of stones
his shovel dropped and his hands raised as we came near he made a sign to speak
to the common to the common sir she has turned off there i knew this common very well it was for the most part very uneven ground covered with heather and dark green furze bushes
there were also open spaces of fine short grass with ant hills and mole turns everywhere
we had hardly turned on the common when we caught sight again of the green habit flying on before us my lady's hat was gone and her long brown hair was streaming behind her her head and body were thrown back
but now with a light hand and a practiced eye he guided me over the ground in such a masterly manner that my pace was scarcely slackened and we were decidedly gaining on them
there had been a wide dike recently cut and the earth from the cutting was cast up roughly on the other side surely this would stop them but no with scarcely a pause lizzie took the leap
and with one determined leap cleared both dike and bank motionless among the heather with her face to the earth
there was no sound gently he turned her face upward it was ghastly white and the eyes were closed annie dear annie do speak but there was no answer he unbuttoned her habit
loosened her collar felt her hands and wrist then started up and looked wildly round him for help at no great distance there were two men cutting turf who seeing lizzie running wild without a rider
had left their work to catch her blantyre's halloo soon brought them to the spot the foremost man seemed much troubled at the sight and asked what he could do can you ride
she was uncommon good to my wife in the winter then mount this horse my friend your neck will be quite safe and ride to the doctor's and ask him to come instantly
with lady anne's maid and help i shall stay here all right sir
may open her eyes soon then seeing the other man he called out here joe run for some water and tell my missis
he then somehow scrambled into the saddle and with a gee up and a clap on my sides with both his legs he started on his journey making a little circuit to avoid the dike he had no whip which seemed to trouble him
but my pace soon cured that difficulty and he found the best thing he could do was to stick to the saddle and hold me in which he did manfully i shook him as little as i could help but once or twice
steady woah steady on the highroad we were all right and at the doctor's and the hall he did his errand like a good man and true they asked him in to take a drop of something
no no he said i'll be back to em again by a short cut through the fields
the saddle and bridle were taken off and a cloth thrown over me ginger was saddled and sent off in great haste for lord george and i soon heard the carriage roll out of the yard
it seemed a long time before ginger came back and before we were left alone and then she told me all that she had seen i can't tell much she said we went a gallop nearly all the way
and got there just as the doctor rode up there was a woman sitting on the ground with the lady's head in her lap the doctor poured something into her mouth but all that i heard was she is not dead then i was led off by a man
to a little distance after awhile she was taken to the carriage and we came home together i heard my master say to a gentleman who stopped him to inquire that he hoped no bones were broken but that she had not spoken yet
when lord george took ginger for hunting york shook his head he said it ought to be a steady hand to train a horse for the first season and not a random rider like lord george ginger used to like it very much
but sometimes when she came back i could see that she had been very much strained and now and then she gave a short cough she had too much spirit to complain but i could not help feeling anxious about her
two days after the accident blantyre paid me a visit he patted me and praised me very much he told lord george that he was sure the horse knew of annie's danger as well as he did
i found by their conversation that my young mistress was now out of danger and would soon be able to ride again
no doubt a horse fair is a very amusing place to those who have nothing to lose at any rate there is plenty to see
long strings of young horses out of the country fresh from the marshes and droves of shaggy little welsh ponies no higher than merrylegs and hundreds of cart horses of all sorts
and a good many like myself handsome and high bred
through some accident or blemish unsoundness of wind or some other complaint there were some splendid animals quite in their prime and fit for anything they were throwing out their legs and showing off their paces in high style
as they were trotted out with a leading rein the groom running by the side but round in the background there were a number of poor things sadly broken down with hard work with their knees knuckling over
and there were some very dejected looking old horses with the under lip hanging down and the ears lying back heavily as if there were no more pleasure in life and no more hope there were some so thin you might see all their ribs
and some with old sores on their backs and hips these were sad sights for a horse to look upon who knows not but he may come to the same state there was a great deal of bargaining of running up and beating down
and if a horse may speak his mind so far as he understands i should say there were more lies told and more trickery at that horse fair
i was put with two or three other strong useful looking horses and a good many people came to look at us the gentlemen always turned from me when they saw my broken knees
though the man who had me swore it was only a slip in the stall the first thing was to pull my mouth open
then feel all the way down my legs and give me a hard feel of the skin and flesh and then try my paces it was wonderful what a difference there was in the way these things were done some did it in a rough offhand way as if
while others would take their hands gently over one's body with a pat now and then as much as to say by your leave of course i judged a good deal of the buyers by their manners to myself
there was one man i thought if he would buy me i should be happy he was not a gentleman nor yet one of the loud flashy sort that call themselves so he was rather a small man but well made
and quick in all his motions i knew in a moment by the way he handled me that he was used to horses he spoke gently and his gray eye had a kindly cheery look in it it may seem strange to say
no smell of old beer and tobacco which i hated but a fresh smell as if he had come out of a hayloft he offered twenty three pounds for me but that was refused and he walked away
but he walked off one or two more came who did not mean business then the hard faced man came back again and offered twenty three pounds a very close bargain was being driven for my salesman
began to think he should not get all he asked and must come down but just then the gray eyed man came back again i could not help reaching out my head toward him he stroked my face kindly
well old chap he said i think we should suit each other i'll give twenty four for him say twenty five and you shall have him twenty four ten said my friend in a very decided tone
and not another sixpence yes or no done said the salesman and you may depend upon it there's a monstrous deal of quality in that horse and if you want him for cab work he's a bargain
the money was paid on the spot and my new master took my halter and led me out of the fair to an inn where he had a saddle and bridle ready he gave me a good feed of oats and stood by while i ate it
talking to himself and talking to me half an hour after we were on our way to london through pleasant lanes and country roads until we came into the great london thoroughfare on which we traveled steadily
till in the twilight we reached the great city the gas lamps were already lighted there were streets to the right and streets to the left and streets crossing each other for mile upon mile i thought we should never come to the end of them
at last in passing through one we came to a long cab stand when my rider called out in a cheery voice good night governor halloo cried a voice have you got a good one i think so replied my owner
i wish you luck with him thank you governor and he rode on we soon turned up one of the side streets and about halfway up that we turned into a very narrow street with rather poor looking houses on one side
and what seemed to be coach houses and stables on the other my owner pulled up at one of the houses and whistled the door flew open and a young woman followed by a little girl and boy ran out
open the gates and mother will bring us the lantern the next minute they were all standing round me in a small stable yard is he gentle father yes dolly as gentle as your own kitten come and pat him
at once the little hand was patting about all over my shoulder without fear how good it felt let me get him a bran mash while you rub him down said the mother do polly it's just what he wants
and i know you've got a beautiful mash ready for me sausage dumpling and apple turnover shouted the boy which set them all laughing i was led into a comfortable clean smelling stall with plenty of dry straw
upon an evening of the forgotten years the gods were seated on the hills and all the little rivers of the world lay coiled at their feet asleep
and behind slid there marched a million waves all following slid and tramping up the twilight and slid touched earth in one of her great green valleys that divide the south and here he encamped for the night with all his waves about him
but to the gods as they sat upon their hilltops a new cry came crying over the green spaces that lay below the hills and the gods said this is neither the cry of life nor yet the whisper of death
what is this new cry that the gods have never commanded yet which comes to the ears of the gods
calling the south wind to them and again the gods shouted all together making the cry of the north calling the north wind to them and thus they gathered to them all their winds
to find what thing it was that called with the new cry and to drive it away from the gods then all the winds harnessed up their clouds and drave forth till they came to the great green valley that divides the south in twain
and there found slid with all his waves about him then for a space slid and the four winds struggled with one another till the strength of the winds was gone and they limped back to the gods their masters and said we have met this new thing
that has come upon the earth and have striven against its armies but could not drive them forth and the new thing is beautiful but very angry and is creeping towards the gods
but slid advanced and led his armies up the valley and inch by inch and mile by mile he conquered the lands of the gods then from their hills the gods sent down a great array of cliffs against hard red rocks
and bade them march against slid and the cliffs marched down till they came and stood before slid and leaned their heads forward and frowned and stood staunch to guard the lands of the gods against the might of the sea shutting slid off from the world
then slid sent some of his smaller waves to search out what stood against him and the cliffs shattered them but slid went back and gathered together a hoard of his greatest waves and hurled them against the cliffs and the cliffs shattered them
and again slid called up out of his deep a mighty array of waves and sent them roaring against the guardians of the gods and the red rocks frowned and smote them and once again slid gathered his greater waves and hurled them against the cliffs
and when the waves were scattered like those before them the feet of the cliffs were no longer standing firm and their faces were scarred and battered then into every cleft that stood in the rocks slid sent his hugest wave and others followed behind it
and slid himself seized hold of huge rocks with his claws and tore them down and stamped them under his feet and when the tumult was over the sea had won
and over the broken remnants of those red cliffs the armies of slid marched on and up the long green valley then the gods heard slid exulting far away and singing songs of triumph over their battered cliffs
and ever the tramp of his armies sounded nearer and nearer in the listening ears of the gods then the gods called to their downlands to save their world from slid and the downlands gathered themselves and marched away a great white line of gleaming cliffs
and halted before slid then slid advanced no more and lulled his legions and while his waves were low he softly crooned a song such as once long ago had troubled the stars and brought down tears out of the twilight
but the song that once had troubled the stars went moaning on awaking pent desires till full at the feet of the gods the melody fell then the blue rivers that lay curled asleep opened their gleaming eyes uncurled themselves and shook their rushes
and making a stir among the hills crept down to find the sea and passing across the world they came at last to where the white cliffs stood and coming behind them split them here and there and went through their broken ranks to slid at last
and the gods were angry with their traitorous streams then slid ceased from singing the song that lures the world and gathered up his legions
and all went marching on to assail the cliffs of the gods and wherever the rivers had broken the ranks of the cliffs
and the gods on their hill tops heard once more the voice of slid exulting over their cliffs already more than half the world lay subject to slid and still his armies advanced
and the people of slid the fishes and the long eels went in and out of arbours that once were dear to the gods then the gods feared for their dominion and to the innermost sacred recesses of the mountains to the very heart of the hills the gods trooped off together
and thereafter fashioned fields and hollows valleys and other hills to lie about thy feet and now tintaggon thine ancient lords the gods are facing a new thing which overthrows the old go therefore thou tintaggon and stand up against slid
and going across the green earth came down to ambrady at the valley's edge and there met the foremost of slid's fierce armies conquering the world and against him slid hurled the force of a whole bay which lashed itself high over tintaggon's knees
and streamed around his flanks and then fell and was lost tintaggon still stood firm for the honour and dominion of his lords the elder gods then slid went to tintaggon and said let us now make a truce
shall know the new god slid then shall mine armies strive with thee no more and thou and i shall be the equal lords of the whole earth when all the world is singing the chaunt of slid and thy head alone shall be lifted above mine armies when rival hills are dead
and i will deck thee with all the robes of the sea and all the plunder that i have taken in rare cities shall be piled before thy feet tintaggon i have conquered all the stars my song swells through all the space besides i come victorious from mahn and khanagat
on the furthest edge of the worlds and thou and i are to be equal lords when the old gods are gone and the green earth knoweth slid behold me gleaming azure and fair with a thousand smiles and swayed by a thousand moods and tintaggon answered
then from tintaggon's marble front the sea fell backwards crying on to a broken shore and ripple by ripple straggled back to slid saying tintaggon stands
far out beyond the battered shore that lay at tintaggon's feet slid rested long and sent the nautilus to drift up and down before tintaggon's eyes and he and his armies sat singing idle songs of dreamy islands far away to the south
and of the still stars whence they had stolen forth
one morning as slid sang of old outrageous wars
he suddenly launched five oceans out of the deep all to attack tintaggon and the five oceans sprang upon tintaggon and passed above his head one by one the grip of the oceans loosened
and on that morning the might of all five oceans lay dead at tintaggon's feet that which slid had conquered he still held and there is now no longer a great green valley in the south
but all that tintaggon had guarded against slid he gave back to the gods very calm the sea lies now about tintaggon's feet where he stands all black amid crumbled cliffs of white with red rocks piled about his feet
and often the sea retreats far out along the shore and often wave by wave comes marching in with the sound of the tramping of armies that all may still remember the great fight that surged about tintaggon once when he guarded the gods and the green earth against slid
sometimes in their dreams the war scarred warriors of slid still lift their heads and cry their battle cry then do dark clouds gather about tintaggon's swarthy brow and he stands out menacing seen afar by ships where once he conquered slid
when the worlds and all began the gods were stern and old and they saw the beginning from under eyebrows hoar with years all but inzana their child who played with the golden ball inzana was the child of all the gods
and the law before the beginning and thereafter was that all should obey the gods yet hither and thither went all pegana's gods to obey the dawnchild because she loved to be obeyed it was dark all over the world and even in pegana where dwell the gods
it was dark when the child inzana the dawn first found her golden ball then running down the stairway of the gods with tripping feet chalcedony onyx chalcedony onyx step by step she cast her golden ball across the sky
the golden ball went bounding up the sky and the dawnchild with her flaring hair stood laughing upon the stairway of the gods and it was day so gleaming fields below saw the first of all the days that the gods have destined
but towards evening certain mountains afar and aloof conspired together to stand between the world and the golden ball and to wrap their crags about it and to shut it from the world and all the world was darkened with their plot and the dawnchild up in pegana cried for her golden ball
all in a world of rocks under the rim of the sky and she wanted her golden ball and could not love the dark thereat umborodom whose hound was the thunder took his hound in leash and strode away across the sky after the golden ball
until he came to the mountains afar and aloof there did the thunder put his nose to the rocks and bay along the valleys and fast at his heels followed umborodom and the nearer the hound the thunder came to the golden ball the louder did he bay
but haughty and silent stood the mountains whose plot had darkened the world all in the dark among the crags in a mighty cavern guarded by two twin peaks at last they found the golden ball for which the dawnchild wept
then under the world went umborodom with his thunder panting behind him and came in the dark before the morning from underneath the world and gave the dawnchild back her golden ball
and umborodom went back into pegana and at its threshold the thunder went to sleep again the dawnchild tossed the golden ball far up into the blue across the sky and the second morning shone upon the world
then on an onyx step inzana sat down and wept who could no more be happy without her golden ball and again the gods were sorry and the south wind came to tell her tales of most enchanted islands to whom she listened not
nor yet to the tales of temples in lone lands that the east wind told her who had stood beside her when she flung her golden ball but from far away the west wind came with news of three grey travellers wrapt round with battered cloaks
that carried away between them a golden ball then up leapt the north wind he who guards the pole and drew his sword of ice out of his scabbard of snow and sped away along the road that leads across the blue
and in the darkness underneath the world he met the three grey travellers and rushed upon them and drove them far before him smiting them with his sword till their grey cloaks streamed with blood and out of the midst of them
as they fled with flapping cloaks all red and grey and tattered he leapt up with the golden ball and gave it to the dawnchild again inzana tossed the ball into the sky making the third day and up and up it went
and fell towards the fields and as inzana stooped to pick it up she suddenly heard the singing of all the birds that were
and inzana sat and listened and thought of no golden ball nor ever of chalcedony and onyx nor of all her fathers the gods but only of all the birds then in the woods and meadows where they had all suddenly sung they suddenly ceased
and inzana looking up found that her ball was lost and all alone in the stillness one owl laughed when the gods heard inzana crying for her ball they clustered together on the threshold and peered into the dark but saw no golden ball
and leaning forward they cried out to the bat as he passed up and down bat that seest all things where is the golden ball and though the bat answered none heard and none of the winds had seen it nor any of the birds
and there were only the eyes of the gods in the darkness peering for the golden ball then said the gods thou hast lost thy golden ball and they made her a moon of silver to roll about the sky
and the child cried and threw it upon the stairway and chipped and broke its edges and asked for the golden ball and limpang tung
stole out of pegana and crept across the sky and found the birds of all the world sitting in trees and ivy and whispering in the dark he asked them one by one for news of the golden ball
a heron had seen it lying in a pond but a wild duck in some reeds had seen it last as she came home across the hills and then it was rolling very far away at last the cock cried out that he had seen it lying beneath the world
and the cock and all his tribe cried out we found it we found the golden ball again inzana tossed the ball afar laughing with joy to see it her hands stretched upwards her golden hair afloat
and carefully she watched it as it fell but alas it fell with a splash into the great sea and gleamed and shimmered as it fell till the waters became dark above it and could be seen no more and men on the world said
how the dew has fallen and how the mists set in with breezes from the streams but the dew was the tears of the dawnchild and the mists were her sighs
there will no more come a time when i play with my ball again for now it is lost for ever and the gods tried to comfort inzana as she played with her silver moon but she would not hear them and went in tears to slid where he played with gleaming sails
and in his mighty treasury turned over gems and pearls and lorded it over the sea and she said o slid whose soul is in the sea bring back my golden ball and slid stood up swarthy and clad in seaweed
and mightily dived from the last chalcedony step
there on the sand among the battered navies of the nautilus and broken weapons of the swordfish hidden by dark water he found the golden ball and coming up in the night all green and dripping
till it came to its zenith and dropped towards the world
and seized it in his jaws when inzana saw the eclipse bearing her plaything away she cried aloud to the thunder who burst from pegana and fell howling upon the throat of the eclipse who dropped the golden ball and let it fall towards earth
but the black mountains disguised themselves with snow and as the golden ball fell down towards them they turned their peaks to ruby crimson and their lakes to sapphires gleaming amongst silver
and inzana saw a jewelled casket into which her plaything fell but when she stooped to pick it up again she found no jewelled casket with rubies silver or sapphires but only wicked mountains disguised in snow that had trapped her golden ball
and then she cried because there was none to find it for the thunder was far away chasing the eclipse and all the gods lamented when they saw her sorrow
was yet the saddest at the dawnchild's grief and when the gods said play with your silver moon
went out towards the world to find the golden ball because inzana wept and into the world he went till he came to the nether cliffs that stand by the inner mountains in the soul and heart of the earth where the earthquake dwelleth alone
and the earthquake started to his feet and flung the cave away the cave wherein he slept between the cliffs and shook himself and went galloping abroad and overturned the mountains that hid the golden ball
and bit the earth beneath them and hurled their crags about and covered himself with rocks and fallen hills and went back ravening and growling into the soul of the earth and there lay down and slept again for a hundred years
and the golden ball rolled free passing under the shattered earth and so rolled back to pegana and limpang tung came home to the onyx step and took the dawnchild by the hand and told not what he had done but said it was the earthquake
and went away to sit at the feet of the gods but inzana went and patted the earthquake on the head for she said it was dark and lonely in the soul of the earth thereafter returning step by step chalcedony onyx chalcedony onyx
up the stairway of the gods she cast again her golden ball from the threshold afar into the blue to gladden the world and the sky and laughed to see it go
and far away trogool upon the utter rim turned a page that was numbered six in a cipher that none might read and as the golden ball went through the sky to gleam on lands and cities there came the fog towards it
stooping as he walked with his dark brown cloak about him and behind him slunk the night and as the golden ball rolled past the fog suddenly night snarled and sprang upon it and carried it away hastily inzana gathered the gods and said
the night hath seized my golden ball and no god alone can find it now for none can say how far the night may roam who prowls all round us and out beyond the worlds at the entreaty of their dawnchild
all the gods made themselves stars for torches and far away through all the sky followed the tracks of night as far as he prowled abroad and at one time slid with the pleiades in his hand came nigh to the golden ball
and all the gods together seized the ball and night turning smote out the torches of the gods and thereafter slunk away and all the gods in triumph marched up the gleaming stairway of the gods
then far below on the world a human child cried out to the dawnchild for the golden ball
and cast the ball from the threshold of the gods to the little human child that played in the fields below and would one day die and the child played all day long with the golden ball down in the little fields where the humans lived
and went to bed at evening and put it beneath his pillow and went to sleep and no one worked in all the world because the child was playing and the light of the golden ball streamed up from under the pillow and out through the half shut door and shone in the western sky
in the night time tip toed into the room and took the ball gently for he was a god away from under the pillow and brought it back to the dawnchild to gleam on an onyx step
and slid shall dive from the threshold into the sea
and up the valleys shall go umborodom
but never find the ball and men no longer having light of the golden ball shall pray to the gods no more who having no worship shall be no more the gods
they had not been at home many hours when he presented himself he was not improved in habits or in looks or in manner but there was a certain rugged air of fidelity about him which was new to the observation of charles darnay
he watched his opportunity of taking darnay aside into a window and of speaking to him when no one overheard mister darnay said carton
you are good enough to say so as a fashion of speech but i don't mean any fashion of speech indeed when i say i wish we might be friends i scarcely mean quite that either
upon my life said carton smiling i find that easier to comprehend in my own mind than to convey to yours however let me try you remember a certain famous occasion when i was more drunk than than usual
i remember a certain famous occasion when you forced me to confess that you had been drinking i remember it too the curse of those occasions is heavy upon me for i always remember them i hope it may be taken into account one day when all days are at an end for me
don't be alarmed i am not going to preach i am not at all alarmed earnestness in you is anything but alarming to me ah said carton with a careless wave of his hand as if he waved that away on the drunken occasion in question
one of a large number as you know i was insufferable about liking you and not liking you i wish you would forget it i forgot it long ago
but mister darnay oblivion is not so easy to me as you represent it to be to you i have by no means forgotten it and a light answer does not help me to forget it if it was a light answer returned darnay i beg your forgiveness for it
i had no other object than to turn a slight thing which to my surprise seems to trouble you too much aside i declare to you on the faith of a gentleman that i have long dismissed it from my mind good heaven what was there to dismiss
as to the great service said carton
that it was mere professional claptrap i don't know that i cared what became of you when i rendered it mind i say when i rendered it i am speaking of the past you make light of the obligation returned darnay but i will not quarrel with your light answer
genuine truth mister darnay trust me i have gone aside from my purpose i was speaking about our being friends now you know me you know i am incapable of all the higher and better flights of men if you doubt it ask stryver and he'll tell you so
but i do and you must take my word for it well if you could endure to have such a worthless fellow and a fellow of such indifferent reputation coming and going at odd times i should ask that i might be permitted to come and go as a privileged person here
that i might be regarded as an useless and i would add if it were not for the resemblance i detected between you and me an unornamental piece of furniture tolerated for its old service and taken no notice of i doubt if i should abuse the permission
it is a hundred to one if i should avail myself of it four times in a year it would satisfy me i dare say to know that i had it will you try that is another way of saying that i am placed on the footing i have indicated
i thank you darnay i may use that freedom with your name i think so carton by this time they shook hands upon it and sydney turned away
charles darnay made some mention of this conversation in general terms and spoke of sydney carton as a problem of carelessness and recklessness he spoke of him in short not bitterly or meaning to bear hard upon him but as anybody might who saw him as he showed himself
he had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of his fair young wife but when he afterwards joined her in their own rooms he found her waiting for him with the old pretty lifting of the forehead strongly marked we are thoughtful to night said darnay drawing his arm about her
yes dearest charles with her hands on his breast and the inquiring and attentive expression fixed upon him we are rather thoughtful to night for we have something on our mind to night what is it my lucie
will you promise not to press one question on me if i beg you not to ask it will i promise what will i not promise to my love what indeed with his hand putting aside the golden hair from the cheek
and his other hand against the heart that beat for him i think charles poor mister carton deserves more consideration and respect than you expressed for him to night indeed my own why so that is what you are not to ask me
but i think i know he does if you know it it is enough what would you have me do my life
always and very lenient on his faults when he is not by i would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very very seldom reveals and that there are deep wounds in it my dear i have seen it bleeding it is a painful reflection to me
said charles darnay quite astounded that i should have done him any wrong i never thought this of him my husband it is so i fear he is not to be reclaimed there is scarcely a hope that anything in his character or fortunes is reparable now
gentle things even magnanimous things she looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this lost man that her husband could have looked at her as she was for hours and o my dearest love she urged
i will remember it as long as i live
if one forlorn wanderer then pacing the dark streets could have heard her innocent disclosure and could have seen the drops of pity kissed away by her husband from the soft blue eyes so loving of that husband he might have cried to the night
and the words would not have parted from his lips for the first time
chapter ten interest and discipline one the meaning of the terms we have already noticed the difference in the attitude of a spectator
and of an agent or participant the former is indifferent to what is going on one result is just as good as another since each is just something to look at the latter is bound up with what is going on
its outcome makes a difference to him his fortunes are more or less at stake in the issue of events consequently he does whatever he can to influence the direction present occurrences take
one is like a man in a prison cell watching the rain out of the window it is all the same to him the other is like a man who has planned an outing for the next day which continuing rain will frustrate
he cannot to be sure by his present reactions affect to morrow's weather but he may take some steps which will influence future happenings if only to postpone the proposed picnic
if a man sees a carriage coming which may run over him if he cannot stop its movement he can at least get out of the way if he foresees the consequence in time in many instances he can intervene even more directly
the attitude of a participant in the course of affairs is thus a double one there is solicitude anxiety concerning future consequences and a tendency to act to assure better and avert worse consequences
there are words which denote this attitude concern interest these words suggest that a person is bound up with the possibilities inhering in objects that he is accordingly
on the lookout for what they are likely to do to him and that on the basis of his expectation or foresight he is eager to act so as to give things one turn rather than another
interest and aims concern and purpose are necessarily connected such words as aim intent end emphasize the results which are wanted
and striven for they take for granted the personal attitude of solicitude and attentive eagerness such words as interest affection concern motivation
emphasize the bearing of what is foreseen upon the individual's fortunes and his active desire to act to secure a possible result they take for granted the objective changes
but the difference is but one of emphasis the meaning that is shaded in one set of words is illuminated in the other what is anticipated is objective and impersonal to morrow's rain
the possibility of being run over but for an active being a being who partakes of the consequences instead of standing aloof from them there is at the same time a personal response
the difference imaginatively foreseen makes a present difference which finds expression in solicitude and effort while such words as affection concern and motive indicate an attitude of personal preference
they are always attitudes toward objects toward what is foreseen we may call the phase of objective foresight intellectual and the phase of personal concern
emotional and volitional but there is no separation in the facts of the situation such a separation could exist only if the personal attitudes ran their course in a world by themselves
but they are always responses to what is going on in the situation of which they are a part and their successful or unsuccessful expression depends upon their interaction with other changes
life activities flourish and fail only in connection with changes of the environment they are literally bound up with these changes our desires emotions and affections are but various ways in which our doings
are tied up with the doings of things and persons about us instead of marking a purely personal or subjective realm separated from the objective and impersonal they indicate the non existence of such a separate world
they afford convincing evidence that changes in things are not alien to the activities of a self and that the career and welfare of the self are bound up with the movement of persons and things interest concern
mean that self and world are engaged with each other in a developing situation the word interest in its ordinary usage
the whole state of active development
the objective results that are foreseen and wanted
the personal emotional inclination
an occupation employment pursuit business is often referred to as an interest thus we say that a man's interest is politics or journalism or philanthropy or archaeology
or collecting japanese prints or banking
the point where it influences him in some legal transactions a man has to prove interest in order to have a standing at court he has to show that some proposed step concerns his affairs
a silent partner has an interest in a business although he takes no active part in its conduct because its prosperity or decline affects his profits and liabilities
when we speak of a man as interested in this or that the emphasis falls directly upon his personal attitude to be interested is to be absorbed in wrapped up in carried away by some object
to take an interest is to be on the alert to care about to be attentive we say of an interested person both that he has lost himself in some affair and that he has found himself in it both terms express the engrossment of the self
in an object when the place of interest in education is spoken of in a depreciatory way it will be found that the second of the meanings mentioned is first exaggerated and then isolated
interest is taken to mean merely the effect of an object upon personal advantage or disadvantage success or failure separated from any objective development of affairs these are reduced to mere personal states of pleasure or pain
educationally it then follows that to attach importance to interest means to attach some feature of seductiveness to material otherwise indifferent to secure attention and effort by offering a bribe
of pleasure this procedure is properly stigmatized as soft pedagogy as a soup kitchen theory of education but the objection is based upon the fact or assumption
that the forms of skill to be acquired and the subject matter to be appropriated have no interest on their own account in other words they are supposed to be irrelevant to the normal activities of the pupils
the remedy is not in finding fault with the doctrine of interest any more than it is to search for some pleasant bait that may be hitched to the alien material it is to discover objects and modes of action
which are connected with present powers the function of this material in engaging activity and carrying it on consistently and continuously is its interest if the material operates in this way there is no call either to hunt for devices which will make it interesting
or to appeal to arbitrary semi coerced effort the word interest suggests etymologically what is between that which connects two things otherwise distant in education the distance covered may be looked at as temporal
the fact that a process takes time to mature is so obvious a fact that we rarely make it explicit we overlook the fact that in growth there is ground to be covered between an initial stage of process and the completing period
that there is something intervening in learning the present powers of the pupil are the initial stage the aim of the teacher represents the remote limit between the two lie means
that is middle conditions acts to be performed difficulties to be overcome appliances to be used only through them in the literal time sense will the initial activities reach a satisfactory consummation
these intermediate conditions are of interest precisely because the development of existing activities into the foreseen and desired end depends upon them to be means for the achieving of present tendencies
to be between the agent and his end to be of interest are different names for the same thing when material has to be made interesting it signifies that as presented it lacks connection with purposes and present power
to make it interesting by leading one to realize the connection that exists is simply good sense to make it interesting by extraneous and artificial inducements deserves all the bad names which have been applied to the doctrine of interest in education
so much for the meaning of the term interest now for that of discipline where an activity takes time
where many means and obstacles lie between its initiation and completion deliberation and persistence are required it is obvious that a very large part of the everyday meaning of will is precisely the deliberate or conscious
disposition to persist and endure in a planned course of action in spite of difficulties and contrary solicitations a man of strong will in the popular usage of the words
is a man who is neither fickle nor half hearted in achieving chosen ends his ability is executive that is he persistently and energetically strives to execute or carry out his aims
clearly there are two factors in will
of results the other with the depth of hold the foreseen outcome has upon the person
obstinacy is persistence but it is not strength of volition obstinacy may be mere animal inertia and insensitiveness
a man keeps on doing a thing just because he has got started not because of any clearly thought out purpose in fact the obstinate man generally declines although he may not be quite aware of his refusal
to make clear to himself what his proposed end is he has a feeling that if he allowed himself to get a clear and full idea of it it might not be worth while
stubbornness shows itself even more in reluctance to criticize ends which present themselves than it does in
persistence and energy in use of means to achieve the end the really executive man is a man who ponders his ends who makes his ideas of the results of his actions as clear and full as possible
the people we called weak willed or self indulgent always deceive themselves as to the consequences of their acts they pick out some feature which is agreeable and neglect all attendant circumstances
when they begin to act the disagreeable results they ignored begin to show themselves
and shift to some other line of action that the primary difference between strong and feeble volition is intellectual
consisting in the degree of persistent firmness and fullness with which consequences are thought out cannot be over emphasized
there is of course such a thing as a speculative tracing out of results ends are then foreseen but they do not lay deep hold of a person they are something to look at and for curiosity to play with rather than something to achieve
there is no such thing as over intellectuality but there is such a thing as a one sided intellectuality a person takes it out as we say in considering the consequences of proposed lines of action
a certain flabbiness of fiber prevents the contemplated object from gripping him and engaging him in action and most persons are naturally diverted from a proposed course of action by unusual unforeseen obstacles
or by presentation of inducements to an action that is directly more agreeable a person who is trained to consider his actions to undertake them deliberately is in so far forth disciplined
add to this ability a power to endure in an intelligently chosen course in face of distraction confusion and difficulty and you have the essence of discipline discipline means power at command
mastery of the resources available for carrying through the action undertaken to know what one is to do
and to move to do it promptly and by use of the requisite means is to be disciplined whether we are thinking of an army or a mind discipline is positive to cow the spirit
to subdue inclination to compel obedience to mortify the flesh to make a subordinate perform an uncongenial task these things are or are not disciplinary according as they do or do not
tend to the development of power to recognize what one is about and to persistence in accomplishment
that interest and discipline are connected not opposed
even the more purely intellectual phase of trained power apprehension of what one is doing as exhibited in consequences is not possible without interest
deliberation will be perfunctory and superficial where there is no interest parents and teachers often complain and correctly that children do not want to hear or want to understand
their minds are not upon the subject precisely because it does not touch them it does not enter into their concerns this is a state of things that needs to be remedied but the remedy is not in the use of methods which increase indifference and aversion
even punishing a child for inattention is one way of trying to make him realize that the matter is not a thing of complete unconcern it is one way of arousing interest or bringing about a sense of connection
in the long run its value is measured by whether it supplies a mere physical excitation to act in the way desired by the adult or whether it leads the child to think that is to reflect upon his acts and impregnate them with aims
that interest is requisite for executive persistence is even more obvious employers do not advertise for workmen who are not interested in what they are doing
would stick to his work more conscientiously if it was so uncongenial to him that he did it merely from a sense of obligation interest measures or rather is the depth of the grip
which the foreseen end has upon one moving one to act for its realization
the importance of the idea of interest in education interest represents the moving force of objects whether perceived or presented in imagination in any experience having a purpose
in the concrete the value of recognizing the dynamic place of interest in an educative development is that it leads to considering individual children in their specific capabilities needs and preferences
one who recognizes the importance of interest will not assume that all minds work in the same way because they happen to have the same teacher and textbook attitudes and methods of approach and response vary with the specific appeal the same material makes
this appeal itself varying with difference of natural aptitude of past experience of plan of life and so on but the facts of interest also supply considerations of general value to the philosophy of education
rightly understood they put us on our guard against certain conceptions of mind and of subject matter which have had great vogue in philosophic thought in the past and which exercise a serious hampering influence upon the conduct of instruction and discipline
too frequently mind is set over the world of things and facts to be known it is regarded as something existing in isolation with mental states and operations that exist independently
knowledge is then regarded as an external application of purely mental existences to the things to be known or else as a result of the impressions which this outside subject matter makes on mind
or as a combination of the two subject matter is then regarded as something complete in itself it is just something to be learned or known either by the voluntary application of mind to it or through the impressions it makes on mind
the facts of interest show that these conceptions are mythical mind appears in experience as ability to respond to present stimuli on the basis of anticipation of future possible consequences and with a view
to controlling the kind of consequences that are to take place the things the subject matter known consist of whatever is recognized as having a bearing upon the anticipated course of events whether assisting or retarding it
these statements are too formal to be very intelligible an illustration may clear up their significance you are engaged in a certain occupation say writing with a typewriter if you are an expert
your formed habits take care of the physical movements and leave your thoughts free to consider your topic suppose however you are not skilled or that even if you are the machine does not work well you then have to use intelligence
you do not wish to strike the keys at random and let the consequences be what they may you wish to record certain words in a given order so as to make sense you attend to the keys to what you have written to your movements to the ribbon or the mechanism of the machine
your attention is not distributed indifferently and miscellaneously to any and every detail it is centered upon whatever has a bearing upon the effective pursuit of your occupation your look is ahead
and you are concerned to note the existing facts because and in so far as they are factors in the achievement of the result intended you have to find out what your resources are what conditions are at command and what the difficulties and obstacles are
this foresight and this survey with reference to what is foreseen constitute mind action that does not involve such a forecast of results and such an examination of means and hindrances is either
a matter of habit or else it is blind in neither case is it intelligent to be vague and uncertain as to what is intended and careless in observation of conditions of its realization
is to be in that degree stupid or partially intelligent if we recur to the case where mind is not concerned with the physical manipulation of the instruments but with
what one intends to write the case is the same there is an activity in process one is taken up with the development of a theme
unless one writes as a phonograph talks this means intelligence namely alertness in foreseeing the various conclusions to which present data and considerations are tending
of the subject matter which bears upon the conclusions to be reached the whole attitude is one of concern with what is to be and with what is so far as the latter enters into the movement toward the end
leave out the direction which depends upon foresight of possible future results and there is no intelligence in present behavior let there be imaginative forecast but no attention to the conditions upon which its attainment depends
and there is self deception or idle dreaming abortive intelligence if this illustration is typical mind is not a name for something complete by itself it is a name for a course of action in so far as that is intelligently directed
in so far that is to say as aims ends enter into it with selection of means to further the attainment of aims
the market place the grass plot before the jail in prison lane on a certain summer morning not less than two centuries ago was occupied by a pretty large number of the inhabitants of boston all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron clamped oaken door
the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people
on whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of public sentiment but in that early severity of the puritan character an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn
it might be that a sluggish bond servant or an undutiful child whom his parents had given over to the civil authority was to be corrected at the whipping post it might be that an antinomian a quaker or other heterodox religionist was to be scourged out of the town
or an idle or vagrant indian whom the white man's firewater
was to die upon the gallows in either case there was very much the same solemnity of demeanour on the part of the spectators as befitted a people among whom religion and law were almost identical
and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused that the mildest and severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful meagre indeed and cold was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for from such bystanders at the scaffold
on the other hand a penalty which in our days would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule might then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment of death itself it was a circumstance to be noted on the summer morning
when our story begins its course that the women of whom there were several in the crowd appeared to take a peculiar interest in whatever penal infliction might be expected to ensue
from stepping forth into the public ways and wedging their
if occasion were into the throng nearest to the scaffold at an execution
and breeding than in their fair descendants separated from them by a series of six or seven generations for throughout that chain of ancestry every successive mother had transmitted to her child a fainter bloom a more delicate and briefer beauty
and a slighter physical frame if not character of less force and solidity than her own the women who were now standing about the prison door stood within less than half a century of the period when the man like elizabeth
not altogether unsuitable representative of the sex they were her countrywomen and the beef and ale of their native land with a moral diet not a whit more refined entered largely into their composition the bright morning sun therefore
shone on broad shoulders and well developed busts and on round and ruddy cheeks that had ripened in the far off island and had hardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of new england there was moreover
a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons as most of them seemed to be that would startle us at the present day
or its volume of tone goodwives said a hard featured dame of fifty
greatly for the public behoof if we women being of mature age and church members in good repute should have the handling of such malefactresses as this hester prynne what think ye gossips if the hussy stood up for judgment before us five
would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded marry i trow not people say said another that the reverend master dimmesdale her godly pastor takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation
at the very least they should have put the brand of a hot iron on hester prynne's forehead madame hester would have winced at that i warrant me but she the naughty baggage little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown why look you
she may cover it with a brooch or such like heathenish adornment and so walk the streets as brave as ever ah but interposed more softly a young wife holding a child by the hand
the ugliest as well as the most pitiless
self constituted judges this woman has brought shame upon us all and ought to die is there not law for it truly there is both in the scripture and the statute book then let the magistrates who have made it of no effect
thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray
is there no virtue in woman save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows that is the hardest word yet hush now gossips for the lock is turning in the prison door and here comes mistress prynne herself
the door of the jail being flung open from within there appeared in the first place like a black shadow emerging into sunshine the grim and gristly presence of the town beadle with a sword by his side and his staff of office in his hand this personage
which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender stretching forth the official staff in his left hand he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman whom he thus drew forward until on the threshold of the prison door she repelled him
by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character and stepped into the open air as if by her own free will she bore in her arms a child a baby of some three months old who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day
because its existence heretofore had brought it
or other darksome apartment of the prison
the mother of this child stood fully revealed before the crowd it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom
as that she might thereby conceal a certain token which was wrought or fastened into her dress
would but poorly serve to hide another she took the baby on her arm and with a burning blush and yet a haughty smile and a glance that would not be abashed looked around at her townspeople and neighbours on the breast of her gown
in fine red cloth surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread appeared the letter a
and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore
but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary
with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale she had dark and abundant hair so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam and a face which besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion
had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes she was ladylike too after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days characterised by a certain state and dignity
indescribable grace which is now recognised as its indication and never had hester prynne appeared more ladylike in the antique interpretation of the term than as she issued from the prison
were astonished and even startled to perceive how her beauty shone out and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped it may be true that to a sensitive observer there was some thing exquisitely painful in it her attire
which indeed she had wrought for the occasion in prison
seemed to express the attitude of her spirit the desperate recklessness of her mood by its wild and picturesque peculiarity but the point which drew all eyes and as it were transfigured the wearer
acquainted with hester prynne were now impressed
was that scarlet letter so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom it had the effect of a spell taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity
by herself she hath good skill at her needle that's certain remarked one of her female spectators
out of what they worthy gentlemen meant for a punishment it were well muttered the most iron visaged of the old dames if we stripped madame hester's rich gown off her dainty shoulders
and as for the red letter which she hath stitched so curiously i'll bestow a rag of mine own rheumatic flannel to make a fitter one oh peace neighbours peace whispered their youngest companion do not let her hear you
now made a gesture with his staff make way good people make way in the king's name cried he open a passage and i promise ye
from this time till an hour past meridian a blessing on the righteous colony of the massachusetts where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine come along madame hester and show your scarlet letter in the market place
a lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators preceded by the beadle and attended by an irregular procession of stern browed men and unkindly visaged women hester prynne set forth towards the place appointed for her punishment
a crowd of eager and curious schoolboys understanding little of the matter in hand except that it gave them a half holiday ran before her progress
measured by the prisoner's experience however
to see her as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon in our nature however there is a provision alike marvellous and merciful that the sufferer should never know the intensity
of what he endures by its present torture but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it
and came to a sort of scaffold at the western extremity of the market place it stood nearly beneath the eaves of boston's earliest church and appeared to be a fixture there in fact this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine which now
for two or three generations past has been merely historical and traditionary among us but was held in the old time
as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of france it was in short the platform of the pillory
grasp and thus hold it up to the public gaze the very ideal of ignominy
there can be no outrage methinks against our common nature
delinquencies of the individual no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame as it was the essence of this punishment to do in hester prynne's instance however as not unfrequently in other cases her sentence bore that
she should stand a certain time upon the platform but without undergoing that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head the proneness to which was the most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine
at about the height of a man's shoulders above the street
and with the infant at her bosom an object to remind him of the image of divine maternity which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent something which should remind him indeed but only by contrast
of that sacred image of sinless motherhood whose infant was to redeem the world here there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life working such effect that the world was only the darker for this woman's beauty
and the more lost for the infant that she had borne the scene was not without a mixture of awe such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow creature
before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile instead of shuddering at it the witnesses of hester prynne's disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity they were stern enough to look upon her death had that been the sentence without a murmur at its severity
but had none of the heartlessness of another social state which would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the present even had there been a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule it must have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no less dignified than the governor
and several of his counsellors a judge a general and the ministers of the town all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the meeting house looking down upon the platform
could constitute a part of the spectacle without risking the majesty or reverence of rank and office it was safely to be inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest and effectual meaning accordingly the crowd was sombre and grave
the unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes all fastened upon her
of an impulsive and passionate nature she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely
but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind that she longed rather to behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment and herself the object
had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude each man each woman each little shrill voiced child contributing their individual parts
but under the leaden infliction which it was her doom to endure she felt at moments as if she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground or else go mad at once
yet there were intervals when the whole scene in which she was the most conspicuous object seemed to vanish from her eyes or at least glimmered indistinctly before them like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images
was preternaturally active and kept bringing up other scenes than this roughly hewn street of a little
other faces than were lowering upon her from beneath the brims of those steeple crowned hats
passages of infancy and school days sports childish quarrels and the little domestic traits of her maiden years came swarming back upon her intermingled with recollections of whatever was gravest in her subsequent life
one picture precisely as vivid as another as if all were of similar importance or all alike a play
phantasmagoric forms from the cruel weight and hardness of the reality be that as it might the scaffold of the pillory
since her happy infancy standing on that miserable eminence she saw again her native village in old england and her paternal home a decayed house of grey stone with a poverty stricken aspect but retaining a half obliterated shield of arms over the portal
in token of antique gentility
reverend white beard that flowed over the old fashioned elizabethan ruff her mother's too with the look of heedful and anxious love
and which even since her death had so often laid the impediment of a gentle remonstrance in her daughter's pathway she saw her own face glowing with girlish beauty and illuminating all the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been
of a man well stricken in years a pale thin scholar like visage with eyes dim and bleared by the lamp light that had served them to pore over many ponderous books
yet those same bleared optics had a strange penetrating power
this figure of the study and the cloister
was slightly deformed with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right next rose before her
the intricate and narrow thoroughfares the tall grey houses
ancient in date and quaint in architecture of a continental city where new life had awaited her still in
a new life but feeding itself on time worn materials like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall lastly in lieu of these shifting scenes came back the rude market place of the puritan settlement with all the townspeople assembled
and levelling their stern regards at hester prynne yes at herself who stood on the scaffold of the pillory an infant on her arm and the letter a in scarlet fantastically embroidered with gold thread upon her bosom
could it be true she clutched the child so fiercely to her breast that it sent
she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter and even touched it with her finger to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real yes these were her realities
shooting matches are probably nearly coeval with the colonization of georgia they are still common throughout the southern states though they are not as common as they were twenty five or thirty years ago chance led me to one about a year ago
i was traveling in one of the northeastern counties when i overtook a swarthy bright eyed smirky little fellow riding a small pony and bearing on his shoulder a long heavy rifle which judging from its looks i should say had done service in morgan's corps
good morning sir said i reining up my horse as i came beside him how goes it stranger said he with a tone of independence and self confidence that awakened my curiosity to know a little of his character going driving inquired i
not exactly replied he surveying my horse with a quizzical smile i haven't been a driving by myself for a year or two and my nose has got so bad lately i can't carry a cold trail without hounds to help me
but it answered the purpose for which it was put which was only to draw him into conversation
i didn't know said i but that you were going to meet the huntsmen or going to your stand ah sure enough rejoined he that mout be a bee as the old woman said when she killed a wasp
well if you ought why don't you what mout your name be it might be anything said i with a borrowed wit for i knew my man and knew what kind of conversation would please him most well
what is it then it is hall said i
pretty digging said he i find you're not the fool i took you to be so here's to a better acquaintance with you with all my heart returned i but you must be as clever as i've been and give me your name
to be sure i will my old coon take it take it and welcome anything else about me you'd like to have
oh yes there is stranger do you see this holding up his ponderous rifle with an ease that astonished me
and see me knock out the bull's eye with her a few times you'll agree the old soap stick's worth something when billy curlew puts his shoulder to her this short sentence was replete with information to me it taught me that my companion was billy curlew
that he was going to a shooting match that he called his rifle the soap stick and that he was very confident of winning beef with her or which is nearly but not quite the same thing driving the cross with her well said i
if the shooting match is not too far out of my way i'll go to it with pleasure unless your way lies through the woods from here said billy it'll not be much out of your way for it's only a mile ahead of us and there is no other road for you to take till you get there
i won beef at one when i was hardly old enough to hold a shot gun off hand children don't go to shooting matches about here said he with a smile of incredulity i never heard of but one that did and he was a little swinge cat
he was born a shooting and killed squirrels before he was weaned nor did i ever hear of but one replied i and that one was myself and where did you win beef so young stranger at berry adams's
why stop stranger let me look at you good is your name lyman hall the very same said i well dang my buttons if you ain't the very boy my daddy used to tell me about i was too young to recollect you myself
but i've heard daddy talk about you many a time i believe mammy's got a neck handkerchief now that daddy won on your shooting at collen reid's store when you were hardly knee high come along lyman and i'll go my death upon you at the shooting match with the old soap stick at your shoulder
it was altogether a chance shot that made me win beef but that wasn't generally known and most everybody believed that i was carried there on account of my skill in shooting and my fame was spread far and wide i well remember i remember too perfectly well
your father's bet on me at the store he was at the shooting match and nothing could make him believe but that i was a great shot with a rifle as well as a shot gun bet he would on me in spite of all i could say
and so confident was your father in my skill that he made me shoot the half bullet and strange to tell by another chance shot i like to have drove the cross and won his bet
now i know you're the very chap for i heard daddy tell that very thing about the half bullet don't say anything about it lyman and darn my old shoes if i don't tare the lint off the boys with you at the shooting match
of knowing anything about a rifle i'll risk your chance shots i soon discovered that the father had eaten sour grapes and the son's teeth were on edge for billy was just as incorrigibly obstinate in his belief of my dexterity with a rifle
as his father had been before him we soon reached the place appointed for the shooting match it went by the name of sims's cross roads because here two roads intersected each other
archibald sims had resided there archibald had been a justice of the peace in his day and where is the man of his age in georgia who has not consequently he was called squire sims it is the custom in this state when a man has once acquired a title
civil or military to force it upon him as long as he lives hence the countless number of titled personages who are introduced in these sketches we stopped at the squire's door billy hastily dismounted
a darn sight cleverer fellow than he looks to be
and draw a bead upon the bull's eye you gwine to see fun here to day don't say nothing about it
said the squire here's to a better acquaintance with you offering me his hand how goes it uncle archy said i taking his hand warmly for i am always free and easy with those who are so with me
and in this course i rarely fail to please how's the old woman
said the squire chuckling there
what and you never married again never as god's my judge a solemn asseveration truly upon so light a subject well that's not my fault no
nor it's not mine ni ther said the squire here we were interrupted by the cry of another rancey sniffle hello here
come on here for the putt'n in's riddy to begin about sixty persons including mere spectators had collected
the most of whom were more or less obedient to the call of mealy whitecotton for that was the name of the self constituted commander in chief some hastened and some loitered as they desired to be first or last on the list
the beef was not present nor is it ever upon such occasions but several of the company had seen it who all concurred in the opinion that it was a good beef and well worth the price that was set upon it eleven dollars
a general inquiry ran around in order to form some opinion as to the number of shots that would be taken for of course the price of a shot is cheapened in proportion to the increase of that number
it was soon ascertained that not more than twenty persons would take chances but these twenty agreed to take the number of shots at twenty five cents each
some for one some for two three and a few for as many as four shots billy curlew hung back to the last
five shots remained undisposed of how many shots left inquired billy five was the reply well i take em all put down four shots to me and one to lyman hall
paid for by william curlew i was thunder struck
but at the unexpected announcement of my name as a competitor for beef at least one hundred miles from the place of my residence i was prepared for a challenge from billy to some of his neighbors for a private match upon me but not for this
i therefore protested against his putting in for me and urged every reason to dissuade him from it that i could without wounding his feelings put it down said billy with the authority of an emperor and with a look that spoke volumes intelligible to every by stander
reckon i don't know what i'm about then wheeling off and muttering in an under self confident tone dang old roper continued he if he don't knock that cross to the north corner of creation and back again before a cat can lick her foot
had i been king of the cat tribe they could not have regarded me with more curious attention than did the whole company from this moment every inch of me was examined with the nicest scrutiny and some plainly expressed by their looks that they never would have taken me for such a bite
i saw no alternative but to throw myself upon a third chance shot for though by the rules of the sport
it would have been unpardonable to disappoint the expectations which had been raised on me unfortunately too for me the match differed in one respect from those which i had been in the habit of attending in my younger days in olden times the contest was carried on chiefly with shot guns
a generic term which in those days embraced three descriptions of firearms indian traders a long cheap but sometimes excellent kind of gun that mother britain used to send hither for traffic with the indians
these were that they should be fired off hand while the shot guns were allowed a rest the distance being equal or that the distance should be one hundred yards for a rifle to sixty for the shot gun the mode of firing being equal
but this was a match of rifles exclusively and these are by far the most common at this time most of the competitors fire at the same target which is usually a board from nine inches to a foot wide charred on one side as black as it can be made by fire
without impairing materially the uniformity of its surface on the darkened side of which is pegged a square piece of white paper which is larger or smaller according to the distance at which it is to be placed from the marksmen this is almost invariably sixty yards
and for it the paper is reduced to about two and a half inches square out of the center of it is cut a rhombus of about the width of an inch measured diagonally this is the bull's eye or diamond as the marksmen choose to call it in the center of this is the cross
but every man is permitted to fix his target to his own taste and accordingly some remove one fourth of the paper cutting from the center of the square to the two lower corners so as to leave a large angle opening from the center downward
the beef is divided into five prizes or as they are commonly termed five quarters the hide and tallow counting as one for several years after the revolutionary war a sixth was added the lead which was shot in the match
this was the prize of the sixth best shot and it used to be carefully extracted from the board or tree in which it was lodged and afterward remoulded
the three master shots and rivals were moses firmby
and billy curlew to whom was added upon this occasion by common consent and with awful forebodings your humble servant the target was fixed at an elevation of about three feet from the ground and the judges captain turner and squire porter
took their stands by it joined by about half the spectators the first name on the catalogue was mealy whitecotton mealy stepped out rifle in hand and toed the mark his rifle was about three inches longer than himself
as he stepped out tolerably appropriate here comes the corn stalk and the sucker said darby kiss my foot said mealy the way i'll creep into that bull's eye's a fact you'd better creep into your hind sight said darby
mealy raised and fired a pretty good shot mealy said one yes a blamed good shot said a second well done meal said a third i was rejoiced when one of the company inquired where is it
for i could hardly believe they were founding these remarks upon the evidence of their senses just on the right hand side of the bull's eye was the reply i looked with all the power of my eyes but was unable to discover the least change in the surface of the paper their report however was true
so much keener is the vision of a practiced than an unpracticed eye the next in order was hiram baugh hiram was like some race horses which i have seen he was too good not to contend for every prize and too good for nothing ever to win one
gentlemen said he as he came to the mark
my powder are not good powder gentlemen
well blaze away said mealy
and your powder and buck killer and your powder horn and shot pouch to boot how long you gwine stand thar talking fore you shoot never mind said hiram i can talk a little and shoot a little too but that's nothin here goes
hiram assumed the figure of a note of interrogation took a long sight and fired i've eat paper said he at the crack of the gun without looking or seeming to look toward the target buck killer made a clear racket
i've beat meal cotton mighty easy and the boy you call hiram baugh are able to do it and what do that mount to
i don't make no pretense of bein nothin great no how but you always makes out as if you were gwine to keep em makin crosses for you constant and then do nothin but eat paper at last and that's a long way from eatin beef cordin to meal cotton's notions as you call him
simon stow was now called on oh lord exclaimed two or three now we have it it'll take him as long to shoot as it would take squire dobbins to run round a track o land good by boys said bob martin where are you going bob
i'll be back again though by the time sime stow shoots
he went off and brought his own target and set it up with his own hand he then wiped out his rifle rubbed the pan with his hat drew a piece of tow through the touch hole with his wiper filled his charger with great care poured the powder into the rifle with equal caution
selected one without flaw or wrinkle drew out his patching found the most even part of it sprung open the grease box in the breech of his rifle took up just so much grease distributed it with great equality over the chosen part of his patching laid it over the muzzle of his rifle
grease side down placed his ball upon it pressed it a little then took it up and turned the neck a little more perpendicularly downward placed his knife handle on it just buried it in the mouth of the rifle cut off the redundant patching just above the bullet looked at it
no one knew which sent down the ball measured the contents of his gun with his first and second fingers on the protruding part of the ramrod shook his head again to signify there was too much or too little powder primed carefully placed an arched piece of tin over the hind sight to shade it
took his place got a friend to hold his hat over the foresight to shade it took a very long sight fired and didn't even eat the paper my piece was badly loadned said simon when he learned the place of his ball
oh you didn't take time said mealy no man can shoot that's in such a hurry as you is i'd hardly got to sleep fore i heard the crack o the gun the next was moses firmby
and it is a singular fact that though probably no part of the world is more healthy than the mountainous parts of georgia the mountaineers have not generally robust frames or fine complexions they are however almost inexhaustible by toil moses kept us not long in suspense
his rifle was already charged and he fixed it upon the target with a steadiness of nerve and aim that was astonishing to me and alarming to all the rest a few seconds and the report of his rifle broke the deathlike silence which prevailed
no great harm done yet said spivey manifestly relieved from anxiety by an event which seemed to me better calculated to produce despair firmby's ball had cut out the lower angle of the diamond directly on a right line with the cross
held it there like a vice for a moment and fired pretty sevigrous but nothing killing yet said billy curlew as he learned the place of spivey's ball
brought us to billy curlew billy stepped out with much confidence and brought the soap stick to an order while he deliberately rolled up his shirt sleeves had i judged billy's chance of success from the looks of his gun i should have said it was hopeless
clear the way the soap stick's coming and she'll be along in there among em presently billy now planted himself astraddle like an inverted v shot forward his left hip drew his body back to an angle of about forty five degrees with the plane of the horizon
his sight was long and the swelling muscles of his left arm led me to believe that he was lessening his chance of success with every half second that he kept it burdened with his ponderous rifle but it neither flagged nor wavered until soap stick made her report where am i
said billy as the smoke rose from before his eye you've jist touched the cross on the lower side was the reply of one of the judges i was afraid i was drawing my bead a leetle too fine said billy now lyman you see what the soap stick can do
my plea was rather indulged than sustained and the marksmen who had taken more than one shot commenced the second round this round was a manifest improvement upon the first
billy curlew first and fourth choice spivey second firmby third and whitecotton fifth some of my readers may perhaps be curious to learn how a distinction comes to be made between several all of whom drive the cross the distinction is perfectly natural and equitable
threads are stretched from the uneffaced parts of the once intersecting lines by means of which the original position of the cross is precisely ascertained
to this i believe they usually if not invariably measure where none of the balls touch the cross but if the cross be driven they measure from it to the center of the bullet hole
for soap stick bears up her ball well take care and don't touch the trigger until you've got your bead for she's spring trigger'd and goes mighty easy
and if she don't go there dang old roper i took hold of soap stick and lapsed immediately into the most hopeless despair i am sure i never handled as heavy a gun in all my life why billy said i you little mortal you
go long you old coon said billy i see what you're at intimating that all this was merely to make the coming shot the more remarkable daddy's little boy don't shoot anything but the old soap stick here to day i know
the judges i knew were becoming impatient and withal my situation was growing more embarrassing every second so i e e n resolved to try the soap stick without further parley i stepped out and the most intense interest was excited all around me
and it flashed like electricity around the target as i judged from the anxious gaze of all in that direction policy dictated that i should fire with a falling rifle and i adopted this mode determining to fire as soon as the sights came on a line with the diamond bead or no bead
accordingly i commenced lowering old soap stick but in spite of all my muscular powers she was strictly obedient to the laws of gravitation and came down with a uniformly accelerated velocity before i could arrest her downward flight
she had not only passed the target but was making rapid encroachments on my own toes
it's only his fun said billy i know him it may be fun said the other but it looks mightily like yearnest to a man up a tree
i now of course determined to reverse the mode of firing and put forth all my physical energies to raise soap stick to the mark the effort silenced billy and gave tongue to all his companions i had just strength enough to master soap stick's obstinate proclivity
and consequently my nerves began to exhibit palpable signs of distress with her first imperceptible movement upward a trembling commenced in my arms increased and extended rapidly to my body and lower extremities
i was shaking from head to foot exactly like a man under the continued action of a strong galvanic battery in the meantime my friends gave vent to their feelings freely i swear poin blank said one that man can't shoot
he used to shoot well said another but can't now nor never could you better git away from bout that mark bawled a third for i'll be dod darned if broadcloth don't give some of you the dry gripes if you stand too close thare
as soon as i found that soap stick was high enough for i made no farther use of the sights than to ascertain this fact
i was joking about betting for i never bet nor would i have you to bet indeed i do not feel exactly right in shooting for beef for it is a species of gaming at last but i'll say this much if that cross isn't knocked out
i'll never shoot for beef again as long as i live by dod said mealy whitecotton you'll lose no great things at that well said i i reckon i know a little about wabbling is it possible billy a man who shoots as well as you do
never practiced shooting with the double wabble it's the greatest take in the world when you learn to drive the cross with it another sort for getting bets upon to the drop sight with a single wabble and the soap stick's the very yarn for it
tell you what stranger said one you're too hard for us all here we never hearn o that sort o shoot'n in these parts well returned i you've seen it now and i'm the boy that can do it
the judges were now approaching with the target and a singular combination of circumstances had kept all my party in utter ignorance of the result of my shot those about the target had been prepared by billy curlew for a great shot from me
their expectations had received assurance from the courtesy which had been extended to me and nothing had happened to disappoint them but the single caution to them against the dry gripes which was as likely to have been given in irony as in earnest
for my agonies under the weight of the soap stick were either imperceptible to them at the distance of sixty yards or being visible were taken as the flourishes of an expert who wished to astonish the natives the other party did not think the direction of my ball worth the trouble of a question
the whole of my party rushed to the target to have the evidence of their senses before they would believe the report but most marvelous fortune decreed that it should be true their incredulity and astonishment were most fortunate for me for they blinded my hearers to the real feelings
with which the exclamation was uttered and allowed me sufficient time to prepare myself for making the best use of what i had said before with a very different object second best reiterated i with an air of despondency as the company turned from the target to me
an't you driv the cross
several received this palaver with a contemptuous but very appropriate curl of the nose and mealy whitecotton offered to bet a half pint that i couldn't do the like again with no sort o wabbles he didn't care what but i had already fortified myself on this quarter of my morality
a decided majority however were clearly of opinion that i was serious and they regarded me as one of the wonders of the world billy increased the majority by now coming out fully with my history as he had received it from his father
to which i listened with quite as much astonishment as any other one of his hearers
and give him the pleasure of an evening's chat about old times his house should be as free to me as my own but i could not accept his hospitality without retracing five or six miles of the road which i had already passed and therefore i declined it well if you won't go
what must i tell the old woman for you for she'll be mighty glad to hear from the boy that won the silk handkerchief for her and i expect she'll lick me for not bringing you home with me tell her said i that i send her a quarter of beef which i won
as i did the handkerchief by nothing in the world but mere good luck hold your jaw lyman said billy
for she's a reg'lar built meth'dist as i turned to depart stop a minute stranger said one then lowering his voice to a confidential but distinctly audible tone what you offering for continued he i assured him i was not a candidate for anything
that i had accidentally fallen in with billy curlew who begged me to come with him to the shooting match and as it lay right on my road i had stopped oh said he with a conciliatory nod if you're up for anything you needn't be mealy mouthed about it fore us boys
for we'll all go in for you here up to the handle yes said billy dang old roper if we don't go our death for you no matter who offers
i thanked them kindly but repeated my assurances the reader will not suppose that the district took its name from the character of the inhabitants
chapter thirty revolt of the goths
revolt of the goths they plunder greece two great invasions of italy by alaric and radagaisus
the germans overrun gaul usurpation of constantine in the west disgrace and death of stilicho if the subjects of rome could be ignorant of their obligations to the great theodosius
they were too soon convinced how painfully the spirit and abilities of their deceased emperor had supported the frail and mouldering edifice of the republic he died in the month of january and before the end of the winter of the same year
and boldly avowed the hostile designs which they had long cherished in their ferocious minds their countrymen who had been condemned by the conditions of the last treaty to a life of tranquility and labor
deserted their farms at the first sound of the trumpet and eagerly resumed the weapons which they had reluctantly laid down the barriers of the danube were thrown open the savage warriors of scythia issued from their forests
and the uncommon severity of the winter allowed the poet to remark
which in the course of twenty years were almost grown familiar to their imagination and the various troops of barbarians who gloried in the gothic name were irregularly spread from woody shores of dalmatia
from a motive either of gratitude or of policy was attentive amidst the general devastation
which yielded only to the royal dignity of the amali he had solicited the command of the roman armies and the imperial court provoked him to demonstrate the folly of their refusal and the importance of their loss
whatever hopes might be entertained of the conquest of constantinople the judicious general soon abandoned an impracticable enterprise in the midst of a divided court and a discontented people
the emperor arcadius was terrified by the aspect of the gothic arms but the want of wisdom and valor was supplied by the strength of the city
the treaty was ratified by solemn oaths and observed with mutual fidelity the gothic prince with a small and select train was admitted within the walls
he indulged himself in the refreshment of the bath accepted a splendid banquet which was provided by the magistrate
to the town of megara was blasted by his baleful presence and if we may use the comparison of a contemporary philosopher athens itself resembled the bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim
the distance between megara and corinth could not much exceed thirty miles but the bad road an expressive name which it still bears among the greeks
was or might easily have been made impassable for the march of an enemy the thick and gloomy woods of mount cithaeron covered the inland country
was terminated by the isthmus of corinth and a small a body of firm and intrepid soldiers might have successfully defended a temporary intrenchment of five or six miles from the ionian to the aegean sea
in their natural rampart had tempted them to neglect the care of their antique walls
and the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved by death from beholding the slavery of their families
with more regard to the value of the materials than to the elegance of the workmanship the female captives submitted to the laws of war
who had considered valor and discipline as the walls of sparta
with the unanimous consent of the barbarian chieftains
seated on the verge of the two empires
those of asia were inaccessible
he may amuse himself with contemplating for a moment the influence of the arms of alaric on the fortunes of two obscure individuals a presbyter of aquileia and a husbandman of verona
and the barbarians who furiously shook the walls of aquileia might save him from the cruel sentence of another heretic
his pleasures his desires his knowledge were confined within the little circle of his paternal farm
on the same ground where he had sported in his infancy yet even this humble and rustic felicity
a detachment of gothic cavalry might sweep away his cottage and his family and the power of alaric could destroy this happiness
fame says the poet encircling with terror her gloomy wings proclaimed the march of the barbarian army and filled italy with consternation
the apprehensions of each individual were increased in just proportion to the measure of his fortune and the most timid who had already embarked their valuable effects meditated their escape to the island of sicily or the african coast
and the body is affected in the same manner wherefore in so far as the remembrance of the thing is strong a man is determined to regard it with pain
this determination while the image of the thing in question lasts is indeed checked by the remembrance of other things excluding the existence of the aforesaid thing but is not destroyed hence a man only feels pleasure in so far as the said determination is checked
for this reason the joy arising from the injury done to what we hate is repeated every time we remember that object of hatred for as we have said when the image of the thing in question is aroused inasmuch as it involves the thing's existence
it determines the man to regard the thing with the same pain as he was wont to do when it actually did exist however since he has joined to the image of the thing other images which exclude its existence this determination to pain is forthwith checked
and the man rejoices afresh as often as the repetition takes place this is the cause of men's pleasure in recalling past evils and delight in narrating dangers from which they have escaped for when men conceive a danger they conceive it as still future and are determined to fear it
this renders them secure afresh therefore they rejoice afresh
must other conditions being similar be greater than if it were felt towards a thing acting by necessity
moreover we are apt to estimate such objects above or below their true value
however i do not think it worth while to point out here the vacillations springing from hope and fear it follows from the definition of these emotions that there can be no hope without fear and no fear without hope as i will duly explain in the proper place
further in so far as we hope for or fear anything we regard it with love or hatred
appendix c acoustics
and with principles such as that relating to the relation between vibration rates and pitches
and this appendix is therefore added in the hope that a few facts at least regarding the laws of sound may be brought to the attention of some who would otherwise remain in entire ignorance of the subject one acoustics is the science which deals with sound and the laws of its production and transmission
since all sound is caused by vibration acoustics may be defined as the science which treats of the phenomena of sound producing vibration two all sound as stated above is produced by vibration of some sort
strike a tuning fork against the top of a table and see the vibrations which cause the tone or if the fork is a small one and the vibrations cannot be seen hold it against the edge of a sheet of paper and hear the blows it strikes
or look closely at the heavier strings of the violin or better still the cello and watch them oscillate rapidly to and fro as the bow moves across them
the vocal cords et cetera often it is a column of air whose vibrations give rise to the tone the reed or other medium merely serving to set the air in vibration three sound is transmitted through the air in somewhat this fashion
the vibrating body a string for example strikes the air particles in its immediate vicinity and they being in contact with other such air particles strike these others the latter in turn striking yet others and so on both a forward and backward movement being set up oscillation
these particles lie so close together that no movement at all can be detected and it is only when the disturbance finally reaches the air particles that are in contact with the ear drum that any effect is evident
this phenomenon of sound transmission may perhaps be made more clear by the old illustration of a series of eight billiard balls in a row on a table if the first ball is tapped lightly striking gently against ball number two
the latter as well as numbers three four five six and seven will not apparently move at all but ball number eight at the other end will roll away the air particles act upon each other in much this same fashion the difference being that when they are set in motion by a vibrating body
a complete vibration backward and forward causes a similar backward and forward movement of the particles oscillation instead of simply a forward jerk as in the case of the billiard balls
where they set the ear drum in vibration thus sending certain sound stimuli to the nerves of hearing in the inner ear and thus to the brain an important thing to be noted in connection with sound transmission is that sound will not travel in a vacuum
this medium may be air water a bar of iron or steel the earth et cetera four the rate at which sound travels through the air is about eleven hundred feet per second the rapidity varying somewhat with fluctuations in temperature and humidity
in water the rate is much higher than in air about four times as great while the velocity of sound through other mediums as e g steel is sometimes as much as sixteen times as great as through air five
sound like light may be intensified by a suitable reflecting surface directly back of the vibrating body
it may also be reflected by some surface at a distance from its source in such a way that at a certain point the focus the sound may be very clearly heard but at other places even those nearer the source of sound it can scarcely be heard at all
if there is such a surface in an auditorium as often occurs there will be a certain point where everything can be heard very easily
echoes are caused by sound reflection the distance of the reflecting surface from the vibrating body determining the number of syllables that will be echoed the acoustics of an auditorium
depend upon the position and nature of the reflecting surfaces and also upon the length of time a sound persists after the vibrating body has stopped
the room will not be suitable for musical performances because of the mixture of persisting tones with following ones this causing a blurred effect somewhat like that obtained by playing a series of unrelated chords on the piano while the damper pedal is held down
the duration of the reverberation depends upon the size and height of the room material of floor and walls furniture size of audience et cetera six
sound may be classified roughly into tones and noises although the line of cleavage is not always sharply drawn if i throw stones at the side of a barn sounds are produced but they are caused by irregular vibrations of an irregularly constructed surface and are referred to as noise
but if i tap the head of a kettle drum a regular series of vibrations is set up and the resulting sound is referred to as tone in general the material of music consists of tones
seven
one pitch two intensity three quality timbre by pitch is meant the highness or lowness of tone it depends upon rate of vibration if a body vibrates only eight or ten times per second no tone is heard at all
but if it vibrates regularly at the rate of sixteen or eighteen per second a tone of very low pitch is heard if it vibrates at the rate of twenty four the pitch is higher
at thirty higher still at two hundred yet higher and when a rate of about thirty eight thousand per second has been reached the pitch is so high that most ears cannot perceive it at all
the highest tone that can ordinarily be heard is the e flat four octaves higher than the highest e flat of the piano the entire range of sound humanly audible is therefore about eleven octaves
but only about eight of these octaves are utilized for musical purposes
are produced by vibration rates approximately between twenty seven and forty two twenty four in the orchestra the range is slightly more extended the rates being from thirty three to forty seven fifty two
certain interesting facts regarding the relation between vibration rates and pitches have been worked out it has been discovered for instance that if the number of vibrations is doubled the pitch of the resulting tone is an octave higher
in the same way it has been found that if the rate is multiplied by five quarters the pitch of the tone will be a major third higher
these laws are often stated thus the ratio of the octave to the fundamental is as two is to one that of the major third as five is to four that of the perfect fifth as three is to two and so on through the entire series of pitches embraced within the octave
the ratio being of course the same for all octaves nine the intensity loudness or softness of tones depends upon the amplitude width of the vibrations
a louder tone being the result of vibrations of greater amplitude and vice versa this may be verified by plucking a long string on cello or double bass and noting that when plucked gently vibrations of small amplitude are set up
it should be noted that the pitch of the tone is not affected by the change in amplitude of vibration the intensity of tones varies with the medium conveying them being usually louder at night because the air is then more elastic
tone intensity is also affected by sympathetic vibrations set up in other bodies if two strings of the same length are stretched side by side and one set in vibration so as to produce tone
the other will soon begin to vibrate also and the combined tone will be louder than if only one string produced it
ten quality depends upon the shape or form of the vibrations which give rise to the tone a series of simple vibrations will cause a simple or colorless tone
cause more individualistic peculiarities of quality quality is affected also by the shape and size of the resonance body
eleven practically every musical tone really consists of a combination of several tones sounding simultaneously
the most important tone of the series is the fundamental which dominates the combination and gives the pitch but this fundamental is practically always combined with a greater or less number of faint and elusive attending tones called overtones or harmonics
the first of these overtones is the octave above the fundamental the second is the fifth above this octave the third two octaves above the fundamental and so on through the series as shown in the figure below
does not merely vibrate in its entirety but has in addition to the principal oscillation a number of sectional movements also
thus it is easily proved that a string vibrates in halves thirds et cetera in addition to the principal vibration of the entire string and it is the vibration of these halves thirds et cetera which gives rise to the harmonics or upper partials as they are often called
thus e g a tone that has too large a proportion of the fourth upper partial
will be reedy and somewhat unpleasant this is the case with many voices that are referred to as nasal too great a proportion of overtones is what causes certain pianos to sound tin panny
it has therefore no distinctive quality and is said to be a simple tone the characteristic tone of the oboe on the other hand has many overtones and is therefore highly individualistic this enables us to recognize the tone of the instrument even though we cannot see the player
such a tone is said to be complex twelve
if strictly carried out in tuning a keyboard instrument would cause the half steps to vary slightly in size and playing in certain keys especially those having a number of sharps or flats in the signature would therefore sound out of tune
there would be many other disadvantages in such a system notably the inability to modulate freely to other keys
this would constitute a serious barrier to advances in composition to obviate these disadvantages a system of equal temperament was invented and has been in universal use since the time of bach sixteen eighty five seventeen fifty who was the first prominent composer to use it extensively
equal temperament means simply dividing the octave into twelve equal parts thus causing all scales as played on keyboard instruments at least to sound exactly alike
to show the practicability of equal temperament bach wrote a series of forty eight preludes and fugues two in each major and two in each minor key he called the collection the well tempered clavichord thirteen
various standards of pitch have existed at different times in the last two centuries and even now there is no absolute uniformity although conditions are much better than they were even twenty five years ago scientists use what is known as the scientific standard sometimes called the philosophic standard
this pitch is not in actual use for musical purposes but is retained for theoretical purposes because of its convenience of computation being a power of two
this having been adopted by the french as their official pitch some twenty six years before in eighteen ninety one a convention of piano manufacturers at philadelphia adopted this same pitch for the united states and it has been in practically universal use ever since
concert pitch is slightly higher than international the difference between the two varying somewhat but being almost always less than one half step
this higher pitch is still often used by bands and sometimes by orchestras to give greater brilliancy to the wind instruments references
broadhouse the student's helmholz helmholtz sensations of tone hamilton sound and its relation to music
the tremendous engines of the procyon were again putting out their wonted torrents of power the starship now a mere spaceship was on course at one gravity the lifecraft were in their slots
but the five and the four still lived in them rather than in the vast and oppressive emptiness that the ship itself now was and socially outside of working hours the two groups did not mix clean up was going nicely
at the union rate of six hours on and eighteen hours off deston could have set any hours he pleased but he didn't there was plenty of time eleven months in deep space is a fearfully a tremendously long time
morning afternoon evening and night were of course purely conventional terms the twenty four hour day measured off by the brute force machine that was their masterclock carried no guarantee
expressed or implied as to either accuracy or uniformity one evening then four hard faced men sat at two small tables in the main room of lifecraft three two of them
ferdy blaine and moose mordan were playing cards for small stakes ferdy was of medium size compact rather than slender built of rawhide and spring steel lithe and poised
moose was six feet four and weighed a good two forty stolid massive solid ferdy and moose a tiger and an elephant both owned in fee simple
by vincent lopresto the two at the other table had been planning for days they had had many vitriolic arguments but neither had made any motion toward his weapon play it my way and we've got it made i tell you
i'm as good an astrogator as jones is and a damn sight better engineer in electronics i maybe ain't got the theory pretty boy has but at building and repairing the stuff i've forgot more than he ever will know
at practical stuff and that's all we give a whoop about i lay over both them sissies like a lunar dome oh yeah lopresto sneered how come you aren't ticketed for subspace then
for hell's sake act your age newman snorted in disgust eyes locked and held but nothing happened d'ya think i'm dumb or that them subspace boy scouts can be fixed or
or i can't make the approach why ain't you in subspace i see lopresto forced his anger down but i've got to be sure we can get back without em you can be damn sure
i got to get back myself don't i
i get the big peroxide blonde you can have her too big i like the little yellowhead a lot better newman sneered into the hard held face so close to his and said
and don't think for a second you can make me crawl you small time chiseling punk rub me out after we kill them off and you get nowhere you're dead chew on that a while and you'll know who's boss
after just the right amount of holding back and objecting lopresto agreed you win newman the way the cards lay have you ever planned this kind of an operation or do you want me to you do it vince
newman said grandly he had at least one of the qualities of a leader besides you already have ain't you of course ferdy will take deston no he won't he's mine the louse
if you're that dumb all bets are off what are you using for a brain can't you see the guy's chain lightning on ball bearings but we're going to surprise em ain't we sure
but even ferdy would just as soon not give him an even break you wouldn't stand the chance of a snowflake in hell and if you've got the brains of a louse you know it o k we'll let ferdy have him
me and you will match draws to see who i can draw twice to your once but i suppose i'll have to prove it to you i'll take jones you will gun the professor
and keep em out of the way until the shooting's over the only thing is when the sooner the better tomorrow not quite vince let em finish figuring course time distance all that stuff
they can do it a lot faster and some better than i can i'll tell you when o k and i'll give the signal when i yell now
newman went to his cabin and the muscle called moose spoke thoughtfully that is as nearly thoughtfully as his mental equipment would allow i don't like that ape boss before you gun him
it'll be quite a while yet but that's a promise moose as soon as his job's done he'll wish he'd never been born until then we'll let him think he's top dog let him rave but ferdy
any time he's behind me or out of sight watch him like a hawk shoot him through the right elbow if he makes one sour move i get you boss a couple of evenings later in lifecraft two
barbara said you're worried babe and everything's going so smoothly why too smoothly altogether that's why newman ought to be doing a slow burn and goldbricking all he dares
instead of which he's happy as a clam and working like a nailer and i wouldn't trust vincent lopresto or
could they ted possibly
they could and i'm very much afraid they intend to as a crew chief newman is a jack leg engineer and a very good practical troncist
can you guess within ten million bucks of how much they'll collect blockhead deston slapped himself on the forehead i never even thought of that angle that nails it down solid with the added attraction
jones went on coldly and steadily of having two extremely desirable female women for eleven months before killing them too
i'd think they'd waylay you one at a time uh uh the survivor would lock the ship in null g and it'd be like shooting fish in a barrel since we're almost never together on duty
they'll think up a good reason for everybody to be together and that itself will be the tip off ferdy will probably draw on me and he'll kill you jones said flatly so i think i'll blow his brains out tomorrow morning on sight
and get killed yourself no much better to use their own trap we can't fast as you are you aren't in his class he's a professional probably one of the fastest guns in space
yes but i've got a i mean i think i can bernice grinning openly now stopped deston's floundering it's high time you fellows told each other the truth
bobby and i let our back hair down long ago we were both tremendously surprised to know that both you boys are just as strongly psychic as we are perhaps even more so oh so you get hunches too jones demanded
so you'll have plenty of warning all my life the old alarm clock has never failed me yet but the girls can't start packing pistols now i wouldn't know how to shoot one if i did bernice laughed
i'll throw things i'm very good at that huh jones asked he didn't know his new wife very well either what can you throw straight enough to do any good anything i can reach she replied confidently
i'd much rather have you fellows do the actual executing i'll start wearing a couple of knives in leg sheaths but i won't throw em or use em unless i absolutely have to so who will i knock out with the first chair i'll answer that barbara said quietly
if it's blaine against babe it'll be lopresto against herc so you'll throw your chairs or whatever at that unspeakable oaf newman i'd rather brain him than anyone else i know
but that would leave that gigantic gorilla to why he'd listen you'll simply have to go armed i always do barbara held out her hands since they don't want to shoot us two yet these are all the weapons i'll need
you're that good really
i'm that good really and both joneses began to realize what deston already knew just how deadly those harmless seeming weapons could be barbara went on we should have a signal in case one of us gets warning first
something that wouldn't mean anything to them musical say brahms that's it the very instant any one of us feels their intent to signal their attack he yells brahms and we all beat them to the punch o k
it was o k and the four adams was still hard at work in the lounge went to bed and three days later within an hour after the last flight datum had been put in the tank
the four intended victims allowed themselves to be inveigled into the lounge everything was peaceful everyone was full of friendship and brotherly love but suddenly brahms rang out with four voices in absolute unison
now it was a very good thing that deston had had ample warning for he was indeed competing out of his class as it was his bullet crashed through blaine's head while the gunman's went harmlessly into the carpet
the other pistol duel wasn't even close lopresto's hand barely touched his gun bernice even while shrieking the battle cry leaped to her feet hurled her chair and reached for another but one chair was enough
that fiercely but accurately sped missile knocked the half drawn pistol from newman's hand and sent his body crashing to the floor where deston's second bullet made it certain that he would not recover consciousness barbara's hand to hand engagement
took about one second longer moose mordan was big and strong and for such a big man was fairly fast physically if he had had time to get his muscles ready
were lamentably slow and barbara warner deston was almost as fast physically as she was mentally thus she reached him before he even began to realize that this pint sized girl actually intended to hit him
and thus it was that his belly muscles were still completely relaxed when her small but extremely hard left fist sank half forearm deep into his solar plexus with an agonized whoosh
he began to double up but she scarcely allowed him to bend her right hand fingers tightly bunched was already boring savagely into a selected spot at the base of his neck then left hand at his throat and right hand pulling hard at his belt
deston and jones each put a bullet through the falling head before it struck the rug both girls flung themselves sobbing into their husband's arms
huh she raised her head from deston's shoulder the contrast between her streaming eyes and the relief dawning over her whole face was almost funny why i did the foulest things possible
and as hard as i possibly could i'm sure i killed him by no means my dear judo techniques however skillfully and powerfully applied do not and can not kill instantly
bullets through the brain do i will photograph the cadavers of course and perform the customary post mortem examinations for the record but i know already what the findings will be these four men died instantly of gunshot wounds
with the four gangsters gone life aboardship settled down quickly into a routine that routine however was in no sense dull the officers had plenty to do operating the whole ship
bread board hookups and in their spare time they enjoyed themselves tremendously in becoming better and better acquainted with their wives for bernice and jones like barbara and deston had for each other an infinite number of endless
vistas of personality the exploration of which was sheerest delight the girls each of whom became joyously pregnant as soon as she could kept house and helped their husbands whenever need or opportunity arose
their biggest chore however was to see to it that adams got sleep food and exercise for if left to his own devices he would never have exercised at all would have grabbed a bite now and then
and would have slept only when he could no longer stay awake uncle andy why don't you use that big brain of yours barbara snapped at him one day for a man that's actually as smart as you are i swear you've got the least sense of anybody i know
and it is a task for a team of specialists and all the resources of a research center to the officers however adams went into more detail considering the enormous amounts of supplies carried the scope
quantity and quality of the safety devices employed it is improbable that we are the first survivors of a subspace catastrophe to set course for a planet after some argument
classify it or evaluate it we are carrying an extremely heavy charge of an unknown nature the residuum of a field of force which is possibly more or less analogous to the electromagnetic field
this residuum either is or is not dischargeable to an object of planetary mass and i'm virtually certain that it is
from an imperceptible flow up to one of such violence as to volatilize the craft carrying it from the facts one that in the absence of that field the subspace radio will function normally and two
that no subspace radio messages have ever been received from survivors the conclusion seems inescapable that the discharge of this unknown field is in fact of extreme violence good god
deston exclaimed oh that was what you meant by fantastic precautions back there precisely but what can we do about it i don't know i simply do not know
however we have months of time yet and if i am unable to arrive at a conclusion before arrival i don't mean a rigorous analysis of course but merely a stop gap empirical pragmatic solution
all the high fidelity speakers of the starship procyon spoke as one in the skillfully modulated voice of the trained announcer this is the fourth and last cautionary announcement any who are not seated will seat themselves at once
prepare for take off acceleration of one and one half gravities that is everyone will weigh one half again as much as his normal earth weight for about fifteen minutes
on seaside beach her hair was an artificial yellow her eyes were a deep cool blue her skin what could be seen of it she was wearing breeches and a long sleeved shirt was lightly tanned
she was only about five feet three and her build was not spectacular however every ounce of her one hundred fifteen pounds was exactly where it should have been first she stood tentatively
flexing her knees and testing her weight then stepping boldly out into a clear space she began to do a high kicking acrobatic dance and went on doing it as effortlessly and as rhythmically
as though she were on an earthly stage you mustn't do that miss a stewardess came bustling up or rather not exactly bustling very few people and almost no stewardesses
either actually bustle in or really enjoy one point five gees you really must resume your seat miss i must insist oh you're miss warner she paused that's right barbara warner
cabin two eight one but really miss warner it's regulations and if you should fall foosh to regulations
then silver slippers pointing motionlessly ceilingward she got up onto her hands and walked twice around a vacant chair she then performed a series of flips that would have done credit to a professional acrobat
the finale of which left her sitting calmly in the previously empty seat see she informed the flabbergasted stewardess i could do it and i didn't her voice was drowned out in a yell of approval
as everybody who could clap their hands did so with enthusiasm more keep it up gal do it again oh i didn't do that to show off barbara warner flushed hotly as she met the eyes of the nearby spectators
honestly i didn't i just had to know if i could then as the applause did not die down she fairly scampered out of the room for one hour before the procyon's departure from earth
and for three hours afterward first officer carlyle deston chief electronicist sat attentively at his board
watching a hundred lights and half that many instruments listening to two phone circuits one with each ear and hands moving from switches to rheostats to buttons and levers he was completely informed as to the instant by instant status of everything in his department
although attentive he was not tense even during the countdown the only change was that at the word two his right forefinger came to rest upon a red button and his eyes doubled their rate of scan if anything in his department had gone wrong
and again well out beyond the orbit of the moon just before the starship's mighty chaytor engines hurled her out of space as we know it into that unknowable something that is hyperspace he poised a finger but immergence too was normal
all the green lights except one went out needles dropped to zero both phones went dead all signals stopped he plugged a jack into a socket below the one remaining green light and spoke procyon one to control six
subspace radio test one how do you read me control six control six to procyon one i read you ten and zero how do you read me procyon one ten and zero out deston flipped a toggle
and the solitary green light went out perfect signal and zero noise that was that from now until emergence unless something happened he might as well be a passenger everything was automatic
unless and until some robot or computer yelled for help deston leaned back in his bucket seat and lighted a cigarette he didn't need to scan the board constantly now any trouble signal would jump right out at him
promptly at dee plus three zero zero three hours no minutes no seconds after departure his relief appeared all black babe the newcomer asked as the pit eddie take over eddie did so
you've picked out your girl friend for the trip i suppose not yet i got sidetracked watching bobby warner she was doing handstands and handwalks and forward and back flips in the lounge under one point five gees yet
wow and after that all the other women looked like a dime's worth of catmeat she doesn't stand out too much until she starts to move but then oh brother eddie rolled his eyes made motions with his hands
and whistled expressively talk about poetry in motion just walking across a stage she'd bring down the house and stop the show cold in its tracks o k o k don't blow a fuse deston said resignedly
i know you'll love her undyingly all this trip maybe so bring her up next watch and i'll give her a gold badge as usual you how dumb can you get eddie demanded
d'you think i'd even try to play footsie with barbara warner you'd play footsie with the archangel michael's sister if she'd let you and she probably would so who's barbara warner eddie thompson gazed at his superior pityingly
i know you're ten nines per cent monk babe but i did think you pulled your nose out of the megacycles often enough to learn a few of the facts of life did you ever hear of warner oil i think so deston thought for a moment
found a big new field didn't they in south america somewhere just the biggest on earth is all and not only on earth he operates in all the systems for a hundred parsecs around and he never sinks a dry hole
every well he drills is a gusher that blows the rig clear up into the stratosphere everybody wonders how he does it my guess is that his wife's an oil witch which is why he lugs his whole family along wherever he goes why else would he
it happens you know huh eddie snorted after twenty years of her comet gas anyway would you have the sublime gall to make passes at warner oil's heiress with more millions in her own sock than you've got dimes
i don't make passes that's right you don't only at books and tapes even on ground leaves more fool you well then would you marry anybody like that certainly if i loved
deston paused thought a moment then went on maybe i wouldn't either she'd make me dress for dinner she'd probably have a live waiter maybe even a butler so i guess i wouldn't at that you nor me neither brother
what a lovely luscious toothsome dish eddie mourned you'll be raving about another one tomorrow deston said unfeelingly as he turned away i don't know but even if i do she won't be anything like her
eddie said to the closing door and deston outside the door grinned sardonically to himself before his next watch eddie would bring up one of the prettiest girls aboard for a gold badge the token that would let her
under approved escort of course go through the top he himself never went down to the middle which was passenger territory there was nothing there he wanted he was too busy had too many worthwhile things to do to waste time that way
but the hunch was getting stronger and stronger all the time for the first time in all his three years of deep space service he felt an overpowering urge to go down into the very middle of the middle to the starship's main lounge
he was that kind of a man apart from the matter of unearned increment however he always followed his hunches but this one he did not like at all he had been resisting it for hours
because he had never visited the lounge and did not want to visit it now but something down there was pulling like a tractor so he went he didn't go to his cabin didn't even take off his side arm he didn't even think of it
arrival from maryland eighteen fifty nine jim kell charles heath william carlisle charles ringgold thomas maxwell and samuel smith
on the evening of the fourth of july while all was hilarity and rejoicing the above named very interesting fugitives arrived from the troubled district the eastern shore of maryland where so many conventions had been held the previous year to prevent escapes
where so many parties on escaping had the good sense and courage to secure their flight by bringing their masters horses and carriages a good way on their perilous journey sam had been tied up and beat many times severely
jim had been whipped with clubs and switches times without number charles had had five men on him at one time with cowhides his master in the lead charles heath had had his head cut shockingly with a club in the hands of his master
this well cared for individual in referring to his kind master said i can give his character right along he was a perfect devil the night we left he had a woman tied up god knows what he done he was always blustering you could never do enough for him no how
first thing in the morning and last thing at night you would hear him cussing he would cuss in bed he was a large farmer all the time drunk he had a good deal of money but not much character he was a savage bluff red face looking concern
thus in the most earnest as well as in an intelligent manner charles described the man
who had hitherto held him under the yoke james left his mother nancy kell two brothers robert and henry and two sisters mary and annie all living in the neighborhood whence he fled
besides these he had eight brothers and sisters living in baltimore and elsewhere under the yoke he was twenty four years of age of a jet color but of a manly turn he fled from thomas murphy a farmer and regular slave holder
he left his mother and two sisters charles ringgold was eighteen years of age no white blood showed itself in the least in this individual he fled from doctor jacob preston a member of the episcopal church and a practical farmer with twenty head of slaves
he was not so bad but his wife was said to be a stinger charles left his mother and father behind also four sisters thomas was of pure blood with a very cheerful healthy looking countenance
twenty one years of age and was to come free at twenty five but he had too much good sense to rely upon the promises of slave holders in matters of this kind he too belonged to cain who he said was constantly talking about selling et cetera he left his father and mother
after being furnished with food clothing and free tickets they were forwarded on in triumph and full of hope sundry arrivals eighteen fifty nine john edward lee john hillis charles ross james ryan william johnston
edward wood cornelius fuller and his wife harriet
and james brown john came from maryland and brought with him a good degree of pluck he satisfied the committee that he fully believed in freedom and had proved his faith by his works as he came in contact with pursuers whom he put to flight
by the use of an ugly looking knife which he plunged into one of them producing quite a panic the result was that he was left to pursue his underground rail road journey without further molestation
he became entitled to his freedom and just as the time arrived for the consummation of his long prayed for boon said slade was about to sell him after this provocation it was clear enough to perceive how john came to use his knife
john hillis was a tiller of the ground under a widow lady missus louisa le count of the new market district maryland he signified to the mistress that he loved to follow the water and that he would be just as safe on water as on land and that he was discontented
the widow heard john's plausible story and saw nothing amiss in it so she consented that he should work on a schooner the name of the craft was majestic
he could not therefore consent to go back to her he was troubled to think of his poor wife and children whom he had left in the hands of missus harriet dean three quarters of a mile from new market but it was easier for him to imagine plans by which he could get them off than to incur the hazard of going back to maryland
therefore he remained in freedom charles ross was clearly of the opinion that he was free born but that he had been illegally held in slavery as were all his brothers and sisters by a man named rodgers a farmer living near greensborough in caroline county maryland
very good reasons were given by charles for the charge which he made against rodgers and it went far towards establishing the fact that colored men had no rights which white men were bound to respect in maryland although he was only twenty three years of age he had fully weighed the matter of his freedom
and appeared firmly set against slavery william johnson was owned by a man named john bosley a farmer living near gun powder neck maryland
and of his father's whereabouts he knew nothing william was nineteen years of age brown color smart and good looking edward wood was a chattel from drummerstown accomac county virginia where he had been owned by a farmer calling himself james white
cornelius and harriet were obliged to leave their daughter kitty who was thirteen years of age john pinket and ansal cannon took the underground rail road cars at new market dorchester county maryland
she sold one of john's sisters to georgia and before john fled had still in her possession nine head of slaves she was a member of the methodist church at east new market from certain movements which looked very suspicious in john's eyes he had been allotted to the southern market
he therefore resolved to look out for a habitation in canada he had a first rate corn field education but no book learning up to the time of his escape john had shunned entangling himself with a wife
he was six feet three inches high and in every respect a man of bone sinew and muscle for one who had enjoyed only a field hand's privileges for improvement he was not to be despised
jim owed service to henry jones at least he admitted that said jones claimed him and had hired him out to himself for seven dollars per month while this amount seemed light it was much heavier than jim felt willing to meet solely for his master's benefit
after giving some heed to the voice of freedom within he considered that it behooved him to try and make his way to some place where men were not guilty of wronging their neighbors out of their just hire having heard of the underground rail road running to canada
he concluded to take a trip and see the country for himself so he arranged his affairs with this end in view and left henry jones with one less to work for him for nothing the place that he fled from was called north point baltimore county
the number of fellow slaves left in the hands of his old master was fifteen arrival from delaware eighteen fifty nine edward john and charles hall
it was owing to the fact that their mother had been freed that they entertained the vague notion that they too might be freed but it was a well established fact that thousands lived and died in such a hope without ever realizing their expectations
the boys more shrewd and wide awake than many others did not hearken to such stuff the two younger heard the views of the elder brother and expressed a willingness to follow him edward becoming satisfied that what they meant to do must be done quickly
took the lead and off they started for a free state
arrival from virginia eighteen fifty nine james taylor albert gross and john grinage to see mere lads not twenty one years of age smart enough to outwit the very shrewdest and wisest slave holders of virginia was very gratifying
the young men composing this arrival were of this keen sighted order james was only a little turned of twenty of a yellow complexion and intelligent a trader by the name of george ailer professed to own james he said that he had been used tolerable well
his father and mother harrison and jane taylor were left at fredericksburg to mourn the absence of their son albert was in his twentieth year the picture of good health not homely by any means although not of a fashionable color
he was under the patriarchal protection of a man by the name of william price who carried on farming in cecil county maryland albert testified that he was a bad man john grinage was only twenty a sprightly active young man of a brown color
he came from middle neck cecil county where he had served under william flintham a farmer sundry arrivals from maryland eighteen fifty nine and other places james andy wilkins and wife lucinda with their little boy charles charles henry gross
a woman with her two children one in her arms john brown john roach and wife lamby and henry smallwood the above named passengers did not all come from the same place or exactly at the same time but for the sake of convenience they are thus embraced under a general head
but sly in action his master provided him with two pairs of pantaloons in the summer and one in the winter also a winter jacket no vest no cap or hat james thought the sum total for the entire year's clothing would not amount to more than ten dollars
sunday clothing he was compelled to procure for himself by working of nights he made axe handles mats et cetera
were lavished upon him his master was a bachelor a man of considerable means and kept tolerable good company and only owned two other slaves rachel ann dumbson and john price
and she came to him through his wife who was a methodist the master was an outsider so far as the church was concerned once in a great while lucinda was allowed to go to church when she could be spared from her daily routine of cooking washing et cetera
twice a week she was permitted the special favor of seeing her husband these simple privations not being of a grave character no serious fault was found with them yet lucinda was not without a strong ground of complaint not long before escaping she had been threatened with the auction block
this fate she felt bound to avert if possible and the way she aimed to do it was by escaping on the underground rail road charley a bright little fellow only three years of age was contented and happy enough lucinda left her father moses edgar wright and two brothers both slaves
one belonged to francis crookshanks and the other to captain jim mitchell her mother who was known by the name of betsy wright escaped when she lucinda was seven years of age of her whereabouts nothing further had ever been heard
lucinda entertained strong hopes that she might find her in canada charles henry gross began life in maryland and was made to bear the heat and burden of the day in baltimore under henry slaughter proprietor of the ariel steamer
john brown being at the beck of a man filling the situation of a common clerk in the shoe store of mc grunders became dissatisfied asking himself what right benjamin thorn his professed master had to his hire
he was led to see the injustice of his master and made up his mind that he would leave by the first train if he could get a genuine ticket via the underground rail road he found an agent and soon had matters all fixed he left his father mother and seven sisters and one brother all slaves
john was a man small of stature dark with homely features but he was very determined to get away from oppression john and lamby roach had been eating bitter bread under bondage near seaford john was the so called property of joshua o'bear a fractious hard swearing man
and when mad would hit one of his slaves with anything he could get in his hands john and his companion made the long journey on foot the former had been trained to farm labor and the common drudgery of slave life being a man of thirty three years of age with more than ordinary abilities
he had given the matter of his bondage considerable thought and seeing that his master got worse the older he got together with the fact that his wife had recently been sold he was strongly stirred to make an effort for canada while it was a fact that his wife had already been sold as above stated
the change of ownership was not to take place for some months consequently john took out in a hurry his wife was the property of doctor shipley of seaford who had occasion to raise some money for which he gave security in the shape of this wife and mother
horsey was the name of the gentleman from whom it was said that he obtained the favor so when the time was up for the payment to be made the doctor was not prepared horsey therefore claimed the collateral the wife and thus she had to meet the issue
or make a timely escape to canada with her husband no way but walking was open to them deciding to come this way they prosecuted their journey with uncommon perseverance and success
both were comforted by strong faith in god and believed that he would enable them to hold out on the road until they should reach friends henry smallwood saw that he was working every day for nothing and thought that he would do better he described his master washington bonafont
leaving a very unfavorable impression on henry's mind as he felt almost sure such conduct would lead to a sale at no distant day so he was cautious enough to take the hint in time
at this point henry lost all trace of the rest he heard afterwards that two of them had been captured but received no further tidings of the others henry was a fine representative for canada a tall dark and manly looking individual
thirty six years of age he left his father and mother behind arrival from richmond eighteen fifty nine henry jones and turner foster henry was left free by the will of his mistress elizabeth mann but the heirs were making desperate efforts to overturn this instrument
of this there was so much danger with a richmond court that henry feared that the chances were against him that the court was not honest enough to do him justice being a man of marked native foresight he concluded that the less he talked about freedom
and the more he acted the sooner he would be out of his difficulties he was called upon however to settle certain minor matters before he could see his way clear to move in the direction of canada for instance he had a wife on his mind to dispose of in some way but how he could not tell
again he was not in the secret of the underground rail road movement he knew that many got off but how they managed it he was ignorant if he could settle these two points satisfactorily he thought that he would be willing to endure any sacrifice for the sake of his freedom
he found an agent of the underground rail road and after surmounting various difficulties this point was settled as good luck would have it his wife who was a free woman although she heard the secret with great sorrow had the good sense to regard his step for the best
and thus he was free to contend with all other dangers on the way he encountered the usual suffering and on his arrival experienced the wonted pleasure he was a man of forty one years of age spare made with straight hair and indian complexion
with the indian's aversion to slavery turner who was a fellow passenger with henry arrived also from richmond he was about twenty one a bright smart prepossessing young man
he fled from a a mosen a lawyer represented to be one of the first in the city and a firm believer in slavery turner differed widely with his master with reference to this question although for prudential reasons he chose not to give his opinion to said mosen
arrival from maryland two young mothers each with babes in their arms anna elizabeth young and sarah jane bell whipped till the blood flowed the appearance of these young mothers at first produced a sudden degree of pleasure
but their story of suffering quite as suddenly caused the most painful reflections it was hardly possible to listen to their tales of outrage and wrong with composure both came from kent county maryland and reported that they fled from a man by the name of massey a man of low stature
light complexioned with dark hair dark eyes and very quick temper given to hard swearing as a common practice also that the said massey had a wife who was a very tall woman with blue eyes chestnut colored hair and a very bad temper
that conjointly massey and his wife were in the habit of meting out cruel punishment to their slaves without regard to age or sex and that they themselves anna elizabeth and sarah jane had received repeated scourgings at the hands of their master
anna and sarah were respectively twenty four and twenty five years of age anna was of a dark chestnut color while sarah was two shades lighter both had good manners and a fair share of intelligence which afforded a hopeful future for them in freedom
each had a babe in her arms sarah had been a married woman for three years her child a boy was eight months old and was named garrett bell elizabeth's child was a girl nineteen months old and named sarah catharine young elizabeth had never been married
they had lived with massey five years up to the last march prior to their escape having been bought out of the baltimore slave pen with the understanding that they were to be free at the expiration of five years service under him the five years had more than expired but no hope or sign of freedom appeared
on the other hand massey was talking loudly of selling them again threats and fears were so horrifying to them that they could not stand it this was what prompted them to flee as often as six or seven times said elizabeth i have been whipped by master once with the carriage whip
and at other times with a raw hide trace the last flogging i received from him was about four weeks before last christmas he then tied me up to a locust tree standing before the door and whipped me to his satisfaction sarah had fared no better than elizabeth according to her testimony
three times said she i have been tied up the last time was in planting corn time this year my clothing was all stripped off above my waist and then he whipped me till the blood ran down to my heels her back was lacerated all over
one day a visitor came to the house of jesse david's father this visitor was no other than the prophet samuel he had received a command from the lord telling him to take a vial of oil and seek the house of jesse
then the voice of the lord again spoke to samuel it said arise anoint him for this is he as soon as the prophet had anointed david with the oil the young man was filled with the spirit and power of god
at the same time they left king saul who did many foolish and bad deeds after this but what of david did he go out into the world and declare himself the future king of israel not so he continued to live his peaceful quiet life as a shepherd
he learned to sing and play upon the harp he now showed himself indeed the sweet singer of israel he began to show power in other ways too many times the fierce lions and savage bears came creeping upon his flocks
many times david met and overpowered them with the strength given to him by the lord it seems as though i can see him guarding his flocks said solomon as levi stopped talking to rest for a moment his beautiful black eyes are looking out into the night and watching for danger
he looks at his sleeping sheep to see if all are safe then he hears the sound of foes drawing near and springs to meet them i like best to think of him with a tiny lamb in his arms said esther he holds it lovingly against his breast as though he would say
they became more and more daring until at last they gathered on the side of a mountain right here in israel three of david's brothers were fighting in saul's army and went out to meet the philistines david often went to the camp to visit his brothers
david was not used to such things the armour weighed him down so that he staggered and almost fell he said it would be better for me to carry only such weapons as i know let me take my shepherd's staff and the sling i have used so often in meeting the wild beasts
he was allowed to do as he chose he went forth to meet the giant with nothing to help him save his staff and sling and what did the giant goliath say when he saw the young shepherd draw near he spoke in scornful words
as soon as david saw the success of his shot he rushed to the giant's side seized his sword and cut off his head the watching philistines were filled with fear they began to flee but saul's army followed and overtook them and killed great numbers
when he learned of david's power to play and sing he often asked the young shepherd to quiet his angry feelings with the sweet music of his harp and voice he was very fond of david in those days but after a while he became jealous when he heard the constant praises of the people
but saul soon found that his younger daughter loved david he now said you may have michal if you will first kill one hundred philistines he only said this because he hoped david would be killed by the enemy i know what david did exclaimed solomon who could keep still no longer
all his wicked feelings came back and he hired some bad men to take david by surprise when he was asleep and kill him somehow or other michal heard of the plot she warned david and he fled from the palace
but michal did not stop here she made the shape of a man and placed it in david's bed in this way the bad men who came to kill him were deceived i am rather tired rebecca said levi when he had got this far in his story
won't you go on and tell the children about david's flight certainly said his wife in her sweet clear voice she made a picture of david hiding near ramah but he was not safe for saul heard where he was he sent men there to take him prisoner
a strange thing happened on their way they were overcome by the spirit of the lord and they did not dare seize david when saul was told how they had failed he went himself in search of david but he too was overpowered by the spirit of the lord and what do you think happened
instead of harming him he asked david to come back to the palace but david did not feel sure that saul was a true friend he thought it would be the wisest thing for him to see jonathan first and ask him to find out how his father really felt jonathan was a true friend
it did not take him long to learn that saul was as much an enemy as ever he must now let david know about it and prevent his return to the palace he knew where david was hiding but he did not dare seek him out instead of that he started from the palace to go shooting
when rebecca had got thus far miriam looked a little perplexed i don't see how david could understand what he meant she said he had agreed with jonathan that certain words should mean certain things my dear oh i see now go on with the story please
he asked for the sword of goliath which was in the high priest's keeping he also asked for five sacred loaves of shewbread which no one dared to eat except the priests when these had been given him he hurried away he had one adventure after another
it was about this time that he hid in the cave of adullam his brothers and a great many other israelites joined him there while he was hiding in the cave of adullam the prophet of god came to him telling him to go into the land of judah
he started at once to obey the prophet's command saul heard where he was and followed him on his way the king heard how david had been helped by the high priest he was so angry that he ordered not only the high priest to be killed but also his eighty five helpers
and all the people of the town in which he lived the son of the high priest managed to escape he fled to david and told him the sad story you can imagine how bad david felt when he learned what had happened through his own deceit
but his mind was kept busy with plans to keep out of saul's reach for the king followed him from place to place one night while david was hiding in a cave the king stopped to rest at that very spot little did he dream who was so near him
he held up the piece he had cut from saul's cloak then the king knew he had been in david's power he saw how generously he had been treated he felt such shame that he determined to do the young man no more harm
no one saw them as they stole along no one heard them as david stepped to the side of the sleeping saul and seized his spear and cup then away they sped till they reached the hilltop opposite the one where saul had taken his stand
david now cried out in a loud voice to wake the sleeping army he showed the cup and spear he had taken away from saul's tent saul saw that david had spared his life a second time he was again filled with gratitude
but david had learned not to trust him he sought a home among the philistines and helped them in their wars they treated him with great kindness and their king became his true friend not long after this the philistines went out to battle against saul
david was not with them at this time it was a sad day for the israelites they were badly beaten and saul's sons were killed yes even david's faithful friend jonathan lost his life saul was overcome with sorrow
he threw himself upon his sword and died by his own hand when david heard the news he felt very sad he mourned bitterly over the death of jonathan but this could not be helped now and there was much work to do for his people
how just he is said the people how brave he is all cried not long after this he was crowned king of israel at first he lived in hebron but afterward he went to jerusalem where a beautiful palace was built for him and his family
and now he went on and became great for the lord god of hosts was with him rebecca bowed her head as she said these words let us chant one of the psalms of david said levi it is a good way to end our afternoon
the white snake a long time ago there lived a king who was famed for his wisdom through all the land nothing was hidden from him and it seemed as if news of the most secret things
was brought to him through the air but he had a strange custom every day after dinner when the table was cleared and no one else was present a trusty servant had to bring him one more dish it was covered however
and even the servant did not know what was in it neither did anyone know
this had gone on for a long time when one day the servant who took away the dish was overcome with such curiosity that he could not help carrying the dish into his room when he had carefully locked the door he lifted up the cover
and saw a white snake lying on the dish but when he saw it he could not deny himself the pleasure of tasting it so he cut of a little bit and put it into his mouth no sooner had it touched his tongue
than he heard a strange whispering of little voices outside his window he went and listened and then noticed that it was the sparrows who were chattering together and telling one another of all kinds of things which they had seen in the fields and woods
eating the snake had given him power of understanding the language of animals now it so happened that on this very day the queen lost her most beautiful ring and suspicion of having stolen it fell upon this trusty servant
who was allowed to go everywhere the king ordered the man to be brought before him and threatened with angry words that unless he could before the morrow point out the thief he himself should be looked upon as guilty and executed in vain he declared his innocence
he was dismissed with no better answer in his trouble and fear he went down into the courtyard and took thought how to help himself out of his trouble now some ducks were sitting together quietly by a brook and taking their rest
and whilst they were making their feathers smooth with their bills they were having a confidential conversation together the servant stood by and listened they were telling one another of all the places where they had been waddling about all the morning and what good food they had found
and one said in a pitiful tone
as i was eating in haste i swallowed a ring which lay under the queen's window the servant at once seized her by the neck carried her to the kitchen and said to the cook here is a fine duck pray kill her yes said the cook and weighed her in his hand
she has spared no trouble to fatten herself
so he cut off her head and as she was being dressed for the spit the queen's ring was found inside her the servant could now easily prove his innocence and the king to make amends for the wrong
allowed him to ask a favour and promised him the best place in the court that he could wish for the servant refused everything and only asked for a horse and some money for travelling
about a little when his request was granted he set out on his way and one day came to a pond where he saw three fishes caught in the reeds and gasping for water now though it is said that fishes are dumb
he heard them lamenting that they must perish so miserably and as he had a kind heart he got off his horse and put the three prisoners back into the water they leapt
put out their heads and cried to him we will remember you and repay you for saving us he rode on and after a while it seemed to him that he heard a voice in the sand at his feet he listened and heard an ant king complain
why cannot folks with their clumsy beasts keep off our bodies
has been treading down my people without mercy so he turned on to a side path and the ant king cried out to him we will remember you one good turn deserves another the path led him into a wood
and there he saw two old ravens standing by their nest and throwing out their young ones out with you you idle good for nothing creatures cried they we cannot find food for you any longer you are big enough and can provide for yourselves but the poor young ravens lay upon the ground
flapping their wings and crying oh what helpless chicks we are we must shift for ourselves and yet we cannot fly what can we do but lie here and starve so the good young fellow alighted and killed his horse with his sword and gave it to them for food
then they came hopping up to it satisfied their hunger and cried we will remember you one good turn deserves another
and when he had walked a long way he came to a large city there was a great noise and crowd in the streets and a man rode up on horseback crying aloud the king's daughter wants a husband but whoever seeks her hand must perform a hard task
many had already made the attempt but in vain nevertheless when the youth saw the king's daughter
went before the king and declared himself a suitor so he was led out to the sea and a gold ring was thrown into it before his eyes then the king ordered him to fetch this ring up from the bottom of the sea and added
if you come up again without it you will be thrown in again and again until you perish amid the waves all the people grieved for the handsome youth then they went away leaving him alone by the sea he stood on the shore and considered what he should do
when suddenly he saw three fishes come swimming towards him and they were the very fishes whose lives he had saved the one in the middle held a mussel in its mouth which it laid on the shore at the youth's feet
there lay the gold ring in the shell full of joy he took it to the king and expected that he would grant him the promised reward but when the proud princess perceived that he was not her equal in birth she scorned him and required him first to perform another task
she went down into the garden and strewed with her own hands ten sacksful of millet seed on the grass then she said
but as soon as the first rays of the sun shone into the garden he saw all the ten sacks standing side by side quite full
and the grateful creatures had by great industry picked up all the millet seed and gathered them into the sacks presently the king's daughter herself came down into the garden and was amazed to see that the young man had done the task she had given him but she could not yet conquer her proud heart and said
he shall not be my husband until he had brought me an apple from the tree of life the youth did not know where the tree of life stood but he set out and would have gone on for ever as long as his legs would carry him though he had no hope of finding it
after he had wandered through three kingdoms he came one evening to a wood and lay down under a tree to sleep but he heard a rustling in the branches and a golden apple fell into his hand at the same time three ravens flew down to him perched themselves upon his knee and said
ashputtel the wife of a rich man fell sick and when she felt that her end drew nigh she called her only daughter to her bed side and said always be a good girl
and i will look down from heaven and watch over you soon afterwards she shut her eyes and died and was buried in the garden and the little girl went every day to her grave and wept and was always good and kind to all about her
and the snow fell and spread a beautiful white covering over the grave but by the time the spring came and the sun had melted it away again her father had married another wife this new wife had two daughters of her own
that she brought home with her they were fair in face but foul at heart and it was now a sorry time for the poor little girl what does the good for nothing want in the parlour said they
they who would eat bread should first earn it away with the kitchen maid then they took away her fine clothes and gave her an old grey frock to put on and laughed at her and turned her into the kitchen there
she was forced to do hard work to rise early before daylight to bring the water to make the fire to cook and to wash besides that the sisters plagued her in all sorts of ways and laughed at her
in the evening when she was tired she had no bed to lie down on but was made to lie by the hearth among the ashes and as this of course made her always dusty and dirty they called her ashputtel
it happened once that the father was going to the fair and asked his wife's daughters what he should bring them fine clothes said the first pearls and diamonds cried the second now child said he to his own daughter what will you have
the first twig dear father that brushes against your hat when you turn your face to come homewards said she then he bought for the first two
and on his way home as he rode through a green copse a hazel twig brushed against him and almost pushed off his hat so he broke it off and brought it away and when he got home he gave it to his daughter then she took it
and went to her mother's grave and planted it there and cried so much that it was watered with her tears and there it grew and became a fine tree three times every day she went to it and cried and soon a little bird came and built its nest upon the tree
and talked with her and watched over her and brought her whatever she wished for now it happened that the king of that land held a feast which was to last three days and out of those who came to it his son was to choose a bride for himself
ashputtel's two sisters were asked to come so they called her up and said now comb our hair brush our shoes and tie our sashes for us for we are going to dance at the king's feast then she did as she was told but when all was done she could not help crying
for she thought to herself she should so have liked to have gone with them to the ball and at last she begged her mother very hard to let her go you ashputtel said she you who have nothing to wear no clothes at all
you want to go to the ball and when she kept on begging she said at last to get rid of her i will throw this dishful of peas into the ash heap and if in two hours time you have picked them all out you shall go to the feast too then
she threw the peas down among the ashes but the little maiden ran out at the back door into the garden and cried out hither hither through the sky turtle doves and linnets fly blackbird thrush and chaffinch gay hither hither haste away
one and all come help me quick haste ye haste ye pick pick pick then first came two white doves flying in at the kitchen window next came two turtle doves and after them came all the little birds under heaven
chirping and fluttering in and they flew down into the ashes and the little doves stooped their heads down and set to work pick pick pick and then the others began to pick pick pick
long before the end of the hour the work was quite done and all flew out again at the windows then ashputtel brought the dish to her mother overjoyed at the thought that now she should go to the ball but the mother said no no you slut
you have no clothes and cannot dance you shall not go and when ashputtel begged very hard to go she said if you can in one hour's time pick two of those dishes of peas out of the ashes you shall go too and thus
she thought she should at least get rid of her so she shook two dishes of peas into the ashes but the little maiden went out into the garden at the back of the house and cried out as before hither hither through the sky turtle doves and linnets fly
blackbird thrush and chaffinch gay hither hither haste away one and all come help me quick haste ye haste ye pick pick pick then first came two white doves in at the kitchen window next came two turtle doves
and after them came all the little birds under heaven chirping and hopping about and they flew down into the ashes and the little doves put their heads down and set to work pick pick pick and then the others began pick pick pick
and they put all the good grain into the dishes and left all the ashes before half an hour's time all was done and out they flew again and then ashputtel took the dishes to her mother rejoicing to think that she should now go to the ball but her mother said it is all of no use
you cannot go you have no clothes and cannot dance and you would only put us to shame and off she went with her two daughters to the ball now when all were gone and nobody left at home ashputtel went sorrowfully
and sat down under the hazel tree and cried out shake shake hazel tree gold and silver over me then her friend the bird flew out of the tree and brought a gold and silver dress for her and slippers of spangled silk and she put them on and followed her sisters to the feast
but they did not know her and thought it must be some strange princess she looked so fine and beautiful in her rich clothes and they never once thought of ashputtel taking it for granted that she was safe at home in the dirt the king's son soon came up to her
and took her by the hand and danced with her and no one else and he never left her hand but when anyone else came to ask her to dance he said this lady is dancing with me thus they danced till a late hour of the night and then she wanted to go home
and the king's son said i shall go and take care of you to your home for he wanted to see where the beautiful maiden lived but she slipped away from him unawares and ran off towards home and as the prince followed her she jumped up into the pigeon house and shut the door
then he waited till her father came home and told him that the unknown maiden
but when they had broken open the door they found no one within and as they came back into the house ashputtel was lying as she always did in her dirty frock by the ashes and her dim little lamp was burning in the chimney for she had run as quickly as she could through the pigeon house
and on to the hazel tree and had there taken off her beautiful clothes and put them beneath the tree that the bird might carry them away and had lain down again amid the ashes in her little grey frock the next day when the feast was again held
and her father mother and sisters were gone ashputtel went to the hazel tree and said shake shake hazel tree gold and silver over me and the bird came and brought a still finer dress than the one she had worn the day before and when she came in it to the ball
everyone wondered at her beauty but the king's son who was waiting for her took her by the hand and danced with her and when anyone asked her to dance he said as before this lady is dancing with me when night came she wanted to go home
that he might see into what house she went
in this garden stood a fine large pear tree full of ripe fruit and ashputtel not knowing where to hide herself jumped up into it without being seen then the king's son lost sight of her and could not find out where she was gone
but waited till her father came home and said to him the unknown lady who danced with me has slipped away
the father thought to himself can it be ashputtel so he had an axe brought and they cut down the tree but found no one upon it and when they came back into the kitchen there lay ashputtel among the ashes
and then put on her little grey frock the third day when her father and mother and sisters were gone she went again into the garden and said shake shake hazel tree gold and silver over me
then her kind friend the bird brought a dress still finer than the former one and slippers which were all of gold so that when she came to the feast no one knew what to say for wonder at her beauty and the king's son danced with nobody but her
and when anyone else asked her to dance he said this lady is my partner sir when night came she wanted to go home and the king's son would go with her and said to himself i will not lose her this time
she again slipped away from him though in such a hurry that she dropped her left golden slipper upon the stairs the prince took the shoe and went the next day to the king his father and said i will take for my wife the lady that this golden slipper fits
then both the sisters were overjoyed to hear it for they had beautiful feet and had no doubt that they could wear the golden slipper the eldest went first into the room where the slipper was and wanted to try it on and the mother stood by
but her great toe could not go into it and the shoe was altogether much too small for her then the mother gave her a knife and said never mind cut it off when you are queen you will not care about toes you will not want to walk so the silly girl cut off her great toe
and thus squeezed on the shoe and went to the king's son then he took her for his bride and set her beside him on his horse and rode away with her homewards but on their way home
and on the branch sat a little dove singing back again back again look to the shoe the shoe is too small and not made for you prince prince look again for thy bride for she's not the true one that sits by thy side
and he saw by the blood that streamed from it what a trick she had played him
this is not the right bride let the other sister try and put on the slipper then she went into the room and got her foot into the shoe all but the heel which was too large but her mother squeezed it in till the blood came and took her to the king's son
and he set her as his bride by his side on his horse and rode away with her but when they came to the hazel tree the little dove sat there still and sang back again back again look to the shoe the shoe is too small and not made for you
prince prince look again for thy bride for she's not the true one that sits by thy side then he looked down and saw that the blood streamed so much from the shoe that her white stockings were quite red so he turned his horse and brought her also back again
this is not the true bride said he to the father have you no other daughters no said he there is only a little dirty ashputtel here the child of my first wife i am sure she cannot be the bride the prince told him to send her
but the mother said no no she is much too dirty she will not dare to show herself however the prince would have her come and she first washed her face and hands and then went in and curtsied to him and he reached her the golden slipper then she took her clumsy shoe off her left foot
and put on the golden slipper and it fitted her as if it had been made for her and when he drew near and looked at her face he knew her and said this is the right bride but the mother and both the sisters were frightened and turned pale with anger as he took ashputtel on his horse and rode away with her
and when they came to the hazel tree the white dove sang home home look at the shoe princess the shoe was made for you prince prince take home thy bride for she is the true one that sits by thy side
clever hans the mother of hans said whither away hans hans answered to gretel behave well hans oh i'll behave well goodbye mother goodbye hans
hans comes to gretel good day gretel good day hans what do you bring that is good i bring nothing i want to have something given me gretel presents hans with a needle hans says goodbye gretel
goodbye hans hans takes the needle sticks it into a hay cart and follows the cart home good evening mother good evening hans where have you been with gretel what did you take her
took nothing had something given me what did gretel give you gave me a needle where is the needle hans stuck in the hay cart that was ill done hans
never mind i'll do better next time whither away hans to gretel mother behave well hans oh i'll behave well goodbye mother goodbye hans hans comes to gretel
good day gretel good day hans what do you bring that is good i bring nothing i want to have something given to me gretel presents hans with a knife goodbye gretel goodbye hans
hans takes the knife sticks it in his sleeve and goes home good evening mother good evening hans where have you been with gretel what did you take her took her nothing she gave me something what did gretel give you
gave me a knife where is the knife hans stuck in my sleeve that's ill done hans you should have put the knife in your pocket never mind will do better next time whither away hans
to gretel mother behave well hans oh i'll behave well goodbye mother goodbye hans hans comes to gretel good day gretel good day hans what good thing do you bring i bring nothing i want something given me
gretel presents hans with a young goat goodbye gretel goodbye hans hans takes the goat
when he gets home it is suffocated good evening mother
with gretel what did you take her took nothing she gave me something what did gretel give you she gave me a goat where is the goat hans put it in my pocket that was ill done hans
you should have put a rope round the goat's neck never mind will do better next time whither away hans to gretel mother behave well hans oh i'll behave well goodbye mother goodbye hans
hans comes to gretel good day gretel good day hans what good thing do you bring i bring nothing i want something given me gretel presents hans with a piece of bacon goodbye gretel goodbye hans
hans takes the bacon ties it to a rope and drags it away behind him the dogs come and devour the bacon when he gets home he has the rope in his hand and there is no longer anything hanging on to it good evening mother
good evening hans where have you been with gretel what did you take her i took her nothing she gave me something what did gretel give you gave me a bit of bacon where is the bacon hans
never mind will do better next time whither away hans to gretel mother behave well hans i'll behave well goodbye mother goodbye hans hans comes to gretel
good day gretel good day hans what good thing do you bring i bring nothing but would have something given gretel presents hans with a calf goodbye gretel goodbye hans hans takes the calf
puts it on his head and the calf kicks his face good evening mother good evening hans where have you been with gretel what did you take her i took nothing but had something given me what did gretel give you a calf
where have you the calf hans i set it on my head and it kicked my face that was ill done hans
never mind will do better next time whither away hans to gretel mother behave well hans i'll behave well goodbye mother goodbye hans hans comes to gretel good day gretel
good day hans what good thing do you bring i bring nothing but would have something given gretel says to hans i will go with you hans takes gretel ties her to a rope leads her to the rack and binds her fast then hans goes to his mother
good evening mother good evening hans where have you been with gretel what did you take her i took her nothing what did gretel give you she gave me nothing she came with me where have you left gretel
i led her by the rope tied her to the rack and scattered some grass for her that was ill done hans you should have cast friendly eyes on her never mind will do better
hans went into the stable cut out all the calves and sheep's eyes and threw them in gretel's face
what things are there in the universe whose existence is known to us owing to our being acquainted with them so far our answer has been that we are acquainted with our sense data and probably with ourselves these we know to exist
and past sense data which are remembered are known to have existed in the past this knowledge supplies our data but if we are to be able to draw inferences from these data
if we are to know of the existence of matter of other people of the past before our individual memory begins or of the future we must know general principles
it must be known to us that the existence of some one sort of thing a is a sign of the existence of some other sort of thing b either at the same time as a or at some earlier or later time as for example
thunder is a sign of the earlier existence of lightning if this were not known to us we could never extend our knowledge beyond the sphere of our private experience and this sphere as we have seen is exceedingly limited
the question we have now to consider is whether such an extension is possible and if so how it is effected let us take as an illustration a matter about which none of us in fact feel the slightest doubt
we are all convinced that the sun will rise to morrow why
to justify the judgement that the sun will rise to morrow and the many other similar judgements upon which our actions are based it is obvious that if we are asked why we believe that the sun will rise to morrow
we shall naturally answer because it always has risen every day we have a firm belief
because it has risen in the past if we are challenged as to why we believe that it will continue to rise as heretofore we may appeal to the laws of motion the earth we shall say is a freely rotating body
and such bodies do not cease to rotate unless something interferes from outside and there is nothing outside to interfere with the earth between now and to morrow of course it might be doubted whether we are quite certain that there is nothing outside to interfere
but this is not the interesting doubt the interesting doubt is as to whether the laws of motion will remain in operation until to morrow if this doubt is raised we find ourselves in the same position as when the doubt about the sunrise was first raised
is that they have operated hitherto so far as our knowledge of the past enables us to judge it is true that we have a greater body of evidence from the past in favour of the laws of motion than we have in favour of the sunrise
because the sunrise is merely a particular case of fulfilment of the laws of motion and there are countless other particular cases but the real question is do any number of cases of a law being fulfilled in the past afford evidence that it will be fulfilled in the future
if not it becomes plain that we have no ground whatever for expecting the sun to rise to morrow or for expecting the bread we shall eat at our next meal not to poison us or for any of the other scarcely conscious expectations that control our daily lives
it is to be observed that all such expectations are only probable thus we have not to seek for a proof that they must be fulfilled but only for some reason in favour of the view that they are likely to be fulfilled
now in dealing with this question we must to begin with make an important distinction without which we should soon become involved in hopeless confusions experience has shown us that hitherto
the frequent repetition of some uniform succession or coexistence has been a cause of our expecting the same succession or coexistence on the next occasion
food that has a certain appearance generally has a certain taste and it is a severe shock to our expectations when the familiar appearance is found to be associated with an unusual taste things which we see become associated by habit with certain tactile sensations
which we expect if we touch them one of the horrors of a ghost in many ghost stories is that it fails to give us any sensations of touch uneducated people who go abroad for the first time
and this kind of association is not confined to men in animals also it is very strong a horse which has been often driven along a certain road resists the attempt to drive him in a different direction
domestic animals expect food when they see the person who usually feeds them we know that all these rather crude expectations of uniformity are liable to be misleading the man who has fed the chicken every day throughout its life at last wrings its neck instead
showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of nature would have been useful to the chicken but in spite of the misleadingness of such expectations they nevertheless exist the mere fact that something has happened a certain number of times causes animals and men
thus our instincts certainly cause us to believe that the sun will rise to morrow but we may be in no better a position than the chicken which unexpectedly has its neck wrung we have therefore to distinguish the fact that past uniformities cause
expectations as to the future from the question whether there is any reasonable ground for giving weight to such expectations after the question of their validity has been raised
the problem we have to discuss is whether there is any reason for believing in what is called the uniformity of nature the belief in the uniformity of nature is the belief that everything that has happened or will happen is an instance of some general law
to which there are no exceptions the crude expectations which we have been considering are all subject to exceptions and therefore liable to disappoint those who entertain them but science habitually assumes
at least as a working hypothesis that general rules which have exceptions can be replaced by general rules which have no exceptions unsupported bodies in air fall is a general rule to which balloons and aeroplanes are exceptions
also account for the fact that balloons and aeroplanes can rise
the belief that the sun will rise to morrow might be falsified if the earth came suddenly into contact with a large body which destroyed its rotation
the business of science is to find uniformities
there are no exceptions in this search science has been remarkably successful and it may be conceded that such uniformities have held hitherto this brings us back to the question have we any reason
assuming that they have always held in the past to suppose that they will hold in the future it has been argued that we have reason to know that the future will resemble the past because what was the future has constantly become the past and has always been found to resemble the past
so that we really have experience of the future namely of times which were formerly future which we may call past futures but such an argument really begs the very question at issue we have experience of past futures but not of future futures and the question is
will future futures resemble past futures this question is not to be answered by an argument which starts from past futures alone we have therefore still to seek for some principle which shall enable us to know that the future will follow the same laws as the past
the reference to the future in this question is not essential the same question arises when we apply the laws that work in our experience to past things of which we have no experience as for example in geology or in theories as to the origin of the solar system
the question we really have to ask is when two things have been found to be often associated
does the occurrence of one of the two in a fresh instance give any good ground for expecting the other
of the whole of our expectations as to the future the whole of the results obtained by induction and in fact practically all the beliefs upon which our daily life is based it must be conceded to begin with
that the fact that two things have been found often together and never apart does not by itself suffice to prove demonstratively that they will be found together in the next case we examine the most we can hope is that the oftener things are found together
the more probable it becomes that they will be found together another time and that if they have been found together often enough the probability will amount almost to certainty it can never quite reach certainty because we know that in spite of frequent repetitions
there sometimes is a failure at the last as in the case of the chicken whose neck is wrung thus probability is all we ought to seek it might be urged as against the view we are advocating that we know all natural phenomena to be subject to the reign of law
and that sometimes on the basis of observation we can see that only one law can possibly fit the facts of the case now to this view there are two answers the first is that even if some law which has no exceptions applies to our case we can never
in practice be sure that we have discovered that law and not one to which there are exceptions the second is that the reign of law would seem to be itself only probable and that our belief that it will hold in the future or in unexamined cases in the past
is itself based upon the very principle we are examining the principle we are examining may be called the principle of induction and its two parts may be stated as follows a
when a thing of a certain sort a has been found to be associated with a thing of a certain other sort b and has never been found dissociated from a thing of the sort b the greater the number of cases in which a and b have been associated
the greater is the probability that they will be associated in a fresh case in which one of them is known to be present b under the same circumstances a sufficient number of cases of association will make the probability of a fresh association nearly a certainty
and will make it approach certainty without limit as just stated the principle applies only to the verification of our expectation
that things of the sort a are always associated with things of the sort b provided a sufficient number of cases of association are known and no cases of failure of association are known
the probability of the general law is obviously less than the probability of the particular case since if the general law is true the particular case must also be true whereas the particular case may be true without the general law being true
nevertheless the probability of the general law is increased by repetitions just as the probability of the particular case is we may therefore repeat the two parts of our principle as regards the general law thus a
the greater the number of cases in which a thing of the sort a has been found associated with a thing of the sort b the more probable it is if no cases of failure of association are known that a is always associated with b b
under the same circumstances a sufficient number of cases of the association of a with b will make it nearly certain that a is always associated with b and will make this general law approach certainty without limit
it should be noted that probability is always relative to certain data in our case the data are merely the known cases of coexistence of a and b there may be other data which might be taken into account which would gravely alter the probability
for example a man who had seen a great many white swans might argue by our principle that on the data it was probable that all swans were white and this might be a perfectly sound argument
that some data render it improbable
is peculiarly liable to error but this knowledge would be a fresh datum
the fact therefore that things often fail to fulfil our expectations is no evidence that our expectations will not probably be fulfilled in a given case or a given class of cases thus our inductive principle is at any rate
not capable of being disproved by an appeal to experience
experience might conceivably confirm the inductive principle as regards the cases that have been already examined but as regards unexamined cases it is the inductive principle alone that can justify any inference from what has been examined to what has not been examined
all arguments which on the basis of experience argue as to the future or the unexperienced parts of the past or present assume the inductive principle hence we can never use experience to prove the inductive principle without begging the question
thus we must either accept the inductive principle on the ground of its intrinsic evidence or forgo all justification of our expectations about the future if the principle is unsound we have no reason to expect the sun to rise to morrow
to expect bread to be more nourishing than a stone or to expect that if we throw ourselves off the roof we shall fall when we see what looks like our best friend approaching us
by the mind of our worst enemy or of some total stranger all our conduct is based upon associations which have worked in the past and which we therefore regard as likely to work in the future and this likelihood is dependent for its validity upon the inductive principle
the general principles of science such as the belief in the reign of law and the belief that every event must have a cause are as completely dependent upon the inductive principle as are the beliefs of daily life
all such general principles are believed because mankind have found innumerable instances of their truth and no instances of their falsehood but this affords no evidence for their truth in the future unless the inductive principle is assumed
thus all knowledge which on a basis of experience tells us something about what is not experienced is based upon a belief which experience can neither confirm nor confute yet which at least in its more concrete applications appears to be as firmly rooted in us as many of the facts
of experience the existence and justification of such beliefs for the inductive principle as we shall see is not the only example raises some of the most difficult and most debated problems of philosophy
the reader may remember that we were led to plunge into the labyrinth of magic by a consideration of two different types of man god this is the clue which has guided our devious steps through the maze and brought us out at last on higher ground whence
resting a little by the way we can look back over the path we have already traversed
as a result of the foregoing discussion the two types of human gods may conveniently be distinguished as the religious and the magical man god respectively in the former a being of an order different from and superior to man is supposed to become incarnate
manifesting his super human power and knowledge by miracles wrought and prophecies uttered through the medium of the fleshly tabernacle in which he has deigned to take up his abode this may also appropriately be called the inspired or incarnate type of man god
in it the human body is merely a frail earthly vessel filled with a divine and immortal spirit on the other hand a man god of the magical sort is nothing but a man who possesses in an unusually high degree powers which
most of his fellows arrogate to themselves on a smaller scale for in rude society there is hardly a person who does not dabble in magic thus whereas a man god of the former or inspired type derives his divinity from a deity who has stooped to hide
his heavenly radiance behind a dull mask of earthly mould a man god of the latter type draws his extraordinary power from a certain physical sympathy with nature he is not merely the receptacle of a divine spirit his whole being body and soul
is so delicately attuned to the harmony of the world that a touch of his hand or a turn of his head may send a thrill vibrating through the universal framework of things and conversely his divine organism is acutely sensitive to such slight changes of environment
as would leave ordinary mortals wholly unaffected but the line between these two types of man god however sharply we may draw it in theory is seldom to be traced with precision in practice and in what follows i shall not insist on it
we have seen that in practice the magic art may be employed for the benefit either of individuals or of the whole community and that according as it is directed to one or other of these two objects it may be called private or public magic
further i pointed out that the public magician occupies a position of great influence from which if he is a prudent and able man he may advance step by step to the rank of a chief or king
thus an examination of public magic conduces to an understanding of the early kingship since in savage and barbarous society many chiefs and kings appear to owe their authority in great measure to their reputation as magicians
among the objects of public utility which magic may be employed to secure the most essential is an adequate supply of food the examples cited in preceding pages prove that the purveyors of food the hunter the fisher the farmer
all resort to magical practices in the pursuit of their various callings but they do so as private individuals for the benefit of themselves and their families rather than as public functionaries acting in the interest of the whole people
it is otherwise when the rites are performed not by the hunters the fishers the farmers themselves but by professional magicians on their behalf in primitive society where uniformity of occupation is the rule
and the distribution of the community into various classes of workers has hardly begun every man is more or less his own magician he practises charms and incantations for his own good and the injury of his enemies
but a great step in advance has been taken when a special class of magicians has been instituted when in other words a number of men have been set apart for the express purpose of benefiting the whole community by their skill
whether that skill be directed to the healing of diseases the forecasting of the future the regulation of the weather or any other object of general utility the impotence of the means adopted by most of these practitioners to accomplish their ends
ought not to blind us to the immense importance of the institution itself here is a body of men relieved at least in the higher stages of savagery from the need of earning their livelihood by hard manual toil and allowed nay expected and encouraged
to prosecute researches into the secret ways of nature it was at once their duty and their interest to know more than their fellows to acquaint themselves with everything that could aid man in his arduous struggle with nature everything that could mitigate his sufferings and prolong his life
the properties of drugs and minerals the causes of rain and drought of thunder and lightning the changes of the seasons the phases of the moon the daily and yearly journeys of the sun the motions of the stars
and the mystery of death all these things must have excited the wonder of these early philosophers
in the most practical form by the importunate demands of their clients who expected them not merely to understand but to regulate the great processes of nature for the good of man
that their first shots fell very far wide of the mark could hardly be helped the slow the never ending approach to truth consists in perpetually forming and testing hypotheses
accepting those which at the time seem to fit the facts and rejecting the others the views of natural causation embraced by the savage magician no doubt appear to us manifestly false and absurd yet in their day they were legitimate hypotheses
though they have not stood the test of experience ridicule and blame are the just meed not of those who devised these crude theories but of those who obstinately adhered to them after better had been propounded
to maintain at least a show of knowledge was absolutely necessary a single mistake detected might cost them their life this no doubt led them to practise imposture for the purpose of concealing their ignorance but it also supplied them with the most powerful motive
for substituting a real for a sham knowledge since if you would appear to know anything by far the best way is actually to know it thus however justly we may reject the extravagant pretensions of magicians
and condemn the deceptions which they have practised on mankind the original institution of this class of men has take it all in all been productive of incalculable good to humanity
they were the direct predecessors not merely of our physicians and surgeons but of our investigators and discoverers in every branch of natural science they began the work which has since been carried to such glorious and beneficent issues
by their successors in after ages and if the beginning was poor and feeble this is to be imputed to the inevitable difficulties which beset the path of knowledge rather than to the natural incapacity or wilful fraud of the men themselves
the magical control of rain of the things which the public magician sets himself to do for the good of the tribe one of the chief is to control the weather and especially to ensure an adequate fall of rain water is an essential of life
and in most countries the supply of it depends upon showers without rain vegetation withers animals and men languish and die hence in savage communities the rain maker is a very important personage and often a special class of magicians exists
for the purpose of regulating the heavenly water supply the methods by which they attempt to discharge the duties of their office are commonly though not always based on the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic
if they wish to make rain they simulate it by sprinkling water or mimicking clouds if their object is to stop rain and cause drought they avoid water and resort to warmth and fire for the sake of drying up the too abundant moisture
such attempts are by no means confined as the cultivated reader might imagine to the naked inhabitants of those sultry lands like central australia and some parts of eastern and southern africa
where often for months together the pitiless sun beats down out of a blue and cloudless sky on the parched and gaping earth they are or used to be common enough among outwardly civilised folk in the moister climate of europe
i will now illustrate them by instances drawn from the practice both of public and private magic thus for example in a village near dorpat in russia when rain was much wanted
three men used to climb up the fir trees of an old sacred grove one of them drummed with a hammer on a kettle or small cask to imitate thunder the second knocked two fire brands together and made the sparks fly to imitate lightning and the third
who was called the rain maker had a bunch of twigs with which he sprinkled water from a vessel on all sides to put an end to drought and bring down rain women and girls of the village of ploska
are wont to go naked by night to the boundaries of the village and there pour water on the ground in halmahera or gilolo a large island to the west of new guinea a wizard makes rain by dipping a branch of a particular kind of tree in water
and then scattering the moisture from the dripping bough over the ground in new britain the rain maker wraps some leaves of a red and green striped creeper in a banana leaf moistens the bundle with water and buries it in the ground then he imitates with his mouth
the plashing of rain amongst the omaha indians of north america when the corn is withering for want of rain the members of the sacred buffalo society fill a large vessel with water and dance four times round it
one of them drinks some of the water and spirts it into the air making a fine spray in imitation of a mist or drizzling rain then he upsets the vessel spilling the water on the ground whereupon the dancers fall down and drink up the water getting mud all over their faces
lastly they squirt the water into the air making a fine mist this saves the corn in spring time the natchez of north america used to club together to purchase favourable weather for their crops from the wizards if rain was needed
the wizards fasted and danced with pipes full of water in their mouths the pipes were perforated like the nozzle of a watering can and through the holes the rain maker blew the water towards that part of the sky where the clouds hung heaviest but if fine weather was wanted
he mounted the roof of his hut and with extended arms blowing with all his might he beckoned to the clouds to pass by when the rains do not come in due season the people of central angoniland repair to what is called the rain temple
here they clear away the grass and the leader pours beer into a pot which is buried in the ground while he says master chauta you have hardened your heart towards us what would you have us do we must perish indeed
then they all partake of the beer that is left over even the children being made to sip it next they take branches of trees and dance and sing for rain
one perdix while athens was still only a small city there lived within its walls a man named daedalus who was the most skillful worker in wood and stone and metal that had ever been known
it was he who taught the people how to build better houses and how to hang their doors on hinges and how to support the roofs with pillars and posts he was the first to fasten things together with glue
he invented the plumb line and the auger and he showed seamen how to put up masts in their ships and how to rig the sails to them with ropes
daedalus had a nephew named perdix whom he had taken when a boy to teach the trade of builder but perdix was a very apt learner and soon surpassed his master in the knowledge of many things
his eyes were ever open to see what was going on about him and he learned the lore of the fields and the woods walking one day by the sea he picked up the backbone of a great fish and from it he invented the saw
and he made of a forked stick the first pair of compasses for drawing circles and he studied out many other curious and useful things daedalus was not pleased when he saw that the lad was so apt and wise
so ready to learn and so eager to do if he keeps on in this way he murmured he will be a greater man than i his name will be remembered and mine will be forgotten day after day while at his work
which hung high over the edge of the rocky cliff whereon the temple stood then when the lad obeyed it was easy enough with a blow of a hammer to knock the scaffold from its fastenings poor perdix fell headlong through the air
and he would have been dashed in pieces upon the stones at the foot of the cliff had not kind athena seen him and taken pity upon him while he was yet whirling through mid air she changed him into a partridge
when the people of athens heard of his dastardly deed they were filled with grief and rage grief for young perdix whom all had learned to love rage towards the wicked uncle who loved only himself
keeping the shore of the mainland always upon the right it passed troezen and the rocky coast of argos and then struck boldly out across the sea at last the famous island of crete was reached
and there daedalus landed and made himself known and the king of crete who had already heard of his wondrous skill welcomed him to his kingdom and gave him a home in his palace
and promised that he should be rewarded with great riches and honor if he would but stay and practice his craft there as he had done in athens
his grandfather whose name was also minos was the son of europa a young princess whom a white bull it was said had brought on his back across the sea from distant asia
so wise indeed that jupiter chose him to be one of the judges of the lower world
and he was brave and far seeing and skilled as a ruler of men he had made all the islands subject to his kingdom and his ships sailed into every part of the world and brought back to crete
and the fierce nature of a mountain lion the people of crete would not have killed him if they could for they thought that the mighty folk who lived with jupiter on the mountain top had sent him among them
and almost every day some man woman or child was caught and devoured by him you have done so many wonderful things said the king to daedalus can you not do something to rid the land of this minotaur
vainly trying to find some place to escape three icarus not long after this it happened that daedalus was guilty of a deed which angered the king very greatly
he would have put him to death and no doubt have served him right hitherto said the king i have honored you for your skill and rewarded you for your labor but now you shall be my slave
so that he could not escape by sea but although the wonderful artisan was thus held as a prisoner he did not build any more buildings for king minos he spent his time in planning how he might regain his freedom
all my inventions he said to his son icarus have hitherto been made to please other people now i will invent something to please myself so all through the day he pretended to be planning some great work for the king
and for icarus another pair of smaller ones and then one midnight when everybody was asleep the two went out to see if they could fly they fastened the wings to their shoulders with wax
and then he and icarus went out in the moonlight to try them again they did finely this time they flew up to the top of the king's palace and then they sailed away over the walls of the city and alighted on the top of a hill
but they were not ready to undertake a long journey yet and so just before daybreak they flew back home every fair night after that they practiced with their wings and at the end of a month
they felt as safe in the air as on the ground and could skim over the hilltops like birds
they fastened on their wings sprang into the air and flew out of the city
skimming along only a little above the waves and helped on their way by the brisk east wind towards noon the sun shone very warm and daedalus called out to the boy who was a little behind
and told him to keep his wings cool and not fly too high but the boy was proud of his skill in flying and as he looked up at the sun he thought how nice it would be to soar like it high above the clouds in the blue depths of the sky
who seeing the birds fly didn't jump with flapping arms from stake or stump or spreading the tail of his coat for a sail take a soaring leap from post or rail and wonder why he couldn't fly
and flap and flutter and wish and try
as often as once all i can say is that's a sign he never would do for a hero of mine
and a freckled nose that grew between a little awry for i must mention that he had riveted his attention upon his wonderful invention twisting his tongue as he twisted the strings
and working his face as he worked the wings and with every turn of gimlet and screw turning and screwing his mouth round too
and his son icarus who wore upon their backs those wings of wax he had read of in the old almanacs
an why can't i must we give in says he with a grin that the bluebird an phoebe are smarter'n we be jest fold our hands an see the swaller an blackbird an catbird beat us holler
they might a knowed wings made o wax wouldn't stand sun heat an hard whacks
and he said to himself as he tinkered and planned but i ain't goin to show my hand to nummies that never can understand the fust idee that's big an grand
and in the loft above the shed himself he locks with thimble and thread and wax and hammer and buckles and screws and all such things as geniuses use two bats for patterns curious fellows
a charcoal pot and a pair of bellows some wire and several old umbrellas a carriage cover for tail and wings a piece of harness and straps and strings and a big strong box
drawing the wax end through with a jerk and boring the holes with a comical quirk of his wise old head and a knowing smirk but vainly they mounted each other's backs and poked through knot holes and pried through cracks
with wood from the pile and straw from the stacks he plugged the knot holes and calked the cracks and a bucket of water which one would think he had brought up into the loft to drink when he chanced to be dry
so day after day he stitched and tinkered and hammered away till at last twas done the greatest invention under the sun
now i shan't go along ith the fellers to see the show
i'll hev full swing fer to try the thing an practyse a leetle on the wing ain't
i my gracious feel's though i should fly
shouldn't wonder f yeou might see me though long bout noon ef i git red o this jumpin thumpin pain n my head for all the while to himself he said
by flyin over the celebration i'll balance myself on my wings like a sea gull i'll dance on the chimbleys i'll stan on the steeple i'll flop up to winders an scare the people
an i'll try a race ith their ol bulloon he crept from his bed and seeing the others were gone he said
and away he sped to open the wonderful box in the shed his brothers had walked but a little way when jotham to nathan chanced to say what is the feller up to hey d o n o
ur he wouldn't a stayed to hum to day says burke
then sol the little one spoke by darn
an pay him fur tellin us that yarn agreed through the orchard they crept back along by the fences behind the stack and one by one through a hole in the wall in under the dusty barn they crawl
dressed in their sunday garments all and a very astonishing sight was that when each in his cobwebbed coat and hat came up through the floor like an ancient rat and there they hid and reuben slid the fastenings back and the door undid
keep dark said he while i squint an see what the is to see as knights of old put on their mail from head to foot an iron suit iron jacket and iron boot iron breeches and on the head no hat
but an iron pot instead and under the chin the bail i believe they call the thing a helm then sallied forth to overwhelm the dragons and pagans that plagued the realm so this modern knight prepared for flight
put on his wings and strapped them tight jointed and jaunty strong and light buckled them fast to shoulder and hip ten feet they measured from tip to tip and a helm had he but that he wore not on his head like those of yore
but more like the helm of a ship hush reuben said he's up in the shed he's opened the winder i see his head he stretches it out an pokes it about
lookin to see f the coast is clear an nobody near guess he do'no who's hid in here he's riggin a spring board over the sill stop laffin solomon burke keep still
i van it's wings an that t'other thing i vum it's a tail an there he sets like a hawk on a rail steppin careful he travels the length of his spring board and teeters to try its strength
but the s on'y a ca'f an a goslin nigh they turn up at him a wonderin eye to see the dragon
heels over head to his proper sphere heels over head and head over heels dizzily down the abyss he wheels so fell darius upon his crown in the midst of the barn yard he came down
and much that wasn't so sweet by half away with a bellow fled the calf and what was that did the gosling laugh tis a merry roar from the old barn door and he hears the voice of jotham crying
slowly ruefully where he lay
as he stanched his sorrowful nose with his cuff wal i like flyin well enough he said but the ain't sich a thunderin sight o fun in't when ye come to light i just have room for the moral here
and this is the moral stick to your sphere or if you insist as you have the right on spreading your wings for a loftier flight the moral is
from the frogs frere's translation chorus shouting and singing iacchus iacchus ho iacchus iacchus ho xanthias
bacchus indeed and so they are but we'll keep quiet till we make them out a little more distinctly chorus song
hither at the wonted hour come away come away with the wanton holiday where the revel uproar leads to the mystic holy meads where the frolic votaries fly
flourishing the thyrsus high flinging forth alert and airy to the sacred old vagary the tumultuous dance and song sacred from the vulgar throng
mystic orgies that are known to the votaries alone to the mystic chorus solely secret unrevealed and holy
o glorious virgin daughter of the goddess what a scent of roasted griskin reached my senses
keep quiet and watch for a chance of a piece of the haslets chorus song raise the fiery torches high bacchus is approaching nigh like the planet of the morn
on the dark solemnity there they flash upon the sight all the plain is blazing bright flushed and overflown with light age has cast his years away
and the cares of many a day sporting to the lively lay mighty bacchus march and lead torch in hand toward the mead thy devoted humble chorus
whose poetical notions are dark and impure whose theatrical conscience is sullied by nonsense
all traitors in short to the stage and the state who surrender a fort or in private export to places and harbors of hostile resort clandestine consignments of cables and pitch
all statesmen retrenching the fees and the salaries of theatrical bards in revenge for the railleries and jests and lampoons of this holy solemnity profanely pursuing their personal enmity
for having been flouted and scoffed and scorned all such are admonished and heartily warned we warn them once we warn them twice we warn and admonish we warn them thrice
to conform to the law to retire and withdraw while the chorus again with the formal saw fixt and assign'd to the festive day move to the measure and march away semi chorus
mocking flouting quaffing one and all all have had a belly full of breakfast brave and plentiful therefore evermore with your voices and your bodies serve the goddess
and raise songs of praise she shall save the country still and save it against the traitor's will so she says semi chorus now let us raise in a different strain
the praise of the goddess the giver of grain imploring her favor with other behavior in measures more sober submissive and graver semi chorus
follies intermixed with sense folly but without offense grant them with the present play to bear the prize of verse away semi chorus now call again
and with a different measure the power of mirth and pleasure
to journey forth and join us on the way semi chorus
the customary patron of every lively lay go forth without delay thy wonted annual way to meet the ceremonious holy matron her grave procession gracing
thine airy footsteps tracing with unlaborious light celestial motion and here at thy devotion behold thy faithful choir
well i was always hearty disposed to mirth and ease i'm ready to join the party
circling over the tumbling blue dipping your down in its briny dew
iders in corners dim spi spi spinning your fairy film shuttles echoing round the room silver notes of the whistling loom
oh mother make me a child again just for to night i don't exactly see how that last line is to scan but that's a consideration i leave to our musical man
the point of the following selection lies in the monotony of both narrative style and metre in euripides's prologues
but if the gods are propitious i'll spoil all your prologues with a little flask of smelling salts euripides with a flask of smelling salts
for you build your verses so that anything will fit into the metre a leathern sack or eider down or smelling salts i'll show you
dionysus thyrsus armed and faun skin clad amid the torchlights on parnassus's slope dancing and prancing
caught out again by the smelling salts
best take in sail these smelling salts methinks will blow a gale
what do i care i'll fix him next time
cadmus departing from the town of tyre
buy those smelling salts or there won't be a rag left of all your prologues
what i buy em of him
i've lots of prologues where he can't work em in
let me say the whole verse won't you
in a splendidly adorned ship he had come to them mysteriously alone in a ship when an infant at the hour that was fated
the ring stemmed vessel bark of the atheling lay there at anchor icy in glimmer and eager for sailing the beloved leader laid they down there
giver of rings on the breast of the vessel the famed by the mainmast a many of jewels of fretted embossings from far lands brought over was placed near at hand then
and favors no fewer they furnished him soothly excellent folk gems than others had given him lone on the main the merest of infants and a gold fashioned standard they stretched under heaven high o'er his head
let the holm currents bear him seaward consigned him sad was their spirit their mood very mournful men are not able soothly to tell us they in halls who reside heroes under heaven
to what haven he hied they guard the wolf coverts lands inaccessible wind beaten nesses fearfullest fen deeps where a flood from the mountains neath mists of the nesses netherward rattles
a firm rooted forest the floods overshadow there ever at night one an ill meaning portent a fire flood may see mong children of men none liveth so wise
that wot of the bottom though harassed by hounds the heath stepper seek for fly to the forest firm antlered he deer spurred from afar his spirit he yieldeth his life on the shore
till the air groweth gloomy then the heavens lower beowulf has plunged into the water of the mere in pursuit of grendel's mother and is a whole day in reaching the bottom
he is seized by the monster and carried to her cavern where the combat ensues the earl then discovered he was down in some cavern where no water whatever anywise harmed him
since the roofed hall prevented brightness a gleaming fire light he saw flashing resplendent the good one saw then the sea bottom's monster the mighty mere woman
he made a great onset with weapon of battle his hand not desisted from striking the war blade struck on her head then a battle song greedy
erst had it often onsets encountered oft cloven the helmet the fated one's armor twas the first time that ever the excellent jewel had failed of its fame firm mooded after
he hoped in his strength his hand grapple sturdy so any must act whenever he thinketh to gain him in battle glory unending and is reckless of living
then she sat on the hall guest and wielded her war knife wide bladed flashing for her son would take vengeance her one only bairn his breast armor woven bode on his shoulder
it guarded his life the entrance defended gainst sword point and edges ecgtheow's son there had fatally journeyed champion of geatmen in the arms of the ocean had the armor not given
she fell to the ground then the hand sword was bloody the hero exulted fifty years have elapsed
a folk of the geatmen got him then ready a pile on the earth strong for the burning
soldiers began then to make on the barrow the largest of dead fires
lamented the men leader's ruin the men of the weders made accordingly a hill on the height high and extensive of sea going sailors to be seen from a distance
and the brave one's beacon built where the fire was in ten days space with a wall surrounded it as wisest of world folk could most worthily plan it they placed in the barrow
rings and jewels all such ornaments as erst in the treasure war mooded men had won in possession the earnings of earlmen to earth they intrusted
the gold to the dust where yet it remaineth as useless to mortals as in foregoing eras round the dead mound rode then the doughty in battle
more would they mourn lament for their ruler speak in measure mention him with pleasure weighed his worth and his warlike achievements mightily commended
as tis meet one praise his liege lord in words and love him in spirit when forth from his body he fares to destruction so lamented mourning the men of the geats
fond loving vassals the fall of their lord said he was gentlest of kings under heaven
the cooloosa river winds through a range of small mountains passes okochee and then blends its waters trippingly as fall the mellifluous indian syllables with the chattahoochee okochee rose as it were from its sunny seat on the post office stoop
hitched up its suspender and threw a granite dam two hundred and forty feet long and sixty feet high across the cooloosa one mile above the town thereupon a dimpling sparkling lake backed up twenty miles among the little mountains
thus in the great game of municipal rivalry did okochee match that famous drawing card the hudson it was conceded that nowhere could the palisades be judged superior in the way of scenery and grandeur
the spindle and the flywheel and turbine would sing the shrewd glory of okochee along the picturesque heights above the lake would rise in beauty the costly villas and the splendid summer residences of capital
the fate of the good town is quickly told capital decided not to invest of all the great things promised the scenery alone came to fulfilment the wooded peaks the impressive promontories of solemn granite
the beautiful green slants of bank and ravine did all they could to reconcile okochee to the delinquency of miserly gold the sunsets gilded the dreamy draws and coves with a minting that should charm away heart burning
okochee true to the instinct of its blood and clime was lulled by the spell it climbed out of the arena loosed its suspender sat down again on the post office stoop and took a chew
it consoled itself by drawling sarcasms at the city council which was not to blame causing the fathers as has been said to seek back streets and figure perspiringly on the sinking fund and the appropriation for interest due
the youth of okochee they who were to carry into the rosy future the burden of the debt accepted failure with youth's uncalculating joy
in yachting caps and flowing neckties they pervaded the lake to its limits girls wore silk waists embroidered with anchors in blue and pink
fishermen were under the spell of a deep and tolerant joy sailboats and rowboats furrowed the lenient waves popcorn and ice cream booths sprang up about the little wooden pier
far up the lake eighteen miles above the town the eye of this cheerful camp follower of booms had spied out a graft
streets and avenues were surveyed parks designed corners of central squares reserved for the proposed opera house board of trade lyceum market public schools and exposition hall
the price of lots ranged from five to five hundred dollars positively no lot would be priced higher than five hundred dollars
returned to each a deed duly placed on record to the best lot at the price on hand that day all this time the catamount screeched upon the reserved lot of the skyland board of trade
the opossum swung by his tail over the site of the exposition hall and the owl hooted a melancholy recitative to his audience of young squirrels in opera house square
and persuaded a contingent of indigent natives to occupy them thereby assuming the role of population in subsequent prospectuses which became accordingly more seductive and remunerative
so when the dream faded and okochee dropped back to digging bait and nursing its two and a half per cent tax j pinkney bloom unloving of checks and drafts and the cold interrogatories of bankers
strapped about his fifty two inch waist a soft leather belt containing eight thousand dollars in big bills and said that all was very good one last trip he was making to skyland before departing to other salad fields
skyland was a regular post office and the steamboat dixie belle under contract delivered the mail bag generally empty twice a week
and the inhabitants had to be furnished with another month's homely rations as per agreement and then skyland would know j pinkney bloom no more the owners of these precipitous barren useless lots
might come and view the scene of their invested credulity or they might leave them to their fit tenants the wild hog and the browsing deer the work of the skyland real estate company was finished
the little steamboat dixie belle was about to shove off on her regular up the lake trip when a rickety hired carriage rattled up to the pier and a tall elderly gentleman in black stepped out
time was of the least importance in the schedule of the dixie belle captain mac farland gave the order and the boat received its ultimate two passengers for upon the arm of the tall elderly gentleman as he crossed the gangway
unaffected sincerity that was redeemed from bluffness only by its exquisite calculation with that promptitude and masterly decision of manner that so well suited his calling with all his stock in trade well to the front
he stepped forward to receive colonel and missus peyton blaylock with the grace of a grand marshal or a wedding usher
there in comfortable steamer chairs they sat and began to piece together the random lines that were to form an intelligent paragraph in the big history of little events our home sir said colonel blaylock
removing his wide brimmed rather shapeless black felt hat is in holly springs holly springs georgia i am very proud to make your acquaintance mister bloom
on business business of importance in connection with the recent rapid march of progress in this section of our state the colonel smoothed back with a sweeping gesture his long smooth locks
his dark eyes still fiery under the heavy black brows
he looked rather to be an old courtier handed down from the reign of charles and re attired in a modern suit of fine but raveling and seam worn broadcloth yes sir said mister bloom in his heartiest prospectus voice
things have been whizzing around okochee biggest industrial revival and waking up to natural resources georgia ever had did you happen to squeeze in on the ground floor in any of the gilt edged grafts colonel well sir said the colonel
colonel blaylock said the little elderly lady shaking her gray curl and smiling indulgent explanation at j pinkney bloom is so devoted to businesss he has such a talent for financiering and markets and investments and
colonel blaylock rose and made a bow
the colonel drew from the tail pocket of his coat a small shawl of knitted silk and laid it solicitously about the shoulders of the lady
missus blaylock sighed contentedly and turned her expressive eyes still as clear and unworldly as a child's upon the steep slopes that were slowly slipping past very fair and stately they looked in the clear morning air
they seemed to speak in familiar terms to the responsive spirit of lorella my native hills she murmured dreamily see how the foliage drinks the sunlight from the hollows and dells missus blaylock's maiden days
said the colonel interpreting her mood to j pinkney bloom were spent among the mountains of northern georgia mountain air and mountain scenery recall to her those days
that is one portent reason for the change we are making my dear can you not recall those lines you wrote entitled i think the georgia hills' the poem that was so extensively copied by the southern press and praised so highly by the atlanta critics
missus blaylock turned a glance of speaking tenderness upon the colonel fingered for a moment the silvery curl that drooped upon her bosom then looked again toward the mountains
without preliminary or affectation or demurral she began in rather thrilling and more deeply pitched tones to recite these lines the georgia hills
my spirit drifts in longing sweet back to the georgia hills and through the close drawn curtained night i steal on sleep's slow wings
the grass upon their orchard sides is a fine couch to me the common note of each small bird passes all minstrelsy it would not seem so dread a thing if when the reaper wills he might come there and take my hand up in the georgia hills
that's great stuff ma'am said j pinkney bloom enthusiastically when the poetess had concluded i wish i had looked up poetry more than i have i was raised in the pine hills myself
the mountains ever call to their children murmured missus blaylock i feel that life will take on the rosy hue of hope again in among these beautiful hills peyton a little taste of the currant wine if you will be so good
few royal ladies have held their royal prerogative with the serene grace of the petted southern woman the colonel with an air as gallant and assiduous as in the days of his courtship and j pinkney bloom
with a ponderous agility half professional and half directed by some resurrected unnamed long forgotten sentiment formed a diversified but attentive court the currant wine
went round and then j pinkney began to hear something of holly springs life it seemed from the conversation of the blaylocks that the springs was decadent a third of the population had moved away business and the colonel was an authority on business had dwindled to nothing
after carefully studying the field of opportunities open to capital he had sold his little property there for eight hundred dollars and invested it in one of the enterprises opened up by the book in okochee
in what particular line of business you inserted your coin i know that town as well as i know the regulations for illegal use of the mails i might give you a hunch as to whether you can make the game go or not
no sir said colonel blaylock pausing to arrange the queen's wrap i did not invest in okochee
asked j pinkney bloom i did sir answered the colonel with the air of a modest millionaire explaining his success a lot most excellently situated on the same square with the opera house and only two squares from the board of trade
i consider the purchase a most fortuitous one it is my intention to erect a small building upon it at once and open a modest book and stationery store during past years i have met with many pecuniary reverses
i am a graduate of the university of virginia and missus blaylock's really wonderful acquaintance with belles lettres and poetic literature
with the nearly three hundred dollars i have remaining i can manage the building of a house by giving a lien on the lot i have an old friend in atlanta who is a partner in a large book store and he has agreed to furnish me with a stock of goods on credit
missus blaylock blushing like a girl shook her curl and gave the colonel an arch reproving tap secret of eternal youth where art thou every second the answer comes here here
here listen to thine own heartbeats o weary seeker after external miracles those years said missus blaylock in holly springs were long long long but now is the promised land in sight skyland a lovely name
doubtless said the colonel we shall be able to secure comfortable accommodations at some modest hotel at reasonable rates our trunks are in okochee to be forwarded when we shall have made permanent arrangements
i'm not a coward as a general rule went on the promoter but i always said that if i ever met the sucker that bought that lot i'd run like a turkey now you see that old babe in the wood over there well he's the boy that drew the prize
that's way up in g they're going to skyland to open a book store
he's got three hundred dollars left to build a house and store with went on j pinkney as if he were talking to himself and he thinks there's an open house up there
with that straight furrow between his brows that always stood as a signal of schemes being shaped within there's a good many swindles connected with these booms he said presently
suppose business should be sort of dull there and no special sale for books my dear sir said colonel blaylock resting his hand upon the back of his wife's chair
but i have not yet lost faith in humanity if i have been deceived again still we may glean health and content if not worldly profit i am aware that there are dishonest schemers in the world who set traps for the unwary
perhaps i can repeat a verse or two the lily springs from the rotting mould pearls from the deep sea slime good will come out of nazareth all in god's own time to the hardest heart the softening grace cometh at last to bless
guiding it right to help and cheer and succor in distress i cannot remember the rest the lines were not ambitious they were written to the music composed by a dear friend it's a fine rhyme just the same declared mister bloom
mister bloom strayed thoughtfully back to the captain and stood meditating ought to be in sight of the spires and gilded domes of skyland now in a few minutes chirruped mac farland shaking with enjoyment go to the devil said mister bloom still pensive
the big country road ran just back of the heights cold branch had nothing in common with the frisky ambition of okochee with its impertinent lake mac
said j pinkney suddenly i want you to stop at cold branch there's a landing there that they made to use sometimes when the river was up can't said the captain grinning more broadly i've got the united states mails on board
they were all yours of course i hate to mention these things but oh come now j p said the captain you know i was just fooling i'll put you off at cold branch if you say so the other passengers get off there too said mister bloom
guided by the indefatigable promoter they slowly climbed the steep hillside pausing often to rest and admire the view finally they entered the village of cold branch warmly both the colonel and his wife praised it for its homelike and peaceful beauty
mister bloom conducted them to a two story building on a shady street that bore the legend pine top inn here he took his leave receiving the cordial thanks of the two for his attentions
a young man was mister cooly and awaiting business get your hat son said mister bloom in his breezy way and a blank deed and come along it's a job for you now he continued when mister cooly had responded with alacrity
is there a bookstore in town one said the lawyer henry williams's get there said mister bloom we're going to buy it henry williams was behind his counter his store was a small one containing a mixture of books stationery and fancy rubbish
i haven't got time to dicker name your price it's worth eight hundred said henry too much dazed to ask more than its value shut that door said mister bloom to the lawyer then he tore off his coat and vest and began to unbutton his shirt
wanter fight about it do yer said henry williams jumping up and cracking his heels together twice all right hunky sail in and cut yer capers keep your clothes on said mister bloom i'm only going down to the bank
he drew eight one hundred dollar bills from his money belt and planked them down on the counter mister cooly showed signs of future promise for he already had the deed spread out and was reaching across the counter for the ink bottle
your name please asked the lawyer make it out to peyton blaylock said mister bloom god knows how to spell it within thirty minutes henry williams was out of business and mister bloom
get it recorded and take it down and give it to him he'll ask you a hell's mint of questions
never run much to poetry did you young man
miss westerfield she locked the door of her bedchamber and threw off her walking dress light as it was she felt as if it would stifle her even the ribbon round her neck was more than she could endure and breathe freely
her overburdened heart found no relief in tears
one of the windows was open already she threw up the other to get more air in the cooler atmosphere her memory recovered itself she recollected the newspaper that herbert had taken from her instantly she rang for the maid
for having been too ready to forgive the wretch who had taken her husband from her
oh god how can i give that woman back the happiness of which i have robbed her the composing influence of prayer on a troubled mind was something that she had heard of it was not something that she experienced now
an overpowering impatience to make the speediest and completest atonement possessed her must she wait till herbert linley no longer concealed that he was weary of her and cast her off no
it should be her own act that parted them and that did it at once she threw open the door and hurried half way down the stairs before she remembered the one terrible obstacle in her way the divorce slowly and sadly she submitted and went back to her room
there was no disguising it the two who had once been husband and wife were parted irrevocably by the wife's own act let him repent ever so sincerely let him be ever so ready to return
would the woman whose faith herbert linley had betrayed take him back the divorce the merciless divorce answered no she paused thinking of the marriage that was now a marriage no more
the toilet table was close to her she looked absently at her haggard face in the glass what a lost wretch she saw the generous impulses which other women were free to feel were forbidden luxuries to her
she was ashamed of her wickedness she was eager to sacrifice herself for the good of the once dear friend whom she had wronged useless longings too late too late she regretted it bitterly
why comparing missus linley's prospects with hers was there anything to justify regret for the divorced wife she had her sweet little child to make her happy she had a fortune of her own to lift her above sordid cares
she was still handsome still a woman to be admired while she held her place in the world as high as ever what was the prospect before sydney westerfield
absolutely dependent on a man who was at that moment perhaps lamenting the wife whom he had deserted and lost how long would it be before she found herself an outcast without a friend to help her
with a reputation hopelessly lost face to face with the temptation to drown herself or poison herself as other women had drowned themselves or poisoned themselves when the brightest future before them was rest in death
if she had been a few years older herbert linley might never again have seen her a living creature but she was too young to follow any train of repellent thought persistently to its end
the man she had guiltily and yet how naturally loved was lord and master in her heart doubt him as she might even in his absence he pleaded with her to have some faith in him still she reviewed his language and his conduct toward her
when she had returned that morning from her walk he had been kind and considerate he had listened to her little story of the relics of her father found in the garret as if her interests were his interests there had been nothing to disappoint her nothing to complain of
as if he had forgotten her in the interest of watching the strangers passing by perhaps he was not thinking of the strangers perhaps his mind was dwelling fondly and regretfully on his wife
than herself and her future looking absently round the room she noticed the packet of her father's letters placed on the table by her bedside the first three letters that she examined
who were not in the secret was the one feeling in common which her father's correspondents presented in mercy to his memory she threw the letters into the empty fireplace and destroyed them by burning
when i tell you that sandyseal place has become a priory of english nuns of the order of saint benedict i think i see you look up from my letter with your big black eyes staring straight before you
and say and swear that this must be one of my mystifications unfortunately for i am fond of the old house in which i was born it is only too true the instructions in my father's will under which sandyseal has been sold are peremptory
they are the result of a promise made many years since to his wife you and i were both very young when my poor mother died but i think you must remember that she like the rest of her family was a roman catholic having reminded you of this
i may next tell you that sandyseal place was my mother's property it formed part of her marriage portion and it was settled on my father if she died before him and if she left no female child to survive her i am her only child
answers this question and tells a very sad story in deference to my mother's wishes it was kept strictly a secret from me while my father lived there was a younger sister of my mother's who was the beauty of the family
loved and admired by everybody who was acquainted with her it is needless to make this long letter longer by dwelling on the girl's miserable story you have heard it of other girls over and over again she loved and trusted she was deceived and deserted
alone and friendless in a foreign country her fair fame blemished her hope in the future utterly destroyed she attempted to drown herself this took place in france the best of good women a sister of charity happened to be near enough to the river to rescue her
the poor deserted creature absolutely refused she could never forget that she had disgraced them the good sister of charity won her confidence a retreat which would hide her from the world and devote her to religion for the rest of her days
he at once proposed to bequeath the house as a free gift to the benedictines my mother thanked him and refused she was thinking of me if our son fails to inherit the house from his father she said it is only right that he should have the value of the house in money
let it be sold so here i am
my idea is to invest it in the funds and to let it thrive at interest until i grow older and retire perhaps from service in the navy
which i myself can establish and direct if i die first oh there is a chance of it we may have a naval war perhaps or i may turn out one of those incorrigible madmen who risk their lives in arctic exploration in case of the worst therefore
i shall leave the interests of my contemplated home in your honest and capable hands for the present good by and a prosperous voyage outward bound so the letter ended
sydney dwelt with reluctant attention on the latter half of it the story of the unhappy favorite of the family had its own melancholy and sinister interest for her
what religious consolations would encourage her penitence what prayers what hopes would reconcile her on her death bed to the common doom she sighed as she folded up captain bennydeck's letter and put it in her bosom to be read again
if my lot had fallen among good people she thought perhaps i might have belonged to the church which took care of that poor girl her mind was still pursuing its own sad course of inquiry she was wondering in what part of england sandyseal might be
she was asking herself if the nuns at the old moated house ever opened their doors to women whose one claim on their common christianity was the claim to be pitied when she heard linley's footsteps approaching the door
so far as things are concerned we may know them or not know them but there is no positive state of mind which can be described as erroneous knowledge of things so long at any rate as we confine ourselves to knowledge by acquaintance whatever we are acquainted with must be something
we may draw wrong inferences from our acquaintance but the acquaintance itself cannot be deceptive thus there is no dualism as regards acquaintance but as regards knowledge of truths there is a dualism we may believe what is false as well as what is true
we know that on very many subjects different people hold different and incompatible opinions hence some beliefs must be erroneous since erroneous beliefs are often held just as strongly as true beliefs it becomes a difficult question how they are to be distinguished from true beliefs
how are we to know in a given case that our belief is not erroneous this is a question of the very greatest difficulty to which no completely satisfactory answer is possible there is however a preliminary question which is rather less difficult and that is
what do we mean by truth and falsehood it is this preliminary question which is to be considered in this chapter in this chapter we are not asking how we can know whether a belief is true or false we are asking what is meant by the question whether a belief is true or false
it is to be hoped that a clear answer to this question may help us to obtain an answer to the question what beliefs are true but for the present we ask only what is truth and what is falsehood not what beliefs are true and what beliefs are false
it is very important to keep these different questions entirely separate since any confusion between them is sure to produce an answer which is not really applicable to either there are three points to observe in the attempt to discover the nature of truth
three requisites which any theory must fulfil one our theory of truth must be such as to admit of its opposite falsehood a good many philosophers have failed adequately to satisfy this condition
they have constructed theories according to which all our thinking ought to have been true and have then had the greatest difficulty in finding a place for falsehood in this respect our theory of belief must differ from our theory of acquaintance since in the case of acquaintance it was not necessary
to take account of any opposite two it seems fairly evident that if there were no beliefs there could be no falsehood and no truth either in the sense in which truth is correlative to falsehood if we imagine a world of mere matter there would be no room for falsehood in such a world
it would not contain any truths in the sense in which truths are things of the same kind as falsehoods in fact truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs and statements hence a world of mere matter since it would contain no beliefs or statements would also contain
no truth or falsehood three but as against what we have just said it is to be observed that the truth or falsehood of a belief always depends upon something which lies outside the belief itself
which shall not consist in relation to something wholly outside belief the most important attempt at a definition of this sort is the theory that truth consists in coherence it is said that the mark of falsehood is failure to cohere in the body of our beliefs
and that it is the essence of a truth to form part of the completely rounded system which is the truth there is however a great difficulty in this view or rather two great difficulties the first is that there is no reason to suppose that only one coherent body of beliefs is possible
it may be that with sufficient imagination a novelist might invent a past for the world that would perfectly fit on to what we know and yet be quite different from the real past in more scientific matters it is certain that there are often two or more hypotheses
which account for all the known facts on some subject and although in such cases men of science endeavour to find facts which will rule out all the hypotheses except one there is no reason why they should always succeed
in philosophy again it seems not uncommon for two rival hypotheses to be both able to account for all the facts thus for example it is possible that life is one long dream and that the outer world has only that degree of reality that the objects of dreams have
but although such a view does not seem inconsistent with known facts there is no reason to prefer it to the common sense view according to which other people and things do really exist thus coherence as the definition of truth fails because there is no proof that there can be only one coherent system
the other objection to this definition of truth is that it assumes the meaning of coherence known whereas in fact coherence presupposes the truth of the laws of logic two propositions are coherent when both may be true and are incoherent when one at least must be false
now in order to know whether two propositions can both be true we must know such truths as the law of contradiction for example the two propositions this tree is a beech and this tree is not a beech are not coherent because of the law of contradiction
were subjected to the test of coherence we should find that if we choose to suppose it false nothing will any longer be incoherent with anything else thus the laws of logic supply the skeleton or framework within which the test of coherence applies and they themselves
cannot be established by this test for the above two reasons coherence cannot be accepted as giving the meaning of truth though it is often a most important test of truth after a certain amount of truth has become known
in accordance with our three requisites we have to seek a theory of truth which one allows truth to have an opposite namely falsehood two makes truth a property of beliefs but three makes it a property wholly dependent upon the relation of the beliefs to outside things
the necessity of allowing for falsehood makes it impossible to regard belief as a relation of the mind to a single object which could be said to be what is believed if belief were so regarded we should find that like acquaintance
for if there were such an object the belief would be true there is in fact no such object and therefore othello cannot have any relation to such an object hence his belief cannot possibly consist in a relation to this object it might be said that his belief
is a relation to a different object namely that desdemona loves cassio but it is almost as difficult to suppose that there is such an object as this when desdemona does not love cassio as it was to suppose that there is desdemona's love for cassio
hence it will be better to seek for a theory of belief which does not make it consist in a relation of the mind to a single object it is common to think of relations as though they always held between two terms but in fact this is not always the case
some relations demand three terms some four and so on take for instance the relation between so long as only two terms come in the relation between is impossible three terms are the smallest number that render it possible york is between london and edinburgh
similarly jealousy requires three people there can be no such relation that does not involve three at least
involves a relation of four terms that is to say a and b and c and d all come in and the relation involved cannot be expressed otherwise than in a form involving all four instances might be multiplied indefinitely
but enough has been said to show that there are relations which require more than two terms before they can occur the relation involved in judging or believing must if falsehood is to be duly allowed for be taken to be a relation between several terms not between two
when othello believes that desdemona loves cassio he must not have before his mind a single object desdemona's love for cassio or that desdemona loves cassio for that would require that there should be objective falsehoods which subsist independently of any minds
and this though not logically refutable is a theory to be avoided if possible thus it is easier to account for falsehood if we take judgement to be a relation in which the mind and the various objects concerned all occur severally
that is to say desdemona and loving and cassio must all be terms in the relation which subsists when othello believes that desdemona loves cassio
since othello also is one of the terms of the relation when we say that it is a relation of four terms we do not mean that othello has a certain relation to desdemona and has the same relation to loving and also to cassio this may be true of some other relation than believing
but believing plainly is not a relation which othello has to each of the three terms concerned but to all of them together there is only one example of the relation of believing involved but this one example knits together four terms
we are now in a position to understand what it is that distinguishes a true judgement from a false one for this purpose we will adopt certain definitions in every act of judgement there is a mind which judges and there are terms concerning which it judges
the subject and the objects together are called the constituents of the judgement it will be observed that the relation of judging has what is called a sense or direction we may say metaphorically that it puts its objects in a certain order
which we may indicate by means of the order of the words in the sentence in an inflected language the same thing will be indicated by inflections e g by the difference between nominative and accusative othello's judgement that cassio loves desdemona differs from his judgement
that desdemona loves cassio in spite of the fact that it consists of the same constituents because the relation of judging places the constituents in a different order in the two cases similarly if cassio judges that desdemona loves othello the constituents of the judgement are still the same
but their order is different this property of having a sense or direction is one which the relation of judging shares with all other relations the sense of relations is the ultimate source of order and series and a host of mathematical concepts but we need not concern ourselves further
with this aspect we spoke of the relation called judging or believing as knitting together into one complex whole the subject and the objects in this respect judging is exactly like every other relation whenever a relation holds between two or more terms
it unites the terms into a complex whole if othello loves desdemona there is such a complex whole as othello's love for desdemona the terms united by the relation may be themselves complex or may be simple but the whole which results from their being united must be complex
wherever there is a relation which relates certain terms there is a complex object formed of the union of those terms and conversely wherever there is a complex object there is a relation which relates its constituents when an act of believing occurs there is a complex in which
believing is the uniting relation and subject and objects are arranged in a certain order by the sense of the relation of believing among the objects as we saw in considering othello believes that desdemona loves cassio one must be a relation in this instance the relation loving
is not the relation which creates the unity of the complex whole
the relation loving as it occurs in the act of believing is one of the objects it is a brick in the structure not the cement the cement is the relation believing when the belief is true there is another complex unity
in which the relation which was one of the objects of the belief relates the other objects thus e g if othello believes truly that desdemona loves cassio then there is a complex unity desdemona's love for cassio
which is composed exclusively of the objects of the belief in the same order as they had in the belief with the relation which was one of the objects occurring now as the cement that binds together the other objects of the belief
on the other hand when a belief is false there is no such complex unity composed only of the objects of the belief if othello believes falsely that desdemona loves cassio then there is no such complex unity as desdemona's love for cassio
thus a belief is true when it corresponds to a certain associated complex and false when it does not assuming for the sake of definiteness that the objects of the belief are two terms and a relation
of which a mind is a constituent if the remaining constituents taken in the order which they have in the belief form a complex unity then the belief is true if not it is false
thus although truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs yet they are in a sense extrinsic properties for the condition of the truth of a belief is something not involving beliefs or in general any mind at all but only the objects of the belief
a mind which believes believes truly when there is a corresponding complex not involving the mind but only its objects this correspondence ensures truth and its absence entails falsehood
when there is a corresponding fact and is false when there is no corresponding fact it will be seen that minds do not create truth or falsehood they create beliefs but when once the beliefs are created the mind cannot make them true or false
except in the special case where they concern future things which are within the power of the person believing such as catching trains what makes a belief true is a fact and this fact does not except in exceptional cases
we saw in the preceding chapter that the principle of induction while necessary to the validity of all arguments based on experience is itself not capable of being proved by experience and yet is unhesitatingly believed by every one at least in all its concrete applications
in these characteristics the principle of induction does not stand alone there are a number of other principles which cannot be proved or disproved by experience but are used in arguments which start from what is experienced
some of these principles have even greater evidence than the principle of induction and the knowledge of them has the same degree of certainty as the knowledge of the existence of sense data they constitute the means of drawing inferences from what is given in sensation and if what we infer is to be true
it is just as necessary that our principles of inference should be true as it is that our data should be true the principles of inference are apt to be overlooked because of their very obviousness the assumption involved is assented to without our realizing that it is an assumption
if a correct theory of knowledge is to be obtained for our knowledge of them raises interesting and difficult questions in all our knowledge of general principles what actually happens is that first of all we realize some particular application of the principle
and then we realize that the particularity is irrelevant and that there is a generality which may equally truly be affirmed this is of course familiar in such matters as teaching arithmetic two and two are four is first learnt in the case of some particular pair of couples
one of them says at least you will admit that if yesterday was the fifteenth to day must be the sixteenth yes says the other i admit that and you know the first continues that yesterday was the fifteenth because you dined with jones and your diary will tell you that was on the fifteenth
now such an argument is not hard to follow and if it is granted that its premisses are true in fact no one will deny that the conclusion must also be true but it depends for its truth upon an instance of a general logical principle
this principle is relevant if any one asks why should i accept the results of valid arguments based on true premisses we can only answer by appealing to our principle in fact the truth of the principle is impossible to doubt
are just as obvious as the principles taken for granted for no very good reason three of these principles have been singled out by tradition under the name of laws of thought they are as follows one the law of identity whatever is is two
the law of contradiction nothing can both be and not be three the law of excluded middle everything must either be or not be these three laws are samples of self evident logical principles but are not really more fundamental or more self evident
than various other similar principles for instance the one we considered just now which states that what follows from a true premiss is true the name laws of thought is also misleading
but the fact that things behave in accordance with them in other words the fact that when we think in accordance with them we think truly but this is a large question to which we must return at a later stage
in addition to the logical principles which enable us to prove from a given premiss that something is certainly true there are other logical principles which enable us to prove from a given premiss that there is a greater or less probability that something is true
an example of such principles perhaps the most important example is the inductive principle which we considered in the preceding chapter one of the great historic controversies in philosophy is the controversy between the two schools called respectively empiricists and rationalists
the empiricists who are best represented by the british philosophers locke berkeley and hume maintained that all our knowledge is derived from experience the rationalists who are represented by the continental philosophers of the seventeenth century
maintained that in addition to what we know by experience there are certain innate ideas and innate principles which we know independently of experience it has now become possible to decide with some confidence as to the truth or falsehood of these opposing schools
it must be admitted for the reasons already stated that logical principles are known to us and cannot be themselves proved by experience since all proof presupposes them in this therefore which was the most important point of the controversy the rationalists were in the right
on the other hand even that part of our knowledge which is logically independent of experience in the sense that experience cannot prove it is yet elicited and caused by experience it is on occasion of particular experiences that we become aware of the general laws which their connexions exemplify
the phrase a priori is less objectionable and is more usual in modern writers thus while admitting that all knowledge is elicited and caused by experience we shall nevertheless hold that some knowledge is a priori in the sense that the experience which makes us think of it does not suffice to prove it
but merely so directs our attention that we see its truth without requiring any proof from experience there is another point of great importance in which the empiricists were in the right as against the rationalists nothing can be known to exist except by the help of experience
that is to say if we wish to prove that something of which we have no direct experience exists we must have among our premisses the existence of one or more things of which we have direct experience our belief that the emperor of china exists for example rests upon testimony
in this belief they seem to have been mistaken all the knowledge that we can acquire a priori concerning existence seems to be hypothetical it tells us that if one thing exists another must exist or more generally that if one proposition is true another must be true
this is exemplified by the principles we have already dealt with such as if this is true and this implies that then that is true or if this and that have been repeatedly found connected they will probably be connected in the next instance in which one of them is found
thus the scope and power of a priori principles is strictly limited all knowledge that something exists must be in part dependent on experience when anything is known immediately its existence is known by experience alone when anything is proved to exist without being known immediately
both experience and a priori principles must be required in the proof knowledge is called empirical when it rests wholly or partly upon experience thus all knowledge which asserts existence is empirical and the only a priori knowledge concerning existence is hypothetical
giving connexions among things that exist or may exist but not giving actual existence a priori knowledge is not all of the logical kind we have been hitherto considering perhaps the most important example of non logical a priori knowledge is knowledge as to ethical value
for such judgements do require empirical premisses i am speaking of judgements as to the intrinsic desirability of things if something is useful it must be useful because it secures some end the end must if we have gone far enough be valuable on its own account
and not merely because it is useful for some further end thus all judgements as to what is useful depend upon judgements as to what has value on its own account we judge for example that happiness is more desirable than misery knowledge than ignorance goodwill than hatred and so on
they may be elicited by experience and indeed they must be
where the impossibility of deducing what ought to be from what is has to be established in the present connexion it is only important to realize that knowledge as to what is intrinsically of value is a priori in the same sense in which logic is a priori namely in the sense that the truth of such knowledge
can be neither proved nor disproved by experience all pure mathematics is a priori like logic this was strenuously denied by the empirical philosophers
as of our knowledge of geography they maintained that by the repeated experience of seeing two things and two other things and finding that altogether they made four things we were led by induction to the conclusion that two things and two other things would always make four things altogether
if however this were the source of our knowledge that two and two are four we should proceed differently in persuading ourselves of its truth from the way in which we do actually proceed in fact a certain number of instances are needed to make us think of two abstractly
rather than of two coins or two books or two people or two of any other specified kind but as soon as we are able to divest our thoughts of irrelevant particularity
but a necessity to which everything actual and possible must conform the case may be made clearer by considering a genuinely empirical generalization such as all men are mortal it is plain that we believe this proposition in the first place
because there is no known instance of men living beyond a certain age and in the second place because there seem to be physiological grounds for thinking that an organism such as a man's body must sooner or later wear out neglecting the second ground and considering merely our experience of men's mortality
it is plain that we should not be content with one quite clearly understood instance of a man dying whereas in the case of two and two are four one instance does suffice when carefully considered to persuade us that the same must happen in any other instance
also we can be forced to admit on reflection that there may be some doubt however slight as to whether all men are mortal this may be made plain by the attempt to imagine two different worlds in one of which there are men who are not mortal while in the other two and two make five
when swift invites us to consider the race of struldbugs who never die we are able to acquiesce in imagination but a world where two and two make five seems quite on a different level we feel that such a world if there were one would upset the whole fabric of our knowledge
and reduce us to utter doubt the fact is that in simple mathematical judgements such as two and two are four and also in many judgements of logic we can know the general proposition without inferring it from instances
although some instance is usually necessary to make clear to us what the general proposition means this is why there is real utility in the process of deduction which goes from the general to the general or from the general to the particular as well as in the process of
induction which goes from the particular to the particular or from the particular to the general it is an old debate among philosophers whether deduction ever gives new knowledge we can now see that in certain cases at least it does do so
if we already know that two and two always make four and we know that brown and jones are two and so are robinson and smith we can deduce that brown and jones and robinson and smith are four this is new knowledge not contained in our premisses
because the general proposition two and two are four never told us there were such people as brown and jones and robinson and smith and the particular premisses do not tell us that there were four of them whereas the particular proposition deduced does tell us both these things
if socrates is not one of the men on whom our induction is based we shall still do better to argue straight from our a b c to socrates than to go round by the general proposition all men are mortal for the probability that socrates is mortal is greater on our data
than the probability that all men are mortal this is obvious because if all men are mortal so is socrates but if socrates is mortal it does not follow that all men are mortal hence we shall reach the conclusion that socrates is mortal
with a greater approach to certainty if we make our argument purely inductive than if we go by way of all men are mortal and then use deduction this illustrates the difference between general propositions known a priori such as two and two are four
and empirical generalizations such as all men are mortal in regard to the former deduction is the right mode of argument
induction is always theoretically preferable and warrants a greater confidence in the truth of our conclusion because all empirical generalizations are more uncertain than the instances of them we have now seen that there are propositions known a priori
and that among them are the propositions of logic and pure mathematics as well as the fundamental propositions of ethics the question which must next occupy us is this how is it possible that there should be such knowledge and more particularly
how can there be knowledge of general propositions in cases where we have not examined all the instances and indeed never can examine them all because their number is infinite
entering the valley gazing overwhelmed with the multitude of grand objects about us perhaps the first to fix our attention will be the bridal veil a beautiful waterfall on our right its brow
clad in gauzy sun sifted spray half falling half floating it seems infinitely gentle and fine but the hymns it sings
the bridal veil shoots free from the upper edge of the cliff by the velocity the stream has acquired in descending a long slope above the head of the fall looking from the top of the rock avalanche talus on the west side
among these flat topped pillars kissing and plashing notes as well as thunder like detonations are produced like those of the yosemite fall though on a smaller scale the rainbows of the veil
and also for a luxuriant growth of grass and maiden hair on the side of the talus which lower down is planted with oak laurel and willows general features of the valley
on the other side of the valley almost immediately opposite the bridal veil there is another fine fall considerably wider than the veil when the snow is melting fast and more than one thousand feet in height measured from the brow of the cliff
where it first springs out into the air to the head of the rocky talus on which it strikes and is broken up into ragged cascades it is called the ribbon fall or virgin's tears during the spring floods it is a magnificent object
but the suffocating blasts of spray that fill the recess in the wall which it occupies prevent a near approach in autumn however when its feeble current falls in a shower it may then pass for tears
with the sentimental onlooker fresh from a visit to the bridal veil just beyond this glorious flood the el capitan rock regarded by many as the most sublime feature of the valley
is seen through the pine groves standing forward beyond the general line of the wall in most imposing grandeur a type of permanence it is thirty three hundred feet high a plain
severely simple glacier sculptured face of granite the end of one of the most compact and enduring of the mountain ridges unrivaled in height and breadth and flawless strength
across the valley from here next to the bridal veil are the picturesque cathedral rocks nearly twenty seven hundred feet high making a noble display of fine yet massive sculpture
next to the cathedral rocks on the south side towers the sentinel rock to a height of more than three thousand feet a telling monument of the glacial period
almost immediately opposite the sentinel are the three brothers an immense mountain mass with three gables fronting the valley one above another the topmost gable nearly four thousand feet high
sauntering up the valley through meadow and grove in the company of these majestic rocks which seem to follow us as we advance gazing admiring looking for new wonders ahead where all about us is so wonderful
the thunder of the yosemite fall is heard and when we arrive in front of the sentinel rock it is revealed in all its glory from base to summit half a mile in height
and seeming to spring out into the valley sunshine direct from the sky but even this fall perhaps the most wonderful of its kind in the world cannot at first hold our attention for now the wide upper portion of the valley is displayed to view
with the finely modeled north dome the royal arches and washington column on our left glacier point with its massive magnificent sculpture on the right and in the middle directly in front
looms tissiack or half dome the most beautiful and most sublime of all the wonderful yosemite rocks rising in serene majesty from flowery groves and meadows
the upper canyons here the valley divides into three branches the tenaya nevada and illilouette canyons extending back into the fountains of the high sierra
with scenery every way worthy the relation they bear to yosemite in the south branch a mile or two from the main valley is the illilouette fall six hundred feet high one of the most beautiful of all the yosemite choir
but to most people inaccessible as yet on account of its rough steep boulder choked canyon
while its broad open basin between its fountain mountains and canyon is noted for the beauty of its lakes and forests and magnificent moraines returning to the valley and going up the north branch of tenaya canyon
we pass between the north dome and half dome and in less than an hour come to mirror lake the dome cascade and tenaya fall
on the south the vast granite wave of clouds rest a mile in height and between them the fine tenaya cascade with silvery plumes outspread on smooth glacier polished folds of granite
making a vertical descent in all of about seven hundred feet just beyond the dome cascades on the shoulder of mount watkins there is an old trail once used by indians on their way across the range to mono but in the canyon above this point
there is no trail of any sort between mount watkins and clouds rest the canyon is accessible only to mountaineers and it is so dangerous that i hesitate to advise even good climbers anxious to test their nerve and skill
to attempt to pass through it beyond the cascades no great difficulty will be encountered a succession of charming lily gardens and meadows occurs in filled up lake basins among the rock waves in the bottom of the canyon
and everywhere the surface of the granite has a smooth wiped appearance and in many places reflects the sunbeams like glass a phenomenon due to glacial action the canyon having been the channel of one of the main tributaries
of the ancient yosemite glacier about ten miles above the valley we come to the beautiful tenaya lake and here the canyon terminates a mile or two above the lake stands the grand sierra cathedral
a building of one stone sewn from the living rock with sides roof gable spire and ornamental pinnacles fashioned and finished symmetrically like a work of art and set on a well graded plateau
about nine thousand feet high as if nature in making so fine a building had also been careful that it should be finely seen from every direction its peculiar form and graceful majestic beauty of expression
never fail to charm its height from its base to the ridge of the roof
passing the cathedral we descend into the delightful spacious tuolumne valley from which excursions may be made to mounts dana lyell ritter conness and mono lake
and to the big tuolumne canyon with its glorious abundance of rock and falling gliding tossing water for all these the beautiful meadows near the soda springs form a delightful center
natural features near the valley returning now to yosemite and ascending the middle or nevada branch of the valley
we come within a few miles to the vernal and nevada falls four hundred and six hundred feet high
to be found in all the world tracing the river beyond the head of the nevada fall we are lead into the little yosemite a valley like the great yosemite in form sculpture and vegetation
it is about three miles long with walls fifteen hundred to two thousand feet high cascades coming over them
in tranquil richly embowered reaches beyond this little yosemite in the main canyon there are three other little yosemites the highest situated a few miles below the base of mount lyell
at an elevation of about seventy eight hundred feet above the sea to describe these with all their wealth of yosemite furniture and the wilderness of lofty peaks above them the home of the avalanche and treasury of the fountain snow
would take us far beyond the bounds of a single book nor can we here consider the formation of these mountain landscapes how the crystal rock were brought to light by glaciers made up of crystal snow making beauty
whose influence is so mysterious on every one who sees it of the small glacier lakes so characteristic of these upper regions there are no fewer than sixty seven in the basin of the main middle branch besides countless smaller pools
making a grand total of one hundred and eleven lakes whose waters come to sing at yosemite so glorious is the background of the great valley so harmonious its relations to its widespreading fountains
on the south side to the fountains of the bridal veil creek the basin of which is noted for the beauty of its meadows and its superb forests of silver fir on the north side
usually well fringed with shrubs and trees and presenting the polished surfaces given them by the glacier that brought them into relief on the upper portion of the basin broad moraine beds have been deposited and on these
fine thrifty forests are growing lakes and meadows and small spongy bogs may be found hiding here and there in the woods or back in the fountain recesses of mount hoffman while a thousand gardens are planted along the banks of the streams
all the wide fan shaped upper portion of the basin is covered with a network of small rills that go cheerily on their way to their grand fall in the valley now flowing on smooth pavements in sheets thin as glass
now diving under willows and laving their red roots oozing through green plushy bogs plashing over small falls and dancing down slanting cascades calming again gliding through patches of smooth glacier meadows
the stream is nearly forty feet wide and when the snow is melting rapidly in the spring it is about four feet deep with a current of two and a half miles an hour this is about the volume of water that forms the fall in may and june
when there had been much snow the preceding winter but it varies greatly from month to month the snow rapidly vanishes from the open portion of the basin which faces southward and only a few of the tributaries
the total descent made by the stream from its highest sources
is about six thousand feet while the distance is only about ten miles an average fall of six hundred feet per mile the last mile of its course
swaying and swirling with easy graceful gestures and singing the last of its mountain songs before it reaches the dizzy edge of yosemite
into another world where climate vegetation
long long ago there lived an old man and his wife who supported themselves by cultivating a small plot of land their life had been a very happy and peaceful one save for one great sorrow and this was they had no child
their only pet was a dog named shiro and on him they lavished all the affection of their old age indeed they loved him so much that whenever they had anything nice to eat
they denied themselves to give it to shiro now shiro means white and he was so called because of his color he was a real japanese dog and very like a small wolf in appearance
the happiest hour of the day both for the old man and his dog was when the man returned from his work in the field and having finished his frugal supper of rice and vegetables
would take what he had saved from the meal out to the little veranda that ran round the cottage sure enough shiro was waiting for his master and the evening tit bit then the old man said chin chin and shiro sat up and begged
and his master gave him the food next door to this good old couple there lived another old man and his wife who were both wicked and cruel and who hated their good neighbors and the dog shiro with all their might
they at once kicked him or threw something at him sometimes even wounding him one day shiro was heard barking for a long time in the field at the back of his master's house
the old man thinking that perhaps some birds were attacking the corn hurried out to see what was the matter as soon as shiro saw his master he ran to meet him wagging his tail and seizing the end of his kimono
dragged him under a large yenoki tree here he began to dig very industriously with his paws yelping with joy all the time the old man unable to understand what it all meant stood looking on in bewilderment
but shiro went on barking and digging with all his might the thought that something might be hidden beneath the tree and that the dog had scented it at last struck the old man he ran back to the house
fetched his spade and began to dig the ground at that spot what was his astonishment when after digging for some time he came upon a heap of old and valuable coins and the deeper he dug the more gold coins did he find
so intent was the old man on his work that he never saw the cross face of his neighbor peering at him through the bamboo hedge at last all the gold coins lay shining on the ground
shiro sat by erect with pride and looking fondly at his master as if to say you see though only a dog i can make some return for all the kindness you show me the old man ran in to call his wife
if that were possible the cross old neighbor attracted by shiro's barking had been an unseen and envious witness of the finding of the treasure he began to think that he too would like to find a fortune
so a few days later he called at the old man's house and very ceremoniously asked permission to borrow shiro for a short time shiro's master thought this a strange request
but that he never lost an opportunity of striking and tormenting him whenever the dog crossed his path but the good old man was too kind hearted to refuse his neighbor so he consented to lend the dog
on condition that he should be taken great care of the wicked old man returned to his home with an evil smile on his face and told his wife how he had succeeded in his crafty intentions he then took his spade
and hastened to his own field forcing the unwilling shiro to follow him as soon as he reached a yenoki tree he said to the dog threateningly
there must also be gold coins under my tree you must find them for me where are they where where and catching hold of shiro's neck he held the dog's head to the ground
so that shiro began to scratch and dig in order to free himself from the horrid old man's grasp
the old man was very pleased when he saw the dog begin to scratch and dig for he at once supposed that some gold coins lay buried under his tree as well as under his neighbor's and that the dog had scented them as before
so pushing shiro away he began to dig himself but there was nothing to be found as he went on digging a foul smell was noticeable and he at last came upon a refuse heap
the old man's disgust can be imagined this soon gave way to anger
and now just as he seemed on the point of finding what he sought only a horrid smelling refuse heap had rewarded him for a morning's digging instead of blaming his own greed for his disappointment he blamed the poor dog
he seized his spade and with all his strength struck shiro and killed him on the spot he then threw the dog's body into the hole which he had dug in the hope of finding a treasure of gold coins and covered it over with the earth
then he returned to the house telling no one not even his wife what he had done after waiting several days as the dog shiro did not return his master began to grow anxious
day after day went by and the good old man waited in vain then he went to his neighbor and asked him to give him back his dog without any shame or hesitation
the wicked neighbor answered that he had killed shiro because of his bad behavior at this dreadful news shiro's master wept many sad and bitter tears great indeed was his woful surprise
even the cross old neighbor could not refuse such a simple request so he consented to give the old man the tree under which shiro lay buried shiro's master then cut the tree down and carried it home out of the trunk he made a mortar
in this his wife put some rice and he began to pound it with the intention of making a festival to the memory of his dog shiro a strange thing happened his wife put the rice into the mortar
and no sooner had he begun to pound it to make the cakes than it began to increase in quantity gradually till it was about five times the original amount and the cakes were turned out of the mortar
as if an invisible hand were at work when the old man and his wife saw this they understood that it was a reward to them from shiro for their faithful love to him they tasted the cakes
and found them nicer than any other food so from this time they never troubled about food for they lived upon the cakes with which the mortar never ceased to supply them the greedy neighbor hearing of this new piece of good luck
was filled with envy as before and called on the old man and asked leave to borrow the wonderful mortar for a short time pretending that he too sorrowed for the death of shiro and wished to make cakes for a festival to the dog's memory
the old man did not in the least wish to lend it to his cruel neighbor but he was too kind to refuse so the envious man carried home the mortar but he never brought it back several days passed
on the ground lay what looked very much like pieces of a broken mortar in answer to the old man's inquiry the wicked neighbor answered haughtily have you come to ask me for your mortar
i broke it to pieces and now i am making a fire of the wood for when i tried to pound cakes in it only some horrid smelling stuff came out the good old man said i am very sorry for that
and the old man carried home a basket full of ashes not long after this the old man accidentally scattered some of the ashes made by the burning of the mortar on the trees of his garden a wonderful thing happened
it was late in autumn and all the trees had shed their leaves but no sooner did the ashes touch their branches than the cherry trees the plum trees and all other blossoming shrubs
burst into bloom so that the old man's garden was suddenly transformed into a beautiful picture of spring the old man's delight knew no bounds and he carefully preserved the remaining ashes
the story of the old man's garden spread far and wide and people from far and near came to see the wonderful sight one day soon after this the old man heard some one knocking at his door
that one of the favorite cherry trees in this nobleman's garden had withered
none took effect the knight was sore perplexed when he saw what great displeasure the loss of his favorite cherry tree caused the daimio at this point fortunately
they had heard that there was a wonderful old man who could make withered trees to blossom and that his lord had sent him to ask the old man to come to him and added the knight i shall be very much obliged if you will come at once
the good old man was greatly surprised at what he heard but respectfully followed the knight to the nobleman's palace the daimio who had been impatiently awaiting the old man's coming as soon as he saw him asked him at once
are you the old man who can make withered trees flower even out of season the old man made an obeisance and replied i am that old man then the daimio said
you must make that dead cherry tree in my garden blossom again by means of your famous ashes i shall look on then they all went into the garden the daimio and his retainers and the ladies in waiting who carried the daimio's sword
excuse me he took the pot of ashes which he had brought with him and began to climb the tree every one watching his movements with great interest at last he climbed to the spot where the tree divided into two great branches
and taking up his position here the old man sat down and scattered the ashes right and left all over the branches and twigs wonderful indeed was the result
and of all that had so auspiciously befallen him and he could not suppress all the envy and jealousy that filled his heart he called to mind how he had failed in his attempt to find the gold coins and then in making the magic cakes
so he set to work and gathered together all the ashes which remained in the fire place from the burning of the wonderful mortar then he set out in the hope of finding some great man to employ him
it will amuse me to look on so the retainers went out and brought in the impostor before their lord
but the daimio looking at him thought it strange that he was not at all like the old man he had seen before so he asked him are you the man whom i named hana saka jijii and the envious neighbor answered with a lie yes my lord
try what you can do and let me see the envious neighbor with the daimio and his court following then went into the garden and approaching a dead tree took out a handful of the ashes which he carried with him
and scattered them over the tree but not only did the tree not burst into flower
thinking that he had not used enough ashes the old man took handfuls and again sprinkled them over the withered tree but all to no effect after trying several times the ashes were blown into the daimio's eyes
this made him very angry and he ordered his retainers to arrest the false hana saka jijii at once and put him in prison for an impostor from this imprisonment the wicked old man was never freed
congress sustains hamilton the plans of hamilton having been formulated it remained to be determined whether they should be adopted by the lawmaking power or should remain a splendid but abortive monument to the constructive skill of their author
vigorous opposition was expected by hamilton to the measures which he proposed he had endeavored to meet and disarm such opposition as far as possible in the careful and illuminating language of his report but it soon became evident
that against nearly all parts of it a bitter and persistent battle would be waged the owners of capital and the commercial element were represented in the northern and eastern states rather than in the south and the representatives of the former states
strongly supported from the first the entire policy of the secretary of the treasury rumors were already abroad that something was to be done to restore the national credit but it was not until the reading of hamilton's report in the house
january fourteenth seventeen ninety that the full scope of his plans was made manifest the effect of the report was so favorable upon the public credit as to forge weapons for its enemies
this came about through the sudden rise in the public funds and the promptness with which speculators bought them up from holders who were ignorant of their value funds which would have been gladly disposed of at three shillings to the pound or fifteen per cent of their face value
at any time within the previous three years rose before noon the next day fifty per cent of their quoted price it was not yet certain that the project would be adopted by congress but shrewd men were willing to discount the future
in much the same manner that brokers in wall street do at the present time the absence of a well organized stock market with the ramifications of telegraphic quotations throughout the union put in the hands of the more daring of these speculators
an opportunity to avail themselves of the ignorance of others to an extent which would not be possible to day agents were soon scouring the country buying up the certificates of the debt in all its varied forms
before the news of hamilton's great report had reached the humble holders some of whom were old soldiers or quiet farmers who had been compelled to furnish supplies for the army jefferson says in his anas
couriers and relay horses by land and swift sailing pilot boats by sea were flying in all directions active partners and agents were associated and employed in every state town and county
and the paper bought up at five shillings and even as low as two shillings in the pound before the holder knew that congress had already provided for its redemption at par
this sudden and remarkable effect of hamilton's recommendations put weapons in the hands of the enemies of the project because it seemed to give force to their argument that a distinction should be made between those to whom the debt was originally issued at par
and the new holders who had obtained it at a discount long and bitter were the debates in the house over this and other branches of hamilton's project but it was so obvious that a distinction between the holders of the debt
would run directly counter to its character as negotiable paper and would be almost impossible of just execution that the friends of the funding project easily had the best of the argument madison although inclined to oppose hamilton was forced to admit
that the debt must be funded at par without discrimination he brought forward a project to pay the original holders the difference between par and the price at which they had sold and to pay to the present holders only what they had paid for the securities
this was shown to be so impracticable that only thirteen votes were given for it in a house of forty nine members voting the advocates of the entire funding project carried it in committee of the whole march ninth seventeen ninety
by a vote of thirty one to twenty six the debates had so strengthened the position of hamilton that the wisdom of funding the debt of the union at par was now generally admitted
his opponents and those who feared too great a concentration of power in the capitalist class and the central government made their stand on the proposal to assume the state debts when the resolution reported by the committee of the whole was taken up in the house on march twenty ninth
several representatives from north carolina appeared in the house and swelled the ranks of the opposition north carolina had been late in accepting the constitution and her members had not been present on previous votes
when therefore a motion to recommit the financial projects was made it was carried by a vote of twenty nine to twenty seven the advocates of assumption were so indignant and so convinced that one part of the project was as vital as the other
that they voted to recommit the original funding resolution further debate took place but without shaking the firmness of the opposition to the assumption of the state debts the project was rejected in committee april twelfth
by a vote of thirty one to twenty nine the situation was a grave one hamilton felt that the future of the union was at stake if his projects were not adopted substantially as a whole the new government
would be without credit and the work of the convention of seventeen eighty nine would be in vain the government at washington would be as helpless as the continental congress and its committees had been this opinion was shared
by all those who favored a vigorous central government and practically by all the members of the party in congress which was forming in support of the measures of hamilton and looking to him as their leader
while casting about for some means for meeting the emergency hamilton fell upon a plan which represents one of the few cases in which he had recourse to diplomacy in his public career
the question of the location of the national capital had been for some time pending in congress it had already become involved with the assumption of the state debts a strong bid had been made
by the opponents of assumption for the five votes of pennsylvania by the offer to locate the capital for fifteen years at philadelphia the importance of having congress and its officials
in a given city represented more at that time in spite of the small size of the body and the relative insignificance of the interests before it than would be the case to day with either of the great commercial cities of new york boston or philadelphia
and possession of the capital looked larger in the eyes of some members than the financial policy of the union in the sarcastic language of professor mc master the state debts might remain unpaid the credit of the nation might fall
but come what might the patronage of congress must be drawn from new york and distributed among the grog shops and taverns of philadelphia hamilton took advantage of this situation to save assumption
and to fix the financial policy of the united states the senate had rejected the proposal to establish the capital at philadelphia and when the project came back to the house baltimore was substituted by a majority of two
the pennsylvanians and their friends in the senate retaliated by mutilating the funding bill and daring the assumptionists to reject it the latter held to their position and rejected the bill thirty five to twenty three
it was while matters were in this acute stage while threats were made on behalf of the north that the union would be broken up if assumption were not carried that hamilton one day in front of the president's house met
thomas jefferson jefferson had recently returned from france to assume the position of secretary of state what followed is best told in jefferson's own words because he afterwards claimed
that he had been duped by hamilton and acted without knowledge of the effect of what he was doing jefferson's account of the matter
as i was going to the president's one day i met him hamilton in the street he walked me backwards and forwards before the president's door for half an hour
he painted pathetically the temper into which the legislature had been wrought the disgust of those who were called the creditor states the danger of the secession of their members and the separation of the states he observed that
the members of the administration ought to act in concert that though this question was not of my department
that the president was the centre on which all administrative questions ultimately rested and that all of us should rally around him and support with joint efforts measures approved by him
and that the question having been lost by a small majority only it was probable that an appeal from me to the judgment and discretion of some of my friends might effect a change in the vote and the machine of government now suspended
might be again set into motion i told him that i was really a stranger to the whole subject that not having yet informed myself of the system of finance adopted i knew not how far this was a necessary sequence
that undoubtedly if its rejection endangered a dissolution of our union at this incipient stage i should deem that the most unfortunate of all consequences
to avert which all partial and temporary evils should be yielded i proposed to him however to dine with me the next day and i would invite another friend or two bring them into conference together
and i thought it impossible that reasonable men consulting together coolly could fail by some mutual sacrifices of opinion to form a compromise which was to save the union the discussion took place
i could take no part in it but an exhortatory one because i was a stranger to the circumstances which should govern it but it was finally agreed that whatever importance had been attached to the rejection of this proposition
the preservation of the union and of concord among the states was more important and that therefore it would be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded to effect which some members should change their votes
but it was observed that this pill would be peculiarly bitter to the southern states and that some concomitant measure should be adopted to sweeten it a little to them there had been projects to fix the seat of government
either at philadelphia or at georgetown on the potomac and it was thought that by giving it to philadelphia for ten years and to georgetown permanently afterwards this might as an anodyne
calm in some degree the ferment which might be excited by the other measure alone some two of the potomac members white and lee but white with a revulsion of stomach almost convulsive agreed to change their votes
and hamilton undertook to carry the other point in doing this the influence he had established over the eastern members with the agency of robert morris with those of the middle states effected his side of the engagement
hamilton had little of the state pride which influenced the men of massachusetts new york virginia or of any other state who had grown up on the soil won by their english ancestors by their blood or the sweat of their brows to him
the question of the location of the capital seemed insignificant in comparison with the foundation of the union upon the rock of a comprehensive financial policy it is significant of the commanding influence which the young secretary had acquired
and the well knit party which was gathering around him that he had no difficulty in carrying his part of the programme for seating the capital eventually on the banks of the potomac the bill to remove the capital was passed on july ninth seventeen ninety
by a majority of three and the assumption of the state debts was carried soon after the form of the assumption differed somewhat from the proposal of hamilton but it accomplished the result at which he aimed a specific sum
twenty one million five hundred thousand dollars was assumed by the government and distributed among the states in set proportions
i consent to this constitution he declared because i expect no better and because i am not sure that it is not the best washington sought also to secure unanimity and hamilton declared
i am anxious that every member should sign a few by refusing may do infinite mischief no man's ideas are more remote from the plan than my own are known to be
but is it possible to deliberate between anarchy and convulsion on the one side and the chance of good to be expected from the plan on the other such words had some weight but not enough to secure unanimity
all the states voted for the constitution but several delegates went on record against it and hamilton's two associates from new york were absent it was this alone which saved new york from being recorded against the constitution
it was he who in a bold plain hand inscribed on the great sheet of parchment the name of each state as the delegations came forward one after another in geographical order and affixed their signatures to the precious document
which was to found the government of the united states hamilton returned to new york determined to use his utmost powers to secure the ratification of the constitution as the best attainable means of averting the dangers of disunion
although cordially supported by john jay and edward livingston hamilton in the fight for ratification in new york was the natural leader he found arrayed against him the whole influence of governor clinton
and the dominant party in new york politics clinton was not absolutely opposed to union but he attached to it so many reservations that for practical purposes he was an opponent of the new constitution
the battle over ratification began on the question of the choice of delegates to the state convention it was in this field that hamilton fought the great fight with his pen which has left to posterity
the fine exposition of the constitution known as the federalist a society was formed in the city of new york to resist the adoption of the constitution and articles soon began to appear in the local press criticising and opposing it
preparing a vigorous letter while gliding down the hudson in reply to some of the first points of the opposition hamilton soon extended the project into a series of strong papers which appeared twice a week for twenty weeks over the signature of
publius he secured the aid of madison and jay who wrote some of the papers but the project was hamilton's the majority of the papers were written by him and to him has been justly given the credit of the well knit and powerful arguments
afterwards printed under the title of the federalist taking up point by point the provisions of the new constitution hamilton by skillful argument drawn from the closest abstract reasoning
the recent experience of the states and the history of foreign countries sought to show that the new constitution was based upon sound principles of government that it was well calculated to carry out these principles and
that its acceptance was practically the only course open to the american people to insure for themselves the benefits of liberty prosperity and peace the federalist although a purely political argument has survived the occasion which called it forth
as one of the master documents of political writing that it has a distinct place in literature is admitted by so severe a critic as professor barrett wendell in his recent literary history of america it is worth while quoting
his acute literary judgment of its merits as a series of formal essays the federalist groups itself roughly with the tatler the spectator and those numerous descendants of theirs which fill the literary records of eighteenth century england
it differs however from all these in both substance and purpose the tatler the spectator and their successors dealt with superficial matters in a spirit of literary amenity the federalist
deals in an argumentative spirit as earnest as that of any puritan divine with political principles paramount in our history and it is so wisely thoughtful that one may almost declare it the permanent basis of sound thinking
concerning american constitutional law like all the educated writing of the eighteenth century too it is phrased with a rhythmical balance and urbane polish which give it claim to literary distinction
while the written arguments of hamilton in the federalist have survived for a hundred years and been consulted by foreign students in the formation of new constitutions a more severe task was imposed upon him
at the meeting of the state convention called to consider the report of the convention at philadelphia it was in some respects the hardest task ever set with any hope of success before a parliamentary leader indeed to the superficial observer
there would have seemed to be no hope of success when in the elections to the state convention the supporters of governor clinton chose forty six delegates and left on the side of hamilton only nineteen of the sixty five members
but this statement of the case gives a somewhat darker color to the situation than the real facts there was a strong and growing body of public sentiment for the constitution in new york city and the counties along the hudson which even led to the suggestion
that they should join the union in any event and leave the northern counties to shift for themselves it was generally recognized moreover that however strong the objections were to the constitution the choice lay practically
between this constitution and none between the proposed government and anarchy so strong was the sentiment that the constitution must be accepted in some form that its opponents in the state convention did not venture upon immediate rejection
fortunately their course in fighting for delay only tended to make it clearer that new york would stand alone if she failed to ratify while the dream of independent sovereignty or the leadership in a federation which should dictate terms to the surrounding states
was not without its attractions to the more ambitious of the opposition leaders there was a darker side to the proposition which was much less attractive independence for new york meant a heavy burden of taxation for a separate army and navy
for guarding long frontiers on the east north and south for supporting an extensive customs service along the same frontiers for maintaining ministers at foreign courts and consuls in the leading cities of the world and
for meeting all the other expenses of a sovereign nation it was fortunate for the state and the country that the leader of the opposition to the constitution in the new york convention was a man of a high order of ability
whose mind was open in an unusual degree to the influence of logical reasoning this man was melancthon smith who is accorded by chancellor kent the great authority on american law the credit of being noted
for his love of reading tenacious memory powerful intellect and for the metaphysical and logical discussions of which he was a master it is as much to his credit as that of hamilton that he finally admitted that he had been convinced by hamilton
and that he should vote for the constitution this result was only reached however after a long and sometimes acrimonious struggle in which hamilton was on his feet day after day explaining and defending each separate clause of the constitution
not only in its real meaning but against all the distorted constructions put upon it by the most acute and jealous of critics but events had been fighting with hamilton state after state had ratified the new document
and news of their action had reached new york nine states the number necessary to put the constitution in force were made up by the ratification of new hampshire june twenty first seventeen eighty eight still new york hesitated
and hamilton wrote to madison our chance of success depends upon you symptoms of relaxation in some of the leaders authorize a gleam of hope if you do well but certainly i think not otherwise virginia justified his hopes
by a majority of eighty nine against seventy nine for ratification june twenty fifth seventeen eighty eight the news reached new york on july third the opposition there though showing signs of relenting was still stubborn
conditional ratification with a long string of amendments was first proposed jay firmly insisted that the word conditional must be erased finally on july eleventh he proposed unconditional ratification
melancthon smith then proposed ratification with the right to withdraw if the amendments should not be accepted hamilton exposed the folly of such a project in a brilliant speech which led smith to admit that conditional ratification was an absurdity
other similar proposals were brought forward but they were evidently equivalent to rejection by indirection which would have left new york out of the new union finally samuel jones another broad minded member of the opposition
proposed ratification without conditions but in full confidence that congress would adopt all needed amendments with the support of smith this form of ratification was carried
by the slender majority of three votes july twenty sixth seventeen eighty eight by this narrow margin it was decided that new york should form a part of the union and that the great experiment in representative government
should not begin with the two halves of the country separated by a hostile power commanding the greatest seaport of the colonies hamilton thus played an important part in winning the first great battle for the constitution
ratification was only one of many steps which remained to be taken before the new government was in working order hamilton hurried back to the federal congress and carried an ordinance fixing the dates and the place for putting the new government in operation
when he returned to new york he was beaten for reelection to congress and governor clinton and his party retained such a firm grip upon the legislature that a deadlock occurred between the federalist house and the opposition senate
new york was unrepresented in the first electoral college and had no senators at the meeting of the first congress the state elections which followed resulted in defeat for the federalists in the election of the governor
but they carried the legislature and elected two senators general schuyler and rufus king king had recently come from massachusetts and hamilton's insistence that he should be chosen caused a breach with the livingstons
which contributed to the defeat of schuyler two years later and the election of aaron burr hamilton's course in this matter was one of many cases in which he showed that he was not an astute politician nor an adept at dealing with men
darwin origin of species wallace darwinism three william dawson modern ideas of evolution article evolution in leading encyclopedias
when jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every purpose in the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually it was a source of regret that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart
therefore jehovah said i will destroy from the face of the ground man whom i have created for i regret that i have made mankind then jehovah said to noah
and noah only was left and they who were with him in the ark
and without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing with god for he that cometh to god must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him
noah being warned of god concerning things not seen as yet moved with godly fear prepared an ark to the saving of his house through which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith
rare is the man who can look back over his life and not confess at least to himself that the things which have made him most a man are the very things from which he tried with all his soul to escape
if we would attain happiness we must first attain helpfulness but stay no age was e'er degenerate unless men held it at too cheap a rate for in our likeness still we shape our fate lowell
the two biblical accounts of the flood
have long recognized certain difficulties in interpreting the narrative as it now stands thus for example
noah is commanded to take into the ark two of every kind of beast and bird
three he is commanded to take in seven of all the clean beasts and birds
the flood came as the result of a forty days rain
the flood continued on the earth forty days
its duration was a hundred and fifty days these
point some writers think to two originally distinct accounts of the flood which have been closely woven together by the final editor of the book of genesis when these two accounts are disentangled they are each practically complete
and apparently represent variant versions of the same flood story
it has the flowing vivid picturesque literary style and the point of view of the prophetic teacher in this account the number seven prevails seven of each clean beast and bird are taken into the ark to provide food for noah and his family
seven days the waters rose and at intervals of seven days he sent out a raven and a dove the flood from its beginning to the time when noah disembarked continued sixty eight days
at the end when he had determined by sending out birds that the waters had subsided he went forth from the ark and reared an altar and offered sacrifice to jehovah of every clean beast and bird
the other and more detailed account is apparently the sequel of the late priestly narratives found in genesis one and five the style is that of a legal writer formal exact and repetitious
in this account only two of each kind of beast and bird are taken into the ark the flood lasts for over a year and is universal covering even the tops of the highest mountains no animals are sacrificed for according to the priestly writer
this custom was first instituted by moses when the flood subsides however a covenant is concluded and is sealed by the rainbow in accordance with which man's commission to rule over all other living things is renewed
provided only that men carefully abstain from eating the blood this later account is dated by this group of modern biblical scholars about four hundred b c two the corresponding babylonian flood stories
closely parallel to these two variant biblical accounts of the flood are the two babylonian versions which have fortunately been almost wholly recovered the older babylonian account is found in the eleventh tablet of the gilgamesh epic
this great conqueror lived contemporaneously with manasseh during whose reign assyrian influence was paramount in the kingdom of judah in his quest for healing and immortality
gilgamesh reached the abode of the babylonian hero of the flood in response to gilgamesh's question as to how he a mortal attained immortality the babylonian noah recounts the story of the flood
it was brought about by the babylonian gods in order to destroy the city of shurippak situated on the banks of the euphrates the god
gave the warning to his worshipper the hero of the flood and commanded him construct a house build a ship leave goods look after life forsake possessions and save life
cause all kinds of living things to go up into the ship the ship which thou shalt build exact shall be its dimensions its breadth shall equal its length on the great deep launch it
my lord behold my lord what thou hast commanded i have reverently received and will carry out a detailed account then follows of the building of the ark
its dimensions were one hundred and twenty cubits in each direction it was built in six stories each of which was divided into nine parts plentiful provisions were next carried on board
and a great feast was held to commemorate the completion of the ark after carrying on board his treasures of silver and gold he adds all the living creatures of all kinds i loaded on it i brought on board my family and household
cattle of the field beasts of the field the craftsmen all of them i brought on board in the evening at the command of the god shamash the rains began to descend
the description of the tempest that follows is exceedingly vivid and picturesque when the first light of dawn shone forth there rose from the horizon a dark cloud within which adad thundered
nabu and marduk marched at the front the heralds passed over mountains and land nergal tore out the ship's mast ninib advanced following up the attack the spirits of earth raised torches
with their sheen they lighted up the world adad's tempest reached to heaven and all light was changed to darkness so great was the havoc wrought by the storm that the gods bowed down sat there weeping
close pressed together were their lips for six days and nights the storm raged but on the seventh day it subsided and the flood began to abate of the race of mortals however every voice was hushed
which lay on the northern horizon as viewed from the tigris euphrates valley here the ship grounded then when the seventh day arrived i sent forth a dove and let it loose
the dove went forth but came back because it found no resting place it returned
but it came back because it found no resting place it returned then i sent forth a raven and let it loose the raven went forth and saw that the waters had decreased it fed it waded it croaked
but did not return then i sent forth everything in all directions and offered a sacrifice i made an offering of incense on the highest peak of the mountain seven and seven bowls i placed there and over them
i poured out calamus cedar wood and fragrant herbs the gods inhaled the odor the gods inhaled the sweet odor the gods gathered like flies above the sacrifice
the babylonian noah and his wife were granted immortality and permitted to dwell in the distance at the confluence of the streams a later version of the same babylonian flood story
the hero who like noah in the priestly account was the last of the ten ancient babylonian kings at the command of the god he built a great ship fifteen stadia long and two in width
which returned with mud on its feet when the third bird failed to return he took off the cover of the ship and found that it had stranded on a mountain of armenia the mountain in the biblical account
is identified with mount ararat disembarking the babylonian noah kissed the earth and after building an altar offered a sacrifice to the gods thus the variations between the older and later babylonian accounts of the flood
correspond in general to those that have been already noted in the biblical versions which biblical account does the earliest babylonian narrative resemble most closely in what details do they agree
what is the significance of these points of agreement three history of the biblical flood stories on the basis of the preceding comparisons some writers attempt to trace tentatively
the history of the flood tradition current among the peoples of southwestern asia a fragment of the babylonian flood story coming from at least as early as two thousand b c has recently been discovered the probability is
that the tradition goes back to the earliest beginnings of babylonian history the setting of the biblical accounts of the flood is also the tigris euphrates valley rather than palestine
is not only closely parallel to that found in the babylonian account but the method the smearing of the ark within and without with bitumen is peculiar to the tigris euphrates valley many scholars believe therefore
that babylonia was the original home of the biblical flood story its exact origin however is not so certain many of its details were doubtless suggested
by the annual floods and fogs which inundate that famous valley and recall the primeval chaos so vividly pictured in the corresponding babylonian story of the creation it may have been based
on the remembrances of a great local inundation possibly due to the subsidence of great areas of land in the earliest hebrew records there is no trace of this tradition
although it may have been known to the aramean ancestors of the hebrews the literary evidence however suggests that it was first brought to palestine by the assyrians during the reactionary reign of manasseh
which these conquerors had inherited inundated judah even in the temple at jerusalem the babylonians gods the host of heaven were worshipped by certain of the hebrews the few literary inscriptions which come from this period
and contain the names of assyrian officials later when the jewish exiles were carried to babylonia they naturally came into contact again with the babylonian account of the flood but in its later form
as the comparisons already instituted clearly indicate it is thus possible these scholars believe
aim of the biblical writers in recounting the flood story the practical question which at once suggests itself is what place or right has this ancient semitic tradition if such it is among the biblical narratives
to divest them of their polytheistic form and in certain respects immoral implications a minute comparison of the babylonian and biblical accounts indicates that this may perhaps be precisely what has been done
but the majestic just god of the biblical narratives is far removed from the capricious intriguing gods of the babylonian tradition who hang like flies over the battlements of heaven stupefied with terror because of the destruction which they had wrought
each of the biblical narrators seems to be seeking also by means of these illustrations to teach certain universal moral and religious truths in this respect the two variant biblical narratives are in perfect agreement
arbitrary deity but because of the purpose which god had before him in the work of creation and because that purpose was good men by their sins and wilful failure to observe his benign laws were thwarting that purpose
hence in accord with the just laws of the universe their destruction was unavoidable and it came even as effect follows cause on the other hand these ancient teachers taught with inimitable skill
that god would not destroy that which was worthy of preservation in each of the accounts the character of noah stands in striking contrast with those of his contemporaries the story as told
is not merely an illustration of the truth that righteousness brings its just reward but of the profounder principle that it is the morally fit who survive in both of the versions noah in a very true sense
represents the beginning of a new creation he is the traditional father of a better race to him are given the promises which god was eager to realize in the life of humanity
in the light of these profound religious teachings may any one reasonably question the right of these stories to a place in the bible
or from nature to make clear his teachings is it not evidence of superlative teaching skill to use that which is familiar and therefore of interest to those taught in order to inculcate the deeper moral and religious truths of life
it is interesting and illuminating to note how the ancient hebrew prophets in their religious teaching forecast the discoveries and scientific methods of our day this was because they had grasped universal principles
since the memorable evening in july eighteen fifty eight in which the views of darwin and wallace on the principles of variation and selection in the natural world were sent to the linnaean society in london
the leading scientists have laid great stress upon the doctrine of the survival of the fittest as the true explanation of progress in the natural world it was apparently made clear by darwin and supported by sufficient evidence
that any being if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself under the complex and somewhat varying conditions of life will have a better chance of surviving and thus be naturally selected
this principle since that day has been thoroughly worked out in practically all the important fields of both the plant and animal world moreover the doctrine of evolution dependent upon this principle
has exerted so great an influence upon the process of investigation and thinking in all fields of activity that the resulting change in method has amounted to a revolution the principle is applied not only in the field of biology
but also in the realm of astronomy
and in psychology history social science where we speak of the development of human traits and of the growth of economic political and social institutions
it is necessary to remember in applying such a brief statement of a principle that the words are used in a highly technical sense the word fittest by no means need imply the best from the point of view of beauty or strength
or usefulness in nature nor does it necessarily mean in reference to society best from the point of view of morals or a higher civilization rather the fittest
means the being best adapted to the conditions under which it is living or to its environment as a matter of fact it is the general opinion that in practically all fields
this principle works toward progress in the highest and best sense but it is always a matter for specific study as well as of great scientific interest and importance to determine where and how
means also the highest from the moral and religious point of view the story of the flood gives us a most interesting example of the way in which the ancient hebrews looked upon such a process of selection
in the moral and religious world and taught it as a divine principle it is therefore one of the most suggestive and interesting of the writings of the early israelites
the survival of the fittest in social and political life from our modern point of view the ancient hebrew writers had a far deeper knowledge of moral and religious questions than of natural science
that their beliefs regarding the good and ill effects of human action have in them much that is universally true even though we may not follow them throughout in their theories of divine wrath and immediate earthly punishment of the wicked
but is it not true almost invariably if we look at social questions of every kind in a comprehensive way that the survival of the fittest means the survival of the morally best
that the religion which endures is of the highest type business success in the long run is so strongly based upon mutual confidence and trust that especially in these later days of credit organization
the dishonest man or even the tricky man cannot prosper long a sales manager of a prominent institution said lately that the chief difficulty that he had with his men was to make them always tell the truth
for the sake of making an important sale they were often inclined to misrepresent his goods but nothing he added will so surely kill all business as misrepresentation
and had therefore become the rule of his life although it is sometimes said that the man who guides his life by the maxim honesty is the best policy is in reality not honest at heart it must nevertheless be granted that in business
the survival of the fittest means the survival of the most honest business man it may perhaps have been true in the days of machiavelli that cruelty and treachery would aid the unscrupulous petty despot of italy
to secure and at times to maintain his dukedom but certainly in modern days when in all civilized countries permanently prosperous government is based ultimately upon the will of the people
the successful ruler can no longer be treacherous and cruel even among our so called spoils politicians and corrupt bosses who hold their positions by playing upon the selfishness of their followers
and the ignorance and apathy of the public there must be rigid faithfulness to promises and at any rate the appearance of promoting the public welfare otherwise their term of power is short
men of personal uprightness and morality and usually of deep religious feeling think over the names of the great men of the united states and note their characters
pick out the leading statesmen of the last half century in england germany and italy do they not all stand for unselfish patriotic purpose in their actions and in character for individual honor and integrity
the same is true in our social intercourse brilliancy of intellect however important in many fields of activity counts for relatively little in home and social life if not accompanied by graciousness of manner
kindness of heart uprightness of character it may sometimes seem that the brilliant rascal succeeds that the unscrupulous business man becomes rich and that the hypocrite prospers through his hypocrisy
if all society were made up of men of these low moral types would such cases perhaps be more often found than now in a society of hypocrites would the fittest for survival be the most skilful deceiver
or even there would the adage there must be honor among thieves hold when it came to permanent organization but whatever your answer society fortunately is not made up of hypocrites or rascals of any kind
with all the weakness of human nature found in every society the growing success of the rule of the people throughout the world proves that fundamentally men and women are honest and true
generally common human nature is for the right almost universally if a mooted question touching morals can be put simply and squarely before the people they will see and choose the right fortunate it is for the world
and that good sense and religion both agree that in the long run honor and virtue and righteousness not only pay the individual but are essential to the prosperity of a nation
questions for further consideration had most primitive peoples a tradition regarding the flood how do you explain the striking points of similarity
is it a mere accident or an essential factor in the realization of the divine purpose in human history are appalling calamities like floods and earthquakes the result of the working out of natural laws
are they unmitigated evils were the floods in china and the plagues in india which destroyed millions of lives seemingly essential to the welfare of the surviving inhabitants of those overpopulated lands
what were the effects of the chicago fire and the san francisco earthquake upon these cities how far was the development of the modern commission form of city government one of the direct results of the galveston flood
to what extent is the modern progress in sanitation due to natural calamities what calamities is a great calamity often necessary to arouse the inhabitants of a city or nation
how do circumstances affect the kind of act that will be successful during the chinese revolution of nineteen twelve in peking and nanking looting leaders of mobs and plundering soldiers when captured
were promptly decapitated without trial was such an act right was it necessary what conditions would justify such an act in the united states
would the same act tend equally to preserve the government in both countries subjects for further study one flood stories among primitive peoples worcester genesis
two the scientific basis of the biblical account of the flood ryle
davis
driver genesis
compare the treatment accorded their rivals and competitors for power in their various fields by the following persons solomon
machiavelli the prince douglas europe and the far east
did these different methods under the special circumstances result in the survival of the fittest
a willful elf an uncle's child that half a pet and half a pest was still reproved endured caressed yet never tamed though never spoiled capitola at first was delighted and half incredulous at the great change in her fortunes
the spacious and comfortable mansion of which she found herself the little mistress the high rank of the veteran officer who claimed her as his ward and niece the abundance regularity and respectability of her new life the leisure the privacy the attendance of servants
were all so different from anything to which she had previously been accustomed that there were times when she doubted its reality and distrusted her own identity sometimes of a morning after a very vivid dream of the alleys cellars and gutters ragpickers newsboys and beggars of new york
she would open her eyes upon her own comfortable chamber with its glowing fire and crimson curtains and bright mirror crowning the walnut bureau between them she would jump up and gaze wildly around not remembering where she was or how she came thither
sometimes suddenly startled by an intense realization of the contrast between her past and her present life she would mentally inquire can this be really i myself and not another i the little houseless wanderer through the streets and alleys of new york
i the little newsgirl in boy's clothes i the wretched little vagrant that was brought up before the recorder and was about to be sent to the house of refuge for juvenile delinquents can this be i capitola the little outcast of the city
now changed into miss black the young lady perhaps the heiress of a fine old country seat calling a fine old military officer uncle having a handsome income of pocket money settled upon me having carriages and horses and servants to attend me
no it can't be it's just impossible no i see how it is i'm crazy that's what i am crazy for now i think of it the last thing i remember of my former life was being brought before the recorder for wearing boy's clothes
now i'm sure that it was upon that occasion that i went suddenly mad with trouble and all the rest is a lunatic's fancy this fine old country seat of which i vainly think myself the mistress is just the pauper madhouse to which the magistrates have sent me
this fine old military officer whom i call uncle is the head doctor the servants who come at my call are the keepers there is no figure out of my past life in my present one except herbert greyson but pshaw he is not the nephew of his uncle
he is only my old comrade herbert greyson the sailor lad who comes here to the madhouse to see me and out of compassion humors all my fancies i wonder how long they'll keep me here
i hope they won't cure me i vow i won't be cured
i'll keep on calling myself miss black and this madhouse my country seat and the head doctor my uncle and the keepers servants until the end of time so i will catch me coming to my senses when it's so delightful to be mad i'm too sharp for that
i didn't grow up in rag alley new york for nothing so half in jest and half in earnest capitola soliloquized upon her change of fortune her education was commenced but progressed rather irregularly
old hurricane bought her books and maps slates and copy books set her lessons in grammar geography and history and made her write copies do sums and read and recite lessons to him missus condiment taught her the mysteries of cutting and basting back stitching and felling
hemming and seaming a pupil as sharp as capitola soon mastered her tasks and found herself each day with many hours of leisure with which she did not know what to do
with all its attics cuddies cock lofts and cellars then in wandering through the old ornamental grounds that were even in winter and in total neglect beautiful with their wild growth of evergreens
thence she extended her researches into the wild and picturesque country around she was never weary of admiring the great forest that climbed the heights of the mountains behind their house the great bleak precipices of gray rock seen through the leafless branches of the trees
and the river itself with its rushing stream and raging rapids capitola had become a skilful as she had first been a fearless rider but her rides were confined to the domain between the mountain range and the river she was forbidden to ford the one or climb the other
perhaps if such a prohibition had never been made capitola would never have thought of doing the one or the other but we all know the diabolical fascination there is in forbidden pleasures for young human nature and no sooner had cap been commanded
if she valued her safety not to cross the water or climb the precipice than as a natural consequence she began to wonder what was in the valley behind the mountain and what might be in the woods across the river and she longed above all things to explore and find out for herself
she would eagerly have done so notwithstanding the prohibition but wool who always attended her rides was sadly in the way if she could only get rid of wool she resolved to go upon a limited exploring expedition one day a golden opportunity occurred
it was a day of unusual beauty when autumn seemed to be smiling upon the earth with her brightest smiles before passing away in a word it was indian summer the beauty of the weather had tempted old hurricane to ride to the county seat on particular business
connected with his ward herself capitola left alone amused herself with her tasks until the afternoon then calling a boy she ordered him to saddle her horse and bring him around
there is no one to attend you wool has gone with his master said missus condiment as she met capitola in the hall habited for her ride i know that but i cannot be mewed up here in the old house and deprived of my afternoon ride exclaimed capitola decidedly
but my dear you must never think of riding out alone exclaimed the dismayed missus condiment indeed i shall though and glad of the opportunity added cap mentally but my dear love it is improper imprudent dangerous
why so asked cap good gracious upon every account suppose you were to meet with ruffians suppose oh heaven suppose you were to meet with black donald missus condiment once for all do tell me who this terrible black donald is
is he the evil one himself or the man in the iron mask or the individual that struck billy patterson or who is he who is black donald good gracious child you ask me who is black donald yes who is he where is he
what is he that every cheek turns pale at the mention of his name asked capitola black donald oh my child may you never know more of black donald than i can tell you black donald is the chief of a band of ruthless desperadoes that infest these mountain roads
robbing mail coaches stealing negroes breaking into houses and committing every sort of depredation their hands are red with murder and their souls black with darker crimes darker crimes than murder ejaculated capitola
yes child yes there are darker crimes only last winter he and three of his gang broke into a solitary house where there was a lone woman and her daughter and it is not a story for you to hear but if the people had caught black donald then they would have burned him at the stake
his life is forfeit by a hundred crimes he is an outlaw and a heavy price is set upon his head
no my dear at least no one has been able to do so yet his very haunts are unknown but are supposed to be in concealed mountain caverns how i would like the glory of capturing black donald said capitola you child you capture black donald
you are crazy oh by stratagem i mean not by force oh how i should like to capture black donald there's my horse good by and before missus condiment could raise another objection capitola ran out sprang into her saddle
and was seen careering down the hill toward the river as fast as her horse could fly my lord but the major will be hopping if he finds it out was good missus condiment's dismayed exclamation rejoicing in her freedom
and then walked her horse up and down along the course of the stream until she found a good fording place then gathering up her riding skirt and throwing it over the neck of her horse she plunged boldly into the stream and with the water splashing and foaming all around her
urged him onward till they crossed the river and climbed up the opposite bank a bridle path lay before her leading from the fording place through a deep wood that path attracted her she followed it charmed alike by the solitude of the wood the novelty of the scene
and her own sense of freedom but one thought was given to the story of black donald and that was a reassuring one if black donald is a mail robber then this little bridle path is far enough off his beat and so saying she gayly galloped along singing as she went
following the narrow path up hill and down dale through the wintry woods drawn on by the attraction of the unknown and deceiving herself by the continued repetition of one resolve namely
then i will turn back she galloped on and on on and on on and on until she had put several miles between herself and her home until her horse began to exhibit signs of weariness and the level rays of the setting sun
were striking redly through the leafless branches of the trees cap drew rein at the top of a high wooded hill and looked about her on her left hand the sun was sinking like a ball of fire below the horizon all around her everywhere were the wintry woods
far away in the direction whence she had come she saw the tops of the mountains behind hurricane hall looking like blue clouds against the southern horizon the hall itself and the river below were out of sight i wonder how far i am from home
said capitola uneasily somewhere between six and seven miles i reckon dear me i didn't mean to ride so far i've got over a great deal of ground in these two hours i shall not get back so soon my horse is tired to death
it will take me three hours to reach hurricane hall good gracious it will be pitch dark before i get there no thank heaven there will be a moon but won't there be a row though
well i must turn about and lose no time come gyp get up gyp good horse we're going home and so saying capitola turned her horse's head and urged him into a gallop she had gone on for about a mile and it was growing dark and her horse was again slackening his pace
when she thought she heard the sound of another horse's hoofs behind her she drew rein and listened and was sure of it now without being the least of a coward capitola thought of the loneliness of the woods the lateness of the hour her own helplessness and black donald
and thinking discretion the better part of valor she urged her horse once more into a gallop for a few hundred yards but the jaded beast soon broke into a trot and subsided into a walk that threatened soon to come to a standstill the invisible pursuer gained on her
in vain she urged her steed with whip and voice the poor beast would obey and trot for a few yards and then fall into a walk the thundering footfalls of the pursuing horse were close in the rear
what is presence of mind any way demanded little dolly ware as she sat surrounded by her family watching the sunset the sunset hour is best of all the twenty four in nantucket at no other time is the sea so blue and silvery
or the streaks of purple and pale green which mark the place of the sand spits and shallows that underlie the island waters so defined or of such charming colors the wind blows across softly from the south shore
and brings with it scents of heath and thyme caught from the high upland moors above the town the sun dips down and sends a flash of glory to the zenith and small pink clouds curl up about the rising moon fondle her as it were
and seem to love her it is a delightful moment and all nantucket dwellers learn to watch for it it was the custom of the ware family as soon as they had despatched their supper a very hearty supper
suited to young appetites sharpened by sea air of chowder or hot lobster or a newly caught blue fish with piles of brown bread and butter and unlimited milk to rush out en masse to the piazza of their little cottage
and attend to the sunset as though it were a family affair it was the hour when jokes were cracked and questions asked and when mamma who was apt to be pretty busy during the daytime had leisure to answer them
dolly was youngest of the family a thin wiry child tall for her years with a brown bang lying like a thatch over a pair of bright inquisitive eyes and a thick pig tail braided down her back
phyllis the next in age was short and fat then came harry then erma just sixteen named after a german great grandmother and last of all jack tallest and jolliest of the group
who had just passed his preliminaries and would enter college next year missus ware might be excused for the little air of motherly pride with which she gazed at her five they were fine children all of them frank affectionate
generous with bright minds and healthy bodies presence of mind sometimes means absence of body remarked jack in answer to dolly's question i was speaking to mamma said dolly with dignity
i wasn't asking you i am aware of the fact but i overlooked the formality for once what makes you want to know midget there was a story in the paper about a girl who hid the kerosene can when the new cook came
and it said she showed true presence of mind replied dolly oh that was only fun it didn't mean anything isn't there any such thing then why of course there is
picking up a shell just before it bursts in a hospital tent and throwing it out of the door is presence of mind yes and tying a string round the right place on your leg when you've cut an artery added harry eagerly
swallowing a quart of whiskey when a rattlesnake bites you suggested jack saving the silver instead of the waste paper basket when the house is on fire put in erma dolly looked from one to the other
what funny things she cried i don't believe you know anything about it mamma tell me what it really means i think said missus ware in those gentle tones to which her children always listened
that presence of mind means keeping cool and having your wits about you at critical moments our minds our reasoning faculties that is are apt to be stunned or shocked when we are suddenly frightened or excited
they leave us and go away as it were and it is only afterward that we pick ourselves up and realize what we ought to have done to act coolly and sensibly in the face of danger is a fine thing and one to be proud of
should you be proud of me if i showed presence of mind asked dolly leaning her arms on her mother's lap very proud replied missus ware smiling as she stroked the brown head very proud indeed
i mean to do it said dolly in a firm tone there was a general laugh how will you go to work asked jack shall i step down to hussey's and get a shell for you to practise on
she'll be setting the house on fire some night to show what she can do added harry teasingly i shall do no such thing protested dolly indignantly how foolish you are you don't understand a bit i don't want to make things happen
but if they do happen i shall try to keep cool and have my wits about me and perhaps i shall it would be lovely to be brave and do heroic things remarked phyllis
you could at least be brave enough to use your common sense said her mother yours is a very good resolution dolly dear and i hope you'll keep to it i will said dolly and marched undauntedly off to bed
later she found herself repeating as if it were a lesson to be learned presence of mind means keeping cool and having your wits about you and she said it over and over every morning and evening after that as she braided her hair
phyllis overheard and laughed at her a little but dolly didn't mind being laughed at and kept on rehearsing her sentence all the same it is not given to all of us to test ourselves and discover by actual experiment
just how much a mental resolution has done for us dolly however was to have the chance the bathing beach at nantucket is a particularly safe one and the water through the summer months most warm and delicious
all the children who lived on the sandy bluff known as the cliff were in the habit of bathing and the daily dip taken in company was the chief event of the day in their opinion the little wares all swam like ducks
and no one thought of being nervous or apprehensive if harry struck out boldly for the jetty or if erma and phyllis were seen side by side at a point far beyond the depth of either of them or little dolly took a header into deep water off an old boat
it happened about two months after the talk on the piazza that dolly was bathing with kitty allen a small neighbor of her own age kitty had just been learning to swim and was very proud of her new accomplishment
but she was by no means so sure of herself or so much at home in the water as dolly who had learned three years before and practised continually the two children had swam out for quite a distance then as they turned to go back
kitty suddenly realized her distance from the shore and was seized with immediate and paralyzing terror oh oh she gasped how far out we are we shall never get back in the world we shall be drowned
dolly ware we shall certainly be drowned she made a vain clutch at dolly and with a wild scream went down and disappeared dolly dived after her
and frantically reaching out as drowning persons do for something to hold by the first thing she touched was dolly's large pig tail and grasping that tight she sank again dragging dolly down with her backward
it was really a hazardous moment many a good swimmer has lost his life under similar circumstances nothing is more dangerous than to be caught and held by a person who cannot swim or who is too much disabled by fear to use his powers
and now it was that dolly's carefully conned lesson about presence of mind came to her aid keep cool have your wits about you rang through her ears as held in kitty's desperate grasp she was dragged down
down into the sea a clear sense of what she ought to do flashed across her mind she must escape from kitty and hold her up but not give kitty any chance to drag her down again as they rose she pulled her hair away with a sudden motion
and seized kitty by the collar of her bathing dress behind float and i'll hold you up she gasped if you try to catch hold of me again i'll just swim off and leave you and then you will be drowned kitty allen
kitty was too far gone to make any very serious struggle then dolly striking out strongly and pushing kitty before her sent one wild cry for help toward the beach the cry was heard
it seemed to dolly a terribly long time before any answer came but it was in reality less than five minutes before a boat was pushed into the water dolly saw it rowing toward her and held on bravely be cool have your wits about you
she said to herself and she kept firm grasp of her mind and would not let the fright of whose existence she was conscious get possession of her oh how welcome was the dash of the oars close at hand
how gladly she relinquished kitty to the strong arms that lifted her into the boat but when the men would have helped her in too she refused no thank you i'll swim she said
it seemed nothing to get herself to shore now that the responsibility of kitty and kitty's weight were taken from her she swam pluckily along the boat keeping near lest her strength should give out and reached the beach just as jack
that moment aware of the situation was dashing into the water after her she was very pale but declared herself not tired at all and she dressed and marched sturdily up the cliff refusing all assistance
there was quite a little stir among the summer colony over the adventure and missus ware had many compliments paid her for her child's behavior mister allen came over
and had much to say about the extraordinary presence of mind which dolly had shown it was really remarkable he said if she had fought with kitty or if she had tried to swim ashore and had not called for assistance
they might easily have both been drowned it is extraordinary that a child of that age should keep her head and show such coolness and decision it wasn't remarkable at all dolly declared as soon as he was gone
it was just because you said that on the piazza that night said what why mamma surely you haven't forgotten it was that about presence of mind you know i taught it to myself and have said it over and over ever since
did you really indeed i did and then i seemed to know what to do well it was a good lesson said missus ware with glistening eyes i am glad and thankful that you learned it when you did dolly
are you proud of me demanded dolly yes i am proud of you this capped the climax of dolly's contentment
chapter one acquiring confidence before an audience there is a strange sensation often experienced in the presence of an audience it may proceed from the gaze of the many eyes that turn upon the speaker
students of public speaking continually ask how can i overcome self consciousness and the fear that paralyzes me before an audience did you ever notice in looking from a train window that some horses feed near the track and never even pause to look up at the thundering cars
while just ahead at the next railroad crossing a farmer's wife
graze him in a back woods lot where he would never see steam engines or automobiles or drive or pasture him where he would frequently see the machines apply horse sense to ridding yourself of self consciousness and fear face an audience as frequently as you can
and you will soon stop shying you can never attain freedom from stage fright by reading a treatise
but sooner or later you must get wet perhaps even strangle and be half scared to death
all we can do here is to offer you suggestions as to how best to prepare for your plunge the real plunge no one can take for you a doctor may prescribe but you must take the medicine do not be disheartened if at first you suffer from stage fright
dan patch was more susceptible to suffering than a superannuated dray horse would be it never hurts a fool to appear before an audience for his capacity is not a capacity for feeling a blow that would kill a civilized man soon heals on a savage
the higher we go in the scale of life the greater is the capacity for suffering for one reason or another some master speakers never entirely overcome stage fright but it will pay you to spare no pains to conquer it
daniel webster failed in his first appearance and had to take his seat without finishing his speech because he was nervous
in the beginning of an address beecher was always perturbed before talking in public blacksmiths sometimes twist a rope tight around the nose of a horse and by thus inflicting a little pain they distract his attention from the shoeing process
like the infilling water in the glass it will drive out your unsubstantial fears self consciousness is undue consciousness of self and for the purpose of delivery self is secondary to your subject not only in the opinion of the audience but if you are wise in your own
to hold any other view is to regard yourself as an exhibit instead of as a messenger with a message worth delivering do you remember elbert hubbard's tremendous little tract a message to garcia the youth subordinated himself to the message he bore
it is sheer egotism to fill your mind with thoughts of self when a greater thing is there truth say this to yourself sternly and shame your self consciousness into quiescence
if the theater caught fire you could rush to the stage and shout directions to the audience without any self consciousness for the importance of what you were saying would drive all fear thoughts out of your mind
far worse than self consciousness through fear of doing poorly is self consciousness through assumption of doing well the first sign of greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and act great before you can call yourself a man at all
kipling assures us you must not look too good nor talk too wise nothing advertises itself so thoroughly as conceit one may be so full of self as to be empty voltaire said we must conceal self love but that can not be done
you know this to be true for you have recognized overweening self love in others if you have it others are seeing it in you there are things in this world bigger than self
or what is better remembered only so as to help us win toward higher things have something to say the trouble with many speakers is that they go before an audience with their minds a blank it is no wonder that nature abhorring a vacuum fills them with the nearest thing handy
which generally happens to be i wonder if i am doing this right how does my hair look i know i shall fail their prophetic souls are sure to be right it is not enough to be absorbed by your subject to acquire self confidence you must have something in which to be confident
if you go before an audience without any preparation or previous knowledge of your subject you ought to be self conscious you ought to be ashamed to steal the time of your audience prepare yourself know what you are going to talk about and in general how you are going to say it
have the first few sentences worked out completely so that you may not be troubled in the beginning to find words know your subject better than your hearers know it and you have nothing to fear after preparing for success expect it
let your bearing be modestly confident but most of all be modestly confident within over confidence is bad but to tolerate premonitions of failure is worse for a bold man may win attention by his very bearing
humility is not the personal discount that we must offer in the presence of others against this old interpretation there has been a most healthy modern reaction true humility any man who thoroughly knows himself must feel
in the middle of his speech irving hesitated became embarrassed and sat down awkwardly turning to a friend beside him he remarked
if you believe you will fail there is no hope for you you will rid yourself of this i am a poor worm in the dust idea you are a god with infinite capabilities all things are ready if the mind be so
and remember that though your audience is infinitely more important than you the truth is more important than both of you because it is eternal if your mind falters in its leadership the sword will drop from your hands
your assumption of being able to instruct or lead or inspire a multitude or even a small group of people may appall you as being colossal impudence as indeed it may be but having once essayed to speak be courageous be courageous it lies within you to be what you will
make yourself be calm and confident reflect that your audience will not hurt you if beecher in liverpool had spoken behind a wire screen he would have invited the audience to throw the over ripe missiles with which they were loaded
but he was a man confronted his hostile hearers fearlessly and won them in facing your audience pause a moment and look them over a hundred chances to one they want you to succeed for what man is so foolish as to spend his time perhaps his money
in the hope that you will waste his investment by talking dully concluding hints do not make haste to begin haste shows lack of control do not apologize it ought not to be necessary and if it is it will not help
go straight ahead take a deep breath relax and begin in a quiet conversational tone as though you were speaking to one large friend you will not find it half so bad as you imagined really it is like taking a cold plunge after you are in
the water is fine in fact having spoken a few times you will even anticipate the plunge with exhilaration to stand before an audience and make them think your thoughts after you is one of the greatest pleasures you can ever know
instead of fearing it you ought to be as anxious as the fox hounds straining at their leashes or the race horses tugging at their reins so cast out fear for fear is cowardly when it is not mastered the bravest know fear but they do not yield to it
face your audience pluckily if your knees quake make them stop in your audience lies some victory for you and the cause you represent go win it suppose charles martell had been afraid to hammer the saracen at tours
suppose our forefathers had been too timid to oppose the tyranny of george the third suppose that any man who ever did anything worth while had been a coward the world owes its progress to the men who have dared and you must dare to speak the effective word that is in your heart to speak
for often it requires courage to utter a single sentence but remember that men erect no monuments and weave no laurels for those who fear to do what they can is all this unsympathetic do you say man what you need is not sympathy but a push
no one doubts that temperament and nerves and illness and even praiseworthy modesty may singly or combined cause the speaker's cheek to blanch before an audience
the victory lies in a fearless frame of mind professor walter dill scott says success or failure in business is caused more by mental attitude even than by mental capacity banish the fear attitude acquire the confident attitude
and remember that the only way to acquire it is to acquire it in this foundation chapter we have tried to strike the tone of much that is to follow many of these ideas will be amplified and enforced in a more specific way
the note of justifiable self confidence must sound again and again questions and exercises one what is the cause of self consciousness two
why are animals free from it three what is your observation regarding self consciousness in children four why are you free from it under the stress of unusual excitement
five how does moderate excitement affect you six what are the two fundamental requisites for the acquiring of self confidence
which is the more important seven what effect does confidence on the part of the speaker have on the audience eight write out a two minute speech on confidence and cowardice nine
in this connection read the chapter on right thinking and personality ten write out very briefly any experience you may have had involving the teachings of this chapter eleven
give a three minute talk on stage fright
precious words would be forgotten precious facts passed over unless they were collected together and put down in black and white some of those therefore who had seen and heard christ
but about the time that saint paul was imprisoned at rome we think that the gospel according to saint mark was written most of you know that mark was a young jew who began his work for god by travelling with paul and barnabas
paul was so grieved at his failure
but barnabas who believed in his repentance gave him another trial
before that time however mark had lived and worked for many years with the apostle peter who in his letter written from babylon speaks of him as marcus my son
very likely as mark journeyed with the apostle from place to place and heard him tell and retell the wonderful story of his master's life on earth the thought came into the young man's mind why not write down what peter says so that his words shall not be forgotten
and so fresh and vivid are the words of mark's gospel so full of little natural touches that most people agree that old papias must have been right the very things saint peter would have noticed are mentioned by mark matthew
the writer of the gospel which comes the first in our new testament was a levite that is he belonged to the tribe of levi and this tribe was specially chosen in the time of moses to learn the law and serve god in his temple
matthew therefore was very learned in the books of the law and in the writings of the old prophets
this is the wonderful message which god gave to the world through matthew's knowledge of the old testament scriptures years passed and those who had seen christ in his earthly life had nearly all died
while gentile christians everywhere were asking eagerly for the written story of his life twenty years after matthew's gospel was written god called a greek scholar named luke to write what was to be a most important part of our bible
that a gentile could at god's bidding write two books which should become even more precious and sacred than the books of the law which the jews rightly prized as the greatest treasure of their nation those who work in heathen lands to day tell us that the gospel of saint luke
is always the favourite book of the converts and that if they can only afford to buy one gospel they always ask for that of luke this is because the whole work is written from the gentile point of view it is the world's history of christ
saint luke wrote his gospel as an historian
he followed the greek custom many he says have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us luke one
and besides being highly educated and gifted he took infinite pains with his work he collected all the information he could both from books and eye witnesses either from the saviour's mother herself or from some of her relations
and to him we owe many of the most beautiful and touching facts of our lord's life on earth written last of all we have the good news that is gospel told by saint john when the saviour ascended into heaven
john was still a young man but he lived to be older than all the other apostles by the time that saint john wrote his gospel jerusalem had been destroyed and her inhabitants slain or scattered
and the story of the raising of lazarus is given only by saint john
that before he died his spirit became altogether one with christ's spirit and the sayings of jesus which he had only half understood whilst his master had walked this earth grew quite clear to him so that he remembered them distinctly
therefore that others might understand also god's spirit called john when he was an old man to write out those precious words of jesus christ's which were always echoing in his heart and which the other writers had not known or had forgotten
it is in john's gospel that we learn most about the love of christ
miles and miles of passages are there some low and narrow others wide and lofty they cross and re cross each other like the streets of a town and all are scooped out of the solid earth
that is in peace for all this great underground city is in reality one huge cemetery the quiet resting place where the first christians of heathen rome buried their dead where the martyred bodies so cruelly tortured by nero were laid at last
for the mourners grieve to think that the loved one will open his eyes on earth no more but in all the hope of eternal life is sure and certain our beloved mother our little child our dear brother is with christ the parting is only for a time
yonder in our beautiful heavenly home we shall meet once more how different from the words carved over heathen tombs we know what these were like for not very far away is a heathen catacomb
valeria sleeps in peace so the christian woman was laid to rest i lift up my hands against god who snatched me away we can still read these despairing rebellious words on a heathen tomb
and believe that it is forbidden to weep for one who lives in god how beautiful to know that we shall one day meet the woman in heaven of whom these words are written
the christians of rome began to use the catacombs for meetings and services their heathen tormentors had a horror of death and therefore among the quiet dead the christians were safe for a while
their little oil lamps twinkling like stars and there they listened to the word of god and prayed and sang together many touching stories are told of these days and of the meetings held underground in these catacombs where the living were surrounded by the bodies of the martyred dead
now these first christians loved the bible with all their hearts and just as you like to see hanging in your room the picture of the good shepherd with the little lamb so they began to long for pictures from their bible
every heathen roman had his house decorated with pictures and carvings from his pagan religion but it was in the dim underground galleries that the first bible pictures appeared some of the subjects were taken from the old testament some from the new
only bible pictures interested the first christians
christ the good shepherd of your life just as surely as he was the saviour and friend of these men and women who fell asleep so long ago
in this carving he is changing the water into wine here carved on a small panel let into a tomb is a roman soldier crowning our lord in mockery
now there is one very wonderful thing about all these pictures although so many martyrs lie buried here nearly all the pictures and inscriptions are cheerful the heathen roman writers tell a great deal about the dreadful sufferings of the christians
but there is very little said about it on the tombs of the martyrs themselves in peace they are at peace the torture the shame is over for ever the life of love and joy and victory is all before them
how thoroughly these first christians knew their bible how they loved to picture its scenes had all the writings of the new testament been lost we should have known the most important events of our lord's life on earth from these faded paintings and worn carvings alone love
the old capital of greece much of the ancient splendour and power of the greek people had passed away for the romans had conquered their country and they were no longer a free nation yet although the greeks had been forced to yield to rome
their conquerors knew that the grecian scholars and artists were far better educated and more highly gifted than themselves and greek statues and writings had therefore become the fashion throughout the roman empire indeed many of the greek sculptors and authors
are remembered and admired to this day homer the greatest greek poet who lived about a thousand years b c is still world famous
and unjust than the worst men and women of his time according to his ideas jupiter diana apollo mars and the rest came down to earth and took part in the battle in vain did the great hero hector
fight his bravest in vain did he sacrifice himself and strive to make up for the wrong doing of his brother he failed utterly for homer tells us that he was hated by some of the gods for no fault of his own and so they doomed him to destruction
the war against sin and the devil and the name of this second book is the acts of the apostles in all this wonderful bible of ours there is no book more wonderful than the book of the acts
have you ever stopped to think what a terrible gap there would be in the history of god's dealings with the world had the acts never been written the apostle paul's life would be almost a blank stephen's victorious death would be all unknown to us
above all the story of our saviour's ascension into heaven and the marvellous fulfilment of his promises in the gift of the holy spirit at pentecost would have been left untold the book of the acts stands alone there are four gospels
written from four different points of view but of the four writers luke the greek
and showed the results which our saviour's life and death and resurrection produced at once in the world the marvellous accuracy of saint luke and his keen observation become every year more striking as fresh discoveries in the lands of which he wrote
show how true he is in the tiniest detail
how did luke write and what did his two books look like when he had finished them he wrote on papyrus that is on reed paper using an ink like black paint and a reed pen as far as we know
no portions of the bible books of this date are left in the world but in the beginning of the year nineteen eleven a large number of very ancient fragments of bible books were discovered in upper egypt and with these was part of a translation of luke's book of the acts
just shreds and tatters of fragile papyrus paper the remains of what is up till now the oldest copy of the new testament in the world amongst the ancient manuscripts kept in the british museum are old old copies of homer's war poems
and here also are stored the precious fragments of the chronicles of that other great greek writer saint luke homer's book belongs to the forgotten past for the heathen religion of greece is to day as though it had never been
but the writings of saint luke are as full of blessing and power as ever and the war he wrote about grows more wonderful every day for christ the son of god came down from heaven not to fight against men
but to fight and conquer for men to lift up the fallen and to win for the victors a crown of deathless glory the apostle peter in contrast to saint luke was only a fisherman when the lord bade him leave his boat and his nets to preach and teach the gospel
his ideas were very limited when jesus christ first came into his life
but the fisherman was to receive his education in a very different fashion from luke
not only did the apostle peter write a part of the bible but that short book known as the first epistle of peter is one of the most frequently mentioned by all the earliest christian writers those authors and teachers who had seen the apostles and had heard from their lips
the story of the saviour's life on earth thus it is that peter's contribution to our bible has become one of the strongest witnesses to the truth of the words written down in the gospels there is no possibility of a mistake
the man who wrote this epistle could have been none other than the apostle peter who had been with the lord from the beginning of his public work and it is very beautiful to trace throughout peter's writings the echoes
christ had given him his name peter
that is a rock or stone and so he wrote of his master as the great corner stone of god's spiritual house in which each one of christ's people are living stones
the saviour had once told peter that he must forgive his brother although he was wronged by him on seventy times seven occasions
we read above all things have fervent charity among yourselves for charity shall cover the multitude of sins
eight charity should have been translated love then the lord had warned peter that satan had desired to have him and he remembering that solemn fact in his own life tried to put his readers on their guard against the great enemy
because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour
most touching of all are the words he wrote
if when ye be buffeted for your faults ye shall take it patiently but if when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently this is acceptable with god because christ also suffered for us leaving us an example
his master's last command by the lake of galilee to feed his flock was so deeply impressed on peter's mind that it coloured all his thoughts to the last day of his life
we believe to comfort god's people under the heavy trial of paul's second imprisonment cruelty and persecution were doing their worst but god was above all beloved think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you
but rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of christ's sufferings
two short but very beautiful epistles are believed to have been written by two of the lord's brethren saint james and saint jude
died three hundred forty tells us that james was a nazarite
he ate no meat drank no wine and wore nothing but white linen garments this vow is often mentioned in the old testament james had not believed that jesus christ was the saviour of the world until after his resurrection when the lord appeared to him
after that he was seen of james
this set his doubts at rest for ever
these writers of the new testament as they took their reed pens in their hands and spread out their rolls of whitey brown papyrus paper were not like moses
he still lived on speaking and writing of his master and to the apostle john the lord jesus christ entrusted the record of many of his most beautiful and comforting words and of the deepest and most spiritual teaching in the whole bible
three of the shortest and yet most beautiful books of the bible are the three epistles which bear john's name
in john's latter days and every sentence in them seems to breathe forth the peace love and wisdom of a very old man who has lived close to christ for many years it may well be then that these calm and loving letters were the last of all the bible words to be written
now the revelation though placed at the end of our bible was not the last book to be written it was probably composed whilst nero the wicked emperor was torturing and burning the followers of christ
but the holy spirit comforted him and lifted his thoughts right up to heaven showing him in a vision the end of all these things among the fragments of the oldest bibles in the world recently discovered the book of revelation takes a prominent place
let us remember when we look on the faded pages lying in the british museum that when their discoloured lines were fresh and clean
the two bills had a common origin and to a great extent a common object they were framed at the same time and laid aside at the same time they sank together into oblivion
adapted to the wants the feelings and the prejudices of the existing generation accordingly while the toleration bill found support in all quarters the comprehension bill was attacked from all quarters
and was at last coldly and languidly defended even by those who had introduced it about the same time at which the toleration bill became law with the general concurrence of public men the comprehension bill was
with a concurrence not less general suffered to drop the toleration bill still ranks among those great statutes which are epochs in our constitutional history the comprehension bill is forgotten
no collector of antiquities has thought it worth preserving a single copy the same which nottingham presented to the peers is still among our parliamentary records but has been seen by only two or three persons now living
it is a fortunate circumstance that in this copy almost the whole history of the bill can be read in spite of cancellations and interlineations
dispensed all the ministers of the established church from the necessity of subscribing the thirty nine articles for the articles was substituted a declaration which ran thus
i do approve of the doctrine and worship and government of the church of england by law established as containing all things necessary to salvation and i promise in the exercise of my ministry to preach and practice according thereunto
another clause granted similar indulgence to the members of the two universities then it was provided that any minister who had been ordained after the presbyterian fashion might without reordination
and administer the sacraments and to perform all other ministerial offices in the church of england the person thus admitted was to be capable of holding any rectory or vicarage in the kingdom
then followed clauses providing that a clergyman might except in a few churches of peculiar dignity wear the surplice or not as he thought fit that the sign of the cross might be omitted in baptism that children might be christened
if such were the wish of their parents without godfathers or godmothers and that persons who had a scruple about receiving the eucharist kneeling might receive it sitting the concluding clause was drawn in the form of a petition
and to recommend such alterations as might on inquiry appear to be desirable the bill went smoothly through the first stages compton who since sancroft had shut himself up at lambeth was virtually primate
it appeared that there was a strong body of churchmen who were determined not to give up a single word or form to whom it seemed that the prayers were no prayers without the surplice the babe no christian if not marked with the cross
the bread and wine no memorials of redemption or vehicles of grace if not received on bended knee why these persons asked was the docile and affectionate son of the church to be disgusted by seeing the irreverent practices of a conventicle
introduced into her majestic choirs why should his feelings his prejudices if prejudices they were be less considered than the whims of schismatics if as burnet and men like burnet were never weary of repeating
indulgence was due to a weak brother was it less due to the brother whose weakness consisted in the excess of his love for an ancient a decent a beautiful ritual associated in his imagination from childhood with all that is most sublime and endearing
was not that sort of scrupulosity which the apostle had commanded believers to respect it sprang not from morbid tenderness of conscience but from censoriousness and spiritual pride
and none who had studied the new testament could have failed to observe that while we are charged carefully to avoid whatever may give scandal to the feeble we are taught by divine precept and example to make no concession to the supercilious
painted glass music holidays fast days were not of the essence of religion were the windows of king's college chapel to be broken at the demand of one set of fanatics was the organ of exeter to be silenced to please another
was christmas no longer to be a day of rejoicing was passion week no longer to be a season of humiliation these changes it is true were not yet proposed put if so the high churchmen reasoned
all those things which the puritans regard as the blemishes of the church are by a large part of the population reckoned among her attractions may she not in ceasing to give scandal to a few sour precisians
cease also to influence the hearts of many who now delight in her ordinances is it not to be apprehended that for every proselyte whom she allures from the meeting house ten of her old disciples may turn away from her maimed rites and dismantled temples
and that these new separatists may either form themselves into a sect far more formidable than the sect which we are now seeking to conciliate or may in the violence of their disgust at a cold and ignoble worship
the truth is that from the time of james the first that great party which has been peculiarly zealous for the anglican polity and the anglican ritual has always leaned strongly towards arminianism
have always maintained that her deliberate judgment on such points is much more likely to be found in an article or a homily than in an ejaculation of penitence or a hymn of thanksgiving it does not appear that in the debates on the comprehension bill
a single high churchman raised his voice against the clause which relieved the clergy from the necessity of subscribing the articles and of declaring the doctrine contained in the homilies to be sound nay the declaration which in the original draught
had the bill become law the only people in the kingdom who would have been under the necessity of signing the articles
presents a striking contrast to the spirit with which they struggled for her polity and her ritual the clause which admitted presbyterian ministers to hold benefices without episcopal ordination was rejected
the majority of peers in the house was against the proposed indulgence and the scale was but just turned by the proxies but by this time it began to appear that the bill which the high churchmen were so keenly assailing
the truth is that the time for such a scheme had gone by if a hundred years earlier when the division in the protestant body was recent
elizabeth had been so wise as to abstain from requiring the observance of a few forms which a large part of her subjects considered as popish she might perhaps have averted those fearful calamities which forty years after her death afflicted the church
but the general tendency of schism is to widen had leo the tenth when the exactions and impostures of the pardoners first roused the indignation of saxony corrected those evil practices with a vigorous hand
the original subject of quarrel was almost forgotten the inquiring spirit which had been roused by a single abuse had discovered or imagined a thousand controversies engendered controversies
every attempt that was made to accommodate one dispute ended by producing another and at length a general council which during the earlier stages of the distemper had been supposed to be an infallible remedy made the case utterly hopeless
in this respect as in many others the history of puritanism in england bears a close analogy to the history of protestantism in europe the parliament of sixteen eighty nine could no more put an end to nonconformity by tolerating a garb or a posture
than the doctors of trent could have reconciled the teutonic nations to the papacy by regulating the sale of indulgences in the sixteenth century quakerism was unknown and there was not in the whole realm a single congregation of independents or baptists
at the time of the revolution the independents baptists and quakers were a majority of the dissenting body and these sects could not be gained over on any terms which the lowest of low churchmen would have been willing to offer
the independent held that a national church governed by any central authority whatever pope patriarch king bishop or synod was an unscriptural institution and that every congregation of believers was under christ
would not now satisfy even one half of the nonconformists and it was the obvious interest of every nonconformist whom no concession would satisfy that none of his brethren should be satisfied the more liberal the terms of comprehension
the greater was the alarm of every separatist who knew that he could in no case be comprehended there was but slender hope that the dissenters unbroken and acting as one man would be able to obtain from the legislature
full admission to civil privileges and all hope of obtaining such admission must be relinquished if nottingham should by the help of some wellmeaning but shortsighted friends of religious liberty be enabled to accomplish his design if his bill passed
and the church strengthened by a large reinforcement it was plain that all chance of obtaining any relaxation of the test act would be at an end and it was but too probable that the toleration act might not long remain unrepealed
since the declaration of indulgence had appeared been very agreeably settled in the capital and in other large towns and were now about to enjoy under the sure guarantee of an act of parliament that toleration which
under the declaration of indulgence had been illicit and precarious the situation of these men was such as the great majority of the divines of the established church might well envy few indeed of the parochial clergy were so abundantly supplied with comforts
as the favourite orator of a great assembly of nonconformists in the city the voluntary contributions of his wealthy hearers aldermen and deputies west india merchants and turkey merchants
wardens of the company of fishmongers and wardens of the company of goldsmiths enabled him to become a landowner or a mortgagee the best broadcloth from blackwell hall and the best poultry from leadenhall market were frequently left at his door
his influence over his flock was immense scarcely any member of a congregation of separatists entered into a partnership married a daughter put a son out as apprentice or gave his vote at an election without consulting his spiritual guide
on all political and literary questions the minister was the oracle of his own circle it was popularly remarked during many years that an eminent dissenting minister had only to make his son an attorney or a physician
that the attorney was sure to have clients and the physician to have patients while a waiting woman was generally considered as a help meet for a chaplain in holy orders of the established church the widows and daughters of opulent citizens were supposed to belong in a peculiar manner
to nonconformist pastors one of the great presbyterian rabbies therefore might well doubt whether in a worldly view he should be benefited by a comprehension he might indeed hold a rectory or a vicarage when he could get one
but in the meantime he would be destitute his meeting house would be closed his congregation would be dispersed among the parish churches if a benefice were bestowed on him it would probably be a very slender compensation for the income which he had lost
one section of that party was for relieving the dissenters from the test act and giving up the comprehension bill another section was for pushing forward the comprehension bill and postponing to a more convenient time the consideration of the test act
the effect of this division among the friends of religious liberty was that the high churchmen though a minority in the house of commons and not a majority in the house of lords were able to oppose with success both the reforms which they dreaded
a few days after this bartleby concluded four lengthy documents being quadruplicates of a week's testimony taken before me in my high court of chancery it became necessary to examine them
accordingly turkey nippers and ginger nut had taken their seats in a row each with his document in hand when i called to bartleby to join this interesting group bartleby
i heard a slow scrape of his chair legs on the uncarpeted floor and soon he appeared standing at the entrance of his hermitage what is wanted
the copies the copies said i hurriedly we are going to examine them there and i held towards him the fourth quadruplicate i would prefer not to he said and gently disappeared behind the screen
but in a wonderful manner touched and disconcerted me i began to reason with him these are your own copies we are about to examine it is labor saving to you because one examination will answer for your four papers it is common usage
every copyist is bound to help examine his copy is it not so will you not speak answer i prefer not to he replied in a flute like tone
it seemed to me that while i had been addressing him he carefully revolved every statement that i made fully comprehended the meaning could not gainsay the irresistible conclusions but at the same time some paramount consideration prevailed with him to reply as he did
you are decided then not to comply with my request a request made according to common usage and common sense he briefly gave me to understand that on that point my judgment was sound yes his decision was irreversible
it is not seldom the case that when a man is browbeaten in some unprecedented and violently unreasonable way he begins to stagger in his own plainest faith he begins as it were vaguely to surmise that
wonderful as it may be all the justice and all the reason is on the other side accordingly if any disinterested persons are present he turns to them for some reinforcement for his own faltering mind turkey said i
what do you think of this am i not right with submission sir said turkey with his blandest tone i think that you are nippers said i what do you think of it i think i should kick him out of the office
the reader of nice perceptions will here perceive that it being morning turkey's answer is couched in polite and tranquil terms but nippers replies in ill tempered ones or to repeat a previous sentence
nippers ugly mood was on duty and turkey's off ginger nut said i willing to enlist the smallest suffrage in my behalf what do you think of it i think sir he's a little luny replied ginger nut with a grin
you hear what they say said i turning towards the screen come forth and do your duty but he vouchsafed no reply i pondered a moment in sore perplexity but once more business hurried me
with a little trouble we made out to examine the papers without bartleby though at every page or two turkey deferentially dropped his opinion that this proceeding was quite out of the common while nippers twitching in his chair with a dyspeptic nervousness
ground out between his set teeth occasional hissing maledictions against the stubborn oaf behind the screen and for his nippers part this was the first and the last time he would do another man's business without pay
meanwhile bartleby sat in his hermitage oblivious to every thing but his own peculiar business there some days passed the scrivener being employed upon another lengthy work his late remarkable conduct led me to regard his ways narrowly
i observed that he never went to dinner indeed that he never went any where as yet i had never of my personal knowledge known him to be outside of my office he was a perpetual sentry in the corner
at about eleven o'clock though in the morning i noticed that ginger nut would advance toward the opening in bartleby's screen as if silently beckoned thither by a gesture invisible to me where i sat
he must be a vegetarian then but no he never eats even vegetables he eats nothing but ginger nuts my mind then ran on in reveries concerning the probable effects upon the human constitution of living entirely on ginger nuts
it is plain he intends no insolence his aspect sufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary he is useful to me i can get along with him if i turn him away the chances are he will fall in with some less indulgent employer
and then he will be rudely treated and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve yes here i can cheaply purchase a delicious self approval to befriend bartleby to humor him in his strange willfulness will cost me little or nothing
while i lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience but this mood was not invariable with me the passiveness of bartleby sometimes irritated me i felt strangely goaded on to encounter him in new opposition
bartleby said i when those papers are all copied i will compare them with you i would prefer not to how
he says a second time he won't examine his papers what do you think of it turkey it was afternoon be it remembered turkey sat glowing like a brass boiler his bald head steaming his hands reeling among his blotted papers think of it
roared turkey i think i'll just step behind his screen and black his eyes for him so saying turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position he was hurrying away to make good his promise when i detained him
alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing turkey's combativeness after dinner sit down turkey said i and hear what nippers has to say what do you think of it nippers would i not be justified in immediately dismissing bartleby excuse me
and indeed unjust as regards turkey and myself but it may only be a passing whim ah exclaimed i you have strangely changed your mind then you speak very gently of him now all beer cried turkey
gentleness is effects of beer nippers and i dined together to day you see how gentle i am sir shall i go and black his eyes you refer to bartleby i suppose no not to day turkey i replied
pray put up your fists i closed the doors and again advanced towards bartleby i felt additional incentives tempting me to my fate i burned to be rebelled against again i remembered that bartleby never left the office bartleby
said i ginger nut is away just step round to the post office won't you it was but a three minute walk and see if there is any thing for me i would prefer not to you will not i prefer not
i staggered to my desk and sat there in a deep study my blind inveteracy returned was there any other thing in which i could procure myself to be ignominiously repulsed by this lean penniless wight my hired clerk
what added thing is there perfectly reasonable that he will be sure to refuse to do bartleby no answer bartleby in a louder tone no answer bartleby i roared
like a very ghost agreeably to the laws of magical invocation at the third summons he appeared at the entrance of his hermitage go to the next room and tell nippers to come to me i prefer not to
he respectfully and slowly said and mildly disappeared very good bartleby said i in a quiet sort of serenely severe self possessed tone intimating the unalterable purpose of some terrible retribution very close at hand
at the moment i half intended something of the kind but upon the whole as it was drawing towards my dinner hour i thought it best to put on my hat and walk home for the day suffering much from perplexity and distress of mind
shall i acknowledge it the conclusion of this whole business was that it soon became a fixed fact of my chambers that a pale young scrivener by the name of bartleby and a desk there
that he copied for me at the usual rate of four cents a folio one hundred words but he was permanently exempt from examining the work done by him that duty being transferred to turkey and nippers one of compliment doubtless to their superior acuteness
moreover said bartleby was never on any account to be dispatched on the most trivial errand of any sort and that even if entreated to take upon him such a matter it was generally understood that he would prefer not to in other words that he would refuse pointblank
as days passed on i became considerably reconciled to bartleby his steadiness his freedom from all dissipation his incessant industry except when he chose to throw himself into a standing revery behind his screen
his great stillness his unalterableness of demeanor under all circumstances made him a valuable acquisition one prime thing was this he was always there first in the morning continually through the day and the last at night
of course from behind the screen the usual answer i prefer not to was sure to come and then how could a human creature with the common infirmities of our nature refrain from bitterly exclaiming upon such perverseness
here it must be said that according to the custom of most legal gentlemen occupying chambers in densely populated law buildings there were several keys to my door one was kept by a woman residing in the attic
now one sunday morning i happened to go to trinity church to hear a celebrated preacher and finding myself rather early on the ground i thought i would walk around to my chambers for a while luckily i had my key with me
but upon applying it to the lock i found it resisted by something inserted from the inside quite surprised i called out when to my consternation a key was turned from within and thrusting his lean visage at me and holding the door ajar
in a brief word or two he moreover added that perhaps i had better walk round the block two or three times and by that time he would probably have concluded his affairs
tenanting my law chambers of a sunday morning with his cadaverously gentlemanly nonchalance yet withal firm and self possessed had such a strange effect upon me that incontinently i slunk away from my own door and did as desired
but not without sundry twinges of impotent rebellion against the mild effrontery of this unaccountable scrivener
furthermore i was full of uneasiness as to what bartleby could possibly be doing in my office in his shirt sleeves and in an otherwise dismantled condition of a sunday morning was any thing amiss going on nay that was out of the question
it was not to be thought of for a moment that bartleby was an immoral person but what could he be doing there copying nay again whatever might be his eccentricities bartleby was an eminently decorous person
nevertheless my mind was not pacified and full of a restless curiosity at last i returned to the door without hindrance i inserted my key opened it and entered bartleby was not to be seen
i looked round anxiously peeped behind his screen
bore the faint impress of a lean reclining form rolled away under his desk i found a blanket under the empty grate a blacking box and brush on a chair a tin basin with soap and a ragged towel
in a newspaper a few crumbs of ginger nuts and a morsel of cheese yes thought i it is evident enough that bartleby has been making his home here keeping bachelor's hall all by himself immediately then the thought came sweeping across me
what miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed his poverty is great but his solitude how horrible think of it of a sunday wall street is deserted as petra and every night of every day it is an emptiness
and soon now the doctor began to make money again and his sister sarah bought a new dress and was happy some of the animals who came to see him were so sick that they had to stay at the doctor's house for a week
and when they were getting better they used to sit in chairs on the lawn and often even after they got well they did not want to go away they liked the doctor and his house so much
so in this way he went on getting more and more pets once when he was sitting on his garden wall smoking a pipe in the evening an italian organ grinder came round with a monkey on a string
the doctor saw at once that the monkey's collar was too tight and that he was dirty and unhappy so he took the monkey away from the italian gave the man a shilling and told him to go
but the doctor told him that if he didn't go away he would punch him on the nose john dolittle was a strong man though he wasn't very tall
the other animals in the house called him chee chee which is a common word in monkey language meaning ginger and another time
the crocodile who had a bad tooth ache escaped at night and came into the doctor's garden the doctor talked to him in crocodile language and took him into the house and made his tooth better but when the crocodile saw what a nice house it was
with all the different places for the different kinds of animals he too wanted to live with the doctor he asked couldn't he sleep in the fish pond at the bottom of the garden if he promised not to eat the fish
when the circus men came to take him back he got so wild and savage that he frightened them away but to every one in the house he was always as gentle as a kitten but now
the old ladies grew afraid to send their lap dogs to doctor dolittle because of the crocodile and the farmers wouldn't believe that he would not eat the lambs and sick calves they brought to be cured
but he wept such big tears and begged so hard to be allowed to stay that the doctor hadn't the heart to turn him out so then the doctor's sister came to him and said
now the farmers and the old ladies are afraid to send their animals to you just as we were beginning to be well off again now we shall be ruined entirely this is the last straw i will no longer be housekeeper for you if you don't send away that alligator
it isn't an alligator said the doctor it's a crocodile i don't care what you call it said his sister it's a nasty thing to find under the bed i won't have it in the house
but he has promised me the doctor answered that he will not bite any one he doesn't like the circus and i haven't the money to send him back to africa where he comes from he minds his own business and on the whole is very well behaved
don't be so fussy i tell you i will not have him around said sarah he eats the linoleum if you don't send him away this minute i'll i'll go and get married all right said the doctor
go and get married it can't be helped and he took down his hat and went out into the garden so sarah dolittle packed up her things and went off and the doctor was left all alone with his animal family and very soon
he was poorer than he had ever been before with all these mouths to fill and the house to look after and no one to do the mending and no money coming in to pay the butcher's bill things began to look very difficult but the doctor didn't worry at all
money is a nuisance he used to say we'd all be much better off if it had never been invented what does money matter so long as we are happy but soon the animals themselves began to get worried
and one evening when the doctor was asleep in his chair before the kitchen fire they began talking it over among themselves in whispers and the owl too too who was good at arithmetic
figured it out that there was only money enough left to last another week if they each had one meal a day and no more then the parrot said i think we all ought to do the housework ourselves at least we can do that much after all
it is for our sakes that the old man finds himself so lonely and so poor so it was agreed that the monkey chee chee was to do the cooking and mending the dog was to sweep the floors the duck was to dust and make the beds
the owl too too was to keep the accounts and the pig was to do the gardening they made polynesia the parrot housekeeper and laundress because she was the oldest
of course at first they all found their new jobs very hard to do all except chee chee who had hands and could do things like a man but they soon got used to it and they used to think it great fun to watch jip the dog
sweeping his tail over the floor with a rag tied onto it for a broom after a little they got to do the work so well that the doctor said that he had never had his house kept so tidy or so clean before in this way
but without money they found it very hard then the animals made a vegetable and flower stall outside the garden gate and sold radishes and roses to the people that passed by along the road but still
they didn't seem to make enough money to pay all the bills and still the doctor wouldn't worry when the parrot came to him and told him that the fishmonger wouldn't give them any more fish he said never mind
so long as the hens lay eggs and the cow gives milk we can have omelettes and junket and there are plenty of vegetables left in the garden the winter is still a long way off don't fuss that was the trouble with sarah she would fuss
i wonder how sarah's getting on an excellent woman in some ways well well but the snow came earlier than usual that year and although the old lame horse hauled in plenty of wood from the forest outside the town
so they could have a big fire in the kitchen most of the vegetables in the garden were gone and the rest were covered with snow
and yet how very very few discriminate between the two while even mister burbank can't
to tell the crocus from the crow the reason why is just because they are not versed in nature's laws the noisy cawing crows all come
you can easily tell them apart without fail by merely observing the rue lacks de tail the parrot
the pelican
the cowslip has been much admired altho its proper name we're told is really the marsh marigold the cow bird picture i suspect is absolutely incorrect we make such errors now and then a sort of cow slip of the pen a sparrer
in fact he has worked himself almost to death while the lazy asparagus so it is said spends all of his time in the sparagus bed the tern
a thing which everyone should learn observe the tern up in the air see how he turns and now compare him with this inert vegetable who thus to turn is quite unable for he is rooted to the spot while as we see the tern is not
he is not always doomed to be
while orchids can be found in legions within the equatorial regions the graceful orchid on its stalk
and gravely from his prayer book reads
is classified a bird of prey ibiscus we have heard related the crimson eye is designated their difference is plain indeed the flower is red the bird can read the butter ball
from morn till night like anything the quacking of the butter ball cannot be called a song at all
when they perceive the roc gigantic we need but watch thei r oc upation and seek no other explanation the lark
is surely worthy of remark although to see it we require the aid of a small magnifier
nuffin upon this cake of ice is perched the paddle footed puffin to find his double we have searched but have discovered nuffin author's apology
not every one is always able to recognize a vegetable for some are guided by tradition while others use their intuition and even i make no pretense of having more than common sense
indeed these strange homologies are in most flornithologies and i have freely drawn upon the works of gray and audubon
four
to guide a land of a thousand chariots
six the master said the young should be dutiful at home
and so it should direct your way to good behavior every day the children of whose faults i tell
of naughty ones don't be a goop marmaduke argyll
a goop that always makes me smile is this one marmaduke argyll his mouth is full from cheek to cheek
so bildad would not share his toys or lend them to the other boys he was a goop and so are you if you are ever selfish too
is almost always in the way in the room or in the street always under people's feet goops like that annoy me so you keep out the way i know
always whispering in church always playing with the books never caring how she looks
mary carey cory call
she's the goopiest goop of all
though coralie was small and sweet
letting water flood the sink andrew was a goop i think
miss gwendolyn de vere de witt
freddie fisher fairly fussed when he came to eat his crust often on the floor he'd throw it hoping mother wouldn't know it goops all hate to eat the crust if you're told to then you must
of a goop whose name was ezra hecht of course he would refuse to heed or mind his mother yes indeed of course he would of course he did but you must do what you are bid
mother always is distressed if you fidget when you're dressed if you fidget like miss midget hopper or her sister bridget goops like that are so much bother that they ought to dress each other
she called her sister horrid names she called her brother names as well so bad i wouldn't dare to tell it's shocking how a goop will act
i always think of susie klein i think of how she hangs her head she doesn't speak she whines instead don't whine if you don't speak right out
how thoughtless was roberto lees for only thoughtless children tease he teased the little pussy cat he teased the puppy think of that he even teased his sister too i think he was a goop
the queerest goop in all the land
she often said what wasn't true which is an awful thing to do but we are honest you and i we think it's wrong to tell a lie
miss mackadoo she never speaks when spoken to when spoken to she turns her eyes and never answers or replies she hangs her head and sucks her thumb
like isabel mc clung no one but a goop would show rudeness such as that i know if you're good take my advice please don't do it
young alexander b mc giff
he used to pinch he used to poke and called his rudeness just a joke what made him plague his playmates so he was a goop and didn't know
i wonder if you ever meet
he makes them drag along the floor as if they weighed a ton or more just think of solomon mc kim
when john d pell wants something done d'you think he asks of anyone oh no he orders someone to with get my hat or tie my shoe the goops all say rude things like these but you of course say
when you're finished with your play
if you should ask why rosamund eliza puddingfoot was shunned i'd say because she'd always cheat in every game so she could beat only a goop would act that way
says young amelia pratt i won't do this i won't do that now isn't won't the naughtiest word
though jumbo loves to fuss and fight
just look at percival b sloop a most unpleasant sort of goop he pokes his fingers in his nose and wipes his hands upon his clothes he does a lot of things that you
oh says little susie smalt
always messes with her food always plays with her potatoes meat and gravy and tomatoes
there is still one doubt to clear up after the statement learn of me christ throws in the disconcerting qualification take my yoke upon you and learn of me
why if all this be true does he call it a yoke
burden is the christian life after all what its enemies take it for an additional weight to the already great woe of life some extra punctiliousness about duty
some painful devotion to observances some heavy restriction and trammeling of all that is joyous and free in the world
is life not hard and sorrowful enough without being fettered with yet another yoke it is astounding how so glaring a misunderstanding of this plain sentence
should ever have passed into currency did you ever stop to ask what a yoke is really for is it to be a burden to the animal which wears it
it is just the opposite it is to make its burden light
the plough would be intolerable worked by means of a yoke it is light a yoke is not an instrument of torture it is an instrument of mercy
it is not a malicious contrivance for making work hard it is a gentle device to make hard labor light it is not meant to give pain but to save pain
some delighting in portraying its narrow exactions some seeking in these exactions the marks of its divinity others apologizing for it and toning it down
has this one mistaken phrase driven forever away from the kingdom of god instead of making christ attractive it makes him out a taskmaster
narrowing life by petty restrictions calling for self denial where none is necessary making misery a virtue under the plea that it is the yoke of christ and happiness criminal
according to this conception christians are at best the victims of a depressing fate their life is a penance and their hope for the next world purchased by a slow martyrdom in this
he knew the difference between a smooth yoke and a rough one a bad fit and a good fit the difference also it made to the patient animal which had to wear it
the rough yoke galled and the burden was heavy the smooth yoke caused no pain and the load was lightly drawn the badly fitted harness was a misery
the well fitted collar was easy and what was the burden it was not some special burden laid upon the christian some unique infliction
christ saw that men took life painfully to some it was a weariness to others a failure to many a tragedy to all a struggle and a pain
how to carry this burden of life had been the whole world's problem it is still the whole world's problem and here is christ's solution
and learn of me and you will find it easy for my yoke is easy works easily
and therefore my burden is light there is no suggestion here that religion will absolve any man from bearing burdens
that would be to absolve him from living since it is life itself that is the burden what christianity does propose is to make it tolerable christ's yoke is simply
his secret for the alleviation of human life his prescription for the best and happiest method of living men harness themselves to the work and stress of the world
in clumsy and unnatural ways the harness they put on is antiquated
they make its strain and friction past enduring by placing it where the neck is most sensitive and by mere continuous irritation this sensitiveness increases until the whole nature
is quick and sore this is the origin among other things of a disease called touchiness a disease which in spite of its innocent name
inflamed to the acute point conceit with a hair trigger the cure is to shift the yoke to some other place to let men and things touch us through some new
and perhaps as yet unused part of our nature to become meek and lowly in heart
is becoming numb from want of use it is the beautiful work of christianity everywhere to adjust the burden of life to those who bear it and them to it
it has a perfectly miraculous gift of healing without doing any violence to human nature it sets it right with life harmonizing it with all surrounding things
and restoring those who are jaded with the fatigue and dust of the world to a new grace of living in the mere matter of altering the perspective of life
and changing the proportions of things its function in lightening the care of man is altogether its own the weight of a load depends upon the attraction of the earth
a ton on some other planet where the attraction of gravity is less does not weigh half a ton now christianity removes the attraction of the earth and this is one way
in which it diminishes man's burden it makes them citizens of another world what was a ton yesterday is not half a ton today
so without changing one's circumstances merely by offering a wider horizon and a different standard it alters the whole aspect of the world
is the truest philosophy of life ever spoken but let us be quite sure when we speak of christianity that we mean christ's christianity other versions are either caricatures
or exaggerations or misunderstandings or shortsighted and surface readings for the most part their attainment is hopeless and the results wretched
but i care not who the person is or through what vale of tears he has passed or is about to pass
so much for the analysis of love now the business of our lives is to have these things fitted into our characters
to learn love is life not full of opportunities for learning love every man and woman every day has a thousand of them the world is not a playground it is a schoolroom
life is not a holiday but an education and the one eternal lesson for us all is how better we can love what makes a man a good cricketer
practice what makes a man a good artist a good sculptor a good musician practice what makes a man a good linguist a good stenographer practice
what makes a man a good man practice nothing else there is nothing capricious about religion we do not get the soul in different ways under different laws
from those in which we get the body and the mind if a man does not exercise his arm he develops no biceps muscle and if a man does not exercise his soul
he acquires no muscle in his soul no strength of character no vigor of moral fibre no beauty of spiritual growth love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion
it is a rich strong manly vigorous expression of the whole round christian character the christlike nature in its fullest development
and the constituents of this great character are only to be built up by ceaseless practice what was christ doing in the carpenter's shop practising
though perfect we read that he learned obedience
do not quarrel therefore with your lot in life do not complain of its never ceasing cares its petty environment the vexations you have to stand
the small and sordid souls you have to live and work with above all do not resent temptation do not be perplexed because it seems to thicken round you more and more
and ceases neither for effort nor for agony
and it is having its work in making you patient and humble and generous and unselfish and kind and courteous
do not grudge the hand that is moulding the still too shapeless image within you it is growing more beautiful though you see it not and every touch of temptation
may add to its perfection therefore keep in the midst of life do not isolate yourself be among men and among things
and among troubles and difficulties and obstacles
character in the stream of life talent develops itself in solitude the talent of prayer of faith of meditation of seeing the unseen
character grows in the stream of the world's life that chiefly is where men are to learn love how now how
to make it easier i have named a few of the elements of love but these are only elements love itself can never be defined
light is a something more than the sum of its ingredients a glowing dazzling tremulous ether and love is something more than all its elements
a palpitating quivering sensitive living thing by synthesis of all the colors men can make whiteness they cannot make light
by synthesis of all the virtues men can make virtue they cannot make love how then are we to have this transcendent living whole
conveyed into our souls we brace our wills to secure it we try to copy those who have it we lay down rules about it we watch we pray
but these things alone will not bring love into our nature love is an effect and only as we fulfill the right condition
can we have the effect produced shall i tell you what the cause is if you turn to the revised version of the first epistle of john
we love because he first loved us we love not we love him that is the way the old version has it and it is quite wrong
we love because he first loved us look at that word because it is the cause of which i have spoken
because he first loved us the effect follows that we love we love him we love all men we cannot help it
our heart is slowly changed contemplate the love of christ and you will love stand before that mirror
reflect christ's character and you will be changed into the same image from tenderness to tenderness there is no other way you cannot love to order
you can only look at the lovely object and fall in love with it and grow into likeness to it and so look at this perfect character
and you must love him and loving him you must become like him love begets love it is a process of induction
they are both magnets alike remain side by side with him who loved us and gave himself for us
like him you will be drawn unto all men that is the inevitable effect of love any man who fulfills that cause
must have that effect produced in him try to give up the idea that religion comes to us by chance or by mystery or by caprice it comes to us by natural law
and when he entered the room he just put his hand on the sufferer's head and said my boy god loves you and went away
and called out to the people in the house god loves me
the sense that god loved him overpowered him melted him down
and that is how the love of god melts down the unlovely heart in man and begets in him the new creature who is patient and humble and gentle and unselfish
and there is no other way to get it there is no mystery about it we love others we love everybody we love our enemies
nothing could be more striking than to find this here we are inclined to look upon bad temper as a very harmless weakness we speak of it as a mere infirmity of nature a family failing a matter of temperament
as one of the most destructive elements in human nature the peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous
or touchy disposition this compatibility of ill temper with high moral character is one of the strangest and saddest problems of ethics
sins of the body and sins of the disposition the prodigal son may be taken as a type of the first the elder brother of the second
its brand falls without a challenge upon the prodigal but are we right
and coarser and finer are but human words but faults in the higher nature may be less venal than those in the lower and to the eye of him who is love a sin against love
may seem a hundred times more base no form of vice not worldliness not greed of gold not drunkenness itself does more to un christianize society
for taking the bloom of childhood in short for sheer gratuitous misery producing power this influence stands alone
look at the elder brother moral hard working patient dutiful let him get all credit for his virtues look at this man this baby
he was angry we read and would not go in look at the effect upon the father upon the servants upon the happiness of the guests
and how many prodigals are kept out of the kingdom of god
analyze as a study in temper the thunder cloud itself as it gathers upon the elder brother's brow what is it made of jealousy anger
in varying proportions also these are the ingredients of all ill temper judge if such sins of the disposition are not worse to live in
there is really no place in heaven for a disposition like this a man with such a mood could only make heaven miserable for all the people in it
except therefore such a man be born again he cannot
it is not in what it is alone but in what it reveals
the occasional bubble escaping to the surface which betrays some rottenness underneath a sample of the most hidden products of the soul dropped involuntarily
a want of kindness a want of generosity a want of courtesy a want of unselfishness are all instantaneously symbolized in one flash of temper
hence it is not enough to deal with the temper we must go to the source and change the inmost nature and the angry humors will die away of themselves
souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluids out
a great love a new spirit the spirit of christ christ the spirit of christ interpenetrating ours sweetens purifies transforms all
time does not change men christ does therefore let that mind be in you which was also in christ jesus
some of us have not much time to lose remember once more
i cannot help speaking urgently for myself for yourselves whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me it were better for him
not to live than not to love it is better not to live than not to love guilelessness
guilelessness is the grace for suspicious people
is the great secret of personal influence you will find if you think for a moment that the people who influence you are people who believe in you in an atmosphere of suspicion men shrivel up
but in that atmosphere they expand and find encouragement and educative fellowship it is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard uncharitable world
there should still be left a few rare souls who think no evil this is the great unworldliness love thinketh no evil
imputes no motive sees the bright side puts the best construction on every action what a delightful state of mind to live in
what a stimulus and benediction even to meet with it for a day to be trusted is to be saved and if we try to influence or elevate others
we shall soon see that success is in proportion to their belief of our belief in them
is the first restoration of the self respect a man has lost our ideal of what he is becomes to him the hope and pattern of what he may become
i have called this sincerity from the words rendered in the authorized version by rejoiceth in the truth and certainly were this the real translation nothing could be more just
for he who loves will love truth not less than men he will rejoice in the truth rejoice not in what he has been taught to believe not in this church's doctrine or in that
not in this ism or in that ism but in the truth he will accept only what is real he will strive to get at facts
he will search for truth with a humble and unbiased mind and cherish whatever he finds at any sacrifice but the more literal translation of the revised version
calls for just such a sacrifice for truth's sake here for what paul really meant is
but rejoiceth with the truth a quality which probably no one english word and certainly not sincerity adequately defines
it includes perhaps more strictly the self restraint which refuses to make capital out of others faults
the charity which delights not in exposing the weakness of others but covereth all things
chapter nineteen grit wins the battle the lad appeared to strike the ground head on fortunately the spot where he landed was covered with soft sand are you hurt asked big foot running to the boy and reaching out to assist him
i guess not answered tad rubbing the sand from his eyes and blinking vigorously the skin had been scraped from his face in spots where the coarse sand had ground its way through his hair was filled with the dirt of the plain and his clothes were torn
but tad butler nothing daunted smiled as he pulled himself to his feet you better let that job out you can't ride that critter i'll ride him if he kills me answered the boy his jaws setting stubbornly
tad hitched his belt tighter before making any move to approach the pony which stallings was now holding by main force while doing so the lad watched the animal's buckings observantly what what happened demanded stallings foot slipped out of the stirrup
think you can make it i'll try it if you have the time to spare it takes time to break a bronch don't you worry about that i don't want you to be breaking your neck however my advice is that you keep off that animal declared professor zepplin you cannot manage him
that is plain please do not say that professor i must ride him now you wouldn't have me be a coward would you stallings realizing the boy's position nodded slightly to the professor very well if mister stallings thinks it is safe
agreed professor zepplin reluctantly tad's face lighted up with a satisfied smile whoa boy he soothed patting the animal gently on the neck the pony's back arched and its heels shot up into the air again once more tad petted him
don't know enough to know when he's well off
yes then drive them in when you get well seated tad shook his head i do not think that will be necessary guess he'll go fast enough without urging him with the rowels answered the boy
where another effort to mount him would be possible will you please coil up the stake rope and fasten it to the horn mister stallings asked tad
yes if you are sure you can stick on him leave that to me i know his tricks now cautiously the rope was coiled and made fast to the saddle horn i'm coming said tad in a quiet tense voice ready answered the foreman with equal quietness
the lad darted forward running on his toes his eyes fixed on the saddle tad gave no heed to the pony it was that heavy bobbing saddle that he must safely make before the pony itself would enter into his considerations
lightly touching the saddle he bounded into it at the same time shoving both feet forward fortunately his shoes slipped into the big boxed stirrups and the rein which lay over the pommel ready for him was quickly gathered up
the feet came down as suddenly as they had gone up instantly the little animal began a series of stiff legged leaps into the air his curving back making it a very uncomfortable place to sit on
tad's head was jerked back and forth until it seemed as though his neck would be broken look out for the side jump warned the foreman it came almost instantly and with a quickness that nearly unhorsed the plucky lad
fortunately the lad gripped the pommel with his right hand as he felt himself going and little by little he pulled himself once more to an upright posture all at once the animal took a leap into the air coming down headed in the opposite direction
tad's head swam he no longer heard the shouts of encouragement from the cowpunchers he was clinging desperately to his insecure seat with legs pressed tightly against the pony's sides as yet he had not seen fit to use the rowels
there came a pause which was almost as disconcerting as had been the previous rapid movements he's going to throw himself don't get caught under him bellowed big foot tad was thankful for the suggestion for he was not looking for that move at the moment
the pony struck the ground on its left side with a bump that made the animal grunt tad however forewarned had freed his left foot from the stirrup and was standing easily over his fallen mount eyes fixed on the beast's ears
ready to resume his position at the first sign of a quiver of those ears like a flash the animal was on its feet again but with tad riding in the saddle a satisfied smile on his face once more the awful nerve racking bucking began
and least of all a mere boy all at once the animal came up on its hind legs tad knew instinctively what it meant
over went the broncho on its back rolling to its side quickly tad was on the ground beside it standing in a half crouching position with one foot on the saddle horn he had jerked the broncho's head clear of the ground with a strong tug on the reins
making the animal helpless to rise until the lad was ready for him to do so the cowboys uttered a yell of triumph great great approved bob stallings
jeered big foot sanders hooray for the pinto tad's companions gave a shrill cheer wait he ain't out of the woods yet growled lumpy bates think you could do it better hey snapped curley adams
i never did see such a whirlwind got springs in his feet i reckon grinned big foot don't let his head down till you're ready for the get away cautioned the foreman tad suddenly allowed the head to touch the ground after the pony had lain pinned at his feet breathing hard for a full minute
boy and mount were in the air in a twinkling as they went up ted brought down his quirt with all his strength it was time the ugly animal was taught that its enemy could strike a blow for himself
with a quick pause as if in surprise the beast shot its head back to fasten its teeth in the leg of the rider tad had jerked his leg away as he saw the movement with the result that only part of his leggin came away between the teeth of the savage animal crack
down came the quirt again the broncho's head straightened out before him with amazing quickness he was beginning to fear as well as hate the human being who so persistently sat his back and tortured him the pony sprang into the air they're off shouted the cowboys
with amazing quickness the animal lunged ahead paused suddenly then shot across the plain in a series of leaps and twists tad shook out the rein at the same time giving a gentle pressure to the rowels of his spurs
not pausing until more than a mile had been covered when he did bring up it was with disconcerting suddenness whoa boy soothed tad patting the little animal on the neck again the wide open mouth reached for the lad's left leg
but this time tad pressed in the spurs on the right side the pony tried to bite that way whereat its rider spurred it on the left side this was continued until at least in sheer desperation the animal started again to run he found that he was not interfered with in this effort
however when he sought to unseat his rider by brushing against the trunk of a large tree he again felt the sting of the quirt on his flank gradually tad now began to work the animal around after a time he succeeded in doing this and was soon headed for camp
tad's face was flushed with pride
the lad's whole attention was centered on the pony under him he was determined to make a grand finish that while exhibiting his horsemanship would at the same time give the pony a lesson not soon to be forgotten you've got him cried ned rector as tad approached
don't be too sure answered big foot see them ears that means more trouble it came almost before the words were out of the cowpuncher's mouth the broncho stiffened its hoofs ploughing little trails in the soft dirt of the plain as it skidded to a stop
the jolt might have unhorsed tad butler had he not been expecting it from some indications that he read in the animal's actions suddenly settling back on its haunches the broncho rolled over on its side tad with a grin stepped off a few paces
taking with him however the coil of rope one end of which was still fastened around the beast's neck
the coil was running out over his hands like a thing of life grasping the end firmly the lad shook out the rest of the rope
by this time the animal was running almost at right angles to him tad gave the rope a quick rolling motion just as it was being drawn taut
its proud spirit had been broken by a boy who knew the ways of the stubborn animal a great shout of approval went up from cowpunchers and pony riders they had never seen a breaking done more skillfully
she brings with her also the most charming woman in the world added mister temple with a smile i have little doubt lady bellair deems her companion so at present said miss temple whoever she may be but at any rate i shall be glad to see her ladyship
who is certainly one of the most amusing women in the world
for her ladyship was in every respect a memorable character
very much interested the curiosity of his fellow servants by his intimations of her ladyship's eccentricities you will have to take care of the parrot mary said the butler and you susan must look after the page
we shall all be well cross examined as to the state of the establishment and so i advise you to be prepared her ladyship is a rum one and that's the truth
and carrying on the seat behind a portly man servant and a lady's maid
they immediately descended and assisted the assembled household of the bower to disembark the contents of the chariot but mister temple and his daughter were too well acquainted with lady bellair's character to appear at this critical moment
first came forth a stately dame of ample proportions and exceedingly magnificent attire being dressed in the extreme of gorgeous fashion and who after being landed on the marble steps was for some moments absorbed in the fluttering arrangement of her plumage
shaking the golden riband of her emerald bonnet and adjusting the glittering pelerine of point device that shaded the fall of her broad but well formed shoulders in one hand the stately dame lightly swung a bag that was worthy of holding the great seal itself
and glanced with a flashing eye
at the surrounding scene the green parrot in its sparkling cage followed next and then came forth the prettiest liveliest smallest best dressed and stranger than all oldest little lady in the world
lady bellair was of childlike stature and quite erect though ninety years of age the tasteful simplicity of her costume her little plain white silk bonnet her grey silk dress her apron her grey mittens and her cinderella shoes
all admirably contrasted with the vast and flaunting splendour of her companion not less than her ladyship's small yet exquisitely proportioned form her highly finished extremities and her keen sarcastic grey eye
the expression of her countenance now however was somewhat serious an arrival was an important moment that required all her practised circumspection there was so much to arrange so much to remember and so much to observe
the portly serving man had advanced and taking his little mistress in his arms as he would a child had planted her on the steps and then her ladyship's clear shrill and now rather fretful voice was heard here where's the butler
i don't want you stupid addressing her own servant but the butler of the house mister's butler
oh you are there are you
how is your master how is your charming lady where is the parrot i don't want it where's the lady why don't you answer why do you stare so miss temple no not miss temple the lady my lady my charming friend missus floyd
but she has got two names why don't you say both names my dear continued lady bellair addressing her travelling companion i don't know your name tell all these good people your name your two names i like people with two names
tell them my dear tell them tell them your name missus thingabob or whatever it is missus thingabob twoshoes missus montgomery floyd though rather annoyed by this appeal still contrived to comply with the request in the most dignified manner
and all the servants bowed to missus montgomery floyd to the great satisfaction of this stately dame
indicated some intention of entering when suddenly she turned round man there's something wanting i had three things to take charge of the parrot and my charming friend that is only two there is a third what is it you don't know
here you man who are you mister temple's servant i knew your master when he was not as high as that cage what do you think of that continued her ladyship with a triumphant smile what do you laugh at sir
did you ever see a woman ninety years old before that i would wager you have not what do i want i want something
now i knew a gentleman who made his fortune by once remembering what a very great man wanted but then the great man was a minister of state i dare say if i were a minister of state instead of an old woman ninety years of age
you would contrive somehow or other to find out what i wanted never mind never mind come my charming friend let me take your arm now i will introduce you to the prettiest the dearest the most innocent and charming lady in the world she is my greatest favourite
she is always my favourite you are my favourite too but you are only my favourite for the moment i always have two favourites one for the moment and one that i never change and that is my sweet henrietta temple you see i can remember her name though i couldn't yours
but you are a good creature a dear good soul though you live in a bad set my dear a very bad set indeed vulgar people my dear they may be rich but they have no ton this is a fine place stop stop
gregory run gregory it is the page there was no room for him behind and i told him to lie under the seat poor dear boy he must be smothered i hope he is not dead oh there he is has miss temple got a page
does her page wear a feather my page has not got a feather but he shall have one because he was not smothered here woman who are you
chapter twenty dinner at the ox bow welcome to the ox bow young gentlemen greeted colonel mc clure the rancher and his wife were waiting at the lower end of the lawn as the pony rider boys accompanied by professor zepplin
rode up on the following afternoon the lads wore their regulation plainsman's clothes but for this occasion coats had been put on and hair combed each desiring to look his best as they were to meet the young ladies of the ranch
we owe you an apology sir for appearing in this condition announced the professor master butler and myself have already settled that question answered the rancher as henry ward beecher once said clothes don't make the man but when he is made he looks very well dressed up
i must say however that these young men are about as likely a lot of lads as i have ever seen clear eyed their faces tanned almost to a copper color figures erect and shoulders well back the pony rider boys were indeed wholesome to look upon
upon being presented to their guests ruth brayton was in a sunny mood laughing gayly as she chatted with the boys tad glanced at her inquiringly she was not the same girl that he had met the day before there was a difference in the eyes too
tad could not understand the change it perplexed him
the boys being left with missus mc clure and the young ladies to wander through the grounds and chat each of the young women was an accomplished horsewoman and therefore evinced a keen interest in the experiences of the boys since they had been in saddle
said ned rector no worse than the plains replied walter
than we ever experienced in the mountains yes but you were driving cattle objected missus mc clure there probably is no harder work in the world we down here know something about that i
i killed a bobcat up in the mountains stacy brown informed them with enthusiasm indeed smiled missus mc clure indulgently he did and i fell off a mountain laughed walter perkins you see we have had quite a series of experiences indeed you have
are you going through with them i believe not answered tad butler i think we shall be leaving very soon now we have a lot of traveling to do yet as it has been planned that we shall see a good deal of the country before it is time to return to school this fall
and you are to remain out in the open in the saddle all summer asked miss brayton her eyes sparkling almost enviously yes i believe so i should love it we are getting to love it ourselves
it will be hard to have to sleep indoors again shortly afterwards all were summoned in to supper stacy brown's eyes sparkled with anticipation as he surveyed the table resplendent with silver and cut glass loaded too with good things to eat
ned rector observed the look in his companion's eyes now don't forget that we are not eating off the tail board of the chuck wagon chunky he whispered in passing be as near human as you can and satisfy your appetite chunky's face flushed
especially were their hosts interested in the story of the discovery of the lost claim which the boys had found on their trip in the rockies i have wanted to ask you about the old church between here and camp mister mc clure
very interesting old ruin sir answered the host built by the mexicans more than a hundred years ago yes so i understand is it true that there's spooks in that place interrupted stacy everybody laughed
he noticed a curious flush on her face
almost the instant he caught it it was gone i'm afraid you have been misinformed master stacy answered colonel mc clure how about the trouble that the cattle men experience when near the place spoke up ned rector
nothing at all nothing at all just a mere coincidence we live here and we have no more than the usual run of ill luck with our stock stampedes asked tad seldom anything of that sort you see our stock is held by wire fences
if they want to stampede we let them let them run until they are tired of it i should like to explore the old church said tad again referring to the subject uppermost in his mind nothing to hinder
ruth why can't you and the girls take the young men over there to morrow if the day is fine you know the place and its history i am sure they would enjoy having you do so we should be delighted answered ned rector promptly we might make it a picnic
and have things to eat asked stacy evincing a keen interest in the proposal of course smiled missus mc clure a picnic would not be a picnic without a spread on the ground i will send some of the servants over to serve the picnic lunch thank you smiled tad gratefully
it will be a happy afternoon for all of us if miss brayton can find the time to take us of course ruth will go nodded missus mc clure yes answered the young woman what time shall we arrange to start auntie say eleven o'clock if that will suit the young men
perfectly answered tad you might first take a gallop to the springs that will give you all an appetite where are the springs asked ned about seven miles to the eastward of the ranch a most picturesque place answered colonel mc clure
we can ride about the ranch if it would please you i should be delighted
and remain here while you are in the vicinity we have room to spare and would be glad to have you i am afraid the young men would prefer to remain in camp thank you they will get enough of sleeping in beds upon their return home discourteous as the statement may seem answered professor zepplin
i understand you perfectly i shall not press the point but spend all the time you can with us the place is yours make yourselves at home no mister stallings would not like it if we were to remain away over night you see
he expects us to do our share of night guard duty explained tad we are earning our keep as it were the boys laughed that is some of us are corrected ned with a sly glance at stacy who was eating industriously others are eating for their keep
the pony rider boys caught the hidden meaning in his words but they tried not to let their hosts observe that it was a joke at the expense of one of them stallings murmured miss brayton her eyes staring vacantly at tad butler
tad flushed at the memory of what he had heard on his first visit to the ranch miss brayton excused herself rather abruptly and left the room they did not see her again that evening my niece has been ailing of late explained missus mc clure
suggested tad oh yes i wish her to it will do her good it will take her mind from herself tad butler noted the last half of the sentence particularly for him it held a deeper meaning than it did for his companions
i wonder if she knows mister stallings mused tad i'm going to find out no i won't it's none of my business still it will do no harm to ask him or to mention the name to him
that surely would not be wrong under the charm of the evening his mind soon drifted into other channels after supper games were brought out and a happy evening followed ten o'clock came and professor zepplin glancing at his watch was about to propose a return to camp
hat in hand beg pardon may i speak with you a moment asked the man
that he used toward his guests excuse me a moment
and tad's keen eyes noticed that he seemed disturbed mister mc clure caught the lad's inquiring gaze fixed upon him he nodded is anything wrong asked the rancher's wife
he answered quietly what is it
perhaps i should not alarm you young gentlemen but i think you should know at the camp you mean asked tad yes what's that demanded professor zepplin sharply something wrong at the camp my men think so they say they hear shooting off in that direction
and want to know if they shall ride out you think it is a a began tad a stampede yes i should not be surprised we must go announced the lad rising promptly why go asked margaret we may be needed
but my men have started already replied the rancher they surely will be help enough mister stallings will expect us we may be able to be of some assistance well if you must yes you are right business is business even when one is out on a pleasure trip
tell your foreman that he may call upon us to any extent thank you i will replied tad bidding their hosts a hasty good night and promising to be on hand at the appointed hour on the following day if the condition of the herd permitted
the pony rider boys ran for their ponies in a few moments they were racing toward camp they too were now able to hear the short spiteful bark of the six shooters it was a significant sound they had heard it too many times before not to understand it
in their minds they could see the hardy cowboys riding in front of the unreasoning animals shooting into the ground in front of them seeking to check the rush what do you think about this business asked tad butler drawing up beside ned rector i think there is more in this spook story than colonel mc clure knows of
so do i answered tad we'll know when we hear how it happened tad remembered at that moment the hasty departure of ruth brayton i wonder i wonder
colour came with the wild flowers and song with the wood thrush squirrels played on the tree trunks like mischievous children the brooks sang like happy human voices through the tremulous underworld and woodpeckers hammered out the joy of spring
back to the hills came hale then and with all their rich beauty they were as desolate as when he left them bare with winter for his mission had miserably failed his train creaked and twisted around the benches of the mountains and up and down ravines into the hills
as he neared the bulk of powell's mountain and ran along its mighty flank he passed the ore mines at each one the commissary was closed the cheap dingy little houses stood empty on the hillsides and every now and then he would see a tipple
and an empty car left as it was after dumping its last load of red ore on the right as he approached the station
even the face of the gap was a little changed by the gray scar that man had slashed across its mouth getting limestone for the groaning monster of a furnace that was now at peace the streets were deserted a new face fronted him at the desk of the hotel
and the eyes of the clerk showed no knowledge of him when he wrote his name his supper was coarse greasy and miserable his room was cold steam heat it seemed had been given up the sheets were ill smelling the mouth of the pitcher was broken
and the one towel had seen much previous use but the water was the same as was the cool pungent night air both blessed of god and they were the sole comforts that were his that night
laughed good naturedly and with understanding turned away mechanically he walked to the club but there was no club
a pile of fresh smelling papers lay on a table and after a question or two he picked up one
the printing of which was the raison d'etre of the noble sheet
he recalled his inability once to get that gentleman to hang a door for him he was a carpenter again now and he carried a saw and a plane
i think not said hale well i'd like to get a contract for a chicken coop just to keep my hand in there was more a two horse wagon was coming with two cottage organs aboard
in the mouth of the slouch hatted unshaven driver was a corn cob pipe he pulled in when he saw hale hello he shouted grinning good heavens
and teaching singing school the dethroned king of finance grinned sure
all gone beyond the post office he turned toward the red brick house that sat above the mill pond eagerly he looked for the old mill and he stopped in physical pain the dam had been torn away
it's all over sam don't you worry come on in the two sat on the porch below it the dimpled river shone through the rhododendrons and with his eyes fixed on it the hon sam slowly approached the thought of each
i'm not going to be here long said hale where you goin i don't know budd puffed his pipe well
and then one of you had to die how he found out you were comin about this time i don't know but he has sent word that he'll be here looks like he hasn't made much headway with june i'm not worried well you better be said budd sharply
and it comes mighty near bein human nature the world over you never gave her a square chance you know what uncle billy said yes an i know uncle billy changed his mind go after her no
don't you worry jack all right sam an hour later hale was at the livery stable for a horse to ride to lonesome cove for he had sold his big black to help out expenses for the trip to england old dan harris the stableman
in the barn yard you know that hoss yes
i've heard well i'm lookin fer dave every day now well maybe i'd better ride dave's horse now said hale jestingly i wish you would said old dan no said hale
you might send me word uncle dan ahead so that he can't waylay me i'll do that very thing said the old man seriously i was joking uncle dan but i ain't the matter was out of hale's head before he got through the great gap
how the memories thronged of june june june you didn't give her a chance that was what budd said well had he given her a chance why shouldn't he go to her and give her the chance now
he hadn't the car fare for half way across the continent and even if he had he was a promising candidate for matrimony and again he shook his shoulders and settled his soul for his purpose he would get his things together and leave those hills forever
that far away looked like a bit of green spray spouting on its very crest old man he muttered you know you know and as to a brother he climbed toward it
he said as he went upward into the bright stillness and when he dropped into the dark stillness of shadow and forest gloom on the other side he said again my god
and went down the river toward uncle billy's mill old hon threw her arms around him and kissed him john said uncle billy i've got three hundred dollars in a old yarn sock under one of them hearthstones and its yourn
you didn't give that little gal a fair chance john an i want you to go to june no i can't take your money uncle billy god bless you and old hon
clouds were gathering as hale rode up the river after telling old hon and uncle billy good by he had meant not to go to the cabin in lonesome cove but when he reached the forks of the road
at a slow walk he went noiselessly through the deep sand around the clump of rhododendron the creek was clear as crystal once more but no geese cackled and no dog barked the door of the spring house gaped wide
the barn door sagged on its hinges the yard fence swayed drunkenly and the cabin was still as a gravestone but the garden was alive and he swung from his horse at the gate
and with his hands clasped behind his back walked slowly through it june's garden the garden he had planned and planted for june that they had tended together and apart and that thanks to the old miller's care
was the one thing save the sky above left in spirit unchanged the periwinkles pink and white were almost gone the flags were at half mast and sinking fast
but the pinks were fragrant the poppies were poised on slender stalks like brilliant butterflies at rest the hollyhocks shook soundless pink bells to the wind roses as scarlet as june's lips bloomed everywhere
like wind driven clouds of mist thickening into water as they came the shingles rattled as though with the heavy slapping of hands the pines creaked and the sudden dusk outside made the cabin when he pushed the door open as dark as night
kindling a fire he lit his pipe and waited the room was damp and musty but the presence of june almost smothered him once he turned his face june's door was ajar
and the key was in the lock he rose to go to it and look within and then dropped heavily back into his chair he was anxious to get away now to get to work several times he rose restlessly and looked out the window
once he went outside and crept along the wall of the cabin to the east and the west but there was no break of light in the murky sky and he went back to pipe and fire
by and by the wind died and the rain steadied into a dogged downpour he knew what that meant there would be no letting up now in the storm and for another night he was a prisoner
and pulled out a cake of chocolate a can of potted ham and some crackers munched his supper went to bed and lay there with sleepless eyes
in which june was the central figure always
in the dream tragedy forming in his brain they were meeting face to face at last and the place was the big pine dave's pistol flashed and his own stuck in the holster as he tried to draw there was a crashing report
the longest of her life was that day to june the anxiety in times of war for the women who wait at home is vague
but a specific issue that involves death to those loved ones has a special and poignant terror of its own june knew her father's plan the precise time the fight would take place and the especial danger that was hale's
for she knew that young dave tolliver had marked him with the first shot fired dry eyed and white and dumb she watched them make ready for the start that morning while it was yet dark dully she heard the horses snorting from the cold
like ghostly figures in a dream once only did she open her lips and that was to plead with her father to leave bub at home but her father gave her no answer and bub snorted his indignation he was a man now
how differently she saw these things now for a man who deserved death and to fight a man who was ready to die for his duty to that law
the man who had planted for her the dew drenched garden that was waiting for the sun and had built the little room behind her for her comfort and seclusion who had sent her to school had never been anything but kind and just to her and to everybody
who had taught her life and thank god love was she really the june tolliver who had gone out into the world and had held her place there
who had conquered birth and speech and customs and environment so that none could tell what they all once were who had become the lady the woman of the world in manner dress and education
calling her down into the old mean round of drudgery
like a sky of brass around her own and when the voice came instead of bursting into tears as she was about to do she gave a hard little laugh and she lifted a defiant face to the rising sun
there was a limit to the sacrifice for kindred brother father home and that limit was the eternal sacrifice the eternal undoing of herself when this wretched terrible business was over she would set her feet where that sun could rise on her
busy with the work that she could do in that world for which she felt she was born swiftly she did the morning chores and then she sat on the porch thinking and waiting spinning wheel loom and darning needle were to lie idle that day
the old step mother had gotten from bed and was dressing herself miraculously cured of a sudden miraculously active she began to talk of what she needed in town and june said nothing
she went out to the stable and led out the old sorrel mare she was going to the hanging
no said june fiercely well you needn't git mad about it
june answered nothing but in silence watched her get ready
hale had once told her that they meant rain far away the mountains were overhung with purple so deep that the very air looked like mist and a peace that seemed motherlike in tenderness brooded over the earth peace
and two bodies of men one led by her father the other by the man she loved ready to fly at each other's throats the one to get the condemned man alive the other to see that he died she got up with a groan she walked into the garden
the grass was tall tangled and withering and in it dead leaves lay everywhere stems up stems down in reckless confusion the scarlet sage pods were brown and seeds were dropping from their tiny gaping mouths
the marigolds were frost nipped and one lonely black winged butterfly was vainly searching them one by one for the lost sweets of summer the gorgeous crowns of the sun flowers were nothing but grotesque black mummy heads
set on lean dead bodies and the clump of big castor plants buffeted by the wind leaned this way and that like giants in a drunken orgy trying to keep one another from falling down
the blight that was on the garden was the blight that was in her heart and two bits of cheer only she found one yellow nasturtium scarlet flecked whose fragrance was a memory of the spring that was long gone
as though to promise that another spring would surely come with the flower in her hand she started up the ravine to her dreaming place but it was so lonely up there and she turned back she went into her room and tried to read
she turned and watched the long hand how long a minute was
she could not be alone when the hour came and she started down the road toward uncle billy's mill hale hale hale the name began to ring in her ears like a bell
and the cat had got her tongue she remembered when she had written her name after she had first kissed him at the foot of the beech june hail
or was it already the stain of dead leaves hale could have told her those leaves were floating through the shadows and when the wind moved others zig zagged softly down to join them the wind was helping them on the water too
with her hands behind her and her eyes bent on the road what should she do she had no money her father had none to spare and she could accept no more from hale once she stopped and stared with unseeing eyes at the blue sky
when she reached the miller's cabin she went to the porch without noticing that the door was closed
when she reached the gate she heard the clock beginning to strike and with one hand on her breast she breathlessly listened counting eight nine ten eleven
while june watched the creaking old wheel dropping the sun shot sparkling water into the swift sluice but hardly seeing it at all by and by uncle billy came outside and sat down and neither spoke a word
and yet for three hours more she had to stand it while the cavalcade of tollivers with rufe's body
she looked as if she would fly at his throat and dave amazed shrank back a step go home i tell ye uncle judd's shot
she put her hands to her head as though she were crazed and then she turned and broke into a swift run up the road panting june reached the gate the front door was closed and there she gave a tremulous cry for bub
the door opened a few inches and through it bub shouted for her to come on the back door too was closed and not a ray of daylight entered the room except at the port hole where bub with a winchester had been standing on guard
by the light of the fire she saw her father's giant frame stretched out on the bed and she heard his laboured breathing swiftly she went to the bed and dropped on her knees beside it dad she said the old man's eyes opened and turned heavily toward her
all right juny they shot me from the laurel
i reckon they've got me this time no no he saw her eyes fixed on the matted blood on his chest hit's stopped
his voice had dropped to a whisper and his eyes closed again there was another cautious hello outside and when bub again opened the door dave ran swiftly within he paid no attention to june
there was three of em he showed bub a bullet hole through one sleeve and then he turned half contemptuously to june i hain't done it adding grimly
are you going to the gap for a doctor
then i'll go myself a thick protest came from the bed and then an appeal that might have come from a child don't leave me juny without a word june went into the kitchen and got the old bark horn
and a wild elation settled in her heart that john hale was alive and unhurt though rufe was dead her father wounded and bub and dave both had but narrowly escaped the falin assassins that afternoon
she felt the vindictive hatred that had prolonged the feud had she been a man she could not have rested until she had slain the man who had ambushed her father she expected bub to do that now
to stick to her people and do the best she could with her life and now and then through the night old judd would open his eyes and stare at the ceiling and at these times it was not the pain in his face that distressed her as much as the drawn beaten look
that she had noticed growing in it for a long time it was terrible that helpless look in the face of a man so big in body so strong of mind so iron like in will
and whenever he did speak she knew what he was going to say it's all over juny they've beat us on every turn they've got us one by one thar ain't but a few of us left now and when i git up if i ever do
pull up stakes and take em all west you won't ever leave me juny no dad she would say gently he had asked the question at first quite sanely
that when sharrkan saw the moslems in conquered plight and the chamberlain upon the brink of retreat and flight
the foe of the faith after seeing that bahram and rustam had set forward with their troops to join sharrkan and his brother zau al makan repaired to the camp of the mahometans before constantinople
and caused the mission of the emir tarkash as hath been before said
it is therefore my object that ye sally forth against them with all your power while this day endureth and that ye fall on them in their tents and that ye leave them not till ye shall have slain them to the last man for verily
and i hope of the messiah that he forget not what deed i have done when her letter came to king afridun he rejoiced with great joyance and sending at once for king hardub of greece son of zat al dawahi read the letter to him as soon as he came
see my mother's craft verily it dispenseth with swords and her aspect standeth
shouting out their professions of impiety and heresies and blaspheming the lord of all creatures when the chamberlain saw the sally he said behold the greek is upon us and they surely have learned that our sultan is far away
thereupon the moslems cried out allaho akbar and the believer in the one god shouted his slogan
and whirled the mill wheels of fight with cutting and thrusting in main and might scymitars and spears played sore and the plains and valleys were swamped with gore
the priests and monks priested it tight girding their girdles and uplifting the crucifixes while the moslem shouted out the professions of the requiting king
trusting thee allah would help them to victory and host was mingled with host
and the judge of death judged and sentence sped so that the champions fell from their saddles slain and corpses cumbered meadow and plain
and the standards of the believers in unity and having come up with them he charged the infidels and followed him zau al makan and the wazir dandan
with his brother tarkash when the foe saw this they lost head and their reason fled and the dust clouds towered till they covered the country
and he in turn gave the prince joy of his timely succour and his gaining the day thereat the moslems were glad and their hearts were heartened so they rushed upon their enemies and devoted themselves to allah in their fight for the faith
and stayed their hands from slaughter whilst king afridun went up to consult king hardub of greece for the two kings stood one at the head of each wing
now there was with them also a famous cavalier lawiya highs who commanded the centre and they drew out in battle array but indeed they were full of alarm and affray
o king of the age doubtless they mean to champion it and that is also the object of our desire but it is my wish to push forward the stoutest hearted of our fighters for by forethought is one half of life wrought replied the sultan
as thou wilt o companion of good counsel it is my wish added sharrkan to stand in mid line opposite the infidel with the wazir dandan on my left and thee on my right whilst the emir bahram leads the dexter wing
and the slogan arose and the sabre was drawn but as things stood thus behold there came forth a cavalier from the ranks of roum and as he drew near they saw that he was mounted on a slow paced she mule
fleeing with her master from the shock of swords
sat a shaykh an old man of comely presence and reverend aspect garbed in a gown of white wool he stinted not pushing her and hurrying her on till he came near the moslem and said i am an ambassador to you all
and an ambassador hath naught to do save to deliver so give me safe conduct and permit of speech that i communicate to you my message replied sharrkan thou art in safety
fear neither sway of sword nor lunge of lance thereupon the old man dismounted and taking the cross from his neck placed it before the sultan and humbled himself with much humility then quoth to him the moslems
what is with thee of news and quoth he i am an ambassador from king afridun for i counselled him to avert the destruction of all these frames of men and temples of the compassionate one
when sharrkan heard this he said o monk
and behold i will meet him in duello and do with him derring do for i am champion of the faithful even as he is champion of the faithless and if he slay me he will have won the day
and told them both what sharrkan had said whereat king afridun was glad with exceeding gladness and fell from him anxiety and sadness and he said to himself
no doubt but this sharrkan is their doughtiest swayer of the sword and the dourest at lunge of lance and when i shall have slain him their hearts will be disheartened and their strength will be shattered now zat al dawahi
had written to king afridun of that and had told him how sharrkan was a knight of the braves and the bravest of knights and had warned him against him but afridun was a stalwart cavalier
he could hurl rocks and throw spears and smite with the iron mace and he feared not the prowess of the prow so when he heard the report of the monk that sharrkan agreed to the duello
and behold a cavalier rode single handed into the plain mounted on a steed of purest strain and for foray and fray full ready and fain and that knight had limbs of might
and drew together and withdrew and stinted not of fray and fight and weapon play and strife and stay with stroke of sword and lunge of lance of the two armies looking on some said
then cried out king afridun to sharrkan saying by the truth of the messiah and the faith which is no liar thou art nought save a doughty rider and a stalwart fighter but thou art fraudful
and thy nature is not that of the noble
he waxt wroth and turned towards his men meaning to sign to them and bid them not prepare him change of harness or horse when lo
and cast it at sharrkan now when the moslem turned his back he found none of the men near him
the javelin came at him so he swerved from it till his head was bent low as his saddle bow the weapon grazed his breast and pierced the skin of his chest for sharrkan was high bosomed whereupon he gave one cry and swooned away
thinking he had slain him and shouted to the infidels bidding them rejoice whereat the faithless were encouraged and the faithful wept when zau
did good work now the first to reach sharrkan
manawyddan the prince and his friend pryderi were wanderers
very sorrowful was manawyddan but pryderi was stout of heart and bade him be of good cheer as he knew a way out of his trouble and what may that be asked manawyddan it is that thou marry my mother rhiannon and become lord of the fair lands that i will give her for dowry
never did any lady have more wit than she and in her youth none was more lovely even yet she is good to look upon thou art the best friend that ever a man had said manawyddan
and the lands where she dwells then they set forth but the news of their coming ran swifter still
and manawyddan found that pryderi had spoken the truth concerning his mother and asked if she would take him for her husband right gladly did she consent and without delay they were married and rode away to the hunt rhiannon and manawyddan kieva and pryderi
and they would not be parted from each other by night or by day so great was the love between them one day when they were returned they were sitting out in a green place and suddenly the crash of thunder struck loudly on their ears and a wall of mist fell between them
trembling they sat till the darkness fled and the light shone again upon them but in the place where they were wont to see cattle and herds and dwellings they beheld neither house nor beast nor man nor smoke
neither was any one remaining in the green place save these four only whither have they gone and my host also cried manawyddan and they searched the hall and there was no man
and in the dwellings that were left was nothing save wild beasts for a year these four fed on the meat that manawyddan and pryderi killed out hunting and the honey of the bees that sucked the mountain heather for a time they desired nothing more
but when the next year began they grew weary we cannot spend our lives thus said manawyddan at last let us go into england and learn some trade by which we may live so they left wales and went to hereford
and there they made saddles while manawyddan fashioned blue enamel ornaments to put on their trappings and so greatly did the townsfolk love these saddles that no others were bought throughout the whole of hereford
till the saddlers banded together and resolved to slay manawyddan and his companions when pryderi heard of it he was very wroth and wished to stay and fight but the counsels of manawyddan prevailed and they moved by night to another city
what craft shall we follow asked pryderi
we will try it said manawyddan and they began to make shields and fashioned them after the shape of the shields they had seen and these likewise they enamelled
till at length the shield makers banded together as the saddlers had done and resolved to slay them but of this they had warning and by night betook themselves to another town let us take to making shoes said manawyddan
for there are not any among the shoemakers bold enough to fight us i know nothing of making shoes answered pryderi who in truth despised so peaceful a craft but i know replied manawyddan
and i will teach thee to stitch we will buy the leather ready dressed and will make the shoes from it then straightway he sought the town for the best leather
and he himself watched till it was done so that he might learn for himself
and prospered so greatly that as long as one could be bought from him not a shoe was purchased from the shoemakers of the town and the craftsmen were wroth and banded together to slay them pryderi said manawyddan when he had received news of it
so they journeyed until they came to their lands at narberth there they gathered their dogs round them and hunted for a year as before after that a strange thing happened
one morning pryderi and manawyddan rose up to hunt and loosened their dogs which ran before them till they came to a small bush at the bush the dogs shrank away as if frightened and returned to their masters their hair brisling on their backs
we must see what is in that bush said pryderi and what was in it was a boar with a skin as white as the snow on the mountains and he came out and made a stand as the dogs rushed on him driven on by the men long he stood at bay
then at last he betook himself to flight and fled to a castle which was newly built in a place where no building had ever been known into the castle he ran and the dogs after him and long though their masters looked and listened
they neither saw nor heard aught concerning dogs or boar i will go into the castle and get tidings of the dogs said pryderi at last truly answered manawyddan thou wouldst do unwisely for whosoever has cast a spell over this land has set this castle here
i cannot give up my dogs replied pryderi and to the castle he went but within was neither man nor beast neither boar nor dogs but only a fountain with marble round it and on the edge a golden bowl richly wrought
which pleased pryderi greatly in a moment he forgot about his dogs and went up to the bowl and took hold of it
and despair took possession of him till the close of day manawyddan waited for him and when the sun was fast sinking he went home thinking that he had strayed far
she asked laying her hand on the bowl and as she spoke she too stuck fast and was not able to utter a word then thunder was heard and a veil of darkness descended upon them
she was in such sorrow that she cared not whether she lived or died manawyddan was grieved also in his heart and said to her it is not fitting that we should stay here for he have lost our dogs and cannot get food
let us go into england it is easier for us to live there so they set forth what craft wilt thou follow asked kieva as they went along i shall make shoes as once i did replied he
and he and kieva left the town one night and proceeded to narberth taking with him a sheaf of wheat which he sowed in three plots of ground and while the wheat was growing up he hunted and fished and they had food enough and to spare
thus the months passed until the harvest and one evening manawyddan visited the furthest of his fields of wheat and saw that it was ripe to morrow i will reap this said he but on the morrow when he went to reap the wheat he found nothing but the bare straw
filled with dismay he hastened to the second field and there the corn was ripe and golden to morrow i will reap this he said but on the morrow the ears had gone and there was nothing but the bare straw well there is still one field left he said
the hours slid by and all was still so still that manawyddan well nigh dropped asleep but at midnight there arose the loudest tumult in the world and peeping out he beheld a mighty host of mice which could neither be numbered nor measured
each mouse climbed up a straw till it bent down with its weight and then it bit off one of the ears and carried it away and there was not one of the straws that had not got a mouse to it
full of wrath he rushed at the mice but he could no more come up with them than if they had been gnats or birds of the air save one only which lingered behind the rest and this mouse manawyddan came up with
and tied a piece of string across the opening of the glove
when he entered the hall where kieva was sitting he lighted a fire and hung the glove up on a peg what hast thou there asked she a thief he answered that i caught robbing me
what kind of a thief may it be which thou couldst put in thy glove said kieva that i will tell thee he replied and then he showed her how his fields of corn had been wasted and how he had watched for the mice
and one was less nimble than the rest and is now in my glove to morrow i will hang it and i only wish i had them all
do not meddle with it but let it go woe betide me he cried if i would not hang them all if i could catch them and such as i have i will hang verily said she
if i knew any cause that i should succour it i would take thy counsel answered manawyddan but as i know of none i am minded to destroy it do so then said kieva
so he went up a hill and set up two forks on the top and while he was doing this he saw a scholar coming towards him whose clothes were tattered
and the sight amazed him good day to thee my lord said the scholar good greeting to thee scholar whence dost thou come from singing in england but wherefore dost thou ask
because for seven years no man hath visited this place i wander where i will answered the scholar and what work art thou upon i am about to hang a thief that i caught robbing me
what manner of thief is that inquired the scholar i see a creature in thy hand like upon a mouse and ill does it become a man of thy rank to touch a reptile like this let it go free i will not let it go free cried manawyddan
i caught it robbing me and it shall suffer the doom of a thief lord said the scholar sooner than see a man like thee at such a work i would give thee a pound which i have received as alms to let it go free i will not let it go free neither will i sell it
i am hanging a thief that i caught robbing me what manner of thief lord
lord said the priest sooner than see thee touch this reptile i would purchase its freedom i will neither sell it nor set it free it is true that a mouse is worth nothing
i will not take any price for it it shall be hanged as it deserves willingly my lord if it is thy pleasure and the priest went his way
yes that is the thief answered manawyddan
rather than see a man of thy rank touch it loose it and let it go i will not let it loose i will give thee four and twenty pounds to set it free said the bishop i will not set it free for as much again
if thou wilt not set it free for this i will give thee all the horses thou seest and the seven loads of baggage i will not set it free then tell me at what price thou wilt loose it and i will give it
the spell must be taken off rhiannon and pryderi said manawyddan that shall be done but not yet will i loose the mouse the charm that has been cast over all my lands must be taken off likewise this shall be done also
but not yet will i loose the mouse till i know who she is she is my wife
and it was i who threw the spell upon pryderi to avenge gwawl for the trick that had been played on him in the game of badger in the bag and not only was i wroth but my people likewise
they besought me much to change them into mice
the first and the second nights it was the men of my own house that destroyed thy two fields but on the third night my wife and her ladies came to me and begged me to change them also into the shape of mice that they might take part in avenging gwawl therefore i changed them
yet had she not been ill and slow of foot thou couldst not have overtaken her still since she was caught i will restore thee pryderi and rhiannon
and thou hast done wisely to ask it for on thy head would have lit all the trouble set now my wife free i will not set her free till pryderi and rhiannon are with me behold here they come said the bishop
then manawyddan held out his hands and greeted pryderi and rhiannon and they seated themselves joyfully on the grass ah lord hast thou not received all thou didst ask said the bishop set now my wife free
and as he did so the bishop struck her with his staff and she turned into a young woman the fairest that ever was seen look around upon thy land said he and thou wilt see it all tilled and peopled as it was long ago
and huts for the people to dwell in and he was satisfied in his soul
what spell didst thou lay upon pryderi and rhiannon pryderi has had the knockers of the gate of my palace hung about him and rhiannon has carried the collars of my asses around her neck said the bishop with a smile
chapter seventeen principal causes maintaining the democratic republic
principal causes which tend to maintain the democratic republic in the united states
and those on which i have dwelt most are as it were buried in the details of the former parts of this work
i cannot do better than collect within a small compass the reasons which best explain the present in this retrospective chapter i shall be succinct
of what he already knows and i shall only select the most prominent of those facts which i have not yet pointed out all the causes which contribute to the maintenance of the democratic republic in the united states are reducible to three heads one
the peculiar and accidental situation in which providence has placed the americans two the laws three the manners and customs of the people
avidity of the anglo americans in taking possession of the solitudes of the new world influence of physical prosperity upon the political opinions of the americans
but i shall confine myself to the most prominent amongst them the americans have no neighbors and consequently they have no great wars or financial crises or inroads or conquest to dread
they require neither great taxes nor great armies nor great generals
namely military glory it is impossible to deny the inconceivable influence which military glory exercises upon the spirit of a nation general jackson whom the americans have twice elected to the head of their government
is a man of a violent temper and mediocre talents no one circumstance in the whole course of his career ever proved that he is qualified to govern a free people and indeed the majority of the enlightened classes of the union has always been opposed to him
but he was raised to the presidency and has been maintained in that lofty station solely by the recollection of a victory which he gained twenty years ago under the walls of new orleans a victory which was however a very ordinary achievement
and which could only be remembered in a country where battles are rare now the people which is thus carried away by the illusions of glory is unquestionably the most cold and calculating the most unmilitary if i may use the expression
when i reflect upon the consequences of this primary circumstance methinks i see the destiny of america embodied in the first puritan who landed on those shores just as the human race was represented by the first man
the chief circumstance which has favored the establishment and the maintenance of a democratic republic in the united states is the nature of the territory which the american inhabit their ancestors gave them the love of equality and of freedom
but more particularly of a democratic constitution which depends upon the dispositions of the majority and more particularly of that portion of the community which is most exposed to feel the pressure of want
and misery is apt to stimulate it to those excesses to which ambition rouses kings
the physical causes independent of the laws which contribute to promote general prosperity are more numerous in america than they have ever been in any other country in the world at any other period of history
which they were obliged to subjugate before they could flourish in their place even the moderns have found in some parts of south america
but which occupied and cultivated the soil to found their new states it was necessary to extirpate or to subdue a numerous population until civilization has been made to blush for their success but north america was only inhabited by wandering tribes
who took no thought of the natural riches of the soil and that vast country was still properly speaking an empty continent a desert land awaiting its inhabitants everything is extraordinary in america
but the soil upon which these institutions are founded is more extraordinary than all the rest when man was first placed upon the earth by the creator the earth was inexhaustible in its youth but man was weak and ignorant
hosts of his fellow creatures covered its surface and he was obliged to earn an asylum for repose and for freedom by the sword at that same period north america was discovered as if it had been kept in reserve by the deity and had just risen from beneath the waters of the deluge
that continent still presents as it did in the primeval time rivers which rise from never failing sources green and moist solitudes and fields which the ploughshare of the husbandman has never turned
in this state it is offered to man not in the barbarous and isolated condition of the early ages but to a being who is already in possession of the most potent secrets of the natural world
at this very time thirteen millions of civilized europeans are peaceably spreading over those fertile plains with whose resources and whose extent they are not yet themselves accurately acquainted
three or four thousand soldiers drive the wandering races of the aborigines before them these are followed by the pioneers who pierce the woods scare off the beasts of prey explore the courses of the inland streams
and make ready the triumphal procession of civilization across the waste the favorable influence of the temporal prosperity of america upon the institutions of that country has been so often described by others and adverted to by myself
whilst the american population increases and multiplies upon the soil which its forefathers tilled the european settler however
in order to subsist he is obliged to work for hire and he rarely proceeds beyond that belt of industrious population which adjoins the ocean
he becomes a workman in easy circumstances his son goes to seek his fortune in unpeopled regions and he becomes a rich landowner
thus furnished one eighth of the whole body of representatives the states of connecticut however only sends five delegates to congress and the thirty one others sit for the new western states
they would have remained humble laborers that they would have lived in obscurity without being able to rise into public life and that far from becoming useful members of the legislature they might have been unruly citizens
these reflections do not escape the observation of the americans any more than of ourselves it cannot be doubted says chancellor kent in his treatise on american law that the division of landed estates must produce great evils when it is carried to such excess
as that each parcel of land is insufficient to support a family
the extent of our inhabited territory the abundance of adjacent land and the continual stream of emigration flowing from the shores of the atlantic towards the interior of the country suffice as yet and will long suffice to prevent the parcelling out of estates
it is difficult to describe the rapacity with which the american rushes forward to secure the immense booty which fortune proffers to him
and he was afraid of finding no room for his exertions i have spoken of the emigration from the older states but how shall i describe that which takes place from the more recent ones fifty years have scarcely elapsed since that of ohio was founded
these men left their first country to improve their condition they quit their resting place to ameliorate it still more fortune awaits them everywhere but happiness they cannot attain
as much as for the gain it procures sometimes the progress of man is so rapid that the desert reappears behind him the woods stoop to give him a passage and spring up again when he has passed
it is not uncommon in crossing the new states of the west to meet with deserted dwellings in the midst of the wilds the traveller frequently discovers the vestiges of a log house in the most solitary retreats which bear witness to the power and no less to the inconstancy of man
in these abandoned fields and over these ruins of a day the primeval forest soon scatters a fresh vegetation
and nature covers the traces of man's path with branches and with flowers which obliterate his evanescent track
i reached the shores of a lake embosomed in forests coeval with the world a small island covered with woods whose thick foliage concealed its banks rose from the centre of the waters
upon the shores of the lake no object attested the presence of man except a column of smoke which might be seen on the horizon rising from the tops of the trees to the clouds and seeming to hang from heaven rather than to be mounting to the sky
but when i reached the centre of the isle i thought that i discovered some traces of man i then proceeded to examine the surrounding objects with care and i soon perceived that a european had undoubtedly been led to seek a refuge in this retreat
in the midst of these shrubs a few stones were to be seen blackened with fire and sprinkled with thin ashes
i stood for some time in silent admiration of the exuberance of nature and the littleness of man and when i was obliged to leave that enchanting solitude i exclaimed with melancholy are ruins then already here
and would soon be subject to wants like those of the old world which it is difficult to satisfy for such is the present good fortune of the new world that the vices of its inhabitants are scarcely less favorable to society than their virtues
the americans frequently term what we should call cupidity a laudable industry and they blame as faint heartedness what we consider to be the virtue of moderate desires
in france simple tastes orderly manners domestic affections and the attachments which men feel to the place of their birth are looked upon as great guarantees of the tranquillity and happiness of the state
but in america nothing seems to be more prejudicial to society than these virtues the french canadians who have faithfully preserved the traditions of their pristine manners are already embarrassed for room upon their small territory
and this little community which has so recently begun to exist will shortly be a prey to the calamities incident to old nations in canada the most enlightened patriotic and humane inhabitants make extraordinary efforts to render the people dissatisfied
there the seductions of wealth are vaunted with as much zeal as the charms of an honest but limited income in the old world and more exertions are made to excite the passions of the citizens there than to calm them elsewhere
if we listen to their eulogies we shall hear that nothing is more praiseworthy than to exchange the pure and homely pleasures
to leave the patrimonial hearth and the turf beneath which his forefathers sleep in short to abandon the living and the dead in quest of fortune
at the present time america presents a field for human effort far more extensive than any sum of labor which can be applied to work it in america too much knowledge cannot be diffused
for all knowledge whilst it may serve him who possesses it turns also to the advantage of those who are without it new wants are not to be feared since they can be satisfied without difficulty the growth of human passions need not be dreaded
since all passions may find an easy and a legitimate object nor can men be put in possession of too much freedom since they are scarcely ever tempted to misuse their liberties
the passions which agitate the americans most deeply are not their political but their commercial passions or to speak more correctly they introduce the habits they contract in business into their political life they love order without which affairs do not prosper
and they set an especial value upon a regular conduct which is the foundation of a solid business
general ideas alarm their minds which are accustomed to positive calculations and they hold practice in more honor than theory
it is in america that one learns to understand the influence which physical prosperity exercises over political actions and even over opinions which ought to acknowledge no sway but that of reason
and it is more especially amongst strangers that this truth is perceptible most of the european emigrants to the new world carry with them that wild love of independence and of change which our calamities are so apt to engender
they all astonished me by the language they held but one of them surprised me more than all the rest as i was crossing one of the most remote districts of pennsylvania i was benighted and obliged to beg for hospitality at the gate of a wealthy planter
who was a frenchman by birth he bade me sit down beside his fire and we began to talk with that freedom which befits persons who meet in the backwoods two thousand leagues from their native country i was aware that my host had been a great leveller
i listened and marvelled at the feebleness of human reason a proposition is true or false but no art can prove it to be one or the other
until a new incident disperses the clouds of doubt i was poor i become rich and i am not to expect that prosperity will act upon my conduct and leave my judgment free
the return of marian devereux sister theresa has left sir bates had been into annandale to mail some letters and i was staring out upon the park from the library windows when he entered
stoddard having kept watch the night before was at home asleep and larry was off somewhere in the house treasure hunting i was feeling decidedly discouraged over our failure to make any progress with our investigations and bates news did not interest me
well what of it i demanded without turning round nothing sir but miss devereux has come back the devil i turned and took a step toward the door
miss devereux quite takes charge when the sister goes away a few of the students are staying in school through the holidays you seem full of information i remarked taking another step toward my hat and coat
well they all came together sir who came if you please bates
and wishes quiet the other people went back to new york in the car
i had been blue enough without this news marian devereux had come back to annandale with arthur pickering my faith in her snapped like a reed at this astounding news
it was a black record and the thought of it angered me against myself and the world tell mister donovan that ive gone to saint agathas i said and i was soon striding toward the school a sister admitted me i heard the sound of a piano somewhere in the building
and i consigned the inventor of pianos to hideous torment as scales were pursued endlessly up and down the keys two girls passing through the hall made a pretext of looking for a book and came in and exclaimed over their inability to find it with much suppressed giggling
the piano pounding continued and i waited for what seemed an interminable time it was growing dark and a maid lighted the oil lamps i took a book from the table it was the life of benvenuto cellini
by unmistakably the same hand that penned the apology for olivias performances i saw in the clear flowing lines of the signature in their lack of superfluity her own ease grace and charm
and i dropped the book impatiently when i heard her step on the threshold i am sorry to have kept you waiting mister glenarm but this is my busy hour i shall not detain you long i came i hesitated not knowing why i had come
she took a chair near the open door and bent forward with an air of attention that was disquieting she wore blackperhaps to fit her the better into the house of a somber sisterhood i seemed suddenly to remember her from a time long gone and the effort of memory threw me off guard
stoddard had said there were several olivia armstrongs there were certainly many marian devereuxs the silence grew intolerable she was waiting for me to speak and i blurted
do you she asked and you came back with the executor to facilitate matters
oh she said lingeringly as though she were finding with difficulty the note in which i wished to pitch the conversation her calmness was maddening i suppose you thought it unwise to wait for the bluebird when you had beguiled me into breaking a promise
when i was trapped defeated her elbow on the arm of the chair her hand resting against her check the light rippling goldenly in her hair her eyes bent upon me inquiringly mournfully mournfully as i had seen themwhere
once before my heart leaped in that moment with that thought i remember now the first time i exclaimed more angry than i had ever been before in my life that is quite remarkable she said and nodded her head ironically
it was at sherrys you were with pickeringyou
and you turned toward me for a moment you were in black that night it was the unhappiness in your face in your eyes that made me remember i was intent upon the recollection eager to fix and establish it you are quite right it was at sherrys
i was wearing black then many things made me unhappy that night her forehead contracted slightly and she pressed her lips together i suppose that even then the conspiracy was thoroughly arranged i said tauntingly laughing a little perhaps
and wishing to wound her to take vengeance upon her she rose and stood by her chair one hand resting upon it i faced her her eyes were like violet seas she spoke very quietly
mister glenarm has it occurred to you that when i talked to you there in the park
that i was counting upon something foolishly and stupidly yet counting upon it you probably thought i was a fool i retorted no she smiled slightly i thought i believe i have said this to you before you were a gentleman
i really did mister glenarm i must say it to justify myself i relied upon your chivalry i even thought when i played being olivia that you had a sense of honor but you are not the one and you havent the other i even went so far after you knew perfectly well who i was
and now you come to me in a shocking bad humor i really think you would like to be insulting mister glenarm if you could but pickering you came back with him
i fancy it would not be very difficult to eliminate you as a factor in the situation she remarked icily and i suppose after the unsuccessful efforts of mister pickerings allies to assassinate me
as a mild form of elimination one would naturally expect me to sit calmly down and wait to be shot in the back but you may tell mister pickering that i throw myself upon your mercy i have no other home than this shell over the way
and i beg to be allowed to remain untilat leastthe bluebirds come i hope it will not embarrass you to deliver the message i quite sympathize with your reluctance to deliver it yourself she said is this all you came to say
i came to tell you that you could have the house and everything in its hideous walls i snapped
i had accepted your own renouncement of the legacy in good part but now please believe me it shall be yours to morrow ill yield possession to you whenever you ask it but never to arthur pickering as against him and his treasure hunters and assassins i will hold out for a dozen years
i blurted i shouldnt call that a debatable proposition
could suddenly become so hateful she half turned away so that i might not see her face the thought that she should countenance pickering in any way tore me with jealous rage mister glenarm you are what i have heard called a quitter defined in common americanese
as one who quits your blustering here this afternoon can hardly conceal the fact of your failure your inability to keep a promise i had hoped you would really be of some help to sister theresa
she told me as she left to day that she thought well of you she really felt that her fortunes were safe in your hands but of course that is all a matter of past history now her tone changing from cold indifference to the most severe disdain
stung me into self pity for my stupidity in having sought her my anger was not against her but against pickering who had i persuaded myself always blocked my path she went on you really amuse me exceedingly
mister pickering is decidedly more than a match for you mister glenarm even in humor she left me so quickly so softly that i stood staring like a fool at the spot where she had been and then i went gloomily back to glenarm house angry ashamed and crestfallen
while we were waiting for dinner i made a clean breast of my acquaintance with her to larry omitting nothing rejoicing even to paint my own conduct as black as possible you may remember her i concluded she was the girl we saw at sherrys that night we dined there
she was with pickering and you noticed her spoke of her as she went out that little girl who seemed so bored or tired bless me
stop i bawled do you think thats helping me
dont be violent lad violence is reprehensible he admonished with maddening sweetness and patience
a good deal of a damned fool
pickering serves notice the next morning bates placed a letter postmarked cincinnati at my plate i opened and read it aloud to larry on board the heloise december twenty fifth nineteen o one
very truly yours arthur pickering executor of the estate of john marshall glenarm very truly the devils growled larry snapping his cigarette case viciously how did he find out i asked lamely but my heart sank like lead
had marian devereux told him how else could he know probably from the stars the whole universe undoubtedly saw you skipping off to meet your lady love bah these women tut they dont all marry the sons of brewers i retorted
you assured me once while your affair with that irish girl was on
take that for your impertinence but perhaps it was bates i did not wait for an answer i was not in a mood for reflection or nice distinctions the man came in just then with a fresh plate of toast
i have a letter from mister pickering myself this morning just a moment sir he placed before me a note bearing the same date as my own it was a sharp rebuke of bates for his failure to report my absence and he was ordered to prepare to leave on the first of february
he was carrying away the coffee tray and his eyes wandered to the windows not quite sir you see but i dont see it had occurred to me that as mister pickerings allowance wasnt what you might call generous
it was better to augment it
your grandfather would not have had you starve sir he left hurriedly as though to escape from the consequences of his words and when i came to myself larry was gloomily invoking his strange irish gods
larry donovan ive been tempted to kill that fellow a dozen times this thing is too damned complicated for me i wish my lamented grandfather had left me something easy to think of itthat fellow after my treatment of himmy
ive been enjoying his bounty ive been living on his money
dog like devotion to my grandfathers memory lord i cant face the fellow again as i have said before youre rather lacking at times in perspicacity your intelligence is marred by large opaque spots now that theres a woman in the case youre less sane than ever
bah these women and now weve got to go to work bah these women my own heart caught the words i was enraged and bitter
of course said the broad shouldered chaplain if you could show that your absence was on business of very grave importance the courts might construe in that you had not really violated the will larry looked at the ceiling and blew rings of smoke languidly
i had not disclosed to either of them the cause of my absence on such a matter i knew i should get precious little sympathy from larry and i had moreover a feeling that i could not discuss marian devereux with any one
i even shrank from mentioning her name though it rang like the call of bugles in my blood she was always before me the charmed spirit of youth linked to every foot of the earth every gleam of the sun upon the ice bound lake every glory of the winter sunset
all the good impulses i had ever stifled were quickened to life by the thought of her amid the days perplexities i started sometimes thinking i heard her voice her girlish laughter or saw her again coming toward me down the stairs or holding against the light
her fan with its golden butterflies i really knew so little of her i could associate her with no home only with that last fling of the autumn upon the lake the snow driven woodland that twilight hour at the organ in the chapel those stolen moments at the armstrongs
i resented the pressure of the hours affairs and chafed at the necessity for talking of my perplexities with the good friends who were there to help i wished to be alone to yield to the sweet mood that the thought of her brought me
the doubt that crept through my mind as to any possibility of connivance between her and pickering was as vague and fleeting as the shadow of a swallows wing on a sunny meadow you dont intend fighting the fact of your absence do you demanded larry after a long silence
of course not i replied quietly pickering was right on my heels and my absence was known to his men here and it would not be square to my grandfather who never harmed a flea may his soul rest in blessed peace to lie about it they might nail me for perjury besides
and as you dont trust the executor any further than a true irishman trusts a british prime ministers promise
thats as near one of my ideas as youre likely to get larry donovan and if he comes with the authorities the sheriff and that sort of thing we must prepare for such an emergency interposed the chaplain so much the worse for the sheriff and the rest of them
ive tried being hungry and i dont care to repeat the experience and larry reached for the tobacco jar i cant imagine i really cant believe began the chaplain
i suppose theres no way of preventing a man from leaving his property to a young woman who has no claim on him who doesnt want anything from him
then his eyes widened and met mine in a gaze that reflected the mystification and wonder that struck both of us stoddard turned from the fire suddenly whats that theres some one up stairs
larry was already running toward the hall and i heard him springing up the steps like a cat while stoddard and i followed wheres bates demanded the chaplain
we could hear quite distinctly some one walking on a stairway the sounds were unmistakable just as i had heard them on several previous occasions without ever being able to trace their source the noise ceased suddenly leaving us with no hint of its whereabouts
i went directly to the rear of the house and found bates putting the dishes away in the pantry where have you been i demanded
is there anything the matter sir nothing i joined the others in the library why didnt you tell me this feudal imitation was haunted asked larry in a grieved tone
how often does it walk its not on a schedule just now its the wind in the tower probably the wind plays queer pranks up there sometimes youll have to do better than that glenarm said stoddard its as still outside as a country graveyard
the people of the faery hills the cheerfulest ghosts in the world said larry you literal saxons cant grasp the idea of course but there was substance enough in our dangers without pursuing shadows certain things were planned that night
we determined to exercise every precaution to prevent a surprise from without and we resolved upon a new and systematic sounding of walls and floors taking our clue from the efforts made by morgan and his ally to find hiding places by this process pickering would undoubtedly arrive shortly
and we wished to anticipate his movements as far as possible we resolved too upon a day patrol of the grounds and a night guard the suggestion came i believe from stoddard whose interest in my affairs was only equaled by the fertility of his suggestions
one of us should remain abroad at night ready to sound the alarm in case of attack bates should take his turn with the rest stoddard insisted on it within two days we were as larry expressed it on a war footing we added a couple of shot guns and several revolvers to my own arsenal
and piled the library table with cartridge boxes bates acting as quarter master brought a couple of wagon loads of provisions stoddard assembled a remarkable collection of heavy sticks he had more confidence in them he said than in gunpowder
it was a cheerful company of conspirators that now gathered around the big hearth larry always restless preferred to stand at one side an elbow on the mantel shelf pipe in mouth and stoddard sought the biggest chair and filled it
he and larry understood each other at once and larrys stories ranging in subject from undergraduate experiences at dublin to adventures in africa and always including endless conflicts with the irish constabulary delighted the big boyish clergyman
a string of gold beads a moment later bates entered with a fresh supply of wood i watched him narrowly for some sign of perturbation but he was not to be caught off guard
i wish youd see if it belongs to the house he examined the implement with care and shook his head
but we sometimes find tools left by the carpenters that worked on the house shall i put this in the tool chest sir never mind i need such a thing now and then and ill keep it handy very good mister glenarm
its a bit sharper to night but were likely to have sudden changes at this season i dare say we were not getting anywhere the fellow was certainly an incomparable actor you must find it pretty lonely here bates
dont hesitate to go to the village when you like i thank you mister glenarm but i am not much for idling i keep a few books by me for the evenings annandale is not what you would exactly call a diverting village
i fancy not but the caretaker over at the summer resort has even a lonelier time i suppose thats what id call a pretty cheerless job watching summer cottages in the winter thats morgan sir
i meet him occasionally when i go to the village a very worthy person i should call him on slight acquaintance no doubt of it bates any time through the winter you want to have him in for a social glass its all right with me
he met my gaze without flinching and lighted me to the stair with our established ceremony i voted him an interesting knave and really admired the cool way in which he carried off difficult situations i had no intention of being killed
and now that i had due warning of danger i resolved to protect myself from foes without and within both bates and morgan the caretaker were liars of high attainment morgan was moreover a cheerful scoundrel and experience taught me long ago
that a knave with humor is doubly dangerous before going to bed i wrote a long letter to larry donovan giving him a full account of my arrival at glenarm house the thought of larry always cheered me and as the pages slipped from my pen i could feel his sympathy
and hear him chuckling over the lively beginning of my year at glenarm the idea of being fired upon by an unseen foe would i knew give larry a real lift of the spirit the next morning i walked into the village mailed my letter
and when i was a few yards past them they laughed at a remark by one of the number which i could not overhear but i am not a particularly sensitive person i did not care what my hoosier neighbors said of me
all i asked was that they should refrain from shooting at the back of my head through the windows of my own house on this day i really began to work i mapped out a course of reading set up a draftsmans table i found put away in a closet
and convinced myself that i was beginning a year of devotion to architecture such was i felt the only honest course i should work every day from eight until one and my leisure i should give to recreation
and a search for the motives that lay behind the crafts and assaults of my enemies when i plunged into the wood in the middle of the afternoon it was with the definite purpose of returning to the upper end of the lake for an interview with morgan
more particularly i may as well admit for a certain maroon colored canoe and a girl in a red tam o shanter but lake and summer cottages were mine alone i landed and began at once my search for morgan
there were many paths through the woods back of the cottages and i followed several futilely before i at last found a small house snugly bid away in a thicket of young maples the man i was looking for came to the door quickly in response to my knock
good afternoon morgan good afternoon mister glenarm he said taking the pipe from his mouth the better to grin at me he showed no sign of surprise and i was nettled by his cool reception
there was perhaps a certain element of recklessness in my visit to the house of a man who had shown so singular an interest in my affairs and his cool greeting vexed me morgan i began wont you come in and rest yourself mister glenarm he interrupted
i reckon youre tired from your trip over thank you no i snapped suit yourself mister glenarm he seemed to like my name and gave it a disagreeable drawling emphasis morgan you are an infernal blackguard
he lifted the gray fedora hat from his head and poked his finger through a hole in the top youre a pretty fair shot mister glenarm the fact about me is and he winked the honest truth is
why sir when i saw you paddling out on the lake this afternoon i sighted you from the casino half a dozen times with my gun but i was afraid to risk it he seemed to be shaken with inner mirth
for a novel diversion i heartily recommend a meeting with the assassin who has only a few days or hours before tried to murder you i know of nothing in the way of social adventure that is quite equal to it morgan was a fellow of intelligence
and whatever lay back of his designs against me he was clearly a foe to reckon with he stood in the doorway calmly awaiting my next move i struck a match on my box and lighted a cigarette morgan
youre not quite the man your grandfather was mister glenarm youll excuse my bluntness but i take it that youre a frank man
he chuckled with evident satisfaction to himself
there you have it morgan i fully agree with you
you seem like a pretty decent fellow too and im sorry i didnt see you sooner but better luck next time he stroked his yellow beard reflectively and shook his head a little sadly he was not a bad looking fellow and he expressed himself well enough with a broad western accent
well i said seeing that i should only make myself ridiculous by trying to learn anything from him i hope our little spats through windows and on walls wont interfere with our pleasant social relations and i dont hesitate to tell you
i was exerting myself to keep down my anger that if i catch you on my grounds again
and sink you in the lake thank you sir he said with so perfect an imitation of bates voice and manner that i smiled in spite of myself and now if youll promise not to fire into my back ill wish you good day otherwise
he snatched off his hat and bowed profoundly itll suit me much better to continue handling the case on your grounds he said as though he referred to a business matter killing a man on your own property requires some explainingyou
yes i commit most of my murders away from home i said i formed the habit early in life good day morgan as i turned away he closed his door with a slam
a delicate way of assuring me that he was acting in good faith and not preparing to puncture my back with a rifle ball i regained the lake shore feeling no great discouragement over the lean results of my interview but rather a fresh zest for the game whatever the game might be
the sun was going his ruddy way beyond saint agathas as i drove my canoe into a little cove near which the girl in the tam o shanter had disappeared the day before the shore was high here
and at the crest was a long curved bench of stone reached by half a dozen steps from which one might enjoy a wide view of the country both across the lake and directly inland
boldly reminiscential of alma tadema and as clearly the creation of john marshall glenarm as though his name had been carved upon it it was assuredly a spot for a pipe and a mood and as the shadows crept through the wood before me and the water stirred by the rising wind began to beat below
i invoked the one and yielded to the other something in the withered grass at my feet caught my eye i bent and picked up a string of gold beads dropped there no doubt by some girl from the school or a careless member of the summer colony
i counted the separate beadsthey were round and there were fifty of them the proper length for one turn about a girls throat perhaps not more than that i lifted my eyes and looked off toward saint agathas
and i admired even more the way you spurned me when you saw that among all the cads in the world i am number one in class a and these golden bubbles o girl of the red tam o shanter if they are not yours you shall help me find the owner for we are neighbors you and i
and there must be peace between our houses with this foolishness i rose thrust the beads into my pocket and paddled home in the waning glory of the sunset that night as i was going quite late to bed bearing a candle to light me through the dark hall to my room
i heard a curious sound as of some one walking stealthily through the house at first i thought bates was still abroad but i waited listening for several minutes without being able to mark the exact direction of the sound or to identify it with him i went on to the door of my room
and still a muffled step seemed to follow me first it had come from below then it was much like some one going up stairs but where in my own room i still heard steps light slow but distinct again there was a stumble
and a hurried recovery ghosts i reflected do not fall down stairs
chapter nineteen lord chiltern rides his horse bonebreaker
it was decided that an independent motion should be brought on in anticipation of mister mildmay's bill the arrangement was probably one of mister mildmay's own making so that he might be hampered by no opposition on that subject by his own followers if as he did not doubt
the motion should be lost it was expected that the debate would not last over one night
he had very strong opinions as to the inefficacy of the ballot for any good purposes
but even at breakfast that morning his heart began to beat quickly at the idea of having to stand on his legs before so critical an audience
and did not even tell mister low that it was his intention to speak on that day
he had not seen her brother but had learned from his sister that he had been driven up to london by the frost
he was thus driven to speak and felt himself called upon to explain why he was there i am come to see lord chiltern he said is lord chiltern in the house said the earl turning to the servant yes my lord his lordship arrived last night
you will find him upstairs i suppose said the earl for myself i know nothing of him
and turned his back quickly upon phineas but he thought better of it before he reached the front door and turned again by the bye said he what majority shall we have to night finn pretty nearly as many as you please to name my lord said phineas
well yes i suppose we are tolerably safe you ought to speak upon it perhaps i may said phineas feeling that he blushed as he spoke do said the earl do if you see lord chiltern will you tell him from me that i should be glad to see him before he leaves london
phineas much astonished at the commission given to him of course said that he would do as he was desired and then passed on to lord chiltern's apartments he found his friend standing in the middle of the room without coat and waistcoat with a pair of dumb bells in his hands
when there's no hunting i'm driven to this kind of thing said lord chiltern i suppose it's good exercise said phineas and it gives me something to do when i'm in london i feel like a gipsy in church till the time comes for prowling out at night
i've no occupation for my days whatever and no place to which i can take myself i can't stand in a club window as some men do and i should disgrace any decent club if i did stand there i belong to the travellers but i doubt whether the porter would let me go in
i think you pique yourself on being more of an outer bohemian than you are said phineas i pique myself on this that whether bohemian or not i will go nowhere that i am not wanted though for the matter of that i suppose i'm not wanted here
then phineas gave him the message from his father he wishes to see me to morrow morning continued lord chiltern let him send me word what it is he has to say to me i do not choose to be insulted by him though he is my father i would certainly go if i were you
i doubt it very much if all the circumstances were the same let him tell me what he wants of course i cannot ask him chiltern i know what he wants very well laura has been interfering and doing no good you know violet effingham
i did not say that but do you think that such a girl as miss effingham would marry such a man as i am
by george she would do you know that she has three thousand a year of her own i know that she has money that's about the tune of it i would take her without a shilling to morrow if she would have me
but what is the use of my liking her they have painted me so black among them especially my father that no decent girl would think of marrying me your father can't be angry with you if you do your best to comply with his wishes i don't care a straw whether he be angry or not
he allows me eight hundred a year and he knows that if he stopped it i should go to the jews the next day i could not help myself
lady laura can hardly want money now that detestable prig whom she has chosen to marry and whom i hate with all my heart is richer than ever croesus was but nevertheless laura ought to have her own money she shall have it some day i would see lord brentford if i were you
i will think about it now tell me about coming down to willingford
i can mount you for a couple of days and should be delighted to have you my horses all pull like the mischief
but an irishman likes that i do not dislike it particularly i like it
mind you come the house i stay at is called the willingford bull and it's just four miles from peterborough phineas swore that he would go down and ride the pulling horses and then took his leave earnestly advising lord chiltern as he went to keep the appointment proposed by his father
suddenly rang the bell tell the earl he said to the servant that i am here and will go to him if he wishes it the servant came back and said that the earl was waiting
i feel very unhappy about your sister's fortune said the earl so do i very unhappy we can raise the money between us and pay her to morrow if you please it
i told her that i would not pay them and were i
i should be stultifying myself but i will do so on one condition
what is that laura tells me
that you are attached to violet effingham but violet effingham my lord is unhappily not attached to me i do not know how that may be of course i cannot say
even you my lord could hardly have done that
i have asked her and she has refused me but girls often do that and yet accept afterwards the men whom they have refused laura tells me that she believes that violet would consent if you pressed your suit laura knows nothing about it my lord there you are probably wrong
laura and violet are very close friends and have no doubt discussed this matter between them at any rate it may be as well that you should hear what i have to say of course i shall not interfere myself there is no ground on which i can do so with propriety none whatever said lord chiltern
the earl became very angry and nearly broke down in his anger
but he gulped down his wrath and went on with his speech my meaning sir is this
that i would receive her acceptance of your hand as the only proof which would be convincing to me of amendment in your mode of life if she were to do so i would join with you in raising money to pay your sister would make some further sacrifice with reference to an income for you and your wife and
would make you both welcome to saulsby if you chose to come the earl's voice hesitated much and became almost tremulous as he made the last proposition and his eyes had fallen away from his son's gaze and he had bent a little over the table and was moved
but he recovered himself at once and added with all proper dignity if you have anything to say i shall be glad to hear it all your offers would be nothing my lord if i did not like the girl i should not ask you to marry a girl if you did not like her as you call it
but as to miss effingham it happens that our wishes jump together i have asked her and she has refused me i don't even know where to find her to ask her again if i went to lady baldock's house the servants would not let me in and whose fault is that yours partly my lord
and now all the old women believe it i never told anybody so i'll tell you what i'll do i will go down to lady baldock's to day i suppose she is at baddingham and if i can get speech of miss effingham miss effingham is not at baddingham
miss effingham is staying with your sister in grosvenor place i saw her yesterday she is in london i tell you that i saw her yesterday very well my lord then i will do the best i can laura will tell you of the result
the father would have given the son some advice as to the mode in which he should put forward his claim upon violet's hand but the son would not wait to hear it
if this thing was to be done it might as well be done at once he looked out of his window and saw that the streets were in a mess of slush white snow was becoming black mud
and the violence of frost was giving way to the horrors of thaw all would be soft and comparatively pleasant in northamptonshire on the following morning and if everything went right he would breakfast at the willingford bull he would go down by the hunting train
the meet was only six miles distant and all would be pleasant he would do this whatever might be the result of his work to day but in the meantime he would go and do his work
i hope not said violet do not say that but i do say it i hope he has not come to see me that is not to see me specially
if it be only that i will be civil in return as sweet as may to him
then they finished their lunch and lady laura got up and led the way to the drawing room i hope you remember said she gravely that you might be a saviour to him i do not believe in girls being saviours to men
if i marry at all i have the right to expect that protection shall be given to me not that i shall have to give it violet you are determined to misrepresent what i mean lord chiltern was walking about the room and did not sit down when they entered
the ordinary greetings took place and miss effingham made some remark about the frost
and i suppose that you will soon be at work again yes i shall hunt to morrow said lord chiltern and the next day and the next and the next said violet till about the middle of april and then your period of misery will begin
exactly said lord chiltern i have nothing but hunting that i can call an occupation why don't you make one said his sister
laura would you mind leaving me and miss effingham alone for a few minutes lady laura got up
for what purpose said the latter it cannot be for any good purpose
laura will you do as i ask you said the brother then lady laura went it was not that i feared you would harm me lord chiltern said violet no i know it was not but what i say is always said awkwardly
but when i was told the news i came at once my father told me i am so glad that you see your father i have not spoken to him for months before and probably may not speak to him for months again but there is one point violet on which he and i agree
i hope there will soon be many it is possible but i fear not probable look here violet and he looked at her with all his eyes till it seemed to her that he was all eyes so great was the intensity of his gaze
i should scorn myself were i to permit myself to come before you with a plea for your favour founded on my father's whims my father is unreasonable and has been very unjust to me he has ever believed evil of me
and has believed it often when all the world knew that he was wrong i care little for being reconciled to a father who has been so cruel to me he loves me dearly and is my friend i would rather that you should not speak against him to me
you will understand at least that i am asking nothing from you because he wishes it laura probably has told you that you may make things straight by becoming my wife she has certainly lord chiltern it is an argument that she should never have used
it is an argument to which you should not listen for a moment make things straight indeed who can tell
violet that is my plea and my only one i love you so well that i do believe that if you took me i should return to the old ways and become as other men are and be in time as respectable as stupid and perhaps
as ill natured as old lady baldock herself my poor aunt
as he spoke he came close to her and put out his hand but she did not touch it i have no other argument to use not a word more to say as i came here in the cab i was turning it over in my mind that i might find what best i should say
but after all there is nothing more to be said than that the words make no difference she replied not unless they be so uttered as to force a belief i do love you i know no other reason but that why you should be my wife
you are the one thing in the world that to me has any charm can you be surprised that i should be persistent in asking for it he was looking at her still with the same gaze and there seemed to be a power in his eye from which she could not escape
he was still standing with his right hand out as though expecting or at least hoping that her hand might be put into his how am i to answer you she said with your love if you can give it to me do you remember how you swore once that you would love me for ever and always
you should not remind me of that i was a child then a naughty child she added smiling and was put to bed for what i did on that day be a child still ah if we but could and have you no other answer to make me
of course i must answer you you are entitled to an answer lord chiltern i am sorry that i cannot give you the love for which you ask never never is it myself personally or what you have heard of me that is so hateful to you
nothing is hateful to me i have never spoken of hate i shall always feel the strongest regard for my old friend and playfellow but there are many things which a woman is bound to consider before she allows herself so to love a man that she can consent to become his wife
allow herself then it is a matter entirely of calculation i suppose there should be some thought in it lord chiltern there was now a pause and the man's hand was at last allowed to drop as there came no response to the proffered grasp
he walked once or twice across the room before he spoke again and then he stopped himself closely opposite to her i shall never try again he said it will be better so she replied
there is something to me unmanly in a man's persecuting a girl just tell laura will you that it is all over and she may as well tell my father good bye she then tendered her hand to him but he did not take it
probably did not see it and at once left the room and the house and yet i believe you love him lady laura said to her friend in her anger when they discussed the matter immediately on lord chiltern's departure you have no right to say that laura
is a woman bound to marry a man if she love him yes she is replied lady laura impetuously without thinking of what she was saying that is if she be convinced that she also is loved whatever be the man's character
whatever be the circumstances must she do so whatever friends may say to the contrary is there to be no prudence in marriage there may be a great deal too much prudence said lady laura that is true
there is certainly too much prudence if a woman marries prudently but without love violet intended by this no attack upon her friend had not had present in her mind at the moment any idea of lady laura's special prudence in marrying mister kennedy
but lady laura felt it keenly and knew at once that an arrow had been shot which had wounded her we shall get nothing she said by descending to personalities with each other
i suppose it is always hard said lady laura for any one person to judge altogether of the mind of another if i have said anything severe of your refusal of my brother i retract it i only wish that it could have been otherwise
lord chiltern when he left his sister's house walked through the slush and dirt to a haunt of his in the neighbourhood of covent garden and there he remained through the whole afternoon and evening a certain captain clutterbuck joined him and dined with him
he told nothing to captain clutterbuck of his sorrow but captain clutterbuck could see that he was unhappy let's have another bottle of cham said captain clutterbuck when their dinner was nearly over cham is the only thing to screw one up when one is down a peg
but i shall have some brandy and water the worst of brandy and water is that one gets tired of it before the night is over said captain clutterbuck nevertheless lord chiltern did go down to peterborough the next day by the hunting train
and rode his horse bonebreaker so well in that famous run from sutton springs to gidding that after the run young piles of the house of piles sarsnet and gingham offered him three hundred pounds for the animal he isn't worth above fifty said lord chiltern
but i'll give you the three hundred said piles you couldn't ride him if you'd got him said lord chiltern
doing business with a bank in opening your account with a bank it is proper that you should first be introduced to the cashier or some other official if you are engaged in business that officer will inquire as to your particular business or calling
your address et cetera and unless he is already satisfied on this point he may make inquiries as to your business standing this being satisfactory he will hand you a passbook and some deposit tickets
whereupon you make your first deposit entering the amount on the ticket you will then be asked to write your signature in a book provided for that purpose or upon a card to be filed away for reference the signature
if for instance your name is john henry smith
j henry smith john h smith or john henry smith but whatever form you adopt should be used all the time once having adopted the form it should be maintained in exactly that way
the only excuse for variation from your usual signature is when presenting checks or other paper made payable to you in that case supposing you had adopted the form j henry smith for your regular signature
and the check is made payable to john h smith you should first write on the back of that check john h smith and immediately under this you should place your regular signature depositing money when making a deposit
always use the deposit ticket provided by the bank filling it out yourself in ink from this ticket which is first checked up by the receiving teller the amount of your deposit is placed to your credit
no doubt he would be glad to accommodate you but to do so would violate a rule which protects both the bank and the depositor deposit tickets are preserved by the bank
and often serve to correct mistakes how to avoid mistakes consider for a moment the vast aggregate of bank transactions and you will see that perfect system on the part of the banks and bank officials
is required to insure accuracy and avoid mistakes sometimes the requirements of the banks may seem arbitrary and troublesome but reflection will show that they safeguard the depositor as well as the bank
the simple rules here laid down will enable anyone who has business with a bank to do so with the least trouble and with absolute safety how to make out a check
the stub of your check book will furnish a permanent memorandum and when the check is canceled and returned to you by the bank it is an indisputable evidence that the debt has been paid
or that the remittance has been made the making of a check is a simple matter but even the best business men
the hints here given and the facsimiles of checks printed in illustration will repay careful study illustration a check properly drawn
the name and amount are against the left side of their fields the first facsimile shows a check properly made it will be seen in the first place that this check is written very plainly
the writing of the amount commences as nearly as possible to the extreme left of the check the figures are written close together and there is no space between the first figure and the dollar mark
all erasures in checks should be avoided if you have made a mistake tear a blank check from the back of your check book and use that in place of the one spoiled some business men
allow their clerks to fill out checks on the typewriter this is ill advised for two reasons first it is much easier to alter a typewritten check than one filled in with a pen in the second place a teller
in passing on the genuineness of a check takes into consideration the character of the handwriting in the body of the check as well as in the signature the typewritten characters
never mail a check drawn to bearer remember that if your check is made payable to bearer or to john smith or bearer it may be cashed by anybody who happens to have it
unless it is for a large amount the paying teller of your bank will look only to see whether your signature is correct and that being right the bank cannot be held responsible if the check should have come into the wrong hands
a check drawn to order can be cashed only when the person to whose order it has been drawn has indorsed it by writing his or her name on the back and the bank will be responsible for the correctness of the indorsement
if you make your check payable say to william armstrong or order nobody but william armstrong or some one to whom he indorses the check can collect the amount and if through fraud or otherwise some one
not entitled to it gets the money which the check calls for the responsibility is not yours but the bank's it is for that reason that bankers and business men use such great care in accepting checks
illustration a check carelessly drawn the text and numbers for the amount is in the center of their fields leaving of space for extra text illustration
the same check raised the amount has been changed from one hundred
whom you do not know as responsible and you should not be surprised or angered if some one else should hesitate to take a check from you checks or drafts received by you should be deposited as soon as possible
should you receive a check for a considerable amount and have no convenient bank account you should go to the bank on which the check is drawn and have the cashier certify it by stamping accepted or certified
across the face over his signature that formality makes the paper as good as money so long as the bank accepting it is solvent it sometimes happens that a check drawn in good faith
by a responsible party is withheld so long by the person receiving it that there is no money to the account when the check is finally presented paying notes and acceptances
make your notes and accepted drafts
and early in the day if convenient
banks will not pay notes or drafts without instructions
banks usually notify all payers a few days beforehand when their paper matures but this is only courtesy on their part and not an obligation exchange
exchange means funds in other cities made available by bankers drafts on such places these drafts afford the safest and cheapest means for remitting money
drafts on new york are worth their face value practically all over the united states in settlement of accounts collections a draft is sometimes the most convenient form for collecting an account
the prevalence of the custom is due to the fact that most men will wait to be asked to pay a debt if a draft is a time draft
it is accepted by the person on whom it is drawn by writing his name and date across the face this makes it practically a note to be paid at maturity
notes or drafts that you desire to have collected for you by your bank should be left at the bank several days before they are due so as to give ample time to notify the payers borrowing
banks are always willing to loan their funds to responsible persons within reasonable limits that is what they exist for there is of course a limit to the amount a bank may loan
even on the best known security but the customer of the bank is entitled to and will receive the first consideration the customer should not hesitate when occasion requires to offer to the bank for discount
such paper as may come into his hands in the course of business if in his opinion the paper is good at the same time he should not be offended if his bank refuses to take it even without giving reasons
indorsing checks etc when depositing checks drafts et cetera see that they are dated properly and that the written amounts and figures correspond
the proper way to indorse a check or draft this also applies to notes and other negotiable paper is to write your name upon the back about one inch from the top the proper end may be determined in this way
as you read the check holding one end in each hand draw the right hand toward you and turn the check over the end which is then farthest from you is the top if however the check draft or note
has already been indorsed by another person you should write your name directly under the other indorsement even if that is on the wrong end if your own name on the face of the check draft or note is misspelled or has the wrong initials
but if the paper is clearly intended for you you should first write your name as it appears on the face and under it your regular signature you should indorse every check you deposit even though it be payable to bearer
mistakes in banking mister samuel woods a member of the american institute of bank clerks recently contributed to munsey's magazine an interesting article on the subject of
mistakes in banking from this we are permitted by the courtesy of the publishers of munsey's to reproduce two of the facsimiles shown one wrong word or figure or letter
the right thing in the wrong way or the wrong place the scratch of an eraser or the alteration of a word or any one of these things in the making or cashing of a check is liable to become as expensive
as a racing automobile the paying teller of a bank says mister woods must keep his eyes open for new dangers as well as old ones the cleverest crooks in the country are pitting their brains against his
after he has learned the proper guard for all the well known tricks and forgeries it is still possible that an entirely new combination may leave him minus cash and plus experience
but it is not the unique and novel swindle that is most dangerous either to a bank or an individual it is the simple ordinary mistake or the time worn trick that makes continuous trouble
apparently every new generation contains a number of dishonest people who lay the same traps and a number of careless people who fall into these traps in the same old way check raising made easy
one of the first lessons for instance that a depositor should learn before he is qualified to own a check book is to commence writing the amount as near as possible to the extreme left of the check
those who forget this are often reminded of it in a costly way some one raises their checks by writing another figure in front of the proper amount five hundred might be raised to twenty five hundred in this way
even by an unskilled forger the highest court has recently decided that a bank cannot be held responsible when it pays a raised check
if the maker of the check failed in the first place to write it out correctly the treasurer of the bath electric company of bath maine had written a check for one hundred dollars which was raised to eighty one hundred dollars and cashed
should lose the eight thousand dollars because of the gross carelessness in drawing up the check facsimiles showing the check as originally written and as it looked when paid are here reproduced
altered words and figures
this idea was first formulated by mister henry george in eighteen seventy nine and has grown steadily in favor single tax men assert as a fundamental principle that all men are equally entitled to the use of the earth
therefore no one should be allowed to hold valuable land without paying to the community the value of the privilege they hold that this is the only rightful source of public revenue and they would therefore abolish all taxation
local state and national except a tax upon the rental value of land exclusive of its improvements the revenue thus raised to be divided among local state and general governments
the single tax would not fall on all land but only on valuable land and on that in proportion to its value it would thus be a tax not on use or improvements but on ownership of land taking what would otherwise go to the landlord as owner
in accordance with the principle that all men are equally entitled to the use of the earth they would solve the transportation problem by public ownership and control of all highways including the roadbeds of railroads leaving their use equally free to all
the single tax system would they claim dispense with a horde of tax gatherers simplify government and greatly reduce its cost give us with all the world that absolute free trade which now exists between the states of the union
abolish all taxes on private issues of money take the weight of taxation from agricultural districts where land has little or no value apart from improvements and put it upon valuable land such as city lots and mineral deposits
it would call upon men to contribute for public expenses in proportion to the natural opportunities they monopolize and make it unprofitable for speculators to hold land unused or only partly used
thus opening to labor unlimited fields of employment solving the labor problem and abolishing involuntary poverty the mysteries of hypnotism
a compend of the general claims made by professional hypnotists animal magnetism is the nerve force of all human and animal bodies and is common to every person in a greater or less degree
it may be transmitted from one person to another the transmitting force is the concentrated effort of will power which sends the magnetic current through the nerves of the operator to the different parts of the body of his subject
it may be transmitted by and through the eyes as well as the finger tips
as well as to the mind the effect of this force upon the subject will depend very much upon the health mental capacity and general character of the operator
its action in general should be soothing and quieting upon the nervous system stimulating to the circulation of the blood the brain and other vital organs of the body of the subject it is the use and application of this power or force
that constitutes hypnotism magnetism is a quality that inheres in every human being and it may be cultivated like any other physical or mental force of which men and women are constituted
from the intelligent operator using it to overcome disease a patient experiences a soothing influence that causes a relaxation of the muscles followed by a pleasant drowsy feeling which soon terminates in refreshing sleep
on waking the patient feels rested all his troubles have vanished from consciousness
in the true hypnotic condition when a patient voluntarily submits to the operator any attempt to make suggestions against the interests of the patient can invariably be frustrated by the patient
self preservation is the first law of nature and some of the best known operators who have recorded their experiments assert that suggestions not in accord with the best interest of the patient could not be carried out
no one was ever induced to commit any crime under hypnosis that could not have been induced to do the same thing much easier without hypnosis the hypnotic state is a condition of mind
that extends from a comparatively wakeful state with slight drowsiness to complete somnambulism no two subjects as a rule ever presenting the same characteristics the operator to be successful
must have control of his own mind be in perfect health and have the ability to keep his mind concentrated upon the object he desires to accomplish with his subject how to care for a piano by william h damon
the most important thing in the preservation of a piano is to avoid atmospheric changes and extremes and sudden changes of temperature where the summer condition of the atmosphere is damp all precautions possible
should be taken to avoid an entirely dry condition in winter such as that given by steam or furnace heat in all cases should the air in the home contain moisture enough to permit a heavy frost on the windows in zero weather
the absence of frost under such conditions is positive proof of an entirely dry atmosphere and this is a piano's most dangerous enemy causing the sounding board to crack
shrinking up the bridges and consequently putting the piano seriously out of tune also causing an undue dryness in all the action parts and often a loosening of the glue joints thus producing clicks and rattles
to obviate this difficulty is by no means an easy task and will require considerable attention permit all the fresh air possible during winter being careful to keep the piano out of cold drafts as this will cause a
sudden contraction of the varnish
plants in the room are desirable and vessels of water of any kind will be of assistance the most potent means of avoiding extreme dryness is to place a single loaf bread pan half full of water
in the lower part of the piano taking out the lower panel and placing it on either side of the pedals inside
care being taken to remove the vessel as soon as the heat is discontinued in the spring in cases where stove heat is used these precautions are not necessary the action of a piano
like any other delicate piece of machinery should be carefully examined
the hammers need occasional and careful attention to preserve original tone quality and elasticity never allow the piano to be beaten or played hard upon this is ruinous to both the action and tuning
when not in use the music rack and top should be closed to exclude dust the keyboard need never be closed as the ivory needs both light and ventilation
and will eventually turn yellow unless left open the case demands careful treatment to preserve its beauty and polish never use anything other than a soft piece of cotton cloth or cheese cloth to dust it with
silk is not as soft as cotton and will scratch
and grit and gradually scours off the fine finish in dusting never use a feather duster nor rub the piano hard with anything the dust should be whipped off and not rubbed into the varnish
if the piano is dingy smoky or dirty looking it should be washed carefully with lukewarm water with a little ammonia in it to soften it never use soap
wipe over a small part at a time with the sponge following quickly
wrung out of the same water this will dry it immediately and leave it as beautiful and clean as new never use patent polishes if your piano needs polishing employ a competent polisher
to give it a hand rubbing friction polish the highest mountain on the globe is not as is generally supposed mt everest
on the isle of papua new guinea discovered by captain lawson in eighteen eighty one according to lawson
which is only twenty nine thousand and two feet above the level of the indian ocean transcriber's note the highest point in new guinea is puncak jaya
salt rising bread the real formula for making salt rising bread as set down by the daughter of governor stubbs of kansas
and by him communicated to theodore roosevelt is as follows according to the saturday evening post on the night before you contemplate this masterpiece of baking
scald this with new milk heated to the boiling point and mix to the thickness of mush this can be made in a cup wrap in a clean cloth and put in a warm place overnight
in the morning when all is ready take a one gallon stone jar and into this put one scant cupful of new milk add a level teaspoonful of salt and one of sugar
scald this with three cupfuls of water heated to the boiling point reduce to a temperature of one hundred and eight degrees with cold water using a milk thermometer to enable you to get exactly the right temperature
then add flour and mix to a good batter
and keep this water at a temperature of one hundred and eight degrees until the sponge rises it should rise at least an inch and a half when it has raised mix to a stiff dough make into loaves and put into pans
do not let the heat get out of the dough while working grease the loaves well on top and set your bread where it will be warm and rise after the loaves rise bake in a medium oven for one hour and ten minutes
when you take the loaves from the oven wrap them in a bread cloth a cure for love take twelve ounces of dislike one pound of resolution two grains of common sense two ounces of experience
a large sprig of time and three quarts of cooling water of consideration set them over a gentle fire of love sweeten it with sugar of forgetfulness skim it with the spoon of melancholy
put it in the bottom of your heart cork it with the cork of clean conscience let it remain and you will quickly find ease and be restored to your senses again
they had been days at dear interlaken
of which they never tired or resting on the benches under the plane and walnut trees opposite their hotel just sitting still to gaze their fill upon the jungfrau this was best of all so polly and jasper thought
and phronsie was content to pass hour after hour there by grandpapa's side and imagine all sorts of pretty pictures and stories in and about the snow clad heights of the majestic mountain and the throng of gaily dressed people sojourning in the big hotels
and the stream of tourists passed and repassed with many a curious glance at the stately white haired old gentleman and the little yellow haired girl by his side a perfect beauty exclaimed more than one matron with a sigh for her ugly girls by her side or left at home
she's stunning and no mistake many a connoisseur in feminine loveliness turned for a last look or passed again for the same purpose
that looks just like a little tent up there a little white tent doesn't it grandpapa dear yes phronsie said grandpapa happily just as he would have said yes phronsie if she had pointed out any other object in the snowy outline
and there's a cunning little place where you and i could creep into the tent said phronsie bending her neck like a meditative bird and i very much wish we could grandpapa dear we'd find it pretty cold in there said grandpapa and wish we were back here on this nice seat phronsie
what makes it so cold up there grandpapa when the sun shines asked phronsie suddenly say grandpapa what makes it oh it's so far up in the air answered old mister king don't you remember how cold it was up on the rigi
and that was about nine thousand feet lower oh grandpapa exclaimed phronsie in gentle surprise unable to compass such figures mister king's party had made one or two pleasant little journeys to the lauterbrunnen valley staying there and at muerren
but they came back to sit on the benches by the walnut and the plane trees in front of the matchless jungfrau and this is best of all said polly and so the days slipped by till one morning at the breakfast table missus selwyn said
tomorrow we must say good by my boy and i hey what exclaimed mister king setting his coffee cup down not very gently our vacation cannot be a very long one said tom's mother with a little smile
there are my father and my two daughters and my other boys in england
and you mean to say missus selwyn that you really must move on to morrow yes we really must she said decidedly but oh and her plain quiet face changed swiftly you cannot know how sorry we shall be to leave your party
in that case missus fisher old mister king looked down the table length to mamsie we must go too for i don't intend to lose sight of these nice travelling companions until i am obliged to tom's face was one big smile
oh goody exclaimed polly as if she were no older than phronsie jasper clapped tom's back instead of wasting words so we will all proceed to pack up without more ado after breakfast after all it is wiser to make the move now
for we are getting so that we want to take root in each place you just wait till you get to zermatt whispered polly to phronsie who under cover of the talk buzzing around the table had confided to her that she didn't want to leave her beautiful mountain
grandpapa is going to take us up to the gorner grat and there you can see another mountain oh so near he says it seems almost as if you could touch it and it's all covered with snow phronsie too is it as big as my mountain here asked phronsie
yes bigger a thousand feet or more answered polly glad that she had looked it up is it said phronsie every mountain is bigger isn't it polly
and has it a little white tent on the side just like my mountain here asked phronsie holding polly's arm as she turned off to catch the chatter of the others oh i suppose so answered polly carelessly
then she looked up and caught mamsie's eye and turned back quickly at any rate phronsie it's all peaked on the top oh almost as sharp as a needle and it seems to stick right into the blue sky and there are lots and lots of other mountains oh awfully high
and the sun shines up there a good deal and it's too perfectly lovely for anything phronsie pepper then i want to go decided phronsie i do so want to see that white needle polly well eat your breakfast said polly
because you know we all have ever so much to do to day to get off yes i will declared phronsie attacking her cold chicken and roll with great vigour it seems as if the whole world were at zermatt said the parson
looking out from the big piazza crowded with the hotel people out to the road in front with every imaginable tourist passing and repassing donkeys were being driven up either loaded down to their utmost with heavy bags and trunks
or else waiting to receive on their patient backs the heavier people phronsie never could see the poor animals without such distress coming in her face that every one in the party considered it his or her bounden duty to comfort and reassure her so this time it was tom's turn to do so
looking down into her troubled little face where he sat on the piazza railing swinging his long legs they like it those donkeys do do they asked phronsie doubtfully yes indeed said tom with a gusto as if he wished he were a donkey and in just that very spot
it gives them a chance to see things and to hear things too don't you know went on tom at his wits end to know how he was going to come out of his sentences
yet she sighed as she saw the extremely fat person just being hauled up to a position on a very small donkey's back you see if they don't like it said tom digging his knife savagely into the railing
they have a chance to kick up their heels and unsettle that heavy party o dear me exclaimed phronsie in great distress that would hurt the poor woman tom well it shows that the donkey likes it said tom with a laugh because he doesn't kick up his heels
and so ran on tom why we mustn't worry you and i if the donkey doesn't just think he made a fine diversion by pointing with his knife blade up to the slender spire of the matterhorn we're going up on a little jaunt to morrow
to look into that fellow's face phronsie got out of her chair to come and stand by his side i like that white needle she said with a gleeful smile polly said it was nice and i like it i should say it was declared tom with a bob of his head phronsie
he thrust his knife once more into the railing where it stuck fast don't begged phronsie her hand on his sleeve go up that big white needle tom no i won't it's safe to promise that he said grimly with a little laugh
good reason why because i can't the little mother wouldn't sleep nights just to think of it and i promised the granddaddy that i wouldn't so much as think of it and here i am breaking my word but i can't help it he twitched his knife out suddenly sprawled off from the railing
and took several hasty strides up and down the piazza well that's all right phronsie he said coming back to get astride the railing again this time he turned a cold shoulder on phronsie's white needle now to morrow we'll have no end of fun
and he launched forth on so many and so varied delights that phronsie's pleased little laugh rang out again and again bringing rest to many a wearied traveller tired with the sights sounds and scenes of a european journey
i wish we could stay at this nice place said phronsie the next morning poking her head out over the side of the car as it climbed off from the riffelalp station
you would want to stop at every place said polly from the seat in front with a gay little laugh and we never should get on at that rate but then i am just as bad she confessed so am i chimed in jasper dear me
how i wanted to get a chance to sketch some of those magnificent curves and rapids and falls in the visp river coming up
while adela began to bemoan that it was the best thing they had seen and the car whizzed them by so fast she couldn't do a thing o dear i got some snap shots but i don't believe they are good for anything said jasper just from the pure perversity of the thing
and don't bother with a camera anyway as if you expected any one to take up with such a piece of advice ejaculated jasper in high disdain say something better than that tom if you want to be heard oh i don't expect to be heard
or listened to in the slightest he said calmly anybody who will trot round with a kodak hanging to his neck by a villanous strap
while the rest shouted as he picked at the fern box thus hanging to tom
i know one is a kodak and the other is a fern box said jasper nodding i acknowledge they are different and they all burst out laughing again well at least said tom joining in the laugh you must acknowledge too
that i go off by myself and pick up my wild flowers and green things and i'm not bothering round focussing every living thing and pointing my little machine at every freak in nature that i see all right said jasper good naturedly but you have the strap round your neck all the same tom
and phronsie wanted to stay at the riffelberg just as much and old mister king was on the point of saying well we'll come up here for a few days phronsie when he remembered missus selwyn and her boy and how they must get on instead he cleared his throat and said
we shall see it after dinner child and phronsie smiled well contented but when she reached the corner grat station and took grandpapa's hand and began to ascend the bridle path to the hotel she couldn't contain herself and screamed right out
oh grandpapa i'd rather stay here it is beautiful isn't it echoed old mister king feeling twenty years younger since he started on his travels well well child i'm glad you like it looking down into her beaming little face
you are very much to be envied sir i can't help speaking to you and telling you so said a tall sober looking gentleman evidently an english curate off on his vacation as he caught up with him on the ascent where they had paused at one of the look offs
for having that child as company and those other young people you say the truth replied old mister king cordially from the depths of my heart i pity any one who hasn't some children to take along when going abroad but then they wouldn't be little peppers he added
under his breath as he bowed and turned back to the view there's dear monte rosa cried polly enthusiastically oh i just love her and there's castor and pollux said jasper
wait till we get to the mer de glace advised tom you can sit down in the middle of it and sketch away all you want to well i'm going to said adela with sudden determination i don't care you can all laugh if you want to
you can sketch us all suggested jasper for we shall have horrible old stockings on i sha'n't have horrible old stockings on said adela in a dudgeon sticking out her foot i wear just the same stockings that i do at home
at school in paris and they are quite nice oh i mean you'll have to put on coarse woollen ones that the peasant women knit on purpose we all shall have to do the same on over our shoes explained jasper
o dear me cried adela in dismay and i think we shall slip and slide a great deal worse with those things tied on our feet than to go without any said polly wrinkling up her brows at the idea
twouldn't be safe to go without them said jasper shaking his head unless we had nails driven in our shoes i'd much rather have the nails cried polly oh much rather jasper well
we'll see what father is going to let us do said jasper wasn't that fun snowballing just think in july cried polly craning her neck to look back down the path toward the riffelberg station did you pick up some of that snow asked adela
didn't we though exclaimed jasper i got quite a good bit in my fist my ball was such a little bit of a one mourned polly i scraped up all i could but it wasn't much well it did good execution said tom i got it in my eye
oh did it hurt you cried polly in distress running across the path to walk by his side not a bit said tom i tried to find some to pay you back and then we had to fly for the cars the plain quiet face under the english bonnet turned to missus fisher
as they walked up the path together i cannot begin to tell you what gratitude i am under to you said tom's mother and to all of you when i think of my father i am full of thankfulness when i look at my boy the goodness of god just overcomes me
in leading me to your party may i tell you of ourselves some time when a good opportunity offers for a quiet talk i'd like nothing better said mother fisher heartily if there is one person i like more than another who isn't of our family
or any of our home friends it's missus selwyn she had confided to the little doctor just a few days before she hasn't any nonsense about her if she is an earl's daughter earl's daughter sniffed the little doctor
trying to slip a collar button into a refractory binding dear me now that's gone no tisn't that's luck as the button rolled off into a corner of the bureau top
let me do that for you adoniram said mother fisher coming up to help him i guess you'll have to wife if it's done at all he answered resigning himself willingly to her hands the thing slips and slides like all possessed
well now i was going to say that i wouldn't hate a title so much if there was a grain of common sense went along with it and that missus selwyn just saves the whole lot of english nobility and makes em worth speaking to in my opinion
and after they had their dinner and were scattered in groups in the bright sunshine sitting on the wooden benches by the long tables or taking photographs or watching through the big glass some mountain climbers on one of the snowy spurs of the matterhorn
the good opportunity for a quiet talk came about now said mother fisher with a great satisfaction in her voice may we sit down here on this bench missus selwyn and have that talk tom's mother sat down well pleased and folding her hands in her lap
this earl's daughter mistress of a dozen languages as well as mistress of herself on all occasions began as simply and with as much directness as a child well you know my father let me tell you aside from the eccentricities
that are mere outside matters and easily explained if you understood the whole of his life a kinder man never lived nor a more reasonable one but it was a misfortune that he had to be left so much alone
as since my mother's death a dozen years ago has happened it pained me much a shadow passed over her brow but it was gone again and she smiled and her eyes regained their old placid look i live in australia with my husband
where my duty is putting the boys as fast as they were old enough and the little girls as well into english schools but tom has always been with my father at the vacations
as of course was natural for he is the eldest and though you might not believe it missus fisher my father was always passionately fond of the boy i do believe it said mother fisher quietly and she put her hand over the folded ones
missus selwyn unclasped hers soft and white to draw within them the toil worn one now that's comfortable she said with another little smile and here is where his eccentricity became the most dangerous to the peace of mind of our family
continued missus selwyn my father seemed never able to discover that he was doing the lad harm by all sorts of indulgence and familiarity with him a sort of hail fellow well met way that surprised me more than i can express
when i discovered it on my last return visit to my old home my father who never tolerated anything but respect from all of us who were accustomed to despotic government i can assure you was allowing tom well you were with him on the steamer
she broke off abruptly the placid look was gone again in a flash yes said mother fisher her black eyes full of sympathy don't let that trouble you dear missus selwyn tom was pure gold down underneath we saw that and the rest is past
ah the placid look came back as quickly that is my only comfort that you did for father told the whole not sparing himself now he sees things in the right light he says because your young people taught it to him
and he was cruelly disappointed because you couldn't come down to visit him in his home we couldn't said mother fisher in a sorry voice at seeing the other face i understand quite said tom's mother with a gentle pressure of the hand she held
and then the one pleasure he had was in picking out something for polly oh if the little red leather case had gone back to the poor old man ran through mother fisher's mind
i don't think his judgment was good missus fisher in the selection said missus selwyn a small pink spot coming on either cheek but he loves polly
and he was so good to think of it cried mother fisher
and as he couldn't be turned from it and his health is precarious if he is excited why there was nothing to be done about it and then he insisted that tom and i come off for a bit of a run on the continent the other children being with him and as my big boy
here a loving smile went all over the plain face making it absolutely beautiful had worried down deep in his heart over the past till i was more troubled than i can tell you why we came and then god was good for then we met you
oh missus fisher she drew her hands by a sudden movement away and put them on mother fisher's shoulders and then that british matron rarely demonstrative with her own children even leaned over and kissed polly's mother i can't see why it's so warm up here
said polly racing over to their bench followed by the others dear me it's fairly hot and she pulled off her jacket don't do that polly said her mother oh mamsie it's so very hot said polly
but she thrust her arms into the sleeves and pulled it on again i know but you've been running said missus fisher and have gotten all heated up well it's perfectly splendid to travel to places where we can run and race said polly in satisfaction
throwing herself down on the rocks the others all doing the same thing mister king and the parson and missus henderson found them and pretty soon the group was a big one well well we are all here together no where is missus gray
asked mister king presently she is resting in the hotel said mother fisher fast asleep i think by this time yes said adela she is i just peeked in on her and she hasn't moved where you tucked her up on the lounge
what makes it so very warm up here when we are all surrounded by snow you ask me a hard thing said old mister king well for one thing we are very near the italian border those peaks over there you know follow my walking stick as i point it
are in sunny italy well it is just like sunny italy up here said polly i think blinking and pulling her little cap over her eyes
chapter ten sir magnus mountjoy it was the peculiarity of florence mountjoy that she did not expect other people to be as good as herself it was not that she erected for herself a high standard
and had then told herself that she had no right to demand from others one so exalted she had erected nothing nor did she know that she attempted to live by grand rules she had no idea that she was better than anybody else
but it came to her naturally as the result of what had gone before
generous trusting and pure these may be regarded as feminine virtues and may be said to be sometimes tarnished by faults which are equally feminine unselfishness may become want of character generosity essentially unjust
confidence may be weak and purity insipid here it was that the strength of florence mountjoy asserted itself she knew well what was due to herself though she would not claim it she could trust to another
but in silence be quite sure of herself though pure herself she was rarely shocked by the ways of others and she was as true as a man pretends to be in figure form and face
she never demanded immediate homage by the sudden flash of her beauty but when her spell had once fallen on a man's spirit it was not often that he could escape from it quickly when she spoke a peculiar melody struck the hearer's ears
her voice was soft and low and sweet
but when she laughed it was like soft winds playing among countless silver bells there was something in her touch which to men was almost divine of this she was all unconscious
but was as chary with her fingers as though it seemed that she could ill spare her divinity in height she was a little above the common
but then it is known of them and momentarily seen that their grace is peculiar
and the result is there only too evident but florence seemed to have studied nothing the beholder felt that she must have been as graceful when playing with her doll in the nursery and it was the same with her beauty
there was no peculiarity of chiselled features had you taken her face and measured it by certain rules you would have found that her mouth was too large and her nose irregular
and in her complexion there was none of that pellucid clearness in which men ordinarily delight but her eyes were more than ordinarily bright and when she laughed there seemed to stream from them some heavenly delight
when she did laugh it was as though some spring had been opened from which ran for the time a stream of sweetest intimacy
you would feel that there was something also in yourself in that this should have been permitted
of the hue most common to men and women and had in them nothing that was peculiar but her hair was soft and smooth and ever well dressed and never redolent of peculiar odors it was simply florence mountjoy's hair
and that made it perfect in the eyes of her male friends generally she's not such a wonderful beauty after all once said of her a gentleman to whom it may be presumed that she had not taken the trouble to be peculiarly attractive
no said another no but by george i shouldn't like to have the altering of her it was thus that men generally felt in regard to florence mountjoy when they came to reckon her up they did not see how any change was to be made
for the better to florence as to most other girls the question of her future life had been a great trouble whom should she marry and whom should she decline to marry
to a girl when it is proposed to her suddenly to change everything in life to go altogether away and place herself under the custody of a new master to find for herself a new home new pursuits
new aspirations and a strange companion the change must be so complete as almost to frighten her by its awfulness and yet it has to be always thought of and generally done
but this change had been presented to florence in a manner more than ordinarily burdensome early in life when naturally she would not have begun to think seriously of marriage she had been told rather than asked to give herself
to her cousin mountjoy she was too firm of character to accede at once to deliver herself over body and soul to the tender mercies of one in truth unknown but she had been unable to interpose any reason that was valid
and had contented herself by demanding time since that there had been moments in which she had almost yielded mountjoy scarborough had been so represented to her that she had considered it to be almost a duty to yield
more than once the word had been all but spoken but the word had never been spoken she had been subjected to what might be called cruel pressure in season and out of season her mother had represented as a duty this marriage with her cousin
why should she not marry her cousin it must be understood that these questions had been asked before any of the terrible facts of captain scarborough's life had been made known to her because it may be said she did not love him
but in these days she had loved no man and was inclined to think so little of herself as to make her want of love no necessary bar to the accomplishment of the wish of others by degrees
and though she ever denied the imputation there came over her girl's heart a feeling very sad and very solemn but still all but accepted that so it must be then
but was almost sure that it was impossible for her to become the wife of mountjoy scarborough
and there was nothing in the personal manners of her cousin which seemed to justify her in declaring her abhorrence he was a dark handsome military looking man whose chief sin it was in the eyes of his cousin that he seemed to demand from her affection
worship and obedience
but she felt it and when it came to pass that tidings of his debts at last reached her she felt that she was glad of an excuse though she knew that the excuse would not have prevailed with her had she liked him then came his debts
and with the knowledge of them a keener perception of his imperiousness she could consent to become the wife of the man who had squandered his property and wasted his estate but not of one who before his marriage demanded of her that submission which
as she thought should be given by her freely after her marriage
she knew that he adored her but yet he did not hasten to tell her so she knew that she loved him but she doubted whether a time would ever come in which she could confess it it was not
till he had come to acknowledge the trouble to which mountjoy had subjected him that he had ever ventured to speak plainly of his own passion and even then he had not asked for a reply she was still free as she thought of all this
but she did at last tell herself that let her mother say what she would she certainly never would stand at the altar with her cousin mountjoy even now when the captain had been declared not to be his father's heir
and when all the world knew that he had disappeared from the face of the earth missus mountjoy did not altogether give him up she partly disbelieved her brother and partly thought that circumstances could not be so bad as they were described
to her feminine mind to her living not in the world of london but in the very moderate fashion of cheltenham it seemed to be impossible that an entail should be thus blighted in the bud
why was an entail called an entail unless it were ineradicable a decision of fate rather than of man and of law and to her eyes
mountjoy scarborough was so commanding that all things must at last be compelled to go as he would have them and to tell the truth there had lately come to missus mountjoy a word of comfort which might be necessary
with the wicked skill of her brother which even in that case might make crooked things smooth augustus whom she had regarded always as quite a mountjoy because of his talent and appearance and habit of command had whispered to her a word
why should not florence be transferred with the remainder of the property there was something to missus mountjoy's feelings base in the idea at the first blush of it she did not like to be untrue to her gallant nephew
but as she came to turn it in her mind there were certain circumstances which recommended the change to her should the change be necessary florence certainly had expressed an unintelligible objection to the elder brother
why should the younger not be more successful missus mountjoy's heart had begun to droop within her
to the voice of the charmer another charmer had come most objectionable in her sight but to him no word of absolute encouragement had as she thought been yet spoken
augustus had already obtained for himself among his friends the character of an eloquent young lawyer let him come and try his eloquence on his cousin only let it first be ascertained as an assured fact and beyond the possibility of all retrogression
that the squire's villainy was certain i think my love she said to her daughter one day that under the immediate circumstances of the family we should retire for a while into private life
intending to obtain a renewed pledge from her that she would be true to her engagement but he had been so full of passion so beside himself with excitement so disturbed by all that he had heard
she should never look upon his face again and then
he had left her he had been in such a tremor of passion
after that when george was gone he kept away from her during the remainder of the morning once or twice he said a few words to his wife and she counselled him to take no farther outward notice of anything that george had said to him
if you will only be a little calm with her madame voss had said
then he had come to his wife again and she had again given him some good practical advice don't put it into her head that there is to be a doubt said madame voss i haven't put it into her head he answered angrily
no my dear no but do not allow her to suppose that anybody else can put it there either let the matter go on she will see the things bought for her wedding and when she remembers that she has allowed them to come into the house without remonstrating
she will be quite unable to object don't give her an opportunity of objecting michel voss again shook his head as though his wife were an unreasonable woman and swore that it was not he who had given marie such opportunity
speak softly to her my dear said madame voss don't i always speak softly said he turning sharply round upon his spouse
when he met marie about the house just before supper he put his hand upon her shoulder and smiled and murmured some word of love he was by no means crafty in what he did craft indeed was not the strong point of his character
she took his rough hand and kissed it and looked up lovingly beseechingly into his face she knew that he was asking her to consent to the sacrifice and he knew that she was imploring him to spare her
this was not what madame voss had meant by speaking softly could she have been allowed to dilate upon her own convictions or had she been able adequately to express her own ideas she would have begged that there might be no sentiment
no romance no kissing of hands no looking into each other's faces no half murmured tones of love madame voss believed strongly that the every day work of the world was done better without any of these glancings and glimmerings of moonshine
but then her husband was by nature of a fervid temperament given to the influence of unexpressed poetic emotions and thus subject in spite of the strength of his will to much weakness of purpose
madame voss perhaps condemned her husband in this matter the more because his romantic disposition never showed itself in his intercourse with her he would kiss marie's hand and press marie's wrist and hold dialogues by the eye with marie
but with his wife his speech was not exactly yea yea and nay nay but yes yes and no no it was not unnatural therefore that she should specially dislike this weakness of his which came from his emotional temperament
i would just let things go as though there were nothing special at all she said again to him before supper in a whisper and so i do what would you have me say don't mind petting her
i am as i would be any other day he replied however he knew that his wife was right and was in a certain way aware that if he could only change himself
he might manage the matter better he could be fiercely angry or caressingly affectionate but he was unable to adopt that safe and golden mean which his wife recommended
he could not keep himself from interchanging a piteous glance or two with marie at supper and put a great deal too much unction into his caress to please madame voss when marie came to kiss him before she went to bed in the mean time
marie was quite aware that it was incumbent on her to determine what she would do it may be as well to declare at once that she had determined had determined fully before her uncle and george had started for their walk up to the wood cutting
when she was giving them their breakfast that morning her mind was fully made up she had had the night to lie awake upon it to think it over and to realise all that george had told her
worshipped her too while she believed that nobody else loved her when she could tell herself that her fate was nothing to anybody as long as it had seemed to her that the world for her must be cold and hard and material
so long could she reconcile to herself after some painful dubious fashion the idea of being the wife either of adrian urmand or of any other man
some kind of servitude was needful and if her uncle was decided that she must be banished from his house the kind of servitude which was proposed to her at basle would do as well as another
but when she had learned the truth a truth so unexpected then such servitude became impossible to her on that morning
she had quite determined that let the consequences be what they might she would never become the wife of adrian urmand madame voss had told her husband that when marie saw the things purchased for her wedding coming into the house
marie had thought of that also and was aware that she must lose no time in making her purpose known so that articles which would be unnecessary might not be purchased
on that very morning while the men had been up in the mountain she had sat with her aunt hemming sheets intended as an addition to the already overflowing stock
that as the linen was there it must be hemmed when there had come a question of marking the sheets she had evaded the task not without raising suspicion in the bosom of madame voss but it was as she knew
absolutely necessary that her uncle should be informed of her purpose when he had come to her after the walk and demanded of her whether she still intended to marry adrian urmand she had answered him falsely i suppose so she had said
the question such a question as it was had been put to her too abruptly to admit of a true answer on the spur of the moment but the falsehood almost stuck in her throat and was a misery to her till she could set it right
by a clear declaration of the truth she had yet to determine what she would do how she would tell this truth in what way she would insure to herself the power of carrying out her purpose her mind the reader must remember
was somewhat dark in the matter she was betrothed to the man
her aunt indeed and
but marie had been sharp enough to understand perfectly the gist of her aunt's manoeuvres and of the priest's incidental information
and she feared no one in the doing of it except her uncle but she did fear that if she simply told him that it must be done he would have such a power over her that she would not succeed in what way could she do it first
and show a copy of the letter to her uncle when the post should have taken it so far out of granpere on its way to basle as to make it impossible that her uncle should recall it much of the day after george's departure
and much of the night was spent in the preparation of this letter
it was a difficult thing for her to begin the letter and a difficult thing for her to bring it to its end but the letter was written and sent the post left granpere at about eight in the morning
taking all letters by way of remiremont and on the day following george's departure the post took marie bromar's letter
then it was necessary that she should show the copy to her uncle she had posted the letter between six and seven with her own hands and had then come trembling back to the inn
fearful that her uncle should discover what she had done before her letter should be beyond his reach when she saw the mail conveyance go by on its route to remiremont then she knew that she must begin to prepare for her uncle's wrath
she thought that she had heard that the letters were detained some time at remiremont before they went on to epinal in one direction
she looked at the railway time table which was hung up in one of the passages of the inn
when that hour was passed the conveyance of her letter was insured and then she must show the copy to her uncle
marie who was in and out of the room during the time would not sit down with them when pressed to do so by her uncle she declared that she had eaten lately and was not hungry it was seldom that she would sit down to dinner
and this therefore gave rise to no special remark
then marie followed him into the passage uncle michel she said i want to speak to you for a moment will you come with me
if you will come i will show you show me what will you show me it's a letter uncle michel come up stairs and you shall see it
and put it into her uncle's hands it is a letter uncle michel
it went this morning and you must see it a letter to urmand he said as he took the paper suspiciously into his hands yes uncle michel i was obliged to write it it is the truth and i was obliged to let him know it
i am afraid you will be angry with me and turn me away but i cannot help it the letter was as follows
and to prevent you from coming over here for me as you intended on this day fortnight i have promised to be your wife but it cannot be i know that i have behaved very badly but it would be worse if i were to go on and deceive you
before i knew you i had come to be fond of another man
that i could not promise to love you and be your wife
but i shall as soon as this letter is gone
i did not mean to be bad i hope that you will forget me and try to forgive me no one knows better than i do how bad i have been your most humble servant with the greatest respect
marie bromar the letter had taken her long to write and it took her uncle long to read before he came to the end of it
he did not get through a line without sundry interruptions which all arose from his determination to contradict at once every assertion which she made you cannot prevent his coming he said and it shall not be prevented
nonsense about deceiving him he is not deceived at all trash you are not fond of another man it is all nonsense you must do what your uncle wishes you must now you must
of course you will love him why can't you let all that come as it does with others letter gone yes indeed and now i must go after it trouble yes why could you not tell me before you sent it
you have not been bad not before you have been very good it is this that is bad forget you indeed of course he won't how should he
are you not betrothed to him he'll forgive you fast enough when you just say that you did not know what you were about when you were writing it
the storm did not fall upon marie's head so violently as she had expected
of course it means nothing but it must mean something uncle michel i say it means nothing now i'll tell you what i shall do marie i shall start for basle directly
and i shall endeavour to intercept the letter before urmand would receive it to morrow
that is what i shall do and you must let me tell him marie that you repent
but i don't repent it uncle michel i don't indeed i can't repent it how can i repent it when i really mean it i shall never become his wife indeed i shall not o uncle michel pray pray pray do not go to basle
but michel voss resolved that he would go to basle and to basle he went
her uncle need not start quite immediately there was an hour during which he could continue to exercise his eloquence upon his niece and endeavour to induce her to authorise him to contradict her own letter he appealed first to her affection
and then to her duty and after that having failed in these appeals he poured forth the full vials of his wrath upon her head she was ungrateful obstinate false unwomanly disobedient irreligious sacrilegious
and an idiot in the fury of his anger there was hardly any epithet of severe rebuke which he spared and yet as every cruel word left his mouth he assured her that it should all be taken to mean nothing if she would only now tell him
that he might nullify the letter though she had deserved all these bad things which he had spoken of her yet she should be regarded as having deserved none of them should again be accepted as having in all points done her duty if she would only
even now be obedient but she was not to be shaken she had at last formed a resolution and her uncle's words had no effect towards turning her from it uncle michel she said at last speaking
with much seriousness of purpose and a dignity of person that was by no means thrown away upon him if i am what you say i had better go away from your house i know i have been bad
i will not defend myself but nothing on earth shall make me marry him you had better let me go away and get a place as a servant among our friends at epinal
but michel voss though he was heaping abuse upon her with the hope that he might thus achieve his purpose had not the remotest idea of severing the connection which bound him and her together he wanted to do her good not evil
she was exquisitely dear to him if she would only let him have his way and provide for her welfare as he saw in his wisdom would be best he would at once take her in his arms again and tell her that she was the apple
of his eye but she would not and he went at last off on his road to colmar and basle
for teachers and scholars were now all christians but as soon as saint patrick came a new class of schools began to spring up
were called lay schools in lay schools was taught what might be called the native learning the learning that had grown up in the country in the course of ages
it consisted mainly of the following subjects to read and write the irish language irish grammar and rules of poetical composition a very extensive and complicated subject
geography and history especially the topography and history of ireland and a knowledge of the poetry and of the historical and romantic tales of the country
while a great many of the schools were for professions special schools of law of medicine of poetry of history and antiquities and so forth in these last
the professional men were educated these lay schools being now within the christian communion were not abolished or discouraged in any way by saint patrick or his successors
they were simply let alone to teach their own secular learning just as they pleased they continued on and were to be found in every part of ireland for fourteen centuries after saint patrick's arrival
down to a period within our own memory but of course greatly changed as time went on in later times they were much more numerous in munster
and they taught and taught well classics and mathematics and often both combined in the same school i was myself educated in some of those lay schools and i remember with pleasure
several of my old teachers rough and unpolished men most of them but excellent solid scholars and full of enthusiasm for learning enthusiasm which they communicated to their pupils
in some respects indeed they resembled the rugged earnest scholarly irishmen of old times who travelled through europe to spread religion and learning
farther on but the famine of eighteen forty seven broke up those schools and in a very few years they nearly all disappeared but our business here is mainly with the early monastic schools
which became so celebrated all over europe before going farther it is well to remark that these schools also continued and increased and multiplied as time went on
they held their ground successfully as the lay schools did during the evil days of later ages when determined attempts were made under the penal laws to suppress them and at the present day
they are working all over the country quite as vigorously as in days of yore to notice all the monastic schools of old that attained eminence would demand more space than can be afforded here
so we must content ourselves with mentioning the following all of which were very illustrious in their time
clonmacnoise armagh kildare clonard meath clonfert galway durrow
monasterboice near drogheda
and derry besides these at least twenty five others all eminent are specially mentioned in our old books most of these colleges were working not in succession
from the sixth century downwards when we bear in mind that there were also during the whole period the lay schools which though smaller were far more numerous scattered all over the country
in proportion to size and population many of the monastic colleges had very large numbers of students in clonard there were three thousand all residing in and around the college
and bangor founded by saint comgall and clonfert founded by saint brendan the navigator had each as many
one thousand five hundred down to fifty the students were of all classes rich and poor from the sons of kings and chiefs down to the sons of farmers tradesmen and labourers
young laymen for general education as well as ecclesiastical students for the priesthood all those who had the means paid their way in everything
and these poor scholars as they afterwards came to be called received teaching books and often food all free but most of even the poorest did their best to pay something
and in this respect it is interesting to compare the usages of those long past times with some features of the college life of our own days in some of the present american universities
there is an excellent custom which enables very poor students to support themselves and pay their college fees they wait on their richer comrades bring up the dishes et cetera from the kitchen for meals
and lay the tables and when the meal is over they remove everything wash up dishes and plates and put them all by in their proper places in fact they perform most of the work expected from ordinary servants
for this they receive food and some small payment which renders them independent of charity and the pleasing feature of this arrangement is
that it is not attended with any sense of humiliation or loss of self respect during study and lecture hours these same young men having put by aprons and napkins and donned their ordinary dress
are received and treated on terms of perfect equality by those they have served who take on no airs and do not pose as superiors but mix with them in free and kindly intercourse as fellow students and comrades
for which they received food and other kinds of payment many of these youths who served in this humble capacity subsequently became great and learned men as indeed we might expect
for boys of this stamp are made of the best stuff and some of them are now famed in our records as eminent fathers of the ancient irish church the greatest number of the students lived in houses built by themselves
or by hired workmen some mere huts each for a single person some large houses for several and all around the central college buildings there were whole streets of these houses
often forming a good sized town where there were large numbers great care was taken that there should be no confusion or disorder the whole school was commonly divided into sections
over each of which was placed a leader or master whose orders should be obeyed and over the whole college there was one head master or principal usually called a fer leginn
while the abbot presided over all monastery and college the fer leginn was always some distinguished man of course a great scholar he was generally a monk but sometimes a layman
for those good monks selected the best man they could find whether priest or layman i suppose those who are accustomed to the grand universities and colleges of the present day with their palatial buildings
of the old irish colleges there were no comfortable study rooms well furnished with desks seats and rostrums no spacious lecture halls the greater part of the work indeed was carried on in the open air
when the weather at all permitted at study time the students went just where they pleased and accommodated themselves as best they could all round the college you would see every flowery bank every scented hedgerow
every green glade and sunny hillock occupied with students sitting or lying down or pacing thoughtfully each with his precious manuscript book open before him all poring over the lesson assigned for next lecture
and the special students for this hurried to their places and seated themselves as best they could on chair stool form stone or bank and opened their books
these same books too were a motley collection some large some small some fresh from the scribe some tattered and brown with age but all most carefully covered and preserved
for they were very expensive you now buy a good school copy of some classical author for say half a crown at that time it would probably cost what was equivalent
of our present money then the master went over the text translating and explaining it and whenever he thought it necessary questioned his pupils to draw them out
after this he had to stand the cross fire of the students questions who asked him to explain all sorts of difficulties for this was one of the college regulations
there were no grammars no dictionaries no simple introductory lesson books such as we have now the students had to go straight at the latin or greek text and where they failed to make sense
all over europe and who for the period when they lived are now honoured as among the greatest scholars and missionaries that the world ever saw the great irish colleges were in fact universities in the full sense of the word
that is to say schools which taught the whole circle of knowledge they were indeed in a great measure the models on which our present universities were formed
the latin and greek languages and literatures were studied and taught with success in science the irish scholars were famous for their knowledge of geometry arithmetic astronomy
music geography and so forth and they were equally eminent in sacred learning theology divinity and the holy scriptures the schools proved their mettle by the scholars they educated and sent forth
scholars who astonished all europe in their day sedulius of the fifth century whose name is still represented by the family name shiel an eminent divine orator and poet
and composed some beautiful latin hymns which are still used in the services of the church
in queen's county to france where he became famous for his deep scientific learning and where he taught publicly and probably for the first time that the earth is round having people living on the other side
john scotus erigena john the irish born scot of the ninth century taught in paris he was the greatest greek scholar of his time and was equally eminent in theology
saint columbanus of bobbio in italy a leinsterman a pupil of the college of bangor proved himself while in france and italy a master of many kinds of learning
and was one of the greatest most fearless and most successful of the irish missionaries on the continent these men and scores of others that we cannot find space for here
spread the fame of their native country everywhere it was no wonder that the people of great britain and the continent when they met such scholars all from ireland came to the conclusion that the schools which educated them
were the best to be found anywhere accordingly students came from all parts of the known world to place themselves under the masters of these schools from germany france italy egypt
came priests and laymen princes chiefs and peasant students all eagerly seeking to drink from the fountain of irish learning and let us bear in mind that in those days it was a far more difficult
dangerous and tedious undertaking to travel to ireland from the interior of the european continent than it is now to go to australia or china
but even in much greater numbers than these came students from great britain an english writer of that period
with his countrymen for coming to them is nevertheless forced to admit that englishmen came to ireland in fleetloads in our histories of ireland we have read of the real irish welcome they received
as recorded by the venerable bede and by others and how the irish not only taught them but gave them books and food for nothing at all it was quite a common thing that young englishmen
came to ireland to finish their education the more the students crowded to the irish schools whether from ireland itself or from abroad the more eagerly did the masters strive to meet the demand
so as to equal or excel the scholars of other countries then ireland became the most learned country in europe
how irish missionaries and scholars spread religion and learning in foreign countries towards the end of the sixth century the great body of the irish were christians
and hundreds of devoted and determined missionaries left our shores there was ample field for their noble ambition for these were the dark ages when the civilisation and learning
bequeathed by old greece and rome had been almost wiped out of existence by the barbarous northern hordes who overran europe and christianity had not yet time
to begin with the irish missionary work in great britain the people of northern and western scotland who were solidly pagan till the sixth century
were converted by saint columkille and his monks from iona who were all irishmen for iona was an irish monastic colony founded by saint columkille a native of tirconnell now donegal
in the seven kingdoms of england the heptarchy the anglo saxons were the ruling race rude and stubborn and greatly attached to their gloomy northern pagan gods
aidan was an irishman who entered the monastery of iona from which he was sent to preach to the northumbrians on the invitation of their good king oswald he founded the monastery of lindisfarne
which afterwards became so illustrious he was its first abbot and for thirty years it was governed by him and by two other irish abbots finan and colman in succession
he and his companions were wonderfully successful so that the people of the large kingdom of northumbria became christians
of the active labours of the irish missionaries in great britain whole crowds of ardent and learned irishmen travelled on the continent in the sixth seventh and succeeding centuries
spreading christianity and secular knowledge everywhere among the people on this point we have the decisive testimony of an eminent french writer of the ninth century
who himself witnessed what he records in a letter written by him to charles the bald king of france he says what shall i say of ireland who despising the dangers of the deep
is migrating with almost her whole train of philosophers to our coasts and other foreign evidences of a like kind might be brought forward these men on their first appearance on the continent
caused much surprise they were so startlingly different from those preachers the people had been accustomed to they travelled on foot towards their destination in small companies generally of thirteen
and under this a white tunic of finer stuff the long hair behind flowed down on the back and the eyelids were painted or stained black each had a long stout walking stick
and a wallet containing his greatest treasure a book or two and some relics they spoke a strange language among themselves used latin to those who understood it and made use of an interpreter when preaching
they knew well when setting out that they were leaving country and friends probably for ever for of those that went very few returned once on the continent they had to make their way poor and friendless
through people whose language they did not understand and who were in many places ten times more rude and dangerous in those ages than the inhabitants of these islands and we know as a matter of history that many were killed on the way
faced privation with indifference caring nothing for luxuries and when other provisions failed them they gathered wild fruit trapped animals and fished with great dexterity and with any sort of next to hand rude appliances
they were somewhat rough in outward appearance but beneath all that they had solid sense and much learning their simple ways their unmistakable piety
caught the people everywhere so that they made converts in crowds a great french writer montalembert speaks of the irish of those days as having a passion for pilgrimage and preaching
and as feeling
many were to be found in egypt and as early as the seventh century three learned irish monks found their way to carthage where they laboured for a long time and with great success wherever they went
they made pilgrimages to holy places places sanctified by memories of early saints and whenever they found it practicable they were sure to make their way to rome
to visit the shrines of the apostles and obtain the blessing of the pope the irish passion for pilgrimage and preaching never died out it is a characteristic of the race
this great missionary emigration to foreign lands has continued in a measure down to our own day for it may be safely asserted that no other missionaries are playing so general and successful a part
in the conversion of the pagan people all over the world and in keeping alight the lamp of religion among christians as those of ireland irishmen were equally active in spreading secular knowledge
indeed the two functions were generally combined for it was quite common to find a man a successful missionary while at the same time acting as professor in a college or as head of some great seminary for general education
irish professors and teachers were in those times held in such estimation that they were employed in most of the schools and colleges of great britain france germany and italy
the revival of learning on the continent was indeed due in no small degree to those irish missionaries it was enough that the candidate for an appointment came from ireland he needed no other recommendation
when learning had declined in england in the ninth and tenth centuries owing to the devastations of the danes it was chiefly by irish teachers it was kept alive and restored in glastonbury especially
they taught with great success we are told by english writers that they were skilled in every department of learning sacred and profane and that under them were educated many young english nobles
sent to glastonbury with that object among these students the most distinguished was saint dunstan who according to all his biographers received his education both scriptural and secular
from irish masters there as for the numerous continental schools and colleges in which irishmen figured either as principals or professors it would be impossible with our limited space
to notice them here a few have been glanced at in the last chapter and i will finish this short narrative by relating the odd manner in which two distinguished irishmen brothers
one of the historians of the reign of charlemagne who wrote in the ninth century has left us the following account of these two scholars when the illustrious charles began to reign alone in the western parts of the world
and literature was almost forgotten it happened that two scots from ireland
men incomparably skilled in human learning and in the holy scriptures observing how the merchants exhibited and drew attention to their wares they acted in a similar fashion
let them come to us for we have it to sell this they repeated as they went from place to place so that the people wondered very much and some thought them to be nothing more than persons half crazed
strange rumours regarding them went round and at length came to the ears of king charles on which he sent for the brothers and had them brought to his presence he questioned them closely using the latin language
we require proper houses and accommodation pupils with ingenious minds and really anxious to learn and as we are in a foreign country where we cannot conveniently work for our bread
now at this very time king charles was using his best efforts to restore learning by opening schools throughout his dominions but found it hard to procure a sufficient supply of qualified teachers
and as he perceived that these brothers were evidently men of real learning and of a superior cast in every way he joyfully accepted their proposals
having kept them for some time on a visit in his palace he finally opened a great school in some part of france probably paris for the education of boys of all ranks of society
not only for the sons of the highest nobles but also for those of the middle and low classes at the head of which he placed clement
he also directed that all the scholars should be provided with food and suitable habitations it was in fact a great free boarding school founded and maintained at the expense of the king
taking the larger sweeps in the march of mind tears of outraged vanity blurred her vision teased with impertinent questions tenderness breathed from her
tense with the anguish of spiritual struggle terror filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot tethered to earth that which flutters the brain for a moment
the accelerated beat of his thoughts the affluent splendor of the summer day the afternoon was filled with sound and sunshine the afternoon was waning
the air and sky belonged to midsummer the air darkened swiftly the air is touched with a lazy fragrance as of hidden flowers the air was caressed with song
the air was full of fugitive strains of old songs the air was raw and pointed the allurements
the ambition and rivalship of men the angry blood burned in his face the anguish of a spiritual conflict tore his heart
the artificial smile of languor the awful and implacable approach of doom the babble of brooks grown audible
the bait proved incredibly successful the balm of solitary musing the beauty straightway vanished the beckonings of alien appeals the benign look of a father
the blandishments of pleasure and pomp of power the blinding mist came down and hid the land the blue bowl of the sky all glorious with the blaze of a million worlds the bound
of the pulse of spring the buzz of idolizing admiration the caressing peace of bright soft sunshine the chaotic sound of the sea the chill of forlorn old age the chill
of night crept in from the street the chivalric sentiment of honor the chivalrous homage of respect the clamorous agitation of rebellious passions
the clouded restless jaded mood
the contagion of extravagant luxury
the days passed in a stately procession the days when you dared to dream the debilitating fears of alluring fate the deep and solemn purple of the summer night
the deep flush ebbed out of his face the deep tranquillity of the shaded solitude the deepening twilight filled with shadowy visions the deepest wants
and aspirations of his soul the delicatest reproof of imagined distrust the demerit of an unworthy alliance the desire of the moth for the star
the dimness of the sealed eye and soul the dreamy solicitations of indescribable afterthoughts the dying day lies beautiful in the tender glow of the evening the early morning of the indian summer day
the earth looked despoiled the east alone frowned with clouds the easy grace of an unpremeditated agreeable talker the easy going indolence of a sedentary life
the echo of its wrathful roar surged and boomed among the hills the empurpled hills standing up solemn and sharp out of the green gold air the enchanting days of youth
the eternal questioning of inscrutable fate the evening comes with slow steps the evening star silvery and solitary on the girdle of the early night
the exaggerations of morbid hallucinations the excitement
the first recoil from her disillusionment the flawless triumph of art
the flower of courtesy the fluttering of untried wings the foreground was incredibly shabby the fragrance of a dear and honored name the freshening breeze struck his brow with a cooling hand
the fruit of vast and heroic labors the general effect was of extraordinary lavish profusion the give and take was delicious the gloom of the afternoon deepened
the gloom of winter dwelt on everything the gloomy insolence of self conceit the glow of the ambitious fire the golden gloom of the past and the bright hued hope of the future
the golden riot of the autumn leaves the golden sunlight of a great summer day
the grimaces and caperings of buffoonery the grotesque nightmare of a haunting fear the hand of time sweeps them into oblivion the haunting melody of some familiar line of verse
the headlong vigor of sheer improvisation the heights of magnanimity and love the high bred pride of an oriental the hills were clad in rose and amethyst
the hinted sweetness of the challenge aroused him the hot humiliation of it overwhelmed her
of a present emotion the inaccessible solitude of the sky the incarnation of all loveliness
the indefinable yearning for days that were dead
and ceaseless onflow of time the irrevocable past and the uncertain future the landscape ran laughing downhill to the sea the leaden sky rests heavily on the earth
the leaves of time drop stealthily the leaves syllabled her name in cautious whispers the lights winked the little incident seemed to throb with significance the lofty grace of a prince
the loud and urgent pageantry of the day the low hills on the horizon wore a haze of living blue the machinations
the magical lights of the horizon
of the moment yielded to the persuasive warmth of day the marvelous beauty of her womanhood the maximum of attainable and communicable truth the melancholy
the melodies of birds and bees the memory of the night grew fantastic and remote the meticulous observation of facts the mind freezes at the thought the mind was filled with a formless dread
the mocking echoes of long departed youth the moment marked an epoch the moon is waning below the horizon the more's the pity the morning beckons the morning droned along peacefully
the multiplicity of odors competing for your attention the murmur of soft winds in the tree tops the murmur of the surf boomed in melancholy mockery
the murmuring of summer seas the music and mystery of the sea the music of her delicious voice the music of her presence was singing a swift melody in his blood the music of
unforgotten years sounded again in his soul the mute melancholy landscape the mystery obsessed him the naked fact of death the nameless and inexpressible fascination of midnight music
the narrow glen was full of the brooding power of one universal spirit the nascent spirit of chivalry the night was drowned in stars the old ruddy conviction deserted me
the onrush and vividness of life the opulent sunset the orange pomp of the setting sun
the outpourings of a tenderness reawakened by remorse the pageantry of sea and sky the palest abstractions of thought the palpitating silence lengthened the panorama of life
was unrolled before him the paraphernalia of power and prosperity the parting crimson glory of the ripening summer sun the past slowly drifted out of his thought
the pendulous eyelids of old age the penetrating odors assailed his memory
the pent up intolerance of years of repression the perfume of the mounting sea saturated the night with wild fragrance the piquancy
the pressure of accumulated misgivings the preternatural pomposities of the pulpit the pristine freshness of spring the pull of soul on body
the pulse of the rebounding sea the purging sunlight of clear poetry the purple vaulted night
the question irresistibly emerged the quick pulse of gain the radiant serenity of the sky the radiant stars brooded over the stainless fields white with freshly fallen snow
the restlessness of offended vanity the retreating splendor of autumn the rising storm of words the river ran darkly mysteriously by the river sang with its lips to the pebbles
the roar of the traffic rose to thunder the romantic ardor of a generous mind the room had caught a solemn and awful quietude the rosy hued sky went widening off into the distance
the rosy twilight of boyhood the royal arrogance of youth the sadness in him deepened inexplicably the scars of rancor and remorse the scent of roses stole in with every breath of air
the sea heaved silvery far into the night the sea slept under a haze of golden winter sun
the sea wind buffeted their faces the secret and subduing charm of the woods the see saw of a wavering courage the sentimental tourist will be tempted to tarry
the shadows of the night seemed to retreat the shadows rested quietly under the breezeless sky the shafts of ridicule the sheer weight of unbearable loneliness
the shiver of the dusk passed fragrantly down the valley the silence grew stolid the silence was uncomfortable and ominous the silent day perfumed with the hidden flowers
the sinking sun made mellow gold of all the air the sky grew brighter with the imminent day
with the indescribable hue that heralds day the sky put on the panoply of evening the sky was a relentless changeless blue
the sky was turning to the pearly gray of dawn the smiling incarnation of loveliness the song of hurrying rivers the sound of the sea waxed the spacious leisure of the forest the spell
of a deathless dream was upon them the star strewn spaces of the night the stars looked down in their silent splendor the stars seemed attentive the steadfast mind kept its hope
the still voice of the poet the stillness of a forced composure the stillness of the star hung night the strangest thought shimmered through her the stream forgot to smile the streams laughed to themselves
the strident discord seemed to mock his mood the stunning crash of the ocean saluted her
the sudden rush of the awakened mind the summit of human attainment the sun blazed torridly
on the far horizon the sun lay golden soft over the huddled hills
at a gallop along the hillside the sunset was rushing to its height through every possible phase of violence and splendor the suspicion of secret malevolence the swelling tide of memory
the tender grace of a day that is fled the tension of struggling tears which strove for an outlet the thought leaped the timely effusion of tearful sentiment the tone betrayed a curious irritation
the torture of his love and terror crushed him the trees rustled and whispered to the streams the tumult in her heart subsided the tumult in her mind found sudden speech
the tyranny of nipping winds and early frosts the unmasked batteries of her glorious gray eyes the vacant fields looked blankly irresponsive
the vast cathedral of the world the vast unexplored land of dreams the velvet of the cloudless sky grew darker and the stars more luminous
the very pulsation and throbbing of his intellect
the vision fled him the vivifying touch of humor the web of lies is rent in pieces the wheel of her thought turned in the same desolate groove the whispering rumble of the ocean
the white seething surf fell exhausted along the shore the whole exquisite night was his the whole sea of foliage is shaken and broken up with little momentary shiverings and shadows the wide
the wild whirl of nameless regret and passionate sorrow the wild winds flew round sobbing in their dismay the wind charged furiously through it panting towards the downs
the wind piped drearily the wind was in high frolic with the rain
there was a mild triumph in her tone there was a mournful and dim haze around the moon there was a strange massing and curving of the clouds there was a thrill in the air
there was a time i might have trod the sunlit heights there was no glint of hope anywhere
there was something so kindly in its easy candor there was spendthrift grandeur these qualities were raised to the white heat
inquiry ran through the texture of his mind and died away this shadowy and chilling sentiment unaccountably creeps over me thought shook through her in poignant pictures
thoughts came thronging in panic haste thrilled by fresh and indescribable odors thrilled with a sense of strange adventure through a cycle of many ages
sentences thrilled to the depths of her being time had passed unseen tinsel glitter of empty titles tired with a dull listless fatigue to all intents and purposes
to speak with entire candor to stay his tottering constancy to the scourging he submitted with a good grace tossed disdainfully off from young and ardent lips
touched every moment with shifting and enchanting beauty touched with a bewildering and elusive beauty transcendental contempt for money transformed with an overmastering passion
trouble gathered on his brow turning the world topsy turvey
the larger synthesis we have seen that the essential process arising out of the growth of science and mechanism and more particularly out of the still developing new facilities of locomotion
and communication science has afforded is the deliquescence of the social organizations of the past and the synthesis of ampler and still ampler and more complicated and still more complicated social unities the suggestion is powerful
the conclusion is hard to resist that through whatever disorders of danger and conflict whatever centuries of misunderstanding and bloodshed men may still have to pass
this process nevertheless aims finally and will attain to the establishment of one world state at peace within itself in the economic sense indeed a world state is already established
even to day we do all buy and sell in the same markets albeit the owners of certain ancient rights levy their tolls here and there and the hindoo starves the italian feels the pinch before the germans or the english go short of bread
there is no real autonomy any more in the world no simple right to an absolute independence such as formerly the swiss could claim the nations and boundaries of to day do no more than mark claims to exemptions privileges and corners in the market
claims valid enough to those whose minds and souls are turned towards the past but absurdities to those who look to the future as the end and justification of our present stresses the claim to political liberty amounts as a rule
to no more than the claim of a man to live in a parish without observing sanitary precautions or paying rates because he had an excellent great grandfather against all these old isolations these obsolescent particularisms
the forces of mechanical and scientific development fight and fight irresistibly and upon the general recognition of this conflict upon the intelligence and courage with which its inflexible conditions are negotiated
depends very largely the amount of bloodshed and avoidable misery the coming years will hold the final attainment of this great synthesis like the social deliquescence and reconstruction
dealt with in the earlier of these anticipations has an air of being a process independent of any collective or conscious will in man as being the expression of a greater will it is working now and may work out to its end vastly
and yet at times almost imperceptibly as some huge secular movement in nature the raising of a continent the crumbling of a mountain chain goes on to its appointed culmination
or one may compare the process to a net that has surrounded and that is drawn continually closer and closer upon a great and varied multitude of men we may cherish animosities we may declare imperishable distances we may plot and counter plot
make war and fight to a finish
is so apparent in the world that at least five spacious movements of coalescence exist to day there is the movement called anglo saxonism the allied but finally very different movement of british imperialism the pan germanic movement
pan slavism and the conception of a great union of the latin peoples under the outrageous treatment of the white peoples an idea of unifying the yellow peoples is pretty certain to become audibly and visibly operative before many years
these are all deliberate and justifiable suggestions and they all aim to sacrifice minor differences in order to link like to like in greater matters
and so secure if not physical predominance in the world at least an effective defensive strength for their racial moral customary or linguistic differences against the aggressions of other possible coalescences
but these syntheses or other similar synthetic conceptions if they do not contrive to establish a rational social unity by sanely negotiated unions will be forced to fight for physical predominance in the world the whole trend of forces in the world
is against the preservation of local social systems however greatly and spaciously conceived yet it is quite possible that several or all of the cultures that will arise out of the development of these pan this and that movements may in many of their features survive
as the culture of the jews has survived political obliteration and may disseminate themselves as the jewish system has disseminated itself over the whole world city unity by no means involves homogeneity
the greater the social organism the more complex and varied its parts the more intricate and varied the interplay of culture and breed and character within it
the elements of the latin synthesis are dispersed in south and central america and about the mediterranean basin in a way that offers no prospect of an economic unity between them
the best elements of the french people lie in the western portion of what must become the greatest urban region of the old world
are far graver its realization is enormously hampered by the division of its languages and the fact that in the bohemian language in polish and in russian
there exist distinct literatures almost equally splendid in achievement but equally insufficient in quantity and range to establish a claim to replace all other slavonic dialects russia which should form the central mass of this synthesis
stagnates relatively to the western states under the rule of reactionary intelligences it does not develop and does not seem likely to develop the merest beginnings of that great educated middle class with which the future so enormously rests
the russia of to day is indeed very little more than a vast breeding ground for an illiterate peasantry and the forecasts of its future greatness entirely ignore that dwindling significance of mere numbers in warfare which is the clear and necessary consequence of mechanical advance
to a large extent i believe the western slavs will follow the prussians and lithuanians and be incorporated in the urbanization of western europe and the remoter portions of russia seem destined to become are indeed becoming abyss
a wretched and disorderly abyss that will not even be formidable to the armed and disciplined peoples of the new civilization
the last quarter of the earth perhaps where a barbaric or absentee nobility will shadow the squalid and unhappy destinies of a multitude of hopeless and unmeaning lives
to a certain extent russia may play the part of a vaster ireland in her failure to keep pace with the educational and economic progress of nations which have come into economic unity with her she will be an ireland without emigration a place for famines
i see no region where anything like the comparatively dense urban regions that are likely to arise about the rhineland and over the eastern states of america for example can develop in russia with railways planned boldly it would have been possible
it might still be possible to make about odessa a parallel to chicago but the existing railways run about odessa as though asia were unknown
and when at last the commercial awakening of what is now the turkish empire comes the railway lines will probably run not north or south but from the urban region of the more scientific central europeans down to constantinople
the long route land communications in the future will become continually more swift and efficient than baltic navigation
and it is unlikely therefore that saint petersburg has any great possibilities of growth it was founded by a man whose idea of the course of trade and civilization was the sea wholly and solely and in the future the sea must necessarily become more and more a last resort
with its spacious prospects its architectural magnificence its political quality its desertion by the new commerce and its terrible peasant hinterland it may come about that a striking analogy between saint petersburg and dublin will finally appear
so much for the pan slavic synthesis it seems improbable that it can prevail against the forces that make for the linguistic and economic annexation of the greater part of european russia and of the minor slavonic masses to the great western european urban region
the political centre of gravity of russia in its resistance to these economic movements is palpably shifting eastward even to day but that carries it away from the central european synthesis only towards the vastly more enormous attracting centre of china
politically the russian government may come to dominate china in the coming decades but the reality beneath any such formal predominance will be the absorption of russia beyond the range of the european pull by the synthesis of eastern asia
neither the russian literature nor the russian language and writing nor the russian civilization as a whole have the qualities to make them irresistible to the energetic and intelligent millions of the far east
the chances seem altogether against the existence of a great slavonic power in the world at the beginning of the twenty first century
and turning itself at last upon the defeated slavonic disorder
there can be no doubt that at present the germans with the doubtful exception of the united states have the most efficient middle class in the world their rapid economic progress is to a very large extent indeed a triumph of intelligence and their political and probably their military and naval services are still conducted with a capacity and breadth of view that find no parallel in the world
but the very efficiency of the german as a german to day and the habits and traditions of victory he has accumulated for nearly forty years may prove in the end a very doubtful blessing to europe as a whole or even to his own grandchildren
geographical contours economic forces the trend of invention and social development point to a unification of all western europe but they certainly do not point to its germanization
i have already given reasons for anticipating that the french language may not only hold its own but prevail against german in western europe and there are certain other obstacles in the way even of the union of indisputable germans
one element in germany's present efficiency must become more and more of an encumbrance as the years pass the germanic idea is deeply interwoven with the traditional empire and with the martinet methods of the prussian monarchy
the intellectual development of the germans is defined to a very large extent by a court directed officialdom in many things
that court is still inspired by the noble traditions of education and discipline that come from the days of german adversity and the predominance of the imperial will does no doubt give a unity of purpose to german policy and action that adds greatly to its efficacy
but for a capable ruler even more than for a radiantly stupid monarch the price a nation must finally pay is heavy most energetic and capable people are a little intolerant of unsympathetic capacity are apt on the under side of their egotism to be jealous assertive and aggressive
in the present empire of germany there are no other great figures to balance the imperial personage and i do not see how other great figures are likely to arise a great number of fine and capable persons must be failing to develop failing to tell
under the shadow of this too prepotent monarchy there are certain limiting restrictions imposed upon germans through the imperial activity that must finally be bad for the intellectual atmosphere which is germany's ultimate strength
for example the emperor professes a violent and grotesque christianity with a ferocious pro teutonic father and a negligible son and the public mind is warped into conformity with the finally impossible cant of this eccentric creed
his imperial majesty's disposition to regard criticism as hostility stifles the public thought of germany he interferes in university affairs and in literary and artistic matters with a quite remarkable confidence and incalculable consequences
the inertia of a century carries him and his germany onward from success to success but for all that one may doubt whether the extraordinary intellectuality that distinguished the german atmosphere in the early years of the century and in which such men as blumenthal and moltke
grew to greatness in which germany grew to greatness is not steadily fading in the heat and blaze of the imperial sunshine
discipline and education have carried germany far they are essential things but an equally essential need for the coming time is a free play for men of initiative and imagination is germany to her utmost possibility making capable men
that after all is the vital question and not whether her policy is wise or foolish or her commercial development inflated or sound or is germany doing no more than cash the promises of those earlier days
after all i do not see that she is in a greatly stronger position than was france in the early sixties and indeed in many respects her present predominance is curiously analogous to that of the french empire in those years death at any time may end the career of the present ruler of germany there is no certain insurance of one single life
this withdrawal would leave germany organized entirely with reference to a court and there is no trustworthy guarantee that the succeeding royal personality may not be something infinitely more vain and aggressive or something weakly self indulgent or unpatriotic and morally indifferent
much has been done in the past of germany the infinitely less exacting past by means of the tutor the chamberlain the chancellor the wide seeing power beyond the throne who very unselfishly intrigues his monarch in the way that he should go but that sort of thing is remarkably like writing a letter by means of a pen held in lazy tongs instead of the hand
a very easily imagined series of accidents may place the destinies of germany in such lazy tongs again when that occasion comes will the new class of capable men on which we have convinced ourselves in these anticipations the future depends
indispensable factors in that synthesis will be holland and switzerland little advantageously situated peoples saturated with ideas of personal freedom
one can imagine a german swiss at any rate merging himself in a great pan germanic republican state but to bow the knee to the luridly decorated god of his imperial majesty's fathers will be an altogether more difficult exploit for a self respecting man
moreover before germany can unify to the east she must fight the russian and to unify to the west she must fight the french and perhaps the english and she may have to fight a combination of these powers i think the military strength of france is enormously underrated
upon this matter m bloch should be read
the disasters of eighteen seventy were probably of the utmost benefit to the altogether too sanguine french imagination they cleared the french mind of the delusion that personal imperialism is the way to do the desirable thing
a delusion many germans and it would seem a few queer englishmen and still queerer americans entertain the french have done much to demonstrate the possibility of a stable military republic they have disposed of crown and court and held themselves in order for thirty good years
they have dissociated their national life from any form of religious profession they have contrived a freedom of thought and writing that in spite of much conceit to the contrary is quite impossible among the english speaking peoples
i find no reason to doubt the implication of m bloch that on land to day the french are relatively far stronger than they were in eighteen seventy that the evolution of military expedients has been all in favour of the french character and intelligence and that even a single handed war between france and germany to day might have a very different issue from that former struggle
in such a conflict it will be germany and not france that will have pawned her strength to the english speaking peoples on the high seas and france will not fight alone she will fight for switzerland or luxembourg or the mouth of the rhine
she will fight with the gravity of remembered humiliations with the whole awakened slav race at the back of her antagonist and very probably with the support of the english speaking peoples
it must be pointed out how strong seems the tendency of the german empire to repeat the history of holland upon a larger scale
while the dutch poured out all their strength upon the seas in a conflict with the english that at the utmost could give them only trade they let the possibilities of a great low german synthesis pass utterly out of being
they positively dragged the english into the number of their enemies
and very possibly go far to effect the synthesis of the english speaking peoples so involved i do not see that the existing germanic synthesis is likely to prevail in the close economic unity the urban region that will arise in western europe
i imagine that the german empire that is the organized expression of german aggression to day
it will be forced to develop the autonomy of its rational middle class in the struggles that will render these compromises possible and it will be finally not imperial german ideas but central european ideas possibly more akin to swiss conceptions a civilized republicanism finding its clearest expression in the french language that will be established upon a bilingual basis throughout western europe and increasingly predominant over the whole european mainland and the mediterranean basin as the twentieth century closes
the splendid dream of a federal europe which opened the nineteenth century for france may perhaps after all come to something like realization at the opening of the twenty first but just how long these things take
just how easily or violently they are brought about depends after all entirely upon the rise in general intelligence in europe
an ignorant a merely trained or a merely cultured people will not understand these coalescences will fondle old animosities and stage hatreds and for such a people there must needs be disaster forcible conformities and war
europe will have her irelands as well as her scotlands her irelands of unforgettable wrongs kicking squalling bawling most desolatingly for nothing that any one can understand
there will be great scope for the shareholding dilettanti great opportunities for literary quacks in national movements language leagues picturesque plotting and the invention of such national costumes as the world has never seen
the cry of the little nations will go up to heaven asserting the inalienable right of all little nations to sit down firmly in the middle of the high road in the midst of the thickening traffic and with all their dear little toys about them play and play
just as they used to play before the road had come
bread and salt madame de morcerf entered an archway of trees with her companion it led through a grove of lindens to a conservatory it was too warm in the room was it not count she asked yes madame
and it was an excellent idea of yours to open the doors and the blinds as he ceased speaking the count felt the hand of mercedes tremble but you he said
perhaps you feel cold do you know where i am leading you said the countess without replying to the question no madame replied monte cristo but you see i make no resistance we are going to the greenhouse that you see at the other end of the grove
the count looked at mercedes as if to interrogate her but she continued to walk on in silence and he refrained from speaking they reached the building
ornamented with magnificent fruits which ripen at the beginning of july in the artificial temperature which takes the place of the sun so frequently absent in our climate the countess left the arm of monte cristo and gathered a bunch of muscatel grapes
see count she said with a smile so sad in its expression that one could almost detect the tears on her eyelids see our french grapes are not to be compared i know with yours of sicily and cyprus but you will make allowance for our northern sun
the count bowed but stepped back do you refuse said mercedes in a tremulous voice pray excuse me madame replied monte cristo but i never eat muscatel grapes mercedes let them fall and sighed
a magnificent peach was hanging against an adjoining wall ripened by the same artificial heat mercedes drew near and plucked the fruit take this peach then she said the count again refused what again
she exclaimed in so plaintive an accent that it seemed to stifle a sob really you pain me a long silence followed the peach like the grapes fell to the ground count added mercedes with a supplicating glance
there is a beautiful arabian custom which makes eternal friends of those who have together eaten bread and salt under the same roof i know it madame replied the count but we are in france and not in arabia and in france
eternal friendships are as rare as the custom of dividing bread and salt with one another but said the countess breathlessly with her eyes fixed on monte cristo whose arm she convulsively pressed with both hands we are friends are we not
the count became pale as death the blood rushed to his heart and then again rising dyed his cheeks with crimson his eyes swam like those of a man suddenly dazzled certainly we are friends he replied why should we not be
the answer was so little like the one mercedes desired that she turned away to give vent to a sigh which sounded more like a groan thank you she said and they walked on again they went the whole length of the garden without uttering a word
sir suddenly exclaimed the countess after their walk had continued ten minutes in silence
and suffered so deeply i have suffered deeply madame answered monte cristo but now you are happy doubtless replied the count since no one hears me complain and your present happiness has it softened your heart
no one told me you were but you have frequently been seen at the opera with a young and lovely woman she is a slave whom i bought at constantinople madame the daughter of a prince i have adopted her as my daughter having no one else to love in the world
you live alone then i do you have no sister no son no father i have no one how can you exist thus without any one to attach you to life it is not my fault madame
at malta i loved a young girl was on the point of marrying her when war came and carried me away i thought she loved me well enough to wait for me and even to remain faithful to my memory when i returned she was married
this is the history of most men who have passed twenty years of age perhaps my heart was weaker than the hearts of most men and i suffered more than they would have done in my place that is all the countess stopped for a moment as if gasping for breath yes she said
and you have still preserved this love in your heart one can only love once and did you ever see her again never never i never returned to the country where she lived to malta yes malta
she is then now at malta i think so and have you forgiven her for all she has made you suffer her yes but only her do you then still hate those who separated you i hate them not at all why should i
the countess placed herself before monte cristo still holding in her hand a portion of the perfumed grapes take some she said madame i never eat muscatel grapes replied monte cristo as if the subject had not been mentioned before
the countess dashed the grapes into the nearest thicket with a gesture of despair inflexible man she murmured monte cristo remained as unmoved as if the reproach had not been addressed to him albert at this moment ran in
oh mother he exclaimed such a misfortune has happened what what has happened asked the countess as though awakening from a sleep to the realities of life did you say a misfortune indeed i should expect misfortunes
well he comes to fetch his wife and daughter why so because madame de saint meran is just arrived in paris bringing the news of
madame de villefort who was in very good spirits would neither believe nor think of the misfortune but mademoiselle valentine at the first words guessed the whole truth notwithstanding all the precautions of her father the blow struck her like a thunderbolt and she fell senseless
he was her grandfather on the mother's side he was coming here to hasten her marriage with franz ah indeed so franz must wait
albert albert said madame de morcerf in a tone of mild reproof what are you saying ah count he esteems you so highly tell him that he has spoken amiss and she took two or three steps forward
monte cristo watched her with an air so thoughtful and so full of affectionate admiration that she turned back and grasped his hand at the same time she seized that of her son and joined them together we are friends are we not she asked
oh madame i do not presume to call myself your friend but at all times i am your most respectful servant the countess left with an indescribable pang in her heart and before she had taken ten steps the count saw her raise her handkerchief to her eyes
do not my mother and you agree asked albert astonished
some of the blueskins insisted that the animals and birds must be put out of the room but ghip ghisizzle said they could remain as they were the favored pets of the lovely snubnosed princesses cap'n bill was delighted to see his dear little friend again and so was button bright
for a time at least they paid little heed to the sour looks and taunting remarks of the ugly blueskins and ate heartily of the dinner which was really very good the meal was no sooner over than ghip ghisizzle was summoned to the chamber of his majesty the boolooroo
but before he went away he took trot and cap'n bill and button bright into a small room and advised them to stay there until he returned so that the servants and soldiers would not molest them my people seem to dislike strangers said the majordomo thoughtfully
and that surprises me because you are the first strangers they have ever seen i think they imagine you will become favorites of the boolooroo and of the princesses and that is why they are jealous and hate you they needn't worry bout that replied trot the snubnoses hate me worse than the people do
i can't imagine a bootblue becoming a royal favorite grumbled button bright or a necktie mixer added cap'n bill you don't mix neckties you're a nectar mixer said ghip ghisizzle correcting the sailor i'll not be gone long
for i'm no favorite of the boolooroo either so please stay quietly in this room until my return the majordomo found the boolooroo in a bad temper he had finished his dinner where his six daughters had bitterly denounced trot all through the meal
and implored their father to invent some new and terrible punishment for her also his wife the queen had made him angry by begging for gold to buy ribbons with then when he had retired to his own private room he decided to send for the umbrella he had stolen from button bright and test its magic powers
but the umbrella in his hands proved just as common as any other umbrella might he opened it and closed it and turned it this way and that
at last the boolooroo threw it down and stamped upon it and then kicked it into a corner where it rolled underneath a cabinet then he sent for ghip ghisizzle do you know how to work that magic umbrella he asked the majordomo
no your majesty i do not was the reply well find out make the whiteskins tell you so that i can use it for my own amusement i'll do my best your majesty said ghip ghisizzle you'll do more than that or i'll have you patched
roared the angry boolooroo and don't waste any time either for as soon as we find out the secret of the umbrella i'm going to have the three strangers marched through the arch of phinis and that will be the end of them you can't do that your majesty said the majordomo
why can't i they haven't lived six hundred years yet and only those who have lived that length of time are allowed to march through the arch of phinis into the great blue grotto the king looked at him with a sneer has anyone ever come out of that arch alive he asked
no said ghip ghisizzle but no one has ever gone into the blue grotto until his allotted time was up well i'm going to try the experiment declared the boolooroo i shall march these three strangers through the arch and if by any chance they come out alive i'll do a new sort of patching
i'll chop off their heads and mix em up putting the wrong head on each of em ha ha won't it be funny to see the old moonface's head on the little girl ho ho i really hope they'll come out of the great blue grotto alive
i also hope they will replied ghip ghisizzle then i'll bet you four button holes they don't i've a suspicion that once they enter the great blue grotto that's the last of them
ghip ghisizzle went away quite sad and unhappy he did not approve the way the strangers were being treated and thought it was wicked and cruel to try to destroy them during his absence the prisoners had been talking together very earnestly we must get away from here somehow r other
said cap'n bill but o course we can't stir a step without the magic umbrel no i must surely manage to get my umbrella first said button bright do it quick then urged trot for i can't stand those snubnoses much longer i'll do it to night said the boy
the sooner the better my lad remarked the sailor but seein as the blue boolooroo has locked it up in his treasure chamber it mayn't be easy to get hold of no it won't be easy button bright admitted but it has to be done
oh button bright there's a blue wolf in the treasure chamber exclaimed trot yes i know an a patched man on guard outside cap'n bill reminded him i know repeated button bright
the boy nodded he didn't say how he would overcome all these difficulties so the little girl feared they would never see the magic umbrella again but their present position was a very serious one and even cap'n bill dared not advise button bright to give up the desperate attempt
when ghip ghisizzle returned he said you must be very careful not to anger the boolooroo or he may do you a mischief i think the little girl had better keep away from the princesses for to night unless they demand her presence the boy must go for the king's shoes and blue them and polish them
and then take them back to the royal bedchamber cap'n bill won't have anything to do for i've ordered tiggle to mix the nectar thank e friend sizzle said cap'n bill now follow me and i will take you to your rooms
he led them to the rear of the palace where he gave them three small rooms on the ground floor each having a bed in it
but ghip ghisizzle advised him to keep this door locked as the city people would be sure to hurt the strangers if they had the chance to attack them you're safer in the palace than anywhere else said the majordomo for there is no way you can escape from the island
and here the servants and soldiers dare not injure you for fear of the boolooroo he placed trot and her six pets which followed her wherever she went in one room and cap'n bill in another and took button bright away with him to show the boy the way to the king's bedchamber
as they proceeded they passed many rooms with closed doors and before one of these a patched blueskin was pacing up and down in a tired and sleepy way it was jimfred jinksjones the double of the fredjim jonesjinks they had talked with in the servants hall
and he bowed low before the majordomo this is the king's new bootblue a stranger who has lately arrived here said ghip ghisizzle introducing the boy to the patched man i'm sorry for him muttered jimfred he's a queer looking chap with his pale yellow skin
and i imagine our cruel boolooroo is likely to patch him before long as he did me i mean us no he won't said button bright positively the boolooroo's afraid of me oh that's different said jimfred you're the first person i ever knew that could scare our boolooroo
they passed on and ghip ghisizzle whispered that is the royal treasure chamber button bright nodded he had marked the place well so he couldn't miss it when he wanted to find it again
when they came to the king's apartments there was another guard before the door this time a long necked soldier with a terrible scowl this slave is the royal bootblue said ghip ghisizzle to the guard
all right answered the guard our boolooroo is in an ugly mood to night it will go hard with this little short necked creature if he doesn't polish the shoes properly then ghip ghisizzle left button bright and went away and the boy passed through several rooms to the royal bedchamber
where his majesty sat undressing hi there what are you doing here he roared as he saw button bright i've come for the shoes said the boy the king threw them at his head aiming carefully but button bright dodged the missiles
and one smashed a mirror while the other shattered a vase on a small table his majesty looked around for something else to throw but the boy seized the shoes and ran away returning to his own room while he polished the shoes he told his plans to cap'n bill and trot
and asked them to be ready to fly with him as soon as he returned with the magic umbrella all they need to do was to step out into the street through the door of cap'n bill's room and open the umbrella
and there would be nothing to prevent their quickly starting on the journey home
so it was after midnight when button bright finally took the shoes in his hand and started for the royal bedchamber he passed the guard of the royal treasury and fredjim nodded good naturedly to the boy but the sleepy guard before the king's apartments was cross and surly
he demanded i'm returning his majesty's shoes said button bright go back and wait till morning commanded the guard if you prevent me from obeying the boolooroo's orders returned the boy quietly he will probably have you patched
this threat frightened the long necked guard who did not know what orders the boolooroo had given his royal bootblue
i'll be quiet promised the boy indeed button bright had no desire to waken the boolooroo whom he found snoring lustily with the curtains of his high posted bed drawn tightly around him the boy had taken off his own shoes after he passed the guard
and now he tiptoed carefully into the room set down the royal shoes very gently and then crept to the chair where his majesty's clothes were piled
at once he decided this must be the key to the treasure chamber but in order to make sure he searched in every other pocket without finding another key
then button bright crept softly out of the room again and in one of the outer rooms he sat down near a big cabinet and put on his shoes poor button bright did not know that lying disregarded beneath that very cabinet at his side was the precious umbrella he was seeking
or that he was undertaking a desperate adventure all for nothing he passed the long necked guard again finding the man half asleep and then made his way to the treasure chamber facing jimfred he said to the patched man in a serious tone
his majesty commands you to go at once to the corridor leading to the apartments of the six snubnosed princesses and to guard the entrance until morning you are to permit no one to enter or to leave the apartments
who will guard the treasure chamber i am to take your place said button bright
this is a queer freak for our boolooroo to indulge in
you're not much of a guard seems to me but if anyone tries to rob the treasure chamber you must ring this big gong which will alarm the whole palace
yes said button bright then fredjim stalked away to the other side of the palace to guard the princesses and button bright was left alone with the key to the treasure chamber in his hand but he had not forgotten that the ferocious blue wolf was guarding the interior of the chamber
so he searched in some of the rooms until he found a sofa pillow which he put under his arm and then returned to the corridor he placed the key in the lock and the bolt turned with a sharp click button bright did not hesitate
he was afraid to be sure and his heart was beating fast with the excitement of the moment but he knew he must regain the magic umbrella if he would save his comrades and himself from destruction for without it they could never return to the earth
seems like a reg'lar drizzle said trot i'll be soaked through in a minute
and the silk was so thin that the moisture easily wetted it never mind said cap'n bill when it's a case of life n death clo's don't count for much i'm sort o drippy myself cried the parrot fluttering his feathers to try to keep them from sticking together floods and gushes fill our path
we can't laughed trot we'll jus have to stick it out till we get to the other side had we better go to the other side asked button bright anxiously why not returned cap'n bill
we don't know that sir said the boy ghip ghisizzle said it was a terrible country i don't believe it retorted the sailor stoutly sizzle's never been there an he knows nothing about it the sunset country sounds sort o good to me
but how'll we ever manage to get there inquired trot aren't we already lost in this fog
it was no darker in the fog bank than it had been in the blue country they could see dimly the mass of fog which seemed to cling to them
gradually this blue became fainter until as they progressed everything became a dull gray i wonder how far it is to the other side remarked trot wearily we can't say till we get there mate answered the sailor in a cheerful voice
cap'n bill had a way of growing more and more cheerful when danger threatened never mind said the girl i'm as wet as a dish rag now and i'll never get any wetter
can't you dry up asked cap'n bill
for although they were anxious to get through the fog bank they were tired with the long run across the country and with their day's adventures
and they all halted to find a monstrous frog obstructing their path cap'n bill thought it was as big as a whale and as it squatted on the gray pebbles its eyes were on a level with those of the old sailor
ker choo grunted the frog
stammered trot an we're tryin to scape from the blueskins
i don't blame you said the frog in a friendly tone i hate those blueskins the pinkies however are very decent neighbors oh i'm glad to hear that cried button bright can you tell us mister mistress good mister frog eh
the frog seemed to laugh for he gurgled in his throat in a very funny way i'm no royal highness he said i'm just a common frog and a little wee tiny frog too but i hope to grow in time
this fog bank is the paradise of frogs and our king is about ten times as big as i am then he's a big un an no mistake admitted cap'n bill i'm glad you like your country but it's a mite too damp for us an we'd be glad to get out of it
follow me said the frog i'll lead you to the border it's only about six jumps he turned around made a mighty leap and disappeared in the gray mist our friends looked at one another in bewilderment
the big frog seemed to understand their difficulty for he kept making noises in his throat to guide them to where he had leaped when at last they came up to him he made a second jump out of sight as before and when they attempted to follow they found a huge lizard lying across the path
cap'n bill thought it must be a giant alligator at first it was so big but he looked at them sleepily and did not seem at all dangerous
don't disturb me said the lizard i'm dreaming about parsnips
i don't care which murmured the lizard when they're little they're juicy when they're big there's more of em but either way there's nothing so delicious as a parsnip there are none here in the fog bank so the best i can do is dream of them
he closed his eyes sleepily and resumed his dreams walking around the lizard they resumed their journey and soon came to the frog being guided by its grunts and croaks then off it went again its tremendous leap carrying it far into the fog
then he saw that he had stumbled over the claw of a gigantic land crab which lay sprawled out upon the pebbly bottom oh beg parding i'm sure exclaimed cap'n bill backing away don't mention it replied the crab in a tired tone you did not disturb me so there is no harm done
probably not said the crab it's no place for me anyhow for i belong in the constellations you know with
my name is cancer but i'm not a disease those who examine the heavens in these days alas can find no cancer there
but i'm told they're not fashionable now if you don't mind we'd like to pass on said button bright no i don't mind but be careful not to step on my legs they're rheumatic it's so moist here they climbed over some of the huge legs and walked around others
soon they had left the creature far behind
when once more they came up to him it isn't that said trot you are rather swift i guess the frog chuckled and leaped again they noticed that the fog had caught a soft rose tint and was lighter and less dense than before
on this jump they saw nothing but a monstrous turtle
i'm sorry but i'm due at the king's court in a few minutes and i can't wait for your short weak legs to make the journey to the pink country
i'm tired said trot an this awful fog's beginnin to choke me let's ride on the frog cap'n right you are mate he replied and although he shook a bit with fear the old man at once began to climb to the frog's back
trot seated herself on one side of him and button bright on the other and the sailor put his arms around them both to hold them tight together are you ready asked the frog
but the frog was unable to obey his request its powerful hind legs straightened like steel springs and shot the big body with its passengers through the fog like an arrow launched from a bow
of two or three hundred years piles of gold and jewels were on all sides and precious ornaments and splendid cloths rare pieces of carved furniture vases bric a brac and the like were strewn about the room in astonishing profusion
just at the boy's feet crouched a monstrous animal of most fearful aspect
and its wide jaws were armed with rows of long pointed teeth its shoulders and front legs were huge and powerful but the rest of the wolf's body dwindled away until at the tail it was no bigger than a dog the jaws were therefore the dangerous part of the creature
and its small blue eyes flashed wickedly at the intruder just as the boy made his first step forward the blue wolf sprang upon him with its enormous jaws stretched wide open button bright jammed the sofa pillow into the brute's mouth and crowded it in as hard as he could
the terrible teeth came together and buried themselves in the pillow and then mister wolf found he could not pull them out again because his mouth was stuffed full he could not even growl or yelp
but rolled upon the floor trying in vain to release himself from the conquering pillow button bright paid no further attention to the helpless animal but caught up the blue brass lamp and began a search for his umbrella of course he could not find it as it was not there
he came across a small book bound in light blue leather which lay upon an exquisitely carved center table it was named in dark blue letters stamped on the leather the royal record book and remembering that ghip ghisizzle longed to possess this book
button bright hastily concealed it inside his blouse then he renewed his search for the umbrella but it was quite in vain he hunted in every crack and corner tumbling the treasures here and there in the quest
but at last he became positive that the magic umbrella had been removed from the room the boy was bitterly disappointed and did not know what to do next
so there being no object in his remaining longer in the room where he might have to fight the wolf again button bright went out and locked the door behind him while he stood in the corridor wondering what to do next a sudden shouting reached his ears it was the voice of the boolooroo crying
and then there followed shouts of soldiers and guards and servants and the rapid pattering of feet was heard throughout the palace
where the sailorman and trot were anxiously awaiting him quick cried the boy
where's the umbrel asked cap'n bill i don't know i can't find it but all the palace is aroused and the boolooroo is furious come let's get away at once where'll we go inquired trot we must make for the open country and hide in the fog bank or in the arch of phinis replied the boy
they did not stop to argue any longer but all three stepped out of the little door into the street where they first clasped hands so they would not get separated in the dark and then ran as swiftly as they could down the street which was deserted at this hour by the citizens
they could not go very fast because the sailorman's wooden leg was awkward to run with and held them back but cap'n bill hobbled quicker than he had ever hobbled before in all his life and they really made pretty good progress
which had a blue iron gate in it here was a blueskin guard who had been peacefully slumbering when aroused by the footsteps of the fugitives halt cried the guard fiercely cap'n bill halted long enough to grab the man around his long neck with one hand
and around his long leg with the other hand then he raised the blueskin in the air and threw him far over the wall
where they headed toward the low mountain whose outlines were plainly visible in the moonlight the guard was now howling and crying for help in the city were answering shouts a hue and cry came from every direction reaching as far as the palace
lights began to twinkle everywhere in the streets and the blue city hummed like a beehive filled with angry bees it won't do for us to get caught now panted cap'n bill as they ran along i'm more afeared o them blue citizens ner i am o the blue boolooroo
they'd tear us to pieces if they could sky island was not a very big place especially the blue part of it and our friends were now very close to the low mountain
above which was carved the one word phinis
whispered trot no more do i mate he answered i think i'd rather take a chance on the fog bank said button bright just then they were all startled by a swift flapping of wings
and a voice cried in shrill tones where are you trot as like as not i've been forgot cap'n bill jumped this way and button bright that
here all alone it's pretty far but here we are and then he barked like a dog and chuckled with glee at having found his little friend in escaping from the palace trot had been obliged to leave all the pets behind her but it seemed that the parrot had found some way to get free and follow her
they were all astonished to hear the bird talk and in poetry too but cap'n bill told trot that some parrots he had known had possessed a pretty fair gift of language and he added that this blue one seemed an unusually bright bird as fer po'try said he
rhymes come from your head but real po'try from your heart an whether the blue parrot has a heart or not he's sure got a head having decided not to venture into the arch of phinis they again started on
this time across the country straight toward the fog bank which hung like a blue gray cloud directly across the center of the island they knew they were being followed by bands of the blueskins for they could hear the shouts of their pursuers growing louder and louder every minute
had the journey been much farther the fugitives would have been overtaken but when the leaders of the pursuing blueskins were only a few yards behind them they reached the edge of the fog bank and without hesitation plunged into its thick mist which instantly hid them from view
the blueskins fell back horrified at the mad act of the strangers to them the fog bank was the most dreadful thing in existence and no blueskin had ever ventured within it even for a moment
in the hands of the officers of oogaboo a dozen of whom were clinging to the old nome and holding him fast in spite of his efforts to escape there also was queen ann looking grimly upon the scene of strife but when she observed her former companions approaching
she turned away in a shamefaced manner for ann and her officers were indeed a sight to behold her majesty's clothing once so rich and gorgeous was now worn and torn into shreds by her long crawl through the tunnel which by the way
had led her directly into the metal forest it was indeed one of the three secret passages and by far the most difficult of the three ann had not only torn her pretty skirt and jacket but her crown had become bent and battered
and even her shoes were so cut and slashed that they were ready to fall from her feet the officers had fared somewhat worse than their leader for holes were worn in the knees of their trousers while sharp points of rock in the roof and sides of the tunnel
had made rags of every inch of their once brilliant uniforms a more tattered and woeful army never came out of a battle than these harmless victims of the rocky passage but it had seemed their only means of escape from the cruel nome king
perhaps a more unhappy and homesick lot of conquerors never existed than this band from oogaboo after several days of wandering in their marvelous prison they were frightened by the discovery that ruggedo had come among them
rendered desperate by their sad condition the officers exhibited courage for the first time since they left home
they threw themselves upon him and had just succeeded in capturing him when their fellow adventurers reached the spot goodness gracious cried betsy what has happened to you all
but as he had no place to go he stood by and faced his former servant who was now king in his place in a humble and pleading manner
i know and i'll go as soon as i have filled my pockets said ruggedo meekly then fill them and be gone returned the new king ruggedo obeyed stooping down he began gathering up jewels by the handful
and ruggedo presented a comical sight for surely no man ever before had so many pockets or any at all filled with such a choice collection of precious stones he neglected to thank the young ladies for their kindness but gave them a surly nod of farewell
and staggered down the path by the way he had come they let him depart in silence for with all he had taken the masses of jewels upon the ground
also they hoped they had seen the last of the degraded king i'm awful glad he's gone said betsy sighing deeply if he doesn't get reckless and spend his wealth foolishly he's got enough to start a bank when he gets to oklahoma but my brother
my dear brother where is he inquired shaggy anxiously have you seen him queen ann what does your brother look like asked the queen shaggy hesitated to reply but betsy said he's called the ugly one
perhaps you'll know him by that the only person we have seen in this cavern said ann has run away from us whenever we approached him he hides over yonder among the trees that are not gold and we have never been able to catch sight of his face
that must be my dear brother exclaimed shaggy yes it must be assented kaliko no one else inhabits this splendid dome so there can be no mistake but why does he hide among those green trees
instead of enjoying all these glittery golden ones asked betsy because he finds food among the natural trees replied kaliko and i remember that he has built a little house there to sleep in as for these glittery golden trees
i will admit they are very pretty at first sight one cannot fail to admire them as well as the rich jewels scattered beneath them
they become pretty tame i believe that is true declared shaggy my dear brother is very wise to prefer real trees to the imitation ones but come let us go there and find him shaggy started for the green grove at once
and the others followed him being curious to witness the final rescue of his long sought long lost brother
cleverly made of twigs and golden branches woven together as they approached the place they caught a glimpse of a form that darted into the hut and slammed the door tight shut after him shaggy man ran to the door and cried aloud brother
no one can rescue me now oh but you are mistaken about that said shaggy there is a new king of the nomes named kaliko in ruggedo's place and he has promised you shall go free free i dare not go free
said the ugly one in a voice of despair why not brother asked shaggy anxiously do you know what they have done to me came the answer through the closed door no tell me brother what have they done
when ruggedo first captured me i was very handsome don't you remember shaggy not very well brother you were so young when i left home but i remember that mother thought you were beautiful she was right
i am sure she was right wailed the prisoner but ruggedo wanted to injure me to make me ugly in the eyes of all the world so he performed a wicked enchantment i went to bed beautiful or you might say handsome to be very modest
i will merely claim that i was good looking and i wakened the next morning the homeliest man in all the world i am so repulsive that when i look in a mirror i frighten myself poor brother said shaggy softly
and all the others were silent from sympathy i was so ashamed of my looks continued the voice of shaggy's brother that i tried to hide but the cruel king ruggedo forced me to appear before all the legion of nomes to whom he said
behold the ugly one but when the nomes saw my face they all fell to laughing and jeering which prevented them from working at their tasks seeing this ruggedo became angry and pushed me into a tunnel
closing the rock entrance so that i could not get out i followed the length of the tunnel until i reached this huge dome where the marvelous metal forest stands and here i have remained ever since poor brother repeated shaggy
but i beg you now to come forth and face us who are your friends none here will laugh or jeer however unhandsome you may be no indeed they all added pleadingly but the ugly one refused the invitation
i cannot said he indeed i cannot face strangers ugly as i am shaggy man turned to the group surrounding him what shall i do he asked in sorrowful tones i cannot leave my dear brother here
and he refuses to come out of that house and face us i'll tell you replied betsy let him put on a mask the very idea i was seeking exclaimed shaggy joyfully and then he called out brother
put a mask over your face and then none of us can see what your features are like i have no mask answered the ugly one look here said betsy he can use my handkerchief shaggy looked at the little square of cloth and shook his head
then it closed again don't forget a hole for your nose cried betsy you must breathe you know for a time there was silence
to rest betsy sat on hank's back polychrome danced lightly up and down the jeweled paths while files and the princess wandered through the groves arm in arm tik tok who never tired stood motionless
by and by a noise sounded from within the hut are you ready asked shaggy yes brother came the reply and the door was thrown open to allow the ugly one to step forth betsy might have laughed aloud
while two smaller ones before the nostrils allowed the man to breathe freely the cloth was then tightly drawn over the ugly one's face and knotted at the back of his neck he was dressed in clothes that had once been good but now were sadly worn and frayed
his silk stockings had holes in them and his shoes were stub toed and needed blackening but what can you expect whispered betsy when the poor man has been a prisoner for so many years shaggy had darted forward
that is a kindly deed replied ugly in a sad voice but i dread to go back to the world in this direful condition unless i remain forever masked my dreadful face would curdle all the milk and stop all the clocks
can't the enchantment be broken in some way inquired betsy shaggy looked anxiously at kaliko who shook his head i am sure i can't break the enchantment he said ruggedo was fond of magic and learned a good many enchantments that we nomes know nothing of
perhaps ruggedo himself might break his own enchantment suggested ann but unfortunately we have allowed the old king to escape never mind my dear brother said shaggy consolingly i am very happy to have found you again
although i may never see your face so let us make the most of this joyful reunion the ugly one was affected to tears by this tender speech and the tears began to wet the red handkerchief
chapter twenty five the service of king louis meanwhile some three months before colonel bishop set out to reduce tortuga captain blood bearing hell in his soul had blown into its rockbound harbour ahead of the winter gales
and two days ahead of the frigate in which wolverstone had sailed from port royal a day before him in that snug anchorage he found his fleet awaiting him the four ships which had been separated in that gale off the lesser antilles and some seven hundred men composing their crews
because they had been beginning to grow anxious on his behalf they gave him the greater welcome guns were fired in his honour and the ships made themselves gay with bunting the town aroused by all this noise in the harbour emptied itself upon the jetty
to be present at the coming ashore of the great buccaneer ashore he went probably for no other reason than to obey the general expectation his mood was taciturn his face grim and sneering
let wolverstone arrive as presently he would and all this hero worship would turn to execration his captains hagthorpe christian and yberville were on the jetty to receive him and with them were some hundreds of his buccaneers
he cut short their greetings and when they plagued him with questions of where he had tarried he bade them await the coming of wolverstone who would satisfy their curiosity to a surfeit on that he shook them off and shouldered his way through that heterogeneous throng
that was composed of bustling traders of several nations english french and dutch of planters and of seamen of various degrees
negro slaves some doll tearsheets and dunghill queans from the old world and all the other types of the human family that converted the quays of cayona
winning clear at last and after difficulties
at first the buccaneers jumped to the conclusion that wolverstone was following with some rare prize of war but gradually from the reduced crew of the arabella a very different tale leaked out to stem their satisfaction and convert it into perplexity
partly out of loyalty to their captain partly because they perceived that if he was guilty of defection they were guilty with him and partly because being simple sturdy men of their hands
the crew of the arabella practised reticence with their brethren in tortuga during those two days before wolverstone's arrival but they were not reticent enough to prevent the circulation of certain uneasy rumours
and extravagant stories of discreditable adventures discreditable that is from the buccaneering point of view of which captain blood had been guilty but that wolverstone came when he did it is possible that there would have been an explosion
when however the old wolf cast anchor in the bay two days later it was to him all turned for the explanation they were about to demand of blood now wolverstone had only one eye but he saw a deal more with that one eye than do most men with two
and despite his grizzled head so picturesquely swathed in a green and scarlet turban he had the sound heart of a boy and in that heart much love for peter blood the sight of the arabella at anchor in the bay
who had elected to sail with him assured him that he was not singular in his bewilderment in the name of heaven is that the arabella or is it the ghost of her the old wolf rolled his single eye over dyke and opened his mouth to speak
then he closed it again without having spoken closed it tightly he had a great gift of caution especially in matters that he did not understand that this was the arabella he could no longer doubt that being so he must think before he spoke
what the devil should the arabella be doing here when he had left her in jamaica and was captain blood aboard and in command or had the remainder of her hands made off with her leaving the captain in port royal dyke repeated his question
this time wolverstone answered him ye've two eyes to see with and ye ask me who's only got one what it is ye see but i see the arabella
of course since there she rides what else was you expecting expecting
wolverstone looked him over in contempt then laughed and spoke loud enough to be heard by all around him of course what else and he laughed again a laugh that seemed to dyke to be calling him a fool
wolverstone congratulated himself upon the discretion he had used with dyke
to offer the captain the king's commission if so be him'd quit piracy and be o good behaviour the captain damned his soul to hell for answer and then we fell in wi the jamaica fleet and that grey old devil bishop in command
and there was a sure end to captain blood and to every mother's son of us all so i goes to him and accept this poxy commission says i turn king's man and save your neck and ours he took me at my word and the london pimp gave him the king's commission on the spot
and bishop all but choked hisself with rage when he was told of it but happened it had and he was forced to swallow it we were king's men all and so into port royal we sailed along o bishop but bishop didn't trust us he knew too much
but for his lordship the fellow from london he'd ha hanged the captain king's commission and all
was to follow and give chase whether that's the game he played or not i can't tell ye but here he is afore me as i'd expected he would be there was a great historian lost in wolverstone
he had the right imagination that knows just how far it is safe to stray from the truth and just how far to colour it so as to change its shape for his own purposes having delivered himself of his decoction of fact and falsehood
and thereby added one more to the exploits of peter blood he enquired where the captain might be found being informed that he kept his ship wolverstone stepped into a boat and went aboard to report himself as he put it
in the great cabin of the arabella he found peter blood alone and very far gone in drink a condition in which no man ever before remembered to have seen him as wolverstone came in the captain raised bloodshot eyes to consider him
a moment they sharpened in their gaze as he brought his visitor into focus then he laughed a loose idiot laugh that yet somehow was half a sneer ah the old wolf said he
he hiccoughed resoundingly and sagged back loosely in his chair old wolverstone stared at him in sombre silence he had looked with untroubled eye upon many a hell of devilment in his time but the sight of captain blood in this condition filled him with sudden grief
to express it he loosed an oath it was his only expression for emotion of all kinds then he rolled forward and dropped into a chair at the table facing the captain my god peter what's this rum said peter
jus rum i answer all your queshons
whatcher gonerdo wi me i've done it said wolverstone thank god ye had the sense to hold your tongue till i came are ye sober enough to understand me
then listen and out came the tale that wolverstone had told the captain steadied himself to grasp it it'll do as well asertruth said he when wolverstone had finished
but was it worthertrouble i'm norrer pirate now never a pirate again
he banged the table his eyes suddenly fierce
and say nothing that'll make me out a liar
i've made em if they thought as how you'd taken the king's commission in earnest and for the purpose o doing as morgan did ye guess what would follow hell would follow said the captain
ye're maudlin wolverstone growled we'll talk again to morrow they did but to little purpose either that day or on any day thereafter while the rains which set in that night endured
soon the shrewd wolverstone discovered that rum was not what ailed blood rum was in itself an effect and not by any means the cause of the captain's listless apathy there was a canker eating at his heart
to make a shrewd guess of its nature he cursed all things that daggled petticoats and knowing his world waited for the sickness to pass but it did not pass when blood was not dicing or drinking in the taverns of tortuga
sent him almost daily invitations to few of which he responded later as the rainy season approached its end he was sought by his captains with proposals of remunerative raids on spanish settlements but to all he manifested an indifference which
as the weeks passed and the weather became settled begot first impatience and then exasperation christian who commanded the clotho came storming to him one day upbraiding him for his inaction and demanding that he should take order about what was to do
go to the devil blood said when he had heard him out christian departed fuming and on the morrow the clotho weighed anchor and sailed away setting an example of desertion from which the loyalty of blood's other captains would soon be unable to restrain their men
and her scorn of him for a thief and a pirate he had sworn that he had done with buccaneering why then was he here that question he would answer with another where else was he to go
neither backward nor forward could he move it seemed he was degenerating visibly under the eyes of all he had entirely lost the almost foppish concern for his appearance and was grown careless and slovenly in his dress
he allowed a black beard to grow on cheeks that had ever been so carefully shaven and the long thick black hair once so sedulously curled hung now in a lank untidy mane about a face that was changing from its vigorous swarthiness
whilst the blue eyes that had been so vivid and compelling were now dull and lacklustre wolverstone the only one who held the clue to this degeneration ventured once and once only to beard him frankly about it
lord peter is there never to be no end to this the giant had growled will you spend your days moping and swilling cause a white faced ninny in port royal'll have none o ye sblood and ounds
if ye wants the wench why the plague doesn't ye go and fetch her the blue eyes glared at him from under the jet black eyebrows and something of their old fire began to kindle in them but wolverstone went on heedlessly
i'll be nice wi a wench as long as niceness be the key to her favour but sink me now if i'd rot myself in rum on account of anything that wears a petticoat that's not the old wolf's way if there's no other expedition'll tempt you why not port royal
what a plague do it matter if it is an english settlement it's commanded by colonel bishop and there's no lack of rascals in your company'd follow you to hell if it meant getting colonel bishop by the throat it could be done i tell you
we've but to spy the chance when the jamaica fleet is away there's enough plunder in the town to tempt the lads and there's the wench for you
his eyes blazing his livid face distorted ye'll leave my cabin this minute
or by heaven it's your corpse'll be carried out of it ye mangy hound d'ye dare come to me with such proposals
he had never yet been known to use and wolverstone in terror before that fury went out without another word the subject was not raised again and captain blood was left to his idle abstraction
accompanied by a chubby little gentleman amiable of countenance amiable and self sufficient of manner my captain
who desires a word with you out of consideration for his friend captain blood pulled the pipe from his mouth shook some of the rum out of his wits
and accepted a seat on the locker under the stem windows you have a good force here under your command my captain said he some eight hundred men and i understand they grow restive in idleness they may go to the devil when they please
took snuff delicately i have something better than that to propose said he propose it then said blood without interest
he did not find captain blood encouraging
news has reached us from france that there is war with spain that is news is it growled blood i am speaking officially my captain i am not alluding to unofficial skirmishes
and unofficial predatory measures which we have condoned out here there is war formally war between france and spain in europe it is the intention of france that this war shall be carried into the new world
i have letters from him desiring me to equip a supplementary squadron and raise a body of not less than a thousand men to reenforce him on his arrival what i have come to propose to you my captain
that you enroll your ships and your force
blood looked at him with a faint kindling of interest you are offering to take us into the french service he asked on what terms monsieur
and suitable ranks for the officers serving under you you will enjoy the pay of that rank and you will be entitled together with your men to one tenth share in all prizes taken
and considering the powerful fleet
the enterprises to be undertaken will be on a much vaster scale than anything you could attempt on your own account so that the one tenth in this case may be equal to more than the whole in the other captain blood considered
hagthorpe announced at once that the proposal was opportune the men were grumbling at their protracted inaction and would no doubt be ready to accept the service
hagthorpe looked at blood as he spoke blood nodded gloomy agreement emboldened by this they went on to discuss the terms yberville the young french filibuster
that the share offered was too small for one fifth of the prizes the officers would answer for their men not for less
he had his instructions it was taking a deal upon himself to exceed them the buccaneers were firm
the articles were drawn up and signed that very day the buccaneers were to be at petit goave by the end of january
after that followed days of activity in tortuga refitting the ships boucanning meat laying in stores in these matters which once would have engaged all captain blood's attention he now took no part
he continued listless and aloof if he had given his consent to the undertaking or rather allowed himself to be swept into it by the wishes of his officers it was only because the service offered was of a regular and honourable kind
with which he swore in his heart that he had done for ever but his consent remained passive the service entered awoke no zeal in him he was perfectly indifferent as he told hagthorpe who ventured once to offer a remonstrance
whether they went to petit goave
and between the distinct species of the same genus nearly the whole of the following chapter will be devoted to this subject but i will first make a few remarks on one or two other points several males may often be seen pursuing and crowding round the same female
their courtship appears to be a prolonged affair for i have frequently watched one or more males pirouetting round a female until i was tired without seeing the end of the courtship
mister a g butler also informs me that he has several times watched a male courting a female for a full quarter of an hour but she pertinaciously refused him and at last settled on the ground and closed her wings
and which can be heard at the distance of several yards i noticed this sound at rio de janeiro only when two of these butterflies were chasing each other in an irregular course
that setina produces a sound like the ticking of a watch apparently by the aid of two large tympaniform vesicles situated in the pectoral region and these are much more developed in the male than in the female
hence the sound producing organs in the lepidoptera appear to stand in some relation with the sexual functions i have not alluded to the well known noise made by the death's head sphinx
and it may be asked are their colours and diversified patterns the result of the direct action of the physical conditions to which these insects have been exposed
or have successive variations been accumulated and determined as a protection or for some unknown purpose or that one sex may be attractive to the other
and alike in the two sexes of other species of the same genus before attempting to answer these questions a body of facts must be given
and they likewise resemble both sexes of the species in several allied genera found in various parts of the world hence we may infer that these nine species and probably all the others of the genus are descended from an ancestral form which was coloured in nearly the same manner
in the tenth species the female still retains the same general colouring but the male resembles her so that he is coloured in a much less gaudy and contrasted manner than the males of the previous species in the eleventh and twelfth species the females depart from the usual type
hence in these two latter species the bright colours of the males seem to have been transferred to the females whilst in the tenth species the male has either retained or recovered the plain colours of the female as well as of the parent form of the genus
the sexes in these three cases have thus been rendered nearly alike though in an opposite manner in the allied genus eubagis both sexes of some of the species are plain coloured and nearly alike
and differ much from their females the females throughout the genus retain the same general style of colouring so that they resemble one another much more closely than they resemble their own males
in the genus papilio all the species of the aeneas group are remarkable for their conspicuous and strongly contrasted colours and they illustrate the frequent tendency to gradation in the amount of difference between the sexes
in others the males are either a little brighter or very much more superb than the females
for although the sexes of most of the species resemble each other
the male is rather more bright coloured than the female
the male is so different from the female that he might be mistaken for an entirely distinct species another striking case was pointed out to me in the british museum by mister a butler namely one of the tropical american theclae
in which both sexes are nearly alike and wonderfully splendid in another species the male is coloured in a similarly gorgeous manner whilst the whole upper surface of the female is of a dull uniform brown our common little english blue butterflies of the genus lycaena
though not in so striking a manner as the above exotic genera
bordered with small ocellated orange spots and are thus alike
and are very like though in the female the edges of the wings are rather duskier with the black spots plainer and in a bright blue indian species both sexes are still more alike
that when the sexes of butterflies differ the male as a general rule is the more beautiful and departs more from the usual type of colouring of the group to which the species belongs hence in most groups the females of the several species resemble each other much more closely than do the males
in some cases however to which i shall hereafter allude the females are coloured more splendidly than the males in the second place these details have been given to bring clearly before the mind
to so great a difference that it was long before the two were placed by entomologists in the same genus in the third place we have seen that when the sexes nearly resemble each other this appears due either to the male having transferred his colours to the female
or to the male having retained or perhaps recovered
it also deserves notice that in those groups in which the sexes differ the females usually somewhat resemble the males so that when the males are beautiful to an extraordinary degree
are the purposeless result of the nature of the tissues and of the action of the surrounding conditions
this has been as far as we can judge either for direct or indirect protection or as an attraction between the sexes with many species of butterflies the upper surfaces of the wings are obscure and this in all probability leads to their escaping observation and danger
but butterflies would be particularly liable to be attacked by their enemies when at rest and most kinds whilst resting raise their wings vertically over their backs so that the lower surface alone is exposed to view
and yet are protective thus in thecla rubi the wings when closed are of an emerald green and resemble the young leaves of the bramble on which in spring this butterfly may often be seen seated
in these species both sexes are alike but in the common brimstone butterfly gonepteryx rhamni the male is of an intense yellow whilst the female is much paler
as a warning that they are unpalatable for in certain other cases beauty has been gained through the imitation of other beautiful species which inhabit the same district and enjoy an immunity from attack by being in some way offensive to their enemies
but then we have to account for the beauty of the imitated species as mister walsh has remarked to me the females of our orange tip butterfly above referred to
for both sexes of four or five widely distributed species are coloured in nearly the same manner as in several previous cases we may here infer
which have departed from the usual type of the genus
the orange tips to the wings have been partially developed in the female but they are paler than in the male
as the hind wings are then fully exposed to view
but the following fact shews how cautious we ought to be in drawing conclusions on this head the common yellow under wings triphaena often fly about during the day or early evening
it would naturally be thought that this would be a source of danger but mister j jenner weir believes that it actually serves them as a means of escape for birds strike at these brightly coloured and fragile surfaces instead of at the body
for instance mister weir turned into his aviary a vigorous specimen of triphaena pronuba which was instantly pursued by a robin but the bird's attention being caught by the coloured wings
are specially arranged for display so that they may be readily seen during the night colours are not visible and there can be no doubt that the nocturnal moths taken as a body are much less gaily decorated than butterflies all of which are diurnal in their habits
fly about during the day or early evening
yet in many species it is as highly decorated as the upper surface
is coloured more brightly and diversely than the lower hence the lower surface generally affords to entomologists the more useful character for detecting the affinities of the various species fritz mueller informs me that three species of castnia
of two of them the hind wings are obscure and are always covered by the front wings when these butterflies are at rest but the third species has black hind wings beautifully spotted with red and white and these are fully expanded and displayed whenever the butterfly rests
other such cases could be added if we now turn to the enormous group of moths which as i hear from mister stainton
the upper surface of the fore wing is pale greyish ochreous while the lower surface is magnificently ornamented by an ocellus of cobalt blue placed in the midst of a black mark surrounded by orange yellow and this by bluish white but the habits of these three moths are unknown
now and then suddenly and slightly lift up their wings hence the lower surface of the wings being brighter than the upper surface in certain moths is not so anomalous as it at first appears the saturniidae include some of the most beautiful of all moths
their wings being decorated as in our british emperor moth
resembles the very common spilosoma menthrasti both sexes of which are white and mister stainton observed that this latter moth was rejected with utter disgust by a whole brood of young turkeys which were fond of eating other moths
from the several foregoing facts it is impossible to admit that the brilliant colours of butterflies and of some few moths have commonly been acquired for the sake of protection
hence i am led to believe that the females prefer or are most excited by the more brilliant males for on any other supposition the males would as far as we can see be ornamented to no purpose we know that ants and certain lamellicorn beetles are capable of feeling an attachment for each other
and that ants recognise their fellows after an interval of several months hence there is no abstract improbability in the lepidoptera which probably stand nearly or quite as high in the scale as these insects
they certainly discover flowers by colour the humming bird sphinx may often be seen to swoop down from a distance on a bunch of flowers in the midst of green foliage and i have been assured by two persons abroad that these moths repeatedly visit flowers painted on the walls of a room
and vainly endeavour to insert their proboscis into them
he observed that they very often visited the brilliant red flowers of five or six genera of plants but never the white or yellow flowering species of the same and other genera growing in the same garden and i have received other accounts to the same effect
as i hear from mister doubleday the common white butterfly often flies down to a bit of paper on the ground
the males sometimes fight together in rivalry and many may be seen pursuing or crowding round the same female unless then the females prefer one male to another the pairing must be left to mere chance and this does not appear probable
and will have been transmitted to both sexes or to one sex according to the law of inheritance which has prevailed the process of sexual selection will have been much facilitated if the conclusion can be trusted arrived at from various kinds of evidence in the supplement to the ninth chapter
namely that the males of many lepidoptera at least in the imago state greatly exceed the females in number some facts however are opposed to the belief that female butterflies prefer the more beautiful males
thus as i have been assured by several collectors fresh females may frequently be seen paired with battered faded or dingy males but this is a circumstance which could hardly fail often to follow from the males emerging from their cocoons earlier than the females
the sexes pair immediately after assuming the imago state for they cannot feed owing to the rudimentary condition of their mouths the females as several entomologists have remarked to me lie in an almost torpid state and appear not to evince the least choice in regard to their partners
as i have been told by some continental and english breeders doctor wallace who has had great experience in breeding bombyx cynthia is convinced that the females evince no choice or preference he has kept above three hundred of these moths together
and has often found the most vigorous females mated with stunted males the reverse appears to occur seldom for as he believes the more vigorous males pass over the weakly females and are attracted by those endowed with most vitality
and much too low mental powers to appreciate each other's beauty or other attractions or to feel rivalry
secondary sexual characters of the kind which we have to consider do not occur and this fact agrees with the belief that such characters in the higher classes have been acquired through sexual selection which depends on the will desire and choice of either sex
nevertheless some few apparent exceptions occur thus as i hear from doctor baird the males of certain entozoa or internal parasitic worms differ slightly in colour from the females
the permanently affixed condition of others and the low mental powers of all that such colours do not serve as a sexual attraction and have not been acquired through sexual selection
except where one sex is much more brilliantly or conspicuously coloured than the other and where there is no difference in habits between the sexes sufficient to account for their different colours
but the evidence is rendered as complete as it can ever be only when the more ornamented individuals almost always the males voluntarily display their attractions before the other sex for we cannot believe that such display is useless
and if it be advantageous sexual selection will almost inevitably follow we may however extend this conclusion to both sexes when coloured alike
but that we may easily err on this head will be admitted
independently of any benefit thus derived
and though it adds to the beauty of the maiden's cheek no one will pretend that it has been acquired for this purpose so again with many animals especially the lower ones the bile is richly coloured thus as i am informed by mister hancock
this beauty being probably of no service to these animals the tints of the decaying leaves in an american forest are described by every one as gorgeous yet no one supposes that these tints are of the least advantage to the trees
bearing in mind how many substances closely analogous to natural organic compounds have been recently formed by chemists
it would have been a strange fact if substances similarly coloured had not often originated independently of any useful end thus gained in the complex laboratory of living organisms the sub kingdom of the mollusca
throughout this great division of the animal kingdom as far as i can discover secondary sexual characters such as we are here considering never occur nor could they be expected in the three lowest classes namely in the ascidians polyzoa and brachiopods
constituting the molluscoida of some authors for most of these animals are permanently affixed to a support or have their sexes united in the same individual in the lamellibranchiata or bivalve shells hermaphroditism is not rare
in the next higher class of the gasteropoda or univalve shells the sexes are either united or separate but in the latter case the males never possess special organs for finding securing or charming the females
but after an absence of twenty four hours it returned and apparently communicated the result of its successful exploration for both then started along the same track and disappeared over the wall even in the highest class of the mollusca the cephalopoda or cuttle fishes
in which the sexes are separate secondary sexual characters of the present kind
that it was described by cuvier as a parasitic worm under the name of hectocotyle but this marvellous structure may be classed as a primary rather than as a secondary sexual character although with the mollusca sexual selection does not seem to have come into play
they are probably the direct result as in the lowest classes of the nature of the tissues
do not seek concealment whilst again some equally conspicuous species as well as other dull coloured kinds live under stones and in dark recesses
these naked sea slugs are hermaphrodites yet they pair together as do land snails many of which have extremely pretty shells
might unite and leave offspring which would inherit their parents greater beauty but with such lowly organised creatures this is extremely improbable nor is it at all obvious how the offspring from the more beautiful pairs of hermaphrodites would have any advantage over the offspring of the less beautiful
so as to increase in number unless indeed vigour and beauty generally coincided we have not here the case of a number of males becoming mature before the females with the more beautiful males selected by the more vigorous females
if indeed brilliant colours were beneficial to a hermaphrodite animal in relation to its general habits of life the more brightly tinted individuals would succeed best and would increase in number
sub kingdom of the vermes class annelida or sea worms
sub kingdom of the arthropoda class crustacea in this great class we first meet with undoubted secondary sexual characters often developed in a remarkable manner unfortunately the habits of crustaceans are very imperfectly known
and we cannot explain the uses of many structures peculiar to one sex with the lower parasitic species the males are of small size and they alone are furnished with perfect swimming legs antennae and sense organs
the females being destitute of these organs with their bodies often consisting of a mere distorted mass but these extraordinary differences between the two sexes are no doubt related to their widely different habits of life and consequently do not concern us
in various crustaceans belonging to distinct families the anterior antennae are furnished with peculiar thread like bodies
and these are much more numerous in the males than in the females as the males without any unusual development of their olfactory organs
the increased number of the smelling threads has probably been acquired through sexual selection by the better provided males having been the more successful in finding partners and in producing offspring
in which the male is represented by two distinct forms
the right hand one being as i am informed by mister bate generally though not invariably the largest this inequality is also often much greater in the male than in the female
what advantage is gained by their inequality in size on the opposite sides of the body and by the inequality being much greater in the male than in the female and why when they are of equal size both are often much larger in the male than in the female is not known
but it is probably the case for with most animals when the male is larger than the female he seems to owe his greater size to his ancestors having fought with other males during many generations in most of the orders especially in the highest or the brachyura
the male is larger than the female the parasitic genera however in which the sexes follow different habits of life and most of the entomostraca must be excepted
thus when a devil crab portunus puber was seen by a son of mister bate fighting with a carcinus maenas the latter was soon thrown on its back and had every limb torn from its body when several males of a brazilian gelasimus a species furnished with immense pincers
were placed together in a glass vessel by fritz mueller they mutilated and killed one another
but the latter was soon dispossessed mister bate adds if they fought the victory was a bloodless one for i saw no wounds this same naturalist separated a male sand skipper so common on our sea shores gammarus marinus from its female
both of whom were imprisoned in the same vessel with many individuals of the same species the female when thus divorced soon joined the others after a time the male was put again into the same vessel and he then after swimming about for a time dashed into the crowd and without any fighting
at once took away his wife this fact shews that in the amphipoda an order low in the scale the males and females recognise each other and are mutually attached the mental powers of the crustacea are probably higher than at first sight appears probable
any one who tries to catch one of the shore crabs so common on tropical coasts will perceive how wary and alert they are there is a large crab birgus latro found on coral islands which makes a thick bed of the picked fibres of the cocoa nut at the bottom of a deep burrow
it feeds on the fallen fruit of this tree by tearing off the husk fibre by fibre and it always begins at that end where the three eye like depressions are situated it then breaks through one of these eyes by hammering with its heavy front pincers
and turning round extracts the albuminous core with its narrow posterior pincers but these actions are probably instinctive
and evidently thinking that they might likewise roll in carried them to the spot where it had laid the first it would i think be difficult to distinguish this act from one performed by man by the aid of reason
with the anterior part of a rich green shading into dark brown and it is remarkable that these colours are liable to change in the course of a few minutes the white becoming dirty grey or even black the green losing much of its brilliancy
it deserves especial notice that the males do not acquire their bright colours until they become mature they appear to be much more numerous than the females
probably in all the sexes pair and inhabit the same burrow they are also as we have seen highly intelligent animals from these various considerations it seems probable that the male in this species has become gaily ornamented in order to attract or excite the female
it has just been stated
this seems a general rule in the whole class in respect to the many remarkable structural differences between the sexes we shall hereafter find the same law prevailing throughout the great sub kingdom of the vertebrata
and exhibit much intelligence as is well known the females often shew the strongest affection for their eggs which they carry about enveloped in a silken web the males search eagerly for the females and have been seen by canestrini and others to fight for possession of them
this same author says that the union of the two sexes has been observed in about twenty species and he asserts positively that the female rejects some of the males who court her threatens them with open mandibles and at last after long hesitation accepts the chosen one
from these several considerations we may admit with some confidence that the well marked differences in colour between the sexes of certain species are the results of sexual selection though we have not here the best kind of evidence the display by the male of his ornaments
for instance of theridion lineatum it would appear that these sexual characters of the males have not as yet become well fixed canestrini draws the same conclusion from the fact that the males of certain species present two forms differing from each other in the size and length of their jaws
in glomeris limbata however and perhaps in some few other species the males differ slightly in colour from the females but this glomeris is a highly variable species
in the males of the diplopoda the legs belonging either to one of the anterior or of the posterior segments of the body are modified into prehensile hooks which serve to secure the female
in some species of iulus the tarsi of the male are furnished with membranous suckers for the same purpose
symphony and symphonic poem that adventurous spirit claudio monteverde who nearly three hundred years ago made himself responsible for the first feeble utterances of an orchestra that tried to say something for itself
divined the possibilities of expression in varying combinations of tone quality and gave vigorous impulse to the germ of the symphony already existing in the formless instrumental preludes and interludes of his predecessors
among opera makers his revelation of the charm that lies in exploring the resources of instrumentation led to ever increasing demands on the orchestra
the prelude developed into the operatic overture whose business it became to prepare the spectator for what followed that music was capable of conveying an impression in her own tone language was apparent
and in due time the symphony rose majestic from the forge of genius
was the dance of obscure origin as the vocal aria was the result of the simple folk song combined with the intense craving of song's master molders for individual expression so instrumental music striving to walk alone
without support from words gained vital elements through the discovery that various phases of mental disposition might be indicated by alternating dance tunes differing in rhythm and movement
the touch of authority was given to this kind of music during the last two decades of the seventeenth century by arcangelo corelli when he presented in the camera or private apartment of cardinal ottoboni's palace in rome
the master himself playing the leading melody on the violin
where they were performed and the symphony which is a sonata for the orchestra absolute music was set once for all on the right path by them they ushered in a new era of art purcell in england domenico scarlatti and sammartini in italy
proved suitable to furnish a subject for the most animated discussion three contrasting movements were adopted comprising a summons to attention an appeal to both intellect and emotions and a lively reaction after excitement
second what they could feel and third how glad they were to have finished time vastly increased its importance two subjects a melody in the tonic another usually in the dominant came to set forth the exposition of the opening movement
leading to a free development with various episodes and an assured return to the original statement the prevailing character being thus defined the story readily unfolds aided by related keys
written in the original key each movement has its own subjects its individual development
and idea for a bond of union the name symphony from sinfonia a consonance of sounds applied originally to any selection played by a full band and later to instrumental overtures
was given by joseph haydn to the orchestral sonata form inaugurated by him his thirty years of musical service to the house of esterhazy with an orchestra increasing from sixteen to twenty four pieces to experiment on
as the solo virtuoso experiments on piano or violin brought him wholly under the spell of the instruments their individual characteristics afforded him continually new suggestions in regard to tone coloring
and he rose often to audacity for his time in his harmonic devices grace and spirit originality of invention joyous abandon a fancy controlled by a studious mind a profusion of quaint humor
and a proper division of light and shade combine to give the dominant note to his music his symphonies recall the fairy tale with its sparkling once upon a time and yet like it are not without their mysterious shadows
in everything he has written is felt that faculty of smiling amid grief
exclaim in his old age life is a charming affair with mozart whose life work began after but ended before that of haydn influencing and being influenced by the latter the symphony broadened in scope
and grew richer in warmth of melodious expression definiteness of plan and completeness of form his profoundly poetic musical nature with its high capacity for joy and sorrow and infinite longing was reflected in all that he wrote
of his marvelously constructive brain the crowning glory of his graceful perfection of outline and detail is the noble spirit of serenity which illumines all its beauty beethoven further advanced the technique of the symphony
and all the holiest aspirations of the inner being he discussed in tones problems of man's life and destiny ever displaying sublime faith that fate however cruel is powerless to crush the spiritual being
the real individuality his conflicts never fail to end in triumph well may it be said that the ultimate purpose of a symphony of beethoven is to tell of those things from the deepest depths of which events are mere shadows
and that as high feeling demands lofty utterance his tonal forms are inevitably worthy of their contents twenty six years younger than beethoven schubert lived but a year after he had passed away and died in eighteen twenty eight
and felt the glow of the spirit of romanticism from the perennial fount of song within his breast there streamed fresh melodious strains through his symphonies the ninth and last of which the c major ranks him with the great symphonists
intense poetic sentiment dreamy yet strong musical individuality romantic fulness of plan to embody in tones the passionate emotions of a storm and stress period and much originality of orchestral treatment characterize the symphonies of schumann
he rises to towering heights in some passages but in his daring explorations through the tone world he is often betrayed into a vagueness of form largely traceable perhaps to lack of early technical discipline
as well as to lack of mental clarity ultra romanticism was foreign to the nature and repulsive to the tastes of the refined elegant mendelssohn yet in spite of himself its influence crept gently into his polished works
as a symphonist he displayed fertility in picturesque sonorities facility in tracing the outlines and filling in the details of form keen sense of balance of orchestral tone
and as some one has said became all but a master in the highest sense his overtures are unquestionably romantic and as their histrionic and scenic titles indicate
this brings us to hector berlioz the famous french symphonist the exponent par excellence of programme music that is music intended to illustrate a special story
he was the first to impress on the world the idea of music as a definite language his recurrent themes called fixed ideas
his skill in combining instruments added new lustre to orchestration the personal style he created for himself was the result of his studies of older masterpieces above all those of gluck
the plan of a musical drama without words requires to be explained beforehand the programme which is indispensable to the perfect comprehension of the work ought therefore to be considered in the light of the spoken text of an opera
serving to lead up to the piece of music and indicate the character and expression from programme music came the symphonic poem of which franz liszt was the creator
his great works in this line are a faust symphony les preludes orpheus prometheus mazeppa and hamlet symphonic in form although less restricted than the symphony
these works are designed to give tone pictures of the subjects designated or at least of the moods they awaken mazeppa for instance is described as depicting in a wild movement rising to frenzy
the death ride of the hero a brief andante proclaims his collapse the following march introduced by trumpet fanfares and increasing to the noblest triumph his elevation and coronation
his orchestration is distinguished by its clarity power and exquisite coloring the orchestral music of tschaikowsky who died in eighteen ninety three symphonies and symphonic poems are saturated with the glowing russian spirit
are intensely dramatic sometimes rising to tempestuous bursts of passion that are only held in check by the composer's scholarly control of his materials a strong national flavor is also felt in the work of christian sinding
the norwegian whose d minor symphony has been styled a piece born of the gloomy romanticism of the north edward grieg known as the incarnation of the strong vigorous breezy spirit of the land of the midnight sun
has put some of his most characteristic work into symphonic poems and orchestral suites the first composer to convey a message from the north in tones to the european world was gade the dane known as the symphony master of the north
and died in eighteen ninety it is impossible to mention in a brief essay all the great workers in symphonic forms one titanic spirit johannes brahms
who succeeded in striking the dominant note of musical sublimity amid modern unrest
from beethoven the strength from schubert the intimateness of his art truly a wonderfully gifted nature that was able to absorb such a fulness of great gifts and still not lose the best of gifts the strong individuality
which makes the master wonderful is the power of instrumental music absolute music without words that may convey impressions deep and lasting no words could give all hail to the memory of johannes brahms
thereupon he returned to town in search of some one to go with him and help to get the honey as he was passing the house of boo'koo the big rat that worthy gentleman invited him in so he went in
sat down and remarked my father has died and has left me a hive of honey i would like you to come and help me to eat it of course bookoo jumped at the offer and he and the hare started off immediately
when they arrived at the great calabash tree soongoora pointed out the bees nest and said go on climb up so taking some straw with them they climbed up to the nest lit the straw smoked out the bees
then soongoora whispered to bookoo hold your tongue that old fellow is crazy but in a very little while simba roared out angrily who are you i say speak i tell you this made bookoo so scared that he blurted out
in an incredulous tone and without wasting further time he ate the big rat and then searched around for the hare but could not find him three days later soongoora called on his acquaintance ko'bay the tortoise
and said to him let us go and eat some honey whose honey inquired kobay cautiously my father's soongoora replied oh all right i'm with you said the tortoise eagerly and away they went
when they arrived at the great calabash tree they climbed up with their straw smoked out the bees sat down and began to eat just then mister simba who owned the honey came out again and
you told me this honey was yours am i right in suspecting that it belongs to simba so when the lion asked again who are you he answered it's only us the lion said come down then
and the tortoise answered we're coming now simba had been keeping an eye open for soongoora since the day he caught bookoo the big rat and suspecting that he was up there with kobay he said to himself
i've got him this time sure seeing that they were caught again soongoora said to the tortoise wrap me up in the straw tell simba to stand out of the way and then throw me down i'll wait for you below
therefore when he had bundled him up he called out soongoora is coming and threw him down so simba caught the hare and holding him with his paw said now what shall i do with you the hare replied
it's of no use for you to try to eat me i'm awfully tough what would be the best thing to do with you then asked simba i think said soongoora you should take me by the tail whirl me around and knock me against the ground
angry and disappointed he turned to the tree and called to kobay you come down too when the tortoise reached the ground the lion said you're pretty hard what can i do to make you eatable
oh that's easy laughed kobay just put me in the mud and rub my back with your paw until my shell comes off immediately on hearing this simba carried kobay to the water
placed him in the mud and began as he supposed to rub his back
i do not know for the hare had said to his wife let us remove from this house therefore the folks in that neighborhood had no knowledge of his whereabouts simba however went along continuing his inquiries
awaiting their arrival pretty soon along came the hare with his wife not thinking of any danger but he very soon discovered the marks of the lion's paws on the steep path stopping at once
he said to missus soongoora you go back my dear simba the lion has passed this way and i think he must be looking for me but she replied
i will follow you my husband although greatly pleased at this proof of his wife's affection soongoora said firmly no no you have friends to go to go back so he persuaded her and she went back
but he kept on following the footmarks and saw as he had suspected that they went into his house
mister lion is inside is he then cautiously going back a little way he called out how d'ye do house how d'ye do waiting a moment he remarked loudly
how d'ye do then soongoora burst out laughing and shouted oho mister simba you're inside and i'll bet you want to eat me but first tell me where you ever heard of a house talking
days in which he was reduced
mechanically uttering the same formulas days in which the irresistible force of the campaign swept him along without volition and day followed day and not a sign came from the princess zobraska
either of condonation or resentment it was as though she had gathered her skirts around her and gone disdainfully out of his life for ever if speaking were to be done it was for her to speak
paul could not plead it was he who in a way had cast her off in effect he had issued the challenge i am a child of the gutter an adventurer masquerading under an historical name
so in his campaign he failed he had been chosen for his youth his joyousness his magnetism his radiant promise of great things to come he went about the constituency an anxious haggard man
he lost ground daily on the other hand silas finn with his enthusiasms and his aspect of an inspired prophet made alarming progress he swept the multitude
paul savelli the young man of the social moment had an army of helpers members of parliament making speeches friends on the unionist press writing flamboyant leaders
fair ladies in automobiles hunting for voters through the slums of hickney heath silas finn had scarcely a personal friend but hope reigned among his official supporters
whereas depression began to descend over paul's brilliant host they want stirring up a bit said the conservative agent despondently i hear old finn's meetings go with a bang they nearly raised the roof off last night
we want some roof raising on this side i do my best said paul coldly but the reproach cut deep he was a failure no nervous or intellectual effort could save him now
though he spent himself to the last heartbeat he was the sport of a mocking will o the wisp which he had taken for destiny once on coming out of his headquarters he met silas
who was walking up the street with two or three of his committee men in accordance with the ordinary amenities of english political life the two candidates shook hands and withdrew a pace or two aside to chat for a while
the same old cry through sheer repetition paul began almost to believe in it he felt very weary in his father's eyes he recognized with a pang
that's the advantage of a belief in the almighty's personal interest he answered with a touch of irony whatever happens one is not easily disillusioned that is true my son said silas
jane is well paul asked after an instant's pause breaking off the profitless discussion very well and barney bill he upbraids me bitterly for what i have said
paul smiled at the curiously stilted phrase tell him from me not to do it my love to them both they shook hands again and paul drove off in the motor car that had been placed at his disposal during the election
and silas continued his sober walk with his committee men up the muddy street whereupon paul conceived a sudden hatred for the car
it was but the final artistic touch to this comedy of mockery of which he had been the victim perhaps god was on his father's side after all on the side of them who humbly walked
and not of them who rode in proud chariots but his political creed his sociological convictions rose in protest how could the almighty be in league with all that was subversive of social order
all that was destructive to imperial cohesion all that which inevitably tended to england's downfall he turned suddenly to his companion the conservative agent
the agent not being versed in speculations regarding the attributes of the deity stared then disinclined to commit himself took refuge in platitude god moves in a mysterious way mister savelli
that's rot said paul if there's an almighty he must move in a common sense way otherwise the whole of this planet would have busted up long ago do you think it's common sense to support the present government
certainly not said the agent fervently then if god supported it it wouldn't be common sense on his part it would be merely mysterious
our opponent undoubtedly has been making free with the name of the almighty in his speeches as a matter of fact he's rather crazy on the subject i don't think it would be a bad move to make a special reference to it
it's all damned hypocrisy there's a chap in the old french play what's his name
that's it well there you are that speech of his yesterday now why don't you take it and wring religiosity and hypocrisy and tartuffism out of it you know how to do that sort of thing
but i don't like said paul i happen to know that mister finn is sincere in his convictions but my dear sir what does his supposed sincerity matter in political contest
it's the difference between dirt and cleanliness said paul besides as i told you at the outset mister finn and i are close personal friends and i have the highest regard for his character
you were called only the day before yesterday the spoiled darling of duchesses boudoirs it wasn't with mister finn's cognizance i've found that out well said the agent leaning back in the luxurious limousine
i don't see why somebody without your cognizance shouldn't call mister finn the spoiled minion of the almighty's ante chamber that's a devilish good catch phrase he added starting forward in the joy of his newborn epigram
devilish good the spoiled minion of the almighty's ante chamber it'll become historical if it does said paul it will be associated with the immediate retirement of the conservative candidate
do you really mean that it was paul's turn to start forward my dear wilson said he if you or anybody else thinks i'm a man to talk through his hat
i'll retire at once i don't care a damn about myself not a little tuppenny damn what the devil does it matter to me whether i get into parliament or not nothing not a tuppenny damn
you can't understand it's the party and the country for myself personally the whole thing can go to blazes i'm in earnest dead earnest he continued with a vehemence incomprehensible to wilson
if anybody doesn't think so i'll clear out at once he snapped his fingers but while i'm candidate everything i say i mean i mean it intensely with all my soul
and i say that if there's a single insulting reference to mister finn during this election you'll be up against the wreck of your own political career the agent watched the workings of his candidate's dark clear cut face
he was very proud of his candidate and found it difficult to realize that there were presumably sane people who would not vote for him on sight a lingering memory of grammar school days flashed on him
when he told his wife later of the conversation and he likened paul to a wrathful apollo anxious to appease the god he said humbly it was the merest of suggestions mister savelli
heaven knows we don't want to descend to personalities and your retirement would be an unqualifiable disaster but you'll pardon my mentioning it
book three
chapter one the mind has an incomplete life the problem of the union of the mind and the body is not one of those which present themselves in pure speculation
it has its roots in experimental facts and is forced upon us by the necessity of explaining observations such as those we are about to quote the force of our consciousness the correctness of our judgments
our tempers and our characters the state of health of our minds and also their troubles their weaknesses and even their existence are all in a state of strict dependence on the condition of our bodies more precisely
with that of our nervous systems or more precisely still with the state of those three pounds of proteid substance which each of us has at the back of his forehead and which are called our brains
this is daily demonstrated by thousands upon thousands of observations the question is to know how this union of the body with the consciousness is to be explained it being assumed that the two terms of this union
present a great difference in their nature the easier it seems to demonstrate that this union exists the more difficult it appears to explain how it is realised and the proof of this difficulty
is the number of divergent interpretations given to it were it a simple question of fact the perpetual discussions and controversies upon it would not arise many problems here present themselves
the first is that of the genesis or origin of the consciousness it has to be explained
in general one begins by supposing that the material phenomena are produced first they consist for instance in the working of the nervous centres all this is physical or chemical and therefore material
then at a given moment after this mechanical process a quite different phenomenon emerges this is thought consciousness emotion then comes the question
is capable of explanation and how thought is connected with its physical antecedents what is the nature of the link between them is it a relation of cause to effect of genesis or a coincidence
or the interaction of two distinct forces is this relation constant or necessary can the mind enjoy an existence independent of the brain can it survive the death of the brain
the second question is that of knowing what is the role the utility and the efficacity of the psychical phenomenon once formed this phenomenon evolves in a certain direction and assumes to us who have consciousness of it
a very great importance what is its action on the material phenomena of the brain which surround it does it develop according to laws of its own which have no relation to the laws of brain action
does it exercise any action on these intra cerebral functions does it exercise any action on the centrifugal currents which go to the motor nerves is it capable of exciting a movement
or is it deprived of all power of creating effect we will briefly examine the principal solutions which the imagination of mankind has found for these very difficult problems some of the best known of these solutions
materialism parallelism and monism
before beginning our critical statement let us recall some of the results of our previous analyses which here intrude themselves to use the ambitious language of kant
as the prolegomena to every future solution which claims the title of science in fact
we have had to acknowledge the exactness of certain facts and we are bound to admit their consequences notably the definition of psychical phenomena at which we arrived not without some trouble will henceforth
play a rather large part in our discussion it will force us to question a great metaphysical principle which up till now has been almost universally considered as governing the problem of the union of the mind with the body
this principle bears the name of the axiom of heterogeneity or the principle of psycho physical dualism no philosopher has more clearly formulated it
and more logically deduced its consequences than flournoy this author has written a little pamphlet called
wherein he briefly sets forth all the known systems of metaphysics by reducing them to the so called principle of heterogeneity after this the same principle enables him to execute them
what analogy can you see between this drawing together or moving apart of material masses in space and the fact of having a feeling of joy the recollection of an absent friend the perception of a gas jet a desire
or of an act of volition of any kind and further on all that we can say to connect two events so absolutely dissimilar is that they take place at the same time
this does not mean that we wish to reduce them to unity
any internal relation between these two unconnected things let us not hesitate to denounce as false this proposition which is presented to us as an axiom on looking closely into it
we shall perceive that the principle of heterogeneity does not contain the consequences it is sought to ascribe to it it seems to me it should be split up into two propositions of very unequal value one
the mind and body are heterogeneous two by virtue of this heterogeneity it is not possible to understand any direct relation between the two now
if the first proposition is absolutely correct in the sense that consciousness and matter are heterogeneous the second proposition seems to us directly contrary to the facts which show us that the phenomena of consciousness
are incomplete phenomena the consciousness is not sufficient for itself as we have said it cannot exist by itself this again if you like is an axiom
or rather it is a fact shown by observation and confirmed by reflection mind and matter brought down to the essential to the consciousness and its object form a natural whole
and the difficulty does not consist in uniting but in separating them consider the following fact i experience a sensation and i have consciousness of it this is the coupling of two things a sensation
and a cognition the two elements if we insist upon it are heterogeneous and they differ qualitatively but notwithstanding the existing prejudice by reason of which no direct relation no commerce
can be admitted between heterogeneous facts the alliance of the consciousness and the sensation is the natural and primitive fact they can only be separated by analysis
and a scrupulous mind might even ask whether one has the right to separate them i have a sensation and i have consciousness of it if not two facts they are one and the same now
sensation is matter and my consciousness is mind if i am judging an assortment of stuffs this assortment or the sensation i have of them is a particle of matter a material state and my judgment on this sensation
is the psychical phenomenon we can neither believe nor desire nor do any act of our intelligence without realising this welding together of mind and matter
they are as inseparable as motion and the object that moves and this comparison though far fetched is really very convenient motion cannot exist without a mobile object
and an object on the other hand can exist without movement in the same way sensation may exist without the consciousness but the converse proposition consciousness without sensation without an object
an empty consciousness or a pure thought cannot be understood let us mark clearly how this union is put forward by us we describe it after nature it is observation which reveals to us
the union and the fusion of the two terms into one or rather we do not even perceive their union until the moment when by a process of analysis we succeed in convincing ourselves
that that which we at first considered single is really double or if you like can be made into two by the reason without being so in reality thus it happens that we bring this big problem in metaphysics
on to the field of observation our solution vaguely resembles that which has sometimes been presented under the ancient name of physical influx or under the more modern name of inter actionism
there are many authors who maintain that the soul can act directly on the body and modify it and this is what is called inter actionism thereby is understood if i mistake not
an action from cause to effect produced between two terms which enjoy a certain independence with regard to each other this interpretation is indubitably close to ours though not to be confused with it
my personal interpretation sets aside the idea of all independence of the mind since it attributes to the mind an incomplete and as it were a virtual existence if we had to seek paternity for ideas
i would much rather turn to aristotle it was not without some surprise that i was able to convince myself that the above theory of the relations between the soul and the body is to be found almost in its entirety
in the great philosopher it is true that it is mixed up with many accessory ideas which are out of date and which we now reject but the essential of the theory is there very clearly formulated
and that is the important point a few details on this subject will not be out of place i give them not from the original source which i am not erudite enough to consult direct but from the learned treatise
which bain has published on the psychology of aristotle as an appendix to his work on the senses and the intelligence the whole metaphysics of aristotle is dominated by the distinction between form and matter
this distinction is borrowed from the most familiar fact in the sensible world the form of solid objects we may name a substance without troubling ourselves as to the form it possesses and we may name the form
without regard to the substance that it clothes but this distinction is a purely abstract one for there can be no real separation of form from matter no form without matter and no matter without form
the two terms are correlative each one implies the other and neither can be realised or actualised without the other every individual substance can be considered from a triple point of view
first form second matter and third the compound or aggregate of form and matter
which transports us out of the domain of logic and abstraction into that of reality aristotle recognises between these two logical correlatives a difference in rank form is superior nobler
the higher in dignity nearer to the perfect entity matter is inferior more modest more distant from perfection on account of its hierarchical inferiority matter is often presented as the second
or correlatum and form as the first
this difference in rank is so strongly marked that these two correlations are likewise conceived in a different form that of the potential and the actual matter is the potential imperfect
roughly outlined element which is not yet actual and may perhaps never become so form is the actual the energy the entelechy which actualises the potential and determines the final compound
these few definitions will make clear the singularly ingenious idea of aristotle on the nature of the body the soul and of their union the body is matter which is only intelligible as the correlatum of form
it can neither exist by itself nor be known by itself that is to say when considered outside this relation the soul is form the actual by uniting with the body it constitutes the living subject
the soul is the relatum and is unintelligible and void of sense without its correlatum the soul says aristotle is not a variety of body but it could not exist without a body
the soul is not a body but something which belongs or is relative to a body the animated subject is a form plunged and engaged in matter and all its actions and passions are so likewise
each has its formal side which concerns the soul and its material side which concerns the body the emotion which belongs to the animated subject or aggregate of soul and body
is a complex fact having two aspects logically distinguishable from each other each of which is correlative to the other and implies it it is thus not only with our passions but also with our perceptions
our imaginations reminiscences reasonings and efforts of attention to learn intelligence like emotion is a phenomenon not simply of the corporeal organism
but of the commonalty or association of which they are members and when the intelligence weakens
but because the association is destroyed by the ruin of the corporeal organism these few notes which i have taken in their integrity from bain's text allow us thoroughly to comprehend the thought of aristotle
and it seems to me that the greek philosopher by making of the soul and body two correlative terms has formed a comparison of great exactness i also much admire his idea according to which
it is through the union of the body and soul that the whole which till then was only possible goes forth from the domain of logic and becomes actual the soul actualises the body
and becomes as he said its entelechy these views are too close to those i have myself just set forth for it to be necessary to dwell on their resemblance the latter would become still stronger
if we separated from the thought of aristotle a few developments which are not essential though he allowed them great importance i refer to the continual comparison he makes with the form and matter of corporeal objects
happy though it may be this comparison is but a metaphor which perhaps facilitates the understanding of aristotle's idea but is not essential to his theory for my part
i attach far greater importance to the character of relatum and correlatum ascribed to the two terms mind and matter
let me add another point of comparison aristotle's theory recalls in a striking manner that of kant on the a priori forms of thought the form of thought or the category
is nothing without the matter of cognition and the latter is nothing without the application of form thoughts without content given by sensation are empty intuitions without concept furnished by the understanding are blind
there is nothing astonishing in finding here the same illustration
the relation of mind to matter there remains to us to review the principal types of metaphysical systems we shall discuss these by taking as our guide the principle we have just evolved and which may be thus formulated
the beginning of the end well i must say mother said looking at the wishing carpet as it lay all darned and mended and backed with shiny american cloth on the floor of the nursery
bought such a bad bargain as that carpet a soft oh
and anthea mother looked at them quickly and said well of course i see you've mended it very nicely and that was sweet of you dears the boys helped too said the dears honourably but still
twenty two and ninepence it ought to have lasted for years it's simply dreadful now well never mind darlings you've done your best i think we'll have coconut matting next time
a carpet doesn't have an easy life of it in this room does it it's not our fault mother is it that our boots are the really reliable kind robert asked the question more in sorrow than in anger
no dear we can't help our boots said mother cheerfully but we might change them when we come in perhaps it's just an idea of mine i wouldn't dream of scolding on the very first morning after i've come home oh my lamb how could you
this conversation was at breakfast and the lamb had been beautifully good until every one was looking at the carpet and then it was for him but the work of a moment to turn a glass dish of syrupy blackberry jam
upside down on his young head it was the work of a good many minutes and several persons to get the jam off him again and this interesting work took people's minds off the carpet
and nothing more was said just then about its badness as a bargain and about what mother hoped for from coconut matting when the lamb was clean again he had to be taken care of while mother rumpled her hair and inked her fingers
which cook gave her on dirty bits of paper and which were supposed to explain how it was that cook had only fivepence half penny and a lot of unpaid bills left out of all the money mother had sent her for house keeping
mother was very clever but even she could not quite understand the cook's accounts the lamb was very glad to have his brothers and sisters to play with him he had not forgotten them a bit
and he made them play all the old exhausting games whirling worlds where you swing the baby round and round by his hands and leg and wing where you swing him from side to side by one ankle and one wrist
there was also climbing vesuvius in this game the baby walks up you and when he is standing on your shoulders you shout as loud as you can which is the rumbling of the burning mountain and then tumble him gently on to the floor
and roll him there which is the destruction of pompeii all the same i wish we could decide what we'd better say next time mother says anything about the carpet said cyril breathlessly ceasing to be a burning mountain
well you talk and decide said anthea here you lovely ducky lamb come to panther and play noah's ark the lamb came with his pretty hair all tumbled and his face all dusty
and instantly became a baby snake hissing and wriggling and creeping in anthea's arms as she said i love my little baby snake he hisses when he is awake he creeps with such a wriggly creep
he wriggles even in his sleep crocky said the lamb and showed all his little teeth so anthea went on i love my little crocodile i love his truthful toothful smile
it is so wonderful and wide i like to see it from outside well you see cyril was saying it's just the old bother mother can't believe the real true truth about the carpet and
there is a society called that said cyril where is it and what is a society asked the bird it's a sort of joined together lot of people a sort of brotherhood a kind of well
something very like your temple you know only quite different i take your meaning said the phoenix i would fain see these calling themselves sons of the phoenix but what about your words of wisdom
wisdom is always welcome said the phoenix pretty polly remarked the lamb reaching his hands towards the golden speaker the phoenix modestly retreated behind robert and anthea hastened
to distract the attention of the lamb by murmuring
but oh he has a dreadful habit of paddling out among the rocks and soaking both his bunny socks i don't think you'd care about the sons of the phoenix really said robert
i have heard that they don't do anything fiery they only drink a great deal much more than other people because they drink lemonade and fizzy things and the more you drink of those the more good you get
in your mind perhaps said jane but it wouldn't be good in your body you'd get too balloony the phoenix yawned look here said anthea i really have an idea
this isn't like a common carpet it's very magic indeed don't you think if we put tatcho on it and then gave it a rest the magic part of it might grow like hair is supposed to do it might said robert
but i should think paraffin would do as well at any rate as far as the smell goes and that seems to be the great thing about tatcho but with all its faults anthea's idea was something to do and they did it
it was cyril who fetched the tatcho bottle from father's washhand stand but the bottle had not much in it we mustn't take it all jane said in case father's hair began to come off suddenly
if he hadn't anything to put on it it might all drop off before eliza had time to get round to the chemist's for another bottle it would be dreadful to have a bald father
look here leave enough in the bottle to wet father's head all over with in case any emergency emerges and let's make up with paraffin i expect it's the smell that does the good really and the smell's exactly the same
so a small teaspoonful of the tatcho was put on the edges of the worst darn in the carpet and rubbed carefully into the roots of the hairs of it and all the parts
that there was not enough tatcho for had paraffin rubbed into them with a piece of flannel then the flannel was burned it made a gay flame which delighted the phoenix and the lamb how often said mother opening the door
that you are not to play with paraffin what have you been doing we have burnt a paraffiny rag anthea answered it was no use telling mother what they had done to the carpet
she did not know it was a magic carpet and no one wants to be laughed at for trying to mend an ordinary carpet with lamp oil well don't do it again said mother and now away with melancholy father has sent a telegram look
she held it out and the children holding it by its yielding corners read box for kiddies at garrick stalls for us haymarket meet charing cross
and father and i will take you and fetch you give me the lamb dear and you and jane put clean lace in your red evening frocks and i shouldn't wonder if you found they wanted ironing
run and get out your frocks the frocks did want ironing wanted it rather badly as it happened for being of tomato coloured liberty silk
they were very nice tableaux these and i wish i could tell you about them but one cannot tell everything in a story you would have been specially interested in hearing about the tableau of the princes in the tower
when one of the pillows burst and the youthful princes were so covered with feathers that the picture might very well have been called michaelmas eve or plucking the geese
ironing the dresses and sewing the lace in occupied some time and no one was dull because there was the theatre to look forward to and also the possible growth of hairs on the carpet
for which every one kept looking anxiously by four o'clock jane was almost sure that several hairs were beginning to grow the phoenix perched on the fender and its conversation as usual was entertaining and instructive
like school prizes are said to be but it seemed a little absent minded and even a little sad
with a gloomy shake of the head but i am getting old why you've hardly been hatched any time at all time remarked the phoenix is measured by heartbeats i'm sure the palpitations i've had since i've known you
merely a convenient fiction there is no such thing as time
i am old i am weary i feel as if i ought to lay my egg and lay me down to my fiery sleep but unless i'm careful i shall be hatched again instantly
and that is a misfortune which i really do not think i could endure but do not let me intrude these desperate personal reflections on your youthful happiness what is the show at the theatre to night wrestlers gladiators
i don't think so said cyril it's called the water babies and if it's like the book there isn't any gladiating in it there are chimney sweeps and professors and a lobster and an otter and a salmon and children living in the water
it sounds chilly
i don't suppose there will be real water said jane and theatres are very warm and pretty with a lot of gold and lamps wouldn't you like to come with us
i was just going to say that said robert in injured tones only i know how rude it is to interrupt do come phoenix old chap it will cheer you up
you ought to have seen shock headed peter last year your words are strange said the phoenix but i will come with you
of whom you speak may help me to forget the weight of my years so that evening the phoenix snugged inside the waistcoat of robert's etons
and was taken to the play robert had to pretend to be cold at the glittering many mirrored restaurant where they ate dinner with father in evening dress with a very shiny white shirt front
and mother looking lovely in her grey evening dress that changes into pink and green when she moves robert pretended that he was too cold to take off his great coat
and so sat sweltering through what would otherwise have been a most thrilling meal he felt that he was a blot on the smart beauty of the family and he hoped the phoenix knew what he was suffering for its sake
but we like them to know it unless we are the very best and noblest kind of people and robert was just ordinary
which is not manners robert thought father would not have been quite so funny about his keeping his over coat on if father had known all the truth
when dinner was finished to the last grape and the last paddle in the finger glasses for it was a really truly grown up dinner the children were taken to the theatre guided to a box close to the stage and left
well then i should say you were sickening for something mumps or measles or thrush or teething goodbye he went and robert was at last able to remove his coat mop his perspiring brow
and release the crushed and dishevelled phoenix robert had to arrange his damp hair at the looking glass at the back of the box and the phoenix had to preen its disordered feathers for some time before either of them was fit to be seen
they were very very early when the lights went up fully the phoenix balancing itself on the gilded back of a chair swayed in ecstasy how fair a scene is this it murmured
how far fairer than my temple or have i guessed aright have you brought me hither to lift up my heart with emotions of joyous surprise tell me my robert is it not that this this is my true temple
and the other was but a humble shrine frequented by outcasts i don't know about outcasts said robert but you can call this your temple if you like hush the music is beginning
i am not going to tell you about the play as i said before one can't tell everything and no doubt you saw the water babies yourselves if you did not it was a shame or rather a pity
what i must tell you is that though cyril and jane and robert and anthea enjoyed it as much as any children possibly could the pleasure of the phoenix was far far greater than theirs
what radiant rites and all to do honour to me the songs in the play it took to be hymns in its honour the choruses were choric songs in its praise the electric lights it said
were magic torches lighted for its sake and it was so charmed with the footlights that the children could hardly persuade it to sit still but when the limelight was shown it could contain its approval no longer
it flapped its golden wings and cried in a voice that could be heard all over the theatre well done my servants ye have my favour and my countenance little tom on the stage stopped short in what he was saying
a deep breath was drawn by hundreds of lungs every eye in the house turned to the box where the luckless children cringed and most people hissed or said shish or turn them out
then the play went on and an attendant presently came to the box and spoke wrathfully it wasn't us indeed it wasn't said anthea earnestly it was the bird the man said
well then they must keep their bird very quiet disturbing every one like this he said it won't do it again said robert glancing imploringly at the golden bird i'm sure it won't
you have my leave to depart said the phoenix gently well he is a beauty and no mistake said the attendant only i'd cover him up during the acts it upsets the performance and he went
don't speak again there's a dear said anthea you wouldn't like to interfere with your own temple would you so now the phoenix was quiet but it kept whispering to the children
it wanted to know why there was no altar no fire no incense and became so excited and fretful and tiresome that four at least of the party of five wished deeply that it had been left at home
what happened next was entirely the fault of the phoenix it was not in the least the fault of the theatre people and no one could ever understand afterwards how it did happen no one that is
except the guilty bird itself and the four children the phoenix was balancing itself on the gilt back of the chair swaying backwards and forwards and up and down as you may see your own domestic parrot do
i mean the grey one with the red tail all eyes were on the stage where the lobster was delighting the audience with that gem of a song if you can't walk straight walk sideways when the phoenix murmured warmly
and gilded woodwork it seemed to have made but one circular wing sweep such as you may see a gull make over grey water on a stormy day next moment it was perched again on the chair back
and all round the theatre where it had passed little sparks shone like tinsel seeds then little smoke wreaths curled up like growing plants
people whispered then people shrieked fire fire the curtain went down the lights went up fire cried every one and made for the doors
a magnificent idea said the phoenix complacently an enormous altar fire supplied free of charge doesn't the incense smell delicious
the only smell was the stifling smell of smoke of burning silk or scorching varnish the little flames had opened now into great flame flowers the people in the theatre were shouting and pressing towards the doors
let's get out father said stay here said anthea very pale and trying to speak in her ordinary voice
no boys on burning decks for me thank you not much said cyril and he opened the door of the box but a fierce waft of smoke and hot air made him shut it again it was not possible to get out that way
they looked over the front of the box could they climb down it would be possible certainly but would they be much better off look at the people moaned anthea we couldn't get through
and indeed the crowd round the doors looked as thick as flies in the jam making season i wish we'd never seen the phoenix cried jane even at that awful moment
robert looked round to see if the bird had overheard a speech which however natural was hardly polite or grateful the phoenix was gone look here said cyril
i've read about fires in papers i'm sure it's all right let's wait here as father said we can't do anything else said anthea bitterly look here said robert i'm not frightened no i'm not
and i'm certain it'll see us through somehow i believe in the phoenix the phoenix thanks you o robert said a golden voice at his feet and there was the phoenix itself on the wishing carpet quick it said
stand on those portions of the carpet which are truly antique and authentic and a sudden jet of flame stopped its words alas the phoenix had unconsciously warmed to its subject and in the unintentional heat of the moment
had set fire to the paraffin with which that morning the children had anointed the carpet it burned merrily the children tried in vain to stamp it out they had to stand back and let it burn itself out
only the fabric of the old carpet was left and that was full of holes come said the phoenix i'm cool now the four children got on to what was left of the carpet
it was very hot the theatre was a pit of fire
jane had to sit on anthea's lap home said cyril and instantly the cool draught from under the nursery door played upon their legs as they sat they were all on the carpet still
and the carpet was lying in its proper place on the nursery floor as calm and unmoved as though it had never been to the theatre or taken part in a fire in its life
four long breaths of deep relief were instantly breathed the draught which they had never liked before was for the moment quite pleasant and they were safe and every one else was safe
the theatre had been quite empty when they left every one was sure of that they presently found themselves all talking at once somehow none of their adventures had given them so much to talk about none other had seemed so real
did you notice they said and do you remember when suddenly anthea's face turned pale under the dirt which it had collected on it during the fire oh she cried
mother and father oh how awful they'll think we're burned to cinders oh let's go this minute and tell them we aren't we should only miss them said the sensible cyril well you go then said anthea or i will
only do wash your face first mother will be sure to think you are burnt to a cinder if she sees you as black as that and she'll faint or be ill or something oh i wish we'd never got to know that phoenix
hush said robert it's no use being rude to the bird i suppose it can't help its nature perhaps we'd better wash too now i come to think of it my hands are rather no one had noticed the phoenix
since it had bidden them to step on the carpet and no one noticed that no one had noticed all were partially clean and cyril was just plunging into his great coat to go and look for his parents he
and not unjustly called it looking for a needle in a bundle of hay when the sound of father's latchkey in the front door sent every one bounding up the stairs are you all safe cried mother's voice are you all safe
and the next moment she was kneeling on the linoleum of the hall trying to kiss four damp children at once and laughing and crying by turns while father stood looking on and saying he was blessed or something
but how did you guess we'd come home said cyril later when every one was calm enough for talking well it was rather a rum thing we heard the garrick was on fire and of course we went straight there said father briskly
we couldn't find you of course and we couldn't get in but the firemen told us every one was safely out
cyril anthea robert and jane and something touched me on the shoulder
it fluttered off and then some one said in the other ear they're safe at home and when i turned again to see who it was speaking hanged if there wasn't that confounded pigeon on my other shoulder dazed by the fire i suppose
i said it was the bird that spoke said mother and so it was or at least i thought so then it wasn't a pigeon it was an orange coloured cockatoo i don't care who it was that spoke
it was true and you're safe mother began to cry again and father said bed was a good place after the pleasures of the stage so every one went there
didn't you know that i had power over fire do not distress yourself i like my high priests in lombard street can undo the work of flames kindly open the casement it flew out
that was why the papers said next day that the fire at the theatre had done less damage than had been anticipated
for the phoenix spent the night in putting things straight how the management accounted for this and how many of the theatre officials still believe that they were mad on that night will never be known next day mother saw the burnt holes in the carpet
it caught where it was paraffiny said anthea i must get rid of that carpet at once said mother but what the children said in sad whispers to each other as they pondered over last night's events was
is chiefly devoted to matters of business and the temporal advantage of dodson and fogg mister winkle reappears under extraordinary circumstances mister pickwick's benevolence proves stronger than his obstinacy
job trotter abating nothing of his speed ran up holborn sometimes in the middle of the road sometimes on the pavement sometimes in the gutter as the chances of getting along varied with the press of men women children
and by the time he had discovered mister perker's laundress who lived with a married daughter who had bestowed her hand upon a non resident waiter who occupied the one pair of some number in some street closely adjoining to some brewery somewhere
behind gray's inn lane it was within fifteen minutes of closing the prison for the night mister lowten had still to be ferreted out from the back parlour of the magpie and stump and job had scarcely accomplished this object
but won't it be better to see mister perker to night so that we may be there the first thing in the morning
if it was in anybody else's case perker wouldn't be best pleased at my going up to his house but as it's mister pickwick's i think i may venture to take a cab and charge it to the office
deciding on this line of conduct mister lowten took up his hat and begging the assembled company to appoint a deputy chairman during his temporary absence led the way to the nearest coach stand
summoning the cab of most promising appearance he directed the driver to repair to montague place russell square mister perker had had a dinner party that day as was testified by the appearance of lights in the drawing room windows
the sound of an improved grand piano and an improvable cabinet voice issuing therefrom and a rather overpowering smell of meat which pervaded the steps and entry in fact a couple of very good country agencies happening
a special pleader from the temple a small eyed peremptory young gentleman his pupil who had written a lively book about the law of demises with a vast quantity of marginal notes and references and several other eminent and distinguished personages
from this society little mister perker detached himself on his clerk being announced in a whisper and repairing to the dining room there found mister lowten and job trotter looking very dim and shadowy by the light of a kitchen candle
well what is it dodson and fogg have taken missus bardell in execution for her costs sir said job no exclaimed perker putting his hands in his pockets and reclining against the sideboard
yes said job it seems they got a cognovit out of her for the amount of em directly after the trial by jove said perker taking both hands out of his pockets and striking the knuckles of his right against the palm of his left emphatically
those are the cleverest scamps i ever had anything to do with the sharpest practitioners i ever knew sir observed lowten sharp echoed perker there's no knowing where to have them
very true sir there is not replied lowten and then both master and man pondered for a few seconds with animated countenances
when they had in some measure recovered from their trance of admiration job trotter discharged himself of the rest of his commission perker nodded his head thoughtfully and pulled out his watch
at ten precisely i will be there said the little man sam is quite right tell him so will you take a glass of wine lowten no thank you sir you mean yes i think said the little man turning to the sideboard for a decanter and glasses
but inquired of job in an audible whisper whether the portrait of perker which hung opposite the fireplace wasn't a wonderful likeness to which job of course replied that it was the wine being by this time poured out
lowten drank to missus perker and the children and job to perker the gentleman in the plush shorts and cottons considering it no part of his duty to show the people from the office out
the attorney betook himself to his drawing room the clerk to the magpie and stump and job to covent garden market to spend the night in a vegetable basket punctually at the appointed hour next morning the good humoured little attorney
tapped at mister pickwick's door which was opened with great alacrity by sam weller mister perker sir said sam announcing the visitor to mister pickwick who was sitting at the window in a thoughtful attitude
wery glad you've looked in accidentally sir i rather think the gov'nor wants to have a word and a half with you sir
said sam starting back in excessive surprise perker nodded and smiled mister samuel weller looked at the little lawyer then at mister pickwick then at the ceiling then at perker again
grinned laughed outright and finally catching up his hat from the carpet without further explanation disappeared what does this mean inquired mister pickwick looking at perker with astonishment what has put sam into this extraordinary state
the papers in bardell and pickwick replied perker undoing the knot with his teeth mister pickwick grated the legs of his chair against the ground and throwing himself into it
at his legal friend you don't like to hear the name of the cause said the little man still busying himself with the knot no i do not indeed replied mister pickwick
i would rather that the subject should be never mentioned between us perker interposed mister pickwick hastily
it must be mentioned i have come here on purpose now are you ready to hear what i have to say my dear sir no hurry if you are not i can wait i have this morning's paper here your time shall be mine there
hereupon the little man threw one leg over the other and made a show of beginning to read with great composure and application well well said mister pickwick with a sigh but softening into a smile at the same time say what you have to say it's the old story i suppose
with a difference my dear sir with a difference rejoined perker deliberately folding up the paper and putting it into his pocket again missus bardell the plaintiff in the action is within these walls sir i know it was mister pickwick's reply
very good retorted perker and you know how she comes here i suppose i mean on what grounds and at whose suit yes at least i have heard sam's account of the matter said mister pickwick with affected carelessness
sam's account of the matter replied perker is i will venture to say a perfectly correct one well now my dear sir the first question i have to ask is whether this woman is to remain here to remain here echoed mister pickwick
it rests solely wholly and entirely with you with me ejaculated mister pickwick rising nervously from his chair and reseating himself directly afterwards the little man gave a double knock on the lid of his snuff box opened it
took a great pinch shut it up again and repeated the words with you
and with you alone hear me out my dear sir if you please and do not be so very energetic
i say continued perker checking off each position on a different finger as he laid it down
and was evidently on the verge of a strong burst of indignation calmed his wrath as well as he could perker strengthening his argumentative powers with another pinch of snuff proceeded i have seen the woman this morning
by paying the costs you can obtain a full release and discharge from the damages and further this i know is a far greater object of consideration with you my dear sir a voluntary statement under her hand in the form of a letter to me
that this business was from the very first fomented and encouraged and brought about by these men dodson and fogg that she deeply regrets ever having been the instrument of annoyance or injury to you and that she entreats me to intercede with you and implore your pardon
if i pay her costs for her said mister pickwick indignantly a valuable document indeed no if in the case my dear sir said perker triumphantly
not unmixed with pleasantry achieved and performed by messrs dodson and fogg it was within a week of the close of the month of july that a hackney cabriolet number unrecorded
was seen to proceed at a rapid pace up goswell street three people were squeezed into it besides the driver who sat in his own particular little dickey at the side
over the apron were hung two shawls belonging to two small vixenish looking ladies under the apron between whom compressed into a very small compass was stowed away a gentleman of heavy and subdued demeanour who
whenever he ventured to make an observation was snapped up short by one of the vixenish ladies before mentioned lastly the two vixenish ladies and the heavy gentleman were giving the driver contradictory directions
stop at the house with a green door driver said the heavy gentleman oh you perwerse creetur exclaimed one of the vixenish ladies drive to the ouse with the yellow door cabmin
upon this the cabman who in a sudden effort to pull up at the house with the green door had pulled the horse up so high that he nearly pulled him backward into the cabriolet let the animal's fore legs down to the ground again and paused
now vere am i to pull up inquired the driver settle it among yourselves all i ask is vere here the contest was renewed with increased violence and the horse being troubled with a fly on his nose
the cabman humanely employed his leisure in lashing him about on the head on the counter irritation principle most wotes carries the day said one of the vixenish ladies at length the ouse with the yellow door cabman
but after the cabriolet had dashed up in splendid style to the house with the yellow door making as one of the vixenish ladies triumphantly said acterrally more noise than if one had come in one's own carriage
and after the driver had dismounted to assist the ladies in getting out the small round head of master thomas bardell was thrust out of the one pair window of a house with a red door a few numbers off aggrawatin thing
said the vixenish lady last mentioned darting a withering glance at the heavy gentleman my dear it's not my fault said the gentleman don't talk to me you creetur don't retorted the lady the house with the red door cabmin oh
if ever a woman was troubled with a ruffinly creetur that takes a pride and a pleasure in disgracing his wife on every possible occasion afore strangers i am that woman you ought to be ashamed of yourself raddle said the other little woman who was no other than missus cluppins
don't talk to me don't you brute for fear i should be perwoked to forgit my sect and strike you said missus raddle while this dialogue was going on the driver was most ignominiously leading the horse by the bridle up to the house with the red door
which master bardell had already opened
no dashing up with all the fire and fury of the animal no jumping down of the driver no loud knocking at the door no opening of the apron with a crash at the very last moment for fear of the ladies sitting in a draught
and then the man handing the shawls out afterwards
the whole edge of the thing had been taken off it was flatter than walking well tommy said missus cluppins how's your poor dear mother oh she's very well replied master bardell she's in the front parlour all ready i'm ready too i am
here master bardell put his hands in his pockets and jumped off and on the bottom step of the door
who else is a goin lovey said missus cluppins in an insinuating manner oh missus rogers is a goin replied master bardell opening his eyes very wide as he delivered the intelligence what the lady as has taken the lodgings
ejaculated missus cluppins master bardell put his hands deeper down into his pockets and nodded exactly thirty five times to imply that it was the lady lodger and no other bless us said missus cluppins it's quite a party
ah if you knew what was in the cupboard you'd say so replied master bardell what is there tommy said missus cluppins coaxingly you'll tell me tommy i know no i won't replied master bardell shaking his head
and applying himself to the bottom step again drat the child muttered missus cluppins what a prowokin little wretch it is come tommy tell your dear cluppy mother said i wasn't to rejoined master bardell i'm a goin to have some i am
cheered by this prospect the precocious boy applied himself to his infantile treadmill with increased vigour
lauk mary ann what's the matter said missus cluppins it's put me all over in such a tremble betsy replied missus raddle raddle ain't like a man he leaves everythink to me
this was scarcely fair upon the unfortunate mister raddle who had been thrust aside by his good lady in the commencement of the dispute and peremptorily commanded to hold his tongue
missus sanders the lodger and the lodger's servant darted precipitately out and conveyed her into the house all talking at the same time and giving utterance to various expressions of pity and condolence as if she were one of the most suffering mortals on earth
ah poor thing said missus rogers i know what her feelin's is too well ah poor thing so do i said missus sanders and then all the ladies moaned in unison and said they knew what it was and they pitied her from their hearts they did
ah what has decomposed you ma'am inquired missus rogers i have been a good deal flurried replied missus raddle in a reproachful manner thereupon the ladies cast indignant glances at mister raddle
so mister raddle was pushed out of the room and requested to give himself an airing in the back yard which he did for about a quarter of an hour when missus bardell announced to him with a solemn face that he might come in now
and if he didn't take care he might lose her when he least expected it which would be a very dreadful reflection for him afterwards and so on all this mister raddle heard with great submission
you've never been introduced i declare mister raddle ma'am missus cluppins ma'am missus raddle ma'am which is missus cluppins's sister suggested missus sanders
oh indeed said missus rogers graciously for she was the lodger and her servant was in waiting so she was more gracious than intimate in right of her position oh indeed missus raddle smiled sweetly mister raddle bowed
and missus cluppins said she was sure she was very happy to have an opportunity of being known to a lady which she had heerd so much in favour of as missus rogers a compliment which the last named lady acknowledged with graceful condescension
well mister raddle said missus bardell i'm sure you ought to feel very much honoured at you and tommy being the only gentlemen to escort so many ladies all the way to the spaniards at hampstead don't you think he ought missus rogers ma'am
oh certainly ma'am replied missus rogers after whom all the other ladies responded oh certainly
of course i feel it ma'am said mister raddle rubbing his hands and evincing a slight tendency to brighten up a little indeed to tell you the truth i said as we was a coming along in the cabrioily
at the recapitulation of the word which awakened so many painful recollections missus raddle applied her handkerchief to her eyes again and uttered a half suppressed scream
so that missus bardell frowned upon mister raddle to intimate that he had better not say anything more and desired missus rogers's servant with an air to put the wine on this was the signal for displaying the hidden treasures of the closet
which comprised sundry plates of oranges and biscuits and a bottle of old crusted port that at one and nine with another of the celebrated east india sherry at fourteen pence which were all produced in honour of the lodger and afforded unlimited satisfaction to everybody
after great consternation had been excited in the mind of missus cluppins by an attempt on the part of tommy to recount how he had been cross examined regarding the cupboard then in action
which was fortunately nipped in the bud by his imbibing half a glass of the old crusted the wrong way and thereby endangering his life for some seconds the party walked forth in quest of a hampstead stage
if that was all when the waiter wasn't looking which would have saved one head of tea and the tea just as good however there was no help for it and the tea tray came with seven cups and saucers and bread and butter on the same scale
how sweet the country is to be sure sighed missus rogers i almost wish i lived in it always
you wouldn't like it ma'am oh i should think you was a deal too lively and sought after to be content with the country ma'am said little missus cluppins perhaps i am ma'am perhaps i am sighed the first floor lodger
for lone people as have got nobody to care for them or take care of them or as have been hurt in their mind or that kind of thing observed mister raddle plucking up a little cheerfulness and looking round the country is all very well the country for a wounded spirit they say
now of all things in the world that the unfortunate man could have said any would have been preferable to this of course missus bardell burst into tears and requested to be led from the table instantly upon which the affectionate child began to cry too most dismally
my dear remonstrated mister raddle i didn't mean anything my dear you didn't mean repeated missus raddle with great scorn and contempt go away i can't bear the sight on you you brute
you must not flurry yourself mary ann interposed missus cluppins you really must consider yourself my dear which you never do now go away raddle there's a good soul or you'll only aggravate her
you had better take your tea by yourself sir indeed said missus rogers again applying the smelling bottle missus sanders who according to custom was very busy with the bread and butter expressed the same opinion and mister raddle quietly retired
after this there was a great hoisting up of master bardell
who was rather a large size for hugging into his mother's arms in which operation he got his boots in the tea board and occasioned some confusion among the cups and saucers but that description of fainting fits which is contagious among ladies seldom lasts long so when he had been well kissed and a little cried over missus bardell recovered
it's a gentleman said missus raddle well if it ain't mister jackson the young man from dodson and fogg's cried missus bardell why gracious surely mister pickwick can't have paid the damages or hoffered marriage said missus cluppins
and made his way to the place where the ladies were seated winding his hair round the brim of his hat as he came along is anything the matter has anything taken place mister jackson said missus bardell eagerly nothing whatever ma'am replied mister jackson how de do ladies
i have to ask pardon ladies for intruding but the law ladies the law with this apology mister jackson smiled made a comprehensive bow and gave his hair another wind missus rogers whispered missus raddle that he was really an elegant young man
i called in goswell street resumed mister jackson and hearing that you were here from the slavey took a coach and came on our people want you down in the city directly missus bardell
lor ejaculated that lady starting at the sudden nature of the communication yes said mister jackson biting his lip it's very important and pressing business which can't be postponed on any account
indeed dodson expressly said so to me and so did fogg i've kept the coach on purpose for you to go back in how very strange exclaimed missus bardell
the ladies agreed that it was very strange but were unanimously of opinion that it must be very important or dodson and fogg would never have sent and further that the business being urgent she ought to repair to dodson and fogg's without any delay
there was a certain degree of pride and importance about being wanted by one's lawyers in such a monstrous hurry that was by no means displeasing to missus bardell especially as it might be reasonably supposed to enhance her consequence in the eyes of the first floor lodger
she simpered a little affected extreme vexation and hesitation and at last arrived at the conclusion that she supposed she must go but won't you refresh yourself after your walk mister jackson said missus bardell persuasively
why really there ain't much time to lose replied jackson and i've got a friend here he continued looking towards the man with the ash stick oh ask your friend to come here sir said missus bardell pray ask your friend here sir
why thank'ee i'd rather not said mister jackson with some embarrassment of manner he's not much used to ladies society and it makes him bashful if you'll order the waiter to deliver him anything short he won't drink it off at once won't he only try him
mister jackson's fingers wandered playfully round his nose at this portion of his discourse to warn his hearers that he was speaking ironically the waiter was at once despatched to the bashful gentleman and the bashful gentleman took something mister jackson also took something
and the ladies took something for hospitality's sake mister jackson then said he was afraid it was time to go upon which missus sanders missus cluppins and tommy who it was arranged should accompany missus bardell leaving the others to mister raddle's protection got into the coach
isaac said jackson as missus bardell prepared to get in looking up at the man with the ash stick who was seated on the box smoking a cigar well this is missus bardell oh i know'd that long ago said the man
missus bardell got in mister jackson got in after her and away they drove missus bardell could not help ruminating on what mister jackson's friend had said shrewd creatures those lawyers lord bless us how they find people out
sad thing about these costs of our people's ain't it said jackson when missus cluppins and missus sanders had fallen asleep your bill of costs i mean
i'm very sorry they can't get them replied missus bardell but if you law gentlemen do these things on speculation why you must get a loss now and then you know you gave them a cognovit for the amount of your costs after the trial i'm told said jackson
yes just as a matter of form replied missus bardell certainly replied jackson drily quite a matter of form quite on they drove and missus bardell fell asleep she was awakened after some time by the stopping of the coach
bless us said the lady are we at freeman's court we're not going quite so far replied jackson have the goodness to step out missus bardell not yet thoroughly awake complied
it was a curious place a large wall with a gate in the middle and a gas light burning inside now ladies cried the man with the ash stick looking into the coach and shaking missus sanders to wake her come
such a number of men standing about and they stared so what place is this inquired missus bardell pausing only one of our public offices replied jackson hurrying her through a door and looking round to see that the other women were following
look sharp isaac safe and sound replied the man with the ash stick the door swung heavily after them and they descended a small flight of steps
here we are at last all right and tight missus bardell said jackson looking exultingly round what do you mean said missus bardell with a palpitating heart just this replied jackson drawing her a little on one side
don't be frightened missus bardell there never was a more delicate man than dodson ma'am or a more humane man than fogg it was their duty in the way of business to take you in execution for them costs but they were anxious to spare your feelings as much as they could
led the bewildered female to a second short flight of steps leading to a doorway missus bardell screamed violently tommy roared missus cluppins shrunk within herself and missus sanders made off without more ado for there stood the injured mister pickwick
taking his nightly allowance of air and beside him leant samuel weller who seeing missus bardell took his hat off with mock reverence while his master turned indignantly on his heel don't bother the woman said the turnkey to weller she's just come in
a prisoner said sam quickly replacing his hat who's the plaintives what for speak up old feller dodson and fogg replied the man execution on cognovit for costs
for in my country skirts or tails tails or skirts it's all one hush friend sancho said don quixote since this lady duenna comes in quest of me from such a distant land she cannot be one of those the apothecary meant moreover
it is in the service of queens and empresses for in their own houses they are mistresses paramount and have other duennas to wait on them to this dona rodriguez who was present made answer my lady
but laws go as kings like let nobody speak ill of duennas above all of ancient maiden ones for though i am not one myself i know and am aware of the advantage a maiden duenna has over one that is a widow
but he who clipped us has kept the scissors for all that said sancho there's so much to be clipped about duennas so my barber said that it will be better not to stir the rice even though it sticks these squires returned dona rodriguez
and as they are the haunting spirits of the antechambers and watch us at every step whenever they are not saying their prayers and that's often enough they spend their time in tattling about us digging up our bones and burying our good name but i can tell these walking blocks
that we will live in spite of them and in great houses too though we die of hunger and cover our flesh be it delicate or not with widow's weeds
and root out the prejudice in the great sancho panza's mind to which sancho replied ever since i have sniffed the governorship i have got rid of the humours of a squire and i don't care a wild fig for all the duennas in the world
they would have carried on this duenna dispute further had they not heard the notes of the fife and drums once more from which they concluded that the distressed duenna was making her entrance the duchess asked the duke if it would be proper to go out to receive her
as she was a countess and a person of rank in respect of her being a countess said sancho before the duke could reply i am for your highnesses going out to receive her
it is my opinion you should not stir a step who bade thee meddle in this sancho said don quixote who senor said sancho i meddle for i have a right to meddle as a squire who has learned the rules of courtesy in the school of your worship
and now the drums and fife made their entrance as before and here the author brought this short chapter to an end and began the next following up the same adventure which is one of the most notable in the history chapter thirty eight
wherein is told the distressed duenna's tale of her misfortunes following the melancholy musicians there filed into the garden as many as twelve duennas in two lines all dressed in ample mourning robes apparently of milled serge
with hoods of fine white gauze so long that they allowed only the border of the robe to be seen behind them came the countess trifaldi the squire trifaldin of the white beard leading her by the hand clad in the finest unnapped black baize such that
had it a nap every tuft would have shown as big as a martos chickpea the tail or skirt or whatever it might be called ended in three points
she would have been called the countess zorruna as it was the custom in those parts for lords to take distinctive titles from the thing or things most abundant in their dominions this countess however in honour of the new fashion of her skirt
and took up trifaldi the twelve duennas and the lady came on at procession pace their faces being covered with black veils not transparent ones like trifaldin's but so close that they allowed nothing to be seen through them as soon as the band of duennas was fully in sight
the duke the duchess and don quixote stood up as well as all who were watching the slow moving procession the twelve duennas halted and formed a lane along which the distressed one advanced trifaldin still holding her hand
i should say to this your handmaid for i am in such distress that i shall never be able to make a proper return because my strange and unparalleled misfortune has carried off my wits and i know not whither
but it must be a long way off for the more i look for them the less i find them he would be wanting in wits senora countess said the duke
who did not perceive your worth by your person for at a glance it may be seen it deserves all the cream of courtesy and flower of polite usage and raising her up by the hand he led her to a seat beside the duchess
but there was no possibility of it until they themselves displayed them of their own accord and free will
that my most miserable misery will be accorded a reception no less dispassionate than generous and condolent in your most valiant bosoms for it is one that is enough to melt marble soften diamonds and mollify the steel of the most hardened hearts in the world
but ere it is proclaimed to your hearing not to say your ears i would fain be enlightened whether there be present in this society circle or company that knight immaculatissimus don quixote de la manchissima and his squirissimus panza
the panza is here said sancho before anyone could reply and don quixotissimus too and so most distressedest duenissima you may say what you willissimus
on hearing this the distressed duenna made as though she would throw herself at don quixote's feet and actually did fall before them and said as she strove to embrace them before these feet and legs i cast myself o unconquered knight
to this sancho made answer as to my goodness senora being as long and as great as your squire's beard it matters very little to me may i have my soul well bearded and moustached when it comes to quit this life that's the point
and between themselves they commended the clever acting of the trifaldi who returning to her seat said
and direction i being the oldest and highest in rank of her mother's duennas time passed and the young antonomasia reached the age of fourteen and such a perfection of beauty that nature could not raise it higher then
it must not be supposed her intelligence was childish she was as intelligent as she was fair and she was fairer than all the world and is so still
unless the envious fates and hard hearted sisters three have cut for her the thread of life but that they have not for heaven will not suffer so great a wrong to earth as it would be to pluck unripe the grapes of the fairest vineyard on its surface
gallant bearing his numerous accomplishments and graces and his quickness and readiness of wit
that he played the guitar so as to make it speak and he was besides a poet and a great dancer and he could make birdcages so well that by making them alone he might have gained a livelihood had he found himself reduced to utter poverty
and gifts and graces of this kind are enough to bring down a mountain not to say a tender young girl
some verses i heard him singing one night from a grating that opened on the street where he lived
another time he sang come death so subtly veiled that i thy coming know not how or when lest it should give me life again to find how sweet it is to die and other verses and burdens of the same sort such as
and then when they condescend to compose a sort of verse that was at that time in vogue in kandy which they call seguidillas
though it is not they that are in fault but the simpletons that extol them and the fools that believe in them and had i been the faithful duenna i should have been his stale conceits would have never moved me
nor should i have been taken in by such phrases as in death i live in ice i burn in flames i shiver
paradoxes of that sort which their writings are full of
again woe is me hapless that i am it was not verses that conquered me but my own simplicity it was not music made me yield but my own imprudence
deceived not by him but by me under the title of a lawful husband for sinner though i was would not have allowed him to approach the edge of her shoe sole without being her husband no no not that
don clavijo being a
the entanglement remained for some time a secret kept hidden by my cunning precautions until i perceived that a certain expansion of waist in antonomasia must before long disclose it the dread of which made us all there take counsel together and it was agreed
in virtue of an agreement to marry him made by the princess and drafted by my wit in such binding terms that the might of samson could not have broken it the necessary steps were taken the vicar saw the agreement and took the lady's confession
chapter thirty nine in which the trifaldi continues her marvellous and memorable story by every word that sancho uttered the duchess was as much delighted as don quixote was driven to desperation
he bade him hold his tongue and the distressed one went on to say at length after much questioning and answering as the princess held to her story without changing or varying her previous declaration
the vicar gave his decision in favour of don clavijo and she was delivered over to him as his lawful wife
so took to heart that within the space of three days we buried her she died no doubt said sancho of course said trifaldin they don't bury living people in kandy only the dead
senor squire said sancho a man in a swoon has been known to be buried before now in the belief that he was dead
to have swooned rather than died
but to marry such an elegant accomplished gentleman as has been just now described to us indeed indeed though it was a folly it was not such a great one as you think for according to the rules of my master here and
as of men of letters bishops are made
thou art right sancho said don quixote for with a knight errant if he has but two fingers breadth of good fortune
but let senora the distressed one proceed for i suspect she has got yet to tell us the bitter part of this so far sweet story the bitter is indeed to come said the countess
over the queen's grave there appeared mounted upon a wooden horse the giant malambruno
and he to revenge the death of his cousin punish the audacity of don clavijo
left them both enchanted by his art on the grave itself she being changed into an ape of brass and he
into a horrible crocodile of some unknown metal while between the two there stands a pillar also of metal with certain characters in the syriac language inscribed upon it which being translated into kandian and now into castilian
nevertheless i summoned up my strength as well as i could and in a trembling and piteous voice i addressed such words to him as induced him to stay the infliction of a punishment so severe he then caused all the duennas of the palace those that are here present
to be brought before him and after having dwelt upon the enormity of our offence and denounced duennas their characters their evil ways and worse intrigues laying to the charge of all what i alone was guilty of
he said he would not visit us with capital punishment but with others of a slow nature which would be in effect civil death for ever and the very instant he ceased speaking
we all felt the pores of our faces opening and pricking us as if with the points of needles we at once put our hands up to our faces and found ourselves in the state you now see
and disclosed countenances all bristling with beards some red some black some white and some grizzled at which spectacle the duke and duchess made a show of being filled with wonder don quixote and sancho were overwhelmed with amazement and the bystanders
with his enormous scimitar instead of obscuring the light of our countenances with these wool combings that cover us for if we look into the matter sirs and what i am now going to say i would say with eyes flowing like fountains
keep them as dry as barley spears and so i say it without tears
the christian conception of life has already arisen in our society and will infallibly put an end to the present organization of our life based on force when that will be the condition and organization of our society are terrible
but they rest only on public opinion and can be destroyed by it already violence is regarded from a different point of view the number of those who are ready to serve the government is diminishing and even the servants of government are ashamed of their position and so
a whole army of men charged with the task of deluding and hypnotizing the people and all this by means of electricity which annihilates distance under the direct control of men who regard such an organization of society not only as necessary for profit
but even for self preservation and therefore exert every effort of their ingenuity to preserve it what an invincible power it would seem and yet we need only imagine for a moment what will really inevitably come to pass that is
it is true that the organization of society remains in its principal features just as much an organization based on violence as it was one thousand years ago and even in some respects especially in the preparation for war and in war itself
it appears still more brutal but the rising christian ideal which must at a certain stage of development replace the heathen ideal of life already makes its influence felt a dead tree stands apparently as firmly as ever
it may even seem firmer because it is harder but it is rotten at the core and soon must fall it is just so with the present order of society based on force the external aspect is unchanged
there is the same division of oppressors and oppressed but their view of the significance and dignity of their respective positions is no longer what it once was the oppressors that is those who take part in government and those who profit by oppression
not to speak of the duties and occupations now openly despised such as that of spy agent of secret police moneylender and publican
those of police officials courtiers judges and administrative functionaries clergymen military officers speculators and bankers which are no longer considered desirable positions by everyone
what he has gained by his own labor the position of a government official or of a rich man is no longer as it once was and still is among non christian peoples regarded as necessarily honorable and deserving of respect
the best of our young people at the age when they are still uncorrupted by life and are choosing a career prefer the calling of doctor engineer teacher artist
still less of rich men but rather of artists men of science and inventors persons who have nothing in common with the government
they are the men whose praises are celebrated in poetry who are honored by sculpture and received with triumphant jubilations the best men of our day are all striving for such places of honor consequently
do not constitute as they did in former days the elite of society on the contrary they are inferior to the middle class in russia and turkey as in america and france
the majority of them are self seeking and corrupt
one may often nowadays hear from persons in authority the naive complaint
by some strange as it seems to them fatality to be found in the camp of the opposition as though men were to complain that those who accepted the office of hangman were by some strange fatality all persons of very little refinement or beauty of character
and thereby destroying the very thing it was their function to maintain it is just the same with the army military officers of the highest rank instead of encouraging in their soldiers the brutality and ferocity necessary for their work diffuse education among the soldiers
it is the same with judges and public prosecutors the judges whose duty it is to judge and condemn criminals conduct the proceedings so as to whitewash them as far as possible so that the russian government to procure the condemnation of those whom they want to punish
really defend those they ought to be accusing the learned jurists whose business it is to justify the violence of authority are more and more disposed to deny the right of punishment and to replace it by theories of irresponsibility and even of moral insanity
executioners refuse to perform their functions so that in russia the death penalty cannot be carried out for want of executioners
millowners and manufacturers build hospitals schools savings banks asylums and dwellings for their workpeople some of them form co operative associations in which they have shares on the same terms as the others
capitalists expend a part of their capital on educational artistic philanthropic and other public institutions
were exceptional if we did not know that they all have a common cause the spring and that if we see the branches on some trees shooting and turning green it is certain that it will soon be so with all
and all that is based on force if this standard already influences some the most impressionable and impels each in his own sphere to abandon advantages based on the use of force then its influence will extend further and further
who try to be as unlike monarchs and as like plain mortals as possible who state their readiness to give up their prerogatives and become simply the first citizens of a republic if there are already soldiers who realize all the sin and harm of war
and are not willing to fire on men either of their own or a foreign country judges and prosecutors
and when there are no longer men willing to fill these offices these offices themselves will disappear too but this is not the only way in which public opinion is leading men to the abolition of the prevailing order
everywhere throughout the christian world the same rulers and the same governments the same armies the same law courts the same tax gatherers the same priests the same rich men landowners manufacturers and capitalists as ever
but the attitude of the world to them and their attitude to themselves is altogether changed the same sovereigns have still the same audiences and interviews hunts and banquets and balls and uniforms
there are the same diplomats and the same deliberations on alliances and wars there are still the same parliaments with the same debates on the eastern question and africa on treaties and violations of treaties and home rule
which cannot be concentrated in one place the same generals and officers and soldiers and cannons and fortresses and reviews and maneuvers but no war breaks out one year ten twenty years pass by
and it becomes less and less possible to rely on the army for the pacification of riots and more and more evident consequently that generals and officers and soldiers are only figures in solemn processions objects of amusement for governments
and that criminal trials are quite senseless because the punishments do not attain the objects aimed at by the judges themselves these institutions therefore serve no other purpose than to provide a means of livelihood for men who are not capable of doing anything more useful
the same priests and archbishops and churches and synods but it becomes more and more evident that they have long ago ceased to believe in what they preach and therefore they can convince no one of the necessity of believing what they don't believe themselves
it will be natural for men to ask themselves but why should we keep and maintain all these kings emperors presidents and members of all sorts of senates and ministries since nothing comes of all their debates and audiences wouldn't it be better as some humorist suggested
to make a queen of india rubber and what good to us are these armies with their generals and bands and horses and drums and what need is there of them when there is no war and no one wants to make war
which are no longer of use but even before those who support these institutions decide to abolish them the men who occupy these positions will be reduced to the necessity of throwing them up
and hence they must become more and more superfluous i once took part in moscow in a religious meeting which used to take place generally in the week after easter near the church in the ohotny row
we are speaking of serious matters and there is no need for us to move on you would do better young man to get off your horse and listen it might do you good and turning round he continued his discourse the policeman turned his horse and went off without a word
that is just what should be done in all cases of violence the officer was bored he had nothing to do he had been put poor fellow in a position in which he had no choice but to give orders he was shut off from all human existence he could do nothing but superintend and give orders
and this is the position in which all these unlucky rulers ministers members of parliament governors generals officers archbishops priests and even rich men find themselves to some extent already
and will find themselves altogether as time goes on they can do nothing but give orders and they give orders and send their messengers as the officer sent the policeman to interfere with people and because the people they hinder turn to them and request them not to interfere
they fancy they are very useful indeed but the time will come and is coming when it will be perfectly evident to everyone that they are not of any use at all and only a hindrance and those whom they interfere with will say gently and quietly to them
like my friend in the street meeting pray don't interfere with us and all the messengers and those who send them too will be obliged to follow this good advice that is to say
will leave off galloping about with their arms akimbo interfering with people and getting off their horses and removing their spurs will listen to what is being said and mixing with others will take their place with them in some real human work
when the men of our modern world who fill offices based upon violence will find themselves in the position of the emperor in andersen's tale of the emperor's new clothes
look he is naked and then all the rest who had seen him and said nothing could not help recognizing it too
the courtiers come to look at the tailors work and see nothing for the men are plying their needles in empty space but remembering the extraordinary property of the clothes they all declare they see them and are loud in their admiration
the emperor does the same himself the day of the procession comes in which the emperor is to go out in his new clothes the emperor undresses and puts on his new clothes that is to say remains naked and naked he walks through the town
but remembering the magic property of the clothes no one ventures to say that he has nothing on till a little child cries out look he is naked this will be exactly the situation of all who continue through inertia
gallows will not hang them churches will not delude them nor customs offices hinder them and palaces and factories are not built nor kept up of themselves all those things are the work of men
then they will cease to be and already they are beginning to understand it
and the advanced guard cannot cease to understand what they have once understood and what they understand the rest not only can but must inevitably understand hereafter so that the prophecy that the time will come when men will be taught of god
will learn war no more will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into reaping hooks which means translating it into our language
will remain empty and all the gibbets and guns and cannons will be left unused is no longer a dream but the definite new form of life
all we can know is what we who make up mankind ought to do and not to do to bring about the coming of the kingdom of god
a pearl worth ten million night fell i went to bed i slept pretty poorly man eaters played a major role in my dreams and i found it more or less appropriate
has its linguistic roots in the word requiem the next day at four o'clock in the morning
i got up quickly dressed and went into the lounge captain nemo was waiting for me professor aronnax he said to me are you ready to start i'm ready kindly follow me
what about my companions captain they've been alerted and are waiting for us aren't we going to put on our diving suits i asked not yet
i haven't let the nautilus pull too near the coast and we're fairly well out
but i have the skiff ready and it will take us to the exact spot where we'll disembark which will save us a pretty long trek it's carrying our diving equipment
captain nemo took me to the central companionway whose steps led to the platform ned and conseil were there
oars in position five of the nautilus's sailors were waiting for us aboard the skiff which was moored alongside the night was still dark layers of clouds cloaked the sky and left only a few stars in view
covering three quarters of the horizon from southwest to northwest going up ceylon's west coast during the night the nautilus lay west of the bay
under these dark waters there stretched the bank of shellfish an inexhaustible field of pearls more than twenty miles long
found seats in the stern of the skiff the longboat's coxswain took the tiller
and we pulled clear the skiff headed southward the oarsmen took their time i watched their strokes vigorously catch the water and they always waited ten seconds before rowing again
following the practice used in most navies while the longboat coasted drops of liquid flicked from the oars and hit the dark troughs of the waves pitter pattering like splashes of molten lead
coming from well out a mild swell made the skiff roll gently and a few cresting billows lapped at its bow we were silent what was captain nemo thinking
contrary to the canadian's views in which it still seemed too far away as for conseil he had come along out of simple curiosity
defined the upper lines of the coast with greater distinctness fairly flat to the east it swelled a little toward the south
between us and the shore the sea was deserted not a boat not a diver profound solitude reigned over this gathering place of pearl fishermen as captain nemo had commented
a month too soon at six o'clock the day broke suddenly with that speed unique to tropical regions
the sun's rays pierced the cloud curtain gathered on the easterly horizon and the radiant orb rose swiftly i could clearly see the shore which featured a few sparse trees here and there
the skiff advanced toward mannar island which curved to the south captain nemo stood up from his thwart and studied the sea at his signal the anchor was lowered
but its chain barely ran because the bottom lay no more than a meter down and this locality was one of the shallowest spots
you observe this confined bay a month from now in this very place the numerous fishing boats of the harvesters will gather and these are the waters their divers will ransack so daringly this
bay is felicitously laid out for their type of fishing it's sheltered from the strongest winds and the sea is never very turbulent here highly favorable conditions for diving work now let's put on our underwater suits
and we'll begin our stroll i didn't reply and while staring at these suspicious waves i began to put on my heavy aquatic clothes helped by the longboat's sailors
none of the nautilus's men were to go with us on this new excursion
as for the ruhmkorff device it didn't seem to be in the picture before inserting my head into its copper capsule i commented on this to the captain our lighting equipment would be useless to us the captain answered me
we won't be going very deep and the sun's rays will be sufficient to light our way besides it's unwise to carry electric lanterns under these waves
their brightness might unexpectedly attract certain dangerous occupants of these waterways as captain nemo pronounced these words i turned to conseil and ned land
but my two friends had already encased their craniums in their metal headgear and they could neither hear nor reply
what about our weapons i asked him our rifles rifles what for don't your mountaineers attack bears dagger in hand and isn't steel surer than lead here's a sturdy blade slip it under your belt and let's be off
i stared at my companions they were armed in the same fashion
then following the captain's example i let myself be crowned with my heavy copper sphere and our air tanks immediately went into action an instant later the longboat's sailors helped us overboard one after the other
and we set foot on level sand in a meter and a half of water
we followed him down a gentle slope and disappeared under the waves there the obsessive fears in my brain left me i became surprisingly calm again the ease with which i could move increased my confidence
and the many strange sights captivated my imagination the sun was already sending sufficient light under these waves the tiniest objects remained visible after ten minutes of walking
we were in five meters of water and the terrain had become almost flat
there rose underfoot schools of unusual fish from the genus monopterus whose members have no fin
a genuine eight decimeter serpent with a bluish gray belly which without the gold lines over its flanks could easily be confused with the conger eel from the butterfish genus whose oval bodies are very flat
edible fish that when dried and marinated make an excellent dish known by the name
then some sea poachers fish belonging to the genus
whose bodies are covered with scaly armor divided into eight lengthwise sections meanwhile as the sun got progressively higher it lit up the watery mass more and more the seafloor changed little by little
among other specimens in these two branches i noted some windowpane oysters with thin valves of unequal size a type of ostracod
with circular shells awl shaped auger shells
with such wonderful dye spiky periwinkles fifteen centimeters long that rose under the waves like hands ready to grab you turban snails with shells made of horn
lamp shells edible duck clams that feed the hindu marketplace subtly luminous jellyfish
and finally some wonderful oculina flabelliforma magnificent sea fans that
in the midst of this moving vegetation under arbors of water plants there raced legions of clumsy articulates in particular some fanged frog crabs
slightly rounded triangle robber crabs exclusive to these waterways and horrible parthenope crabs whose appearance was repulsive to the eye one animal no less hideous which i encountered several times
here under these clear waves this crab raced around with matchless agility while green turtles from the species frequenting the malabar coast moved sluggishly among the crumbling rocks
near seven o'clock we finally surveyed the bank of shellfish where pearl oysters reproduce by the millions
that womb for pearls whose valves are nearly equal in size has the shape of a round shell with thick walls
some of these shells were furrowed with flaky greenish bands that radiated down from the top these were the young oysters the others had rugged black surfaces measured up to fifteen centimeters in width
and were ten or more years old
were genuinely inexhaustible since nature's creative powers are greater than man's destructive instincts true to those instincts ned land greedily stuffed the finest of these mollusks
into a net he carried at his side but we couldn't stop we had to follow the captain
and when i lifted my arms sometimes they would pass above the surface of the sea then the level of the oysterbank would lower unpredictably often we went around tall pointed rocks rising like pyramids
aiming their long legs like heavy artillery watched us with unblinking eyes while underfoot there crept millipedes bloodworms
whose antennas and tubular tentacles were incredibly long just then a huge cave opened up in our path hollowed from a picturesque pile of rocks whose smooth heights were completely hung with underwater flora
at first this cave looked pitch black to me inside the sun's rays seemed to diminish by degrees their hazy transparency was nothing more than drowned light captain nemo went in we followed him
i distinguished the unpredictably contoured springings of a vault supported by natural pillars firmly based on a granite foundation like the weighty columns of tuscan architecture why had our incomprehensible guide
i would soon find out after going down a fairly steep slope our feet trod the floor of a sort of circular pit
a holy water font that could have held a whole lake a basin more than two meters wide hence even bigger than the one adorning the nautilus's lounge
i approached this phenomenal mollusk its mass of filaments attached it to a table of granite
i estimated the weight of this giant clam at three hundred kilograms hence such an oyster held fifteen kilos of meat and you'd need the stomach of king gargantua to eat a couple dozen
and i thought his sole reason for leading us to this locality
on the current condition of this giant clam the mollusk's two valves were partly open
then with his hands he raised the fringed membrane filled tunic that made up the animal's mantle there
i saw a loose pearl as big as a coconut its globular shape perfect clarity and wonderful orient
carried away by curiosity i stretched out my hand to take it weigh it fondle it but the captain stopped me signaled no removed his dagger in one swift motion
he allowed it to grow imperceptibly with each passing year the mollusk's secretions added new concentric layers the captain alone was familiar with the cave where this wonderful fruit of nature was ripening
he alone reared it so to speak in order to transfer it one day to his dearly beloved museum perhaps following the examples of oyster farmers in china and india he had even predetermined the creation of this pearl
by sticking under the mollusk's folds some piece of glass or metal that was gradually covered with mother of pearl in any case comparing this pearl to others i already knew about
and to those shimmering in the captain's collection i estimated that it was worth at least ten million francs it was a superb natural curiosity rather than a luxurious piece of jewelry
because i don't know of any female ear that could handle it our visit to this opulent giant clam came to an end
not yet disturbed by divers at work we walked by ourselves genuine loiterers stopping or straying as our fancies dictated for my part i was no longer worried about those dangers my imagination had so ridiculously exaggerated
the shallows drew noticeably closer to the surface of the sea and soon walking in only a meter of water my head passed well above the level of the ocean conseil rejoined me
and gluing his huge copper capsule to mine his eyes gave me a friendly greeting but this lofty plateau measured only a few fathoms and soon we reentered our element i think i've now earned the right to dub it that ten minutes later
no with a gesture he ordered us to crouch beside him at the foot of a wide crevice
five meters away a shadow appeared and dropped to the seafloor the alarming idea of sharks crossed my mind but i was mistaken
it was a man a living man a black indian fisherman a poor devil who no doubt had come to gather what he could before harvest time i saw the bottom of his dinghy moored a few feet above his head
served to lower him more quickly to the ocean floor this was the extent of his equipment
he fell to his knees and stuffed his sack with shellfish gathered at random
pulled up his stone and started all over again the whole process lasting only thirty seconds this diver didn't see us a shadow cast by our crag hid us from his view and besides
how could this poor indian ever have guessed that human beings creatures like himself
eavesdropping on his movements not missing a single detail of his fishing so he went up and down several times he gathered only about ten shellfish per dive
because he had to tear them from the banks where each clung with its tough mass of filaments and how many of these oysters for which he risked his life would have no pearl in them i observed him with great care
his movements were systematically executed and for half an hour no danger seemed to threaten him
when all at once just as the indian was kneeling on the seafloor i saw him make a frightened gesture
i understood his fear a gigantic shadow appeared above the poor diver it was a shark of huge size moving in diagonally eyes ablaze jaws wide open i was speechless with horror
who jumped aside and avoided the shark's bite but not the thrashing of its tail because that tail struck him across the chest and stretched him out on the seafloor this scene lasted barely a few seconds the shark returned rolled over on its back
who was stationed beside me suddenly stood up then he strode right toward the monster dagger in hand ready to fight it at close quarters just as it was about to snap up the poor fisherman the man eater saw its new adversary
repositioned itself on its belly and headed swiftly toward him i can see captain nemo's bearing to this day bracing himself he waited for the fearsome man eater
and when the latter rushed at him the captain leaped aside with prodigious quickness avoided a collision and sank his dagger into its belly but that wasn't the end of the story a dreadful battle was joined
bellowed so to speak blood was pouring into the waves from its wounds
nothing else until the moment when
i saw the daring captain clinging to one of the animal's fins fighting the monster at close quarters belaboring his
a direct hit to the heart in its struggles the man eater churned the watery mass so furiously its eddies threatened to knock me over i wanted to run to the captain's rescue but i was transfixed with horror unable to move
i stared wild eyed i saw the fight enter a new phase the captain fell to the seafloor toppled by the enormous mass weighing him down then the shark's jaws opened astoundingly wide like a pair of industrial shears
had not ned land quick as thought rushed forward with his harpoon and driven its dreadful point into the shark's underside the waves were saturated with masses of blood
which thrashed about with indescribable fury ned land hadn't missed his target this was the monster's death rattle pierced to the heart it was struggling with dreadful spasms
whose aftershocks knocked conseil off his feet meanwhile ned land pulled the captain clear uninjured the latter stood up went right to the indian quickly cut the rope binding the man to his stone
the three of us followed him and a few moments later miraculously safe we reached the fisherman's longboat captain nemo's first concern was to revive this unfortunate man i wasn't sure he would succeed
i hoped so since the poor devil hadn't been under very long but that stroke from the shark's tail could have been his deathblow
little by little he opened his eyes how startled he must have felt how frightened even at seeing four huge copper craniums leaning over him and above all
this magnificent benefaction from the man of the waters to the poor indian from ceylon was accepted by the latter with trembling hands his bewildered eyes indicated
that he didn't know to what superhuman creatures he owed both his life and his fortune at the captain's signal we returned to the bank of shellfish and retracing our steps
we walked for half an hour until we encountered the anchor connecting the seafloor with the nautilus's skiff back on board the sailors helped divest us of our heavy copper carapaces captain nemo's first words were spoken to the canadian
thank you mister land he told him tit for tat captain ned land replied i owed it to you the ghost of a smile glided across the captain's lips and that was all
to the nautilus he said the longboat flew over the waves a few minutes later we encountered the shark's corpse again floating from the black markings on the tips of its fins
i recognized the dreadful squalus melanopterus from the seas of the east indies
it was more than twenty five feet long its enormous mouth occupied a third of its body it was an adult as could be seen from the six rows of teeth forming an isosceles triangle in its upper jaw
conseil looked at it with purely scientific fascination and i'm sure he placed it not without good reason in the class
order chondropterygia with fixed gills
around our longboat but paying no attention to us they pounced on the corpse and quarreled over every scrap of it by eight thirty we were back on board the nautilus there i fell to thinking about the incidents that marked our excursion
over the mannar oysterbank two impressions inevitably stood out one concerned captain nemo's matchless bravery
a representative of that race from which he had fled beneath the seas in spite of everything this strange man hadn't yet succeeded in completely stifling his heart
when i shared these impressions with him he answered me in a tone touched with emotion that indian professor lives in the land of the oppressed and i am to this day and will be until my last
chapter five advice from a caterpillar the caterpillar and alice looked at each other for some time in silence at last the caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth
and addressed her in a languid sleepy voice who are you said the caterpillar this was not an encouraging opening for a conversation alice replied rather shyly i
i hardly know sir just at present at least i know who i was when i got up this morning but i think i must have been changed several times since then what do you mean by that said the caterpillar sternly explain yourself
i can't explain myself i'm afraid sir said alice because i'm not myself you see i don't see said the caterpillar i'm afraid i can't put it more clearly alice replied very politely
for i can't understand it myself to begin with and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing it isn't said the caterpillar well perhaps you haven't found it so yet said alice
but when you have to turn into a chrysalis you will some day you know and then after that into a butterfly i should think you'll feel it a little queer won't you not a bit said the caterpillar well perhaps your feelings may be different
said alice all i know is it would feel very queer to me you said the caterpillar contemptuously
which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation alice felt a little irritated at the caterpillar's making such very short remarks and she drew herself up and said very gravely i think you ought to tell me who you are first
why said the caterpillar here was another puzzling question and as alice could not think of any good reason and as the caterpillar seemed to be in a very unpleasant state of mind she turned away
come back the caterpillar called after her i've something important to say this sounded promising certainly alice turned and came back again keep your temper said the caterpillar
i'm afraid i am sir said alice i can't remember things as i used and i don't keep the same size for ten minutes together can't remember what things said the caterpillar well
i've tried to say how doth the little busy bee but it all came different alice replied in a very melancholy voice repeat you are old father william said the caterpillar alice folded her hands and began
in my youth said the sage as he shook his grey locks i kept all my limbs very supple by the use of this ointment one shilling the box allow me to sell you a couple you are old said the youth and your jaws are too weak for anything tougher than suet
yet you finished the goose with the bones and the beak pray how did you manage to do it in my youth said his father i took to the law and argued each case with my wife and the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw has lasted the rest of my life
you are old said the youth one would hardly suppose that your eye was as steady as ever yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose what made you so awfully clever
i have answered three questions and that is enough said his father don't give yourself airs do you think i can listen all day to such stuff be off or i'll kick you down stairs that is not said right said the caterpillar
not quite right i'm afraid said alice timidly some of the words have got altered it is wrong from beginning to end said the caterpillar decidedly and there was silence for some minutes
the caterpillar was the first to speak what size do you want to be it asked oh i'm not particular as to size alice hastily replied only one doesn't like changing so often you know
i don't know said the caterpillar alice said nothing she had never been so much contradicted in her life before and she felt that she was losing her temper
well i should like to be a little larger sir if you wouldn't mind said alice three inches is such a wretched height to be it is a very good height indeed said the caterpillar angrily rearing itself upright as it spoke
it was exactly three inches high but i'm not used to it pleaded poor alice in a piteous tone and she thought of herself i wish the creatures wouldn't be so easily offended you'll get used to it in time said the caterpillar
and it put the hookah into its mouth and began smoking again this time alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again in a minute or two the caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice and shook itself
then it got down off the mushroom and crawled away in the grass merely remarking as it went one side will make you grow taller and the other side will make you grow shorter one side of what
the other side of what thought alice to herself of the mushroom said the caterpillar just as if she had asked it aloud and in another moment it was out of sight alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute
trying to make out which were the two sides of it and as it was perfectly round she found this a very difficult question however at last she stretched her arms round it as far as they would go and broke off a bit of the edge with each hand
and now which is which she said to herself and nibbled a little of the right hand bit to try the effect the next moment she felt a violent blow underneath her chin it had struck her foot
she was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change but she felt that there was no time to be lost as she was shrinking rapidly so she set to work at once to eat some of the other bit her chin was pressed so closely against her foot
that there was hardly room to open her mouth but she did it at last and managed to swallow a morsel of the lefthand bit come my head's free at last said alice in a tone of delight which changed into alarm in another moment
and was delighted to find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction like a serpent she had just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag and was going to dive in among the leaves
which she found to be nothing but the tops of the trees under which she had been wandering when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a hurry a large pigeon had flown into her face and was beating her violently with its wings serpent screamed the pigeon
i'm not a serpent said alice indignantly let me alone serpent i say again repeated the pigeon but in a more subdued tone and added with a kind of sob i've tried every way and nothing seems to suit them
i haven't the least idea what you're talking about said alice i've tried the roots of trees and i've tried banks and i've tried hedges the pigeon went on without attending to her but those serpents there's no pleasing them
alice was more and more puzzled but she thought there was no use in saying anything more till the pigeon had finished as if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs said the pigeon but i must be on the look out for serpents night and day
why i haven't had a wink of sleep these three weeks i'm very sorry you've been annoyed said alice who was beginning to see its meaning and just as i'd taken the highest tree in the wood continued the pigeon raising its voice to a shriek
and just as i was thinking i should be free of them at last they must needs come wriggling down from the sky ugh serpent but i'm not a serpent i tell you said alice i'm a i'm a well what are you said the pigeon
i can see you're trying to invent something i i'm a little girl said alice rather doubtfully as she remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day a likely story indeed said the pigeon in a tone of the deepest contempt
for her neck kept getting entangled among the branches and every now and then she had to stop and untwist it after a while she remembered that she still held the pieces of mushroom in her hands and she set to work very carefully
nibbling first at one and then at the other and growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter until she had succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height it was so long since she had been anything near the right size
that it felt quite strange at first but she got used to it in a few minutes and began talking to herself as usual come there's half my plan done now how puzzling all these changes are i'm never sure what i'm going to be from one minute to another
however i've got back to my right size the next thing is to get into that beautiful garden how is that to be done i wonder as she said this she came suddenly upon an open place with a little house in it about four feet high
part three my shore adventure
how my shore adventure began the appearance of the island when i came on deck next morning was altogether changed although the breeze had now utterly ceased
this even tint was indeed broken up by streaks of yellow sand break in the lower lands and by many tall trees of the pine family out topping the others some singly some in clumps but the general colouring was uniform and sad
the hills ran up clear above the vegetation in spires of naked rock all were strangely shaped and the spy glass which was by three or four hundred feet the tallest on the island was likewise the strangest in configuration
the booms were tearing at the blocks the rudder was banging to and fro and the whole ship creaking groaning and jumping like a manufactory
was a thing i never learned to stand without a qualm or so above all in the morning on an empty stomach perhaps it was this perhaps it was the look of the island with its grey melancholy woods and wild stone spires
and the surf that we could both see and hear foaming and thundering on the steep beach at least although the sun shone bright and hot and the shore birds were fishing and crying all around us
and the boats had to be got out and manned and the ship warped three or four miles round the corner of the island and up the narrow passage to the haven behind skeleton island i volunteered for one of the boats where i had of course no business
the heat was sweltering and the men grumbled fiercely over their work anderson was in command of my boat and instead of keeping the crew in order he grumbled as loud as the worst well he said with an oath it's not forever
i thought this was a very bad sign for up to that day the men had gone briskly and willingly about their business but the very sight of the island had relaxed the cords of discipline all the way in long john stood by the steersman and conned the ship
he knew the passage like the palm of his hand and though the man in the chains got everywhere more water than was down in the chart john never hesitated once there's a strong scour with the ebb he said
the plunge of our anchor sent up clouds of birds wheeling and crying over the woods but in less than a minute they were down again and all was once more silent the place was entirely land locked buried in woods
we might have been the first that had ever anchored there since the island arose out of the seas there was not a breath of air moving nor a sound but that of the surf booming half a mile away along the beaches and against the rocks outside
a peculiar stagnant smell hung over the anchorage a smell of sodden leaves and rotting tree trunks i observed the doctor sniffing and sniffing like someone tasting a bad egg i don't know about treasure he said
but i'll stake my wig there's fever here if the conduct of the men had been alarming in the boat it became truly threatening when they had come aboard they lay about the deck growling together in talk
the slightest order was received with a black look and grudgingly and carelessly obeyed even the honest hands must have caught the infection for there was not one man aboard to mend another mutiny it was plain
hung over us like a thunder cloud and it was not only we of the cabin party who perceived the danger long john was hard at work going from group to group spending himself in good advice and as for example no man could have shown a better
he fairly outstripped himself in willingness and civility he was all smiles to everyone if an order were given
appeared the worst we held a council in the cabin sir said the captain if i risk another order the whole ship'll come about our ears by the run you see sir here it is i get a rough answer do i not
well if i speak back pikes will be going in two shakes if i don't silver will see there's something under that and the game's up now we've only one man to rely on and who is that asked the squire silver sir returned the captain
if they none of them go well then we hold the cabin and god defend the right if some go you mark my words sir silver'll bring em aboard again as mild as lambs it was so decided
loaded pistols were served out to all the sure men hunter joyce and redruth were taken into our confidence and received the news with less surprise and a better spirit than we had looked for and then the captain went on deck and addressed the crew
my lads said he we've had a hot day and are all tired and out of sorts a turn ashore'll hurt nobody the boats are still in the water you can take the gigs and as many as please may go ashore for the afternoon
had he been on deck he could no longer so much as have pretended not to understand the situation it was as plain as day
the honest hands and i was soon to see it proved that there were such on board must have been very stupid fellows or rather i suppose the truth was this that all hands were disaffected by the example of the ringleaders only some more some less
and a few being good fellows in the main could neither be led nor driven any further it is one thing to be idle and skulk and quite another to take a ship and murder a number of innocent men at last however the party was made up
six fellows were to stay on board and the remaining thirteen including silver began to embark then it was that there came into my head the first of the mad notions that contributed so much to save our lives
if six men were left by silver it was plain our party could not take and fight the ship and since only six were left it was equally plain that the cabin party had no present need of my assistance it occurred to me at once to go ashore
in a jiffy i had slipped over the side and curled up in the fore sheets of the nearest boat and almost at the same moment she shoved off no one took notice of me only the bow oar saying is that you jim keep your head down
but silver from the other boat looked sharply over and called out to know if that were me and from that moment i began to regret what i had done the crews raced for the beach but the boat i was in having some start and being at once the lighter and the better manned
shot far ahead of her consort and the bow had struck among the shore side trees and i had caught a branch and swung myself out and plunged into the nearest thicket while silver and the rest were still a hundred yards behind
but you may suppose i paid no heed
on the far side of the open stood one of the hills with two quaint craggy peaks shining vividly in the sun i now felt for the first time the joy of exploration the isle was uninhabited
here and there i saw snakes and one raised his head from a ledge of rock and hissed at me with a noise not unlike the spinning of a top little did i suppose that he was a deadly enemy and that the noise was the famous rattle
the thicket stretched down from the top of one of the sandy knolls spreading and growing taller as it went until it reached the margin of the broad reedy fen through which the nearest of the little rivers soaked its way into the anchorage
another followed and soon over the whole surface of the marsh a great cloud of birds hung screaming and circling in the air i judged at once that some of my shipmates must be drawing near along the borders of the fen nor was i deceived
for soon i heard the very distant and low tones of a human voice which as i continued to give ear grew steadily louder and nearer this put me in a great fear and i crawled under cover of the nearest live oak and squatted there
hearkening as silent as a mouse another voice answered and then the first voice which i now recognized to be silver's once more took up the story and ran on for a long while in a stream
only now and again interrupted by the other by the sound they must have been talking earnestly and almost fiercely but no distinct word came to my hearing at last the speakers seemed to have paused and perhaps to have sat down
for not only did they cease to draw any nearer but the birds themselves began to grow more quiet and to settle again to their places in the swamp and now i began to feel that i was neglecting my business
that since i had been so foolhardy as to come ashore with these desperadoes the least i could do was to overhear them at their councils and that my plain and obvious duty was to draw as close as i could manage under the favourable ambush of the crouching trees
i made steadily but slowly towards them till at last raising my head to an aperture among the leaves i could see clear down into a little green dell beside the marsh and closely set about with trees where long john silver
and another of the crew stood face to face in conversation the sun beat full upon them silver had thrown his hat beside him on the ground and his great smooth blond face
all shining with heat was lifted to the other man's in a kind of appeal mate he was saying it's because i thinks gold dust of you gold dust and you may lay to that if i hadn't took to you like pitch
all's up you can't make nor mend it's to save your neck that i'm a speaking and if one of the wild uns knew it where'd i be tom now tell me where'd i be silver said the other man
and you've money too which lots of poor sailors hasn't and you're brave or i'm mistook
not you as sure as god sees me i'd sooner lose my hand if i turn agin my dooty and then all of a sudden he was interrupted by a noise i had found one of the honest hands well
here at that same moment came news of another far away out in the marsh there arose all of a sudden a sound like the cry of anger then another on the back of it and then one horrid long drawn scream
the rocks of the spy glass re echoed it a score of times the whole troop of marsh birds rose again darkening heaven with a simultaneous whirr and long after that death yell was still ringing in my brain
silence had re established its empire and only the rustle of the redescending birds and the boom of the distant surges disturbed the languor of the afternoon tom had leaped at the sound like a horse at the spur
leaping back a yard as it seemed to me with the speed and security of a trained gymnast hands off if you like john silver said the other it's a black conscience that can make you feared of me but in heaven's name tell me what was that
his eye a mere pin point in his big face but gleaming like a crumb of glass that
and at this point tom flashed out like a hero alan he cried then rest his soul for a true seaman and as for you john silver long you've been a mate of mine but you're mate of mine no more
if i die like a dog i'll die in my dooty you've killed alan have you kill me too if you can but i defies you and with that this brave fellow turned his back directly on the cook and set off walking for the beach
but he was not destined to go far with a cry john seized the branch of a tree whipped the crutch out of his armpit and sent that uncouth missile hurtling through the air it struck poor tom point foremost
and with stunning violence right between the shoulders in the middle of his back his hands flew up he gave a sort of gasp and fell whether he were injured much or little none could ever tell
like enough to judge from the sound his back was broken on the spot but he had no time given him to recover silver agile as a monkey even without leg or crutch was on the top of him next moment
but i do know that for the next little while the whole world swam away from before me in a whirling mist silver and the birds and the tall spy glass hilltop going round and round and topsy turvy before my eyes
just before him tom lay motionless upon the sward but the murderer minded him not a whit cleansing his blood stained knife the while upon a wisp of grass everything else was unchanged
the sun still shining mercilessly on the steaming marsh and the tall pinnacle of the mountain and i could scarce persuade myself that murder had been actually done and a human life cruelly cut short a moment since before my eyes
but now john put his hand into his pocket brought out a whistle and blew upon it several modulated blasts that rang far across the heated air i could not tell of course the meaning of the signal
i could hear hails coming and going between the old buccaneer and his comrades and this sound of danger lent me wings as soon as i was clear of the thicket i ran as i never ran before scarce minding the direction of my flight
so long as it led me from the murderers and as i ran fear grew and grew upon me until it turned into a kind of frenzy indeed could anyone be more entirely lost than i
when the gun fired how should i dare to go down to the boats among those fiends still smoking from their crime would not the first of them who saw me wring my neck like a snipe's
would not my absence itself be an evidence to them of my alarm and therefore of my fatal knowledge it was all over i thought
good bye to the squire the doctor and the captain there was nothing left for me but death by starvation or death by the hands of the mutineers all this while as i say i was still running
and without taking any notice i had drawn near to the foot of the little hill with the two peaks and had got into a part of the island where the live oaks grew more widely apart and seemed more like forest trees in their bearing and dimensions
mingled with these were a few scattered pines some fifty some nearer seventy feet high the air too smelt more freshly than down beside the marsh
by a phenomenon of vision or of locomotion has been known at times to abolish space in its two modes of time and distance the one intellectual the other physical history of louis lambert
on a november evening in the year seventeen ninety three
but an unwonted interest attached to this evening's gathering
though in a small country town they excited the greatest curiosity for two days before
and on the previous evening her door had been shut on the ground of indisposition
existence is in some sort incomplete but in those times when the least indiscretion on the part of an aristocrat might be a matter of life and death
many a one during the days of the revolution has doubtless passed through a crisis as difficult as hers at that moment and the sympathies of more than one reader will fill in all the coloring of the picture
a knight of the orders of saint michael and of the holy ghost she had left the court when the emigration began and taken refuge in the neighborhood of carentan where she had large estates hoping that the influence of the reign of terror would be but little felt there
her circle of acquaintance had been confined to the noble families of the district but now from politic motives she opened her house to the principal citizens and to the revolutionary authorities of the town endeavoring to touch and gratify their social pride
without arousing either hatred or jealousy gracious and kindly possessed of the indescribable charm that wins good will without loss of dignity or effort to pay court to any she had succeeded in gaining universal esteem
the discreet warnings of exquisite tact enabled her to steer a difficult course among the exacting claims of this mixed society without wounding the overweening self love of parvenus on the one hand
or the susceptibilities of her old friends on the other she was about thirty eight years of age and still preserved not the fresh high colored beauty of the basse normandes but a fragile loveliness of what may be called an aristocratic type
her figure was lissome and slender her features delicate and clearly cut the pale face seemed to light up and live when she spoke but there was a quiet and devout look in the great dark eyes for all their graciousness of expression
a look that seemed to say that the springs of her life lay without her own existence in her early girlhood she had been married to an elderly and jealous soldier her false position in the midst of a gay court had doubtless done something
and the depths of passion in her heart had never been stirred in this lay the secret of her greatest charm a youthfulness of the inmost soul betrayed at times by her face and a certain tinge of innocent wistfulness in her ideas
she was reserved in her demeanor but in her bearing and in the tones of her voice there was still something that told of girlish longings directed toward a vague future before very long the least susceptible fell in love with her
and yet stood somewhat in awe of her dignity and high bred manner her great soul strengthened by the cruel ordeals through which she had passed seemed to set her too far above the ordinary level
and these men weighed themselves and instinctively felt that they were found wanting such a nature demanded an exalted passion moreover
a mother's love for her son all the happiness and joy that she had not known as a wife she had found later in her boundless love for him the coquetry of a mistress the jealousy of a wife mingled with the pure and deep affection of a mother
but all she had of kith or kin in the world the one human being on earth bound to her by all the fears and hopes and joys of her life the late comte de dey was the last of his race and she his wife
the child was all the dearer because only with infinite care had she succeeded in rearing him to man's estate medical science had predicted his death a score of times but she had held fast to her presentiments and her hopes
and had known the inexpressible joy of watching him pass safely through the perils of infancy of seeing his constitution strengthen in spite of the decrees of the faculty thanks to her constant care
the boy had grown up and developed so favorably that at twenty years of age he was regarded as one of the most accomplished gentlemen at the court of versailles one final happiness that does not always crown a mother's efforts was hers her son worshiped her
and between these two there was the deep sympathy of kindred souls
they would instinctively have felt for each other a friendship that is rarely met with between two men
and had made it a point of honor to follow the emigrant princes into exile
she was rich noble and the mother of an emigrant with the one desire to look after her son's great fortune she had denied herself the happiness of being with him
and when she read the rigorous laws in virtue of which the republic was daily confiscating the property of emigrants at carentan she congratulated herself on the courageous course that she had taken
was she not keeping watch over the wealth of her son at the risk of her life later when news came of the horrible executions ordered by the convention she slept happy in the knowledge that her own treasure was in safety out of reach of peril
far from the scaffolds of the revolution she loved to think that she had followed the best course that she had saved her darling and her darling's fortunes and to this secret thought she made such concessions as the misfortunes of the times demanded
and made herself necessary to the well to do by providing amusements for them the procureur of the commune might be seen at her house the mayor the president of the district and the public prosecutor
and even the judges of the revolutionary tribunals went there the four first named gentlemen were none of them married
either from fear of making an enemy or from a desire to find a protector the public prosecutor once an attorney at caen and the countess's man of business did what he could to inspire love by a system of devotion and generosity
but in despite of the danger of matching herself against norman cunning she used all the craft and inventiveness that nature has bestowed on women to play off the rival suitors one against another she hoped by gaining time
so deep and sincere was the interest that she inspired that those who usually filled her drawing room felt a lively anxiety when the news was spread then with the frank curiosity characteristic of provincial manners
they went to inquire into the misfortune grief or illness
to all these questions brigitte the housekeeper answered with the same formula her mistress was keeping her room and would see no one not even her own servants
the joke was hazarded discreetly women and men elderly folk and young girls
everyone imagined that there was some secret in it and every head was busy with the secret next day the suspicions became malignant everyone lives in public in a small town
and the women kind were the first to find out that brigitte had laid in an extra stock of provisions the thing could not be disputed
and wonderful to relate she had bought the one hare to be had
elderly gentlemen taking their constitutional noticed a sort of suppressed bustle in the countess's house the symptoms were the more apparent because the servants were at evident pains to conceal them
the man servant was beating a carpet in the garden only yesterday no one would have remarked the fact but to day everybody began to build romances upon that harmless piece of household stuff everyone had a version on the following day
the magnates of carentan went to spend the evening at the mayor's brother's house he was a retired merchant a married man a strictly honorable soul everyone respected him and the countess held him in high regard
there all the rich widows suitors were fain to invent more or less probable fictions each one thinking the while how to turn to his own advantage the secret that compelled her to compromise herself in such a manner
the mayor had a belief in a priest who had refused the oath
but this left him not a little embarrassed how to account for the purchase of a hare on a friday the president of the district had strong leanings toward a chouan chief
others voted for a noble escaped from the prisons of paris in short one and all suspected that the countess had been guilty of some piece of generosity that the law of those days defined as a crime
the public prosecutor moreover said in a low voice that they must hush the matter up and try to save the unfortunate lady from the abyss toward which she was hastening if you spread reports about he added
i shall be obliged to take cognizance of the matter and to search the house and then he said no more but everyone understood what was left unsaid the countess's real friends were so much alarmed for her that on the morning of the third day
the old merchant took a bolder step he called that morning upon the lady strong in the thought of the service he meant to do her
and was amazed beyond expression to find her out in the garden busy gathering the last autumn flowers in her borders to fill the vases she has given refuge to her lover no doubt thought the old man struck with pity for the charming woman before him
the countess's face wore a strange look that confirmed his suspicions deeply moved by the devotion so natural to women
but that always touches us because all men are flattered by the sacrifices that any woman makes for any one of them the merchant told the countess of the gossip that was circulating in the town and showed her the danger that she was running he wound up at last with saying that
if there are some of our public functionaries who are sufficiently ready to pardon a piece of heroism on your part so long as it is a priest that you wish to save no one will show you any mercy if it is discovered that you are sacrificing yourself to the dictates of your heart
that made him tremble old though he was come in she said
and as soon as she had assured herself that they were alone she drew a soiled torn letter from her bodice read it she cried with a violent effort to pronounce the words she dropped as if exhausted into her armchair
while the old merchant looked for his spectacles and wiped them she raised her eyes and for the first time looked at him with curiosity then in an uncertain voice i trust in you she said softly
he understood the countess's joy and her prostration her son had taken part in the granville expedition he wrote to his mother from his prison and the letter brought her a sad sweet hope
feeling no doubts as to his means of escape he wrote that within three days he was sure to reach her disguised the same letter that brought these weighty tidings was full of heartrending farewells in case the writer should not be in carentan by the evening of the third day
and he implored his mother to send a considerable sum of money by the bearer who had gone through dangers innumerable to deliver it the paper shook in the old man's hands
worn out with fatigue and she broke off i am sure of my brother the old merchant went on i will engage him in your interests the merchant in this crisis recovered his old business shrewdness
after the two had agreed together as to what they were to do and say the old merchant went on various ingenious pretexts to pay visits to the principal houses of carentan
and that in spite of her indisposition she would receive that evening matching his shrewdness against norman wits in the cross examination he underwent in every family as to the countess's complaint
he succeeded in putting almost everyone who took an interest in the mysterious affair upon the wrong scent his very first call worked wonders he told in the hearing of a gouty old lady how that
how that the illustrious tronchin had recommended her in such a case to put the skin from a live hare on her chest to stop in bed and keep perfectly still the countess he said had lain in danger of her life for the past two days
but after carefully following out tronchin's singular prescription she was now sufficiently recovered to receive visitors that evening this tale had an immense success in carentan
added to its effect by gravely discussing the specific suspicion nevertheless had taken too deep root in a few perverse or philosophical minds to be entirely dissipated so it fell out that those
hurried thither at an early hour some to watch her face some out of friendship but the more part attracted by the fame of the marvelous cure they found the countess seated in a corner of the great chimney piece in her room
which was almost as modestly furnished as similar apartments in carentan for she had given up the enjoyment of luxuries to which she had formerly been accustomed for fear of offending the narrow prejudices of her guests and she had made no changes in her house
the floor was not even polished she had left the old somber hangings on the walls had kept the old fashioned country furniture burned tallow candles
had fallen in with the ways of the place and adopted provincial life without flinching before its cast iron narrowness its most disagreeable hardships but knowing that her guests would forgive her for any prodigality that conduced to their comfort
and bore with their trivial prosings every time there was a knock at the door at every sound of footsteps in the street she hid her agitation by raising questions of absorbing interest to the countryside
her self possession was unshaken the public prosecutor and one of the judges of the revolutionary tribunal kept silence however noting the slightest change that flickered over her features listening through the noisy talk to every sound in the house
several times they put awkward questions which the countess answered with wonderful presence of mind so brave is a mother's heart
had made parties of whist boston or reversis and sat talking with some of the young people she seemed to be living completely in the present moment and played her part like a consummate actress she elicited a suggestion of loto
and saying that no one else knew where to find the game she left the room my good brigitte i cannot breathe down there she cried brushing away the tears that sprang to her eyes that glittered with fever sorrow and impatience
she had gone up to her son's room and was looking round it he does not come she said here i can breathe and live a few minutes more and he will be here for he is alive i am sure that he is alive my heart tells me so
do you hear nothing brigitte oh i would give the rest of my life to know whether he is still in prison or tramping across the country i would rather not think once more she looked to see that everything was in order
a bright fire blazed on the hearth the shutters were carefully closed the furniture shone with cleanliness the bed had been made after a fashion that showed that brigitte and the countess had given their minds to every trifling detail
clean linen slippers no necessary no comfort was lacking for the weary traveler and all the delights of home heaped upon him should reveal his mother's love oh brigitte cried the countess
with a heart rending inflection in her voice she drew a chair to the table as if to strengthen her illusions and realize her longings ah madame he is coming he is not far off i haven't a doubt that he is living and on his way brigitte answered
i put a key in the bible and held it on my fingers while cottin read the gospel of saint john and the key did not turn madame is that a certain sign the countess asked why yes madame everybody knows that he is still alive
i would stake my salvation on it god cannot be mistaken if only i could see him here in the house in spite of the danger
all those preparations made for him meant that he was alive she went down but she lingered a moment in the peristyle for any sound that might waken the sleeping echoes of the town she smiled at brigitte's husband who was standing there on guard
the man's eyes looked stupid with the strain of listening to the faint sounds of the night she stared into the darkness seeing her son in every shadow everywhere but it was only for a moment then she went back to the drawing room with an assumption of high spirits
but from time to time she complained of feeling unwell and went to sit in her great chair by the fireside
meanwhile on the road from paris to cherbourg a young man dressed in the inevitable brown carmagnole of those days was plodding his way toward carentan when the first levies were made
there was little or no discipline kept up the exigencies of the moment scarcely admitted of soldiers being equipped at once and it was no uncommon thing to see the roads thronged with conscripts in their ordinary clothes
the young fellows went ahead of their company to the next halting place or lagged behind it it depended upon their fitness to bear the fatigues of a long march this particular wayfarer was some considerable way in advance of a company of conscripts on the way to cherbourg
whom the mayor was expecting to arrive every hour for it was his duty to distribute their billets the young man's footsteps were still firm as he trudged along and his bearing seemed to indicate that he was no stranger to the rough life of a soldier
the moon shone on the pasture land about carentan but he had noticed great masses of white cloud that were about to scatter showers of snow over the country
and was obliged to ask the way to the mayor's house of a weaver who was working late the magistrate was not far to seek and in a few minutes the conscript was sitting on a stone bench in the mayor's porch waiting for his billet he was sent for however
and confronted with that functionary who scrutinized him closely the foot soldier was a good looking young man who appeared to be of gentle birth there was something aristocratic in his bearing and signs in his face of intelligence developed by a good education
remarked the norman in sarcastic tones i am three leagues ahead of the battalion some sentiment attracts you to carentan of course citizen conscript said the mayor astutely
all right all right he added with a wave of the hand seeing that the young man was about to speak we know where to send you
and he handed over the billet
the conscript read the direction curiously he knows quite well that he has not far to go
he is uncommonly bold god guide him he has an answer ready for everything
the clocks in carentan struck half past nine as he spoke
servants were helping their masters and mistresses into sabots greatcoats and calashes the card players settled their accounts and everybody went out together after the fashion of all little country towns
it looks as if the prosecutor meant to stop said a lady who noticed that that important personage was not in the group in the market place where they all took leave of one another before going their separate ways home and as a matter of fact
that redoubtable functionary was alone with the countess who waited trembling till he should go there was something appalling in their long silence
i am here to see that the laws of the republic are carried out
have you nothing to tell me nothing she answered in amazement ah madame cried the prosecutor sitting down beside her and changing his tone at this moment for lack of a word one of us you or i
may carry our heads to the scaffold i have watched your character your soul your manner too closely to share the error into which you have managed to lead your visitors to night you are expecting your son i could not doubt it
the countess made an involuntary sign of denial but her face had grown white and drawn with the struggle to maintain the composure that she did not feel and no tremor was lost on the merciless prosecutor
very well the revolutionary official went on receive him but do not let him stay under your roof after seven o'clock to morrow morning for to morrow as soon as it is light i shall come with a denunciation that i will have made out and
she looked at him and the dull misery in her eyes would have softened a tiger i will make it clear that the denunciation was false by making a thorough search he went on in a gentle voice
my report shall be such that you will be safe from any subsequent suspicion i shall make mention of your patriotic gifts your civism and all of us will be safe
her tongue frozen a knock at the door rang through the house oh cried the terrified mother falling upon her knees save him save him yes let us save him
returned the public prosecutor and his eyes grew bright as he looked at her if it costs us our lives lost she wailed the prosecutor raised her politely
the prosecutor asked kindly as if he too were in the secret of the household a conscript that the mayor has sent here for a night's lodging the woman replied holding out the billet so it is said the prosecutor when he had read the slip of paper
a battalion is coming here to night and he went the countess's need to believe in the faith of her sometime attorney was so great that she dared not entertain any suspicion of him she fled upstairs
she felt scarcely strength enough to stand she opened the door and sprang half dead with fear into her son's arms oh my child my child she sobbed covering him with almost frenzied kisses madame said a stranger's voice oh
it is not he she cried shrinking away in terror and she stood face to face with the conscript gazing at him with haggard eyes o saint bon dieu how like he is cried brigitte there was silence for a moment
ah monsieur she said leaning on the arm of brigitte's husband feeling for the first time the full extent of a sorrow that had all but killed her at its first threatening ah monsieur i cannot stay to see you any longer
permit my servants to supply my place
she went down to her own room brigitte and the old serving man half carrying her between them the housekeeper set her mistress in a chair and broke out what madame is that man to sleep in monsieur auguste's bed
i shall go into the conservatory i shall hear better there if anyone passes in the night she still wavered between the fear that she had lost her son and the hope of seeing him once more that night was hideously silent
once for the countess there was an awful interval when the battalion of conscripts entered the town and the men went by one by one to their lodgings every footfall every sound in the street raised hopes to be disappointed
but it was not for long the dreadful quiet succeeded again toward morning the countess was forced to return to her room
ever keeping watch over her mistress's movements did not see her come out again and when she went she found the countess lying there dead i expect she heard that conscript cried brigitte walking about monsieur auguste's room
as if he had been in a stable that must have killed her
and doubtless some dreadful vision
for at the very hour when she died at carentan her son was shot in le morbihan this tragical story may be added to all the instances on record of the workings of sympathies uncontrolled by the laws of time and space
meanwhile nazareth avenue church was experiencing something never known before in all its history
only this church was far more aristocratic wealthy and conventional
but when it become publicly known that the bishop had also announced his resignation and retirement from the position he had held so long in order to go and live himself in the centre of the worst part of chicago the public astonishment reached its height but why
the bishop replied to one valued friend who had almost with tears tried to dissuade him from his purpose why should what doctor bruce and i propose to do seem so remarkable a thing as if it were unheard of that a doctor of divinity and a bishop should want to save lost souls in this particular manner
if we were to resign our charge for the purpose of going to bombay or hong kong or any place in africa the churches and the people would exclaim at the heroism of missions
why should it seem so great a thing if we have been led to give our lives to help rescue the heathen and the lost of our own city in the way we are going to try it
is it then such a tremendous event that two christian ministers should be not only willing but eager to live close to the misery of the world in order to know it and realize it is it such a rare thing that love of humanity should find this particular form of expression in the rescue of souls
and however the bishop may have satisfied himself that there ought to be nothing so remarkable about it at all the public continued to talk and the churches to record their astonishment that two such men so prominent in the ministry should leave their comfortable homes voluntarily resign their pleasant social positions and enter upon a life of hardship of self denial and actual suffering
christian america is it a reproach on the form of our discipleship that the exhibition of actual suffering for jesus on the part of those who walk in his steps always provokes astonishment as at the sight of something very unusual
nazareth avenue church parted from its pastor with regret for the most part although the regret was modified with a feeling of relief on the part of those who had refused to take the pledge doctor bruce carried with him the respect of men who entangled in business in such a way that obedience to the pledge would have ruined them still held in their deeper better natures a genuine admiration for courage and consistency
they had known doctor bruce many years as a kindly conservative safe man but the thought of him in the light of sacrifice of this sort was not familiar to them as fast as they understood it they gave their pastor the credit of being absolutely true to his recent convictions as to what following jesus meant
nazareth avenue church never lost the impulse of that movement started by doctor bruce those who went with him in making the promise breathed into the church the very breath of divine life and are continuing that life giving work at this present time
it was fall again and the city faced another hard winter the bishop one afternoon came out of the settlement and walked around the block intending to go on a visit to one of his new friends in the district
he had walked about four blocks when he was attracted by a shop that looked different from the others the neighborhood was still quite new to him and every day he discovered some strange spot or stumbled upon some unexpected humanity
the place that attracted his notice was a small house close by a chinese laundry there were two windows in the front very clean and that was remarkable to begin with then inside the window was a tempting display of cookery
with prices attached to the various articles that made him wonder somewhat for he was familiar by this time with many facts in the life of the people once unknown to him as he stood looking at the windows the door between them opened and felicia sterling came out felicia exclaimed the bishop
when did you move into my parish without my knowledge how did you find me so soon inquired felicia why don't you know these are the only clean windows in the block i believe they are replied felicia with a laugh that did the bishop good to hear
but why have you dared to come to chicago without telling me and how have you entered my diocese without my knowledge asked the bishop and felicia looked so like that beautiful clean educated refined world he once knew that he might be pardoned for seeing in her something of the old paradise
although to speak truth for him he had no desire to go back to it well dear bishop said felicia who had always called him so i knew how overwhelmed you were with your work
i am an expert and i have a plan i want you to admire and develop will you dear bishop indeed i will he replied the sight of felicia and her remarkable vitality enthusiasm and evident purpose almost bewildered him
i'm able to earn my own living now you are the bishop said a little incredulously how making those things those things
said felicia with a show of indignation i would have you know sir that those things are the best cooked purest food products in this whole city i don't doubt it he replied hastily while his eyes twinkled still the proof of the pudding' you know the rest
come in and try some she exclaimed you poor bishop you look as if you hadn't had a good meal for a month
go right on martha this is the bishop you have heard me speak of him so often sit down there and let me give you a taste of the fleshpots of egypt for i believe you have been actually fasting so they had an improvised lunch
and the bishop who to tell the truth had not taken time for weeks to enjoy his meals feasted on the delight of his unexpected discovery and was able to express his astonishment and gratification at the quality of the cookery
as good as the auditorium banquets were simply husks compared with this one felicia but you must come to the settlement i want you to see what we are doing and i am simply astonished to find you here earning your living this way
i begin to see what your plan is you can be of infinite help to us you don't really mean that you will live here and help these people to know the value of good food indeed i do she answered gravely that is my gospel shall i not follow it
still is there no escape from it even in the slums of chicago felicia laughed again and the man's heart heavy though it had grown during several months of vast sin bearing rejoiced to hear it it sounded good it was good it belonged to god
felicia wanted to visit the settlement and went back with him she was amazed at the results of what considerable money an a good deal of consecrated brains had done
as they walked through the building they talked incessantly she was the incarnation of vital enthusiasm and he wondered at the exhibition of it as it bubbled up and sparkled over they went down into the basement and the bishop pushed open a door from behind which came the sound of a carpenter's plane
it was a small but well equipped carpenter's shop a young man with a paper cap on his head and clad in blouse and overalls was whistling and driving the plane as he whistled he looked up as the two entered and took off his cap as he did so his little finger carried a small curling shaving up to his hair and it caught there
miss sterling mister stephen clyde said the bishop
we have met before said felicia looking at clyde frankly yes back in the world as the bishop says replied the young man and his fingers trembled a little as they lay on the board he had been planing yes felicia hesitated i am very glad to see you
are you the flush of pleasure mounted to the young carpenter's forehead
since then he said and then he was afraid he had wounded her or called up painful memories but she had lived over all that yes and you also how is it that you're working here it is a long story miss sterling my father lost his money and i was obliged to go to work
a very good thing for me the bishop says i ought to be very grateful i am i am very happy now i learned the trade hoping some time to be of use i am night clerk at one of the hotels that sunday morning when you took the pledge at nazareth avenue church
it was almost like the old pang over camilla but it passed leaving him afterwards when felicia had gone back with tears in his eyes and a feeling that was almost hope that felicia and stephen would like each other after all he said like the sensible good man that he was
is not romance a part of humanity love is older than i am and wiser the week following the bishop had an experience that belongs to this part of the settlement history
he was coming back to the settlement very late from some gathering of the striking tailors and was walking along with his hands behind him when two men jumped out from behind an old fence that shut off an abandoned factory from the street and faced him
one of the men thrust a pistol in his face and the other threatened him with a ragged stake that had evidently been torn from the fence
by the strength of the sun and the heat that seeped even through the boards of the ship chris judged that the morning was well advanced dressing was rapid for chris like the rest of the sailors in the tropic heat wore only his breeches
his bare chest and shoulders were tanned and healthy
running up to the bridge he was startled at first at coming on deck at the sudden green shade everywhere then looking up he saw that to their very peaks the masts and rigging of the mirabelle had been hidden with palm fronds
that side of the ship that could be seen from the sea through the narrow channel entrance had been completely covered with green the work was not yet finished but most of the crew were sleeping during the hot hours
and when he reached the bridge he was delighted to see fruits from the island piled in shady corners these and bread and cheese made up his meal which he ate while watching the final leaves and fronds put in place on the sides of the mirabelle
captain blizzard came up to him his hands clasped behind his back and nodded toward the men pulling themselves slowly over the ship's side and falling exhausted into the shade to sleep for a few hours
and then we shall one and all row ashore to see what we shall see he paused and chris looking up saw that the captain's gaze was fixed on zachary heigh zachary was obviously not only far from sleeping
but was restless jumping up to look out to sea and then sitting down again it would be only a few minutes more before up he would jump once more to pace the deck or lean at the ship's rail
it would seem the captain said casually that zachary has something on his mind mister finney joined chris and the captain at that moment and looking down at zachary nodded his long sad face in lugubrious agreement
chris opened his mouth to say something to the captain of what he had seen zachary doing before the words could leave his mouth he was interrupted by the appearance of red faced ned cilley cheerful as a sand flea at the prospect of going ashore
ned had come from his rest with a small company of the sailors to ask permission of the captain if they might leave the ship well why not the captain demanded and why not take along the rest too
we were all to go ashore presently in any case those who still want to sleep can do so even more comfortably on the shady sand under the palms so in an instant the decks of the mirabelle were crowded with laughing jostling men
duties over for that day tumbling down the ladders to the dinghies in which they rowed ashore chris and amos were shoved along with their friends chris hiking up his breeches to cover the coil of the magic rope around his waist the leathern bag hanging in plain sight about his neck
chris searched and searched again for three faces among the crowd that he did not find zachary heigh the captain and mister finney were not to be found aghast as he understood now what zachary's plan was
to blow up the mirabelle just as the venture and its crew came near enough to shoot down the unarmed men chris rushed back to the water's edge and stood there hesitating in the powerful sun how could he change himself to a fish or other shape unobserved
the sailors from the mirabelle were everywhere in the thickets for the shade as well as along the edge of the cove where he now stood indecisive to use the rope was just as impossible for the beach was broad and chris was acutely aware that he stood out like a single tree in a field
there's too much of heat in it to be good for unkivered heads chris knew the voice of the sailor was right and was on the point of jumping into one of the dinghies where they lay pulled up on the beach far out on the cove the decks of the mirabelle were deserted and
unlike themselves so empty of life sweat started out on chris's forehead as he imagined zachary in the hold lighting the fuse and he wondered where the good captain and mister finney might be he wondered too if he could row over in time
or if he would be blown up with the ship the boy had his hands on the scorching wood of a dinghy his muscles tensed to thrust it into the waters of the cove when out over the still harbor jangling in the heat
came a prolonged and piercing scream hot as he was chris felt himself go cold at the sound he knew instantly although he had never heard it before that this was the death cry of a man the scream came a second time
terrified and despairing and out over the water following it came a low scattered rumble silence fell for several frozen seconds and then all at once chris became aware as he stood rigid with horror by the boat
that the sailors of the mirabelle had rushed out from the coolness of the shore to stand stiff and appalled beside him a babble of voices broke out and one by one the boats were hastily launched heading back to the ship
leaving chris shaking and unnerved on the sand over the water as brawny backs bent to the oars the words came floating back
leave the lads no sight for young uns pull you lazy lubbers
and led him into the shade and of how sick he was the heat and the scream the fear and a sense of having failed in warning the captain combining to churn his insides into a queasy place that violently rejected his pleasant breakfast of so short a time before
that met his death by accident boxes and crates killing him in the hold the way they did but and the captain scanned the tough weather beaten faces near him slowly one by one
had not the bung of that keg of molasses above the lighted fuse
no doubt neither mister finney nor i
he paused again but there was not a stir from his audience
or straggly unkempt hair the men who knew no other life but the sea no happiness or danger unconnected with it never took their eyes from their captain so men captain blizzard resumed
the gunpowder that was meant to be the end of our fine ship is now safe and out of harm's way and the traitor who intended this infamous deed has been dealt with by fate and killed in a tomb of his own finding therefore
feeling as i do for my ship and my men i cannot bring myself to read the holy words over this man
nodding his head as if to stress his words yet he said
it is not proper that he should be left without even a token of respect he gestured with his plump hand to the bible do you settle among yourselves who shall do the reading
i am the resurrection and the life but chris watching the disappearing backs of the captain and first mate
was thinking what a curious and fortunate thing it was that the bales had fallen on zachary just at the right time and when there was not a ripple on the cove chris watched the fat short man and the tall lean one go
resolution and anger still evident even in the set of their shoulders the boy was thoughtful thinking back over what ned had said of them that first day on the docks faithful
is law for elisha finney and captain blizzard
three months had gone by since the sunday morning when doctor bruce came into his pulpit with the message of the new discipleship they were three months of great excitement in nazareth avenue church
he humbly confessed that the appeal he had made met with an unexpected response from men and women who like felicia were hungry for something in their lives that the conventional type of church membership and fellowship had failed to give them
or what led to the movement he finally made to the great astonishment of all who knew him better than by relating a conversation between him and the bishop at this time in the history of the pledge in nazareth avenue church the two friends were as before in doctor bruce's house seated in his study
you know what i have come in this evening for the bishop was saying after the friends had been talking some time about the results of the pledge with the nazareth avenue people doctor bruce looked over at the bishop and shook his head
i have come to confess that i have not yet kept my promise to walk in his steps in the way that i believe i shall be obliged to if i satisfy my thought of what it means to walk in his steps doctor bruce had risen and was pacing his study
the bishop remained in the deep easy chair with his hands clasped but his eye burned with the blow that belonged to him before he made some great resolve edward doctor bruce spoke abruptly i have not yet been able to satisfy myself either in obeying my promise
calvin you know how many years i have been doing the work of my position and you know something of the responsibility and care of it i do not mean to say that my life has been free from burden bearing or sorrow
i have been able to go abroad at least a dozen times and have enjoyed for years the beautiful companionship of art and letters and music and all the rest of the very best i have never known what it meant to be without money or its equivalent
and i have been unable to silence the question of late what have i suffered for the sake of christ paul was told what great things he must suffer for the sake of his lord
maxwell's position at raymond is well taken when he insists that to walk in the steps of christ means to suffer where has my suffering come in the petty trials and annoyances of my clerical life are not worth mentioning as sorrows or sufferings
compared with paul or any of the christian martyrs or early disciples i have lived a luxurious sinful life full of ease and pleasure i cannot endure this any longer i have that within me which of late rises in overwhelming condemnation of such a following of jesus
the bishop had risen now and walked over to the window the street in front of the house was as light as day and he looked out at the crowds passing then turned and with a passionate utterance that showed how deep the volcanic fire in him burned he exclaimed calvin
this is a terrible city in which we live its misery its sin its selfishness appall my heart and i have struggled for years with the sickening dread of the time when i should be forced to leave the pleasant luxury of my official position
to put my life into contact with the modern paganism of this century the awful condition of the girls in some great business places the brutal selfishness of the insolent society fashion and wealth that ignores all the sorrow of the city
the fearful curse of the drink and gambling hell the wail of the unemployed
and upholstered furniture and the minister as a luxurious idler all the vast tumult of this vast torrent of humanity with its false and its true ideas its exaggeration of evils in the church and its bitterness and shame that are the result of many complex causes
all this as a total fact in its contrast with the easy comfortable life i have lived fills me more and more with a sense of mingled terror and self accusation i have heard the words of jesus many times lately
ye did it not unto me and when have i personally visited the prisoner or the desperate or the sinful in any way that has actually caused me suffering rather i have followed the conventional soft habits of my position
and have lived in the society of the rich refined aristocratic members of my congregations where has the suffering come in what have i suffered for jesus sake do you know calvin he turned abruptly toward his friend
i have been tempted of late to lash myself with a scourge
doctor bruce was very pale never had he seen the bishop or heard him when under the influence of such a passion there was a sudden silence in the room the bishop sat down again and bowed his head doctor bruce spoke at last edward
i do not need to say that you have expressed my feelings also i have been in a similar position for years my life has been one of comparative luxury i do not of course mean to say that i have not had trials and discouragements and burdens in my church ministry
but i cannot say that i have suffered any for jesus that verse in peter constantly haunts me christ also suffered for you leaving you an example that ye should follow his steps i have lived in luxury i do not know what it means to want
i have been surrounded by the soft easy comforts of civilization the sin and misery of this great city have beaten like waves against the stone walls of my church and of this house in which i live and i have hardly heeded them the walls have been so thick
i have reached a point where i cannot endure this any longer i am not condemning the church i love her
i believe in her mission and have no desire to destroy least of all in the step i am about to take do i desire to be charged with abandoning the christian fellowship
but i feel that i must resign my place as pastor of nazareth church in order to satisfy myself that i am walking as i ought to walk in his steps in this action i judge no other minister and pass no criticism on others discipleship
but i feel as you do into a close contact with the sin and shame and degradation of this great city i must come personally and i know that to do that i must sever my immediate connection with nazareth avenue church
i do not see any other way for myself to suffer for his sake as i feel that i ought to suffer again that sudden silence fell over those two men it was no ordinary action they were deciding
they had both reached the same conclusion by the same reasoning and they were too thoughtful too well accustomed to the measuring of conduct to underestimate the seriousness of their position what is your plan the bishop at last spoke gently looking with the smile that always beautified his face
the bishop's face grew in glory now every day my plan replied doctor bruce slowly is in brief the putting of myself into the centre of the greatest human need i can find in this city and living there
my wife is fully in accord with me we have already decided to find a residence in that part of the city where we can make our personal lives count for the most let me suggest a place the bishop was on fire now
his fine face actually glowed with the enthusiasm of the movement in which he and his friend were inevitably embarked he went on and unfolded a plan of such far reaching power and possibility that doctor bruce capable and experienced as he was
felt amazed at the vision of a greater soul than his own they sat up late and were as eager and even glad as if they were planning for a trip together to some rare land of unexplored travel
indeed the bishop said many times afterward that the moment his decision was reached to live the life of personal sacrifice he had chosen he suddenly felt an uplifting as if a great burden were taken from him he was exultant so was doctor bruce from the same cause
their plan as it finally grew into a workable fact was in reality nothing more than the renting of a large building formerly used as a warehouse for a brewery
reconstructing it and living in it themselves in the very heart of a territory where the saloon ruled with power where the tenement was its filthiest where vice and ignorance and shame and poverty were congested into hideous forms
it was not a new idea it was an idea started by jesus christ when he left his father's house
it is as old as bethlehem and nazareth and in this particular case it was the nearest approach to anything that would satisfy the hunger of these two men to suffer for christ there had sprung up in them at the same time a longing that amounted to a passion
to get nearer the great physical poverty and spiritual destitution of the mighty city that throbbed around them how could they do this except as they became a part of it as nearly as one man can become a part of another's misery
where was the suffering to come in unless there was an actual self denial of some sort
and what was to make that self denial apparent to themselves or any one else unless it took this concrete actual personal form of trying to share the deepest suffering and sin of the city
a man who is not born with the novel writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel i know this from experience he has no clear idea of his story
in fact he has no story he merely has some people in his mind and an incident or two also a locality and he trusts he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results
it is more than apt to go on and on and on till it spreads itself into a book
and i have noticed another thing that as the short tale grows into the long tale the original intention or motif is apt to get abolished and find itself superseded by a quite different one
it was so in the case of a magazine sketch which i once started to write a funny and fantastic sketch about a prince and a pauper it presently assumed a grave cast of its own accord
and in that new shape spread itself out into a book much the same thing happened with pudd'nhead wilson i had a sufficiently hard time with that tale
because it changed itself from a farce to a tragedy while i was going along with it a most embarrassing circumstance
it was not one story but two stories tangled together and they obstructed and interrupted each other at every turn and created no end of confusion and annoyance i could not offer the book for publication
for i was afraid it would unseat the reader's reason i did not know what was the matter with it for i had not noticed as yet that it was two stories in one it took me months to make that discovery
i pulled one of the stories out by the roots and left the other
won't he let me round and complete his knowledge by telling him how the jackleg does it originally the story was called those extraordinary twins i meant to make it very short
a combination consisting of two heads and four arms joined to a single body and a single pair of legs and i thought i would write an extravagantly fantastic little story with this freak of nature for hero
or heroes a silly young miss for heroine and two old ladies and two boys for the minor parts i lavishly elaborated these people and their doings of course
but the tale kept spreading along and spreading along and other people got to intruding themselves and taking up more and more room with their talk and their affairs among them came a stranger named pudd'nhead wilson
and a woman named roxana and presently the doings of these two pushed up into prominence a young fellow named tom driscoll whose proper place was away in the obscure background
before the book was half finished those three were taking things almost entirely into their own hands and working the whole tale as a private venture of their own a tale which they had nothing at all to do with by rights
they were nowhere to be seen they had disappeared from the story some time or other i hunted about and found them found them stranded idle forgotten and permanently useless
it was very awkward it was awkward all around but more particularly in the case of rowena because there was a love match on between her and one of the twins that constituted the freak
and had driven him from her in the usual forever way and now here she sat crying and brokenhearted for she had found that he had spoken only the truth that it was not he
but the other of the freak that had drunk the liquor that made him drunk that her half was a prohibitionist and had never drunk a drop in his life and altogether tight as a brick three days in the week was wholly innocent of blame
and indeed when sober was constantly doing all he could to reform his brother the other half who never got any satisfaction out of drinking anyway because liquor never affected him yes here she was
i didn't know what to do with her i was as sorry for her as anybody could be but the campaign was over the book was finished
she was sidetracked and there was no possible way of crowding her in anywhere i could not leave her there of course it would not do after spreading her out so and making such a to do over her affairs
it would be absolutely necessary to account to the reader for her i thought and thought and studied and studied but i arrived at nothing i finally saw plainly that there was really no way but one
said such stupid irritating things and was so nauseatingly sentimental still it had to be done so at the top of chapter seventeen i put a calendar remark concerning july the fourth
and began the chapter with this statistic rowena went out in the backyard after supper to see the fireworks and fell down the well and got drowned it seemed abrupt
it seemed a prompt good way of weeding out people that had got stalled and a plenty good enough way for those others so i hunted up the two boys and said they went out back one night to stone the cat
and fell down the well and got drowned next i searched around and found old aunt patsy and aunt betsy hale where they were around and said they went out back one night to visit the sick
and fell down the well and got drowned i was going to drown some others but i gave up the idea partly because i believed that if i kept that up it would arouse attention
and perhaps sympathy with those people and partly because it was not a large well and would not hold any more anyway still the story was unsatisfactory
here was a set of new characters who were become inordinately prominent and who persisted in remaining so to the end and back yonder was an older set who made a large noise and a great to do for a little while
there was a radical defect somewhere and i must search it out and cure it the defect turned out to be the one already spoken of two stories in one
a farce and a tragedy so i pulled out the farce and left the tragedy this left the original team in but only as mere names not as characters their prominence was wholly gone
they were not even worth drowning so i removed that detail also i took the twins apart and made two separate men of them
chapter six swimming in glory let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry
pudd'nhead wilson's calendar habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man
pudd'nhead wilson's calendar at breakfast in the morning the twins charm of manner and easy and polished bearing
made speedy conquest of the family's good graces all constraint and formality quickly disappeared and the friendliest feeling succeeded
aunt patsy called them by their christian names almost from the beginning she was full of the keenest curiosity about them and showed it they responded by talking about themselves which pleased her greatly
it presently appeared that in their early youth they had known poverty and hardship as the talk wandered along the old lady watched for the right place to drop in a question or two concerning that matter
and when she found it she said to the blond twin who was now doing the biographies in his turn while the brunette one rested if it ain't asking what i ought not to ask mister angelo
in our case it was merely misfortune and nobody's fault our parents were well to do there in italy and we were their only child we were of the old florentine nobility
his estates were confiscated his personal property seized and there we were in germany strangers friendless and in fact paupers my brother and i were ten years old
and well educated for that age very studious very fond of our books and well grounded in the german french spanish and english languages also we were marvelous musical prodigies
if you will allow me to say it it being only the truth our father survived his misfortunes only a month our mother soon followed him and we were alone in the world
our parents could have made themselves comfortable by exhibiting us as a show and they had many and large offers but the thought revolted their pride and they said they would starve and die first but
what they wouldn't consent to do we had to do without the formality of consent we were seized for the debts occasioned by their illness and their funerals
and placed among the attractions of a cheap museum in berlin to earn the liquidation money it took us two years to get out of that slavery we traveled all about germany
receiving no wages and not even our keep we had to be exhibited for nothing and beg our bread well madam the rest is not of much consequence
when we escaped from that slavery at twelve years of age we were in some respects men experience had taught us some valuable things
among others how to take care of ourselves how to avoid and defeat sharks and sharpers and how to conduct our own business for our own profit and without other people's help
we traveled everywhere years and years picking up smatterings of strange tongues familiarizing ourselves with strange sights and strange customs
accumulating an education of a wide and varied and curious sort it was a pleasant life we went to venice to london paris russia india china
en dey's jes a spi'lin to see de gen'lemen she indicated the twins with a nod of her head and tucked it back out of sight again it was a proud occasion for the widow
and she promised herself high satisfaction in showing off her fine foreign birds before her neighbors and friends simple folk who had hardly ever seen a foreigner of any kind and never one of any distinction or style
yet her feeling was moderate indeed when contrasted with rowena's rowena was in the clouds she walked on air this was to be the greatest day
the most romantic episode in the colorless history of that dull country town she was to be familiarly near the source of its glory and feel the full flood of it pour over her and about her
the other girls could only gaze and envy not partake the widow was ready rowena was ready so also were the foreigners
the party moved along the hall the twins in advance and entered the open parlor door whence issued a low hum of conversation the twins took a position near the door
the widow stood at luigi's side rowena stood beside angelo and the march past and the introductions began the widow was all smiles and contentment
she received the procession and passed it on to rowena good mornin sister cooper handshake good morning brother higgins count luigi capello
mister higgins handshake followed by a devouring stare and i'm glad to see ye on the part of higgins and a courteous inclination of the head and a pleasant most happy
most happy and higgins passes on none of these visitors was at ease but being honest people they didn't pretend to be
none of them had ever seen a person bearing a title of nobility before and none had been expecting to see one now
consequently the title came upon them as a kind of pile driving surprise and caught them unprepared a few tried to rise to the emergency and got out an awkward my lord or
and stately ceremony and anointed kingship so they only fumbled through the handshake and passed on speechless now and then as happens at all receptions everywhere
a more than ordinary friendly soul blocked the procession and kept it waiting while he inquired how the brothers liked the village and how long they were going to stay and if their family was well
and the twins drifted about from group to group talking easily and fluently and winning approval compelling admiration and achieving favor from all
the widow followed their conquering march with a proud eye and every now and then rowena said to herself with deep satisfaction and to think they are ours all ours
there were no idle moments for mother or daughter eager inquiries concerning the twins were pouring into their enchanted ears all the time
each was the constant center of a group of breathless listeners each recognized that she knew now for the first time the real meaning of that great word glory
and perceived the stupendous value of it and understood why men in all ages had been willing to throw away meaner happiness treasure life itself
to get a taste of its sublime and supreme joy napoleon and all his kind stood accounted for and justified when rowena
had at last done all her duty by the people in the parlor she went upstairs to satisfy the longings of an overflow meeting there for the parlor was not big enough to hold all the comers
again she was besieged by eager questioners and again she swam in sunset seas of glory when the forenoon was nearly gone she recognized with a pang that
this most splendid episode of her life was almost over that nothing could prolong it that nothing quite its equal could ever fall to her fortune again but never mind
it was sufficient unto itself the grand occasion had moved on an ascending scale from the start and was a noble and memorable success if the twins
could but do some crowning act now to climax it something
something startling something to concentrate upon themselves the company's loftiest admiration something in the nature of an electric surprise here
it was the twins knocking out a classic four handed piece on the piano in great style rowena was satisfied satisfied
down to the bottom of her heart the young strangers were kept long at the piano the villagers were astonished and enchanted with the magnificence of their performance
when compared with these intoxicating floods of melodious sound they realized that for once in their lives
chapter sixteen sold down the river if you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you
this is the principal difference between a dog and a man pudd'nhead wilson's calendar we all know about the habits of the ant we know
all about the habits of the bee but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster it seems almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for studying the oyster
pudd'nhead wilson's calendar when roxana arrived she found her son in such despair and misery that her heart was touched
and her motherhood rose up strong in her he was ruined past hope now his destruction would be immediate and sure and he would be an outcast and friendless
that was reason enough for a mother to love a child so she loved him and told him so it made him wince secretly for she was a nigger
and within the hour he began to try to get up courage enough to tell her so and require that they be discontinued or very considerably modified but he was afraid of her
and besides there came a lull now for she had begun to think she was trying to invent a saving plan finally she started up and said she had found a way out
he was dumb for a moment then he said do you mean that you would be sold into slavery to save me
who made em so de lord done it en who made de niggers de lord made em in de inside mothers is all de same de good lord he made em so
it's all de pay a body kin want in dis worl en it's mo den enough laws bless you honey when i's slav aroun
de law kin sell me now if dey tell me to leave de state in six months en i don't go you draw up a paper bill o sale en put it way off yonder down in de middle o kaintuck somers
en sign some names to it en say you'll sell me cheap ca'se you's hard up you'll find you ain't gwine to have no trouble you take me up de country a piece en sell me on a farm
dem people ain't gwine to ask no questions if i's a bargain tom forged a bill of sale and sold his mother to an arkansas cotton planter for a trifle over six hundred dollars
whereas this planter was so pleased with roxy that he asked next to none at all besides the planter insisted that roxy wouldn't know where she was at first and that by the time she found out
she would already have been contented so tom argued with himself that it was an immense advantaged for roxy to have a master who was pleased with her
in almost no time his flowing reasonings carried him to the point of even half believing he was doing roxy a splendid surreptitious service in selling her down the river
and then he kept diligently saying to himself all the time
in a year i buy her free again she'll keep that in mind and it'll reconcile her yes the little deception could do no harm and everything would come out
to a mother who in voluntarily going into slavery slavery of any kind mild or severe or of any duration brief or long was making a sacrifice for him
brokenhearted and yet proud to do it tom scored his accounts and resolved to keep to the very letter of his reform
he had three hundred dollars left according to his mother's plan he was to put that safely away and add her half of his pension to it monthly in one year
this fund would buy her free again for a whole week he was not able to sleep well
but after that he began to get comfortable again
the boat bore roxy away from saint louis at four in the afternoon and she stood on the lower guard abaft the paddle box
and watched tom through a blur of tears until he melted into the throng of people and disappeared then she looked no more but sat there on a coil of cable crying till far into the night
when she went to her foul steerage bunk at last between the clashing engines it was not to sleep but only to wait for the morning and waiting grieve it had been imagined that
she would not know and would think she was traveling upstream she why she had been steamboating for years
at dawn she got up and went listlessly and sat down on the cable coil again she passed many a snag
for it showed a current moving in the same direction that the boat was going but her thoughts were elsewhere and she did not notice
but at last the roar of a bigger and nearer break than usual brought her out of her torpor and she looked up and her practiced eye fell upon that telltale rush of water
and murembwe is a cluster of villages called bikari
as we were rendered unable to cope for any length of time with any mischievously inclined community
and led us more than once into dangerous places the guides evidently had no objections to halt at bikari
as it was the second camp from mukungu because with them a halt in the cool shade of plaintains was infinitely preferable to sitting like carved pieces of wood in a cranky canoe but before they stated their objections and preferences
finding threats of no avail they had recourse to stones and accordingly flung them at us in a most hearty manner
but livingstone though he said nothing yet showed plainly enough that he did not quite approve of this as these demonstrations of hostility were anything but welcome and as we saw signs of it almost every time we came opposite a village
we kept on our way until we came to murembwe point which being a delta of a river of the same name
from which the boldest mrundi might well shrink especially if he called to mind that beyond this inhospitable swamp were the guns of the strangers his like had so rudely challenged we drew our canoe ashore here and on a limited area of clean sand
ferajji our rough and ready cook lit his fire and manufactured for us a supply of most delicious mocha coffee
and seasoned our meal with a little moral philosophy
upon whom we now looked down under the influence of mocha coffee and moral philosophy with calm contempt not unmixed with a certain amount of compassion the doctor related some experiences he had had among people of similar disposition
in this opinion i unreservedly concur from murembwe point having finished our coffee and ended our discourse on ethics we proceeded on our voyage
as it was a fine moonlight night and we were fully alive to the dangerous position in which we might find ourselves they consented to pull an hour or two more about one p m we pulled in shore for a deserted spot
a clean shelf of sand about thirty feet long by ten deep from which a clay bank rose about ten or twelve feet above while on each side there were masses of disintegrated rock here we thought that by preserving some degree of silence we might escape observation
and consequent annoyance for a few hours when being rested we might continue our journey our kettle was boiling for tea and the men had built a little fire for themselves and had filled their black earthen pot with water for porridge
being hailed they at once came forward and saluted us with the native wake our guides explained that we were wangwana and intended to camp until morning when if they had anything to sell we should be glad to trade with them
these also went away over exuberant as i thought and were shortly succeeded by a third party who came and went as the others had from all this we inferred that the news was spreading rapidly through the villages about
at least between ujiji and zanzibar to be about visiting and saluting after dark under any pretence it is not permitted to persons to prowl about camp after dark without being shot at and this going backward and forward
this ostentatious exuberance of joy at the arrival of a small party of wangwana which in many parts of urundi would be regarded as a very common event was altogether very suspicious
while the doctor and i were arriving at the conclusion that these movements were preliminary to or significant of hostility a fourth body very boisterous and loud came and visited us our supper had been by this time despatched and we thought it high time to act
the fourth party having gone with extravagant manifestations of delight the men were hurried into the canoe and when all were seated and the look outs embarked we quietly pushed off but not a moment too soon as the canoe was gliding from the darkened light that surrounded us
i called the doctor's attention to several dark forms some of whom were crouching behind the rocks on our right and others scrambling over them to obtain good or better positions at the same time people were approaching from the left of our position in the same suspicious way
and directly a voice hailed us from the top of the clay bank overhanging the sandy shelf where we had lately been resting neatly done cried the doctor as we were shooting through the water leaving the discomfited would be robbers behind us
we stopped at the small fishing village of mugeyo where we were permitted to sleep unmolested
we had pulled for eighteen hours at a stretch which at the rate of two miles and a half per hour would make forty five miles taking bearings from our camp at cape magala one of the most prominent points in travelling north from ujiji
we found that the large island of muzimu
bore about south south west and that the western shore had considerably approached to the eastern the breadth of the lake being at this point about eight or ten miles we had a good view of the western highlands which seemed to be of an average height
the country opposite to this part of urundi about three hundred feet higher than the neighbouring heights northward from magala cape the lake streamed away between two chains of mountains both meeting in a point about thirty miles north of us
but liable to sudden and eternal departure the mutware came to see us late in the afternoon dressed with great pomp he turned out to be a boy whom i had noticed in the crowd of gazers for his good looks and fine teeth which he showed
being addicted to laughing continually there was no mistaking him though he was now decorated with many ivory ornaments with necklaces and with heavy brass bracelets and iron wire anklets our admiration of him was reciprocated
he gave a fine fat and broad tailed sheep and a pot of milk in our condition both were extremely acceptable at magala we heard of a war raging between mukamba for whose country we were bound and warumashanya a sultan of an adjoining district
and we were advised that unless we intended to assist one of these chiefs against the other it would be better for us to return but as we had started to solve the problem of the rusizi river such considerations had no weight with us on the eighth morning from leaving ujiji
and set off for mukamba's country which was in view soon after passing the boundary between urundi proper
a storm from the south west arose and the fearful yawing of our canoe into the wave trough warned us from proceeding further so we turned her head for kisuka village about four miles north
one chief makes a raid into the other's country and succeeds in making off with a herd of cattle killing one or two men who have been surprised
and effects a capture in a similar way and then a balance is struck in which neither is the gainer seldom do they attack each other with courage and hearty goodwill the constitution of the african being decidedly against any such energetic warfare
this mgwana further upon being questioned gave us information far more interesting viz about the rusizi he told us positively with the air of a man who knew all about it
and as if anybody who doubted him might well be set down as an egregious ass that the rusizi river flowed out of the lake away to suna's
country where else could it flow to he asked the doctor was inclined to believe it or perhaps he was more inclined to let it rest as stated until our own eyes should confirm it i was more inclined to doubt as i told the doctor
first it was too good to be true second the fellow was too enthusiastic upon a subject that could not possibly interest him
and then a third mouth each only a few yards broad but each discharging sufficient water to permit our following the line of the currents several rods north beyond the respective mouths
these were mukamba's and in one of them lived mukamba the chief
we were surrounded by a large concourse all armed with long spears the only weapon visible amongst them save a club stick and here and there a hatchet we were shown into a hut which the doctor and i shared between us
what followed on that day i have but a dim recollection having been struck down by fever
and felt or fancied i felt livingstone's hand tenderly feeling my hot head and limbs
without anything or anybody to relieve me of the tedious racking headache and pain or to illumine the dark and gloomy prospect which must necessarily surround the bedside of the sick and solitary traveller but though this fever having enjoyed immunity from it for three months
was more severe than usual i did not much regret its occurrence since i became the recipient of the very tender and fatherly kindness of the good man whose companion i now found myself the next morning having recovered slightly from the fever
and he was not a whit abashed when through him the chief told us that the rusizi joined by the ruanda or luanda at a distance of two days journey by water or one day by land from the head of the lake flowed into the lake
thus our hopes excited somewhat by the positive and repeated assurances that the river flowed out away towards karagwah collapsed as speedily as they were raised
but with a good natured laugh the doctor scouted all such relationship with him as it was instituted only for the purpose of drawing more cloth out of him mukamba took it in good part and did not insist on getting more our second evening at mukamba's
susi the doctor's servant got gloriously drunk through the chief's liberal and profuse gifts of pombe just at dawn neat morning i was awakened by hearing several sharp crack like sounds i listened and i found the noise was in our hut
it was caused by the doctor who towards midnight had felt some one come and lie down by his side on the same bed and thinking it was me he had kindly made room and laid down on the edge of the bed
who taking possession of his blankets and folding them about himself most selfishly was occupying almost the whole bed the doctor with that gentleness characteristic of him instead of taking a rod had contented himself with slapping susi on the back saying
get up susi will you you are in my bed how dare you sir get drunk in this way after i have told you so often not to
take that and that and that still susi slept and grunted
we embarked and pulled across
the country of ruhinga mukamba's elder brother in looking back to where we had come from we perceived that we had made a diagonal cut across from south east to north west instead of having made a direct east and west course or in other words
we had come to mugihewa situated at the northernmost point of the western shore
but by making a diagonal course
and the tallest of papyrus and pond like hollows filled with stagnant water which emit malaria wholesale large herds of cattle are reared on it for where the ground is not covered with marshy plants it produces rich sweet grass
the sheep and goats especially the former are always in good condition and though they are not to be compared with english or american sheep they are the finest i have seen in africa numerous villages are seen on this land because the intervening spaces
are not occupied with the rank and luxuriant jungle common in other parts of africa
from the banks i counted ten heads of crocodiles
ruhinga who came to see us soon after we had taken up our quarters in his village was a most amiable man who always contrived to see something
he was not half so dignified nor regarded with so much admiration
second mukanigi governed by warumashanya
extending to the eastern bank of the rusizi fourth commencing from the western bank of the rusizi to the extreme north western head of the lake was mugihewa ruhinga's country fifth from uvira on the west running north past mugihewa
and overlapping it on the north side as far as the hills of chamati was ruwenga also a country governed by mukamba beyond ruwenga from the hills of chamati to the ruanda river was the country of chamati
the rusizi river according to ruhinga rose near a lake called kivo which he said is as long as from mugihawa
at first a small rapid stream but as it proceeds towards the lake it receives the rivers kagunissi kaburan mohira nyamagana
on one side is mutumbi probably the utumbi of speke and baker
on the east is urundi the name of the chief of kivo is kwansibura after so many minute details about the river rusizi it only remained for us to see it on the second morning of our arrival at mugihewa
we mustered ten strong paddlers and set out to explore the head of the lake and the mouth of the rusizi we found that the northern head of the lake was indented with seven broad bays each from one and a half to three miles broad
the first starting from west to east at the broadest part to the extreme southern point of mugihewa was about three miles broad and served as a line of demarcation between mukamba's district of ruwenga
the second bay was a mile from the southern extremity of mugihewa to ruhinga's village at the head of the bay and it was a mile across to another spit of sand which was terminated by a small island the third bay stretched for nearly a mile to a long spit
and was the western side of the fourth bay at the head of which was the delta of the rusizi this fourth bay at its base was about three miles in depth and penetrated half a mile further inland than any other soundings indicated six feet deep
the current was very sluggish not more than a mile an hour though we constantly kept our binocular searching for the river we could not see the main channel until within two hundred yards of it
the bay at this point had narrowed from two miles to about two hundred yards in breadth inviting a canoe to show us the way a small flotilla of canoes preceded us
we followed and in a few minutes were ascending the stream which was very rapid though but about ten yards wide and very shallow not more than two feet deep we ascended about half a mile the current being very strong from six to eight miles an hour
we could see that it widened and spread out in a myriad of channels rushing by isolated clumps of sedge and matete grass and that it had the appearance of a swamp we had ascended the central or main channel the western channel was about eight yards broad
it was not necessary to ascend higher there being nothing about the river itself to repay exploration of it the question was the rusizi an effluent or an influent was answered for ever there was now no doubt any more on that point
in size it was not to be compared with the malagarazi river neither is it or can it be navigable for anything but the smallest canoes
the bays to the east of the rusizi are of the same conformation as those on the west carefully judging from the width of the several bays from point to point and of the several spits which separate them
had we contented ourselves with simply looking at the conformation and the meeting of the eastern and western ranges
but its exploration dissolved that idea chamati hill is the extreme northern termination of the western range and seems upon a superficial examination to abut against the ramata mountains of the eastern range which are opposite chamati
and through this valley the rusizi flows towards the lake
that sir samuel baker will have to curtail the albert n'yanza by one if not two degrees of latitude
while ruanda has been placed on the eastern side whereas a large portion of it if not all should be placed north of what he has designated on his map
the information of such an intelligent man as ruhinga is not to be despised for if lake albert came within a hundred miles of the tanganika he would surely have heard of its existence even if he had not seen it himself
originally he came from mutumbi and he has travelled from that country into mugihewa the district he now governs he has seen mwezi the great king of urundi and describes him as a man about forty years old and as a very good man
our work was now done there was nothing more to detain us at mugihewa ruhinga had been exceedingly kind and given us one ox after another to butcher and eat
their women had supplied us with an abundance of milk and butter and we had now bounteous supplies of both
and mugihewa was made out to be in three degrees nineteen minutes s latitude on the seventh december early in the morning we left mugihewa and rowing past the southern extremity of the katangara islands
we approached the highlands of uashi near the boundary line between mukamba's country and uvira the boundary line is supposed to be a wide ravine in the depths of which is a grove of tall beautiful and straight stemmed trees out of which the natives make their canoes
was in sight of our encampment and as we observed parties of men ascending and descending the mountains
we determined to continue on our course south
for attempting as the wavira believed to evade the honga payment such facts as these and our knowledge of the general state of insecurity in the country resulting from the many wars in which the districts of the tanganika were engaged determined us not to halt at kavimba
and headed south against a strong gale which came driving down on us from the south west after a hard pull of about two hours in the teeth of the storm which was rapidly rising we pointed the head of the boat into a little quiet cove
almost hidden in tall reeds and disembarked for the night cognizant of the dangers which surrounded us knowing that savage and implacable man was the worst enemy we had to fear
but not before we had posted watchmen to guard our canoe lest the daring thieves of uvira might abstract it in which case we should have been in a pretty plight and in most unenviable distress
at daybreak leaving kukumba point after our humble breakfast of coffee cheese and dourra cakes was despatched we steered south once more our fires had attracted the notice of the sharp eyed and suspicious fishermen of kukumba
but our precautions and the vigilant watch we had set before retiring had proved an effectual safeguard against the kivira thieves the western shores of the lake as we proceeded were loftier and more bold than the wooded heights of urundi and bearded knolls of ujiji
disclosed itself between the serrated tops of the front line of mountains which rose to a height of from two thousand five hundred to three thousand feet above the lake within the folds of the front line of mountains rise isolated hills of considerable magnitude
precipitous and abrupt but scenically very picturesque the greater part of these hills have the rounded and smooth top or are tabularly summited the ridge enfolding these hills shoots out at intervals
promontorial projections of gradual sloping outlines which on the map i have designated capes or points when rounding these points up went our compasses for the taking of bearings
the vegetation seems to be of spontaneous growth groups of the elaeis guineansis palm embowering some dun brown village
a broad extent covered with vivid green sorghum stalks parachute like tops of mimosa a line of white sand on which native canoes are drawn far above the reach of the plangent uneasy surf
these are the scenes which reveal themselves to us
when wearied with the romance of wild tropic scenes such as these we have but to lift our eyes to the great mountain tops looming darkly and grandly on our right to watch the light pencilling of the cirrus brushing their summits
and we know the storm which was brewing is at hand and that it is time to seek shelter
at bemba we halted to take in pieces of pipe clay
who thought us certain of safe passage and good fortune if we complied with the ancient custom passing ngovi we came to a deep bend which curved off to cape kabogi at the distance of ten miles about two thirds of the way we arrived at a group of islets
three in number all very steep and rocky
here we made preparations to halt for the night
as these islands were with difficulty pronounced by us
the doctor seeing that they were the only objects we were likely to discover named them the new york herald islets and in confirmation of the new designation given them shook hands with me upon it
accordingly we had our breakfast cooked and as usual laid down for an afternoon nap i soon fell asleep and was dreaming away in my tent in happy oblivion of the strife and contention that had risen since i had gone to sleep when i heard a voice hailing me with
master master get up quick here is a fight going to begin i sprang up and snatching my revolver belt from the gun stand walked outside
between a noisy vindictive looking set of natives of the one part and our people of the other part seven or eight of our people had taken refuge behind the canoe and had their loaded guns half pointing at the passionate mob which was momentarily increasing in numbers
you bombay send two men off to warn the doctor and tell him to hurry up here but just at this period the doctor and his two men appeared on the brow of the hill looking down in a most complacent manner upon the serio comic scene
his father the sultan was as inebriated as himself though not quite so violent in his behaviour in the meantime the doctor arrived upon the scene and selim had slipped my winchester rifle with the magazine full of cartridges into my hand
the doctor calmly asked what was the matter
that the people wished us to leave as they were on hostile terms with the arabs because the eldest son of the sultan of muzimu the large island nearly opposite
after consulting with the guides the doctor and i came to the conclusion that it were better that we should endeavour to pacify the sultan by a present
in his insane fury he had attempted to slash at one of my men with a billhook he carried this had been taken as a declaration of hostilities and the soldiers were ready enough to engage in war but there was no necessity to commence fighting with a drunken mob
who could have been cleared off the ground with our revolvers alone had we desired it the doctor baring his arm said to them that he was not a mgwana or an arab but a white man that arabs
had no such colour as we had we were white men different people altogether from those whom they were accustomed to see
and their loud protestations against arab cruelty were about to subside when the old sultan suddenly rose up and began to pace about in an excited manner and in one of his perambulations deliberately slashed his leg
then exclaimed that the wangwana had wounded him at this cry one half of the mob hastily took to flight but one old woman who carried a strong staff with a carved lizard's body on its top commenced to abuse the chief with all the power of her voluble tongue
charging him with a desire to have them all killed
but it is evident that there was little needed to cause all men present in that little hollow to begin a most sanguinary strife the gentle patient bearing of the doctor had more effect than anything else
in making all forbear bloodshed while there was left the least chance of an amicable settlement and in the end it prevailed the sultan and his son were both sent on their way rejoicing while the doctor conversed with them and endeavoured to calm their fierce passions
besides said i there are two or three cowardly creatures in the boat who in case of another disturbance would not scruple to leave both of us here from cape luvumba
at eight p m we were abreast of cape panza the northern extremity of the island of muzimu at six a m we were southward of bikari and pulling for mukungu in urundi at which place we arrived at ten a m
having been seventeen hours and a half in crossing the lake which computing at two miles an hour may be said to be thirty five miles direct breadth
as we were short of powder and ball as we landed our soldiers and the arab magnates came to the water's edge to greet us mabruki had a rich budget to relate to us of what had occurred during our absence this faithful man left behind in charge of livingstone's house
had done most excellently kalulu had scalded himself and had a frightful raw sore on his chest in consequence mabruki had locked up marora in chains for wounding one of the asses
bilali the stuttering coward a bully of women had caused a tumult in the market place and had been sharply belaboured with the stick by mabruki and above all most welcome was a letter i received from the american consul at zanzibar
dated june eleventh containing telegrams from paris as late as april twenty second of the same year poor livingstone exclaimed and i have none what a pleasant thing it is to have a real and good friend
appendix a the work of the field zoologist and field geographer in south america portions of south america are now entering on a career of great social and industrial development
much remains to be known so far as the outside world is concerned of the social and industrial condition in the long settled interior regions
more remains to be done in the way of pioneer exploring and of scientific work in the great stretches of virgin wilderness the only two other continents where such work of like volume and value remains to be done are africa and asia
and neither africa nor asia offers a more inviting field for the best kind of field worker in geographical exploration and in zoological geological and paleontological investigation
the explorer is merely the most adventurous kind of field geographer and there are two or three points worth keeping in mind in dealing with the south american work of the field geographer and field zoologist
roughly the travellers who now visit like those who for the past century have visited south america come in three categories although of course these categories are not divided by hard and fast lines
first there are the travellers who skirt the continent in comfortable steamers going from one great seaport to another and occasionally taking a short railway journey to some big interior city not too far from the coast
this is a trip well worth taking by all intelligent men and women who can afford it and it is being taken by such men and women with increasing frequency it entails no more difficulty than a similar trip to the mediterranean
than such a trip which to a learned and broad minded observer offers the same chance for acquiring knowledge and if he is himself gifted with wisdom the same chance of imparting his knowledge to others
that is offered by a trip of similar length through the larger cities of europe or the united states probably the best instance of the excellent use to which such an observer can put his experience is afforded by the volume of mister bryce
of course such a trip represents travelling of essentially the same kind as travelling by railroad from atlanta to calgary or from madrid to moscow next there are the travellers who visit the long settled districts and colonial cities of the interior
travelling over land or river highways which have been traversed for centuries but which are still primitive as regards the inns and the modes of conveyance such travelling is difficult in the sense that travelling in parts of spain or southern italy
or the balkan states is difficult men and women who have a taste for travel in out of way places and who therefore do not mind slight discomforts and inconveniences have the chance themselves to enjoy and to make others profit by
travels of this kind in south america in economic social and political matters the studies and observations of these travellers are essential in order to supplement and sometimes to correct those of travellers of the first category
for it is not safe to generalize overmuch about any country merely from a visit to its capital or its chief seaport these travellers of the second category can give us most interesting and valuable information about quaint little belated cities
about backward country folk kindly or the reverse who show a mixture of the ideas of savagery with the ideas of an ancient peasantry and about rough old highways of travel which in comfort do not differ much from those of mediaeval europe
the travellers who go up or down the highway rivers that have been travelled for from one to four hundred years rivers like the paraguay and parana the amazon the tapajos the madeira the lower orinoco
come in this category they can add little to our geographical knowledge but if they are competent zoologists or archaeologists especially if they live or sojourn long in a locality
their work may be invaluable from the scientific standpoint the work of the archaeologists among the immeasurably ancient ruins of the low land forests and the andean plateaux is of this kind
are other instances of the work that can thus be done burton's writings on the interior of brazil offer an excellent instance of the value of a sojourn or trip of this type even without any especial scientific object
of course travellers of this kind need to remember that their experiences in themselves do not qualify them to speak as wilderness explorers
exactly as a good archaeologist may not be competent to speak of current social or political problems so a man who has done capital work as a tourist observer in little visited cities and along remote highways
must beware of regarding himself as being thereby rendered fit for genuine wilderness work or competent to pass judgment on the men who do such work to cross the andes on mule back along the regular routes is a feat
comparable to the feats of the energetic tourists who by thousands traverse the mule trails in out of the way nooks of switzerland an ordinary trip on the highway portions of the amazon paraguay or orinoco in itself
no more qualifies a man to speak of or to take part in exploring unknown south american rivers than a trip on the lower saint lawrence qualifies a man to regard himself as an expert in a canoe voyage across labrador
or the barren grounds west of hudson bay a hundred years ago even seventy or eighty years ago before the age of steamboats and railroads it was more difficult than at present to define the limits between this class and the next
for books of travel darwin's voyage of the beagle is to me the best book of the kind ever written it is one of those classics which decline to go into artificial categories and which stand by themselves
and yet darwin with his usual modesty spoke of it as in effect a yachting voyage humboldt's work had a profound effect on the thought of the civilized world his trip was one of adventure and danger
and yet it can hardly be called exploration proper he visited places which had been settled and inhabited for centuries and traversed places which had been travelled by civilized men for years before he followed in their footsteps
but these places were in spanish colonies and access to them had been forbidden by the mischievous and intolerant tyranny ecclesiastical political and economic which then rendered spain the most backward of european nations
and humboldt was the first scientific man of intellectual independence who had permission to visit them to this day many of his scientific observations are of real value
bates came to the amazon just before the era of amazonian steamboats he never went off the native routes of ordinary travel but he was a devoted and able naturalist
he lived an exceedingly isolated primitive and laborious life for eleven years now half a century after it was written his naturalist on the amazon is as interesting and valuable as it ever was
and no book since written has in any way supplanted it travel of the third category includes the work of the true wilderness explorers who add to our sum of geographical knowledge and of the scientific men who following their several bents
also work in the untrodden wilds colonel rondon and his associates have done much in the geographical exploration of unknown country and cherrie and miller have penetrated and lived for months and years in the wastes on their own resources
as incidents to their mammalogical and ornithological work professor farrabee the anthropologist is a capital example of the man who does this hard and valuable type of work
an immense amount of this true wilderness work geographical and zoological remains to be done in south america it can be accomplished with reasonable thoroughness only by the efforts of very many different workers each in his own special field
it is desirable that here and there a part of the work should be done in outline by such a geographic and zoological reconnaissance as ours we would for example be very grateful for such work in portions of the interior of the guianas
on the headwaters of the xingu and here and there along the eastern base of the andes but as a rule the work must be specialized and in its final shape it must be specialized everywhere
cannot take with them the elaborate equipment necessary in order to do the thorough scientific work demanded by modern scientific requirements this is true even of exploration done along the courses of unknown rivers
it is more true of the exploration which must in south america become increasingly necessary done across country away from the rivers the scientific work proper of these early explorers must be of a somewhat preliminary nature
in other words the most difficult and therefore ordinarily the most important pieces of first hand exploration are precisely those where the scientific work of the accompanying cartographer geologist botanist and zoologist
must be furthest removed from finality the zoologist who works to most advantage in the wilderness must take his time and therefore he must normally follow in the footsteps of and not accompany the first explorers
there is no better example of the kind of zoologist who does first class field work in the wilderness than john d haseman who spent from nineteen o seven to nineteen ten in painstaking and thorough scientific investigation
over a large extent of south american territory hitherto only partially known or quite unexplored haseman's primary object was to study the characteristics and distribution of south american fishes
but as a matter of fact he studied at first hand many other more or less kindred subjects as may be seen in his remarks on the indians and in his excellent pamphlet on some factors of geographical distribution in south america
his writings are rendered valuable by his accuracy and common sense the need of the former of these two attributes will be appreciated by whoever has studied the really scandalous fictions which have been published as genuine by some modern explorers
and adventurers in south america and the need of the latter by whoever has studied some of the wild theories propounded in the name of science concerning the history of life on the south american continent there is however one serious criticism to be made on haseman
the extreme obscurity of his style an obscurity mixed with occasional bits of scientific pedantry which makes it difficult to tell whether or not on some points his thought is obscure also
modern scientists like modern historians and above all scientific and historical educators should ever keep in mind that clearness of speech and writing is essential to clearness of thought and that a simple clear
and if possible vivid style is vital to the production of the best work in either science or history darwin and huxley are classics and they would not have been if they had not written good english the thought is essential
but ability to give it clear expression is only less essential ability to write well if the writer has nothing to write about entitles him to mere derision but the greatest thought is robbed of an immense proportion of its value
if expressed in a mean or obscure manner mister haseman has such excellent thought that it is a pity to make it a work of irritating labor to find out just what the thought is
surely if he will take as much pains with his writing as he has with the far more difficult business of exploring and collecting he will become able to express his thought clearly and forcefully
at least he can if he chooses go over his sentences until he is reasonably sure that they can be parsed he can take pains to see that his whole thought is expressed
instead of leaving vacancies which must be filled by the puzzled and groping reader his own views and his quotations from the views of others about the static and dynamic theories of distribution are examples of an important principle
so imperfectly expressed as to make us doubtful whether it is perfectly apprehended by the writer he can avoid the use of those pedantic terms which are really nothing but offensive and fortunately ephemeral scientific slang
there has been for instance a recent vogue for the extensive misuse usually tautological misuse of the word complexus an excellent word if used rarely and for definite purposes
mister haseman drags it in continually when its use is either pointless and redundant or else serves purely to darken wisdom he speaks of the antillean complex when he means the antilles of the organic complex
instead of the characteristic or bodily characteristics of an animal or species and of the environmental complex when he means nothing whatever but the environment
use complexus in much the same spirit as that displayed by the famous old lady who derived religious instead of scientific consolation from the use of
the reason that it is worth while to enter this protest against mister haseman's style is because his work is of such real and marked value the pamphlet on the distribution of south american species shows that to exceptional ability as a field worker
he adds a rare power to draw with both caution and originality the necessary general conclusions from the results of his own observations and from the recorded studies of other men
and there is nothing more needed at the present moment among our scientific men than the development of a school of men who while industrious and minute observers and collectors and cautious generalizers
yet do not permit the faculty of wise generalization to be atrophied by excessive devotion to labyrinthine detail haseman upholds with strong reasoning the theory that since the appearance of all but the lowest forms of life on this globe
there have always been three great continental masses sometimes solid sometimes broken extending southward from the northern hemisphere and from time to time connected in the north
since the carboniferous epoch he holds that life has been intermittently distributed southward along these continental masses when there were no breaks in their southward connection and intermittently exchanged between them when they were connected in the north
and he also upholds the view that from a common ancestral form the same species has been often developed in entirely disconnected localities when in these localities the conditions of environment were the same
the opposite view is that there have been frequent connections between the great land masses alike in the tropics in the south temperate zone and in the antarctic region
the upholders of this theory base it almost exclusively on the distribution of living and fossil forms of life that is it is based almost exclusively on biological and not geological considerations
unquestionably the distribution of many forms of life past and present offers problems which with our present paleontological knowledge we are wholly unable to solve
if we consider only the biological facts concerning some one group of animals it is not only easy but inevitable to conclude that its distribution must be accounted for by the existence of some former direct land bridge extending
for instance between patagonia and australia or between brazil and south africa or between the west indies and the mediterranean or between a part of the andean region and northeastern asia
the trouble is that as more groups of animals are studied from the standpoint of this hypothesis the number of such land bridges demanded to account for the existing facts of animal distribution is constantly and indefinitely extended
and all the other continents present and past of the world since a period geologically not very remote these land bridges moreover must many of them have been literally bridges
long narrow tongues of land thrust in every direction across the broad oceans according to this view the continental land masses have been in a fairly fluid condition of instability
by parity of reasoning the land bridges could be made a hundred instead of merely ten in number the facts of distribution are in many cases inexplicable with our present knowledge
yet if the existence of widely separated but closely allied forms is habitually to be explained in accordance with the views of the extremists of this school we could from the exclusive study of certain groups of animals
conclude that at different periods the united states and almost every other portion of the earth were connected by land and severed from all other regions by water and from the study of certain other groups of animals
arrive at directly opposite and incompatible conclusions the most brilliant and unsafe exponent of this school was ameghino who possessed and abused two gifts both essential to the highest type of scientist
and both mischievous unless this scientist possess a rare and accurate habit of thought joined to industry and mastery of detail namely the gift of clear and interesting writing and the gift of generalization
ameghino rendered marked services to paleontology but he generalized with complete recklessness from the slenderest data and even these data he often completely misunderstood or misinterpreted
his favorite thesis included the origin of mammalian life and of man himself in southernmost south america with as incidents the belief that the mammalian bearing strata of south america
were of much greater age than the strata with corresponding remains elsewhere that in south america various species and genera of men existed in tertiary times
some of them at least as advanced as fairly well advanced modern savages that there existed various land bridges between south america and other southern continents including africa
and that the ancestral types of modern mammals and of man himself wandered across one of these bridges to the old world and that thence their remote descendants after ages of time returned to the new
in addition to valuable investigations of fossil bearing beds in the argentine he made some excellent general suggestions such as that the pithecoid apes like the baboons do not stand in the line of man's ancestral stem
but represent a divergence from it away from humanity and toward a retrogressive bestialization but of his main theses he proves none and what evidence we have tells against them
at the museum of la plata i found that the authorities were practically a unit in regarding his remains of tertiary men and proto men
as being either the remains of tertiary american monkeys or of american indians from strata that were long post tertiary the extraordinary discovery due to that eminent scientist and public servant doctor moreno
of the remains of man associated with the remains of the great extinct south american fauna of the mylodon of a giant ungulate of a huge cat like the lion and of an extraordinary aberrant horse
of a wholly different genus from the modern horse conclusively shows that in its later stages the south american fauna consisted largely of types that elsewhere had already disappeared
and that these types persisted into what was geologically a very recent period only some tens of thousands of years ago when savage man of practically a modern type had already appeared in south america
the evidence we have so far as it goes tends to show that the south american fauna always has been more archaic in type than the arctogeal fauna of the same chronological level
to loose generalizations and to elaborate misinterpretations of paleontological records the kind of work done by mister haseman furnishes an invaluable antiscorbutic
to my mind he has established a stronger presumption in favor of the theory he champions than has been established in favor of the theories of any of the learned and able scientific men from whose conclusions he dissents
further research careful accurate and long extended can alone enable us to decide definitely in the matter
success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed to comprehend a nectar requires sorest need not one of all the purple host who took the flag to day can tell the definition so clear of victory
as he defeated dying on whose forbidden ear the distant strains of triumph break agonized and clear two our share of night to bear
our share of morning our blank in bliss to fill our blank in scorning here a star and there a star some lose their way here a mist and there a mist afterwards day
three rouge et noir soul wilt thou toss again by just such a hazard hundreds have lost indeed but tens have won an all
angels breathless ballot lingers to record thee imps in eager caucus raffle for my soul
t is so much joy t is so much joy if i should fail what poverty and yet as poor as i have ventured all upon a throw have gained yes hesitated so this side the victory
life is but life and death but death bliss is but bliss and breath but breath and if indeed i fail at least to know the worst is sweet defeat means nothing but defeat
no drearier can prevail and if i gain oh gun at sea oh bells that in the steeples be at first repeat it slow for heaven is a different thing
conjectured and waked sudden in and might o'erwhelm me so
glee the great storm is over four have recovered the land forty gone down together into the boiling sand ring for the scant salvation toll for the bonnie souls
neighbor and friend and bridegroom spinning upon the shoals how they will tell the shipwreck when winter shakes the door till the children ask but the forty did they come back no more
then a silence suffuses the story and a softness the teller's eye and the children no further question and only the waves reply
if i can stop one heart from breaking i shall not live in vain
within my reach i could have touched i might have chanced that way soft sauntered through the village sauntered as soft away so unsuspected violets within the fields lie low
too late for striving fingers that passed an hour ago
t is but the ecstasy of death and then the brake is still the smitten rock that gushes the trampled steel that springs a cheek is always redder just where the hectic stings
to meet an antique book in just the dress his century wore a privilege i think his venerable hand to take and warming in our own a passage back or two to make to times when he was young
his quaint opinions to inspect his knowledge to unfold
what interested scholars most what competitions ran when plato was a certainty and sophocles a man
and beatrice wore the gown that dante deified facts centuries before he traverses familiar as one should come to town and tell you all your dreams were true he lived where dreams were sown
his presence is enchantment you beg him not to go old volumes shake their vellum heads and tantalize just so
much madness is divinest sense
t is the majority in this as all prevails assent and you are sane demur you're straightway dangerous and handled with a chain
no other was denied i offered being for it the mighty merchant smiled brazil he twirled a button without a glance my way but madam is there nothing else that we can show to day
exclusion the soul selects her own society then shuts the door on her divine majority obtrude no more unmoved she notes the chariot's pausing at her low gate
some things that fly there be birds hours the bumble bee
some things that stay there be grief hills eternity nor this behooveth me there are that resting rise can i expound the skies how still the riddle lies
wooden barred and windows hanging low inviting to
one hand the tools the other peep to make sure all's asleep old fashioned eyes not easy to surprise how orderly the kitchen d look by night with just a clock but they could gag the tick and mice won't bark
and so the walls don't tell none will a pair of spectacles ajar just stir an almanac's aware was it the mat winked
the moon slides down the stair to see who's there there's plunder where tankard or spoon earring or stone a watch some ancient brooch to match the grandmamma staid sleeping there
while the old couple just astir fancy the sunrise left the door ajar
but gallanter i know who charge within the bosom the cavalry of woe who win and nations do not see who fall and none observe whose dying eyes no country regards with patriot love
we trust in plumed procession for such the angels go rank after rank with even feet and uniforms of snow
how others strove till we are stouter what they renounced till we are less afraid how many times they bore the faithful witness till we are helped as if a kingdom cared
read then of faith that shone above the fagot clear strains of hymn the river could not drown brave names of men and celestial women passed out of record into renown
the mystery of pain pain has an element of blank it cannot recollect when it began or if there were a day when it was not it has no future but itself
its infinite realms contain its past enlightened to perceive new periods of pain
when landlords turn the drunken bee out of the foxglove's door when butterflies renounce their drams i shall but drink the more till seraphs swing their snowy hats and saints to windows run
he ate and drank the precious words his spirit grew robust he knew no more that he was poor nor that his frame was dust he danced along the dingy days
and this bequest of wings was but a book what liberty a loosened spirit brings
she is held to day this is the errand of the eye out upon the bay
he never had but one belshazzar's correspondent concluded and begun in that immortal copy the conscience of us all can read without its glasses on revelation's wall
mine by the right of the white election mine by the royal seal mine by the sign in the scarlet prison bars cannot conceal mine here in vision and in veto mine by the grave's repeal titled confirmed delirious charter
mine while the ages steal two bequest you left me sweet two legacies a legacy of love a heavenly father would content
had he the offer of you left me boundaries of pain capacious as the sea between eternity and time your consciousness and me three alter
when the hills do falter when the sun question if his glory be the perfect one surfeit
o friend i will of you
elysium is as far as to the very nearest room if in that room a friend await felicity or doom what fortitude the soul contains
surrender doubt me my dim companion why god would be content with but a fraction of the love poured thee without a stint the whole of me forever what more the woman can say quick
that i may dower thee with last delight i own it cannot be my spirit for that was thine before i ceded all of dust i knew what opulence the more had i a humble maiden
whose farthest of degree was that she might some distant heaven dwell timidly with thee
if you were coming in the fall i'd brush the summer by with half a smile and half a spurn as housewives do a fly if i could see you in a year
until their time befalls if only centuries delayed i'd count them on my hand
that will not state its sting
i hide myself within my flower that wearing on your breast you unsuspecting wear me too and angels know the rest i hide myself within my flower
you unsuspecting feel for me almost a loneliness
that i did always love i bring thee proof that till i loved i did not love enough
and life hath immortality this dost thou doubt sweet then have i nothing to show but calvary
and blushing birds go down to drink and shadows tremble so and nobody knows so still it flows that any brook is there and yet your little draught of life is daily drunken there then look out for the little brook in march
and the bridges often go and later in august it may be when the meadows parching lie beware lest this little brook of life some burning noon go dry
transplanted as if some little arctic flower upon the polar hem went wandering down the latitudes
came to continents of summer to firmaments of sun to strange bright crowds of flowers and birds of foreign tongue i say as if this little flower to eden wandered in what then
why nothing only your inference therefrom
it would be life and life is over there behind the shelf the sexton keeps the key to putting up our life his porcelain like a cup discarded of the housewife quaint or broken a newer sevres pleases old ones crack i could not die with you
for one must wait to shut the other's gaze down you could not and i could i stand by and see you freeze without my right of frost death's privilege nor could i rise with you
because your face would put out jesus that new grace glow plain and foreign on my homesick eye except that you than he shone closer by they'd judge us how
for you served heaven you know or sought to i could not because you saturated sight and i had no more eyes for sordid excellence as paradise and were you lost i would be
though my name rang loudest on the heavenly fame and were you saved and i condemned to be where you were not that self were hell to me so we must keep apart you there i here
with just the door ajar that oceans are and prayer and that pale sustenance despair
renunciation there came a day at summer's full entirely for me i thought that such were for the saints where revelations be the sun as common went abroad the flowers accustomed blew
as if no soul the solstice passed that maketh all things new the time was scarce profaned by speech the symbol of a word was needless as at sacrament the wardrobe of our lord
each was to each the sealed church permitted to commune this time lest we too awkward show at supper of the lamb the hours slid fast as hours will clutched tight by greedy hands
so faces on two decks look back bound to opposing lands and so when all the time had failed without external sound each bound the other's crucifix we gave no other bond
sufficient troth that we shall rise deposed at length the grave to that new marriage justified through calvaries of love
i'm ceded i've stopped being theirs the name they dropped upon my face with water in the country church is finished using now and they can put it with my dolls my childhood and the string of spools i've finished threading too
baptized before without the choice but this time consciously of grace unto supremest name called to my full the crescent dropped existence's whole arc filled up with one small diadem
my second rank too small the first crowned crowing on my father's breast a half unconscious queen but this time adequate erect
and i choose just a throne
but the time for interview had come before the judgment seat of god the last and second time these fleshless lovers met
no lifetime set on them apparelled as the new unborn except they had beheld born everlasting now was bridal e'er like this a paradise the host
and cherubim and seraphim the most familiar guest
i'm wife i've finished that that other state i'm czar i'm woman now it's safer so how odd the girl's life looks behind this soft eclipse
i think that earth seems so to those in heaven now this being comfort then that other kind was pain but why compare
in using wore away it lay unmentioned as the sea develops pearl and weed but only to himself is known the fathoms they abide
come slowly eden lips unused to thee bashful sip thy jasmines as the fainting bee reaching late his flower round her chamber hums
i count it as rather strange that american and english sportsmen
but the total number of these is very few
forty years ago a sportsman might have been defined according to the standards of that period as a man who hunts wild game for pleasure those were the days wherein no one foresaw the wholesale annihilation of species
and there were no wilderness game preserves in those days gentlemen shot female hoofed game trapped bears if they felt like it
and no one made any fuss whatever about the waste or extermination of wild life those were the days of ox teams and broad axes to day we are living in a totally different world
a world of grinding crunching pulverizing progress a world of annihilation of the works of nature and what is a sportsman to day a sportsman is a man who loves nature and who in the enjoyment of the outdoor life and exploration
takes a reasonable toll of nature's wild animals but not for commercial profit and only so long as his hunting does not promote the extermination of species in view of the disappearance of wild life all over the habitable globe
and the steady extermination of species the ethics of sportsmanship has become a matter of tremendous importance if a man can shoot the last living burchell zebra or prong horned antelope and be a sportsman and a gentleman
but the real gentlemen sportsmen of the world are not insensible to the duties of the hour in regard to the taking or not taking of game the time has come when canon laws should be laid down of world wide application
and so thoroughly accepted and promulgated that their binding force can not be ignored among other things it is time for a list of species to be published which no man claiming to be either a gentleman or a sportsman
can shoot for aught else than preservation in a public museum of course this list would be composed of the species that are threatened with extermination of american animals it should include the prong horned antelope mexican mountain sheep
the california grizzly bear mule deer west indian seal and california elephant seal and walrus in africa that list should include the eland
leucoryx antelope and whale headed stork
lyre bird and the mallee bird think what it would mean to the species named above if all the sportsmen of the world would unite in their defense both actively and passively it would be to those species
a modus vivendi worth while prior to nineteen o eight no effort so far as we are aware ever had been made to promote the establishment of a comprehensive and up to date code of ethics for sportsmen who shoot
a few clubs of men who are hunters of big game had expressed in their constitutions a few brief principles for the purpose of standardizing their own respective memberships but that was all
i have not taken pains to make a general canvass of sportsmen's clubs to ascertain what rules have been laid down by any large number of organizations the boone and crockett club of new york and washington
had in its constitution the following excellent article
the use of steel traps the making of large bags the killing of game while swimming in water or helpless in deep snow and the unnecessary killing of females or young of any species of ruminant shall be deemed offenses
the lewis and clark club of pittsburgh has in its constitution as section three of article three the following comprehensive principle the term legitimate sport
purchase and sale of trophies as the purchase of heads and horns establishes a market value and encourages indians and others to shoot for sale
often in violation of local laws and always to the detriment of the protection of game for legitimate sport the lewis and clark club condemns the purchase or the sale of the heads or horns of any game
in nineteen o six the lewis and clark club condemned the use of automatic shotguns as unsportsmanlike the shikar club of london
is honorary president has declared the leading feature of its objects in the following terms to maintain the standard of sportsmanship it is not squandered bullets and swollen bags which appeal to us
the test is rather in a love of forest mountains and desert in acquired knowledge of the habits of animals in the strenuous pursuit of a wary and dangerous quarry
code of ethics of the camp fire club of america proposed by wm t hornaday and adopted december tenth nineteen o eight one
the wild animal life of to day is not ours to do with as we please the original stock is given to us in trust for the benefit both of the present and the future we must render an accounting of this trust to those who come after us
two judging from the rate at which the wild creatures of north america are now being destroyed fifty years hence there will be no large game left in the united states nor in canada outside of rigidly protected game preserves
it is therefore the duty of every good citizen to promote the protection of forests and wild life and the creation of game preserves
every man who finds pleasure in hunting or fishing should be willing to spend both time and money in active work for the protection of forests fish and game three
the sale of game is incompatible with the perpetual preservation of a proper stock of game
for the consumption of wild game as human food nor is there any good excuse for the sale of game for food purposes the maintenance of hired laborers on wild game should be prohibited everywhere under severe penalties
five an indian has no more right to kill wild game
than any white man in the same locality
anymore than of its mineral resources and he should be governed by the same game laws as white men six no man can be a good citizen and also be a slaughterer of game or fishes
beyond the narrow limits compatible with high class sportsmanship seven a game butcher
and the value of wild game as human food should no longer be regarded as an important factor in its pursuit nine if rightly conserved wild game constitutes a valuable asset
ten an ideal hunting trip consists of a good comrade fine country and a very few trophies per hunter eleven in an ideal hunting trip
and by no means is it really necessary to a successful outing twelve the best hunter is the man who finds the most game kills the least and leaves behind him no wounded animals
thirteen the killing of an animal means the end of its most interesting period when the country is fine pursuit is more interesting than possession fourteen
the killing of a female hoofed animal save for special preservation is to be regarded as incompatible with the highest sportsmanship and it should everywhere be prohibited by stringent laws fifteen
a particularly fine photograph of a large wild animal in its haunts is entitled to more credit than the dead trophy of a similar animal an animal that has been photographed never should be killed unless previously wounded in the chase
besides the camp fire club of america the lewis and clark club of pittsburgh john m phillips president the north american fish and game protective association international
massachusetts fish and game protective association boston camp fire club of michigan detroit rod and gun club sheridan county wyoming
the platform has been endorsed and published by the society for the preservation of the wild fauna of the british empire london which is an endorsement of far reaching importance
major j stevenson hamilton c m z s warden of the government game reserves of the transvaal south africa has adopted the platform and given it the most effective endorsement that it has received from any single individual
the heart of every man who believes in the principles laid down in that document he says
to take to heart the vital necessity of adopting high and clearly defined codes of ethics to suit the needs of the present hour
and the gigantic industries that have grown up and been nourished by their world wide application that he was in this instance a true pioneer and creator is evident as we consider the subject
issued to edison on january twenty seventh eighteen eighty for an incandescent lamp was of such fundamental character that it opened up an entirely new and tremendously important art the art of incandescent electric lighting this statement cannot be successfully controverted
if further proof were desired it is only necessary to point to the fact that after thirty years of most strenuous and practical application in the art by the keenest intellects of the world every incandescent lamp that has ever since been made including those of modern days
is still dependent upon the employment of the essentials disclosed in the above named patent namely a filament of high resistance enclosed in a sealed glass globe exhausted of air with conducting wires passing through the glass
that its intrinsic relation to the art of electric lighting is far from being apparent at sight to the lay mind it would seem that this must have been the obvious device to make in order to obtain electric light by incandescence of carbon or other material
and was actually lighting them up twenty four hours a day
possibly a momentary success magnified to the dignity of a permanent device by an overenthusiastic inventor such criticism however did not disturb edison he knew that he had reached the goal long ago by a close process of reasoning
and which was now embodied in the philosophy of his incandescent lamp namely a filament or carbon of high resistance and small radiating surface sealed into a glass globe exhausted of air to a high degree of vacuum in originally committing himself to this line of investigation
their efforts had been confined to low resistance burners of large radiating surface for their lamps but he realized the utter futility of such devices
he was convinced from the first that the true solution of the problem lay in a lamp which should have as its illuminating body a strip of material which would offer such a resistance to the flow of electric current
or the same given battery will bring a wire whose total resistance is four ohms to the same temperature as straight wire this was actually determined by trial
if one square inch of platina be heated to one hundred degrees it will fall to say zero in one second whereas if it was at two hundred degrees it would require two seconds hence in the case of incandescent conductors
notwithstanding the original total amount was but twelve hundred because the radiation has been reduced to three quarters or seventy five units hence the effect of the lessening of the radiation is to raise the temperature of each remaining inch not radiating to one hundred twenty five degrees
the temperature would reach sixty four hundred degrees fahr to carry out this law to the best advantage in regard to platina et cetera then with a given length of wire to quadruple the heat we must lessen the radiating surface to one quarter and to do this in a spiral
three quarters must be within the spiral and one quarter outside for radiating hence a square wire or other means such as a spiral within a spiral must be used
and this is concentrated to have one quarter of the radiating surface it would reach a temperature of four thousand degrees or sufficient to melt it but supposing it infusible the further concentration to one eighth its surface it would reach a temperature of sixteen thousand degrees
and to one thirty second its surface which would be about the radiating surface of the electric arc it would reach sixty four thousand degrees fahr of course when light is radiated in great quantities not quite these temperatures would be reached another curious law is this
and through a concurrent investigation of the phenomena of high vacua and occluded gases was able to produce a true incandescent lamp not only was it a lamp as a mere article a device to give light
to every part of which it bore a fixed and definite ratio and in relation to which it was the keystone that held the structure firmly in place the work of edison on incandescent lamps did not stop at this fundamental invention
vast interests were at stake all of the technical expert and professional skill and knowledge that money could procure or experience devise were availed of in the bitter fights that raged in the courts for many years
and although the edison interests had spent from first to last nearly two million dollars and had only about three years left in the life of the fundamental patent edison was thoroughly sustained as to priority by the decisions in the various suits
we shall offer a few brief extracts from some of these decisions
and mister edison is entitled to the credit of obviating the mechanical difficulties which disheartened them he was the first to make a carbon of materials and by a process which was especially designed to impart high specific resistance to it
by doing these things he made a lamp which was practically operative and successful the embryo of the best lamps now in commercial use
by some of the reamed experts who are now witnesses to belittle his achievement and show that it did not rise to the dignity of an invention it is impossible to resist the conclusion that the invention of the slender thread of carbon as a substitute for the burners previously employed
opened the path to the practical subdivision of the electric light an appeal was taken in the above suit to the united states circuit court of appeals and on october fourth eighteen ninety two the decree of the lower court was affirmed the judges
without the phenomenon of disintegration this fact he utilized by the means which he has described a lamp having a filamentary carbon burner in a nearly perfect vacuum
decided in favor of edison on june eleventh eighteen ninety four judge colt in his opinion said among other things edison made an important invention he produced the first practical incandescent electric lamp
the patent is a pioneer in the sense of the patent law it may be said that his invention created the art of incandescent electric lighting opinions of other courts
edison's new storage battery generically considered a battery is a device which generates electric current there are two distinct species of battery one being known as primary
contains at least two elements of different nature immersed in a more or less liquid electrolyte of chemical character on closing the circuit of a primary battery an electric current is generated
it is a reversible battery as will be quite obvious if we glance briefly at its philosophy when a storage battery is charged by having an electric current passed through it the electric energy produces a chemical effect
the battery is ready for use and upon its circuit being closed through a translating device such as a lamp or motor a reversion discharge takes place the positive plate giving up its oxygen and the negative plate being oxidized
the storage battery as a commercial article was introduced into the market in the year eighteen eighty one at that time and all through the succeeding years until about nineteen o five there was only one type that was recognized as commercially practicable
namely that known as the lead sulphuric acid cell consisting of lead plates immersed in an electrolyte of dilute sulphuric acid in the year last named edison first brought out his new form of nickel iron cell with alkaline electrolyte
as we have related in the preceding narrative early in the eighties at menlo park he had given much thought to the lead type of storage battery and during the course of three years had made a prodigious number of experiments in the direction of improving it
probably performing more experiments in that time than the aggregate of those of all other investigators even in those early days he arrived at the conclusion that the lead sulphuric acid combination was intrinsically wrong and did not embrace the elements
of a permanent commercial device he did not at that time however engage in a serious search for another form of storage battery being tremendously occupied with his lighting system and other matters it may here be noted
for the information of the lay reader that the lead acid type of storage battery consists of two or more lead plates immersed in dilute sulphuric acid and contained in a receptacle of glass hard rubber or other special material not acted upon by acid
has many serious disadvantages inherent to its very nature we will name a few of them briefly constant dropping of fine particles of active material often causes short circuiting of the plates and always necessitates occasional washing out of cells
the tendency of lead plates to buckle under certain conditions the limitation to the use of glass hard rubber or similar containers on account of the action of the acid and the immense weight for electrical capacity
the tremendously complex nature of the chemical reactions which take place in the lead acid storage battery also renders it an easy prey to many troublesome diseases in the year nineteen hundred when edison undertook to invent a storage battery
the soundness of his reasoning is amply justified by the perfection of results obtained in the new type of storage battery bearing his name and now to be described
the essential technical details of this battery are fully described in an article written by one of edison's laboratory staff walter e holland who for many years has been closely identified with the inventor's work on this cell
the a type edison cell is the outcome of nine years of costly experimentation and persistent toil on the part of its inventor and his associates
the edison invention involves the use of an entirely new voltaic combination in an alkaline electrolyte in place of the lead lead peroxide combination and acid electrolyte characteristic of all other commercial storage batteries
the principle on which the action of this new battery is based is the oxidation and reduction of metals in an electrolyte which does not combine with and will not dissolve either the metals or their oxides and an electrolyte furthermore
which although decomposed by the action of the battery is immediately re formed in equal quantity and therefore in effect is a constant element not changing in density or in conductivity a battery embodying this basic principle
by action of the electrolyte no matter how long continued the electrolyte of the edison battery is a twenty one per cent solution of potassium hydrate having in addition a small amount of lithium hydrate
the active metals of the electrodes which will oxidize and reduce in this electrolyte without dissolution or chemical deterioration are nickel and iron
was the preparation of these materials metallic powder of iron and nickel or even oxides of these metals prepared in the ordinary way are not chemically active in a sufficient degree to work in a battery
showing some of the difficulties encountered and the various discoveries made in developing the perfected cell after which the writer continues his description of the a type cell as follows
it will be seen at once that the construction of the two kinds of plate is radically different the negative or iron plate fig five has the familiar flat pocket construction each negative contains twenty four pockets
and having a maximum thickness of a little more than one eighth inch the positive or nickel plate
is seen to consist of two rows of round rods or pencils thirty in number held in a vertical position by a steel support frame the pencils have flat flanges at the ends
and the resultant plate has great rigidity and strength the perforated tubes into which the nickel active material is loaded are made of nickel plated steel of high quality they are put together with a double lapped spiral seam
to give expansion resisting qualities and as an additional precaution small metal rings are slipped on the outside each tube is one quarter inch in diameter by four and one eighth inches long add has eight of the reinforcing rings
it will be seen that the a positive plate has been given the theoretically best design to prevent expansion and overcome trouble from that cause actual tests long continued under very severe conditions
have shown that the construction is right and fulfils the most sanguine expectations
as the conducting factor in the positive element
which has been sawed lengthwise the vertical bounding walls are edges of the perforated metal containing tube the dark horizontal lines are layers of nickel flake while the light colored thicker layers represent the nickel hydrate
it should be noted that the layers of flake nickel extend practically unbroken across the tube
these metal layers conduct current to or from the active nickel hydrate in all parts of the tube very efficiently there are about three hundred and fifty layers of each kind of material in a four and one eighth inch tube
so it will be seen that the current does not have to penetrate very far into the nickel hydrate one half a layer's thickness being the maximum distance the perforations of the containing tube through which the electrolyte reaches the active material
in conclusion the article enumerates the chief characteristics of the edison storage battery which fit it preeminently for transportation service as follows one no loss of active material hence no sediment short circuits
two no jar breakage three possibility of quick disconnection or replacement of any cell without employment of skilled labor four impossibility of buckling
and harmlessness of a dead short circuit five simplicity of care required six durability of materials and construction seven impossibility of sulphation
eight entire absence of corrosive fumes nine commercial advantages of light weight ten duration on account of its dependability
not more than one of us would get away and then the baron told tales by the score about the green knight's quenchless thirst for gore and kept repeating that no magic charm was proof against the prowess of his arm
at his first blow each vain defense must fall for he was arch magician over all and as from tale to tale the baron ran sir gawayne had he been another man would certainly have felt his heart's blood curdle
despite his secret wearing of the girdle but when the baron finally suggested abandoning the venture and protested that the whole monstrous business was absurd sir gawayne simply said i gave my word
and when the baron saw he would not bend he seemed to lose all patience well my friend i'll go no further with you on your head shall be your own mad blood when you are dead
yonder your two roads fork pause there i pray and ponder well before you choose your way one takes the hills one winds along the wave to camelot this
and vanished where the road turned gawayne heard
for the fulfillment of his martyrdom and now from just beyond a jutting hill came hideous sounds as of a giant mill that hisses roars and sputters clicks and clacks
it was the green knight sharpening his axe and gawayne coming past the corner found him with ghastly mouldering skulls and bones strewn round him in joyous fury urging the keen steel
against the surface of his grinding wheel the place was a wild hollow circled round with barren hills and on the bottom ground stood the green chapel moss grown solitary
in sooth it seemed the devil's mortuary the green knight's back was turned and he stirred not till gawayne hailed him sharply then he shot one glance as when o'erhead a living wire
startles the night with flashes of green fire then hurried forward bland as bland could be and greeted gawayne with green courtesy dear sir i ask a thousand pardons pray
forgive me you are punctual to the day that's good of course i knew you would not fail
our little business for you there that's right and now your helmet thanks and if you please perhaps you'll kindly kneel down on your knees as i did when i came to camelot
so are you all ready will you bide the blow and gawayne said i will in such soft notes as happy bridegrooms utter when their throats are paralyzed with blest anticipation
his threatening hand and with a cold sneer said you shrink sir from the axe i can't hit true unless you hold still as i did for you your pardon gawayne said with bated breath
he did so and the green knight swung again his axe and whirled it round his head and then pausing a second time said very good you're holding quite still now i knew you would
sir gawayne's neck he felt the hot blood flow and saw red drops that sank deep in the snow and then he jumped up faced his foe and cried enough you owed me one blow though i died
and when i swung my weapon for the third and last time then i made the red blood spirt for that green girdle underneath your shirt you played me false my friend and gawayne knelt
once more and casting off the magic belt in bitter broken words confessed his shame and begged the green knight to avenge the name of injured knighthood and with one last blow to end his guilty life
nay nay not so the other softly said be of good cheer your fault was small for all men hold life dear we tempted you my friend with all our might
and proved you in good sooth a noble knight a veritable joseph sir you are quoth gawayne drily thanks lord potiphar but may i ask you why you played this part
the other said ask lady elfinhart he smiled and from his smile a genial glow of green mid summer seemed to overflow
the warm red blood rushed to sir gawayne's face he caught his breath and in his eager eyes there shone a sudden flash of dark surmise and then he stood a long while pondering
but in his breast his heart began to sing the old old music whose still echoes roll forever voiceless through the listening soul he said farewell to his good fairy friend as in a dream
where real and unreal blend in phantom unison and with the light of love to lead him home rode through the night beside the tranquil murmurs of the mere and through the silence of the passing year
and earth and sea and starlit sky took part in the still exaltation of his heart while all but love and wonder was forgot until he came to high towered camelot
to camelot he came and there he found the good king arthur and his table round awaiting his return in anxious doubt but ere he passed the gates a mighty shout
chiming in the topmost tower pealed salutation to the joyous hour as gawayne riding through the cullis port faced the glad throng that filled the palace court and with this tribute paid to knightly glory
it seems most fitting to conclude my story entreat me not dear reader to impart further of gawayne or of elfinhart let your own fancy round the story out whatever way you please
allegiance to that mighty spirit's law
kinetograph and projecting kinetoscope although many of the arts in which edison has been a pioneer have been enriched by his numerous inventions and patents which were subsequent to those of a fundamental nature
issued august thirty first eighteen ninety seven
under date of january twelfth nineteen o four application filed august twenty fourth eighteen ninety one footnote thirty
issued february twenty first eighteen ninety three
issued march fourteenth eighteen ninety three
issued october eighteenth nineteen o four there is nothing surprising in this however as the possibility of photographing and reproducing actual scenes of animate life
are so thoroughly exemplified and rendered practicable by the apparatus and methods disclosed in the patents above cited that these basic inventions in themselves practically constitute the art its development proceeding mainly along the line of manufacturing details
that such a view of his work is correct the highest criterion commercial expediency bears witness for in spite of the fact that the courts have somewhat narrowed the broad claims of edison's patents
through which a series of sequential photographic pictures of animate motion projected upon a screen in rapid succession will reproduce to the eye all the appearance of the original movements
that an illustration from an actual machine would not help to clearness of explanation to the general reader
in this diagram a represents an outer light tight box containing a lens c and the other necessary mechanism for making the photographic exposures
and b a revolving shutter having an opening and connected by gears with g and arranged to expose the film during the periods of rest a full view of this shutter is also represented with its opening d in the small illustration to the right
bringing its opening d coincident with the lens
after which the film again moves forward so long as the action is continued these movements are repeated resulting in a succession of enormously rapid exposures upon the film
it is guided and kept straight by various sets of rollers between which it runs as indicated in the diagram by an ingenious arrangement of the mechanism the film moves intermittently so that it may have a much longer period of rest than of motion
as in practice the pictures are taken at a rate of twenty or more per second it will be quite obvious that each period of rest is infinitesimally brief being generally one thirtieth of a second or less
still it is sufficient to bring the film to a momentary condition of complete rest and to allow for a maximum time of exposure comparatively speaking thus providing means for taking clearly defined pictures
in appearance it is somewhat different indeed it is in two parts the one containing the lighting arrangements and condensing lens and the other embracing the mechanism and objective lens the taking camera
and a beam of light coming through the condenser being exposed by the shutter during the periods of rest this results in a projection of the photographs upon a screen in such rapid succession as to present an apparently continuous photograph of the successive positions of the moving objects
which therefore appear to the human eye to be in motion
it reads as follows an unbroken transparent or translucent tape like photographic film having thereon uniform sharply defined equidistant photographs of successive positions of an object in motion
as observed from a single point of view at rapidly recurring intervals of time
he really was late they had waited for him and had already decided to bear the pretty flower decked little coffin to the church without him
he had died two days after mitya was sentenced at the gate of the house alyosha was met by the shouts of the boys ilusha's schoolfellows they had all been impatiently expecting him and were glad that he had come at last there were about twelve of them
how glad i am you've come karamazov he cried holding out his hand to alyosha it's awful here it's really horrible to see it snegiryov is not drunk we know for a fact he's had nothing to drink to day but he seems as if he were drunk
i am always manly but this is awful karamazov if i am not keeping you one question before you go in what is it kolya said alyosha is your brother innocent or guilty was it he killed your father or was it the valet as you say
so it will be i haven't slept for the last four nights for thinking of it the valet killed him my brother is innocent answered alyosha that's what i said cried smurov so he will perish an innocent victim exclaimed kolya
though he is ruined he is happy i could envy him what do you mean how can you why cried alyosha surprised oh if i too could sacrifice myself some day for truth said kolya with enthusiasm
but not in such a cause not with such disgrace and such horror said alyosha of course i should like to die for all humanity and as for disgrace i don't care about that our names may perish i respect your brother and so do i
the boy who had once declared that he knew who had founded troy cried suddenly and unexpectedly and he blushed up to his ears like a peony as he had done on that occasion alyosha went into the room
ilusha lay with his hands folded and his eyes closed in a blue coffin with a white frill round it his thin face was hardly changed at all and strange to say there was no smell of decay from the corpse the expression of his face was serious
and he would not look at any one even at his crazy weeping wife mamma
nina had been pushed in her chair by the boys close up to the coffin she sat with her head pressed to it and she too was no doubt quietly weeping snegiryov's face looked eager yet bewildered and exasperated
there was something crazy about his gestures and the words that broke from him old man dear old man he exclaimed every minute gazing at ilusha
as a term of affection when he was alive father give me a flower too take that white one out of his hand and give it me the crazy mother begged whimpering
or that she wanted one from his hand to keep in memory of him she moved restlessly stretching out her hands for the flower i won't give it to any one i won't give you anything snegiryov cried callously they are his flowers not yours
everything is his nothing is yours father give mother a flower said nina lifting her face wet with tears i won't give away anything and to her less than any one
the poor crazy creature was bathed in noiseless tears hiding her face in her hands the boys seeing that the father would not leave the coffin and that it was time to carry it out stood round it in a close circle and began to lift it up
i don't want him to be buried in the churchyard snegiryov wailed suddenly i'll bury him by the stone by our stone ilusha told me to i won't let him be carried out he had been saying for the last three days that he would bury him by the stone
but alyosha krassotkin the landlady her sister and all the boys interfered what an idea bury him by an unholy stone as though he had hanged himself the old landlady said sternly there in the churchyard the ground has been crossed
the boys raised the coffin but as they passed the mother they stopped for a moment and lowered it that she might say good by to ilusha but on seeing that precious little face which for the last three days she had only looked at from a distance
she trembled all over and her gray head began twitching spasmodically over the coffin mother make the sign of the cross over him give him your blessing kiss him nina cried to her but her head still twitched like an automaton
as alyosha went out of the house he begged the landlady to look after those who were left behind but she interrupted him before he had finished to be sure i'll stay with them we are christians too the old woman wept as she said it
they had not far to carry the coffin to the church not more than three hundred paces it was a still clear day with a slight frost the church bells were still ringing snegiryov ran fussing and distracted after the coffin
in his short old summer overcoat with his head bare and his soft old wide brimmed hat in his hand he seemed in a state of bewildered anxiety at one minute he stretched out his hand to support the head of the coffin and only hindered the bearers
at another he ran alongside and tried to find a place for himself there a flower fell on the snow and he rushed to pick it up as though everything in the world depended on the loss of that flower and the crust of bread we've forgotten the crust he cried suddenly in dismay
but the boys reminded him at once that he had taken the crust of bread already and that it was in his pocket he instantly pulled it out and was reassured ilusha told me to ilusha
i was sitting by him one night and he suddenly told me father when my grave is filled up crumble a piece of bread on it so that the sparrows may fly down i shall hear and it will cheer me up not to be lying alone that's a good thing said alyosha we must often take some
every day every day said the captain quickly seeming cheered at the thought they reached the church at last and set the coffin in the middle of it the boys surrounded it and remained reverently standing so all through the service
it was an old and rather poor church many of the ikons were without settings but such churches are the best for praying in during the mass snegiryov became somewhat calmer though at times he had outbursts of the same unconscious and as it were incoherent anxiety
falling on his knees he pressed his forehead to the stone floor and lay so for a long while at last came the funeral service itself and candles were distributed the distracted father began fussing about again
but the touching and impressive funeral prayers moved and roused his soul he seemed suddenly to shrink together and broke into rapid short sobs which he tried at first to smother but at last he sobbed aloud when they began taking leave of the dead and closing the coffin
and began greedily and persistently kissing his dead boy on the lips at last they succeeded in persuading him to come away from the step but suddenly he impulsively stretched out his hand and snatched a few flowers from the coffin
he looked at them and a new idea seemed to dawn upon him so that he apparently forgot his grief for a minute gradually he seemed to sink into brooding and did not resist when the coffin was lifted up and carried to the grave
it was an expensive one in the churchyard close to the church katerina ivanovna had paid for it after the customary rites the grave diggers lowered the coffin snegiryov with his flowers in his hands bent down so low over the open grave
that the boys caught hold of his coat in alarm and pulled him back he did not seem to understand fully what was happening when they began filling up the grave he suddenly pointed anxiously at the falling earth and began trying to say something but no one could make out what he meant and he stopped suddenly
then he was reminded that he must crumble the bread and he was awfully excited snatched up the bread and began pulling it to pieces and flinging the morsels on the grave come fly down birds fly down sparrows he muttered anxiously
one of the boys observed that it was awkward for him to crumble the bread with the flowers in his hands and suggested he should give them to some one to hold for a time but he would not do this and seemed indeed suddenly alarmed for his flowers as though they wanted to take them from him altogether
and after looking at the grave and as it were satisfying himself that everything had been done and the bread had been crumbled he suddenly to the surprise of every one turned quite composedly even and made his way homewards but his steps became more and more hurried
he almost ran the boys and alyosha kept up with him the flowers are for mamma the flowers are for mamma i was unkind to mamma he began exclaiming suddenly some one called to him to put on his hat as it was cold
so that it was unseen by other people in the room it was the first room from the entrance with a buffet along the wall waiters were continually darting to and fro in it the only customer in the room was an old retired military man drinking tea in a corner
but there was the usual bustle going on in the other rooms of the tavern there were shouts for the waiters the sound of popping corks the click of billiard balls the drone of the organ
so he must have come here he reflected simply to meet dmitri by arrangement yet dmitri was not there shall i order you fish soup or anything you don't live on tea alone i suppose
he had finished dinner and was drinking tea let me have soup
they have it here you remember how you used to love cherry jam when you were little you remember that let me have jam too i like it still
i remember everything alyosha i remember you till you were eleven i was nearly fifteen there's such a difference between fifteen and eleven that brothers are never companions at those ages i don't know whether i was fond of you even
when i went away to moscow for the first few years i never thought of you at all then when you came to moscow yourself we only met once somewhere i believe and now i've been here more than three months and so far we have scarcely said a word to each other to morrow i am going away
and then to say good by i believe it's always best to get to know people just before leaving them i've noticed how you've been looking at me these three months there has been a continual look of expectation in your eyes and i can't endure that
even if they are such little fellows as you your expectant eyes ceased to annoy me i grew fond of them in the end those expectant eyes you seem to love me for some reason alyosha
you are a riddle to me even now but i understand something in you and i did not understand it till this morning what's that
you won't be angry alyosha laughed too well that you are just as young as other young men of three and twenty that you are just a young and fresh and nice boy green in fact now have i insulted you dreadfully
that if i didn't believe in life if i lost faith in the woman i love lost faith in the order of things were convinced in fact that everything is a disorderly damnable and perhaps devil ridden chaos if i were struck by every horror of man's disillusionment
still i should want to live and having once tasted of the cup i would not turn away from it till i had drained it at thirty though i shall be sure to leave the cup even if i've not emptied it and turn away where i don't know but till i am thirty
i know that my youth will triumph over everything every disillusionment every disgust with life i've asked myself many times whether there is in the world any despair that would overcome this frantic and perhaps unseemly thirst for life in me
and i've come to the conclusion that there isn't that is till i am thirty and then i shall lose it of myself i fancy some driveling consumptive moralists and poets especially often call that thirst for life base
it's a feature of the karamazovs it's true that thirst for life regardless of everything you have it no doubt too but why is it base the centripetal force on our planet is still fearfully strong alyosha i have a longing for life and i go on living in spite of logic
though i may not believe in the order of the universe yet i love the sticky little leaves as they open in spring i love the blue sky i love some people whom one loves you know sometimes without knowing why i love some great deeds done by men
though i've long ceased perhaps to have faith in them yet from old habit one's heart prizes them here they have brought the soup for you eat it it will do you good it's first rate soup they know how to make it here i want to travel in europe alyosha
of such passionate faith in their work their truth their struggle and their science that i know i shall fall on the ground and kiss those stones and weep over them though i'm convinced in my heart that it's long been nothing but a graveyard
and i shall not weep from despair but simply because i shall be happy in my tears
i love the sticky leaves in spring the blue sky that's all it is it's not a matter of intellect or logic it's loving with one's inside with one's stomach one loves the first strength of one's youth do you understand anything of my tirade alyosha
one longs to love with one's inside with one's stomach
i have thought so a long time
now you've only to try to do the second half and you are saved you are trying to save me but perhaps i am not lost and what does your second half mean why one has to raise up your dead
i see you are feeling inspired
you are a steadfast person alexey is it true that you mean to leave the monastery
we shall see each other then in the world we shall meet before i am thirty when i shall begin to turn aside from the cup father doesn't want to turn aside from his cup till he is seventy he dreams of hanging on to eighty in fact so he says
he means it only too seriously though he is a buffoon he stands on a firm rock too he stands on his sensuality though after we are thirty indeed there may be nothing else to stand on but to hang on to seventy is nasty better only to thirty
one might retain a shadow of nobility by deceiving oneself have you seen dmitri to day no but i saw smerdyakov and alyosha rapidly though minutely described his meeting with smerdyakov
but he begged me not to tell dmitri that he had told me about him added alyosha
are you frowning on smerdyakov's account asked alyosha yes on his account
but then he suddenly smiled bitterly cain's answer about his murdered brother wasn't it
i can't stay here to be their keeper can i i've finished what i had to do and i am going do you imagine i am jealous of dmitri that i've been trying to steal his beautiful katerina ivanovna for the last three months nonsense i had business of my own
i finished it i am going i finished it just now you were witness at katerina ivanovna's yes and i've released myself once for all and after all what have i to do with dmitri dmitri doesn't come in
you know on the contrary that dmitri behaved as though there was an understanding between us
it's all too funny ah alyosha if you only knew how light my heart is now would you believe it i sat here eating my dinner and was nearly ordering champagne to celebrate my first hour of freedom tfoo it's been going on nearly six months
i could never have guessed even yesterday how easy it would be to put an end to it if i wanted
of my love if you like i fell in love with the young lady i worried myself over her and she worried me i sat watching over her and all at once it's collapsed i spoke this morning with inspiration but i went away and roared with laughter would you believe it
and yet how she attracted me how attractive she was just now when i made my speech and do you know she attracts me awfully even now yet how easy it is to leave her do you think i am boasting no only perhaps it wasn't love
don't make reflections about love it's unseemly for you how you rushed into the discussion this morning i've forgotten to kiss you for it but how she tormented me it certainly was sitting by a laceration
alyosha told him she had been hysterical and that she was now he heard unconscious and delirious isn't madame hohlakov laying it on i think not i must find out
nobody dies of hysterics though they don't matter god gave woman hysterics as a relief i won't go to her at all why push myself forward again but you told her that she had never cared for you i did that on purpose alyosha
shall i call for some champagne let us drink to my freedom ah if only you knew how glad i am no brother we had better not drink said alyosha suddenly besides i feel somehow depressed yes you've been depressed a long time
i've noticed it have you settled to go to morrow morning then morning i didn't say i should go in the morning but perhaps it may be the morning would you believe it i dined here to day only to avoid dining with the old man i loathe him so
i should have left long ago so far as he is concerned but why are you so worried about my going away we've plenty of time before i go an eternity
is that it no then you know what for it's different for other people but we in our green youth have to settle the eternal questions first of all
what do you believe or don't you believe at all that's what your eyes have been meaning for these three months haven't they perhaps so smiled alyosha
me laughing i don't want to wound my little brother who has been watching me with such expectation for three months alyosha look straight at me of course i am just such a little boy as you are only not a novice
and what have russian boys been doing up till now some of them i mean in this stinking tavern for instance here they meet and sit down in a corner they've never met in their lives before and when they go out of the tavern
they won't meet again for forty years and what do they talk about in that momentary halt in the tavern of the eternal questions of the existence of god and immortality and those who do not believe in god talk of socialism or anarchism
of the transformation of all humanity on a new pattern so that it all comes to the same they're the same questions turned inside out and masses masses of the most original russian boys do nothing but talk of the eternal questions isn't it so
yes for real russians the questions of god's existence and of immortality or as you say the same questions turned inside out come first and foremost of course and so they should said alyosha
still watching his brother with the same gentle and inquiring smile well alyosha it's sometimes very unwise to be a russian at all but anything stupider than the way russian boys spend their time one can hardly imagine
but there's one russian boy called alyosha i am awfully fond of how nicely you put that in alyosha laughed suddenly
begin where you like you declared yesterday at father's that there was no god alyosha looked searchingly at his brother i said that yesterday at dinner on purpose to tease you and i saw your eyes glow
but now i've no objection to discussing with you and i say so very seriously
well only fancy
that's a surprise for you isn't it yes of course if you are not joking now joking i was told at the elder's yesterday that i was joking you know dear boy there was an old sinner in the eighteenth century who declared that
if there were no god he would have to be invented
and man has actually invented god and what's strange what would be marvelous is not that god should really exist the marvel is that such an idea the idea of the necessity of god could enter the head of such a savage vicious beast as man
so holy it is so touching so wise and so great a credit it does to man as for me i've long resolved not to think whether man created god or god man
and i won't go through all the axioms laid down by russian boys on that subject all derived from european hypotheses for what's a hypothesis there is an axiom with the russian boy and not only with the boys but with their teachers too
for our russian professors are often just the same boys themselves and so i omit all the hypotheses for what are we aiming at now i am trying to explain as quickly as possible my essential nature that is what manner of man i am what i believe in
and for what i hope that's it isn't it and therefore i tell you that i accept god simply but you must note this if god exists and if he really did create the world then
as we all know he created it according to the geometry of euclid and the human mind with the conception of only three dimensions in space yet there have been and still are geometricians and philosophers and even some of the most distinguished
who doubt whether the whole universe or to speak more widely the whole of being was only created in euclid's geometry they even dare to dream that two parallel lines which according to euclid can never meet on earth may meet somewhere in infinity
i have come to the conclusion that since i can't understand even that i can't expect to understand about god i acknowledge humbly that i have no faculty for settling such questions i have a euclidian earthly mind
and how could i solve problems that are not of this world and i advise you never to think about it either my dear alyosha especially about god whether he exists or not
all such questions are utterly inappropriate for a mind created with an idea of only three dimensions and so i accept god and am glad to and what's more i accept his wisdom his purpose which are utterly beyond our ken
i believe in the underlying order and the meaning of life i believe in the eternal harmony in which they say we shall one day be blended i believe in the word to which the universe is striving and which itself was with god and which itself is god
and so on and so on to infinity there are all sorts of phrases for it i seem to be on the right path don't i yet would you believe it in the final result i don't accept this world of god's and although i know it exists i don't accept it at all
it's not that i don't accept god you must understand it's the world created by him i don't and cannot accept let me make it plain i believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for
that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small euclidian mind of man that in the world's finale
at the moment of eternal harmony something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts for the comforting of all resentments for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity of all the blood they've shed
that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened with men but though all that may come to pass i don't accept it i won't accept it even if parallel lines do meet and i see it myself
i shall see it and say that they've met but still i won't accept it that's what's at the root of me alyosha that's my creed i am in earnest in what i say i began our talk as stupidly as i could on purpose
but i've led up to my confession for that's all you want you didn't want to hear about god but only to know what the brother you love lives by and so i've told you
and why did you begin as stupidly as you could asked alyosha looking dreamily at him to begin with for the sake of being russian russian conversations on such subjects are always carried on inconceivably stupidly and secondly
the stupider one is the closer one is to reality the stupider one is the clearer one is stupidity is brief and artless while intelligence wriggles and hides itself intelligence is a knave but stupidity is honest and straightforward
i've led the conversation to my despair and the more stupidly i have presented it the better for me you will explain why you don't accept the world said alyosha to be sure i will it's not a secret
dear little brother i don't want to corrupt you or to turn you from your stronghold perhaps i want to be healed by you
quite like a little gentle child
indeed such was the interest taken by certain citizens in the matter that they advised the purchaser to provide himself and his convoy with an escort in order to ensure their safe arrival at the appointed destination
he declared also that there was no real need for an escort seeing that the peasants whom he had purchased were exceptionally peace loving folk and that being themselves consenting parties to the transferment they would undoubtedly prove in every way tractable
they now liked him more than ever as a matter of fact they were citizens of an exceptionally quiet good natured easy going disposition and some of them were even well educated for instance the president of the local council
could recite the whole of zhukovski's ludmilla by heart
the pine forest was asleep and the valley at rest
the effect was also further heightened by the manner in which at such moments he assumed the most portentous frown for his part the postmaster went in more for philosophy
nor were his colleagues a wit inferior to him in enlightenment for instance one of them made a regular practice of reading karamzin another of conning the moscow gazette and a third of never looking at a book at all
likewise although they were the sort of men to whom in their more intimate movements their wives would very naturally address such nicknames as toby jug marmot fatty pot belly smutty kiki and buzz buzz they were men also of good heart
and very ready to extend their hospitality and their friendship when once a guest had eaten of their bread and salt or spent an evening in their company particularly therefore did chichikov earn these good folk's approval with his taking methods and qualities
but incomparably more striking was the impression a matter for unbounded surprise which he produced upon the ladies properly to explain this phenomenon i should need to say a great deal about the ladies themselves and to describe in the most vivid of colours
their social intercourse and spiritual qualities yet this would be a difficult thing for me to do since on the one hand i should be hampered by my boundless respect for the womenfolk of all civil service officials and on the other hand well simply by the innate arduousness of the task
the ladies of n were but no i cannot do it my heart has already failed me come come the ladies of n were distinguished for but it is of no use
very well that being so i will merely say a word or two concerning the most prominent tints on the feminine palette of n merely a word or two concerning the outward appearance of its ladies and a word or two concerning their more superficial characteristics
and strict observance of the prevailing mode they surpassed even the ladies of moscow and saint petersburg seeing that they dressed with taste
again they looked upon a visiting card
as a sacred thing so sacred that on one occasion two closely related ladies who had also been closely attached friends were known to fall out with one another over the mere fact of an omission to return a social call
yes in spite of the best efforts of husbands and kinsfolk to reconcile the antagonists it became clear that though all else in the world might conceivably be possible never could the hatchet be buried between ladies who had quarrelled over a neglected visit
scenes of a kind which had the effect of inspiring husbands to great and knightly ideas on the subject of protecting the fair true never did a duel actually take place since all the husbands were officials belonging to the civil service
and would at once be fired with virtuous indignation when they heard of a case of vice or seduction nay even to mere frailty they would award the lash without mercy on the other hand should any instance of what they called third personism
and even the wronged husband holding himself ready should he meet with or hear of the third person to quote in a mild and rational manner the proverb whom concerns it that a friend should consort with friend in addition i may say that
like most of the female world of saint petersburg the ladies of n were pre eminently careful and refined in their choice of words and phrases never did a lady say i blew my nose or i perspired or i spat
since the same words if spoken in french were another matter altogether
that the mere sound of the word exercises upon rascals upon decent folk and upon folk who are neither the one nor the other an undeniable influence a millionaire suffers from the disadvantage of everywhere having to behold meanness
that a similar inclination to meanness seized upon the ladies of n goes without saying with the result that many a drawing room heard it whispered that if chichikov was not exactly a beauty at least he was sufficiently good looking to serve for a husband
though he could have borne to have been a little more rotund and stout to that there would be added scornful references to lean husbands and hints that they resembled tooth brushes rather than men
also such crowds of feminine shoppers began to repair to the bazaar as almost to constitute a crush and something like a procession of carriages ensued so long grew the rank of vehicles for their part
and this verity the epistle further confirmed with rows of full stops to the extent of nearly half a page next there followed a few reflections of a correctitude so remarkable that i have no choice but to quote them what
i would ask is this life of ours inquired the writer tis nought but a vale of woe and what i would ask is the world tis nought but a mob of unthinking humanity
in conclusion the writer gave way to unconcealed despair and wound up with the following verses two turtle doves to thee one day my dust will show congealed in death and cooing wearily they'll say
but that was a trifle since the quatrain at least conformed to the mode then prevalent
but only a postscript expressing a conjecture that chichikov's own heart would tell him who the writer was and stating in addition that the said writer would be present at the governor's ball on the following night this greatly interested chichikov
indeed there was so much that was alluring and provocative of curiosity in the anonymous missive that he read it through a second time and then a third and finally said to himself i should like to know who sent it in short he took the thing seriously
and spent over an hour in considering the same at length muttering a comment upon the epistle's efflorescent style
in company with a play bill and an invitation to a wedding the latter of which had for the last seven years reposed in the self same receptacle and in the self same position shortly afterwards there arrived a card of invitation to the governor's ball
already referred to in passing it may be said that such festivities are not infrequent phenomena in county towns for the reason that where governors exist there must take place balls if from the local gentry
there is to be evoked that respectful affection which is every governor's due thenceforth
was an hour spent first of all he strove to make his features assume an air of dignity and importance and then an air of humble but faintly satirical respect and then an air of respect guiltless of any alloy whatsoever next
he practised performing a series of bows to his reflection accompanied with certain murmurs intended to bear a resemblance to a french phrase though chichikov knew not a single word of the gallic tongue lastly came the performing of a series of what i might call
finally he tapped himself lightly on the chin and said ah good old face in the same way when he started to dress himself for the ceremony the level of his high spirits remained unimpaired throughout the process that is to say
and causing a brush to slide from the table to the floor later his entry into the ballroom produced an extraordinary effect every one present came forward to meet him some with cards in their hands
and one man even breaking off a conversation at the most interesting point namely the point that the inferior land court must be made responsible for everything yes in spite of the responsibility of the inferior land court
in turn handed him over to the commissioner of taxes who again committed him to the charge of the town architect even the governor who hitherto had been standing among his womenfolk with a box of sweets in one hand and a lap dog in the other now threw down both sweets and lap dog
indeed not a face was there to be seen on which ecstatic delight or at all events the reflection of other people's ecstatic delight was not painted the same expression may be discerned on the faces of subordinate officials when
the newly arrived director having made his inspection the said officials are beginning to get over their first sense of awe on perceiving that he has found much to commend and that he can even go so far as to jest and utter a few words of smiling approval
a man perhaps who has never before compassed a smile
to right and left did he incline his head in the sidelong yet unconstrained manner that was his wont and never failed to charm the beholder as for the ladies they clustered around him in a shining bevy that was redolent of every species of perfume
of roses of spring violets and of mignonette so much so that instinctively chichikov raised his nose to snuff the air likewise the ladies dresses displayed an endless profusion of taste and variety
then again he snuffed the air when the ladies had to a certain extent returned to their seats he resumed his attempts to discern from glances and expressions which of them could possibly be the unknown authoress
yet though those glances and expressions were too subtle too insufficiently open the difficulty in no way diminished his high spirits easily and gracefully did he exchange agreeable bandinage with one lady
and then approach another one with the short mincing steps usually affected by young old dandies who are fluttering around the fair as he turned not without dexterity to right and left he kept one leg slightly dragging behind the other
like a short tail or comma this trick the ladies particularly admired in short they not only discovered in him a host of recommendations and attractions but also began to see in his face a sort of grand
mars like military expression a thing which as we know never fails to please the feminine eye certain of the ladies even took to bickering over him and on perceiving that he spent most of his time standing near the door
some of their number hastened to occupy chairs nearer to his post of vantage in fact when a certain dame chanced to have the good fortune to anticipate a hated rival in the race there very nearly ensued a most lamentable scene
which to many of those who had been desirous of doing exactly the same thing seemed a peculiarly horrible instance of brazen faced audacity so deeply did chichikov become plunged in conversation with his fair pursuers or rather
so deeply did those fair pursuers enmesh him in the toils of small talk which they accomplished through the expedient of asking him endless subtle riddles
that he forgot the claims of courtesy which required him first of all to greet his hostess in fact he remembered those claims only on hearing the governor's wife herself addressing him she had been standing before him for several minutes
and now greeted him with suave expressement and the words so here you are paul ivanovitch but what she said next i am not in a position to report for she spoke in the ultra refined tone and vein wherein
ladies and gentlemen customarily express themselves in high class novels which have been written by experts more qualified than i am to describe salons and able to boast of some acquaintance with good society in effect
under similar circumstances by the hero of a fashionable novelette when he stopped short as though thunderstruck before him there was standing not only madame but also a young girl whom she was holding by the hand
his emotion was such that he could not formulate a single intelligible syllable he could merely murmur the devil only knows what though certainly nothing of the kind which would have risen to the lips of the hero of a fashionable novel
i think that you have not met my daughter before said madame she is just fresh from school he replied that he had had the happiness of meeting mademoiselle before and under rather unexpected circumstances
but on his trying to say something further his tongue completely failed him the governor's wife added a word or two and then carried off her daughter to speak to some of the other guests chichikov stood rooted to the spot
like a man who after issuing into the street for a pleasant walk has suddenly come to a halt on remembering that something has been left behind him in a moment as he struggles to recall what that something is
and he no longer sees a single person or a single object in his vicinity in the same way did chichikov suddenly become oblivious to the scene around him
might we poor cumberers of the ground make so bold as to ask you what you are thinking of pray tell us where lie the happy regions in which your thoughts are wandering
might we be informed of the name of her who has plunged you into this sweet abandonment of meditation
but the ladies were not going to let him off so easily every one of them had made up her mind to use upon him her every weapon and to exhibit whatsoever might chance to constitute her best point yet the ladies wiles proved useless
also when seated he continued to peep between his neighbours backs and shoulders until at last he discovered her sitting beside her mother who was wearing a sort of oriental turban and feather upon that
one would have thought that his purpose was to carry the position by storm for whether moved by the influence of spring or whether moved by a push from behind he pressed forward with such desperate resolution that his elbow caused the commissioner of taxes to stagger on his feet
four couples had now begun to thread the mazes of the mazurka in particular was a military staff captain working body and soul and arms and legs to compass such a series of steps as were never before performed even in a dream
however chichikov slipped past the mazurka dancers and almost treading on their heels made his way towards the spot where madame and her daughter were seated yet he approached them with great diffidence and none of his late mincing and prancing
nevertheless something strange something which he could not altogether explain had come upon him
had suddenly become a thing remote that the orchestra had withdrawn behind a hill and the scene grown misty like the carelessly painted in background of a picture and from that misty void there could be seen glimmering only the delicate outlines of the bewitching maiden
somehow her exquisite shape reminded him of an ivory toy in such fair white transparent relief did it stand out against the dull blur of the surrounding throng herein we see a phenomenon not infrequently observed
the phenomenon of the chichikovs of this world becoming temporarily poets at all events for a moment or two our chichikov felt that he was a young man again if not exactly a military officer on perceiving an empty chair beside the mother and daughter
or utter a compliment which he has elaborated not without a certain measure of intelligence however strongly the said compliment may smack of a book of a surety the thing will fall flat even a witticism from him will be laughed at far more by him himself
these comments i have interposed for the purpose of explaining to the reader why as our hero conversed the maiden began to yawn blind to this however he continued to relate to her sundry adventures which had befallen him in different parts of the world meanwhile
as need hardly be said the rest of the ladies had taken umbrage at his behaviour one of them purposely stalked past him to intimate to him the fact as well as to jostle the governor's daughter and let the flying end of a scarf flick her face
and no matter how much he might be a millionaire and include in his expression of countenance an indefinable element of grandness and martial ardour there are certain things which no lady will pardon whosoever be the person concerned
we know that at governor's balls it is customary for the onlookers to compose verses at the expense of the dancers and in this case the verses were directed to chichikov's address briefly the prevailing dissatisfaction grew
until a tacit edict of proscription had been issued against both him and the poor young maiden but an even more unpleasant surprise was in store for our hero
and also touched lightly upon the subject of greek philosophy there appeared from an adjoining room the figure of nozdrev whether he had come from the buffet or whether he had issued from a little green retreat where a game more strenuous than whist had been in progress
or whether he had left the latter resort unaided or whether he had been expelled therefrom is unknown but at all events when he entered the ballroom he was in an elevated condition and leading by the arm the public prosecutor
nozdrev descried our hero and bore down upon him ah my fine landowner of kherson he cried with a smile which set his fresh spring rose pink cheeks a quiver have you been doing much trade in departed souls lately
with that he turned to the governor i suppose your excellency knows that this man traffics in dead peasants he bawled look here chichikov i tell you in the most friendly way possible that every one here likes you yes including even the governor
nevertheless had i my way i would hang you yes by god i would chichikov's discomfiture was complete and would you believe it your excellency went on nozdrev but this fellow actually said to me sell me your dead souls
and he wanted to bargain with me for my dead ones look here chichikov you are a swine yes by god you are an utter swine
were too taken aback to reply the half tipsy nozdrev without noticing them continued his harangue as before ah my fine sir he cried this time i don't mean to let you go
no not until i have learnt what all this purchasing of dead peasants means look here you ought to be ashamed of yourself yes i say that i who am one of your best friends here he turned to the governor again
your excellency he continued you would never believe what inseperables this man and i have been indeed if you had stood there and said to me nozdrev tell me on your honour which of the two you love best your father or chichikov i should have replied
but allow me to imprint at least one baiser upon your lily white cheek and in his efforts to force upon chichikov what he termed his baisers he came near to measuring his length upon the floor every one now edged away and turned a deaf ear to his further babblings
but his words on the subject of the purchase of dead souls had none the less been uttered at the top of his voice and been accompanied with such uproarious laughter that the curiosity even of those who had happened to be sitting or standing in the remoter corners of the room had been aroused
which circumstance still further increased his confusion that nozdrev was a notorious liar every one of course knew and that he should have given vent to an idiotic outburst of this sort had surprised no one but a dead soul well
he felt much as does a man who shod with well polished boots has just stepped into a dirty stinking puddle he tried to put away from him the occurrence and to expand and to enjoy himself once more nay he even took a hand at whist
but all was of no avail matters kept going as awry as a badly bent hoop twice he blundered in his play and the president of the council was at a loss to understand how his friend paul ivanovitch lately so good and so circumspect a player
and long before the hour when usually he returned to the inn in his little room with its door of communication blocked with a wardrobe his frame of mind remained as uncomfortable as the chair in which he was seated his heart ached with a dull unpleasant sensation
with a sort of oppressive emptiness the devil take those who first invented balls was his reflection who derives any real pleasure from them in this province there exist want and scarcity everywhere yet folk go in for balls
how absurd too were those overdressed women one of them must have had a thousand roubles on her back and all acquired at the expense of the overtaxed peasant or worse still at that of the conscience of her neighbour
yes we all know why bribes are accepted and why men become crooked in soul it is all done to provide wives yes may the pit swallow them up with fal lals and for what purpose
yet what folly balls are they do not consort with the russian spirit and genius and the devil only knows why we have them a grown middle aged man a man dressed in black and looking as stiff as a poker
that one does not care even to think of it it also leaves one's head perfectly empty even as does the exertion of talking to a man of the world a man of that kind chatters away and touches lightly upon every conceivable subject
and talks in smooth fluent phrases which he has culled from books without grazing their substance whereas go and have a chat with a tradesman who knows at least one thing thoroughly and through the medium of experience
even as it certainly is in life are therefore such functions right or wrong one would answer that the devil alone knows and then spit and close the book
with it all however there went a second source of dissatisfaction
as against the fact that at this particular one he had been exposed he had been made to disclose the circumstance that he had been playing a strange an ambiguous part of course when he reviewed the contretemps in the light of pure reason
he could not but see that it mattered nothing and that a few rude words were of no account now that the chief point had been attained yet man is an odd creature
yet he was not angry with himself of that you may be sure seeing that all of us have a slight weakness for sparing our own faults and always do our best to find some fellow creature upon whom to vent our displeasure
in the same way chichikov sought a scapegoat upon whose shoulders he could lay the blame for all that had annoyed him he found one in nozdrev and you may be sure that the scapegoat in question received a good drubbing from every side
even as an experienced captain or chief of police will give a knavish starosta or postboy a rating not only in the terms become classical but also in such terms as the said captain or chief of police may invent for himself
that is to say through the outlying streets and alleys of the town there was clattering a vehicle to which it would be difficult precisely to assign a name seeing that though it was of a species peculiar to itself it most nearly resembled a large rickety water melon on wheels
eventually this monstrosity drew up at the gates of a house where the archpriest of one of the churches resided and from its doors there leapt a damsel clad in a jerkin and wearing a scarf over her head for a while
she thumped the gates so vigorously as to set all the dogs barking then the gates stiffly opened and admitted this unwieldy phenomenon of the road lastly the barinia herself alighted and stood revealed as madame korobotchka
widow of a collegiate secretary the reason of her sudden arrival was that she had felt so uneasy about the possible outcome of chichikov's whim that during the three nights following his departure she had been unable to sleep a wink whereafter
in spite of the fact that her horses were not shod she had set off for the town in order to learn at first hand how the dead souls were faring and whether which might god forfend she had not sold them at something like a third of their true value
clean and split the fish and let stand for an hour in melted butter seasoned with salt pepper and sweet herbs sprinkle with crumbs broil squeeze lemon juice over then serve
and a little thyme drain sprinkle with crumbs and chopped herbs and broil carefully serve with any preferred sauce broiled
put a strip of bacon in place of the bone tie the fish into its original shape and broil over a clear fire garnish with fried parsley
put the fish into cold court bouillon bring to the boiling point and simmer for six minutes drain and serve with cream sauce boiled
and boil it in salted and acidulated water to cover adding an onion a stalk of celery and a bunch of parsley when done drain and keep warm
add an onion three cloves three stalks of celery four bay leaves a small bunch of parsley a teaspoonful of peppercorns and a little salt cover boil until done
dip in seasoned flour or corn meal and saute in butter or salt pork fat fried fillets of trout
remove the fillets from slices of sea trout dip in beaten egg then in seasoned crumbs and fry in deep fat serve with tartar sauce
removing the bone season with lemon juice chopped onion and minced parsley and cover with a very thick cream sauce
fillets of trout a l'aurore saute the fillets of a cleaned trout in butter seasoning with salt and pepper drain and serve with aurora sauce baked trout
scrape and clean the trout stuff with seasoned crumbs and put into a buttered baking dish lay a thin slice of salt pork on each fish sprinkle with three or four tablespoonfuls of chopped onions add a can of mushrooms drained from the liquor
and one cupful of stock bake basting frequently
adding more hot water if required brown two tablespoonfuls of flour in butter add half a cupful of cream and enough boiling water to make a smooth thick sauce
season with salt and pepper add a few capers pour around the fish and serve baked trout
butter a baking pan and cover the bottom with thin slices of tomatoes lay the fish upon it sprinkle with salt and pepper add two tablespoonfuls of butter and enough water to keep from burning
fry for a moment in butter season with salt and cayenne
put in a buttered baking pan sprinkle with minced parsley and pour over half a cupful of stock to which two tablespoonfuls of butter have been added bake for half an hour
fry a chopped onion in butter add a tablespoonful of flour and half a cupful of white wine cook until thick stirring constantly and add two tablespoonfuls of butter broken into bits
pour the sauce over the fillets and bake for fifteen minutes longer baked trout a la chambord split and bone the cleaned fish and put in a buttered baking pan skin side down
sprinkle with salt pepper and crumbs and put into the oven cover the bones and trimmings with cold water adding two tablespoonfuls of butter a sliced onion and two cupfuls of stock boil for half an hour strain add a can of mushrooms chopped
season with salt pepper minced parsley and lemon juice pour over the fish and serve baked trout with mushroom sauce butter a baking dish sprinkle with bread crumbs lay a sea trout upon it
cover with crumbs dot with butter squeeze over the juice of half a lemon and bake adding enough water to keep from burning brown a tablespoonful of flour in butter add the liquid drained from the fish one cupful each of mushroom and oyster liquor
and a wineglassful of madeira cook until thick stirring constantly take from the fire and add a few cooked oysters shrimps and mushrooms season with salt and pepper and serve separately
and three hard boiled eggs chopped very fine serve the sauce separately stuffed trout
put in a buttered baking dish lay in the fish season with salt and pepper cover with crumbs dot with butter pour over a little white wine and bake in the oven serve in the dish in which they were baked
trout baked in papers stuff trout with seasoned crumbs
fastening the papers securely
remove the string and serve in the paper serve any preferred sauce separately trout in cases clean parboil and trim the fish wrap in buttered paper bake and serve with fine herb sauce
boil and skin the fish put on a serving dish cover with allemande sauce and the chopped yolks of hard boiled eggs
add half a wineglassful of white wine a sprig of celery a bay leaf a sprig of thyme two cloves and salt and pepper to season bake in the oven basting frequently take up the fish strain the liquid and add it to a cupful of spanish sauce
with a chopped truffle four cooked mushrooms chopped and a dozen cooked oysters pour the sauce over the fish and serve trout a la chevaliere boil skin trim the fish cover with very thick cream sauce
and let cool dip in crumbs then in egg then in crumbs sprinkle thickly with grated parmesan cheese and bake in a buttered baking dish basting with melted butter as required serve with allemande sauce seasoned with white wine
chopped cooked mushrooms and anchovy essence trout a la geneva
and pour over it a sauce a la gasconne trout a la hussar stuff a cleaned trout through the mouth with butter mixed with finely chopped sweet herbs dip in seasoned oil and broil
drain skin and serve with italian sauce seasoned with butter anchovy paste nutmeg and lemon juice
stuff a large trout with seasoned crumbs and cover it with claret adding mushrooms parsley chopped onion thyme a bay leaf pepper corns and mace to season drain the fish and reduce the liquid by rapid boiling to one cupful
strain mix with allemande sauce seasoning with anchovy paste red pepper and lemon juice
fill the openings with butter highly seasoned with chopped sweet herbs and marinate for an hour in oil drain sprinkle with seasoned bread crumbs mixed with chopped sweet herbs and broil
put in a buttered baking pan skin side down dot with butter season with cayenne sprinkle with chopped anchovies cover with half a pound of grated american cheese and pour over one cupful of sour cream bake for half an hour basting as required
clean and score the fish dip in seasoned flour saute in hot butter and take up brown half a cupful of butter take from the fire
and a teaspoonful of minced parsley
to which a large sliced onion has been added drain and keep warm cook together two tablespoonfuls each of butter and flour and add enough of the liquid drained from the fish to make a thick sauce cook until thick stirring constantly
take from the fire add one cupful of madeira wine and three eggs well beaten put the fish in a buttered baking pan sprinkle with seasoned crumbs cover with mushrooms then with oysters and shrimps pour
the sauce over and bake until the oysters are done serve in the dish in which it was baked steamed trout lay the prepared fish in a steamer and place over boiling water steam until done and serve with plenty of melted butter or egg sauce
wrap a thin slice of salt pork around each one season with salt and pepper wrap in buttered paper fasten firmly and bake in a slow oven for twenty minutes serve in the papers escalloped trout
cover a cut of sturgeon with salted and acidulated water add an onion six cloves a slice of carrot three bay leaves a small bunch of parsley and a cupful of wine simmer slowly until done
drain and serve with some of the cooking liquor thickened with flour browned in butter
parboil sturgeon steaks for fifteen minutes drain wipe dry season with salt and pepper and broil serve with melted butter
drain season and broil basting with melted butter as required season with melted butter and garnish with lemon quarters and parsley or brown a tablespoonful of flour in butter add half a cupful of cold water
and cook until thick stirring constantly season with salt
or anchovy essence bring to the boil pour over the fish and serve fried sturgeon
parboil slices of sturgeon in milk for fifteen minutes drain dip in beaten egg
dip into egg and crumbs fry in fat to cover and serve with any preferred sauce baked sturgeon
skin a large cut of sturgeon parboil for fifteen minutes drain cover with a marinade of oil and vinegar and let stand for an hour
gash the surface deeply and fill the incision with a force meat of bread crumbs and minced salt pork seasoning with lemon juice pepper and minced parsley
add enough boiling water to keep from burning and bake until done basting often baked sturgeon
drain and parboil in fresh water make a stuffing of bread crumbs chopped salt pork sweet herbs and enough melted butter to make a smooth paste score the upper side of the fish deeply and fill the gashes with the stuffing
and bake for an hour basting as required serve with drawn butter sauce seasoned with capers and catsup
after the fish has cooked for an hour remove the pork and drop it into the pan pour a wineglassful of sherry over the fish spread with butter and dredge thickly with flour bake until the fish is a rich brown color
take out the pork and add enough boiling water to the liquid in the pan to make the required quantity of sauce thicken with butter and flour cooked together strain and serve with the fish
clean two pounds of sturgeon bind into shape with tape and put it into a buttered saucepan with acidulated water to cover add an onion
drain and keep warm take enough of the strained liquid to make a sauce and thicken with butter and flour cooked together
and the juice of a lemon pour over the fish and serve sturgeon a la normandy
dredge with flour and brown in the oven basting with melted butter bone and skin two anchovies and put them into a saucepan with a wineglassful of white wine a small onion a bit of lemon peel and a cupful of stock
boil for five minutes strain thicken with flour and butter cooked together take from the fire add two tablespoonfuls of cream and pour over the fish or serve separately stewed sturgeon
marinate slices of sturgeon in vinegar for ten minutes drain dry dredge with flour and fry brown in hot fat add enough veal stock to cover the fish and a wineglassful of madeira cover and simmer for an hour
put a large sturgeon steak into a buttered baking pan with salt pepper sliced onion a bunch of parsley and some sweet herbs add claret and white stock to cover cover with a buttered paper and cook slowly until done
drain and serve with any preferred sauce
let stand for five minutes and drain marinate for five hours in melted butter lemon juice and vinegar seasoning with salt and pepper drain
cut two pounds of sturgeon into squares parboil drain and cool cook together one tablespoonful each of butter and flour add two cupfuls of milk and some of the liquid drained from the fish cook until thick stirring constantly
season with salt and pepper pour over the fish and serve pickled sturgeon skin a six pound cut of sturgeon and soak in cold water for half an hour drain
cover with boiling water parboil for fifteen minutes drain and cool bring to the boil three pints of vinegar
to which has been added a sliced onion two bay leaves a dozen cloves three blades of mace a tablespoonful of mustard seed a dozen pepper corns a small red pepper
season with salt and pepper and wrap in a large sheet of buttered paper with carrots and onions sliced two bay leaves sprigs of chive and parsley the juice of a lemon and a tablespoonful of olive oil
boiled whitefish boil a large whitefish in salted and acidulated water adding a bunch of parsley and a sliced onion to the water drain and serve with any preferred sauce boiled whitefish a la mackinac
clean and split the fish and put into a buttered dripping pan skin side down add enough salted water barely to cover and simmer for half an hour serve with maitre d'hotel sauce and garnish with hard boiled eggs
clean and trim the fish and cut into convenient pieces for serving dip in seasoned flour and saute in hot lard in a frying pan
clean trim and split a large whitefish season with salt pepper and oil and broil garnish with lemon and parsley and serve with tartar sauce broiled
on a wire broiler season with salt and cayenne lay a few thin slices of bacon on top put the broiler on a baking pan and cook in the oven without turning put on a platter add a little butter
and rub hard boiled eggs through a sieve over the fish garnish with parsley and lemon broiled
season with salt and pepper sprinkle with lemon juice and broil
stuff the fish and sew it up put in a buttered baking pan pour in one cupful of vinegar and bake until done basting with butter and hot water
take up the fish and thicken the gravy with two tablespoonfuls of flour browned in butter and rubbed smooth with a little cold water
then in egg then in crumbs and lastly in beaten egg bake in a buttered dripping pan
baking dish drain on brown paper garnish with fried parsley and serve with parsley sauce baked whitefish a la bordeaux stuff a large whitefish with seasoned crumbs put into a buttered baking pan rub with butter
dredge with seasoned flour add one cupful of claret and bake take up the fish strain the liquid add a little more claret thicken with flour brown in butter season with red pepper and serve separately stuffed whitefish
make a stuffing of bread crumbs seasoning with salt pepper sweet herbs and melted butter add a beaten egg to bind stuff the fish and sew up bake slowly basting with melted butter and water and serve with tartar sauce
stuffed whitefish with oyster sauce make a stuffing of two cupfuls of bread crumbs half a cupful of chopped salt pork fried crisp a chopped hard boiled egg half a cupful of vinegar and salt pepper
add two cupfuls of milk and cook until thick stirring constantly season with salt pepper grated onion minced parsley and grated nutmeg
add also the white of an egg well beaten put the fish on a serving dish spread the sauce over it and brown in the oven
drain remove the large bones
sprinkle with chopped onion and minced parsley seasoning with grated nutmeg
butter a baking dish put in a layer of fish cover with sauce season with grated nutmeg and repeat until the dish is full cover with crumbs dot with butter and brown in the oven
cook until thick stirring constantly seasoning with salt pepper lemon juice minced parsley grated onion and a tablespoonful of vinegar butter a baking dish put in a layer of the fish cover with sauce and repeat until the dish is full
cover with crumbs dot with butter and brown in the oven
skin side down season with salt red pepper and lemon juice add enough boiling water to keep from burning and bake serve with maitre d'hotel sauce
butter a fish plank and tack a large cleaned and split whitefish on it skin side down rub with butter season with salt and pepper and cook in the oven or under a gas flame put a border of mashed potato
mixed with the beaten white of egg around the fish using a pastry tube and forcing bag put into the oven for a few minutes to brown the potato
cook together one tablespoonful of butter and two of flour add two cupfuls of milk and cook until thick stirring constantly season with parsley thyme grated onion salt and pepper take from the fire
add two eggs well beaten and three tablespoonfuls of butter put in a buttered baking dish a layer of fish
having crumbs and butter on top brown in the oven jellied whitefish boil two pounds of whitefish in salted and acidulated water
with four bay leaves a tablespoonful of pepper corns and half a dozen cloves take out the fish strain the liquid and reduce by rapid boiling to a quantity barely sufficient to cover the fish
add the juice of a lemon and two ounces of dissolved gelatine flake the fish with a fork removing all skin fat and bone mix with the liquid pour into a fish mould wet with cold water and put on ice until firm
wash the fish carefully and soak it for an hour in salted water drain and rinse in fresh water with a sharp knife score the black skin in a straight line from head to tail
boil the fish in salted and acidulated water to cover drain garnish with parsley and lemon and serve with any preferred sauce broiled turbot
clean a small turbot and marinate for an hour in seasoned oil and vinegar or lemon juice drain broil and serve with any preferred sauce
and lemon juice seasoned with sliced carrot onion bay leaf thyme
rub through a sieve thicken with butter and flour cooked together
minced parsley and capers pour over the fish and serve baked turbot rub a small cleaned turbot with melted butter sprinkle with minced parsley powdered mace and salt and pepper to season
let stand for an hour and put into a buttered baking dish
bake and serve with any preferred sauce turbot
cut cold cooked turbot into small fillets brown half a cupful of butter
add a quart of cream and cook until thick stirring constantly season with pepper salt minced parsley and grated onion butter a baking dish put in a layer of cold cooked turbot flaked fine
cover with sauce and repeat until the dish is full having sauce on top sprinkle with crumbs dot with butter
sprinkle with chopped eggs and parsley turbot au gratin
remove the skin fat and bone from cold turbot and flake fine with a fork fry in butter a slice of onion chopped a small slice of carrot minced a bit of bay leaf and a pinch of mace
add a tablespoonful of flour one cupful of milk
dot with butter and brown in the oven
drain and cool flake with a fork
half a cupful of grated parmesan cheese and lemon juice and grated nutmeg to season mix lightly
sprinkle with parmesan cheese dot with butter and brown in the oven cream may be poured over the fish before sprinkling with the crumbs
clean a medium sized turbot and make a deep incision down the back from head to tail rub with lemon juice and boil in salted and acidulated water until tender drain and serve with hollandaise sauce
cover with a very stiff cream sauce sprinkle with crumbs dip in beaten egg then in seasoned crumbs and fry serve with any preferred sauce
sauce fillets of turbot soak a medium sized turbot in salted water for half an hour drain rinse in fresh water and cut into fillets
if what the boy says is correct it sounds as if the person whom you are seeking may have had a finger in the pie i was of the same opinion as apparently were lessingham and sidney atherton collared the youth by the shoulder which mister pleesman had left disengaged
what sort of looking bloke is it who's been murdered i dunno i aven't seen im missus enderson she says to me gustus barley she says a bloke's been murdered
and left im behind up in my back room you run as ard as you can tear and tell them there dratted pleese what's so fond of shovin their dirty noses into respectable people's ouses so i comes and tells yer that's all i knows about it
we went four in the hansom which had been waiting in the street to missus henderson's in paradise place the inspector and we three mister pleesman and gustus barley followed on foot the inspector was explanatory
missus henderson keeps a sort of lodging house a sailors home she calls it but no one could call it sweet it doesn't bear the best of characters and if you asked me what i thought of it i should say in plain english that it was a disorderly house
paradise place proved to be within three or four hundred yards of the station house so far as could be seen in the dark it consisted of a row of houses of considerable dimensions and also of considerable antiquity
they opened on to two or three stone steps which led directly into the street at one of the doors stood an old lady with a shawl drawn over her head this was missus henderson she greeted us with garrulous volubility
i thought you never was a comin that i did she recognised the inspector it's you mister phillips is it perceiving us she drew a little back who's them ere parties they ain't coppers
mister phillips dismissed her inquiry curtly never you mind who they are what's this about someone being murdered ssh the old lady glanced round don't you speak so loud mister phillips
no one don't know nothing about it as yet the parties what's in my ouse is most respectable most and they couldn't abide the notion of there being police about the place
missus henderson led the way up a staircase which would have been distinctly the better for repairs it was necessary to pick one's way as one went and as the light was defective stumbles were not infrequent
from some mysterious recess in her apparel she produced a key
i locked the door so that nothing mightn't be disturbed i knows ow particular you pleesmen is she turned the key we all went in we this time in front and she behind
a candle was guttering on a broken and dilapidated single washhand stand a small iron bedstead stood by its side the clothes on which were all tumbled and tossed
i could see nothing in the shape of a murdered man nor it appeared could the inspector either what's the meaning of this missus henderson i don't see anything here it's be'ind the bed mister phillips i left im just where i found im
the relief in his tone was unmistakable that the one was gone was plainly nothing to him in comparison with the fact that the other was left thrusting the bed more into the centre of the room i knelt down beside the man on the floor
i doubt if there was an ounce of flesh on the whole of his body his cheeks and the sockets of his eyes were hollow the skin was drawn tightly over his cheek bones the bones themselves were staring through even his nose was wasted
so that nothing but a ridge of cartilage remained i put my arm beneath his shoulder and raised him from the floor no resistance was offered by the body's gravity he was as light as a little child i doubt i said if this man has been murdered
it looks to me like a case of starvation or exhaustion possibly a combination of both what's that on his neck asked the inspector he was kneeling at my side he referred to two abrasions of the skin one on either side of the man's neck
they look to me like scratches they seem pretty deep but i don't think they're sufficient in themselves to cause death they might be joined to an already weakened constitution is there anything in his pockets let's lift him on to the bed
we lifted him on to the bed a featherweight he was to lift while the inspector was examining his pockets to find them empty a tall man with a big black beard came bustling in he proved to be doctor glossop
the local police surgeon who had been sent for before our quitting the station house his first pronouncement made as soon as he commenced his examination was under the circumstances sufficiently startling i don't believe the man's dead
why didn't you send for me directly you found him the question was put to missus henderson well doctor glossop
because as i've said afore i know ow particular them pleesmen is
you'll find it a joke if you have to hang as you ought to you the doctor said what he did say to himself
i doubt if it was flattering to missus henderson have you got any brandy in the house
everythink then suddenly remembering that the police were present and that hers were not exactly licensed premises leastways we can send out for it for them parties as gives us the money being as is well known always willing to oblige then send for some
to the tap downstairs if that's the nearest if this man dies before you've brought it i'll have you locked up as sure as you're a living woman the arrival of the brandy was not long delayed but the man on the bed had regained consciousness before it came
as if this big bearded man was something altogether strange atherton bent down beside the doctor i'm glad to see you looking better mister holt you know me don't you i've been running about after you all day long you are you are
the man's eyes closed as if the effort at recollection exhausted him he kept them closed as he continued to speak i know who you are you are the gentleman yes that's it i'm the gentleman name of atherton
miss lindon's friend and i daresay you're feeling pretty well done up and in want of something to eat and drink here's some brandy for you the doctor had some in a tumbler he raised the patient's head allowing it to trickle down his throat
to be more prominent than ever the doctor laid him back upon the bed feeling his pulse with one hand while he stood and regarded him in silence then turning to the inspector he said to him in an undertone if you want him to make a statement he'll have to make it now he's going fast
on his skeleton features there came a look of panic fear he was evidently struggling to speak at last words came the beetle he stopped then after an effort spoke again the beetle what's he mean
is that the meaning of the marks upon your neck the beetle killed me the lids closed the man relapsed into a state of lethargy the inspector was puzzled and said so what's he mean about a beetle atherton replied
i think i understand what he means and my friends do too we'll explain afterwards in the meantime i think i'd better get as much out of him as i can while there's time yes said the doctor his hand upon the patient's pulse while there's time
there isn't much only seconds sydney endeavoured to rouse the man from his stupor you've been with miss lindon all the afternoon and evening haven't you mister holt atherton had reached a chord in the man's consciousness
miss lindon is disguised in your old clothes isn't she yes in my old clothes my god and where is miss lindon now the man had been speaking with his eyes closed now he opened them wide
there came into them the former staring horror he became possessed by uncontrollable agitation half raising himself in bed words came from his quivering lips as if they were only drawn from him by the force of his anguish
the beetle's going to kill miss lindon a momentary paroxysm seemed to shake the very foundations of his being his whole frame quivered he fell back on to the bed ominously the doctor examined him in silence
while we too were still this time he's gone for good there'll be no conjuring him back again i felt a sudden pressure on my arm and found that lessingham was clutching me with probably unconscious violence the muscles of his face were twitching
he trembled i turned to the doctor doctor if there is any of that brandy left will you let me have it for my friend lessingham disposed of the remainder of the shillings worth
now missus henderson perhaps you'll tell us what all this means who is this man and how did he come in here and who came in with him and what do you know about it altogether
chapter four stephen gresham was in his early sixties
as rand entered he rose from behind his desk and advanced smiling cordially why hello jeff he greeted the detective grasping his hand heartily you haven't been around for months
what have you been doing and why don't you come out to rosemont to see us dot and irene were wondering what had become of you i'm afraid i've been neglecting too many of my old friends lately rand admitted sitting down and getting his pipe out
been busy as the devil fact is it was business that finally brought me around here i understand that you and some others are forming a pool to buy the lane fleming collection yes gresham became enthusiastic want in on it
i'm sure the others would be glad to have you in with us we're going to need all the money we can scrape together with this damned rivers bidding against us i'm afraid you will at that stephen rand told him and not necessarily on account of rivers
you see the fleming estate has just employed me to expertize the collection and handle the sale for them rand got his pipe lit and drawing properly i hate doing this to you but you know how it is
humphrey goode isn't competent to handle that what we were all afraid of was a public auction at some sales gallery rand shook his head worst thing they could do a collection like that would go for peanuts at auction
remember the big sales in the twenties why here i'm going to be in rosemont staying at the fleming place working on the collection for the next week or so i suppose your crowd wouldn't want to make an offer until i have everything listed but i'd like to talk to your associates
in a group as soon as possible well we all know pretty much what's in the collection gresham said we were neighbors of his and collectors are a gregarious lot but we aren't anxious to make any premature offers
we don't want to offer more than we have to and at the same time we don't want to underbid and see the collection sold elsewhere no of course not
why jeff i appreciate that gresham said i think you're entirely within your rights but naturally we won't mention this outside i can imagine arnold rivers for instance taking a very righteous view of such an arrangement yes so can i
of course if he'd call me a crook i'd take that as a compliment rand said i wonder if i could meet your group say tomorrow evening i want to be in a position to assure the fleming family and humphrey goode that you're all serious and responsible
and i think we're all responsible you can look us up if you wish besides myself there is philip cabot of cabot joyner and teale whom you know and adam trehearne who's worth about a half million in industrial shares and colin mac bride
at about twenty thousand a year and pierre jarrett and his fiancee karen lawrence pierre was a marine captain invalided home after being wounded on peleliu he writes science fiction for the pulps
tell you what i'll call a meeting at my place tomorrow evening say at eight thirty that suit you that rand agreed would be all right gresham asked him how recently he had seen the fleming collection about two years ago right after i got back from germany
over a hundred u s martials including the eighteen eighteen springfield all the s north types
and about a hundred and fifty colts all models and most variants remember that big whitneyville walker in original condition he got that one in nineteen twenty four at the fred hines sale at the old walpole galleries
and seven paterson colts including a couple of cased sets and anything else you can think of a hall flintlock breech loader an elisha collier flintlock revolver a pair of forsythe detonator lock pistols oh that's a collection to end collections
did you notice that they had slant eyes he stopped laughing and looked at gresham seriously just how much more of that sort of thing do you think i'm going to have to weed out of the collection before i can offer it for sale he asked gresham shook his head they're all
he must have let himself get hypnotized by all that ivory and gold and all that documentation on crested notepaper you know fleming's death was an undeserved stroke of luck for arnold rivers
if he hadn't been killed just when he was he'd have run rivers out of the old arms business i notice that rivers isn't advertising in the american rifleman any more rand observed no
the national rifle association stopped his ad and lifted his membership card for good measure gresham said rivers sold a rifle to a collector down in virginia about three years ago while you were still occupying germany
elmer umholtz who does all his fraudulent conversions for him i have an example of umholtz's craftsmanship myself the collector who bought this spurious flintlock spotted what had been done and squawked to the rifle association and to the postal authorities
rivers claimed i suppose that he had gotten it from a family that had owned it ever since it was made and showed letters signed d boone and davy crockett to prove it
gresham replied he convinced uncle whiskers but the n r a took a slightly dimmer view of the transaction so rivers doesn't advertise in the rifleman any more
you know umholtz is a really fine gunsmith
umholtz made the stock and fitted a scope sight it's a beautiful little rifle i hate to see him prostitute his talents the way he does by making these fake antiques for rivers
for colonel walker's texas rangers you know the model he couldn't find any of in eighteen forty seven when he made the real walker colt that story you find in sawyer's book why that story's been absolutely disproved rand said there never was any such revolver
not till umholtz made one gresham replied rivers sold it to he named a moving picture bigshot for twenty five hundred dollars his story was that he picked it up in mexico in nineteen thirty eight
that's all fleming was expecting to do about those wheel locks i'm not fleming he could afford litigation like that i can't i want my money and if i don't get it in cash i'm going to beat it out of that dirty little swindler's hide
gresham frowned i really don't know i didn't see it
you know one of those imitation colt navy models that were made in the south during the civil war rand nodded he was familiar with the type
the story is that fleming found it hanging back of the counter at some roadside lunch stand along with a lot of other old pistols and talked the proprietor into letting it go for a few dollars gresham continued
he shook his head i can't believe that jeff lane fleming would know a loaded revolver when he saw one i believe he deliberately shot himself and the family faked the accident and fixed the authorities the police never made any investigation
i have well sources of inside information this is in confidence so don't quote me
he inspected the tip of his cigar and knocked off the ash into the tray at his elbow
what was hidden under the floor the cab pulled up
the whole place a living monument of the defeat of the speculative builder atherton leaped out on to the grass grown rubble which was meant for a footpath i don't see marjorie looking for me on the doorstep nor did i
i saw nothing but what appeared to be an unoccupied ramshackle brick abomination suddenly sydney gave an exclamation hullo the front door's closed i was hard at his heels
it looks as if i've made an idiot of myself after all and marjorie's returned let's hope to goodness that i have he knocked while we waited for a response i questioned him why did you leave the door open when you went i hardly know
i imagine that it was with some dim idea of marjorie's being able to get in if she returned while i was absent but the truth is i was in such a condition of helter skelter that i am not prepared to swear that i had any reasonable reason i suppose there is no doubt that you did leave it open
were there any signs of a struggle none there were no signs of anything everything was just as i had left it with the exception of the ring which i trod on in the passage and which lessingham has
if miss lindon has returned it does not look as if she were in the house at present it did not unless silence had such meaning atherton had knocked loudly three times without succeeding in attracting the slightest notice from within
it strikes me that this is another case of seeking admission through that hospitable window at the back atherton led the way to the rear lessingham and i followed
there was not even a fence of any sort to serve as an enclosure and to shut off the house from the wilderness of waste land the kitchen window was open i asked sydney if he had left it so i don't know i dare say we did
i don't fancy that either of us stood on the order of his coming while he spoke he scrambled over the sill we followed when he was in he shouted at the top of his voice marjorie marjorie speak to me marjorie it is i sydney
the words echoed through the house only silence answered he led the way to the front room suddenly he stopped hollo he cried the blind's down i had noticed when we were outside that the blind was down at the front room window
it was up when i went that i'll swear that someone has been here is pretty plain let's hope it's marjorie
my stars here's a sudden clearance why the place is empty everything's clean gone
atherton was staring about him as if he found it difficult to credit the evidence of his own eyes how long ago is it since you left he referred to his watch something over an hour possibly an hour and a half
i couldn't swear to the exact moment but it certainly isn't more did you notice any signs of packing up not a sign going to the window he drew up the blind speaking as he did so
the queer thing about this business is that when we first got in this blind wouldn't draw up a little bit so since it wouldn't go up i pulled it down roller and all
standing at sydney's back i saw that the cabman on his box was signalling to us with his outstretched hand sydney perceived him too he threw up the sash what's the matter with you
i followed rather more soberly his methods were a little too flighty for me when i reached the landing dashing out of the front room he rushed into the one at the back then through a door at the side he came out shouting
what's the idiot mean with his old gent i'd old gent him if i got him there's not a creature about the place he returned into the front room i at his heels that certainly was empty
and not only empty but it showed no traces of recent occupation the dust lay thick upon the floor there was that mouldy earthy smell which is so frequently found in apartments which have been long untenanted are you sure atherton that there is no one at the back
jehu's drunk throwing up the sash he addressed the driver what do you mean with your old gent at the window what window that window sir go to you're dreaming man there's no one here
begging your pardon sir but there was someone there not a minute ago imagination cabman the slant of the light on the glass or your eyesight's defective excuse me sir but it's not my imagination and my eyesight's as good as any man's in england
and as for the slant of the light on the glass there ain't much glass for the light to slant on i saw him peeping through that bottom broken pane on your left hand as plainly as i see you
he's at the back ain't there a cupboard nor nothing where he could hide the cabman's manner was so extremely earnest that i went myself to see there was a cupboard on the landing but the door of that stood wide open and that obviously was bare
the room behind was small and despite the splintered glass in the window frame stuffy fragments of glass kept company with the dust on the floor together with a choice collection of stones brickbats and other missiles which not improbably were the cause of their being there
in the corner stood a cupboard but a momentary examination showed that that was as bare as the other the door at the side which sydney had left wide open opened on to a closet and that was empty i glanced up
there was no trap door which led to the roof no practicable nook or cranny in which a living being could lie concealed was anywhere at hand
how could you see what wasn't there that's what i want to know as i drove up before you told me to stop i saw him looking through the window the one at which you are he'd got his nose glued to the broken pane and was staring as hard as he could stare
and i supposed that he wasn't so anxious to let you in as you might be to get inside
or that something would happen but when you pulls up the blind downstairs
he shoves his old nose right through the smash in the pane and wags his old head at me like a chattering magpie that didn't seem to me quite the civil thing to do i hadn't done no harm to him so i gives you the office and lets you know that he was there
but for you to say that he wasn't there and never had been blimey that cops the biscuit if he wasn't there all i can say is i ain't here and my orse ain't here and my cab ain't neither damn it the house ain't here and nothing ain't
that the man was serious was unmistakable as he himself suggested what inducement could he have had to tell a lie like that that he believed himself to have seen what he declared he saw was plain but on the other hand
what could have become in the space of fifty seconds of his old gent atherton put a question what did he look like this old gent of yours well that i shouldn't hardly like to say
it wasn't much of his face i could see only his face and his eyes and they wasn't pretty he kept a thing over his head all the time as if he didn't want too much to be seen
why one of them cloak sort of things like them arab blokes used to wear what used to be at earl's court exhibition you know this piece of information seemed to interest my companions more than anything he had said before a burnoose do you mean
how am i to know what the thing's called i ain't up in foreign languages
when he gets off his knees to sneak away from the window i could see that he had his cloak thing what was over his head wrapped all round him mister lessingham turned to me all quivering with excitement i believe that what he says is true
then where can this mysterious old gentleman have got to can you suggest an explanation it is strange to say the least of it that the cabman should be the only person to see or hear anything of him some devil's trick has been played
i know it i feel it my instinct tells me so i stared in such a matter one hardly expects a man of paul lessingham's stamp to talk of instinct atherton stared too then on a sudden he burst out
by the lord i believe the apostle's right the whole place reeks to me of hankey pankey it did as soon as i put my nose inside in matters of prestidigitation champnell we westerns are among the rudiments
we've everything to learn orientals leave us at the post if their civilisation's what we're pleased to call extinct their conjuring when you get to know it is all alive oh he moved towards the door
having removed it we peered into the cavity it disclosed there was something there
riverside drive slept the moon shone on darkened windows and deserted sidewalks it was past one o'clock in the morning the wicked forties were still ablaze with light and noisy foxtrots but in the virtuous hundreds
where mister pett's house stood respectable slumber reigned only the occasional drone of a passing automobile broke the silence or the love sick cry of some feline romeo patrolling a wall top jimmy was awake
he was sitting on the edge of his bed watching his father put the finishing touches to his make up which was of a shaggy and intimidating nature the elder crocker had conceived the outward aspect of chicago ed king of the kidnappers
on broad and impressive lines and one glance would have been enough to tell the sagacious observer that here was no white souled comrade for a nocturnal saunter down lonely lanes and out of the way alleys mister crocker seemed to feel this himself
the only trouble is jim he said peering at himself in the glass shan't i scare the boy to death directly he sees me
how do you suggest sending him a formal note mister crocker surveyed his repellent features doubtfully it's a good deal to spring on a kid at one in the morning he said suppose he has a fit he's far more likely to give you one
don't you worry about ogden dad i shouldn't think there was a child alive more equal to handling such a situation there was an empty glass standing on a tray on the dressing table mister crocker eyed this sadly i wish you hadn't thrown that stuff away jim
i could have done with it i'm feeling nervous nonsense dad you're all right i had to throw it away i'm on the wagon now but how long i should have stayed on with that smiling up at me i don't know
i've made up my mind never to lower myself to the level of the beasts that perish with the demon rum again because my future wife has strong views on the subject but there's no sense in taking chances temptation is all very well but you don't need it on your dressing table
it was a kindly thought of yours to place it there dad but eh i didn't put it there i thought that sort of thing came in your department isn't it the butler's job to supply drinks to the nobility and gentry well it doesn't matter
it is now distributed over the neighbouring soil thus removing a powerful temptation from your path you're better without it he looked at his watch well it ought to be all right now he went to the window there's an automobile down there i suppose it's jerry
i told him to be outside at one sharp and it's nearly half past i think you might be starting dad oh by the way you had better tell ogden that you represent a gentleman of the name of buck maginnis it was buck who got away with him last time
and a firm friendship seems to have sprung up between them there's nothing like coming with a good introduction mister crocker took a final survey of himself in the mirror gee i i'd hate to meet myself on a lonely road he opened the door and stood for a moment listening
from somewhere down the passage came the murmur of a muffled snore third door on the left said jimmy three count em three don't go getting mixed mister crocker slid into the outer darkness like a stout ghost
and jimmy closed the door gently behind him having launched his indulgent parent safely on a career of crime jimmy switched off the light and returned to the window leaning out he gave himself up for a moment to sentimental musings
the night was very still through the trees which flanked the house the dimmed headlights of what was presumably jerry mitchell's hired car shone faintly like enlarged fire flies a boat of some description was tooting reflectively far down the river
after his father and ogden had passed through and he proposed to remain hid in the gallery there until the time came for him to do this it was imperative that he avoid being seen by ogden locking his door behind him he went downstairs
there were no signs of life in the house everything was still he found the staircase leading to the gallery without having to switch on the lights it was dusty in the gallery and a smell of old leather enveloped him he hoped his father would not be long
mister crocker meanwhile masked to the eyes had crept in fearful silence to the door which jimmy had indicated a good deal of the gay enthusiasm with which he had embarked on this enterprise had ebbed away from him
now that he had become accustomed to the novelty of finding himself once more playing a character part his intimate respectability began to assert itself it was one thing to play chicago ed at a broadway theatre but quite another to give a benefit performance like this
as he tip toed along the passage the one thing that presented itself most clearly to him was the appalling outcome of this act of his should anything go wrong he would have turned back but for the thought that jimmy was depending on him
and that success would mean jimmy's happiness stimulated by this reflection he opened ogden's door inch by inch and went in he stole softly across the room he had almost reached the bed and had just begun to wonder how on earth
when mister crocker had finished blinking and had adjusted his eyes to the glare he perceived ogden sitting up in bed with a revolver in his hand the revolver was resting on his knee and its muzzle pointed directly at mister crocker's ample stomach
exhaustive as had been the thought which jimmy's father had given to the possible developments of his enterprise this was a contingency of which he had not dreamed he was entirely at a loss don't do that he said huskily it might go off
i should worry replied ogden coldly i'm at the right end of it what are you doing here he looked fondly at the lethal weapon i got this with cigarette coupons to shoot rabbits when we went to the country here's where i get a chance at something part human
do you want to murder me why not mister crocker's make up was trickling down his face in sticky streams the mask however prevented ogden from seeing this peculiar phenomenon he was gazing interestedly at his visitor
an idea struck him say did you come to kidnap me mister crocker felt the sense of relief which he had sometimes experienced on the stage when memory had failed him during a scene and a fellow actor had thrown him the line
it would be exaggerating to say that he was himself again he could never be completely at his case with that pistol pointing at him but he felt considerably better he lowered his voice an octave or so and spoke in a husky growl aw cheese it kid
nix on the rough stuff keep those hands up advised ogden sure sure growled mister crocker can the gun play bo say you've soitanly grown since de last time we got youse ogden's manner became magically friendly
dat's right mister crocker blessed the inspiration which had prompted jimmy's parting words i'm wit buck why didn't buck come himself he's woiking on anudder job to mister crocker's profound relief ogden lowered the pistol
i'm strong for buck he said conversationally we're old pals did you see the piece in the paper about him kidnapping me last time i've got it in my press clipping album sure said mister crocker say listen if you take me now buck's got to come across
it's fifty fifty or nothing doing see i get you kid well if that's understood all right give me a minute to get some clothes on and i'll be with you don't make a noise said mister crocker who's making any noise say how did you get in here
i always knew some yegg would stroll in that way it beats me why they didn't have bars fixed on them dere's a buzz wagon outside waitin you do it in style don't you observed ogden pulling on his shirt who's working this with you any one i know
naw a new guy oh say i don't remember you if it comes to that you don't said mister crocker a little discomposed well maybe i wouldn't with that mask on you which of them are you chicago ed s my monaker
i don't remember any chicago ed well you will after dis said mister crocker happily inspired ogden was eyeing him with sudden suspicion take that mask off and let's have a look at you nothing doin
here stop a minute said ogden hastily unwilling that a promising business deal should be abandoned in this summary manner i'm not saying anything against you there's no need to fly off the handle like that i'll tell buck i couldn't get you said mister crocker moving another step
here stop what's the matter with you are youse comin wit me sure if you get the conditions
dat's right buck'll slip youse half of anyt'ing he gets all right then wait till i've got this shoe on and let's start now i'm ready beat it quietly what did you think i was going to do sing
they left the room cautiously mister crocker for a moment had a sense of something missing
the scene had deserved a round jimmy vigilant in the gallery heard the library door open softly and
perceived two dim forms in the darkness one was large the other small they crossed the room together whispered words reached him i thought you said you came in this way sure then why's the shutter closed i fixed it after i was in
there was a faint scraping sound followed by a click the darkness of the room was relieved by moonlight the figures passed through
my boots were somewhat the worse for wear and my old fashioned clothes understood well enough by pioneers along the trail were dilapidated i was not the most presentable specimen for every sort of company
already i had been compelled to say that i was not a corn doctor or any kind of doctor that i did not have patent medicine to sell and that i was not soliciting contributions to support the expedition
but i thought it well to make a campaign of education to get the work before the general public so that congress might know about it therefore a route was laid out to occupy the time until the first of december just before congress would again assemble
the route lay through indianapolis dayton cleveland columbus buffalo albany new york trenton philadelphia and baltimore to washington
for the most part i received a warm welcome all along the route dayton treated me generously mayor badger of columbus wrote giving me the freedom of the city and mayor tom johnson wrote to his chief of police to
treat mister meeker as the guest of the city of cleveland which was done at buffalo a benefit performance for one of the hospitals in the shape of a circus was in preparation
a part of the elaborate program was an attack by indians on an emigrant train the indians being representative young men of the city at this juncture i arrived in the city and was besought to go and represent the train
for which they would pay me no not for pay i said but i will go so there was quite a realistic show in the ring that afternoon and evening and the hospital received more than a thousand dollars benefit
so when we came to the forks of the road i followed the best beaten track and was soon traveling along on the level hard but narrow way the towpath all went well that day
we were not so fortunate the next day however when a boat with three men two women and three long eared mules was squarely met the mules being on the towpath the mules took fright got into a regular mixup
broke the harness and went up the towpath at a two forty gait as i had walked into oneida the night before i did not see the sight or hear the war of words that followed the men ordered marden to
meanwhile swearing at the top of their voices while the women scolded in chorus one of them fairly shrieking my old muzzle loading rifle that we had carried across the plains lay handy when the men started toward him
marden picked up the rifle to show fight and called on the dog jim to take hold of the men as he raised the gun to use it as a club one of the boatmen threw up his hands bawling at the top of his voice don't shoot don't shoot
he forgot to mix in oaths and slunk out of sight behind the wagon the others also drew back jim showed his teeth and a truce followed with but little inconvenience the mules were taken off the path and the ox team was driven past
the fun of it was that the gun that had spread such consternation hadn't been loaded for more than twenty five years
and i had just gone around the corner to engage quarters for the night when this occurred returning i saw the young policeman attempt to move the team but as he didn't know how they wouldn't budge a peg whereupon he arrested my driver and took him away
another policeman tried to coax me to drive the team down to the police station i said no sir i will not he couldn't drive the team to the station and i wouldn't and so there we were to arrest me would make matters worse
called his man off and ordered my driver released it appeared that there was an ordinance against allowing cattle to be driven on the streets of new york of course this was intended to apply to loose cattle
but the policemen interpreted it to mean any cattle and they had the clubs to enforce their interpretation i was in the city and couldn't get out without subjecting myself to arrest according to their view of the law
and in fact i didn't want to get out i wanted to drive down broadway from one end to the other and i did a month later all hands said nothing short of an ordinance by the board of aldermen would clear the way so i tackled the aldermen
the new york herald did the same thing and so it came about that the aldermen passed an ordinance granting me the right of way for thirty days and also endorsed my work i thought my trouble was over when that ordinance was passed not so
the mayor was absent and the acting mayor could not sign an ordinance until after ten days had elapsed the city attorney came in and said the aldermen had exceeded their authority as they could not legally grant a special privilege
considering that no one was likely to test the legality of the ordinance he thought i would be safe in acting as though it were legal just thirty days from the time i had the bother with the policemen and having incurred two hundred and fifty dollars of extra expense
without getting into any serious scrape except with one automobilist who became angered but afterwards was as good as pie thirty days satisfied me with new york
and i would be compelled to move
and at nightfall drove into a stable put the oxen in the stalls and as usual the dog jim in the wagon the next morning jim was gone the stableman said he had left the wagon a few moments after i had and had been stolen
the police accused the stablemen of being parties to the theft in which i think they were right money could not buy that dog he was an integral part of the expedition always on the alert
always watchful of the wagon during my absence and always willing to mind what i bade him do he had had more adventures on this trip than any other member of the outfit
then shortly after he was pitched headlong over a barbed wire fence by an irate cow next came a fight with a wolf following this came a narrow escape from a rattlesnake in the road also a trolley car ran on to him
rolling him over and over again until he came out as dizzy as a drunken man i thought he was a goner that time for sure but he soon straightened up finally in the streets of kansas city he was run over by a heavy truck while fighting with another dog
the other dog was killed outright while jim came near to having his neck broken he lost one of his best fighting teeth and had several others broken i sent him to a veterinary surgeon and
curiously enough he made no protest while having the broken teeth repaired or extracted there was no other way to find jim than to offer a reward i did this and feel sure i paid twenty dollars to one of the parties to the theft
the fellow was brazen enough also to demand pay for keeping him that was the time when i got up and talked pointedly but i had my faithful dog back and i kept him more closely by me while i was making the rest of my tour
six years later it chanced that i lost jim while we were waiting at a station i let him out of the car for a few minutes
missus pett on leaving the luncheon table had returned to the drawing room to sit beside the sick settee of her stricken child she was troubled about ogden the poor lamb was not at all himself to day a bowl of clear soup
no said ogden firmly i'm feeling a lot worse you haven't drunk your nice soup feed it to the cat could you eat a nice bowl of bread and milk precious
she put it down to the reaction from the excitement working on a highly strung temperament to his present collapse the brutal behaviour of jerry mitchell had of course contributed every drop of her maternal blood boiled with rage and horror
whenever she permitted herself to contemplate the excesses of the late jerry she had always mistrusted the man she had never liked his face not merely on aesthetic grounds but because she had seemed to detect in it a lurking savagery
how right events had proved this instinctive feeling missus pett was not vulgar enough to describe the feeling even to herself as a hunch but a hunch it had been and like every one whose hunches have proved correct she was conscious in the midst of her grief
faint snores proceeded from the basket in the corner where aida the pomeranian lay curled in refreshing sleep through the open window floated sounds of warmth and summer yielding to the drowsy calm
missus pett was just nodding into a pleasant nap when the door opened and lord wisbeach came in lord wisbeach had been doing some rapid thinking rapid thought is one of the essentials in the composition of men who are known as gentleman jack to the boys
amounted to the realisation that the best mode of defence is attack it is your man who knows how to play the bold game on occasion who wins a duller schemer than lord wisbeach might have been content to be inactive after such a conversation
as had just taken place between himself and jimmy his lordship giving the matter the concentrated attention of his trained mind had hit on a better plan and he had come to the drawing room now to put it into effect his entrance shattered the peaceful atmosphere
lord wisbeach came out from behind his chair and sat down warily can i have a word with you missus pett certainly lord wisbeach his lordship looked meaningly at ogden in private you know
he then looked meaningly at missus pett ogden darling said missus pett
with surprising docility the boy rose all right he said poor oggie is not at all well to day said missus pett when he was gone he is very subject to these attacks
his lordship drew his chair a little closer missus pett you remember what i told you yesterday of course might i ask what you know of this man who has come here calling himself jimmy crocker missus pett started
she remembered that she had used almost that very expression to ann her suspicions which had been lulled by the prompt recognition of the visitor by skinner and lord wisbeach returned it is one of the effects of a successful hunch that it breeds other hunches
remember what i said to you yesterday but skinner the butler recognised him exactly it goes to prove that what i said about skinner was correct they are working together the thing is self evident look at it from your point of view how simple it is
but why did you i told you that i pretended to accept this man as the real jimmy crocker for a purpose at present there is nothing that you can do mere impersonation is not a crime if i had exposed him when we met
whereas if we wait if we pretend to suspect nothing we shall undoubtedly catch him red handed in an attempt on your nephew's invention you are sure that that is why he has come what other reason could he have
there was not a child in america who had to be more closely guarded why the kidnappers had a special nick name for oggie they called him the little nugget of course then it is quite possible that that may be the man's object
in any case our course must be the same we must watch every move he makes he paused i could help pardon my suggesting it i could help a great deal more if you were to invite me to live in the house you were kind enough to ask me to visit you in the country
but it will be two weeks before you go to the country and in those two weeks you must come here at once lord wisbeach to night
i cannot tell you how grateful i am for all you are doing you have been so kind to me missus pett said lord wisbeach with feeling that it is surely only right that i should try to make some return let us leave it at this then i will come here to night
and will make it my business to watch these two men i will go and pack my things and have them sent here it is wonderful of you lord wisbeach not at all replied his lordship it will be a pleasure
he held out his hand drawing it back rapidly as the dog aida made a snap at it substituting a long range leave taking for the more intimate farewell he left the room when he had gone missus pett remained for some minutes thinking
she was aflame with excitement she had a sensational mind and it had absorbed lord wisbeach's revelations eagerly her admiration for his lordship was intense and she trusted him utterly the only doubt that occurred to her was whether
with the best intentions in the world he would be able unassisted to foil a pair of schemers so distant from each other geographically as the man who called himself jimmy crocker and the man who had called himself skinner that was a point on which they had not touched
the fact that one impostor was above stairs the other below it seemed to missus pett impossible that lord wisbeach for all his zeal could watch skinner without neglecting jimmy or foil jimmy without taking his attention off skinner
it was manifestly a situation that called for allies she felt that she must have further assistance to missus pett doubtless owing to her hobby of writing sensational fiction there was a magic in the word detective
and the idea of neglecting to employ one in real life now that circumstances had combined to render his advent so necessary struck her as both rash and inartistic in the old days when ogden had been kidnapped the only thing which had brought her balm
had been the daily interviews with the detectives she ached to telephone for one now the only consideration that kept her back was a regard for lord wisbeach's feelings he had been so kind and so shrewd that to suggest reinforcing him with outside assistance
must infallibly wound him deeply and yet the situation demanded the services of a trained specialist lord wisbeach had borne himself during their recent conversation in such a manner
as to leave no doubt that he considered himself adequate to deal with the matter single handed but admirable though he was he was not a professional exponent of the art of espionage he needed to be helped in spite of himself
a happy solution struck missus pett there was no need to tell him
by the simple process of engaging one without telling lord wisbeach anything about it the telephone stood at her elbow concealed at the express request of the interior decorator who had designed the room in the interior of what looked to the casual eye
like a stuffed owl on a table near at hand handsomely bound in morocco to resemble a complete works of shakespeare was the telephone book missus pett hesitated no longer
she had forgotten the address of the detective agency which she had employed on the occasion of the kidnapping of ogden but she remembered the name
who had listened to her troubles then she unhooked the receiver and gave a number i want to speak to mister sturgis she said oh mister sturgis said missus pett
you remember we met some years ago when i was missus ford yes the mother of ogden ford i want to consult
shepherd paul once upon a time a shepherd was taking his flock out to pasture when he found a little baby lying in a meadow left there by some wicked person who thought it was too much trouble to look after it
the shepherd was fond of children so he took the baby home with him and gave it plenty of milk and by the time the boy was fourteen he could tear up oaks as if they were weeds then paul as the shepherd had called him
grew tired of living at home and went out into the world to try his luck he walked on for many miles seeing nothing that surprised him but in an open space of the wood he was astonished at finding a man
combing trees as another man would comb flax good morning friend said paul upon my word you must be a strong man the man stopped his work and laughed
i am tree comber he answered proudly and the greatest wish of my life is to wrestle with shepherd paul may all your wishes be fulfilled as easily for i am shepherd paul
and can wrestle with you at once replied the lad and he seized tree comber and flung him with such force to the ground that he sank up to his knees in the earth however in a moment he was up again
and catching hold of paul threw him so that he sank up to his waist but then it was paul's turn again and this time the man was buried up to his neck that is enough cried he i see you are a smart fellow
let us become friends very good answered paul and they continued their journey together by and by they reached a man who was grinding stones to powder in his hands as if they had been nuts
good morning said paul politely upon my word you must be a strong fellow i am stone crusher answered the man and the greatest wish of my life is to wrestle with shepherd paul
may all your wishes be as easily fulfilled for i am shepherd paul and will wrestle with you at once and the sport began after a short time the man declared himself beaten
and begged leave to go with them so they all three travelled together a little further on they came upon a man who was kneading iron as if it had been dough good morning said paul you must be a strong fellow
i am iron kneader and should like to fight shepherd paul answered he let us begin at once then replied paul and on this occasion also paul got the better of his foe
and they all four continued their journey at midday they entered a forest and paul stopped suddenly we three will go and look for game he said and you tree comber
will stay behind and prepare a good supper for us so tree comber set to work to boil and roast and when dinner was nearly ready a little dwarf with a pointed beard strolled up to the place
he ate up the contents of the saucepan and vanished tree comber felt rather ashamed of himself and set about boiling some more vegetables but they were still very hard when the hunters returned
and though they complained of his bad cooking he did not tell them about the dwarf next day stone crusher was left behind and after him iron kneader and each time the dwarf appeared
and they fared no better than tree comber had done the fourth day paul said to them my friends there must be some reason why your cooking has always been so bad now you shall go and hunt and i will stay behind
so they went off amusing themselves by thinking what was in store for paul he set to work at once and had just got all his vegetables simmering in the pot when the dwarf appeared as before
and asked to have some of the stew be off cried paul snatching up the saucepan as he spoke the dwarf tried to get hold of his collar
and went on quietly with his cooking the hunters came back early longing to see how paul had got on and to their surprise dinner was quite ready for them
you are great useless creatures said he who couldn't even outwit that little dwarf when we have finished supper i will show you what i have done with him but when they reached the place where paul had left the dwarf
for the little fellow had pulled it up by the roots and run away dragging it after him the four friends followed the track of the tree and found that it ended in a deep hole he must have gone down here said paul
and i will go after him see there is a basket that will do for me to sit in and a cord to lower me with but when i pull the cord again lose no time in drawing the basket up and he stepped into the basket
which was lowered by his friends at last it touched the ground and he jumped out and looked about him he was in a beautiful valley full of meadows and streams with a splendid castle standing by as the door was open he walked in
but a lovely maiden met him and implored him to go back for the owner of the castle was a dragon with six heads who had stolen her from her home and brought her down to this underground spot but paul refused to listen to all her entreaties
and declared that he was not afraid of the dragon and did not care how many heads he had and he sat down calmly to wait for him in a little while the dragon came in and all the long teeth in his six heads
chattered with anger at the sight of the stranger i am shepherd paul said the young man and i have come to fight you and as i am in a hurry we had better begin at once very good
answered the dragon i am sure of my supper but let us have a mouthful of something first just to give us an appetite whereupon he began to eat some huge boulders as if they had been cakes and when he had quite finished
he offered paul one paul was not fond of boulders but he took a wooden knife and cut one in two then he snatched up both halves in his hands and threw them with all his strength at the dragon so that two out of the six heads were smashed in
at this the dragon with a mighty roar rushed upon paul but he sprang on one side and with a swinging blow cut off two of the other heads then seizing the monster by the neck
he dashed the remaining heads against the rock when the maiden heard that the dragon was dead she thanked her deliverer with tears in her eyes but told him that her two younger sisters were in the power of dragons still fiercer
and more horrible than this one he vowed that his sword should never rest in its sheath till they were set free and bade the girl come with him and show him the way
the maiden gladly consented to go with him but first she gave him a golden rod and bade him strike the castle with it he did so and it instantly changed into a golden apple
which he put in his pocket after that they started on their search they had not gone far before they reached the castle where the second girl was confined by the power of the dragon with twelve heads who had stolen her from her home
she was overjoyed at the sight of her sister and of paul and brought him a shirt belonging to the dragon
scarcely had he put it on when the dragon came back and the fight began long and hard was the struggle but paul's sword and his shirt helped him and the twelve heads lay dead upon the ground
then paul changed the castle into an apple which he put into his pocket and set out with the two girls in search of the third castle it was not long before they found it and within the walls was the third sister
who was younger and prettier than either of the other two her husband had eighteen heads but when he quitted the lower regions for the surface of the earth he left them all at home except one which he changed for the head of a little dwarf
with a pointed beard the moment that paul knew that this terrible dragon was no other than the dwarf whom he had tied to the tree he longed more than ever to fly at his throat but the thought of the eighteen heads
warned him to be careful and the third sister brought him a silk shirt which would make him ten times stronger than he was before he had scarcely put it on when the whole castle began to shake violently
and the dragon flew up the steps into the hall well my friend so we meet once more have you forgotten me i am shepherd paul and i have come to wrestle with you and to free your wife from your clutches
ah i am glad to see you again said the dragon those were my two brothers whom you killed and now your blood shall pay for them
and to drink some magic wine but the shirt was on paul's back and as for the wine the girl had given a cupful to paul
at this the dragon grew rather frightened but in a moment had recollected his eighteen heads and was bold again come on he cried rearing himself up
and preparing to dart all his heads at once at paul but paul jumped underneath and gave an upward cut so that six of the heads went rolling down they were the best heads too
and very soon the other twelve lay beside them then paul changed the castle into an apple and put it in his pocket afterwards he and the three girls set off for the opening which led upwards to the earth
but it was only big enough to hold the three girls so paul sent them up and told them to be sure and let down the basket for him unluckily at the sight of the maidens beauty
so far beyond anything they had ever seen the friends forgot all about paul and carried the girls straight away into a far country
vowed he would be revenged upon them and set about finding some way of getting back to earth but it was not very easy and for months and months and months he wandered about underground and at the end
seemed no nearer to fulfilling his purpose than he was at the beginning at length one day he happened to pass the nest of a huge griffin who had left her young ones all alone
just as paul came along a cloud containing fire instead of rain burst overhead and all the little griffins would certainly have been killed had not paul spread his cloak over the nest and saved them
when their father returned the young ones told him what paul had done and he lost no time in flying after paul and asking how he could reward him for his goodness by carrying me up to the earth answered paul
and the griffin agreed but first went to get some food to eat on the way as it was a long journey now get on my back he said to paul and when i turn my head to the right cut a slice off the bullock that hangs on that side
and put it in my mouth and when i turn my head to the left draw a cupful of wine from the cask that hangs on that side
for three days and three nights paul and the griffin flew upwards and on the fourth morning it touched the ground just outside the city where paul's friends had gone to live then paul thanked him and bade him farewell
and he returned home again at first paul was too tired to do anything but sleep but as soon as he was rested he started off in search of the three faithless ones who almost died from fright at the sight of him
for they had thought he would never come back to reproach them for their wickedness you know what to expect paul said to them quietly you shall never see me again off with you he next took the three apples out of his pocket
and placed them all in the prettiest places he could find after which he tapped them with his golden rod and they became castles again he gave two of the castles to the eldest sisters and kept the other for himself and the youngest whom he married
the strong prince once upon a time there lived a king who was so fond of wine that he could not go to sleep unless he knew he had a great flaskful tied to his bed post
all day long he drank till he was too stupid to attend to his business and everything in the kingdom went to rack and ruin but one day an accident happened to him
and he was struck on the head by a falling bough so that he fell from his horse and lay dead upon the ground his wife and son mourned his loss bitterly for in spite of his faults he had always been kind to them
so they abandoned the crown and forsook their country not knowing or caring where they went at length they wandered into a forest and being very tired sat down under a tree to eat some bread that they had brought with them
when they had finished the queen said my son i am thirsty fetch me some water the prince got up at once and went to a brook which he heard gurgling near at hand he stooped and filled his hat with the water which he brought to his mother
then he turned and followed the stream up to its source in a rock where it bubbled out clear and fresh and cold he knelt down to take a draught from the deep pool below the rock when he saw the reflection of a sword hanging from the branch of a tree over his head
the young man drew back with a start but in a moment he climbed the tree cutting the rope which held the sword and carried the weapon to his mother the queen was greatly surprised at the sight of anything so splendid in such a lonely place
and took it in her hands to examine it closely it was of curious workmanship wrought with gold and on its handle was written the man who can buckle on this sword will become stronger than other men
the queen's heart swelled with joy as she read these words and she bade her son lose no time in testing their truth so he fastened it round his waist
he took hold of a thick oak tree and rooted it up as easily as if it had been a weed this discovery put new life into the queen and her son and they continued their walk through the forest
but night was drawing on and the darkness grew so thick that it seemed as if it could be cut with a knife they did not want to sleep in the wood for they were afraid of wolves and other wild beasts so they groped their way along
hand in hand till the prince tripped over something which lay across the path he could not see what it was but stooped down and tried to lift it the thing was very heavy and he thought his back would break under the strain
at last with a great heave he moved it out of the road and as it fell he knew it was a huge rock behind the rock was a cave which it was quite clear was the home of some robbers though not one of the band was there
hastily putting out the fire which burned brightly at the back and bidding his mother come in and keep very still the prince began to pace up and down listening for the return of the robbers but he was very sleepy
and in spite of all his efforts he felt he could not keep awake much longer when he heard the sound of the robbers returning shouting and singing as they marched along soon the singing ceased
and straining his ears he heard them discussing anxiously what had become of their cave and why they could not see the fire as usual this must be the place said a voice which the prince took to be that of the captain
yes i feel the ditch before the entrance someone forgot to pile up the fire before we left and it has burnt itself out but it is all right let every man jump across and as he does so cry out hop i am here
i will go last now begin the man who stood nearest jumped across but he had no time to give the call which the captain had ordered for with one swift silent stroke of the prince's sword his head
rolled into a corner then the young man cried instead hop i am here the second man hearing the signal leapt the ditch in confidence and was met by the same fate
and in a few minutes eleven of the robbers lay dead and there remained only the captain now the captain had wound round his neck the shawl of his lost wife and the stroke of the prince's sword fell harmless
being very cunning however he made no resistance and rolled over as if he were as dead as the other men still the prince was no fool and wondered if indeed he was as dead as he seemed to be
but the captain lay so stiff and stark that at last he was taken in the prince next dragged the headless bodies into a chamber in the cave and locked the door then he and his mother ransacked the place for some food
and when they had eaten it they lay down and slept in peace with the dawn they were both awake again and found that instead of the cave which they had come to the night before they now were in a splendid castle full of beautiful rooms
the prince went round all these and carefully locked them up bidding his mother take care of the keys while he was hunting unfortunately the queen like all women could not bear to think that there was anything which she did not know
so the moment that her son had turned his back she opened the doors of all the rooms and peeped in till she came to the one where the robbers lay but if the sight of the blood on the ground turned her faint
the sight of the robber captain walking up and down was a greater shock still she quickly turned the key in the lock and ran back to the chamber she had slept in soon after her son came in
bringing with him a large bear which he had killed for supper as there was enough food to last them for many days the prince did not hunt the next morning but instead began to explore the castle
he found that a secret way led from it into the forest and following the path he reached another castle larger and more splendid than the one belonging to the robbers he knocked at the door with his fist and said that he wanted to enter
but the giant to whom the castle belonged only answered i know who you are i have nothing to do with robbers i am no robber answered the prince i am the son of a king
then he just put his shoulder to it and immediately the wood began to crack when the giant found that it was no use keeping it shut he opened it saying i see you are a brave youth let there be peace between us
and the prince was glad to make peace for he had caught a glimpse of the giant's beautiful daughter and from that day he often sought the giant's house
now the queen led a dull life all alone in the castle and to amuse herself she paid visits to the robber captain who flattered her till at last she agreed to marry him but as she was much afraid of her son
she told the robber that the next time the prince went to bathe in the river he was to steal the sword from its place above the bed for without it the young man would have no power to punish him for his boldness
and the next morning when the young man went to bathe he unhooked the sword from its nail and buckled it round his waist on his return to the castle
found the robber waiting for him on the steps waving the sword above his head and knowing that some horrible fate was in store fell on his knees and begged for mercy but he might as well have tried to squeeze blood out of a stone
the robber indeed granted him his life but took out both his eyes which he thrust into the prince's hand saying brutally here you had better keep them you may find them useful
weeping the blind youth felt his way to the giant's house and told him all the story the giant was full of pity for the poor young man but inquired anxiously what he had done with the eyes
the prince drew them out of his pocket and silently handed them to the giant who washed them well and then put them back in the prince's head for three days he lay in utter darkness then the light began to come back
till soon he saw as well as ever but though he could not rejoice enough over the recovery of his eyes he bewailed bitterly the loss of his sword and that it should have fallen to the lot of his bitter enemy
never mind my friend said the giant i will get it back for you and he sent for the monkey who was his head servant tell the fox and the squirrel that they are to go with you and fetch me back the prince's sword
ordered he the three servants set out at once one seated on the back of the others the ape who disliked walking being generally on top directly they came to the window of the robber captain's room
the room was empty and the sword hanging from a nail he took it down and buckling it round his waist as he had seen the prince do swung himself down again and mounting on the backs of his two companions hastened to his master
the giant bade him give the sword to the prince who girded himself with it and returned with all speed to the castle come out you rascal come out you villain
i will show you who is the master in this house the noise he made brought the robber into the room he glanced up to where the sword usually hung but it was gone and instinctively he looked at the prince's hand
where he saw it gleaming brightly in his turn he fell on his knees to beg for mercy but it was too late as he had done to the prince so the prince did to him and blinded he was thrust forth
and fell down a deep hole where he is to this day his mother the prince sent back to her father and never would see her again after this he returned to the giant and said to him my friend
add one more kindness to those you have already heaped on me give me your daughter as my wife so they were married and the wedding feast was so splendid that there was not a kingdom in the world that did not hear of it
and the prince never went back to his father's throne but lived peacefully with his wife in the forest where
clearly he was one of those invaluable subordinates whom to possess is a legitimate cause of boasting captain mitchell plumed himself upon his eye for men but he was not selfish and in the innocence of his pride was already developing that mania for lending you
sooner or later with every european in sulaco as a sort of universal factotum a prodigy of efficiency in his own sphere of life the fellow is devoted to me body and soul captain mitchell was given to affirm
and though nobody perhaps could have explained why it should be so it was impossible on a survey of their relation to throw doubt on that statement unless indeed one were a bitter eccentric character like doctor monygham for instance
whose short hopeless laugh expressed somehow an immense mistrust of mankind not that doctor monygham was a prodigal either of laughter or of words he was bitterly taciturn when at his best
at his worst people feared the open scornfulness of his tongue only missus gould could keep his unbelief in men's motives within due bounds but even to her on an occasion not connected with nostromo and in a tone which for him was gentle
even to her he had said once really it is most unreasonable to demand that a man should think of other people so much better than he is able to think of himself and missus gould had hastened to drop the subject
there were strange rumours of the english doctor years ago in the time of guzman bento he had been mixed up it was whispered in a conspiracy which was betrayed and as people expressed it drowned in blood
the large check pattern of his flannel shirt and his old stained panama hat were an established defiance to the conventionalities of sulaco had it not been for the immaculate cleanliness of his apparel he might have been taken for one of those shiftless europeans
that are a moral eyesore to the respectability of a foreign colony in almost every exotic part of the world the young ladies of sulaco adorning with clusters of pretty faces the balconies along the street of the constitution when they saw him pass
with his limping gait and bowed head a short linen jacket drawn on carelessly over the flannel check shirt would remark to each other here is the senor doctor going to call on dona emilia he has got his little coat on the inference was true
its deeper meaning was hidden from their simple intelligence
he was old ugly learned and a little loco mad if not a bit of a sorcerer as the common people suspected him of being
the little white jacket was in reality a concession to missus gould's humanizing influence the doctor with his habit of sceptical bitter speech had no other means of showing his profound respect for the character of the woman
who was known in the country as the english senora he presented this tribute very seriously indeed it was no trifle for a man of his habits missus gould felt that too perfectly
she would never have thought of imposing upon him this marked show of deference she kept her old spanish house one of the finest specimens in sulaco open for the dispensation of the small graces of existence
because she was guided by an alert perception of values she was highly gifted in the art of human intercourse which consists in delicate shades of self forgetfulness and in the suggestion of universal comprehension charles gould the gould family
established in costaguana for three generations
imagined that he had fallen in love with a girl's sound common sense like any other man but these were not exactly the reasons why for instance the whole surveying camp
to their mature chief should have found occasion to allude to missus gould's house so frequently
she would have protested that she had done nothing for them with a low laugh and a surprised widening of her grey eyes had anybody told her how convincingly she was remembered on the edge of the snow line above sulaco but directly
with a little capable air of setting her wits to work she would have found an explanation of course it was such a surprise for these boys to find any sort of welcome here and i suppose they are homesick i suppose everybody must be always just a little homesick
she was always sorry for homesick people born in the country as his father before him spare and tall with a flaming moustache a neat chin clear blue eyes auburn hair
and a thin fresh red face charles gould looked like a new arrival from over the sea his grandfather had fought in the cause of independence under bolivar in that famous english legion which on the battlefield of carabobo
had been saluted by the great liberator as saviours of his country
then called a state in the days of federation and afterwards had been put up against the wall of a church and shot by the order of the barbarous unionist general guzman bento it was the same guzman bento who becoming later perpetual president
famed for his ruthless and cruel tyranny readied his apotheosis in the popular legend of a sanguinary land haunting spectre whose body had been carried off by the devil in person
thus at least the priests explained its disappearance to the barefooted multitude that streamed in awestruck to gaze at the hole in the side of the ugly box of bricks before the great altar guzman bento of cruel memory
had put to death great numbers of people besides charles gould's uncle but with a relative martyred in the cause of aristocracy the sulaco oligarchs this was the phraseology of guzman bento's time now they were called blancos and had given up the federal idea
which meant the families of pure spanish descent considered charles as one of themselves with such a family record no one could be more of a costaguanero than don carlos gould
but his aspect was so characteristic that in the talk of common people he was just the inglez the englishman of sulaco he looked more english than a casual tourist
he looked more english than the last arrived batch of young railway engineers than anybody out of the hunting field pictures in the numbers of punch reaching his wife's drawing room two months or so after date it astonished you to hear him talk spanish
castillan as the natives say or the indian dialect of the country people so naturally his accent had never been english but there was something so indelible in all these ancestral goulds liberators explorers
coffee planters merchants revolutionists of costaguana that he the only representative of the third generation in a continent possessing its own style of horsemanship went on looking thoroughly english even on horseback
this is not said of him in the mocking spirit of the llaneros men of the great plains who think that no one in the world knows how to sit a horse but themselves charles gould to use the suitably lofty phrase rode like a centaur
riding for him was not a special form of exercise it was a natural faculty as walking straight is to all men sound of mind and limb but all the same when cantering beside the rutty ox cart track to the mine
he looked in his english clothes and with his imported saddlery as though he had come this moment to costaguana at his easy swift pasotrote straight out of some green meadow at the other side of the world his way would lie along the old spanish road
the only remaining vestige of a fact and name left by that royalty old giorgio viola hated and whose very shadow had departed from the land
towering white against the trees was only known to the folk from the country and to the beggars of the town that slept on the steps around the pedestal as the horse of stone the other carlos turning off to the left with a rapid clatter of hoofs on the disjointed pavement
don carlos gould in his english clothes looked as incongruous but much more at home than the kingly cavalier reining in his steed on the pedestal above the sleeping leperos with his marble arm raised towards the marble rim of a plumed hat
the weather stained effigy of the mounted king with its vague suggestion of a saluting gesture seemed to present an inscrutable breast to the political changes which had robbed it of its very name but neither did the other horseman well known to the people
keen and alive on his well shaped slate coloured beast with a white eye wear his heart on the sleeve of his english coat his mind preserved its steady poise as if sheltered in the passionless stability of private and public decencies at home in europe
he accepted with a like calm the shocking manner in which the sulaco ladies smothered their faces with pearl powder till they looked like white plaster casts with beautiful living eyes the peculiar gossip of the town
and the continuous political changes the constant saving of the country which to his wife seemed a puerile and bloodthirsty game of murder and rapine played with terrible earnestness by depraved children in the early days of her costaguana life
the little lady used to clench her hands with exasperation at not being able to take the public affairs of the country as seriously as the incidental atrocity of methods deserved she saw in them a comedy of naive pretences
but hardly anything genuine except her own appalled indignation charles very quiet and twisting his long moustaches would decline to discuss them at all once however he observed to her gently my dear
you seem to forget that i was born here these few words made her pause as if they had been a sudden revelation perhaps the mere fact of being born in the country did make a difference she had a great confidence in her husband it had always been very great
he had struck her imagination from the first by his unsentimentalism by that very quietude of mind which she had erected in her thought for a sign of perfect competency in the business of living
used to declare in dona emilia's drawing room that carlos had all the english qualities of character with a truly patriotic heart missus gould raising her eyes to her husband's thin red and tan face
could not detect the slightest quiver of a feature at what he must have heard said of his patriotism perhaps he had just dismounted on his return from the mine he was english enough to disregard the hottest hours of the day
basilio in a livery of white linen and a red sash had squatted for a moment behind his heels to unstrap the heavy blunt spurs in the patio and then the senor administrator would go up the staircase into the gallery
rows of plants in pots ranged on the balustrade between the pilasters of the arches
whose paved space is the true hearthstone of a south american house where the quiet hours of domestic life are marked by the shifting of light and shadow on the flagstones
senor avellanos was in the habit of crossing the patio at five o'clock almost every day don jose chose to come over at tea time because the english rite at dona emilia's house reminded him of the time he lived in london
as minister plenipotentiary to the court of saint james he did not like tea and usually rocking his american chair his neat little shiny boots crossed on the foot rest he would talk on and on
with a sort of complacent virtuosity wonderful in a man of his age while he held the cup in his hands for a long time his close cropped head was perfectly white his eyes coalblack on seeing charles gould step into the sala
he would nod provisionally and go on to the end of the oratorial period only then he would say carlos my friend
always the true english activity no what he drank up all the tea at once in one draught this performance was invariably followed by a slight shudder and a low involuntary br r r r which was not covered by the hasty exclamation
excellent then giving up the empty cup into his young friend's hand extended with a smile
for the simple pleasure of talking fluently it seemed while his reclining body jerked backwards and forwards in a rocking chair of the sort exported from the united states the ceiling of the largest drawing room of the casa gould extended its white level far above his head
the loftiness dwarfed the mixture of heavy straight backed spanish chairs of brown wood with leathern seats and european furniture low and cushioned all over like squat little monsters gorged to bursting with steel springs and horsehair
there were knick knacks on little tables mirrors let into the wall above marble consoles square spaces of carpet under the two groups of armchairs each presided over by a deep sofa smaller rugs scattered all over the floor of red tiles
three windows from the ceiling down to the ground opening on a balcony and flanked by the perpendicular folds of the dark hangings the stateliness of ancient days lingered between the four high smooth walls
and missus gould with her little head and shining coils of hair sitting in a cloud of muslin and lace before a slender mahogany table resembled a fairy posed lightly before dainty philtres dispensed out of vessels of silver and porcelain
worked in the early days mostly by means of lashes on the backs of slaves its yield had been paid for in its own weight of human bones whole tribes of indians had perished in the exploitation and then the mine was abandoned
since with this primitive method it had ceased to make a profitable return no matter how many corpses were thrown into its maw then it became forgotten it was rediscovered after the war of independence an english company obtained the right to work it
and found so rich a vein that neither the exactions of successive governments nor the periodical raids of recruiting officers upon the population of paid miners they had created could discourage their perseverance but in the end
during the long turmoil of pronunciamentos that followed the death of the famous guzman bento the native miners incited to revolt by the emissaries sent out from the capital had risen upon their english chiefs and murdered them to a man
began with the words justly incensed at the grinding oppression of foreigners actuated by sordid motives of gain rather than by love for a country where they come impoverished to seek their fortunes
and ended with the declaration the chief of the state has resolved to exercise to the full his power of clemency the mine which by every law international human and divine reverts now to the government as national property
shall remain closed till the sword drawn for the sacred defence of liberal principles has accomplished its mission of securing the happiness of our beloved country
what advantage that government had expected from the spoliation it is impossible to tell now costaguana was made with difficulty to pay a beggarly money compensation to the families of the victims
but afterwards another government bethought itself of that valuable asset it was an ordinary costaguana government the fourth in six years but it judged of its opportunities sanely
but with an ingenious insight into the various uses a silver mine can be put to apart from the sordid process of extracting the metal from under the ground the father of charles gould for a long time one of the most wealthy merchants of costaguana
had already lost a considerable part of his fortune in forced loans to the successive governments he was a man of calm judgment who never dreamed of pressing his claims and when suddenly
his alarm became extreme he was versed in the ways of governments indeed the intention of this affair though no doubt deeply meditated in the closet lay open on the surface of the document presented urgently for his signature
the third and most important clause stipulated that the concession holder should pay at once to the government five years royalties on the estimated output of the mine mister gould senior
defended himself from this fatal favour with many arguments and entreaties but without success he knew nothing of mining
the mine as a working concern did not exist the buildings had been burnt down the mining plant had been destroyed the mining population had disappeared from the neighbourhood years and years ago
the very road had vanished under a flood of tropical vegetation as effectually as if swallowed by the sea and the main gallery had fallen in within a hundred yards from the entrance it was no longer an abandoned mine it was a wild
inaccessible and rocky gorge of the sierra where vestiges of charred timber some heaps of smashed bricks and a few shapeless pieces of rusty iron could have been found under the matted mass of thorny creepers covering the ground mister gould
senior did not desire the perpetual possession of that desolate locality in fact the mere vision of it arising before his mind in the still watches of the night had the power to exasperate him into hours of hot and agitated insomnia
it so happened however that the finance minister of the time was a man to whom in years gone by mister gould had unfortunately declined to grant some small pecuniary assistance
basing his refusal on the ground that the applicant was a notorious gambler and cheat besides being more than half suspected of a robbery with violence on a wealthy ranchero in a remote country district where he was actually exercising the function of a judge
now after reaching his exalted position that politician had proclaimed his intention to repay evil with good to senor gould the poor man
and with such malicious glances that mister gould's best friends advised him earnestly to attempt no bribery to get the matter dropped it would have been useless indeed it would not have been a very safe proceeding such was also the opinion of a stout
loud voiced lady of french extraction the daughter she said of an officer of high rank
who was accommodated with lodgings within the walls of a secularized convent next door to the ministry of finance that florid person when approached on behalf of mister gould in a proper manner and with a suitable present shook her head despondently
she was good natured and her despondency was genuine she imagined she could not take money in consideration of something she could not accomplish the friend of mister gould charged with the delicate mission
used to say afterwards that she was the only honest person closely or remotely connected with the government he had ever met no go she had said with a cavalier husky intonation
and it was as though it had been compounded of some subtle poison that acted directly on his brain he became at once mine ridden and as he was well read in light literature it took to his mind the form of the old man of the sea fastened upon his shoulders
he also began to dream of vampires mister gould exaggerated to himself the disadvantages of his new position because he viewed it emotionally his position in costaguana was no worse than before but man is a desperately conservative creature
and the extravagant novelty of this outrage upon his purse distressed his sensibilities everybody around him was being robbed by the grotesque and murderous bands that played their game of governments and revolutions after the death of guzman bento
his experience had taught him that however short the plunder might fall of their legitimate expectations no gang in possession of the presidential palace would be so incompetent as to suffer itself to be baffled by the want of a pretext
the first casual colonel of the barefooted army of scarecrows that came along was able to expose with force and precision to any mere civilian his titles to a sum of ten thousand dollars the while his hope would be immutably fixed upon a gratuity at any rate
of no less than a thousand mister gould knew that very well and armed with resignation had waited for better times but to be robbed under the forms of legality and business was intolerable to his imagination
mister gould the father had one fault in his sagacious and honourable character he attached too much importance to form it is a failing common to mankind whose views are tinged by prejudices
there was for him in that affair a malignancy of perverted justice which by means of a moral shock attacked his vigorous physique it will end by killing me he used to affirm many times a day and in fact since that time
he began to suffer from fever from liver pains and mostly from a worrying inability to think of anything else the finance minister could have formed no conception of the profound subtlety of his revenge
even mister gould's letters to his fourteen year old boy charles then away in england for his education came at last to talk of practically nothing but the mine he groaned over the injustice the persecution
the outrage of that mine he occupied whole pages in the exposition of the fatal consequences attaching to the possession of that mine from every point of view with every dismal inference with words of horror at the apparently eternal character of that curse
for the concession had been granted to him and his descendants for ever he implored his son never to return to costaguana never to claim any part of his inheritance there because it was tainted by the infamous concession never to touch it
never to approach it to forget that america existed and pursue a mercantile career in europe
they took the ship out of the backwater and they brought her to a wharf in the city at a place that was called the ram's couch they fastened the argo
jason carrying his shield and spear went before the king from the king's hand he took the gleaming helmet that held the dragon's teeth this he put into the hands of theseus who went with him
then with the spear and shield in his hands with his sword girt across his shoulders and with his mantle stripped off
he saw the plow that he was to yoke to the bulls he saw the yoke of bronze near it he saw the tracks of the bulls hooves he followed the tracks until he came to the lair of the fire breathing bulls
out of that lair which was underground smoke and fire belched he set his feet firmly upon the ground and he held his shield before him he awaited the onset of the bulls
they came clanging up with loud bellowing breathing out fire they lowered their heads and with mighty iron tipped horns they came to gore and trample him medea's charm had made him strong
medea's charm had made his shield impregnable the rush of the bulls did not overthrow him his comrades shouted to see him standing firmly there and in wonder the colchians gazed upon him
all round him as from a furnace there came smoke and fire the bulls roared mightily grasping the horns of the bull that was upon his right hand jason dragged him until he had brought him beside the yoke of bronze
striking the brazen knees of the bull suddenly with his foot he forced him down then he smote the other bull as it rushed upon him and it too he forced down upon its knees castor and polydeuces held the yoke to him
jason bound it upon the necks of the bulls he fastened the plow to the yoke then he took his shield and set it upon his back and grasping the handles of the plow he started to make the furrow
with his long spear he drove the bulls before him as with a goad terribly they raged furiously they breathed out fire beside jason theseus went holding the helmet that held the dragon's teeth
the hard ground was torn up by the plow of adamant and the clods groaned as they were cast up jason flung the teeth between the open sods often turning his head in fear that the deadly crop of the earth born men were rising behind him
as yet the furrows were free of the earth born men jason went down to the river and filled his helmet full of water and drank deeply and his knees that were stiffened with the plowing he bent until they were made supple again
he saw the field rising into mounds
then he saw spears and shields and helmets rising up out of the earth then armed warriors sprang up a fierce battle cry upon their lips jason remembered the counsel of medea
right into the middle of the earth born men the stone came they leaped upon it like hounds striking at one another as they came together shield crashed on shield spear rang upon spear as they struck at each other
the earth born men as fast as they arose went down before the weapons in the hands of their brethren
he slew some that had risen out of the earth only as far as the shoulders he slew others whose feet were still in the earth he slew others who were ready to spring upon him soon all the earth born men were slain
and the furrows ran with their dark blood as channels run with water in springtime the argonauts shouted loudly for jason's victory
day faded and jason's contest was ended
in the assembly place with his son apsyrtus beside him and with the furious colchians all around him the king stood
and on his head was that golden helmet with its four plumes that made him look as if he were truly the son of helios the sun lightnings flashed from his great eyes
holding in his hand his bronze topped spear he would have them attack the strangers and burn the argo he would have the sons of phrixus slain for bringing them to aea there was a prophecy he declared
that would have him be watchful of the treachery of his own offspring this prophecy was being fulfilled by the children of chalciope he feared too that his daughter medea had aided the strangers
so the king spoke and the colchians hating all strangers shouted around him word of what her father had said was brought to medea she knew that she would have to go to the argonauts and bid them flee hastily from aea
they would not go she knew without the golden fleece then she medea would have to show them how to gain the fleece then she could never again go back to her father's palace
she could never again sit in this chamber and talk to her handmaidens and be with chalciope her sister forever afterward she would be dependent on the kindness of strangers medea wept when she thought of all this
and then she cut off a tress of her hair and she left it in her chamber as a farewell from one who was going afar into the chamber where chalciope was she whispered farewell the palace doors were all heavily bolted
but medea did not have to pull back the bolts as she chanted her magic song the bolts softly drew back the doors softly opened swiftly she went along the ways that led to the river
she called to them and phrontis
heard the cry and knew the voice to jason he spoke and jason quickly went to where medea stood she clasped jason's hand and she drew him with her the golden fleece she said
when she said these words all jason's being became taut like the string of a bow it was then the hour when huntsmen cast sleep from their eyes huntsmen who never sleep away the end of the night
but who are ever ready to be up and away with their hounds before the beams of the sun efface the track and the scent of the quarry along a path that went from the river medea drew jason they entered a grove
then jason saw something that was like a cloud filled with the light of the rising sun it hung from a great oak tree
knowing that at last he looked upon the golden fleece his hand let slip medea's hand and he went to seize the fleece as he did he heard a dreadful hiss
and then he saw the guardian of the golden fleece coiled all around the tree with outstretched neck and keen and sleepless eyes was a deadly serpent its hiss ran all through the grove and the birds that were wakening up squawked in terror
like rings of smoke that rise one above the other the coils of the serpent went around the tree coils covered by hard and gleaming scales
then medea dropped on her knees before it and began to chant her magic song as she sang the coils around the tree grew slack like a dark noiseless wave the serpent sank down on the ground
but still its jaws were open and those dreadful jaws threatened jason medea with a newly cut spray of juniper dipped in a mystic brew touched its deadly eyes and still she chanted her magic song
the serpent's jaws closed its eyes became deadened far through the grove its length was stretched out then jason took the golden fleece as he raised his hands to it
its brightness was such as to make a flame on his face medea called to him
medea was beside him and they went swiftly on they came to the river and down to the place where the argo was moored the heroes who were aboard started up astonished to see the fleece that shone as with the lightning of zeus
over medea jason cast it and he lifted her aboard the argo o friends he cried the quest on which we dared the gulfs of the sea and the wrath of kings is accomplished thanks to the help of this maiden
now have we the hope of looking upon our fathers and our friends once more
then he drew his sword and cut the hawsers of the ship calling upon the heroes to drive the argo on there was a din and a strain and a splash of oars and away from aea the argo dashed
chapter thirty two monsieur is jealous of guiche monsieur entered the room abruptly as persons do who mean well and think they confer pleasure or as those who hope to surprise some secret
the terrible reward of jealous people madame almost out of her senses with joy at the first bars of music was dancing in the most unrestrained manner
who with his arms raised and his eyes half closed was kneeling on one knee like the spanish dancers with looks full of passion and gestures of the most caressing character the princess was dancing round him with a responsive smile
and the same air of alluring seductiveness montalais stood by admiringly la valliere seated in a corner of the room looked on thoughtfully it is impossible to describe the effect which the presence of the prince produced upon this gleeful company
and it would be equally impossible to describe the effect which the sight of their happiness produced upon philip the comte de guiche had no power to move madame remained in the middle of one of the figures and of an attitude unable to utter a word
the chevalier de lorraine leaning his back against the doorway smiled like a man in the very height of the frankest admiration the pallor of the prince and the convulsive twitching of his hands and limbs were the first symptoms that struck those present
a dead silence succeeded the merry music of the dance the chevalier de lorraine took advantage of this interval to salute madame and de guiche most respectfully affecting to join them together in his reverences as though they were the master and mistress of the house
monsieur then approached them saying in a hoarse tone of voice i am delighted i came here expecting to find you ill and low spirited and i find you abandoning yourself to new amusements really it is most fortunate
my house is the pleasantest in the kingdom then turning towards de guiche comte he said i did not know you were so good a dancer and again addressing his wife he said show a little more consideration for me madame
whenever you intend to amuse yourselves here invite me i am a prince unfortunately very much neglected guiche had now recovered his self possession and with the spirited boldness which was natural to him and sat so well upon him he said
and whenever there is a question of its being needed i am ready but to day as it is only a question of dancing to music i dance and you are perfectly right said the prince coldly but madame he continued
you do not remark that your ladies deprive me of my friends
if you wish to dine without me you have your ladies when i dine alone i have my gentlemen do not strip me of everything madame felt the reproach and the lesson and the color rushed to her face monsieur she replied
i was not aware when i came to the court of france that princesses of my rank were to be regarded as the women in turkey are i was not aware that we were not allowed to be seen but since such is your desire i will conform myself to it
pray do not hesitate if you should wish it to have my windows barred even this repartee which made montalais and de guiche smile rekindled the prince's anger no inconsiderable portion of which had already evaporated in words
very well he said in a concentrated tone of voice this is the way in which i am respected in my own house monseigneur monseigneur
murmured the chevalier in the duke's ear in such a manner that every one could observe he was endeavoring to calm him come replied the prince as his only answer to the remark hurrying him away and turning round with so hasty a movement that he almost ran against madame
the chevalier followed him to his own apartment where the prince had no sooner seated himself than he gave free vent to his fury the chevalier raised his eyes towards the ceiling joined his hands together and said not a word give me your opinion exclaimed the prince
upon what upon what is taking place here oh monseigneur it is a very serious matter it is abominable i cannot live in this manner how miserable all this is said the chevalier
we hoped to enjoy tranquillity after that madman buckingham had left and this is worse i do not say that monseigneur yes but i say it for buckingham would never have ventured upon a fourth part of what we have just now seen
what do you mean to conceal oneself for the purposes of dancing and to feign indisposition in order to dine tete a tete no no monseigneur yes yes exclaimed the prince exciting himself like a self willed child
but i will not endure it any longer i must learn what is really going on oh monseigneur an exposure by heaven monsieur shall i put myself out of the way when people show so little consideration for me wait for me here chevalier wait for me here
anne of austria felt that her happiness was now complete peace restored to her family a nation delighted with the presence of a young monarch who had shown an aptitude for affairs of great importance the revenues of the state increased external peace assured
everything seemed to promise a tranquil future her thoughts recurred now and then to the poor young nobleman whom she had received as a mother and had driven away as a hard hearted step mother and she sighed as she thought of him
dear mother he exclaimed hurriedly closing the door things cannot go on as they are now anne of austria raised her beautiful eyes towards him and with an unmoved suavity of manner said what do you allude to
i wish to speak of madame your wife yes madame i suppose that silly fellow buckingham has been writing a farewell letter to her oh yes madame of course it is a question of buckingham
of whom else could it be then for that poor fellow was wrongly enough the object of your jealousy and i thought my wife madame has already replaced the duke of buckingham philip what are you saying you are speaking very heedlessly
no no madame has so managed matters that i am still jealous of whom in heaven's name is it possible you have not remarked it
the queen clapped her hands together and began to laugh philip she said your jealousy is not merely a defect it is a disease whether a defect or a disease madame i am the sufferer from it
you wish it to be said you are right in being jealous when there is no ground whatever for your jealousy of course you will begin to say for this gentleman what you already said on the behalf of the other because philip said the queen dryly
what you did for the other you are going to do for this one the prince bowed slightly annoyed if i give you facts he said will you believe me if it regarded anything else but jealousy i would believe you without your bringing facts forward
but as jealousy is the case i promise nothing it is just the same as if your majesty were to desire me to hold my tongue and sent me away unheard far from it you are my son i owe you a mother's indulgence oh say what you think
you owe me as much indulgence as a madman deserves do not exaggerate philip and take care how you represent your wife to me as a woman of depraved mind but facts mother facts well i am listening
this morning at ten o'clock they were playing music in madame's apartments no harm in that surely
if they were doing any harm they would hide themselves very good exclaimed the duke i expected you to say that
this morning i took them by surprise and showed my dissatisfaction in a very marked manner rely upon it that is quite sufficient
these young women easily take offense to reproach them for an error they have not committed is sometimes almost equivalent to telling them they might be guilty of even worse very good very good but wait a minute do not forget what you have just this moment said
yes i said so well just now repenting of my hastiness of the morning and imagining that guiche was sulking in his own apartments i went to pay madame a visit can you guess what or whom i found there another set of musicians
more dancing and guiche himself he was concealed there anne of austria frowned it was imprudent she said what did madame say nothing and guiche as much
oh no he muttered some impertinent remark or another well what is your opinion philip
that buckingham was only a pretext and that guiche is the one who is really to blame in the matter anne shrugged her shoulders well she said what else i wish de guiche to be dismissed from my household
as buckingham was and i shall ask the king unless unless what unless you my dear mother who are so clever and so kind will execute the commission yourself i will not do it philip what madame
listen philip i am not disposed to pay people ill compliments every day i have some influence over young people but i cannot take advantage of it without running the chances of losing it altogether
he has displeased me that is your own affair very well i know what i shall do said the prince impetuously anne looked at him with some uneasiness
i will have him drowned in my fish pond the very next time i find him in my apartments again having launched this terrible threat the prince expected his mother would be frightened out of her senses but the queen was unmoved do so she said
philip was as weak as a woman and began to cry out every one betrays me no one cares for me my mother even joins my enemies
your mother philip sees further in the matter than you do and does not care about advising you since you will not listen to her i will go to the king i was about to propose that to you i am now expecting his majesty
it is the hour he usually pays me a visit explain the matter to him yourself
at the sound of the king's footsteps which could be heard upon the carpet the duke hurriedly made his escape anne of austria could not resist laughing and was laughing still when the king entered
he came very affectionately to inquire after the even now uncertain health of the queen mother and to announce to her that the preparations for the journey to fontainebleau were complete seeing her laugh his uneasiness on her account diminished
and he addressed her in a vivacious tone himself anne of austria took him by the hand and in a voice full of playfulness said do you know sire that i am proud of being a spanish woman why madame
because spanish women are worth more than english women at least explain yourself since your marriage you have not i believe had a single reproach to make against the queen certainly not
and you too have been married some time your brother on the contrary has been married but a fortnight well he is now finding fault with madame a second time what buckingham still no another who
guiche really madame is a coquette then i fear so my poor brother said the king laughing you don't object to coquettes it seems in madame certainly i do
but madame is not a coquette at heart that may be but your brother is excessively angry about it what does he want
that is a violent measure to resort to do not laugh he is extremely irritated think of what can be done to save guiche certainly of if your brother heard you
he would conspire against you as your uncle did against your father no philip has too much affection for me for that and i on my side have too great a regard for him we shall live together on very good terms but what is the substance of his request
that you will prevent madame from being a coquette and guiche from being amiable is that all my brother has an exalted idea of sovereign power to reform a man not to speak about reforming a woman how will you set about it
with a word to guiche who is a clever fellow i will undertake to convince him but madame that is more difficult a word will not be enough i will compose a homily and read it to her there is no time to be lost
oh i will use the utmost diligence there is a repetition of the ballet this afternoon you will read her a lecture while you are dancing yes madame you promise to convert her
i will root out the heresy altogether either by convincing her or by extreme measures that is all right then do not mix me up in the affair
the king madame will take all upon himself but let me reflect what about it would be better perhaps if i were to go and see madame in her own apartment would that not seem a somewhat serious step to take
yes but seriousness is not unbecoming in preachers and the music of the ballet would drown half my arguments besides the object is to prevent any violent measures on my brother's part so that a little precipitation may be advisable
is madame in her own apartment i believe so what is my statement of grievances to consist of in a few words of the following music uninterruptedly guiche's assiduity
suspicions of treasonable plots and practices and the proofs there are none very well i will go at once to see madame the king turned to look in the mirrors at his costume which was very rich
and his face which was radiant as the morning i suppose my brother is kept a little at a distance said the king fire and water cannot be more opposite that will do
permit me madame to kiss your hands the most beautiful hands in france may you be successful sire as the family peacemaker i do not employ an ambassador said louis
pantheons not only varied in detail but were presided over by different supreme gods one city's chief deity might be regarded as a secondary deity at another centre
was given first place at eridu and was so pronouncedly sumerian in character
while the sun god whose semitic name was shamash presided at larsa and sippar other deities were similarly exalted in other states as has been indicated a mythological system must have been strongly influenced by city politics
those of the nomads with those of the agriculturists those of the unlettered folks with those of the learned people reference has been made to the introduction of strange deities by conquerors but these were not always imposed upon a community by violent means
indications are not awanting that the worshippers of alien gods were sometimes welcomed and encouraged to settle in certain states when they came as military allies to assist a city folk against a fierce enemy they were naturally much
admired and praised honoured by the women and the bards and rewarded by the rulers in the epic of gilgamesh the babylonian hercules
to flies had turned and buzzed in the streets the winged bulls of walled round erech were turned to mice and departed through the holes
ea bani was attracted to erech by the gift of a fair woman for wife the poet who lauded him no doubt mirrored public opinion we can see the slim shaven sumerians gazing with wonder and admiration on their rough heroic ally
all his body was covered with hair his locks were like a woman's thick as corn grew his abundant hair he was a stranger to the people and in that land clad in a garment like gira the god he had eaten grass with the gazelles he had drunk water with savage beasts
his delight was to be among water dwellers
like the giant alban the eponymous ancestor of a people who invaded prehistoric britain ea bani appears to have represented in babylonian folk legends a certain type of foreign settlers in the land
no doubt the city dwellers who were impressed by the prowess of the hairy and powerful warriors were also ready to acknowledge the greatness of their war gods and to admit them into the pantheon the fusion of beliefs which followed must have stimulated thought
and been productive of speculative ideas
nowhere remarks professor jastrow does a high form of culture arise without the commingling of diverse ethnic elements
we must also take into account the influence exercised by leaders of thought like en we dur an ki
the teachings and example of buddha for instance revolutionized brahmanic religion in india a mythology was an attempt to solve the riddle of the universe and to adjust the relations of mankind with the various forces represented by the deities
the priests systematized existing folk beliefs and established an official religion to secure the prosperity of the state it was considered necessary to render homage unto whom homage was due at various seasons and under various circumstances
the religious attitude of a particular community therefore must have been largely dependent on its needs and experiences the food supply was a first consideration
and obedience to his commands as an instructor elsewhere it might happen however that ea's gifts were restricted or withheld by an obstructing force the raging storm god or the parching pestilence bringing deity of the sun
it was necessary therefore for the people to win the favour of the god or goddess who seemed most powerful and was accordingly considered to be the greatest in a particular district a rain god presided over the destinies of one community
and a god of disease and death over another a third exalted the war god no doubt because raids were frequent and the city owed its strength and prosperity to its battles and conquests the reputation won by a particular god throughout babylonia
would depend greatly on the achievements of his worshippers and the progress of the city civilization over which he presided bel enlil's fame as a war deity
and there was probably good reason for attributing to the sun god a pronounced administrative and legal character he may have controlled the destinies of exceedingly well organized communities in which law and order and authority were held in high esteem
in accounting for the rise of distinctive and rival city deities we should also consider the influence of divergent conceptions regarding the origin of life in mingled communities each foreign element in a community had its own intellectual life
and immemorial tribal traditions which reflected ancient habits of life and perpetuated the doctrines of eponymous ancestors among the agricultural classes the folk religion which entered so intimately into their customs and labours
must have remained essentially babylonish in character in cities however where official religions were formulated foreign ideas were more apt to be imposed especially when embraced by influential teachers it is not surprising therefore to find that in babylonia
as in egypt there were differences of opinion regarding the origin of life and the particular natural element which represented the vital principle one section of the people
appear to have believed that the essence of life was contained in water the god of eridu was the source of the water of life he fertilized parched and sunburnt wastes through rivers and irrigating canals
food of death will be offered thee water of death will be offered thee
offerings of water and food were made to the dead so that the ghosts might be nourished and prevented from troubling the living even the gods required water and food they were immortal because they had drunk ambrosia
and eaten from the plant of life when the goddess ishtar was in the underworld the land of the dead the servant of ea exclaimed
hail lady may the well give me of its waters so that i may drink
sprinkle the lady ishtar with the water of life and bid her depart
the sacred water might also be found at a confluence of rivers
draw water from the mouth of two streams
on this water to put his pure spell
which inspired priests to utter prophecies and filled their hearts with religious fervour drinking customs had originally a religious significance it was believed in india that the sap of plants was influenced by the moon
the source of vitalizing moisture and the hiding place of the mead of the gods the teutonic gods also drank this mead and poets were inspired by it similar beliefs obtained among various peoples
moon and water worship were therefore closely associated the blood of animals and the sap of plants were vitalized by the water of life and under control of the moon the body moisture of gods and demons had vitalizing properties
when the indian creator prajapati wept at the beginning
orion the greek giant sprang from the body moisture of deities the weeping ceremonies in connection with agricultural rites were no doubt believed to be of magical potency they encouraged the god to weep creative tears
the god of the deep was also lord of life enti king of the river lugal ida and god of creation nudimmud
his aid was invoked by means of magical formulae as the great magician of the gods he uttered charms himself and was the patron of all magicians one spell runs as follows
to revive the sick man
he hath added his pure spell to mine he hath added his pure voice to mine he hath added his pure spittle to mine
r c thompson's translation saliva like tears had creative and therefore curative qualities it also expelled and injured demons and brought good luck spitting ceremonies
are referred to in the religious literature of ancient egypt when the eye of ra was blinded by set thoth spat in it to restore vision
charity composed of all three kinds pleasant profitable honest besides this love that comes from profit pleasant honest for one good turn asks another in equity
that which proceeds from the law of nature or from discipline and philosophy there is yet another love compounded of all these three which is charity and includes piety dilection
benevolence friendship even all those virtuous habits for love is the circle equant of all other affections of which aristotle dilates at large in his ethics
and is commanded by god which no man can well perform but he that is a christian
all other objects are fair and very beautiful i confess kindred alliance
in that he is a man but all these are far more eminent and great when they shall proceed from a sanctified spirit that hath a true touch of religion and a reference to god
nature binds all creatures to love their young ones a hen to preserve her brood will run upon a lion a hind will fight with a bull a sow with a bear
no love so forcible and strong honest to the combination of which nature
take this away and take all pleasure joy comfort happiness and true content out of the world tis the greatest tie the surest indenture strongest band
and as our modern maro decides it is much to be preferred before the rest
when all three kinds of love together meet
but of them all the band of virtuous mind methinks the gentle heart should most assured bind for natural affection soon doth cease and quenched is with cupid's greater flame
nuptial heroical profitable pleasant honest all three loves put together are little worth if they proceed not from a true christian illuminated soul if it be not done
splendidum peccatum without charity this is an all apprehending love a deifying love a refined pure divine love the quintessence of all love
this is true love indeed the cause of all good to mortal men that reconciles all creatures and glues them together in perpetual amity and firm league and can no more abide bitterness hate malice
easeth adversity
this quietness of mind this informs that deforms our life that leads to repentance this to heaven for if once we be truly linked and touched with this charity
we shall love god above all our neighbour as ourself as we are enjoined mark
perform those duties and exercises even all the operations of a good christian this love suffereth long it is bountiful envieth not boasteth not itself
is not puffed up it deceiveth not it seeketh not his own things is not provoked to anger it thinketh not evil it rejoiceth not in iniquity
will seek no revenge or be mindful of wrong
bear his brother's burthen
he that so loves will be hospitable and distribute to the necessities of the saints he will if it be possible have peace with all men feed his enemy if he be hungry if he be athirst give him drink
he will perform those seven works of mercy he will make himself equal to them of the lower sort rejoice with them that rejoice weep with them that weep
be courteous and tender hearted forgiving others for christ's sake as god forgave him
he will be like minded
of one judgment be humble meek long suffering
seek peace and follow it he will love his brother not in word and tongue but in deed and truth
and he that loves god christ will love him
consult vex torture molest and hold one another's noses to the grindstone hard provoke rail scoff calumniate challenge
hate abuse hard hearted implacable malicious peevish inexorable as we are to satisfy our lust or private spleen
trifles and impertinent occasions spend ourselves goods friends fortunes to be revenged on our adversary to ruin him and his tis all our study
practice and business how to plot mischief mine countermine defend and offend ward ourselves injure others hurt all as if we were born to do mischief
and that with such eagerness and bitterness with such rancour malice rage and fury we prosecute our intended designs that neither affinity or consanguinity
love or fear of god or men can contain us no satisfaction no composition will be accepted no offices will serve no submission though he shall upon his knees
as sarpedon did to glaucus in homer acknowledging his error yield himself with tears in his eyes beg his pardon we will not relent forgive or forget till we have confounded him and his
made dice of his bones as they say see him rot in prison banish his friends followers
incarnate devils we do not only contend oppress and tyrannise ourselves but as so many firebrands we set on and animate others our whole life is a perpetual combat a conflict
a set battle a snarling fit
opposing wit to wit wealth to wealth strength to strength fortunes to fortunes friends to friends as at a sea fight we turn our broadsides or two millstones with continual attrition
we fire ourselves or break another's backs and both are ruined and consumed in the end miserable wretches to fat and enrich ourselves we care not how we get it
how many thousands we undo whom we oppress by whose ruin and downfall we arise whom we injure fatherless children widows
common societies to satisfy our own private lust though we have myriads abundance of wealth and treasure pitiless merciless remorseless and uncharitable in the highest degree
and our poor brother in need sickness in great extremity and now ready to be starved for want of food we had rather as the fox told the ape his tail should sweep the ground still
than cover his buttocks rather spend it idly consume it with dogs hawks hounds unnecessary buildings in riotous apparel ingurgitate or let it be lost
take from him that little which he hath than relieve him like the dog in the manger we neither use it ourselves
part with nothing while we live for want of disposing our household and setting things in order set all the world together by the ears after our death
poor lazarus lies howling at his gates for a few crumbs he only seeks chippings offals let him roar and howl famish and eat his own flesh
pretend sickness inevitable loss of limbs goods plead suretyship or shipwreck fires common calamities show thy wants and imperfections
swear protest take god and all his angels to witness
peregrinum thou art a counterfeit crank a cheater he is not touched with it pauper
he takes no notice of it put up a supplication to him in the name of a thousand orphans a hospital a spittle a prison as he goes by they cry out to him for aid ride on surdo narras he cares not
let them eat stones devour themselves with vermin rot in their own dung he cares not show him a decayed haven a bridge a school a fortification et cetera or some public work
ride on good your worship your honour for god's sake your country's sake ride on but show him a roll wherein his name shall be registered in golden letters
and commended to all posterity his arms set up with his devices to be seen then peradventure he will stay and contribute or if thou canst thunder upon him as papists do
with satisfactory and meritorious works or persuade him by this means he shall save his soul out of hell and free it from purgatory if he be of any religion then in all likelihood he will listen and stay
or that he have no children no near kinsman heir he cares for at least or cannot well tell otherwise how or where to bestow his possessions for carry them with him he cannot
it may be then he will build some school or hospital in his life or be induced to give liberally to pious uses after his death for i dare boldly say vainglory
that opinion of merit and this enforced necessity when they know not otherwise how to leave or what better to do with them is the main cause of most of our good works
or bounty in this kind to censure any good work
that in true zeal and for virtue's sake divine spirits
feed the hungry comfort the sick and needy relieve all forget and forgive injuries
that would know of him why he built so many public and magnificent palaces and bestowed so liberally on scholars not that he loved learning more than others
to be immortal by the benefit of scholars for when his friends were dead walls decayed and all inscriptions gone books would remain to the world's end
the theatre by pericles the famous port pyraeum by musicles pallas palladium by phidias the pantheon by callicratidas but these brave monuments are decayed all
and ruined long since
alone flourish by meditation of writers
now cut down and dead
quae poetae versu
no plant can grow so long as that which is ingenio sata
that weeping oak under which deborah rebecca's nurse died and was buried may not survive the memory of such everlasting monuments vainglory and emulation as to most men
was the cause efficient and to be a trumpeter of his own fame cosmo's sole intent so to do good that all the world might take notice of it
such for the most part is the charity of our times such our benefactors
and patrons show me amongst so many myriads a truly devout a right honest
humble a patient innocuous
such endless contentions such plotting undermining so much money spent with such eagerness and fury every man for himself his own ends the devil for all so many distressed souls
such lamentable complaints so many factions conspiracies seditions oppressions abuses injuries such grudging repining discontent so much emulation
envy so many brawls quarrels
i say nothing of their contentious and railing books whole ages spent in writing one against another and that with such virulency and bitterness
and by their bloody inquisitions that in thirty years bale saith consumed thirty nine princes
worse than those ten persecutions may justly doubt where is charity
are these christians i beseech you tell me he that shall observe and see these things may say to them as cato to caesar
sure i think thou art of opinion there is neither heaven nor hell let them pretend religion zeal
we have so frequent and so many discontents such melancholy fits so many bitter pangs mutual discords all in a combustion often complaints so common grievances
general mischiefs
quibus
so many pestilences wars uproars losses deluges fires inundations god's vengeance and all the plagues of egypt
wickedness and peevishness was such tis to be suspected if we continue these wretched ways we may look for the like heavy visitations to come upon us
if we had any sense or feeling of these things surely we should not go on as we do in such irregular courses practise all manner of impieties our whole carriage
would not be so averse from god if a man would but consider when he is in the midst and full career of such prodigious and uncharitable actions
anguish the reward of his hand shall be given him
they shall fall into the pit they have digged for others and when they are scraping tyrannising getting
for they shall obtain mercy he that lendeth to the poor gives to god and how it shall be restored to them again how by their patience and long suffering they shall heap coals on their enemies heads
and we must shortly give an account of all our uncharitable words and actions think upon it
but they lived very poorly and were most of the time half starved when the boy whose name was mvoo laa'na began to get big he said to his mother one day mother we are always hungry
i too will set traps and see if we can't get enough to eat the next day he went into the forest and cut branches from the trees and returned home in the evening the second day he spent making the branches into traps
the third day he twisted cocoanut fiber into ropes the fourth day he set up as many traps as time would permit the fifth day he set up the remainder of the traps
and as this good fortune continued he and his mother lived very comfortably but after a while when he went to his traps he found nothing in them day after day
when it said son of adam i am neea'nee the ape do not kill me take me out of this trap and let me go save me from the rain that i may come and save you from the sun some day
so mvoo laana took him out of the trap and let him go
for your kindness i will give you a piece of advice believe me men are all bad never do a good turn for a man
i am neeo'ka the snake let me out of this trap i pray you save me from the rain to day that i may be able to save you from the sun to morrow if you should be in need of help
the third day mvoo laana found a lion in the same trap that had caught the ape and the snake and he was afraid to go near it but the lion said don't run away i am sim'ba kong'way the very old lion
let me out of this trap and i will not hurt you save me from the rain that i may save you from the sun if you should need help so mvoo laana believed him and let him out of the trap and simba kongway before going his way said
and mvoo laana and his mother were hungry every day with nothing to satisfy them as they had been before at last he said to his mother one day
mother make me seven cakes of the little meal we have left and i will go hunting with my bow and arrows so she baked him the cakes and he took them and his bow and arrows and went into the forest
the youth walked and walked but could see no game
he was so wretched and tired that he felt he must lie down and die when suddenly he heard some one calling him and looking up he saw neeanee the ape who said son of adam where are you going
i don't know replied mvoo laana sadly i'm lost well well said the ape don't worry just sit down here and rest yourself until i come back
and then each said to the other good bye till we meet again and went their separate ways when mvoo laana had walked a great deal farther without finding which way he should go he met simba kongway
who asked where are you going son of adam and the youth answered as dolefully as before i don't know i'm lost come cheer up said the very old lion and rest yourself here a little
the kindness you showed me on a former day so mvoo laana sat down simba kongway went away but soon returned with some game he had caught and then he brought some fire and the young man cooked the game and ate it
when he had finished he felt a great deal better and they bade each other good bye for the present and each went his way after he had traveled another very long distance the youth came to a farm
and was met by a very very old woman who said to him stranger my husband has been taken very sick
won't you make it but he answered my good woman i am not a doctor i am a hunter and never used medicine in my life i can not help you
when he came to the road leading to the principal city he saw a well with a bucket standing near it
that's just what i want i'll take a drink of nice well water let me see if the water can be reached as he peeped over the edge of the well to see if the water was high enough what should he behold but a great big snake
well well said the snake i could never forget you i am neeoka whom you released from the trap you know i said save me from the rain and i will save you from the sun
therefore hand me your little bag and i will place in it the things that will be of use to you when you arrive there so mvoo laana gave neeoka the little bag and he filled it with chains of gold and silver
when the sultan heard this he sent some soldiers who brought mvoo laana and his little bag before him when they opened the little bag
the man who was released from the trap persuaded the people that some evil would come out of it and affect the children of the sultan and the children of the vizir then the people became excited and tied the hands of mvoo laana behind him
but the great snake had come out of the well and arrived at the town just about this time
who had said all those bad things about mvoo laana and when the people saw this they said to that man how is this there is the great snake that lives in the well and he stays by you tell him to go away
but neeoka would not stir so they untied the young man's hands and tried in every way to make amends for having suspected him of being a wizard then the sultan asked him
why should this man invite you to his home and then speak ill of you and mvoo laana related all that had happened to him and how the ape the snake and the lion
had cautioned him about the results of doing any kindness for a man and the sultan said although men are often ungrateful they are not always so only the bad ones as for this fellow
the residuum of a continent almost unconsciously the voyagers in the dobryna fell into the habit of using gallia as the name of the new world in which they became aware they must be making
an extraordinary excursion through the realms of space nothing however was allowed to divert them from their ostensible object of making a survey of the coast of the mediterranean
and accordingly they persevered in following that singular boundary which had revealed itself to their extreme astonishment
having rounded the great promontory that had barred her farther progress to the north the schooner skirted its upper edge a few more leagues and they ought to be abreast of the shores of france
yes of france but who shall describe the feelings of hector servadac when instead of the charming outline of his native land he beheld nothing but a solid boundary of savage rock
who shall reveal the burning anxiety with which he throbbed to see beyond that cruel wall but there seemed no hope onwards and onwards the yacht made her way and still no sign of france
it might have been supposed that servadac's previous experiences would have prepared him for the discovery that the catastrophe which had overwhelmed other sites had brought destruction to his own country as well
but he had failed to realize how it might extend to france and when now he was obliged with his own eyes to witness the waves of ocean rolling over what once had been the lovely shores of provence
he was well nigh frantic with desperation am i to believe that gourbi island that little shred of algeria constitutes all that is left of our glorious france
not yet have we reached the pole of our new world there is there must be something more behind that frowning rock oh that for a moment we could scale its towering height and look beyond
by heaven i adjure you let us disembark and mount the summit and explore france lies beyond disembarkation however was an utter impossibility
that had all along been so pronounced a feature with her steam at high pressure the yacht made rapid progress towards the east the weather remained perfectly fine
the temperature became gradually cooler so that there was little prospect of vapors accumulating in the atmosphere and nothing more than a few cirri almost transparent veiled here and there the clear azure of the sky
throughout the day the pale rays of the sun apparently lessened in its magnitude cast only faint and somewhat uncertain shadows but at night the stars shone with surpassing brilliancy
but jupiter on the other hand had assumed splendid proportions saturn was superb in its luster and uranus which hitherto had been imperceptible without a telescope
was pointed out by lieutenant procope plainly visible to the naked eye the inference was irresistible that gallia was receding from the sun and traveling far away across the planetary regions
the peninsula of saint tropez the lerius islands and the gulfs of cannes and jouar the dobryna arrived upon the site of the cape of antibes
here quite unexpectedly the explorers made the discovery that the massive wall of cliff had been rent from the top to the bottom by a narrow rift like the dry bed of a mountain torrent
and at the base of the opening level with the sea was a little strand upon which there was just space enough for their boat to be hauled up joy joy shouted servadac half beside himself with ecstasy
we can land at last count timascheff and the lieutenant were scarcely less impatient than the captain and little needed his urgent and repeated solicitations come on quick come on no time to lose
it was half past seven in the morning when they set their foot upon this untried land the bit of strand was only a few square yards in area quite a narrow strip
and examine these remnants of the ancient shore they hurried on to scale the heights the narrow ravine was not only perfectly dry but manifestly had never been the bed of any mountain torrent
the rocks that rested at the bottom just as those which formed its sides were of the same lamellous formation as the entire coast and had not hitherto been subject to the disaggregation
which the lapse of time never fails to work a skilled geologist would probably have been able to assign them their proper scientific classification
but neither servadac timascheff nor the lieutenant could pretend to any acquaintance with their specific character although however the bottom of the chasm had never as yet been the channel of a stream
indications were not wanting that at some future time it would be the natural outlet of accumulated waters for already in many places thin layers of snow were glittering upon the surface of the fractured rocks
and the higher the elevation that was gained the more these layers were found to increase in area and in depth here is a trace of fresh water the first that gallia has exhibited said the count to his companions
and if it is so we must now be very close to her arctic regions it is true that her axis is not so much inclined as to prolong day and night as at the poles of the earth
and the cold in all likelihood will be intense so cold do you think asked servadac that animal life must be extinct i do not say that captain answered the lieutenant
i do not see why its temperature should fall below what prevails in those outlying regions beyond our system where sky and air are not and what temperature may that be inquired the captain with a shudder
sixty sixty degrees below zero cried the count why there's not a russian could endure it i beg your pardon count it is placed on record that the english have survived it
or something quite approximate upon their arctic expeditions when captain parry was on melville island he knew the thermometer to fall to fifty six degrees said procope
as the explorers advanced they seemed glad to pause from time to time that they might recover their breath for the air becoming more and more rarefied
made respiration somewhat difficult and the ascent fatiguing before they had reached an altitude of six hundred feet they noticed a sensible diminution of the temperature
and reaching interminably to the far off horizon his heart sank within him the whole region appeared to consist of nothing but the same strange uniform mineral conglomerate
crystallized into regular hexagonal prisms but whatever was its geological character it was only too evident that it had entirely replaced the former soil
so that not a vestige of the old continent of europe could be discerned the lovely scenery of provence with the grace of its rich and undulating landscape its gardens of citrons and oranges
rising tier upon tier from the deep red soil all all had vanished of the vegetable kingdom there was not a single representative
the mineral kingdom reigned supreme captain servadac's deep dejection was in strange contrast to his general hilarity silent and tearful he stood upon an ice bound rock
straining his eyes across the boundless vista of the mysterious territory it cannot be he exclaimed we must somehow have mistaken our bearings true we have encountered this barrier
but france is there beyond yes france is there come count come by all that's pitiful i entreat you come and explore the farthest verge of the ice bound track
he pushed onwards along the rugged surface of the rock but had not proceeded far before he came to a sudden pause his foot had come in contact with something hard beneath the snow
and stooping down he picked up a little block of stony substance which the first glance revealed to be of a geological character altogether alien to the universal rocks around
vil villa he cried out in his excitement dropping the marble which was broken into atoms by the fall what else could this fragment be but the sole surviving remnant of some sumptuous mansion
and commanding the gorgeous panorama that embraced the maritime alps and reached beyond monaco and mentone to the italian height of bordighera
chapter twenty seven it was a hard blow to poor sellers to see the work on his darling enterprise stop and the noise and bustle and confusion that had been such refreshment to his soul sicken and die out
it was hard to come down to humdrum ordinary life again after being a general superintendent and the most conspicuous man in the community it was sad to see his name disappear from the newspapers
sadder still to see it resurrected at intervals shorn of its aforetime gaudy gear of compliments and clothed on with rhetorical tar and feathers
but his friends suffered more on his account than he did he was a cork that could not be kept under the water many moments at a time he had to bolster up his wife's spirits every now and then
on one of these occasions he said it's all right my dear all right it will all come right in a little while
i expect the news every day now but beriah you've been expecting it every day all along haven't you well yes yes i don't know but i have but anyway the longer it's delayed
the nearer it grows to the time when it will start same as every day you live brings you nearer to nearer the grave well no not that exactly but you can't understand these things
polly dear women haven't much head for business you know
why bless you let the appropriation lag if it wants to that's no great matter there's a bigger thing than that
bigger child why what's two hundred thousand dollars pocket money mere pocket money look at the railroad did you forget the railroad it ain't many months till spring it will be coming right along and the railroad swimming right along behind it
we do somehow seem to manage to live on next year's crop of corn and potatoes as a general thing while this year is still dragging along
but don't look that way dear don't mind what i say i don't mean to fret i don't mean to worry and i don't once a month do i dear but when i get a little low and feel bad i get a bit troubled and worrisome
but it don't mean anything in the world it passes right away i know you're doing all you can and i don't want to seem repining and ungrateful
and i'll bring things all right yet honey cheer up and don't you fear the railroad oh i had forgotten the railroad dear but when a body gets blue a body forgets everything yes the railroad tell me about the railroad
aha my girl don't you see things ain't so dark are they now i didn't forget the railroad now just think for a moment just figure up a little on the future dead moral certainties
for instance call this waiter saint louis and we'll lay this fork representing the railroad from saint louis to this potato which is slouchburg
to the tumbler that's brimstone thence by the pipe to belshazzar which is the salt cellar thence to to that quill catfish
hand me the pincushion marie antoinette thence right along these shears to this horse babylon then by the spoon to bloody run thank you the ink
thence to hail columbia snuffers polly please move that cup and saucer close up that's hail columbia then let me open my knife to hark from the tomb where we'll put the candle stick
and showing its continuation to hallelujah and thence to corruptionville now then there you are it's a beautiful road beautiful
he calls it sometimes one and sometimes the other just whichever levels off his sentence neatest i reckon but ain't it a ripping road though i tell you it'll make a stir when it gets along
bless my life what fortunes are going to be made there when they get that contrivance perfected for extracting olive oil out of turnips if there's any in them
and i reckon there is because congress has made an appropriation of money to test the thing and they wouldn't have done that just on conjecture of course and now we come to the brimstone region
cattle raised there till you can't rest and corn and all that sort of thing then you've got a little stretch along through belshazzar that don't produce anything now at least nothing but rocks
tobacco enough can be raised there to support two such railroads next is the sassparilla region i reckon there's enough of that truck along in there on the line of the pocket knife
let me see where was i oh yes now we run down to stone's lan napoleon now we run down to napoleon beautiful road look at that now
perfectly straight line straight as the way to the grave and see where it leaves hawkeye clear out in the cold my dear clear out in the cold that town's as bound to die as
polly mark my words in three years from this hawkeye'll be a howling wilderness you'll see and just look at that river noblest stream that meanders over the thirsty earth
calmest gentlest artery that refreshes her weary bosom railroad goes all over it and all through it wades right along on stilts seventeen bridges in three miles and a half
forty nine bridges from hark from the tomb to stone's landing altogether forty nine bridges and culverts enough to culvert creation itself
perfect trestle work of bridges for seventy two miles jeff thompson and i fixed all that you know he's to get the contracts and i'm to put them through on the divide just oceans of money in those bridges
it's the only part of the railroad i'm interested in down along the line and it's all i want too it's enough i should judge now here we are at napoleon
that's all right that will come and it's no bad country now for calmness and solitude i can tell you though there's no money in that of course no money but a man wants rest
a man wants peace a man don't want to rip and tear around all the time
a spectacle of inconceivable sublimity so don't you see we've got the rail road to fall back on and in the meantime what are we worrying about that two hundred thousand dollars appropriation for that's all right
i'm sorry i was blue but it did seem as if everything had been going against us for whole ages open the letter open it quick and let's know all about it before we stir out of our places
chapter twenty one troubles in the fold a message gabriel oak had ceased to feed the weatherbury flock for about four and twenty hours when on sunday afternoon the elderly gentlemen joseph poorgrass
matthew moon fray and half a dozen others came running up to the house of the mistress of the upper farm
and ceasing in a moment from the close compression of her two red lips with which she had accompanied the exertion of pulling on a tight glove sixty said joseph poorgrass seventy said moon fifty nine said susan tall's husband
sheep have broke fence said fray and got into a field of young clover said tall young clover said moon clover said joseph poorgrass and they be getting blasted said henery fray that they be said joseph
and will all die as dead as nits if they bain't got out and cured said tall joseph's countenance was drawn into lines and puckers by his concern
fray's forehead was wrinkled both perpendicularly and crosswise after the pattern of a portcullis expressive of a double despair laban tall's lips were thin and his face was rigid
matthew's jaws sank and his eyes turned whichever way the strongest muscle happened to pull them yes said joseph and i was sitting at home looking for ephesians and says i to myself tis nothing but corinthians and thessalonians in this danged testament
joseph he said the sheep have blasted theirselves with bathsheba it was a moment when thought was speech and speech exclamation moreover she had hardly recovered her equanimity since the disturbance which she had suffered from oak's remarks
throwing the parasol and prayer book into the passage and running out of doors in the direction signified
bathsheba's beauty belonging rather to the demonian than to the angelic school she never looked so well as when she was angry
having once received the stimulus that her presence always gave them they went round among the sheep with a will the majority of the afflicted animals were lying down and could not be stirred these were bodily lifted out and the others driven into the adjoining field
here after the lapse of a few minutes several more fell down and lay helpless and livid as the rest bathsheba with a sad bursting heart looked at these primest specimens of her prime flock as they rolled there
many of them foamed at the mouth their breathing being quick and short whilst the bodies of all were fearfully distended oh what can i do what can i do said bathsheba helplessly sheep are such unfortunate animals there's always something happening to them
i never knew a flock pass a year without getting into some scrape or other there's only one way of saving them said tall what way tell me quick they must be pierced in the side with a thing made on purpose can you do it can i
if ye go to the right or left but an inch you stab the ewe and kill her not even a shepherd can do it as a rule then they must die she said in a resigned tone
he could cure em all if he were here who is he let's get him shepherd oak said matthew
nor shall you if you stay with me ah she added brightening farmer boldwood knows
and gable went and saved em farmer boldwood hev got the thing they do it with tis a holler pipe with a sharp pricker inside isn't it joseph ay a holler pipe echoed joseph that's what tis ay sure that's the machine chimed in henery fray reflectively
with an oriental indifference to the flight of time well burst out bathsheba don't stand there with your ayes and your sures talking at me get somebody to cure the sheep instantly all then stalked off in consternation to get somebody as directed
without any idea of who it was to be in a minute they had vanished through the gate and she stood alone with the dying flock never will i send for him never she said firmly one of the ewes here contracted its muscles horribly
extended itself and jumped high into the air the leap was an astonishing one the ewe fell heavily and lay still bathsheba went up to it the sheep was dead oh what shall i do what shall i do she again exclaimed wringing her hands
i won't send for him no i won't the most vigorous expression of a resolution does not always coincide with the greatest vigour of the resolution itself it is often flung out as a sort of prop to support a decaying conviction which whilst strong
required no enunciation to prove it so the no i won't of bathsheba meant virtually i think i must she followed her assistants through the gate and lifted her hand to one of them laban answered to her signal where is oak staying
across the valley at nest cottage jump on the bay mare and ride across and say he must return instantly that i say so tall scrambled off to the field and in two minutes was on poll the bay bare backed
and with only a halter by way of rein he diminished down the hill bathsheba watched so did all the rest tall cantered along the bridle path through sixteen acres sheeplands middle field the flats
cappel's piece shrank almost to a point crossed the bridge and ascended from the valley through springmead and whitepits on the other side
backed by blue firs bathsheba walked up and down the men entered the field and endeavoured to ease the anguish of the dumb creatures by rubbing them nothing availed bathsheba continued walking the horse was seen descending the hill
and the wearisome series had to be repeated in reverse order whitepits springmead cappel's piece the flats middle field sheeplands sixteen acres
the rider neared them it was tall oh what folly said bathsheba gabriel was not visible anywhere perhaps he is already gone she said tall came into the inclosure and leapt off his face tragic as morton's after the battle of shrewsbury
well said bathsheba unwilling to believe that her verbal lettre de cachet could possibly have miscarried he says beggars mustn't be choosers replied laban what said the young farmer opening her eyes and drawing in her breath for an outburst
joseph poorgrass retired a few steps behind a hurdle he says he shall not come onless you request en to come civilly and in a proper manner as becomes
oh oh that's his answer where does he get his airs who am i then to be treated like that shall i beg to a man who has begged to me another of the flock sprang into the air and fell dead the men looked grave as if they suppressed opinion
bathsheba turned aside her eyes full of tears the strait she was in through pride and shrewishness could not be disguised longer she burst out crying bitterly they all saw it and she attempted no further concealment
i wouldn't cry about it miss said william smallbury compassionately why not ask him softer like i'm sure he'd come then gable is a true man in that way bathsheba checked her grief and wiped her eyes
oh it is a wicked cruelty to me it is it is she murmured and he drives me to do what i wouldn't yes he does tall come indoors after this collapse not very dignified for the head of an establishment she went into the house tall at her heels
here she sat down and hastily scribbled a note between the small convulsive sobs of convalescence which follow a fit of crying as a ground swell follows a storm the note was none the less polite for being written in a hurry she held it at a distance was about to fold it
then added these words at the bottom do not desert me gabriel she looked a little redder in refolding it and closed her lips as if thereby to suspend till too late the action of conscience in examining whether such strategy were justifiable
the note was despatched as the message had been and bathsheba waited indoors for the result it was an anxious quarter of an hour that intervened between the messenger's departure and the sound of the horse's tramp again outside
she could not watch this time but leaning over the old bureau at which she had written the letter closed her eyes as if to keep out both hope and fear the case however was a promising one gabriel was not angry he was simply neutral although her first command had been so haughty
she went out when the horse was heard and looked up a mounted figure passed between her and the sky and drew on towards the field of sheep the rider turning his face in receding gabriel looked at her
gabriel murmured a confused reply and hastened on she knew from the look which sentence in her note had brought him bathsheba followed to the field gabriel was already among the turgid prostrate forms
he had flung off his coat rolled up his shirt sleeves and taken from his pocket the instrument of salvation it was a small tube or trochar with a lance passing down the inside and gabriel began to use it with a dexterity that would have graced a hospital surgeon
passing his hand over the sheep's left flank and selecting the proper point he punctured the skin and rumen with the lance as it stood in the tube then he suddenly withdrew the lance retaining the tube in its place
it has been said that mere ease after torment is delight for a time and the countenances of these poor creatures expressed it now forty nine operations were successfully performed
owing to the great hurry necessitated by the far gone state of some of the flock gabriel missed his aim in one case and in one only striking wide of the mark
three recovered without an operation the total number of sheep which had thus strayed and injured themselves so dangerously was fifty seven when the love led man had ceased from his labours bathsheba came and looked him in the face gabriel
will you stay on with me she said smiling winningly and not troubling to bring her lips quite together again at the end because there was going to be another smile soon
men thin away to insignificance and oblivion quite as often by not making the most of good spirits when they have them as by lacking good spirits when they are indispensable gabriel lately for the first time since his prostration by misfortune
had been independent in thought and vigorous in action to a marked extent conditions which powerless without an opportunity as an opportunity without them is barren would have given him a sure lift upwards when the favourable conjunction should have occurred
the spring tides were going by without floating him off and the neap might soon come which could not it was the first day of june and the sheep shearing season culminated
flossy catkins of the later kinds fern sprouts like bishops croziers the square headed moschatel the odd cuckoo pint
snow white ladies' smocks the toothwort approximating to human flesh the enchanter's night shade and the black petaled doleful bells were among the quainter objects of the vegetable world in and about weatherbury at this teeming time
and of the animal the metamorphosed figures of mister jan coggan the master shearer the second and third shearers who travelled in the exercise of their calling and do not require definition by name henery fray the fourth shearer susan tall's husband the fifth
joseph poorgrass the sixth young cain ball as assistant shearer and gabriel oak as general supervisor none of these were clothed to any extent worth mentioning each appearing to have hit in the matter of raiment the decent mean between a high and low caste hindoo
an angularity of lineament and a fixity of facial machinery in general proclaimed that serious work was the order of the day they sheared in the great barn called for the nonce the shearing barn which on ground plan resembled a church with transepts
it not only emulated the form of the neighbouring church of the parish but vied with it in antiquity whether the barn had ever formed one of a group of conventual buildings nobody seemed to be aware no trace of such surroundings remained
the vast porches at the sides lofty enough to admit a waggon laden to its highest with corn in the sheaf were spanned by heavy pointed arches of stone broadly and boldly cut whose very simplicity was the origin of a grandeur
not apparent in erections where more ornament has been attempted the dusky filmed chestnut roof braced and tied in by huge collars curves and diagonals was far nobler in design because more wealthy in material than nine tenths of those in our modern churches
one could say about this barn what could hardly be said of either the church or the castle akin to it in age and style that the purpose which had dictated its original erection was the same with that to which it was still applied
unlike and superior to either of those two typical remnants of mediaevalism the old barn embodied practices which had suffered no mutilation at the hands of time
the fact that four centuries had neither proved it to be founded on a mistake inspired any hatred of its purpose nor given rise to any reaction that had battered it down
which a too curious reflection was apt to disturb in its ecclesiastical and military compeers for once mediaevalism and modernism had a common stand point the lanceolate windows the time eaten archstones and chamfers the orientation of the axis
the misty chestnut work of the rafters referred to no exploded fortifying art or worn out religious creed the defence and salvation of the body by daily bread is still a study a religion and a desire
to day the large side doors were thrown open towards the sun to admit a bountiful light to the immediate spot of the shearers operations which was the wood threshing floor in the centre formed of thick oak black with age and polished by the beating of flails for many generations
till it had grown as slippery and as rich in hue as the state room floors of an elizabethan mansion here the shearers knelt the sun slanting in upon their bleached shirts tanned arms and the polished shears they flourished
causing these to bristle with a thousand rays strong enough to blind a weak eyed man beneath them a captive sheep lay panting quickening its pants as misgiving merged in terror till it quivered like the hot landscape outside
this picture of to day in its frame of four hundred years ago did not produce that marked contrast between ancient and modern which is implied by the contrast of date in comparison with cities weatherbury was immutable
his old times are still new his present is futurity so the barn was natural to the shearers and the shearers were in harmony with the barn
the spacious ends of the building answering ecclesiastically to nave and chancel extremities were fenced off with hurdles the sheep being all collected in a crowd within these two enclosures and in one angle a catching pen was formed
in which three or four sheep were continuously kept ready for the shearers to seize without loss of time in the background mellowed by tawny shade were the three women maryann money and temperance and soberness miller
gathering up the fleeces and twisting ropes of wool with a wimble for tying them round they were indifferently well assisted by the old maltster who when the malting season from october to april had passed made himself useful upon any of the bordering farmsteads
behind all was bathsheba carefully watching the men to see that there was no cutting or wounding through carelessness and that the animals were shorn close gabriel who flitted and hovered under her bright eyes like a moth did not shear continuously
and selecting the sheep for them at the present moment he was engaged in handing round a mug of mild liquor supplied from a barrel in the corner and cut pieces of bread and cheese
bathsheba after throwing a glance here a caution there and lecturing one of the younger operators who had allowed his last finished sheep to go off among the flock without re stamping it with her initials came again to gabriel
as he put down the luncheon to drag a frightened ewe to his shear station flinging it over upon its back with a dexterous twist of the arm he lopped off the tresses about its head and opened up the neck and collar his mistress quietly looking on
she blushes at the insult murmured bathsheba watching the pink flush which arose and overspread the neck and shoulders of the ewe where they were left bare by the clicking shears a flush which was enviable for its delicacy by many queens of coteries
and would have been creditable for its promptness to any woman in the world poor gabriel's soul was fed with a luxury of content by having her over him her eyes critically regarding his skilful shears which apparently were going to gather up a piece of the flesh at every close and yet never did so
like guildenstern oak was happy in that he was not over happy he had no wish to converse with her that his bright lady and himself formed one group exclusively their own and containing no others in the world was enough
so the chatter was all on her side there is a loquacity that tells nothing which was bathsheba's and there is a silence which says much that was gabriel's full of this dim and temperate bliss he went on to fling the ewe over upon her other side
covering her head with his knee gradually running the shears line after line round her dewlap thence about her flank and back and finishing over the tail well done and done quickly said bathsheba looking at her watch as the last snip resounded
how long miss said gabriel wiping his brow three and twenty minutes and a half since you took the first lock from its forehead
the clean sleek creature arose from its fleece how perfectly like aphrodite rising from the foam should have been seen to be realized looking startled and shy at the loss of its garment which lay on the floor in one soft cloud united throughout
throws the loose locks into the middle of the fleece rolls it up and carries it into the background as three and a half pounds of unadulterated warmth for the winter enjoyment of persons unknown and far away who will however never experience the superlative comfort derivable
from the wool as it here exists new and pure before the unctuousness of its nature whilst in a living state has dried stiffened and been washed out rendering it just now as superior to anything woollen as cream is superior to milk and water
but heartless circumstance could not leave entire gabriel's happiness of this morning the rams old ewes and two shear ewes had duly undergone their stripping and the men were proceeding with the shear lings and hogs
boldwood always carried with him a social atmosphere of his own which everybody felt who came near him and the talk which bathsheba's presence had somewhat suppressed was now totally suspended
he crossed over towards bathsheba who turned to greet him with a carriage of perfect ease he spoke to her in low tones and she instinctively modulated her own to the same pitch and her voice ultimately even caught the inflection of his
she was far from having a wish to appear mysteriously connected with him but woman at the impressionable age gravitates to the larger body not only in her choice of words which is apparent every day but even in her shades of tone and humour when the influence is great
what they conversed about was not audible to gabriel who was too independent to get near though too concerned to disregard the issue of their dialogue was the taking of her hand by the courteous farmer to help her over the spreading board into the bright june sunlight outside
bathsheba demurely regarded a contemptible straw lying upon the ground in a way which suggested less ovine criticism than womanly embarrassment
gabriel sheared on constrained and sad
then she reappeared in her new riding habit of myrtle green which fitted her to the waist as a rind fits its fruit and young bob coggan led on her mare boldwood fetching his own horse from the tree under which it had been tied
that he watched boldwood's manner he snipped the sheep in the groin the animal plunged bathsheba instantly gazed towards it and saw the blood oh gabriel she exclaimed with severe remonstrance
to an outsider there was not much to complain of in this remark but to oak who knew bathsheba to be well aware that she herself was the cause of the poor ewe's wound because she had wounded the ewe's shearer in a still more vital part
it had a sting which the abiding sense of his inferiority to both herself and boldwood was not calculated to heal but a manly resolve to recognize boldly that he had no longer a lover's interest in her helped him occasionally to conceal a feeling
bottle he shouted in an unmoved voice of routine cainy ball ran up the wound was anointed and the shearing continued
i am going now to see mister boldwood's leicesters take my place in the barn gabriel and keep the men carefully to their work the horses heads were put about and they trotted away boldwood's deep attachment was a matter of great interest among all around him
but after having been pointed out for so many years as the perfect exemplar of thriving bachelorship his lapse was an anticlimax somewhat resembling that of saint john long's death by consumption in the midst of his proofs that it was not a fatal disease
that means matrimony said temperance miller following them out of sight with her eyes
said coggan working along without looking up
as usual with decided characters bathsheba invariably provoked the criticism of individuals like henery fray her emblazoned fault was to be too pronounced in her objections and not sufficiently overt in her likings
we learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb but those which they reject that give them the colours they are known by and in the same way people are specialized by their dislikes and antagonisms whilst their goodwill is looked upon as no attribute at all
passably well put yes and i would have said it had death and salvation overtook me for it such is my spirit when i have a mind a true man and proud as a lucifer you see the artfulness why twas about being baily really
but i didn't put it so plain that she could understand my meaning so i could lay it on all the stronger that was my depth however let her marry an she will perhaps tis high time i believe farmer boldwood kissed her behind the spear bed at the sheep washing t'other day that i do
but i mid see a little distance into things to be long headed enough for a baily's place is a poor mere trifle yet a trifle more than nothing however i look round upon life quite cool do you heed me neighbours my words though made as simple as i can mid be rather deep for some heads
a strange old piece goodmen whirled about from here to yonder as if i were nothing a little warped too but i have my depths ha and even my great depths i might gird at a certain shepherd brain to brain but no o no
a strange old piece ye say interposed the maltster in a querulous voice at the same time ye be no old man worth naming no old man at all yer teeth bain't half gone yet and what's a old man's standing if so be his teeth bain't gone
weak as water yes said jan coggan malter we feel ye to be a wonderful veteran man and nobody can gainsay it nobody said joseph poorgrass ye be a very rare old spectacle malter and we all admire ye for that gift
ay and as a young man when my senses were in prosperity i was likewise liked by a good few who knowed me said the maltster
the bent and hoary man was satisfied and so apparently was henery fray that matters should continue pleasant maryann spoke who what with her brown complexion and the working wrapper of rusty linsey had at present the mellow hue of an old sketch in oils
notably some of nicholas poussin's
if i could hear of such a thing twould do me more good than toast and ale coggan furnished a suitable reply oak went on with his shearing and said not another word pestilent moods had come and teased away his quiet
bathsheba had shown indications of anointing him above his fellows by installing him as the bailiff that the farm imperatively required he did not covet the post relatively to the farm
in relation to herself as beloved by him and unmarried to another he had coveted it his readings of her seemed now to be vapoury and indistinct his lecture to her was he thought one of the absurdest mistakes
he was inwardly convinced that in accordance with the anticipations of his easy going and worse educated comrades that day would see boldwood the accepted husband of miss everdene
perusing it now quite frequently and he inwardly said i find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets this was mere exclamation the froth of the storm he adored bathsheba just the same
we workfolk shall have some lordly junketing to night said cainy ball casting forth his thoughts in a new direction this morning i see em making the great puddens in the milking pails lumps of fat as big as yer thumb mister oak
i've never seed such splendid large knobs of fat before in the days of my life they never used to be bigger then a horse bean and there was a great black crock upon the brandish with his legs a sticking out
and there's two bushels of biffins for apple pies said maryann
friendship may indeed come to exist without sensuous liking or comradeship to pave the way but unless intellectual sympathy and moral appreciation are powerful enough to react on natural instinct
as much as possible together and to share their work thoughts and pleasures good fellowship and sensuous affinity are indispensable to give spiritual communion a personal accent otherwise
men would be indifferent vehicles for such thoughts and powers as emanated from them and attention would not be in any way arrested or refracted by the human medium through which it beheld the good
affection based on the refraction no natural vehicle however is indifferent no natural organ is or should be transparent transparency
is a virtue only in artificial instruments organs in which no blood flows and whose intrinsic operation is not itself a portion of human life in looking through a field glass
i do not wish to perceive the lenses nor to see rainbows about their rim yet i should not wish the eye itself to lose its pigments and add no dyes to the bulks it discerns
in human happiness but no vitality is added by the intervention of further media which are not themselves living organs a man is sometimes a coloured and sometimes a clear medium
in a philosopher or artist too personality is merely instrumental for although in a sense pervasive a creative personality evaporates into its expression
into ideas is completely negligible from the public point of view that portion of a man's soul which he has not alienated and objectified is open only to those who know him otherwise
but by awakening an inexpressible animal sympathy by the contagion of emotions felt before the same objects estimation has been partly arrested at its medium
and personal relations have added their homely accent to universal discourse friendship might thus be called ideal sympathy refracted by a human medium or comradeship
and sensuous affinity colouring a spiritual light
in chance conjunctions if we approach it from below and contrast it with mere comradeship or liking its essence seems to be the presence of common ideal interests
that is a silly and effeminate friendship in which the parties are always thinking of the friendship itself and of how each stands in the other's eyes a sentimental fancy of that sort
in which nothing tangible or ulterior brings people together is rather a feeble form of love than properly a friendship in extreme youth such a weakness may perhaps indicate capacity for friendship
of a nobler type because when taste and knowledge have not yet taken shape the only way often in which ideal interests can herald themselves is in the guise of some imagined union
from which it is vaguely felt they might be developed just as in love sexual and social instincts
life in camp or college is favourable to friendship for there generous activities are carried on in unison and yet leave leisure for playful expansion and opportunity for a choice in friends
the ancients so long as they were free spent their whole life in forum and palaestra camp theatre and temple and in consequence could live by friendship even in their maturer years
but modern life is unfavourable to its continuance what with business cares with political bonds remote and invisible with the prior claims of family and with individualities both of mind and habit
growing daily more erratic early friends find themselves very soon parted by unbridgeable chasms for friendship to flourish personal life would have to become more public and social life more simple and humane
friendship between man and wife the tie that in contemporary society most nearly resembles the ancient ideal of friendship is a well assorted marriage in spite of intellectual disparity
and of divergence in occupation man and wife are bound together by a common dwelling common friends common affection for children and what is of great importance common financial interests
since a normal married life can produce the sympathies it requires
between master and disciple when the common ideal interests needed to give friendship a noble strain become altogether predominant so that comradeship and personal liking may be dispensed with
friendship passes into more and more political fellowships discipleship is a union of this kind without claiming any share in the master's private life perhaps without having ever seen him
we may enjoy communion with his mind and feel his support and guidance in following the ideal which links us together hero worship is an imaginative passion in which
latent ideals assume picturesque shapes and take actual persons for their symbols such companionship perhaps wholly imaginary is a very clear and simple example of ideal society
the unconscious hero to be sure happens to exist but his existence is irrelevant to his function provided only he be present to the idealising mind
there is or need be no comradeship no actual force or influence transmitted from him certain capacities and tendencies in the worshipper are brought to a focus by the hero's image
who is thereby first discovered and deputed to be a hero he is an unmoved mover like aristotle's god and like every ideal to which thought or action is directed
the symbol however is ambiguous in hero worship being in one sense ideal the representation of an inner demand and in another sense a sensible experience the representative of an external reality
accordingly the symbol when highly prized and long contemplated may easily become an idol that in it which is not ideal nor representative of the worshipper's demand
and expressed in fancy may thus become a mechanical force vitiating that ideal for this reason it is very important that the first objects to fix the soul's admiration
the more fruitful procedure is accordingly to idealise some historical figure or natural force to ignore or minimise in it what does not seem acceptable and to retain at the same time all the
and all the graphic traits that can help to give that model a persuasive vitality this poetic process is all the more successful for being automatic it is in this way that heroes and gods have been created
a legend or fable lying in the mind and continually repeated gained insensibly at each recurrence some new eloquence some fresh congruity
on the fortunes of particular bodies natural or corporate there is then a primacy of nature over spirit in social life and this primacy in a certain sense endures to the end
since all spirit must be the spirit of something and reason could not exist or be conceived at all unless a material organism personal or social lay beneath to give thought an occasion and a point of view
things could not be near or far worse or better unless a definite life were taken as a standard a life lodged somewhere in space and time
reason is a principle of order appearing in a subject matter which in its subsistence and quantity must be an irrational datum reason expresses purpose purpose expresses impulse and impulse
expresses a natural body with self equilibrating powers at the same time natural growths may be called achievements only because when formed they support a joyful and liberal experience
nature's works first acquire a meaning in the commentaries they provoke mechanical processes have interesting climaxes only from the point of view of the life that expresses them in which their ebb and flow grows impassioned and vehement
and fluid not stopping where we see a goal nor avoiding what we call failures and so they would always have remained in crude experience if no cumulative reflection no art
and no science had come to dominate and foreshorten that equable flow of substance arresting it ideally in behalf of some rational interest thus it comes to pass that rational interests have a certain
ascendancy in the world as well as an absolute authority over it for they arise where an organic equilibrium has naturally established itself such an equilibrium maintains itself by virtue
of the same necessity that produced it without arresting the flux or introducing any miracle it sustains in being an ideal form this form is what consciousness corresponds to
and raises to actual existence so that significant thoughts are something which nature necessarily lingers upon and seems to serve the being to whom they come
the mind spreads and soars in proportion as the body feeds on the surrounding world noble ideas although rare and difficult to attain are not naturally fugitive
it celebrates an attained balance in nature or grieves at its collapse
in ideal terms looking to fixed goals of its own imagining and using nothing in the operation but concretions in discourse primary mathematical notions for instance
are evidences of a successful reactive method attained in the organism and translated in consciousness into a stable grammar which has wide applicability and great persistence so that it has come
to be elaborated ideally into prodigious abstract systems of thought every experience of victory eloquence or beauty is a momentary success of the same kind
and if repeated and sustained becomes a spiritual possession
social experience has its ideality too society also breeds its ideal harmonies at first it establishes affections between beings naturally conjoined in the world
later it grows sensitive to free and spiritual affinities to oneness of mind and sympathetic purposes these ideal affinities although grounded like the others on material relations for sympathy
looks away from them to its own universe of sound
and speaks all the soliloquies when most nearly material these personages are human souls the ideal life of particular bodies or floating mortal reputations echoes of those ideal lives in one another
from this relative substantiality they fade into notions of country posterity humanity and the gods these figures all represent some circle of events or forces in the real world
but such representation besides being mythical is usually most inadequate the boundaries of that province which each spirit presides over are vaguely drawn the spirit itself being correspondingly indefinite
this ambiguity is most conspicuous perhaps in the most absorbing of the personages which a man constructs in this imaginative fashion his idea of himself
there is society where none intrudes and for most men sympathy with their imaginary selves is a powerful and dominant emotion true memory offers but a meagre and interrupted vista
of past experience yet even that picture is far too rich a term for mental discourse to bandy about a name with a few physical and social connotations is what must represent the man to his own thinkings
or rather it is no memory however
that fulfils that office a man's notion of himself
for which his more constant somatic feelings his ruling interests and his social relations furnish most of the substance
romantic egotism the more reflective and self conscious a man is the more completely will his experience be subsumed and absorbed in his perennial i if philosophy has come to reinforce this reflective egotism
he may even regard all nature as nothing but his half voluntary dream and encourage himself thereby to give even to the physical world a dramatic
peoples it with mythical counterparts of himself sometimes if his imagination is sensuous his alter egos are incarnate in the landscape and he creates a poetic mythology sometimes when the inner life predominates
they are projected into his own forgotten past or infinite future he will then say that all experience is really his own and
that some inexplicable illusion has momentarily raised opaque partitions in his omniscient mind
as the spring of all human sentiments amour propre involves preoccupation not merely with the idea of self but with that idea reproduced in other men's minds the soliloquy
has become a dialogue or rather a solo with an echoing chorus interest in one's own social figure is to some extent a material interest for other men's love or aversion
is a principle read into their acts and a social animal like man is dependent on other men's acts for his happiness an individual's concern for the attitude society takes toward him is therefore
in the first instance concern for his own practical welfare but imagination here refines upon worldly interest what others think of us would be of little moment did it not when known
he would utterly despise the ignorant notions others might form on a subject in which he had such matchless opportunities for observation indeed those opinions would hardly seem to him directed upon the reality at all
and he would laugh at them as he might at the stock fortune telling of some itinerant gypsy as it is however
they are green and vigorous in old age we crave support in vanity as we do in religion and never forgive contradictions in that sphere for however persistent and passionate such prejudices may be
we know too well that they are woven of thin air a hostile word by starting a contrary imaginative current buffets them rudely and threatens to dissolve their being
ambiguities of fame the highest form of vanity is love of fame it is a passion easy to deride but hard to understand and in men who live at all by imagination
in posthumous fame the direct object of this passion that a name should survive in men's mouths to which no adequate idea of its original can be attached seems a thin and fantastic satisfaction especially
when they set so high a value on fame they often identified fame with immortality
when he was going home had done what too many weak people do tried to hide one fault by committing another robin was given into his charge to protect and take safely home to his father and when the attack was made by the outlaw's men
and save him from being injured by robin hood's people he thought only of himself he threw his charge into the first bushes he came to and galloped away hardly stopping till he reached nottingham town there the first question the sheriff asked was
not what had become of the pack mules and the consignment of cloth but where was robin and the false servant said that he had fought hard to save him in the fight but fought in vain and that the poor boy was dead and then months passed
and a year had gone by and people looked solemn and said that it seemed as if the sheriff would never hold up his head again but they thought that he should have gathered together a number of fighting men and gone and punished robin hood and his outlaws
for carrying off that valuable set of loads of cloth but robin's father cared nothing for the cloth or the mules
whom he loved so well and whom he wept for in secret at night when there was no one near to see robin's aunt when she came and tried to comfort him used to shake her head and wipe her eyes she said little only thought a great deal
and she came over again and again to try and comfort her dead sister's husband but it made no difference for the sheriff was a sadly altered man then all at once there was a change
for one day a man came to the sheriff's house and wanted him but the sheriff would not see him for he took no interest in anything now and told his servant that the man must send word what his business was the servant went out
and came back directly he says sir that he was taken prisoner by robin hood's men a week ago and that he has just come from the camp under the greenwood tree and has brought you news master the sheriff started up trembling
come from the outlaws camp he said with his voice trembling yes master sheriff they took you prisoner and beat and robbed you oh no master sheriff they took me before robin hood
yes cried the sheriff and what did you say
then he laughed and all his people laughed too and he said i was a
give him plenty to eat and drink he said
what is it you are keeping back why don't you speak because master said the man softly i was afraid you couldn't bear it for i was a father once and my son died and though you never knew me i knew you
and was sorry when the news came that your little boy was killed can you bear to hear good news as well as bad the sheriff was silent for a few minutes during which he closed his eyes and his lips moved
and took hold of his hand as she whispered loving words yes yes he said softly i can bear it now speak pray speak and tell me all
there's a little fellow there dressed all in lincoln green like one of robin hood's fighting men with his sword and bugle
i managed to follow him but among the trees to where i found him feeding one of the wild deer which followed him about like a dog i waited a bit and then stepped out to him and what do you think he did he strung his bow fitted an arrow to it
do you know my father do i know the sheriff i said of course are you going there soon he cried and i nodded then you go to my father he cried
and tell him to tell aunt that i'm quite well and that some day i'm coming home the man stopped for just then the sheriff closed his eyes again and said something very softly
then the sheriff sprang to his feet looking quite a different man here
and he gave him some gold pieces could you find your way back to the outlaws camp in the forest oh yes master sheriff that i could though they did bind a cloth over my face when they brought me away
and you could lead me and a strong body of fighting men right to the outlaws camp i could master sheriff said the man beginning slowly to lay the gold pieces back one by one upon the table
what cried the sheriff angrily they are robbers and outlaws and every subject of the king has a right to slay them
what i say is he's a noble kind hearted gentleman
for as sheriff of nottingham he said to himself that it was his duty to destroy or scatter the band of outlaws who had lived in sherwood forest for so long a time so he gathered a strong body of crossbow men
and others with spears and swords besides asking for the help of two gallant knights who came with their esquires mounted and in armour with their men somehow robin hood knew what was being prepared
of about three hundred men were struggling to make their way through the forest they heard the sound of a horn and all at once the thick woodland seemed to be alive with archers who used their bows in such a way that first one then a dozen
then by fifties the sheriff's men began to flee and in less than an hour they were all crawling back to nottingham badly beaten
in another month the sheriff advanced again with a stronger force but they were driven back more easily than the first and the sheriff was in despair but a couple of days later he had the man
and against his own will it was many weary anxious days before the messenger came back but without the little prisoner what did he say asked the sheriff he said master that if you wanted the boy you must go and fetch him
it was the very next day that the sheriff went into the room where young robin's aunt was seated looking very unhappy and she jumped up from her chair wonderingly on seeing that her brother in law was dressed as if for a journey
wearing no sword or dagger only carrying a long stout walking staff
she said where i ought to have gone at first he said humbly into the forest to fetch my boy but you could never find your way she said sobbing besides
you are the sheriff and these men will seize and kill you i have someone to show me the way said the sheriff gently and somehow though i have persecuted and fought against the people sorely i feel no fear
for robin hood is not the man to slay a broken hearted father
under vespasian and titus pliny the naturalist exclaimed large estates have ruined italy and are ruining the provinces but it never has been understood that the extension of property was effected then as it is to day under the aegis of the law
and by virtue of the constitution when the senate sold captured lands at auction it was in the interest of the treasury and of public welfare when the patricians bought up possessions and property they realized the purpose of the senate's decrees when they lent at high rates of interest
they took advantage of a legal privilege property said the lender
the right to lend at interest to lease to acquire and then to lease and lend again but property is also the right to exchange to transfer and to sell if then the social condition is such that the proprietor ruined by usury
the means of his subsistence he will sell it
internal dissensions between the two orders of the republic
dissensions which gave rise to civil wars proscriptions and loss of liberty and finally led to the empire but the primary and mediate cause of their decline was the establishment by numa of the institution of property
i end with an extract from a work which i have quoted several times already
the concentration of property says m laboulaye while causing extreme poverty forced the emperors to feed and amuse the people that they might forget their misery panem et circenses that was the roman law in regard to the poor
a dire and perhaps a necessary evil wherever a landed aristocracy exists to feed these hungry mouths grain was brought from africa and the provinces and distributed gratuitously among the needy in the time of caesar
three hundred and twenty thousand people were thus fed augustus saw that such a measure led directly to the destruction of husbandry
the emperor shrank at the thought while grain was gratuitous agriculture was impossible tillage gave way to pasturage another cause of depopulation even among slaves finally luxury carried further and further every day
covered the soil of italy with elegant villas which occupied whole cantons gardens and groves replaced the fields and the free population fled to the towns husbandry disappeared almost entirely and with husbandry the husbandman africa furnished the wheat
and greece the wine tiberius complained bitterly of this evil
that was his anxiety one day later and three hundred thousand starving men walked the streets of rome that was a revolution this decline of italy and the provinces did not stop
after the reign of nero depopulation commenced in towns as noted as antium and tarentum under the reign of pertinax there was so much desert land that the emperor abandoned it even that which belonged to the treasury
senators were compelled to invest one third of their fortunes in real estate in italy but this measure served only to increase the evil which they wished to cure to force the rich to possess in italy
and must i say finally
if the reader in running through this book should complain of meeting with nothing but quotations from other works extracts from journals and public lectures
and interpretations of them i would remind him that the very object of this memoir is to establish the conformity of my opinion concerning property with that universally held that
and finally that my sole pretension is to clearly formulate the general belief i cannot repeat it too often
i teach absolutely nothing that is new and i should regard the doctrine which i advocate as radically erroneous if a single witness should testify against it let us now trace the revolutions in property among the barbarians
as long as the german tribes dwelt in their forests it did not occur to them to divide and appropriate the soil the land was held in common each individual could plow sow and reap but when the
empire was once invaded they bethought themselves of sharing the land just as they shared spoils after a victory hence says m laboulaye the expressions sortes burgundiorum gothorum
and loos lot which are used in all modern languages to designate the gifts of chance allodial property at least with the mass of coparceners was originally held then in equal shares
equal or at least equivalent this property like that of the romans was wholly individual independent exclusive transferable and consequently susceptible of accumulation and invasion but instead of its being
as was the case among the romans the large estate which through increase and usury subordinated and absorbed the small one among the barbarians
it was the warrior who through superiority of arms enslaved his adversary the roman wanted matter the barbarian wanted man consequently in the feudal ages rents were almost nothing simply a hare a partridge a pie
a few pints of wine brought by a little girl or a maypole set up within the suzerain's reach
a thing which happened almost every day and equip and feed himself at his own expense this spirit of the german tribes this spirit of companionship and association governed the territory as it governed individuals the lands like the men
this subjection was the labor of the german epoch which gave birth to feudalism by fair means or foul every proprietor who could not be a chief was forced to be a vassal laboulaye history of property by fair means or foul
every mechanic who cannot be a master has to be a journeyman every proprietor who is not an invader will be invaded every producer who cannot by the exploitation of other men furnish products at less than their proper value will lose his labor
corporations and masterships
which was the result of the subordination of men and possessions the times which paved the way for the advent of feudalism and the reappearance of large proprietors were times of carnage and the most frightful anarchy
never before had murder and violence made such havoc with the human race the tenth century among others if my memory serves me rightly was called the century of iron his property his life and the honor of his wife and children always in danger
and to bestow something on the church of his freehold that he might receive protection and security
or reduced by the encroachments of large proprietors and counts to the condition of either vassals or tributaries the capitularies are full of repressive provisions but the incessant reiteration of these threats only shows the perseverance of the evil
and the impotency of the government oppression moreover varies but little in its methods the complaints of the free proprietors
were one and the same it is said that whenever a poor man refused to give his estate to the bishop the curate the count the judge or the centurion these immediately sought an opportunity to ruin him they made him serve in the army until
completely ruined he was induced by fair means or foul to give up his freehold laboulaye history of property how many small proprietors and manufacturers have not been ruined by large ones through chicanery law suits and competition
strategy violence and usury
oscillating by virtue of its principle between two opposite terms extreme division and extreme accumulation property at its first term is almost null reduced to personal exploitation it is property only potentially
at its second term it exists in its perfection then it is truly property
and rises quickly to the zenith of its power thus the jews after leaving babylon with esdras and nehemiah soon became richer and more powerful than they had been under their kings
sparta was in a strong and prosperous condition during the two or three centuries which followed the death of lycurgus the best days of athens were those of the persian war rome whose inhabitants were divided from the beginning into two classes the exploiters and the exploited
when property is concentrated society abusing itself polluted so to speak grows corrupt wears itself out how shall i express this horrible idea plunges into long continued and fatal luxury
but humanity created for an immortal destiny is deathless the revolutions which disturb it are purifying crises invariably followed by more vigorous health in the fifth century the invasion of the barbarians partially restored the world to a state of natural equality
in the twelfth century a new spirit pervading all society gave the slave his rights and through justice breathed new life into the heart of nations it has been said and often repeated that christianity regenerated the world
that is true but it seems to me that there is a mistake in the date christianity had no influence upon roman society when the barbarians came that society had disappeared for such is god's curse upon property
slave labor is death to the race of tyrants the patrician families became extinct as the feudal families did and as all aristocracies must
it was in the middle ages when a reactionary movement was beginning to secretly undermine accumulated property
influence of christianity was first exercised to its full extent the destruction of feudalism the conversion of the serf into the commoner the emancipation of the communes
were deeds accomplished by christianity exclusively i say christianity not ecclesiasticism for the priests and bishops were themselves large proprietors
without the christianity of the middle ages
and would not be possible the truth of this assertion is shown by the very facts which m laboulaye quotes although this author inclines to the opposite opinion
slavery among the romans the roman slave was in the eyes of the law only a thing no more than an ox or a horse he had neither property family nor personality
he was defenceless against his master's cruelty folly or cupidity sell your oxen that are past use said cato
and all that is of no use to you when no market could be found for the slaves that were worn out by sickness or old age they were abandoned to starvation claudius was the first defender of this shameful practice
discharge your old workman says the economist of the proprietary school turn off that sick domestic that toothless and worn out servant put away the unserviceable beauty to the hospital with the useless mouths
is that he prohibited intolerable cruelty as an abuse of property expedit enim reipublicae
as soon as the church met in council it launched an anathema against the masters who had exercised over their slaves this terrible right of life and death
the dearest proteges of religion constantine who embodied in the laws the grand ideas of christianity valued the life of a slave as highly as that of a freeman and declared the master who had intentionally brought death upon his slave guilty of murder
the slave was a thing religion has made him a man note the last words
there is a complete revolution in moral ideas the slave was a thing religion has made him a man the moral revolution which transformed the slave into a citizen was effected then by christianity before the barbarians set foot upon the soil of the empire
we have only to trace the progress of this moral revolution in the personnel
but m laboulaye rightly says it did not change the condition of men in a moment any more than that of things between slavery and liberty there was an abyss which could not be filled in a day the transitional step
was servitude now
in what did it differ from roman slavery and whence came this difference let the same author answer
of servitude i see in the lord's manor slaves charged with domestic duties some are employed in the personal service of the master others are charged with household cares the women spin the wool
the men grind the grain make the bread
what little they know of the industrial arts the master punishes them when he chooses kills them with impunity and sells them and theirs like so many cattle the slave has no personality and consequently no wehrgeld
peculiar to himself he is a thing
whether the slave is killed or stolen the indemnity does not change for the injury is the same
in all these particulars germanic slavery and roman servitude are alike this similarity is worthy of notice slavery is always the same whether in a roman villa or on a barbarian farm
a price is set upon his head he is a tool without a conscience a chattel without personality an impeccable irresponsible being who has neither rights nor duties why did his condition improve
when the serf began to be regarded as a man and as such the law of the visigoths under the influence of christian ideas punished with fine or banishment any one who maimed or killed him always christianity always religion
though we should like to speak of the laws only did the philanthropy of the visigoths make its first appearance before or after the preaching of the gospel this point must be cleared up after the conquest the serfs were scattered over the large estates of the barbarians
and his peculium in return for which he paid rent and performed service they were rarely separated from their homes when their land was sold they and all that they had became the property of the purchaser
the law favored this realization of the serf in not allowing him to be sold out of the country
destructive not only of slavery but of property itself for if the master cannot drive from his domain the slave whom he has once established there it follows that the slave is proprietor as well as the master the barbarians
again says m laboulaye were the first to recognize the slave's rights of family and property two rights which are incompatible with slavery
or was it the immediate effect of that spirit of justice infused with religion
a brother in jesus christ purified by the same baptism and redeemed by the same sacrifice of the son of god in the form of man
for we must not close our eyes to the fact that though the barbarian morals and the ignorance and carelessness of the seigniors who busied themselves mainly with wars and battles paying little or no attention to agriculture may have been great aids in the emancipation of the serfs
still the vital principle of this emancipation was essentially christian suppose that the barbarians had remained pagans in the midst of a pagan world as they did not change the gospel so they would not have changed the polytheistic customs slavery would have remained what it was
whole nations would have been reduced to the condition of helots nothing would have changed upon the terrestrial stage except the actors the barbarians were less selfish less imperious less dissolute and less cruel than the romans
christianity was to act but this nature
would by its own energy have produced nothing but war and slavery gradually the serfs obtained the privilege of being judged by the same standard as their masters when how and by what title did they obtain this privilege gradually
their duties were regulated whence came the regulations who had the authority to introduce them the master took a part of the labor of the serf three days for instance and left the rest to him as for sunday that belonged to god
and what established sunday if not religion
was also that which regulated the judiciary and created a sort of law for the slave but this law itself on what did it bear what was its principle what was the philosophy of the councils and popes with reference to this matter
the reply to all these questions coming from me alone would be distrusted
this invocation of the gospel was an anathema against property the proprietors of small freeholds that is the freemen of the middle class had fallen in consequence of the tyranny of the nobles into a worse condition than that of the tenants and serfs
the expenses of war weighed less heavily upon the serf than upon the freeman and as for legal protection the seigniorial court where the serf was judged by his peers was far preferable to the cantonal assembly
to have a man of large capital for an associate than for a rival the honest tenant the laborer who earns weekly a moderate but constant salary
at that time all were either seigniors or serfs oppressors or oppressed then under the protection of convents or of the seigniorial turret new societies were formed
which silently spread over the soil made fertile by their hands and which derived their power from the annihilation of the free classes whom they enlisted in their behalf as tenants these men acquired from generation to generation
it became necessary to respect the union and heritage of these villeins who by their labor had truly prescribed the soil for their own profit
i ask how prescription could take effect where a contrary title and possession already existed m laboulaye is a lawyer where then did he ever see the labor of the slave and the cultivation by the tenant prescribe the soil for their own profit
of a recognized master daily acting as a proprietor let us not disguise matters as fast as the tenants and the serfs grew rich they wished to be independent and free
in doing these things they were perfectly right for in fact their condition was intolerable but in law i mean in roman and napoleonic law their refusal to obey and pay tribute to their masters was illegitimate
religion granted the serf rights over the soil
religion fixed their limits
could deprive him of his wife violate his daughter pillage his house and rob him of his savings religion checked his invasions
religion was the real cause of the ruin of feudal property why should it not be bold enough to day to resolutely condemn capitalistic property since the middle ages there has been no change in social economy except in its forms
its relations remain unaltered the only result
changed hands or rather that new proprietors were created sooner or later the extension of privilege far from curing the evil was to operate to the disadvantage of the plebeians
nevertheless the new social organization did not meet with the same end in all places in lombardy for example where the people rapidly growing rich through commerce and industry soon conquered the authorities
even to the exclusion of the nobles first the nobility became poor and degraded and were forced in order to live and maintain their credit to gain admission to the guilds then the ordinary subalternization of property leading to inequality of fortunes
to wealth and poverty to jealousies and hatreds the cities passed rapidly from the rankest democracy under the yoke of a few ambitious leaders
genoa florence bologna milan pisa
the people can easily escape from the tyranny of despots but they do not know how to throw off the effects of their own despotism just as we avoid the assassin's steel while we succumb to a constitutional malady as soon as a nation becomes proprietor
now just as the under vassal had no communication with the king except through the direct vassal so also the commoners could enter no complaints except through the commune
revenged themselves upon the unfortunate inhabitants who had not the right of citizenship feudalism in unemancipated countries and oligarchy in the communes made nearly the same ravages there were sub associations fraternities tradesmen's associations in the communes
and colleges in the universities
meyer judicial institutions of europe in france the revolution was much more gradual the communes in taking refuge under the protection of the kings had found them masters rather than protectors
their emancipation had been suspended when feudalism
then liberty halted the prince of the feudatories held sole and undivided sway the nobles the clergy the commoners the parliaments every thing in short except a few seeming privileges were controlled by the king who like his early predecessors
consumed regularly and nearly always in advance the revenues of his domain and that domain was france finally eighty nine arrived liberty resumed its march a century and a half had been required to wear out the last form of feudal property
chapter twenty six buffeted by the elements nan knew she had never seen it rain so hard before the falling water was like a drop curtain
swept across the stage of the open tract of sawdust in a few minutes they were saturated to the skin nan could not have been any wetter if she had gone in swimming oh she gasped into tom's ear
it is the deluge
he returned with difficulty for his big body was sheltering nan in part and he was facing the blast i know that's this one she agreed but it's awful
asked tom goodness it can't be smoking now gasped nan stifled with rain and laughter this storm would put out vesuvius
retorted her cousin but it'd put most anybody out i allow still fire isn't so easy to quench where's the tree i can't see it tom
declared nan with her eyes tightly closed she really thought he was too stubborn of course if there had been any fire in that tree top this rain would put it out in about ten seconds so nan believed
look again nan urged her cousin this is no funning if there's fire in this swamp goodness gracious snapped nan
what a fuss budget you are to be sure tom
oh did it ever pelt one so before fortunately the rain was warm and she was not much discomforted by being wet tom still clung to the idea that she had started in his slow mind
fire's no funning i tell you he growled sometimes it smoulders for days and days and weeks and weeks then it bursts out like a hurricane but the
this sawdust is mighty hard packed and feet deep interrupted tom the fire might be deep down why tom
fire couldn't be deep down in the sawdust and the smoke come out of the tree top couldn't heh returned tom dead tree wasn't it oh yes
might be hollow clear through its length tom explained seriously the butt might be all rotted out just a tough shell of a tree standing there
and twould be a fine chimney if the fire was smouldering down at its old roots oh tom i never thought of such a thing gasped nan and you don't see the tree now
cried nan conscience stricken in spite of the beating rain and wind she got to her knees still clinging to her big cousin and then stood upon the broad tongue of the wagon
the horses stood still with their heads down bearing the buffeting of the storm with the usual patience of dumb beasts a sheer wall of water seemed to separate them from every object out upon the open land
behind them the bulk of the forest loomed as another barrier nan had really never believed that rain could fall so hard it almost took her breath
moreover what tom said about the smoking tree began to trouble the girl she thought of the fire at pale lick of which she had received hints from several people that
awful conflagration in which she believed two children belonging to her uncle and aunt had lost their lives had started in the sawdust suddenly she cried aloud and seized tom more tightly
cracky don't choke a fellow he coughed oh tom
asked her cousin yes there for the moment it seemed as though the downpour lightened veiled by the still falling water a straight stick rose high in the air ahead of them
tom chirruped to the horses and made them though unwilling go forward they dragged the heavy cart unevenly through the heavy downpour the trail was hard to follow
and once in a while a rear wheel bumped over a stump and nan was glad to drop down upon the tongue again and cling more tightly than ever to her cousin's collar sure that's it queried tom
craning his neck to look up into the tall straight tree i i'm almost sure stammered nan i don't see any smoke drawled tom with his head still raised
the rain had almost ceased an intermission which would not be of long duration nan saw that her cousin's prophecy had been true the ground actually smoked after the downpour
the sun heated sawdust steamed furiously they seemed to be crossing a heated cauldron clouds of steam rose all about the timber cart why tommy
nan choked it does seem as though there must be fire under this sawdust now tom brought his own gaze down from the empty tree top with a jerk hoo he shouted and leaned forward suddenly
to flick his off horse with the whiplash just then the rear wheel on that side slumped down into what seemed a veritable volcano
flame and smoke spurted out around the broad wheel nan screamed the wind suddenly swooped down upon them and a ball of fire flaming sawdust was shot into the air
and was tossed twenty feet by a puff of wind we're over an oven gasped tom and laid the whip solidly across the backs of the frightened horses they plunged
another geyser of fire and smoke spurted from the hole into which the rear wheel had slumped again and again the big horses flung themselves into the collars in an endeavor to get the wheel out
no you won't declared her cousin leaping down get off and run nan but you do as i say commanded tom run
to gasped the girl leaping off the tongue too and away from the horses heels to the road get toward home cried tom running around to the rear of the timber cart
she murmured but he did not hear that he had seized his axe and was striding toward the edge of the forest
but that would not be like tom sherwood at the edge of the forest he laid the axe to the root of a sapling about four inches through at the butt three strokes and the tree was down
in a minute he had lopped off the branches for twenty feet then removed the top with a single blow as he turned dragging the pole with him up sprang the fire again from the hollow into which the wheel of the wagon had sunk
it was a smoking furnace down there and soon the felloe and spokes would be injured by the flames and heat sparks flew on the wings of the wind from out of the mouth of the hole
some of them scattered about the horses and they plunged again squealing it seemed to nan impossible after the recent cloudburst that the fire could find anything to feed upon
but underneath the packed surface of the sawdust the heat of summer had been drying out the moisture for weeks and the fire had been smouldering for a long time perhaps for yards and yards around
the interior of the sawdust heap was a glowing furnace nan would not run away and tom did not see her as he came plunging back to the stalled wagon
suddenly his foot slumped into the yielding sawdust and he fell upon his face he cried out with surprise or pain nan horrified saw the flames and smoke shooting out of the hole into which her cousin had stepped
for the moment the girl felt as if her heart had stopped beating oh tom oh tom she shrieked and sprang toward him tom was struggling to get up
his right leg had gone into the yielding mass up to his hip and despite his struggles he could not get it out a long yellow flame shot out of the hole and almost licked his face
it indeed scorched his hair on one side of his head but nan did not scream again she needed her breath all that she could get for a more practical purpose her cousin waved her back feebly
and tried to tell her to avoid the fire nan rushed in got behind him and seized her cousin under the arms
chapter seventeen spring in the big woods that visit to the lumber camp was memorable for nan sherwood in more ways than one her adventure with the lynx she kept secret from her relatives
because of the reason given in the previous chapter but there was another incident that marked the occasion to the girl's mind and that was the threat of gedney raffer reported to her uncle henry
nan thought that such a bad man as raffer appeared to be would undoubtedly carry out his threat he had offered money to have mister sherwood beaten up and the ruffians he had bribed would doubtless be only too eager to earn the reward
to tell the truth for weeks thereafter nan never saw a rough looking man approach the house on the outskirts of pine camp without fearing that here was coming a ruffian bent on her uncle's injury
only made nan more keenly alive to his danger she dared not discuss the matter with aunt kate for nan feared to worry that good woman unnecessarily
besides having been used to hiding from her own mother all unpleasant things the girl naturally displayed the same thoughtfulness for aunt kate for
despite missus henry sherwood's bruskness and masculine appearance nan learned that there were certain matters over which her aunt showed extreme nervousness for instance
she was very careful of the lamps used in the house she insisted upon cleaning and caring for them herself she would not allow a candle to be used because it might be overturned and she saw to it herself that every fire
even the one in nan's bedroom was properly banked before the family retired at night nan had always in mind what uncle henry said about mentioning fire to aunt kate
so the curious young girl kept her lips closed upon the subject but she certainly was desirous of knowing about that fire so long ago at pale lick how it came about
if aunt kate had really got her great scar there and if it was really true that two members of her uncle's family had met their death in the conflagration she tried not to think at all of injun pete
that was too terrible with all her heart nan wished she might do something that would really help uncle henry solve his problem regarding the timber rights on the perkins tract
the very judge who had granted the injunction forbidding mister sherwood to cut timber on the tract was related to the present owners of the piece of timberland
and the tract had been the basis of a feud in the perkins family for two generations many people were more or less interested in the case and they came to the sherwood home and talked excitedly about it in the big kitchen
some advised an utter disregard of the law others were evidently minded to increase the trouble between raffer and uncle henry by malicious tale bearing often nan thought of what uncle henry had said to old
toby vanderwiller she learned that toby was one of the oldest settlers in this part of the michigan peninsula and in his youth had been a timber runner that is a man who by following the surveyors lines on a piece of timber
and weaving back and forth across it can judge its market value so nearly right that his employer the prospective timber merchant is able to bid intelligently for the so called stumpage on the tract
toby was still a vigorous man save when that bane of the woodsman rheumatism laid him by the heels he had a bit of a farm in the tamarack swamp once being laid up by his arch enemy
with his joints stiffened and muscles throbbing with pain toby had seen the gaunt wolf of starvation more terrible than any timber wolf waiting at his doorstone
his old wife and a crippled grandson were dependent on toby too thus in desperate straits toby vanderwiller had accepted help from gedney raffer
it was a pitifully small sum raffer would advance upon the little farm but it was sufficient to put toby in the usurer's power this was the story nan learned regarding toby
and uncle henry believed that toby with his old time knowledge of land boundaries could tell if he would which was right in the present contention between mister sherwood and gedney raffer
these and many other subjects of thought kept the mind of nan sherwood occupied during the first few weeks of her sojourn at pine camp she had too to keep up her diary
that she had begun for bess harley's particular benefit every week she sent off to tillbury a bulky section of this report of her life in the big woods it was quite wonderful how much there proved to be to write about
bess wrote back enviously that never did anything interesting by any possibility happen now that nan was away from tillbury the town was as dull as ditch water
she bess lived only in hopes of meeting her chum at lakeview hall the next september this hope nan shared but it all lay with the result
of momsey's and papa sherwood's visit to scotland and emberon castle and nan thought it seemed as though her parents never would even reach that far distant goal
they had taken a slow ship for momsey's benefit and the expected re telegraphed cablegram was looked for at the forks for a week before it possibly could come
it was a gala day marked on nan's calendar when uncle henry coming home from the railroad station behind the roan ponies called to her to come out and get the message
momsey and papa sherwood had sent it from glasgow and were on their way to edinburgh before nan received the word momsey had been very ill a part of the way across the ocean but went ashore in improved health
nan was indeed happy at this juncture her parents were safely over their voyage on the wintry ocean so a part of her worry of mind was lifted meanwhile
spring was stealing upon pine camp without nan's being really aware of the fact uncle henry had said back in chicago that the back of winter was broken but the extreme cold weather
and the deep snow she had found in the big woods made nan forget that march was passing and timid april was treading on his heels a rain lasting two days and a night washed the roads of snow
and turned the fast disappearing drifts to a dirty yellow hue in sheltered fence corners and nooks in the wood the grass lifted new green blades
under last year's drifted leaves the river ice went out with a rush after it had rained a few hours after that the drives of logs were soon started
nan went down to the long high bridge which spanned the river and watched the flood carry the logs through at first they came scatteringly riding the foaming waves end on
and sometimes colliding with the stone piers of the bridge with sufficient force to split the unhewn timbers from end to end some being laid open as neatly as though done with axe and wedge
when the main body of the drive arrived however the logs were like herded cattle milling in the eddies stampeded by a cross current bunching under the bridge arches like frightened steers in a chute
and the drivers herded the logs with all the skill of cowboys on the range each drive was attended by its own crew who guarded the logs on either bank
launching those that shoaled on the numerous sandbars or in the shallows keeping them from piling up in coves and in the mouths of estuaries or creeks
some going ahead at the bends to fend off and break up any formation of the drifting timbers that promised to become a jam behind the drive floated the square
which carried cook and provisions for the men a boom logs chained together end to end was thrown out from one shore of the wide stream at night and anchored at its outer end behind this
the logs were gathered in an orderly compact mass and the men could generally get their sleep save for the watchman unless there came a sudden rise of water in the night it was a sight long to be remembered nan thought
when the boom was broken in the morning sometimes an increasing current piled the logs up a good bit it was a fear compelling view the girl had of the river on one day
when she went with uncle henry to see the first drive from blackton's camp tom was coming home with his team and was not engaged in the drive but reckless rafe was considered for his age a very smart hand on a log drive
the river had risen two feet at the pine camp bridge overnight it was a boiling brown flood covered with drifting foam and debris
the roar of the freshet awoke nan in her bed before daybreak so she was not surprised to see the river in such a turmoil when after a hasty breakfast she and uncle henry walked beside the flood
they started their drive last night uncle henry said and boomed her just below the campsite we'll go up to dead man's bend and watch her come down
asked nan what honey he responded that bend in the river why
she's just called that many a man's lost his life there since i came into this part of the country that's a fact it's a dangerous place
it was without any marks either of satisfaction or concern miss milner's pride began to be alarmed while he was mister dorriforth and confined to a single life
his indifference to her charms was rather an honourable than a reproachful trait in his character and in reality she admired him for the insensibility but on the eve of being at liberty and on the eve of making his choice
she was offended that choice was not immediately fixed upon her she had been accustomed to receive the devotion of every man who saw her and not to obtain it of the man from whom of all others she most wished it was cruelly humiliating
she complained to miss woodley who advised her to have patience but that was one of the virtues in which she was the least practised encouraged nevertheless by her friend in the commendable desire of gaining the affections of him
who possessed all her own she however left no means unattempted for the conquest but she began with too great a certainty of success not to be sensible of the deepest mortification in the disappointment
nay she anticipated a disappointment as she had before anticipated her success by turns feeling the keenest emotions from hope and from despair as these passions alternately governed her
she was alternately in spirits or dejected in good or in ill humour and the vicissitudes of her prospect at length gave to her behaviour an air of caprice which not all her follies had till now produced
this was not the way to secure the affections of lord elmwood she knew it was not and before him she was under some restriction sandford observed this and without reserve added to the list of her other failings hypocrisy
it was plain to see that mister sandford esteemed her less and less every day and as he was the person who most influenced the opinion of her guardian he became to her very soon an object not merely of dislike but of abhorrence
there is one fault however mister sandford i cannot lay to her charge and what is that my lord cried sandford eagerly what is that one fault which miss milner has not i never replied lord elmwood
heard miss milner in your absence utter a syllable to your disadvantage she dares not my lord because she is in fear of you and she knows you would not suffer it
i am undeceived now and shall never take that liberty again as lord elmwood always treated sandford with the utmost respect he began to fear he had been deficient upon this occasion and the disposition which had induced him to take his ward's part
was likely in the end to prove unfavourable to her for perceiving sandford was offended at what had passed as the only means of retribution he began himself to lament her volatile and captious
propensities in which lamentation sandford now forgetting his affront joined with the heartiest concurrence adding you sir having now other cares to employ your thoughts ought to insist upon her marrying
or retiring into the country she returned home just as this conversation was finished and sandford the moment she entered rang for his candle to retire miss woodley who had been at the opera with miss milner cried
bless me mister sandford are you not well you are going to leave us so early he replied no i have a pain in my head miss milner who never listened to complaints without sympathy rose immediately from her seat saying
i think i never heard you mister sandford complain of indisposition before will you accept of my specific for the head ache indeed it is a certain relief i'll fetch it instantly she went hastily out of the room and returned with a bottle
which she assured him was a present from lady luneham and would certainly cure him and she pressed it upon him with such an anxious earnestness that with all his churlishness he could not refuse taking it
this was but a common place civility such as is paid by one enemy to another every day but the manner was the material part the unaffected concern the attention the good will she demonstrated in this little incident
was that which made it remarkable and immediately took from lord elmwood the displeasure to which he had been just before provoked or rather transformed it into a degree of admiration even sandford was not insensible to her behaviour
and in return when he left the room wished her a good night to her and miss woodley who had not been witnesses of the preceding conversation what she had done appeared of no merit
but to the mind of lord elmwood the merit was infinite and upon the departure of sandford he began to be unusually cheerful he first pleasantly reproached the ladies for not offering him a place in their box at the opera
i am very much obliged to you said he and you continued she who have been accustomed only to church music will be more than any one enchanted with hearing the softer music of love
i know not whether my weak senses will be able to support them she had her eyes upon him when he spoke this and she discovered in his that were fixed upon her a sensibility unexpected a kind of fascination which enticed her to look on
while her eyelids fell involuntarily before its mighty force and a thousand blushes crowded over her face he was struck with these sudden signals hastily recalled his former countenance and stopped the conversation miss woodley
every necessary ceremony has taken place here then your lordship is no longer in orders said miss woodley no they have been resigned these five days my lord i give you joy said miss milner
he thanked her but added with a sigh if i have given up content in search of joy i shall perhaps be a loser by the venture soon after this he wished them a good night and retired
happy as miss milner found herself in his company she saw him leave the room with infinite satisfaction because her heart was impatient to give a loose to its hopes on the bosom of miss woodley she bade missus horton immediately good night and in her friend's apartment
gave way to all the language of passion warmed with the confidence of meeting its return she described the sentiments she had read in lord elmwood's looks and though miss woodley had beheld them too
or even supposing his wishes inclined towards her there were yet great obstacles between them would not sandford who directed his every thought and purpose be consulted upon this and if he was upon what
but the most romantic affection on the part of lord elmwood had miss milner to depend and his lordship was not a man to be suspected of submitting to the excess of any passion
another gentleman of family and fortune made overtures to miss milner and her guardian so far from having his thoughts inclined towards her on his own account pleaded this lover's cause even with more zeal than he had pleaded
for sir edward and lord frederick thus at once destroying all those plans of happiness which poor miss milner had formed in consequence her melancholy humour was now predominant she confined herself at home and yet by her own order
was denied to all her visitors whether this arose from pure melancholy or the still lingering hope of making her conquest by that sedateness of manners which she knew her guardian admired she herself perhaps did not perfectly know
be that as it may lord elmwood could not but observe this change and one morning thought fit to mention and to applaud it miss woodley and she were at work together when he came into the room
and after sitting several minutes and talking upon indifferent subjects to which his ward replied with a dejection in her voice and manner he said perhaps i am wrong miss milner but i have observed that you are lately more thoughtful than usual
she blushed as she always did when the subject was herself he continued your health appears perfectly restored and yet i have observed you take no delight in your former amusements
and i was going to congratulate you upon the change but give me leave to enquire
your lordship then thinks all my commendable deeds arise from accident and that i have no virtues of my own pardon me i think you have many this he spoke emphatically and her blushes increased he resumed
believe me miss milner that in the midst of your gayest follies while you thus continue to blush i shall reverence your internal sensations oh my lord did you know some of them i am afraid you would think them unpardonable
this was so much to the purpose that miss woodley found herself alarmed but without reason miss milner loved too sincerely to reveal it to the object he answered and did you know some of mine you might think them equally unpardonable
she turned pale and could no longer guide her needle in the fond transport of her heart she imagined that his love for her was among the sensations to which he alluded she was too much embarrassed to reply and he continued
we have all much to pardon in one another and i know not whether the officious person who forces even his good advice is not as blameable as the obstinate one who will not listen to it
and now having made a preface to excuse you should you once more refuse mine i shall venture to give it my lord i have never yet refused to follow your advice but where my own peace of mind was so nearly concerned
as to have made me culpable had i complied well madam i submit to your determinations and shall never again oppose your inclination to remain single this sentence as it excluded the idea of soliciting for himself
gave her the utmost pain and her eye glanced at him full of reproach he did not observe it but went on while you continue unmarried it seems to have been your father's intention that you should continue under my immediate care
but as i mean for the future to reside chiefly in the country answer me candidly do you think you could be happy there for at least three parts of the year after a short hesitation she replied i have no objection
i am glad to hear it he returned eagerly for it is my earnest desire to have you with me your welfare is dear to me as my own and were we apart continual apprehensions would prey upon my mind
the tear started in her eye at the earnestness that accompanied these words he saw it and to soften her still more with the sense of his esteem for her he increased his earnestness while he said if you will take the resolution to quit london
for the time i mention there shall be no means omitted to make the country all you can wish i shall insist upon miss woodley's company for both our sakes and it will not only be my study to form
such a society as you may approve but i am certain it will be likewise the study of lady elmwood he was going on but as if a poniard had thrust her to the heart
he saw her countenance change he looked at her steadfastly it was not a common change from joy to sorrow from content to uneasiness
she felt and she expressed anguish lord elmwood was alarmed and shocked she did not weep but she called miss woodley to come to her with a voice that indicated a degree of agony
my lord cried miss woodley seeing his consternation and trembling lest he should guess the secret my lord miss milner has again deceived you you must not take her from london
it is that and that alone which is the cause of her uneasiness he seemed more amazed still and still more shocked at her duplicity than at her torture
how can i judge if she will not confide in me but thus for ever deceive me she leaned pale as death on the shoulder of miss woodley her eye fixed with apparent insensibility to all that was said while he continued
heaven is my witness if i knew if i could conceive the means how to make her happy i would sacrifice my own happiness to hers my lord said miss woodley with a smile
perhaps i may call upon you hereafter to fulfil your word he was totally ignorant what she meant nor had he leisure from the confusion of his thoughts to reflect upon her meaning he nevertheless replied with warmth do
you shall find i'll perform it do i will faithfully perform it though miss milner was conscious this declaration could not in delicacy be ever adduced against him
yet the fervent and solemn manner in which he made it cheered her spirits and as persons enjoy the reflection of having in their possession some valuable gem though they are determined never to use it so she upon this was comforted and grew better
she now lifted up her head and leaned it on her hand as she sat by the side of a table still she did not speak but seemed overcome with sorrow as her situation became however less alarming
and though he did not say so he was and looked highly offended at this juncture mister sandford entered on beholding the present party it required not his sagacity to see at the first view that they were all uneasy
but instead of the sympathy this might have excited in some dispositions mister sandford
you do not mister sandford lord elmwood replied no my lord nor would i were i in your situation what should make a man of sense out of temper but a worthy object and he looked at miss milner
there are no objects unworthy our care replied lord elmwood but there are objects on whom all care is fruitless your lordship will allow i never yet despaired of any one mister sandford and yet there are persons of whom it is presumption
to entertain hopes and he looked again at miss milner does your head ache miss milner asked her friend seeing her hold it with her hand very much returned she mister sandford said miss woodley
did you use all those drops miss milner gave you for a pain in the head yes answered he i did but the question at that moment somewhat embarrassed him
and i hope you found benefit from them said miss milner with great kindness as she rose from her seat and walked slowly out of the room though miss woodley followed her so that mister sandford was left alone with lord elmwood
and might have continued his unkind insinuations without one restraint
sorrowful and affecting as this interview had been rushbrook as he rode home reflected upon it with the most inordinate delight and had he not seen decline of health in the looks and behaviour of lady matilda his felicity had been unbounded
heated his dress and his hair disordered he entered the dining room just as the dessert was put upon the table he was confounded at his own appearance and at the falsehoods he should be obliged to fabricate in his excuse
there was yet that which engaged his attention beyond any circumstance relating to himself the features of lord elmwood of which his daughter's whom he had just beheld had the most striking resemblance
though her's were softened by sorrow while his were made austere by the self same cause where have you been said his uncle with a frown
called sandford apart and said to him that as the malevolence which he once observed between him and rushbrook had he perceived subsided he advised him if he was a well wisher to the young man to sound his heart and counsel him
not to act against the will of his nearest relation and friend i myself am too hasty continued lord elmwood and unhappily too much determined upon what i have once though perhaps rashly said
to speak upon a topic where it is probable i shall meet with opposition you sandford can reason with moderation for after all that i have done for my nephew it would be a pity to forsake him at last and yet
that is but too likely if he provokes me sir replied sandford i will speak to him yet added lord elmwood sternly do not urge what you say for my sake but for his i can part from him with ease
but he may then repent and you know repentance always comes too late with me my lord i will exert all the efforts in my power for his welfare but what is the subject on which he has refused to comply with your desires
not a word i wish him to marry that i may then conclude the deeds in respect to my estate and the only child of sir william winterton a rich heiress was the wife i meant to propose
but from his indifference to all i have said on the occasion i have not yet mentioned her name to him you may i will my lord and use all my persuasion to engage his obedience and you shall have at least a faithful account of what he says
and saw him listen to it all and heard him answer with the most tranquil resolution that he would do any thing to preserve the friendship and patronage of his uncle but marry what can be your reason asked sandford
though he guessed a reason i cannot give to lord elmwood then do not give it to me for i have promised to tell him every thing you say to me and every thing i have said asked rushbrook hastily
as to what you have said i don't know whether it has made impression enough on my memory to enable me to repeat it i am glad it has not and my answer to your uncle is to be simply that you will not obey him
i should hope mister sandford that you would express it in better terms tell me the terms and i will be exact rushbrook struck his forehead and walked about the room am i to give him any reason for your disobeying him
i tell you again that i dare not name the cause then why do you submit to a power you are ashamed to own i am not ashamed i glory in it are you ashamed of your esteem for lady matilda oh
if she is the cause of your disobedience be assured i shall not mention it for i am forbid to name her and surely as that is the case i need not fear to speak plainly to you i love lady matilda or perhaps unacquainted with love
for i pity you and that sensation i would gladly exchange for approbation if you really feel compassion for me and i believe you do contrive some means by your answers to lord elmwood to pacify him without involving me in ruin
hint at my affections being engaged but not to whom and add that i have given my word if he will allow me a short time a year or two only i will during that period try to disengage them
and use all my power to render myself worthy of the union for which he designs me and this is not only your solemn promise but your fixed determination nay why will you search my heart to the bottom when the surface ought to content you
if you cannot resolve on what you have proposed why do you ask this time of your uncle for should he allow it you at the expiration your disobedience to his commands will be less pardonable than it is now
within a year mister sandford who can tell what strange events may not occur to change all our prospects even my passion may decline in that expectation then the failure of which yourself must answer for
and rushbrook by his entreaties now gained the intelligence who the nobleman was who addressed matilda and on what views but was restrained to patience by sandford's arguments and threats
upon the subject of this marriage sandford met his patron without having determined exactly what to say but rested on the temper in which he should find him at the commencement of the conversation he said rushbrook begged for time
i have given him time have i not cried lord elmwood what can be the meaning of his thus trifling with me sandford replied my lord young men are frequently romantic in their notions of love and think it impossible to have a sincere affection
where their own inclinations do not first point out the choice
the fool blest as the wise the sincerity with which lord elmwood had loved was expressed more than in words as he said this your lordship is talking replied sandford of the passion in its most refined and predominant sense
and act for the best so shall i his friends my lord what friends or what friend has he upon earth but you then why will he not submit to my advice or himself give me a proper reason why he cannot
because there may be friendship without familiarity and so it is between him and you that cannot be for i have condescended to talk to him in the most familiar terms
then come sir let us be on an equal footing through you and now speak out his thoughts freely and hear mine in return
on what pretence to me it was preference of a single life but i suspect it is what he imagines to be love
he has not then actually confessed this to you if he has it was drawn from him by such means that i am not warranted to say it in direct words i have entered into no contract
no agreement on his account with the friends of the lady i have pointed out said lord elmwood nothing beyond implications have passed betwixt her family and myself at present and if the person on whom he has fixed his affections
should not be in a situation absolutely contrary to my wishes i may perhaps confirm his choice that moment sandford's courage prompted him to name lady matilda but his discretion opposed however
in the various changes of his countenance from the conflict it was plain to discern that he wished to say more than he dared on which lord elmwood cried speak on sandford what are you afraid of of you my lord he started
sandford went on i know no tie no bond no innocence that is a protection when you feel resentment you are right he replied significantly then how my lord can you encourage me to speak on
when that which i perhaps would say might offend you to hear to what and whither are you changing our subject cried lord elmwood but sir if you know my resentful and relentless temper you surely know how to shun it
not and speak plainly then dissemble no i'll not do that but i'll be silent a new parade of submission you are more tormenting to me than any one i have about me
constantly on the verge of disobeying my commands that you may recede and gain my good will by your forbearance but know mister sandford that i will not suffer this much longer if you chuse in every conversation we have together
though the most remote from such a subject to think of my daughter you must either banish your thoughts or conceal them nor by one sign one item remind me of her your daughter did you call her
the inclination he made with his knees bent towards the ground stopped lord elmwood instantly but though it broke in upon his words it did not alter one angry look his eyes darted and his lips trembled with indignation
you have made no end of trouble for us and gained nothing for yourself now i am afraid we shan't get beyond the german lines before dark we may even have to spend the night in dangerous territory and all because you're just as mulish as
as a mule he finished helplessly joseph laughed can't you think of anything mulisher than a mule he said there isn't a thing
i don't see why they were ever born father de smet became serious at once son he said sternly
there are spiders and rats and balky mules and germans and it doesn't do a bit of good to waste words fussing because they are here the thing to do is to deal with them father de smet was so much in earnest
he said to father de smet it's a balky mule replied father de smet mildly and very obstinate indeed sneered the soldier then i suppose you have named him albert after your pig headed king
i think too much of my king to name my mule after him oh ho said the german then perhaps you have named him for the kaiser netteke had marched steadily along during this conversation and they were now past the soldier
and at last mother de smet called to her husband over the boatside i think we shall have to stop soon and feed the mule or she will be too tired to get us across the line at all i believe we should save time by stopping for supper besides
i want to send over there she pointed to a farmhouse not a great distance from the river and get some milk and eggs very well said her husband we'll stop under that bunch of willows the bunch of willows beside the river which he pointed out
proved to be a pleasant sheltered spot with grassy banks sloping down to the water a turn in the river enabled them to draw the old woman up into their shadows and because the trees were green and the boat was green the reflections in the water were also green
and for this reason the boat seemed very well hidden from view i don't believe we shall be noticed here said father de smet it's hot on the boat it would be nice to take the babies ashore while we eat said mother de smet running out the gangplank
i believe we'll have supper on the grass you hurry along and get the milk and eggs and i'll cook some onions while you are gone jan and marie ran over the plank at once and mother de smet soon followed with the babies then while marie watched them
she and jan brought out the onions and a pan and soon the air was heavy with the smell of frying onions joseph and jan slipped the bridle over netteke's collar
when father de smet returned supper was nearly ready he sniffed appreciatively as he appeared under the trees smells good he said
you are right said a loud voice right behind him father de smet was so startled that he dropped the eggs he whirled about and there stood the german soldier who had told netteke to halt with him were six other men
but mother de smet was no longer tending them the instant she heard the gruff voice she had dropped her spoon and seizing a baby under each arm had fled up the gangplank on to the boat
there is no hurry after supper will do but first we'll drink a health to the kaiser and since you are host here you shall propose it he pointed to the pail of milk which father de smet still held now he shouted
hoch der kaiser father de smet looked them in the face and said not a word meanwhile jan and joseph to mother de smet's great alarm had not followed her on to the boat
was partly hidden from the group by a bunch of young willows near the water's edge and with great speed and presence of mind had slipped her bridle over her head and gently started her up the tow path oh murmured joseph suppose she should balk
but netteke had done her balking for the day and having been refreshed by her luncheon of green grass she was ready to move on the river had now quite a current which helped them and while the soldiers were still having their joke with father de smet
the boat moved quietly out of sight as she felt it move mother de smet lifted her head over the boat's rail behind which she and the children were hiding and raised the end of the gangplank so that it would make no noise by scraping along the ground
she was beside herself with anxiety if she screamed or said anything to the boys the attention of the soldiers would immediately be directed toward them yet if they should by any miracle succeed in getting away
there was her husband left alone to face seven enemies she wrung her hands maybe they will stop to eat the onions she groaned to herself she held to the gangplank and murmured prayers to all the saints she knew
and netteke assisted by the current made better speed than she had at any time during the day meanwhile his captors were busy with father de smet come drink to the kaiser shouted the first soldier or we'll feed you to the fishes
we want our supper and you delay us still father de smet said nothing we'll give you just until i count ten said the soldier pointing his gun at him and if by that time you have not found your tongue but he did not finish the sentence
one of his companions gave a howl and fell to the ground still no one appeared at whom the germans could direct their fire snipers shouted the soldiers instantly lowering their guns
but before they could even fire in the direction of the unseen enemy there was such a patter of bullets about them that they turned and fled father de smet fled too he leaped over the frying pan and tore down the river bank after the boat
as he overtook it mother de smet ran out the gang plank boys shouted father de smet get aboard get aboard joseph and jan instantly stopped the mule and dropping the reins raced up the gangplank
almost before the end of it rested safely on the ground father de smet snatched up the reins on went the boat at netteke's best speed which seemed no better than a snail's pace to the fleeing family
sounds of the skirmish continued to reach their ears even when they had gone some distance down the river and it was not until twilight had deepened into dusk and they were hidden in its shadows that they dared hope the danger was passed
it was after ten o'clock at night when the old woman at last approached the twinkling lights of antwerp and they knew that for the time being at least they were safe they wore now beyond the german lines in country still held by the belgians
here in a suburb of the city father de smet decided to dock for the night a distant clock struck eleven as the hungry but thankful family gathered upon the deck of the old woman to eat a meager supper of bread and cheese
they meant to amuse themselves by prolonging my misery and they lingered just a bit too long
you were brave boys if you had not started the boat when you did it is quite likely they might have got me after all and the potatoes too i am proud of you but father cried joseph who could have fired those shots
as i figure it out said father de smet we must have stopped very near the trenches and our own men must have seen the germans attack us my german friend had evidently been following us up meaning to get everything we had and me too
instead he got a salute from the belgians he crossed himself reverently thank god for our soldiers he said and mother de smet weeping softly murmured a devout amen
little did jan and marie dream as they listened that this blessing rested upon their own father and that he had been one of the belgian soldiers who firing from the trenches had delivered them from the hands of their enemies
on the tow path when they could no longer see granny nor hear fidel the children sat down on a coil of rope behind the cabin and felt very miserable indeed
you run and see if you can't help father with the tiller and marie would you mind playing with the babies while i put on the soup kettle and fix the greens for dinner they are beginning to climb everywhere now and i am afraid they will fall overboard
where the babies had room to roll about half an hour later when mother de smet went back to get some potatoes for the soup
oh my soul she cried in astonishment what a clever boy you must be to learn so quickly to handle the tiller where is father de smet here boomed a loud voice behind her
whispered mother de smet you roar like a foghorn on a dark night the germans won't have any trouble in finding out about the potatoes if you shout the news all over the landscape father de smet looked out over the quiet belgian fields
there's nobody about that i can see he said but i'll roar more gently next time there was a bend in the river just at this point
looking fearfully about to see if he could see any germans for an instant forgot all about the tiller there was a jerk on the tow rope and a bump as the nose of the old woman ran into the river bank netteke the mule came to a sudden stop
and mother de smet sat down equally suddenly on a coil of rope her potatoes spilled over the deck while a wail from the front of the boat announced that one of the babies had bumped too mother de smet picked herself up and ran to see what was the matter with the baby
while father de smet seized a long pole and hurried forward joseph left the mule to browse upon the grass beside the tow path and ran back to the boat his father threw him a pole which was kept for such emergencies and they both pushed
joseph pushed on the boat
knowing that his carelessness had caused the trouble yet not knowing what to do to help never mind son said mother de smet kindly when she came back for her potatoes and saw his downcast face
it isn't the first time the old woman has stuck her nose in the mud and with older people than you at the tiller too we'll soon have her off again and no harm done the boat gave a little lurch toward the middle of the stream
look alive there mate sang out father de smet hard aport with the tiller head her out into the stream joseph flung his pole to his father
pulled her patient nose out of a delicious bunch of thistles and started her up the tow path
and soon the old woman was once more gliding smoothly over the quiet water toward antwerp when father de smet came back to the stern of the boat
but perhaps it seemed to the good natured skipper
for he only said mildly stick to your job son whatever it is and went on covering his potatoes with empty boxes and pieces of sailcloth jan paid such strict attention to the tiller after that
that it was hard to believe that such dreadful things were going on all about them
may i come aboard now he shouted
would you like to drive the mule awhile he asked oh wouldn't i
have you ever driven a mule before father de smet asked again not a mule exactly jail replied but i drove old pier up from the field with a load of wheat all by myself mother sat on the load come along
shouted father de smet to joseph
it was level open country all about them dotted here and there with farmhouses and in the distance the spire of a village church rose above the clustering houses and pointed to the sky yes yes child go ahead said father de smet
only don't get too near netteke's hind legs she doesn't know you very well and sometimes she forgets her manners
who already had taken up netteke's reins and was waiting for the signal to start joseph took his place at the tiller and again the old woman moved slowly down the stream for some time jan and marie plodded along with netteke
at first they thought it good fun but by and by as the sun grew hot driving a mule on a tow path did not seem quite so pleasant a task as they had thought it would be i'm tired of this said jan at last to marie
and she hasn't crawled up to it yet i shouldn't wonder if she'd go to sleep some day and fall into the river and never wake up why i am almost asleep myself she'll wake up fast enough when it's time to eat and so will you
said marie with profound wisdom
ignoring marie's remark i know what i'll do he went on chuckling i'll get some burrs and stick them in her tail and then every time she slaps the flies off she'll make herself go faster marie seized jan's arm
you'll do nothing of the kind she cried father de smet told me especially to keep away from netteke's hind legs pooh
he didn't tell me that i'm not afraid of any mule alive i guess if i can harness a horse and drive home a load of grain from the field there isn't much i can't do with a mule to prove his words he shouted u u
and slapped her flank with a long branch of willow now netteke was a proud mule and she wasn't used to being slapped father de smet knew her ways and knew also that her steady even slow pace
was better in the long run than to attempt to force a livelier gait and netteke was well aware of what was expected of her she resented being interfered with instead of going forward at greater speed she put her four feet together
marie held a handful of fresh grass just out of reach of her mouth but netteke was really offended she made no effort to get it she simply stayed where she was father de smet stuck his head over the side of the boat
what is the matter he shouted oh dear said jan to marie i hoped he wouldn't notice that the boat wasn't moving netteke has stopped she won't go at all i think she's run down marie called back
try coaxing her cried the skipper give her something to eat
i have answered marie but she won't even look at it then it's no use said father de smet mournfully she's balked and that is all there is to it we'll just have to wait until she is ready to go again
when she has made up her mind she is as difficult to persuade as a setting hen mother de smet's head appeared beside her husband's over the boat rail oh dear said she i hoped we should get to the other side of the line before dark
but if netteke's set she's set and we must just make the best of it it's lucky it's dinner time we'll eat and maybe by the time we are through she'll be willing to start father de smet tossed a bucket on to the grass
he said and come aboard yourselves jan filled the bucket from the river and set it down before netteke but she was in no mood for blandishments she kept her ears back and would not touch the water all right then crosspatch
leaving the pail in front of her he went back to the boat the gangplank was put out and he and marie went on board they found dinner ready in the tiny cabin and because it was so small and stuffy and there were too many of them anyway to get into it comfortably
and sat down on the deck in front of the cabin to eat it
chapter fourteen how dew is formed reader did you ever live in the country were you ever awakened early on a summer's morning to go for the cows did you ever wade through a wheat field in june
or the long grass of a meadow when the pearly dewdrops hung in clusters on the bearded grain shining like brilliants in the morning sun
have you not seen the blades of grass studded with diamonds more beautiful than any that ever flashed in the dazzling light of a ballroom if not you have missed a picture that otherwise would have been hung on the walls of your memory
that no one could rob you of everyone has noticed that at certain times in the year the grass becomes wet in the evening and grows more so till the sun rises the next day and dispels the moisture and this when no cloud is seen
it was as familiar to the ancients as it is to us and yet it is only about three quarters of a century since the cause of it has been understood we even yet speak of the dew falling like rain
in former times some scientists supposed that it was a fine rain that fell from the higher regions of the atmosphere others supposed it to be an emanation from the earth
in cold weather we call it frost it has been stated in a former chapter on evaporation that the capacity of the air for holding moisture in a transparent form depends upon its temperature if the temperature is at the freezing point
if it is sixty degrees fahrenheit the air will retain six grains of transparent moisture to the square foot of air while at eighty degrees it will contain nearly eleven grains
when the air is charged with this vapor to the point of saturation which point varies with the temperature a slight depression of the temperature is sufficient to condense this vapor into cloud or drops of water
between eighteen twelve and eighteen fourteen doctor wells made a series of experiments with flocks of cotton wool he weighed out pieces of equal weight
he found upon weighing these after a night's exposure under a clear sky that the cotton wool on top of the board had gained fourteen grains in weight from the moisture or dew that had formed upon it
while the same amount of cotton on the under side of the board had only increased four grains he tried further experiments by making little paper houses or boxes to cover a certain portion of grass or vegetation
there was little or none within the inclosure these experiments were conducted in various ways and closely watched to see that none of the phenomena were in any way connected with falling rain
that is taken advantage of by the inhabitants of hot countries in the manufacture of ice and in our own land for storing it perhaps everyone who has lived in the country has noticed that on a summer's morning when the grass is laden with dewdrops
a gravel walk or a dusty road will be perfectly dry this is due to the fact that the gravel will retain heat and not radiate it for a much longer time than grass or green leaves dew begins to form upon the grass very soon after the sun is set
because the moment the sun's rays are withdrawn the heat is rapidly radiated by the blades of grass which cools the earth under it and the air above and surrounding it so that if the air is anywhere near the moisture saturation point
on cooling at the surface of the ground it will readily give up a part of its moisture which condenses in drops upon the blades of grass if the night is still and clear and there is much moisture in the air the dew will be heavy
but if the night is cloudy there will be little or no dew formed the clouds form a screen between the earth and the upper regions of the atmosphere which prevents the heat from radiating to a sufficient extent to form dew
it will require a greater amount of depression of temperature to cause condensation and this is why we usually have heavier dews in june when the air is more highly charged with moisture
and the necessary depression is not reached in these cases except at an altitude of several miles doctor wells has shown that if we take the reading of two thermometers on a clear summer night
one of them lying on the grass and the other suspended two feet above it we shall find that the one lying on the grass will read eight or ten degrees lower than the one suspended in the air if the night is still
there will be a cold stratum of air next to the earth
and dew will form if however it is cloudy or the wind is blowing there is rarely any formation of dew the reason in the former case as we have explained is that the radiated heat is held down to the earth in a measure
and in the latter case there is a constant change of air so that in either case no part of it is allowed to cool down sufficiently to precipitate moisture
it is a curious fact that often there will be a heavier dew under the blaze of a full moon on a clear night than at any other time the moon has no screens about it of any kind to obstruct the free radiation of heat
it is supposed to be a dead cinder floating in space and not surrounded by an atmosphere so that the sun's rays have full effect upon it during the time it is exposed to them
and at that time it becomes heated to a temperature of something like seven hundred fifty degrees fahrenheit for half the month say the sun is shining continuously upon all or a part of it
in other words the days and nights of the moon are about two weeks long the moon does not revolve upon its own axis like the earth therefore the same side or a portion of it is exposed to the sun for fourteen days
during the time that the moon is in the earth's shadow it is supposed to fall to one hundred eighty seven degrees below zero which is two hundred nineteen degrees below the freezing point when the moon is full
and is heated up to over seven hundred degrees there is sufficient heat radiating from it to be felt sensibly upon the face of the earth and it would be felt if it were not for the great envelope of atmosphere
the heat coming from a full moon on a clear night is absorbed in causing the aqueous vapors that are partly condensed in the higher regions of the atmosphere to be reabsorbed into transparent vapor
this clears away the heat screen in the atmosphere and allows radiation to go on more rapidly at the earth's surface and thus cools it to a greater extent when the moon is shining brightly than when it is dark and in the shadow of the earth
as we have already mentioned the cold that is produced by radiation through the blades of grass and other radiating substances may be indicated by placing one thermometer on the ground and fixing another at some point in the air
sometimes the difference is very marked amounting to as much as twenty or thirty degrees if under these conditions a cloud floats overhead forming a heat screen
radiation into the upper regions of the atmosphere is checked which causes a sudden rise in the temperature near the surface of the earth by taking advantage of this principle of heat radiation from the earth's surface
and in a measure prevent the heat from radiating from the earth immediately under it frost which of course is but frozen dew at this season of the year will form on a still autumn night
although the atmosphere at some distance above the ground is some degrees above the freezing point the reason for this will be obvious when we consider the facts that have been set forth concerning the power of radiation to produce cold
it has been estimated by meteorologists that the amount of water condensed upon the surface of the earth in the form of dew amounts to as much as five inches or about one seventh of the whole amount of moisture that is evaporated into the air
it will thus be seen that dew performs an important part in supporting vegetation the same operation in nature's great workshop that forms the dews of summer creates the frosts of winter
heat radiation from the earth goes on in winter which is evidenced by the fact that a thick covering of snow is a great benefit to vegetation as a protection against the injurious effects of frost
the writer has seen flowers blooming abundantly at an altitude of twelve thousand feet above the sea level protected only by the friendly shelter of a snowbank in some cases the blooming flowers were in actual contact with the snow
though if it were convenient i might present a record of impressions nonetheless delectable that they were not exhaustively analyzed many of them still linger in the minds of our travelers attended by a train of harmonious images
of universal friendliness and frankness of occasions on which they knew everyone and everything and had an extraordinary sense of ease
on long sea roads beneath a sky lighted up by marvelous sunsets of suppers on the return informal irregular agreeable
of evenings at open windows or on the perpetual verandas in the summer starlight above the warm atlantic the young englishmen were introduced to everybody
entertained by everybody intimate with everybody at the end of three days they had removed their luggage from the hotel and had gone to stay with missus westgate
a step to which percy beaumont at first offered some conscientious opposition i call his opposition conscientious because it was founded upon some talk that he had had on the second day with bessie alden
he had indeed had a good deal of talk with her for she was not literally always in conversation with lord lambeth he had meditated upon missus westgate's account of her sister
and he discovered for himself that the young lady was clever and appeared to have read a great deal she seemed very nice though he could not make out as missus westgate had said she was shy
if she was shy she carried it off very well mister beaumont she had said please tell me something about lord lambeth's family how would you say it in england his position
his position percy beaumont repeated his rank or whatever you call it unfortunately we haven't got a peerage like the people in thackeray
that's a great pity said beaumont you would find it all set forth there so much better than i can do it he is a peer then oh yes he is a peer and has he any other title than lord lambeth
bessie alden appeared to be looking at him with interest he is the son of the duke of bayswater he added presently the eldest son the only son
and are his parents living oh yes if his father were not living he would be a duke
so that when his father dies pursued bessie alden with more simplicity than might have been expected in a clever girl he will become duke of bayswater of course said percy beaumont
but his father is in excellent health and his mother beaumont smiled a little the duchess is uncommonly robust and has he any sisters yes there are two
and what are they called one of them is married she is the countess of pimlico and the other the other is unmarried she is plain lady julia
bessie alden looked at him a moment is she very plain beaumont began to laugh again you would not find her so handsome as her brother he said
she has been asking me said beaumont all about your people and your possessions i am sure it is very good of her lord lambeth rejoined well then observed his companion if you go you go with your eyes open
damn my eyes exclaimed lord lambeth if one is to be a dozen times a day at the house it is a great deal more convenient to sleep there i am sick of traveling up and down this beastly avenue
it was obviously the memory of this promise that made him say to his companion a couple of days later that he rather wondered he should be so fond of that girl in the first place how do you know how fond i am of her asked lord lambeth
and in the second place why shouldn't i be fond of her i shouldn't think she would be in your line what do you call my line you don't set her down as fast exactly so
missus westgate tells me that there is no such thing as the fast girl in america that it's an english invention and that the term has no meaning here all the better it's an animal i detest
you prefer a bluestocking is that what you call miss alden her sister tells me said percy beaumont that she is tremendously literary i don't know anything about that
and he had a strong incorruptible sense of the proprieties of life his kinsman meanwhile was having a great deal of talk with bessie alden on the red sea rocks beyond the lawn
in the course of long island rides with a slow return in the glowing twilight on the deep veranda late in the evening lord lambeth who had stayed at many houses
this young lady no longer applied to percy beaumont for information concerning his lordship she addressed herself directly to the young nobleman she asked him a great many questions some of which bored him a little
is it an important position she asked oh dear no said lord lambeth i should think it would be very grand said bessie alden to possess simply by an accident of birth the right to make laws for a great nation
from a high point of view it would be very inspiring the less one thinks of it the better lord lambeth affirmed i think it's tremendous said bessie alden and on another occasion she asked him if he had any tenantry
hereupon it was that as i have said he was a little bored do you want to buy up their leases he asked well have you got any livings she demanded oh i say he cried
have you got a clergyman that is looking out but she made him tell her that he had a castle he confessed to but one it was the place in which he had been born and brought up
his wife more than once announced that she expected him on the morrow but on the morrow she wandered about a little with a telegram in her jeweled fingers declaring it was very tiresome that his business detained him in new york
and she went on to explain while she continued that slow paced promenade which enabled her well adjusted skirts to display themselves so advantageously that unfortunately in america there was no leisure class
it was lord lambeth's theory freely propounded when the young men were together that percy beaumont was having a very good time with missus westgate and that under the pretext of meeting for the purpose of animated discussion
they were indulging in practices that imparted a shade of hypocrisy to the lady's regret for her husband's absence i assure you we are always discussing and differing said percy beaumont she is awfully argumentative
american ladies certainly don't mind contradicting you upon my word i don't think i was ever treated so by a woman before she's so devilish positive
but he was absent only forty eight hours during which with mister westgate's assistance he completely settled this piece of business they certainly do things quickly in new york he observed to his cousin
and he added that mister westgate had seemed very uneasy lest his wife should miss her visitor he had been in such an awful hurry to send him back to her i'm afraid you'll never come up to an american husband if that's what the wives expect he said to lord lambeth
missus westgate however was not to enjoy much longer the entertainment with which an indulgent husband had desired to keep her provided on the twenty first of august lord lambeth received a telegram from his mother
what am i to do percy beaumont was annoyed as well he had deemed it his duty as i have narrated to write to the duchess but he had not expected that this distinguished woman would act so promptly upon his hint
it means he said that your father is laid up i don't suppose it's anything serious but you have no option take the first steamer but don't be alarmed
lord lambeth made his farewells but the few last words that he exchanged with bessie alden are the only ones that have a place in our record
of course i needn't assure you he said that if you should come to england next year i expect to be the first person that you inform of it bessie alden looked at him a little and she smiled
percy beaumont returned with his cousin and his sense of duty compelled him one windless afternoon in mid atlantic
to say to lord lambeth that he suspected that the duchess's telegram was in part the result of something he himself had written to her i wrote to her as i explicitly notified you i had promised to do
but i have said that he was a reasonable young man and i can give no better proof of it than the fact that he remarked to his companion at the end of half an hour you were quite right after all i am very much interested in her
only to be fair he added you should have told my mother also that she is not seriously interested in me percy beaumont gave a little laugh there is nothing so charming as modesty in a young man in your position
that he one day told the king of the land who used to come and hunt in the wood that his daughter could spin gold out of straw now this king was very fond of money
and when he heard the miller's boast his greediness was raised and he sent for the girl to be brought before him then he led her to a chamber in his palace where there was a great heap of straw and gave her a spinning wheel and said
all this must be spun into gold before morning as you love your life it was in vain that the poor maiden said that it was only a silly boast of her father
the chamber door was locked and she was left alone she sat down in one corner of the room and began to bewail her hard fate when on a sudden the door opened and a droll looking little man hobbled in and said
good morrow to you my good lass what are you weeping for alas said she i must spin this straw into gold and i know not how what will you give me said the hobgoblin
to do it for you my necklace replied the maiden he took her at her word and sat himself down to the wheel and whistled and sang round about round about lo and behold
reel away reel away straw into gold and round about the wheel went merrily the work was quickly done and the straw was all spun into gold
then she knew not what to do and sat down once more to weep but the dwarf soon opened the door and said what will you give me to do your task the ring on my finger said she
the first little child that you may have when you are queen that may never be thought the miller's daughter and as she knew no other way to get her task done she said she would do what he asked
round went the wheel again to the old song and the manikin once more spun the heap into gold the king came in the morning and finding all he wanted was forced to keep his word
now the queen lay awake all night thinking of all the odd names that she had ever heard and she sent messengers all over the land to find out new ones the next day the little man came and she began with timothy
to every one of them madam that is not my name the third day one of the messengers came back and said i have travelled two days without hearing of any other names but yesterday as i was climbing a high hill
i saw a little hut and before the hut burnt a fire and round about the fire a funny little dwarf was dancing upon one leg and singing merrily the feast i'll make today i'll brew tomorrow bake
merrily i'll dance and sing for next day will a stranger bring little does my lady dream rumpelstiltskin is my name when the queen heard this she jumped for joy
and as soon as her little friend came she sat down upon her throne and called all her court round to enjoy the fun and the nurse stood by her side with the baby in her arms as if it was quite ready to be given up
then the little man began to chuckle at the thought of having the poor child to take home with him to his hut in the woods and he cried out now lady what is my name is it john asked she
no madam is it tom no madam is it jemmy it is not can your name be
rumpelstiltskin said the lady slyly some witch told you that some witch told you that cried the little man and dashed his right foot in a rage so deep into the floor that he was forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it out
then he made the best of his way off while the nurse laughed and the baby crowed and all the court jeered at him for having had so much trouble for nothing and said
with an anxiety that almost amounted to agony i collected the instruments of life around me that i might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet it was already one in the morning
the rain pattered dismally against the panes and my candle was nearly burnt out when by the glimmer of the half extinguished light i saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open it breathed hard
and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs how can i describe my emotions at this catastrophe or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care i had endeavoured to form
his limbs were in proportion and i had selected his features as beautiful beautiful great god his yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath
his hair was of a lustrous black and flowing his teeth of a pearly whiteness but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes
for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body for this i had deprived myself of rest and health i had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation
her features appeared to change and i thought that i held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms a shroud enveloped her form and i saw the grave worms crawling in the folds of the flannel i started from my sleep with horror
and he muttered some inarticulate sounds while a grin wrinkled his cheeks he might have spoken but i did not hear one hand was stretched out seemingly to detain me
but i escaped and rushed downstairs i took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which i inhabited where i remained during the rest of the night walking up and down in the greatest agitation
listening attentively catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which i had so miserably given life oh no mortal could support the horror of that countenance
a mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch i had gazed on him while unfinished he was ugly then but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion
at others i nearly sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness mingled with this horror i felt the bitterness of disappointment
and discovered to my sleepless and aching eyes the church of ingolstadt its white steeple and clock which indicated the sixth hour the porter opened the gates of the court which had that night been my asylum and i issued into the streets
pacing them with quick steps as if i sought to avoid the wretch whom i feared every turning of the street would present to my view i did not dare return to the apartment which i inhabited but felt impelled to hurry on
coleridge's ancient mariner continuing thus i came at length opposite to the inn at which the various diligences and carriages usually stopped here i paused i knew not why
but i remained some minutes with my eyes fixed on a coach that was coming towards me from the other end of the street as it drew nearer i observed that it was the swiss diligence
it stopped just where i was standing and on the door being opened i perceived henry clerval who on seeing me instantly sprung out my dear frankenstein exclaimed he how glad i am to see you
how fortunate that you should be here at the very moment of my alighting nothing could equal my delight on seeing clerval his presence brought back to my thoughts my father elizabeth
and all those scenes of home so dear to my recollection i grasped his hand and in a moment forgot my horror and misfortune i felt suddenly and for the first time during many months calm and serene joy
i believe i left him incredulous to the last for his constant answer to my unwearied entreaties was the same as that of the dutch schoolmaster in the vicar of wakefield i have ten thousand florins a year without greek
but tell me how you left my father brothers and elizabeth very well and very happy only a little uneasy that they hear from you so seldom by the by i mean to lecture you a little upon their account myself
i did not before remark how very ill you appear so thin and pale you look as if you had been watching for several nights you have guessed right
i have lately been so deeply engaged in one occupation that i have not allowed myself sufficient rest as you see but i hope i sincerely hope that all these employments are now at an end
and that i am at length free i trembled excessively i could not endure to think of and far less to allude to the occurrences of the preceding night i walked with a quick pace
and we soon arrived at my college i then reflected and the thought made me shiver that the creature whom i had left in my apartment might still be there alive and walking about
i dreaded to behold this monster but i feared still more that henry should see him entreating him therefore to remain a few minutes at the bottom of the stairs i darted up towards my own room
i could hardly believe that so great a good fortune could have befallen me but when i became assured that my enemy had indeed fled i clapped my hands for joy and ran down to clerval
we ascended into my room and the servant presently brought breakfast but i was unable to contain myself it was not joy only that possessed me
i felt my flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness and my pulse beat rapidly i was unable to remain for a single instant in the same place i jumped over the chairs clapped my hands and laughed aloud
clerval at first attributed my unusual spirits to joy on his arrival but when he observed me more attentively he saw a wildness in my eyes for which he could not account
and my loud unrestrained heartless laughter frightened and astonished him my dear victor cried he what for god's sake is the matter do not laugh in that manner how ill you are
do not ask me cried i putting my hands before my eyes for i thought i saw the dreaded spectre glide into the room he can tell oh save me save me
i imagined that the monster seized me i struggled furiously and fell down in a fit poor clerval what must have been his feelings a meeting which he anticipated with such joy
so strangely turned to bitterness but i was not the witness of his grief for i was lifeless and did not recover my senses for a long long time
i afterwards learned that knowing my father's advanced age and unfitness for so long a journey and how wretched my sickness would make elizabeth he spared them this grief by concealing the extent of my disorder
he knew that i could not have a more kind and attentive nurse than himself and firm in the hope he felt of my recovery he did not doubt that instead of doing harm
he performed the kindest action that he could towards them but i was in reality very ill and surely nothing but the unbounded and unremitting attentions of my friend could have restored me to life
the form of the monster on whom i had bestowed existence was forever before my eyes and i raved incessantly concerning him doubtless my words surprised henry
he at first believed them to be the wanderings of my disturbed imagination but the pertinacity with which i continually recurred to the same subject persuaded him that my disorder indeed owed its origin to some uncommon and terrible
i perceived that the fallen leaves had disappeared and that the young buds were shooting forth from the trees that shaded my window it was a divine spring and the season contributed greatly to my convalescence
i felt also sentiments of joy and affection revive in my bosom my gloom disappeared and in a short time i became as cheerful as before i was attacked by the fatal passion
how kind how very good you are to me this whole winter instead of being spent in study as you promised yourself has been consumed in my sick room how shall i ever repay you
i feel the greatest remorse for the disappointment of which i have been the occasion but you will forgive me you will repay me entirely if you do not discompose yourself but get well as fast as you can
and since you appear in such good spirits i may speak to you on one subject may i not i trembled one subject what could it be
could he allude to an object on whom i dared not even think compose yourself said clerval who observed my change of colour i will not mention it if it agitates you
we were now down in westminster
and westminster abbey was the point at which she passed from the lights and noise of the leading streets she proceeded so quickly when she got free of the two currents of passengers setting towards and from the bridge that between this and the advance she had of us when she struck off
we were in the narrow water side street by millbank before we came up with her at that moment she crossed the road as if to avoid the footsteps that she heard so close behind and without looking back passed on even more rapidly
a glimpse of the river through a dull gateway where some waggons were housed for the night seemed to arrest my feet i touched my companion without speaking and we both forbore to cross after her and both followed on that opposite side of the way
keeping as quietly as we could in the shadow of the houses but keeping very near her there was and is when i write at the end of that low lying street a dilapidated little wooden building probably an obsolete old ferry house
its position is just at that point where the street ceases and the road begins to lie between a row of houses and the river as soon as she came here and saw the water she stopped as if she had come to her destination and presently went slowly along by the brink of the river
looking intently at it all the way here i had supposed that she was going to some house indeed i had vaguely entertained the hope that the house might be in some way associated with the lost girl
but that one dark glimpse of the river through the gateway had instinctively prepared me for her going no farther the neighbourhood was a dreary one at that time as oppressive sad and solitary by night as any about london
a sluggish ditch deposited its mud at the prison walls coarse grass and rank weeds straggled over all the marshy land in the vicinity
in one part carcases of houses inauspiciously begun and never finished rotted away in another the ground was cumbered with rusty iron monsters of steam boilers wheels cranks pipes furnaces
paddles anchors diving bells windmill sails and i know not what strange objects accumulated by some speculator and grovelling in the dust underneath which
having sunk into the soil of their own weight in wet weather they had the appearance of vainly trying to hide themselves the clash and glare of sundry fiery works upon the river side arose by night to disturb everything
except the heavy and unbroken smoke that poured out of their chimneys slimy gaps and causeways winding among old wooden piles with a sickly substance clinging to the latter
fluttering above high water mark led down through the ooze and slush to the ebb tide there was a story that one of the pits dug for the dead in the time of the great plague was hereabout
and a blighting influence seemed to have proceeded from it over the whole place or else it looked as if it had gradually decomposed into that nightmare condition out of the overflowings of the polluted stream
the girl we had followed strayed down to the river's brink and stood in the midst of this night picture lonely and still looking at the water there were some boats and barges astrand in the mud
and these enabled us to come within a few yards of her without being seen i then signed to mister peggotty to remain where he was and emerged from their shade to speak to her i did not approach her solitary figure without trembling
for this gloomy end to her determined walk and the way in which she stood almost within the cavernous shadow of the iron bridge looking at the lights crookedly reflected in the strong tide inspired a dread within me
i think she was talking to herself i am sure although absorbed in gazing at the water that her shawl was off her shoulders and that she was muffling her hands in it in an unsettled and bewildered way
i know and never can forget that there was that in her wild manner which gave me no assurance but that she would sink before my eyes until i had her arm within my grasp
but a stronger hand than mine was laid upon her and when she raised her frightened eyes and saw whose it was she made but one more effort and dropped down between us we carried her away from the water to where there were some dry stones and there laid her down
crying and moaning in a little while she sat among the stones holding her wretched head with both her hands oh the river she cried passionately oh the river hush hush said i calm yourself
but she still repeated the same words continually exclaiming oh the river over and over again i know it's like me she exclaimed i know that i belong to it i know that it's the natural company of such as i am
it comes from country places where there was once no harm in it and it creeps through the dismal streets defiled and miserable and it goes away like my life to a great sea that is always troubled and i feel that i must go with it
except in the tone of those words i can't keep away from it i can't forget it
or that's fit for me oh the dreadful river the thought passed through my mind that in the face of my companion as he looked upon her without speech or motion i might have read his niece's history if i had known nothing of it
i never saw in any painting or reality horror and compassion so impressively blended he shook as if he would have fallen and his hand i touched it with my own for his appearance alarmed me was deadly cold
she is in a state of frenzy i whispered to him she will speak differently in a little time i don't know what he would have said in answer he made some motion with his mouth and seemed to think he had spoken
but he had only pointed to her with his outstretched hand a new burst of crying came upon her now in which she once more hid her face among the stones and lay before us a prostrate image of humiliation and ruin
knowing that this state must pass before we could speak to her with any hope i ventured to restrain him when he would have raised her and we stood by in silence until she became more tranquil martha said i then leaning down
and helping her to rise she seemed to want to rise as if with the intention of going away but she was weak and leaned against a boat do you know who this is who is with me she said faintly yes
she shook her head she looked neither at him nor at me but stood in a humble attitude
and pressing the other clenched against her forehead are you composed enough said i to speak on the subject which so interested you i hope heaven may remember it that snowy night
for not having driven her away from the door i want to say nothing for myself she said after a few moments i am bad i am lost i have no hope at all but tell him sir she had shrunk away from him
if you don't feel too hard to me to do it that i never was in
it has never been attributed to you i returned earnestly responding to her earnestness it was you if i don't deceive myself she said in a broken voice that came into the kitchen
the night she took such pity on me was so gentle to me didn't shrink away from me like all the rest and gave me such kind help was it you sir it was said i
i should have been in the river long ago she said glancing at it with a terrible expression if any wrong to her had been upon my mind i never could have kept out of it a single winter's night if i had not been free of any share in that
the cause of her flight is too well understood i said you are innocent of any part in it we thoroughly believe we know
with most forlorn regret for she was always good to me she never spoke a word to me but what was pleasant and right
knowing what i am myself so well when i lost everything that makes life dear the worst of all my thoughts was that i was parted for ever from her mister peggotty standing with one hand on the gunwale of the boat and his eyes cast down
and when i heard what had happened before that snowy night from some belonging to our town cried martha the bitterest thought in all my mind
she once kept company with me and would say i had corrupted her when heaven knows i would have died to have brought back her good name long unused to any self control
the piercing agony of her remorse and grief was terrible to have died would not have been much what can i say i would have lived she cried i would have lived to be old in the wretched streets and to wander about
avoided in the dark and to see the day break on the ghastly line of houses and remember how the same sun used to shine into my room and wake me once
sinking on the stones she took some in each hand and clenched them up as if she would have ground them
and drooping her head as if it were heavy with insupportable recollections
how can i go on as i am a solitary curse to myself a living disgrace to everyone i come near suddenly she turned to my companion stamp upon me kill me when she was your pride
a syllable that comes out of my lips it would be a burning shame upon you even now if she and i exchanged a word i don't complain
i know there is a long long way between us i only say with all my guilt and wretchedness upon my head that i am grateful to her from my soul and love her
oh don't think that all the power i had of loving anything is quite worn out throw me away as all the world does kill me for being what i am and having ever known her but don't think that of me he looked upon her
and when she was silent gently raised her martha said mister peggotty god forbid as i should judge you forbid as i of all men should do that my girl
you doen't know half the change that's come in course of time upon me when you think it likely well he paused a moment then went on you doen't understand how tis that this here gentleman and me
has wished to speak to you you doen't understand what tis we has afore us listen now his influence upon her was complete she stood shrinkingly before him as if she were afraid to meet his eyes
but her passionate sorrow was quite hushed and mute if you heerd said mister peggotty
he repeated steadily fur she's more dear to me now martha than she was dear afore
but otherwise remained quiet i have heerd her tell said mister peggotty as you was early left fatherless and motherless with no friend fur to take in a rough seafaring way their place
maybe you can guess that if you'd had such a friend you'd have got into a way of being fond of him in course of time
as she was silently trembling he put her shawl carefully about her taking it up from the ground for that purpose whereby said he i know both as she would go to the wureld's furdest end with me if she could once see me again
to keep off seeing me for though she ain't no call to doubt my love and doen't and doen't
there's shame steps in and keeps betwixt us i read in every word of his plain impressive way of delivering himself new evidence of his having thought of this one topic in every feature it presented
according to our reckoning he proceeded
and mine she is like one day to make her own poor solitary course to london
that has befell her as the unborn child you've spoke of her being pleasant kind and gentle to you bless her i knew she was i knew she always was to all you're thankful to her and you love her
and may heaven reward you she looked at him hastily and for the first time as if she were doubtful of what he had said will you trust me she asked in a low voice of astonishment full and free said mister peggotty
if i should ever find her shelter her if i have any shelter to divide with her and then without her knowledge come to you and bring you to her she asked hurriedly we both replied together yes
she lifted up her eyes and solemnly declared that she would devote herself to this task fervently and faithfully that she would never waver in it never be diverted from it never relinquish it while there was any chance of hope
if she were not true to it might the
in its passing away from her leave her more forlorn and more despairing if that were possible than she had been upon the river's brink that night and then might all help human and divine renounce her evermore
she did not raise her voice above her breath or address us but said this to the night sky then stood profoundly quiet
where we were to be communicated with if occasion should arise under a dull lamp in the road i wrote our two addresses on a leaf of my pocket book which i tore out and gave to her and which she put in her poor bosom
i asked her where she lived herself she said after a pause in no place long it were better not to know mister peggotty suggesting to me in a whisper what had already occurred to myself i took out my purse
but i could not prevail upon her to accept any money nor could i exact any promise from her that she would do so at another time i represented to her that mister peggotty could not be called for one in his condition poor
depending on her own resources shocked us both she continued steadfast in this particular his influence upon her was equally powerless with mine she gratefully thanked him but remained inexorable
there may be work to be got she said i'll try at least take some assistance i returned until you have tried i could not do what i have promised for money she replied i could not take it if i was starving
to give me money would be to take away your trust to take away the object that you have given me
in the name of the great judge said i
dismiss that terrible idea we can all do some good if we will she trembled and her lip shook and her face was paler as she answered
it seems too bold if any good should come of me i might begin to hope for nothing but harm has ever come of my deeds yet i am to be trusted for the first time in a long while
with my miserable life on account of what you have given me to try for i know no more and i can say no more again she repressed the tears that had begun to flow and putting out her trembling hand and touching mister peggotty
as if there was some healing virtue in him went away along the desolate road she had been ill probably for a long time i observed upon that closer opportunity of observation that she was worn and haggard
we followed her at a short distance our way lying in the same direction until we came back into the lighted and populous streets i had such implicit confidence in her declaration that i then put it to mister peggotty whether it would not seem
in the onset like distrusting her to follow her any farther he being of the same mind and equally reliant on her we suffered her to take her own road and took ours which was towards highgate
there was a new and thoughtful compassion in him that i was at no loss to interpret it was midnight when i arrived at home i had reached my own gate and was standing listening for the deep bell of saint paul's the sound of which i thought had been borne towards me
among the multitude of striking clocks when i was rather surprised to see that the door of my aunt's cottage was open and that a faint light in the entry was shining out across the road thinking that my aunt might have relapsed into one of her old alarms
and might be watching the progress of some imaginary conflagration in the distance i went to speak to her it was with very great surprise that i saw a man standing in her little garden
he had a glass and bottle in his hand and was in the act of drinking i stopped short among the thick foliage outside for the moon was up now though obscured and i recognized the man whom i had once supposed to be a delusion of mister dick's
he was eating as well as drinking and seemed to eat with a hungry appetite
as if it were the first time he had seen it after stooping to put the bottle on the ground he looked up at the windows and looked about
the light in the passage was obscured for a moment and my aunt came out she was agitated
told some money into his hand i heard it chink what's the use of this he demanded i can spare no more returned my aunt then i can't go said he here you may take it back
you bad man returned my aunt with great emotion how can you use me so but why do i ask it is because you know how weak i am
but to abandon you to your deserts and why don't you abandon me to my deserts said he you ask me why returned my aunt what a heart you must have
until at length he said is this all you mean to give me then it is all i can give you said my aunt
i have told you so having got it why do you give me the pain of looking at you for another moment and seeing what you have become i have become shabby enough if you mean that he said i lead the life of an owl
you stripped me of the greater part of all i ever had said my aunt you closed my heart against the whole world years and years you treated me falsely ungratefully and cruelly go and repent of it
he returned it's all very fine well i must do the best i can for the present i suppose in spite of himself he appeared abashed by my aunt's indignant tears and came slouching out of the garden
taking two or three quick steps as if i had just come up i met him at the gate and went in as he came out we eyed one another narrowly in passing and with no favour aunt said i hurriedly this man alarming you again
let me speak to him who is he child returned my aunt taking my arm come in and don't speak to me for ten minutes we sat down in her little parlour my aunt retired behind the round green fan of former days
then she came out and took a seat beside me trot said my aunt calmly it's my husband your husband aunt i thought he had been dead dead to me returned my aunt but living
i sat in silent amazement betsey trotwood
said my aunt composedly but the time was trot when she believed in that man most entirely when she loved him trot right well when there was no proof of attachment and affection
that she would not have given him he repaid her by breaking her fortune and nearly breaking her heart so she put all that sort of sentiment once and for ever in a grave and filled it up and flattened it down
my dear good aunt i left him my aunt proceeded laying her hand as usual on the back of mine generously i may say at this distance of time trot that i left him generously
he had been so cruel to me that i might have effected a separation on easy terms for myself but i did not he soon made ducks and drakes of what i gave him sank lower and lower married another woman
i believe became an adventurer a gambler and a cheat what he is now you see but he was a fine looking man when i married him said my aunt with an echo of her old pride and admiration in her tone and i believed him
i was a fool to be the soul of honour she gave my hand a squeeze and shook her head he is nothing to me now trot less than nothing but sooner than have him punished for his offences
as he would be if he prowled about in this country i give him more money than i can afford at intervals when he reappears to go away i was a fool when i married him and i am so far an incurable fool on that subject
that for the sake of what i once believed him to be i wouldn't have even this shadow of my idle fancy hardly dealt with for i was in earnest trot if ever a woman was
and smoothed her dress there my dear she said now you know the beginning middle and
and all about it we won't mention the subject to one another any more neither of course will you mention it to anybody else
having infused by persistent importunities some sort of heat into the chilly interest of several licensed victuallers the acquaintances once upon a time of her late unlucky husband
missus verloc's mother had at last secured her admission to certain almshouses founded by a wealthy innkeeper for the destitute widows of the trade this end
she was only a little surprised at this sudden mania for locomotion mister verloc who was sufficiently magnificent in his way had grunted the remark impatiently aside
her soul was triumphant and her heart tremulous inwardly she quaked because she dreaded and admired the calm self contained character of her daughter winnie whose displeasure was made redoubtable
by a diversity of dreadful silences but she did not allow her inward apprehensions to rob her of the advantage of venerable placidity conferred upon her outward person by her triple chin
the floating ampleness of her ancient form and the impotent condition of her legs the shock of the information was so unexpected that missus verloc against her usual practice when addressed
interrupted the domestic occupation she was engaged upon it was the dusting of the furniture in the parlour behind the shop she turned her head towards her mother
whatever did you want to do that for she exclaimed in scandalised astonishment the shock must have been severe to make her depart from that distant and uninquiring acceptance of facts
which was her force and her safeguard in life weren't you made comfortable enough here she had lapsed into these inquiries but next moment she saved the consistency of her conduct by resuming her dusting
while the old woman sat scared and dumb under her dingy white cap and lustreless dark wig winnie finished the chair and ran the duster along the mahogany at the back of the horse hair sofa
on which mister verloc loved to take his ease in hat and overcoat she was intent on her work but presently she permitted herself another question how in the world did you manage it mother
she favoured her daughter by an exhaustive answer full of names and enriched by side comments upon the ravages of time as observed in the alteration of human countenances
the names were principally the names of licensed victuallers poor daddy's friends my dear she enlarged with special appreciation on the kindness and condescension of a large brewer a baronet and an m p
with a gentle sad voice but so very very thin and quiet he was like a shadow my dear winnie prolonging her dusting operations till the tale was told to the end
walked out of the parlour into the kitchen down two steps in her usual manner without the slightest comment
missus verloc's mother gave play to her astuteness in the direction of her furniture because it was her own and sometimes she wished it hadn't been heroism is all very well but
there are circumstances when the disposal of a few tables and chairs brass bedsteads and so on may be big with remote and disastrous consequences she required a few pieces herself
the foundation which after many importunities had gathered her to its charitable breast giving nothing but bare planks and cheaply papered bricks to the objects of its solicitude
the delicacy guiding her choice to the least valuable and most dilapidated articles passed unacknowledged because winnie's philosophy consisted in not taking notice of the inside of facts
of vain effort and illusory appearances her selection made the disposal of the rest became a perplexing question in a particular way she was leaving it in brett street of course
but she had two children winnie was provided for by her sensible union with that excellent husband mister verloc stevie was destitute and a little peculiar
his position had to be considered before the claims of legal justice and even the promptings of partiality the possession of the furniture would not be in any sense a provision he ought to have it the poor boy
but to give it to him would be like tampering with his position of complete dependence it was a sort of claim which she feared to weaken moreover the susceptibilities of mister verloc
would perhaps not brook being beholden to his brother in law for the chairs he sat on in a long experience of gentlemen lodgers missus verloc's mother
had acquired a dismal but resigned notion of the fantastic side of human nature what if mister verloc suddenly took it into his head
somewhere out of that a division on the other hand however carefully made might give some cause of offence to winnie no stevie must remain destitute and dependent
and at the moment of leaving brett street she had said to her daughter no use waiting till i am dead is there everything i leave here is altogether your own now my dear winnie with her hat on
silent behind her mother's back went on arranging the collar of the old woman's cloak she got her hand bag an umbrella with an impassive face the time had come for the expenditure of the sum of three and sixpence
the last cab drive of missus verloc's mother's life they went out at the shop door the conveyance awaiting them would have illustrated the proverb that truth can be more cruel than caricature if such a proverb existed
crawling behind an infirm horse a metropolitan hackney carriage drew up on wobbly wheels and with a maimed driver on the box this last peculiarity caused some embarrassment
catching sight of a hooked iron contrivance protruding from the left sleeve of the man's coat missus verloc's mother lost suddenly the heroic courage of these days she really couldn't trust herself
leaning over from his box he whispered with mysterious indignation what was the matter now was it possible to treat a man so his enormous and unwashed countenance flamed red
in the muddy stretch of the street was it likely they would have given him a licence he inquired desperately if the police constable of the locality quieted him by a friendly glance
he's been driving a cab for twenty years i never knew him to have an accident accident shouted the driver in a scornful whisper the policeman's testimony settled it the modest assemblage of seven people
in the narrow streets the progress of the journey was made sensible to those within by the near fronts of the houses gliding past slowly and shakily with a great rattle and jingling of glass
as if about to collapse behind the cab and the infirm horse with the harness hung over his sharp backbone flapping very loose about his thighs appeared to be dancing mincingly on his toes
with infinite patience later on in the wider space of whitehall all visual evidences of motion became imperceptible the rattle and jingle of glass
went on indefinitely in front of the long treasury building and time itself seemed to stand still at last winnie observed this isn't a very good horse
it was longer than the squire imagined ere we were ready for the sea and none of our first plans not even doctor livesey's of keeping me beside him could be carried out as we intended
the doctor had to go to london for a physician to take charge of his practice the squire was hard at work at bristol and i lived on at the hall under the charge of old redruth the gamekeeper almost a prisoner
sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room i approached that island in my fancy from every possible direction i explored every acre of its surface
i climbed a thousand times to that tall hill they call the spy glass and from the top enjoyed the most wonderful and changing prospects sometimes the isle was thick with savages with whom we fought
sometimes full of dangerous animals that hunted us but in all my fancies nothing occurred to me so strange and tragic as our actual adventures so the weeks passed on till one fine day
there came a letter addressed to doctor livesey with this addition to be opened in the case of his absence by tom redruth or young hawkins
obeying this order we found or rather i found for the gamekeeper was a poor hand at reading anything but print the following important news old anchor inn
you never imagined a sweeter schooner a child might sail her two hundred tons name hispaniola i got her through my old friend blandly who has proved himself throughout the most surprising trump
the admirable fellow literally slaved in my interest and so i may say did everyone in bristol as soon as they got wind of the port we sailed for treasure i mean redruth said i interrupting the letter
doctor livesey will not like that the squire has been talking after all well who's a better right growled the gamekeeper a pretty rum go if squire ain't to talk for doctor livesey i should think
at that i gave up all attempts at commentary and read straight on blandly himself found the hispaniola and by the most admirable management got her for the merest trifle
there is a class of men in bristol monstrously prejudiced against blandly they go the length of declaring that this honest creature would do anything for money that the hispaniola belonged to him and that he sold it me absurdly high
the most transparent calumnies none of them dare however to deny the merits of the ship so far there was not a hitch the workpeople to be sure riggers and what not were most annoyingly slow but time cured that
it was the crew that troubled me i wished a round score of men in case of natives buccaneers or the odious french and i had the worry of the deuce itself to find so much as half a dozen
till the most remarkable stroke of fortune brought me the very man that i required i was standing on the dock when by the merest accident i fell in talk with him i found he was an old sailor kept a public house
knew all the seafaring men in bristol had lost his health ashore and wanted a good berth as cook to get to sea again he had hobbled down there that morning he said to get a smell of the salt i was monstrously touched
so would you have been and out of pure pity i engaged him on the spot to be ship's cook long john silver he is called and has lost a leg but that i regarded as a recommendation since he lost it in his country's service
under the immortal hawke he has no pension livesey imagine the abominable age we live in well sir i thought i had only found a cook but it was a crew i had discovered between silver and myself
we got together in a few days a company of the toughest old salts imaginable not pretty to look at but fellows by their faces of the most indomitable spirit i declare we could fight a frigate
long john even got rid of two out of the six or seven i had already engaged he showed me in a moment that they were just the sort of fresh water swabs we had to fear in an adventure of importance
i am in the most magnificent health and spirits eating like a bull sleeping like a tree yet i shall not enjoy a moment till i hear my old tarpaulins tramping round the capstan seaward ho hang the treasure
it's the glory of the sea that has turned my head so now livesey come post do not lose an hour if you respect me let young hawkins go at once to see his mother with redruth for a guard and then both come full speed to bristol
postscript i did not tell you that blandly who by the way is to send a consort after us if we don't turn up by the end of august had found an admirable fellow for sailing master a stiff man which i regret
but in all other respects a treasure long john silver unearthed a very competent man for a mate a man named arrow i have a boatswain who pipes livesey so things shall go man o' war fashion on board the good ship hispaniola
j t you can fancy the excitement into which that letter put me i was half beside myself with glee
who could do nothing but grumble and lament any of the under gamekeepers would gladly have changed places with him but such was not the squire's pleasure and the squire's pleasure was like law among them all
nobody but old redruth would have dared so much as even to grumble the next morning he and i set out on foot for the admiral benbow and there i found my mother in good health and spirits
the captain who had so long been a cause of so much discomfort was gone where the wicked cease from troubling the squire had had everything repaired and the public rooms and the sign repainted
and had added some furniture above all a beautiful armchair for mother in the bar he had found her a boy as an apprentice also so that she should not want help while i was gone
and now at sight of this clumsy stranger who was to stay here in my place beside my mother i had my first attack of tears i am afraid i led that boy a dog's life for as he was new to the work
i had a hundred opportunities of setting him right and putting him down and i was not slow to profit by them the night passed and the next day after dinner
and the dear old admiral benbow since he was repainted no longer quite so dear one of my last thoughts was of the captain who had so often strode along the beach with his cocked hat
his sabre cut cheek and his old brass telescope next moment we had turned the corner and my home was out of sight the mail picked us up about dusk at the royal george on the heath
i was wedged in between redruth and a stout old gentleman and in spite of the swift motion and the cold night air i must have dozed a great deal from the very first and then slept like a log up hill and down dale
through stage after stage for when i was awakened at last it was by a punch in the ribs and i opened my eyes to find that we were standing still before a large building in a city street
and that the day had already broken a long time where are we i asked bristol said tom get down mister trelawney had taken up his residence at an inn far down the docks to superintend the work upon the schooner
lay along the quays and beside the great multitude of ships of all sizes and rigs and nations in one sailors were singing at their work in another there were men aloft high over my head
hanging to threads that seemed no thicker than a spider's though i had lived by the shore all my life i seemed never to have been near the sea till then the smell of tar and salt was something new
i saw the most wonderful figureheads that had all been far over the ocean i saw besides many old sailors with rings in their ears and whiskers curled in ringlets and tarry pigtails
when i had done breakfasting the squire gave me a note addressed to john silver at the sign of the spy glass and told me i should easily find the place by following the line of the docks
and keeping a bright lookout for a little tavern with a large brass telescope for sign i set off overjoyed at this opportunity to see some more of the ships and seamen
and picked my way among a great crowd of people and carts and bales for the dock was now at its busiest until i found the tavern in question it was a bright enough little place of entertainment
in spite of clouds of tobacco smoke the customers were mostly seafaring men and they talked so loudly that i hung at the door almost afraid to enter as i was waiting a man came out of a side room
and at a glance i was sure he must be long john his left leg was cut off close by the hip and under the left shoulder he carried a crutch which he managed with wonderful dexterity hopping about upon it like a bird
with a merry word or a slap on the shoulder for the more favoured of his guests now to tell you the truth from the very first mention of long john in squire trelawney's letter i had taken a fear in my mind
that he might prove to be the very one legged sailor whom i had watched for so long at the old benbow but one look at the man before me was enough i had seen the captain and black dog and the blind man pew
and i thought i knew what a buccaneer was like a very different creature according to me from this clean and pleasant tempered landlord i plucked up courage at once crossed the threshold and walked right up to the man where he stood
propped on his crutch talking to a customer mister silver sir i asked holding out the note yes my lad said he such is my name to be sure and who may you be and then as he saw the squire's letter
he seemed to me to give something almost like a start oh said he quite loud and offering his hand i see you are our new cabin boy pleased i am to see you
and he took my hand in his large firm grasp just then one of the customers at the far side rose suddenly and made for the door it was close by him and he was out in the street in a moment
but his hurry had attracted my notice and i recognized him at glance it was the tallow faced man wanting two fingers who had come first to the admiral benbow oh i cried stop him it's black dog
rolling his quid now morgan said long john very sternly you never clapped your eyes on that black black dog before did you now not i sir said morgan with a salute you didn't know his name did you no sir
by the powers tom morgan it's as good for you exclaimed the landlord if you had been mixed up with the like of that you would never have put another foot in my house you may lay to that and what was he saying to you i don't rightly know sir answered morgan
don't rightly know don't you perhaps you don't happen to rightly know who you was speaking to perhaps come now
we was a talkin of keel hauling answered morgan keel hauling was you and a mighty suitable thing too and you may lay to that get back to your place for a lubber tom and then as morgan rolled back to his seat
he used to come here with a blind beggar he used that he did you may be sure said i i knew that blind man too his name was pew
that were his name for certain ah he looked a shark he did if we run down this black dog now there'll be news for cap'n trelawney ben's a good runner few seamen run better than ben he should run him down hand over hand by the powers
but he was too deep and too ready and too clever for me and by the time the two men had come back out of breath and confessed that they had lost the track in a crowd and been scolded like thieves i would have gone bail for the innocence of long john silver
see here now hawkins said he here's a blessed hard thing on a man like me now ain't it there's cap'n trelawney what's he to think here i have this confounded son of a dutchman sitting in my own house drinking of my own rum
here you comes and tells me of it plain and here i let him give us all the slip
and his jaw dropped as though he had remembered something the score he burst out three goes o rum why shiver my timbers if i hadn't forgotten my score and falling on a bench he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks
i could not help joining and we laughed together peal after peal until the tavern rang again why what a precious old sea calf i am he said at last wiping his cheeks you and me should get on well hawkins
for i'll take my davy i should be rated ship's boy but come now stand by to go about this won't do dooty is dooty messmates i'll put on my old cockerel hat and step along of you to cap'n trelawney
and report this here affair for mind you it's serious young hawkins
and that so heartily that though i did not see the joke as he did i was again obliged to join him in his mirth on our little walk along the quays he made himself the most interesting companion
telling me about the different ships that we passed by their rig tonnage and nationality explaining the work that was going forward how one was discharging another taking in cargo and a third making ready for sea
when we got to the inn the squire and doctor livesey were seated together finishing a quart of ale with a toast in it
long john told the story from first to last with a great deal of spirit and the most perfect truth that was how it were now weren't it hawkins he would say now and again and i could always bear him entirely out
the two gentlemen regretted that black dog had got away but we all agreed there was nothing to be done and after he had been complimented long john took up his crutch and departed
all hands aboard by four this afternoon shouted the squire after him aye aye sir cried the cook in the passage
but i will say this john silver suits me the man's a perfect trump declared the squire and now added the doctor jim may come on board with us may he not
amos during these hours soon endeared himself to becky boozer to whom he became invaluable for he took over those chores chris had undertaken as his share these consisted of carrying water
peeling potatoes or watching the roasting meat in case it should burn for chris had less and less time for such jobs
and amos's laughter and willing happy nature soon made becky spoil him as much as she did chris another cot was put into chris's room and night after night they would hang out the two mansard windows watching what went on below until it was too dark to see
or else they would talk by the light of their candle until they fell asleep chris now knew how lonely he had been until he set amos free from his wooden shroud but warned by mister wicker
it is enough for a while cautioned mister wicker that amos get used to being limber and alive that is change enough from a carved wooden figure it would only confuse and trouble him to think you do not really belong where you are
so let him be happy and i shall seal your lips with regard to the secret of the jewel tree for that must be known to no one and so saying he rubbed a salve over chris's lips now tell me what you are to journey after commanded mister wicker
but when chris attempted to talk of the jewel tree the words would not pass his lips but remained in his mouth like a handful of marbles good said mister wicker rubbing his hands not even to me
i got it in india years ago and this is the last of it but i hardly imagine i shall need it again its use is somewhat drastic but occasionally wise
of the three things in your shop window that i liked best two have been explained yet the third which still interests me seems to have had so far no significance i mean of course the rope
ah yes mister wicker agreed nodding and stretching his feet out toward the fire the rope very well my boy since it has come into your mind again that means that the time has come for you to discover its use
chris ran to get the coiled rope he experienced almost a shock when he touched it it had looked harsh and coarse to the touch of rough hemp fibre but on picking it up the coils in his hand seemed almost silky
certainly they were more than usually pliable returning to the study the boy put the rope beside mister wicker's chair the magician did not move
his feet still stretched comfortably towards the flames his dark handsome face was dreamy and remote and chris wondered in what faraway place or time his teacher moved the apprentice sat down cross legged with his back to the fire
and presently mister wicker took his gaze from the sparks and smoke to look thoughtfully at him you have heard of the indian rope trick christopher yes and no sir chris replied i'm not sure how it works
mister wicker gave a chuckle indeed well let me tell you my boy no one else does either the rope is made to go up in the air so stiffly that the fakir that is the eastern magician can climb it
with one of his quick gestures mister wicker reached down for the rope and was up and out of his chair all in one movement you shall learn last of your lessons a new way of using a lasso not lassoing mister wicker held up a finger to stress his point
now christopher he began running the rope through his long fine hands just push that table and the chairs to the wall there's a good lad and we shall get the stiffness out of this rope chris cleared the room
chris returned to stand by the fireplace beside his master who was turning the rope lightly in his fingers now christopher your attention please said the magician and his tone was crisp and authoritative
it moved and twisted like a live thing and mister wicker chris thought seemed to be drawing the outline of a boat in the air with the moving line even as this thought flickered in his mind the rope formed in mid air
go and feel of it christopher mister wicker urged climb in it if you like i have left the two ends of the rope long enough to make oars if necessary chris ran over and felt the sides of the boat it was sound and secure no doubt of that
the boat never stirred and stamp as he would the rope bottom and gunwales resisted firmly gee mister wicker chris exclaimed this is the best yet except for amos golly moses
and as he sat down and took up the two loose ends of rope still remaining he found that he held not rope ends but two oars even oars chris cried in delight
mister wicker stood with his hands behind his back the firelight outlining his black clothes and neat dark head yes he said in a matter of fact voice quite so now climb out and i will show you some of the other shapes of which it is capable a ladder
mister wicker remarked as chris rejoined him is almost too simple we can do that at any time grasping the end of one oar with movements too fast for chris's eyes to follow in an instant the boat was a rope again coiled over mister wicker's arm
now said mister wicker and his eyes twinkled with mischief the rope flew out again but this time took a strange outline the outline of an elephant it will have to be a small elephant murmured mister wicker his hands flying because of the size of the room
the elephant like the boat took shape the final ends of the rope hanging down at its trunk and tail after the elephant came a horse an eagle and a dolphin and chris's admiration and zest to learn the secrets of the rope grew with every change of shape
very well ended mister wicker you shall learn
chapter four the fight at lexington harold remained for four months longer with his cousin the indians had made several attacks upon settlements at other points of the frontier
but they had not repeated their incursion in the neighborhood of the lake the farming operations had gone on regularly but the men always worked with their rifles ready to their hand
mister welch's farm was the only one along the lake that had escaped and the loss the indians had sustained in attacking it had been so heavy that they were not likely to make an expedition in that quarter where the chances of booty were so small
and the certainty of a desperate resistance so great other matters occurred which rendered the renewal of the attack improbable the news was brought by a wandering hunter that a quarrel had arisen between the shawnees and the iroquois
definitely fixed the day for his return and when that time approached harold started on his eastward journey in order to be at home about the date of their arrival pearson took him in his canoe to the end of the lake and accompanied him to the settlement
whence he was able to obtain a conveyance to detroit here he took a passage in a trading boat and made his way by water to montreal thence down through lake champlain and the hudson river to new york and thence to boston
the journey had occupied him longer than he expected and mister and missus wilson were already in their home at concord when he arrived the meeting was a joyful one
which harold had displayed and giving him full credit for the saving of their daughter's life upon the day after harold's return two gentlemen called upon captain wilson and asked him to sign the agreement which a number of colonists had entered into
to resist the mother country to the last this captain wilson positively refused to do i am an englishman he said and my sympathies are wholly with my country i do not say that the whole of the demands of england are justifiable
i think that parliament has been deceived as to the spirit existing here but i consider that it has done nothing whatever to justify the attitude of the colonists the soldiers of england have fought for you against french and indians and are still stationed here to protect you
the colonists pay nothing for their land they pay nothing toward the expenses of the government of the mother country and it appears to me to be perfectly just that people here
free as they are from all the burdens that bear so heavily on those at home should at least bear the expense of the army stationed here i grant that it would have been far better had the colonists taxed themselves to pay the extra amount instead of the mother country taxing them
but this they would not do some of the colonists paid their quota others refused to do so and this being the case it appears to me that england is perfectly justified in laying on a tax
the stamp tax would in no way have affected the poorer classes in the colonies it would have been borne only by the rich and by those engaged in such business transactions as required stamped documents
i regard the present rebellion as the work of a clique of ambitious men who have stirred up the people by incendiary addresses and writings there are of course among them a large number of men among them gentlemen i place you
who conscientiously believe that they are justified in doing nothing whatever for the land which gave them or their ancestors birth who would enjoy all the great natural wealth of this vast country without contributing toward the expense of the troops to whom it is due that they enjoy
peace and tranquility such gentlemen are not my sentiments you consider it a gross hardship that the colonists are compelled to trade only with the mother country
i grant that it would be more profitable and better for us had we an open trade with the whole world but in this england
france spain portugal and the netherlands all monopolize the trade of their colonies all far more than does england regard their colonies as sources of revenue i repeat i do not think that the course that england has pursued toward us
but i am sure that nothing that she has done justifies the spirit of disaffection and rebellion which is ripe throughout these colonies the time will come sir one of the gentlemen said
when you will have reason to regret the line which you have now taken no sir captain wilson said haughtily the time may come when the line that i have taken may cost me my fortune and even my life but it will never cause me one moment's regret
that i have chosen the part of a loyal english gentleman when the deputation had departed harold who had been a wondering listener to the conversation asked his father to explain to him the exact position in which matters stood
it was indeed a serious one the success of england in her struggle with france for the supremacy of north america had cost her a great deal of money at home the burdens of the people were extremely heavy
the expense of the army and navy was great and the ministry in striving to lighten the burdens of the people turned their eyes to the colonies they saw in america a population of over two million people subjects of the king like themselves
living free from rent and taxes on their own land and paying nothing whatever to the expenses of the country they were it is true forced to trade with england but this obligation was set wholly at naught
a gigantic system of smuggling was carried on the custom house officials had no force at their disposal which would have enabled them to check these operations
their first step was to strengthen the naval force on the american coast and by additional vigilance to put some sort of check on the wholesale smuggling which prevailed this step caused extreme discontent among the trading classes of america
and these set to work vigorously to stir up a strong feeling of disaffection against england the revenue officers were prevented sometimes by force from carrying out their duties
after great consideration the english government came to the conclusion that a revenue sufficient to pay a considerable proportion of the cost of the army in america might be raised by means of a stamp tax imposed upon all legal documents receipts
agreements and licenses a tax in fact resembling that on stamps now in use in england
meetings were everywhere held at which the strongest and most treasonable language was uttered and such violent threats were used against the persons employed as stamp collectors that these in fear of their lives resigned their posts
the stamp tax remained uncollected and was treated by the colonists as if it were not in existence the whole of the states now began to prepare for war
the militia drilled and prepared for fighting and everywhere the position grew more and more strained
at times the more moderate spirits attempted to bring about a reconciliation between the two parties petitions were sent to the houses of parliament and even at this time had any spirit of wisdom prevailed in
unfortunately the majority in parliament were unable to recognize that
to which the untaxed colonists
leeds and many other large towns which were unrepresented in parliament in england neither the spirit nor the strength of the colonists was understood men could not bring themselves to believe that these would fight rather than submit
still less that if they did fight it would be successfully they ignored the fact that the population of the states was one fourth as large as that of england that by far the greater proportion of that population were men trained either in border warfare or in the chase
and that the vast forests and thinly populated country were all in favor of a population fighting as guerrillas against trained troops had they perceived these things the english people would have hesitated before embarking upon such a struggle even if convinced
it is true that even had england at this point abandoned altogether her determination to raise taxes in america the result would probably have been the same
the spirit of disaffection in the colony had gone so far that a retreat would have been considered as a confession of weakness and separation of the colonists from the mother country would have happened ere many years had elapsed as it was
parliament agreed to let the stamp tax drop and in its place established some import duties on goods entering the american ports the colonists however were determined that they would submit to no taxation whatever
the english government in its desire for peace abandoned all the duties with the exception of that on tea but even this concession was not sufficient to satisfy the colonists these entered into a bond to use no english goods
a riot took place at boston and the revenue officers were forced to withdraw from their posts troops were dispatched from england and the house of commons declared massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion
the learning of magic was by no means easy the days went by with chris's mornings and afternoons spent in mister wicker's study reading books too heavy for him to lift learning incantations by heart and how to blend simple formulae over the fire
his horde of money and his hiding places for it mister wicker though interested and attentive gave chris the impression that what he had been told was not new to him at times chris was allowed to run about the large vegetable garden and climb the orchard trees
but he was told that the moment had not yet come when he could wander at will in early georgetown chris had tried it once rebellious and bored at the now familiar ground but it was as if an invisible wall kept him in the confines of mister wicker's land
a slippery glass wall he could feel but not see and in which he could discover no chink
so there was nothing left to do but to work as fast and as well as he could there are rumors mister wicker had told him quietly too quietly that claggett chew is preparing his ship the venture
for a voyage east there is much activity about his ship and he is laying in stores so i am informed we must get forward with all haste for his ship is a fast one faster than the mirabelle
shadowed eyes and weary air for chris was now as accepted a member of the household as mister wicker himself and had it not been for the robust guffaws of ned cilley and the ministrations of the now devoted becky
now however chris was not the boy he had been a few weeks before he went straight to the bowl and addressed the fish sir he said to the goldfish i am here what shall i do first
the goldfish might almost have been said to have changed its expression and smiled before brushing a drop of water from his sleeve mister wicker stood beside the table smiling how you have improved my boy he exclaimed
it is now time for you to try and this is as good a change as any all at once at the imminent prospect of really changing himself into some other form chris became frightened and his hands grew cold oh sir
you know enough to start and i feel reasonably sure that you will be quite able to change back again if you get stuck i can help you come now he said putting out his hand to touch chris's shoulder in a reassuring way here you go remember
mister wicker waited patiently beside him for a few moments for chris to get up his courage then as nothing happened with a voice like a whip mister wicker said start at once
chris was so startled at his usually gentle master's tone that without further thought or effort on his part he began intoning to himself the words and sounds of incantation seventy three book one as he went on
concentrating on becoming a goldfish in the bowl on the table he became aware of a humming sensation in his head this grew until it seemed that all his body was filled with the strange new vibration
the sensation spread faster and faster his head swam and he felt faint and a little sick but he persisted through the final words
he felt buoyant and rested and looked about only to get a wavery enlarged glimpse of mister wicker looking more like a reflection in a circus mirror than himself
with a light twist of his body chris floated over to see that the room looked the same
i'm a fish chris said and he heard the words muffled as they came back to him through the water of his bowl well what do you know he thought not without a feeling of pride
and commenced experimenting with his tail and fins with such enthusiasm and delight that some little time elapsed before mister wicker's voice boomed close by better come back now take it slowly son
seventy four book one the return the same strange sensations flooded chris as he made the change back to his own shape but when he stood once more on his own two feet on the carpet in mister wicker's study
he was pleased and happy despite his weakness mister wicker took hold of his arm and helped him to a chair and taking a small vial from the cupboard at the end of the room he dropped a pellet into it and handed it to chris this will seem to smoke sniff the smoke
leaving him quieted and as strong as usual there now mister wicker said rubbing his hands with immense satisfaction that was not so bad was it a peculiar feeling but as you come to do it more often and more quickly
the change will come more rapidly and in time you will be scarcely aware of the sensations at all he looked at his pupil with pride you will do famously my boy in another moment when you have rested we shall try another one
from that time chris became increasingly proficient and as his ability grew he began to find magic a wonderful game which he and mister wicker played together they played this new and unique form of hide and seek
each one taking a new shape turn by turn as a challenge to the other's powers of imagination and detection soon chris could turn himself into a limited number of things for even mister wicker's magic had a limit
a singing bird in a cage a part of the pattern in the brocaded curtains or a section of the design in the indian rug the bluebottle fly or the goldfish became as easy as saying eureka and on one occasion
chris turned himself into the chair on which mister wicker was sitting and then walked across the room on his four wooden legs carrying mister wicker who laughed more heartily than he had in years at this display on the part of his student one day chris wandered alone into the dusty shop
this afternoon a rainy one
and kicked an old piece of wood ahead of him into the darkness of the shop
going up to the shop window he stood with his hands thrust into his pockets staring glumly first out the window and then idly at the three objects he had once loved to contemplate the mirabelle in her bottle the coil of heavy rope
and the carved wooden figure of the nubian boy without interest at first chris stared at the little negro boy so gaily dressed in full red trousers gilded jacket and white turban the figure's shoes
carved in some eastern style had curved up pointing toes then all at once the idea came to chris if he was to be a magician could he make this boy come to life
the prospect excited him wildly for he had no companion with whom to laugh and share jokes grown people however gay and kind were never quite the same
he squatted on his haunches examining the carved wooden figure attentively and felt convinced that once alive the boy would be an ideal and happy companion but how did one change inanimate to animate
chris got up and stole back to mister wicker's door he heard the magician going up the spiral staircase to his room above and after changing himself to a mouse to slip under the door and see that the room was really empty
and bound in heavy brass studded with semi precious stones in the form of signs and symbols with difficulty standing on tiptoe chris lifted it down and placing it on the floor turned over page after page
the afternoon rainy before increased in storm dusk came two hours before its time thunder snarled in the sky at last chris found it there were the words and there the charm
certain elements were to be mixed and poured at the proper time he hurried memorizing as he closed the book and hoisted it once more to its high shelf looking about he found the ingredients that had been listed
and in an empty vial poured first two drops of this and then seventeen of that and ran to heat it at the fire mister wicker began moving about upstairs the floorboards creaked
and still chris could not leave until the potion fumed and glowed after what seemed an endless time amid a growing grind of thunder
chris his cheeks hot from excitement and the fire tiptoed out just as mister wicker's step creaked on the topmost tread of the spiral stair with infinite caution chris closed the door silently behind him
and running lightly forward reached the figure of the negro boy the words came out interrupted by peals and cracks of thunder the shop was black except for the paler crescent of the bow window giving onto the street
with a crash of thunder all but drowning out his words the boy shouted in the emptiness of the shop as he poured the rosy liquid on the figure made of wood
which splintered on the floor watching there in the darkness he shook so with nerves that he had to kneel for in the blackness lit only by the lightning and its own eerie glow the wood was changing as he watched it was as if the stiffness melted
embroidery gleamed in its reality upon the coat and oh the face the wooden grin loosened the large eyes turned the hand holding the hard bouquet of carved flowers moved and let the bouquet fall
outside the rain poured down as if over some skyward dam the boy looked down at chris with a radiant smile and put out his hand i'll help you up he said to the kneeling boy in front of him i am amos
chapter four the league of the scarlet pimpernel they all looked a merry even a happy party as they sat round the table
two typical good looking well born and well bred englishmen of that year of grace seventeen ninety two
with her two children who had just escaped from such dire perils and found a safe retreat at last on the shores of protecting england in the corner the two strangers had apparently finished their game
one of them arose and standing with his back to the merry company at the table he adjusted with much deliberation his large triple caped coat as he did so he gave one quick glance all around him everyone was busy laughing and chatting
and he murmured the words all safe his companion then with the alertness borne of long practice slipped on to his knees in a moment and the next had crept noiselessly under the oak bench the stranger then with a loud good night
quietly walked out of the coffee room not one of those at the supper table had noticed this curious and silent manoeuvre but when the stranger finally closed the door of the coffee room behind him they all instinctively sighed a sigh of relief
alone at last said lord antony jovially then the young vicomte de tournay rose glass in hand and with the graceful affection peculiar to the times he raised it aloft and said in broken english
to his majesty george three of england god bless him for his hospitality to us all poor exiles from france his majesty the king echoed lord antony and sir andrew
as they drank loyally to the toast to his majesty king louis of france added sir andrew with solemnity may god protect him and give him victory over his enemies
everyone rose and drank this toast in silence the fate of the unfortunate king of france then a prisoner of his own people seemed to cast a gloom even over mister jellyband's pleasant countenance
may we welcome him in england before many days are over ah monsieur said the comtesse as with a slightly trembling hand she conveyed her glass to her lips i scarcely dare to hope
but already lord antony had served out the soup and for the next few moments all conversation ceased while jellyband and sally handed round the plates and everyone began to eat faith madame said lord antony after a while
mine was no idle toast seeing yourself mademoiselle suzanne and my friend the vicomte safely in england now
i trust in god i can but pray and hope
trust in god by all means but believe also a little in your english friends who have sworn to bring the count safely across the channel even as they have brought you to day indeed indeed monsieur she replied
your fame i assure you has spread throughout the whole of france the way some of my own friends have escaped from the clutches of that awful revolutionary tribunal was nothing short of a miracle and all done by you and your friends
we were but the hands madame la comtesse
i would never have left him only
they refused to go without me and you and your friends assured me so solemnly that my husband would be safe but oh
i think of him flying for his life hunted like a poor beast in such peril ah i should not have left him i should not have left him the poor woman had completely broken down
fatigue sorrow and emotion
she was crying gently to herself whilst suzanne ran up to her and tried to kiss away her tears lord antony and sir andrew had said nothing to interrupt the comtesse whilst she was speaking there was no doubt that they felt deeply for her
their very silence testified to that but in every century and ever since england has been what it is an englishman has always felt somewhat ashamed of his own emotion and of his own sympathy and so the two young men said nothing
and busied themselves in trying to hide their feelings only succeeding in looking immeasurably sheepish as for me monsieur said suzanne suddenly as she looked through a wealth of brown curls across at sir andrew
just as you brought us to day this was said with so much confidence such unuttered hope and belief that it seemed as if by magic to dry the mother's eyes and to bring a smile upon everybody's lips
nay you shame me mademoiselle replied sir andrew though my life is at your service i have been but a humble tool in the hands of our great leader who organised and effected your escape he had spoken with so much warmth and vehemence
that suzanne's eyes fastened upon him in undisguised wonder your leader monsieur said the comtesse eagerly ah of course you must have a leader and i did not think of that before but tell me where is he
i must go to him at once and i and my children must throw ourselves at his feet and thank him for all that he has done for us alas madame said lord antony that is impossible
because the scarlet pimpernel works in the dark
the scarlet pimpernel said suzanne with a merry laugh why what a droll name what is the scarlet pimpernel monsieur she looked at sir andrew with eager curiosity
the young man's face had become almost transfigured his eyes shone with enthusiasm hero worship love admiration for his leader seemed literally to glow upon his face
the scarlet pimpernel mademoiselle he said at last is the name of a humble english wayside flower but it is also the name chosen to hide the identity of the best and bravest man in all the world
so that he may better succeed in accomplishing the noble task he has set himself to do ah yes here interposed the young vicomte i have heard speak of this scarlet pimpernel a little flower red yes
they say in paris that every time a royalist escapes to england that devil
receives a paper with that little flower designated in red upon it yes yes that is so assented lord antony then he will have received one such paper to day undoubtedly
oh i wonder what he will say said suzanne merrily
faith then said sir andrew he will have many more opportunities of studying the shape of that small scarlet flower ah monsieur sighed the comtesse it all sounds like a romance and i cannot understand it all
why should you try madame but tell me why should your leader why should you all spend your money and risk your lives for it is your lives you risk messieurs when you set foot in france
and all for us french men and women who are nothing to you sport madame la comtesse sport asserted lord antony with his jovial loud and pleasant voice we are a nation of sportsmen you know
and just now it is the fashion to pull the hare from between the teeth of the hound ah no no not sport only monsieur you have a more noble motive i am sure for the good work you do faith madame i would like you to find it then
as for me i vow i love the game for this is the finest sport i have yet encountered hair breath escapes the devil's own risks tally ho and away we go but the comtesse shook her head still incredulously
to her it seemed preposterous that these young men and their great leader all of them rich probably wellborn and young should for no other motive than sport run the terrible risks which she knew they were constantly doing
their nationality once they had set foot in france would be no safeguard to them anyone found harbouring or assisting suspected royalists would be ruthlessly condemned and summarily executed whatever his nationality might be
and this band of young englishmen had to her own knowledge bearded the implacable and bloodthirsty tribunal of the revolution within the very walls of paris itself and had snatched away condemned victims almost from the very foot of the guillotine
with a shudder she recalled the events of the last few days her escape from paris with her two children all three of them hidden beneath the hood of a rickety cart and lying amidst a heap of turnips and cabbages not daring to breathe whilst the mob howled
at the awful west barricade it had all occurred in such a miraculous way she and her husband had understood that they had been placed on the list of suspected persons which meant that their trial and death
were but a matter of days of hours perhaps then came the hope of salvation the mysterious epistle signed with the enigmatical scarlet device
the parting from the comte de tournay which had torn the poor wife's heart in two the hope of reunion the flight with her two children the covered cart that awful hag driving it who looked like some horrible evil demon with the ghastly trophy on her whip handle
the comtesse looked round at the quaint old fashioned english inn the peace of this land of civil and religious liberty and she closed her eyes to shut out the haunting vision of that west barricade and of the mob
retreating panic stricken when the old hag spoke of the plague
herself and her children tried and condemned and these young englishmen under the guidance of their brave and mysterious leader had risked their lives to save them all as they had already saved scores of other innocent people
and all only for sport impossible suzanne's eyes as she sought those of sir andrew plainly told him that she thought that he at any rate rescued his fellowmen from terrible and unmerited death
through a higher and nobler motive than his friend would have her believe how many are there in your brave league monsieur she asked timidly twenty all told mademoiselle he replied
one to command and nineteen to obey all of us englishmen and all pledged to the same cause to obey our leader and to rescue the innocent may god protect you all messieurs said the comtesse fervently
he had done that so far madame it is wonderful to me wonderful that you should all be so brave so devoted to your fellowmen
and in france treachery is rife all in the name of liberty and fraternity the women even in france have been more bitter against us aristocrats than the men said the vicomte with a sigh
and intense bitterness shot through her melancholy eyes there was that woman marguerite saint just for instance she denounced the marquis de saint cyr and all his family to the awful tribunal of the terror marguerite saint just
said lord antony as he shot a quick and apprehensive glance across at sir andrew marguerite saint just surely yes replied the comtesse surely you know her she was a leading actress of the comedie francaise
and she married an englishman lately you must know her know her said lord antony know lady blakeney the most fashionable woman in london the wife of the richest man in england of course we all know lady blakeney
interposed suzanne and we came over to england together to learn your language i was very fond of marguerite and i cannot believe that she ever did anything so wicked it certainly seems incredible said sir andrew
why should she have done such a thing surely there must be some mistake no mistake is possible monsieur rejoined the comtesse coldly marguerite saint just's brother is a noted republican
there was some talk of a family feud between him and my cousin the marquis de saint cyr the saint justs are quite plebeian and the republican government employs many spies i assure you there is no mistake you had not heard this story
faith madame i did hear some vague rumours of it but in england no one would credit it sir percy blakeney her husband is a very wealthy man of high social position the intimate friend of the prince of wales
and lady blakeney leads both fashion and society in london that may be monsieur and we shall of course lead a very quiet life in england
the proverbial wet blanket seemed to have fallen over the merry little company gathered round the table suzanne looked sad and silent sir andrew fidgeted uneasily with his fork whilst the comtesse
encased in the plate armour of her aristocratic prejudices sat rigid and unbending in her straight backed chair as for lord antony he looked extremely uncomfortable and glanced once or twice apprehensively towards jellyband
who looked just as uncomfortable as himself
any moment my lord whispered jellyband in reply even as he spoke a distant clatter was heard of an approaching coach louder and louder it grew one or two shouts became distinguishable then the rattle of horses hoofs on the
uneven cobble stones and the next moment a stable boy had thrown open the coffee room door and rushed in excitedly sir percy blakeney and my lady he shouted at the top of his voice they're just arriving
i replied as best i could as only a true lover can i spoke at length and perseveringly of my devotion of my passion of her exceeding beauty and of my own enthusiastic admiration in conclusion
i dwelt with a convincing energy upon the perils that encompass the course of love that course of true love that never did run smooth and thus deduced the manifest danger of rendering that course unnecessarily long
this latter argument seemed finally to soften the rigor of her determination she relented but there was yet an obstacle she said which she felt assured i had not properly considered
this was a delicate point for a woman to urge especially so in mentioning it she saw that she must make a sacrifice of her feelings still for me every sacrifice should be made she alluded to the topic of
age was i aware was i fully aware of the discrepancy between us that the age of the husband should surpass by a few years even by fifteen or twenty the age of the wife was regarded by the world as admissible and indeed
as even proper but she had always entertained the belief that the years of the wife should never exceed in number those of the husband a discrepancy of this unnatural kind gave rise too frequently alas to a life of unhappiness
now she was aware that my own age did not exceed two and twenty and i on the contrary perhaps was not aware that the years of my eugenie extended very considerably beyond that sum about all this
there was a nobility of soul a dignity of candor which delighted which enchanted me which eternally riveted my chains i could scarcely restrain the excessive transport which possessed me
my sweetest eugenie i cried what is all this about which you are discoursing
but what then the customs of the world are so many conventional follies to those who love as ourselves in what respect differs a year from an hour i am twenty two you say granted indeed
you may as well call me at once twenty three now you yourself my dearest eugenie can have numbered no more than can have numbered no more than
than than than here i paused for an instant in the expectation that madame lalande would interrupt me by supplying her true age
but a frenchwoman is seldom direct and has always by way of answer to an embarrassing query some little practical reply of her own in the present instance eugenie who for a few moments past had seemed to be searching for something in her bosom
at length let fall upon the grass a miniature which i immediately picked up and presented to her keep it she said with one of her most ravishing smiles keep it for my sake for the sake of her whom it too flatteringly represents
besides upon the back of the trinket you may discover perhaps the very information you seem to desire it is now to be sure growing rather dark but you can examine it at your leisure in the morning in the meantime you shall be my escort home to night
my friends are about holding a little musical levee i can promise you too some good singing we french are not nearly so punctilious as you americans and i shall have no difficulty in smuggling you in
in the character of an old acquaintance with this she took my arm and i attended her home the mansion was quite a fine one and i believe furnished in good taste of this latter point however i am scarcely qualified to judge
for it was just dark as we arrived and in american mansions of the better sort lights seldom during the heat of summer make their appearance at this the most pleasant period of the day in about an hour after my arrival to be sure
a single shaded solar lamp was lit in the principal drawing room and this apartment i could thus see was arranged with unusual good taste and even splendor but two other rooms of the suite and in which the company chiefly assembled remained
during the whole evening in a very agreeable shadow this is a well conceived custom giving the party at least a choice of light or shade and one which our friends over the water could not do better than immediately adopt
the evening thus spent was unquestionably the most delicious of my life madame lalande had not overrated the musical abilities of her friends and the singing i here heard
i had never heard excelled in any private circle out of vienna the instrumental performers were many and of superior talents the vocalists were chiefly ladies and no individual sang less than well
she arose at once without affectation or demur from the chaise longue upon which she had sat by my side and accompanied by one or two gentlemen and her female friend of the opera repaired to the piano in the main drawing room
i would have escorted her myself but felt that under the circumstances of my introduction to the house i had better remain unobserved where i was i was thus deprived of the pleasure of seeing although not of hearing her sing
the impression she produced upon the company seemed electrical but the effect upon myself was something even more i know not how adequately to describe it it arose in part no doubt from the sentiment of love with which i was imbued
but chiefly from my conviction of the extreme sensibility of the singer
with more impassioned expression than was hers her utterance of the romance in otello
in the capuletti is ringing in my memory yet her lower tones were absolutely miraculous her voice embraced three complete octaves extending from the contralto d to the d upper soprano and
though sufficiently powerful to have filled the san carlos executed with the minutest precision every difficulty of vocal composition ascending and descending scales cadences or fiorituri
in the final of the somnambula she brought about a most remarkable effect at the words
here in imitation of malibran she modified the original phrase of bellini so as to let her voice descend to the tenor g when by a rapid transition she struck the g above the treble stave
springing over an interval of two octaves upon rising from the piano after these miracles of vocal execution she resumed her seat by my side when i expressed to her in terms of the deepest enthusiasm my delight at her performance
feebleness or rather a certain tremulous indecision of voice in ordinary conversation had prepared me to anticipate that in singing she would not acquit herself with any remarkable ability our conversation was now
long earnest uninterrupted and totally unreserved she made me relate many of the earlier passages of my life and listened with breathless attention to every word of the narrative i concealed nothing
felt that i had a right to conceal nothing from her confiding affection encouraged by her candor upon the delicate point of her age i entered with perfect frankness not only into a detail of my many minor vices
but made full confession of those moral and even of those physical infirmities the disclosure of which in demanding so much higher a degree of courage is so much surer an evidence of love i touched upon my college indiscretions upon my extravagances
upon my carousals upon my debts upon my flirtations i even went so far as to speak of a slightly hectic cough with which at one time i had been troubled of a chronic rheumatism of a twinge of hereditary gout
and in conclusion of the disagreeable and inconvenient but hitherto carefully concealed weakness of my eyes upon this latter point said madame lalande laughingly you have been surely injudicious in coming to confession
for without the confession i take it for granted that no one would have accused you of the crime by the by she continued have you any recollection and here i fancied that a blush
even through the gloom of the apartment became distinctly visible upon her cheek have you any recollection mon cher ami of this little ocular assistant which now depends from my neck as she spoke
she twirled in her fingers the identical double eye glass which had so overwhelmed me with confusion at the opera full well alas do i remember it i exclaimed pressing passionately the delicate hand which offered the glasses for my inspection
they formed a complex and magnificent toy richly chased and filigreed and gleaming with jewels which even in the deficient light i could not help perceiving were of high value eh bien mon ami
she resumed with a certain empressment of manner that rather surprised me eh bien mon ami you have earnestly besought of me a favor which you have been pleased to denominate priceless you have demanded of me my hand upon the morrow
i may add to the pleadings of my own bosom would i not be entitled to demand of you a very a very little boon in return name it i exclaimed with an energy that had nearly drawn upon us the observation of the company
and restrained by their presence alone from throwing myself impetuously at her feet name it my beloved my eugenie my own name it but alas it is already yielded ere named
you shall conquer then mon ami said she for the sake of the eugenie whom you love this little weakness which you have at last confessed this weakness more moral than physical and which
let me assure you is so unbecoming the nobility of your real nature so inconsistent with the candor of your usual character and which if permitted further control will assuredly involve you sooner or later in some very disagreeable scrape
the scotch lady of aristocratic birth and social experience lived with me one terrible week on the seventh day i came home from shopping with presents for the twins back in wisconsin a day or so earlier while my mentor was out of the room i had asked the chef waiter of our floor about himself
and tom and the scotch lady were there the chef waiter was taking the coats of the gentlemen callers
ladies never make gifts to their servants she added their secretaries housekeepers or companions disburse their bounty i remembered the old u s a an american chef waiter might hope to be the father of a president
on the ranch i had cooked for men of less education and much worse manners than this domestic who brought my athletic husband's breakfast to his bedside and who happened to be the proud father of twins i would learn table manners from an english lady of aristocratic birth and social experience
but when it came to the human act of a little gift to a faithful servant i declared my american independence i was homesick for wisconsin homesick for real and simple people i wanted to go home
that night tom and i had our first real quarrel and it was over my dismissal of the scotch lady of aristocratic birth life became intolerable for a while i dragged through days of bitter homesickness nothing seemed real no one seemed sincere
life was a stage everybody seemed to be acting a part and speaking their pieces with guttural voices even my husband's voice sounded different or else i realized for the first time that boston apes london english tom had learned his mother tongue in boston
and lonely and sensitive i had dreamed so much of this world and now that i was in it it was false and petty i longed for the united states for my northwest for my hills and wide far plains
suddenly it swept over me that life had gone all wrong here was a dream come true and no joy in my heart tom asked me for my thoughts i told him quite frankly i was thinking of home
i was thinking of mother in her cotton house dress with her knitted shawl around her shoulders of father in his jeans and high boots tramping over the range with the men i saw the cow and the pigs and the chickens
he never did in all the years together which he made so rich and happy tom never understood how hard and bitter a school was that first year of my married life but tom did try to give me a good time in london
the thought of the country and a visit with some good simple country folk appealed to me too so i packed the bags and met tom at victoria station at eleven o'clock alas it is a far cry from a montana ranch to a gentleman's estate in england
we were led to a handsome cart drawn by a fine tandem team and tom and i were alone for a minute my god mary he burst out didn't you bring any clothes for us i certainly have i retorted
your nightshirt and my nightgown your toilet articles and mine a change of underclothes a clean shirt and two collars for you
you ll need all the clothes you have down here and and a valet and maid will unpack the bags oh hell after more of the same kind of talk he began to cook up some yarn to tell the valet
does a servant regulate your life and set your standards tom was quiet for several moments then he took my hand and said very earnestly mary don't you ever lose your respect for the real things it will save both of us
tom went back to london on the next train
the dinner was long and stupid after dinner the women went into the drawing room and gossiped about politics and personalities until the men joined them when they sat down to cards
i did not know how to play cards and so was left with a garrulous old woman who had eaten and drunk over much it had been a long day for me i was ill and tired suddenly sleep began to overpower me i batted my eyes to keep them open
i tried looking at the crystal lights but my leaden eyes could not face them the constant drone of that old woman was putting me to sleep i tried to say a few words now and then to wake myself i felt myself slipping
once my head dropped and came up with a jerk i watched the great french clock its hands did not seem to move i looked at tom he was absorbed in his game i could not endure it another minute
drowsy as i was i noticed she seemed surprised
it was n't done in england what do you do if you can't keep awake i asked you slip out quietly go to your room ask a maid to call you after you have had forty winks
not dull and quiet like the english dinner and ever so much more fun
care free natural sympathetic there was a lack of restraint which after the oppressive dignity of london was a rare treat no one was critical every one accepted my halting and faulty french without ridicule or condescension
the amiability and the friendliness of the french people thawed my heart and began to lift me out of my slough of homesickness happiness came back to me there had been hours in england when only the knowledge that a woman's rarest gift was coming to me
and that tom was proud and happy about it kept me from running away back to the simple life of my own united states i was homesick for mother babies were a mystery to me although i had helped mother with all of hers
we had buried three of them in homemade coffins pioneering is a ruthless scythe and only the fit survive i began to understand my mother and the glory in the character which never faltered although she was alone and life had been hard
how could i whine when i had tom and a good friend and life was like a playground i loved the french
it was my all absorbing thought and i was delighted to be able to discuss it frankly motherhood is the great and natural event in the life of a woman in france and no one makes a secret of it i was very happy in paris and then
up to eleven o'clock certain attire was proper if your watch stopped you were sure to break a social law i once saw a distinguished diplomat in distress because he found himself at an official function at eleven thirty with a black tie
at first it offended me to receive an invitation or a command to appear at a formal function with an accompanying slip telling exactly what to wear then i laughed about it finally i rebelled on the plea of ill health
the second day in london tom took me to an exhibition important in the art world or at least in the official life of london everybody who was somebody was there i saw the princess of wales and the marquis of salisbury
who was then secretary of state for foreign affairs i saw mister balfour so handsome and gracious that i refused to believe there had ever been cause to call him bloody balfour there was something kingly about him yet he was simply mister balfour
and of one coming blessing in particular mister gladstone joined us and sir henry irving came over to speak to eve she told him i had just said that england had a mold for handsome men irving was interesting and striking
though certainly not handsome but he took the compliment to himself smiled bowed his thanks and said and america for beautiful women mister gladstone too could indulge in small talk
you should have seen her rosy cheeks before she went to the continent he said and added kindly that i looked very tired and should go down to hawarden castle and rest oh i explained happily it is n't that
for the first time i realized that custom is merely a matter of geography one takes off one's shoes to enter the presence of the ruler of persia
one uses fish knives in england until he dines with royalty then one must manage with a fork and a piece of bread one dresses for dinner always and waits for the hostess to say it is time and speaks only to one's neighbor at table
in france one guest speaks to any or all of the others all one's friends extend congratulations if a baby is coming one shares all his joys with friends but in england nobody must know and everybody must be surprised
no one ever speaks of himself in england they are sensitive about everything personal but there is an underground and very perfect system by which everything about everybody is known and noised about and discussed with everybody except the person in question
it is a mysterious and elaborate hypocrisy with the aid of eve i made a thorough study of the geography of social customs i learned the ways of europe of the orient and of south america
but i told myself with pride that our truly cultivated people will not tolerate a social form that is not based on human kindly instincts
or about twenty three english miles but the road is mostly ridable and i roll into the village in about three hours and a half
by his pantomimic explanations i understand well enough though and the road just here happening to be excellent wheeling to the delight of the whole village i spurt ahead outdistancing the zaptieh's not over sprightly animal
and bowling briskly along the right road within their range of vision for over a mile
when a number of persons in holiday attire present themselves outside the tents and by shouting and gesturing invite me to pay them a visit
or doubtless more properly setting a worthy example they likewise have their periodical reunions where they eat drink spin yarns sing and twang the tuneful lyre
in frolicsome consciousness of always having a howling majority over their less prolific neighbors refreshments in abundance are tendered and the usual pantomimic explanations exchanged between us
terpsichorean talent are prancing wildly about the tent middle aged matrons are here in plenty housewifely persons finding their chief enjoyment in catering to the gastronomic pleasures of the others while a score or two of blooming maidens stand coyly aloof
watching the festive merry makings of the men their heads and necks are resplendent with bands and necklaces of gold coins it still being a custom of the east to let the female members of a family wear the surplus wealth about them in the shape of gold ornaments and jewels
it is not fair perhaps to pass judgment on yuzgat's pretensions by the damsels of one family connection not even the great and numerous pampasian pamparsan family but still they ought to be at least a fair average
they have beautiful large black eyes and usually a luxuriant head of hair but their faces arc on the whole babyish and expressionless the yuzgat maiden of sweet sixteen is a coy babyish creature
it gives me an opportunity of witnessing an armenian family reunion under primitive conditions
is a lone circassian watchdog he is of a stalwart warlike appearance and although wearing no arms except a cavalry sword a shorter broad sword a dragoon revolver a two foot horse pistol and a double barrelled shot gun slung at his back
the armenians seem to feel perfectly safe under his protection they probably don't require any such protection really they are nevertheless wise in employing a circassian to guard them if for nothing else for the sake of freeing their
own unwarlike minds of all disquieting apprehensions and enjoying their family reunion in the calm atmosphere of perfect security some lawless party passing along the road might peradventure drop in and abuse their hospitality
among their neighbors the circassians betray more interest in my purely personal affairs whether i am russian or english whither i am bound et cetera and less interest in the bicycle than either turks or armenians
and seem altogether of a more reserved disposition i generally have as little conversation with them as possible confining myself to letting them know i am english and not russian and replying turkchi binmus i don't understand to other questions
apprehensive that their object is to find out where three or four of them could see me later i see but few circassian women what few i approach sufficiently near to observe are all more or less pleasant faced
prepossessing females many have blue eyes which is very rare among their neighbors the men average quite as handsome as the women and they have a peculiar dare devil expression of countenance that makes them distinguishable immediately from either turk or armenian
such among them as take any great interest in my extraordinary outfit find it entirely beyond their comprehension the bicycle is a gordian knot too intricate for their semi civilized minds to unravel and there are no alexanders among them to think of cutting it
before they recover from their first astonishment i have disappeared the road continues for the most part ridable until about two p m when i arrive at a mountainous region of rocky ridges covered chiefly with a growth of scrub oak
the view presents the striking appearance of large compact cabbage heads thickly dotting a well cultivated area of clean black loam surrounded on all sides by rocky uncultivatable wilds fifteen minutes later
i am picking my way through this cultivated field which upon closer acquaintance proves to be a smooth lava bed and the cabbages are nothing more or less than boulders of singular uniformity and what is equally curious
they are all covered with a growth of moss while the volcanic bed they repose on is perfectly naked beyond this singular area the country continues wild and mountainous with no habitations near the road and thus it continues until some time after night fall
and the chilliness of the atmosphere already apparent bodes ill for anything like a comfortable night but i scarcely anticipate being disturbed by anything save atmospheric conditions
judging from the sounds they appear to be making a bee line for my position but not caring to voluntarily reveal my presence i simply remain quiet and listen it soon becomes evident that they are a party of villagers
coming to load up their buffalo arabas by moonlight with these very shocks of wheat one of the arabas now approaches the shock which conceals my recumbent form and where the pale moonbeams are coquettishly ogling the nickel plated portions of my wheel
vanishes like a deer in the direction of his companions it is an unenviable situation to find one's self in if i boldly approach them these people not being able to ascertain my character in the moonlight
would be quite likely to discharge their fire arms at me in their fright if on the contrary i remain under cover they might also try the experiment of a shot before venturing to approach the deserted buffaloes
than they get altogether too familiar and inquisitive about my packages and i detect one venturesome kleptomaniac surreptitiously unfastening a strap when he fancies i am not noticing moreover
while others suggest that i am a postaya courier and that it contains letters under these alarming circumstances there is only one way to manage these overgrown children that is to make them afraid of you forthwith
so shoving the strap unfastener roughly away i imperatively order the whole covetous crew to haidi without a moment's hesitation they betake themselves off to their work
it being an inborn trait of their character to mechanically obey an authoritative command following them to their other arabas
quilts along intending after loading up to sleep in the field until daylight selecting a good heavy quilt with as little ceremony as though it were my own property i take it and the bicycle to another shock and curl myself up warm and comfortable
once or twice the owner of the coverlet approaches quietly just near enough to ascertain that i am not intending making off with his property but there is not the slightest danger of being disturbed or molested in any way till morning
thus in this curious round about manner does fortune provide me with the wherewithal to pass a comparatively comfortable night rather arbitrary proceedings to take a quilt without asking permission some might think but the owner thinks nothing of the kind
at daylight i am again on the move and sunrise finds me busy making an outline sketch of the ruins of an ancient castle that occupies i should imagine one of the most impregnable positions in all asia minor
a regular gibraltar it occupies the summit of a precipitous detached mountain peak which is accessible only from one point all the other sides presenting a sheer precipice of rock it forms a conspicuous feature of the landscape for many miles around
and his two generations of descendants the old fellow is seated on a rock smoking a cigarette and endeavoring to coax a little comfort from the slanting rays of the morning sun and i straightway approach him and broach the all important subject of refreshments
allah anybody would think from his actions that the sanctimonious old man ikin five feet three
whereas he has evidently not even earned the privilege of wearing a green turban he has neither been to mecca himself during his whole unprofitable life nor sent a substitute
and he now thinks of gaining a nice numerous harem and a walled in garden with trees and fountains cucumbers and carpooses
i feel too independent this morning to sacrifice any of the wellnigh invisible remnant of dignity remaining from the respectable quantity with which i started into asia for i still have a couple of the wheaten quoits i brought from yuzgat
so leaving the ancient mussulman to his meditations i push on over the hills when coming to a spring i eat my frugal breakfast soaking the unbiteable quoits in the water
after getting beyond this hilly region i emerge upon a level plateau of considerable extent across which very fair wheeling is found but before noon the inevitable mountains present themselves again
this doubtless comes of the pure contrariness of human nature in the absence of social obligations their religion teaches these people that they ought to bathe every day consequently they never bathe at all
for in spite of desperate poverty they know more contentment than the well fed respectably dressed mechanic of the western world it is however the contentment born of not realizing their own condition the bliss that comes of ignorance
they search the entire village for eatables but nothing is readily obtainable but bread a few gaunt angular fowls are scratching about but they have a beruffled disreputable appearance as though their lives had been a continuous struggle against being caught and devoured
moreover i don't care to wait around three hours on purpose to pass judgment on these people's cooking eggs there are none they are devoured i fancy almost before they are laid
finally while making the best of bread and water which is hardly made more palatable by the appearance of the people watching me feed a woman in an airy fairy costume that is little better than no costume at all comes forward and contributes a small bowl of yaort
but unfortuntaely this is old yaort yaort that is in the sere and yellow stage of its usefulness as human food and although these people doubtless consume it thus i prefer to wait until something more acceptable and less odoriferous turns up
i miss the genial hospitality of the gentle koords to day instead of heaping plates of pillau and bowls of wholesome new yaort fickle fortune brings me nothing but an exclusive diet of bread and water
my road this afternoon is a tortuous donkey trail intersecting ravines with well nigh perpendicular sides and rocky ridges covered with a stunted growth of cedar and scrub oak the higher mountains round about
are heavily timbered with pine and cedar a large forest on a mountain slope is on fire and i pass a camp of people who have been driven out of their permanent abode by the flames fortunately they have saved everything except their naked houses and their grain
a wagon road having been made from sivas into this forest to enable the people to haul wood and building timber on their arabas arriving at a good sized and comparatively well to do mussulman village
and several times i am awakened by dogs invading the khan and sniffing about my couch my daily experience among these people is teaching me the commendable habit of rising with the lark not that i am an enthusiastic student or even a willing one
be it observed that few people are
or to be worried from one's waking moments to the departure from the village and of the two evils one comes finally to prefer the early rising one can always obtain something to eat before starting by waiting till an hour after sunrise
but i have had quite enough of these people's importunities to make breakfasting with them a secondary consideration and so pull out at early daylight the road is exceptionally good
enters upon a wordy demurrer
some day if she doesn't be more reasonable her husband instead of satisfying his outraged feelings by chastising her with a hoe handle will in a moment of passion bid her begone from his house which in turkish law constitutes a legal separation
if the command be given in the presence of a competent witness it is irrevocable seeing me thus placed as it were in an embarrassing situation another woman dear thoughtful creature fetches me enough wheat piilau to feed a mule
and a nice bowl of yaort off which i make a substantial breakfast near by where i am eating are five industrious maidens preparing cracked or broken wheat by a novel and interesting process that has hitherto failed to come under my observation
at sivas gather in a circle about it and pound the wheat with light long headed mauls or beetles striking in regular succession as the reader has probably seen a gang of circus roustabouts driving tent pins
a place sufficiently important to maintain a public coffee khan and several small shops here i take aboard a pocketful of fine large pears and after wheeling a couple of miles to a secluded spot
halt for the purpose of shifting the pears from my pocket to where they will be better appreciated ere i have finished the second pear a gentle goatherd who from an adjacent hill observed me alight appears upon the scene and waits around
the bargain is agreed to and the solo duly played east of yennikhan the road develops into an excellent macadamized highway on which i find plenty of genuine amusement by electrifying the natives whom i chance to meet or overtake
the affrighted katir jee's first impulse is to seek refuge in flight not infrequently bolting clear off the roadway before venturing upon taking a second look sometimes i simply put on a spurt and whisk past at a fifteen mile pace
went through the country with his wonderful araba will become a red letter event in the memory of the people along my route through asia minor
on a stone bridge i follow along the valley of the head waters of our old acquaintance the kizil irmak
having wheeled nearly fifty miles to day the last forty of which will compare favorably in smoothness though not in leveluess with any forty mile stretch i know of in the united states
prom angora i have brought a letter of introduction to mister ernest weakley a young englishman engaged together with mister kodigas a belgian gentleman
and i am soon installed in hospitable quarters
particularly in making filigree silver work toward evening myself and mister weakley take a stroll through the silversmiths quarters the quarters consist of twenty or thirty small wooden shops surrounding an oblong court
ragged urchins romp with dogs and baby buffaloes where pashas sons formerly congregated to learn wisdom from the teachings of their prophet and now what remains of the intricate arabesque designs worked out in small bright colored tiles
silkworms i was puzzled by the phrase silkworm moth eyebrow in an old japanese or rather chinese proverb
that you never saw a silkworm moth the silkworm moth has very beautiful eyebrows eyebrows i queried in astonishment well call them what you like returned niimi the poets call them eyebrows
he left the guest room and presently returned with a white paper fan on which a silkworm moth was sleepily reposing we always reserve a few for breeding he said this one is just out of the cocoon
it cannot fly of course none of them can fly now look at the eyebrows i looked and saw that the antennae very short and feathery were so arched back over the two jewel specks of eyes in the velvety head
as to give the appearance of a really handsome pair of eye brows then niimi took me to see his worms in niimi's neighborhood where there are plenty of mulberrytrees many families keep silkworms
and to hear the soft papery noise which they make while gnawing their mulberry leaves as they approach maturity the creatures need almost constant attention at brief intervals some expert visits each tray to inspect progress
a few only of the best are suffered to emerge from their silky sleep the selected breeders they have beautiful wings but cannot use them they have mouths but do not eat they only pair
lay eggs and die for thousands of years their race has been so well cared for that it can no longer take any care of itself it was the evolutional lesson of this latter fact that chiefly occupied me
while niimi and his younger brother who feeds the worms were kindly explaining the methods of the industry they told me curious things about different breeds and also about a wild variety of silkworm that cannot be domesticated
it spins splendid silk before turning into a vigorous moth which can use its wings to some purpose but i fear that i did not act like a person who felt interested in the subject for even while i tried to listen i began to muse
two first of all i found myself thinking about a delightful revery by m anatole france in which he says that if he had been the demiurge
he would have put youth at the end of life instead of at the beginning and would have otherwise so ordered matters that every human being should have three stages of development somewhat corresponding to those of the lepidoptera
then it occurred to me that this fantasy was in substance scarcely more than the delicate modification of a most ancient doctrine common to nearly all the higher forms of religion
western faiths especially teach that our life on earth is a larval state of greedy helplessness and that death is a pupa sleep out of which we should soar into everlasting light they tell us that during its sentient existence
the outer body should be thought of only as a kind of caterpillar and thereafter as a chrysalis and they aver that we lose or gain according to our behavior as larvae the power to develop wings under the mortal wrapping
also they tell us not to trouble ourselves about the fact that we see no psyche imago detach itself from the broken cocoon this lack of visual evidence signifies nothing because we have only the purblind vision of grubs
our eyes are but half evolved do not whole scales of colors invisibly exist above and below the limits of our retinal sensibility even so the butterfly man exists although as a matter of course we cannot see him
but what would become of this human imago in a state of perfect bliss from the evolutional point of view the question has interest and its obvious answer was suggested to me by the history of those silkworms which have been domesticated for only a few thousand years
consider the result of our celestial domestication for let us say several millions of years i mean the final consequence to the wishers of being able to gratify every wish at will those silkworms have all that they wish for
even considerably more their wants though very simple are fundamentally identical with the necessities of mankind food shelter warmth safety and comfort our endless social struggle is mainly for these things
i am not considering the fact that a vast majority of the worms are predestined to torment and the second death for my theme is of heaven not of lost souls i am speaking of the elect those worms preordained to salvation and rebirth
probably they can feel only very weak sensations they are certainly incapable of prayer but if they were able to pray they could not ask for anything more than they already receive from the youth who feeds and tends them
he is their providence a god of whose existence they can be aware in only the vaguest possible way but just such a god as they require
to be equally well cared for in proportion to our more complex wants do not our common forms of prayer prove our desire for like attention is not the assertion of our need of divine love
an involuntary confession that we wish to be treated like silkworms to live without pain by the help of gods yet if the gods were to treat us as we want we should presently afford fresh evidence
in the way of what is called the evidence from degeneration that the great evolutional law is far above the gods an early stage of that degeneration would be represented by total incapacity to help ourselves
then we should begin to lose the use of our higher sense organs later on the brain would shrink to a vanishing pin point of matter still later we should dwindle into mere amorphous sacs mere blind stomachs
the longing for perpetual bliss in perpetual peace might well seem a malevolent inspiration from the lords of death and darkness all life that feels and thinks has been and can continue to be only as the product of struggle and pain
and cosmic law is uncompromising whatever organ ceases to know pain whatever faculty ceases to be used under the stimulus of pain must also cease to exist
first into protoplasmic shapelessness thereafter into dust buddhism which in its own grand way is a doctrine of evolution rationally proclaims its heaven but a higher stage of development through pain
there is little fault to be found with this teaching from a scientific standpoint since we know that higher evolution must involve an increase of sensitivity to pain in the heavens of desire says the shobo nen jo kyo
the pain of death is so great that all the agonies of all the hells united could equal but one sixteenth part of such pain
foregoing comparison is unnecessarily strong but the buddhist teaching about heaven is in substance eminently logical the suppression of pain mental or physical in any conceivable state of sentient existence
would necessarily involve the suppression also of pleasure and certainly all progress
he used to be a great reader of buddhist books well he said i was reminded of a queer buddhist story by the proverb that you asked me to explain the silkworm moth eyebrow of a woman is the axe that cuts down the wisdom of man
according to our doctrine
this is the story when shaka
one of his disciples called nanda was bewitched by the beauty of a woman and shaka desired to save him from the results of this illusion
and showed him a very ugly female ape and asked him
the woman that you love or this female ape oh master exclaimed nanda how can a lovely woman be compared with an ugly ape perhaps you will presently find reason to make the comparison yourself answered the buddha
and instantly by supernatural power he ascended with nanda to the san jusan ten which is the second of the six heavens of desire there within a palace of jewels
nanda saw a multitude of heavenly maidens celebrating some festival with music and dance and the beauty of the least among them incomparably exceeded that of the fairest woman of earth o master cried nanda what wonderful festival is this
ask some of those people responded shaka so nanda questioned one of the celestial maidens and she said to him this festival is to celebrate the good tidings that have been brought to us there is now in the human world among the disciples of shaka
a most excellent youth called nanda who is soon to be reborn into this heaven and to become our bridegroom because of his holy life we wait for him with rejoicing this reply filled the heart of nanda with delight
then the buddha asked him is there any one among these maidens nanda equal in beauty to the woman with whom you have been in love nay master answered nanda even as that woman surpassed in beauty the female ape that we saw on the mountain
then nanda found himself standing before a huge vessel which was filled with molten metal and he feared and wondered because this vessel had as yet no occupant an idle devil sat beside it yawning
on account of his former good actions but after having there indulged himself he is to be reborn in this hell and his place will be in that pot i am waiting for him
but i have not been able to compare it with any published text
there is a pali version of the legend which differs considerably from the above
i see rising out of darkness a lotos in a vase most of the vase is invisible but i know that it is of bronze and that its glimpsing handles are bodies of dragons only the lotos is fully illuminated
three pure white flowers and five great leaves of gold and green gold above green on the upcurling under surface an artificial lotos it is bathed by a slanting stream of sunshine
the darkness beneath and beyond is the dusk of a temple chamber i do not see the opening through which the radiance pours but i am aware that it is a small window shaped in the outline form of a temple bell
the reason that i see the lotos one memory of my first visit to a buddhist sanctuary is that there has come to me an odor of incense often when i smell incense this vision defines
and usually thereafter other sensations of my first day in japan revive in swift succession with almost painful acuteness it is almost ubiquitous this perfume of incense
it makes one element of the faint but complex and never to be forgotten odor of the far east it haunts the dwelling house not less than the temple the home of the peasant not less than the yashiki of the prince
shinto shrines indeed are free from it incense being an abomination to the elder gods but wherever buddhism lives there is incense in every house containing a buddhist shrine or buddhist tablets incense is burned at certain times
little stone figures of fudo jizo or kwannon many experiences of travel strange impressions of sound as well as of sight remain associated in my own memory with that fragrance
vast silent shadowed avenues leading to weird old shrines mossed flights of worn steps ascending to temples that moulder above the clouds joyous tumult of festival nights
sheeted funeral trains gliding by in glimmer of lanterns murmur of household prayer in fishermen's huts on far wild coasts and visions of desolate little graves marked only by threads of blue smoke ascending
graves of pet animals or birds remembered by simple hearts in the hour of prayer to amida the lord of immeasurable light but the odor of which i speak is that of cheap incense only the incense in general use
there are many other kinds of incense and the range of quality is amazing a bundle of common incense rods they are about as thick as an ordinary pencil lead and somewhat longer can be bought for a few sen
while a bundle of better quality presenting to inexperienced eyes only some difference in color may cost several yen and be cheap at the price still costlier sorts of incense veritable luxuries take the form of lozenges wafers pastilles
but the commercial and industrial questions relating to japanese incense represent the least interesting part of a remarkably curious subject two curious indeed
but enormous by reason of it infinity of tradition and detail i am afraid even to think of the size of the volume that would be needed to cover it such a work would properly begin with some brief account of the earliest knowledge and use of aromatics in japan
an image of the buddha and one complete set of furniture for a temple then something would have to be said about those classifications of incense which were made during the tenth century in the periods of engi and of tenryaku and about the report of the ancient state councillor
kimitaka sangi who visited china in the latter part of the thirteenth century and transmitted to the emperor yomei the wisdom of the chinese concerning incense then mention should be made of the ancient incenses still preserved in various japanese temples
and of the famous fragments of ranjatai publicly exhibited at nara in the tenth year of meiji which furnished supplies to the three great captains nobunaga hideyoshi and iyeyasu
after this should fol low an outline of the history of mixed incenses made in japan with notes on the classifications devised by the luxurious takauji and on the nomenclature established later by ashikaga yoshimasa
preserved in several princely families together with specimens of those hereditary recipes for incense making which have been transmitted from generation to generation through hundreds of years and are still called after their august inventors as
recipes also should be given of those strange incenses made to imitate the perfume of the lotos the smell of the summer breeze and the odor of the autumn wind some legends of the great period of incense luxury should be cited
who built for himself a palace of incense woods and set fire to it on the night of his revolt when the smoke of its burning perfumed the land to a distance of twelve miles of course the mere compilation of materials for a history of mixed incenses
would entail the study of a host of documents treatises and books particularly of such strange works as the kun shu rui sho or incense collector's classifying manual containing the teachings of the ten schools of the art of mixing incense
directions as to the best seasons for incense making and instructions about the different kinds of fire to be used for burning incense one kind is called literary fire and another military fire
corresponding to season and occasion
kusadama hung up in houses to drive away goblins and to the smaller incense bags formerly carried about the person as a protection against evil spirits then a very large part of the work would have to be devoted to the religious uses
and legends of incense a huge subject in itself there would also have to be considered the curious history of the old incense assemblies whose elaborate ceremonial could be explained only by help of numerous diagrams
one chapter at least would be required for the subject of the ancient importation of incense materials from india china annam
places all named in rare books about incense and a final chapter should treat of the romantic literature of incense the poems stories and dramas in which incense rites are mentioned and especially those love songs comparing the body to incense
and passion to the eating flame even as burns the perfume lending thy robe its fragance smoulders my life away consumed by the pain of longing the merest outline of the subject is terrifying
an soku ko this is very cheap great quantities of it are burned by pilgrims in the bronze censers set before the entrances of famous temples and in front of roadside images you may often see bundles of it these are for the use of pious wayfarers
altogether three classes of perfumes are employed in buddhist rites ko or incense proper in many varieties the word literally means only fragrant substance dzuko an odorous ointment
ko is burned dzuko is rubbed upon the hands of the priest as an ointment of purification and makko is sprinkled about the sanctuary this makko is said to be identical with the sandalwood powder so frequently mentioned in buddhist texts
but it is only the true incense which can be said to bear an important relation to the religious service incense declares the soshi ryaku
is the messenger of earnest desire when the rich sudatta wished to invite the buddha to a repast he made use of incense he was wont to ascend to the roof of his house on the eve of the day of the entertainment
and to remain standing there all night holding a censer of precious incense and as often as he did thus the buddha never failed to come on the following day at the exact time desired
some of these and not the least interesting occur in prayers of which the following from the book called hoji san
is a striking example let my body remain pure like a censer let my thought be ever as a fire of wisdom purely consuming the incense
that so may i do homage to all the buddhas in the ten directions of the past the present and the future
and the smoke mount skyward now the breath of this body of ours this impermanent combination of earth water air and fire is like that smoke and the changing of the incense into cold ashes when the flame expires
in the thirty second vow for the attainment of the paradise of wondrous incense he says it is written
in ancient times there were men of superior wisdom and virtue who by reason of their vow obtained perception of the odor but we who are born with inferior wisdom and virtue in these later days cannot obtain such perception nevertheless
incense burning has been an amusement of the aristocracy ever since the thirteenth century probably you have heard of the japanese tea ceremonies and their curious buddhist history
and i suppose that every foreign collector of japanese bric brac knows something about the luxury to which these ceremonies at one period attained a luxury well attested by the quality of the beautiful utensils formerly employed in them
but there were and still are incense ceremonies much more elaborate and costly than the tea ceremonies and also much more interesting besides music embroidery poetical composition and other branches of the old fashioned female education
the young lady of pre meiji days was expected to acquire three especially polite accomplishments the art of arranging flowers ikebana the art of ceremonial tea making cha no yu or cha no e
ko kwai or ko e incense parties were invented before the time of the ashikaga shoguns and were most in vogue during the peaceful period of the tokugawa rule with the fall of the shogunate they went out of fashion
but recently they have been to some extent revived it is not likely however that they will again become really fashionable in the old sense
and partly because of their costliness in translating ko kwai as incense party i use the word party in the meaning that it takes in such compounds as card party whist party chess party
that variety of ko kwai called jitchu ko ten burning incense is generally conceded to be the most amusing and i shall try to tell you how it is played
the numeral ten in the japanese or rather chinese name of this diversion does not refer to ten kinds but only to ten packages of incense for jitchu ko besides being the most amusing is the very simplest of incense games
and is played with only four kinds of incense one kind must be supplied by the guests invited to the party and three are furnished by the person who gives the entertainment each of the latter three supplies of incense
usually prepared in packages containing one hundred wafers is divided into four parts and each part is put into a separate paper numbered or marked so as to indicate the quality thus
or twelve in all but the incense given by the guests always called guest incense is not divided it is only put into a wrapper marked with an abbreviation of the chinese character signifying guest accordingly
we have a total of thirteen packages to start with but three are to be used in the preliminary sampling or experimenting as the japanese term it after the following manner we shall suppose the game to be arranged for a party of six
though there is no rule limiting the number of players the six take their places in line or in a half circle if the room be small but they do not sit close together for reasons which will presently appear then the host or the person appointed to act as incense burner
kindles it in a censer and passes the censer to the guest occupying the first seat
the guest receives the censer according to the graceful etiquette required in the ko kwai inhales the perfume and passes on the vessel to his neighbor who receives it in like manner and passes it to the third guest who presents it to the fourth and so on
it is returned to the incense burner
but with the guest incense no experiment is made the player should be able to remember the different odors of the incenses tested and he is expected to identify the guest incense at the proper time merely by the unfamiliar quality of its fragrance
the backs only of these tablets are decorated and the decoration is nearly always a floral design of some sort thus one set might be decorated with chrysanthemums in gold another with tufts of iris plants another with a spray of plum blossoms et cetera
a box called the tablet box is placed before the first player and all is ready for the real game the incense burner retires behind a little screen shuffles the flat packages like so many cards takes the uppermost prepares its contents in the censer
and then returning to the party sends the censer upon its round this time of course he does not announce what kind of incense he has used as the censer passes from hand to hand each player after inhaling the fume puts into the tablet box
one tablet bearing that mark or number which he supposes to be the mark or number of the incense he has smelled if for example he thinks the incense to be guest incense
he puts into the box a tablet numbered two when the round is over tablet box and censer are both returned to the incense burner he takes the six tablets out of the box and wraps them up in the paper which contained the incense guessed about the tablets themselves
when all the incense has been used the tablets are taken out of their wrappings the record is officially put into writing and the victor of the day is announced i here offer the translation of such a record it will serve to explain almost at a glance all the complications of the game
according to this record the player who used the tablets decorated with the design called young pine made but two mistakes while the holder of the white lily set made only one correct guess
but it is quite a feat to make ten correct judgments in succession the olfactory nerves are apt to become somewhat numbed long before the game is concluded and therefore it is customary during the ko kwai to rinse the mouth at intervals with pure vinegar
three young bamboo
red peony guest
three white lily one three one three two two one three guest two
one young pine three
cherry blossom in a mist
that every woman ought to live with a needle and thread in her hand the stranger therefore had now ample occupation but as labour in common with all other evils is relative she submitted cheerfully to any manual toil
that could rescue her from the mental burthen of exciting ill will and reproach two days afterwards elinor came to summon her to the drawing room they were all assembled she said to a rehearsal
and in the utmost confusion for want of a prompter not a soul except miss arbe knowing a word or a cue of any part but his own and miss arbe who took upon her to regulate every thing
protested that she could not consent to go on any longer in so slovenly a manner in this dilemma it had occurred to elinor to have recourse to the stranger but the stranger desired to be excused missus maple seemed now to be softened in her favour
and it would be both imprudent and improper to risk provoking fresh irritation by coming forward in an enterprise that was a known subject of dissention elinor when she had formed a wish never listened to an objection
she cried who could believe you came so lately from france but example has no more force without sympathy than precept had without opinion however i'll get you a licence from aunt maple in a minute she went down stairs
and returning almost immediately cried aunt maple is quite contented i told her i was going to send for mister creek a horrible little pettifogging wretch who lives in this neighbourhood and whom she particularly detests
to be our prompter and this so woefully tormented her that she proposed you herself i have ample business upon my hands between my companions of the buskin and this pragmatical old aunt
till i threatened to make over lord townly to sir lyell sycamore a smart beau at brighthelmstone
i could manage matters no other way personal remonstrances were vain and the stranger was forced down stairs to the theatrical group all that was known of her situation having been sketched by elinor and detailed by selina
the mixt party there assembled was prepared to survey her with a curiosity which she found extremely abashing she requested to have the book of the play but elinor engaged in arranging the entrances and exits did not heed her
harleigh however comprehending the relief which any occupation for the eyes and hands might afford her presented it to her himself it preserved her not nevertheless from a volley of questions
with which she was instantly assailed from various quarters i find ma'am you are lately come from abroad said mister scope a gentleman self dubbed a deep politician and who in the most sententious manner
uttered the most trivial observations i have no very high notion i own of the morals of those foreigners at this period a man's wife and daughters belong to any man who has a taste to them as i am informed
nothing is very strict mister robertspierre as i am told is not very exact in his dealings but i should like to know cried gooch the young farmer
whether it be true of a reality that they've got such numbers and numbers and millions and millions of red coats there all made into generals in the twinkling as one may say of an eye money must be a vast scarce commodity there
said mister stubbs the steward did you ever happen to hear ma'am how they go to work to get in their rents before the stranger could attempt any reply to these several addresses miss arbe who was the principal person of the party
seating herself in the chair of honour desired her to advance saying i understand you sing and play amazingly well pray who were your masters while the incognita hesitated
miss bydel a collateral and uneducated successor to a large and unexpected fortune said pray first of all young woman what took you over to foreign parts i should like to know that elinor now being ready
cut short all further investigation by beginning the rehearsal during the first scenes the voice of the incognita was hardly audible the constraint of her forced attendance and the insurmountable awkwardness of her situation
made all exertion difficult and her tones were so languid and her pronunciation was so inarticulate that elinor began seriously to believe that she must still have recourse to mister creek
saw that she was too little at her ease to be yet judged every one else absorbed in his part and himself in the hope of being best or the shame of being worst
in the fear of being out or the confusion of not understanding what next was to be done was regardless of all else but his own fancied reputation of the hour
and the inaccuracy of the performers demanded greater aid found the patience of his judgment recompensed and its appreciation of her talents just her voice from seeming feeble and monotonous became clear and penetrating
it was varied with the nicest discrimination for the expression of every character changing its modulation from tones of softest sensibility to those of archest humour and from reasoning severity to those of uncultured
rusticity when the rehearsal was over miss bydel who had no other idea of the use of speech than that of asking questions said
the stranger stood still in the first place tell me if you please what's your name
but remained silent nay said miss bydel your name at least can be no such great secret for you must be called something or other ireton who had hitherto appeared decided not to take any notice of her now exclaimed with a laugh
i will tell you what her name is miss bydel tis l s the stranger dropt her eyes but miss bydel not comprehending that ireton meant two initial letters said elless
well i see no reason why any body should be ashamed to own their name is elless selina tittering would have cleared up the mistake but ireton laughing yet more heartily made her a sign to let it pass miss bydel continued
i don't want to ask any of your secrets as i say missus elless for i understand you don't like to tell them but it will be discovering no great matter to let me know whether your friends are abroad or in england
and what way you were maintained before you got your passage over in missus maple's boat don't let that young person go cried miss arbe who had now finished the labours of her theatrical presidency till i have heard her play and sing
if she is so clever as you describe her she shall perform between the acts the stranger declared her utter inability to comply with such a request when i believed myself unheard she cried
musick i imagined might make me for a few moments forget my distresses but an expected performance a prepared exhibition
her voice spoke grief her look apprehension yet her manner so completely announced decision that unopposed even by a word she re mounted the stairs to her chamber
directed for l s at her leisure she opened it and found ten bank notes of ten pounds each a momentary hope which she had indulged that this letter by some accidental conveyance
had reached her from abroad was now changed into the most unpleasant perplexity such a donation could not come from any of the females of the family missus maple was miserly and her enemy
and the miss joddrels knew by experience that she would not refuse their open assistance mister harleigh therefore or mister ireton must have conveyed this to her room
if it were mister ireton she concluded he meant to ensnare her distress into an unguarded acceptance for some latent purpose of mischief if it were mister harleigh his whole behaviour inclined her to believe
that he was capable of such an action from motives of pure benevolence but she could by no means accept pecuniary aid from either and determined to keep the packet always ready for delivery when she could discover to whom it belonged
she was surprised soon afterwards by the sight of selina i would not let mister ireton hinder me from coming to you this once she cried do what he could
poor miss arbe while she was teaching us all what we have to do put her part into her muff and her favourite little dog that she doats upon not knowing it was there poor thing poked his nose into the muff to warm himself and when miss arbe came to take her part
she found he had sucked it and gnawed it and nibbled it all to tatters and she says she can't write it out again if she was to have a diamond a word for it and as to us we have all of us got such immensities to do for ourselves that you are the only person
for i dare say you know how to write so will you now ellis for they have all settled below that your real name is ellis the stranger answered that she should gladly be useful in any way that could be proposed
the book therefore was brought to her with writing implements and she dedicated herself so diligently to copying that the following morning when miss arbe was expected the part was prepared miss arbe however came not
a note arrived in her stead stating that she had been so exceedingly fatigued the preceding day in giving so many directions that she begged they would let somebody read her part and rehearse without her
and she hoped that she should find them more advanced when she joined them on monday the stranger was now summoned not only as prompter but to read the part of lady townly she could not refuse
but her compliance was without any sort of exertion from a desire to avoid not promote similar calls for exhibition elinor remarked to harleigh how inadequate were her talents to such a character
harleigh acquiesced in the remark yet his good opinion in another point of view was as much heightened as in this it was lowered he saw the part which she had copied for miss arbe and the beautiful clearness of the hand writing
and the correctness of the punctuation and orthography convinced him that her education had been as successfully cultivated for intellectual improvement as for elegant accomplishments
and he had not again seen lady ongar he had professed to himself that his reason for not going there was the non performance of the commission which lady ongar had given him with reference to count pateroff he had not yet succeeded in catching the count
though he had twice asked for him in mount street and twice at the club in pall mall it appeared that the count never went to mount street and was very rarely seen at the club there was some other club which he frequented and harry did not know what club
on both the occasions of harry's calling in mount street the servant had asked him to go up and see madame but he had declined to do so pleading that he was hurried he was however driven to resolve that he must go direct to sophie
as otherwise he could find no means of doing as he had promised she probably might put him on the scent of her brother but there had been another reason why harry had not gone to bolton street though he had not acknowledged it to himself
he feared that he would be led on to betray himself and to betray florence to throw himself at julia's feet and sacrifice his honesty in spite of all his resolutions to the contrary
he felt when there as the accustomed but repentant dram drinker might feel when having resolved to abstain he is called upon to sit with the full glass offered before his lips
but though he did not go after the fire water of bolton street neither was he able to satisfy himself with the cool fountain of onslow crescent he was wretched at this time ill satisfied with himself and others
and was no fitting companion for cecilia burton the world he thought had used him ill he could have been true to julia brabazon when she was well nigh penniless it was not for her money that he had regarded her
had he been now a free man free from those chains with which he had fettered himself at stratton he would again have asked this woman for her love in spite of her past treachery but it would have been for her love
and not for her money that he would have sought her was it his fault that he had loved her that she had been false to him and that she had now come back and thrown herself before him
or had he been wrong because he had ventured to think that he loved another when julia had deserted him or could he help himself if he now found that his love in truth belonged to her whom he had known first
the world had been very cruel to him and he could not go to onslow crescent and behave there prettily hearing the praises of florence with all the ardor of a discreet lover he knew well what would have been his right course
and yet he did not follow it let him but once communicate to lady ongar the fact of his engagement and the danger would be over though much perhaps of the misery might remain let him write to her and mention the fact
bringing it up as some little immaterial accident and she would understand what he meant but this he abstained from doing though he swore to himself that he would not touch the dram he would not dash down the full glass that was held to his lips
he went about the town very wretchedly looking for the count and regarding himself as a man specially marked out for sorrow by the cruel hand of misfortune lady ongar in the meantime was expecting him
and was waxing angry and becoming bitter toward him because he came not sir hugh clavering was now in london and with him was his brother archie sir hugh was a man who strained an income that was handsome and sufficient for a country gentleman
to the very utmost wanting to get out of it more than it could be made to give he was not a man to be in debt or indulge himself with present pleasures to be paid for out of the funds of future years
he was possessed of a worldly wisdom which kept him from that folly and taught him to appreciate fully the value of independence but he was ever remembering how many shillings there are in a pound and how many pence in a shilling
he had a great eye to discount and looked closely into his bills he searched for cheap shops and some men began to say of him that he had found a cheap establishment for such wines as he did not drink himself
in playing cards and in betting he was very careful never playing high never risking much but hoping to turn something by the end of the year and angry with himself if he had not done so
an unamiable man he was but one whose heir would probably not quarrel with him if only he would die soon enough he had always had a house in town a moderate house in berkeley square which belonged to him
and had belonged to his father before him lady clavering had usually lived there during the season or as had latterly been the case during only a part of the season and now it had come to pass in this year
that lady clavering was not to come to london at all and that sir hugh was meditating whether the house in berkeley square might not be let the arrangement would make the difference of considerably more than a thousand a year to him
for himself he would take lodgings he had no idea of giving up london in the spring and early summer but why keep up a house in berkeley square as lady clavering did not use it
he was partly driven to this by a desire to shake off the burden of his brother when archie chose to go to clavering the house was open to him that was the necessity of sir hugh's position
and he could not avoid it unless he made it worth his while to quarrel with his brother archie was obedient ringing the bell when he was told looking after the horses spying about and perhaps saving as much money as he cost
but the matter was very different in berkeley square no elder brother is bound to find breakfast and bed for a younger brother in london and yet from his boyhood upward archie had made good his footing in berkeley square
in the matter of the breakfast sir hugh had indeed of late got the better of him the servants were kept on board wages and there were no household accounts but there was archie's room and sir hugh felt this to be a hardship
the present was not the moment for actually driving forth the intruder for archie was now up in london especially under his brother's auspices and if the business on which captain clavering was now intent could be brought to a successful issue
the standing in the world of that young man would be very much altered then he would be a brother of whom sir hugh might be proud a brother who would pay his way and settle his points at whist if he lost them even to a brother
if archie could induce lady ongar to marry him he would not be called upon any longer to ring the bells and look after the stable he would have bells of his own and stables too and perhaps some captain of his own to ring them and look after them
but sir hugh would admit of no delay whereas archie himself seemed to think that the iron was not yet quite hot enough for striking it would be better he had suggested to postpone the work till julia could be coaxed down to clavering in the autumn
he could do the work better he thought down at clavering than in london but sir hugh was altogether of a different opinion though he had already asked his sister in law to clavering when the idea had first come up
he was glad that she had declined the visit her coming might be very well if she accepted archie but he did not want to be troubled with any renewal of his responsibility respecting her if as was more probable she should reject him
the world still looked askance at lady ongar and hugh did not wish to take up the armor of a paladin in her favor if archie married her archie would be the paladin though indeed in that case no paladin would be needed
she has only been a widow you know four months said archie pleading for delay it won't be delicate will it delicate said sir hugh i don't know whether there is much of delicacy in it at all
i don't see why she isn't to be treated like any other woman if you were to die you'd think it very odd if any fellow came up to hermy before the season was over archie you are a fool said sir hugh
and archie could see by his brother's brow that hugh was angry you say things that for folly and absurdity are beyond belief if you can't see the peculiarities of julia's position i am not going to point them out to you
she is peculiar of course having so much money and that place near guilford all her own for her life of course it's peculiar but four months hugh if it had been four days it need have made no difference
a home with some one to support her is everything to her if you wait till lots of fellows are buzzing around her you won't have a chance you'll find that by this time next year she'll be the top of the fashion and if not engaged to you she will be to some one else
i shouldn't be surprised if harry were after her again he's engaged to that girl we saw down at clavering what of that engagements can be broken as well as made you have this great advantage over every one except him
that you can go to her at once without doing anything out of the way that girl that harry has in tow may perhaps keep him away for some time i tell you what hugh you might as well call with me the first time
so that i may quarrel with her which i certainly should do or rather she with me no archie if you're afraid to go alone you'd better give it up afraid i'm not afraid she can't eat you
remember that with her you needn't stand on your p's and q's as you would with another woman she knows what she is about and will understand what she has to get as well as what she is expected to give all i can say is that if she accepts you
hermy will consent that she shall go to clavering as much as she pleases till the marriage takes place
and in that case she shall be married at clavering here was a prospect for julia brabazon to be led to the same altar at which she had married lord ongar by archie clavering twelve month's after her first husband's death
and little more than two years after her first wedding the peculiarity of the position did not quite make itself apparent either to hugh or to archie but there was one point which did suggest itself to the younger brother at that moment
can't say i'm sure said sir hugh because i shouldn't like if i were you i wouldn't trouble myself about that judge not that you be not judged
ion was the son of creusa the beauteous daughter of erechtheus king of athens and the sun god phoebus apollo to whom she was united without the knowledge of her father
and hanging some golden charms round his neck invoked for him the protection of the gods and concealed him in a lonely cave apollo pitying his deserted child
where he deposited his charge on the steps of the temple next morning the delphic priestess discovered the infant and was so charmed by his engaging appearance that she adopted him as her own son
the young child was carefully tended and reared by his kind foster mother and was brought up in the service of the temple where he was intrusted with some of the minor duties of the holy edifice and now to return to creusa
xuthus son of a eolus greatly distinguished himself on the side of the athenians and as a reward for his valuable services the hand of creusa the king's daughter was bestowed upon him in marriage their union however was not blest with children
and as this was a source of great grief to both of them
the response was that xuthus should regard the first person who met him on leaving the sanctuary as his son now it happened that ion the young guardian of the temple was the first to greet his view
and when xuthus beheld the beautiful youth he gladly welcomed him as his son declaring that the gods had sent him to be a blessing and comfort to his old age creusa however who concluded that the youth was the offspring of a secret marriage on the part of her husband
begged her to be comforted assuring her that the cause of her distress should be speedily removed when upon the occasion of the public adoption of his son xuthus gave a grand banquet
the old servant of creusa contrived to mix a strong poison in the wine of the unsuspecting ion but the youth according to the pious custom of the ancients of offering a libation to the gods before partaking of any repast
poured upon the ground a portion of the wine before putting it to his lips when suddenly as if by a miracle a dove flew into the banquet hall and sipped of the wine of the libation whereupon the poor little creature began to quiver in every limb
and in a few moments expired ion's suspicions at once fell upon the obsequious servant of creusa who with such officious attention had filled his cup he violently seized the old man and accused him of his murderous intentions
unprepared for this sudden attack he admitted his guilt but pointed to the wife of xuthus as the instigator of the crime ion was about to avenge himself upon creusa when by means of the divine intervention of apollo his foster mother
the delphic priestess appeared on the scene and explained the true relationship which existed between creusa and ion in order to set all doubts at rest she produced the charms which she had found round the neck of the infant
mother and son now became reconciled to each other and creusa revealed to ion the secret of his divine origin
called after him the ionians and also that xuthus and creusa would have a son called dorus who would be the progenitor of the dorian people both of which predictions were in due time verified daedalus and icarus
having the limbs altogether undefined but great as was his genius still greater was his vanity and he could brook no rival now his nephew and pupil talus exhibited great talent
having invented both the saw and the compass and daedalus fearing lest he might overshadow his own fame secretly killed him by throwing him down from the citadel of pallas athene the murder being discovered
daedalus was summoned before the court of the areopagus and condemned to death but he made his escape to the island of crete where he was received by king minos in a manner worthy of his great reputation daedalus constructed for the king the world renowned labyrinth
which was an immense building full of intricate passages intersecting each other in such a manner that even daedalus himself is said upon one occasion to have nearly lost his way in it and it was in this building the king placed the minotaur
a monster with the head and shoulders of a bull and the body of a man in the course of time the great artist became weary of his long exile more especially as the king under the guise of friendship kept him almost a prisoner
he therefore resolved to make his escape and for this purpose ingeniously contrived wings for himself and his young son icarus whom he diligently trained how to use them having awaited a favourable opportunity father and son commenced their flight
and were well on their way when icarus
forgot altogether his father's oft repeated injunction not to approach too near the sun the consequence was that the wax by means of which his wings were attached melted and he fell into the sea and was drowned
the body of the unfortunate icarus was washed up by the tide and was buried by the bereaved father on an island which he called after his son
after this sad event daedalus winged his flight to the island of sicily
for whom he constructed several important public works but no sooner did minos receive the intelligence that his great architect had found an asylum with cocalus than he sailed over to sicily with a large army and sent messengers to the sicilian king demanding the surrender of his guest
cocalus feigned compliance and invited minos to his palace where he was treacherously put to death in a warm bath the body of their king was brought to agrigent by the cretans where it was buried with great pomp and over his tomb a temple to aphrodite was erected
and the radiant party of eight somewhat weary at last became stranded in bombarda's public house
whose sign could then be seen in the rue de rivoli near delorme alley a large but ugly room with an alcove and a bed at the end
a magnificent august sunlight lightly touching the panes two tables upon one of them a triumphant mountain of bouquets mingled with the hats of men and women
glasses and bottles jugs of beer mingled with flasks of wine very little order on the table some disorder beneath it they made beneath the table a noise a clatter of the feet that was abominable says moliere
this was the state which the shepherd idyl begun at five o'clock in the morning had reached at half past four in the afternoon the sun was setting their appetites were satisfied
were nothing but light and dust the two things of which glory is composed the horses of marly those neighing marbles were prancing in a cloud of gold carriages were going and coming
a squadron of magnificent body guards with their clarions at their head were descending the avenue de neuilly the white flag showing faintly rosy in the setting sun
was choked with happy promenaders
were playing at rings and revolving on the wooden horses others were engaged in drinking some journeyman printers had on paper caps their laughter was audible every thing was radiant it was a time of undisputed peace and profound royalist security
on the subject of the suburbs of paris terminated with these lines taking all things into consideration sire there is nothing to be feared from these people they are as heedless and as indolent as cats the populace is restless in the provinces
it is not in paris these are very pretty men sire it would take all of two of them to make one of your grenadiers there is nothing to be feared on the part of the populace of paris the capital
it is remarkable that the stature of this population should have diminished in the last fifty years and the populace of the suburbs is still more puny than at the time of the revolution it is not dangerous in short it is an amiable rabble
prefects of the police do not deem it possible that a cat can transform itself into a lion that does happen however and in that lies the miracle wrought by the populace of paris
possessed the esteem of the republics of old in their eyes it was liberty incarnate
the ingenuous police of the restoration beheld the populace of paris in too rose colored a light it is not so much of an amiable rabble as it is thought the parisian is to the frenchman what the athenian was to the greek
no one sleeps more soundly than he no one is more frankly frivolous and lazy than he no one can better assume the air of forgetfulness let him not be trusted nevertheless he is ready for any sort of cool deed
but when there is glory at the end of it he is worthy of admiration in every sort of fury give him a pike he will produce the tenth of august give him a gun you will have austerlitz he is napoleon's stay and danton's resource
is it a question of country he enlists is it a question of liberty he tears up the pavements beware his hair filled with wrath is epic his blouse drapes itself like the folds of a chlamys
take care he will make of the first rue grenetat which comes to hand caudine forks
this little man will arise and his gaze will be terrible and his breath will become a tempest and there will issue forth from that slender chest enough wind to disarrange the folds of the alps
it is thanks to the suburban man of paris that the revolution mixed with arms conquers europe he sings it is his delight proportion his song to his nature and you will see
and he will free the world
once upon a time
who had three daughters they lived in a very fine house in a beautiful city and had many servants in grand liveries to wait upon them all their food was served on gold and silver dishes
the two eldest were called marigold and dressalinda never a day passed but these two went out to some feast or junketing but beauty the youngest loved to stay at home and keep her old father company now
it happened that misfortune came upon the merchant ships of his which were sailing the high seas laden with merchandise of great price were wrecked and in one day he found that he was no longer the richest merchant in the city but a very poor man
there was still left to him a little house in the country and to this when everything else had been sold he retired his three daughters of course went with him marigold and dressalinda were very cross to think that they had lost all their money
and after being so rich and sought after they must now live in a miserable cottage but beauty's only thought was to cheer her old father and while her two sisters sat on wooden chairs and cried and bewailed themselves
beauty lighted the fire and got the supper ready for the merchant was now so poor that he could not even keep a servant
the two eldest sisters would do nothing but sulk in corners while beauty swept the floors and washed the dishes and did her best to make the poor cottage pleasant they led their sister a dreadful life too with their complaints for not only did they refuse to do anything themselves
but they said that everything she did was done wrong but beauty bore all their unkindness patiently for her father's sake in this way a whole year went by and then one day a letter came for the merchant
he hastened to find his daughters for he was anxious to tell them the good news contained in the letter my dear children he said at last our luck has turned
we shall not be so rich as before but we shall have enough to keep us in comfort get me my traveling cloak beauty i will set out at once to claim my ship and now tell me girls what shall i bring you when i come back a hundred pounds said marigold without hesitating an instant
i want a new silk dress said dressalinda an apple green one sewn with seed pearls and green shoes with red heels and a necklace of emeralds and a box of gloves and what shall i bring for you my beauty asked the father as his little daughter helped him to put on his traveling cloak
oh bring me a rose said beauty hastily her father kissed her fondly and set out you silly girl said marigold you just want our father to think you are more unselfish than we are that's what you want a rose indeed
indeed sister said beauty that was not the reason i thought our father would have enough to do in seeing to the safety of his ship without being troubled to do shopping for me but the sisters were very much offended
in the meantime the merchant went his way to the city full of hope and great plans as to what he would do with his money but when he got there he found that some one had played a trick on him and no ship of his had come into harbor so he was just as badly off as before
he spent the whole day looking about to make sure there was no truth in the letter he had received and it was beginning to get dusk when he started out with a sad heart to make the journey home again he was tired and miserable and he had tasted no food since he left home in the morning
it was quite dark by the time he came to the great wood through which he had to pass to get to his cottage and when he saw a light shining through the trees he decided not to go to his home that night
he expected to find a woodcutter's cottage
he knocked at the gates but no one answered and presently driven by hunger and cold he made bold to enter and mounted the marble steps into the great hall all the way he never saw a soul there was a big fire in the hall
and when he had warmed himself he set out to look for the master of the house but he did not look far for behind the first door he opened was a cosy little room with supper set for one a supper the mere look of which made you hungry
so the merchant sat down as bold as you please and made a very hearty supper after which he again thought he would look for the master of the house he started off and opened another door but there he saw a bed merely to look at which made you sleepy
this is some fairies work i had better not look any farther for the master of the house and with that he tumbled into bed and being very tired he went to sleep at once and slept like a top till it was time to get up in the morning
when he awoke he was quite surprised to find himself in such a soft and comfortable bed but presently he remembered all that had happened to him i must be going he said to himself but i wish i could thank my host for my good rest and my good supper
when he got out of bed he found he had something else to be grateful for for on the chair by the bedside lay a fine suit of new clothes marked with his name and with ten gold pieces in every pocket
he felt quite a different man when he had put on the suit of blue and silver and jingled the gold pieces of money in his pockets
down the marble steps he went and when he came to the garden he saw that it was full of roses red and white and pink and yellow and the merchant looked at them and remembered beauty's wish oh my poor daughters he said
but beauty at any rate can have what she wanted so he stretched out his hand and plucked the biggest red rose within his reach as the stalk snapped in his fingers he started back in terror for he heard an angry roar
and the next minute a dreadful beast sprang upon him it was taller than any man and uglier than any animal but what seemed most dreadful of all to the merchant it spoke to him with a man's voice after it had roared at him with the beast's
ungrateful wretch said the beast have i not fed you lodged you and clothed you and now you must repay my hospitality by stealing the only thing i care for my roses mercy mercy cried the merchant
no said the beast you must die the poor merchant fell upon his knees and tried to think of something to say to soften the heart of the cruel beast and at last he said sir i only stole this rose because my youngest daughter asked me to bring her one
i did not think after all you have given me that you would grudge me a flower tell me about this daughter of yours said the beast suddenly is she a good girl the best and dearest in the world said the old merchant and then he began to weep
to think that he must die and leave his beauty alone in the world with no one to be kind to her oh he cried what will my poor children do without me you should have thought of that before you stole the rose said the beast
however if one of your daughters loves you well enough to suffer instead of you she may go back and tell them what has happened to you but you must give me your promise that either you or one of your daughters shall be at my palace door in three months time from to day the wretched man promised
at any rate he thought i shall have three months more of life then the beast said i will not let you go empty handed so the merchant followed him back into the palace there on the floor of the hall lay a great and beautiful chest of wrought silver
fill this with any treasures that take your fancy said the beast and the merchant filled it up with precious things from the beast's treasure house i will send it home for you said the beast shutting down the lid and so with a heavy heart the merchant went away
but as he went through the palace gate the beast called to him that he had forgotten beauty's rose and at the same time held out to him a large bunch of the very best the merchant put these into beauty's hand when she ran to meet him at the door of their cottage
take them my child he said and cherish them for they have cost your poor father his life and with that he sat down and told them the whole story the two elder sisters wept and wailed and of course blamed beauty for all that had happened
but your foolishness has cost him his life no said beauty it is my life that shall be sacrificed for when the three months are over i shall go to the beast and he may kill me if he will but he shall never hurt my dear father the father tried hard to persuade her not to go
knocked and rang in vain at the great gate warmed himself at the fire in the big hall
only this time the table was laid for two come father dear said beauty take comfort i do not think the beast means to kill me or surely he would not have given me such a good supper but the next moment the beast came into the room
beauty screamed and clung to her father don't be frightened said the beast gently but tell me do you come here of your own free will yes said beauty trembling you are a good girl said the beast and then turning to the old man
he told him that he might sleep there for that night but in the morning he must go and leave his daughter behind him they went to bed and slept soundly and the next morning the father departed weeping bitterly beauty left alone tried not to feel frightened
she ran here and there through the palace and found it more beautiful than anything she had ever imagined the most beautiful set of rooms in the palace had written over the doors beauty's rooms and in them she found books and music canary birds and persian cats
and everything that could be thought of to make the time pass pleasantly oh dear she said if only i could see my poor father i should be almost happy as she spoke she happened to look at a big mirror and in it she saw the form of her father reflected
just riding up to the door of his cottage that night when beauty sat down to supper the beast came in may i have supper with you said he that must be as you please said beauty
so the beast sat down to supper with her and when it was finished he said i am very ugly beauty and i am very stupid but i love you will you marry me no beast said beauty gently the poor beast sighed and went away
and every night the same thing happened he ate his supper with her and then asked her if she would marry him and she always said no beast all this time she was waited on by invisible hands as though she had been a queen
but the magic looking glass was best of all for in it she could see whatever she wished as the days went by and her slightest wish was granted almost before she knew what she wanted she began to feel that the beast must love her very dearly
and she was very sorry to see how sad he looked every night when she said no to his offer of marriage one day she saw in her mirror that her father was ill so that night she said to the beast
he is ill and he thinks that i am dead do let me go and cheer him up and i will promise faithfully to return to you very well said the beast kindly but don't stay away more than a week for if you do i shall die of grief because i love you so dearly
how shall i reach home said beauty i do not know the way then the beast gave her a ring and told her to put it on her finger when she went to bed turn the ruby towards the palm of her hand and then she would wake up in her father's cottage
when she wanted to come back she was to do the same thing so in the morning when she awoke she found herself at her father's house and the old man was beside himself with joy to see her safe and sound but her sisters did not welcome her very kindly
i wish we had gone said marigold beauty always gets the best of everything tell us all about your grand palace said dressalinda and what you do and how you spend your time so beauty thinking it would amuse them to hear
told them and their envy increased day by day at last dressalinda said to marigold
if we could only make her forget the day the beast might be angry and kill her and then there would be a chance for us so on the day before she ought to have gone back they put some poppy juice in a cup of wine which they gave her
and this made her so sleepy that she slept for two whole days and nights at the end of that time her sleep grew troubled and she dreamed that she saw the beast lying dead among the roses in the beautiful gardens of his palace and from this dream she awoke crying bitterly
although she did not know that a week and two days had gone by since she left the beast yet after that dream she at once turned the ruby towards her palm
she did not know where his rooms in the palace were but she felt she could not wait till supper time before seeing him so she ran hither and thither calling his name
then she ran through the gardens calling his name again and again but still there was silence oh what shall i do if i cannot find him she said i shall never be happy again
then she remembered her dream and ran to the rose garden and there sure enough beside the basin of the big fountain lay the poor beast without any sign of life in him beauty flung herself on her knees beside him
oh dear beast she cried and are you really dead alas alas then i too will die for i cannot live without you immediately the beast opened his eyes sighed and said
beauty will you marry me and beauty beside herself with joy when she found that he was still alive answered yes yes dear beast for i love you dearly
and in place of the beast stood a handsome prince dressed in a doublet of white and silver like one made ready for a wedding he knelt at beauty's feet and clasped her hands dear beauty he said nothing but your love could have disenchanted me
a wicked fairy turned me into a beast and condemned me to remain one until some fair and good maiden should love me well enough to marry me in spite of my ugliness and stupidity now dear one the enchantment is broken let us go back to my palace
will now become visible so they returned to the palace which by this time was crowded with courtiers eager to kiss the hands of the prince and his bride and the prince whispered to one of his attendants who went out
and in a very little time came back with beauty's father and sisters the sisters were condemned to be changed into statues and to stand at the right and left of the palace gates until their hearts should be softened and they should be sorry for their unkindness to their sister
but beauty happily married to her prince went secretly to the statues every day and wept over them and by her tears their stony hearts were softened and they were changed into flesh and blood again and were good and kind for the rest of their lives
and beauty and the beast who was a beast no more but a handsome prince lived happily ever after and indeed i believe they are living happily still
a california song a prophecy and indirection a thought impalpable to breathe as air a chorus of dryads fading departing or hamadryads departing
a murmuring fateful giant voice out of the earth and sky
in the redwood forest dense farewell my brethren farewell o earth and sky farewell ye neighboring waters my time has ended
my term has come along the northern coast just back from the rock bound shore and the caves in the saline air from the sea in the mendocino country
with the surge for base and accompaniment low and hoarse with crackling blows of axes sounding musically driven by strong arms riven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes there in the redwood forest dense
chanting the choppers heard not the camp shanties echoed not the quick ear'd teamsters and chain and jack screw men heard not as the wood spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years to join the refrain
but in my soul i plainly heard murmuring out of its myriad leaves down from its lofty top rising two hundred feet high out of its stalwart trunk and limbs
out of its foot thick bark that chant of the seasons and time chant not of the past only but the future
you untold life of me and all you venerable and innocent joys
perennial hardy life of me with joys mid rain and many a summer sun and the white snows and night and the wild winds
my soul's strong joys unreck'd by man for know i bear the soul befitting me i too have consciousness identity and all the rocks and mountains have
and all the earth joys of the life befitting me and brothers mine our time our term has come
nor yield we mournfully majestic brothers we
with nature's calm content with tacit huge delight
through the past and leave the field for them for them predicted long for a superber race they too to grandly fill their time
for them we abdicate in them ourselves ye forest kings in them these skies and airs these mountain peaks shasta
nevadas these huge precipitous cliffs
these valleys far yosemite to be in them absorb'd assimilated then to a loftier strain still prouder more ecstatic rose the chant
joining with master tongue bore part
nor red from europe's old dynastic slaughter house area of murder plots of thrones with scent left yet of wars and scaffolds everywhere but come from nature's long and harmless throes
peacefully builded thence these virgin lands lands of the western shore to the new culminating man to you the empire new you promis'd long we pledge we dedicate
you occult deep volitions
taking law you womanhood divine mistress and source of all whence life and love and aught that comes from life and love
you unseen moral essence of all the vast materials of america age upon age working in death the same as life you that sometimes known oftener unknown
really shape and mould the new world adjusting it to time and space
lying in your abysms conceal'd but ever alert you past and present purposes tenaciously pursued may be unconscious of yourselves unswerv'd by all the passing errors
lands of the western shore we pledge we dedicate to you for man of you your characteristic race here may he hardy sweet gigantic grow
here tower proportionate to nature here climb the vast pure spaces unconfined uncheck'd by wall or roof here laugh with storm or sun here joy here patiently inure
thus on the northern coast in the echo of teamsters calls and the clinking chains and the music of choppers axes the falling trunk and limbs the crash the muffled shriek the groan
such words combined from the redwood tree as of voices ecstatic ancient and rustling the century lasting unseen dryads singing withdrawing all their recesses of forests and mountains leaving
from the cascade range to the wahsatch or idaho far or utah to the deities of the modern henceforth yielding the chorus and indications the vistas of coming humanity
the settlements features all in the mendocino woods i caught
the flashing and golden pageant of california the sudden and gorgeous drama the sunny and ample lands the long and varied stretch from puget sound to colorado south
lands bathed in sweeter rarer healthier air valleys and mountain cliffs the fields of nature long prepared and fallow the silent cyclic chemistry the slow and steady ages plodding
the unoccupied surface ripening the rich ores forming beneath at last the new arriving assuming taking possession a swarming and busy race settling and organizing everywhere
ships coming in from the whole round world and going out to the whole world to india and china and australia and the thousand island paradises of the pacific populous cities
the latest inventions the steamers on the rivers the railroads with many a thrifty farm
but more in you than these lands of the western shore these but the means the implements the standing ground i see in you certain to come the promise of thousands of years
till now deferr'd promis'd to be fulfill'd our common kind the race the new society at last proportionate to nature in man of you more than your mountain peaks or stalwart
trees imperial in woman more far more than all your gold or vines or even vital air fresh come to a new world indeed yet long prepared
i see the genius of the modern child of the real and ideal clearing the ground for broad humanity the true america heir of the past so grand
one ah little recks the laborer how near his work is holding him to god the loving laborer through space and time after all not to create only or found only
but to bring perhaps from afar what is already founded to give it our own identity average limitless free to fill the gross the torpid bulk with vital religious fire not to repel or destroy so much
as accept fuse rehabilitate to obey as well as command to follow more than to lead these also are the lessons of our new world while how little the new after all
how much the old old world long and long has the grass been growing long and long has the rain been falling long has the globe been rolling round
two come muse migrate from greece and ionia cross out please those immensely overpaid accounts
that matter of troy and achilles wrath
placard removed and to let on the rocks of your snowy parnassus repeat at jerusalem place the notice high on jaffa's gate
the same on the walls of your german french and spanish castles and italian collections for know a better fresher busier sphere
demands you three responsive to our summons or rather to her long nurs'd inclination
eyes a turning rolling upon this very scene the dame of dames can i believe then those ancient temples sculptures classic could none of them retain her
nor shades of virgil and dante nor myriad memories poems old associations magnetize and hold on to her but that she's left them all and here
yes if you will allow me to say so i my friends if you do not can plainly see her the same undying soul of earth's activity's beauty's heroism's expression
out from her evolutions hither come ended the strata of her former themes hidden and cover'd by to day's foundation of to day's ended deceas'd through time her voice by castaly's fountain
silent the broken lipp'd sphynx in egypt silent all those century baffling tombs
europe's helmeted warriors ended the primitive call of the muses calliope's call forever closed clio melpomene thalia dead ended the stately rhythmus of una and oriana
ended the quest of the holy graal jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind extinct
to its charnel vault coffin'd with crown and armor on blazon'd with shakspere's purple page and dirged by tennyson's sweet sad rhyme i say i see
my friends if you do not the illustrious emigre having it is true in her day although the same changed journey'd considerable making directly for this rendezvous vigorously clearing a path for herself
striding through the confusion by thud of machinery and shrill steam whistle undismay'd bluff'd not a bit by drain pipe gasometers artificial fertilizers
don't i forget my manners to introduce the stranger what else indeed do i live to chant for to thee columbia in liberty's name welcome immortal clasp hands
and ever henceforth sisters dear be both fear not o muse
surround you i candidly confess a queer queer race of novel fashion and yet the same old human race the same within without faces and hearts the same feelings the same
yearnings the same the same old love beauty and use the same five we do not blame thee elder world
nor really separate ourselves from thee would the son separate himself from the father looking back on thee seeing thee to thy duties grandeurs through past ages bending building we build
to ours to day mightier than egypt's tombs fairer than grecia's roma's temples prouder than milan's statued spired cathedral more picturesque than rhenish castle keeps
we plan even now to raise beyond them all thy great cathedral sacred industry no tomb a keep for life for practical invention as in a waking vision
its manifold ensemble around a palace loftier fairer ampler than any yet earth's modern wonder history's seven outstripping high rising tier on tier with
glass and iron facades gladdening the sun and sky enhued in cheerfulest hues bronze lilac robin's egg marine and crimson over whose golden roof shall flaunt beneath thy banner freedom
the banners of the states and flags of every land a brood of lofty fair but lesser palaces shall cluster somewhere within their walls
shall all that forwards perfect human life be started tried taught advanced visibly exhibited not only all the world of works trade products
but all the workmen of the world here to be represented here shall you trace in flowing operation in every state of practical busy movement the rills of civilization
materials here under your eye shall change their shape as if by magic the cotton shall be pick'd almost in the very field shall be dried clean'd ginn'd baled spun into thread and cloth before you
you shall see hands at work at all the old processes and all the new ones you shall see the various grains and how flour is made and then bread baked by the bakers you shall see the crude ores of california
and learn what a composing stick is you shall mark in amazement the hoe press whirling its cylinders shedding the printed leaves steady and fast the photograph model watch pin nail shall be created before you
in large calm halls a stately museum shall teach you the infinite lessons of minerals in another woods plants vegetation shall be illustrated in another animals animal life and development
one stately house shall be the music house others for other arts learning the sciences shall all be here none shall be slighted none but shall here be honor'd help'd exampled
six this this and these america shall be your pyramids and obelisks your alexandrian pharos gardens of babylon your temple at olympia
and here shall ye inhabit powerful matrons in your vast state vaster than all the old echoed through long long centuries to come to sound of different prouder songs
with stronger themes practical peaceful life the people's life the people themselves lifted illumin'd bathed in peace elate secure in peace
away with war itself hence from my shuddering sight to never more return that show of blacken'd mutilated corpses that hell unpent and raid of blood
thy bugles sounding loud and clear away with old romance away with novels plots and plays of foreign courts away with love verses sugar'd in rhyme
the intrigues amours of idlers fitted for only banquets of the night where dancers to late music slide the unhealthy pleasures extravagant dissipations of the few with perfumes
heat and wine beneath the dazzling chandeliers to you ye reverent sane sisters i raise a voice for far superber themes for poets and for art to exalt the present and the real
to teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade to sing in songs how exercise and chemical life are never to be baffled to manual work for each and all to plough hoe dig
to plant and tend the tree the berry vegetables flowers for every man to see to it that he really do something for every woman too to use the hammer and the saw rip or cross cut to cultivate a
turn for carpentering plastering painting to work as tailor tailoress nurse hostler porter to invent a little something ingenious to aid the washing cooking cleaning
to take a hand at them themselves i say i bring thee muse to day and here all occupations duties broad and close toil
healthy toil and sweat endless without cessation the old old practical burdens interests joys the family parentage childhood husband and wife the house comforts the house itself and all its belongings
food and its preservation chemistry applied to it whatever forms the average strong complete sweet blooded man or woman the perfect longeve personality
and helps its present life to health and happiness and shapes its soul for the eternal real life to come with latest connections works the inter transportation of the world steam power
the great express lines gas petroleum these triumphs of our time the atlantic's delicate cable the pacific railroad the suez canal the mont cenis and gothard and hoosac tunnels
the brooklyn bridge this earth all spann'd with iron rails with lines of steamships threading in every sea our own rondure the
and thou america thy offspring towering e'er so high yet higher thee above all towering with victory on thy left and at thy right hand law thou union
holding all fusing absorbing tolerating all thee ever thee i sing thou also thou a world with all thy wide geographies manifold different distant rounded by thee in one
one common orbic language one common indivisible destiny for all and by the spells which ye vouchsafe to those your ministers in earnest
i here personify and call my themes to make them pass before ye behold america and thou ineffable guest and sister
for thee come trooping up thy waters and thy lands behold thy fields and farms thy far off woods and mountains as in procession coming behold the sea itself and on its limitless
heaving breast the ships see where their white sails bellying in the wind speckle the green and blue see the steamers coming and going steaming in or out of port see dusky and undulating
the long pennants of smoke behold in oregon far in the north and west or in maine far in the north and east thy cheerful axemen wielding all day their axes behold on the lakes
thy pilots at their wheels thy oarsmen how the ash writhes under those muscular arms there by the furnace and there by the anvil
swinging their sledges overhand so steady overhand they turn and fall with joyous clank like a tumult of laughter mark the spirit of invention everywhere thy rapid patents
thy continual workshops foundries risen or rising see from their chimneys how the tall flame fires stream mark thy interminable farms north south
thy wealthy daughter states eastern and western the varied products of ohio pennsylvania missouri georgia texas and the rest thy limitless crops grass wheat sugar oil corn rice hemp
hops thy barns all fill'd the endless freight train and the bulging store house the grapes that ripen on thy vines the apples in thy orchards thy incalculable lumber beef pork
potatoes thy coal thy gold and silver the inexhaustible iron in thy mines
protectress absolute thou bulwark of all for well we know that while thou givest each and all generous as god without thee neither all nor each nor land home
nor ship nor mine nor any here this day secure nor aught nor any day secure
and thou the emblem waving over all delicate beauty a word to thee it may be salutary
remember thou hast not always been as here to day so comfortably ensovereign'd in other scenes than these have i observ'd thee flag not quite so trim and whole
and freshly blooming in folds of stainless silk but i have seen thee bunting to tatters torn upon thy splinter'd staff or clutch'd to some young color bearer's breast with desperate hands
savagely struggled for for life or death fought over long mid cannons thunder crash and many a curse and groan and yell and rifle volleys cracking sharp and moving masses as wild demons surging
and lives as nothing risk'd for thy mere remnant grimed with dirt and smoke and sopp'd in blood for sake of that my beauty and that thou might'st dally as now secure up there
many a good man have i seen go under now here and these and hence in peace all thine o flag and here and hence for thee o universal muse and thou for them
and here and hence o union all the work and workmen thine none separate from thee henceforth one only we and thou for the blood of the children what is it only the blood maternal
and lives and works what are they all at last except the roads to faith and death while we rehearse our measureless wealth
we own it all and several
think not our chant our show merely for products gross or lucre it is for thee the soul in thee electric spiritual
nor even for specialized computations
but it wasn't half the size of this and navigation between stars even with the kind of drive they must have had is no simple problem the hirlaji think it's a god she said
that raised another problem rynason mused the outsiders built it and must have left it here when they pulled back to wherever they were going if they ever left the planet but the hirlaji use it and they communicate with it verbally
the hirlaji are apparently responsible for keeping it protected since then but why should the hirlaji be able to use it
there must have been said rynason
how well could they communicate in such a language not very well rynason said which would explain why the machine seemed to make mistakes clumsiness of language so the outsiders maybe
left the machine when they pulled out but they set it to respond to the hirlaji language because our horsefaced friends were beginning to build a civilization of their own and the outsiders thought they'd leave them some guidance
he stopped for a moment remembering that first linkage with horng and tebron's memories the hirlaji called them the old ones he said and that order to tebron
about the other race that they would meet someday that was based on outsiders observations i wonder when the outsiders were on earth rynason said sometime after we'd started our own rise certainly
somehow they thought we were going to develop more rapidly than we did probably before the dark ages rynason said maybe they didn't see that thousand year setback coming he stopped and stood up in the low passageway among
the ancient circuitry so here we are second guessing the outsiders and outside their proteges have disintegrators probably left by the outsiders
our new found knowledge isn't doing us much good is it she said he shook his head slowly when i was still on the secondary senseteach units i met rene malhomme for the first time
my father worked the spacers so i don't even remember what planet this was on but i remember the night i first saw rene
he told me that when he'd been younger he'd worked his way all the way in to earth and studied some of the cultures there he'd learned karate which was an ancient japanese way of fighting
rynason took a deep breath he said everything a person learns will be useful someday and i believed him
a nice parable mara said we could use him against the hirlaji though rynason was silent thinking if they could only catch the aliens off guard
but of course they couldn't now he let his eyes wander aimlessly along the circuitry surrounding them tell me old kor what do we do now after a moment his eyes narrowed
but rynason had seen this part of such machines before he found the penultimate point at which the impulses from the brain were translated into sound and broadcast through the speaker
he disconnected this his torn fingers working awkwardly on the delicate linkages ready mara was just inside the narrow passage behind the altar
it had meant something else then but the proto language of the hirlaji had no precise meanings given by itself
let's go out rynason said and the two of them broke from behind the altar the hirlaji stood completely still several of those that rynason had dropped with his stunner had recovered consciousness but they made no move either
rynason and the girl ran right through the quiet aliens only a few of them turned shadowed eyes to look at them as they passed they made the outside colonnade in safety and paused there
she hesitated only a moment then hurried down the broad levels of the temple steps rynason watched her to the bottom then turned and re entered the altar room
rynason went quickly among them taking their weapons most of them made no effort to stop him but a few tightened their grips on the disintegrators and he had to pry those thick fingers from the weapons cursing to himself
how long would they wait there were fourteen of the disintegrators they were large and heavy
the leathery grey wrinkles which surrounded those eyes quivered slightly but otherwise he made no movement rynason dropped his gaze from that contact and wrested the weapon away
as he started to move on to the next horng silently dipped his massive head to one side rynason felt a chill go down his back in a few more minutes he had disarmed them all
in a moment another man appeared and he too dropped inside the wall so manning had already sent the men in the mob was unleashed rynason hesitated for a moment
then turned and went quickly back into the altar room mara's radio was there he lifted it by its strap and took it with him out to the colonnade he could see the earthmen moving through the streets now
darting from wall to wall in the gathering darkness of evening
and rynason knew that these men would like nothing better than to attack in the dark he warmed the radio and opened the transmitter manning call off your dogs i've disarmed the hirlaji the radio spat static at him
and for several seconds he thought his signal hadn't even been picked up but at last there was a reply then get out of the temple it's too late to stop this manning i said get clear
damn it there's no need for any fighting manning's voice sounded cold even in the faint reception of the hand radio that's for me to decide i'm running this show remember you're running a massacre rynason shouted
call it what you like mara says they weren't so docile when you broke in rynason's mind raced he had to stall for time if he could get manning to stop those men until they cooled down
what the hell are you talking about lee my boy you're sounding like an old horsefaced nursemaid you linked minds with them and you say you were practically a hirlaji yourself when you went into that linkage
well i'm not so sure you ever came out of it you're still one of them is that the only reason you can think of that i might have for wanting to prevent a massacre rynason said icily
i've got these men following me and i'll listen to what they want rynason stared at the microphone for a moment are you sure you aren't afraid of your own mob he said we're coming in lee
manning i'm switching off not quite yet
make it fast manning said his voice sounded uninterested if any of your boys try to come in i'll stop them myself i've got the disintegrators and i'll use them there was silence from the radio save for the static
it lasted for long seconds then it's your funeral there was a faint click as manning switched off rynason stared angrily at the radioset for a moment
the hirlaji stood motionlessly in dimness it took awhile for rynason's eyes to adjust to it he found the interpreter that mara had left and quickly hooked it up to horng
i want to help you fight them off there was no reaction from the alien only those quiet eyes resting on him like the shadows of the entire past can you still believe that kor is a god
that's only a machine i spoke through it myself minutes ago don't you realize that after a moment horng's eyes slowly closed and opened in acknowledgement kor was god knowledge
the old ones died before time and passed into kor now kor is dead and all of you will be dead too rynason said the huge alien sat unmoving
his eyes turned away from rynason you've got to fight them rynason said
can music's voice can beauty's eye can painting's glowing hand supply a charm so suited to my mind as blows this hollow gust of wind as drops this little weeping rill
in which after some common place condolement and advice she invited her to tholouse and added that as her late brother had entrusted emily's education to her
emily at this time
as the late residence of those whom she had lost for ever where she could weep unobserved retrace their steps and remember each minute particular of their manners
but she was equally anxious to avoid the displeasure of madame cheron though her affection would not suffer her to question even a moment the propriety of saint aubert's conduct in appointing madame cheron
for her guardian she was sensible that this step had made her happiness depend in a great degree on the humour of her aunt in her reply she begged permission to remain at present at la vallee
these she knew were not to be found at madame cheron's whose inclinations led her into a life of dissipation which her ample fortune encouraged and having given her answer
she felt somewhat more at ease in the first days of her affliction she was visited by monsieur barreaux a sincere mourner for saint aubert i may well lament my friend said he
for i shall never meet with his resemblance if i could have found such a man in what is called society i should not have left it
several weeks passed away in quiet retirement and emily's affliction began to soften into melancholy she could bear to read the books she had before read with her father to sit in his chair in the library
to watch the flowers his hand had planted to awaken the tones of that instrument his fingers had pressed and sometimes even to play his favourite air when her mind had recovered from the first shock of affliction
perceiving the danger of yielding to indolence and that activity alone could restore its tone she scrupulously endeavoured to pass all her hours in employment
and it was now that she understood the full value of the education she had received from saint aubert for in cultivating her understanding he had secured her an asylum from indolence without recourse to dissipation
saint aubert having nourished every amiable qualify of her heart it now expanded in benevolence to all around her and taught her when she could not remove the misfortunes of others at least to soften them by sympathy and tenderness
a benevolence that taught her to feel for all that could suffer madame cheron returned no answer to emily's letter who began to hope that she should be permitted to remain some time longer in her retirement
and her mind had now so far recovered its strength that she ventured to view the scenes which most powerfully recalled the images of past times among these was the fishing house and to indulge still more the affectionate melancholy of the visit
she took thither her lute that she might again hear there the tones to which saint aubert and her mother had so often delighted to listen she went alone and at that still hour of the evening which is so soothing to fancy and to grief
they awakened so forcibly the memory of former times that her resolution yielded for a moment to excess of grief she stopped leaned for support against a tree and wept for some minutes before she had recovered herself sufficiently to proceed
the little path that led to the building was overgrown with grass and the flowers which saint aubert had scattered carelessly along the border were almost choked with weeds the tall thistle the fox glove and the nettle
that bowed upon the banks below was a kind of music more in unison with her feelings it did not vibrate on the chords of unhappy memory but was soothing to the heart as the voice of pity she continued to muse
unconscious of the gloom of evening and that the sun's last light trembled on the heights above and would probably have remained so much longer if a sudden footstep without the building had not alarmed her attention
at the sound of his voice lost her fear in a stronger emotion its tones were familiar to her ear and though she could not readily distinguish through the dusk the features of the person who spoke
surely i am not mistaken ma'amselle saint aubert is it not it is indeed said emily who was confirmed in her first conjecture for she now distinguished the countenance of valancourt
lighted up with still more than its usual animation a thousand painful recollections crowded to her mind and the effort which she made to support herself only served to increase her agitation
learned from the flood of tears which she could no longer repress the fatal truth he led her to a seat and sat down by her while emily continued to weep and valancourt to hold the hand which she was unconscious he had taken
till it was wet with the tears which grief for saint aubert and sympathy for herself had called forth i feel said he at length
i feel how insufficient all attempt at consolation must be on this subject i can only mourn with you for i cannot doubt the source of your tears would to god i were mistaken
emily could still answer only by tears till she rose and begged they might leave the melancholy spot when valancourt though he saw her feebleness could not offer to detain her
but took her arm within his and led her from the fishing house they walked silently through the woods valancourt anxious to know yet fearing to ask any particulars concerning saint aubert and emily
too much distressed to converse after some time however she acquired fortitude enough to speak of her father and to give a brief account of the manner of his death during which recital valancourt's countenance betrayed strong emotion
and when he heard that saint aubert had died on the road and that emily had been left among strangers he pressed her hand between his and involuntarily exclaimed why was i not there
but in the next moment recollected himself for he immediately returned to the mention of her father till perceiving that her spirits were exhausted he gradually changed the subject and spoke of himself
emily thus learned that after they had parted he had wandered for some time along the shores of the mediterranean and had then returned through languedoc into gascony
which was his native province and where he usually resided when he had concluded his little narrative he sunk into a silence which emily was not disposed to interrupt and it continued till they reached the gate of the chateau
when he stopped as if he had known this to be the limit of his walk here saying that it was his intention to return to estuviere on the following day he asked her if she would permit him to take leave of her in the morning
and emily perceiving that she could not reject an ordinary civility without expressing by her refusal an expectation of something more was compelled to answer that she should be at home she passed a melancholy evening
during which the retrospect of all that had happened since she had seen valancourt would rise to her imagination and the scene of her father's death appeared in tints as fresh as if it had passed on the preceding day
she remembered particularly the earnest and solemn manner in which he had required her to destroy the manuscript papers and awakening from the lethargy in which sorrow had held her she was shocked to think she had not yet obeyed him
there is one within besides the things that we have heard and seen recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch julius caesar in the morning
emily found madame montoni nearly in the same condition as on the preceding night she had slept little and that little had not refreshed her she smiled on her niece and seemed cheered by her presence but spoke only a few words
and never named montoni who however soon after entered the room his wife when she understood that he was there appeared much agitated but was entirely silent till emily rose from a chair at the bed side
when she begged in a feeble voice that she would not leave her the visit of montoni was not to sooth his wife whom he knew to be dying or to console or to ask her forgiveness
this was a scene that exhibited on his part his usual inhumanity and on that of madame montoni a persevering spirit contending with a feeble frame
while emily repeatedly declared to him her willingness to resign all claim to those estates rather than that the last hours of her aunt should be disturbed by contention
montoni however did not leave the room till his wife exhausted by the obstinate dispute had fainted and she lay so long insensible that emily began to fear that the spark of life was extinguished at length she revived
and being somewhat restored by a cordial conversed for a considerable time on the subject of her estates in france with clearness and precision she directed her niece where to find some papers relative to them which she had hitherto concealed from the search of montoni
till long after midnight and even then would not have quitted the room had not her aunt entreated that she would retire to rest she then obeyed the more willingly because her patient appeared somewhat recruited by sleep and giving annette the same injunction as on the preceding night
it was now the second watch of the night and about the time when the figure had before appeared emily heard the passing steps of the sentinels on the rampart as they changed guard and when all was again silent
leaving her lamp in a remote part of the chamber that she might escape notice from without the moon gave a faint and uncertain light for heavy vapours surrounded it and often rolling over the disk left the scene below in total darkness
it was in one of these moments of obscurity that she observed a small and lambent flame moving at some distance on the terrace while she gazed it disappeared and the moon again emerging from the lurid and heavy thunder clouds
she turned her attention to the heavens where the vivid lightnings darted from cloud to cloud and flashed silently on the woods below she loved to catch in the momentary gleam the gloomy landscape
the antient arch leading to the east rampart the turret above or the fortifications beyond and then perhaps the whole edifice with all its towers its dark massy walls and pointed casements would appear
it moved away and then by a gleam of lightning she perceived some person on the terrace all the anxieties of the preceding night returned this person advanced
and she faintly demanded who passed a friend replied a voice what friend said emily somewhat encouraged who are you and what is that light you carry i am anthonio
and what is that tapering light you bear said emily see how it darts upwards and now it vanishes this light lady said the soldier has appeared to night as you see it on the point of my lance ever since i have been on watch
but what it means i cannot tell this is very strange said emily my fellow guard continued the man has the same flame on his arms he says he has sometimes seen it before i never did
i am but lately come to the castle for i have not been long a soldier how does your comrade account for it said emily he says it is an omen lady and bodes no good and what harm can it bode rejoined emily
he knows not so much as that lady whether emily was alarmed by this omen or not she certainly was relieved from much terror by discovering this man to be only a soldier on duty
that it might be he who had occasioned so much alarm on the preceding night there were however some circumstances that still required explanation as far as she could judge by the faint moon light that had assisted her observation
were circumstances of mysterious import that did not apply with probability to a soldier engaged in the duty of his guard she now enquired of the sentinel whether he had seen any person besides his fellow watch
there are amongst us who believe strange things strange stories too have long been told of this castle but it is no business of mine to repeat them and for my part i have no reason to complain our chief does nobly by us
i commend your prudence said emily good night and accept this from me she added throwing him a small piece of coin and then closing the casement to put an end to the discourse when he was gone
reverbed by the mountains other thunder seemed to answer from the opposite horizon while the accumulating clouds entirely concealing the moon assumed a red sulphureous tinge that foretold a violent storm
emily remained at her casement till the vivid lightning that now every instant revealed the wide horizon and the landscape below made it no longer safe to do so
when amidst the uproar of the storm she thought she heard a voice and raising herself to listen saw the chamber door open and annette enter with a countenance of wild affright she is dying ma'amselle my lady is dying said she
emily started up and ran to madame montoni's room when she entered her aunt appeared to have fainted for she was quite still and insensible
and emily with a strength of mind that refused to yield to grief while any duty required her activity applied every means that seemed likely to restore her but the last struggle was over she was gone for ever
i wondered ma'amselle said annette what was the reason my lady did not seem frightened at the thunder when i was so terrified and i went often to the bed to speak to her but she appeared to be asleep till presently i heard a strange noise and on going to her
after some deliberation she determined that montoni should not be informed of this event till the morning for she considered that he might perhaps utter some inhuman expressions
by the body of her deceased aunt during this solemn period rendered more awful by the tremendous storm that shook the air she frequently addressed herself to heaven for support and protection
chapter four the murdered man there may be folk in the world to whom the finding of a dead man lying grim and stark by the roadside with the blood freshly run from it
and making ugly patches of crimson on the grass and the gravel would be an ordinary thing but to me that had never seen blood let in violence except in such matters as a bout of fisticuffs at school
it was the biggest thing that had ever happened and i stood staring down at the white face as if i should never look at anything else as long as i lived i remember all about that scene
and that moment as freshly now as if the affair had happened last night the dead man lying in the crushed grass his arms thrown out helplessly on either side of him the gloom of the trees all around
the murmuring of the waters where till was pouring its sluggish flood into the more active swirl and rush of the tweed the hot oppressive air of the night and the blood on the dry road
all that was what at mister gilverthwaite's bidding i had ridden out from berwick to find in that lonely spot but i knew of course that james gilverthwaite himself had not foreseen this affair
was this the man mister gilverthwaite meant me to meet would mister gilverthwaite have been murdered too if he had come there in person and had the man been murdered for the sake of robbery
but i answered that last question as soon as i asked it and in the negative for the light of my lamp showed a fine heavy gold watch chain festooned across the man's waistcoat if murderously inclined thieves had been at him
they were not like to have left that then i wondered if i had disturbed the murderers it was fixed in me from the beginning that there must have been more than one in at this dreadful game
and if they were still lurking about and watching me from the brushwood and i made an effort and bent down and touched one of the nerveless hands it was stiffened already
and i knew then that the man had been dead some time and i knew another thing in that moment poor maisie lying awake to listen for the tap at her window so that she might get up and peep round the corner of her blind
to assure herself that her hughie was alive and safe would have to lie quaking and speculating through the dark hours of that night
that was going to keep me busied till day broke i set to it there and then leaving the man just as i had found him and hastening back in the direction of the main road as luck would have it i heard voices of men on twizel bridge
who had met there in the course of their night rounds i knew them both the sergeant being one chisholm and the constable a man named turndale and they knew me well enough from having seen me in the court at berwick
and it was with open mouthed surprise that they listened to what i had to tell them presently we were all three round the dead man and this time there was the light of three lamps on his face and on the gouts of blood that were all about him
and chisholm clicked his tongue sharply at what he saw here's a sore sight for honest folk he said in a low voice as he bent down and touched one of the hands
aye and he's been dead a good hour i should say by the feel of him you heard nothing as you came down yon lane mister hugh not a sound i answered and saw nothing he questioned
nothing and nobody i said well said he we'll have to get him away from this you'll have to get help he went on turning to the constable fetch some men to help us carry him
he'll have to be taken to the nearest inn for the inquest that's how the law is i wasn't going to ask it while yon man was about mister hugh he continued when turndale had gone hurrying towards the village
but you'll not mind me asking it now what were you doing here yourself at this hour you've a good right chisholm said i and i'll tell you for by all i can see there'll be no way of keeping it back
and it's no concern of mine to keep it back and i don't care who knows all about it not me the truth is we've a lodger at our house one mister james gilverthwaite that's a mysterious sort of man
and he's at present in his bed with a chill or something that's like to keep him there and tonight he got me to ride out here to meet a man whom he ought to have met himself and that's why i'm here and all that i have to do with it
who else said i can you think of any other that it would be and i'm wondering if whoever killed this fellow whoever he may be wouldn't have killed mister gilverthwaite too if he'd come
this is no by chance murder chisholm as you'll be finding out well well i never knew its like he remarked staring from me to the body and from it to me
you saw nobody about close by nor in the neighbourhood no strangers on the road i was ready for that question ever since finding the body i had been wondering what i should say when authority
either in the shape of a coroner or a policeman asked me about my own adventures that night to be sure i had seen a stranger and i had observed that he had lost a couple of fingers the first and second of his right hand
but it had been borne in on my mind pretty strongly that the man i had seen looking at his map was some gentleman tourist who was walking the district
and had as like as not been tramping it over plodden field and that historic corner of the country and had become benighted ere he could reach wherever his headquarters were and i was not going to bring suspicion
on what was in all probability an innocent stranger so i answered chisholm's question as i meant to answer any similar one unless indeed i had reason to alter my mind
i saw nobody and heard nothing about here said i it's not likely there'd be strangers in this spot at midnight for that matter the poor fellow is a stranger himself said he
that there was mystery in this affair was surer than ever when having got the man to the nearest inn and brought more help including a doctor they began to examine him and his clothing and now
that i saw him in a stronger light i found that he was a strongly built well made man of about mister gilverthwaite's age say just over sixty years or so dressed in a gentlemanlike fashion and wearing good boots
and linen and a tweed suit of the sort affected by tourists there was a good deal of money in his pockets bank notes gold and silver and an expensive watch and chain and other such things that a gentleman would carry
and it seemed very evident that robbery had not been the motive of the murderers but of papers that could identify the man there was nothing in the shape of paper or its like there was not one scrap in all the clothing
except the return half of a railway ticket between peebles and coldstream and a bit of a torn bill head giving the name and address of a tradesman in dundee there's something to go on anyway remarked chisholm
as he carefully put these things aside after pointing out to us that the ticket was dated on what was now the previous day for it was already well past midnight and the time was creeping on to morning
and that the dead man must accordingly have come to coldstream not many hours before his death and we'll likely find something about him from either dundee or peebles but i'm inclined to think mister hugh he continued
drawing me aside that even though they didn't rob the man of his money and valuables they took something else from him that may have been of much more value than either what i asked papers said he
look at the general appearance of the man he's no common or ordinary sort is it likely now such a man would be without letters and that sort of thing in his pockets like as not he'd carry his pocket book
and it may have been this pocket book with what was in it they were after and not troubling about his purse at all they made sure of him anyway said i and went out of the room where they had laid the body
not caring to stay longer for i had heard what the doctor said that the man had been killed on the spot by a single blow from a knife or dagger which had been thrust into his heart from behind with tremendous force and the thought of it
what are you going to do now i asked of chisholm who had followed me and do you want me any more sergeant for if not
that's just where i'm coming with you he answered i've my bicycle close by and we'll ride into the town together at once for do you see mister hugh
for if he knows no more he'll know who yon man is i made no answer to that i had no certain answer to make i was already wondering about a lot of conjectures
would mister gilverthwaite know who the man was was he the man i ought to have met or had that man been there witnessed the murder and gone away frightened to stop where the murder had been done or
yet again was this some man who had come upon mister gilverthwaite's correspondent and for some reason been murdered by him it was however all beyond me just then and presently the sergeant and i were on our machines
and calling to me let me know that they were maisie dunlop and her brother tom that she had made to come with her
chapter seven the countess de santiago you don't wish to tell me the name ruthven smith was saying the repetition irritated the girl whose nerves were strained to snapping point
she could not parry the man's questions she could not bear his grieved or offended reproaches if he persisted through these moments of suspense she would scream or burst out crying trembling with tears in her voice she heard herself answer
and yet it did not seem to be herself but something within stronger than she that suddenly took control of her why should i not wish to tell you the something was saying the name is the same as your own smith
nelson smith and before the words had left her lips a taxi drew up at the door there was one instant of agony during which the previous suspense seemed nothing an instant when the girl forgot what she had said
her soul pressing to the windows of her eyes was it he who had come or it was he before she had time to finish the thought he walked in confident and smiling as when she had left him a few minutes
or a few years ago and in the wave of relief which overwhelmed her annesley forgot ruthven smith's question and her answer she remembered again only with the shock of hearing him address the newcomer by the name she had given
i hear from miss grayle that we are namesakes mister ruthven smith said as nelson smith sprang in and took the girl's bag from her ice cold hand i he asked me i told him
annesley stammered her eyes appealing seeking to explain and begging pardon but if quite right why not tell he answered instantly his first glance of surprise turning to cheerful reassurance
now missus ellsworth is eliminated i'm no longer a secret and i expect you'll like to meet mister ruthven smith again when you have a house to entertain him in so speaking
he offered his hand with a smile to his namesake and annesley realized from the outsider's point of view the peculiar attraction of the man ruthven smith felt it as she had felt it though differently and in a lesser degree
not only did he shake hands but actually came out to the taxi with them asking annesley if he should tell his cousins of her engagement or if she preferred to give the news herself
it flashed into the girl's mind that it would be perfect if she could be married to her knight by archdeacon smith but she had been imprudent too often already she dared not make such a suggestion without consulting the other person most concerned
so she answered that she would write missus smith or see her to say that you too are going to be missus smith chuckled the archdeacon's cousin in his dry way which made him seem even older than he was
well you can trust me with missus ellsworth if she goes on as she began to night i'm afraid i shall have to follow your example fold my tent like an arab and silently steal away ha ha
i dare say she's owing you salary i'll remind her of it if you like tell her you asked me it may help with the trousseau thank you but my wife won't need to remind missus ellsworth of her debt
the answer came before annesley could speak and she will be my wife in a day or two at latest good night glad to have met you
then they were off they two alone together and annesley guessed that the chauffeur must have had his instructions where to drive as she heard none given perhaps it was best that their destination should not be published aloud for there are walls which have ears
it occurred to the girl that precautions might still have to be taken but in another moment she was undeceived i thought old ruthven smith would be shocked if he knew the safe refuge i have for you
that we should soon be in another going back to the place we started from the savoy exclaimed annesley
those men i assure you it's safer now than anywhere in london the man cut her short i can't explain why that is i could explain if i cared to rig up a story
but there's something about you makes me feel as if i'd like to tell you the truth whenever i can and the truth is that for reasons you may understand some day though i hope to heaven you'll never have to
my association with those men is one of the things i long to turn the key upon i know that that sounds like bluebeard to fatima but it isn't as bad as that to me it doesn't seem bad at all and i swear that whatever mystery
if you call it mystery' there is about me it sha'n't hurt you will you believe this and trust me for the rest i've told you i would the girl reminded him i know but things were different then
said the girl and i've been very foolish i've complicated everything first by what i told mister ruthven smith about about us and then saying your name was nelson smith you weren't foolish he contradicted
you couldn't help yourself destiny and all's for the best you were an angel to sacrifice yourself to save me and your doing it the way you did has made me a happy man at one stroke as for the name
what's in a name we might as well be in reality what we played at being to night
there are even reasons why i'm pleased that you've made me a present of the name i thank you for it and for all the rest oh but if it isn't really your name we sha'n't be legally married shall we annesley protested
by jove he exclaimed i hadn't thought of that it's a difficulty but we'll obviate it somehow don't worry only i'm afraid we can't ask your friend the archdeacon to marry us as i meant to suggest
and i'm not going to let you slip out of my dream now i've got you in it
and i shall take care you don't wake up afterward there came a time when annesley called back those words and wondered if they had held a deeper meaning than she guessed but having uttered them
he seemed to put the thought out of his mind and turn to the next about the savoy he went on i want to take you there because i know a woman staying in the hotel a woman old enough to be your mother who'll look after you to please me till we're married
afterward you'll be nice to her and that will be doing her a good turn because she's apt to be lonesome in london
and has lived in the argentine but i met her in new york she knows all about me or enough and if she'd been in the restaurant at dinner this evening she could have done for me what you did i had reason to think she would be there when i bolted in to get out of a fix
we should never have met annesley thought aloud how strange just that little thing your friend being out to dinner and our whole lives are to be changed oh you must be sorry
i tell you meeting you and winning you in this way is worth the best ten years of my life but you haven't answered my question i'll answer it now cried the girl meeting you is worth all the years of my life
i'm not much of a princess but you are saint george saint george he echoed a ring of bitterness under his laugh that's the first time i've been called a saint and i'm afraid it will be the last i can't live up to that
but if i can give you a happy life and a few of the beautiful things you deserve why it's something besides i'm going to worship my princess i'd give anything to show you how i but no
i was good before when i was tempted to kiss you you're at my mercy now in a way all the more because i'm taking you from your old existence to one you don't know i sha'n't ask to kiss you except maybe your little hand if you don't mind
until the moment you're my wife meantime i'll try to grow a bit more like what your lover ought to be and later i shall kiss you enough to make up for lost time if five hours ago any one had told annesley grayle
she would have felt insulted yet so it was
but she sat still in her corner of the taxi and gave him no answer lest she should betray herself her silence after the warmth of his words seemed cold perhaps he felt it so
for he went on after an instant's pause as if he had waited for something in vain and his tone was changed annesley thought it by contrast almost businesslike you mustn't be afraid he said that i mean to stay at the savoy myself
even if i'd been stopping there i should move if i were going to put you in the hotel but i have my own lair in london i've been over here a number of times indeed i'm partly english born in canada though i've spent most of my life in the united states
nobody at the savoy but the countess de santiago knows who i am and she'll understand that it may be convenient for me to change my name nelson smith is a respectable one and she'll respect it
now my plan is to ask for her she'll be in by this time have a few words of explanation on the quiet not to embarrass you and the countess will do the rest she'll engage a room for you next to her own suite or as near as possible
then you'll be provided with a chaperon i'm not anxious about myself but about you annesley said you haven't told me yet what happened after you went upstairs at missus ellsworth's and how you knew those men were gone
i suppose you did know or did you chance it i was as sure as i needed to be nelson smith answered a moment after i switched on the electricity in the room up there i heard a taxi drive away
i turned off the light so i could look out by flattening my nose against the glass i could see that the place where those chaps had waited was empty but in case the taxi was only turning and meant to pass the house again i lit the room once more for realism
that's what kept me rather long that and waiting for the dragon to go otherwise i should have been down before ruthven smith trapped me for a second it looked as if the game of life was up and then i found out how much you meant to me
nobody paid the slightest attention to the newcomers and annesley settled down unobtrusively in a corner while her companion went to scribble a line to the countess de santiago when he had finished and sent up the letter he did not return
and again the girl had a few moments of suspense thinking of the danger which might not after all be over just as she had begun to be anxious however she saw him coming with a wonderful woman annesley could have laughed
remembering how he had said the countess would mother her any one less motherly than this juno like beauty in flame coloured chiffon over gold tissue it would be hard to imagine the spanish south american countess was of a camelia paleness
and had almond shaped dark eyes with brooding lashes under slender brows that met in contrast her hair was of a flame colour vivid as her draperies and her lips were red at first glance annesley thought that the dazzling creature could not be more than thirty
without waiting for an introduction a hardness about the handsome face a few lines about the eyes and mouth and a fullness of the chin showed that she was older forty perhaps
still annesley hoped that her lover had not asked the lady to mother his fiancee she had not the air of one who would be complimented by such a request as annesley put her hand into that of the countess
she noticed that this hand was as wonderful as the rest of the woman's personality it was very long very narrow
even the thumb was abnormally long which fact prevented the hand from being as beautiful as it was somehow unforgettable this is a pleasure and a surprise began the countess smiling
her eyes appearing to take in the full length portrait of annesley grayle with their wide unmoving gaze when she smiled she was still extremely handsome but not so perfect as with lips closed for her white teeth were too short somewhat irregular and set too wide apart
she spoke english perfectly with a slight foreign accent and a roll of the letter r my friend nelson smith she turned laughing to him has told me ex citing news we have known each other a long time
i think this is the best thing that can happen and you will be a lucky girl he too will be lucky i see that with another smile annesley was disappointed because the beautiful woman's voice was not sweet
now you must engage her room nelson smith said abruptly it's late you can make friends afterward very well the countess agreed and you will you come to the desk yet no it is better not
miss grayle and i will go together two women alone and independent lucky it's not the season or we might find nothing free at short notice but don i mean nelson always did have luck i hope he always will
she flashed him a meaning look though what the meaning was annesley could not guess she knew only that she did not like the countess as she had wished to like her lover's friend
very often i admit i try to dream that i am president wilson or mister bryan or the ritz carlton hotel
but this was an accident
i was writing against time the presidential election was drawing nearer every day and the market for reminiscences of lincoln was extremely brisk but of course might collapse any moment
writers of my class have to consider this sort of thing for instance in the middle of lent i find that i can do fairly well with recent lights on the scriptures
then of course when the hot weather comes the market for christmas poetry opens and there's a fairly good demand for voyages in the polar seas
and that sort of thing but it's a wearing occupation full of disappointments and needing the very keenest business instinct to watch every turn of the market i am afraid that this is a digression
i only wanted to explain how a man's mind could be so harassed and overwrought
i knew at once in my dream where and what i was as soon as i saw the luxury of the surroundings the spacious room with its vaulted ceiling lit with stained glass
the beautiful mahogany table at which i sat writing with a ten dollar fountain pen the gift of the manufacturers on embossed stationery the gift of the embossers on which i was setting down words at eight and a half cents a word
and deliberately picking out short ones through sheer business acuteness as soon as i saw this i said to myself
not that i have ever seen an editor or a sanctum but i have sent so many manuscripts to so many editors and received them back with such unfailing promptness
as if i had been wide awake as i thus mused revelling in the charm of my surroundings and admiring the luxurious black alpaca coat and the dainty dickie which i wore there was a knock at the door
a beautiful creature entered she evidently belonged to the premises for she wore no hat and there were white cuffs upon her wrists
she has that indescribable beauty of effectiveness such as is given to hospital nurses this i thought to myself must be my private secretary
i hope i don't interrupt you sir said the girl my dear child i answered speaking in that fatherly way in which an editor might well address a girl almost young enough to be his wife pray do not mention it
sit down you must be fatigued after your labours of the morning let me ring for a club sandwich i came to say sir the secretary went on that there's a person downstairs waiting to see you
my manner changed at once is he a gentleman or a contributor i asked he doesn't look exactly like a gentleman very good i said he's a contributor for sure
tell him to wait ask the caretaker to lock him in the coal cellar and kindly slip out and see if there's a policeman on the beat in case i need him very good sir said the secretary i waited for about an hour
wrote a few editorials advocating the rights of the people smoked some turkish cigarettes drank a glass of sherry and ate part of an anchovy sandwich then i rang the bell bring that man here i said
presently they brought him in he was a timid looking man with an embarrassed manner and all the low cunning of an author stamped on his features i could see a bundle of papers in his hand
and i knew that the scoundrel was carrying a manuscript now sir i said speak quickly what's your business i've got here a manuscript he began
what i shouted at him a manuscript you'd dare would you bringing manuscripts in here what sort of a place do you think this is it's the manuscript of a story he faltered
a story i shrieked what on earth do you think we'd want stories for do you think we've nothing better to do than to print your idiotic ravings
look here i continued seizing a bundle of proof illustrations that lay in front of me do you see this charming picture of an asbestos cooker guaranteed fireless odourless and purposeless
do you see this patent motor car with pneumatic cushions and the full page description of its properties can you form any idea of the time and thought that we have to spend on these things and yet
you dare to come in here with your miserable stories by heaven i said rising in my seat i've a notion to come over there and choke you i'm entitled to do it by the law and i think i will
don't don't he pleaded i'll go away i meant no harm i'll take it with me no you don't i interrupted none of your sharp tricks with this magazine
i knew that it might be necessary to control it the present low state of public taste demands a certain amount of this kind of matter distributed among the advertising i rang the bell again
please take this man away and shut him up again have them keep a good eye on him he's an author very good sir said the secretary i called her back for one moment
don't feed him anything i said no said the girl the manuscript lay before me on the table it looked bulky it bore the title
only a clergyman's daughter i rang the bell again kindly ask the janitor to step this way he came in
i could see from the straight honest look in his features that he was a man to be relied upon jones i said can you read yes sir he said some very good
i want you to take this manuscript and read it read it all through and then bring it back here the janitor took the manuscript and disappeared i turned to my desk again
and was soon absorbed in arranging a full page display of plumbers furnishings for the advertising it had occurred to me that by arranging the picture matter in a neat device with verses from home sweet home running through it
in double leaded old english type i could set up a page that would be the delight of all business readers and make this number of the magazine a conspicuous success
my mind was so absorbed that i scarcely noticed that over an hour elapsed before the janitor returned well jones i said as he entered have you read that manuscript yes sir and you find it all right
punctuation good spelling all correct very good indeed sir and there is i trust nothing of what one would call a humorous nature in it i want you to answer me quite frankly jones
there is nothing in it that would raise a smile or even a laugh is there oh no sir said jones nothing at all and now tell me for remember that the reputation of our magazine is at stake
does this story make a decided impression on you has it and here i cast my eye casually at the latest announcement of a rival publication the kind of
answer carefully jones because if it hasn't i won't buy it i think it has he said very well i answered now bring the author to me in the interval of waiting
i hastily ran my eye through the pages of the manuscript presently they brought the author back again he had assumed a look of depression i have decided i said to take your manuscript
joy broke upon his face he came nearer to me as if to lick my hand stop a minute i said i am willing to take your story but there are certain things
certain small details which i want to change yes he said timidly in the first place i don't like your title
is too quiet i shall change it to read dorothea dashaway or the quicksands of society but surely began the contributor beginning to wring his hands don't interrupt me i said
in the next place the story is much too long
this story contains nine thousand words we never care to use more than six thousand i must therefore cut some of it off i measured the story carefully with a pocket tape that lay in front of me
cut off three thousand words and handed them back to the author these words i said you may keep we make no claim on them at all you are at liberty to make any use of them that you like but please he said
you have cut off all the end of the story the whole conclusion is gone the readers can't possibly tell i smiled at him with something approaching kindness my dear sir i said
they never get beyond three thousand words of the end of a magazine story the end is of no consequence whatever the beginning i admit may be but the end come come
and in any case in our magazine we print the end of each story separately distributed among the advertisements to break the type but just at present we have plenty of these on hand you see
i continued for there was something in the man's manner that almost touched me all that is needed is that the last words printed must have a look of finality that's all now let me see
and i turned to the place where the story was cut what are the last words here dorothea sank into a chair there we must leave her excellent what better end could you want
she sank into a chair and you leave her nothing more natural the contributor seemed about to protest but i stopped him there is one other small thing i said
our coming number is to be a plumbers and motor number i must ask you to introduce a certain amount of plumbing into your story i rapidly turned over the pages i see i said
that your story as written is laid largely in spain in the summer i shall ask you to alter this to switzerland and make it winter time to allow for the breaking of steam pipes such things as these however are mere details
we can easily arrange them i reached out my hand and now i said i must wish you a good afternoon the contributor seemed to pluck up courage what about remuneration
he faltered i waived the question gravely aside you will of course be duly paid at our usual rate
it will cover all your necessary expenses including ink paper string sealing wax and other incidentals
on a reasonable basis per hour good bye he left and i could hear them throwing him downstairs then i sat down while my mind was on it and wrote the advance notice of the story
it ran like this next month's number of the megalomania magazine will contain a thrilling story entitled dorothea dashaway or the quicksands of society
the author has lately leaped into immediate recognition as the greatest master of the short story in the american world
the sum paid for the story of dorothea dashaway
every page palpitates with interest and at the conclusion of this remarkable narrative the reader lays down the page in utter bewilderment to turn perhaps to the almost equally marvellous illustration
of messrs spiggott and fawcett's home plumbing device exposition which adorns the same number of the great review i wrote this out rang the bell and was just beginning to say to the secretary
my dear child pray pardon my forgetfulness you must be famished for lunch will you permit me and then i woke up
he stepped into the smoking compartment of the pullman where i was sitting alone he had on a long fur lined coat and he carried a fifty dollar suit case that he put down on the seat
then he saw me well well he said and recognition broke out all over his face like morning sunlight well well i repeated
by jove he said shaking hands vigorously who would have thought of seeing you who indeed i thought to myself he looked at me more closely
you haven't changed a bit he said neither have you
you may be a little stouter he went on critically yes i said a little but you're stouter yourself
this of course would help to explain away any undue stoutness on my part no i continued boldly and firmly you look just about the same as ever and all the time
i was wondering who he was i didn't know him from adam i couldn't recall him a bit i don't mean that my memory is weak on the contrary it is singularly tenacious true
i find it very hard to remember people's names very often too it is hard for me to recall a face and frequently i fail to recall a person's appearance and of course clothes are a thing one doesn't notice
but apart from these details i never forget anybody and i am proud of it but when it does happen that a name or face escapes me i never lose my presence of mind
i know just how to deal with the situation it only needs coolness and intellect and it all comes right my friend sat down it's a long time since we met
he said a long time i repeated with something of a note of sadness i wanted him to feel that i too had suffered from it but it has gone very quickly
like a flash i assented cheerfully strange he said how life goes on and we lose track of people and things alter i often think about it i sometimes wonder
he continued where all the old gang are gone to so do i i said in fact i was wondering about it at the very moment
do you ever go back to the old place he asked never i said firmly and flatly this had to be absolute
i felt that once and for all the old place must be ruled out of the discussion till i could discover where it was no he went on i suppose you'd hardly care to not now
i said very gently i understand i beg your pardon he said and there was silence for a few moments so far i had scored the first point
there was evidently an old place somewhere to which i would hardly care to go that was something to build on presently he began again yes he said i sometimes meet some of the old boys
poor things i thought but i didn't say it i knew it was time now to make a bold stroke so i used the method that i always employ i struck in with great animation
say i said where's billy
this is really a very safe line every old gang has a billy in it yes said my friend sure billy is ranching out in montana i saw him in chicago last spring
weighed about two hundred pounds you wouldn't know him no i certainly wouldn't i murmured to myself and where's pete i said this was safe ground there is always a pete
you mean billy's brother he said yes yes billy's brother pete i often think of him oh answered the unknown man old pete's quite changed
settled down altogether here he began to chuckle why pete's married i started to laugh too under these circumstances it is always supposed to be very funny if a man has got married
the notion of old peter whoever he is being married is presumed to be simply killing i kept on chuckling away quietly at the mere idea of it
it's not hard to laugh for fifty miles if you know how but my friend wouldn't be content with it i often meant to write to you he said his voice falling to a confidential tone
especially when i heard of your loss i remained quiet what had i lost was it money and if so how much and why had i lost it
i wondered if it had ruined me or only partly ruined me one can never get over a loss like that he continued solemnly evidently i was plumb ruined
but i said nothing and remained under cover waiting to draw his fire yes the man went on death is always sad death
i almost hiccoughed with joy that was easy handling a case of death in these conversations is simplicity itself one has only to sit quiet and wait to find out who is dead
yes i murmured very sad but it has its other side too very true especially of course at that age
as you say at that age and after such a life strong and bright to the last i suppose he continued very sympathetically
yes i said falling on sure ground able to sit up in bed and smoke within a few days of the end
he said perplexed did your grandmother my grandmother that was it was it pardon me i said provoked at my own stupidity when i say smoked i mean
able to sit up and be smoked to
being read to and being smoked to only thing that seemed to compose her as i said this i could hear the rattle and clatter of the train running past the semaphores and switch points and slacking to a stop
my friend looked quickly out of the window his face was agitated great heavens he said that's the junction i've missed my stop i should have got out at the last station say porter
how long do we stop here just two minutes sah called a voice back
my friend had hopped up now and had pulled out a bunch of keys and was fumbling at the lock of the suit case i'll have to wire back or something he gasped confound this lock my money's in the suit case
my one fear now was that he would fail to get off here i said pulling some money out of my pocket don't bother with the lock here's money thanks he said grabbing the roll of money out of my hand
in his excitement he took all that i had i'll just have time he sprang from the train i saw him through the window moving toward the waiting room
i waited the porters were calling all abawd all abawd there was the clang of a bell a hiss of steam and in a second the train was off idiot i thought
he's missed it and there was his fifty dollar suit case lying on the seat i waited looking out of the window and wondering who the man was anyway then presently
i heard the porter's voice again he evidently was guiding someone through the car ah looked all through the kyar for it sah he was saying
i left it in the seat in the car there behind my wife said the angry voice of a stranger a well dressed man who put his head into the door of the compartment then
his face too beamed all at once with recognition but it was not for me it was for the fifty dollar valise ah there it is he cried seizing it and carrying it off
i sank back in dismay the old gang pete's marriage my grandmother's death great heavens and my money i saw it all
the other man was making talk too and making it with a purpose stung and next time that i fall into talk with a casual stranger in a car
section three i sought them in vain the next morning but after midday i came in quick succession on a perplexing multitude of clues
i presently discovered an unsatisfactory quartette of couples any of these four couples might have been the one i sought with regard to none of them was there conviction they had all arrived either on wednesday or thursday
two couples were still in occupation of their rooms but neither of these were at home late in the afternoon i reduced my list by eliminating a young man in drab with side whiskers and long cuffs
accompanied by a lady of thirty or more of consciously ladylike type i was disgusted at the sight of them the other two young people had gone for a long walk
and though i watched their boarding house until the fiery cloud shone out above sharing and mingling in an unusually splendid sunset i missed them then i discovered them dining at a separate table in the bow window
with red shaded candles between them peering out ever and again at this splendor that was neither night nor day the girl in her pink evening dress looked very light and pretty to me pretty enough to enrage me
she had well shaped arms and white well modeled shoulders and the turn of her cheek and the fair hair about her ears was full of subtle delights but she was not nettie
and the happy man with her was that odd degenerate type our old aristocracy produced with such odd frequency chinless large bony nose small fair head
languid expression and a neck that had demanded and received a veritable sleeve of collar i stood outside in the meteor's livid light hating them and cursing them for having delayed me so long
i stood until it was evident they remarked me a black shape of envy silhouetted against the glare that finished shaphambury the question i now had to debate was which of the remaining couples i had to pursue
i walked back to the parade trying to reason my next step out and muttering to myself because there was something in that luminous wonderfulness that touched one's brain and made one feel a little light headed
one couple had gone to london the other had gone to the bungalow village at bone cliff where i wondered was bone cliff i came upon my wooden legged man at the top of his steps hullo said i
he pointed seaward with his pipe his silver ring shone in the sky light rum he said what is i asked search lights smoke
ships going north if it wasn't for this blasted milky way gone green up there we might see he was too intent to heed my questions for a time then he vouchsafed over his shoulder
know bungalow village rather artis and such nice goings on
but where is it i said suddenly exasperated there he said what's that flicker a gunflash or i'm a lost soul you'd hear i said
long before it was near enough to see a flash he didn't answer only by making it clear i would distract him until he told me what i wanted to know could i get him to turn from his absorbed contemplation of that phantom dance between the sea rim and the shine
indeed i gripped his arm and shook him then he turned upon me cursing seven miles he said along this road and now go to ell with yer
i answered with some foul insult by way of thanks and so we parted and i set off towards the bungalow village i found a policeman standing star gazing a little way beyond the end of the parade
and verified the wooden legged man's directions it's a lonely road you know he called after me i had an odd intuition that now at last i was on the right track
i left the dark masses of shaphambury behind me and pushed out into the dim pallor of that night with the quiet assurance of a traveler who nears his end the incidents of that long tramp i do not recall in any orderly succession
the one progressive thing is my memory of a growing fatigue the sea was for the most part smooth and shining like a mirror a great expanse of reflecting silver barred by slow broad undulations
and sometimes chalky and lumpy with lumps that had shining facets a black scrub was scattered sometimes in thickets sometimes in single bunches among the somnolent hummocks of sand
at one place came grass and ghostly great sheep looming up among the gray after a time black pinewoods intervened and made sustained darknesses along the road
grotesquely incongruous amidst these forms i presently came on estate boards appealing houses can be built to suit purchaser to the silence to the shadows and the glare
once i remember the persistent barking of a dog from somewhere inland of me and several times i took out and examined my revolver very carefully i must of course have been full of my intention when i did that
i must have been thinking of nettie and revenge but i cannot now recall those emotions at all only i see again very distinctly the greenish gleams that ran over lock and barrel as i turned the weapon in my hand
then there was the sky the wonderful luminous starless moonless sky and the empty blue deeps of the edge of it between the meteor and the sea and once strange phantoms
i saw far out upon the shine and very small and distant
dark deadly furtive things traveling very swiftly and keeping an equal distance and when i looked again they were very small and then the shine had swallowed them up then once a flash
and what i thought was a gun until i looked up and saw a fading trail of greenish light still hanging in the sky and after that there was a shiver and whispering in the air a stronger throbbing in one's arteries
a sense of refreshment a renewal of purpose somewhere upon my way the road forked
the hesitation between two rutted unmade roads alone remains clear in my mind at last i grew weary i came to piled heaps of decaying seaweed and cart tracks running this way and that
and then i had missed the road and was stumbling among sand hummocks quite close to the sea i came out on the edge of the dimly glittering sandy beach and something phosphorescent drew me to the water's edge
escaped from that great shine and faint and still tremulously valiant one weak elusive star could just be seen hovering on the verge of the invisible how beautiful it was how still and beautiful
it came to me that indeed i did not want to kill i did not want to kill
i stood upon the edge of the great ocean and i was filled with an inarticulate spirit of prayer and i desired greatly peace from myself
and presently there in the east would come again the red discoloring curtain over these mysteries the finite world again the gray and growing harsh certainties of dawn my resolve i knew would take up with me again
this was a rest for me an interlude but to morrow i should be william leadford once more ill nourished ill dressed ill equipped and clumsy a thief and shamed
a wound upon the face of life a source of trouble and sorrow even to the mother i loved no hope in life left for me now but revenge before my death why this paltry thing revenge
it entered into my thoughts that i might end the matter now and let these others go to wade out into the sea into this warm lapping that mingled the natures of water and light to stand there breast high
to thrust my revolver barrel into my mouth why not i swung about with an effort i walked slowly up the beach thinking i turned and looked back at the sea
chin on hand i drew my revolver from my pocket and looked at it and held it in my hand life or death i seemed to be probing the very deeps of being but indeed imperceptibly i fell asleep
and sat dreaming section four two people were bathing in the sea i had awakened it was still that white and wonderful night and the blue band of clear sky was no wider than before
these people must have come into sight as i fell asleep and awakened me almost at once they waded breast deep in the water emerging coming shoreward a woman with her hair coiled about her head and in pursuit of her a man
she glanced over her shoulder and found him nearer than she thought started gesticulated gave a little cry that pierced me to the heart and fled up the beach obliquely toward me running like the wind and passed me
vanished amidst the black distorted bushes and was gone she and her pursuer in a moment over the ridge of sand i heard him shout between exhaustion and laughter
standing up with hands held up and clenched rigid in gesture of impotent threatening against the sky for this striving swift thing of light and beauty was nettie
in another moment i was running and stumbling revolver in hand in quiet unsuspected pursuit of them through the soft and noiseless sand section five
there was a group of three bungalows nearer to me than the others into one of these three they had gone and i was too late to see which all had doors and windows carelessly open and none showed a light
this place upon which i had at last happened was a fruit of the reaction of artistic minded and carelessly living people against the costly and uncomfortable social stiffness of the more formal seaside resorts of that time
it was you must understand the custom of the steam railway companies to sell their carriages after they had been obsolete for a sufficient length of years
and some genius had hit upon the possibility of turning these into little habitable cabins for the summer holiday the thing had become a fashion with a certain bohemian spirited class they added cabin to cabin
made the brightest contrast conceivable to the dull rigidities of the decorous resorts of course there were many discomforts in such camping that had to be faced cheerfully
and so this broad sandy beach was sacred to high spirits and the young art muslin and banjoes chinese lanterns and frying
are leading notes i find in the impression of those who once knew such places well but so far as i was concerned this odd settlement of pleasure squatters was a mystery as well as a surprise
enhanced rather than mitigated by an imaginative suggestion or so i had received from the wooden legged man at shaphambury i saw the thing as no gathering of light hearts and gay idleness but grimly
after the manner of poor men poisoned by the suppression of all their cravings after joy to the poor man to the grimy workers beauty and cleanness were absolutely denied out of a life of greasy dirt
of muddied desires they watched their happier fellows with a bitter envy and foul tormenting suspicions fancy a world in which the common people held love to be a sort of beastliness own sister to being drunk
but to fail was as if one was tainted i felt no sense of singularity that this thread of savagery should run through these emotions of mine and become now the whole strand of these emotions i believed
and i think i was right in believing that the love of all true lovers was a sort of defiance then that they closed a system in each other's arms and mocked the world without you loved against the world
and these two loved at me they had their business with one another under the threat of a watchful fierceness a sword a sharp sword the keenest edge in life lay among their roses
whatever may be true of this for others for me and my imagination at any rate it was altogether true i was never for dalliance i was never a jesting lover i wanted fiercely i made love impatiently
perhaps i had written irrelevant love letters for that very reason because with this stark theme i could not play the thought of nettie's shining form of her shrinking bold abandon to her easy conqueror
gave me now a body of rage that was nearly too strong for my heart and nerves and the tense powers of my merely physical being i came down among the pale sand heaps slowly toward that queer village of careless sensuality
and now within my puny body i was coldly sharpset for pain and death a darkly gleaming hate
there was once a merry young huntsman who went into the forest to hunt he was gay and light hearted and whistled a tune upon a leaf as he went along suddenly an ugly old crone spoke to him and said
good morning dear huntsman you are merry and happy enough while i am hungry and thirsty pray give me an alms the huntsman pitied the poor old woman
put his hand in his pocket and made her a present according to his means then he wanted to go on but the old woman held him back and said hark ye dear huntsman i will make you a present because of your good heart
go on your way and you will come to a tree on which nine birds are sitting they will have a cloak in their claws over which they are fighting take aim with your gun and shoot into the middle of them they will drop the cloak
and one of the birds will fall down dead take the cloak with you it is a wishing cloak when you throw it round your shoulders you only have to wish yourself at a place to be there at once
the huntsman thanked the wise woman and thought she promises fine things if only they turn out as well when he had gone about a hundred paces he heard above him in the branches of a tree
this is extraordinary it is exactly what the old woman said he put his gun to his shoulder took aim and fired right into the middle of them making the feathers fly about the birds took flight with a great noise
all except one which fell down dead and the cloak dropped at his feet he did as the old woman had told him
and the next morning he found another and the same every morning when he got up he collected quite a heap of gold and at last he thought what is the good of all my gold if i stay at home here
it will suit us better than him he has a bird's heart about him
she told the girl how he had got it and at last said if you don't get it from him it will be the worse for you when the huntsman got nearer he saw the maiden and said
i have been wandering about for a long time i will go into this castle and take a rest i have plenty of money but the real reason was that he had caught sight of the pretty picture at the window
he went in and he was kindly received and hospitably treated before long he was so enamoured of the witch maiden that he thought of nothing else and cared for nothing but pleasing her the old woman said to the maiden
now we must get the bird's heart he will never miss it they concocted a potion and when it was ready they put it into a goblet and the maiden took it to him and said now my beloved you must drink to me
he took the cup and drank the potion and when he was overpowered by it the bird's heart came out of his mouth the maiden took it away secretly and swallowed it herself for the old woman wanted to have it
from this time the huntsman found no more gold under his pillow but the coin was always under the maiden's instead and the old woman used to fetch it away every morning
but he was so much in love that he thought of nothing but enjoying himself in the maiden's company then the old woman said we have got the bird's heart but we must have his wishing cloak too
the maiden said let us leave him that we have taken away his wealth the old woman was very angry and said a cloak like that is a very wonderful thing and not often to be got
over there are the garnet mountains where the precious stones are found i long for them so much that i grow sad whenever i think of them but who could ever get them the birds which fly perhaps no mortal could ever reach them
if that is all your trouble said the huntsman i can soon lift that load from your heart then he drew her under his cloak and in a moment they were both sitting on the mountain the precious stones were glittering around them
their hearts rejoiced at the sight of them and they soon gathered together some of the finest and largest now the witch had so managed that the huntsman began to feel his eyes grow very heavy so he said to the maiden
when the huntsman had had his sleep out he woke up and saw that his beloved had betrayed him and left him alone on the wild mountain oh what treachery there is in the world he exclaimed
he quickly lay down again and pretended to be fast asleep the first one as he came along stumbled against him and said
the second said tread on him and kill him but the third said it isn't worth the trouble
got up and climbed up to the top of the mountain after he had sat there for a time a cloud floated over him and carried him away at first he was swept through the air
but then he was gently lowered and deposited within a large walled garden upon a soft bed of lettuces and other herbs he looked around him and said if only i had something to eat i am so hungry
and it will be difficult to get away from here i see neither apples nor pears nor any other fruit nothing but salad and herbs at last however he thought at the worst i can eat some of this salad
he picked out a fine head of lettuce and began eating it but he had hardly swallowed a little piece when he began to feel very odd and quite changed he felt four legs growing a big head
he went on eating greedily at last he reached another kind of salad which he had hardly tasted when he felt a new change taking place and found himself back in his human shape after this he lay down and slept off his fatigue
and thought these will help me to regain my own and also to punish the traitors he put the salad into his wallet climbed over the wall and went off to find the castle of his beloved
after wandering about for a few days he was fortunate enough to find it
and went to the castle to ask for shelter i am so tired he said i cannot go any further the witch said
he answered i am a messenger from the king he sent me to find the rarest salad which grows under the sun i have been lucky enough to find it and i carry it with me
but the sun is so burning that i am afraid the tender plant will be withered
when the old witch heard about the rare salad she felt a great desire to have some and said good countryman let me try the wonderful salad by all means he answered i have two heads with me
and you shall have one so saying he opened his sack and handed her the bad one the witch had no suspicions and her mouth so watered for the new dish that she went to the kitchen herself to prepare it
when it was ready she could not wait till it was put upon the table but put a few leaves into her mouth at once hardly had she swallowed them when she lost her human shape and ran out into the courtyard as an old she ass
then the maid came into the kitchen saw the salad standing ready and was about to put it on the table but on the way the fancy seized her to taste it according to her usual habit and she ate a few leaves
in the meantime the messenger was sitting with the beautiful maiden and as no one appeared with the salad she also was seized with a desire to taste it and said i don't know what has become of the salad
but the huntsman thought the plant must have done its work and said i will go into the kitchen and see as soon as he got downstairs he saw the two asses running about and the salad lying on the ground
this is all right he said two of them are done for then he picked up the leaves put them on a dish and took them to the maiden i am bringing the precious food to you myself said he
and drove them along till he came to a mill he tapped at the window and the miller put his head out and asked what he wanted i have three bad animals here he said that i want to get rid of
if you will take them and feed them and treat them as i wish i will pay you what you like to ask why not said the miller how do you want them treated
the huntsman said he wanted the old she ass the witch to be well beaten three times a day and fed once the younger one which was the maid beaten once and fed three times
the youngest of all who was the beautiful maiden was to be fed three times and not beaten at all he could not find it in his heart to have her beaten then he went back to the castle and found everything he wanted in it
a few days later the miller came and told him that the old ass which was to be beaten three times and fed once was dead the other two he said
which are to be fed three times are not dead but they are pining away and won't last long the huntsman's heart was stirred with pity and he told the miller to bring them back to him when they came
he gave them some of the other salad to eat so that they took their human shapes again
the end of february had come and as far as missus lopez knew she was to start for guatemala in a month's time and yet
there was so much of indecision in her husband's manner and apparently so little done by him in regard to personal preparation that she could hardly bring herself to feel certain
that she would have to make the journey from day to day her father would ask her whether she had made her intended purchases and she would tell him
that she had still postponed the work then he would say no more for he himself was hesitating doubtful what he would do and still thinking that when at last
the time should come he would buy his daughter's release at any price that might be demanded mister walker the attorney had as yet been able to manage nothing
he had seen lopez more than once and had also seen mister hartlepod mister hartlepod had simply told him that he would be very happy to register the shares
on behalf of lopez as soon as the money was paid lopez had been almost insolent in his bearing did mister wharton think he asked
i think you'll have to raise your offer mister walker had said to mister wharton that was all very well mister wharton was willing enough to raise his offer
he would have doubled his offer could he thereby have secured the annihilation of lopez i will raise it if he will go without his wife
and give her a written assurance that he will never trouble her again but the arrangement was one which mister walker found it very difficult to carry out
so things went on till the end of february had come and during all this time lopez was still resident in mister wharton's house
papa she said to him one day this is the cruellest thing of all why don't you tell him that he must go because he would take you with him
it would be better so i could come to see you i did tell him to go in my passion i repented of it instantly
because i should have lost you but what did my telling matter to him he was very indignant and yet he is still here
you told him to go yes but i am glad that he did not obey me there must be an end to this soon i suppose i do not know papa
do you think that he will not go i feel that i know nothing papa you must not let him stay here always you know and what will become of you
when he goes i must go with him why should you be sacrificed also i will tell him that he must leave the house i am not afraid of him papa
not yet my dear not yet we will see at this time lopez declared his purpose one day of dining at the progress
and mister wharton took advantage of the occasion to remain at home with his daughter everett was now expected and there was a probability that he might come on
this evening mister wharton therefore returned from his chambers early but when he reached the house he was told that there was a woman in the dining room with missus lopez
the servant did not know what woman she had asked to see missus lopez and missus lopez had gone down to her
the woman in the dining room was missus parker she had called at the house at about half past five and emily had at once come down when summoned by tidings
that a lady wanted to see her servants have a way of announcing a woman as a lady which clearly expresses their own opinion that the person in question is not a lady
but missus lopez had at once gone to her visitor oh missus parker i am so glad to see you i hope you are well
indeed then missus lopez i am very far from well no poor woman who is the mother of five children was ever farther
from being well than i am is anything wrong wrong ma'am everything is wrong when is mister lopez going to pay my husband
all the money he has took from him has he taken money taken he has taken everything he has shorn my husband as bare as a board
we're ruined missus lopez and it's your husband has done it when we were at dovercourt i told you how it was going to be his business has left him
and now there is nothing what are we to do the woman was seated on a chair leaning forward with her two hands on her knees the day was wet
the streets were half mud and half snow and the poor woman who had made her way through the slush was soiled and wet
i look to you to tell me what me and my children is to do he's your husband missus lopez yes missus parker he is my husband
why couldn't he let sexty alone why should the like of him be taking the bread out of my children's mouths what had we ever done to him
you're rich indeed i am not missus parker yes you are you're living here in a grand house and your father's made of money
you'll know nothing of want let the worst come to the worst what are we to do missus lopez i'm the wife of that poor creature and you're the wife of the man
that has ruined him what are we to do missus lopez i do not understand my husband's business missus parker you're one with him ain't you
if anybody had ever come to me and said my husband had robbed him i'd never have stopped till i knew the truth of it if any woman had ever said to me
do you think that i'd sit as you are sitting i tell you that lopez has robbed us has robbed us and taken everything what can i say missus parker
what can i do where is he he is not here he is dining at his club where is that i will go there and shame him before them all
don't you feel no shame because you've got things comfortable here i suppose it's all nothing to you you don't care though my children were starving in the gutter
as they will do if you knew me missus parker you wouldn't speak to me like that know you of course i know you you're a lady and your father's a rich man
and your husband thinks no end of himself and we're poor people so it don't matter whether we're robbed and ruined or not that's about it if i had anything
i'd give you all that i had and he's taken to drinking that hard that he's never rightly sober from morning to night as she told this story of her husband's disgrace
the poor woman burst into tears who's to trust him with business now he's that broken hearted that he don't know which way to turn only to the bottle
and lopez has done it all done it all i haven't got a father ma'am who has got a house over his head for me and my babies only think
if you was turned out into the street with your babby as i am like to be i have no baby said the wretched woman through her tears and sobs
haven't you missus lopez oh dear exclaimed the soft hearted woman reduced at once to pity how was it then
he died missus parker just a few days after he was born did he now well well we all have our troubles i suppose
i have mine i know said emily and very very heavy they are i cannot tell you what i have to suffer isn't he good to you
i cannot talk about it missus parker what you tell me about yourself has added greatly to my sorrows my husband is talking of going away
to live out of england yes at a place they call i forget what they call it but i heard it guatemala
in america i know sexty told me he has no business to go anywhere while he owes sexty such a lot of money he has taken everything
and now he's going to kattymaly at this moment mister wharton knocked at the door and entered the room as he did so missus parker got up and curtseyed
this is my father missus parker said emily papa this is missus parker she is the wife of mister parker who was ferdinand's partner
she has come here with bad news very bad news indeed sir said missus parker curtseying again mister wharton frowned not as being angry with the woman
but feeling that some further horror was to be told him of his son in law i can't help coming sir continued missus parker where am i to go if i don't come
mister lopez sir has ruined us root and branch root and branch that at any rate is not my fault said mister wharton
but she is his wife sir where am i to go if not to where he lives am i to put up with everything gone and my poor husband
in the right way to go to bedlam and not to say a word about it to the grand relations of him who did it all he is a bad man said mister wharton
i cannot make him otherwise will he do nothing for us i will tell you all i know about him then mister wharton did tell her all that he knew
and the amount of salary which was to be attached to it whether he will do anything for you i cannot say i should think not unless he be forced
i should advise you to go to the offices of the company in coleman street and try to make some terms there but i fear i fear
it will be all useless then we may starve it is not her fault said mister wharton pointing to his daughter she has had no hand in it
she knows less of it all than you do it is my fault said emily bursting out into self reproach my fault that i married him
whether married or single he would have preyed upon mister parker to the same extent
he'd prey upon anybody as he could get a hold of and so mister wharton you think that you can do nothing for me if your want be immediate i can relieve it
said the barrister missus parker did not like the idea of accepting direct charity but nevertheless on going away did take the five sovereigns
which mister wharton offered to her after such an interview as that the dinner between the father and the daughter was not very happy she was eaten up by remorse
gradually she had learned how frightful was the thing she had done in giving herself to a man of whom she had known nothing and it was not only that
but that she had been persistent in clinging to him
which she was running and now it seemed that she had destroyed her father as well as herself all that she could do was to be persistent in her prayer
that he would let her go i have done it she said that night and i could bear it better if you would let me bear it alone but he only kissed her
and sobbed over her and held her close to his heart with his clinging arms in a manner in which he had never held her in their old happy days
he took himself to his own rooms before lopez returned but she of course had to bear her husband's presence
she was not afraid of him even though he should strike her though he should kill her she would not be afraid of him he had already done worse to her
than anything that could follow missus parker has been here to day she said to him that night and what had missus parker to say that you had ruined her husband exactly
when a man speculates and doesn't win of course he throws the blame on some one else and when he is too much of a cur to come himself he sends his wife
she says you owe him money what business have you to listen to what she says if she comes again do not see her do you understand me
yes i understand she saw papa also if you owe him money should it not be paid my dearest love
everybody who owes anything to anybody should always pay it that is so self evident that one would almost suppose that it might be understood without being enunciated
but the virtue of paying your debts is incompatible with an absence of money now if you please we will not say anything more about missus parker
she is not at any rate a fit companion for you it was you who introduced me to her hold your tongue about her
and let that be an end of it i little knew what a world of torment i was preparing for myself
he started as though he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw me the lord hath delivered mine enemy into my hand shone in his evil little face why mister tausig i cried before he could get his breath how odd to
did you find a baby too did i find he glared at me i find you that's enough now but the luncheon was to be at twelve thirty i laughed
and i haven't changed my dress yet you'll change it all right for something not so becoming if you don't shell out that paper paper yes paper look here if you give it back to me this minute now i'll not prosecute you for
for for the sake of my reputation i suggested softly yes he looked doubtfully at me mistrusting the amiable deference of my manner that would be awfully good of you
i murmured he did not answer but watched me as though he wasn't sure which way i'd jump the next moment i wonder what could induce you to be so forgiving i went on musingly
what sort of paper is this you miss it must be valuable yes it's valuable all right come on now quit your fooling and get down to business i'm going to have that paper do you know mister tausig
i said impulsively if i were you and anybody had stolen a valuable paper from me i'd have him arrested i would i should not care a rap what the public exposure did to his reputation so long so long
i grinned right up at him so long as it didn't hurt me myself in the eyes of the law mad oh he was hopping a german swear word burst from him i don't know what it meant but i can imagine
look here i give you one more chance he squeaked if you don't what'll you do i was sure i had him
i was sure from the very whisper in which he had spoken that the last thing in the world he wanted was to have that agreement made public by my arrest but i tripped up on one thing i didn't know there was a middle way for a man with money
i hadn't particularly noticed the sergeant standing at the other door with his back to us but from the way he came at tausig's call i knew he'd had a private talk with him and i knew he'd found the middle way this girl's taken a paper of mine i want her searched
it meant a special pull and a special way of doing things and you'll do well my girl to give up mister tausig's property to him the sergeant said stiffly
i demanded he grinned and shrugged his big shoulders we've a way of finding out you know here give it up or but what does he say i've taken what charge is there against me
have you the right to search any woman who walks in here and what in the world would i want a paper of tausig's for you won't give it up then he tapped a bell a woman came in i had a bad minute there
he said eagerly a a contract just a single sheet of legal cap paper it was type written and signed by myself and some other gentlemen and folded twice the woman looked at me she was a bit hard mouthed with iron gray hair
but her eyes looked as though they'd seen a lot and learned not to flinch though they still felt like it i knew that kind of look i'd seen it at the cruelty what an unpleasant job this of yours is
which way i'll come back mister tausig to receive your apology but you can hardly expect me to go to lunch after this he growled a wrathful resenting mouthful but he looked a bit puzzled just the same
oh i was sweet amiability personified with the woman and with the sergeant who began to back water furiously but with tausig what you don't mean to say you're not on mag
oh dear dear it's well you had that beautiful wig of red hair that puts even carter's in the shade
and in spite of my being so sure he wouldn't have me arrested i'd guess mag guess there was only one way the baby of course in the moment i had it wasn't long i'd stooped down pretending to kiss that cherub good by
and in a jiffy i'd pinned that precious paper with a safety pin to the baby's under petticoat preferring that risk to risk i should say it was
while tausig insisted and explained and expostulated and at last walked out with the sergeant giving me a queer last look that was half cursing half placating i stood chatting sweetly with the woman who had searched me
i didn't know just how far i might go with her she knew the paper wasn't on me and i could see she was disposed to believe i was as nice as she'd have liked me to be
that if there's not always fire where there is smoke it's because somebody's been clever enough and quick enough to cover the blaze well good by i said putting out my hand it's been disagreeable but i'm obliged to you for
i didn't have any i exclaimed why i certainly you certainly had no purse for i should have seen it and searched it if you had now what do you think of a woman like that
nancy olden i said to myself more in sorrow than in anger you've met your match right here when a woman knows a fact and states it with such quiet conviction without the least unnecessary emphasis and not a superfluous word
i said humbly i know you wouldn't be likely to make a mistake but just to convince me do you mind letting me go back to look not at all she said placidly if i go with you there's no reason why you should not look
oh mag it was hard lines looking why why because the place was so bare and so small there were so few things to move and it took such a short time in spite of all i could do and pretend to do that i was in despair
you must be right i said at length looking woefully up at her yes i knew i was she said steadily i must have lost it yes
there was no hope there i turned to go i'll lend you a nickel to get home if you'll leave me your address she said after a moment oh that admirable woman
she ought to be ruling empires instead of searching thieves look at the balance of her mag my best acting hadn't shaken her
we'll call them the temporarily un straight she was satisfied just not to let me get ahead of her in the least particular but she wasn't mean and she would lend me a nickel not an emotionally extravagant ten cent piece but just a nickel
on the chance that i was what i seemed to be oh i did admire her
i took the nickel and thanked her but effusiveness left her unmoved a wholesome blue gowned rock with a neat full bibbed white apron that's what she was and still i lingered fancy nance olden just heartbroken at being compelled to leave a police station
the woman's patient hand on the knob and her watchful eyes on me that i actually mag i actually didn't hear the matron's voice the first time she spoke the second time though i turned so happy i could not keep the tremor out of my voice
the admirable dragon in the blue dress didn't waver a bit because her superior spoke pleasantly to me she only watched and listened which puts you in a difficult position when your name's nance olden you have to tell the truth i've been detained
that evening the doctor had no calls to make so zip was left to amuse himself as best he could he had finished telling tabby about the monkey and the turkey and was wondering what to do with himself when he heard children laughing in the back yard of the house opposite
looking up he saw that the house was lighted more than was usual and he knew right away that they must be having a little dance or a children's party of some kind just then he thought he got a whiff of boiling molasses
he stuck his nose up in the air and gave a long sniff yes it was molasses he smelled they are having a candy pull that's what is going on
and then perhaps i can sneak into the kitchen and steal a piece of cake thought zip but alas he was so busy gazing up at the lighted windows to see what was going on inside the house that he neglected to look where he was stepping
and the first thing he knew he was standing with all four feet in a pan of hot molasses candy
the candy was just in that state of cooling when the top is a little hard and the bottom is soft and sticky so when he tried to lift his feet the candy pulled up from the bottom of the pan and made long stringy ends
but did not leave his feet instead it got between his toes and held him still faster he tried to bite it off but instead of coming off
it only stuck to his teeth and he found himself sticking to the pan with his mouth as well as his feet indeed he was held securely by the sticky stringy candy
he could not stand it to have these children he saw every day find him in such a fix he would never hear the last of it so he made a frantic effort to loosen himself in doing this he pulled backwards so far
that his feet slipped somehow and he sat down in the candy and now he was caught for his four feet
was a big ball of molasses candy rolling down the sloping walk all they could see in the semi darkness was the candy for zip was too balled up to show a bit of dog sticking out of the soft mess
the children ran after it screaming with laughter but when they caught up to the rolling ball and discovered their well known mischievous zip rolled up so tight he was helpless they clapped their hands with delight
the little girl who was giving the party let's put him in the bath tub and soak it off just the very thing one of the boys replied wait till i get something to wrap him in so i won't get all stuck up with the candy
on hearing this zip began to struggle and squirm for he had visions of hot water and soapsuds in his eyes with each one of the children feeling it was their duty to give him an extra scrub here
you zip keep still or you'll slip out of the apron you're wrapped in and get my best suit all sticky called the little boy who held him in his arms and was carrying him up to the bathroom by squeezing him tightly
the boy managed to get him to the room and was just about to drop him in the tub from the apron when he discovered that the apron was sticking to the candy one of the boys gave it a jerk to loosen it but sad to relate he gave too vigorous a pull
and zip dropped from the boy's arms not into the tub but at one side and by a mighty effort he gave himself two rolls which brought him to the head of the stairs another roll sent him tumbling bumpety bump down the long flight that led to the kitchen
on the way he hit a hamper of clothes on the landing and it joined him and went bumpety bump bangety bang to the bottom and out into the kitchen hitting the waitress who was carrying a tray of glasses filled with fruit lemonade
the sudden appearance of a hamper apparently on legs coming toward her surprised her but nothing like the queer thing that was rolling about her feet and which she could not see for the big tray in her hands she could not seem to escape it
this brought more of the guests to the spot and you would have laughed could you have seen their faces when first they peered into the kitchen
a few feet from the door was the maid sitting with limbs outspread too dazed to move while from under the corner of her skirt rolled a big sticky ball of some kind that howled as it rolled
beyond him was an overturned hamper of soiled clothes with stockings collars sheets and petticoats spilling out of it at the other end of the room stood missus hardway wiping the lemonade off her dress
as zip was still in a ball and could not extricate himself the same boy who had carried him to the bathroom before put the apron around him again and took him back upstairs
this time they got him in the tub safely and began to turn the water in the tub was slippery and so was the candy and as the water crept up to where zip was tied not hand and foot but worse still
head nose ears and all four legs as well as tail he howled and howled until one could have heard him a block away he was so afraid of being drowned before the water would soak off the candy
and when the children tried to pull it off it nearly killed him with pain for it took all the little fine hairs of his coat with it the window of the bathroom was open and the doctor coming out on his front porch to look at the sky before retiring
heard zip howling somewhere across the street he was crying in such a pitiful frightened manner that the doctor knew he must be fast somewhere or hurt so he could not get home
with the worried tabby close at his heels the doctor made the circuit of the house and stable yard but could find no zip the howls seemed to come from up in the air somewhere as from the top of the house
so finally the doctor rapped on the hardway kitchen door to ask the maid if zip had not slipped in the house and gotten up on the roof he knocked repeatedly but no one answered as he still heard zip howling
and several people were talking all at once he made bold to open the door and step in what he saw you already know as by this time the children had started to bathe zip the doctor was told to go right upstairs
when he appeared in the door all the children stopped laughing and stepped back to give him a chance to see zip and this is what he saw just one of zip's eyes stuck out of a hole where the candy had dropped off
and his poor little tail stuck out like a handle on the other side of the ball that was all that could be seen of zip at that moment for in his numerous rolls the candy had spread all over him until he was no longer a dog with legs
but just one round ball of molasses candy seeing the water was fast climbing up to where it would reach zip's mouth and knowing it would drown him the doctor turned off the spigot
the children had never thought that the poor dog could not move his head to keep out of the water now the doctor hurriedly took off his coat rolled up his sleeves and in a jiffy had zip and the molasses ball in his hands
and was holding it so that the water could not get to zip's head then with one hand he gently threw the water upon the candy until it began to loosen and fall off first he released the little dog's head
which had been bent down between his fore legs as the candy began to loosen and drop off first one black ear stood up and then the other and last the little legs began to shoot out
all this made the children laugh to see what appeared to be a big ball of candy develop into a little dog at last when zip was entirely clean and had been wrapped in a big bath towel to dry
so when the doctor began to apologize missus hardway stopped him short and told him to drink zip's health in a glass of freshly made lemonade and say no more about it the doctor thanking her from the bottom of his heart
drank not to zip's health but to hers and thus the exciting evening ended peacefully and everyone was happy including zip as the doctor gave him all the maraschino cherries in his glass something he dearly loved
brandreth's pills magnificent advertising power of imagination in the year eighteen thirty four doctor benjamin brandreth commenced advertising in the city of new york
brandreth's pills specially recommended to purify the blood his office consisted of a room about ten feet square located in what was then known as the sun building
his factory was at his residence in hudson street he put up a large gilt sign over the sun office five or six feet wide by the length of the building which attracted much attention as at that time it was probably the largest sign in new york
and by purgation with brandreth's pills all disease may be cured but great and reasonable as might have been the faith of doctor brandreth in the efficacy of his pills his faith in the potency of advertising them was equally strong
hence he commenced advertising largely in the sun newspaper paying at least five thousand dollars to that paper alone for his first year's advertisements
but at the time brandreth started his was considered the most liberal newspaper advertising of the day advertising is to a genuine article what manure is to land it largely increases the product
thousands of persons may be reading your advertisement while you are eating or sleeping or attending to your business hence public attention is attracted new customers come to you and if you render them a satisfactory equivalent for their money
they continue to patronize you and recommend you to their friends at the commencement of his career doctor brandreth was indebted to mister moses y beach proprietor of the new york sun for encouragement and means of advertising
solely to the advertising department column upon column of advertisements appeared in the newspapers in the shape of learned and scientific pathological dissertations the very reading of which would tempt a poor mortal to rush for a box of brandreth's pills
so evident was it according to the advertisement that nobody ever had or ever would have pure blood until from one to a dozen boxes of the pills had been taken as purifiers
the ingenuity displayed in concocting these advertisements was superb and was probably hardly equaled by that required to concoct the pills no pain ache twinge or other sensation good bad or indifferent
ever experienced by a member of the human family but was a most irrefragable evidence of the impurity of the blood and it would have been blasphemy to have denied the self evident theory that
all diseases arise from impurity or imperfect circulation of the blood and that by purgation with brandreth's pills all disease may be cured the doctor claims that his grandfather first manufactured the pills in seventeen fifty one
i suppose this may be true at all events no living man will be apt to testify to the contrary here is an extract from one of doctor brandreth's early advertisements which will give an idea of his style
what has been longest known has been most considered and what has been most considered is best understood the life of the flesh is in the blood
bleeding reduces the vital powers brandreth's pills increase them so in sickness never be bled especially in dizziness and apoplexy but always use brandreth's pills
the laws of life are written upon the face of nature the tempest whirlwind and thunder storm bring health from the solitudes of god the tides are the daily agitators and purifiers of the mighty world of waters
what these providential means are as purifiers of the atmosphere or air brandreth's pills are to man this splendid system of advertising and the almost reckless outlay which was required to keep it up
challenged the admiration of the business community in the course of a few years his office was enlarged and still being too small
a funny incident occurred to me in connection with this great pill in the year eighteen thirty six while i was travelling through the states of alabama mississippi and louisiana i became convinced by reading doctor brandreth's advertisements that i needed his pills
effect was miraculous of course it was just what the advertisement told me it would be in tuscaloosa alabama i purchased half a dozen boxes
and i was a confirmed disciple of the blood theory there i laid in a dozen boxes in natchez i made a similar purchase in new orleans where i remained several months i was a profitable customer
and had become thoroughly convinced that the only real greenhorns in the world were those who preferred meat or bread to brandreth's pills i took them morning noon and night in fact the advertisements announced that one could not take too many
for if one box was sufficient to purify the blood eleven extra boxes would have no injurious effect i arrived in new york in june eighteen thirty eight and by that time i had become such a firm believer in the efficacy of brandreth's pills
that i hardly stopped long enough to speak with my family before i hastened to the principal office of doctor brandreth to congratulate him on being the greatest public benefactor of the age i found the doctor at home
and introduced myself without ceremony i told him my experiences he was delighted i next heartily indorsed every word stated in his advertisements he was not surprised for he knew the effects of his pills were such as i described
still he was elated in having another witness whose extensive experiments with his pills were so eminently satisfactory the doctor and myself were both happy he in being able to do so much good to mankind
i in being the recipient of such untold benefits through his valuable discovery at last the doctor chanced to say that he wondered how i happened to get his pills in natchez
poisonous compounds i never sell a pill to a druggist i never permit an apothecary to handle one of my pills but they counterfeit them by the bushel the unprincipled heartless murderous impostors
and told the doctor that after all it seemed the counterfeits were as good as the real pills provided the patient had sufficient faith the doctor was puzzled as well as vexed but an idea struck him that soon enabled him to recover his usual equanimity
i'll tell you what it is said he those southern druggists have undoubtedly obtained the pills from me under false pretences
and then they have retailed the pills from their drug shops i laughed at this shrewd suggestion and remarked this may be so but i guess my imagination did the business
the doctor was uneasy but he asked me as a favor to bring him one of the empty pill boxes which i had brought from the south the next day i complied with his request and i will do the doctor justice to say that on comparison it proved as he had suspected
the pills were genuine and although he had advertised that no druggist should sell them they were so popular that druggists found it necessary to get them by hook or by crook and the consequence was i had the pleasure of a glorious laugh
and doctor brandreth experienced a great scare the doctor made his pile long ago
whose life giving power no pen can describe
where he still resides and was re elected to the same office for seven consecutive years in the same year he was elected to the new york state senate and in eighteen fifty nine was again elected
doctor brandreth is a liberal man and a pleasant entertaining and edifying companion he deserves all the success he has ever received
and in which their majesties were to dance the famous la merlaison the favorite ballet of the king
the city carpenters had erected scaffolds upon which the invited ladies were to be placed the city grocer had ornamented the chambers with two hundred flambeaux of white wax a piece of luxury unheard of at that period
and twenty violins were ordered and the price for them fixed at double the usual rate upon condition said the report that they should be played all night
ensign in the king's guards followed by two officers and several archers of that body came to the city registrar named clement and demanded of him all the keys of the rooms and offices of the hotel
these keys were given up to him instantly each of them had ticket attached to it by which it might be recognized and from that moment the sieur de la coste was charged with the care of all the doors and all the avenues
at six in the evening the guests began to come as fast as they entered they were placed in the grand saloon on the platforms prepared for them at nine o'clock madame la premiere presidente arrived
as next to the queen she was the most considerable personage of the fete she was received by the city officials and placed in a box opposite to that which the queen was to occupy at ten o'clock the king's collation consisting of preserves and other delicacies
was prepared in the little room on the side of the church of saint jean in front of the silver buffet of the city which was guarded by four archers at midnight great cries and loud acclamations were heard it was the king
and which were all illuminated with colored lanterns
each holding a flambeau in his hand went to attend upon the king whom they met on the steps where the provost of the merchants made him the speech of welcome a compliment to which his majesty replied with an apology for coming so late
laying the blame upon the cardinal who had detained him till eleven o'clock talking of affairs of state his majesty in full dress was accompanied by his royal highness
a private room had been prepared for the king and another for monsieur
the same had been done for the queen and madame the president the nobles and ladies of their majesties suites were to dress two by two in chambers prepared for the purpose
before entering his closet the king desired to be informed the moment the cardinal arrived half an hour after the entrance of the king fresh acclamations were heard these announced the arrival of the queen
advanced to receive their illustrious guest the queen entered the great hall and it was remarked that like the king she looked dull and even weary at the moment she entered the curtain of a small gallery which to that time had been closed
was drawn and the pale face of the cardinal appeared he being dressed as a spanish cavalier his eyes were fixed upon those of the queen and a smile of terrible joy passed over his lips the queen did not wear her diamond studs
the queen remained for a short time to receive the compliments of the city dignitaries and to reply to the salutations of the ladies all at once the king appeared with the cardinal at one of the doors of the hall
the cardinal was speaking to him in a low voice and the king was very pale the king made his way through the crowd without a mask and the ribbons of his doublet scarcely tied he went straight to the queen and in an altered voice said
why madame have you not thought proper to wear your diamond studs when you know it would give me so much gratification the queen cast a glance around her and saw the cardinal behind with a diabolical smile on his countenance
the voice of the king was tremulous with anger everybody looked and listened with astonishment comprehending nothing of what passed sire said the queen
i can send for them to the louvre where they are and thus your majesty's wishes will be complied with do so madame do so and that at once for within an hour the ballet will commence the queen bent in token of submission
on his part the king returned to his apartment there was a moment of trouble and confusion in the assembly everybody had remarked that something had passed between the king and queen but both of them had spoken so low that everybody
out of respect withdrew several steps so that nobody had heard anything the violins began to sound with all their might but nobody listened to them the king came out first from his room he was in a most elegant hunting costume
and monsieur and the other nobles were dressed like him this was the costume that best became the king so dressed he really appeared the first gentleman of his kingdom
the king opened it and found in it two diamond studs what does this mean demanded he of the cardinal nothing replied the latter only if the queen has the studs which i very much doubt count them sire
a surtout of gray pearl velvet fastened with diamond clasps and a petticoat of blue satin embroidered with silver on her left shoulder sparkled the diamond studs on a bow of the same color as the plumes and the petticoat
the king trembled with joy and the cardinal with vexation
the queen had them the only question was had she ten or twelve at that moment the violins sounded the signal for the ballet the king advanced toward madame the president with whom he was to dance
and his highness monsieur with the queen they took their places and the ballet began the king danced facing the queen and every time he passed by her he devoured with his eyes those studs of which he could not ascertain the number
but the king took advantage of the privilege he had of leaving his lady to advance eagerly toward the queen i thank you madame said he for the deference you have shown to my wishes but i think you want two of the studs and i bring them back to you
with these words he held out to the queen the two studs the cardinal had given him how sire cried the young queen affecting surprise you are giving me then two more i shall have fourteen
in fact the king counted them and the twelve studs were all on her majesty's shoulder the king called the cardinal what does this mean monsieur cardinal asked the king in a severe tone this means sire replied the cardinal
to whom anne of austria owed the extraordinary triumph she had obtained over the cardinal and who confounded unknown lost in the crowd gathered at one of the doors
the king the queen his eminence and himself the queen had just regained her chamber and d'artagnan was about to retire when he felt his shoulder lightly touched he turned and saw a young woman who made him a sign to follow her
the face of this young woman was covered with a black velvet mask but notwithstanding this precaution which was in fact taken rather against others than against him he at once recognized his usual guide the light and intelligent
on the evening before they had scarcely seen each other for a moment at the apartment of the swiss guard germain whither d'artagnan had sent for her
the haste which the young woman was in to convey to the queen the excellent news of the happy return of her messenger prevented the two lovers from exchanging more than a few words
moved by a double sentiment love and curiosity all the way and in proportion as the corridors became more deserted d'artagnan wished to stop the young woman seize her and gaze upon her were it only for a minute
but quick as a bird she glided between his hands and when he wished to speak to her her finger placed upon her mouth with a little imperative gesture full of grace reminded him that he was under the command of a power which he must blindly obey
and which forbade him even to make the slightest complaint at length after winding about for a minute or two
which was entirely dark and led d'artagnan into it there she made a fresh sign of silence and opened a second door concealed by tapestry the opening of this door disclosed a brilliant light and she disappeared
but soon a ray of light which penetrated through the chamber together with the warm and perfumed air which reached him from the same aperture the conversation of two of three ladies in language at once respectful and refined
and the word majesty several times repeated indicated clearly that he was in a closet attached to the queen's apartment the young man waited in comparative darkness and listened the queen appeared cheerful and happy
which seemed to astonish the persons who surrounded her and who were accustomed to see her almost always sad and full of care the queen attributed this joyous feeling to the beauty of the fete
he soon distinguished her voice from the others at first by a slightly foreign accent and next by that tone of domination naturally impressed upon all royal words he heard her approach and withdraw from the partially open door
and twice or three times he even saw the shadow of a person intercept the light at length a hand and an arm surpassingly beautiful in their form and whiteness glided through the tapestry
d'artagnan at once comprehended that this was his recompense he cast himself on his knees seized the hand and touched it respectfully with his lips
then the hand was withdrawn leaving in his an object which he perceived to be a ring the door immediately closed and d'artagnan found himself again in complete obscurity d'artagnan placed the ring on his finger and again waited
it was evident that all was not yet over after the reward of his devotion that of his love was to come besides although the ballet was danced the evening had scarcely begun supper was to be served at three
and the clock of saint jean had struck three quarters past two the sound of voices diminished by degrees in the adjoining chamber the company was then heard departing then the door of the closet in which d'artagnan was was opened
you at last cried d'artagnan silence said the young woman placing her hand upon his lips silence and go the same way you came but where and when shall i see you again cried d'artagnan
a note which you will find at home will tell you begone begone at these words she opened the door of the corridor and pushed d'artagnan out of the room d'artagnan obeyed like a child without the least resistance or objection
a procurator's dinner however brilliant had been the part played by porthos in the duel it had not made him forget the dinner of the procurator's wife on the morrow he received the last touches of mousqueton's brush for an hour
his heart beat but not like d'artagnan's with a young and impatient love no a more material interest stirred his blood he was about at last to pass that mysterious threshold
he was about to see in reality a certain coffer of which he had twenty times beheld the image in his dreams a coffer long and deep locked bolted fastened in the wall a coffer of which he had so often heard
to smooth the yellow wrinkled brow of the old procurator
in their utmost nicety and winning from them by way of fee for the lesson he would give them in an hour their savings of a month all this was enormously delightful to porthos
the musketeer could not forget the evil reports which then prevailed and which indeed have survived them of the procurators of the period meanness stinginess fasts but as after all
and yet at the very door the musketeer began to entertain some doubts the approach was not such as to prepossess people
an ill smelling dark passage a staircase half lighted by bars through which stole a glimmer from a neighboring yard on the first floor a low door studded with enormous nails
porthos knocked with his hand a tall pale clerk his face shaded by a forest of virgin hair opened the door and bowed with the air of a man forced at once to respect in another lofty stature which indicated strength
the military dress which indicated rank and a ruddy countenance which indicated familiarity with good living a shorter clerk came behind the first a taller clerk behind the second
a stripling of a dozen years rising behind the third in all three clerks and a half which for the time argued a very extensive clientage although the musketeer was not expected before one o'clock
the procurator's wife had been on the watch ever since midday reckoning that the heart or perhaps the stomach of her lover would bring him before his time
and the appearance of the worthy lady relieved him from an awkward embarrassment the clerks surveyed him with great curiosity and he not knowing well what to say to this ascending and descending scale remained tongue tied
it is my cousin cried the procurator's wife come in come in monsieur porthos the name of porthos produced its effect upon the clerks who began to laugh but porthos turned sharply round
littered with papers on quitting the study they left the kitchen on the right and entered the reception room all these rooms which communicated with one another did not inspire porthos favorably words might be heard at a distance through all these open doors
to the shame of the procurator's wife and his own regret that he did not see that fire that animation that bustle which when a good repast is on foot prevails generally in that sanctuary of good living
the procurator had without doubt been warned of his visit as he expressed no surprise at the sight of porthos who advanced toward him with a sufficiently easy air and saluted him courteously
we are cousins it appears monsieur porthos said the procurator rising yet supporting his weight upon the arms of his cane chair the old man wrapped in a large black doublet
in which the whole of his slender body was concealed was brisk and dry his little gray eyes shone like carbuncles and appeared with his grinning mouth to be the only part of his face in which life survived
yes monsieur we are cousins said porthos without being disconcerted as he had never reckoned upon being received enthusiastically by the husband by the female side i believe said the procurator maliciously
porthos did not feel the ridicule of this and took it for a piece of simplicity at which he laughed in his large mustache
smiled a little and colored a great deal
frequently cast his eyes with great uneasiness upon a large chest placed in front of his oak desk porthos comprehended that this chest although it did not correspond in shape with that which he had seen in his dreams must be the blessed coffer
but withdrawing his anxious look from the chest and fixing it upon porthos he contented himself with saying monsieur our cousin will do us the favor of dining with us once before his departure for the campaign will he not madame coquenard
this time porthos received the blow right in his stomach and felt it
that we must entreat him to give us every instant he can call his own previous to his departure oh my legs my poor legs where are you murmured coquenard and he tried to smile
this succor which came to porthos at the moment in which he was attacked in his gastronomic hopes inspired much gratitude in the musketeer toward the procurator's wife the hour of dinner soon arrived
they passed into the eating room a large dark room situated opposite the kitchen the clerks who as it appeared had smelled unusual perfumes in the house were of military punctuality
and held their stools in hand quite ready to sit down their jaws moved preliminarily with fearful threatenings indeed thought porthos casting a glance at the three hungry clerks
for the errand boy as might be expected was not admitted to the honors of the magisterial table in my cousin's place i would not keep such gourmands they look like shipwrecked sailors who have not eaten for six weeks
whom porthos assisted in rolling her husband up to the table
oh oh said he here is a soup which is rather inviting what the devil can they smell so extraordinary in this soup said porthos at the sight of a pale liquid abundant but entirely free from meat
on the surface of which a few crusts swam about as rare as the islands of an archipelago
and upon a sign from her everyone eagerly took his seat
at this moment the door of the dining room unclosed with a creak and porthos perceived through the half open flap the little clerk who not being allowed to take part in the feast ate his dry bread in the passage with the double odor of the dining room and kitchen
after the soup the maid brought a boiled fowl a piece of magnificence which caused the eyes of the diners to dilate in such a manner that they seemed ready to burst
you are certainly treating your cousin very handsomely the poor fowl was thin and covered with one of those thick bristly skins through which the teeth cannot penetrate with all their efforts the fowl must have been sought for a long time on the perch
to which it had retired to die of old age the devil thought porthos this is poor work i respect old age but i don't much like it boiled or roasted
but on the contrary he saw nothing but eager eyes which were devouring in anticipation that sublime fowl which was the object of his contempt
cut off the neck which with the head she put on one side for herself raised the wing for porthos and then returned the bird otherwise intact to the servant who had brought it in
that at first sight one might have believed to have some meat on them pretended to show themselves but the clerks were not the dupes of this deceit and their lugubrious looks settled down into resigned countenances
the time for wine came
served himself in about the same proportion
the young men filled up their third of a glass with water then when they had drunk half the glass they filled it up again and continued to do so this brought them by the end of the repast to swallowing a drink
as it came in search of his he also drank half a glass of this sparingly served wine and found it to be nothing but that horrible montreuil the terror of all expert palates
take my advice don't touch them devil take me if i taste one of them murmured porthos to himself and then said aloud thank you my cousin i am no longer hungry there was silence porthos could hardly keep his countenance
the procurator repeated several times ah madame coquenard accept my compliments your dinner has been a real feast lord how i have eaten
the black feet of the fowl and the only mutton bone on which there was the least appearance of meat porthos fancied they were mystifying him and began to curl his mustache and knit his eyebrows
they arose slowly from the table folded their napkins more slowly still bowed and retired go young men go and promote digestion by working said the procurator gravely
and took from a buffet a piece of cheese some preserved quinces and a cake which she had herself made of almonds and honey
porthos bit his lips because he saw not the wherewithal to dine he looked to see if the dish of beans was still there the dish of beans had disappeared
porthos looked at the bottle which was near him and hoped that with wine bread and cheese he might make a dinner but wine was wanting the bottle was empty
this is fine said porthos to himself i am prettily caught
now said he the sacrifice is consummated ah if i had not the hope of peeping with madame coquenard into her husband's chest
felt the want of a siesta porthos began to hope that the thing would take place at the present sitting and in that same locality but the procurator would listen to nothing he would be taken to his room
upon the edge of which for still greater precaution he placed his feet the procurator's wife took porthos into an adjoining room and they began to lay the basis of a reconciliation you can come and dine three times a week
but of what then does the equipment of your company consist monsieur porthos oh of many things said porthos the musketeers are as you know picked soldiers
and they require many things useless to the guardsmen or the swiss but yet detail them to me why they may amount to said porthos who preferred discussing the total to taking them one by one
the procurator's wife waited tremblingly to how much said she i hope it does not exceed she stopped
oh no said porthos it does not exceed two thousand five hundred livres i even think that with economy i could manage it with two thousand livres good god cried she two thousand livres
porthos made a most significant grimace
i wished to know the detail said she because having many relatives in business i was almost sure of obtaining things at a hundred per cent less than you would pay yourself ah ah said porthos
that is what you meant to say yes dear monsieur porthos thus for instance don't you in the first place want a horse yes a horse well then i can just suit you ah said porthos brightening
that's well as regards my horse but i must have the appointments complete as they include objects which a musketeer alone can purchase and which will not amount besides to more than three hundred livres
porthos smiled it may be remembered that he had the saddle which came from buckingham
then continued he there is a horse for my lackey and my valise
a horse for your lackey resumed the procurator's wife hesitatingly
ah madame said porthos haughtily do you take me for a beggar no
well agreed for a pretty mule said porthos you are right i have seen very great spanish nobles whose whole suite were mounted on mules but then you understand madame coquenard a mule with feathers and bells
be satisfied said the procurator's wife there remains the valise added porthos
my husband has five or six valises you shall choose the best there is one in particular which he prefers in his journeys large enough to hold all the world your valise is then empty asked porthos with simplicity
ah but the valise i want cried porthos is a well filled one my dear madame uttered fresh sighs moliere had not written his scene in l'avare then
finally the rest of the equipment was successively debated in the same manner
these conditions being agreed to
the latter wished to detain him by darting certain tender glances but porthos urged the commands of duty and the procurator's wife was obliged to give place to the king
the atlanta exposition at which i had been asked to make an address as a representative of the negro race as stated in the last chapter was opened with a short address from governor bullock after other interesting exercises including an invocation from bishop nelson of georgia
as i remember it now the thing that was uppermost in my mind was the desire to say something that would cement the friendship of the races and bring about hearty cooperation between them
i but convey to you mister president and directors the sentiment of the masses of my race when i say that in no way have the value and manhood of the american negro been more fittingly and generously recognized
than by the managers of this magnificent exposition at every stage of its progress it is a recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom
not only this but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress ignorant and inexperienced it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom
that a seat in congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm or truck garden
cast down your bucket where you are a second time the signal water water send us water ran up from the distressed vessel and was answered cast down your bucket where you are and a third and fourth signal for water was answered cast down your bucket where you are
the captain of the distressed vessel at last heading the injunction cast down his bucket and it came up full of fresh sparkling water from the mouth of the amazon river
to those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the southern white man who is their next door neighbour i would say
no race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem it is at the bottom of life we must begin
builded your railroads and cities and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the south casting down your bucket among my people helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds
and to education of head hand and heart you will find that they will buy your surplus land make blossom the waste places in your fields and run your factories
while doing this you can be sure in the future as in the past that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient faithful law abiding and unresentful people that the world has seen
as we have proved our loyalty to you in the past nursing your children watching by the sick bed of your mothers and fathers
there is no defence or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all if anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the negro let these efforts be turned into stimulating encouraging and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen
the laws of changeless justice bind oppressor with oppressed and close as sin and suffering joined we march to fate abreast nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward or they will pull against you the load downward
we shall constitute one third and more of the ignorance and crime of the south or one third its intelligence and progress we shall contribute one third to the business and industrial prosperity of the south or we shall prove a veritable body of death stagnating depressing retarding every effort to advance the body politic
starting thirty years ago with ownership here and there in a few quilts and pumpkins and chickens gathered from miscellaneous sources remember the path that has led from these to the inventions and production of agricultural implements buggies steam engines newspapers books
statuary carving paintings the management of drug stores and banks has not been trodden without contact with thorns and thistles while we take pride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts we do not for a moment forget that our part in this exhibition would fall far short of your expectations
but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercises of these privileges the opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera house
in conclusion may i repeat that nothing in thirty years has given us more hope and encouragement
and drawn us so near to you of the white race as this opportunity offered by the exposition and here bending as it were over the altar that represents the results of the struggles of your race and mine both starting practically empty handed three decades ago i pledge that in your effort to work out the great and intricate problem which god has laid at the doors of the south
you shall have at all times the patient sympathetic help of my race
i received so many and such hearty congratulations that i found it difficult to get out of the building i did not appreciate to any degree however the impression which my address seemed to have made until the next morning when i went into the business part of the city
as soon as i was recognized i was surprised to find myself pointed out and surrounded by a crowd of men who wished to shake hands with me
telegraphed to a new york paper among other words the following i do not exaggerate when i say that professor booker t washington's address yesterday was one of the most notable speeches both as to character and as to the warmth of its reception ever delivered to a southern audience
the address was a revelation the whole speech is a platform upon which blacks and whites can stand with full justice to each other the boston transcript said editorially
one lecture bureau offered me fifty thousand dollars or two hundred dollars a night and expenses if i would place my services at its disposal for a given period
some days after its delivery i sent a copy of my address to the president of the united states the hon grover cleveland i received from him the following autograph reply
yours very truly grover cleveland later i met mister cleveland for the first time when as president he visited the atlanta exposition
at the request of myself and others he consented to spend an hour in the negro building for the purpose of inspecting the negro exhibit and of giving the coloured people in attendance an opportunity to shake hands with him as soon as i met mister cleveland i became impressed with his simplicity greatness and rugged honesty
but has always consented to do anything i have asked of him for our school this he has done whether it was to make a personal donation or to use his influence in securing the donations of others judging from my personal acquaintance with mister cleveland i do not believe that he is conscious of possessing any colour prejudice
he is too great for that in my contact with people i find that as a rule it is only the little narrow people who live for themselves who never read good books who do not travel
i have also found that few things if any are capable of making one so blind and narrow as race prejudice i often say to our students in the course of my talks to them on sunday evenings in the chapel that the longer i live and the more experience i have of the world
the more i am convinced that after all the one thing that is most worth living for and dying for if need be is the opportunity of making some one else more happy and more useful
but after the first burst of enthusiasm began to die away and the coloured people began reading the speech in cold type some of them seemed to feel that they had been hypnotized they seemed to feel that i had been too liberal in my remarks toward the southern whites
but later these reactionary ones seemed to have been won over to my way of believing and acting while speaking of changes in public sentiment i recall that about ten years after the school at tuskegee was established i had an experience that i shall never forget
i wrote the letter giving the exact facts as i conceived them to be the picture painted was a rather black one or since i am black shall i say white it could not be otherwise with a race but a few years out of slavery a race which had not had time or opportunity to produce a competent ministry
this missionary had a son in the school and i noticed that whatever the missionary might have said or done with regard to others he was careful not to take his son away from the institution
i knew that i was right and that time and the sober second thought of the people would vindicate me it was not long before the bishops and other church leaders began to make careful investigation of the conditions of the ministry and they found out that i was right
in fact the oldest and most influential bishop in one branch of the methodist church said that my words were far too mild very soon public sentiment began making itself felt in demanding a purifying of the ministry
i have had the satisfaction of having many who once condemned me thank me heartily for my frank words the change of the attitude of the negro ministry so far as regards myself is so complete that at the present time i have no warmer friends among any class than i have among the clergymen
the improvement in the character and life of the negro ministers is one of the most gratifying evidences of the progress of the race my experience with them as well as other events in my life convince me that the thing to do when one feels sure that he has said or done the right thing and is condemned
is to stand still and keep quiet if he is right time will show it in the midst of the discussion which was going on concerning my atlanta speech i received the letter which i give below from doctor gilman the president of johns hopkins university
who had been made chairman of the judges of award in connection with the atlanta exposition johns hopkins university baltimore president's office september thirtieth eighteen ninety five dear mister washington
would it be agreeable to you to be one of the judges of award in the department of education at atlanta if so i shall be glad to place your name upon the list a line by telegraph will be welcomed yours very truly d c gilman
to pass not only upon the exhibits of the coloured schools but also upon those of the white schools i accepted the position and spent a month in atlanta in performance of the duties which it entailed
the board of jurors was a large one containing in all of sixty members it was about equally divided between southern white people and northern white people among them were college presidents leading scientists and men of letters and specialists in many subjects
when the group of jurors to which i was assigned met for organization mister thomas nelson page who was one of the number moved that i be made secretary of that division and the motion was unanimously adopted nearly half of our division were southern people
in performing my duties in the inspection of the exhibits of white schools i was in every case treated with respect and at the close of our labours i parted from my associates with regret
although i have never before said so in so many words that the time will come when the negro in the south will be accorded all the political rights which his ability character and material possessions entitle him to i think though that the opportunity to freely exercise such political rights
will not come in any large degree through outside or artificial forcing but will be accorded to the negro by the southern white people themselves
in fact there are indications that it is already beginning in a slight degree let me illustrate my meaning suppose that some months before the opening of the atlanta exposition there had been a general demand from the press and public platform outside the south that a negro be given a place on the opening programme
and that a negro be placed upon the board of jurors of award would any such recognition of the race have taken place i do not think so
to deport himself modestly in regard to political claims depending upon the slow but sure influences that proceed from the possession of property intelligence and high character for the full recognition of his political rights i think that the according of the full exercise of political rights is going to be a matter of natural slow growth not an over night gourd vine affair
i do not believe that the negro should cease voting for a man cannot learn the exercise of self government by ceasing to vote any more than a boy can learn to swim by keeping out of the water but i do believe that in his voting
he should more and more be influenced by those of intelligence and character who are his next door neighbours i know coloured men who through the encouragement help and advice of southern white people
have accumulated thousands of dollars worth of property but who at the same time would never think of going to those same persons for advice concerning the casting of their ballots this it seems to me is unwise and unreasonable and should cease
in saying this i do not mean that the negro should truckle or not vote from principle for the instant he ceases to vote from principle he loses the confidence and respect of the southern white man even
such a law is not only unjust but it will react as all unjust laws do in time for the effect of such a law is to encourage the negro to secure education and property and at the same time it encourages the white man to remain in ignorance and poverty
and that the man who does this ends his career of dishonesty by the theft of property or by some equally serious crime in my opinion the time will come when the south will encourage all of its citizens to vote it will see that it pays better from every standpoint to have healthy vigorous life
than to have that political stagnation which always results when one half of the population has no share and no interest in the government
i shall say of them what you were saying of the others that as they grow older they become rulers in their own city if they care to be
they marry whom they like and give in marriage to whom they will all that you said of the others i now say of these and on the other hand of the unjust i say that the greater number
and you may suppose that i have repeated the remainder of your tale of horrors but will you let me assume without reciting them that these things are true
certainly he said what you say is true these then are the prizes and rewards and gifts which are bestowed upon the just by gods and men in this present life in addition to the other good things which justice of herself provides yes he said
and they are fair and lasting and yet i said all these are as nothing either in number or greatness in comparison with those other recompenses which await both just and unjust after death and you ought to hear them
not one of the tales which odysseus tells to the hero alcinous yet this too is a tale of a hero
and that they came to a mysterious place at which there were two openings in the earth they were near together and over against them were two other openings in the heaven above in the intermediate space there were judges seated
who commanded the just after they had given judgment on them and had bound their sentences in front of them to ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand and in like manner the unjust were bidden by them to descend by the lower way on the left hand
these also bore the symbols of their deeds but fastened on their backs he drew near and they told him that he was to be the messenger who would carry the report of the other world to men and they bade him hear and see all that was to be heard and seen in that place
and arriving ever and anon they seemed to have come from a long journey and they went forth with gladness into the meadow where they encamped as at a festival and those who knew one another embraced and conversed the souls which came from earth curiously enquiring about the things above
those from below weeping and sorrowing at the remembrance of the things which they had endured and seen in their journey beneath the earth now the journey lasted a thousand years while those from above were describing heavenly delights and visions of inconceivable beauty
if for example there were any who had been the cause of many deaths or had betrayed or enslaved cities or armies or been guilty of any other evil behaviour for each and all of their offences they received punishment ten times over
of piety and impiety to gods and parents and of murderers there were retributions other and greater far which he described he mentioned that he was present when one of the spirits asked another where is ardiaeus the great
now this ardiaeus lived a thousand years before the time of er he had been the tyrant of some city of pamphylia and had murdered his aged father and his elder brother and was said to have committed many other abominable crimes the answer of the other spirit was
he comes not hither and will never come and this said he was one of the dreadful sights which we ourselves witnessed we were at the mouth of the cavern and having completed all our experiences were about to reascend when of a sudden ardiaeus appeared and several others
most of whom were tyrants and there were also besides the tyrants private individuals who had been great criminals
they were just as they fancied about to return into the upper world but the mouth instead of admitting them gave a roar whenever any of these incurable sinners or some one who had not been sufficiently punished tried to ascend
and then wild men of fiery aspect who were standing by and heard the sound seized and carried them off
and threw them down and flayed them with scourges and dragged them along the road at the side carding them on thorns like wool and declaring to the passers by what were their crimes and that they were being taken away to be cast into hell and of all the many terrors which they had endured he said that
and when there was silence one by one they ascended with exceeding joy these said er were the penalties and retributions and there were blessings as great
on the fourth day after he said that they came to a place where they could see from above a line of light straight as a column
from these ends is extended the spindle of necessity on which all the revolutions turn the shaft and hook of this spindle are made of steel and the whorl is made partly of steel and also partly of other materials
now the whorl is in form like the whorl used on earth and the description of it implied that there is one large hollow whorl which is quite scooped out and into this is fitted another lesser one and another
and another and four others making eight in all like vessels which fit into one another the whorls show their edges on the upper side and on their lower side all together form one continuous whorl this is pierced by the spindle which is driven home through the centre of the eighth
the sixth is next to the first in size the fourth next to the sixth then comes the eighth the seventh is fifth the fifth is sixth the third is seventh last and eighth comes the second the largest or fixed stars is spangled and the seventh
or sun is brightest the eighth or moon coloured by the reflected light of the seventh the second and fifth saturn and mercury are in colour like one another and yellower than the preceding the third venus has the whitest light
the fourth mars is reddish the sixth jupiter is in whiteness second now the whole spindle has the same motion but as the whole revolves in one direction the seven inner circles move slowly in the other and of these the swiftest is the eighth
the third appeared fourth and the second fifth the spindle turns on the knees of necessity and on the upper surface of each circle is a siren who goes round with them hymning a single tone or note the eight together form one harmony
who accompany with their voices the harmony of the sirens lachesis singing of the past clotho of the present
clotho from time to time
and lachesis laying hold of either in turn first with one hand and then with the other when er and the spirits arrived their duty was to go at once to lachesis
mortal souls behold a new cycle of life and mortality your genius will not be allotted to you but you will choose your genius and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny
virtue is free and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her the responsibility is with the chooser god is justified
when the interpreter had thus spoken he scattered lots indifferently among them all and each of them took up the lot which fell near him all but er himself he was not allowed and each as he took his lot perceived the number which he had obtained
then the interpreter placed on the ground before them the samples of lives and there were many more lives than the souls present and they were of all sorts there were lives of every animal and of man in every condition and there were tyrannies among them some lasting out the tyrant's life
others which broke off in the middle and came to an end in poverty and exile and beggary and there were lives of famous men some who were famous for their form and beauty as well as for their strength and success in games or again for their birth and the qualities of their ancestors
and some who were the reverse of famous for the opposite qualities and of women likewise there was not however any definite character in them because the soul when choosing a new life must of necessity become different
and so to choose always and everywhere the better life as he has opportunity he should consider the bearing of all these things which have been mentioned severally and collectively upon virtue
of strength and weakness of cleverness and dullness and of all the natural and acquired gifts of the soul and the operation of them when conjoined
and good to the life which will make his soul more just all else he will disregard
for we have seen and know that this is the best choice both in life and after death a man must take with him into the world below an adamantine faith in truth and right that there too he may be undazzled by the desire of wealth or the other allurements of evil
not only in this life but in all that which is to come for this is the way of happiness and according to the report of the messenger from the other world this was what the prophet said at the time even for the last comer if he chooses wisely and will live diligently
there is appointed a happy and not undesirable existence let not him who chooses first be careless and let not the last despair
and when he had spoken he who had the first choice came forward and in a moment chose the greatest tyranny his mind having been darkened by folly and sensuality he had not thought out the whole matter before he chose
and did not at first sight perceive that he was fated among other evils to devour his own children but when he had time to reflect and saw what was in the lot he began to beat his breast and lament over his choice forgetting the proclamation of the prophet
for instead of throwing the blame of his misfortune on himself he accused chance and the gods and everything rather than himself now he was one of those who came from heaven and in a former life had dwelt in a well ordered state but his virtue was a matter of habit only and he had no philosophy
and it was true of others who were similarly overtaken that the greater number of them came from heaven and therefore they had never been schooled by trial whereas the pilgrims who came from earth having themselves suffered and seen others suffer were not in a hurry to choose
and had been moderately fortunate in the number of the lot he might as the messenger reported be happy here and also his journey to another life and return to this instead of being rough and underground would be smooth and heavenly most curious he said was the spectacle
sad and laughable and strange for the choice of the souls was in most cases based on their experience of a previous life there he saw the soul which had once been orpheus choosing the life of a swan out of enmity to the race of women
hating to be born of a woman because they had been his murderers he beheld also the soul of thamyras choosing the life of a nightingale birds on the other hand like the swan and other musicians wanting to be men
who took the life of an eagle because like ajax he hated human nature by reason of his sufferings about the middle came the lot of atalanta she seeing the great fame of an athlete was unable to resist the temptation
and after her there followed the soul of epeus the son of panopeus passing into the nature of a woman cunning in the arts and far away among the last who chose the soul of the jester thersites was putting on the form of a monkey
he had some difficulty in finding this which was lying about and had been neglected by everybody else and when he saw it he said that he would have done the same had his lot been first instead of last and that he was delighted to have it and not only did men pass into animals
but i must also mention that there were animals tame and wild who changed into one another and into corresponding human natures the good into the gentle and the evil into the savage in all sorts of combinations all the souls had now chosen their lives
and they went in the order of their choice to lachesis who sent with them the genius whom they had severally chosen to be the guardian of their lives and the fulfiller of the choice this genius led the souls first to clotho and drew them within the revolution of the spindle impelled by her hand
whence without turning round they passed beneath the throne of necessity
and when they had all passed they marched on in a scorching heat to the plain of forgetfulness which was a barren waste destitute of trees and verdure and then towards evening they encamped by the river of unmindfulness whose water no vessel can hold
of this they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary and each one as he drank forgot all things now after they had gone to rest about the middle of the night there was a thunderstorm and earthquake
and we shall pass safely over the river of forgetfulness and our soul will not be defiled wherefore my counsel is that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always
now night her course began and over heav'n inducing darkness grateful truce impos'd and silence on the odious dinn of warr under her cloudie covert both retir'd victor and vanquisht
and void of rest his potentates to councel call'd by night and in the midst thus undismai'd began o now in danger tri'd now known in armes not to be overpowerd companions deare
found worthy not of libertie alone too mean pretense but what we more affect honour dominion glorie and renowne who have sustaind one day in doubtful fight
and if one day why not eternal dayes what heavens lord had powerfullest to send against us from about his throne and judg'd sufficient to subdue us to his will but proves not so
then fallible it seems of future we may deem him though till now omniscient thought true is less firmly arm'd some disadvantage we endur'd and paine till now not known
but known as soon contemnd since now we find this our empyreal forme incapable of mortal injurie imperishable and though peirc'd with wound soon closing and by native vigour heal'd
of evil then so small as easie think the remedie perhaps more valid armes weapons more violent when next we meet may serve to better us and worse our foes or equal what between us made the odds in nature none
if other hidden cause left them superiour while we can preserve unhurt our mindes and understanding sound due search and consultation will disclose
as one he stood escap't from cruel fight
and cloudie in aspect thus answering spake deliverer from new lords leader to free enjoyment of our right as gods yet hard for gods and too unequal work we find against unequal armes to fight in paine
against unpaind impassive from which evil ruin must needs ensue for what availes valour or strength though matchless quelld with pain which all subdues and makes remiss the hands of mightiest
but live content which is the calmest life but pain is perfet miserie the worst of evils and excessive overturnes all patience
he who therefore can invent with what more forcible we may offend our yet unwounded enemies or arme our selves with like defence to mee deserves no less then for deliverance what we owe whereto with look compos'd satan repli'd
which of us who beholds the bright surface of this ethereous mould whereon we stand this continent of spacious heav'n adornd with plant fruit flour ambrosial gemms and gold
whose eye so superficially surveyes these things as not to mind from whence they grow deep under ground materials dark and crude
till toucht with heav'ns ray and temperd they shoot forth so beauteous op'ning to the ambient light these in thir dark nativitie the deep shall yeild us pregnant with infernal flame which into hallow engins long and round thick rammd
dilated and infuriate shall send forth from far with thundring noise among our foes such implements of mischief as shall dash to pieces and orewhelm whatever stands adverse that they shall fear we have disarmd the thunderer
of his only dreaded bolt
mean while revive abandon fear to strength and counsel joind think nothing hard much less to be despaird he ended and his words thir drooping chere enlightn'd and thir languisht hope reviv'd
which yet unfound most would have thought impossible yet haply of thy race in future dayes if malice should abound some one intent on mischief or inspir'd with dev'lish machination might devise like instrument
to plague the sons of men for sin on warr and mutual slaughter bent forthwith from councel to the work they flew none arguing stood innumerable hands were ready in a moment up they turnd wide the celestial soile
sulphurous and nitrous foame they found they mingl'd and with suttle art concocted and adusted they reduc'd to blackest grain and into store conveyd part hidd'n veins diggd up nor hath this earth entrails unlike
of mineral and stone whereof to found thir engins and thir balls of missive ruin part incentive reed provide pernicious with one touch to fire so all ere day spring under conscious night secret they finish'd and in order set
now when fair morn orient in heav'n appeerd up rose the victor angels and to arms the matin trumpet sung in arms they stood of golden panoplie refulgent host soon banded others from the dawning hills lookd round
and scouts each coast light armed scoure each quarter to descrie the distant foe where lodg'd or whither fled or if for fight in motion or in alt
in slow but firm battalion back with speediest sail zephiel of cherubim the swiftest wing came flying and in mid aire aloud thus cri'd arme warriours arme for fight the foe at hand whom fled we thought
will save us long pursuit this day fear not his flight so thick a cloud he comes and settl'd in his face i see sad resolution and secure let each his adamantine coat gird well and each fit well his helme
gripe fast his orbed shield born e e v n or high for this day will pour down if i conjecture aught
so warnd he them aware themselves and soon in order quit of all impediment instant without disturb they took allarm and onward move embattelld when behold
not distant far with heavie pace the foe approaching gross and huge in hollow cube training his devilish enginrie impal'd on every side with shaddowing squadrons deep to hide the fraud at interview both stood a while
but suddenly at head appeerd satan and thus was heard commanding loud
and with open brest stand readie to receive them
which to our eyes discoverd new and strange a triple mounted row of pillars laid on wheels for like to pillars most they seem'd or hollow'd bodies made of oak or firr with branches lopt in wood or mountain fell'd
brass iron stonie mould had not thir mouthes with hideous orifice gap't on us wide portending hollow truce at each behind a seraph stood and in his hand a reed stood waving tipt with fire
while we suspense collected stood within our thoughts amus'd not long for sudden all at once
and forc't rout nor serv'd it to relax thir serried files what should they do if on they rusht repulse repeated and indecent overthrow doubl'd would render them yet more despis'd
another row in posture to displode thir second tire of thunder back defeated to return they worse abhorr'd satan beheld thir plight and to his mates thus in derision call'd
o friends why come not on these victors proud ere while they fierce were coming and when wee to entertain them fair with open front and brest what could we more propounded terms of composition
flew off and into strange vagaries fell as they would dance yet for a dance they seemd somwhat extravagant and wilde perhaps for joy of offerd peace but i suppose if our proposals once again were heard
we should compel them to a quick result
leader the terms we sent were terms of weight of hard contents and full of force urg'd home such as we might perceive amus'd them all and stumbl'd many who receives them right had need from head to foot well understand
not understood this gift they have besides they shew us when our foes walk not upright
and to the hills for earth hath this variety from heav'n of pleasure situate in hill and dale
with all thir load rocks waters woods and by the shaggie tops up lifting bore them in thir hands amaze be sure and terrour seis'd the rebel host when coming towards them so dread they saw the bottom of the mountains upward turn'd
they saw them whelmd and all thir confidence under the weight of mountains buried deep
which in the air came shadowing and opprest whole legions arm'd thir armor help'd thir harm
which wrought them pain implacable and many a dolorous groan long strugling underneath ere they could wind out of such prison though spirits of purest light purest at first now gross by sinning grown
the rest in imitation to like armes betook them and the neighbouring hills uptore so hills amid the air encounterd hills hurl'd to and fro with jaculation dire that under ground they fought in dismal shade
infernal noise warr seem'd a civil game to this uproar horrid confusion heapt upon confusion rose and now all heav'n had gone to wrack with ruin overspred
consulting on the sum of things foreseen this tumult and permitted all advis'd that his great purpose he might so fulfill to honour his anointed son aveng'd upon his enemies and to declare all power on him transferr'd
effulgence of my glorie
son in whose face invisible is beheld visibly what by deitie i am and in whose hand
second omnipotence two dayes are past two dayes as we compute the dayes of heav'n since michael and his powers went forth to tame these disobedient
and thou knowst equal in their creation they were form'd save what sin hath impaird which yet hath wrought insensibly for i suspend thir doom whence in perpetual fight they needs must last endless
and no solution will be found warr wearied hath perform'd what warr can do and to disorder'd rage let loose the reines with mountains as with weapons arm'd which makes wild work in heav'n
and dangerous to the maine two dayes are therefore past the third is thine for thee i have ordain'd it and thus farr have sufferd that the glorie may be thine of ending this great warr
since none but thou can end it into thee such vertue and grace immense i have transfus'd
thy power above compare and this perverse commotion governd thus to manifest thee worthiest to be heir of all things to be heir and to be king by sacred unction thy deserved right
go then thou mightiest in thy fathers might ascend my chariot guide the rapid wheeles that shake heav'ns basis bring forth all my warr my bow and thunder my almightie arms gird on
and sword upon thy puissant thigh pursue these sons of darkness drive them out from all heav'ns bounds into the utter deep there let them learn as likes them to despise god
and messiah his anointed king he said and on his son with rayes direct shon full he all his father full exprest ineffably into his face receiv'd and thus the filial godhead answering spake
o father o supream of heav'nly thrones first highest holiest best thou alwayes seekst to glorifie thy son
i alwayes thee as is most just this i my glorie account my exaltation and my whole delight
which to fulfil is all my bliss scepter and power thy giving i assume and gladlier shall resign when in the end thou shalt be all in all
and i in thee for ever and in mee
image of thee in all things
rid heav'n of these rebell'd
that from thy just obedience could revolt whom to obey is happiness entire then shall thy saints unmixt
circling thy holy mount
hymns of high praise and i among them chief so said he o're his scepter bowing rose from the right hand of glorie where he sate and the third sacred morn began to shine dawning through heav'n
forth rush'd with whirlwind sound the chariot of paternal deitie flashing thick flames wheele within wheele undrawn it self instinct with spirit but convoyd by four cherubic shapes
four faces each had wondrous as with starrs thir bodies all and wings were set with eyes with eyes the wheels of beril and careering fires between
at his right hand victorie sate eagle wing'd beside him hung his bow and quiver
and from about him fierce effusion rowld of smoak and bickering flame and sparkles dire attended with ten thousand thousand saints he onward came farr off his coming shon
and twentie thousand i thir number heard chariots of god half on each hand were seen
illustrious farr and wide but by his own first seen
blaz'd aloft by angels born his sign in heav'n under whose conduct michael soon reduc'd his armie
at his command the uprooted hills retir'd each to his place they heard his voice and went obsequious
this saw his hapless foes but stood obdur'd and to rebellious fight rallied thir powers insensate hope conceiving from despair in heav'nly spirits could such perverseness dwell but to convince the proud
they hard'nd more by what might most reclame grieving to see his glorie at the sight took envie and aspiring to his highth stood reimbattell'd fierce by force or fraud weening to prosper
and at length prevaile against god and messiah or to fall in universal ruin last and now to final battel drew disdaining flight or faint retreat when the great son of god to all his host on either hand thus spake
stand still in bright array ye saints here stand ye angels arm'd this day from battel rest faithful hath been your warfare and of god accepted
fearless in his righteous cause and as ye have receivd so have ye don invincibly
the punishment to other hand belongs vengeance is his or whose he sole appoints number to this dayes work is not ordain'd nor multitude
stand onely and behold gods indignation on these godless pourd by mee not you but mee they have despis'd yet envied
because the father t whom in heav'n supream kingdom and power and glorie appertains hath honourd me according to his will
which the stronger proves they all or i alone against them since by strength they measure all of other excellence not emulous nor care who them excells nor other strife with them
and full of wrauth bent on his enemies at once the four spred out thir starrie wings with dreadful shade contiguous and the orbes of his fierce chariot rowld as with the sound of torrent floods or of a numerous host
hee on his impious foes right onward drove gloomie as night under his burning wheeles the stedfast empyrean shook throughout all but the throne it self of god full soon among them he arriv'd
in his right hand grasping ten thousand thunders
such as in thir soules infix'd plagues they astonisht all resistance lost all courage
o're shields and helmes and helmed heads he rode of thrones and mighty seraphim prostrate that wish'd the mountains now might be again thrown on them as a shelter from his ire
nor less on either side tempestuous fell his arrows from the fourfold visag'd foure distinct with eyes and from the living wheels distinct alike with multitude of eyes one spirit in them rul'd
exhausted spiritless afflicted fall'n yet half his strength he put not forth but check'd his thunder in mid volie for he meant not to destroy but root them out of heav'n
the overthrown he rais'd and as a heard of goats or timerous flock together throngd drove them before him thunder struck pursu'd with terrors and with furies to the bounds and chrystall wall of heav'n which op'ning wide rowld inward
the monstrous sight strook them with horror backward but far worse urg'd them behind headlong themselvs they threw down from the verge of heav'n eternal wrauth burnt after them to the bottomless pit
and would have fled affrighted but strict fate had cast too deep her dark foundations and too fast had bound nine dayes they fell confounded chaos roard
so huge a rout incumberd him with ruin
fraught with fire unquenchable the house of woe and paine
messiah his triumphal chariot turnd to meet him all his saints who silent stood eye witnesses of his almightie acts with jubilie advanc'd and as they went shaded with branching palme
each order bright sung triumph and him sung victorious king son heire and lord
worthiest to reign he celebrated rode triumphant through mid heav'n into the courts and temple of his mightie father thron'd on high who into glorie him receav'd where now he sits at the right hand of bliss
thus measuring things in heav'n by things on earth at thy request
and the deep fall of those too high aspiring who rebelld with satan hee who envies now thy state who now is plotting how he may seduce thee also from obedience that with him
eternal miserie which would be all his solace and revenge as a despite don against the most high thee once to gaine companion of his woe but list'n not to his temptations warne thy weaker
let it profit thee to have heard by terrible example the reward of disobedience
late one autumn night a young queen stood by her window gazing upon the silent and deserted meadows gleaming in the moonlight suddenly far far up in the sky she heard the weird cry
of birds flying southward and lifting her eyes the queen beheld bird after bird fly across the golden shield of the moon oh lovely happy birds said she would that i might have a son with wings
now it came to pass that before the harvest moon rose again over the land the queen became the mother of a little boy who was born with wings on his shoulders but instead of being pleased with so strange and wonderful a little son the king
took it into his head that his wife was a sorceress and gave orders that she should be imprisoned in a lonely tower and the child destroyed
the rude strength of the jailers prevailed and the child was torn from its mother's arms then before anyone could prevent her the poor queen beat open the rotted fastening of an old casement window sprang upon the ledge
and giving one last look of love and tenderness to her unhappy child leaped down into the sea surging and pounding over the rocks hundreds of feet below she certainly would have been dashed to pieces
in spite of his roughness however the jailer was neither a brutal nor a wicked man and he did not relish the cruel task which the king had given him so instead of killing the bird boy
on the boy's birthday a great gray bird came flying over the forest from the distant ocean circled thrice the charcoal burners hut and disappeared again crying mournfully one midsummer day
with a great deal of merry hallooing and blowing of sweet voiced horns the king of the country accompanied by his young wife came hunting through the wood there was a pretty spring near the door of the hut and the party came to a halt at its edge
out ran the winged boy and his two little foster brothers to see the wonderful sight and a wonderful sight it was indeed to see the horses tossing their jeweled bridles the hooded falcons riding on the saddlebow
clutching the leather with their curving claws the merry young pages in their dark suits and all the gay company in rich attire why see said the young queen to her husband yon little boy hath wings really dear
so the king gave the charcoal burner and his wife fifty pieces of bright gold which pleased them very much and the charcoal burner himself lifted the bird boy up in his arms and placed him on the king's saddle
in a few hours the company came to a splendid castle of shining white stone standing in beautiful green gardens running down to the sea
and his charcoal burner's rags replaced with a pretty black velvet suit you may be sure that when the bird boy was washed and dressed there was no handsomer more winning little boy in all the world
so the bird boy became the best beloved playmate of the queen's only child her darling rosabella now if the bird boy was the prettiest little boy in all the world rosabella was the prettiest little girl
moreover she had a sweet disposition which is a gift even more precious than the gift of beauty it was a lovely picture to see the children building toy castles on the floor of the nursery in the castle tower
the sun streaming on the black brown hair and silver white wings of the little boy and on the golden curls of rosabella twelve years passed the bird boy grew into a handsome lad rosabella into the loveliest of princesses
twice had the bird boy saved rosabella's life he had saved her the first time by swooping down and catching her in his wings just as she was about to tread on a wicked yellow viper
he had saved her in the same way when she had fallen over a cliff at the edge of the sea every year on the bird boy's birthday a great gray bird would fly in from over the sea circle the castle thrice and disappear crying mournfully
now when the bird boy and rosabella were in their seventeenth year it came to pass that the king was summoned to war his enemy was no other than the wicked chamberlain malefico
who had succeeded to the kingdom of the bird boy's father when that prince had died some years before so the good king who had been a real father to the bird boy put on his shining armor kissed his dear wife and child good bye
then one rainy morning a messenger who had ridden so hard that his poor horse could scarcely stagger rode to the castle gate bearing very evil news a great battle had been fought the army of rosabella's father had been completely defeated
and the troops of the wicked malefico were hurrying toward the castle as fast as they could come and so it was for before the queen had had time to summon the people and gather together a few belongings the troops of the enemy burst in at the gate
and a dozen fierce soldiers surrounded the queen rosabella and the bird boy and dragged them to malefico when malefico saw the bird boy a look of surprise appeared on his face for he had believed that the wonderful child was dead
then he fell to thinking and as he thought wicked purposes swept over his cruel face just as the shadows of dark clouds sweep over a gloomy pool
the people would thrust me from my place and restore him to his father's throne now that the bird boy is in my hands i will destroy him and be sure of my power so he smiled
and began to think of some manner in which he could bring the bird boy to a shameful end
at last he hit upon a plan he would declare that the bird boy was not a human lad at all but a witch child he would then accuse the good king of having protected a witch child
and condemn them both to be stoned so he threw the king and the queen rosabella and the bird boy into an old dungeon tower and went through the mockery of having a trial
when it was over he sent a soldier to tell the king and the bird boy that they were to be punished the following day and now dawned the unhappy day the bird boy took rosabella's hand in his and together they went to the barred window of the prison
and looked out upon the world the morning was fresh and fair a pleasant southwest wind was blowing the king and the bird boy were to be led forth at noon the clock marked a quarter to twelve
dear rosabella said the bird boy sadly we have forgotten that to day is the day on which the great gray bird comes from the ocean and circles the castle towers if thou shouldst see the bird when i am gone greet it in my name
as we did when we were happy children the bird may come said rosabella amid her sobs no rosabella said the bird boy i shall never see the gray bird again
and even if it were to come what could it do to save us from these cruel people when the clock stood at five minutes to twelve there was a confused noise below
and malefico and the judges who shared with him the guilt of the unrighteous punishment took their places on a kind of platform which overlooked the place of execution they will soon be coming to get us said the king to the bird boy
and sure enough they heard the jangle of the jailer's keys at the foot of the stair suddenly the sunlight in the room faded swiftly into a strange gray gloom
and the bird boy rushed to the window to see if a storm was at hand a great shadowy cloud advancing with inconceivable rapidity already filled half the sky and as the boy gazed into this cloud he saw to his astonishment
that it was not a cloud at all but hundreds and hundreds of thousands of great gray birds flapping their long wings the shadow of the birds fell over the platform on which the cruel malefico sat waiting for the king and the bird boy to be brought forth and then ceased moving
even as a ship that has come into harbor far ahead of the vast swarm flew one lonely bird and suddenly this bird uttered a shrill and piercing cry
immediately every bird let fall a great beach stone which he held in his claws and for a long minute the sky rained stones round polished stones that fell like bolts of thunder
when the storm was over and the cloud had begun to break into rifts and speckles of light and flapping gray wings the wicked malefico and his cruel nobles lay buried forever beneath mound upon mound of stones
as they did so the gray bird who had led the cloud sank through the air and alighted at their feet but scarcely had the bird's claws touched the ground when there was a flash of flame and the bird boy's mother stood before them
she took her son in her arms and told them all his history and her misfortunes and how she had watched over him year after year and gathered the birds to save him thus it came to pass that
when the troops of malefico saw their former queen and heard her story they acclaimed the bird boy as their rightful king and carried him back in triumph into his own country
year after year and morning after morning he was to be found at his school room in the fairies college standing between his desk and a blackboard now writing down the spell for turning noses into turnips now changing sunflower seeds into pearls before the very eyes of his pupils
the old enchanter liked this life of quiet and study and doubtless would have been teaching in fairyland to this very day had he not been so unfortunate as to quarrel with the terrible sorcerer zidoc who was then lord high chancellor of the fairies college
i have forgotten exactly what the quarrel was about but i think that it had to do with the best spell for causing castles to fall to pieces in an instant
was furious at being opposed and told the old enchanter very angrily that he was not to have his classes any more and must leave the college at once so the poor old gentleman packed up his magic books
put his enchanter's wand into its silver case and went to the country one pleasant day in search of a house thanks to the advice of a friendly chimney swift it did not take him long to find one the dwelling was the property of the fairy jocapa
it stood just off the high road close by a lane of great oaks whose shiny fringed leaves glistened in the hot noon day sun it had a high roof with sides steep as mountain slopes and one great chimney
and its second story thrust itself out over the first in the old fashioned way green fields little hills and pleasant meadows in which red and white cows were grazing lay behind the dwelling seeing the front door wide open the enchanter walked in
it was very quiet only the far away klingle klangle of a cow bell could be heard
and he brought his possessions to the house now one autumnal morning when a blue haze hung over the lonely fields from which the reapers had departed and the golden leaves were wet underfoot the old enchanter went for a walk down the lane
and finding the day agreeable kept on until he found himself in the woods arriving at the crest of a little hill in the woodland
alas my poor innocents what a pity that i should have to abandon you what's that said the enchanter halting the countryman you intend to abandon these helpless creatures
alas i must replied the countryman pulling a large blue bandanna handkerchief from his pocket and applying it to the corners of his eyes we are too poor to be able to feed them
the countryman nodded his head as for you here is a golden florin may it bring you better fortune thus did the white puppy and black kitten change hands
once he had led the animals safely home the enchanter resolved to make them the most wonderful animals that had ever been seen in the whole wide world whether in fairyland or out of it being an enchanter he could of course do this more easily than other people
so he taught the cat and the dog all the known languages then history arithmetic dancing social deportment and a variety of the best magic and spells
the cat as was to be expected was particularly good on anything that had cat in it he once catalogued all the principal catastrophes while the dog although a good student had a fancy for writing doggerel
many and many a time when the enchanter and his wonderful animals were seated in their armchairs round a blazing fire talking exactly as any three good friends might talk a nose would flatten itself against the panes
the cat had grown to be as aristocratic as a panther when their education was complete the animals came to their teacher and begged him to let them go away and see the world for a long time the enchanter who loved his charges very much indeed
resisted their request but as they continued to press him he came at length to yield calling them before him he said to them well dear pupils if you must go you must go
i owe the fairy jocapa twelve months rent for this house she is now living with her nephew the king of the land of the runaway rivers
so the white dog who was the stronger of the two took the purse with the twelve golden coins and put it in a large wallet which he wore at his side and then both the wonderful animals said good bye
at the corner of the lane they turned again to look for the last time at their dwelling and saw their old master still waving at them from the little window over the door
then they fared over the hills and far away so wise so well bred and good tempered were these wonderful animals that their journey across the world was a great success from the beginning their fame spread from kingdom to kingdom like wild fire
the universities colleges and other learned societies fought with each other for the privilege of entertaining these distinguished students to this very day the address which the cat made on catapults and cataplasms before the professors of the university of sagessa
is remembered as one of the great events of the time while the dog's address on dogma before the assembled scholars of the royal academy of fairyland was printed in a special book bound in gold leaf and walpus leather
both the cat and the dog were awarded countless honorary decorations and so little by little they came to a hilly land in which all the streams raced pell mell to the sea
and there they knew themselves to be in the kingdom of the runaway rivers a three days journey brought them to the royal castle arriving in the twilight they were somewhat surprised to find a number of torchbearers waiting for them in the castle courtyard
with great respect these attendants conducted the cat and the dog into a little ante room and then retired leaving them alone a few minutes later a very old woman who the animals noticed was stone blind came to take them before the king
very whispered back the dog in his deeper tone having opened one after the other three great doors with three different iron keys the old woman guiding herself by touching the wall with her hand
led the animals into a long dark corridor the cat who could see quite well in the dark did not mind this but the dog was not particularly pleased the echoes of the old woman's boots went rolling along in the hollow darkness
the dog could hear his heart beat and saw his black companion's eyes glowing like pools of flame then to their mutual relief the animals saw a point of light appearing far down the passage
and on reaching this they discovered a second blind old woman holding a torch the first old woman beckoned them to follow this new guide and disappeared again into the dark corridors by which they had arrived
the second old woman lifting high the torch first led her charges through three more great doors all of which she carefully locked behind her
that they must have reached the heart of the earth then little by little a pin point of light began to glow brighter and brighter
three more doors they passed the last one opening on a very narrow winding passage in and out they turned walking one behind the other for a time that seemed very very long
suddenly a narrow door appeared in the winding wall which opened inward as they drew near revealing a beautiful round chamber richly furnished and hung with the finest tapestries beside the fireplace in which a wood fire was cheerily burning
sat a gray haired lady who was no other than the fairy jocapa and in the centre of the room reading a great book by the light of many candles sat a young man the king
in spite of the enchanter's careful training in manners the cat and the dog i am sorry to say almost stared for an instant at the king small wonder that they did so for the unfortunate young man lay under a horrid spell
and his face and hands were not pink or white or sun brown like yours or mine but bright green like a parrot's wing welcome o wonderful animals said the enchanted king
listen then to my story and help me if you can you see me before you hideously changed until you entered here an instant past no eyes but those of my aunt had beheld my horrible countenance
it was she who caused this enchanted chamber to appear in the heart of the foundations of my castle and in this chamber
since that terrible hour when the spell was put upon me my subjects only know that i am still alive the lord chancellor rules the kingdom in my stead but hearken to my story ten months ago
as i was driving my chariot down a narrow road built along a river bank close to the stream i encountered a chariot being driven furiously in the opposite direction the driver of the chariot was a tall elderly man wearing a wizard's cap
his face was red as with anger an evil light gleamed in his small malicious eyes
our chariots locked wheels and his was overthrown turning upon me a face aflame with hatred he cried out
judge of my horror when i leaned over the clear pool of water and saw that my face had turned a bright green i waited till nightfall stole into the castle unobserved and sought the aid of my aunt the fairy
you know the rest speak o wonderful dog and wonderful cat and bid me hope a little and the poor king hid his bright green face in his hands
said the white dog and his power as a sorcerer is the greatest in fairyland i have tried all my powers against him in vain said the fairy jocapa sadly
his castle lies on the border of the silver hills the dog and i will go there and see if we can help the king so the fairy and the unhappy king thanked the wise animals and sent for the blind old women to lead them back to the upper world
early next morning the famous pair began the journey to the enchanter's den the dog's plan was to pretend to be but an everyday stray dog and to this end he rolled several times in a mud puddle the cat too was to appear as a stray cat
and neglected his fine black coat in order to look the part
which rang shrilly when danger threatened him hearing the bell ring late at night zidoc rose from his bed and hurrying to the turret window saw by the light of the waning moon the dog and the cat making their way to the castle through the wood
rubbing his hands with glee he determined to let the two animals walk headlong into his power and then inflict upon them some terrible revenge the first day the dog went indoors and concealed himself under a sofa
while the cat remained outside when twilight came the dog ran out and met the cat in the castle garden
very little replied the cat
one of us must hide in the room in which they will talk for perhaps we may learn something which may help us to lift the spell from the king to morrow it is my turn said the dog
first zidoc locked the only door with a great key and then he said to serponel brother someone tells me that there is an enemy hidden under the sofa
and something tells me that it is time to let him feel your staff now zidoc had an enchanted staff
zidoc dragged the sofa swiftly aside and aimed a terrible blow at him which by the greatest good luck just missed its mark
who little by little forced him toward a corner and now
leaped through the open window and landed upon zidoc's back it was the brave cat who had heard the fracas from his hiding place below and had clawed his way up the castle wall to help his friend valiant puss forgetting in one instant i must admit all its knowledge of
languages catastrophes history social deportment and agriculture
which so upset him that it caused him to drop his staff while the dog profiting by the confusion and forgetting all about geometry mathematics agriculture and dogma managed to give serponel a good bite just above the ankle
uttering a magic word he caused the room to be filled with darkness and in the cover of this darkness he transformed himself instantly into a black cat exactly like the learned cat
at the same moment he caused the locked door to fly open now thought he i will cause the cat to follow the wrong white dog and the dog to follow the wrong cat
we shall thus separate the animals and when we have lured them far away from each other serponel and i will resume our true forms and destroy these meddlesome creatures
when the darkness cleared the hearts of the true animals fell for fear lest the sorcerer's ruse be successful but they met the challenge readily and instead of fleeing stood their ground the true dog battling with the false dog
the real cat with the false cat never was such a hullaballoo heard in fairyland then seeing that he was in danger of being badly scratched
the floor of the castle shook a noise as of thunder roared and rattled through the room when the darkness ended both the enchanters had been separated and the cats were confused
down the stairs over the terraces and the gardens ran the true dog pursuing the true cat while indoors up and down through the rooms and over the furniture raced the false animals the poor cat thinking he was being pursued by the wrong dog grew short of breath
and hearing the snapping at his heels ran up a convenient tree hardly had he reached a point above the dog's jaws when a voice said why my pupils my pupils what a way to behave stop your quarreling this instant the animals turned to look
and saw their master the old enchanter he had been worried by their long absence and had gone forth to look for them thus at the same moment that the poor dog saw that he had been pursuing his friend the cat saw that he had been escaping from his comrade
there was a roar as of twenty thousand cataracts and in the twinkling of an eye the castle collapsed in a cloud of dust burying the two wicked magicians in its ruins there i told him so said the old enchanter
when the dog and the cat had recovered from the events of the day the three friends began their journey back to the palace of the enchanted king he came to the castle gate to meet them for zidoc's overthrow had broken the spell which had so oddly disfigured him
through the open doors a splendid banquet could be seen waiting and the sound of music was heard so the old enchanter gave his arm to the fairy jocapa the prince gave his to the white dog and the cat followed all by himself
then came the host of rejoicing courtiers
and on that high authority had believed and with him talked and with him lodged i mean andrew and simon famous after known with others
and doubted many days and as the days increased increased their doubt sometimes they thought he might be only shewn and for a time caught up to god
as once moses was in the mount and missing long and the great thisbite who on fiery wheels rode up to heaven yet once again to come therefore as those young prophets then with care sought lost eliah so in each place these nigh to bethabara
or in peraea but returned in vain then on the bank of jordan by a creek
plain fishermen no greater men them call close in a cottage low together got their unexpected loss and plaints outbreathed
our eyes beheld messiah certainly now come so long expected of our fathers we have heard his words his wisdom full of grace and truth now now for sure deliverance is at hand
the kingdom shall to israel be restored thus we rejoiced but soon our joy is turned into perplexity and new amaze for whither is he gone what accident hath rapt him from us
god of israel send thy messiah forth the time is come behold the kings of the earth how they oppress thy chosen to what highth their power unjust they have exalted and behind them cast all fear of thee arise and vindicate thy glory
free thy people from their yoke but let us wait thus far he hath performed sent his anointed
and with him we have conversed let us be glad of this and all our fears lay on his providence he will not fail nor will withdraw him now nor will recall
mock us with his blest sight then snatch him hence soon we shall see our hope our joy return thus they out of their plaints new hope resume to find whom at the first they found unsought
nor left at jordan tidings of him none within her breast though calm her breast though pure motherly cares and fears got head and raised some troubled thoughts which she in sighs thus clad
oh what avails me now that honour high to have conceived of god or that salute hail highly favoured among women blest while i to sorrows am no less advanced
by the birth i bore in such a season born when scarce a shed could be obtained to shelter him or me from the bleak air a stable was our warmth a manger his yet soon enforced to fly thence into egypt till the murderous king were dead
who sought his life and missing filled with infant blood the streets of bethlehem from egypt home returned in nazareth hath been our dwelling many years
but now full grown to man acknowledged as i hear by john the baptist and in public shewn son owned from heaven by his father's voice i looked for some great change to honour no but trouble
as old simeon plain foretold that to the fall and rising he should be of many in israel and to a sign spoken against
this is my favoured lot my exaltation to afflictions high afflicted i may be it seems and blest i will not argue that
some great intent conceals him when twelve years he scarce had seen i lost him but so found as well i saw he could not lose himself but went about his father's business what he meant i mused since understand
but i to wait with patience am inured my heart hath been a storehouse long of things and sayings laid up pretending strange events
thus mary pondering oft and oft to mind recalling what remarkably had passed since first her salutation heard with thoughts meekly composed awaited the fulfilling the while her son tracing the desert wild sole
and at once all his great work to come before him set how to begin how to accomplish best his end of being on earth and mission high for satan with sly preface to return had left him vacant and with speed was gone up to the middle region of thick air
where all his potentates in council sate
heaven's ancient sons a ethereal thrones daemonian spirits now from the element each of his reign allotted rightlier called powers of fire air water and earth beneath so may we hold our place and these mild seats without new trouble
such an enemy is risen to invade us who no less threatens than our expulsion down to hell
but find far other labour to be undergone than when i dealt with adam first of men though adam by his wife's allurement fell however to this man inferior far if he be man by mother's side at least with more than human gifts from heaven adorned
perfections absolute graces divine and amplitude of mind to greatest deeds therefore i am returned
i summon all rather to be in readiness with hand or counsel to assist lest i who erst thought none my equal now be overmatched so spake the old serpent doubting and from all with clamour was assured their utmost aid at his command
when from amidst them rose belial
the fleshliest incubus and thus advised set women in his eye and in his walk among daughters of men the fairest found many are in each region passing fair as the noon sky
expert in amorous arts enchanting tongues persuasive
such object hath the power to soften and tame severest temper smooth the rugged'st brow enerve and with voluptuous hope dissolve draw out with credulous desire and lead at will the manliest resolutest breast
as the magnetic hardest iron draws women when nothing else beguiled the heart of wisest solomon
to whom quick answer satan thus returned
because of old thou thyself doat'st on womankind admiring their shape their colour and attractive grace none are thou think'st but taken with such toys before the flood thou with thy lusty crew false titled sons of god
and begot a race have we not seen or by relation heard in courts and regal chambers how thou lurk'st in wood or grove by mossy fountain side in valley or green meadow to waylay some beauty rare calisto clymene
daphne or semele antiopa
many more too long then lay'st thy scapes on names adored
but these haunts delight not all among the sons of men how many have with a smile made small account of beauty and her lures easily scorned all her assaults on worthier things intent
as the zone of venus once wrought that effect on jove so fables tell
discountenance her despised and put to rout all her array her female pride deject or turn to reverent awe
cease to admire and all her plumes fall flat and shrink into a trivial toy at every sudden slighting quite abashed therefore with manlier objects we must try his constancy with such
as have more shew of worth of honour glory and popular praise rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wrecked
commit to me i shall let pass no advantage
he ceased and heard their grant in loud acclaim then forthwith to him takes a chosen band of spirits likest to himself in guile to be at hand and at his beck appear
now hungering first and to himself thus said where will this end four times ten days i have passed wandering this woody maze and human food nor tasted nor had appetite
that fast to virtue i impute not or count part of what i suffer here
but now i feel i hunger which declares nature hath need of what she asks yet god can satisfy that need some other way though hunger still remain so it remain without this body's wasting i content me
and from the sting of famine fear no harm nor mind it fed with better thoughts that feed me hungering more to do my father's will
him thought he by the brook of cherith stood and saw the ravens with their horny beaks food to elijah bringing even and morn though ravenous taught to abstain from what they brought he saw the prophet also
then how awaked he found his supper on the coals prepared and by the angel was bid rise and eat and eat the second time after repose the strength whereof sufficed him forty days sometimes that with elijah he partook
or as a guest with daniel at his pulse thus wore out night
and greet her with his song as lightly from his grassy couch up rose our saviour and found all was but a dream fasting he went to sleep and fasting waked up to a hill anon his steps he reared from whose high top to ken the prospect round
if cottage were in view sheep cote or herd
with granted leave officious i return but much more wonder that the son of god in this wild solitude so long should bide of all things destitute and well i know not without hunger
others of some note as story tells have trod this wilderness the fugitive bond woman with her son outcast nebaioth
and that prophet bold native of thebez wandering here was fed twice by a voice inviting him to eat
to whom thus jesus what conclud'st thou hence they all had need i as thou seest have none how hast thou hunger then satan replied
thereafter as i like the giver answered jesus why should that cause thy refusal said the subtle fiend hast thou not right to all created things owe not all creatures by just right to thee duty and service nor to stay till bid
but tender all their power nor mention i meats by the law unclean or offered first to idols those young daniel could refuse nor proffered by an enemy
behold nature ashamed or better to express troubled that thou shouldst hunger hath purveyed from all the elements her choicest store to treat thee as beseems and as her lord with honour only deign to sit and eat
he spake no dream for as his words had end our saviour lifting up his eyes beheld in ample space under the broadest shade
and savour beasts of chase or fowl of game in pastry built or from the spit or boiled grisamber steamed all fish from sea or shore freshet or purling brook of shell or fin and exquisitest name
for which was drained pontus and lucrine bay and afric coast alas how simple to these cates compared was that crude apple that diverted eve
distant more under the trees now tripped now solemn stood nymphs of diana's train and naiades with fruits and flowers from amalthea's horn and ladies of the hesperides
that seemed fairer than feigned of old or fabled since of faery damsels met in forest wide by knights of logres
and all the while harmonious airs were heard of chiming strings or charming pipes and winds of gentlest gale arabian odours fanned from their soft wings and flora's earliest smells such was the splendour
and the tempter now his invitation earnestly renewed what doubts the son of god to sit and eat these are not fruits forbidden no interdict
with sweet restorative delight all these are spirits of air and woods and springs thy gentle ministers who come to pay thee homage and acknowledge thee their lord what doubt'st thou son of god sit down and eat
to whom thus jesus temperately replied
that to all things i had right
i can at will doubt not as soon as thou command a table in this wilderness and call swift flights of angels ministrant arrayed in glory on my cup to attend why shouldst thou then obtrude this diligence in vain where no acceptance it can find
and with my hunger what hast thou to do
to whom thus answered satan male content that i have also power to give thou seest if of that power i bring thee voluntary what i might have bestowed on whom i pleased and rather opportunely in this place chose to impart to thy apparent need
why shouldst thou not accept it but i see what i can do or offer is suspect
with that both table and provision vanished quite with sound of harpies wings and talons heard only the importune tempter still remained and with these words his temptation pursued
by hunger that each other creature tames thou art not to be harmed therefore not moved thy temperance invincible besides for no allurement yields to appetite
but wherewith to be achieved great acts require great means of enterprise thou art unknown unfriended low of birth a carpenter thy father known thyself bred up in poverty and straits at home lost in a desert here and hunger bit which way
or from what hope dost thou aspire to greatness whence authority deriv'st what followers what retinue canst thou gain
therefore if at great things thou wouldst arrive get riches first get wealth and treasure heap not difficult if thou hearken to me
to whom thus jesus patiently replied yet wealth without these three is impotent to gain dominion or to keep it gained witness those ancient empires of the earth in highth of all their flowing wealth dissolved
but men endued with these have oft attained in lowest poverty to highest deeds gideon and jephtha
and shall yet regain that seat and reign in israel without end among the heathen for throughout the world to me is not unknown what hath been done worthy of memorial canst thou not remember quintius fabricius curius regulus
for i esteem those names of men so poor who could do mighty things and could contemn riches though offered from the hand of kings
perhaps and more extol not riches then the toil of fools the wise man's cumbrance if not snare more apt to slacken virtue and abate her edge than prompt her to do aught may merit praise what if with like aversion
i reject riches and realms
when on his shoulders each man's burden lies for therein stands the office of a king his honour virtue merit and chief praise that for the public all this weight he bears yet he who reigns within himself
and rules passions desires and fears is more a king which every wise and virtuous man attains and who attains not ill aspires to rule cities of men
or lawless passions in him which he serves but to guide nations in the way of truth by saving doctrine and from error lead to know and knowing worship god aright is yet more kingly
chapter eight the honeyed word master maloney's statement that about steen visitors had arrived
five brows were corrugated with wrathful lines such however was the simple majesty of psmith's demeanour that for a moment there was dead silence not a word was spoken as he paced wrapped in thought to the editorial chair
stillness brooded over the room as he carefully dusted that piece of furniture and having done so to his satisfaction hitched up the knees of his trousers and sank gracefully into a sitting position this accomplished he looked up and started he gazed round the room
ha i am observed he murmured the words broke the spell instantly the five visitors burst simultaneously into speech are you the acting editor of this paper i wish to have a word with you sir mister windsor i presume
pardon me i should like a few moments conversation the start was good and even but the gentleman who said pardon me necessarily finished first with the rest nowhere psmith turned to him bowed
and fixed him with a benevolent gaze through his eye glass are you mister windsor sir may i ask inquired the favoured one the others paused for the reply alas no said psmith with manly regret then who are you
i am psmith there was a pause where is mister windsor he is i fancy champing about forty cents worth of lunch at some neighbouring hostelry when will he return anon but how much anon i fear i cannot say
psmith bowed courteously
i am acting sub editor the work is not light added psmith gratuitously sometimes the cry goes round can psmith get through it all will his strength support his unquenchable spirit but i stagger on
then maybe you can tell me what all this means said a small round gentleman who so far had done only chorus work if it is in my power to do so it shall be done comrade i have not the pleasure of your name my name is waterman sir i am here on behalf of my wife whose name you doubtless know
correct me if i am wrong said psmith but i should say it also was waterman luella granville waterman sir said the little man proudly psmith removed his eye glass polished it and replaced it in his eye
in his opinion stood alone in literary circles as a purveyor of sheer bilge my wife continued the little man producing an envelope and handing it to psmith
we are both at a loss to make head or tail of it psmith was reading the letter it seems reasonably clear to me he said it is an outrage
her work has given every satisfaction to mister wilberfloss and now without the slightest warning comes this peremptory dismissal from w windsor
where is mister wilberfloss the chorus burst forth it seemed that that was what they all wanted to know who was w windsor where was mister wilberfloss i am the reverend
edwin t philpotts sir said a cadaverous looking man with pale blue eyes and a melancholy face i have contributed moments of meditation to this journal for a very considerable period of time i have read your page with the keenest interest said psmith
the reverend edwin's frosty face thawed into a bleak smile and yet continued psmith i gather that comrade windsor on the other hand actually wishes to hurry on its decease it is these strange contradictions these clashings of personal taste
here we have on the one hand a man with a face like a walnut who had hitherto lurked almost unseen behind a stout person in a serge suit bobbed into the open and spoke his piece where's this fellow windsor w windsor that's the man we want to see
i've been working for this paper without a break except when i had the mumps for four years and i've reason to know that my page was as widely read and appreciated as any in new york and now up comes this windsor fellow if you please and tells me in so many words the paper's got no use for me
what's he mean by it that's what i want to know and that's what these gentlemen want to know see here i am addressing said psmith asher's my name b henderson asher i write moments of mirth
a look almost of excitement came into psmith's face such a look as a visitor to a foreign land might wear when confronted with some great national monument that he should be privileged to look upon the author of moments of mirth in the flesh
face to face was almost too much comrade asher he said reverently may i shake your hand the other extended his hand with some suspicion your moments of mirth said psmith shaking it
he reseated himself gentlemen he said this is a painful case the circumstances as you will readily admit when you have heard all are peculiar you have asked me where mister wilberfloss is i do not know
you don't know exclaimed mister waterman i don't know
by his doctor's orders started out on a holiday leaving no address
he was to enjoy complete rest where is he now who shall say possibly legging it down some rugged slope in the rockies with two bears and a wild cat in earnest pursuit
possibly in canada baiting moose traps we have no data silent consternation prevailed among the audience
where is mister white he asked the point was well received yes where's mister benjamin white chorused the rest psmith shook his head in europe i cannot say more the audience's consternation deepened
then do you mean to say demanded mister asher that this fellow windsor's the boss here that what he says goes psmith bowed with your customary clear headedness comrade asher you have got home on the bull's eye first pop
comrade windsor is indeed the boss a man of intensely masterful character he will brook no opposition i am powerless to sway him
and he means to put them through if it snows doubtless he would gladly consider your work if it fitted in with his ideas a snappy account of a glove fight
or something on those lines would be welcomed but i have never heard of such a thing said mister waterman indignantly psmith sighed some time ago he said how long it seems
of the name of spiller comrade spiller never confuse the unusual with the impossible it is my guiding rule in life
but is it impossible alas no comrade windsor has done it that is where you comrade asher and you gentlemen have landed yourselves squarely in the broth you have confused the unusual with the impossible
but what is to be done cried mister asher i fear that there is nothing to be done except wait the present regime is but an experiment it may be that when comrade wilberfloss having dodged the bears and eluded the wild cat
he should be back in about ten weeks ten weeks i fancy that was to be the duration of his holiday
is to wait you may rely on me to keep a watchful eye upon your interests when your thoughts tend to take a gloomy turn say to yourselves all is well psmith is keeping a watchful eye upon our interests
all the same i should like to see this w windsor said mister asher psmith shook his head i shouldn't he said i speak in your best interests comrade windsor is a man of the fiercest passions he cannot brook interference
were you to question the wisdom of his plans there is no knowing what might not happen he would be the first to regret any violent action when once he had cooled off but would that be any consolation to his victim i think not
of course if you wish it i could arrange a meeting mister asher said no he thought it didn't matter i guess i can wait he said that said psmith approvingly is the right spirit wait that is the watch word and now
he added rising i wonder if a bit of lunch somewhere might not be a good thing we have had an interesting but fatiguing little chat our tissues require restoring if you gentlemen would care to join me
chapter four bat jarvis billy windsor lived in a single room on east fourteenth street
billy windsor's room was very much like a public school study along one wall ran a settee at night this became a bed but in the daytime it was a settee and nothing but a settee there was no space for a great deal of furniture
there was one rocking chair two ordinary chairs a table a book stand a typewriter
relics of their owner's prairie days over the door was the head of a young bear billy's first act on arriving in this sanctum was to release the cat which having moved restlessly about for some moments
finally came to the conclusion that there was no means of getting out and settled itself on a corner of the settee psmith sinking gracefully down beside it stretched out his legs and lit a cigarette mike took one of the ordinary chairs and billy windsor
planting himself in the rocker began to rock rhythmically to and fro a performance which he kept up untiringly all the time a peaceful scene observed psmith three great minds keen alert restless during business hours relax
all is calm and pleasant chit chat you have snug quarters up here comrade windsor i hold that there is nothing like one's own roof tree
to be exact the astor to pass a few moments in the quiet privacy of an apartment such as this it's beastly expensive at the astor said mike the place has that drawback also
built for two our nervous systems must be conserved on fourth avenue said billy windsor you can get quite good flats very cheap furnished too you should move there it's not much of a neighbourhood i don't know if you mind that
far from it comrade windsor it is my aim to see new york in all its phases if a certain amount of harmless revelry can be whacked out of fourth avenue
are you with me comrade jackson all right said mike and now comrade windsor it would be a pleasure to me to peruse that little journal of which you spoke i have had so few opportunities of getting into touch with the literature of this great country
billy windsor stretched out an arm and pulled a bundle of papers from the book stand he tossed them on to the settee by psmith's side there you are he said if you really feel like it don't say i didn't warn you if you've got the nerve read on
psmith had picked up one of the papers when there came a shuffling of feet in the passage outside followed by a knock upon the door the next moment there appeared in the doorway a short stout young man
there was an indescribable air of toughness about him partly due to the fact that he wore his hair in a well oiled fringe almost down to his eyebrows which gave him the appearance of having no forehead at all his eyes were small and set close together
which on acquaintance proved to be a whistled tune during the interview which followed except when he was speaking the visitor whistled softly and unceasingly mister windsor he said to the company at large psmith waved a hand towards the rocking chair
that he said is comrade windsor
i am psmith the visitor blinked furtively and whistled another tune as he looked round the room his eye fell on the cat his face lit up say he said stepping forward and touching the cat's collar mine mister
are you bat jarvis asked windsor with interest sure said the visitor not without a touch of complacency as of a monarch abandoning his incognito for mister jarvis was a celebrity
by profession he was a dealer in animals birds and snakes he had a fancier's shop in groome street in the heart of the bowery this was on the ground floor his living abode was in the upper story of that house
and whose numbers had so recently been reduced to twenty two but it was not the fact that he possessed twenty three cats with leather collars that made mister jarvis a celebrity a man may win a purely local reputation if only for eccentricity by such means
but mister jarvis's reputation was far from being purely local broadway knew him and the tenderloin tammany hall knew him long island city knew him in the underworld of new york his name was a by word
for bat jarvis was the leader of the famous groome street gang the most noted of all new york's collections of apaches more he was the founder and originator of it and curiously enough it had come into being from motives of sheer benevolence
in groome street in those days there had been a dance hall named the shamrock and presided over by one maginnis an irishman and a friend of bat's at the shamrock nightly dances were given and well attended by the youth of the neighbourhood at ten cents a head
all might have been well had it not been for certain other youths of the neighbourhood who did not dance and so had to seek other means of getting rid of their surplus energy it was the practice of these light hearted sportsmen to pay their ten cents for admittance and once in
to make hay and this habit mister maginnis found was having a marked effect on his earnings for genuine lovers of the dance fought shy of a place where at any moment philistines might burst in and break heads and furniture
bat at that time had a solid reputation as a man of his hands
a defect which he had subsequently corrected but his admirers based his claim to respect on his many meritorious performances with fists and with the black jack and mister maginnis for one held him in the very highest esteem
to bat accordingly he went and laid his painful case before him
bat had accepted the offer he had gone to shamrock hall and with him faithful adherents had gone such stalwarts as long otto red logan tommy jefferson and pete brodie
shamrock hall became a place of joy and order and more important still the nucleus of the groome street gang had been formed the work progressed off shoots of the main gang sprang up here and there about the east side
small thieves pickpockets and the like flocked to mister jarvis as their tribal leader and protector and he protected them
were of use to the politicians the new york gangs and especially the groome street gang have brought to a fine art the gentle practice of repeating which broadly speaking is the art of voting a number of different times at different polling stations on election days
a man who can vote say ten times in a single day for you and who controls a great number of followers who are also prepared if they like you to vote ten times in a single day for you is worth cultivating so the politicians passed the word to the police
and the police left the groome street gang unmolested and they waxed fat and flourished such was bat jarvis pipe de collar said mister jarvis touching the cat's neck mine mister pugsy said it must be said billy windsor
we found two fellows setting a dog on to it so we took it in for safety mister jarvis nodded approval there's a basket here if you want it said billy nope here kit mister jarvis stooped and still whistling softly lifted the cat
and finally turned again to billy windsor say he said and paused obliged he added he shifted the cat on to his left arm and extended his right hand to billy shake he said billy did so
mister jarvis continued to stand and whistle for a few moments more say he said at length fixing his roving gaze once more upon billy obliged fond of de kit i am psmith nodded approvingly
and rightly he said rightly comrade jarvis she is not unworthy of your affection
her knockabout act in the restaurant would have satisfied the most jaded critic no diner out can afford to be without such a cat such a cat spells death to boredom mister jarvis eyed him fixedly as if pondering over his remarks
then he turned to billy again say he said any time you're in bad glad to be of service you know the address groome street bat jarvis good night obliged he paused and whistled a few more bars
billy windsor laughed i don't know that he's just the sort of side partner i'd go out of my way to choose from what i've heard about him still
i guess there's no harm done by getting him grateful
chapter eleven the man at the astor the duties of master pugsy maloney at the offices of cosy moments were not heavy and he was accustomed to occupy his large store of leisure by reading narratives dealing with life in the prairies
it was while he was engrossed in one of these on the morning following the visit of mister parker that the seedy looking man made his appearance he walked in from the street and stood before master maloney hey kid he said
he resented being addressed as kid by perfect strangers editor in tommy inquired the man pugsy by this time had taken a thorough dislike to him to be called kid was bad the subtle insult of tommy was still worse nope
he said curtly fixing his eyes again on his book
the man eyed him with displeasure fresh kid he observed disapprovingly fade away urged master maloney
since time began small boys in every country have had but one answer for this action pugsy made it he emitted a piercing squeal in which pain fear and resentment strove for supremacy the noise penetrated into the editorial sanctum
losing only a small part of its strength on the way psmith
a book of poetry looked up with patient sadness
concentrated thought will be out of the question a second squeal rent the air billy windsor jumped up somebody must be hurting the kid he exclaimed he hurried to the door and flung it open psmith followed at a more leisurely pace
the seedy man caught in the act released master maloney who stood rubbing his ear with resentment written on every feature on such occasions as this billy was a man of few words he made a dive for the seedy man
but the latter who during the preceding moment had been eyeing the two editors as if he were committing their appearance to memory
comrade maloney said psmith you are a martyr what would horatius have done if somebody had nipped him by the ear when he was holding the bridge
nope just tried to butt t'roo another of these strong silent men the world is full of us these are the perils of the journalistic life you will be safer and happier when you are rounding up cows on your mustang
i wonder what he wanted said billy when they were back again in the inner room who can say comrade windsor possibly our autographs
whereas what comrade maloney objected to was the feel of him in what respect did his look jar upon you his clothes were poorly cut but such things i know leave you unmoved
as if he came just to get a sight of us and he got it ah providence is good to the poor
now they'll know what we look like and they can get after us these are the drawbacks to being public men comrade windsor we must bear them manfully without wincing billy turned again to his work i'm not going to wince he said so's you could notice it with a microscope
and i'd advise you to do the same it was by psmith's suggestion that the editorial staff of cosy moments dined that night in the roof garden at the top of the astor hotel the tired brain he said needs to recuperate
to feed on such a night as this in some low down hostelry on the level of the street with german waiters breathing heavily down the back of one's neck and two fiddles and a piano whacking out beautiful eyes about three feet from one's tympanum would be false economy
here fanned by cool breezes and surrounded by fair women and brave men one may do a bit of tissue restoring moreover there is little danger up here of being slugged by our moth eaten acquaintance of this morning a man with trousers like his would not be allowed in
we shall probably find him waiting for us at the main entrance with a sand bag when we leave but till then he turned with gentle grace to his soup it was a warm night and the roof garden was full
the thing began to exercise a hypnotic effect on psmith he came to himself with a start to find billy windsor in conversation with a waiter yes my name's windsor billy was saying
psmith recollected having seen this solitary diner looking in their direction once or twice during dinner but the fact had not impressed him what is happening comrade windsor he inquired i was musing with a certain tenseness at the moment and the rush of events has left me behind
man at that table wanted to know if my name was windsor said billy ah said psmith interested and was it
the stranger was threading his way between the tables can i have a word with you mister windsor he said billy looked at him curiously recent events had made him wary of strangers won't you sit down he said
a waiter was bringing a chair the young man seated himself by the way added billy my friend mister smith pleased to meet you said the other i don't know your name billy hesitated never mind about my name said the stranger it won't be needed
is mister smith on your paper excuse my asking psmith bowed that's all right then i can go ahead he bent forward
in the old prairie days said psmith comrade windsor was known to the indians as boola ba na gosh which as you doubtless know signifies big chief who can hear a fly clear its throat
he turned to billy who had been looking at him all the while with a combination of interest and suspicion the man might or might not be friendly in the meantime there was no harm in being on one's guard
billy's experience as a cub reporter had given him the knowledge that is only given in its entirety to police and newspaper men that there are two new yorks one is a modern well policed city through which one may walk from end to end without encountering adventure
the other is a city as full of sinister intrigue of whisperings and conspiracies of battle murder and sudden death in dark by ways as any town of mediaeval italy
he had come into conflict with new york's underworld circumstances had placed him below the surface where only his wits could help him it's about that tenement business said the stranger billy bristled well what about it he demanded truculently
yet you don't tell us your name never mind my name if you were in my line of business you wouldn't be so durned stuck on this name thing call me smith if you like you could select no nobler pseudonym said psmith cordially eh
oh i see well make it brown then anything you please it don't signify see here let's get back about this tenement thing you understand certain parties have got it in against you
cosy moments however cannot be muzzled well said billy you're up against a big proposition we can look after ourselves gum you'll need to the man behind is a big bug billy leaned forward eagerly who is he
the other shrugged his shoulders i don't know you wouldn't expect a man like that to give himself away
the stranger lit a cigar by the number of dollars he was ready to put up to have you done in billy's eyes snapped oh he said and which gang has he given the job to i wish i could tell you he his agent that is came to bat jarvis
the cat expert said psmith a man of singularly winsome personality bat turned the job down why was that inquired billy
he gave his job the frozen face
a powerful argument in favour of kindness to animals said psmith comrade windsor came into possession of one of comrade jarvis's celebrated stud of cats what did he do
he restored it to its bereaved owner observe the sequel he is now as a prize tortoiseshell to comrade jarvis so bat wouldn't stand for it said billy
we are much obliged to comrade jarvis said psmith he told me to tell you to watch out because another gang is dead sure to take on the job
he also said that any time you were in bad he'd do his best for you
i haven't seen him so worked up over a thing in years well that's all i reckon guess i'll be pushing along i've a date to keep
pardon me you have an insect on your coat he flicked at psmith's coat with a quick movement psmith thanked him gravely good night
for a few moments after he had gone psmith and billy sat smoking in silence they had plenty to think about how's the time going asked billy at length psmith felt for his watch and looked at billy with some sadness i am sorry to say comrade windsor
hullo said billy here's that man coming back again the stranger came up to their table wearing a light overcoat over his dress clothes from the pocket of this he produced a gold watch
during the last days of the king's life vincent never left him
his influence over the queen was growing daily but it was not yet strong enough to override all her scruples she was a good natured woman quite ready to do right when it was not too inconvenient and it was clear to her that of late years
bishoprics and abbeys had been too often given to most unworthy persons in france the crown was almost supreme in such matters the queen therefore determined to appoint a council of conscience consisting of five members
whose business it would be to help her with advice as to ecclesiastical preferment mazarin's astonishment and disgust when he heard that vincent de paul had been appointed one of the number
he even applied to the queen in person to beg her to reconsider her decision but anne was obdurate and vincent was forced to yield i have never been more worthy of compassion or in greater need of prayers than now
he wrote to one of his friends and his forebodings were not without cause if mazarin had been unable to prevent the queen from naming vincent as one of the council of conscience he had at least succeeded in securing his own nomination
in the cause of honesty and justice and for the church's welfare the superior of saint lazare would have to contend with the foremost statesman of the day a minister who had built up his reputation by trading on the vices of men who were less cunning than he
well did vincent know that he was no match for such a diplomatist but having once realized that the duty must be undertaken he determined that there should be no flinching he went to court in the old cassock in which he went about his daily work
and which was probably the only one he had you are not going to the palace in that cassock cried one of the mission priests in consternation why not replied vincent quietly it is neither stained nor torn
the answer was noteworthy for a scrupulous cleanliness was characteristic of the man as he passed through the long galleries of the louvre
at first it seemed as if his influence were to be paramount in the council nearly all the priests of paris had passed through his hands at the ordination retreats and those who belonged to the tuesday conferences were intimately known to him
he considered that bishoprics and abbeys were useful things to keep in reserve as bribes for his wavering adherents certain reforms on which vincent insisted were not to his mind either
vincent's reception of these proposals was disconcerting god forbid he would cry indignantly better that we should all go without the barest necessities of life some would come with a recommendation from the queen herself which made things doubly embarrassing
but it became quite intolerable when the shabby priest refused to listen
you are quite right was the only answer accompanied by a good natured smile
insulted another day in public by a magistrate whose interests he had refused to forward
but vincent's strangest adventure was with a court lady of high rank a certain duchess in the household of the queen catching her royal mistress in an unguarded moment this lady succeeded in inducing the queen to promise the bishopric of
poitiers to her son a young man of very bad character
but madame declined curtly
she would be obliged if he would make out the deed of nomination and take it to her majesty to sign what was to be done to resist would only provoke submission seemed the wisest if not the only course
and was shown into the queen's presence oh said her majesty not without some embarrassment
without a word vincent handed her the roll which she proceeded to unfold
the form is not drawn up at all if your majesty's mind is made up said vincent quietly i must beg you to write down your wishes yourself
then noticing the hesitation of the queen madame he said hotly this man whom you intend to make a bishop spends his life in public houses and is carried home drunk every night
seizing a heavy stool she flung it at the head of the unwelcome messenger who bowed and retired from the house with the blood streaming from a wound in his forehead
justly indignant begged to be allowed to give the great lady a piece of his mind come on said vincent our business lies in another direction is it not strange he said smiling a few moments later as he tried to staunch the blood with his handkerchief
to what lengths the affection of a mother for her son will go
whose simple straightforward conduct baffled the wily and defeated their plans but an attempt to get him ejected from the council met with such stormy opposition that the prime minister determined to change his tactics
and the intervals between its meetings became longer and longer anne of austria's sudden spurt of energy she was a thoroughly indolent woman by nature began to die out as she became accustomed to her new responsibilities
who used them as of old for his own ends vincent de paul in bitter grief and sorrow was forced to witness an abuse that he had no longer any power to check i fear he wrote in after years to a friend
the galleys
chatillon les dombes was in need of earnest workers vincent looked about him and set to work at once the first thing to be done was to clean out the church which was in such a state of dirt and squalor that people had some excuse for not wishing to enter it
he then turned his attention to the clergy already there they were ignorant and easygoing men for the most part who thought a good deal more of their own amusement than of the needs of their flock but they were not bad at heart
but the new rector had his own ideas on the subject
his first step was to be reconciled to the church his second to begin to interest himself in the poor gradually his bad companions dropped away
was in fact a changed man the whole town was in a stir who was this priest who had so suddenly come among them so self forgetful so simple so unassuming
this man came one day out of curiosity to hear him preach surprised and touched in spite of himself he determined to make the preacher's acquaintance and hastening into his presence flung himself on his knees before him
i am a wretch and a sinner he cried but tell me what to do and i will do it
the count profoundly struck by the contrast between this man's life and his own the one so powerful for good and the other so strong for evil vowed to mend his ways and he kept his word
his sword which had served him in all his duels and to which he was very much attached he broke in pieces on a rock his great chateau the walls of which had rung to the sound of wild carousals
whom the once dreaded count insisted on serving with his own hands he died the death of a saint a few years later amid the blessings of all the people whom he had helped the ladies of the parish
some of them moved by curiosity went to see the new preacher who receiving them with his usual kindness and courtesy drew a touching picture of the suffering and poverty that surrounded them
and begged them to think sometimes of their less fortunate brothers and sisters two of the richest and most fashionable ladies of the district touched by vincent's words and example gave themselves up entirely to the service of the poor
traveling about the country nursing the sick and even risking their lives in the care of the plague stricken they were the forerunners of those sisters of charity who were in after years to carry help and comfort among the poor of every country
one day as vincent was about to say mass one of these ladies begged him to speak to the congregation in favor of a poor family whose members were sick and starving
so successful was his appeal that when he himself went a few hours later to see what could be done he found the road thronged with people carrying food and necessaries this vincent at once realized was not practical
there was no want of charity but it needed organization
each in turn promising to provide a day's food for starving families thus
and every good woman might belong to it
and have since extended over the whole christian world the de gondis in the meantime had discovered the place of vincent's retreat
piteously urging him to return
a friend of vincent's who had promised to plead their cause and who set about it with a shrewd common sense that was not without its effect the work at chatillon he represented to vincent could be carried on by any good priest now that it had been set agoing
whereas in refusing to return to the de gondis he was neglecting an opportunity for doing good on a very much larger scale helped by their money and their influence not only their vast estates but paris itself lay open to him as a field for his labors
moreover he had taken his own way in going to chatillon was he sure that it was god's way vincent was humble enough to believe that he might be in the wrong
for the de gondis had won over de berulle completely to their side the next day vincent returned to the hotel de gondi where he promised to remain during the lifetime of the countess delighted to have him back at any price
madame de gondi herself setting the example of what a perfect lady of charity should be neither dirt discourtesy nor risk of infection could discourage this earnest disciple of vincent in spite of weak health she gave freely of her time her energy and her money
general of the king's galleys or as we should now say admiral of the fleet it was no easy post in days when the mediterranean was infested with turkish pirates to whom the royal ships had to give frequent chase
but the general had distinguished himself more than once by his skill and courage at this difficult task the use of steam was as yet unknown and the king's galleys were rowed by the convicts and prisoners of france
chained to their oars night and day kept in order by cruel cuts of the lash on their bare shoulders these men lived and died on the rowers bench without spiritual help or assistance of any kind
blaspheming and fighting the galley slaves made a picture suggestive only of hell
these are your people monseigneur he cried you will have to answer for them before god the general was aghast
the first advances were met with cursing and blasphemy but vincent was not to be discouraged with his own gentle charity he performed the lowest offices for these poor wretches to whom his heart went out with such an ardent pity
he cleansed them from the vermin which infested them and dressed their neglected sores gradually they were softened and would listen while he spoke to them of the saviour who had died to save their souls
at vincent's earnest request money was collected among his friends and patrons and a hospital built where the prisoners condemned to the galleys might be nursed into good health before they went on board
who promptly made vincent de paul almoner to the king's ships with the honors and privileges of a naval officer and a salary of six hundred livres
this enabled vincent to carry his mission farther afield and he determined to visit all the convict prisons in the seaport towns taking marseilles as his first station here where the conditions were perhaps even worse than in paris
vincent met them in the same spirit and conquered by the same means the fact that he had once been a slave himself gave him an insight into the sufferings of the galley slaves and a wonderful influence over them accustomed as they were to be looked upon as brutes
this strange new friend who went about among them kissing their chains sympathizing with their sufferings and attending to their lowest needs seemed to them like an angel from heaven even the most hardened could not resist such treatment
in the meantime through the generosity of vincent's friends hospitals were being built
for fevers plague and contagious diseases of every kind raged in the filthy convict prisons and many priests and lay helpers died of the infection yet other devoted workers were always found to take their place
mission work the incident which had given rise to vincent's first mission at folleville had never been forgotten by madame de gondi it seemed to her that there was need to multiply such missions among the country poor
to endow a band of priests who would devote their lives to evangelizing the peasantry on her estates vincent was delighted but considering himself unfit to undertake the management of such an enterprise he proposed that it should be put into the hands of the jesuits or the oratorians
madame de gondi although convinced in her own mind that vincent and vincent alone was the man to carry out the enterprise obediently suggested it to one religious order after another in every case some obstacle intervened
until the countess was more than ever persuaded that her first instinct had been right knowing vincent's loyalty to holy church and his obedience to authority she determined to have recourse to her brother in law the archbishop of paris an old house called the
she asked it of the archbishop whom she had interested in her scheme and who proposed to vincent to undertake the foundation there was no longer room for hesitation the will of god seemed plain
nine months of the year were to be given to this kind of work the other three to prayer and preparation in march sixteen twenty five the foundation was made and vincent de paul was named the first superior
it was stipulated however that he should remain as he had already promised in the house of the founders a condition which seemed likely to doom the enterprise to failure
the solution was altogether unexpected two months after the signing of the contract of foundation
and she died a few days later
but shortly afterwards leaving that world where he had shone so brilliantly
and a poor priest who had lately joined them before setting out on their mission journeys they used to give the key of the house to a neighbor but as there was nothing in it to steal there was little cause for anxiety in the course of their travels other priests realizing the greatness of the work asked
our language must be clear and unaffected the love of virtue and the hatred of evil were the points to be insisted on the people were to be shown where virtue lay and how to attain it for fine sermons vincent had the greatest contempt
he would use his merry wit to make fun of the pompous preachers whose only thought was to impress their audience with an idea of their own eloquence of what good is a display of rhetoric he would ask who is the better for it it serves no purpose but self advertisement
the mission priests did good wherever they went everybody wanted them
but in the course of their travels it had become painfully apparent that the clergy themselves were in urgent need of some awakening force those of good family led for the most part worldly and frivolous lives while the humbler sort were as ignorant as the peasants among whom they lived
to priests who were about to be ordained had fallen into disuse with the assistance of some of the french bishops he determined to revive it and retreats of ten or fourteen days were organized at saint lazare for candidates to the priesthood
for they are more learned than you they have read or heard it all before it is by what they see of your lives that you will help them if you yourselves are striving for perfection god will use you to lead these gentlemen in the right way
the blessing of god seemed indeed to rest upon the ordination retreats nearly all who made them carried away something of vincent's noble ideal of the priestly life many to whom they had been the turning point of a lifetime
felt the need of further help and instruction from the man who had awakened all that was noblest in their natures to meet this necessity vincent inaugurated a kind of guild for young priests who desire to live
weekly gatherings were held at saint lazare under the name of tuesday conferences
members were pledged to offer their lives completely to god and to renounce all self interest nevertheless they increased rapidly in number and the conferences were attended by all the most influential priests in paris
here as in so many other cases it was the congregation of the ladies of charity founded by vincent in paris
who left a widow at the age of twenty devoted herself and her enormous fortune to alms and good works
after the move to saint lazare the undertaking had grown and prospered
and these two institutions the first of the famous seminaries which were later to spread all over france were powerful for the reform of the clergy one hundred and fifty years later the mission priests of saint lazare alone were at the head of sixty such seminaries
so the work of the congregation increased and multiplied until it seemed almost too much for human capacity but vincent knew wherein lay the strength of the mission priests
how can we lead souls to god how can we stem the tide of wickedness among the people let us realize that this is not man's work at all it is god's human energy will only hinder it unless directed by god
the most important point of all is that we should be in touch with our lord in prayer dearest to his heart of all his undertakings was the first and chief work of the congregation the holding of missions for the poor
by twos and threes he would send out his sons to their labors bidding them travel to their destination in the cheapest possible way they were to accept neither free quarters nor gifts of any kind all their thoughts and prayers were to be concentrated on their work
they were to live for their mission two sermons were to be preached daily simple instructions on the great truths and those who had not yet made their first communion were to be catechized the mission lasted ten or fourteen days
during which the mission priests were to have as much personal contact with the people as possible visiting the sick and the infirm reconciling enemies and showing themselves as the friends of all
unless the congregation of the mission is humble said vincent and realizes that it can accomplish nothing of any value but that it is more apt to mar than to make it will never be of much effect
but when it has this spirit it will be fit for the purposes of god yet in spite of all that such a vocation meant of self renunciation year after year the mission priests increased in number
a great household vincent remained two years in the house of father de berulle in the hope of obtaining permanent work the administration of a poor country parish was he maintained the only thing he was fit for
while he was with de berulle was of the same opinion he will be the holiest priest of his time he said one day as he watched him as for vincent he was completely won by the gentle serenity of saint francis and took him as model in his relations with others
at last vincent's desire seemed about to be fulfilled a friend of de berulle's cure of the country parish of clichy near paris announced his intention of entering the oratory
and at de berulle's request chose vincent de paul as his successor here amidst his beloved poor vincent was completely happy
and any son of poor parents who showed a vocation for the priesthood was taken into the presbytery and taught by vincent himself the parish church which was in great disrepair was rebuilt old standing quarrels were made up
vincent was looking forward to a life spent in earnest work among his people when a summons from father de berulle recalled him suddenly to paris
nothing less than the resignation of his beloved clichy was now asked of him by this friend to whom he owed so much one of the greatest noblemen of france
and that as he was evidently destined to do great work for god it would be to his advantage to have powerful and influential friends although the prospect of such a post filled the humble parish priest with consternation
he owed too much to de berulle to refuse setting out from clichy with his worldly goods on a hand barrow he arrived at the oratory
the house of messire de gondi was one of the most magnificent in paris the count one of the bravest and handsomest men of his day was in high favor at court
was remarkable for her fervor and piety the de gondi children unfortunately did not take after their parents and the two boys whose education vincent was to undertake and whose character he was to form were described by their aunt as
regular little demons the youngest of the family the famous or rather infamous cardinal de retz was not yet born but vincent's hands were sufficiently full without him
i should like my children to be saints rather than great noblemen said madame de gondi when she presented the boys to their tutor but the prospect seemed remote enough the violent temper and obstinacy of his charges were a great trial to vincent
vincent was a dependent but there was a quiet dignity about him which forbade liberties with the servants and there were many of every grade he was always cordial and polite losing no chance of winning their confidence
that he might influence them for good his duties over he would retire to his own room refusing unless especially sent for to mix with the great people who frequented the house
she applied to father de berulle to use his influence in the matter and thus obtained her desire at vincent's suggestion she soon afterwards undertook certain works of charity which were destined to be the seed of a great enterprise
the count too began to feel the effects of vincent's presence in his household it was the age of dueling and hundreds of lives were lost in this barbarous practice de gondi was a famous swordsman
or of refraining from challenging another when his honor was at stake had never occurred to him vincent had been some time at the de gondis when it came to his ears that the count intended to fight a duel on a certain day and he resolved if possible to prevent it
de gondi was present at mass in the morning and remained on afterwards in the chapel praying probably that he might prevail over his enemy vincent waited till everyone had gone out and then approached him softly monsieur he said
i know that you intend to fight a duel and i tell you as a message from my saviour before whom you kneel that if you do not renounce this intention his judgment will fall on you and yours
tending the sick with her own hands
profaning the sacraments and deceiving all who knew him
acknowledging his guilt also to madame de gondi who came to visit him after vincent had departed ah madame he cried if i had not made that general confession my soul would have been lost for all eternity
it was a terrible thought ah monsieur vincent cried the great lady how many souls are being lost can you do nothing to help them her words found an echo in vincent's heart
next sunday he preached a sermon in the parish church on the necessity of general confession it was the first of the famous mission sermons destined to do so much good in france while he spoke madame de gondi prayed and the result far surpassed their expectations
his work as a tutor had been a failure he told him he could do nothing with his pupils and he was receiving honor which he in no way deserved he ended by begging to be allowed to work for the poor in some humble and lonely place
and de berulle decided to grant his wish the country parish of chatillon was in need of workers was the answer let him go there and exercise his zeal for souls the only remaining difficulty was to get away from the great house
and the arguments that would be used against him
madame de gondi did nothing but weep while her husband applied to everyone whom he thought to have any influence with vincent to persuade him to return if he has not the gift of teaching children he wrote to a friend it does not matter
book the second the golden thread
five years later tellson's bank by temple bar was an old fashioned place even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty it was very small very dark very ugly very incommodious
it was an old fashioned place moreover in the moral attribute that the partners in the house were proud of its smallness proud of its darkness proud of its ugliness proud of its incommodiousness
tellson's they said wanted no elbow room tellson's wanted no light tellson's wanted no embellishment
or snooks brothers might but tellson's thank heaven any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on the question of rebuilding tellson's in this respect the house was much on a par with the country
thus it had come to pass that tellson's was the triumphant perfection of inconvenience after bursting open a door of idiotic obstinacy with a weak rattle in its throat
with two little counters where the oldest of men made your cheque shake as if the wind rustled it while they examined the signature by the dingiest of windows which were always under a shower bath of mud from fleet street
and which were made the dingier by their own iron bars proper and the heavy shadow of temple bar if your business necessitated your seeing the house you were put into a species of condemned hold at the back
where you meditated on a misspent life until the house came with its hands in its pockets and you could hardly blink at it in the dismal twilight your money came out of or went into wormy old wooden drawers
particles of which flew up your nose and down your throat when they were opened and shut your bank notes had a musty odour as if they were fast decomposing into rags again
your plate was stowed away among the neighbouring cesspools and evil communications corrupted its good polish in a day or two your deeds got into extemporised strong rooms made of kitchens and sculleries
but indeed at that time putting to death was a recipe much in vogue with all trades and professions and not least of all with tellson's death is nature's remedy for all things and why not legislation's
accordingly the forger was put to death the utterer of a bad note was put to death the unlawful opener of a letter was put to death the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to death
the least good in the way of prevention it might almost have been worth remarking that the fact was exactly the reverse but it cleared off as to this world the trouble of each particular case and left nothing else connected with it to be looked after
thus tellson's in its day like greater places of business its contemporaries had taken so many lives that if the heads laid low before it had been ranged on temple bar instead of being privately disposed of
in a rather significant manner cramped in all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches at tellson's the oldest of men carried on the business gravely when they took a young man into tellson's london house
they kept him in a dark place like a cheese until he had the full tellson flavour and blue mould upon him then only was he permitted to be seen
outside tellson's never by any means in it unless called in was an odd job man an occasional porter and messenger who served as the live sign of the house he was never absent during business hours unless upon an errand
mister cruncher himself always spoke of the year of our lord as anna dominoes apparently under the impression that the christian era dated from the invention of a popular game by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it
the room in which he lay abed was already scrubbed throughout and between the cups and saucers arranged for breakfast and the lumbering deal table a very clean white cloth was spread mister cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane like a harlequin at home
at first he slept heavily but by degrees began to roll and surge in bed until he rose above the surface with his spiky hair looking as if it must tear the sheets to ribbons at which juncture he exclaimed in a voice of dire exasperation
you're at it agin are you after hailing the morn with this second salutation he threw a boot at the woman as a third it was a very muddy boot and may introduce the odd circumstance connected with mister cruncher's domestic economy
that whereas he often came home after banking hours with clean boots he often got up next morning to find the same boots covered with clay what said mister cruncher varying his apostrophe after missing his mark what are you up to aggerawayter
i was not praying against you i was praying for you you weren't and if you were i won't be took the liberty with here
you've got a dutiful mother you have my son you've got a religious mother you have my boy going and flopping herself down and praying that the bread and butter may be snatched out of the mouth of her only child master cruncher who was in his shirt took this very ill
not you and throwing off other sarcastic sparks from the whirling grindstone of his indignation mister cruncher betook himself to his boot cleaning and his general preparation for business in the meantime his son whose head was garnished with tenderer spikes
and whose young eyes stood close by one another as his father's did kept the required watch upon his mother he greatly disturbed that poor woman at intervals by darting out of his sleeping closet where he made his toilet with a suppressed cry of you are going to flop mother halloa father
he resented missus cruncher's saying grace with particular animosity now aggerawayter what are you up to at it again his wife explained that she had merely asked a blessing
don't do it said mister crunches looking about as if he rather expected to see the loaf disappear under the efficacy of his wife's petitions
growling over it like any four footed inmate of a menagerie towards nine o'clock he smoothed his ruffled aspect and presenting as respectable and business like an exterior as he could overlay his natural self with issued forth to the occupation of the day
it could scarcely be called a trade in spite of his favourite description of himself as a honest tradesman his stock consisted of a wooden stool made out of a broken backed chair cut down
it formed the encampment for the day on this post of his mister cruncher was as well known to fleet street and the temple as the bar itself
encamped at a quarter before nine in good time to touch his three cornered hat to the oldest of men as they passed in to tellson's jerry took up his station on this windy march morning with young jerry standing by him
when not engaged in making forays through the bar to inflict bodily and mental injuries of an acute description on passing boys who were small enough for his amiable purpose father and son extremely like each other
looking silently on at the morning traffic in fleet street with their two heads as near to one another as the two eyes of each were bore a considerable resemblance to a pair of monkeys the resemblance was not lessened by the accidental circumstance that the mature jerry bit and spat out straw
while the twinkling eyes of the youthful jerry were as restlessly watchful of him as of everything else in fleet street the head of one of the regular indoor messengers attached to tellson's establishment was put through the door and the word was given porter wanted
in both there were several knots of loungers squalid and miserable but now with a manifest sense of power enthroned on their distress the raggedest nightcap awry on the wretchedest head had this crooked significance in it
i know how hard it has grown for me the wearer of this to support life in myself but do you know how easy it has grown for me the wearer of this to destroy life in you every lean bare arm that had been without work before
had this work always ready for it now that it could strike the fingers of the knitting women were vicious with the experience that they could tear there was a change in the appearance of saint antoine the image had been hammering into this for hundreds of years
and the last finishing blows had told mightily on the expression madame defarge sat observing it with such suppressed approval as was to be desired in the leader of the saint antoine women one of her sisterhood knitted beside her
the short rather plump wife of a starved grocer and the mother of two children withal this lieutenant had already earned the complimentary name of the vengeance hark said the vengeance listen then who comes
listen everywhere said madame again listen to him defarge stood panting against a background of eager eyes and open mouths formed outside the door all those within the wine shop had sprung to their feet
say then my husband what is it news from the other world how then cried madame contemptuously the other world
and who died and went to hell everybody from all throats the news is of him he is among us among us from the universal throat again and dead not dead he feared us so much and with reason
defarge and his wife looked steadfastly at one another the vengeance stooped and the jar of a drum was heard as she moved it at her feet behind the counter patriots said defarge in a determined voice are we ready
instantly madame defarge's knife was in her girdle the drum was beating in the streets as if it and a drummer had flown together by magic and the vengeance uttering terrific shrieks and flinging her arms about her head like all the forty furies at once
was tearing from house to house rousing the women the men were terrible in the bloody minded anger with which they looked from windows caught up what arms they had and came pouring down into the streets but the women were a sight to chill the boldest
with the wildest cries and actions villain foulon taken my sister old foulon taken my mother miscreant foulon taken my daughter
this foulon was at the hotel de ville and might be loosed never if saint antoine knew his own sufferings insults and wrongs armed men and women flocked out of the quarter so fast and drew even these last dregs after them with such a force of suction
that within a quarter of an hour there was not a human creature in saint antoine's bosom but a few old crones and the wailing children no they were all by that time choking the hall of examination
that was well done let him eat it now madame put her knife under her arm and clapped her hands as at a play the people immediately behind madame defarge explaining the cause of her satisfaction to those behind them
with marvellous quickness at a distance the more readily because certain men who had by some wonderful exercise of agility climbed up the external architecture to look in from the windows knew madame defarge well and acted as a telegraph between her and the crowd outside the building
directly down upon the old prisoner's head the favour was too much to bear in an instant the barrier of dust and chaff that had stood surprisingly long went to the winds and saint antoine had got him
it was known directly to the furthest confines of the crowd defarge had but sprung over a railing and a table and folded the miserable wretch in a deadly embrace
madame defarge had but followed and turned her hand in one of the ropes with which he was tied the vengeance and jacques three were not yet up with them and the men at the windows had not yet swooped into the hall like birds of prey from their high perches
when the cry seemed to go up all over the city bring him out bring him to the lamp down and up and head foremost on the steps of the building now on his knees now on his feet now on his back dragged and struck at
that they might see now a log of dead wood drawn through a forest of legs he was hauled to the nearest street corner where one of the fatal lamps swung and there madame defarge let him go as a cat might have done to a mouse
and silently and composedly looked at him while they made ready and while he besought her the women passionately screeching at him all the time and the men sternly calling out to have him killed with grass in his mouth
once he went aloft and the rope broke and they caught him shrieking twice he went aloft and the rope broke and they caught him shrieking then the rope was merciful and held him and his head was soon upon a pike
set his head and heart on pikes and carried the three spoils of the day in wolf procession through the streets
and achieving them again in gossip gradually these strings of ragged people shortened and frayed away and then poor lights began to shine in high windows and slender fires were made in the streets at which neighbours cooked in common
afterwards supping at their doors scanty and insufficient suppers those and innocent of meat as of most other sauce to wretched bread yet human fellowship infused some nourishment into the flinty viands
and struck some sparks of cheerfulness out of them fathers and mothers who had had their full share in the worst of the day played gently with their meagre children and lovers with such a world around them and before them loved and hoped
eh well returned madame almost saint antoine slept the defarges slept even the vengeance slept with her starved grocer
could have wakened him up and had the same speech out of him as before the bastille fell or old foulon was seized
mix an egg in it fill the fish with this and sew it up or tie a string round it put it in a deep pan or oval oven and bake it as you would a fowl to a large fish add half a pint of water
you can add more for the gravy if necessary dust flour over and baste it with butter any other fresh fish can be baked in the same way a large one will bake slowly in an hour and a half small ones in half an hour
to stew a rock fish rub the fish with salt and pepper and a little cayenne on the inside put it in an oval stew pan to a fish that weighs six pounds put a pint of water when it is about half done
season it well with salt and pepper and a little mace or cloves rub a quarter of a pound of butter in a half a tea cup of flour with a little parsley and thyme stir this in with a pint of oysters
serve it with the gravy in the dish a large fish should be allowed an hour small ones half an hour to broil shad soak a salt shad a day or night previous to cooking
it is best to drain an hour before you put it to the fire if it hangs long exposed to the air it loses its flavor grease the gridiron to keep it from sticking have good coals and put the inside down first
fresh shad is better to be sprinkled with salt an hour before it is put to broil put a plate over the top to keep the heat in in broiling shad or other fresh fish you should dust them with corn meal before you put them down to bake a fresh shad
make a stuffing of bread butter salt pepper and parsley fill a large shad with this and bake it in a stove or oven to fry fresh fish have the fish well scalded washed and drained
cut slits in the sides of each season them with salt and pepper and roll them in corn flour have in your frying pan hot lard or bacon drippings if the fish have been kept several days dip them in egg before rolling them in corn flour
dip them in this and fry them in butter to stew clams strain the liquor and stew them in it for about twenty minutes make a thickening of flour water and pepper stir this in and let it boil up
have some bread toasted and buttered in a deep dish and pour the clams over clam soup may be made by putting an equal quantity of water with the liquor and putting in toasted bread crackers or dumplings
put a plate over the top of the jar and set it in a moderately warm oven or on the top of a stove in a pan of hot water for five or six hours they will keep in a cool place several weeks and are an excellent relish
the jar or pan should be of stone ware or fire proof yellow ware to boil salt cod put your fish to soak over night change the water in the morning and let it stay till you put it on which should be two hours before dinner
let salmon soak over night and boil it slowly for two hours eat it with drawn butter to pickle salmon after it has been boiled heat vinegar scalding hot with whole peppers and cloves cut the fish in small square pieces
and keep it boiling fast a large fish will take from half to three quarters of an hour a small one from fifteen to twenty minutes a fat shad is very nice boiled although rock and bass are preferred generally
when done take it up on a fish dish and cover it with egg sauce or drawn butter and parsley pickled mushrooms and walnuts and mushroom catsup are good with boiled fish to stew terrapins
take out the eggs put the pieces in a stew pan pour in all the liquor and cover them with water put in salt cayenne and black pepper and a little mace put in a lump of butter the size of an egg and let them stew for half an hour
make a thickening of flour and water which stir in a few minutes before you take it up with two glasses of wine serve it in a deep covered dish put in the eggs just as you dish it oyster soup
strain the liquor from the oysters and put it on to boil with an equal quantity of water take off the scum as it rises put in pepper salt parsley thyme and butter stir in a thickening of flour and water throw in the oysters and let them scald
then put in six large blades of mace a little cayenne and black or white pepper the latter on account of the color is preferable as it is desirable to have the soup as white as possible
afterwards permit all to boil together about five minutes then pour in the oysters and a quarter of a pound of butter into which a dessert spoonful of wheat flour has been rubbed fine keep this at boiling heat until the oysters begin to look plump
half a small tea spoonful of soda well mixed with it after you put in the cream permit it to remain on the fire long enough to arrive at boiling heat again when it must be taken up or it may curdle throw into the tureen a little finely cut parsley
pour your oysters into the dish and season to your taste with butter pepper and salt adding mace or cloves crumb bread on the top of the oysters and bake it with a quick heat about fifteen minutes to fry oysters
pick out the largest oysters and drain them sprinkle them with pepper and salt beat up an egg and dip them first in it and then in pounded crackers and fry them in butter it is a plainer way to dip them in corn meal
oyster fritters make a thick batter with two eggs some crumbs of bread and flour and a little milk season this well with pepper and salt
equal parts of lard and butter drop in a spoonful of the batter and put into it one large oyster or two small ones let them brown slowly so as not to burn turn them carefully this is a good way to have oysters at breakfast
to stew oysters open them and throw them in a stew pan with a lump of butter make a thickening of flour and water salt and pepper and stir it in just as the oysters boil
when they are done take them up in a deep covered dish with buttered toast in the bottom a rich oyster pie strain off the liquor from the oysters and put it on to boil with some butter mace nutmeg pepper and salt
just as it boils stir in a thickening of milk and flour put in the oysters and stir them till they are sufficiently stewed then take them off and put in the yelks of two eggs well beaten do not put this in while it is boiling or it will curdle
take out the paper or napkin and pour in the oysters send it hot to table a baltimore oyster pie make a crust after the directions given for puff paste grease the bottom of a deep dish
cover it with paste then season two quarts of raw oysters without the liquor with spices to your taste some preferring nutmeg mace cayenne pepper others black pepper alone
put a piece of paper doubled over it and the light color will be retained when taken from the oven if it should look dry pour some of the liquor that was drained from the oysters in the dish having previously strained and boiled it
as paste always looks more beautiful when just from the oven arrange your dinner so that the pie may be placed on the table immediately it is done plain oyster pie
and mace pepper and salt to your taste lay a paste in a deep dish put in the oysters and cover them with paste cut a hole in the middle
and bake it a shallow pie will bake in three quarters of an hour oyster sauce plump the oysters for a few minutes over the fire take them out and stir into the liquor some flour and butter mixed together
then take out the oysters and put to their own liquor a table spoonful of whole black pepper and a tea spoonful of mace and cloves let it boil five minutes skim and pour it over the oysters in a jar
oysters pickled another way wash and drain the oysters and put them in salt and water that will bear an egg let them scald till plump and put them in a glass jar with some cloves and whole peppers
and when cold cover them with vinegar to brown oysters in their own juice take a quart of large oysters wash them in their own juice drain and dip them in the yelk of eggs
heat butter in a frying pan and after seasoning them with pepper and salt put them in separately when they are brown on both sides draw them to one side of the pan strain the liquor and put it in with a piece of butter
and flour enough to thicken it a dish of poached eggs have ready a kettle of boiling water pour it in a pan or speeder which is set on coals have the eggs at hand
let them remain till the white is set and take them out with an egg spoon and put on a dish that has buttered toast on it fried eggs slice and fry any kind of bacon dish it
have the eggs ready in a dish and pour them into the gravy when done take them up and lay them on the meat fried eggs another way have your lard or butter boiling hot break in one egg at a time
beat six or eight eggs with some chopped parsley and a little salt have the pan or speeder nicely washed put in a quarter of a pound of butter when it is hot pour in the eggs stir it with a spoon till it begins to form
when it is of a light brown on the under side it is done
grated bread soaked in cream put in the omelet some think an improvement the dripping of a nice ham some persons use for omelet instead of butter to boil eggs have the water boiling and look at your watch as you put them in
i was passive in the whole matter a little girl cousin of mine was put in a bag and suspended from the horn of an indian saddle
accordingly i was put into another sack and made to keep the saddle and the girl in position i did not object for i had a very pleasant game of peek a boo with the little girl
until we came to a big snow drift where the poor beast was stuck fast and began to lie down then it was not so nice
at least i used to think so i believe i was accustomed to all the precarious indian conveyances and as a boy i enjoyed the dog travaux ride as much as any
which were harnessed to the sides of the animal as if he stood between shafts while the free ends were allowed to drag on the ground both ponies and large dogs were used as beasts of burden
and they carried in this way the smaller children as well as the baggage this mode of travelling for children was possible only in the summer and as the dogs were sometimes unreliable
the little ones were exposed to a certain amount of danger for instance whenever a train of dogs had been travelling for a long time almost perishing with the heat and their heavy loads
a glimpse of water would cause them to forget all their responsibilities some of them in spite of the screams of the women would swim with their burdens into the cooling stream and i was thus on more than one occasion
made to partake of an unwilling bath i was a little over four years old at the time of the sioux massacre in minnesota in the general turmoil we took flight into british columbia
and the journey is still vividly remembered by all our family a yoke of oxen and a lumber wagon were taken from some white farmer and brought home for our conveyance
how delighted i was when i learned that we were to ride behind those wise looking animals and in that gorgeously painted wagon it seemed almost like a living creature to me this new vehicle with four legs
and the more so when we got out of axle grease and the wheels went along squealing like pigs the boys found a great deal of innocent fun in jumping from the high wagon while the oxen were leisurely moving along
alas before i could realize what had happened i was under the wheels and had it not been for the neighbor immediately behind us i might have been run over by the next team as well
this was my first experience with a civilized vehicle i cried out all possible reproaches on the white man's team and concluded that a dog travaux was good enough for me
i was really rejoiced that we were moving away from the people who made the wagon that had almost ended my life and it did not occur to me that i alone was to blame i could not be persuaded to ride in that wagon again
now the missouri is considered one of the most treacherous rivers in the world even a good modern boat is not safe upon its uncertain current we were forced to cross in buffalo skin boats as round as tubs
braced with ribs of willow some of these were towed by two or three women or men swimming in the water and some by ponies it was not an easy matter to keep them right side up
and in the long night marches to get away from the soldiers we suffered from loss of sleep and insufficient food our meals were eaten hastily and sometimes in the saddle water was not always to be found
which saved our lives one of the most thrilling experiences of the following winter was a blizzard which overtook us in our wanderings here and there a family lay down in the snow
for a day and a night we lay under the snow uncle stuck a long pole beside us to tell us when the storm was over we had plenty of buffalo robes and the snow kept us warm but we found it heavy
and we had several narrow escapes from death in savage life the early spring is the most trying time and almost all the famines occurred at this period of the year
in times of famine the adults often denied themselves in order to make the food last as long as possible for the children who were not able to bear hunger as well as the old
as a people they can live without food much longer than any other nation i once passed through one of these hard springs when we had nothing to eat for several days
although i had only a small wing of a small bird for my share soon after this we came into a region where buffaloes were plenty and hunger and scarcity were forgotten such was the indians wild life
little preparation was made for the future they are children of nature and occasionally she whips them with the lashes of experience yet they are forgetful and careless much of their suffering might have been prevented
by a little calculation during the summer when nature is at her best and provides abundantly for the savage it seems to me that no life is happier than his food is free
everything free all were alike rich in the summer and again all were alike poor in the winter and early spring however their diseases were fewer and not so destructive as now
and the indian's health was generally good the indian boy enjoyed such a life as almost all boys dream of and would choose for themselves if they were permitted to do so
only a few of them were recovered and our journeys after this misfortune were effected mostly by means of the dog travaux the second winter after the massacre my father and my two older brothers with several others
were betrayed by a half breed at winnipeg to the united states authorities as i was then living with my uncle in another part of the country i became separated from them for ten years
the syrian the church has aureoled and sainted the men and women who have fought the cosmic urge to do nothing and to be nothing was regarded as a virtue
and now and again a beautiful column pointing to the sky all about is the desert or solitary pastures
and only this white milestone marking the path of the centuries and telling in its own silent solemn and impressive way of a day that is dead in the fifth century a monk
called simeon the syrian
he climbed to the top of a marble column sixty feet high and there on the capstone he began to live a life beyond reproach simeon was then twenty four years old
the environment was circumscribed but there were outlook sunshine ventilation three good things but beyond these the place had certain disadvantages
the capstone was a little less than three feet square so simeon could not lie down he slept sitting with his head bowed between his knees
and indeed in this posture he passed most of his time any recklessness in movement and he would have slipped from his perilous position and been dashed to death upon the stones beneath
as the sun arose he stood up just for a few moments and held out his arms in greeting blessing and in prayer three times during the day did he thus stretch his cramped limbs
and pray with his face to the east at such times those who stood near shared in his prayers and went away blessed and refreshed how did simeon get to the top of the column
well his companions at the monastery a mile away said he was carried there in the night by a miraculous power that he went to sleep in his stone cell and awoke on the pillar
other monks said that simeon had gone to pay his respects to a fair lady and in wrath god had caught him and placed him on high
as viewed by an unbeliever that he shot a line over the column with a bow and arrow and then drew up a rope ladder and ascended with ease
with the scorching heat of the midday sun and the cool winds of the night still simeon kept his place the rainy season came on when the nights were cold and dark
simeon sat there with bowed head and drew the folds of his single garment a black robe over his face another season passed the sun again grew warm then hot
and the sandstorms raged and blew when the people below almost lost sight of the man on the column some prophesied he would be blown off but the morning light revealed his form
naked from the waist up standing with hands outstretched to greet the rising sun once each day as darkness gathered a monk came with a basket containing a bottle of goat's milk
there was no respite nor rest from the hard surface of the rock and aching muscles could find no change from the cramped and perilous position if he fell it was damnation for his soul
all were agreed as to this but man's body and mind accommodate themselves to almost any condition one thing at least simeon was free from economic responsibilities
free from social cares and intrusion bores with sad stories of unappreciated lives and fond hopes unrealized never broke in upon his peace
never irritated his temper his correspondence never got in a heap simeon kept no track of the days having no engagements to meet nor offices to perform
became a habit language was lost in disuse the food he ate was minimum in quantity sensation ceased and the dry hot winds
reduced bodily tissue to a dessicated something called a saint loved feared and reverenced for his fortitude this pillar which had once graced the portal of a pagan temple
again became a place of pious pilgrimage and people flocked to simeon's rock so that they might be near when he stretched out his black bony hands to the east and the spirit of almighty god
for a space hovered close around so much attention did the abnegation of simeon attract that various other pillars marking the ruins of art and greatness gone
the bishops in assembly asked is simeon sincere to test the matter of simeon's pride he was ordered to come down from his retreat as to his chastity there was little doubt
his poverty was beyond question but how about obedience to his superiors the order was shouted up to him in a bishop's voice he must let down his rope draw up a ladder
and descend straightway simeon made preparation to obey and then the bishops relented and cried we have changed our minds and now order you to remain
simeon lifted his hands in adoration and thankfulness and renewed his lease and so he lived on and on and on he lived on the top of that pillar never once descending
for thirty years all his former companions grew aweary and one by one died and the monastery bells tolled their requiem as they were laid to rest
the young monk who now at eventide brought the basket with the bottle of goat's milk and the loaf of brown bread was born since simeon had taken his place on the pillar
he has always been there the people said and crossed themselves hurriedly but one evening when the young monk came with his basket no line was dropped down from above
he waited and then called aloud but all in vain when sunrise came there sat the monk his face between his knees the folds of his black robe drawn over his head
but he did not rise and lift his hands in prayer all day he sat there motionless the people watched in whispered silence would he arise at sundown and pray
and with outstretched hands bless the assembled pilgrims and as they watched a vulture came sailing slowly through the blue ether and circled nearer and nearer
and off on the horizon was another and still another
games and sports the indian boy was a prince of the wilderness he had but very little work to do during the period of his boyhood
his principal occupation was the practice of a few simple arts in warfare and the chase aside from this he was master of his time it is true that our savage life was a precarious one
and full of dreadful catastrophes however this never prevented us from enjoying our sports to the fullest extent as we left our teepees in the morning we were never sure that our scalps would not dangle from a pole in the afternoon
it was an uncertain life to be sure yet we observed that the fawns skipped and played happily while the gray wolves might be peeping forth from behind the hills ready to tear them limb from limb
our sports were molded by the life and customs of our people indeed we practiced only what we expected to do when grown our games were feats with the bow and arrow foot and pony races wrestling
swimming and imitation of the customs and habits of our fathers we had sham fights with mud balls and willow wands we played lacrosse made war upon bees shot winter arrows
which were used only in that season and coasted upon the ribs of animals and buffalo robes no sooner did the boys get together than as a usual thing they divided into squads and chose sides
then a leading arrow was shot at random into the air before it fell to the ground a volley from the bows of the participants followed each player was quick to note the direction and speed of the leading arrow
and he tried to send his own at the same speed and at an equal height
it was considered out of place to shoot by first sighting the object aimed at this was usually impracticable in actual life because the object was almost always in motion
and was generally confined to the men the races were an every day occurrence at noon the boys were usually gathered by some pleasant sheet of water
and as soon as the ponies were watered they were allowed to graze for an hour or two while the boys stripped for their noonday sports a boy might say to some other whom he considered his equal
i can't run but i will challenge you to fifty paces a former hero when beaten would often explain his defeat by saying i drank too much water
boys of all ages were paired for a spin and the little red men cheered on their favorites with spirit as soon as this was ended the pony races followed
all the speedy ponies were picked out and riders chosen if a boy declined to ride there would be shouts of derision last of all came the swimming a little urchin would hang to his pony's long tail
while the latter with only his head above water glided sportively along finally the animals were driven into a fine field of grass and we turned our attention to other games
a lump of soft clay was stuck on the end of a limber and springy willow wand and thrown as boys throw apples from sticks with considerable force
when there were fifty or a hundred players on each side the battle became warm but anything to arouse the bravery of indian boys seemed to them a good and wholesome diversion
wrestling was largely indulged in by us all it may seem odd but wrestling was done by a great many boys at once from ten to any number on a side it was really a battle
in which each one chose his opponent the rule was that if a boy sat down he was let alone but as long as he remained standing within the field he was open to an attack no one struck with the hand
but all manner of tripping with legs and feet and butting with the knees was allowed altogether it was an exhausting pastime fully equal to the american game of football and only the young athlete could really enjoy it
one of our most curious sports was a war upon the nests of wild bees we imagined ourselves about to make an attack upon the ojibways or some tribal foe we all painted
and stole cautiously upon the nest then with a rush and war whoop sprang upon the object of our attack and endeavored to destroy it but it seemed that the bees were always on the alert and never entirely surprised
for they always raised quite as many scalps as did their bold assailants after the onslaught upon the nest was ended we usually followed it by a pretended scalp dance
on the occasion of my first experience in this mode of warfare there were two other little boys who were also novices one of them particularly was really too young to indulge in an exploit of that kind
as it was the custom of our people when they killed or wounded an enemy on the battle field to announce the act in a loud voice we did the same my friend little wound
as i will call him for i do not remember his name being quite small was unable to reach the nest until it had been well trampled upon and broken and the insects had made a counter charge with such vigor
dive into the water run dive into the water for there was a lake near by this advice he obeyed when we had reassembled and were indulging in our mimic dance
little wound was not allowed to dance he was considered not to be in existence he had been killed by our enemies the bee tribe poor little fellow
his swollen face was sad and ashamed as he sat on a fallen log and watched the dance although he might well have styled himself one of the noble dead who had died for their country
yet he was not unmindful that he had screamed and this weakness would be apt to recur to him many times in the future we had some quiet plays which we alternated with the more severe and warlike ones
among them were throwing wands and snow arrows in the winter we coasted much we had no double rippers or toboggans but six or seven of the long ribs of a buffalo
fastened together at the larger end answered all practical purposes sometimes a strip of bass wood bark four feet long and about six inches wide was used with considerable skill
we stood on one end and held the other using the slippery inside of the bark for the outside and thus coasting down long hills with remarkable speed the spinning of tops was one of the all absorbing winter sports
we made our tops heart shaped of wood horn or bone we whipped them with a long thong of buckskin the handle was a stick about a foot long and sometimes we whittled the stick
to make it spoon shaped at one end we played games with these tops two to fifty boys at one time each whips his top until it hums
then one takes the lead and the rest follow in a sort of obstacle race the top must spin all the way through there were bars of snow over which we must pilot our top in the spoon end of our whip
then again we would toss it in the air on to another open spot of ice or smooth snow crust from twenty to fifty paces away the top that holds out the longest is the winner we loved to play in the water
when we had no ponies we often had swimming matches of our own and sometimes made rafts with which we crossed lakes and rivers it was a common thing to duck a young or timid boy
the older boys had put us on this uncertain bark and pushed us out into the swift current of the river i cannot speak for my comrade in distress but i can say now that i would rather ride on a swift bronco any day
than try to stay on and steady a short log in a river i never knew how we managed to prevent a shipwreck on that voyage and to reach the shore we had many curious wild pets there were young foxes
i once had a grizzly bear for a pet and so far as he and i were concerned our relations were charming and very close but i hardly know whether he made more enemies for me or i for him
truth stranger than fiction is the poor privilege to turn the key upon the captive freedom he's as far from the enjoyment of the earth and air who watches o'er the chains as they who wear during certain seasons of the year
all tropical climates are subject to epidemics of a most destructive nature the inhabitants of new orleans look with as much certainty for the appearance of the yellow fever small pox or cholera in the hot season as the londoner does for fog in the month of november
in the summer of eighteen thirty one the people of new orleans were visited with one of these epidemics it appeared in a form unusually repulsive and deadly
without any premonition sometimes death was the immediate consequence the disorder began in the brain by an oppressive pain accompanied or followed by fever the patient was devoured with burning thirst the stomach distracted by pains
in vain sought relief in efforts to disburden itself fiery veins streaked the eye the face was inflamed and dyed of a dark dull red colour the ears from time to time rang painfully
now mucous secretions surcharged the tongue and took away the power of speech now the sick one spoke but in speaking had a foresight of death when the violence of the disease approached the heart the gums were blackened
the sleep broken troubled by convulsions or by frightful visions was worse than the waking hours and when the reason sank under a delirium which had its seat in the brain repose utterly forsook the patient's couch
the progress of the heat within was marked by yellowish spots which spread over the surface of the body if then a happy crisis came not all hope was gone soon the breath infected the air with a fetid odour the lips were glazed
despair painted itself in the eyes and sobs with long intervals of silence formed the only language from each side of the mouth spread foam tinged with black and burnt blood blue streaks mingled with the yellow all over the frame
all remedies were useless this was the yellow fever the disorder spread alarm and confusion throughout the city on an average more than four hundred died daily in the midst of disorder and confusion death heaped victims on victims
friend followed friend in quick succession the sick were avoided from the fear of contagion and for the same reason the dead were left unburied nearly two thousand dead bodies lay uncovered in the burial ground with only here and there a little lime thrown over them
to prevent the air becoming infected the negro whose home is in a hot climate was not proof against the disease many plantations had to suspend their work for want of slaves to take the places of those carried off by the fever
swept away by the raging disorder that year like too many morton had been dealing extensively in lands and stocks and though apparently in good circumstances was in reality deeply involved in debt
althesa although as white as most white women in a southern clime was as we already know born a slave by the laws of all the southern states the children follow the condition of the mother if the mother is free the children are free
if a slave they are slaves morton was unacquainted with the laws of the land
it was a marriage which the law did not recognise and therefore she whom he thought to be his wife was in fact nothing more than his slave what would have been his feelings had he known this and also known that his two daughters ellen and jane
were his slaves yet such was the fact after the disappearance of the disease with which henry morton had so suddenly been removed his brother went to new orleans to give what aid he could in settling up the affairs
james morton on his arrival in new orleans felt proud of his nieces and promised them a home with his own family in vermont little dreaming that his brother had married a slave woman and that his nieces were slaves
the girls themselves had never heard that their mother had been a slave and therefore knew nothing of the danger hanging over their heads an inventory of the property was made out by james morton and placed in the hands of the creditors and the young ladies with their uncle
were about leaving the city to reside for a few days on the banks of lake pontchartrain where they could enjoy a fresh air that the city could not afford but just as they were about taking the train an officer arrested the whole party
the young ladies as slaves and the uncle upon the charge of attempting to conceal the property of his deceased brother morton was overwhelmed with horror at the idea of his nieces being claimed as slaves and asked for time
that he might save them from such a fate he even offered to mortgage his little farm in vermont for the amount which young slave women of their ages would fetch but the creditors pleaded that they were an extra article and would sell for more than common slaves
and must therefore be sold at auction they were given up but neither ate nor slept nor separated from each other till they were taken into the new orleans slave market where they were offered to the highest bidder there they stood trembling blushing and weeping
compelled to listen to the grossest language and shrinking from the rude hands that examined the graceful proportions of their beautiful frames after a fierce contest between the bidders the young ladies were sold one for two thousand three hundred dollars
and the other for three thousand dollars we need not add that had those young girls been sold for mere house servants or field hands they would not have brought one half the sums they did
and with all the timidity that such a life could produce bartered away like cattle in smithfield market ellen the eldest was sold to an old gentleman who purchased her as he said for a housekeeper
the girl was taken to his residence nine miles from the city she soon however knew for what purpose she had been bought and an educated and cultivated mind and taste which made her see and understand how great was her degradation
now armed her hand with the ready means of death the morning after her arrival she was found in her chamber a corpse she had taken poison jane was purchased by a dashing young man who had just come into the possession of a large fortune
the very appearance of the young southerner pointed him out as an unprincipled profligate and the young girl needed no one to tell her of her impending doom the young maid of fifteen was immediately removed
to his country seat near the junction of the mississippi river with the sea this was a most singular spot remote in a dense forest spreading over the summit of a cliff that rose abruptly to a great height above the sea
but so grand in its situation in the desolate sublimity which reigned around in the reverential murmur of the waves that washed its base that though picturesque it was a forest prison here the young lady saw no one
except an old negress who acted as her servant the smiles with which the young man met her were indignantly spurned but she was the property of another and could hope for justice and mercy only through him jane though only in her fifteenth year
had become strongly attached to volney lapuc a young frenchman a student in her father's office the poverty of the young man and the youthful age of the girl had caused their feelings to be kept from the young lady's parents at the death of his master
until he received a letter from her but how could he ever obtain a sight of her even if he wished locked up as she was in her master's mansion after several days of what her master termed obstinacy on her part the young girl was placed in an upper chamber
and told that that would be her home until she should yield to her master's wishes there she remained more than a fortnight and with the exception of a daily visit from her master she saw no one but the old negress who waited upon her
one bright moonlight evening as she was seated at the window she perceived the figure of a man beneath her window at first she thought it was her master but the tall figure of the stranger soon convinced her that it was another
he had no sooner received her letter than he set out for new orleans and finding on his arrival there that his mistress had been taken away resolved to follow her there he was
but how could she communicate with him she dared not trust the old negress with her secret for fear that it might reach her master jane wrote a hasty note and threw it out of the window which was eagerly picked up by the young man and he soon disappeared in the woods
night passed away in dreariness to her and the next morning she viewed the spot beneath her window with the hope of seeing the footsteps of him who had stood there the previous night evening returned and with it the hope of again seeing the man she loved
as soon as jane saw this she took the sheets from her bed tore them into strings tied them together and let one end down the side of the house a moment more and one end of the rope ladder was in her hand and she fastened it inside the room
soon the young maiden was seen descending and the enthusiastic lover with his arms extended waiting to receive his mistress the planter had been out on an hunting excursion and returning home saw his victim
as her lover was receiving her in his arms at this moment the sharp sound of a rifle was heard
at the feet of his mistress jane fell senseless by his side for many days she had a confused consciousness of some great agony but knew not where she was or by whom surrounded
the slow recovery of her reason settled into the most intense melancholy which gained at length the compassion even of her cruel master the beautiful bright eyes always pleading in expression were now so heart piercing in their sadness
that he could not endure their gaze in a few days the poor girl died of a broken heart and was buried at night at the back of the garden by the negroes and no one wept at the grave of her who had been so carefully cherished and so tenderly beloved
this reader is an unvarnished narrative of one doomed by the laws of the southern states to be a slave it tells not only its own story of grief but speaks of a thousand wrongs and woes beside which never see the light
all the more bitter and dreadful because no help can relieve no sympathy can mitigate
in contrast to this so much the more positive was their association of the thunder storm
the impressive phenomena which characterize it the prodigious noise the awful flash the portentous gloom the blast the rain have left a profound impression on the myths of every land
fire from water warmth and moisture from the destructive breath of the tempest this was the riddle of riddles to the untutored mind out of the eater came forth meat out of the strong came forth sweetness
on no account to be profaned by the base uses of daily life when the flash entered the ground it scattered in all directions those stones such as the flint
observes missus eastman they typified the paradoxical nature of the storm under the character of the giant haokah to him cold was heat and heat cold
when sad he laughed when merry groaned the sides of his face and his eyes were of different colors and expressions he wore horns or a forked headdress to represent the lightning and with his hands he hurled the meteors
gave them fire the cane and the pisang and now in the form of a huge bird sweeps over the heavens watching his children and watering their crops admonishing them of his presence by the mighty sound of his voice the rustling of his wings and the flash of his eye
these are the thunder the lightning and the roar of the tempest he is depicted with horns he was one of four brothers
in his worship the priests place pebbles in a dry gourd
the legend was that from him proceeded the first of mortals the man guamansuri who descended to the earth and there seduced the sister of certain guachemines rayless ones or darklings who then possessed it
for this crime they destroyed him but their sister proved pregnant and died in her labor giving birth to two eggs from these emerged the twin brothers
the guachemines and directed by ataguju released the race of indians from the soil by turning it up with a spade of gold for this reason they adored him as their maker
he it was they thought who produced the thunder and the lightning by hurling stones with his sling and the thunderbolts that fall said they are his children few villages were willing to be without one or more of these they were in appearance small round smooth stones
but had the admirable properties of securing fertility to the fields protecting from lightning and by a transition easy to understand were also adored as gods of the fire as well material as of the passions
and were capable of kindling the dangerous flames of desire in the most frigid bosom therefore they were in great esteem as love charms
with that of his mother on one hand and his brother on the other he was prince of evil and the most respected god of the peruvians from quito to cuzco not an indian but would give all he possessed to conciliate him
five priests two stewards and a crowd of slaves served his image and his chief temple was surrounded by a very considerable village whose inhabitants had no other occupation than to wait on him
in memory of these brothers twins in peru were deemed always sacred to the lightning and when a woman or even a llama
preserving as much as possible the trochaic tetrasyllabic verse of the original quichua beauteous princess lo thy brother breaks thy vessel now in fragments from the blow come thunder lightning
strokes of lightning and thou princess
with it rainest and the hail
a hint to decipher those names of divinities so common in peruvian legends contici
not in any point resembling that of christianity nor yet the trimurti of india but the only one in the new world the least degree authenticated and which as half seen by ignorant monks has caused its due amount of sterile astonishment
the first of hurakan is the lightning the second the track of the lightning
haokah tlaloc and probably heno are plural as well as singular nouns and are used as nominatives to verbs in both numbers tlaloc was appealed to as inhabiting each of the cardinal points and every mountain top
his statue rested on a square stone pedestal facing the east and had in one hand a serpent of gold
the god who gave the quiches fire by shaking his sandals was represented by a flint stone he is distinctly said to be the same as quetzalcoatl one of whose commonest symbols was a flint
said to have been the only divinity of the ancient chichimecs held in high honor by the nahuas nicaraguans and otomis
like other lords of the lightning he was worshipped as the dispenser of riches and the patron of traffic
missus bittacy had never liked their present home she preferred a flat more open country that left approaches clear she liked to see things coming this cottage on the very edge of the old hunting grounds of william the conqueror
had never satisfied her ideal of a safe and pleasant place to settle down in the sea coast with treeless downs behind and a clear horizon in front as at eastbourne say was her ideal of a proper home
it was curious this instinctive aversion she felt to being shut in by trees especially a kind of claustrophobia almost probably due as has been said to the days in india when the trees took her husband off and surrounded him with dangers
in those weeks of solitude the feeling had matured she had fought it in her fashion but never conquered it apparently routed it had a way of creeping back in other forms in this particular case yielding to his strong desire
she thought the battle won but the terror of the trees came back before the first month had passed they laughed in her face
lay about their cottage like a mighty wall
far from morbid naturally she did her best to deny the thought and so simple and unartificial was her type of mind that for weeks together she would wholly lose it then suddenly it would return upon her with a rush of bleak reality
it was not only in her mind it existed apart from any mere mood a separate fear that walked alone it came and went yet when it went went only to watch her from another point of view it was in abeyance hidden round the corner
the forest never let her go completely it was ever ready to encroach all the branches she sometimes fancied stretched one way towards their tiny cottage and garden as though it sought to draw them in and merge them in itself
its great deep breathing soul resented the mockery the insolence the irritation of the prim garden at its very gates it would absorb and smother them if it could
and every wind that blew its thundering message over the huge sounding board of the million shaking trees conveyed the purpose that it had they had angered its great soul at its heart was this deep incessant roaring
all this she never framed in words the subtleties of language lay far beyond her reach but instinctively she felt it and more besides it troubled her profoundly chiefly moreover for her husband
merely for herself the nightmare might have left her cold it was david's peculiar interest in the trees that gave the special invitation jealousy then in its most subtle aspect came to strengthen this aversion and dislike
for it came in a form that no reasonable wife could possibly object to her husband's passion she reflected was natural and inborn it had decided his vocation fed his ambition nourished his dreams desires hopes
all his best years of active life had been spent in the care and guardianship of trees he knew them understood their secret life and nature managed them intuitively as other men managed dogs and horses
he could not live for long away from them without a strange acute nostalgia that stole his peace of mind and consequently his strength of body a forest made him happy and at peace it nursed and fed and soothed his deepest moods
trees influenced the sources of his life lowered or raised the very heart beat in him cut off from them he languished as a lover of the sea can droop inland or a mountaineer may pine in the flat monotony of the plains
this she could understand in a fashion at least and make allowances for she had yielded gently even sweetly to his choice of their english home for in the little island there is nothing that suggests the woods of wilder countries so nearly as the new forest
it has the genuine air and mystery the depth and splendor the loneliness and there and there the strong untamable quality of old time forests as bittacy of the department knew them in a single detail only had he yielded to her wishes
he consented to a cottage on the edge instead of in the heart of it and for a dozen years now they had dwelt in peace and happiness at the lips of this great spreading thing that covered so many leagues with its tangle of swamps and moors and splendid ancient trees
only with the last two years or so with his own increasing age and physical decline perhaps had come this marked growth of passionate interest in the welfare of the forest
the sight and sound and smell of them but for herself it meant release from a haunting dread escape to renounce those six weeks by the sea on the sunny shining coast of france
was almost more than this little woman even with her unselfishness could face after the first shock of the announcement she reflected as deeply as her nature permitted
duty she felt clearly pointed to renouncement the discipline would certainly be severe she did not dream at the moment how severe but this fine consistent little christian saw it plain she accepted it too without any sighing of the martyr
though the courage she showed was of the martyr order her husband should never know the cost in all but this one passion his unselfishness was ever as great as her own the love she had borne him all these years
like the love she bore her anthropomorphic deity was deep and real she loved to suffer for them both
it did not take the form of a mere selfish predilection something higher than two wills in conflict seeking compromise was in it from the beginning i feel sophia it would be really more than i could manage
my duty and my happiness lie here with the forest and with you my life is deeply rooted in this place something i can't define connects my inner being with these trees and separation would make me ill might even kill me
my hold on life would weaken here is my source of supply i cannot explain it better than that he looked up steadily into her face across the table so that she saw the gravity of his expression and the shining of his steady eyes
david you feel it as strongly as that she said forgetting the tea things altogether yes he replied i do and it's not of the body only i feel it in my soul
she almost felt the rush of foliage in the wind it stood between them there are things some things she faltered we are not intended to know i think the words expressed her general attitude to life not alone to this particular incident
and after a pause of several minutes disregarding the criticism as though he had not heard it i cannot explain it better than that you see his grave voice answered there is this deep tremendous link some secret power they emanate that keeps me well and happy
and alive if you cannot understand i feel at least you may be able to forgive his tone grew tender gentle soft my selfishness i know must seem quite unforgivable i cannot help it somehow
these trees this ancient forest both seem knitted into all that makes me live and if i go
he stopped abruptly and sank back in his chair
while she went over and put her arms about him my dear she murmured god will direct we will accept his guidance he has always shown the way before my selfishness afflicts me he began but she would not let him finish
she kissed him she would not let him speak her heart was in her throat and she felt for him far more than for herself and then he had suggested that she should go alone perhaps for a shorter time and stay in her brother's villa with the children alice and stephen
you need it as much as i dread it
i cannot leave this forest that i love so well i even feel sophie dear he sat up straight and faced her as he half whispered it that i can never leave it again my life and happiness lie here together
and eve while scorning the idea that she could leave him alone with the influence of the forest all about him to have its unimpeded way she felt the pangs of that subtle jealousy bite keen and close he loved the forest better than herself
for he placed it first behind the words moreover hid the unuttered thought that made her so uneasy the terror sanderson had brought revived and shook its wings before her very eyes
that while he could not spare the trees they equally could not spare him the vividness with which he managed to conceal and yet betray the fact brought a profound distress that crossed the border between presentiment and warning into positive alarm
the trees he tended guarded watched over loved david i shall stay here with you i think you need me really don't you eagerly with a touch of heart felt passion the words poured out now more than ever dear
god bless you for you sweet unselfishness and your sacrifice he added is all the greater because you cannot understand the thing that makes it necessary for me to stay perhaps in the spring instead she said with a tremor in the voice
in the spring perhaps he answered gently almost beneath his breath for they will not need me then all the world can love them in the spring
i wish to stay with them particularly then i even feel i ought to and i must and in this way without further speech the decision was made missus bittacy at least asked no more questions yet she could not bring herself to show more sympathy than was necessary
doctor ferguson's new calculations kennedy's hunt
tangalia the return lari
it was a sort of island of solid ground in the midst of an immense marsh
the two friends had not yet ventured to speak of their recent companion kennedy first imparted his conjectures to the doctor perhaps joe is not lost after all he said he was a skilful lad and had few equals as a swimmer
he would find no difficulty in swimming across the firth of forth at edinburgh we shall see him again but how and where i know not let us omit nothing on our part to give him the chance of rejoining us may god grant it as you say dick replied the doctor with much emotion
and the end is worth the trouble the doctor and kennedy went to work at once but they encountered great difficulty
they certainly witnessed our misfortune
oh he's just the lad to get safely out of the scrape i repeat i have great confidence in his shrewdness and skill i hope so now dick you may go and hunt in the neighborhood but don't get far away whatever you do
since we had to sacrifice nearly all the old lot
hereupon kennedy took a double barrelled fowling piece and strode through the long grass toward a thicket not far off where the frequent sound of shooting soon let the doctor know that the sportsman was making a good use of his time
meanwhile ferguson was engaged in calculating the relative weight of the articles still left in the car and in establishing the equipoise of the second balloon
a supply of tea and coffee about a gallon and a half of brandy and one empty water tank all the dried meat had disappeared the doctor was aware that by the loss of the hydrogen in the first balloon the ascensional force at his disposal was now reduced to about nine hundred pounds
the new balloon measured sixty seven thousand cubic feet and contained thirty three thousand four hundred and eighty feet of gas the dilating apparatus appeared to be in good condition and neither the battery nor the spiral had been injured
he could then take with him one hundred and seventy pounds of ballast for unforeseen emergencies and the balloon would be in exact balance with the surrounding atmosphere
and the latter were finished when kennedy returned
he went to work at once to draw and smoke the game
was hung over a fire of green wood when they seemed in good order kennedy who was perfectly at home in the business packed them away in the car on the morrow the hunter was to complete his supplies evening surprised our travellers in the midst of this work
their supper consisted of pemmican biscuit and tea and fatigue after having given them appetite brought them sleep each of them strained eyes and ears into the gloom during his watch sometimes fancying that they heard the voice of poor joe
but alas the voice that they so longed to hear was far away at the first streak of day the doctor aroused kennedy
he he knows us too well for that such a thought would never come into his mind but he must be informed as to where we are
we shall get into our car and be off again through the air but should the wind bear us away
is fortunate now our efforts then will be limited to keeping ourselves above that vast sheet of water throughout the day joe cannot fail to see us and his eyes will be constantly on the lookout in that direction perhaps he will even manage to let us know the place of his retreat
and if a prisoner resumed the doctor it not being the practice of the natives to confine their captives he will see us and comprehend the object of our researches but at last put in kennedy
we shall endeavor to regain the northern part of the lake
there we'll wait we'll explore the banks we'll search the water's edge for joe will assuredly try to reach the shore
let us set out then said the hunter
between the village of lari and the village of ingemini both visited by major denham during this time kennedy was completing his stock of fresh meat
the lamantine or manatee and the hippopotamus he had no opportunity to see a single specimen of those animals at seven in the morning
the balloon's anchor was detached from its hold the gas dilated and the new victoria rose two hundred feet into the air it seemed to hesitate at first and went spinning around like a top
the doctor continued to keep at a height of from two hundred to five hundred feet
scrutinizing the thickets the bushes the underbrush in fine every spot where a mass of shade or jutting rock could have afforded a retreat to their companion they swooped down close to the long pirogues that navigated the lake
we can see nothing said kennedy after two hours of search
we cannot be far away from the scene of our accident by eleven o'clock the balloon had gone ninety miles
which the doctor took to be farram on which the capital of the biddiomahs is situated ferguson expected at every moment to see joe spring up out of some thicket flying for his life and calling for help were he free they could pick him up without trouble
not a sound was heard the case seemed desperate
for in such case he would certainly have found means to make his presence there known perhaps he had been dragged to the mainland the doctor was reasoning thus to himself when he again came in sight
caymans swarm in these waters but neither one nor the other had the courage to distinctly communicate this impression
crocodiles are found only on the shores of the islands or of the lake and joe will have skill enough to avoid them besides they are not very dangerous and the africans bathe with impunity and quite fearless of their attacks kennedy made no reply
he preferred keeping quiet to discussing this terrible possibility
constructed of woven reeds and standing in the midst of clean and neatly kept enclosures
the anchor instead of catching the branches of the tree
kennedy and joe in the tree two shots help help reply in french the morning the missionary the plan of rescue the night came on very dark
as usual he took the nine o'clock watch and at midnight dick relieved him keep a sharp lookout dick was the doctor's good night injunction
no but i thought that i heard vague sounds below us and
kennedy leaning his elbow on the edge of the car so as to keep an eye on the cylinder which was actively at work gazed out upon the calm obscurity he eagerly scanned the horizon and as often happens to minds that are uneasy or possessed with preconceived notions
and he noticed nothing more it was no doubt one of those luminous illusions that sometimes impress the eye in the midst of very profound darkness
so he merely saw that his weapons were all right and then with his night glass again plunged his gaze into space
and then by the aid of a ray of moonlight that shot like an electric flash between two masses of cloud he distinctly made out a group of human figures moving in the shadow
has any thing happened yes let us waken joe the instant that joe was aroused kennedy told him what he had seen those confounded monkeys again said joe possibly but we must be on our guard
and in the meanwhile added the doctor i will take my measures so that we can ascend rapidly at a moment's warning agreed let us go down then said joe don't use your weapons excepting at the last extremity
for some moments they listened minutely and motionlessly among the foliage and ere long joe seized kenedy's hand as he heard a sort of rubbing sound against the bark of the tree don't you hear that he whispered yes and it's coming nearer suppose it should be a serpent
yes something's coming up toward us climbing
the two friends could even catch the sound of a few words uttered in the lowest possible tones joe gently brought his rifle to his shoulder as he spoke wait said kennedy
some of the natives had really climbed the baobab and now they were seen rising on all sides winding along the boughs like reptiles and advancing slowly but surely
by the horrible odors of the rancid grease with which they bedaub their bodies ere long two heads appeared to the gaze of kennedy and joe on a level with the very branch to which they were clinging attention said kennedy fire
the double concussion resounded like a thunderbolt and died away into cries of rage and pain and in a moment the whole horde had disappeared but in the midst of these yells and howls a strange unexpected nay what seemed an impossible cry had been heard
a human voice had distinctly called aloud in the french language help help kennedy and joe dumb with amazement had regained the car immediately did you hear that the doctor asked them
we must not leave this place without doing all in our power to save him when he heard the sound of our guns he recognized an unhoped for assistance a providential interposition we shall not disappoint his last hope are such your views
the poor captive cannot be far off said joe because help help repeated the voice but much more feebly this time the savage wretches exclaimed joe trembling with indignation suppose they should kill him to night
do you hear doctor resumed kennedy seizing the doctor's hand suppose they should kill him to night
they must have the sunshine now if i were to take advantage of the darkness to slip down to the poor fellow said kennedy and i'll go with you said joe warmly pause my friends pause
to the unfortunate man whom you wish to aid why so asked kennedy these savages are frightened and dispersed they will not return dick i implore you heed what i say i am acting for the common good and if by any accident you should be taken by surprise all would be lost
but think of that poor wretch hoping for aid waiting there praying calling aloud is no one to go to his assistance he must think that his senses deceived him that he heard nothing we can reassure him on that score said doctor ferguson and standing erect making a speaking trumpet of his hands
whoever you are be of good cheer three friends are watching over you a terrific howl from the savages responded to these words no doubt drowning the prisoner's reply they are murdering him they are murdering him exclaimed kennedy
i master why i'd act more prudently maybe by telling the prisoner to make his escape in a certain direction that we'd agree upon and how would you get him to know that by means of this arrow that i caught flying the other day i'd tie a note to it
as for you my dear dick with determined daring and profiting by their alarm at our fire arms your project might possibly succeed
but let us act at once said the hunter perhaps we may said the doctor throwing considerable stress upon the words why doctor can you light up such darkness as this who knows joe ah if you can do that you're the greatest learned man in the world
the doctor kept silent for a few moments he was thinking his two companions looked at him with much emotion for they were greatly excited by the strangeness of the situation ferguson at last resumed here is my plan we have two hundred pounds of ballast left
since the bags we brought with us are still untouched i'll suppose that this prisoner who is evidently exhausted by suffering weighs as much as one of us
this is the idea dick you will admit that if i can get to the prisoner and throw out a quantity of ballast
but then if i want to get a rapid ascension so as to escape these savages i must employ means more energetic than the cylinder well then in throwing out this overplus of ballast at a given moment i am certain to rise with great rapidity that's plain enough yes but there is one drawback
but this darkness it hides our preparations and will be dispersed only when they are finished take care to have all our weapons close at hand perhaps we may have to fire
but perhaps we shall not have to resort to all this noisy work are you ready we're ready responded joe the sacks were placed as requested
very good said the doctor have an eye to every thing joe will see to throwing out the ballast and dick will carry off the prisoner but let nothing be done until i give the word
hung almost motionless in the air in the mean time the doctor assured himself of the presence of a sufficient quantity of gas in the mixing tank to feed the cylinder if necessary without there being any need of resorting for some time to the buntzen battery
he then took out the two perfectly isolated conducting wires which served for the decomposition of the water and searching in his travelling sack brought forth two pieces of charcoal
the death of a good man the night of watching by the body barrenness and drought the burial the quartz rocks joe's hallucinations a precious ballast a survey of the gold bearing mountains the beginning of joe's despair
a magnificent night overspread the earth and the missionary lay quietly asleep in utter exhaustion he'll not get over it sighed joe poor young fellow scarcely thirty years of age he'll die in our arms his breathing which was so feeble before
is growing weaker still and i can do nothing to save him said the doctor despairingly
and to think that in spite of all this good man could find words only to pity them to excuse to pardon them heaven has given him a lovely night joe his last on earth perhaps
his breathing became difficult and he asked for air the curtains were drawn entirely back and he inhaled with rapture the light breezes of that clear beautiful night the stars sent him their trembling rays and the moon wrapped him in the white winding sheet of its effulgence
my friends said he in an enfeebled voice i am going may god requite you and bring you to your safe harbor
is but the end of earthly cares place me upon my knees my brethren i beseech you kennedy lifted him up and it was distressing to see his weakened limbs bend under him my god my god exclaimed the dying apostle have pity on me his countenance shone
far above that earth on which he had known no joys in the midst of that night which sent to him its softest radiance on the way to that heaven toward which he uplifted his spirit as though in a miraculous assumption he seemed already to live and breathe in the new existence
his last gesture was a supreme blessing on his new friends of only one day then he fell back into the arms of kennedy whose countenance was bathed in hot tears dead said the doctor bending over him dead and with one common accord the three friends knelt together in silent prayer
to morrow resumed the doctor we shall bury him in the african soil which he has besprinkled with his blood during the rest of the night the body was watched turn by turn by the three travellers and not a word disturbed the solemn silence each of them was weeping
toward noon the doctor for the purpose of burying the body decided to descend into a ravine in the midst of some plutonic rocks of primitive formation the surrounding mountains would shelter him and enable him to bring his car to the ground for there was no tree in sight to which he could make it fast
except by releasing a quantity of gas proportionate to his loss of ballast at the time when he had rescued the missionary he therefore opened the valve of the outside balloon the hydrogen escaped and the victoria quietly descended into the ravine
as soon as the car touched the ground the doctor shut the valve joe leaped out holding on the while to the rim of the car with one hand and with the other gathering up a quantity of stones equal to his own weight he could then use both hands and had soon heaped into the car more than five hundred pounds of stones
the soil in fact was bestrewn with quartz and porphyritic rocks this is a singular discovery said the doctor mentally in the mean while kennedy and joe had strolled away a few paces looking up a proper spot for the grave the heat was extreme in this ravine
the body of the martyred missionary was then solemnly placed in it the earth was thrown in over his remains
the doctor however remained motionless and lost in his reflections
that priest who took the oath of perpetual poverty now reposes in a gold mine a gold mine exclaimed kennedy and joe in one breath yes a gold mine said the doctor quietly
joe at once rushed like a crazy man among the scattered fragments and kennedy was not long in following his example keep cool joe said his master why doctor you speak of the thing quite at your ease what a philosopher of your mettle
ah master no philosophy holds good in this case come come let us reflect a little what good would all this wealth do you we cannot carry any of it away with us we can't take any of it with us indeed it's rather too heavy for our car i even hesitated to tell you any thing about it
what said joe again abandon these treasures a fortune for us really for us our own leave it behind take care my friend would you yield to the thirst for gold
all that is true replied joe but gold mister kennedy won't you help to gather up a trifle of all these millions what could we do with them joe said the hunter unable to repress a smile
the millions are rather heavy you know resumed the doctor and cannot very easily be put into one's pocket but at least said joe driven to his last defences couldn't we take some of that ore for ballast instead of sand very good i consent said the doctor
thousands of crowns echoed joe is it possible that there is so much gold in them and that all this is the same yes my friend this is a reservoir in which nature has been heaping up her wealth for centuries there is enough here to enrich whole nations
an australia and a california both together in the midst of the wilderness and the whole of it is to remain useless perhaps but at all events here's what i'll do to console you
ah master i give up i see that you are right and that there is nothing else to be done
will be so much made and joe went to work he did so too with all his might and soon had collected more than a thousand pieces of quartz
lay in twenty two degrees twenty three minutes east longitude and four degrees fifty five minutes north latitude
he went back to his car he would have erected a plain rude cross over the tomb left solitary thus in the midst of the african deserts
god will recognize it said kennedy an anxiety of another sort now began to steal over the doctor's mind he would have given much of the gold before him for a little water
and this reflection gave him great uneasiness he had to feed his cylinder continually and he even began to find that he had not enough to quench the thirst of his party therefore he determined to lose no opportunity of replenishing his supply
upon getting back to the car he found it burdened with the quartz blocks that joe's greed had heaped in it he got in however without saying any thing kennedy took his customary place and joe followed but not without casting a covetous glance at the treasures in the ravine
do me the kindness to throw out some of that quartz but doctor you gave me leave i gave you leave to replace the ballast that was all but
well joe then your cylinder don't work said the obstinate fellow my cylinder it is lit as you perceive but the balloon will not rise until you have thrown off a little ballast joe scratched his ear picked up a piece of quartz the smallest in the lot
it was a fragment of about three or four pounds at last he threw it out but the balloon did not budge humph said he we're not going up yet not yet said the doctor keep on throwing kennedy laughed joe now threw out some ten pounds but the balloon stood still
joe got very pale poor fellow said the doctor
since it was put in here to make up for us throw away four hundred pounds said joe piteously
it's going up i'm sure keep on yet said kennedy and joe picking up one more block desperately tossed it out of the car the balloon rose a hundred feet or so and aided by the cylinder soon passed above the surrounding summits
there you are rich for the balance of your days joe made no answer but stretched himself out luxuriously on his heap of quartz see my dear dick the doctor went on just see the power of this metal over the cleverest lad in the world what passions what greed what crimes
the knowledge of such a mine as that would cause it is sad to think of it
the mistake in the water supply the nights of the equator doctor ferguson's anxieties the situation flatly stated energetic replies of kennedy and joe one night more
the balloon having been made fast to a solitary tree almost completely dried up by the aridity of the region in which it stood
in all this vast extent of country i hope so
but not finding any thing in them he had fallen back into the attitude of a strong minded looker on and turned the affair off with a laugh joe cast a mournful glance at him but the doctor made no reply he was thinking not without secret terror probably of the vast solitudes of sahara
for there whole weeks sometimes pass without the caravans meeting with a single spring of water
these anxieties and the incidents recently occurring had not been without their effect upon the spirits of our three travellers
joe clever lad as he was seemed no longer the same person since his gaze had plunged into that ocean of gold he kept entirely silent and gazed incessantly upon the stony fragments heaped up in the car worthless to day but of inestimable value to morrow
not even a collection of a few huts and vegetation also was disappearing
then came the first tract of grayish sand and flint
these symptoms of a totally dry and barren region greatly disquieted doctor ferguson it seemed as though no caravan had ever braved this desert expanse
but nothing of the kind was to be seen and the aeronauts felt that ere long an immensity of sand would cover the whole of this desolate region
but there remained only three gallons in all the doctor put aside one gallon destined to quench the burning thirst that a heat of ninety degrees rendered intolerable two gallons only then remained to supply the cylinder hence they could produce no more than four hundred and eighty cubic feet of gas
yet the cylinder consumed about nine cubic feet per hour
fifty four hours said the doctor to his companions therefore as i am determined not to travel by night
we have three days left you say yes my dear dick well as grieving over the matter won't help us in three days there will be time enough to decide upon what is to be done in the meanwhile let us redouble our vigilance at their evening meal the water was strictly measured out and the brandy was increased in quantity
the latter being more likely to produce than to quench thirst
its height was scarcely eight hundred feet above the level of the sea this circumstance gave the doctor some hope since it recalled to his mind the conjectures of geographers concerning the existence of a vast stretch of water in the centre of africa but if such a lake really existed the point was to reach it
and not a sign of change was visible in the motionless sky
the doctor might have escaped this intense heat by rising into a higher range but in order to do so he would have had to consume a large quantity of water a thing that had now become impossible
the breakfast consisted of a little dried meat and pemmican
we cannot go any faster said the doctor we no longer command we have to obey ah doctor here is one of those occasions when a propeller would not be a thing to be despised
if we had water this heat would be of service to us for it dilates the hydrogen in the balloon and diminishes the amount required in the spiral although it is true that if we were not short of the useful liquid we should not have to economize it ah that rascally savage who cost us the tank
but the hundred pounds of water that we threw overboard would be very useful to us now
or quite enough to carry us over this desert
in distance yes but in duration no should the wind leave us and it even now has a tendency to die away altogether
the soil however ran lower from mile to mile the undulations of the gold bearing mountains they had left died away into the plain like the last throes of exhausted nature
only a few belts of half scorched herbage
crushed in their fall had scattered in sharp edged pebbles which soon again became coarse sand and finally impalpable dust here at last is africa such as you pictured it to yourself joe was i not right in saying wait a little eh
do you see he added laughing i had no confidence for my part in your forests and your prairies
toward evening the doctor calculated that the balloon had not made twenty miles during that whole burning day and a heated gloom closed in upon it as soon as the sun had disappeared behind the horizon which was traced against the sky with all the precision of a straight line the next day was thursday the first of may
but the days followed each other with desperate monotony
and night condensed in its shadow the scattered heat which the ensuing day would again bequeath to the succeeding night the wind now scarcely observable was rather a gasp than a breath and the morning could almost be foreseen when even that gasp would cease
of a disciplined heart with his glass he scrutinized every quarter of the horizon he saw the last rising ground gradually melting to the dead level and the last vegetation disappearing while before him stretched the immensity of the desert the responsibility resting upon him pressed sorely
but he did not allow his disquiet to appear those two men dick and joe
had he done well in that was it not like attempting to tread forbidden paths was he not in this trip trying to pass the borders of the impossible had not the almighty reserved for later ages the knowledge of this inhospitable continent
and by an irresistible association of ideas the doctor allowed himself to be carried beyond the bounds of logic and of reason after having established in his own mind what he should not have done the next question was what he should do then
were there not currents higher up that would waft him to less arid regions well informed with regard to the countries over which he had passed he was utterly ignorant of those to come and thus his conscience speaking aloud to him he resolved in his turn to speak frankly to his two companions
he thereupon laid the whole state of the case plainly before them
what did they think about it i have no other opinion than that of my excellent master said joe what he may have to suffer i can suffer and that better than he can perhaps where he goes there i'll go and you kennedy
besides to return looks to me quite as perilous as the other course so onward then you may count upon us thanks my gallant friends replied the doctor with much real feeling i expected such devotion as this but i needed these encouraging words
and with this the three friends warmly grasped each other by the hand now hear me said the doctor according to my solar observations
if needs be we can direct our course to that quarter and it seems out of the question that we should not come across some oasis or some well where we could replenish our stock of water but what we want now is the wind for without it we are held here suspended in the air at a dead calm
whose horizontal rays stretched in long lines of fire over the flat immensity it was the desert
as the brave fellows marched away to meet danger and death for our sakes every one was eager to do something and as the men stood at ease the people mingled freely with them offering gifts
hearty grips of the hand and hopeful prophecies of victory in the end irresistibly attracted my boy tom and i drew near and soon becoming excited by the scene
in one enthusiastic jumble while tom was off on his third raid my attention was attracted by a man who stood a little apart looking as if his thoughts were far away
all the men were fine stalwart fellows as maine men usually are but this one over topped his comrades standing straight and tall as a norway pine
with a face full of the mingled shrewdness sobriety and self possession of the typical new englander i liked the look of him and seeing that he seemed solitary even in a crowd
i offered him my last apple with a word of interest the keen blue eyes met mine gratefully and the apple began to vanish in vigorous bites as we talked for no one thought of ceremony at such a time
where are you from woolidge ma'am are you glad to go wal there's two sides to that question i calk'late to do my duty
and do it hearty but it is rough on a feller leavin his folks for good maybe there was a sudden huskiness in the man's voice that was not apple skins though he tried to make believe that it was
i knew a word about home would comfort him
do you leave a family my old mother a sick brother and lucindy the last word was uttered in a tone of intense regret
and his brown cheek reddened as he added hastily to hide some embarrassment you see jim went last year and got pretty well used up so i felt as if i'd ought to take my turn now
and i dropped everything and come off lucindy didn't think it was my duty and that made it awful hard i tell you wives are less patriotic than mothers i began
but he would not hear lucindy blamed and said quickly she ain't my wife yet but we calk'lated to be married in a month or so
women lot so on not being disappointed
and here i be when i git to work i shall be all right the first wrench is the tryin part
here he straightened his broad shoulders and turned his face toward the flags fluttering far in front as if no backward look should betray the longing of his heart for mother home and wife
i liked that little glimpse of character and when tom returned with empty hands reporting that every stall was exhausted i told him to find out what the man would like best
i know without asking give us your purse and i'll make him as happy as a king said the boy laughing as he looked up admiringly at our tall friend who looked down on him with an elder brotherly air pleasant to see
while tom was gone i found out joe's name and business promised to write and tell his mother how finely the regiment went off and was just expressing a hope that we might meet again
when the order to fall in came rolling down the ranks and the talk was over fearing tom would miss our man in the confusion i kept my eye on him till the boy came rushing up with a packet of tobacco in one hand
all laughing at the flurry while less fortunate comrades helped us with an eye to a share of these fragrant luxuries by and by there was just time for this a hearty shake of the big hand and a grateful good by ma'am
we watched for our man as we already called him as the inspiring music the grand tramp drew near the old thrill went through the crowd the old cheer broke out
and blissfully unconscious of all that lay before them now the blue coats were worn by mature men some gray all grave and resolute husbands and fathers
homes left desolate behind them and before them the grim certainty of danger hardship and perhaps the lifelong helplessness worse than death
little of the glamour of romance about the war now they saw it as it was a long hard task and here were the men to do it well even the lookers on were different now
once all was wild enthusiasm and glad uproar now men's lips were set and women's smileless as they cheered fewer handkerchiefs whitened the air for wet eyes needed them
and sudden lulls almost solemn in their stillness followed the acclamations of the crowd all watched with quickened breath and brave souls that living wave blue below
and bright with a steely glitter above
give him a cheer auntie he sees us and remembers cried tom nearly tumbling off his perch as he waved his hat and pointed out joe collins
yes there he was looking up with a smile on his brave brown face my little nosegay in his button hole a suspicious bulge in the pocket close by and doubtless a comfortable quid in his mouth
to cheer the weary march how like an old friend he looked though we had only met fifteen minutes ago how glad we were to be there to smile back at him and send him on his way feeling that
even in a strange city there was some one to say god bless you joe we watched the tallest blue cap till it vanished and then went home in a glow of patriotism
tom to long for his turn to come i to sew vigorously on the gray gown the new nurse burned to wear as soon as possible and both of us
to think and speak often of poor joe collins and his lucindy all this happened long ago but it is well to recall those stirring times
i never expected to see joe again but six months later we did meet in a washington hospital one winter's night a train of ambulances had left their sad freight at our door
and we were hurrying to get the poor fellows into much needed beds after a week of hunger cold and unavoidable neglect all forms of pain were in my ward that night
and all borne with the pathetic patience which was a daily marvel to those who saw it trying to bring order out of chaos i was rushing up and down the narrow aisle between the rows of rapidly filling beds
and after brushing several times against a pair of the largest and muddiest boots i ever saw i paused at last to inquire why they were impeding the passageway i found they belonged to a very tall man
who seemed to be already asleep or dead so white and still and utterly worn out he looked as he lay there without a coat a great patch on his forehead
and the right arm rudely bundled up stooping to cover him i saw that he was unconscious and whipping out my brandy bottle and salts soon brought him round for it was only exhaustion
can you eat i asked as he said thanky ma'am after a long draught of water and a dizzy stare eat i'm starvin he answered
with such a ravenous glance at a fat nurse who happened to be passing that i trembled for her and hastened to take a bowl of soup from her tray as i fed him his gaunt weather beaten face had a familiar look
and there was the name joseph collins to give me an additional interest in my new patient why joe is it really you
i exclaimed pouring the last spoonful of soup down his throat so hastily that i choked him all that's left of me
ain't this luck now gasped joe as gratefully as if that hospital cot was a bed of roses what is the matter a wound in the head and arm i asked
it's a sing'lar kind of a feelin to see a piece of your own body go flyin away with no prospect of ever coming back again said joe
trying to make light of one of the greatest misfortunes a man can suffer that is bad but it might have been worse
i guess it won't do much lumberin so that trade is done for i s'pose there's things left handed fellers can do and i must learn em as soon as possible
what can i do to comfort you most joe i'll send my good ben to help you to bed and will be here myself when the surgeon goes his rounds is there anything else that would make you more easy
if you could just drop a line to mother to let her know i'm alive it would be a sight of comfort to both of us i guess i'm in for a long spell of hospital
and i'd lay easier if i knew mother and lucindy warn't frettin about me he must have been suffering terribly but he thought of the women who loved him before himself and busy as i was
i snatched a moment to send a few words of hope to the old mother then i left him layin easy though the prospect of some months of wearing pain would have daunted most men
if i had needed anything to increase my regard for joe it would have been the courage with which he bore a very bad quarter of an hour with the surgeons for his arm was in a dangerous state
the wound in the head feverish for want of care and a heavy cold on the lungs suggested pneumonia as an added trial to his list of ills he will have a hard time of it
but i think he will pull through as he is a temperate fellow with a splendid constitution was the doctor's verdict as he left us for the next man who was past help with a bullet through his lungs
think so
she ain't no folks of her own nor much means and ought to marry a man who can make things easy for her guess i'll have to wait a spell longer before i say anything to lucindy about marryin now
and you will find the burdens much lighter for sharing them between you don't worry about that but get well and go home as soon as you can all right ma'am
and joe proved himself a good soldier by obeying orders and falling asleep like a tired child as the first step toward recovery for two months i saw joe daily
and learned to like him very much he was so honest genuine and kind hearted so did his mates for he made friends with them all by sharing such small luxuries as came to him
for he was a favorite and better still he made sunshine in that sad place by the brave patience with which he bore his own troubles the cheerful consolation he always gave to others
a droll fellow was joe at times for under his sobriety lay much humor and i soon discovered that a visit from him was more efficacious
than other cordials in cases of despondency and discontent roars of laughter sometimes greeted me as i went into his ward and joe's jokes were passed round as eagerly as the water pitcher
yet he had much to try him not only in the ills that vexed his flesh but the cares that tried his spirit and the future that lay before him full of anxieties and responsibilities
which seemed so heavy now when the strong right arm that had cleared all obstacles away before was gone the letters i wrote for him and those he received told the little story very plainly
for he read them to me and found much comfort in talking over his affairs as most men do when illness makes them dependent on a woman jim was evidently sick and selfish
lucindy to judge from the photograph cherished so tenderly under joe's pillow was a pretty weak sort of a girl with little character or courage to help poor joe with his burdens
the old mother was very like her son and stood by him like a hero as he said but was evidently failing and begged him to come home as soon as he was able
that she might see him comfortably settled before she must leave him her courage sustained his and the longing to see her hastened his departure as soon as it was safe to let him go
for lucindy's letters were always of a dismal sort and made him anxious to put his shoulder to the wheel she always set consider'ble by me mother did bein the oldest
and i wouldn't miss makin her last days happy not if it cost me all the arms and legs i've got said joe as he awkwardly struggled into the big boots an hour after leave to go home was given him
it was pleasant to see his comrades gather round him with such hearty adieus that his one hand must have tingled
and to find tears in many eyes beside my own when he was gone and nothing was left of him but the empty cot the old gray wrapper and the name upon the wall
i kept that card among my other relics and hoped to meet joe again somewhere in the world he sent me one or two letters then i went home the war ended soon after
the slate was in its old place and a messenger came and went on his beat but a strange face was under the red cap and this man had two arms and one eye i asked for collins
but the new comer had only a vague idea that he was dead and the same answer was given me at headquarters though none of the busy people seemed to know when or where he died so i mourned for joe
and felt that it was very hard he could not have lived to enjoy the promised refuge for relying upon the charity that never fails the home was an actual fact now just beginning its beneficent career
people were waking up to this duty money was coming in meetings were being held and already a few poor fellows were in the refuge feeling themselves no longer paupers
but invalid soldiers honorably supported by the state they had served talking it over one day with a friend who spent her life working for the associated charities she said by the way
there is a man boarding with one of my poor women who ought to be got into the home if he will go i don't know much about him except that he was in the army has been very ill with rheumatic fever and is friendless
i asked missus flanagin how she managed to keep him and she said she had help while he was sick and now he is able to hobble about he takes care of the children so she is able to go out to work
he won't go to his own town because there is nothing for him there but the almshouse and he dreads a hospital so struggles along trying to earn his bread tending babies with his one arm a sad case
and in your line i wish you'd look into it that sounds like my joe one arm and all i'll go and see him i've a weakness for soldiers sick or well i went
and never shall forget the pathetic little tableau i saw as i opened missus flanagin's dingy door for she was out and no one heard my tap the room was redolent of suds
and in a grove of damp clothes hung on lines sat a man with a crying baby laid across his lap while he fed three small children standing at his knee with bread and molasses
was past my comprehension but he did trotting baby gently dealing out sweet morsels patiently and whistling to himself as if to beguile his labors cheerfully the broad back
the long legs the faded coat the low whistle were all familiar and dodging a wet sheet i faced the man to find it was indeed my joe a mere shadow of his former self
after months of suffering that had crippled him for life but brave and patient still trying to help himself and not ask aid though brought so low for an instant
i could not speak to him and encumbered with baby dish spoon and children he could only stare at me with a sudden brightening of the altered face that made it full of welcome before a word was uttered
there ain't much left of me but bones and pain ma'am i'm powerful glad to see you all the same dust off a chair patsey and let the lady set down
and how came they to think you dead i asked as he festooned the wet linen out of the way and prepared to enjoy himself as best he could i did send once when things was at the wust
but you hadn't got back and then somehow i thought i was goin to be mustered out for good and so wouldn't trouble nobody but my orders ain't come yet and i am doing the fust thing that come along
it ain't much but the good soul stood by me and i ain't ashamed to pay my debts this way sence i can't do it in no other
and joe cradled the chubby baby in his one arm as tenderly as if it had been his own though little biddy was not an inviting infant that is very beautiful and right joe
and i honor you for it but you were not meant to tend babies so sing your last lullabies and be ready to go to the home as soon as i can get you there really ma'am
i used to lay and kind of dream about it when i couldn't stir without yellin out but i never thought it would ever come to happen i see a piece in the paper describing it and it sounded dreadful nice
as well it might for the change from that damp nursery to the comfortable quarters prepared for him would be like going from purgatory to paradise i don't wonder you don't get well living in such a place joe
you should have gone home to woolwich and let your friends help you i said feeling provoked with him for hiding himself no ma'am he answered with a look i never shall forget
it was so full of mingled patience pride and pain i haven't a relation in the world but a couple of poor old aunts and they couldn't do anything for me
as for asking help of folks i used to know i couldn't do it and if you think i'd go to lucindy though she is wal off you don't know joe collins i'd die fust
if she was poor and i rich i'd do for her like a brother but i couldn't ask no favors of her not if i begged my vittles in the street or starved i forgive
and the woman that stood by me when i was down is the woman i believe in and can take my bread from without shame hooray for biddy flanagin god bless her
and as if to find a vent for the emotion that filled his eyes with grateful tears joe led off the cheer which the children shrilly echoed and i joined heartily i shall come for you in a few days
so cuddle the baby and make much of the children before you part it won't take you long to pack up will it i asked as we subsided with a general laugh i reckon not as i don't own any clothes but what i set in
except a couple of old shirts and them socks my hat's stoppin up the winder and my old coat is my bed cover i'm awful shabby ma'am and that's one reason i don't go out more
i can hobble some but i ain't got used to bein a scarecrow yet and joe glanced from the hose without heels that hung on the line to the ragged suit he wore with a resigned expression
that made me long to rush out and buy up half the contents of oak hall on the spot curbing this wild impulse i presently departed with promises of speedy transportation for joe
and unlimited oranges to assuage the pangs of parting for the young flanagins who escorted me to the door while joe waved the baby like a triumphal banner till i got round the corner
it would be hard to find and if a visitor wants an enthusiastic guide about the place joe is the one to take for all is comfort sunshine and good will to him
and he unconsciously shows how great the need of this refuge is as he hobbles about on his lame feet pointing out its beauties conveniences and delights with his one arm
like the awful shadow of some unseen power like the bellowing of bulls like the boar encircled by hunters and hounds like the bubbles on a river sparkling bursting borne away
like the cold breath of the grave like the creaking of doors held stealthily ajar like the cry of an itinerant vendor in a quiet and picturesque town
like the embodiment of a perfect rose complete in form and fragrance like the faint cry of unassisted woe like the faint exquisite music of a dream
like the fair flower dishevel'd in the wind like the fair sun when in his fresh array he cheers the morn and all the earth revealeth like the falling thud of the blade of a murderous ax
like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream like the fitting of an old glove to a hand like the foam on the river like the great thunder sounding
like the jangling of all the strings of some musical instrument like the jewels that gleam in baby eyes like the kiss of maiden love the breeze is sweet and bland
like the long wandering love the weary heart may faint for rest like the moon in water seen by night like the music in the patter of small feet
like the prodigal whom wealth softens into imbecility like the quivering image of a landscape in a flowing stream like the rainbow thou didst fade
like the rustling of grain moved by the west wind like the sap that turns to nectar in the velvet of the peach like the sea whose waves are set in motion by the winds
like the sea worm that perforates the shell of the mussel
like the setting of a tropical sun like the shadow of a great hill that reaches far out over the plain
like the shudder of a doomed soul like the silver gleam when the poplar trees rustle their pale leaves listlessly like the soft light of an autumnal day
like the spring time fresh and green like the stern lights of a ship at sea illuminating only the path which has been passed over like the sudden impulse of a madman
like the swell of summer's ocean like the tattered effigy in a cornfield like the vase in which roses have once been distill'd like the visits of angels short and far between
like the whole sky when to the east the morning doth return like thistles of the wilderness fit neither for food nor fuel like those great rivers whose course everyone beholds
but their springs have been seen by but few like thoughts whose very sweetness yielded proof that they were born for immortality like to diamonds her white teeth shone between the parted lips
like torrents from a mountain source we rushed into each other's arms like troops of ghosts on the dry wind past like two doves with silvery wings let our souls fly
like two flaming stars were his eyes like vaporous shapes half seen like village curs that bark when their fellows do like wasted hours of youth
like winds that bear sweet music when they breathe through some dim latticed chamber like wine stain to a flask the old distrust still clings like winged stars the fire flies flash and glance
like young lovers whom youth and love make dear lingering like an unloved guest lithe as a panther little white hands like pearls
lofty as a queen loneliness struck him like a blow looked back with faithful eyes like a great mastiff to his master's face looking as sulky as the weather itself
lost like the lightning in the sullen clod love as clean as starlight love brilliant as the morning love had like the canker worm consumed her early prime
love is a changing lord as the light on a turning sword love like a child around the world doth run love like a miser in the dark his joys would hide
love shakes like a windy reed your heart love smiled like an unclouded sun love that sings and has wings as a bird lovely as starry water
like an alien ghost i stole away like an eagle clutching his prey his arm swooped down like an eagle dallying with the wind
like an engine of dread war he set his shoulder to the mountain side like an enraged tiger like an enthusiast leading about with him an indifferent tourist
like an icy wave a swift and tragic impression swept through him like an unbidden guest like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun like an unseen star of birth
like an unwelcome thought like apparitions seen and gone
like bells that waste the moments with their loudness like blasts of trumpets blown in wars like bright apollo like bright lamps the fabled apples glow
like building castles in the air like bursting waves from the ocean like cliffs which have been rent asunder
like crystals of snow like dead lovers who died true like death who rides upon a thought and makes his way through temple tower and palace
like dew upon a sleeping flower like dining with a ghost like drawing nectar in a sieve like earth's decaying leaves like echoes from a hidden lyre
like echoes from an antenatal dream like fixed eyes whence the dear light of sense and thought has fled like footsteps upon wool
like fragrance from dead flowers like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing like ghosts the sentries come and go like golden boats on a sunny sea
like great black birds the demons haunt the woods like green waves on the sea like having to taste a hundred exquisite dishes in a single meal like heaven's free breath
which he who grasps can hold not like helpless birds in the warm nest like iridescent bubbles floating on a foul stream like kindred drops mingled into one
like laying a burden on the back of a moth like lead his feet were like leaves in wintry weather like leviathans afloat
like lighting a candle to the sun like making a mountain out of a mole hill like mariners pulling the life boat like mice that steal in and out as if they feared the light
like mountain over mountain huddled like mountain streams we meet and part like music on the water like notes which die when born but still haunt the echoes of the hill
like oceans of liquid silver like one pale star against the dusk a single diamond on her brow gleamed with imprisoned fire like one who halts with tired wings
like one who talks of what he loves in dream like organ music came the deep reply like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream
like phantoms gathered by the sick imagination like planets in the sky like pouring oil on troubled waters like roses that in deserts bloom and die
like rowing upstream against a strong downward current like scents from a twilight garden like separated souls like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp
like sheep from out the fold of the sky stars leapt like ships that have gone down at sea like shy elves hiding from the traveler's eye
like skeletons the sycamores uplift their wasted hands like some grave night thought threading a dream like some new gathered snowy hyacinth
so white and cold and delicate it was like some poor nigh related guest that may not rudely be dismist
like some suppressed and hideous thought which flits athwart our musings but can find no rest within a pure and gentle mind like some unshriven churchyard thing the friar crawled
like something fashioned in a dream like sounds of wind and flood like splendor winged moths about a taper
like stepping out on summer evenings from the glaring ball room upon the cool and still piazza like straws in a gust of wind like summer's beam and summer's stream
like sunlight in and out the leaves the robins went
l laboring like a giant languid streams that cross softly slowly with a sound like smothered weeping laughter like a beautiful bubble from the rosebud of baby hood
laughter like the sudden outburst of the glad bird in the tree top lazy merchantmen that crawled like flies over the blue enamel of the sea
let his frolic fancy play like a happy child
light as a snowflake lights gleamed there like stars in a still sky like a ball of ice it glittered in a frozen sea of sky
like a blade sent home to its scabbard like a blast from a horn like a blast from the suddenly opened door of a furnace like a blossom blown before a breeze
a white moon drifts before a shimmering sky like a bright window in a distant view like a caged lion shaking the bars of his prison like a calm flock of silver fleeced sheep
like a cloud of fire like a cold wind his words went through their flesh like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue like a damp handed auctioneer
like a deaf and dumb man wondering what it was all about like a dew drop ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks like a dipping swallow the stout ship dashed through the storm
like a distant star glimmering steadily in the darkness like a dream she vanished like a festooned girdle encircling the waist of a bride like a flower her red lips parted
like a game in which the important part is to keep from laughing like a glow worm golden like a golden shielded army
like a great express train roaring flashing dashing head long like a great fragment of the dawn it lay like a great ring of pure and endless light
like a great tune to which the planets roll like a high and radiant ocean like a high born maiden like a jewel every cottage casement showed
like a joyless eye that finds no object worth its constancy like a knight worn out by conflict like a knot of daisies lay the hamlets on the hill like a lily in bloom
like a locomotive engine with unsound lungs like a long arrow through the dark the train is darting like a mirage vague dimly seen at first
like a moral lighthouse in the midst of a dark and troubled sea like a murmur of the wind came a gentle sound of stillness like a noisy argument in a drawing room
like a pageant of the golden year in rich memorial pomp the hours go by like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished like a poet hidden
like a river of molten amethyst like a rocket discharging a shower of golden stars like a rose embower'd in its own green leaves
like a sea of upturned faces like a shadow never to be overtaken like a shadow on a fair sunlit landscape like a sheeted ghost
like a ship tossed to and fro on the waves of life's sea like a slim bronze statue of despair like a snow flake lost in the ocean
like a soul that wavers in the valley of the shadow like a stalled horse that breaks loose and goes at a gallop through the plain like a star his love's pure face looked down
like a star that dwelt apart like a star unhasting unresting like a stone thrown at random like a summer cloud youth indeed has crept away
like a summer dried fountain like a swift eagle in the morning glare breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight like a thing at rest
like a thing read in a book or remembered out of the faraway past like a tide of triumph through their veins the red rejoicing blood began to race like a triumphing fire the news was borne
like a troop of boys let loose from school the adventurers went by like a vaporous amethyst like a vision of the morning air like a voice from the unknown regions
like a wandering star i fell through the deeps of desire like a watch worn and weary sentinel like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed
like a whirlwind they went past like a withered leaf the moon is blown across the bay like a world of sunshine
made her gasp asthmatically she carried too a heavy market bag having done her saturday purchasing earlier than of wont on account of the intolerable weather she reached the door at length
and being too much exhausted to search her pocket for the latchkey knocked for admission amy hewett opened to her and she sank on a chair in the first room where the other two hewett children were bending over home lessons
with a studiousness not altogether natural missus eagles had a shrewd eye having glanced at annie and tom with a discreet smile she turned her look towards the elder girl who was standing full in the lamplight
amy now a girl of eleven affected much indignation why i haven't touched a drop missus eagles
you're a silly girl that's what you are of late amy hewett had become the victim of a singular propensity whenever she could obtain vinegar she drank it as a toper does spirits
having administered a scolding missus eagles went into the room which she and her husband occupied it was so encumbered with furniture that not more than eight or ten square feet of floor can have been available for movement
on the bed sat mister eagles a spare large headed ugly but very thoughtful looking man he and sidney kirkwood had been acquaintances and fellow workmen for some years
eagles was absorbed in the study of a certain branch of political statistics the enthusiasm of his life was financial reform every budget presented to parliament he criticised with extraordinary thoroughness and in fact with an acumen
utopian budgets multiplied themselves in his brain and his note books he devised imposts such as minister never dreamt of yet which he declared could not fail of vast success
you just look at these figures he would exclaim to sidney in his low intense voice there it is in black and white but sidney's faculties were quite unequal to calculations of this kind
and eagles could never summon resolve to explain his schemes before an audience indefatigably he worked on and the work had to be its own reward he was busy in the usual way this afternoon as he sat on the bed coatless
a trade journal open on his knees his wife never disturbed him she was a placid ruminative woman generally finding the details of her own weekly budget quite a sufficient occupation
when she had taken off her bonnet and was turning out the contents of her bag eagles remarked quietly they'll have a bad journey what a day for her to be travelling all that distance poor thing
lowering their voices they began to talk of john hewett and the daughter he was bringing from lancashire
of the girl and her past they knew next to nothing but hewett's restricted confidences suggested disagreeable things the truth of the situation was that john had received by post from he knew not whom
a newspaper report of the inquest held on the body of grace danver wherein of course was an account of what had happened to clara vale in the margin was pencilled
an hour after receiving this john encountered sidney kirkwood they read the report together before the coroner it had been made public that the dead woman was in truth named rudd she who was injured refused to give any details concerning herself
and her history escaped the reporters harbouring no doubt of the information thus mysteriously sent him the handwriting seemed to be that of a man but gave no further hint as to its origin hewett the next day
journeyed down into lancashire sidney supplying him with money he found clara in a perilous condition her face was horribly burnt with vitriol and the doctors could not as yet answer for the results of the shock she had suffered
one consolation alone offered itself in the course of hewett's inquiries clara if she recovered would not have lost her eyesight the fluid had been thrown too low to effect the worst injury the accident of a trembling hand
clara's career as an actress had ended when the fog's artificial night deepened at the close of the winter evening missus eagles made the hewetts two rooms as cheerful as might be expecting every moment the arrival of john and his companion
the children were aware that an all but forgotten sister was returning to them and that she had been very ill they promised quietude amy set the tea table in order and kept the kettle ready the knock for which they were waiting
is there a light in the other room amy john inquired in a thick voice yes father he led the muffled form into the chamber where amy and annie slept the door closed and for several minutes the three children stood regarding each other
alarmed mute then their father joined them he looked about in an absent way slowly drew off his overcoat and when amy offered to take it bent and kissed her cheek the girl was startled to hear him sob and to see tears starting from his eyes
turning suddenly away he stood before the fire and made a pretence of warming himself but his sobs overmastered him he leaned his arms on the mantel piece shall i pour out the tea father
amy ventured to ask when there was again perfect silence haven't you had yours he replied half facing her not yet get it then all of you yes you can pour me out a cup and put another on the little tray
is this stuff in the saucepan ready missus eagles said it would be in five minutes all right get on with your eatin all of you he went to missus eagles room and talked there for a short time presently missus eagles herself came out
she had said that the firelight was enough john deposited his burden on the table then touched her shoulder gently and spoke in so soft a voice that one would not have recognised it as his you'll try an eat a little my dear
here's somethin as has been made particular after travellin' just a spoonful or two clara expressed reluctance i don't feel hungry father presently perhaps well well it do want to cool a bit do you feel able to sit up
yes don't take so much trouble father i'd rather you left me alone the tone was not exactly impatient it spoke a weary indifference to everything and every person yes i'll go away dear but you'll eat just a bit
if you don't like this you must tell me and i'll get something you could fancy it'll do well enough i'll eat it presently i promise you john hesitated before going clara shall you mind amy and annie comin to sleep here
if you'd rather we'll manage it somehow else no what does it matter they can come when they like only they mustn't want me to talk to them he went softly from the room and joined the children at their tea his mood had grown brighter
and he answered freely the questions put to him about his journey overcome at first by the dark aspect of this home coming he now began to taste the joy of having clara under his roof rescued alike from those vague dangers of the past
and from the recent peril impossible to separate the sorrow he felt for her blighted life her broken spirit and the solace lurking in the thought that henceforth she could not abandon him never a word to reproach her for the unalterable
if it came to that he would manage to get some extra work in the evening and on saturday afternoons he would take sidney into council but thereupon his face darkened again and he lost himself in troubled musing
hiding her face as far as she was able the beauty of her form would have impressed anyone who approached her the grace of her bent head but the countenance was no longer that of clara hewett
none must now look at her unless to pity feeling herself thus utterly changed she could not speak in her former natural voice her utterance was oppressed unmusical monotonous when her father had taken a place near her she asked him
have you got that piece of newspaper still he had and at her wish produced it clara held it in the light of the fire and regarded the pencilled words closely then she inquired if he wished to keep it and on his answering in the negative
threw it to be burnt hewett took her hand and for a while they kept silence do you live comfortably here father she said presently we do clara it's a bit high up but that don't matter much you've got new furniture
and where did you live before you came here oh we had a place in king's cross road it wasn't much of a place but i suppose it might a been worse and that was where yes yes it was there
and how did you manage to buy this furniture clara asked after a pause well my dear to tell you the truth it was a friend as an old friend helped us a bit you wouldn't care to say who it was john was gravely embarrassed
clara moved her head a little so as to regard him but at once turned away shrinkingly when she met his eyes why don't you like to tell me father was it mister kirkwood yes my dear it was neither spoke for a long time
clara's head sank lower she drew her hand away from her father's and used it to shield her face when she spoke it was as if to herself i suppose he's altered in some ways not much i don't see much change myself but then of course
no he's pretty much the same he's married isn't he married why what made you think that clara no not he he had to move not long ago his lodgin's is in red lion street now and does he ever come here
he has been just now an then have you told him why yes dear i felt i had to there's no harm you couldn't keep it a secret but he mustn't come whilst i'm here you understand that father no no he shan't
he shall never come if you don't wish it only whilst i'm here but clara you'll always be here oh no do you think i'm going to burden you all the rest of my life i shall find some way of earning a living
i ain't so young as i was and i've had things as was hard to go through i mean when the mother died and and other things at that time let you an me stay by each other whilst we may my girl
and i want to keep you by me i do clara you won't speak about goin away she remained mute shadows from the firelight rose and fell upon the walls of the half darkened room it was a cloudy morning
every now and then a gust flung rain against the window if you went he continued huskily i should be afraid myself i haven't told you i didn't behave as i'd ought have done to the poor mother clara i got into drinkin too much yes i did
i've broke myself off that but if you was to leave me i've had hard things to go through do you know the burial club broke up just before she died i couldn't get not a ha'penny a lot o the money was stolen you may think how i felt clara with her lyin there
but i'd rather beg my bread in the streets than you should go away don't be afraid my dearest i promise you nobody shan't come near you won't mind missus eagles she's very good to the children but i must keep you near to me my poor girl perhaps sit was that word of pity
and to slip my note into the willing hand of the housemaid who attended on me useless the vigilance of my guardian was not to be evaded the woman was suspected and followed and the letter was taken from her my father tore it up with his own hands
later in the day my mother was permitted to see me she was quite unfit poor soul to intercede for me or to serve my interests in any way my father had completely overwhelmed her by announcing that his wife and his son were to accompany him
when he returned to america every farthing he has in the world said my mother is to be thrown into that hateful speculation he has raised money in london he has let the house to some rich tradesman for seven years
he has sold the plate and the jewels that came to me from his mother the land in america swallows it all up we have no home george and no choice but to go with him an hour afterward the post chaise was at the door
my father himself took me to the carriage i broke away from him with a desperation which not even his resolution could resist i ran i flew along the path that led to dermody's cottage the door stood open
the parlor was empty i went into the kitchen i went into the upper rooms solitude everywhere the bailiff had left the place and his mother and his daughter had gone with him no friend or neighbor lingered near with a message
and looked again at the pretty green flag and burst out crying a light touch roused me my father had so far yielded as to leave to my mother the responsibility of bringing me back to the traveling carriage
we shall not find mary here george she said gently and we may hear of her in london come with me i rose and silently gave her my hand
i followed my mother quietly to the carriage late that night we were in london my good mother did all that the most compassionate kindness could do in her position to comfort me
she privately wrote to the solicitors employed by her family inclosing a description of dermody and his mother and daughter and directing inquiries to be made at the various coach offices in london she also referred the lawyers to two of dermody's relatives
for ten long years afterward i never again met with my little mary i never even heard whether she had lived to grow to womanhood or not i still kept the green flag with the dove worked on it
the concurrence of these two national assemblies served no doubt to increase the king's power over the people
even by means of military force is ever able to attain but there are certain bounds beyond which the most slavish submission cannot be extended all the late innovations particularly the dissolution of the smaller monasteries
suited to vulgar capacity it was able now that it was brought into apparent hazard to raise the strongest zeal in its favor
of individuals even the most moderate and reasonable deemed it somewhat iniquitous that men who had been invited into a course of life by all the laws human and divine which prevailed in their country
should be turned out of their possessions and so little care be taken of their future subsistence
but the people did not break into open sedition till the complaints of the secular clergy concurred with those of the regular as cromwell's person was little acceptable to the ecclesiastics the authority which he exercised being so new so absolute
prohibited several superstitions gainful to the clergy such as pilgrimages images relics and even ordered the incumbents in the parishes to set apart a considerable portion of their revenue for repairs
and for the support of exhibitioners and the poor of their parish the secular priests finding themselves thus reduced to a grievous servitude instilled into the people those discontents which they had long harbored in their own bosoms
the first rising was in lincolnshire it was headed by doctor mackrel prior of barlings who was disguised like a mean mechanic and who bore the name of captain cobler
and who kept a secret correspondence with suffolk they informed him that resentment against the king's reply was the chief cause which retained the malecontents in arms and that a milder answer would probably suppress the rebellion
henry had levied a great force at london with which he was preparing to march against the rebels and being so well supported by power he thought that without losing his dignity he might now show them some greater condescension
he sent a new proclamation requiring them to return to their obedience with secret assurances of pardon this expedient had its effect the populace was dispersed
mackrel and some of their leaders fell into the king's hands and were executed the greater part of the multitude retired peaceably to their usual occupations a few of the more obstinate fled to the north where they joined the insurrection that was raised in those parts
one aske a gentleman had taken the command of them and he possessed the art of governing the populace their enterprise they called the pilgrimage of grace some priests marched before in the habits of their order carrying crosses in their hands
and as his army was small scarcely exceeding five thousand men he made choice of a post where he had a river in front the ford of which he purposed to defend against the rebels they had intended to attack him in the morning
and henry purposely delayed giving an answer and allured them with hopes of entire satisfaction in expectation that necessity would soon oblige them to disperse themselves being informed that his artifice had in a great measure succeeded
he required them instantly to lay down their arms and submit to mercy promising a pardon to all except six whom he named and four whom he reserved to himself the power of naming
they had entered into the most solemn engagements to return to their standards in case the king's answer should not prove satisfactory norfolk therefore soon found himself in the same difficulty as before
and he opened again a negotiation with the leaders of the multitude he engaged them to send three hundred persons to doncaster with proposals for an accommodation and he hoped by intrigue and separate interests to throw dissension among so great a number
aske himself had intended to be one of the deputies and he required a hostage for his security but the king when consulted replied that he knew no gentleman or other whom he esteemed so little as to put him in pledge for such a villain
the demands of the rebels were so exorbitant that norfolk rejected them and they prepared again to decide the contest by arms they were as formidable as ever both by their numbers and spirit
and notwithstanding the small river which lay between them and the royal army norfolk had great reason to dread the effects of their fury but while they were preparing to pass the ford rain fell a second time in such abundance
as made it impracticable for them to execute their design and the populace partly reduced to necessity by want of provisions partly struck with superstition at being thus again disappointed by the same accident suddenly dispersed themselves
the duke of norfolk who had received powers for that end forwarded the dispersion by the promise of a general amnesty and the king ratified this act of clemency he published however a manifesto against the rebels and an answer to their complaints
in which he employed a very lofty style suited to so haughty a monarch he told them that they ought no more to pretend giving a judgment with regard to government that a blind man with regard to colors
and we he added with our whole council think it right strange that ye who be but brutes and inexpert folk do take upon you to appoint us who be meet
every place was full of jealousy and complaints a new insurrection broke out headed by musgrave and tilby and the rebels besieged carlisle with thousand men being repulsed by that city they were encountered in their retreat by norfolk who put them to flight
and having made prisoners of all their officers except musgrave who escaped he instantly put them to death by martial law to the number of seventy persons an attempt made by sir francis bigot and halam to surprise hull
met with no better success and several other risings were suppressed by the vigilance of norfolk the king enraged by these multiplied revolts was determined not to adhere to the general pardon which he had granted
and from a movement of his usual violence he made the innocent suffer for the guilty norfolk by command from his master spread the royal banner and wherever he thought proper executed martial law in the punishment of offenders
besides aske leader of the first insurrection sir robert constable sir john bulmer sir thomas piercy sir stephen hamilton nicholas tempest william lumley and many others were thrown into prison
was beheaded on tower hill before his execution he accused norfolk of having secretly encouraged the rebels but henry either sensible of that nobleman's services
and convinced of his fidelity or afraid to offend one of such extensive power and great capacity rejected the information being now satiated with punishing the rebels he published anew a general pardon to which he faithfully adhered
that the king's affliction was drowned in his joy and he expressed great satisfaction on the occasion the prince not six days old was created prince of wales duke of cornwall and earl of chester sir edward seymour the queen's brother
formerly made lord beauchamp was raised to the dignity of earl of hertford sir william fitz williams high admiral was created earl of southampton sir william paulet lord saint john
increased his consideration among foreign princes and made his alliance be courted by all parties he maintained however
and without any decisive event between charles and francis and though inclined more to favor the latter he determined not to incur without necessity either hazard or expense on his account
and afterwards prolonged for ten years freed him from all anxiety on account of his ally and reestablished the tranquillity of europe henry continued desirous of cementing a union with the german protestants
and for that purpose he sent christopher mount to a congress which they held at brunswick but that minister made no great progress in his negotiation the princes wished to know
he would only allow a copy of it to be deposited in some parish churches where it was fixed by a chain and he took care to inform the people by proclamation that this indulgence was not the effect of his duty
nor presume to expound doubtful places without advice from the learned in this measure as in the rest
there was only one particular in which henry was quite decisive because he was there impelled by his avarice or more properly speaking his rapacity the consequence of his profusion this measure was the entire destruction of the monasteries
the present opportunity seemed favorable for that great enterprise while the suppression of the late rebellion fortified and increased the royal authority and as some of the abbots were suspected of having encouraged the insurrection and of corresponding with the rebels
the king's resentment was further incited by that motive anew visitation was appointed of all the monasteries in england and a pretence only being wanted for their suppression it was easy for a prince possessed of such unlimited power
and seconding the present humor of a great part of the nation to find or feign one the abbots and monks knew the danger to which they were exposed and having learned by the example of the lesser monasteries that nothing could withstand the king's will
they were most of them induced in expectation of better treatment to make a voluntary resignation of their houses where promises failed of effect menaces and even extreme violence were employed and as several of the abbots since the breach with rome
had been named by the court with a view to this event the king's intentions were the more easily effected some also having secretly embraced the doctrine of the reformation were glad to be freed from their vows and on the whole the design was conducted with such success
neither did either of them feel like making the long journey to his home and back again so whitefoot found a hole in a stump near by and decided to camp out there for a few days
danny decided to do the same thing in a comfortable place under a pile of brush not far away so the next morning both were on hand when school opened i told you yesterday that i would tell you about some of danny's cousins
began old mother nature just as chatterer the red squirrel who was late came hurrying up quite out of breath way up in the far north are two of danny's cousins more closely related to him than to any other members of the mouse family
who changes the color of his coat in summer he wears beautiful shades of reddish brown and gray but in winter his coat is wholly white he is also called the hudson bay lemming danny meadow mouse thinks his tail is short
that is so short it hardly shows beyond his long fur he is about danny's size but a little stouter and stockier and his long fur makes him appear even thicker bodied than he really is
he has very short legs and his ears are so small that they are quite hidden in the fur around them
in that same far northern country is a close relative called the brown lemming he is very much like bandy save that he is all brown and does not change his coat in winter
both have the same general habits and these are much like the habits of danny meadow mouse they make short burrows in the ground leading to snug warm nests of grass and moss in winter
they make little tunnels in every direction under the snow with now and then an opening to the surface there are many more brown lemmings than banded lemmings and their little paths run everywhere through the grass and moss
in that country there is a great deal of moss it covers the ground just as grass does here but the most interesting thing about these lemmings is the way they migrate
to migrate is to move from one part of the country to another you know most of the birds migrate to the sunny south every autumn and back every spring
that food becomes very scarce where the lemmings are then very many of them get together just as migrating birds form great flocks and start on a long journey in search of a place where there is plenty of food
they form a great army and push ahead regardless of everything they swim wide rivers and even lakes which may lie in their way of course they eat everything eatable in their path
i'm perfectly satisfied to live right on the green meadows which shows your good common sense said old mother nature by the way danny i suppose you are acquainted with nimbleheels the jumping mouse
who also is rather fond of the green meadows i ought to have sent word to him to be here this morning hardly were the words out of old mother nature's mouth when something landed in the leaves almost at her feet and right in the middle of school
instantly danny meadow mouse scurried under a pile of dead leaves whitefoot the wood mouse darted into a knothole in the log on which he had been sitting jumper the hare dodged behind a little hemlock tree
peter rabbit bolted for a hollow log striped chipmunk vanished in a hole under an old stump johnny chuck backed up against the trunk of a tree and made ready to fight only happy jack the gray squirrel
and chatterer the red squirrel and prickly porky the porcupine who were sitting in trees kept their places you see they felt quite safe as soon as all those who had run had reached places of safety
they peeped out to see what had frightened them so just imagine how very very foolish they felt when they saw old mother nature smiling down at a little fellow just about the size of little whitefoot but with a much longer tail
her eyes twinkled nimbleheels saw this and knew that she was only pretending to be severe before he could reply johnny chuck began to chuckle the chuckle became a laugh and presently johnny was laughing so hard he had to hold his sides
now as you know laughter is catching in a minute or so everybody was laughing and no one but johnny chuck knew what the joke was at last peter rabbit stopped laughing long enough to ask johnny what he was laughing at
giving us all such a fright replied johnny chuck then all laughed some more when they were through laughing nimbleheels answered old mother nature's questions
he explained that he had heard about that school as by this time almost every one in the green forest and on the green meadows had by chance he learned that danny meadow mouse was attending he thought that if it was a good thing for danny it would be a good thing for him
it was some jump exclaimed jumper the hare admiringly
it isn't much of a jump to go over your head replied nimbleheels
i wasn't half trying when i landed here i'm sorry i frightened all of you so
replied old mother nature hop up on that log side of your cousin whitefoot where all can see you nimbleheels hopped up beside whitefoot the wood mouse and as the two little cousins sat side by side
his ears were much smaller than those of whitefoot but the greatest differences between the two were in their hind legs and tails the hind legs and feet of nimbleheels were long
any one would know that he was a born jumper and a good one whitefoot possessed a long tail but the tail of nimbleheels was much longer slim and tapering there said old mother nature is the greatest jumper
for his size among all the animals in this great country when i say this i mean the greatest ground jumper
but timmy has to climb to a high place and then coasts down on the air i told you what wonderful jumps jack rabbit can make but if he could jump as high and far for his size as nimbleheels can jump for his size
the longest jump jack has ever made would seem nothing more than a hop by the way both nimbleheels and whitefoot have small pockets in their cheeks tell us where you live nimbleheels
i live among the weeds along the edge of the green meadows replied nimbleheels
but i like best to be among the weeds because they are tall and keep me well hidden
especially beechnuts some of my family prefer the green forest
personally i prefer as i said before the edge of the green meadows do you make your home under the ground asked striped chipmunk
in the fall i dig a deep burrow deep enough to be beyond the reach of jack frost and in a nice little bedroom down there i sleep the winter away i have little storerooms down there too in which i put seeds berries and nuts
then when i do wake up i have plenty to eat i might add said old mother nature that when he goes to sleep for the winter he curls up in a little ball with his long tail wrapped around him and in his bed of soft grass he sleeps very sound indeed
like johnny chuck he gets very fat before going to sleep now nimbleheels show us how you can jump nimbleheels hopped down from the log on which he had been sitting and at once shot into the air in such a high
long beautiful jump that everybody exclaimed this way and that way he went in great leaps it was truly wonderful that long tail is what balances him explained old mother nature
his jumping is done only in times of danger when he is not alarmed he runs about on the ground like the rest of the mouse family
seldom indeed had the old hall despite its many years seen such a running to and fro heard such a patter of flying feet such merry voices such gay and heart felt laughter for here was miss priscilla looking smaller than ever
in a great arm chair whence she directed the disposal and arrangement of all things with quick little motions of her crutch stick and here were the two rosy cheeked maids brighter and rosier than ever
pushing and tugging in his efforts to get the great side board back into its customary position and all as has also been said was laughter and bustle and an eager haste to have all things as they were
ah nodded bellew thoughtfully i wonder what do you suppose she'll say miss priscilla m a m i think you'd better be careful of that picture adam which means
i know she loves every stick and stave of that old furniture but but nodded bellew yes i understand mister bellew if anthea
but if she has a fault it is pride mister bellew pride pride pride with a capital p yes she is very proud
said adam pausing near by with a great armful of miscellaneous articles an that full o joy as never was mister belloo sir having delivered himself of which he departed with his load
i rose this morning very early mister bellew oh very early said miss priscilla following adam's laden figure with watchful eyes couldn't possibly sleep you see so i got up ridiculously early
but bless you she was before me ah oh dear yes had been up hours and what what do you suppose she was doing bellew shook his head
she was rubbing and polishing that old side board that you paid such a dreadful price for down on her knees before it yes she was and polishing and rubbing and crying all the while oh dear heart
such great big tears and so very quiet when she heard my little stick come tapping along she tried to hide them i mean her tears of course mister bellew and when i drew her dear beautiful head down into my arms she
tried to smile i'm so very silly aunt priscilla she said crying more than ever but it is so hard to let the old things be taken away you see i do love them so i tell you all this mister bellew
because i like you ever since you took the trouble to pick up a ball of worsted for a poor old lame woman in an orchard first impressions you know and secondly i tell you all this to explain to you why i
threw a kiss from a minstrel's gallery to a most unworthy individual aunt priscilla threw you a kiss mister bellew i had to the side board you know
i understand
said adam at this juncture speaking from beneath an inlaid table which he held balanced upon his head it ain't as if this was jest ordinary furnitur sir ye see she kind er feels as it be all part o dapplemere manor as it used to be called
it's all been here so long that them cheers an tables has come to be part o the ouse sir so when she comes an finds as it ain't all been took
oh lord and here adam gave vent to his great laugh which necessitated an almost superhuman exertion of strength to keep the table from slipping from its precarious perch whereupon miss priscilla screamed
when the floor had been swept of its litter and every trace of the sale removed then miss priscilla sighed
and may come the longest way round yes it's in my mind she will keep away from dapplemere as long as ever she can and i think said bellew yes i think i'll take a walk
i'll go and call upon the sergeant the sergeant said miss priscilla let me see it is now a quarter to six it should take you about fifteen minutes to the village that will make it exactly six o'clock
you will find the sergeant just sitting down in the chair on the left hand side of the fire place in the corner at the king's head you know not that i have ever seen him there good gracious no but i happen to be acquainted with his habits
and he is as regular and precise as his great big silver watch and that is the most precise and regular thing in all the world i am glad you are going she went on because to day is
a day apart mister bellew you will find the sergeant at the king's head until half past seven then i will go to the king's head said bellew and what message do you send him none
said miss priscilla laughing and shaking her head at least you can tell him if you wish that the peaches are riper than ever they were this evening i won't forget said bellew smiling and went out into the sunshine
but crossing the yard he was met by adam who chuckling still paused to touch his hat to look at that theer all sir you wouldn't never know as there'd ever been any sale at all not no'ow
now the only question as worrits me
yes said bellew i wonder
miss priscilla had been right
also she was anxious to keep away from dapplemere as long as possible therefore despite small porges exhortations and bess's champing impatience
permitting her only the slowest of paces which was a most unusual thing for anthea to do for the most part too
which was also very unlike in her but before her eyes were visions of her dismantled home in her ears was the roar of voices clamouring for her cherished possessions a sickening roar broken now and then
by the hollow tap of the auctioneer's cruel hammer and each time the clamouring voices rose she shivered and every blow of the cruel hammer seemed to fall upon her quivering heart
thus she was unwontedly deaf and unresponsive to small porges who presently fell into a profound gloom in consequence and thus she held in the eager mare who therefore shied and fidgeted
and tossed her head indignantly but slowly as they went they came within sight of the house at last with its quaint gables and many latticed windows and the blue smoke curling up from its twisted chimneys
smiling and placid as though in all this great world there were no such thing to be found as an auctioneer's hammer and presently they swung into the drive and drew up in the courtyard and there was adam
anthea climbed down from the high dog cart aiding small porges to earth and with his hand clasped tight in hers and with lips set firm she turned and entered the hall but upon the threshold she stopped
and stood there utterly still gazing and gazing upon the trim orderliness of everything then seeing every well remembered thing in its appointed place all became suddenly blurred and dim
she uttered a great choking sob and covered her face but small porges had seen and stood aghast and miss priscilla had seen and now hurried forward with a quick tap tap of her stick
and looked for one who should have been there but was not and in that moment instinctively she knew how things came to be as they were and because of this knowledge her cheeks flamed with a swift burning colour
and with a soft cry she hid her face in miss priscilla's gentle bosom then while her face was yet hidden there she whispered tell me tell me all about it but meanwhile bellew
striding far away across the meadows seeming to watch the glory of the sun set and to hearken to a blackbird piping from the dim seclusion of the copse a melodious good bye to the dying day yet saw and heard it not at all
during june the meetings of those who were in the secret were frequent at length on the last day of the month the day on which the bishops were pronounced not guilty the decisive step was taken a formal invitation transcribed by sidney
but drawn up by some person more skilled than sidney in the art of composition was despatched to the hague in this paper william was assured that nineteen twentieths of the english people were desirous of a change and would willingly join to effect it
as might secure those who should rise in arms from the danger of being dispersed and slaughtered before they could form themselves into anything like military order if his highness would appear in the island at the head of some troops tens of thousands would hasten to his standard
he would soon find himself at the head of a force greatly superior to the whole regular army of england nor could that army be implicitly depended on by the government the officers were discontented
and the common soldiers shared that aversion to popery which was general in the class from which they were taken in the navy protestant feeling was still stronger it was important to take some decisive step while things were in this state
on one point they thought it their duty to remonstrate with his highness he had not taken advantage of the opinion which the great body of the english people had formed respecting the late birth he had on the contrary sent congratulations to whitehall
and had thus seemed to acknowledge that the child who was called prince of wales was rightful heir of the throne this was a grave error
his errand was one of no ordinary peril he assumed the garb of a common sailor and in this disguise reached the dutch coast in safety on the friday after the trial of the bishops he instantly hastened to the prince
and what is more extraordinary he had won her entire affection he was to her in the place of the parents whom she had lost by death and by estrangement
and of the country from which she was banished his empire over her heart was divided only with her god to her father she had probably never been attached she had quitted him young many years had elapsed since she had seen him
and no part of his conduct to her since her marriage had indicated tenderness on his part or had been calculated to call forth tenderness on hers he had done all in his power to disturb her domestic happiness
and had established a system of spying eavesdropping
who for refusing to commit an act of flagitious injustice
he had conspired with tyrconnel and with france against mary's rights and had made arrangements for depriving her of one at least of the three crowns to which at his death
it was now believed by the great body of his people and by many persons high in rank and distinguished by abilities that he had introduced a supposititious prince of wales into the royal family
in order to deprive her of a magnificent inheritance and there is no reason to doubt that she partook of the prevailing suspicion that she should love such a father was impossible her religious principles indeed
and indeed all divines and publicists agree in this that when the daughter of a prince of one country is married to a prince of another country she is bound to forget her own people and her father's house and
in the event of a rupture between her husband and her parents to side with her husband this is the undoubted rule even when the husband is in the wrong and to mary the enterprise which william meditated appeared not only just
but holy but though she carefully abstained from doing or saying anything that could add to his difficulties those difficulties were serious indeed they were in truth but imperfectly understood even by some of those who invited him over
and have been but imperfectly described by some of those who have written the history of his expedition the obstacles which he might expect to encounter on english ground though the least formidable of the obstacles which stood in the way of his design were yet serious
he felt that it would be madness in him to imitate the example of monmouth to cross the sea with a few british adventurers and to trust to a general rising of the population it was necessary
and it was pronounced necessary by all those who invited him over that he should carry an army with him yet who could answer for the effect which the appearance of such an army might produce the government was indeed justly odious but would the english people
altogether unaccustomed to the interference of continental powers in english disputes be inclined to look with favour on a deliverer who was surrounded by foreign soldiers if any part of the royal forces resolutely withstood the invaders
would not that part soon have on its side the patriotic sympathy of millions a defeat would be fatal to the whole undertaking a bloody victory gained in the heart of the island by the mercenaries of the states general over the coldstream guards and the buffs
would be almost as great a calamity as a defeat such a victory would be the most cruel wound ever inflicted on the national pride of one of the proudest of nations the crown so won would never be worn in peace or security
the hatred with which the high commission and the jesuits were regarded would give place to the more intense hatred which would be inspired by the alien conquerors and many who had hitherto contemplated the power of france with dread and loathing would say that
had been at his absolute disposal but in truth it seemed very doubtful whether he would be able to obtain the assistance of a single battalion of all the difficulties with which he had to struggle the greatest though little noticed by english historians
arose from the constitution of the batavian republic no great society has ever existed during a long course of years under a polity so inconvenient the states general could not make war or peace
could not conclude any alliance or levy any tax without the consent of the states of every province the states of a province could not give such consent without the consent of every municipality which had a share in the representation
every municipality was in some sense a sovereign state and as such claimed the right of communicating directly with foreign ambassadors and of concerting with them the means of defeating schemes on which other municipalities were intent
in some town councils the party which had during several generations regarded the influence of the stadtholders with jealousy had great power at the head of this party were the magistrates of the noble city of amsterdam
which was then at the height of prosperity they had ever since the peace of nimeguen kept up a friendly correspondence with lewis
propositions brought forward by the stadtholder as indispensable to the security of the commonwealth sanctioned by all the provinces except holland and sanctioned by seventeen of the eighteen town councils of holland had repeatedly
been negatived by the single voice of amsterdam the only constitutional remedy in such cases was that deputies from the cities which were agreed should pay a visit to the city which dissented for the purpose of expostulation
when paul morgan a rising young lawyer with justifiable political aspirations married elinor ashton leading woman at the green square theatre
held up their hands in horror and his father and mother up in the weather grey morgan homestead were crushed in the depths of humiliation they had been too proud of paul their only son and such a clever fellow and this was their punishment he had married an actress
to cyrus and deborah morgan brought up and nourished all their lives on the strictest and straightest of old fashioned beliefs both as regards this world and that which is to come this was a tragedy they could not be brought to see it in any other light as their neighbours said
but perhaps it was less his humiliation than his sorrow which bowed down his erect form and sprinkled grey in his thick black hair that fifty years had hitherto spared for paul forgetting the sacrifices his mother and father had made for him
had bitterly resented the letter of protest his father had written concerning his marriage he wrote one angry unfilial letter back and then came silence between grief and shame cyrus and deborah morgan grew old rapidly in the year that followed
at the end of that time elinor morgan the mother of an hour died three months later paul morgan was killed in a railroad collision after the funeral cyrus morgan brought home to his wife their son's little daughter joscelyn morgan
her aunt annice ashton had wanted the baby cyrus morgan had been almost rude in his refusal his son's daughter should never be brought up by an actress
but in spring valley if anywhere it might be eradicated at first neither cyrus nor deborah cared much for joscelyn they resented her parentage her strange un morgan like name
and the pronounced resemblance she bore to the dark haired dark eyed mother they had never seen all the morgans had been fair if joscelyn had had paul's blue eyes and golden curls her grandfather and grandmother would have loved her sooner
but the love came it had to no living mortal could have resisted joscelyn
her big dark eyes overflowed with laughter before she could speak her puckered red mouth broke constantly into dimples and cooing sounds
every smile was a caress every gurgle of attempted speech a song her grandparents came to worship her
because she was so dear to them she must be saved from her mother's blood joscelyn shot up through a roly poly childhood into slim bewitching girlhood in a chill repressive atmosphere cyrus and deborah were nothing if not thorough
the name of joscelyn's mother was never mentioned to her she was never called anything but josie which sounded more christian like than joscelyn and all the flowering out of her alien beauty was repressed
as far as might be in the plainest and dullest of dresses and the primmest arrangement possible to riotous ripe brown curls
although frequently invited miss ashton however wrote to her occasionally and every christmas sent a box of presents which even cyrus and deborah morgan could not forbid her to accept
although they looked with disapproving eyes and ominously set lips at the dainty frivolous trifles the actress woman sent
the path thus set for joscelyn's dancing feet to walk in was indeed sedate and narrow she was seldom allowed to mingle with the young people of even quiet harmless spring valley she was never allowed to attend local concerts much less take part in them
she was forbidden to read novels and cyrus morgan burned an old copy of shakespeare which paul had given him years ago and which he had himself read and treasured
the girl's passion for reading was so marked that her grandparents felt that it was their duty to repress it as far as lay in their power but joscelyn's vitality was such that all her bonds and bands served but little to check or retard the growth of her rich nature
do what they might they could not make a morgan of her her every step was a dance
she seemed to them charged with dangerous tendencies all the more potent from repression she was sweet tempered and sunny
but she was as little like the trim simple spring valley girls as a crimson rose is like a field daisy and her unlikeness bore heavily on her grandparents yet they loved her and were proud of her our girl josie as they called her
was more to them than they would have admitted even to themselves and in the main they were satisfied with her although the grandmother grumbled because josie did not take kindly to patchwork
when joscelyn was seventeen deborah morgan noticed a change in her the girl became quieter and more brooding falling at times into strange idle reveries with her hands clasped over her knee and her big eyes fixed unseeingly on space
or she would creep away for solitary rambles in the beech wood going away droopingly and returning with dusky glowing cheeks and a nameless radiance as of some newly discovered power shining through every muscle and motion
missus morgan thought the child needed a tonic and gave her sulphur and molasses one day the revelation came cyrus and deborah had driven across the valley to visit their married daughter not finding her at home they returned
joscelyn was not in the kitchen but the grandmother heard the sound of voices and laughter in the sitting room across the hall what company has josie got she wondered
as she opened the hall door and paused for a moment on the threshold to listen as she listened her old face grew grey and pinched she turned noiselessly and left the house and flew to her husband as one distracted cyrus
has come you and listen to her the old couple crept through the kitchen and across the hall to the open parlour door as if they were stalking a thief joscelyn's laugh rang out as they did so a mocking triumphant peal
cyrus and deborah shivered as if they had heard sacrilege joscelyn had put on a trailing clinging black skirt which her aunt had sent her a year ago and which she had never been permitted to wear it transformed her into a woman
she had cast aside her waist of dark plum coloured homespun and wrapped a silken shawl about herself
her hair glossy and brown with burnished red lights where the rays of the dull autumn sun struck on it through the window was heaped high on her head and held in place by a fillet of pearl beads
her cheeks were crimson her whole body from head to foot instinct and alive with a beauty that to cyrus and deborah as they stood mute with horror in the open doorway
wrong it's your mother's blood coming out in you girl in spite of all our care where did you get that play
casting a quick glance at the book on the table then when her grandfather picked it up gingerly as if he feared contamination she added quickly
said cyrus morgan sternly oh don't grandfather
don't burn it please i i won't practise out of it any more i'm sorry i've displeased you please give me my book no was the stern reply go to your room girl and take off that rig
there is to be no more play acting in my house remember that he flung the book into the fire that was burning in the grate
cyrus and deborah could not have been more shocked if they had discovered the girl robbing her grandfather's desk they talked the matter over bitterly at the kitchen hearth that night we haven't been strict enough with the girl mother said cyrus angrily
we'll have to be stricter if we don't want to have her disgracing us did you hear how she defied me so i mean to be she says mother we'll have trouble with that girl yet don't be too harsh with her pa
she was never permitted to be alone there were no more solitary walks she felt herself under the surveillance of cold unsympathetic eyes every moment
joscelyn morgan the high spirited daughter of high spirited parents
it might have passed with a child to a woman thrilling with life and conscious power to her very fingertips it was galling beyond measure joscelyn rebelled but she did nothing secretly that was not her nature
and when she received her reply she went straight and fearlessly to her grandparents with it grandfather this letter is from my aunt she wishes me to go and live with her and prepare for the stage i told her i wished to do so i am going
cyrus and deborah looked at her in mute dismay i know you despise the profession of an actress
i must go i must yes you must said cyrus cruelly it's in your blood your bad blood girl my blood isn't bad cried joscelyn proudly my mother was a sweet
true good woman you are unjust grandfather but i don't want you to be angry with me i love you both and i am very grateful indeed for all your kindness to me i wish that you could understand what
we understand enough interrupted cyrus harshly this is all i have to say go to your play acting aunt if you want to your grandmother and me won't hinder you but you'll come back here no more we'll have nothing further to do with you
you can choose your own way and walk in it with this dictum joscelyn went from spring valley she clung to deborah and wept at parting but cyrus did not even say goodbye to her
on the morning of her departure he went away on business and did not return until evening joscelyn went on the stage her aunt's influence and her mother's fame helped her much she missed the hard experiences that come to the unassisted beginner
but her own genius must have won in any case she had all her mother's gifts deepened by her inheritance of morgan intensity and sincerity much too of the morgan firmness of will
when joscelyn morgan was twenty two she was famous over two continents when cyrus morgan returned home on the evening after his granddaughter's departure he told his wife that she was never to mention the girl's name in his hearing again deborah obeyed
she thought her husband was right albeit she might in her own heart deplore the necessity of such a decree joscelyn had disgraced them could that be forgiven nevertheless both the old people missed her terribly
the house seemed to have lost its soul with that vivid ripely tinted young life they got their married daughter's oldest girl pauline to come and stay with them
industrious and commonplace just such a girl as they had vainly striven to make of joscelyn
she hasn't any of josie's gimp
deborah spoke but all she said was polly's a good girl father only she hasn't any snap joscelyn wrote to deborah occasionally telling her freely of her plans and doings
if it hurt the girl that no notice was ever taken of her letters she still wrote them
deborah cut them out and kept them in her upper bureau drawer with joscelyn's letters once she overlooked one and cyrus found it when he was kindling the fire he got the scissors and cut it out carefully
a month later deborah discovered it between the leaves of the family bible but joscelyn's name was never mentioned between them and when other people asked them concerning her their replies were cold and ungracious in a way they had relented towards her
but their shame of her remained they could never forget that she was an actress once six years after joscelyn had left spring valley cyrus who was reading a paper by the table got up with an angry exclamation and stuffed it into the stove
thumping the lid on over it with grim malignity that fool dunno what he's talking about was all he would say deborah had her share of curiosity the paper was the national gazette and she knew that their next door neighbour james pennan
took it she went over that evening and borrowed it saying that their own had been burned before she had had time to read the serial in it with one exception she read all its columns carefully without finding anything to explain her husband's anger
then she doubtfully plunged into the exception a column of stage notes
it was malicious and vituperative
i guess somebody is pretty jealous of josie she muttered i don't wonder pa was riled up but i guess she can hold her own she's a morgan no long time after this cyrus took a notion he'd like a trip to the city
and we're getting kind of mossy i guess never stirring out of spring valley let's go and dissipate for a week what say deborah agreed readily albeit of late years she had been much averse to going far from home
and had never at any time been very fond of cousin hiram's wife cyrus was as pleased as a child over their trip on the second day of their sojourn in the city he slipped away when deborah had gone shopping with missus hiram and hurried through the streets to the green square theatre
with a hang dog look he bought a ticket apologetically and sneaked in to his seat it was a matinee performance and joscelyn morgan was starring in her famous new play cyrus waited for the curtain to rise
but deborah must never find out for the first time in their married life the old man deliberately plotted to deceive his old wife he must see his girl josie just once it was a terrible thing that she was an actress
but she was a successful one nobody could deny that except fools who yapped in the national gazette the curtain went up and cyrus rubbed his eyes he had certainly braced his nerves to behold some mystery of iniquity instead
he saw an old kitchen so like his own at home that it bewildered him and there sitting by the cheery wood stove in homespun gown with primly braided hair was joscelyn his girl josie
as he had seen her a thousand times by his own ingle side the building rang with applause one old man pulled out a red bandanna and wiped tears of joy and pride from his eyes she hadn't changed josie hadn't changed
play acting hadn't spoiled her couldn't spoil her wasn't she paul's daughter and all this applause was for her for josie
joscelyn pervaded it all with a convincing simplicity that was really the triumph of art cyrus morgan listened and exulted in her at every burst of applause his eyes gleamed with pride
he wanted to go on the stage and box the ears of the villain who plotted against her he wanted to shake hands with the good woman who stood by her he wanted to pay off the mortgage and make josie happy he wiped tears from his eyes in the third act when josie was turned out of doors
and when the fourth left her a happy blushing bride hand in hand with her farmer lover he could have wept again for joy cyrus morgan went out into the daylight feeling as if he had awakened from a dream
cyrus morgan cleared his throat and said it was great mother great she took the shine off the other play actors all right
the taunton school had closed for the summer holidays constance foster and miss channing went down the long elm shaded street together as they generally did because they happened to board on the same block downtown constance was the youngest teacher on the staff
and had charge of the primary department she had taught in taunton school a year and at its close she was as much of a stranger in the little corps of teachers as she had been at the beginning the others thought her stiff and unapproachable
she was unpopular in a negative way with all except miss channing
the more so if other people disliked them miss channing was the oldest teacher on the staff and taught the fifth grade she was short and stout and jolly nothing not even the iciest reserve ever daunted miss channing
two months to dream to be lazy to go where one pleases no exercises to correct no reports to make no pupils to keep in order to be sure i love them every one
that is why i've hated to hear you and the others discussing your vacation plans you all have somebody to go to
miss channing swallowed her honest horror at such a state of feeling constance tell me about yourself
you seem so reserved and and as if you didn't want to be asked about yourself i know it
it's the truth and it hurts me but i can't help it i'm getting more bitter and pessimistic and unwholesome every day of my life sometimes it seems as if i hated all the world because i'm so lonely in it i'm nobody my mother died when i was born
and father oh i don't know one can't say anything against one's father miss channing but i had a hard childhood or rather i didn't have any childhood at all we were always moving about we didn't seem to have any friends at all
my mother might have had relatives somewhere but i never heard of any i don't even know where her home was father never would talk of her he died two years ago and since then i've been absolutely alone oh you poor girl said miss channing softly
i want friends went on constance
i've always just longed for somebody belonging to me to love
and when a girl is in that state she is all wrong she gets hard and bitter and resentful i have anyway i struggled against it at first but it has been too much for me it poisons everything there is nobody to care anything about me
whether i live or die oh yes there is one said miss channing gently god cares constance constance gave a disagreeable little laugh that sounds like miss williams
god doesn't mean anything to me miss channing i've just the same resentful feeling toward him that i have for all the world if he exists at all there i've shocked you in good earnest now
no you haven't shocked me
i'm only terribly sorry oh never mind me said constance
miss channing walked on in silence she must help constance but constance was not easily helped when school reopened she might be able to do something worthwhile for the girl but just now the only thing to do
you spoke of boarding she said when constance paused at the door of her boarding house have you any particular place in view
i was there two summers ago
pine valley is its name it's restful and homey and the people are so nice if you like i'll give you the address of the family i boarded with thank you said constance indifferently i might as well go there as anywhere else yes
but listen to me dear don't take your morbidness with you open your heart to the summer and let its sunshine in and when you come back in the fall come prepared to let us all be your friends we'd like to be
and while friendship doesn't take the place of the love of one's own people still it is a good and beautiful thing besides there are other unhappy people in the world try to help them when you meet them and you'll forget about yourself
good by for now and i hope you'll have a pleasant vacation in spite of yourself constance went to pine valley but she took her evil spirit with her
not even the beauty of the valley with its great balmy pines and the cheerful friendliness of its people could exorcise it nevertheless
she told her landlady one evening it is about three miles from here at the end of the valley such a picturesque
heartsease farm said missus hewitt promptly bless you there's only one place around here of that description mister and missus bruce
they are the dearest old couple alive you ought to go and see them they'd be delighted aunt flora just loves company
asked constance indifferently her interest was in the place not in the people
they brought her up and they just worshipped her she ran away with a worthless fellow i forget his name if i ever knew it he was handsome and smooth tongued but he was a scamp she died soon after and it just broke their hearts
they don't even know where she was buried and they never heard anything more about her husband i've heard that aunt flora's hair turned snow white in a month i'll take you up to see her some day when i find time missus hewitt did not find time
but thereafter constance ordered her rambles that she might frequently pass heartsease farm the quaint old spot had a strange attraction for her she found herself learning to love it
and so unused was this unfortunate girl to loving anything that she laughed at herself for her foolishness one evening a fortnight later constance with her arms full of ferns and wood lilies came out of the pine woods above heartsease farm
and it was now nearly night and very certainly a rainy night at that she was three miles from home and without even an extra wrap
the few drops had become a downpour she must seek shelter somewhere and heartsease farm was the nearest she pushed open the gate and ran up the slope of the yard between the hedges of sweetbriar
and i just ran down as fast as i could dear dear you are a little wet but we'll soon dry you come right in
they laughed at me for loving a fire so but there's nothing like its snap and sparkle
i know who you are you are miss foster i'm aunt flora and this is uncle charles constance let herself be put into a cushiony chair and fussed over with an unaccustomed sense of pleasure the rain was coming down in torrents
and she certainly was domiciled at heartsease farm for the night somehow she felt glad of it
the name of their farm was in perfect keeping with their atmosphere constance's frozen soul expanded in it she chatted merrily and girlishly feeling as if she had known them all her life
when bedtime came aunt flora took her upstairs to a little gable room
so i'm going to put you here in jeannie's room someway you remind me of her and you are just about the age she was when she left us if it wasn't for that i don't think i could put you in her room
it is so sacred to me i keep it just as she left it not a thing is changed good night dearie and i hope you'll have pleasant dreams when constance found herself alone in the room
the floor was covered with braided mats the two square small paned windows were draped with snowy muslin in one corner was a little white bed with white curtains and daintily ruffled pillows
in the work basket was a bit of unfinished yellowed lace with a needle sticking in it a small bookcase under the sloping ceiling was filled with books constance picked up one and opened it at the yellowing title page
dainty script was jean constance irving
mister and missus bruce were still in the sitting room talking to each other in the firelight oh cried constance excitedly i must know i must ask you this is my mother's name
a fortnight later miss channing received a letter from constance i am so happy she wrote oh miss channing i have found mine own people and heartsease farm is to be my own own dear home for always
it was such a strange coincidence no
my own dear mother's room and i found her name in a book and now the mystery is all cleared up and we are so happy everything is dear and beautiful
the mother i never knew before she no longer seems dead to me i feel that she lives and loves me and i am learning to know her better every day i have her room and her books and all her little girlish possessions
i feel as if she were speaking to me she was very good and sweet in spite of her one foolish bitter mistake
god means something to me now he means so much i remember that you said to me that he meant nothing to me because i had no human love in my heart to translate the divine
it is so sweet to say home and know what it means
after all there is no need of the blue pills i feel like a new creature
i look back with shame and contrition on the old constance
they receive a thousand charms from their very obscurity and the fancy delights to fill up their outlines with graces and excellences of its own creation
thus loom on my imagination those happier days of our city when as yet new amsterdam was a mere pastoral town shrouded in groves of sycamores and willows and surrounded by trackless forests and wide spreading waters
and the fostering care of providence increased as rapidly as though it had been burdened with a dozen panniers full of those sage laws usually heaped on the backs of young cities
as they would make it out to be and as far as i have observed i am fully satisfied that man if left to himself would about as readily go right as wrong it is only this eternally sounding in his ears
that it is his duty to go right which makes him go the very reverse the noble independence of his nature revolts at this intolerable tyranny of law
and the perpetual interference of officious morality which are ever besetting his path with finger posts and directions to keep to the right as the law directs and like a spirited urchin he turns directly contrary and gallops through mud and mire
be preached and be lectured and guided and governed by statutes and laws and by laws as are their more enlightened descendants did one and all demean themselves honestly and peaceably out of pure ignorance or
and that like good christians they were always ready to serve god after they had first served themselves thus having quietly settled themselves down and provided for their own comfort
still religiously observed in all our ancient families of the right breed of hanging up a stocking in the chimney on saint nicholas eve which stocking is always found in the morning miraculously filled for the good saint nicholas has ever been a great giver of gifts
was elevated in front of this chapel in the center of what in modern days is called the bowling green on the very spot in fact where he appeared in vision to oloffe the dreamer
and the legend further treats of divers miracles wrought by the mighty pipe which the saint held in his mouth
as however in spite of the most diligent search i cannot lay my hands upon this little book i must confess that i entertain considerable doubt on the subject thus benignly fostered by the good saint nicholas
the infant city thrived apace hordes of painted savages it is true still lurked about the unsettled parts of the island the hunter still pitched his bower of skins and bark beside the rills
a mutual good will however existed between these wandering beings and the burghers of new amsterdam our benevolent forefathers endeavored as much as possible to ameliorate their situation
by giving them gin rum and glass beads in exchange for their peltries for it seems the kind hearted dutchmen had conceived a great friendship for their savage neighbors on account of their being pleasant men to trade with and little skilled in the art of making a bargain
now and then a crew of these half human sons of the forest would make their appearance in the streets of new amsterdam fantastically painted and decorated with beads and flaunting feathers sauntering about with an air of listless indifference
sometimes in the marketplace instructing the little dutch boys in the use of the bow and arrow at other times inflamed with liquor swaggering and whooping and yelling about the town like so many fiends to the great dismay of all the good wives
who would hurry their children into the house fasten the doors and throw water upon the enemy from the garret windows it is worthy of mention here that our forefathers were very particular in holding up these wild men as excellent domestic examples
whether this awful example had any influence or not history does not mention but it is certain that our grandmothers were miracles of fidelity and obedience
true it is that the good understanding between our ancestors and their savage neighbors was liable to occasional interruptions and i have heard my grandmother who was a very wise old woman and well versed in the history of these parts
tell a long story of a winter's evening about a battle between the new amsterdammers and the indians which was known by the name of the peach war and which took place near a peach orchard in a dark glen
which for a long while went by the name of murderer's valley the legend of this sylvan war was long current among the nurses
but time and improvement have almost obliterated both the tradition and the scene of battle for what was once the blood stained valley is now in the center of this populous city and known by the name of dey street
i know not whether it was to this peach war and the acquisitions of indian land which may have grown out of it that we may ascribe the first seeds of the spirit of annexation which now began to manifest themselves hitherto
the ambition of the worthy burghers had been confined to the lovely island of manna hata and spiten devil on the hudson and hell gate on the sound were to them the pillars of hercules the ne plus ultra of human enterprise
than the land they occupy it is hinted that oloffe the dreamer encouraged these notions having as has been shown the inherent spirit of a land speculator which had been wonderfully quickened and expanded since he had become a landholder
many of the common people who had never before owned a foot of land
others who had snug farms and tobacco plantations found they had not sufficient elbow room and began to question the rights of the indians to the vast regions they pretended to hold while the good oloffe indulged in magnificent dreams
with which he could spy up the crookedest river quite to its head waters
in case of any dispute with the indians what was the consequence of these exploring expeditions in a little while we find a frontier post or trading house called fort nassau established far to the south on delaware river
that the swelling importance of the nieuw nederlandts awakened the attention of the mother country who finding it likely to yield much revenue and no trouble began to take that interest in its welfare which knowing people evince for rich relations
the peasant marey it was the second day in easter week the air was warm the sky was blue the sun was high warm bright but my soul was very gloomy
i sauntered behind the prison barracks i stared at the palings of the stout prison fence counting the movers but i had no inclination to count them
this was the second day of the holidays in the prison the convicts were not taken out to work there were numbers of men drunk loud abuse and quarrelling was springing up continually in every corner there were hideous disgusting songs
and card parties installed beside the platform beds
for special violence to be beaten till they were half dead were lying on the platform bed covered with sheepskins till they should recover and come to themselves again knives had already been drawn several times for these two days of holiday
all this had been torturing me till it made me ill and indeed i could never endure without repulsion the noise and disorder of drunken people and especially in this place on these days even the prison officials did not look into the prison made no searches
did not look for vodka understanding that they must allow even these outcasts to enjoy themselves once a year and that things would be even worse if they did not at last a sudden fury flamed up in my heart a political prisoner called m met me
he looked at me gloomily his eyes flashed and his lips quivered
he hissed to me through his teeth and walked on i returned to the prison ward though only a quarter of an hour before i had rushed out of it as though i were crazy when six stalwart fellows had all together flung themselves upon the drunken
almost without sign of life he lay covered with a sheepskin and every one walked round him without speaking though they confidently hoped that he would come to himself next morning yet if luck was against him maybe from a beating like that the man would die
i liked to lie like that a sleeping man is not molested and meanwhile one can dream and think but i could not dream my heart was beating uneasily
were echoing in my ears but why describe my impressions i sometimes dream even now of those times at night and i have no dreams more agonising perhaps it will be noticed that even to this day
i have scarcely once spoken in print of my life in prison the house of the dead i wrote fifteen years ago in the character of an imaginary person
i may add by the way that since then very many persons have supposed and even now maintain that i was sent to penal servitude for the murder of my wife gradually i sank into forgetfulness and by degrees was lost in memories
these memories rose up of themselves it was not often that of my own will i summoned them
some little thing at times unnoticed and then by degrees there would rise up a complete picture some vivid and complete impression
give new features to what had happened long ago and best of all i used to correct it correct it continually that was my great amusement on this occasion i suddenly for some reason remembered
i remembered the month of august in our country house a dry bright day but rather cold and windy summer was waning and soon we should have to go to moscow to be bored all the winter over french lessons and i was so sorry to leave the country
i walked past the threshing floor and going down the ravine i went up to the dense thicket of bushes that covered the further side of the ravine as far as the copse and i plunged right into the midst of the bushes and heard a peasant ploughing alone on the clearing
and the horse was moving with effort and from time to time the peasant's call come up floated upwards to me i knew almost all our peasants but i did not know which it was ploughing now and i did not care who it was i was absorbed in my own affairs
i was very fond too of the little nimble red and yellow lizards with black spots on them but i was afraid of snakes snakes however were much more rare than lizards there were not many mushrooms there to get mushrooms one had to go to the birch wood
it was our peasant marey i don't know if there is such a name but every one called him marey a thick set rather well grown peasant of fifty with a good many grey hairs in his dark brown spreading beard i knew him
and when breathless i caught with one hand at his plough and with the other at his sleeve he saw how frightened i was there is a wolf i cried panting he flung up his head and could not help looking round for an instant almost believing me
where is the wolf a shout some one shouted wolf i faltered out nonsense nonsense a wolf why it was your fancy how could there be a wolf he muttered reassuring me but i was trembling all over and still kept tight hold of his smock frock
come come there christ be with you cross yourself but i did not cross myself the corners of my mouth were twitching and i think that struck him particularly he put out his thick black nailed earth stained finger and softly touched my twitching lips aie
there there he said to me with a slow almost motherly smile dear dear what is the matter there come come i grasped at last that there was no wolf
yet that shout had been so clear and distinct but such shouts not only about wolves i had imagined once or twice before and i was aware of that these hallucinations passed away later as i grew older well i will go then i said
looking at him timidly and inquiringly well do and i'll keep watch on you as you go i won't let the wolf get at you
voltchok flew to meet me with voltchok i felt quite safe and i turned round to marey for the last time i could not see his face distinctly but i felt that he was still nodding and smiling affectionately to me i waved to him he waved back to me
i suddenly roused myself and sat up on the platform bed and i remember found myself still smiling quietly at my memories i brooded over them for another minute when i got home that day i told no one of my adventure with marey and indeed it was hardly an adventure and
in fact i soon forgot marey when i met him now and then afterwards i never even spoke to him about the wolf or anything else and all at once now twenty years afterwards in siberia i remembered this meeting with such distinctness to the smallest detail
though i knew nothing of it and rose suddenly to my memory when it was wanted
motto for the mother teach your child that every one loves him when he's good and true but that though so dear to others he is doubly dear to you miss blow's mottoes and commentaries
long long ago there lived in a kingdom far away five knights who were so good and so wise that each one was known by a name that meant something beautiful the first knight was called sir brian the brave
he had killed the great lion that came out of the forest to frighten the women and children had slain a dragon and had saved a princess from a burning castle for he was afraid of nothing under the sun the second knight was gerald the glad
who was so happy himself that he made everybody around him happy too for his sweet smile and cheery words were so comforting that none could be sad or cross or angry when he was near sir kenneth the kind was the third knight
bring him if he will come willingly to me and i shall be happy in my old age
and at the first peep of day they were ready for their journey and rode down the king's highway with waving plumes and shining shields
some said theirs were smart but as the knights cared nothing for a child who was not good they did not hurry to see these children on the second day however as they rode along they met a company of men in very fine clothes who bowed down before them
and while the knights drew rein in astonishment a little man stepped in front of the others to speak to them he was a fat little man
of the baron borribald whose son florimond was the most wonderful child in the world oh there is nothing he cannot do cried the fat little man whose name was puff
the baron and baroness too were well pleased with their visitors and made a feast in their honor but early the next morning the knights were startled by a most awful sound which seemed to come from the hall below
it sounded something like the howling of a dog but as they listened it grew louder and louder until it sounded like the roaring of a lion the knights seized their swords and rushed down to see what was the matter and there in the middle of the hall stood florimond
and right out of his open mouth came that terrible noise
the cook had run up with a pie and the nurse with a toy but florimond only opened his mouth and screamed the louder because the rain was coming down when he wanted to play out of doors then the knights saw that they were not wanted
and they hurried upstairs to prepare for their journey the baron and baroness and fat little puff all begged them to stay and florimond cried again when they left him but the knights did not care to stay with a child who was not good
to talk and they decided to part company let each take his own way said tristram the true and to morrow we will meet under this same tree and tell what we have seen for the time draws near when we must return to the king
then they bade each other farewell and each rode away except sir tristram who lingered long under the oak tree for he was the leader and had many things to think about just as the sun was red in the west he saw a little boy coming towards him
and lead me to a pleasant place where i may rest to night asked the knight ay that i can
but sir tristram told him to run and promised to wait patiently until his return
and the mother called from the kitchen is that my sunbeam coming home to roost which made gauvain and the knight both laugh then the mother came out in haste to welcome the stranger and she treated him with honor
and i exclaimed kenneth the kind and i said brian the brave and i said percival the pure and they looked at each other in astonishment i do not know the child's name continued gerald the glad
and just as i saw them a little boy ran up as brave as a knight and took the dog in his arms and covered it with his coat the rest ran away when i rode up but the child stayed and told me his name
as the child reached down but he spoke no angry words and waited patiently till the water was clear again
come and i will carry you to the child and when the knights followed him
as happy as a lark and as gentle as a dove it was noonday and the sun was shining brightly on the shields of the knights and their plumes were waving in the breeze
sir tristram blew a loud blast on a silver trumpet then all the hens began to cackle and the dog began to bark and the horse began to neigh and the pigs began to grunt for they knew that it was a great day
when the knights saw gauvain
he is the child and tristram the true said to the mother greeting to you the king our wise ruler has sent us here to see your good child for a good child is more precious than a kingdom and the king offers him his love and favor
if you will let him ride with us to live at the king's court and learn to be a knight little gauvain and his mother were greatly astonished they could scarcely believe that such a thing had happened
she must live without him the rooster up on the fence crowed a very loud
she answered the knights and said i cannot spare my good child from my home the king's love is precious but i love my child more than the whole world and he is dearer to me than a thousand kingdoms little gauvain was so glad when he heard her answer
that he looked again at the knights with a smiling face and waved his hand to them as they rode away all day and all night they rode and it was the peep of day when they came to the king's highway then they rode slowly for they were sad because of their news
but the king rejoiced when he heard it for he said such a child with such a mother will grow into a knight at home the king's words were true for when the king was an old old man
gauvain had a beautiful name of his own then
james monroe the fifth president of the united states was a native of the grand old dominion being born in westmoreland county virginia april twenty eighth seventeen fifty eight
and whose political faith was the same throughout a long series of years these were thomas jefferson james madison and james monroe
and soon after was commissioned a lieutenant he took an active part in the campaign on the hudson and in the attack on trenton at the head of a small detachment he captured one of the british batteries on this occasion he received a ball in the shoulder
as aide de camp to lord sterling with the rank of major he served in the campaign of seventeen seventy seven and seventeen seventy eight and distinguished himself in the battles of brandywine germantown and monmouth leaving the army he returned to virginia
to the army in south carolina in seventeen eighty two he was elected to the assembly of virginia from the county of king george and was appointed by that body although but twenty three years of age a member of the executive council in seventeen eighty three
and took his seat on december thirteenth convinced that it was impossible to govern the people under the old articles of confederation he advocated an extension of the powers of congress and in seventeen eighty five moved to invest in that body power to regulate the trade between the states
the resolution was referred to a committee of which he was chairman and a report was made in favor of the measure this led to the convention of annapolis and the subsequent adoption of the federal constitution
monroe also exerted himself in devising a system for the settlement of the public lands and was appointed a member of the committee to decide the boundary between massachusetts and new york he strongly opposed the relinquishment of the right to navigate the mississippi river as demanded by spain
in seventeen eighty five he married a daughter of peter kortright a lady of refinement and culture he
was approved by the great mass of the population of the old dominion and monroe was chosen united states senator in seventeen ninety in the senate he became a strong representative of the anti federal party and acted with it until his term expired in seventeen ninety four in may of that year
and was received in paris with enthusiastic demonstrations of respect
john jay had been sent to negotiate a treaty with england and the course pursued by monroe was considered injudicious as tending to throw serious obstacles in the way of the proposed negotiations on the conclusion of the treaty his alleged failure to present it in its true character to the french government
excited anew the displeasure of the cabinet and in august seventeen ninety six he was recalled under an informal censure on his return to america he published a
which widened the breach between him and the administration
and endeavored to conclude a convention for the protection of neutral rights and against the impressment of seamen in the midst of these negotiations
in further negotiation for the protection of neutral rights on the last day of that year a treaty was concluded
and its doubtfulness in relation to other leading points the president sent it back for revisal all efforts to attain this failed and monroe returned to america the time was approaching for the election of a president
jefferson candidly explained his course and assured him that his preference was based solely upon solicitude for the success of the party
the misunderstanding ceased and monroe withdrew from the canvass in eighteen ten he was again elected to the general assembly of virginia and in eighteen eleven once more governor of the state in the same year he was appointed secretary of state by president madison
by levying recruits throughout the whole country
and finding the public credit completely prostrated
he was the confidential adviser of president madison in the measures for the re establishment of the public credit of the country
in that year he succeeded to the presidency himself by an electoral vote of one hundred eighty three out of two hundred seventeen as the candidate of the party now generally known as democratic
his cabinet was composed of some of the ablest men in the country in either party soon after his inauguration president monroe made a tour through the eastern and middle states
reviewed military companies corrected public abuses and studied the capabilities of the country with reference to future hostilities on this tour he wore the undress uniform of a continental officer in every point of view this journey was a success
the president was not backward in his assurances of a strong desire on his part that such should be the case the course of the administration was in conformity to these assurances and secured the support of an overwhelming majority of the people
among the important events of the first term of president monroe
the restoration of slaves and other subjects also the admission into the union of the states of mississippi illinois and maine
with the adjacent islands in eighteen twenty monroe was re elected almost unanimously receiving two hundred thirty one out of the two hundred thirty two electoral votes on august tenth eighteen twenty one
after prolonged and exciting debates resulting in the celebrated missouri compromise
other events of public importance during the second term of president monroe
on this occasion the president declared that any attempt on the part of foreign powers to extend their system to any part of this hemisphere would be regarded by the united states as dangerous to our peace and prosperity and would certainly be opposed
on march fourth eighteen twenty five monroe retired from office and returned to his residence at oak hill in virginia he was chosen a justice of the peace
but he was obliged on account of ill health to resign his position in that body and return to his home
where he was originally buried but in eighteen thirty he was removed to richmond with great pomp and re interred in holleywood cemetery
and administered it with prudence discretion and a single eye to the general welfare he went further than any of his predecessors in developing the resources of the country he encouraged the army increased the navy augmented the national defences
and infused vigor into every department of the public service
madison thought the country had never fully appreciated the robust understanding of monroe in person monroe was tall and well formed with light complexion and blue eyes the expression of his countenance was an accurate index of his simplicity benevolence and integrity
while pershing was still in west point the indian chief geronimo was making trouble in the southwest for several years he led a band of outlaw braves who terrorized the southern border general crook was sent in pursuit of him
and afterwards general miles took up the chase finally in august eighteen eighty six the chief and his followers were rounded up pershing graduated in the spring of this year with the usual rank given to graduates second lieutenant
and was immediately assigned to duty under miles he had an inconspicuous part in the capture but the next year in the special maneuvers he was personally complimented by the general for marching his troops with a pack train
and bringing in every animal in good condition doubtless his early experience with the missouri brand of mule aided him thereafter for the next five years pershing's life was that of a plainsman
he was successively at fort bayard fort stanton and fort wingate all in new mexico in the center of troubled country in eighteen ninety he was shifted north to take the field against the sioux indians in south dakota
and in the battle of wounded knee he had a considerable taste of burnt powder where the tribe that had massacred general custer and his band was practically wiped out the next year he was stationed at fort niobrara in nebraska
in command of the sioux indian scouts this rapid summary of a busy and adventurous life on the plains does not convey any idea of its many activities but it was an exceedingly valuable period of training to the young officer
he was finding himself and learning something of the inner art of military science that he was later to put to such good use here is the opinion of an officer who was pershing's senior in the sixth cavalry by six years
all of them spent in the apache country in those days when a youngster joined a regiment he was not expected to express himself on military matters until he had some little experience
but there was a certain something in pershing's appearance and manner which made him an exception to the rule within a very short time after he came to the post a senior officer would turn to him and say pershing what do you think of this
and his opinion was such that we always listened to it he was quiet unobtrusive in his opinions but when asked he always went to the meat of a question in a few words from the first he had responsible duties thrown on him
he was genial and full of fun no matter what the work or what the play he always took a willing and leading part he worked hard and he played hard but whenever he had work to do he never let play interfere with it
his experiences in the wild west and it was the wild west in those days cannot be passed over without relating one typical anecdote three cattle rustlers white men had gotten into a fight with the zuni indians
who caught them driving off some cattle three of the red men were killed before the outlaws were finally surrounded in a lonely cabin word was sent of their predicament to the nearest fort and lieutenant pershing was sent with a small detachment to their rescue
he rode straight up to the zuni chief who was now on the warpath and told him he must call off his braves that the united states government would punish these men the chief finally grunted assent
and pershing strode forward alone into the clearing and approached the cabin at any time a shot might have come out but disregarding his own danger he went on
and found himself looking into the muzzles of three guns a single false move on his part would probably have ended him but he did not waver he folded his arms and said quietly well boys i've come to get you
the outlaws laughed noisily and swore by way of reply you might as well come along he went on without raising his voice my men are posted all around this cabin more profanity
the next duty which fell to lieutenant pershing was quite different from chasing indians and outlaws on the plains he was assigned to the task of putting some half baked cadets through their paces in september eighteen ninety one
he became professor of military science and tactics at the university of nebraska the discipline at this school was of a piece with that of other state colleges
gives a humorous account of what happened it was the general belief that the students in these western colleges many of them farmers sons could never be taught the west point idea
recognized the same qualities when he saw them by george i've got the finest material in the world he told the chancellor his steel like eyes alight with enthusiasm you could do anything with those boys they've got the stuff in them watch me get it out
and he proceeded to do so by the middle of the first winter the battalion was in shape to drill together moreover the boys had made a nickname for their leader and nicknames mean a great deal in student life he was universally called the lieut
pronounced loot of course in the real american accent as though there were but one lieutenant in the world this he was called behind his back of course to his face they called him sir a title of respect which they had never thought to give to any man alive
by the end of that first academic year every man under him would have followed the lieut straight into a prairie fire and would have kept step while doing it as he gradually got his group of officers licked into shape he found less to do personally
so he promptly complained to the chancellor to this effect and asked like oliver twist for more after a moment's stupefaction the lieut was then doing five times the work that any officer before him had ever done
without changing his stride in the least the young officer swept these two occupations along with him bought some civilian clothes and a derby hat
where he was also military attache during the next two years he ate up the law course with a fiery haste which raised the degree of class work to fever heat
found the experience immensely stimulating of course he graduated and was thus entitled to write another title after his name that of bachelor of arts about this time also he was promoted to a first lieutenancy
the first official recognition for his many long months of work then he was sent back to the field again
next came a welcome command to take the position of assistant instructor of tactics at west point it was almost like getting back home to see these loved hills the mighty river and the familiar barracks again
but after a few months here the spanish war broke out eager to get into the action he resigned his position at the military academy and was transferred to his former regiment the tenth cavalry
this regiment was sent immediately to santiago and took part in the short but spirited fighting at el caney and san juan hill where a certain colonel of the rough riders was in evidence
side by side these two crack regiments charged up the slope dominated by the spanish fort and here roosevelt and pershing first met we would like to fancy these two intrepid soldiers as recognizing each other here in the din of battle
but the truth is sometimes more prosaic than fiction and the truth compels us to reprint this little anecdote from the world's work five years after the spanish war when roosevelt was president and pershing was a mere captain
he was invited to luncheon at the white house captain pershing said the president when the party was seated at the table did i ever meet you in the santiago campaign yes mister president just once when was that what did i say
to get supplies for the men the night was pitch black and it was raining torrents the road was a streak of mud on the way back to the front i heard noise and confusion ahead i knew it was a mired mule team an officer in the uniform of a rough rider
was trying to get the mules out of the mud and his remarks as i said a moment ago should not be quoted before the ladies i suggested that the best thing to do was to take my mules and pull your wagon out and then get your mules out this was done and we saluted and parted
well said roosevelt if there ever was a time when a man would be justified in using bad language it would be in the middle of a rainy night with his mules down in the mud and his wagon loaded with things soldiers at the front needed pershing
as a result of the cuban campaign was twice recommended for brevet commissions for personal bravery and untiring energy and faithfulness general baldwin said of him pershing is the coolest man under fire i ever saw
he had now been transferred at his own request to the philippines whether or not he won promotion through the slow moving machinery of the war office his energetic spirit demanded action
the soldier's duty is to go wherever there is fighting he said and vigorously opposed the idea that he be given a swivel chair job his first term of service in the philippines was from eighteen ninety nine to nineteen o three
of ticketing every man in the service as to his future value to the army and pershing was making good he had turned forty before he was captain out in the philippines he worked up to a major
now advancement was to follow with a startling jump it all hinged upon that luncheon with roosevelt about which we have already told and the fact that roosevelt had a characteristic way of doing things
the step he now took was not a piece of favoritism toward pershing it arose from a desire to have the most efficient men at the head of the army pershing was nominated for brigadier general and the nomination was confirmed
he performed an invaluable service in bringing peace to this troubled district he accomplished this partly by force of arms partly by persuasion the little brown men found in this big americano a man with whom they could not trifle
and also one on whose word they could rely it was not until nineteen fourteen that he was recalled from the philippines and then very shortly was sent across the mexican border
it would seem as though this strong soldier was to have no rest that his muscles were to be kept constantly inured to hardship so that in the event of a greater call to arms here would be one commander trained to the minute
the fates had indeed been shaping pershing from boyhood
the punitive expedition into mexico was a case in point it was a thankless job at best and full of hardship and danger a day's march of thirty miles across an alkali desert under a blazing sun is hardly a pleasure jaunt
and there were many such during those troubled months of nineteen sixteen then one day came a quiet message from washington asking general pershing to report to the president the results of that interview were momentous
the great war in europe was demanding the intervention of america our troops were to be sent across the seas to europe for the first time in history the government needed a man upon whom it could absolutely rely to be commander in chief
of the expeditionary forces would general pershing hold himself in readiness for this supreme task the veteran of thirty years of constant campaigning stiffened to attention the eager look of battle battle for the right
shone in his eye every line of his upstanding figure denoted confidence a confidence that was to inspire all america and then the world itself in this choice of leader he saluted i will do my duty sir he said
important dates in pershing's life eighteen sixty september thirteenth john joseph pershing born eighteen eighty one entered highland military academy new york
eighteen eighty two entered u s military academy west point eighteen eighty six graduated from west point senior cadet captain sent to southwest as second lieutenant sixth cavalry
philippines nineteen o five married frances warren nineteen o six brigadier general nineteen fourteen recalled from philippines
nineteen fifteen lost his wife and three children in a fire nineteen fifteen
nineteen seventeen sent to france as commander in chief of american expeditionary force nineteen nineteen appointment of general made permanent nineteen twenty four
pershing the leader of america's biggest army it was a historic moment on that june day in the third year of the world war on the landing stage at the french harbor of boulogne
was drawn up a company of french soldiers who looked eagerly at the approaching steamer they were not dress parade soldiers nor smart cadets only battle scarred veterans home from the trenches with the tired look of war in their eyes
for three years they had been hoping and praying that the americans would come and here they were at last as the steamer slowly approached the dock a small group of officers might be discerned
looking as eagerly landward as the men on shore had sought them out in the center of this group stood a man in the uniform of a general in the united states army there was however little to distinguish his dress from that of his staff
except the marks of rank on his collar and the service ribbons across his breast to those who could read the insignia they spelled many days of arduous duty in places far removed america was sending a seasoned soldier
one tried out as by fire the man's face was seamed from exposure to the suns of the tropics and the sands of the desert but his dark eyes glowed with the untamable fire of youth he was full six feet in height
straight broad shouldered and muscular the well formed legs betrayed the old time calvalryman the alert poise of the man showed a nature constantly on guard against surprise the typical soldier in action
such was general pershing when he set foot on foreign shore at the head of an american army the first time in history that our soldiers had ever served on european soil america was at last repaying to france her debt of gratitude
for aid received nearly a century and a half earlier and it was an alsatian by descent who could now say lafayette we come who was this man who had been selected for so important a task
the eyes of the whole world were upon him when he reached france his was a task of tremendous difficulties and a single slip on his part would have brought shame upon his country no less than upon himself that he was to succeed
and to win the official thanks of congress are now matters of history the story of his wonderful campaign against the best that germany could send against him is also an oft told story but the rise of the man himself to such commanding position is a tale not so familiar
yet none the less interesting the great grandfather of general pershing was an emigrant from alsace fleeing as a boy from the military service of the teutons he worked his way across to baltimore and not long thereafter
volunteered to fight in the american revolution his was the spirit of freedom he fled to escape a service that was hateful
but was glad to serve in the cause of liberty the original family name was pfirsching but was soon shortened to its present form the pershings got land grants in pennsylvania and began to prosper
as the clan multiplied the sons and grandsons began to scatter they had the pioneer spirit of their ancestors at length john f pershing a grandson of daniel the first immigrant went to the middle west to work on building railroads
these were the days just before the civil war when railroads were being thrown forward everywhere young pershing had early caught the fever and had worked with construction gangs in kentucky and tennessee now as the railroads pushed still further west
he went with them as section foreman after first persuading an attractive nashville girl ann thompson to go with him as his wife their honeymoon was spent among the hardships of a construction camp in missouri and here at laclede
in a very primitive house john joseph pershing was born september thirteenth eighteen sixty the boy inherited a sturdy frame and a love of freedom from both sides of the family his mother had come of a race quite as good as that of his father
they were honest law abiding god fearing people who saw to it that john and the other eight children who followed were reared soberly and strictly the bible lay on the center table and the willow switch hung conveniently behind the door
after the line of railroad was completed upon which the father had worked he came to laclede and invested his savings in a small general store it proved a profitable venture it was the only one in town
and pershing's reputation for square dealing brought him many customers a neighbor pays him this tribute john f pershing was a man of commanding presence he was a great family man and loved his family devotedly
he was not lax and ruled his family well the pershing family were zealous church people john f pershing was the sunday school superintendent of the methodist church all the years he lived here every sunday you could see him making his way to church
with john on one side and jim on the other missus pershing and the girls following along john f pershing was a strong union man and although local feeling ran high between the north and the south he retained the esteem of his neighbors
he had one or two close calls from the bushwhackers as roving rangers were called but his family escaped harm at times during the war he was entrusted with funds by various other families and acted as a sort of local bank
after the war he was postmaster the close of the war found the younger john a stocky boy of five he began to attend the village school and take an active part in the boyish sports of a small town
there was always plenty to do whether of work or play one of his boyhood chums writes john pershing was a clean straight well behaved young fellow he never was permitted to loaf around on the streets
nobody jumped on him and he didn't jump on anybody he attended strictly to his own business he had his lessons when he went to class he was not a big talker he said a lot in a few words and didn't try to cut any swell
better go to bed hadn't we no charley i'm going to work this out another schoolmate gives us a more human picture
many a time we went swimming together in pratt's pond about this time pershing's father added to his other ventures the purchase of a farm near laclede and the family moved out there then there was indeed plenty of work to do
the chores often began before sun up and lasted till after dark and the children were lucky to find time for schooling during the late fall and winter months john however kept doggedly at it and managed to get a fair common school education
to teach in a negro school this school had been established after the war ended but the teacher had gone and no one else seemed available for the job john was sober and studious and besides was so well grown for his age that they banked on his ability
to lick any negro boy that got obstreperous he succeeded sufficiently in this venture to cause him to take up teaching regularly in white schools with a view to paying for his education he wanted to study law and his parents encouraged the idea
his work in these country schools was invaluable to him in teaching him how to govern others a former pupil of his writes though he never sought a quarrel young pershing was known as a game fighter who never acknowledged defeat
one day at prairie mound at the noon hour a big farmer with red sideburns rode up to the schoolhouse with a revolver in his hand pershing had whipped one of the farmer's children and the enraged parent intended to give the young schoolmaster a flogging
i remember how he rode up cursing before all the children in the schoolyard and how another boy and i ran down a gully because we were afraid we peeked over the edge though and heard pershing tell the farmer to put up his gun get down off his horse and fight like a man
the farmer got down and john stripped off his coat he was only a boy of seventeen or eighteen and slender but he thrashed the old farmer soundly and i have hated red sideburns ever since
after several terms of country school teaching young pershing saved up enough money to enter the state normal school
one of his sisters went with him he remained there for two terms doing his usual good steady work but was still dissatisfied he wanted to get a better education about this time he happened to notice an announcement of a competitive examination in his district for an entrance to west point
the soldiering side did not appeal to him but the school side did i wouldn't stay in the army he remarked to a friend there won't be a gun fired in the world for a hundred years i guess if there isn't i'll study law
but i want an education and now i see how i can get it his mother was by no means sold on the idea of his becoming a soldier either and it was only when he assured her that there wouldn't be a gun fired in a hundred years that she finally consented
if she could have looked ahead to his future career and final part in the greatest war the world has ever known one wonders what her emotions would have been pershing passed his entrance examination by a narrow margin
at last in june eighteen eighty two when he was just rounding his twenty second year he became a freshman in the great academy on the hudson
he found the soldier life awakening in him along with his desire for a good education four happy years were spent there and while he didn't shine being number thirty in a class of seventy seven
his all around qualities made him many friends among both faculty and students he was made ranking cadet captain in his senior year and chosen class president twenty five years later writing from clear around the world at manila to his class at a reunion
he gives a long breezy account of his experience there from which we have space to quote only a few sentences this brings up a period of west point life whose vivid impressions will be the last to fade marching into camp piling bedding
policing company streets for logs or wood carelessly dropped by upper classmen pillow fights at tattoo with marcus miller sabre drawn
policing up feathers from the general parade light artillery drills double timing around old fort clinton at morning squad drill wiley bean and the sad fate of his seersucker coat midnight dragging
and the whole summer full of events can only be mentioned in passing no one can ever forget his first guard tour with all its preparation and perspiration i got along all right during the day but at night on the color line my troubles began
of course i was scared beyond the point of properly applying any of my orders a few minutes after taps ghosts of all sorts began to appear from all directions i selected a particularly bold one and challenged according to orders halt who comes there
i then said halt who stands there whereupon the ghost who was carrying a chair sat down when i promptly said halt who sits there
the career of eighty six at west point was in many respects remarkable there were no cliques no dissensions and personal prejudices or selfishness if any existed never came to the surface
a woefull hunting once there did in chevy chace befall to drive the deere with hound and horne
the child may rue that is unborne the hunting of that day the stout erle of northumberland a vow to god did make his pleasure in the scottish woods three summers days to take
the cheefest harts in chevy chace to kill and beare away
in scotland where he lay
did to the woods resort with fifteen hundred bow men bold all chosen men of might who knew full well in time of neede to ayme their shafts arright
the gallant greyhounds swiftly ran to chase the fallow deere on munday they began to hunt ere day light did appeare and long before high noone they had an hundred fat buckes slaine
the bow men mustered on the hills well able to endure theire backsides all with speciall care that day were guarded sure the hounds ran swiftly through the woods
the nimble deere to take that with their cryes the hills and dales an eccho shrill did make
loe yonder doth erle douglas come his men in armour bright full twenty hundred scottish speres all marching in our sight all men of pleasant tivydale fast by the river tweede
and take your bowes with speede and now with me my countrymen your courage forth advance for never was there champion yett in scotland or in france
that ever did on horsebacke come but if my hap it were i durst encounter man for man
spere erle douglas on his milke white steede most like a baron bold rode formost of his company whose armour shone like gold show me sayd hee whose men you bee
that hunt soe boldly heere that without my consent doe chase and kill my fallow deere the man that first did answer make was noble percy hee who sayd wee list not to declare
nor shew whose men wee bee yet will wee spend our deerest blood thy cheefest harts to slay
ere thus i will out braved bee one of us two shall dye i know thee well
but trust me percy pittye it were and great offence to kill any of these our guiltlesse men for they have done no ill let thou and i the battell trye and set our men aside
by whome this is denyed then stept a gallant squier forth witherington was his name
that ere my captaine fought on foote and i stood looking on you bee two erles sayd witherington and i a squier alone
while i have power to weeld my sword ile fight with hart and hand our english archers bent their bowes their harts were good and trew att the first flight of arrowes sent full four score scots they slew
yet bides earl douglas on the bent as chieftain stout and good as valiant captain all unmov'd the shock he firmly stood his host he parted had in three as leader ware and try'd
and soon his spearmen on their foes bare down on every side throughout the english archery they dealt full many a wound but still our valiant englishmen all firmly kept their ground
and throwing strait their bows away they grasp'd their swords so bright and now sharp blows a heavy shower on shields and helmets light they clos'd full fast on everye side
noe slacknes there was found and many a gallant gentleman lay gasping on the ground o christ it was a griefe to see and likewise for to heare the cries of men lying in their gore
and scattered here and there at last these two stout erles did meet like captaines of great might like lyons wood they layd on lode and made a cruell fight
they fought untill they both did sweat with swords of tempered steele until the blood like drops of rain they trickling downe did feele yeeld thee lord percy douglas sayd in faith i will thee bringe
thy ransom i will freely give and thus report of thee thou art the most couragious knight that ever i did see
thy proffer i doe scorne i will not yeelde to any scott that ever yett was borne with that there came an arrow keene out of an english bow which struck erle douglas to the heart a deepe
and deadlye blow who never spake more words than these fight on my merry men all for why my life is at an end lord percy sees my fall
a knight amongst the scotts there was
sir hugh mountgomerye was he call'd who with a spere most bright well mounted on a gallant steed ran fiercely through the fight and past the english archers all without all dread or feare
with such a vehement force and might he did his body gore the speare ran through the other side a large cloth yard and more so thus did both these nobles dye
whose courage none could staine an english archer then perceiv'd
he had a bow bent in his hand made of a trusty tree an arrow of a cloth yard long up to the head drew hee against sir hugh mountgomerye so right the shaft he sett
the grey goose wing that was thereon in his harts bloode was wett this fight did last from breake of day till setting of the sun for when they rung the evening bell the battel scarce was done
sir john of egerton sir robert ratcliff and sir john sir james that bold bar n and with sir george and stout sir james both knights of good account good sir ralph rabby there was slaine
whose prowesse did surmount for witherington needs must i wayle as one in doleful dumpes for when his legs were smitten off he fought upon his stumpes
sir charles murray that from the feeld
sir charles murray of ratcliff too his sisters sonne was hee sir david lamb so well esteem'd
and the lord maxwell in like case did with erle douglas dye of twenty hundred scottish speres scarce fifty five did flye of fifteen hundred englishmen
went home but fifty three the rest were slaine in chevy chace under the greene wood tree next day did many widowes come their husbands to bewayle they washt their wounds in brinish teares
they bore with them away they kist them dead a thousand times
the meaning and scope of economics can be better seen at the end than at the beginning of its study the proposition with which this inquiry opened may well be recalled in the closing chapter
the words of the formal definition of economics should at this point convey a fuller meaning in the wide range of subjects passed in review
economic students have gained the ear of statesmen and rulers and have exercised much influence upon practical politics it is sometimes bemoaned that economists have to day so small a direct part
in the government of our republic they certainly have a greater part to day than they had twenty years ago but if they had not there would be small occasion for regret the immediate influence of the specialist on those in authority
is at most times less in a republic than it is in a monarchy at those rare times
this test however is one that only astronomy can meet in any remarkable degree chemistry can tell much of what will happen in the laboratory but nothing of the date of future powder mill explosions
geology answers the question what with surmises and when with an estimate of a few million years more or less is it surprising that in human affairs still less prediction is possible there are countless unmeasured factors in human action
such generalizations as are possible must be based on actions that appear and reappear with practical constancy though a number of facts unite to suggest some conclusions as to the immediate future
the close of the french revolution was a period marked by much speculation regarding the future of society the optimists with faith in the perfectability of human nature and of society
believed that all social ills were due to bad government if despotism were but overthrown man's nature would develop untrammeled to perfection the economists of that day were sceptical
because looking deeper they saw sources of misery in the scantiness of man's environment and in the sloth ignorance and incapacity of human nature the pessimists the communists and socialists of that day
seeing the same evils had other explanations to offer while the economists of that day believed the conditions of poverty and misery to be inevitable the pessimists pronounced them unendurable
and advocated a radical social change as the only hope of saving the masses from starvation in such a variety of mutually contradictory views
appears absurd in the light of history the inventions of the period from adam smith's writings to ricardo's seventeen seventy six to eighteen twenty were mostly for use in manufacturing
this suggested to the minds of that time the progressive cheapening of cloth iron pottery and of all other products of machinery but not the cheapening of food indeed the situation in western europe
then suggested strongly the opinion that the products of the soil would steadily become more difficult to get the railroad was not of practical importance until after eighteen thirty the steamboat
was not applied to ocean travel until eighteen thirty seven the opening of a rich continent and its annexation by these new agencies to the available resources of the older countries were not dreamed of
it was not fully appreciated that a great change in social standards controlling the growth of population was in progress this was the panorama of the progress of society as seen by both the conservative economists
and the socialists of less than a century ago continued invention an increasing population
the men of that day naturally thought of the supply of land as limited and fixed supply in the economic sense means the amount available at the given time in the market but despite the great areas since brought into the world markets
the false idea of a century ago still persists in the text books
it is vain to say that the circumstances have been unique and that the general principle is still valid much of the so called orthodox economic analysis was essentially erroneous as applied to the conditions of the past century
it is erroneous to day and will be so for years to come if it ever fits the facts new continents are about to be opened the building of railroads the length of south america
and to the center of africa will make available new mineral wealth rare woods enormous forests and some of the greatest food producing areas on the globe population in christendom has increased more rapidly than ever before in the history of the world
but it has not overtaken the progress in resources the rate of increase of population is slackening the result of this combination of events has been a general rise of the conditions making for popular welfare
despite the problems and the abuses that every new change brings the civilized world undoubtedly is more prosperous to day than ever before the greatest misery and discontent is in the more backward communities
this is past and present what of the economic future is the present condition a normal one is this prosperity likely to grow or to decline thus far surely the economic student may question the oracles
have been slowly stored up through the ages
man knew little of the world beneath its crust living he scratched the earth's surface and dying left his bones to fertilize the soil but to day man exhausts the stores in the interior of the earth
burns the treasures of the carboniferous age casts the fertilizing elements into the ocean and leaves the world an empty shell forests are being so rapidly cut off
that the price of fuel wood and lumber in many parts of the united states has within twenty years been multiplied by three the world's store of iron ore is not yet fully known but much of it has been measured
and of the deposits known to be within the united states over one half are said to be owned by one corporation and they are enough to continue its present output no more than sixty years many other natural products
are in like manner gathered by civilized man
but so long as the sun shines and the rains fall niagara will remain as a source of light heat and power the tides flow on forever in every thunder storm
enough force is dissipated to run thousands of factories the heat in the center of the globe though not inexhaustible would suffice for man's needs for many centuries
if chained and utilized would run a million factories a million years it is not too much to hope that engineering skill will some day reach and utilize these sources such a cheapening and diffusion of power
would put a new face on many of the problems of industry new sources of materials undoubtedly will be developed it is reasonable to hope that before iron ore has become extremely scarce a cheap
and practicable method of extracting aluminium from clay
new england even now finds herself hard pushed in her rivalry with the southern states in the manufacture of textiles the industrial map of our country
must be the putting of energies and resources into more abiding forms in order that a motive for saving may be present there must be stable conditions increasing subordination of present to future
will be accompanied by a fall in the rate of interest the growth of wealth means a higher quality of all artificial productive agents a larger part of the energies of men will then be directed merely to supervising the developed machinery
man will live in a better environment in a better and richer world wages must rise as the quality of tools and machinery improves population most probably will not increase proportionately
and the relation of the labor supply to the resources with which it works
the steady biological betterment of the native ability of men the education of the average member of society
in so far as it builds up a better environment into which other children will be born but the betterment is not due to the inheritance by the child of the acquired knowledge and skill of the parent
if this question is open to dispute among biologists it is only as regards a minute increment of improvement practically selection is the only means of improving the innate capacity of any species
in any large measure many forces were at work in the past to lift man above the brute and especially to increase the average brain power of the human race the weak the ignorant the incapable in primitive societies
especially within the last quarter of a century the successful elements of society are becoming less fertile large families were the rule among the capable pioneers of america now they are rare
except in the lower industrial ranks democracy and opportunity are favoring this process of increasing the mediocre and reducing the excellent strains of stock caste and status kept successful generations of capable men
in humble social ranks from which only by chance some remarkable individual could rise in a democracy those of marked ability can more easily move into the better paid callings and professions
this individual good fortune however reduces the probability of offspring in the higher social ranks are more bachelors and old maids than in the lower ranks and fewer children are born to each marriage
the president of our oldest university has shown that one fourth of the graduates of the last generation have remained single and that the average number of children of the married graduate is two that group of men therefore
has left only three fourths enough descendants to maintain its numbers and as the population has doubled within the same generation that class represents only three eighths as large a proportion
if society were composed in equal parts of two distinct strains of stock not intermarrying if the total population kept intact from one generation to another say each period of thirty years
but the superior strain contributed only three fourths of its own number at the end of five generations it would have sunk from one half to a little more than one eighth of the population a period brief in the life of nations
would serve to leave it an almost negligible factor in social life there can hardly be a doubt that at present our society is on the average increasing far more from the less provident less enterprising
there must be left a wide field for the ambitions and for the competition of individuals the results of any given ability are dependent upon the energy with which it is used the social machinery finds its motive force in the nature of men
in taking economic wants as the starting point of our study it was not implied that men were entirely selfish sympathy widens economic wants include family friends and in a growing measure humanity
the happiness of a truly socialized man consists in part in the happiness of his fellows as social sympathy broadens the sense of duty becomes a stronger economic force
men change but not rapidly and not always for the better it is unsafe to overestimate the generosity of men individual wants and interests must so far as can now be seen
by social convention come to be regarded as degrading takes much ability out of business the freedom of america to so great a degree from this disdain of honest labor
has been a large factor in her progress but it is endangered when men become timidly conservative of social position progress is threatened secondly by democracy with its tendency to carry the notion
of literal equality over into industry when democracy becomes envious it denies to exceptional ability an exceptional reward the line of growth must be the resultant
of the positive forces in these two principles the energy of the social reformer must be directed along rational lines
to all the charms of beauty and the utmost elegance of external form mary added those accomplishments which render their impression irresistible polite affable insinuating sprightly
and capable of speaking and writing with equal ease and dignity sudden however and violent in all her attachments because her heart was warm and unsuspicious impatient of contradiction
because she had been accustomed from her infancy to be treated as a queen no stranger on some occasions to dissimulation which in that perfidious court where she received her education
was reckoned among the necessary arts of government not insensible to flattery or unconscious of that pleasure with which almost every woman beholds the influence of her own beauty
formed with the qualities which we love not with the talents that we admire she was an agreeable woman rather than an illustrious queen
the vivacity of her spirit not sufficiently tempered with sound judgment and the warmth of her heart which was not at all times under the restraint of discretion betrayed her both into errors and into crimes
to say that she was always unfortunate will not account for that long and almost uninterrupted succession of calamities which befell her we must likewise add that she was often imprudent
her passion for darnley was rash youthful and excessive and though the sudden transition to the opposite extreme was the natural effect of her ill requited love and of his ingratitude insolence and brutality
yet neither these nor bothwell's artful address and important services can justify her attachments to that nobleman even the manners of the age licentious as they were
are no apology for this unhappy passion nor can they induce us to look on that tragical and infamous scene which followed upon it with less abhorrence
humanity will draw a veil over this part of her character which it cannot approve and may perhaps prompt some to impute her actions to her situation more than to her dispositions and to lament the unhappiness of the former
rather than accuse the perverseness of the latter mary's sufferings exceed both in degree and duration those tragical distresses which fancy has feigned to excite sorrow and commiseration
and while we survey them we are apt altogether to forget her frailties we think of her faults with less indignation and approve of our tears
as if they were shed for a person who had attained much nearer to pure virtue with regard to the queen's person a circumstance not to be omitted in writing the history of a female reign
all contemporary authors agree in ascribing to mary the utmost beauty of countenance and elegance of shape of which the human form is capable her hair was black although according to the fashion of that age
her eyes were a dark grey her complexion was exquisitely fine and her hands and arms remarkably delicate both as to shape and colour her stature was of an height that rose to the majestic
she danced walked and rode with equal grace her taste for music was just and she both sung and played upon the lute with uncommon skill
towards the end of her life long confinement and the coldness of the houses in which she had been imprisoned brought on a rheumatism which often deprived her of the use of her limbs no man says brantome
ever beheld her person without admiration and love
the piety and domestic virtues of elizabeth blackwell entitle her to rank among the best women whose names have found their way into public history a fortune which has happened to her and lady rachel russel
and two or three other virtuous women but which has in the instance of most of their sex who have attained to celebrity
been a calamity upon their memory being a rank at which it is not easy for a woman to arrive by the practice of those private and retiring virtues and graces which are the real solid ornaments of the female character
elizabeth blackwell was the daughter of a stocking merchant in aberdeen where she was born about the beginning of last century the first event of her life which is now known was her secret marriage with alexander blackwell
and her elopement with him to london he had received a finished education and was an accurate greek and latin scholar he had studied medicine under the famous boerhaave and in travelling over the continent had lived in the best society
and had acquired an extensive knowledge of the modern languages he was however unsuccessful in his endeavours to secure a comfortable livelihood after having in vain attempted to get into practice as a physician
and having now a wife also to provide for he applied for the situation of corrector of the press to a printer of the name of wilkins and for some time continued in that employment
he then set up a printing establishment in the strand but became involved in debt and was thrown into prison it was this circumstance that brought into practice the talents and virtues of missus blackwell
she resolved by an unexampled labour for a woman to effect the delivery of her husband she had in her girlish days practised the drawing and colouring of flowers a suitable and amiable accomplishment of her sex
engravings of flowers were then very scarce and missus blackwell thought that the publication of a herbal might attract the notice of the world
she now engaged in a labour which is at once a noble and marvellous monument of her enthusiastic and untiring conjugal affection and interesting evidence of the elegant and truly womanly nature of her own mind
having submitted her first drawings to sir hans sloane and doctor mead these eminent physicians encouraged her to proceed with the work she also received the kindest countenance from mister philip miller a well known writer on horticulture
amongst those who were honoured in patronising her labour of piety
by his advice missus blackwell took lodgings in the neighbourhood of this garden from which she was furnished with all the flowers and plants which she required for her work of these she made drawings which she engraved on copper
and coloured with her own hands her husband supplied the latin names and the descriptions of the plants which were taken principally from miller's botanicum officinale with the author's permission
in seventeen thirty seven the first volume a large folio came out under the following title a curious herbal containing five hundred cuts of the most useful plants which are now used in the practice of physic
the profits which missus blackwell received from this work enabled her to relieve her husband from prison the adventures of blackwell after his release are well known having devoted much of his attention to agricultural science
he obtained for some time a lucrative employment from the duke of chandos he was subsequently invited to sweden on account of a work he had published on agriculture he went there leaving his wife in england he was received with honour at the court of stockholm
where he lived with the prime minister in the enjoyment of a salary from the government during this period of prosperity he had continued to send large sums of money to his wife
who was now making arrangements to leave england with her only child and join her husband but heaven which often brings human histories to a very different conclusion from what readers of romances are disposed to acquiesce in
for the wise end of impressing men with the most solemn conviction of the reality of another world which is the appointed place of rest and reward for goodness saw fit to remove from this noble woman the husband whom she had loved so ardently
and to take him from the world by a melancholy and frightful death
lady jane grey born fifteen thirty seven died fifteen fifty four hume
was a lady of an amiable person an engaging disposition and accomplished parts
she had received all her education with him and seemed to possess greater facility in acquiring every part of manly and polite literature she had attained a similar knowledge of the roman and greek languages besides modern tongues
had passed most of her time in an application to learning and expressed a great indifference for other occupations and amusements usual with her sex and station
having one day paid her a visit found her employed in reading plato while the rest of the party were engaged hunting in the park and on his admiring the singularity of her choice
she told him that she received more pleasure from that author than the others could reap from all their sport and gaiety her heart full of this passion for literature and the elegant arts
and of tenderness towards her husband lord guildford who was deserving of her affections had never opened itself to the flattering allurements of ambition and the intelligence of her elevation to the throne
she even refused to accept of the present pleaded the preferable title of the two princesses expressed her dread of the consequences attending an enterprise so dangerous not to say criminal
and desired to remain in the private station in which she was born overcome at length by the entreaties rather than the reasons of her father and father in law and above all of her husband she submitted to their will
and was prevailed on to relinquish her own judgment it was then usual for the kings of england after their accession to pass their first days in the tower and northumberland thither conveyed the new sovereign
all the councillors were obliged to attend her to that fortress and by this means became in reality prisoners in the hands of northumberland whose will they were necessitated to obey
orders were given by the council to proclaim jane throughout the kingdom but their orders were executed only in london and the neighbourhood no applause ensued the people heard the proclamation with silence and concern
some even expressed their scorn and contempt and one pot a vintner's apprentice was severely punished for this offence the protestant teachers themselves who were employed to convince the people of jane's title
found their eloquence fruitless and ridley bishop of london preached a sermon to that purpose which wrought no effect upon his audience after the defeat of northumberland's and another rebellion
warning was given the lady jane to prepare for death a doom which she had long expected and which the innocence of her life as well as the misfortunes to which she had been exposed
induced her to send divines who harassed her with perpetual disputations and even a reprieve for three days was granted in hopes that she should be persuaded during that time to pay by a timely conversion
some regard to her eternal welfare the lady jane had presence of mind in those melancholy circumstances not only to defend her religion by all the topics then in use
but also to write a letter to her sister in the greek language in which besides sending her a copy of the scriptures in that tongue she exhorted her to maintain in every feature a like steady perseverance
it had been intended to execute the lady jane and lord guildford together on the same scaffold at tower hill but the council dreading the compassion of the people for their youth beauty innocence and noble birth
changed their orders and gave directions that she should be beheaded within the verge of the tower she saw her husband led to execution and having given him from the window some token of remembrance
she waited with tranquillity till her own appointed hour should bring her to a like fate she even saw his headless body carried back in a cart and found herself more confirmed by the reports which she heard of the constancy of his end
than shaken by so tender and melancholy a spectacle sir john gage constable of the tower when he led her to execution desired her to bestow on him some small present which he might keep as a perpetual memorial of her
she gave him her table book on which she had just written three sentences on seeing her husband's dead body one in greek another in latin a third in english
without uttering one complaint against the severity with which she had been treated that she justly deserved this punishment for being made the instrument though the unwilling instrument of the ambition of others and that the story of her life she hoped
might at least be useful by proving that innocence excuses not great misdeeds if they tend anywise to the destruction of the commonwealth
seventeen fifty letters
in a letter to one of his friends written soon after this he describes her as mistress of the french english and italian languages and even conversant with greek and latin literature she was then in her twenty fourth year
he in his twenty seventh their marriage took place about three years afterwards here is meta's own narrative of the rise and course of their true love given in one of her letters to richardson a narrative which will bear a hundred readings and a hundred more after that
and still be as fresh and as touching as ever you will know all what concerns me love dear sir is all what me concerns and love shall be all what i will tell you in this letter in one happy night i read my husband's poem the messiah
i was extremely touched with it the next day i asked one of his friends who was the author of this poem and this was the first time i heard klopstock's name i believe i fell immediately in love with him
at the least my thoughts were ever with him filled especially because his friend told me very much of his character but i had no hopes ever to see him when quite unexpectedly i heard that he should pass through hamburg
i wrote immediately to the same friend for procuring by his means that i might see the author of the messiah when in hamburg he told him that a certain girl in hamburg wished to see him
and for all recommendation showed him some letters in which i made bold to criticise klopstock's verses klopstock came and came to me i must confess that though greatly prepossessed of his qualities i never thought him the amiable youth whom i found him
this made its effect after having seen him for two hours i was obliged to pass the evening in a company which never had been so wearisome to me i could not speak i could not play i thought i saw nothing but klopstock
i saw him the next day and the following and we were very seriously friends but the fourth day he departed he wrote soon after and from that time our correspondence began to be a very diligent one
i sincerely believed my love to be friendship i spoke to my friends of nothing but klopstock and showed his letters they rallied me and said i was in love
i rallied them again and said that they must have a very friendshipless heart if they had no idea of friendship to a man as well as to a woman thus it continued eight months in which time my friends found as much love in klopstock's letters as in mine
i perceived it likewise but i would not believe it at the last klopstock said plainly that he loved and i startled as for a wrong thing i answered that it was no love but friendship as it was what i felt for him
we had not seen one another enough to love as if love must have more time than friendship this was sincerely my meaning and i had this meaning till klopstock came again to hamburg this he did a year after we had seen one another for the first time
we saw we were friends we loved and we believed that we loved and a short time after i could even tell klopstock that i loved but we were obliged to part again and wait two years for our wedding
i could marry then without her consentment as by the death of my father my fortune depended not upon her but this was an horrible idea for me and thank heaven i have prevailed by prayers
at this time knowing klopstock she loves him as her lifely son and thanks god that she has not persisted we married and i am the happiest wife in the world this was written in march seventeen fifty eight
after they had been about four years married writing again in the beginning of may she thus sketches the life they led together it will be a delightful occupation for me to make you more acquainted with my husband's poem
nobody can do it better than i being the person who knows the most of that which is not yet published being always present at the birth of the young verses which begin always by fragments here and there of a subject of which his soul is just then filled
he has many great fragments of the whole work ready you may think that persons who love as we do have no need of two chambers we are always in the same
i with my little work still only regarding sometimes my husband's sweet face which is so venerable at that time with tears of devotion and all the sublimity of the subject my husband reading me the young verses and suffering my criticism
with this we may compare what klopstock says writing of her how perfect was her taste how exquisitely fine her feelings she observed everything even to the slightest turn of the thought i had only to look at her
and could see in her face when even a syllable pleased or displeased her and when i led her to explain the reason of her remarks no demonstration could be more true more accurate or more appropriate to the subject but
in general this gave us very little trouble for we understood each other when we had scarcely began to explain our ideas but all this happiness too bright for earth or for long endurance was about to be suddenly extinguished
dated twenty sixth august in which she informs him that she has a prospect of being a mother in the month of november and of thus attaining what has been her only wish ungratified for these four years she writes from hamburg where she was on a visit to her family
while her husband had been obliged to make a journey to copenhagen it was the first time that they had been separated it is remarkable that she seems to have had more than a mere apprehension almost an assured foreboding of what awaited her
klopstock rejoined her at last about the end of september her last lines written to him before his return are dated the twenty sixth of that month the two following months they spent together at hamburg
there where she had first drawn breath
then again the beans and bacon were pronounced excellent by each of them and stacy had made fully as good time with his crude chopsticks as had the others with the tablespoons supper finished all hands turned in to help wash the dishes
and in a few moments the camp was again in perfect order tad was informed of stacy's skill with chopsticks and they could hear him laughing over it even though they were no longer able to see him are you warm enough down there called ned sure thing
i have most of the blankets that means we freeze i guess interjected stacy you can go cut yourself a few chopsticks and sleep under them retorted ned rector hey tad why don't you build a fire down there haven't any matches
never mind tad the moon soon will be up and you can get warm by that shouted the fat boy chunky has suddenly developed into a wit tad i don't know what's happened to the boy
pity some other folks not more'n a million miles away wouldn't fall over muttered stacy what's that you say demanded ned turning on him i i was just thinking to myself explained chunky edging away
ned was glaring at him ferociously at the same time struggling to keep back the laughter that rose to his lips because of stacy's sharp retort i'll make a suggestion young gentlemen said the professor yes sir what is it asked the boys in chorus
they piled it so that it would make a long fire then lighted it from three sides at the same time the result was a bright blaze that flared high lighting the rocks far down into the canyon but not sufficiently far to reach tad
trying to burn up the mountain shouted tad no we're trying to burn it down so we can pick you up called ned rector oh came up from the depths it seems to me that you young men are getting rather sharp with each other
said the professor shaking his head i guess it must be the ozark air getting into our lungs answered ned i've felt like having a wrestling bout with some one ever since we got into these mountains wait till tad comes up
i think he will accommodate you suggested chunky wisely you mustn't mind our talk professor explained walter
but it's all in fun we don't mean to be mean do we ned of course not chunky is the only one who never mind chunky
answered the fat boy sharply isn't it about time that lazy indian were back professor asked walter
you seem to know a lot about indians were you ever an indian asked stacy innocently even if i were i couldn't be called a savage retorted ned the hours wore on and the moon came up in a cloudless sky
perhaps it was the loneliness of his position yet he had been alone in mountain and forest many times before hello up there he shouted pulling himself to a sitting position hello answered walter i'm going to bed
right you are laughed ned if he gets back then we are in great luck i'll let the rope down to you if he should happen to return during the night no wait till morning i wouldn't care to try to climb up in the dark
i'd be likely to get hurt if i did you had better all turn in now there will be no need for you to sit up
i think perhaps master tad is right we had better go to bed i would suggest however that one of you roll up in his blankets outside here so that he can hear if master tad calls suggested professor zepplin that's a good idea
i'll do that with your permission professor offered ned rector promptly yes then walter and stacy had better go to their tents if anything occurs during the night remember you are to let me know at once if eagle eye returns i want to know it too
very well sir answered ned after replenishing the fire determined to remain awake until daylight the lad rolled up in his blankets in a few minutes after the camp quieted down he fell sound asleep
and he did not open his eyes again until the sun peeped over the eastern range of the mountains and burned apart his eyelids ned awoke with a start he could scarcely believe that another day had dawned he sat up rubbing his eyes and blinking in the strong morning light
whew i'm stiff in every joint he mumbled and sleepier than stacy brown ever thought of being ned pulled himself to his feet yawning broadly that's another bad habit i have learned from chunky i wonder if tad's awake
peering over the edge ned was unable to make out whether his companion down there were awake or sleeping he hesitated to call
with the disturbed foot thus encouraged ned pulled the other big toe chunky rose in his wrath hurling the rubber pillow on which he had been sleeping full into the face of his tormentor ned caught off his balance tumbled over in a heap
while stacy crawled back under the blankets very well satisfied with the result of his throw but he was left in peace only a moment ned recovered himself and returned to the charge over went the cot with stacy beneath it
from the confusion of blankets emerged the red face of the fat boy ned rector thought it time to leave he did so with stacy a close second and the rubber pillow
ned and stacy's foot race continued until both were out of breath and thoroughly awake then they sat down laughing the color flaming in their cheeks and eyes sparkling with pleasurable excitement
i'll wake up tad i guess announced ned after recovering his breath
but there was no answer to his summons then both boys added their voices to the effort joined a few minutes later by the professor and walter perkins they were unable to get any reply at all
nor was there the slightest movement or sign of life where tad had last been seen what can it mean they asked each other all the laughter gone out of their faces now it means said ned that tad isn't there
beyond that i would not venture an opinion maybe he's fallen into the stream during the night and drowned suggested chunky we shall not even consider that as possible nor do i believe it is replied the professor nevertheless
we appear to have lost one boy and i do not intend that we shall lose another i wouldn't worry comforted walter perkins you all know tad and you know he isn't a boy that you can lose so easily
what is there to eat asked the professor beans that's all and not much of that unless we get the stuff down there we won't have another meal to day the other two boys began preparing for the camp fire
ned had been gone only a few moments when he returned on a run boys boys he cried what is it what is it
the ponies the ponies what about them asked walter pausing as he was about to strike a match to the wood yes
has anything happened to them asked the professor striding toward the excited ned rector happened i should say there had well what is it
it can't be possible two of them are they have broken away i think it must have happened late last night for i looked at them just before going to bed and they were all asleep then
which ponies which ones are gone asked walter apprehensively chunky's and tad's is it possible sputtered the professor striding to the place where their stock had been tethered yes they've broken away he decided
look around boys they cannot be far away probably got hungry and concluded to look for some tender bushes to browse on the boys thus encouraged hastened to begin their search for the missing stock they went this way shouted ned
all hands hurried to him yes there's their tracks agreed the professor now follow them
and after more than an hour of persistent effort the professor called the hunt off and the crestfallen party returned to camp what are we going to do asked stacy dolefully
chapter fourteen fun in the foothills the professor found difficulty even in driving the lads to their beds that night when they did finally tumble in and pull the blankets over them they were unable to sleep
after a time the moon came up but instead of quieting the coyotes it seemed to have urged them on to renewed efforts they grew bolder they approached the camp until a circle of them surrounded it out of stacy brown's tent
crept a figure in its night clothes it was none other than stacy himself in one hand he held a can of condensed milk that he had smuggled from the commissary department that afternoon
he wriggled along in the shadow of a slight rise of ground until he had approached quite near the beasts he could see them plainly now and stacy's eyes looked like two balls the animals would elevate their noses in the air
and as if at a prearranged signal all would strike the first note of their mournful wail at identically the same instant suddenly the figure of the pony rider boy rose up before them
the can landed right between the eyes of the animal the coyote uttered a grunt of surprise hesitated an instant then with tail between his legs bounded away with a howl of fear yeow scat
shrieked the fat boy the whole pack turned tail and ran with stacy after them in full flight headed for the desert tom parry aroused by this new note in the midnight medley tumbled out just in time to see stacy
disappearing over the ridge the guide was followed quickly by the other three boys of the party and professor zepplin hey come back here shouted parry the fat boy paid no attention to him
he was too busy chasing coyotes across the desert at that moment to give heed to anything else get after him boys if he falls they're liable to pile on him and chew him up before we can get to him commanded the guide
over the ridge bounded the pajama brigade the coyotes frightened beyond their power of reasoning if such a faculty was possessed by them were now no more than so many black streaks lengthening out across the desert
the lads set up a whoop as they started on the chase after their companion rope him somebody shouted parry haven't any rope answered tad with a muttered ouch as his big toe came in contact with the can of condensed milk
laughing and shouting they soon came up with stacy however because he could not run as fast as the other boys tad caught up with him first and the two lads went down together in another minute the rest of the party had piled on the heap
get up shouted tad somebody's standing on my neck
came the muffled voice of chunky brown
the knot was slowly untied two of them grabbed the fat boy under the arms while a third got between the lad's feet and picked them up much as one would the handles of a wheelbarrow
reaching his tent they threw the fat boy into his bed the tall gaunt figure of the professor appeared suddenly at the tent entrance some of the boys darted by him the others crawling out under the sides of the tent
all making a lively sprint for their own quarters young men the very next one who raises a disturbance in this camp to night is going to get a real old fashioned trouncing not having any slipper i'll use my shoe do you hear
yet they were destined not to pass the night without a further disturbance though the professor did not use his shoe to chastise the noisy ones it lacked only a few hours to daylight when the second interruption occurred and when it arrived
it was even more startling than had been the fat boy's chase of the cowardly coyotes there was a sudden sound of hoof beats
the pony rider boys were out of their tents in a twinkling wow piped stacy bang bang two bullets flicked the dirt up into his face bud stevens and his companions were in a playful mood again
where's the kiddie i want to see my kiddie laughed bud stevens by this time with his companions he had dismounted turning the ponies loose to roam where they would the whole camp aroused by the shouting and shooting had turned out
after pulling on their trousers and shoes tom parry piling fresh fuel on the embers of the camp fire soon had the scene brightly lighted there was no more sleep in camp that night professor zepplin accepted the new disturbance with good grace
bud stevens informed them that's right what we have is free answered the professor hospitably that's what i was telling the bunch nodded bud our chuck wagon'll be along when it gets here
we've got a schooner with six lazy mules toting it down along the edge of the foothills if it ever gets here we'll stock you up with enough fodder to last you the rest of your natural lives a schooner did you say questioned stacy edging closer to the cowboy
yep schooner where's the water say moon face didn't you ever hear tell of a prairie schooner chunky shook his head well you've got something coming to you then replied bud turning to the others again
when do you start your horse hunt i presume that's the purpose of your visit here asked the professor yep soon as the wagon gets here with the trappings after breakfast we'll look around a bit been some of them through here to day i see
yes how did you know that questioned tad we crossed the trail just at the edge of the camp here when we came in didn't you see them we saw one of them and the tracks of the rest yes we we we saw the white horse
the angel demanded bud interested at once i don't know whether you'd call it an angel or not it struck me that it was quite the opposite laughed tad
it was a white stallion and when i got in its way it just bowled me over and rolled me down the hill the white stallion fellows nodded bud i told you so come along kiddie and show me that trail
tad took the horse hunter to the trail that he had followed up the mountain side bud lighted match after match by the light of which he ran over the confusion of hoofprints finally he paused over one particular spot and with a frown
peered down upon it that's him that's the angel he emphasized
because of two things answered bud first place he's white that's the color angels is supposed to be most of em says then if you'll look at his hoof mark you'll see the frog is shaped like a heart more angel then again
that's three times ain't it he's got a temper like angels ain't supposed to have so i have observed agreed tad with a laugh and that's why we call him the angel we'll get the old gentleman this time or break every cinch strap in the outfit
there was rejoicing among the horse hunters when they heard that it was indeed the angel himself whose trail they had come upon he's got the finest bunch of horse flesh with him that you'll find anywhere on the desert averred another
but tom parry told you of course tom parry didn't objected the guide master tad read the trail himself shake glowed bud extending his hand to tad you're the right sort for this outfit
we'll let you help point the bunch into the corral when we get them going
bud directed two of his men to work south two more to ride north while he would take the center of the range what i want he explained to the boys is to find where the wild horses are waterin these days
no they were out for a play
he'll be all right yes you may go tad but be careful don't let him get into any difficulties mister stevens he's a venturesome lad
grinned the horse hunter come along
tad lost no time in getting ready for the trip to trail the wild horses to their lair and in a few moments the horse hunters rode from the camp followed by the envious glances of the pony rider boys
chapter ten the pony rider boys initiated
the boys realized that they had taken a rather active part in what might prove for them a serious affair if by any chance the bandits learned who had interfered with them it might be necessary for professor zepplin and his charges
to make lively tracks for the border and seek other fields of adventure the same thought was in the minds of all except chunky who held his head erect his chest swelled out he was full of their great achievements
and was telling what he would do if any of the bandits came to visit their camp i think we will put you on guard to night seeing that you are such a brave young man said the professor with a twinkle on guard
let him take the watch approved rector you forget that i'm a wounded man you forget i've been shot twice to day huh some of you children take the trick
i guess if we expect to get any sleep we had better let some one else do it agreed tad
the night passed without incident tad butler keeping a vigilant watch all during the dark hours of the night he had plenty of time to think matters over he realized that dunk tucker the prisoner
had overheard all that had been said during their talk with withem out on the plain tad knew that if dunk ever got into communication with his fellows it would go hard with the pony rider boys soon after daybreak tad awakened his fellows
he already had a brisk fire going but before lighting it the lad had walked down to the edge of the canyon for a survey of the plain he saw a solitary horseman far out over the rolling plain
after some study he made up his mind that the man was going away instead of coming toward them breakfast finished the party packed their belongings and started out for their long ride to join the rangers sometime late in the day about noon
they made camp for dinner and a rest not taking up their journey until about four o'clock in the afternoon darkness overtook them finding them still without sight or sound of the spring where withem said they would find the rangers camp
that the sound of falling water was in the air with it came the thought that these must be the rangers we're the pony rider boys he said speaking confidently the which
wait a minute send for joe said the man in a lower tone you fellows stay just as you are if you don't want some daylight let through you i i wish we did have a little daylight stammered chunky which elicited a short laugh from his companions
i'd know this fellow in the dark as well as in the light i'm withem at the lieutenant's reassuring words the rangers for the boys had stumbled upon the camp of the men of captain mc kay's command crowded forward talking and laughing three of them taking the horses
as the party dismounted then leading the way into the bushes and in among the rocks where the lads came upon a campfire around which were seated five or six other rangers withem introduced the professor and his charges
causing stacy to open his eyes in wonderment lieutenant withem made the party feel at home at once just in time to have chuck with us you see we have our chuck wagon here of course we don't carry it wherever we go
we usually have some central point where we make headquarters but we have to keep changing these headquarters for reasons you understand all hands sat down to the evening meal after the men had washed up in most instances without removing their hats
this attracted the attention of the fat boy say do you fellows sleep in your hats as well as wash and eat in them he demanded do you sleep in your skin retorted dippy yes
chop it commanded a ranger
can't i say what i've got to say demanded the fat boy indignantly are you going to brag about yourself demanded polly i'm telling you and well don't tell us we don't want to have to take you out and tie you to a tree
say will you get wise to the dude with the red necktie
pointing to ned who in the place of the bandanna handkerchief had put on a flowing tie of brilliant red tying it about his neck with the ends carelessly thrown over the left shoulder
asked ned flushing like it why it's the hottest thing that ever crossed the staked plains since the apaches came down in why don't you look the other way then interjected stacy oho listen to the human monstrosity
the monstrosity as wide as he is long and as fresh as he is stale what you got to say about it young man demanded dippy glancing at tad butler who was smiling i haven't said anything yet but you're going to
i may can we stand for any more remarks boys asked dippy no we can't stand for any more chorused the men the professor and the lieutenant being too busy with a discussion to pay any heed to what was going on about them
then he shall be washed clean so that he may take a fresh start that's the idea will you go peaceably or must we drag you i reckon you'd better drag me if you're going to have fun with me you'll have to earn it i don't propose to help you out
do you hear demanded dippy in a deep hoarse voice we hear then do your duty two men grabbed the pony rider boy up tad making no resistance whatever a little to the surprise of the men who had taken hold of him
they expected the boy to resist which would have given them still further excuse to handle him roughly
he didn't care particularly what they did the other boys were delighted that tad was to be made the mark this time they followed along laughing and jeering at their companion the rangers fell in behind the two who were carrying butler in solemn procession
to look at their faces one would have thought they were performing a solemn duty
they discovered a few minutes later tad was taken out where the gentle murmur of the spring
one holding to the feet the other the shoulders of the lad when they let go tad sailed several feet through the air quick as a cat in his movements tad turned over before he landed going down on all fours
instead he landed at the bottom of a deep pool of water cold as ice it seemed to him he went in all over not expecting anything of this sort the boy was not holding his breath the result was that he got a mouthful of water
he came up choking then pretended to go down again instead he crawled up to the bank under which he hid a moment passed and the rangers began to be alarmed dippy stepped to the edge of the pool and leaning over
peered down somewhat anxiously quick as a flash a pair of arms encircled his neck dippy plunged in head first he did not even have time to cry out the others discovering that dippy had fallen in rushed to the edge shouting and laughing
tad having jerked their feet from under them within sixty seconds from that time half of the crowd were threshing about in the cold waters of the pool while tad who had crawled out sat on the bank dripping watching their struggles stacy brown was rolling on the ground
you fellows ought to be ashamed to pick on a wounded man that way don't you know i've been shot shot yes shot he's been shot chorused the boys and the rangers together
walter perkins landing on top of him nearly taking away the breath of rector they had a rough and tumble scrimmage in the cold water coming out choking dripping and laughing all this made a favorable impression on the rangers boys who could take rough handling such as this
without losing their tempers or even offering any objection surely must be worth while then too there was the story about tad and ned having captured the desperado dunk tucker who was now well on his way to the calaboose in el paso
the pony rider boys made their way back to the camp wet but happy the only dissatisfied one in the crowd being stacy brown but their troubles for the night were not wholly over yet their initiation was not yet complete
the gossip soon lost ground against the list of his good qualities moreover he was extremely good looking and his manner was modesty itself he admired everything he saw partly because it was new to him and partly because there was a good deal to admire
for a day or two after the final scene with joe he had avoided seeing her he had not been able to resist the temptation to go back on the same day and he had spent some hours in considering that human affairs are extremely mutable but the scenes about him were too new
and very many of the faces he saw were too attractive to allow of his brooding for long over his misfortune his first impulse had been to go away again on the very evening of his arrival he had gone to see joe arriving during luncheon
in the expectation of seeing her alone again there would be a scene of solemn farewell in which he would bid her be happy in her own way in a tone of semi paternal benevolence after which he would give her his blessing
and bid farewell to the pomps and vanities of society he would naturally retire gloomily from the gay world and end his miserable existence in the approved guy livingstone fashion of life between cavendish tobacco deep drinking
and high play joe would then repent of the ruin she had caused and that would be a great satisfaction there was once a little boy in boston whose hands were very cold as he went to school but he blew on them savagely saying i am glad of it
it serves my father right for not buying me my gloves that was ronald's state of mind he had led the most sober of lives and the wildest dissipation he remembered was the lord mayor's supper to the oxford and cambridge crews when he himself had been one of the winners
but surely for a disappointed lover there could be no course so proper as a speedy death by dissipation which would serve joe right therefore on his return to his hotel he ordered whiskey
of voice he tasted it and thought it detestable on reflection he would put off the commencement of his wild career until the evening after he had seen joe again the ravages of drink would not be perceptible so soon after all
he changed his tie for one of a darker hue ate sparingly of a beefsteak and went back to bid joe a last farewell sybil brandon and miss schenectady were elements in the solemn leave taking which ronald had not anticipated
sybil moreover made a great effort for she was anxious to help joe as much as possible in her difficulties
and joe herself was astonished at the brilliance of her conversation she had always thought sybil very reserved if not somewhat shy perhaps sybil pitied ronald a little he was very quiet in his manner
though after the first few minutes he found himself talking much as usual true he often looked at joe and then was silent but then again he looked at sybil and his tongue was unloosed he was grateful after a time and he
was also flattered besides he could not help noticing that his new acquaintance was extremely beautiful his conscience smote him as he realized that he was thinking of her appearance and he immediately quieted the qualm by saying that it was
ronald did not know much about artists and that sort of people but the expression formed itself conveniently in his mind the consequence was that he accepted an invitation to drive with the two girls after luncheon
and when they left him at his hotel a proceeding against which he vehemently protested on the score of propriety he reluctantly acknowledged to himself that he had enjoyed the afternoon very much come and see us after five o'clock said sybil
i will present you to missus wyndham nine hundred and thirty six beacon street she added laughing with great pleasure thanks said ronald good by ronald dear said joe pleasantly good by he answered in a doubtful tone of voice
as he raised his hat and the two girls drove away sybil was apparently in very good spirits
really i do not believe he is so very much you know joe answered but she was thoughtful and did not speak again for some time it was on the morning after this that joe read the article on john's speech and met him by the common
ronald did not call during the day and in the evening joe went to her party as she had intended but neither sybil nor john harrington were there sybil did not go to parties and john probably had too much to do
but at supper joe chanced to be standing near missus sam wyndham oh i so much wanted to see you miss thorn said the latter
he came today and i have asked him to dinner to morrow yes said joe turning a shade paler i am so glad you like him he is a very nice boy he is perfectly lovely said missus sam enthusiastically and he is so natural
you would not know he was english at all really said joe raising her eyebrows a little but laughing at the same time oh my dear said missus wyndham i always forget you are not one of us besides you are you see missus wyndham rarely said a tactless thing
but this evening she was in such good spirits that she said what came uppermost in her thoughts joe was not offended she was only bored will you not come and dine too to morrow night asked missus wyndham who was anxious to atone
thanks awfully said joe but i have to dine with the aitchisons pocock vancouver pale and exquisite as ever came up to the two ladies can i get you anything missus wyndham he inquired after a double bow no thank you johnny hannibal is taking care of me
answered missus sam coldly miss thorn what can i get you he asked turning to joe nothing thanks said joe mister biggielow is getting me something she did not look at vancouver as she answered and the angry color began to rise to her temples
vancouver who was not used to repulses such as these and was too old a soldier to give up a situation so easily stood a moment playing with his coat tails a sudden thought passed through joe's mind it struck her that
considering the situation of affairs it would be unwise to break off her acquaintance with vancouver at the present time her first honest impulse was to cut him and never speak to him again but it was better to act with more deliberation in the first place there might be more to be learnt
which might be of service to john secondly people would talk about it if she cut him and would invent some story to the effect that he had proposed to marry her or that she had proposed to marry him it was contrary to her nature to pretend anything she did not feel
but it would nevertheless be a mistake to quarrel openly with vancouver on second thoughts if you would get me a glass of water she said speaking to him he instantly disappeared but even in the moment before he departed to execute her command
he had time to express by his look a sense of injury forgiven which did not escape joe what a hypocrite the man is she thought vancouver on his part could form no conception of the cause of the coldness the two ladies had shown him
he could not know that joe had discovered in him the writer of the article still less could he have guessed that joe had told john and that john had told missus sam he could only suppose that the two had been talking of something and were annoyed at being interrupted
when he came back with the glass of water mister biggielow had just brought joe some salad the usual struggle began between the two men mister bonamy biggielow was a little poet i ought to thank you miss thorn instead of you thanking me
said vancouver in a seductive voice on one side of joe is it not the most crowded supper you ever saw remarked mister biggielow on the other side
eating her salad and looking straight before her i thought you were going to send me away i was so glad when you condescended to make use of me answered vancouver mister biggielow also answered joe's interrogation well he said i mean it is thronged with people
there is a decided sound of revelry by night youth and beauty that sort of thing said joe to biggielow then turning to vancouver she added why should i send you away i hope there is no reason he said gravely
in fact i am sure there is none except that you would of course always do exactly as you pleased about that and everything else yes indeed joe answered and her lip curled a little proudly you are quite right about that but then you know
i did not send you away thanks again said vancouver do let me get you something more miss thorn suggested mister biggielow no
you always like of course you have heard about harrington said vancouver in a low voice close to josephine's ear no really she answered will you take my plate and the glass thanks
you mean about the senatorship asked joe yes the senator died this morning harrington will make a fight for it he has many friends among whom you count yourself doubtless remarked joe not politically of course
i take no active part yes i know joe knew the remainder of the sentence by heart then you will have a glorious opportunity for maintaining an armed neutrality oh if it comes to that said vancouver mildly
i would rather see harrington senator than some of our own men at all events he is honest at all events joe repeated you think perhaps that some man of your own party may be elected who will
not turn out to be honest well the thing is possible you see politics are such a dirty business all kinds of men get in joe laughed in a way that made vancouver nervous he was beginning to know her
and he could tell when some sharp thrust was coming by the way she laughed nevertheless he was fascinated by her it is not long since you told me that mister harrington's very mild remark about extinguishing bribery and corruption was a
piece of gross exaggeration said joe why do you say politics are dirty work there is a great difference answered vancouver what difference between what between saying that the business of politics is not clean
and saying that all public officers are liars like the cretans who is exaggerating now asked joe scornfully of course it is i answered vancouver submissively if it is not a rude question
and had the double merit of accentuating its symmetry
cut square at the neck it showed her dazzling throat at its best advantage and a knot of pink lilies at the waist harmonized delicately with the color of the whole it is just like you said vancouver
to have something different from everybody else i admire eastern things so much and one gets so tired of the everlasting round of french dresses
said joe indifferently i am so anxious to meet your cousin miss thorn said vancouver trying a new subject i hear there is to be a dinner for him to morrow night at missus sam wyndham's but of course i am not asked why of course
inquired joe quickly i believe missus wyndham thinks i dislike englishmen said vancouver at random but she is really very much mistaken really yes i should be willing to like any number of englishmen
for the sake of being liked by one englishwoman he looked at joe expressively as he spoke really indeed yes do you not believe me oh yes said joe why should i not believe you her voice was calm
but that same angry flush that had of late so often shown itself began to rise slowly at her temples vancouver saw it and thought she was blushing at what he said i trust you will said vancouver i trust that some day you will let me tell you
who that englishwoman is it was horrible he was making love to her this wretch whom she despised she turned her head away to hide the angry look in her eyes thanks no if you do not mind said she
i do not care to receive confidences i always forget to forget them it was not in order that pocock vancouver might make love to her that she had sent away bonamy biggielow the harmless little poet she wished him back again
but he was embarked in an enterprise to dispute with johnny hannibal a place near miss saint joseph missus wyndham had long since disappeared will you please take me back to my aunt said joe as they passed from the supper room they suddenly came upon john harrington
who was wandering about in an unattached fashion apparently looking for some one he bowed and stared a little at seeing joe on vancouver's arm but she gave him a look of such earnest entreaty that he turned and followed her at a distance to see what would happen
seeing her sit down by her aunt he came up and spoke to her almost thrusting vancouver aside with his broad shoulders vancouver however did not dispute the position
i thought i should never get away from him it is amazing what a difference the common knowledge of a secret will make in the intimacy of two people i was rather taken aback at seeing you with him said john not that it can make any difference to you he added quickly
only you seemed so angry at him this morning but it does joe began impulsively that is i began by meaning to cut him and then i thought it would be a mistake to make a scandal yes said john it would be a great mistake
besides i would not for all the world have you take a part in this thing
it might do harm i think i have taken a part already said joe somewhat hurt yes i know i am very grateful but i hope you will not think any more about it
john looked at her earnestly for a few seconds and saw that she was perfectly sincere he had grown to like josephine of late and he was grateful to her for her friendship her manner that morning when she told him of her discovery had made a deep impression on him
my dear miss thorn he said earnestly in a low voice you are too good and kind and i thank you very heartily for your friendship but i think you were very wise not to cut vancouver and i hope you will not quarrel with anybody
for any matter so trivial the color came to joe's face but not for anger this time trivial she exclaimed yes trivial john repeated remember that it is the policy of that paper to abuse me
and that if vancouver had not written the article the editor could have found some one else easily enough who would have done it but it is such a dastardly thing said joe he always says to every one that he has the greatest respect for you
and then he does a thing like this if i were you i would kill him i am sure i would that would not be the way to win an election nowadays
oh i would not care about that said joe hotly but i dare say it is very silly of me she added you do not seem to mind it at all it is not worth while to lose one's temper or one's soul for the iniquities of mister pocock vancouver said john
the man may do me harm but as i never expected his friendship or help he neither falls nor rises in my estimation on that account blessed are they who expect nothing blessed indeed said joe
but one cannot help expecting men who have the reputation of being gentlemen to behave decently vancouver has a right to his political opinions and a perfect right to express them in any way he sees fit said john oh of course said joe impatiently
this is a free country and that sort of thing but if he means to express political opinions
i think that writing violent articles in a newspaper is a very active part indeed and he should not go about saying that he has the highest reverence for a man and then call him a lunatic and a charlatan in print unless he is willing to sign his name to it
and take the consequences should he i think it is vile and horrid and abominable and nasty and i hate him with the exception of the peroration to that speech
i am afraid i must agree with you
then why do you defend him asked joe with flashing eyes because on general principles i do not think a man is so much worse than his fellows because he does things they would very likely do in his place there are things done every day all over the world
quite as bad as that and no one takes much notice of them almost every businessman is trying to get the better of some other business man by fair means or foul you do not seem to have a very exalted idea of humanity
said joe a large part of humanity is sick said john and it is as well to be prepared for the worst in any illness i wish you were not so tremendously calm you know said joe
looking thoughtfully into john's face i am afraid it will injure you why in the world should it injure me asked john much astonished at the remark i have a presentiment she checked herself suddenly i do not like to tell you she added
i would like to hear what you think if you will tell me said john gravely well do not be angry i have a presentiment that you will not be made senator are you angry no indeed but why
just for that very reason you are too calm you are not enough of a partisan every one is a partisan here john was silent and his face was grave and thoughtful the remark was profound in its way
and showed a far deeper insight into political matters than he imagined joe possessed he had long regarded missus wyndham as a woman of fine sense and judgment and had often asked her opinion on important questions but in all his experience
she had never said anything that seemed to strike so deeply at the root of things as this simple remark of josephine's i am afraid you are angry said joe seeing that he was grave and silent you have set me thinking miss thorn he answered
you think i may be right she said the idea is quite new to me i think it is perhaps the best definition of the fact that i ever heard but it is not what ought to be of course not joe answered nothing is just what it ought to be
but one has to take things as they are and make them what they should be added john and the look of strong determination came into his face ah yes said joe softly make things what they should be
perhaps we might go home joe said miss schenectady who had been conversing for a couple of hours with another old lady of literary tastes yes aunt zoe said joe rousing herself i think we might shall i see you to
morrow night at missus wyndham's dinner asked john as they parted no i refused good night as joe sat by her aunt's side in the deep dark carriage on the way home her hands were cold and she trembled from head to foot
the little one all alone as the thenardier hostelry was in that part of the village which is near the church it was to the spring in the forest in the direction of chelles that cosette was obliged to go for her water
she made as much motion as possible with the handle of the bucket as she walked along this made a noise which afforded her company the further she went the denser the darkness became there was no one in the streets
however she did encounter a woman who turned around on seeing her
is it a werewolf child then the woman recognized cosette well said she it's the lark
so long as she had the houses or even the walls only on both sides of her path she proceeded with tolerable boldness from time to time she caught the flicker of a candle through the crack of a shutter this was light and life
there were people there and it reassured her but in proportion as she advanced her pace slackened mechanically as it were when she had passed the corner of the last house cosette paused
it had been hard to advance further than the last stall it became impossible to proceed further than the last house she set her bucket on the ground thrust her hand into her hair and began slowly to scratch her head
a gesture peculiar to children when terrified and undecided what to do
it was the open fields black and desert space was before her she gazed in despair at that darkness where there was no longer any one where there were beasts
where there were spectres possibly she took a good look and heard the beasts walking on the grass and she distinctly saw spectres moving in the trees then she seized her bucket again
fear had lent her audacity bah said she i will tell him that there was no more water
hardly had she gone a hundred paces when she paused and began to scratch her head again now it was the thenardier who appeared to her with her hideous hyena mouth and wrath flashing in her eyes
the child cast a melancholy glance before her and behind her what was she to do what was to become of her where was she to go in front of her was the spectre of the thenardier
she entered the forest at a run no longer looking at or listening to anything she only paused in her course when her breath failed her but she did not halt in her advance she went straight before her in desperation
as she ran she felt like crying the nocturnal quivering of the forest surrounded her completely she no longer thought she no longer saw the immensity of night was facing this tiny creature
on the one hand all shadow on the other an atom it was only seven or eight minutes walk from the edge of the woods to the spring cosette knew the way through having gone over it many times in daylight
strange to say she did not get lost a remnant of instinct guided her vaguely but she did not turn her eyes either to right or to left for fear of seeing things in the branches and in the brushwood
in this manner she reached the spring it was a narrow natural basin hollowed out by the water in a clayey soil about two feet deep
and paved with several large stones a brook ran out of it with a tranquil little noise cosette did not take time to breathe it was very dark but she was in the habit of coming to this spring
found one of its branches clung to it
she was in a state of such violent excitement that her strength was trebled while thus bent over she did not notice that the pocket of her apron had emptied itself into the spring
cosette neither saw nor heard it fall she drew out the bucket nearly full and set it on the grass that done she perceived that she was worn out with fatigue
she would have liked to set out again at once but the effort required to fill the bucket had been such that she found it impossible to take a step she was forced to sit down she dropped on the grass and remained crouching there
without knowing why but because she could not do otherwise the agitated water in the bucket beside her was describing circles which resembled tin serpents overhead the sky was covered with vast black clouds
which were like masses of smoke the tragic mask of shadow seemed to bend vaguely over the child jupiter was setting in the depths the child stared with bewildered eyes at this great star
with which she was unfamiliar and which terrified her the planet was in fact very near the horizon and was traversing a dense layer of mist which imparted to it a horrible ruddy hue
the mist gloomily empurpled magnified the star one would have called it a luminous wound a cold wind was blowing from the plain the forest was dark not a leaf was moving
there were none of the vague fresh gleams of summertide great boughs uplifted themselves in frightful wise slender and misshapen bushes whistled in the clearings the tall grasses undulated like eels under the north wind
the nettles seemed to twist long arms furnished with claws in search of prey some bits of dry heather tossed by the breeze flew rapidly by and had the air of fleeing in terror before something which was coming after
on all sides there were lugubrious stretches the darkness was bewildering man requires light whoever buries himself in the opposite of day feels his heart contract
when the eye sees black the heart sees trouble in an eclipse in the night in the sooty opacity there is anxiety even for the stoutest of hearts no one walks alone in the forest at night without trembling
shadows and trees two formidable densities
appears in the indistinct depths the inconceivable is outlined a few paces distant from you with a spectral clearness one beholds floating either in space or in one's own brain
one knows not what vague and intangible thing like the dreams of sleeping flowers there are fierce attitudes on the horizon
one is afraid to glance behind him yet desirous of doing so the cavities of night things grown haggard taciturn profiles which vanish when one advances obscure dishevelments irritated tufts
livid pools the lugubrious reflected in the funereal
of silence unknown but possible beings bendings of mysterious branches alarming torsos of trees long handfuls of quivering plants against all this one has no protection
this penetration of the shadows is indescribably sinister in the case of a child
without understanding her sensations cosette was conscious that she was seized upon by that black enormity of nature it was no longer terror alone which was gaining possession of her it was something more terrible
even than terror she shivered there are no words to express the strangeness of that shiver
then by a sort of instinct she began to count aloud one two three four and so on up to ten in order to escape from that singular state which she did not understand but which terrified her
and when she had finished she began again this restored her to a true perception of the things about her her hands which she had wet in drawing the water felt cold she rose
her terror a natural and unconquerable terror had returned she had but one thought now to flee at full speed through the forest across the fields to the houses to the windows to the lighted candles
her glance fell upon the water which stood before her such was the fright which the thenardier inspired in her that she dared not flee without that bucket of water she seized the handle with both hands she could hardly lift the pail
in this manner she advanced a dozen paces but the bucket was full it was heavy she was forced to set it on the ground once more she took breath for an instant then lifted the handle of the bucket again
again she was obliged to pause after some seconds of repose she set out again she walked bent forward with drooping head like an old woman the weight of the bucket strained and stiffened her thin arms
the iron handle completed the benumbing and freezing of her wet and tiny hands she was forced to halt from time to time and each time that she did so the cold water which splashed from the pail fell on her bare legs
this took place in the depths of a forest at night in winter far from all human sight she was a child of eight
and her mother no doubt alas for there are things that make the dead open their eyes in their graves she panted with a sort of painful rattle sobs contracted her throat but she dared not weep
in spite of diminishing the length of her stops and of walking as long as possible between them
and that the thenardier would beat her this anguish was mingled with her terror at being alone in the woods at night she was worn out with fatigue and had not yet emerged from the forest
on arriving near an old chestnut tree with which she was acquainted made a last halt longer than the rest in order that she might get well rested
then she summoned up all her strength picked up her bucket again and courageously resumed her march
at that moment she suddenly became conscious that her bucket no longer weighed anything at all a hand which seemed to her enormous had just seized the handle and lifted it vigorously she raised her head
a large black form straight and erect was walking beside her through the darkness it was a man who had come up behind her and whose approach she had not heard this man without uttering a word had seized the handle of the bucket which she was carrying
there are instincts for all the encounters of life
the author of this book who regrets the necessity of mentioning himself has been absent from paris for many years paris has been transformed since he quitted it a new city has arisen which is after a fashion
unknown to him there is no need for him to say that he loves paris paris is his mind's natal city in consequence of demolitions and reconstructions
the paris of his youth that paris which he bore away religiously in his memory is now a paris of days gone by he must be permitted to speak of that paris as though it still existed
neither street nor house will any longer exist in that locality readers may verify the facts if they care to take the trouble for his own part
he is unacquainted with the new paris and he writes with the old paris before his eyes in an illusion which is precious to him it is a delight to him to dream that there still lingers behind him something of that which he beheld
when he was in his own country and that all has not vanished so long as you go and come in your native land you imagine that those streets are a matter of indifference to you
that those walls are strangers to you that those trees are merely the first encountered haphazard that those houses which you do not enter are useless to you that the pavements which you tread are merely stones
later on when you are no longer there you perceive that the streets are dear to you
those trees are well beloved by you that you entered those houses which you never entered every day and that you have left a part of your heart of your blood of your soul in those pavements
all those places which you no longer behold which you may never behold again perchance and whose memory you have cherished take on a melancholy charm recur to your mind with the melancholy of an apparition
make the holy land visible to you and are so to speak the very form of france and you love them and you call them up as they are as they were and you persist in this and you will submit to no change
for you are attached to the figure of your fatherland as to the face of your mother may we then be permitted to speak of the past in the present that said we beg the reader to take note of it
the moon was full that night jean valjean was not sorry for this the moon still very close to the horizon cast great masses of light and shadow in the streets
jean valjean could glide along close to the houses on the dark side and yet keep watch on the light side he did not perhaps take sufficiently into consideration the fact that the dark side escaped him still
moreover and this is a remark to which we shall frequently have occasion to recur she had grown used without being herself aware of it to the peculiarities of this good man and to the freaks of destiny
and then she was with him and she felt safe jean valjean knew no more where he was going than did cosette he trusted in god as she trusted in him
it seemed as though he also were clinging to the hand of some one greater than himself he thought he felt a being leading him though invisible however he had no settled idea no plan no project
he was not even absolutely sure that it was javert and then it might have been javert without javert knowing that he was jean valjean was not he disguised was not he believed to be dead
as though the discipline of the middle ages and the yoke of the curfew still existed he combined in various manners with cunning strategy the rue censier and the rue copeau
finding nothing which suited him he had no doubt that if any one had chanced to be upon his track they would have lost it
three men who were following him closely pass one after the other under that lantern on the dark side of the street one of the three entered the alley leading to the commissary's house
the one who marched at their head struck him as decidedly suspicious come child he said to cosette and he made haste to quit
at that time there was a square formed by the intersection of streets
stands to day and where the rue
turns off it is understood of course that the rue
the moon cast a livid light into this open space
he could not fail to get a good look at them as they traversed this illuminated space in point of fact three minutes had not elapsed when the men made their appearance there were four of them now
all were tall dressed in long brown coats with round hats and huge cudgels in their hands their great stature and their vast fists rendered them no less alarming than did their sinister stride through the darkness
the one who appeared to be their leader turned round and pointed hastily with his right hand in the direction which jean valjean had taken another seemed to indicate the contrary direction with considerable obstinacy
at the moment when the first man wheeled round the moon fell full in his face
you love us as the wheat field loves the hail we are as welcome to you as the death cord to the condemned lo a door opened into a land of unpleasant dreams you thought sealed and we came through
answer my questions truthfully and it may be that we shall return through that door interest welled up in the depths of the black eyes
he muttered nor does it pass through them i can show it to you i had not been blind to the flash of malice of cunning that had shot across the wrinkled face
the lashless lids half closed yes he said sullenly
to their place but will it not be safer for you there among your kind i don't know that it will i answered promptly those who are unlike us
he said if you gave them her he thrust a long thumb backward toward sleeping ruth cherkis would forgive much for her and why should you not
she is only a woman he spat in a way that made me want to kill him besides he ended have you no arts to amuse him cherkis i asked
is yuruk a fool not to know that in the world without
what have you to beguile cherkis beyond this woman flesh much i think go then to him unafraid cherkis
there was a familiar sound to that cherkis of course it was the name of xerxes the persian conqueror corrupted by time into this cherkis and iskander
equally of course alexander ventnor had been right yuruk i demanded directly is she whom you call goddess norhala of the people of cherkis
he answered long long ago there was trouble in their city even in the great dwelling place of cherkis i fled with her who was the mother of the goddess there were twenty of us and we fled here
he went on but after a time she grew old and ugly and withered so he slew her like a little mound of dust she danced and blew away after he had slain her
and also he slew others who had grown displeasing to him he blasted me as he was blasted he pointed to ventnor
was not the father of iskander the god zeus ammon who came to iskander's mother in the form of a great snake
at any rate the goddess was born shedder of the lightnings even from her birth
cleave to your kind cleave to your kind suddenly he shrilled
i will show you the way to them he sprang to his feet clasped my wrist in one of his long hands led me through the curtained oval into the cylindrical hall
an ovoid slice of the gemlike material slid aside revealing a doorway i glimpsed a path a trail leading into a forest pallid green beneath the wan light
follow it he pointed take those who came with you and follow it
you will take them and go by that path not yet i answered absently not yet and was brought abruptly to full alertness vigilance
i followed wondering what were the sources of the bitter hatred he so plainly bore for us the reasons for his eagerness to be rid of us despite the commands of this woman who to him at least was goddess
and by that curious human habit of seeking for the complex when the simple answer lies close failed to recognize that it was jealousy of us that was the root of his behavior
that he wished to be as it would seem he had been for years the only human thing near norhala failed to realize this and with ruth and drake was terribly to pay for this failure
i looked down upon the pair sleeping soundly upon ventnor lost still in trance sit i ordered the eunuch and turn your back to me i dropped down beside drake
now i faced it knowing it to be the very crux of these incredible phenomena admitting too that despite all my special pleading about that point swirled in my own mind the thickest mists of
uncertainty that their sense of order was immensely beyond a man's was plain as plain was it that their knowledge of magnetic force and its manipulation were far beyond the sphere of humanity
and no human imagination could have conceived it nor human hands have made its thought of beauty real what were their senses through which their consciousness fed
nine in number had been the sapphire ovals set within the golden zone of the disk clearly it came to me that these were sense organs but nine senses
and the great stars how many had they and the cubes did they open as did globe and pyramid consciousness itself after all what is it a secretion of the brain
the cumulative expression wholly chemical of the multitudes of cells that form us the inexplicable governor of the city of the body of which
a self realizing force which uses the body as its vehicle just as other forces use for their vestments other machines after all i thought what is this conscious self of ours
the ego but a spark of realization running continuously along the path of time within the mechanism we call the brain making contact along that path as the electric spark at the end of a wire
limited in its expression only by the limitations of that which animates and in essence the same in all if so
ceased to be a problem was answered so thinking i became aware of increasing light strode past yuruk to the door and peeped out dawn was paling the sky
why it's dawn he whispered goodwin you ought not to have let me sleep so long i feel like a damned pig never mind i said but watch the eunuch closely
and the way at last lay clear before the army of the potomac dick was mounted again in fact his horse after pulling the reins from his hands and fleeing from the confederate fire had been retaken by a member of his own regiment and returned to him it was another good omen
the lost had been found again and defeat would become victory but dick said nothing to anybody of his duel with harry kenton he shuddered even now when he recalled it and yet there had been no guilt in either
neither had known that the other lay behind the stone but happy chance had made all their bullets go astray again he was thankful how did you stand that fighting yesterday afternoon george dick asked of warner first rate
the open air agreed with me and as no bullet sought me out i felt benefited i didn't get away from that hospital too soon how far away is this antietam river behind which they say lee lies it's only eight miles from the gap said pennington who had been making inquiries
and as we have come three miles it must be only five miles away correct said warner who was in an uncommonly fine humor your mathematical power grows every day frank let x equal the whole distance from the gap to the antietam which is eight miles
by george we're driving their skirmishers before us they don't seem to make any stand at all the vanguard certainly met with no very formidable resistance as it advanced over the rolling country the sound of firing was continuous but it came from small squads here and there
and after firing a few volleys the men in gray invariably withdrew yet the northern advance was slow colonel winchester became intensely impatient again why don't we hurry he exclaimed of all things in the world the one that we need most is haste
with jackson tied up before harper's ferry lee's defeat is sure unless he retreats across the potomac and that would be equivalent to a defeat good heavens why don't we push on he had not yet heard of the fall of harper's ferry and that jackson with picked brigades was already on the way to join lee
had he known these two vital facts his anger would have burned to a white heat
do you know anything about the antietam colonel asked dick it's a narrow stream but deep and crossed by several stone bridges it will be hard to force a crossing here but further up it can be done with ease since we outnumber lee so much that we can overlap him by far
i have my information from shepard and he makes no mistakes there is a church too on the upper part of the peninsula a little church belonging to an order called the dunkards ah murmured dick the little church of shiloh
there was a little church at shiloh too the battle raged all around it more than once we lost it at first but in the end we won
i hope and believe so we've the materials with which to do it but we've got to push and push hard the colonel raised his glasses and took a long look in front dick also had a pair and he too examined the country before them
it was a fine rolling region and all the forest was gone except clumps of trees here and there
it was now nearly noon and the sunlight was brilliant and intense the glasses carried far dick saw a line of trees which he surmised marked the course of the antietam and he saw small detachments of cavalry which he knew were watching the advance of the army of the potomac
their purpose convinced him that lee had not retreated across the potomac but that he would fight and surely lose dick now believed that so many good omens could not fail a horseman galloped toward them it was shepard again dustier than ever his face pale from weariness
what is it mister shepard asked colonel winchester i've just reported to general mc clellan that our whole command at harper's ferry thirteen thousand strong surrendered early this morning and that jackson with picked men has already started to join lee
my god my god cried the colonel oh that lost day we ought to have fought yesterday and destroyed lee while harper's ferry was still holding out what a day what a day nothing can ever pay us back for the losing of it
jackson might come but it would only be with a part of his force that which marched the swiftest and the victory of the army of the potomac would be all the grander
dick looked back and he saw once more that vast billowing cloud of dust made by the marching army but in front he saw only quiet and peace save for a few distant horsemen who seemed to be riding at random
said shepard who stayed with them his immediate work done and the potomac being very low owing to the dry season there is one ford by which lee can cross and go back to virginia but he isn't going to cross without a battle that's sure
the rebels are flushed with victory they think they have the greatest leaders ever born and they believe despite the disparity of numbers that they can beat us and i believe they can't said dick
said shepard and we'd be marching against jackson the regiment in its swift advance now came nearer to the antietam the narrow but deep creek between its high banks
one or two shots from the far side warned them to come more slowly and colonel winchester drew his men up on a knoll waiting for the rest of the army to advance
great armies drawn up for battle were a spectacle that no boy could ever view calmly and his heart beat so hard that it caused him actual physical pain he saw through the powerful glasses the walls of the little village of sharpsburg
and to the north a roof which he believed was that of the dunkard church of which shepard spoke but his eyes came back from the church and rested on the country around sharpsburg
beyond the peninsula he caught glimpses of the broad potomac there lay lee before them again and now was the time to destroy his army jackson even with his vanguard could not arrive before night and the main force certainly could not come from harper's ferry before the morrow
here was a full half day for the army of the potomac enough in which to destroy a divided portion of the army of northern virginia but colonel winchester raged again and again in vain there was no attack brigade after brigade in blue came up and sat down before the antietam
the winchester regiment was moved far to the north where its officers hopefully believed that the first attack would be made here they extended beyond lee's line and it would be easy to cross the antietam and hurl themselves upon his flank
despite the delay dick and his comrades thrilled at the great and terrible panorama spread before them the mid september day had become as hot as those of august had been
but they did not hide the view of the armies arrayed for battle and with only a narrow river between dick through his own glasses saw confederate officers watching them also he tried to imagine that this was lee and that longstreet and that one of the hills
and the one who wore a gorgeous uniform must surely be stuart why should they be allowed to ride about so calmly his heart fairly ached for the attack mc clellan said that fifty thousand men were there and that jackson was coming with fifty thousand more but shepard who always knew
said that they did not number more than twenty thousand what a chance what a chance he almost repeated colonel winchester's words but he was only a young staff officer and it was not for him to complain if he said anything at all he would have to say it in a guarded manner and to his best friends
the winchester regiment went into camp in a pleasant grove at the northern end of the union line dick and his two young comrades had no fault to find with their quarters they had dry grass warm air and the open sky a more comfortable summer home for a night could not be asked
and there was plenty of food too the army of the potomac never lacked it the coffee was already boiling in the pots and beef and pork were frying in the skillets
dick and his comrades ate and drank and then lay down in the grove if they must rest they would rest well
but now the night was quiet save for the murmur and movement of a great army through the darkness came the sound of many voices and the clank of moving wheels dick asked permission for his two comrades and himself to go down near the river and obtained it but don't get shot
cautioned colonel winchester the confederate riflemen will certainly be on watch on the other side of the stream dick promised and the three went forward very carefully among some bushes they were led on by curiosity and they did not believe that they would be in any great danger
dear mother's simple funeral took me once more to my native place even without mister huxtable's generous and noble assistance i should have laid her to rest by the side of the husband she loved so well but difficulties sore to encounter at such a time would have met me on every side
moreover the kind act cheered and led me through despondency like the hand and face of god caring little what people might say or think i could not stay at a distance nature told me that it was my duty to go and duty or not i could not stay away
and now for the last time i look on the face and form of my mother that which i have played and talked and laughed with though lately not much of laughter that which has fed and cared for me till it needed my care in turn
that which i have toddled beside or proudly run in front of whose arms have been round me whenever i wept and whose bosom the haven of childhood's storms first to greet me with smiles in the morning and last to bless me with tears at night ever loving and never complaining
in one word for a thousand my mother so far away now so hopelessly far away there it lies indeed i can touch it kiss it and embrace it but oh how small a part of mother and even that part is not mine
so holy and calm it lies such loving kindness still upon its features so near me but in mystery so hopelessly far away i can see it but it never will know me again i may die beside it and it cannot weep
the last last look of all on earth they must have carried me away i remember tottering down the hill supported by a stalwart arm
two children ran before me stopping now and then to wonder and straggling to pick hedge flowers one of them brought me a bunch
nancy i'll be the death of thee whispered a woman's voice the little girl shrunk to me for shelter with timid tears in her great blue eyes so i took her hand and led her on and somehow it did me good at intervals the funeral hymn which they sing on the road to the grave
fell solemnly on our ears some one from time to time gave out the words of a verse and then it was sung to a simple impressive tune that ancient hymn which has drowned so many sobs i did not hear but felt it
we arrived at vaughan saint mary late in the afternoon of the second day the whole of the journey was to me a long and tearful dream mister huxtable came with us he had never before been further from home than exeter
and his single visit to that city had formed the landmark of his life he never tried to comfort me as the others did the ignorant man knew better alone i sat by my father's grave with my mother's ready before my feet
they had cast the mould on the other side so as not to move my father's coverlet the poor old pensioner had been true to her promise and man's last garden was blooming like his first flower bed my mind if any i had
defiance and pride and savage delight in misery were entirely gone and depression had taken the place of dejection death now seemed to me the usual and proper condition of things and i felt it an impertinence that i should still be alive
so i waited with heavy composure till she should be brought who so often had walked there with me at length she was coming for good and all and a space was left for me but i must not repose there yet i had still my task before me
the bell was tolling faster and the shadows growing longer and the children who had been playing at hide and seek where soon themselves shall be sought in vain had flitted away from sight perhaps scared at my presence perhaps gone home to tea to enjoy the funeral afterwards
the evening wind had ceased from troubling the yews and the short lived songs of the birds were done the place was as sad as i could wish the smell of new earth inspired as it always does some unsearchable everlasting sympathy
between the material and the creature the sun was setting behind me suddenly a shadow eclipsed my own upon the red loam across the open grave without a start and dreamily as i did all things now i turned to see whence it came
within a yard of me stood mister edgar vaughan in a moment the old feeling was at my heart and my wits were all awake i observed that he was paler than when i had seen him last
and the rigid look was wavering on his face like steel reflected by water he lifted his hat to me i neither rose nor spoke but turned and watched him clara he said in a low earnest voice i see you are still the same
will no depth of grief no length of time no visitation from him who is over us all ever bend your adamant and implacable will i heard with some surprise his allusion to the great being whom he was not wont to recognise
but i made him no reply very well he resumed with the ancient chill hardening over his features so then let it be i am not come to offer you condolence which you would despise nor do i mean to be present when you would account the sight of me an insult
and yet i loved your mother clara i loved her very truly this he said with such emotion that a new thought broke upon me quick as the thought he asked would you know who killed your father and my mother too i answered
whose coffin i see coming the funeral turned the corner of the lane and the dust rose from the bearers feet he took his hat off and the perspiration stood upon his forehead
betwixt suspense and terror and the wildness of grief i was obliged to lean on the headstone for support and a giddiness came over me when i raised my eyes again there was no one near me in vain i wiped them hurriedly and looked again
mister vaughan was gone but on the grass at my feet lay a folded letter i seized it quickly and broke the seal that moment a white figure appeared between the yew trees by the porch it was the aged minister leading my mother the last path of all
the book was in his hand and his form was tall and stately and his step so slow that the white hair fell unruffled while the grand words on his lips called majesty into his gaze thrusting aside the letter
i followed into the church and stood behind the old font where i had been baptized a dark and gloomy nook fit for such an entrance she who had carried me there was carried past it now and the pall waved in the damp cold air and all the world seemed stone and mould
the cottages were prepared for the higher officers but the men stacked arms in the open ground all about as well as they could judge by the light of the low fires soldiers were still crossing the river to strengthen the force already on the union side colonel winchester suppressed a groan
dick noticed that his face was pallid in the uncertain shadows and he understood the agony of spirit that the brave man must suffer when he saw that they had been outflanked by their enemy sergeant whitley moving forward a little touched the colonel on the arm
all the clouds that we saw a little further back he said have gathered together an the storm is about to bust see sir how fast the johnnies are spreadin their tents an runnin to shelter it's so sergeant said colonel winchester
i was so much absorbed in watching those men that i thank you for reminding me we've seen enough anyway and we'd better get back as fast as we can
the last star was gone and the somber clouds covered the whole heavens the wind ceased to moan and the air was heavy with apprehension deep and sullen thunder began to mutter on the southwestern horizon
then came a mighty crash and a great blaze of lightning seemed to cleave the sky straight down the center the lightning and thunder made dick jump and for a few moments he was blinded by the electric glare he heard a heavy sound of something falling and exclaimed are any of you hurt
no said warner who alone heard him but we're scared half to death when a drought breaks up i wish it wouldn't break up with such a terrible fuss listen to that thunder again won't you there was another terrible crash of thunder and the whole sky blazed with lightning
despite himself dick shrank again the first bolt had struck a tree which had fallen within thirty feet of them but the second left this bit of the woods unscathed
the cessation of the lightning was succeeded by pitchy darkness and the roaring of the wind and rain was so great that they called loudly to one another lest they lose touch in the blackness dick heard warner on his right and he followed the sound of his voice but before he went much further
his foot struck a trailing vine and he fell so hard his head striking the trunk of a tree that he lay unconscious the cold rain drove so fiercely on the fallen boy's face and body that he revived in two or three minutes and stood up
he clapped his hand to the left side of his head and felt there a big bump and a sharp ache his weapons were still in his belt and he knew that his injuries were not serious but he heard nothing save the drive and roar of the wind and rain there was no calling of voices and no beat of footsteps
he divined at once that his comrades wholly unaware of his fall when no one could either see or hear it had gone on without missing him they might also mount their horses and gallop away wholly ignorant that he was not among them
in which they had hitched their horses all were gone including his own mount and he had no doubt that the horse had broken or slipped the bridle in the darkness and followed the others he stood a while behind the trunk of a great tree trying to shelter himself a little from the rain and listened
but he could hear neither his friends leaving nor any foes approaching the storm was of uncommon fury he had never seen one fiercer and knowing that he had little to dread from the southerners while it raged he knew also that he must make his way on foot and as best he could
to his own people making a calculation of the direction and remembering that one might wander in a curve in the darkness he set off down the stream he meant to keep close to the banks of the rappahannock and if he persisted he would surely come in time to pope's army the rain did not abate
both armies were flooded that night but they could find some measure of protection to the scouts and skirmishers and to dick wandering through the forest nature was an unmitigated foe but nothing could stop the boy
he was resolved to get back to the army with the news that a heavy southern force was across the rappahannock others might get there first with the fact but one never knew a hundred might fall by the wayside leaving it to him alone to bear the message he stumbled on
he was able to keep his cartridges dry in his pouch but that was all his wet cold clothes flapped around him and he shivered to the bone he could see only the loom of the black forest before him and sometimes he slipped to the waist in swollen brooks
then the wind shifted and drove the sheets of rain sprinkled with hail directly in his face he was compelled to stop a while and take refuge behind a big oak while he shivered in the shelter of the tree the only things that he thought of spontaneously were dry clothes hot food a fire and a warm bed
the union and its fate gigantic as they were slipped away from his mind and it took an effort of the will to bring them back but his will made the effort and recalling his mission he struggled on again he had the river on his right and it now became an unfailing guide
it had probably been raining much earlier in the mountains along the headwaters and the flood was already pouring down the river swished high against its banks and once or twice when he caught dim glimpses of it through the trees he saw a yellow torrent bearing much brushwood upon its bosom
he had very little idea of his progress it was impossible to judge of pace under such circumstances the army might be ten miles further on or it might be only two then he found himself sliding down a muddy and slippery bank
then he shot into a creek swollen by the flood and went over his head he came up gasping struck out and reached the further shore here he found bushes more friendly than the others and pulled himself upon the bank but he had lost everything
his belt had broken in his struggles and pistols small sword and ammunition were gone he would be helpless against an enemy then he laughed at the idea surely enemies would not be in search of him at such a time and such a place
nevertheless when he saw an open space in front of him he paused at its edge he could see well enough here to notice a file of dim figures riding slowly by at first his heart leaped up with the belief that they were colonel winchester and his own people but they were going in the wrong direction
and then he was able to discern the bedraggled and faded confederate gray the horsemen were about fifty in number and most of them rode with the reins hanging loose on their horses necks they were wrapped in cloaks but cloaks and uniforms alike were sodden
a stream of water ran from every stirrup to the ground dick looked at them attentively near the head of the column but on one side rode a soldierly figure apparently that of a young man of twenty three or four
just behind came three youths and dick's heart fairly leaped when he saw the last of the three he could not mistake the figure and a turning of the head caused him to catch a faint glimpse of the face then he knew beyond all shadow of doubt it was harry
and he surmised that the other two were his comrades saint clair and langdon whom he had met when they were burying the dead dick was so sodden and cold and wretched that he was tempted to call out to them the sight of harry was like a light in the darkness
but the temptation was gone in an instant his way lay in another direction what they wished he did not wish and while they fought for the triumph of the south it was his business to endure and struggle on that he might do his own little part for the union
but despite the storm and his sufferings he drew courage from nature itself while a portion of the southern army was across it must be a minor portion and certainly the major part could not span such a flood and attack the storm and time allied were now fighting for pope
he wandered away a little into the open fields in order to find easier going but he came back presently to the forest lining the bank of the river for fear he should lose his direction the yellow torrent of the rappahannock was now his only sure guide and he stuck to it
a mile or two further and in the swish of the storm he heard hoofbeats again looking forth from the bushes he saw another line of horsemen but now they were going in the direction of pope's army dick recognized these figures shapeless as he might appear on his horse that was colonel winchester
and there were the broad shoulders of sergeant whitley and the figures of the others he rushed through the dripping forest and shouted in a tone that could be heard above the shriek of wind and rain colonel winchester recognized the voice but the light was so dim that he did not recognize him from whom it came
certainly the figure that emerged from the forest did not look human colonel cried dick it is i richard mason whom you left behind so it is said sergeant whitley keener of eye than the others
but here you look as if you were nearly dead jump up behind me dick made an effort but his strength failed and he slipped back to the ground he had not realized that he was walking on his spirit and courage and that his strength was gone so powerful had been the buffets of the wind and rain
and with a second effort dick landed astride the horse behind the rider then colonel winchester gave the word and the sodden file wound on again
it's lucky we found you it is sir and i not only look like a wreck but i feel like one but i had made up my mind to reach general pope's camp with the news of the confederates crossing and i think i'd have done it i know you would but what a night what a night
not many men can be abroad at such a time we have seen nothing but i have sir you have what did you see a mile or two back i passed a line of southern horsemen just as wet and bedraggled as ours
might they not have been our own men it would be hard to tell blue and gray apart on such a night one could make such a mistake but in this case it was not possible i saw my own cousin harry kenton riding with them i recognized them perfectly
then that settles it the confederate scouts and cavalry are abroad to night also and on our side of the river but they must be few who dare to ride in such a storm that's surely true sir but both dick and his commanding officer were mistaken
no other country with so small a population has produced in so short a time earlier in the day stuart full of enterprise and almost insensible to fatigue had crossed the rappahannock much higher up and at the head of a formidable body of his horsemen
unseen by scouts and spies was riding around the union right they galloped into warrenton where the people red hot as usual for the south crowded around them cheering and laughing and many of the women crying with joy
it was like jackson and stuart to drop from the clouds this way and to tell them although the land had been occupied by the enemy that their brave soldiers would come in time news where a northern force could not have obtained a word was poured out for the south
they told stuart that none of the northern cavalry was about
he was born at goerlitz in upper lusatia
the occupation of a shoemaker in this obscurity he remained with the character of a visionary and a man of unsettled mind until the promulgation of the rosicrucian philosophy in his part of germany
he published his first work entitled aurora or the rising of the sun embodying the ridiculous notions of paracelsus and worse confounding the confusion of that writer
the philosopher's stone might he contended be discovered by a diligent search of the old and new testaments and more especially of the apocalypse which alone contained all the secrets of alchymy
he contended that the divine grace operated by the same rules and followed the same methods that the divine providence observed in the natural world and that the minds of men were purged from their vices
he acknowledged various ranks and orders of demons he pretended to invisibility and absolute chastity he also said that if it pleased him he could abstain for years from meat and drink
and all the necessities of the body it is needless however
by the magistrates of goerlitz and commanded to leave the pen alone and stick to his wax that his family might not become chargeable to the parish he neglected this good advice and continued his studies
burning minerals and purifying metals one day and mystifying the word of god on the next he afterwards wrote three other works as sublimely ridiculous as the first
the one was entitled metallurgia and has the slight merit of being the least obscure of his compositions another was called the temporal mirror of eternity and the last
his theosophy revealed full of allegories and metaphors
boehmen died in sixteen twenty four leaving behind him a considerable number of admiring disciples many of them became during the seventeenth century
as distinguished for absurdity as their master amongst whom may be mentioned gifftheil wendenhagen john jacob zimmermann and abraham frankenberg
their heresy rendered them obnoxious to the church of rome and many of them suffered long imprisonment and torture for their faith one named kuhlmann
was burned alive at moscow in sixteen eighty four on a charge of sorcery boehmen's works were translated into english and published many years afterwards by an enthusiast named william law
mormius peter mormius a notorious alchymist and contemporary of boehmen endeavoured in sixteen thirty to introduce the rosicrucian philosophy into holland
he applied to the states general to grant him a public audience that he might explain the tenets of the sect and disclose a plan for rendering holland the happiest and richest country on the earth
by means of the philosopher's stone and the service of the elementary spirits the states general wisely resolved to have nothing to do with him he thereupon determined to shame them by printing his book
which he did at leyden the same year it was entitled the book of the most hidden secrets of nature and was divided into three parts the first treating of perpetual motion
the second of the transmutation of metals and the third of the universal medicine he also published some german works upon the rosicrucian philosophy at frankfort in sixteen seventeen
poetry and romance are deeply indebted to the rosicrucians for many a graceful creation the literature of england france and germany contains hundreds of sweet fictions
the beautiful and capricious water nymph undine around whom he has thrown more grace and loveliness and for whose imaginary woes he has excited more sympathy than ever were bestowed on a supernatural being
sir walter scott also endowed the white lady of avenel with many of the attributes of the undines or water sprites german romance and lyrical poetry teem with allusions to sylphs
gnomes undines and salamanders and the french have not been behind in substituting them in works of fiction for the more cumbrous mythology of greece and rome the sylphs more especially
have been the favourites of the bards and have become so familiar to the popular mind as to be in a manner confounded with that other race of ideal beings the fairies who can boast of an antiquity
just at the time that michael mayer was making known to the world the existence of such a body as the rosicrucians there was born in italy a man who was afterwards destined to become the most conspicuous member of the fraternity
the ingenuity of a more consummate or more successful impostor than joseph francis borri he was born in sixteen sixteen according to some authorities and in sixteen twenty seven according to others at milan
where his father the signor branda borri practised as a physician at the age of sixteen joseph was sent to finish his education at the jesuits college in rome where he distinguished himself
by his extraordinary memory he learned every thing to which he applied himself with the utmost ease in the most voluminous works no fact was too minute for his retention
and no study was so abstruse but that he could master it but any advantages he might have derived from this facility were neutralised by his ungovernable passions and his love of turmoil
and debauchery he was involved in continual difficulty
in one of his fits of studiousness he grew enamoured of alchymy and determined to devote his energies to the discovery of the philosopher's stone of unfortunate propensities he had quite sufficient
besides this to bring him to poverty his pleasures were as expensive as his studies and both were of a nature to destroy his health
at the age of thirty seven he found that he could not live by the practice of medicine and began to look about for some other employment he became in sixteen fifty three
he continued in this capacity for two years leading however
a sudden change was observed in his conduct the abandoned rake put on the outward sedateness of a philosopher the scoffing sinner proclaimed that he had forsaken his evil ways and would live thenceforth
and that he had obtained possession of the philosopher's stone like his predecessor jacob boehmen he mixed up religious questions with his philosophical jargon and took measures for declaring himself
the founder of a new sect this at rome itself and in the very palace of the pope was a hazardous proceeding and borri
just awoke to a sense of it in time to save himself from the dungeons of the castle of saint angelo
had gone before him and he found many persons ready to attach themselves to his fortunes all who were desirous of entering into the new communion took an oath of poverty
of whom god has predestined me to be the chief to those who follow me all joy shall be granted i shall soon bring my chemical studies to a happy conclusion by the discovery of the philosopher's stone
and by this means we shall all have as much gold as we desire i am assured of the aid of the angelic hosts and more especially of the archangel michael's when i began to walk in the way of the spirit
that i should become a prophet in sign of it i saw a palm tree surrounded with all the glory of paradise the angels come to me whenever i call and reveal to me all the secrets of the universe
the sylphs and elementary spirits obey me and fly to the uttermost ends of the world to serve me and those whom i delight to honour by force of continually repeating such stories as these
borri soon found himself at the head of a very considerable number of adherents
it will be unnecessary to repeat the doctrines which he taught with regard to some of the dogmas of the church of rome and which
as ridiculous as his philosophical pretensions as the number of his followers increased he appears to have cherished the idea of becoming one day a new mahomet
and of founding in his native city of milan a monarchy and religion of which he should be the king and the prophet he had taken measures in the year sixteen fifty eight
the trial of his followers commenced forthwith and the whole of them were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment borri's trial proceeded in his absence
and lasted for upwards of two years he was condemned to death as a heretic and sorcerer in sixteen sixty one and was burned in effigy in rome by the common hangman borri in the mean time
lived quietly in switzerland indulging himself in railing at the inquisition and its proceedings he afterwards went to strasbourg intending to fix his residence in that town
he was received with great cordiality as a man persecuted for his religious opinions and withal a great alchymist he found that sphere too narrow for his aspiring genius
and retired in the same year to the more wealthy city of amsterdam he there hired a magnificent house established an equipage which eclipsed in brilliancy those of the richest merchants
and assumed the title of excellency where he got the money to live in this expensive style was long a secret the adepts in alchymy easily explained it after their fashion sensible people
he performed several able cures and increased his reputation so much that he was vaunted as a prodigy he continued diligently the operations of alchymy and was in daily expectation
that he should succeed in turning the inferior metals into gold this hope never abandoned him even in the worst extremity of his fortunes and in his prosperity it led him
into the most foolish expenses but he could not long continue to live so magnificently upon the funds he had brought from italy and the philosopher's stone
though it promised all for the wants of the morrow never brought any thing for the necessities of to day he was obliged in a few months to retrench by giving up his large house
his gilded coach and valuable blood horses his liveried domestics and his luxurious entertainments with this diminution of splendour came a diminution of renown
had driven to a poor man's door in his carriage with six horses he sank from a prodigy into an ordinary man his great friends shewed him the cold shoulder and his humble flatterers
from a merchant named de meer to aid as he said in discovering the water of life he also obtained six diamonds of great value on pretence that he could remove the flaws from them
without diminishing their weight with this booty he stole away secretly by night and proceeded to hamburgh on his arrival in that city he found the celebrated christina
the ex queen of sweden he procured an introduction to her and requested her patronage in his endeavour to discover the philosopher's stone she gave him some encouragement but borri fearing that the merchants of amsterdam
who had connexions in hamburgh might expose his delinquencies if he remained in the latter city passed over to copenhagen
and took a great interest in the progress of his operations
he became in time much attached to him and defended him from the jealous attacks of his courtiers and the indignation of those who were grieved to see their monarch the easy dupe of a charlatan borri endeavoured
by every means in his power to find aliment for this good opinion his knowledge of medicine was useful to him in this respect and often stood between him
and had nothing to hope from the succeeding sovereign he sought an asylum in another country he went first to saxony but met so little encouragement and encountered so much danger from the emissaries of the inquisition
that he did not remain there many months anticipating nothing but persecution in every country that acknowledged the spiritual authority of the pope
mussulman on his arrival at the hungarian frontier on his way to constantinople he was arrested on suspicion of being concerned
and a letter despatched to the emperor leopold to know what should be done with him the star of his fortunes was on the decline the letter reached leopold
to the prison of the inquisition at rome he was too much of an impostor to be deeply tinged with fanaticism and was not unwilling to make a public recantation of his heresies
if he could thereby save his life when the proposition was made to him he accepted it with eagerness
into the hardly less severe one of perpetual imprisonment but he was too happy to escape the clutch of the executioner at any price and he made the amende honorable
all performed within a recent period zwelfer and glauber also entered into the dispute and attributed the enmity of father kircher to spite and jealousy against adepts who had been more successful than himself
it was also pretended that gustavus adolphus transmuted a quantity of quicksilver into pure gold the learned borrichius relates that he saw coins which had been struck of this gold and lenglet
a monk of the order of saint francis attracted so much notice
van helmont also pretended to have once performed with success the process of transmuting quicksilver and
glauber the inventor of the salts which still bear his name and who practised as a physician at amsterdam about the middle of the seventeenth century established a public school in that city for the study of alchymy
and the aid of that grand and incomprehensible substance the philosopher's stone he made a proposition to the emperor leopold of austria to aid him in these experiments
much of his praise but none of his money becher afterwards tried the states general of holland with no better success with regard to the innumerable tricks by which impostors persuaded the world
at the sitting of the royal academy of sciences at paris on the fifteenth of april seventeen twenty two as it relates principally to the alchymic cheats of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the following abridgment of it
may not be out of place in this portion of our history the instances of successful transmutation were so numerous and apparently so well authenticated that nothing short of so able an exposure
painted to resemble the same metal between the two they placed as much gold or silver dust as was necessary for their purpose they then put in their lead quicksilver or other ingredients and placed their pot upon the fire
the same result was produced in many other ways some of them used a hollow wand filled with gold or silver dust and stopped at the ends with wax or butter
to divert attention from the real purpose of the manoeuvre they also drilled holes in lumps of lead
with the aid of a little aquafortis others imposed by means of nails half iron and half gold or silver they pretended that they really transmuted the precious half from iron by dipping it in a strong alcohol
and shewed how nicely the two parts
by a monk to queen elizabeth of england the blade of which was half gold and half steel nothing at one time was more common than to see coins half gold and half silver
which had been operated upon by alchymists for the same purposes of trickery
there is every reason to believe that all the famous histories
are founded upon some successful deception of the kind above narrated these pretended philosophers invariably disappeared after the first or second experiment
or because they have not had sufficient gold dust for more than one trial the disinterestedness of these would be philosophers looked at first sight extremely imposing
he became acquainted with a woman named aluys and so sudden a passion was enkindled betwixt them that she consented to leave all follow him and share his good or evil fortune
wherever he went they lived together for five or six years in provence without exciting any attention apparently possessed of a decent independence at last in seventeen o six it was given out
that he was the possessor of the philosopher's stone and people from far and near came flocking to his residence at the chateau de la palu at sylanez near barjaumont
the prior of chateauneuf in the diocese of riez in provence to the vicar of
at paris and dated the eighteenth of november seventeen o six i have something to relate to you my dear cousin which will be interesting to you and your friends the philosopher's stone
which so many persons have looked upon as a chimera is at last found
of the parish of sylanez and residing within a quarter of a league of me that has discovered this great secret he turns lead into gold and iron into silver by merely heating these metals red hot and pouring upon them in that state
some oil and powder he is possessed of so that it would not be impossible for any man to make a million a day if he had sufficient of this wondrous mixture some of the pale gold which he had made in this manner
all the jewellers say they never saw such fine gold in their lives he makes nails part gold part iron and part silver he promised to give me one of them in a long conversation which i had with him the other day
who has wasted fifty years of his life in this great study
this excellent workman received a short time ago a very kind letter from the superintendent of the royal household which i read he offered to use all his influence with the ministers
is gold or silver reduced to that state he leaves it for a long time exposed to the rays of the sun he told me that it generally took him six months to make all his preparations
i told him that apparently the king wanted to see him he replied that he could not exercise his art in every place as a certain climate and temperature were absolutely necessary to his success
the truth is that this man appears to have no ambition he only keeps two horses and two men servants besides he loves his liberty has no politeness
that it seems more like idolatry than any thing else happy would france be if this man would discover his secret to the king to whom the superintendent has already sent some lingots but the happiness is too great to be hoped for
for i fear that the workman and his secret will expire together there is no doubt that this discovery will make a great noise in the kingdom unless the character of the man which i have just depicted to you
prevent it at all events posterity will hear of him in another letter to the same person dated
my dear cousin i spoke to you in my last letter
which i made myself that great and admirable workman also bestowed a still greater privilege upon me he allowed me turn a piece of lead which i had brought with me into pure gold
by means of his wonderful oil and powder all the country have their eyes upon this gentleman some deny loudly others are incredulous but those who have seen acknowledge the truth
i have read the passport that has been sent to him from court with orders that he should present himself at paris early in the spring he told me that he would go willingly and that it was
being seated at his side i told him in a whisper that he could if he liked humble all the enemies of france he did not deny it but began to smile in fact this man is the miracle of art
for five years this man was looked upon
who have remained single till middle age no man being willing to take them without a dowry
the richest girls in the province before he goes to court having been sent for by the king he has asked for a little time before his departure in order that he may collect powder enough to make several quintals of gold
before the eyes of his majesty to whom he intends to present them the principal matter of his wonderful powder is composed of simples principally the herbs lunaria major and minor
there is a good deal of the first planted by him in the gardens of la palu and he gets the other from the mountains that stretch about two leagues from montier what i tell you now is not a mere story invented for your diversion
for the independent journal wednesday november seventh seventeen eighty seven jay to the people of the state of new york
my last paper assigned several reasons why the safety of the people would be best secured by union against the danger it may be exposed to by just causes of war given to other nations
and those reasons show that such causes would not only be more rarely given but would also be more easily accommodated by a national government than either by the state governments or the proposed little confederacies
but the safety of the people of america against dangers from foreign force depends not only on their forbearing to give just causes of war to other nations but also on their placing and continuing themselves
in such a situation as not to invite hostility or insult for it need not be observed that there are pretended as well as just causes of war it is too true however disgraceful it may be to human nature
such as thirst for military glory revenge for personal affronts ambition or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans these and a variety of other motives which affect only the mind of the sovereign
often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people but independent of these inducements to war which are more prevalent in absolute monarchies but which well deserve our attention
and can supply their markets cheaper than they can themselves notwithstanding any efforts to prevent it by bounties on their own or duties on foreign fish
with them and with most other european nations we are rivals in navigation and the carrying trade and we shall deceive ourselves if we suppose that any of them will rejoice to see it flourish
for as our carrying trade cannot increase without in some degree diminishing theirs it is more their interest and will be more their policy to restrain than to promote it
in the trade to china and india we interfere with more than one nation inasmuch as it enables us to partake in advantages which they had in a manner monopolized and as we thereby supply ourselves with commodities
which we used to purchase from them the extension of our own commerce in our own vessels cannot give pleasure to any nations who possess territories on or near this continent
because the cheapness and excellence of our productions added to the circumstance of vicinity and the enterprise and address of our merchants and navigators will give us a greater share in the advantages which those territories afford
than consists with the wishes or policy of their respective sovereigns spain thinks it convenient to shut the mississippi against us on the one side and britain excludes us from the saint lawrence on the other
it is easy to see that jealousies and uneasinesses may gradually slide into the minds and cabinets of other nations and that we are not to expect that they should regard our advancement in union in power and consequence by land and by sea
and that whenever such inducements may find fit time and opportunity for operation pretenses to color and justify them will not be wanting wisely therefore do they consider union and a good national government
the arms and the resources of the country as the safety of the whole is the interest of the whole and cannot be provided for without government either one or more or many let us inquire whether one good government is not
relative to the object in question more competent than any other given number whatever
in whatever part of the union they may be found
than state governments or separate confederacies can possibly do for want of concert and unity of system it can place the militia under one plan of discipline and by putting their officers in a proper line of subordination to the chief magistrate
will as it were consolidate them into one corps and thereby render them more efficient than if divided into thirteen or into three or four distinct independent companies
what would the militia of britain be if the english militia obeyed the government of england if the scotch militia obeyed the government of scotland and if the welsh militia obeyed the government of wales suppose an invasion
would those three governments if they agreed at all be able with all their respective forces to operate against the enemy so effectually as the single government of great britain would we have heard much of the fleets of britain
and the time may come if we are wise when the fleets of america may engage attention but if one national government had not so regulated the navigation of britain as to make it a nursery for seamen
if one national government had not called forth all the national means and materials for forming fleets their prowess and their thunder would never have been celebrated let england have its navigation and fleet
let scotland have its navigation and fleet let wales have its navigation and fleet let ireland have its navigation and fleet
what fleets could they ever hope to have if one was attacked would the others fly to its succor and spend their blood and money in its defense would there be no danger of their being flattered into neutrality by its specious promises
or seduced by a too great fondness for peace to decline hazarding their tranquillity and present safety for the sake of neighbors of whom perhaps they have been jealous and whose importance they are content to see diminished
although such conduct would not be wise it would nevertheless be natural the history of the states of greece and of other countries abounds with such instances and it is not improbable that what has so often happened would
who shall command the allied armies and from which of them shall he receive his orders who shall settle the terms of peace and in case of disputes what umpire shall decide between them and compel acquiescence
various difficulties and inconveniences would be inseparable from such a situation whereas one government watching over the general and common interests and combining and directing the powers and resources of the whole
would be free from all these embarrassments and conduce far more to the safety of the people but whatever may be our situation whether firmly united under one national government or split into a number of confederacies
certain it is that foreign nations will know and view it exactly as it is and they will act toward us accordingly if they see that our national government is efficient and well administered
our trade prudently regulated our militia properly organized and disciplined our resources and finances discreetly managed our credit re established our people free contented and united
or split into three or four independent and probably discordant republics or confederacies one inclining to britain another to france and a third to spain and perhaps played off against each other by the three
what a poor pitiful figure will america make in their eyes how liable would she become not only to their contempt but to their outrage and how soon would dear bought experience proclaim
that when a people or family so divide it never fails to be against themselves
to the people of the state of new york after an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal government you are called upon to deliberate on a new constitution for the united states of america
the subject speaks its own importance comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the union the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world
it has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country by their conduct and example to decide the important question whether societies of men are really capable or not
of establishing good government from reflection and choice or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force if there be any truth in the remark
the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made and a wrong election of the part we shall act may in this view
but this is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected the plan offered to our deliberations affects too many particular interests innovates upon too many local institutions
not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign to its merits and of views passions and prejudices little favorable to the discovery of truth
among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every state to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution
of the power emolument and consequence of the offices they hold under the state establishments and the perverted ambition of another class of men who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country
i am well aware that it would be disingenuous to resolve indiscriminately the opposition of any set of men merely because their situations might subject them to suspicion into interested or ambitious views candor will oblige us to admit
that even such men may be actuated by upright intentions and it cannot be doubted that much of the opposition which has made its appearance or may hereafter make its appearance will spring from sources blameless at least if not respectable
the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears so numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the judgment that we upon many occasions
see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society this circumstance if duly attended to would furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded
are influenced by purer principles than their antagonists ambition avarice personal animosity party opposition and many other motives not more laudable than these
are apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a question were there not even these inducements to moderation nothing could be more ill judged than that intolerant spirit which has at all times
characterized political parties for in politics as in religion it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution and yet
however just these sentiments will be allowed to be we have already sufficient indications that it will happen in this as in all former cases of great national discussion a torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose
to judge from the conduct of the opposite parties we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives
which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart will be represented as mere pretense and artifice the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good it will be forgotten on the one hand that jealousy is the usual concomitant of love
and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust on the other hand it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty
that in the contemplation of a sound and well informed judgment their interest can never be separated and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people
than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government history will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter
and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people commencing demagogues and ending tyrants
in the course of the preceding observations i have had an eye my fellow citizens to putting you upon your guard against all attempts from whatever quarter to influence your decision in a matter of the utmost moment to your welfare
by any impressions other than those which may result from the evidence of truth you will no doubt at the same time have collected from the general scope of them that they proceed from a source not unfriendly to the new constitution
yes my countrymen i own to you that after having given it an attentive consideration i am clearly of opinion it is your interest to adopt it i am convinced that this is the safest course for your liberty your dignity
and your happiness i affect not reserves which i do not feel i will not amuse you with an appearance of deliberation when i have decided i frankly acknowledge to you my convictions
and i will freely lay before you the reasons on which they are founded the consciousness of good intentions disdains ambiguity i shall not however multiply professions on this head my motives must remain in the depository of my own breast
its analogy to your own state constitution and lastly the additional security which its adoption will afford to the preservation of that species of government to liberty and to property
in the progress of this discussion i shall endeavor to give a satisfactory answer to all the objections which shall have made their appearance that may seem to have any claim to your attention
it may perhaps be thought superfluous to offer arguments to prove the utility of the union a point no doubt deeply engraved on the hearts of the great body of the people in every state and one which it may be imagined
resort to separate confederacies of distinct portions of the whole
in all probability be gradually propagated till it has votaries enough to countenance an open avowal of it for nothing can be more evident to those who are able to take an enlarged view of the subject
than the alternative of an adoption of the new constitution or a dismemberment of the union it will therefore be of use to begin by examining the advantages of that union
the certain evils and the probable dangers to which every state will be exposed from its dissolution this shall accordingly constitute the subject of my next address
for the independent journal wednesday october thirty first seventeen eighty seven jay to the people of the state of new york
which in its consequences must prove one of the most important that ever engaged their attention the propriety of their taking a very comprehensive as well as a very serious view of it will be evident
nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government and it is equally undeniable that whenever and however it is instituted the people must cede to it
be one nation under one federal government or that they should divide themselves into separate confederacies and give to the head of each the same kind of powers which they are advised to place in one national government
it has until lately been a received and uncontradicted opinion that the prosperity of the people of america depended on their continuing firmly united and the wishes prayers and efforts of our best and wisest citizens
we ought to seek it in a division of the states into distinct confederacies or sovereignties however extraordinary this new doctrine may appear it nevertheless has its advocates and certain characters who were much opposed to it formerly
are at present of the number whatever may be the arguments or inducements which have wrought this change in the sentiments and declarations of these gentlemen it certainly would not be wise in the people at large to adopt these new political tenets
providence has in a particular manner blessed it with a variety of soils and productions and watered it with innumerable streams for the delight and accommodation of its inhabitants
and the mutual transportation and exchange of their various commodities with equal pleasure i have as often taken notice that providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people
a people descended from the same ancestors speaking the same language professing the same religion attached to the same principles of government very similar in their manners and customs and who
seem to have been made for each other and it appears as if it was the design of providence that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren united to each other by the strongest ties should never be split into a number of unsocial
jealous and alien sovereignties similar sentiments have hitherto prevailed among all orders and denominations of men among us to all general purposes we have uniformly been one people each individual citizen everywhere
enjoying the same national rights privileges and protection as a nation we have made peace and war as a nation we have vanquished our common enemies as a nation we have formed alliances
to institute a federal government to preserve and perpetuate it they formed it almost as soon as they had a political existence nay at a time when their habitations were in flames when many of their citizens were bleeding
and when the progress of hostility and desolation left little room for those calm and mature inquiries and reflections which must ever precede the formation of a wise and well balanced government for a free people
it is not to be wondered at that a government instituted in times so inauspicious should on experiment be found greatly deficient and inadequate to the purpose it was intended to answer
this intelligent people perceived and regretted these defects still continuing no less attached to union than enamored of liberty they observed the danger which immediately threatened the former and more remotely the latter
and being persuaded that ample security for both could only be found in a national government more wisely framed they as with one voice convened the late convention at philadelphia to take that important subject under consideration
this convention composed of men who possessed the confidence of the people and many of whom had become highly distinguished by their patriotism virtue and wisdom in times which tried the minds and hearts of men
undertook the arduous task in the mild season of peace with minds unoccupied by other subjects they passed many months in cool uninterrupted and daily consultation and finally
without having been awed by power or influenced by any passions except love for their country they presented and recommended to the people the plan produced by their joint and very unanimous councils admit
for so is the fact that this plan is only recommended not imposed yet let it be remembered that it is neither recommended to blind approbation nor to blind reprobation but to that sedate and candid consideration
which the magnitude and importance of the subject demand and which it certainly ought to receive but this as was remarked in the foregoing number of this paper is more to be wished than expected that it may be so considered and examined
experience on a former occasion teaches us not to be too sanguine in such hopes it is not yet forgotten that well grounded apprehensions of imminent danger induced the people of america to form the memorable congress of seventeen seventy four
that body recommended certain measures to their constituents and the event proved their wisdom yet it is fresh in our memories how soon the press began to teem with pamphlets and weekly papers against those very measures
not only many of the officers of government who obeyed the dictates of personal interest but others from a mistaken estimate of consequences or the undue influence of former attachments
or whose ambition aimed at objects which did not correspond with the public good were indefatigable in their efforts to persuade the people to reject the advice of that patriotic congress many indeed were deceived and deluded
but the great majority of the people reasoned and decided judiciously and happy they are in reflecting that they did so they considered that the congress was composed of many wise and experienced men that
and therefore that it was not less their inclination than their duty to recommend only such measures as after the most mature deliberation they really thought prudent and advisable
these and similar considerations then induced the people to rely greatly on the judgment and integrity of the congress and they took their advice notwithstanding the various arts and endeavors used to deter them from it
but if the people at large had reason to confide in the men of that congress few of whom had been fully tried or generally known still greater reason have they now to respect the judgment and advice of the convention
for it is well known that some of the most distinguished members of that congress who have been since tried and justly approved for patriotism and abilities and who have grown old in acquiring political information
were also members of this convention and carried into it their accumulated knowledge and experience it is worthy of remark that not only the first but every succeeding congress as well as the late convention
have invariably joined with the people in thinking that the prosperity of america depended on its union to preserve and perpetuate it was the great object of the people in forming that convention
or why is it suggested that three or four confederacies would be better than one i am persuaded in my own mind that the people have always thought right on this subject and that their universal and uniform attachment to the cause of the union
would put the continuance of the union in the utmost jeopardy that certainly would be the case and i sincerely wish that it may be as clearly foreseen by every good citizen that whenever the dissolution of the union arrives
america will have reason to exclaim in the words of the poet farewell a long farewell to all my greatness
supper time came and with it the hot baked from the oven laid on a snowy cloth fresh from the press and reticulated with folds as in flemish last suppers
i s'pose the time when you learned all these knowing things mister creedle was when you was in the militia well yes i seed the world at that time somewhat certainly and many ways of strange dashing life
not but that giles has worked hard in helping me to bring things to such perfection to day giles says i
not that i should call'n maister by rights for his father growed up side by side with me as if one mother had twinned us and been our nourishing i s'pose your memory can reach a long way back into history mister creedle
seem to me as yesterday ah many's the patriarch i've seed come and go in this parish there he's calling for more plates lord why can't em turn their plates bottom upward for pudding as they used to do in former days
a splash followed grace gave a quick involuntary nod and blink and put her handkerchief to her face good heavens what did you do that for creedle said giles sternly and jumping up
tis how i do it when they baint here maister
well yes but replied giles he went over to grace and hoped none of it had gone into her eye oh no she said only a sprinkle on my face it was nothing
kiss it and make it well gallantly observed mister bawtree miss melbury blushed the timber merchant said quickly oh it is nothing she must bear these little mishaps
for an interminable game in which a lump of chalk was incessantly used a game those two always played wherever they were taking a solitary candle and going to a private table in a corner
the rest of the company on this account were obliged to put up with old packs for their round game
each card had a great stain in the middle of its back produced by the touch of generations of damp and excited thumbs now fleshless in the grave and the kings and queens wore a decayed expression of feature
as if they were rather an impecunious dethroned race of monarchs hiding in obscure slums
accompanied by rapping strokes with the chalk on the table then an exclamation
a dealing of the cards then the commencement of the rhymes anew the timber merchant showed his feelings by talking with a satisfied sense of weight in his words and by praising the party in a patronizing tone when winterborne expressed his fear
after supper there was a dance the bandsmen from great hintock having arrived some time before grace had been away from home so long that she had forgotten the old figures and hence did not join in the movement
in the music room of a large house most of whom were now moving in scenes widely removed from this both as regarded place and character a woman she did not know came and offered to tell her fortune with the abandoned cards
and the woman told her tale unskilfully for want of practice as she declared mister melbury was standing by and exclaimed contemptuously tell her fortune indeed her fortune has been told by men of science
melbury and his family being the earliest to leave the two card players still pursuing their game doggedly in the corner
with chalk scratches the three walked home the distance being short and the night clear well giles is a very good fellow said mister melbury
certainly he is said grace quickly
as to show that he stood no lower if no higher in her regard than he had stood before when they were opposite an opening through which by day the doctor's house could be seen they observed a light in one of his rooms
he could at least afford to go to bed early at night tis astonishing how little we see of him melbury's mind seemed to turn with much relief to the contemplation of mister fitzpiers after the scenes of the evening
his daughter being a few steps in advance it is hardly the line of life for a girl like grace after what she's been accustomed to i didn't foresee that in sending her to boarding school and letting her travel and what not to make her a good bargain for giles
ah tis a thousand pities but he ought to have her he ought at this moment the two exclusive chalk mark men having at last really finished their play could be heard coming along in the rear
meanwhile in the empty house from which the guests had just cleared out the subject of their discourse was walking from room to room surveying the general displacement of furniture with no ecstatic feeling rather the reverse indeed
with red hot bowlders lying about everywhere do you think it went off well creedle he asked the victuals did that i know and the drink did that i steadfastly believe from the holler sound of the barrels good honest drink
and the best wine that berries could rise to and the briskest horner and cleeves cider ever wrung down leaving out the spice and sperrits i put into it
so little curdled twere twas good enough to make any king's heart merry ay to make his whole carcass smile still i don't deny i'm afeared some things didn't go well with he and his
i'm afraid too that it was a failure there if so twere doomed to be so not but what that snail might as well have come upon anybody else's plate as hers what snail
how the deuce did a snail get there
but there my gentleman was but robert of all places that was where he shouldn't have been well twas his native home come to that and where else could we expect him to be i don't care who the man is
oh no he was well boiled i warrant him well boiled
but lord there i don't mind em myself them small ones
but she the close mouthed little lady she didn't say a word about it
murmured giles to himself shaking his head over the glooming plain of embers
more than ever do you know robert he said that she's been accustomed to servants and everything superfine these many years how then could she stand our ways well
all i can say is then that she ought to hob and nob elsewhere
many years ago as evening was closing in
the bolt of a massive door creaked and they entered a mephitic in pace where the dim light revealed between rings fastened to the wall a bloodstained rack a brazier and a jug on a pile of straw
sat a haggard man of uncertain age clothed in rags this prisoner was no other than rabbi aser abarbanel a jew of arragon who accused of usury and pitiless scorn for the poor
had been daily subjected to torture for more than a year yet his blindness was as dense as his hide and he had refused to abjure his faith proud of a filiation dating back thousands of years
he descended talmudically from othoniel and consequently from ipsiboa the wife of the last judge of israel a circumstance which had sustained his courage amid incessant torture
with tears in his eyes at the thought of this resolute soul rejecting salvation the venerable
approaching the shuddering rabbi addressed him as follows my son rejoice your trials here below are about to end if in the presence of such obstinacy i was forced to permit with deep regret
but god alone can judge your soul perhaps infinite mercy will shine upon you at the last moment we must hope so there are examples so sleep in peace to night
tomorrow you will be included in the auto da fe that is you will be exposed to the
the symbolical flames of the everlasting fire it burns as you know only at a distance my son and death is at least two hours often three in coming on account of the wet iced bandages
there will be forty three of you placed in the last row you will have time to invoke god and offer to him this baptism of fire which is of the holy spirit hope in the light and rest
the prior tenderly embraced him then came the turn of the fra redemptor who in a low tone entreated the jew's forgiveness for what he had made him suffer for the purpose of redeeming him
the light of the lanterns through a chink between the door and the wall a morbid idea of hope due to the weakness of his brain stirred his whole being he dragged himself toward the strange appearance then
very gently and cautiously slipping one finger into the crevice he drew the door toward him marvelous by an extraordinary accident the familiar who closed it had turned the huge key an instant before it struck the stone casing
so that the rusty bolt not having entered the hole the door again rolled on its hinges the rabbi ventured to glance outside by the aid of a sort of luminous dusk
he distinguished at first a semicircle of walls indented by winding stairs and opposite to him at the top of five or six stone steps a sort of black portal opening into an immense corridor
only on one side the left heavily grated loopholes sunk in the walls admitted a light which must be that of evening for crimson bars at intervals rested on the flags of the pavement
suddenly the sound of a sandaled foot approaching reached his ears he trembled violently fear stifled him his sight grew dim well
a frightful figure and vanished the suspense which the rabbi had endured seemed to have suspended the functions of life and he lay nearly an hour unable to move fearing an increase of tortures if he were captured
he could doubt no longer he began to crawl toward the chance of escape exhausted by suffering and hunger trembling with pain he pressed onward
at this spectacle rabbi aser abarbanel closed his eyes his heart beat so violently that it almost suffocated him his rags were damp with the cold sweat of agony
scorch his flesh he was to be once more a living wound fainting breathless with fluttering eyelids he shivered at the touch of the monk's floating robe but strange yet natural fact
against which his face was pressed he imagined he beheld two fierce eyes watching him he flung his head back in a sudden frenzy of fright his hair fairly bristling yet no no
absurdly no doubt to be deliverance toward the darkness from which he was now barely thirty paces distant he pressed forward faster on his knees his hands at full length dragging himself painfully along
every nerve in the miserable fugitive's body thrilled with hope he examined it from top to bottom though scarcely able to distinguish its outlines in the surrounding darkness he passed his hand over it no bolt
no lock a latch he started up the latch yielded to the pressure of his thumb the door silently swung open before him
murmured the rabbi in a transport of gratitude as standing on the threshold he beheld the scene before him the door had opened into the gardens above which arched a starlit sky into spring
he would journey all night through the lemon groves whose fragrance reached him once in the mountains and he was safe he inhaled the delicious air the breeze revived him his lungs expanded he felt in his swelling heart
the veni foras of lazarus and to thank once more the god who had bestowed this mercy upon him he extended his arms raising his eyes toward heaven it was an ecstasy of joy
a tall figure actually did stand directly before him he lowered his eyes and remained motionless gasping for breath dazed with fixed eyes fairly driveling with terror
horror he was in the clasp of the grand inquisitor himself
gasped in agony in the ascetic's embrace vaguely comprehending that all the phases of this fatal evening were only a prearranged torture that of hope the grand inquisitor
hopes had been dashed and wild expectations had come to naught
but a dull exile in a petty fort by a hot and sickly river with hard labor bad fare prospective famine and nothing to break the weary sameness but some passing canoe or floating alligator gathered in knots
and why is he always closeted with ottigny arlac and this and that favorite when we men of blood as good as theirs cannot gain his ear for a moment the young nobles of whom there were many
were volunteers who had paid their own expenses in expectation of a golden harvest and they chafed in impatience and disgust the religious element in the colony unlike the former huguenot emigration to brazil was evidently subordinate
the adventurers thought more of their fortunes than of their faith yet there were not a few earnest enough in the doctrine of geneva to complain loudly and bitterly that no ministers had been sent with them
was brought to a partial head by one la roquette who gave out that high up the river he had discovered by magic a mine of gold and silver which would give each of them a share of ten thousand crowns
besides fifteen hundred thousand for the king but for laudonniere he said their fortunes would all be made he found an ally in a gentleman named genre
that i would deprive them of this great game in that i did set them dayly on worke not sending them on every side to discover the countreys therefore that it were a good deede to dispatch mee out of the way
and to choose another captaine in my place the soldiers listened too well they made a flag of an old shirt which they carried with them to the rampart when they went to their work at the same time wearing their arms
they took a small spanish vessel off the coast of cuba but were soon compelled by famine to put into havana and give themselves up here to make their peace with the authorities
they told all they knew of the position and purposes of their countrymen at fort caroline and thus was forged the thunderbolt soon to be hurled against the wretched little colony on a sunday morning
he complied and issuing forth his inseparable ottigny at his side he saw some thirty of his officers soldiers and gentlemen volunteers waiting before the building with fixed and sombre countenances la caille advancing
that the petitioners should be allowed to embark in the vessel lying in the river and cruise along the spanish main in order to procure provisions by purchase or otherwise in short the flower of the company wished to turn buccaneers
laudonniere refused but assured them that as soon as the defences of the fort should be completed a search should be begun in earnest for the appalachian gold mine and that meanwhile two small vessels then building on the river should be sent along the coast
to barter for provisions with the indians with this answer they were forced to content themselves
and the brave swiss arlac was the only officer who held to his duty a severe illness again seized laudonniere and confined him to his bed
improving their advantage the malcontents gained over nearly all the best soldiers in the fort the ringleader was one fourneaux a man of good birth but whom le moyne calls an avaricious hypocrite he drew up a paper
put him in fetters carried him out to the gate of the fort placed him in a boat and rowed him to the ship anchored in the river two other gangs at the same time
whom they disarmed and ordered to keep their rooms till the night following on pain of death smaller parties were busied meanwhile
on which the carpenters had been for some time at work
ottigny and arlac who conveyed him to the fort and reinstated him the entire command was reorganized and new officers appointed the colony was wofully depleted but the bad blood had been drawn off and thenceforth
all internal danger was at an end in finishing the fort in building two new vessels to replace those of which they had been robbed and in various intercourse with the tribes far and near
they plundered and caroused for a week and had hardly re embarked when they met a small vessel having on board the governor of the island
but was taken at last and with her a rich booty they thought to put the governor to ransom
contrived to send instructions to his wife hence it happened that at daybreak three armed vessels fell upon them retook the prize and captured or killed all the pirates but twenty six who cutting the moorings of their brigantine fled out to sea
and nobles and soldiers fraternizing in the common peril of a halter joined in a last carouse as the wine mounted to their heads in the mirth of drink and desperation they enacted their own trial one personated the judge
another the commandant witnesses were called with arguments and speeches on either side
but if laudonniere does not hang us all i will never call him an honest man they had some hope of getting provisions from the indians at the month of the river and then putting to sea again but this was frustrated by la caille's sudden attack
a file of men a rattling volley and the debt of justice was paid
caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and temple but should leave as many of the towers standing as were of the greatest eminency that is phasaelus and hippicus
and so much of the wall as enclosed the city on the west side this wall was spared in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison as were the towers also spared in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was and how well fortified
which the roman valor had subdued
with certain troops of horsemen and companies of footmen so having entirely completed this war he was desirous to commend his whole army on account of the great exploits they had performed and to bestow proper rewards on such as had signalized themselves therein
that he returned them abundance of thanks for their good will which they had showed to him he commended them for that ready obedience they had exhibited in this whole war which obedience had appeared in the many and great dangers which they had courageously undergone
nor the rash boldness and brutish rage of their antagonists were sufficient at any time to get clear of the roman valor although some of them may have fortune in many respects on their side he said further
that it was but reasonable for them to put an end to this war now it had lasted so long for that they had nothing better to wish for when they entered into it and that this happened more favorably for them and more for their glory
that accordingly although he did both admire and tenderly regard them all
as their abilities and opportunities would give them leave
and had signalized their conduct in the most glorious manner and had made his army more famous by their noble exploits and that no one who had been willing to take more pains than another
for that he had been exceeding careful about this matter and that the more because he had much rather reward the virtues of his fellow soldiers than punish such as had offended three
hereupon titus ordered those whose business it was to read the list of all that had performed great exploits in this war whom he called to him by their names and commended them before the company and rejoiced in them in the same manner
as a man would have rejoiced in his own exploits he also put on their heads crowns of gold and golden ornaments about their necks
and ensigns that were made of silver and removed every one of them to a higher rank and besides this he plentifully distributed among them out of the spoils and the other prey they had taken
according to his own appointment made to every one and he had wished all sorts of happiness to the whole army he came down among the great acclamations which were made to him and then betook himself to offer thank offerings to the gods
and at once sacrificed a vast number of oxen
he sent away the rest of his army to the several places where they would be every one best situated but permitted the tenth legion to stay as a guard at jerusalem and did not send them away beyond euphrates where they had been before
and as he remembered that the twelfth legion had given way to the jews under cestius their general he expelled them out of all syria for they had lain formerly at raphanea and sent them away to a place called meletine
and gave order that the captives should be kept there for the winter season hindered him then from sailing into italy chapter two
and reserved for the triumph one now at the same time that titus caesar lay at the siege of jerusalem did vespasian go on board a merchantship and sailed from alexandria to rhodes
but as for titus he marched from that cesarea which lay by the sea side
and here a great number of the captives were destroyed some being thrown to wild beasts and others in multitudes forced to kill one another as if they were their enemies
which was made after the manner following this simon during the siege of jerusalem was in the upper city but when the roman army was gotten within the walls and were laying the city waste he then took the most faithful of his friends with him
and as great a quantity of provisions as would suffice them for a long time and let himself and all them down into a certain subterraneous cavern that was not visible above ground now so far as had been digged of old
and this in hopes that they should be able to proceed so far as to rise from under ground in a safe place and by that means escape but when they came to make the experiment they were disappointed of their hope for the miners could make but small progress
now simon would not tell them but bid them call for their captain and when they ran to call him
and learned of him the whole truth and kept him in bonds and let caesar know that he was taken
as if they were falling away to the romans and had barbarously slain them for wicked actions do not escape the divine anger nor is justice too weak to punish offenders but in time overtakes those that transgress its laws and inflicts its punishments
upon the wicked in a manner so much more severe as they expected to escape it on account of their not being punished immediately
simon was made sensible of this
at that time who had hidden themselves under ground
chapter nine billy the kid is sentenced to hang he kills his two guards and makes good his escape
he was acquitted for the murder of roberts in the same term of court the kid was put on trial for the murder of sheriff wm brady in april eighteen seventy eight
this time he was convicted and sentenced to hang on the thirteenth day of may eighteen eighty one in the court house yard in lincoln
bob ollinger and j w bell were selected to guard billy the kid until the time came for shutting off his wind with a rope
the room selected for the kid's home was large and in the northeast corner of the building upstairs there were two windows in it one on the east side and the other on the north fronting the main street
in order to get out of this room one had to pass through a hall into another room where a back stairs led down to the rear yard in a room in the southwest corner of the building
the surplus firearms were kept in a closet or armory one room was assigned as the sheriff's private office the kid's furniture consisted of a pair of steel hand cuffs
steel shackles for his legs a stool and a cot bob ollinger the chief guard was a large powerful middle aged man with a mean disposition
he and the kid were bitter enemies on account of having killed warm friends of each other during the bloody lincoln county war it is said that ollinger shot one of the kid's friends to death
while holding his right hand with his ollinger's left hand after this local war had ended the fellow stepped up to ollinger to shake hands and to bury the hatchet of former hatred
ollinger extended his left hand and grabbed the man's right holding it fast until he had shot him to death of course this cowardly act left a scar on billy the kid's heart
which only death could heal j w bell was a tall slender man of middle age with a large knife scar across one cheek he had come from san antonio texas
he held a grudge against the kid for the killing of his friend jimmie carlyle otherwise there was no enmity between them in the latter part of april
cowboy charlie wall had four mexicans helping him irrigate an alfalfa field above the mexican village of tularosa on tularosa river a large band of tularosa mexicans appeared on the scene one morning
to prevent young wall from using water for his thirsty alfalfa when the smoke of battle cleared away four tularosa mexicans lay dead on the ground
and charlie wall had two bullet wounds in his body though they were not dangerous wounds now to prevent being mobbed by the angry citizens of tularosa which was just over the line in dona ana county
wall and his helpers made a run on horseback for lincoln to surrender to sheriff pat garrett the sheriff allowed them to wear their pistols and to sleep in the old jail
charlie wall did his loafing while recovering from his bullet wounds in the room where the kid was kept on the morning of april twenty eighth eighteen eighty one
who was having a friendly chat with charlie wall the man who gave the writer the full details of the affair j w bell was also present in the room garrett remarked to the two guards
now ollinger stepped into the other room and got his double barrel shot gun with the gun in his hand and looking towards the kid he said there are eighteen buckshot in each barrel
and i reckon the man who gets them will feel it with a smile billy the kid remarked you may be the one to get them yourself
now ollinger put the gun back in the armory locking the door putting the key in his pocket then garrett left for white oaks
about five o'clock in the evening bob ollinger took charlie wall and the other four armed prisoners to the ellis hotel across the street for supper bell was left to guard the kid
and other friends after his escape he had been starving himself so that he could slip his left hand out of the steel cuff the guards thought he had lost his appetite from worry over his approaching death
j w bell sat on a chair facing the kid several paces away he was reading a newspaper the kid slipped his left hand out of the cuff and made a spring for the guard
striking him over the head with the steel cuff bell threw up both hands to shield his head from another blow then the kid jerked bell's pistol out of its scabbard
now bell ran out of the door and received a bullet from his own pistol the body of bell tumbled down the back stairs falling on the jailer a german by the name of geiss who was sitting at the foot of the stairs
of course geiss stampeded he flew out of the gate towards the ellis hotel on hearing the shot bob ollinger and the five armed prisoners got up from the supper table and ran to the street
charlie wall and the four mexicans stopped on the sidewalk while ollinger continued to run towards the court house after killing bell the kid broke in the door to the armory and secured ollinger's shot gun
these words were hardly out of the guard's mouth when the kid fired a charge of buckshot into his heart now billy the kid hobbled back to the armory and buckled around his waist two belts of cartridges
and two colt's pistols then taking a winchester rifle in his hand he hobbled back to the shot gun which he picked up he then went out on the small porch in front of the building
reaching over the ballisters with the shotgun he fired the other charge into ollinger's body then breaking the shotgun in two across the ballisters he threw the pieces at the corpse saying
when his legs were free the kid danced a jig on the little front porch where many people who had run out to the sidewalk across the street on hearing the shots were witnesses to this free show which couldn't be beat for money
geiss was hailed again and told to saddle up billy burt's the deputy county clerk's black pony and bring him out on the street this black pony had formerly belonged to the kid
when the pony stood on the street ready for the last act the kid went down the back stairs stepping over the dead body of bell and started to mount being encumbered with the weight of two pistols
two belts full of ammunition and the rifle the kid was thrown to the ground when the pony began bucking before he had got into the saddle now the kid faced the crowd across the street holding the rifle ready for action
charlie wall told the writer that he could have killed him with his pistol but that he wanted to see him escape many other men in the crowd felt the same way no doubt
when the pony was brought back the kid gave geiss his rifle to hold while he mounted the rifle being handed back to him when he was securely seated in the saddle
then he dug the pony in the sides with his heels and galloped west at the edge of town he waved his hat over his head yelling three cheers for billy the kid
he drew her to him until she rested against his shoulder and she remained there trembling in suspense glancing at him quickly in birdlike pleading glances as though praying him to be kind
he took no notice after that so the act seemed less like a caress than a matter of course he began to talk half humorously and little by little as he went on she forgot her fears
even her feeling of strangeness and fell completely under the spell of his power my name is ned trent he told her and i am from quebec i am a woods runner
i have journeyed far i have been to the uttermost ends of the north even up beyond the hills of silence and then in his gay half mocking yet musical voice
he touched lightly on vast and distant things he talked of the great saskatchewan of peace river and the delta of the mackenzie of the winter journeys beyond great bear lake into the land of the little sticks
and the half mythical lake of yamba tooh he spoke of life with the dog ribs and yellow knives where the snow falls in midsummer before her eyes slowly spread like a panorama
all at once this post of conjuror's house a month in the wilderness as it was seemed very small and tame and civilized for the simple reason that death did not always compass it about
it was very cold then said ned trent and very hard
at night we had no other shelter than our blankets and we could not keep a fire because the spruce burned too fast and threw too many coals for a long time we shivered curled up on our snow shoes
then fell heavily asleep so that even the dogs fighting over us did not awaken us two or three times in the night we boiled tea
we had to thaw our moccasins each morning by thrusting them inside our shirts even the indians were shivering and saying ed sa yazzi ed sa'
but as he went on in short curt sentences the picture grew more distinct and to virginia the man became more and more prominent in it she saw the dying and exhausted dogs
the shrivelling bite of the frost the pain of snow blindness the hunger that yet could not stomach the frozen fish nor the hairy black caribou meat one thing she could not conceive
the indomitable spirit of the men she glanced timidly up at her companion's face the company is a cruel master she sighed at last standing upright
are you not of the company i am no man's man but my own he answered simply then why do you stay in this dreadful north she asked
because i love it it is my life i want to go where no man has set foot before me i want to stand alone under the sky i want to show myself that nothing is too big for me
this is not so dreadful as the coppermine and the country of the yellow knives did you come here to try la longue traverse of which you spoke to day
he fell suddenly sombre biting in reflection at his lip no yes why not he said at length i know you will come out of it safely said she
i feel it you are brave and used to travel won't you tell me about it he did not reply after a moment she looked up in surprise
his brows were knit in reflection he turned to her again his eyes glowing into hers once more the fascination of the man grew big overwhelmed her she felt her heart flutter
her consciousness swim her old terror returning listen said he i may come to you to morrow and ask you to choose between your divine pity and what you might think to be your duty
then i will tell you all there is to know of la longue traverse now it is a secret of the company you are a factor's daughter you know what that means he dropped his head
ah i am tired tired with it all he cried in a voice strangely unhappy but yesterday i played the game with all my old spirit to day the zest is gone
unhappiness is worth such pity as yours he brooded for a moment then threw his hands out with what might have been a gesture of desperate indifference
she cried in insulted anger oh she cried in a red shame oh she cried in sorrow her calm broke
he stamped his moccasined foot impatiently like a rat in a trap he jeered at himself like a rat in a trap ned trent the fates are drawing around you close
can you ever forget her frightened white face begging you to be kind he paced back and forth between the two bronze guns with long straight strides like a panther in a cage
but she makes it impossible to ask i could not do it better try la longue traverse than take advantage of her pity she'd surely get into trouble what wonderful eyes she has
she thinks i am a brute how she sobbed as though her little heart had broken well it was the only way to destroy her interest in me i had to do it
now she will despise me and forget me it is better that she should think me a brute than that i should be always haunted by those pleading eyes the door of the distant church house opened and closed
he smiled bitterly to be sure i haven't tried that he acknowledged their teachings are singularly apropos to my case mercy justice humanity
yes and love of man i'll try it i'll call for help on the love of man since i cannot on the love of woman the love of woman
chapter thirty two in which bluff is trumps having disposed of the girl for the moment travers gladwin decided it was time to call michael phelan to his assistance
there was no telling what this amazing crook might do now he was too much for him that a thief and impostor could possess such superhuman nerve had never occurred to his untutored mind
he was a perfect dub to have let the situation reach such a stage of complexity though the one thought uppermost in his mind was to save helen from public ridicule and contempt
he had almost counted on the thief taking one craven look at his constabulary disguise and then leaping through the window fleeing like a wolf in the night he travers gladwin
remaining a veritable hero of romance to sooth and console helen
that she had been the dupe of an unscrupulous criminal instead of which he ground his teeth went to the little panel door and shouted phelan's name missus phelan's son came a running he had been on his way
had accomplished his awful purpose but the climax had been anti climax and phelan had ground his teeth in rage
he had been on the point of bursting through the window and somehow scrambling aloft to the rescue of that helpless being who was being ground and wrenched and pounded by that porcine monster
there was no passion in the stodgy movements of the great paddy arms even so far away as he was phelan could see that the man puffed and blew and that his vigor was slowly waning
then suddenly the huge man stooped and held up in plain view a dangling wrestling dummy the lone watcher swallowed a savage oath
phelan hissed through his teeth his anger was white hot again he had been the victim of delusion
and had wasted heroic emotions on a stuffed dummy that served merely as an inanimate instrument in a course of anti fat calisthenics
every nerve in phelan's body was fairly a bristle as he made his way upstairs and burst into the great drawing room and picture gallery fer the love o hivin he cried
give me me uniform and let me out o here here's your uniform i've had enough of it replied gladwin throwing him the coat and cap and get into it quick there's work for you right in this house
there is not nor play neither snapped phelan i've got to go out and chase up a drunk or throw a faint or git run over or somethin desperate to square mesilf with the captain i'm an hour overdue at the station
you'll square yourself with the captain all right if you just do what i tell you said gladwin eagerly helping him on with his coat and pushing him toward the window recess
you go right in there behind those curtains and wait till i call you phelan took one look at the young man's face and muttered as he obeyed this must be a hell of a joke
and just then the thief breezed in again jerking back on his heels as he caught sight of gladwin sans uniform sans moustache and sans eyebrows
but a glance at that young man meant volumes and there was no limit to his spontaneous resources he summoned a laugh and jerked out oh so you've resigned from the force
yes retorted gladwin and let me tell you that this little excursion of yours has gone far enough i'll give you one chance get away from here as quickly as you can
the big fellow curled one corner of his lip in a contemptuous smile then glanced about him quickly and asked where's the young lady never mind the young lady gladwin flung back at him
it was only on her account that i let you go as far as this now get out and keep away from that young lady and drop my name the sneering smile returned
the obedient watkins sidled in and stopped with head averted from gladwin who started with surprise at seeing him stepping forward and making sure there could be no mistake gladwin turned to the thief and exclaimed
this is what i get for not sending this man to jail where he belonged don't bother with him watkins snarled the big fellow as he noted his companion's complexion run through three shades of yellow
there's no time to bother with him he went on and reaching out he caught travers gladwin by the shoulder and whirled him half way across the room the young man spun half a dozen times as he reeled across the carpet
and he had to use both hands to stop himself against a big onyx table as he pulled himself up standing he saw that watkins had lifted the trunk on his shoulders and was headed for the hallway phelan
stop that man cried the thief pointing to watkins
the man's hair trigger mind had thought this out before phelan was half way round the table one lightning glance at the thickness of the patrolman's neck
watkins dropped the trunk and at a signal from his companion was gone swiftly and silently as he vanished he could not have been half way to the door before the thief urged phelan quick
go after that man he's a thief stop phelan cried gladwin who had begun to see through the pantomime they're both thieves phelan tried to run four ways at once
he gurgled it's a trick to get you out of the house said gladwin with his eyes on the big man who was calmly smiling and who had fully made up his mind on a magnificent game of bluff
what the blazes kind of a joke is this blurted phelan looking from one to the other in utter bewilderment you'll find it's no joke officer said the bogus gladwin sharply not if he gets away
you'll find it's not so funny yourself cut in the real gladwin then to phelan arrest this man phelan do you mean it
asked the astonished phelan sizing up the thief as the highest example of aristocratic elegance he had ever seen in the flesh of course i mean it gladwin shot back look out for him there he goes for the window
the thief had started in that direction but his purpose was not escape the idea had flashed upon him that helen might be concealed there phelan headed him off whereupon the thief said severely
in a tone that was far more convincing that gladwin's most passionate sincerity now be careful officer or you'll get yourself into a lot of trouble don't let him bluff you phelan cautioned gladwin
you bet your life i won't phelan answered though he was already bluffed i'll stick close to yez he faltered inching uncertainly toward the thief
he said impressively if i prove that you've tried to help a band of thieves rob this house a band of thieves phelan's jaw dropped wide open he's lying to you
i said a band of thieves insisted the thief why he's got his pals hidden all over the house i tell you he's lying to you
gladwin cut in frantically seeing that phelan was falling under the spell of the big man's superb bluff and at the same time remembering helen and pressing the button in the wall to warn her that the time had come for her to flee
we're the only ones in this house gladwin pursued as phelan gave him the benefit of his pop eyes before he yielded them again to the stronger will then they've all escaped said the thief easily
thrusting his hands in his pockets to help out his appearance of imperturbability
the buttons on phelan's coat were fairly undulating with the emotions that stirred within him in his seething gray matter there stirred the remembrance that bateato had told him that women were robbing the house you mean the women
of propriety as regards one's self attention to one's person and reputation is also a duty if vanity pride or prudery
have frequently given to these attentions the names of coquetry ambition or folly this is a still stronger reason why we should endeavor to clear up these points
for a lady a small muslin cap bonnet de percale a camisole or common robe it is well that a half corset should precede the full corset which last is used only when one is dressed
the hair papers which cannot be removed on rising because the hair would not keep in curl till evening should be concealed under a bandeau of lace or of the hair
they should be removed as soon as may be in this dress we can receive only intimate friends or persons who call upon urgent or indispensable business even then we ought to offer some apology for it
it is well to impose upon yourself a rule to be dressed at some particular hour the earliest possible since occupations will present themselves to hinder your being ready for the day and you will easily acquire the habit of this
such disorder of the toilet can be excused when it occurs rarely or for a short time as in such cases it seems evidently owing to a temporary embarrassment but if it occur daily or constantly
if it seems the result of negligence and slovenliness it is unpardonable particularly in ladies whose dress seems less designed for clothing than ornament
to suppose that great heat of weather will authorise this disorder of the toilet and will permit us to go in slippers or with our legs and arms bare or to take nonchalant or improper attitudes
we must give directions that we are not at home on the other hand to think that cold and rainy weather excuses like liberties is equally an error you ought not to be in the habit of wearing large socks
galoches lined with fur
this custom is in the worst taste when you go to see any one you cannot dispense with taking off your socks or clogs before you are introduced into the room
neither with an apron nor cap even if it is made of fine cloth and trimmed with ribbands nor should a well bred man show himself in the street in a waistcoat only
all the details of which we cannot give on account of their multiplicity and the numerous modification of fashion we shall only say that ladies generally should make these calls in the dress which they wear at home
gentlemen may call in an outside coat in boots and pantaloons as when they are on their ordinary business in short this dress is proper for gentlemen's visits in the middle of the day
with regard to ladies it is necessary for them when visiting at this time to arrange their toilet with more care ceremonious visits evening visits and especially balls
and for no other such as rich blond caps ornamented with flowers
appropriate to the drawing room the nicest cloth new and very fine linen an elegant but plain waistcoat a beautiful watch to which is attached a single costly key
and those in the profession of the law should avoid having a fashionable or military costume which is generally adopted by students commercial men
and should be less showy than that of married ladies costly cashmeres very rich furs and diamonds as well as many other brilliant ornaments are to be forbidden a young lady
and those who act in defiance of these rational marks of propriety make us believe that they are possessed of an unrestrained love of luxury and deprive themselves of the pleasure of receiving these ornaments from the hand of the man of their choice
all ladies cannot use indiscriminately the privilege which marriage confers upon them in this respect and the toilet of those whose fortune is moderate should not pass the bounds of an elegant simplicity
considerations of a more elevated nature as of good domestic order the dignity of a wife and the duties of a mother come in support of this law of propriety for it concerns morality in all its branches
we must beware of a shoal in this case frequently a young lady of small fortune desiring to appear decently in any splendid assembly makes sacrifices in order to embellish her modest attire
moreover whatever be the opulence which you enjoy luxury encroaches so much upon it that no riches are able to satisfy its demands but fortunately propriety always in accordance with reason
the rules suitable to age resemble those which mediocrity of fortune imposes for instance old ladies ought to abstain from gaudy colors
the rigorous simplicity of the dress of men establishes but very little difference between that of young and old the latter however ought to choose grave colors not to follow the fashions too closely
to avoid garments too tight or too short and not to have in view in their toilet any other object but ease and neatness unless the care of their health or complete baldness requires them to wear a wig eight
it is more proper that old persons should show their white and noble heads old ladies
should at least avoid hair too thick or too full of curls if they would not appear ridiculous and clothed in a manner disagreeable or offensive
ladies ought to adopt in summer light garments and delicate colors
they must select stuffs for winter or summer as may be suitable
an outer garment over the coat especially one of silk is left for men of a certain age it only belongs to septuagenarians and ecclesiastics to wear doublets or wadded outer coats
to finish our instructions relative to the toilet it only remains for us to make a few observations it is superlatively ridiculous for a lady to go on foot
who does not perceive how laughable it is to see a lady who is clothed in satin lace or velvet laboriously travelling in the dust or mud
vary your toilet as much as possible for fear that idlers and malignant wits who are always a majority in the world should amuse themselves by making your dress the description of your person
certain fashionables seek to gain a kind of reputation by the odd choice of their attire and by their eagerness to seize upon the first caprices of the fashions
direct our thoughts and actions in this point of view we see that a regard to reputation is the necessary consequence of the duties of propriety toward one's self
they are obtained by the accomplishment of our obligations of family and of our profession by our probity and good manners by our fortune and situation in society
consideration is not acquired by words an article so precious demands a real value it demands also the assistance of discretion
so that we must begin by fulfilling exactly our duties towards relations but we must beware of making public those petty quarrels and little differences of interest of ill humor or opinion
that powerful means of obtaining consideration by its elevated and religious nature is not within our investigation of the principles of politeness
in regard to chastity there exists independently of good conduct a multitude of cares and precautions which however minute and embarrassing at times ought never to be neglected
ladies to whom the advice contained in this paragraph is particularly addressed know how the shadow of suspicion withers and torments them this shadow it is necessary to avoid at all hazards
or an aged lady they are at liberty however to walk with young married ladies or unmarried ones while the latter should never walk alone with their companions
neither should they show themselves except with a gentleman of their family and then he should be a near relation or of respectable age except in certain provincial towns where there is a great strictness in behavior
unless she goes there to study or work as an artist a lady ought to have a modest and measured gait too great hurry injures the grace which ought to characterize her
she should take good care not to answer them a word if they persist she should tell them in a brief and firm though polite tone that she desires to be left to herself if a man follow her in silence
she should pretend not to perceive him and at the same time hasten a little her step towards the close of the day a young lady would conduct herself in an unbecoming manner if she should go alone
and consequently an obligation a married lady well educated will disregard it if circumstances prevent her being able without trouble to find a conductor if the master of the house wishes to accompany you himself
you must excuse yourself politely from giving him so much trouble but finish however by accepting on arriving at your house you should offer him your thanks in order to avoid these two inconveniences
it will be well to request your husband or some one of your relations to come and wait upon you you will in this way avoid still another inconvenience in small towns where malice is excited by ignorance and want of something to do
question seventy nine of the intellectual powers
if it be a power whether it is a passive power three if it is a passive power whether there is an active intellect four whether it is something in the soul
five whether the active intellect is one in all six whether memory is in the intellect seven
whether the memory be distinct from the intellect eight whether the reason is a distinct power from the intellect nine whether the superior and inferior reason are distinct powers
ten whether the intelligence is distinct from the intellect eleven whether the speculative and practical intellect are distinct powers twelve
whether the intellect is a power of the soul objection one it would seem that the intellect is not a power of the soul but the essence of the soul
for the intellect seems to be the same as the mind now the mind is not a power of the soul but the essence for augustine says
mind and spirit are not relative things but denominate the essence therefore the intellect is the essence of the soul
further different genera of the soul's powers are not united in some one power but only in the essence of the soul
but they are united in the mind for augustine
places the intelligence and will in the mind therefore the mind and intellect of man is of the very essence of the soul and not a power thereof
further a substance is intellectual by the fact that it is immaterial but the soul is immaterial through its essence therefore it seems that the soul must be intellectual through its essence
on the contrary the philosopher assigns the intellectual faculty as a power of the soul
i answer that in accordance with what has been already shown
it is necessary to say that the intellect is a power of the soul and not the very essence of the soul for then alone the essence of that which operates is the immediate principle of operation
when operation itself is its being for as power is to operation as its act so is the essence to being but in god alone his action of understanding is his very being
wherefore in god alone is his intellect his essence while in other intellectual creatures the intellect is a power
sense is sometimes taken for the power and sometimes for the sensitive soul for the sensitive soul takes its name from its chief power which is sense
and in like manner the intellectual soul is sometimes called intellect as from its chief power and thus we read
that the intellect is a substance and in this sense also augustine says that the mind is spirit and essence
the appetitive and intellectual powers are different genera of powers in the soul by reason of the different formalities of their objects but the appetitive power agrees partly with the intellectual power
and partly with the sensitive in its mode of operation
because his whole power consists in this but the soul has many other powers such as the sensitive and nutritive powers and therefore the comparison fails
but that it is its virtue and power
but the intellectual power results from the immateriality of the intelligent substance therefore it seems that the intellect is not a passive power
but if the intellect is passive it is corruptible
much more therefore all the intellectual powers which are the highest are active on the contrary the philosopher says
that to understand is in a way to be passive i answer that to be passive may be taken in three ways firstly in its most strict sense
when from a thing is taken something which belongs to it by virtue either of its nature or of its proper inclination as when water loses coolness by heating and as when a man becomes ill or sad
that is sad but also he that is joyful or whatever way he be altered or moved thirdly in a wide sense a thing is said to be passive
for we find an intellect whose relation to universal being is that of the act of all being and such is the divine intellect which is the essence of god in which originally and virtually
all being pre exists as in its first cause and therefore the divine intellect is not in potentiality but is pure act
wherefore every created intellect is not the act of all things intelligible by reason of its very existence but is compared to these intelligible things as a potentiality to act
wherefore the angelic intellect is always in act as regards those things which it can understand by reason of its proximity to the first intellect which is pure act as we have said above
but the human intellect which is the lowest in the order of intelligence and most remote from the perfection of the divine intellect is in potentiality with regard to things intelligible
and is at first like a clean tablet on which nothing is written as the philosopher says
is in a way to be passive taking passion in the third sense and consequently the intellect is a passive power
which belong to primary matter but in the third sense passion is in anything which is reduced from potentiality to act
but the intellect which is in potentiality to things intelligible and which for this reason aristotle calls the possible intellect
is not passive except in the third sense
hence it is incorruptible
the agent is nobler than the patient if the action and the passion are referred to the same thing but not always if they refer to different things
now the intellect is a passive power in regard to the whole universal being while the vegetative power is active in regard to some particular thing namely the body as united to the soul
so is our intellect to things intelligible but because sense is in potentiality to things sensible the sense is not said to be active but only passive therefore
since our intellect is in potentiality to things intelligible it seems that we cannot say that the intellect is active but only that it is passive
further if we say that also in the senses there is something active such as light on the contrary light is required for sight inasmuch as it makes the medium to be actually luminous
for color of its own nature moves the luminous medium but in the operation of the intellect there is no appointed medium that has to be brought into act therefore there is no necessity for an active intellect
further the likeness of the agent is received into the patient according to the nature of the patient but the passive intellect is an immaterial power therefore
its immaterial nature suffices for forms to be received into it immaterially now a form is intelligible in act from the very fact that it is immaterial therefore there is no need for an active intellect
to make the species actually intelligible on the contrary the philosopher says
as in every nature so in the soul is there something by which it becomes all things and something by which it makes all things therefore we must admit an active intellect
i answer that according to the opinion of plato there is no need for an active intellect in order to make things actually intelligible but perhaps in order to provide intellectual light to the intellect
for plato supposed that the forms of natural things subsisted apart from matter and consequently that they are intelligible since a thing is actually intelligible from the very fact that it is immaterial
in order that individuals might be naturally established in their proper genera and species and that our intellect was formed by such participation in order to have knowledge of the genera and species of things
but since aristotle did not allow that forms of natural things exist apart from matter and as forms existing in matter are not actually intelligible it follows that the natures or forms of the sensible things which we understand are not actually intelligible
we must therefore assign on the part of the intellect some power to make things actually intelligible by abstraction of the species from material conditions and such is the necessity for an active intellect
sensible things are found in act outside the soul and hence there is no need for an active sense wherefore it is clear that in the nutritive part all the powers are active
whereas in the sensitive part all are passive but in the intellectual part there is something active and something passive
light is required for sight not for the colors to become actually visible but in order that the medium may become actually luminous as the commentator says on
if the agent pre exist it may well happen that its likeness is received variously into various things on account of their dispositions but if the agent does not pre exist
the disposition of the recipient has nothing to do with the matter now the intelligible in act is not something existing in nature if we consider the nature of things sensible which do not subsist apart from matter
and therefore in order to understand them the immaterial nature of the passive intellect would not suffice but for the presence of the active intellect which makes things actually intelligible by way of abstraction
for the effect of the active intellect is to give light for the purpose of understanding but this is done by something higher than the soul according to john one nine
he was the true light that enlighteneth every man coming into this world therefore the active intellect is not something in the soul
says of the active intellect that it does not sometimes understand and sometimes not understand but our soul does not always understand sometimes it understands sometimes it does not understand
therefore the active intellect is not something in our soul
further agent and patient suffice for action if therefore the passive intellect which is a passive power is something belonging to the soul and also the active intellect
which is an active power it follows that a man would always be able to understand when he wished which is clearly false therefore the active intellect is not something in our soul
says that the active intellect is a substance in actual being but nothing can be in potentiality and in act with regard to the same thing
if therefore the passive intellect which is in potentiality to all things intelligible is something in the soul it seems impossible for the active intellect to be also something in our soul
further if the active intellect is something in the soul it must be a power for it is neither a passion nor a habit
tom the piper's son
the pig was eat and tom was beat and tom ran crying down the street
he never did any work except to play the pipes and he played so badly that few pennies ever found their way into his pouch it was whispered around that old barney was not very honest
but he was so sly and cautious that no one had ever caught him in the act of stealing although a good many things had been missed after they had fallen into the old man's way barney had one son named tom
and they lived all alone in a little hut away at the end of the village street for tom's mother had died when he was a baby you may not suppose that tom was a very good boy since he had such a queer father but neither was he very bad
under his father's guidance he fell into bad ways one morning tom tom the piper's son was hungry when the day begun he wanted a bun and asked for one but soon found out that there were none
what shall we do he asked his father go hungry replied barney unless you want to take my pipes and play in the village
no answered tom shaking his head no one will give me a penny for playing
if i went to his house he did last week you know
so tom took his father's pipes and walked over the hill to farmer bowser's house for you must know that tom tom the piper's son learned to play when he was young
and he played this one tune as badly as his father himself played so that the people were annoyed when they heard him and often begged him to stop when he came to farmer bowser's house tom started up the pipes
and began to play with all his might the farmer was in his woodshed sawing wood so he did not hear the pipes and the farmer's wife was deaf and could not hear them
the farmer had stopped sawing to rest just then and when he heard the singing he rushed out of the shed and chased tom away with a big stick of wood the boy went back to his father and said sorrowfully for he was more hungry than before
the farmer gave me nothing but a scolding but there was a very nice pig running around the yard how big was it asked barney oh just about big enough to make a nice dinner for you and me
and so he went softly up to the pig sty and reached over and grabbed the little pig by the ears the pig squealed of course but the farmer was making so much noise himself that he did not hear it
and in a minute tom had the pig tucked under his arm and was running back home with it the piper was very glad to see the pig and said to tom you are a good son and the pig is very nice and fat we shall have a dinner fit for a king
it was not long before the piper had the pig killed and cut into pieces and boiling in the pot only the tail was left out for tom wanted to make a whistle of it and as there was plenty to eat besides the tail his father let him have it
the piper and his son had a fine dinner that day and so great was their hunger that the little pig was all eaten up at one meal then barney lay down to sleep and tom sat on a bench outside the door
and began to make a whistle out of the pig's tail with his pocket knife now farmer bowser when he had finished sawing the wood found it was time to feed the pig so he took a pail of meal and went to the pigsty
but when he came to the sty there was no pig to be seen and he searched all round the place for a good hour without finding it
so he put on his coat and buckled a strap around his waist and went down to the village to see if he could find out who had stolen his pig up and down the street he went and in and out the lanes
but no traces of the pig could he find anywhere and that was no great wonder for the pig was eaten by that time and its bones picked clean finally the farmer came to the end of the street where the piper lived in his little hut
and there he saw tom sitting on a bench and blowing on a whistle made from a pig's tail where did you get that tail asked the farmer i found it said naughty tom beginning to be frightened let me see it demanded the farmer
and when he had looked at it carefully he cried out this tail belonged to my little pig for i know very well the curl at the end of it tell me you rascal where is the pig then tom fell in a tremble for he knew his wickedness was discovered
the pig is eat your honor he answered the farmer said never a word but his face grew black with anger and unbuckling the strap that was about his waist he waved it around his head and whack
came the strap over tom's back ow ow cried the boy and started to run down the street whack whack fell the strap over his shoulder for the farmer followed at his heels half way down the street
a good beating and tom was so scared that he never stopped running until he came to the end of the village and he bawled lustily the whole way and cried out at every step
it was dark before he came back to his home and his father was still asleep so tom crept into the hut and went to bed but he had received a good lesson and never after that could the old piper induce him to steal
when tom showed by his actions his intention of being honest he soon got a job of work to do and before long he was able to earn a living more easily and a great deal more honestly
than when he stole the pig to get a dinner and suffered a severe beating as a punishment
say what do you see with your big round eye on christmas we rabbits says bunny so shy keep watch to see santa go galloping by little dorothy had passed all the few years of her life in the country
and being the only child upon the farm she was allowed to roam about the meadows and woods as she pleased on the bright summer mornings dorothy's mother would tie a sun bonnet under the girl's chin
and then she romped away to the fields to amuse herself in her own way she came to know every flower that grew and to call them by name and she always stepped very carefully to avoid treading on them for dorothy was a kind hearted child
and did not like to crush the pretty flowers that bloomed in her path and she was also very fond of all the animals and learned to know them well and even to understand their language which very few people can do and the animals loved dorothy in turn
for the word passed around amongst them that she could be trusted to do them no harm for the horse whose soft nose dorothy often gently stroked told the cow of her kindness and the cow told the dog and the dog told the cat
looked out of a small bush at the edge of the wood one day and saw dorothy standing a little way off he did not scamper away as is his custom but sat very still and met the gaze of her sweet eyes boldly
until the rabbit became reassured and blinked his big eyes at her thoughtfully for he was as much interested in the little girl as she in him since it was the first time he had dared to meet a person face to face
finally dorothy ventured to speak so she asked very softly and slowly oh little bun rabbit so soft and so shy say what do you see with your big round eye many things answered the rabbit
who was pleased to hear the girl speak in his own language in summer time i see the clover leaves that i love to feed upon and the cabbages at the end of the farmer's garden i see the cool bushes where i can hide from my enemies
and i see the dogs and the men long before they can see me or know that i am near and therefore i am able to keep out of their way is that the reason your eyes are so big asked dorothy i suppose so returned the rabbit
you see we have only our eyes and our ears and our legs to defend ourselves with we cannot fight but we can always run away and that is a much better way to save our lives than by fighting where is your home bunny enquired the girl
i live in the ground far down in a cool pleasant hole i have dug in the midst of the forest at the bottom of the hole is the nicest little room you can imagine and there i have made a soft bed to rest in at night
when i meet an enemy i run to my hole and jump in and there i stay until all danger is over you have told me what you see in summer continued dorothy who was greatly interested in the rabbit's account of himself
but what do you see in the winter in winter we rabbits said bunny so shy keep watch to see santa go galloping by and do you ever see him asked the girl eagerly oh yes every winter
i am not afraid of him nor of his reindeer and it is such fun to see him come dashing along cracking his whip and calling out cheerily to his reindeer who are able to run even swifter than we rabbits
and santa claus when he sees me always gives me a nod and a smile and then i look after him and his big load of toys which he is carrying to the children until he has galloped away out of sight i like to see the toys for they are so bright and pretty
and every year there is something new amongst them once i visited santa and saw him make the toys
it was one morning after christmas said the rabbit who seemed to enjoy talking now that he had overcome his fear of dorothy and i was sitting by the road side when santa claus came riding back in his empty sleigh he does not come home quite so fast as he goes
i do n't doubt it your honor i answered but they d soon kill me with handling even if they did not scare me to death for babies are very rough with their playthings that is true replied santa claus and yet you are so soft and pretty
still as they would abuse a live rabbit i think i shall make them some toy rabbits which they cannot hurt so if you will jump into my sleigh with me and ride home to my castle for a few days i ll see if i can't make some toy rabbits just like you
of course i consented for we all like to please old santa and a minute later i had jumped into the sleigh beside him and we were dashing away at full speed toward his castle i enjoyed the ride very much but i enjoyed the castle far more
for it was one of the loveliest places you could imagine it stood on the top of a high mountain and is built of gold and silver bricks and the windows are pure diamond crystals
the rooms are big and high and there is a soft carpet upon every floor and many strange things scattered around to amuse one santa claus lives there all alone except for old mother hubbard who cooks the meals for him
and her cupboard is never bare now i can promise you at the top of the castle there is one big room and that is santa's work shop where he makes the toys on one side is his work bench with plenty of saws and hammers and jack knives
after mother hubbard had given me a good dinner and i had eaten some of the most delicious clover i have ever tasted santa took me up into his work room and sat me upon the table if i can only make rabbits half as nice as you are he said
the little ones will be delighted then he lit a big pipe and began to smoke and soon he took a roll of soft fur from a shelf in a corner and commenced to cut it out in the shape of a rabbit he smoked and whistled all the time he was working
and he talked to me in such a jolly way that i sat perfectly still and allowed him to measure my ears and my legs so that he could cut the fur into the proper form
and so he snipped a little off the fur he was cutting
and again he said good gracious the ears are too short entirely so he had to get a needle and thread and sew on more fur to the ears so that they might be the right size but after a time it was all finished
and then he stuffed the fur full of sawdust and sewed it up neatly after which he put in some glass eyes that made the toy rabbit look wonderfully life like when it was all done he put it on the table beside me
and at first i did n't know whether i was the live rabbit or the toy rabbit we were so much alike
i must put a squeak in it said santa so he took a box of squeaks from a shelf and put one into the rabbit before he sewed it up when it was all finished he pressed the toy rabbit with his thumb and it squeaked so naturally that i jumped off the table
fearing at first the new rabbit was alive old santa laughed merrily at this and i soon recovered from my fright and was pleased to think the babies were to have such pretty playthings
after this said santa claus i can make rabbits without having you for a pattern but if you like you may stay a few days longer in my castle and amuse yourself i thanked him and decided to stay
so for several days i watched him making all kinds of toys and i wondered to see how quickly he made them and how many new things he invented i almost wish i was a child i said to him one day for then i too could have playthings
ah you can run about all day in summer and in winter and enjoy yourself in your own way said santa but the poor little children are obliged to stay in the house in the winter and on rainy days in the summer
and then they must have toys to amuse them and keep them contented i knew this was true so i only said admiringly you must be the quickest and the best workman in all the world santa i suppose i am he answered
but then you see i have been making toys for hundreds of years and i make so many it is no wonder i am skillful and now if you are ready to go home i ll hitch up the reindeer and take you back again
oh no said i i prefer to run by myself for i can easily find the way and i want to see the country if that is the case replied santa i must give you a magic collar to wear so that you will come to no harm
so after mother hubbard had given me a good meal of turnips and sliced cabbage santa claus put the magic collar around my neck and i started for home i took my time on the journey for i knew nothing could harm me
and i saw a good many strange sights before i got back to this place again but what became of the magic collar asked dorothy who had listened with breathless interest to the rabbit's story
after i got home replied the rabbit the collar disappeared from around my neck and i knew santa had called it back to himself again he did not give it to me you see he merely let me take it on my journey to protect me
the next christmas when i watched by the road side to see santa i was pleased to notice a great many of the toy rabbits sticking out of the loaded sleigh the babies must have liked them too for every year since i have seen them amongst the toys
santa never forgets me and every time he passes he calls out in his jolly voice a merry christmas to you bun rabbit the babies still love you dearly the rabbit paused and dorothy was just about to ask another question
in a few days i had so far recovered my health that i could sit up all day and walk out sometimes i could join with diana and mary in all their occupations converse with them as much as they wished
and aid them when and where they would allow me there was a reviving pleasure in this intercourse of a kind now tasted by me for the first time
i liked to read what they liked to read what they enjoyed delighted me what they approved i reverenced they loved their sequestered home i too in the grey small antique structure
its avenue of aged firs all grown aslant under the stress of mountain winds its garden dark with yew and holly and where no flowers but of the hardiest species would bloom found a charm both potent and permanent
they clung to the purple moors behind and around their dwelling to the hollow vale into which the pebbly bridle path leading from their gate descended and which wound between fern banks first and then amongst a few of the wildest little pasture fields
that ever bordered a wilderness of heath or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep with their little mossy faced lambs they clung to this scene i say with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment
on the wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell by moss by heath bell by flower sprinkled turf by brilliant bracken and mellow granite crag these details were just to me what they were to them
developed for me in these regions the same attraction as for them wound round my faculties the same spell that entranced theirs indoors we agreed equally well
they were both more accomplished and better read than i was but with eagerness i followed in the path of knowledge they had trodden before me i devoured the books they lent me then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them in the evening
what i had perused during the day thought fitted thought opinion met opinion we coincided in short perfectly if in our trio there was a superior and a leader it was diana physically she far excelled me
she was handsome she was vigorous in her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty of flow such as excited my wonder while it baffled my comprehension i could talk a while when the evening commenced
but the first gush of vivacity and fluency gone i was fain to sit on a stool at diana's feet to rest my head on her knee and listen alternately to her and mary while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which i had but touched
diana offered to teach me german i liked to learn of her i saw the part of instructress pleased and suited her that of scholar pleased and suited me no less
our natures dovetailed mutual affection of the strongest kind was the result they discovered i could draw their pencils and colour boxes were immediately at my service my skill greater in this one point than theirs surprised and charmed them
mary would sit and watch me by the hour together then she would take lessons and a docile intelligent assiduous pupil she made thus occupied and mutually entertained days passed like hours and weeks like days
did not extend to him one reason of the distance yet observed between us was that he was comparatively seldom at home a large proportion of his time appeared devoted to visiting the sick and poor among the scattered population of his parish
no weather seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions rain or fair he would when his hours of morning study were over take his hat and followed by his father's old pointer carlo go out on his mission of love or duty
i scarcely know in which light he regarded it sometimes when the day was very unfavourable his sisters would expostulate he would then say with a peculiar smile more solemn than cheerful
and if i let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from these easy tasks what preparation would such sloth be for the future i propose to myself diana and mary's general answer to this question was a sigh
and some minutes of apparently mournful meditation but besides his frequent absences there was another barrier to friendship with him he seemed of a reserved an abstracted and even of a brooding nature
zealous in his ministerial labours blameless in his life and habits he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity that inward content which should be the reward of every sincere christian and practical philanthropist
often of an evening when he sat at the window his desk and papers before him he would cease reading or writing rest his chin on his hand and deliver himself up to i know not what course of thought
but that it was perturbed and exciting might be seen in the frequent flash and changeful dilation of his eye i think moreover that nature was not to him
he expressed once and but once in my hearing a strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills and an inborn affection for the dark roof and hoary walls he called his home
but there was more of gloom than pleasure in the tone and words in which the sentiment was manifested and never did he seem to roam the moors for the sake of their soothing silence never seek out or dwell upon the thousand peaceful delights they could yield
incommunicative as he was some time elapsed before i had an opportunity of gauging his mind
when i heard him preach in his own church at morton i wish i could describe that sermon but it is past my power i cannot even render faithfully the effect it produced on me
it began calm and indeed as far as delivery and pitch of voice went it was calm to the end an earnestly felt yet strictly restrained zeal breathed soon in the distinct accents and prompted the nervous language
this grew to force compressed condensed controlled the heart was thrilled the mind astonished by the power of the preacher neither were softened throughout there was a strange bitterness an absence of consolatory gentleness
stern allusions to calvinistic doctrines election predestination reprobation were frequent and each reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom
had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs of disappointment where moved troubling impulses of insatiate yearnings and disquieting aspirations
zealous as he was had not yet found that peace of god which passeth all understanding he had no more found it i thought than had i with my concealed and racking regrets for my broken idol and lost elysium
regrets to which i have latterly avoided referring but which possessed me and tyrannised over me ruthlessly meantime a month was gone
as governesses in a large fashionable south of england city where each held a situation in families
and appreciated only their acquired accomplishments as they appreciated the skill of their cook or the taste of their waiting woman
about the employment he had promised to obtain for me yet it became urgent that i should have a vocation of some kind one morning being left alone with him a few minutes in the parlour i ventured to approach the window recess
when he saved me the trouble by being the first to commence a dialogue
you have a question to ask of me he said yes i wish to know whether you have heard of any service i can offer myself to undertake i found or devised something for you three weeks ago but as you seemed both useful and happy here
as my sisters had evidently become attached to you and your society gave them unusual pleasure i deemed it inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort till their approaching departure from marsh end should render yours necessary
and they will go in three days now i said yes and when they go i shall return to the parsonage at morton hannah will accompany me and this old house will be shut up
i waited a few moments expecting he would go on with the subject first broached but he seemed to have entered another train of reflection his look denoted abstraction from me and my business
one of close and anxious interest to me what is the employment you had in view mister rivers i hope this delay will not have increased the difficulty of securing it
oh no since it is an employment which depends only on me to give and you to accept
looking about him he sees others making these same mistakes suffering for lack of that same knowledge which he has so painfully acquired this being the case it seems a friendly act to offer his knowledge
there come to the writer literally thousands of letters every year asking him questions some of them of the strangest a man is dying of cancer and do i think it can be cured by a fast
a man is unable to make his wife happy and can i tell him what is the matter with women a man has invested his savings in mining stock and can i tell him what to do about it
a man works in a sweatshop and has only a little time for self improvement and will i tell him what books he ought to read many such questions every day make one aware of a vast mass of people
earnest hungry for happiness and groping as if in a fog the things they most need to know they are not taught in the schools nor in the newspapers they read nor in the church they attend of these agencies
the first is not entirely competent the second is not entirely honest and the third is not entirely up to date nor is there anywhere a book in which the effort has been made to give to
of their lives for the present book the following claims may be made first it is a modern book its writer watches hour by hour the new achievements of the human mind
he reaches out for information about them he seeks to adjust his own thoughts to them and to test them in his own living second it is or tries hard to be a wise book
its writer is not among those too ardent young radicals who leap to the conclusion that because many old things are stupid and tiresome therefore everything that is old is to be spurned with contempt and everything that proclaims itself new
finally it is a kind book it is not written for its author's glory nor for his enrichment but to tell you things that may be useful to you in the brief span of your life
it will attempt to tell you how to live how to find health and happiness and success how to work and how to play
a large order as the boys phrase it there are several ways for such a book to begin it might begin with the child because we all begin that way it might begin with love because that precedes the child
it might begin with the care of the body explaining that sound physical health is the basis of all right living and even of right thinking it might begin as most philosophies do by defining life discussing its origin
and fundamental nature the trouble with this last plan is that there are a lot of people who have their ideas on life made up in tabloid form they have creeds and catechisms which they know by heart
and if you suggest to them anything different they give you a startled look and get out of your way and then there is another and in our modern world a still larger class who say oh shucks
i don't go in for religion and that kind of thing you offer them something that looks like a sermon and they turn to the baseball page who will read this book of life there will be among others
the great american tired business man he wrestles with problems and cares all day and when he sits down to read in the evening he says make it short and snappy there is the wife of the tired business man
the american perfect lady she does most of the reading for the family but she has never got down to anything fundamental in her life and mostly she likes to read about exciting love affairs
which she distinguishes from the unexciting kind she knows by the word romance then there is the still more tired american workingman who has been speeded up
all day under the bonus system or the piece work system and is apt to fall asleep in his chair before he finishes supper then there is the workingman's wife who has slaved all day in the kitchen
and has a chance for a few minutes intimacy with her husband before he falls asleep she would like to have somebody tell her what to do for croup but she is not sure that she has time to discuss the question whether life is worth living
yet i wonder is there a single one among all these tired people or even among the cynical people who has not had some moment of awe when the thought came stabbing into his mind like a knife
what a strange thing this life is what am i anyhow where do i come from and what is going to become of me what do i mean what am i here for
i have sat chatting with three hoboes by a railroad track cooking themselves a mulligan in an old can and heard one of them say by god it's a queer thing ain't it mate
and heard him use almost the identical words it is not only in the class room and the schools that the minds of men are grappling with the fundamental problems in fact it was not from the schools
that the new religions and the great moral impulses of humanity took their origin it was from lonely shepherds sitting on the hillsides and from fishermen casting their nets and from carpenters and tailors and shoemakers at their benches
who watches you day and night and knows every thought you think
if you obey his laws if you really believe that you will try to find out about his laws and you will be comparatively little concerned about the success or failure of your business perhaps on the other hand
you have been cheated and exploited and have set out to get yours as the phrase is to feather your own nest but some gust of passion seizes you and you waste your substance you wreck your life
then you wonder who set that trap and baited it am i a creature of blind instincts jealousies and greeds and hates beyond my own control entirely am i a poor feeble insect
to know a little of what the wise men of the past have thought about them and more especially what science with its new tools of knowledge may have discovered the writer of this book spent nine years of his life in colleges and universities
also he was brought up in a church so he knows the orthodox teachings
then being dissatisfied he went to the unrecognized teachers the enthusiasts and the cranks of a hundred schools finally he thought for himself he was even willing to try experiments upon himself
to give you the hardest part first that is to begin with the great fundamental questions what is life and how does it come to be what does it mean and what have we to do with it
are we its masters or its slaves what does it owe us and what do we owe to it why is it so hard and do we have to stand its hardness and can we really know about all these matters
or will we be only guessing can we trust ourselves to think about them or shall we be safer if we believe what we are told shall we be punished if we think wrong and how shall we be punished
shall we be rewarded if we think right and will the pay be worth the trouble such questions as these i am going to try to answer in the simplest language possible
but some of these long words mean certain definite things and there are no other words to serve the purpose
defends divorce as a protection to monogamous love and one of the means of preventing infidelity and prostitution you will hear sermons and read newspaper editorials about the divorce evil
and you will find that to the preacher or editor this evil consists of the fact that more and more people are refusing to stay unhappily married it does not interest these moralizers if the statistics show
that it is women who are getting most of the divorces and that the meaning of the phenomenon is that women are refusing to continue living with drunken and dissolute men to the clergy the breaking of a marriage
is an evil per se and regardless of circumstances they know this because god has told them so and in the name of god they seek to keep people tied in sex unions
which have come to mean loathing instead of love now i will assert it as a mathematical certainty that a considerable percentage of marriages must fail it is essential to progress
that human beings should grow both mentally and spiritually and manifestly they cannot all grow in the same way if they grow differently
must they not sometimes lose the power to make each other happy in the marital bonds who does not know the man who masters life and becomes a vital force while his wife remains dull and empty
if such a man changes wives the world in general denounces him as a selfish beast but the world does not know nor does it care about those thousands of men who not caring to be branded as selfish beasts
fulfill the needs of their lives by keeping mistresses in secret i knew a certain country school teacher one of the most narrowly conventional young women imaginable who was engaged to a middle aged business man
and wrote her that he had met some anarchists and had discovered that all he had read about them in the newspapers was false and that they were the true and pure idealists
the young lady was horrified nor was she any happier when she came to new york and met her fiance's new friends she ought in common sense to have broken the engagement but she was in love and
a conservative capitalist of narrow and aggressive temper whose wife turned into an ardent bolshevik the man thinks that all bolsheviks should be shut up in jail for life while the wife is equally certain that all jails should be razed to the ground
and all bolsheviks placed in control of the government these two people have got to a point where they cannot sit down to the breakfast table without flying into a quarrel i know another case of a modern scientist
an agnostic whose wife a half educated sentimental woman took to dabbling in mysticism
in her bedroom and consorting with swamis in long yellow robes
and turned over the care of his domestic life to a priest is it not obvious that the only possible solution of such problems lies in divorce unless indeed
we are all of us going to turn over the care of our domestic lives to the priests our grandfathers and grandmothers believed one thing and believed the same thing when they were seventy as when they were twenty
so it was possible for them to dwell in domestic security and permanence till death did them part but we are learning to change our minds and whether what we believe is better or worse than what our ancestors believed
the intellectual life means more and more to us and it becomes harder and harder for us to find sexual and domestic happiness with a partner who does not share our convictions but on the contrary
may be contributing to the campaign funds of the opposition party i do not mean by this that people should get a divorce as soon as they find they differ about some intellectual idea on the contrary
i have advocated that they should do everything possible to understand and to tolerate each other but it is a fact
and lives are made and it is inevitable that some characters and lives that fit quite well at twenty should fit very badly at thirty or forty
we are not fostering marriage as we fondly imagine we are really fostering adultery it is a fact that not one person in ten who is held by legal or social force in an unhappy sex union
divorce laws such as the clerical propaganda urges upon us
for the promotion of fornication and prostitution there is a short story by edith wharton in which the divorce evil
the story called the other two in the volume the descent of man a society woman has been divorced twice and married three times and by an ingenious set of circumstances
all compelled to meet together and think of something to say i cite this story because it is a perfect illustration of the extent to which the divorce problem is a problem of our lack of sense
missus wharton will i fear consider me a very vulgar person if i assert that there is absolutely no reason whatever why any of those four people in her story should have had a moment's discomfort of mind
except that they thought there was there is absolutely nothing to prevent a man and woman who used to be married from meeting socially and being decent to each other or to prevent two men from being decent to each other under such circumstances
i would not say that they should choose to be intimate friends though even that may be possible occasionally i know because i have seen it happen in holland
and after a few days he remarked that he would like me to meet the mother of these young men we went for a walk of a mile or so and met a lady who lived in a small house by herself and who received us with a friendly welcome
and talked with us for a couple of hours about music and books and art this lady had been the writer's wife for ten years or so and there had been a terrible uproar when they voluntarily parted but
they had refused to pay attention to this uproar they understood why they did not wish to remain husband and wife any longer but they did not consider it necessary to quarrel about it nor even to break off the friendship which their common interests made possible
the two women in the case were not intimate i gathered but they frequently met at the homes of others
has the right to forbid divorce or to impose limitations upon it we have quoted the old maxim marry in haste and repent at leisure
and we suggested that parents and guardians should have the right to ask the young to wait before marriage and make certain of the state of their hearts we have now the same advice to give concerning divorce
the same claim to enter on behalf of society that it has and should assert the right to ask people to delay and think carefully before breaking up a marriage
what interest has society in the restriction of divorce what affair is it of any other person if i choose to get a divorce and marry a new wife once a month there are many reasons
not in any way based upon religious superstition or conventional prejudice in the first place there are or may be children and society should try to preserve for every child a home with a father and a mother in it
second there are property rights of which every marriage is a tangle and the settlement of which the law should always oversee third
there is the question of venereal disease which society has an unquestionable right to keep down by every reasonable restriction upon sexual promiscuity and finally there is the respect
which all men and women owe to love it seems to me that society has the same right to protect love against extreme outrage as it has to forbid indecent exposure of the person on the street
there is in successful operation in switzerland a wise and sane divorce law based upon common sense and not upon superstition a couple wish to break their marriage and they go before a judge
and in private session as to a friendly adviser they tell their troubles he gives them advice about their disagreement and sends them away for three months to think it over at the end of three months
if he still thinks there is a chance of reconciliation he has the right to require them to wait another three months but if at the end of this second period they are still convinced that the case is hopeless and that they should part
the judge is required to grant the divorce you may note that this is exactly what i have suggested concerning young couples who become engaged in both cases the parties directly interested
have the right to decide their own fate but the rest of the world requires them to think carefully about it and to listen to counsel except for grave offenses such as adultery insanity crime or venereal disease
i do not think that anyone should receive a divorce in less than six months nor do i think that any personal right is contravened by the imposing of such a delay next
what are we going to say to the right or the claim to the right on the part of a man or woman to be married once a year throughout a lifetime in order to illustrate this problem i will tell you about a certain man known to me
in his early life he spent a couple of years in a lunatic asylum he lays claim to extraordinary spiritual gifts and uses the language of the highest idealism known he is a man of culture and good family
and thus exerts a peculiar charm upon young women of refinement and sensitiveness to my knowledge he was three times married in six years and each time he deserted the woman
for ten years or so i used to see him about once in six months and invariably he had a new woman a young girl of fine character who had been ensnared by him and was in the agonizing process
of discovering his moral and mental derangement yet there was absolutely nothing in the law to place restraint upon this man he could wander from state to state or to the other side of the world preying upon lovely young girls wherever he went
this particular man happens to call himself a radical but i could tell you of similar men in the highest social circles or in the political world the theatrical world the sporting world
they are in every rank of life and are just as definitely and certainly menaces to human welfare and progress as pirates on the high seas or highwaymen on the road nor are they confined to the males
but i think we might begin by refusing to let any man or woman have more than two divorces in one lifetime in any state or part of the world
if any man or woman tries three times to find happiness in love and fails each time we have a right to assume that the fault must lie with that person and not with the three partners
the great mass of the public has sympathy for the law breaker just as in old days the peasants could not help admiring the outlaw who resisted unjust land laws and robbed the rich
or as today under the capitalist regime we can not withhold our sympathy from political prisoners even though they have committed acts of violence which we deplore but when we have made sex laws
that we know are just and sensible then we shall consider that we have the right to restrain sex criminals and in extreme cases we shall avail ourselves of the skill of science to perform a surgical operation
to prey upon the love needs of people who are placed at his mercy by their best qualities their unselfishness and lack of suspicion we clear out foul smelling weeds from our garden
because we wish to raise beautiful flowers and useful herbs therein there lives in california a student of plant life who has shown us what we can do not by magic or by superhuman efforts
but simply by loving plants by watching them ceaselessly understanding their ways and guiding their sex life to our own purposes we can perform
what to our ignorant ancestors would have seemed to be miracles we can actually make all sorts of new plants which will continue to breed their own kind and survive forever if we give them proper care in other words luther burbank
has shown us that we can change plant nature there flash back upon my memory all those dull weary sick human creatures who have repeated to me that dull weary sick old formula
you cannot change human nature i do not think i am indulging either in religious superstition or in blind optimism but am speaking precisely
in saying that whenever human beings get ready to apply experimental science to themselves they can change human nature just as they now change plant nature by putting human bodies together in love
we make new bodies of children more beautiful than any who have yet romped on the earth and in the same way by putting minds and souls together we can make new kinds of minds and souls
different from those we have previously known and greater than either the man soul or the woman soul alone also by that magic which is the law of mind and soul life
each new creation can be multiplied to infinity and shared by all other minds and souls that live in the present or may live in the future we have shown elsewhere
how genius multiplies to infinity the joy and power of life by means of the arts and one of the greatest of the arts is the art of love consider the great lovers the true lovers of history
from robert and elizabeth browning from tristan and isolde from romeo and juliet what is the depth and the splendor of this passion which lies hidden within us
the lay of milon he who would tell divers tales must know how to vary the tune to win the favour of any he must speak to the understanding of all i purpose in this place to show you the story of milon
and since few words are best i will set out the adventure as briefly as i may milon was born in south wales
so great was his prowess that from the day he was dubbed knight there was no champion who could stand before him in the lists he was a passing fair knight open and brave courteous to his friends and stern to his foes
men praised his name in whatever realm they talked of gallant deeds ireland norway and wales yea from jutland even to albania since he was praised by the frank he was therefore envied of the mean
nevertheless by reason of his skill with the spear he was counted a very worshipful knight and was honourably entreated by many a prince in divers lands in milon's own realm there lived a lord whose name has gone from mind
with this baron dwelt his daughter a passing fair and gracious damsel much talk had this maiden heard of milon's knightly deeds so that she began to set her thoughts upon him because of the good men spoke of him
she sent him a message by a sure hand saying that if her love was to his mind sweetly would it be to her heart milon rejoiced greatly when he knew this thing he thanked the lady for her words giving her love again in return for her own
beyond this courteous answer milon bestowed on the messenger costly gifts and made him promises that were richer still friend said he
of your charity i pray you that i may have speech with my friend in such a fashion that none shall know of our meeting carry her this my golden ring tell her on my part that so she pleases she shall come to me or if it be her better pleasure
i will go to her the messenger bade farewell and returned to his lady he placed the ring in her hand saying that he had done her will as he was bidden to do right joyous was the damsel to know that milon's love was tender as her own
she required her friend to come for speech within the private garden of her house where she was wont to take her delight milon came at her commandment he came so often and so dearly she loved him that in the end she gave him all that maid may give
when the damsel perceived how it was with her she sent messages to her friend telling him of her case and making great sorrow i have lost my father and all his wealth said the lady for when he hears of this matter he will make of me an example
for such was the usage of our fathers in the days of this tale milon grieved sorely and made answer that he would do the thing the damsel thought most seemly to be done when the child is born replied the lady
you must carry him forthwith to my sister she is a rich dame pitiful and good and is wedded to a lord of northumberland you will send messages with the babe both in writing and by speech that the little innocent is her sister's child
whether it be a boy or girl his mother will have suffered much because of him and for her sister's sake you will pray her to cherish the babe
beyond this i shall set your signet by a lace about his neck and write letters wherein shall be made plain the name of his sire and the sad story of his mother
when he shall have grown tall and of an age to understand these matters his aunt will give him your ring and rehearse to him the letter if this be done perchance the orphan will not be fatherless all his days
milon approved the counsel of the lady and when her time had come she was brought to bed of a boy the old nurse who tended her mistress was privy to the damsel's inmost mind
so warily she went to work so cunning was she in gloss and concealment that none within the palace knew that there was aught to hide the damsel looked upon her boy and saw that he was very fair
she laced the ring about his neck and set the letter that it were death to find within a silken chatelaine the child was then placed in his cradle swathed close in white linen
a pillow of feathers was put beneath his head and over all was laid a warm coverlet wadded with fur in this fashion the ancient nurse gave the babe to his father who awaited him within the garden
milon commended the child to his men charging them to carry him loyally by such towns as they knew to that lady beyond the humber the servitors set forth bearing the infant with them
seven times a day they reposed them in their journey so that the women might nourish the babe and bathe and tend him duly they served their lord so faithfully keeping such watch upon the way that at the last they won to the lady to whom they were bidden
the lady received them courteously as became her breeding she broke the seal of the letter and when she was assured of what was therein marvellously she cherished the infant these having bestowed the boy in accordance with their lord's commandment returned to their own land
milon went forth from his realm to serve beyond the seas for guerdon his friend remained within her house and was granted by her father in marriage to a right rich baron of that country
though this baron was a worthy knight justly esteemed of all his fellows the damsel was grieved beyond measure when she knew her father's will she called to mind the past and regretted that milon had gone from the country since he would have helped her in her need
alas said the lady what shall i do i doubt that i am lost for my lord will find that his bride is not a maid if this becomes known they will make me a bondwoman for all my days
would that my friend were here to free me from this coil it were good for me to die rather than to live but by no means can i escape from their hands they have set warders about me men old and young whom they call my chamberlains
contemners of love who delight themselves in sadness but endure it i must for alas i know not how to die so on the appointed day the lady was wedded to the baron
and her husband took her to dwell with him in his fief when milon returned to his own country he was right heavy and sorrowful to learn of this marriage he lamented his wretched case but in this he found comfort
milon commenced to think within himself how best he might send letters to the damsel that he was come again to his home yet so that none should have knowledge thereof he wrote a letter and sealed it with his seal
this message he made fast to the neck and hid within the plumage of a swan that was long his and was greatly to his heart he bade his squire to come and made him his messenger
change thy raiment swiftly said he and hasten to the castle of my friend take with thee my swan and see that none neither servant nor handmaid delivers the bird to my lady save thyself alone
the squire did according to his lord's commandment he made him ready quickly and went forth bearing the swan with him he went by the nearest road and passing through the streets of the city came before the portal of the castle
in answer to his summons the porter drew near friend said he hearken to me i am of caerleon and a fowler by craft within my nets i have snared the most marvellous swan in the world
this wondrous bird i would bestow forthwith upon your lady but perforce i must offer her the gift with my own hand friend replied the porter fowlers are not always welcomed of ladies
if you come with me i will bring you where i may know whether it pleases my lady to have speech with you and to receive your gift the porter entered in the hall where he found none but two lords seated at a great table playing chess for their delight
he swiftly returned on his steps and the fowler with him so furtively withal that the lords were not disturbed at their game nor perceived aught of the matter they went therefore to the chamber of the lady
in answer to their call the door was opened to them by a maiden who led them before her dame when the swan was proffered to the lady it pleased her to receive the gift she summoned a varlet of her household and gave the bird to his charge
commanding him to keep it safely and to see that it ate enough and to spare lady said the servitor i will do your bidding we shall never receive from any fowler on earth such another bird as this
the swan is fit to serve at a royal table for the bird is plump as he is fair the varlet put the swan in his lady's hands she took the bird kindly and smoothing his head and neck felt the letter that was hidden beneath its feathers
the blood pricked in her veins for well she knew that the writing was sent her by her friend she caused the fowler to be given of her bounty and bade the men to go forth from her chamber when they had parted the lady called a maiden to her aid
she broke the seal and unfastening the letter came upon the name of milon at the head she kissed the name a hundred times through her tears when she might read the writing she learned of the great pain and dolour that her lover suffered by day and by night
strive to find a plan by which we may speak as friend to friend if you would have me live the knight prayed her in his letter to send him an answer by means of the swan if the bird were well guarded and kept without provand for three days
he would of a surety fly back to the place from whence he came with any message that the lady might lace about his neck
she held him for a month within her chamber but this was less from choice than for the craft that was necessary to obtain the ink and parchment requisite for her writing at the end she wrote a letter according to her heart and sealed it with her ring
the lady caused the swan to fast for three full days then having concealed the message about his neck let him take his flight the bird was all anhungered for food and remembering well the home from which he drew he returned thither as quickly as his wings might bear him
he knew again his town and his master's house and descended to the ground at milon's very feet milon rejoiced greatly when he marked his own he caught the bird by his wings and crying for his steward bade him give the swan to eat
sweet to his heart was the writing for the lady wrote that without him there was no joy in her life and since it was his desire to hear by the swan it would be her pleasure also for twenty years the swan was made the messenger of these two lovers
who might never win together there was no speech between them save that carried by the bird they caused the swan to fast for three days and then sent him on his errand he to whom the letter came saw to it that the messenger was fed to heart's desire
many a time the swan went upon his journey for however strictly the lady was held of her husband there was none who had suspicion of a bird the dame beyond the humber nourished and tended the boy committed to her charge with the greatest care
when he was come to a fitting age she made him to be knighted of her lord for goodly and serviceable was the lad on the same day the aunt read over to him the letter and put in his hand the ring
she told him the name of his mother and his father's story in all the world there was no worthier knight nor a more chivalrous and gallant gentleman the lad hearkened diligently to the lady's tale
he rejoiced greatly to hear of his father's prowess and was proud beyond measure of his renown he considered within himself saying to his own heart that much should be required of his father's son and that he would not be worthy of his blood if he did not endeavour to merit his name
he determined therefore that he would leave his country and seek adventure as a knight errant beyond the sea the varlet delayed no longer than the evening on the morrow he bade farewell to his aunt
who having warned and admonished him for his good gave him largely of her wealth to bring him on his way he rode to southampton that he might find a ship equipped for sea and so came to barfleur without any tarrying the lad went straight to brittany
where he spent his money and himself in feasts and in tourneys the rich men of the land were glad of his friendship for there was none who bore himself better in the press with spear or with sword
what he took from the rich he bestowed on such knights as were poor and luckless these loved him greatly since he gained largely and spent freely granting of his wealth to all wherever this knight sojourned in the realm he bore away the prize
so debonair was he and chivalrous that his fame and praise crossed the water and were noised abroad in his own land folk told how a certain knight from beyond the humber who had passed the sea in quest of wealth and honour had so done
that by reason of his prowess his liberality and his modesty men called him the knight peerless since they did not know his name this praise of the good knight and of his deeds came to be heard of milon
very dolent was he and sorely troubled that so young a knight should be esteemed above his fathers he marvelled greatly that the stout spears of the past had not put on their harness and broken a lance for their ancient honour one thing he determined
that he would cross the sea without delay so that he might joust with the dansellon and abate his pride in wrath and anger he purposed to fight to beat his adversary from the saddle and bring him at last to shame
after this was ended he would seek his son of whom he had heard nothing since he had gone from his aunt's castle milon caused his friend to know of his wishes he opened out to her all his thought and craved her permission to depart
this letter he sent by the swan commending the bird to her care when the lady heard of her lover's purpose she thanked him for his courtesy for greatly was his counsel to her mind she approved his desire to quit the realm for the sake of his honour
and far from putting let and hindrance in his path trusted that in the end he would bring again her son since milon was assured of his friend's goodwill he arrayed himself richly and crossing the sea to normandy came afterwards into the land of the bretons
there he sought the friendship of the lords of that realm and fared to all the tournaments of which he might hear milon bore himself proudly and gave graciously of his wealth as though he were receiving a gift
he sojourned till the winter was past in that land he and a brave company of knights whom he held in his house with him when easter had come and the season that men give to tourneys and wars and the righting of their private wrongs
milon considered how he could meet with the knight whom men called peerless at that time a tournament was proclaimed to be held at mont saint michel many a norman and breton rode to the game
knights of flanders and of france were there in plenty but few fared from england
he inquired diligently of the young champion and all men were ready to tell from whence he came and of his harness and of the blazon on his shield at length the knight appeared in the lists and milon looked upon the adversary he so greatly desired to see
now in this tournament a knight could joust with that lord who was set over against him or he could seek to break a lance with his chosen foe
and he might find himself opposed either by his comrade or his enemy milon did well and worshipfully in the press and was praised of many that day but the knight peerless carried the cry from all his fellows for none might stand before him nor rival him in skill and address
milon observed him curiously the lad struck so heavily he thrust home so shrewdly that milon's hatred changed to envy as he watched very comely showed the varlet and much to milon's mind
the older knight set himself over against the champion and they met together in the centre of the field milon struck his adversary so fiercely that the lance splintered in his gauntlet but the young knight kept his seat without even losing a stirrup
in return his spear was aimed with such cunning that he bore his antagonist to the ground milon lay upon the earth bareheaded for his helmet was unlaced in the shock
his hair and beard showed white to all and the varlet was heavy to look on him whom he had overthrown he caught the destrier by the bridle and led him before the stricken man sir said he i pray you to get upon your horse
i am right grieved and vexed that i should have done this wrong believe me that it was wrought unwittingly milon sprang upon his steed he approved the courtesy of his adversary and looking upon the hand that held his bridle he knew again his ring
he made inquiry of the lad friend said he hearken to me tell me now the name of thy sire how art thou called who is thy mother i have seen much and gone to and fro about the world
yet never once by any knight have i been borne from my horse this day i am overthrown by a boy and yet i cannot help but love thee the varlet answered
i know little of my father i understand that his name is milon and that he was a knight of wales he loved the daughter of a rich man and was loved again my mother bore me in secret and caused me to be carried to northumberland where i was taught and tended
an old aunt was at the costs of my nourishing she kept me at her side till of all her gifts she gave me horse and arms and sent me here where i have remained in hope and wish i purpose to cross the sea and return to my own realm
there i would seek out my father and learn how it stands between him and my mother
but must love me as a son and ever hold me dear when milon heard these words he could endure them no further he got him swiftly from his horse and taking the lad by the fringe of his hauberk he cried praise be to god for now am i healed
fair friend by my faith thou art my very son for whom i came forth from my own land and have sought through all this realm the varlet climbed from the saddle and stood upon his feet father and son kissed each other tenderly with many comfortable words
their love was fair to see and those who looked upon their meeting wept for joy and pity milon and his son departed from the tournament so soon as it came to an end for the knight desired greatly to speak to the varlet at leisure and to open before him all his mind
they rode to their hostel and with the knights of their fellowship passed the hours in mirth and revelry milon spoke to the lad of his mother
the son made answer in faith fair father let us return to our own land there i will slay this husband and you shall yet be my mother's lord
this being accorded between them on the morrow they made them ready for the journey and bidding farewell to their friends set forth for wales they embarked in a propitious hour for a fair wind carried the ship right swiftly to its haven
they had not ridden far upon their road when they met a certain squire of the lady's household on his way to brittany bearing letters to milon his task was done long before sundown in chancing on the knight
he gave over the sealed writing with which he was charged praying the knight to hasten to his friend without any tarrying since her husband was in his grave milon rejoiced greatly when he knew this thing he showed the message to his son and pressed forward without pause or rest
they made such speed that at the end they came to the castle where the lady had her lodging light of heart was she when she clasped again her child these two fond lovers sought neither countenance of their kin nor counsel of any man
their son handselled them together and gave the mother to his sire
and showing that suprises like misfortunes seldom come alone her situation was indeed one of no common trial and difficulty
her words and manner had touched rose maylie's heart and mingled with her love for her young charge and scarcely less intense in its truth and fervour was her fond wish to win the outcast back to repentance and hope
they purposed remaining in london only three days prior to departing for some weeks to a distant part of the coast it was now midnight of the first day what course of action could she determine upon which could be adopted in eight and forty hours
or how could she postpone the journey without exciting suspicion mister losberne was with them and would be for the next two days but rose was too well acquainted with the excellent gentleman's impetuosity and foresaw too clearly the wrath with which
in the first explosion of his indignation he would regard the instrument of oliver's recapture to trust him with the secret when her representations in the girl's behalf could be seconded by no experienced person
these were all reasons for the greatest caution and most circumspect behaviour in communicating it to missus maylie whose first impulse would infallibly be to hold a conference with the worthy doctor on the subject as to resorting to any legal adviser
even if she had known how to do so it was scarcely to be thought of for the same reason once the thought occurred to her of seeking assistance from harry but this awakened the recollection of their last parting and it seemed unworthy of her to call him back when
the tears rose to her eyes as she pursued this train of reflection he might have by this time learnt to forget her and to be happier away disturbed by these different reflections inclining now to one course and then to another
and again recoiling from all as each successive consideration presented itself to her mind rose passed a sleepless and anxious night after more communing with herself next day she arrived at the desperate conclusion of consulting harry
if it be painful to him she thought to come back here how painful it will be to me but perhaps he will not come he may write or he may come himself and studiously abstain from meeting me he did when he went away
and laid it down again fifty times and had considered and reconsidered the first line of her letter without writing the first word when oliver who had been walking in the streets with mister giles for a body guard entered the room in such breathless haste and violent agitation
but what is this of whom do you speak i have seen the gentleman replied oliver scarcely able to articulate the gentleman who was so good to me mister brownlow that we have so often talked about where asked rose
getting out of a coach replied oliver shedding tears of delight and going into a house i didn't speak to him i couldn't speak to him for he didn't see me and i trembled so that i was not able to go up to him but giles asked for me
whether he lived there and they said he did look here said oliver opening a scrap of paper here it is here's where he lives i'm going there directly oh dear me dear me what shall i do when i come to see him and
with her attention not a little distracted by these and a great many other incoherent exclamations of joy rose read the address which was craven street in the strand she very soon determined upon turning the discovery to account
quick she said tell them to fetch a hackney coach and be ready to go with me i will take you there directly without a minute's loss of time i will only tell my aunt that we are going out for an hour and be ready as soon as you are
oliver needed no prompting to despatch and in little more than five minutes they were on their way to craven street when they arrived there rose left oliver in the coach under pretence of preparing the old gentleman to receive him
and sending up her card by the servant requested to see mister brownlow on very pressing business the servant soon returned to beg that she would walk upstairs and following him into an upper room miss maylie was presented to an elderly gentleman of benevolent appearance
dear me said the gentleman in the bottle green coat hastily rising with great politeness i beg your pardon young lady i imagined it was some importunate person who i beg you will excuse me
be seated pray mister brownlow i believe sir said rose glancing from the other gentleman to the one who had spoken that is my name said the old gentleman this is my friend mister grimwig
grimwig will you leave us for a few minutes i believe interposed miss maylie that at this period of our interview i need not give that gentleman the trouble of going away if i am correctly informed
he is cognizant of the business on which i wish to speak to you mister brownlow inclined his head mister grimwig who had made one very stiff bow and risen from his chair made another very stiff bow and dropped into it again
i shall surprise you very much i have no doubt said rose naturally embarrassed but you once showed great benevolence and goodness to a very dear young friend of mine and i am sure you will take an interest in hearing of him again
indeed said mister brownlow oliver twist you knew him as replied rose the words no sooner escaped her lips
upset it with a great crash and falling back in his chair discharged from his features every expression but one of unmitigated wonder and indulged in a prolonged and vacant stare then as if ashamed of having betrayed so much emotion
he jerked himself as it were by a convulsion into his former attitude and looking out straight before him emitted a long deep whistle which seemed at last
not to be discharged on empty air but to die away in the innermost recesses of his stomach mister browlow was no less surprised although his astonishment was not expressed in the same eccentric manner he drew his chair nearer to miss maylie's and said
do me the favour my dear young lady to leave entirely out of the question that goodness and benevolence of which you speak and of which nobody else knows anything
and if you have it in your power to produce any evidence which will alter the unfavourable opinion i was once induced to entertain of that poor child in heaven's name put me in possession of it a bad one i'll eat my head if he is not a bad one
and he'd uncommonly like to see any man offer to do it responded mister grimwig knocking his stick upon the floor having gone thus far the two old gentlemen severally took snuff
and afterwards shook hands according to their invariable custom now miss maylie said mister brownlow to return to the subject in which your humanity is so much interested
will you let me know what intelligence you have of this poor child allowing me to promise that i exhausted every means in my power of discovering him and that since i have been absent from this country my first impression that he had imposed upon me
reserving nancy's information for that gentleman's private ear and concluding with the assurance that his only sorrow for some months past had been not being able to meet with his former benefactor and friend thank god said the old gentleman
this is great happiness to me great happiness but you have not told me where he is now miss maylie you must pardon my finding fault with you
he is waiting in a coach at the door replied rose at this door cried the old gentleman with which he hurried out of the room down the stairs up the coachsteps and into the coach without another word
when the room door closed behind him mister grimwig lifted up his head and converting one of the hind legs of his chair into a pivot described three distinct circles with the assistance of his stick and the table sitting in it all the time after performing this evolution
he rose and limped as fast as he could up and down the room at least a dozen times and then stopping suddenly before rose kissed her without the slightest preface hush he said as the young lady rose in some alarm at this unusual proceeding
don't be afraid i'm old enough to be your grandfather you're a sweet girl i like you here they are in fact as he threw himself at one dexterous dive into his former seat mister brownlow returned accompanied by oliver
said mister brownlow ringing the bell send missus bedwin here if you please the old housekeeper answered the summons with all dispatch and dropping a curtsey at the door waited for orders why you get blinder every day bedwin
said mister brownlow rather testily well that i do sir replied the old lady people's eyes at my time of life don't improve with age sir i could have told you that rejoined mister brownlow
god be good to me cried the old lady embracing him it is my innocent boy my dear old nurse cried oliver he would come back i knew he would said the old lady holding him in her arms how well he looks
the good soul laughed and wept upon his neck by turns leaving her and oliver to compare notes at leisure mister brownlow led the way into another room and there heard from rose a full narration of her interview with nancy
which occasioned him no little surprise and perplexity rose also explained her reasons for not confiding in her friend mister losberne in the first instance the old gentleman considered that she had acted prudently
and readily undertook to hold solemn conference with the worthy doctor himself to afford him an early opportunity for the execution of this design it was arranged that he should call at the hotel at eight o'clock that evening and that in the meantime
missus maylie should be cautiously informed of all that had occurred these preliminaries adjusted rose and oliver returned home rose had by no means overrated the measure of the good doctor's wrath nancy's history was no sooner unfolded to him
than he poured forth a shower of mingled threats and execrations threatened to make her the first victim of the combined ingenuity of messrs blathers and duff and actually put on his hat preparatory to sallying forth to obtain the assistance of those worthies
and doubtless he would in this first outbreak have carried the intention into effect without a moment's consideration of the consequences if he had not been restrained in part by corresponding violence on the side of mister brownlow
said the impetuous doctor when they had rejoined the two ladies are we to pass a vote of thanks to all these vagabonds male and female and beg them to accept a hundred pounds or so apiece as a trifling mark of our esteem
and some slight acknowledgment of their kindness to oliver not exactly that rejoined mister brownlow laughing but we must proceed gently and with great care gentleness and care exclaimed the doctor
i'd send them one and all to never mind where interposed mister brownlow but reflect whether sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have in view what object asked the doctor
what good should we bring about hanging a few of them at least in all probability suggested the doctor and transporting the rest very good replied mister brownlow smiling
that can only be done by stratagem and by catching him when he is not surrounded by these people for suppose he were apprehended we have no proof against him he is not even so far as we know or as the facts appear to us
concerned with the gang in any of their robberies if he were not discharged it is very unlikely that he could receive any further punishment than being committed to prison as a rogue and vagabond
whether you think it reasonable that this promise to the girl should be considered binding a promise made with the best and kindest intentions but really do not discuss the point my dear young lady pray said mister brownlow interrupting rose as she was about to speak
he was fain to admit that no better course occurred to him just then and as both rose and missus maylie sided very strongly with mister brownlow that gentleman's proposition was carried unanimously i should like he said
to call in the aid of my friend grimwig he is a strange creature but a shrewd one and might prove of material assistance to us i should say that he was bred a lawyer and quitted the bar in disgust because he had only one brief and a motion of course
who may he be that lady's son and this young lady's very old friend said the doctor motioning towards missus maylie and concluding with an expressive glance at her niece
will have begun to think by this time that we have wearied of his company and entered into some dark conspiracy to thrust him forth upon the world
contains some introductory particulars relative to a young gentleman who now arrives upon the scene and a new adventure which happened to oliver it was almost too much happiness to bear
oliver felt stunned and stupefied by the unexpected intelligence he could not weep or speak or rest he had scarcely the power of understanding anything that had passed until after a long ramble in the quiet evening air
a burst of tears came to his relief and he seemed to awaken all at once to a full sense of the joyful change that had occurred and the almost insupportable load of anguish which had been taken from his breast the night was fast closing in when he returned homeward
laden with flowers which he had culled with peculiar care for the adornment of the sick chamber as he walked briskly along the road he heard behind him the noise of some vehicle approaching at a furious pace
running up to the chaise door giles popped out his nightcap again preparatory to making some reply when he was suddenly pulled back by a young gentleman who occupied the other corner of the chaise and who eagerly demanded what was the news
in a word cried the gentleman better or worse better much better replied oliver hastily thank heaven exclaimed the gentleman you are sure quite sir replied oliver the change took place only a few hours ago
and mister losberne says that all danger is at an end the gentleman said not another word but opening the chaise door leaped out and taking oliver hurriedly by the arm led him aside you are quite certain
there is no possibility of any mistake on your part my boy is there demanded the gentleman in a tremulous voice do not deceive me by awakening hopes that are not to be fulfilled i would not for the world sir replied oliver indeed you may believe me
had been sitting on the steps of the chaise supporting an elbow on each knee and wiping his eyes with a blue cotton pocket handkerchief dotted with white spots that the honest fellow had not been feigning emotion
i would rather walk slowly on so as to gain a little time before i see her you can say i am coming i beg your pardon mister harry said giles giving a final polish to his ruffled countenance with the handkerchief but if you would leave the postboy to say that
this done the postboy drove off giles mister maylie and oliver followed at their leisure as they walked along oliver glanced from time to time with much interest and curiosity at the new comer
he seemed about five and twenty years of age and was of the middle height his countenance was frank and handsome and his demeanor easy and prepossessing notwithstanding the difference between youth and age
he bore so strong a likeness to the old lady that oliver would have had no great difficulty in imagining their relationship if he had not already spoken of her as his mother missus maylie was anxiously waiting to receive her son when he reached the cottage
if that had been the case harry said missus maylie
and that your arrival here a day sooner or a day later
and who can wonder if it be so mother rejoined the young man or why should i say if it is it is you know it mother you must know it
i know that she deserves the best and purest love the heart of man can offer said missus maylie i know that the devotion and affection of her nature require no ordinary return but one that shall be deep and lasting if i did not feel this
do you still suppose that i am a boy ignorant of my own mind and mistaking the impulses of my own soul i think my dear son returned missus maylie laying her hand upon his shoulder
that youth has many generous impulses which do not last and that among them are some which being gratified become only the more fleeting above all i think said the lady fixing her eyes on her son's face that if an enthusiastic
and in exact proportion to his success in the world be cast in his teeth and made the subject of sneers against him he may no matter how generous and good his nature
mother said the young man impatiently he would be a selfish brute unworthy alike of the name of man and of the woman you describe who acted thus you think so now harry replied his mother and ever will said the young man
i have no thought no view no hope in life beyond her and if you oppose me in this great stake you take my peace and happiness in your hands and cast them to the wind mother think better of this and of me
and why should i suffer the pain of a delay in giving them vent which can be productive of no earthly good no before i leave this place rose shall hear me she shall said missus maylie
there is something in your manner which would almost imply that she will hear me coldly mother said the young man not coldly rejoined the old lady far from it how then
urged the young man she has formed no other attachment no indeed replied his mother you have or i mistake too strong a hold on her affections already what i would say resumed the old lady stopping her son as he was about to speak
has always been her characteristic what do you mean that i leave you to discover replied missus maylie i must go back to her god bless you i shall see you again to night said the young man eagerly
the former now held out his hand to harry maylie and hearty salutations were exchanged between them the doctor then communicated in reply to multifarious questions from his young friend a precise account of his patient's situation
which was quite as consolatory and full of promise as oliver's statement had encouraged him to hope and to the whole of which mister giles who affected to be busy about the luggage listened with greedy ears
have you shot anything particular lately giles inquired the doctor when he had concluded nothing particular sir replied mister giles colouring up to the eyes nor catching any thieves nor identifying any house breakers
said the doctor none at all sir replied mister giles with much gravity well said the doctor i am sorry to hear it because you do that sort of thing admirably pray how is brittles
to deposit in the local savings bank the sum of five and twenty pounds for his sole use and benefit at this the two women servants lifted up their hands and eyes and supposed that mister giles pulling out his shirt frill replied no no
and were withal as original and as much to the purpose as the remarks of great men commonly are above stairs the remainder of the evening passed cheerfully away for the doctor was in high spirits and however fatigued or thoughtful harry maylie might have been at first
and it was late before they retired with light and thankful hearts to take that rest of which after the doubt and suspense they had recently undergone they stood much in need oliver rose next morning in better heart
and went about his usual occupations with more hope and pleasure than he had known for many days the birds were once more hung out to sing in their old places and the sweetest wild flowers that could be found were once more gathered to gladden rose with their beauty
the melancholy which had seemed to the sad eyes of the anxious boy to hang for days past over every object beautiful as all were was dispelled by magic the dew seemed to sparkle more brightly on the green leaves the air to rustle among them with a sweeter music
are in the right but the sombre colours are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts the real hues are delicate and need a clearer vision it is worthy of remark and oliver did not fail to note it at the time that his morning expeditions were no longer made alone
oliver could not help noticing that the withered flowers were never thrown away although the little vase was regularly replenished nor could he help observing that whenever the doctor came into the garden he invariably cast his eyes up to that particular corner
yet left her chamber and there were no evening walks save now and then for a short distance with missus maylie he applied himself with redoubled assiduity to the instructions of the white headed old gentleman and laboured so hard that his quick progress surprised even himself
it was while he was engaged in this pursuit that he was greatly startled and distressed by a most unexpected occurrence the little room in which he was accustomed to sit when busy at his books
that crept over the casement and filled the place with their delicious perfume it looked into a garden whence a wicket gate opened into a small paddock all beyond was fine meadow land and wood there was no other dwelling near in that direction
and the prospect it commanded was very extensive one beautiful evening when the first shades of twilight were beginning to settle upon the earth oliver sat at this window intent upon his books he had been poring over them for some time
and as the day had been uncommonly sultry and he had exerted himself a great deal it is no disparagement to the authors whoever they may have been to say that gradually and by slow degrees he fell asleep
there is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes which while it holds the body prisoner does not free the mind from a sense of things about it and enable it to ramble at its pleasure so far as an overpowering heaviness a prostration of strength
and an utter inability to control our thoughts or power of motion can be called sleep this is it and yet we have a consciousness of all that is going on about us and if we dream at such a time words which are really spoken or sounds which really exist at the moment
accommodate themselves with surprising readiness to our visions until reality and imagination become so strangely blended that it is afterwards almost matter of impossibility to separate the two
nor is this the most striking phenomenon incidental to such a state it is an undoubted fact that although our senses of touch and sight be for the time dead yet our sleeping thoughts and the visionary scenes that pass before us
will be influenced and materially influenced by the mere silent presence of some external object which may not have been near us when we closed our eyes and of whose vicinity we have had no waking consciousness
oliver knew perfectly well that he was in his own little room that his books were lying on the table before him that the sweet air was stirring among the creeping plants outside and yet he was asleep suddenly the scene changed
if you buried him fifty feet deep and took me across his grave i fancy i should know if there wasn't a mark above it
there there at the window close before him so close that he could have almost touched him before he started back with his eyes peering into the room and meeting his there stood the jew and beside him white with rage or fear or both
were the scowling features of the man who had accosted him in the inn yard
gave no indications of splendor nothing one would expect from the destined residence of the magnificent count of monte cristo but this simplicity was according to the will of its master
but that morning laid down and upon which the water was yet glistening for the rest the orders had been issued by the count he himself had given a plan to bertuccio marking the spot where each tree was to be planted
and the shape and extent of the lawn which was to take the place of the paving stones thus the house had become unrecognizable and bertuccio himself declared that he scarcely knew it encircled as it was by a framework of trees
the overseer would not have objected while he was about it to have made some improvements in the garden but the count had positively forbidden it to be touched bertuccio made amends however
by loading the ante chambers staircases and mantle pieces with flowers what above all manifested the shrewdness of the steward and the profound science of the master the one in carrying out the ideas of the other
was that this house which appeared only the night before so sad and gloomy impregnated with that sickly smell one can almost fancy to be the smell of time had in a single day acquired the aspect of life
was scented with its master's favorite perfumes and had the very light regulated according to his wish when the count arrived he had under his touch his books and arms his eyes rested upon his favorite pictures
lived sang and bloomed like the houses we have long cherished and in which when we are forced to leave them we leave a part of our souls the servants passed gayly along the fine court yard some belonging to the kitchens
gliding down the stairs restored but the previous day as if they had always inhabited the house others filling the coach houses where the equipages encased and numbered appeared to have been installed for the last fifty years
on the other side of the house to match with the library was the conservatory ornamented with rare flowers that bloomed in china jars and in the midst of the greenhouse
marvellous alike to sight and smell was a billiard table which looked as if it had been abandoned during the past hour by players who had left the balls on the cloth one chamber alone had been respected by the magnificent bertuccio
until he entered his bedroom situated on the opposite side to the closed room then he approached a little piece of furniture made of rosewood which he had noticed at a previous visit that can only be to hold gloves
he said will your excellency deign to open it said the delighted bertuccio and you will find gloves in it elsewhere the count found everything he required smelling bottles cigars knick knacks good he said
left enraptured so great so powerful and real was the influence exercised by this man over all who surrounded him at precisely six o'clock the clatter of horses hoofs was heard at the entrance door
it was our captain of spahis who had arrived on medeah i am sure i am the first cried morrel i did it on purpose to have you a minute to myself before every one came julie and emmanuel
if you had seen at what a pace he came like the wind i should think so a horse that cost five thousand francs said monte cristo in the tone which a father would use towards a son
do you regret them asked morrel with his open laugh i certainly not replied the count no i should only regret if the horse had not proved good it is so good
and at the same minute a carriage with smoking horses accompanied by two mounted gentlemen arrived at the gate which opened before them the carriage drove round and stopped at the steps followed by the horsemen
nothing escaped the count's notice and he observed a little note passed with the facility that indicates frequent practice from the hand of madame danglars to that of the minister's secretary after his wife the banker descended
as pale as though he had issued from his tomb instead of his carriage madame danglars threw a rapid and inquiring glance which could only be interpreted by monte cristo around the court yard over the peristyle
and across the front of the house then repressing a slight emotion which must have been seen on her countenance if she had not kept her color she ascended the steps saying to morrel sir
i should ask you if you would sell your horse morrel smiled with an expression very like a grimace and then turned round to monte cristo
but people would say he was afraid and a brave captain of spahis cannot risk this even to gratify a pretty woman which is in my opinion one of the most sacred obligations in the world you see my position madame
said morrel bestowing a grateful smile on monte cristo it seems to me said danglars in his coarse tone ill concealed by a forced smile that you have already got horses enough
such a question it is the work of another age constructed by the genii of earth and water how so at what period can that have been i do not know
the other ten were sunk three hundred fathoms deep into the sea the sea knowing what was required of her threw over them her weeds
with coral and encrusted them with shells the whole was cemented by two hundred years beneath these almost impervious depths for a revolution carried away the emperor who wished to make the trial
at the end of two hundred years the documents were found and they thought of bringing up the jars divers descended in machines made expressly on the discovery into the bay where they were thrown
but of ten three only remained the rest having been broken by the waves i am fond of these jars upon which perhaps misshapen frightful monsters have fixed their cold dull eyes
and in which myriads of small fish have slept seeking a refuge from the pursuit of their enemies meanwhile danglars who had
pricked him dreadfully he shuddered and rubbed his eyes as though awaking from a dream sir said monte cristo to him i do not recommend my pictures to you who possess such splendid paintings but nevertheless
a paul potter
a raphael a vandyke a zurbaran
stay said debray i recognize this hobbema ah indeed yes it was proposed for the museum which i believe does not contain one said monte cristo
no and yet they refused to buy it why said chateau renaud you pretend not to know
gray moustaches a bold eye a major's uniform ornamented with three medals and five crosses in fact the thorough bearing of an old soldier such was the appearance of major
bartolomeo cavalcanti that tender father with whom we are already acquainted close to him dressed in entirely new clothes advanced smilingly count andrea cavalcanti the dutiful son
whom we also know the three young people were talking together on the entrance of the new comers their eyes glanced from father to son and then naturally enough rested on the latter whom they began criticising
cavalcanti said debray a fine name said morrel yes said chateau renaud these italians are well named and badly dressed you are fastidious chateau renaud replied debray
cavalcanti that tells me their name and nothing else ah true you do not know the italian nobility the cavalcanti are all descended from princes have they any fortune
i will introduce you to them but they appear to speak french with a very pure accent said danglars the son has been educated in a college in the south i believe near marseilles you will find him quite enthusiastic
are they going to put him in the ministry not yet i think more likely he has been speculating on the bourse and has lost money
notwithstanding his self control was visibly affected and when monte cristo touched his hand he felt it tremble certainly women alone know how to dissimulate said monte cristo to himself glancing at madame danglars
and embracing his wife after a short time the count saw bertuccio who until then had been occupied on the other side of the house glide into an adjoining room he went to him
the count watched him good heavens he exclaimed what is the matter said the count that woman that woman which the one with a white dress and so many diamonds the fair one madame danglars
with his eyes starting and his hair on end waiting for whom bertuccio without answering
oh oh he at length muttered do you see what who him him
or rather there is no truth in anything you have told me it was a fright of the imagination a dream of your fancy you went to sleep full of thoughts of vengeance they weighed heavily upon your stomach you had the nightmare
come calm yourself and reckon them up
seven major bartolomeo cavalcanti eight eight repeated bertuccio stop you are in a shocking hurry to be off you forget one of my guests lean a little to the left
stay look at
said the count severely i ordered dinner at that hour and i do not like to wait and he returned to his guests while bertuccio leaning against the wall succeeded in reaching the dining room
five minutes afterwards the doors of the drawing room were thrown open and bertuccio appearing said with a violent effort
will you conduct the baroness danglars
how a gardener may get rid of the dormice that eat his peaches not on the same night as he had intended but the next morning the count of monte cristo went out by the barrier d'enfer
taking the road to orleans leaving the village of linas without stopping at the telegraph which flourished its great bony arms as he passed the count reached the tower of montlhery
upon which green fruit had succeeded to red and white flowers monte cristo looked for the entrance to the enclosure and was not long in finding a little wooden gate working on willow hinges
and fastened with a nail and string the count soon mastered the mechanism the gate opened and he then found himself in a little garden about twenty feet long by twelve wide bounded on one side by part of the hedge
by the old tower covered with ivy and studded with wall flowers no one would have thought in looking at this old weather beaten floral decked tower which might be likened to an elderly dame dressed up to receive her grandchildren
at a birthday feast that it would have been capable of telling strange things if in addition to the menacing ears which the proverb says all walls are provided with it had also a voice
the garden was crossed by a path of red gravel edged by a border of thick box of many years growth and of a tone and color that would have delighted the heart of delacroix our modern rubens
this path was formed in the shape of the figure of eight thus in its windings making a walk of sixty feet in a garden of only twenty never had flora the fresh and smiling goddess of gardeners
not one bore the mark of the slug nor were there evidences anywhere of the clustering aphis which is so destructive to plants growing in a damp soil and yet it was not because the damp had been excluded from the garden the earth
black as soot the thick foliage of the trees betrayed its presence besides had natural humidity been wanting it could have been immediately supplied by artificial means thanks to a tank of water
there was not a blade of grass to be seen in the paths
and fastened the string to the nail and cast a look around the man at the telegraph said he must either engage a gardener or devote himself passionately to agriculture
which he was placing upon grape leaves he had twelve leaves and about as many strawberries which on rising suddenly he let fall from his hand you are gathering your crop sir said monte cristo smiling
excuse me sir replied the man raising his hand to his cap i am not up there i know but i have only just come down do not let me interfere with you in anything my friend said the count gather your strawberries if indeed
i have ten left said the man for here are eleven and i had twenty one five more than last year but i am not surprised the spring has been warm this year and strawberries require heat sir
this is the reason that instead of the sixteen i had last year i have this year you see eleven already plucked twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen ah i miss three
stealing in a garden he does not know where that may lead him to certainly it is wrong said monte cristo but you should take into consideration the youth and greediness of the delinquent of course said the gardener
and he glanced timidly at the count's blue coat calm yourself my friend said the count with the smile which he made at will either terrible or benevolent and which now expressed only the kindliest feeling i am not an inspector
but a traveller brought here by a curiosity he half repents of since he causes you to lose your time ah my time is not valuable replied the man with a melancholy smile
and i ought not to waste it but having received the signal that i might rest for an hour here he glanced at the sun dial for there was everything in the enclosure of montlhery even a sun dial
and having ten minutes before me and my strawberries being ripe when a day longer by the by sir do you think dormice eat them indeed i should think not replied monte cristo
dormice are bad neighbors for us who do not eat them preserved as the romans did what did the romans eat them said the gardener ate dormice
though they do say as fat as a dormouse it is not a wonder they are fat sleeping all day and only waking to eat all night listen last year i had four apricots they stole one
monte cristo had seen enough every man has a devouring passion in his heart as every fruit has its worm that of the telegraph man was horticulture he began gathering the grape leaves which screened the sun from the grapes
and won the heart of the gardener did you come here sir to see the telegraph he said yes if it isn't contrary to the rules oh no said the gardener not in the least
that is true sir and that is what i like best said the man smiling why do you like that best because then i have no responsibility i am a machine then and nothing else and so long as i work
nothing more is required of me is it possible said monte cristo to himself that i can have met with a man that has no ambition that would spoil my plans sir said the gardener
glancing at the sun dial the ten minutes are almost up i must return to my post will you go up with me i follow you monte cristo entered the tower which was divided into three stories
the tower contained implements such as spades rakes watering pots hung against the wall this was all the furniture the second was the man's conventional abode or rather sleeping place
preserving the seeds he had labelled them with as much care as if he had been master botanist
thousand francs sir it is nothing no but then we are lodged as you perceive monte cristo looked at the room they passed to the third story it was the telegraph room
monte cristo looked in turn at the two iron handles by which the machine was worked it is very interesting he said but it must be very tedious for a lifetime yes
at first my neck was cramped with looking at it but at the end of a year i became used to it
and our holidays holidays yes when when we have a fog
make fifteen you are fifty five years old how long must you have served to claim the pension oh sir twenty five years and how much is the pension a hundred crowns
what did you say sir asked the man i was saying it was very interesting what was all you were showing me and you really understand none of these signals none at all
at the same time tells my right hand correspondent that i am ready while it gives notice to my left hand correspondent to prepare in his turn it is very ingenious said the count
you are fond of gardening passionately and you would be pleased to have instead of this terrace of twenty feet an enclosure of two acres sir i should make a terrestrial paradise of it
you live badly on your thousand francs badly enough but yet i do live yes but you have a wretchedly small garden true the garden is not large
and then such as it is it is filled with dormice who eat everything ah they are my scourges tell me should you have the misfortune to turn your head
i should not see him then what would happen i could not repeat the signals and then not having repeated them through negligence i should be fined how much
a hundred francs the tenth of your income that would be fine work ah said the man has it ever happened to you said monte cristo once sir when i was grafting a rose tree
well suppose you were to alter a signal and substitute another ah that is another case i should be turned off and lose my pension three hundred francs
a hundred crowns yes sir so you see that i am not likely to do any of these things not even for fifteen years wages come it is worth thinking about for fifteen thousand francs
yes sir you alarm me nonsense sir
just so fifteen thousand francs do you understand sir let me see my right hand correspondent on the contrary do not look at him but at this what is it what
do you not know these bits of paper bank notes exactly there are fifteen of them and whose are they yours if you like mine exclaimed the man
take these and the count placed the packet in the man's hands now this is not all he said you cannot live upon your fifteen thousand francs i shall still have my place no
you will lose it for you are going to alter your correspondent's message oh sir what are you proposing a jest sir unless you force me
i think i can effectually force you and monte cristo drew another packet from his pocket here are ten thousand more francs he said with the fifteen thousand already in your pocket they will make twenty five thousand
with five thousand you can buy a pretty little house with two acres of land
in a thousand francs a year a garden with two acres of land and a thousand francs a year oh heavens come take them and monte cristo forced the bank notes into his hand what am i to do
nothing very difficult but what is it to repeat these signs monte cristo took a paper from his pocket upon which were drawn three signs with numbers to indicate the order in which they were to be worked
the man executed one after the other the three signs given by the count in spite of the frightful contortions of the right hand correspondent who not understanding the change began to think the gardener had gone mad
as to the left hand one he conscientiously repeated the same signals which were finally transmitted to the minister of the interior now you are rich said monte cristo yes replied the man
listen friend said monte cristo i do not wish to cause you any remorse believe me then when i swear to you that you have wronged no man but on the contrary have benefited mankind
the man looked at the bank notes felt them counted them turned pale then red then rushed into his room to drink a glass of water but he had no time to reach the water jug and fainted in the midst of his dried herbs
five minutes after the new telegram reached the minister debray
i think so indeed he has six millions worth he must sell them at whatever price why
and ordered him to sell at any price when it was seen that danglars sold the spanish funds fell directly danglars lost five hundred thousand francs but he rid himself of all his spanish shares
and the peninsula is in the enjoyment of profound peace a telegraphic signal improperly interpreted
the boys with the golden stars once upon a time what happened did happen and if it had not happened you would never have heard this story well once upon a time there lived an emperor who had half a world all to himself to rule over
and in this world dwelt an old herd and his wife and their three daughters anna stana and laptitza anna the eldest was so beautiful that when she took the sheep to pasture they forgot to eat as long as she was walking with them
stana the second was so beautiful that when she was driving the flock the wolves protected the sheep but laptitza the youngest with a skin as white as the foam on the milk and with hair as soft as the finest lamb's wool
was as beautiful as both her sisters put together as beautiful as she alone could be one summer day when the rays of the sun were pouring down on the earth the three sisters went to the wood on the outskirts of the mountain to pick strawberries
so loud that you would have thought a whole army was riding by but it was only the emperor going to hunt with his friends and attendants they were all fine handsome young men who sat their horses as if they were part of them but the finest and handsomest of all
was the young emperor himself as they drew near the three sisters and marked their beauty they checked their horses and rode slowly by listen sisters said anna as they passed on
if one of those young men should make me his wife i would bake him a loaf of bread which should keep him young and brave for ever and if i said stana should be the one chosen i would weave my husband a shirt
which will keep him unscathed when he fights with dragons when he goes through water he will never even be wet or if through fire it will not scorch him and i said laptitza will give the man who chooses me
two boys twins each with a golden star on his forehead as bright as those in the sky and though they spoke low the young men heard and turned their horses heads
i take you at your word and mine shall you be most lovely of empresses cried the emperor and swung laptitza and her strawberries on the horse before him and i will have you and i you exclaimed two of his friends
and they all rode back to the palace together the following morning the marriage ceremony took place and for three days and three nights there was nothing but feasting over the whole kingdom and when the rejoicings were over
the news was in everybody's mouth that anna had sent for corn and had made the loaf of which she had spoken at the strawberry beds and then more days and nights passed and this rumour was succeeded by another one that stana had procured some flax
and had dried it and combed it and spun it into linen and sewed it herself into the shirt of which she had spoken over the strawberry beds now the emperor had a stepmother and she had a daughter by her first husband who lived with her in the palace
the girl's mother had always believed that her daughter would be empress and not the milkwhite maiden the child of a mere shepherd so she hated the girl with all her heart and only bided her time to do her ill
but she could do nothing as long as the emperor remained with his wife night and day and she began to wonder what she could do to get him away from her at last when everything else had failed she managed to make her brother
who was king of the neighbouring country declare war against the emperor and besiege some of the frontier towns with a large army this time her scheme was successful the young emperor sprang up in wrath the moment he heard the news and vowed that nothing
and hastily assembling whatever soldiers happened to be at hand
the other king had not reckoned on the swiftness of his movements and was not ready to receive him
and reached the palace on the third day but early that morning when the stars were growing pale in the sky two little boys with golden hair and stars on their foreheads were born to laptitza
and the stepmother who was watching took them away and dug a hole in the corner of the palace under the windows of the emperor and put them in it
the emperor came into the palace and when they told him the news he went straight to laptitza's room no words were needed he saw with his own eyes that laptitza had not kept the promise she had made at the strawberry beds and
though it nearly broke his heart he must give orders for her punishment so he went out sadly and told his guards that the empress was to be buried in the earth up to her neck
not many days after the stepmother's wish was fulfilled the emperor took her daughter to wife and again the rejoicings lasted for three days and three nights
the poor little babies had found no rest even in their graves in the place where they had been buried there sprang up two beautiful young aspens and the stepmother who hated the sight of the trees which reminded her of her crime
gave orders that they should be uprooted
let them alone i like to see them there they are the finest aspens i have ever beheld and the aspens grew as no aspens had ever grown before in each day they added a year's growth
and each night they added a year's growth and at dawn when the stars faded out of the sky they grew three years growth in the twinkling of an eye and their boughs swept across the palace windows and when the wind moved them softly
the stepmother knew what it all meant and her mind never ceased from trying to invent some way of destroying the trees it was not an easy thing but a woman's will can press milk out of a stone and her cunning will overcome heroes
what craft will not do soft words may attain and if these do not succeed there still remains the resource of tears one morning the empress sat on the edge of her husband's bed
and began to coax him with all sorts of pretty ways it was some time before the bait took but at length even emperors are only men well well he said at last have your way and cut down the trees
but out of one they shall make a bed for me and out of the other one for you and with this the empress was forced to be content
yet he felt a kind of calm that was quite new to him
when the emperor was fast asleep the bed began to crack loudly and to the empress each crack had a meaning
is it too heavy for you little brother asked one of the beds oh no it is not heavy at all answered the bed in which the emperor was sleeping i feel nothing but joy now that my beloved father rests over me
it is very heavy for me said the other bed for on me lies an evil soul
the empress listening all the while by daybreak the empress had determined how to get rid of the beds she would have two others made exactly like them and when the emperor had gone hunting they should be placed in his room
this was done and the aspen beds were burnt in a large fire till only a little heap of ashes was left yet while they were burning
and scattered them to the four winds so that they might blow over fresh lands and fresh seas and nothing remain of them but she had not seen
two sparks flew up and after floating in the air for a few moments fell down into the great river that flows through the heart of the country here the sparks had turned into two little fishes with golden scales and one was so exactly like the other
early one morning the emperor's fishermen went down to the river to get some fish for their master's breakfast and cast their nets into the stream
as the last star twinkled out of the sky they drew them in and among the multitude of fishes lay two with scales of gold such as no man had ever looked on they all gathered round and wondered
and give them as a present to the emperor do not take us there for that is whence we came and yonder lies our destruction said one of the fishes but what are we to do with you asked the fisherman
go and collect all the dew that lies on the leaves and let us swim in it then lay us in the sun
and when he came back what do you think he saw why two boys
and each so like the other
every one would have known them for twins the boys grew fast
and in every night another year's growth but at dawn when the stars were fading they grew three years growth in the twinkling of an eye and they grew in other things besides height too thrice in age and thrice in wisdom
and thrice in knowledge and when three days and three nights had passed they were twelve years in age twenty four in strength and thirty six in wisdom
which half covered their faces and completely hid their golden hair and the stars on their foreheads and led them to the court by the time they arrived there it was midday and the fisherman and his charges went up to an official who was standing about
we wish to speak with the emperor said one of the boys you must wait until he has finished his dinner replied the porter no while he is eating it said the second boy stepping across the threshold
the attendants all ran forward to thrust such impudent youngsters outside the palace but the boys slipped through their fingers like quicksilver and entered a large hall where the emperor was dining surrounded by his whole court we desire to enter
said one of the princes sharply to a servant who stood near the door that is quite impossible
let us see said the second prince pushing the servants to right and left but the servants were many and the princes only two there was the noise of a struggle which reached the emperor's ears what is the matter asked he angrily
the princes stopped at the sound of their father's voice two boys who want to force their way in replied one of the servants approaching the emperor
said the emperor all in one breath we know not o mighty emperor answered the servant
and they are as proud as they are strong for they will not take their caps from their heads the emperor as he listened grew red with anger thrust them out cried he set the dogs after them
leave us alone and we will go quietly said the princes
weeping silently at the harsh words they had almost reached the gates when a servant ran up to them the emperor commands you to return panted he the empress wishes to see you the princes thought a moment
then they went back the way they had come and walked straight up to the emperor their caps still on their heads he sat at the top of a long table covered with flowers and filled with guests and beside him sat the empress
supported by twelve cushions when the princes entered one of the cushions fell down and there remained only eleven take off your caps said one of the courtiers a covered head is among men a sign of honour we wish to seem what we are
stay as you are but tell me
we are twins two shoots from one stem which has been broken and half lies in the ground and half sits at the head of this table we have travelled a long way we have spoken in the rustle of the wind
have whispered in the wood we have sung in the waters but now we wish to tell you a story which you know without knowing it in the speech of men and a second cushion fell down let them take their silliness home
said the empress oh no let them go on said the emperor you wished to see them but i wish to hear them go on boys sing me the story the empress was silent but the princes began to sing the story of their lives
there was once an emperor began they and the third cushion fell down when they reached the warlike expedition of the emperor three of the cushions fell down at once and when the tale was finished there were no more cushions under the empress
but the moment that they lifted their caps and showed their golden hair and the golden stars the eyes of the emperor and of all his guests were bent on them and they could hardly bear the power of so many glances
chapter fifteen doubt marguerite blakeney had watched the slight sable clad figure of chauvelin as he worked his way through the ball room
listlessly she sat in the small still deserted boudoir looking out through the curtained doorway on the dancing couples beyond looking at them yet seeing nothing hearing the music yet
conscious of naught save a feeling of expectancy of anxious weary waiting her mind conjured up before her the vision of what was perhaps at this very moment passing downstairs
the half deserted dining room the fateful hour chauvelin on the watch then
the entrance of a man he the scarlet pimpernel the mysterious leader who to marguerite had become almost unreal so strange so weird was this hidden identity
she wished she were in the supper room too at this moment watching him as he entered she knew that her woman's penetration would at once recognise in the stranger's face whoever he might be
that strong individuality which belongs to a leader of men to a hero to the mighty high soaring eagle whose daring wings were becoming entangled in the ferret's trap woman like
she thought of him with unmixed sadness the irony of that fate seemed so cruel which allowed the fearless lion to succumb to the gnawing of a rat ah had armand's life not been at stake faith
your ladyship must have thought me very remiss said a voice suddenly close to her elbow i had a deal of difficulty in delivering your message for i could not find blakeney anywhere at first marguerite had forgotten all about her husband and her message to him
his very name as spoken by lord fancourt sounded strange and unfamiliar to her so completely had she in the last five minutes lived her old life
which were forever raging in paris in those days i did find him at last continued lord fancourt and gave him your message he said that he would give orders at once for the horses to be put to ah
she said still very absently you found my husband and gave him my message yes he was in the dining room fast asleep i
thank you very much she said mechanically trying to collect her thoughts will your ladyship honour me with the contredanse until your coach is ready asked lord fancourt no i
the heat in the ball room has become oppressive the conservatory is deliciously cool
you seem ailing lady blakeney i am only very tired she repeated wearily as she allowed lord fancourt to lead her where subdued lights and green plants lent coolness to the air he got her a chair
into which she sank this long interval of waiting was intolerable why did not chauvelin come and tell her the result of his watch lord fancourt was very attentive she scarcely heard what he said and
suddenly startled him by asking abruptly lord
equally fast asleep in another corner he said why does your ladyship ask i know not i
it must have been about five or
she had not been listening to his intellectual conversation but indeed her thoughts were not very far away only one storey below in this same house in the dining room where sat chauvelin still on the watch
had he failed for one instant that possibility rose before as a hope the hope that the scarlet pimpernel had been warned by sir andrew and that chauvelin's trap had failed to catch his bird
but that hope soon gave way to fear had he failed but then armand
sitting opposite to a lady however fair who is evidently not heeding the most vigorous efforts made for her entertainment is not exhilarating even to a cabinet minister shall i find out if your ladyship's coach is ready
he said at last tentatively oh
perhaps would be best alone but lord fancourt went and still chauvelin did not come oh what had happened
now with a deadly fear that chauvelin had failed and that the mysterious scarlet pimpernel had proved elusive once more
no mercy from him he had pronounced his either or and nothing less would content him he was very spiteful and would affect the belief that she had wilfully misled him and having failed to trap the eagle once again
his revengeful mind would be content with the humble prey armand yet she had done her best had strained every nerve for armand's sake she could not bear to think that all had failed
she wanted to go and hear the worst at once she wondered even that chauvelin had not come yet to vent his wrath and satire upon her lord grenville himself came presently to tell her that her coach was ready and that sir percy
was already waiting for her ribbons in hand marguerite said farewell to her distinguished host many of her friends stopped her as she crossed the rooms to talk to her and exchange pleasant au revoirs
the minister only took final leave of beautiful lady blakeney
below on the landing a veritable army of gallant gentlemen were waiting to bid good bye to the queen of beauty and fashion whilst outside under the massive portico
at the top of the stairs just after she had taken final leave of her host she suddenly saw chauvelin
there was a curious look on his mobile face partly amused and wholly puzzled as his keen eyes met marguerite's they became strangely sarcastic
bowing elaborately before her my coach is outside may i claim your arm as gallant as ever he offered her his arm and led her downstairs the crowd was very great
some of the minister's guests were departing others were leaning against the banisters watching the throng as it filed up and down the wide staircase chauvelin
i must know what has happened what has happened dear lady he said with affected surprise where
i have helped you to night surely i have the right to know what happened in the dining room at one o'clock just now she spoke in a whisper trusting that in the general hubbub of the crowd her words would remain unheeded by all save the man at her side
quiet and peace reigned supreme fair lady
and sir percy blakeney in another
i yes we have failed perhaps but armand she pleaded ah
pray heaven dear lady that that thread may not snap chauvelin i worked for you sincerely earnestly remember i remember my promise he said quietly
saint just will be in the arms of his charming sister which means that a brave man's blood will be on my hands she said with a shudder his blood or that of your brother surely at the present moment you must hope
as i do that the enigmatical scarlet pimpernel will start for calais to day i am only conscious of one hope citoyen and that is that satan
you flatter me citoyenne she had detained him for a while mid way down the stairs trying to get at the thoughts which lay beyond that thin fox like mask but chauvelin remained urbane
sarcastic mysterious not a line betrayed to the poor anxious woman whether she need fear or whether she dared to hope downstairs on the landing she was soon surrounded
lady blakeney never stepped from any house into her coach without an escort of fluttering human moths around the dazzling light of her beauty but before she finally turned away from chauvelin she held out a tiny hand to him
with that pretty gesture of childish appeal which was essentially her own give me some hope my little chauvelin she pleaded with perfect gallantry he bowed over that tiny hand
and kissing the tips of the rosy fingers pray heaven that the thread may not snap he repeated with his enigmatic smile
and stepping aside he allowed the moths to flutter more closely round the candle
eagerly attentive to lady blakeney's every movement hid
chapter twelve raising money when we opened our boarding department we provided rooms in the attic of porter hall our first building for a number of girls
but the number of students of both sexes continued to increase we could find rooms outside the school grounds for many of the young men but the girls we did not care to expose in this way
very soon the problem of providing more rooms for the girls as well as a larger boarding department for all the students grew serious as a result we finally decided to undertake the construction of a still larger building
a building that would contain rooms for the girls and boarding accommodations for all after having had a preliminary sketch of the needed building made we found that it would cost about ten thousand dollars we had no money whatever with which to begin
still we decided to give the needed building a name we knew we could name it even though we were in doubt about our ability to secure the means for its construction we decided to call the proposed building alabama hall
in honour of the state in which we were labouring again miss davidson began making efforts to enlist the interest and help of the coloured and white people in and near tuskegee they responded willingly in proportion to their means
the students as in the case of our first building porter hall began digging out the dirt in order to allow the laying of the foundations when we seemed at the end of our resources so far as securing money was concerned
something occurred which showed the greatness of general armstrong something which proved how far he was above the ordinary individual when we were in the midst of great anxiety as to where and how we were to get funds for the new building
i received a telegram from general armstrong asking me if i could spend a month travelling with him through the north and asking me if i could do so to come to hampton at once of course i accepted general armstrong's invitation
and went to hampton immediately on arriving there i found that the general had decided to take a quartette of singers through the north and hold meetings for a month in important cities at which meetings he and i were to speak
imagine my surprise when the general told me further that these meetings were to be held not in the interests of hampton but in the interests of tuskegee and that the hampton institute was to be responsible for all the expenses
although he never told me so in so many words i found that general armstrong took this method of introducing me to the people of the north as well as for the sake of securing some immediate funds to be used in the erection of alabama hall
a weak and narrow man would have reasoned that all the money which came to tuskegee in this way would be just so much taken from the hampton institute but none of these selfish or short sighted feelings ever entered the breast of general armstrong
he was too big to be little too good to be mean he knew that the people in the north who gave money gave it for the purpose of helping the whole cause of negro civilization and not merely for the advancement of any one school
the general knew too that the way to strengthen hampton was to make it a centre of unselfish power in the working out of the whole southern problem
i recall just one piece of advice which the general gave me he said give them an idea for every word i think it would be hard to improve upon this advice and it might be made to apply to all public speaking
from that time to the present i have always tried to keep his advice in mind meetings were held in new york brooklyn boston philadelphia and other large cities
and at all of these meetings general armstrong pleased together with myself for help not for hampton but for tuskegee at these meetings an especial effort was made to secure help for the building of alabama hall
as well as to introduce the school to the attention of the general public in both these respects the meetings proved successful after that kindly introduction i began going north alone to secure funds
during the last fifteen years i have been compelled to spend a large proportion of my time away from the school in an effort to secure money to provide for the growing needs of the institution
in my efforts to get funds i have had some experiences that may be of interest to my readers time and time again i have been asked by people who are trying to secure money for philanthropic purposes
what rule or rules i followed to secure the interest and help of people who were able to contribute money to worthy objects as far as the science of what is called begging can be reduced to rules
i would say that i have had but two rules first always to do my whole duty regarding making our work known to individuals and organizations
this second rule has been the hardest for me to live up to when bills are on the eve of falling due with not a dollar in hand with which to meet them it is pretty difficult to learn not to worry
although i think i am learning more and more each year that all worry simply consumes and to no purpose just so much physical and mental strength that might otherwise be given to effective work
after considerable experience in coming into contact with wealthy and noted men
are those who never grow excited or lose self control but are always calm self possessed patient and polite i think that president william mc kinley is the best example of a man of this class that i have ever seen
in order to be successful in any kind of undertaking i think the main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets himself that is to lose himself in a great cause
in proportion as one loses himself in the way in the same degree does he get the highest happiness out of his work my experience in getting money for tuskegee has taught me to have no patience with those people who are always condemning the rich
because they are rich and because they do not give more to objects of charity in the first place those who are guilty of such sweeping criticisms do not know how many people would be made poor
and how much suffering would result if wealthy people were to part all at once with any large proportion of their wealth in a way to disorganize and cripple great business enterprises
then very few persons have any idea of the large number of applications for help that rich people are constantly being flooded with i know wealthy people who receive as much as twenty calls a day for help
more than once when i have gone into the offices of rich men i have found half a dozen persons waiting to see them and all come for the same purpose that of securing money and all these calls in person
to say nothing of the applications received through the mails very few people have any idea of the amount of money given away by persons who never permit their names to be known i have often heard persons condemned for not giving away money who
so quietly that the world knew nothing about it as an example of this there are two ladies in new york whose names rarely appear in print but who in a quiet way have given us the means with which to erect three large
and important buildings during the last eight years
and they not only help tuskegee but they are constantly seeking opportunities to help other worthy causes although it has been my privilege to be the medium through which a good many hundred thousand dollars have been received for the work at tuskegee
beggar my experience and observation have convinced me that persistent asking outright for money from the rich does not as a rule secure help
i have usually proceeded on the principle that persons who possess sense enough to earn money have sense enough to know how to give it away and that the mere making known of the facts regarding tuskegee
and especially the facts regarding the work of the graduates has been more effective than outright begging i think that the presentation of facts on a high dignified plane is all the begging that most rich people care for
while the work of going from door to door and from office to office is hard disagreeable and costly in bodily strength
such work gives one a rare opportunity to study human nature it also has its compensations in giving one an opportunity to meet some of the best people in the world
to be more correct i think i should say the best people in the world when one takes a broad survey of the country he will find that the most useful and influential people in it are those who take the deepest interest
in institutions that exist for the purpose of making the world better at one time when i was in boston i called at the door of a rather wealthy lady and was admitted to the vestibule and sent up my card
while i was waiting for an answer her husband came in and asked me in the most abrupt manner what i wanted when i tried to explain the object of my call he became still more ungentlemanly in his words and manner
and finally grew so excited that i left the house without waiting for a reply from the lady a few blocks from that house i called to see a gentleman who received me in the most cordial manner he wrote me his check for a generous sum
i am so grateful to you mister washington for giving me the opportunity to help a good cause it is a privilege to have a share in it we in boston are constantly indebted to you for doing our work
in that city the donors seem to feel in a large degree that an honour is being conferred upon them in their being permitted to give nowhere else have i met with in so large a measure this fine and christlike spirit
as in the city of boston although there are many notable instances of it outside that city i repeat my belief that the world is growing in the direction of giving i repeat that the main rule by which i have been guided in collecting money
is to do my full duty in regard to giving people who have money an opportunity for help in the early years of the tuskegee school i walked the streets or travelled country roads in the north for days and days without receiving a dollar
often as it happened when during the week i had been disappointed in not getting a cent from the very individuals from whom i most expected help and when i was almost broken down and discouraged
that generous help has come from some one who i had had little idea would give at all i recall that on one occasion i obtained information that led me to believe that a gentleman who lived about two miles out in the country
might become interested in our efforts at tuskegee if our conditions and needs were presented to him on an unusually cold and stormy day i walked the two miles to see him after some difficulty i succeeded in securing an interview with him
he listened with some degree of interest to what i had to say but did not give me anything i could not help having the feeling that in a measure the three hours that i had spent in seeing him had been thrown away
still i had followed my usual rule of doing my duty if i had not seen him i should have felt unhappy over neglect of duty two years after this visit a letter came to tuskegee from this man which read like this
enclosed i send you a new york draft for ten thousand dollars to be used in furtherance of your work i had placed this sum in my will for your school
i recall with pleasure your visit to me two years ago i can hardly imagine any occurrence which could have given me more genuine satisfaction than the receipt of this draft
it was by far the largest single donation which up to that time the school had ever received it came at a time when an unusually long period had passed since we had received any money
we were in great distress because of lack of funds and the nervous strain was tremendous it is difficult for me to think of any situation that is more trying on the nerves than that of conducting a large institution
with heavy obligations to meet without knowing where the money is to come from to meet these obligations from month to month in our case i felt a double responsibility and this made the anxiety all the more intense
if the institution had been officered by white persons and had failed it would have injured the cause of negro education but i knew that the failure of our institution officered by negroes would not only mean the loss of a school
but would cause people in a large degree to lose faith in the ability of the entire race the receipt of this draft for ten thousand dollars under all these circumstances partially lifted a burden that had been pressing down upon me
for days from the beginning of our work to the present i have always had the feeling and lose no opportunity to impress our teachers with the same idea that the school will always be supported in proportion as the inside of the institution
is kept clean and pure and wholesome the first time i ever saw the late collis p huntington the great railroad man he gave me two dollars for our school the last time i saw him which was a few months before he died
he gave me fifty thousand dollars toward our endowment fund between these two gifts there were others of generous proportions which came every year from both mister and missus huntington
no it was not luck it was hard work nothing ever comes to me that is worth having except as the result of hard work
when mister huntington gave me the first two dollars i did not blame him for not giving me more but made up my mind that i was going to convince him by tangible results that we were worthy of larger gifts
for a dozen years i made a strong effort to convince mister huntington of the value of our work i noted that just in proportion as the usefulness of the school grew his donations increased
never did i meet an individual who took a more kindly and sympathetic interest in our school than did mister huntington he not only gave money to us but took time in which to advise me as a father would a son
about the general conduct of the school more than once i have found myself in some pretty tight places while collecting money in the north the following incident i have never related but once before
for the reason that i feared that people would not believe it one morning i found myself in providence rhode island without a cent of money with which to buy breakfast in crossing the street to see a lady from whom i hoped to get some money
i found a bright new twenty five cent piece in the middle of the street track i not only had this twenty five cents for my breakfast but within a few minutes i had a donation from the lady on whom i had started to call
rector of trinity church boston to preach the commencement sermon as we then had no room large enough to accommodate all who would be present the place of meeting was under a large improvised arbour
built partly of brush and partly of rough boards soon after doctor donald had begun speaking the rain came down in torrents and he had to stop while someone held an umbrella over him
the boldness of what i had done never dawned upon me until i saw the picture made by the rector of trinity church standing before that large audience under an old umbrella waiting for the rain to cease so that he could go on with his address
it was not very long before the rain ceased and doctor donald finished his sermon and an excellent sermon it was too in spite of the weather after he had gone to his room and had gotten the wet threads of his clothes dry
doctor donald ventured the remark that a large chapel at tuskegee would not be out of place the next day a letter came from two ladies who were then travelling in italy
a short time ago we received twenty thousand dollars from mister andrew carnegie to be used for the purpose of erecting a new library building our first library and reading room were in a corner of a shanty
and the whole thing occupied a space about five by twelve feet it required ten years of work before i was able to secure mister carnegie's interest and help the first time i saw him ten years ago he seemed to take but little interest in our school
but i was determined to show him that we were worthy of his help after ten years of hard work i wrote him a letter reading as follows december fifteenth nineteen hundred mister andrew carnegie
new york dear sir complying with the request which you made of me when i saw you at your residence a few days ago i now submit in writing an appeal for a library building for our institution
eighty six officers and instructors together with their families and about two hundred coloured people living near the school all of whom would make use of the library building we have over twelve thousand books periodicals et cetera
gifts from our friends but we have no suitable place for them and we have no suitable reading room our graduates go to work in every section of the south
and whatever knowledge might be obtained in the library would serve to assist in the elevation of the whole negro race such a building as we need could be erected for about twenty thousand dollars all of the work for the building such as brickmaking
brick masonry carpentry blacksmithing et cetera would be done by the students the money which you would give would not only supply the building but the erection of the building would give a large number of students an opportunity to learn the building trades
and the students would use the money paid to them to keep themselves in school
if you wish further information i shall be glad to furnish it yours truly booker t washington principal the next mail brought back the following reply
i will be very glad to pay the bills for the library building as they are incurred to the extent of twenty thousand dollars and i am glad of this opportunity to show the interest i have in your noble work
i have found that strict business methods go a long way in securing the interest of rich people it has been my constant aim at tuskegee to carry out in our financial and other operations
such business methods as would be approved of by any new york banking house i have spoken of several large gifts to the school but by far the greater proportion of the money that has built up the institution
has come in the form of small donations from persons of moderate means
in my efforts to get money i have often been surprised at the patience and deep interest of the ministers who are besieged on every hand and at all hours of the day for help if no other consideration had convinced me of the value of the christian life
for the elevation of the black man would have made me a christian in a large degree it has been the pennies the nickels and the dimes which have come from the sunday schools the christian endeavour societies
and the missionary societies as well as from the church proper that have helped to elevate the negro at so rapid a rate
this speaking of small gifts reminds me to say that very few tuskegee graduates fail to send us an annual contribution these contributions range from twenty five cents up to ten dollars
and up to the present time we have continued to receive help from them first the state legislature of alabama increased its annual appropriation from two thousand dollars to three thousand dollars
the effort to secure this increase was led by the hon m f foster the member of the legislature from tuskegee second we received one thousand dollars from the john f slater fund
our work seemed to please the trustees of this fund as they soon began increasing their annual grant this has been added to from time to time until at present we receive eleven thousand dollars annually from the fund
the other help to which i have referred came in the shape of an allowance from the peabody fund this was at first five hundred dollars but it has since been increased to fifteen hundred dollars
the effort to secure help from the slater and peabody funds brought me into contact with two rare men men who have had much to do in shaping the policy for the education of the negro
i refer to the hon j l m curry of washington who is the general agent for these two funds and mister morris k jessup of new york doctor curry is a native of the south an ex confederate soldier
yet i do not believe there is any man in the country who is more deeply interested in the highest welfare of the negro than doctor curry or one who is more free from race prejudice
of the black man and the southern white man i shall never forget the first time i met him it was in richmond virginia where he was then living i had heard much about him when i first went into his presence
trembling because of my youth and inexperience he took me by the hand so cordially and spoke such encouraging words and gave me such helpful advice regarding the proper course to pursue that i came to know him then
as i have known him ever since as a high example of one who is constantly and unselfishly at work for the betterment of humanity
baskerville hall october fifteenth my dear holmes if i was compelled to leave you without much news during the early days of my mission
in some ways they have within the last forty eight hours become much clearer and in some ways they have become more complicated but i will tell you all and you shall judge for yourself before breakfast on the morning following my adventure
it follows therefore that barrymore since only this window would serve the purpose must have been looking out for something or somebody upon the moor the night was very dark so that i can hardly imagine how he could have hoped to see anyone
it had struck me that it was possible that some love intrigue was on foot that would have accounted for his stealthy movements and also for the uneasiness of his wife the man is a striking looking fellow very well equipped to steal the heart of a country girl
so that this theory seemed to have something to support it that opening of the door which i had heard after i had returned to my room might mean that he had gone out to keep some clandestine appointment so i reasoned with myself in the morning and i tell you the direction of my suspicions
and i told him all that i had seen he was less surprised than i had expected i knew that barrymore walked about nights and i had a mind to speak to him about it said he two or three times i have heard his steps in the passage coming and going
just about the hour you name perhaps then he pays a visit every night to that particular window i suggested perhaps he does if so we should be able to shadow him and see what it is that he is after i wonder what your friend holmes would do if he were here
i believe that he would do exactly what you now suggest said i he would follow barrymore and see what he did then we shall do it together but surely he would hear us the man is rather deaf and in any case
we must take our chance of that we'll sit up in my room tonight and wait until he passes sir henry rubbed his hands with pleasure and it was evident that he hailed the adventure as a relief to his somewhat quiet life upon the moor
the baronet has been in communication with the architect who prepared the plans for sir charles and with a contractor from london so that we may expect great changes to begin here soon
and it is evident that our friend has large ideas and means to spare no pains or expense to restore the grandeur of his family when the house is renovated and refurnished all that he will need will be a wife to make it complete between ourselves
there are pretty clear signs that this will not be wanting if the lady is willing for i have seldom seen a man more infatuated with a woman than he is with our beautiful neighbour miss stapleton
and yet the course of true love does not run quite as smoothly as one would under the circumstances expect today for example its surface was broken by a very unexpected ripple which has caused our friend considerable perplexity and annoyance
after the conversation which i have quoted about barrymore sir henry put on his hat and prepared to go out as a matter of course i did the same what are you coming watson he asked
looking at me in a curious way that depends on whether you are going on the moor said i yes i am
am sorry to intrude but you heard how earnestly holmes insisted that i should not leave you and especially that you should not go alone upon the moor sir henry put his hand upon my shoulder with a pleasant smile my dear fellow said he holmes with all his wisdom
did not foresee some things which have happened since i have been on the moor you understand me i am sure that you are the last man in the world who would wish to be a spoil sport i must go out alone it put me in a most awkward position
i was at a loss what to say or what to do
but when i came to think the matter over my conscience reproached me bitterly for having on any pretext allowed him to go out of my sight
i assure you my cheeks flushed at the very thought it might not even now be too late to overtake him so i set off at once in the direction of merripit house i hurried along the road at the top of my speed without seeing anything of sir henry
there fearing that perhaps i had come in the wrong direction after all i mounted a hill from which i could command a view the same hill which is cut into the dark quarry thence i saw him at once he was on the moor path about a quarter of a mile off
and a lady was by his side who could only be miss stapleton it was clear that there was already an understanding between them and that they had met by appointment they were walking slowly along in deep conversation
and i saw her making quick little movements of her hands as if she were very earnest in what she was saying while he listened intently and once or twice shook his head in strong dissent i stood among the rocks watching them
very much puzzled as to what i should do next to follow them and break into their intimate conversation seemed to be an outrage and yet my clear duty was never for an instant to let him out of my sight to act the spy upon a friend was a hateful task
still i could see no better course than to observe him from the hill and to clear my conscience by confessing to him afterwards what i had done it is true that if any sudden danger had threatened him i was too far away to be of use
and yet i am sure that you will agree with me that the position was very difficult and that there was nothing more which i could do our friend sir henry and the lady had halted on the path and were standing deeply absorbed in their conversation
when i was suddenly aware that i was not the only witness of their interview a wisp of green floating in the air caught my eye and another glance showed me that it was carried on a stick by a man who was moving among the broken ground
it was stapleton with his butterfly net he was very much closer to the pair than i was and he appeared to be moving in their direction at this instant sir henry suddenly drew miss stapleton to his side his arm was round her
but it seemed to me that she was straining away from him with her face averted he stooped his head to hers and she raised one hand as if in protest next moment i saw them spring apart and turn hurriedly round stapleton was the cause of the interruption
he was running wildly towards them his absurd net dangling behind him he gesticulated and almost danced with excitement in front of the lovers what the scene meant i could not imagine but it seemed to me that stapleton was abusing sir henry
who offered explanations which became more angry as the other refused to accept them the lady stood by in haughty silence finally stapleton turned upon his heel and beckoned in a peremptory way to his sister who
after an irresolute glance at sir henry walked off by the side of her brother the naturalist's angry gestures showed that the lady was included in his displeasure the baronet stood for a minute looking after them
his head hanging the very picture of dejection what all this meant i could not imagine
you would have thought the middle of that prairie a fairly safe place for a man to be private said he but by thunder
and a mighty poor wooing at that where had you engaged a seat i was on that hill
but her brother was well up to the front did you see him come out on us yes i did did he ever strike you as being crazy this brother of hers i can't say that he ever did i dare say not
i always thought him sane enough until today but you can take it from me that either he or i ought to be in a straitjacket what's the matter with me anyhow you've lived near me for some weeks watson tell me straight now
is there anything that would prevent me from making a good husband to a woman that i loved i should say not he can't object to my worldly position so it must be myself that he has this down on what has he against me
i never hurt man or woman in my life that i know of and yet he would not so much as let me touch the tips of her fingers did he say so that and a deal more i tell you watson i've only known her these few weeks
but from the first i just felt that she was made for me and she too she was happy when she was with me and that i'll swear there's a light in a woman's eyes that speaks louder than words but he has never let us get together
and it was only today for the first time that i saw a chance of having a few words with her alone she was glad to meet me but when she did it was not love that she would talk about and she wouldn't have let me talk about it either if she could have stopped it
with that i offered in as many words to marry her
if he had not been her brother i should have known better how to answer him as it was i told him that my feelings towards his sister were such as i was not ashamed of and that i hoped that she might honour me by becoming my wife that seemed to make the matter no better
and i answered him rather more hotly than i should perhaps considering that she was standing by so it ended by his going off with her as you saw
and i'll owe you more than ever i can hope to pay i tried one or two explanations but indeed i was completely puzzled myself our friend's title his fortune his age his character and his appearance are all in his favour and i know nothing against him
however our conjectures were set at rest by a visit from stapleton himself that very afternoon he had come to offer apologies for his rudeness of the morning and after a long private interview with sir henry in his study the upshot of their conversation
was that the breach is quite healed and that we are to dine at merripit house next friday as a sign of it i don't say now that he isn't a crazy man said sir henry i can't forget the look in his eyes when he ran at me this morning
but i must allow that no man could make a more handsome apology than he has done did he give any explanation of his conduct his sister is everything in his life he says that is natural enough and i am glad that he should understand her value
but when he saw with his own eyes that it was really so and that she might be taken away from him it gave him such a shock that for a time he was not responsible for what he said or did
and he recognized how foolish and how selfish it was
if she had to leave him he had rather it was to a neighbour like myself than to anyone else but in any case it was a blow to him and it would take him some time before he could prepare himself to meet it he would withdraw all opposition upon his part
and now i pass on to another thread which i have extricated out of the tangled skein the mystery of the sobs in the night of the tear stained face of missus barrymore of the secret journey of the butler to the western lattice window congratulate me my dear holmes
and tell me that i have not disappointed you as an agent
all these things have by one night's work been thoroughly cleared i have said by one night's work but in truth it was by two nights work for on the first we drew entirely blank i sat up with sir henry in his rooms until nearly three o'clock in the morning
but no sound of any sort did we hear except the chiming clock upon the stairs it was a most melancholy vigil and ended by each of us falling asleep in our chairs fortunately we were not discouraged and we determined to try again
the next night we lowered the lamp and sat smoking cigarettes without making the least sound it was incredible how slowly the hours crawled by and yet we were helped through it by the same sort of patient interest which the hunter must feel as he watches the trap
keenly on the alert once more we had heard the creak of a step in the passage very stealthily we heard it pass along until it died away in the distance then the baronet gently opened his door and we set out in pursuit
and shot one single yellow beam across the gloom of the corridor we shuffled cautiously towards it trying every plank before we dared to put our whole weight upon it we had taken the precaution of leaving our boots behind us but even so
however the man is fortunately rather deaf and he was entirely preoccupied in that which he was doing when at last we reached the door and peeped through we found him crouching at the window candle in hand
exactly as i had seen him two nights before we had arranged no plan of campaign but the baronet is a man to whom the most direct way is always the most natural he walked into the room and as he did so barrymore sprang up from the window
with a sharp hiss of his breath and stood livid and trembling before us his dark eyes glaring out of the white mask of his face were full of horror and astonishment as he gazed from sir henry to me what are you doing here barrymore
his agitation was so great that he could hardly speak and the shadows sprang up and down from the shaking of his candle it was the window sir i go round at night to see that they are fastened on the second floor yes sir all the windows
look here barrymore said sir henry sternly we have made up our minds to have the truth out of you so it will save you trouble to tell it sooner rather than later come now no lies what were you doing at that window the fellow looked at us in a helpless way
i was doing no harm sir i was holding a candle to the window and why were you holding a candle to the window don't ask me sir henry don't ask me i give you my word sir that it is not my secret and that i cannot tell it
if it concerned no one but myself i would not try to keep it from you a sudden idea occurred to me and i took the candle from the trembling hand of the butler
let us see if there is any answer i held it as he had done and stared out into the darkness of the night vaguely i could discern the black bank of the trees
nothing at all the butler broke in i assure you sir move your light across the window watson cried the baronet see the other moves also
come speak up who is your confederate out yonder and what is this conspiracy that is going on the man's face became openly defiant it is my business and not yours i will not tell then you leave my employment right away
very good sir if i must i must and you go in disgrace by thunder you may well be ashamed of yourself your family has lived with mine for over a hundred years under this roof
no no sir no not against you it was a woman's voice and missus barrymore paler and more horror struck than her husband was standing at the door her bulky figure in a shawl and skirt might have been comic
were it not for the intensity of feeling upon her face we have to go eliza this is the end of it you can pack our things said the butler oh john john have i brought you to this it is my doing sir henry all mine
he has done nothing except for my sake and because i asked him speak out then what does it mean
we cannot let him perish at our very gates the light is a signal to him that food is ready for him and his light out yonder is to show the spot to which to bring it then your brother is the escaped convict sir selden the criminal
that's the truth sir said barrymore i said that it was not my secret and that i could not tell it to you but now you have heard it and you will see that if there was a plot it was not against you
this then was the explanation of the stealthy expeditions at night and the light at the window sir henry and i both stared at the woman in amazement was it possible that this stolidly respectable person
was of the same blood as one of the most notorious criminals in the country yes sir my name was selden and he is my younger brother we humoured him too much when he was a lad and gave him his own way in everything
from crime to crime he sank lower and lower until it is only the mercy of god which has snatched him from the scaffold but to me sir he was always the little curly headed boy that i had nursed and played with as an elder sister would
that was why he broke prison sir he knew that i was here and that we could not refuse to help him when he dragged himself here one night weary and starving with the warders hard at his heels what could we do
we took him in and fed him and cared for him then you returned sir and my brother thought he would be safer on the moor than anywhere else until the hue and cry was over so he lay in hiding there but every second night we made sure
and if there was an answer my husband took out some bread and meat to him every day we hoped that he was gone but as long as he was there we could not desert him that is the whole truth as i am an honest christian woman and you will see that if there is blame in the matter
i cannot blame you for standing by your own wife forget what i have said
and we shall talk further about this matter in the morning when they were gone we looked out of the window again sir henry had flung it open and the cold night wind beat in upon our faces
and he is waiting this villain beside that candle by thunder watson
the same thought had crossed my own mind it was not as if the barrymores had taken us into their confidence their secret had been forced from them the man was a danger to the community
any night for example our neighbours the stapletons might be attacked by him and it may have been the thought of this which made sir henry so keen upon the adventure i will come said i then get your revolver and put on your boots the sooner we start the better
as the fellow may put out his light and be off in five minutes we were outside the door starting upon our expedition we hurried through the dark shrubbery
the night air was heavy with the smell of damp and decay now and again the moon peeped out for an instant but clouds were driving over the face of the sky
the light still burned steadily in front are you armed i asked i have a hunting crop we must close in on him rapidly for he is said to be a desperate fellow we shall take him by surprise and have him at our mercy before he can resist
i say watson said the baronet what would holmes say to this how about that hour of darkness in which the power of evil is exalted as if in answer to his words there rose suddenly out of the vast gloom of the moor
strident wild and menacing the baronet caught my sleeve and his face glimmered white through the darkness my god what's that watson i don't know it's a sound they have on the moor i heard it once before it died away
and an absolute silence closed in upon us we stood straining our ears but nothing came watson said the baronet it was the cry of a hound my blood ran cold in my veins
he asked who the folk on the countryside oh they are ignorant people why should you mind what they call it tell me watson what do they say of it i hesitated but could not escape the question they say it is the cry of the hound of the baskervilles
he groaned and was silent for a few moments a hound it was he said at last but it seemed to come from miles away over yonder i think it was hard to say whence it came it rose and fell with the wind
isn't that the direction of the great grimpen mire yes it is well it was up there come now watson didn't you think yourself that it was the cry of a hound i am not a child you need not fear to speak the truth
calling of a strange bird no no it was a hound my god can there be some truth in all these stories
you don't believe it do you watson no no and yet it was one thing to laugh about it in london
it was as cold as a block of marble you'll be all right tomorrow i don't think i'll get that cry out of my head
shall we turn back no by thunder we have come out to get our man and we will do it we after the convict and a hell hound as likely as not after us come on we'll see it through if all the fiends of the pit were loose upon the moor
we stumbled slowly along in the darkness with the black loom of the craggy hills around us and the yellow speck of light burning steadily in front there is nothing so deceptive as the distance of a light upon a pitch dark night
and then we knew that we were indeed very close a guttering candle was stuck in a crevice of the rocks which flanked it on each side so as to keep the wind from it and also to prevent it from being visible save in the direction of baskerville hall
a boulder of granite concealed our approach and crouching behind it we gazed over it at the signal light it was strange to see this single candle burning there in the middle of the moor with no sign of life near it just the one straight yellow flame
and the gleam of the rock on each side of it what shall we do now whispered sir henry wait here he must be near his light let us see if we can get a glimpse of him the words were hardly out of my mouth when we both saw him
over the rocks in the crevice of which the candle burned there was thrust out an evil yellow face a terrible animal face all seamed and scored with vile passions foul with mire with a bristling beard and hung with matted hair
the light beneath him was reflected in his small cunning eyes which peered fiercely
or the fellow may have had some other reason for thinking that all was not well but i could read his fears upon his wicked face any instant he might dash out the light and vanish in the darkness i sprang forward therefore and sir henry did the same
at the same moment the convict screamed out a curse at us and hurled a rock which splintered up against the boulder which had sheltered us i caught one glimpse of his short squat strongly built figure as he sprang to his feet and turned to run
at the same moment by a lucky chance the moon broke through the clouds we rushed over the brow of the hill and there was our man running with great speed down the other side springing over the stones in his way with the activity of a mountain goat
a lucky long shot of my revolver might have crippled him but i had brought it only to defend myself if attacked and not to shoot an unarmed man who was running away we were both swift runners and in fairly good training
but we soon found that we had no chance of overtaking him we saw him for a long time in the moonlight until he was only a small speck moving swiftly among the boulders upon the side of a distant hill we ran and ran until we were completely blown
but the space between us grew ever wider finally we stopped and sat panting on two rocks while we watched him disappearing in the distance and it was at this moment that there occurred a most strange and unexpected thing
we had risen from our rocks and were turning to go home having abandoned the hopeless chase the moon was low upon the right and the jagged pinnacle of a granite tor stood up against the lower curve of its silver disc
there outlined as black as an ebony statue on that shining background i saw the figure of a man upon the tor do not think that it was a delusion holmes i assure you that i have never in my life seen anything more clearly
as far as i could judge the figure was that of a tall thin man he stood with his legs a little separated his arms folded his head bowed as if he were brooding over that enormous wilderness of peat and granite which lay before him
he might have been the very spirit of that terrible place it was not the convict this man was far from the place where the latter had disappeared besides he was a much taller man with a cry of surprise i pointed him out to the baronet
but in the instant during which i had turned to grasp his arm the man was gone there was the sharp pinnacle of granite still cutting the lower edge of the moon but its peak bore no trace of that silent and motionless figure
but it was some distance away the baronet's nerves were still quivering from that cry which recalled the dark story of his family and he was not in the mood for fresh adventures he had not seen this lonely man upon the tor
but i should like to have some further proof of it today we mean to communicate to the princetown people where they should look for their missing man
and leave you to select for yourself those which will be of most service to you in helping you to your conclusions we are certainly making some progress so far as the barrymores go we have found the motive of their actions
and its strange inhabitants remains as inscrutable as ever
it is usual to say that the delineation of character in shakespeare is the height of perfection this is asserted with such confidence and repeated by all as indisputable truth but however much i endeavored to find confirmation of this in shakespeare's dramas
i always found the opposite in reading any of shakespeare's dramas whatever i was from the very first instantly convinced that he was lacking in the most important if not the only means of portraying characters individuality of language
this is absent from shakespeare
in which not only they could not speak but in which no living man ever has spoken or does speak
that he would divorce his wife in the grave should regan not receive him or that the heavens would crack with shouting or that the winds would burst or that the wind wishes to blow the land into the sea
or that the curled waters wish to flood the shore as the gentleman describes the storm or that it is easier to bear one's grief and the soul leaps over many sufferings when grief finds fellowship
or that lear has become childless while i am fatherless as edgar says or use similar unnatural expressions with which the speeches of all the characters in all shakespeare's dramas overflow
they all suffer from a common intemperance of language those who are in love who are preparing for death who are fighting who are dying all alike speak much and unexpectedly about subjects utterly inappropriate to the occasion
being evidently guided rather by consonances and play of words than by thoughts they speak all alike lear raves exactly as does edgar when feigning madness both kent and the fool speak alike
the words of one of the personages might be placed in the mouth of another and by the character of the speech it would be impossible to distinguish who speaks if there is a difference in the speech of shakespeare's various characters it lies merely in the different dialogs which are pronounced for these characters
again by shakespeare and not by themselves thus shakespeare always speaks for kings in one and the same inflated empty language also in one and the same shakespearian artificially sentimental language speak all the women who are intended to be poetic
juliet desdemona cordelia imogen marina in the same way also it is shakespeare alone who speaks for his villains richard edmund iago macbeth expressing for them those vicious feelings which villains never express
yet more similar are the speeches of the madmen with their horrible words and those of fools with their mirthless puns so that in shakespeare there is no language of living individuals that language which in the drama is the chief means of setting forth character
if gesticulation be also a means of expressing character as in ballets this is only a secondary means moreover if the characters speak at random and in a random way and all in one and the same diction as is the case in shakespeare's work
then even the action of gesticulation is wasted therefore whatever the blind panegyrists of shakespeare may say in shakespeare there is no expression of character those personages who in his dramas stand out as characters
are characters borrowed by him from former works which have served as the foundation of his dramas and they are mostly depicted not by the dramatic method which consists in making each person speak with his own diction but in the epic method of one person describing the features of another
the perfection with which shakespeare expresses character is asserted chiefly on the ground of the characters of lear cordelia othello desdemona falstaff and hamlet but all these characters as well as all the others instead of belonging to shakespeare
are taken by him from dramas chronicles and romances anterior to him all these characters not only are not rendered more powerful by him but in most cases they are weakened and spoilt this is very striking in this drama of king lear
by an unknown author the characters of this drama that of king lear and especially of cordelia not only were not created by shakespeare but have been strikingly weakened and deprived of force by him as compared with their appearance in the older drama
in the older drama leir abdicates because having become a widower he thinks only of saving his soul he asks his daughters as to their love for him that by means of a certain device he has invented he may retain his favorite daughter on his island
the elder daughters are betrothed while the youngest does not wish to contract a loveless union with any of the neighboring suitors whom leir proposes to her and he is afraid that she may marry some distant potentate the device which he has invented as he informs his courtier perillus shakespeare's kent
is this that when cordelia tells him that she loves him more than any one or as much as her elder sisters do he will tell her that she must in proof of her love marry the prince he will indicate on his island all these motives for lear's conduct are absent in shakespeare's play
then when according to the old drama leir asks his daughters about their love for him cordelia does not say as shakespeare has it that she will not give her father all her love but will love her husband too should she marry which is quite unnatural
but simply says that she can not express her love in words but hopes that her actions will prove it goneril and regan remark that cordelia's answer is not an answer and that the father can not meekly accept such indifference
exists in the old drama leir is annoyed by the failure of his scheme and the poisonous words of his eldest daughters irritate him still more
after the division of the kingdom between the elder daughters there follows in the older drama a scene between cordelia and the king of gaul setting forth instead of the colorless cordelia of shakespeare
a very definite and attractive character of the truthful tender and self sacrificing youngest daughter while cordelia without grieving that she has been deprived of a portion of the heritage sits sorrowing at having lost her father's love and looking forward to earn her bread by her labor
there comes the king of gaul who in the disguise of a pilgrim desires to choose a bride from among leir's daughters he asks cordelia why she is sad she tells him the cause of her grief the king of gaul still in the guise of a pilgrim falls in love with her
and offers to arrange a marriage for her with the king of gaul but she says she will marry only a man whom she loves then the pilgrim still disguised offers her his hand and heart and cordelia confesses she loves the pilgrim and consents to marry him notwithstanding the poverty that awaits her
and cordelia marries him instead of this scene lear according to shakespeare offers cordelia's two suitors to take her without dowry and one cynically refuses while the other one does not know why accepts her
after this in the old drama as in shakespeare's leir undergoes the insults of goneril into whose house he has removed but he bears these insults in a very different way from that represented by shakespeare he feels that by his conduct toward cordelia
he has deserved this and humbly submits as in shakespeare's drama so also in the older drama the courtiers perillus kent who had interceded for cordelia and was therefore banished comes to leir and assures him of his love but under no disguise
but simply as a faithful old servant who does not abandon his king in a moment of need leir tells him what according to shakespeare he tells cordelia in the last scene that if the daughters whom he has benefited hate him a retainer to whom he has done no good can not love him
but perillus kent assures the king of his love toward him and leir pacified goes on to regan in the older drama there are no tempests nor tearing out of gray hairs
but there is the weakened and humbled old man leir overpowered with grief and banished by his other daughter also who even wishes to kill him turned out by his elder daughters leir according to the older drama as a last resource goes with perillus to cordelia
instead of the unnatural banishment of lear during the tempest and his roaming about the heath leir with perillus in the older drama during their journey to france very naturally reach the last degree of destitution
sell their clothes in order to pay for their crossing over the sea and in the attire of fishermen exhausted by cold and hunger approach cordelia's house here again instead of the unnatural combined ravings of the fool lear and edgar as represented by shakespeare
there follows in the older drama a natural scene of reunion between the daughter and the father cordelia who notwithstanding her happiness has all the time been grieving about her father and praying to god to forgive her sisters who had done him so much wrong meets her father in his extreme want
and wishes immediately to disclose herself to him but her husband advises her not to do this in order not to agitate her weak father she accepts the counsel and takes leir into her house without disclosing herself to him and nurses him leir gradually revives
and then the daughter asks him who he is and how he lived formerly if from the first says leir i should relate the cause i would make a heart of adamant to weep and thou poor soul kind hearted as thou art dost weep already ere i do begin
cordelia for god's love tell it and when you have done i'll tell the reason why i weep so soon and leir relates all he has suffered from his elder daughters and says that now he wishes to find shelter with the child who would be in the right even were she to condemn him to death
to this cordelia says oh i know for certain that thy daughter will lovingly receive thee how canst thou know this without knowing her says leir i know says cordelia
because not far from here i had a father who acted toward me as badly as thou hast acted toward her yet if i were only to see his white head i would creep to meet him on my knees no this can not be says leir for there are no children in the world so cruel as mine
do not condemn all for the sins of some says cordelia and falls on her knees look here dear father she says look on me i am thy loving daughter
yet the whole of this old drama is incomparably and in every respect superior to shakespeare's adaptation it is so first because it has not got the utterly superfluous characters of the villain edmund and unlifelike gloucester and edgar
who only distract one's attention secondly because it has not got the completely false effects of lear running about the heath his conversations with the fool and all these impossible disguises failures to recognize and accumulated deaths
and above all because in this drama there is the simple natural and deeply touching character of leir and the yet more touching and clearly defined character of cordelia both absent in shakespeare
therefore there is in the older drama instead of shakespeare's long drawn scene of lear's interview with cordelia and of cordelia's unnecessary murder the exquisite scene of the interview between leir and cordelia unequaled by any in all shakespeare's dramas
and cordelia instead of being killed restoring leir to his former position thus it is in the drama we are examining which shakespeare has borrowed from the drama king leir so it is also with othello taken from an italian romance
the same also with the famous hamlet the same with antony brutus cleopatra shylock richard
shakespeare while profiting by characters already given in preceding dramas or romances chronicles or plutarch's lives not only fails to render them more truthful and vivid as his eulogists affirm
but on the contrary always weakens them and often completely destroys them as with lear compelling his characters to commit actions unnatural to them and above all to utter speeches natural neither to them nor to any one whatever
the characters of othello iago cassio emilia according to shakespeare are much less natural and lifelike than in the italian romance shakespeare's othello suffers from epilepsy of which he has an attack on the stage
moreover in shakespeare's version desdemona's murder is preceded by the strange vow of the kneeling othello othello according to shakespeare is a negro and not a moor all this is erratic inflated unnatural and violates the unity of the character
all this is absent in the romance in that romance the reasons for othello's jealousy are represented more naturally than in shakespeare in the romance cassio knowing whose the handkerchief is goes to desdemona to return it
but approaching the back door of desdemona's house sees othello and flies from him othello perceives the escaping cassio and this more than anything confirms his suspicions shakespeare has not got this and yet this casual incident
explains othello's jealousy more than anything else with shakespeare this jealousy is founded entirely on iago's persistent successful machinations and treacherous words which othello blindly believes
othello's monolog over the sleeping desdemona about his desiring her when killed to look as she is alive about his going to love her even dead and now wishing to smell her balmy breath et cetera is utterly impossible a man who is preparing for the murder of a beloved being
does not utter such phrases still less after committing the murder would he speak about the necessity of an eclipse of sun and moon and of the globe yawning nor can he negro tho he may be address devils inviting them to burn him in hot sulphur and so forth
lastly however effective may be the suicide absent in the romance it completely destroys the conception of his clearly defined character if he indeed suffered from grief and remorse he would not intending to kill himself
pronounce phrases about his own services about the pearl and about his eyes dropping tears as fast as the arabian trees their medicinal gum and yet less about the turk's beating an italian and how he othello smote him thus
so that notwithstanding the powerful expression of emotion in othello when under the influence of iago's hints jealousy rises in him and again in his scenes with desdemona one's conception of othello's character is constantly infringed
so it is with the chief character othello but notwithstanding its alteration and the disadvantageous features which it is made thereby to present in comparison with the character from which it was taken in the romance this character still remains a character
but all the other personages are completely spoiled by shakespeare iago according to shakespeare is an unmitigated villain deceiver and thief a robber who robs roderigo and always succeeds even in his most impossible designs
and therefore is a person quite apart from real life in shakespeare the motive of his villainy is first that othello did not give him the post he desired secondly that he suspects othello of an intrigue with his wife
there are many motives but they are all vague whereas in the romance there is but one simple and clear motive iago's passionate love for desdemona transmitted into hatred toward her and othello after she had preferred the moor to him and resolutely repulsed him
yet more unnatural is the utterly unnecessary roderigo whom iago deceives and robs promising him desdemona's love and whom he forces to fulfil all he commands to intoxicate cassio provoke and then kill cassio
emilia who says anything it may occur to the author to put into her mouth has not even the slightest semblance of a live character but falstaff the wonderful falstaff shakespeare's eulogists will say
of him at all events one can not say that he is not a living character or that having been taken from the comedy of an unknown author it has been weakened falstaff like all shakespeare's characters was taken from a drama or comedy by an unknown author
written on a really living person sir john oldcastle who had been the friend of some duke this oldcastle had once been convicted of heresy but had been saved by his friend the duke but afterward he was condemned and burned at the stake for his religious beliefs
which did not conform with catholicism it was on this same oldcastle that an anonymous author in order to please the catholic public wrote a comedy or drama ridiculing this martyr for his faith and representing him as a good for nothing man the boon companion of the duke
and it is from this comedy that shakespeare borrowed not only the character of falstaff but also his own ironical attitude toward it in shakespeare's first works when this character appeared it was frankly called oldcastle but later in elizabeth's time when protestantism again triumphed
it was awkward to bring out with mockery a martyr in the strife with catholicism and besides oldcastle's relatives had protested and shakespeare accordingly altered the name of oldcastle to that of falstaff
falstaff is indeed quite a natural and typical character but then it is perhaps the only natural and typical character depicted by shakespeare and this character is natural and typical because of all shakespeare's characters it alone speaks a language proper to itself
and it speaks thus because it speaks in that same shakespearian language full of mirthless jokes and unamusing puns which being unnatural to all shakespeare's other characters is quite in harmony with the boastful distorted and depraved character of the drunken falstaff
for this reason alone does this figure truly represent a definite character
unfortunately the artistic effect of this character is spoilt by the fact that it is so repulsive by its gluttony drunkenness debauchery rascality deceit and cowardice that it is difficult to share the feeling of gay humor with which the author treats it thus it is with falstaff
but in none of shakespeare's figures is his i will not say incapacity to give but utter indifference to giving his personages a typical character so strikingly manifest as in hamlet
and in connection with none of shakespeare's works do we see so strikingly displayed that blind worship of shakespeare that unreasoning state of hypnotism owing to which the mere thought even is not admitted that any of shakespeare's productions can be wanting in genius
or that any of the principal personages in his dramas can fail to be the expression of a new and deeply conceived character shakespeare takes an old story not bad in its way relating
on this subject he writes his own drama introducing quite inappropriately as indeed he always does into the mouth of the principal person all those thoughts of his own which appeared to him worthy of attention
and putting into the mouth of his hero these thoughts about life the grave digger about death to be or not to be the same which are expressed in his sixty sixth sonnet about the theater about women he is utterly unconcerned as to the circumstances under which these words are said
and it naturally turns out that the person expressing all these thoughts is a mere phonograph of shakespeare without character whose actions and words do not agree in the old legend hamlet's personality is quite comprehensible
therefore he simulates insanity desiring to bide his time and observe all that goes on in the palace
he persists then sees his mother in private kills a courtier who was eavesdropping and convicts his mother of her sin afterward he is sent to england but intercepts letters and returning from england takes revenge of his enemies burning them all
all this is comprehensible and flows from hamlet's character and position but shakespeare putting into hamlet's mouth speeches which he himself wishes to express and making him commit actions which are necessary to the author in order to produce scenic effects
destroys all that constitutes the character of hamlet and of the legend
but what is necessary for the author's plan one moment he is awe struck at his father's ghost another moment he begins to chaff it calling it old mole one moment he loves ophelia another moment he teases her and so forth
there is no possibility of finding any explanation whatever of hamlet's actions or words and therefore no possibility of attributing any character to him
where the principal figure has no character whatever and lo profound critics declare that in this drama in the person of hamlet is expressed singularly powerful perfectly novel and deep personality
existing in this person having no character and that precisely in this absence of character consists the genius of creating a deeply conceived character
having decided this learned critics write volumes upon volumes so that the praise and explanation of the greatness and importance of the representation of the character of a man who has no character form in volume a library
it is true that some of the critics timidly express the idea that there is something strange in this figure that hamlet is an unsolved riddle but no one has the courage to say as in hans andersen's story that the king is naked
and learned critics continue to investigate and extol this puzzling production which reminds one of the famous stone with an inscription which pickwick found near a cottage doorstep and which divided the scientific world into two hostile camps
so that neither do the characters of lear nor othello nor falstaff nor yet hamlet in any way confirm the existing opinion that shakespeare's power consists in the delineation of character
if in shakespeare's dramas one does meet figures having certain characteristic features for the most part secondary figures such as polonius in hamlet
and portia in the merchant of venice these few lifelike characters among five hundred or more other secondary figures with the complete absence of character in the principal figures
do not at all prove that the merit of shakespeare's dramas consists in the expression of character
that a great talent for depicting character is attributed to shakespeare arises from his actually possessing a peculiarity which for superficial observers and in the play of good actors may appear to be the capacity of depicting character
this peculiarity consists in the capacity of representative scenes expressing the play of emotion however unnatural the positions may be in which he places his characters however improper to them the language which he makes them speak however featureless they are
the very play of emotion its increase and alteration and the combination of many contrary feelings as expressed correctly and powerfully in some of shakespeare's scenes and in the play of good actors evokes even if only for a time sympathy with the persons represented
shakespeare himself an actor and an intelligent man knew how to express by the means not only of speech but of exclamation gesture and the repetition of words states of mind and developments or changes of feeling taking place in the persons represented
so that in many instances shakespeare's characters instead of speaking merely make an exclamation or weep or in the middle of a monolog by means of gestures demonstrate the pain of their position just as lear asks some one to unbutton him
or in moments of great agitation repeat a question several times or several times demand the repetition of a word which has particularly struck them as do othello macduff cleopatra and others
the stroke of scorn relieved his mind and the next morning he laughed at his self conceit but the laugh was not a healthy one he re read the letter from the master and the wisdom in its lines which had at first exasperated him
chilled and depressed him now he saw himself as a fool indeed deprived of the objects of both intellect and emotion he could not proceed to his work whenever he felt reconciled to his fate as a student
there came to disturb his calm his hopeless relations with sue that the one affined soul he had ever met was lost to him through his marriage returned upon him with cruel persistency till unable to bear it longer
he again rushed for distraction to the real christminster life he now sought it out in an obscure and low ceiled tavern up a court which was well known to certain worthies of the place
and in brighter times would have interested him simply by its quaintness here he sat more or less all the day convinced that he was at bottom a vicious character of whom it was hopeless to expect anything
in the evening the frequenters of the house dropped in one by one jude still retaining his seat in the corner though his money was all spent and he had not eaten anything the whole day except a biscuit
and made friends with several to wit tinker taylor a decayed church ironmonger who appeared to have been of a religious turn in earlier years but was somewhat blasphemous now also a red nosed auctioneer
also two gothic masons like himself called uncle jim and uncle joe there were present too some clerks and a gown and surplice maker's assistant
two ladies who sported moral characters of various depths of shade according to their company nicknamed bower o bliss and freckles some horsey men in the know of betting circles a travelling actor from the theatre
and two devil may care young men who proved to be gownless undergraduates they had slipped in by stealth to meet a man about bull pups and stayed to drink and smoke short pipes with the racing gents aforesaid looking at their watches every now and then
the conversation waxed general christminster society was criticized the dons magistrates and other people in authority being sincerely pitied for their shortcomings while opinions on how they ought to conduct themselves and their affairs to be properly respected
and his aims having been what they were for so many years everything the others said turned upon his tongue by a sort of mechanical craze to the subject of scholarship and study
the extent of his own learning being dwelt upon with an insistence that would have appeared pitiable to himself in his sane hours i don't care a damn he was saying for any provost warden principal fellow or cursed master of arts in the university
canst say the creed in latin man that was how they once put it to a chap down in my country i should think so said jude haughtily not he like his conceit screamed one of the ladies
just you shut up bower o bliss said one of the undergraduates silence
well come now stand me a small scotch cold and i'll do it straight off that's a fair offer said the undergraduate throwing down the money for the whisky the barmaid concocted the mixture with the bearing of a person compelled to live amongst animals of an inferior species
visibilium omnium et invisibilium
a silence reigned among the rest in the bar and the maid stood still jude's voice echoing sonorously into the inner parlour where the landlord was dozing and bringing him out to see what was going on jude had declaimed steadily ahead and was continuing
crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub pontio pilato passus
let un go on let un go on said the auctioneer but jude's mind seemed to grow confused soon and he could not get on he put his hand to his forehead and his face assumed an expression of pain
give him another glass then he'll fetch up and get through it said tinker taylor somebody threw down threepence the glass was handed jude stretched out his arm for it without looking and having swallowed the liquor
went on in a moment in a revived voice raising it as he neared the end with the manner of a priest leading a congregation et in spiritum sanctum dominum et vivificantem
et unam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam
then jude seemed to shake the fumes from his brain as he stared round upon them you pack of fools he cried which one of you knows whether i have said it or no it might have been the ratcatcher's daughter in double dutch for all that your besotted heads can tell
the landlord who had already had his license endorsed for harbouring queer characters feared a riot and came outside the counter but jude in his sudden flash of reason had turned in disgust and left the scene
onward he still went under the influence of a childlike yearning for the one being in the world to whom it seemed possible to fly an unreasoning desire whose ill judgement was not apparent to him now in the course of an hour
when it was between ten and eleven o'clock he entered the village of lumsdon and reaching the cottage saw that a light was burning in a downstairs room which he assumed rightly as it happened to be hers
jude stepped close to the wall and tapped with his finger on the pane saying impatiently sue sue
and in a second or two the door was unlocked and opened and sue appeared with a candle in her hand is it jude yes it is my dear dear cousin what's the matter oh i am
and the other supporting him she led him indoors and placed him in the only easy chair the meagrely furnished house afforded stretching his feet upon another and pulling off his boots jude now getting towards his sober senses could only say dear dear sue
in a voice broken by grief and contrition she asked him if he wanted anything to eat but he shook his head then telling him to go to sleep and that she would come down early in the morning and get him some breakfast she bade him good night
and ascended the stairs almost immediately he fell into a heavy slumber and did not wake till dawn
and he beheld it in all the ghastliness of a right mind she knew the worst of him the very worst how could he face her now she would soon be coming down to see about breakfast as she had said
and there would he be in all his shame confronting her he could not bear the thought and softly drawing on his boots and taking his hat from the nail on which she had hung it he slipped noiselessly out of the house
his small savings deposited at one of the banks in christminster having fortunately been left untouched to get to marygreen therefore his only course was walking and the distance being nearly twenty miles
he had ample time to complete on the way the sobering process begun in him at some hour of the evening he reached alfredston here he pawned his waistcoat and having gone out of the town a mile or two slept under a rick that night
weary and mud bespattered but quite possessed of his ordinary clearness of brain he sat down by the well thinking as he did so what a poor christ he made seeing a trough of water near he bathed his face and went on to the cottage of his great aunt
whom he found breakfasting in bed attended by the woman who lived with her what out o work asked his relative regarding him through eyes sunken deep under lids heavy as pot covers
yes said jude heavily i think i must have a little rest refreshed by some breakfast he went up to his old room and lay down in his shirt sleeves after the manner of the artizan
it was hell the hell of conscious failure both in ambition and in love
if he had been a woman he must have screamed under the nervous tension which he was now undergoing but that relief being denied to his virility he clenched his teeth in misery bringing lines about his mouth like those in the laocoon
now abandoned pecked its neighbour smartly and the vane on the new victorian gothic church in the new spot had already begun to creak
it was a voice he guessed its origin in a moment or two the curate was praying with his aunt in the adjoining room he remembered her speaking of him presently the sounds ceased and a step seemed to cross the landing
and more upon the theological though this had up till now been merely a portion of the general plan of advancement now i know i have been a fool and that folly is with me added jude in conclusion and i don't regret the collapse of my university hopes one jot
i wouldn't begin again if i were sure to succeed i don't care for social success any more at all but i do feel i should like to do some good thing and i bitterly regret the church and the loss of my chance of being her ordained minister
for it is that of a thoughtful and educated man you might enter the church as a licentiate only you must make up your mind to avoid strong drink i could avoid that easily enough
jude's old and embittered aunt lay unwell at marygreen and on the following sunday he went to see her a visit which was the result of a victorious struggle against his inclination to turn aside to the village of lumsdon
and obtain a miserable interview with his cousin in which the word nearest his heart could not be spoken and the sight which had tortured him could not be revealed his aunt was now unable to leave her bed
and a great part of jude's short day was occupied in making arrangements for her comfort the little bakery business had been sold to a neighbour and with the proceeds of this and her savings she was comfortably supplied with necessaries and more
it was not till the time had nearly come for him to leave that he obtained a quiet talk with her and his words tended insensibly towards his cousin was sue born here she was
in this room they were living here at that time what made ee ask that
now you've been seeing her said the harsh old woman and what did i tell ee well that
yes then don't keep it up she was brought up by her father to hate her mother's family and she'll look with no favour upon a working chap like you a townish girl as she's become by now
i never cared much about her a pert little thing that's what she was too often with her tight strained nerves many's the time i've smacked her for her impertinence
why one day when she was walking into the pond with her shoes and stockings off and her petticoats pulled above her knees afore i could cry out for shame she said move on aunty this is no sight for modest eyes
she was twelve if a day well of course but now she's older she's of a thoughtful quivering tender nature and as sensitive as jude cried his aunt springing up in bed don't you be a fool about her
no no of course not your marrying that woman arabella was about as bad a thing as a man could possibly do for himself by trying hard but she's gone to the other side of the world and med never trouble you again
and there'll be a worse thing if you tied and bound as you be should have a fancy for sue if your cousin is civil to you take her civility for what it is worth but anything more than a relation's good wishes
it is stark madness for ee to give her if she's townish and wanton it med bring ee to ruin don't say anything against her aunt don't please a relief was afforded to him by the entry of the companion and nurse of his aunt
who must have been listening to the conversation for she began a commentary on past years introducing sue bridehead as a character in her recollections she described what an odd little maid sue had been when a pupil at the village school
there was a sound of revelry by night and the raven how during the delivery she would knit her little brows and glare round tragically and say to the empty air as if some real creature stood there
the neighbour told also of sue's accomplishments in other kinds she was not exactly a tomboy you know but she could do things that only boys do as a rule
all boys except herself and then they'd cheer her and then she'd say don't be saucy boys and suddenly run indoors they'd try to coax her out again but a wouldn't come these retrospective visions of sue
only made jude the more miserable that he was unable to woo her and he left the cottage of his aunt that day with a heavy heart he would fain have glanced into the school to see the room in which sue's little figure had so glorified itself
ye've got there right enough then jude showed that he did not understand why to the seat of l'arning the city of light you used to talk to us about as a little boy
is it all you expected of it yes more cried jude when i was there once for an hour i didn't see much in it for my part auld crumbling buildings half church half almshouse and not much going on at that
you are wrong john there is more going on than meets the eye of a man walking through the streets it is a unique centre of thought and religion the intellectual and spiritual granary of this country all that silence and absence of goings on
the sleep of the spinning top to borrow the simile of a well known writer
or it med not as i say i didn't see nothing of it the hour or two i was there so i went in and had a pot o beer and a penny loaf
how so jude slapped his pocket just what we thought such places be not for such as you only for them with plenty o money there you are wrong said jude with some bitterness
they are for such ones still the remark was sufficient to withdraw jude's attention from the imaginative world he had lately inhabited in which an abstract figure more or less himself
he was set regarding his prospects in a cold northern light he had lately felt that he could not quite satisfy himself in his greek in the greek of the dramatists particularly
so fatigued was he sometimes after his day's work that he could not maintain the critical attention necessary for thorough application he felt that he wanted a coach a friend at his elbow to tell him in a moment
won't do i must get special information the next week accordingly he sought it
when he saw an elderly gentleman who had been pointed out as the head of a particular college walking in the public path of a parklike enclosure near the spot at which jude chanced to be sitting
it seemed benign considerate yet rather reserved on second thoughts jude felt that he could not go up and address him but he was sufficiently influenced by the incident to think what a wise thing it would be for him to state his difficulties
by letter to some of the best and most judicious of these old masters and obtain their advice during the next week or two he accordingly placed himself in such positions about the city as would afford him glimpses of several
of the most distinguished among the provosts wardens and other heads of houses and from those he ultimately selected five whose physiognomies seemed to say to him that they were appreciative and far seeing men
to these five he addressed letters briefly stating his difficulties and asking their opinion on his stranded situation when the letters were posted jude mentally began to criticize them he wished they had not been sent
it is just one of those intrusive vulgar pushing applications which are so common in these days he thought why couldn't i know better than address utter strangers in such a way i may be an impostor an idle scamp
a man with a bad character for all that they know to the contrary perhaps that's what i am nevertheless he found himself clinging to the hope of some reply as to his one last chance of redemption he waited day after day
whether as seemed possible it was a practical move of the schoolmaster's towards a larger income in view of a provision for two instead of one he would not allow himself to say
by indirect inquiries he soon perceived clearly what he had long uneasily suspected that to qualify himself for certain open scholarships and exhibitions was the only brilliant course but to do this a good deal of coaching would be necessary and much natural ability
it was next to impossible that a man reading on his own system however widely and thoroughly even over the prolonged period of ten years should be able to compete with those who had passed their lives under trained teachers
the other course that of buying himself in so to speak seemed the only one really open to men like him the difficulty being simply of a material kind
with the help of his information he began to reckon the extent of this material obstacle and ascertained to his dismay that at the rate at which with the best of fortune he would be able to save money
he saw what a curious and cunning glamour the neighbourhood of the place had exercised over him to get there and live there to move among the churches and halls and become imbued with the genius loci had seemed to his dreaming youth
it would have been far better for him in every way if he had never come within sight and sound of the delusive precincts had gone to some busy commercial town with the sole object of making money by his wits
and thence surveyed his plan in true perspective well all that was clear to him amounted to this that the whole scheme had burst up like an iridescent soap bubble under the touch of a reasoned inquiry
he looked back at himself along the vista of his past years and his thought was akin to heine's above the youth's inspired and flashing eyes i see the motley mocking fool's cap rise
fortunately he had not been allowed to bring his disappointment into his dear sue's life by involving her in this collapse and the painful details of his awakening to a sense of his limitations should now be spared her as far as possible after all
and unforeseeing he always remembered the appearance of the afternoon on which he awoke from his dream not quite knowing what to do with himself he went up to an octagonal chamber in the lantern of a singularly built theatre
that was set amidst this quaint and singular city it had windows all round from which an outlook over the whole town and its edifices could be gained jude's eyes swept all the views in succession meditatively
mournfully yet sturdily those buildings and their associations and privileges were not for him from the looming roof of the great library into which he hardly ever had time to enter his gaze travelled on to the varied spires
he saw that his destiny lay not with these but among the manual toilers in the shabby purlieu which he himself occupied unrecognized as part of the city at all by its visitors and panegyrists
yet without whose denizens the hard readers could not read nor the high thinkers live he looked over the town into the country beyond to the trees which screened her whose presence had at first been the support of his heart
but for this blow he might have borne with his fate with sue as companion he could have renounced his ambitions with a smile without her it was inevitable
that the reaction from the long strain to which he had subjected himself should affect him disastrously phillotson had no doubt passed through a similar intellectual disappointment to that which now enveloped him but the schoolmaster had been since blest
with the consolation of sweet sue while for him there was no consoler descending to the streets he went listlessly along till he arrived at an inn and entered it here he drank several glasses of beer in rapid succession
and when he came out it was night by the light of the flickering lamps he rambled home to supper and had not long been sitting at table when his landlady brought up a letter that had just arrived for him she laid it down as if impressed
though it really was from the master in person it ran thus biblioll college sir i have read your letter with interest and judging from your description of yourself as a working man
i venture to think that you will have a much better chance of success in life by remaining in your own sphere and sticking to your trade than by adopting any other course that therefore is what i advise you to do yours faithfully t tetuphenay
that officer yawned stretched out his elbows elevated himself an inch and a half on the balls of his toes smiled and looking humorously at jude said you've had a wet young man no i've only begun
he replied cynically whatever his wetness his brains were dry enough he only heard in part the policeman's further remarks having fallen into thought on what struggling people like himself had stood at that crossway whom nobody ever thought of now
it had more history than the oldest college in the city it was literally teeming stratified with the shades of human groups who had met there for tragedy comedy farce real enactments of the intensest kind
at fourways men had stood and talked of napoleon
the burning of the martyrs the crusades the norman conquest possibly of the arrival of caesar here the two sexes had met for loving hating coupling parting had waited had suffered for each other had triumphed over each other
cursed each other in jealousy blessed each other in forgiveness he began to see that the town life was a book of humanity infinitely more palpitating varied and compendious than the gown life
these struggling men and women before him were the reality of christminster though they knew little of christ or minster that was one of the humours of things
the floating population of students and teachers who did know both in a way were not christminster in a local sense at all he looked at his watch and in pursuit of this idea he went on till he came to a public hall
the spirit of sue seemed to hover round him and prevent his flirting and drinking with the frolicsome girls who made advances wistful to gain a little joy at ten o'clock he came away
choosing a circuitous route homeward to pass the gates of the college whose head had just sent him the note the gates were shut and by an impulse he took from his pocket the lump of chalk which as a workman he usually carried there
and wrote along the wall i have understanding as well as you i am not inferior to you yea who knoweth not such things as these
peggy has revenge joe wegg made a rapid recovery his strength returning under the influence of pleasant surroundings and frequent visits from ethel and uncle john's three nieces
joe was planning to exploit a new patent as soon as he could earn enough to get it introduced and ethel exhibited a sublime confidence in the boy's ability that rendered all question of money insignificant
the gossips wanted to know all the whys and wherefores but the boy kept his room in the hotel or only walked out when accompanied by ethel or one of the three nieces sometimes they took him to ride as he grew better and the fact that joe were hand an glove wi the nabobs
notwithstanding the little affair of the letter in which he had not appeared with especial credit
for one thing he confided to the boys at the store that in his opinion the man who had murdered cap'n wegg had tried to murder his son also and it wasn't likely joe could manage to escape him a second time another tale evolved from peggy's fertile imagination
had turned burglar and been shot in the arm in an attempt at housebreaking wouldn't be s'prised said the agent in an awed voice
he waylaid the nieces once or twice and tried to secure from them a verification of his somber suspicions which they mischievously fostered the girls found him a source of much amusement and relieved their own disappointment at finding the wegg mystery
a pricked bubble by getting mc nutt excited over many sly suggestions of hidden crimes they knew he was harmless for even his neighbors needed proof of any assertion he made moreover the investigation uncle john was making
would soon set matters right so the young ladies did not hesitate to have fun at the little agent's expense
one of mc nutt's numerous occupations was raising a patch of watermelons each year on the lot back of the house these he had fostered with great care since the plants had first sprouted through the soil and in these late august days two or three hundreds of fine big melons
were just getting ripe he showed the patch with much pride one day to the nieces saying here's the most extry fine melling patch in this county ef i do say it myself dan brayley he thinks he kin raise mellings but the ol fool ain't got a circumstance to this
ain't they beauties it seems to me observed patsy gravely that brayley's are just as good we passed his place this morning and wondered how he could raise such enormous melons normous brayley's i'm sure they are finer than these said beth well i'll be jiggered
peggy's eyes stared as they had never stared before dan brayley he's a miser'ble ol skinflint thet man couldn't raise decent mellings ef he tried
charge why er fifty cents a piece is my price to nabobs an dirt cheap at that that is too much declared patsy mister brayley says he will sell his melons for fifteen cents each
say brayley's a disturbin element in these parts he oughter go to jail fer asking fifteen cents fer them mean little mellings o his'n they seem as large as yours murmured louise
nobody likes brayley round millville why on'y las winter he called me a meddler in public
tell me said patsy with a smile did you ever rob a melon patch mister mc nutt
but the ones you grow are worth fifty cents each are they not sure mine is then every time you eat one of your own melons you eat fifty cents if you were eating one of mister brayley's melons you would only eat fifteen cents
oh my dear remonstrated louise not understanding it will be such fun replied her cousin with eyes dancing merrily boys always rob melon patches so i don't see why girls shouldn't when shall we do it mister mc nutt there ain't any moon jest now
an the nights is dark as blazes let's go ternight
and all drive together to the back of brayley's yard and take all the melons we want it'll serve him right said peggy delightedly
don't betray us sir pleaded beth i can't replied mc nutt frankly i'm in it myself an we'll jest find out what his blame twisted ol fifteen cent mellings is like
on the way home she confided to her cousins a method of securing revenge upon the agent for selling them the three copies of the lives of the saints
i think our chances are best don't you she asked and they decided to join the conspiracy there was some difficulty escaping from uncle john and the major that night but patsy got them interested in a game of chess that was likely to last some hours while beth stole to the barn and harnessed joe to the surrey
soon the others slipped out and joined her and with patsy and beth on the front seat and louise inside the canopy they drove slowly away until the sound of the horse's feet on the stones was no longer likely to betray them mc nutt was waiting for them when they quietly drew up before his house
the village was dark and silent for its inhabitants retired early to bed by good fortune the sky was overcast with heavy clouds and not even the glimmer of a star relieved the gloom they put mc nutt on the back seat with louise cautioned him to be quiet and then drove away
dan brayley's place was two miles distant but in answer to peggy's earnest inquiry if she knew the way beth declared she could find it blind folded
in a few moments louise had engaged the agent in a spirited discussion of the absorbing mystery and so occupied his attention that he paid no heed to the direction they had taken the back seat was hemmed in by side curtains and the canopy
so it would be no wonder if he lost all sense of direction even had not the remarks of the girl at his side completely absorbed him beth drove slowly down the main street up a lane back by the lake road and along the street again and this programme was repeated several times
what's wrong asked the agent as they suddenly stopped with a jerk this ought to be brayley's said beth but it's so dark i'm not certain just where we are mc nutt thrust his head out and peered into the blackness drive along a little he whispered the girl obeyed stop stop
i think that's them contwisted fifteen cent mellings over there they all got out and beth tied the horse to the fence peggy climbed over and at once whispered come on it's them all right through the drifting clouds
patsy giggled and the others felt a sudden irresistible impulse to join her keep still cautioned mc nutt wouldn't ol dan be jest ravin ef he knew this say here's a ripe one hev a slice
mc nutt was stumping over the patch and plumping his wooden foot into every melon he could find smashing them wantonly against the ground the discovery filled them with horror they had thought inducing the agent to rob his own patch of a few melons while under the delusion
that they belonged to his enemy brayley a bit of harmless fun but here was the vindictive fellow actually destroying his own property by the wholesale oh don't please don't mister mc nutt pleaded patsy in frightened accents
but it's wrong it's wicked protested beth can't help it this is my chance an i'll make them bum fifteen cent mellings look like a penny a piece afore i gits done with em never mind girls whispered louise it's the law of retribution poor peggy will be sorry for this tomorrow
the man had not the faintest suspicion where he was he knew his own melon patch well enough having worked in it at times all the summer but he had never climbed over the fence and approached it from the rear before
so it took on a new aspect to him from this point of view and moreover the night was dark enough to deceive anybody if he came across an especially big melon mc nutt would lug it to the carriage and dump it in and so angry and energetic was the little man
mc nutt was stowed away inside with louise and they drove away up the lane the agent was jubilant and triumphant and chuckled in gleeful tones that thrilled the girls with remorse as they remembered the annihilation of mc nutt's cherished melons
i could tell by the second class taste o them mellings an their measley little size them things ain't a circumstance to the kind i raise are you sure asked louise
guess i'm a jedge o mellings when i sees em
he took rather more than his share of the spoils but the girls had no voice to object
they were by this time so convulsed with suppressed merriment that they had hard work not to shriek aloud their laughter for in spite of the tragic revelations the morrow would bring forth the situation was so undeniably ridiculous that they could not resist its humor i've had a heap o fun whispered mc nutt good night gals
ef ye didn't belong to thet gum twisted nabob ye'd be some pun'kins
that there should be no conviction for murder until the body of the murdered person was found or proof of its destruction obtained beyond a doubt we denied that sufficient proof had been obtained in the case now before the court the judges consulted and decided that the trial should go on
we took our next objection when the confessions were produced in evidence we declared that they had been extorted by terror or by undue influence and we pointed out certain minor particulars in which the two confessions failed to corroborate each other
for the rest our defense on this occasion was as to essentials what our defense had been at the inquiry before the magistrate once more the judges consulted and once more they overruled our objection the confessions were admitted in evidence
in support of their case it is needless to waste time in recapitulating his evidence he contradicted himself gravely on cross examination we showed plainly and after investigation proved that he was not to be believed on his oath
the chief justice summed up he charged in relation to the confessions that no weight should be attached to a confession incited by hope or fear and he left it to the jury to determine whether the confessions in this case had been so influenced
of his death by public execution lay in making a confession and that they would do their best if he did confess to have his sentence commuted to imprisonment for life as for silas he was proved to have been beside himself with terror
would influence the verdict of the jury on the side of mercy after an absence of an hour they returned into court with a verdict of guilty against both the prisoners being asked in due form if they had anything to say in mitigation of their sentence
ambrose and silas solemnly declared their innocence and publicly acknowledged that their respective confessions had been wrung from them by the hope of escaping the hangman's hands this statement was not noticed by the bench the prisoners were both sentenced to death
on my return to the farm i did not see naomi miss meadowcroft informed her of the result of the trial half an hour later one of the women servants handed to me an envelope bearing my name on it in naomi's handwriting
the envelope inclosed a letter and with it a slip of paper on which naomi had hurriedly written these words for god's sake read the letter i send to you and do something about it immediately i looked at the letter
upon this he wrote to morwick farm to say that he had seen a man exactly answering to the description of john jago but bearing another name working as a clerk in a merchant's office in jersey city having time to spare before the mail went out
he had returned to the office to take another look at the man before he posted his letter to his surprise he was informed that the clerk had not appeared at his desk that day his employer had sent to his lodgings
and had been informed that he had suddenly packed up his hand bag after reading the newspaper at breakfast had paid his rent honestly and had gone away nobody knew where it was late in the evening when i read these lines
assuming the letter to be genuine
i reached the conclusion that the search for him might be usefully limited to narrabee and to the surrounding neighborhood the newspaper at his breakfast had no doubt given him his first information of the finding of the grand jury
and of the trial to follow it was in my experience of human nature that he should venture back to narrabee under these circumstances and under the influence of his infatuation for naomi more than this
which his sudden absence might inflict on others was plainly implied in his secret withdrawal from the farm the same cruel indifference pushed to a further extreme might well lead him to press his proposals privately on naomi
and to fix her acceptance of them as the price to be paid for saving her cousin's life to these conclusions i arrived after much thinking i had determined on naomi's account to clear the matter up but it is only candid to add
that my doubts of john jago's existence remained unshaken by the letter i believed it to be nothing more nor less than a heartless and stupid hoax the striking of the hall clock roused me from my meditations i counted the strokes midnight
it was like the moonlight on the fatal evening when naomi had met john jago on the garden walk my bedroom candle was on the side table i had just lighted it
i was just leaving the room when the door suddenly opened and naomi herself stood before me recovering the first shook of her sudden appearance i saw instantly in her eager eyes in her deadly pale cheeks that something serious had happened
a large cloak was thrown over her a white handkerchief was tied over her head her hair was in disorder she had evidently just risen in fear and in haste from her bed what is it i asked advancing to meet her she clung trembling with agitation to my arm
you will think my obstinacy invincible i could hardly believe it even then where i asked in the back yard she replied
for the small proprieties of every day life let me see him i said i am here to fetch you she answered in her frank and fearless way come upstairs with me her room was on the first floor of the house and was the only bedroom which looked out on the back yard
on our way up the stairs she told me what had happened i was in bed she said but not asleep when i heard a pebble strike against the window pane i waited wondering what it meant another pebble was thrown against the glass so far i was surprised but not frightened
i got up and ran to the window to look out
looking up at me in the moonlight did he see you yes he said come down and speak to me i have something serious to say to you did you answer him as soon as i could catch my breath i said
wait a little and ran downstairs to you what shall i do let me see him and i will tell you we entered her room keeping cautiously behind the window curtain i looked out there he was his beard and mustache were shaved off his hair was close cut
but there was no disguising his wild brown eyes or the peculiar movement of his spare wiry figure as he walked slowly to and fro in the moonlight waiting for naomi
i had so firmly disbelieved that john jago was a living man what shall i do naomi repeated
no but the door of the tool house round the corner is not locked very good show yourself at the window and say to him i am coming directly the brave girl obeyed me without a moment's hesitation there had been no doubt about his eyes and his gait
there was no doubt now about his voice as he answered softly from below all right
then pretend to be fearful of discovery at the dairy and bring him round the corner so that i can hear him behind the door we left the house together and separated silently naomi followed my instructions with a woman's quick intelligence
where stratagems are concerned i had hardly been a minute in the tool house before i heard him speaking to naomi on the other side of the door the first words which i caught distinctly related to his motive for secretly leaving the farm mortified pride
and that it had actually encouraged him to keep in hiding after being laughed at and insulted and denied i was glad said the miserable wretch to see that some of you had serious reason to wish me back again it rests with you miss naomi to keep me here
and to persuade me to save ambrose by showing myself and
he lowered his voice but i could still hear him promise you will marry me he said and i will go before the magistrate to morrow and show him that i am a living man suppose i refuse
asked the girl raising her voice if you attempt to give the alarm he answered as true as god's above us you will feel my hand on your throat it's my turn now miss and i am not to be trifled with will you have me for your husband yes or no
no she answered loudly and firmly i burst open the door and seized him as he lifted his hand on her
the next morning when lord elmwood and sandford met at breakfast the latter was pale with fear for the success of lady elmwood's letter the earl was pale too but there was besides upon his face something which evidently marked he was displeased
sandford observed it and was all humbleness both in his words and looks in order to soften him as soon as the breakfast was removed lord elmwood drew the letter from his pocket and holding it towards sandford said that
may be of more value to you than it is to me therefore i give it you sandford called up a look of surprise as if he did not know the letter again tis lady elmwood's letter said lord elmwood and i return it to you for two reasons
sandford took it and putting it up asked fearfully what those two reasons were first
you may have cause to recall it i know what you have said replied sandford you have said you grant lady elmwood's request you cannot recall these words nor i my gratitude do you know what her request is returned he not exactly my lord
i told you before i did not but it is no doubt something in favour of her child i think not he replied such as it is however i grant it but in the strictest sense of the word no farther and one neglect
to suffer that she may reside at one of my seats dispensing at the same time with my ever seeing her and you will comply i will till she encroaches on this concession and dares to hope for a greater
i will while she avoids my sight or the giving me any remembrance of her but if whether by design or by accident i ever see or hear from her that moment my compliance to her mother's supplication ceases and i abandon her once more
sandford sighed lord elmwood continued i am glad her request stopped where it did i would rather comply with her desires than not and i rejoice they are such as i can grant with ease and honour to myself i am seldom now at elmwood castle
let her daughter go there the few weeks or months i am down in the summer she may easily in that extensive house avoid me while she does she lives in security when she does not you know my resolution sandford bowed
the earl resumed nor can it be a hardship to obey this command she cannot lament the separation from a parent whom she never knew sandford was going eagerly to prove the error of that assertion but he prevented him saying in a word
without farther argument if she obeys me in this i will provide for her as my daughter during my life and leave her a fortune at my death but if she dares sandford interrupted the menace prepared for utterance saying and you still mean i suppose to make mister rushbrook your heir
have you not heard me say so and do you imagine i have changed my determination i am not given to alter my resolutions mister sandford and i thought you knew i was not besides will not my title be extinct whoever i make my heir
you may remember how troublesome it was to conquer my stubborn disposition in my youth then indeed you did but in my more advanced age you will find the task too difficult sandford again repeated he should not presume
you know it must be your own fault and as this is a theme the most likely of any nay the only one on which we can have a difference such as we cannot forgive take care never from this day to resume it indeed
that of itself would be an offence i could not pardon i have been clear and explicit in all i have said there can be no fear of mistaking my meaning therefore all future explanation is unnecessary
without shewing my resentment even to the hour of my death he was going out of the room but before we bid adieu to the subject for ever my lord there was another person whom i named to you do you mean miss woodley oh by all means let her live at elmwood house too
prepared to set off for their habitation in order himself to conduct them from thence to elmwood castle and appoint some retired part of it for lady matilda against the annual visit her father should pay there but before he left london giffard the steward
took an opportunity to wait upon him and let him know that his lord had acquainted him with the consent he had given for his daughter to be admitted at elmwood castle and upon what restrictions that he had farther uttered the severest threats
should these restrictions ever be infringed sandford thanked giffard for his friendly information it served him as a second warning of the circumspection that was necessary and having taken leave of his friend and patron
they both loved him sincerely more especially lady matilda whose forlorn state and innocent sufferings had ever excited his compassion and caused him to treat her with affection tenderness and respect she knew too how much he had been her mother's friend
for that she also loved him and for being honoured with the friendship of her father she looked up to him with reverence for matilda with an excellent understanding a sedateness above her years and early accustomed to the most private converse
between lady elmwood and miss woodley was perfectly acquainted with the whole fatal history of her mother and was by her taught the respect and admiration of her father's virtues which they justly merited notwithstanding the joy of mister sandford's presence
once more to cheer their solitary dwelling no sooner were the first kind greetings over than the dread of what he might have to inform them of possessed poor matilda and miss woodley so powerfully that all their gladness was changed into affright
their apprehensions were far more forcible than their curiosity they dared not ask a question and even began to wish he would continue silent upon the subject on which they feared to listen for near two hours he was so
at length after a short interval from speaking during which they waited with anxiety for what he might next say he turned to lady matilda and said you don't ask for your father my dear i did not know it was proper she replied timidly
it is always proper answered sandford for you to think of him though he should never think on you she burst into tears and said that she did think of him but she felt an apprehension of mentioning his name and she wept bitterly while she spoke do not think i reproved you
said sandford i only told you what was right nay said miss woodley she does not weep for that she fears her father has not complied with her mother's request perhaps not even read her letter yes he has read it returned sandford
oh heavens exclaimed matilda clasping her hands together and the tears falling still faster do not be so much alarmed my dear said miss woodley you know we are prepared for the worst and you know you promised your mother whatever your fate should be to submit with patience
yes replied matilda and i am prepared for every thing but my father's refusal to my dear mother your father has not refused your mother's request replied sandford she was leaping from her seat in ecstasy but
not entirely replied matilda and since it is granted i am careless but she told me her letter concerned none but me to explain perfectly to matilda lady elmwood's letter and that she might perfectly understand upon what terms she was admitted into elmwood castle
sandford now read the letter to her and repeated as nearly as he could remember the whole of the conversation that passed between lord elmwood and himself not even sparing through an erroneous delicacy any of those threats her father had denounced
and this little bounty just obtained would not have been greater in her mother's estimation than it was now in hers miss woodley too smiled at the prospect before her she esteemed lord elmwood beyond any mortal living
and overjoyed at the prospect of being once again in his company painting at the same time a thousand bright hopes from watching every emotion of his soul and catching every proper occasion to excite or increase his paternal sentiments
yet she had the prudence to conceal those vague hopes from his child lest a disappointment might prove fatal and assuming a behaviour neither too much elated or depressed she advised that they should hope for the best but yet as usual expect and prepare for the worst
chapter seventeen daniel burton takes the plunge doctor stewart's second operation on keith's eyes took place late in november it was not a success far from increasing his vision it lessened it
only dimly now could he discern light at all in a letter to daniel burton doctor stewart stated the case freely and frankly yet he declared that he had not given up hope yet
he then went on to explain in paris there was a noted specialist in whom he had great confidence he wished very much that this man could see keith to take keith over now however as war conditions were
with daniel burton's kind permission therefore the doctor would keep keith where he was for the present pending the arrival of the great specialist it was a bitter blow
for days after the letter came daniel burton shut himself up in his studio refusing to see any one but susan and almost refusing to see her susan indeed heart broken as she was herself
so busy was she trying to concoct something that would tempt her employer to break a fast that was becoming terrifying to her then came keith's letter he wrote cheerfully hopefully he told of new games that he was playing
new things of interest that he was seeing he said nothing whatever about the operation he did say that there was a big doctor coming from paris whom he was going to see in may however that was all when the doctor's letter had come
telling of the failure of the second operation susan had read it and accepted it with sternly controlled eyes that did not shed one tear but when keith's letter came not even mentioning the operation her self control snapped and she burst openly into tears
in answer to daniel burton's amazed exclamation
doctor stewart came on again to take his daughter back for the holidays he called at once to see mister burton and the two had a long conference in the studio while susan feverishly moved from room to room downstairs
taking up and setting down one object after another in the aimless fashion of one whose fingers are not controlled by the mind when the doctor had gone susan did not wait for daniel burton to seek her out she went at once to the studio
oh yes he said a great deal but it was only a repetition of what he had said before in the letter daniel burton spoke wearily constrainedly his face had grown a little white the doctor bought
the big sofa in the hall downstairs and the dropleaf table in the dining room humph but will he pay anything for them things
susan yes sir something in the man's face and voice put a curious note of respect into susan's manner
i've been intending to tell you for some time i i shall want breakfast at seven o'clock to morrow morning
susan's face was aghast to work i said repeated daniel burton sharply i shall want breakfast at seven o'clock susan he turned away plainly indicating that for him the matter was closed but for susan the matter was not closed
daniel burton you ain't goin to demean yourself like that she gasped an artistical gentleman like you why i'd rather work my hands to the bones that will do susan you may go and susan went
there were times when susan did go but not yet for susan was the matter closed
but barely had she finished reading the letter aloud when the real object of her visit was disclosed by the triumphant well susan betts
t ain't for me to pretense that i don't know what you're inferrin to but jest let me tell you this
an kerosene cans daniel burton hands over the counter he won't never be jest a common storekeeper he'll be thinkin flowers an woods an sunsets jest the same furthermore an moreover in my opinion
an i might have known what you'd say too if i'd stopped to think well i must be goin anyhow i only came over to show you the letter from my john i'm sure i wish't was
him comin back to his old place behind the counter instead of your daniel burton she sighed i'd buy every picture he ever painted if i had the money
dreamily fixed out the window nodded her head slowly yes i s'pose so but there's a lot left there's always a lot left and everything he writes i can just see it was always like that with my john
let him go downtown an come back you'd think he'd been to the circus the wonderful things he'd tell me he'd seen on the way
until i could just see em myself i'll never forget one day he went to a fire the old babcock house burned an he saw it he was twelve years old i was sick in bed an he told me about it
the roar an cracklin of the flames
oh it was wonderful an there
it was just the way he told it that's why i know he could have been a writer he could make others see everything but now that's all over now he'll never be anything i can see him
i can see all that horrible battle field with the reelin men the flames the smoke the burstin shells an oh god my john will he ever ever come back to me
turned away and stumbled out of the kitchen susan looking after her drew a long sigh worry never climbed a hill worry never
there's some times when it's frank impertinence to tell folks not to worry she muttered severely to herself attacking the piled up dishes before her
an twas for all the world like a lamb to the slaughter house susan moaned to the law student
an if you want to see a real slaughter house you jest come in here she beckoned him leading the way to the studio but but
looking not a little startled as he followed her with half reluctant feet in the studio susan flourished accusing arms look at that
that anybody might have with them pictures all put away an his easel hid behind the door an not a brush or a cube of paint in sight an him dolin out vinegar an molasses down to that old store i tell you it made me sick mister jenkins sick
yes yes that's so murmured mister jenkins vaguely well it did why it worked me up so i jest sat right down an made up a poem on it
only i made it free verse you know that's all the rage now like this she finished producing from somewhere about her person a half sheet of note paper alone an dark the studio waited
waited for the sun of day but when it rose alas no lovely pictures greeted the fiery gob only their backs showed white an sorry an some dusty no easel sprawled long legs to trip
an make you slip no cubes of pig lent gray or black nor any other color lent brightness to this dank world an he the artist the bright soul who bossed this ranch
alas doomed to hide his bright talons in smelly kegs of kerosene an molasses brown an sticky alas that i should see an know this day there now ain't that about the way tis she demanded feelingly
er yes yes it is that's so mister jenkins was backing out of the room and looking toward the stairway mister jenkins had been a member of the burton household long enough to have learned to take susan at her own valuation with no questions asked
yes that's so he repeated as he plunged down the stairs to daniel burton himself susan made no further protests or even comments except the silent comment of eager service with some favorite dish for every meal
women brought him jelly and fruit and men clapped him on the shoulder and said how are you my boy in voices that were not quite steady
children stood about the gate and stared talking in awe struck whispers happy if they could catch a glimpse of his face at the window
a part of this susan succeeded in keeping from keith susan had a well founded belief that keith would not care to be a lion but a great deal of it came to his knowledge of course in spite of anything she could do however
she told herself that she need not have worried for if keith had recognized it for what it was he made no sign and even susan herself could find no fault with his behavior he was cordial cheery almost gay outwardly
but inwardly susan was still keeping her eyes on keith missus mc guire came often to see keith she said she knew he would want to hear john's letters and there were all the old ones besides the new ones that came from time to time
she brought them all and read them to him she talked about the young soldier too a great deal to the blind boy she explained to susan that she wanted to do everything she could to get him out of himself and interest him in the world outside
and that she didn't know any better way to do it than to tell him of these brave soldiers who were doing something so really worth while in the world an he's so interested the dear boy she concluded with a sigh
an so brave i think he's the bravest thing i ever saw susan betts yes he is brave said susan a little shortly
so shortly that missus mc guire opened her eyes a bit and wondered why susan's lips had snapped tight shut in that straight hard line but what ails the woman she muttered to herself vexedly as she crossed the back yard to her own door
wasn't she herself always braggin about his bein so brave humph there's no such thing as pleasin some folks it seems finished missus mc guire as she entered her own door but missus mc guire was not the only frequent caller
there was mazie sanborn mazie began by coming every two or three days with flowers and fudge then she brought the latest novel one day and suggested that she read it to keith susan was skeptical of this even fearful
she had not forgotten keith's frenzied avoidance of such callers in the old days but to her surprise now keith welcomed mazie joyously so joyously that susan began to suspect that behind the joyousness
susan's joy then at keith's gracious response to visitors attentions changed to a vague uneasiness behind and beyond it all lay an intangible something upon which susan could not place her finger
but which filled her heart with distrust and so still she kept her eyes on keith in june dorothy parkman came to hinsdale she came at once to see susan but she would only step inside the hall and she spoke low and hurriedly
beyond the stairway i had to come to see how he was she began a little breathlessly and i wanted to ask you if you thought i could do any good or or be any help to him either as miss stewart or dorothy parkman
only i i suppose i would have to be dorothy parkman now i couldn't keep the other up forever of course but i don't know how to tell she stopped and looked again fearfully toward the closed doors susan how
how is he she finished unsteadily he's well very well he sees people mazie says he sees everybody now yes oh yes he sees people
but he's real brave challenged the girl quickly mazie said he was i know everybody says he's brave there was an odd constraint in susan's voice but the girl was too intent on her own problem to notice it and that's why i hoped
about me you know that he wouldn't mind now and of course it can't make any difference about his eyes for he doesn't need father or or any one now her voice broke
would he see me do you think he ought to he sees everybody else i know mazie says does mazie know about you interrupted susan i mean about your being miss stewart
a little but not much i told her once that he most always called me miss stewart but i never made anything of it and i never told her how much i saw of him out home some way i
susan i thought i heard was miss stewart here he demanded excitedly with only the briefest of hesitations and a half despairing half relieved look into susan's startled eyes the young girl hurried forward
indeed i'm here she cried gayly giving a warm clasp to his eagerly outstretched hand how do you do susan was just saying but susan was gone with upflung hands and a look that said
no you don't rake me into this thing young lady as plainly as if she had spoken the words themselves in the living room a minute later keith began eager questioning when did you come yesterday and you came to see me
the very next day weren't you good you knew how i wanted to see you oh but i didn't she laughed a little embarrassedly
but they're not you there's not any one like you cut in the youth fervently and now you're going to stay a long time aren't you
as to that it's too much to ask of course broke off keith contritely and truly i don't want to impose on you no no it isn't that protested the girl quickly it's only
i don't say this sort of thing very often i never said it before to anybody but i want you to know that i understood and appreciated just what you were doing all those weeks for me out there at the sanatorium
and it was the way you did it with never a word or a hint that i was different you did things and you made me do things without reminding me all the time that i was blind i shall never forget that first day when you told
everybody here that comes to see me tells me the lines are there yes i know the girl's voice was low a little breathless and that's why i need you so much
you will come why of course i'll come and be glad to you know i will and i'm so glad if i've helped any you've helped more than you'll ever know but come look i've got a dandy new game here
and keith very obviously to hide the shake in his voice and the emotion in his face turned gayly to a little stand near him and picked up a square cardboard box half an hour later dorothy parkman passing through the hall on her way to the outer door was waylaid by susan
leading the way through the diningroom in the kitchen she stopped and turned eagerly
miss dorothy shook her head mutely despairingly you mean he don't know yet that you're dorothy parkman i mean just that but child alive he'll find out he can't help finding out now
i tried to do it two or three times indeed i did but the words just wouldn't come and now i don't know when i can tell him
he showed it miss dorothy i know a soft pink suffused the young girl's face but it was miss stewart he was glad to see not dorothy parkman and after the things he said
she stopped and looked back over her shoulder toward the room she had just left but miss dorothy don't you see it'll be all right now you've shown
him that you don't mind being with blind folks a mite so now he won't care a bit when he knows you are dorothy parkman but the girl shook her head again yes i know he might not mind that part perhaps
and it wouldn't be easy to to make him understand he'd never forgive it i know he wouldn't to think i'd taken advantage of his not being able to see
he wouldn't you don't know just to day he said something about about some one who had tried to deceive him in a little thing because he was blind and i could see how bitter he was
beautifully about that to day but whether after he finds out her voice choked into silence and she turned her head quite away there there dear don't you fret susan comforted her
you jest go home and think no more about it when thinkin won't mend it
chapter twenty seven for the sake of john in due course daniel burton and his son keith returned from the funeral of their kinswoman missus nancy holworthy the town aware now of the stupendous change that had come to the fortunes of the burton family
stared gossiped shook wise heads of prophecy then passed on to the next sensation which happened to be the return of four soldiers from across the seas three crippled one blinded
at the burton homestead the changes did not seem so stupendous after all true daniel burton had abandoned the peddling of peas and beans across the counter and had at the earnest solicitation of his son got out his easel and placed a fresh canvas upon it
but he obviously worked half heartedly and he still roamed the house after reading the evening paper and spent even more time before the great war map on his studio wall true also disgruntled tradesmen no longer rang peremptory peals on the doorbell
for bouillon spoons had never materialized locks and doors and sagging blinds had received prompt attention
but no startling alterations or improvements were promised by the evidence and keith was still
or on his own with john mc guire it is no wonder surely that very soon the town ceased to stare and gossip or even to shake wise heads of prophecy nancy holworthy's death was two months in the past
i acted as if anything was the matter stammered the youth well you do now tell me what is it nothing nothing susan nothing you can help keith was pacing back and forth and up and down the living room
not even using his cane to define the familiar limits of his pathway suddenly he turned and stopped short his whole body quivering with emotion susan i can't i can't stand it he moaned
i know keith but what is it now john mc guire he's been telling me how it is over there why susan i could see it see it i tell you and oh i did so want to be there to help
he told me how they held it the little clump of trees that meant so much to us and how one by one they fell those brave fellows with him i could see it i could hear it
and the shouts and groans of the men at our side and they needed men more men to take the place of those that had fallen even one man counted there counted for oh so much for at the last there was just one man left
and to hear him tell it it was wonderful wonderful i know i know nodded susan it was like his letters you could see things he made you see em an that's what he always did
and to think of all that to day being wasted on a blind baby tied to a picture puzzle moaned keith resuming his nervous pacing of the room if only a man a real man could have heard him one that could go and do a man's work why susan
i never heard anything like it i never supposed there could be anything like that battle he never talked like this until to day oh he's told me a little from time to time
and there are so many who need just that message to stir them from their smug complacency men who could fight and win men who would fight and win if only they could see and hear and know as i saw and heard
and knew this afternoon and there it was wasted wasted worse than wasted on me chokingly keith turned away but with a sudden cry susan caught his arm no no keith it wasn't wasted
you mustn't let it be wasted she panted listen you want others to hear it what you heard don't you
you can you can how make him write it down jest as he talks he can he wants to he's always wanted to then publish it in a book so
he couldn't do it you know he can't write at all he's only begun to practice a little bit he'd never get it down with the fire and the vim in it learning to write as he'd have to
i know i know nodded susan it's that way with me in my poetry i jest have to get right ahead while the fuse burns an spell em somehow anyhow so's to get em down while i'm in the fit of it
he couldn't do it i can see that now but keith couldn't you do it take it down i mean as he talked like a stylographer keith shook his head i wish i could
but i couldn't i know i couldn't i couldn't begin to do it fast enough to keep up with him
when a man's got a couple of huns coming straight for him and he knows he's got to get em both at once you can't very well sing out here
she paused drew a long sigh and turned her eyes out the window up the walk was coming daniel burton his step was slow his head was bowed he looked like anything but the happy possessor of new wealth susan frowned as she watched him
i wish your father she began suddenly she stopped
do what take down john mc guire's story
he's got eyes keith's voice broke a little
but susan john mc guire wouldn't tell it to him don't you see he won't even see anybody but me and he didn't talk like this even to me until to day
tell me that but he could overhear it keith no no don't look like that she protested hurriedly as keith began to frown jest listen a minute it would be jest as easy
he could be over on the grass right close where he could hear every word an you could get john to talkin an as soon as he got really started on a story your father could begin to write an john wouldn't know a thing about it an' yes you're quite right
john wouldn't know a thing about it broke in keith with a passion so sudden and bitter that susan fell back in dismay why keith she exclaimed her startled eyes on his quivering face
i wonder if you think i'd do it he demanded i wonder if you really think i'd cheat that poor fellow into
that i wasn't the only one in his audience but keith he wouldn't mind he wouldn't mind a bit urged susan if he didn't know an' oh no he wouldn't mind being cheated and deceived and made a fool of just because he couldn't see
no he wouldn't mind persisted susan stoutly
and playing games with me was a girl i had never known before a girl who was what she pretended to be a new friend doing it all because she wanted to because she liked to but keith i'm sure that dorothy liked
there there susan interposed keith with quickly uplifted hand we'll not discuss it please yes i know i began the subject myself and it was my fault
but when i heard you say john mc guire would be glad when he found out how we'd lied to his poor blind eyes i i just couldn't hold it in i had to say something but never mind that now susan
oh keith why he'd even forget his eyes then it would help some keith drew in his breath and held it a moment suspended and he'd even be helping us to win out over there
the fellow that reads it wouldn't need any recruiting station to send him over there if there was only a way that father could
i know we will an keith
in the morning when he woke up they had the place to themselves for on his instructions the servants had all left first thing janet and the cook to oxford where they would try and find new places and nanny going back to the cottage near tangley where her son lived who was the pigman there
so with that morning there began what was now to be their ordinary life together he would get up when it was broad day and first thing light the fire downstairs and cook the breakfast then brush his wife sponge her with a damp sponge then brush her again
in all this using scent very freely to hide somewhat her rank odour when she was dressed he carried her downstairs and they had their breakfast together she sitting up to table with him drinking her saucer of tea and taking her food from his fingers
she was still fond of the same food that she had been used to before her transformation a lightly boiled egg or slice of ham a piece of buttered toast or two with a little quince and apple jam
while i am on the subject of her food i should say that reading in the encyclopedia he found that foxes on the continent are inordinately fond of grapes and that during the autumn season they abandon their ordinary diet for them and then grow exceedingly fat and lose their offensive odour
that it is strange mister tebrick should not have known it after reading this account he wrote to london for a basket of grapes to be posted to him twice a week and was rejoiced to find that the account in the encyclopedia was true in the most important of these particulars
his vixen relished them exceedingly and seemed never to tire of them so that he increased his order first from one pound to three pounds and afterwards to five
her odour abated so much by this means that he came not to notice it at all except sometimes in the mornings before her toilet what helped most to make living with her bearable for him was that she understood him perfectly yes every word he said
and though she was dumb she expressed herself very fluently by looks and signs though never by the voice thus he frequently conversed with her telling her all his thoughts and hiding nothing from her
sweet puss some men would pity me living alone here with you after what has happened but i would not change places while you were living with any man for the whole world though you are a fox i would rather live with you than any woman i swear i would
and that too if you were changed to anything but then catching her grave look he would say do you think i jest on these things my dear i do not i swear to you my darling that all my life i will be true to you will be faithful
will respect and reverence you who are my wife and i will do that not because of any hope that god in his mercy will see fit to restore your shape but solely because i love you however you may be changed my love is not
often he would swear to her that the devil might have power to work some miracles but that he would find it beyond him to change his love for her these passionate speeches however they might have struck his wife in an ordinary way now seemed to be her chief comfort
she would come to him put her paw in his hand and look at him with sparkling eyes shining with joy and gratitude would pant with eagerness jump at him and lick his face
getting his meals setting the room straight making the bed and so forth when he was doing this housework it was comical to watch his vixen often she was as it were beside herself with vexation and distress to see him in his clumsy way
doing what she could have done so much better had she been able
she followed him everywhere and if he did one thing wrong she stopped him and showed him the way of it when he had forgot the hour for his meal she would come and tug his sleeve and tell him as if she spoke husband are we to have no luncheon to day
this womanliness in her never failed to delight him for it showed she was still his wife buried as it were in the carcase of a beast but with a woman's soul
at last since he could find no reason against it he went to the shelf and fetched down a volume of the history of clarissa harlowe which he had begun to read aloud to her a few weeks before
good god what is now to become of me my feet benumbed by midnight wanderings through the heaviest dews that ever fell my wig and my linen dripping with the hoarfrost dissolving on them day but just breaking et cetera
while he read he was conscious of holding her attention then after a few pages the story claimed all his so that he read on for about half an hour without looking at her when he did so he saw that she was not listening to him
but was watching something with strange eagerness such a fixed intent look was on her face that he was alarmed and sought the cause of it presently he found that her gaze was fixed on the movements of her pet dove which was in its cage hanging in the window
he spoke to her but she seemed displeased so he laid clarissa harlowe aside nor did he ever repeat the experiment of reading to her
yet that same evening as he happened to be looking through his writing table drawer with puss beside him looking over his elbow she spied a pack of cards and then he was forced to pick them out to please her then draw them from their case
they had some difficulty at first in contriving for her to hold her cards and then to play them
after which she could flip them out very neatly with her claws as she wanted to play them when they had overcome this trouble they played three games and most heartily she seemed to enjoy them moreover she won all three of them
after this they often played a quiet game of piquet together and cribbage too i should say that in marking the points at cribbage on the board he always moved her pegs for her as well as his own for she could not handle them or set them in the holes
the weather which had been damp and misty with frequent downpours of rain improved very much in the following week and as often happens in january there were several days with the sun shining no wind and light frosts at night
these frosts becoming more intense as the days went on till bye and bye they began to think of snow with this spell of fine weather it was but natural that mister tebrick should think of taking his vixen out of doors
this was something he had not yet done both because of the damp rainy weather up till then and because the mere notion of taking her out filled him with alarm indeed he had so many apprehensions beforehand that at one time he resolved totally against it
for his mind was filled not only with the fear that she might escape from him and run away which he knew was groundless but with more rational visions such as wandering curs traps gins spring guns besides a dread of being seen with her by the neighbourhood
at last however he resolved on it and all the more as his vixen kept asking him in the gentlest way might she not go out into the garden
yet she always listened very submissively when he told her that he was afraid if they were seen together it would excite the curiosity of their neighbours besides this he often told her of his fears for her on account of dogs
after this he resolved to take her though with full precautions that is he left the house door open so that in case of need she could beat a swift retreat then he took his gun under his arm and lastly he had her well wrapped up in a little fur jacket lest she should take cold
for already her first horror of being seen to go upon all fours was worn off reasoning no doubt upon it that either she must resign herself to go that way or else stay bed ridden all the rest of her life
her joy at going into the garden was inexpressible first she ran this way then that though keeping always close to him looking very sharply with ears cocked forward first at one thing then another and then up to catch his eye
for some time indeed she was almost dancing with delight running round him then forward a yard or two then back to him and gambolling beside him as they went round the garden but in spite of her joy she was full of fear
at every noise a cow lowing a cock crowing or a ploughman in the distance hulloaing to scare the rooks she started her ears pricked to catch the sound her muzzle wrinkled up and her nose twitched
they walked round the garden and down to the pond where there were ornamental waterfowl teal widgeon and mandarin ducks and seeing these again gave her great pleasure
first she stared at them then bouncing up to her husband's knee sought to kindle an equal excitement in his mind whilst she rested her paws on his knee she turned her head again and again towards the ducks as though she could not take her eyes off them and then ran down before him to the water's edge
but her appearance threw the ducks into the utmost degree of consternation those on shore or near the bank swam or flew to the centre of the pond and there huddled in a bunch and then swimming round and round they began such a quacking that mister tebrick was nearly deafened
and such incidents were plentiful ever stood a chance of being smiled at by him so in this case too for realising that the silly ducks thought his wife a fox indeed and were alarmed on that account
he found painful that spectacle which to others might have been amusing not so his vixen who appeared if anything more pleased than ever when she saw in what a commotion she had set them and began cutting a thousand pretty capers
though at first he called to her to come back and walk another way mister tebrick was overborne by her pleasure and sat down
dancing on her hind legs even and rolling on the ground then fell to running in circles but all this without paying any heed to the ducks but they with their necks craned out all pointing one way swam to and fro in the middle of the pond never stopping their quack
quack quack and keeping time too for they all quacked in chorus presently she came further away from the pond and he thinking they had had enough of this sort of entertainment laid hold of her and said to her
come silvia my dear it is growing cold and it is time we went indoors i am sure taking the air has done you a world of good but we must not linger any more she appeared then to agree with him
though she threw half a glance over her shoulder at the ducks and they both walked soberly enough towards the house when they had gone about halfway she suddenly slipped round and was off he turned quickly and saw the ducks had been following them so she drove them before her back into the pond
the ducks running in terror from her with their wings spread and she not pressing them for he saw that had she been so minded she could have caught two or three of the nearest
then with her brush waving above her she came gambolling back to him so playfully that he stroked her indulgently though he was first vexed and then rather puzzled that his wife should amuse herself with such pranks
but when they got within doors he picked her up in his arms kissed her and spoke to her silvia what a light hearted childish creature you are your courage under misfortune shall be a lesson to me but i cannot
i cannot bear to see it here the tears stood suddenly in his eyes and he lay down upon the ottoman and wept paying no heed to her until presently he was aroused by her licking his cheek and his ear
after tea she led him to the drawing room and scratched at the door till he opened it for this was part of the house which he had shut up thinking three or four rooms enough for them now and to save the dusting of it then it seemed she would have him play to her on the pianoforte
she led him to it nay what is more she would herself pick out the music he was to play first it was a fugue of handel's then one of mendelssohn's songs without words and then the diver and then music from gilbert and sullivan
but each piece of music she picked out was gayer than the last one
yet next morning when he woke he was distressed when he found that she was not in the bed with him but was lying curled up at the foot of it during breakfast she hardly listened when he spoke and then impatiently but sat staring at the dove
mister tebrick sat silently looking out of window for some time then he took out his pocket book in it there was a photograph of his wife taken soon after their wedding now he gazed and gazed upon those familiar features
and now he lifted his head and looked at the animal before him he laughed then bitterly the first and last time for that matter that mister tebrick ever laughed at his wife's transformation for he was not very humorous
but this laugh was sour and painful to him then he tore up the photograph into little pieces and scattered them out of the window saying to himself memories will not help me here and turning to the vixen he saw that she was still staring at the caged bird
and as he looked he saw her lick her chops he took the bird into the next room
go poor bird fly from this wretched house while you still remember your mistress who fed you from her coral lips you are not a fit plaything for her now farewell poor bird farewell unless he added with a melancholy smile
you return with good tidings like noah's dove but poor gentleman his troubles were not over yet and indeed one may say that he ran to meet them by his constant supposing that his lady should still be the same to a tittle in her behaviour now
that she was changed into a fox without making any unwarrantable suppositions as to her soul or what had now become of it though we could find a good deal to the purpose on that point in the system of paracelsus
let us consider only how much the change in her body must needs affect her ordinary conduct so that before we judge too harshly of this unfortunate lady we must reflect upon the physical necessities and infirmities and appetites of her new condition
and we must magnify the fortitude of her mind which enabled her to behave with decorum cleanliness and decency in spite of her new situation thus she might have been expected to befoul her room
yet never could anyone whether man or beast have shown more nicety in such matters but at luncheon mister tebrick helped her to a wing of chicken
found her at his return on the table crunching the very bones he stood silent dismayed and wounded to the heart at this sight
for we must observe that this unfortunate husband thought always of his vixen as that gentle and delicate woman she had lately been so that whenever his vixen's conduct went beyond that which he expected in his wife he was as it were cut to the quick
and no kind of agony could be greater to him than to see her thus forget herself on this account it may indeed be regretted that missus tebrick had been so exactly well bred and in particular that her table manners had always been scrupulous
had she been in the habit like a continental princess i have dined with of taking her leg of chicken by the drumstick and gnawing the flesh it had been far better for him now but as her manners had been perfect so the lapse of them was proportionately painful to him
thus in this instance he stood as it were in silent agony till she had finished her hideous crunching of the chicken bones and had devoured every scrap then he spoke to her gently taking her on to his knee
stroking her fur and fed her with a few grapes saying to her silvia silvia is it so hard for you try and remember the past my darling and by living with me we will quite forget that you are no longer a woman
surely this affliction will pass soon as suddenly as it came and it will all seem to us like an evil dream yet though she appeared perfectly sensible of his words and gave him sorrowful and penitent looks like her old self
that same afternoon on taking her out he had all the difficulty in the world to keep her from going near the ducks
namely that he dare not trust his wife alone with any bird or she would kill it
for we may trust dogs who are familiars with all the household pets nay more we can put them upon trust with anything and know they will not touch it not even if they be starving but things were come to such a pass with his vixen that he dared not in his heart trust her at all
thus she understood excellently well the importance and duties of religion she would listen with approval in the evening when he said the lord's prayer and was rigid in her observance of the sabbath
indeed the next day being sunday he thinking no harm proposed their usual game of piquet but no she would not play mister tebrick not understanding at first what she meant though he was usually very quick with her
he proposed it to her again which she again refused and this time to show her meaning made the sign of the cross with her paw this exceedingly rejoiced and comforted him in his distress
he begged her pardon and fervently thanked god for having so good a wife who in spite of all knew more of her duty to god than he did but here i must warn the reader from inferring that she was a papist because she then made the sign of the cross
she made that sign to my thinking only on compulsion because she could not express herself except in that way for she had been brought up as a true protestant and that she still was one is confirmed by her objection to cards
yet that evening taking her into the drawing room so that he might play her some sacred music he found her after some time cowering away from him in the farthest corner of the room her ears flattened back and an expression of the greatest anguish in her eyes
when he spoke to her she licked his hand but remained shivering for a long time at his feet and showed the clearest symptoms of terror if he so much as moved towards the piano on seeing this and recollecting how ill the ears of a dog can bear with our music
and how this dislike might be expected to be even greater in a fox all of whose senses are more acute from being a wild creature recollecting this he closed the piano and taking her in his arms locked up the room and never went into it again
that night she would not sleep with him neither in the bed nor on it
but neither would she sleep there for several times she woke him by trotting around the room and once when he had got sound asleep by springing on the bed and then off it
presently he imagines to himself that she must want something and so fetches her food and water but she never so much as looks at it but still goes on her rounds every now and then scratching at the door
the fit is on you now silvia to be a fox but i shall keep you close and in the morning you will recollect yourself and thank me for having kept you now so he lay down again but not to sleep
only to listen to his wife running about the room and trying to get out of it thus he spent what was perhaps the most miserable night of his existence in the morning she was still restless and was reluctant to let him wash and brush her and appeared to dislike being scented
but as it were to bear with it for his sake ordinarily she had taken the greatest pleasure imaginable in her toilet so that on this account added to his sleepless night mister tebrick was utterly dejected
whether he had a wife or only a wild vixen in his house but yet he was comforted that she bore at all with him though so restlessly that he did not spare her calling her a bad wild fox and then speaking to her in this manner
are you not ashamed silvia to be such a madcap such a wicked hoyden you who were particular in dress i see it was all vanity now you have not your former advantages you think nothing of decency
breakfast she took soberly enough and after that he went about getting his experiment ready which was this in the garden he gathered together a nosegay of snowdrops those being all the flowers he could find
that is a black and white one from a man there who kept them when he got back he took her flowers and at the same time set down the basket with the rabbit in it with the lid open then he called to her silvia i have brought some flowers for you look
the first snowdrops at this she ran up very prettily and never giving as much as one glance at the rabbit which had hopped out of its basket she began to thank him for the flowers indeed she seemed indefatigable in shewing her gratitude
smelt them stood a little way off looking at them then thanked him again mister tebrick and this was all part of his plan then took a vase and went to find some water for them but left the flowers beside her
yet when he went in what a horrid shambles was spread before his eyes blood on the carpet blood on the armchairs and antimacassars
the poor gentleman was so heartbroken over this that he was like to have done himself an injury and at one moment thought of getting his gun to have shot himself and his vixen too
and fell into a chair with his head in his hands and so kept weeping and groaning after he had been some little while employed in this dismal way his vixen who had by this time bolted down the rabbit skin head ears and all
came to him and putting her paws on his knees thrust her long muzzle into his face and began licking him but he looking at her now with different eyes and seeing her jaws still sprinkled with fresh blood and her claws full of the rabbit's fleck would have none of it
but though he beat her off four or five times even to giving her blows and kicks she still came back to him crawling on her belly and imploring his forgiveness with wide open sorrowful eyes
before he had made this rash experiment of the rabbit and the flowers he had promised himself that if she failed in it he would have no more feeling or compassion for her than if she were in truth a wild vixen out of the woods
at length after cursing her and beating her off for upwards of half an hour
when he had acknowledged this he looked up at her and met her eyes fixed upon him and held out his arms to her and said oh silvia silvia would you had never done this would i had never tempted you in a fatal hour
does not this butchery and eating of raw meat and rabbit's fur disgust you
have you forgotten what it is to be a woman meanwhile with every word of his she crawled a step nearer on her belly and at last climbed sorrowfully into his arms
his words then seemed to take effect on her and her eyes filled with tears and she wept most penitently in his arms and her body shook with her sobs as if her heart were breaking
for his love for her returning with a rush he could not bear to witness her pain and yet must take pleasure in it as it fed his hopes of her one day returning to be a woman so the more anguish of shame his vixen underwent the greater his hopes rose
till his love and pity for her increasing equally he was almost wishing her to be nothing more than a mere fox than to suffer so much by being half human at last he looked about him somewhat dazed with so much weeping
then set his vixen down on the ottoman and began to clean up the room with a heavy heart he fetched a pail of water and washed out all the stains of blood gathered up the two antimacassars
while he went about this work his vixen sat and watched him very contritely with her nose between her two front paws and when he had done he brought in some luncheon for himself
she having lately so infamously feasted but water he gave her and a bunch of grapes afterwards she led him to the small tortoiseshell cabinet and would have him open it when he had done so she motioned to the portable stereoscope which lay inside
mister tebrick instantly fell in with her wish and after a few trials adjusted it to her vision thus they spent the rest of the afternoon together very happily looking through the collection of views which he had purchased of italy spain and scotland
chapter eleven the hues of love captain bramble did not long remain contented on board his ship this he could not do while he realized that miss huntington was so near upon the shore
he did love the lady and yet his sentiment of regard was so mixed up with selfishness and bitterness of spirit and pride at being refused that the small germ of real affection which had found birth in his bosom was too much corroded
with alloy to be identified he felt that he had been overreached by captain ratlin and also that he had good grounds of suspecting his successful rival of being either directly or indirectly engaged in the illegal trade of the coast
and determined if possible to discover his secret he again became a frequent visitor of don leonardo's house where he was sure to meet him constantly there were two spirits whom we have introduced to the reader in this connection
who were fitting companions for each other but they had not as yet been brought together by any chance so as to understand one another we refer to captain bramble and maud the quadroon both now hated captain ratlin
and would gladly have been revenged in any way for the gratification of their feelings upon her whom he so fondly loved with this similarity of sentiment it was not singular that they should ere long discover themselves and feelings to each other
indeed maud who had been a secret witness of the deed already realized that captain bramble was the enemy of him whom she had once loved and whom she now so bitterly despised
untutored in the ways of the world and fashionable intrigue yet the quadroon saw very clearly that through captain bramble she might consummate that revenge which she had so signally failed in doing by the agency of the hostile negro tribes
she had treacherously brought to her father's doors he had not been long at the factory therefore on landing after the duel before maud sought a private interview with him
on pretext of communicating to him some information that should be of value to him in connection with his official duty to this of course the english officer responded at once shrewdly suspecting at least a portion of the truth
hard by her father's house you will speak truly in what you tell me my good girl he said sagaciously as he looked into her dark spirited eyes with admiration he could not avoid have i anything to gain by a lie responded maud with a curling lip
no i presume not he answered i merely ask from ordinary precaution but what do you propose to reveal to me something touching this captain ratlin ay said the girl quickly it is of him i would speak
you are an english officer agent of your government and sent here to suppress this vile traffic true and have you suspected nothing since your vessel has been here i suspect that this captain ratlin is in some way connected with the trade
he is and but now awaits the gathering of a cargo in my father's barracoons to sail with them to the west indies it is not his first voyage either but where is his vessel
that is what i would reveal to you i will discover to you his ship if you swear to arrest him seize the vessel and if possible hang him you are bitter indeed said the officer
almost startled at the fiendish expression of the quadroon's countenance as she emphasized those two expressive words i have reason to be answered maud calming her feelings by an effort has he wronged you
yes he loves the white woman whom he brought to my father's house thus far at all events my good girl we have mutual cause for hate and we will work heartily together you know where his vessel lies i do
i will be prepared where shall we meet at the end of the cape where you and he met a few days since where we met asked the other in surprise how knew you of that i saw it
the duel yes it is strange i thought none but ourselves were to be there he has moved in no direction since this woman has been here that i have not followed
there i hoped to see him fall but he was strangely preserved you are a singular girl maud replied the officer take this and wear it for my sake he added
unloosing a fine gold chain from his watch and tossing it around her neck and be punctual at that spot to night after the last ray of twilight i will answered the quadroon
as she regarded the fine workmanship of the chain for a moment with idle and childlike pleasure then turning from the spot they both returned though by different paths from the jungle towards the dwelling of her father
captain bramble dined with don leonardo that day and his good spirits and pleasant converse were afterwards the subject of comment exhibiting him in a fair more favorable light than he had appeared in since his arrival at the factory
maud too either for sake of disguise or because the knowledge of her plan imparted exhilaration of spirits to her was more agreeable seemingly frank and friendly than she had been for many a long day
if we except the day before the late attack of the negroes upon the house when the same treacherous assumption of cheerfulness and satisfaction with all parties was similarly assumed captain ratlin on his part was ever the same
he found that he must wait some weeks even yet before he could prosecute the purpose of his voyage and indeed he seemed to have lost all interest in it
his thoughts were full of too pure an object to permit him to participate to any extent in so questionable a business gladly would he at any moment have thrown up his charge of the sea witch and he had indeed promised miss huntington
for he had never aspired to any more intimate relationship he would ignore the trade altogether and that he would despatch mister faulkner his first officer to the owners in cuba with the ship he had himself taken in charge
having been brought up from childhood upon the sea he had never studied the morality of the trade in which he was now engaged but the nice sense of honor which was so strong a characteristic of his nature only required the gentle influence of a sweet and refined nature
like her with whom providence had so opportunely thrown him to reform him altogether of those rougher ideas which he had naturally imbibed in the course of his perilous and daring profession in the presence of that fair and pure minded girl he was as a child
impressible and ready to follow her simplest instructions all this betokened a native refinement of soul else he could never have evinced the pliability which had rendered him so pleasant and agreeable a companion to her he secretly loved
lady he said to her as they sat together that afternoon heaven has sent you for a guardian angel to me your refining influence has come to my heart at its most lonely its most necessary moment
which though it affords fortune and command can never permit you self respect the ship will probably be despatched within these two weeks and then i will take any birth in legitimate commerce where i may win an honorable name and reputation
there is my hand on so honorable a resolution said miss huntington frankly while a single tear of pleasure trembled in her clear lustrous eyes the young commander took the hand respectfully that waits extended to him
but when he raised his eyes to her face and detected that tear a thought for a moment ran through his brain a faint shadow of hope that perhaps she loved him or might at some future time do so
and bending over the fair hand he held he pressed it gently to his lips he was not repulsed nor chided but she delicately rose and turned to her mother's apartment how small a things will affect the whole tenor of a life time
trifles lighter than straws are levers in the building up of destiny captain ratlin turned from that brief interview with a feeling he had never before experienced the idea that miss huntington really cared for him
beyond the ordinary interest that the circumstances of their acquaintances had caused had not thus far been entertained by him had this been otherwise he would doubtless have differently interpreted many agreeable tokens which she had granted him
and to which his mind now went back eagerly to recall and consider under the new phase of feeling which actuated him how else could he interpret that tear but as springing from a heart that was full of kindly feeling towards him
it was a tell tale drop of crystal that glistened but one moment there could it have been fancy was it possible he could have been mistaken the matter assumed an aspect of intense importance it his estimation
half in doubt half hoping in one instant how different an aspect all things wore life its aims the persons he met at the door as he now passed out
even the foliage seemed to partake of the freshness of his spirit and the world to become rejuvenated and beautified in every aspect in which he could view it this was the bright tide of the picture which his imagination
aided by that gaudy painter and fancy colorer hope had conjured up before his mind's eye but the reverse side of the picture was at hand and now he paused to ask himself seriously can this be
is it likely that two such persons as i have considered should be joined by intimate friendship can such barriers as these be broken down by love alas i am not so blind so foolish so unreasonable
as to believe it for a moment so once more the heart of the young commander was heavy within his breast in the mean time captain bramble had found an opportunity that afternoon to see maud
for to have seized the vessel without her commander on board would have been to perform but half the business he had laid out for the night's engagement but all seemed now propitious and he awaited the darkness with impatience
when he might disembark a couple of boat loads of sailors and marines and with the quadroon for guide follow the path through the jungle to where the sea witch lay why do you muse so long and lonely my child
as she came in and surprised her gazing out at a window vacantly
i was thinking over our strange fortune since we left calcutta the wreck
fortunate my dear i don't exactly know about that here we have been confined at this slave factory little better than the slaves themselves these four weeks well mother
captain bramble says he shall sail soon and then we can go round to sierra leone and from thence take passage direct for england for my part i can't understand why captain bramble insists upon staying here so long
he says that business and duty which he cannot explain detain him here but that he will soon leave of which he will give us due notice heaven hasten the period said the mother impatiently
for i am most heartily tired and worn out with the strange life we lead here this conversation will explain to the reader in part the reason why missus huntington and her daughter english subjects and in distress upon the coast
had not at once gone on board the vessel of their sovereign which lay in the harbor and been carried upon their destination from the outset captain bramble had resolved not to let his rival slip through his fingers by leaving port himself
and thus he had still remained to the present time though without any definite plan of operation formed until he availed himself of maud's proposal why bless me my child
chapter twelve the conflict captain bramble knew very well that he had desperate men to deal with in the taking of a slaver on the coast but he had gathered his evidence and witnesses in such a strong array
that he felt warranted in going to any length in securing possession of a clipper craft which had been so fully described to him he was not wanting in personal courage and therefore with a well selected body of sailors and marines
and one or two officers he quietly pulled away from the ship's side under cover of the night and landed at the proposed spot here he found maud patiently awaiting his coming and ready to lead him to the hiding place of the sea witch and her crew
the men were all well armed and instructed how to act in any possible emergency that was to be met with in the business which brought them on shore on the whole body pressed in silence through a tangled and narrow path
being more than once startled by the growl of some wild animal whose haunts they disturbed it was weary struggling by this path through the wood but it was the only way to approach the desired point by land maud hesitated not
but stole or glided through the tangled undergrowth as though she had passed her whole life time in the deep tangled ways of the jungle as they went on the moon gradually rose and lifted up the dark path by little gleamings
which stole in through the thick leaves and close turning branches of the lofty vegetation
and listen to the sound of voices which have a strange and echo like sound in that wild and tangled spot hark those voices are not from the tongues of natives that is english which they speak
hist hist whispered the quadroon we are almost upon them in which direction asked the english officer
yes that is the river's bed
how many do they number i know not it is not important continued the englishman turning to his followers and in a low voice bidding them look to their weapons for the game was near at hand
with her lower masts and their standing rigging the vessel was moored close to the shore with which a portable gangway connected it shallow as the water was yet so light was her draft that she evidently floated upon its sluggish current
voices were heard issuing from the fore hatch and two or three petty officers were seated about the entrance to the cabin smoking cigars and pipes all unconscious of any danger there is your prey
but though he took mister faulkner and his crew by surprise he did not find them entirely unprepared and after dropping eight of his people upon the slaver's deck and being himself severely wounded in the arm
captain bramble thought it best to beat a retreat at least for a few moments and so sought again the shelter of the jungle
and five of the slaver's people had been either mortally wounded or killed outright but from the habit of constantly wearing their arms even to pistols when on the coast they had been found in a very good situation at even the shortest notice for defending themselves
captain bramble now saw evident tokens of a purpose to unmoor the vessel and let her drift out into the river which would at once place her beyond his reach as he had no boats within a league of the spot and therefore he resolved upon a second onslaught
and this time divided his men into three parts one to board at the bows one at the stern and himself leading a dozen picked men at the waist this division of his forces was the best manouvre he could possibly make
and succeeded admirably since his own people outnumbered the slavers and by dividing them he strengthened his own power and weakened theirs once more upon their deck the hand to hand battle was short bloody and decisive
until towards its close captain bramble found himself driven into the forecastle with a number of his followers and at the same moment saw the mate of the sea witch with those of his people that were left alive hastening to embark in a quarterboat
and pull away from the vessel's side with great speed a sort of instinct explained to him the meaning of this and hurrying his people on shore with the wounded they sought the shelter of the jungle once more
scarcely had they gained the shade of the thick undergrowth when a report like that of a score of cannons rang upon the night air and high in the air soared a body of flame and wreck in terrific confusion
the slavers had placed a slow match in connection with the magazine and had blown in one instant of time that entire and beautiful fabric into ten thousand atoms even maud with all her hatred and passion quailed at the shock
and trembled as she crouched to the ground with averted face she realized the result of her treachery but looked in vain for the object on whom she had hoped to reck the strength of her indignation and her hate where was he
this was a question that captain bramble had several times asked but in vain until now
captain will ratlin seize him my men seize him and bind his arms he is our prisoner said the english officer by what authority do you give such an order as that captain bramble asked the young commander in the queen's name sir
stand back said captain ratlin felling two seamen to the earth who approached him to lay hands upon his person and at the same time drawing a revolver from his pocket stand back i say i carry the lives of six of you in this weapon
and i am not one to miss my aim as your valiant leader yonder well knows now captain bramble i will surrender to you provided you accede to my terms otherwise you cannot take me alive well sir
that you accept my word of honor to obey your directions as a prisoner but that you shall not bind my arms or confine me otherwise have your own way replied the englishman doggedly but give up your weapons
do you promise me this captain bramble i do it is well sir there goes my weapon saying which he hurled it far into the river's bed as soon as maud saw him she sprang to her feet
and with all the bitterness of expression which her countenance was capable of she scowled upon his upright figure and handsome features
and would only have rejoiced had she believed he was blown to atoms with his vessel by the wild explosion which had so lately shaken the very earth upon which she now stood it was plain that up to this very moment however
that the young commander had never suspected her of treachery or even jealousy towards himself but now he would have been worse than blind not to have seen and realized
is it you who have betrayed us
a double heart should be dealt doubly with it was i who led these people hither and i hoped the fate of so many of your ship's company might have been yours but you are a prisoner now and there's hope yet maud maud
have i ever wronged you or your father asked captain ratlin reproachfully do you not love that white faced girl you brought hither and if i did maud what wrong is that to thee did i promise thee love
nay i asked it not of you said the angry girl but you have done me a great wrong maud one that you do not yourself understand i forgive you though poor girl you are hardly to blame
while he walked on with the english officer and his people over the ground they had just passed towards don leonardo's there being now no further cause for secrecy they marched openly and enlivened the way with many a rude jest
which grated harshly upon the ears of the wounded who were borne upon litters made from branches of the hard dry leaves of the palm as they came upon the open spot where stand the barracoons and don leonardo's dwelling
they found the entire family aroused and on the watch the heavy explosion of the sea witch's magazine having seemed to them like an earthquake don leonardo who shrewdly suspected the truth
seemed satisfied at a single glance as to the state of affairs and walking up to the young commander and watching for a favorable opportunity when not overheard he asked significantly treachery yes whom
and had been told by captain bramble that he must go forthwith on board his ship as such he desired to say a few words to missus huntington and her daughter a request which his rival could hardly find grounds for refusing
and so he took occasion to explain to them the state of affairs and to advise them to the best of his ability touching their own best course in order to safely reach england they felt that his advice was good as truly disinterested
and both agreed to abide strictly by it but doubted not that as captain ratlin had not been engaged in any slave commerce and indeed had not been in the late action at all that he would be very soon liberated and free to choose his own calling
and the vessel shaped her course along the coast towards sierra leone where there was sitting an english court of admiralty with extraordinary authority relative to such cases captain bramble was now about to lay before them
and who would be only too much gratified at the bringing before them of an offender to make an example of him captain bramble of course offered to missus huntington and her daughter his own cabin for their greater comfort
and strove to make their position as comfortable as possible for them while they were on board but he had not the nice sense of honor that true delicacy of spirit which should have led him to remember they were his guests from necessity
and that to push a suit under such circumstances was not only indelicate but positively insulting and yet he did so true he did not actually importune miss huntington
but his attentions and services were all rendered under that guise and aspect which rendered them to her most repulsive
under pretence that he feared his prisoner would attempt to escape he kept him under close guard
to the harbor of sierra leone this chafed the young commander's spirit somewhat
maud kept by herself she felt miserable and as is often the case realized that the success of her treachery thus far which in her anticipation had promised so much had but still more deeply shadowed her heart
the english officer looked upon her with mingled feelings of admiration for her strange beauty with contempt for her treachery and with a thought that she might be made perhaps the subject of his pleasure by a little management by and by
it was natural for a heart so vile as his to couple every circumstance and connection in some such selfish spirit with himself it was like him maud he said to her one day well she answered
lifting her handsome face from her hands where she often hid it you have lost one lover the girl only answered by a flashing glance of contempt how would you like another who she said sternly
me answered captain bramble
no he had not rightly understood the quadroon it was not wounded pride
it was not that which moved the laughter of the spanish slaver it was either love or something very like it
and the native power of her bosom for revenge seemed to be now the food upon which she sustained life itself taking her lonely place in the cabin after the conversation just referred to she again hid her face in her hands
and remained with her head bowed in her lap for a long long while half dreaming half waking poor untutored uncivilized child of nature
but the islanders while to the utmost of their power they repelled force with force implored the assistance of the divine mercy and with constant imprecations invoked the vengeance of heaven
and though such as curse cannot inherit the kingdom of god yet it was believed that those who were justly cursed on account of their impiety
but when the bishop came thither that devout teacher found in him the greatest help in governing
both a knowledge of the scriptures and an example of good works after he had departed to the lord cuthbert became provost of that monastery where he instructed many in the rule of monastic life
both by the authority of a master and the example of his own behaviour nor did he bestow his teaching and his example in the monastic life on his monastery alone
but laboured far and wide to convert the people dwelling round about from the life of foolish custom to the love of heavenly joys for many profaned the faith which they held by their wicked actions and some also
in the time of a pestilence neglecting the mysteries of the faith which they had received had recourse to the false remedies of idolatry as if they could have put a stop to the plague sent from god by incantations amulets
or any other secrets of the devil's art in order to correct the error of both sorts he often went forth from the monastery sometimes on horseback but oftener on foot
and went to the neighbouring townships where he preached the way of truth to such as had gone astray which boisil also in his time had been wont to do it was then the custom of the english people that when a clerk or priest came to a township
they all at his summons flocked together to hear the word willingly heard what was said and still more willingly practised those things that they could hear and understand and such was cuthbert's skill in speaking
so keen his desire to persuade men of what he taught such a light shone in his angelic face that no man present dared to conceal from him the secrets of his heart but all openly revealed in confession what they had done
and having confessed their sins they wiped them out by fruits worthy of repentance as he bade them he was wont chiefly to resort to those places and preach in those villages which were situated afar off amid steep and wild mountains
so that others dreaded to go thither and whereof the poverty and barbarity rendered them inaccessible to other teachers but he devoting himself entirely to that pious labour so industriously ministered to them with his wise teaching that
when he went forth from the monastery he would often stay a whole week sometimes two or three or even sometimes a full month before he returned home continuing among the hill folk to call that simple people by his preaching and good works
to the things of heaven this venerable servant of the lord having thus spent many years in the monastery of mailros and there become conspicuous by great tokens of virtue
that he might there also by his authority as provost and by the example of his own practice instruct the brethren in the observance of regular discipline for the same reverend father then governed that place also as abbot
from ancient times the bishop was wont to reside there with his clergy and the abbot with his monks
and being infested by evil spirits was very ill suited for human habitation but it became in all respects habitable at the desire of the man of god for at his coming the wicked spirits departed
when after expelling the enemy he had with the help of the brethren built himself a narrow dwelling with a mound about it and the necessary cells in it to wit an oratory and a common living room
he ordered the brothers to dig a pit in the floor of the room although the ground was hard and stony and no hopes appeared of any spring
and afforded the man of god the means which he had desired of supporting himself by his own labour when he had here served god in solitude many years
the mound which encompassed his dwelling being so high that he could see nothing from it but heaven which he thirsted to enter it happened that a great synod was assembled in the presence of king egfrid near the river alne at a place called
in which archbishop theodore of blessed memory presided and there cuthbert was with one mind and consent of all
herebert a man of holy life who had long been united with the man of god
i beseech you by the lord not to forsake me but to remember your most faithful companion and entreat the mercy of god that as we have served him together upon earth so we may depart together to behold his grace in heaven
for you know that i have always endeavoured to live according to the words of your lips and likewise whatsoever faults i have committed either through ignorance or frailty i have instantly sought to amend according to the judgement of your will
the bishop applied himself to prayer and having presently had intimation in the spirit that he had obtained what he asked of the lord he said rise brother and do not weep but rejoice greatly because the mercy of heaven
through the dispensation of the lord's mercy as may be believed to the end that if he was in any wise inferior in merit to the blessed cuthbert that which was lacking might be supplied by the chastening pain of a long sickness
and the same time with him so he might be accounted worthy to be received into the like abode of eternal bliss the most reverend father died in the isle of farne
in order to show forth the great glory of the life after death of the man of god cuthbert whereas the loftiness of his life before his death had been revealed by the testimony of many miracles when he had been buried eleven years
divine providence put it into the minds of the brethren to take up his bones they thought to find them dry and all the rest of the body consumed and turned to dust after the manner of the dead and they desired to put them into a new coffin and to lay them in the same place
but above the pavement for the honour due to him they made known their resolve to bishop eadbert and he consented to it and bade them to be mindful to do it on the anniversary of his burial
they did so and opening the grave found all the body whole as if he were still alive and the joints of the limbs pliable like one asleep rather than dead besides all the vestments in which he was clothed were not only undefiled
but marvellous to behold being fresh and bright as at the first the brothers seeing this were struck with a great dread and hastened to tell the bishop what they had found he being then alone in a place remote from the church
and encompassed on all sides by the shifting waves of the sea there he always used to spend the time of lent and was wont to pass the forty days before the nativity of our lord in great devotion with abstinence and prayer and tears
there also his venerable predecessor cuthbert had for some time served as the soldier of the lord in solitude
they brought him also some part of the garments that had covered the holy body which presents he thankfully accepted and gladly heard of the miracles
let new garments be put upon the body in place of these you have brought and so lay it in the coffin which you have prepared for i know of a surety that the place will not long remain empty which has been hallowed with so great grace of heavenly miracles
and how happy is he to whom the lord the author and giver of all bliss shall vouchsafe to grant the privilege of resting therein
when the bishop had made an end of saying this and more in like manner with many tears and great compunction and with faltering tongue the brothers did as he had commanded them and when they had wrapped the body in new garments and laid it in a new coffin
of some of these we have before preserved the memory in the book of his life but in this history we have thought fit to add some others which have lately come to our knowledge
there was in that same monastery a brother whose name was badudegn who had for no small time ministered to the guests of the house
and is still living having the testimony of all the brothers and strangers resorting thither of being a man of much piety and religion and serving the office put upon him only for the sake of the heavenly reward
this man having one day washed in the sea the coverings or blankets which he used in the guest chamber was returning home when on the way he was seized with a sudden infirmity
and could scarce at last rise again when he got up he felt one half of his body from the head to the foot struck with palsy and with great trouble made his way home by the help of a staff
the disease increased by degrees and as night approached became still worse so that when day returned he could scarcely rise or walk alone suffering from this trouble he conceived the wise resolve to go to the church as best he could
and approach the tomb of the reverend father cuthbert and there on his knees humbly beseech the mercy of god that he might either be delivered from that disease if it were well for him or if by the grace of god it was ordained for him to be chastened longer by this affliction
that he might bear the pain which was laid upon him with patience and a quiet mind he did accordingly as he had determined and supporting his weak limbs with a staff entered the church
there prostrating himself before the body of the man of god he prayed with pious earnestness that through his intercession the lord might be propitious to him as he prayed he seemed to fall into a deep sleep and
as he was afterwards wont to relate felt a large and broad hand touch his head where the pain lay and likewise pass over all that part of his body which had been benumbed by the disease
but rather it grew daily worse on a sudden through the grace of the mercy of god it came to pass that he was cured by the relics of the holy father cuthbert for when the brethren found his body uncorrupted after having been many years buried
they took some part of the hair to give as relics to friends who asked for them or to show in testimony of the miracle one of the priests of the monastery named thruidred who is now abbot there had a small part of these relics by him at that time
one day he went into the church and opened the box of relics to give some part of them to a friend who asked for it and it happened that the youth who had the diseased eye was then in the church
chapter seventeen that in times marked by equality of conditions and sceptical opinions
towards which they are constantly tending and they learn by insensible degrees to repress a multitude of petty passing desires
when these same men engage in the affairs of this world the same habits may be traced in their conduct they are apt to set up some general and certain aim and end to their actions here below
towards which all their efforts are directed they do not turn from day to day to chase some novel object of desire
they had found out the great secret of success in this religions give men a general habit of conducting themselves with a view to futurity in this respect they are not less useful to happiness in this life
than to felicity hereafter and this is one of their chief political characteristics but in proportion as the light of faith grows dim the range of man's sight is circumscribed
as if the end and aim of human actions appeared every day to be more within his reach
when men have once allowed themselves to think no more of what is to befall them after life they readily lapse into that complete and brutal indifference to futurity which is but too conformable to some propensities of mankind
than they are disposed to act as if they were to exist but for a single day in sceptical ages it is always therefore to be feared that men may perpetually give way to their daily casual desires
and that wholly renouncing whatever cannot be acquired without protracted effort they may establish nothing great permanent and calm if the social condition of a people
under these circumstances becomes democratic the danger which i here point out is thereby increased when everyone is constantly striving to change his position
when an immense field for competition is thrown open to all when wealth is amassed or dissipated in the shortest possible space of time amidst the turmoil of democracy visions of sudden and easy fortunes
of great possessions easily won and lost of chance under all its forms haunt the mind the instability of society itself fosters the natural instability of man's desires
in the midst of these perpetual fluctuations of his lot the present grows upon his mind until it conceals futurity from his sight and his looks go no further than the morrow
in those countries in which unhappily irreligion and democracy coexist the most important duty of philosophers and of those in power
is to be always striving to place the objects of human actions far beyond man's immediate range circumscribed by the character of his country and his age
it is easier than they think to conceive and to execute protracted undertakings he must teach them that
the task of those in power is not less clearly marked out at all times it is important
but this is even more necessary in democratic and sceptical ages than in any others by acting thus the leading men of democracies not only make public affairs prosperous but they also teach private individuals
the art of managing private concerns above all they must strive as much as possible to banish chance from the sphere of politics the sudden and undeserved promotion of a courtier
but nothing is more pernicious than similar instances of favor exhibited to the eyes of a democratic people they give the last impulse to the public mind in a direction where everything hurries it onwards
or services it is desirable that every advancement should there appear to be the result of some effort so that no greatness should be of too easy acquirement
and that ambition should be obliged to fix its gaze long upon an object before it is gratified
that great success stands at the utmost range of long desires and that nothing lasting is obtained but what is obtained by toil when men have accustomed themselves to foresee from afar
what is likely to befall in the world and to feed upon hopes they can hardly confine their minds within the precise circumference of life and they are ready to break the boundary and cast their looks beyond i do not doubt
that by training the members of a community to think of their future condition in this world they would be gradually and unconsciously brought nearer to religious convictions thus the means which allow men up to a certain point
that amongst the americans all honest callings are honorable amongst a democratic people where there is no hereditary wealth
or has worked or is born of parents who have worked the notion of labor is therefore presented to the mind on every side as the necessary natural and honest condition of human existence
a wealthy man thinks that he owes it to public opinion to devote his leisure to some kind of industrial or commercial pursuit or to public business he would think himself in bad repute if he employed his life
solely in living it is for the purpose of escaping this obligation to work that so many rich americans come to europe where they find some scattered remains of aristocratic society
amongst which idleness is still held in honor equality of conditions not only ennobles the notion of labor in men's estimation but it raises the notion of labor as a source of profit
in aristocratic countries there are few public officers who do not affect to serve their country without interested motives their salary is an incident of which they think but little
in democratic communities these two notions are on the contrary always palpably united as the desire of well being is universal as fortunes are slender or fluctuating
even those who are principally actuated by the love of fame are necessarily made familiar with the thought that they are not exclusively actuated by that motive and they discover that the desire of getting a living
is mingled in their minds with the desire of making life illustrious
labor is held by the whole community to be an honorable necessity of man's condition and on the other as soon as labor is always ostensibly performed wholly or in part
the immense interval which separated different callings in aristocratic societies disappears
no profession exists in which men do not work for money and the remuneration which is common to them all gives them all an air of resemblance
in america no one is degraded because he works for everyone about him works also nor is anyone humiliated by the notion of receiving pay
for the president of the united states also works for pay he is paid for commanding other men for obeying orders
more or less profitable but they are never either high or low every honest calling
the period when the construction of democratic society upon the ruins of an aristocracy has just been completed is especially that at which this separation of men from one another
and the egotism resulting from it most forcibly strike the observation democratic communities not only contain a large number of independent citizens but they are constantly filled with men who
and as they do not suppose that they can henceforward ever have occasion to claim the assistance of their fellow creatures they do not scruple to show that they care for nobody but themselves
an aristocracy seldom yields without a protracted struggle in the course of which implacable animosities are kindled between the different classes of society
and of fear it is then commonly at the outset of democratic society that citizens are most disposed to live apart democracy leads men not to draw near to their fellow creatures
but democratic revolutions lead them to shun each other and perpetuate in a state of equality the animosities which the state of inequality engendered the great advantage of the americans
is that they have arrived at a state of democracy without having to endure a democratic revolution
easily forgives his subjects for not loving him provided they do not love each other he does not ask them to assist him in governing the state
thus the vices which despotism engenders are precisely those which equality fosters these two things mutually and perniciously complete and assist each other
equality places men side by side unconnected by any common tie despotism raises barriers to keep them asunder the former predisposes them not to consider their fellow creatures
the latter makes general indifference a sort of public virtue despotism then which is at all times dangerous is more particularly to be feared in democratic ages
when the members of a community are forced to attend to public affairs they are necessarily drawn from the circle of their own interests and snatched at times from self observation
as soon as a man begins to treat of public affairs in public
and that in order to obtain their support he must often lend them his co operation when the public is supreme
many of the passions which congeal and keep asunder human hearts are then obliged to retire and hide below the surface pride must be dissembled disdain
the men whose elevated minds or aspiring hopes are too closely circumscribed in private life constantly feel that they cannot do without the population which surrounds them
i may here be met by an objection derived from electioneering intrigues the meannesses of candidates and the calumnies of their opponents
but this same desire leads all men in the long run mutually to support each other and if it happens that an election accidentally severs two friends
the electoral system brings a multitude of citizens permanently together who would always have remained unknown to each other freedom engenders private animosities but despotism gives birth
and so fatal they also thought that it would be well to infuse political life into each portion of the territory in order to multiply to an infinite extent
opportunities of acting in concert for all the members of the community and to make them constantly feel their mutual dependence on each other the plan was a wise one
the general affairs of a country only engage the attention of leading politicians who assemble from time to time in the same places and as they often lose sight of each other afterwards
it is difficult to draw a man out of his own circle to interest him in the destiny of the state
but if it be proposed to make a road cross the end of his estate he will see at a glance that there is a connection between this small public affair and his greatest private affairs and he will discover
a brilliant achievement may win for you the favor of a people at one stroke but to earn the love and respect of the population which surrounds you
in spite of the propensities which sever them
on the contrary they constantly keep on easy terms with the lower classes they listen to them they speak to them every day they know that the rich in democracies always stand in need of the poor
and that in democratic ages you attach a poor man to you more by your manner than by benefits conferred the magnitude of such benefits which sets off the difference of conditions
causes a secret irritation to those who reap advantage from them but the charm of simplicity of manners is almost irresistible their affability carries men away
and even their want of polish is not always displeasing this truth does not take root at once in the minds of the rich they generally resist it as long as the democratic revolution lasts
and they do not acknowledge it immediately after that revolution is accomplished they are very ready to do good to the people but they still choose to keep them at arm's length
but they are mistaken they might spend fortunes thus without warming the hearts of the population around them that population does not ask them for the sacrifice of their money but of their pride
the best informed inhabitants of each district constantly use their information to discover new truths which may augment the general prosperity and if they have made any such discoveries
and i have remarked a hundred instances in which they hardly ever failed to lend faithful support to each other the free institutions which the inhabitants of the united states possess
and the political rights of which they make so much use remind every citizen and in a thousand ways that he lives in society
but i contend that in order to combat the evils which equality may produce there is only one effectual remedy namely
section two
but as i do not find that the causes of the fact have been sufficiently analyzed i shall endeavor to point them out
as none is different from his fellows none can exercise a tyrannical power men will be perfectly free because they will all be entirely equal and they will all be perfectly equal
because they will be entirely free to this ideal state democratic nations tend
but there are a thousand others which without being equally perfect are not less cherished by those nations the principle of equality may be established in civil society without prevailing in the political world
or even to institutions wholly without freedom although men cannot become absolutely equal unless they be entirely free and consequently equality pushed to its furthest extent
which attracts to itself and bears away in its course all the feelings and opinions of the time it is like a great stream towards which each of the surrounding rivulets seems to flow
freedom has appeared in the world at different times and under various forms it has not been exclusively bound to any social condition and it is not confined to democracies
ask not what singular charm the men of democratic ages find in being equal or what special reasons they may have for clinging so tenaciously to equality rather than to the other advantages which society holds out to them
equality is the distinguishing characteristic of the age they live in that of itself is enough to explain that they prefer it to all the rest but independently of this reason there are several others
which will at all times habitually lead men to prefer equality to freedom if a people could ever succeed in destroying or even in diminishing the equality which prevails in its own body
its social condition must be modified its laws abolished its opinions superseded its habits changed its manners corrupted but
that political freedom may compromise in its excesses the tranquillity the property the lives of individuals is obvious to the narrowest and most unthinking minds but on the contrary
for which the present generation takes but little thought the evils which freedom sometimes brings with it are immediate they are apparent to all and all are more or less affected by them
the evils which extreme equality may produce are slowly disclosed they creep gradually into the social frame they are only seen at intervals
and at the moment at which they become most violent habit already causes them to be no longer felt the advantages which freedom brings are only shown by length of time
the advantages of equality are instantaneous
from their source political liberty bestows exalted pleasures from time to time upon a certain number of citizens equality every day
confers a number of small enjoyments on every man
and are within the reach of all the noblest hearts are not insensible to them and the most vulgar souls exult in them
the passion which equality engenders must therefore be at once strong and general men cannot enjoy political liberty unpurchased by some sacrifices
and in order to taste them nothing is required but to live democratic nations are at all times fond of equality
but there are certain epochs at which the passion they entertain for it swells to the height of fury this occurs at the moment when the old social system long menaced completes its own destruction
and when the barriers of rank are at length thrown down at such times men pounce upon equality as their booty
the passion for equality penetrates on every side into men's hearts expands there and fills them entirely
they risk their dearest interests they are deaf show them not freedom escaping from their grasp whilst they are looking another way they are blind or rather
only began to exist and to extend themselves at the time when social conditions were tending to equality and as a consequence of that very equality
absolute kings were the most efficient levellers of ranks amongst their subjects amongst these nations equality preceded freedom
equality was therefore a fact of some standing when freedom was still a novelty the one had already created customs opinions and laws belonging to it
and to prefer himself to everything in the world individualism is a mature and calm feeling which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellow creatures
and to draw apart with his family and his friends so that
only saps the virtues of public life but in the long run it attacks and destroys all others and is at length absorbed in downright egotism
contemporaneous a man almost always knows his forefathers and respects them he thinks he already sees his remote descendants and he loves them
he willingly imposes duties on himself towards the former and the latter and he will frequently sacrifice his personal gratifications to those who went before and to those who will come after him
aristocratic institutions have moreover the effect of closely binding every man to several of his fellow citizens as the classes of an aristocratic people are strongly marked and permanent
more tangible and more cherished than the country at large as in aristocratic communities all the citizens occupy fixed positions one above the other the result is that each of them always sees a man above himself
whose patronage is necessary to him and below himself another man whose co operation he may claim men living in aristocratic ages are therefore almost always closely attached to something placed out of their own sphere
amongst democratic nations new families are constantly springing up others are constantly falling away
the woof of time is every instant broken and the track of generations effaced those who went before are soon forgotten
the interest of man is confined to those in close propinquity to himself as each class approximates to other classes and intermingles with them
its members become indifferent and as strangers to one another aristocracy had made a chain of all the members of the community from the peasant to the king democracy breaks that chain
and severs every link of it as social conditions become more equal the number of persons increases who although they are neither rich enough nor powerful enough to exercise any great influence over their fellow creatures
have nevertheless acquired or retained sufficient education and fortune to satisfy their own wants they owe nothing to any man
and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors but it hides his descendants
there lived a king who reigned over a great and beautiful country he was married to a wife whom he dearly loved and had two most promising children a son called asmund
and he spared no pains to make their lives happy prince asmund dearly loved all outdoor sports and an open air life and from his earliest childhood he had longed to live entirely in the forest close by
after many arguments and entreaties he succeeded in persuading the king to give him two great oak trees for his very own now said he to his sister i will have the trees hollowed out
what a delightful idea do let me come too and live in one of your trees i will bring all my pretty things and ornaments and the trees are so near home we shall be quite safe in them
asmund who was extremely fond of his sister readily consented and they had a very happy time together carrying over all their pet treasures and signy's jewels and other ornaments
and arranging them in the pretty little rooms inside the trees unfortunately sadder days were to come a war with another country broke out and the king had to lead his army against their enemy
during his absence the queen fell ill and after lingering for some time she died to the great grief of her children they made up their minds to live altogether for a time in their trees
that he determined to marry her if possible so he begged his father to let him have a ship for the voyage set sail with a favourable wind
the prince lost no time in setting out for the royal palace and on his way there he met such a wonderfully lovely woman that he felt he had never seen such beauty in all his life he stopped her and at once asked who she was
i am signy the king's daughter was the reply then the prince inquired why she was wandering about all by herself and she told him that since her mother's death
but a strong gigantic wicked witch bent on deceiving him under a beautiful shape he confided to her that he had travelled all the way from his own country for her sake having fallen in love with the accounts he had heard of her beauty
as she wished to go some way further into the forest promising to join him later on prince ring did as she wished and went back to his ship to wait
whilst she walked on into the forest till she reached the two oak trees here she resumed her own gigantic shape tore up the trees by their roots
threw one of them over her back and clasped the other to her breast carried them down to the shore and waded out with them to the ship she took care not to be noticed as she reached the ship and directly she got on board
she once more changed to her former lovely appearance and told the prince that her luggage was now all on board and that they need wait for nothing more the prince gave orders to set sail at once
and after a fine voyage landed in his own country where his parents and his only sister received him with the greatest joy and affection the false signy was also very kindly welcomed
a beautiful house was got ready for her and prince ring had the two oaks planted in the garden just in front of her windows so that she might have the pleasure of seeing them constantly he often went to visit the witch
and one day he asked don't you think we might be married before long yes said she quite pleased i am quite ready to marry you whenever you like then replied ring
let us decide on this day fortnight and see i have brought you some stuff to make your wedding dress of so saying he gave her a large piece of the most beautiful brocade all woven over with gold threads
and embroidered with pearls and other jewels the prince had hardly left her before the witch resumed her proper shape and tore about the room raging and storming and flinging the beautiful silk on the floor
what was she to do with such things she roared she did not know how to sew or make clothes and she was sure to die of starvation into the bargain if her brother ironhead did not come soon and bring her some raw meat and bones
the witch was enchanted at this sight and eagerly helped her brother to set down and open the chest which was full of the ghastly food she had been longing for the horrid pair set to and greedily devoured it all
and when the chest was quite empty the giant put it on his shoulder and disappeared as he had come without leaving any trace of his visit but his sister did not keep quiet for long
so she watched for an opportunity and managed to carry off the brocade the first time the witch left her room then she set to work cutting out and sewing as best she could
and by the end of six days she had turned it into an elegant robe with a long train and a mantle when it was finished she climbed to the top of her tree and contrived to throw the clothes on to a table through the open window
how delighted the witch was when she found the clothes all finished the next time prince ring came to see her she gave them to him and he paid her many compliments on her skilful work
after which he took leave of her in the most friendly manner but he had scarcely left the house when the witch began to rage as furiously as ever and never stopped till her brother ironhead appeared
when asmund saw all these wild doings from his tree he felt he could no longer keep silence he went to prince ring and said
do come with me and see the strange things that are happening in the new princess's room the prince was not a little surprised but he consented to hide himself with asmund behind the panelling of the room
i shall take care to have all that pack of courtiers put to death and then i shall send for all my relations to come and live here instead i fancy the giants will enjoy themselves very much with me and my husband
were three female divinities daughters of thaumas and electra
they were represented with the head of a fair haired maiden and the body of a vulture and were perpetually devoured by the pangs of insatiable hunger which caused them to torment their victims by robbing them of their food
their wonderfully rapid flight far surpassed that of birds or even of the winds themselves if any mortal suddenly and unaccountably disappeared the harpies were believed to have carried him off
to act as servants to the erinyes the harpies would appear to be personifications of sudden tempests which with ruthless violence sweep over whole districts carrying off or injuring all before them
who personified the torturing pangs of an evil conscience and the remorse which inevitably follows wrong doing
and their origin was variously accounted for according to hesiod they sprang from the blood of uranus when wounded by cronus
and were hence supposed to be the embodiment of all the terrible imprecations which the defeated deity called down upon the head of his rebellious son according to other accounts they were the daughters of night
for they appeared upon earth as the avenging deities who relentlessly pursued and punished murderers perjurers those who had failed in duty to their parents
their bodies are black blood drips from their eyes and snakes twine in their hair in their hands they bear either a dagger scourge torch or serpent
when they pursued orestes they constantly held up a mirror to his horrified gaze in which he beheld the face of his murdered mother
in later times the furies came to be regarded as salutary agencies who by severely punishing sin upheld the cause of morality and social order and thus contributed to the welfare of mankind
they now lose their awe inspiring aspect and are represented more especially in athens as earnest maidens dressed like artemis in short tunics suitable for the chase but still retaining in their hands
the power which they wielded over the fate of man was significantly indicated under the figure of a thread which they spun out for the life of each human being from his birth to the grave this occupation they divided between them
zeus himself being powerless to avert her decrees but in later times this conception of one inexorable all conquering fate became amplified by the poets into that above described
and the moirae are henceforth the special presiding deities over the life and death of mortals
aged hideous and also lame which is evidently meant to indicate the slow and halting march of destiny which they controlled painters and sculptors on the other hand depicted them as beautiful maidens of a grave but kindly aspect
which depicts her in all the grace of youth and beauty she is sitting spinning and at her feet lie two masks one comic the other tragic as though to convey the idea that
to a divinity of fate the brightest and saddest scenes of earthly existence are alike indifferent and that she quietly and steadily pursues her occupation regardless of human weal or woe
it was considered the function of the moirae to indicate to the furies the precise torture which the wicked should undergo for their crimes
by awarding to each individual the fate which his actions deserve she rewards humble unacknowledged merit punishes crime deprives the worthless of undeserved good fortune
but though nemesis in her original character was the distributor of rewards as well as punishments the world was so full of sin that she found but little occupation in her first capacity and hence became finally regarded as the avenging goddess only
apollo and artemis were merely the instruments for avenging the insult offered to their mother but it was nemesis who prompted the deed and presided over its execution homer makes no mention of nemesis
a diadem crowns her majestic brow and she bears in her hand a rudder balance and cubit fitting emblems of the manner in which she guides weighs and measures all human events she is also sometimes seen with a wheel
chapter eight the constructive faculties he who hath learned a single art can thrive i ween in any part german proverb
he had inventions rare wordsworth when i had after many years of study and research in england and on the continent developed the theory that all practical technical education of youth
should be preceded by a light or easy training on an aesthetic basis or the minor arts i for four years to test the scheme was engaged in teaching in the city of philadelphia
every week in separate classes two hundred children besides a number of ladies these were from the public schools of the city the total number of these public pupils was then
my pupils were taught firstly simple outline decorative design with drawing at the same time after this according to sex easy embroidery wood carving
modeling in clay leather work carpentering inlaying
porcelain painting and other small arts nearly all of the pupils who were from ten to sixteen years of age acquired two or three if not all of these arts
and then very easily found employment in factories or fabrics et cetera many people believed that this was all waste of money and time and quite unknown to me
at their instigation an inquiry was made of all the teachers in the public schools as to the standing of my art pupils in their other classes it being confidently anticipated that they would be found to have fallen behind
and the result of the investigation was that the two hundred were in advance of the one hundred and ten thousand in every branch geography arithmetic history and so on it was not remarkable
because boys and girls who had at an average age of twelve or thirteen learned the principles of design and its practical application to several kinds of handiwork and knew the differences and characteristics of gothic
especially if this be done in a pleasing easy manner with agreeable work also develop with it the intellect and that very rapidly to a very remarkable degree there are reasons for this
drawing when properly taught stimulates visual perception or eye memory this is strikingly the case when the pupil has a model placed in one room and after studying it
goes into another room to reproduce it from memory original design which when properly taught is learned with incredible ease by all children stimulates observation to a remarkable degree
the result of such education is to develop a great general quickness of perception and thought now be it observed that if anyone desires to learn design or any art
it may be greatly facilitated by the application to it of will and foresight and in the beginning self suggestion he who understands the three as one
sees in it a higher or more energetic kind of self discipline than most people practise in the end they come to the same as a vigorous effort of the will
thus having mastered the very easy principles of design which govern all organic development or vegetable growth as set forth in a plant with roots offshoots or crochets
and end ornaments flowers or finials with the circle spiral and offshooting ornaments rings made into vines and wave patterns all of which can be understood in an hour with diagrams
or that it must be done he will probably feel the impulse and succeed this is the more likely because patterns impress themselves very vividly on the memory or imagination
and when studied are easily recalled after a little practice the manner in which most artists form an idea or project their minds to a plan or invention
be it a statue or picture and the way they think it over and anticipate it very often actually seeing the picture in a finished state in imagination
all amounts to foresight and hypnotic preparation in a crude imperfect form if any artist who is gifted with resolution and perseverance will simply make trial of the method here recommended
in any case if they had learned to use their hands and their inventiveness or adaptability they would have been the better for it that the innumerable multitude of people who can do nothing of the kind
and who take no real interest in anything except spending money and gossiping are to be really pitied is true some of them once had minds and these are the most pitiful or pitiable of all
so as to interest anything which would make life worth living for except love which is good to a certain extent but not absolutely all in all save to the eroto maniac
beyond mere story telling or even being interesting which means the love or detective business i would suggest to some of these writers that the marvelous latent powers of the human mind
lycurgus once took two puppies of the same litter and had the one brought up to hunt while the other was nursed at home in all luxury and when grown and let loose the one caught a hare while the other yelped and ran away
so the word handy in old english hend meaning quick alert or gifted with prompt perception is derived from knowing how to use the hands brusonius
fifteen sixty two has collected a great number of classic anecdotes to illustrate this saying recapitulation those who desire to become artists can greatly facilitate their work
which was the foolishest in a little village that stood on a wide plain where you could see the sun from the moment he rose to the moment he set there lived two couples side by side
the men who worked under the same master were quite good friends but the wives were always quarrelling and the subject they quarrelled most about was which of the two had the stupidest husband
unlike most women who think that anything that belongs to them must be better than what belongs to anyone else each thought her husband the more foolish of the two
you should just see what he does one said to her neighbour he puts on the baby's frock upside down and one day i found him trying to feed her with boiling soup and her mouth was scalded for days after
then he picks up stones in the road and sows them instead of potatoes and one day he wanted to go into the garden from the top window because he declared it was a shorter way than through the door
that is bad enough of course answered the other but it is really nothing to what i have to endure every day from my husband if when i am busy i ask him to go and feed the poultry
yes i am afraid he is trying replied the first but let us put them to the proof and see which of them is the most foolish so about the time that she expected her husband home from work
she got out her spinning wheel and sat busily turning it taking care not even to look up from her work when the man came in for some minutes he stood with his mouth open watching her and as she still remained silent he said at last
which will be woven into a coat for you dear me he replied what a clever wife i have got if you had not told me i should never have known that there was any wool on the wheel at all
but now i really do seem to see something the woman smiled and was silent and after spinning busily for an hour more she got up from her stoop and began to weave as fast as she could at last she got up
and said to her husband i am too tired to finish it to night so i shall go to bed and to morrow i shall only have the cutting and stitching to do so the next morning she got up early
and after she had cleaned her house and fed her chickens and put everything in its place again she bent over the kitchen table and the sound of her big scissors might be heard snip snap as far as the garden her husband could not see anything to snip at
but then he was so stupid that was not surprising after the cutting came the sewing the woman patted and pinned and fixed and joined and then turning to the man she said now it is ready for you to try on
it does not feel very warm observed the man at last when he had borne all this patiently for a long time that is because it is so fine answered she you do not want it to be as thick as the rough clothes you wear every day
he did but was ashamed to say so and only answered well i am sure it must be beautiful since you say so and i shall be smarter than anyone in the whole village what a splendid coat they will exclaim when they see me
but it is not everybody who has a wife as clever as mine meanwhile the other wife was not idle as soon as her husband entered she looked at him with such a look of terror that the poor man was quite frightened
if you sleep well during the might there may be a chance for you said she shaking her head as she tucked him up warmly but if not and of course the poor man never closed an eye till the sun rose
how do you feel this morning asked the woman coming in on tip toe when her house work was finished oh bad very bad indeed answered he i have not slept for a moment can you think of nothing to make me better
i will try everything that is possible said the wife who did not in the least wish her husband to die
i will get some dried herbs and make you a drink but i am very much afraid that it is too late why did you not tell me before
and when he inquired what was the matter she sobbed out oh my poor poor husband are you really dead i must go to morrow and order your coffin now when the man heard this a cold shiver ran through his body
and all at once he knew that he was as well as he had ever been in his life oh no no he cried i feel quite recovered indeed i think i shall go out to work you will do no such thing replied his wife
just keep quite quiet for before the sun rises you will be a dead man the man was very frightened at her words and lay absolutely still while the undertaker came and measured him for his coffin
and his wife gave orders to the gravedigger about his grave that evening the coffin was sent home and in the morning at nine o'clock the woman put him on a long flannel garment and called to the undertaker's men
to fasten down the lid and carry him to the grave where all their friends were waiting them just as the body was being placed in the ground the other woman's husband came running up dressed as far as anyone could see in no clothes at all
and the men laid down the coffin and laughed too till their sides nearly split the dead man was so astonished at this behaviour that he peeped out of a little window in the side of the coffin and cried out
i should laugh as loudly as any of you if i were not a dead man when they heard the voice coming from the coffin the other people suddenly stopped laughing and stood as if they had been turned into stone
then they rushed with one accord to the coffin and lifted the lid so that the man could step out amongst them were you really not dead after all asked they and if not why did you let yourself be buried
at this the wives both confessed that they had each wished to prove that her husband was stupider than the other but the villagers declared that they could not decide which was the most foolish
the man who allowed himself to be persuaded that he was wearing fine clothes when he was dressed in nothing or the man who let himself be buried when he was alive and well so the women quarrelled just as much as they did before
egbert the saxon lived at the same time as did harun al rashid and charlemagne he was the first king who ruled all england as one kingdom long before his birth the people who are known to us as britons lived there
and they gave to the island the name britain but britain was invaded by the romans under julius caesar and his successors and all that part of it which we now call england was added to the empire of rome
the britons were driven into wales and cornwall the western sections of the island the romans kept possession of the island for nearly four hundred years
the year that alaric sacked the city of rome at this time the roman legions were withdrawn from britain some years before this the saxons angles and jutes german tribes had settled near the shores of the north sea they learned much about britain
and soon the angles and saxons also left the north sea shores and invaded the beautiful island the new invaders met with brave resistance the britons were headed by king arthur about whom many marvelous stories are told
just as their forefathers had done when the romans invaded britain thus nearly all england came into the possession of the three invading tribes two
for the romans had not only made good roads and built strong walls and forts in britain but they had also brought the christian religion into the island and at about the time of the saxon invasion saint patrick was founding churches and monasteries in ireland
and was baptizing whole clans of the irish at a time it is said that he baptized twelve thousand persons with his own hand missionaries were sent out by the irish church to convert the wild picts of scotland and at a later day the distant barbarians of germany and switzerland
the saxons angles and jutes believed in the old norse gods and tiew and woden thor and friga or frija
though both angles and saxons called themselves christians they were seldom at peace and for more than two hundred years they frequently fought various chiefs tried to make themselves kings and at length there came to be no less than seven small kingdoms in south britain
but the people elected another man and egbert had to flee for his life he went to the court of charlemagne and was with the great king of the franks in rome on christmas day eight hundred when the pope placed the crown on charles head and proclaimed him emperor soon after this a welcome message came to egbert
the mind of the people in wessex had changed and they had elected him king so bidding farewell to charlemagne he hurried to england egbert had seen how charlemagne had compelled the different quarreling tribes of germany to yield allegiance to him and how after uniting his empire he had ruled it well
egbert did in england what charlemagne had done in germany he either persuaded the various petty kingdoms of the angles the saxons and the jutes to recognize him as their ruler or forced them to do so and thus under him all england became one united kingdom
henry the fowler king from
about a hundred years had passed since the death of charlemagne and his great empire had fallen to pieces seven kings ruled where he had once been sole emperor west of the rhine where the germans lived the last descendant of charlemagne died when he was a mere boy
the german nobles were not willing for any foreign prince to govern them and yet they saw that they must unite to defend their country against the invasions of the barbarians
however although he became king in name conrad never had much power over his nobles some of them refused to recognize him as king and his reign was disturbed by quarrels and wars
and on his death bed he said to his brother henry duke of saxony is the ablest ruler in the empire elect him king and germany will have peace a few months after conrad's death
and elected henry to be their king at this time it was the custom in europe to hunt various birds such as the wild duck and partridge with falcons the falcons were long winged birds of prey resembling hawks they were trained to perch on their master's wrist
and wait patiently until they were told to fly then they would swiftly dart at their prey and bear it to the ground henry was very fond of falconry and hence was known as henry the fowler or falconer as soon as the other dukes had elected him king
a messenger was sent to saxony to inform him of the honor done him after a search of some days he was at last found far up in the hartz mountains hunting with his falcons kneeling at his feet the messenger said god save you henry of saxony
i come to announce the death of king conrad
so henry the fowler left the chase to take up his duties as king of the germans two in proper time henry was proclaimed king of germany but he was hardly seated on the throne when the country was invaded by thousands of magyars
because it stopped the war for a long term of years when the magyar king learned that his son was a prisoner in the hands of king henry he was overwhelmed with grief he mourned for his son day and night and at last sent to the german camp a magyar chief with a flag of truce to beg that the prince might be given up
our king says that he will give whatever you demand for the release of his son said the chief to the german monarch i will give up the prince on this condition only was the reply the magyars must leave the soil of germany immediately and promise not to war on us for nine years
during those years i will pay to the king yearly five thousand pieces of gold i accept the terms in the king's name responded the chief the prince was therefore given up and the magyars withdrew during the nine years of truce king henry paid great attention to the organization of an army
before this the german soldiers had fought chiefly on foot not as the magyars did on horseback for this reason they were at a great disadvantage in battle the king now raised a strong force of horsemen and had them drilled so thoroughly that they became almost invincible
the infantry also were carefully drilled besides this henry built a number of forts in different parts of his kingdom and had all the fortified cities made stronger the following year the magyar chief appeared at the german court and demanded a tenth payment
not a piece of gold will be given you replied king henry our truce is ended in less than a week a vast body of magyars entered germany to renew the war henry held his army in waiting until lack of food compelled the barbarians to divide their forces into two separate bodies
one division was sent to one part of the country the other to another part henry completely routed both divisions and the power of the magyars in germany was broken the danes also invaded henry's kingdom but he defeated them and drove them back
the danes were neighbors of the norwegian vikings and like them were fond of the sea and piracy they plundered the english coasts for more than a century
with danish kings what saved the rest of the country to the saxons was the courage of the great saxon king alfred alfred was the son of ethelwulf king of the west saxons he had a loving mother who brought him up with great care up to the age of twelve it is said
he was not able to read well in spite of the efforts of his mother and others to teach him when alfred was a boy there were no printed books the wonderful art of printing was not invented until about the year fourteen forty nearly six hundred years later than alfred's time moreover
the art of making paper had not yet been invented consequently the few books in use in alfred's time were written by skillful penmen who wrote generally on leaves of parchment which was sheepskin carefully prepared so that it might retain ink
one day alfred's mother showed him and his elder brothers a beautiful volume which contained a number of the best saxon ballads some of the words in this book were written in brightly colored letters and upon many of the leaves were painted pictures of gaily dressed knights and ladies
oh what a lovely book exclaimed the boys yes it is lovely replied the mother i will give it to whichever of you children can read it the best in a week alfred began at once to take lessons in reading and studied hard day after day
alfred proved to be the best reader and his mother gave him the book while still very young alfred was sent by his father to rome to be anointed by his holiness the pope it was a long and tiresome journey made mostly on horseback with imposing solemn ceremony
he was anointed by the holy father afterwards he spent a year in rome receiving religious instruction two
when alfred was twenty two years old the danes invaded various parts of england some great battles were fought and alfred's elder brother ethelred king of the west saxons was killed
but soon his thoughts turned to his troubles and he forgot about the cakes when the woman came back she cried out with vexation for the cakes were burned and spoiled you lazy good for nothing man she said i warrant you can eat cakes fast enough but you are too lazy to help me bake them
with that she drove the poor hungry alfred out of her house in his ragged dress he certainly did not look like a king and she had no idea that he was anything but a poor beggar three some of alfred's friends discovered where he was hiding and joined him
in a little time a body of soldiers came to him and a strong fort was built by them
alfred was successful and his army grew larger and larger one day he disguised himself as a wandering minstrel and went into the camp of the danes he strolled here and there playing on a harp and singing saxon ballads at last guth'rum the commander of the danes
ordered the minstrel to be brought to his tent alfred went sing to me some of your charming songs said guthrum i never heard more beautiful music so the kingly harper played and sang for the dane and went away with handsome presents
but better than that he had gained information that was of the greatest value in a week he attacked the danish forces and defeated them with great slaughter in a battle which lasted all day and far into the night
i will become a christian and so will all my men if you will grant liberty to them as to me and henceforth we will be your friends alfred then released the danes and they were baptized as christians an old road running across england from london to chester
was then agreed upon as the boundary between the danish and saxon kingdoms and the danes settled in east anglia as the eastern part of england was called years of peace and prosperity followed for alfred's kingdom during these years the king rebuilt the towns that had been destroyed by the danes
erected new forts and greatly strengthened his army and navy
worship and persecution of images revolt of italy and rome temporal dominion of the popes conquest of italy by the franks establishment of images character and coronation of charlemagne
restoration and decay of the roman empire in the west independence of italy constitution of the germanic body in the connection of the church and state i have considered the former as subservient only and relative to the latter
in the peace and luxury of the triumphant church the more prudent bishops condescended to indulge a visible superstition for the benefit of the multitude and after the ruin of paganism they were no longer restrained by the apprehension of an odious parallel
the first introduction of a symbolic worship was in the veneration of the cross and of relics the saints and martyrs whose intercession was implored
but the gracious and often supernatural favors which in the popular belief were showered round their tomb conveyed an unquestionable sanction of the devout pilgrims who visited and touched and kissed these lifeless remains
more interesting than the skull or the sandals of a departed worthy is the faithful copy of his person and features delineated by the arts of painting or sculpture in every age such copies so congenial to human feelings
have been cherished by the zeal of private friendship or public esteem the images of the roman emperors were adored with civil and almost religious honors a reverence less ostentatious but more sincere was applied to the statues of sages and patriots
and these profane virtues these splendid sins disappeared in the presence of the holy men who had died for their celestial and everlasting country at first the experiment was made with caution and scruple
and the venerable pictures were discreetly allowed to instruct the ignorant to awaken the cold and to gratify the prejudices of the heathen proselytes by a slow though inevitable progression the honors of the original were transferred to the copy
the devout christian prayed before the image of a saint and the pagan rites of genuflection luminaries and incense again stole into the catholic church the scruples of reason or piety were silenced by the strong evidence of visions and miracles and the pictures which speak
and move and bleed must be endowed with a divine energy and may be considered as the proper objects of religious adoration the most audacious pencil might tremble in the rash attempt of defining by forms and colors the infinite spirit the eternal father
and above all the son of god under the human shape which on earth they have condescended to assume the second person of the trinity had been clothed with a real and mortal body but that body had ascended into heaven and had not some similitude been presented to the eyes of his disciples
from whence after an oblivion of five hundred years it was released by some prudent bishop and seasonably presented to the devotion of the times its first and most glorious exploit
and it was soon revered as a pledge of the divine promise that edessa should never be taken by a foreign enemy it is true indeed that the text of procopius ascribes the double deliverance of edessa to the wealth and valor of her citizens who purchased the absence and repelled the assaults of the persian monarch
he was ignorant the profane historian of the testimony which he is compelled to deliver in the ecclesiastical page of evagrius that the palladium was exposed on the rampart and that the water which had been sprinkled on the holy face instead of quenching
added new fuel to the flames of the besieged after this important service the image of edessa was preserved with respect and gratitude and if the armenians rejected the legend the more credulous greeks adored the similitude which was not the work of any mortal pencil
but the immediate creation of the divine original the style and sentiments of a byzantine hymn will declare how far their worship was removed from the grossest idolatry how can we with mortal eyes contemplate this image whose celestial splendor the host of heaven presumes not to behold
he who dwells in heaven condescends this day to visit us by his venerable image he who is seated on the cherubim visits us this day by a picture which the father has delineated with his immaculate hand which he has formed in an ineffable manner
and depreciate their authority but the triumphant mussulmans who reigned at damascus and threatened constantinople cast into the scale of reproach the accumulated weight of truth and victory the cities of syria palestine and egypt
had been fortified with the images of christ his mother and his saints and each city presumed on the hope or promise of miraculous defence in a rapid conquest of ten years the arabs subdued those cities and these images and in their opinion
but the chosen city the spouse of christ was involved in the common ruin and his divine resemblance became the slave and trophy of the infidels
warwick the kingmaker lived from fourteen twenty eight fourteen seventy one
the earl of warwick known as the kingmaker
he lived in a great castle with two towers higher than most church spires it is one of the handsomest dwellings in the world and is visited every year by thousands of people the kingmaker had a guard of six hundred men at his house in london
meals were served to so many people that six fat oxen were eaten at breakfast alone he had a hundred and ten estates in different parts of england and no less than thirty thousand persons were fed daily at his board he owned the whole city of worcester
one evening as the sun was setting and the warders were going to close the gates of the city of york for the night a loud blast of a horn was heard it was made by the sentry on the wall near the southern gate an armed troop was approaching
when they drew near the gate their scarlet coats embroidered with the figure of a boar
as they sat talking before a huge log fire in the great room of the castle england will not long endure the misrule of a king who is half the time out of his mind the earl spoke the truth
and the duke of york or some other nobleman had to govern the kingdom for him the earl of warwick added you are the rightful heir to the throne
his claim comes through his father only yours through both your father and mother it is a better claim and it is a double claim that is true my cousin of warwick replied the duke of york but we must not plunge england into war surely not if we can help it replied the earl
let us first ask for reform if the king heeds our petition well and good if not i am determined cousin of york that you shall sit on the throne of england instead of our insane sovereign a petition was soon drawn up and signed and presented to henry
it asked that henry would do something which would make the people contented the king paid no attention to it then a war began it was the longest and most terrible that ever took place in england it lasted for thirty years
those who fought on the king's side were called lancastrians because henry's ancestor john of gaunt was the duke of lancaster
the lancastrians took a red rose for their badge the yorkists a white one for this reason the long struggle has always been called the war of the roses
she left london and the kingmaker entered the city in triumph the citizens had been very fond of the old duke of york
god save king edward brave queen margaret was completely defeated in another battle
a robber met them but margaret with wonderful courage said to him i am your queen and this is your prince i entrust him to your care the man was pleased with the confidence that she showed he took her and the young prince to a safe hiding place
and helped them to escape from england in a sailing vessel three
but trouble was near warwick wished him to follow his advice edward thought he could manage without any advice then the king and the kingmaker quarreled and at last became open enemies and fought one another on the field of battle the end of it was that warwick was defeated
and twice he had made her husband prisoner and taken from him his crown in spite of all this the two now became fast friends and the kingmaker agreed to make war upon edward and restore henry to the throne
edward fled without waiting for a battle and escaped to the netherlands in a sailing vessel the kingmaker had now no one to resist him the gates of london were opened to him and the citizens heartily welcomed him marching to the tower
he brought out the old king and placed him once more upon the throne but though edward had fled he was not discouraged he followed the example of the kingmaker and asked aid from foreign friends the duke of burgundy supplied him with money and soldiers and he was soon back in england
his army grew larger and larger every day people had been very much dissatisfied with edward and had rejoiced to get rid of him and have henry for king because if henry was not clever he was good but in a short time they had found out that england needed a king who was not only good
but capable so when edward and his french soldiers landed most people in england welcomed them the kingmaker was now on the wrong side
and completely defeated him warwick was killed
in another battle both margaret and her son were made prisoners the son was brutally murdered in the presence of king edward margaret was placed in the tower and king henry who died soon after the battle of tewksbury
the murderers smothered them with pillows and buried their bodies at the foot of a stairway in the tower and there after many years their bones were found after richard had murdered his two nephews he was crowned king as richard the third
much pleased that his plans had succeeded so well he thought that now nobody could lay claim to the throne but he was mistaken one person did claim it
earl of richmond henry's father edmund tudor was only a welsh gentleman
through their mother queen katherine henry's mother was descended from john of gaunt fourth son of edward the third and thus through his mother he was of royal blood and a lancastrian when richard the third by his wickedness and cruelty had made all england hate him
the red rose party gathered about henry tudor raised an army and fought against the king in the battle of bosworth richard was a bad man but he was brave and he fought like a lion however it was all in vain he was defeated and killed
his body was thrown on the back of a horse carried to a church near the field of battle and buried
they wondered still more for their companion gave the leper a seat next to himself at the table after supper the knight shared his own bed with the leper if the knight had not done this the leper would have been driven out of the town with nothing to eat and no place in which to sleep
at midnight while the young man was fast asleep the leper breathed upon his back this awakened the knight who turned quickly in his bed and found that the leper was gone the knight called for a light and searched but in vain while he was wondering about what had happened
a man in shining garments appeared before him and said rodrigo art thou asleep or awake the knight answered i am awake but who art thou that bringest such brightness the vision replied i am saint lazarus the leper to whom thou wast so kind
because i have breathed upon thee thou shalt accomplish whatever thou shalt undertake in peace or in battle all shall honor thee therefore go on and evermore do good
and though the other champion was called the bravest knight in spain the youthful warrior vanquished him when alfonzo a son of fernando succeeded to the throne he became angry with the cid without just cause and banished him from christian spain the cid was in need of some money
so he filled two chests with sand and sent word to two wealthy money lenders that he wished to borrow six hundred spanish marks about two thousand dollars and would put into their hands his treasures of silver and gold which were packed in two chests
but the money lenders must solemnly swear not to open the chests until a full year had passed to this they gladly agreed they took the chests and loaned him six hundred marks the cid was now ready for his journey three hundred of his knights went into banishment with him
they crossed the mountains and entered the land of the moors soon they reached the town of alcocer and after a siege captured it and lived in it then the moorish king of valencia ordered two chiefs to take three thousand horsemen recapture the town and bring the cid alive to him
so the cid and his men were shut up in alcocer and besieged
suddenly and swiftly they poured from the gate of alcocer and a terrible battle was fought the two moorish chiefs were taken prisoners and thirteen hundred of their men were killed in the battle
after a while alfonzo recalled the cid from banishment and gave him seven castles and the lands adjoining them
he was determined to capture toledo he attacked it with a large army in which there were soldiers from many foreign lands the cid is said to have been the commander after a long siege the city fell
which you would cross to day if you went to toledo valencia was one of the largest and richest cities in moorish spain it was strongly fortified but the cid determined to attack it the plain about the city was irrigated by streams that came down from the neighboring hills
to prevent the cid's army from coming near the city the saracens flooded the plain but the cid camped on high ground above the plain and from that point besieged the city food became very scarce in valencia wheat barley and cheese
were all so dear that none but the rich could buy them people ate horses dogs cats and mice until in the whole city only three horses and a mule were left alive then on the fifteenth of june ten ninety four the governor went to the camp of the cid
and delivered to him the keys of the city the cid placed his men in all the forts and took the citadel as his own dwelling his banner floated from the towers
and lived in great magnificence one of the first things he did was to repay the two friends who had lent him the six hundred marks he was kind and just to the saracens who had become his subjects they were allowed to have their mosques and to worship god as they thought right in time
the cid's health began to fail he could lead his men forth to battle no more
but it was so completely routed that few of his men came back to tell the tale
he saw a vision of saint peter who told him that he should gain a victory over the saracens after his death so the cid gave orders that his body should be embalmed it was so well preserved that it seemed alive it was clothed in a coat of mail and the sword that had won so many battles was placed in the hand
then it was mounted upon the cid's favorite horse and fastened into the saddle and at midnight was borne out of the gate of valencia with a guard of a thousand knights all silently they marched to a spot where the moorish king with thirty six chieftains lay encamped
and at daylight the knights of the cid made a sudden attack the king awoke it seemed to him that there were coming against him full seventy thousand knights all dressed in robes as white as snow and before them rode a knight taller than all the rest holding in his left hand a snow white banner
and in the other a sword which seemed of fire so afraid were the moorish chief and his men that they fled to the sea and twenty thousand of them were drowned as they tried to reach their ships there is a latin inscription near the tomb of the cid which may be translated
an administration protest dudley field malone resigns dudley field malone was known to the country as sharing the intimate confidence and friendship of president wilson
he had known and supported the president from the beginning of the president's political career he had campaigned twice through new jersey with mister wilson as governor he had managed mister wilson's campaigns in many states for the nomination before the baltimore convention
he had toured the country with mister wilson in nineteen twelve and it was he who led to victory president wilson's fight for california in nineteen sixteen so when mister malone went to the white house in july nineteen seventeen
to protest against the administration's handling of the suffrage question he went not only as a confirmed suffragist
the one who had been chosen to go to the west in nineteen sixteen to win women voters to the democratic party mister malone has consented to tell for the first time in this record of the militant campaign
what happened at his memorable interview with president wilson in july nineteen seventeen an interview which he followed up two months later with his resignation as collector of the port of new york i quote the story in his own words
frank p walsh amos pinchot frederic c howe j a h hopkins allen mc curdy and i
i went over to anne martin one of the women's counsel and offered to act as attorney on the appeal of the case i then went to the court clerk's office and telephoned to president wilson at the whit house asking him to see me at once it was three o'clock
i called a taxicab drove direct to the executive offices and met him i began by reminding the president that in the seven years and a half of our personal and political association we had never had a serious difference
he was good enough to say that my loyalty to him bad been one of the happiest circumstances of his public career but i told him i had come to place my resignation in his hands as i could not remain a member of any administration which dared to send american women to prison
for demanding national suffrage i also informed him that i had offered to act as counsel for the suffragists on the appeal of their case he asked me for full details of my complaint and attitude
i told mister wilson everything i had witnessed from the time we saw the suffragists arrested in front of the white house to their sentence in the police court i observed that although we might not agree with the manners of picketing citizens had a right to petition the president
or any other official of the government for a redress of grievances he seemed to acquiesce in this view and reminded me that the women had been unmolested at the white house gates for over five months adding that he had even ordered the head usher to invite the women on cold days to come into the white house
and warm themselves and have coffee if the situation is as you describe it it is shocking said the president
the manhandling of the women by the police was outrageous and the entire trial before a judge of your own appointment was a perversion of justice i said this seemed to annoy the president and he replied with asperity
do you mean to tell me he said that you intend to resign to repudiate me and my administration and sacrifice me for your views on this suffrage question his attitude then angered me and i said mister president
if there is any sacrifice in this unhappy circumstance it is i who am making the sacrifice i was sent twice as your spokesman in the last campaign to the woman suffrage states of the west you have since been good enough to say publicly and privately
that i did as much as any man to carry california for you after my first tour i had a long conference with you here at the white house on the political situation in those states i told you that i found your strength with women voters
lay in the fact that you had with great patience and statesmanship kept this country out of the european war but that your great weakness with women voters was that you had not taken any step throughout your entire administration to urge the passage of the federal suffrage amendment
which mister hughes was advocating and which alone can enfranchise all the women of the nation you asked me then how i met this situation and i told you that i promised the women voters of the west
to choose you as against mister hughes i would do everything in my power to get your administration to take up and pass the suffrage amendment you were pleased and approved of what i had done i returned to california and repeated this promise and so far as i am concerned
i must keep my part of that obligation i reiterated to the president my earlier appeal that he assist suffrage as an urgent war measure and a necessary part of america's program for world democracy to which the president replied
the enfranchisement of women is not at all necessary to a program of democracy
unless you mean that american women will not loyally support the war unless they are given the vote i firmly denied this conclusion of the president and told him that while american women with or without the vote would support the united states government against german militarism
yet it seemed to me a great opportunity of his leadership to remove this grievance which women generally felt against him and his administration mister president i urged if you as the leader will persuade the administration to pass the federal amendment
you will release from the suffrage fight the energies of thousands of women which will be given with redoubled zeal to the support of your program for international justice but the president absolutely refused to admit the validity of my appeal though it was as a war measure
that the president some months later demanded that the senate pass the suffrage amendment the president was visibly moved as i added you are the president now reelected to office you ask if i am going to sacrifice you
you sacrifice nothing by my resignation but i lose much i quit a political career i give up a powerful office in my own state i who have no money sacrifice a lucrative salary
but most of all i sever a personal association with you of the deepest affection which you know has meant much to me these past seven years but i cannot and will not remain in office and see women
thrown into jail because they demand their political freedom the president earnestly urged me not to resign saying what will the people of the country think when they hear that the collector of the port of new york
has resigned because of an injustice done to a group of suffragists by the police officials of the city of washington my reply to this was with all respect for you mister president my explanation to the public will not be as difficult as yours
that arrangement would be impossible for two reasons first these women would not want me as their counsel if i were a member of your administration
and your administration is responsible and secondly i cannot accept your suggestion because it may be necessary in the course of the appeal vigorously to criticize and condemn members of your cabinet and others close to you
and i could not adopt this policy while remaining in office under you the president seemed greatly upset and finally urged me as a personal service to him to go at once and perfect the case on appeal for the suffragists
and until he had had an opportunity to investigate the facts i had presented to him i agreed to this and we closed the interview with the president saying if you consider my personal request and do not resign
no stenographic record of the trial had been taken which put me under the greatest legal difficulties i was in the midst of these preparations for appeal the next day when i learned to my surprise that the president had pardoned the women he had not even consulted me as their attorney
moreover i was amazed that since the president had said he considered the treatment of the women shocking he had pardoned them without stating that he did so to correct a grave injustice i felt certain that the high spirited women in the workhouse would refuse to accept the pardon as a mere
benevolent act on the part of the president i at once went down to the workhouse in virginia my opinion was confirmed
the president's pardon is an acknowledgment by him of the grave injustice that has been done this he never denied under this published interpretation of his pardon the women at occoquan accepted the pardon
and returned to washington the incident was closed i returned to new york during the next two months i carefully watched the situation six or eight more groups of women in that time were arrested on the same false charges tried and imprisoned in the same illegal way
finally a group of women was arrested in september under the identical circumstances as those in july was tried in the same lawless fashion and given the same sentence of sixty days in the workhouse
the president may have been innocent of responsibility for the first arrests but he was personally and politically responsible for all the arrests that occurred after his pardon of the first group
mister malone's resignation in september nineteen seventeen came with a sudden shock because the entire country and surely the administration thought him quieted and subdued by the president's personal appeal to him in july
mister malone was shocked that the policy of arrests should be continued mister wilson and his administration were shocked that any one should care enough about the liberty of women to resign a lucrative post in the government the nation was shocked into the realization
that this was not a street brawl between women and policemen but a controversy between suffragists and a powerful administration we had said so
solitary and generous act gave to the speedy break down of the administration's resistance his sacrifice lightened ours women ought to be willing to make sacrifices for their own liberation
but for a man to have the courage and imagination to make such a sacrifice for the liberation of women is unparalleled mister malone called to the attention of the nation the true cause of the obstruction and suppression he reproached the president and his colleagues after mature consideration
in the most honorable and vital way by refusing longer to associate himself with an administration which backed such policies and mister malone's resignation was not only welcomed by the militant group
the conservative suffrage leaders although they heartily disapproved of picketing were as outspoken in their gratitude alice stone blackwell the daughter of lucy stone herself a pioneer suffrage leader and editor wrote to mister malone
may i express my appreciation and gratitude for the excellent and manly letter that you have written to president wilson on woman suffrage i am sure that i am only one of many women who feel thankful to you for it the picketing seems to me a very silly business
and i am sure it is doing the cause harm instead of good but the picketers are being shamefully and illegally treated and it is a thousand pities for president wilson's own sake that he ever allowed the washington authorities to enter on this course of persecution
it was high time for some one to make a protest and you have made one that has been heard far and wide missus carrie chapman catt the president of the national american woman suffrage association wrote
every suffragist must be grateful to you for the gallant support you are giving our cause and the great sacrifice you are making missus james lees laidlaw vice chairman of the new york suffrage party said
no words of mine can tell you how our hearts have been lifted and our purposes strengthened in this tremendous struggle in new york state by the reading of your powerful and noble utterances in your letter to president wilson there flashed through my mind
all the memories of knights of chivalry and of romance that i have ever read and they all paled before your championship and the sacrifice and the high spirited leadership that it signifies where you lead i believe thousands of other men will follow
even though at a distance and most inadequately and from the women voters of california with whom mister malone had kept faith came the message the liberty loving women of california greet you as one of the few men in history
who have been willing to sacrifice material interests for the liberty of a class to which they themselves do not belong we are thrilled by your inspiring words we appreciate your sympathetic understanding of the viewpoint of disfranchised women
we are deeply grateful for the incalculable benefit of your active assistance in the struggle of american women for political liberty
dear mister president last autumn as the representative of your administration i went into the woman suffrage states to urge your reelection the most difficult argument to meet among the seven million voters
was the failure of the democratic party throughout four years of power to pass the federal suffrage amendment looking toward the enfranchisement of all the women of the country throughout those states and particularly in california
which ultimately decided the election by the votes of women the women voters were urged to support you even though judge hughes had already declared for the federal suffrage amendment because you and your party through liberal leadership
were more likely nationally to enfranchise the rest of the women of the country than were your opponents and if the women of the west voted to reelect you i promised them that i would spend all my energy at any sacrifice to myself
to get the present democratic administration to pass the federal suffrage amendment but the present policy of the administration in permitting splendid american women to be sent to jail in washington not for carrying offensive banners not for picketing
but on the technical charge of obstructing traffic is a denial even of their constitutional right to petition for and demand the passage of the federal suffrage amendment it therefore now becomes my profound obligation actively to keep my promise to the women of the west
in more than twenty states it is a practical impossibility to amend the state constitutions so the women of those states can only be enfranchised by the passage of the federal suffrage amendment since england and russia in the midst of the great war
should we not be jealous to maintain our democratic leadership in the world by the speedy national enfranchisement of american women to me mister president
in washington two months ago this is not only a measure of justice and democracy
educated in our schools and colleges and millions of american women in our homes or toiling for economic independence in every line of industry to give up by conscription their men and happiness to a war for democracy in europe
while these women citizens are denied the right to vote on the policies of the government which demands of them such sacrifice for this reason many of your most ardent friends and supporters feel that the passage of the federal suffrage amendment
is a war measure which could appropriately be urged by you at this session of congress it is true that this amendment would have to come from congress but the present congress shows no earnest desire to enact this legislation for the simple reason that you
as the leader of the party in power have not yet suggested it for the whole country gladly acknowledges mister president that no vital piece of legislation has come through congress these five years except by your extraordinary and brilliant leadership
and what millions of men and women to day hope is that you will give the federal suffrage amendment to the women of the country by the valor of your leadership now it will hearten the mothers of the nation eliminate a just grievance
and turn the devoted energies of brilliant women to a more hearty support of the government in this crisis as you well know in dozens of speeches in many states i have advocated your policies and the war
i was the first man of your administration nearly five years ago to publicly advocate preparedness and helped to found the first plattsburg training camp and if with our troops mobilizing in france you will give american women this measure for their political freedom
they will support with greater enthusiasm your hope and the hope of america for world freedom i have not approved all the methods recently adopted by women in pursuit of their political liberty yet mister president
horace greeley and wendell phillips assured the suffrage leaders that if they abandoned their fight for suffrage when the war was ended the men of the nation out of gratitude would enfranchise the women of the country
and if the men of this country had been peacefully demanding for over half a century the political right or privilege to vote and had been continuously ignored or met with evasion by successive congresses as have the women
you mister president as a lover of liberty would be the first to comprehend and forgive their inevitable impatience and righteous indignation will not this administration reelected to power by the hope and faith of the women of the west
handsomely reward that faith by taking action now for the passage of the federal suffrage amendment in the port of new york during the last four years
billions of dollars in the export and import trade of the country have been handled by the men of the customs service their treatment of the traveling public has radically changed their vigilance supplied the evidence of the lusitania note the neutrality was rigidly maintained
the great german fleet guarded captured and repaired substantial economies and reforms have been concluded and my ardent industry has been given to this great office of your appointment but now i wish to leave these finished tasks
to fight as hard for the political freedom of women as i have always fought for your liberal leadership it seems a long seven years mister president since i first campaigned with you when you were running for governor of new jersey
in every circumstance throughout those years i have served you with the most respectful affection and unshadowed devotion it is no small sacrifice now for me as a member of your administration to sever our political relationship
but i think it is high time that men in this generation at some cost to themselves stood up to battle for the national enfranchisement of american women
and more freely to go into this larger field of democratic effort i hereby resign my office as collector of the port of new york to take effect at once or at your earliest convenience yours respectfully
signed dudley field malone the president's answer has never before been published u s s mayflower
the white house washington my dear mister collector your letter of september seventh reached me just before i left home and i have i am sorry to say
i must frankly say that i cannot regard your reasons for resigning your position as collector of customs as convincing but it is so evidently your wish to be relieved from the duties of the office that i do not feel at liberty to withhold my acceptance of your resignation
indeed i judge from your letter that any discussion of the reasons would not be acceptable to you and that it is your desire to be free of the restraints of public office i therefore accept your resignation to take effect as you have wished
i need not say that our long association in public affairs makes me regret the action you have taken most sincerely very truly yours signed woodrow wilson
collector of customs new york city to this mister malone replied new york
nineteen seventeen the president the white house washington d c dear mister president thank you sincerely for your courtesy
i am unable to understand how you could judge that any discussion by you of my reasons for resigning would not be acceptable to me since my letter was an appeal to you on specific grounds for action now by the administration on the federal suffrage amendment
however i am profoundly grateful to you for your prompt acceptance of my resignation yours respectfully signed
it yielded on a point of machinery
the press had turned again to more sympathetic accounts of our campaign and exposed the prison regime we were undergoing we were now for a moment the object of sympathy the administration was the butt of considerable hostility sensing their predicament and fearing any loss of prestige
they risked a slight advance senator jones chairman of the suffrage committee made a visit to the workhouse scarcely had the women recovered from the surprise of his visit when the senator on the following day september fifteenth
filed the favorable report which had been lying with his committee since may fifteenth exactly six months the report which he had so long delayed because he wanted he said to make it a particularly brilliant and elaborate one
chairman of the rules committee and administration leader himself an anti suffragist
had had anything to do with their action revealed naively how surely it had of the two hundred ninety one men present not one man stood squarely up for the right of the hundreds of women who petitioned for justice some indirectly and many inadvertently however
paid eloquent tribute to the suffrage picket
and the president's sanction of the committee the accusations and counter accusations concerning the wisdom of appointing it in the face of the pickets were many and animated mister meeker of missouri democrat protested against congress
yielding to the nagging of a certain group mister cantrill of kentucky democrat believed that millions of christian women in the nation should not be denied the right of having a committee in the house to study the problem of suffrage
because of the mistakes of some few of their sisters one had as well say he went on that there should be no police in washington because the police force of this city permitted daily thousands of people to obstruct the streets
deplored taking any action which would seem to yield to the demand of the pickets who carried banners which if used by a poor workingman in an attempt to get his rights would speedily have put him behind the bars for treason or sedition and these poor bewildered deluded creatures
after their disgusting exhibition can thank their stars that because they wear skirts they are now incarcerated for misdemeanors of a minor character to supinely yield to a certain class of women picketing the gates of the official residence yes even posing with their short skirts and their short hair
and our office buildings with banners which would seek to lead the people to believe that because we did not take action during this war session upon suffrage if you please and grant them the right of the ballot that we were traitors to the american republic would be monstrous
the subject of the creation of a committee on suffrage was almost entirely forgotten the congressmen were utterly unable to shake off the ghosts of the pickets the pickets had not influenced their actions
the very idea was appalling to representative stafford of wisconsin anti suffrage republican who joined in the democratic protests
there is only one question before the house today and that is if you look at it from a political aspect whether you wish to approve of the practices of these women who have been disgracing their cause here in washington for the past several months representative volstead of minnesota republican
came the closest of all to real courage in his protest in this discussion some very unfair comments have been made upon the women who picketed the white house while i do not approve of picketing i disapprove more strongly of the hoodlum methods pursued in suppressing the practice
i gather from the press that this is what took place some women did in a peaceable and perfectly lawful manner display suffrage banners on the public street near the white house to stop this the police allowed the women to be mobbed and then because the mob obstructed the street
the women were arrested and fined while the mob went scot free the suffrage committee in the house was appointed the creation of this committee which had been pending since nineteen thirteen was now finally granted in september nineteen seventeen to be sure
this was accomplished only after an inordinate amount of time money and effort had been spent on a sustained and relentless campaign of pressure but the administration had yielded as a means to remove the pickets however this yielding had failed
reginald on house parties the drawback is one never really knows one's hosts and hostesses
one gets to know their fox terriers and their chrysanthemums and whether the story about the go cart can be turned loose in the drawing room or must be told privately to each member of the party for fear of shocking public opinion
but one's host and hostess are a sort of human hinterland that one never has the time to explore there was a fellow i stayed with once in warwickshire who farmed his own land but was otherwise quite steady
should never have suspected him of having a soul yet not very long afterwards he eloped with a lion tamer's widow and set up as a golf instructor somewhere on the persian gulf dreadfully immoral of course because he was only an indifferent player
but still it showed imagination his wife was really to be pitied because he had been the only person in the house who understood how to manage the cook's temper and now she has to put d v on her dinner invitations still
that's better than a domestic scandal a woman who leaves her cook never wholly recovers her position in society i suppose the same thing holds good with the hosts they seldom have more than a superficial acquaintance with their guests
and so often just when they do get to know you a bit better they leave off knowing you altogether there was rather a breath of winter in the air when i left those dorsetshire people you see they had asked me down to shoot and
i'm not particularly immense at that sort of thing there's such a deadly sameness about partridges when you've missed one you've missed the lot at least that's been my experience
and they tried to rag me in the smoking room about not being able to hit a bird at five yards a sort of bovine ragging that suggested cows buzzing round a gadfly and thinking they were teasing it
so i got up the next morning at early dawn i know it was dawn because there were lark noises in the sky and the grass looked as if it had been left out all night and hunted up the most conspicuous thing in the bird line that i could find
and measured the distance as nearly as it would let me and shot away all i knew they said afterwards that it was a tame bird that's simply silly
afterwards it quieted down a bit and when its legs had stopped waving farewells to the landscape i got a gardener boy to drag it into the hall where everybody must see it on their way to the breakfast room i breakfasted upstairs myself
i suppose it's unlucky to bring peacock's feathers into a house anyway there was a blue pencilly look in my hostess's eye when i took my departure some hostesses of course will forgive anything even unto pavonicide
is there such a word as long as one is nice looking and sufficiently unusual to counterbalance some of the others and there are others the girl for instance who reads meredith
repented at leisure she eventually finds her way to india and gets married and comes home to admire the royal academy and to imagine that an indifferent prawn curry is for ever an effective substitute for all that we have been taught to believe is luncheon
it's then that she is really dangerous but at her worst she is never quite so bad as the woman who fires exchange and mart questions at you without the least provocation imagine the other day
just when i was doing my best to understand half the things i was saying being asked by one of those seekers after country home truths how many fowls she could keep in a run ten feet by six or whatever it was
i told her whole crowds as long as she kept the door shut and the idea didn't seem to have struck her before at least she brooded over it for the rest of dinner of course as i say one never really knows one's ground
and one may make mistakes occasionally but then one's mistakes sometimes turn out assets in the long run if we had never bungled away our american colonies we might never have had the boy from the states to teach us how to wear our hair and cut our clothes
and we must get our ideas from somewhere i suppose even the hooligan was probably invented in china centuries before we thought of him england must wake up as the duke of devonshire said the other day wasn't it
oh well it was someone else not that i ever indulge in despair about the future there always have been men who have gone about despairing of the future and when the future arrives it says nice superior things about their having acted according to their lights
it is dreadful to think that other people's grandchildren may one day rise up and call one amiable there are moments when one sympathises with herod
reginald's choir treat never wrote reginald to his most darling friend be a pioneer it's the early christian that gets the fattest lion reginald in his way
was a pioneer none of the rest of his family had anything approaching titian hair or a sense of humour and they used primroses as a table decoration
it follows that they never understood reginald who came down late to breakfast and nibbled toast and said disrespectful things about the universe the family ate porridge and believed in everything
even the weather forecast therefore the family was relieved when the vicar's daughter undertook the reformation of reginald her name was amabel it was the vicar's one extravagance
amabel was accounted a beauty and intellectually gifted she never played tennis and was reputed to have read maeterlinck's life of the bee if you abstain from tennis and read maeterlinck in a small country village
you are of necessity intellectual also she had been twice to fecamp to pick up a good french accent from the americans staying there consequently she had a knowledge of the world
which might be considered useful in dealings with a worldling hence the congratulations in the family when amabel undertook the reformation of its wayward member
amabel commenced operations by asking her unsuspecting pupil to tea in the vicarage garden she believed in the healthy influence of natural surroundings never having been in sicily where things
are different and like every woman who has ever preached repentance to unregenerate youth she dwelt on the sin of an empty life which always seems so much more scandalous in the country where people rise early
to see if a new strawberry has happened during the night reginald recalled the lilies of the field which simply sat and looked beautiful and defied competition but that is not an example for us to follow
gasped amabel unfortunately we can't afford to you don't know what a world of trouble i take in trying to rival the lilies in their artistic simplicity
a good life is infinitely preferable to good looks you agree with me that the two are incompatible i always say beauty is only sin deep
amabel began to realise that the battle is not always to the strong minded with the immemorial resource of her sex she abandoned the frontal attack
and laid stress on her unassisted labours in parish work her mental loneliness her discouragements and at the right moment she produced strawberries and cream reginald was obviously affected by the latter
and when his preceptress suggested that he might begin the strenuous life by helping her to supervise the annual outing of the bucolic infants who composed the local choir his eyes shone with the dangerous enthusiasm of a convert
reginald entered on the strenuous life alone as far as amabel was concerned the most virtuous women are not proof against damp grass and amabel kept her bed with a cold
reginald called it a dispensation it had been the dream of his life to stage manage a choir outing with strategic insight he led his shy bullet headed charges to the nearest woodland stream and allowed them to bathe
then he seated himself on their discarded garments and discoursed on their immediate future which he decreed was to embrace a bacchanalian procession through the village
forethought had provided the occasion with a supply of tin whistles but the introduction of a he goat from a neighbouring orchard was a brilliant afterthought properly reginald explained
as it was those who had spotted handkerchiefs were allowed to wear them which they did with thankfulness reginald recognised the impossibility in the time at his disposal
of teaching his shivering neophytes a chant in honour of bacchus so he started them off with a more familiar if less appropriate temperance hymn after all he said it is the spirit of the thing that counts
following the etiquette of dramatic authors on first nights he remained discreetly in the background while the procession with extreme diffidence and the goat wound its way lugubriously towards the village
the singing had died down long before the main street was reached but the miserable wailing of pipes brought the inhabitants to their doors reginald said he had seen something like it in pictures
the villagers had seen nothing like it in their lives and remarked as much freely reginald's family never forgave him
reginald at the carlton a most variable climate
so distressing for the poor someone has observed that providence is always on the side of the big dividends remarked reginald the duchess ate an anchovy in a shocked manner
she was sufficiently old fashioned to dislike irreverence towards dividends reginald had left the selection of a feeding ground to her womanly intuition but he chose the wine himself
knowing that womanly intuition stops short at claret a woman will cheerfully choose husbands for her less attractive friends or take sides in a political controversy without the least knowledge of the issues involved
but no woman ever cheerfully chose a claret hors d'oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me said reginald
they remind me of one's childhood that one goes through wondering what the next course is going to be like and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten more of the hors d'oeuvres don't you love watching the different ways people have of entering a restaurant
despotism which might abdicate its functions at any moment it's really a relief to see her reach her chair in safety then there are the people who troop in with an unpleasant duty to perform air
as if they were angels of death entering a plague city you see that type of briton very much in hotels abroad and nowadays there are always the johannesbourgeois who bring a cape to cairo atmosphere with them what may be called the
rand manner i suppose talking about hotels abroad said the duchess
dealing chiefly with the moral side of the question i was talking to lady beauwhistle's aunt the other day she's just come back from paris you know such a sweet woman and so silly
in these days of the over education of women she's quite refreshing they say some people went through the siege of paris without knowing that france and germany were at war
but the beauwhistle aunt is credited with having passed the whole winter in paris under the impression that the humberts were a kind of bicycle
isn't there a bishop or somebody who believes we shall meet all the animals we have known on earth in another world how frightfully embarrassing to meet a whole shoal of whitebait you had last known at prince's
i'm sure in my nervousness i should talk of nothing but lemons still i daresay they would be quite as offended if one hadn't eaten them i know if i were served up at a cannibal feast i should be dreadfully annoyed if anyone found fault with me
for not being tender enough or having been kept too long my idea about the lecture resumed the duchess hurriedly is to inquire whether promiscuous continental travel doesn't tend to weaken the moral fibre of the social conscience
there are people one knows quite nice people when they are in england who are so different when they are anywhere the other side of the channel the people with what i call
observed reginald on the whole i think they get the best of two very desirable worlds and after all they charge so much for excess luggage on some of those foreign lines that it's really an economy to leave one's reputation behind one occasionally
a scandal my dear reginald is as much to be avoided at monaco or any of those places as at exeter let us say scandal my dear irene i may call you irene mayn't i
i don't know that you have known me long enough for that i've known you longer than your god parents had when they took the liberty of calling you that name scandal is merely the compassionate allowance which the gay make to the humdrum
think how many blameless lives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people tell me who is the woman with the old lace at the table on our left oh that doesn't matter
it's quite the thing nowadays to stare at people as if they were yearlings at tattersall's missus spelvexit quite a charming woman separated from her husband incompatibility of income
oh nothing of that sort by miles of frozen ocean i was going to say he explores ice floes and studies the movements of herrings and has written a most interesting book on the home life of the esquimaux but naturally he has very little home life of his own
a husband who comes home with the gulf stream would be rather a tied up asset his wife is exceedingly sensible about it she collects postage stamps such a resource
those people with her are the whimples very old acquaintances of mine they're always having trouble poor things trouble is not one of those fancies you can take up and drop at any moment
opium habit once you start it you've got to keep it up their eldest son was such a disappointment to them they wanted him to be a linguist and spent no end of money on having him taught to speak oh dozens of languages
and then he became a trappist monk and the youngest who was intended for the american marriage market has developed political tendencies and writes pamphlets about the housing of the poor
of course it's a most important question and i devote a good deal of time to it myself in the mornings but as laura whimple says
she feels it very keenly but she always maintains a cheerful appetite which i think is so unselfish of her there are different ways of taking disappointment there was a girl i knew who nursed a wealthy uncle through a long illness borne by her
with christian fortitude and then he died and left his money to a swine fever hospital she found she'd about cleared stock in fortitude by that time and now she gives drawing room recitations that's what i call being vindictive
life is full of its disappointments observed the duchess and i suppose the art of being happy is to disguise them as illusions but that my dear reginald becomes more difficult as one grows older
i think it's more generally practised than you imagine the young have aspirations that never come to pass the old have reminiscences of what never happened it's only the middle aged who are really conscious
of their limitations that is why one should be so patient with them but one never is after all said the duchess the disillusions of life may depend on our way of assessing it
in the minds of those who come after us we may be remembered for qualities and successes which we quite left out of the reckoning it's not always safe to depend on the commemorative tendencies of those who come after us
there may have been disillusionments in the lives of the mediaeval saints but they would scarcely have been better pleased if they could have foreseen that their names would be associated nowadays chiefly
and now if you can tear yourself away from the salted almonds we'll go and have coffee under the palms that are so necessary for our discomfort
i persuaded reginald to go to the mc killops garden party against his will we all make mistakes occasionally they know you're here and they'll think it so funny if you don't go and i want particularly to be in with missus mc killop just now
i know you want one of her smoke persian kittens as a prospective wife for wumples or a husband is it reginald has a magnificent scorn for details other than sartorial
and i am expected to undergo social martyrdom to suit the connubial exigencies reginald it's nothing of the kind only i'm sure missus mc killop would be pleased if i brought you young men of your brilliant attractions are rather at a premium at her garden parties
should be at a premium in heaven remarked reginald complacently there will be very few of you there if that is what you mean but seriously there won't be any great strain upon your powers of endurance
talk to the archdeacon's wife or do anything that is likely to bring on physical prostration
nothing more is demanded of you reginald shut his eyes there will be the exhaustingly up to date young women who will ask me if i have seen san toy a less progressive grade who will yearn to hear about the diamond jubilee the historic event
not the horse with a little encouragement they will inquire if i saw the allies march into paris why are women so fond of raking up the past they're as bad as tailors who invariably remember what you owe them for a suit long after you've ceased to wear it
reginald puckered his brow into a tortured frown and i knew that my point was gained he was debating what tie would go with which waistcoat even then i had my misgivings
during the drive to the mc killops reginald was possessed with a great peace which was not wholly to be accounted for by the fact that he had inveigled his feet into shoes a size too small for them
i misgave more than ever and having once launched reginald on to the mc killops lawn
as i drifted away to a diplomatic distance i heard with painful distinctness the eldest mawkby girl asking him if he had seen san toy it must have been ten minutes later not more and i had been having quite an enjoyable chat with my hostess
and had promised to lend her the eternal city and my recipe for rabbit mayonnaise
at the same moment i became aware that old colonel mendoza was essaying to tell his classic story of how he introduced golf into india and that reginald was in dangerous proximity there are occasions when reginald is caviare to the colonel
when i was at poona in seventy six my dear colonel purred reginald fancy admitting such a thing such a give away for one's age i wouldn't admit being on this planet in seventy six
reginald in his wildest lapses into veracity never admits to being more than twenty two
and reginald ignoring my efforts to intercept him glided away to another part of the lawn i found him a few minutes later happily engaged in teaching the youngest rampage boy the approved theory of mixing absinthe within full earshot of his mother
missus rampage occupies a prominent place in local temperance movements as soon as i had broken up this unpromising tete a tete and settled reginald where he could watch the croquet players losing their tempers
i wandered off to find my hostess and renew the kitten negotiations at the point where they had been interrupted i did not succeed in running her down at once and eventually it was missus mc killop who sought me out and her conversation was not of kittens
your cousin is discussing zaza with the archdeacon's wife at least he is discussing she is ordering her carriage she spoke in the dry staccato tone of one who repeats a french exercise and i knew
that as far as millie mc killop was concerned wumples was devoted to a lifelong celibacy if you don't mind i said hurriedly i think we'd like our carriage ordered too and i made a forced march in the direction of the croquet ground
i found everyone talking nervously and feverishly of the weather and the war in south africa
just after it had desolated entire villages the archdeacon's wife was buttoning up her gloves with a concentrated deliberation that was fearful to behold i shall have to treble my subscription to her cheerful sunday evenings fund before i
dare set foot in her house again at that particular moment the croquet players finished their game which had been going on without a symptom of finality during the whole afternoon why i ask should it have stopped precisely when a counter attraction was so necessary
conversation flagged and there settled upon the company that expectant hush that precedes the dawn when your neighbours don't happen to keep poultry what did the caspian sea asked reginald with appalling suddenness
there were symptoms of a stampede the archdeacon's wife looked at me kipling or someone has described somewhere the look a foundered camel gives when the caravan moves on and leaves it to its fate
i played my last card reginald it's getting late and a sea mist is coming on i knew that the elaborate curl over his right eyebrow was not guaranteed to survive a sea mist never
never again will i take you to a garden party never you behaved abominably what did the caspian see a shade of genuine regret for misused opportunities passed over reginald's face after all he said
the constitution of the executive department of the proposed government claims next our attention there is hardly any part of the system which could have been attended with greater difficulty in the arrangement of it than this
and there is perhaps none which has been inveighed against with less candor or criticised with less judgment here the writers against the constitution seem to have taken pains to signalize their talent of misrepresentation
calculating upon the aversion of the people to monarchy they have endeavored to enlist all their jealousies and apprehensions in opposition to the intended president of the united states not merely as the embryo
but as the full grown progeny of that detested parent
they have not scrupled to draw resources even from the regions of fiction the authorities of a magistrate in few instances greater in some instances less than those of a governor of new york
have been magnified into more than royal prerogatives he has been decorated with attributes superior in dignity and splendor to those of a king of great britain he has been shown to us with the diadem sparkling on his brow
and the imperial purple flowing in his train he has been seated on a throne surrounded with minions and mistresses giving audience to the envoys of foreign potentates in all the supercilious pomp of majesty
the images of asiatic despotism and voluptuousness have scarcely been wanting to crown the exaggerated scene we have been taught to tremble at the terrific visages of murdering janizaries
and to blush at the unveiled mysteries of a future seraglio attempts so extravagant as these to disfigure or it might rather be said to metamorphose the object render it necessary
to take an accurate view of its real nature and form in order as well to ascertain its true aspect and genuine appearance as to unmask the disingenuity and expose the fallacy of the counterfeit resemblances
which have been so insidiously
in the execution of this task there is no man who would not find it an arduous effort either to behold with moderation or to treat with seriousness the devices not less weak than wicked
which have been contrived to pervert the public opinion in relation to the subject they so far exceed the usual though unjustifiable licenses of party artifice
that even in a disposition the most candid and tolerant they must force the sentiments which favor an indulgent construction of the conduct of political adversaries to give place to a voluntary
and unreserved indignation it is impossible not to bestow the imputation of deliberate imposture and deception upon the gross pretense of a similitude between a king of great britain
and a magistrate of the character marked out for that of the president of the united states it is still more impossible
which have been employed to give success to the attempted imposition in one instance which i cite as a sample of the general spirit the temerity has proceeded so far as to ascribe to the president of the united states
a power which by the instrument reported is expressly allotted to the executives of the individual states i mean the power of filling casual vacancies in the senate
this bold experiment upon the discernment of his countrymen has been hazarded by a writer who whatever may be his real merit has had no inconsiderable share in the applauses of his party
and who upon this false and unfounded suggestion has built a series of observations equally false and unfounded let him now be confronted with the evidence of the fact and let him if he be able
justify or extenuate the shameful outrage he has offered to the dictates of truth and to the rules of fair dealing the second clause of the second section of the second article
empowers the president of the united states to nominate and by and with the advice and consent of the senate to appoint ambassadors other public ministers and consuls judges of the supreme court
and all other officers of united states whose appointments are not in the constitution otherwise provided for and which shall be established by law immediately after this clause follows another in these words
the president shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the senate by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session it is from this last provision
that the pretended power of the president to fill vacancies in the senate has been deduced a slight attention to the connection of the clauses and to the obvious meaning of the terms will satisfy us that the deduction is not even colorable
the first of these two clauses it is clear only provides a mode for appointing such officers whose appointments are not otherwise provided for in the constitution and which shall be established by law
of course it cannot extend to the appointments of senators whose appointments are otherwise provided for in the constitution
and who are established by the constitution and will not require a future establishment by law this position will hardly be contested the last of these two clauses it is equally clear
cannot be understood to comprehend the power of filling vacancies in the senate for the following reasons first the relation in which that clause stands to the other
which declares the general mode of appointing officers of the united states denotes it to be nothing more than a supplement to the other for the purpose of establishing an auxiliary method of appointment
in cases to which the general method was inadequate the ordinary power of appointment is confined to the president and senate jointly and can therefore only be exercised during the session of the senate but
as it would have been improper to oblige this body to be continually in session for the appointment of officers and as vacancies might happen in their recess which it might be necessary for the public service to fill without delay
the succeeding clause is evidently intended to authorize the president singly to make temporary appointments during the recess of the senate by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session second
if this clause is to be considered as supplementary to the one which precedes the vacancies of which it speaks must be construed to relate to the officers described in the preceding one and this we have seen excludes from its description
the members of the senate third the time within which the power is to operate during the recess of the senate and the duration of the appointments to the end of the next session of that body
conspire to elucidate the sense of the provision which if it had been intended to comprehend senators would naturally have referred the temporary power of filling vacancies to the recess of the state legislatures
who are to make the permanent appointments and not to the recess of the national senate who are to have no concern in those appointments and would have extended the duration in office of the temporary senators to the next session of the legislature of the state
in whose representation the vacancies had happened instead of making it to expire at the end of the ensuing session of the national senate the circumstances of the body authorized to make the permanent appointments
would of course have governed the modification of a power which related to the temporary appointments and as the national senate is the body whose situation is alone contemplated in the clause upon which the suggestion under examination has been founded
can only be deemed to respect those officers in whose appointment that body has a concurrent agency with the president but last the first and second clauses of the third section of the first article
not only obviate all possibility of doubt but destroy the pretext of misconception the former provides that the senate of the united states shall be composed of two senators from each state
chosen by the legislature thereof for six years and the latter directs that if vacancies in that body should happen by resignation or otherwise during the recess of the legislature of any state
the executive thereof may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the legislature which shall then fill such vacancies here is an express power given in clear and unambiguous terms to the state executives
to fill casual vacancies in the senate by temporary appointments which not only invalidates the supposition that the clause before considered could have been intended to confer that power upon the president of the united states but proves that this supposition
must have originated in an intention to deceive the people too palpable to be obscured by sophistry too atrocious to be palliated by hypocrisy i have taken the pains to select this instance of misrepresentation
and to place it in a clear and strong light as an unequivocal proof of the unwarrantable arts which are practiced to prevent a fair and impartial judgment of the real merits of the constitution submitted to the consideration of the people
in so flagrant a case to allow myself a severity of animadversion little congenial with the general spirit of these papers i hesitate not to submit it to the decision of any candid and honest adversary
of the proposed government whether language can furnish epithets of too much asperity for so shameless and so prostitute an attempt to impose on the citizens of america
tuesday february nineteenth
the third charge against the house of representatives is that it will be taken from that class of citizens which will have least sympathy with the mass of the people and be most likely to aim at an ambitious sacrifice of the many
to the aggrandizement of the few of all the objections which have been framed against the federal constitution this is perhaps the most extraordinary whilst the objection itself is levelled against a pretended oligarchy
the principle of it strikes at the very root of republican government the aim of every political constitution is or ought to be first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern and most virtue to pursue
the common good of the society and in the next place to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust the elective mode of obtaining rulers
is the characteristic policy of republican government the means relied on in this form of government for preventing their degeneracy are numerous and various the most effectual one
is such a limitation of the term of appointments as will maintain a proper responsibility to the people let me now ask what circumstance there is in the constitution of the house of representatives
that violates the principles of republican government or favors the elevation of the few on the ruins of the many let me ask whether every circumstance is not on the contrary strictly conformable to these principles
and scrupulously impartial to the rights and pretensions of every class and description of citizens who are to be the electors of the federal representatives not the rich more than the poor not the learned more than the ignorant
not the haughty heirs of distinguished names more than the humble sons of obscurity and unpropitious fortune
they are to be the same who exercise the right in every state of electing the corresponding branch of the legislature of the state who are to be the objects of popular choice
every citizen whose merit may recommend him to the esteem and confidence of his country no qualification of wealth of birth of religious faith or of civil profession is permitted to fetter the judgement
or disappoint the inclination of the people if we consider the situation of the men on whom the free suffrages of their fellow citizens may confer the representative trust
we shall find it involving every security which can be devised or desired for their fidelity to their constituents in the first place
we are to presume that in general they will be somewhat distinguished also by those qualities which entitle them to it and which promise a sincere and scrupulous regard to the nature of their engagements
in the second place they will enter into the public service under circumstances which cannot fail to produce a temporary affection at least to their constituents
there is in every breast a sensibility to marks of honor of favor of esteem and of confidence which apart from all considerations of interest is some pledge for grateful and benevolent returns
ingratitude is a common topic of declamation against human nature and it must be confessed that instances of it are but too frequent and flagrant both in public and in private life
but the universal and extreme indignation which it inspires is itself a proof of the energy and prevalence of the contrary sentiment in the third place those ties which bind the representative to his constituents
are strengthened by motives of a more selfish nature his pride and vanity attach him to a form of government which favors his pretensions and gives him a share in its honors and distinctions
whatever hopes or projects might be entertained by a few aspiring characters it must generally happen that a great proportion of the men deriving their advancement from their influence with the people would have more to hope from a preservation of the favor
than from innovations in the government subversive of the authority of the people all these securities however would be found very insufficient without the restraint of frequent elections hence in the fourth place
the house of representatives is so constituted as to support in the members an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people before the sentiments impressed on their minds by the mode of their elevation can be effaced by the exercise of power
they will be compelled to anticipate the moment when their power is to cease when their exercise of it is to be reviewed and when they must descend to the level from which they were raised there forever to remain unless a faithful discharge of their trust
i will add
restraining them from oppressive measures that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends
this has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together it creates between them that communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments of which few governments have furnished examples
but without which every government degenerates into tyranny if it be asked what is to restrain the house of representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society i answer
the genius of the whole system the nature of just and constitutional laws and above all the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of america a spirit which nourishes freedom and in return is nourished by it
if this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature as well as on the people the people will be prepared to tolerate any thing but liberty
such will be the relation between the house of representatives and their constituents duty gratitude interest ambition itself are the chords by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the great mass of the people
but are they not all that government will admit and that human prudence can devise are they not the genuine and the characteristic means by which republican government provides for the liberty and happiness of the people
are they not the identical means on which every state government in the union relies for the attainment of these important ends what then are we to understand by the objection which this paper has combated
what are we to say to the men who profess the most flaming zeal for republican government yet boldly impeach the fundamental principle of it who pretend to be champions for the right and the capacity of the people to choose their own rulers
yet maintain that they will prefer those only who will immediately and infallibly betray the trust committed to them were the objection to be read by one who had not seen the mode prescribed by the constitution for the choice of representatives
he could suppose nothing less than that some unreasonable qualification of property was annexed to the right of suffrage or that the right of eligibility was limited to persons of particular families or fortunes
or at least that the mode prescribed by the state constitutions was in some respect or other very grossly departed from we have seen how far such a supposition would err
nor would it in fact be less erroneous as to the last the only difference discoverable between the two cases is that each representative of the united states will be elected by five or six thousand citizens whilst in the individual states
the election of a representative is left to about as many hundreds
and an abhorrence to the federal government if this be the point on which the objection turns it deserves to be examined is it supported by reason this cannot be said without maintaining that five or six thousand citizens
are less capable of choosing a fit representative or more liable to be corrupted by an unfit one than five or six hundred reason on the contrary assures us that as in so great a number a fit representative would be most likely to be found
so the choice would be less likely to be diverted from him
is the consequence from this doctrine admissible if we say that five or six hundred citizens are as many as can jointly exercise their right of suffrage must we not deprive the people of the immediate choice of their public servants
in every instance where the administration of the government does not require as many of them as will amount to one for that number of citizens is the doctrine warranted by facts it was shown in the last paper
that the real representation in the british house of commons very little exceeds the proportion of one for every thirty thousand inhabitants besides a variety of powerful causes not existing here and which favor in that country
the pretensions of rank and wealth no person is eligible as a representative of a county unless he possess real estate of the clear value of six hundred pounds sterling per year nor of a city or borough unless he possess a like estate
of half that annual value to this qualification on the part of the county representatives is added another on the part of the county electors which restrains the right of suffrage to persons having a freehold estate of the annual value
of more than twenty pounds sterling according to the present rate of money notwithstanding these unfavorable circumstances and notwithstanding some very unequal laws in the british code
it cannot be said that the representatives of the nation have elevated the few on the ruins of the many but we need not resort to foreign experience on this subject our own is explicit and decisive
the districts in new hampshire in which the senators are chosen immediately by the people are nearly as large as will be necessary for her representatives in the congress those of massachusetts are larger than will be necessary for that purpose
and those of new york still more so in the last state the members of assembly for the cities and counties of new york and albany are elected by very nearly as many voters as will be entitled to a representative in the congress
calculating on the number of sixty five representatives only it makes no difference that in these senatorial districts and counties a number of representatives are voted for by each elector at the same time
if the same electors at the same time are capable of choosing four or five representatives they cannot be incapable of choosing one pennsylvania is an additional example some of her counties which elect her state representatives
are almost as large as her districts will be by which her federal representatives will be elected the city of philadelphia is supposed to contain between fifty and sixty thousand souls it will therefore form nearly two districts for the choice of federal representatives
it forms however but one county in which every elector votes for each of its representatives in the state legislature and what may appear to be still more directly to our purpose the whole city actually elects a single member
for the executive council this is the case in all the other counties of the state are not these facts the most satisfactory proofs of the fallacy which has been employed against the branch of the federal government under consideration
has it appeared on trial that the senators of new hampshire massachusetts and new york or the executive council of pennsylvania or the members of the assembly
have betrayed any peculiar disposition to sacrifice the many to the few or are in any respect less worthy of their places than the representatives and magistrates appointed in other states by very small divisions of the people
but there are cases of a stronger complexion than any which i have yet quoted one branch of the legislature of connecticut is so constituted that each member of it is elected by the whole state
so is the governor of that state of massachusetts and of this state and the president of new hampshire i leave every man to decide whether the result of any one of these experiments can be said to countenance a suspicion
why the breed was first called the southern hound or when his use became practical in great britain
to be equal to such prey the hound must have a bulldog's courage a newfoundland's strength in water a pointer's nose a retriever's sagacity the stamina of the foxhound the patience of a beagle the intelligence of a collie
the perfect otterhound head the head which has been described as something between that of a bloodhound and that of a foxhound is more hard and rugged than either with a narrow forehead
ascending to a moderate peak ears the ears are long and sweeping but not feathered down to the tips set low and lying flat to the cheeks eyes
they show a considerable amount of the haw nose the nose is large and well developed the nostrils expanding
before the kennel club found it necessary to insist upon a precise definition of each breed the dalmatian was known as the coach dog
a name appropriately derived from his fondness for following a carriage for living in and about the stable and for accompanying his master's horses at exercise
keeping easy pace with the best horses he appears almost to prefer equine to human companionship and he is as fond of being among horses as the collie is of being in the midst of sheep
yet he is of friendly disposition and it must be insisted that he is by no means so destitute of intelligence as he is often represented to be on the contrary
he is capable of being trained into remarkable cleverness as circus proprietors have discovered the earliest authorities agree that this breed was first introduced from dalmatia and that he was brought into this country
purely on account of his sporting proclivities of late years however these dogs have so far degenerated as to be looked upon simply as companions or as exhibition dogs
for only very occasionally can it be found that any pains have been taken to train them systematically for gun work the first of the variety which appeared in the show ring was mister james fawdry's captain
in eighteen seventy three at that period they were looked upon as a novelty
and though the generosity and influence of a few admirers ensured separate classes being provided for the breed at the leading shows it did not necessitate the production
of such perfect specimens as those which a few years afterwards won prizes at the first they were more popular in the north of england than in any other part of great britain it was at kirkby lonsdale
that doctor james's spotted dick was bred and an early exploiter of the breed who made his dogs famous was mister newby wilson of lakeside windermere
he was indebted to mister hugo droesse of london for the foundation of his stud inasmuch as it was from mister droesse
at a later date the famed coming still
the latter dog being the progenitor of most of the best liver spotted specimens that have attained notoriety as prize winners down to the present day in appearance the dalmatian should be very similar to a pointer
except in head and marking still
nor so pendulous in lip as a pointer there should be no coarseness or common look about the skull a fault which is much too prevalent
then again some judges do not attach sufficient importance to the eyelids or rather sears which should invariably be edged round with black or brown those which are flesh coloured in this particular should be discarded
in both blacks and browns is of great importance but should not be permitted to outweigh the evenness of the distribution of spots on the body no black patches or even mingling of the spots should meet with favour
any more than a ring tail or a clumsy looking heavy shouldered dog
the uninitiated may be informed that dalmatian puppies are always born pure white the clearer and whiter they are the better they are likely to be there should not be the shadow of a mark or spot on them
when about a fortnight old however they generally develop a dark ridge on the belly and the spots will then begin to show themselves first about the neck and ears and afterwards along the back
until at about the sixteenth day the markings are distinct over the body excepting only the tail which frequently remains white for a few weeks longer the standard of points as laid down by the leading club
is sufficiently explicit to be easily understood and is as follows general appearance the dalmatian should represent a strong muscular and active dog symmetrical in outline
and free from coarseness and lumber capable of great endurance combined with a fair amount of speed head the head should be of a fair length the skull flat rather broad between the ears
and moderately well defined at the temples
exhibiting a moderate amount of stop and not in one straight line from the nose to the occiput bone as required in a bull terrier it should be entirely free from wrinkle muzzle
though well defined the hocks well let down nails the nails in the black spotted variety should be black and white in the liver spotted variety brown and white tail the tail should not be too long
strong at the insertion and gradually tapering towards the end free from coarseness it should not be inserted too low down but carried with a slight curve upwards and never curled
inside the nautilus all was gloom and silence it left this place of devastation with prodigious speed one hundred feet beneath the waters where was it going north or south
where would the man flee after this horrible act of revenge i reentered my stateroom where ned and conseil were waiting silently
whatever he had once suffered at the hands of humanity he had no right to mete out such punishment he had made me if not an accomplice at least an eyewitness to his vengeance even this was intolerable
at eleven o'clock the electric lights came back on i went into the lounge it was deserted i consulted the various instruments the nautilus was fleeing northward at a speed of twenty five miles per hour
sometimes on the surface of the sea sometimes thirty feet beneath it after our position had been marked on the chart i saw that we were passing into the mouth of the english channel
that our heading would take us to the northernmost seas with incomparable speed i could barely glimpse the swift passing of longnose sharks hammerhead sharks spotted dogfish that frequent these waters
finally schools of porpoise that held contests of speed with the nautilus but by this point observing studying and classifying were out of the question by evening we had cleared two hundred leagues up the atlantic
shadows gathered and gloom overran the sea until the moon came up i repaired to my stateroom i couldn't sleep i was assaulted by nightmares that horrible scene of destruction kept repeating in my mind's eye
from that day forward who knows where the nautilus took us in the north atlantic basin always at incalculable speed always amid the high arctic mists
the gulf of ob the lyakhov islands or those unknown beaches on the siberian coast i'm unable to say i lost track of the passing hours time was in abeyance on the ship's clocks
i expected any moment to see that shrouded human figure very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men thrown across the cataract that protects the outskirts of the pole i estimate
but perhaps i'm mistaken that the nautilus's haphazard course continued for fifteen or twenty days and i'm not sure how long this would have gone on without the catastrophe that ended our voyage as for captain nemo he was no longer in the picture
as for his chief officer the same applied not one crewman was visible for a single instant the nautilus cruised beneath the waters almost continuously when it rose briefly to the surface to renew our air
the hatches opened and closed as if automated no more positions were reported on the world map i didn't know where we were i'll also mention that the canadian at the end of his strength and patience made no further appearances
conseil couldn't coax a single word out of him and feared that in a fit of delirium while under the sway of a ghastly homesickness ned would kill himself so he kept a devoted watch on his friend every instant
you can appreciate that under these conditions our situation had become untenable one morning whose date i'm unable to specify
i was slumbering near the first hours of daylight a painful sickly slumber waking up i saw ned land leaning over me and i heard him tell me in a low voice we're going to escape i sat up
when i asked tonight there doesn't seem to be any supervision left on the nautilus you'd think a total daze was reigning on board will you be ready sir yes where are we
we'll escape tonight even if the sea swallows us up the sea's rough the wind's blowing hard but a twenty mile run in the nautilus's nimble longboat doesn't scare me unknown to the crew i've stowed some food and flasks of water inside
i'm with you what's more the canadian added if they catch me i'll defend myself i'll fight to the death then we'll die together ned my friend my mind was made up the canadian left me
i went out on the platform where i could barely stand upright against the jolts of the billows the skies were threatening but land lay inside those dense mists and we had to escape not a single day or even a single hour could we afford to lose
i returned to the lounge dreading yet desiring an encounter with captain nemo wanting yet not wanting to see him what would i say to him how could i hide the involuntary horror he inspired in me no
it was best not to meet him face to face best to try and forget him and yet how long that day seemed the last i would spend aboard the nautilus i was left to myself
at six thirty ned land entered my stateroom he told me we won't see each other again before we go at ten o'clock the moon won't be up yet we'll take advantage of the darkness
come to the skiff conseil and i will be inside waiting for you the canadian left without giving me time to answer him i wanted to verify the nautilus's heading i made my way to the lounge
we were racing north northeast with frightful speed fifty meters down i took one last look at the natural wonders and artistic treasures amassed in the museum this unrivaled collection doomed to perish someday in the depths of the seas
together with its curator i wanted to establish one supreme impression in my mind i stayed there an hour basking in the aura of the ceiling lights passing in review the treasures shining in their glass cases
what was he doing just then i listened at the door to his stateroom i heard the sound of footsteps captain nemo was inside he hadn't gone to bed
with his every movement i imagined he would appear and ask me why i wanted to escape i felt in a perpetual state of alarm my imagination magnified this sensation the feeling became so acute
fortunately i controlled myself and stretched out on the bed to soothe my bodily agitation my nerves calmed a little but with my brain so aroused i did a swift review of my whole existence aboard the nautilus
every pleasant or unpleasant incident that had crossed my path since i went overboard from the abraham lincoln the underwater hunting trip the torres strait our running aground the savages of papua
the coral cemetery the suez passageway the island of santorini the cretan diver the bay of vigo atlantis the ice bank the south pole
our imprisonment in the ice the battle with the devilfish the storm in the gulf stream the avenger and that horrible scene of the vessel sinking with its crew
all these events passed before my eyes like backdrops unrolling upstage in a theater
his features were accentuated taking on superhuman proportions he was no longer my equal he was the man of the waters the spirit of the seas by then it was nine thirty
i held my head in both hands to keep it from bursting i closed my eyes i no longer wanted to think a half hour still to wait a half hour of nightmares that could drive me insane
just then i heard indistinct chords from the organ melancholy harmonies from some undefinable hymn actual pleadings from a soul trying to sever its earthly ties
i listened with all my senses at once
then a sudden thought terrified me captain nemo had left his stateroom he was in the same lounge i had to cross in order to escape there i would encounter him one last time he would see me
perhaps speak to me one gesture from him could obliterate me a single word shackle me to his vessel even so ten o'clock was about to strike it was time to leave my stateroom and rejoin my companions
the lounge was plunged in profound darkness chords from the organ were reverberating faintly captain nemo was there he didn't see me
even in broad daylight i doubt that he would have noticed me so completely was he immersed in his trance i inched over the carpet avoiding the tiniest bump whose noise might give me away
it took me five minutes to reach the door at the far end which led into the library
not walking but gliding like a ghost his chest was heaving swelling with sobs and i heard him murmur these words the last of his to reach my ears o almighty god
enough enough was it a vow of repentance that had just escaped from this man's conscience frantic i rushed into the library
i climbed the central companionway and going along the upper gangway i arrived at the skiff i went through the opening that had already given access to my two companions let's go let's go i exclaimed
right away the canadian replied first ned land closed and bolted the opening cut into the nautilus's sheet iron using the monkey wrench he had with him
after likewise closing the opening in the skiff the canadian began to unscrew the nuts still bolting us to the underwater boat suddenly a noise from the ship's interior became audible voices were answering each other hurriedly
what was it had they spotted our escape i felt ned land sliding a dagger into my hand yes i muttered we know how to die the canadian paused in his work
but one word twenty times repeated one dreadful word told me the reason for the agitation spreading aboard the nautilus we weren't the cause of the crew's concern maelstrom maelstrom
they were shouting the maelstrom could a more frightening name have rung in our ears under more frightening circumstances were we lying in the dangerous waterways off the norwegian coast
was the nautilus being dragged into this whirlpool just as the skiff was about to detach from its plating as you know at the turn of the tide the waters confined between the faroe and lofoten islands
rush out with irresistible violence they form a vortex from which no ship has ever been able to escape monstrous waves race together from every point of the horizon
they form a whirlpool aptly called the ocean's navel whose attracting power extends a distance of fifteen kilometers it can suck down not only ships but whales and even polar bears from the northernmost regions
this was where the nautilus had been sent accidentally or perhaps deliberately by its captain it was sweeping around in a spiral whose radius kept growing smaller and smaller
the skiff still attached to the ship's plating was likewise carried around at dizzying speed i could feel us whirling i was experiencing that accompanying nausea
that follows such continuous spinning motions we were in dread in the last stages of sheer horror
and what a noise around our frail skiff what roars echoing from several miles away what crashes from the waters breaking against sharp rocks on the seafloor where the hardest objects are smashed
where tree trunks are worn down and worked into a shaggy fur as norwegians express it what a predicament we were rocking frightfully the nautilus defended itself like a human being
its steel muscles were cracking sometimes it stood on end the three of us along with it we've got to hold on tight ned said and screw the nuts down again if we can stay attached to the nautilus we can still make it
he hadn't finished speaking when a cracking sound occurred the nuts gave way and ripped out of its socket the skiff was hurled like a stone from a sling into the midst of the vortex
chapter twenty one bacchus ariadne bacchus bacchus was the son of jupiter and semele
juno to gratify her resentment against semele contrived a plan for her destruction assuming the form of beroe her aged nurse she insinuated doubts whether it was indeed jove himself who came as a lover
heaving a sigh she said i hope it will turn out so but i can't help being afraid people are not always what they pretend to be if he is indeed jove make him give some proof of it
ask him to come arrayed in all his splendors such as he wears in heaven that will put the matter beyond a doubt semele was persuaded to try the experiment
the god would have stopped her as she spake but she was too quick for him the words escaped and he could neither unsay his promise nor her request in deep distress he left her and returned to the upper regions
there he clothed himself in his splendors not putting on all his terrors as when he overthrew the giants but what is known among the gods as his lesser panoply arrayed in this he entered the chamber of semele
her mortal frame could not endure the splendors of the immortal radiance she was consumed to ashes jove took the infant bacchus and gave him in charge
who nourished his infancy and childhood and for their care were rewarded by jupiter by being placed as the hyades among the stars when bacchus grew up he discovered the culture of the vine and the mode of extracting its precious juice
teaching the people the cultivation of the vine the most famous part of his wanderings is his expedition to india which is said to have lasted several years returning in triumph he undertook to introduce his worship into greece
but was opposed by some princes who dreaded its introduction on account of the disorders and madness it brought with it as he approached his native city thebes pentheus the king
who had no respect for the new worship forbade its rites to be performed but when it was known that bacchus was advancing men and women but chiefly the latter young and old poured forth to meet him and to join his triumphal march
bearing cymbals flutes and thyrses wild from naxian groves of zante's vineyards sing delirious verses it was in vain pentheus remonstrated commanded and threatened
it was in vain his nearest friends and wisest counsellors remonstrated and begged him not to oppose the god their remonstrances only made him more violent
but now the attendants returned whom he had despatched to seize bacchus they had been driven away by the bacchanals but had succeeded in taking one of them prisoner whom with his hands tied behind him
they brought before the king pentheus beholding him with wrathful countenance said fellow you shall speedily be put to death that your fate may be a warning to others but though i grudge the delay of your punishment speak
the prisoner unterrified responded
my country is maeonia my parents were poor people who had no fields or flocks to leave me but they left me their fishing rods and nets and their fisherman's trade this i followed for some time till growing weary of remaining in one place
i learned the pilot's art and how to guide my course by the stars it happened as i was sailing for delos we touched at the island of dia and went ashore next morning i sent the men for fresh water
and myself mounted the hill to observe the wind when my men returned bringing with them a prize as they thought a boy of delicate appearance whom they had found asleep they judged he was a noble youth perhaps a king's son
and they might get a liberal ransom for him i observed his dress his walk his face there was something in them which i felt sure was more than mortal i said to my men what god there is concealed in that form i know not
and melanthus my steersman and epopeus the leader of the sailor's cry one and all exclaimed spare your prayers for us so blind is the lust of gain when they proceeded to put him on board i resisted them
this ship shall not be profaned by such impiety said i i have a greater share in her than any of you but lycabas a turbulent fellow seized me by the throat and attempted to throw me overboard
and i scarcely saved myself by clinging to the ropes the rest approved the deed then bacchus for it was indeed he as if shaking off his drowsiness exclaimed what are you doing with me what is this fighting about who brought me here
where are you going to carry me one of them replied fear nothing tell us where you wish to go and we will take you there naxos is my home said bacchus take me there and you shall be well rewarded
they promised so to do and told me to pilot the ship to naxos naxos lay to the right and i was trimming the sails to carry us there when some by signs and others by whispers signified to me their will
that i should sail in the opposite direction and take the boy to egypt to sell him for a slave i was confounded and said let some one else pilot the ship withdrawing myself from any further agency in their wickedness they cursed me and one of them exclaiming
looked out over the sea and said in a voice of weeping sailors these are not the shores you promised to take me to yonder island is not my home what have i done that you should treat me so
the men astonished pulled at their oars and spread more sail trying to make progress by the aid of both but all in vain ivy twined round the oars and hindered their motion and clung to the sails with heavy clusters of berries
the god himself had a chaplet of vine leaves and bore in his hand a spear wreathed with ivy tigers crouched at his feet and forms of lynxes and spotted panthers played around him the men were seized with terror or madness
some leaped overboard others preparing to do the same beheld their companions in the water undergoing a change their bodies becoming flattened and ending in a crooked tail one exclaimed what miracle is this
and as he spoke his mouth widened his nostrils expanded and scales covered all his body another endeavoring to pull the oar felt his hands shrink up and presently to be no longer hands but fins
found he had no arms and curving his mutilated body jumped into the sea what had been his legs became the two ends of a crescent shaped tail the whole crew became dolphins and swam about the ship
now upon the surface now under it scattering the spray and spouting the water from their broad nostrils of twenty men i alone was left trembling with fear the god cheered me fear not said he steer towards naxos
i obeyed and when we arrived there i kindled the altars and celebrated the sacred rites of bacchus pentheus here exclaimed we have wasted time enough on this silly story take him away and have him executed without delay
but while they were getting ready the instruments of execution the prison doors came open of their own accord and the chains fell from his limbs and when they looked for him he was nowhere to be found pentheus would take no warning
he penetrated through the wood and reached an open space where the chief scene of the orgies met his eyes at the same moment the women saw him
blinded by the god cried out see there the wild boar the hugest monster that prowls in these woods come on sisters i will be the first to strike the wild boar the whole band rushed upon him and while he now talks less arrogantly
now excuses himself and now confesses his crime and implores pardon they press upon him and wound him in vain he cries to his aunts to protect him from his mother autonoe seized one arm ino the other
and between them he was torn to pieces while his mother shouted victory victory we have done it the glory is ours so the worship of bacchus was established in greece
there is an allusion to the story of bacchus and the mariners in milton's comus at line forty six
bacchus that first from out the purple grapes crushed the sweet poison of misused wine after the tuscan manners transformed coasting the tyrrhene shore as the winds listed on circe's island fell
whose charmed cup whoever tasted lost his upright shape and downward fell into a grovelling swine ariadne
we have seen in the story of theseus how ariadne the daughter of king minos after helping theseus to escape from the labyrinth was carried by him to the island of naxos
and was left there asleep while the ungrateful theseus pursued his way home without her ariadne on waking and finding herself deserted abandoned herself to grief but venus took pity on her and consoled her with the promise
the island where ariadne was left was the favorite island of bacchus the same that he wished
when they so treacherously attempted to make prize of him as ariadne sat lamenting her fate bacchus found her consoled her and made her his wife as a marriage present he gave her a golden crown enriched with gems
between the kneeling hercules and the man who holds the serpent spenser alludes to ariadne's crown though he has made some mistakes in his mythology it was at the wedding of pirithous and not theseus
that the centaurs and lapithae quarrelled look how the crown which ariadne wore upon her ivory forehead that same day that theseus her unto his bridal bore
swine rack
relative elevation in the scale of human worth
because twas answered others lack
aramis jukes ransom
the purchase of that which neither belongs to the seller nor can belong to the buyer the most unprofitable of investments rapacity
providence without industry the thrift of power rarebit
a welsh rabbit in the speech of the humorless who point out that it is not a rabbit to whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible
is really not a toad and that
is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker rascal
stupidity militant the activity of a clouded intellect rash
now lay your bet with mine nor let these gamblers take your cash nay this child makes no bet great snakes how can you be so rash
p gish rational
experience and reflection rattlesnake
our prostrate brother homo ventrambulans razor
an instrument used by the caucasian to enhance his beauty by the mongolian to make a guy of himself and by the afro american to affirm his worth reach
the radius of action of the human hand the area within which it is possible and customary to gratify directly the propensity to provide this is a truth as old as the hills
the poor man suffers that keenest of ills an impediment of his reach
j reading
the general body of what one reads
of indiana novels short stories in dialect and humor in slang we know by one's reading his learning and breeding by what draws his laughter we know his hereafter read nothing laugh never the sphinx was less clever
radicalism
the conservatism of to morrow injected into the affairs of to day radium
railroad
the chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off for this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist
otherwise known as the normal
though some of our earlier architects preferred the ironic recent additions to the white house in washington are theo doric the ecclesiastic order of the dorians they are exceedingly fine and cost one hundred dollars a brick
realism
the art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads the charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole or a story written by a measuring worm reality
the nucleus of a vacuum really
apparently rear
in american military matters that exposed part of the army that is nearest to congress reason
to weight probabilities in the scales of desire reason
reasonable
hospitable to persuasion dissuasion and evasion rebel
a proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it recollect versus to recall with additions something not previously known reconciliation
a suspension of hostilities an armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead reconsider versus
recount
in american politics another throw of the dice accorded to the player against whom they are loaded recreation
a particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue recruit
were an impressive martial spectacle except for two impediments his feet
in the church of england the third person of the parochial trinity the cruate and the vicar being the other two redemption
deliverance of sinners
through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned the doctrine of redemption is the fundamental mystery of our holy religion and whoso believeth in it shall not perish
we must awake man's spirit from his sin and take some special measure for redeeming it though hard indeed the task to get it in among the angels any way but teaming it or purify it otherwise than steaming it
i'm awkward at redemption a beginner my method is to crucify the sinner
redress
reparation without satisfaction among the anglo saxon a subject conceiving himself wronged by the king was permitted on proving his injury to beat a brazen image of the royal offender with a switch that was afterward applied to his own naked back
the latter rite was performed by the public hangman and it assured moderation in the plaintiff's choice of a switch red skin
a north american indian whose skin is not red at least not on the outside redundant
needless de trop the sultan said there's evidence abundant to prove this unbelieving dog redundant
replied his head at least appears excessive
theodore roosevelt referendum
a law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion reflection
an action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the things of yesterday and are able to avoid the perils that we shall not again encounter reform versus
a thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation refuge
anything assuring protection to one in peril
golan ramoth kadesh schekem and hebron to which one who had taken life inadvertently could flee when hunted by relatives of the deceased this admirable expedient
supplied him with wholesome exercise and enabled them to enjoy the pleasures of the chase whereby the soul of the dead man was appropriately honored by observations akin to the funeral games of early greece refusal
denial of something desired as an elderly maiden's hand in marriage to a rich and handsome suitor a valuable franchise to a rich corporation by an alderman
absolution to an impenitent king by a priest and so forth refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus the refusal absolute the refusal condition the refusal tentative
and the refusal feminine the last is called by some casuists
the league of holy humbug
the genteel society of expurgated hoodlums the mystic alliances of georgeous regalians knights and ladies of the yellow dog the oriental order of sons of the west
the blatherhood of insufferable stuff warriors of the long bow guardians of the great horn spoon the band of brutes the impenitent order of wife beaters the sublime
legion of flamboyant conspicuants
shining inaccessibles fee faw fummers of the inimitable grip jannissaries of the broad blown peacock plumed increscencies of the magic temple
associated deities of the butter trade the garden of galoots the affectionate fraternity of men similarly warted the flashing astonishers ladies of horror
cooperative association for breaking into the spotlight dukes of eden disciples militant of the hidden faith knights champions of the domestic dog
the society for prevention of prevalence kings of drink polite federation of gents consequential the mysterious order of the undecipherable scroll
uniformed rank of lousy cats monarchs of worth and hunger sons of the south star prelates of the tub and sword religion
a daughter of hope and fear explaining to ignorance the nature of the unknowable what is your religion my son inquired the archbishop of rheims pardon monseigneur replied rochebriant
impossible i should be ashamed of atheism in that case monsieur you should join the protestants reliquary
a receptacle for such sacred objects as pieces of the true cross short ribs of the saints the ears of balaam's ass the lung of the cock that called peter to repentance and so forth
reliquaries are commonly of metal and provided with a lock to prevent the contents from coming out and performing miracles at unseasonable times
once escaped during a sermon in saint peter's and so tickled the noses of the congregation that they woke and sneezed with great vehemence three times each
in the canterbury cathedral surprised the head of saint dennis in the library reprimanded by its stern custodian
sometimes it is conferred by an unfriendly and inconsiderate hand i touched the harp in every key but found no heeding ear and then ithuriel touched me with a revealing spear
not all my genius great as tis could urge me out of night i felt
candleton reparation
satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted from the satisfaction felt in committing it repartee
prudent insult in retort practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence but a strong disposition to offend in a war of words the tactics of the north american indian
repentance
desirous to avoid the pains of hell you will repent and join the church parnell how needless nick will keep you off the coals and add you to the woes of other souls
abemy replica
a reproduction of a work of art by the artist that made the original it is so called to distinguish it from a copy which is made by another artist
reporter
a writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words
to cease from troubling representative
in national politics a member of the lower house in this world and without discernible hope of promotion in the next reprobation
in theology the state of a luckless mortal prenatally damned the doctrine of reprobation was taught by calvin whose joy in it was somewhat marred by the sad sincerity of his conviction
others are predestined to salvation republic
a nation in which the thing governing and the thing governed being the same there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience in a republic
the despotism whence they came and the anarchy whither they lead requiem
a mass for the dead which the minor poets assure us
sometimes by way of providing a varied entertainment they sing a dirge resident
resign
to renounce an advantage for a greater advantage twas rumored leonard wood had signed a true renunciation of title rank and every kind of military station each
honorable station by his example fired inclined to noble emulation the country humbly was resigned to leonard's resignation his christian
politian greame resolute
respectability
the offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account respirator
an apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an inhabitant of london whereby to filter the visible universe in its passage to the lungs
a suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin
by the prosecuting attorney any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation altgeld upon his incandescent bed lay an attendant demon at his head
a never dying worm yet for i pity your uneasy state your doom i'll mollify and pains abate
not even the memory of who you are throughout eternal space dread silence fell heaven trembled as compassion entered hell as long sweet demon let my respite be
as long poor soul as any of the pack
a genial chill affected altgeld's hide while they were turning him on t'other side
resplendent
or affirming his consequence in the scheme of things as an elemental unit of a parade the knights of dominion were so resplendent in their velvet and gold that their masters would hardly have known them
chronicles of the classes respond
to make answer or disclose otherwise a consciousness of having inspired an interest in what herbert spencer calls external coexistences as satan squat like a toad at the ear of eve
responded to the touch of the angel's spear to respond in damages is to contribute to the maintenance of the plaintiff's attorney and incidentally to the gratification of the plaintiff
luck or one's neighbor in the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star alas things ain't what we should see if eve had let that apple be and many a feller which had ought
to set with monarchses of thought or play some rosy little game with battle chaps on fields of fame is downed by his unlucky star and hollers peanuts here you are
the sturdy beggar restitutions
the founding or endowing of universities and public libraries by gift or bequest restitutor
benefactor philanthropist retaliation
the natural rock upon which is reared the temple of law retribution
in the lines following
gassalasca jape the reverend poet appears to hint his sense of the improduence of turning about to face retribution when it is talking exercise what what dom pedro you desire to go back to brazil
why what assurance have you twould be so tis not so long since you were in a riot and your dear subjects showed a will to fly at your throat and shake you like a rat
you know that empires are ungrateful are you certain republics are less handy to get hurt in
and their sacred dishonor revelation
the revealing is done by the commentators who know nothing reverence
the spiritual attitude of a man
to a man review
holding not a doubt of it although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it at work upon a book and so read out of it
in politics an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment specifically in american history
whereby the welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a full half inch
of blood but are accounted worth it this appraisement being made by beneficiaries whose blood had not the mischance to be shed the french revolution is of incalculable value to the socialist of to day
when he pulls the string actuating its bones its gestures are inexpressibly terrifying to gory tyrants suspected of fomenting law and order rhadomancer
one who uses a divining rod in prospecting for precious metals in the pocket of a fool ribaldry
censorious language by another concerning oneself ribroaster
censorious language by oneself concerning another the word is of classical refinement and is even said to have been used in a fable by georgius coadjutor one of the most fastidious writers of the fifteenth century
commonly indeed regarded as the founder of the fastidiotic school rice water
a mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience it is said to be rich in both obtundite and lethargine
rich
the unthrifty the envious and the luckless
a gift from heaven signifying this is my beloved son in whom i am well pleased
the reward of toil and virtue
j p morgan the savings of many in the hands of one
eugene debs to these excellent definitions the inspired lexicographer feels that he can add nothing of value ridicule
words designed to show that the person of whom they are uttered is devoid of the dignity of character distinguishing him who utters them it may be graphic mimetic or merely rident
shaftesbury is quoted as having pronounced it the test of truth a ridiculous assertion for many a solemn fallacy has undergone centuries of ridicule with no abatement of its popular acceptance
what for example has been more valorously derided than the doctrine of infant respectability right
as the right to be a king the right to do one's neighbor the right to have measles and the like the first of these rights was once universally believed to be derived directly from the will of god
and this is still sometimes affirmed in partibus infidelium
by what right then do royal rulers rule
he surely were as stubborn as a mule who god unwilling could maintain an hour his uninvited session on the throne or air his pride securely in the presidential chair whatever is is so by right divine
righteousness
a sturdy virtue that was once found among the pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of oque some feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it into several european countries
a characteristic passage from which is here given now righteousness consisteth not merely in a holy state of mind nor yet in performance of religious rites and obedience to the letter of the law
it is not enough that one be pious and just
and to this end compulsion is a proper means
by force if needful in all those injurious enterprises from which through a better disposition and by the help of heaven i do myself restrain rime
agreeing sounds in the terminals of verse mostly bad the verses themselves as distinguished from prose mostly dull usually and wickedly spelled
rimer
a poet regarded with indifference or disesteem the rimer quenches his unheeded fires
then the domestic dog to east and west expounds the passions burning in his breast the rising moon o'er that enchanted land pauses to hear and yearns to understand
riot
a popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders
rite
a religious or semi religious ceremony fixed by law precept or custom
a dutch garden of god where he may walk in rectilinear freedom keeping off the grass road
robber
saying nothing more he was encouraged to continue that he said is the story romance
free lawless immune to bit and rein your novelist is a poor creature as carlyle might say a mere reporter he may invent his characters and plot
albeit his entire narrative is candidly a lie
of his own forging he can explain in ten thick volumes without illuminating by so much as a candle's ray the black profound of his own ignorance of the matter
the most fascinating fiction that we have is
and this is rapidly giving place to an apparatus known as the preachment rostrum
expounds the wisdom virtue and power of the rabble roundhead
a member of the parliamentarian party in the english civil war so called from his habit of wearing his hair short whereas his enemy the cavalier wore his long
there were other points of difference between them but the fashion in hair was the fundamental cause of quarrel the cavaliers were royalists because the king an indolent fellow found it more convenient to let his hair grow than to wash his neck
in that ancient strife smoulder to this day beneath the snows of british civility rubbish
worthless matter such as the religions philosophies literatures arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from boreaplas ruin
to destroy specifically to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids rum
generically fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers rumor
a favorite weapon of the assassins of character sharp irresistible by mail or shield by guard unparried as by flight unstayed o serviceable rumor let me wield against my enemy no other blade
his be the terror of a foe unseen his the inutile hand upon the hilt and mine the deadly tongue long slender keen hinting a rumor of some ancient guilt
spare me to celebrate his overthrow
buxter russian
a person with a caucasian body and a mongolian soul
chapter nineteen on coming forth by day if he will be so indulgent with his author let the reader approach the photoplay theatre as though for the first time having again a new point of view
here the poorest can pay and enter from the glaring afternoon into the twilight of an ali baba's cave the dime is the single open sesame required the half light wherein the audience is seated by which they can read in an emergency
is as bright and dark as that of some candle lit churches
hard edges are the main things that we lose the gain is in all the delicacies of modelling tone relations form and color a hundred evanescent impressions come and go
there is often a tenderness of appeal about the most rugged face in the assembly humanity takes on its sacred aspect it is a crude mind that would insist that these appearances are not real
that the eye does not see them when all eyes behold them to say dogmatically that any new thing seen by half light is an illusion is like arguing that a discovery by the telescope or microscope is unreal if the appearances are beautiful besides
they are not only facts but assets in our lives book reading is not done in the direct noon sunlight we retire to the shaded porch it takes two more steps toward quietness of light to read the human face and figure
many great paintings and poems are records of things discovered in this quietness of light it is indeed ironical in our ali baba's cave to see sheer everydayness and hardness upon the screen the audience dragged back to the street they have escaped
one of the inventions to bring the twilight of the gathering into brotherhood with the shadows on the screen is a simple thing known to the trade as the fadeaway that had its rise in a commonplace fashion as a method of keeping the story from ending with the white glare of the empty screen
as a result of the device the figures in the first episode emerge from the dimness and in the last one go back into the shadow whence they came as foam returns to the darkness of an evening sea
in the imaginative pictures the principle begins to be applied more largely till throughout the fairy story the figures float in and out from the unknown as fancies should this method in its simplicity counts more to keep the place an ali baba's cave
we need not call it the arabian's cave there is a tomb we might have definitely in mind an egyptian burying place where with a torch we might enter read the inscriptions and see the illustrations from the book of the dead on the wall
so let this cave be egypt let us incline ourselves to revere the unconscious memories that echo within us when we see the hieroglyphics of osiris and isis egypt was our long brooding youth we built the mysteriousness of the universe into the pyramids
carved it into every line of the sphinx we thought always of the immemorial the reel now before us is the mighty judgment roll dealing with the question of our departure in such a way that any man who beholds it
will bear the impress of the admonition upon his heart forever those egyptian priests did no little thing when amid their superstitions they still proclaimed the judgment let no one consider himself ready for death
till like the men by the nile he can call up every scene face with courage every exigency of the ordeal there is one copy of the book of the dead of especial interest made for the scribe ani with exquisite marginal drawings
copies may be found in our large libraries the particular fac simile i had the honor to see was in the lenox library new york several years ago
the ani manuscript has so fascinated some of the egyptologists that it is copied in figures fifteen feet high on the walls of two of the rooms of the british museum and you can read the story eloquently told in maspero
convince the sentinels that he is osiris himself to further the illusion the name of osiris is inscribed on his breast while he is passing these perils his little wife is looking on by a sort of clairvoyant sympathy though she is still alive
she is depicted mourning him and embracing his mummy on earth at the same time she accompanies him through the shadows ani ploughs and sows and reaps in the fields of the underworld he is carried past a dreadful place on the back of the cow hathor
they sit in majestic rows he makes the proper sacrifices and advances to the scales of justice there he sees his own heart weighed against the ostrich feather of truth by the jackal god anubis who has already presided at his embalming
his own soul in the form of a human headed hawk watches the ceremony his ghost which is another entity looks through the door with his little wife both of them watch with tense anxiety
the fate of every phase of his personality depends upon the purity of his heart lying in wait behind anubis is a monster part crocodile part lion part hippopotamus this terror will eat the heart of ani if it is found corrupt
at last he is declared justified thoth the ibis headed god of writing records the verdict on his tablet the justified ani moves on past the baffled devourer with the mystic presence of his little wife rejoicing at his side
they go to the awful court of osiris she makes sacrifice with him there the god of the dead is indeed a strange deity a seated semi animated mummy with all the appurtenances of royalty
and with the four sons of horus on a lotus before him and his two wives isis and nephthys standing behind his throne with their hands on his shoulders the justified soul now boards the boat in which the sun rides as it journeys through the night
he rises a glorious boatman in the morning working an oar to speed the craft through the high ocean of the noon sky henceforth he makes the eternal round with the sun therefore in ancient egypt the roll was called not the book of the dead
but the chapters on coming forth by day this book on motion pictures does not profess to be an expert treatise on egyptology as well the learned folk are welcome to amend the modernisms that have crept into it
but the fact remains that something like this story in one form or another held egypt spell bound for many hundred years it was the force behind every mummification it was the reason for the whole egyptian system of life death and entombment
for the man not embalmed could not make the journey so the explorer finds the egyptian with a roll of this papyrus as a guide book on his mummy breast the soul needed to return for refreshment periodically to the stone chamber
and the mummy mutilated or destroyed could not entertain the guest egypt cried out through thousands of years for the ultimate resurrection of the whole man his coming forth by day
we need not fear that a story that so dominated a race will be lost on modern souls when vividly set forth is it too much to expect that some american prophet wizard of the future will give us this film in the spirit of an egyptian priest
the unseen mysteries were always on the egyptian heart as a burden and a consolation and though there may have been jugglers in the outer courts of these temples
no mere actor could make an egyptian priest of himself their very alphabet has a regal enchantment in its lines and the same aesthetic mystical power remains in their pylons and images under the blaze of the all revealing noonday sun
when i smote the serpent on the head with my golden staff she cast the man forth of her mouth then i smote her a second time and she turned and fled
since my deliverance from yonder serpent hath been at thy hands i will never leave thee and thou shalt be my comrade on this mountain and welcome answered i so we fared on along the mountain till we fell in with a company of folk
but if thou wilt take me with thee i swear not to say a word so he relented and consented to carry me with him but he made an express condition that
so long as i abode on his back i should abstain from pronouncing the tasbih or otherwise glorifying god then i gave the wand of gold to him whom i had delivered from the serpent and bade him farewell and my friend took me on his back and flew with me as before
till he brought me to the city and set me down in my own house my wife came to meet me and saluting me gave me joy of my safety and then said beware of going forth hereafter with yonder folk neither consort with them
for they are brethren of the devils and know not how to mention the name of allah almighty neither worship they him and how did thy father with them asked i and she answered my father was not of them neither did he as they
and as now he is dead methinks thou hadst better sell all we have and with the price buy merchandise and journey to thine own country and people and i with thee for i care not to tarry in this city
so i sold all the shaykh's property piecemeal
i made no stay there but freighted another vessel and transferring my goods to her set out forthright for baghdad city where i arrived in safety and entering my quarter and repairing to my house foregathered with my family and friends and familiars
who laid up my goods in my warehouses when my people who reckoning the period of my absence on this my seventh voyage had found it to be seven and twenty years and had given up all hope of me
continued sindbad the seaman what sufferings i have undergone and what perils and hardships i have endured before coming to my present state allah upon thee o my lord
till there came to them the destoyer of delights and the sunderer of societies and the shatterer of palaces and the caterer for cemeteries to wit the cup of death
according to the version of the calcutta edition which differs in essential form from the preceding tale know o my brothers and friends and companions all that when i left voyaging and commercing i said in myself
sufficeth me that hath befallen me and i spent my time in solace and pleasure one day as i sat at home there came a knock at the door and when the porter opened a page entered and said
i went with him to the king's majesty and kissed ground and saluted him whereupon he welcomed me and entreated me with honour and said o sindbad i have an occasion for thee wilt thou do it so i kissed his hand and asked him saying
for that he hath sent to us a present and a letter i trembled at these words and rejoined by allah the omnipotent o my lord i have taken a loathing to wayfare and when i hear the words voyage or travel
my limbs tremble for what hath befallen me of hardships and horrors indeed i have no desire whatever for this more by token as i have bound myself by oath not to quit baghdad
and he marvelled with exceeding marvel and said by the almighty o sindbad from ages of old such mishaps as happened to thee were never know to happen to any and thou dost only right never even to talk of travel
for our sake however thou wilt go this time and carry our present and our letter to him of sarandib and inshallah by god's leave thou shalt return quickly
and on this wise we shall be under no obligation to the said king i replied that i heard and obeyed being unable to oppose his command
then i dropped down from baghdad to the gulf and with other merchants embarked and our ship sailed before a fair wind many days and nights till by allah's aid
as soon as we had made fast we landed and i took the present and the letter and going in with them to the king kissed ground before him when he saw me he said well come o sindbad by allah omnipotent we were longing to see thee
and glory be to god who hath again shown us thy face then taking me by the hand he made me sit by his side rejoicing and he welcomed me with familiar kindness again and entreated me as a friend
whereupon i farewelled him and fared forth from his city with merchants and other companions homewards bound without any desire for travel or companions homewards bound without any desire for travel or trade
we continued voyaging and coasting along many islands but when we were half way we were surrounded by a number of canoes wherein were men like devils armed with bows and arrows swords and daggers habited in mail coats and other armoury
gave me meat and drink and clothing and treated me in the friendliest manner so i was heartened and i rested a little
and i answered him o my lord i am a merchant and know nothing but trade and traffic dost thou know rejoined he how to use bow and arrow yes replied i i know that much
came to a tall and sturdy tree up which he made me climb then he gave me the bow and arrows saying sit here now and when the elephants troop hither in early morning shoot at them belike thou wilt hit one and if he fall come and tell me
with this he left me
and when the elephants appeared and wandered about among the trees i shot my arrows at them and continued till i had shot down one of them in the evening i reported my success to my master who was delighted in me and entreated me with high honour
and when my master beheld the heaps of tusks
the elephants used to destroy many of us on account of our hunting them for their ivories and sorivellos but allah hath preserved thee from them and thou hast profited us by the heaps to which thou hast led us o my master replied i
god free thy neck from the fire and do thou grant me o my master thy gracious leave to return to my own country yes quoth he thou shalt have that permission
but we have a yearly fair when merchants come to us from various quarters to buy up these ivories the time is drawing near and when they shall have done their business i will send thee under their charge and will give thee wherewithal to reach thy home
rise and get thee ready to travel with the traders en route to thy country they had bought a number of tusks which they had bound together in loads and were embarking them when my master sent me with them paying for my passage and settling all my debts
and i bought some of the prettiest things in the place for presents and beautiful rareties and everything else i wanted i likewise bought for myself a beast and we fared forth and crossed the deserts from country to country till i reached baghdad
here i went in to the caliph and after saluting him and kissing hands informed him of all that had befallen me whereupon he rejoiced in my safety and thanked almighty allah and he bade my story be written in letters of gold
i then entered my house and met my family and brethren and such is the end of the history that happened to me during my seven voyages praise be to allah the one the creator the maker of all things in heaven and earth
now when shahrazad had ended her story of the two sindbads dinarzad exclaimed o my sister how pleasant is thy tale and how tasteful how sweet and how grateful she replied
and what is this compared with that i could tell thee tomorrow night quoth the king what may it be
chapter fifteen the substitute for the saloon this is a special commentary on chapter five the picture of crowd splendor it refers as well to every other type of moving picture that gets into the slum
but the masses have an extraordinary affinity for the crowd photoplay as has been said before the mob comes nightly to behold its natural face in the glass politicians on the platform have swayed the mass below them
but now to speak in an irish way the crowd takes the platform and looking down sees itself swaying
the slums are an astonishing assembly of cave men crawling out of their shelters to exhibit for the first time in history a common interest on a tremendous scale in an art form below the cliff caves were bar rooms in endless lines
there are almost as many bar rooms to day yet this new thing breaks the lines as nothing else ever did often when a moving picture house is set up the saloon on the right hand or the left declares bankruptcy
why do men prefer the photoplay to the drinking place for no pious reason surely now they have fire pouring into their eyes instead of into their bellies blood is drawn from the guts to the brain though the picture be the veriest mess
after a day's work a street sweeper enters the place heavy as king log a ditch digger goes in sick and surly it is the state of the body when many men drink themselves into insensibility but here the light is as strong in the eye as whiskey in the throat
immigrants are prodded by these swords of darkness and light to guess at the meaning of the catch phrases and headlines that punctuate the play they strain to hear their neighbors whisper or spell them out the photoplays have done something to reunite the lower class families
no longer is the fire escape the only summer resort for big and little folks here is more fancy and whim than ever before blessed a hot night
here under the wind of an electric fan they witness everything from a burial in westminster to the birthday parade of the ruler of the land of swat the usual saloon equipment to delight the eye is one so called leg picture of a woman
a photograph of a prize fighter and some colored portraits of goats to advertise various brands of beer many times no doubt these boys and young men have found visions of a sordid kind while gazing on the actress the fighter or the goats
but what poor material they had in the wardrobes of memory for the trimmings and habiliments of vision to make this lady into freya this prize fighter into thor these goats into the harnessed steeds that drew his chariot
man's dreams are rearranged and glorified memories how could these people reconstruct the torn carpets and tin cans and waste paper of their lives into mythology
the things they drank to see and saw but grotesquely and paid for terribly now roll before them with no after pain or punishment the mumbled conversation the sociability for which they leaned over the tables
they have here in the same manner with far more to talk about they come they go home men and women together as casually and impulsively as the men alone ever entered a drinking place but discoursing now of far off mountains and star crossed lovers
but let us go to the other end of the temperance argument i beg to be allowed to relate a personal matter for some time i was a field worker for the anti saloon league of illinois
being sent every sunday to a new region to make the yearly visit on behalf of the league such a visitor is apt to speak to one church in a village and two in the country on each excursion being met at the station by some leading farmer citizen of the section
and driven to these points by him the talk with this man was worth it all to me the agricultural territory of the united states is naturally dry
this is because the cross roads church is the only communal institution and the voice of the cross roads pastor is for teetotalism the routine of the farm hand while by no means ideal in other respects keeps him from craving drink as intensely as other toilers do
so opposition to the temperance movement is scattering the anti saloon league has organized these leaders into a nation wide machine it sees that they get their weekly paper instructing them in the tactics whereby local fights have been won
a subscription financing the state league is taken once a year it counts on the regular list of church benevolences
any country politician fears their non partisan denunciation as he does political death the local machines thus backed are incurable mugwumps hold the balance of power work in both parties
and have voted dry the agricultural territory of the united states everywhere by the township county or state unit the only institutions that touch the same territory in a similar way are the chautauquas in the prosperous agricultural centres
these too by the same sign are emphatically anti saloon in their propaganda serving to intellectualize and secularize the dry sentiment without taking it out of the agricultural caste there is a definite line between our farm civilization and the rest
when a county goes dry it is generally in spite of the county seat such temperance people as are in the court house town represent the church vote which is even then in goodly proportion a retired farmer vote
the larger the county seat the larger the non church going population and the more stubborn the fight the majority of miners and factory workers are on the wet side everywhere the irritation caused by the gases in the mines by the dirty work in the blackness
by the squalor in which the company houses are built turns men to drink for reaction and lamplight and comradeship the similar fevers and exasperations of factory life lead the workers to unstring their tense nerves with liquor
the habit of snuggling up close in factories conversing often bench by bench machine by machine inclines them to get together for their pleasures at the bar in industrial america there is an anti saloon minority in moral sympathy
with the temperance wave brought in by the farmers but they are outstanding groups their leadership seldom dries up a factory town or a mining region with all the help the anti saloon league can give in the big cities the temperance movement is scarcely understood
the choice residential districts are voted dry for real estate reasons the men who do this drink freely at their own clubs or parties
there is a prophecy abroad that prohibition will be the issue of a national election if the question is squarely put there are enough farmers and church people to drive the saloon out of legal existence the women's vote a little more puritanical than the men's vote
what will become of those all but unbroken lines of slum saloons no lesser force than regular troops could dislodge them with yesterday's intrenchment the entrance of the motion picture house into the arena is indeed striking
the first enemy of king alcohol with real power where that king has deepest hold if every one of those saloon doors is nailed up by the chautauqua orators the photoplay archway will remain open
the people will have a shelter where they can readjust themselves that offers a substitute for many of the lines of pleasure in the groggery and a whole evening costs but a dime apiece several rounds of drinks are expensive
but the people can sit through as many repetitions of this programme as they desire for one entrance fee the dominant genius of the moving picture place is not a gentleman with a red nose and an eye like a dead fish but some producer who with all his faults
has given every person in the audience a seven leagued angel and demon telescope since i have announced myself a farmer and a puritan let me here list the saloon evils not yet recorded in this chapter they are separate from the catalogue of the individualistic woes of the drunkard
that are given in the scripture the shame of the american drinking place is the bar tender who dominates its thinking his cynical and hardened soul wipes out a portion of the influence of the public school the library the self respecting newspaper a stream rises no higher than its source
so good citizen welcome the coming of the moving picture man as a local social force whatever his private character the mere formula of his activities makes him a better type he may not at first sway his group in a directly political way
but he will make himself the centre of more social ideals than the bar tender ever entertained and he is beginning to have as intimate a relation to his public as the bar tender in many cases he stands under his arch in the sheltered lobby
and is on conversing terms with his habitual customers the length of the afternoon and evening voting the saloon out of the slums by voting america dry does not as of old promise to be a successful operation that kills the patient
the anti saloon league officers and the photoplay men should ask each other to dinner more moving picture theatres in doubtful territory will help make dry voters and wet territory voted dry will bring about a greatly accelerated patronage of the photoplay houses
there is every strategic reason why these two forces should patch up a truce
there was once a poor prince he possessed a kingdom which though small was yet large enough for him to marry on and married he wished to be now it was certainly a little audacious of him to venture to say to the emperor's daughter will you marry me but he did venture to say so
for his name was known far and wide there were hundreds of princesses who would gladly have said yes but would she say the same well we shall see on the grave of the prince's father grew a rose tree a very beautiful rose tree
it only bloomed every five years and then bore but a single rose but oh such a rose its scent was so sweet that when you smelt it you forgot all your cares and troubles and he had also a nightingale
which could sing as if all the beautiful melodies in the world were shut up in its little throat this rose and this nightingale the princess was to have and so they were both put into silver caskets and sent to her
here comes a duke a riding with her ladies in waiting
she clapped her hands for joy if only it were a little pussy cat she said but the rose tree with the beautiful rose came out but how prettily it is made said all the ladies in waiting it is more than pretty said the emperor it is charming
but the princess felt it and then she almost began to cry
angry thought the emperor and there came out the nightingale it sang so beautifully that one could scarcely utter a cross word against it
ah yes it is the same tone the same execution yes said the emperor and then he wept like a little child i hope that this at least is not real asked the princess yes it is a real bird said those who had brought it
and she would not on any account allow the prince to come but he was nothing daunted he painted his face brown and black drew his cap well over his face and knocked at the door good day emperor he said
i will think of you stay it has just occurred to me that i want someone to look after the swine for i have so very many of them and the prince got the situation of imperial swineherd he had a wretched little room close to the pigsties
here he had to stay but the whole day he sat working and when evening was come he had made a pretty little pot all round it were little bells and when the pot boiled they jingled most beautifully and played the old tune where is augustus dear
alas he's not here here here but the most wonderful thing was that when one held one's finger in the steam of the pot then at once one could smell what dinner was ready in any fire place in the town
that was indeed something quite different from the rose now the princess came walking past with all her ladies in waiting and when she heard the tune she stood still and her face beamed with joy for she also could play where is augustus dear
why that is what i play she said he must be a most accomplished swineherd listen go down and ask him what the instrument costs and one of the ladies in waiting had to go down but she put on wooden clogs
what will you take for the pot asked the lady in waiting i will have ten kisses from the princess answered the swineherd heaven forbid said the lady in waiting yes i will sell it for nothing less replied the swineherd well
what does he say asked the princess i really hardly like to tell you answered the lady in waiting oh then you can whisper it to me he is disobliging said the princess and went away
but she had only gone a few steps when the bells rang out so prettily where is augustus dear alas he's not here here here listen said the princess ask him whether he will take ten kisses from my ladies in waiting
and the ladies in waiting placed themselves in front and then spread out their dresses so the swineherd got his ten kisses and she got the pot what happiness that was the whole night and the whole day the pot was made to boil
there was not a fire place in the whole town where they did not know what was being cooked whether it was at the chancellor's or at the shoemaker's the ladies in waiting danced and clapped their hands
that is to say the prince though they did not know he was anything but a true swineherd let no day pass without making something and one day he made a rattle
i have never heard a more beautiful composition listen go down and ask him what this instrument costs but i won't kiss him again he wants a hundred kisses from the princess said the lady in waiting who had gone down to ask him
i believe he is mad said the princess and then she went on
one ought to encourage art she said i am the emperor's daughter tell him he shall have as before ten kisses the rest he can take from my ladies in waiting
but we don't at all like being kissed by him said the ladies in waiting that's nonsense said the princess and if i can kiss him you can too
he rubbed his eyes and put on his spectacles why those are the ladies in waiting playing their games i must go down to them so he took off his shoes which were shoes though he had trodden them down into slippers
what a hurry he was in to be sure as soon as he came into the yard he walked very softly and the ladies in waiting were so busy counting the kisses and seeing fair play that they never noticed the emperor he stood on tiptoe
then she stood still and wept the swineherd was scolding and the rain was streaming down alas what an unhappy creature i am sobbed the princess if only i had taken the beautiful prince
alas how unfortunate i am and the swineherd went behind a tree washed the black and brown off his face threw away his old clothes and then stepped forward in his splendid dress looking so beautiful that the princess was obliged to courtesy
i wish said freckles at breakfast one morning that i had some way to be sending a message to the bird woman i've something at the swamp that i'm believing never happened before and surely she'll be wanting it what now freckles asked missus duncan
why the oddest thing you ever heard of said freckles the whole insect tribe gone on a spree i'm supposing it's my doings but it all happened by accident like you see on the swale side of the line right against me trail
there's one of these scrub wild crabtrees where the grass grows thick around it is the finest place you ever conceived of for snakes
it struck me that it would be a good idea
first i thought i'd take me hatchet and cut it down for it ain't thicker than me upper arm then i remembered how it was blooming in the spring and filling all the air with sweetness the coloring of the blossoms is beautiful and i hated to be killing it
i just cut the grass short all around it then i started at the ground trimmed up the trunk near the height of me shoulder and left the top spreading that made it look so truly ornamental that idle like i chips off the rough places neat and this morning
why just an army of black ants some of them are sucking away like old topers some of them are setting up on their tails and hind legs fiddling with their fore feet and wiping their eyes
and hanging on the grasses around too drunk to steer a course flying so they just buzz away like flying and all the time sitting still the snake feeders are too full to feed anything even more sap to themselves there's a lot of hard backed bugs
beetles i guess colored like the brown blue and black of a peacock's tail they hang on until the legs of them are so wake they can't stick a minute longer and then they break away and fall to the ground
up they get and go crawling back for more and they so full they bump into each other and roll over sometimes they can't climb the tree until they wait to sober up a little there's a lot of big black and gold bumblebees done for entire
stumbling over the bark and rolling on the ground they just lay there on their backs rocking from side to side singing to themselves like fat happy babies the wild bees keep up a steady buzzing with the beating of their wings
the butterflies are the worst old topers of them all they're just a circus you never saw the like of the beauties they come every color you could be naming and every shape you could be thinking up they drink and drink until if i'm driving them away
it's a rare sight to watch them and no one ever made a picture of a thing like that before i'm for thinking said freckles earnestly
the bird woman must have word in some way if ye walk the line and i walk to town and tell her if ye think ye can wait until after supper i am most sure ye can gang yoursel for duncan is coming home and he'd be glad to watch for ye if he does na come and
i really will gang early in the morning and tell her mysel freckles took his lunch and went to the swamp he walked and watched eagerly he could find no trace of anything yet he felt a tense nervousness as if trouble might be brooding
he examined every section of the wire and kept watchful eyes on the grasses of the swale in an effort to discover if anyone had passed through them but he could discover no trace of anything to justify his fears
he tilted his hat brim to shade his face and looked for his chickens they were hanging almost beyond sight in the sky gee he said if i only had your sharp eyes and convenient location now i wouldn't need be troubling so
he reached his room and cautiously scanned the entrance before he stepped in then he pushed the bushes apart with his right arm and entered his left hand on the butt of his favorite revolver instantly he knew that someone had been there
he could find no trace of a clue to confirm his belief yet so intimate was he with the spirit of the place that he knew how he knew he could not have told yet he did know that someone had entered his room sat on his benches and walked over his floor
it seemed to him that he could feel the eyes of some intruder at his back he knew he was examining things too closely if anyone were watching
that he felt it he took the most open way and carried water for his flowers and moss as usual
and for the remainder of the day he rode and watched as he never had before several times he locked the wheel and crossed the swamp on foot zigzagging to cover all the space possible every rod he traveled he used the caution that sprang from knowledge of danger
several times he thought of sending for mc lean but for his life he could not make up his mind to do it
than one footprint to justify him
if he were coming for the night before he went to supper the first thing he saw as he crossed the swale was the big bays in the yard there had been no one passing that day and duncan readily agreed to watch until freckles rode to town
he told duncan of the footprint and urged him to guard closely
and filling his pipe and taking a good revolver
he thought his errand important so to turn back never occurred to freckles this was all the time or opportunity he would have he must see the bird woman and see her at once he leaned his wheel inside the fence and walked up the broad front entrance
why of course exclaimed the angel haven't you come to my party didn't you get my invitation i sent you one by mail asked freckles yes said the angel i had to help with the preparations and i couldn't find time to drive out but i wrote you a letter
i told them at the office to put it with mister duncan's mail
duncan comes to town only once a week and at times not that he's home tonight for the first in a week
but there was no danger of his ever misjudging her again you know i cannot angel he said i am afraid i do she said ruefully
and that is to hang on and win with your work i think of you every day and i just pray that those thieves are not getting ahead of you oh freckles do watch closely she was so lovely a picture as she stood before him ardent in his cause
that freckles could not take his eyes from her to notice what her friends were thinking if she did not mind why should he anyway if they really were the angel's friends probably they were better accustomed to her ways than he
her face and bared neck and arms were like the wild rose bloom her soft frock of white tulle lifted and stirred around her with the gentle evening air the beautiful golden hair that crept around her temples and ears as if it loved to cling there
was caught back and bound with broad blue satin ribbon there was a sash of blue at her waist and knots of it catching up her draperies must i go after the bird woman she pleaded indade you must answered freckles firmly
and she could not come for a short time you won't come in she pleaded i must not said freckles
and i might be forgetting meself and stay too long then said the angel we mustn't go through the house because it would disturb the story
and some cake to take to missus duncan and the babies won't that be fun freckles thought that it would be more than fun and followed delightedly the angel gave him a big glass brimming with some icy sparkling liquid
because a combination of frosty fruit juices had not been a frequent beverage with him the night was warm and the angel most beautiful and kind a triple delirium of spirit mind and body seized upon him and developed a boldness all unnatural
the open space seemed to stretch through half a dozen rooms all ablaze with lights perfumed with flowers and filled with elegantly dressed people there were glimpses of polished floors sparkling glass and fine furnishings
from somewhere the voice of his beloved bird woman arose and fell the angel crowded beside him and was watching also doesn't it look pretty she whispered
the angel began to laugh do you want to be laughing harder than that queried freckles a laugh is always good said the angel a little more avoirdupois won't hurt me go ahead well then said freckles
it's only that i feel all over as if i belonged there i could wear fine clothes and move over those floors and hold me own against the best of them but where does my laugh come in demanded the angel as if she had been defrauded
anyone who knows you even half as well as i do knows that you are never guilty of a discourtesy and you move with twice the grace of any man here why shouldn't you feel as if you belonged where people are graceful and courteous
you are kind to be thinking it you are doubly kind to be saying it the curtains parted and a woman came toward them her silks and laces trailed across the polished floors the lights gleamed on her neck and arms and flashed from rare jewels
she was smiling brightly and until she spoke freckles had not realized fully that it was his loved bird woman noticing his bewilderment she cried why freckles don't you know me in my war clothes
but she would make it as soon as possible for she was most anxious for the study while they talked the angel was busy packing a box of sandwiches cake fruit and flowers she gave him a last frosty glass thanked him repeatedly for bringing news of new material
then freckles went into the night he rode toward the limberlost with his eyes on the stars presently he removed his hat hung it to his belt and ruffled his hair to the sweep of the night wind he filled the air all the way with snatches of oratorios
gospel hymns and dialect and coon songs in a startlingly varied programme the one thing freckles knew that he could do was to sing the duncans heard him coming a mile up the corduroy and could not believe their senses
freckles unfastened the box from his belt and gave missus duncan and the children all the eatables it contained
he put the flowers back in the box and set it among his books he did not say anything but they understood it was not to be touched
but he added cheerfully it's oor sweeties freckles face slowly flushed as he took duncan's cake and started toward the swamp
freckles told him something about the evening as well as he could find words to express himself and the big man was so amazed he kept forgetting the treat in his hands
then freckles mounted his wheel and began a spin that terminated only when the biggest plymouth rock in duncan's coop saluted a new day and long lines of light reddened the east
while he sang he worshiped but the god he tried to glorify was a dim and faraway mystery the angel was warm flesh and blood every time he passed the little bark covered imprint on the trail he dismounted removed his hat
with the near approach of dawn freckles tuned his last note
the bird woman and the angel did not seem to count in the common run for they arrived on time for the third of the series and found mc lean on the line talking to freckles the boss was filled with enthusiasm over a marsh article
and as little chicken was too small to be frightened by him and big enough to be growing troublesome she was glad for his company they went to the chicken log together leaving to the happy freckles the care of the angel who had brought her banjo and a roll of songs that she wanted to hear him sing
the bird woman told them that they might practice in freckles room until she finished with little chicken
it was almost three hours before they finished and came down the west trail for their rest and lunch mc lean walked ahead keeping sharp watch on the trail and clearing it of fallen limbs from overhanging trees he sent a big piece of bark flying into the swale
and then stopped short and stared at the trail the bird woman bent forward together they studied that imprint of the angel's foot at last their eyes met the bird woman's filled with astonishment and mc lean's humid with pity
neither said a word but they knew mc lean entered the swale and hunted up the bark he replaced it and the bird woman carefully stepped over as they reached the bushes at the entrance the voice of the angel stopped them
for it was commanding and filled with much impatience freckles james ross mc lean she was saying you fill me with dark blue despair you're singing as if your voice were glass and might break at any minute
said the angel disgustedly it seems to me that if i had all the things to be proud of that you have i'd lift up my head and sing and what is it i've to be proud of ma'am politely inquired freckles why a whole
for one thing you can be good and proud over the way you've kept the timber thieves out of this lease and the trust your father has in you
i heard a big man say a few days ago that the limberlost was full of disagreeable things positive dangers unhealthful as it could be and that since the memory of the first settlers it has been a rendezvous for runaways thieves and murderers
give him a teeny opening to enlarge on his race he says that if the irish had decent territory they'd lead the world he says they've always been handicapped by lack of space and of fertile soil he says if ireland had been as big and fertile as indiana why
england wouldn't ever have had the upper hand she'd only be an appendage fancy england an appendage he says ireland has the finest orators and the keenest statesmen in europe today and when england wants to fight with whom does she fill her trenches
you should hear my father recite dear harp of my country he does it this way
made an elaborate old time bow and holding up the banjo recited in clipping feet and meter with rhythmic swing and a touch of brogue that was simply irresistible dear harp of my country the angel ardently clasped the banjo
in darkness i found thee she held it to the light
she muted the strings with her rosy palm then proudly my own irish harp i unbound thee she threw up her head and swept a ringing harmony and gave all thy chords to light freedom and song
she crashed into the notes of the accompaniment she had been playing for freckles
not darkness and lonesomeness and sadness but light freedom and song i can't begin to think offhand of all the big splendid things an irishman has to be proud of but whatever they are they are all yours and you are a part of them
i just despise that saddest when i sing business you can sing now you go over there and do it
you stand right out there before the cathedral door
and when i stop in front of you you sing
she parted the bushes and disappeared freckles straight and tense stood waiting presently before he saw she was there she was coming down the aisle toward him playing compellingly and rifts of light were touching her with golden glory
freckles stood as if transfixed the cathedral was majestically beautiful from arched dome of frescoed gold green and blue in never ending shades and harmonies to the mosaic aisle she trod
richly inlaid in choicest colors and gigantic pillars that were god's handiwork fashioned and perfected through ages of sunshine and rain but the fair young face and divinely molded form of the angel were his most perfect work of all
never had she appeared so surpassingly beautiful she was smiling encouragingly now and as she came toward him she struck the chords full and strong the heart of poor freckles almost burst with dull pain
love truth and valor do they mean they form a magic gem the angel's eyes widened curiously and her lips parted a deep color swept into her cheeks she had intended to arouse him she had more than succeeded
she was too young to know that in the effort to rouse a man women frequently kindle fires that they neither can quench nor control freckles was looking over her head now and singing that song as it never had been sung before for her alone
and instead of her helping him as she had intended he was carrying her with him on the waves of his voice away away into another world when he struck into the chorus wide eyed and panting she was swaying toward him and playing with all her might
the angel as if magnetized walked straight down the aisle to him and running her fingers into the crisp masses of his red hair tilted his head back and laid her lips on his forehead then she stepped back and faced him
you will be immortal and anything you want will be yours anything gasped freckles anything said the angel freckles arose muttered something and catching up his old bucket plunged into the swamp blindly
do you think the angel knew she did that she asked softly no said mc lean i do not but the poor boy knew it heaven help him the bird woman stared across the gently waving swale
he took no advantage he never even offered to touch her
he was fine and manly as any man ever could have been mc lean lifted his hat thank you he said simply and parted the bushes for her to enter freckles room it was her first visit
before she left she sent for her cameras and made studies of each side of it and of the cathedral she was entranced with the delicate beauty of the place while her eyes kept following freckles as if she could not believe that it could be his conception and work
and no one mentioned the concert the bird woman left mc lean and the angel to clear away the lunch and with freckles examined the walls of his room and told him all she knew about his shrubs and flowers she analyzed a cardinal flower and showed him
what he had wanted to know all summer why the bees buzzed ineffectually around it
some of his specimens were so rare that she was unfamiliar with them and with the flower book between them they knelt studying the different varieties she wandered the length of the cathedral aisle with him and it was at her suggestion that he lighted his altar with a row of flaming foxfire
as freckles came to the cabin from his long day at the swamp he saw missus chicken sweeping to the south
he stepped into the bright cosy little kitchen and as he reached down the wash basin he asked missus duncan a question mother duncan do kisses wash off so warm a wave swept her heart that a half flush mantled her face
she straightened her shoulders and glanced at her hands tenderly lord na freckles she cried
let me then offer you an illustration which may i think throw a light upon this subject what is your illustration the case of rich individuals in cities who possess many slaves
what should they fear nothing but do you observe the reason of this yes the reason is that the whole city is leagued together for the protection of each individual
very true i said but imagine one of these owners the master say of some fifty slaves together with his family and property and slaves carried off by a god into the wilderness
he is never allowed to go on a journey or to see the things which other freemen desire to see but he lives in his hole like a woman hidden in the house
and sees anything of interest very true he said and amid evils such as these will not he who is ill governed in his own person the tyrannical man i mean whom you just now decided to be the most miserable of all
he has to be master of others when he is not master of himself
but fighting and combating with other men yes he said the similitude is most exact is not his case utterly miserable and does not the actual tyrant lead a worse life than he whose life you determined to be the worst
and is truly poor if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him
he becomes and is of necessity more jealous more faithless more unjust more friendless more impious than he was at first he is the purveyor and cherisher of every sort of vice
and that he makes everybody else as miserable as himself no man of any sense will dispute your words come then i said and as the general umpire in theatrical contests proclaims the result do you also decide
there are five of them in all they are the royal timocratical oligarchical democratical tyrannical the decision will be easily given he replied they shall be choruses coming on the stage
and i must judge them in the order in which they enter by the criterion of virtue and vice happiness and misery need we hire a herald or shall i announce that the son of ariston
the best has decided that the best and justest is also the happiest and that this is he who is the most royal man and king over himself and that the worst and most unjust man
then this i said will be our first proof and there is another which may also have some weight what is that the second proof is derived from the nature of the soul seeing that the individual soul
like the state has been divided by us into three principles the division may i think furnish a new demonstration of what nature it seems to me that to these three principles three pleasures correspond
also three desires and governing powers how do you mean he said there is one principle with which as we were saying a man learns another with which he is angry the third
having many forms has no special name but is denoted by the general term appetitive from the extraordinary strength and vehemence of the desires of eating and drinking and the other sensual appetites which are the main elements of it also money loving
because such desires are generally satisfied by the help of money that is true he said if we were to say that the loves and pleasures of this third part were concerned with gain we should then be able to fall back on a single notion and might truly
and intelligibly describe this part of the soul as loving gain or money i agree with you again is not the passionate element wholly set on ruling and conquering and getting fame true
suppose we call it the contentious or ambitious would the term be suitable extremely suitable on the other hand every one sees that the principle of knowledge is wholly directed to the truth
and cares less than either of the others for gain or fame far less lover of wisdom lover of knowledge are titles which we may fitly apply to that part of the soul certainly
lovers of honour lovers of gain exactly and there are three kinds of pleasure which are their several objects very true now
with the solid advantages of gold and silver true he said and the lover of honour what will be his opinion will he not think that the pleasure of riches is vulgar while the pleasure of learning if it brings no distinction
not so far indeed from the heaven of pleasure does he not call the other pleasures necessary under the idea that if there were no necessity for them he would rather not have them there can be no doubt of that he replied since then
of the three individuals which has the greatest experience of all the pleasures which we enumerated has the lover of gain in learning the nature of essential truth greater experience of the pleasure of knowledge than the philosopher has of the pleasure of gain
i should rather say even had he desired could hardly have tasted the sweetness of learning and knowing truth
for he has a double experience yes very great again has he greater experience of the pleasures of honour or the lover of honour of the pleasures of wisdom nay he said
all three are honoured in proportion as they attain their object for the rich man and the brave man and the wise man alike have their crowd of admirers and as they all receive honour they all have experience of the pleasures of honour
but the delight which is to be found in the knowledge of true being is known to the philosopher only his experience then will enable him to judge better than any one far better and he is the only one
who has wisdom as well as experience certainly further the very faculty which is the instrument of judgment is not possessed by the covetous or ambitious man but only by the philosopher what faculty
reason with whom as we were saying
yes and reasoning is peculiarly his instrument certainly if wealth and gain were the criterion
then the praise or blame of the lover of gain would surely be the most trustworthy assuredly or if honour or victory or courage in that case the judgment of the ambitious or pugnacious would be the truest
clearly but since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges the only inference possible he replied is that pleasures which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest
and so we arrive at the result that the pleasure of the intelligent part of the soul is the pleasantest of the three and that he of us in whom this is the ruling principle has the pleasantest life
unquestionably he said the wise man speaks with authority when he approves of his own life and what does the judge affirm to be the life which is next and the pleasure which is next
who is nearer to himself than the money maker last comes the lover of gain very true he said twice in succession then has the just man overthrown the unjust in this conflict
and now comes the third trial which is dedicated to olympian zeus the saviour a sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure except that of the wise is quite true and pure all others are a shadow only and surely this will prove the greatest and most decisive of falls
yes the greatest but will you explain yourself i will work out the subject and you shall answer my questions proceed say then
true and there is a neutral state which is neither pleasure nor pain there is a state which is intermediate and a sort of repose of the soul about either that is what you mean
yes i know he said and when persons are suffering from acute pain you must have heard them say that there is nothing pleasanter than to get rid of their pain i have and there are many other cases of suffering
in which the mere rest and cessation of pain and not any positive enjoyment is extolled by them as the greatest pleasure yes he said at the time they are pleased and well content to be at rest again
when pleasure ceases that sort of rest or cessation will be painful doubtless he said then the intermediate state of rest will be pleasure and will also be pain so it would seem
but can that which is neither become both i should say not and both pleasure and pain are motions of the soul are they not yes but that which is neither
was just now shown to be rest and not motion and in a mean between them yes how then can we be right in supposing that the absence of pain is pleasure or that the absence of pleasure is pain
but all these representations when tried by the test of true pleasure are not real but a sort of imposition that is the inference look at the other class of pleasures which have no antecedent pains
and you will no longer suppose as you perhaps may at present that pleasure is only the cessation of pain or pain of pleasure what are they he said and where shall i find them there are many of them
take as an example the pleasures of smell which are very great and have no antecedent pains they come in a moment and when they depart leave no pain behind them most true he said let us not then
be induced to believe that pure pleasure is the cessation of pain or pain of pleasure no still the more numerous and violent pleasures which reach the soul through the body are generally of this sort they are reliefs of pain
that is true and the anticipations of future pleasures and pains are of a like nature yes shall i give you an illustration of them let me hear
you would allow i said that there is in nature an upper and lower and middle region i should and if a person were to go from the lower to the middle region would he not imagine that he is going up
and he who is standing in the middle and sees whence he has come would imagine that he is already in the upper region if he has never seen the true upper world to be sure he said how can he think otherwise
and truly imagine that he was descending no doubt all that would arise out of his ignorance of the true upper and middle and lower regions
and how does he live in happiness or in misery yes he said he is the only one remaining there is however i said a previous question which remains unanswered what question
i do not think that we have adequately determined the nature and number of the appetites and until this is accomplished the enquiry will always be confused well he said it is not too late to supply the omission
very true i said and observe the point which i want to understand certain of the unnecessary pleasures and appetites i conceive to be unlawful every one appears to have them but in some persons
they are controlled by the laws and by reason and the better desires prevail over them either they are wholly banished or they become few and weak while in the case of others they are stronger and there are more of them which appetites do you mean
i mean those which are awake when the reasoning and human and ruling power is asleep then the wild beast within us gorged with meat or drink starts up and having shaken off sleep
a man may not be ready to commit most true he said but when a man's pulse is healthy and temperate and when before going to sleep he has awakened his rational powers and fed them on noble thoughts and enquiries
when after pacifying the two irrational principles he rouses up the third which is reason before he takes his rest then as you know he attains truth most nearly and is least likely to be the sport of fantastic and lawless visions
i quite agree in saying this i have been running into a digression but the point which i desire to note is that in all of us even in good men there is a lawless wild beast nature which peers out in sleep pray
consider whether i am right and you agree with me yes i agree and now remember the character which we attributed to the democratic man he was supposed from his youth upwards to have been trained under a miserly parent
who encouraged the saving appetites in him but discountenanced the unnecessary which aim only at amusement and ornament true and then he got into the company of a more refined licentious sort of people
and taking to all their wanton ways rushed into the opposite extreme from an abhorrence of his father's meanness at last being a better man than his corruptors he was drawn in both directions
and led a life not of vulgar and slavish passion but of what he deemed moderate indulgence in various pleasures after this manner the democrat was generated out of the oligarch yes he said that was our view of him and is so still
and now i said
and you must conceive this man such as he is to have a son who is brought up in his father's principles i can imagine him then you must further imagine the same thing to happen to the son which has already happened to the father
he is drawn into a perfectly lawless life which by his seducers is termed perfect liberty and his father and friends take part with his moderate desires and the opposite party assist the opposite ones
as soon as these dire magicians and tyrant makers find that they are losing their hold on him they contrive to implant in him a master passion to be lord over his idle and spendthrift lusts a sort of monstrous winged drone
and all the pleasures of a dissolute life now let loose come buzzing around him nourishing to the utmost the sting of desire which they implant in his drone like nature then at last this lord of the soul having madness for the captain of his guard
breaks out into a frenzy and if he finds in himself any good opinions or appetites in process of formation and there is in him any sense of shame remaining to these better principles he puts an end
and brought in madness to the full yes he said that is the way in which the tyrannical man is generated and is not this the reason why of old love has been called a tyrant i should not wonder
further i said has not a drunken man also the spirit of a tyrant he has and you know that a man who is deranged and not right in his mind will fancy that he is able to rule not only over men
but also over the gods that he will and the tyrannical man in the true sense of the word comes into being when either under the influence of nature or habit or both he becomes drunken lustful
passionate o my friend is not that so assuredly such is the man and such is his origin and next how does he live suppose as people facetiously say you were to tell me
that is certain yes and every day and every night desires grow up many and formidable and their demands are many they are indeed he said his revenues if he has any are soon spent
who is in a manner the captain of them is in a frenzy and would fain discover whom he can defraud or despoil of his property in order that he may gratify them yes that is sure to be the case he must have money
and if he fails then he will use force and plunder them yes probably and if the old man and woman fight for their own what then my friend
nay he said i should not feel at all comfortable about his parents but o heavens adeimantus on account of some new fangled love of a harlot who is anything but a necessary connection can you believe that he would strike the mother
who is his ancient friend and necessary to his very existence and would place her under the authority of the other when she is brought under the same roof with her or that under like circumstances he would do the same to his withered old father
first and most indispensable of friends for the sake of some newly found blooming youth who is the reverse of indispensable yes indeed he said i believe that he would truly then i said
a tyrannical son is a blessing to his father and mother he is indeed he replied
the old opinions which he had when a child and which gave judgment about good and evil are overthrown by those others which have just been emancipated and are now the body guard of love and share his empire these in his democratic days
when he was still subject to the laws and to his father were only let loose in the dreams of sleep but now that he is under the dominion of love
he will commit the foulest murder or eat forbidden food or be guilty of any other horrid act love is his tyrant and lives lordly in him and lawlessly and being himself a king leads him on
as a tyrant leads a state to the performance of any reckless deed by which he can maintain himself and the rabble of his associates
or those whom he himself has allowed to break loose within him by reason of a similar evil nature in himself have we not here a picture of his way of life yes indeed he said and if there are only a few of them in the state
and the rest of the people are well disposed they go away and become the body guard or mercenary soldiers of some other tyrant who may probably want them for a war and if there is no war they stay at home and do many little pieces of mischief in the city
what sort of mischief for example
even if the perpetrators of them are few in number yes i said but small and great are comparative terms and all these things in the misery and evil which they inflict upon a state do not come within a thousand miles of the tyrant
assisted by the infatuation of the people they choose from among themselves the one who has most of the tyrant in his own soul and him they create their tyrant yes he said and he will be the most fit to be a tyrant if the people yield
well and good but if they resist him as he began by beating his own father and mother so now if he has the power he beats them and will keep his dear old fatherland or motherland as the cretans say in subjection to his young retainers
this is the end of his passions and desires exactly when such men are only private individuals and before they get power this is their character they associate entirely with their own flatterers or ready tools
or if they want anything from anybody they in their turn are equally ready to bow down before them
no question also they are utterly unjust if we were right in our notion of justice yes he said and we were perfectly right let us then sum up in a word i said the character of the worst man
he is the waking reality of what we dreamed most true and this is he who being by nature most of a tyrant bears rule and the longer he lives the more of a tyrant he becomes that is certain said glaucon taking his turn to answer
be also the most miserable and he who has tyrannized longest and most most continually and truly miserable although this may not be the opinion of men in general yes he said inevitably and must not the tyrannical man
be like the tyrannical state and the democratical man like the democratical state and the same of the others certainly and as state is to state in virtue and happiness so is man in relation to man to be sure
then comparing our original city which was under a king and the city which is under a tyrant how do they stand as to virtue they are the opposite extremes he said for one is the very best and the other is the very worst
there can be no mistake i said as to which is which and therefore i will at once enquire whether you would arrive at a similar decision about their relative happiness and misery
he must not be like a child who looks at the outside and is dazzled at the pompous aspect which the tyrannical nature assumes to the beholder but let him be one who has a clear insight may i suppose that the judgment is given in the hearing of us all
and been present at his dally life and known him in his family relations where he may be seen stripped of his tragedy attire and again in the hour of public danger he shall tell us about the happiness and misery of the tyrant when compared with other men
that again he said is a very fair proposal
what do you mean he asked beginning with the state i replied would you say that a city which is governed by a tyrant is free or enslaved no city he said can be more completely enslaved and yet as you see
there are freemen as well as masters in such a state yes he said i see that there are a few
are miserably degraded and enslaved then if the man is like the state i said must not the same rule prevail his soul is full of meanness and vulgarity the best elements in him are enslaved and there is a small ruling part which is also the worst and maddest
inevitably and would you say that the soul of such an one is the soul of a freeman or of a slave he has the soul of a slave in my opinion
and the state which is enslaved under a tyrant is utterly incapable of acting voluntarily utterly incapable
is least capable of doing what she desires there is a gadfly which goads her and she is full of trouble and remorse certainly and is the city which is under a tyrant rich or poor
must be always poor and insatiable true and must not such a state and such a man be always full of fear yes indeed is there any state in which you will find more of lamentation and sorrow and groaning and pain
certainly not and is there any man in whom you will find more of this sort of misery than in the tyrannical man who is in a fury of passions and desires impossible reflecting upon these and similar evils
you held the tyrannical state to be the most miserable of states and i was right he said certainly i said and when you see the same evils in the tyrannical man what do you say of him
i do not think that he has as yet reached the utmost extreme of misery then who is more miserable
yes i replied but in this high argument you should be a little more certain and should not conjecture only for of all questions this respecting good and evil is the greatest very true
the last dash here we are marjorie he went forward to meet her
she answered crying i won't let you here joe and sam put those things down and stay here oh tom they'll surely catch you if you try it she clutched his arm as though to hold him from running into the woods but marjorie there's nothing we can do he protested please go back
the one i sent back from the ferry that day it's in the far pasture three miles away she answered
let me take the risk please no if they get me they'll get me in the open no marjorie go on back then take a horse from the stable take my horse yours yes uncle gave him to me and i give him to you you must
but they'll know no they won't but tomorrow when they find she was facing him squarely holding to his arms and shaking him matty's husband is the stableman he knows about you
you must joe sam go up to the stable and saddle my horse and bring him here run yassum replied the negroes in a breath they disappeared into the darkness tom's protest was smothered under marjorie's hand
which swept his legs from under him he sank down on the fallen log where they had been sitting together earlier in the day can you ride are you strong enough she asked anxiously yes if i once get my legs wrapped around him i can stick there marjorie if you're caught at this
all the raid will seem like an immense failure
when i could help you you're worth a dozen soldiers he exclaimed there was a moment of silence poor tom she said softly it's all so terrible isn't it and so wonderful you men have left the whole south gasping at your bravery
even uncle and he hates everything from the north says it's the most daring thing he's ever heard of but you you're from the north yes she answered we don't talk about the war he just takes it for granted that i believe everything he believes i've been here two years now
when mother and father were alive i lived in albany i'm going back just as soon as i can listen there were more horses on the road they're coming to join kirby she said i heard him say that more men were coming when uncle went down to let them in
i went to the head of the stairs to hear what they were saying uncle took them into the dining room to give them something to eat and drink then i dressed and stole down
there was something about a boat it was found ashore a few miles down the river and there was a report from chattanooga that the boat had been taken i didn't wait to hear it all oh i wish joe and sam would hurry you must get started before they leave men are going out in all directions
and kirby is taking the road to wartrace if you're ahead of him they'll never catch you star can run like the wind star my horse she explained he's a beautiful horse oh i wish they'd hurry there was anguish in her voice
why don't you go back to the house now i can't until you're on the road why not please go back now i i'll have to wait until the men have gone
then too she faltered and stopped what you can't leave by the main road i'm going to show you the way through the woods then there's a fence to jump i'm going to take star over it it was useless to protest for she became calm again and determined
i want to do it she said you've come to me for help and it's my right to help you all i can and remember i'll always be proud of it oh so proud she slipped her hand into his and they sat there quietly
straining to catch the first sounds of the negroes returning there they are general marjorie he said presently she jumped up and ran to the horse tom could see her pressing her cheek to the horse's nose stroking its head and neck go back now she said to the negroes
take everything with you if matty is up tell her that i'll be home in a few minutes yas miss marjorie again they took up the blankets and clothes and the night swallowed them mount tom ordered marjorie no don't argue hurry you'll need all your strength
laboriously he did as he was told to do with marjorie leading star they made their way through the woods once she stopped and listened they haven't started yet she said a few minutes later she stopped again there's the fence she said let me mount now
you hold star while i fix the stirrups he slid to the ground and stood there while she measured the straps with her arms and fixed the buckles he could see her plainly now in the soft moonlight which was flooding the world ahead of them was the black wall of the rail fence now she said
if you'll help me mount he held his hands braced against his knees so that they formed a step for her she was up adjusting herself to the saddle stroking star's neck talking to him softly you climb the fence and wait on the other side she ordered
once again he did as he was told to do she brought star to the fence at an easy trot let him smell it and see it
put it on the top rail as a marker she said as she turned back for the run tom spread the handkerchief on the fence a tiny spot of white to guide star over then he watched her as she retreated into the black background of the woods his heart thumping so that it hurt
star's hoofs pounded upon the soft turf then his body emerged from the shadows tom could see marjorie crouching riding to his gait holding him down for the jump at the fence there was an instant's pause star's forequarters rose slowly deliberately then
star floated over the fence he had cleared it by a foot marjorie wheeled about dismounted and readjusted the stirrups there she said now now go i can never thank you he began don't please don't even try she interrupted
good luck once again good by star dear she pressed her cheek against the horse's head good by tom remember me always he mounted and for a moment they delayed the parting he reached down and took her hand always little soldier always he said
good by listen the sounds of shouting came from the beecham's they're starting go straight ahead until you come to the road then to your left
good luck tom he glanced back and saw her standing there her arms raised above her head then he realized that he had her handkerchief
then when they turned northward tom could feel all the strength of the fine valiant animal he was riding it was a strength which seemed to flow into the road which carried him forward in long swinging leaps go it star he said go it boy in his excitement
that his legs had been too weak to carry him he leaned forward riding easily peering ahead at the road star was willing but no horse could stand such a pace forever so he reined in to a trot
they'll stop there old fellow he confided you've shown them what a pair of hind hoofs look like he remembered the road vaguely from his trip southward
through each settlement he walked star quietly but always ready to throw himself forward dig his heels into the horse's flanks and race away an hour passed two hours three hours they pressed northward steadily sometimes at a walk but usually at a comfortable steady trot
the first light of dawn found him a mile south of manchester guess we'd better begin to step lively star he said reaching forward and stroking the horse's neck star snorted and shook his head they trotted around a bend in the road ahead of them tom distinguished a man
get ready boy he whispered reining in slightly
where're you going tom held his reins in his left hand and took off his hat with his right hand
then with his hat he slapped the man's horse on the head he whooped and dug his heels into star's flanks as they shot forward he saw the other horse rear up pawing the air
tom flat against star's neck with the black mane whipping his face sped down the road past the spot where they had met andrews that first day of the raid past the widow fry's and down the one street of manchester at a full gallop keep it up star he urged
go it star we're almost there old boy go it star
star's forelegs were reaching out mechanically for the road clipping it off in huge sections each leap seemed like a convulsion
tom did not look back but he cast out short broken sentences to console his pursuer huh race me on that hunk o' dog meat get a horse if you want to race me get a horse a horse that can
run we'll race anything that wears four legs won't we star huh
guess they won't bother about us he remarked wonder how much ground we covered then must be pretty close halt it was a cry that brought a yell of exultation to tom's lips there was no mistaking it no civilian could say halt in that tone
tom pulled on the reins and star planted his feet they went sliding past the sentry with his rifle glinting in the moonlight halt there came the second warning as star came to a stop put your hands up tom dropped the reins and raised his hands star almost winded
seemed propped upon his legs rather than standing upon them his head drooped and each breath came as a great heave who are you demanded the sentry friend answered tom password haven't got it i'm keep your hands up
post number r six the call was repeated as though by an echo i'm one of the railroad raiders continued tom i'm
who was leaning half out of the window absorbed in his own thoughts he glanced back and turned to tom they're still after us he said grimly i want to drop the last box car can you get back there and tell the men yes answered tom
then in the end of the second car they passed the remaining ties and the rails forward i'll pull the pin said tom
no here shove a tie off well see if we can wreck her
bounded struck again and then bounded out of the way the men silently watched the car rolling along behind them tom shook his head in disgust let's knock the ends of these cars out he said once again they took the rail up and battered their way through
tom climbed up over the end of the tender and reported to andrews we tried to wreck it he said but the tie bounced out of the way andrews nodded and leaned from the cab
i don't dare to stop and build a fire they're too close upon us now for the first time tom realized that the raid might fail in its purpose the excitement of the race of reaching this point where the road to chattanooga lay clear before them had been upon him
it had never entered his head that their long struggle against so many obstacles could end in anything but glorious success surely they could do something to block the way of the pursuing engine can't we stop and fight he asked
we're all armed no answered andrews they'll be better armed he still believed that the engine in their rear had come from atlanta
prepared for a battle there are bridges ahead the chickamauga bridges we'll drop another car on the reseca bridge go back and tell them i'll slow down try to wreck it in the shed tom hurried back again over the wood pile
the reseca bridge which ran over the oostenaula river was covered by a long shed
a box car either wrecked or merely left standing could not be seen until the pursuing engine was almost upon it
others waited with ties the train's speed decreased get ready yelled ross then as they entered the shed go tom drew the pin the car seemed to cling to the train for several seconds then the general leaped ahead ties streamed out upon the track
the wheels of the abandoned car knocked several out of the way then as the train swung about the curve leaving the car hidden in the shed tom saw one tie resting at an angle across the track the wheels struck it and the car lurched heavily they could see no more
andrews slapped him on the back we'll have to break the wires above here
stop about a mile up here knight on a curve
yelled brown tom took up the work of dragging logs from the tender and stuffing them in the fire box he stopped once and pointed to the wood pile fuel was running low at green's station said andrews water there too asked brown
at tilton just a few miles farther on
panted andrews as he ran back put an obstruction here
it was the one they had ripped from the ties north of calhoun they forced the straight end of it under the track leaving the bent end projecting toward the pursuers a scarcely visible snag which would rip into the engine keep dropping ties men ordered andrews
brown took the throttle and pushed the general onward toward green's station tom put the last of the fuel in the fire and leaned wearily against the cab drops of rain carried by the wind splashed upon him and ran down his body streaking the soot which covered his chest and stomach
his eyes met knight's and they looked at each other dumbly
instinctively they turned toward andrews he was in the fireman's seat hands clenched and face set staring ahead he did not move until they were within sight of green's station the general stopped at the wood pile and the men jumped out
andrews waved him aside throw that wood aboard men he said but they had already attacked the pile then they heard repeated short blasts of a whistle to the southward the men paused and looked at andrews pile it in hurry he yelled
who are you demanded the keeper what's this train andrews seemed not to hear him four confederate soldiers who were standing several hundred yards away yelled and pointed in the direction of the whistling board called andrews
tom saw that his face had become suddenly drawn there was no talking now the race had reached the final test of strength while tom in the tender yanked logs loose from the pile andrews stood ready to pass them to knight who shoved them into the fire box the wood's wet
said knight the others heard him and made no reply he worked with the drafts coaxing the fire occasionally brown glanced at the steam gauge then the two engineers would exchange glances slowly the needle of the gauge crept up
in the box car the men silently dropped ties upon the tracks sometimes there was a mumble of satisfaction as a tie fell squarely across the rails
landed out of position running a mile or so behind them they caught occasional glimpses of the smoke of the texas there were moments when the smoke paused and mounted straight into the sky then a few seconds later it flattened out and rose in a long black stream
the texas was running from obstruction to obstruction clearing the way and pressing forward how had they done it how had they passed the broken rail the ties along the track the box cars and the snag those questions were pounding in the brains of andrews men
if ever a man combined determination with luck it was fuller he had started on foot from big shanty in complete ignorance of what was happening to his stolen train undoubtedly if he had known that a party of northern raiders had taken it
but expecting to find it abandoned around each curve he raced on and on until they came to the hand car then the yonah when the yonah had run out of fuel the new york was there to carry him to the rome engine when the rome engine had been stopped by the break in the track
they had shunted and outraced the train jumped the broken track
and still they pressed on the force of fuller's determination seemed greater than the force of the steam which flashed against the pistons of the texas fuller and murphy still sitting on the edge of the tender saw the abandoned box car as they swerved around the bend
fuller waved his arms up and down slowly to the engineer as a signal to come to a gradual stop they coasted down upon the box car picked it up and carried it on with them fuller and murphy climbed to the top of it murphy staying at the rear end to repeat the signals of fuller
who was perched on the front at the sight of ties lying across the track fuller's arms shot up an instant later the texas was laboring to a stop under reversed power her brakes grabbing at the wheels then when the decreasing speed of the train gave his legs the advantage
fuller was ahead heaving ties from the road
fuller caught a glimpse of the general speeding on its way
that the engine was hauling only one box car he dreaded that first sight of the reseca bridge for if andrews had left it in flames the race was over for the texas then they swept around the curve and the bridge lay before them indistinct in the drizzle of rain
it appeared intact but fuller knew that long curving shed too well through his years of travel over the road not to be suspicious of what lurked inside he waved a signal to approach gradually
the texas came to a stop wait here he yelled sliding down the ladder he ran into the shed the left forward wheel of the box car had mounted upon one of the ties thrown before it the tie was wedged diagonally across the track
and the flange had cut a deep groove in it the right wheel was nearly a foot off the track
just at the moment of losing momentum fuller made a hasty examination then ran back to the texas murphy was coming forward to meet him they've dropped the second box car in there explained fuller the front wheels are off the track we can drag it back i think
we'll have to find a coupling pin the fireman was racing through his chest looking for something which would serve to couple the cars together will this be all right he asked holding up a short crow bar yes answered fuller and bring a heavy hammer
while murphy signaled the texas into the shed fuller and the fireman ran forward with the crow bar and hammer careful now yelled fuller as the two box cars came closer together easy easy the cars met gently
while the fireman hammered the top over now run back slowly an inch at a time ordered fuller the engineer opened the throttle and the texas crept away taking up the slack in the couplings the left wheel followed back along the groove its flange had cut in the tie
fuller watched it breathlessly there came a clash of metal as the wheel slipped down from the tie and struck the track
the flange rode on the rail then settled into position forcing the right wheel up fuller yelled in triumph kicked the tie off the track and jumped for the ladder the steam hissed as the texas was thrown into reverse again they swept out of the shed pushing the two cars
the bent rail which andrews had left as a snag in the track
as it was the cars cleared it the snag caught on the low cow catcher of the engine and gave the train a mighty jerk they were past it before they knew what had happened in fact fuller did not know until later
he motioned murphy ahead what was that he asked don't know something on the track thought the engine was going off for a second they'll probably stop at green's for wood said fuller keep the whistle going
captured halt there the command came from behind they whipped about and found themselves facing a raised rifle the man was a civilian tall and lanky he waved the rifle from one to the other where're you going he demanded chattanooga
answered tom he said it coolly but it required an effort
replied the man that so asked wilson i can think of better company if you're going to keep that rifle waving around in the air what's the matter with you put your hands up an keep em up ordered the man
well this way we won't take the wrong road again said tom i'd rather walk at the end of a rifle than drown in this mud
demanded wilson huh i'm asking what sort of a yank trick this is are you a southerner or are you a yank i'll unload this gun into your head if you call me a yank answered the man
and you might have the decency answered wilson to ask us who we are before you go any further well then who are you
what was it we burned tom bridges replied tom laughing yes for burning bridges then you're wasting your time maybe answered the man but you're a going with me all the same then let's go said tom
what's the use of standing here in the mud i'll walk you back to judson an you can tell yer story there i ain't believing you and i ain't disbelieving you turn around the way you was a going
i'll let a bullet go smack into the first man that makes a move he shouldn't here was a man they couldn't talk down he was probably a good shot and ready to keep his threat if only they could get him at a disadvantage and pull their revolvers before he could fire but such hopes were shattered a few minutes later
when two horsemen pulled up before them they yelled when they saw the three prisoners good work alf
three of em hello there yanks you're a yank yourself answered tom hotly what's that we're no more yanks than you are we were on our way to enlist in the army at chattanooga and this is the way we get handled don't believe em said alf let's search em
replied alf you two ride along beside em i'm done up totin this gun the procession started again
keep to the story no talking there ordered one of the horsemen
it was nearly six o'clock when they reached the little town of judson as they went down the main street men and boys tagged along beside them plying the guards with questions the guards waved them aside and answered don't know if it's them or not picked em up a piece down the road
they stopped at a two story frame building labeled hotel one of the guards went in then motioned to the others to bring the prisoners presently they found themselves in a big room lighted by two lamps which hung from the ceiling
instantly there was commotion everyone commenced talking
he thinks he has said wilson you better keep your mouth shut yelled alf no use talkin like that alf said the man addressed as judge where did you find them down the ringgold road about five miles a murmur arose from the men
i can tell a fool just as far away as i can see you interrupted wilson you now alf keep quiet said the judge what were you men doing down the ringgold road
tom replied we got started on the wrong road this morning wilson broke in
we've sneaked through the union lines from kentucky and came across the tennessee yesterday then we got on the wrong road
for burning bridges yelled alf that's what i arrested you for all right answered wilson we're arrested for burning bridges whose bridges what bridges
he's crazier than any yank i've ever seen in my life remarked shadrack nodding toward alf
now alf said the judge you go on out to the kitchen and get something to eat i'll examine these prisoners and i'll see that you get the credit for capturing them if they are the yanks go on now he pushed alf gently toward the door alf still protesting
disappeared reluctantly into the kitchen the judge shook his head laughing that man acts a little crazy said tom oh he's hot headed said the judge
now let's search these men and see what we can find tom shadrack and wilson held their arms up while the men dumped the contents of their pockets on a table three revolvers handkerchiefs confederate money they found nothing of importance
now let's sit down here and talk this thing over said the judge where do you men say you come from from fleming county kentucky replied wilson
it was easy we didn't see a single union sentry where did you come across the river
replied wilson we'll be glad to stay here and have a good night's rest we need it joe you show them their rooms i'll keep these for the present if you don't mind he motioned towards the revolvers you can take the other things they nodded and said good night
joe handed them candles and they followed him upstairs here's one room he said two of you can sleep there you and shadrack take it said tom to wilson good night they shook hands here's the other said joe leading the way down the corridor
then closed the door and commenced to investigate it was a narrow room with one window looking out upon the yard he opened the window and looked down
he could see a wagon drawn up beside the house
just a mixture of things which had been thrown there for want of a better place he thought
he leaned over and peered in but he could see nothing then he put his ear against the thin wall and listened
loosened one tack and bent the corner up then he put his ear down and listened alf had just returned to the room why not take em to chattanooga now he was demanding turn em over to the authorities now alf said the judge
if they've come all the way from kentucky to fight for the south
they can do whatever they think best i'd take em over tonight answered alf the conversation carried along upon those lines lasted for half an hour with the judge dominating
oh for lord's sake alf shut up for a minute it seemed that the two men would fight
tom left the hole and continued his investigations
but perhaps joe might leave for a moment
plotting out a way of escaping he decided to remain at the hole listening for joe's voice
then the door of the room downstairs opened with a bang the man who had entered announced
to join the southern troops what yelled the judge there you are alf shouted triumphantly get em tom jumped to his feet there was no time to warn wilson and shadrack
to jump on that mess of farm tools below him would probably mean a broken leg
the business office of a scotch solicitor is not an especially cheerful place at any time and the interior of such a room looked particularly cheerless on a late winter afternoon in edinburgh in seventeen eighty six a boy of fifteen
sat on a high stool at an old oak desk and watched the snow falling in the street occasionally
that the boy could hear it and the cold was bitter the boy looked through the window until he almost felt the chill himself and then to keep warm held his head in his hands and fastened his eyes on the big heavy leaved book in front of him
which bore the unappealing title erskine's institutes
sometimes his eyes would involuntarily close and he would doze a few moments only to wake with a start to look quickly at another desk near the fire where his father sat steadily writing
he closed the book with a bang father yes walter lad the lawyer looked up from his writing and smiled at the figure on the high stool i'd best be going home there's no more light here to see by a good reason walter
wrap yourself up warm for the night is cold young walter slid down from his seat
he was a sturdy well built lad with tousled yellow hair
when he walked he limped but he held himself so straight that when he was still no one would have noticed the deformity five minutes later the boy was plowing his way through the narrow streets of the canongate
the old part of edinburgh that had as ancient a history of street brawls as the paris kennels nobody who could help it was abroad and walter was glad when he reached the door of his father's house in george's square and could find shelter from the cutting wind
the scotch evening meal was simple soon over and then came the time to sit before the blazing logs on the great open hearth and tell stories the older people were busy at cards in another room
and walter with a group of boys of his own age who lived in the neighborhood and liked to be with the lame lad had the fireside to themselves in front of the fire young walter was no longer the sleepy student of erskine's institutes
half of them founded on old ballads or legends he knew by heart and half the product of his own eager imagination whole poems filled with battles and hunts and knightly adventures he could recite from memory
and his eye for the color and trappings of history was so keen that the boys could see the very scenes before them they sat in a circle about him listening eagerly to story after story forgetting everything but the boy's words
and showing their fondness and admiration for the romancer in each glance walter was minstrel and prophet and historian to the boys of the canongate by the winter fire as he was to be later to the whole nation of englishmen
by the next day the snow had ceased falling and the open squares of the city presented the finest mimic battle fields that could be imagined
and carried on constant warfare as long as winter lasted walter scott and his brothers belonged to a clan that made george's square their headquarters and their nearest and dearest enemies were the boys of the crosscauseway
a poorer section of the city that lay not very far distant on the day the storm ceased walter left his high stool and ponderous book early and joined his friends in solid array in their square
while they waited for the enemy to come up from the side street the boys built snow fortifications across the square and stocked them with ammunition sufficient to stand a siege still no enemy appeared and eager for a chance to try their aim
the boys of the square boldly left their own haunts and proceeded down the crosscauseway in search of the foe the enemy's country lay through narrow winding streets and there was great need of care to avoid an ambuscade
slipping from door to door from one point of vantage to the next the boys made the whole distance of the enemy's land without sight of an enemy they came to the further boundary and raised a cheer of defiance when suddenly
a hail storm of snowballs struck them
the invaders fired one round then turned and fled before a fierce charge back the way they came the boys retreated and after them came the enemy pelting them without mercy and with good aim
in the van of the pursuit ran a tall fair haired boy who wore the bright green breeches of a tailor's clerk who was famous for his prowess in these schoolboy battles and who because of his clothes had been given the picturesque nickname of green breeks
young scott and his friends ran back into their square but the enemy were close upon their heels green breeks was now far in the lead of his forces so far in the lead that he might have been cut off had not the pursued been panic stricken
over their own fortifications the boys fled and dropped behind them for safety their banner a flag given them by a lady of the square
the tall boy leaped upon the rampart and seized the standard when a blow from a stick brought him to the ground he fell stunned and the blood poured from a cut in his head
but not to such an ending to them he hurried over to the fallen green breeks and the boys of both armies melted silently away shortly after green breeks was in the hospital his head bandaged but otherwise little the worse for his mishap
and loss of time in the tailor's shop
and none of either party could be found to tell when the wounded leader heard of walter's offer he refused to accept the money on the ground that such accidents were apt to happen to any one in battle and that he did not need the money
and received the answer that he lived with his aged grandmother who was very fond of taking snuff thereupon walter presented the old woman with a pound of snuff and as soon as green breeks was out of the hospital made him one of his friends with the opening of spring
walter spent all his spare hours in his favorite pursuit riding through the country on a search for old legends or curious tales of the neighborhood scottish history was his never ending delight
and could tell how the armies had come to meet and what was the result stories of sprites and goblins of witches and magicians were eagerly sought by him many an old woman was led to tell the lame boy with the eager eyes the tales she had heard as a schoolgirl
and the harder the nooks were to reach the better they liked them walter in spite of his lameness was a good climber and time and again when it seemed as though they had contrived to get into a place from which there was no way out
he would manage to discover some jutting stone or crevice in the rock that allowed them finally to make a perilous escape that sort of adventure appealed to the boy tremendously
as the heroes of his stories so often had to do the boys devoured a great many books in these expeditions
and walter so mastered the pages that he read that he could recite long passages from them to his friend weeks after they had finished the stories finally they fell into the habit of making up stories of knights for themselves
first walter telling the adventures of a knight to john and leaving the hero in some very difficult situation for john to rescue him from and then john carrying on the story with another adventure and leaving the next rescue to his friend
the stories went on from day to day and week to week because the boys grew so fond of their heroes that neither had the heart to kill the brave knight and they could find no other way to bring his adventures to an end although walter spent considerable time in his father's office
he was still studying under a tutor with other boys preparing for college he was a brilliant scholar when he wanted to be but all subjects did not interest him at one time there was a certain boy who always stood at the top of walter's class
whom young scott could not supplant try as he would finally walter noticed that whenever the master asked that boy a question the latter always fumbled with his fingers at a certain button on the lower part of his waistcoat
walter scott thereupon determined to cut off that particular button and see what would happen he found a chance soon after and cut off the button with a knife while the owner of the coat was not looking
then walter waited with the greatest interest to see what would happen the next time the master asked questions of the youth at the head of the class walter saw the boy's fingers feel for the button
when he saw it was missing he grew confused stammered muttered to himself and could not answer the question walter came next and being able to answer the question took the other boy's place chuckling to himself
he did not hold it long he had simply wished to see what would happen
who was really the better scholar in a thousand ways walter showed his love of history and romance anything that was picturesque whether it was a view or an old dirk caught his attention at once
for a short time he took lessons in oil painting from a german he soon found that he had not the eye nor the hand for the work but it happened that the teacher's father had been a soldier in the army of frederick the great and as soon as walter found this out
he plied the man with questions long afterward he said he vividly remembered the man's picturesque account of seeing a party of the famous black hussars
with the wounded cossacks themselves lying high up on the piles of straw often in good weather the boys of george's square would go on long excursions into the country frequently staying away from home for several days at a time
on one such occasion they found themselves some twenty miles away from edinburgh without a single sixpence left among them walter said afterward we were certainly put to our shifts but we asked every now and then
at a cottage door for a drink of water and one or two of the good wives observing our worn out looks brought out milk in place of water so with that and hips and haws we came in little the worse his father was not at all pleased with his long absence
and asked how he had managed with so little money pretty much like the ravens said the boy i only wished i had been as good a player on the flute
if i had his art i should like nothing better than to tramp like him from cottage to cottage over the world
it may be that as a result of these chance expeditions walter's father finally came to realize that the boy might be made use of in certain legal business that required sending messengers into the highlands
soon he was sent with some legal papers to the maclarens who lived in that beautiful lake country about loch lomond which scott
and the changing panorama unrolled before his eyes like a land of dreams it happened that walter was traveling in the company of a sergeant and six men from a highland regiment stationed in sterling
and so he journeyed quite like some ancient chieftain with a front and rear guard and bearing arms the sergeant was a thorough highlander full of stories of rob roy and of his own early adventures and an excellent companion
the trip was a great success and fired walter's desires to see more of a country which even then was only half civilized a little later he had another chance being sent north to visit another of his father's clients an old jacobite
who had fought in the uprisings of seventeen fifteen and seventeen forty five
and walter had the satisfaction of seeing the old jacobite chief making ready to bear arms again and heard him exult at the prospect of drawing claymore once more before he died the boy was so delighted at the stories the old man told
and so he spent his holiday with him riding northward on this visit the vale of perth first burst on his view long afterward he described the tremendous impression this sight made upon him i recollect pulling up the reins he wrote later
without meaning to do so and gazing on the scene before me as if i had been afraid it would shift like those in a theatre before i could distinctly observe its different parts or convince myself that what i saw was real
even as he remembered so vividly the tales the old men and women had told him when he was a very little boy the stories of his grandmother of border warfare of heroes of scotland such as watt of harden and wight willie of
merrymen much like robin hood and little john and as he remembered the romances he and his friend had read in the hills
he was growing to know scotland as no other man had ever known it the boy walter had little knowledge then of the great use to which he was later to put his love of scottish history he expected to be a lawyer and was studying to that end
but all his spare moments were spent in hunting legends of his land he became eager to visit the then wild and inaccessible region of liddesdale so that he might see the ruins of the famous castle of the hermitage
and try to pick up some of the ancient riding ballads as they were called songs which were said to be still preserved among the descendants of the old moss troopers
when they were lords of that remote castle he found a man who knew that rugged country well and for seven successive years walter scott made a raid as he called it into that country
following each stream to its source and studying every ruined tower or castle from foundation stone to topmost battlement
but everywhere they met with open welcome and from each home they gathered songs and stories and sometimes relics of border wars to take back with them to edinburgh even then the youth had little notion of what he should do
the friend he traveled with said later
at first he thought o little i dare say but the queerness and the fun in course of time scott was called to the bar as a lawyer and took his place with the dozens of young men who hung about the parliament house in edinburgh
waiting for briefs of cases to be argued there were lots of debating clubs in the scotch capital at that time and scott was a member of several some time was spent in argument but more in telling stories and in singing songs
here the young lawyer ruled supreme no other man could tell such tales as he and none knew so many and such curious songs
dressing them up to suit his taste once a friend complained that he had changed a story told him the day before
i only put a cocked hat on their heads and stick a cane into their hands to make them fit for going into company fifteen years passed and all england was reading eagerly the wonderful historical poems and romances written by a man
its people cold and uninviting suddenly all that was changed
filled with poetry a country full of glorious scenery a people descended from a line of kings even the narrow streets of edinburgh and the old canongate itself became historic ground under the wizard's spell the wizard was walter scott
and now he found the whole world as eager to hear the stories and poems he had to tell about his country
experience and thinking one the nature of experience the nature of experience can be understood only by noting that it includes an active and a passive element peculiarly combined
on the active hand experience is trying a meaning which is made explicit in the connected term experiment on the passive it is undergoing when we experience something we act upon it
we do something with it then we suffer or undergo the consequences we do something to the thing and then it does something to us in return such is the peculiar combination
the connection of these two phases of experience measures the fruitfulness or value of the experience mere activity does not constitute experience it is dispersive centrifugal
dissipating experience as trying involves change but change is meaningless transition unless it is consciously connected with the return wave of consequences which flow from it
when an activity is continued into the undergoing of consequences when the change made by action is reflected back into a change made in us the mere flux is loaded with significance
we learn something it is not experience when a child merely sticks his finger into a flame it is experience when the movement is connected with the pain which he undergoes in consequence
henceforth the sticking of the finger into flame means a burn being burned is a mere physical change like the burning of a stick of wood if it is not perceived as a consequence of some other action
blind and capricious impulses hurry us on heedlessly from one thing to another so far as this happens everything is writ in water there is none of that cumulative growth
which makes an experience in any vital sense of that term on the other hand many things happen to us in the way of pleasure and pain which we do not connect with any prior activity of our own
they are mere accidents so far as we are concerned there is no before or after to such experience no retrospect nor outlook and consequently no meaning
we get nothing which may be carried over to foresee what is likely to happen next and no gain in ability to adjust ourselves to what is coming no added control
only by courtesy can such an experience be called experience to learn from experience is to make a backward and forward connection between what we do to things and what we enjoy or suffer from things in consequence
under such conditions doing becomes a trying an experiment with the world to find out what it is like the undergoing becomes instruction discovery of the connection of things
two conclusions important for education follow one experience is primarily an active passive affair it is not primarily cognitive but two
the measure of the value of an experience lies in the perception of relationships or continuities to which it leads up it includes cognition in the degree in which it is cumulative or amounts to something or has meaning
in schools those under instruction are too customarily looked upon as acquiring knowledge as theoretical spectators minds which appropriate knowledge by direct energy of intellect
the very word pupil has almost come to mean one who is engaged not in having fruitful experiences but in absorbing knowledge directly something which is called mind or consciousness
is severed from the physical organs of activity the former is then thought to be purely intellectual and cognitive the latter to be an irrelevant and intruding physical factor the intimate union of activity
and undergoing its consequences which leads to recognition of meaning is broken instead we have two fragments mere bodily action on one side and meaning directly grasped by spiritual activity on the other
it would be impossible to state adequately the evil results which have flowed from this dualism of mind and body much less to exaggerate them some of the more striking effects may however be enumerated
a in part bodily activity becomes an intruder having nothing so it is thought to do with mental activity it becomes a distraction an evil to be contended with for the pupil has a body
and brings it to school along with his mind and the body is of necessity a wellspring of energy it has to do something but its activities not being utilized in occupation with things which yield significant results
they lead the pupil away from the lesson with which his mind ought to be occupied they are sources of mischief the chief source of the problem of discipline in schools is that the teacher has often to spend the larger part of the time
in suppressing the bodily activities which take the mind away from its material a premium is put on physical quietude on silence on rigid uniformity of posture and movement
upon a machine like simulation of the attitudes of intelligent interest the teachers business is to hold the pupils up to these requirements and to punish the inevitable deviations which occur
the nervous strain and fatigue which result with both teacher and pupil are a necessary consequence of the abnormality of the situation in which bodily activity is divorced from the perception of meaning
callous indifference and explosions from strain alternate the neglected body having no organized fruitful channels of activity breaks forth without knowing why or how into meaningless boisterousness
or settles into equally meaningless fooling both very different from the normal play of children physically active children become restless and unruly
the more quiescent so called conscientious ones spend what energy they have in the negative task of keeping their instincts and active tendencies suppressed
instead of in a positive one of constructive planning and execution they are thus educated not into responsibility for the significant and graceful use of bodily powers
but into an enforced duty not to give them free play it may be seriously asserted that a chief cause for the remarkable achievements of greek education was that it was never misled by false notions
into an attempted separation of mind and body b even however with respect to the lessons which have to be learned by the application of mind some bodily activities have to be used the senses
especially the eye and ear have to be employed to take in what the book the map the blackboard and the teacher say the lips and vocal organs and the hands have to be used to reproduce in speech and writing
what has been stowed away the senses are then regarded as a kind of mysterious conduit through which information is conducted from the external world into the mind they are spoken of as gateways
and avenues of knowledge to keep the eyes on the book and the ears open to the teacher's words is a mysterious source of intellectual grace moreover reading writing and figuring
important school arts demand muscular or motor training the muscles of eye hand and vocal organs accordingly have to be trained to act as pipes for carrying knowledge back out of the mind into external action
for it happens that using the muscles repeatedly in the same way fixes in them an automatic tendency to repeat the obvious result is a mechanical use of the bodily activities which
in spite of the generally obtrusive and interfering character of the body in mental action have to be employed more or less for the senses and muscles are used not as organic participants
in having an instructive experience but as external inlets and outlets of mind before the child goes to school he learns with his hand eye and ear
from which meaning results the boy flying a kite has to keep his eye on the kite and has to note the various pressures of the string on his hand his senses are avenues of knowledge
not because external facts are somehow conveyed to the brain but because they are used in doing something with a purpose the qualities of seen and touched things have a bearing on what is done
and are alertly perceived they have a meaning but when pupils are expected to use their eyes to note the form of words irrespective of their meaning in order to reproduce them in spelling or reading
the resulting training is simply of isolated sense organs and muscles it is such isolation of an act from a purpose which makes it mechanical it is customary for teachers to urge children to read with expression
so as to bring out the meaning but if they originally learned the sensory motor technique of reading the ability to identify forms and to reproduce the sounds they stand for by methods which did not call for attention to meaning
a mechanical habit was established which makes it difficult to read subsequently with intelligence the vocal organs have been trained to go their own way automatically in isolation and meaning cannot be tied on at will
drawing singing and writing may be taught in the same mechanical way for we repeat any way is mechanical which narrows down the bodily activity so that a separation of body from mind
and science when laboratory exercises are given for their own sake suffer from the same evil
on the intellectual side the separation of mind from direct occupation with things throws emphasis on things at the expense of relations or connections it is altogether too common
to separate perceptions and even ideas from judgments the latter are thought to come after the former in order to compare them it is alleged that the mind perceives things apart from relations
that it forms ideas of them in isolation from their connections with what goes before and comes after then judgment or thought is called upon to combine the separated items of knowledge
so that their resemblance or causal connection shall be brought out
every perception and every idea is a sense of the bearings use and cause of a thing we do not really know a chair or have an idea of it by inventorying and enumerating its various isolated qualities
but only by bringing these qualities into connection with something else the purpose which makes it a chair and not a table or its difference from the kind of chair we are accustomed to or the period which it represents and so on
a wagon is not perceived when all its parts are summed up it is the characteristic connection of the parts which makes it a wagon and these connections are not those of mere physical juxtaposition
they involve connection with the animals that draw it the things that are carried on it and so on judgment is employed in the perception otherwise the perception is mere sensory excitation
or else a recognition of the result of a prior judgment as in the case of familiar objects words the counters for ideals are however easily taken for ideas
and in just the degree in which mental activity is separated from active concern with the world from doing something and connecting the doing with what is undergone words symbols come to take the place of ideas
the substitution is the more subtle because some meaning is recognized but we are very easily trained to be content with a minimum of meaning
and to fail to note how restricted is our perception of the relations which confer significance we get so thoroughly used to a kind of pseudo idea a half perception
and how much keener and more extensive our observations and ideas would be if we formed them under conditions of a vital experience which required us to use judgment to hunt for the connections of the thing dealt with
there is no difference of opinion as to the theory of the matter all authorities agree that that discernment of relationships is the genuinely intellectual matter hence the educative matter
the failure arises in supposing that relationships can become perceptible without experience without that conjoint trying and undergoing of which we have spoken it is assumed that mind can grasp them
if it will only give attention and that this attention may be given at will irrespective of the situation hence the deluge of half observations of verbal ideas and unassimilated knowledge
which afflicts the world an ounce of experience is better than a ton of theory simply because it is only in experience that any theory has vital and verifiable significance an experience
a very humble experience is capable of generating and carrying any amount of theory or intellectual content but a theory apart from an experience cannot be definitely grasped even as theory
it tends to become a mere verbal formula a set of catchwords used to render thinking or genuine theorizing unnecessary and impossible because of our education we use words
thinking they are ideas to dispose of questions the disposal being in reality simply such an obscuring of perception as prevents us from seeing any longer the difficulty
two reflection in experience thought or reflection as we have already seen virtually if not explicitly is the discernment of the relation between what we try to do
and what happens in consequence no experience having a meaning is possible without some element of thought but we may contrast two types of experience according to the proportion of reflection found in them
all our experiences have a phase of cut and try in them what psychologists call the method of trial and error we simply do something and when it fails we do something else
and keep on trying till we hit upon something which works and then we adopt that method as a rule of thumb measure in subsequent procedure some experiences have very little else in them than this hit and miss or succeed process
we see that a certain way of acting and a certain consequence are connected but we do not see how they are we do not see the details of the connection the links are missing our discernment is very gross
in other cases we push our observation farther we analyze to see just what lies between so as to bind together cause and effect activity and consequence
this extension of our insight makes foresight more accurate and comprehensive the action which rests simply upon the trial and error method is at the mercy of circumstances they may change so that the act performed
does not operate in the way it was expected to but if we know in detail upon what the result depends we can look to see whether the required conditions are there the method extends our practical control for if some of the conditions are missing
set to work to supply them or if they are such as to produce undesirable effects as well we may eliminate some of the superfluous causes and economize effort
in discovery of the detailed connections of our activities and what happens in consequence the thought implied in cut and try experience is made explicit its quantity increases so that its
proportionate value is very different hence the quality of the experience changes the change is so significant that we may call this type of experience reflective that is reflective par excellence
the deliberate cultivation of this phase of thought constitutes thinking as a distinctive experience thinking in other words is the intentional endeavor to discover specific connections between something which we do and the consequences which result
so that the two become continuous their isolation and consequently their purely arbitrary going together is canceled a unified developing situation takes its place the occurrence is now understood it is explained
it is reasonable as we say that the thing should happen as it does thinking is thus equivalent to an explicit rendering of the intelligent element in our experience it makes it possible to act with an end in view
it is the condition of our having aims as soon as an infant begins to expect he begins to use something which is now going on as a sign of something to follow he is in however simple a fashion judging
for he takes one thing as evidence of something else and so recognizes a relationship any future development however elaborate it may be is only an extending and a refining of this simple act of inference
and then select more carefully from what is noted just those factors which point to something to happen the opposites once more to thoughtful action are routine and capricious behavior
the former accepts what has been customary as a full measure of possibility and omits to take into account the connections of the particular things done the latter makes the momentary act a measure of value
and ignores the connections of our personal action with the energies of the environment it says virtually things are to be just as i happen to like them at this instant as routine says in effect
let things continue just as i have found them in the past both refuse to acknowledge responsibility for the future consequences which flow from present action reflection is the acceptance of such responsibility
the starting point of any process of thinking is something going on something which just as it stands is incomplete or unfulfilled its point its meaning lies literally in what it is going to be
in how it is going to turn out as this is written the world is filled with the clang of contending armies for an active participant in the war it is clear that the momentous thing is the issue the future consequences
of this and that happening he is identified for the time at least with the issue his fate hangs upon the course things are taking but even for an onlooker in a neutral country the significance of every move made
of every advance here and retreat there lies in what it portends to think upon the news as it comes to us is to attempt to see what is indicated as probable or possible regarding an outcome
to fill our heads like a scrapbook with this and that item as a finished and done for thing is not to think it is to turn ourselves into a piece of registering apparatus
to consider the bearing of the occurrence upon what may be but is not yet is to think nor will the reflective experience be different in kind if we substitute distance in time for separation in space
imagine the war done with and a future historian giving an account of it the episode is by assumption past but he cannot give a thoughtful account of the war save as he preserves the time sequence
the meaning of each occurrence as he deals with it lies in what was future for it though not for the historian to take it by itself as a complete existence is to take it unreflectively reflection also implies concern with the issue
when it was the seven hundred and thirty sixth night she said it hath reached me o auspicious king that the wazir returned from the court of the great king pale with fear and with side muscles quivering for dread exceeding
hereat disquietude and terror for himself and for his people laid hold upon him and he said to the minister o wazir and who is this king's son replied the other
but praised be allah who hastened not his slaughter else had his father wasted our lands and spoiled our good quoth the king see now thy corrupt judgment in that thou didst counsel us to slay him
where is the young man the son of yonder magnanimous king and quoth the wazir o mighty king thou didst command him be put to death when the king heard this he was clean distraught
and cried out from his heart's core and in most of head saying woe to you fetch me the heads man forthright lest death fall on him so they fetched the sworder and he said
o dog an this be true i will assuredly send thee after him the heads man replied o king thou didst command me to slay him without consulting thee a second time said the king
i was in my wrath but speak the truth ere thou lose thy life and said the sworder o king he is yet in the chains of life
and his heart was set at rest then he called for ardashir and when he came he stood up to receive him and kissed his mouth saying o my son i ask pardon of allah almighty for the wrong i have done thee
and say thou not aught that may lower my credit with thy sire the great king the prince asked o king of the age and where is my father and the other answered he is come hither on thine account
thereupon quoth ardashir by thy worship i will not stir from before thee till i have cleared my honour and the honour of thy daughter from that which thou laidest to our charge for she is a pure virgin
send for the midwives and let them examine her before thee an they find her maidenhead gone i give thee leave to shed my blood
her innocence of dishonour and mine also will be made manifest so he summoned the midwives who examined the princess and found her a pure virgin and so told the king seeking largesse of him
he gave them what they sought putting off his royal robes to bestow on them and in like manner he was bountiful to all who were in the harim and they brought forth the scent cups and perfumed all the lords of estate and grandees
and not one but rejoiced with exceeding joy then the king threw his arms about ardashir's neck and entreated him with all worship and honour bidding his chief eunuchs bear him to the bath when he came out
he cast over his shoulders a costly robe and crowned him with a coronet of jewels he also girt him with a girdle of silk purfled with red gold and set with pearls and gems and mounted him on one of his noblest mares
with selle and trappings of gold inlaid with pearls and jewels then he bade his grandees and captains mount on his service and escort him to his father's presence and charged him tell his sire
hearkening to and obeying him in whatso he should bid or forbid i will not fail of this answered ardashir and farewelling him repaired to his father who at sight of him was transported for delight and springing up
advanced to meet him and embraced him whilst joy and gladness spread among
then came the wazirs and chamberlains and captains and guards and kissed the ground before the prince and rejoiced in his coming and it was a great day with them for enjoyment
for the king's son gave leave to those of king abd al kadir's officers who had accompanied him and others of the townsfolk to view the ordinance of his father's host without let or stay
and the might of his empire and all who had seen him selling stuffs in the linendrapers bazar
considering the nobility of his spirit and the loftiness of his dignity but it was his love and inclination to the king's daughter that to this had constrained him meanwhile
news of the multitude of her lover's troops came to hayat al nufus who was still jailed by her sire's commandment till they knew what he should order respecting her whether pardon and release or death and burning
and she looked down from the terrace roof of the palace and turning towards the mountains saw even these covered with armed men when she beheld all those warriors and knew that they were the army of ardashir's father
she feared lest he should be diverted from her by his sire and forget her and depart from her whereupon her father would slay her so she called a handmaid that was with her in her apartment by way of service and said to her
son of the great king and fear not when thou comest into his presence kiss the ground before him and tell him what thou art and say to him my lady saluteth thee
and would have thee to know that she is a prisoner in her father's palace awaiting his sentence whether he be minded to pardon her or put her to death and she beseecheth thee not to forget her or forsake her
for to day thou art all powerful and in whatso thou commandest no man dare cross thee wherefore an it seem good to thee to rescue her from her sire and take her with thee it were of thy bounty
for indeed she endureth all these trials for thy sake but an this seem not good to thee for that thy desire of her is at an end still speak to thy sire so haply he may intercede for her with her father and he depart not
till he have made him set her free and taken surety from and made covenant with him that he will not go about to put her to death nor work her aught of harm this is her last word to thee may allah not desolate her of thee
and ceased saying her permitted say when it was the seven hundred and thirty seventh night she continued it hath reached me o auspicious king
that the bondmaid sent by hayat al nufus
and delivered him her lady's message which when he heard he wept with sore weeping and said to her know that hayat al nufus is my mistress and that i am her slave and the captive of her love
i have not forgotten what was between us nor the bitterness of the parting day so do thou say to her after thou hast kissed her feet that i will speak with my father of her and he shall send his wazir
who sought her aforetime in marriage for me to demand her hand once more of her sire for he dare not refuse so if he send to her to consult her let her make no opposition
for i will not return to my country without her then the handmaid returned to hayat al nufus and kissing her hands delivered to her the message which when she heard she wept for very joy
and returned thanks to almighty allah such was her case but as regards ardashir he was alone with his father that night and the great king questioned him of his case
whereupon he told him all that had befallen him first and last then quoth the king what wilt thou have me do for thee o my son
i will lay waste his lands and spoil his hoards and dishonour his house
i do not desire that o my father for he hath done nothing to me deserving thereof but i wish for union with her wherefore i beseech thee of thy favour to make ready a present for her father but let it be a magnificent gift
and send it to him by thy minister the man of just judgment quoth the king i hear and consent
and return him a reply now from the time of ardashir's departure
and ceased not to be heavy at heart fearing the laying waste of his reign and the spoiling of his realm when behold the wazir came in to him and saluting him kissed ground before him
he rose up standing and received him with honour but the minister made haste to fall at his feet and kissing them cried pardon o king of the age the like of thee should not rise to the like of me for i am the least of servants slaves
know o king that prince ardashir hath acquainted his father with some of the favours and kindnesses thou hast done him wherefore he thanketh thee and sendeth thee in company of thy servant who standeth before thee
a present saluting thee and wishing thee especial blessings and prosperities
till the wazir laid the present before him when he saw it to be such gift as no money could purchase nor could one of the kings of the earth avail to the like thereof
o noble king give ear to my word and know that the great king sendeth to thee desiring thine alliance
the chaste dame and treasured gem hayat al nufus
wherefore if thou consent to this proposal and accept of him do thou agree with me for her marriage portion
replied i hear and obey for my part i make no objection and nothing can be more pleasurable to me but the girl is of full age and reason and her affair is in her own hand
so be assured that i will refer it to her and she shall choose for herself then he turned to the chief eunuch
so he repaired to the harim and kissing the princess's hands acquainted her with the great king's offer adding what sayest thou in answer
and shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say when it was the seven hundred and thirty eighth night
she pursued it hath reached me o auspicious king that the chief eunuch of the harim having informed the princess how she had been demanded in marriage by the great king and having heard her reply
returned therewith to the king and gave him this answer whereat he rejoiced with exceeding joy and calling for a costly robe of honour threw it over the wazir's shoulders furthermore
he ordered him ten thousand dinars and bade him carry the answer to the great king and crave leave for him to pay him a visit hearing and obeying answered the minister and returning to his master
delivered him the reply and abd al kadir's message and repeated all their talk whereat he rejoiced greatly
and his breast broadened and he was a most happy man king sayf al a'azam
leave to come forth to visit him so on the morrow he took horse and rode to the camp of the great king who came to meet him and saluting him seated him in the place of honour and gave him welcome
and they two sat whilst ardashir stood before them then arose an orator of the king abd al kadir's court and pronounced an eloquent discourse giving the prince joy of the attainment of his desire
and of his marriage with the princess a queen among king's daughters when he sat down the great king caused bring a chest full of pearls and gems together with fifty thousand dinars
i am my son's deputy in all that concerneth this matter
and amongst the rest fifty thousand dinars for the nuptial festivities after which they fetched the kazis and the witnesses who wrote out the contract of marriage between the prince and princess and it was a notable day
wherein all lovers made merry and all haters and enviers were mortified they spread the marriage feasts and banquets and lastly ardashir went in unto the princess and found her a jewel which had been hidden
an union pearl unthridden and a filly that none but he had ridden so he notified this to his sire
and he answered yes o king know that i would fain take my wreak of the wazir who entreated us on evil wise and the eunuch who forged a lie against us
demanding of him the minister and the castrato whereupon he despatched them both to him
after this they abode a little while
leave for his daughter to equip her for departure so he equipped her and mounted her in a takhtrawan a travelling litter of red gold inlaid with pearls and gems and drawn by noble steeds
she carried with her all her waiting women and eunuchs as well as the nurse who had returned after her flight and resumed her office then king sayf al a'azam and his son mounted
with all the lords of his land to take leave of his son in law and daughter
after they had gone some distance
so he farewelled him and his son after he had strained him to his breast and kissed him between the eyes and thanked him for his grace and favours and commended his daughter to his care then he went in to the princess
and embraced her and she kissed his hands and they wept in the standing place of parting after this he returned to his capital and ardashir and his company fared on till they reached shiraz
and they abode in all comfort and solace and joyance of life till there came to them the destroyer of delights and severer of societies the depopulator of palaces and the garnerer of graveyards
there was once in days of yore
was khorasan he owned an hundred concubines but by none of them had he been blessed with boon of child male or female all the days of his life one day among the days
he bethought him of this and fell lamenting for that the most part of his existence was past and he had not been vouchsafed a son to inherit the kingdom after him
by reason whereof there betided him sore cark and care and chagrin exceeding as he sat thus one of his mamelukes came in to him and said o my lord
at the door is a slave girl with her merchant and fairer than she eye hath never seen quoth the king hither to me with merchant and maid
heavy hips and thighs and waist of slenderest guise her sight healed all maladies and quenched the fire of sighs for she was even as the poet cries i love her madly for she is perfect fair
complete in gravity and gracious way nor overtall nor overshort the while too full for trousers are those hips that sway her shape is midmost twixt o'er small and tall
nor long to blame nor little to gainsay o'erfall her anklets tresses black as night yet in her face resplends eternal day the king seeing her marvelled at her beauty and loveliness
her symmetry and perfect grace and said to the merchant o shaykh how much for this maiden replied the merchant o my lord
since when i have travelled with her three years and she hath cost me up to the time of my coming hither other three thousand gold pieces but she is a gift from me to thee
the king robed him with a splendid robe of honour and ordered him ten thousand ducats whereupon he kissed his hands thanking him for his bounty and beneficence and went his ways
and he bade his chamberlains carry her everything she needed and shut all the doors upon her now his capital wherein he dwelt was called the white city and was seated on the sea shore
whose latticed casements overlooked the main
the wolf and the shepherd a wolf lurking near the shepherd's hut saw the shepherd and his family feasting on a roasted lamb aha he muttered what a great shouting and running about there would have been
had they caught me at just the very thing they are doing with so much enjoyment men often condemn others for what they see no wrong in doing themselves the goatherd and the goat
a goat strayed away from the flock tempted by a patch of clover the goatherd tried to call it back but in vain it would not obey him then he picked up a stone and threw it
breaking the goat's horn the goatherd was frightened do not tell the master he begged the goat no said the goat that broken horn can speak for itself
wicked deeds will not stay hid the miser a miser had buried his gold in a secret place in his garden every day he went to the spot
dug up the treasure and counted it piece by piece to make sure it was all there
that a thief who had been observing him guessed what it was the miser had hidden and one night quietly dug up the treasure and made off with it when the miser discovered his loss he was overcome with grief and despair
he groaned and cried and tore his hair
my gold o my gold cried the miser wildly
there in that hole why did you put it there why did you not keep it in the house where you could easily get it when you had to buy things buy screamed the miser angrily why i never touched the gold
i couldn't think of spending any of it the stranger picked up a large stone and threw it into the hole if that is the case he said cover up that stone it is worth just as much to you as the treasure you lost
a possession is worth no more
there was once a wolf who got very little to eat because the dogs of the village were so wide awake and watchful he was really nothing but skin and bones and it made him very downhearted to think of it
one night this wolf happened to fall in with a fine fat house dog who had wandered a little too far from home the wolf would gladly have eaten him then and there but the house dog looked strong enough to leave his marks should he try it
so the wolf spoke very humbly to the dog complimenting him on his fine appearance you can be as well fed as i am if you want to replied the dog leave the woods there you live miserably
why you have to fight hard for every bite you get follow my example and you will get along beautifully what must i do asked the wolf hardly anything answered the house dog
chase people who carry canes bark at beggars and fawn on the people of the house in return you will get tidbits of every kind chicken bones choice bits of meat sugar cake
not to speak of kind words and caresses the wolf had such a beautiful vision of his coming happiness that he almost wept but just then he noticed that the hair on the dog's neck was worn and the skin was chafed what is that on your neck
nothing at all replied the dog what nothing oh just a trifle but please tell me perhaps you see the mark of the collar to which my chain is fastened what
a chain cried the wolf don't you go wherever you please not always but what's the difference replied the dog all the difference in the world i don't care a rap for your feasts
and i wouldn't take all the tender young lambs in the world at that price and away ran the wolf to the woods
the black bull of norroway and many a hunting song they sung and song of game and glee then tuned to plaintive strains their tongue
the black black bull of norroway sudden the tapers cease to burn the minstrels cease to play the cout of keeldar by j leyden
in norroway langsyne there lived a certain lady and she had three dochters the auldest o them said to her mither mither bake me a bannock and roast me a collop
for i'm gaun awa to seek my fortune her mither did sae and the dochter gaed awa to an auld witch washerwife and telled her purpose the auld wife bade her stay that day
and gang and look out o her back door and see what she could see she saw nocht the first day the second day she did the same and saw nocht on the third day she looked again and saw a coach and six
coming along the road she ran in and telled the auld wife what she saw aweel quo the auld wife yon's for you sae they took her into the coach and galloped aff
mither bake me a bannock and roast me a collop fur i'm gaun awa to seek my fortune her mither did sae and awa she gaed to the auld wife as her sister had dune
on the third day she looked out o the back door and saw a coach and four coming along the road aweel quo the auld wife yon's for you sae they took her in and aff they set
the third dochter says to her mither mither bake me a bannock and roast me a collop for i'm gaun awa to seek my fortune her mither did sae and awa she gaed to the auld witch wife
and on coming back said to the auld wife she saw nocht but a muckle black bull coming roaring alang the road
on hearing this she was next to distracted wi grief and terror but she was lifted up and set on his back and awa they went aye they traveled and on they traveled till the lady grew faint
wi hunger eat out o my right lug says the black bull and drink out o my left lug and set by your leavings sae she did as he said and was wonderfully refreshed
they were at the place they lifted her aff his back and took her in and sent him away to a park for the night in the morning when they brought the bull hame
they took the lady into a fine shining parlor and gave her a beautiful apple telling her no to break it till she was in the greatest strait ever mortal was in in the world
again she was lifted on the bull's back and after she had ridden far and farer than i can tell they came in sight o a far bonnier castle and far farther awa than the last says the bull till her
yonder we maun be the night for my second brither lives yonder and they were at the place directly
they took the lady into a fine and rich room
bidding her no to break it till she was in the greatest strait ever mortal could be in and that wad get her out o't again she was lifted and set on his back and awa they went
till they came in sight o the far biggest castle and far farthest aff they had yet seen we maun be yonder the night says the bull
they lifted her down took her in and sent the bull to the field for the night
telling her no to break it till she was in the greatest strait mortal could be in and that wad get her out o't presently they brought hame the bull set the lady on his back and awa they went
till they came to a dark and ugsome glen where they stopped and the lady lighted down says the bull to her here ye maun stay till i gang and fight the deil
ye maun seat yoursel on that stane
and if everything round about ye turns blue i hae beated the deil but should a things turn red he'll hae conquered me she set hersel down on the stane and by and by
sae glad was she that her companion was victorious the bull returned and sought for but never could find her lang she sat and aye she grat
at last she rase and gaed awa
on she wandered till she came to a great hill o glass
till at last she came to a smith's house and the smith promised if she wad serve him seven years he wad make her iron shoon wherewi she could climb owre the glassy hill
at seven years end she got her iron shoon clamb the glassy hill and chanced to come to the auld washerwife's habitation there she was telled
of a gallant young knight that had given in some bluidy sarks to wash and whaever washed thae sarks was to be his wife the auld wife had washed till she was tired and then she set to her dochter
and whenever she began the stains came out pure and clean but the auld wife made the knight believe it was her dochter had washed the sarks so the knight and the eldest dochter were to be married
and the stranger damosel was distracted at the thought of it for she was deeply in love wi him so she bethought her of her apple and breaking it found it filled with gold and precious jewelry
the richest she had ever seen all these she said to the eldest dochter i will give you on condition that you put off your marriage for ae day and allow me to go into his room alone at night
so the lady consented but meanwhile the auld wife had prepared a sleeping drink and given it to the knight wha drank it
and wilt thou no wauken and turn to me next day she kentna what to do for grief she then brak the pear and found it filled wi jewelry far richer than the contents o the apple
and he again sleepit till morning
and he resolved to keep waking that night to try what he could hear that being the third night and the damosel being between hope and despair she brak her plum
and it held far the richest jewelry of the three she bargained as before and the auld wife as before took in the sleeping drink to the young knight's chamber but he telled her he couldna drink it that night without sweetening
he poured out the drink and sae made the auld wife think he had drunk it they a went to bed again
began as before singing seven lang years i served for thee the glassy hill i clamb for thee the bluidy shirt i wrang for thee and wilt thou no wauken and turn to me he heard
of the present confederation to preserve the union from the new york packet tuesday december fourth seventeen eighty seven hamilton to the people of the state of new york the tendency of the principle of legislation for states
or communities in their political capacities as it has been exemplified by the experiment we have made of it is equally attested by the events which have befallen all other governments of the confederate kind of which we have any account in exact proportion to its prevalence in those systems
the confirmations of this fact will be worthy of a distinct and particular examination i shall content myself with barely observing here
and have most liberally received the applauding suffrages of political writers this exceptionable principle may as truly as emphatically be styled the parent of anarchy
and that whenever they happen the only constitutional remedy is force and the immediate effect of the use of it civil war it remains to inquire how far so odious an engine of government in its application to us
in which the strongest combination would be most likely to prevail whether it consisted of those who supported or of those who resisted the general authority it would rarely happen that the delinquency to be redressed would be confined to a single member
and if there were more than one who had neglected their duty similarity of situation would induce them to unite for common defense independent of this motive of sympathy if a large and influential state should happen to be the aggressing member
to alarm the apprehensions inflame the passions and conciliate the good will even of those states which were not chargeable with any violation or omission of duty
with a view to getting rid of all external control upon their designs of personal aggrandizement the better to effect which it is presumable they would tamper beforehand with leading individuals in the adjacent states if associates could not be found at home
from the firm union of which they had so much to fear when the sword is once drawn the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation the suggestions of wounded pride the instigations of irritated resentment
would be apt to carry the states against which the arms of the union were exerted to any extremes necessary to avenge the affront or to avoid the disgrace of submission the first war of this kind would probably terminate in a dissolution
of the union this may be considered as the violent death of the confederacy its more natural death is what we now seem to be on the point of experiencing if the federal system be not speedily renovated in a more substantial form
it is not probable considering the genius of this country that the complying states would often be inclined to support the authority of the union by engaging in a war against the non complying states
they would always be more ready to pursue the milder course of putting themselves upon an equal footing with the delinquent members by an imitation of their example and the guilt of all would thus become the security of all
in the article of pecuniary contribution which would be the most usual source of delinquency it would often be impossible to decide whether it had proceeded from disinclination or inability the pretense of the latter would always be at hand
and the case must be very flagrant in which its fallacy could be detected with sufficient certainty to justify the harsh expedient of compulsion
in the majority that happened to prevail in the national council
it seems to require no pains to prove that the states ought not to prefer a national constitution which could only be kept in motion by the instrumentality of a large army continually on foot to execute the ordinary requisitions or decrees of the government and yet
this is the plain alternative involved by those who wish to deny it the power of extending its operations to individuals such a scheme if practicable at all would instantly degenerate into a military despotism but it will be found in every light
whoever considers the populousness and strength of several of these states singly at the present juncture and looks forward to what they will become even at the distance of half a century will at once dismiss as idle and visionary any scheme which aims at regulating their movements
by laws to operate upon them in their collective capacities and to be executed by a coercion applicable to them in the same capacities a project of this kind is little less romantic than the monster taming spirit which is attributed to the fabulous heroes and demi gods of antiquity
but against the weaker members and in most instances attempts to coerce the refractory and disobedient have been the signals of bloody wars in which one half of the confederacy has displayed its banners against the other half
the result of these observations to an intelligent mind must be clearly this that if it be possible at any rate to construct a federal government capable of regulating the common concerns and preserving the general tranquillity it must be founded
as to the objects committed to its care upon the reverse of the principle contended for by the opponents of the proposed constitution it must carry its agency to the persons of the citizens
it must stand in need of no intermediate legislations but must itself be empowered to employ the arm of the ordinary magistrate to execute its own resolutions the majesty of the national authority must be manifested through the medium
of the courts of justice the government of the union like that of each state must be able to address itself immediately to the hopes and fears of individuals and to attract to its support those passions which have the strongest influence upon the human heart
it must in short possess all the means and have aright to resort to all the methods of executing the powers with which it is intrusted that are possessed and exercised by the government of the particular states
the plausibility of this objection will vanish the moment we advert to the essential difference between a mere non compliance and a direct and active resistance
may be disguised under affected but unsubstantial provisions so as not to appear and of course not to excite any alarm in the people for the safety of the constitution
the state leaders may even make a merit of their surreptitious invasions of it on the ground of some temporary convenience exemption or advantage
but if the execution of the laws of the national government should not require the intervention of the state legislatures if they were to pass into immediate operation upon the citizens themselves
the particular governments could not interrupt their progress without an open and violent exertion of an unconstitutional power no omissions nor evasions would answer the end
and in such a manner as would leave no doubt that they had encroached on the national rights an experiment of this nature would always be hazardous in the face of a constitution in any degree competent to its own defense
and of a people enlightened enough to distinguish between a legal exercise and an illegal usurpation of authority
but the concurrence of the courts of justice and of the body of the people if the judges were not embarked in a conspiracy with the legislature they would pronounce the resolutions of such a majority to be contrary to the supreme law of the land unconstitutional and void
if opposition to the national government should arise from the disorderly conduct of refractory or seditious individuals it could be overcome by the same means which are daily employed against the same evil under the state governments
the magistracy being equally the ministers of the law of the land from whatever source it might emanate would doubtless be as ready to guard the national as the local regulations from the inroads of private licentiousness as
to those partial commotions and insurrections which sometimes disquiet society from the intrigues of an inconsiderable faction or from sudden or occasional illhumors
the general government could command more extensive resources for the suppression of disturbances of that kind than would be in the power of any single member and as to those mortal feuds which in certain conjunctures spread a conflagration through a whole nation
when they happen they commonly amount to revolutions and dismemberments of empire no form of government can always either avoid or control them it is in vain to hope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or precaution
from the new york packet tuesday december eleventh seventeen eighty seven madison with hamilton to the people of the state of new york the united netherlands are a confederacy of republics or rather of aristocracies
of a very remarkable texture yet confirming all the lessons derived from those which we have already reviewed the union is composed of seven coequal and sovereign states and each state or province is a composition of equal and independent cities
in all important cases not only the provinces but the cities must be unanimous the sovereignty of the union is represented by the states general consisting usually of about fifty deputies appointed by the provinces
they hold their seats some for life some for six three and one years from two provinces they continue in appointment during pleasure the states general have authority to enter into treaties and alliances
to make war and peace to raise armies and equip fleets to ascertain quotas and demand contributions in all these cases however unanimity and the sanction of their constituents are requisite
they have authority to appoint and receive ambassadors to execute treaties and alliances already formed to provide for the collection of duties on imports and exports to regulate the mint with a saving to the provincial rights
to govern as sovereigns the dependent territories the provinces are restrained unless with the general consent from entering into foreign treaties from establishing imposts injurious to others
or charging their neighbors with higher duties than their own subjects a council of state a chamber of accounts with five colleges of admiralty aid and fortify the federal administration
who is now an hereditary prince
from his great patrimonial estates from his family connections with some of the chief potentates of europe and more than all perhaps from his being stadtholder in the several provinces as well as for the union
in which provincial quality he has the appointment of town magistrates under certain regulations executes provincial decrees presides when he pleases in the provincial tribunals and has throughout the power of pardon
in his political capacity he has authority to settle disputes between the provinces when other methods fail to assist at the deliberations of the states general and at their particular conferences to give audiences to foreign ambassadors
and to keep agents for his particular affairs at foreign courts in his military capacity he commands the federal troops provides for garrisons and in general regulates military affairs disposes of all appointments from colonels to ensigns
and of the governments and posts of fortified towns in his marine capacity he is admiral general and superintends and directs every thing relative to naval forces and other naval affairs presides in the admiralties in person or by proxy
the standing army which he commands consists of about forty thousand men such is the nature of the celebrated belgic confederacy as delineated on parchment what are the characters which practice has stamped upon it
imbecility in the government discord among the provinces foreign influence and indignities a precarious existence in peace and peculiar calamities from war
it was long ago remarked by grotius that nothing but the hatred of his countrymen to the house of austria kept them from being ruined by the vices of their constitution the union of utrecht says another respectable writer
reposes an authority in the states general seemingly sufficient to secure harmony but the jealousy in each province renders the practice very different from the theory
in matters of contribution it is the practice to waive the articles of the constitution the danger of delay obliges the consenting provinces to furnish their quotas without waiting for the others
or otherwise as they can the great wealth and influence of the province of holland enable her to effect both these purposes it has more than once happened that the deficiencies had to be ultimately collected at the point of the bayonet
a thing practicable though dreadful in a confederacy where one of the members exceeds in force all the rest and where several of them are too small to meditate resistance but utterly impracticable in one composed of members several of which are equal to each other in strength and resources
and equal singly to a vigorous and persevering defense foreign ministers says sir william temple who was himself a foreign minister elude matters taken ad referendum by tampering with the provinces and cities
in sixteen eighty eight they concluded a treaty of themselves at the risk of their heads the treaty of westphalia in sixteen forty eight by which their independence was formerly and finally recognized was concluded without the consent of zealand
even as recently as the last treaty of peace with great britain the constitutional principle of unanimity was departed from a weak constitution must necessarily terminate in dissolution for want of proper powers
than out of the full exercise of the largest constitutional authorities notwithstanding the calamities produced by the stadtholdership
says the abbe mably the union could never have subsisted if the provinces had not a spring within themselves capable of quickening their tardiness and compelling them to the same way of thinking this spring is the stadtholder
it is remarked by
that in the intermissions of the stadtholdership holland by her riches and her authority which drew the others into a sort of dependence supplied the place
these are not the only circumstances which have controlled the tendency to anarchy and dissolution the surrounding powers impose an absolute necessity of union to a certain degree
at the same time that they nourish by their intrigues the constitutional vices which keep the republic in some degree always at their mercy the true patriots have long bewailed the fatal tendency of these vices
and have made no less than four regular experiments by extraordinary assemblies convened for the special purpose
as many times has their laudable zeal found it impossible to unite the public councils in reforming the known the acknowledged the fatal evils of the existing constitution
let us pause my fellow citizens for one moment over this melancholy and monitory lesson of history
and with the tear that drops for the calamities brought on mankind by their adverse opinions and selfish passions let our gratitude mingle an ejaculation to heaven
for the propitious concord which has distinguished the consultations for our political happiness a design was also conceived of establishing a general tax to be administered by the federal authority
this also had its adversaries and failed this unhappy people seem to be now suffering from popular convulsions from dissensions among the states and from the actual invasion of foreign arms
the crisis of their destiny all nations have their eyes fixed on the awful spectacle the first wish prompted by humanity is that this severe trial may issue in such a revolution of their government as will establish their union
i make no apology for having dwelt so long on the contemplation of these federal precedents experience is the oracle of truth and where its responses are unequivocal
as contradistinguished from individuals as it is a solecism in theory so in practice it is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity by substituting violence in place of law
or the destructive coercion of the sword in place of the mild and salutary coercion
that missus munt should be the first to discover the misfortune was not remarkable for she was so interested in the flats that she watched their every mutation with unwearying care in theory she despised them
they took away that old world look they cut off the sun flats house a flashy type of person but if the truth had been known she found her visits to wickham place twice as amusing since wickham mansions had arisen
and would in a couple of days learn more about them than her nieces in a couple of months or her nephew in a couple of years she would stroll across and make friends with the porters and inquire what the rents were
exclaiming for example what a hundred and twenty for a basement you'll never get it and they would answer one can but try madam the passenger lifts the provision lifts
the arrangement for coals a great temptation for a dishonest porter were all familiar matters to her and perhaps a relief from the politico economical aesthetic atmosphere that reigned at the schlegels
margaret received the information calmly and did not agree that it would throw a cloud over poor helen's life oh but helen isn't a girl with no interests she explained she has plenty of other things and other people to think about
she made a false start with the wilcoxes and she'll be as willing as we are to have nothing more to do with them for a clever girl dear how very oddly you do talk
helen'll have to have something more to do with them now that they're all opposite she may meet that paul in the street she cannot very well not bow of course she must bow but look here let's do the flowers
i was going to say the will to be interested in him has died and what else matters i look on that disastrous episode over which you were so kind as the killing of a nerve in helen
it's dead and she'll never be troubled with it again the only things that matter are the things that interest one bowing even calling and leaving cards even a dinner party we can do all those things to the wilcoxes
if they find it agreeable but the other thing the one important thing never again don't you see missus munt did not see and indeed margaret was making a most questionable statement
that any emotion any interest once vividly aroused can wholly die i also have the honour to inform you that the wilcoxes are bored with us i didn't tell you at the time
it might have made you angry and you had enough to worry you but i wrote a letter to missus w and apologized for the trouble that helen had given them she didn't answer it how very rude i wonder or was it sensible
no margaret most rude in either case one can class it as reassuring missus munt sighed she was going back to swanage on the morrow just as her nieces were wanting her most
other regrets crowded upon her for instance how magnificently she would have cut charles if she had met him face to face she had already seen him giving an order to the porter
and very common he looked in a tall hat but unfortunately his back was turned to her and though she had cut his back she could not regard this as a telling snub but you will be careful won't you she exhorted
oh certainly fiendishly careful and helen must be careful too careful over what cried helen at that moment coming into the room with her cousin nothing said margaret seized with a momentary awkwardness
careful over what aunt juley missus munt assumed a cryptic air it is only that a certain family whom we know by name but do not mention as you said yourself last night after the concert
have taken the flat opposite from the mathesons where the plants are in the balcony helen began some laughing reply and then disconcerted them all by blushing missus munt was so disconcerted that she exclaimed
what helen you don't mind them coming do you and deepened the blush to crimson of course i don't mind said helen a little crossly it is that you and meg are both so absurdly grave about it when there's nothing to be grave about at all
i'm not grave protested margaret a little cross in her turn well you look grave doesn't she frieda i don't feel grave that's all i can say you're going quite on the wrong tack
no she does not feel grave echoed missus munt i can bear witness to that she disagrees hark interrupted fraulein mosebach i hear bruno entering the hall
he was not entering the hall in fact he did not enter it for quite five minutes but frieda detected a delicate situation and said that she and helen had much better wait for bruno down below
and leave margaret and missus munt to finish arranging the flowers helen acquiesced but as if to prove that the situation was not delicate really she stopped in the doorway and said did you say the mathesons flat aunt juley
how wonderful you are i never knew that the woman who laced too tightly's name was matheson come helen said her cousin go helen said her aunt and continued to margaret almost in the same breath
helen cannot deceive me she does mind oh hush breathed margaret frieda'll hear you and she can be so tiresome she minds persisted missus munt
moving thoughtfully about the room and pulling the dead chrysanthemums out of the vases i knew she'd mind and i'm sure a girl ought to such an experience such awful coarse grained people
i know more about them than you do which you forget and if charles had taken you that motor drive well you'd have reached the house a perfect wreck oh margaret you don't know what you are in for
they're all bottled up against the drawing room window there's missus wilcox i've seen her there's paul there's evie who is a minx there's charles i saw him to start with
and who would an elderly man with a moustache and a copper coloured face be mister wilcox possibly i knew it and there's mister wilcox
complained margaret he has a remarkably good complexion for a man of his age missus munt triumphant elsewhere could afford to concede mister wilcox his complexion
she passed on from it to the plan of campaign that her nieces should pursue in the future margaret tried to stop her helen did not take the news quite as i expected but the wilcox nerve is dead in her really
so there's no need for plans it's as well to be prepared no it's as well not to be prepared
because her thought drew being from the obscure borderland she could not explain in so many words but she felt that those who prepare for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy
it is necessary to prepare for an examination or a dinner party or a possible fall in the price of stock those who attempt human relations must adopt another method or fail
because i'd sooner risk it was her lame conclusion but imagine the evenings exclaimed her aunt pointing to the mansions with the spout of the watering can
and it's almost the same room one evening they may forget to draw their blinds down and you'll see them and the next you yours and they'll see you impossible to sit out on the balconies
impossible to water the plants or even speak imagine going out of the front door and they come out opposite at the same moment and yet you tell me that plans are unnecessary and you'd rather risk it i hope to risk things all my life
oh margaret most dangerous but after all she continued with a smile there's never any great risk as long as you have money oh shame what a shocking speech money pads the edges of things said miss schlegel
god help those who have none but this is something quite new said missus munt who collected new ideas as a squirrel collects nuts and was especially attracted by those that are portable
new for me sensible people have acknowledged it for years you and i and the wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands it is so firm beneath our feet that we forget its very existence
it's only when we see someone near us tottering that we realize all that an independent income means last night when we were talking up here round the fire i began to think that the very soul of the world is economic
and that the lowest abyss is not the absence of love but the absence of coin i call that rather cynical
that's more like socialism said missus munt suspiciously call it what you like i call it going through life with one's hand spread open on the table i'm tired of these rich people who pretend to be poor
and think it shows a nice mind to ignore the piles of money that keep their feet above the waves i stand each year upon six hundred pounds and helen upon the same and tibby will stand upon eight
and as fast as our pounds crumble away into the sea they are renewed from the sea yes from the sea and all our thoughts are the thoughts of six hundred pounders and all our speeches
and because we don't want to steal umbrellas ourselves we forget that below the sea people do want to steal them and do steal them sometimes and that what's a joke up here is down there reality
really for a german she does dress charmingly oh what is it helen was looking up at the wilcoxes flat why shouldn't she i beg your pardon i interrupted you what was it you were saying about reality
i had worked round to myself as usual answered margaret in tones that were suddenly preoccupied do tell me this at all events are you for the rich or for the poor too difficult ask me another
for riches hurrah for riches for riches echoed missus munt having as it were at last secured her nut yes for riches money for ever so am i and so i am afraid are most of my acquaintances at swanage
well would you be very kind would you come round with me to the registry office there's a housemaid who won't say yes but doesn't say no on their way thither they too looked up at the wilcoxes flat
evie was in the balcony staring most rudely according to missus munt oh yes it was a nuisance there was no doubt of it helen was proof against a passing encounter but margaret began to lose confidence
might it reawake the dying nerve if the family were living close against her eyes and frieda mosebach was stopping with them for another fortnight and frieda was sharp abominably sharp and quite capable of remarking
you love one of the young gentlemen opposite yes the remark would be untrue but of the kind which if stated often enough may become true just as the remark england and germany are bound to fight
renders war a little more likely each time that it is made and is therefore made the more readily by the gutter press of either nation have the private emotions also their gutter press margaret thought so
they might by continual chatter lead helen into a repetition of the desires of june into a repetition they could not do more they could not lead her into lasting love
they were she saw it clearly journalism her father with all his defects and wrong headedness had been literature and had he lived he would have persuaded his daughter rightly the registry office was holding its morning reception
a string of carriages filled the street miss schlegel waited her turn and finally had to be content with an insidious temporary being rejected by genuine housemaids on the ground of her numerous stairs
her failure depressed her and though she forgot the failure the depression remained on her way home she again glanced up at the wilcoxes flat and took the rather matronly step of speaking about the matter to helen
helen you must tell me whether this thing worries you if what said helen who was washing her hands for lunch
no of course not really really then she admitted that she was a little worried on missus wilcox's account she implied that missus wilcox might reach backward into deep feelings
and be pained by things that never touched the other members of that clan i shan't mind if paul points at our house and says there lives the girl who tried to catch me but she might
if even that worries you we could arrange something there's no reason we should be near people who displease us or whom we displease thanks to our money we might even go away for a little well i am going away
i thought i minded nothing but really i i should be bored if you fell in love with the same man twice and she cleared her throat you did go red you know when aunt juley attacked you this morning i shouldn't have referred to it otherwise
but helen's laugh rang true as she raised a soapy hand to heaven
would she again fall in love with any of the wilcox family
there were always three or four old people sitting on the front porch of the house or puttering about the garden of the bentley farm three of the old people were women and sisters to jesse
they were a colorless soft voiced lot then there was a silent old man with thin white hair who was jesse's uncle the farmhouse was built of wood
a board outer covering over a framework of logs it was in reality not one house but a cluster of houses joined together in a rather haphazard manner
at meal times the place was like a beehive at one moment all was quiet then doors began to open feet clattered on stairs
a murmur of soft voices arose and people appeared from a dozen obscure corners besides the old people already mentioned many others lived in the bentley house there were four hired men
who was in charge of the housekeeping a dull witted girl named eliza stoughton who made beds and helped with the milking a boy who worked in the stables and jesse bentley himself the owner and overlord of it all
by the time the american civil war had been over for twenty years that part of northern ohio where the bentley farms lay had begun to emerge from pioneer life
jesse then owned machinery for harvesting grain he had built modern barns and most of his land was drained with carefully laid tile drain but in order to understand the man
we will have to go back to an earlier day the bentley family had been in northern ohio for several generations before jesse's time they came from new york state and took up land when the country was new
and land could be had at a low price for a long time they in common with all the other middle western people were very poor the land they had settled upon was heavily wooded
and covered with fallen logs and underbrush after the long hard labor of clearing these away and cutting the timber there were still the stumps to be reckoned with plows run through the fields caught on hidden roots
stones lay all about on the low places water gathered and the young corn turned yellow sickened and died when jesse bentley's father and brothers had come into their ownership of the place
much of the harder part of the work of clearing had been done but they clung to old traditions and worked like driven animals they lived as practically all of the farming people of the time lived
in the spring and through most of the winter the highways leading into the town of winesburg were a sea of mud the four young men of the family worked hard all day in the fields they ate heavily of coarse greasy food
and at night slept like tired beasts on beds of straw into their lives came little that was not coarse and brutal and outwardly they were themselves coarse and brutal
on saturday afternoons they hitched a team of horses to a three seated wagon and went off to town in town they stood about the stoves in the stores talking to other farmers or to the store keepers
they were dressed in overalls and in the winter wore heavy coats that were flecked with mud their hands as they stretched them out to the heat of the stoves were cracked and red it was difficult for them to talk
and so they for the most part kept silent when they had bought meat flour sugar and salt they went into one of the winesburg saloons and drank beer
under the influence of drink the naturally strong lusts of their natures kept suppressed by the heroic labor of breaking up new ground were released a kind of crude and animal like poetic fervor
took possession of them on the road home they stood up on the wagon seats and shouted at the stars sometimes they fought long and bitterly and at other times they broke forth into songs
once enoch bentley the older one of the boys struck his father old tom bentley with the butt of a teamster's whip and the old man seemed likely to die for days enoch lay hid in the straw in the loft of the stable
ready to flee if the result of his momentary passion turned out to be murder he was kept alive with food brought by his mother who also kept him informed of the injured man's condition
when all turned out well he emerged from his hiding place and went back to the work of clearing land as though nothing had happened the civil war brought a sharp turn to the fortunes of the bentleys
and was responsible for the rise of the youngest son jesse enoch edward harry and will bentley all enlisted and before the long war ended they were all killed for a time after they went away to the south
died suddenly and the father became altogether discouraged he talked of selling the farm and moving into town all day he went about shaking his head and muttering
the work in the fields was neglected and weeds grew high in the corn old tom hired men but he did not use them intelligently when they had gone away to the fields in the morning he wandered into the woods and sat down on a log
at eighteen he had left home to go to school to become a scholar and eventually to become a minister of the presbyterian church all through his boyhood he had been what in our country was called an odd sheep
and had not got on with his brothers of all the family only his mother had understood him and she was now dead when he came home to take charge of the farm that had at that time grown to more than six hundred acres
everyone on the farms about and in the nearby town of winesburg smiled at the idea of his trying to handle the work that had been done by his four strong brothers
there was indeed good cause to smile by the standards of his day jesse did not look like a man at all he was small and very slender and womanish of body and true to the traditions of young ministers
wore a long black coat and a narrow black string tie the neighbors were amused when they saw him after the years away and they were even more amused when they saw the woman he had married in the city
as a matter of fact jesse's wife did soon go under that was perhaps jesse's fault a farm in northern ohio in the hard years after the civil war was no place for a delicate woman
she helped to do the milking and did part of the housework she made the beds for the men and prepared their food for a year she worked every day from sunrise until late at night and then after giving birth to a child she died
as for jesse bentley although he was a delicately built man there was something within him that could not easily be killed he had brown curly hair and grey eyes that were at times hard and direct
at times wavering and uncertain not only was he slender but he was also short of stature his mouth was like the mouth of a sensitive and very determined child jesse bentley was a fanatic
within a very short time after he came home to the bentley farm he made everyone there a little afraid of him and his wife who should have been close to him as his mother had been was afraid also
at the end of two weeks after his coming old tom bentley made over to him the entire ownership of the place and retired into the background everyone retired into the background
in spite of his youth and inexperience jesse had the trick of mastering the souls of his people
that no one understood him he made everyone on the farm work as they had never worked before and yet there was no joy in the work if things went well they went well for jesse and never for the people who were his dependents
like a thousand other strong men who have come into the world here in america in these later times jesse was but half strong he could master others but he could not master himself
the running of the farm as it had never been run before was easy for him when he came home from cleveland where he had been in school he shut himself off from all of his people and began to make plans
he thought about the farm night and day and that made him successful
but to think of the farm and to be everlastingly making plans for its success was a relief to jesse
and lynceus the quick eyed saw him coming while he was still many a mile away and cried i see a hundred ships like a flock of white swans far in the east and at that they rowed hard like heroes
but the ships came nearer every hour then medeia the dark witch maiden
for she killed absyrtus her young brother and cast him into the sea and said ere my father can take up his corpse and bury it he must wait long and be left far behind and all the heroes shuddered
yet they did not punish that dark witch woman because she had won for them the golden fleece
he saw the floating corpse and he stopped a long while and bewailed his son and took him up and went home but he sent on his sailors toward the westward and bound them by a mighty curse bring back to me that dark witch woman
that she may die a dreadful death but if you return without her you shall die by the same death yourselves so the argonauts escaped for that time but father zeus saw that foul crime
and out of the heavens he sent a storm and swept the ship far from her course day after day the storm drove her amid foam and blinding mist till they knew no longer where they were for the sun was blotted from the skies
and at last the ship struck on a shoal amid low isles of mud and sand and the waves rolled over her and through her and the heroes lost all hope of life then jason cried to hera
then out and spoke the magic bough which stood upon the argo's beak because father zeus is angry all this has fallen on you for a cruel crime has been done on board
and the sacred ship is foul with blood at that some of the heroes cried medeia is the murderess let the witch woman bear her sin and die and they seized medeia
to hurl her into the sea and atone for the young boy's death but the magic bough spoke again let her live till her crimes are full vengeance waits for her slow and sure but she must live for you need her still
then all the heroes wept aloud when they heard the sentence of the oak for they knew that a dark journey lay before them and years of bitter toil and some upbraided the dark witch woman and some said
nay we are her debtors still without her we should never have won the fleece but most of them bit their lips in silence
where the titan swam across upon the bull and thence into the lazy waters of the still maeotid lake
and each man clasped his elbow and leaned his head upon his hand heartbroken with toil and hunger and gave himself up to death but brave ancaios the helmsman cheered up their hearts once more and bade them leap on land
and haul the ship with ropes and rollers for many a weary day whether over land or mud or ice i know not
better so than to wander forever disgraced by the guilt of my princes for the blood of absyrtus still tracks me and woe follows hard upon woe and now some dark horror will clutch me
unless you will cling to the land and sail southward and southward forever i shall wander beyond the atlantic to the ocean which has no shore then they blest the magic bough and sailed southward along the land
the land of mists and storms the wild wind came down dark and roaring and caught the sail and strained the ropes and away they drove twelve nights on the wide wild western sea through the foam and over the rollers
while they saw neither sun nor stars and they cried again we shall perish for we know not where we are we are lost in the dreary damp darkness and cannot tell north from south
but lynceus the long sighted called gayly from the bows take heart again brave sailors for i see a pine clad isle and the halls of the kind earth mother
turn from them for no living man can land there there is no harbour on the coast but steep walled cliffs all round
coming down toward the ship and they trembled when they saw her for her hair and face and robes shone like flame and she came and looked at medeia and medeia hid her face beneath her veil
ah wretched girl have you forgotten all your sins that you come hither to my island where the flowers bloom all the year round where is your aged father and the brother whom you killed
and the heroes prayed her but in vain and cried cleanse us from our guilt but she sent them away and said go on to malea and there you may be cleansed and return home
then a fair wind rose and they sailed eastward
till they came to the pillars of hercules and the mediterranean sea and thence they sailed on through the deeps of sardinia and past the ausonian islands
till they came to a flowery island upon a still bright summer's eve and as they neared it slowly and wearily they heard sweet songs upon the shore but when medeia heard it she started and cried beware all heroes
for these are the rocks of the sirens you must pass close by them for there is no other channel but those who listen to that song are lost then orpheus spoke the king of all minstrels let them match their song against mine
i have charmed stones and trees and dragons how much more the hearts of man
and now they could see the sirens on anthemousa the flowery isle three fair maidens sitting on the beach beneath a red rock in the setting sun among beds of crimson poppies and golden asphodel
slowly they sung and sleepily with silver voices mild and clear which stole over the golden waters and into the hearts of all the heroes in spite of orpheus's song
while silver shoals of fish came up to hearken and whispered as they broke the shining calm the wind overhead hushed his whistling as he shepherded his clouds toward the west and the clouds stood in mid blue
and listened dreaming like a flock of golden sheep and as the heroes listened the oars fell from their hands and their heads drooped on their breasts and they closed their heavy eyes
and they dreamed of bright still gardens and of slumbers under murmuring pines till all their toil seemed foolishness and they thought of their renown no more then one lifted his head suddenly and cried
what use in wandering forever let us stay here and rest awhile and another let us row to the shore and hear the words they sing and another i care not for the words but for the music
sing louder orpheus sing a bolder strain wake up these hapless sluggards or none of them will see the land of hellas more then orpheus lifted his harp and crashed his cunning hand across the strings
and his music and his voice rose like a trumpet through the still evening air into the air it rushed like thunder till the rocks rang and the sea and into their souls it rushed like wine till all hearts beat fast within their breasts
and he sung the song of perseus how the gods led him over land and sea and how he slew the loathly gorgon and won himself a peerless bride and how he sits now with the gods upon olympus a shining star in the sky
immortal with his immortal bride and honoured by all men below so orpheus sang and the sirens answering each other across the golden sea till orpheus's voice drowned the sirens
and as orpheus sang they dashed their oars into the sea and kept time to his music as they fled fast away and the sirens voices died behind them in the hissing of the foam along their wake
and knelt down before the sirens and cried sing on sing on but he could say no more for a charmed sleep came over him and a pleasant humming in his ears
and slowly they crept down toward him like leopards who creep upon their prey and their hands were like the talons of eagles as they stept across the bones of their victims to enjoy their cruel feast
and were changed into rocks until this day
and saw sicily the three cornered island under which enceladus the giant lies groaning day and night and when he turns the earth quakes and his breath bursts out in roaring flames from the highest cone of a etna
with a peak wrapt round in clouds a rock which no man could climb though he had twenty hands and feet for the stone was smooth and slippery as if polished by man's hand and half way up a misty cave looked out toward the west
and when orpheus saw it he groaned and struck his hands together and little will it help to us he cried to escape the jaws of the whirlpool for in that cave lives scylla the sea hag with a young whelp's voice
my mother warned me of her ere we sailed away from hellas she has six heads and six long necks and hides in that dark cleft and from her cave she fishes for all things which pass by for sharks and seals and dolphins
then out of the depths came thetis peleus's silver footed bride for love of her gallant husband and all her nymphs around her and they played like snow white dolphins diving on from wave to wave before the ship
they struck back her ravening heads and foul scylla whined as a whelp whines at the touch of their gentle hands but she shrank into her cave affrighted for all bad things shrink from good
where a few wild goatherds dwell but whence come these new harbours and vast works of polished stone but jason said they can be no savage people we will go in and take our chance
with strong palisades above
and the masters of the sea and we are but poor wandering mariners worn out with thirst and toil give us but food and water and we will go on our voyage in peace then the sailors laughed and answered
so they limped ashore all stiff and weary with long ragged beards and sunburnt cheeks and garments torn and weather stained and weapons rusted with the spray while the sailors laughed at them
for they were rough tongued though their hearts were frank and kind and one said these fellows are but raw sailors they look as if they had been sea sick all the day and another their legs have grown crooked with much rowing
till they waddle in their walk like ducks at that idas the rash would have struck them but jason held him back till one of the merchant kings spoke to them a tall and stately man do not be angry strangers
the rich sea going king and we will feast you well and heartily and after that you shall tell us your name but medeia hung back and trembled and whispered in jason's ear we are betrayed
and are going to our ruin for i see my countrymen among the crowd dark eyed colchi in steel mail shirts such as they wear in my father's land it is too late to turn said jason and he spoke to the merchant king
what country is this good sir and what is this new built town this is the land of the phaeaces beloved by all the immortals for they come hither and feast like friends with us and sit by our side in the hall
hither we came from liburnia to escape the unrighteous cyclopes for they robbed us peaceful merchants of our hard earned wares and wealth
and died in peace and now his son alcinous rules us
so they went up across the square and wondered still more as they went
and within against the walls stood thrones on either side down the whole length of the hall strewn with rich glossy shawls and on them the merchant kings of those crafty sea roving phaeaces sat eating and drinking in pride
and feasting there all the year round and boys of molten gold stood each on a polished altar and held torches in their hands to give light all night to the guests and round the house sat fifty maid servants
some grinding the meal in the mill some turning the spindle some weaving at the loom while their hands twinkled as they passed the shuttle like quivering aspen leaves and outside before the palace a great garden was walled round
filled full of stately fruit trees with olives and sweet figs and pomegranates pears and apples which bore the whole year round for the rich southwest wind fed them
and fell at her knees and clasped them and cried weeping as she knelt i am your guest fair queen
do not send me back to my father to die some dreadful death but let me go my way and bear my burden have i not had enough of punishment and shame who are you strange maiden and what is the meaning of your prayer
lead this girl in my maidens and let the kings decide not i
the men whose fame has run round every shore we came hither out of the ocean after sorrows such as man never saw before we went out many and come back few for many a noble comrade have we lost
so let us go as you should let your guests go in peace that the world may say alcinous is a just king but alcinous frowned and stood deep in thought and at last he spoke
no guest of ours shall fight upon our island and if you go outside they will outnumber you i will do justice between you for i know and do what is right then he turned to his kings and said
and give them clothes and they were glad when they saw the warm water for it was long since they had bathed and they washed off the sea salt from their limbs and anointed themselves from head to foot with oil and combed out their golden hair
then they came back again into the hall while the merchant kings rose up to do them honour and each man said to his neighbour no wonder that these men won fame how they stand now like giants or titans or immortals come down from olympus
and we have lost our two swift comrades the sons of the north wind but do not think us cowards if you wish to try our strength we will shoot and box and wrestle against any men on earth and alcinous smiled and answered
and running races to stretch our limbs on shore so they danced there and ran races the jolly merchant kings till the night fell and all went in and then they ate and drank and comforted their weary souls
till alcinous called a herald and bade him go and fetch the harper the herald went out and fetched the harper and led him in by the hand and alcinous cut him a piece of meat from the fattest of the haunch and sent it to him
then tell me heroes asked alcinous you who have sailed the ocean round and seen the manners of all nations have you seen such dancers as ours here or heard such music and such singing
we hold ours to be the best on earth such dancing we have never seen said orpheus and your singer is a happy man for phoebus himself must have taught him or else he is the son of a muse
as i am also and have sung once or twice though not so well as he sing to us then noble stranger said alcinous and we will give you precious gifts
and all the women wept and the merchant kings rose up each man from off his golden throne
hail to the noble argonauts who sailed the unknown seal then he went on and told their journey over the sluggish northern main and through the shoreless outer ocean to the fairy island of the west
and all the wonders they had seen till midnight passed and the day dawned but the kings never thought of sleep each man sat still and listened with his chin upon his hand and at last when orpheus had ended
they all went thoughtful out and the heroes lay down to sleep beneath the sounding porch outside
for her heart was softened and she said
after all she is our guest and my suppliant and prayers are the daughters of zeus and who too dare part man and wife after all they have endured together and alcinous smiled
the minstrel's song has charmed you but i must remember what is right for songs cannot alter justice and i must be faithful to my name alcinous i am called the man of sturdy sense and alcinous i will be
and they came and stood opposite each other but medeia stayed in the palace then alcinous spoke heroes of the colchi what is your errand about this lady to carry her home with us that she may die a shameful death
but if we return without her we must die the death she should have died what say you to this jason the a eolid said alcinous turning to the minuai i say said the cunning jason
and she will escape in her dragon car or if not thus some other way for she has a thousand plans and wiles and why return home at all brave heroes and face the long seas again and the bosphorus and the stormy euxine
and double all your toil there is many a fair land round these coasts which waits for gallant men like you better to settle there and build a city
and some cried he has spoken well and some we have had enough of roving we will sail the seas no more and the chief said at last be it so then a plague she has been to us and a plague to the house of her father
and a plague she will be to you take her since you are no wiser and we will sail away toward the north then alcinous gave them food and water and garments and rich presents of all sorts
and he gave the same to the minuai and sent them all away in peace so jason kept the dark witch maiden to breed him woe and shame and the colchi went northward into the adriatic and settled
through the darkness and the blinding rain but where they were they could not tell and they gave up all hope of life and at last they touched the ground and when daylight came they waded to the shore
on the burning shore of africa and there they wandered starving for many a weary day ere they could launch their ship again and gain the open sea and there canthus was killed while he was trying to drive off sheep
by a stone which a herdsman threw and there too mopsus died the seer who knew the voices of all birds but he could not foretell his own end for he was bitten in the foot by a snake
one of those which sprang from the gorgon's head when perseus carried it across the sands at last they rowed away toward the northward for many a weary day till their water was spent and their food eaten
and they were worn out with hunger and thirst but at last they saw a long steep island and a blue peak high among the clouds and they knew it for the peak of ida
for on a cape to the westward stood a giant taller than any mountain pine who glittered aloft against the sky like a tower of burnished brass he turned and looked on all sides round him till he saw the argo and her crew
and when he saw them he came toward them more swiftly than the swiftest horse leaping across the glens at a bound and striding at one step from down to down and when he came abreast of them
then the giant ran up a valley and vanished and the heroes lay on their oars in fear but medeia stood watching all from under her steep black brows with a cunning smile upon her lips
in his forge in a etna beneath the earth and called him talus and gave him to minos for a servant to guard the coast of crete thrice a day he walks round the island and never stops to sleep
what shall we do wise medeia we must have water or we die of thirst flesh and blood we can face fairly but who can face this red hot brass i can face red hot brass if the tale i hear be true
for they say that he has but one vein in all his body filled with liquid fire and that this vein is closed with a nail but i know not where that nail is placed but if i can get it once into these hands
for they were ashamed to leave her so alone but jason said she is dearer to me than to any of you yet i will trust her freely on shore she has more plots than we can dream of in the windings of that fair and cunning head
so they left the witch maiden on the shore and she stood there in her beauty all alone till the giant strode back red hot from head to heel while the grass hissed and smoked beneath his tread
then medeia held up a flask of crystal and said here is the ichor of youth i am medeia the enchantress
for his fame is gone out into all lands so come and i will pour this into your veins that you may live forever young and he listened to her false words that simple talus and came near and medeia said
and showed her the secret nail and she drew the nail out gently but she poured no ichor in and instead the liquid fire spouted forth like a stream of red hot iron and talus tried to leap up crying
you have betrayed me false witch maiden but she lifted up her hands before him and sang till he sank beneath her spell and as he sank his brazen limbs clanked heavily and the earth groaned beneath his weight
and the liquid fire ran from his heel like a stream of lava to the sea and medeia laughed and called to the heroes come ashore and water your ship in peace so they came and found the giant lying dead
at the southwest point of the peloponnese and there they offered sacrifices and orpheus purged them from their guilt then they rowed away again to the northward past the laconian shore and came all worn and tired by sunium
then jason went up with medeia to the palace of his uncle pelias and when he came in pelias sat by the hearth crippled and blind with age while opposite him sat a eson jason's father
crippled and blind likewise and the two old men's heads shook together as they tried to warm themselves before the fire and jason fell down at his father's knees and wept and called him by his name
whom you trusted to the centaur upon pelion and i have brought home the golden fleece and a princess of the sun's race for my bride so now give me up the kingdom pelias my uncle and fulfil your promise as i have fulfilled mine
chapter four of the limits to the authority of society over the individual what then is the rightful limit to the sovereignty of the individual over himself
how much of human life should be assigned to individuality and how much to society each will receive its proper share if each has that which more particularly concerns it
to individuality should belong the part of life in which it is chiefly the individual that is interested to society the part which chiefly interests society though society is not founded on a contract
every one who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit and the fact of living in society renders it indispensable that each should be bound to observe a certain line of conduct towards the rest this conduct consists first
to be fixed on some equitable principle of the labours and sacrifices incurred for defending the society or its members from injury and molestation these conditions society is justified in enforcing at all costs to those who endeavour to withhold fulfilment
as soon as any part of a person's conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others society has jurisdiction over it and the question whether the general welfare will or will not be promoted by interfering with it becomes open to discussion
but there is no room for entertaining any such question when a person's conduct affects the interests of no persons besides himself or needs not affect them unless they like
when the period of education is past the self regarding virtues should be inculcated human beings owe to each other help to distinguish the better from the worse and encouragement to choose the former and avoid the latter
they should be for ever stimulating each other to increased exercise of their higher faculties and increased direction of their feelings and aims towards wise instead of foolish elevating instead of degrading objects and contemplations
but neither one person nor any number of persons is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it he is the person most interested in his own well being
and even if right are as likely as not to be misapplied to individual cases
merely from without in this department therefore of human affairs individuality has its proper field of action in the conduct of human beings towards one another it is necessary that general rules should for the most part be observed
in order that people may know what they have to expect but in each person's own concerns his individual spontaneity is entitled to free exercise considerations to aid his judgment exhortations to strengthen his will may be offered to him
this is neither possible nor desirable if he is eminent in any of the qualities which conduce to his own good he is so far a proper object of admiration he is so much the nearer to the ideal perfection of human nature
though the phrase is not unobjectionable lowness or depravation of taste
and since this judgment and feeling are a fact which he would prefer to avoid it is doing him a service to warn him of it beforehand as of any other disagreeable consequence to which he exposes himself
we have a right also in various ways to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one not to the oppression of his individuality but in the exercise of ours
we are not bound for example to seek his society we have a right to avoid it though not to parade the avoidance for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us
we have a right and it may be our duty to caution others against him if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates
not because they are purposely inflicted on him for the sake of punishment a person who shows rashness obstinacy self conceit who cannot live within moderate means who cannot restrain himself from hurtful indulgences
that the inconveniences which are strictly inseparable from the unfavourable judgment of others are the only ones to which a person should ever be subjected for that portion of his conduct and character which concerns his own good
but which does not affect the interests of others in their relations with him acts injurious to others require a totally different treatment encroachment on their rights
infliction on them of any loss or damage not justified by his own rights falsehood or duplicity in dealing with them unfair or ungenerous use of advantages over them
dissimulation and insincerity irascibility on insufficient cause and resentment disproportioned to the provocation the love of domineering over others the desire to engross more than one's share of advantages
these are moral vices and constitute a bad and odious moral character unlike the self regarding faults previously mentioned which are not properly immoralities and to whatever pitch they may be carried do not constitute wickedness
and the reprobation which is due to him for an offence against the rights of others is not a merely nominal distinction it makes a vast difference both in our feelings and in our conduct towards him
whether he displeases us in things in which we think we have a right to control him or in things in which we know that we have not if he displeases us we may express our distaste and we may stand aloof from a person as well as from a thing that displeases us
he may be to us an object of pity perhaps of dislike but not of anger or resentment we shall not treat him like an enemy of society the worst we shall think ourselves justified in doing is leaving him to himself
if we do not interfere benevolently by showing interest or concern for him it is far otherwise if he has infringed the rules necessary for the protection of his fellow creatures individually or collectively
the evil consequences of his acts do not then fall on himself but on others and society as the protector of all its members must retaliate on him must inflict pain on him for the express purpose of punishment
and must take care that it be sufficiently severe in the one case he is an offender at our bar
how it may be asked can any part of the conduct of a member of society be a matter of indifference to the other members
and usually diminishes by a greater or less amount the general resources of the community if he deteriorates his bodily or mental faculties he not only brings evil upon all who depended on him for any portion of their happiness
hardly any offence that is committed would detract more from the general sum of good finally if by his vices or follies a person does no direct harm to others he is nevertheless it may be said injurious by his example
and even it will be added if the consequences of misconduct could be confined to the vicious or thoughtless individual ought society to abandon to their own guidance those who are manifestly unfit for it
if protection against themselves is confessedly due to children and persons under age
who are equally incapable of self government if gambling or drunkenness or incontinence or idleness or uncleanliness are as injurious to happiness and as great a hindrance to improvement as many or most of the acts prohibited by law
why it may be asked should not law so far as is consistent with practicability and social convenience endeavour to repress these also and as a supplement to the unavoidable imperfections of law
there must be some length of time and amount of experience after which a moral or prudential truth may be regarded as established and it is merely desired to prevent generation after generation from falling over the same precipice
which has been fatal to their predecessors i fully admit that the mischief which a person does to himself may seriously affect both through their sympathies and their interests those nearly connected with him
the moral culpability would have been the same george barnwell murdered his uncle to get money for his mistress but if he had done it to set himself up in business he would equally have been hanged
or justified by allowable self preference is a subject of moral disapprobation for that failure but not for the cause of it nor for the errors merely personal to himself which may have remotely led to it
nor occasions perceptible hurt to any assignable individual except himself the inconvenience is one which society can afford to bear for the sake of the greater good of human freedom if grown persons are to be punished for not taking proper care of themselves
which society does not pretend it has a right to exact but i cannot consent to argue the point as if society had no means of bringing its weaker members up to its ordinary standard of rational conduct except waiting till they do something irrational
it has had the whole period of childhood
and its best efforts are not always in individual cases its most successful ones but it is perfectly well able to make the rising generation as a whole as good as and a little better than itself
nor is there anything which tends more to discredit and frustrate the better means of influencing conduct than a resort to the worse if there be among those whom it is attempted to coerce into prudence or temperance any of the material
and it easily comes to be considered a mark of spirit and courage to fly in the face of such usurped authority and do with ostentation the exact opposite of what it enjoins as in the fashion of grossness which succeeded in the time of charles two
to the fanatical moral intolerance of the puritans with respect to what is said of the necessity of protecting society from the bad example set to others by the vicious or the self indulgent it is true that bad example may have a pernicious effect
and i do not see how those who believe this can think otherwise than that the example on the whole must be more salutary than hurtful since if it displays the misconduct
that is of an overruling majority though often wrong is likely to be still oftener right because on such questions they are only required to judge of their own interests of the manner in which some mode of conduct if allowed to be practised would affect themselves
but the opinion of a similar majority imposed as a law on the minority on questions of self regarding conduct is quite as likely to be wrong as right for in these cases public opinion means at the best
some people's opinion of what is good or bad for other people while very often it does not even mean that the public with the most perfect indifference passing over the pleasure or convenience of those whose conduct they censure and considering only their own preference
there are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which they have a distaste for and resent it as an outrage to their feelings as a religious bigot when charged with disregarding the religious feelings of others
no more than between the desire of a thief to take a purse and the desire of the right owner to keep it and a person's taste is as much his own peculiar concern as his opinion or his purse
it is easy for any one to imagine an ideal public which leaves the freedom and choice of individuals in all uncertain matters undisturbed and only requires them to abstain from modes of conduct which universal experience has condemned
but where has there been seen a public which set any such limit to its censorship or when does the public trouble itself about universal experience in its interferences with personal conduct it is seldom thinking of anything
but the enormity of acting or feeling differently from itself and this standard of judgment thinly disguised is held up to mankind as the dictate of religion and philosophy by nine tenths of all moralists and speculative writers
binding on ourselves and on all others what can the poor public do but apply these instructions and make their own personal feelings of good and evil if they are tolerably
obligatory on all the world the evil here pointed out is not one which exists only in theory and it may perhaps be expected that i should specify the instances in which the public of this age and country improperly invests its own preferences
i am not writing an essay on the aberrations of existing moral feeling that is too weighty a subject to be discussed parenthetically
is one of the most universal of all human propensities as a first instance consider the antipathies which men cherish on no better grounds than that persons whose religious opinions are different from theirs do not practise their religious observances
there are few acts which christians and europeans regard with more unaffected disgust than mussulmans regard this particular mode of satisfying hunger it is in the first place an offence against their religion
but this circumstance by no means explains either the degree or the kind of their repugnance for wine also is forbidden by their religion and to partake of it is by all mussulmans accounted wrong but not disgusting
their aversion to the flesh of the unclean beast is on the contrary of that peculiar character resembling an instinctive antipathy which the idea of uncleanness
when once it thoroughly sinks into the feelings seems always to excite even in those whose personal habits are anything but scrupulously cleanly and of which the sentiment of religious impurity so intense in the hindoos is a remarkable example
gross disgusting what do protestants think of these perfectly sincere feelings and of the attempt to enforce them against non catholics
or who can blame people for desiring to suppress what they regard as a scandal in the sight of god and man no stronger case can be shown for prohibiting anything which is regarded as a personal immorality
we must beware of admitting a principle of which we should resent as a gross injustice the application to ourselves the preceding instances may be objected to although unreasonably
as drawn from contingencies impossible among us opinion in this country not being likely to enforce abstinence from meats or to interfere with people for worshipping and for either marrying or not marrying according to their creed or inclination
the next example however shall be taken from an interference with liberty which we have by no means passed all danger of wherever the puritans have been sufficiently powerful as in new england and in great britain at the time of the commonwealth
there are still in this country large bodies of persons by whose notions of morality and religion these recreations are condemned and those persons belonging chiefly to the middle class
who are the ascendant power in the present social and political condition of the kingdom it is by no means impossible that persons of these sentiments may at some time or other command a majority in parliament how will the remaining portion of the community
or other preponderating power in the country and all persons must be ready to conform to the idea of a christian commonwealth as understood by the early settlers in new england if a religious profession similar to theirs
should ever succeed in regaining its lost ground as religions supposed to be declining have so often been known to do to imagine another contingency perhaps more likely to be realised than the one last mentioned
effectual sumptuary law and that in many parts of the union it is really difficult for a person possessing a very large income to find any mode of spending it which will not incur popular disapprobation
combined with the notion that the public has a right to a veto on the manner in which individuals shall spend their incomes we have only further to suppose a considerable diffusion of socialist opinions
and that no one ought to be allowed through piecework or otherwise to earn by superior skill or industry more than others can without it and they employ a moral police which occasionally becomes a physical one to deter skilful workmen from receiving
but without dwelling upon supposititious cases there are in our own day gross usurpations upon the liberty of private life actually practised and still greater ones threatened with some expectation of success
and opinions proposed which assert an unlimited right in the public not only to prohibit by law everything which it thinks wrong but in order to get at what it thinks wrong to prohibit any number of things which it admits to be innocent
the people of one english colony and of nearly half the united states have been interdicted by law from making any use whatever of fermented drinks
for prohibition of their sale is in fact as it is intended to be prohibition of their use and though the impracticability of executing the law has caused its repeal in several of the states which had adopted it
to agitate for a similar law in this country the association or alliance as it terms itself which has been formed for this purpose has acquired some notoriety
in some of his public appearances unhappily are among those who figure in political life the organ of the alliance who would deeply deplore the recognition of any principle which could be wrested to justify bigotry and persecution
undertakes to point out the broad and impassable barrier which divides such principles from those of the association all matters relating to thought opinion conscience appear to me he says to be without the sphere of legislation
vested in the state itself and not in the individual to be within it no mention is made of a third class different from either of these
which are not social but individual although it is to this class surely that the act of drinking fermented liquors belongs selling fermented liquors however is trading and trading is a social act but the infringement complained of
but on that of the buyer and consumer since the state might just as well forbid him to drink wine as purposely make it impossible for him to obtain it the secretary however says
i claim as a citizen a right to legislate whenever my social rights are invaded by the social act of another
if anything invades my social rights certainly the traffic in strong drink does it destroys my primary right of security by constantly creating and stimulating social disorder it invades my right of equality
by deriving a profit from the creation of a misery i am taxed to support it impedes my right to free moral and intellectual development by surrounding my path with dangers and by weakening and demoralising society
a theory of social rights the like of which probably never before found its way into distinct language being nothing short of this that it is the absolute social right of every individual
that every other individual shall act in every respect exactly as he ought that whosoever fails thereof in the smallest particular violates my social right and entitles me to demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance
except perhaps to that of holding opinions in secret without ever disclosing them for
not simply threatened but long since carried into triumphant effect
without doubt abstinence on one day in the week so far as the exigencies of life permit from the usual daily occupation though in no respect religiously binding on any except jews is a highly beneficial custom
by suspending the greater operations of industry on a particular day but this justification grounded on the direct interest which others have in each individual's observance of the practice
the operatives are perfectly right in thinking that if all worked on sunday seven days work would have to be given for six days wages but so long as the great mass of employments are suspended
the small number who for the enjoyment of others must still work obtain a proportional increase of earnings and they are not obliged to follow those occupations if they prefer leisure to emolument if a further remedy is sought
it might be found in the establishment by custom of a holiday on some other day of the week for those particular classes of persons the only ground therefore on which restrictions on sunday amusements can be defended must be that they are religiously wrong
diis curae it remains to be proved that society or any of its officers holds a commission from on high to avenge any supposed offence to omnipotence which is not also a wrong to our fellow creatures
the notion that it is one man's duty that another should be religious
and if admitted would fully justify them
and has been made the foundation of a society in the age of newspapers railways and the electric telegraph what here concerns us is
that this religion like other and better religions has its martyrs that its prophet and founder was for his teaching put to death by a mob that others of its adherents lost their lives by the same lawless violence
that they were forcibly expelled in a body from the country in which they first grew up while now that they have been chased into a solitary recess in the midst of a desert many in this country openly declare that it would be right only that it is not convenient
to send an expedition against them and compel them by force to conform to the opinions of other people the article of the mormonite doctrine which is the chief provocative to the antipathy which thus breaks through the ordinary restraints of religious tolerance is its sanction of polygamy
and profess to be a kind of christians no one has a deeper disapprobation than i have of this mormon institution
it is a direct infraction of that principle being a mere riveting of the chains of one half of the community and an emancipation of the other from reciprocity of obligation towards them
and however surprising this fact may appear it has its explanation in the common ideas and customs of the world which teaching women to think marriage the one thing needful make it intelligible that many a woman should prefer being one of several wives
but when the dissentients have conceded to the hostile sentiments of others far more than could justly be demanded when they have left the countries to which their doctrines were unacceptable and established themselves in a remote corner of the earth
a recent writer in some respects of considerable merit proposes to use his own words not a crusade but a civilizade against this polygamous community
to put an end to what seems to him a retrograde step in civilisation it also appears so to me but i am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilised
who have no part or concern in it let them send missionaries if they please to preach against it and let them by any fair means of which silencing the teachers is not one oppose the progress of similar doctrines among their own people
a civilisation that can thus succumb to its vanquished enemy must first have become so degenerate that neither its appointed priests and teachers nor anybody else has the capacity or will take the trouble to stand up for it
if this be so the sooner such a civilisation receives notice to quit the better it can only go on from bad to worse until destroyed and regenerated like the western empire by energetic barbarians
flying from their native country before the caliphs arrived in western india they were admitted to toleration by the hindoo sovereigns on condition of not eating beef
though not required by their religion
at six o'clock the curate of saint merri was announced the coadjutor glanced rapidly behind and saw that he was followed by another man the curate then entered followed by planchet your holiness said the curate
here is the person of whom i had the honor to speak to you planchet saluted in the manner of one accustomed to fine houses and you are disposed to serve the cause of the people asked gondy most undoubtedly said planchet
i am a frondist from my heart you see in me such as i am a person sentenced to be hung and on what account i rescued from the hands of mazarin's police a noble lord whom they were conducting back to the bastile
where he had been for five years will you name him oh you know him well my lord
ah really yes said the coadjutor i have heard this affair mentioned you raised the whole district so they told me very nearly replied planchet with a self satisfied air and your business is
that of a confectioner in the rue des lombards explain to me how it happens that following so peaceful a business you had such warlike inclinations why does my lord belonging to the church now receive me in the dress of an officer
with a sword at his side and spurs to his boots not badly answered i'faith said gondy laughing but i have you must know always had in spite of my bands warlike inclinations
well my lord before i became a confectioner i myself was three years sergeant in the piedmontese regiment and before i became sergeant i was for eighteen months the servant of monsieur d'artagnan the lieutenant of musketeers asked gondy
himself my lord but he is said to be a furious mazarinist phew whistled planchet what do you mean by that nothing my lord monsieur d'artagnan belongs to the service
monsieur d'artagnan makes it his business to defend the cardinal who pays him as much as we make it ours we citizens to attack him whom he robs you are an intelligent fellow my friend can we count upon you
you may count upon me my lord provided you want to make a complete upheaval of the city tis that exactly how many men think you you could collect together to night two hundred muskets and five hundred halberds
let there be only one man in every district who can do as much and by to morrow we shall have quite a powerful army are you disposed to obey count de rochefort i would follow him to hell and that is saying not a little
as i believe him entirely capable of the descent bravo
every frondist must put a knot of straw in his hat good give the watchword do you want money money never comes amiss at any time my lord if one has it not one must do without it
with it matters go on much better and more rapidly gondy went to a box and drew forth a bag here are five hundred pistoles he said and if the action goes off well you may reckon upon a similar sum to morrow
i will give a faithful account of the sum to your lordship said planchet putting the bag under his arm that is right i recommend the cardinal to your attention make your mind easy he is in good hands planchet went out
are you satisfied my lord he asked yes he appears to be a resolute fellow well he will do more than he has promised he will do wonders then the curate rejoined planchet who was waiting for him on the stairs
ten minutes later the curate of saint sulpice was announced as soon as the door of gondy's study was opened a man rushed in it was the count de rochefort tis you then my dear count cried gondy offering his hand
it has been made up a long time said gondy let us say no more on the subject you tell me so i believe you well we are going to give a ball to mazarin i hope so and when will the dance begin
the invitations are given for this evening said the coadjutor but the violins will not begin to play until to morrow morning
has promised me whenever i need them upon fifty soldiers yes he is making recruits and he will lend them to me
i shall replace them good my dear rochefort but that is not all what have you done with monsieur de beaufort he is in vendome where he will wait until i write to him to return to paris write to him
yes but he must make haste for hardly will the people of paris have revolted before we shall have a score of princes begging to lead them
shall i send word to him as coming from you yes certainly shall i tell him that he can count on you to the end and you will leave the command to him of the war yes but in politics you must know it is not his element
he must leave me to negotiate for my cardinal's hat in my own fashion you care about it then so much since they force me to wear a hat of a form which does not become me said gondy i wish at least that the hat should be red
i answer for his consent how soon can he be here in five days let him come and he will find a change i will answer for it therefore go and collect your fifty men and hold yourself in readiness for what
for everything is there any signal for the general rally a knot of straw in the hat very good adieu my lord
who had not found an opportunity of uttering a single word during the foregoing dialogue you will see whether i am too old to be a man of action
it was half past nine o'clock and the coadjutor required half an hour to go from the archbishop's palace to the tower of saint jacques de la boucherie he remarked that a light was burning in one of the highest windows of the tower good said he
our syndic is at his post he knocked and the door was opened the vicar himself awaited him conducted him to the top of the tower and when there pointed to a little door
placed the light which he had brought with him in a corner of the wall that the coadjutor might be able to find it on his return and went down again although the key was in the door the coadjutor knocked
come in said a voice which he recognized as that of the mendicant whom he found lying on a kind of truckle bed he rose on the entrance of the coadjutor and at that moment ten o'clock struck well said gondy have you kept your word with me
not exactly replied the mendicant how is that you asked me for five hundred men did you not well i have ten thousand for you you are not boasting do you wish for a proof yes
there were three candles alight each of which burnt before a window one looking upon the city the other upon the palais royal
the man went silently to each of the candles and blew them out one after the other what are you doing asked the coadjutor i have given the signal for what for the barricades when you leave this you will behold my men at work
only take care you do not break your legs in stumbling over some chain or your neck by falling in a hole good there is your money the same sum as that you have received already
for twenty years i have tasted nothing but water the man took the bag from the hands of the coadjutor who heard the sound of his fingers counting and handling the gold pieces ah ah said the coadjutor you are avaricious my good fellow
the mendicant sighed and threw down the bag must i always be the same said he and shall i never succeed in overcoming the old leaven oh misery oh vanity you take it however yes
but i make hereby a vow in your presence to employ all that remains to me in pious works his face was pale and drawn like that of a man who had just undergone some inward struggle
singular man muttered gondy taking his hat to go away but on turning around he saw the beggar between him and the door his first idea was that this man intended to do him some harm
your blessing your holiness before you go i beseech you he cried your holiness said gondy my friend you take me for some one else no your holiness i take you for what you are that is to say the coadjutor
i recognized you at the first glance gondy smiled and you want my blessing he said yes i have need of it the mendicant uttered these words in a tone of such humility such earnest repentance that gondy placed his hand upon him
and gave him his benediction with all the unction of which he was capable now said gondy there is a communion between us i have blessed you and you are sacred to me come have you committed some crime pursued by human justice from which i can protect you
the beggar shook his head the crime which i have committed my lord has no call upon human justice and you can only deliver me from it by blessing me frequently as you have just done come be candid said the coadjutor
you have not all your life followed the trade which you do now no my lord i have pursued it for six years only and previously where were you in the bastile
i will tell you my lord on the day when you are willing to hear my confession good at whatsoever hour of the day or night you may present yourself remember that i shall be ready to give you absolution
thank you my lord said the mendicant in a hoarse voice but i am not yet ready to receive it very well adieu
chapter thirty three ling chu torturer much had happened to mister milburgh between the time of his discovery lying bound and helpless and showing evidence that he had been in the hands of a chinese torturer and the moment he left sam stay
he had read of the murder and had been shocked and in his way grieved it was not to save odette rider that he sent his note to scotland yard but rather to avenge himself upon the man who had killed the only woman in the world who had touched his warped nature
nor had he any intention of committing suicide he had the passports which he had secured a year before in readiness for such a step he had kept that clerical uniform of his by him all that time
and was ready at a moment's notice to leave the country his tickets were in his pocket and when he despatched the district messenger to scotland yard he was on his way to waterloo station to catch the havre boat train
the police he knew would be watching the station but he had no fear that they would discover beneath the benign exterior of a country clergyman the wanted manager of lyne's store even supposing that there was a warrant out for his arrest
he turned to look into a brown mask of a face he had seen before well my man he asked with a smile what can i do for you he had asked the question in identical terms of sam stay his brain told him that much mechanically
you will come with me mister milburgh said ling chu it will be better for you if you do not make any trouble you are making a mistake
you have only to tell that policeman that i have mistaken you for milburgh who is wanted by the police on a charge of murder and i shall get into very serious trouble
i will come he said ling chu walked by his side and they passed out of waterloo station the journey to bond street remained in milburgh's memory like a horrible dream he was not used to travelling on omnibuses being something of a sybarite
who spared nothing to ensure his own comfort ling chu on the contrary had a penchant for buses and seemed to enjoy them no word was spoken until they reached the sitting room of tarling's flat milburgh expected to see the detective
he had already arrived at the conclusion that ling chu was but a messenger who had been sent by the man from shanghai to bring him to his presence but there was no sign of tarling now my friend what do you want he asked it is true i am mister milburgh
but when you say that i have committed murder you are telling a wicked lie he had gained some courage because he had expected in the first place to be taken immediately to scotland yard and placed in custody
the fact that tarling's flat lay at the end of the journey seemed to suggest that the situation was not as desperate as he had imagined ling chu turning suddenly upon milburgh gripped him by the wrist half turning as he did so
before milburgh knew what was happening he was lying on the floor face downwards with ling chu's knee in the small of his back he felt something like a wire loop slipped about his wrists and suffered an excruciating pain as the chinaman tightened the connecting link of the native handcuff
get up said ling chu sternly and exerting a surprising strength lifted the man to his feet what are you going to do said milburgh his teeth chattering with fear there was no answer
ling chu gripped the man by one hand and opening the door with the other pushed him into a room which was barely furnished against the wall there was an iron bed and on to this the man was pushed collapsing in a heap
the chinese thief catcher went about his work in a scientific fashion first he fastened and threaded a length of silk rope through one of the rails of the bed and into the slack of this he lifted milburgh's head so that he could not struggle except at the risk of being strangled
ling chu turned him over unfastened the handcuffs and methodically bound first one wrist and then the other to the side of the bed what are you going to do repeated milburgh but the chinaman made no reply
he produced from a belt beneath his blouse a wicked looking knife and the manager opened his mouth to shout he was beside himself with terror but any cause for fear had yet to come
the chinaman stopped the cry by dropping a pillow on the man's face and began deliberately to cut the clothing on the upper part of his body if you cry out he said calmly the people will think it is i who am singing chinamen have no music in their voices
and sometimes when i have sung my native songs people have come up to discover who was suffering you are acting illegally breathed milburgh in a last attempt to save the situation for your crime you will suffer imprisonment
i shall be fortunate said ling chu for prison is life but you will hang at the end of a long rope he had lifted the pillow from milburgh's face and now that pallid man was following every movement of the chinaman with a fearful eye
presently milburgh was stripped to the waist and ling chu regarded his handiwork complacently he went to a cupboard in the wall and took out a small brown bottle which he placed on a table by the side of the bed then he himself sat upon the edge of the bed and spoke
his english was almost perfect though now and again he hesitated in the choice of a word and there were moments when he was a little stilted in his speech and more than a little pedantic he spoke slowly and with great deliberation
you do not know the chinese people you have not been or lived in china when i say lived i do not mean staying for a week at a good hotel in one of the coast towns
it was not a successful residence i know nothing about mister lyne interrupted milburgh sensing that ling chu in some way associated him with thornton lyne's misadventures
if you had lived in china in the real china you might have a dim idea of our people and their characteristics it is said that the chinaman does not fear death or pain which is a slight exaggeration because i have known criminals who feared both
then he grew serious again from the western standpoint we are a primitive people from our own point of view we are rigidly honourable also and this i would emphasise
he did in fact emphasise his words to the terror of mister milburgh with the point of his knife upon the other's broad chest though so lightly was the knife held that milburgh felt nothing but the slightest tingle
we do not set the same value upon the rights of the individual as do you people in the west for example he explained carefully we are not tender with our prisoners if we think that by applying a little pressure to them we can assist the process of justice
what do you mean asked milburgh a grisly thought dawning upon his mind in britain and in america too i understand
though the americans are much more enlightened on this subject when you arrest a member of a gang you are content with cross examining him and giving him full scope for the exercise of his inventive power you ask him questions and go on asking and asking
and you do not know whether he is lying or telling the truth mister milburgh began to breathe heavily has that idea sunk into your mind asked ling chu i don't know what you mean said mister milburgh in a quavering voice
ling chu stopped him with a gesture i am perfectly well aware of what i am doing he said now listen to me a week or so ago mister thornton lyne your employer was found dead in hyde park
he was dressed in his shirt and trousers and about his body in an endeavour to stanch the wound somebody had wrapped a silk night dress he was killed in the flat of a small lady whose name i cannot pronounce but you will know her
milburgh's eyes never left the chinaman's and he nodded he was killed by you said ling chu slowly because he had discovered that you had been robbing him and you were in fear that he would hand you over to the police
that's a lie roared milburgh it's a lie i tell you it's a lie i shall discover whether it is a lie in a few moments said ling chu he put his hand inside his blouse and milburgh watched him fascinated
but he produced nothing more deadly than a silver cigarette case which he opened he selected a cigarette and lit it and for a few minutes puffed in silence his thoughtful eyes fixed upon milburgh
then he rose and went to the cupboard and took out a larger bottle and placed it beside the other ling chu pulled again at his cigarette and then threw it into the grate it is in the interests of all parties he said in his slow halting way that the truth should be known
both for the sake of my honourable master lieh jen the hunter and his honourable little lady he took up his knife and bent over the terror stricken man for god's sake don't don't half screamed half sobbed milburgh
this will not hurt you said ling chu and drew four straight lines across the other's breast the keen razor edge seemed scarcely to touch the flesh yet where the knife had passed was a thin red mark like a scratch
milburgh scarcely felt a twinge of pain only a mild irritating smarting and no more the chinaman laid down the knife and took up the smaller bottle in this he said is a vegetable extract
it is what you would call capsicum but it is not quite like your pepper because it is distilled from a native root in this bottle he picked up the larger is a chinese oil which immediately relieves the pain which capsicum causes
with a little brush i will paint capsicum on these places he touched milburgh's chest with his long white ringers little by little millimetre by millimetre my brush will move and you will experience such pain as you have never experienced before
it is pain which will rack you from head to foot and will remain with you all your life in memory sometimes he said philosophically it drives me mad but i do not think it will drive you mad
he took out the cork and dipped a little camel hair brush in the mixture withdrawing it moist with fluid he was watching milburgh all the time and when the stout man opened his mouth to yell he thrust a silk handkerchief which he drew with lightning speed from his pocket into the open mouth
wait wait gasped the muffled voice of milburgh i have something to tell you something that your master should know that is very good said ling chu coolly and pulled out the handkerchief you shall tell me the truth
what truth can i tell you asked the man sweating with fear great beads of sweat were lying on his face you shall confess the truth that you killed thornton lyne said ling chu that is the only truth i want to hear
wait wait he whimpered as the other picked up the handkerchief do you know what has happened to miss rider the chinaman checked his movement to miss rider he said quickly he pronounced the word lider
brokenly gaspingly breathlessly milburgh told the story of his meeting with sam stay in his distress and mental anguish he reproduced faithfully not only every word but every intonation and the chinaman listened with half closed eyes
then when milburgh had finished he put down his bottle and thrust in the cork my master would wish that the little woman should escape danger he said to night he does not return so i must go myself to the hospital you can wait
let me go said milburgh i will help you ling chu shook his head you can wait he said with a sinister smile i will go first to the hospital and afterwards if all is well i will return for you
their eclipse is never an abdication nevertheless let us not boast too loudly revolutions also may be deceived and grave errors have been seen let us return to eighteen thirty
of his fortune of his person of his affairs knowing the value of a minute and not always the value of a year sober serene peaceable patient a good man and a good prince sleeping with his wife
diffuse in public concise in private reputed but not proved to be a miser at bottom one of those economists who are readily prodigal at their own fancy or duty lettered
making use without mercy of superiority on mediocrity
that as it turns everything to success it admits of ruse and does not absolutely repudiate baseness but which has this valuable side that it preserves politics from violent shocks the state from fractures and society from catastrophes
minute correct vigilant attentive sagacious indefatigable contradicting himself at times and giving himself the lie bold against austria at ancona obstinate against england in spain
bombarding antwerp and paying off pritchard
with conviction inaccessible to despondency to lassitude to the taste for the beautiful and the ideal
courageous as a thinker uneasy only in the face of the chances of a european shaking up and unfitted for great political adventures always ready to risk his life never his work
as an intelligence rather than as a king endowed with observation and not with divination not very attentive to minds but knowing men that is to say requiring to see in order to judge
prompt and penetrating good sense practical wisdom easy speech prodigious memory drawing incessantly on this memory his only point of resemblance with caesar alexander and napoleon
knowing deeds facts details dates proper names ignorant of tendencies passions the diverse geniuses of the crowd the interior aspirations the hidden and obscure uprisings of souls in a word
all that can be designated as the invisible currents of consciences accepted by the surface but little in accord with france lower down extricating himself by dint of tact governing too much and not enough
an indescribable spirit of proceedings and chicanery the founder and lawyer of a dynasty having something of charlemagne and something of an attorney in short a lofty and original figure a prince who understood
and would be ranked among the most illustrious governors of history had he loved glory but a little and if he had had the sentiment of what is great to the same degree as the feeling for what is useful
he wore the uniform of the national guard
and the ribbon of the legion of honor like napoleon he went a little to chapel not at all to the chase never to the opera
he was a bit of a mason a bit of a gardener something of a doctor he bled a postilion who had tumbled from his horse louis philippe no more went about without his lancet than did
the royalists jeered at this ridiculous king the first who had ever shed blood
military execution of insurrections the rising passed over by arms the rue transnonain the counsels of war the absorption of the real country by the legal country on half shares with three hundred thousand privileged persons
these are the deeds of royalty belgium refused algeria too harshly conquered and as in the case of india by the english with more barbarism than civilization
deutz bought pritchard paid these are the doings of the reign the policy which was more domestic than national was the doing of the king as will be seen the proper deduction having been made
the king's charge is decreased this is his great fault he was modest in the name of france whence arises this fault
too much of a paternal king that incubation of a family
moreover if we deduct the public duties which require to be fulfilled first of all that deep tenderness of louis philippe towards his family was deserved by the family that domestic group was worthy of admiration
from metternich this eulogium they are young people such as are rarely seen and princes such as are never seen this without any dissimulation and also without any exaggeration
to have that disquieting side of the revolutionary which becomes reassuring in governing power therein lay the fortune of louis philippe in eighteen thirty never was there a more complete adaptation of a man to an event
the one entered into the other and the incarnation took place louis philippe is eighteen thirty made man moreover he had in his favor that great recommendation to the throne exile
he gave lessons in mathematics while his sister adelaide did wool work and sewed these souvenirs connected with a king rendered the bourgeoisie enthusiastic
the blind clairvoyance of the revolution breaking royalty in the king and the king with royalty did so almost without noticing the man in the fierce crushing of the idea the vast storm of the assembly tribunal
he had looked on those things he had contemplated that giddiness he had seen the centuries appear before the bar of the assembly convention he had beheld
the monarchy rise through the shadows and there had lingered in his soul the respectful fear of these immense justices of the populace which are almost as impersonal as the justice of god
the trace left in him by the revolution was prodigious its memory was like a living imprint of those great years minute by minute one day in the presence of a witness whom we are not permitted to doubt
he rectified from memory the whole of the letter a in the alphabetical list of the constituent assembly
while he reigned the press was free the tribune was free conscience and speech were free the laws of september are open to sight although fully aware of the gnawing power of light on privileges
the austere and illustrious historian louis blanc has himself recently softened his first verdict
taken in himself and from the point of view of human goodness will remain to use the antique language of ancient history one of the best princes who ever sat on a throne what is there against him that throne
there remains the man and the man is good he is good at times even to the point of being admirable often in the midst of his gravest souvenirs after a day of conflict with the whole diplomacy of the continent
he returned at night to his apartments and there exhausted with fatigue overwhelmed with sleep what did he do he took a death sentence and passed the night in revising a criminal suit
it was anguish to him to abandon these miserable condemned heads one day he said to the same witness to whom we have recently referred i won seven last night during the early years of his reign
the death penalty was as good as abolished and the erection of a scaffold was a violence committed against the king
practical men felt the necessity of a quasi legitimate guillotine and this was one of the victories of casimir perier who represented the narrow sides of the bourgeoisie over louis philippe who represented its liberal sides
louis philippe annotated beccaria with his own hand after the fieschi machine he exclaimed what a pity that i was not wounded then i might have pardoned on another occasion alluding to the resistance offered by his ministry
where kindness is the rarest of pearls the man who is kindly almost takes precedence of the man who is great louis philippe having been severely judged by some harshly perhaps by others
is evidently and above all things entirely disinterested an epitaph penned by a dead man is sincere
chapter three the vicissitudes of flight
an escape had been planned
brujon after having passed a month in the punishment cell had had time in the first place to weave a rope in the second to mature a plan in former times
so brujon meditated
who plunder the roofs and despoil the gutters by the process called double pickings the circumstance which put the finishing touch on the moment peculiarly favorable for an attempt at escape
at that very moment a portion of the slates on the prison the saint bernard courtyard was no longer absolutely isolated from the charlemagne and the saint louis courts up above there were scaffoldings and ladders in other words
bridges and stairs in the direction of liberty the new building which was the most cracked and decrepit thing to be seen anywhere in the world was the weak point in the prison
the walls were eaten by saltpetre to such an extent that the authorities had been obliged to line the vaults of the dormitories with a sheathing of wood because stones were in the habit of becoming detached and falling on the prisoners in their beds
in spite of this antiquity the authorities committed the error of confining in the new building the most troublesome prisoners of placing there the hard cases as they say in prison parlance the new building
a large chimney flue probably from some ancient kitchen of the dukes de la force started
chance ordained that the heads of their beds should rest against the chimney
beholds a yard full of flowers and shrubs in wooden boxes at the extremity of which spreads out a little white rotunda with two wings brightened up with green shutters the bucolic dream of jean jacques not more than ten years ago
there rose above that rotunda an enormous black hideous bare wall by which it was backed up this was the outer wall of la force this wall beside that rotunda was milton viewed through berquin
a chimney pierced the roof this was the chimney which traversed the dormitories the bel air that top story of the new building was a sort of
when one entered from the north end one had on one's left the four dormer windows on one's right
tolerably vast cages separated by narrow passages built of masonry to about the height of the elbow and the rest up to the roof of iron bars thenardier had been in solitary confinement
no one was ever able to discover how and by what connivance he succeeded in procuring and secreting a bottle of wine invented so it is said by desrues with which a narcotic is mixed
and which the band of the endormeurs or sleep compellers rendered famous there are in many prisons treacherous employees half jailers half thieves who assist in escapes
who sell to the police an unfaithful service and who turn a penny whenever they can on that same night then when little gavroche picked up the two lost children
rose softly and with the nail which brujon had found began to pierce the chimney against which their beds stood the rubbish fell on brujon's bed so that they were not heard
showers mingled with thunder shook the doors on their hinges and created in the prison a terrible and opportune uproar
forced and the two redoubtable ruffians were on the roof the wind and rain redoubled the roof was slippery what a good night to leg it said brujon
flung the other over the outer wall crossed the abyss at one bound clung to the coping of the wall got astride of it let themselves slip one after the other along the rope upon a little roof which touches the bath house
three quarters of an hour had not elapsed since they had risen in bed in the dark nail in hand and their project in their heads a few moments later they had joined babet and montparnasse who were prowling about the neighborhood
and a bit of it remained attached to the chimney on the roof they had sustained no other damage however than that of scratching nearly all the skin off their hands that night thenardier was warned without any one
this was brujon thenardier recognized him and understood this was enough thenardier rated as a burglar
with armed force was kept in sight the sentry who was relieved every two hours marched up and down in front of his cage with loaded musket
the prisoner had on his feet fetters weighing fifty pounds every day at four o'clock in the afternoon a jailer escorted by two dogs this was still in vogue at that time entered his cage deposited beside his bed a loaf of black bread
thenardier had obtained permission to keep a sort of iron bolt which he used to spike his bread into a crack in the wall in order to preserve it from the rats as he said
no objection had been made to this spike still it was remembered afterwards that one of the jailers had said it would be better to let him have only a wooden spike at two o'clock in the morning the sentinel who was an old soldier
cracks beneath the foundation
and that the acceptance of it was in accordance with duty hence his possession was in good faith now we say it in good conscience louis philippe being in possession in perfect good faith and the democracy being in good faith in its attack
the democracy defends the people the relative which is the monarchy resists the absolute which is the republic society bleeds in this conflict but that which constitutes its suffering to day will constitute its safety later on
it is indivisible and all on one side but those who are in error are so sincerely a blind man is no more a criminal than a vendean is a ruffian
born yesterday it was obliged to fight to day hardly installed it was already everywhere conscious of vague movements of traction on the apparatus of july so recently laid and so lacking in solidity
resistance was born on the morrow perhaps even it was born on the preceding evening from month to month the hostility increased and from being concealed it became patent the revolution of july
which gained but little acceptance outside of france by kings had been diversely interpreted in france as we have said god delivers over to men his visible will in events an obscure text written in a mysterious tongue
the most profound decipher slowly and when they arrive with their text the task has long been completed there are already twenty translations on the public place from each remaining springs a party
and from each misinterpretation a faction and each party thinks that it alone has the true text
think that revolutions having sprung from the right to revolt one has the right to revolt against them error for in these revolutions the one who revolts is not the people it is the king
every revolution being a normal outcome contains within itself its legitimacy which false revolutionists sometimes dishonor but which remains even when soiled
which survives even when stained with blood revolutions spring not from an accident but from necessity a revolution is a return from the fictitious to the real it is because it must be that it is
in default of a cuirass in its lack of logic they attacked this revolution in its royalty they shouted to it revolution
factions are blind men who aim correctly this cry was uttered equally by the republicans but coming from them this cry was logical
always muzzled but always growling was born armed peace
philosophical fermentation replied to democratic fermentation the elect felt troubled as well as the masses in another manner but quite as much thinkers meditated while the soil that is to say the people
traversed by revolutionary currents trembled under them with indescribably vague epileptic shocks these dreamers some isolated others united in families and almost in communion turned over social questions in a pacific
but profound manner impassive miners who tranquilly pushed their galleries into the depths of a volcano hardly disturbed by the dull commotion and the furnaces of which they caught glimpses
this tranquillity was not the least beautiful spectacle of this agitated epoch these men left to political parties the question of rights they occupied themselves with the question of happiness the well being of man
in civilization such as it has formed itself a little by the command of god a great deal by the agency of man interests combine unite and amalgamate in a manner to form a veritable hard rock in accordance with a dynamic law
and to cause it to spout forth the living waters of human felicity from the question of the scaffold to the question of war their works embraced everything
all the problems that the socialists proposed to themselves cosmogonic visions revery and mysticism being cast aside can be reduced to two principal problems first problem to produce wealth
the distribution of enjoyment from the proper employment of forces results public power from a good distribution of enjoyments results individual happiness
by a good distribution not an equal but an equitable distribution must be understood from these two things combined the public power without individual happiness within results social prosperity
social prosperity means the man happy the citizen free the nation great england solves the first of these two problems she creates wealth admirably she divides it badly
this solution which is complete on one side only leads her fatally to two extremes monstrous opulence monstrous wretchedness all enjoyments for some all privations for the rest
that is to say for the people privilege exception monopoly feudalism born from toil itself a false and dangerous situation which sates public power or private misery
which sets the roots of the state in the sufferings of the individual a badly constituted grandeur in which are combined all the material elements and into which no moral element enters communism
they are mistaken their division kills production equal partition abolishes emulation and consequently labor it is a partition made by the butcher which kills that which it divides
the two problems must be combined and made but one solve only the first of the two problems you will be venice you will be england you will have like venice an artificial power or like england
a material power you will be the wicked rich man you will die by an act of violence as venice died or by bankruptcy as england will fall and the world will allow to die and fall all that is merely selfishness
all that does not represent for the human race either a virtue or an idea it is well understood here that by the words venice england we designate not the peoples but social structures
and how to distribute it and you will have at once moral and material greatness and you will be worthy to call yourself france this is what socialism said outside and above a few sects which have gone astray
the unforeseen necessity for the statesman to take philosophers into account confused evidences of which we catch a glimpse a new system of politics to be created
which shall be in accord with the old world without too much disaccord with the new revolutionary ideal a situation in which it became necessary to use lafayette to defend polignac
perhaps an eventual indefinable resignation born of the vague acceptance of a superior definitive right his desire to remain of his race his domestic spirit his sincere respect for the people his own honesty
preoccupied louis philippe almost painfully and there were moments when strong and courageous as he was he was overwhelmed by the difficulties of being a king he felt under his feet a formidable disaggregation
piles of shadows covered the horizon a strange shade gradually drawing nearer extended little by little over men over things over ideas a shade which came from wraths and systems
spirits trembled in the social anxiety like leaves at the approach of a storm the electric tension was such that at certain instants the first comer a stranger brought light then the twilight obscurity closed in again
at intervals deep and dull mutterings allowed a judgment to be formed as to the quantity of thunder contained by the cloud twenty months had barely elapsed since the revolution of july the year eighteen thirty two
belgium offering herself to a french prince and giving herself to an english prince the russian hatred of nicolas behind us the demons of the south ferdinand in spain miguel in portugal the earth quaking in italy
the peerage sheltering itself behind beccaria to refuse four heads to the law
the cross torn from notre dame lafayette lessened laffitte ruined benjamin constant dead in indigence casimir perier dead in the exhaustion of his power
political and social malady breaking out simultaneously in the two capitals of the kingdom the one in the city of thought the other in the city of toil at paris civil war at lyons servile war in the two cities
the same glare of the furnace a crater like crimson on the brow of the people the south rendered fanatic the west troubled the duchesse de berry in la vendee plots conspiracies
the facts with which i shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar nor is there anything new in the general use i shall make of them if there shall be any novelty
it will be in the mode of presenting the facts and the inferences and observations following that presentation in his speech last autumn at columbus ohio as reported in the new york times senator douglas said our fathers
when they framed the government under which we live understood this question just as well and even better than we do now i fully indorse this and i adopt it as a text for this discourse
the answer must be the constitution of the united states that constitution consists of the original framed in seventeen eighty seven and under which the present government first went into operation and twelve subsequently framed amendments
the first ten of which were framed in seventeen eighty nine who were our fathers that framed the constitution i suppose the thirty nine who signed the original instrument may be fairly called our fathers who framed that part of the present government
it is almost exactly true to say they framed it and it is altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion and sentiment of the whole nation at that time their names being familiar to nearly all and accessible to quite all
need not now be repeated i take these thirty nine for the present as being our fathers who framed the government under which we live what is the question which according to the text those fathers understood just as well
and even better than we do now it is this does the proper division of local from federal authority or anything in the constitution forbid our federal government to control as to slavery in our federal territories
upon this senator douglas holds the affirmative and republicans the negative this affirmation and denial form an issue and this issue this question is precisely what the text declares our fathers understood
better than we let us now inquire whether the thirty nine or any of them
and if they did how they acted upon it how they expressed that better understanding in seventeen eighty four three years before the constitution
the congress of the confederation had before them the question of prohibiting slavery in that territory and four of the thirty nine who afterward framed the constitution were in that congress and voted on that question
properly forbade the federal government to control as to slavery in federal territory the other of the four james mc henry voted against the prohibition showing that for some cause he thought it improper to vote for it
but while the convention was in session framing it
the same question of prohibiting slavery in the territory again came before the congress of the confederation and two more of the thirty nine who afterward signed the constitution were in that congress and voted on the question
they were william blount and william few and they both voted for the prohibition thus showing that in their understanding no line dividing local from federal authority nor anything else
properly forbade the federal government to control as to slavery in federal territory this time the prohibition became a law being part of what is now well known as the ordinance of eighty seven the question of federal control of slavery in the territories
seems not to have been directly before the convention which framed the original constitution and hence it is not recorded that the thirty nine or any of them while engaged on that instrument expressed any opinion on that precise question
in seventeen eighty nine by the first congress which sat under the constitution an act was passed to enforce the ordinance of eighty seven including the prohibition of slavery in the northwestern territory
in this congress there were sixteen of the thirty nine fathers who framed the original constitution they were john langdon nicholas gilman wm s johnnson roger sherman robert morris thos fitzsimmons
william few abraham baldwin rufus king william paterson george claimer richard bassett george read pierce butler daniel carroll james madison
else both their fidelity to correct principles and their oath to support the constitution would have constrained them to oppose the prohibition again george washington another of the thirty nine
no great while after the adoption of the original constitution north carolina ceded to the federal government the country now constituting the state of tennessee and a few years later georgia ceded that which now constitutes the states of mississippi and alabama
in both deeds of cession it was made a condition by the ceding states that the federal government should not prohibit slavery in the ceded country besides this slavery was then actually in the ceded country
under these circumstances congress on taking charge of these countries did not absolutely prohibit slavery within them but they did interfere with it take control of it even there to a certain extent
congress organized the territory of mississippi in the act of organization they prohibited the bringing of slaves into the territory from any place without the united states by fine and giving freedom to slaves so brought
this act passed both branches of congress without yeas and nays in that congress were three of the thirty nine who framed the original constitution they were john langdon george read and abraham baldwin
they all probably voted for it certainly they would have placed their opposition to it upon record if in their understanding any line dividing local from federal authority or anything in the constitution
in eighteen o three the federal government purchased the louisiana country our former territorial acquisitions came from certain of our own states but this louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation
there were other considerable towns and settlements and slavery was extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the people congress did not in the territorial act prohibit slavery but they did interfere with it take control of it
in a more marked and extensive way than they did in the case of mississippi the substance of the provision therein made in relation to slaves was first that no slave should be imported into the territory from foreign parts
second that no slave should be carried into it who had been imported into the united states since the first day of may seventeen ninety eight third that no slave should be carried into it except by the owner and for his own use as a settler
they would not have allowed it to pass without recording their opposition to it if in their understanding it violated either the line properly dividing local from federal authority or any provision of the constitution
no line dividing local from federal authority nor anything in the constitution was violated by congress prohibiting slavery in federal territory while mister pinckney
there was some sufficient reason for opposing such prohibition in that case the cases i have mentioned are the only acts of the thirty nine or of any of them upon the direct issue which i have been able to discover
to enumerate the persons who thus acted as being four in seventeen eighty four two in seventeen eighty seven seventeen in seventeen eighty nine
the true number of those of the thirty nine whom i have shown to have acted upon the question which by the text they understood better than we is twenty three leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it in any way
acted upon the very question which the text affirms they understood just as well and even better than we do now and twenty one of them a clear majority of the whole thirty nine so acting upon it
as to make them guilty of gross political impropriety and wilful perjury if in their understanding any proper division between local and federal authority or anything in the constitution they had made themselves and sworn to support
forbade the federal government to control as to slavery in the federal territories thus the twenty one acted and as actions speak louder than words so actions under such responsibilities speak still louder
in the instances in which they acted upon the question but for what reasons they so voted is not known
or some provision or principle of the constitution stood in the way or they may without any such question have voted against the prohibition on what appeared to them to be sufficient grounds of expediency
no one who has sworn to support the constitution can conscientiously vote for what he understands to be an unconstitutional measure however expedient he may think it but one may and ought to vote against a measure
which he deems constitutional if at the same time he deems it inexpedient it therefore would be unsafe to set down even the two who voted against the prohibition as having done so because in their understanding
but there is much reason to believe that their understanding upon that question would not have appeared different from that of their twenty three compeers had it been manifested at all for the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text
i have purposely omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by any person however distinguished other than the thirty nine fathers who framed the original constitution and for the same reason
if we should look into their acts and declarations on those other phases as the foreign slave trade and the morality and policy of slavery generally it would appear to us that on the direct question of federal control of slavery in federal territories
while there was not one now known
of south carolina the sum of the whole is that of our thirty nine fathers who framed the original constitution twenty one a clear majority of the whole certainly understood that no proper division of local from federal authority
nor any part of the constitution
such unquestionably was the understanding of our fathers who framed the original constitution and the text affirms that they understood the question better than we
but so far i have been considering the understanding of the question manifested by the framers of the original constitution in and by the original instrument a mode was provided for amending it
and as i have already stated the present frame of the government under which we live consists of that original and twelve amendatory articles framed and adopted since
those who now insist that federal control of slavery in federal territories violates the constitution point us to the provisions which they suppose it thus violates and as i understand
which provides that no person shall be deprived of life liberty or property without due process of law while senator douglas and his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the tenth amendment
are reserved to the states respectively or to the people now it so happens that these amendments were framed by the first congress which sat under the constitution the identical congress which passed the act already mentioned
enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the northwestern territory not only was it the same congress but they were the identical same individual men who at the same session and at the same time within the session
had under consideration and in progress toward maturity these constitutional amendments and this act prohibiting slavery in all the territory the nation then owned the constitutional amendments were introduced before
and passed after the act enforcing the ordinance of eighty seven so that during the whole pendency of the act to enforce the ordinance the constitutional amendments were also pending the seventy six members of that congress
including sixteen of the framers of the original constitution as before stated were pre eminently our fathers who framed that part of the government under which we live which is now claimed as forbidding the federal government to control slavery in the federal territories
is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day to affirm that the two things which that congress deliberately framed
and does not such affirmation become impudently absurd when coupled with the other affirmation from the same mouth that those who did the two things alleged to be inconsistent
understood whether they really were inconsistent better than we better than he who affirms that they are inconsistent it is surely safe to assume that the thirty nine framers of the original constitution
declared that in his understanding any proper division of local from federal authority or any part of the constitution forbade the federal government to control as to slavery in the federal territories i go a step further
prior to the beginning of the present century and i might almost say prior to the beginning of the last half of the present century declare that in his understanding any proper division of local from federal authority or any part of the constitution
i do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did to do so would be to discard all the lights of current experience to reject all progress all improvement
we should do so upon evidence so conclusive and argument so clear that even their great authority
cannot stand and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better than we if any man at this day sincerely believes that proper division of local from federal authority
or any part of the constitution forbids the federal government to control as to slavery in the federal territories he is right to say so and to enforce his position by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can
but he has no right to mislead others who have less access to history and less leisure to study it into the false belief that our fathers who framed the government under which we live were of the same opinion
thus substituting falsehood and deception for truthful evidence and fair argument if any man at this day sincerely believes our fathers who framed the government under which we live used and applied principles in other cases
brave the responsibility of declaring that in his opinion he understands their principles better than they did themselves and especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that they understood the question just as well
and even better than we do now but enough let all who believe that our fathers who framed the government under which we live understood this question just as well and even better than we do now speak as they spoke
and act as they acted upon it this is all republicans ask all republicans desire in relation to slavery as those fathers marked it so let it be again marked as an evil not to be extended
but to be tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actual presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity let all the guaranties those fathers gave it be not grudgingly
but fully and fairly maintained for this republicans contend and with this so far as i know or believe they will be content and now if they would listen as i suppose they will not
and i consider that in the general qualities of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other people still when you speak of us republicans you do so only to denounce us as reptiles or at the best
as no better than outlaws you will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers but nothing like it to black republicans in all your contentions with one another each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of black republicanism
as the first thing to be attended to indeed such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite license so to speak among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all now can you or not
or even to yourselves bring forward your charges and specifications and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify you say we are sectional we deny it
that makes an issue and the burden of proof is upon you you produce your proof and what is it
we should thereby cease to be sectional you cannot escape this conclusion and yet are you willing to abide by it if you are you will probably soon find that we have ceased to be sectional
for we shall get votes in your section this very year you will then begin to discover as the truth plainly is that your proof does not touch the issue the fact that we get no votes in your section is a fact of your making
that fault is primarily yours
that we repel you by some wrong principle or practice if we do repel you by any wrong principle or practice the fault is ours
and are justly opposed and denounced as such meet us then on the question of whether our principle put in practice would wrong your section
as if it were possible that something may be said on our side do you accept the challenge no then you really believe that the principle which our fathers who framed the government under which we live
less than eight years before washington gave that warning he had as president of the united states approved and signed an act of congress enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the northwestern territory
which act embodied the policy of the government upon that subject up to and at the very moment he penned that warning and about one year after he penned it he wrote la fayette that he considered that prohibition a wise measure expressing in the same connection
his hope that we should at some time have a confederacy of free states bearing this in mind and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen upon this same subject is that warning a weapon in your hands against us
and we commend it to you together with his example pointing to the right application of it but you say you are conservative eminently conservative while we are revolutionary destructive or something of the sort
the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by our fathers who framed the government under which we live while you with one accord reject and scout and spit upon that old policy and insist upon substituting something new
some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade some for a congressional slave code for the territories some for congress forbidding the territories to prohibit slavery within their limits some for maintaining slavery in the territories through the judiciary
that if one man would enslave another no third man should object fantastically called popular sovereignty
according to the practice of our fathers who framed the government under which we live not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our government originated consider then
whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves and your charge of destructiveness against us are based on the most clear and stable foundations again you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than it formerly was
we resisted and still resist your innovation and thence comes the greater prominence of the question
what has been will be again under the same conditions if you would have the peace of the old times readopt the precepts and policy of the old times you charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves we deny it
and what is your proof harper's ferry john brown john brown was no republican and you have failed to implicate a single republican in his harper's ferry enterprise
if any member of our party is guilty in that matter you know it or you do not know it if you do know it you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact if you do not know it you are inexcusable for asserting it
and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof you need not be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true is simply malicious slander
some of you admit that no republican designedly aided or encouraged the harper's ferry affair but still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results we do not believe it
we know we hold to no doctrine and make no declaration which were not held to and made by our fathers who framed the government under which we live you never dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair when it occurred
every republican man knew that as to himself at least
republican doctrines and declarations are accompanied with a continued protest against any interference whatever with your slaves or with you about your slaves surely this does not encourage them to revolt
in common with our fathers who framed the government under which we live declare our belief that slavery is wrong but the slaves do not hear us declare even this for any thing we say or do
the slaves would scarcely know there is a republican party i believe they would not in fact
blood and thunder among the slaves slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the republican party was organized what induced the southampton insurrection twenty eight years ago
in which at least three times as many lives were lost as at harper's ferry you can scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that southampton was got up by black republicanism
i do not think a general or even a very extensive slave insurrection is possible the indispensable concert of action cannot be attained the slaves have no means of rapid communication nor can incendiary freemen black or white supply it
the explosive materials are everywhere in parcels but there neither are nor can be supplied the indispensable connecting trains much is said by southern people about the affection of slaves for their masters and mistresses
and a part of it at least is true a plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to twenty individuals before some one of them to save the life of a favorite master or mistress would divulge it
in that case only about twenty were admitted to the secret and yet one of them in his anxiety to save a friend betrayed the plot to that friend and by consequence averted the calamity
occasional poisonings from the kitchen and open or stealthy assassinations in the field and local revolts extending to a score or so will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery
in the language of mister jefferson uttered many years ago it is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation peaceably
none such were seen along the route at ten miles distance from the fort the plain is traversed by a tract of chapparal running north west and south east it is a true texan jungle
through this jungle directly opposite the fort there is an opening through which passes a path the shortest that leads to the head waters of the nueces it is a sort of natural avenue among the trees that stand closely crowded on each side
but refrain from meeting it may be artificial some old war trail of the comanches erst trodden by their expeditionary parties on the maraud to tamaulipas coahuila or new leon the trackers knew that it conducted to the alamo and therefore
sign ay that there is major and plenty of it look there in that bit of sottish ground you see the tracks of a horse of two horses major said the man correcting the officer with an air of deference true there are two
they have gone up this openin a bit and come back again well spangler my good fellow
only far enough to know that a man has been murdered what proof have you of what you say is there a dead body no not as much as the little finger not even a hair of the head so fur as i can see what then blood a regular pool of it
enough to have cleared out the carcass of a hull buffalo come and see for yourself but continued the scout in a muttered undertone if you wish me to follow up the sign as it ought to be done you'll order the others to stay back
yes spangler you shall have every facility for your work gentlemen may i request you to remain where you are for a few minutes my tracker here has to go through a performance that requires him to have the ground to himself he can only take me along with him
about fifty yards further on spangler came to a stand you see that major said he pointing to the ground i should be blind if i didn't replied the officer a pool of blood as you say big enough to have emptied the veins of a buffalo
dead pronounced the tracker dead before that blood had turned purple as it is now whose do you think it is spangler that of the man we're in search of the son of the old gentleman down there that's why i didn't wish him to come forward he may as well know the worst
how by the indians of course the comanches have done it not a bit of it
hu why do you say that spangler
and them made by only two horses there's truth in that
no indyin of any kind committed this murder there are two horse tracks along the opening as you see both are shod and they're the same that have come back again comanches don't ride shod horses except when they've stolen them both these were ridden by white men
it can't be a great ways off let us proceed thither then said the major i shall command the people to stay where they are having issued the command in a voice loud enough to be heard by his following the major rode away from the bloodstained spot preceded by the tracker
and stayed some time in the same place under the branches of a spreading cottonwood the turf much trampled around the trunk of the tree was evidence of this the tracker got off his horse to examine it and stooping to the earth carefully scrutinised the sign
said he after several minutes spent in his analysis and for some time though neither's been out of the saddle they've been on friendly terms too which makes it all the more unexplainable they must have quarrelled afterwards
and in such a way that shows they must have been thegither the animals it might be restless and movin about as for the time they've taken long enough to smoke a cigar apiece close to the teeth too here are the stumps not enough left to fill a fellow's pipe
poor mister poindexter will niver more see his son alive tis very mysterious remarked the major it is by jingo and the body too where can it be that's what purplexes me most of all
spangler have you any suspicion as to who the other may be
i'd never have thought of maurice the mustanger
there's been a fair stand up fight atween them and the planter's son has gone under that's how i shed reckon it up as to the disappearance o the dead body
and maybe it'll fetch us to some sensible concloosion am i to tell the old gentleman what i think o't perhaps better not he knows enough already it will at least fall lighter upon him if he find things out by piecemeal say nothing of what we've seen
if you can take up the trail of the two horses after going off from the place where the blood is i shall manage to bring the command after you without any one suspecting what we've seen all right major said the scout i think i can guess where the off trail goes
give me ten minutes upon it and then come on to my signal so saying the tracker rode back to the place of blood and after what appeared a very cursory examination turned off into a lateral opening in the chapparal
within the promised time his shrill whistle announced that he was nearly a mile distant and in a direction altogether different from the spot that had been profaned by some sanguinary scene
chapter nineteen vanikoro this dreadful sight was the first of a whole series of maritime catastrophes that the nautilus would encounter on its run when it plied more heavily traveled seas
over an area of five hundred leagues from the east southeast to the west northwest
and between longitude one hundred twenty five degrees
this island group covers a surface area of three hundred seventy square leagues and it's made up of some sixty subgroups among which we noted the gambier group which is a french protectorate these islands are coral formations
thanks to the work of polyps a slow but steady upheaval will someday connect these islands to each other later on this new island will be fused to its neighboring island groups and a fifth continent will stretch from new zealand and new caledonia
which was discovered in eighteen twenty two by captain bell aboard the minerva
clothe their tissue in a limestone crust and their variations in structure have led my famous mentor professor milne edwards to classify them into five divisions
the tiny microscopic animals that secrete this polypary live by the billions in the depths of their cells their limestone deposits build up into rocks reefs islets islands in some places
they form atolls a circular ring surrounding a lagoon or small inner lake that gaps place in contact with the sea elsewhere they take the shape of barrier reefs such as those that exist along the coasts of new caledonia and several of the tuamotu islands
in still other localities such as reunion island and the island of mauritius they build fringing reefs high straight walls next to which the ocean's depth is considerable while cruising along only a few cable lengths from the underpinning of reao island
known by the names fire coral finger coral star coral and stony coral these polyps grow exclusively in the agitated strata at the surface of the sea and so it's in the upper reaches that they begin these substructures
which sink little by little together with the secreted rubble binding them this at least is the theory of mister charles darwin who thus explains the formation of atolls
i could observe these strange walls quite closely our sounding lines indicated that they dropped perpendicularly for more than three hundred meters and our electric beams made the bright limestone positively sparkle
in reply to a question conseil asked me about the growth rate of these colossal barriers i thoroughly amazed him by saying that scientists put it at an eighth of an inch per biennium therefore he said to me to build these walls it took
i might add that those days in the bible must represent whole epochs and not literally the lapse of time between two sunrises because according to the bible itself the sun doesn't date from the first day of creation when the nautilus returned to the surface of the ocean
turtles came to lay their eggs birds nested in the young trees in this way animal life developed and drawn by the greenery and fertile soil man appeared and that's how these islands were formed the immense achievement of microscopic animals
near evening reao island melted into the distance and the nautilus noticeably changed course after touching the tropic of capricorn at longitude one hundred thirty five degrees it headed west northwest going back up the whole intertropical zone
although the summer sun lavished its rays on us we never suffered from the heat because thirty or forty meters underwater the temperature didn't go over ten degrees to twelve degrees centigrade by december fifteenth
we had left the alluring society islands in the west likewise elegant tahiti queen of the pacific in the morning i spotted this island's lofty summits a few miles to leeward its waters supplied excellent fish for the tables on board
mackerel bonito albacore and a few varieties of that sea serpent named the moray eel the nautilus had cleared eight thousand one hundred miles we logged nine thousand seven hundred twenty miles when we passed between the tonga islands
the count de la perouse then we raised the fiji islands where savages slaughtered sailors from the union as well as captain bureau commander of the darling josephine out of nantes france extending over an expanse of one hundred leagues north to south
and over ninety leagues east to west this island group lies between latitude two degrees and six degrees south and between longitude one hundred seventy four degrees and one hundred seventy nine degrees west it consists of a number of islands islets and reefs
among which we noted the islands of viti levu vanua levu and kadavu it was the dutch navigator tasman who discovered this group in sixteen forty three the same year the italian physicist torricelli invented the barometer
i'll let the reader decide which of these deeds was more beneficial to humanity coming later captain cook in seventeen seventy four rear admiral d'entrecasteaux in seventeen ninety three and finally captain dumont d'urville in eighteen twenty seven
untangled the whole chaotic geography of this island group
who was the first to shed light on the longstanding mystery surrounding the disappearance of ships under the count de la perouse this bay repeatedly dredged furnished a huge supply of excellent oysters
then stuffed ourselves these mollusks belonged to the species known by name as ostrea lamellosa whose members are quite common off corsica this wailea oysterbank must have been extensive and for certain
if they hadn't been controlled by numerous natural checks these clusters of shellfish would have ended up jam packing the bay since as many as two million eggs have been counted in a single individual and if mister ned land did not repent of his gluttony at our oyster fest
it's because oysters are the only dish that never causes indigestion in fact it takes no less than sixteen dozen of these headless mollusks to supply the three hundred fifteen grams that satisfy one man's minimum daily requirement for nitrogen
which commander bougainville explored in seventeen sixty eight and to which captain cook gave its current name in seventeen seventy three this group is chiefly made up of nine large islands
and forms a one hundred twenty league strip from the north northwest to the south southeast lying between latitude two degrees and fifteen degrees south and between longitude one hundred sixty four degrees and one hundred sixty eight degrees at the moment of our noon sights
which looked to me like a mass of green woods crowned by a peak of great height that day it was yuletide and it struck me that ned land badly missed celebrating christmas that genuine family holiday where protestants are such zealots
and pronounced just one word vanikoro this name was magic it was the name of those islets where vessels under the count de la perouse had miscarried i straightened suddenly
the nautilus is bringing us to vanikoro i asked yes professor the captain replied
if you like professor when will we reach vanikoro we already have professor
i climbed onto the platform and from there my eyes eagerly scanned the horizon in the northeast there emerged two volcanic islands of unequal size surrounded by a coral reef whose circuit measured forty miles we were facing the island of vanikoro proper
to which captain dumont d'urville had given the name island of the search we lay right in front of the little harbor of vana
its shores seemed covered with greenery from its beaches to its summits inland crowned by mt kapogo which is four hundred seventy six fathoms high
chapter thirty eight the avengers hastily perhaps too truly construing the sinister evidence the half frantic father leaped into the bloody saddle and galloped direct for the fort
calhoun upon his own horse followed close after the hue and cry soon spread abroad rapid riders carried it up and down the river to the remotest plantations of the settlement
the indians were out and near at hand reaping their harvest of scalps that of young poindexter was the firstfruits of their sanguinary gleaning
it was simply a question of how when and where the blood drops pretty clearly proclaimed the first he who had shed them must have been shot or speared while sitting in his saddle they were mostly on the off side where they presented an appearance
as if something had been slaked over them this was seen both on the shoulders of the horse and the flap of the saddle of course it was the body of the rider as it slipped lifeless to the earth there were some who spoke with equal certainty as to the time
old frontiersmen experienced in such matters according to them the blood was scarce ten hours old
it was now noon the murder must have been committed at two o'clock in the morning
where had it been done where was the body to be found after that where should the assassins be sought for these were the questions discussed by the mixed council of settlers and soldiers
and presided over by the commandant of the fort the afflicted father standing speechless by his side the last was of special importance there are thirty two points in the compass of the prairies
and therefore in any expedition going in search of a war party of comanches there would be thirty two chances to one against its taking the right track it mattered not that the home of these nomadic savages was in the west
that was a wide word and signified anywhere within a semicircle of some hundreds of miles besides the indians were now upon the war trail and in an isolated settlement such as that of the leona as likely to make their appearance from the east
more likely indeed since such is a common strategic trick of these astute warriors
in what direction this still remained the subject of discussion the thoughtful captain of infantry now became a conspicuous figure by suggesting that some inquiry should be made as to what direction had been last taken by the man who was supposed to be murdered
who last saw henry poindexter his father and cousin were first appealed to the former had last seen his son at the supper table and supposed him to have gone thence to his bed
the answer of calhoun was less direct and perhaps less satisfactory he had conversed with his cousin at a later hour and had bidden him good night under the impression that he was retiring to his room why was calhoun concealing what had really occurred
why did he refrain from giving a narration of that garden scene to which he had been witness was it that he feared humiliation by disclosing the part he had himself played whatever was the reason the truth was shunned
and an answer given the sincerity of which was suspected by more than one who listened to it the evasiveness might have been more apparent had there been any reason for suspicion or had the bystanders been allowed longer time to reflect upon it
while the inquiry was going on light came in from a quartet hitherto unthought of the landlord of the rough and ready who had come uncalled to the council after forcing his way through the crowd proclaimed himself willing to communicate some facts worth their hearing
in short the very facts they were endeavouring to find out when henry poindexter had been last seen and what the direction he had taken oberdoffer's testimony delivered in a semi teutonic tongue was to the effect
that maurice the mustanger who had been staying at his hotel ever since his fight with captain calhoun had that night ridden out at a late hour as he had done for several nights before he had returned to the hotel at a still later hour
had done that which he had not done for a long time before demanded his bill and to old duffer's astonishment as the latter naively confessed settled every cent of it where he had procured the money gott only knew
or why he left the hotel in such a hurry oberdoffer himself only knew that he had left it
just as he was in the habit of doing whenever he went off upon one of his horse catching expeditions on one of these the village boniface supposed him to have gone
what had all this to do with the question before the council much indeed though it did not appear till the last moment of his examination
the young gentlemans rode off a a quick pace as if with the intention of overtaking him this was all mister oberdoffer knew of the matter and all he could be expected to tell the intelligence though containing several points but ill understood
was nevertheless a guide to the expeditionary party it furnished a sort of clue to the direction they ought to take if the missing man had gone off with maurice the mustanger or after him he should be looked for on the road the latter himself would be likely to have taken
did any one know where the horse hunter had his home no one could state the exact locality though there were several who believed it was somewhere among the head waters of the nueces on a creek called the alamo
the breakfast bell of casa del corvo had sounded its second and last summons preceded by a still earlier signal from a horn intended to call in the stragglers from remote parts of the plantation
the field hands labouring near had collected around the quarter and in groups squatted upon the grass or seated upon stray logs were discussing their diet by no means spare of hog and hominy corn bread and corn coffee
the planter's family assembled in the sala were about to begin breakfast when it was discovered that one of its members was missing henry was the absent one at first there was but little notice taken of the circumstance
only the conjecture that he would shortly make his appearance as several minutes passed without his coming in the planter quietly observed that it was rather strange of henry to be behind time and wonder where he could be
the breakfast of the south western american is usually a well appointed meal it is eaten at a fixed hour and table d'hote fashion all the members of the family meeting at the table this habit is exacted by a sort of necessity
is that in which the cook is broiling her skin in the kitchen as the laggard or late riser may have to put up with cold biscuit and no waffles or buckwheat cakes there are few such on a southern plantation
considering this custom it was somewhat strange that henry poindexter had not yet put in an appearance where can the boy be asked his father for the fourth time in that tone of mild conjecture that scarce calls for reply
as in the tone of her voice that might have been observed by one closely scrutinising her features it could scarce be caused by the absence of her brother from the breakfast table the circumstance was too trifling to call up an emotion and clearly at that moment
what was it no one put the inquiry her father did not notice anything odd in her look much less calhoun who was himself markedly labouring to conceal some disagreeable thought under the guise of an assumed naivete
ever since entering the room he had maintained a studied silence keeping his eyes averted instead of according to his usual custom constantly straying towards his cousin he sate nervously in his chair and once or twice
might have been seen to start as a servant entered the room beyond doubt he was under the influence of some extraordinary agitation very strange henry not being here to his breakfast
surely he is not abed till this hour no no he never lies so late
the sable coachee acting as table waiter was in the sala hovering around the chairs go to henry's sleeping room
are you sure asked the planter seriously stirred by the intelligence satin shoo mass woodley
darr massr henry am too there's something strange in all this pursued the planter as pluto shuffled out of the sala henry from home and at night too where can he have gone i can't think of any one he would be visiting at such unseasonable hours
he must have been out all night or very early according to the nigger's account at the port i suppose with those young fellows not at the tavern i hope oh no he wouldn't go there interposed calhoun who appeared as much mystified by the absence of henry
as was poindexter himself he refrained however from suggesting any explanation or saying aught of the scenes to which he had been witness on the preceding night it is to be hoped he knows nothing of it reflected the young creole
if not it may still remain a secret between brother and myself i think i can manage henry but why is he still absent i've sate up all night waiting for him he must have overtaken maurice and they have fraternised i hope so
even though the tavern may have been the scene of their reconciliation henry is not much given to dissipation but after such a burst of passion followed by his sudden repentance he may have strayed from his usual habits who could blame him if he has there can be little harm in it
since he has gone astray in good company how far the string of reflections might have extended it is not easy to say since it did not reach its natural ending it was interrupted by the reappearance of pluto whose important air as he re entered the room
proclaimed him the bearer of eventful tidings well cried his master without waiting for him to speak is he there no mass woodley replied the black in a voice that betrayed a large measure of emotion
dat him hoss am dar his horse there not in his sleeping room i suppose no massa
his horse at the gate and why pray do you grieve about that
speak out you stammering nigger what because i suppose the horse has his head upon him or is it his tail that is missing
gorramity i fear de trouble wuss dan dat
i tell you no mo come to de gate ob do hashashanty and see fo youseff by this time the impression conveyed by pluto's speech much more by his manner notwithstanding its ambiguity had become sufficiently alarming
calculated to inspire all three with the most terrible apprehensions a negro man one of the field slaves of the plantation stood holding a horse that was saddled and bridled the animal wet with the dews of the night
and having been evidently uncared for in any stable was snorting and stamping the ground as if but lately escaped from some scene of excitement in which he had been compelled to take part
darker than his own coat of bay brown the spots scattered over his shoulders the streaks that ran parallel with the downward direction of his limbs the blotches showing conspicuously on the saddle flaps
of coagulated blood blood had caused them spots streaks and blotches whence came that horse from the prairies the negro had caught him on the outside plain as with the bridle trailing among his feet
he was instinctively straying towards the hacienda to whom did he belong the question was not asked all present knew him to be the horse of henry poindexter
who stood to them in the triple relationship of son brother and cousin the dark red spots on which they were distractedly gazing had spurted from the veins of henry poindexter
the smoking horses run with loosen'd reins she steers a various course among the foes now here now there her conqu'ring brother shows now with a straight
now with a wheeling flight she turns and bends but shuns the single fight
and seeks his foe and calls by name aloud he runs within a narrower ring and tries to stop the chariot but the chariot flies
what should he do nor arts nor arms avail and various cares in vain his mind assail
and with unerring aim and utmost vigor threw aeneas saw it come and stooping low beneath his buckler shunn'd the threat'ning blow
that flying turnus still declin'd the fight the prince whose piety had long repell'd his inborn ardor now invades the field invokes the pow'rs of violated peace
their rites and injur'd altars to redress then to his rage abandoning the rein with blood and slaughter'd bodies fills the plain what god can tell what numbers can display the various labors of that fatal day
jove could'st thou view and not avert thy sight two jarring nations join'd in cruel fight whom leagues of lasting love so shortly shall unite aeneas first rutulian sucro found
it reach'd his heart nor needs a second thrust now turnus at two blows two brethren slew first from his horse fierce amycus he threw then leaping on the ground on foot assail'd
and in equal fight prevail'd their lifeless trunks he leaves upon the place their heads distilling gore his chariot grace three cold on earth the trojan hero threw
o'erthrew nor phoebus could their fate prevent
after these he kill'd who long had shunn'd the dangers of the field on lerna's lake a silent life he led and with his nets and angle earn'd his bread nor pompous cares nor palaces he knew
they roll to sea with unresisted force and down the rocks precipitate their course not with less rage the rival heroes take their diff'rent ways nor less destruction make
with spears afar with swords at hand they strike and zeal of slaughter fires their souls alike like them their dauntless men maintain the field and hearts are pierc'd unknowing how to yield
crush'd with the weight of an unwieldy stone betwixt the wheels he fell the wheels that bore his living load his dying body tore
his starting steeds to shun the glitt'ring sword paw down his trampled limbs forgetful of their lord
the prince encounter'd him in full career and at his temples aim'd the deadly spear so fatally the flying weapon sped that thro his helm it pierc'd his head
which to his naked heart pursued the course nor could his plated shield sustain the force
whom not the grecian pow'rs nor great subverter of the trojan tow'rs were doom'd to kill while heav'n prolong'd his date
both hosts their broken troops unite in equal ranks and mix in mortal fight
sea born messapus with atinas heads the latin squadrons and to battle leads they strike they push they throng the scanty space resolv'd on death impatient of disgrace and where one falls another fills his place
attended thus he takes a neighb'ring height the crowding troops about their gen'ral stand all under arms and wait his high command then thus the lofty prince
hear and obey ye trojan bands without the least delay jove is with us and what i have decreed requires our utmost vigor and our speed your instant arms against the town prepare the source of mischief and the seat of war
the people shall be slaves
cleanse the polluted place with purging fires he finish'd and one soul inspiring all form'd in a wedge the foot approach the wall without the town
and clouds of missive arms obscure the sky advancing to the front the hero stands and stretching out to heav'n his pious hands attests the gods asserts his innocence
some would exclude their foes and some admit their friends the helpless king is hurried in the throng and
thus when the swain within a hollow rock invades the bees with suffocating smoke they run around or labor on their wings disus'd to flight and shoot their sleepy stings
black vapors issuing from the vent involve the sky but fate and envious fortune now prepare to plunge the latins in the last despair the queen who saw the foes invade the town and
mad with her anguish impotent to bear the mighty grief she loathes the vital air she calls herself the cause of all this ill and owns the dire effects of her ungovern'd will
she tears with both her hands her purple vest then round a beam a running noose she tied and fasten'd by the neck obscenely died soon as the fatal news by fame was blown
confusion fear distraction and disgrace and silent shame are seen in ev'ry face latinus tears his garments as he goes both for his public and his private woes with filth
his venerable beard besmears and sordid dust deforms his silver hairs and much he blames the softness of his mind obnoxious to the charms of womankind
and soon seduc'd to change what he so well design'd to break the solemn league so long desir'd nor finish what his fates and those of troy requir'd
as when the swains the libyan lion chase he makes a sour retreat nor mends his pace but if the pointed jav'lin pierce his side the lordly beast returns with double pride
he wrenches out the steel he roars for pain his sides he lashes and erects his mane so turnus fares his eyeballs flash with fire thro his wide nostrils clouds of smoke expire
this arm unaided shall assert your right then if my prostrate body press the plain to him the crown and beauteous bride remain to whom the king sedately thus replied brave youth
sincerely yours and free from fraudful art the gods by signs have manifestly shown no prince italian born should heir my throne
i and my subjects feel and you have had your share twice vanquish'd while in bloody fields we strive scarce in our walls we keep our hopes alive
why put i not an end to this debate still unresolv'd and still a slave to fate if turnus death a lasting peace can give why should i not procure it whilst you live should i to doubtful arms your youth betray what would my kinsmen the rutulians say
the wrathful youth disdaining the relief with intermitting sobs thus vents his grief the care o best of fathers which you take for my concerns at my desire forsake permit me not to languish out my days but make the best exchange of life for praise
this arm this lance can well dispute the prize and the blood follows where the weapon flies his goddess mother is not near to shroud the flying coward with an empty cloud but now the queen who fear'd for turnus life
and loath'd the hard conditions of the strife
in these sad accents gave her sorrow breath o turnus i adjure thee by these tears
within thy breast since thou art all my hope my sickly mind's repose my sinking age's prop since on the safety of thy life alone depends latinus and the latian throne refuse me not this one
this only pray'r to waive the combat and pursue the war whatever chance attends this fatal strife think it includes in thine amata's life i cannot live a slave or see my throne usurp'd by strangers or a trojan son
the more he look'd the more he fed the fire revenge and jealous rage and secret spite roll in his breast and rouse him to the fight
then turning to the herald thus pursues go greet the
the trojan and rutulian troops no more shall dye with mutual blood the latian shore our single swords the quarrel shall decide and to the victor be the beauteous bride he said and striding on with speedy pace he sought
his coursers of the thracian race at his approach they toss their heads on high
the sires of these orythia sent from far to grace pilumnus when he went to war the drifts of thracian snows were scarce so white nor northern winds in fleetness match'd their flight
officious grooms stand ready by his side and some with combs their flowing manes divide and others stroke their chests and gently soothe their pride
he sheath'd his limbs in arms a temper'd mass of golden metal those and mountain brass then to his head his glitt'ring helm he tied
which with such force he brandish'd in his hand
then cried o pond'rous spoil of actor slain and never yet by turnus toss'd in vain fail not this day thy wonted force but go sent by this hand to pierce the trojan foe
give me to tear his corslet from his breast and from that eunuch head to rend the crest dragg'd in the dust his frizzled hair to soil
thus while he raves from his wide nostrils flies a fiery steam
proudly he bellows and preludes the fight he tries his goring horns against a tree and meditates his absent enemy he pushes at the winds he digs the strand with his black hoofs and spurns the yellow sand
bounding from the sea from out their flaming nostrils breath'd the day when now the trojan and rutulian guard in friendly labor join'd
beneath the walls they measure out the space then sacred altars rear on sods of grass where with religious their common gods they place
in purest white the priests their heads attire and living waters bear and holy fire and o'er their linen hoods and shaded hair long twisted wreaths of sacred veryain wear in order issuing from the town appears
betwixt the ranks the proud commanders ride glitt'ring with gold and vests in purple dyed here
and there messapus born of seed divine
and round the listed space each man in order fills his proper place reclining on their ample shields they stand and fix their pointed lances in the sand
now studious of the sight a num'rous throng of either sex promiscuous old and young swarm the town
meantime the queen of heav'n beheld the sight
since call'd albano by succeeding fame but then an empty hill without a name
then thus the goddess of the skies bespoke with sighs and tears the goddess of the lake king turnus sister once a lovely maid ere to the lust of lawless jove betray'd
long hast thou known nor need i to record the wanton sallies of my wand'ring lord of ev'ry latian fair whom jove misled
and goes with gods averse o'ermatch'd in might to meet inevitable death in fight nor must i break the truce nor can sustain the sight
to whom saturnia thus thy tears are late haste snatch him if he can be snatch'd from fate new tumults kindle violate the truce
or if it were discharge the crime on me she said and sailing on the winged wind left the sad nymph suspended in her mind
twelve golden beams around his temples play to mark his lineage from the god of day two snowy coursers turnus chariot yoke and in his hand two massy spears he shook then issued from the camp in arms divine
aeneas author of the roman line and by his side ascanius took his place the second hope of rome's immortal race adorn'd in white a rev'rend priest appears and off'rings to the flaming altars bears
a porket and a lamb that never suffer'd shears then to the rising sun he turns his eyes and strews the beasts design'd for sacrifice with salt and meal with like officious care
and thus with pious pray'rs the gods ador'd all seeing sun and thou ausonian soil for which i have sustain'd so long a toil thou king of heav'n and thou the queen of air
propitious now and reconcil'd by pray'r thou god of war whose unresisted sway the labors and events of arms obey ye living fountains and ye running floods
all pow'rs of ocean all ethereal gods hear and bear record if i fall in field or recreant in the fight to turnus yield my trojans shall encrease evander's town
all claims all questions of debate shall cease
but if my juster arms prevail in fight
both equal both unconquer'd shall remain join'd in their laws their lands and their abodes i ask but altars for my weary gods the care of those religious rites be mine the crown to king latinus i resign
by hell below and by that upper god whose thunder signs the peace who seals it with his nod so let latona's double offspring hear and double fronted janus what i swear i touch the sacred altars touch the flames
and all those pow'rs attest and all their names whatever chance befall on either side no term of time this union shall divide no force no fortune shall my vows unbind or shake the steadfast tenor of my mind
not tho the circling seas should break their bound o'erflow the shores or sap the solid ground not tho the lamps of heav'n their spheres forsake hurl'd down and hissing in the nether lake
when thus in public view the peace was tied with solemn vows and sworn on either side all dues perform'd which holy rites require the victim beasts are slain before the fire
when their short sighs and thick'ning sobs she heard
dissembling her immortal form she took camertus mien his habit and his look a chief of ancient blood in arms well known was his great sire and he his greater son his shape assum'd amid the ranks she ran
and tuscan army count em as they stand undaunted to the battle if we go scarce ev'ry second man will share a foe turnus t is true in this unequal strife shall lose with honor his devoted life
or change it rather for immortal fame succeeding to the gods from whence he came but you a servile and inglorious band for foreign lords shall sow your native land
those fruitful fields your fighting fathers gain'd which have so long their lazy sons sustain'd with words like these she carried her design
which present to their eyes inspires new courage and a glad surprise for sudden in the fiery tracts above
the lakes and o'er their heads his sounding pinions shakes then stooping on the fairest of the train
but while he lags and labors in his flight behold the dastard fowl return anew and with united force the foe pursue clam'rous around the royal hawk they fly and thick'ning in a cloud o'ershade the sky
eager of action and demand the fight then king tolumnius
and thus his boasted skill imparts
this is what my frequent vows requir'd ye gods i take your omen and obey advance my friends and charge i lead the way these are the foreign foes whose impious band
his lance he threw the winged weapon whistling in the wind came driving on nor miss'd the mark design'd at once the cornel rattled in the skies at once tumultuous shouts and clamors rise
nine brothers in a goodly band there stood born of arcadian mix'd with tuscan blood
aim'd at the midmost of the friendly crew a passage thro the jointed arms it found just where the belt was to the body bound and struck the gentle youth extended on the ground
embrace and meet their ardor in the middle space the trojans tuscans and arcadian line with equal courage obviate their design peace leaves the violated fields and hate
both armies urges to their mutual fate with impious haste their altars are o'erturn'd the sacrifice half broil'd and half unburn'd thick storms of steel from either army fly
and clouds of clashing darts obscure the sky brands from the fire are missive weapons made with chargers bowls and all the priestly trade latinus frighted hastens from the fray and bears his unregarded gods away
and thro his body drove then with a scornful smile the victor cries the gods have found a fitter sacrifice
of his rich armor and uncrown his head priest corynaeus arm'd his better hand from his own altar with a blazing brand and as ebusus with a thund'ring pace advanc'd to battle dash'd it on his face
his holy poniard in his breast while podalirius with his sword pursued the shepherd alsus thro the flying crowd swiftly he turns and aims a deadly blow full on the front of his unwary foe
the broad ax enters with a crashing sound and cleaves the chin with one continued wound warm blood and mingled brains besmear his arms around
the faithless turnus owe thus while he spoke unmindful of defense a winged arrow struck the pious prince but whether from some human hand it came or hostile god is left unknown by fame no human hand or hostile god was found
at once his arms and coursers he requires then with a leap his lofty chariot gains and with a ready hand assumes the reins he drives impetuous and where'er he goes he leaves behind a lane of slaughter'd foes
these his lance reaches over those he rolls his rapid car and crushes out their souls in vain the vanquish'd fly the victor sends the dead men's weapons at their living friends
the god of battles in his angry mood clashing his sword against his brazen shield let loose the reins and scours along the field before the wind his fiery coursers fly groans the sad earth
with fury not unlike nor less disdain exulting turnus flies along the plain his smoking horses at their utmost speed he lashes on and urges o'er the dead their fetlocks run with blood
and when they bound the gore and gath'ring dust are dash'd around thamyris and pholus masters of the war he kill'd at hand but sthenelus afar from far the sons of imbracus he slew
glaucus and lades of the lycian crew both taught to fight on foot in battle join'd or mount the courser that outstrips the wind
vaunting in the field
this son of dolon bore his grandsire's name but
thus are my foes rewarded by my hand thus may they build their town and thus enjoy the land
so where resistless turnus takes his course the scatter'd squadrons bend before his force his crest of horses hair is blown behind by adverse air and rustles in the wind
and as the chariot roll'd along the plain light from the ground he leapt and seiz'd the rein thus hung in air he still retain'd his hold the coursers frighted and their course controll'd the lance of turnus reach'd him as he hung and pierc'd his plated arms
he turn'd and held against his threat'ning foe his ample shield then call'd for aid but while he cried in vain the chariot bore him backward on the plain he lies revers'd the victor king descends
with streams that issue from the bleeding trunk while he triumphs and while the trojans yield the wounded prince is forc'd to leave the field
and young ascanius weeping by his side conduct him to his tent scarce can he rear his limbs from earth supported on his spear
the steel remains no readier way he found to draw the weapon than t inlarge the wound eager of fight impatient of delay he begs and his unwilling friends obey
that for his love he proffer'd to bestow his tuneful harp and his unerring bow
and silent praise of healing arts before phoebean bays propp'd on his lance the pensive hero stood and heard and saw unmov'd the mourning crowd
with gentle touches he performs his part this way and that soliciting the dart and exercises all his heav'nly art all soft'ning simples known of sov'reign use he presses out and pours their noble juice
the driving dust proclaims the danger near and first their friends and then their foes appear their friends retreat their foes pursue the rear the camp is fill'd with terror and affright
the hissing shafts within the trench alight an undistinguish'd noise ascends the sky
unseen she stands temp'ring the mixture with her heav'nly hands and pours it in a bowl
but scarcely touch'd with tender hands moves up and follows of its own accord and health and vigor are at once restor'd
and first the footsteps of a god he found arms arms he cries the sword and shield prepare and send the willing chief renew'd to war this is no mortal work no cure of mine nor art's effect
then with a close embrace he strain'd his son and kissing thro his helmet thus begun my son from my example learn the war in camps to suffer and in fields to dare but happier chance than mine attend thy care
he said and striding issued on the plain anteus and mnestheus and a num'rous train attend his steps the rest their weapons take and crowding to the field
a cloud of blinding dust is rais'd around labors beneath their feet the trembling ground now turnus posted on a hill from far beheld the progress of the moving war with him the latins view'd the cover'd plains
and heard the hostile sound and fled for fear
as when a whirlwind rushing to the shore from the mid ocean drives the waves before the painful hind with heavy heart foresees the flatted fields and slaughter of the trees
with like impetuous rage the prince appears before his doubled front
by whose command the truce was broken and whose lance embrued with trojan blood
john myers john fled from under the yoke of doctor joshua r nelson until within two years of jack's flight the doctor had been a very fine man with whom jack found no fault
four men approached him the doctor one of them with line in hand that sign was well understood and jack resolved that they should not get within tying distance of him i dodged them said jack
and succeeded in reaching pennsylvania and the committee he was obliged to leave four children behind john abraham jane and ellen jack's wife had been freed and had come to philadelphia two years in advance of him
his master evidently supposed that jack would be mean enough to wish to see his wife even in a free state and that no slave with such an unnatural desire could be tolerated or trusted
that the sooner such articles were turned into cash the better this in substance was the way jack accounted for the sudden change which had come over his master
in defense of his course jack referred to the treatment which he had received while in servitude under his old master in something like the following words i served under my young master's father thirty five years and from him received kind treatment
i was his head man on the place and had everything to look after arrival from maryland eighteen fifty seven william lee susan jane boile and amarian lucretia rister
low ignorant man not above a common wood chopper and owned no other slave property than william
against him however william brought no accusation of any very severe treatment on the contrary
as though he wanted to be good and get religion but said he could not while he was trying to be rich
everything looked hopeless in william's eyes so far as the master's riches and his own freedom were concerned he concluded that he would leave him the bag to hold alone william therefore laid down the shovel and the hoe
susan jane came from new market near georgetown cross roads where she had been held to unrequited labor
amarian was twenty one years of age a person of light color medium size with a prepossessing countenance and smart she could read write and play on the piano
from a child amarian had been owned by missus elizabeth key scott who resided near braceville but at the time of her flight she was living at westminster in the family of a man named boile said to be the clerk of the court
consequently they gave her the benefit of the doubt she spoke of having a mother living in hagerstown by the name of amarian ballad also three sisters who were slaves and two who were free she also had a brother in chains in mississippi
eighteen fifty seven william carney and andrew allen william was about fifty one years of age a man of unmixed blood physically he was a superior man
and when under its influence she was very desperate and acted as though she wanted to kill some of the slaves after the evil spirit left her and she had regained her wonted composure she would pretend that she loved her negroes and would make a great fuss over them
not infrequently she would have very serious difficulty with her overseers having license to do as they pleased they would of course carry their cruelties to the most extreme verge of punishment
if a slave was maimed or killed under their correction it was no loss of theirs one of the overseers by the name of bill anderson once shot a young slave man called luke
and wounded him so seriously that he was not expected to live at another time one of the overseers beat and kicked a slave to death this barbarity caused the mistress to be very much stirred up
and she declared that she would not have any more white overseers condemned them for everything and decided to change her policy in future and to appoint her overseers from her own slaves setting the property to watch the property
this system was organized and times were somewhat better william had been hired out almost his entire life for the last twelve or fifteen years he had been accustomed to hire his time for one hundred and thirty dollars per annum
in november previous to william's escape her long looked for dissolution took place every bondman who was old enough to realize the nature and import of the change felt a great anxiety to learn what the will of their old mistress said
whether she had actually freed them or not alas when the secret was disclosed it was ascertained that not a fetter was broken not a bond unloosed and that no provision whatever had been made looking towards freedom
in this sad case the slaves could imagine no other fate than soon to be torn asunder and scattered the fact was soon made known that the high sheriff had administered on the estate of the late mistress
it was therefore obvious enough to william and the more intelligent slaves that the auction block was near at hand the trader the slave pen the auction block the coffle gang the rice swamp the cotton plantation
bloodhounds and cruel overseers loomed up before him as they had never done before without stopping to consider the danger he immediately made up his mind that he would make a struggle cost what it might
he was shrewd enough to find an agent who gave him private instructions and to whom he indicated a desire to travel north on said road on examination he was deemed reliable
his family were slaves and bore the following names his wife nancy and children simon henry william sarah mary ann elizabeth louis and cornelius
it was no light matter to bid them farewell forever the separation from them was a trial such as rarely falls to the lot of mortals but he nerved himself for the undertaking and when the hour arrived
his strength was sufficient for the occasion thus in company with andrew they embarked for an unknown shore their entire interests entrusted to a stranger who was to bring them through difficulties and dangers seen and unseen
he had served on the farm as a common farm laborer
to use his own language the fear of what awaited the slaves prompted andrew to escape he too was entangled with a wife and one child with whom he parted only as a friend parts with a companion when death separates them
and the gratification afforded his master when he john brought a good price left no very pleasing impressions on his mind by one of his owners named burke john alleged that he had been cruelly used when quite young
both he and his sister together with their mother were sold by burke from that time he had seen neither mother nor sister they were sold separately for three or four years the desire to seek liberty had been fondly cherished
and nothing but the want of a favorable opportunity had deterred him from carrying out his designs he considered himself much imposed upon by his master particularly as he was allowed no choice about living as he desired
this was indeed ill treatment as john viewed the matter john may have wanted too much he was about thirty five years of age light complexion tall rather handsome looking intelligent and of good manners
but notwithstanding these prepossessing features john's owner valued him at only one thousand dollars if he had been a few shades darker and only about half as intelligent as he was
he was also under the influence and advice of a daughter of old ireland she was heart and soul with john in all his plans which looked canada ward this it was that sent him away
it is very certain that this irish girl was not annoyed by the kinks in john's hair nor was she overly fastidious about the small percentage of colored blood visible in john's complexion it was however a strange occurrence and very hard to understand
not a stone was left unturned until john was safely on the underground rail road doubtless she helped to earn the money which was paid for his passage and when he was safe off
expressing their heartfelt gratitude for assistance and their happiness in the prospect of being united under the favorable auspices of freedom at least two or three of these letters
i take the liberty of addressing you with these few lines hoping that you will attend to what i shall request of you i have written to virginia and have not received an answer yet i want to know if you can get any one of your city to go to richmond for me
if you can i will pay the expense of the whole the person that i want the messenger to see is a white girl i expect you know who i allude to it is the girl that sent me away
please use your endeavors yours respectfuliy john hall direct yours to mister hill second letter hamilton september fifteenth eighteen fifty six to mister still dear sir
i take this opportunity of addressing these few lines to you hoping to find you in good health i am happy to inform you that miss weaver arrived here on tuesday last and i can assure you it was indeed a happy day as for your part that you done
i will not attempt to tell you how thankful i am but i hope that you can imagine what my feelings are to you i cannot find words sufficient to express my gratitude to you i think the wedding will take place on tuesday next
i have seen some of the bread from your house and she says it is the best bread she has had since she has been in america sometimes she has impudence enough to tell me she would rather be where you are in philadelphia than to be here with me
i hope this will be no admiration to you for no honest hearted person ever saw you that would not desire to be where you are no flattery but candidly speaking you are worthy all the praise of any person who has ever been with you
i now ask you please to exercise all your influence to get this young man willis johnson from richmond for me it is the young man that miss weaver told you about he is in richmond i think he is at the corner of fushien street and grace
he can be found out by seeing fountain tombs who belongs to mister rutherford and if you should not see him there is james turner who lives at the governors please to see captain bayliss
and tell him to take these directions and go to john hill in petersburgh and he may find him tell captain bayliss that if he ever did me a friendly thing in his life which he did do one friendly act if he will take this on himself
and if money should be lacking i will forward any money that he may require i hope you will sympathize with the poor young fellow and tell the captain to do all in his power to get him and the costs shall be paid he lies now between death or victory
for i know the man he belongs to would just as soon kill him as not if he catches him i here enclose to you a letter for mister wm c mayo and please to send it as directed in this letter i have asked him to send a box to you for me
which you will please pay the fare of the express upon it when you get it please to let me know and i will send you the money to pay the expenses of the carriage clear through please to let mister mayo know how to direct a box to you
but i simply send it because i know you have done enough and are now doing more without imposing in the matter i have done it a great many more of our people who you have done so much fore no more from your humble and oldest servant
john hall norton's hotel hamilton third letter monday september twenty ninth fifty six sir i take this opportunity of informing you that we are in excellent health and hope you are the same
i enclose a letter which i wish you to forward to mister mayo you will see in his letter what i have said to him and i wish you would furnish him with such directions as it requires for him to send them things to you i have told him not to pay for them
please to let me know if you had a letter from me about twelve days ago you will please direct the enclosed to mister w c mayo richmond virginia let me know if you have heard anything of willis johnson
mister and missus hill send their kind love to you they are all well no more at present from your affect john hall nortons hotel fourth letter hamilton december twenty third d eighteen fifty six
dear sir i am happy to inform you that we are both enjoying good health and hope you are the same i have been expecting a letter from you for some time but i suppose your business has prevented you from writing
i suppose you have not heard from any of my friends at richmond i have been longing to hear some news from that part you may think out of sight and out of mind but i can assure you no matter how far i may be or in what distant land
i shall never forget you if i can never reach you by letters you may be sure i shall always think of you i have found a great many friends in my life but i must say you are the best one i ever met with except one
you must know who that is tis one who if i did not consider a friend i could not consider any other person a friend and that is missus hall please to let me know if the navigation between new york and richmond is closed
please to let me know whether it would be convenient to you to go to new york if it is please let me know what is the expense tell missus still that my wife would be very happy to receive a letter from her at some moment when she is at leisure
there is a young man named richard myers and i should like for you to see him he goes on board the orono to richmond and is a particular friend of mine and by seeing him i could get my clothes from richmond i expect to be out of employ in a few days
as the hotel is about to close on the first january and i hope you will write to me soon i want you to send me word how you and all the family are and all the news you can you must excuse my short letter
as it is now near one o'clock and i must attend to business but i have not written half what i intended to as time is short hoping to hear from you soon i remain yours sincerely john hall
mister and missus hill desire their best respects to you and missus still it cannot be denied that this is a most extraordinary occurrence in some respects it is without a parallel
archer barlow alias emit robins this passenger arrived from norfolk virginia in eighteen fifty three for the last four years previous to escaping he had been under the yoke of doctor george wilson
archer declared that he had been very badly treated by the doctor which he urged as his reason for leaving true the doctor had been good enough to allow him to hire his time for which he required archer to pay the moderate sum
of one hundred twenty dollars per annum as archer had been sickly most of the time during the last year he complained that there was no reduction in his hire on this account upon reflection therefore archer thought
if he had justice done him he would be in possession of this one hundred and twenty himself and all his other rights instead of having to toil for another without pay so he looked seriously into the matter of master and slave
and pretty soon resolved that if others chose to make no effort to get away for himself he would never be contented until he was free when a slave reached this decision he was in a very hopeful state
white and half colored a dark mulatto his arrival in philadelphia per one of the richmond steamers was greeted with joy by the vigilance committee who extended to him the usual aid and care and forwarded him on to freedom
for a number of years he has been a citizen of boston samuel bush alias william oblebee this piece of property fled in the fall of eighteen fifty three as a specimen of this article of commerce he evinced considerable intelligence
he was a man of dark color although not totally free from the admixture of the superior southern blood in his veins in stature he was only ordinary for leaving he gave the following reasons
and when i was sick i had to pay just as much as if i were well seven dollars a month but my master was cross and said that he intended to sell me to do better by me another year times grew worse and worse constantly
i thought as i had heard that if i could raise thirty dollars i could come away he at once saw the value of money to his mind it meant liberty from that moment thenceforth he decided to treasure up every dollar he could get hold of
until he could accumulate at least enough to get out of old virginia he was a married man and thought he had a wife and one child but on reflection he found out that they did not actually belong to him but to a carpenter by the name of bailey
the man whom samuel was compelled to call master was named hoyle the committee's interview with samuel was quite satisfactory and they cheerfully accorded to him brotherly kindness and material aid at the same time john spencer
and his son william and james albert these individuals escaped from the eastern shore of maryland in the spring of eighteen fifty three but were led to conclude that they could enjoy the freedom they had aimed to find in new jersey
they procured employment in the neighborhood of haddonfield some six or eight miles from camden new jersey and were succeeding as they thought very well things went on favorably for about three months when to their alarm
they were pretty thoroughly alarmed and felt very anxious to be safely off to canada while the committee always rendered in such cases immediate protection and aid they nevertheless felt in view of the imminent dangers existing under the fugitive slave law
and they very fully realized their folly in stopping in new jersey the committee procured their tickets helped them to disguise themselves as much as possible and admonished them not to stop short of canada hetty scott
in this disobedient state of mind she determined if hard struggling would enable her to defeat the threats of mister daniel coolby that he should not much longer have the satisfaction of enjoying the fruit of the toil of herself and offspring
she at once began to prepare for her journey she had three children of her own to bring besides she was intimately acquainted with a young man and a young woman both slaves
to whom she felt that it would be safe to confide her plans with a view of inviting them to accompany her the young couple were ready converts to the eloquent speech delivered to them by hetty on freedom and were quite willing to accept her as their leader in the emergency
up to the hour of setting out on their lonely and fatiguing journey arrangements were being carefully completed so that there should be no delay of any kind at the appointed hour they were all moving northward in good order
they found friends of the slave who welcomed them to their homes and sympathy gladdening the hearts of all concerned for prudential reasons it was deemed desirable to separate the party to send some one way and some another
robert fisher this passenger avails himself of holiday week between christmas and new year's to make his northern trip robert was about thirty years of age dark color quite tall
and in talking with him a little while it was soon discovered that slavery had not crushed all the brains out of his head by a good deal nor was he so much attached to his kind hearted master john edward jackson of anne arundel maryland or his old fiddle
that he was contented and happy while in bondage far from it the fact was that he hated slavery so decidedly and had such a clear common sense like view of the evils and misery of the system that he declared
he had as a matter of principle refrained from marrying in order that he might have no reason to grieve over having added to the woes of slaves nor did he wish to be encumbered if the opportunity offered to escape according to law
he was entitled to his freedom at the age of twenty five
many who had been willed free were held just as firmly in slavery as if no will had ever been made robert had too much sense to suppose that he could gain anything by seeking legal redress
who would work his servants early and late without allowing them food and clothing sufficient to shield them from the cold and hunger robert certainly had unmistakable marks about him of having been used roughly
the fear of the slave hunter nor the scantiness of their means should deter him from making his way to freedom nathan listened to the proposal and was suddenly converted to freedom and the two united during christmas week eighteen fifty four
and set out on the underground rail road it is needless to say that they had trying difficulties to encounter these they expected but all were overcome and they reached the vigilance committee in philadelphia safely
this traveler arrived from millsboro indian river delaware where he was owned by wm e burton while hansel did not really own himself he had the reputation of having a wife and six children
in june some six months prior to her husband's arrival hansel's wife had been allowed by her mistress to go out on a begging expedition to raise money to buy herself but contrary to the expectation of her mistress she never returned
doubtless the mistress looked upon this course as a piece of the most highhanded stealing hansel did not speak of his owner as being a hard man but on the contrary he thought that he was about as good as the best that he was acquainted with
while this was true however hansel had quite good ground for believing that his master was about to sell him dreading this fate
rose anna tonnell alias maria hyde she fled from isaac tonnell of georgetown delaware in christmas week eighteen fifty three
mary arrived with her two children in the early spring of eighteen fifty four the mother was a woman of about thirty three years of age quite tall with a countenance and general appearance well fitted to awaken sympathy at first sight
for their flight they chose the dead of winter after leaving they made their way to west chester and there found friends and security for several weeks up to the time they reached philadelphia probably the friends with whom they stopped
thought the weather too inclement for a woman with children dependent on her support to travel long before this mother escaped thoughts of liberty filled her heart she was ever watching for an opportunity that would encourage her to hope for safety when once the attempt should be made
until however she was convinced that her two children were to be sold she could not quite muster courage to set out on the journey this threat to sell proved in multitudes of instances the last straw on the camel's back
when nothing else would start them this would mary and her children were the only slaves owned by this ennis consequently her duties were that of jack of all trades sometimes in the field and sometimes in the barn
as well as in the kitchen by which it is needless to say that her life was rendered servile to the last degree
holding a baby when adam delved and eve span the fiction that man is incapable of housework was first established
it would be interesting to figure out just how many foot pounds of energy men have saved themselves since the creation of the world by keeping up the pretense that a special knack is required for washing dishes and for dusting and that the knack is wholly feminine
the pretense of incapacity is impudent in its audacity and yet it works
men build bridges and throw railroads across deserts and yet they contend successfully that the job of sewing on a button is beyond them accordingly they don't have to sew buttons
it might be said of course that the safety of suspension bridges is so much more important than that of suspenders that the division of labor is only fair
but there are many of us who have never thrown a railroad in our lives and yet swagger in all the glory of masculine achievement without undertaking any of the drudgery of odd jobs
probably men alone could never have maintained the fallacy of masculine incapacity without the aid of women as soon as that rather limited sphere once known as woman's place was established
women began to glorify and exaggerate its importance by the pretense that it was all so special and difficult that no other sex could possibly begin to accomplish the tasks entailed to this declaration men gave immediate and eager assent
naturally there are other factors biology has been unscrupulous enough to discriminate markedly against women and men have seized upon this advantage to press the belief that since the bearing of children is exclusively the province of women
it must be that all the caring for them belongs properly to the same sex yet how ridiculous this is most things which have to be done for children are of the simplest sort they should tax the intelligence of no one
men profess a total lack of ability to wash baby's face simply because they believe there's no great fun in the business at either end of the sponge protectively man must go the whole distance and pretend that there is not one single thing
which he can do for baby he must even maintain that he doesn't know how to hold one from this pretense has grown the shockingly transparent fallacy that holding a baby correctly is one of the fine arts or perhaps even more fearsome than that
a wonderful intuition which has come down after centuries of effort to women only the thing that surprised richard most says a recent woman novelist
she seemed to know by instinct things that richard could not understand and that he could not understand how she came by if she reached out her hands to take annabel her fingers seemed of themselves
to curve into the places where they would fit the spineless bundle and give it support at this point interruption is inevitable places indeed there are one hundred and fifty two distinctly different ways of holding a baby and all are right
there is no need of seeking out special places for the hands a baby is so soft that anybody with a firm grip can make places for an effective hold wherever he chooses but to return to our quotation
if richard tried to take up the bundle his fingers fell away like the legs of the brittle crab and the bundle collapsed incalculable and helpless how do you do it he would say
and he would right annabel and try to still her protests and eleanor would only smile gently and send him on some masculine errand while she soothed annabel's feelings in the proper way
you may depend upon it that richard also smiled as soon as he was safely out of the house and embarked upon some masculine errand such as playing eighteen holes of golf probably by the time he reached the tenth green
i once knew the wife of the greatest billiard player in the world and she informed me with much pride that her husband was incapable of carrying the baby he doesn't seem to have the proper touch she explained as a matter of fact
even if men in general were as awkward as they pretend to be at home there would still be small reason for their shirking the task of carrying a baby except that right side up is best there is not much to learn as i ventured to suggest before
almost any firm grip will do of course the child may cry but that is simply because he has become over particular through too much coddling nature herself is cavalier
young rabbits don't even whimper when picked up by the ears and kittens are quite contented to be lifted by the scruff of the neck this same nature has been used as the principal argument for woman's exclusive ability to take care of the young
it is pretty generally held that all a woman needs to do to know all about children is to have some this wisdom is attributed to instinct again and again we have been told by rapturous grandmothers that
it isn't something which can be read in a book or taught in a school nature is the great teacher this simply isn't true there are many mothers in america who have learned far more from the manuals of doctor holt than instinct ever taught them
is not what it used to be i have no feeling of being a traitor to my sex when i say that i believe in at least a rough equality of parenthood in shirking all the business of caring for children we have escaped much hard labor it has been convenient
perhaps it has been too convenient if we have avoided arduous tasks we have also missed much fun of a very special kind like children in a toy shop we have chosen to live with the most amusing of talking and walking dolls
without ever attempting to tear down the sign which says do not touch in fact we have helped to set it in place that is a pity children mean nothing at long range
this may be the reason why so many trained nurses marry their patients
a dish is an unresponsive thing it gives back nothing a child's face offers competitive possibilities it is interesting to see just how high a polish can be achieved without making it cry
you have a sense of importance almost divine in its extent this is to feel at one with fate to be the master of another's destiny of his waking and his sleeping and his going out into the world
it is a brand new world for the child he is a veritable adam and you loom up in his life as more than mortal golf is well enough for a sunday sport
but it is a trifling thing beside the privilege of taking a small son to the zoo and letting him see his first lion his first tiger and best of all his first elephant probably he will think that they are part of your own handiwork
turned out for his pleasure to a child at least even the meanest of us may seem glamourous with magic and wisdom it seems a pity not to take the fullest advantage of this chance before the opportunity is lost
cortes on his lonely peak in darien was a pigmy discoverer beside the child eating his first spoonful of ice cream
there is the immediate frightened and angry rebellion against the coldness of it and then the amazing sensation as the strange substance melts into magic of pleasant sweetness the child will go on to high adventure
but i doubt whether the world holds for any one more soul stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice cream no there is nothing dull in feeding a child
there is less to be said for dressing a child from the point of view of recreation this seems to us laborious and rather tiresome both for father and child still i knew one man who managed to make an adventure of it
he boasted that he had broken all the records of the world for changing all or any part of a child's clothing he was a skilled automobile mechanic much in demand in races where tires are whisked on and off he brought his technic into the home
i saw several of his demonstrations he was a silent man who habitually carried a mouthful of safety pins once the required youngster had been pointed out he wasted no time in preliminary wheedlings
but tossed her on the floor without more ado even before her head had bumped he would be hard at work with him the thrill lay in the inspiration of the competitive spirit
perhaps a quarter section would be still better the thing that sank mister wilson's project so far as america was concerned was the machinery it was too heavy not so much was needed
the only essential thing was a large round table and a pleasant room held under at least one year's lease of course it should have been the right sort of table
we might already have a better world beer and light wines can settle subjects which defy all the subtleties possible to ink
what the world needs then is not so much a league as an international beer night to be held at regular intervals by representatives of the nations
good beer and enough of it would have settled the whole problem of the covenants which were going to be open and did not turn out that way
an alert reporter hanging about the front door could not fail to hear the strains of he's a jolly good fellow drifting down the stairs from the conference room and if he were a journalist of any ability
and discussing indemnities some persons were not quite fair in criticizing the shortcomings of president wilson at paris
it was easy to seize upon open covenants and to demolish his sincerity by pointing out the secrecy with which negotiations were carried on it is sentimentally satisfying to every liberal and radical in the world to declare that all the walls should have come down and to continue this criticism
by suggesting that the arms conference ought to have been taken out of the pan american building and transferred to tex rickard's arena on boyle's thirty acres or the yale bowl
the notion is fascinating because it permits the possibility of cheering sections and enables one to picture henry cabot lodge leaping to his feet every now and again and asking all the men with the r r banners
reactionary republicans
it is appealing and we wish it could be done that way but it is not sound we all know how bitter and destructive are legal battles which have their first hearing in the newspapers
across eight column headlines instead of a table one may counter by calling to mind various evil things which have come to the world from the tops of tables
but we must insist again upon stressing the point that these were not tables which supported food and drink in paris various points were lost to democracy because the supporters of the right
were outstayed by the champions of evil in our little club room it would be hard to put such pressure upon anybody he would need to do no more than shout for the waiter to fill up his mug again and intrench himself for the evening
the most attractive thing about our suggestion is that though it sounds like frivolous foolery it actually is nothing of the sort we are willing to accept modifications but the scheme would work
we have seen the pacifying effects of food and drink upon warring factions too many times not to respect them
once at a dinner we heard max eastman talk across a table to judge gary and both enjoyed it we do not mean to suggest that the two men arose with all their previous ideas of the conduct of the world changed
judge gary did not offer in spite of the eloquence of eastman to curtail the working day in the mills of the united states steel company
nor did the editor of the liberator promise that thereafter he would be more kindly disposed in writing about universal military training but both men were disposed to listen
gary did not rush to the telephone to summon a federal attorney and there was no disposition on the part of eastman to call the proletariat up into immediate arms the most friendly thing which anybody ever said about mister wilson's league of nations
came from those opponents of the scheme who called it nothing but a debating society talk is lint for the wounds of the world the guns cannot begin until the statesmen have had their say
any device which provides a pleasant place and an audience for the orators in power is distinctly a move to end war the trouble with ultimatums is not only that they are ugly but that they are short
but it would still be in a talking stage arguments must be fostered and preserved it may be a little tiresome to hear premiers saying is that so to one another
but the satisfaction derived from such exchanges is enough to keep the conflicting parties from seeking a blood restoration of national egos food and drink are not only the greatest instigators
but the best preservers of free speech in the world undoubtedly everybody in his time has heard some toastmaster or other insult a prominent citizen a few feet away in a manner which would be unsafe on the public highway
and nothing has happened it has been passed off as something wholly suitable to the occasion as we listened to max eastman talk across the table to judge gary
these are the ultimate and most effective weapons of all peaceful men with one of each in front of him even a revolutionist may bare his heart and still be safe from the bayonets of the military of course
the value of the weapons is not unknown to the conservatives as well many a rampant reformer has gone to washington and has seen his ideals drown one by one before his eyes in the soup
for years england managed to muddle along with ireland by inviting nationalists out to dinner
in the light of these admissions it would be impossible to contend that all the ills of the world could be solved by the device of international beer nights even well fed men are not perfect
alcohol is benign but it does not canonize schemes would go on even over demitasses
diplomacy is an evil game chiefly because it has been so exclusive our little club would be large enough to admit all the delegates of the world the only house rule would be no checks cashed
we have no idea that the heart of man is not more important than his stomach the world will not be made over more closely to the heart's desire until we are of a better breed but while we are waiting
we might manage to swap a groaning world for a groaning board there is sanction for hope in the words of the song
art for argument's sake all editors are divided into two parts in one group are those who think that anybody who can make a good bomb can undoubtedly fashion a great sonnet
the members of the other class believe that if a man loves his country he is necessarily well fitted to be a book reviewer as a matter of fact new terminology is coming into the business of criticism
a few years ago the critic who was displeased with a book called it sensational or sentimental or something like that to day he would voice his disapproval by writing
pro german or bolshevist authors are no longer evaluated in terms of aesthetics but rather from the point of view of political economy
indeed to day we have hardly such a thing as good writers and bad writers they have become instead either sound or dangerous a sound author is one with whose views you are in agreement
so tightly are the lines drawn that the criticism of the leading members of each side can be accurately predicted in advance show me the cover of a war novel and let me observe that it is called the great folly
and i will guarantee to foreshadow with a high degree of accuracy just what the critic of the new york times will say about it and also the critic of the liberator even if it happened to be called the glory of shrapnel
the guessing would be just as easy the manner in which anybody says anything now whether in prose verse music or painting is entirely secondary in the minds of all critical publications
reviewers look for motives symphonies are dismissed as seditious and lyrics are closely scanned to see whether or not their rhythms are calculated to upset the established order without due recourse to the ballot
nor has this particular reviewer any intention of suggesting that such activity is entirely vain and fanciful he remembers that only a month ago he began a thrilling adventure story called
a vivid novel about the war by john dos passos has been issued under the title three soldiers
one of the chief characters was a creative musician who broke under the rigor of army discipline which was repugnant to him
nobody who wrote about the book undertook to discuss whether or not the author had painted a persuasive picture of the struggle in the soul of a credible man instead
they argued as to just what proportion of men in the american army were discontented and the final critical verdict is being withheld until statistics are available as to how many of them were musicians
those who disliked the book did not speak of mister dos passos as either a realist or a romanticist they simply called him a traitor and let it go at that the enthusiasts
speaking as a native born american brooklyn eighteen eighty eight who once voted for a socialist for membership in the board of aldermen
again and again he has found in the liberator and elsewhere able young men who ought to know better praising novels for no reason on earth except that they were radical
if the novelist said that life in a middlewestern town was dreary and evil he was bound to be praised by the socialist reviewers
on the other hand any author who found in this same middle west a community or an individual not hopelessly stunted in mind and in morals
the enthusiasm of the radical critics extends not only to rebels against existing governmental principles and moral conventions but to all those who dare to write in any new manner
novels which begin in the middle and work first forward and then back win favor as blows against the bourgeois idea that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points
of course the radical author can do almost anything the conservative does and still retain the admiration of his fellows by dint of a very small amount of tact
rhapsodies on love will be damned as sentimental if the author has been injudicious enough to allow his characters to marry but he can retain exactly the same language if he is careful to add a footnote that nothing is contemplated except the freest of free unions
a few works are praised by both sides because each finds a different interpretation for the same set of facts thus the authors of dulcy
were surprised to find themselves warmly greeted in one of the socialist dailies as young men who had struck a blow for government ownership of all essential industries merely because they had introduced a big business man into their play
and for the purposes of comic relief had made him a fool
the recent battle of the century eventually simmered down into the minds of many as a struggle between the forces of reaction and revolution
it was known before the fight that carpentier would wear a flowered silk bathrobe into the ring while dempsey would be clad in an old red sweater how could symbolism be more perfect
anybody who believed that carpentier's right would be good enough to win was immediately set down as a profiteer in munitions who would undoubtedly welcome the outbreak of another war
likewise it was unsafe to express the opinion that dempsey's infighting might be too much for the frenchman lest one be identified with the little willful group of pacifists who impeded the progress of the war
it was generally felt by his supporters that the eight hour day was safe and that the open shop would never be generally accepted in america
the only encouraging feature in the increasingly sharp feeling of class consciousness among critics is a growing frankness
because he speaks ill of conscription and they believe in it
one of the frankest writing men we ever met is the editor of a socialist newspaper whenever there's a big strike he explained to me i always tell the man who goes out on the story
never see a striker hit a scab always see the scab hit the striker you see he went on there are seven or eight other newspapers in town who will see it just the other way
and i've got to keep the balance straight there used to be a practice somewhat similar to this among baseball umpires
that is not among umpires
the radical editor was not in the least abashed when i quoted to him the remark of a man who said that he always read his paper with great interest because he invariably found the editorial opinions in the news
it is to be feared that even those writers who have the opportunity to be more deliberate than the journalists have been struck with the idea that by words they can shape the world a little closer to the heart's desire
throughout the war we were told so constantly that battles could be decided and ships built and wars decided by the force of propaganda that every man with a portable typewriter in his suitcase began to think of it
as a baton there was a day when a novelist was satisfied if he could capture a little slice of life and get it between the covers of his book now everybody writes to shake the world
started pretty well on foot came to steep slope with crevasses few
but picked up a much weathered cairn on our right
afternoon came along a little better but again lost tracks on hard slope to night we are near camp of december twenty sixth but cannot see cairn
wilson's leg much better and my shoulder also though it gives bad twinges the extra food is doing us all good but we ought to have more sleep very few more days on the plateau i hope sunday
half way in the march the land showed up splendidly and i decided to make straight for mt darwin which we are rounding every sign points to getting away off this plateau
the party is not improving in condition especially evans who is becoming rather dull and incapable
bowers is splendid full of energy and bustle all the time
monday
a good forenoon few crevasses we covered ten point two miles in the afternoon we soon got into difficulties we saw the land very clearly but the difficulty is to get at it
an hour after starting we came on huge pressures and great street crevasses partly open we had to steer more and more to the west so that our course was very erratic
we've had a horrid day and not covered good mileage on turning out found sky overcast a beastly position amidst crevasses luckily it cleared just before we started we went straight for mt darwin
but in half an hour found ourselves amongst huge open chasms unbridged but not very deep i think we turned to the north between two but to our chagrin they converged into chaotic disturbance we had to retrace our steps for a mile or so
food is low and weather uncertain so that many hours of the day were anxious but this evening though we are not as far advanced as i expected the outlook is much more promising evans is the chief anxiety now his cuts and wounds suppurate
half a day longer between depots than we have been the temperature is higher but there is a cold wind to night well we have come through our seven weeks ice camp journey and most of us are fit but i think another week might have had a very bad effect on evans
who is going steadily downhill it is satisfactory to recall that these facts give absolute proof of both expeditions having reached the pole and placed the question of priority beyond discussion thursday
supper zero nine point two miles started from the depot rather late
had a beastly morning wind very strong and cold steered in for mt darwin to visit rock sent bowers on on ski as wilson can't wear his at present he obtained several specimens
all of much the same type a close grained granite rock which weathers red hence the pink limestone after he rejoined we skidded downhill pretty fast leaders on ski oates and wilson on foot alongside sledge
evans detached we lunched at two well down towards mt buckley the wind half a gale and everybody very cold and cheerless however better things were to follow
we decided to steer for the moraine under mt buckley and pulling with crampons we crossed some very irregular steep slopes with big crevasses and slid down towards the rocks
also some excellently preserved impressions of thick stems showing cellular structure in one place we saw the cast of small waves on the sand to night bill has got a specimen of limestone with archeo cyathus
the trouble is one cannot imagine where the stone comes from it is evidently rare as few specimens occur in the moraine there is a good deal of pure white quartz
altogether we have had a most interesting afternoon and the relief of being out of the wind and in a warmer temperature is inexpressible i hope and trust we shall all buck up again now that the conditions are more favourable
we deserve a little good bright weather after all our trials and hope to get a chance to dry our sleeping bags and generally make our gear more comfortable friday february ninth
height five thousand
about thirteen miles kept along the edge of moraine to the end of mt buckley
ought to have kept close in to glacier north of mt buckley
evidently we got amongst bad ice pressure and had to come down over an ice fall the crevasses were much firmer than expected and we got down with some difficulty found our night camp of december twentieth and lunched an hour after
did pretty well in the afternoon marching three and three quarters hours the sledge meter is unshipped so cannot tell distance traversed very warm on march and we are all pretty tired
it is remarkable to be able to stand outside the tent and sun oneself our food satisfies now but we must march to keep in the full ration and we want rest yet we shall pull through all right
we are by no means worn out saturday
after lunch the land began to be obscured we held a course for two and a half hours with difficulty then the sun disappeared and snow drove in our faces with northerly wind very warm and impossible to steer so camped
after supper still very thick all round but sun showing and less snow falling the fallen snow crystals are quite feathery like thistledown we have two full days food left and though our position is uncertain
another night to make up arrears of sleep the ice crystals that first fell this afternoon were very large now the sky is clearer overhead the temperature has fallen slightly and the crystals are minute sunday
the worst day we have had during the trip and greatly owing to our own fault
horrible light which made everything look fantastic as we went on light got worse and suddenly we found ourselves in pressure then came the fatal decision to steer east we went on for six hours
hoping to do a good distance which in fact i suppose we did
getting on to a good surface we did not reduce our lunch meal
but half an hour after lunch we got into the worst ice mess i have ever been in for three hours we plunged on on ski first thinking we were too much to the right then too much to the left
there were times when it seemed almost impossible to find a way out of the awful turmoil in which we found ourselves at length
pushed for it but knew it was a woefully long way from us the turmoil changed in character irregular crevassed surface giving way to huge chasms closely packed and most difficult to cross
we won through at ten p m and i write after twelve hours on the march i think we are on or about the right track now but we are still a good number of miles from the depot so we reduced rations to night
we had three pemmican meals left and decided to make them into four to morrow's lunch must serve for two if we do not make big progress
we have come through well a good wind has come down the glacier which is clearing the sky and surface pray god the wind holds to morrow short sleep to night and off first thing i hope monday
two hours before lunch we were cheered by the sight of our night camp of the eighteenth december
this showed we were on the right track in the afternoon refreshed by tea we went forward confident of covering the remaining distance but by a fatal chance we kept too far to the left and then we struck uphill and
tired and despondent arrived in a horrid maze of crevasses and fissures divided councils caused our course to be erratic after this and finally at nine p m we landed in the worst place of all
after discussion we decided to camp and here we are after a very short supper and one meal only remaining in the food bag the depot doubtful in locality we must get there to morrow meanwhile we are cheerful with an effort
camp r twenty seven beside cloudmaker
last night we all slept well in spite of our grave anxieties for my part these were increased by my visits outside the tent when i saw the sky gradually closing over and snow beginning to fall
by our ordinary time for getting up it was dense all around us we could see nothing and we could only remain in our sleeping bags
brown with dirt here the surface was much smoother and improved rapidly the fog still hung over all and we went on for an hour checking our bearings then the whole place got smoother and we turned outward a little
the relief to all is inexpressible needless to say we camped and had a meal marching in the afternoon i kept more to the left
here wilson detached himself and made a collection whilst we pulled the sledge on
we must march in future food must be worked so that we do not run so short if the weather fails us we mustn't get into a hole like this again
evans seems to have got mixed up with pressures like ourselves it promises to be a very fine day to morrow the valley is gradually clearing bowers has had a very bad attack of snow blindness
and wilson another almost as bad evans has no power to assist with camping work wednesday
a fine day with wind on and off down the glacier and we have done a fairly good march we started a little late and pulled on down the moraine at first i thought of going right but soon luckily
the combined efforts produced only slow speed partly due to the sandy snowdrifts similar to those on summit partly to our torn sledge runners at lunch these were scraped and sand papered
probably none of us wilson's leg still troubles him and he doesn't like to trust himself on ski but the worst case is evans who is giving us serious anxiety this morning
it delayed us on the march when he had to have his crampon readjusted sometimes i fear he is going from bad to worse but i trust he will pick up again when we come to steady work on ski like this afternoon he is hungry
and so is wilson we can't risk opening out our food again and as cook at present i am serving something under full allowance we are inclined to get slack and slow with our camping arrangements and small delays increase
without the ponies the next depot
we are pulling for food and not very strong evidently in the afternoon it was overcast land blotted out for a considerable interval we have reduced food also sleep
feeling rather done trust one and a half days or two at most will see us at depot friday
a rather trying position evans has nearly broken down in brain we think he is absolutely changed from his normal self reliant self
this morning and this afternoon he stopped the march on some trivial excuse we are on short rations with not very short food spin out till to morrow night we cannot be more than ten or twelve miles from the depot
but the weather is all against us after lunch we were enveloped in a snow sheet land just looming memory should hold the events of a very troublesome march with more troubles ahead
perhaps all will be well if we can get to our depot to morrow fairly early but it is anxious work with the sick man but it's no use meeting troubles half way and our sleep is all too short to write more
half an hour later he dropped out again on the same plea he asked bowers to lend him a piece of string i cautioned him to come on as quickly as he could and he answered cheerfully as i thought
we had to push on and the remainder of us were forced to pull very hard sweating heavily abreast the monument rock we stopped and seeing evans a long way astern i camped for lunch
by this time we were alarmed and all four started back on ski
he was on his knees with clothing disarranged hands uncovered and frostbitten and a wild look in his eyes asked what was the matter he replied with a slow speech that he didn't know but thought he must have fainted
we got him on his feet but after two or three steps he sank down again he showed every sign of complete collapse wilson bowers and i went back for the sledge whilst oates remained with him when we returned he was practically unconscious
and when we got him into the tent quite comatose he died quietly
and later by falls during rough travelling on the glacier further by his loss of all confidence in himself
it is a terrible thing to lose a companion in this way but calm reflection shows that there could not have been a better ending to the terrible anxieties of the past week
chapter nineteen the return from the pole friday
lunch eight point one
the surface undulates considerably about this latitude it was more evident to day than when we were outward bound night camp r two
came along well this afternoon for three hours then a rather dreary finish for the last one and a half weather very curious snow clouds looking very dense and spoiling the light
it looks as though this sandy snow was drifted about like sand from place to place how account for the present state of our three day old tracks and the month old ones of the norwegians
it is warmer and pleasanter marching with the wind but i'm not sure we don't feel the cold more when we stop and camp than we did on the outward march we pick up our cairns easily and ought to do so right through i think
i'm afraid the return journey is going to be dreadfully tiring and monotonous
this has brought us to our southern depot and we pick up four days food we carry on seven days from to night with fifty five miles to go to the half degree depot made on january tenth the same sort of weather and a little more wind sail drawing well
was blowing quite hard and drifting when we started our afternoon march at first with full sail we went along at a great rate then we got on to an extraordinary surface
the pulling was really awful but we went steadily on and camped a short way beyond our cairn of the fourteenth
luckily the wind holds i shall be very glad when bowers gets his ski i'm afraid he must find these long marches very trying with short legs but he is an undefeated little sportsman
total march eighteenth and a half miles sunday
awoke to a stiff blizzard
but whilst at lunch there was a sudden clearance and wind dropped to light breeze we got ready to march
the surface bad horribly bad
if it was difficult to drag downhill over this belt it will probably be a good deal more difficult to drag up luckily the cracks are fairly distinct though we only see our cairns when less than a mile away
however if we can get a rating sight for our watches to morrow we shall be independent of the tracks at a pinch monday
i think about the most tiring march we have had solid pulling the whole way in spite of the light sledge and some little helping wind at first
then in the last part of the afternoon the sun came out and almost immediately we had the whole surface covered with soft snow
but by jove it has been a grind we are just about on the eighty ninth parallel to night bowers got a rating sight
ski boots are beginning to show signs of wear i trust we shall have no giving out of ski or boots
i thought we were climbing to day but the barometer gives no change tuesday
little wind and heavy marching at start then wind increased and we did eight point seven miles by lunch when it was practically blowing a blizzard the old tracks show so remarkably well that we can follow them without much difficulty
a great piece of luck in the afternoon we had to reorganise could carry a whole sail bowers hung on to the sledge evans and oates had to lengthen out
it was white and hard
he is very much annoyed with himself which is not a good sign i think wilson bowers and i are as fit as possible under the circumstances oates gets cold feet
pray god we have something of a track to follow to the three degree depot once we pick that up we ought to be right wednesday
it was a bad march but we covered seven miles at first evans and then wilson went ahead to scout for tracks bowers guided the sledge alone for the first hour then both oates and he remained alongside it
they had a fearful time trying to make the pace between the soft patches
by this time the gale was at its height and we had the dickens of a time getting up the tent cold fingers all round
thursday
thank god we found our half degree depot
we debated breakfast decided to have it later and go without lunch
but during breakfast the sun showed and there was light enough to see the old track
without sail all pulling
we had lunch and left with nine and a half days provisions still following the track
but it's time we cleared off this plateau we are not without ailments oates suffers from a very cold foot
wilson is suffering tortures from his eyes bowers and i are the only members of the party without troubles just at present the weather still looks unsettled and i fear a succession of blizzards at this time of year
the wind is strong from the south and this afternoon has been very helpful with the full sail needless to say i shall sleep much better with our provision bag full again the only real anxiety now is the finding of the three degree depot
blizzards are our bugbear not only stopping our marches but the cold damp air takes it out of us bowers got another rating sight to night it was wonderful how he managed to observe in such a horribly cold wind
we must have fewer delays there was a good stiff breeze and plenty of drift but the tracks held to our old blizzard camp of the seventh we got on well seven miles but beyond the camp we found the tracks completely wiped out
then steering right by a stroke of fortune and bowers sharp eyes caught a glimpse of the second far on the left
there is not a sign of our tracks between these cairns but the last marking our night camp of the sixth
is in the belt of hard sastrugi and i was comforted to see signs of the track reappearing as we camped i hope to goodness we can follow it to morrow
but made good only fifteen point four saturday
or a spatter of hard snow flicks where feet had trodden sometimes none of these were distinct but one got an impression of lines which guided the trouble was that on the outward track one had to shape course constantly to avoid the heaviest mounds
and consequently there were many zig zags we lost a good deal over a mile by these halts in which we unharnessed and went on the search for signs however by hook or crook we managed to stick on the old track
came on the cairn quite suddenly marched past it and camped for lunch at seven miles in the afternoon the sastrugi gradually diminished in size and now we are on fairly level ground to day the obstruction practically at an end and to our joy
the tracks showing up much plainer again for the last two hours we had no difficulty at all in following them there has been a nice helpful southerly breeze all day a clear sky and comparatively warm temperature
a long way to go and by jove this is tremendous labour sunday
we just ran out eight miles in five hours and added another eight in three hours forty mins in the afternoon with a good wind and better surface
with six days food in hand we are camped opposite our lunch cairn of the fourth only half a day's march from the point at which the last supporting party left us three articles were dropped on our outward march
and evans night boots we picked up the boots and mits on the track and to night we found the pipe lying placidly in sight on the snow the sledge tracks were very easy to follow to day
if this goes on and the weather holds we shall get our depot without trouble i shall indeed be glad to get it on the sledge we are getting more hungry there is no doubt the lunch meal is beginning to seem inadequate we are pretty thin especially evans
but none of us are feeling worked out i doubt if we could drag heavy loads but we can keep going well with our light one we talk of food a good deal more and shall be glad to open out on it monday
ten point five before lunch wind helping greatly considerable drift tracks for the most part very plain some time before lunch we picked up the return track of the supporting party so that there are now three distinct sledge impressions
we are certainly getting hungrier every day the day after to morrow we should be able to increase allowances it is monotonous work but thank god the miles are coming fast at last
we ought not to be delayed much now with the down grade in front of us tuesday
of course he is full of pluck over it but i don't like the idea of such an accident here to add to the trouble evans has dislodged two finger nails to night his hands are really bad
but luckily it keeps strong we can get along with bad fingers but it will be a mighty serious thing if wilson's leg doesn't improve wednesday
wilson rested his leg as much as possible by walking quietly beside the sledge the result has been good and to night there is much less inflammation i hope he will be all right again soon but it is trying to have an injured limb in the party
i see we had a very heavy surface here on our outward march there is no doubt we are travelling over undulations but the inequality of level does not make a great difference to our pace it is the sandy crystals that hold us up
this afternoon we picked up bowers ski
thursday
heavy collar work most of the day wind light did eight miles four and three quarters hours started well in the afternoon and came down a steep slope in quick time then the surface turned real bad
sandy drifts very heavy pulling working on past eight p m we just fetched a lunch cairn of december twenty ninth when we were only a week out from the depot
we have opened out on the one seventh increase and it makes a lot of difference wilson's leg much better evans fingers now very bad two nails coming off blisters burst friday
in the afternoon we soon came to a steep slope the same on which we exchanged sledges on december twenty eighth all went well till in trying to keep the track at the same time as my feet on a very slippery surface
i came an awful purler on my shoulder it is horribly sore to night and another sick person added to our tent three out of fine injured and the most troublesome surfaces to come
we shall be lucky if we get through without serious injury wilson's leg is better but might easily get bad again
at the bottom of the slope this afternoon we came on a confused sea of sastrugi we lost the track later on soft snow we picked up e evans return track
we have managed to get off seventeen miles the extra food is certainly helping us
delirium what followed was almost an orgy a feast to which all were welcome grushenka was the first to call for wine i want to drink i want to be quite drunk as we were before
do you remember mitya do you remember how we made friends here last time mitya himself was almost delirious feeling that his happiness was at hand but grushenka was continually sending him away from her
go and enjoy yourself tell them to dance to make merry let the stove and cottage dance as we had it last time she kept exclaiming she was tremendously excited and mitya hastened to obey her the chorus were in the next room
the room in which they had been sitting till that moment was too small and was divided in two by cotton curtains behind which was a huge bed with a puffy feather mattress and a pyramid of cotton pillows in the four rooms for visitors there were beds
grushenka settled herself just at the door mitya set an easy chair for her she had sat in the same place to watch the dancing and singing the time before when they had made merry there all the girls who had come had been there then
who had been roused from sleep and attracted by the hopes of another marvelous entertainment such as they had enjoyed a month before mitya remembered their faces greeting and embracing every one he knew he uncorked bottles and poured out wine for every one who presented himself
only the girls were very eager for the champagne the men preferred rum brandy and above all hot punch mitya had chocolate made for all the girls and ordered that three samovars should be kept boiling all night to provide tea and punch for everyone to help himself
an absurd chaotic confusion followed but mitya was in his natural element and the more foolish it became the more his spirits rose if the peasants had asked him for money at that moment he would have pulled out his notes and given them away right and left
this was probably why the landlord trifon borissovitch kept hovering about mitya to protect him he seemed to have given up all idea of going to bed that night but he drank little
and above all money to the peasants as he had done before he was very indignant too at the peasant girls drinking liqueur and eating sweets they're a lousy lot dmitri fyodorovitch he said i'd give them a kick every one of them and they'd take it as an honor
that's all they're worth mitya remembered andrey again and ordered punch to be sent out to him i was rude to him just now he repeated with a sinking softened voice
maximov blissfully drunk never left his side grushenka too was beginning to get drunk pointing to kalganov she said to mitya what a dear charming boy he is and mitya delighted
have you walked in i was frightened so you wanted to give me up to him did you did you really want to i didn't want to spoil your happiness mitya faltered blissfully but she did not need his answer well
go and enjoy yourself she sent him away once more don't cry i'll call you back again he would run away and she listened to the singing and looked at the dancing though her eyes followed him wherever he went
but in another quarter of an hour she would call him once more and again he would run back to her come sit beside me tell me how did you hear about me and my coming here yesterday from whom did you first hear it
once however she called him as it were puzzled and uneasy why are you sad i see you're sad yes i see it she added looking intently into his eyes though you keep kissing the peasants and shouting i see something
no be merry i'm merry you be merry too i love somebody here guess who it is ah look my boy has fallen asleep poor dear he's drunk she meant kalganov he was in fact drunk
and had dropped asleep for a moment sitting on the sofa but he was not merely drowsy from drink he felt suddenly dejected or as he said bored he was intensely depressed by the girls songs which as the drinking went on
gradually became coarse and more reckless and the dances were as bad two girls dressed up as bears and a lively girl called stepanida with a stick in her hand acted the part of keeper and began to show them
look alive marya or you'll get the stick the bears rolled on the ground at last in the most unseemly fashion amid roars of laughter from the closely packed crowd of men and women well let them let them said grushenka sententiously
with an ecstatic expression on her face when they do get a day to enjoy themselves why shouldn't folks be happy kalganov looked as though he had been besmirched with dirt it's swinish all this peasant foolery he murmured moving away
it's the game they play when it's light all night in summer he particularly disliked one new song to a jaunty dance tune it described how a gentleman came and tried his luck with the girls to see whether they would love him
the master came to try the girls would they love him would they not but the girls could not love the master he would beat me cruelly and such love won't do for me then a gypsy comes along and he too tries
the gypsy came to try the girls would they love him would they not but they couldn't love the gypsy either he would be a thief i fear and would cause me many a tear
among them a soldier the soldier came to try the girls would they love him would they not but the soldier is rejected with contempt in two indecent lines sung with absolute frankness and producing a furore in the audience
the song ends with a merchant the merchant came to try the girls would they love him would they not
the merchant will make gold for me and his queen i'll gladly be kalvanov was positively indignant that's just a song of yesterday he said aloud who writes such things for them
and almost as though it were a personal affront he declared on the spot that he was bored sat down on the sofa and immediately fell asleep his pretty little face looked rather pale as it fell back on the sofa cushion
look how pretty he is said grushenka taking mitya up to him i was combing his hair just now his hair's like flax and so thick and bending over him tenderly she kissed his forehead kalganov instantly opened his eyes looked at her stood up
and with the most anxious air inquired where was maximov so that's who it is you want grushenka laughed stay with me a minute mitya run and find his maximov maximov it appeared could not tear himself away from the girls
only running away from time to time to pour himself out a glass of liqueur he had drunk two cups of chocolate his face was red and his nose was crimson his eyes were moist and mawkishly sweet
they taught me all those well bred aristocratic dances when i was little go go with him mitya and i'll watch from here how he dances said grushenka no no i'm coming to look on too exclaimed kalganov
brushing aside in the most naive way grushenka's offer to sit with him they all went to look on maximov danced his dance but it roused no great admiration in any one but mitya it consisted of nothing but skipping and hopping
but mitya kissed the dancer thanks you're tired perhaps what are you looking for here would you like some sweets a cigar perhaps a cigarette don't you want a drink i'll just have a liqueur have you any chocolates
yes there's a heap of them on the table there choose one my dear soul i like one with vanilla for old people he he no brother we've none of that special sort i say the old man bent down to whisper in mitya's ear
that girl there little marya he he how would it be if you were to help me make friends with her so that's what you're after no brother that won't do i'd do no harm to any one maximov muttered disconsolately oh all right all right
they only come here to dance and sing you know brother but damn it all wait a bit eat and drink and be merry meanwhile don't you want money later on perhaps smiled maximov all right all right mitya's head was burning
why not go for the pistols bring them here and here in this dark dirty corner make an end almost a minute he stood undecided a few hours earlier when he had been dashing here he was pursued by disgrace
the babe the examination of the witnesses began but we will not continue our story in such detail as before
and so we will not dwell on how nikolay parfenovitch impressed on every witness called that he must give his evidence in accordance with truth and conscience and that he would afterwards have to repeat his evidence on oath
how every witness was called upon to sign the protocol of his evidence and so on we will only note that the point principally insisted upon in the examination was the question of the three thousand roubles that is was the sum spent here at mokroe
by mitya on the first occasion a month before three thousand or fifteen hundred and again had he spent three thousand or fifteen hundred yesterday alas all the evidence given by every one turned out to be against mitya
there was not one in his favor and some witnesses introduced new almost crushing facts in contradiction of his mitya's story the first witness examined was trifon borissovitch he was not in the least abashed as he stood before the lawyers
he had on the contrary an air of stern and severe indignation with the accused which gave him an appearance of truthfulness and personal dignity he spoke little and with reserve waited to be questioned answered precisely and deliberately
that all the peasants about here would testify that they had heard the sum of three thousand mentioned by dmitri fyodorovitch himself what a lot of money he flung away on the gypsy girls alone he wasted a thousand i daresay on them alone
i don't believe i gave them five hundred was mitya's gloomy comment on this it's a pity i didn't count the money at the time but i was drunk mitya was sitting sideways with his back to the curtains
he listened gloomily with a melancholy and exhausted air as though he would say oh say what you like it makes no difference now more than a thousand went on them dmitri fyodorovitch retorted trifon borissovitch firmly
you flung it about at random and they picked it up they were a rascally thievish lot horse stealers they've been driven away from here or maybe they'd bear witness themselves how much they got from you i saw the sum in your hands myself
count it i didn't you didn't let me that's true enough but by the look of it i should say it was far more than fifteen hundred fifteen hundred indeed we've seen money too we can judge of amounts
as for the sum spent yesterday he asserted that dmitri fyodorovitch had told him as soon as he arrived that he had brought three thousand with him come now is that so trifon borissovitch replied mitya
that is with what you spent before we must understand stepan and semyon heard it and pyotr fomitch kalganov too was standing beside you at the time maybe he'd remember it
the peasants and the driver unhesitatingly confirmed trifon borissovitch's evidence they noted down with particular care
where says he am i dmitri fyodorovitch going to heaven or to hell and shall i be forgiven in the next world or not the psychological ippolit kirillovitch heard this with a subtle smile
and he spoke to the lawyers as though he had never met them before in his life though they were acquaintances whom he had been meeting every day for a long time past he began by saying that he knew nothing about it and didn't want to
in reply to reiterated questions he stated that after the poles had been turned out mitya's position with agrafena alexandrovna had certainly improved and that she had said that she loved him he spoke of agrafena alexandrovna with reserve and respect
as though she had been a lady of the best society and did not once allow himself to call her grushenka in spite of the young man's obvious repugnance at giving evidence ippolit kirillovitch examined him at great length
the poles too were examined though they had gone to bed in their room they had not slept all night and on the arrival of the police officers they hastily dressed and got ready realizing that they would certainly be sent for
they gave their evidence with dignity though not without some uneasiness the little pole turned out to be a retired official of the twelfth class who had served in siberia as a veterinary surgeon his name was mussyalovitch
pan vrublevsky turned out to be an uncertificated dentist although nikolay parfenovitch asked them questions on entering the room they both addressed their answers to mihail makarovitch who was standing on one side
taking him in their ignorance for the most important person and in command and addressed him at every word as pan colonel only after several reproofs from mihail makarovitch himself they grasped that they had to address their answers to nikolay parfenovitch only
it turned out that they could speak russian quite correctly except for their accent in some words of his relations with grushenka past and present
to speak like that in his presence pan mussyalovitch at once called attention to the word scoundrel and begged that it should be put down in the protocol mitya fumed with rage
he's a scoundrel a scoundrel you can put that down and put down too that in spite of the protocol i still declare that he's a scoundrel he cried though nikolay parfenovitch did insert this in the protocol he showed the most praiseworthy tact and management
after sternly reprimanding mitya he cut short all further inquiry into the romantic aspect of the case and hastened to pass to what was essential one piece of evidence given by the poles roused special interest in the lawyers that was how in that very room
mitya had tried to buy off pan mussyalovitch and had offered him three thousand roubles to resign his claims seven hundred roubles down and the remaining two thousand three hundred to be paid next day in the town
but that his money was in the town mitya observed hotly that he had not said that he would be sure to pay him the remainder next day in the town but pan vrublevsky confirmed the statement and mitya after thinking for a moment admitted frowning that it must have been as the poles stated
the prosecutor positively pounced on this piece of evidence it seemed to establish for the prosecution and they did in fact base this deduction on it that half or a part of the three thousand that had come into mitya's hands
might really have been left somewhere hidden in the town or even perhaps somewhere here in mokroe this would explain the circumstance so baffling for the prosecution that only eight hundred roubles were to be found in mitya's hands
this circumstance had been the one piece of evidence which insignificant as it was had hitherto told to some extent in mitya's favor now this one piece of evidence in his favor had broken down
in answer to the prosecutor's inquiry where he would have got the remaining two thousand three hundred roubles since he himself had denied having more than fifteen hundred mitya confidently replied that he had meant to offer the little chap not money
but a formal deed of conveyance of his rights to the village of tchermashnya those rights which he had already offered to samsonov and madame hohlakov the prosecutor positively smiled at the innocence of this subterfuge
and you imagine he would have accepted such a deed as a substitute for two thousand three hundred roubles in cash he certainly would have accepted it mitya declared warmly why look here he might have grabbed not two thousand but four or six for it
he would have put his lawyers poles and jews on to the job and might have got not three thousand but the whole property out of the old man the evidence of pan mussyalovitch was of course entered in the protocol in the fullest detail then they let the poles go
the incident of the cheating at cards was hardly touched upon nikolay parfenovitch was too well pleased with them as it was and did not want to worry them with trifles moreover it was nothing but a foolish drunken quarrel over cards
there had been drinking and disorder enough that night so the two hundred roubles remained in the pockets of the poles then old maximov was summoned he came in timidly approached with little steps looking very disheveled and depressed
he had all this time taken refuge below with grushenka sitting dumbly beside her
as mihail makarovitch described afterwards so that she herself began trying to pacify and comfort him the old man at once confessed that he had done wrong that he had borrowed ten roubles in my poverty from dmitri fyodorovitch and that he was ready to pay it back
to nikolay parfenovitch's direct question had he noticed how much money dmitri fyodorovitch held in his hand
when my wife mortgaged my little property she'd only let me look at it from a distance boasting of it to me it was a very thick bundle all rainbow colored notes and dmitri fyodorovitch's were all rainbow colored he was not kept long
at last it was grushenka's turn nikolay parfenovitch was obviously apprehensive of the effect her appearance might have on mitya and he muttered a few words of admonition to him but mitya bowed his head in silence giving him to understand that he would not make a scene
mihail makarovitch himself led grushenka in
the first symptom of the long illness which followed that night her grave air her direct earnest look and quiet manner made a very favorable impression on every one nikolay parfenovitch was even a little bit fascinated
he admitted himself when talking about it afterwards that only then had he seen how handsome the woman was
but this was received with positive indignation by the ladies who immediately called him a naughty man to his great satisfaction as she entered the room grushenka only glanced for an instant at mitya who looked at her uneasily
but her face reassured him at once after the first inevitable inquiries and warnings
hesitating a little but preserving the most courteous manner
to further inquisitive questions she answered plainly and with complete frankness that though at times she had thought him attractive she had not loved him but had won his heart as well as his old father's in my nasty spite
that she had seen that mitya was very jealous of fyodor pavlovitch and every one else but that had only amused her she had never meant to go to fyodor pavlovitch she had simply been laughing at him i had no thoughts for either of them all this last month
i was expecting another man who had wronged me but i think she said in conclusion that there's no need for you to inquire about that nor for me to answer you for that's my own affair nikolay parfenovitch immediately acted upon this hint
he again dismissed the romantic aspect of the case and passed to the serious one that is to the question of most importance concerning the three thousand roubles grushenka confirmed the statement that three thousand roubles had certainly been spent on the first carousal at mokroe
did he tell you that alone or before some one else or did you only hear him speak of it to others in your presence the prosecutor inquired immediately to which grushenka replied that she had heard him say so before other people and had heard him say so when they were alone
and learned that he had told grushenka so several times ippolit kirillovitch was very well satisfied with this piece of evidence further examination elicited that grushenka knew too where that money had come from and that dmitri fyodorovitch had got it from katerina
ivanovna and did you never once hear that the money spent a month ago was not three thousand but less and that dmitri fyodorovitch had saved half that sum for his own use no i never heard that answered grushenka
nikolay parfenovitch put in suddenly that he intended to make an attempt on his father's life ach he did say so sighed grushenka once or several times he mentioned it several times always in anger and did you believe he would do it
no i never believed it she answered firmly i had faith in his noble heart gentlemen allow me cried mitya suddenly allow me to say one word to agrafena alexandrovna in your presence you can speak
nikolay parfenovitch assented agrafena alexandrovna mitya got up from his chair have faith in god and in me i am not guilty of my father's murder having uttered these words mitya sat down again on his chair
grushenka stood up and crossed herself devoutly before the ikon thanks be to thee o lord she said in a voice thrilled with emotion and still standing she turned to nikolay parfenovitch and added
she declared that she did not know what sum it was but had heard him tell several people that he had three thousand with him and to the question where he got the money
and that if he could be of any assistance to her with horses for example
would be i thank you sincerely said grushenka bowing to him i'm going with this old gentleman i am driving him back to town with me and meanwhile if you'll allow me i'll wait below to hear what you decide about dmitri fyodorovitch she went out
mitya was calm and even looked more cheerful but only for a moment he felt more and more oppressed by a strange physical weakness his eyes were closing with fatigue the examination of the witnesses was at last over
mitya got up moved from his chair to the corner by the curtain lay down on a large chest covered with a rug and instantly fell asleep he had a strange dream utterly out of keeping with the place and the time
not far off was a village he could see the black huts and half the huts were burnt down there were only the charred beams sticking up and as they drove in there were peasant women drawn up along the road a lot of women a whole row
all thin and wan with their faces a sort of brownish color especially one at the edge a tall bony woman who looked forty but might have been only twenty with a long thin face and in her arms was a little baby crying
and her breasts seemed so dried up that there was not a drop of milk in them and the child cried and cried and held out its little bare arms with its little fists blue from cold why are they crying
why are they crying mitya asked as they dashed gayly by it's the babe answered the driver the babe weeping
its little clothes are frozen and don't warm it but why is it why foolish mitya still persisted why they're poor people burnt out they've no bread they're begging because they've been burnt out no no
mitya as it were still did not understand tell me why it is those poor mothers stand there why are people poor why is the babe poor why is the steppe barren why don't they hug each other and kiss
why don't they sing songs of joy why are they so dark from black misery why don't they feed the babe and he felt that though his questions were unreasonable and senseless yet he wanted to ask just that
and he had to ask it just in that way and he felt that a passion of pity such as he had never known before was rising in his heart that he wanted to cry that he wanted to do something for them all so that the babe should weep no more
so that the dark faced dried up mother should not weep that no one should shed tears again from that moment
regardless of all obstacles with all the recklessness of the karamazovs and i'm coming with you i won't leave you now for the rest of my life i'm coming with you he heard close beside him grushenka's tender voice thrilling with emotion
and his heart glowed and he struggled forward towards the light and he longed to live to live to go on and on towards the new beckoning light and to hasten hasten now at once what where
he exclaimed opening his eyes and sitting up on the chest as though he had revived from a swoon smiling brightly nikolay parfenovitch was standing over him suggesting that he should hear the protocol read aloud and sign it
and the law of gravitation we left newton at the age of twenty three on the verge of discovering the mechanism of the solar system deterred therefrom only by an error in the then imagined size of the earth
he had proved from kepler's laws that a centripetal force directed to the sun and varying as the inverse square of the distance from that body would account for the observed planetary motions and that a similar force directed to the earth
he was led by the then received notion that sixty miles made a degree on the earth's surface into an erroneous estimate of the size of the moon's orbit being thus baffled in obtaining such verification he laid the matter aside for a time
the anecdote of the apple we learn from voltaire who had it from newton's favourite niece who with her husband lived and kept house for him all his later life
it is very like one of those anecdotes which are easily invented and believed in and very often turn out on scrutiny to have no foundation fortunately this anecdote is well authenticated and moreover is intrinsically probable
i say fortunately because it is always painful to have to give up these child learnt anecdotes like alfred and the cakes and so on this anecdote of the apple we need not resign the tree was blown down in eighteen twenty
and part of its wood is preserved i have mentioned voltaire in connection with newton's philosophy this acute critic at a later stage did a good deal to popularise it throughout europe and to overturn that of his own countryman descartes
cambridge rapidly became newtonian but oxford remained cartesian for fifty years or more it is curious what little hold science and mathematics have ever secured in the older and more ecclesiastical university
the pride of possessing newton has however no doubt been the main stimulus to the special pursuits of cambridge he now began to turn his attention to optics and as was usual with him his whole mind became absorbed in this subject
as if nothing else had ever occupied him
and the entries show that he is buying prisms and lenses and polishing powder at the beginning of sixteen sixty seven he was anxious to improve telescopes by making more perfect lenses than had ever been used before
which was at fault perhaps light was so composed that it could not be focused accurately to a sharp and definite point perhaps the law of refraction was not quite accurate but only an approximation so he bought a prism to try the law
in a window shutter inserted the prism in the light and received the deflected beam on a white screen turning the prism about till it was deviated as little as possible the patch on the screen was not a round disk
was able to neutralise the dispersion and to reproduce the simple round white spot without deviation evidently the spreading out of the beam was connected in some definite way with its refraction
could it be that the light particles after passing through the prism travelled in variously curved lines as spinning racquet balls do to examine this he measured the length of the oval patch when the screen was at different distances from the prism
and found that the two things were directly proportional to each other doubling the distance of the screen doubled the length of the patch hence the rays travelled in straight lines from the prism and the spreading out was due to something that occurred within its substance
could it be that white light was compound was a mixture of several constituents and that its different constituents were differently bent no sooner thought than tried pierce the screen to let one of the constituents through
and interpose a second prism in its path if the spreading out depended on the prism only it should spread out just as much as before
this isolated simple constituent should be able to spread out no more it did not spread out any more a prism had no more dispersive power over it it was deflected by the appropriate amount but it was not analysed into constituents
it differed from sunlight in being simple with many ingenious and beautifully simple experiments which are quoted in full in several books on optics he clinched the argument and established his discovery white light was not simple but compound
it could be sorted out by a prism into an infinite number of constituent parts
but it is transparent to that particular portion which affects our eyes with the sensation of red
sorting out the different kinds of light coloured media act like filters stopping certain kinds but allowing the rest to go through
this series of images we call a spectrum and the operation we now call spectrum analysis the reason of the defect of lenses was now plain it was not so much a defect of the lens as a defect of light
but each having a different vertex the violet cone is innermost near the lens the red cone outermost
beyond the crossing point or focus the order of cones is reversed as the above figure shows only the two marginal rays of the beam are depicted if a screen be held anywhere nearer the lens than the place marked one
there will be a whitish centre to the patch of light and a red and orange fringe or border held anywhere beyond the region two the border of the patch will be blue and violet held about three
but nowhere can it be got rid of each point of an object will be represented in the image not by a point but by a coloured patch a fact which amply explains the observed blurring and indistinctness
and showed that it was one fiftieth the diameter of the lens to overcome this difficulty called chromatic aberration telescope glasses were made small and of very long focus
some of them so long that they had no tube all of them egregiously cumbrous yet it was with such instruments that all the early discoveries were made
the defects of refractors seemed irremediable being founded in the nature of light itself so he gave up his glass works and proceeded to think of reflexion from metal specula a concave mirror forms an image just as a lens does
and magnified forty times
and showed jupiter's moons so he made a larger one now in the library of the royal society london with an inscription the first reflecting telescope invented by sir isaac newton and made with his own hands
this has been the parent of most of the gigantic telescopes of the present day
first by hadley and afterwards by herschel and others large and good reflectors were constructed the largest telescope ever made that of lord rosse is a newtonian reflector fifty feet long six feet diameter
with a mirror weighing four tons the sextant as used by navigators
still however his method of fluxions was unknown and still he did not publish it he lectured first on optics giving an account of his experiments his lectures were afterwards published both in latin and english and are highly valued to this day
the fame of his mathematical genius came to the ears of the royal society and a motion was made to get him elected a fellow of that body the royal society the oldest and most famous of all scientific societies with a continuous existence
among the original members being boyle hooke christopher wren and other less famous names boyle was a great experimenter a worthy follower of doctor gilbert hooke began as his assistant but being of a most extraordinary ingenuity
with great ingenuity remarkable scientific insight and consummate experimental skill he stands in many respects almost on a level with galileo but it is difficult to see stars even of the first magnitude when the sun is up
and thus it happens that the name and fame of this brilliant man are almost lost in the blaze of newton of christopher wren i need not say much he is well known as an architect but he was a most accomplished all round man
and had a considerable taste and faculty for science these then were the luminaries of the royal society at the time we are speaking of and to them newton's first scientific publication was submitted he communicated to them an account of his reflecting telescope
and presented them with the instrument their reception of it surprised him they were greatly delighted with it and wrote specially thanking him for the communication and assuring him that all right should be done him in the matter of the invention the bishop of salisbury bishop burnet
in reply he expressed his surprise at the value they set on the telescope and offered if they cared for it
than the communication of that instrument
a series of papers which were long afterwards incorporated and published as his optics a magnificent work which of itself suffices to place its author in the first rank of the world's men of science
and the differential calculus besides a good number of minor results binomial theorem reflecting telescope sextant and the like one would think it enough for one man's life work
it is as when one is considering shakspeare king lear macbeth othello surely a sufficient achievement but the masterpiece remains comparisons in different departments are but little help perhaps
nevertheless it seems to me that in his own department and considered simply as a man of science newton towers head and shoulders over not only his contemporaries that is a small matter but over every other scientific man
who has ever lived in a way that we can find no parallel for in other departments other nations admit his scientific pre eminence with as much alacrity as we do
during the first year of his membership there
of a very careful determination of the length of a degree
which had been made by picard near paris the length of the degree turned out to be not sixty miles but nearly seventy miles how soon newton heard of this we do not learn probably not for some years
what if it should turn out to be true after all he took out his old papers and began again the calculation if gravity were the force keeping the moon in its orbit it would fall toward the earth sixteen feet every minute
the newly known size of the earth would modify the figures with intense excitement he runs through the working his mind leaps before his hand and as he perceives the answer to be coming out right all the infinite meaning and scope of his mighty discovery flashes upon him
and deeper and deeper consequences revealed themselves to him as he proceeded for two years he devoted himself solely to this one object during those years he lived but to calculate and think and the most ludicrous stories are told concerning his entire absorption
and inattention to ordinary affairs of life thus for instance when getting up in a morning he would sit on the side of the bed half dressed and remain like that till dinner time often he would stay at home for days together eating what was taken to him
but without apparently noticing what he was doing one day an intimate friend doctor stukely called on him and found on the table a cover laid for his solitary dinner
replacing and covering up the bones again
dear me i thought i had not dined but i see i have it was by this continuous application that the principia was accomplished probably nothing of the first magnitude can be accomplished without something of the same absorbed unconsciousness and freedom from interruption
but though desirable and essential for the work it was a severe tax upon the powers of the man there is in fact no doubt that newton's brain suffered temporary aberration after this effort for a short time the attack was slight and it has been denied
but there are letters extant which are inexplicable otherwise and moreover after a year or two he writes to his friends apologizing for strange and disjointed epistles
the derangement was however both slight and temporary
the first part of the work having been done
but the fact is that after he had sent to the royal society his papers on optics
to which he felt compelled to find answers many men would have enjoyed this part of the work and taken it as evidence of interest and success but to newton's shy and retiring disposition these discussions were merely painful he writes indeed his answers with great patience and ability
and ultimately converts the more reasonable of his opponents but he relieves his mind in the following letter to the secretary of the royal society
i see i have made myself a slave to philosophy
or leave to come out after me for i see a man must either resolve to put out nothing new
i have been so persecuted with discussions arising out of my theory of light that i blamed my own imprudence for parting with so substantial a blessing as my quiet to run after a shadow
this shows how much he cared for contemporary fame so he locked up the first part of the principia in his desk doubtless intending it to be published after his death
in sixteen eighty three among the leading lights of the royal society
the theory of gravitation seemed to be in the air and wren hooke and halley had many a talk about it hooke showed an experiment with a pendulum which he likened to a planet going round the sun
the analogy is more superficial than real it does not obey kepler's laws still it was a striking experiment they had guessed at a law of inverse squares and their difficulty was to prove what curve a body subject to it would describe
they knew it ought to be an ellipse if it was to serve to explain the planetary motion and hooke said he could prove that an ellipse it was but he was nothing of a mathematician and the others scarcely believed him undoubtedly
he had shrewd inklings of the truth though his guesses were based on little else than a most sagacious intuition he surmised also that gravity was the force concerned and asserted that the path of an ordinary projectile was an ellipse like the path of a planet which is quite right
in fact the beginnings of the discovery were beginning to dawn upon him in the well known way in which things do dawn upon ordinary men of genius and had newton not lived we should doubtless by the labours of a long chain of distinguished men
beginning with hooke wren and halley have been now in possession of all the truths revealed by the principia we should never have had them stated in the same form nor proved with the same marvellous lucidity and simplicity
but the facts themselves we should by this time have arrived at their developments and completions due to such men as clairaut euler d'alembert lagrange laplace airy leverrier adams
we should of course not have had to the same extent because the lives and energies of these great men would have been partially consumed in obtaining the main facts themselves the youngest of the three questioners at the time we are speaking of was edmund halley
he had been at cambridge doubtless had heard newton lecture and had acquired a great veneration for him in january sixteen eighty four we find wren offering hooke and halley a prize in the shape of a book worth forty shillings
how on earth do you know said halley in amazement why i have calculated it and began hunting about for the paper he actually couldn't find it just then but sent it him shortly by post and with it much more in fact what appeared to be a complete treatise on motion in general
with his valuable burden halley hastened to the royal society and told them what he had discovered the society at his representation wrote to mister newton asking leave that it might be printed to this he consented
mister halley to see after him and jog his memory in case he forgot about it however he set to work to polish it up and finish it and added to it a great number of later developments and embellishments especially the part concerning the lunar theory
which gave him a deal of trouble and no wonder for in the way he has put it there never was a man yet living who could have done the same thing
of a bygone age wondering what manner of man this was able to wield such ponderous implements with such apparent ease to halley the world owes a great debt of gratitude first for discovering the principia second for seeing it through the press
and third for defraying the cost of its publication out of his own scanty purse for though he ultimately suffered no pecuniary loss rather the contrary yet there was considerable risk in bringing out a book
which not a dozen men living could at the time comprehend it is no small part of the merit of halley that he recognized the transcendent value of the yet unfinished work that he brought it to light and assisted in its becoming understood to the best of his ability
though halley afterwards became astronomer royal lived to the ripe old age of eighty six and made many striking observations yet
and he always used to regard his part in it with peculiar pride and pleasure and how was the principia received considering the abstruse nature of its subject it was received with great interest and enthusiasm
in less than twenty years the edition was sold out and copies fetched large sums we hear of poor students copying out the whole in manuscript in order to possess a copy not by any means a bad thing to do however many copies one may possess
the only useful way really to read a book like that is to pore over every sentence it is no book to be skimmed while the principia was preparing for the press a curious incident of contact between english history and the university occurred
ordered both universities to elect certain priests to degrees without the ordinary oaths oxford had given way and the dean of christ church was a creature of james's choosing
cambridge rebelled and sent eight of its members among them mister newton to plead their cause before the court of high commission judge jeffreys presided over the court and threatened and bullied with his usual insolence
the vice chancellor of cambridge was deprived of office the other deputies were silenced and ordered away from the precincts of this court of justice newton returned to trinity college to complete the principia
by this time newton was only forty five years old but his main work was done his method of fluxions was still unpublished his optics was published only imperfectly a second edition of
the principia with additions and improvements had yet to appear but fame had now come upon him and with fame worries of all kinds by some fatality principally no doubt because of the interest they excited
of a great deal more than he could really state or prove by indiscreet friends these two great men were set somewhat at loggerheads and worse might have happened had they not managed to come to close quarters and correspond privately in a quite friendly manner
instead of acting through the mischievous medium of third parties in the next edition newton liberally recognizes the claims of both hooke and wren however he takes warning betimes of what he has to expect and writes to halley that he will only publish the first two books
those containing general theorems on motion the third book concerning the system of the world
i now design to suppress philosophy is such an impertinently litigious lady that a man had as good be engaged in law suits as have to do with her i found it so formerly and now i am no sooner come near her again but she gives me warning
mathematical principles of natural philosophy and therefore i had altered it to this on the free motion of two bodies but on second thoughts i retain the former title
which i ought not to diminish now tis yours
who had also independently invented the differential calculus it was not so well recognized then how frequently it happens that two men independently and unknowingly work at the very same thing at the same time
long after both their deaths it can hardly be called ancient history even now but fame brought other and less unpleasant distractions than controversies we are a curious practical and rather stupid people and our one idea of honouring a man
is to vote for him in some way or other so they sent newton to parliament he went i believe as a whig but it is not recorded that he spoke it is in fact recorded that he was once expected to speak when on a royal commission about some question of chronometers
but that he would not however i dare say he made a good average member then a little later it was realized that newton was poor that he still had to teach for his livelihood
without the necessity of taking orders yet it was rather disgraceful that he should not be better off so an appeal was made to the government on his behalf and lord halifax who exerted himself strongly in the matter succeeding to office on the accession of william the third
i believe he made rather a good master and turned out excellent coins certainly he devoted his attention to his work there in a most exemplary manner but what a pitiful business it all is here is a man sent by heaven
to do certain things which no man else could do and so long as he is comparatively unknown he does them but so soon as he is found out he is clapped into a routine office with a big salary and there is comparatively speaking an end of him
it is not to be supposed that he had lost his power for he frequently solved problems very quickly which had been given out by great continental mathematicians as a challenge to the world we may ask why newton allowed himself to be thus bandied about
instead of settling himself down to the work in which he was so pre eminently great well i expect your truly great man never realizes how great he is and seldom knows where his real strength lies certainly newton did not know it
he several times talks of giving up philosophy altogether and though he never really does it and perhaps the feeling is one only born of some temporary overwork yet he does not sacrifice everything else to it
as he surely must had he been conscious of his own greatness no self consciousness was the last thing that affected him it is for a great man's contemporaries to discover him to make much of him and to put him in surroundings where he may flourish luxuriantly
in his own heaven intended way however it is difficult for us to judge of these things perhaps if he had been maintained at the national expense to do that for which he was preternaturally fitted he might have worn himself out prematurely
whereas by giving him routine work the scientific world got the benefit of his matured wisdom and experience it was no small matter to the young royal society to be able to have him as their president for twenty four years his portrait
has hung over the president's chair ever since and there i suppose it will continue to hang until the royal society becomes extinct the events of his later life i shall pass over lightly he lived a calm benevolent life universally respected and beloved
his silver white hair when he removed his peruke was a venerable spectacle a lock of it is still preserved with many other relics in the library of trinity college
at the ripe age of eighty five his body lay in state in the jerusalem chamber and he was buried in westminster abbey six peers bearing the pall
the idea perhaps did not naturally occur to him any more than the idea of publishing his work did he was always a deeply religious man and a sincere christian though somewhat of the arian or unitarian persuasion so at least it is asserted by orthodox divines who understand these matters
was greatly interested in questions of biblical criticism and chronology by some ancient eclipse or other he altered the recognized system of dates a few hundred years and his book on the prophecies of daniel and the revelation of saint john wherein he identifies the beast with the church of rome
in quite the orthodox way is still by some admired but in all these matters it is probable that he was a merely ordinary man with natural acumen and ability doubtless but nothing in the least superhuman in science the impression he makes upon me
and yet if one realizes his method of work and the calm uninterrupted flow of all his earlier life perhaps his achievements become more intelligible when asked how he made his discoveries he replied
i keep the subject constantly before me
that is the way quiet steady continuous thinking uninterrupted and unharassed brooding much may be done under those conditions much ought to be sacrificed to obtain those conditions
genius is patience so says newton
if i have done the public any service this way
genius patience no it is not quite that or rather it is much more than that
chapter twelve on clerical snobs and snobbishness dear mister snob an amiable young correspondent writes who signs himself snobling
the parson in question not seeing old smith present would have sent off the beadle in a cab to let the old gentleman know what was going on and would have delayed the service until the arrival of smith senior
he very likely thinks it his duty to ask all marriageable young ladies who come without their papa why their parent is absent and no doubt always sends off the beadle for that missing governor
to send off rattan in a hack cab to fetch me in either of which cases you see dear snobling that though the parson would not have been authorised yet he might have been excused for interfering
he has no more right to stop my marriage than to stop my dinner to both of which as a free born briton i am entitled by law if i can pay for them but consider pastoral solicitude
a deep sense of the duties of his office and pardon this inconvenient but genuine zeal but if the clergyman did in the duke's case what he would not do in smith's
if he has no more acquaintance with the coeurdelion family than i have with the royal and serene house of saxe coburg gotha then i confess my dear snobling your question might elicit a disagreeable reply
and one which i respectfully decline to give i wonder what sir george tufto would say if a sentry left his post because a noble lord not the least connected with the service begged the sentinel not to do his duty
alas that the beadle who canes little boys and drives them out cannot drive worldliness out too what is worldliness but snobbishness
when for instance i read in the newspapers that the right reverend the lord charles james administered the rite of confirmation to a party of the juvenile nobility at the chapel royal
whose inheritance is divided amongst us i hereby call upon all dukes earls baronets and other potentates not to lend themselves to this shameful scandal and error
to the exclusion of any other young christian the which declaration if their lordships are induced to make a great lapis offensionis will be removed and the snob papers will not have been written in vain
who having had occasion to oblige that excellent prelate the bishop of bullocksmithy asked his lordship in return to confirm his children privately in his lordship's own chapel
it is as if a man wouldn't go to heaven unless he went in a special train or as if he thought as some people think about vaccination confirmation more effectual when administered at first hand
this is only a little more openly and undisguisedly snobbish than the cases before alluded to a well bred snob is just as secretly proud of his riches and honours as a parvenu snob
who makes the most ludicrous exhibition of them and a high born marchioness or duchess just as vain of herself and her diamonds as queen quashyboo
it is not out of disrespect to my peerage which i love and honour indeed have i not said before that i should be ready to jump out of my skin if two dukes would walk down pall mall with me
it is not out of disrespect for the individuals that i wish these titles had never been invented but consider if there were no tree there would be no shadow and how much more honest society would be
and how much more serviceable the clergy would be which is our present consideration if these temptations of rank and continual baits of worldliness were not in existence and perpetually thrown out to lead them astray
i have seen many examples of their falling away when for instance tom sniffle first went into the country as curate for mister fuddleston sir huddleston fuddleston's brother who resided on some other living
there could not be a more kind hardworking and excellent creature than tom he had his aunt to live with him his conduct to his poor was admirable he wrote annually reams of the best intentioned and vapid sermons
when lord brandyball's family came down into the country and invited him to dine at brandyball park sniffle was so agitated that he almost forgot how to say grace and upset a bowl of currant jelly sauce
in lady fanny toffy's lap what was the consequence of his intimacy with that noble family he quarrelled with his aunt for dining out every night the wretch forgot his poor altogether
and killed his old nag by always riding over to brandyball where he revelled in the maddest passion for lady fanny he ordered the neatest new clothes and ecclesiastical waistcoats from london he appeared with corazza shirts
lackered boots and perfumery he bought a blood horse from bob toffy was seen at archery meetings public breakfasts actually at cover and i blush to say that i saw him in a stall at the opera
and afterwards riding by lady fanny's side in rotten row he double barrelled his name as many poor snobs do and instead of t sniffle as formerly came out in a porcelain card as
to the inexpressible grief of his son lord alicompayne and uttered that remarkable speech to sniffle which disposed of the claims of the latter if i didn't respect the church sir his lordship said
by jove i'd kick you downstairs his lordship then fell back into the fit aforesaid and lady fanny as we all know
as for poor tom he was over head and ears in debt as well as in love his creditors came down upon him mister hemp of portugal street proclaimed his name lately as a reverend outlaw
and he has been seen at various foreign watering places sometimes doing duty sometimes coaching a stray gentleman's son at carlsruhe or kissingen sometimes must we say it
lurking about the roulette tables with a tuft to his chin if temptation had not come upon this unhappy fellow in the shape of a lord brandyball he might still have been following his profession humbly and worthily
and eked out his income and lived and died a country parson could he have done better you who want to know how great and good and noble such a character may be
before the old question that had excited my conjectures recurred to my mind
it was a kind of fatal impulse that seemed destined to hurry me to my destruction i did not wonder at the disturbance that was given to mister falkland by any allusion however distant to this fatal affair
that was as completely accounted for from the consideration of his excessive sensibility in matters of honour as it would have been upon the supposition of the most atrocious guilt knowing as he did
that such a charge had once been connected with his name he would of course be perpetually uneasy
he would doubt and fear lest every man with whom he conversed harboured the foulest suspicion against him in my case he found that i was in possession of some information more than he was aware of
without its being possible for him to decide to what it amounted whether i had heard a just or unjust a candid or calumniatory tale
he had also reason to suppose that i gave entertainment to thoughts derogatory to his honour and that i did not form that favourable judgment which the exquisite refinement of his ruling passion made indispensable to his peace
yet as i have said the uncertainty and restlessness of my contemplations would by no means depart from me the fluctuating state of my mind produced a contention of opposite principles
that by turns usurped dominion over my conduct sometimes i was influenced by the most complete veneration for my master i placed an unreserved confidence in his integrity and his virtue
and implicitly surrendered my understanding for him to set it to what point he pleased at other times the confidence which had before flowed with the most plenteous tide began to ebb
mister falkland who was most painfully alive to every thing that related to his honour saw these variations and betrayed his consciousness of them now in one manner and now in another
frequently before i was myself aware sometimes almost before they existed the situation of both was distressing we were each of us a plague to the other
there was indeed one eminent difference between his share in the transaction and mine i had some consolation in the midst of my restlessness curiosity is a principle that carries its pleasures
as well as its pains along with it the mind is urged by a perpetual stimulus it seems as if it were continually approaching to the end of its race and as the insatiable desire of satisfaction is its principle of conduct
so it promises itself in that satisfaction an unknown gratification which seems as if it were capable of fully compensating any injuries that may be suffered in the career but to mister falkland
there was no consolation what he endured in the intercourse between us appeared to be gratuitous evil he had only to wish that there was no such person as myself in the world
and to curse the hour when his humanity led him to rescue me from my obscurity and place me in his service a consequence produced upon me by the extraordinary nature of my situation it is necessary to mention
the constant state of vigilance and suspicion in which my mind was retained worked a very rapid change in my character it seemed to have all the effect that might have been expected from years of observation and experience
the strictness with which i endeavoured to remark what passed in the mind of one man and the variety of conjectures into which i was led appeared as it were
to render me a competent adept in the different modes in which the human intellect displays its secret workings i no longer said to myself as i had done in the beginning i will ask mister falkland whether he were the murderer
sooner or later i should arrive at the knowledge of that if it really existed but i could not endure to think almost for a moment of that side of the alternative as true
and with all my ungovernable suspicion arising from the mysteriousness of the circumstances and all the delight which a young and unfledged mind receives from ideas that give scope to all that imagination can picture of terrible or sublime
i could not yet bring myself to consider mister falkland's guilt as a supposition attended with the remotest probability i hope the reader will forgive me for dwelling thus long on preliminary circumstances
i shall come soon enough to the story of my own misery i have already said that one of the motives which induced me to the penning of this narrative was to console myself in my insupportable distress
my attention is called off for a short interval from the hopeless misfortune in which i am at present involved the man must indeed possess an uncommon portion of hardness of heart who can envy me so slight a relief
either the faculty or the court of chancery appropriate to the term became stronger and more durable than ever it was no longer practicable wholly to conceal them from the family and even from the neighbourhood
he would sometimes without any previous notice absent himself from his house for two or three days unaccompanied by servant or attendant
this was the more extraordinary as it was well known that he paid no visits nor kept up any sort of intercourse with the gentlemen of the vicinity but it was impossible that a man of mister falkland's distinction and fortune
should long continue in such a practice without its being discovered what was become of him though a considerable part of our county was among the wildest and most desolate districts that are to be found in south britain
mister falkland was sometimes seen climbing among the rocks reclining motionless for hours together upon the edge of a precipice or lulled into a kind of nameless lethargy of despair by the dashing of the torrents
he would remain for whole nights together under the naked cope of heaven inattentive to the consideration either of place or time insensible to the variations of the weather
or rather seeming to be delighted with that uproar of the elements which partially called off his attention from the discord and dejection that occupied his own mind
at first when we received intelligence at any time of the place to which mister falkland had withdrawn himself some person of his household mister collins or myself but most generally myself
as i was always at home and always in the received sense of the word at leisure went to him to persuade him to return but after a few experiments we thought it advisable to desist
and leave him to prolong his absence or to terminate it as might happen to suit his own inclination mister collins whose grey hairs and long services
seemed to give him a sort of right to be importunate sometimes succeeded though even in that case there was nothing that could sit more uneasily upon mister falkland than this insinuation as if he wanted a guardian to take care of him
or as if he were in or in danger of falling into a state in which he would be incapable of deliberately controlling his own words and actions at one time he would suddenly yield to his humble venerable friend
murmuring grievously at the constraint that was put upon him but without spirit enough even to complain of it with energy at another time even though complying he would suddenly burst out in a paroxysm of resentment
upon these occasions there was something inconceivably savagely terrible in his anger that gave to the person against whom it was directed the most humiliating and insupportable sensations
me he always treated at these times with fierceness and drove me from him with a vehemence lofty emphatical and sustained beyond any thing of which i should have thought human nature to be capable
these sallies seemed always to constitute a sort of crisis in his indisposition and whenever he was induced to such a premature return he would fall immediately after into a state of the most melancholy inactivity
in which he usually continued for two or three days it was by an obstinate fatality that whenever i saw mister falkland in these deplorable situations
and particularly when i lighted upon him after having sought him among the rocks and precipices pale emaciated solitary and haggard the suggestion would continually recur to me
there are many points worthy of consideration in the making of a balance staff that are too often neglected i have seen staffs that were models as regards execution and finish that were nearly worthless from a practical standpoint
on the other hand one often sees staffs whose pivots are faultless in shape but the execution and finish so bungling as to offset all the good qualities as regards shape
to have good tools and the right ideas is one thing and to use these tools properly and make a practical demonstration of your theory is another i shall endeavor to take up every point in connection with the balance staff
from the steel to the jewels and their relation to the pivots and i believe this will then convey to the reader all the necessary points not only as regards staffs but pivots also whether applied to a balance or a pinion staff
that to day with our interchangeable parts and the cheapness of all material it is a waste of time to make a balance staff to the reader who takes this view of the situation i simply want to say kindly follow me to the end of this paragraph
and if you are still of the same opinion then you are wasting your time in following me farther for a material dealer to advance this theory i can find some excuse he is an interested party and the selling of material is his bread and butter
of only one of the leading manufacturers of watches in this country to say nothing of the legion of small and large concerns who are manufacturing or have manufactured in the past
or it is a new movement the material for which has not yet been placed on the market this state of affairs leads to makeshifts and they in turn lead to botch work
the watchmaker who does not possess the experience or necessary qualifications to make a new balance staff and make it in a neat and workmanlike manner is never certain of having exactly what is needed
and cannot hope to long retain the confidence of his customers in fact he is not a watchmaker at all but simply an apprentice or student even though he be working for a salary or be his own master
there are undoubtedly many worthy members of the trade who are not familiar with the making of a balance staff who will take exceptions to this statement but it is nevertheless true
they may be painstaking but they cannot be classed as watchmakers this article is intended for the benefit of that large class whose opportunities for obtaining instruction are limited
and who are ready and willing to learn and for that still larger class of practical workmen who can make a new staff in a creditable manner but who are always glad to read others people's ideas on any subject connected with the trade
i would not advise any particular make of lathe as the most expensive lathe in the world will not produce a true staff if the workman cannot center his work accurately and does not know how to handle his graver
while on the other hand fine work can be done on the simplest and cheapest lathe by a workman possessing the requisite skill i will take it for granted that you use an american made lathe of some kind
or a foreign made lathe manufactured on american lines it is advisable though not absolutely necessary to have three gravers
b for the conical pivots and square shoulders and c for the under cutting the other tools and attachments needed will be described as i come to them in use the balance staff should be made of the best steel
tempered to such a degree as to give the longest service and yet not so hard as to endanger the breakage of the pivots select a piece of stubb's steel wire
the chuck holds the work truest that comes the nearest to fitting it if you try to use a chuck that is too large or too small for the work you will only ruin the chuck for truth
leaving on a small part of the original wire as shown at a after the wire is roughed out to this general form remove from the chuck and get ready to harden and temper it the hardening and tempering may be effected in various ways
and i am scarcely prepared to say which method is the best as there are several which give about the same general results one method of hardening is to smear the blank with common yellow soap
heat it to a cherry red and drop endwise into linseed oil petroleum is preferred by some to linseed oil but to tell the truth i can see no difference in the action of linseed petroleum or olive oil
be sure and have enough oil to thoroughly cool the blank and a deep vessel such as a large mouthed vial is preferable to a saucer the blank will now be found too hard to work easily with the graver
and we must therefore draw the temper down to that of fine spring steel before doing this the blank should be brightened in order that we may see to just what color we are drawing it
if the hardening is carefully and properly done will generally chip and fall off when the blank is plunged in the oil particularly if the oil is cool and if it does not fall off of its own accord
it can easily be removed by rolling the blank upon the bench if it does not come out clean or if soap is not used it may be brightened by again inserting in the lathe
place some fine brass filings in a boiling out cup or bluing pan and lay the blank upon these filings holding the pan over the flame of an alcohol lamp until the blank assumes a dark purple color
another method of tempering is to place the staff on a piece of sheet iron or copper say one inch wide by four long having previously bent it into a small angle for the reception of the staff
lay on it a piece of yellow wax about the size of a bean and heat it over your lamp until the wax takes fire and burns blow out the flame and allow the staff to cool
a junction we may term it where many lines branch off from the main road at this particular spot is where authorities differ
i believe that all of the remaining work upon a staff should be executed while it is held in a cement chuck on the other hand i have seen good workmen who turned and finished all the lower part of a staff while in a split chuck
cut it off and turned and finished the upper part in a cement chuck all i have got to say is that they had more confidence in the truth of their chucks than i have in mine
i have even read of watchmakers who made the entire staff in a split chuck but i must confess i am somewhat curious to examine a staff made in that way
and must have the privilege of examining it before i will admit that a true staff can be so made we will suppose that the workman has a moderately true chuck and that he prefers to turn and finish all the lower portions in this way
on saturday april eleventh he appointed me to come to him in the evening when he should be at leisure to give me some assistance for the defence of hastie the schoolmaster of campbelltown for whom i was to appear in the house of lords
to dictate to me while i wrote as follows the charge is that he has used immoderate and cruel correction correction in itself is not cruel children
and has never been thought inconsistent with parental tenderness it is the duty of a master who is in his highest exaltation when he is loco parentis yet as good things become evil by excess
but when is correction immoderate when it is more frequent or more severe than is required
et docendum for reformation and instruction no severity is cruel which obstinacy makes necessary for the greatest cruelty would be to desist
and leave the scholar too careless for instruction and too much hardened for reproof locke in his treatise of education mentions a mother with applause who whipped an infant eight times
before she had subdued it for had she stopped at the seventh act of correction her daughter says he
there must be either unbounded licence or absolute authority the master who punishes not only consults the future happiness of him who is the immediate subject of correction but he propagates obedience
through the whole school and establishes regularity by exemplary justice the victorious obstinacy of a single boy would make his future endeavours of reformation or instruction
totally ineffectual obstinacy therefore must never be victorious yet it is well known that there sometimes occurs a sullen and hardy resolution
that laughs at all common punishment and bids defiance to all common degrees of pain correction must be proportioned to occasions the flexible will be reformed by gentle discipline
and the refractory must be subdued by harsher methods the degrees of scholastick as of military punishment no stated rules can ascertain
it must be enforced till it overpowers temptation till stubbornness becomes flexible and perverseness regular custom and reason
shall be considered as criminal but punishments however severe that produce no lasting evil may be just and reasonable because they may be necessary
such have been the punishments used by the respondent no scholar has gone from him either blind or lame or with any of his limbs or powers injured or impaired they were irregular and he punished them
they were obstinate and he enforced his punishment but however provoked he never exceeded the limits of moderation for he inflicted nothing beyond present pain and how much of that was required
no man is so little able to determine as those who have determined against him the parents of the offenders it has been said that he used unprecedented and improper instruments of correction
of this accusation the meaning is not very easy to be found no instrument of correction is more proper than another but as it is better adapted to produce present pain
without lasting mischief whatever were his instruments no lasting mischief has ensued and therefore however unusual in hands so cautious they were proper
it has been objected that the respondent admits the charge of cruelty by producing no evidence to confute it let it be considered that his scholars are either dispersed at large in the world
or continue to inhabit the place in which they were bred those who are dispersed cannot be found those who remain are the sons of his persecutors and are not likely to support a man to whom their fathers are enemies
if it be supposed that the enmity of their fathers proves the justice of the charge it must be considered how often experience shews us that men who are angry on one ground
will accuse on another with how little kindness in a town of low trade a man who lives by learning is regarded and how implicitly where the inhabitants are not very rich a rich man is hearkened to
and followed in a place like campbelltown it is easy for one of the principal inhabitants to make a party it is easy for that party to heat themselves with imaginary grievances it is easy for them
to oppress a man poorer than themselves and natural to assert the dignity of riches by persisting in oppression the argument which attempts to prove the impropriety of restoring him to the school
by alledging that he has lost the confidence of the people is not the subject of juridical consideration
not for their judgement but for his own actions it may be convenient for them to have another master but it is a convenience of their own making
convenient for him to find another school but this convenience he cannot obtain the question is not what is now convenient but what is generally right
by tyranny which law has defeated and by malice which virtue has surmounted this sir said he you are to turn in your mind and make the best use of it you can in your speech
of our friend goldsmith he said sir he is so much afraid of being unnoticed that he often talks merely lest you should forget
that he is in the company boswell yes he stands forward johnson true sir but if a man is to stand forward he should wish to do it not in an aukward posture not in rags
not so as that he shall only be exposed to ridicule boswell for my part i like very well to hear honest goldsmith talk away carelessly johnson why yes sir but
no sir while learning to read and write is a distinction the few who have that distinction
would it not be better to follow nature and go to bed and rise just as nature gives us light or with holds it johnson no sir
that solemn season which the christian world has appropriated to the commemoration of the mysteries of our redemption and during which whatever embers of religion are in our breasts will be kindled
in his private register my mind is unsettled and my memory confused i have of late turned my thoughts with a very useless earnestness
who could know cards by the touch doctor johnson said the cards used by such persons must be less polished than ours commonly are we talked of sounds
the general said there was no beauty in a simple sound but only in an harmonious composition of sounds i presumed to differ from this opinion and mentioned
the soft and sweet sound of a fine woman's voice johnson no sir if a serpent or a toad uttered it
but neither will deny that each is good in its kind while i remained in london this spring i was with him at several other times both by himself and in company i dined with him one day
at the crown and anchor tavern in the strand with lord elibank mister langton and doctor vansittart of oxford without specifying each particular day i have preserved the following memorable things
i regretted the reflection in his preface to shakspeare against garrick to whom
that garrick wanted to be courted for them and that on the contrary garrick should have courted him and sent him the plays of his own accord but indeed
for that reason johnson yes sir if he sat next you i expressed a liking for mister francis osborne's works and asked him what he thought of that writer
has an air of originality
there is no permanent national character it varies according to circumstances alexander the great swept india now the turks sweep greece a learned gentleman who in the course of conversation
wished to inform us of this simple fact that the counsel upon the circuit at shrewsbury were much bitten by fleas took i suppose seven or eight minutes in relating it circumstantially he in a
that by reason of this fleas nestled there in prodigious numbers that the lodgings of the counsel were near to the town hall and that those little animals moved from place to place with wonderful agility
and so has a cat when she catches a mouse for her kitten but she cannot write like
who had resided long in spain and was unwilling to return to britain johnson sir
does climate bear to the complex system of human life
on whom i happened to call in the morning said he would join us which he did and we spent a very agreeable day though i recollect but little of what passed he said
walpole was a minister given by the king to the people pitt was a minister given by the people to the king as an adjunct the misfortune of goldsmith in conversation is this
he goes on without knowing how he is to get off his genius is great but his knowledge is small as they say of a generous man it is a pity he is not rich we may say of goldsmith
it is a pity he is not knowing he would not keep his knowledge to himself before leaving london this year i consulted him upon a question purely of scotch law it was held of old
and continued for a long period to be an established principle in that law that whoever intermeddled with the effects of a person deceased without the interposition of legal authority to guard against embezzlement
should be subjected to pay all the debts of the deceased as having been guilty of what was technically called vicious intromission the court of session
where the interference proved
and may therefore be suspended or modified as the court shall think proper concerning the power of the court to make or to suspend a law we have no intention to inquire it is sufficient for our purpose that
to give to one man what in the same case is given to another the advantage which humanity derives from law is this that the law gives every man a rule of action and
prescribes a mode of conduct which shall entitle him to the support and protection of society that the law may be a rule of action it is necessary that it be known it is necessary
that it be permanent and stable the law is the measure of civil right but if the measure be changeable the extent of the thing measured never can be settled
by which the deficiencies of private understanding are to be supplied it is to suffer the rash and ignorant to act at discretion and then to depend for the legality of that action on the sentence of the judge
he that is thus governed lives not by law but by opinion not by a certain rule to which he can apply his intention before he acts
which he can never know but after he has committed the act on which that opinion shall be passed he lives by a law if a law it be
that there may be intromission without fraud which however true will by no means justify an occasional and arbitrary relaxation of the law the end
of law is protection as well as vengeance indeed vengeance is never used but to strengthen protection that society only is well governed where life is freed from danger and from suspicion
where possession is so sheltered by salutary prohibitions that violation is prevented more frequently than punished such a prohibition was this while it operated with its original force
the creditor of the deceased was not only without loss but without fear he was not to seek a remedy for an injury suffered for injury was warded off
as the law has been sometimes administered it lays us open to wounds because it is imagined to have the power of healing to punish fraud when it is detected
is the proper act of vindictive justice but to prevent frauds and make punishment unnecessary is the great employment of legislative wisdom to permit intromission
adventitious strength it likewise enlightens the ignorant with extrinsick understanding law teaches us to know when we commit injury and when we suffer it
it fixes certain marks upon actions by which we are admonished to do or to forbear them
says one of the fathers nunquam
he who never intromits at all will never intromit
before the ferocity of the inhabitants of this part of the island was subdued the utmost severity of the civil law was necessary to restrain individuals from plundering each other thus the man who intermeddled
irregularly with the moveables of a person deceased was subjected to all the debts of the deceased without limitation this makes a branch of the law of scotland known by the name of vicious intromission
which proved in many instances a most rigorous punishment
it is extremely remarkable that in proportion to our improvement in manners this regulation has been gradually softened and applied by our sovereign court with a sparing hand
i find myself under a necessity of observing that this learned and judicious writer
has not accurately distinguished the deficiencies and demands of the different conditions of human life which from a degree of savageness and independence in which all laws are vain passes or may pass
by innumerable gradations to a state of reciprocal benignity in which laws shall be no longer necessary
living each man to himself taking from the weak and losing to the strong in their first coalitions of society
of general happiness the product of general confidence there is yet no thought men continue to prosecute their own advantages by the nearest way and the utmost severity of the civil law is necessary
to restrain individuals from plundering each other
from acts of publick violence
undisguised oppression the ferocity of our ancestors as of all other nations produced not fraud
they had not yet learned to cheat and attempted only to rob as manners grow more polished with the knowledge of good men attain likewise dexterity in evil
those who before invaded pastures and stormed houses now begin to enrich themselves by unequal contracts and fraudulent intromissions
it is not against the violence of ferocity but the circumventions of deceit that this law was framed and i am afraid the increase of commerce and the incessant struggle for riches which commerce excites
give us no prospect of an end speedily to be expected of artifice and fraud it therefore seems to be no very conclusive reasoning which connects those two propositions
it was not that the nation was grown less fierce and i am afraid it cannot be affirmed that it is grown less fraudulent
since this law has been represented as rigorously and unreasonably penal it seems not improper to consider what are the conditions and qualities that make the justice or propriety of a penal law
two conditions are necessary and two proper it is necessary that the law should be adequate to its end that if it be observed it shall prevent the evil against which it is directed
it is secondly necessary that the end of the law be of such importance as to deserve the security of a penal sanction the other conditions of a penal law which though not absolutely necessary
are to a very high degree fit are that to the moral violation of the law there are many temptations and that of the physical observance there is great facility
all these conditions apparently concur to justify the law which we are now considering its end is the security of property and property very often of great value
the method by which it effects the security is efficacious because it admits in its original rigour no gradations of injury but keeps guilt and innocence apart by a distinct and definite limitation
he that intromits is criminal he that intromits not is innocent of the two secondary considerations it cannot be denied that both are in our favour the temptation to intromit is frequent and strong
so strong and so frequent as to require the utmost activity of justice and vigilance of caution to withstand its prevalence and the method by which a man may entitle himself to legal intromission is so open
for why should a man omit to do but for reasons which he will not confess that which he can do so easily and that which he knows to be required by the law if temptation were rare
a penal law might be deemed unnecessary if the duty enjoined by the law were of difficult performance omission though it could not be justified might be pitied but in the present case
neither equity nor compassion operate against it a useful a necessary law is broken
and facility i therefore return to my original position that a law to have its effect must be permanent and stable it may be said in the language of the schools
we may have a law or we may have no law but we cannot have half a law we must either have a rule of action or be permitted to act by discretion and by chance
deviations from the law must be uniformly punished or no man can be certain when he shall be safe that from the rigour of the original institution this court
has sometimes departed cannot be denied but as it is evident that such deviations as they make law uncertain
with such comprehension of mind and such clearness of penetration did he thus treat a subject altogether new to him without any other preparation than my
one of that honourable body had critical sagacity enough to discover a more than ordinary hand in the petition i told him doctor johnson
my dear sir give yourself no trouble in the composition of the papers you present to us
q dear sir the regret has not been little with which i have missed a journey so pregnant with pleasing expectations as that in which i could promise myself not only the gratification of curiosity both rational and fanciful
but such has been the course of things that i could not come and such has been i am afraid the state of my body that it would not well have seconded my inclination my body i think grows better
every day more liked at least i like it more as i look more upon it i am glad if you got credit by your cause and am yet of opinion that our cause was good
had but his deserts you promised to get me a little pindar
the leisure which i cannot enjoy it will be a pleasure to hear that you employ upon the antiquities of the feudal establishment the whole system of ancient tenures is gradually passing away
who studies the laws of his country and of a gentleman who may naturally be curious to know the condition of his own ancestors i am dear sir yours with great affection sam johnson
my dear sir edinburgh december twenty fifth seventeen seventy two i was much disappointed that you did not come to scotland last autumn however i must own that your letter prevents me from complaining
which we have so long proposed i communicated to beattie what you said of his book in your last letter to me he writes to me thus you judge very rightly in supposing
that doctor johnson's favourable opinion of any book must give me great delight indeed it is impossible for me to say how much i am gratified by it
it was a long time after this
where nothing stole away the shortest minute i had lost myself completely in work when i heard footsteps outside there was a steep footpath between the upper and the lower road which i climbed to shorten the way as the children had taught me
but i believed that missus todd would find it inaccessible unless she had occasion to seek me in great haste i wrote on feeling like a besieged miser of time while the footsteps came nearer
and the sheep bell tinkled away in haste as if someone had shaken a stick in its wearer's face then i looked and saw captain littlepage passing the nearest window the next moment he tapped politely at the door come in sir
i said rising to meet him and he entered bowing with much courtesy i stepped down from the desk and offered him a chair by the window where he seated himself at once being sadly spent by his climb
i returned to my fixed seat behind the teacher's desk which gave him the lower place of a scholar you ought to have the place of honor captain littlepage i said a happy rural seat of various views
he quoted as he gazed out into the sunshine and up the long wooded shore then he glanced at me and looked all about him as pleased as a child my quotation was from paradise lost the greatest of poems
he copied life but you have to put up with a great deal of low talk i now remembered that missus todd had told me one day that captain littlepage had overset his mind with too much reading
i could not help wondering what errand had brought him out in search of me there was something quite charming in his appearance it was a face thin and delicate with refinement but worn into appealing lines
as if he had suffered from loneliness and misapprehension he looked with his careful precision of dress as if he were the object of cherishing care on the part of elderly unmarried sisters
who would have no such standards
he sat looking at me expectantly i could not help thinking that with his queer head and length of thinness he was made to hop along the road of life
he had the refinement of look and air of command which are the heritage of the old ecclesiastical families of new england but as darwin says in his autobiography there is no such king as a sea captain
he is greater even than a king or a schoolmaster captain littlepage moved his chair out of the wake of the sunshine and still sat looking at me i began to be very eager to know upon what errand he had come
those who have laughed at me little know how much reason my ideas are based upon he waved his hand toward the village below
they fancy that they comprehend the universe i smiled and waited for him to go on
the greater part of my life forty three years in all you may not think it but i am above eighty years of age
i said i should have been serviceable
my experience upon a certain occasion i might say
one of the greatest discoveries that man has ever made now we were approaching dangerous ground but a sudden sense of his sufferings at the hands of the ignorant came to my help and i asked to hear more with all the deference i really felt
and beat itself against the walls for a minute and escaped again to the open air but captain littlepage took no notice whatever of the flurry i had a valuable cargo
and when i made port at last it was too late to delay in those northern waters with such a vessel and such a crew as i had
they cared for nothing and idled me into a fit of sickness but my first mate was a good excellent man with no more idea of being frozen in there until spring than i had so
we made what speed we could to get clear of hudson's bay and off the coast i owned an eighth of the vessel and he owned a sixteenth of her she was a full rigged ship called the minerva but she was getting old and leaky
and so it proved she had been an excellent vessel in her day of the cowards aboard her i can't say so much then you were wrecked i asked as he made a long pause
i wa'n't caught astern o the lighter
with a light pair o heels but i had been vexed to death with their red tape rigging at the company's office and chilled with stayin on deck an tryin to hurry up things and when we were well out o sight o land
headin for hudson's straits i had a bad turn o some sort o fever and had to stay below the days were getting short and we made good runs all well on board but me
and the crew done their work by dint of hard driving i began to find this unexpected narrative a little dull captain littlepage spoke with a kind of slow correctness that lacked the longshore high flavor to which i had grown used
but i listened respectfully while he explained the winds having become contrary and talked on in a dreary sort of way about his voyage the bad weather and the disadvantages he was under in the lightness of his ship which bounced about like a chip in a bucket
and would not answer the rudder or properly respond to the most careful setting of sails so there we were blowin along anyways he complained
that my thoughts were unkindly wandering he ceased to speak
for just that class o men
i view it in addition that a community narrows down and grows dreadful ignorant when it is shut up to its own affairs and gets no knowledge of the outside world
except from a cheap unprincipled newspaper in the old days a good part o the best men here knew a hundred ports and something of the way folks lived in them they saw the world for themselves
and like's not their wives and children saw it with them
but they were some acquainted with foreign lands an their laws an could see outside the battle for town clerk here in dunnet they got some sense o proportion yes they lived more dignified and their houses were better within an without
shipping's a terrible loss to this part o new england from a social point o view ma'am i have thought of that myself i returned
company's sake in dull days and nights he turns to his book most of us old shipmasters came to know most everything about something
and some were great on medicine
to the poets i was well acquainted with a shipmaster that was all for bees an beekeepin and if you met him in port and went aboard he'd sit
and talk a terrible while about their havin so much information and the money that could be made out of keepin em he was one of the smartest captains
a great bark he commanded for many years tuttle's beehive there was old cap'n jameson he had notions of solomon's temple and made a very handsome little model of the same
right from the scripture measurements same's other sailors make little ships and design new tricks of rigging
these bicycles offend me dreadfully they don't afford no real opportunities of experience such as a man gained on a voyage no when folks left home in the old days they left it to some purpose
and when they got home they stayed there and had some pride in it
we're all turned upside down and going back year by year oh no captain littlepage i hope not said i trying to soothe his feelings there was a silence in the schoolhouse
but we could hear the noise of the water on a beach below it sounded like the strange warning wave that gives notice of the turn of the tide
the army awakened and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors it cast its eyes upon the roads which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares
purled at the army's feet and at night when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness one could see across it the red eyelike gleam of hostile camp fires set in the low brows of distant hills once
a certain tall soldier developed virtues and went resolutely to wash a shirt
he was swelled with a tale he had heard from a reliable friend
who had heard it from his trustworthy brother one of the orderlies at division headquarters
to his attentive audience he drew a loud and elaborate plan of a very brilliant campaign when he had finished the blue clothed men scattered into small arguing groups between the rows of squat brown huts
a negro teamster who had been dancing upon a cracker box
it's a lie that's all it is a thunderin lie said another private loudly his smooth face was flushed
he had refrained from adding extensively to the comfort of his environment because he had felt that the army might start on the march at any moment of late however he had been impressed that they were in a sort of eternal camp many of the men engaged in a spirited debate one
all the plans of the commanding general he was opposed by men who advocated that there were other plans of campaign
numbers making futile bids for the popular
he wished to be alone with some new thoughts that had lately come to him he lay down on a wide bunk that stretched across the end of the room in the other end cracker boxes were made to serve as furniture
was upon the log walls and three rifles were paralleled on pegs equipments hung on handy projections and some tin dishes lay upon a small pile of firewood a folded tent was serving as a roof the sunlight without
beating upon it made it glow a light yellow shade a small window shot an oblique square of whiter light upon the cluttered floor the smoke from the fire at times neglected the clay chimney and wreathed into the room and this flimsy chimney of clay and sticks
made endless threats to set ablaze the whole establishment
so they were at last going to fight on the morrow perhaps there would be a battle and he would be in it for a time he was obliged to labor to make himself believe
that he was about to mingle in one of those great affairs of the earth he had of course dreamed of battles all his life of vague and bloody conflicts that had thrilled him with their sweep and fire in visions he had seen himself in many struggles
he had imagined peoples secure in the shadow of his eagle eyed prowess but awake he had regarded battles as crimson blotches on the pages of the past he had put them as things of the bygone with his thought images
of heavy crowns and high castles there was a portion of the world's history which he had regarded as the time of wars but it he thought had been long gone over the horizon
from his home his youthful eyes had looked upon the war in his own country with distrust it must be some sort of a play affair he had long despaired of witnessing a greeklike struggle
such would be no more he had said men were better or more timid secular and religious education had effaced the throat grappling instinct or else firm finance held in check the passions
he had burned several times to enlist tales of great movements shook the land they might not be distinctly homeric but there seemed to be much glory in them he had read of marches sieges conflicts
and he had longed to see it all his busy mind had drawn for him large pictures extravagant in color lurid with breathless deeds but his mother had discouraged him
and with no apparent difficulty give him many hundreds of reasons why he was of vastly more importance on the farm than on the field of battle
that told him that her statements on the subject came from a deep conviction moreover on her side was his belief that her ethical motive in the argument was impregnable at last however
he had made firm rebellion against this yellow light thrown upon the color of his ambitions the newspapers the gossip of the village his own picturings had aroused him to an uncheckable degree they were in truth fighting finely down there
one night as he lay in bed
jerked the rope frantically to tell the twisted news of a great battle this voice of the people rejoicing in the night had made him shiver in a prolonged ecstasy of excitement later he had gone down to his mother's room and had spoken thus ma
i'm going to enlist henry don't you be a fool his mother had replied she had then covered her face with the quilt there was an end to the matter for that night
nevertheless the next morning he had gone to a town that was near his mother's farm and had enlisted in a company that was forming there when he had returned home his mother was milking the brindle cow four others stood waiting
ma i've enlisted he had said to her diffidently there was a short silence the lord's will be done henry she had finally replied and had then continued to milk the brindle cow
and with the light of excitement and expectancy in his eyes almost defeating the glow of regret for the home bonds he had seen two tears leaving their trails on his mother's scarred cheeks still
he had privately primed himself for a beautiful scene
which he thought could be used with touching effect but her words destroyed his plans she had doggedly peeled potatoes and addressed him as follows you watch out henry
yer jest one little feller amongst a hull lot of others and yeh've got to keep quiet an do what they tell yeh i know how you are henry
and i've put in all yer best shirts because i want my boy to be jest as warm and comf'able as anybody in the army whenever they get holes in em
so's i kin dern em an allus be careful an choose yer comp'ny there's lots of bad men in the army henry the army makes em wild and they like nothing better than the job of leading off a young feller like you
an a learning em to drink and swear
i don't want yeh to ever do anything henry
jest think as if i was a watchin yeh
i guess yeh'll come out about right yeh must allus remember yer father too child an remember he never drunk a drop of licker in his life and seldom swore a cross oath
if so be a time comes when yeh have to be kilt of do a mean thing why henry
don't forgit about the socks and the shirts child and i've put a cup of blackberry jam with yer bundle because i know yeh like it above all things good by henry watch out and be a good boy
he had of course been impatient under the ordeal of this speech it had not been quite what he expected and he had borne it with an air of irritation
her brown face upraised was stained with tears and her spare form was quivering he bowed his head and went on feeling suddenly ashamed of his purposes from his home he had gone to the seminary
to bid adieu to many schoolmates they had thronged about him with wonder and admiration he had felt the gulf now between them and had swelled with calm pride he and some of his fellows who had donned blue
were quite overwhelmed with privileges for all of one afternoon and it had been a very delicious thing they had strutted a certain light haired girl had made vivacious fun at his martial spirit
but there was another and darker girl whom he had gazed at steadfastly and he thought she grew demure and sad at sight of his blue and brass
as she changed her attitude he often thought of it on the way to washington his spirit had soared the regiment was fed and caressed at station after station
he had felt growing within him the strength to do mighty deeds of arms after complicated journeyings with many pauses
was a series of death struggles with small time in between for sleep and meals but since his regiment had come to the field the army had done little
greeklike struggles would be no more men were better or more timid secular and religious education had effaced the throat grappling instinct or else firm finance held in check the passions
he had grown to regard himself merely as a part of a vast blue demonstration his province was to look out as far as he could for his personal comfort for recreation he could twiddle his thumbs and speculate on the thoughts
also he was drilled and drilled and reviewed and drilled and drilled and reviewed the only foes he had seen were some pickets along the river bank they were a sun tanned philosophical lot
who sometimes shot reflectively at the blue pickets when reproached for this afterward they usually expressed sorrow and swore by their gods that the guns had exploded without their permission the youth on guard duty one night conversed across the stream with one of them
he was a slightly ragged man who spat skillfully between his shoes and possessed a great fund of bland and infantile assurance the youth liked him personally yank the other had informed him
yer a right dum good feller this sentiment floating to him upon the still air had made him temporarily regret war
some talked of gray bewhiskered hordes who were advancing with relentless curses and chewing tobacco with unspeakable valor tremendous bodies of fierce soldiery who were sweeping along like the huns others
spoke of tattered and eternally hungry men who fired despondent powders they'll charge through hell's fire an brimstone
still he could not put a whole faith in veteran's tales for recruits were their prey
they persistently yelled fresh fish at him and were in no wise to be trusted however he perceived now that it did not greatly matter what kind of soldiers he was going to fight so long as they fought which fact no one disputed
there was a more serious problem he lay in his bunk pondering upon it he tried to mathematically prove to himself that he would not run from a battle previously he had never felt obliged to wrestle too seriously with this question
never challenging his belief in ultimate success
but here he was confronted with a thing of moment
that perhaps in a battle he might run he was forced to admit that as far as war was concerned he knew nothing of himself
a little panic fear grew in his mind as his imagination went forward to a fight he saw hideous possibilities he contemplated the lurking menaces of the future
and failed in an effort to see himself standing stoutly in the midst of them he recalled his visions of broken bladed glory
he suspected them to be impossible pictures
he said aloud he felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless
he was an unknown quantity he saw that he would again be obliged to experiment as he had in early youth he must accumulate information of himself and meanwhile he resolved to remain close upon his guard lest those qualities
of which he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace him good lord he repeated in dismay
the loud private followed they were wrangling that's all right said the tall soldier as he entered he waved his hand expressively
then pretty soon you'll find out i was right his comrade grunted stubbornly for a moment he seemed to be searching for a formidable reply finally he said well
didn't say i knew everything in the world
he began to stow various articles snugly into his knapsack the youth pausing in his nervous walk looked down at the busy figure going to be a battle sure is there jim
thunder said the youth oh you'll see fighting this time my boy what'll be regular out and out fighting
said the loud one from a corner well remarked the youth like as not this story'll turn out
said the loud one the youth remained silent for a time at last
jim what
oh they'll fight all right i guess
said the other with cold judgment
think any of the boys ll run persisted the youth
said the other in a tolerant way of
but you can't bet on nothing of course
the first time but i think they'll fight better than some if worse than others
he added with a mighty emphasis on the last four words
began the loud soldier with scorn the other turned savagely upon him they had a rapid altercation in which they fastened upon each other various strange epithets the youth at last interrupted them did you ever think you might run yourself jim he asked
on concluding the sentence he laughed as if he had meant to aim a joke the loud soldier also giggled the tall private waved his hand
i've thought it might get too hot for jim conklin in some of them scrimmages and if a whole lot of boys started and run
that all of the untried men possessed great and correct confidence he now
chapter fifteen astounding yet true the professor gave a great start at this almost reluctant suggestion shrinking back with a look which fell not far short of being horrified
but then he rallied forcing a laugh before speaking no no bruno
and too everything was so distinct and clearly outlined that one could fairly feel those blessed bow arrows tickling a fellow in the short ribs
not but that i say uncle phaeton what is it now waldo
got boys and and girls among em i wonder i daresay yes why not answered featherwit scarcely realising what words were being shaped by his lips while bruno broke into a brief lived laugh
more at that half sheepish expression than at the query itself both boys and girls galore i expect kid but you needn't borrow trouble on either score you can outrun the lads while as for the fairer sex
well they'll take precious good care to keep well beyond your reach especially if you wear such another fascinating grin as
thunder bruno gillespie through all this interchange the air ship was maintaining a wide sweep drawing nearer the forest beneath if only to keep hidden from the eyes of the strange people in yonder deep valley
yet the gaze of phaeton featherwit as a rule kept turned towards that particular point his eyes on fire his lips twitching his whole demeanour that of one who feels a discovery of tremendous importance lies just before him
are we going to land uncle phaeton queried bruno taking note of that preoccupation which might easily prove dangerous under existing circumstances that question served to recall the professor to more material points
not for us especially uncle but for the aerostat even if these be not the people you imagine they are past all doubt a remnant of the ancient aztecs yonder lies the true lost city and we are
oh try to comprehend all that statement means my lads picture to yourselves what boundless fame and unlimited credit awaits our report to the outer world the benighted world the besotted world the the
while we'll form
fairly spluttered waldo as the again neglected air ship sped swiftly towards a more elevated portion of that earth part of the tall hill crest which acted as nature's barricade to yonder by nature depressed valley
time enough lad time enough since we are going to land coolly assured the professor deftly manipulating the steering gear and still curying around those tree crowned hills
if we are really hunted after twill naturally be in the quarter of our vanishment while by alighting around yonder nearly at right angles with our initial approach we will have naught to fear from the the aztecan clans
clearly the professor had settled in his own mind just what lay before them and nothing short of the lost city of the aztecs would come anywhere near satisfying that exalted ideal and taking all points into full consideration
was there anything so very absurd in his method of reasoning or of drawing a deduction still that exaltation did not prevent uncle phaeton from taking all essential precautions and it was only when an especially secure landing place was sighted
that he really attempted to touch the earth fully one half of that wide circuit had been made and as nothing could be detected to give birth to fears for either self or air ship the aeronauts skilfully landed their vessel with only the slightest of jars
it was a well screened location where naught could be seen of the flying machine until close at hand yet so arranged as to make a hasty flight a very easy matter should the occasion ever arise
not until the landing was effected and all made secure did professor featherwit speak again then it was with gravely earnest speech which suitably affected his nephews above all things my dear lads bear ever in mind this one fact
we are not here to fight we do not come as conquerors weapons in hand hearts filled with lust of blood to the contrary we are on a peaceful mission hoping to learn trusting to enlighten with malice towards none
get a hustle on boys the day is waning and with so much to see to study to come i say in spite of his initial attempt to impress his nephews with a due sense of the heavy responsibilities which rested upon them
erected by the hands of a people whom common consent had agreed were long since wiped out of existence the story told by cooper edgecombe backed up by the articles taken from the person of the warrior
whom he had slain in self defence certainly had its weight while the brief and imperfect glimpse which he had won of yonder valley helped to bear out that astounding belief and yet how could it be true
really believing yet forced by more sober reason to doubt the poor professor was literally in a sweat long ere another view could be won of the depressed valley although the landing of the air ship was so well chosen
the natural obstacles were considerable however and as they picked their way along the brothers for the first time began to gain a fairly accurate idea of what was meant by the term a virgin forest
to all seeming the human foot had never ventured here nor were any marks or spoor of wild beasts perceptible on either side although the aerostat had landed not far below the crest of those hills
the adventurers had to climb higher before winning the coveted view partly because the most practicable route led down into and along a winding gulch where the footing was far less treacherous than upon the higher ground
cumbered as that was with the leaf mould of centuries still half an hour's steady labour brought the little squad to the coveted point and once again professor featherwit was almost literally stricken speechless for there
far below their present location spread out in level expanse lay the secret valley with all its marvels far more extensive than it had appeared by that initial glimpse
the valley itself seemed composed of fertile soil yet by aid of the river which cut through near its centre irrigating ditches conveyed water to every acre thus ensuring bounteous crops of grain and of fruit as well
numerous buildings stood in irregular array for the most part of no great height nor with many pretensions towards architectural beauty or grace of outline but in the centre of the valley upreared its head a massive structure
pyramidal in shape consisting of five comparatively narrow terraces connected one with another only at each of the four corners where stood a wide stepped flight of stones behold
and look the people are they wear just such garb as oh marvellous amazing astounding incredible yet true although their uncle could thus take in the various details to better advantage
still the intervening distance was not so great as to entirely debar the brothers from finding no little to interest them as was readily proven by their various exclamations
or watching for the monster bird of prey rather suggested the elder gillespie of course they couldn't distinguish our faces and our bodies were fairly well hidden and even more of course they must be totally ignorant of all such things as flying machines and the like
sympathetically sighed the youngster well we'll have to do a little missionary work in this quarter before taking our departure eh uncle phaeton with a start
featherwit descended out of the clouds in which he had been lost ever since winning a fair view of the secret city and now rallying his wits and fairly aglow with eager interest in this marvellous discovery
he began pointing out the various objects of special importance naming them with glib assurance then reminding the boys how wonderfully similar all was to what had existed in old mexico before the conquest
was able to closely follow the course of that little lecture noting each strong point made by the professor in bolstering up his delightful theory
as usual he ate and drank much and eagerly but those who knew him intimately noticed that some great change had come over him that day he was silent all through dinner and looked about blinking and scowling
the unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given by the princess his cousin at moscow concerning dolokhov's intimacy with his wife and by an anonymous letter he had received that morning
which in the mean jocular way common to anonymous letters said that he saw badly through his spectacles but that his wife's connection with dolokhov was a secret to no one but himself
but he feared now to look at dolokhov who was sitting opposite him every time he chanced to meet dolokhov's handsome insolent eyes pierre felt something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul and turned quickly away
he involuntarily remembered how dolokhov who had fully recovered his former position after the campaign had returned to petersburg and come to him availing himself of his friendly relations with pierre as a boon companion
and pierre had put him up and lent him money pierre recalled how helene had smilingly expressed disapproval of dolokhov's living at their house and how cynically dolokhov had praised his wife's beauty to him and from that time till they came to moscow
befriended him and helped him i know and understand what a spice that would add to the pleasure of deceiving me if it really were true yes if it were true but i do not believe it i have no right to and can't believe it
he remembered the expression dolokhov's face assumed in his moments of cruelty as when tying the policeman to the bear and dropping them into the water or when he challenged a man to a duel without any reason
and that must please him he must think that i too am afraid of him and in fact i am afraid of him he thought and again he felt something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul
dolokhov denisov and rostov were now sitting opposite pierre and seemed very gay rostov was talking merrily to his two friends one of whom was a dashing hussar and the other a notorious duelist and rake
and every now and then he glanced ironically at pierre whose preoccupied absent minded and massive figure was a very noticeable one at the dinner rostov looked inimically at pierre
the husband of a beauty and in a word an old woman and secondly because pierre in his preoccupation and absent mindedness had not recognized rostov and had not responded to his greeting when the emperor's health was drunk
pierre lost in thought did not rise or lift his glass
pierre sighed rose submissively emptied his glass and waiting till all were seated again turned with his kindly smile to rostov why i didn't recognize you he said
but rostov was otherwise engaged he was shouting hurrah why don't you renew the acquaintance said dolokhov to rostov confound him he's a fool said rostov
one should make up to the husbands of pretty women said denisov pierre did not catch what they were saying but knew they were talking about him he reddened and turned away well now to the health of handsome women
said dolokhov and with a serious expression but with a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth he turned with his glass to pierre here's to the health of lovely women peterkin and their lovers he added
the footman who was distributing leaflets with kutuzov's cantata laid one before pierre as one of the principal guests he was just going to take it when dolokhov leaning across snatched it from his hand and began reading it pierre
looked at dolokhov and his eyes dropped the something terrible and monstrous that had tormented him all dinnertime rose and took possession of him he leaned his whole massive body across the table
how dare you take it he shouted
nesvitski and the neighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to bezukhov
whispered their frightened voices
he ejaculated and pushing back his chair he rose from the table at the very instant he did this and uttered those words pierre felt that the question of his wife's guilt
he hated her and was forever sundered from her despite denisov's request that he would take no part in the matter rostov agreed to be dolokhov's second and after dinner he discussed the arrangements for the duel with nesvitski bezukhov's second
pierre went home but rostov with dolokhov and denisov stayed on at the club till late listening to the gypsies and other singers well then till tomorrow at sokolniki
said dolokhov as he took leave of rostov in the club porch and do you feel quite calm rostov asked dolokhov paused
he had evidently not slept that night he looked about distractedly and screwed up his eyes as if dazzled by the sun he was entirely absorbed by two considerations his wife's guilt of which after his sleepless night he had not the slightest doubt
and the guiltlessness of dolokhov who had no reason to preserve the honor of a man who was nothing to him i should perhaps have done the same thing in his place thought pierre it's even certain that i should have done the same then why this duel this murder
he would ask in a particularly calm and absent minded way which inspired the respect of the onlookers will it be long are things ready when all was ready the sabers stuck in the snow to mark the barriers and the pistols loaded
nesvitski went up to pierre i should not be doing my duty count he said in timid tones and should not justify your confidence and the honor you have done me in choosing me for your second if at this grave this very grave
moment i did not tell you the whole truth i think there is no sufficient ground for this affair or for blood to be shed over it you were not right not quite in the right you were impetuous oh yes it is horribly stupid said pierre
then allow me to express your regrets and i am sure your opponent will accept them said nesvitski who like the others concerned in the affair and like everyone in similar cases did not yet believe that the affair had come to an actual duel
you know count it is much more honorable to admit one's mistake than to let matters become irreparable there was no insult on either side allow me to convey no what is there to talk about said pierre it's all the same
is everything ready he added only tell me where to go and where to shoot he said with an unnaturally gentle smile he took the pistol in his hand and began asking about the working of the trigger
as he had not before held a pistol in his hand a fact that he did not wish to confess oh yes like that i know i only forgot said he no apologies none whatever said dolokhov to denisov
the frost having begun to break up during the last few days the antagonists stood forty paces apart at the farther edge of the clearing the seconds measuring the paces left tracks in the deep wet snow between the place
the taming of the shrew there lived in padua a gentleman named baptista who had two fair daughters
and unmannerly that no one ever dreamed of marrying her while her sister bianca was so sweet and pretty and pleasant spoken that more than one suitor asked her father for her hand
but baptista said the elder daughter must marry first so bianca's suitors decided among themselves to try and get some one to marry katharine and then the father could at least be got to listen to their suit for bianca
a gentleman from verona named petruchio was the one they thought of and half in jest
petruchio began by asking baptista's permission
and baptista was obliged to own that she was anything but gentle and just then her music master rushed in complaining that the naughty girl had broken her lute over his head because he told her she was not playing correctly
never mind said petruchio i love her better than ever and long to have some chat with her when katharine came he said
you've only heard half said katharine rudely oh no said petruchio they call you plain kate and bonny kate and sometimes kate the shrew
he said quietly and still protested with many compliments that he would marry none but her when baptista came back he asked at once how speed you with my daughter how should i speed but well replied petruchio how but well
how now daughter katharine the father went on i don't think said katharine angrily you are acting a father's part in wishing me to marry this mad cap ruffian ah said petruchio
you and all the world would talk amiss of her you should see how kind she is to me when we are alone in short i will go off to venice to buy fine things for our wedding for kiss me kate we will be married on sunday with that
and he laughing went out by the other but whether she fell in love with petruchio or whether she was only glad to meet a man who was not afraid of her or whether she was flattered that in spite of her rough words and spiteful usage he still desired her for his wife
to vex and humble katharine's naughty proud spirit he was late at the wedding and when he came came wearing such shabby clothes that she was ashamed to be seen with him his servant was dressed in the same shabby way and the horses they rode were the sport of everyone they passed
and after the marriage when should have been the wedding breakfast petruchio carried his wife away not allowing her to eat or drink saying that she was his now and he could do as he liked with her and his manner was so violent
and he behaved all through his wedding in so mad and dreadful a manner that katharine trembled and went with him he mounted her on a stumbling lean old horse and they journeyed by rough muddy ways to petruchio's house
he scolding and snarling all the way she was terribly tired when she reached her new home but petruchio was determined that she should neither eat nor sleep that night for he had made up his mind to teach his bad tempered wife a lesson she would never forget
the meat was burnt he said and ill served and he loved her far too much to let her eat anything but the best
then her husband still telling her how he loved her and how anxious he was that she should sleep well pulled her bed to pieces throwing the pillows and bedclothes on the floor so that she could not go to bed at all and still kept growling and scolding at the servants
so that kate might see how unbeautiful a thing ill temper was the next day too katharine's food was all found fault with and caught away before she could touch a mouthful and she was sick and giddy for want of sleep
then she said to one of the servants i pray thee go and get me some repast i care not what what say you to a neat's foot said the servant katharine said yes eagerly
but the servant who was in his master's secret said he feared it was not good for hasty tempered people would she like tripe
i don't think that is good for hasty tempered people said the servant what do you say to a dish of beef and mustard i love it said kate but mustard is too hot why then the beef and let the mustard go
cried katharine who was getting hungrier and hungrier no said the servant you must have the mustard or you get no beef from me then cried katharine losing patience let it be both or one or anything thou wilt why then
katharine was pleased with the pretty new dress and cap that the tailor had made for her but petruchio found fault with everything flung the cap and gown on the floor vowing his dear wife should not wear any such foolish things i will have them
cried katharine all gentlewomen wear such caps as these when you are gentle you shall have one too he answered and not till then when he had driven away the tailor with angry words but privately asking his friend to see him paid
it's nearly two said kate but civilly enough for she had grown to see that she could not bully her husband as she had done her father and her sister it's nearly two and it will be supper time before we get there
it shall be seven said petruchio obstinately before i start why whatever i say or do or think you do nothing but contradict i won't go to day and before i do go it shall be what o'clock i say it is
look at the moon said he it's the sun said katharine and indeed it was i say it is the moon contradicting again it shall be sun or moon or whatever i choose or i won't take you to your father's
then katharine gave in once and for all what you will have it named she said
so they journeyed on to baptista's house and arriving there they found all folks keeping bianca's wedding feast and that of another newly married couple hortensio and his wife they were made welcome and sat down to the feast and all was merry
save that hortensio's wife seeing katharine subdued to her husband thought she could safely say many disagreeable things
that she turned the laugh against the new bride after dinner when the ladies had retired baptista joined in a laugh against petruchio saying now in good sadness son petruchio i fear you have got the veriest shrew of all
you are wrong said petruchio let me prove it to you each of us shall send a message to his wife desiring her to come to him and the one whose wife comes most readily shall win a wager which we will agree on
but twenty times as much upon my wife a hundred then cried lucentio bianca's husband content cried the others
and baptista said he was certain his daughter would come but the servant coming back said sir my mistress is busy and she cannot come there's an answer for you said petruchio you may think yourself fortunate if your wife does not send you a worse
i hope better petruchio answered then hortensio said go and entreat my wife to come to me at once oh if you entreat her said petruchio i am afraid answered hortensio sharply
do what you can yours will not be entreated but now the servant came in and said she says you are playing some jest she will not come better and better cried petruchio now
it means peace said petruchio and love and quiet life well said baptista you have won the wager and i will add another twenty thousand crowns to her dowry another dowry for another daughter for she is as changed as if she were someone else
and now he had broken her proud and angry spirit he loved her well and there was nothing ever but love between those two
and they were there in full force watching for the athenians to land these last however gave them the slip by coming in the dark and being informed by signals of the fact the corinthians left half their number at cenchreae in case the athenians should go against crommyon
which had just landed in front of chersonese and afterwards the rest of the army the battle was an obstinate one and fought throughout hand to hand the right wing of the athenians and carystians
who had been placed at the end of the line received and with some difficulty repulsed the corinthians who thereupon retreated to a wall upon the rising ground behind and throwing down the stones upon them
were again engaged at close quarters at this moment a corinthian company having come to the relief of the left wing routed and pursued the athenian right to the sea
meanwhile the rest of the army on either side fought on tenaciously especially the right wing of the corinthians where lycophron sustained the attack of the athenian left which it was feared might attempt the village of solygia after holding on for a long while without either giving way
lycophron their general being among the number the rest of the army broken and put to flight in this way without being seriously pursued or hurried retired to the high ground and there took up its position the athenians finding that the enemy no longer offered to engage them
and going on board crossed over to the islands opposite and from thence sent a herald and took up under truce the bodies which they had left behind two hundred and twelve corinthians fell in the battle and rather less than fifty athenians
haliae and epidaurus after walling off this spot the fleet sailed off home
who had crossed over as i have mentioned after the revolution and become masters of the country to the great hurt of the inhabitants their stronghold having been taken by an attack the garrison took refuge in a body upon some high ground and there capitulated agreeing to give up their mercenary auxiliaries
lay down their arms and commit themselves to the discretion of the athenian people the generals carried them across under truce to the island of ptychia
these representations succeeding it was so arranged that the men were caught sailing out in the boat that was provided and the treaty became void accordingly
and afterwards taken out by twenties and led past two lines of heavy infantry one on each side being bound together and beaten and stabbed by the men in the lines whenever any saw pass a personal enemy
while men carrying whips went by their side and hastened on the road those that walked too slowly as many as sixty men were taken out and killed in this way without the knowledge of their friends in the building who fancied they were merely being moved from one prison to another
at last however someone opened their eyes to the truth upon which they called upon the athenians to kill them themselves if such was their pleasure and refused any longer to go out of the building and said they would do all they could to prevent any one coming in
threw down the tiles and let fly arrows at them from which the prisoners sheltered themselves as well as they could most of their number meanwhile were engaged in dispatching themselves by thrusting into their throats the arrows shot by the enemy and hanging themselves with the cords taken from some beds that happened to be there
and with strips made from their clothing adopting in short every possible means of self destruction
night came on while these horrors were enacting and most of it had passed before they were concluded
all the women taken in the stronghold were sold as slaves in this way the corcyraeans of the mountain were destroyed by the commons and so after terrible excesses the party strife came to an end
for of one party there was practically nothing left meanwhile the athenians sailed off to sicily their primary destination and carried on the war with their allies there
and the acarnanians themselves sending settlers from all parts of acarnania occupied the place summer was now over
as of the many ambassadors they had sent him no two ever told the same story if however they were prepared to speak plainly they might send him some envoys with this persian the athenians afterwards sent back artaphernes in a galley to ephesus and ambassadors with him
who heard there of the death of king artaxerxes son of xerxes which took place about that time and so returned home the same winter the chians pulled down their new wall at the command of the athenians
after first however obtaining pledges from the athenians and security as far as this was possible for their continuing to treat them as before thus the winter ended and with it ended the seventh year of this war of which thucydides is the historian
in first days of the next summer there was an eclipse of the sun at the time of new moon and in the early part of the same month an earthquake meanwhile the mitylenian and other lesbian exiles set out for the most part from the continent with mercenaries hired in peloponnese
and others levied on the spot and took rhoeteum but restored it without injury on the receipt of two thousand phocaean staters
their plan being to free antandrus and the rest of the actaean towns formerly owned by mitylene but now held by the athenians once fortified there they would have every facility for ship building from the vicinity of ida and the consequent abundance of timber
and plenty of other supplies and might from this base easily ravage lesbos which was not far off and make themselves masters of the aeolian towns on the continent
while these were the schemes of the exiles the athenians in the same summer made an expedition with sixty ships two thousand heavy infantry a few cavalry and some allied troops from miletus and other parts against cythera
and autocles son of tolmaeus cythera is an island lying off laconia opposite malea the inhabitants are lacedaemonians of the class of the perioeci and an officer called the judge of cythera went over to the place annually from sparta
a garrison of heavy infantry was also regularly sent there and great attention paid to the island as it was the landing place for the merchantmen from egypt and libya and at the same time secured laconia from the attacks of privateers from the sea
and with the rest of their forces landing on the side of the island looking towards malea went against the lower town of cythera where they found all the inhabitants encamped
summer was now over the winter following the plague a second time attacked the athenians for although it had never entirely left them still there had been a notable abatement in its ravages
and nothing distressed the athenians and reduced their power more than this no less than four thousand four hundred heavy infantry in the ranks died of it and three hundred cavalry besides a number of the multitude that was never ascertained
particularly at orchomenus in the last named country
with thirty ships made an expedition against the islands of aeolus it being impossible to invade them in summer owing to the want of water
a cnidian colony who live in one of them of no great size called lipara and from this as their headquarters cultivate the rest
in hiera the people in those parts believe that hephaestus has his forge from the quantity of flame which they see it send out by night and of smoke by day these islands lie off the coast of the sicels and messinese and were allies of the syracusans
the next summer the peloponnesians and their allies set out to invade attica under the command of agis son of archidamus and went as far as the isthmus but numerous earthquakes occurring turned back again without the invasion taking place
returned in a huge wave and invaded a great part of the town and retreated leaving some of it still under water so that what was once land is now sea such of the inhabitants perishing as could not run up to the higher ground in time a similar inundation also occurred at atalanta
the island off the opuntian locrian coast carrying away part of the athenian fort and wrecking one of two ships which were drawn up on the beach
and an earthquake threw down part of the wall the town hall and a few other buildings the cause in my opinion of this phenomenon must be sought in the earthquake at the point where its shock has been the most violent the sea is driven back and suddenly recoiling with redoubled force
causes the inundation without an earthquake i do not see how such an accident could happen during the same summer different operations were carried on by the different belligerents in sicily by the siceliots themselves against each other and by the athenians and their allies
and gave hostages and all other securities required the same summer the athenians sent thirty ships round peloponnese under demosthenes
wishing to reduce the melians who although islanders refused to be subjects of athens or even to join her confederacy the devastation of their land not procuring their submission
agreeably to a concerted signal under the command of hipponicus son of callias and eurymedon son of thucles they encamped and passing that day in ravaging the tanagraean territory remained there for the night and next day after defeating those of the tanagraeans who sailed out against them
the last of these having suffered severely in a war with their neighbours the oetaeans at first intended to give themselves up to athens but afterwards fearing not to find in her the security that they sought sent to lacedaemon having chosen tisamenus for their ambassador
in this embassy joined also the dorians from the mother country of the lacedaemonians with the same request as they themselves also suffered from the same enemy after hearing them the lacedaemonians determined to send out the colony wishing to assist the trachinians and dorians
and also because they thought that the proposed town would lie conveniently for the purposes of the war against the athenians
and the town would also be useful as a station on the road to thrace in short everything made the lacedaemonians eager to found the place after first consulting the god at delphi and receiving a favourable answer they sent off the colonists spartans and perioeci
inviting also any of the rest of the hellenes who might wish to accompany them except ionians achaeans and certain other nationalities three lacedaemonians leading as founders of the colony leon alcidas and damagon
the settlement effected they fortified anew the city now called heraclea distant about four miles and a half from thermopylae and two miles and a quarter from the sea and commenced building docks closing the side towards thermopylae just by the pass itself in order that they might be easily defended
at first caused some alarm at athens which the event however did nothing to justify the town never giving them any trouble the reason of this was as follows
were afraid that it might prove a very powerful neighbour and accordingly continually harassed and made war upon the new settlers until they at last wore them out in spite of their originally considerable numbers people flocking from all quarters to a place founded by the lacedaemonians
and thus thought secure of prosperity on the other hand the lacedaemonians themselves in the persons of their governors did their full share towards ruining its prosperity and reducing its population as they frightened away the greater part of the inhabitants by governing harshly and in some cases not fairly
the same summer about the same time that the athenians were detained at melos their fellow citizens in the thirty ships cruising round peloponnese after cutting off some guards in an ambush at ellomenus in leucadia subsequently went against leucas itself with a large armament
and by the zacynthians and cephallenians and fifteen ships from corcyra while the leucadians witnessed the devastation of their land without and within the isthmus upon which the town of leucas and the temple of apollo stand without making any movement on account of the overwhelming numbers of the enemy
the acarnanians urged demosthenes the athenian general to build a wall so as to cut off the town from the continent a measure which they were convinced would secure its capture and rid them once and for all of a most troublesome enemy
that it was a fine opportunity for him having so large an army assembled to attack the aetolians who were not only the enemies of naupactus but whose reduction would further make it easy to gain the rest of that part of the continent for the athenians the aetolian nation although numerous and warlike
yet dwelt in unwalled villages scattered far apart and had nothing but light armour and might according to the messenians be subdued without much difficulty before succours could arrive the plan which they recommended was to attack first the apodotians next the ophionians
and after these the eurytanians who are the largest tribe in aetolia and speak as is said a language exceedingly difficult to understand and eat their flesh raw these once subdued the rest would easily come in
to kytinium in doris keeping parnassus on his right until he descended to the phocians whom he could force to join him if their ancient friendship for athens did not as he anticipated at once decide them to do so arrived in phocis he was already upon the frontier of boeotia
after bivouacking with the army in the precinct of nemean zeus in which the poet hesiod is said to have been killed by the people of the country according to an oracle which had foretold that he should die in nemea demosthenes set out at daybreak to invade aetolia
the first day he took potidania the next krokyle and the third tichium where he halted and sent back the booty to eupalium in locris having determined to pursue his conquests as far as the ophionians and in the event of their refusing to submit
the bomiensians and calliensians who extend towards the malian gulf being among the number the messenians however adhered to their original advice assuring demosthenes that the aetolians were an easy conquest they urged him to push on as rapidly as possible
running down from the hills on every side and darting their javelins falling back when the athenian army advanced and coming on as it retired and for a long while the battle was of this character alternate advance and retreat in both which operations the athenians had the worst
indeed the athenian army fell victims to death in every form and suffered all the vicissitudes of flight
meanwhile the athenians took up their dead under truce from the aetolians and retired to naupactus and from thence went in their ships to athens demosthenes staying behind in naupactus and in the neighbourhood being afraid to face the athenians after the disaster
about the same time the athenians on the coast of sicily sailed to locris
the same summer the aetolians who before the athenian expedition had sent an embassy to corinth and lacedaemon composed of tolophus an ophionian
obtained that an army should be sent them against naupactus which had invited the athenian invasion the lacedaemonians accordingly sent off towards autumn three thousand heavy infantry of the allies five hundred of whom were from heraclea
the newly founded city in trachis under the command of eurylochus a spartan accompanied by macarius and menedaius also spartans the army having assembled at delphi eurylochus sent a herald to the ozolian locrians the road to naupactus lying through their territory
first their neighbours the myonians who held the most difficult of the passes
all of whom joined in the expedition the olpaeans contenting themselves with giving hostages without accompanying the invasion
his preparations completed eurylochus lodged the hostages in kytinium in doris and advanced upon naupactus through the country of the locrians
meanwhile the athenian demosthenes who since the affair in aetolia had remained near naupactus having had notice of the army and fearing for the town went and persuaded the acarnanians although not without difficulty because of his departure from leucas to go to the relief of naupactus
they accordingly sent with him on board his ships a thousand heavy infantry who threw themselves into the place and saved it the extent of its wall and the small number of its defenders otherwise placing it in the greatest danger meanwhile eurylochus and his companions
finding that this force had entered and that it was impossible to storm the town withdrew not to peloponnese but to the country once called aeolis and now calydon and pleuron and to the places in that neighbourhood and proschium in aetolia
the ambraciots having come and urged them to combine with them in attacking amphilochian argos and the rest of amphilochia and acarnania affirming that the conquest of these countries would bring all the continent into alliance with lacedaemon
with their hellenic allies and such of the sicel subjects or allies of syracuse as had revolted from her and joined their army marched against the sicel town inessa the acropolis of which was held by the syracusans and after attacking it without being able to take it retired
in the retreat the allies retreating after the athenians were attacked by the syracusans from the fort and a large part of their army routed with great slaughter after this laches and the athenians from the ships made some descents in locris and defeating the locrians who came against them with proxenus
son of capaton upon the river caicinus took some arms and departed
not indeed the whole island but as much of it as could be seen from the temple all of it was however now purified in the following way
tyrant of samos having added rhenea to his other island conquests during his period of naval ascendancy dedicated it to the delian apollo by binding it to delos with a chain the athenians after the purification
celebrated for the first time the quinquennial festival of the delian games once upon a time indeed there was a great assemblage of the ionians and the neighbouring islanders at delos
invoke thy favour on each manly game and dance and sing in honour of thy name that there was also a poetical contest in which the ionians went to contend again is shown by the following taken from the same hymn
after celebrating the delian dance of the women he ends his song of praise with these verses in which he also alludes to himself well may apollo keep you all and so sweethearts good bye yet
tell me not i go out from your hearts and if in after hours some other wanderer in this world of ours touch at your shores and ask your maidens here who sings the songs the sweetest to your ear think of me then and answer with a smile a blind old man of scio's rocky isle
in later times although the islanders and the athenians continued to send the choirs of dancers with sacrifices the contests and most of the ceremonies were abolished probably through adversity until the athenians celebrated the games upon this occasion with the novelty of horse races
and with the rest encamped in amphilochia at the place called crenae or the wells to watch for eurylochus and his peloponnesians and to prevent their passing through and effecting their junction with the ambraciots
while they also sent for demosthenes the commander of the aetolian expedition to be their leader and for the twenty athenian ships that were cruising off peloponnese under the command of aristotle son of timocrates and hierophon son of antimnestus
set out from proschium with all haste to join them and crossing the achelous advanced through acarnania which they found deserted by its population who had gone to the relief of argos
and on their left the rest of acarnania
they advanced through phytia next skirting medeon
and entered a friendly country that of the agraeans
and descended into the argive territory after nightfall and passing between the city of argos and the acarnanian posts at crenae
e uniting here at daybreak they sat down at the place called metropolis and encamped
the acarnanians and a few of the amphilochians most of whom were kept back by force by the ambraciots had already arrived at argos and were preparing to give battle to the enemy having chosen demosthenes to command the whole of the allied army in concert with their own generals
demosthenes led them near to olpae and encamped a great ravine separating the two armies during five days they remained inactive on the sixth both sides formed in order of battle the army of the peloponnesians was the largest and outflanked their opponents
when both sides were ready they joined battle demosthenes being on the right wing with the messenians and a few athenians while the rest of the line was made up of the different divisions of the acarnanians
where eurylochus and his men confronted the messenians and demosthenes the peloponnesians were now well engaged and with their outflanking wing were upon the point of turning their enemy's right
when the acarnanians from the ambuscade set upon them from behind and broke them at the first attack without their staying to resist
returning from the pursuit they found their main body defeated and hard pressed by the acarnanians with difficulty made good their passage to olpae suffering heavy loss on the way as they dashed on without discipline or order
the battle did not end until the evening the next day menedaius who on the death of eurylochus and macarius had succeeded to the sole command being at a loss after so signal a defeat how to stay and sustain a siege
the dead they gave back to him and setting up a trophy took up their own also to the number of about three hundred the retreat demanded they refused publicly to the army but permission to depart without delay was secretly granted to the mantineans and to menedaius
and the other commanders and principal men of the peloponnesians by demosthenes and his acarnanian colleagues who desired to strip the ambraciots and the mercenary host of foreigners of their supporters and above all to discredit the lacedaemonians and peloponnesians with the hellenes in those parts
as traitors and self seekers while the enemy was taking up his dead and hastily burying them as he could and those who obtained permission were secretly planning their retreat word was brought to demosthenes and the acarnanians that the ambraciots from the city
in the meantime the mantineans and others included in the agreement went out under the pretence of gathering herbs and firewood and stole off by twos and threes picking on the way the things which they professed to have come out for
the ambraciots and such of the rest as had accompanied them in larger parties seeing them going on pushed on in their turn and began running in order to catch them up the acarnanians at first thought that all alike were departing without permission and began to pursue the peloponnesians
and believing that they were being betrayed even threw a dart or two at some of their generals who tried to stop them and told them that leave had been given eventually however they let pass the mantineans and peloponnesians and slew only the ambraciots there being much dispute and difficulty in distinguishing whether a man was an ambraciot or a peloponnesian
the number thus slain was about two hundred the rest escaped into the bordering territory of agraea and found refuge with salynthius the friendly king of the agraeans meanwhile the ambraciots from the city arrived at idomene
himself with half his force making for the pass and the remainder going by the amphilochian hills at dawn he fell upon the ambraciots while they were still abed ignorant of what had passed and fully thinking that it was their own countrymen
in this way he routed their army as soon as he attacked it slaying most of them where they were the rest breaking away in flight over the hills the roads however were already occupied and while the amphilochians knew their own country the ambraciots were ignorant of it and could not tell which way to turn and
some even turned to the sea which was not far off and seeing the athenian ships coasting alongshore just while the action was going on swam off to them thinking it better in the panic they were in to perish if perish they must by the hands of the athenians
than by those of the barbarous and detested amphilochians of the large ambraciot force destroyed in this manner a few only reached the city in safety while the acarnanians after stripping the dead and setting up a trophy returned to argos
to ask leave to take up the dead that had fallen after the first engagement when they left the camp with the mantineans and their companions without like them having had permission to do so at the sight of the arms of the ambraciots from the city the herald was astonished at their number
knowing nothing of the disaster and fancying that they were those of their own party some one asked him what he was so astonished at and how many of them had been killed fancying in his turn that this was the herald from the troops at idomene he replied about two hundred
but we fought with no one yesterday but the day before in the retreat
when the herald heard this and knew that the reinforcement from the city had been destroyed he broke into wailing and stunned at the magnitude of the present evils went away at once without having performed his errand or again asking for the dead bodies
indeed this was by far the greatest disaster that befell any one hellenic city in an equal number of days during this war
in any case i know that if the acarnanians and amphilochians had wished to take ambracia as the athenians and demosthenes advised they would have done so without a blow as it was they feared that if the athenians had it they would be worse neighbours to them than the present
after this the acarnanians allotted a third of the spoils to the athenians and divided the rest among their own different towns the share of the athenians was captured on the voyage home the arms now deposited in the attic temples are three hundred panoplies
which the acarnanians set apart for demosthenes and which he brought to athens in person his return to his country after the aetolian disaster being rendered less hazardous by this exploit the athenians in the twenty ships also went off to naupactus
the acarnanians and amphilochians after the departure of demosthenes and the athenians granted the ambraciots and peloponnesians who had taken refuge with salynthius and the agraeans
the ambraciots could not be required to march with the acarnanians against the peloponnesians nor the acarnanians with the ambraciots against the athenians for the rest the ambraciots were to give up the places and hostages that they held of the amphilochians
son of euthycles who reached their destination after a difficult journey across the continent such was the history of the affair of ambracia the same winter the athenians in sicily made a descent from their ships upon the territory of himera
the allies in sicily had sailed to athens and induced the athenians to send out more vessels to their assistance pointing out that the syracusans who already commanded their land were making efforts to get together a navy to avoid being any longer excluded from the sea by a few vessels
thinking that the war in sicily would thus be the sooner ended and also wishing to exercise their navy one of the generals pythodorus was accordingly sent out with a few ships
meanwhile pythodorus had taken the command of laches ships and towards the end of winter sailed against the locrian fort which laches had formerly taken and returned after being defeated in battle by the locrians in the first days of this spring
the stream of fire issued from etna as on former occasions and destroyed some land of the catanians who live upon mount etna which is the largest mountain in sicily fifty years it is said had elapsed since the last eruption there having been three in all since the hellenes have inhabited sicily
goodness moderation and decorum these are the motto and the soul of moral propriety in conversation a solicitude to be always agreeable and obliging of observing a proper medium in everything
of respecting the rights of others even in the most trifling things susceptibility for every thing which is connected with delicacy
all these qualities which belong to politeness are included in these expressive words goodness moderation decorum
there are however some little rules which are not to be neglected it is proper to vary the phraseology of these formal questions as much as possible and we must abstain from them entirely towards a superior or a person with whom we are but little acquainted
for such inquiries presuppose some degree of intimacy in the last case there is a method of manifesting our interest without violating etiquette it consists in making these inquiries of the domestics or of other persons of the house
and of saying afterwards when introduced i am happy sir to hear that you are in good health custom forbids a lady to make these inquiries of a gentleman unless he is ill or very aged to put a corrective upon this mark of regard
a lady who addresses a gentleman should be earnest in her inquiries of the health of his family however little intimacy she may have with them many persons ask this question mechanically without waiting for the answer
or else hasten to reply before they have received it this is in bad ton inquiries about the health it is true are frequently unimportant but they should appear to be dictated by attention and kindness we must not however be deceived
a slight indisposition to persons who are strangers to us because their interest can be only formal after we are informed of the health of the person we are visiting it is proper to inquire of them in relation to the health of their families
but it would be wearisome to them to make a long enumeration of the members who compose the family we can put a general question designating the most important members in case of the absence of near relations we ask the person we are visiting if they have heard from them lately
if the news is favorable they on their part ask the same of us when you are not on visits of great ceremony at the time of taking leave you are commonly desired to give the compliments and salutations of the persons you are visiting to those with whom you live
then you should reply briefly but give them assurances of your regard and thank them politeness infuses into visits of some little ceremony a coloring of modesty grace and deference which should be preserved with the greatest care in speaking
it is always proper to give the name of sir madam or miss and if the sentence is somewhat long the title ought to be repeated if the question is with regard to answering in the affirmative or negative we ought never to say roughly yes or no
if the person addressed has a title or that which he has from his profession we should give it him as count doctor
a lady will not say my husband except among intimates in every other case she should address him by his name calling him mister it is equally good ton that except on occasions of ceremony and while she is quite young to designate him
the rules of politeness in this respect are the same in speaking of the husband when we speak of ourself and another person whether he is absent or present propriety requires us to mention ourselves last thus we should say
he and i you and i when you relate a personal occurrence the circumstances connected with which are honorable to yourself and a distinguished person had also a share in the honor
and instead of the plural form we resolved we did such a thing you should forget yourself and say mister n resolved or did such a thing so and so delicacy will dictate this degree of modesty to you
and your superior in his turn will proclaim at his own expense your merit on the occasion we know that the word false is not to be found in the dictionary of politeness and that when we are obliged to deny the assertion of any one we employ
apologetical forms the most proper ones are such as the following i may be mistaken i am undoubtedly mistaken but be so good as to excuse my mistake but it seems to me i ask pardon but i thought
merely by expressions of doubt they say if what you advance is true if what madam says is positive
it is incivility with affectation
i agree with them but in quite another sense we should never ask a thing of any one without saying will you have the goodness will you do me the favor
and should never present any thing by extending the arm over her but we pass round behind and present it in case we cannot do it we say
never refuse with disdain a pinch of snuff
after having pretended to take it beware of presenting to ladies in balls or assemblies a box of sweet things under penalty of having the air of a caricature
if you strike against any one in the least ask pardon for it immediately the other should at the same time answer you
it is customary to employ the few moments of a visit of mere politeness in looking at the portraits which adorn the fireplace and even taking them down if you are invited to do it it would be the extreme of impoliteness to say that they were flattered
or to pretend to recognize in the portrait of a young lady the likeness of an elderly lady or of one less favored by nature it would moreover be improper to make long compliments indirect and ingenious praise is all that is proper section two
of questions and frequently recurring expressions it is an axiom of propriety that we should never speak of ourselves except to intimate friends and that we should converse with strangers about themselves and everything which can interest them
questions are therefore necessary but they demand infinite delicacy and tact in order neither to fatigue nor ever wound the feelings if instead of expressing a mild and heartfelt interest
you ask a dry question dictated by a cold curiosity if you seem to pay no attention to the answers which you call forth if you mal adroitly take a commanding tone if you prolong without bounds this kind of conversation
if perceiving that you are embarrassed and that you endeavor to save yourself by an evasive answer instead of keeping silence you witness the foolish regrets of your indiscretion be assured that both your questions and yourself
will be considered as a torment madame necker ingeniously observes that these favorite and frequently repeated terms with which we fill our conversation serve ordinarily as a mark of people's character
thus says she those who exceed the truth are in the habit of saying you may rely upon it it is the truth long talkers say in a word to be brief and the proud say
but independently of this motive it is necessary for us carefully to avoid frequently recurring words as in time habit multiplies them to an inconceivable degree they embarrass and overwhelm our conversation
turn away the attention of those who listen to us and render us importunate and ridiculous without our being able to perceive it if habitual terms which on no other account are reprehensible can become so troublesome
what results may these trite phrases trivial expressions and vulgar transitions produce when they become frequent section three of narrations analysis and digressions
there are many conditions indispensable to the success of a narrative these conditions are first novelty the best stories weary when they are multiplied too much because every one wishes to be an actor in his turn upon the stage of the world
so that when you have anything excellent to relate consult less your own desire to tell it than the wishes of others to hear you there are but too many people who discover the secret of wearying while telling very good things
on account of their too great eagerness to tell them the next thing is to take a suitable opportunity let your narration spring naturally from the conversation let it explain a fact or come in support of an opinion
or by a not less foolish desire of making a display of talent remember that the most meagre recitals when they are apropos frequently please more than the best things in the world when they are said out of time
alas they only add to their own defeat and to the ennui of their poor hearers if one relates an anecdote which you already know permit him to finish it and do not in any way draw off the attention of those who are listening if your opinion is asked
give it frankly and without wishing to appear better informed than the narrator himself still farther if you happen to be in tete a tete with the same narrator observe the same silence and listen with an air of interest
and if he happens to impart to you what he related the preceding day which he had from you yourself you should appear to listen with equal interest as if for the first time frequently in the midst of a recital
the narrator through forgetfulness hesitates and thinks that he can recall it look at him attentively if he is in doubt declare that you are altogether ignorant of the subject in question if his memory returns
request him to continue at the same time saying i listen to you always with new pleasure this delicate politeness is particularly to be observed towards old persons when your narrations have had success keep a modest countenance
leave others to point out the striking parts which have pleased them the surest means of not having the approbation of others in actions as well as other things is to solicit it whether it be by looks or by words
as every hearer is obliged to listen or understand without objecting the consequence is that we should feel our ground before speaking
when a story has been published in the newspapers
of course one that is absent an ineffable ridicule very properly stigmatizes the narrator we come now to what seems to me the most difficult part of conversation and if you are not sure of being able to class your ideas with regularity
to express them with much clearness and an easy elegance do not have the temerity to wish to analyze a book or a dramatic piece you would be laying up for yourself a rude mortification which would have an unfavorable influence on your entree into society
the wishes of a distinguished and brilliant assembly begin by putting down upon paper a hasty sketch of a short piece as for instance a vaudeville or a little comedy you will do this until being sure of the manner in which you would embrace the ensemble
and dispose of the details you can produce it without embarrassment when arrived at this point abstain from these kinds of analysis which though indeed more correct seem labored they have besides less freedom appropriateness and grace
know this and remember it well that every other preparation than thinking what you are about to say will make you acquire two intolerable faults affectation and stiffness to conclude
by a quick and penetrating perception by a love of the fine arts and by a peculiar readiness find themselves able to speak properly of literary productions those who are less engaged in these things should content themselves with
simply and briefly explaining a subject and of mentioning the emotion they felt with speaking of some brilliant passage and adding that they do not pretend to pronounce judgment the first degree of digression is the parenthesis provided it is short
natural and seldom repeated and that you take care to announce it always and finally in order not to abuse it you should make a skilful use of it the second degree of digression becomes more nice for it includes those accessory reflections
those common but agreeable and well settled expressions those general or particular allusions which are only to be used with a peculiar emphasis which is to language what the italic character is to printing
this method of speaking in italics may be striking and artless but it often becomes obscure and trivial the habit is dangerous and one should use this difficult digression only before intimate friends
most frequently it is involuntary often in a lively and animated dialogue the impetus of conversation carries you as well as the person with whom you are conversing far from the point from which you started
if it is a question of pleasure or interest return to your point by employing a polite turn as pray let us not lose sight of our business but if it is an affair of nothings succeeding nothings let it flow on voluntary digression
when it is not a mere work of loquacity may be employed in serious discourse as political philosophical or moral discussions but it is important to treat it with infinite reserve and care and never to introduce a personal apology
or a domestic incident altogether out of place as those persons do who in narrating any event relative to an individual recount his life their connexion with him or his whole family and make the event of an hour remind us of ages
lawyers literary people military men travellers invalids and aged ladies ought to have a prudent and continual distrust of the abuse of digressions
and comparisons the two shoals to be avoided in this form of language are directly opposed to each other the one is triviality the other bombast the object of supposition which is already antiquated and sometimes too simple
is to increase the force of reasoning and to carry conviction to the mind of the person who listens to you
when both these qualities are regulated by reason use and taste it is very well but how seldom is this the case they are not so used if in the course of a discussion
you suppose a respectable person to supply the place of a madman an ill bred person or a robber or if you suppose him to be in a situation disgraceful or even ridiculous as for example
if you had been this bad person or suppose that you had committed this base act or
they are also misplaced whenever being satisfied with avoiding disagreeable comparisons we endeavor to mark out some one as contemptible by comparing his exterior with that of some other person in the company when we say
as quackish as a doctor greedy as an attorney
politeness and taste cannot at all exist in comparisons if they are common or trivial as when we say black as the chimney back
learned as the muses
of discussions and quotations whatever be the subject of conversation propose your opinion with modesty
and a mild tone if you are opposed yield with a good grace if you are wrong yield also although you are in the right if the subject of discussion is of little importance and especially if the one who opposes you is a lady or an old person
moreover if love of truth or the desire of affording instruction force you to enter into a discussion do it with address and politeness if you do not bring over your opponent to your own opinion you will at least gain his esteem
but if you have to do with one of those people who possessed with a mania of discussion commence by contradicting before they hear and who are always ready to sustain the contrary opinion yield to him
you will have nothing to gain with him be assured that the spirit of contradiction can be conquered only by silence the insupportable pedantry of a cloud of quoters without tact or talent has justly for a long time
when young persons ought so carefully to avoid making a parade of a vain college erudition and not seek the reputation of a savant by employing words borrowed from foreign languages or scientific terms unknown in good society
if society is not a school for exercising pedantry neither is it an arena for the use of those perversely clever people who think themselves furnished with a patent to insult with grace whatever may be the keenness of their sarcasms
the name of polite persons or of good ton for in politeness there must be good feeling but those who incessantly study to trouble and wound people without taking any precaution except to deprive them
of the right or means of complaining who are ready to catch at the least error to exaggerate it to clothe it in the most bitter language to present it in the most ridiculous light who meanly attack those who cannot answer them
or expose themselves every day for a sarcasm to sport with their own life and that of another in a duel such people what are they in truth i dare not say one such picture which certainly is not highly colored
would render pleasantries always odious but to indulge in pleasantry is not to resemble such mischievous persons thank heaven it is far otherwise for mild kind and harmless pleasantry should be taken in good part
even by those who are the subjects of it it is a friendly and sportive contest in which severity jealousy and resentment should never appear whenever you perceive the least trace of them the pleasantry is at an end desist then the moment they appear
as to hoaxing that caustic of fools as to that silly gaiety excited by the candor or politeness of people whom you falsely cause to believe the most foolish things because they do not make known to you that they see through this
pleasure of stupid fellows i have nothing to say of them except that i have too good an opinion of my reader to suppose that he does not despise them as i do popular quotations and proverbs as well as other quotations require some care
and except in familiar conversation are altogether misplaced if they are frequent conversation becomes a tedious gossipping if introduced without a short previous remark one of two things will take place
they will either prevent the speaker from being understood or they will give him the air of sancho panza but the previous remark however need be but short as the proverb says as the wisdom of nations has it
a proverb well applied and placed at the end of a phrase frequently makes a very happy conclusion i only speak to censure i entreat my readers not to suffer themselves to be the manufacturers of puns
which are happy in every respect nor that we ought to deprecate this kind of pleasantry before people who are fond of them still less to tell them what they hear every day that is poor
namely those which offend modesty propriety allows you and it even requires you not to listen to but even to interrupt an ill bred person
who importunes you with those indecent witticisms which a man of good society ought always to avoid they are those by aid of which we cover certain pleasantries with a veil so transparent that they are the more observed
what pleasure can we find in causing ladies to blush and in meriting the name of a man of bad society there are those who think that they may allow themselves every kind of pleasantry before certain persons but a man of good ton
ought to observe it wherever he is we might quote more than one example of persons who have lost politeness of manners and of language by assuming the habits and conversation of all kinds of society into which chance may have carried them
it requires but a moment to lose those delicate shades of character which constitute a man of the world
extravagant and misplaced eulogiums neither honor the one who bestows them nor the persons who receive them an infallible method of giving a meritorious person the air of a fool is to address him to his face and without disguise
to load him with exaggerated eulogiums it is indeed not a little embarrassing to reply in such a case if we remain silent we appear to be inhaling the incense with complacency
if we repel it we only seem to excite it the more thus we see in such a case and even among very clever persons too those who reply by silly exclamations and by rude assertions you were laughing at me they say
this cannot be tolerated it is to be supposed that the person who praises you is incapable of such an act i think it would be better to say i did not know you were so kind or so good i should indeed think you were joking me or else we should say
your partiality blinds you persons who are unacquainted with the world commonly think that they cannot address a lady without first assailing her with compliments this is a mistake gentlemen and i can with relation to this point
reveal to you what my sex prefers to these vulgar eulogiums it is in bad ton to overwhelm with insipid flattery all women that we meet without distinction of age rank or merit
these insipidities may indeed please some of light and frivolous minds but will disgust a woman of good sense carry on with them a lively piquant and varied conversation and remember that they have a too active imagination
a too great versatility of disposition to support conversation for a long time upon the same subject but is it then necessary to proscribe eulogiums entirely not at all society has not yet arrived at that degree of philosophy
eulogiums are and will for a long time be a means of success but they should be in the first place true or at least probable
and they should be tempered with a sort of judgment the skilful use of which is itself even a eulogium i repeat as i have often said
let there be moderation in everything should we not regard as gross and ridiculous language that exaggeration which we frequently hear used in praise as well as in censure it seems that true politeness in language consists principally
under any circumstances complaining has always a bad grace banish from your complaints ill nature and animosity
doubtful whether to favor your adversary or yourself politeness is not less opposed to making excessive complaints to the first person you meet than to the frequent and extravagant eulogiums which you
bestow improperly upon those from whom you expect a favor in return by the word improprieties we generally understand all violations of politeness we however give to this word
a particular and limited sense it signifies a want of due regard to and a forgetfulness of the delicate attentions which seem to identify us with the situation of others
we will mention some examples of these particular violations of politeness to accost sad people with a smiling face and sprightly manners which prove to them the little interest which you take in their situation
to trouble by a whimsical and cross ill humor and by misanthropic declamations the pleasure of contented persons to exalt the advantages of beauty before aged ladies
or those who are naturally unfortunate to speak of the power that wealth bestows in the presence of people hardly arrived at mediocrity of fortune
the peaks along the axis of the range are then decorated with resplendent banners some of them more than a mile long shining streaming waving with solemn exuberant enthusiasm
as if celebrating some surpassingly glorious event the snow of which these banners are made falls on the high sierra in most extravagant abundance sometimes to a depth of fifteen or twenty feet
is prepared for the grand banner waving celebrations by the action of the wind instead of at once finding rest like that which falls into the tranquil depths of the forest it is shoved
find this snow dust in a loose condition on the slopes above the timber line
and sweep it onward from peak to peak in the form of smooth regular banners or in cloudy drifts according to the velocity and direction of the wind and the conformation of the slopes over which it is driven
while thus flying through the air a small portion escapes from the mountains to the sky as vapor but far the greater part is at length locked fast in bossy overcurling cornices along the ridges
or in stratified sheets in the glacier cirques some of it to replenish the small residual glaciers and remain silent and rigid for centuries before it is finally melted and sent singing down home
to the sea but though snow dust and storm winds abound on the mountains regular shapely banners are for causes we shall presently see seldom produced
during the five winters that i spent in yosemite i made many excursions to high points above the walls in all kinds of weather to see what was going on outside from all my lofty outlooks
i saw only one banner storm that seemed in every way perfect this was in the winter of eighteen seventy three when the snow laden peaks were swept by a powerful norther
i was awakened early in the morning by a wild storm wind and of course i had to make haste to the middle of the valley to enjoy it rugged torrents and avalanches
from the main wind flood overhead were roaring down the side canyons and over the cliffs arousing the rocks and the trees and the streams alike into glorious hurrahing enthusiasm
shaking the whole valley into one huge song yet inconceivable as it must seem even to those who love all nature's wildness the storm was telling its story on the mountains
in still grander characters a wonderful winter scene i had long been anxious to study some points in the structure of the ice hill at the foot of the upper yosemite fall
and blown horizontally along the face of the cliff leaving the ice hill dry and while making my way to the top of fern ledge to seize so favorable an opportunity to look down its throat
came in sight over the shoulder of the south dome each waving a white glowing banner against the dark blue sky as regular in form and firm and fine in texture
as if it were made of silk so rare and splendid a picture of course smothered everything else and i at once began to scramble and wallow up the snow choked indian canyon
to a ridge about eight thousand feet high commanding a general view of the main summits along the axis of the range feeling assured i should find them bannered still more gloriously
nor was i in the least disappointed i reached the top of the ridge in four or five hours and through an opening in the woods the most imposing wind storm effect i ever beheld
came full in sight unnumbered mountains rising sharply into the cloudless sky their bases solid white their sides plashed with snow like ocean rocks with foam
and on every summit a magnificent silvery banner from two thousand to six thousand feet in length slender at the point of attachment and widening gradually until about a thousand
or fifteen hundred feet in breadth and as shapely and as substantial looking in texture as the banners of the finest silk all streaming and waving free and clear in the sun glow
with nothing to blur the sublime picture they made fancy yourself standing beside me on this yosemite ridge there is a strange garish glitter in the air and the gale drives wildly overhead
but you feel nothing of its violence for you are looking out through a sheltered opening in the woods as through a window in the immediate foreground there is a forest of silver fir
they are twenty miles away but you would not wish them nearer for every feature is distinct and the whole wonderful show is seen in its right proportions like a painting on the sky
and now after this general view mark how sharply the ribs and buttresses and summits of the mountains are defined excepting the portions veiled by the banners
how bright and glowing white they are and how finely their fading fringes are penciled on the sky see how solid white and opaque they are at the point of attachment and how filmy
and translucent toward the end so that the parts of the peaks past which they are streaming look dim as if seen through a veil of ground glass and see how some of the longest of the banners
on the highest peaks are streaming perfectly free from peak to peak across intervening notches or passes while others overlap and partly hide one another as to their formation
we find that the main causes of the wondrous beauty and perfection of those we are looking at are the favorable direction and force of the wind the abundance of snow dust and the form of the north sides of the peaks
in general the north sides are concave in both their horizontal and vertical sections having been sculptured into this shape by the residual glaciers
interfering cloudy drifts would have been produced for the snow instead of being spouted straight up and over the tops of the peaks in condensed currents to be drawn out as streamers would have been driven over the convex
southern slopes from peak to peak like white pearly fog it appears therefore that shadows in great part determine not only the forms of lofty ice mountains
there was a man named thorfinn karlsefni son of thord horsehead who dwelt in the north of iceland at reynines in skagafjordr as it is now called
karlsefni was a man of good family and very rich his mother's name was thorun he engaged in trading journeys and seemed a goodly bold and gallant traveller one summer
karlsefni prepared his ship intending to go to greenland snorri thorbrand's son from alptafjordr
and there were thirty men in the company there was a man named bjarni grimolf's son
the two ships launched out into the open sea as soon as they were ready it is not recorded
but after this i have to tell you that both these ships came to eiriksfjordr about autumn eirik rode down to the ships with other men of the land and a market fair was promptly instituted
the merchants accepted the invitation and went home with eirik afterwards their merchandise was removed to brattahlid where a good and large outhouse was not lacking in which to store the goods the merchants were well pleased
to stay with eirik during the winter when now yule was drawing nigh eirik began to look more gloomy than he was wont to be presently karlsefni entered into conversation with him and said art thou in trouble eirik
it appears to me that thou art somewhat more taciturn than thou hast been still thou helpest us with much liberality
that it will seem to me an ill thing if it is heard that you never spent a worse yule than this just now beginning when eirik the red entertained you at brattahlid in greenland karlsefni answered it must not come to such a pass
we have in our ships malt meal and corn and you have right and title to take therefrom whatever you wish and to make your entertainment such as consorts with your munificence and eirik accepted the offer
then was preparation made for the yule feast and so magnificent was it that the men thought they had scarcely ever seen so grand a feast and after yule karlsefni broached to eirik the subject of a marriage with gudrid
during this time much talk took place in brattahlid about making ready to go to vinland the good and it was asserted
he had for a long time been eirik's companion in hunting and fishing expeditions during the summers and many things had been committed to his keeping thorhall was a big man dark and of gaunt appearance rather advanced in years
overbearing in temper of melancholy mood silent at all times underhand in his dealings and withal given to abuse and always inclined towards the worst he had kept himself aloof from the true faith when it came to greenland
he was but little encompassed with the love of friends but yet eirik had long held conversation with him he went in the ship with thorvald and his man because he was widely acquainted with the unpeopled districts they had the ship which thorbjorn had brought to greenland
many and so great that two men might well lie on them stretched on their backs with heel to heel polar foxes were there in abundance this land they gave name to and called it helluland
then they sailed with northerly winds two half days and there was then land before them and on it a great forest and many wild beasts an island lay in the south east off the land and they found bears thereon
and called the island bjarney bear island but the mainland where the forest was they called markland forest land then when two half days were passed they saw land and sailed under it
there was a cape to which they came they cruised along the land leaving it on the starboard side there was a harbourless coast land and long sandy strands they went to the land in boats and found the keel of a ship
because it was tedious to sail by them then the coast became indented with creeks and they directed their ships along the creeks now before this when leif was with king olaf tryggvason and the king had requested him to preach christianity in greenland
eirik and leif had got these people to go with karlsefni now when they had sailed by furdustrandir they put the scotch people on land and requested them to run into the southern regions seek for choice land
they were dressed in such wise that they had on the garment which they called biafal it was made with a hood at the top open at the sides without sleeves and was fastened between the legs a button and a loop held it together there
there were so many birds on it that scarcely was it possible to put one's feet down for the eggs they continued their course up the firth which they called straumsfjordr and carried their cargo ashore from the ships and there they prepared to stay
they had with them cattle of all kinds and for themselves they sought out the produce of the land thereabout there were mountains and the place was fair to look upon they gave no heed to anything except to explore the land and they found large pastures
they remained there during the winter which happened to be a hard one with no work doing and they were badly off for food and the fishing failed then they went out to the island hoping that something might be got there from fishing or from what was drifted ashore
in that spot there was little however to be got for food but their cattle found good sustenance after that they called upon god praying that he would send them some little store of meat but their prayer was not so soon granted as they were eager that it should be
thorhall disappeared from sight and they went to seek him and sought for three half days continuously on the fourth half day karlsefni and bjarni found him on the peak of a crag he lay with his face to the sky
with both eyes and mouth and nostrils wide open clawing and pinching himself and reciting something they asked why he had come there he replied that it was of no importance begged them not to wonder thereat
and cut it up and still they knew not what kind of whale it was even karlsefni recognised it not though he had great knowledge of whales it was cooked by the cook boys and they ate thereof though bad effects came upon all from it afterwards
then began thorhall and said has it not been that the redbeard has proved a better friend than your christ this was my gift for the poetry which i composed about thor my patron seldom has he failed me
now when the men knew that none of them would eat of it and they threw it down from the rocks and turned with their supplications to god's mercy then was granted to them opportunity of fishing and after that there was no lack of food that spring
the man in the moon
what have you never heard the story of the man in the moon then i must surely tell it for it is very amusing and there is not a word of truth in it
the man in the moon was rather lonesome and often he peeked over the edge of the moon and looked down upon the earth and envied all the people who lived together for he thought
it must be vastly more pleasant to have companions to talk to than to be shut up in a big planet all by himself where he had to whistle to keep himself company one day
he looked down and saw an alderman sailing up through the air towards him this alderman was being translated instead of being transported owing to a misprint in the law and as he came near
the man in the moon called to him and said how is everything down on the earth everything is lovely replied the alderman and i would n't leave it if i was not obliged to
what s a good place to visit down there enquired the man in the moon oh norwich is a mighty fine place returned the alderman
and then he sailed out of sight and left the man in the moon to reflect upon what he had said the words of the alderman made him more anxious than ever to visit the earth and so he walked thoughtfully home
and put a few lumps of ice in the stove to keep him warm and sat down to think how he should manage the trip you see everything went by contraries in the moon and when the man wished to keep warm
he knocked off a few chunks of ice and put them in his stove and he cooled his drinking water by throwing red hot coals of fire into the pitcher likewise when he became chilly
but it was n't at all queer to the man in the moon for he was accustomed to it well he sat by his ice cool fire and thought about his journey to the earth and finally he decided the only way he could get there
for a good strong moonbeam at last he found one that seemed rather substantial and reached right down to a pleasant looking spot on the earth and so he swung himself over the edge of the moon
and put both arms tight around the moonbeam and started to slide down but he found it rather slippery and in spite of all his efforts to hold on he found himself going
faster and faster so that just before he reached the earth he lost his hold and came tumbling down head over heels and fell plump into a river the cool water
nearly scalded him before he could swim out but fortunately he was near the bank and he quickly scrambled upon the land and sat down to catch his breath by that time it was morning and as the sun rose
its hot rays cooled him off somewhat so that he began looking about curiously at all the strange sights and wondering where on earth he was by and by a farmer came along the road by the river
with a team of horses drawing a load of hay and the horses looked so odd to the man in the moon that at first he was greatly frightened never before having seen horses except from his home in the moon
from whence they looked a good deal smaller but he plucked up courage and said to the farmer can you tell me the way to norwich sir norwich repeated the farmer musingly
thank you said the man in the moon but stop i must not call him the man in the moon any longer for of course he was now out of the moon so i ll simply call him the man and you ll know by that which man i mean
well the man in the i mean the man
some of the famous pease porridge that was made there and finally after a long and tiresome journey he reached the town and stopped at one of the first houses he came to
for by this time he was very hungry indeed a good looking woman answered his knock at the door and he asked politely is this the town of norwich madam
surely this is the town of norwich returned the woman i came here to see if i could get some pease porridge continued the man
will you have it hot or cold sir oh cold by all means replied the man for i detest anything hot to eat she soon brought him a bowl of cold pease porridge
and the man was so hungry that he took a big spoonful at once but no sooner had he put it into his mouth than he uttered a great yell and began dancing frantically about the room for of course
the porridge that was cold to earth folk was hot to him and the big spoonful of cold pease porridge had burned his mouth to a blister what s the matter asked the woman matter
screamed the man why your porridge is so hot it has burned me fiddlesticks she replied the porridge is quite cold try it yourself he cried so she tried it
and found it very cold and pleasant but the man was so astonished to see her eat the porridge that had blistered his own mouth that he became frightened and ran out of the house and down the street as fast as he could go
the policeman on the first corner saw him running and promptly arrested him and he was marched off to the magistrate for trial what is your name asked the magistrate i have n't any replied the man
for of course as he was the only man in the moon
come come no nonsense said the magistrate you must have some name who are you why i m the man in the moon that s rubbish said the magistrate eyeing the prisoner severely you may be a man
you re in norwich that is true answered the man who was quite bewildered by this idea and of course you must be called something continued the magistrate well then said the prisoner
if i m not the man in the moon i must be the man out of the moon so call me that very good replied the judge now then where did you come from the moon oh you did eh
how did you get here i slid down a moonbeam indeed well what were you running for a woman gave me some cold pease porridge and it burned my mouth
the magistrate looked at him a moment in surprise and then he said this person is evidently crazy so take him to the lunatic asylum and keep him there
and what was cold here was hot there so he began to think the man had told the truth therefore he begged the magistrate to wait a few minutes while he looked through his telescope to see if the man in the moon was there
so as it was now night he fetched his telescope and looked at the moon and found there was no man in it at all it seems to be true said the astronomer that the man has got out of the moon somehow or other
let me look at your mouth sir and see if it is really burned then the man opened his mouth and everyone saw plainly it was burned to a blister thereupon the magistrate begged his pardon for doubting his word
and asked him what he would like to do next i d like to get back to the moon said the man
the nights are too hot why
i ll tell you what we can do remarked the astronomer
which belongs to the circus that came here last summer and was pawned for a board bill we can inflate this balloon and send the man out of the moon home in it
so the balloon was brought and inflated and the man got into the basket and gave the word to let go and then the balloon mounted up into the sky in the direction of the moon the good people of norwich stood on the earth
and tipped back their heads and watched the balloon go higher and higher until finally the man reached out and caught hold of the edge of the moon and behold the next minute he was the man in the moon again
the most notable thing about time is that it is so purely relative a large amount of reminiscence is by common consent conceded to the drowning man
and it is not past belief that one may review an entire courtship while removing one's gloves
standing by a table in his bachelor apartments on the table stood a singular looking green plant in a red earthen jar the plant was one of the species of cacti
and was provided with long tentacular leaves that perpetually swayed with the slightest breeze with a peculiar beckoning motion trysdale's friend the brother of the bride
both men were in evening dress white favors like stars upon their coats shone through the gloom of the apartment as he slowly unbuttoned his gloves
there passed through trysdale's mind a swift scarifying retrospect of the last few hours it seemed that in his nostrils was still the scent of the flowers that had been banked in odorous masses about the church and in his ears
the lowpitched hum of a thousand well bred voices the rustle of crisp garments and most insistently recurring the drawling words of the minister irrevocably binding her to another
from this last hopeless point of view he still strove as if it had become a habit of his mind to reach some conjecture as to why and how he had lost her shaken rudely by the uncompromising fact
he had suddenly found himself confronted by a thing he had never before faced
he saw all the garbs of pretence and egoism that he had worn now turn to rags of folly he shuddered at the thought that to others before now the garments of his soul must have appeared sorry and threadbare
these were the joints in his armor and how free from either she had always been but why
as she had slowly moved up the aisle toward the altar he had felt an unworthy sullen exultation that had served to support him
he had told himself that her paleness was from thoughts of another than the man to whom she was about to give herself but even that poor consolation had been wrenched from him
for when he saw that swift limpid upward look that she gave the man when he took her hand he knew himself to be forgotten once that same look had been raised to him and he had gauged its meaning
indeed his conceit had crumbled its last prop was gone why had it ended thus there had been no quarrel between them nothing
for the thousandth time he remarshalled in his mind the events of those last few days before the tide had so suddenly turned she had always insisted upon placing him upon a pedestal
and he had accepted her homage with royal grandeur it had been a very sweet incense that she had burned before him
he told himself so childlike and worshipful and
so sincere she had invested him with an almost supernatural number of high attributes and excellencies and talents and he had absorbed the oblation as a desert drinks the rain
that can coax from it no promise of blossom or fruit
the crowning instance of his fatuous and tardily mourned egoism came vividly back to him the scene was the night when he had asked her to come up on his pedestal with him and share his greatness
he could not now for the pain of it allow his mind to dwell upon the memory of her convincing beauty that night the careless wave of her hair the tenderness and virginal charm of her looks and words
but they had been enough and they had brought him to speak during their conversation she had said and captain carruthers tells me that you speak the spanish language like a native why have you hidden this accomplishment from me
is there anything you do not know now carruthers was an idiot no doubt he trysdale had been guilty he sometimes did such things
of airing at the club some old canting castilian proverb dug from the hotchpotch at the back of dictionaries carruthers who was one of his incontinent admirers
was the very man to have magnified this exhibition of doubtful erudition but alas the incense of her admiration had been so sweet and flattering he allowed the imputation to pass without denial
without protest he allowed her to twine about his brow this spurious bay of spanish scholarship he let it grace his conquering head
and among its soft convolutions he did not feel the prick of the thorn that was to pierce him later how glad how shy how tremulous she was how she fluttered like a snared bird when he laid his mightiness at her feet
he could have sworn and he could swear now that unmistakable consent was in her eyes but coyly she would give him no direct answer i will send you my answer to morrow she said
the next day he waited impatient in his rooms for the word at noon her groom came to the door and left the strange cactus in the red earthen jar there was no note no message
merely a tag upon the plant bearing a barbarous foreign or botanical name he waited until night but her answer did not come his large pride and hurt vanity kept him from seeking her
two evenings later they met at a dinner their greetings were conventional but she looked at him breathless wondering eager he was courteous adamant waiting her explanation
with womanly swiftness she took her cue from his manner and turned to snow and ice thus and wider from this on they had drifted apart where was his fault who had been to blame
humbled now he sought the answer amid the ruins of his self conceit if the voice of the other man in the room querulously intruding upon his thoughts aroused him
you look unhappy as if you yourself had been married instead of having acted merely as an accomplice look at me another accessory come two thousand miles on a garlicky cockroachy banana steamer
all the way from south america to connive at the sacrifice please to observe how lightly my guilt rests upon my shoulders only little sister i had too and now she's gone come now take something to ease your conscience
i don't drink just now thanks said trysdale your brandy resumed the other coming over and joining him is abominable
run down to see me some time at punta redonda and try some of our stuff that old garcia smuggles in it's worth the trip hallo here's an old acquaintance wherever did you rake up this cactus trysdale a present
said trysdale from a friend know the species very well it's a tropical concern see hundreds of em around punta every day here's the name on this tag tied to it know any spanish trysdale
no said trysdale with the bitter wraith of a smile is it spanish yes the natives imagine the leaves are reaching out and beckoning to you
he went to the wise man of the forest to learn how best to bring her up and this is what he was told for twelve years you must keep your daughter in a tower in the forest it should have no door
only a little window through which you may pass food to her you must give her meat which has no bones in it the king ordered a tower constructed in the deep forest it had no door
and only a little window here the princess was placed every day food was passed to her through the little window the king himself took charge of this so that he might be sure that there was no meat given her which had bones in it
the years flew by and at last the twelve year period was nearly up then the king went away one day and left the servants to carry food to the princess they were careless
and soon the little opening had grown so large that the princess could lean her head out of it and look up at lofty trees that very day a duke passed that way on a hunting expedition and saw the beautiful princess in the tower
he fell in love with her immediately now that the princess had some one to help her make the hole larger it was an easy matter to make it big enough to escape that very night she ran away with the duke
when the king returned from his journey he found the tower in the forest entirely empty there was nothing but the yawning hole to tell him of his daughter's escape he tried in vain to find out what had become of her
but there was no person who could tell him anything about her the princess had gone with the duke across a great river which no one else knew how to cross she lived in a big cave in the rocks
and after all the years in the tower it seemed a wonderful home indeed she was never tired of admiring the trees and flowers of the forest and listening to the songs of the birds when at last her baby son was born
she thought that she was the very happiest person in the whole world now when the baby was two years old the duke decided that they must take him to a hermitage to be baptized
they went down to the great river and he carried his little son across it in safety then he returned for the princess but on the way his foot slipped and he fell into the river the strong current bore him swiftly away
leaving the princess on one side of the river and her little son on the other how shall i get across cried the princess when she saw what had happened
replied the child i'll come and get you to her amazement he crossed the great river in safety
they went to a church and the boy was baptized jose the beast slayer was the name he chose then they wandered on until at last they came to a house with a door in which a little window had been cut
the boy thrust in his arm and opened the door as if it had been his own walk in mother dear were his words together they entered the house and together they explored the various rooms
there was nobody there and there was nothing to eat accordingly jose went out begging he asked alms at the royal palace and there he was given money to buy food
there was even enough left over to pay for a gun now that he owned a gun there was no need of begging any more he shot plenty of game for his mother and what was left he carried to the royal palace to give to the king
one day in the deep forest he entered a cave where the giant of the forest lived
as he picked him up roughly and set him on his neck jose seized the giant's long beard and drew it around his neck so tightly that the giant fell to the floor dead then jose seized one of the money bags and ran home with it to his mother
you must carry some of this to the king said his mother when she saw it and had heard his story accordingly jose carried the money as a gift to the king
asked the king when he saw it
replied the boy as he bowed low before the throne
asked the king my father is dead replied jose
jose had often heard the story of his mother's life in the tower it was the tale he liked best of all at the boy's words the king started and looked at him sharply
he said eagerly it was a tower in the deep forest replied jose it had no door only a little window through which food was passed to her she could never have any meat with a bone
this was because the wise man of the forest had told her father that it was the best way to bring her up one day her father went away and the servants gave her meat with a bone in it and i always suspected something like that
interrupted the king jose looked at him in surprise were you there he asked the king nodded go on with your story my boy he said
jose told all the circumstances of his mother's escape from the tower just as she had so often described them to him tears were running down the king's cheeks when at last the story was ended
was jose's reply when the princess was brought home to the royal palace there was a great feast held which lasted for three days and three nights
then the king sent his men with jose into the forest to the cave where the giant had lived they brought home so many bags of gold that it required the entire royal army to transport it years passed
it was a trifling incident this capture compared with the dreadful things i have referred to as going on in missouri that memorable first year of the civil war a great volume would not contain the record of them all
the first dead men i saw while in the army were eight missouri farmers murdered by guerrillas and left lying in the hot sun and dust at the roadside the sight moved me as no great battle ever did afterward
one half of the male population of missouri was trying to kill the other half they were not opponents from different far off sections fighting but near neighbors and nothing seemed too awful or too cruel for them to do
how i pitied the women and children who lived in the state in those awful days general sherman's designation of war as hell found more confirmation in the dreadful raids outrages and murders by quantrell's guerrillas in missouri
than in the bloodiest battles of the four years conflict now for months my regiment with others had chased up and down and all over that unhappy old state of missouri trying to capture and punish these bands of murderers
on the old steamboat war eagle too we paddled for weeks along the muddy missouri river landing every here and there to have a little brush with guerrillas who had fired on our boat from the banks or from secret recesses in the woods
it was rare that we could catch them or have a real fight their kind of war meant ambuscades and murder at last an end came to this dreadful guerrilla chasing business in missouri so far as we were concerned anyway
we were to stop running after price's ubiquitous army too we were no longer to be the victims of ambuscades and night riding murderers the glad news came to my regiment that we were to be transferred to the south where the real war was
one morning we left the cold and snow where we had lived and shivered in thin tents all the winter left the thankless duty of patrolling railroads in the storm at midnight and marched in the direction of saint louis
a long cold miserable march it was too
many a man we left to sicken and die at some farmhouse by the roadside our destination was new madrid where we were to be a part of pope's army in the siege and capture of that town
as we were about to embark on boats at saint louis we beheld in the snow and storm many steamers anchored out in the pitiless waters of the mississippi river these vessels were loaded with shivering thousands in gray and brown uniforms
the prisoners whom general grant had captured at the battle of fort donelson there were twelve or fifteen thousand of them seeing this host of prisoners made us feel that at last the union army had a general
although we had scarcely heard of u s grant before this army of prisoners taken in battle was his introduction to the world shortly we were before new madrid and the siege conducted by general pope commenced
the town was defended by strong forts and many cannon but its speedy capture by us helped to open up the mississippi river it was a new experience to us to have cannonballs come rolling right into our camp occasionally
yet few men were injured by them we were in more danger when a fool officer one day took our brigade of infantry down through a cornfield to assault a gunboat that lay in a creek close by the rebel commander had expected us
and had his grape shot and his hot water hose and such things all ready for us we went out of that cornfield faster than we went in this was real war the thing my regiment had been so longing for
in place of chasing murderers and guerrillas in missouri we entered new madrid one morning before daylight the enemy had left in awful haste i recall finding a dead rebel officer lying on a table in his tent in full uniform
he had been killed by one of our shells a candle burned beside him and his cold hands closed on a pencil note that said kindly bury this unfortunate officer his breakfast waited on a table in the tent
showing how unexpected was his taking off our victory was a great one for the nation and it put two stars on the shoulder straps of general pope it made him too commander of the eastern army
a comrade in company a of my regiment had been wounded a few days before and had died in the enemy's hands i now found his grave at its head stood a board with this curious inscription
this man says he was a private in the fifth iowa regiment he was killed while trying to attend to other people's business our command was now hurried to the shiloh battlefield of course too late to be of any use
but we took part in the long wonderful and ridiculous siege of corinth under halleck when our great army was held back by red tape martinets and the fear of a lot of wooden guns that sat on top of the enemy's breastworks while that enemy
our deeds were no credit to anybody though here and there we had a little fight one incident of great importance however happened to my regiment here it was the death of our colonel
one night when he was going the rounds of the picket lines out in the woods he was shot dead by one of our own men the sentinel who did the killing declared that rebels had been slipping up to his post all night and when he would hail with who goes there
they would fire at him and run into the darkness he resolved to stand behind a tree the next time and fire without hailing by some accident colonel worthington and his adjutant were approaching this sentinel from the direction of the enemy
suddenly the sentinel held his gun around the tree and fired the bullet struck the colonel in the forehead killing him instantly as he fell from his horse the adjutant sprang to the ground and cried who shot the officer of the day
i fired exclaimed the sentinel and he then told of his experiences of the night he was arrested tried and acquitted yet there were many among us who believed that the colonel had been intentionally murdered
he was one of the most competent colonels in the army but among his soldiers he was fearfully unpopular he was however a splendid disciplinarian but this was something the volunteers did not want
in their minds the colonel had been only a petty tyrant and not even wholly loyal with a different disposition he certainly would have been a distinguished soldier he was one of the most military looking men in the whole army
but friends he had none more than once his life had been threatened by soldiers who regarded themselves as having been treated badly by him his body was brought into camp the next morning and lay in his tent in state
he was given a military funeral and the horse that was bearing him when he was killed was led behind his coffin after his death numbers of the men of the regiment were indignant when they found among his papers warrants and commissions intended by the governor for them
commissions that had never been delivered their promotions had never come about now they knew why worthington was succeeded by colonel c l matthies one of the bravest best and most loved commanders of our army
later matthies was made a general and at the close of the war died of wounds received in battle although i was quartermaster sergeant of the regiment
i was always careful that this should not keep me away from the command when enduring hard marches or when engagements were coming on when in camp i kept my rifle in one of the ammunition wagons of several of which i had charge but if the alarm sounded my rifle was on my shoulder
and i was the private soldier in the ranks of the company i deserved no special credit for this i was only doing my duty we had muzzle loading whitney rifles and bayonets
little now remains to be told of this tale of crime and retribution of suffering and compensation miss brewer told her dreadful story as far as she knew it with perfect truth and her evidence together with the evidence of the chemist
who had supplied madame durski from time to time with the fatal consoler of all her pains and sorrows made it clear that the luckless woman lying quietly in the darkened room at hilton house had died from an over dose of opium
douglas dale could not attend that inquest he was stricken down with fever the fate of the woman he had so loved so unjustly suspected nearly cost him his life and when he recovered sufficiently he left england
not to return for three years before his departure he saw lady eversleigh and her mother and established with them a bond of friendship as close as that of their kin he provided liberally for miss brewer
but her rescue from poverty brought her no happiness she was a broken hearted woman victor carrington's mother retired into a convent and was probably as happy as she had ever been she had loved him but little
whose only virtue was that he had loved her much captain copplestone's rapture knew no bounds when he clasped little gertrude in his arms once more he was almost jealous of rosamond jernam when he found how great a hold she had obtained on the heart of her charge
but his jealousy was mingled with gratitude and he joined lady eversleigh in testifying his friendship for the tender hearted woman who had protected and cherished the heiress of raynham in the hour of her desolation
it is not to be supposed that the world remained long in ignorance of this romantic episode in the common place story of every day life paragraphs found their way into the newspapers no one knew how
and society marvelled at the good fortune of sir oswald's widow that woman's wealth must be boundless exclaimed aristocratic dowagers for whom the grip of poverty's bony fingers had been tight and cruel her husband left her magnificent estates
and an enormous amount of funded property and now a mother drops down from the skies for her benefit a mother who is reported to be almost as rich as herself amongst those who envied lady eversleigh's good fortune
there was none whose envy was so bitter as that of her husband's disappointed nephew sir reginald this woman had stood between him and fortune and it would have been happiness to him to see her grovelling in the dust a beggar and an outcast
instead of this he heard of her exaltation and he hated her with an intense hatred which was almost childish in its purposeless fury he speedily found however that life was miserable without his evil counsellor
the frenchman's unabating confidence in ultimate success had sustained the penniless idler in the darkest day of misfortune but now he found himself quite alone and there was no voice to promise future triumph
he knew that the game of life had been played to the last card and that it was lost his feeble character was not equal to support the burden of poverty and despair he dared not show his face at any of the clubs where he had once been so distinguished a member
for he knew that the voice of society was against him thus hopeless friendless and abandoned by his kind sir reginald eversleigh had recourse to the commonest form of consolation
he fled from a country in which his name had become odious and took up his abode in paris where he found a miserable lodging in one of the narrowest alleys in the neighbourhood of the luxembourg which was then a labyrinth of narrow streets and lanes
here he could afford to buy brandy for at that date brandy was much cheaper in france than it is now here he could indulge his growing propensity for strong drink to the uttermost extent of his means and could drown his sorrows
and drink destruction to his enemies in fiery draughts of cognac for some years he inhabited the same dirty garret keeping the key of his wretched chamber going up and down the crumbling old staircase uncared for and unnoticed
in this latter stage of his existence form and features complexion and expression were alike degraded the garments worn by him who had once been the boasted patron of crack west end tailors were now shapeless and hideous
the dandy of the clubs had become a perambulating mass of rags every day when the sun shone he buttoned his greasy threadbare overcoat across his breast and crawled to the public garden of the luxembourg
where he might be seen shuffling slipshod along the sunniest walk an object of contempt and aversion in the eyes of nursery maids and grisettes a butt for the dare devil students of the quarter had he any consciousness of his degradation
yes that was the undying vulture which preyed upon his entrails the consuming fire that was never quenched during the brief interval of each day in which he was sober sir reginald eversleigh was wont to reflect upon the past
he knew himself to be the wretch and outcast he was and looking back at his start in life he could but remember how different his career might have been had he so chosen in those hours the slow tears made furrows in his haggard cheeks
the tears of remorse vain repentance that came too late for earth but not perhaps utterly too late for heaven since even for this last and worst of sinners there might be mercy thus his life passed
a changeless routine unbroken by one bright interval one friendly visit one sign or token to show that there was any link between this lonely wretch and the rest of humanity one day the porter
who lived in a little den at the bottom of the lodging house staircase suddenly missed the familiar figure which had gone by his rabbit hutch every day for the last six years
with the blank unseeing gaze of the habitual drunkard what has become of the old toper who lives up yonder among the chimney pots cried the porter suddenly to the wife of his bosom i have not seen him to day nor yesterday nor for many days
the porter waited for a leisure half hour after dark and then tramped wearily up the steep old staircase with a lighted candle to see after the missing lodger he might have waited even longer without detriment to sir reginald eversleigh
the baronet had been dead many days suffocated by the fumes of his poor little charcoal stove a trap door in the roof which he had been accustomed to open for the ventilation of his garret had been closed by the wind
and the baronet had passed unconsciously from sleep to death he had died and no one had been aware of his death the people of the house did not know either his name or his country his burial was that of an unknown pauper
and the bones of the last male scion of the house of eversleigh
while sir reginald eversleigh dragged out the wretched remnant of his existence in a dingy parisian alley there was perfect peace and tranquil happiness for the woman against whose fair fame he and victor carrington had so basely conspired yes
anna was at peace surrounded by friends delighted day by day to watch the budding loveliness the sportive grace of gertrude eversleigh the idolized heiress of raynham
as lady eversleigh paced the terraces of an italian garden her mother by her side with gertrude clinging to her side as she looked out over the vast domain which owned her as mistress
it might seem that fortune had lavished her fairest gifts into the lap of her who had been once a friendless stranger singing in the taverns of wapping wonderful indeed had been the transitions which had befallen her
but even now when the horizon seemed so fair before her there were dark shadows upon the past which in some measure clouded the brightness of the present and dimmed the radiance of the future
she could not forget her night of agony in the house amongst the marshes beyond ratcliff highway she could not cease to lament the loss of that noble friend who had rescued her in the hour of her despair
the world wondered at the prolonged widowhood of the mistress of raynham people were surprised to find that a woman in the golden prime of womanhood and beauty could be constant to the memory of a husband old enough to have been her father but in due time
society learned to accept the fact as a matter of course and lady eversleigh was no longer the subject of hopes and speculations her constant gratitude and friendship for the jernams suffered no diminution as time went on
the difference in their social position made no difference to her and no more frequent or more welcome guests were seen at raynham than captain duncombe his daughter and son in law and honest joyce harker
that subject was tacitly avoided by both there was a pain too intense a memory too dark associated with the events of that period and so the story ends
there is no sound of pleasant wedding bells to close my record with their merry jangling chorus is it not the fate of the innocent to suffer in this life for the sins of the wicked lady eversleigh's widowhood
douglas dale's lonely life are the work of victor carrington a work not to be undone upon this earth if he has failed in all else he has succeeded at least in this he has ruined the happiness of two lives
for both his victims time brings peace a sober gladness that is not without its charm for one a child's affection a child's growing grace of mind and form
bring a happiness on clouded at intervals by the dark shadows of past sorrow but in the heart of douglas dale there is an empty place which can never be filled upon earth will the eternal and all seeing one forgive her for her reckless useless life
and shall i meet her among the blest in heaven he asks himself sometimes and then he remembers the holy words of comfort unspeakable come unto me ye that are weary and heavy laden and i will give you rest
had not paulina been weary and heavy laden bowed down by the burden of a false accusation friendless hopeless from her very cradle he thought of the illimitable mercy
say kid he said with a kind of gruff tenderness you don't need to take it that a way i know it's tough luck to lose out when you been so nervy and all
and nobody be the wiser we'll just take out the leaves
but that won't make any beans for you it won't take you no time to write em over again if he gives you a copy somehow it penetrated through shirley's tired consciousness that the man was trying to be kind to her he was pitying her and offering her a way out of her supposed dilemma
offering to assist her in some of his own kind of deception the girl was touched even through all her other crowding emotions and weariness she lifted up her head with a faint little smile thank you she said wearily but that wouldn't do me any good
why not asked the man sharply your boss would never know it got out through you but i should know i had failed she said sadly if you had my notes i should know that i had failed in my trust
it wouldn't be your fault you couldn't have helped it oh yes i could and i ought i shouldn't have let the driver turn around i should have got out of that car and waited at the station as mister barnard told me to do till he came
so you see it was my fault she drooped her head forward and rested her chin dejectedly on the palm of her hand her elbow on her knee the man stood looking at her for a second in half indignant astonishment
you certainly are some nut well anyhow buck up and let's have some tea sorry i can't see my way clear to help you out any further being as we're sort of partners in this job and you certainly have got some nerve for a girl but you know how it is i guess i can't do no more'n i said
i got my honor to think about too see hennie
bring in them things from the cupboard and let's get to work shirley declined to come to the table when at last the repast was ready she said she was not hungry in fact the smell or the crackers and cheese and pickles and dried beef sickened her she felt too hysterical to try to eat
and besides she had a lingering feeling that she must keep near that piano if anything happened she had a vague idea that she might somehow hide the precious notes within the big old instrument the man frowned when she declined to come to supper
but a moment later stumbled awkwardly across the room with a slopping cup of coffee and set it down beside her buck up girlie he growled drink that and you'll feel better shirley thanked him and tried to drink a few mouthfuls
then the thought occurred to her that it might be drugged and she swallowed no more but she tried to look a bit brighter if she must pass this strange evening in the company of these rough men it would not help matters for her to give way to despair so after toying with the teaspoon a moment
she put the cup down and began to play soft airs on the old piano again while the men ate and took a stealthy taste now and then from a black bottle she watched them furtively as she played marvelling at their softened expressions remembering the old line
music hath charms to soothe the savage breast and wondering if perhaps there were not really something in it if she had not been in such a terrifying situation she would really have enjoyed the character study that this view of those two faces afforded her as she sat in the shadow playing softly
but the man growled in a low tone shut up ain't you got no manners shirley prolonged that meal as much as music could do it for she had no relish for a more intimate tete a tete with either of her companions
when she saw them grow restless she began to sing again light little airs this time with catchy words or old tender melodies of home and mother and childhood they were songs she had sung that last night in the dear old barn when sidney graham and elizabeth were with them
and unconsciously her voice took on the wail of her heart for all that dear past so far away from her now suddenly as the last tender note of a song died away
the boy hennie slithered out of the room like a serpent at his first word beat it he cried in a hoarse whisper get a move on all hell's out after us i bet they heard her singin take her an beat it i'll douse the fire an out the candle
he seized a full bucket of water and dashed it over the dying fire shirley felt the other man grasp her arm in a fierce grip then joe snuffed out the candle with his broad thumb and finger and all was pitch dark she felt herself dragged across the floor regardless of furniture in the way
stumbling choking with fear her one thought that whatever happened she must not let her slippers get knocked off holding her feet in a tense strain with every muscle extended to keep the shoes fastened on like a vise she was haunted with a wild thought of how she might have slipped under the piano
and eluded her captor if only the light had gone out one second sooner before he reached her side but it was too late to think of that now and she was being dragged along breathlessly out the front door perhaps and down a walk no it was amongst trees for she almost ran into one
the man swore at her grasped her arm till he hurt her and she cried out you shut up or i'll shoot you he said with an oath he had lost all his suavity and there was desperation in his voice he kept turning his head to look back and urging her on
she tripped on a root and stumbled to her knees bruising them painfully but her only thought was one of joy that her shoes had not come off the man swore a fearful oath under his breath then snatched her up and began to run with her in his arms
it was then she heard graham's voice calling shirley where are you i'm coming she thought she was swooning or dreaming and that it was not really he for how could he possibly be here but she cried out with a voice as clear as a bell
in his efforts to hush her voice the man stumbled and fell with her in his arms there came other voices and forms through the night she was gathered up in strong kind arms and held the last thought she had before she sank into unconsciousness
was that god had not forgotten he had been remembering all the time and sent his help before it was too late just as she had known all along he must do because he had promised to care for his own and she was one of his little ones
when she came to herself again she was lying in sidney graham's arms with her head against his shoulder feeling oh so comfortable and tired there were two automobiles with powerful headlights standing between the trees and a lot of policemen in the shadowy background
her captor stood sullen against a tree with his hands and feet shackled joe stood between two policemen with a rope bound about his body spirally and the boy hennie also bound beside his fallen bicycle turned his ferret eyes from side to side
as if he hoped even yet to escape two other men with hawk like faces that she had not seen before were there also manacled and with eyes of smouldering fires climbing excitedly out of one of the big cars came mister barnard
his usually immaculate pink face smutty and weary his sparse white hair rumpled giddily and a worried pucker on his kind prim face oh my dear miss hollister how unfortunate he exclaimed
i do hope you haven't suffered too much inconvenience shirley smiled up at him from her shoulder of refuge as from a dream it was all so amusing and impossible after what she had been through it couldn't be real
i assure you i am very much distressed on your account went on mister barnard politely and hurriedly and i hate to mention it at such a time but could you tell me whether the notes are safe did those horrid men get anything away from you
a sudden flicker of triumph passed over the faces of the fettered man and the boy like a ripple over still water and died away into unintelligence but shirley's voice rippled forth in a glad clear laugh as she answered joyously
yes mister barnard they got my note book but not the notes they thought the tilman brooks notes were what they were after but the real notes are in my shoes won't you please get them out for i'm afraid i can't hold them on any longer my feet ache so
followed by a twinkle of actual appreciation that came over the face of the shackled man beside the tree as he listened one could almost fancy he was saying to himself the nervy little nut she put one over on me after all
it was also a pity that shirley could not have got the full view of the altogether precise and conventional mister barnard kneeling before her on the ground removing carefully with deep embarrassment and concern first one then the other of her little black pumps
extracting the precious notes counting over the pages and putting them ecstatically into his pocket no one of that group but shirley could fully appreciate the ludicrous picture he made you are entirely sure that no one but yourself has seen these notes
he asked anxiously as if he hardly dared to believe the blessed truth entirely sure mister barnard said shirley happily and now
i can relieve mister graham of the necessity of carrying me any further oh surely surely said mister barnard quite fussed and getting down laboriously again his white forelock all tossed and his forehead perplexed over the unusual task
how did women get into such a little trinket of a shoe anyway i assure you miss hollister our firm appreciates what you have done we shall not forget it you will see we shall not forget it he puffed as he rose with beads of perspiration on his brow
you have done a great thing for barnard and clegg to day she's done more than that said a burly policeman significantly glancing around the group of sullen prisoners as graham put her upon her feet beside him she's rounded up the whole gang for us
then with a dare devil lift of his head and a gleam of something like fun in his sullen eyes the manacled man by the tree spoke out looking straight at shirley real admiration in his voice i say pard i guess you're the winner
i'll hand you what's comin to you if i do lose you certainly had your nerve shirley looked at him with a kind of compassion in her eyes i'm sorry you have to be there she finished you were
as fine as you could be to me under the circumstances i suppose i thank you for that the man met her gaze for an instant a flippant reply upon his lips but checked it and dropping his eyes was silent
the whole little company under the trees were hushed into silence before the miracle of a girl's pure spirit leaving its impress on a blackened soul
oh she said and though the little exclamation was scarcely more than an indrawn breath denis heard it and came out of his corner to take a seat at her side and lean over the box edge also what is it theodora he asked in a low clear voice
is it marguerite she looked at him in a little fright at herself she did not know why she had exclaimed she scarcely knew how but when she met his unembarrassed eyes she began to think that possibly it might be marguerite indeed a second later
she was quite sure it had been marguerite yes i think so she faltered poor marguerite if she could only have saved him how he asked i don't at least i scarcely know but i think the author ought to have made her save him someway
if if she could have suffered something or sacrificed something would she have done it if she could commented denis languidly he had quite recovered himself by this time i would have done it if i had been marguerite theo half whispered
in his surprise he forgot his self possession he turned upon her suddenly and meeting her sweet world ignorant eyes felt the faint pained shock once more and strangely enough his first thought was a disconnected one of priscilla gower you
he said the next moment yes i believe you would theodora he was sure she would after that swift glance of his and well what a happy man he would be for whom this tender young marguerite would suffer or be sacrificed
that theodora north was nearly a woman but it occurred to him now with all the greater force because he had been so oblivious to the fact before he sat by her side until the curtain fell but his silent mood seemed to have come upon him again
he was very much interested in marguerite after this theo thought but it is very much to be doubted whether he could have given a clear account of what was passing before his eyes upon the stage he did not even go into the house with them when they returned
but as he stood upon the door step touching his hat in a final adieu he was keenly alive to a consciousness of theodora north at the head of the stair case with billows of glistening rose pink satin lying on the rich carpet about her feet as she half turned toward him
to bid him good night bright as the future was it left a sense of discomfort he could not explain why he dismissed the carriage and walked down the street feeling fairly depressed in spirits he had perhaps never given the girl a thought before
unless when chance had thrown them together
he had been so used to priscilla that it never occurred to him that a girl so young as this one could be a woman and after all his blindness had not been the result of any frivolous lack of thought a sharp experience had made him as thoroughly a man of the world as a man may be
but it had not made him callous or indifferent to the beauties of life no one would ever have called him emotional or prone to enthusiasms of a weak kind and yet he was by no means hard of heart he had quiet fancies of his own about people and things
and many of these reticent rarely expressed ideas were reverent chivalrous ones of women the opposing force of a whole world could never have shaken his faith in priscilla gower or touched his respect for her but though perhaps he had never understood it so
he had never felt very enthusiastically concerning her truly priscilla gower and enthusiasm were not in accordance with each other chance had thrown them together when both were very young and propinquity did the rest propinquity is the strongest of agents in a love affair
and in denis oglethorpe's love affair propinquity had accomplished what nothing else would have been likely to have done the desperate young scribbler of twenty years had been the lodger of the elder miss gower and priscilla aged seventeen had brought in his frugal dinners to him
and receipted his modest bills on their weekly payment priscilla at seventeen silent practical grave and handsome had perhaps softened unconsciously at the sight of his often pale face he worked so hard and so far into the night
when at length they became friends priscilla gravely and without any hesitation volunteered to help him she could copy well and clearly and he could come into her aunt's room it would save fires so she helped him calmly and decorously
bending her almost austerely handsome young head over his papers for hours on the long winter nights it is easy to guess how the matter terminated if ever he won success he determined to give it to priscilla and so he told her
he had never wavered in his faith for a second since though he had encountered many beautiful and womanly women he had worked steadily for her sake and shielded her from every care that it lay within his power to lighten
he was not old miss elizabeth gower's lodger now he was her niece's husband in perspective he was to marry priscilla gower in eight months this was why theodora north in glistening rose pink satin
sent him home confronting a suddenly raised spirit of pain twice in one night he had found himself feeling toward theodora north as he had never felt toward priscilla gower in his life twice in one night he had turned his eyes upon this girl of sixteen
and suffered a sudden shock of enthusiasm or something like it he was startled and discomfited she had no right to win such admiration from him he had no right to give it but as his walk in the night air cooled him
it cooled his ardor of self examination somewhat his discontent was modified by the time he reached his own door and took his latch key out of his pocket the face that had looked down upon him beneath the light at the head of the stair case
had faded into less striking color it was only a girl's face again he was on better terms with himself and his weakness seemed less formidable i will keep my promise to morrow he said and priscilla shall go with us poor priscilla poor girl
the promise he had made was nothing more than a ratification of the old one they were to see the lions together and priscilla was to guide them and when the morrow came he found it after all safe enough and an easy enough matter
to tuck theodora's small gloved hand under his arm when they set out on their tour of investigation and discovery the girl was pretty enough too in her soft black merino her best dress in downport but she was not dazzling
the little round black plumed hat was becoming also but in his now more prosaic mood he could stand that too pretty as it was in an innocent unconsciously coquettish way theo was never coquettish herself in the slightest degree
she was not world wise enough for that yet but she was quite exhilarating to day so glad to be out even in the london fog of november so glad to be taken lion hunting so delighted with the shops and their gay windows so ready to let her young tongue
run on in a gay stream of chatter altogether so bright and pretty and joyous that her escort was fain to be delighted too guess where we are going to first
she glanced up into his face brightly she remembered what he had told her about his lady friend
but i think i know the name of the person we are going to see do you was his reply then say it to me let me hear it miss gower she answered softly in a pretty reverence for him miss priscilla gower he nodded slightly
with a curious mixture of expressions in his face yes he said miss gower or rather miss priscilla gower as you say number twenty three broome street and broome street is not a fashionable locality my dear theodora isn't it
queried theo why not he shrugged his shoulders ask lady throckmorton he said but do you know who miss priscilla gower is theodora her bright eyes crept up to his half timidly but she said nothing so he continued
miss priscilla gower is the young lady to whom i am to be married next july did you know that yes answered theo looking actually pleased and blushing beautifully as he looked down at her but i am very much obliged to you for telling me mister oglethorpe
why he asked it was very preposterous that even though his mood was so prosaic and paternal a one he was absurdly vacantly sensible of feeling some uneasiness at the brightness of her upturned face for pity's sake
why was it that he was impelled to such a puerile weakness such a vanity as he sternly called it because returned theo it makes me feel as if i mean
i hope oh i do hope miss priscilla gower will like me he had been looking straight before him while she spoke but this brought his eyes to hers again and to her face bright appealing upturned
miss elizabeth gower herself was there in her company cap and long cherished company dress of snuff colored satin there were not many shades of difference in either her snuff colored gown or her snuff colored skin or her neat snuff colored false front
theo fancied but she was not at all afraid of her she was a trifle afraid of miss priscilla miss priscilla was sitting at the table reading when they entered and as she rose to greet them holding her book in one hand
the thought entered theo's mind that she could comprehend dimly why lady throckmorton disliked her and thought her unsuited to denis oglethorpe there was an absence of anything girl like in her fine ivory pale face somehow
at whose fine lines and clear contour even a connoisseur could not have caviled
black fringed and lustrous as they were still were silent eyes they did not speak even to denis oglethorpe
she said simply extending her hand in acknowledgment of denis's introduction the quietness of this greeting speech was a fair sample of all her manner it would have been sheerly impossible to expect anything like effusiveness from priscilla gower
the most sanguine and empty headed of mortals would never have looked for it in her she was constitutionally unenthusiastic if such a thing may be
the fact that denis had spoken of her admiringly was sufficient to arouse in her mind an interest in this young creature who was at once and so inconsistently beautiful timid and regal without consciousness
three years more will make her something wonderful as far as beauty is concerned he had said and accordingly she had felt some slight pleasure in the anticipation of seeing her yet theo had some faint misgivings during the day
as to whether miss priscilla gower would like her or not she was at first even inclined to fear that she would not being so very handsome and grave and womanly but toward the end of their journeying together she felt more hopeful reticent as she was
priscilla gower was a very charming young person she talked well and with much clear calm sense she laughed musically when she laughed at all and could make very telling caustic speeches when occasion required
but still it was singular what a wide difference the difference of six years made in the two girls as lady throckmorton had said it was not a matter of age at twenty two theodora north would overflow with youth as joyously as she did now at seventeen
at seventeen priscilla gower had assisted her maiden aunt's lodger to copy his manuscript with as mature a gravity as she would have displayed to day i hope said theodora when after their sight seeing was over
she stood on the pavement before the door in broome street her nice little hand on denis oglethorpe's arm i hope you will let me come to see you again miss gower priscilla standing upon the door step smiled down on her blooming girl's face a smile that was a little like moonlight
all priscilla's smiles were like moonlight theo's had a delicious glow of the sun yes she said in her practical manner it will please me very much to see you miss theodora come as often as you can spare the time
but denis oglethorpe did not appear again for several days perhaps business detained him perhaps he went oftener to see priscilla at any rate he did not call again until the end of the week
lady throckmorton was in her private room when he came and as he made his entrance with as little ceremony as usual he ran in upon theodora now to tell the truth he had until this moment forgotten all about that young person's very existence
he saw so many pretty girls in a day's round and he was so often too busy to notice half of them though he was an admirer of pretty girls that it was nothing new to see one and forget her until chance threw them together again of course
he had noticed theodora north that first night how could a man help noticing her and the something beautifully over awed and bashfully curious in her lovely uncommon eyes had half amused him and yet until this moment he had forgotten her
with the assistance of proofs and printers and priscilla but when after running lightly up the stair case he opened the drawing room door and saw a tall
bending over sabre and stroking his huge tawny head with her supple little tender hand he remembered ah yes he exclaimed in an admiring aside to be sure i had forgotten theodora
but theodora had not forgotten him the moment she saw him she stood up blushing and with a light in her eyes it was odd how un english she looked and yet how thoroughly english she was in that delicious uncomfortable trick
of blushing vividly upon all occasions she was quite unconscious of the fact that the purple cloth was so becoming and that its sweep of straight heavy folds made her as stately as some rajah's dark eyed daughter she did not feel stately at all
she only felt somewhat confused and rather glad that mister denis oglethorpe had surprised her by coming again how mister denis oglethorpe would have smiled if he had known what an innocent commotion his simple presence created
lady throckmorton is up stairs reading she explained i will go and tell her you are here there were no bells in the house at downport and no servants to answer if any one had rang one and very naturally theo forgot she was not at downport excuse me no
said mister denis oglethorpe i would not disturb her on any account and besides i know she will be down directly she never reads late in the evening this is a very handsome dog miss north very handsome indeed was theo's reply come here sabre
sabre stalked majestically to her side and laid his head upon her knee theo stroked him softly raising her eyes quite seriously to mister oglethorpe's face he reminds me of sir dugald himself she said
mister denis oglethorpe smiled faintly he was not very fond of sir dugald
had amounted to a very excellent joke does he he returned as quietly as possible and then his glance meeting theo's she broke into a little burst of horror stricken self reproach oh dear
she exclaimed i oughtn't to have said that ought i i forgot how rude it would sound but indeed i only meant that sabre was so slow and heavy and and so indifferent to people somehow i don't think he cares about being liked at all
she was so abashed at her blunder that she looked absolutely imploring and mister denis oglethorpe smiled again he felt inclined to make friends with theodora there is a little girl staying at lady throckmorton's he had said to priscilla
a relative of hers a pretty creature too priscilla for a bread and butter miss but just at this moment he thought better of the matter what tender speechful eyes she had he was aroused to a recognition of their beauty all at once
what contour there was in the turn of arm and shoulder under the close fitting purple cloth he was artistically thankful that there was no other trimming of the straight bodice than the line of buttons that descended from the full white ruff of swansdown at her throat
her unconscious stateliness of girlish form and the conscious shyness of her manner were the loveliest inconsistency in the world oh i shall not tell sir dugald he said to her good humoredly
i don't know anything in london so like sir dugald as sir dugald's dog theodora stroked sabre apologetically but could scarcely find courage to speak she had stood somewhat in awe of mister denis oglethorpe even at first
and her discomfort was rapidly increasing he must think her dreadfully stupid though he was good humored enough to make light of her silly speech certainly priscilla never made such a silly speech in her life but then
how could one teach french and latin and be anything but ponderously discreet mister denis oglethorpe was not thinking of priscilla's wisdom however he was thinking of theodora north he was thinking that he must have been very blind
but he had been tired and fagged out he remembered on the first occasion of their meeting too tired to think of anything but his appointment at broome street and priscilla's greek grammar and now in recognizing what he had before passed by
he was quite glad to find the girl so young and inexperienced so modest in a sweet way it was easy as well as proper enough to talk to her unceremoniously without the trouble of being diffuse and complimentary so he made himself agreeable
and theodora listened until she quite forgot sir dugald and only remembered sabre because his big heavy head was on her knee and she was stroking it and you were never in london before he said at length no sir theo answered
i was never even out of downport before then we must take you to see the lions he said if lady throckmorton will let us miss theodora i wonder if she would let us if she would i have a lady friend who knows them all from the grisliest downward
and i know she would like to help me to exhibit them to you how should you like that better than anything in the world glowing with delighted surprise if it wouldn't be too much trouble she added quite apologetically mister denis oglethorpe smiled
it would be simply delightful he said i should like it better than anything in the world too we will appeal to lady throckmorton when priscilla was in london theodora was beginning a minute later
when the handsome face changed suddenly as her companion turned upon her in evident surprise priscilla he repeated after her
i meant to say pamela my eldest sister's name is pamela and and and you said priscilla by mistake interposed oglethorpe with a sudden accession of gravity priscilla is a little like pamela
it needed nothing more than this simple slip of theodora north's tongue to assure him that lady throckmorton had been telling her the story of his engagement to miss gower and as might be anticipated he was not as devoutly grateful to her ladyship as he might have been
he was careless to a fault in some things and punctilious to a fault in others and he was very punctilious about priscilla gower he was not an ardent lover but he was a conscientiously honorable one
and apart from his respect for his betrothed he was very impatient of interference with his affairs and my lady was not chary of interfering when the fancy seized her it roused his pride to think how liberally he must have been discussed and consequently
when lady throckmorton joined them he was not in the most amiable of moods but he managed to end his conversation with theo unconstrainedly enough he even gained her ladyship's consent to their plan
it was curiously plain how they both appeared to agree in thinking her a child and treating her as one not that theo cared about that
but free from any touch of light gallantry as his manner toward the girl was denis oglethorpe did not forget her this night on the contrary he remembered her very distinctly and had in his mind a very exact mental representation of her purple robe
soft white ruff and all as he buttoned up his paletot over his chest in walking homeward but he thought of her carelessly and honestly enough as a beautiful young creature years behind him in experience
and utterly beyond him in all possibility of any sentimental fancy the friendship existing between lady throckmorton and this young man was a queer inconsistent sentiment enough and yet was a friendship and a mature one
the two had encountered each other some years ago when denis had been by no means in his palmiest days in fact my lady had picked him up when he stood in sore need of friends and oglethorpe never forgot a favor
he never forgot to be grateful to lady throckmorton and so despite the wide difference between their respective ages and positions their mutual liking had ripened into a familiarity of relationship which made them more like elder sister and younger brother than anything else
oglethorpe junior was pretty much what oglethorpe senior had been and notwithstanding her practical views lady throckmorton liked him none the worse for it she petted and patronized him questioned and advised him and if he did not please her
in fact she was a woman of caprices even at sixty five and denis oglethorpe was one of her caprices and in like manner theodora north became another of them finding her tractable she became quite fond of her in her own way
and was at least generous to lavishness in her treatment of her you are very handsome indeed theodora she said to her a few days after her arrival of course you know that
your figure is perfect and you have eyes like a syrian instead of a commonplace english woman i am going to give you a rose pink satin dress rose pink is just your shade and some day when we go out together i will lend you some of my diamonds
after this whimsical manner she lavished presents upon her whenever she had a new fancy in truth her generosity was constitutional and she had been generous enough toward pamela but she had never been so extravagant as she was with theodora
theodora was an actual beauty of an uncommon type in the face of her ignorance of manners and customs pamela had never at her best been more than a delicately pretty girl in the meantime denis oglethorpe made friendly calls as usual
and always meeting theodora found her very pleasant to talk to and look at he found out her enthusiastic admiration for the poetic effusions of his youth and in consideration thereof good humoredly presented her with a copy of the volume
with some very witty verses written on the fly leaf in a flourishing hand it was worth while to amuse theodora she was so pretty and unassuming in her delight at his carelessly amiable efforts for her entertainment
she was only a mere child after all at sixteen with downport in the background so he felt quite honestly at ease in being attentive to her girlish requirements better that he should amuse her
than that she should be left to the mercy of men who would perhaps have the execrable taste to spoil her pretty childish ways with flattery don't let all these fine people and fine speeches turn your head theodora he would say
in a tone that might either have been jest or earnest they spoiled me in my infancy and my unfortunate experience causes me to warn you but whether he jested or not theo was always inclined to listen to him with some degree of serious belief
she took his advice when it was proffered and regarded his wisdom as the wisdom of an oracle who should know better than he what was right
the most brilliant of witticisms he paid her his first compliment the night the rose colored satin dress came home they were going to see faust together with lady throckmorton and she had finished dressing early and came down to the drawing room
the thick lustrous folds of satin billowing upon the carpet around her feet
he was conscious of a faint shock of delight on first beholding her he had just left priscilla pale and heavy eyed in dun colored merino poring over a greek dictionary and the sudden entering the bright room
and finding himself facing theodora north in rose colored satin was a little like electricity oh it's theodora is it he said slowly when he recovered himself thank you theodora what for asked theo blushing
for the rose colored satin he returned complacently it is so very becoming you look like a sultana my dear theodora theo looked up at him for a second and then looked down much as she admired mister denis oglethorpe she never quite comprehended him
he had such an eccentric fashion of being almost curt sometimes she had seen him actually give a faint start when he entered and she had not understood that
that she did not understand that either
i have been making a fine speech to theodora he said to lady throckmorton when she came in and she does not comprehend it in the least
the camp of the ghosts there was once a man who loved his wife dearly after they had been married for a time they had a little boy
doctoring did not seem to do her any good at last she died for a few days after this the man used to take his baby on his back and travel out away from the camp walking over the hills
crying and mourning he felt badly and he did not know what to do after a time he said to the little child my little boy you will have to go and live with your grandmother
not knowing where he was going nor what he should do when he left the camp he travelled toward the sand hills on the fourth night of his journeying he had a dream
he dreamed that he went into a little lodge in which was an old woman this old woman said to him
the young man replied i am mourning day and night crying all the while my little son who is the only one left me also mourns well asked the old woman
for whom are you mourning the young man answered i am mourning for my wife she died some time ago i am looking for her
you could not reach the place you are seeking without help beyond the next butte from her lodge you will find the camp of the ghosts
again he dreamed in his dream he saw a little lodge and saw an old woman come to the door and heard her call to him he went into the lodge and she spoke to him my son
you are very unhappy i know why you have come this way you are looking for your wife who is now in the ghost country it is a very hard thing for you to get there you may not be able to get your wife back
but i have great power and i will do for you all that i can if you act as i advise you may succeed other wise words she spoke to him telling him what he should do
you stay here for a time and i will go over there to the ghosts camp and try to bring back some of your relations who are there if it is possible for me to bring them back you may return there with them
but on the way you must shut your eyes if you should open them and look about you you would die then you would never come back when you come to the camp you will pass by a big lodge and they will ask you
where are you going and who told you to come here you must answer my grandmother who is standing out here with me told me to come they will try to scare you
they will make fearful noises and you will see strange and terrible things but do not be afraid the old woman went away and after a time came back with one of the man's relations
but he kept up a strong heart presently he came to another lodge and the man who owned it came out and spoke to him asking where he was going the young man said
i am looking for my dead wife i mourn for her so much that i cannot rest my little boy too keeps crying for his mother they have offered to give me other wives but i do not want them
i want the one for whom i am searching the ghost said it is a fearful thing that you have come here it is very likely that you will never go away never before has there been a person here
the ghost asked him to come into his lodge and he entered this chief ghost said to him you shall stay here for four nights and you shall see your wife
to come and eat saying your son in law invites you to a feast as if he meant that the son in law had died and become a ghost and arrived at the camp of the ghosts
now when these invited ghosts had reached the lodge they did not like to go in they said to each other there is a person here it seemed as if they did not like the smell of a human being
the chief ghost burned sweet pine on the fire which took away this smell
the chief ghost said to them now pity this son in law of yours he is looking for his wife neither the great distance that he has come nor the fearful sights that he has seen here have weakened his heart
you can see how tender hearted he is he not only mourns because he has lost his wife but he mourns because his little boy is now alone with no mother so pity him and give him back his wife
the ghosts talked among themselves and one of them said to the man yes you shall stay here for four nights and then we will give you a medicine pipe the worm pipe and we will give you back your wife
and following him was another who carried the worm pipe which they gave to him then the chief ghost said now be very careful to morrow you and your wife will start on your journey homeward
your wife will carry the medicine pipe and for four days some of your relations will go along with you during this time you must keep your eyes shut do not open them or you will return here and be a ghost forever
your wife is not now a person but in the middle of the fourth day you will be told to look and when you have opened your eyes you will see that your wife has become a person and that your ghost relations have disappeared
when you get near home you must not go at once into the camp let some of your relations know that you have come and ask them to build a sweat house for you go into that sweat house and wash your body thoroughly
take care now that you do what i tell you do not whip your wife nor strike her with a knife nor hit her with fire if you do she will vanish before your eyes and return here
they left the ghost country to go home and on the fourth day the wife said to her husband open your eyes he looked about him and saw that those who had been with them had disappeared
and he found that they were standing in front of the old woman's lodge by the butte she came out of her lodge and said to them
stop give me back those mysterious medicines of mine whose power helped you to do what you wished the man returned them to her and then once more became really a living person
then some curious persons came out to see who this might be as they approached the woman called out to them do not come any nearer
and then they went into the lodge and burned sweet grass and purified their clothing and the worm pipe then their relations and friends came in to see them the man told them where he had been
and how he had managed to get his wife back and that the pipe hanging over the doorway was a medicine pipe the worm pipe presented to him by his ghost father in law that is how the people came to possess the worm pipe
not long after this once in the night this man told his wife to do something and when she did not begin at once he picked up a brand from the fire and raised it
not that he intended to strike her with it but he made as if he would when all at once
always your jack as soon as dicky had left the house i cleared away the dishes and washed them and prepared a dessert for dinner then finding the want advertisements of the sunday papers
i looked carefully through the columns headed situations wanted female i clipped the advertisements and fastened each neatly to a sheet of notepaper
please call thursday or friday ask for missus richard graham apartment four forty six east twenty ninth street i addressed the envelopes properly inserted the answers in the envelopes sealed and stamped them
then ran out to the post box on the corner with them i walked back very slowly for there was nothing more that needed to be done and i could put off no longer the settling of my problem i locked the door of my room
i tried to put myself in dicky's place and to understand his reasons for objecting to my earning any money of my own i sat upright in bed as a thought flashed across my brain was that the reason
were his objections to this plan of mine what he pretended they were did he really fear that i might have unpleasant publicity thrust upon me and that some of our pleasure plans might be spoiled by the weekly lecture engagement
or was he the type of man who could not bear his wife to have money or plans or even thoughts which did not originate with him
but if he were opposed to my ever having any income of my own the issue might as well come now as later a loud ringing at the doorbell awakened me for a moment i could not understand how i came to be in bed
then i remembered and throwing off my negligee and putting on a little afternoon gown i twisted up my hair into a careless knot and hurried to the door the ring had been the postman's the afternoon newspapers lay upon the floor
and i found when i reached there that slim was hardly the word i wrote you twice but have no hope that the letters ever reached you but now i am back in god's country or shall be when i get north
and of course my first line is to you i am writing this to the old place knowing it will be forwarded if you have left there i shall be in new york two weeks from today the twenty fourth
of course i shall go to my old diggings telephone me there so that i can see you as soon as possible i am looking forward to a real dinner at a real restaurant
till i see you dear always your jack i finished the reading of the letter with mingled feelings of joy and dismay joy was the stronger however dear old jack was safe at home
but there were adjustments which i must make i had my marriage to explain to jack and jack to explain to dicky
reading it i realized that the memory of jack had been so pushed into the background during the past six months
you've made a great conquest said dicky that evening when we were finishing dinner lil thinks you're about the nicest little piece of calico she has ever measured those were her own words
she's planning a frolic for the crowd some night at your convenience that is awfully kind of her where did you see her i prided myself on my careless tone but dicky gave me a shrewd glance
why at the studio of course her studio is on the same floor as mine you know atwood and barker and she and i are all on one floor and we often have a dish of tea together when we are not rushed
i suppose we ought to have them all over some night i said at last but i'll have to add a few things to our equipment and wait until i get a maid that will be fine dicky assented cordially pushing back his chair
did the papers come i'll look them over for a little whistle when you're ready and i'll wipe the dishes for you he strolled into the living room and i suddenly remembered that i had laid my letter from jack on the table
with its pages scattered so that any one picking them up could not help seeing them i had forgotten all about the letter i had meant to show it to dicky after i had explained about jack
i waited every nerve tense listening to the sounds in the next room i heard the rustling of the newspaper then a sudden silence told me his attention had been arrested by something would he read the letter
i did not think so i knew his sense of honor was too keen for that but i remembered that the last page with its signature was at the top of the sheets as i laid them down that was enough to make any loving husband reflect a bit
how would dicky take it i wondered i was soon to know i heard him crush the paper in his hand then come quickly to the kitchen i pretended to be busy with the dishes but he strode over to me
and clutching me by the shoulder with a grip that hurt thrust the letter before my face and said hoarsely what does this mean the last words of jack's letter danced before my eyes dicky's hand was shaking so
till i see you dear always jack dicky's face was not a pleasant sight it repulsed and disgusted me
subconsciously i was contrasting the way in which he calmly expected me to accept his friendship for lillian gale and his behavior over this letter five minutes earlier i would have explained to him fully
i resolved now to put my friendship for jack upon the same basis as his for missus underwood so i looked at him coolly have you read the letter i asked quietly
you know i have not read the letter he snarled it lay on the papers i could not help but see this this whatever it is he finished lamely and i have come straight to you for an explanation
better read the letter i advised quietly i give you full permission i could have laughed at dicky if i had been less angry
an old lover then i suppose a confident one i should judge by the tone of the letter won't it be too cruel a blow to him when he finds his dear little girl is married dicky's tone fairly dripped with irony
he will be surprised certainly i answered but as he never was my lover i don't think it will be any blow to him who is he anyway why have you never told me about him what does he look like
dicky fairly shot the questions at me i turned and went into my room there i rummaged in a box of old photographs until i found two fairly good likenesses of jack
he is an old and dear friend
dicky stared at me a long long look as if he had just discovered me then he turned on his heel well i'll be
loaf and invite your soul and then cast up account with it my account looked pretty discouraging dicky and i had been married a little over two weeks two weeks of idiotically happy honeymooning
i'll give you three guesses madge dicky stood just inside the door of the living room holding an immense parcel carefully wrapped his hat was on the back of his head
but you are not to see it until we have something to eat and you have guessed what it is i know it is something lovely dear i replied sedately but come to your dinner it is getting cold
dicky looked a trifle hurt as he followed me to the dining room i knew what he expected enthusiastic curiosity and a demand for the immediate opening of the parcel i can imagine the pretty enthusiasm
the caresses with which almost any other woman would have greeted a bridegroom of two weeks with his first present but it's simply impossible for me to gush
there is something inside me that makes it an absolute impossibility what's the menu madge the beef again dicky's tone was mildly quizzical his smile mischievous but i flushed hotly
he had touched a sore spot the butcher had brought me a huge slab of meat for my first dinner when i had timidly ordered rib roast and with the aid of my mother's cook book and my own smattering of cooking
my sole housewifely accomplishment i had been trying to disguise it for subsequent meals this is positively its last appearance on any stage i assured him trying to be gay
besides it's a casserole with rice and i defy you to detect whether the chief ingredient be fish flesh or fowl casserole is usually my pet aversion dicky said solemnly
look not on the casserole when it is table d'hote is one of the pet little proverbs in my immediate set too much like spanish steak and the other good chances for ptomaines but if you made it i'll tackle it
if you have to call the ambulance in the next half hour
i asked horror stricken don't eat it wait and i'll fix up some eggs for you dicky rose stiffly walked slowly around to my side of the table
and gravely tapped my head in imitation of a phrenologist absolute depression where the bump called sense of humor ought to be too bad pretty creature too
cause her lots of trouble in the days to come he chanted solemnly then he bent and kissed me don't be a goose madge he admonished
and never never take me seriously i don't know the meaning of the word come on let's eat the thing um bob i'll bet it's delicious he uncovered the casserole and regarded the steaming contents critically
and helped himself as generously he ate heartily of both dishes ignoring or not noticing that i scarcely touched either dish
for i was fast lapsing into one of the moods which my little mother used to call my morbid streaks and which she had vainly tried to cure ever since i was a tiny girl dicky didn't like my cooking
he was only pretending dicky was disappointed in the way i received the announcement of his present probably he soon would find me wanting in other things
as i took our plates to the kitchen and brought on a lettuce and tomato salad with a mayonnaise dressing over which i had toiled for an hour i was trying hard to choke back the tears
when i brought on the baked apples which i had prepared with especial care for dessert dick gave them one glance which to my oversensitive mind looked disparaging then he pushed back his chair
don't believe i want any dessert today the rest of the dinner was so good i ate too much of it
whatever in the world i began as dicky lifted the lid and revealed a big angora cat then my voice changed why dicky you don't mean
but dicky was absorbed in lifting the cat out isn't she a beauty he said admiringly but i was almost into the dining room
i replied faintly but surely you do not intend her for me why not dicky's tone was sharper than i had ever heard it he set the cat down on the floor and she walked over to me
dicky interrupted forget that scientific foolishness you absorbed when you were school ma'aming besides this cat is a thoroughbred never been outside the home where she was born till now
a cool two hundred that's all it seems to me you might try to get over your prejudices especially when i tell you that i am very fond of cats and like to see them around
dicky's voice held a note of appeal but i chose to ignore it my particular little devil must have sat at my elbow i am sorry i said coldly
but really i do not see why it is any more incumbent on me to try to overcome my very real aversion to cats than it is for you to try to do without their society very well
dicky exclaimed angrily turning toward the door if you feel that way about it there is nothing more to be said then dicky slammed the living room door behind him to emphasize his words
there is no cure for a quarrel like loneliness and reflection dicky had not been gone a half hour after our disagreement over the cat before i was wondering how we both could have been so silly
i thought it out carefully i could see that dicky was accustomed to having his own way unquestioned he had told me once that his mother and sister had spoiled him
i had no desire neither had i intention of doing any clinging vine act with dicky posing at the strong oak but i also had the common sense to see
that there would be real issues in our lives without wasting our ammunition over a cat then too the remembrance of dicky's happy face when he thought he was surprising me tugged at my heart
if he wants a cat a cat he shall have i said to myself and calling my unwelcome guest to me with a resolute determination to do my duty by the beast no matter how distasteful the task
i was just putting a saucer of milk in front of her when the door opened and dicky came in like a whirlwind how do you wear sackcloth and ashes he cried catching me in his arms as he made the query
if you've got any in the house bring em along and i'll put them on seriously girl i'm awfully sorry i let my temper out of its little cage
no nice thing getting angry at your bride because she doesn't like cats i'll take the beast back tomorrow indeed you'll do no such thing i protested you're not the only one who is sorry
and i've got a reward for you a peace offering get on your frills for we're going to a first night sanders was called out of town had the tickets on his hands and turned them over to me
hurry up while i get into my moonlights your what i was mystified evening clothes goose dicky threw the words over his shoulder as he took down the telephone receiver
can you dress in half an hour we have only that i'll be ready as i closed the door of my room i heard dicky ask for the number of the taxicab company where he kept an account
of the causes of our mistakes the origin of property the true form of human society cannot be determined until the following question has been solved property not being our natural condition how did it gain a foothold
why has the social instinct so trustworthy among the animals erred in the case of man why is man who was born for society not yet associated i have said that human society is complex in its nature
though this expression is inaccurate the fact to which it refers is none the less true namely the classification of talents and capacities but who does not see that these talents and capacities owing to their infinite variety give rise to an infinite variety of wills
and that the character the inclinations and if i may venture to use the expression the form of the ego are necessarily changed so that in the order of liberty as in the order of intelligence there are as many types as individuals as many characters as heads
whose tastes fancies and propensities being modified by dissimilar ideas must necessarily conflict man by his nature and his instinct is predestined to society but his personality ever varying is adverse to it
in societies of animals all the members do exactly the same things the same genius directs them the same will animates them a society of beasts is a collection of atoms round hooked cubical or triangular but always perfectly identical
these personalities do not vary and we might say that a single ego governs them all the labors which animals perform whether alone or in society are exact reproductions of their character just as the swarm of bees is composed of individual bees
alike in nature and equal in value so the honeycomb is formed of individual cells constantly and invariably repeated but man's intelligence fitted for his social destiny and his personal needs
is of a very different composition and therefore gives rise to a wonderful variety of human wills in the bee the will is constant and uniform because the instinct which guides it is invariable and constitutes the animal's whole life and nature
in man talent varies and the mind wavers consequently his will is multiform and vague
he is an imitator but fond of his own ideas and passionately in love with his works if like the bees every man were born possessed of talent perfect knowledge of certain kinds and in a word an innate acquaintance with the functions he has to perform
but destitute of reflective and reasoning faculties society would organize itself we should see one man plowing a field another building houses this one forging metals that one cutting clothes and still others storing the products and superintending their distribution
would obey orders bring his product receive his salary and would then rest for a time keeping meanwhile no accounts envious of nobody and satisfied with the distributor who never would be unjust to any one
kings would govern but would not reign for to reign is to be a proprietor a l'engrais as bonaparte said and having no commands to give since all would be at their posts they would serve rather as rallying centres than as authorities or counsellors
it would be a state of ordered communism
but man acquires skill only by observation and experiment he reflects then since to observe and experiment is to reflect he reasons since he cannot help reasoning in reflecting he becomes deluded
in reasoning he makes mistakes and thinking himself right persists in them he is wedded to his opinions he esteems himself and despises others consequently he isolates himself
that is without disowning himself which is impossible and this isolation this intellectual egotism this individuality of opinion lasts until the truth is demonstrated to him by observation and experience
a final illustration will make these facts still clearer if to the blind but convergent and harmonious instincts of a swarm of bees should be suddenly added reflection and judgment the little society could not long exist
in the first place the bees would not fail to try some new industrial process for instance that of making their cells round or square all sorts of systems and inventions would be tried until long experience aided by geometry
should show them that the hexagonal shape is the best then insurrections would occur the drones would be told to provide for themselves and the queens to labor jealousy would spread among the laborers discords would burst forth
and finally the hive would be abandoned and the bees would perish evil would be introduced into the honey producing republic by the power of reflection the very faculty which ought to constitute its glory
thus moral evil or in this case disorder in society is naturally explained by our power of reflection the mother of poverty crime insurrection and war was inequality of conditions
which was the daughter of property which was born of selfishness which was engendered by private opinion which descended in a direct line from the autocracy of reason man in his infancy is neither criminal nor barbarous but ignorant and inexperienced
endowed with imperious instincts which are under the control of his reasoning faculty at first he reflects but little and reasons inaccurately then benefiting by his mistakes he rectifies his ideas and perfects his reason
in the first place it is the savage sacrificing all his possessions for a trinket and then repenting and weeping it is esau selling his birthright for a mess of pottage and afterwards wishing to cancel the bargain it is the civilized workman laboring in insecurity
and continually demanding that his wages be increased neither he nor his employer understanding that in the absence of equality any salary however large is always insufficient
then it is naboth dying to defend his inheritance cato tearing out his entrails that he might not be enslaved socrates drinking the fatal cup in defence of liberty of thought it is the third estate of eighty nine reclaiming its liberty
soon it will be the people demanding equality of wages and an equal division of the means of production man is born a social being that is he seeks equality and justice in all his relations but he loves independence and praise
the difficulty of satisfying these various desires at the same time is the primary cause of the despotism of the will and the appropriation which results from it on the other hand man always needs a market for his products
unable to compare values of different kinds he is satisfied to judge approximately according to his passion and caprice and he engages in dishonest commerce which always results in wealth and poverty thus the greatest evils which man suffers arise from the misuse of his social nature
of this same justice of which he is so proud and which he applies with such deplorable ignorance the practice of justice is a science which when once discovered and diffused will sooner or later put an end to social disorder by teaching us our rights and duties
this progressive and painful education of our instinct this slow and imperceptible transformation of our spontaneous perceptions into deliberate knowledge does not take place among the animals whose instincts remain fixed and never become enlightened
instinct is a natural and inherent faculty like feeling irritability or intelligence
and who avoid them the dog and the horse who understand the meaning of several of our words and who obey us thereby show intelligence the dog who hides the remains of his dinner the bee who constructs his cell the bird who builds his nest act only from instinct even man has instincts
it is a special instinct which leads the new born child to suck but in man almost every thing is accomplished by intelligence and intelligence supplements instinct the opposite is true of animals their instinct is given them as a supplement to their intelligence
images or innate and constant sensations which influence their actions in the same manner that ordinary and accidental sensations commonly do it is a sort of dream or vision which always follows them and in all which relates to instinct
f cuvier introduction to the animal kingdom intelligence and instinct being common then though in different degrees to animals and man what is the distinguishing characteristic of the latter according to f cuvier it is
reflection or the power of intellectually considering our own modifications by a survey of ourselves this lacks clearness and requires an explanation if we grant intelligence to animals we must also grant them in some degree reflection
for the first cannot exist without the second as f cuvier himself has proved by numerous examples but notice that the learned observer defines the kind of reflection which distinguishes us from the animals as the power of considering our own modifications
this i shall endeavour to interpret by developing to the best of my ability the laconism of the philosophical naturalist the intelligence acquired by animals never modifies the operations which they perform by instinct
it is given them only as a provision against unexpected accidents which might disturb these operations in man on the contrary instinctive action is constantly changing into deliberate action
in this sense it may be said that language is not the work of man since it is not the work of his mind further the mechanism of language seems more wonderful and ingenious when it is not regarded as the result of reflection
this fact is one of the most curious and indisputable which philology has observed see among other works a latin essay by f g bergmann strasbourg eighteen thirty nine in which the learned author explains how the phonetic germ is born of sensation
how language passes through three successive stages of development why man endowed at birth with the instinctive faculty of creating a language loses this faculty as fast as his mind develops and that the study of languages is real natural history in fact a science
france possesses to day several philologists of the first rank endowed with rare talents and deep philosophic insight modest savants developing a science almost without the knowledge of the public devoting themselves to studies which are scornfully looked down upon and seeming to shun applause as much as others seek it
this explains the obscurity which surrounds the names of early inventors
man esteems only the products of reflection and of reason the most wonderful works of instinct are in his eyes only lucky god sends he reserves the name discovery i had almost said creation for the works of intelligence
instinct is the source of passion and enthusiasm it is intelligence which causes crime and virtue in developing his intelligence man makes use of not only his own observations but also those of others he keeps an account of his experience and preserves the record
so that the race as well as the individual becomes more and more intelligent the animals do not transmit their knowledge that which each individual accumulates dies with him
it is not enough then to say that we are distinguished from the animals by reflection unless we mean thereby the constant tendency of our instinct to become intelligence while man is governed by instinct he is unconscious of his acts
he never would deceive himself and never would be troubled by errors evils and disorder if like the animals instinct were his only guide but the creator has endowed us with reflection to the end that our instinct might become intelligence
and since this reflection and resulting knowledge pass through various stages it happens that in the beginning our instinct is opposed rather than guided by reflection consequently that our power of thought leads us to act in opposition to our nature and our end
that deceiving ourselves we do and suffer evil until instinct which points us towards good and reflection which makes us stumble into evil are replaced by the science of good and evil which invariably causes us to seek the one and avoid the other
thus evil or error and its consequences is the firstborn son of the union of two opposing faculties instinct and reflection good or truth must inevitably be the second child
or to again employ the figure evil is the product of incest between adverse powers good will sooner or later be the legitimate child of their holy and mysterious union property born of the reasoning faculty intrenches itself behind comparisons
but just as reflection and reason are subsequent to spontaneity observation to sensation and experience to instinct so property is subsequent to communism communism or association in a simple form
is the necessary object and original aspiration of the social nature the spontaneous movement by which it manifests and establishes itself it is the first phase of human civilization in this state of society which the jurists have called negative communism
man draws near to man and shares with him the fruits of the field and the milk and flesh of animals little by little this communism negative as long as man does not produce tends to become positive and organic through the development of labor and industry
but it is then that the sovereignty of thought and the terrible faculty of reasoning logically or illogically teach man that if equality is the sine qua non of society communism is the first species of slavery
i will say communism the first expression of the social nature is the first term of social development the thesis property the reverse of communism is the second term the antithesis when we have discovered the third term
the synthesis we shall have the required solution now this synthesis necessarily results from the correction of the thesis by the antithesis therefore it is necessary by a final examination of their characteristics to eliminate those features which are hostile to sociability
monsieur before resuming my inquiries into government and property it is fitting for the satisfaction of some worthy people and also in the interest of order that i should make to you a plain straightforward explanation
in a much governed state no one would be allowed to attack the external form of the society and the groundwork of its institutions until he had established his right to do so first by his morality second by his capacity and third by the purity of his intentions
any one who wishing to publish a treatise upon the constitution of the country could not satisfy this threefold condition would be obliged to procure the endorsement of a responsible patron possessing the requisite qualifications but we frenchmen have the liberty of the press
this grand right the sword of thought which elevates the virtuous citizen to the rank of legislator and makes the malicious citizen an agent of discord frees us from all preliminary responsibility to the law
but it does not release us from our internal obligation to render a public account of our sentiments and thoughts i have used in all its fulness and concerning an important question the right which the charter grants us
you have criticised in a kindly spirit i had almost said with partiality for the writer a work which teaches a doctrine that you thought it your duty to condemn the academy of moral and political sciences said you in your report
i venture to hope sir that after you have read this letter if your prudence still restrains you your fairness will induce you to do me justice
such is the thesis which i maintained and developed in a memoir bearing the title what is property or an inquiry into the principle of right and of government the idea of social equality even in individual fortunes has in all ages besieged like a vague presentiment
the human imagination poets have sung of it in their hymns philosophers have dreamed of it in their utopias priests teach it but only for the spiritual world the people governed by it
and the civil power is never more disturbed than by the fables of the age of gold and the reign of astrea a year ago however this idea received a scientific demonstration which has not yet been satisfactorily answered and permit me to add never will be
this demonstration owing to its slightly impassioned style its method of reasoning which was so at variance with that employed by the generally recognized authorities and the importance and novelty of its conclusions was of a nature to cause some alarm
and might have been dangerous had it not been as you sir so well said a sealed letter so far as the general public was concerned addressed only to men of intelligence i was glad to see that through its metaphysical dress you recognized the wise foresight of the author and i thank you for it
may god grant that my intentions which are wholly peaceful may never be charged upon me as treasonable like a stone thrown into a mass of serpents the first memoir on property excited intense animosity and aroused the passions of many
but while some wished the author and his work to be publicly denounced others found in them simply the solution of the fundamental problems of society a few even basing evil speculations upon the new light which they had obtained
it was not to be expected that a system of inductions abstractly gathered together and still more abstractly expressed would be understood with equal accuracy in its ensemble and in each of its parts
to find the law of equality no longer in charity and self sacrifice which are not binding in their nature but in justice to base equality of functions upon equality of persons to determine the absolute principle of exchange
to neutralize the inequality of individual faculties by collective force to establish an equation between property and robbery to change the law of succession without destroying the principle
to synthetize the monarchical and democratic forms of government to reverse the division of powers to give the executive power to the nation and to make legislation a positive fixed and absolute science what a series of paradoxes what a string of delusions
if i may not say what a chain of truths but it is not my purpose here to pass upon the theory of the right of possession i discuss no dogmas my only object is to justify my views and to show that in writing as i did i not only exercised a right but performed a duty
yes i have attacked property and shall attack it again but sir before demanding that i shall make the amende honorable for having obeyed my conscience and spoken the exact truth condescend i beg of you to cast a glance at the events which are happening around us
look at our deputies our magistrates our philosophers our ministers our professors and our publicists examine their methods of dealing with the matter of property
measure the breaches already made estimate those which society thinks of making hereafter add the ideas concerning property held by all theories in common interrogate history and then tell me what will be left half a century hence of this old right of property
and thus perceiving that i have so many accomplices you will immediately declare me innocent what is the law of expropriation on the ground of public utility which everybody favors and which is even thought too lenient
society indemnifies it is said the dispossessed proprietor but does it return to him the traditional associations the poetic charm and the family pride which accompany property
among the ancients the refusal of the individual limited the powers of the state
property is a real right jus in re a right inherent in the thing and whose principle lies in the external manifestation of man's will man leaves his imprint stamps his character upon the objects of his handiwork
this plastic force of man as the modern jurists say is the seal which set upon matter makes it holy whoever lays hands upon it against the proprietor's will does violence to the latter's personality and yet when an administrative committee saw fit to declare that public utility required it
property had to give way to the general will soon in the name of public utility methods of cultivation and conditions of enjoyment will be prescribed inspectors of agriculture and manufactures will be appointed
and a general superintendence of production will be established it is not two years since i saw a proprietor destroy a forest more than five hundred acres in extent if public utility had interfered that forest the only one for miles around would still be standing
but it is said expropriation on the ground of public utility is only an exception which confirms the principle and bears testimony in favor of the right
very well but from this exception we will pass to another from that to a third and so on from exceptions to exceptions until we have reduced the rule to a pure abstraction how many supporters do you think sir can be claimed for the project of the conversion of the public funds
now this so called conversion is an extensive expropriation and in this case with no indemnity whatever the public funds are so much real estate the income from which the proprietor counts upon with perfect safety
and which owes its value to the tacit promise of the government to pay interest upon it at the established rate until the fund holder applies for redemption for if the income is liable to diminution it is less profitable than house rent or farm rent
whose rates may rise or fall according to the fluctuations in the market and in that case what inducement has the capitalist to invest his money in the state when then you force the fund holder to submit to a diminution of interest you make him bankrupt to the extent of the diminution
and since in consequence of the conversion an equally profitable investment becomes impossible you depreciate his property that such a measure may be justly executed it must be generalized
that is the law which provides for it must decree also that interest on sums lent on deposit or on mortgage throughout the realm as well as house and farm rents shall be reduced to three per cent this simultaneous reduction of all kinds of income
and further it would offer the advantage of forestalling at one blow all objections to it at the same time that it would insure a just assessment of the land tax see if at the moment of conversion a piece of real estate yields an income of one thousand francs
after the new law takes effect it will yield only six hundred francs now allowing the tax to be an aliquot part one fourth for example of the income derived from each piece of property
it is clear on the one hand that the proprietor would not in order to lighten his share of the tax underestimate the value of his property since house and farm rents being fixed by the value of the capital and the latter being measured by the tax to depreciate his real estate would be to reduce his revenue
on the other hand it is equally evident that the same proprietors could not overestimate the value of their property in order to increase their incomes beyond the limits of the law since the tenants and farmers with their old leases in their hands would enter a protest
such sir must be the result sooner or later of the conversion which has been so long demanded otherwise the financial operation of which we are speaking would be a crying injustice unless intended as a stepping stone
this last motive seems the most plausible one for in spite of the clamors of interested parties and the flagrant violation of certain rights the public conscience is bound to fulfil its desire and is no more affected when charged with attacking property than when listening to the complaints of the bondholders
in this case instinctive justice belies legal justice who has not heard of the inextricable confusion into which the chamber of deputies was thrown last year while discussing the question of colonial and native sugars did they leave these two industries to themselves
the native manufacturer was ruined by the colonist to maintain the beet root the cane had to be taxed to protect the property of the one it became necessary to violate the property of the other the most remarkable feature of this business was precisely that to which the least attention was paid
namely that in one way or another property had to be violated did they impose on each industry a proportional tax so as to preserve a balance in the market
they created a maximum price for each variety of sugar and as this maximum price was not the same they attacked property in two ways on the one hand interfering with the liberty of trade on the other disregarding the equality of proprietors
did they suppress the beet root by granting an indemnity to the manufacturer they sacrificed the property of the tax payer finally did they prefer to cultivate the two varieties of sugar at the nation's expense just as different varieties of tobacco are cultivated
they abolished so far as the sugar industry was concerned the right of property
join us please when you have time just trust to the inspiration of the moment
let me say how deeply indebted i feel for your kindness let me speak frankly
how kind and good you are may i ask to whom you allude may i be privileged to hear it may i speak freely
my attitude would be one of disapproval my confidence in you is absolute my idea of it is quite the reverse
my information is rather scanty my meaning is quite the contrary my point of view is different but i shall not insist upon it
no i don't understand it not at all not to my knowledge nothing could be more delightful now is it very plain to you
of course but that again isn't the point of course i am delighted of course i don't want to press you against your will of course
you will do what you think best oh certainly if you wish it oh do not form an erroneous impression oh i appreciate that in you oh
one assumption you make i should like to contest one has no choice to endure it one must be indulgent under the circumstances
i don't think so pardon me i meant something different perhaps i am indiscreet perhaps not in the strictest sense
perhaps you do not feel at liberty to do so perhaps you think me ungrateful personally i confess to an objection
please continue to be frank please do not think i am asking out of mere curiosity please forgive my thoughtlessness please make yourself at home
pray don't apologize pray forgive me for intruding on you so unceremoniously pray go on precisely that is just what i meant
quibbling i call it quite so
reflect upon the possible consequences relatively speaking reluctantly i admit it
she has an extraordinary gift of conversation she is easily prejudiced she seems uncommonly appreciative
show me that the two cases are analogous so far so good so i inferred so much the better for me
so you observe the transformation something amuses you sometimes the absurdity of it occurs to me
speaking with all due respect still you might make an exception strangely it's true such conduct seems to me unjustifiable
surely there can be no question about that
absolutely vulgarized by too perpetual a parroting absorbed in a stream of thoughts and reminiscences absorbed in the scent and murmur of the night
accidents which perpetually deflect our vagrant attention across the gulf of years administering a little deft though veiled castigation
affected an ironic incredulity affecting a tone of gayety after a first moment of reluctance after an eternity of resolutions doubts and indecisions
aghast at his own helplessness agitated and enthralled by day dreams agitated with violent and contending emotions
alien paths and irrelevant junketings all embrowned and mossed with age all her gift of serene immobility brought into play
all hope of discreet reticence was ripped to shreds all the lesser lights paled into insignificance all the magic of youth and joy of life was there
all the place is peopled with sweet airs all the sky was mother of pearl and tender all the unknown of the night and of the universe was pressing upon him
all the world was flooded with a soft golden light all was a vague jumble of chaotic impressions all was incomprehensible
all was instinctive and spontaneous aloof from the motley throng ambition shivered into fragments amid distress and humiliation
amid the direful calamities of the time an acute note of distress in her voice an agreeably grave vacuity
an air half quizzical and half deferential an air of affected civility an air of being meticulously explicit
an air of inimitable scrutinizing superb impertinence an air of stern deep and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all
an audacious challenge of ridicule
an equal degree of well bred worldly cynicism an erect martial majestic and imposing personage an eternity of silence oppressed him
an expression of mildly humorous surprise an expression of rare and inexplicable personal energy an exquisite perception of things beautiful and rare
an iciness a sinking a sickening of the heart an ignoring eye an impenetrable screen of foliage
an impersonal and slightly ironic interest an impervious beckoning motion
an intense travail of mind an obscure thrill of alarm an odd little air of penitent self depreciation
an open wit and recklessness of bearing an oppressive sense of strange sweet odor an optimistic after dinner mood
an overburdening sense of the inexpressible an uncomfortable premonition of fear an unfailing sweetness and unerring perception
an utter depression of soul and day peers forth with her blank eyes
anticipation painted the world in rose appalled in speechless disgust appealing to the urgent temper of youth
apprehensive solicitude about the future ardent words of admiration armed all over with subtle antagonisms artless and unquestioning devotion
i have a great admiration for i have a pleasing and personal duty i have a profound pity for those i have a right to consider i have a strong belief
i have a very high respect for i have abstained from i have acquired some useful experience i have all along implied
i have all but finished i have already alluded to i have already shown the ground of my hope i have already stated and now repeat
i have always been under the impression i have always listened with the greatest satisfaction i have always maintained i have another objection
i have anticipated the objection i have assumed throughout i have attempted thus hastily i have barely touched some of the points
i have been allowed the privilege i have been asked several times i have been extremely anxious i have been given to understand
i have been glad to observe i have been heretofore treating i have been insisting then on this i have been interested in hearing
i have been pointing out how i have been profoundly moved i have been requested to say a word i have been told by an eminent authority
i have been too long accustomed to hear i have been touched by the large generosity i have been trying to show
i have before me the statistics i have but one more word to add i have demonstrated to you i have depicted
i have endeavored to emphasize i have enlarged on this subject i have felt it almost a duty to
i have found great cause for wonder i have frequently been surprised at i have gazed with admiration i have generally observed
i have gone so far as to suggest i have good reason for i have had steadily in mind i have had the honor
i have in my possession i have incidentally dwelt on i have introduced it to suggest i have labored to maintain
i have laid much stress upon i have lately observed many strong indications i have listened with the utmost interest
i have little hope that i can add anything i have lived to see i have long ago insisted i have long been of the conviction
i have never heard it suggested i have never whispered a syllable i have no acquaintance with i have no doubt whatever
i have no excuse for intruding i have no fear of myself i have no fears for the success i have no hesitation in asserting
i have no reason to think i have no scruple in saying i have no such gloomy forebodings i have no sympathy with the men
i have no thought of venturing to say i have no wish at all to preach i have not accustomed myself i have not allowed myself
i have not been able to deny i have not particularly referred to i have not said anything yet i have not the means of forming a judgment
i have not the right to reproach i have not time to present i have nothing more to say i have noticed of late years
i have now explained to you i have now made bold to touch upon i have now rather more than kept my word
i have now said all that occurs to me i have often been impressed with i have often been struck with the resemblance i have often
lingered in fancy i have one step farther to go i have only partially examined i have partly anticipated
i have pleasant memories of i have pointed out i have pride and pleasure in quoting i have racked this brain of mine
i have read with great regret i have said and i repeat i have said over and over again
i have said what i solemnly believe i have scant patience i have seen for myself i have seen it stated in a recent journal
i have seen some signs of encouragement i have shown i have some sort of fear i have sometimes asked myself
i have sometimes fancied i have sometimes wondered whether i have still two comments to make i have taken pains to know
i have the confident hope i have the greatest possible confidence i have the honor to propose i have then to investigate
i have thought it incumbent on me i have thought it right on this day i have thought it well to suggest
i have throughout highly appreciated i have thus been led by my feelings i have thus stated the reason
i have tried to convey to you i have undertaken to speak i have very much less feeling of i have watched with some attention
i have witnessed the extraordinary i have yet a more cogent reason i have yet to learn i hazard nothing in saying
i hear it sometimes said i hear you say to yourselves i heartily feel the singular claims i hesitate to take an instance
i hold it to be clearly expedient i hold myself obliged to i hold the maxim no less applicable
i hold this to be a truth i hold to the principle i hope by this time we are all convinced i hope for our own sakes
i hope i have expressed myself explicitly i hope i may be allowed to intimate i hope i shall not be told
i hope it is no disparagement i hope most sincerely and truly i hope none who hear me
i hope not to occupy more than a few minutes i hope that i shall not be so unfortunate i hope the day may be far distant
i hope the time may come again i hope to be excused if i hope to be forgiven if
i do indeed recollect i do not absolutely assert i do not advocate i do not argue i do not ask you to
i do not at this moment remember i do not believe it possible i do not belong to those who i do not choose to consume
i do not deem it incumbent upon me i do not depreciate for a moment i do not desire to call in question i do not desire to put too much emphasis
i do not despair of surmounting i do not disguise the fact i do not enter into the question i do not fail to admire
i do not fear a contradiction i do not feel at liberty i do not forget the practical necessity i do not hesitate to say
i do not imagine i do not in the least degree i do not indeed deny i do not indulge in the delusion
i do not know how anyone can believe i do not know whether you are aware of it i do not know why i do not know with what correctness
i do not mean anything so absurd i do not mean now to go further than i do not mean to impute i do not merely urge
i do not mistrust i do not myself pretend to be i do not need to remind you i do not of course deny i do not pretend to argue
i do not propose to take up your time i do not question for a moment i do not recount all i do not say anything about the future
i do not say this with any affectation i do not see how it is possible i do not see much difference between i do not seek to palliate
i do not speak exclusively i do not stop to discuss i do not therefore wonder i do not think it necessary to warn you
i do not think it possible i do not think it unfair reasoning i do not think myself obliged to dwell i do not think that i need further discuss
i do not think this at all an exaggeration i do not think we can go far wrong i do not think you will often hear i do not understand how it can apply
i do not vouch for i do not want to discourage you i do not wish to be considered egotistic i do not wish to be misrepresented
i do not wonder i doubt very much whether i dwell with pleasure on the considerations i earnestly maintain
i embrace with peculiar satisfaction i end as i began i entertain great apprehension for
i entirely dissent from the view i especially hail with approval i even add this i even venture to deny
i fancy i hear you say i fear i may seem trifling i fear lest i may i fearlessly appeal
i fearlessly challenge i feel a great necessity to i feel bound to add my expression i feel constrained to declare
i feel entirely satisfied i feel i have a right to say i feel it a proud privilege i feel keenly myself impelled by every duty
i feel only a great emotion of gratitude i feel respect and admiration i feel some explanation is due i feel sure
i feel tempted to introduce here i feel that i have a special right to i feel that it is not true i feel the greatest satisfaction
i feel the task is far beyond my power i fervently trust i find it difficult to utter in words i find it more easy
i find my reference to this i find myself called upon to say something i find myself in the position of i find no better example than
i find no fault with i find numberless cases i flatter myself i for my part would rather
i give you in conclusion this sentence i go further i grant all this i grant with my warmest admiration
i gratefully accept i greatly deplore i had a kind of hope i had almost said i had in common with others
i had occasion to criticize i happen to differ i hardly dare to dwell longer i hardly know anything more strange
whatsomever thou be i require thee upon the high order of knighthood tell me thy true name then he said
king ban's son of benoy alas said sir percivale what have i done i was sent by the queen for to seek you and so i have sought you nigh this two year and yonder is sir ector de maris your brother abideth me on the other side of the yonder water
now for god's sake said sir percivale forgive me mine offences that i have here done it is soon forgiven said sir launcelot then sir percivale sent for sir ector de maris and when sir launcelot had a sight of him he ran unto him and took him in his arms
that all had pity to behold them then came dame elaine and she there made them great cheer as might lie in her power and there she told sir ector and sir percivale how and in what manner sir launcelot came into that country and how he was healed
and there it was known how long sir launcelot was with sir bliant and with sir selivant and how he first met with them and how he departed from them because of a boar and how the hermit healed sir launcelot of his great wound
but he is over tender of age as for that said sir bors i will have him with me and bring him to the house of most worship of the world
and so he proved a good knight and an adventurous now will we turn to our matter of sir launcelot it befell upon a day sir ector and sir percivale came to sir launcelot and asked him what he would do and whether he would go with them unto king arthur or not
nay said sir launcelot that may not be by no mean for i was so entreated at the court that i cast me never to come there more sir said sir ector i am your brother and ye are the man in the world that i love most and if i understood that it were your disworship
and ye must remember the great worship and renown that ye be of how that ye have been more spoken of than any other knight that is now living
therefore brother said sir ector make you ready to ride to the court with us and i dare say there was never knight better welcome to the court than ye
my lord sir launcelot said dame elaine at this same feast of pentecost shall your son and mine galahad be made knight
the king and all the knights made great joy of him and there sir percivale de galis and sir ector de maris began and told the whole adventures that sir launcelot had been out of his mind the time of his absence and how he called himself le chevaler mal fet
the knight that had trespassed and in three days sir launcelot smote down five hundred knights and ever as sir ector and sir percivale told these tales of sir launcelot
then the queen made great cheer o jesu said king arthur i marvel for what cause ye sir launcelot went out of your mind i and many others deem it was for the love of fair elaine the daughter of king pelles by whom ye are noised that ye have gotten a child and his name is galahad
and men say he shall do marvels my lord said sir launcelot if i did any folly i have that i sought and therewithal the king spake no more but all sir launcelot's kin knew for whom he went out of his mind and then there were great feasts made and great joy
for to require you to seek him and now blessed be god said la beale isoud he is whole and sound and come again to the court thereof am i glad said sir tristram and now shall ye and i make us ready for both ye and i will be at the feast
sir said isoud an it please you i will not be there for through me ye be marked of many good knights and that caused you to have much more labour for my sake than needeth you then will i not be there said sir tristram but if ye be there
how may ye be missed at that feast what shall be said among all knights see how sir tristram hunteth and hawketh and cowereth within a castle with his lady and forsaketh your worship alas shall some say it is pity that ever he was made knight
or that ever he should have the love of a lady also what shall queens and ladies say of me it is pity that i have my life that i will hold so noble a knight as ye are from his worship
it is passing well said of you and nobly counselled and now i well understand that ye love me and like as ye have counselled me i will do a part thereafter but there shall no man nor child ride with me but myself
and then sir palomides stood still and beheld sir tristram and marvelled of his woodness and of his folly and then sir palomides said to himself an sir tristram were armed
then sir tristram spake and said thou coward knight what castest thou to do why wilt thou not do battle with me for have thou no doubt i shall endure all thy malice ah sir tristram said palomides
full well thou wottest i may not fight with thee for shame for thou art here naked and i am armed and if i slay thee dishonour shall be mine and well thou wottest said sir palomides to sir tristram i know thy strength and thy hardiness to endure against a good knight
and i naked as ye be what would you do to me now by your true knighthood
and as god me bless that i shall say shall not be said for no fear that i have of thee but this is all wit sir palomides as at this time thou shouldest depart from me
as for one battle thou shalt not seek it no longer
for yonder is a knight that ye sir palomides have hurt and smitten down now help me that i were armed in his armour and i shall soon fulfil thine avows as ye will said palomides so it shall be so they rode both unto that knight that sat upon a bank
and then sir tristram saluted him and he weakly saluted him again sir knight said sir tristram i require you tell me your right name sir he said my name is sir galleron of galway and knight of the table round
so god me help said sir tristram i am right heavy of your hurts but this is all i must pray you to lend me all your whole armour for ye see i am unarmed and i must do battle with this knight sir said the hurt knight ye shall have it with a good will
but ye must beware for i warn you that knight is wight sir said galleron i pray you tell me your name and what is that knight's name that hath beaten me
my lord sir tristram said sir galleron your renown and worship is well known through many realms and god save you this day from shenship and shame then sir tristram unarmed galleron the which was a noble knight and had done many deeds of arms
and therewithal sir palomides was ready and so they came hurtling together and either smote other in midst of their shields and therewithal sir palomides spear brake and sir tristram smote down the horse
and therefore he suffered him to breathe him thus they fought more than two hours but often sir tristram smote such strokes at sir palomides that he made him to kneel and sir palomides brake and cut away many pieces of sir tristram's shield
and therewithal he leapt up lightly upon his feet and then sir tristram wounded palomides sore through the shoulder
but that we may be friends all that i have offended is and was for the love of la beale isoud and as for her i dare say she is peerless above all other ladies and also i proffered her never no dishonour
and by her i have gotten the most part of my worship and sithen i offended never as to her own person and as for the offence that i have done it was against your own person and for that offence ye have given me this day many sad strokes
and now i dare say i felt never man of your might nor so well breathed but if it were sir launcelot du lake wherefore i require you my lord forgive me all that i have offended unto you and this same day have me to the next church
and first let me be clean confessed and after see you now that i be truly baptised and then will we all ride together unto the court of arthur that we be there at the high feast now take your horse said sir tristram and as ye say so it shall be
and all thine evil will god forgive it you and i do and here within this mile is the suffragan of carlisle that shall give you the sacrament of baptism
and for the most part all the knights of the round table and so the king and all the court were glad that sir palomides was christened and at the same feast in came galahad and sat in the siege perilous and so therewithal departed and dissevered all the knights of the round table
here endeth the second book of sir tristram that was drawn out of french into english but here is no rehersal of the third book and here followeth the noble tale of the sangreal that called is the holy vessel
the which was brought into this land by joseph aramathie
and then rode melias into an old forest and therein he rode two days and more and then he came into a fair meadow and there was a fair lodge of boughs
wherein was a crown of gold subtly wrought also there were cloths covered upon the earth and many delicious meats set thereon sir melias beheld this adventure and thought it marvellous but he had no hunger but of the crown of gold he took much keep
and therewith he stooped down and took it up and rode his way with it and anon he saw a knight came riding after him that said knight set down that crown which is not yours and therefore defend you then sir melias blessed him and said
fair lord of heaven help and save thy new made knight and then they let their horses run as fast as they might so that the other knight smote sir melias through hauberk and through the left side that he fell to the earth nigh dead
and then he took the crown and went his way and sir melias lay still and had no power to stir in the meanwhile by fortune there came sir galahad and found him there in peril of death and then he said ah melias who hath wounded you
therefore it had been better to have ridden the other way and when sir melias heard him speak sir he said for god's love let me not die in this forest but bear me unto the abbey here beside that i may be confessed and have my rights
sir knight come on your peril then either dressed to other and came together as fast as their horses might run and galahad smote him so that his spear went through his shoulder and smote him down off his horse and in the falling galahad's spear brake
with that came out another knight out of the leaves and brake a spear upon galahad or ever he might turn him then galahad drew out his sword and smote off the left arm of him so that it fell to the earth and then he fled and sir galahad pursued fast after him
and then he turned again unto sir melias and there he alighted and dressed him softly on his horse to fore him for the truncheon of his spear was in his body and sir galahad stert up behind him and held him in his arms
and so brought him to the abbey and there unarmed him and brought him to his chamber and then he asked his saviour and when he had received him he said unto sir galahad sir let death come when it pleaseth him
i shall heal him of his wound by the grace of god within the term of seven weeks then was sir galahad glad and unarmed him and said he would abide there three days and then he asked sir melias how it stood with him then he said he was turned unto helping
for his sin he was thus wounded and i marvel said the good man how ye durst take upon you so rich a thing as the high order of knighthood without clean confession and that was the cause ye were bitterly wounded
for the way on the right hand betokeneth the highway of our lord jesu christ and the way of a good true good liver and the other way betokeneth the way of sinners and of misbelievers and when the devil saw your pride and presumption
for to take you in the quest of the sangreal that made you to be overthrown for it may not be enchieved but by virtuous living also the writing on the cross was a signification of heavenly deeds and of knightly deeds in god's works
and no knightly deeds in worldly works and pride is head of all deadly sins that caused this knight to depart from galahad and where thou tookest the crown of gold thou sinnest in covetise and in theft all this were no knightly deeds
sir melias said my lord galahad as soon as i may ride i shall seek you god send you health said galahad and so took his horse and departed and rode many journeys forward and backward
and he had heard no mass the which he was wont ever to hear or ever he departed out of any castle or place and kept that for a custom then sir galahad came unto a mountain where he found an old chapel and found there nobody
for all all was desolate and there he kneeled to fore the altar and besought god of wholesome counsel so as he prayed he heard a voice that said go thou now thou adventurous knight to the castle of maidens
fair sir said he it is the castle of maidens that is a cursed castle said galahad and all they that be conversant therein for all pity is out thereof and all hardiness and mischief is therein therefore i counsel you sir knight to turn again
sir said galahad wit you well i shall not turn again then looked sir galahad on his arms that nothing failed him and then he put his shield afore him and anon there met him seven fair maidens the which said unto him
sir knight ye ride here in a great folly for ye have the water to pass over why should i not pass the water said galahad so rode he away from them and met with a squire that said knight those knights in the castle defy you
and defenden you ye go no further till that they wit what ye would fair sir said galahad i come for to destroy the wicked custom of this castle sir an ye will abide by that ye shall have enough to do
go you now said galahad and haste my needs then the squire entered into the castle and anon after there came out of the castle seven knights and all were brethren and when they saw galahad they cried knight keep thee for we assure thee nothing but death
why said galahad will ye all have ado with me at once
then galahad put forth his spear and smote the foremost to the earth that near he brake his neck and therewithal the other smote him on his shield great strokes so that their spears brake
then sir galahad drew out his sword and set upon them so hard that it was marvel to see it and so through great force he made them to forsake the field and galahad chased them till they entered into the castle and so passed through the castle at another gate
and there met sir galahad an old man clothed in religious clothing and said sir have here the keys of this castle then sir galahad opened the gates and saw so much people in the streets that he might not number them and all said
sir ye be welcome for long have we abiden here our deliverance then came to him a gentlewoman and said these knights be fled but they will come again this night and here to begin again their evil custom what will ye that i shall do said galahad
sir said the gentlewoman that ye send after all the knights hither that hold their lands of this castle and make them to swear for to use the customs that were used heretofore of old time i will well said galahad and there she brought him an horn of ivory
bounden with gold richly and said sir blow this horn which will be heard two mile about this castle when sir galahad had blown the horn he set him down upon a bed then came a priest to galahad and said
sir it is past a seven year agone that these seven brethren came into this castle and harboured with the lord of this castle that hight the duke lianour and he was lord of all this country
then by their false covin they made debate betwixt themself and the duke of his goodness would have departed them and there they slew him and his eldest son and then they took the maiden and the treasure of the castle
and then by great force they held all the knights of this castle against their will under their obeissance and in great service and truage robbing and pilling the poor common people of all that they had so it happened on a day the duke's daughter said
well said the seven knights sithen ye say so there shall never lady nor knight pass this castle but they shall abide maugre their heads or die therefore till that knight be come by whom we shall lose this castle
and therefore is it called the maidens castle for they have devoured many maidens now said galahad is she here for whom this castle was lost nay sir said the priest she was dead within these three nights after that she was thus enforced
and at the last he came to the abbey where sir galahad had the white shield and there sir gawaine learned the way to sewe after sir galahad and so he rode to the abbey where melias lay sick and there sir melias told sir gawaine of the marvellous adventures that sir galahad did
i am not happy that i took not the way that he went for an i may meet with him i will not depart from him lightly for all marvellous adventures sir galahad enchieveth sir said one of the monks he will not of your fellowship why said sir gawaine
sir said he for ye be wicked and sinful and he is full blessed right as they thus stood talking there came in riding sir gareth and then they made joy either of other and on the morn they heard mass and so departed
and by the way they met with sir uwaine les avoutres and there sir uwaine told sir gawaine how he had met with none adventure sith he departed from the court nor we said sir gawaine
and either promised other of the three knights not to depart while they were in that quest but if fortune caused it so they departed and rode by fortune till that they came by the castle of maidens
sithen we be flemed by one knight from this castle we shall destroy all the knights of king arthur's that we may overcome for the love of sir galahad and therewith the seven knights set upon the three knights and by fortune sir gawaine slew one of the brethren
and each one of his fellows slew another and so slew the remnant and then they took the way under the castle and there they lost the way that sir galahad rode
and there he found the good man saying his evensong of our lady and there sir gawaine asked harbour for charity and the good man granted it him gladly then the good man asked him what he was
never had the seven brethren been slain by you and your two fellows for sir galahad himself alone beat them all seven the day to fore but his living is such he shall slay no man lightly
also i may say you the castle of maidens betokeneth the good souls that were in prison afore the incarnation of jesu christ
and i may liken the good galahad unto the son of the high father that lighted within a maid and bought all the souls out of thrall so did sir galahad deliver all the maidens out of the woful castle now sir gawaine said the good man thou must do penance for thy sin
sir what penance shall i do such as i will give said the good man
and they two rode four days without finding of any adventure and at the fifth day they departed and everych held as fell them by adventure
and galahad smote him so again that he smote down horse and man
and had not the sword swerved sir percivale had been slain and with the stroke he fell out of his saddle this jousts was done to fore the hermitage where a recluse dwelled and when she saw sir galahad ride she said god be with thee best knight of the world
when sir percivale came to the recluse she knew him well enough and sir launcelot both
and at the last he came to a stony cross which departed two ways in waste land
then sir launcelot looked by him and saw an old chapel and there he weened to have found people and sir launcelot tied his horse till a tree and there he did off his shield and hung it upon a tree and then went to the chapel door and found it waste and broken and within he found a fair altar
full richly arrayed with cloth of clean silk and there stood a fair clean candlestick which bare six great candles and the candlestick was of silver and when sir launcelot saw this light he had great will for to enter into the chapel
but he could find no place where he might enter then was he passing heavy and dismayed then he returned and came to his horse and did off his saddle and bridle and let him pasture and unlaced his helm and ungirt his sword
all this sir launcelot saw and beheld for he slept not verily and he heard him say o sweet lord when shall this sorrow leave me and when shall the holy vessel come by me wherethrough i shall be blessed for i have endured thus long for little trespass
a full great while complained the knight thus and always sir launcelot heard it with that sir launcelot saw the candlestick with the six tapers come before the cross and he saw nobody that brought it
also there came a table of silver and the holy vessel of the sangreal which launcelot had seen aforetime in king pescheour's house and therewith the sick knight set him up and held up both his hands and said fair sweet lord which is here within this holy vessel
take heed unto me that i may be whole of this malady and therewith on his hands and on his knees he went so nigh that he touched the holy vessel and kissed it and anon he was whole and then he said lord god i thank thee for i am healed of this sickness
so when the holy vessel had been there a great while it went unto the chapel with the chandelier and the light so that launcelot wist not where it was become for he was overtaken with sin that he had no power to rise again the holy vessel
wherefore after that many men said of him shame but he took repentance after that then the sick knight dressed him up and kissed the cross anon his squire brought him his arms and asked his lord how he did
through the holy vessel i am healed but i have marvel of this sleeping knight that had no power to awake when this holy vessel was brought hither i dare right well say said the squire that he dwelleth in some deadly sin whereof he was never confessed
by my faith said the knight whatsomever he be he is unhappy for as i deem he is of the fellowship of the round table the which is entered into the quest of the sangreal sir said the squire
here i have brought you all your arms save your helm and your sword and therefore by mine assent now may ye take this knight's helm and his sword and so he did
and when sir launcelot heard this he was passing heavy and wist not what to do and so departed sore weeping and cursed the time that he was born for then he deemed never to have had worship more
and then he called himself a very wretch and most unhappy of all knights and there he said my sin and my wickedness have brought me unto great dishonour for when i sought worldly adventures for worldly desires i ever enchieved them and had the better in every place
and never was i discomfit in no quarrel were it right or wrong and now i take upon me the adventures of holy things and now i see and understand that mine old sin hindereth me and shameth me so that i had no power to stir nor speak when the holy blood appeared afore me
yea forsooth and my name is sir launcelot du lake that hath been right well said of and now my good fortune is changed
for this fourteen year i never discovered one thing that i have used and that may i now wite my shame and my disadventure and then he told there that good man all his life and how he had loved a queen unmeasurably and out of measure long
then sir launcelot said i pray you counsel me i will counsel you said the hermit if ye will ensure me that ye will never come in that queen's fellowship as much as ye may forbear and then sir launcelot promised him he nold by the faith of his body
look that your heart and your mouth accord said the good man and i shall ensure you ye shall have more worship than ever ye had holy father said sir launcelot i marvel of the voice that said to me marvellous words as ye have heard to forehand
therefore thou art more than any stone and never wouldst thou be made nesh nor by water nor by fire and that is the heat of the holy ghost may not enter in thee
now take heed in all the world men shall not find one knight to whom our lord hath given so much of grace as he hath given you for he hath given you fairness with seemliness he hath given thee wit discretion to know good from evil
and now our lord will suffer thee no longer
for where overmuch sin dwelleth there may be but little sweetness wherefore thou art likened to an old rotten tree
now shall i shew thee why thou art more naked and barer than the fig tree it befell that our lord on palm sunday preached in jerusalem and there he found in the people that all hardness was harboured in them and there he found in all the town not one that would harbour him
and then he went without the town and found in midst of the way a fig tree the which was right fair and well garnished of leaves but fruit had it none then our lord cursed the tree that bare no fruit that betokeneth the fig tree unto jerusalem that had leaves and no fruit
so thou sir launcelot when the holy grail was brought afore thee he found in thee no fruit nor good thought nor good will and defouled with lechery
all that you have said is true and from henceforward i cast me by the grace of god never to be so wicked as i have been but as to follow knighthood and to do feats of arms
then the good man enjoined sir launcelot such penance as he might do and to sewe knighthood and so assoiled him and prayed sir launcelot to abide with him all that day i will well said sir launcelot for i have neither helm nor horse nor sword
as for that said the good man i shall help you or to morn at even of an horse and all that longed unto you and then sir launcelot repented him greatly
there was another cause which greatly contributed to diminish the power as well as the prestige of this eccentric sovereign
which raised an outcry amongst these sections of their community the archisuppots and the cagoux at first declined such an alliance but eventually they were obliged to admit all with the exception of the wood thieves who were altogether excluded
it was necessary not only to solicit alms like any mere beggar but also to possess the dexterity of the cut purse and the thief these arts were to be learned in the places which served as the habitual rendezvous of the very dregs of society
and which were generally known as the cours des miracles these houses or rather resorts had been so called if we are to believe a writer of the early part of the seventeenth century
to get there one must wander through narrow close and by streets and in order to enter it one must descend a somewhat winding and rugged declivity
in this place i found a mud house half buried very shaky from old age and rottenness and only eight metres square but in which nevertheless some fifty families are living
who have the charge of a large number of children many of whom are stolen or illegitimate i was assured that upwards of five hundred large families occupy that and other houses adjoining large as this court is it was formerly even bigger
every one enjoys the present and eats in the evening what he has earned during the day with so much trouble and often with so many blows for it is one of the fundamental rules of the cour des miracles never to lay by anything for the morrow
every one who lives there indulges in the utmost licentiousness both religion and law are utterly ignored it is true that outwardly they appear to acknowledge a god for they have set up
in a niche an image of god the father which they have stolen from some church and before which they come daily to offer up certain prayers but this is only because they superstitiously imagine
that by this means they are released from the necessity of performing the duties of christians to their pastor and their parish and are even absolved from the sin of entering a church for the purpose of robbery and purse cutting
paris the capital of the kingdom of rogues was not the only town which possessed a cour des miracles
some traces of these privileged resorts of rogues and thieves
sauval states on the testimony of people worthy of credit that at sainte anne d'auray the most holy place of pilgrimage in brittany
this was covered with mud huts and here
that is to say in order to settle and arrange respecting robbery at these state meetings which were not always held at sainte anne d'auray
some came and paid him the tribute which was required of them by the statutes of the craft others rendered him an account of what they had done and what they had earned during the year when they had executed their work badly
he ordered them to be punished either corporally or pecuniarily
which is still in use under the name of argot or
had for the most part been borrowed from the jargon or slang of the lower orders to a considerable extent according to the learned philologist of this mysterious language
it was composed of french words lengthened or abbreviated of proverbial expressions of words expressing the symbols of things instead of the things themselves
of terms either intentionally or unintentionally altered from their true meaning and of words which resembled other words in sound but which had not the same signification
from pain bread which they put into it the arms were lyans binders
horned a purse a fouille or fouillouse a cock
nine pins a sou a rond or round thing the eyes
which testifies to the part which these vagabonds played in the formation of the argotic community for example
words all derived from the gipsy word lima a shirt
which in the gipsy tongue mean respectively silver castle and knife
one might perhaps be tempted to suppose that france was specially privileged but it was not so for italy was far worse in this respect the rogues were called by the italians bianti or ceretani
and were subdivided into more than forty classes
it is not necessary to state that the analogue of more than one of these classes is to be found in the short description we have given of the argotic kingdom in france we will therefore only mention those which were more especially italian
it must not be forgotten that in the southern countries where religions superstition was more marked than elsewhere the numerous family of rogues had no difficulty in practising every description of imposture
inasmuch as they trusted to the various manifestations of religions feeling to effect their purposes
thus the affrati in order to obtain more alms and offerings went about in the garb of monks and priests even saying mass and pretending that it was the first time they had exercised their sacred office
with their string of beads in their hands and asking how they were to pay for the bell
the felsi pretended that they were divinely inspired and endowed with the gift of second sight and announced that there were hidden treasures in certain houses under the guardianship of evil spirits they asserted that these treasures could not be discovered without danger
except by means of fastings and offerings which they and their brethren could alone make in consideration of which they entered into a bargain and received a certain sum of money from the owners
the accatosi deserve mention on account of the cleverness with which they contrived to assume the appearance of captives recently escaped from slavery shaking the chains with which they said they had been bound
jabbering unintelligible words telling heart rending tales of their sufferings and privations
they went on their knees begging for money that they might buy off their brethren or their friends
it is probable moreover that robbers did not always commit their depredations singly and that they early understood the advantages of associating together the tafurs or halegrins
at the time of the crusades towards the end of the eleventh century were terribly bad characters and are actually accused by contemporary writers of violating tombs and of living on human flesh
on this account they were looked upon with the utmost horror by the infidels who dreaded more their savage ferocity than the valour of the crusaders the latter even
under the protection of the cross these miscreants committed depredations
from the king of that country an ancient poet has handed down to us a story in verse setting forth the exploits of eustace the monk who after having thrown aside his frock
embraced the life of a robber and only abandoned it to become admiral of france under philip augustus he was killed before sandwich in twelve seventeen we have satisfactory proof that as early as the thirteenth century
sharpers were very expert masters of their trade for the ingenious and amusing tricks of which they were guilty are quite equal to the most skilled of those now recorded in our police reports
in the two following centuries the science of the pince and of the croc pincers and hook as it was then called alone made progress and pathelin
a character in comedy and an incomparable type of craft and dishonesty never lacked disciples any more than villon did imitators we know that this charming poet who was at the same time a most expert thief
and who bids farewell to the innkeeper by wiping his nose on the tablecloth
we ought to cite one of a later period
who excelled in all kinds of rascality
the character of panurge
we must also mention one of the pamphlets of guillaume bouchet written towards the end of the sixteenth century which gives a very amusing account of thieves of every description
it must not be supposed that in those days the life of a robber who pursued his occupation with any degree of industry and skill was unattended with danger for the most harmless cut purses were hung without mercy whenever they were caught
to introduce to him on the occasion of a banquet and a ball the cleverest cut purses giving them full liberty to exhibit their skill
whom he presented to the king charles after the dinner and the ball had taken place
either in money from purses or in precious stones pearls or other jewels some of the guests even lost their cloaks at which the king thought he should die of laughter the king allowed them to keep what they had thus earned
at the expense of his guests but he forbad them to continue this sort of life under penalty of being hung and he had them enrolled in the army in order to recompense them for their clever feats
first appearance of gipsies in the west gipsies in paris manners and customs of these wandering tribes tricks of captain charles gipsies expelled by royal edict
language of gipsies the kingdom of slang
divisions of the slang people its decay and the causes thereof cours des miracles the camp of rognes cunning language or slang
foreign rogues thieves and pickpockets in the year fourteen seventeen
were disturbed by the arrival of strangers whose manners and appearance were far from pre possessing these strange travellers took a course thence towards the teutonic hanse starting from luneburg
they subsequently proceeded to hamburg and then going from east to west along the baltic they visited the free towns of lubeck
and greifswald these new visitors known in europe under the names of zingari cigani gipsies
besides the children who were very numerous they divided themselves into seven bands all of which followed the same track very dirty excessively ugly and remarkable for their dark complexions
king of the romans and these letters whether authentic or false
the cantons of appenzell and zurich stopping in argovie chroniclers who mention them at that time speak of their chief michel as duke of egypt
and relate that these strangers calling themselves egyptians pretended that they were driven from their country by the sultan of turkey and condemned to wander for seven years in want and misery
these chroniclers add that they were very honest people who scrupulously followed all the practices of the christian religion that they were poorly clad but that they had gold and silver in abundance that they lived well and paid for everything they had
they went away to return home as they said however whether because a considerable number remained on the road or because they had been reinforced by others of the same tribe during the year a troop of fifty men accompanied by a number of hideous women
and filthy children made their appearance in the neighbourhood of augsburg
and pretended to know the art of predicting coming events
and on the eighteenth of july fourteen twenty two
duke of egypt and composed of at least one hundred persons including women and children
telling them their fortunes or bartering in shops one of their number would lay her hands on anything which was within reach so many robberies were committed in this way that the magistrates of the town and the ecclesiastical authorities
forbad the inhabitants from visiting the egyptians camp or from having any intercourse with them
besides this by a strange application of the laws of retaliation those who had been robbed by these foreigners were permitted to rob them to the extent of the value of the things stolen
in consequence of this the bolognians entered a stable in which several of the egyptians horses were kept and took out one of the finest of them in order to recover him the egyptians agreed to restore what they had taken and the restitution was made
but perceiving that they could no longer do any good for themselves in this province
the sunday after the middle of august says the journal of a bourgeois of paris there came to paris twelve so called pilgrims that is to say a duke a count and ten men all on horseback
they said that they were very good christians and that they came from lower egypt and on the twenty ninth of august the anniversary of the beheading of saint john the rest of the band made their appearance
they did not number more than one hundred and twenty including women and children they stated that when they left their own country they numbered from a thousand to twelve hundred but that the rest had died on the road
whilst they were at the chapel never was such a concourse of people collected
they managed to empty people's purses whilst talking to them so at least every one said at last accounts respecting them reached the ears of the bishop of paris he went to them with a franciscan friar called le petit jacobin
who by the bishop's order delivered an earnest address to them and excommunicated all those who had anything to do with them
had then ordered them to wander about the world for seven years without sleeping in beds
a direction which the abbots and bishops were in no hurry to obey these strange pilgrims stated that they had been only five years on the road when they arrived in paris
not only in the north but in the south and especially in the centre of europe suffice it to say that their quarrels with the authorities or the inhabitants of the countries which had the misfortune to be periodically visited by them
have left numerous traces in history on the seventh of november fourteen fifty three from sixty to eighty gipsies coming from courtisolles arrived at the entrance of the town of cheppe
the strangers many of whom carried javelins darts and other implements of war having asked for hospitality the mayor of the town informed them that it was not long since some of the same company or others very like them
had been lodged in the town and had been guilty of various acts of theft the gipsies persisted in their demands the indignation of the people was aroused and they were soon obliged to resume their journey during their unwilling retreat
the murderer however obtained the king's pardon in fifteen thirty two at pleinpalais a suburb of geneva some rascals from among a band of gipsies consisting of upwards of three hundred in number
gave orders to the soldiers of the watch to arrest a gipsy chief who having shut himself up in the tower of veyrines at merignac ransacked the surrounding country on the twenty first of july sixteen twenty two
the same magistrates ordered the gipsies to leave the parish of eysines within twenty four hours under penalty of the lash it was not often that the gipsies used violence or openly resisted authority
they more frequently had recourse to artifice and cunning in order to attain their end
and which his troop undertook to carry out a chronicler of the time says that by means of certain herbs which he gave to a half starved horse he made him into a fat and sleek animal
the horse was then sold at one of the neighbouring fairs or markets but the purchaser detected the fraud within a week
and usually sickened and died
in this difficulty they pretended that one of them had committed a crime and had been condemned to be hung a quarter of a league from the village where they betook themselves with all their goods the man at the foot of the gibbet
he at first refused to go but his parishioners compelled him during his absence some gipsies entered his house
as soon as the rascal saw them returning
i expected he would appeal
the butcher paid him the money and went away when he got home he opened the sack and was much astonished when he saw a little boy jump out of it who in an instant caught up the sack and ran off
in proof of which we have but to refer to the testimony of one of their own tribe who
published towards the close of the sixteenth century
they set out in an opposite direction to that in which they are going and after travelling about half a league they take their right course they possess the best and most accurate maps in which are laid down not only all the towns villages and rivers
but also the houses of the gentry and others and they fix upon places of rendezvous every ten days
the captain hands over to each of the chiefs three or four families to take charge of and these small bands take different cross roads towards the place of rendezvous
those who are well armed and mounted he sends off with a good almanac on which are marked all the fairs and they continually change their dress and their horses when they take up their quarters in any village
they steal very little in its immediate vicinity but in the neighbouring parishes they rob and plunder in the most daring manner if they find a sum of money they give notice to the captain and make a rapid flight from the place
they coin counterfeit money and put it into circulation they play at all sorts of games they buy all sorts of horses whether sound or unsound provided they can manage to pay for them in their own base coin when they buy food
they pay for it in good money the first time as they are held in such distrust but when they are about to leave a neighbourhood they again buy something for which they tender false coin receiving the change in good money
in harvest time all doors are shut against them nevertheless they contrive by means of picklocks and other instruments to effect an entrance into houses when they steal linen cloaks silver
and any other movable article which they can lay their hands on
except of what they earn by fortune telling
when they know of a rich merchant being in the place they disguise themselves enter into communications with him
though we must admit that these measures sometimes partook of a barbarous character after having forbidden them with a threat of six years at the galleys to sojourn in spain
in fifteen forty five a gipsy who had infringed the sentence of banishment was condemned by the court of utrecht to be flogged till the blood appeared to have his nostrils slit his hair removed his beard shaved off and to be banished for life
we can form some idea says the german historian grellman of the miserable condition of the gipsies from the following facts
having been arrested flogged and conducted to the frontier with the threat that if he reappeared in the country he would be hanged resolutely returned after three successive and similar threats at three different places
and implored that the capital sentence might be carried out in order that he might be released from a life of such misery these unfortunate people continues the historian were not even looked upon as human beings for
during a hunting party consisting of members of a small german court the huntsmen had no scruple whatever in killing a gipsy woman who was suckling her child just as they would have done any wild beast which came in their way
m francisque michel says amongst the questions which arise from a consideration of the existence of this remarkable people is one which although neglected is nevertheless of considerable interest
namely how with a strange language unlike any used in europe the gipsies could make themselves understood by the people amongst whom they made their appearance for the first time
newly arrived in the west they could have none of those interpreters who are only to be found amongst a long established people and who have political and commercial intercourse with other nations
the answer seems to us to be clear receiving into their ranks all those whom crime the fear of punishment an uneasy conscience or the charm of a roaming life continually threw in their path
they made use of them either to find their way into countries of which they were ignorant
or dishonest beggars
a vagabond broken to all the tricks of his trade says m francisque michel
history has furnished us with the story of a miserable cripple
he was called roi de tunes
and was drawn about by two large dogs
who suffered from the same infirmity namely that of a cripple rode about paris on a donkey begging he generally held his court
where he sat on his throne dressed in a mantle made of a thousand pieces
whose business it was to initiate apprentices in the secrets of the craft and who looked after in different localities those whom the chief had entrusted to his care he gave an account of the property he received in thus exercising his stewardship
and of the money as well as of the clothing which he took from the argotiers who refused to recognise his authority
they received their share of the property taken from persons whom they had ordered to be robbed and they were free to beg in any way they pleased
who being recruited from the lowest dregs of the clergy and others who had been in a better position
they were covered with sores most of which were self inflicted
but they earned a considerable amount especially in winter for benevolent people touched with their destitution and half nakedness gave them sometimes a doublet sometimes a shirt or some other article of clothing which of course they immediately sold
were sickly members of the fraternity or at all events pretended to be such
introduction as this work professes in its title page to be a descriptive tale they who will take the trouble to read it may be glad to know how much of its contents
is literal fact and how much is intended to represent a general picture the author is very sensible that had he confined himself to the latter
always the most effective as it is the most valuable mode of conveying knowledge of this nature he would have made a far better book but in commencing to describe scenes and perhaps he may add characters
that were so familiar to his own youth there was a constant temptation to delineate that which he had known rather than that which he might have imagined this rigid adhesion to truth
an indispensable requisite in history and travels destroys the charm of fiction for all that is necessary to be conveyed to the mind by the latter had better be done
there can be no mistake as to the site of the tale the history of this district of country
in a subsequent division of territory a part of montgomery and finally having obtained a sufficient population of its own it was set apart as a county by itself shortly after the peace of seventeen eighty three
or northerly into ontario and its outlet otsego lake being the source of the susquehanna is of necessity among its highest lands the face of the country the climate as it was found by the whites
and sego or sago the ordinary term of salutation used by the indians of this region there is a tradition which says that the neighboring tribes were accustomed to meet on the banks of the lake
to make their treaties and otherwise to strengthen their alliances and which refers the name to this practice as the indian agent of new york had a log dwelling at the foot of the lake however
the author remembers it a few years later reduced to the humble office of a smoke house
whence it cut a lane through the forest to the head of the otsego the boats and baggage were carried over this portage and the troops proceeded to the other extremity of the lake
a narrow though rapid stream at its source was much filled with flood wood or fallen trees and the troops adopted a novel expedient to facilitate their passage the otsego
which may have a width of two hundred feet this gorge was dammed and the waters of the lake collected the susquehanna was converted into a rill when all was ready
the troops embarked the damn was knocked away the otsego poured out its torrent and the boats went merrily down with the current general james clinton the brother of george clinton
the grave of this unfortunate man was the first place of human interment that the author ever beheld as the smoke house was the first ruin the swivel alluded to in this work
was buried and abandoned by the troops on this occasion and it was subsequently found in digging the cellars of the authors paternal residence soon after the close of the war washington
accompanied by many distinguished men visited the scene of this tale it is said with a view to examine the facilities for opening a communication by water with other points of the country he stayed but a few hours
in seventeen eighty five the author's father who had an interest in extensive tracts of land in this wilderness arrived with a party of surveyors the manner in which the scene met his eye is described by judge temple
at the commencement of the following year the settlement began and from that time to this the country has continued to flourish
that at the beginning of this century when the proprietor of the estate had occasion for settlers on a new settlement and in a remote county he was enabled to draw them from among the increase of the former colony
perhaps his mother had a reasonable distrust of the practice of doctor todd who must then have been in the novitiate of his experimental acquirements be that as it may the author was brought an infant into this valley
and all his first impressions were here obtained he has inhabited it ever since at intervals and he thinks he can answer for the faithfulness of the picture he has drawn
otsego has now become one of the most populous districts of new york it sends forth its emigrants like any other old region and it is pregnant with industry and enterprise
its manufacturers are prosperous and it is worthy of remark that one of the most ingenious machines known in european art
which is exercised in this remote region in order to prevent mistake it may be well to say that the incidents of this tale are purely a fiction
the literal facts are chiefly connected with the natural and artificial objects and the customs of the inhabitants thus the academy and court house and jail and inn and most similar things
it was erected in an age too primitive for that ambitious school of architecture but the author indulged his recollections freely when he had fairly entered the door here all is literal
though forests still crown the mountains of otsego the bear the wolf and the panther are nearly strangers to them even the innocent deer is rarely seen bounding beneath their arches
for the rifle and the activity of the settlers hare driven them to other haunts to this change which in some particulars is melancholy to one who knew the country in its infancy it may be added
the author has elsewhere said that the character of leather stocking is a creation rendered probable by such auxiliaries as were necessary to produce that effect
had he drawn still more upon fancy the lovers of fiction would not have so much cause for their objections to his work still the picture would not have been in the least true without some substitutes
the pious self denying laborious and ill paid missionary the half educated litigious envious and disreputable lawyer with his counterpoise a brother of the profession of better origin and of better character
the shiftless bargaining discontented seller of his betterments the plausible carpenter and most of the others are more familiar to all who have ever dwelt in a new country
it has been often said and in published statements that the heroine of this book was drawn after the sister of the writer who was killed by a fall from a horse now near half a century since
so ingenious is conjecture that a personal resemblance has been discovered between the fictitious character and the deceased relative it is scarcely possible to describe two females
of the same class in life who would be less alike personally than elizabeth temple
who met with the deplorable fate mentioned in a word
were it not still more painful to have it believed that one whom he regarded with a reverence that surpassed the love of a brother was converted by him into the heroine of a work of fiction
from circumstances which after this introduction will be obvious to all the author has had more pleasure in writing the pioneers than the book will probably ever give any of its readers
he is quite aware of its numerous faults some of which he has endeavored to repair in this edition but as he has in intention at least done his full share
the other quickly recovered from the alarm which induced the exclamation and laughing at her own weakness she inquired of the youth who rode by her side are such specters frequent in the woods heyward or is this sight
which we boast even before we are made to encounter the redoubtable montcalm yon indian is a runner of the army and after the fashion of his people he may be accounted a hero returned the officer
said the lady shuddering partly in assumed yet more in real terror you know him duncan
say rather alice that i would not trust you i do know him or he would not have my confidence and least of all at this moment he is said to be a canadian too and yet he served with our friends the mohawks
the private path by which we are to journey is doubtless at hand the conjecture of major heyward was true when they reached the spot where the indian stood pointing into the thicket that fringed the military road a narrow and blind path
which might with some little inconvenience receive one person at a time became visible here then lies our way said the young man in a low voice manifest no distrust or you may invite the danger you appear to apprehend
cora what think you asked the reluctant fair one if we journey with the troops though we may find their presence irksome shall we not feel better assurance of our safety
you mistake the place of real danger said heyward if enemies have reached the portage at all a thing by no means probable as our scouts are abroad they will surely be found skirting the column
the route of the detachment is known while ours having been determined within the hour must still be secret should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners and that his skin is dark coldly asked cora
alice hesitated no longer but giving her narrangansett a smart cut of the whip she was the first to dash aside the slight branches of the bushes and to follow the runner along the dark and tangled pathway
the canadian savages should be lurking so far in advance of their army for many minutes the intricacy of the route admitted of no further dialogue after which they emerged from the broad border of underbrush which grew along the line of the highway
and entered under the high but dark arches of the forest here their progress was less interrupted and the instant the guide perceived that the females could command their steeds he moved on at a pace between a trot and a walk
his meager beast to endure without coming to an open rupture until now this personage had escaped the observation of the travelers if he possessed the power to arrest any wandering eye when exhibiting the glories of his altitude on foot
his equestrian graces were still more likely to attract attention notwithstanding a constant application of his one armed heel to the flanks of the mare the most confirmed gait that he could establish was a canterbury gallop with the hind legs
for it is certain that heyward who possessed a true eye for the merits of a horse was unable with his utmost ingenuity to decide by what sort of movement his pursuer worked his sinuous way on his footsteps
with such persevering hardihood the industry and movements of the rider were not less remarkable than those of the ridden at each change in the evolutions of the latter the former raised his tall person in the stirrups producing in this manner
one side of the mare appeared to journey faster than the other and that the aggrieved flank was resolutely indicated by unremitted flourishes of a bushy tail we finish the picture of both horse and man
and even the dark thoughtful eye of cora
of its mistress repressed seek you any here
good company would seem consistent to the wishes of both parties you appear to possess the privilege of a casting vote returned heyward we are three while you have consulted no one but yourself even so the first point to be obtained
is to know one's own mind once sure of that and where women are concerned it is not easy the next is to act up to the decision i have endeavored to do both and here i am
prohibited a more open expression of his admiration of a witticism that was perfectly unintelligible to his hearers he continued it is not prudent for any one of my profession to be too familiar with those he has to instruct
for which reason i follow not the line of the army besides which i conclude that a gentleman of your character has the best judgment in matters of wayfaring i have therefore decided to join company
but you speak of instruction and of a profession are you an adjunct to the provincial corps as a master of the noble science of defense and offense or perhaps
under the pretense of expounding the mathematics
having committed no palpable sin since last entreating his pardoning grace i understand not your allusions about lines and angles
cried the amused alice and i take him under my own especial protection nay throw aside that frown heyward and in pity to my longing ears suffer him to journey in our train besides she added in a low and hurried voice
casting a glance at the distant cora
then yielding to her gentle influence he clapped his spurs
might fill the latter if one may judge from the intonations of his voice in common dialogue judge not too rashly from hasty and deceptive appearances said the lady smiling though major heyward can assume such deep notes on occasion
believe me his natural tones are better fitted for a mellow tenor than the bass you heard is he then much practiced in the art of psalmody demanded her simple companion alice felt disposed to laugh
though she succeeded in suppressing her merriment ere she answered i apprehend that he is rather addicted to profane song the chances of a soldier's life are but little fitted for the encouragement of more sober inclinations
man's voice is given to him like his other talents to be used and not to be abused
you have then limited your efforts to sacred song even so as the psalms of david exceed all other language so does the psalmody that has been fitted to them by the divines
and sages of the land surpass all vain poetry happily
for though the times may call for some slight changes yet does this version which we use in the colonies of new england so much exceed all other versions that by its richness its exactness and its spiritual simplicity it approacheth as near
i never abide in any place sleeping or waking without an example of this gifted work tis the six and twentieth edition promulgated at boston
seventeen forty four and is entitled the psalms hymns and spiritual songs of the old and new testaments faithfully translated into english metre for the use edification and comfort of the saints
in public and private especially in new england
first pronounced the word standish and placing the unknown engine already described to his mouth from which he drew a high shrill sound that was followed by an octave below from his own voice
together e e n in unity for brethren so to dwell it's like the choice ointment from the head to the beard did go down aaron's head that downward went his garment's skirts unto
the delivery of these skillful rhymes was accompanied on the part of the stranger by a regular rise and fall of his right hand which terminated at the descent by suffering the fingers to dwell a moment on the leaves of the little volume
it would seem long practice had rendered this manual accompaniment necessary
had been duly delivered like a word of two syllables such an innovation on the silence and retirement of the forest could not fail to enlist the ears of those who journeyed at so short a distance in advance the indian muttered
a few words in broken english to heyward who in his turn spoke to the stranger at once interrupting and for the time closing his musical efforts though we are not in danger common prudence would teach us to journey through this wilderness
returned the arch girl for never did i hear a more unworthy conjunction of execution and language
and i was far gone in a learned inquiry into the causes of such an unfitness between sound and sense when you broke the charm of my musings by that bass of yours duncan i know not what you call my bass said heyward
piqued at her remark but i know that your safety and that of cora is far dearer to me than could be any orchestra of handel's music he paused and turned his head quickly toward a thicket and then bent his eyes suspiciously on their guide
who continued his steady pace in undisturbed gravity the young man smiled to himself for he believed he had mistaken some shining berry of the woods for the glistening eyeballs of a prowling savage and he rode forward continuing the conversation
which had been interrupted by the passing thought major heyward was mistaken only in suffering his youthful and generous pride to suppress his active watchfulness the cavalcade had not long passed
before the branches of the bushes that formed the thicket were cautiously moved asunder and a human visage
there is so much obscurity in the indian traditions
few men exhibit greater diversity or if we may so express it greater antithesis of character than the native warrior of north america in war he is daring
modest and commonly chaste these are qualities it is true which do not distinguish all alike but they are so far the predominating traits of these remarkable people
as to be characteristic it is generally believed that the aborigines of the american continent have an asiatic origin there are many physical as well as moral facts which corroborate this opinion
the imagery of the indian both in his poetry
is oriental chastened and perhaps improved by the limited range of his practical knowledge he draws his metaphors from the clouds the seasons the birds the beasts
and the vegetable world in this perhaps he does no more than any other energetic and imaginative race would do being compelled to set bounds to fancy by experience but
the north american indian clothes his ideas in a dress which is different from that of the african and is oriental in itself his language
has the richness and sententious fullness of the chinese he will express a phrase in a word and he will qualify the meaning of an entire sentence by a syllable
he will even convey different significations by the simplest inflections of the voice philologists have said that there are but two or three languages properly speaking
and seemingly conversed much together yet according to the account of the interpreter each was absolutely ignorant of what the other said
it is quite certain they are now so distinct in their words as to possess most of the disadvantages of strange languages hence much of the embarrassment that has arisen in learning their histories
and most of the uncertainty which exists in their traditions like nations of higher pretensions the american indian gives a very different account of his own tribe or race from that which is given by other people
which may possibly be thought corroborative of the mosaic account of the creation the whites have assisted greatly in rendering the traditions of the aborigines more obscure by their own manner of corrupting names
thus the term used in the title of this book has undergone the changes of mahicanni mohicans and mohegans the latter being the word commonly used by the whites
that the indians not only gave different names to their enemies but frequently to themselves the cause of the confusion will be understood in these pages
delawares wapanachki and mohicans all mean the same people or tribes of the same stock
the maquas the mingoes and the iroquois though not all strictly the same are identified frequently by the speakers being politically confederated and opposed to those just named mingo
the mohicans were the possessors of the country first occupied by the europeans in this portion of the continent they were consequently the first dispossessed
and the seemingly inevitable fate of all these people who disappear before the advances or it might be termed the inroads of civilization
there is sufficient historical truth in the picture to justify the use that has been made of it in point of fact the country which is the scene of the following tale
glen's has a large village and while william henry and even a fortress of later date are only to be traced as ruins there is another village on the shores of the horican but beyond this
the enterprise and energy of a people who have done so much in other places have done little here the whole of that wilderness in which the latter incidents of the legend occurred is nearly a wilderness still
while writing this book fully a quarter of a century since it occurred to us that the french name of this lake was too complicated the american too commonplace and the indian too unpronounceable
for either to be used familiarly in a work of fiction looking over an ancient map it was ascertained that a tribe of indians called les horicans by the french
existed in the neighborhood of this beautiful sheet of water as every word uttered by natty bumppo was not to be received as rigid truth we took the liberty of putting the horican into his mouth
for the appellation of our finest sheet of water
between the two men for a moment alone in the room where none could see or hear them
at the outset of the conversation he took the affirmative and assumed the part of an accuser
your name is dacosta at the guilty name which torres thus gave him
you are joam dacosta continued torres
no for joam garral made no start at the terrible accusations doubtless he wanted to know to what torres was coming joam dacosta i repeat it was you
whom they sought for this diamond affair whom they convicted of crime and sentenced to death and it was you who escaped from the prison at villa rica a few hours before you should have been executed do you not answer
and saying to him a man is there whose identity can easily be established who can be recognized even after twenty five years absence and this man was the instigator of the diamond robbery
he was the accomplice of the murderers of the soldiers of the escort he is the man who escaped from execution he is joam garral whose true name is joam dacosta and so torres said joam garral
no matter how much you offered me what do you want then joam garral replied torres here is my proposal do not be in a hurry to reply by a formal refusal remember that you are in my power
asked joam torres hesitated for a moment the attitude of this guilty man whose life he held in his hands was enough to astonish him he had expected a stormy discussion and prayers and tears
never flinched at length crossing his arms he said you have a daughter i like her and i want to marry her apparently joam garral expected anything from such a man
and was as quiet as before and so he said the worthy torres is anxious to enter the family of a murderer and a thief i am the sole judge of what it suits me to do said torres
you will break it off with manoel valdez and if my daughter declines if you tell her all i have no doubt she would consent was the impudent answer all
whose coolness never forsook him a scoundrel and a murderer were made to understand each other
and i add replied joam that you hold the proof of his innocence and are keeping it back to proclaim it on the day when you marry his daughter fair play joam garral answered torres lowering his voice
and when you have heard me out you will see if you dare refuse me your daughter i am listening torres well said the adventurer half keeping back his words as if he was sorry to let them escape from his lips
i know you are innocent i know it for i know the true culprit and i am in a position to prove your innocence and the unhappy man who committed the crime is dead
and the word made him turn pale in spite of himself as if it had deprived him of all power of reinstatement dead repeated torres but this man whom i knew a long time after his crime
and without knowing that he was a convict had written out at length in his own hand the story of this affair of the diamonds even to the smallest details feeling his end approaching he was seized with remorse
he knew where joam dacosta had taken refuge and under what name the innocent man had again begun a new life he knew that he was rich in the bosom of a happy family but he knew also that there was no happiness for him and this happiness he desired
and he died the man's name exclaimed joam garral in a tone he could not control you will know it when i am one of your family and the writing
joam garral was ready to throw himself on torres to search him to snatch from him the proofs of his innocence the writing is in a safe place replied torres and you will not have it until your daughter has become my wife
and it is thus that you respect the wishes of a dying man of a criminal tortured by remorse and who has charge you to repair as much as he could the evil which he had done
it is thus once more torres said joam garral you are a consummate scoundrel be it so
and as i am not a criminal we were not made to understand one another and your refuse i refuse it will be your ruin then joam garral
you are executed and i will denounce you master as he was of himself joam could stand it no longer he was about to rush on torres a gesture from the rascal cooled his anger take care
said torres your wife knows not that she is the wife of joam dacosta
of joam dacosta and you are not going to give them the information joam garral stopped himself he regained his usual command over himself and his features recovered their habitual calm
this discussion has lasted long enough said he moving toward the door and i know what there is left for me to do
for the last time for he could scarcely believe that his ignoble attempt at extortion had collapsed joam garral made him no answer he threw back the door which opened under the veranda made a sign to torres to follow him
and they advanced toward the center of the jangada where the family were assembled
and all of them under a feeling of deep anxiety had risen they could see that the bearing of torres was still menacing and that the fire of anger still shone in his eyes
in extraordinary contrast joam garral was master of himself and almost smiling
and her people not one dared to say a word to them it was torres who in a hollow voice and with his customary impudence broke the painful silence for the last time joam garral he said
i ask you for a last reply and here is my reply and addressing his wife yaquita he said peculiar circumstances oblige me to alter what we have formerly decided
at last exclaimed torres joam garral without answering him shot at the adventurer a glance of the deepest scorn
the girl arose ashy pale as if she would seek shelter by the side of her mother yaquita opened her arms to protect to defend her father said benito
here torres with crossed arms gave the whole family a look of inconceivable insolence so that is you last word said he
no that is not my last word what is it then this torres i am master here you will be off if you please and even if you do not please
and leave the jangada at this very instant yes this instant exclaimed benito or i will throw you overboard torres shrugged his shoulders no threats he said
they are of no use it suits me also to land and without delay but you will remember me joam garral we shall not be long before we meet if it only depends on me answered joam garral we shall soon meet
and rather sooner perhaps than you will like to morrow i shall be with judge ribeiro the first magistrate of the province
the scoundrel at last disappeared the family who were still appalled respected the silence of its chief but fragoso comprehending scarce half the gravity of the situation
and carried away by his customary vivacity came up to joam garral
he retired to his room with him
had lasted for half an hour and it seemed a century to the family when the door of the room was reopened
his face glowed with generous resolution going up to yaquita he said my mother to minha he said my wife and to benito he said my brother and turning toward lina and fragoso
he said to all to morrow he knew all that had passed between joam garral and torres he knew that counting on the protection of judge ribeiro
by means of a correspondence which he had had with him for a year past without speaking of it to his people joam garral had at last succeeded in clearing himself and convincing him of his innocence
he knew that joam garral had boldly undertaken the voyage with the sole object of canceling the hateful proceedings of which he had been the victim so as not to leave on his daughter and son in law
yes manoel knew all this and further he knew that joam garral or rather joam dacosta was innocent and his misfortunes made him even dearer and more devoted to him
what he did not know was that the material proof of the innocence of the fazender existed and that this proof was in the hands of torres
the use of this proof which if the adventurer had spoken truly would demonstrate his innocence
to announcing that he was going to padre passanha to ask him to get things ready for the two weddings next day the twenty fourth of august scarcely an hour before the ceremony was to take place
a large pirogue came off from the left bank of the river and hailed the jangada
and with a few men it carried the chief of the police who made himself known and came on board
attired for the ceremony were coming out of the house joam garral asked the chief of the police i am here replied joam joam garral continued the chief of the police
by judge ribeiro no answered the chief of the police it was given to me with an order for its immediate execution by his substitute judge ribeiro was struck with apoplexy yesterday evening
heaven help us he said to him we shall see if truth will come down to the earth from above the chief of the police made a sign to his men who advanced to secure joam garral but speak father shouted benito mad with despair
say one word and we shall contest even by force this horrible mistake of which you are the victim there is no mistake here my son replied joam garral joam dacosta and joam garral are one
joam restrained by a gesture his dismayed children and servants let the justice of man be done while we wait for the justice of god and with his head unbent he stepped into the pirogue
the limits of philosophical knowledge
in all that we have said hitherto concerning philosophy
this hope i believe is vain it would seem that knowledge concerning the universe as a whole is not to be obtained by metaphysics and that the proposed proofs that in virtue of the laws of logic such and such things must exist
and such and such others cannot are not capable of surviving a critical scrutiny in this chapter we shall briefly consider the kind of way in which such reasoning is attempted with a view to discovering whether we can hope that it may be valid
which we wish to examine was hegel seventeen seventy eighteen thirty one hegel's philosophy is very difficult and commentators differ as to the true interpretation of it
according to the interpretation i shall adopt which is that of many if not most of the commentators and has the merit of giving an interesting and important type of philosophy his main thesis is that everything short of the whole
is obviously fragmentary and obviously incapable of existing without the complement supplied by the rest of the world just as a comparative anatomist from a single bone sees what kind of animal the whole must have been
which grapple it to the next piece the next piece in turn has fresh hooks and so on until the whole universe is reconstructed this essential incompleteness appears according to hegel equally in the world of thought and in the world of things
which according to him has no incompleteness no opposite and no need of further development the absolute idea therefore is adequate to describe absolute reality but all lower ideas only describe reality
not in any degree evil wholly rational and wholly spiritual any appearance to the contrary in the world we know can be proved logically so he believes
to be entirely due to our fragmentary piecemeal view of the universe if we saw the universe whole as we may suppose god sees it space and time and matter and evil and all striving and struggling
in this conception there is undeniably something sublime something to which we could wish to yield assent nevertheless when the arguments in support of it are carefully examined
they appear to involve much confusion and many unwarrantable assumptions the fundamental tenet upon which the system is built up is that what is incomplete must be not self subsistent
be what it is if those outside things did not exist
thus but for the objects which he knows or loves or hates he could not be what he is he is essentially and obviously a fragment taken as the sum total of reality he would be self contradictory
this whole point of view however turns upon the notion of the nature of a thing
is not part of the thing itself although it must according to the above usage be part of the nature of the thing if we mean by a thing's nature all the truths about the thing then plainly we cannot know a thing's nature
but if the word nature is used in this sense we shall have to hold that the thing may be known when its nature is not known or at any rate is not known completely there is a confusion when this use of the word nature is employed
thus acquaintance with a thing does not involve knowledge of its nature in the above sense and although acquaintance with a thing is involved in our knowing any one proposition about a thing knowledge of its nature in the above sense is not involved
hence one acquaintance with a thing does not logically involve a knowledge of its relations and two a knowledge of some of its relations does not involve a knowledge of all of its relations nor a knowledge of its nature in the above sense
forms a single harmonious system such as hegel believes that it forms and if we cannot prove this we also cannot prove the unreality of space and time and matter and evil for this is deduced by hegel
from the fragmentary and relational character of these things thus we are left to the piecemeal investigation of the world and are unable to know the characters of those parts of the universe that are remote from our experience
this result disappointing as it is to those whose hopes have been raised by the systems of philosophers is in harmony with the inductive and scientific temper of our age
and is borne out by the whole examination of human knowledge which has occupied our previous chapters most of the great ambitious attempts of metaphysicians have proceeded by the attempt to prove
that such and such apparent features of the actual world were self contradictory and therefore could not be real the whole tendency of modern thought however is more and more in the direction of showing that the supposed contradictions were illusory
a good illustration of this is afforded by space and time space and time appear to be infinite in extent and infinitely divisible if we travel along a straight line in either direction
it is difficult to believe that we shall finally reach a last point beyond which there is nothing not even empty space similarly if in imagination we travel backwards or forwards in time it is difficult to believe that we shall reach a first or last time
with not even empty time beyond it thus space and time appear to be infinite in extent again if we take any two points on a line it seems evident that there must be other points between them however small the distance between them may be
ad infinitum in time similarly however little time may elapse between two moments it seems evident that there will be other moments between them thus space and time appear to be infinitely divisible
but as against these apparent facts infinite extent and infinite divisibility philosophers have advanced arguments tending to show that there could be no infinite collections of things and that therefore the number of points in space
or of instants in time must be finite thus a contradiction emerged between the apparent nature of space and time and the supposed impossibility of infinite collections
kant who first emphasized this contradiction deduced the impossibility of space and time which he declared to be merely subjective and since his time very many philosophers have believed that space and time
are mere appearance not characteristic of the world as it really is now however owing to the labours of the mathematicians notably georg cantor it has appeared that the impossibility of infinite collections was a mistake
they are not in fact self contradictory but only contradictory of certain rather obstinate mental prejudices hence the reasons for regarding space and time as unreal have become inoperative
and one of the great sources of metaphysical constructions is dried up the mathematicians however have not been content with showing that space as it is commonly supposed to be is possible
they have shown also that many other forms of space are equally possible so far as logic can show some of euclid's axioms which appear to common sense to be necessary and were formerly supposed to be necessary by philosophers
are now known to derive their appearance of necessity from our mere familiarity with actual space and not from any a priori logical foundation
by imagining worlds in which these axioms are false the mathematicians have used logic to loosen the prejudices of common sense and to show the possibility of spaces differing some more some less
from that in which we live and some of these spaces differ so little from euclidean space where distances such as we can measure are concerned
our knowledge of what may be is enormously increased instead of being shut in within narrow walls of which every nook and cranny could be explored we find ourselves in an open world of free possibilities
what has happened in the case of space and time has happened to some extent in other directions as well
and leaving to experience the task of deciding where decision is possible between the many worlds which logic offers for our choice thus knowledge as to what exists becomes limited to what we can learn from experience
not to what we can actually experience for as we have seen there is much knowledge by description concerning things of which we have no direct experience but in all cases of knowledge by description we need some connexion of universals
enabling us from such and such a datum to infer an object of a certain sort as implied by our datum thus in regard to physical objects for example
is itself a connexion of universals and it is only in virtue of this principle that experience enables us to acquire knowledge concerning physical objects the same applies to the law of causality
or to descend to what is less general to such principles as the law of gravitation principles such as the law of gravitation are proved or rather are rendered highly probable
such as the principle of induction thus our intuitive knowledge which is the source of all our other knowledge of truths is of two sorts
with which we are acquainted and pure a priori knowledge
is criticism it examines critically the principles employed in science and in daily life it searches out any inconsistencies there may be in these principles and it only accepts them when as the result of a critical inquiry
no reason for rejecting them has appeared if as many philosophers have believed the principles underlying the sciences were capable when disengaged from irrelevant detail
of giving us knowledge concerning the universe as a whole such knowledge would have the same claim on our belief as scientific knowledge has
our result is in the main positive
when however we speak of philosophy as a criticism of knowledge it is necessary to impose a certain limitation if we adopt the attitude of the complete sceptic placing ourselves wholly outside all knowledge
and asking from this outside position to be compelled to return within the circle of knowledge we are demanding what is impossible and our scepticism can never be refuted for all refutation must begin with some piece of knowledge
which the disputants share from blank doubt no argument can begin hence the criticism of knowledge which philosophy employs must not be of this destructive kind if any result is to be achieved
with which modern philosophy began is not of this kind but is rather the kind of criticism which we are asserting to be the essence of philosophy his methodical doubt consisted in doubting whatever seemed doubtful
some knowledge such as knowledge of the existence of our sense data appears quite indubitable however calmly and thoroughly we reflect upon it in regard to such knowledge philosophical criticism does not require
that we should abstain from belief but there are beliefs such for example as the belief that physical objects exactly resemble our sense data which are entertained until we begin to reflect but are found to melt away when subjected to a close inquiry
such beliefs philosophy will bid us reject unless some new line of argument is found to support them but to reject the beliefs which do not appear open to any objections however closely we examine them is not reasonable
and is not what philosophy advocates the criticism aimed at in a word is not that which without reason determines to reject
philosophy may claim justly that it diminishes the risk of error and that in some cases it renders the risk so small as to be practically negligible to do more than this is not possible in a world where mistakes must occur
when marco polo had been at cambaluc some time he was sent on a mission that kept him absent from the capital for four months ten miles southwards from cambaluc he crossed the fine river pe ho nor
where a large trade in sandal wood is carried on at ten days journey from hence he came to the modern town of tai yen fou which was once the seat of an independent government
probably on account of its waters being darkened by the aquatic plants growing in them at two days journey from hence he came to the town of cacianfu whose position is not now clearly defined
he found nothing remarkable in this town and leaving it he rode across a beautiful country covered with towns country houses and gardens and abounding in game
in eight days he reached the fine city of quangianfoo the ancient capital of the tang dynasty now called signanfoo and the capital of shensi
built in the midst of a park of which the battlemented wall cannot have been less than five miles in circumference from signanfoo
a mountainous country intersected by deep valleys where lions bears lynxes and c abounded and after twenty eight days march
there is sufficient to supply all the province of cathay and so fertile is the soil that according to a french traveller
an acre is now worth fifteen thousand francs or three francs the metre in the thirteenth century this plain was covered with towns and country houses
and the inhabitants lived upon the fruits of the ground and the produce of their flocks and herds while the large quantity of game furnished hunters with abundant occupation
marco polo next visited the town of sindafou now tching too foo the capital of the province of se tchu an whose population at the present day
and each part had a king of its own before kublai khan took possession of the town the great river kiang ran through the town it contained large quantities of fish
and from its size resembled a sea more than a river its waters were covered by a vast number of vessels five days after leaving this busy thriving town marco polo reached the province of thibet
which he says is very desolate for it has been destroyed by the war thibet abounds in lions bears and other savage animals from which the travellers would have much difficulty in defending themselves
and would not approach these fires on any account thus both men horses and camels are safe in another way too protection is afforded by throwing a number of these canes on a wood fire
and when they become heated and split and the sap hisses the sound is heard at least ten miles off when any one is not accustomed to this noise it is so terrifying
that even the horses will break away from their cords and tethers so their owners often bandage their eyes and tie their feet together to prevent their running away this method of burning canes is still used in countries where the bamboo grows
and indeed the noise may be compared to the loudest explosion of fire works according to marco polo thibet is a very large province having its own language
are a race of bold thieves a large river the khin cha kiang flows over auriferous sands through the province a quantity of coral is found in it which is much used for idols and for the adornment of the women
the traveller took a westerly direction when he left sindafou and crossing the kingdom of gaindu he must have come to li kiang foo the capital of the country that is now called tsi mong
in this province he visited a beautiful lake which produces pearl oysters the fishing is the emperor's property he also found great quantities of cinnamon ginger cloves
and other spices under cultivation after leaving the province of gaindu and crossing a large river probably the irrawaddy
which probably forms the north western part of yunnan according to his account all the inhabitants of this province who are mostly great riders
buffaloes and oxen the rich seasoning their raw meat with garlic sauce and good spices this country is infested with great adders and serpents hideous to look upon
these reptiles probably alligators were ten feet long had two legs armed with claws and with their large heads and great jaws could at one gulp swallow a man
five days journey west of carajan marco polo took a new route to the south and entered the province of zardandan
the men of this province employed themselves only in hunting catching birds and making war the hard work all devolving upon the women and slaves
these zardanians have neither idols nor churches but they each worship their ancestor the patriarch of the family their tradesmen carry their goods about on barrows like the bakers in france
bhamo where a market is held three times a week which attracts merchants from the most distant countries after riding for fifteen days through forests filled with elephants
unicorns and other wild animals he came to the great city of mien that is to say to that part of upper burmah of which the present capital of recent erection is called amarapura this city of mien
coated with silver both intended to serve as a tomb for the king of mien before his kingdom fell under the dominion of the khan after visiting this province the traveller went to bangala the bengal of the present day
which at this time twelve ninety did not belong to kublai khan the emperor's forces were then engaged in trying to conquer this fertile country rich in cotton plants
from thence the traveller ventured as far as the city of cancigu in the province of the same name
and he who had the greatest number of these pictures they considered the most beautiful of human beings cancigu was the most southerly point visited by marco polo during this journey
on leaving toloman he followed the course of a river for twelve days and found numerous towns on its banks
the traveller is leaving the country known as india beyond the ganges and returning towards china in fact marco polo after leaving toloman
with its capital of the same name and what struck him most in this country and we cannot but think that the bold explorer was also a keen hunter was the great number of lions that were to be seen about its mountains and plains
only commentators are of opinion that the lions he speaks of must have been tigers for no lions are found in china but we will give his own words he says there are so many lions in this country
seize upon a man and devour him the inhabitants of this part of the country are well aware of this and so take measures to guard against it these lions are very large and very dangerous
but there are dogs in this country brave enough to attack these lions it requires two dogs and a man to overcome each lion from this province marco polo returned to sindifu
the capital of the province of se chuen whence he had started on his excursion into thibet and retracing the route by which he had set out he returned to kublai khan
after having brought his mission to indo china to a satisfactory termination it was probably at this time that the traveller was first entrusted by the emperor with another mission to the south east of china
speaks of this south easterly part of china as the richest and most flourishing quarter of this vast empire and that also about which since the sixteenth century europeans have had the most information
probably the town of ti choo and at six days journey from thence he came to condinfoo the present city of tsi nan the capital of the province of shan tung the birthplace of confucius
it was at that time a fine town and much frequented by silk merchants and its beautiful gardens produced abundance of excellent fruit three days march from hence
standing at the mouth of the yu ho canal the principal rendezvous for the innumerable boats that carry so much merchandise to the provinces of mangi and cathay
which seems to correspond to the modern town of lin tsin
the first city in the province of tchang su
which he had crossed higher up when he was on his way to indo china here marco polo was not more than a league from the mouth of this great river after crossing it he was in the province of mangi
a territory included in the empire of the soongs before this province of mangi belonged to kublai khan it was governed by a very pacific king who shunned war and was very merciful to all his subjects
he had nearly twenty thousand infants brought up at the royal charge for it was the custom in these provinces when a poor woman could not bring up a child herself to cast it away as soon as it was born to die
the king had all these children taken care of and a record kept of the sign and the planet under which each was born and then they were sent to different places to be brought up for there are a quantity of nurses
when a rich man had no sons he came to the king and asked of him some of his wards who were immediately given to him as the children grew up they intermarried
and if he found it was on account of the poverty of the owner he immediately had it made as large as the others at his own expense he was always waited upon by a thousand pages and a thousand girls
he kept up such rigorous discipline throughout his kingdom that there was never any crime at night houses and shops remained open and nothing was taken from them and travelling was as safe by night as by day
famous for its cloth of gold and the town of caiu now kao yu whose inhabitants are clever fishermen and hunters
where numerous vessels are generally to be found
of which marco polo was the governor for three years is the modern yang tchou it is a very populous and busy town
that the traveller set out on the various expeditions which enabled him to see so much of the inland and sea coast towns first the traveller went westward to nan ghin which must not be confounded with nan kin of the present day
and it stands in the midst of a remarkably fertile province further on in the same direction he came to saianfu which is now called siang yang and is built in the northern part of the province of hou pe
this was the last town in the province of mangi that resisted the dominion of kublai khan he besieged it for three years and he owed his taking it at last to the help of the three polos
who constructed some powerful balistas and crushed the besieged under a perfect hail storm of stones some of which weighed as much as three hundred pounds from saianfu
marco polo retraced his steps that he might visit some of the towns on the sea coast he visited kui kiang on the river kiang which is very broad here
and upon which five thousand ships can sail at the same moment kain gui which supplies the emperor's palace with corn ching kiang where are two nestorian christian churches ginguigui
a busy thriving city and singui now called soo choo a large town which according to the very exaggerated account of the venetian traveller has no less than six thousand bridges
after spending some time at vugui probably
marco polo reached the fine city of quinsay after three days march this name means the city of heaven but it is now called hang chow foo it is six leagues round
the river tsien tang kiang flows through it and by its constant windings makes quinsay almost a second venice this ancient capital of the soongs is almost as populous as pekin
its streets are paved with stones and bricks and if we may credit marco polo's statement it contained six hundred thousand houses four thousand bathing establishments and twelve thousand stone bridges
in this city dwell the richest merchants in the world with their wives who are beautiful and angelic creatures it is the residence of a viceroy
here was to be seen also the palace of the mangi sovereigns surrounded by beautiful gardens lakes and fountains the palace itself containing more than a thousand rooms
kublai khan draws immense revenues from this town and province and it is by tens of thousands of pounds we must reckon the income derived from the sugar salt spices and silk
which form the principal productions of this country at one day's journey south from quinsay marco polo visited chao hing vugui
never sparing their enemies of whom after they have killed them they drink the blood and eat the flesh after passing by quenlifu now kien ning foo
called canton amongst us and the chief town of the province
chapter ten september sowing sweet peas autumn sown annuals dahlias worthless kinds
staking planting the rock garden growing small plants in a wall the old wall dry walling how built
how planted hyssop a destructive storm berries of water elder beginning ground work
in the second week of september we sow sweet peas in shallow trenches the flowers from these are larger and stronger
love in a mist larkspurs pot marigold virginian stock and the delightful venus's navel wort
and grey blue leaf and neat habit of growth any one who has never before tried annuals autumn sown would be astonished at their vigour a single plant of nemophila will often cover a square yard
with its beautiful blue bloom and then what a gain it is to have these pretty things in full strength in spring and early summer instead of waiting to have them in a much poorer state later in the year
when other flowers are in plenty hardy poppies should be sown even earlier august is the best time dahlias are now at their full growth
to make a choice for one's own garden one must see the whole plant growing as with many another kind of flower nothing is more misleading than the evidence of the show table
come from plants that are of no garden value for however charming in humanity is the virtue modesty and however becoming is the unobtrusive bearing that gives evidence of its possession
it is quite misplaced in a dahlia here it becomes a vice for the dahlia's first duty in life is to flaunt and to swagger and to carry gorgeous blooms well above its leaves
and on no account to hang its head some of the delicately coloured kinds lately raised not only hang their heads but also hide them away among masses of their coarse foliage and are doubly frauds
but at a busy season when rank leafage grows fast
careful and strong staking they must always have not forgetting one central stake to secure the main growth at first it is best to drive this into the hole made for the plant before placing the root
to avoid the danger of sending the point of the stake through the tender tubers its height out of the ground should be about eighteen inches less than the expected stature of the plant
as the dahlia grows there should be at least three outer stakes at such distance from the middle one as may suit the bulk and habit of the plant
and it is a good plan to have wooden hoops to tie to these so as to form a girdle round the whole plant and for tying out the outer branches the hoop should be only loosely fastened
round a tub and tying them with tarred twine or osier bands they last several years all this care in staking the dahlias is labour well bestowed
for when autumn storms come the wind has such a power of wrenching and twisting that unless the plant now grown into a heavy mass of succulent vegetation
now is the moment to get to work on the rock garden there is no time of year so precious for this work as september small things planted now
while the ground is still warm grow at the root at once and get both anchor hold and feeding hold of the ground before frost comes those that are planted later do not take hold
and every frost heaves them up sometimes right out of the ground meanwhile those that have got a firm root hold are growing steadily all the winter underground if not above
and when the first spring warmth comes they can draw upon the reserve of strength they have been hoarding up and make good growth at once except in the case of a rockery only a year old
there is sure to be some part that wants to be worked afresh and i find it convenient to do about a third of the space every year many of the indispensable alpines and rock plants of lowly growth increase at a great rate
some spreading over much more than their due space the very reason of this quick spreading habit being that they are travelling to fresh pasture many of them prove it clearly
hutchinsia alpina pterocephalus the dwarf alpine kinds of achillea and artemisia veronica and linaria and the mossy saxifrages
in my soil want transplanting every two years and the silvery saxifrages every three years as in much else one must watch what happens in one's own garden
we practical gardeners have no absolute knowledge of the constitution of the plant still less of the chemistry of the soil but by the constant exercise of watchful care and helpful sympathy
one of the best and simplest ways of growing rock plants is in a loose wall in many gardens an abrupt change of level makes a retaining wall necessary
and when i see this built in the usual way as a solid structure of brick and mortar unless there be any special need of the solid wall i always regret that it is not built as a home for rock plants
an exposure to north or east and the cool backing of a mass of earth is just what most alpines delight in a dry wall which means a wall without mortar
may be anything between a wall and a very steep rock work and may be built of brick or of any kind of local stone i have built and planted a good many hundred yards of dry walling with my own hands
both at home and in other gardens and can speak with some confidence both of the pleasure and interest of the actual making and planting and of the satisfactory results that follow
the best example i have to show in my own garden is the so called old wall before mentioned it is the bounding and protecting fence of the paeony ground on its northern side
the point of most structural importance is to keep the earth solidly trodden and rammed behind the stones of each course and throughout its bulk and every two or three courses
to lay some stones that are extra long front and back to tie the wall well into the bank a local sandstone is the walling material in the pit it occurs in separate layers
with a few feet of hard sand between each the lowest layer sometimes thirty to forty feet down is the best and thickest but that is good building stone
and for dry walling we only want tops or seconds
once on a time there was a man and he had a wife now this couple wanted to sow their fields but they had neither seed corn nor money to buy it with but they had a cow and the man was to drive it into town and sell it to get money to buy corn for seed
but when it came to the pinch the wife dared not let her husband start for fear he should spend the money in drink so she set off herself with the cow and took besides a hen with her close by the town she met a butcher who asked will you sell that cow goody
well what do you want for her oh i must have five shillings for the cow but you shall have the hen for ten pounds very good said the man i don't want the hen and you'll soon get it off your hands in the town but
i'll give you five shillings for the cow well she sold her cow for five shillings but there was no one in the town who would give ten pounds for a lean tough old hen so she went back to the butcher and said do all i can i can't get rid of this hen
master you must take it too as you took the cow well said the butcher
then he treated her both with meat and drink and gave her so much brandy that she lost her head and didn't know what she was about and fell fast asleep but while she slept the butcher took and dipped her into a tar barrel and then laid her down on a heap of feathers
and when she woke up she was feathered all over and began to wonder what had befallen her is it me or is it not me no it can never be me it must be some great strange bird but what shall i do to find out whether it is me or not oh
i know how i shall be able to tell whether it is me if the calves come and lick me and our dog tray doesn't bark at me when i get home then it must be me and no one else now tray her dog had scarce set his eyes on the strange monster which came through the gate
than he set up such a barking one would have thought all the rogues and robbers in the world were in the yard ah deary me said she i thought so it can't be me surely so she went to the straw yard and the calves wouldn't lick her
it is only me if it's you said her husband don't stand up there like a goat on a house top but come down and let me hear what you have to say for yourself so she crawled down again
but she hadn't a shilling to shew for the crown she had got from the butcher she had thrown away in her drunkenness when her husband heard her story he said you're only twice as silly as you were before and he got so angry that he made up his mind to go away from her altogether
and every time she ran in she threw her apron over the sieve just as if she had something in it and when she got in she turned it upside down on the floor why goody he asked what are you doing oh she answered
i'm only carrying in a little sun but i don't know how it is when i'm outside i have the sun in my sieve but when i get inside somehow or other i've thrown it away but in my old cottage i had plenty of sun though i never carried in the least bit
i only wish i knew some one who would bring the sun inside i'd give him three hundred dollars and welcome have you got an axe asked the man if you have i'll soon bring the sun inside
so he got an axe and cut windows in the cottage for the carpenters had forgotten them then the sun shone in and he got his three hundred dollars that was one of them said the man to himself as he went on his way after a while he passed by a house
out of which came an awful screaming and bellowing so he turned in and saw a goody who was hard at work banging her husband across the head with a beetle and over his head she had drawn a shirt without any slit for the neck why goody he asked
will you beat your husband to death no she said i only must have a hole in this shirt for his neck to come through all the while the husband kept on screaming and calling out heaven help and comfort all who try on new shirts
if anyone would teach my goody another way of making a slit for the neck in my new shirts i'd give him three hundred dollars down and welcome
if you'll only give me a pair of scissors so he got a pair of scissors and snipped a hole in the neck and went off with his three hundred dollars that was another of them he said to himself as he walked along last of all
he came to a farm where he made up his mind to rest a bit so when he went in the mistress asked him whence do you come master oh said he i come from paradise place for that was the name of his farm
from paradise place she cried you don't say so why then you must know my second husband peter who is dead and gone god rest his soul for you must know this goody had been married three times and as her first and last husbands had been bad
she had made up her mind that the second only was gone to heaven oh yes said the man i know him very well well asked the goody how do things go with him poor dear soul only middling was the answer
why there's a whole cupboard full of old clothes up stairs which belonged to him besides a great chest full of money yonder now if you will take them with you you shall have a horse and cart to carry them as for the horse he can keep it and sit on the cart
and drive about from house to house and then he needn't trudge on foot so the man got a whole cart load of clothes and a chest full of shining dollars and as much meat and drink as he would and when he had got all he wanted he jumped into the cart and drove off
that was the third he said to himself as he went along now this goody's third husband was a little way off in a field ploughing and when he saw a strange man driving off from the farm with his horse and cart he went home
and asked his wife who that was that had just started with the black horse oh do you mean him said the goody why that was a man from paradise who said that peter my dear second husband who is dead and gone is in a sad plight
and that he goes from house to house begging and has neither clothes nor money so i just sent him all those old clothes he left behind him and the old money box with the dollars in it the man saw how the land lay in a trice so he saddled his horse
and rode off from the farm at full gallop it wasn't long before he was close behind the man who sat and drove the cart but when the latter saw this he drove the cart into a thicket by the side of the road pulled out a handful of hair from the horse's tail jumped up on a little rise in the wood
where he tied the hair fast to a birch and then lay down under it and began to peer and stare up at the sky well well if i ever he said as peter the third came riding up no i never saw the like of this in all my born days
then peter stood and looked at him for some time wondering what had come over him but at last he asked what do you lie there staring at no kept on the man i never did see anything like it
here is a man going straight up to heaven on a black horse and here you see his horse's tail still hanging in this birch and yonder up in the sky you see the black horse peter looked first at the man and then at the sky and said i see nothing but
the horse hair in the birch that's all i see of course you can't where you stand said the man but just come and lie down here and stare straight up and mind you don't take your eyes off the sky and then you shall see what you shall see
but he was so taken aback when he found the man had gone off with his horse
he was rather down in the mouth when he got home to his goody but when she asked him what he had done with the horse he said i gave it to the man too for peter the second for i thought it wasn't right he should sit in a cart and scramble about from house to house
so now he can sell the cart and buy himself a coach to drive about in thank you heartily said his wife i never thought you could be so kind well when the man reached home who had got the six hundred dollars and the cart load of clothes and money
he saw that all his fields were ploughed and sown and the first thing he asked his wife was where she had got the seed corn from oh she said i have always heard that what a man sows he shall reap
so i sowed the salt which our friends the north country men laid up here with us and if we only have rain i fancy it will come up nicely silly you are said her husband and silly you will be so long as you live but
but when they had gone a bit further the lad said he must turn aside a moment out of the road and meanwhile his mother sat down on a tree stump but the lad was a long time gone for as soon as he got so far into the wood that the old dame could not see him he ran off to where the belt lay
took it up tied it round his waist and lo he felt as strong as if he could lift the whole hill when he got back the old dame was in a great rage and wanted to know what he had been doing all that while you don't care how much time you waste and yet you know the night is drawing on
yes he might do that so when he had got to the top
so he ran down and told his mother we must get on mother we are near a house for i see a bright light shining quite close to us in the north then she rose and shouldered her bag and set off to see
but they hadn't gone far before there stood a steep spur of the hill right across their path just as i thought said the old dame now we can't go a step farther a pretty bed we shall have here but the lad took the bag under one arm and his mother under the other
and knew there was not a living soul in it until you were well over the ridge and had come down on the other side but they went on and in a little while they came to a great house which was all painted red what's the good said the old dame we daren't go in
for here the trolls live don't say so we must go in there must be men where the lights shine so said the lad so in he went and his mother after him but he had scarce opened the door before she swooned away for there she saw a great stout man
at least twenty feet high sitting on the bench good evening grandfather said the lad
so the lad went and took hold of the old dame and dragged her up the hall along the floor that brought her to herself and she kicked and scratched and flung herself about and at last sat down upon a heap of firewood in the corner but she was so frightened
that she scarce dared to look one in the face after a while the lad asked if they could spend the night there yes to be sure said the man so they went on talking again but the lad soon got hungry and wanted to know if they could get food as well as lodging
and when the wood had burned down to glowing embers up got the man and strode out of his house heaven bless and help us what a stout heart you have got said the old dame don't you see we have got amongst trolls
stuff and nonsense said the lad no harm if we have in a little while back came the man with an ox so fat and big the lad had never seen its like and he gave it one blow with his fist under the ear and down it fell dead on the floor
when that was done he took it up by all the four legs and laid it on the glowing embers and turned it and twisted it about till it was burnt brown outside after that he went to a cupboard and took out a great silver dish and laid the ox on it
so he caught her up and held her up to the edge of the cask while she drank as for himself he clambered up and hung down like a cat inside the cask while he drank so when he had quenched his thirst he took up the cask and put it back on the table and thanked the man for the good meal
and told his mother to come and thank him too and a feared though she was she dared do nothing else but thank the man then the lad sat down again alongside the man and began to gossip and after they had sat a while the man said well i must just go and get a bit of supper too
and so he went to the table and ate up the whole ox hoofs and horns and all and drained the cask to the last drop
as for beds he said i don't know what's to be done i've only got one bed and a cradle but we could get on pretty well if you would sleep in the cradle and then your mother might lie in the bed yonder thank you kindly that'll do nicely said the lad
and with that he pulled off his clothes and lay down in the cradle but to tell you the truth it was quite as big as a four poster as for the old dame she had to follow the man who showed her to bed though she was out of her wits for fear well thought the lad to himself
twill never do to go to sleep yet i'd best lie awake and listen how things go as the night wears on
he would just say he wished the old dame would stay and keep house for him a day or two and then he would take the lad out with him
and roll down a great rock on him all this the lad lay and listened to next day the troll for it was a troll as clear as day asked if the old dame would stay and keep house for him a few days and as the day went on he took a great iron crowbar
and while he was doing this the troll worked away and wearied himself with his crowbar till he moved a whole crag out of its bed which came rolling right down on the place where the lad was but
oh said the lad to the troll now i see what you mean to do with me you want to crush me to death so just go down yourself and look after the cracks and refts in the rock and i'll stand up above
the troll did not dare to do otherwise than the lad bade him and the end of it was that the lad rolled down a great rock which fell upon the troll and broke one of his thighs well you are in a sad plight
she would sham sick and say she felt so poorly nothing would do her any good but lion's milk all that the lad lay and listened to and when he got up in the morning his mother said she was worse than she looked and she thought she should never be right again
if we only had the man to fetch it and then he went on to say how his brother had a garden with twelve lions in it and how the lad might have the key if he had a mind to milk the lions so the lad took the key and a milking pail and strode off
till there wasn't a bit of him left but the two paws so when the rest saw that they were so afraid that they crept up and lay at his feet like so many curs after that they followed him about wherever he went
and when he got home they lay down outside the house with their fore paws on the door sill now mother you'll soon be well said the lad when he went in for here is the lion's milk he had just milked a drop in the pail but the troll
he was sure the lad was not the man to milk lions when the lad heard that he forced the troll to get out of bed threw open the door and all the lions rose up and seized the troll and at last the lad had to make them leave their hold that night the troll began to talk to the old dame again
can't you think of some way no said the old dame if you can't tell i'm sure i can't well said the troll i have two brothers in a castle they are twelve times as strong as i am and that's why i was turned out and had to put up with this farm
they hold that castle and round it there is an orchard with apples in it and whoever eats those apples sleeps for three days and three nights if we could only get the lad to go for the fruit he wouldn't be able to keep from tasting the apples
but up rose the lions and tore the trolls into small pieces so that the place looked as if a dung heap had been tossed about it and when they had finished the trolls they lay down again
the lad did not wake till late in the afternoon and when he got on his knees and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes he began to wonder what had been going on when he saw the marks of hoofs but when he went towards the castle a maiden looked out of a window who had seen all that had happened
and she said you may thank your stars you weren't in that tussle else you must have lost your life what i lose my life no fear of that i think said the lad so she begged him to come in that she might talk with him
for she hadn't seen a christian soul ever since she came there but when she opened the door the lions wanted to go in too but she got so frightened that she began to scream and so the lad let them lie outside
and the lad asked how it came that she who was so lovely could put up with those ugly trolls she never wished it she said twas quite against her will they had seized her by force and she was the king of arabia's daughter so they talked on and at last
she asked him what he would do whether she should go back home or whether he would have her to wife of course he would have her and she shouldn't go home after that they went round the castle and at last they came to a great hall where the trolls two great swords
hung high up on the wall i wonder if you are man enough to wield one of these said the princess who i said the lad twould be a pretty thing if i couldn't wield one of these with that he put two or three chairs one a top of the other
jumped up and touched the biggest sword with his finger tips tossed it up in the air and caught it again by the hilt leapt down and at the same time dealt such a blow with it on the floor that the whole hall shook after he had thus got down
and the lad had wandered about a little he called to mind that he had been sent on an errand thither and had come to fetch something for his mother's health and though he said to himself after all the old dame was not so bad but she's all right by this time'
still he thought he ought to go and just see how she was so he went and found both the man and his mother quite fresh and hearty what wretches you are to live in this beggarly hut said the lad come with me up to my castle
have you got it still asked she
she cried what shall i do with such a wretch as you i'll just give you one blow and dash your brains out far too good a death for such a scamp said the troll no let's first burn out his eyes and then turn him adrift in a little boat
they caught game for him and they plucked the birds and made him a bed of down
at last one day the biggest lion was chasing a hare which was blind for it ran straight over stock and stone and the end was it ran right up against a fir stump and tumbled head over heels across the field right into a spring but lo when it came out of the spring
it saw its way quite plain and so saved its life so so thought the lion
so when he had got his sight again he went down to the shore and made signs to the lions that they should all lie close together like a raft then he stood upon their backs while they swam with him to the mainland when he had reached the shore he went up into a birchen copse
and made the lions lie quiet then he stole up to the castle like a thief to see if he couldn't lay hands on his belt and when he got to the door he peeped through the keyhole and there he saw his belt hanging up over a door in the kitchen
dear heart my darling little boy do give me the belt again she said thank you kindly said he now you shall have the doom you passed on me and he fulfilled it on the spot
he came in and begged and prayed so prettily that he might not be smitten to death well you may live said the lad but you shall undergo the same punishment you gave me
and so he burned out the troll's eyes and turned him adrift on the sea in a little boat but he had no lions to follow him now the lad was all alone and he went about longing and longing for the princess at last he could bear it no longer he must set out to seek her
his heart was so bent on having her so he loaded four ships and set sail for arabia for some time they had fair wind and fine weather but after that they lay wind bound under a rocky island so the sailors went ashore and strolled about to spend the time
he thought it a trifle to crack it so he gave it one blow and the egg split and out came a chicken as big as an elephant now we have done wrong said the lad this can cost us all our lives
and then he asked his sailors if they were men enough to sail to arabia in four and twenty hours if they got a fine breeze yes they were good to do that they said so they set sail with a fine breeze and got to arabia in three and twenty hours
as soon as they landed the lad ordered all the sailors to go and bury themselves up to the eyes in a sandhill so that they could barely see the ships the lad and the captains climbed a high crag and sate down under a fir in a little while came a great bird flying with an island in its claws
but he was ready with his sword and gave the bird one blow and brought it down dead after that he went to the town where every one was glad because the king had got his daughter back but now the king had hidden her away somewhere himself
and this though she was betrothed before now as the lad went along he met a man who had white bear skins for sale so he bought one of the hides and put it on and one of the captains was to take an iron chain and lead him about and so he went into the town and began to play pranks
at last the news came to the king's ears that there never had been such fun in the town before for here was a white bear that danced and cut capers just as it was bid
for the king wanted to see its tricks
but the captain said there was no danger unless they laughed at it they mustn't do that else it would tear them to pieces when the king heard that he warned all the court not to laugh but while the fun was going on in came one of the king's maids
and began to laugh and make game of the bear and the bear flew at her and tore her so that there was scarce a rag of her left then all the court began to bewail and the captain most of all
when the show was over it was late at night
the bear had best sleep here perhaps it might sleep in the ingle by the kitchen fire said the captain
said the king it shall sleep up here and it shall have pillows and cushions to sleep on so a whole heap of pillows and cushions was brought and the captain had a bed in a side room but at midnight the king came with a lamp
in his hand and a big bunch of keys and carried off the white bear he passed along gallery after gallery through doors and rooms
he came to a pier which ran out into the sea then the king began to pull and haul at posts and pins this one up and that one down
there he kept his daughter for she was so dear to him that he had hid her so that no one could find her out he left the white bear outside while he went in and told her how it had danced and played its pranks she said she was afraid and dared not look at it
then the lad flew at her and tore her to bits and the princess began to cry and sob
i'll get you just as good a one again
well said the princess if it sleeps here i'm sure i won't but just then the bear curled himself up and lay down by the stove and it was settled at last that the princess should sleep there too with a light burning but
but the lad would not hear of it he would earn her once more he said so in the morning when they heard the king rattling at the posts outside the lad drew on the hide and lay down by the stove
and when they were fitted on he went to the king and said he wanted to find the princess you're not the first who has wished the same thing said the king
for if any one who tries can't find her in four and twenty hours his life is forfeited yes the lad knew all that still he wished to try and if he couldn't find her twas his look out
now in the castle there was a band that played sweet tunes and there were fair maids to dance with and so the lad danced away when twelve hours were gone the king said i pity you with all my heart
you're so poor a hand at seeking you will surely lose your life stuff said the lad while there's life there's hope
we have lots of time and so he went on dancing till there was only one hour left then he said he would begin to search it's no use now said the king time's up
and follow me whither i wish to go there is still a whole hour left so the lad went the same way which the king had led him the night before and he bade the king unlock door after door till they came down to the pier which ran out into the sea
it's all no use i tell you said the king time's up and this will only lead you right out into the sea still five minutes more said the lad as he pulled and pushed at the posts and pins and the house floated up now the time is up
bawled the king come hither headsman and take off his head nay nay said the lad stop a bit there are still three minutes out with the key and let me get into this house but
there stood the king and fumbled with his keys to draw out the time at last he said he hadn't any key well if you haven't i have
that it flew to splinters inwards on the floor
hell is paved with good intentions also asbestos m a fool and his wife are soon parted see alimony magazine
a receptacle for explosives literary or mechanical magnate one who can float capital in a considerable body of water
magnus great and nator to swim a great swimmer maiden lady a term applied to an old maid by those who wish to avoid hurting her feelings malt
a humble grain which often gets into a ferment cools off and becomes stout in its old age man something that goes first on four feet
but the more feet it goes on the weaker it be man about town one who is on speaking terms with the head waiter manicure the only woman who can beat a carpenter at soaking nails manners
a difficult symphony in the key of b natural mark in germany
maskos girl and eukolos easy easy for the girls massage a touch with intent to rub it in matrimony
a game for women in which the unmarried half are trying to find a husband
both halves are eminently successful meal
medium a party with one ear in the grave but both hands on your wallet hello central give me heaven
an alleged musical instrument popular at home but unpopular next door
without warranted without melody menagerie
a mixture of smells messenger boy
to arrive one who fails to arrive meter the gas man's trysting place meet her in the cellar mind no matter matter
never mind mine a hole in the ground owned by a liar minstrel a footlight foul that makes its nightly lay in every city miracle a woman who won't talk
mist generally a small light rain scotch mist a cloudburst mitten something a tender hearted girl gives a young man when she knows she is going to make it chilly for him
money society's vindication of vulgarity monopoly a modern device for impoverishing others
the people a swift kick for the people moon the only lighting monopoly that never made money mortgage
gag to choke a lawyer's invention for choking property to death mosquito a small insect designed by god to make us think better of flies
ladies footwear in chicago n time and tide wait for no man but time always stands still
nature the author of the seasons an interesting work over which spring pours summer smiles and autumn turns the leaves
of it all neck a close connection between chin and chest used for the display of linen silk furs jewelry and skin fitted with gullet windpipe hunger and thirst
and devoted to the rubber industry negro one who votes your way nigger one who doesn't neighbor one who knows more about your affairs than yourself
on the disobedient scion then making him pay for a new one see revised version spare the rod and spoil the hair brush next the barberous password to the heaven of the shaved and the unshaved
nip something bracing from without or within when felt in the air it's a frost when found in a glass a life saver nobility a gang of foreign brigands having abducent
designs on the american damsel and the american dollar non conductor the motorman nose a prominent member of the face family usually a greek or roman who owns the shortest bridge in the world
principal occupations sniffling snivelling sneezing snorting and scenting intruding in the neighbors affairs stuffing himself without permission and bleeding for others note promissory
the substance of things long hoped for the evidence of things not seen novel
though the yarn be well spun
out of the frying pan into the face mothers doughnuts o many hands make light work also a good jackpot
oats england's horse feed america's breakfast and scotland's table d'hote oath a form of speech that has many trials in court
ocean an old toper who is always soaked has many a hard night along the coast floats many a schooner lashes himself into a fury because so frequently crossed and has his barks in every port at sea
the king of the elements on shore a mere surf oleomargarine the white bread's burden
olio a mixture
margino to be furious a furious mixture omnibus a test for patience still popular in england
oneiros dream and baino to go or move a dream of motion onion the all round strength champion of the vegetable kingdom garlic and cabbage being close rivals opera
yet always sings its own praises grand opera an excuse for displaying several boxes of jewelry and peaches with pedigrees opinion the prodigal son of thought public opinion
the world's champion pugilist who has knocked out law in many a hard fought bout opium the real author of the dream book optimism a cheerful frame of mind that enables a tea kettle to sing though in hot water
up to its nose orchard the small boy's eden of today in which the apple again occasions the fall ostrich the largest and heaviest bird on earth yet rated by his owners only as a featherweight
outskirts the only garments which clothe many a metropolis with decency oven the only sport who enjoys an equally hot time with or without the dough
p soap
pain a sensation experienced on receiving a punch particularly the london one palmistry a plausible excuse for holding hands pants trousers country cousins
paragon the model man a woman regrets she gave up for the one she mistakenly married parents
one of the hardships of a minor's life pass a form of transportation issued free to those who are quite able to pay passenger one who does not travel on a pass antonym for deadhead
endidomi to give up one who has to give up to go parrot an individual who can never be held responsible for what he says pastry
a deadly weapon carried by cafes cooks and newly married housekeepers
one who is willing to take all of uncle sam's bonds in a lump pawn
pawnbroker a mercenary man to whom money is the one redeeming quality peace a mythical condition of tranquillity frequently reported from the phillipines peach a popular synonym for fair woman
probably because the peach is largely a skin and stony at heart pearl a small round product manufactured by an oyster bought by a lobster and worn by a butterfly penitent from pen meaning to write and
pessimist one who paints things blue and sometimes red philistine in bible times one who worried the children of israel today one who worries only himself
and tino to punish one who barks to punish philanthropist one who returns to the people publicly a small percentage of the wealth he steals from them privately philosopher
one who instead of crying over spilt milk consoles himself with the thought that it was over four fifths water philosophy something that enables the rich to say there is no disgrace in being poor piano
a tool frequently used in building a rough house pin the best dresser in a woman's acquaintance of remarkable penetration and true as steel seldom loses its head follows its own bent and carries its point
in whatever it undertakes ping pong a game invented for the benefit of furniture and crockery dealers pity an emotion awakened in a man's mind when he beholds the children of a woman
who might have married him instead platonic love an arrangement in which a man and woman attempt a correct imitation of a pair of icicles and never succeed plenty
a desirable condition that is likely to step out whenever extravagance steps in plum
plumb to ascertain the capacity of plumber one who ascertains the capacity of your purse soaks you with a piece of lead and gets away with the money
as a lead pipe cinch pole cat a small animal to be killed with a pole the longer the pole the better
in time of trouble polygamy a thoughtless way of increasing the family expenses polyglot a parrot that can swear in several languages postscript the only thing readable
pretzel the bar keeper's promoter protection originally the swaddling clothes of the infant industry now merely the shoe lacings for the giant monopoly pro and con
prefixes of opposite meaning for example progress and congress prude a native of boston prudence
a quality of mind that restrains the wise boarder from trying to find out how his landlady makes her hash prudery a quality that displays a lack of modesty as a wig does a loss of hair prune
a plum that has seen better days
cakes crullers and eclairs almond cakes one pound sifted flour one half pound butter three fourths pound sugar two eggs one half teaspoon ground cinnamon
two ounces of raisins finely chopped mix all the dry ingredients together then rub in the butter add eggs and spices last of all roll out half an inch thick
almond cheese cakes blanch and pound to a fine paste one cupful almonds as you pound them add rose water a few drops at a time to keep them from oiling
add the paste to one cupful milk curd together with a half cup cream one cupful sugar three beaten egg yolks and a scant teaspoonful of rose water fill patty pans lined with paste and bake in hot oven
ten minutes aunt amy's cake
use a moderate oven and bake in loaves rather than sheets baltimore cake
add gradually while beating constantly two cupfuls fine granulated sugar when creamy add a cupful of milk
with two teaspoonfuls of baking powder add a teaspoonful of vanilla
bake in three buttered and floured shallow cake tins and spread between the layers
put in a saucepan three cups sugar one cup water
and five figs cut in strips baltimore cake
three and one half cupfuls flour one cupful sweet milk
cream the butter add the sugar gradually beating steadily
the stiffly beaten whites folded in at the last bake in three layer cake tins in an oven hotter than for loaf cake while baking prepare the filling dissolve three cupfuls sugar in
one cupful boiling water and cook until it spins a thread pour over the stiffly beaten whites of three eggs stirring constantly
one cupful chopped nut meats preferably pecans or walnuts
use this for filling and also ice the top and sides with it bread cake cream one cup of sugar and one half cup of butter add one half cup of milk
two cups of flour sifted with three teaspoons of baking powder and last the stiffly beaten whites of three eggs and half a teaspoon of vanilla flavoring bake in one loaf bride's cake
one and one half cupfuls of sugar one half cupful of butter one half cupful of sweet milk two cupfuls of flour one quarter cupful cornstarch six egg whites
one and one half teaspoonfuls baking powder one teaspoonful vanilla cream the sugar and butter add milk flour and cornstarch into which the baking powder has been thoroughly sifted
stir in the whites of eggs quickly with the flavoring buttermilk cake cream three tablespoons of butter with one cup of sugar add one cup of buttermilk one well beaten egg
two cups of flour sifted with four teaspoons of baking powder and one half cup of seeded raisins cut in pieces and rolled in flour chocolate cake beat one cup of butter to a cream with two cups of sugar
sift three and one half cups of flour with five level teaspoons of baking powder and add to the first mixture stir well and fold in the beaten whites of two eggs beat in layer cake tins and spread the following mixture between
beat one and one half cups of powdered sugar three level tablespoons of cocoa one teaspoon of vanilla and the whites of three eggs together until a smooth mixture is made that will spread easily
chocolate cake cook one cup of sugar one half cup of milk one half cup of grated chocolate and the beaten yolk of one egg together until smooth when done add a teaspoon of vanilla and cool
beat one half cup of butter to a cream add one cup of sugar slowly and beat smooth add two beaten eggs one half cup of milk two cups of flour in which two thirds
at a time a half cupful milk and a teaspoonful vanilla
with two cupfuls flour add the sifted flour to the mixture then fold in the whipped whites have three buttered layer cake tins ready and put two thirds of the mixture into two of them
into the third tin put the remainder of the batter having first added to it two tablespoons melted chocolate bake the cakes in a rather quick oven for twenty minutes put a layer of the white cake on a large plate and cover with white icing
on this put the third cake and cover with the chocolate icing put into a graniteware pan one cupful and a half cupful water and cook gently until bubbles begin to rise from bottom do not stir or shake while cooking
beat it until thick flavor with vanilla and use two thirds of this for the white icing into the remainder put a tablespoon and a half melted chocolate and a suspicion of cinnamon extract and frost the top and sides of the cake
chocolate loaf cakes cream one cup of butter add two and one half cups of sugar and beat to a cream beat the yolks of five eggs light
add to the butter and sugar with one cup of milk and three cups of flour in which four level teaspoons of baking powder have been sifted the stiffly beaten whites of five eggs and two teaspoons of vanilla flavoring and two squares of chocolate melted
bake in a moderate oven cocoa cake cream one half cup of butter add one cup of sugar and beat again add the beaten yolks of three eggs and a teaspoon of vanilla
sift two cups of pastry flour twice with one quarter cup of cocoa and four level teaspoons of baking powder add to the first mixture alternately with three quarters cup of milk beat hard and fold in the stiffly beaten whites of three eggs
bake in a loaf and cover with white icing cream cake or pie this recipe makes a simple layer cake to be filled in various ways cream one quarter cup of butter with one cup of sugar
add the beaten yolks of two eggs and one teaspoon of vanilla now beat hard then mix in one half cup of milk alternately with one and one half cups of flour sifted twice with two level teaspoons of baking powder
beat just enough to make smooth then fold in lightly the stiffly beaten whites of two eggs and pour into an oblong shallow pan that is buttered floured and rapped to shake out all that is superfluous
bake about twenty minutes take from pan and cool just before serving split the cake and fill with a cooked cream filling or with sweet thick cream beaten sweetened with powdered sugar and flavored to the taste
cream layer cake cream one quarter cup of butter well with one cup of sugar add the yolks of three eggs beaten light one half cup of milk
with three level teaspoons of baking powder stir in lightly last of all the whites of three eggs beaten stiff bake in a pan large enough to make one thin cake and bake cool and split
sweetened and flavored with a few drops of vanilla put on the top cake and dust with powdered sugar date cake sift two cups of flour with four level teaspoons of baking powder one half level teaspoon of salt
and one quarter cup of butter beat one egg add three quarters cup of milk and mix into the ingredients add last one and one half cups of dates stoned and cut into small pieces and rolled in flour
bake in a sheet in a moderate oven and serve warm or with a liquid sauce as a pudding eggless cake one and one half cups sugar one cup sour milk three cups sifted flour one half cup shortening
one teaspoon soda one half teaspoon cinnamon one half teaspoon nutmeg one cup chopped raisins salt feather cake sift one cup of sugar two cups of sifted flour
three level teaspoons of baking powder and a few grains of salt add one cup of milk one well beaten egg three tablespoons of melted butter and a teaspoon of vanilla or lemon flavoring
beat hard and bake in a loaf in a moderate oven about half an hour fig cake two cupfuls of sugar two thirds of a cup of butter
it's a wise son who can get two birds with one bone
there is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune but most of us catch our watered stock on the ebb umbrella a good thing to put up in a shower or pawn shop but like skating
never seen after lent
union an ailing individual frequently troubled by scabs and liable to strike without warning umpire no jeweler but a high authority on diamonds usher
one who takes a leading part in a theatre vaccination where jabbing the needle is never a vice vaudeville
virtue a quality oftentimes associated with intelligence but rarely with beauty vulgarity the conduct of others a rolling stone gathers no moss
except at roulette w
waiter an inn experienced servant war a wholesale means of making heroes which if planned in a small way would produce only murderers water
with which to soak buyers wedding a trade in which the bride is generally given away and the groom is often sold weeds found in gardens and widows
for removing easily marry the widow wickedness a myth invented by good people to account for the singular attractiveness of others widow the wife of a golfer during the open season
unless she golfs too in that event the children are golf orphans whisky trouble put up in liquid form wind
an aerial phenomenon superinduced by an ephemeral agitation of the nebular strata whereby air hot or cold impelled into transitory activity generates a prolonged passage through space owing to certain occult
ethereal stimuli and results in zephyrs breezes blows blow outs blizzards gales simoons hurricanes tornadoes or typhoons barred from kansas cyclone cellars but frequently blended with chicago tongue
canned or conversational woman an aspiring creature whose political sphere is still slightly flattened at the polls word something you must keep after giving it to another worry
yarn an essential in fabrication either woven or narrated mill yarns are highly colored those spun at sea much more so yawl
either the shape of a boat or the sound of a cat but never a cat boat yawns the air breaks on a sleeper year
yellow fever a passion for reading the hearst newspapers yolk the legacy of the hen and the burden of its lay yoke the inheritance of the hen pecked and the burden of the married
yule log a christmas protege of the grate too young to smoke too tough to burn and too green to warm up to anybody youth the dynamo that makes the world go round a product of its own generation
with its wires carrying power into the high places of earth and with its currents of thought short circuited only by bigoted old age zealot one who loves morality so well he will commit crime to maintain it
zebra the crook among horses condemned to wear stripes for life zero originally nothing but now meaning a good deal on a thermometer or bank draft and comprising two thirds of the four hundred
rinaldo and his brothers for some slight offence to the imperious young prince were forced to fly from paris and to take shelter in their castle of montalban for charles had publicly said if he could take them he would hang them all
he sent numbers of his bravest knights to arrest them but all without success either rinaldo foiled their efforts and sent them back stripped of their armor and of their glory or after meeting and conferring with him they came back and told the king they could not be his instruments for such a work
he ravaged all the country round about montalban so that supplies of food should be cut off and he threatened death to any who should attempt to issue forth hoping to compel the garrison to submit for want of food
rinaldo's resources had been brought so low that it seemed useless to contend any longer his brothers had been taken prisoners in a skirmish and his only hope of saving their lives was in making terms with the king
then he sat down and as he waited he fell asleep bayard meanwhile got loose and strayed away where the grass tempted him just then came along some country people who said to one another
look is not that the great horse bayard that rinaldo rides let us take him and carry him to king charles who will pay us well for our trouble they did so and the king was delighted with his prize and gave them a present that made them rich to their dying day
when rinaldo woke he looked round for his horse and finding him not he groaned and said o unlucky hour that i was born how fortune persecutes me so desperate was he that he took off his armor and his spurs saying
rinaldo thanked him and said a good day i have hardly had since i was born then said the old man signor rinaldo you must not despair for god will make all things turn to the best rinaldo answered
my trouble is too heavy for me to hope relief the king has taken my brothers and means to put them to death i thought to rescue them by means of my horse bayard but while i slept some thief has stolen him the old man replied
i will remember you and your brothers in my prayers i am a poor man have you not something to give me rinaldo said i have nothing to give but then he recollected his spurs he gave them to the beggar and said here take my spurs
they are the first present my mother gave me when my father count aymon dubbed me knight they ought to bring you ten pounds the old man took the spurs and put them into his sack and said noble sir have you nothing else you can give me rinaldo replied
are you making sport of me i tell you truly if it were not for shame to beat one so helpless i would teach you better manners the old man said of a truth sir if you did so you would do a great sin
if all had beaten me of whom i have begged i should have been killed long ago for i ask alms in churches and convents and wherever i can you say true replied rinaldo if you did not ask none would relieve you the old man said
true noble sir therefore i pray if you have anything more to spare give it me rinaldo gave him his mantle and said take it pilgrim
and help me to escape out of king charles's power the pilgrim took the mantle folded it up and put it into his bag then a third time he said to rinaldo sir have you nothing left to give me that i may remember you in my prayers
wretch exclaimed rinaldo do you make me your sport and he drew his sword and struck at him but the old man warded off the blow with his staff and said rinaldo would you slay your cousin malagigi
when rinaldo heard that he stayed his hand and gazed doubtingly on the old man who now threw aside his disguise and appeared to be indeed malagigi dear cousin said rinaldo pray forgive me i did not know you
next to god my trust is in you help my brothers to escape out of prison i entreat you
malagigi answered cousin rinaldo i will enable you to recover your horse meanwhile you must do as i say then malagigi took from his sack a gown and gave it to rinaldo to put on over his armor
and a hat that was full of holes and an old pair of shoes to put on
malagigi said to rinaldo i will go meet the monks and see what news i can learn
for the prince was going to show the ladies the famous horse bayard that used to belong to rinaldo what said the pilgrim is bayard there yes answered the monks the king has given him to charlot
and after the prince has ridden him the king means to pass sentence on the brothers of rinaldo and have them hanged then malagigi asked alms of the monks but they would give him none till he threw aside his pilgrim garb and let them see his armor when partly for charity and partly for terror
they gave him a golden cup adorned with precious stones that sparkled in the sunshine malagigi then hastened back to rinaldo and told him what he had learned the morning of the feast day rinaldo and malagigi came to the place where the sports were to be held
malagigi gave rinaldo his spurs back again and said cousin put on your spurs for you will need them how shall i need them said rinaldo since i have lost my horse yet he did as malagigi directed him
when the two had taken their stand on the border of the field among the crowd the princes and ladies of the court began to assemble when they were all assembled the king came also and charlot with him near whom the horse bayard was led in the charge of grooms
who were expressly enjoined to guard him safely the king looking round on the circle of spectators saw malagigi and rinaldo and observed the splendid cup that they had and said to charlot see my son what a brilliant cup those two pilgrims have got
the king said to malagigi friend where did you get that beautiful cup malagigi replied honorable sir i paid for it all the money i have saved from eleven years begging in churches and convents the pope himself has blessed it
and given it the power that whosoever eats or drinks out of it shall be pardoned of all his sins then said the king to charlot my son these are right holy men see how the dumb beast worships them then the king said to malagigi
give me a morsel from your cup that i may be cleared of my sins malagigi answered illustrious lord i dare not do it unless you will forgive all who have at any time offended you you know that christ forgave all those who had betrayed and crucified him
the king replied friend that is true but rinaldo has so grievously offended me that i cannot forgive him nor that other man malagigi the magician these two shall never live in my kingdom again
if i catch them i will certainly have them hanged but tell me pilgrim who is that man who stands beside you
give me to drink of your cup to take away my sins malagigi answered my lord king here is my poor brother who for fifty days has not heard spoken nor seen this misfortune befell him in a house where we found shelter
and the day before yesterday we met with a wise woman who told him the only hope of a cure for him was to come to some place where bayard was to be ridden and to mount and ride him that would do him more good than anything else
then said the king friend you have come to the right place for bayard is to be ridden here to day give me a draught from your cup and your companion shall ride upon bayard malagigi hearing these words said be it so
then the king with great devotion took a spoon and dipped a portion from the pilgrim's cup believing that his sins should be thereby forgiven when this was done the king said to charlot son i request that you will let this sick pilgrim sit on your horse
and ride if he can for by so doing he will be healed of all his infirmities charlot replied that will i gladly do so saying he dismounted and the servants took the pilgrim in their arms and helped him on the horse
wher rinaldo was mounted he put his feet in the stirrups and said i would like to ride a little malagigi hearing him speak seemed delighted and asked him whether he could see and hear also yes said rinaldo i am healed of all my infirmities
when the king heard it he said to bishop turpin my lord bishop we must celebrate this with a procession with crosses and banners for it is a great miracle when rinaldo remarked that he was not carefully watched he spoke to the horse and touched him with the spurs
bayard knew that his master was upon him and he started off upon a rapid pace and in a few moments was a good way off malagigi pretended to be in great alarm o noble king and master he cried my poor companion is run away with he will fall and break his neck
returned to where the king was and employed his best art in getting the brothers of rinaldo out of prison
chapter five official investigation and you say they are gone cried mary louise in surprise as she came down to breakfast the next morning and found the table laid for one and old eben waiting to serve her
there is no night train said the girl seating herself thoughtfully at the table how could they go uncle
we all ain s'pose to know nuth'n bout dat git away ef some imper'nent puss'n ask us we ain gwine t know how dey go nohow
an i gwine take em ovah to missy stearne's place in de wheel barrer den i gwine red up de house an take de keys to mass gimble de agent den polly an me we go back to our own li'l house in de lane yondeh
an we gwine do jus like he say mary louise felt lonely and uncomfortable in the big house now that her mother and grandfather had gone away since the move was inevitable she would be glad to go to miss stearne as soon as possible
she helped aunt polly pack her trunk and suit case afterwards gathering into a bundle the things she had forgotten or overlooked all of which personal belongings uncle eben wheeled over to the school
promising to call upon them at their humble home and walked slowly over the well known path to miss stearne's establishment where she presented herself to the principal it being saturday miss stearne was seated at a desk in her own private room where she received mary louise and bade her sit down
miss stearne was a woman fifty years of age tall and lean with a deeply lined face and a tendency to nervousness that was increasing with her years she was a very clever teacher and a very incompetent business woman so that her small school
of excellent standing and repute proved difficult to finance in character miss stearne was temperamental enough to have been a genius she was kindly natured fond of young girls and cared for her pupils with motherly instincts seldom possessed by those in similar positions
she was lax in many respects severely strict in others not always were her rules and regulations dictated by good judgment therefore her girls usually found as much fault as other boarding school girls are prone to do and with somewhat more reason
on the other hand no one could question the principal's erudition or her skill in imparting her knowledge to others sit down mary louise she said to the girl this is an astonishing change in your life is it not
colonel weatherby came to me last evening and said he had been suddenly called away on important matters that would brook no delay and that your mother was to accompany him on the journey he begged me to take you in as a regular boarder and of course i consented
and i have been proud of your progress but the school is quite full as you know so at first i was uncertain that i could accommodate you here but miss dandler my assistant has given up her room to you and i shall put a bed for her in my own sleeping chamber so that difficulty is now happily arranged
i suppose your family left beverly this morning by the early train they have gone replied mary louise non committally you will be lonely for a time of course but presently you will feel quite at home in the school because you know all of my girls so well
mary louise reflected with a little shock of pain that her mother had never been very near to her and that miss stearne might well perform such perfunctory duties as the girl had been accustomed to expect but no one could ever take the place of gran'pa jim
thank you miss stearne she said i am sure i shall be quite contented here is my room ready yes and your trunk has already been placed in it let me know my dear if there is anything you need
who roomed just across the hall from her and were delighted to find she was to become a regular boarder they asked numerous questions as they helped her to unpack and settle her room but accepted her conservative answers without comment
and it was while she was playing that little miss dandler came with a message that mary louise was wanted in miss stearne's room at once take my racquet she said to jennie allen i'll be back in a minute
when she entered miss stearne's room she was surprised to find herself confronted by the same man whom she and her grandfather had encountered in front of cooper's hotel the previous afternoon the man whom she secretly held responsible for this abrupt change in her life
the principal sat crouched over her desk as if overawed by her visitor who stopped his nervous pacing up and down the room as the girl appeared this is mary louise burrows said miss stearne in a weak voice huh he glared at her with a scowl for a moment and then demanded
where's hathaway mary louise reddened i do not know to whom you refer she answered quietly aren't you his granddaughter i am the granddaughter of colonel james weatherby sir it's all the same hathaway or weatherby the scoundrel can't disguise his personality
where is he she did not reply her eyes had narrowed a little as the colonel's were sometimes prone to do and her lips were pressed firmly together answer me he shouted waving his arms threateningly miss stearne mary louise said turning to the principal
unless you request your guest to be more respectful i shall leave the room not yet you won't said the man in a less boisterous tone don't annoy me with your airs for i'm in a hurry where is hathaway or weatherby or whatever he calls himself i do not know you don't eh
didn't he leave an address no i don't believe you where did he go if i knew said mary louise with dignity i would not inform you he uttered a growl and then threw back his coat displaying a badge attached to his vest
i wired the department for instructions and an hour ago received orders to arrest him but found my bird had flown he left you behind though and i'm wise to the fact that you're a clew that will lead me straight to him
no nonsense girl the federal government's not to be trifled with tell me where to find your grandfather if you have finished your insolent remarks she answered with spirit i will go away you have interrupted my game of tennis
he gave a bark of anger that made her smile but as she turned away he sprang forward and seized her arm swinging her around so that she again faced him great caesar girl don't you realize what you're up against he demanded i do said she i seem to be in the power of a brute
if a law exists that permits you to insult a girl there must also be a law to punish you i shall see a lawyer and try to have you properly punished for this absolute insolence he regarded her keenly still frowning but when he spoke again he had moderated both his tone and words
i do not intend to be insolent miss burrows
also having wired the department that i have found hathaway i shall be discredited if i let him slip through my fingers so i am in a desperate fix if i have seemed a bit gruff and nervous forgive me it is your duty as a loyal subject of the united states
to assist an officer of the law by every means in your power especially when he is engaged in running down a criminal therefore whether you dislike to or not you must tell me where to find your grandfather my grandfather is not a criminal sir
the jury will decide that when his case comes to trial at present he is accused of crime and a warrant is out for his arrest where is he i do not know she persisted he he left by the morning train which goes west stammered miss stearne
the old serpent is slippery as an eel but i'm going to catch him this time as sure as fate and this girl must give me all the information she can oh that will be quite easy retorted mary louise somewhat triumphantly for i have no information to divulge
he began to pace the room again casting at her shrewd and uncertain glances
no or leave any address no what did he say that he was going away and would arrange with miss stearne for me to board at the school huh i see foxy old guy knew i would question you and wouldn't take chances
no i thought not he turned toward the principal how about this girl's board money he asked when did he say he'd send it he paid me in advance to the end of the present term answered the agitated miss stearne
foxy old boy seemed to think of everything i'm going now but take this warning both of you don't gabble about what i've said keep the secret if nothing gets out hathaway may think the coast is clear and it's safe for him to come back in that case i
or someone appointed by the department will get a chance to nab him that's all good day he made his exit from the room without ceremony leaving mary louise and miss stearne staring fearfully at one another it it's dreadful stammered the teacher shrinking back with a moan
it would be if it were true said the girl but gran'pa jim is no criminal we all know he's the best man that ever lived and the whole trouble is that this foolish officer has mistaken him for someone else i heard him with my own ears tell the man he was mistaken
miss stearne reflected then why did your grandfather run away she asked it was now mary louise's turn to reflect seeking an answer presently she realized that a logical explanation of her grandfather's action was impossible with her present knowledge
i cannot answer that question miss stearne she admitted candidly but gran'pa jim must have had some good reason there was unbelief in the woman's eyes unbelief and a horror of the whole disgraceful affair that somehow included mary louise in its scope
chedcombe as i said in my last letter we started out for chedcombe not abreast as we had been before but strung along the road and me and mister poplington pretty doleful being disappointed and not wanting to talk
but as for jone he seemed livelier than ever and whistled a lot of tunes he didn't know i think it always makes him lively to get rid of seeing sights the sun was shining brightly and there was no reason to expect rain for two or three hours anyway
and the country we passed through was so fine with hardly any houses and with great hills and woods and sometimes valleys far below the road with streams rushing and bubbling that after a while i began to feel better
and i pricked up my tricycle and of course being followed by jone we left mister poplington whose melancholy seemed to have gotten into his legs a good way behind we must have travelled two or three hours when all of a sudden i heard a noise afar and i drew up and listened
the noise was the barking of dogs and it seemed to come from a piece of woods on the other side of the field which lay to the right of the road the next instant something shot out from under the trees and began going over the field in ten foot hops i sat staring without understanding
but when i saw a lot of brown and white spots bounce out of the wood and saw a long way back in the open field two red coated men on horseback the truth flashed upon me that this was the hunt the creature in front was the stag who had chosen to come this way
and the dogs and the horses was after him and i was here to see it all
going the same way that we were in a second i clapped spurs into my tricycle and was off in front of me was a long stretch of down grade and over this i went as fast as i could work my pedals no brakes or holding back for me
my blood was up for i was actually in a deer hunt and to my amazement and wild delight i found i was keeping up with the deer i was going faster than the men on horseback hi hi i shouted and down i went with one eye on the deer and the other on the road
every atom of my body tingling with fiery excitement when i began to go up the little slope ahead i heard jone puffing behind me you will break your neck he shouted if you go down hill that way and getting close up to me he fastened his cord to my tricycle
but i paid no attention to him or his advice the stag the stag i cried as long as he keeps near the road we can follow him hi
for we had fallen back a little and the stag was now getting ahead of us
for jone held back with all his force and both feet on the ground i expect and i could not get on at all let go of me i cried we shall lose the stag
but it wasn't any use jone's heels must have been nearly rubbed off but he held back like a good fellow and i seemed to be moving along no faster than a worm i could not stand this my blood boiled and bubbled the deer was getting away from me
not caring whether the road was steep or level a thought flashed across my mind and i clapped my hand into my pocket and jerked out a pair of scissors in an instant i was free
the world and the stag was before me and i was flying along with a tornado like swiftness that soon brought me abreast of the deer this perfectly splendid bounding creature was not far away from me on the other side of the hedge and as the field was higher than the road i could see him perfectly
there was still the woods on the other side and the deer seemed to run to keep away from that and to cross the road and he came nearer and nearer until i fancied he kept an eye on me as if he was wondering if i was of any consequence
and if i could hinder him from crossing the road and getting away into the valley below where there was a regular wilderness of woods and underbrush if he does that i thought he will be gone in a minute and i shall lose him and the hunt will be over and for fear he would make for the hedge and jump over it
and a little farther back was three or four dogs with another man still on horseback whipping them to keep them back though they seemed willing enough to lie there with their tongues out panting as the man with the knife came up to the deer the poor creature raised its eyes to him
and didn't seem to mind whether he came or not it was trembling all over and fairly tired to death when the man got near enough he took hold of one of the deer's horns and lifted up the hand with the knife in it but he didn't bring it down on that deer's throat i can tell you madam
for i was there and had him by the arm he turned on me as if he had been struck by lightning what do you mean he shouted let go my arm don't you touch that deer said i my voice was so husky i could hardly speak don't you see it's surrendered
and he having got a little of his wind back jerked his horn out of the hand of the man and giving a sort of side spring backward among the bushes and rocks away he went the dogs after him
the man with the knife rushed out into the lane and so did i and so did the man on horseback almost on top of me on the other side of the lane was a little gorge with rocks and trees and water at the bottom of it
and i was just in time to see the stag spring over the lane and drop out of sight among the rocks and the moss and the vines the man stood and swore at me regardless of my sex so violent was his rage if you was a man i'd break your head he yelled
i'm glad i'm not said i for i wouldn't want my head broken
for i never saw anything drop on rocks in such a reckless manner and the poor thing so tired the man swore again and said something about wishing somebody else's legs had been broken and then he shouted to the man on horseback to call off the dogs
which was of no use for he was doing it already then he turned on me again you are an american he shouted i might have known that
you're mistaken there i said there isn't a true english woman that lives who would not have done the same thing your mother confound my mother yelled the man all right said i that's all in your family and none of my business then he went off raging to where he had left his horse by a gatepost
the other man who was a good deal younger and more friendly came up to me and said he wouldn't like to be in my boots for i had spoiled a pretty piece of sport and then he went on and told me that it had been a bad hunt for instead of starting only one stag
for the hounds and the hunters had been mixed up in a nasty way
and when a stag was killed it belonged to the man whose land it died on he told me that the master of the hunt gets the head and the antlers and the huntsman some other part which i forget but the owner of the land no matter whether he's in the hunt or not gets the body of the stag
but keeping a little back of them though for i didn't know what the older one might do if he happened to turn and see me i was sure that jone had passed the little lane without seeing it so i kept on the way we had been going and got up all the speed i could
though i must say i was dreadfully tired and even trembling a little for while i had been stag hunting i was so excited i didn't know how much work i was doing there was sign posts enough to tell me the way to chedcombe and so i kept straight on up hill and down hill
which i soon knew to be mister poplington he was surprised enough at seeing me and told me my husband had gone ahead i didn't explain anything and it wasn't until we got nearly to chedcombe that we met jone
with the growing population of slaves in the southern states of america there is a fearful increase of half whites most of whose fathers are slaveowners and their mothers slaves society does not frown upon the man who sits with his mulatto child upon his knee
whilst its mother stands a slave behind his chair the late henry clay some years since predicted that the abolition of negro slavery would be brought about by the amalgamation of the races john randolph a distinguished slaveholder of virginia and a prominent statesman
said in a speech in the legislature of his native state that the blood of the first american statesmen coursed through the veins of the slave of the south in all the cities and towns of the slave states the real negro or clear black
does not amount to more than one in every four of the slave population this fact is of itself the best evidence of the degraded and immoral condition of the relation of master and slave in the united states of america
in all the slave states the law says slaves shall be deemed sold held taken reputed and adjudged in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors
and their executors administrators and assigns to all intents constructions and purposes whatsoever a slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs the master may sell him
dispose of his person his industry and his labour he can do nothing possess nothing nor acquire anything but what must belong to his master the slave is entirely subject to the will of his master
who may correct and chastise him though not with unusual rigour or so as to maim and mutilate him or expose him to the danger of loss of life or to cause his death the slave to remain a slave must be sensible that there is no appeal from his master
where the slave is placed by law entirely under the control of the man who claims him body and soul as property what else could be expected than the most depraved social condition
the marriage relation the oldest and most sacred institution given to man by his creator is unknown and unrecognised in the slave laws of the united states would that we could say that the moral and religious teaching in the slave states were better than the laws
but alas we cannot a few years since some slaveholders became a little uneasy in their minds about the rightfulness of permitting slaves to take to themselves husbands and wives while they still had others living and applied to their religious teachers for advice
and the following will show how this grave and important subject was treated is a servant whose husband or wife has been sold by his or her master into a distant country to be permitted to marry again the query was referred to a committee who made the following report
which after discussion was adopted that in view of the circumstances in which servants in this country are placed the committee are unanimous in the opinion that it is better to permit servants thus circumstanced to take another husband or wife
such was the answer from a committee of the shiloh baptist association and instead of receiving light those who asked the question were plunged into deeper darkness a similar question was put to the savannah river association
and the answer as the following will show did not materially differ from the one we have already given whether in a case of involuntary separation of such a character as to preclude all prospect of future intercourse the parties ought to be allowed to marry again
to forbid second marriages in such cases would be to expose the parties not only to stronger hardships and strong temptation but to church censure for acting in obedience to their masters who cannot be expected to acquiesce in a regulation at variance with justice to the slaves
although marriage as the above indicates is a matter which the slaveholders do not think is of any importance or of any binding force with their slaves yet it would be doing that degraded class an injustice not to acknowledge that many of them do regard it as a sacred obligation
and show a willingness to obey the commands of god on this subject marriage is indeed the first and most important institution of human existence the foundation of all civilisation and culture the root of church and state
it is the most intimate covenant of heart formed among mankind and for many persons the only relation in which they feel the true sentiments of humanity it gives scope for every human virtue since each of these is developed from the love and confidence which here predominate
it unites all which ennobles and beautifies life sympathy kindness of will and deed gratitude devotion and every delicate intimate feeling as the only asylum for true education it is the first and last sanctuary of human culture
as husband and wife through each other become conscious of complete humanity and every human feeling and every human virtue so children at their first awakening in the fond covenant of love between parents both of whom are tenderly concerned for the same object
find an image of complete humanity leagued in free love the spirit of love which prevails between them acts with creative power upon the young mind and awakens every germ of goodness within it
this invisible and incalculable influence of parental life acts more upon the child than all the efforts of education whether by means of instruction precept or exhortation
such is the influence of slavery in the united states that the ministers of religion even in the so called free states are the mere echoes instead of the correctors of public sentiment
we have thought it advisable to show that the present system of chattel slavery in america undermines the entire social condition of man so as to prepare the reader for the following narrative of slave life in that otherwise happy and prosperous country
in all the large towns in the southern states there is a class of slaves who are permitted to hire their time of their owners and for which they pay a high price these are mulatto women or quadroons as they are familiarly known
and are distinguished for their fascinating beauty the handsomest usually pays the highest price for her time many of these women are the favourites of persons who furnish them with the means of paying their owners and not a few are dressed in the most extravagant manner
reader when you take into consideration the fact that amongst the slave population no safeguard is thrown around virtue and no inducement held out to slave women to be chaste you will not be surprised when we tell you that immorality and vice pervade the cities of the southern states
in a manner unknown in the cities and towns of the northern states indeed most of the slave women have no higher aspiration than that of becoming the finely dressed mistress of some white man and at negro balls and parties this class of women usually cut the greatest figure
at the close of the year the following advertisement appeared in a newspaper published in richmond the capital of the state of virginia notice thirty eight negroes will be offered for sale on monday november tenth at twelve o'clock
the negroes are in good condition some of them very prime among them are several mechanics able bodied field hands ploughboys and women with children at the breast and some of them very prolific in their generating qualities affording a rare opportunity
to any one who wishes to raise a strong and healthy lot of servants for their own use also several mulatto girls of rare personal qualities two of them very superior any gentleman or lady wishing to purchase can take any of the above slaves on trial for a week
for which no charge will be made amongst the above slaves to be sold were currer and her two daughters clotel and althesa the latter were the girls spoken of in the advertisement as very superior
currer was a bright mulatto and of prepossessing appearance though then nearly forty years of age she had hired her time for more than twenty years during which time she had lived in richmond
but of later years had been a laundress or washerwoman and was considered to be a woman of great taste in getting up linen the gentleman for whom she had kept house was thomas jefferson by whom she had two daughters
jefferson being called to washington to fill a government appointment currer was left behind and thus she took herself to the business of washing by which means she paid her master mister graves and supported herself and two children
at the time of the decease of her master currer's daughters clotel and althesa were aged respectively sixteen and fourteen years and both like most of their own sex in america were well grown
currer early resolved to bring her daughters up as ladies as she termed it and therefore imposed little or no work upon them as her daughters grew older currer had to pay a stipulated price for them
although the term negro ball is applied to most of these gatherings yet a majority of the attendants are often whites nearly all the negro parties in the cities and towns of the southern states are made up of quadroon and mulatto girls and white men
it was at one of these parties that horatio green the son of a wealthy gentleman of richmond was first introduced to clotel the young man had just returned from college and was in his twenty second year
clotel was sixteen and was admitted by all to be the most beautiful girl coloured or white in the city so attentive was the young man to the quadroon during the evening that it was noticed by all and became a matter of general conversation
while currer appeared delighted beyond measure at her daughter's conquest from that evening young green became the favourite visitor at currer's house he soon promised to purchase clotel as speedily as it could be effected and make her mistress of her own dwelling
that horatio green was seated in the small garden behind currer's cottage
and it was here that horatio drew from his pocket the newspaper wet from the press and read the advertisement for the sale of the slaves to which we have alluded currer and her two daughters being of the number
at the close of the evening's visit and as the young man was leaving he said to the girl you shall soon be free and your own mistress as might have been expected the day of sale brought an unusual large number together to compete for the property to be sold
farmers who make a business of raising slaves for the market were there slave traders and speculators were also numerously represented and in the midst of this throng was one who felt a deeper interest in the result of the sale than any other of the bystanders
this was young green true to his promise he was there with a blank bank check in his pocket awaiting with impatience to enter the list as a bidder for the beautiful slave the less valuable slaves were first placed upon the auction block
one after another and sold to the highest bidder husbands and wives were separated with a degree of indifference that is unknown in any other relation of life except that of slavery brothers and sisters were torn from each other
and mothers saw their children leave them for the last time on this earth it was late in the day when the greatest number of persons were thought to be present that currer and her daughters were brought forward to the place of sale
currer was first ordered to ascend the auction stand which she did with a trembling step the slave mother was sold to a trader althesa the youngest and who was scarcely less beautiful than her sister was sold to the same trader for one thousand dollars
clotel was the last and as was expected commanded a higher price than any that had been offered for sale that day the appearance of clotel on the auction block created a deep sensation amongst the crowd
there she stood with a complexion as white as most of those who were waiting with a wish to become her purchasers her features as finely defined as any of her sex of pure anglo saxon her long black wavy hair done up in the neatest manner her form tall and graceful
the auctioneer commenced by saying that miss clotel had been reserved for the last because she was the most valuable how much gentlemen real albino fit for a fancy girl for any one she enjoys good health and has a sweet temper how much do you say
five hundred dollars only five hundred for such a girl as this gentlemen she is worth a deal more than that sum you certainly don't know the value of the article you are bidding upon here gentlemen i hold in my hand a paper certifying that she has a good moral character
seven hundred ah gentlemen that is something like this paper also states that she is very intelligent eight hundred she is a devoted christian and perfectly trustworthy nine hundred nine fifty ten eleven
twelve hundred here the sale came to a dead stand
which he said had come under his own observation at this juncture the scene was indeed strange laughing joking swearing smoking spitting and talking kept up a continual hum and noise amongst the crowd
while the slave girl stood with tears in her eyes at one time looking towards her mother and sister and at another towards the young man whom she hoped would become her purchaser
thirteen fourteen fifteen fifteen hundred dollars cried the auctioneer and the maiden was struck for that sum
her moral character for two hundred her improved intellect for one hundred her christianity for three hundred and her chastity and virtue for four hundred dollars more and this too in a city thronged with churches whose tall spires look like so many signals pointing to heaven
and whose ministers preach that slavery is a god ordained institution what words can tell the inhumanity the atrocity and the immorality of that doctrine which from exalted office commends such a crime to the favour of enlightened and christian people
what indignation from all the world is not due to the government and people who put forth all their strength and power to keep in existence such an institution nature abhors it the age repels it and christianity needs all her meekness to forgive it
clotel was sold for fifteen hundred dollars but her purchaser was horatio green thus closed a negro sale at which two daughters of thomas jefferson the writer of the declaration of american independence and one of the presidents of the great republic
were disposed of to the highest bidder o god my every heart string cries dost thou these scenes behold in this our boasted christian land and must the truth be told
my comrade was a capital grecian it is true that his singular mind so ordered and disposed his classic lore as to impress it with something of an original and barbarous characterwith
more properly belonging to a rich native ballad than to the poetry of hellas there was a certain impropriety in his knowing so much greekan unfitness in the idea of marble fauns and satyrs
and even olympian gods lugged in under the oaken roof and the painted light of an odd old norman hall but methley abounding in homer really loved him as i believe in all truth without whim or fancy
moreover he had a good deal of the practical sagacity of a yorkshireman hippodamoio
i too loved homer but not with a scholars love the most humble and pious among women was yet so proud a mother that she could teach her firstborn son no watts hymns no collects for the day
she could teach him in earliest childhood no less than this to find a home in his saddle and to love old homer and all that old homer sung true it is that the greek was ingeniously rendered into english the english of pope even
but not even a mesh like that can screen an earnest child from the fire of homers battles i pored over the odyssey as over a story book hoping and fearing for the hero whom yet i partly scorned
for the coming strife of this temporal world i read and read the iliad even outwardly it was not like other books it was throned in towering folios there was a preface or dissertation printed in type still more majestic than the rest of the book
that the iliad was all in all to the human racethat it was history poetry revelation that the works of mens hands were folly and vanity and would pass away like the dreams of a child but that the kingdom of homer would endure for ever and ever
i assented with all my soul i read and still read i came to know homer a learned commentator knows something of the greeks in the same sense as an oil and colour man may be said to know something of painting
but take an untamed child and leave him alone for twelve months with any translation of homer and he will be nearer by twenty centuries to the spirit of old greece he does not stop in the ninth year of the siege to admire this or that group of words
and mounts into heaven for safety then the beautiful episode of the sixth book the way to feel this is not to go casting about and learning from pastors and masters how best to admire it the impatient child is not grubbing for beauties
but pushing the siege the women vex him with their delays and their talking the mention of the nurse is personal and little sympathy has he for the child that is young enough to be frightened at the nodding plume of a helmet
but all the while that he thus chafes at the pausing of the action the strong vertical light of homers poetry is blazing so full upon the people and things of the iliad that soon to the eyes of the child they grow familiar as his mothers shawl
yet of this great gain he is unconscious and on he goes vengefully thirsting for the best blood of troy and never remitting his fierceness till almost suddenly it is changed for sorrowthe new and generous sorrow that he learns to feel
heroic days are these but the dark ages of schoolboy life come closing over them i suppose it is all right in the end yet by jove at first sight it does seem a sad intellectual fall from your mothers dressing room to a buzzing school
you feel so keenly the delights of early knowledge you form strange mystic friendships with the mere names of mountains and seas and continents and mighty rivers you learn the ways of the planets and transcend their narrow limits and ask for the end of space
you vex the electric cylinder till it yields you for your toy to play with that subtle fire in which our earth was forged you know of the nations that have towered high in the world and the lives of the men who have saved whole empires from oblivion
what more will you ever learn yet the dismal change is ordained and then thin meagre latin the same for everybody with small shreds and patches of greek is thrown like a paupers pall over all your early lore
dictionaries and lexicons and horrible odds and ends of dead languages are given you for your portion and down you fall from roman story to a three inch scrap of scriptores romani
cut up by commentators and served out by schoolmasters it was not the recollection of school nor college learning but the rapturous and earnest reading of my childhood which made me bend forward so longingly to the plains of troy
away from our people and our horses methley and i went loitering along by the willow banks of a stream that crept in quietness through the low even plain there was no stir of weather overhead no sound of rural labour
no sign of life in the land but all the earth was dead and still as though it had lain for thrice a thousand years under the leaden gloom of one unbroken sabbath
in some places its waters were parted and then again lower down they would meet once more i could see that the stream from year to year was finding itself new channels and flowed no longer in its ancient track
but i knew that the springs which fed it were high on idathe
i tell myself now as a profane fact that i did stand by that river methley gathered some seeds from the bushes that grew there but since that i am away from his banks
a kind of indistinctness
ones mind regains in absence that dominion over earthly things which has been shaken by their rude contact you force yourself hardily into the material presence of a mountain
or a river whose name belongs to poetry and ancient religion rather than to the external world your feelings wound up and kept ready for some sort of half expected rapture are chilled and borne down for the time under all this load of real earth and water
but let these once pass out of sight and then again the old fanciful notions are restored and the mere realities which you have just been looking at are thrown back so far into distance that the very event of your intrusion upon such scenes
begins to look dim and uncertain as though it belonged to mythology it is not over the plain before troy that the river now flows its waters have edged away far towards the north since the day that divine scamander
whom the gods call xanthus went down to do battle for ilion with mars and phoebus and latona and diana glorying in her arrows and venus the lover of smiles
how happily methley reminded me that homer himself had warned us of some such changes the greeks in beginning their wall had neglected the hecatombs due to the gods and so after the fall of troy apollo turned the paths of the rivers that flow from ida
and sent them flooding over the wall till all the beach was smooth and free from the unhallowed works of the greeks it is true i see now on looking to the passage that neptune when the work of destruction was done
turned back the rivers to their ancient ways but their old channels passing through that light pervious soil
and perhaps the god when he willed to bring back the rivers to their ancient beds may have done his work but ill it is easier they say to destroy than it is to restore
we took to our horses again and went southward towards the very plain between troy and the tents of the greeks but we rode by a line at some distance from the shore whether it was that the lay of the ground hindered my view towards the sea
but it was not quite suddenly indeed but rather as it were in the swelling and falling of a single wave that the reality of that very sea view which had bounded the sight of the greeks
conceive how deeply that eternal coast line that fixed horizon those island rocks must have graven their images upon the minds of the grecian warriors by the time that they had reached the ninth year of the siege
conceive the strength and the fanciful beauty of the speeches with which a whole army of imagining men must have told their weariness and how the sauntering chiefs must have whelmed that daily daily scene with their deep ionian curses
and now it was that my eyes were greeted with a delightful surprise whilst we were at constantinople methley and i had pored over the map together we agreed that whatever may have been the exact site of troy
in which neptune is represented as looking at the scene of action before ilion from above the island of samothrace now samothrace according to the map appeared to be not only out of all seeing distance from the troad
but to be entirely shut out from it by the intervening imbros which is a larger island stretching its length right athwart the line of sight from samothrace to troy piously allowing that the dread commoter of our globe might have seen all mortal doings
i still felt that if a station were to be chosen from which to see the fight old homer so material in his ways of thought so averse from all haziness and overreaching would have meant to give the god for his station some spot within reach of mens eyes from the plains of troy
i think that this testing of the poets words by map and compass may have shaken a little of my faith in the completeness of his knowledge well now i had come there to the south was tenedos and here at my side was imbros all right
and according to the map but aloft over imbros aloft in a far away heaven was samothrace the watch tower of neptune so homer had appointed it and so it was the map was correct enough but could not like homer convey the whole truth
thus vain and false are the mere human surmises and doubts which clash with homeric writ nobody whose mind had not been reduced to the most deplorable logical condition could look upon this beautiful congruity betwixt the iliad and the material world
and yet bear to suppose that the poet may have learned the features of the coast from mere hearsay now then i believed now i knew that homer had passed along here that this vision of samothrace over towering the nearer island was common to him
and to me after a journey of some few days by the route of adramiti and pergamo we reached smyrna
this means that tornadoes are expected in or near your area keep your radio or television set tuned to a local station for information and advice from your local government or the weather bureau also keep watching the sky
report them by telephone immediately to your local police department sheriff's office or weather bureau office
depend on radio or t v when a tornado warning is issued take shelter immediately the warning means that a tornado has actually been sighted and this or other tornadoes may strike in your vicinity
you must take action to protect yourself from being blown away struck by falling objects or injured by flying debris your best protection is an underground shelter or cave or a substantial steel framed or reinforced concrete building
but if none of these is available there are other places where you can take refuge if you are at home go to your underground storm cellar or your basement fallout shelter if you have one if not go to a corner of your home basement
and take cover under a sturdy workbench or table but not underneath heavy appliances on the floor above if your home has no basement take cover under heavy furniture on the ground floor in the center part of the house
may be left open to help reduce damage to the building but stay away from them to avoid flying debris do not remain in a trailer or mobile home if a tornado is approaching take cover elsewhere
if you are at work in an office building go to the basement or to an inner hallway on a lower floor in a factory go to a shelter area or to the basement if there is one if you are outside in open country
drive away from the tornado's path at a right angle to it if there isn't time to do this or if you are walking take cover and lie flat in the nearest depression such as a ditch culvert excavation or ravine
keep posted on weather conditions use your radio television and newspapers to keep informed of current weather conditions and forecasts in your area even a few hours warning of a storm
may enable you to avoid being caught outside in it or at least be better prepared to cope with it you should also understand the terms commonly used in weather forecasts a blizzard is the most dangerous of all winter storms
it combines cold air heavy snow and strong winds that blow the snow about and may reduce visibility to only a few yards a blizzard warning is issued when the weather bureau expects considerable snow
winds of thirty five miles an hour or more and temperatures of twenty degrees fahrenheit or lower a severe blizzard warning means that a very heavy snowfall is expected with winds of at least forty five miles an hour
and temperatures of ten degrees or lower a heavy snow warning usually means an expected snowfall of four inches or more in a twelve hour period or six inches or more in a twenty four hour period
warnings of snow flurries snow squalls or blowing and drifting snow are important mainly because visibility may be reduced and roads may become slippery or blocked
freezing rain or freezing drizzle is forecast when expected rain is likely to freeze as soon as it strikes the ground putting a coating of ice or glaze on roads and everything else that is exposed
if a substantial layer of ice is expected to accumulate from the freezing rain an ice storm is forecast sleet is small particles of ice usually mixed with rain
it will make the roads slippery be prepared for isolation at home if you live in a rural area make sure you could survive at home for a week or two in case a storm isolated you and made it impossible for you to leave
you should keep an adequate supply of heating fuel on hand and use it sparingly as your regular supplies may be curtailed by storm conditions if necessary conserve fuel by keeping the house cooler than usual
stock an emergency supply of food and water as well as emergency cooking equipment such as a camp stove some of this food should be of the type that does not require refrigeration or cooking
make sure you have a battery powered radio and extra batteries on hand so that if your electric power is cut off you could still hear weather forecasts information and advice broadcast by local authorities
also flashlights or lanterns would be needed consult page seventy two of this handbook for other supplies and equipment that you may need if isolated at home be sure to keep on hand the simple tools and equipment needed to fight a fire
also be certain that all family members know how to take precautions that would prevent fire at such a time when the help of the fire department may not be available travel only if necessary
avoid all unnecessary trips if you must travel use public transportation if possible however if you are forced to use your automobile for a trip of any distance take these precautions
make sure your car is in good operating condition properly serviced and equipped with chains or snow tires take another person with you if possible make sure someone knows where you are going your approximate schedule
and your estimated time of arrival at your destination have emergency winter storm supplies in the car such as a container of sand shovel windshield scraper tow chain or rope extra gasoline and a flashlight
it also is good to have with you heavy gloves or mittens overshoes extra woolen socks and winter headgear to cover your head and face travel by daylight and use major highways if you can
keep the car radio turned on for weather information and advice drive with all possible caution don't try to save time by travelling faster than road and weather conditions permit don't be daring or foolhardy
stop turn back or seek help if conditions threaten that may test your ability or endurance rather than risk being stalled lost or isolated if you are caught in a blizzard seek refuge immediately
keep calm if you get in trouble if your car breaks down during a storm or if you become stalled or lost don't panic think the problem through decide what's the safest and best thing to do
and then do it slowly and carefully if you are on a well traveled road show a trouble signal set your directional lights to flashing raise the hood of your car or hang a cloth from the radio aerial or car window
then stay in your car and wait for help to arrive if you run the engine to keep warm remember to open a window enough to provide ventilation and protect you from carbon monoxide poisoning
wherever you are if there is no house or other source of help in sight do not leave your car to search for assistance as you may become confused and get lost avoid overexertion
every winter many unnecessary deaths occur because people especially older persons but younger ones as well engage in more strenuous physical activity than their bodies can stand
or even walking fast or far you are risking a heart attack a stroke or other damage to your body in winter weather and especially in winter storms be aware of this danger and avoid overexertion
chapter five earthquakes if your area is one of the places in the united states where earthquakes occur keep these points in mind when an earthquake happens keep calm don't run or panic
if you take the proper precautions the chances are you will not be hurt remain where you are if you are outdoors stay outdoors if indoors stay indoors
in earthquakes most injuries occur as people are entering or leaving buildings from falling walls electric wires et cetera if you are indoors sit or stand against an inside wall preferably in the basement
or in an inside doorway or else take cover under a desk table or bench in case the wall or ceiling should fall stay away from windows and outside doors if you are outdoors stay away from overhead electric wires poles
one day tom was not well and could not do much but watch jack dig after noting some movements of the body that seemed familiar he said jack where did you come from the two men sat down and talked of boyhood days
and found that they were born in the same community and had played together when they were small boys here they had worked together for months without knowing that they were neighbors they actually got up and shook hands with each other
venezuela is our nearest neighbor to the south this country is nearer to florida than new orleans is to new york and yet we have lived side by side for four hundred years and hardly knew we were neighbors
we might have been friends and greatly assisted each other all these years is it not about time we were getting acquainted and shaking hands with each other it is surprising to know that venezuela is as large as maine new hampshire vermont
massachusetts connecticut rhode island new york pennsylvania new jersey delaware the two virginias north and south carolina and georgia combined it is a country that has a thousand rivers in some parts of it
you can travel for days in regions where as yet no white man has ever set his foot one writer says that of all the countries in the world venezuela is the one for which god has done the most and man has done the least
although all kinds of wild animals are plentiful it has been given this appellation because of its unstable government its treasury has been looted again and again even the president of venezuela was for years a criminal
he robbed merchants of other countries who tried to do business with his government he imprisoned those who refused to assist him and ran things in a high handed way business firms of other lands found this out
and did not care to do business with such a country or help develop its resources in any way we are not ashamed of our revolution in seventeen seventy six for its purpose was to gain our independence
during the past seventy or eighty years venezuela has had more than a half hundred revolutions but generally they were gotten up to give an excuse for pillage and robbery rather than to make a better country or government
things are better now however and a new day is dawning for these unhappy people the main port or entrance to this country is la guaira and sailors say it is about the worst port to enter in the world
this port city contains about fifteen thousand people and has but a single street the high mountains are so near the sea that there is only a narrow strip of land at the foot and on this narrow strip the city is built
the sea is nearly always rough and the weather always hot how people can endure such extreme heat all the time is a mystery all along this coast strip of venezuela are plantations generally covered with cocoa trees
coffee is also a staple crop at the piers will be noticed bags of coffee and cocoa beans great quantities of rubber and piles of hides as we are nearer to them than other foreign countries
we now use much of their products the population of this great country is only a little more than that of the state of iowa
it is only about twenty five miles by rail and this railroad was about as difficult to build as any of our mountain railroads the tracks cling to the mountain sides almost like vines cling to brick walls
and the curves are so short that one riding in the end coach can nearly reach the engineer one can look hundreds of feet into caverns and gorges that seem almost like the bottomless pit
and literally gave their lives that the colonies might be free
and everywhere he is revered as the george washington of that country in one of the large museums is a room in which are kept the great liberator's clothing saddle boots and spears
to him who acquired equal glory in south america through this country runs one of the world's greatest rivers the orinoco which with its tributaries furnishes more than four thousand miles of navigable rivers
without ambition or education and be satisfied to live in comfortless tumble down huts without furniture or any of the improvements that make life worth living but such is the case
here where there are millions of coffee trees fields of sugar cane and orchards of oranges lemons and all kinds of tropical fruit where the farmer could be happiest he is about the most miserable creature that could be found in his miserable home
he has no lamp or candle no books or papers of any sort while venezuela is rich in mines and forests grain and livestock coffee and rubber dyes and medicines gold and copper lead and coal
to say nothing of tropical fruits and vegetables she has another product that makes her known the world around this is asphalt or mineral pitch as it is sometimes called this makes the smoothest street paving of any material known
it is also used extensively for calking vessels making waterproof roofs lining cold storage plants making varnishes as well as shoe blacking as well as in a hundred other ways
at the mouth of the orinoco river is the island of trinidad upon which is the famous pitch lake this is the most noted deposit of asphalt known this lake is a mile and a half across and looks from a distance
like a pond surrounded with trees nearing it however one soon discovers that it contains anything but water this material is of a dark green color and at the border is hard and strong enough to bear quite a heavy weight
but near the center it is almost like a boiling mass the asphalt is dug from the edges of the lake loaded on carts hauled to the port and from there shipped to nearly every country on the globe
the government of trinidad has leased the asphalt lake to an american company and the income amounts to nearly a quarter of a million dollars per year nobody knows how deep the asphalt bed is
for borings have been made a hundred feet or more deep and there was no bottom the heat is intense all around this lake about fifty miles from the coast in venezuela there is another asphalt lake
but it is hard to reach some believe that the two deposits are connected by a subterranean passage and supplied from the same source it was from this inland lake of asphalt that the material was procured to protect the new york subway tunnels from moisture
in the central part of venezuela
or stores of grain a revolution would come and their property be seized and often destroyed no people can be prosperous and happy without a stable government schools and colleges and the influences that are uplifting
this is the great need of many of the countries of south america today just here it is well for the farmers of this country to congratulate themselves the writer of these lines has traveled nearly all over the world
and having been a farmer all his early life it is only natural that he would try to study the problems of the farmers in all lands
she did not look very much as if she were asleep nor acted as though she expected to get a chance to be very soon there was no end to the things which she had to do for the kitchen was long and wide
and took many steps to set it in order and it was drawing toward tea time of a tuesday evening and there were fifteen boarders who were most of them punctual to a minute
as also were alfred and julia while little minnie the pet and darling most certainly was not she was around in the way putting little fingers into every possible place where little fingers ought not to be
it was well for her that no matter how warm and vexed and out of order ester might be she never reached the point in which her voice could take other than a loving tone in speaking to minnie
for minnie besides being a precious little blessing in herself was the child of ester's oldest sister whose home was far away in a western graveyard and the little girl had been with them since her early babyhood three years before
so ester hurried to and from the pantry with quick nervous movements as the sun went toward the west saying to maggie who was ironing with all possible speed
maggie do hurry and get ready to help me or i shall never have tea ready saying it in a sharp fretful tone then no no birdie don't touch in quite a different tone to minnie who laid loving hands on a box of raisins
i am hurrying as fast as i can maggie made answer but such an ironing as i have every week can't be finished in a minute well well don't talk that won't hurry matters any
how are you ester and she emerged fully into the great warm kitchen looking like a bright flower picked from the garden and put out of place her pink gingham dress and white ruffled apron
yes and the very school books which she swung by their strap waking a smothered sigh in ester's heart o my patience was her greeting are you home then school is out
we've been down to the river since school
i did not know it was so late and i'm nearly tired to death
i would in a minute ester only i've brought florence vane home with me and i should not know what to do with her in the meantime
well go then and tell mister hammond to wait for his tea until he gets it ester answered crossly here julia to the ten year old newcomer go away from that raisin box this minute go up stairs out of my way and alfred too
you can afford to do that much perhaps
and minnie ester's darling who never received other than loving words from her went gleefully off leaving another heartburn to the weary girl they stung her those words auntie essie's cross isn't she
back and forth from dining room to pantry from pantry to dining room went the quick feet at last she spoke maggie leave the ironing and help me it is time tea was ready i'm just ironing mister holland's shirt objected maggie
the tall clock in the dining room struck five and the dining bell pealed out its prompt summons through the house the family gathered promptly and noisily school girls half a dozen or more
mister and missus holland and mister arnett mister holland's clerk there was a moment's hush while mister hammond asked a blessing on the food then the merry talk went on
this has been one of the scorching days mister holland said it was as much as i could do to keep cool in the store and we generally are well off for a breeze there
i gave it up long ago in despair ester's lip curled a little missus holland had nothing in the world to do from morning until night but to keep herself cool she wondered what the lady would have said to the glowing kitchen
which is a difficult thing to do however doctor van anden said speaking soberly too i don't know sir if i had nothing to do but that i think i could manage it
no one knows what prompted minnie to speak just then
are you truly better mother i've been worried half to pieces about you all day o yes i'm better ester you look dreadfully tired have you much more to do
only to trim the lamps and make three beds that i had not time for this morning and get things ready for breakfast and finish sadie's dress can't maggie do any of these things maggie is ironing missus ried sighed
or you would soon wear yourself out
yes ma'am your worthy daughter has the honor of being editress you know to night ester can't you go down never mind that dress let it go to guinea you wouldn't think so by to morrow evening ester said shortly no i can't go
the work was all done at last and ester betook herself to her room how tired she was every nerve seemed to quiver with weariness it was a pleasant little room this one which she entered
looked down on them with her eyes and with her heart yet envied while she looked envied their free and easy life without a care to harass them so she thought
a matter which she so early in life had been obliged to have done with envied missus holland the very ribbons and laces which fluttered in the evening air it had grown cooler now a strong breeze blew up from the river and freshened the air
and as they sat below there enjoying it the sound of their gay voices came up to her what do they know about heat or care or trouble she said scornfully thinking over all the weight of her eighteen years of life
the sweeping dusting making beds trimming lamps working from morning till night no time for reading or study or pleasure sadie had said she was cross and sadie had told the truth
if something would only happen if i could have one day just one day different from the others but no it's the same old thing sweep and dust and clear up and eat and sleep i hate it all
yet had ester nothing for which to be thankful that the group on the piazza had not if she had but thought she had a robe and a crown and a harp and a place waiting for her up before the throne of god
and all they had not ester did not think of this so much asleep was she that she did not even know that none of those gay hearts down there below her had been given up to christ not one of them
for the academy teachers and doctor van anden were not among them o ester was asleep she went to church on the sabbath and to preparatory lecture on a week day she read a few verses in her bible frequently not every day
she knelt at her bedside every night and said a few words of prayer and this was all she lay at night side by side with a young sister who had no claim to a home in heaven and never spoke to her of jesus
she worked daily side by side with a mother who through many trials and discouragements was living a christian life and never talked with her of their future rest she met daily sometimes almost hourly
a large household and never so much as thought of asking them if they too were going some day home to god she helped her young brother and sister with their geography lessons and never mentioned to them the heavenly country whither they themselves might journey
the dignity of dollars man is a blind helpless creature he looks back with pride upon his goodly heritage of the ages and yet obeys unwittingly every mandate of that heritage for it is incarnate with him and in it are embedded the deepest roots of his soul
strive as he will he cannot escape it unless he be a genius one of those rare creations to whom alone is granted the privilege of doing entirely new and original things in entirely new and original ways but the common clay born man
possessing only talents may do only what has been done before him at the best if he work hard and cherish himself exceedingly he may duplicate any or all previous performances of his kind he may even do some of them better
whole ancestry bearing heavily upon him and again in the matter of his ideas which have been thrust upon him and which he has been busily garnering from the great world ever since the day when his eyes first focussed and he drew startled
against the warm breast of his mother the tyranny of these he cannot shake off servants of his will they at the same time master him they may not coerce genius but they dictate and sway every action of the clay born
while all clamour that he do this thing or think this thing in the ancient and time honoured way
and that he may do nothing which they do not do it is only in some way such as this that we may understand and explain the dignity which attaches itself to dollars in the watches of the night we may assure ourselves that there is no such dignity
but jostling with our fellows in the white light of day we find that it does exist and that we ourselves measure ourselves by the dollars we happen to possess they give us confidence and carriage and dignity ay a personal dignity
the world when it knows nothing else of him measures a man by his clothes but the man himself if he be neither a genius nor a philosopher but merely a clay born measures himself by his pocket book he cannot help it
when crossing a ballroom floor i remember once absenting myself from civilization for weary months when i returned it was to a strange city in another country
and they spoke the same tongue barring a certain barbarous accent which i learned was far older than the one imbibed by me with my mother's milk a fur cap soiled and singed by many camp fires half sheltered the shaggy tendrils of my uncut hair
my foot gear was of walrus hide cunningly blended with seal gut the remainder of my dress was as primal and uncouth i was a sight to give merriment to gods and men olympus must have roared at my coming the world knowing me not
could judge me by my clothes alone but i refused to be so judged my spiritual backbone stiffened and i held my head high looking all men in the eyes and i did these things not that i was an egotist
not that i was impervious to the critical glances of my fellows but because of a certain hogskin belt plethoric and sweat bewrinkled which buckled next the skin above the hips oh it's absurd i grant but had that belt not been so circumstanced and so situated
why i do not know save that in such way did my fathers before me
people discreetly dropped their eyes before my proud gaze and into their hearts i know i forced the query what manner of man can this mortal be i was superior to convention
had they been less just so would have been my stature more and i should have reached the sky and this was my royal progress through that most loyal city i purchased a host of things from the tradespeople and bought me such pleasures and diversions as befitted one who had
long been denied i scattered my gold lavishly nor did i chaffer over prices in mart or exchange and because of these things i did i demanded homage nor was it refused
and for the time was content but there rushed upon me the words of erasmus when i get some money i shall buy me some greek books and afterwards some clothes and a great shame wrapped me around
but luckily for my soul's welfare i reflected and was saved by the clearer vision vouchsafed me i beheld erasmus fire flashing heaven born while i i was merely a clay born a son of earth
and tottered and i rolled over on my greensward caught a glimpse of a regiment of undulating backs and thanked my particular gods that such moods of madness were passing brief
that a man of lead he once remarked who has no more sense than a log of wood and is as bad as he is foolish should have many wise and good men to serve him
only because he has a great heap of that metal and that if by some accident or trick of law which sometimes produces as great changes as chance itself
he himself would very soon become one of his servants as if he were a thing that belonged to his wealth and so was bound to follow its fortune
but when i had recovered my reason i fell upon my particular gods and berated them mightily and as penance for their watchlessness placed them away amongst dust and cobwebs oh no not for long
they are again enshrined as bright and polished as of yore and my destiny is once more in their keeping it is given that travail and vicissitude mark time to man's footsteps as he stumbles onward toward the grave and it is well without the bitter one may not know the sweet
the other day nay it was but yesterday i fell before the rhythm of fortune the inexorable pendulum had swung the counter direction and there was upon me an urgent need the hogskin belt was flat as famine nor did it longer gird my loins
the nitrogenic why of the fertilizer the alchemy of the sun the microscopic cell structure of the plant the cryptic chemistry of root and runner but thereat he straightened his work wearied back and rested his eyes wandered over what he had produced in the sweat of his brow
i shrank back then i waxed rebellious i refused to answer the question
and a dignity entered into me and my neck was stiffened my head poised i gathered together certain certificates of goods and chattels pointed my heel towards him and his cabbages and journeyed townward i was yet a man
there was naught in those certificates to be ashamed of
while my heels thrust the cabbage man beyond the horizon my toes were drawing me faltering like a timid old beggar into a roaring spate of humanity men women and children without end they had no concern with me nor i with them
i knew it i felt it like she after her fire bath in the womb of the world i dwindled in my own sight my feet were uncertain and heavy and my soul became as a meal sack limp with emptiness and tied in the middle
people looked upon me scornfully pitifully reproachfully i can swear they did in every eye i read the question man where are your cabbages
so i avoided their looks shrinking close to the kerbstone and by furtive glances directing my progress at last i came hard by the place and peering stealthily to the right and left that none who knew might behold me i entered hurriedly
i do not know save that there goes much dignity with dollars and being devoid of the one i was destitute of the other
the person i sought practised a profession as ancient as the oracles but far more lucrative it is mentioned in exodus so it must have been created soon after the foundations of the world and despite the thunder of ecclesiastics and the
wherefore it was in fear and trembling and with great modesty of spirit that i entered the presence to confess that i was shocked
were to do my feelings an injustice perhaps the blame may be shouldered upon shylock fagin and their ilk but i had conceived an entirely different type of individual
this man why he was clean to look at his eyes were blue with the tired look of scholarly lucubrations and his skin had the normal pallor of sedentary existence
he was reading a book sober and leather bound while on his finely moulded intellectual head reposed a black skull cap for all the world his look and attitude were those of a college professor my heart gave a great leap here was hope but no
he fixed me with a cold and glittering eye searching with the chill of space till my financial status stood before him shivering and ashamed i communed with myself by his brow he is a thinker
his nerve centres of judgment and will have not been employed in solving the problems of life but in maintaining his own solvency by the insolvency of others he trades upon sorrow and draws a livelihood from misfortune
but no as i said he fixed me with a cold and glittering eye
insolently demanded how many children had i and did i live in wedlock and asked divers other unseemly and degrading questions ay i was treated like a thief convicted before the act till i produced my certificates of goods and chattels aforementioned
never had they appeared so insignificant and paltry as then when he sniffed over them with the air of one disdainfully doing a disagreeable task
i put my signature to certain indentures received my pottage and fled from his presence
in people's eyes the cabbage question no longer brooded and there was a spring to my body an elasticity of step as i covered the pavement within me coursed an unwonted sap and i felt as though i were about to burst out into leaves and buds and green things
my brain was clear and refreshed there was a new strength to my arm my nerves were tingling and i was a pulse with the times all men were my brothers save one yes save one
i would go back and wreck the establishment i would disrupt that leather bound volume violate that black skullcap burn the accounts but before fancy could father the act i recollected myself and all which had passed nor did i marvel at my new horn might
at my ancient dignity which had returned there was a tinkling chink as i ran the yellow pieces through my fingers and with the golden music rippling round me i caught a deeper insight into the mystery of things
foma gordyeeff is a big book not only is the breadth of russia in it but the expanse of life yet though in each land in this world of marts and exchanges this age of trade and traffic passionate figures rise up and demand of life
what its fever is in foma gordyeeff it is a russian who so rises up and demands for gorky the bitter one is essentially a russian in his grasp on the facts of life and in his treatment
he raises the cry of the miserable and the despised and in a masterly arraignment of commercialism protests against social conditions against the grinding of the faces of the poor and weak and the self pollution of the rich and strong in their mad lust for place and power
it is to be doubted strongly if the average bourgeois smug and fat and prosperous can understand this man foma gordyeeff the rebellion in his blood is something to which their own does not thrill
to them it will be inexplicable that this man with his health and his millions could not go on living as his class lived keeping regular hours at desk and stock exchange driving close contracts underbidding his competitors and exulting in the business disasters of his fellows
it would appear so easy and after such a life well appointed and eminently respectable he could die ah foma will interrupt rudely he is given to rude interruptions if to die and disappear is the end of these money grubbing years why money grub
why do you brag foma bursts out upon him what have you to brag about your son where is he your daughter
receiving by heredity the fierce bull like nature of his father plus the passive indomitableness and groping spirit of his mother foma proud and rebellious is repelled by the selfish money seeking environment into which he is born
why he demands this is a nightmare this life it is without significance what does it all mean what is there underneath what is the meaning of that which is underneath
you do well to pity people ignat tells foma the boy only you must use judgment with your pity first consider the man
but if a man is weak not inclined to work spit upon him and go your way and you must know that when a man complains about everything and cries out and groans he is not worth more than two kopeks he is not worthy of pity and will be of no use to you if you do help him
speaking softly and without satire
and by that chant he reminds us of christ of his holy command to help our neighbour
but still we cannot banish him from our lives so long as his poor brethren sing his name in the streets and remind us of him
but foma will have none of it he is neither to be enticed nor cajoled the cry of his nature is for light he must have light and in burning revolt he goes seeking the meaning of life his thoughts embraced all those petty people who toiled at hard labour it was strange
but he still toiled side by side with young men and they all presented themselves to foma's imagination as a huge heap of worms who were swarming over the earth merely to eat he becomes the living interrogation of life
he cannot begin living until he knows what living means and he seeks its meaning vainly why should i try to live life when i do not know what life is he objects when mayakin strives with him to return and manage his business
why should men fetch and carry for him be slaves to him and his money work is not everything to a man he says it is not true that justification lies in work some people never do any work at all all their lives long yet they live better than the toilers
why is that and what justification have i and how will all the people who give their orders justify themselves what have they lived for but my idea is that everybody ought without fail to know solidly what he is living for
is it possible that a man is born to toil accumulate money build a house beget children and die no life means something in itself a man has been born has lived has died why
all of us must consider why we are living by god we must there is no sense in our life there is no sense at all some are rich they have money enough for a thousand men all to themselves and they live without occupation others bow their backs in toil all their life
and they haven't a penny but foma can only be destructive he is not constructive the dim groping spirit of his mother and the curse of his environment press too heavily upon him and he is crushed to debauchery and madness
why do you live he demands of the conclave of merchants of life's successes you have not constructed life you have made a cesspool you have disseminated filth and stifling exhalations by your deeds have you any conscience do you remember god
a five kopek piece that is your god but you have expelled your conscience like the cry of isaiah go to now ye rich men weep and howl for your misfortunes that shall come upon you is foma's you blood suckers you live on other people's strength
you work with other people's hands for all this you shall be made to pay you shall perish you shall be called to account for all for all to the last little tear drop
stunned by this puddle of life unable to make sense of it foma questions and questions vainly whether of sofya medynsky in her drawing room of beauty or in the
linboff whose books contradict one another cannot help him nor can the pilgrims on crowded steamers nor the verse
dancing the dance of death groping for the nameless indefinite something the magic formula the essence the intrinsic fact the flash of light through the murk and dark the rational sanction for existence in short foma gordyeeff goes down to madness and death
but no story is told nothing is finished some one will object surely when sasha leaped overboard and swam to foma something happened it was pregnant with possibilities yet it was not finished
she might have been a power for good in his life she might have shed light into it and lifted him up to safety and honour and understanding yet she went away next day and he never saw her again no story is told nothing is finished
the somnambulists tis only fools speak evil of the clay the very stars are made of clay like mine
the mightiest and absurdest sleep walker on the planet chained in the circle of his own imaginings man is only too keen to forget his origin and to shame that flesh of his
yet man to day is the same man that drank from his enemy's skull in the dark german forests that sacked cities and stole his women from neighbouring clans like any howling aborigine
nor has his mind changed there is no faculty of the mind of man to day that did not exist in the minds of the men of long ago man has to day no concept that is too wide and deep and abstract for the mind of plato or aristotle to grasp
give to plato or aristotle the same fund of knowledge that man to day has access to and plato and aristotle would reason as profoundly as the man of to day and would achieve very similar conclusions
until it shakes him out of his dreaming and he stands undisguised a brute like any other brute starve him let him miss six meals and see gape through the veneer the hungry maw of the animal beneath
get between him and the female of his kind upon whom his mating instinct is bent and see his eyes blaze like an angry cat's hear in his throat the scream of wild stallions and watch his fists clench like an orang outang's
maybe he will even beat his chest touch his silly vanity which he exalts into high sounding pride call him a liar and behold the red animal in him that makes a hand clutching that is quick like the tensing of a tiger's claw
incarnate with desire to rip and tear it is not necessary to call him a liar to touch his vanity
it requires a slightly different stick to scrape it off the raw animals beneath are identical but intrude not violently upon man leave him alone in his somnambulism and he kicks out from under his feet the ladder of life
eats real food and sleeps under real blankets in order to keep real cold away and there's the rub he has to effect adjustments with the real world and at the same time maintain the sublimity of his dream
the result of this admixture of the real and the unreal is confusion thrice confounded the man that walks the real world in his sleep becomes such a tangled mass of contradictions paradoxes and lies
it becomes their function in society and some of them are paid large salaries for helping their fellow men to believe for instance that they are not as other animals for helping the king to believe and his parasites and drudges as well
that he is god's own manager over so many square miles of earth crust for helping the merchant and banking classes to believe that society rests on their shoulders and that civilization would go to smash if they got out from under
and ceased from their exploitations and petty pilferings prize fighting is terrible this is the dictum of the man who walks in his sleep he prates about it and writes to the papers about it and worries the legislators about it
he feels that there is something godlike in the mysterious deeps of his being denies his relationship with the brute and proceeds to go forth into the world and express by deeds that something godlike within him
as he succeeds his somnambulism grows profound he bribes legislatures buys judges controls primaries and then goes and hires other men to tell him that it is all glorious and right and the funniest thing about it is that
this arch deceiver believes all that they tell him he reads only the newspapers and magazines that tell him what he wants to be told listens only to the biologists who tell him that he is the finest product of the struggle for existence
rare and red running blood under every sawing thrust of the implement called a knife he has a piece of cloth which he calls a napkin with which he wipes from his lips and from the hair on his lips the greasy juices of the meat
he is fastidiously nauseated at the thought of two prize fighters bruising each other with their fists and at the same time because it will cost him some money he will refuse to protect the machines in his factory though he is aware that the lack of such protection every year mangles
the commodities they put upon the market and which annually kill tens of thousands of babies and young children
and larger navies for more destructive war machines which with a single discharge will disrupt and rip to pieces more human beings than have died in the whole history of prize fighting he will bribe a city council for a franchise
or a state legislature for a commercial privilege but he has never been known in all his sleep walking history to bribe any legislative body in order to achieve any moral end such as for instance abolition of prize fighting child labour laws
who announce that the only possible way for men and women to get food and shelter is by the existing method they produce university professors men who claim the role of teachers and who at the same time claim that the austere ideal of learning is
or anarchists they paint pictures for the commercial men write books for them sing songs for them act plays for them and dose them with various drugs when their bodies have grown gross or dyspeptic from overeating and lack of exercise
who don't teach and preach somnambulism who don't do anything except live on the dividends that are coined out of the wan white fluid that runs in the veins of little children out of mothers tears
and the groans and sighs of the old the receiver is as bad as the thief ay and the thief is finer than the receiver he at least has the courage to run the risk but the good kind people who don't do anything won't believe this
and the assertion will make them angry for a moment they possess several magic phrases which are like the incantations of a voodoo doctor driving devils away the phrases that the good kind people repeat to themselves
but they think they do and that is all that is necessary for somnambulists the calm repetition of such phrases invariably drives away the waking devils and lulls to slumber our statesmen sell themselves and their country for gold
our municipal servants and state legislators commit countless treasons the world of graft the world of betrayal the world of somnambulism whose exalted and sensitive citizens are outraged by the knockouts of the prize ring
than to have the lining of one's stomach corroded by the embalmed beef of a dishonest manufacturer in a prize fight men are classed
the world of claw and fang and fist and club has passed away so say the somnambulists a rebate is not an elongated claw a wall street raid is not a fang slash dummy boards of directors and
fake accountings are not foul blows of the fist under the belt a present of coal stock by a mine operator to a railroad official
the hundred million dollars with which a combination beats down to his knees a man with a million dollars is not a club the man who walks in his sleep says it is not a club so say all of his kind with which he herds they gather together
and solemnly and gloatingly make and repeat certain noises that sound like discretion acumen initiative enterprise these noises are especially gratifying when they are made backward they mean the same things but they sound different
but when a man who walks in his sleep strikes a foul blow he is immediately declared the victor and awarded the prize and amid acclamations he forthwith turns his prize into a seat in the united states senate into a grotesque palace on fifth avenue
and into endowed churches universities and libraries to say nothing of subsidized newspapers to proclaim his greatness the red animal in the somnambulist will out he decries the carnal combat of the prize ring
will die all in good time in the course of natural evolution but they will not die so long as the cowardly somnambulistic apes and tigers club and scratch and slash this is not a brief for the prize fighter
it is a blow of the fist between the eyes of the somnambulists teetering up and down muttering magic phrases and thanking god that they are not as other animals
at daybreak on the morrow the twenty seventh of june the cables were cast off and the raft continued its journey down the river an extra passenger was on board whence came this torres no one exactly knew where was he going to
to manaos he said torres was careful to let no suspicion of his past life escape him nor of the profession that he had followed till within the last two months and no one would have thought that the jangada had given refuge to an old captain of the woods
in taking him on board the fazender had obeyed a sentiment of humanity in the midst of these vast amazonian deserts more especially at the time when the steamers had not begun to furrow the waters
it was very difficult to find means of safe and rapid transit boats did not ply regularly and in most cases the traveler was obliged to walk across the forests this is what torres had done and what he would continue to have done
from the moment that benito had explained under what conditions he had met torres the introduction was complete and he was able to consider himself as a passenger on an atlantic steamer
answering if addressed but never provoking a reply if he appeared more open with any one it was with fragoso
the idea of taking passage on board the raft many times he asked him about the position of the garrals at iquitos
during the morning the raft passed by the picturesque group of islands situated in the vast estuary of the javary this important affluent of the amazon comes from the southwest and from source to mouth
has not a single island nor a single rapid to check its course the mouth is about three thousand feet in width and the river comes in some miles above the site formerly occupied by the town of the same name
whose possession was disputed for so long by spaniards and portuguese up to the morning of the thirtieth of june there had been nothing particular to distinguish the voyage
that a single indian could manage the whole
as this kind of navigation is called by the people of the country that is to say confidence navigation they had passed the island of araria the archipelago of the calderon islands the island of capiatu
and many others whose names have not yet come to the knowledge of geographers
where they halted for two or three hours
and brought back some feathered game which was well received in the larder at the same time they had got an animal of whom a naturalist would have made more than did the cook it was a creature of a dark color something like a large newfoundland dog
the ant eater looked superb with his long tail and grizzly hair with his pointed snout which is plunged into the ant hills whose insects form its principal food and his long thin paws
armed with sharp nails five inches long and which can shut up like the fingers of one's hand but what a hand was this hand of the ant eater when it has got hold of anything you have to cut it off to make it let go
it is of this hand that the traveler emile carrey has so justly observed the tiger himself would perish in its grasp
jurupari rita maracanatena and cururu sapo
the coloration of these waters is a very curious phenomenon it is peculiar to a certain number of these tributaries of the amazon which differ greatly in importance
for it could be clearly seen on the surface of the whitish waters of the river they have tried to explain this coloring in many ways said he but i do not think the most learned have yet arrived at a satisfactory explanation
the waters are really black with a magnificent reflection of gold replied minha showing a light reddish brown cloth which was floating level with the jangada
and humboldt has already observed the curious reflection that you have but on looking at it attentively you will see that it is rather the color of sepia which pervades the whole good exclaimed benito
another phenomenon on which the savants are not agreed perhaps said fragoso they might ask the opinions of the caymans dolphins and manatees for they certainly prefer the black waters to the others to enjoy themselves in
is the coloration due to the hydrocarbons which the waters hold in solution or is it because they flow through districts of peat coal and anthracite or should we not rather attribute it to the enormous quantity of minute plants which they bear along
there is nothing certain in the matter under any circumstances they are excellent to drink of a freshness quite enviable for the climate and without after taste and perfectly harmless
where they turn out in thousands those long strings of beads which are made from the scales of the coco de piassaba this trade is here extensively followed it may perhaps seem singular that the ancient lords of the country
but after all why not these indians are no longer the indians of days gone by instead of being clothed in the national fashion with a frontlet of macaw feathers bow and blow tube have they not adopted the american costume of white cotton trousers
at present the capital of the upper amazon it began as a simple mission founded by the portuguese carmelites about sixteen ninety two and afterward acquired by the jesuit missionaries from the beginning
it has been the country of the omaguas whose name means flat heads and is derived from the barbarous custom of the native mothers of squeezing the heads of their newborn children between two plates so as to give them an oblong skull
which was then the fashion like everything else that has changed heads have re taken their natural form and there is not the slightest trace of the ancient deformity in the skulls of the chaplet makers
torres also remained on board and showed no desire to visit san pablo d'olivenca which he did not however seem to be acquainted with assuredly if the adventurer was taciturn he was not inquisitive
benito had no difficulty in doing a little bartering
he and the family received an excellent reception from the principal authorities of the town the commandant of the place and the chief of the custom house whose functions did not in the least prevent them from engaging in trade
they even intrusted the young merchant with a few products of the country for him to dispose of on their account at manaos and belem the town is composed of some sixty houses arranged on the plain which hereabouts crowns the river bank
the commandant his lieutenant and the head of the police accepted an invitation to dine with the family and they were received by joam garral with the respect due to their rank during dinner torres showed himself more talkative than usual
he spoke about some of his excursions into the interior of brazil like a man who knew the country
if his colleague would be there at this time and if the judge the first magistrate of the province was accustomed to absent himself at this period of the hot season it seemed that in putting this series of questions torres looked at joam garral
it was marked enough for even benito to notice it not without surprise and he observed that his father gave particular attention to the questions so curiously propounded by torres
in all probability the raft would arrive before the town in seven weeks or a little later
the guests of the fazender took leave of the garral family toward the evening
which is itself an affluent of the amazon a peculiar phenomenon for the river displaces itself to feed its own tributaries toward three o'clock in the afternoon the giant raft passed the mouth
which brings its magnificent black waters from the southwest and discharges them into the main artery by a mouth of four hundred meters in extent after having watered the territories of the culino indians a number of islands were breasted
pimaicaira caturia chico motachina
the continued descent on the evening of the fifth of july the atmosphere had been oppressive since the morning and threatened approaching storms large bats of ruddy color skimmed with their huge wings the current of the amazon
these were in fact the horrible vampires which suck the blood of the cattle and even attack man if he is imprudent enough to sleep out in the fields oh the dreadful creatures cried lina hiding her eyes they fill me with horror
or neither minha nor lina will dare sleep to night never fear replied manoel if necessary we will watch over them as they sleep silence said benito
what causes the noise asked minha one would think it was shingle rolling on the beach of the islands good i know what it is answered benito tomorrow at daybreak there will be a rare treat for those who like fresh turtle eggs and little turtles
he was not deceived the noise was produced by innumerable chelonians of all sizes who were attracted to the islands to lay their eggs
the operation commences with sunset and finishes with the dawn
a dozen wide and six deep after laying their eggs they cover them with a bed of sand which they beat down with their carapaces as if they were rammers this egg laying operation is a grand affair for the riverine indians of the amazon and its tributaries
they watch for the arrival of the chelonians and proceed to the extraction of the eggs to the sound of the drum and the harvest is divided into three parts one to the watchers another to the indians a third to the state represented by the captains of the shore who
in their capacity of police have to superintend the collection of the dues to certain beaches which the decrease of the waters has left uncovered and which have the privilege of attracting the greater number of turtles there has been given the name of royal beaches
turtles or turtle eggs are an object of very considerable trade throughout the amazonian basin it is these chelonians whom they turn that is to say put on their backs when they come from laying their eggs
their shell is still soft their flesh extremely tender and after they have cooked them they eat them just like oysters in this form large quantities are consumed
but the turtles are innumerable all along the river and they deposit their eggs on the sands of the beach in incalculable quantities however on account of the destruction caused not only by the natives but by the water fowl from the side
and the alligators in the river their number has been so diminished that for every little turtle a brazilian pataque or about a franc has to be paid on the morrow at daybreak benito fragoso and a few indians took a pirogue
they knew they could catch her up on the shore they saw the little hillocks which indicated the places where that very night each packet of eggs had been deposited in the trench in groups of from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and ninety these there was no wish to get out
but an earlier laying had taken place two months before the eggs had hatched under the action of the heat stored in the sand and already several thousands of little turtles were running about the beach the hunters were therefore in luck
and if any lasted till the evening it did not last any longer in the morning of the seventh of july they were before san jose de matura a town situated near a small river filled up with long grass
and on the borders of which a legend says that indians with tails once existed in the morning of the eighth of july they caught sight of the village of san antonio
which is about nine hundred meters wide
the pasto mountains to the northeast of quito through the finest forests of wild cacao trees navigable for a distance of a hundred and forty leagues for steamers of not greater draught than six feet
it may one day become one of the chief waterways in the west of america the bad weather was at last met with it did not show itself in continual rains but in frequent storms these could not hinder the progress of the raft which offered little resistance to the wind
they chatted together communicated their observations and their tongues were seldom idle it was under these circumstances that little by little torres had begun to take a more active part in the conversation
the details of his many voyages throughout the whole north of brazil afforded him numerous subjects to talk about the man had certainly seen a great deal but his observations were those of a skeptic and he often shocked the straightforward people who were listening to him
it should be said that he showed himself much impressed toward minha
the mouth of the tunantins appeared on the left bank forming an estuary of some four hundred feet across in which it pours its blackish waters coming from the west northwest after having watered the territories of the cacena indians
shirking the eddies and maintaining the advance they might have taken the ahuaty parana a sort of natural canal which goes off a little below the mouth of the tunantins
which coming from the east southeast brings in its black waters by a mouth five hundred feet wide and admired the legions of monkeys sulphur white in color
at this place the jangada halted for twelve hours so as to give a rest to the crew fonteboa like most of the mission villages of the amazon
has not escaped the capricious fate which during a lengthened period moves them about from one place to the other probably the hamlet has now finished with its nomadic existence and has definitely become stationary
intrepid fishers for the manatee on the morning of their arrival the young fellows assisted at a very interesting expedition of this nature two of these herbivorous cetaceans had just been signaled in the black waters of the cayaratu
inexperienced fishermen would at first have taken these moving points for floating wreckage but the natives of fonteboa were not to be so deceived
it was not a manatee of any size for it only measured about three feet long
coming from the southwest soon joins the river on the left a vessel can go up it into peru without encountering insurmountable obstacles among its white waters which are fed by a great number of petty affluents
but we ought to say that like their predecessors
they are simply the wives who accompany their husbands to the fight
and which is one of its largest tributaries runs almost parallel with the river between them were canals
an inextricable network which renders the hydrography of this country so difficult
if araujo had no map to guide him his experience served him more surely and it was wonderful to see him unraveling the chaos without ever turning aside from the main river in fact he did so well that on the twenty fifth of july in the afternoon
the raft was anchored at the entrance of the lake of ego
which it was useless to enter for they would not have been able to get out of it again into the amazon but the town of ega is of some importance it was worthy of a halt to visit it
till the twenty seventh of july and that on the morrow the large pirogue should take the whole family to ega this would give a rest which was deservedly due to the hard working crew of the raft
the night passed at the moorings near a slightly rising shore and nothing disturbed the quiet
he resolved to have an explanation with benito benito he began after taking him to the bow of the jangada i have something to say to you
i know why he said it is about torres yes benito and i also wish to speak to you you have then noticed his attention to minha
turning pale ah it is not a feeling of jealousy though that exasperates you against such a man said benito quickly
decidedly not heaven forbid i should do such an injury to the girl who is to become my wife no benito she holds the adventurer in horror
but it distresses me to see this adventurer constantly obtruding himself by his presence and conversation on your mother and sister and seeking to introduce himself into that intimacy with your family which is already mine
listen to me manoel continued benito you have observed torres well have you not you have remarked his attentions to my sister
nothing can be truer but while you have been noticing that have you not seen that this annoying man never keeps his eyes off my father no matter if he is near to him or far from him and that he seems to have some spiteful secret intention in watching him with such unaccountable persistency
what i know not but to force my father to get rid of torres would perhaps be imprudent i repeat it i am afraid though no positive fact enables me to explain my fear to myself and benito seemed to shudder with anger as he said these words
and we shall be relieved of his presence for good till then we must keep our eyes on him you understand me manoel asked benito i understand you my friend my brother replied manoel although i do not share and cannot share your fears
what connection can possibly exist between your father and this adventurer evidently your father has never seen him i do not say that my father knows torres said benito but assuredly it seems to me that torres knows my father
what was the fellow doing in the neighborhood of the fazenda when we met him in the forest of iquitos why did he then refuse the hospitality which we offered so as to afterward manage to force himself on us as our traveling companion we arrive
at tabatinga and there he is as if he was waiting for us the probability is that these meetings were in pursuance of a preconceived plan when i see the shifty dogged look of torres all this crowds on my mind i do not know
i am losing myself in things that defy explanation oh why did i ever think of offering to take him on board this raft be calm benito i pray you
torres looked slyly at the two young men but said not a word
as long as he fancied he was unobserved no he was not deceived when he said that torres face grew evil when he looked at his father by what mysterious bond could these two men one nobleness itself that was self evident
perhaps he understood the position if he did he did not show it for his manner changed not in the least
during the following days the jangada passed on the right the mouths of the rivers camara aru and yuripari
and return by it into the main river at five o'clock on the evening of the tenth of august they put into the island of cocos they there passed a seringal this name is applied to a
it is said that by negligence or bad management the number of these trees is decreasing in the basin of the amazon but the forests of seringueira trees are still very considerable on the banks of the madeira purus and other tributaries
after having ascertained that the trees well prepared by the river floods which have bathed their stems to a height of about four feet are in good condition for the harvest
below the wound small pots are attached which twenty four hours suffice to fill with a milky sap it can also be collected by means of a hollow bamboo and a receptacle placed on the ground at the foot of the tree
the sap being obtained the indians to prevent the separation of its peculiar resins
by spreading out the sap on a wooden scoop and shaking it in the smoke its coagulation is almost immediately obtained it assumes a grayish yellow tinge and solidifies the layers formed in succession are detached from the scoop
exposed to the sun hardened and assume the brownish color with which we are familiar the manufacture is then complete benito finding a capital opportunity
this is another of the large affluents of the amazon and seems to possess a navigable course even for large ships of over five hundred leagues it rises in the southwest
and cecropias it enters the amazon by five mouths hereabouts araujo the pilot managed with great ease the course of the river was but slightly obstructed with islands and besides
from one bank to another its width is about two leagues
joam garral and his wife lina and old cybele were in front of the house torres
and prevented perhaps by the arrival of padre passanha who had come to bid the family good night had gone back to his cabin the indians and the negroes were at their quarters along the sides araujo
walked about the central part of the craft awaiting the hour of repose
what a queer smell am i wrong do you not notice it one would say that it was the odor of burning musk replied benito there ought to be some alligators asleep on the neighboring beach well nature has done wisely in allowing them so to betray themselves
yes said benito it is fortunate for they are sufficiently formidable creatures often at the close of the day these saurians love to stretch themselves on the shore and install themselves comfortably there to pass the night
either by swimming through the waters propelled by their tails or running along the bank with a speed no man can equal it is on these huge beaches that the caymans are born live and die not without affording extraordinary examples of longevity
not only can the old ones the centenarians be recognized by the greenish moss which carpets their carcass and is scattered over their protuberances but by their natural ferocity which increases with age as benito said
she is not there replied lina who had just run to her mistress room good heavens where is she exclaimed her mother and they all shouted at once
there she is on the bow of the jangada said benito
the two young men and fragoso and joam garral thinking no more of danger rushed out of the house guns in hand scarcely were they outside when two of the alligators made a half turn and ran toward them
a dose of buckshot to the head close to the eye from benito stopped one of the monsters
and after knocking him over with a sweep of his tail ran at him with open jaws at this moment torres rushed from the cabin hatchet in hand and struck such a terrific blow that its edge sunk into the jaw of the cayman and left him defenseless
blinded by the blood the animal flew to the side and designedly or not fell over and was lost in the stream minha minha shouted manoel in distraction when he got to the bow of the jangada suddenly she came into view
she had taken refuge in the cabin of araujo and the cabin had just been upset by a powerful blow from the third alligator
who was not six feet away from her minha fell a second shot from benito failed to stop the cayman
and the scales flew to splinters but the ball did not penetrate manoel threw himself at the girl to raise her or to snatch her from death a side blow from the animal's tail knocked him down too minha fainted and the mouth of the alligator opened to crush her
and then fragoso jumped in to the animal and thrust in a knife to the very bottom of his throat at the risk of having his arm snapped off by the two jaws had they quickly closed fragoso pulled out his arm in time but he could not avoid the chock of the cayman
and was hurled back into the river whose waters reddened all around fragoso fragoso shrieked lina kneeling on the edge of the raft a second afterward fragoso reappeared on the surface of the amazon safe and sound
in the face of this fact so much had to be admitted manoel said this to benito in an undertone that is true replied benito embarrassed you are right and in a sense it is one cruel care the less
nevertheless manoel my suspicions still exist it is not always a man's worst enemy who wishes him dead
thank you torres he said holding out his hand the adventurer took a step or two backward without replying torres continued joam i am sorry that we are arriving at the end of our voyage and that in a few days we must part i owe you
joam garral replied by an affirmative nod
in the town where i was born stratham new hampshire that if they were photographed they were likely to die soon after and many rather objected on that account
when the name of the guilty person is mentioned labrador
cut them on monday cut them for news cut them on tuesday a pair of new shoes cut them on wednesday cut them for health cut them on thursday cut them for wealth cut them on friday cut them for sorrow
cut them on saturday see your sweetheart to morrow cut them on sunday cut them for evil
if you break anything sunday you will continue to do so every day of the week or as you commence sunday so you will go through the week
sneeze for a letter sneeze on tuesday sneeze for something better sneeze on wednesday sneeze for news sneeze on thursday sneeze for a new pair of shoes sneeze on friday sneeze for sorrow
sneeze on saturday see him to morrow
sneeze on tuesday kiss a stranger sneeze on wednesday receive a letter sneeze on thursday something better sneeze on friday sneeze for sorrow sneeze on saturday see your true love to morrow
sneeze on sunday your safety seek or the devil will have you the rest of the week
there will be one more or one less at the next meal
see your beau before the day is past
twice she is wishing for you thrice it is a sign of a cold
you'll take out on monday what you sew on sunday you'll rip out in heaven
and you will get a present before the week is out some have it without thinking of a red fox's tail instead of
it is a sign that folks are going home from meeting new hampshire
the number of the sparks is the number of the letters
jump out of the fire and hit you or come towards you it is a sign some one has a spite or grudge against you
denotes that that person will have two homes before the year is out
means news patten me
when a newly married couple go to housekeeping she slyly takes her mother's dish cloth or dish wiper she will never be homesick
when they moved from pennsylvania to ohio
it is a sign of a quick passage if a port list
if it blazes you will live long and happily if not you will die soon
while you are looking at it you are going on a long trip before the end of the year
and if any of your departed friends wish to speak to you they are free to come and go at will while the broom remains there
some one is speaking well of you if the left they are speaking ill of you if both they speak well and ill at once
in mending a garment while wearing it so many lies will be told about you
it is a sign the wearer will do something he is ashamed of before the week is out
it is a sign his trouble will never come back
one puts on any of his clothing wrong side out it is a sign that he will soon receive a present
dress the right foot first
should you sew it to your dress by mistake as many stitches as you take so many lies will be told about you baldwinsville
you will live to wear it out if you tear a hole in a new dress the first time wearing it you will have a new one before that is worn out
were often buried by negro servants on monday morning to keep the devil down through the week
when any of the family start on a journey it will insure a safe return
a rich man's bride on the toe spend as you go on the heel love to do weel on the ball live to spend all
hole at the side be a rich bride hole at the heel spend as you feel hole on the ball live to spend all
wear at the ball live to spend all wear at the heel live to save a deal
wrap them in paper and throw them in the road
or tie a knot in a string lay it away and do not look for it and the warts will disappear
and rub it over the wart then wrap the potato in a piece of paper and throw it away the one who finds it will have the wart
on the chest will cure sea sickness
around a child's neck and it will prevent croup
are thought by negroes to keep away rheumatism
wear a brass ring on the finger
will cure rheumatism chestertown maryland
wear gold earrings for weak eyes or to strengthen the sight
is to wear a leather strap about the wrist as a cure for rheumatism sprains et cetera and to give strength chestertown maryland
tie a string about the little finger
is supposed to prevent whooping cough
or sea sickness massachusetts
stick it three times into wood in the name of the trinity to prevent festering or other evil consequences
stick the nail immediately into hard wood and it will prevent lockjaw
who stuck a nail in his foot was told by a neighbor to pull it out grease it and hang it up in the chimbly otherwise he might have lockjaw
chapter fourteen mount olympus wretched in spirit groaning under the feeling of insult self condemning and ill satisfied in every way bold returned to his london lodgings
ill as he had fared in his interview with the archdeacon he was not the less under the necessity of carrying out his pledge to eleanor and he went about his ungracious task with a heavy heart the attorneys whom he had employed in london
received his instructions with surprise and evident misgiving however they could only obey and mutter something of their sorrow that such heavy costs should only fall upon their own employer
especially as nothing was wanting but perseverance to throw them on the opposite party bold left the office which he had latterly so much frequented shaking the dust from off his feet and before he was down the stairs
had already gone forth for the preparation of the bill he next thought of the newspapers the case had been taken up by more than one
he had been very intimate with tom towers and had often discussed with him the affairs of the hospital bold could not say that the articles in that paper had been written at his own instigation
he did not even know as a fact that they had been written by his friend tom towers had never said that such a view of the case or such a side in the dispute would be taken by the paper with which he was connected
very discreet in such matters was tom towers and altogether indisposed to talk loosely of the concerns
nevertheless bold believed that to him were owing those dreadful words which had caused such panic at barchester and he conceived himself bound to prevent their repetition with this view he betook himself from the attorneys office
where with amazing chemistry tom towers compounded thunderbolts for the destruction of all that is evil and for the furtherance of all that is good in this and other hemispheres who has not heard of mount olympus
that high abode of all the powers of type that favoured seat of the great goddess pica that wondrous habitation of gods and devils from whence with ceaseless hum of steam and never ending flow of castalian ink
issue forth fifty thousand nightly edicts for the governance of a subject nation velvet and gilding do not make a throne nor gold and jewels a sceptre it is a throne because the most exalted one sits there
and a sceptre because the most mighty one wields it so it is with mount olympus should a stranger make his way thither at dull noonday or during the sleepy hours of the silent afternoon
he would find no acknowledged temple of power and beauty no fitting fane for the great thunderer no proud facades and pillared roofs to support the dignity of this greatest of earthly potentates
to the outward and uninitiated eye mount olympus is a somewhat humble spot undistinguished unadorned nay almost mean it stands alone as it were in a mighty city
close to the densest throng of men but partaking neither of the noise nor the crowd a small secluded dreary spot tenanted one would say by quite unambitious people at the easiest rents
is this mount olympus asks the unbelieving stranger is it from these small dark dingy buildings that those infallible laws proceed which cabinets are called upon to obey by which bishops are to be guided
lords and commons controlled judges instructed in law generals in strategy admirals in naval tactics and orange women in the management of their barrows yes my friend from these walls
from here issue the only known infallible bulls for the guidance of british souls and bodies this little court is the vatican of england here reigns a pope self nominated self consecrated
ay and much stranger too self believing a pope whom if you cannot obey him i would advise you to disobey as silently as possible a pope hitherto afraid of no luther
a pope who manages his own inquisition who punishes unbelievers as no most skilful inquisitor of spain ever dreamt of doing one who can excommunicate thoroughly fearfully radically
put you beyond the pale of men's charity make you odious to your dearest friends and turn you into a monster to be pointed at by the finger oh heavens and this is mount olympus
it is a fact amazing to ordinary mortals that the jupiter is never wrong with what endless care with what unsparing labour do we not strive to get together for our great national council
the men most fitting to compose it and how we fail parliament is always wrong look at the jupiter and see how futile are their meetings how vain their council
how needless all their trouble with what pride do we regard our chief ministers the great servants of state the oligarchs of the nation on whose wisdom we lean
to whom we look for guidance in our difficulties but what are they to the writers of the jupiter they hold council together and with anxious thought painfully elaborate their country's good
but when all is done the jupiter declares that all is naught why should we look to lord john russell why should we regard palmerston and gladstone when tom towers without a struggle can put us right
look at our generals what faults they make at our admirals how inactive they are what money honesty and science can do is done and yet how badly are our troops brought together fed conveyed
clothed armed and managed the most excellent of our good men do their best to man our ships with the assistance of all possible external appliances but in vain all all is wrong
alas alas tom towers and he alone knows all about it why oh why ye earthly ministers why have ye not followed more closely this heaven sent messenger that is among us
were it not well for us in our ignorance that we confided all things to the jupiter would it not be wise in us to abandon useless talking idle thinking and profitless labour
with verdicts from judicial bench given after much delay with doubtful laws and the fallible attempts of humanity
does not the jupiter coming forth daily with fifty thousand impressions full of unerring decision on every mortal subject set all matters sufficiently at rest is not tom towers here able to guide us and willing
yes indeed able and willing to guide all men in all things so long as he is obeyed as autocrat should be obeyed with undoubting submission
only let not ungrateful ministers seek other colleagues than those whom tom towers may approve let church and state law and physic commerce and agriculture the arts of war and the arts of peace
all listen and obey and all will be made perfect has not tom towers an all seeing eye from the diggings of australia to those of california right round the habitable globe
does he not know watch and chronicle the doings of everyone from a bishopric in new zealand to an unfortunate director of a north west passage is he not the only fit judge of capability
from the sewers of london to the central railway of india from the palaces of saint petersburg to the cabins of connaught nothing can escape him britons have but to read to obey and be blessed
none but the fools doubt the wisdom of the jupiter none but the mad dispute its facts no established religion has ever been without its unbelievers even in the country where it is the most firmly fixed
no creed has been without scoffers no church has so prospered as to free itself entirely from dissent there are those who doubt the jupiter they live and breathe the upper air walking here unscathed
though scorned men born of british mothers and nursed on english milk who scruple not to say that mount olympus has its price that tom towers can be bought for gold such is mount olympus
the mouthpiece of all the wisdom of this great country it may probably be said that no place in this nineteenth century is more worthy of notice no treasury mandate armed with the signatures of all the government
has half the power of one of those broad sheets which fly forth from hence so abundantly armed with no signature at all some great man some mighty peer we'll say a noble duke
retires to rest feared and honoured by all his countrymen fearless himself if not a good man at any rate a mighty man too mighty to care much what men may say about his want of virtue
he rises in the morning degraded mean and miserable an object of men's scorn anxious only to retire as quickly as may be to some german obscurity some unseen italian privacy or indeed anywhere out of sight
what has made this awful change what has so afflicted him an article has appeared in the jupiter some fifty lines of a narrow column have destroyed all his grace's equanimity and banished him for ever from the world
no man knows who wrote the bitter words the clubs talk confusedly of the matter whispering to each other this and that name while tom towers walks quietly along pall mall with his coat buttoned close against the east wind
considering within himself whether by any stretch of the powers within him he could ever come to such distinction wondering how tom towers would take any little humble offering of his talents calculating that tom towers himself
must have once had a beginning have once doubted as to his own success towers could not have been born a writer in the jupiter with such ideas half ambitious and half awe struck had bold regarded the silent looking workshop of the gods
but he had never yet by word or sign attempted to influence the slightest word of his unerring friend on such a course was he now intent and not without much inward palpitation
did he betake himself to the quiet abode of wisdom where tom towers was to be found o mornings inhaling ambrosia and sipping nectar in the shape of toast and tea not far removed from mount olympus
washed by the rich tide which now passes from the towers of caesar to barry's halls of eloquence
with new offerings of a city's tribute from the palaces of peers to the mart of merchants
what a world within a world is the temple how quiet are its entangled walks as someone lately has called them and yet how close to the densest concourse of humanity how gravely respectable its sober alleys
though removed but by a single step from the profanity of the strand and the low iniquity of fleet street old saint dunstan with its bell smiting bludgeoners has been removed
the ancient shops with their faces full of pleasant history are passing away one by one the bar itself is to go its doom has been pronounced by the jupiter rumour tells us of some huge building
subversive of the courts of westminster and antagonistic to the rolls and lincoln's inn but nothing yet threatens the silent beauty of the temple it is the mediaeval court of the metropolis
here on the choicest spot of this choice ground stands a lofty row of chambers looking obliquely upon the sullied thames
before the windows the lawn of the temple gardens stretches with that dim yet delicious verdure so refreshing to the eyes of londoners if doomed to live within the thickest of london smoke
you would surely say that that would be your chosen spot yes you you whom i now address my dear middle aged bachelor friend can nowhere be so well domiciled as here
no one here will ask whether you are out or at home alone or with friends here no sabbatarian will investigate your sundays no censorious landlady will scrutinise your empty bottle
no valetudinarian neighbour will complain of late hours if you love books to what place are books so suitable the whole spot is redolent of typography
the groves of cyprus are not more taciturn than those of the temple wit and wine are always here and always together the revels of the temple are as those of polished greece
where the wildest worshipper of bacchus never forgot the dignity of the god whom he adored where can retirement be so complete as here where can you be so sure of all the pleasures of society
it was here that tom towers lived and cultivated with eminent success the tenth muse who now governs the periodical press but let it not be supposed that his chambers were such
or so comfortless as are frequently the gaunt abodes of legal aspirants four chairs
an old office table covered with dusty papers which are not moved once in six months and an older pembroke brother with rickety legs for all daily uses a despatcher for the preparation of lobsters and coffee
and an apparatus for the cooking of toast and mutton chops such utensils and luxuries as these did not suffice for the well being of tom towers he indulged in four rooms on the first floor
each of which was furnished if not with the splendour with probably more than the comfort of stafford house every addition that science and art have lately made to the luxuries of modern life was to be found there
the room in which he usually sat was surrounded by book shelves carefully filled nor was there a volume there which was not entitled to its place in such a collection both by its intrinsic worth and exterior splendour
a pretty portable set of steps in one corner of the room showed that those even on the higher shelves were intended for use the chamber contained but two works of art
the one an admirable bust of sir robert peel by power declared the individual politics of our friend and the other a singularly long figure of a female devotee
told equally plainly the school of art to which he was addicted this picture was not hung as pictures usually are against the wall there was no inch of wall vacant for such a purpose
it had a stand or desk erected for its own accommodation and there on her pedestal framed and glazed stood the devotional lady looking intently at a lily as no lady ever looked before
our modern artists whom we style pre raphaelites have delighted to go back not only to the finish and peculiar manner but also to the subjects of the early painters it is impossible to give them too much praise
of the masters from whom they take their inspiration nothing probably can exceed the painting of some of these latter day pictures it is however singular into what faults they fall as regards their subjects
they are not quite content to take the old stock groups a sebastian with his arrows
but they are anything but happy in their change as a rule no figure should be drawn in a position which it is impossible to suppose any figure should maintain the patient endurance of saint sebastian
the wild ecstasy of saint john in the wilderness the maternal love of the virgin are feelings naturally portrayed by a fixed posture but the lady with the stiff back and bent neck who looks at her flower
and is still looking from hour to hour gives us an idea of pain without grace and abstraction without a cause it was easy from his rooms to see that tom towers was a sybarite though by no means an idle one
he was lingering over his last cup of tea surrounded by an ocean of newspapers through which he had been swimming when john bold's card was brought in by his tiger this tiger never knew that his master was at home
though he often knew that he was not and thus tom towers was never invaded but by his own consent on this occasion after twisting the card twice in his fingers he signified to his attendant imp that he was visible
and the inner door was unbolted and our friend announced i have before said that he of the jupiter and john bold were intimate there was no very great difference in their ages for towers was still considerably under forty
and when bold had been attending the london hospitals towers who was not then the great man that he had since become had been much with him then they had often discussed together the objects of their ambition and future prospects
then tom towers was struggling hard to maintain himself as a briefless barrister by shorthand reporting for any of the papers that would engage him then he had not dared to dream of writing leaders for the jupiter
or canvassing the conduct of cabinet ministers things had altered since that time the briefless barrister was still briefless but he now despised briefs could he have been sure of a judge's seat
he would hardly have left his present career it is true he wore no ermine bore no outward marks of a world's respect but with what a load of inward importance was he charged
it is true his name appeared in no large capitals on no wall was chalked up tom towers for ever freedom of the press and tom towers but what member of parliament had half his power
it is true that in far off provinces men did not talk daily of tom towers but they read the jupiter and acknowledged that without the jupiter
this kind of hidden but still conscious glory suited the nature of the man he loved to sit silent in a corner of his club and listen to the loud chattering of politicians
how he could smite the loudest of them were it worth his while to raise his pen for such a purpose he loved to watch the great men of whom he daily wrote and flatter himself that he was greater than any of them
each of them was responsible to his country each of them must answer if inquired into each of them must endure abuse with good humour and insolence without anger but to whom was he tom towers responsible
no one could insult him no one could inquire into him he could speak out withering words and no one could answer him ministers courted him though perhaps they knew not his name bishops feared him
judges doubted their own verdicts unless he confirmed them and generals in their councils of war did not consider more deeply what the enemy would do than what the jupiter would say tom towers never boasted of the jupiter
he scarcely ever named the paper even to the most intimate of his friends he did not even wish to be spoken of as connected with it but he did not the less value his privileges or think the less of his own importance
chapter five decision i ask thee for a thoughtful love through constant watching wise to meet the glad with joyful smiles and to wipe the weeping eyes
and a heart at leisure from itself to soothe and sympathise
margaret made a good listener to all her mother's little plans for adding some small comforts to the lot of the poorer parishioners she could not help listening though each new project was a stab to her heart
by the time the frost had set in they should be far away from helstone old simon's rheumatism might be bad and his eyesight worse there would be no one to go and read to him and comfort him with little porringers of broth and good red flannel
or if there was it would be a stranger and the old man would watch in vain for her mary domville's little crippled boy would crawl in vain to the door and look for her coming through the forest these poor friends would never understand why she had forsaken them
and there were many others besides papa has always spent the income he derived from his living in the parish i am perhaps encroaching upon the next dues
oh mamma let us do all we can said margaret eagerly not seeing the prudential side of the question only grasping at the idea that they were rendering such help for the last time we may not be here long
do you feel ill my darling asked missus hale anxiously misunderstanding margaret's hint of the uncertainty of their stay at helstone you look pale and tired it is this soft damp unhealthy air
it is not that it is delicious air it smells of the freshest purest fragrance after the smokiness of harley street but i am tired it surely must be near bedtime
not far off it is half past nine you had better go to bed at once dear ask dixon for some gruel i will come and see you as soon as you are in bed
or the bad air from some of the stagnant ponds oh mamma said margaret faintly smiling as she kissed her mother i am quite well don't alarm yourself about me i am only tired margaret went upstairs
to soothe her mother's anxiety she submitted to a basin of gruel she was lying languidly in bed when missus hale came up to make some last inquiries and kiss her before going to her own room for the night but the instant she heard her mother's door locked
creaking of one of the boards reminded her that she must make no noise she went and curled herself up
that morning when she had looked out her heart had
which foretold a fine and sunny day this evening sixteen hours at most had past by she sat down too full of sorrow to cry but with a dull cold pain
never to return mister henry lennox's visit his offer was like a dream a thing beside her actual life the hard reality was
that her father had so admitted tempting doubts into his mind as to become a schismatic an outcast all the changes consequent upon this grouped themselves around that one great blighting fact
she looked out upon the dark gray lines of the church tower square and straight in the centre of the view cutting against the deep blue transparent depths beyond into which she gazed and felt that she might gaze for ever
seeing at every moment some farther distance and yet no sign of god it seemed to her at the moment as if the earth was more utterly desolate than if girt in by an iron dome
behind which there might be the ineffaceable peace and glory of the almighty those never ending depths of space in their still serenity were more mocking to her than any material bounds could be shutting in the cries of earth's sufferers
which now might ascend into that infinite splendour of vastness and be lost lost for ever before they reached his throne in this mood her father came in unheard
the moonlight was strong enough to let him see his daughter in her unusual place and attitude he came to her and touched her shoulder before she was aware that he was there margaret i heard you were up
i could not help coming in to ask you to pray with me to say the lord's prayer that will do good to both of us mister hale and margaret knelt by the window seat he looking up
she bowed down in humble shame god was there close around them hearing her father's whispered words her father might be a heretic but had not she in her despairing doubts not five minutes before
she spoke not a word but stole to bed after her father had left her like a child ashamed of its fault if the world was full of perplexing problems she would trust and only ask to see the one step needful for the hour
mister lennox his visit his proposal the remembrance of which had been so rudely pushed aside by the subsequent events of the day haunted her dreams that night
he was climbing up some tree of fabulous height to reach the branch whereon was slung her bonnet he was falling and she was struggling to save him but held back by some invisible powerful hand he was dead
miserable unresting night ill preparation for the coming day she awoke with a start unrefreshed and conscious of some reality worse even than her feverish dreams
it all came back upon her not merely the sorrow but the terrible discord in the sorrow where to what distance apart had her father wandered led by doubts which were to her temptations of the evil one
she longed to ask and yet would not have heard for all the world the fine crisp morning made her mother feel particularly well and happy at breakfast time
she talked on planning village kindnesses unheeding the silence of her husband and the monosyllabic answers of margaret before the things were cleared away mister hale got up he leaned one hand on the table as if to support himself
i am going to bracy common and will ask farmer dobson to give me something for dinner i shall be back to tea at seven he did not look at either of them but margaret knew what he meant by seven the announcement must be made to her mother
mister hale would have delayed making it till half past six but margaret was of different stuff she could not bear the impending weight on her mind all the day long better get the worst over the day would be too short to comfort her mother
but while she stood by the window thinking how to begin and waiting for the servant to have left the room her mother had gone up stairs to put on her things to go to the school she came down ready equipped in a brisker mood than usual
said margaret putting her arm round missus hale's waist they passed through the open window missus hale spoke said something margaret could not tell what her eye caught on a bee entering a deep belled flower
when that bee flew forth with his spoil she would begin that should be the sign out he came mamma papa is going to leave helstone she blurted forth
there were the three hard facts hardly spoken what makes you say so
papa himself said margaret longing to say something gentle and consoling but literally not knowing how they were close to a garden bench
missus hale sat down and began to cry i don't understand you
you no mother i have made no mistake papa has written to the bishop saying that he has such doubts that he cannot conscientiously remain a priest of the church of england and that he must give up helstone
he has also consulted mister bell frederick's godfather you know mamma
missus hale looked up in margaret's face all the time she was speaking these words the shadow on her countenance told that she at least believed in the truth of what she said
i don't think it can be true said missus hale at length
it came strongly upon margaret's mind that her mother ought to have been told that whatever her faults of discontent and repining might have been it was an error in her father to have left her to learn his change of opinion and his approaching change of life
from her better informed child margaret sat down by her mother and took her unresisting head on her breast bending her own soft cheeks down caressingly to touch her face
dear darling mamma we were so afraid of giving you pain papa felt so acutely
yesterday only yesterday replied margaret detecting the jealousy which prompted the inquiry poor papa trying to divert her mother's thoughts into compassionate sympathy for all her father had gone through missus hale raised her head
margaret shook her head and the tears came into her eyes
i'm afraid not said margaret but i did not ask i could not bear to hear what he might answer it is all settled at any rate he is going to leave helstone in a fortnight
i am not sure if he did not say he had sent in his deed of resignation
i do think this is
right i call it very unfeeling said she beginning to take relief in tears
i dare say
mistaken as margaret felt her father's conduct to have been she could not bear to hear it blamed by her mother she knew that his very reserve had originated in a tenderness for her which might be cowardly
but was not unfeeling i almost hoped you might have been glad to leave helstone mamma
it is well he is not alive to see what your father has come to every day after dinner when i was a girl living with your aunt shaw at beresford court sir john used to give for the first toast
church and king and down with the rump margaret was glad that her mother's thoughts were turned away from the fact of her husband's silence to her on the point which must have been so near his heart
next to the serious vital anxiety as to the nature of her father's doubts this was the one circumstance of the case that gave margaret the most pain
the gormans who are our nearest neighbours to call society and we hardly ever see them have been in trade just as much as these milton northern people yes said missus hale almost indignantly
and were brought into some kind of intercourse with them
we shall have little enough to do with them why on earth has your father fixed on milton northern to live in partly said margaret sighing
because it is so very different from helstone partly because mister bell says there is an opening there for a private tutor private tutor in milton
missus hale was silent for some time quietly crying at last she said and the furniture how in the world are we to manage the removal i never removed in my life and only a fortnight to think about it
margaret was inexpressibly relieved to find that her mother's anxiety and distress was lowered to this point so insignificant to herself and on which she could do so much to help
she planned and promised and led her mother on to arrange fully as much as could be fixed before they knew somewhat more definitively what mister hale intended to do throughout the day margaret never left her mother
bending her whole soul to sympathise in all the various turns her feelings took towards evening especially as she became more and more anxious that her father should find a soothing welcome home awaiting him after his return from
his day of fatigue and distress she dwelt upon what he must have borne in secret for long her mother only replied coldly that he ought to have told her and that then at any rate he would have had an adviser to give him counsel
in the hall she dared not go to meet him and tell him what she had done all day for fear of her mother's jealous annoyance she heard him linger
as if awaiting her or some sign of her and she dared not stir she saw by her mother's twitching lips and changing colour that she too was aware that her husband had returned presently
he opened the room door and stood there uncertain whether to come in his face was gray and pale he had a timid fearful look in his eyes something almost pitiful to see in a man's face
but that look of despondent uncertainty of mental and bodily languor
though the housemaid came in to arrange the room the affrighted girl stole out again on tip toe and went and told missus dixon that miss hale was crying as if her heart would break she was sure she would make herself deadly ill if she went on at that rate
i did not hear you come into the room said margaret resuming her trembling self restraint is it very late continued she lifting herself languidly off the bed
yet letting her feet touch the ground without fairly standing down as she shaded her wet ruffled hair off her face and tried to look as though nothing were the matter
as if she had only been asleep i hardly can tell what time it is replied dixon in an aggrieved tone of voice since your mamma told me this terrible news when i dressed her for tea i've lost all count of time
when charlotte told me just now you were sobbing miss hale i thought no wonder poor thing and master thinking of turning dissenter at his time of life when if it is not to be said he's done well in the church he's not done badly after all
i had a cousin miss who turned methodist preacher after he was fifty years of age and a tailor all his life but then he had never been able to make a pair of trousers to fit for as long as he had been in the trade so it was no wonder but for master
he never liked your marrying mister hale but if he could have known it would have come to this
dixon had been so much accustomed to comment upon mister hale's proceedings to her mistress who listened to her or not as she was in the humour that she never noticed margaret's flashing eye and dilating nostril
by a servant to her face dixon she said in the low tone she always used when much excited which had a sound in it as of some distant turmoil or threatening storm breaking far away
dixon you forget to whom you are speaking she stood upright and firm on her feet now confronting the waiting maid and fixing her with her steady discerning eye i am mister hale's daughter
go you have made a strange mistake and one that i am sure your own good feeling will make you sorry for when you think about it dixon hung irresolutely about the room for a minute or two
margaret repeated you may leave me dixon i wish you to go dixon did not know whether to resent these decided words or to cry either course would have done with her mistress
was subdued enough to say in a half humble half injured tone mayn't i unfasten your gown miss and do your hair no not to night thank you
and margaret gravely lighted her out of the room and bolted the door from henceforth dixon obeyed and admired margaret she said it was because she was so like poor master frederick but the truth was that dixon as do many others
liked to feel herself ruled by a powerful and decided nature margaret needed all dixon's help in action and silence in words
so the energy came out in doing rather than in speaking a fortnight was a very short time to make arrangements for so serious a removal as dixon said any one but a gentleman indeed almost any other gentleman
but catching a look at margaret's straight stern brow just here she coughed the remainder of the sentence away and meekly took the horehound drop that margaret offered her to stop the little tickling at my chest miss
but almost any one but mister hale would have had practical knowledge enough to see that in so short a time it would be difficult to fix on any house in milton northern or indeed elsewhere
to which they could remove the furniture that had of necessity to be taken out of helstone vicarage missus hale overpowered by all the troubles and necessities for immediate household decisions that seemed to come upon her at once
became really ill and margaret almost felt it as a relief when her mother fairly took to her bed and left the management of affairs to her dixon true to her post of body guard attended most faithfully to her mistress
helstone mister hale's successor in the living was appointed and at any rate after her father's decision there must be no lingering now for his sake as well as from every other consideration
for he came home every evening more and more depressed after the necessary leave taking which he had resolved to have with every individual parishioner
margaret inexperienced as she was in all the necessary matter of fact business to be got through did not know to whom to apply for advice the cook and charlotte worked away with willing arms and stout hearts at all the moving and packing and as far as that went
margaret's admirable sense enabled her to see what was best and to direct how it should be done but where were they to go to in a week they must be gone straight to milton or where
so many arrangements depended on this decision that margaret resolved to ask her father one evening in spite of his evident fatigue and low spirits he answered my dear
i have really had too much to think about to settle this what does your mother say what does she wish
dixon had just come into the room for another cup of tea for missus hale and catching mister hale's last words and protected by his presence from margaret's upbraiding eyes made bold to say my poor mistress
you don't think her worse to day said mister hale turning hastily i'm sure i can't say sir it's not for me to judge
mister hale looked infinitely distressed you had better take mamma her tea while it is hot dixon said margaret in a tone of quiet authority
oh i beg your pardon miss my thoughts was otherwise occupied in thinking of my poor of missus hale papa said margaret it is this suspense that is bad for you both
but now the course is clear at least to a certain point and i think papa that i could get mamma to help me in planning if you could tell me what to plan for
she has never expressed any wish in any way and only thinks of what can't be helped
have you taken a house there no he replied i suppose we must go into lodgings and look about for a house and pack up the furniture so that it
can be left at the railway station till we have met with one i suppose so do what you think best only remember we shall have much less money to spend
they had never had much superfluity as margaret knew she felt that it was a great weight suddenly thrown upon her shoulders four months ago all the decisions she needed to make were what dress she would wear for dinner and
to help edith to draw out the lists of who should take down whom in the dinner parties at home nor was the household in which she lived one that called for much decision except in the one grand case of captain lennox's offer
everything went on with the regularity of clockwork once a year there was a long discussion between her aunt and edith as to whether they should go to the isle of wight abroad or to scotland but at such times margaret herself was secure of drifting without any
exertion of her own into the quiet harbour of home now since that day when mister lennox came and startled her into a decision every day brought some question momentous to her
and to those whom she loved to be settled her father went up after tea to sit with his wife margaret remained alone in the drawing room suddenly she took a candle and went into her father's study for a great atlas and lugging it back into the drawing room
she began to pore over the map of england she was ready to look up brightly when her father came down stairs i have hit upon such a beautiful plan look here in darkshire hardly the breadth of my finger from milton
is heston which i have often heard of from people living in the north as such a pleasant little bathing place now don't you think we could get mamma there with dixon while you and i go and look at houses and get one all ready for her in milton
she would get a breath of sea air to set her up for the winter and be spared all the fatigue and dixon would enjoy taking care of her is dixon to go with us
dismay oh yes said margaret dixon quite intends it and i don't know what mamma would do without her
to be sure she does papa replied margaret and if she has to put up with a different style of living we shall have to put up with her airs which will be worse but she really loves us all and would be miserable to leave us
so for mamma's sake and for the sake of her faithfulness i do think she must go very well my dear go on i am resigned how far is heston from milton
not in distance but in never mind if you really think it will do your mother good let it be fixed so this was a great step
now margaret could work and act and plan in good earnest and now missus hale could rouse herself from her languor and forget her real suffering in thinking of the pleasure and the delight of going to the sea side
her only regret was that mister hale could not be with her all the fortnight she was to be there
had been shared in an equal degree by smaller bands who had wintered in remote and secret retreats of the wilderness of those who survived that season of death many were so weakened
that they could not endure the hardships of a wandering life which was new to them the hurons lived by agriculture their fields and crops were destroyed and they were so hunted from place to place that they could rarely till the soil
game was very scarce and without agriculture the country could support only a scanty and scattered population like that which maintained a struggling existence in the wilderness of the lower saint lawrence
the mortality among the exiles was prodigious it is a matter of some interest to trace the fortunes of the shattered fragments of a nation once prosperous and in its own eyes and those of its neighbors powerful and great
none were left alive within their ancient domain some had sought refuge among the neutrals and the eries and shared the disasters which soon overwhelmed those tribes
had recourse to an expedient which seems equally strange and desperate but which was in accordance with indian practices they contrived to open a communication with the seneca nation of the iroquois
and promised to change their nationality and turn senecas as the price of their lives the victors accepted the proposal and the inhabitants of these two towns joined by a few other hurons
migrated in a body to the seneca country they were not distributed among different villages but were allowed to form a town by themselves
but at length they too were compelled to fly together with such other hurons as had taken refuge with them they made their way northward and settled on the island of michilimackinac where they were joined by the ottawas who with other algonquins
had been driven by fear of the iroquois from the western shores of lake huron and the banks of the river ottawa at michilimackinac the hurons and their allies were again attacked by the iroquois
and after remaining several years they made another remove and took possession of the islands at the mouth of the green bay of lake michigan even here their old enemy did not leave them in peace
whereupon they fortified themselves on the main land and afterwards migrated southward and westward this brought them in contact with the illinois an algonquin people at that time very numerous
but who like many other tribes at this epoch were doomed to a rapid diminution from wars with other savage nations continuing their migration westward the hurons and ottawas reached the mississippi where they fell in with the sioux
they soon quarrelled with those fierce children of the prairie who drove them from their country they retreated to the south western extremity of lake superior and settled on point saint esprit or shagwamigon point
near the islands of the twelve apostles as the sioux continued to harass them they left this place about the year sixteen seventy one and returned to michilimackinac where they settled not on the island but on the neighboring
point saint ignace now graham's point on the north side of the strait
where a remnant of them may still be found
they took possession of the stone fort which the french had abandoned and where with reasonable vigilance they could maintain themselves against attack in the succeeding autumn a small iroquois war party had the audacity to cross over to the island
and build a fort of felled trees in the woods the hurons attacked them but the invaders made so fierce a defence that they kept their assailants at bay and at length retreated with little or no loss
soon after a much larger band of onondaga iroquois approaching undiscovered built a fort on the main land opposite the island but concealed from sight in the forest here they waited to waylay any party of hurons who might venture ashore
a huron war chief named etienne
whose life is described as a succession of conflicts and adventures and who is said to have been always in luck landed with a few companions and fell into an ambuscade of the iroquois
he prepared to defend himself when they called out to him that they came not as enemies but as friends and that they brought wampum belts and presents to persuade the hurons to forget the past
and live with them as one nation etienne suspected treachery but concealed his distrust and advanced towards the iroquois with an air of the utmost confidence they received him with open arms and pressed him to accept their invitation
but he replied that there were older and wiser men among the hurons whose counsels all the people followed and that they ought to lay the proposal before them he proceeded to advise them to keep him as a hostage and send over his companions with some of their chiefs
to open the negotiation his apparent frankness completely deceived them and they insisted that he himself should go to the huron village while his companions remained as hostages he set out accordingly with three of the principal iroquois
when he reached the village he gave the whoop of one who brings good tidings and proclaimed with a loud voice that the hearts of their enemies had changed that the iroquois would become their countrymen and brothers
and that they should exchange their miseries for a life of peace and plenty in a fertile and prosperous land the whole huron population full of joyful excitement crowded about him and the three envoys who were conducted to the principal lodge and feasted
on the best that the village could supply etienne seized the opportunity to take aside four or five of the principal chiefs and secretly tell them his suspicions that the iroquois were plotting
to compass their destruction under cover of overtures of peace and he proposed that they should meet treachery with treachery he then explained his plan which was highly approved by his auditors who begged him to charge himself with the execution of it
etienne now caused criers to proclaim through the village that every one should get ready to emigrate in a few days to the country of their new friends the squaws began their preparations at once and all was bustle and alacrity
for the hurons themselves were no less deceived than were the iroquois envoys during one or two succeeding days many messages and visits passed between the hurons and the iroquois whose confidence was such that
thirty seven of their best warriors at length came over in a body to the huron village etienne's time had come he and the chiefs who were in the secret gave the word to the huron warriors who at a signal raised the war whoop
rushed upon their visitors and cut them to pieces one of them who lingered for a time owned before he died that etienne's suspicions were just and that they had designed nothing less than the massacre or capture of all the hurons
three of the iroquois immediately before the slaughter began had received from etienne a warning of their danger in time to make their escape the year before he had been captured with brebeuf and lalemant at the town of saint louis
with a brief gleam of joy but it behooved them to make a timely retreat from their island before the iroquois came to exact a bloody retribution towards spring while the lake was still frozen many of them escaped on the ice while another party afterwards
followed in canoes a few who had neither strength to walk nor canoes to transport them perforce remained behind and were soon massacred by the iroquois the fugitives directed their course to the grand manitoulin island
where they remained for a short time and then to the number of about four hundred descended the ottawa and rejoined their countrymen who had gone to quebec the year before these united parties joined from time to time by a few other fugitives
formed a settlement on land belonging to the jesuits near the south western extremity of the isle of orleans immediately below quebec
with a chapel and a small house for the missionaries
gradually they rallied from their dejection and the mission settlement was beginning to wear an appearance of thrift when in sixteen fifty six the iroquois made a descent upon them and carried off a large number of captives
under the very cannon of quebec the french not daring to fire upon the invaders lest they should take revenge upon the jesuits who were at that time in their country
this calamity was four years after followed by another when the best of the huron warriors including their leader the crafty and valiant etienne annaotaha were slain
they again changed their abode and under the auspices of the jesuits who owned the land settled at old lorette nine miles from quebec
which as all the world knows is the house wherein saint joseph dwelt with his virgin spouse and which angels bore through the air from the holy land to italy
chaumonot opened his plan to his brother jesuits who were delighted with it and the chapel was begun at once not without the intervention of miracle
it was built of brick like its original of which it was an exact facsimile and it stood in the centre of a quadrangle the four sides of which were formed by the bark dwellings of the hurons ranged with perfect order in straight lines
hither came many pilgrims from quebec and more distant settlements and here our lady granted to her suppliants
or indian lorette it was a wild spot covered with the primitive forest and seamed by a deep and tortuous ravine where the saint charles foams
and where the sunlight struggles through matted boughs of the pine and fir to bask for brief moments on the mossy rocks or flash on the hurrying waters on a plateau beside the torrent another chapel was built to our lady
and another huron town sprang up and here to this day the tourist finds the remnant of a lost people harmless weavers of baskets and sewers of moccasins
stood in the dilemma of a deadly peril and an assured death they chose the former and early in march began to leave their island and cross to the main land to gather what sustenance they could the ice was still thick
but the advancing season had softened it and as a body of them were crossing it broke under their feet some were drowned while others dragged themselves out drenched and pierced with cold to die miserably on the frozen lake before they could reach a shelter
other parties more fortunate gained the shore safely and began their fishing
but the iroquois were in wait for them a large band of warriors had already made their way through ice and snow from their towns in central new york they surprised the huron fishermen surrounded them
has no ink black enough to describe the fury of the iroquois
still the goadings of famine were relentless and irresistible
adds the father superior that hunger will drive wolves from the forest so too our starving hurons were driven out of a town which had become an abode of horror it was the end of lent
alas if these poor christians could have had but acorns and water to keep their fast upon on easter day we caused them to make a general confession on the following morning they went away leaving us all their little possessions and most of them declared publicly
that they made us their heirs knowing well that they were near their end and in fact only a few days passed before we heard of the disaster which we had foreseen these poor people fell into ambuscades of our iroquois enemies
some were killed on the spot some were dragged into captivity women and children were burned a few made their escape and spread dismay and panic everywhere a week after another band was overtaken by the same fate
two of the principal huron chiefs came to the fort and asked an interview with ragueneau and his companions they told them that the indians had held a council the night before and resolved to abandon the island
some would disperse in the most remote and inaccessible forests others would take refuge in a distant spot apparently the grand manitoulin island
you can save us if you will but resolve on a bold step choose a place where you can gather us together and prevent this dispersion of our people turn your eyes towards quebec and transport thither what is left of this ruined country
do not wait till war and famine have destroyed us to the last man we are in your hands death has taken from you more than ten thousand of us if you wait longer not one will remain alive and then you will be sorry that you did not save those
to an asylum where there was at least a hope of safety their resolution once taken they pushed their preparations with all speed lest the iroquois might learn their purpose and lie in wait to cut them off
canoes were made ready and on the tenth of june they began the voyage with all their french followers and about three hundred hurons the huron mission was abandoned
it was not without tears
nothing remaining of the algonquins who dwelt on its shore except the ashes of their burnt wigwams a little farther on there was a fort built of trees where the iroquois who made this desolation had spent the winter
and a league or two below there was another similar fort the river ottawa was a solitude the algonquins of allumette island and the shores adjacent had all been killed or driven away never again to return
writes ragueneau i found it bordered with algonquin tribes who knew no god and in their infidelity thought themselves gods on earth for they had all that they desired
abundance of fish and game and a prosperous trade with allied nations besides they were the terror of their enemies but since they have embraced the faith and adored the cross of christ he has given them a heavy share in this cross
and made them a prey to misery torture and a cruel death in a word they are a people swept from the face of the earth our only consolation is that as they died christians
in the preceding autumn bressani had gone down to the french settlements with about twenty hurons and was now returning with them and twice their number of armed frenchmen for the defence of the mission
his scouts had also been alarmed by discovering the footprints of ragueneau's indians and for some time the two parties stood on their guard each taking the other for an enemy when at length they discovered their mistake
they met with embraces and rejoicing bressani and his frenchmen had come too late all was over with the hurons and the huron mission and as it was useless to go farther they joined ragueneau's party and retraced their course for the settlements
hunting for subsistence and waiting to waylay some passing canoe of hurons algonquins or frenchmen bressani's party outnumbered them six to one but they resolved that it should not pass without a token of their presence
late on a dark night the french and hurons lay encamped in the forest sleeping about their fires they had set guards but these it seems were drowsy or negligent for the ten iroquois watching their time approached with the stealth of lynxes
and glided like shadows into the midst of the camp where by the dull glow of the smouldering fires they could distinguish the recumbent figures of their victims suddenly they screeched the war whoop and struck like lightning with their hatchets among the sleepers
seven were killed before the rest could spring to their weapons bressani leaped up and received on the instant three arrow wounds in the head the iroquois were surrounded and a desperate fight ensued in the dark
six of them were killed on the spot and two made prisoners while the remaining two breaking through the crowd bounded out of the camp and escaped in the forest the united parties soon after reached montreal
but the hurons refused to remain in a spot so exposed to the iroquois accordingly they all descended the saint lawrence and at length on the twenty eighth of july reached quebec
here the ursulines the hospital nuns and the inhabitants taxed their resources to the utmost
a party of christian indians chiefly from sillery planned a stroke of retaliation and set out for the mohawk country marching cautiously and sending forward scouts to scour the forest
one of these a huron suddenly fell in with a large iroquois war party and seeing that he could not escape formed on the instant a villanous plan to save himself he ran towards the enemy crying out
that he had long been looking for them and was delighted to see them that his nation the hurons had come to an end and that henceforth his country was the country of the iroquois where so many of his kinsmen and friends had been adopted
he had come he declared with no other thought than that of joining them and turning iroquois as they had done the iroquois demanded if he had come alone he answered no
and said that in order to accomplish his purpose he had joined an algonquin war party who were in the woods not far off the iroquois in great delight demanded to be shown where they were this judas as the jesuits call him
at once complied and the algonquins were surprised by a sudden onset and routed with severe loss the treacherous huron was well treated by the iroquois who adopted him into their nation
not long after he came to canada and with a view as it was thought to some further treachery rejoined the french a sharp cross questioning put him to confusion
and took post waist deep in mud and water among the tall rushes at the margin of the river here they fought stubbornly and kept all the frenchmen at bay at length finding themselves hard pressed they entered their canoes again and paddled off
the french rowed after them and soon became separated in the chase whereupon the iroquois turned and made desperate fight with the foremost retreating again as soon as the others came up
this they repeated several times and then made their escape after killing a number of the best french soldiers their leader in this affair was a famous half breed known as the flemish bastard who is styled by ragueneau
an abomination of sin and a monster produced between a heretic dutch father and a pagan mother in the forests far north of three rivers dwelt the tribe called the atticamegues or nation of the white fish
from their remote position and the difficult nature of the intervening country they thought themselves safe but a band of iroquois marching on snow shoes a distance of twenty days journey northward from the saint lawrence
fell upon one of their camps in the winter and made a general butchery of the inmates the tribe however still held its ground for a time and being all good catholics gave their missionary father buteux
an urgent invitation to visit them in their own country buteux who had long been stationed at three rivers was in ill health and for years
game was exceedingly scarce and they were forced by hunger to separate a huron convert and a frenchman named fontarabie remaining with the missionary the snows had melted and all the streams were swollen
the three travellers in a small birch canoe pushed their way up a turbulent river where falls and rapids were so numerous that many times daily they were forced to carry their bark vessel and their baggage through forests and thickets
and over rocks and precipices on the tenth of may they made two such portages and soon after reaching a third fall again lifted their canoe from the water they toiled through the naked forest among the wet black trees over tangled roots
green spongy mosses mouldering leaves and rotten prostrate trunks while the cataract foamed amidst the rocks hard by the indian led the way with the canoe on his head while buteux and the other frenchman followed with the baggage
suddenly they were set upon by a troop of iroquois who had crouched behind thickets rocks and fallen trees to waylay them the huron was captured before he had time to fly
buteux and the frenchman tried to escape but were instantly shot down the jesuit receiving two balls in the breast the iroquois rushed upon them mangled their bodies with tomahawks and swords stripped them
the life career and death of captain thomas white he was born at plymouth where his mother kept a public house she took great care of his education and when he was grown up as he had an inclination to the sea procured him the king's letter
after he had served some years on board a man of war he went to barbadoes where he married got into the merchant service and designed to settle in the island
in which he made two successful voyages to guinea and back to barbadoes in his third he had the misfortune to be taken by a french pirate as were several other english ships the masters and inferior officers of which they detained being in want of good artists
the brigantine belonging to white they kept for their own use and sunk the vessel they before sailed in but meeting with a ship on the guinea coast more fit for their purpose they went on board her and burnt the brigantine it is not my business here to give an account of this french pirate
though i beg leave to take notice of their barbarity to the english prisoners for they would set them up as a butt or mark to shoot at several of whom were thus murdered in cold blood by way of diversion
one of the crew who had a friendship for white knew this fellow's design to kill him in the night and therefore advised him to lie between him and the ship's side with intention to save him which indeed he did
and shaped their course for madagascar where being drunk and mad they knocked their ship on the head at the south end of the island at a place called by the natives elexa the country thereabouts was governed by a king
formerly a lieutenant of a man of war but in the merchant service when he fell into the hands of the pirates captain bowen and some other prisoners got into the long boat and with broken oars and barrel staves which they found in the bottom of the boat paddled to augustin bay
which is about fourteen or fifteen leagues from the wreck where they landed and were kindly received by the king of bavaw the name of that part of the island who spoke good english
as was his custom to all white men
his humanity not only provided for such but the first european vessel that came in he always obliged to take in the unfortunate people let the vessel be what it would for he had no notion of any difference between pirates and merchants
at the expiration of the above term a pirate brigantine came in on board which the king obliged them to enter or travel by land to some other place
that of going on board the pirate vessel which was commanded by one william read who received them very civilly
he would have been glad of taking some of the wrecked frenchmen but for the barbarity they had used towards the english prisoners however it was impracticable for the french pretending to lord it over the natives whom they began to treat inhumanly were set upon by them
one half of their number cut off and the other half made slaves read with this gang and a brigantine of sixty tons steered his course for the persian gulf where they met a grab a one masted vessel of about two hundred tons which was made a prize
they found nothing on board but bale goods most of which they threw overboard in search of gold
in this cruise captain read fell ill and died and was succeeded by one james the brigantine being small crazy and worm eaten they shaped their course for the island of mayotta where they took out the masts of the brigantine fitted up the grab and made a ship of her
here they took in a quantity of fresh provisions which are in this island very plentiful and very cheap and found a twelve oared boat which formerly belonged to the ruby east indiaman which had been lost there
they stayed here all the monsoon time which is about six months after which they resolved for madagascar as they came in with the land they spied a sail coming round from the east side of the island they gave chase on both sides so that they soon met
this vessel was a small french ship laden with liquors from martinico first commanded by one fourgette
the pirates who were headed by george booth now commander of the ship went on board as they had often done to the number of ten and carried money with them under pretence of purchasing what they wanted this booth had formerly been gunner of a pirate ship called the dolphin captain fourgette was pretty much upon his guard
and the pirates pretended to be so angry with this fellow's offering to come on board with arms that they threatened to knock him on the head and tossing him roughly into the boat ordered him ashore
or die in the undertaking they were all searched but they however contrived to get on board four pistols which were all the arms they had for the enterprise though fourgette had twenty hands on board and his small arms on the awning to be in readiness
the captain invited them into the cabin to dinner but booth chose to dine with the petty officer though one johnson isaac and another went down booth was to give the watchword which was hurrah standing near the awning and being a nimble fellow
at one spring he threw himself upon it drew the arms to him fired his pistol among the men one of whom he wounded who jumping overboard was lost and gave the signal three i said were in the cabin and seven upon deck who with handspikes and the arms seized secured the ship's crew
the captain and his two mates who were at dinner in the cabin hearing the pistol fell upon johnson and stabbed him in several places with their forks but they being silver did him no great damage fourgette snatched his piece which he snapped at isaac's breast several times but it would not go off
at last finding his resistance vain he submitted and the pirates set him and those of his men who would not join them on shore allowing him to take his books papers and whatever else he claimed as belonging to himself and besides treating him very humanely gave him several casks of liquor
with arms and powder to purchase provisions in the country
i shall now proceed after they had taken in the dolphin's company which were on the island and increased their crew by that means to the number of eighty hands they sailed to saint mary's where captain mosson's ship lay at anchor between the island and the main
this gentleman and his whole ship's company had been cut off at the instigation of ort vantyle a dutchman of new york out of her they took water casks and other necessaries which having done they designed for the river methelage
in their way to methelage they fell in as i have said with the pirate on board of which was captain white they joined company came to an anchor together in the above named river where they had cleaned salted and took in their provisions
and were ready to go to sea when a large ship appeared in sight and stood into the same river the pirates knew not whether she was a merchantman or man of war she had been the latter belonging to the french king and could mount fifty guns but being taken by the english
she was bought by some london merchants and fitted out from that port to slave at madagascar and go to jamaica the captain was a young inexperienced man who was put in with a nurse the pirates sent their boats to speak with them but the ship firing at them they concluded it a man of war
and rowed ashore the grab standing in and not keeping her wind so well as the french built ship run among a parcel of mangroves and a stump piercing her bottom she sunk the other run aground let go her anchor and came to no damage
for the tide of flood fetched her off the captain of the speaker for that was the name of the ship which frightened the pirates
was not a little vain of having forced these two vessels ashore though he did not know whether they were pirates or merchantmen and could not help expressing himself in these words how will my name ring on the exchange when it is known i have run two pirates aground which gave handle to a satirical return from one of his men after he was taken who said
lord how our captain's name will ring on the exchange when it is heard he frightened two pirate ships ashore
which alarmed the negroes who acquainting their king he would allow him no trade till the pirates living ashore and who had a design on his ship interceded for them telling the king they were their countrymen and what had happened was through a mistake
it being a custom among them to fire their guns by way of respect and it was owing to the gunner of the ship's negligence that they fired shot
who lived about twenty four miles from the coast to carry a couple of small arms inlaid with gold a couple of brass blunderbusses and a pair of pistols as presents and to require trade as soon as the purser was ashore he was taken prisoner by one tom collins a welshman born in pembroke
who lived on shore and had belonged to the charming mary of barbadoes which went out with a commission but was converted to a pirate he told the purser he was his prisoner and must answer the damage done to two merchants who were slaving the purser answered that he was not commander
that the captain was a hot rash youth put into business by his friends which he did not understand but however satisfaction should be made he was carried by collins on board booth's ship where at first he was talked to in pretty strong terms
and the next morning sent up to the king with a guide and peace made for him the king allowed them trade and sent down the usual presents a couple of oxen between twenty and thirty people laden with rice and as many more with the country liquor called toke
the captain then settled the factory on the shore side and began to buy slaves and provisions the pirates were among them and had opportunities of sounding the men and knowing in what posture the ship lay they found by one hugh man belonging to the speaker
that there were not above forty men on board and that they had lost the second mate and twenty hands in the long boat on the coast before they came into this harbor but that they kept a good look out and had their guns ready primed however he for a hundred pounds undertook to wet all the priming
and assist in taking the ship after some days the captain of the speaker came on shore and was received with great civility by the heads of the pirates having agreed before to make satisfaction in a day or two after he was invited by them to eat a barbacued shoat
which invitation he accepted after dinner captain bowen who was i have already said a prisoner on board the french pirate but now become one of the fraternity and master of the grab went out and returned with a case of pistols in his hand
and told the captain of the speaker whose name i won't mention that he was his prisoner he asked upon what account
where he fell ill and died with grief the pirates having here victualled they sailed for the bay of saint augustine where they took in between seventy and eighty men who had belonged to the ship alexander commanded by captain james a pirate they also took up her guns
besides slaves of which they had about twenty
where the portuguese had once a settlement but now inhabited by arabians some of them went ashore with the captain to buy provisions the captain was sent for by the governor who went with about fourteen in company
they passed through the guard and when they had entered the governor's house they were all cut off and at the same time
which made them fly to the shore the long boat which lay off a grappling
for they were in the boat that most of the men got into her the quarter master ran down sword in hand and though he was attacked by many he behaved himself so well that he got into a little canoe put off and reached the long boat in the interim the little fort the arabians had played upon the ship
which returned the salute very warmly thus they got on board
who had behaved so well in the last affair with the arabians was chosen but he declining all command the crew made choice of bowen for captain pickering to succeed him as master samuel herault a frenchman for quarter master and nathaniel north for captain quarter master
but afraid to venture on them as they took them for portuguese men of war at length part were for boarding and advised it the captain though he said little did not seem inclined for he was but a young pirate though an old commander of a merchantman those who pushed for boarding then desired captain boreman
and went forward to the forecastle with such as would have him take the command to be ready to board on which the captain's quarter master said if they were resolved to engage their captain whose representative he was
did not want resolution therefore ordered them to get their tacks on board for they had already made a clear ship and get ready for boarding which they accordingly did
and shall only observe that captain white was all this time before the mast being a forced man from the beginning bowen's crew dispersing captain white went to methelage where he lived ashore with the king not having an opportunity of getting off the island till another pirate ship called the prosperous commanded by one howard
who had been bred a lighterman on the river thames came in this ship was taken at augustin by some pirates from shore and the crew of their long boat which joined them at the instigation of one ranten boatswain's mate who sent for water they came on board in the night and surprised her though not without resistance
in which the captain and chief mate were killed and several others wounded those who were ashore with captain white resolving to enter in this ship determined him to go also rather than be left alone with the natives hoping by some accident or other to have an opportunity of returning home
he continued on board this ship in which he was made quarter master till they met with and all went on board of bowen as is set down in his life in which ship he continued after bowen left them
the ship being blown to sea the night before the ship not being able to get in and he supposing her gone to the west side of the island as they had formerly proposed
they touched at augustin expecting the ship but she not appearing in a week the time they waited the king ordered them to be gone telling them they imposed on him with lies for he did not believe they had any ship however he gave them fresh provision they took in water and made for methelage here as captain white was known to the king
they were kindly received and staid about a fortnight in expectation of the ship but she not appearing they raised their boat a streak salted the provision the king gave them put water aboard and stood for the north end of the island designing to go round believing their ship might be at the island of saint mary
for as he had himself been a pirate and quarter master to bowen in the speaker he apprehended their taking away his ship war then existing between england and france he thought they might do it without being called in question as pirates the pirates who had been concerned in taking herault's ship
for that was his name had gone up the country and left her to the men belonging to the degrave who had fitted her up cleaned and tallowed her and got in some provision with a design to go to the east indies that they might light on some ship to return to their own country
captain white finding these men proposed joining him and going round to ambonavoula to make up a company it was agreed upon and they unanimously chose him commander they accordingly put to sea
and stood away round the south end of the island and touched at don mascarenhas where he took in a surgeon and stretching over again to madagascar fell in with ambonavoula and made up his complement of sixty men from hence he shaped his course for the island of mayotta
where he cleaned his ship and waited for the season to go into the red sea his provisions being taken in the time proper and the ship well fitted he steered for babel mandeb and running into a harbor waited for the mocha ships
he here took two grabs laden with provisions and having some small money and drugs aboard these he plundered of what was for his turn kept them a fortnight by him and let them go
and too strong to attempt for it was a dutchman they gave over the chase and were glad to shake them off and return to their station fancying they were here discovered from the coast of arabia
keeping a good look out for the mocha ships a few days after they met with a large ship of about one thousand tons and six hundred men called the malabar which they chased kept company with her all night and took in the morning with the loss of only their boatswain
and two or three men wounded in taking this ship they damaged their own so much by springing their foremast carrying away their bowsprit and beating in part of their upper works that they did not think her longer fit for their use
which they chased but gave it over by carrying away their maintopmast so that they did not speak with her for the portuguese took no notice of them four days after they had left this man of war they fell in with a portuguese merchantman
which they chased with english colors flying the chase taking white for an english man of war or east indiaman made no sail to get from him but on his coming up brought to and sent his boat on board with a present of sweet meats for the english captain
who being surprised asked if war was broke out between england and portugal they answered in the affirmative but the captain could not believe them however they took what they liked and kept him with them
after two days they met with the dorothy an english ship captain penruddock commander coming from mocha they exchanged several shots in the chase but when they came along side of her they entered their men and found no resistance she being navigated by moors no europeans
except the officers being on board on a vote they gave captain penruddock from whom they took a considerable quantity of money the portuguese ship and cargo with what bale he pleased to take out of his own bid him go about his business and make what he could of her
they then put the portuguese and moor prisoners on board the malabar and sent them about their business the day after they had sent them away one captain benjamin stacy in a ketch of six guns fell into their hands
they took what money he had and what goods and provisions they wanted among the money were five hundred dollars a silver mug and two spoons belonging to a couple of children on board who were under the care of stacy the children took on for their loss and the captain asked the reason of their tears was answered by stacy and the above sum and plate was all the children had to bring them up
captain white made a speech to his men and told them it was cruel to rob the innocent children upon which by unanimous consent
besides they made a gathering among themselves and made a present to stacy's mate and other of his inferior officers and about one hundred twenty dollars to the children they then discharged stacy and his crew and made the best of their way out of the red sea they came into the bay of defarr
where they found a ketch at anchor
the last days of may see hardy azaleas in beauty any of them may be planted in company for all their colours harmonise
the whites are planted at the lower and more shady end of the group next come the pale yellows and pale pinks and these are followed at a little distance by kinds whose flowers are of orange copper flame
and scarlet crimson colourings this strong coloured group again softening off at the upper end by strong yellows and dying away into the woodland by bushes of the common yellow azalea pontica
and its variety with flowers of larger size and deeper colour the plantation is long in shape straggling over a space of about half an acre
and the small white flowered bed straw with the fine bladed sheep's fescue grass the kind most abundant in heathland the surrounding ground is copse of a wild forest like character
of birch and small oak a wood path of wild heath cut short winds through the planted group which also comprises some of the beautiful white flowered californian azalea occidentalis
and bushes of some of the north american vacciniums azaleas should never be planted among or even within sight of rhododendrons though both enjoy a moist peat soil and have a near botanical relationship
they are incongruous in appearance
this must be understood to apply to the two classes of plants of the hardy kinds as commonly grown in gardens there are tender kinds of the east indian families that are quite harmonious
but those now in question are the ordinary varieties of so called ghent azaleas and the hardy hybrid rhododendrons in the case of small gardens where there is only room for one bed or clump of peat plants
it would be better to have a group of either one or the other of these plants rather than spoil the effect by the inharmonious mixture of both i always think it desirable to group together flowers that bloom at the same time
it is impossible and even undesirable to have a garden in blossom all over and groups of flower beauty are all the more enjoyable for being more or less isolated by stretches of intervening greenery as one lovely group for may
i recommend moutan paeony and clematis montana the clematis on a wall low enough to let its wreaths of bloom show near the paeony the old guelder rose or snowball tree is beautiful anywhere
but i think it best of all on the cold side of a wall of course it is perfectly hardy and a bush of strong sturdy growth and has no need of the wall either for support or for shelter
and as the front shoots must be pruned close back it follows that much more strength is thrown into the remaining wood and the blooms are much larger i have a north wall eleven feet high
while their unlikeness of habit makes the companionship all the more interesting the guelder rose is a stiff wooded thing the character of its main stems being a kind of stark uprightness
though the great white balls hang out with a certain freedom from the newly grown shoots the clematis meets it with an exactly opposite way of growth swinging down its great swags of many flowered garland masses into the head of its companion
with here and there a single flowering streamer making a tiny wreath on its own account on the southern sides of the same gateway are two large bushes of the mexican orange flower choisya ternata loaded with its orange like bloom
buttresses flank the doorway on this side dying away into the general thickness of the wall above the arch by a kind of roofing of broad flat stones that lay back at an easy pitch in mossy hollows at their joints and angles
some tufts of thrift and of little rock pinks have found a home and show as tenderly coloured tufts of rather dull pink bloom above all is the same white clematis
some of its abundant growth having been trained over the south side so that this one plant plays a somewhat important part in two garden scenes through the gateway again beyond the wall northward and partly within its shade
is a portion of ground devoted to paeonies in shape a long triangle whose proportion in length is about thrice its breadth measured at the widest end a low cross wall five feet high divides it nearly in half near the guelder roses
which in compliment to its appearance we call the old wall of which i shall have something to say later thus the paeonies are protected all round for they like a sheltered place
and the moutans do best with even a little passing shade at some time of the day moutan is the chinese name for tree paeony for an immense hardy flower of beautiful colouring
what can equal the salmon rose moutan reine elizabeth among the others that i have those that give me most pleasure are baronne d'ales and comtesse de tuder both pinks of a delightful quality
the tree paeonies are also beautiful in leaf the individual leaves are large and important
and so slow to grow especially on light soils even when their beds have been made deep and liberally enriched with what one judges to be the most gratifying comfort every now and then just before blooming time
a plant goes off all at once smitten with sudden death at the time of making my collection i was unable to visit the french nurseries where these plants are so admirably grown and whence most of the best kinds have come
i had to choose them by the catalogue description
although in this matter the compilers of foreign catalogues are certainly less vague than those of our own
the garden varieties of the siberian p albiflora popularly known as chinese paeonies though among these as is the case with all the kinds there is a preponderance of pink or rose crimson colouring
of a decidedly rank quality yet the number of varieties is so great that among the minority of really good colouring there are plenty to choose from including a good number of beautiful whites and whites tinged with yellow
of those i have the kinds i like best are hypatia pink madame benare salmon rose the queen pale salmon rose leonie salmon rose
warm white solfaterre pale yellow edouard andre deep claret madame calot flesh pink madame breon alba sulfurea
triomphans gandavensis carnea elegans guerin curiosa pink and blush prince pierre galitzin blush
pale pink elegans superbissima yellowish white
blush madame dhour rose
faust belle douaisienne jeanne d'arc marie lemoine many of the lovely flowers in this class have a rather strong sweet smell
something like a mixture of the scents of rose and tulip then there are the old garden paeonies the double varieties of p officinalis they are in three distinct colourings full rich crimson
crimson rose and pale pink changing to dull white these are the earliest to flower and with them it is convenient from the garden point of view to class some of the desirable species
some years ago my friend mister barr kindly gave me a set of the paeony species as grown by him i wished to have them not for the sake of making a collection but in order to see which were the ones i should like best to grow as garden flowers
in due time they grew into strong plants and flowered
with bluish foliage handsomely displayed the whole plant looking strong and neat and well dressed others whose flower colour i cannot commend but that seemed worth growing on account of their rich masses of handsome foliage
are p triternata and p broteri though small in size the light red flower of p lobata is of a beautiful colour p tenuifolia in both single and double form is an old garden favourite
p wittmanniana with its yellow green leaves and tender yellow flower is a gem but it is rather rare and probably uncertain for mine alas had no sooner grown into a fine clump
than it suddenly died all paeonies are strong feeders their beds should be deeply and richly prepared and in later years they are grateful for liberal gifts of manure both as surface dressings and waterings
friends often ask me vaguely about paeonies and when i say what kind of paeonies they have not the least idea broadly and for garden purposes one may put them into three classes one tree paeonies p moutan
shrubby flowering in may two chinese paeonies p albiflora herbaceous flowering in june three old garden paeonies p officinalis herbaceous
including some other herbaceous species i find it convenient to grow paeony species and caulescent lent hellebores together they are in a wide border on the north side of the high wall and partly shaded by it
they are agreed in their liking for deeply worked ground with an admixture of loam and lime for shelter and for rich feeding
the time of roses garden roses reine blanche the old white rose old garden roses as standards climbing and rambling roses scotch briars
hybrid perpetuals a difficulty tea roses pruning sweet peas autumn sown elder trees virginian cowslip dividing spring blooming plants
two best mulleins white french willow bracken what is one to say about june the time of perfect young summer the fulfilment of the promise of the earlier months
and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade for my own part i wander up into the wood and say june is here june is here thank god for lovely june
the soft cooing of the wood dove the glad song of many birds the flitting of butterflies the hum of all the little winged people among the branches the sweet earth scents
all seem to say the same with an endless reiteration never wearying because so gladsome it is the offering of the hymn of praise the lizards run in and out of the heathy tufts in the hot sunshine
and as the long day darkens the night jar trolls out his strange song so welcome because it is the prelude to the perfect summer night here and there a glowworm shows its little lamp
june is here june is here thank god for lovely june and june is the time of roses i have great delight in the best of the old garden roses
the provence cabbage rose sweetest of all sweets and the moss rose its crested variety the early damask and its red and white striped kind the old nearly single reine blanche
the white is a creamy white the outsides of the outer petals are stained with red first showing clearly in the bud the scent is delicate and delightful with a faint suspicion of magnolia
a few years ago this pretty old rose found its way to one of the meetings of the royal horticultural society where it gained much praise it was there that i recognised my old friend and learned its name
i am fond of the old rosa alba both single and double and its daughter maiden's blush how seldom one sees these roses except in cottage gardens but what good taste it shows on the cottager's part
for what rose is so perfectly at home upon the modest little wayside porch i have also learnt from cottage gardens how pretty are some of the old roses grown as standards the picture of my neighbour missus edgeler
picking me a bunch from her bush shows how freely they flower and what fine standards they make i have taken the hint and have now some big round headed standards the heads a yard through
that are worth looking at though one of them is rather badly shaped this year for my handsome jack donkey ate one side of it when he was waiting outside the studio door while his cart load of logs for the ingle fire was being unloaded
what a fine thing among the cluster roses is the old dundee rambler i trained one to go up a rather upright green holly about twenty five feet high
and now it has rushed up and tumbles out at the top and sides in masses of its pretty bloom it is just as good grown as a fountain giving it a free space where it can spread at will with no training or support whatever
these two ways i think are much the best for growing the free rambling roses in the case of the fountain the branches arch over and display the flowers to perfection
if you tie your rose up to a tall post or train it over an arch or pergola the birds flying overhead have the best of the show the garland rose another old sort is just as suitable for this kind of growth as dundee rambler
the most remarkable for rampant growth is r polyantha one of the bushes in this garden covers a space thirty four feet across more than a hundred feet round it forms a great fountain like mass
as they mature they arch over and next year their many short lateral shoots will be smothered with bloom two other roses of free growth are also great favourites madame alfred carriere with long stalked loose white flowers
and emilie plantier i have them on an east fence where they yield a large quantity of bloom for cutting indeed they have been so useful in this way that i have planted several more
but this time for training down to an oak trellis like the one that supports the row of bouquet d'or in order to bring the flowers within easier reach now we look for the bloom of the burnet rose rosa spinosissima
and near tenby in south wales favouring wild places within smell of the sea the rather dusky foliage sets off the lemon white of the wild and the clear white pink rose and pale yellow of the double garden kinds
the hips are large and handsome black and glossy and the whole plant in late autumn assumes a fine bronzy colouring between ashy black and dusky red other small old garden roses are coming into bloom
one of the most desirable and very frequent in this district is rosa lucida
the leaves turn a brilliant yellow in autumn and after they have fallen the bushes are still bright with the coloured stems and the large clusters of bright red hips it is the saint mark's rose of venice
where it is usually in flower on saint mark's day april twenty fifth the double variety is the old rose d'amour
even when their beds are as well enriched as i can contrive or afford to make them
and the haulage is so costly that when it arrives i feel like distributing it with a spoon rather than with the spade moreover even if a bed is filled with the precious loam
unless constantly watered the plants seem to feel and resent the two hundred feet of dry sand and rock that is under them before any moister stratum is reached but the tea roses are more accommodating and do fairly well
though of course not so well as in a stiffer soil if i were planting again i should grow a still larger proportion of the kinds i have now found to do best
good alike early and late and beautiful at all times in this garden it yields quite three times as much bloom as any other nothing else can approach it either for beauty or bounty
not properly a tea but classed among hybrid noisettes is also free and beautiful and long enduring
so like a deeper coloured lambard is another favourite bouquet d'or is here the strongest of the dijon teas i grow it in several positions but most conveniently on a strong bit of oak post and rail trellis
keeping the long growths tied down and every two years cutting the oldest wood right out it is well to remember that the tying or pegging down of roses always makes them bloom better
in these the last year's growth is cut back in march to within two to five eyes from where it leaves the main branch according to the strength of the kind this must not be done with the teas
with these the oldest wood is cut right out from the base and the blooming shoots left full length but it is well towards the end of july or beginning of august
for as soon as spring comes they shoot up with great vigour and we know that the spray used to support them must be two feet higher than for those that are spring sown the flower stalks are a foot long and many have four flowers on a stalk
they are sown in shallow trenches in spring they are earthed up very slightly but still with a little trench at the base of the plants a few doses of liquid manure are a great help when they are getting towards blooming strength
of my part of the country no bush or tree not even the apple seems to group so well or so closely with farm buildings when i built a long thatched shed for the many needs of the garden in the region of pits and frames
compost rubbish and burn heap i planted elders close to the end of the building and on one side of the yard they look just right and are moreover every year loaded with their useful fruit this is ripe quite early in september
and is made into elder wine to be drunk hot in winter a comfort by no means to be despised my trees now give enough for my own wants and there are generally a few acceptable bushels to spare for my cottage neighbours
and then ripen in a few days while lying on the ground i shake the seeds carefully out and leave them lying round the parent plant a week later when they will be ripe they are lightly scratched into the ground some young plants of last year's growth i mark with a bit of stick
primula rosea should also be divided now
such as the foot of a north or east wall or be put at once in its place in some cool rather moist spot in the rock garden two year old plants come up with thick clumps of matted root that is now useless
i cut off the whole mass of old root about an inch below the crown when it can easily be divided into nice little bits for replanting many other spring flowering plants may with advantage be divided now such as aubrietia
the great branching mullein verbascum olympicum is just going out of bloom after making a brilliant display for a fortnight it is followed by the other of the most useful tall yellow flowered kinds
v phlomoides both are seen at their best either quite early in the morning or in the evening or in half shade as like all their kind they do not expand their bloom in bright sunshine
but meanwhile the foliage is so handsome that even if there were no flower it would be a worthy garden plant it does well in any waste spaces of poor soil where by having plants of all ages
tall stems only clothed with unsightly grey rags the caterpillars are easily caught when quite small or when rather large but midway in their growth when three quarters of an inch long they are wary
and at the approach of the avenging gardener they will give a sudden wriggling jump and roll down into the lower depths of the large foliage where they are difficult to find but by going round the plants twice a day for about a week they can all be discovered
the white variety of the french willow epilobium angustifolium is a pretty plant in the edges of the copse good both in sun and shade and flourishing in any poor soil
in better ground it grows too rank running quickly at the root and invading all its neighbours so that it should be planted with great caution but when grown on poor ground it flowers at from two feet to four feet high
and its whole aspect is improved by the proportional amount of flower becoming much larger towards the end of june the bracken that covers the greater part of the ground of the copse is in full beauty
no other manner of undergrowth gives to woodland in so great a degree the true forest like character this most ancient plant speaks of the old untouched land of which large stretches still remain in the south of england
land too poor to have been worth cultivating and that has therefore for centuries endured human contempt in the early part of the present century william cobbett in his delightful book rural rides
and of the general feeling of the time about lonely roads in waste places as the fields for the lawless labours of smuggler and highwayman now such tracts of natural wild beauty
clothed with stretches of heath and fern and whortleberry with beds of sphagnum moss and little natural wild gardens of curious and beautiful sub aquatic plants in the marshy hollows and undrained wastes
are treasured as such places deserve to be especially when they still remain within fifty miles of a vast city the height to which the bracken grows is a sure guide to the depth of soil
on the poorest thinnest ground it only reaches a foot or two but in hollow places where leaf mould accumulates and surface soil has washed in and made a better depth it grows from six feet to eight feet high
and when straggling up through bushes to get to the light a frond will sometimes measure as much as twelve feet the old country people who have always lived on the same poor land say where the farn grows tall anything will grow
but that only means that there the ground is somewhat better and capable of cultivation as its presence is a sure indication of a sandy soil the timber merchants are shy of buying oak trees felled from among it
chapter thirty six the glory and the dream on the morning when the final results of all the examinations were to be posted on the bulletin board at queen's anne and jane walked down the street together
jane was smiling and happy examinations were over and she was comfortably sure she had made a pass at least further considerations troubled jane not at all she had no soaring ambitions and consequently was not affected with the unrest attendant thereon
for we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world and although ambitions are well worth having they are not to be cheaply won but exact their dues of work and self denial anxiety and discouragement anne was pale and quiet
in ten more minutes she would know who had won the medal and who the avery beyond those ten minutes there did not seem just then to be anything worth being called time of course you'll win one of them anyhow said jane
who couldn't understand how the faculty could be so unfair as to order it otherwise i have not hope of the avery said anne everybody says emily clay will win it
i haven't the moral courage i'm going straight to the girls dressing room you must read the announcements and then come and tell me jane and i implore you in the name of our old friendship to do it as quickly as possible
without trying to break it gently and whatever you do don't sympathize with me promise me this jane jane promised solemnly but as it happened
when they went up the entrance steps of queen's
and yelling at the tops of their voices hurrah for blythe medalist for a moment anne felt one sickening pang of defeat and disappointment so she had failed and gilbert had won
he had been so sure she would win and then somebody called out three cheers for miss shirley winner of the avery oh anne gasped jane as they fled to the girls dressing room amid hearty cheers oh anne i'm so proud isn't it splendid
and then the girls were around them and anne was the center of a laughing congratulating group her shoulders were thumped
she was pushed and pulled and hugged and among it all she managed to whisper to jane oh won't matthew and marilla be pleased i must write the news home right away commencement was the next important happening the exercises were held in the big assembly hall of the academy
addresses were given essays read songs sung the public award of diplomas prizes and medals made matthew and marilla were there with eyes and ears for only one student on the platform a tall girl in pale green
when anne had finished her essay it's not the first time i've been glad retorted marilla you do like to rub things in matthew cuthbert miss barry who was sitting behind them leaned forward and poked marilla in the back with her parasol aren't you proud of that anne girl
i am she said anne went home to avonlea with matthew and marilla that evening she had not been home since april and she felt that she could not wait another day the apple blossoms were out and the world was fresh and young
diana was at green gables to meet her in her own white room where marilla had set a flowering house rose on the window sill anne looked about her and drew a long breath of happiness oh diana it's so good to be back again
it's so good to see those pointed firs coming out against the pink sky and that white orchard and the old snow queen isn't the breath of the mint delicious and that tea rose
i thought you liked that stella maynard better than me said diana reproachfully josie pye told me you did
anne laughed and pelted diana with the faded june lilies of her bouquet stella maynard is the dearest girl in the world except one and you are that one diana she said i love you more than ever and i've so many things to tell you
but just now i feel as if it were joy enough to sit here and look at you i'm tired i think tired of being studious and ambitious i mean to spend at least two hours tomorrow lying out in the orchard grass thinking of absolutely nothing you've done splendidly anne
i suppose you won't be teaching now that you've won the avery no i'm going to redmond in september doesn't it seem wonderful i'll have a brand new stock of ambition laid in by that time after three glorious golden months of vacation jane and ruby are going to teach
isn't it splendid to think we all got through even to moody spurgeon and josie pye the newbridge trustees have offered jane their school already said diana gilbert blythe is going to teach too he has to his father can't afford to send him to college next year after all
so he means to earn his own way through i expect he'll get the school here if miss ames decides to leave anne felt a queer little sensation of dismayed surprise she had not known this
what would she do without their inspiring rivalry would not work even at a coeducational college with a real degree in prospect be rather flat without her friend the enemy the next morning at breakfast it suddenly struck anne that matthew was not looking well
surely he was much grayer than he had been a year before marilla she said hesitatingly when he had gone out is matthew quite well no he isn't said marilla in a troubled tone he's had some real bad spells with his heart this spring
and he won't spare himself a mite i've been real worried about him but he's some better this while back and we've got a good hired man
maybe he will now you're home you always cheer him up anne leaned across the table and took marilla's face in her hands you are not looking as well yourself as i'd like to see you marilla you look tired i'm afraid you've been working too hard
you must take a rest now that i'm home i'm just going to take this one day off to visit all the dear old spots and hunt up my old dreams and then it will be your turn to be lazy while i do the work marilla smiled affectionately at her girl it's not the work it's my head
i've got a pain so often now behind my eyes doctor spencer's been fussing with glasses but they don't do me any good there is a distinguished oculist coming to the island the last of june and the doctor says i must see him i guess i'll have to i can't read or sew with any comfort now
well anne you've done real well at queen's i must say to take first class license in one year and win the avery scholarship
and she doesn't believe in the higher education of women at all she says it unfits them for woman's true sphere i don't believe a word of it speaking of rachel reminds me did you hear anything about the abbey bank lately anne i heard it was shaky answered anne why
that is what rachel said she was up here one day last week and said there was some talk about it matthew felt real worried all we have saved is in that bank every penny i wanted matthew to put it in the savings bank in the first place but old mister abbey was a great friend of father's
and he'd always banked with him matthew said any bank with him at the head of it was good enough for anybody i think he has only been its nominal head for many years said anne he is a very old man his nephews are really at the head of the institution well when rachel told us that
so free from shadow and so lavish of blossom anne spent some of its rich hours in the orchard she went to the dryad's bubble and willowmere and violet vale she called at the manse and had a satisfying talk with missus allan and finally in the evening
she went with matthew for the cows through lovers lane to the back pasture the woods were all gloried through with sunset and the warm splendor of it streamed down through the hill gaps in the west matthew walked slowly with bent head anne tall and erect
suited her springing step to his you've been working too hard today matthew she said reproachfully why won't you take things easier well now i can't seem to said matthew
it's only that i'm getting old anne and keep forgetting it well well i've always worked pretty hard and i'd rather drop in harness if i had been the boy you sent for said anne wistfully i'd be able to help you so much now and spare you in a hundred ways
well now i'd rather have you than a dozen boys anne said matthew patting her hand just mind you that rather than a dozen boys well now i guess it wasn't a boy that took the avery scholarship was it it was a girl my girl
when christmas holidays came the girls of patty's place scattered to their respective homes
i couldn't go to any of the places i've been invited and take those three cats she said and i'm not going to leave the poor creatures here alone for nearly three weeks
but there's nothing except millionaires on this street so i'll stay here and keep patty's place warm for you
which were not wholly fulfilled she found avonlea in the grip of such an early cold and stormy winter as even the oldest inhabitant could not recall green gables was literally hemmed in by huge drifts almost every day of that ill starred vacation it stormed fiercely
and even on fine days it drifted unceasingly no sooner were the roads broken than they filled in again it was almost impossible to stir out the a v i s tried on three evenings to have a party in honor of the college students
and on each evening the storm was so wild that nobody could go so they gave up the attempt in despair anne despite her love of and loyalty to green gables could not help thinking longingly of patty's place its cosy open fire
the three cats the merry chatter of the girls the pleasantness of friday evenings when college friends dropped in to talk of grave and gay anne was lonely diana during the whole of the holidays was imprisoned at home with a bad attack of bronchitis she could not come to green gables
for the old way through the haunted wood was impassable with drifts and the long way over the frozen lake of shining waters was almost as bad ruby gillis was sleeping in the white heaped graveyard jane andrews was teaching a school on western prairies gilbert to be sure was still faithful
and waded up to green gables every possible evening but gilbert's visits were not what they once were anne almost dreaded them it was very disconcerting to look up in the midst of a sudden silence and find gilbert's hazel eyes fixed upon her
with a quite unmistakable expression in their grave depths and it was still more disconcerting to find herself blushing hotly and uncomfortably under his gaze just as if just as if well it was very embarrassing
at green gables marilla went promptly to missus lynde's domain when gilbert came and insisted on taking the twins with her the significance of this was unmistakable and anne was in a helpless fury over it davy however was perfectly happy
he reveled in getting out in the morning and shoveling out the paths to the well and henhouse he gloried in the christmas tide delicacies which marilla and missus lynde vied with each other in preparing for anne
of a wonderful hero who seemed blessed with a miraculous faculty
or a volcanic explosion which blew him high and dry out of his troubles landed him in a fortune
would you smiled anne davy peered curiously at her you don't seem a bit shocked anne missus lynde was awful shocked when i said it to her no i'm not shocked davy
i think it's quite natural that a nine year old boy would sooner read an adventure story than the bible but when you are older
oh i think some parts of it are fine conceded davy that story about joseph now it's bully but if i'd been joseph
no siree anne i'd have cut all their heads off missus lynde was awful mad when i said that and shut the bible up and said she'd never read me any more of it if i talked like that so i don't talk now when she reads it sunday afternoons
not nowadays said anne absently as the wind blew a scud of snow against the window oh dear will it ever stop storming god knows said davy airily preparing to resume his reading anne was shocked this time
davy she exclaimed reproachfully missus lynde says that protested davy one night last week marilla said will ludovic speed and theodora dix ever get married and missus lynde said god knows' just like that
well it wasn't right for her to say it said anne promptly deciding upon which horn of this dilemma to empale herself it isn't right for anybody to take that name in vain or speak it lightly davy don't ever do it again
won't they soon be too old to get married anne i hope gilbert won't court you that long when are you going to be married anne missus lynde says it's a sure thing missus lynde is a began anne hotly then stopped
awful old gossip completed davy calmly that's what every one calls her but is it a sure thing anne i want to know you're a very silly little boy davy said anne stalking haughtily out of the room the kitchen was deserted
and she sat down by the window in the fast falling wintry twilight the sun had set and the wind had died down a pale chilly moon looked out behind a bank of purple clouds in the west the sky faded out but the strip of yellow along the western horizon grew brighter and fiercer
as if all the stray gleams of light were concentrating in one spot the distant hills rimmed with priest like firs stood out in dark distinctness against it anne looked across the still white fields cold and lifeless in the harsh light of that grim sunset
and there seemed little prospect of being able to earn enough in the summer vacation i suppose i'll just have to drop out next year she thought drearily and teach a district school again until i earn enough to finish my course
and patty's place will be out of the question but there i'm not going to be a coward i'm thankful i can earn my way through if necessary here's mister harrison wading up the lane announced davy running out i hope he's brought the mail it's three days since we got it
i want to see what them pesky grits are doing i'm a conservative anne and i tell you you have to keep your eye on them grits mister harrison had brought the mail and merry letters from stella and priscilla and phil soon dissipated anne's blues aunt jamesina too had written
the weather has been real cold she wrote so i let the cats sleep in the house rusty and joseph on the sofa in the living room and the sarah cat on the foot of my bed it's real company to hear her purring when i wake up in the night and think of my poor daughter in the foreign field
if it was anywhere but in india i wouldn't worry but they say the snakes out there are terrible it takes all the sarah cats's purring to drive away the thought of those snakes i have enough faith for everything but the snakes i can't think why providence ever made them sometimes i don't think he did
anne had left a thin typewritten communication till the last thinking it unimportant
what is the matter anne asked marilla miss josephine barry is dead said anne in a low tone so she has gone at last said marilla well she has been sick for over a year
and the barrys have been expecting to hear of her death any time it is well she is at rest
she was always kind to you she has been kind to the last marilla this letter is from her lawyer she has left me a thousand dollars in her will gracious ain't that an awful lot of money exclaimed davy
she's the woman you and diana lit on when you jumped into the spare room bed ain't she diana told me that story is that why she left you so much
anne comes to grief in an affair of honor anne had to live through more than two weeks as it happened almost a month having elapsed since the liniment cake episode it was high time for her to get into fresh trouble of some sort little mistakes
such as absentmindedly emptying a pan of skim milk into a basket of yarn balls in the pantry instead of into the pigs bucket and walking clean over the edge of the log bridge into the brook while wrapped in imaginative reverie not really being worth counting
a week after the tea at the manse diana barry gave a party small and select anne assured marilla just the girls in our class they had a very good time and nothing untoward happened until after tea when they found themselves in the barry garden
a little tired of all their games and ripe for any enticing form of mischief which might present itself this presently took the form of daring daring was the fashionable amusement among the avonlea small fry just then it had begun among the boys but soon spread to the girls
and all the silly things that were done in avonlea that summer because the doers thereof were dared to do them would fill a book by themselves first of all carrie sloane dared ruby gillis to climb to a certain point in the huge old willow tree before the front door which ruby gillis
albeit in mortal dread of the fat green caterpillars with which said tree was infested and with the fear of her mother before her eyes if she should tear her new muslin dress nimbly did
josie's triumph being rather more pronounced than good taste permitted anne shirley dared her to walk along the top of the board fence which bounded the garden to the east now to walk board fences requires more skill and steadiness of head and heel
than one might suppose who has never tried it but josie pye if deficient in some qualities that make for popularity had at least a natural and inborn gift duly cultivated for walking board fences josie walked the barry fence with an airy unconcern which seemed to imply
that a little thing like that wasn't worth a dare reluctant admiration greeted her exploit for most of the other girls could appreciate it having suffered many things themselves in their efforts to walk fences josie descended from her perch flushed with victory and darted a defiant glance at anne
anne tossed her red braids i don't think it's such a very wonderful thing to walk a little low board fence she said i knew a girl in marysville who could walk the ridgepole of a roof i don't believe it said josie flatly i don't believe anybody could walk a ridgepole
all the fifth class girls said oh partly in excitement partly in dismay don't you do it anne entreated diana you'll fall off and be killed never mind josie pye it isn't fair to dare anybody to do anything so dangerous i must do it
my honor is at stake said anne solemnly i shall walk that ridgepole diana or perish in the attempt if i am killed you are to have my pearl bead ring anne climbed the ladder amid breathless silence gained the ridgepole
balanced herself uprightly on that precarious footing and started to walk along it dizzily conscious that she was uncomfortably high up in the world and that walking ridgepoles was not a thing in which your imagination helped you out much nevertheless
she managed to take several steps before the catastrophe came then she swayed lost her balance stumbled staggered and fell sliding down over the sun baked roof and crashing off it through the tangle of virginia creeper beneath all before the dismayed circle below could give a simultaneous
terrified shriek if anne had tumbled off the roof on the side up which she had ascended
fortunately she fell on the other side where the roof extended down over the porch so nearly to the ground that a fall therefrom was a much less serious thing nevertheless when diana and the other girls had rushed frantically around the house
they found anne lying all white and limp among the wreck and ruin of the virginia creeper anne are you killed shrieked diana throwing herself on her knees beside her friend oh anne dear anne speak just one word to me and tell me if you're killed to the immense relief of all the girls
and especially of josie pye who in spite of lack of imagination had been seized with horrible visions of a future branded as the girl who was the cause of anne shirley's early and tragic death anne sat dizzily up and answered uncertainly no diana i am not killed
but i think i am rendered unconscious where sobbed carrie sloane oh where anne before anne could answer missus barry appeared on the scene at sight of her anne tried to scramble to her feet but sank back again with a sharp little cry of pain
what's the matter where have you hurt yourself demanded missus barry my ankle gasped anne oh diana please find your father and ask him to take me home i know i can never walk there and i'm sure i couldn't hop so far on one foot when jane couldn't even hop around the garden
marilla was out in the orchard picking a panful of summer apples when she saw mister barry coming over the log bridge and up the slope with missus barry beside him and a whole procession of little girls trailing after him in his arms he carried anne whose head lay limply against his shoulder
at that moment marilla had a revelation in the sudden stab of fear that pierced her very heart she realized what anne had come to mean to her she would have admitted that she liked anne nay that she was very fond of anne but now she knew as she hurried wildly down the slope
that anne was dearer to her than anything else on earth mister barry what has happened to her she gasped more white and shaken than the self contained sensible marilla had been for many years anne herself answered lifting her head don't be very frightened marilla
i was walking the ridgepole and i fell off i expect i have sprained my ankle but marilla i might have broken my neck let us look on the bright side of things i might have known you'd go and do something of the sort when i let you go to that party said marilla sharp and shrewish in her very relief
bring her in here mister barry and lay her on the sofa mercy me the child has gone and fainted it was quite true overcome by the pain of her injury anne had one more of her wishes granted to her she had fainted dead away
matthew hastily summoned from the harvest field was straightway dispatched for the doctor who in due time came to discover that the injury was more serious than they had supposed anne's ankle was broken
a plaintive voice greeted her from the bed aren't you very sorry for me marilla it was your own fault said marilla twitching down the blind and lighting a lamp and that is just why you should be sorry for me said anne
because the thought that it is all my own fault is what makes it so hard if i could blame it on anybody i would feel so much better but what would you have done marilla if you had been dared to walk a ridgepole i'd have stayed on good firm ground
and let them dare away such absurdity said marilla anne sighed but you have such strength of mind marilla i haven't i just felt that i couldn't bear josie pye's scorn
and i think i have been punished so much that you needn't be very cross with me marilla it's not a bit nice to faint after all and the doctor hurt me dreadfully when he was setting my ankle i won't be able to go around for six or seven weeks and i'll miss the new lady teacher
she won't be new any more by the time i'm able to go to school and gil everybody will get ahead of me in class oh i am an afflicted mortal
there there i'm not cross said marilla you're an unlucky child there's no doubt about that but as you say you'll have the suffering of it here now try and eat some supper isn't it fortunate i've got such an imagination said anne
it will help me through splendidly i expect what do people who haven't any imagination do when they break their bones do you suppose marilla anne had good reason to bless her imagination many a time and oft during the tedious seven weeks that followed but she was not solely dependent on it
she had many visitors and not a day passed without one or more of the schoolgirls dropping in to bring her flowers and books and tell her all the happenings in the juvenile world of avonlea everybody has been so good and kind marilla sighed anne happily
on the day when she could first limp across the floor it isn't very pleasant to be laid up but there is a bright side to it marilla you find out how many friends you have why even superintendent bell came to see me and he's really a very fine man not a kindred spirit of course
but still i like him and i'm awfully sorry i ever criticized his prayers i believe now he really does mean them only he has got into the habit of saying them as if he didn't he could get over that if he'd take a little trouble i gave him a good broad hint
he told me all about the time he broke his ankle when he was a boy it does seem so strange to think of superintendent bell ever being a boy even my imagination has its limits for i can't imagine that when i try to imagine him as a boy i see him with gray whiskers and spectacles
just as he looks in sunday school only small now it's so easy to imagine missus allan as a little girl missus allan has been to see me fourteen times isn't that something to be proud of marilla when a minister's wife has so many claims on her time
she never tells you it's your own fault and she hopes you'll be a better girl on account of it missus lynde always told me that when she came to see me and she said it in a kind of way that made me feel she might hope i'd be a better girl but didn't really believe i would even josie pye came to see me
i received her as politely as i could because i think she was sorry she dared me to walk a ridgepole if i had been killed she would had to carry a dark burden of remorse all her life diana has been a faithful friend she's been over every day to cheer my lonely pillow but oh
i shall be so glad when i can go to school for i've heard such exciting things about the new teacher the girls all think she is perfectly sweet diana says she has the loveliest fair curly hair and such fascinating eyes she dresses beautifully and her sleeve puffs are bigger than anybody else's in avonlea
every other friday afternoon she has recitations
oh it's just glorious to think of it josie pye says she hates it but that is just because josie has so little imagination diana and ruby gillis and jane andrews are preparing a dialogue called a morning visit for next friday
and the friday afternoons they don't have recitations miss stacy takes them all to the woods for a field day and they study ferns and flowers and birds
no person who has a right to give any opinion at all about politics can think that the question whether two of the greatest empires in the world should be virtually united so as to form one irresistible mass was a question with which other states had nothing to do
a question about which other states could not take counsel together without being guilty of impertinence as gross as that of a busybody in private life who should insist on being allowed to dictate the wills of other people if the whole spanish monarchy should pass to the house of bourbon
it was highly probable that in a few years england would cease to be great and free and that holland would be a mere province of france such a danger england and holland might lawfully have averted by war and it would be absurd to say that a danger which may be lawfully averted by war
cannot lawfully be averted by peaceable means if nations are so deeply interested in a question that they would be justified in resorting to arms for the purpose of settling it they must surely be sufficiently interested in it to be justified in resorting to amicable arrangements
for the purpose of settling it yet strange to say a multitude of writers who have warmly praised the english and dutch governments for waging a long and bloody war in order to prevent the question of the spanish succession from being settled in a manner prejudicial to them
have severely blamed those governments for trying to attain the same end without the shedding of a drop of blood without the addition of a crown to the taxation of any country in christendom and without a moment's interruption of the trade of the world by land or by sea
that three states should have combined to divide a fourth state without its own consent and in recent times the partition of the spanish monarchy which was meditated in sixteen ninety eight has been compared to the greatest political crime which stains the history of modern europe
the partition of poland but those who hold such language cannot have well considered the nature of the spanish monarchy in the seventeenth century that monarchy was not a body pervaded by one principle of vitality and sensation it was an assemblage of distinct bodies
none of which had any strong sympathy with the rest and some of which had a positive antipathy for each other the partition planned at loo was therefore the very opposite of the partition of poland the partition of poland was the partition of a nation
it was such a partition as is effected by hacking a living man limb from limb the partition planned at loo was the partition of an ill governed empire which was not a nation
it was such a partition as is effected by setting loose a drove of slaves who have been fastened together with collars and handcuffs and whose union has produced only pain inconvenience and mutual disgust
there is not the slightest reason to believe that the neapolitans would have preferred the catholic king to the dauphin or that the lombards would have preferred the catholic king to the archduke
and annexation to france we may judge from the fact that a few years later the states of guipuscoa actually offered to transfer their allegiance to france on condition that their peculiar franchises should be held sacred
one wound the partition would undoubtedly have inflicted a wound on the castilian pride but surely the pride which a nation takes in exercising over other nations a blighting and withering dominion
is not a feeling entitled to much respect and even a castilian who was not greatly deficient in sagacity must have seen that an inheritance claimed by two of the greatest potentates in europe could hardly pass entire to one claimant
that a partition was therefore all but inevitable and that the question was in truth merely between a partition effected by friendly compromise and a partition effected by means of a long and devastating war
to the spanish monarchy considered as a whole or to any part of that monarchy whether those terms were or were not too favourable to france is quite another question it has often been maintained that she would have gained more by permanently annexing to herself
guipuscoa naples and sicily than by sending the duke of anjou or the duke of berry to reign at the escurial
respect is due to the opinion of william that he thoroughly understood the politics of europe is as certain as that jealousy of the greatness of france was with him a passion a ruling passion almost an infirmity
before we blame him therefore for making large concessions to the power which it was the chief business of his life to keep within bounds we shall do well to consider whether those concessions may not on close examination be found to be rather apparent than real
the truth is that they were so and were well known to be so both by william and by lewis naples and sicily formed indeed a noble kingdom fertile populous blessed with a delicious climate and excellently situated for trade
such a kingdom had it been contiguous to provence would indeed have been a most formidable addition to the french monarchy
who imagined that the great antagonist of the house of bourbon could be so weak as to lay the liberties of europe at the feet of that house a king of france would by acquiring territories in the south of italy have really bound himself over to keep the peace
for as soon as he was at war with his neighbours those territories were certain to be worse than useless to him they were hostages at the mercy of his enemies it would be easy to attack them it would be hardly possible to defend them
a french army sent to them by land would have to force its way through the passes of the alps through piedmont through tuscany and through the pontifical states in opposition probably to great german armies
a french fleet would run great risk of being intercepted and destroyed by the squadrons of england and holland of all this lewis was perfectly aware he repeatedly declared that he should consider the kingdom of the two sicilies as a source not of strength but of weakness
he accepted it at last with murmurs he seems to have intended to make it over to one of his younger grandsons
what he really obtained in italy was little more than a splendid provision for a cadet of his house guipuscoa was then in truth the price in consideration of which france consented that the electoral prince of bavaria should be king of spain and the indies
guipuscoa though a small was doubtless a valuable province and was in a military point of view highly important but guipuscoa was not in the netherlands guipuscoa would not make lewis a more formidable neighbour to england
on hainault brabant and antwerp on flanders east and west was it certain that the united force of all her neighbours would be sufficient to compel her to relinquish her prey was it not certain that the contest would be long and terrible
and would not the english and dutch think themselves most fortunate if after many bloody and costly campaigns the french king could be compelled to sign a treaty the same word for word
with that which he was ready uncompelled to sign now william firmly relying on his own judgment had not yet in the whole course of this momentous negotiation asked the advice or employed the agency of any english minister
but the treaty could not be formally concluded without the instrumentality of one of the secretaries of state and of the great seal portland was directed to write to vernon the king himself wrote to the chancellor
somers was authorised to consult any of his colleagues whom he might think fit to be entrusted with so high a secret and he was requested to give his own opinion of the proposed arrangement if that opinion should be favourable not a day must be lost
the king of spain might die at any moment and could hardly live till the winter full powers must be sent to loo sealed but with blanks left for the names of the plenipotentiaries strict secresy must be observed and care must be taken
that the clerks whose duty it was to draw up the necessary documents should not entertain any suspicion of the importance of the work which they were performing the despatch from loo found somers at a distance from all his political friends
and almost incapacitated by infirmities and by remedies from attending to serious business his delicate frame worn out by the labours and vigils of many months his head aching and giddy with the first draughts from the chalybeate spring he roused himself however
montague and vernon came down to tunbridge wells and conferred fully with him the opinion of the leading whig statesmen was communicated to the king in a letter which was not many months later placed on the records of parliament
these statesmen entirely agreed with william in wishing to see the question of the spanish succession speedily and peaceably settled they apprehended that if charles should die leaving that question unsettled the immense power of the french king
and the geographical situation of his dominions would enable him to take immediate possession of the most important parts of the great inheritance whether he was likely to venture on so bold a course and whether if he did venture on it
any continental government would have the means and the spirit to withstand him were questions as to which the english ministers with unfeigned deference submitted their opinion to that of their master whose knowledge of the interests and tempers of all the courts of europe was unrivalled
but there was one important point which must not be left out of consideration and about which his servants might perhaps be better informed than himself the temper of their own country it was the chancellor wrote their duty to tell his majesty
that the recent elections had indicated the public feeling in a manner which had not been expected but which could not be mistaken the spirit which had borne the nation up through nine years of exertions and sacrifices seemed to be dead
the people were sick of taxes they hated the thought of war as it would in such circumstances be no easy matter to form a coalition capable of resisting the pretensions of france
it was most desirable that she should be induced to withdraw those pretensions and it was not to be expected that she would withdraw them without securing for herself a large compensation the principle of the treaty of loo therefore the english ministers cordially approved
but whether the articles of that treaty were or were not too favourable to the house of bourbon and whether the house of bourbon was likely faithfully to observe them were questions about which somers delicately hinted
they had their fears that lewis might be playing false they had their fears also that possessed of sicily he would be master of the trade of the levant
he would be able at any moment to push an army into the heart of castile but they had been reassured by the thought that their sovereign thoroughly understood this department of politics that he had fully considered all these things that he had neglected no precaution
and that the concessions which he had made to france were the smallest which could have averted the calamities impending over christendom it was added that the service which his majesty had rendered to the house of bavaria gave him a right to ask for some return would it be too much to expect
from the gratitude of the prince who was soon to be a great king some relaxation of the rigorous system which excluded the english trade from the spanish colonies such a relaxation would greatly endear his majesty to his subjects
with these suggestions the chancellor sent off the powers which the king wanted they were drawn up by vernon with his own hand and sealed in such a manner that no subordinate officer was let into the secret
for the names of two commissioners but somers gently hinted that it would be proper to fill those blanks with the names of persons who were english by naturalisation if not by birth and who would therefore be responsible to parliament
the king now had what he wanted from england the peculiarity of the batavian polity threw some difficulties in his way but every difficulty gelded to his authority and to the dexterous management of heinsius
and in truth the treaty could not but be favourably regarded by the states general for it had been carefully framed with the especial object of preventing france from obtaining any accession of territory
and dutchmen who remembered the terrible year when the camp of lewis had been pitched between utrecht and amsterdam were delighted to find that he was not to add to his dominions a single fortress in their neighbourhood and were quite willing to buy him off with whole provinces under the pyrenees and the apennines
the sanction both of the federal and of the provincial governments was given with ease and expedition and in the evening of the fourth of september sixteen ninety eight the treaty was signed as to the blanks in the english powers william had attended to his chancellor's suggestion
and had inserted the names of sir joseph williamson minister at the hague a born englishman and of portland a naturalised englishman the grand pensionary and seven other commissioners signed on behalf of the united provinces
tallard alone signed for france he seems to have been extravagantly elated by what seemed to be the happy issue of the negotiation in which he had borne so great a part and in his next despatch to lewis
boasted of the new treaty as destined to be the most famous that had been made during many centuries william too was well pleased and he had reason to be so had the king of spain died as all men expected before the end of that year
and it is almost certain that if france had kept faith
the emperor might have complained and threatened but he must have submitted for what could he do he had no fleet and it was therefore impossible for him even to attempt to possess himself of castile of arragon of sicily of the indies
in opposition to the united navies of the three greatest maritime powers in the world
he would scarcely have been so mad as to disturb the peace of the world when the only thing which he had any chance of gaining by war was offered him without war the castilians would doubtless have resented the dismemberment of the unwieldy body of which they formed the head
but they would have perceived that by resisting they were much more likely to lose the indies
the reign of this prince as those of his predecessors was disturbed by the rebellions and incursions of the northumbrian danes who though frequently quelled were never entirely subdued nor had ever paid a sincere allegiance to the crown of england
the accession of a new king seemed to them a favorable opportunity for shaking off the yoke but on edred's appearance with an army they made him their wonted submissions and the king having wasted the country with fire and sword as a punishment of their rebellion
obliged them to renew their oaths of allegiance and he straight retired with his forces the obedience of the danes lasted no longer than the present terror
they broke into a new rebellion and were again subdued but the king now instructed by experience took greater precautions against their future revolt he fixed english garrisons in their most considerable towns and placed over them an english governor who might watch all their motions
and suppress any insurrection on its first appearance he obliged also malcolm king of scotland to renew his homage for the lands which he held in england edred though not unwarlike nor unfit for active life lay under the influence of the lowest superstition
and had blindly delivered over his conscience to the guidance of dunstan commonly called saint dunstan abbot of glastonbury whom he advanced to the highest offices and who covered under the appearance of sanctity the most violent and most insolent ambition
taking advantage of the implicit confidence reposed in him by the king this churchman imported into england a new order of monks who much changed the state of ecclesiastical affairs and excited on their first establishment the most violent commotions
from the introduction of christianity among the saxons there had been monasteries in england and these establishments had extremely multiplied by the donations of the princes and nobles whose superstition derived from their ignorance and precarious life
and increased by remorses for the crimes into which they were so frequently betrayed knew no other expedient for appeasing the deity than a profuse liberality towards the ecclesiastics but the monks had hitherto been a species of secular priests
who lived after the manner of the present canons or prebendaries and were both intermingled in some degree with the world
were greedily embraced and promoted by the policy of the court of rome the roman pontiff who was making every day great advances towards an absolute sovereignty over the ecclesiastics perceived that the celibacy of the clergy alone
could break off entirely their connection with the civil power and depriving them of every other object of ambition engage them to promote with unceasing industry the grandeur of their own order he was sensible that so long as the monks were indulged in marriage and were permitted to rear families
a ready and zealous obedience celibacy therefore began to be extolled as the indispensable duty of priests and the pope undertook to make all the clergy throughout the western world renounce at once the privilege of marriage a fortunate policy
but at the same time an undertaking the most difficult of any since he had the strongest propensities of human nature to encounter and found that the same connections with the female sex which generally encourage devotion were here unfavorable to the success of his project
it is no wonder therefore that this master stroke of art should have met with violent contradiction and that the interests of the hierarchy and the inclinations of the priests being now placed in this singular opposition
should notwithstanding the continued efforts of rome have retarded the execution of that bold scheme during the course of near three centuries dunstan was born of noble parents in the west of england and being educated under his uncle aldhelm
then archbishop of canterbury had betaken himself to the ecclesiastical life and had acquired some character in the court of edmund he was however represented to that prince as a man of licentious manners and finding his fortune blasted by these suspicions
his ardent ambition prompted him to repair his indiscretions by running into an opposite extreme he secluded himself entirely from the world he framed a cell so small that he could neither stand erect in it nor stretch out his limbs during his repose
either in devotion or in manual labor it is probable that his brain became gradually crazed by these solitary occupations and that his head was filled with chimeras which being believed by himself and his stupid votaries
procured him the general character of sanctity among the people he fancied that the devil among the frequent visits which he paid him was one day more earnest than usual in his temptations till dunstan provoked at his importunity
seized him by the nose with a pair of red hot pincers as he put his head into the cell and he held him there till that malignant spirit made the whole neighborhood resound with his bellowings
and being thus possessed both of power at court and of credit with the populace he was enabled to attempt with success the most arduous enterprises finding that his advancement had been owing to the opinion of his austerity
he professed himself a partisan of the rigid monastic rules and after introducing that reformation into the convents of glastonbury and abingdon he endeavored to render it universal in the kingdom the minds of men were already well prepared for this innovation
the praises of an inviolable chastity had been carried to the highest extravagance by some of the first preachers of christianity among the saxons the pleasures of love had been represented as incompatible with christian perfection
and a total abstinence from all commerce with the sex was deemed such a meritorious penance
they inveighed bitterly against the vices and pretended luxury of the age they were particularly vehement against the dissolute lives of the secular clergy their rivals every instance of libertinism in any individual of that order was represented as a general corruption
and where other topics of defamation were wanting their marriage became a sure subject of invective and their wives received the name of concubine or other more opprobrious appellation
defended themselves with vigor and endeavored to retaliate upon their adversaries the people were thrown into agitation
excited by the most material differences in religion or rather by the most frivolous since it is a just remark that the more affinity there is between theological parties
his nobility were assembled in a great hall and were indulging themselves in that riot and disorder which from the example of their german ancestors had become habitual to the english when edwy attracted by softer pleasures retired into the queen's apartment
and in that privacy gave reins to his fondness towards his wife which was only moderately checked by the presence of her mother dunstan conjectured the reason of the king's retreat and carrying along with him odo archbishop of canterbury
over whom he had gained an absolute ascendant he burst into the apartment
probably bestowed on the queen the most opprobrious epithet that can be applied to her sex and tearing him from her arms pushed him back in a disgraceful manner into the banquet of the nobles
found an opportunity of taking revenge for this public insult he questioned dunstan concerning the administration of the treasury during the reign of his predecessor and when that minister refused to give any account of money expended as he affirmed by orders of the late king
he accused him of malversation in his office and banished him the kingdom but dunstan's cabal was not inactive during his absence they filled the public with high panegyrics on his sanctity they exclaimed against the impiety of the king and queen
and having poisoned the minds of the people by these declamations they proceeded to still more outrageous acts of violence against the royal authority archbishop odo sent into the palace a party of soldiers who seized the queen and having burned her face with a rod hot iron
they carried her by force into ireland there to remain in perpetual exile
was obliged to consent to his divorce which was pronounced by odo and a catastrophe still more dismal awaited the unhappy elgiva that amiable princess being cured of her wounds and having even obliterated the scars with which odo had hoped to deface her beauty
returned into england and was flying to the embraces of the king whom she still regarded as her husband when she fell into the hands of a party whom the primate had sent to intercept her nothing but her death could now give security to odo and the monks
dunstan returned into england and took upon him the government of edgar and his party he was first installed in the see of worcester then in that of london and on odo's death and the violent expulsion of brithelm his successor in that of canterbury
of all which he long kept possession odo is transmitted to us by the monks under the character of a man of piety dunstan was even canonized and is one of those numerous saints of the same stamp who disgrace the romish calendar
at first glance the scene irritated me never at any time have i been able to bear the flunkeyishness which one meets in the press of the world at large but more especially in that of russia where almost every evening journalists write on two subjects in particular
and on the heaps of gold which are daily to be seen lying on their tables those journalists are not paid for doing so they write thus merely out of a spirit of disinterested complaisance for there is nothing splendid about the establishments in question
of course during the season some madman or another may make his appearance generally an englishman or an asiatic or a turk and as had happened during the summer of which i write win or lose a great deal
it plays only for petty gulden and seldom does much wealth figure on the board when on the present occasion i entered the gaming rooms for the first time in my life
for one thing the crowd oppressed me had i been playing for myself i think i should have left at once and never have embarked upon gambling at all for i could feel my heart beginning to beat and my heart was anything but cold blooded also i knew i had long ago made up my mind that never should i depart from roulettenberg
thus it must and would be however ridiculous it may seem to you that i was expecting to win at roulette i look upon the generally accepted opinion concerning the folly and the grossness of hoping to win at gambling as a thing even more absurd
for why is gambling a whit worse than any other method of acquiring money how for instance is it worse than trade true out of a hundred persons only one can win yet what business is that of yours or of mine
and decided to attempt nothing serious
i should do it in an absent minded haphazard sort of way of that i felt certain also it behoved me to learn the game itself
in the first place everything about it seemed to me so foul so morally mean and foul yet i am not speaking of the hungry restless folk who by scores nay even by hundreds could be seen crowded around the gaming tables
i have always applauded the opinion of a certain dead and gone but cocksure moralist who replied to the excuse that one may always gamble moderately by saying that to do so makes things worse since in that case the profits too will always be moderate
insignificant profits and sumptuous profits do not stand on the same footing no it is all a matter of proportion
can be found depriving their fellows of something just as they do at roulette as to the question whether stakes and winnings are in themselves immoral is another question altogether and i wish to express no opinion upon
in spite of its attendant squalor to contain if you will something intimate something sympathetic to my eyes for it is always pleasant to see men dispensing with ceremony
yet why should i so deceive myself i could see that the whole thing was a vain and unreasoning pursuit and what at the first glance seemed to me the ugliest feature in this mob of roulette players
the seriousness and even the humility with which they stood around the gaming tables moreover i had always drawn sharp distinctions between a game which is
herein as said i draw sharp distinctions yet how essentially base are the distinctions for instance a gentleman may stake say five or ten
when he may stake say a thousand francs
or to stake again or to double his stake but even this he must do solely out of curiosity and for the pleasure of watching the play of chances and of calculations and not because of any vulgar desire to win
best of all he ought to imagine his fellow gamblers and the rest of the mob which stands trembling over a coin to be equally rich and gentlemanly with himself
elegant daughters misses of fifteen or sixteen as to give them a few gold coins and teach them how to play
but the general did not even notice him slowly he took out his money bags and slowly extracted three hundred francs in gold which he staked on the black and won yet he did not take up his winnings he left them there on the table again the black turned up and again he did not gather in what he had won
and when in the third round the red turned up he lost
yet even then he rose with a smile and thus preserved his reputation yet i knew that his money bags must be chafing his heart as well as that
he would still have restrained himself from venting his disappointment on the other hand i saw a frenchman first win and then lose thirty thousand francs cheerfully and without a murmur yes even if a gentleman should lose his whole substance he must never give way to annoyance
as never to be worth a thought of course the supremely aristocratic thing is to be entirely oblivious of the mire of rabble with its setting
and even to gape at the mob for preference through a lorgnette
which had been organised specially for a gentleman's diversion though one may be squeezed by the crowd one must look as though one were fully assured of being the observer of having neither part nor lot with the observed at the same time
to stare fixedly about one is unbecoming for that again is ungentlemanly seeing that
however to me personally the scene did seem to be worth undisguised contemplation more especially in view of the fact that i had come there not only to look at but also to number myself sincerely and wholeheartedly with the mob as for my secret moral views
i had no room for them amongst my actual practical opinions let that stand as written i am writing only to relieve my conscience
and thoughts by a moral standard another standard altogether has directed my life as a matter of fact the mob was playing in exceedingly foul fashion
as for the crowd itself well it consisted mostly of frenchmen yet i was not then taking notes merely in order to be able to give you a description of roulette
at first the proceedings were pure greek to me i could only divine and distinguish that stakes were hazarded
the thought that i was not going to play for myself quite unnerved me it was an unpleasant sensation and i tried hard to banish it i had a feeling that
i should wreck my own fortunes also i wonder if any one has ever approached a gaming table without falling an immediate prey to superstition i began by pulling out fifty gulden and staking them on even the wheel spun and stopped at thirteen i had lost
with a feeling like a sick qualm as though i would like to make my way out of the crowd and go home i staked another fifty gulden
and again the red turned up again i staked the whole sum and again the red turned up clutching my four hundred gulden i placed two hundred of them on twelve figures to see what would come of it
thus from one hundred gulden my store had grown to eight hundred
always the thought kept recurring to me that if i had been playing for myself alone i should never have had such luck once more i staked the whole eight hundred gulden on the even the wheel stopped at four i was paid out another eight hundred gulden and snatching up my pile of sixteen hundred departed in search of polina alexandrovna
this time the frenchman was absent from the meal and the general seemed to be in a more expansive vein among other things he thought it necessary to remind me that he would be sorry to see me playing at the gaming tables in his opinion such conduct would greatly compromise him especially if i were to lose much
sort of way of course i have no right to order your actions but you yourself will agree that as usual he did not finish his sentence
why not she asked excitedly because i wish to play for myself i replied with a feigned glance of astonishment that is my sole reason
i said very seriously yes and then added possibly my certainty about winning may seem to you ridiculous yet pray leave me in peace
and offered me eight hundred gulden on condition that henceforth i gambled only on those terms
stating as my reason that i found myself unable to play on behalf of any one else
but in all probability i should lose
i thought i could even detect a certain shamefacedness in the general's glance maria philipovna
to luncheon there were expected that day a monsieur mezentsov a french lady and an englishman for whenever money was in hand a banquet in muscovite style was always given polina alexandrovna on seeing me inquired why i had been so long away
then without waiting for an answer she departed evidently this was not mere accident and i felt that i must throw some light upon matters it was high time that i did so
so far as i could see the party had already gained some notoriety in the place which had come to look upon the general as a russian nobleman of great wealth
later i was about to take mischa and nadia for a walk when a summons reached me from the staircase that i must attend the general
he wanted to do so but each time was met by me with such a fixed disrespectful stare that he desisted in confusion in pompous language however which jumbled one sentence into another and at length grew disconnected he gave me to understand
that i was to lead the children altogether away from the casino and out into the park finally his anger exploded and he added sharply
well excuse my speaking so plainly but i know how addicted you are to gambling though i am not your mentor nor wish to be at least i have a right to require that you shall not actually compromise me i have no money for gambling i quietly replied
let us calculate he went on we must translate these roubles into thalers here
the rest will be safe in my hands in silence i took the money you must not be offended at what i say he continued you are too touchy about these things
when returning home with the children before luncheon i met a cavalcade of our party riding to view some ruins two splendid carriages magnificently horsed with mlle blanche maria philipovna and polina alexandrovna in one of them
and the frenchman the englishman and the general in attendance on horseback the passers by stopped to stare at them for the effect was splendid the general could not have improved upon it i calculated that with the four thousand francs which i had brought with me
though that would be none too much for mlle blanche who with her mother and the frenchman was also lodging in our hotel
and mlle blanche's mother was dubbed madame la comtesse perhaps in very truth they were comte et comtesse i knew that monsieur le comte would take no notice of me when we met at dinner as also that the general would not dream of introducing us nor of recommending me to the comte
of course strictly speaking he knew me
the general had forgotten to arrange otherwise or i should have been dispatched to dine at the table d'hote nevertheless
and though the good maria philipovna was for showing me my place the fact of my having previously met the englishman mister astley saved me
to think therefore that i should suddenly encounter him again here in roulettenberg never in my life had i known a more retiring man for he was shy to the pitch of imbecility yet well aware of the fact for he was no fool
also he was delighted that i should sit next him at table
during the meal the frenchman was in great feather he was discursive and pompous to every one in moscow too i remembered he had blown a great many bubbles interminably he discoursed on finance and russian politics and though at times the general made feints to contradict him
he did so humbly and as though wishing not wholly to lose sight of his own dignity
why do i continue to dance attendance upon the general
first of all i suddenly and for no reason whatever plunged loudly and gratuitously into the general conversation above everything i wanted to pick a quarrel with the frenchman and with that end in view i turned to the general and exclaimed in an overbearing sort of way
the general bent upon me a glance of astonishment if one is a man of self respect i went on
both at paris and on the rhine and even in switzerland there are so many poles with their sympathisers the french at these tables d'hote that one cannot get a word in edgeways if one happens only to be a russian this i said in french
the general eyed me doubtfully for he did not know whether to be angry or merely to feel surprised that i should so far forget myself of course one always learns something everywhere said the frenchman in a careless contemptuous sort of tone in paris too i had a dispute with a pole i continued
after that a section of the frenchmen present took my part they did so as soon as i told them the story of how once i threatened to spit into monsignor's coffee
and a stare of astonishment while the frenchman looked at me unbelievingly just so i replied you must know that on one occasion when for two days i had felt certain that at any moment i might have to depart for rome on business
after listening politely but with great reserve
i was in a great hurry to depart but of course i sat down pulled out a copy of l'opinion nationale and fell to reading an extraordinary piece of invective against russia which it happened to contain
after which i saw the sacristan make a low bow to the visitor and then another bow as the visitor took his leave
he again asked me to wait soon a third visitor arrived who like myself had come on business
this made me very angry i rose approached the sacristan and told him that
should dare to compare himself with other visitors of monsignor's
do you suppose that monsignor is going to put aside his coffee for you but i only cried the louder let me tell you that i am going to spit into that coffee
while he is engaged with a cardinal screeched the sacristan again shrinking back in horror then rushing to the door he spread out his arms as though he would rather die than let me enter thereupon i declared that i was a heretic and a barbarian
in a word i showed him that i was not going to give way
si bete but is that how russian subjects ought to be treated why when they settle here they dare not utter even a word
at once went upstairs while some of the frenchmen were simply disgusted when i told them that two years ago i had encountered a man at whom in eighteen twelve a french hero fired for the mere fun of discharging his musket
no french soldier would fire at a child nevertheless the incident was as i say i replied a very respected ex captain told me the story and i myself could see the scar left on his cheek the frenchman then began chattering volubly and the general supported him
the general was furious with me for having started the altercation with the frenchman
and rising from the table proposed that we should go and have a drink together
of course we began by talking on business matters polina seemed furious when i handed her only seven hundred gulden
at least two thousand gulden or even more come what may i must have money she said and get it somehow i will otherwise i shall be ruined
nothing except that two pieces of news have reached us from saint petersburg in the first place my grandmother is very ill and unlikely to last another couple of days we had this from timothy petrovitch himself and he is a reliable person
all of you are on the tiptoe of expectation i queried of course
looking for it yes looking for it i am not her blood relation you know
yet i am certain that the old lady has remembered me in her will yes i believe that you will come in for a good deal i said with some assurance yes for she is fond of me but how come you to think so i answered this question with another one that marquis of yours i said
is he also familiar with your family secrets
what loving friendly behaviour to be sure yes that is true
i thought you ought to know that then he has only just begun his courting why i thought he had been doing so a long while you know he has not retorted polina angrily
he is very shy i said and susceptible also he is in love with you yes he is in love with me she replied and he is ten times richer than the frenchman in fact what does the frenchman possess to me it seems at least doubtful that he possesses anything at all
oh no there is no doubt about it he does possess some chateau or other last night the general told me that for certain now are you satisfied nevertheless in your place i should marry the englishman and why asked polina because though the frenchman is the handsomer of the two
he is also the baser whereas the englishman is not only a man of honour but ten times the wealthier of the pair yes but then the frenchman is a marquis and the cleverer of the two remarked polina imperturbably is that so i repeated yes absolutely
but i took no notice of this it amuses me to see you grow angry she continued however inasmuch as i allow you to indulge in these questions and conjectures you ought to pay me something for the privilege
yes you may depend upon it that i shall do so i hate you because i have allowed you to go to such lengths and i also hate you and still more because you are so necessary to me for the time being i want you so i must keep you
you know who she is just mlle blanche
probably she will soon be madame general that is to say if the rumours that grandmamma is nearing her end should prove true
listen to me take these seven hundred florins and go and play roulette with them win as much for me as you can for i am badly in need of money
something had seemed to strike my brain when she told me to go and play roulette
on the day of my return although while travelling i had moped like an imbecile
indeed on one occasion this happened in switzerland when i was asleep in the train
again therefore i put to myself the question do i or do i not love her and again i could return myself no answer or rather for the hundredth time i told myself that i detested her yes i detested her
yet i also swear that if on the shlangenberg she had really said to me leap into that abyss i should have leapt into it and with equal pleasure yes this i knew well one way or the other the thing must soon be ended
and of the impossibility of my ever realising my dreams afforded her i am certain the keenest possible pleasure
would have indulged in this familiarity and openness with me hitherto i concluded she had looked upon me in the same light that the old empress did upon her servant the empress who hesitated not to unrobe herself before her slave since she did not account a slave a man yes often polina must have taken me for something less than a man
the visit to lord pococurante a noble venetian
the gardens laid out with taste were adorned with fine marble statues the palace was beautifully built the master of the house was a man of sixty and very rich he received the two travellers with polite indifference
which put candide a little out of countenance but was not at all disagreeable to martin first two pretty girls very neatly dressed served them with chocolate which was frothed exceedingly well
candide could not refrain from commending their beauty grace and address they are good enough creatures said the senator i make them lie with me sometimes for i am very tired of the ladies of the town of their coquetries
of their jealousies of their quarrels of their humours of their pettinesses of their prides of their follies and of the sonnets which one must make or have made for them but after all these two girls begin to weary me
i have a great many pictures but i prize them very little while they were waiting for dinner pococurante ordered a concert
this noise said the senator may amuse one for half an hour but if it were to last longer it would grow tiresome to everybody though they durst not own it music to day is only the art of executing difficult things
let who will go to see bad tragedies set to music where the scenes are contrived for no other end than to introduce two or three songs ridiculously out of place to show off an actress's voice let who will or who can
die away with pleasure at the sight of an eunuch quavering the role of caesar or of cato and strutting awkwardly upon the stage for my part i have long since renounced those paltry entertainments
but with discretion martin was entirely of the senator's opinion they sat down to table and after an excellent dinner they went into the library
there said he is a book that was once the delight of the great pangloss the best philosopher in germany it is not mine answered pococurante coolly they used at one time to make me believe that i took a pleasure in reading him
but that continual repetition of battles so extremely like one another those gods that are always active without doing anything decisive that helen who is the cause of the war
i have sometimes asked learned men whether they were not as weary as i of that work those who were sincere have owned to me that the poem made them fall asleep yet it was necessary to have it in their library as a monument of antiquity
i grant said the senator
his insipid lavinia i think there can be nothing more flat and disagreeable i prefer tasso a good deal or even the soporific tales of ariosto
there are maxims in this writer answered pococurante from which a man of the world may reap great benefit and being written in energetic verse they are more easily impressed upon the memory
but i care little for his journey to brundusium and his account of a bad dinner or of his low quarrel between one rupilius whose words he says were full of poisonous filth and another whose language was imbued with vinegar
i have read with much distaste his indelicate verses against old women and witches nor do i see any merit in telling his friend maecenas that if he will but rank him in the choir of lyric poets his lofty head shall touch the stars
fools admire everything in an author of reputation for my part i read only to please myself i like only that which serves my purpose
was much surprised at what he heard martin found there was a good deal of reason in pococurante's remarks
here is the great man whom i fancy you are never tired of reading i never read him replied the venetian what is it to me whether he pleads for rabirius or cluentius i try causes enough myself
i concluded that i knew as much as he and that i had no need of a guide to learn ignorance ha here are four score volumes of the academy of sciences cried martin perhaps there is something valuable in this collection
there might be said pococurante if only one of those rakers of rubbish had shown how to make pins
and those huge volumes of theology you may well imagine that neither i nor any one else ever opens them martin saw some shelves filled with english books
i have a notion said he that a republican must be greatly pleased with most of these books which are written with a spirit of freedom yes answered pococurante it is noble to write as one thinks this is the privilege of humanity
in all our italy we write only what we do not think those who inhabit the country of the caesars and the antoninuses
asked whether he did not look upon this author as a great man who said pococurante that barbarian who writes a long commentary in ten books of harsh verse on the first chapter of genesis
and who while moses represents the eternal producing the world by a word makes the messiah take a great pair of compasses from the armoury of heaven to circumscribe his work how can i have any esteem for a writer who has spoiled tasso's hell and the devil
represents the devils cannonading in heaven neither i nor any man in italy could take pleasure in those melancholy extravagances and the marriage of sin and death and the snakes brought forth by sin
are enough to turn the stomach of any one with the least taste and his long description of a pest house is good only for a grave digger this obscure whimsical and disagreeable poem was despised upon its first publication
and i only treat it now as it was treated in its own country by contemporaries for the matter of that i say what i think and i care very little whether others think as i do
i am afraid that this man holds our german poets in very great contempt there would not be much harm in that said martin oh what a superior man said candide below his breath what a great genius is this pococurante nothing can please him
i know of nothing in so bad a taste said the master all you see here is merely trifling after to morrow i will have it planted with a nobler design
you will agree that this is the happiest of mortals for he is above everything he possesses but do you not see answered martin that he is disgusted with all he possesses
plato observed a long while ago that those stomachs are not the best that reject all sorts of food
that is to say replied martin that there is some pleasure in having no pleasure well well said candide i find that i shall be the only happy man when i am blessed with the sight of my dear cunegonde it is always well to hope said martin
what happened to them at surinam
our travellers spent the first day very agreeably they were delighted with possessing more treasure than all asia europe and africa could scrape together
the second day two of their sheep plunged into a morass where they and their burdens were lost two more died of fatigue a few days after seven or eight perished with hunger in a desert
and others subsequently fell down precipices at length after travelling a hundred days only two sheep remained
my friend you see how perishable are the riches of this world there is nothing solid but virtue
i grant all you say said cacambo but we have still two sheep remaining with more treasure than the king of spain will ever have
we are at the end of all our troubles and at the beginning of happiness as they drew near the town they saw a negro stretched upon the ground with only one moiety of his clothes that is of his blue linen drawers
the poor man had lost his left leg and his right hand
what art thou doing there friend in that shocking condition i am waiting for my master mynheer vanderdendur the famous merchant answered the negro
yes sir said the negro it is the custom they give us a pair of linen drawers for our whole garment twice a year when we work at the sugar canes and the mill snatches hold of a finger
both cases have happened to me this is the price at which you eat sugar in europe
my dear child bless our fetiches adore them for ever they will make thee live happily thou hast the honour of being the slave of our lords the whites which is making the fortune of thy father and mother
alas i know not whether i have made their fortunes this i know that they have not made mine dogs monkeys and parrots are a thousand times less wretched than i the dutch fetiches who have converted me
declare every sunday that we are all of us children of adam blacks as well as whites i am not a genealogist but if these preachers tell truth we are all second cousins
impossible to treat one's relations in a more barbarous manner
thou hadst not guessed at this abomination it is the end i must at last renounce thy optimism what is this optimism said cacambo
who offered to agree with them upon reasonable terms he appointed to meet them at a public house
upon his lips told the spaniard all his adventures
i should be hanged and so would you the fair cunegonde is my lord's favourite mistress
he wept for a long while at last he drew cacambo aside here my dear friend said he to him this thou must do we have each of us in his pocket five or six millions in diamonds
if the governor makes any difficulty give him a million if he will not relinquish her give him two as you have not killed an inquisitor they will have no suspicion of you i'll get another ship and go and wait for you at venice that's a free country
cacambo applauded this wise resolution he despaired at parting from so good a master who had become his intimate friend but the pleasure of serving him prevailed over the pain of leaving him they embraced with tears
after he had hired domestics and purchased everything necessary for a long voyage
oh oh said the prudent vanderdendur to himself this stranger gives ten thousand piastres unhesitatingly he must be very rich returning a little while after
he let him know that upon second consideration he could not undertake the voyage for less than twenty thousand piastres
ay said the skipper to himself this man agrees to pay twenty thousand piastres with as much ease as ten he went back to him again and declared that he could not carry him to venice for less than thirty thousand piastres
oh oh said the dutch skipper once more to himself thirty thousand piastres are a trifle to this man surely these sheep must be laden with an immense treasure let us say no more about it
first of all let him pay down the thirty thousand piastres then we shall see candide sold two small diamonds the least of which was worth more than what the skipper asked for his freight he paid him in advance
the two sheep were put on board candide followed in a little boat to join the vessel in the roads the skipper seized his opportunity set sail and put out to sea the wind favouring him
alas said he this is a trick worthy of the old world he put back overwhelmed with sorrow for indeed he had lost sufficient to make the fortune of twenty monarchs he waited upon the dutch magistrate
and in his distress he knocked over loudly at the door
then he listened patiently promised to examine into his affair at the skipper's return and ordered him to pay ten thousand piastres for the expense of the hearing
he had indeed endured misfortunes a thousand times worse
and flung him into a deep melancholy the villainy of mankind presented itself before his imagination in all its deformity and his mind was filled with gloomy ideas at length hearing that a french vessel was ready to set sail for bordeaux
as he had no sheep laden with diamonds to take along with him he hired a cabin at the usual price he made it known in the town that he would pay the passage and board and give two thousand piastres to any honest man who would make the voyage with him
upon condition that this man was the most dissatisfied with his state and the most unfortunate in the whole province such a crowd of candidates presented themselves that a fleet of ships could hardly have held them
candide being desirous of selecting from among the best marked out about one twentieth of them who seemed to be sociable men and who all pretended to merit his preference
promising to choose him who appeared to be most justly discontented with his state and to bestow some presents upon the rest they sat until four o'clock in the morning
was reminded of what the old woman had said to him in their voyage to buenos ayres and of her wager that there was not a person on board the ship but had met with very great misfortunes he dreamed of pangloss at every adventure told to him
this pangloss said he would be puzzled to demonstrate his system i wish that he were here certainly if all things are good it is in el dorado and not in the rest of the world
at length he made choice of a poor man of letters who had worked ten years for the booksellers of amsterdam he judged that there was not in the whole world a trade which could disgust one more
this philosopher was an honest man but he had been robbed by his wife beaten by his son and abandoned by his daughter who got a portuguese to run away with her he had just been deprived of a small employment on which he subsisted
who took him for a socinian we must allow that the others were at least as wretched as he
they had both seen and suffered a great deal
by the cape of good hope the subject of moral and natural evil would have enabled them to entertain one another during the whole voyage candide however had one great advantage over martin
whereas martin had nothing at all to hope besides candide was possessed of money and jewels
though the knavery of the dutch skipper still sat heavy upon his mind yet when he reflected upon what he had still left
towards the latter end of a repast he inclined to pangloss's doctrine but you mister martin said he to the philosopher what do you think of all this what are your ideas on moral and natural evil
sir answered martin our priests accused me of being a socinian
i am one said martin i cannot help it i know not how to think otherwise
he is so deeply concerned in the affairs of this world answered martin that he may very well be in me as well as in everybody else
i cannot help thinking that god has abandoned it to some malignant being i except always el dorado i scarcely ever knew a city that did not desire the destruction of a neighbouring city
a million regimented assassins from one extremity of europe to the other get their bread by disciplined depredation and murder for want of more honest employment even in those cities which seem to enjoy peace
and where the arts flourish the inhabitants are devoured by more envy care and uneasiness than are experienced by a besieged town secret griefs are more cruel than public calamities in a word
i have seen so much and experienced so much that i am a manichean
that may be said martin but i know them not in the middle of this dispute they heard the report of cannon it redoubled every instant each took out his glass
they saw two ships in close fight about three miles off the wind brought both so near to the french vessel that our travellers had the pleasure of seeing the fight at their ease
at length one let off a broadside so low and so truly aimed that the other sank to the bottom
they raised their hands to heaven and uttered terrible outcries and the next moment were swallowed up by the sea well said martin this is how men treat one another
while speaking he saw he knew not what of a shining red swimming close to the vessel they put out the long boat to see what it could be it was one of his sheep
candide was more rejoiced at the recovery of this one sheep than he had been grieved at the loss of the hundred laden with the large diamonds of el dorado
the french captain soon saw that the captain of the victorious vessel was a spaniard and that the other was a dutch pirate
the immense plunder which this villain had amassed was buried with him in the sea and out of the whole only one sheep was saved you see said candide to martin that crime is sometimes punished
this rogue of a dutch skipper has met with the fate he deserved yes said martin but why should the passengers be doomed also to destruction god has punished the knave and the devil has drowned the rest
the french and spanish ships continued their course and candide continued his conversation with martin they disputed fifteen successive days and on the last of those fifteen days they were as far advanced as on the first
but however they chatted they communicated ideas they consoled each other
and among all the ladies of pleasure but to no purpose he sent every day to inquire on all the ships that came in but there was no news of cacambo what said he to martin i have had time to voyage from surinam to bordeaux
to coast along portugal and spain to cross the whole mediterranean
instead of her i have only met a parisian wench and a perigordian abbe cunegonde is dead without doubt and there is nothing for me but to die alas how much better it would have been for me to have remained in the paradise of el dorado
you are in the right my dear martin all is misery and illusion he fell into a deep melancholy and neither went to see the opera nor any of the other diversions of the carnival
nay he was proof against the temptations of all the ladies you are in truth very simple said martin to him if you imagine that a mongrel valet who has five or six millions in his pocket
if he find her he will keep her to himself if he do not find her he will get another i advise you to forget your valet cacambo and your mistress cunegonde martin was not consoling candide's melancholy increased
and martin continued to prove to him that there was very little virtue or happiness upon earth except perhaps in el dorado where nobody could gain admittance while they were disputing on this important subject
holding a girl on his arm the theatin looked fresh coloured plump and vigorous his eyes were sparkling his air assured his look lofty and his step bold the girl was very pretty and sang
she looked amorously at her theatin and from time to time pinched his fat cheeks at least you will allow me said candide to martin that these two are happy
hitherto i have met with none but unfortunate people in the whole habitable globe except in el dorado but as to this pair i would venture to lay a wager that they are very happy i lay you they are not said martin
immediately he accosted them presented his compliments and invited them to his inn to eat some macaroni with lombard partridges and caviare and to drink some montepulciano
the girl blushed
but recollecting her as she spoke alas said he my poor child it is you who reduced doctor pangloss to the beautiful condition in which i saw him alas it was i sir indeed answered paquette
i have been informed of the frightful disasters that befell the family of my lady baroness
i swear to you that my fate has been scarcely less sad i was very innocent when you knew me a grey friar who was my confessor easily seduced me the consequences were terrible
i was obliged to quit the castle some time after the baron had sent you away with kicks on the backside if a famous surgeon had not taken compassion on me i should have died for some time i was this surgeon's mistress merely out of gratitude
his wife who was mad with jealousy beat me every day unmercifully she was a fury the surgeon was one of the ugliest of men
you know sir what a dangerous thing it is for an ill natured woman to be married to a doctor incensed at the behaviour of his wife he one day gave her so effectual a remedy to cure her of a slight cold
that she died two hours after in most horrid convulsions the wife's relations prosecuted the husband he took flight and i was thrown into jail my innocence would not have saved me if i had not been good looking
the judge set me free on condition that he succeeded the surgeon
and obliged to continue this abominable trade which appears so pleasant to you men while to us women it is the utmost abyss of misery i have come to exercise the profession at venice
to be often reduced to borrowing a petticoat only to go and have it raised by a disagreeable man to be robbed by one of what one has earned from another to be subject to the extortions of the officers of justice
and to have in prospect only a frightful old age a hospital and a dung hill
who said to his friend you see that already i have won half the wager
they sat down to table with paquette and the theatin the repast was entertaining and towards the end they conversed with all confidence
i wish that all the theatins were at the bottom of the sea i have been tempted a hundred times to set fire to the convent and go and become a turk my parents forced me at the age of fifteen to put on this detestable habit
jealousy discord and fury dwell in the convent it is true i have preached a few bad sermons that have brought me in a little money of which the prior stole half while the rest serves to maintain my girls
but when i return at night to the monastery i am ready to dash my head against the walls of the dormitory and all my fellows are in the same case
i'll answer for it said he that with this they will be happy
i see that we often meet with those whom we expected never to see more so that perhaps as i have found my red sheep and paquette it may well be that i shall also find cunegonde
i wish said martin she may one day make you very happy but i doubt it very much
i have lived said martin
are they not perpetually singing you do not see them said martin at home with their wives and brats the doge has his troubles the gondoliers have theirs
who lives in that fine palace on the brenta where he entertains foreigners in the politest manner they pretend that this man has never felt any uneasiness
some other birds are taught to fly before the earliest ruggles could wake and toot his five cent tin horn missus ruggles was up and stirring about the house for it was a gala day in the family gala day i should think so
had been speedily enshrined in an old photograph frame and hung under the looking glass in the most prominent place in the kitchen where it stared the occasional visitor directly in the eye and made him pale with envy birds nest
i want them every one please from sarah maud to baby larry mama says dinner will be at half past five and the christmas tree at seven so you may expect them home at nine o'clock wishing you a merry christmas and a happy new year
i am yours truly carol bird breakfast was on the table promptly at seven o'clock and there was very little of it too
kind o scotch style yer know you other boys clear out from under foot clem you and con hop into bed with larry while i wash yer underflannins twont take long to dry em sarah maud i think twould be perfeckly han'som if you ripped them brass buttons off yer uncle's policeman's coat
an tell her if she will peory'll give jim half her candy when she gets home won't yer peory peoria was young and greedy and thought the remedy so much worse than the disease that she set up a deafening howl at the projected bargain
a howl so rebellious and so out of all season that her mother started in her direction with flashing eye and uplifted hand but she let it fall suddenly saying no i won't lick ye christmas day if yer drive me crazy
but speak up smart now n say whether yer'd ruther give tim cullen half yer candy or go bare legged ter the party the matter being put so plainly peoria collected her faculties dried her tears and chose the lesser evil
clem having hastened the decision by an affectionate wink that meant he'd go halves with her on his candy that's a lady cried her mother
an you've got a heap ter learn about it peter ruggles lord sakes i wish you childern could see the way i was fetched up to eat never took a meal o vittles in the kitchen before i married ruggles but yer can't keep up that style with nine young ones n yer pa always off ter sea
the law of compensation had been well applied he that had necktie had no cuffs she that had sash had no handkerchief and vice versa but they all had boots and a certain amount of clothing such as it was the outside layer being in every case quite above criticism
now sarah maud said missus ruggles her face shining with excitement everything is red up an we can begin i've got a boiler n a kettle n a pot o hot water peter you go into the back bedroom an i'll take susan kitty peory an cornelius an sarah maud
an then i'll finish em off while you do yerself sarah maud couldn't have scrubbed with any more decision and force if she had been doing floors and the little ruggleses bore it bravely not from natural heroism but for the joy that was set before them
not being satisfied however with the tone of their complexions she wound up operations by applying a little bristol brick from the knife board which served as the proverbial last straw from under which the little ruggleses issued rather red and raw
and out of temper when the clock struck three they were all clothed and most of them in their right minds ready for those last touches that always take the most time kitty's red hair was curled in thirty four ringlets sarah maud's was braided in one pig tail
while peoria's resisted all advances in the shape of hair oils and stuck out straight on all sides like that of the circassian girl of the circus so clem said and he was sent into the bed room for it too
from whence he was dragged out forgivingly by peoria herself five minutes later then exciting moment came linen collars for some and neckties and bows for others and eureka the ruggleses were dressed
and solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these a row of seats was formed directly through the middle of the kitchen there were not quite chairs enough for ten since the family had rarely all wanted to sit down at once
somebody always being out or in bed but the wood box and the coal hod finished out the line nicely the children took their places according to age sarah maud at the head and larry on the coal hod and missus ruggles seated herself in front
surveying them proudly as she wiped the sweat of honest toil from her brow
all the little ones giggling with sarah maud at the head looking as if she had been caught in the act of stealing sheep while larry being last in line seemed to think the door a sort of gate of heaven which would be shut in his face if he didn't get there in time
accordingly he struggled ahead of his elders and disgraced himself by tumbling in head foremost missus ruggles looked severe there i knew yer'd do it in some sech fool way
the matter began to assume a graver aspect the little ruggleses stopped giggling and backed into the bed room issuing presently with lock step indian file a scared and hunted expression in every countenance no no no
cried missus ruggles in despair yer look for all the world like a gang o pris'ners there ain't no style ter that spread out more can't yer an act kind o careless like nobody's goin ter kill ye the third time brought deserved success and the pupils took their seats in the row
sarah maud must speak up an say it was sech a pleasant evenin an sech a short walk that you left yer hats to home to save trouble now can you remember all the little ruggleses shouted yes marm in chorus
what have you got ter do with it demanded their mother did i tell you to say it wasn't i talkin ter sarah maud the little ruggleses hung their diminished heads yes marm they piped more feebly now git up all of ye an try it speak up sarah maud
this was too much for the boys oh whatever shall i do with ye moaned the unhappy mother i suppose i've got to learn it to yer which she did word for word until sarah maud thought she could stand on her head and say it backwards
ask mis bird how she's feelin this evenin or if mister bird's havin a busy season or somethin like that now we'll make b'lieve we've got ter the dinner that won't be so hard cause yer'll have somethin to do it's awful bothersome ter stan round an act stylish if they have napkins
don't eat with yer fingers don't grab no vittles off one nother's plates don't reach out for nothin but wait till yer asked n if yer never git asked don't git up and grab it don't spill nothin on the table cloth
i'll give ye one more chance mister clement will you take some of the cramb'ry yes marm thank ye kindly if you happen ter have any handy very good indeed mister peter do you speak for white or dark meat i ain't particler as ter color
a little of both if you please an i'm much obliged said kitty with decided ease and grace at which all the other ruggleses pointed the finger of shame at her and peter grunted expressively that their meaning might not be mistaken
you just stop your gruntin peter ruggles that was all right i wish i could git it inter your heads that it ain't so much what yer say as the way yer say it
so you just look at the rest an do s they do an the lord have mercy on ye an help ye to act decent now is there anything more ye'd like to practice if yer tell me one more thing i can't set up an eat said peter gloomily
well i'm sorry for yer both rejoined missus ruggles sarcastically if the mount o manners yer've got on hand now troubles ye you're dreadful easy hurt now sarah maud after dinner about once in so often you must say i guess we'd better be goin
an if they say oh no set a while longer yer can stay but if they don't say nothin you've got ter get up an go can you remember about once in so often could any words in the language be fraught with more terrible
well answered sarah maud mournfully seems as if this whole dinner party set right square on top o me maybe i could manage my own manners but ter manage nine mannerses is worse n staying to home
when the pie was opened the birds began to sing the children went out the back door quietly and were presently lost to sight sarah maud slipping and stumbling along absent mindedly as she recited under her breath it was such a pleasant evenin'
peter rang the door bell and presently a servant admitted them and whispering something in sarah's ear drew her downstairs into the kitchen the other ruggleses stood in horror stricken groups as the door closed behind their commanding officer
but there was no time for reflection for a voice from above was heard saying come right up stairs please theirs not to make reply theirs not to reason why theirs but to do or die
accordingly they walked upstairs and elfrida the nurse ushered them into a room more splendid than anything they had ever seen
where was sarah maud and was it fate that missus bird should say at once did you lay your hats in the hall peter felt himself elected by circumstance the head of the family
and casting one imploring look at tongue tied susan standing next him said huskily it was so very pleasant that that that we hadn't good hats enough to go round put in little susan bravely to help him out
now will you come right in to miss carol's room she is so anxious to see you just then sarah maud came up the back stairs so radiant with joy from her secret interview with the cook that peter could have pinched her with a clear conscience
was this a dinner party forsooth and if so why were such things ever spoken of as festive occasions sarah maud went out through the hall calling larry larry
here i be the truth was that larry being deserted by his natural guardian dropped behind the rest and wriggled into the hat tree to wait for her having no notion of walking unprotected into the jaws of a dinner party
finding that she did not come he tried to crawl from his refuge and call somebody when dark and dreadful ending to a tragic day
he was afraid to yell when i have said this of larry ruggles i have pictured a state of helpless terror that ought to wring tears from every eye and the sound of sarah maud's beloved voice some seconds later was like a strain of angel music in his ears
carol's bed had been moved into the farthest corner of the room and she was lying on the outside dressed in a wonderful soft white wrapper her golden hair fell in soft fluffy curls over her white forehead and neck her cheeks flushed delicately
her eyes beamed with joy and the children told their mother afterwards that she looked as beautiful as the pictures of the blessed virgin there was great bustle behind a huge screen in another part of the room and at half past five this was taken away
for he stood not upon the order of his going but went at once for a high chair that pointed unmistakably to him climbed up like a squirrel gave a comprehensive look at the turkey clapped his hands in ecstacy
rested his fat arms on the table and cried with joy i beat the hull lot o yer carol laughed until she cried giving orders meanwhile uncle jack please sit at the head sarah maud at the foot
and have it pinned on by carol and as each course was served one of them pleaded to take something to her there was hurrying to and fro i can assure you for it is quite a difficult matter to serve a christmas dinner on the third floor of a great city house
but if every dish had had to be carried up a rope ladder the servants would gladly have done so there was turkey and chicken with delicious gravy and stuffing and there were half a dozen vegetables with cranberry jelly and celery and pickles
and as for the way these delicacies were served the ruggleses never forgot it as long as they lived peter nudged kitty who sat next him and said look will yer ev'ry feller's got his own partic'lar butter i suppose that's to show yer can eat that much n no more
yes whispered kitty an the napkins is marked with big red letters i wonder if that's so nobody ll nip em an oh peter look at the pictures painted right on ter the dishes
murmured susan on the other side there's so much to look at i can't scarcely eat nothin bet yer life i can said peter who had kept one servant busily employed ever since he sat down for luckily
no one was asked by uncle jack whether he would have a second helping but the dishes were quietly passed under their noses and not a single ruggles refused anything that was offered him even unto the seventh time
for a strong man is nothing to a small boy and they kindled to the dessert as if the turkey had been a dream and the six vegetables an optical delusion
my dear child whispered uncle jack as he took carol an orange there is no doubt about the necessity of this feast but i do advise you after this to have them twice a year or quarterly perhaps
the feast being over the ruggleses lay back in their chairs languidly and the table was cleared in a trice then a door was opened into the next room and there in a corner facing carol's bed which had been wheeled as close as possible
stood the brilliantly lighted christmas tree glittering with gilded walnuts and tiny silver balloons and wreathed with snowy chains of pop corn
then every girl had a pretty plaid dress of a different color and every boy a warm coat of the right size here the useful presents stopped and they were quite enough but carol had pleaded to give them something for fun
i know they need the clothes she had said when they were talking over the matter just after thanksgiving but they don't care much for them after all now papa won't you please let me go without part of my presents this year and give me the money they would cost to buy something to amuse them
you can have both said mister bird promptly is there any need of my little girl's going without her christmas i should like to know
now papa you know very well it is more blessed to give than to receive then why won't you let me do it you never look half as happy when you are getting your presents as when you are giving us ours now papa submit or i shall have to be very firm and disagreeable with you
very well your highness i surrender that's a dear papa now what were you going to give me confess a bronze figure of santa claus and in the little round belly that shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly is a wonderful clock
oh you would never give it up if you could see it nonsense laughed carol as i never have to get up to breakfast nor go to bed nor catch trains i think my old clock will do very well now mama what were you going to give me
a few more books and a gold thimble and a smelling bottle and a music box poor carol laughed the child merrily she can afford to give up these lovely things for there will still be left uncle jack and donald and paul and hugh
and uncle rob and aunt elsie and a dozen other people so carol had her way as she generally did but it was usually a good way which was fortunate under the circumstances and sarah maud had a set of miss alcott's books
and peter a modest silver watch cornelius a tool chest clement a dog house for his lame puppy larry a magnificent noah's ark and each of the little girls a beautiful doll
you can well believe that everybody was very merry and very thankful all the family from mister bird down to the cook said they had never seen so much happiness in the space of three hours but it had to end as all things do
the candles flickered and went out the tree was left alone with its gilded ornaments and missus bird sent the children down stairs at half past eight thinking that carol looked tired
now my darling you have done quite enough for one day said missus bird getting carol into her little night dress i am afraid you will feel worse to morrow and that would be a sad ending to such a good time
from first to last everything was just right i shall never forget larry's face when he looked at the turkey nor peter's when he saw his watch nor that sweet sweet kitty's smile when she kissed her dolly
nor the tears in poor dull sarah maud's eyes when she thanked me for her books nor but we mustn't talk any longer about it to night said missus bird anxiously you are too tired dear i am not so very tired mama
i have felt well all day not a bit of pain anywhere perhaps this has done me good perhaps i hope so there was no noise or confusion it was just a merry time now may i close the door and leave you alone
yes i have opened the window a little and put the screen in front of it so that you will not feel the air can i have the shutters open and won't you turn my bed a little please this morning i woke ever so early
i never saw it before and i thought of the star in the east that guided the wise men to the place where jesus was good night mama such a happy happy day
birds of a feather flock together
bless me you couldn't turn over a chip without reminding donald of something that happened at college one or the other was always at carol's bedside for they fancied her paler than she used to be and they could not bear her out of sight
the room was quiet and almost dark save for the snow light outside and the flickering flame of the fire that danced over the sleeping beauty's face and touched the fair one's golden locks with ruddier glory carol's hand
all too thin and white these latter days lay close clasped in uncle jack's and they talked together quietly of many many things
said carol on the first evening of his visit because it will be the loveliest one i ever had the boys laugh at me for caring so much about it but it isn't altogether because it is christmas nor because it is my birthday
but long long ago when i first began to be ill i used to think the first thing when i waked on christmas morning to day is christ's birthday and mine i did not put the words close together because that made it seem too bold
i often wonder where they are uncle jack and whether it is a dear thought to them too or whether i am so much in bed and so often alone that it means more to me oh i do hope that none of them are poor or cold or hungry
and i wish i wish they were all as happy as i because they are my little brothers and sisters now uncle jack dear i am going to try and make somebody happy every single christmas that i live and this year
that large and interesting brood of children in the little house at the end of the back garden yes isn't it nice to see so many together we ought to call them the ruggles children of course but donald began talking of them as the ruggleses in the rear
when they first moved in i used to sit in my window and watch them play in their backyard they are so strong and jolly and good natured and then one day i had a terrible headache and donald asked them if they would please not scream quite so loud
and i smiled at them from the window when i was well enough to be up again now sarah maud comes to her door when the children come home from school and if mama nods her head yes that means carol is very well and then you ought to hear the little ruggleses yell
i believe they try to see how much noise they can make but if mama shakes her head no
she helps do the washing and peter is the next he is a dressmaker's boy and which is the pretty little red haired girl that's kitty and the fat youngster baby larry and that freckled one now don't laugh that's peoria
carol you are joking no really uncle dear she was born in peoria that's all and is the next boy oshkosh no laughed carol
and sit down on the roof of our carriage house that brings them quite near and i read to them and tell them stories on thanksgiving day they came up for a few minutes it was quite warm at eleven o'clock and we told each other what we had to be thankful for
while clem who is very quiet brightened up when i came to him and said he was thankful for his lame puppy wasn't that pretty it might teach some of us a lesson mightn't it little girl that's what mama said
well you see it could not be my own own christmas if papa gave me all the money and i thought to really keep christ's birthday i ought to do something of my very own and so i talked with mama of course
she thought of something lovely she always does mama's head is just brimming over with lovely thoughts and all i have to do is ask and out pops the very one i want this thought was to let her write down just as i told her
and what are you going to do with this wonderful own money of yours i shall give the nine ruggleses a grand christmas dinner here in this very room that will be papa's contribution and afterwards a beautiful christmas tree fairly blooming with presents
that will be my part for i have another way of adding to my twenty five dollars so that i can buy everything i like i should like it very much if you would sit at the head of the table uncle jack for nobody could ever be frightened of you you dearest dearest
dearest thing that ever was mama is going to help us but papa and the boys are going to eat together down stairs for fear of making the little ruggleses shy and after we've had a merry time with the tree we can open my window and all listen together to the music at the evening church service
if it comes before the children go i have written a letter to the organist and asked him if i might have the two songs i like best will you see if it is all right birds nest
i am the little sick girl who lives next door to the church and as i seldom go out the music on practice days and sundays is one of my greatest pleasures i want to know if you can let the boys sing carol brothers carol on christmas night
and if the one who sings my ain countree so beautifully may please sing that too i think it is the loveliest song in the world but it always makes me cry doesn't it you if it isn't too much trouble i hope they can sing them both quite early as after ten o'clock i may be asleep
because she was half asleep and couldn't think of but one thing at a time donald says if i had been born on the fourth of july they would have named me independence or if on the twenty second of february georgina or even cherry like cherry in martin chuzzlewit
but i like my own name and birthday best yours truly carol bird uncle jack thought the letter quite right and did not even smile at her telling the organist so many family items the days flew by
had ransacked books and introduced so many plans and plays and customs and merry makings from germany and holland and england and a dozen other places that you would scarcely have known how or where you were keeping christmas
each had a tiny table with a lighted candle in the center and a bit of bologna sausage placed very near it and everybody laughed till the tears stood in their eyes to see villikins and dinah struggle to nibble the sausages and at the same time evade the candle flame
villikins barked and sniffed and howled in impatience and after many vain attempts succeeded in dragging off the prize though he singed his nose in doing it dinah meanwhile watched him placidly
her delicate nostrils quivering with expectation and after all excitement had subsided walked with dignity to the table her beautiful gray satin tail sweeping behind her and calmly putting up one velvet paw
drew the sausage gently down and walked out of the room without turning a hair so to speak elfrida had scattered handfuls of seeds over the snow in the garden that the wild birds might have a comfortable breakfast next morning
and had stuffed bundles of dried grasses in the fireplaces so that the reindeer of santa claus could refresh themselves after their long gallops across country this was really only done for fun but it pleased carol
that was to keep the dear ones from quarreling all through the year there were papa's stout top boots mama's pretty buttoned shoes next then uncle jack's donald's paul's and hugh's and at the end of the line her own little white worsted slippers
last and sweetest of all like the little children in austria she put a lighted candle in her window to guide the dear christ child lest he should stumble in the dark night as he passed up the deserted street
the same day about seven o'clock in the evening raskolnikov was on his way to his mother's and sister's lodging the lodging in bakaleyev's house which razumihin had found for them
the stairs went up from the street raskolnikov walked with lagging steps as though still hesitating whether to go or not but nothing would have turned him back his decision was taken
besides it doesn't matter they still know nothing he thought and they are used to thinking of me as eccentric he was appallingly dressed
his clothes torn and dirty soaked with a night's rain his face was almost distorted from fatigue exposure the inward conflict that had lasted for twenty four hours
he had spent all the previous night alone god knows where but anyway he had reached a decision he knocked at the door which was opened by his mother dounia was not at home
even the servant happened to be out at first pulcheria alexandrovna was speechless with joy and surprise then she took him by the hand and drew him into the room here you are
she began faltering with joy don't be angry with me rodya for welcoming you so foolishly with tears i am laughing not crying did you think i was crying no i am delighted but
i've got into such a stupid habit of shedding tears i've been like that ever since your father's death i cry for anything sit down dear boy you must be tired i see you are ah how muddy you are
i was in the rain yesterday mother raskolnikov began no no pulcheria alexandrovna hurriedly interrupted you thought i was going to cross question you in the womanish way i used to
don't be anxious i understand i understand it all now i've learned the ways here and truly i see for myself that they are better i've made up my mind once for all how could i understand your plans and expect you to give an account of them
god knows what concerns and plans you may have or what ideas you are hatching so it's not for me to keep nudging your elbow asking you what you are thinking about but my goodness why am i running to and fro as though i were crazy
i am reading your article in the magazine for the third time rodya dmitri prokofitch brought it to me directly i saw it i cried out to myself there foolish one i thought that's what he is busy about
that's the solution of the mystery learned people are always like that he may have some new ideas in his head just now he is thinking them over and i worry him and upset him
i read it my dear and of course there was a great deal i did not understand but that's only natural how should i show me mother raskolnikov took the magazine and glanced at his article
incongruous as it was with his mood and his circumstances he felt that strange and bitter sweet sensation that every author experiences the first time he sees himself in print
besides he was only twenty three it lasted only a moment after reading a few lines he frowned and his heart throbbed with anguish he recalled all the inward conflict of the preceding months
he flung the article on the table with disgust and anger but however foolish i may be rodya i can see for myself that you will very soon be one of the leading if not the leading man in the world of russian thought
and they dared to think you were mad you don't know but they really thought that ah the despicable creatures how could they understand genius and dounia dounia was all but believing it what do you say to that
your father sent twice to magazines the first time poems i've got the manuscript and will show you and the second time a whole novel i begged him to let me copy it out and how we prayed that they should be taken they weren't
i was breaking my heart rodya six or seven days ago over your food and your clothes and the way you are living but now i see again how foolish i was for you can attain any position you like by your intellect and talent
no doubt you don't care about that for the present and you are occupied with much more important matters dounia's not at home mother no rodya i often don't see her she leaves me alone
dmitri prokofitch comes to see me it's so good of him and he always talks about you he loves you and respects you my dear i don't say that dounia is very wanting in consideration i am not complaining
she has her ways and i have mine she seems to have got some secrets of late and i never have any secrets from you two of course i am sure that dounia has far too much sense and besides she loves you and me
but i don't know what it will all lead to you've made me so happy by coming now rodya but she has missed you by going out when she comes in i'll tell her your brother came in while you were out where have you been all this time
you mustn't spoil me rodya you know come when you can but if you can't it doesn't matter i can wait i shall know anyway that you are fond of me that will be enough for me
i shall read what you write i shall hear about you from everyone and sometimes you'll come yourself to see me what could be better here you've come now to comfort your mother i see that
here pulcheria alexandrovna began to cry here i am again don't mind my foolishness my goodness why am i sitting here she cried jumping up
mother don't trouble i am going at once i haven't come for that please listen to me pulcheria alexandrovna went up to him timidly mother
whatever happens whatever you hear about me whatever you are told about me will you always love me as you do now
he asked suddenly from the fullness of his heart as though not thinking of his words and not weighing them rodya rodya what is the matter how can you ask me such a question why
who will tell me anything about you besides i shouldn't believe anyone i should refuse to listen i've come to assure you that i've always loved you and i am glad that we are alone even glad dounia is out
he went on with the same impulse i have come to tell you that though you will be unhappy you must believe that your son loves you now more than himself and that all you thought about me that i was cruel and didn't care about you was all a mistake
i shall never cease to love you well that's enough i thought i must do this and begin with this pulcheria alexandrovna embraced him in silence
pressing him to her bosom and weeping gently i don't know what is wrong with you rodya she said at last i've been thinking all this time that we were simply boring you and now
i see that there is a great sorrow in store for you and that's why you are miserable i've foreseen it a long time rodya forgive me for speaking about it i keep thinking about it and lie awake at nights
your sister lay talking in her sleep all last night talking of nothing but you i caught something but i couldn't make it out i felt all the morning as though i were going to be hanged
waiting for something expecting something and now it has come rodya rodya where are you going you are going away somewhere yes that's what i thought i can come with you you know if you need me and dounia too
she loves you she loves you dearly and sofya semyonovna may come with us if you like you see i am glad to look upon her as a daughter even dmitri prokofitch will help us to go together but
where are you going good bye mother what to day she cried as though losing him for ever i can't stay i must go now and can't i come with you
no but kneel down and pray to god for me your prayer perhaps will reach him let me bless you and sign you with the cross that's right that's right
what are we doing yes he was glad he was very glad that there was no one there that he was alone with his mother for the first time after all those awful months his heart was softened
he fell down before her he kissed her feet and both wept embracing and she was not surprised and did not question him this time
for some days she had realised that something awful was happening to her son and that now some terrible minute had come for him rodya my darling my first born
she said sobbing now you are just as when you were little you would run like this to me and hug me and kiss me when your father was living and we were poor you comforted us simply by being with us
and when i buried your father how often we wept together at his grave and embraced as now and if i've been crying lately it's that my mother's heart had a foreboding of trouble
i'll come rodya don't be angry i don't dare to question you i know i mustn't only say two words to me is it far where you are going very far
what is awaiting you there some post or career for you what god sends only pray for me
raskolnikov went to the door but she clutched him and gazed despairingly into his eyes her face worked with terror enough mother said raskolnikov
deeply regretting that he had come not for ever it's not yet for ever you'll come you'll come to morrow i will i will good bye he tore himself away at last
it was a warm fresh bright evening it had cleared up in the morning raskolnikov went to his lodgings he made haste he wanted to finish all before sunset
he did not want to meet anyone till then going up the stairs he noticed that nastasya rushed from the samovar to watch him intently can anyone have come to see me he wondered
he had a disgusted vision of porfiry but opening his door he saw dounia she was sitting alone plunged in deep thought and looked as though she had been waiting a long time
he stopped short in the doorway she rose from the sofa in dismay and stood up facing him her eyes fixed upon him betrayed horror and infinite grief
and from those eyes alone he saw at once that she knew am i to come in or go away he asked uncertainly
i've been all day with sofya semyonovna we were both waiting for you we thought that you would be sure to come there raskolnikov went into the room and sank exhausted on a chair
i feel weak dounia i am very tired and i should have liked at this moment to be able to control myself he glanced at her mistrustfully
where were you all night i don't remember clearly you see sister i wanted to make up my mind once for all and several times i walked by the neva i remember that i wanted to end it all there but
i couldn't make up my mind he whispered looking at her mistrustfully again thank god
then you still have faith in life thank god thank god raskolnikov smiled bitterly i haven't faith but i have just been weeping in mother's arms
i haven't faith but i have just asked her to pray for me i don't know how it is dounia i don't understand it have you been at mother's have you told her cried dounia horror stricken
surely you haven't done that no i didn't tell her in words but she understood a great deal she heard you talking in your sleep
i am sure she half understands it already perhaps i did wrong in going to see her i don't know why i did go
a contemptible person but ready to face suffering you are aren't you yes i am going at once yes
to escape the disgrace i thought of drowning myself dounia but as i looked into the water i thought that if i had considered myself strong till now i'd better not be afraid of disgrace he said hurrying on
pride rodya there was a gleam of fire in his lustreless eyes he seemed to be glad to think that he was still proud
you don't think sister that i was simply afraid of the water he asked looking into her face with a sinister smile oh rodya hush
cried dounia bitterly silence lasted for two minutes he sat with his eyes fixed on the floor dounia stood at the other end of the table and looked at him with anguish
suddenly he got up it's late it's time to go i am going at once to give myself up
big tears fell down her cheeks you are crying sister but can you hold out your hand to me you doubted it she threw her arms round him
aren't you half expiating your crime by facing the suffering she cried holding him close and kissing him crime what crime he cried in sudden fury
that i killed a vile noxious insect an old pawnbroker woman of use to no one killing her was atonement for forty sins she was sucking the life out of poor people was that a crime
only now i see clearly the imbecility of my cowardice now that i have decided to face this superfluous disgrace it's simply because i am contemptible and have nothing in me that i have decided to perhaps too for my advantage as that
porfiry suggested brother brother what are you saying why you have shed blood cried dounia in despair which all men shed he put in almost frantically
which flows and has always flowed in streams which is spilt like champagne and for which men are crowned in the capitol and are called afterwards benefactors of mankind look into it more carefully and understand it
i too wanted to do good to men and would have done hundreds thousands of good deeds to make up for that one piece of stupidity not stupidity even simply clumsiness
for the idea was by no means so stupid as it seems now that it has failed everything seems stupid when it fails by that stupidity i only wanted to put myself into an independent position
to take the first step to obtain means and then everything would have been smoothed over by benefits immeasurable in comparison but i i couldn't carry out even the first step because i am contemptible
that's what's the matter and yet i won't look at it as you do if i had succeeded i should have been crowned with glory but now i'm trapped but that's not so not so
brother what are you saying ah it's not picturesque not aesthetically attractive i fail to understand why bombarding people by regular siege is more honourable
i've never never recognised this more clearly than now and i am further than ever from seeing that what i did was a crime i've never never been stronger and more convinced than now
but as he uttered his last explanation
and he saw such anguish in them that he could not help being checked he felt that he had anyway made these two poor women miserable that he was anyway the cause
dounia darling if i am guilty forgive me though i cannot be forgiven if i am guilty good bye we won't dispute it's time high time to go
don't follow me i beseech you i have somewhere else to go but you go at once and sit with mother i entreat you to it's my last request of you don't leave her at all
i left her in a state of anxiety that she is not fit to bear she will die or go out of her mind be with her razumihin will be with you i've been talking to him don't cry about me
i'll try to be honest and manly all my life even if i am a murderer perhaps i shall some day make a name i won't disgrace you you will see i'll still show now
good bye for the present he concluded hurriedly noticing again a strange expression in dounia's eyes at his last words and promises why are you crying don't cry don't cry we are not parting for ever
he went to the table took up a thick dusty book
it was the portrait of his landlady's daughter who had died of fever that strange girl who had wanted to be a nun for a minute he gazed at the delicate expressive face of his betrothed
kissed the portrait and gave it to dounia i used to talk a great deal about it to her only to her he said thoughtfully
to her heart i confided much of what has since been so hideously realised don't be uneasy
she was as much opposed to it as you and i am glad that she is gone the great point is that everything now is going to be different is going to be broken in two he cried suddenly returning to his dejection
everything everything and am i prepared for it do i want it myself they say it is necessary for me to suffer what's the object of these senseless sufferings
shall i know any better what they are for when i am crushed by hardships and idiocy and weak as an old man after twenty years penal servitude and what shall i have to live for then
why am i consenting to that life now oh i knew i was contemptible when i stood looking at the neva at daybreak to day at last they both went out
it was hard for dounia but she loved him she walked away but after going fifty paces she turned round to look at him again he was still in sight at the corner
he too turned and for the last time their eyes met but noticing that she was looking at him he motioned her away with impatience and even vexation and turned the corner abruptly
i am wicked i see that
but why are they so fond of me if i don't deserve it oh if only i were alone and no one loved me and i too had never loved anyone nothing of all this would have happened
but i wonder shall i in those fifteen or twenty years grow so meek that i shall humble myself before people and whimper at every word that i am a criminal
yes that's it that's it that's what they are sending me there for that's what they want look at them running to and fro about the streets every one of them a scoundrel and a criminal at heart and worse still an idiot
but try to get me off and they'd be wild with righteous indignation oh how i hate them all he fell to musing by what process it could come to pass
that he could be humbled before all of them indiscriminately humbled by conviction and yet why not it must be so
would not twenty years of continual bondage crush him utterly water wears out a stone and why why should he live after that
why should he go now when he knew that it would be so it was the hundredth time perhaps that he had asked himself that question since the previous evening but still
chapter eighteen the wonders of terrestrial depths at eight in the morning a ray of daylight came to wake us up the thousand shining surfaces of lava on the walls received it on its passage and scattered it like a shower of sparks
there was light enough to distinguish surrounding objects well axel what do you say to it cried my uncle rubbing his hands did you ever spend a quieter night in our little house at koenigsberg
no cries of basket women no boatmen shouting
there is something alarming in the quietness itself now come my uncle cried if you are frightened already
in fact the mercury which had risen in the instrument as fast as we descended had stopped at twenty nine inches you see said the professor
we shall descend at a slow rate and our lungs will become inured to a denser atmosphere aeronauts find the want of air as they rise to high elevations but we shall perhaps have too much
i then remembered that we had searched for it in vain the evening before my uncle questioned hans who after having examined attentively with the eye of a huntsman replied
and so it was the bundle had been caught by a projection a hundred feet above us immediately the icelander climbed up like a cat and in a few minutes the package was in our possession now said my uncle let us breakfast
but we must lay in a good stock for we don't know how long we may have to go on the biscuit and extract of meat were washed down with a draught of water mingled with a little gin breakfast over my uncle drew from his pocket a small notebook
intended for scientific observations he consulted his instruments and recorded
so saying my uncle took in one hand ruhmkorff's apparatus which was hanging from his neck and with the other he formed an electric communication with the coil in the lantern and a sufficiently bright light dispersed the darkness of the passage
hans carried the other apparatus which was also put into action this ingenious application of electricity would enable us to go on for a long time by creating an artificial light even in the midst of the most inflammable gases now march cried my uncle
each shouldered his package hans drove before him the load of cords and clothes
i raised my head and saw for the last time through the length of that vast tube the sky of iceland which i was never to behold again the lava in the last eruption of twelve twenty nine had forced a passage through this tunnel
it still lined the walls with a thick and glistening coat the electric light was here intensified a hundredfold by reflection the only difficulty in proceeding lay in not sliding too fast down an incline of about forty five degrees
happily certain asperities and a few blisterings here and there formed steps and we descended letting our baggage slip before us from the end of a long rope but that which formed steps under our feet became stalactites overhead
it is magnificent i cried spontaneously my uncle what a sight don't you admire those blending hues of lava passing from reddish brown to bright yellow by imperceptible shades and these crystals are just like globes of light
this gave reason for believing that our descent was more horizontal than vertical as for the exact depth reached it was very easy to ascertain that the professor measured accurately the angles of deviation and inclination on the road but he kept the results to himself
about eight in the evening he signalled to stop hans sat down at once the lamps were hung upon a projection in the lava we were in a sort of cavern where there was plenty of air certain puffs of air reached us
what atmospheric disturbance was the cause of them i could not answer that question at the moment hunger and fatigue made me incapable of reasoning a descent of seven hours consecutively is not made without considerable expenditure of strength i was exhausted
the order to halt therefore gave me pleasure hans laid our provisions upon a block of lava and we ate with a good appetite but one thing troubled me our supply of water was half consumed
my uncle reckoned upon a fresh supply from subterranean sources but hitherto we had met with none i could not help drawing his attention to this circumstance
more than that i am anxious about it we have only water enough for five days
it seems to me that we have made no great progress vertically why do you suppose that
according to your system said my uncle
this is my conclusion according to exact observations the increase of temperature in the interior of the globe advances at the rate of one degree
moreover in the neighbourhood of an extinct volcano through gneiss
let us therefore assume this last hypothesis as the most suitable to our situation and calculate
do calculate my boy nothing is easier said i putting down figures in my note book nine times a hundred and twenty five feet gives a depth of eleven hundred and twenty five feet very accurate indeed well
is that possible yes or figures are of no use the professor's calculations were quite correct
such as the mines of kitz bahl in tyrol and those of wuttembourg in bohemia
it was a bright morning in the early part of summer the river had resumed its wonted banks and its accustomed pace and a hot sun seemed to be pulling everything green and bushy and spiky up out of the earth towards him as if by strings
this was a wonderful thing indeed that the badger should pay a formal call on them or indeed on anybody he generally had to be caught if you wanted him badly as he slipped quietly along a hedgerow of an early morning or a late evening
or else hunted up in his own house in the middle of the wood which was a serious undertaking the badger strode heavily into the room and stood looking at the two animals with an expression full of seriousness the rat let his egg spoon fall on the table cloth and sat open mouthed
i said i would take him in hand as soon as the winter was well over and i'm going to take him in hand to day toad's hour of course cried the mole delightedly hooray
we'll teach him to be a sensible toad this very morning continued the badger taking an arm chair as i learnt last night from a trustworthy source
another new and exceptionally powerful motor car will arrive at toad hall on approval or return at this very moment perhaps toad is busy arraying himself in those singularly hideous habiliments so dear to him
you two animals will accompany me instantly to toad hall and the work of rescue shall be accomplished right you are cried the rat starting up we'll rescue the poor unhappy animal we'll convert him
they set off up the road on their mission of mercy badger leading the way animals when in company walk in a proper and sensible manner in single file instead of sprawling all across the road and being of no use or support to each other in case of sudden trouble or danger
they reached the carriage drive of toad hall to find as the badger had anticipated a shiny new motor car of great size
standing in front of the house as they neared the door it was flung open and mister toad arrayed in goggles cap gaiters and enormous overcoat came swaggering down the steps drawing on his gauntleted gloves hullo
come on you fellows he cried cheerfully on catching sight of them you're just in time to come with me for a jolly to come for a jolly for a er jolly
his hearty accents faltered and fell away as he noticed the stern unbending look on the countenances of his silent friends and his invitation remained unfinished the badger strode up the steps take him inside he said sternly to his companions
then as toad was hustled through the door struggling and protesting he turned to the chauffeur in charge of the new motor car i'm afraid you won't be wanted to day he said mister toad has changed his mind
he will not require the car please understand that this is final you needn't wait then he followed the others inside and shut the door
i demand an instant explanation take them off him then you two ordered the badger briefly they had to lay toad out on the floor kicking and calling all sorts of names before they could get to work properly
then the rat sat on him and the mole got his motor clothes off him bit by bit and they stood him up on his legs again a good deal of his blustering spirit seemed to have evaporated with the removal of his fine panoply
now that he was merely toad and no longer the terror of the highway he giggled feebly and looked from one to the other appealingly
you knew it must come to this sooner or later toad the badger explained severely you've disregarded all the warnings we've given you
you've gone on squandering the money your father left you and you're getting us animals a bad name in the district by your furious driving and your smashes and your rows with the police
i'll make one more effort to bring you to reason you will come with me into the smoking room and there you will hear some facts about yourself and we'll see whether you come out of that room the same toad that you went in
he took toad firmly by the arm led him into the smoking room and closed the door behind them that's no good said the rat contemptuously
and presently they noticed that the sermon began to be punctuated at intervals by long drawn sobs evidently proceeding from the bosom of toad who was a soft hearted and affectionate fellow very easily converted for the time being to any point of view
after some three quarters of an hour the door opened and the badger reappeared solemnly leading by the paw a very limp and dejected toad his skin hung baggily about him
and he has undertaken to give up motor cars entirely and for ever i have his solemn promise to that effect that is very good news said the mole gravely very good news indeed observed the rat dubiously
he was looking very hard at toad as he said this and could not help thinking he perceived something vaguely resembling a twinkle in that animal's still sorrowful eye there's only one thing more to be done continued the gratified badger toad
toad looked desperately this way and that while the other animals waited in grave silence at last he spoke no he said a little sullenly but stoutly i'm not sorry and it wasn't folly at all it was simply glorious
what cried the badger greatly scandalised you backsliding animal
i'd have said anything in there you're so eloquent dear badger and so moving and so convincing and put all your points so frightfully well you can do what you like with me in there and you know it but i've been searching my mind since and going over things in it
and i find that i'm not a bit sorry or repentant really so it's no earthly good saying i am now is it then you don't promise said the badger never to touch a motor car again certainly not replied toad emphatically on the contrary
very well then said the badger firmly rising to his feet since you won't yield to persuasion we'll try what force can do i feared it would come to this all along
you've often asked us three to come and stay with you toad in this handsome house of yours well now we're going to when we've converted you to a proper point of view we may quit but not before take him upstairs you two and lock him up in his bedroom
while we arrange matters between ourselves it's for your own good toady you know said the rat kindly as toad kicking and struggling was hauled up the stairs by his two faithful friends
said the rat as they thrust him into his bedroom
added the mole turning the key on him they descended the stair toad shouting abuse at them through the keyhole and the three friends then met in conference on the situation it's going to be a tedious business said the badger sighing
i've never seen toad so determined
he must never be left an instant unguarded we shall have to take it in turns to be with him till the poison has worked itself out of his system they arranged watches accordingly
chapter sixteen boldly down the crater
the bed was hard the shelter not very substantial
i rose from my granite bed and went out to enjoy the magnificent spectacle that lay unrolled before me i stood on the very summit of the southernmost of snaefell's peaks the range of the eye extended over the whole island
by an optical law which obtains at all great heights the shores seemed raised and the centre depressed it seemed as if one of helbesmer's raised maps lay at my feet
precipices like low walls lakes reduced to ponds rivers abbreviated into streams on my right were numberless glaciers and innumerable peaks some plumed with feathery clouds of smoke
the undulating surface of these endless mountains crested with sheets of snow reminded one of a stormy sea if i looked westward there the ocean lay spread out in all its magnificence
like a mere continuation of those flock like summits the eye could hardly tell where the snowy ridges ended and the foaming waves began i was thus steeped in the marvellous ecstasy which all high summits develop in the mind
the fanciful creation of scandinavian superstitions i felt intoxicated with the sublime pleasure of lofty elevations without thinking of the profound abysses into which i was shortly to be plunged
but i was brought back to the realities of things by the arrival of hans and the professor who joined me on the summit my uncle pointed out to me in the far west a light steam or mist a semblance of land which bounded the distant horizon of waters
greenland said he greenland i cried yes
and during thaws the white bears
are carried even into iceland
here we are at the top of snaefell and here are two peaks
the question being put hans replied scartaris my uncle shot a triumphant glance at me now for the crater he cried the crater of snaefell resembled an inverted cone the opening of which might be half a league in diameter
its depth appeared to be about two thousand feet imagine the aspect of such a reservoir brim full and running over with liquid fire amid the rolling thunder the bottom of the funnel was about two hundred fifty feet in circuit
so that the gentle slope allowed its lower brim to be reached without much difficulty involuntarily i compared the whole crater to an enormous erected mortar and the comparison put me in a terrible fright what madness i thought
to go down into a mortar perhaps a loaded mortar to be shot up into the air at a moment's notice
rushed bounding down the abyss and in their fall awoke echoes remarkable for their loud and well defined sharpness in certain parts of the cone there were glaciers here hans advanced only with extreme precaution
sounding his way with his iron pointed pole to discover any crevasses in it
in order that any man who missed his footing might be held up by his companions this solid formation was prudent but did not remove all danger yet notwithstanding the difficulties of the descent down steeps unknown to the guide
i raised my head and saw straight above me the upper aperture of the cone framing a bit of sky of very small circumference but almost perfectly round
i had not the courage to look down either of them but professor liedenbrock had hastily surveyed all three he was panting running from one to the other gesticulating and uttering incoherent expressions hans and his comrades
seated upon loose lava rocks looked at him with as much wonder as they knew how to express and perhaps taking him for an escaped lunatic suddenly my uncle uttered a cry i thought his foot must have slipped and that he had fallen down one of the holes
but no i saw him with arms outstretched and legs straddling wide apart erect before a granite rock that stood in the centre of the crater just like a pedestal made ready to receive a statue of pluto
hans and the icelanders never stirred
cried the professor and sharing his astonishment but i think not his joy i read on the western face of the block in runic characters half mouldered away with lapse of ages
at this point a runic text appears
that on raising my head again i saw only my uncle and hans at the bottom of the crater the icelanders had been dismissed
hans slept peaceably at the foot of a rock in a lava bed where he had found a suitable couch for himself but my uncle was pacing around the bottom of the crater like a wild beast in a cage i had neither the wish nor the strength to rise
the next morning a grey heavy cloudy sky seemed to droop over the summit of the cone i did not know this first from the appearances of nature but i found it out by my uncle's impetuous wrath
i soon found out the cause and hope dawned again in my heart for this reason of the three ways open before us one had been taken by saknussemm the indications of the learned icelander hinted at in the cryptogram
pointed to this fact that the shadow of scartaris came to touch that particular way during the latter days of the month of june that sharp peak might hence be considered as the gnomon of a vast sun dial
the shadow projected from which on a certain day would point out the road to the centre of the earth now no sun no shadow and therefore no guide here was june twenty fifth
if the sun was clouded for six days we must postpone our visit till next year my limited powers of description would fail were i to attempt a picture of the professor's angry impatience
the day wore on and no shadow came to lay itself along the bottom of the crater hans did not move from the spot he had selected yet he must be asking himself what were we waiting for if he asked himself anything at all
hans built a hut of pieces of lava i felt a malicious pleasure in watching the thousand rills and cascades that came tumbling down the sides of the cone
my uncle's rage knew no bounds it was enough to irritate a meeker man than he for it was foundering almost within the port but heaven never sends unmixed grief
and for professor liedenbrock there was a satisfaction in store proportioned to his desperate anxieties
but on the twenty ninth of june the last day but one of the month with the change of the moon came a change of weather the sun poured a flood of light down the crater every hillock
my uncle turned too and followed it at noon being at its least extent it came and softly fell upon the edge of the middle chimney there it is
chapter seventeen vertical descent now began our real journey hitherto our toil had overcome all difficulties now difficulties would spring up at every step
the supreme hour had come i might now either share in the enterprise or refuse to move forward but i was ashamed to recoil in the presence of the hunter hans accepted the enterprise with such calmness such indifference
such perfect disregard of any possible danger that i blushed at the idea of being less brave than he
but in the presence of the guide i held my peace my heart flew back to my sweet virlandaise and i approached the central chimney i have already mentioned that it was a hundred feet in diameter and three hundred feet round
my hair stood on end with terror the bewildering feeling of vacuity laid hold upon me i felt my centre of gravity shifting its place and giddiness mounting into my brain like drunkenness
i was just about to drop down when a hand laid hold of me it was that of hans
a rope fastened to the edge of the aperture might have helped us down but how were we to unfasten it when arrived at the other end my uncle employed a very simple expedient to obviate this difficulty he uncoiled a cord of the thickness of a finger
and four hundred feet long first he dropped half of it down then he passed it round a lava block that projected conveniently and threw the other half down the chimney each of us could then descend by holding with the hand both halves of the rope
each of us will strap one upon his back i mean only fragile articles of course we were not included under that head hans said he
but said i the clothes and that mass of ladders and ropes what is to become of them
how so i asked you will see presently my uncle was always willing to employ magnificent resources obeying orders hans tied all the non fragile articles in one bundle corded them firmly
and sent them bodily down the gulf before us i listened to the dull thuds of the descending bale my uncle leaning over the abyss followed the descent of the luggage with a satisfied nod and only rose erect when he had quite lost sight of it
now it is our turn now i ask any sensible man if it was possible to hear those words without a shudder the professor fastened his package of instruments upon his shoulders hans took the tools i took the arms
and the descent commenced in the following order hans my uncle and myself it was effected in profound silence broken only by the descent of loosened stones down the dark gulf
i dropped as it were frantically clutching the double cord with one hand and buttressing myself from the wall with the other by means of my stick one idea overpowered me almost fear lest the rock should give way from which i was hanging
this cord seemed a fragile thing for three persons to be suspended from i made as little use of it as possible performing wonderful feats of equilibrium upon the lava projections which my foot seemed to catch hold of like a hand
when one of these slippery steps shook under the heavier form of hans he said in his tranquil voice
in half an hour we were standing upon the surface of a rock jammed in across the chimney from one side to the other hans pulled the rope by one of its ends the other rose in the air
leaning over the edge of our narrow standing ground i observed that the bottom of the hole was still invisible the same manoeuvre was repeated with the cord and half an hour after we had descended another two hundred feet
i don't suppose the maddest geologist under such circumstances would have studied the nature of the rocks that we were passing i am sure i did trouble my head about them
carboniferous devonian silurian or primitive was all one to me but the professor no doubt was pursuing his observations or taking notes for in one of our halts he said to me the farther i go the more confidence i feel
the order of these volcanic formations affords the strongest confirmation to the theories of davy
i repudiate the notion of central heat altogether
no variation always the same conclusion
my silence was taken for consent and the descent went on another three hours and i saw no bottom to the chimney yet when i lifted my head i perceived the gradual contraction of its aperture its walls by a gentle incline were drawing closer to each other
and it was beginning to grow darker still we kept descending it seemed to me that the falling stones were meeting with an earlier resistance and that the concussion gave a more abrupt and deadened sound
which i knew that we had repeated fourteen times each descent occupying half an hour the conclusion was easy that we had been seven hours plus fourteen quarters of rest making ten hours and a half we had started at one it must therefore now be eleven o'clock
i stopped short just as i was going to place my feet upon my uncle's head
we will see about that to morrow let us have our supper and go to sleep the darkness was not yet complete the provision case was opened we refreshed ourselves and went to sleep as well as we could upon a bed of stones and lava fragments
when lying on my back i opened my eyes and saw a bright sparkling point of light at the extremity of the gigantic tube three thousand feet long now a vast telescope it was a star which seen from this depth
had lost all scintillation and which by my computation should be forty six ursa minor
for a few seconds darrell tried vainly to recall what had awakened him low confused sounds occasionally reached his ears but they seemed part of his own troubled dreams the heat was intolerable
he raised himself to the open window that he might get a breath of cooler air his head whirled but the half sitting posture seemed to clear his brain and he recalled his surroundings at once he became conscious that the train was not in motion
yet no sound of trainmen's voices came through the open window all was dead silence and the vague haunting sense of impending danger quickened suddenly he heard a muttered oath in one of the sections followed by an order
low but peremptory no noise hand over and be quick about it instantly darrell comprehended the situation peering cautiously between the curtains he saw at the forward end of the sleeper
a masked man with a revolver in each hand while the mirror behind him revealed another figure at the rear masked and armed in like manner he heard another order the man was doing his work swiftly he thought at once of young whitcomb
but no sound came from the opposite section and he sank quietly back upon his pillow a moment later the curtains were quickly thrust aside the muzzle of a revolver confronted darrell and the same low voice demanded
hand out your valuables a man of medium height wearing a mask and full beard stood over him darrell quietly handed over his watch and purse noting as he did so the man's hands white well formed well kept
he half expected a further demand as the purse contained only a few small bills and some change the bulk of his money being secreted about the mattress as was his habit but the man turned with peculiar abruptness to the opposite section
as one who had a definite object in view and was in haste to accomplish it darrell his faculties alert observed that the section in front of whitcomb's was empty he recalled the actions of its occupant on the preceding afternoon
his business later at the telegraph office and the whole scheme flashed vividly before his mind the man had been a spy sent out by the band now holding the train and whitcomb's money was without doubt the particular object of the hold up
leaning slightly towards him the man shook him and his first words confirmed darrell's intuitions hand over that money young man and no fuss about it either whitcomb instantly awake
gazed at the masked face without a word or movement darrell powerless to aid his friend watched intently dreading some rash act on his part to which his impetuous nature might prompt him
again he heard the low tones this time a note of danger in them no fooling hand that money over lively with a spring as sudden and noiseless as a panther's whitcomb grappled with the man
knocking the revolver from his hand upon the bed a quick desperate silent struggle followed whitcomb suddenly reached for the revolver
and the next instant his friend sank limp and motionless upon the bed fool he heard the man mutter with an oath an involuntary groan escaped from darrell's lips slight as was the sound
the man heard it and turned facing him the latter was screened by the curtains and the man seeing no one returned to his work but that brief glance had revealed enough to darrell that he knew he could henceforth identify the murderer among a thousand
in the struggle the mask had been partially pushed aside exposing a portion of the man's face a scar of peculiar shape showed white against the olive skin close to the curling black hair
but to darrell the pre eminently distinguishing characteristic of that face was the eyes of the most perfect steel blue he had ever seen they seemed as they turned upon him in that intense glance
to glint and scintillate like the points of two rapiers in a brilliant sword play while their look of concentrated fury and malignity more demon like than human was stamped ineffaceably upon his brain
having secured as much as he could find of the money the murderer left hastily and silently and a few moments later the guards after a warning to the passengers not to leave their berths took their departure
having partially dressed darrell at once sprang across the aisle and took whitcomb's limp form in his arms his heart still beat faintly but he was unconscious and bleeding profusely all had been done so silently and swiftly
that no one outside of darrell dreamed of murder and soon the enforced silence began to be broken by hurried questions and angry exclamations a man cursed over the loss of his money and a woman sobbed hysterically suddenly
darrell's incisive tones rang through the sleeper for god's sake see if there is a surgeon aboard here is a man stabbed dying don't stop to talk of money when a life is at stake
instantly all thought of personal loss was for the time forgotten and half a dozen men responded to darrell's appeal when it became known throughout the train what had occurred the greatest excitement followed
train officials hurrying back and forth stopped hushed and horror stricken beside the section where darrell sat holding whitcomb in his arms passengers from the other coaches crowded in eager to offer assistance that was of no avail
a physician was found and came quickly to the scene who after a brief examination silently shook his head and darrell watching the weakening pulse and shortening gasps needed no words to tell him
that the young life was ebbing fast just as the faint respirations had become almost imperceptible whitcomb opened his eyes looking straight into darrell's eyes with eager intensity his face lighted with the winning smile
which darrell had already learned to love his lips moved darrell bent his head still lower to listen kate you will see her he whispered tell her
but the sentence was never finished deftly and gently as a woman darrell did the little which remained to be done for his young friend closing the eyes in which the love light kindled by his dying words still lingered
smoothing the dishevelled golden hair wondering within himself at his own unwonted tenderness an awful pity for a bright young life to go out like that said a voice at his side and turning he saw parkinson
how did it happen the latter inquired recognizing darrell for the first time in the dim light briefly darrell gave the main facts as he had witnessed them saying nothing however of his having seen the face of the murderer
the mistake was in giving one so young and inexperienced a commission involving so much responsibility and danger you knew of the money then yes that was bad business for him poor fellow i wonder by the way if it was all taken
at darrell's suggestion a thorough search was made which resulted in the finding of a package containing fifteen thousand dollars which the thief in his haste had evidently overlooked this it was agreed should be placed in darrell's keeping until the arrival of the train at ophir
gradually the crowd dispersed most of the passengers returning to their berths darrell knowing that sleep for himself was out of the question sought an empty section in another part of the car and seating himself
bowed his head upon his hands the veins in his temples seemed near bursting and his usually strong nerves quivered from the shock he had undergone but of this he was scarcely conscious his mind abnormally active
for the time held his physical sufferings in abeyance he was living over again the events of the past few hours events which had awakened within him susceptibilities he had not known he possessed
which had struck a new chord in his being whose vibrations thrilled him with strange undefinable pain as he recalled whitcomb's affectionate familiarity
he seemed to hear again the low musical cadences of the boyish tones to see the sunny radiance of his smile to feel the irresistible magnetism of his presence and it seemed as though something inexpressibly sweet
of whose sweetness he had barely tasted had suddenly dropped out of his life his heart grew sick with bitter sorrow as he recalled the look of mingled appeal and trust which shot from whitcomb's eyes into his own
as his young life so full of hope of ambition of love was passing through the dim portals of an unknown world oh the pity of it that he an acquaintance of but a few hours
should have been the only one to whom those eyes could turn for their last message of earthly love and sympathy and oh the impotency of any and all human love then never before had darrell been brought so near the unseen
the unknown always surrounding us but of which few of us are conscious and for hours he sat motionless lost in thought grappling with problems hitherto unthought of but which now perplexed and baffled him at every turn
at last with a heavy sigh he opened his eyes the gray twilight of dawn was slowly creeping down from the mountain tops dispelling the shadows and the light of a new faith streaming downward
from the beautiful eternal hills of god's unbeginning past was banishing the doubts which had assailed him that night had brought to him a revelation of the awful solitude of a human soul
standing alone on the threshold of two worlds but it had also revealed to him the love infinite divine
vast numbers of military gentlemen he observed at the front go clanking about in spurs although they have never had and never will have occasion to bestride a horse spurs are a symbolic survival
a waste of steel and of labour in manufacture a futile expenditure of energy to keep clean and to put on and take off when i first enlisted i felt a similar irritation in regard to buttons
his buttons are a burden to the new recruit time takes the edge off his resentment time is a soother of sorrows a healer of rancours however legitimate nevertheless one's buttons remain for ever a nuisance
i do not complain that i should have to make my bed polish my boots keep my clothes neat these are the obvious decencies of life but the daily shining up of metal buttons which need never have been made of metal at all
which tarnish in the damp and indeed lose their lustre in an hour in any weather which moreover look much prettier dull than bright this is enough to convert the most bloodthirsty recruit into obdurate pacifism
it is to be presumed that in the pipe claying days of peace the hours were apt to hang heavy in barracks and the furbishing of buttons was devised not alone for smartness sake but to occupy idle hands
for which otherwise satan might be finding some more mischievous employment the theory though it throws a lurid light on the unprofitableness of a soldier's profession when there is no war to justify his existence
is not devoid of sense but why this custom designed for that excellent mortal the t atkins who walked out with nurse maids and was none too busy between whiles should be forced upon a totally different if no less estimable
t atkins whose job hardly gives him a moment for meals let alone for dalliance with the fair i cannot pretend to fathom it is arguable that the ornamental soldier is suited by glossy buttons
and may properly lavish time and trouble thereupon it is not arguable that glossy buttons are a valid feature of the garb of a humdrum and harassed hospital orderly many a time
footsore and aching with novel toil i could have groaned when instead of lying down to relax i had to tackle the polishing of that idiotic panoply of buttons my tunic had it still has
five large buttons in front four pocket flap buttons two shoulder buttons and two shoulder numerals t r a m c
my great coat had it still has five large front buttons two shoulder buttons and two shoulder numerals three back belt buttons two coat tail buttons my cap had it still has
a badge and two small strap buttons all these must be kept brilliant and in addition there was the intricate brasswork of one's belt are the wounded any better looked after because a tired orderly
has spent some of his off duty rest hour in rubbing metal buttons which would have been every bit as buttonable had they been made of bone many were the debates in our hut over the button problem
the abolition of metal buttons being impracticable the bold project of a petition to the king and lord kitchener was never proceeded with two questions alone interested us one which was the best polish and two
which was the quickest and easiest system of polishing the shabby peddler cum boot maker who had somehow established at that period a monopoly of the minor trade of our camp vended a substance in penny tins called soldier's friend
having as per the instructions moistened it in other words spat upon it you worked up a modicum of the resulting pink mud with an old toothbrush then applied same to each button
when you had rubbed a pink film on to the button you proceeded to rub it off again and lo the tarnish had departed like an evil dream and the metal glistened as if fresh from the mint if you were very particular
thereafter you lost the last precious five minutes before parade in efforts with knife blade or clothesbrush to remove from your tunic the smears of pink paste which had failed to repose on the buttons and had stuck to the surrounding cloth instead
luckily soldier's friend dries and cakes and powders off fairly quickly it is a lovable substance in its simple behaviour its lack of complications i surmise that somebody has made a fortune
out of manufacturing millions of those penny tins there is at least one imitation of soldier's friend on the market and like most imitations it is neither better nor worse than the original
except for the name on the outside of the tin the two commodities cannot be told apart no doubt the imitator has likewise made a fortune if so both fortunes have been amassed from a foible
to whose blatant uselessness and wastefulness even a bond street jeweller or a de luxe hotel chef would be ashamed to give countenance one member of the hut's company more fastidious than his fellows
rather than do so he would tramp the fifty yards to our wash place and obtain a couple of drops of water from the tap the same man thought nothing of keeping a half consumed ham some decaying fruit
and an opened pot of bovril all wrapped
that is by the way i am here concerned not with human nature but with buttons plain water however was voted less effective than the more popular liquid the scientifically minded had a notion that human spittle
contained some acid which nature had evolved specially to assist the action of soldier's friend i am bound to say that i was of the anti plain water party myself for a space i became an adherent of the experimentalists
who moistened their soldier's friend with methylated spirit alleging that the ensuing polish was more permanent i lapsed my small bottle of methylated spirit came to an end and on reflection
i was not sure that its superiority over spittle had been proved nothing in the english climate can make the sheen of metal buttons endure at the outside more than one day bluebell silvo
and the other chemico frictional preparations in favour of which i ultimately abandoned soldier's friend are alike in this that their virtue lies in frequent application diligence and elbow grease they are every one excellent
their inventors deserve our gratitude but our gratitude to their inventors must be nothing compared with their inventors gratitude
great city snobs there is no disguising the fact that this series of papers is making a prodigious sensation among all classes in this empire notes of admiration of interrogation of remonstrance approval or abuse
we have been called to task for betraying the secrets of three different families of de mogyns no less than four lady scrapers have been discovered and young gentlemen are quite shy of ordering half a pint of port
and simpering over the quarterly review at the club
what can be your antipathy to baker street asks some fair remonstrant evidently writing from that quarter why only attack the aristocratic snobs says one estimable correspondent
are not the snobbish snobs to have their turn into the university snobs writes an indignant gentleman who spelt elegant with two i's
some wag hints i saw lord b leaning out of the window with his boots in his hand and bawling out
no far from it if his lordship's boots are dirty it is because he is lord b and walks there is nothing snobbish in having only one pair of boots or a favourite pair
and certainly nothing snobbish in desiring to have them cleaned lord b in so doing performed a perfectly natural and gentlemanlike action for which i am so pleased with him
and put at the head of this chapter
no we are not personal in these candid remarks as phidias took the pick of a score of beauties before he completed a venus so have we to examine perhaps a thousand snobs
great city snobs are the next in the hierarchy and ought to be considered but here is a difficulty
you cannot visit him in the recesses of his bank parlour in lombard street unless you are a sprig of nobility there is little hope of seeing him at home in a great city snob firm
there is generally one partner whose name is down for charities and who frequents exeter hall you may catch a glimpse of another a scientific city snob
or the lectures of the london institution of a third a city snob of taste at picture auctions at private views of exhibitions or at the opera or the philharmonic but intimacy is impossible in most cases
with this grave pompous and awful being a mere gentleman may hope to sit at almost anybody's table to take his place at my lord duke's in the country to dance a quadrille at buckingham palace itself
beloved lady wilhelmina wagglewiggle do you recollect the sensation we made at the ball of our late adored sovereign queen caroline at brandenburg house hammersmith but the city snob's doors are for the most part closed to him
i like the spirit of the first named nobleman titles not costing much in the roman territory
in exchange as dexterously as any commoner could do it is a comfort to be able to gratify such grandees with a farthing or two it makes the poorest man feel that he can do good the polonias
have intermarried with the greatest and most ancient families of rome and you see their heraldic cognizance a mushroom or on an azure field quartered in a hundred places in the city with the arms of the colonnas and dorias
city snobs have the same mania for aristocratic marriages i like to see such i am of a savage and envious nature i like to see these two humbugs which dividing as they do
the social empire of this kingdom between them hate each other naturally making truce and uniting for the sordid interests of either i like to see an old aristocrat swelling with pride of race
and who looks down upon common englishmen as a free american does on a nigger i like to see old stiffneck obliged to bow down his head and swallow his infernal pride and drink the cup of humiliation poured out by pump and aldgate's butler
pump and aldgate says he your grandfather was a bricklayer and his hod is still kept in the bank your pedigree begins in a workhouse mine can be dated from all the royal palaces of europe i came over with the conqueror
i am own cousin to charles martel orlando furioso philip augustus peter the cruel
and a comfortable thing it is to think that birth can be bought for money so you learn to value it why should we who don't possess it set a higher store on it than those who do perhaps the best use of that book the peerage
is to look down the list and see how many have bought and sold birth how poor sprigs of nobility somehow sell themselves to rich city snobs daughters how rich city snobs purchase noble ladies
and so to admire the double baseness of the bargain old pump and aldgate buys the article and pays the money the sale of the girl's person is blessed by a bishop at saint george's hanover square and next year you read
at roehampton on saturday the lady blanche pump of a son and heir after this interesting event some old acquaintance who saw young pump in the parlour at the bank in the city said to him familiarly
how's your wife pump my boy mister pump looked exceedingly puzzled and disgusted and after a pause said lady blanche pump is pretty well i thank you oh i thought she was your wife
said the familiar brute snooks wishing him good bye and ten minutes after the story was all over the stock exchange where it is told when young pump appears to this very day we can imagine the weary life this poor pump
this martyr to mammon is compelled to undergo fancy the domestic enjoyments of a man who has a wife who scorns him who cannot see his own friends in his own house who having deserted the middle rank of life is not yet admitted to the higher
but who is resigned to rebuffs and delay and humiliation contented to think that his son will be more fortunate it used to be the custom of some very old fashioned clubs in this city when a gentleman asked for change a guinea
always to bring it to him in washed silver that which had passed immediately out of the hands of vulgar being considered as too coarse to soil a gentleman's fingers so when the city snob's money has been washed during a generation or so
has been washed into estates and woods and castles and town mansions it is allowed to pass current as real aristocratic coin old pump sweeps a shop runs of messages becomes a confidential clerk and partner
pump the second becomes chief of the house
cats are as a rule averse to water in every shape if every one of us were as much afraid of getting damp feet there would be much less coughing in church and theatre
parsons might preach in peace and actors rant undisturbed it would be a bad thing in a business way however as far as the medical profession and their friends the undertakers are concerned for if the former did not work with additional zeal
many of the latter would starve did you ever observe a cat crossing the street on a rainy day how gingerly she treads how carefully picks out the driest spots lifting each fore paw and shaking it with an air of supreme disgust and finally
for the last few yards making a reckless bolt to the front door pussy is a very dainty animal cleanly in the extreme more particularly with regard to her personal appearance
and knowing better than any one that fur once wet is very difficult to dry she does not care to dabble in the water like a duck or a newfoundland dog but let the occasion arise either in the pursuit of game or in some case of necessity
and she at once throws all her scruples overboard and goes overboard after them wetting both feet and fur with a will in cassell's magazine lately there is related the story of a cat that was in the constant habit of diving into the sea
and bringing out live fish this is told as a great curiosity but i can assure the reader that such things are by no means rare i have known of hundreds of such cases and they are occurring every day joe a nice she tabby
was a curious specimen of the feline fish catcher her master was a disciple of walton's with eager and joyful looks pussy used to watch him taking down the rod and fishing basket sit singing beside him while he looked to his tackle
and rub herself against his leg while he prepared the invariable sandwich as much as to say don't forget a morsel to your puss she likewise is going a fishing then she would trot by his side all the way as proud as punch
to the distant streamlet anxiously she would watch the skimming fly squaring her lips and emitting little excited screams of delight whenever a fish rose to nibble then when a trout was landed
pussy at once threw herself upon it and despatched it at other times she would spring into the stream perhaps up to the neck and commence fishing on her own account
working as hard and as eagerly as any bare legged school boy a gentleman tells me that he once possessed a cat that made a regular habit of swimming across the river almost daily for the purpose of killing birds in a wood on the opposite side
gibbey was a fine large brindled tom he was a noted fisherman and a daring and reckless poacher so much so that the gamekeepers threatened to kill him whenever they could catch him they did not mind they said
his taking a good clean sea trout occasionally but the beast fished in season and out of season in fact gibbey found the spawning time much more convenient than any other when the salmon came up the shallow streams to spawn in thousands
all waggling under his very nose and to be had for the mere lifting out
you would find yourself suddenly sprawling on all fours having trampled on one of gibbey's salmon or you are doing a little bit of gardening and come upon a grave and turn up what at first sight appears a newly born infant rolled in a rag
only one of gibbey's salmon what is this in the horse's trough has the horse conceived nay the poor brute has eaten all his oats but he could not stomach one of gibbey's salmon something has been making its presence felt in your bed room for days
you dream of drains and typhoid fever and you sprinkle rimmell's toilet vinegar and burn pastiles in vain even the immortal condy fails to lay the dread thing at last you peep below the bed and with the tongs pull out what
only one of gibbey's salmon for nine long years this cat managed to evade the law and escape the itching fingers of the keepers at last however poor gilbert was trapped and slain one day when out shooting
i met a large white cat he was coming trotting along the foot path and wore about his neck what i took to be a very tasteful thing in cravats
but he appeared to shun me took another direction and entered the door of a small cottage still wearing the mysterious cravat and still keeping one end of it thoughtfully in his mouth
so that i felt quite puzzled and laid down my gun to scratch my head i hate to be done five minutes afterwards i was at the cottage door a pleasant little woman answered my knock might i trouble you for a glass of water
certainly sir but would you not come in and have a drink of nice sweet whey i would tom was singing on the hearth but he had laid aside the wrap it was nowhere to be seen that's a fine cat you've got said i when i had finished my whey
he is sir everybody admires our tom he has caught cold i think dear me no sir a little sore throat perhaps no no tom was never better in his life then my good woman
why on earth does he wear a cravat out of doors a cravat cried she our tom wear a cravat then the pleasant little woman laughed till her pleasant little sides shook and the tears ran out of her pleasant little eyes
and her laughing was so pleasantly infectious that i was constrained to join her and we both laughed till roof and rafters rang again it was pleasant though i did not know what i was laughing at
only i had a slight inkling that somehow or other i had made a mighty fool of myself when at last she did get a word out it was
an eel was it the cravat was an eel and i was an awful gowk well i always guessed i was but then she said it so pleasantly and as soon as she said it off she went again
i thought it was time i was going off too so bidding her good morning i did and left her laughing such a pleasant little woman millers cats in the country are
fond of taking to the water in pursuit of prey i know an instance of a cat bred and reared at a flour mill it was a universal custom with this pussy to watch by the dam side where she might have been seen at any time either in winter or summer
and a knowledge of the gentle art has been transmitted in some cat families down to the third and fourth generation
an excellent swimmer and fisher
the way in which she managed this was very amusing and shows how extremely sagacious feline nature is when the kittens came of sufficient age she would entice them down some fine sunny day to a part of the stream where the water was very clear and shallow
here the smaller trout fry and minnows would be gambolling and making a spring pussy would seize one of these and bring it out alive after letting it jump about for some little time to amuse the kittens and attract their undivided attention
she would kill and return it to the stream jumping after it and playing with it in the water to entice a kitten in thus in course of time the kittens could all swim and fish and rivalled even their mother in quickness and daring if space permitted
i could give many more instances of pussy's fishing exploits but i think i have said sufficient to prove that they are not so averse to wet their pumps as some people imagine
ever so long ago it struck me that i should like to try and write a book about cats i mentioned the idea to some of my friends the first burst out laughing at the end of my opening sentence so i refrained from entering into further details
the third said nobody would read it and added besides
and before i had time to begin to tell him said he expected it was very little why not dogs asked one friend of mine hitting upon the notion as though by inspiration or horses said some one else or pigs or
the book of donkies by one of the family somewhat disheartened by the reception my little project had met with i gave up the idea for awhile and went to work upon other things
i cannot exactly remember what i did or how much but my book about cats
in the meantime i made some inquiries i searched high and low i consulted lady cust's little volume i bought mister beeton's book
i looked through two or three hundred works of one sort and another and as many old newspapers and odd numbers of defunct periodicals and although i daresay i have overlooked some of the very best i have really taken a great deal of trouble
and sincerely hope that i shall be able to amuse you by my version of what other people have had to tell with a good many things which have not yet appeared in print that i have to tell myself one thing i found out very early in my researches and that was
that nine out of ten among my authorities were prejudiced against the animal about which they wrote and furthermore that they knew very little indeed upon the subject
who thus mis teaches the young idea in his celebrated spelling book cats
have less sense than dogs and their attachment is chiefly to the house but the dog's is to the persons who inhabit it need i tell the reader who has thought it worth his while to learn anything of the cat's nature
again nothing can be more unjust than to call cats cruel if such a word as cruel could be applied to a creature without reason few animals could be found more cruel than a robin redbreast
which we have all determined to make a pet of since somebody wrote that pretty fable about the babes in the wood and apropos of the robin
tell me tell me gentle robin what is it sets thy heart a throbbing is it that grimalkin fell hath killed thy father or thy mother thy sister or thy brother or any other tell me but that and i'll kill the cat
but stay little robin did you ever spare a grub on the ground or a fly in the air no that you never did i'll swear so i won't kill the cat that's flat but all the cruel and unjust things that have been said about poor pussy
i will tell you in another chapter i mean to try and begin at the beginning in the first place what is the meaning of the word cat let us look in the dictionary a cat according to doctor johnson is a domestick animal that catches mice
but the word has one or two other meanings for instance in thieves slang the word cat signifies a lady's muff and to free a cat to steal a muff among soldiers and sailors a cat means something very unpleasant indeed
with nine tingling lashes or tails so called from the scratches they leave on the skin like the claws of a cat a cat is also the name for a tackle or combination of pulleys to suspend the anchor at the cat's head of a ship
the cat fall is the name of a rope employed upon the cat head two little holes astern above the gun room ports are called cat holes a cat's paw is a particular turn in the bight of a rope made to hook a tackle in
and the light air perceived in a calm by a rippling on the surface of the water is known by the same name
from the belief that however a cat may be thrown she always falls on her feet cat salt is a name given by our salt workers to a very beautifully granulated kind of common salt cat's eye or sun stone of the turks
is a kind of gem found chiefly in siberia it is very hard and semi transparent and has different points from whence the light is reflected with a kind of yellowish radiation somewhat similar to the eyes of cats catkins
are imperfect flowers hanging from trees in the manner of a rope or cat's tail cat's meat cat thyme and cat's foot
guanahani or cat island a small island of the bahama group in the west indies is supposed to be so called because wild cats of large size used to infest it
but i can find no particulars upon the subject in the works of writers on the west indies in the north of england a common expression of contempt is to call a person cat faced artists call portraits containing two thirds of the figure kit cat size
with little boys in the street a cat is a dreadfully objectionable plaything roughly cut out of a stick or piece of wood and sharpened at each end those whose way to business lies through low neighbourhoods and who venture upon short cuts
well know from bitter experience that at a certain period of the year the tip cat season sets in with awful severity and then it is not safe for such as have eyes to lose
the same game is called piggie i learn by the newspaper that a young woman at leeds nearly lost her eye sight by a blow from one of these piggies or cats and the magistrates sent the boy who was the cause of it to an industrial school ordering his father
a difficult art to acquire i know i have tried very hard myself and can't and to arrive at perfection you must lose a front tooth such a thing has been known before this
as a young costermonger having one of his front teeth pulled out to enable him to whistle well let us hope that his talent was properly appreciated in the circles in which he moved with respect to cat calls or cat cals
also termed cat pipes it would appear that there was an instrument by that name used by the audiences at the theatre
as now practised in the covent garden journal for eighteen ten
occurs this passage you would have seen cities in embroidery transplanted from the boxes to the pit whose ancient inhabitants were exalted to the galleries where they played upon cat calls in lloyd's law student we find
by law let others strive to gain renown
he nor courts clients or the law regarding hurries from nando's down to covent garden
with critic cat call sound the stops of wit in chetwood's history of the stage
there is a story of a sea officer who was much plagued by a couple of sparks prepared with their offensive instruments vulgarly termed cat calls and describes how the squeak was stopped in the middle by a blow from the officer
which he gave with so strong a will that his child's trumpet was struck through his cheek the cat call used at theatres in former times was a small circular whistle composed of two plates of tin of about the size of a half penny perforated by a hole in the centre
and connected by a band or border of the same metal about one eighth of an inch thick the instrument was readily concealed within the mouth and the perpetrator of the noise could not be detected there used to be a public house of some notoriety
at the corner of downing street next to king street called the cat and bagpipes it was also a chop house used by many persons connected with the public offices in the neighbourhood george rose
this noble building to be sure has beauty without bounds it cost upwards of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds they've madame catalini there to open her white throat but to hear your foreign singers i would not give a groat
so haste away unto the play whose name has reached the skies and when the cati ope's her mouth oh how she'll catch the flies it was once upon a time the trick of a countryman to bring a cat to market in a bag
and substitute it for a sucking pig in another bag which he sold to the unwary when he got the chance if the trick was discovered prematurely it was called letting the cat out of the bag if not he that made the bad bargain
was said to have bought a pig in a poke to turn the cat in the pan according to bacon is when that which a man says to another he says it as if another had said it to him there is a kind of ship too called a cat a vessel formed on the norwegian model
of about six hundred tons burthen that was the sort of cat that brought the great dick whittington of turn again memory his fortune do you remember how sorry you were to find out the truth
i shall never forget how vexed and disappointed i was at hearing that dick turpin never did ride to york on his famous mare black bess
only to be resorted to on rainy days or of a night when too restless to sleep it stands to pussy in the same relation that indoor croquet billiards or reading a book in bed does to our noble selves rat catching is only just one degree better
and principally enjoyed by cats who have not reached maturity in body and intellect cats in fact in their hobble de hoy hood to the matured cat especially if highly bred belong all the joys and excitement of the chase a field
there is as much difference between the hunting of an animal of the cat kind and that of one of the canine order as there is between the skilled tactics of german warfare and the wild rush to battle of arab cavalry there is more honesty in the one
more craft and cunning in the other a dog is singularly destitute in what is called in scotland canniness he also wants patience but the cat armed with this gift combined with cunning and skill gained from experience
is master for anything in the field which she considers game and chooses to square her moustache at even to a human being stalking one's prey is infinitely more engrossing than the mere hunting of it
the latter is pleasing certainly but the former is charming pussy prefers the charming while our friend the dog merely runs down his prey and takes little pains to show skill even in that
leaving rats and mice along with blue bottle flies in the category of mere kitten's play pussy's game list includes hares rabbits stoats weasels water rats and moles besides everything that flies or has feathers
from the humble household sparrow to the black cock of the mountain not before a cat reaches maturity viz three years of age does the propensity for out door hunting become a passion with her but once imbued with it the desire never leaves her as long as she can run
pirnie is a little female pussy belonging to a labouring man at the time i write she is over twenty years old but hale and hearty and as playful as a kitten
but more particularly goes in for mole catching when she spies a mole hill she at once sets herself down to watch it nor will she raise the siege for hours until the little gentleman in velvet gives signs of his presence by casting up a few grains of earth
then is pussy's opportunity she springs nimbly on the bank and plunges her arms up to the shoulders into the earth and never fails to bring poor molie to bank and the daylight has hardly had time to dazzle his eyes before he is dead
when pirnie stumbled across its trail and on following it up the battle ensued the hare says my informant fought with great vigour and often floored her antagonist but pirnie sent in her claws and teeth till blood flew like rain
and fur like drift driven snow and the hare soon becoming exhausted pirnie seized it by the throat and its plaintive screams were presently hushed in death graysie was a tom cat and rather famous for his hunting exploits one day
the battle was witnessed by graysie's owners and lasted the greater part of the afternoon and ended triumphantly for pussy in the defeat and death of the weasel when graysie found out that his fallen foe was indeed dead
intending it no doubt as a present for his mistress
a cat never springs on her prey unless sure of catching it and her aim is most unerring i know a cat that killed over a score of large rats in one day and on one of these she sprang from a height of no less than twelve feet
i counted one day no less than three hundred fifty mice which a cat had killed single handed at the removal of a rick of oats in a farmer's yard he was a fine noble red tabby
and it was quite a sight to see the surprising strength and agility with which he worked he killed most of them with his paws seldom putting a tooth in one every time there was a lull in the flow of vermin
he took the opportunity of clearing the ground of the slain which he carried to a convenient distance and placed all together in a heap when all was over to see honest tom set himself down in front of this heap of carnage
they much prefer fish to anything else and the flesh of birds they consider a greater luxury than even that of rabbits solomon or habakkuk or nebuchadnezzar or some great hebrew authority says coneys are a feeble folk
doubtless they were so in those days and taken singly so they are in our day but combinedly they are powerful indeed as many a poor ruined farmer can testify
they are very wise too and this wisdom is especially displayed in the number of doors they have in each of their dwellings so that should an enemy in the shape of a pussy or a ferret pop in at one door bunny would just pop out at the other
i knew a cat in the isle of man she had no tail worth mentioning who used to make this very habit of the rabbits a means of securing her prey she used to enter one hole suddenly and as suddenly reappear stern first
of course bunny by this time was scampering off to the opposite hole and there at the door pussy would nab him just as he came out cats almost invariably bring home their prey to be either leisurely eaten
given to their kittens or presented to their owners a man in banffshire rented a small farm from a game preserving laird this man was ruined by rabbits and turned out of house and home by them
they first ate up all his oats his grass and turnips so that only potatoes could be grown on the place by and by they took to eating the stems of even those as soon as they appeared above ground so that all the poor man's live stock was reduced to one in number
namely a big tabby cat this cat throve upon the foe she also took a few youthful prisoners whom she brought home to play with and amuse a fine family of kittens which she had in the cottage garret these young rabbits lived and grew
and burrowed and made nests in the thatch it was the awful row this happy family used to make every night which first led to the discovery when the farmer found out one night the cause of the disturbance he came down and awakened his wife and jane said he
and he looked almost sublime as he stood on the cold damp floor with a penny candle in one hand in rather scanty shirt tails and red kilmarnock night cap he was a study for a rembrandt jane
leaving pussy and the feeble folks in undisputed possession of house and farm gamekeepers do all they can to destroy the life of poor pussy by setting traps for and shooting her wherever met but some cats come to know all about the treacherous wires and how to avoid them
they know too that hares and rabbits often fall into these snares and accordingly they turn this knowledge to good account and when they find a half strangled animal in the gin they quietly despatch and if possible carry it home
pussy has many enemies to contend with on the hunting ground a poacher the other day was returning home in the grey light of early morning when he observed a large fox coming in his direction with what the man took to be a hare over his shoulder
the man fired and reynard dropped his burden was a fine large cat poor pussy had been promising herself a nice plump rabbit for breakfast
there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip and the poacher's gun brought matters to quite a different conclusion i know a case of a cat that returned from hunting with two moderate sized but full grown rats in her mouth and both alive and staring
they were no doubt sitting cheek by jowl when pussy made the spring if i tell the reader of a cat that is so clever that she can catch swallows on the wing i suppose i may be allowed to close this chapter in peace it does seem a little yankee doodlish i confess
sundry arrivals in eighteen fifty nine sarah ann mills boonsborough caroline gassway mt airy levin holden laurel william james conner with his wife child and four brothers
james lazarus delaware richard williams richmond virginia sydney hopkins and henry wheeler
sarah mills set out for freedom long before she reached womanhood being about sixteen years of age she stated that she had been very cruelly treated that she was owned by a man named joseph o'neil
appealed loudly for more than common sympathy and humanity but rarely ever found it on the contrary their paths were beset with great danger caroline gassway after being held to service by summersett walters
until she had reached her twenty seventh year was forced by hard treatment and the love of freedom to make an effort for deliverance her appearance at once indicated although she was just out of the prison house that she possessed more than an ordinary share of courage
and that she had had a keen insight into the system under which she had been oppressed she was of a dark chestnut color well formed with a large and high forehead indicative of intellect she had much to say of the ways and practices of slave holders
of the wrongs of the system she dwelt especially upon her own situation as a slave and the character of her master she told not only of his ill treatment of her but described his physical appearance as well
he was a spare made man with a red head and quick temper he would go off in a flurry like a flash of powder and would behave shamefully towards the slaves when in these fits of passion his wife however caroline confessed was of a different temper
if he had been anything like his wife in disposition most likely caroline would have remained in bondage fortunately caroline was a single woman she left her mother levin holden having been sold only a few weeks prior to his escape
was so affected by the change which awaited him that he was irresistibly led to seek the underground rail road previous to being sold he was under a master by the name of jonathan bailey who followed farming in the neighborhood of laurel delaware
and as a master was considered a moderate man was also well to do in the world but the new master he could not endure as he had already let the secret out that levin was to be sent south
levin had a perfect horror of a more southern latitude he made up his mind that he would try his luck for canada levin was a man of twenty seven years of age
william james conner his wife child and four brothers came next the brothers were hale looking fellows and would have commanded high prices in any market south of mason and dixon's line
they were perfectly justifiable in leaving kendall major lewis and all his sympathizers to take care of themselves as best they could no very serious charges were made against lewis but on the contrary they said
that he had been looked upon as a moderate slave holder they also said that he had been a member of the methodist episcopal church for fifty years and stood high in that body furthermore they stated that he sold slaves occasionally
with the wife and child of the former not only found themselves stripped from day to day of their hard earnings but fearful forebodings of the auction block were ever uppermost in their minds while they spoke of lewis as moderate et cetera
they all said that he allowed no privileges to his slaves richard williams gave a full account of himself but only a meagre report was recorded he said that he came from richmond
and left because he was on the point of being sold by john a smith who owned him he gave smith credit for being a tolerable fair kind of a slave holder but added that his wife was a notoriously hard woman
she had made a very deep impression on richard's mind by her treatment of him in finding himself on free ground however with cheering prospects ahead he did not stop to brood over the ills that he had suffered but rejoiced heartily
he left his wife julia who was free sydney hopkins and henry wheeler these young men made their way out of slavery together while sydney lives he will forever regard jacob hoag
who cheated him out of himself and prevented him from becoming enlightened and educated
he had had trouble with a man by the name of amos barnes or in other words barnes claimed to own him just as he owned a horse or a mule and daily controlled him in about the same manner that he would manage the animals above alluded to
henry could find no justification for such treatment he suffered greatly under the said barnes and finally his eyes were open to see that there was an underground rail road for the benefit of all such slavery sick souls as himself
so he got a ticket as soon as possible and came through without accident leaving amos barnes to do the best he could for a living this candidate for canada was twenty one years of age and a likely looking boy joseph henry hill
the spirit of freedom in this passenger was truly the one idea notion at the age of twenty eight his purpose to free himself by escaping on the underground rail road was successfully carried into effect although not without difficulty
joseph was a fair specimen of a man physically and mentally could read and write and thereby keep the run of matters of interest on the slavery question
a tobacco merchant in richmond had joe down in his ledger as a marketable piece of property or a handy machine to save labor and make money to joe's great joy he heard the sound of the underground rail road bell in richmond
had a satisfactory interview with the conductor received a favorable response and was soon a traveler on his way to canada he left his mother a free woman and two sisters in chains he had been sold twice but he never meant to be sold again
arrival from richmond eighteen fifty nine cornelius henry johnson face canada ward for years quite an agreeable interview took place between cornelius and the committee
full black medium size and intelligent he stated that he had had his face set toward canada for a long while three times he had made an effort to get out of the prison house within the last four or five years times have gone pretty hard with me
my mistress missus mary f price had lately put me in charge of her brother samuel m bailey a tobacco merchant of richmond both believed in nothing as they did in slavery they would sooner see a black man dead than free
they were about second class in society he and his sister own well on to one hundred head though within the last few years he has been thinning off the number by sale i was allowed one dollar a week for my board
one dollar is the usual allowance for slaves in my situation on christmas week he allowed me no board money but made me a present of seventy five cents my mistress added twenty five cents which was the extent of their liberality
he was too stingy to employ a physician if they did not get well as soon as he thought they should he would order them to their work and if they did not go he would beat them my cousin was badly beat last year in the presence of his wife and he was right sick
mister bailey was a member of saint james church on fifth street
my mother is now old but is still in the service of bailey he promised to take care of her in her old age and not compel her to labor so she is only required to cook and wash for a dozen slaves this they consider a great favor to the old grandmother
it was only a year ago he cursed her and threatened her with a flogging i left for nothing else but because i was dissatisfied with slavery the threats of my master caused me to reflect on the north and south
i had an idea that i was not to die in slavery i believed that god would assist me if i would try i then made up my mind to put my case in the hands of god and start for the underground rail road
i bade good bye to the old tobacco factory on seventh street and the first african baptist church on broad street where he belonged where i had so often heard the minister preach servants obey your masters also to the slave pens chain gangs
but i felt that i could do her no good could not help her if i staid as i was often threatened by my master with the auction block i felt i must give up all and escape for my life
he had done his best he declared he had inquired at the desk and waited and waited but the hotel people had failed to notify him of lackman's arrival all this was strictly true but it did not pacify mc givney who was in a black fury
with the idea that he would put up a good many thousand dollars to be let off peter might have had his share of this only he had been fool enough to let the bird get out of his net peter offered to follow the young man to his home city
and find some way to lure him back into mc givney's power after mc givney had stormed for a while he decided that this might be possible he would talk it over with the others and let peter know
but alas when peter picked up an afternoon newspaper next day he read on the front page how young lackman stepping off the train in his home city that morning had been placed under arrest his school had been raided
and half a dozen of the teachers were in jail and a ton of red literature had been confiscated and a swarm of dire conspiracies against the safety of the country had been laid bare
peter read this news and knew that he was in for another stormy hour with his boss but he hardly gave a thought to it because of something which had happened a few minutes before something of so much greater importance
a messenger had brought him a special delivery letter and with thumping heart he had torn it open and read all right meet me in the waiting room of guggenheim's department store at two o'clock this afternoon but for god's sake forget nell doolin yours
so here was peter dressed in his best clothes as for his temporary honeymoon with the grass widow and on the way to the rendezvous an hour ahead of time and here came nell also dressed
the man with the bulldog face was a terror and it was hard to get away from him because he had nothing to do all day the waiting room of a big department store was not the place peter would have selected for the pouring out of his heart but he had to make the best of it
that he would never be able to love anybody else and that he had made piles of money now he was high up on the ladder of prosperity nell did not laugh at him as she had laughed in the temple of jimjambo for it was easily to be seen that peter gudge was no longer a scullion
but a man of the world with a fascinating air of mystery nell wanted to know forthwith what was he doing he answered that he could not tell it was a secret of the most desperate import he was under oath these were the days of german spies and bomb plots
and being a woman she put all her faculties upon the job of guessing it she did not again ask peter to tell her but she let him talk and tactfully guided the conversation and before long she knew that peter was intimate with a great many of the most desperate reds
and told nell all about his schemes and his achievements and his adventures omitting only little jennie and the grass widow he told about the sums he had been making and was expecting to make
i mean she answered that he'd have been worth more to you than all the rest put together nell was a woman and her mind ran to the practical aspect of things look here peter she said you've been letting those dicks work you
they're getting the swag and just giving you tips what you need is somebody to take care of you peter's heart leaped will you do it he cried
but i'll try to get myself free and then maybe i won't promise but i'll think over your problem peter and i'll certainly try to help so that mc givney and guffey and those fellows can't play you for a sucker any longer
she must have time to think it over she said and to make inquiries about the people involved some of whom apparently she knew she would meet peter again the next day and in a more private place than here
she named a spot in the city park which would be easy to find and yet sufficiently remote for a quiet conference section forty peter had been made so bold by nell's flattery and what she had said about his importance
that he did not go back to mc givney to take his second scolding about the lackman case he was getting tired of mc givney's scoldings if mc givney didn't like his work let mc givney go and be a red for a while himself peter walked the streets all day and a part of the night thinking about nell
and thrilling over the half promises she had made him they met next day in the park no one was following them and they found a solitary place and nell let him kiss her several times and in between the kisses she unfolded to him a terrifying plan
peter had thought that he was something of an intriguer but his self esteem shriveled to nothingness in the presence of the superb conception which had come to ripeness in the space of twenty four hours in the brain of nell doolin
peter had been doing the hard work and these big fellows had been using him handing him a tip now and then and making fortunes out of the information he brought them mc givney had let the cat out of the bag in this case of lackman
you might be sure they had been making money big money out of all the other cases what peter must do was to work up something of his own and get the real money and make himself one of the big fellows peter had the facts he knew the people
he had watched in the goober case exactly how a frame up was made and now he must make one for himself and one that would pay it was a matter of duty to rid the country of all these reds but why should he not have the money as well nell had spent the night figuring over it
trying to pick out the right person she had hit on old nelse ackerman the banker ackerman was enormously and incredibly wealthy he was called the financial king of american city also he was old and nell happened to know he was a coward
or he might frame up some letters to be found upon them and hide some dynamite in their rooms when the plot was discovered it would make a frightful uproar needless to say the king would hear of it and of peter's part as the discoverer of it
and he would unquestionably reward peter perhaps peter might arrange to be retained as a secret agent to protect the king from the reds thus peter would be in touch with real money and might hire guffey and mc givney instead of their hiring him
if peter had stood alone would he have dared so perilous a dream as this or was he a piker a little fellow the victim of his own fears and vanities
fitted perfectly to peter's conception of a dynamiter also mac was peter's personal enemy mac had just returned from his organizing trip in the oil fields and had been denouncing peter and gossiping about him in the various radical groups
mac was the most dangerous red of them all he must surely be one of the dynamiters another likely one was joe angell whom peter had met at a recent gathering of ada ruth's anti conscription league people made jokes about this chap's name
because he looked the part with his bright blue eyes that seemed to have come out of heaven and his bright golden hair and even the memory of dimples in his cheeks but when joe opened his lips you discovered that he was an angel from the nether regions
he was the boldest and most defiant of all the reds that peter had yet come upon he had laughed at ada ruth and her sentimental literary attitude toward the subject of the draft it wasn't writing poems and passing resolutions that was wanted
but now when the government dared challenge the workers and force them into the army it was men of action that were needed in the radical movement joe angell had been up in the lumber country and could tell what was the mood of the real workers the huskies of the timberlands
all this time the country had been going to war the huge military machine was getting under way the storm of public feeling was rising congress had voted a huge loan a country wide machine of propaganda was being organized
and the oratory of four minute men was echoing from maine to california peter read the american city times every morning and here were speeches of statesmen and sermons of clergymen here were cartoons and editorials
peter like every other soul that ever lived needed a religion an ideal the reds had a religion as you might call it but this religion had failed to attract peter in the first place it was low
its devotees were wholly lacking in the graces of life in prestige and that ease which comes with assurance of power they were noisy in their fervors and repelled peter as much as the holy rollers
also they were always harping upon the sordid and painful facts of life who but a pervert would listen to sob stories when he might have all the things that are glorious and shining and splendid in the world but now here was the religion peter wanted
these clergymen in their robes of snow white linen preaching in churches with golden altars and stained glass windows these statesmen who wore the halo of fame and went about with the cheering of thousands in their ears
these mighty captains of industry whose very names were magic with power when written on pieces of paper to cause cities to rise in the desert and then to fall again beneath a rain of shells and poison gas
these editors and cartoonists of the american city times with all their wit and learning these people all combined to construct for peter a religion and an ideal and to hand it out to him ready made and precisely fitted to his understanding
who had established a secret service bureau with guffey in charge of it would go right on putting up their funds and paying peter fifty dollars a week and expenses while he served the holy cause
it was the fashion these days for orators and public men to vie with one another in expressing the extremes of patriotism and peter would read these phrases and cherish them they came to seem a part of him he felt as if he had invented them
he became greedy for more and yet more of this soul food and there was always more to be had until peter's soul was become swollen puffed up as with a bellows peter became a patriot of patriots a super patriot
peter was a red blooded american and no mollycoddle peter was a he american a one hundred percent american
peter would have been that peter was so much of an american that the very sight of a foreigner filled him with a fighting impulse as for the reds well peter groped for quite a time before he finally came upon a formula which expressed his feelings
it was a famous clergyman who achieved it for him saying that if he could have his way he would take all the reds and put them in a ship of stone with sails of lead and send them forth with hell for their destination
you're getting your pay every week what's the matter with you the matter is i'm tired of listening to these fellows ranting peter would say
yes peter had come to take it as a personal affront that these radicals should go on denouncing the cause which peter had espoused they all thought of peter as a comrade they were most friendly to him but peter had the knowledge of how they would regard him when they knew the real truth
and this imagined contempt burned him like an acid sometimes there would be talk about spies and informers and then these people would exhaust their vocabulary of abuse and peter of course would apply every word of it to himself and become wild with anger
he would long to answer back he was waiting for the day when he might vindicate himself and his cause by smashing these reds in the mouth section thirty six well said mc givney one day
i've got something interesting for you now you're going into high society for a while and the rat faced man explained that there was a young man in a neighboring city reputed to be a multi millionaire who had written a book against the war
and was the financial source of much pacificism and sedition these people are spending lots of money for printing said mc givney and we hear this fellow lackman is putting it up we've learned that he is to be in town tomorrow and we want you to find out all about his affairs
so peter was to meet a millionaire peter had never known one of these fortunate beings but he was for them he had always been for them ever since he had learned to read he had liked to find stories about them in the newspapers with pictures of them and their palaces
they were his creatures of dreams belonging to a world above reality above pain and inconvenience
devoted to the cult of eleutherinian exoticism he had found hanging in the main assembly room a picture labelled mount olympus showing a dozen gods and goddesses reclining at ease on silken couches
sipping nectar from golden goblets and gazing down upon the far off troubles of the world peter would peer from behind the curtains and see the chief magistrian emerging from behind the seven mystic veils lifting his rolling voice
and in a kind of chant expounding life to his flock of adoring society ladies he would point to the picture and explain those golden olympian days when the eleutherinian cult had originated the world had changed much since then and for the worse
and yet he had been awed by its richness and by the undoubtedly exclusive character of its worshippers he had got the idea definitely fixed in his head that there really had been a mount olympus and when he tried to imagine the millionaires and their ways
it was these gods and goddesses reclining on silken couches and sipping nectar that came to his mind now since peter had come to know the reds who wanted to blow up the palaces of the millionaires he was more than ever on the side of his gods and goddesses
his fervors for them increased every time he heard them assailed he wanted to meet some of them and passionately yet respectfully pour out to them his allegiance a glow of satisfaction came over him as he pictured himself in some palace lounging upon a silken conch
and explaining to a millionaire his understanding of the value of beauty and splendor in the world and now he was to meet one it was to be a part of his job to cultivate one true there was something wrong with this particular millionaire
peter had met parlor reds at the home of the todd sisters the large shining ladies who came in large shining cars to hear him tell of his jail experiences but he hadn't been sure as to whether they were really millionaires or not
and sadie when he had inquired particularly had answered vaguely that every one in the radical movement who could afford an automobile or a dress suit was called a millionaire by the newspapers but young lackman was a real millionaire
mc givney positively assured him and so peter was free to admire him in spite of all his freak ideas which the rat faced man explained with intense amusement young lackman conducted a school for boys and when one of the boys did wrong
sure he will said mc givney that's the point you've been in jail you've really done something as a pacifist what you want to do is to try to interest him in your anti conscription league tell him you want to make it into a national organization
the address of young lackman was the hotel de soto and as he heard this peter's heart gave a leap the hotel de soto was the mount olympus of american city
all life was a gigantic bluff and you encouraged yourself in your bluffing by the certainty that everybody else was bluffing just as hard at seven o'clock that evening peter strolled up to the magic bronze doors and touched them and sure enough
the blue uniformed guardians drew them back without a word and the tiny brass button imps never even glanced at peter as he strode up to the desk and asked for mister lackman
the haughty clerk passed him on to a still more haughty telephone operator who condescended to speak into her trumpet and then informed him that mister lackman was out he had left word that he would return at eight
chapter thirteen beginnings youth adapts itself easily and naturally to all change ruth fielding and her chum before that second evening
at briarwood hall drew in felt as though they had known the place for months and some of the girls all their lives it was thus the most natural thing in the world to assemble at meals
when the school bell tapped its summons to stand while the grace was being said to chatter and laugh with those at the table at which they sat to speak and laugh with the waitresses
and with old tony foyle and with miss scrimp the matron of their house and to bow respectfully to miss picolet miss kennedy the english teacher miss o'hara before
whom ruth and helen would come in mathematics and the other teachers as they learned their names doctor tellingham although affording some little amusement for the pupils
because of his personal peculiarities was really considered by the girls in general a deeply learned man
in his stoop shouldered purblind way their voices became hushed and they looked after him as though he really was all he pretended to be or all he thought he was
he delved in histories ate slept and seemed to draw the breath of his nostrils from histories that the pamphlets and books he wrote were of trivial importance
and seldom if ever saw the light of print was not made manifest to the briarwood girls in general ruth and helen were not unpopular from the start
helen was so pretty and so vivacious that she was bound to gather around her almost at once those girls who were the more easily attracted by such a nature
while for ruth's part the little primes found that she was both kind and loving she did not snub the smaller girls who came to her for any help and before this day was over
which was friday they began to steal into the chums duet in twos and threes to talk with ruth fielding it had been so at the school near the red mill
it had been noised abroad that a whole nursery of infants was expected by that conveyance and mary cox and madge steele each with her respective committee
were in waiting to greet the new comers on behalf of their separate societies and we'll welcome them as fellow infants whispered ruth to helen
let's hold a reception in our room this evening to all the newcomers what say helen her chum was a little doubtful as to the wisdom of this course
she did not like to offend their friends in the upedes yet the suggestion attracted helen too i suppose if we freshmen stick together we'll have a better time after all she agreed
approximately half the school was gathered to see the infants disembark from old dolliver's ark mary cox arranged her upedes on one side of the path and they began to sing
uncle noah he drove an ark one wide river to cross
one wide river one wide river of jordan one wide river one wide river to cross old dolliver
all one wide grin and flapping duster drove his bony horses to the stopping place with a flourish
the old craft is jest a bulgin over with infants mary cox pulled open the door and the first newcomer popped out as though she had been clinging to the handle when the fox made the movement
the infants got out one by one one wide river to cross
big stone one wide river to cross and there really was heavy to receive the newcomer with open arms who said while the others chanted the refrain my
name's jennie stone and
the girls in the stage coach had been forewarned by old dolliver as to their probable greeting
they disembarked with their bags and parcels while tony foyle appeared to help old dolliver down with the heavier luggage that was strapped upon the roof and in the boot behind
but the arriving infants were lined up two by two between the long rows of briarwood girls and were forced to march toward the hall by this narrow path come we are infants too
exclaimed ruth pulling helen by the sleeve we will lead the march she drew her chum away with her and they introduced themselves to the girls at the head of the column of freshies
we are helen cameron and ruth fielding said ruth cordially we only got here yesterday so we are infants too we will take you to the office of the preceptress
so the chums bore their share of the indignity of being marched up through the grounds like culprits and halted the file at the steps of the main building
we have duet number two in the west dormitory said ruth boldly to the new comers when you have found your rooms and got settled after supper that will be
you are all invited to come to our room and get acquainted with the other infants we're going to get as many together this evening as we can now do come oh ruth whispered helen
when they were out of ear shot of the others what will the upedes say we're not interfering with either of the school clubs declared her chum emphatically
but i guess it won't hurt us to become acquainted with those who are as new here as ourselves the old girls don't feel strange or lost it is these new ones
that need to be made to feel at home timid for herself ruth had begun to develop that side of her character which urged her to be bold for the general good
she appreciated keenly how awkward she had felt when she arrived at briarwood the day before helen
was less thoughtful than her chum and she was actually less bold than her chum too ruth made it a point to see and speak with all the new scholars whom she could find
repeating her invitation for a meeting in her room whether helen helped in this matter she did not know her chum was not enthusiastic in the task that was certain
and indeed when the hour came after supper helen was closeted with mary cox in the quartette room next door to the chamber and study
that ruth felt more than a little hurt
she had felt the entering wedge between them within a few hours of their coming to the school the upedes were much more friendly
and helen was vastly interested in mary cox belle tingley lluella fairfax and some of the other livelier members of the up and doing club but after a while
helen strolled into her own room and mingled with the infants who had there assembled they had come almost to their full strength
about the little reception to be held in her room approved of it helen was bound to be popular among any crowd of girls for she was so gay and good tempered but when somebody broached the subject of school clubs
ruth was surprised that helen should at once talk boldly for the upedes she really urged their cause as though she was already a member
i am not at all sure that i wish to join either the forwards or the up and doings said ruth quietly when one of the other infants asked her what she intended doing
but you'll have no friends here not among the juniors and seniors at least if you don't join some club helen exclaimed
very little i am sure except to strengthen their own clubs i can see that she continued being a very practical sensible girl and downright in speech and manner
two of them came into our room at once the girl they call the fox and miss steele one argued for the forwards and the other for the up and doings i don't want either
i don't want to join either broke in another girl by name phyllis short i think it would be nicer for us infants as they call us to keep together and we're no younger
than a good many of the juniors ruth laughed we expect to take all that good naturedly but i don't like the idea of being driven into one society or the other
and i don't mean to be she said emphatically hear hear cried miss fish well i don't think it will be nice at all said helen in some heat
i for one want to get into the real school society
rejoined phyllis short
said ruth quietly how many do we number here twenty six twenty six counting your room mate said sarah well you can count her room mate out declared helen sharply
i am not going to make myself a laughing stock of the school by joining any baby society well said phyllis short calmly
it's always nicer i think to be a big frog in a little puddle than to be an unrecognised croaker in a great big pool most of the girls laughed at that
and the suggestion of a separate club for the infants seemed to be well received ruth however was very much troubled by helen's attitude and she would say no more beyond this we will think of it
there is plenty of time only those who feel as we do as you do snapped helen as i do then if you insist said ruth bravely
until we have talked this new idea over and with that the company broke up and the new girls went away to their rooms but helen and ruth found a barrier raised between them that evening
and the latter sprinkled her pillow with a few quiet tears
aunt hannah moore in eighteen fifty four in company with her so called mistress mary moore aunt hannah arrived in philadelphia from missouri
being en route to california where she with her mistress was to join her master
the mistress having relatives in this city
not doubting that she had sufficient control over aunt hannah to keep her from contact with either abolitionists or those of her own color and that she would have no difficulty in taking her
with her to her journey's end if such were her calculations she was greatly mistaken for although aunt hannah was destitute of book learning she was nevertheless a woman of thought and natural ability
and while she wisely kept her counsel from her mistress she took care to make her wants known to an abolitionist she had passed many years under the yoke under different owners and now seeing a ray of hope
she had occasion to go to a store in the neighborhood where she was stopping and to her unspeakable joy she found the proprietor an abolitionist and a friend
who inquired into her condition and proffered her assistance the store keeper quickly made known her condition at the anti slavery office and in double quick time
j m mc kim and charles wise as abolitionists and members of the
repaired to the stopping place of the mistress and her slave to demand in the name of humanity and the laws of pennsylvania that aunt hannah
in the eyes of the mistress this procedure was so extraordinary that she became very much excited and for a moment threatened them with the broomstick but her raving had no effect on
and said she was treated very well had plenty to eat plenty to wear and a plenty of work it was prior to her coming into the possession of moore that aunt hannah
had been made to drink the bitter waters of oppression from this point therefore we shall present some of the incidents of her life from infancy and very nearly word for word as she related them
moore bought me from a man named mc caully who owned me about a year i fared dreadful bad under mc caully one day in a rage
he undertook to beat me with the limb of a cherry tree he began at me and tried in the first place to snatch my clothes off but he did not succeed
after that he beat the cherry tree limb all to pieces over me the first blow struck me on the back of my neck and knocked me down his wife was looking on
after the limb was worn out
and he come at me again and beat me with that until he broke it all to pieces he was not satisfied then
cursing me all the time as hard as he could with an oath he would say now don't you love me oh master i will pray for you i would cry
he beat me until he was tired and quit i crept out of doors and throwed up blood some days i was hardly able to creep with this beating i was laid up several weeks
another time mistress mc caully got very angry one day she beat me as bad as he did she was a woman who would get very mad in a minute
one day she began scolding and said the kitchen wasn't kept clean i told her the kitchen was kept as clean as any kitchen in the place she spoke very angry and said she didn't go by other folks
i went in as she ordered me she met me with a mule rope and ordered me to cross my hands i crossed my hands and she tied me to the bedstead here her husband said my dear
now let me do the fighting in her mad fit she said he shouldn't do it
keep out of the way or i will give you the cowhide she said to him
and looked like a man condemned to be hung then she whipped me with the cowhide until i sunk to the floor he then begged her to quit he said to his wife she has begged and begged and you have whipped her enough
and told a little girl to untie me the little girl was not able to do it mister mc caully then untied me himself both times that i was beat the blood run down from my head to my feet
they wouldn't give you anything to eat hardly
coming by free colored children without buying them and selling them afterwards
but had been kidnapped from arkansas he could tell all about how he was kidnapped but could not find anybody to do anything for him so he had to content himself
mc caully bought me from a man by the name of landers while in landers hands i had the rheumatism and was not able to work he was afraid i was going to die or he would lose me and i would not be of any service to him
so he took and traded me off for a wagon i was something better when he traded me off well enough to be about my health remained bad for about four years
and i never got my health until moore bought me moore took me for a debt
i was not born in missouri but was born in virginia from my earliest memory i was owned by conrad hackler he lived in grason county
he was a very poor man and had no other slave but me he bought me before i was quite four years old for one hundred dollars hackler bought me from a man named william scott
i must go back by good rights to the beginning and tell all scott bought me first from a young man he met one day in the road with a bundle in his arms scott
wishing to know of the young man what he had in his bundle was told that he had a baby
that its mother was dead and it had nobody to take care of it scott offered the young man a horse for it and the young man took him up this is the way i was told that scott came by me
i never knowed anything about my mother or father but i have always believed that my mother was a white woman and that i was put away to save her character
under hackler i was treated more like a brute than a human being i was fed like the dogs
standing off some distance from the main house where my master and mistress lived a bed of straw and old rags was made for me in a big trough called the tan trough
a trough having been used for tanning purposes the cats about the place came and slept with me and was all the company i had i had to work with the hoe in the field and help do everything in doors
and out in all weathers the place was so poor that some seasons he would not raise twenty bushels of corn and hardly three bushels of wheat as for shoes
after i growed up to be a woman my master thought nothing of taking my clothes off and would whip me until the blood would run down to the ground
they did not treat me so bad they both professed to get religion about that time and my master said he would never lay the weight of his finger on me again
i would have been hired out or sold but my mistress wanted to keep me to carry on the place for her support so i was kept for seven or eight years after his death
i should not serve anybody else i done my best to keep my mistress from suffering after a few years they all became dissatisfied and moved to missouri they scattered and took up government land
without means they lived as poor people commonly live on small farms in the woods i still lived with my mistress some of the heirs got dissatisfied
and sued for their rights or a settlement then i was sold with my child a boy thus aunt hannah reviewed her slave life
showing that she had been in the hands of six different owners and had seen great tribulation under each of them
that slavery had given her one child but no husband as a protector or a father the half of what she passed through in the way of suffering
has scarcely been hinted at in this sketch fifty seven years were passed in bondage before she reached philadelphia under the good providence through which she came in possession of her freedom
she found a kind home with a family of abolitionists missus gillingham's whose hearts had been in deep sympathy with the slave for many years in this situation aunt hannah remained
honest faithful and obliging taking care of her earnings which were put out at interest for her by her friends her mind was deeply imbued with religious feeling
and an unshaken confidence in god as her only trust she connected herself with the a m e bethel church of philadelphia where she has walked blameless
and exemplary up to this day probably there is not a member in that large congregation whose simple faith and whose walk and conversation are more commendable than aunt hannah's
although she has passed through so many hardships she is a woman of good judgment
vigor and peace of mind in her old days with a small income just sufficient to meet her humble wants without having to live at service after living in philadelphia for several years
possessing all her good qualities had served a life time in a highly respectable quaker family of this city and had so won the esteem of his kind employer that at his death
he left him a comfortable house for life so that he was not under the necessity of serving another the name of the recipient of the good quaker friend's bounty and aunt hannah's companion
was thomas todd after a few years of wedded life aunt hannah was called upon to be left alone again in the world by the death of her husband
it's suicide the taller guard grumbled mine not yours so don't worry about it brion barked at him your job is to remember your orders and keep them straight now let's hear them again
the guard rolled his eyes up in silent rebellion and repeated in a toneless voice we stay here in the car and keep the motor running while you go inside the stone pile there
we don't let anybody in the car and we try and keep them clear of the car short of shooting them that is we don't come in no matter what happens or what it looks like but wait for you here
unless you call on the radio in which case we come in with the automatics going and shoot the place up and it doesn't matter who we hit this will be done only as a last resort
understood he waited until all three men had nodded in agreement then checked the charge on his gun it was fully loaded it would be foolish to go in unarmed but he had to one gun wouldn't save him
he put it aside the button radio on his collar was working and had a strong enough signal to get through any number of walls he took off his coat threw open the door and stepped out into the searing brilliance of the disan noon
there was only the desert silence broken by the steady throb of the car's motor behind him stretching away to the horizon in every direction was the eternal desert of sand the keep stood nearby solitary a massive pile of black rock
nothing stirred the high walled irregularly shaped construction sat in a ponderous silence brion was sweating now only partially from the heat he circled the thing looking for a gate
there wasn't one at ground level a slanting cleft in the stone could be climbed easily but it seemed incredible that this might be the only entrance a complete circuit proved that it was
this was a slight bending of the truth without fracturing it there was no answer just the hiss of wind blown sand against the rock and the mutter of the car in the background he started to climb
at the same time he fought a constant impulse to look up watching for anything falling from above nothing happened when he reached the top of the wall he was breathing hard sweat moistened his body there was still no one in sight
he stood on an unevenly shaped wall that appeared to circle the building instead of having a courtyard inside it the wall was the outer face of the structure the domed roof rising from it
at varying intervals dark openings gave access to the interior when brion looked down the sand car was just a dun colored bump in the desert already far behind him stooping he went through the nearest door
there was still no one in sight the room inside was something out of a madman's funhouse it was higher than it was wide irregular in shape
at one end it merged into an incline that became a stairwell at the other it ended in a hole that vanished in darkness below light of sorts filtered in through slots and holes drilled into the thick stone wall
everything was built of the same crumble textured but strong rock
after a number of blind passages and wrong turns he saw a stronger light ahead and went on there was food metal even artifacts of the unusual disan design in the different rooms he passed through yet no people
the light ahead grew stronger and the last passageway opened and swelled out until it led into the large central chamber this was the heart of the strange structure
all the rooms passageways and halls existed just to give form to this gigantic chamber the walls rose sharply the room being circular in cross section and growing narrower towards the top
it was a truncated cone since there was no ceiling a hot blue disk of sky cast light on the floor below
out of the corner of his eyes and with the very periphery of his consciousness he was aware of the rest of the room barrels stores machinery a radio transceiver
it had been nothing in itself now the battle would begin in earnest none of this was conscious in his mind his fighter's reflexes bent his shoulders curved his hands before him as he walked softly in balance
ready to spring in any direction yet none of this was really necessary all the danger so far was nonphysical when he did give conscious thought to the situation he stopped startled
what was wrong here none of the men had moved or made a sound how could he even know they were men they were so muffled and wrapped in cloth that only their eyes were exposed
in spite of muffled cloth and silence he knew them for what they were the eyes were empty of expression and unmoving yet were filled with the same negative emptiness as those of a bird of prey they could look on life
death and the rending of flesh with the same lack of interest and compassion
between the time he lifted one foot and walked a step he understood what he had to face there could be no doubt not to an empathetic from the group of silent men poured a frost white wave of unemotion
an empathetic shares what other men feel he gets his knowledge of their reaction by sensing lightly their emotions the surges of interest hate love fear desire
the sweep of large and small sensations that accompany all thought and action the empathetic is always aware of this constant and silent surge whether he makes the effort to understand it or not
he is like a man glancing across the open pages of a tableful of books he can see that the type words paragraphs thoughts are there even without focusing his attention to understand any of it
he turns the pages of one of the others flipping the pages searching for meaning there is no meaning
this was the way in which the magter were blank without emotions there was a barely sensed surge and return that must have been neural impulses on a basic level
the knot of men still looked at him silent and unmoving they weren't expectant their attitude could not have been called one of interest but he had come to them and now they waited to find out why
any questions or statements they spoke would be superfluous so they didn't speak the responsibility was his i have come to talk with lig magte who is he
brion didn't like the tiny sound his voice made in the immense room one of the men gave a slight motion to draw attention to himself none of the others moved they still waited
this had to be handled right but what was right i'm from the foundation in the city as you undoubtedly know i've been talking to the people of nyjord they have a message for you
the silence grew longer brion had no intention of making this a monologue he needed facts to operate to form an opinion looking at the silent forms was telling him nothing time stretched taut
and finally lig magte spoke the nyjorders are going to surrender it was an impossibly strange sentence
was made up of emotion if the man had given it a positive emphasis perhaps said it with enthusiasm it would have meant success the enemy is going to surrender this wasn't the meaning
are they going to surrender it was neither of these the sentence carried no other message than
of the separate words it had intellectual connotations but these could only be gained from past knowledge not from the sound of the words there was only one message they were prepared to receive from nyjord
this was the vital fact if they were not interested he could have no further value to them since he came from the enemy he was the enemy therefore he would be killed because this was vital to his existence
brion took the time to follow the thought through it made logical sense and logic was all he could depend on now he could be talking to robots or alien creatures for all the human response he was receiving
you can't win this war all you can do is hurry your own deaths he said this with as much conviction as he could realizing at the same time that it was wasted effort
no flicker of response stirred in the men before him the nyjorders know you have the cobalt bombs and they have detected your jump space projector they can't take any more chances
they have pushed the deadline closer by an entire day there are one and a half days left before the bombs fall and you are all destroyed do you realize what that means
two things saved his life then he had guessed what would happen as soon as they had his message though he hadn't been sure but even the suspicion had put him on his guard this combined with
the reflexes of a winner of the twenties was barely enough to enable him to survive from frozen mobility lig magte had catapulted into headlong attack
as he leaped forward he drew a curved double edged blade from under his robes
the disan hunched low flipped the knife quickly from hand to hand
every action was as intense as possible deadly and thorough
the man with the knife had to win with the next charge brion changed tactics he leaped inside the thrust clutching for the knife arm a burning slice of pain cut across his arm
then his fingers clutched the tendoned wrist they clamped down hard grinding shut compressing with the tightening intensity of a closing vise it was all he could do simply to hold on
there was no science in it just his greater strength from exercise and existence on a heavier planet all of this strength went to his clutching hand because he held his own life in that hand
while the nails tore furrows through his flesh and the cut on his arm bled freely these were only minor things to be endured his life depended on the grasp of the fingers of his right hand
it was a good grip and he could hold the arm immobilized they had reached stasis standing knee to knee their faces only a few inches apart
the muffling cloth had fallen from the disan's face during the struggle and empty frigid eyes stared into brion's no flicker of emotion crossed the harsh planes of the other man's face
a great puckered white scar covered one cheek and pulled up a corner of the mouth in a cheerless grimace it was false there was still no expression here even when the pain must be growing more intense
if none of the watchers broke the impasse his greater weight and strength counted now the disan would have to drop the knife before his arm was dislocated at the shoulder he didn't do it with sudden horror
jerked through the disan's body and the arm hung limp and dead no expression crossed the man's face the knife was still locked in the fingers of the paralyzed hand
he was still fighting as if nothing had changed brion backed slowly away from the man stop it he said you can't win now it's impossible
he called to the other men who were watching the unequal battle with expressionless immobility no one answered him
fracturing both his legs and the limbless broken creature still coming forward crawling rolling teeth bared since they were the only remaining weapon there was only one way to end it
the engulfing cloth was thin
brion had never used it on a man in practice he had broken heavy boards splintering them instantly with the short precise stroke the stiffened hand moving forward in a sudden surge
all the weight and energy of his body concentrated in his joined fingertips plunging deep into the other's flesh killing not by accident or in sudden anger
killing because this was the only way the battle could possibly end like a ruined tower of flesh the disan crumpled and fell
as he sat down and reached for them he was conscious of an arctic coldness in the air a frigid blast it was coming from the air conditioner grill which was now covered by welded steel bars the control unit was sealed shut
someone was either being very funny or very efficient either way it was cold
after a careful look into the interior he disconnected one wire and shorted it to another he was rewarded by a number of sputtering cracks and a quantity of smoke the compressor moaned and expired
faussel was standing in the door with more papers a shocked expression on his face
these are the progress reports you asked for from all units details to date conclusions suggestions et cetera
offplanet correspondence commissary invoices requisitions he straightened the edges of the stack while he answered daily reports hospital log his voice died away and stopped
as brion carefully pushed the stack off the edge of the desk into the wastebasket in other words red tape brion said well it's all filed
one by one the progress reports followed the first stack into the basket until the desk was clear nothing it was just what he had expected
irritation bit at him
he could look in on her he opened the door to the lab with a feeling of pleasant anticipation it froze and shattered instantly her microscope was hooded and she was gone she's having dinner
he thought or she's in the hospital the hospital was on the floor below and he went there first of course she's here doctor stine grumbled where else should a girl in her condition be
she was out of bed long enough today tomorrow's the last day and if you want to get any more work out of her before the deadline you had better let her rest tonight
i've been handing out tranquilizers like aspirin all day they're falling apart the world's falling apart how is lea doing considering her shape she's fine go in and see for yourself if you won't take my word for it
i have other patients to look at are you that worried doctor of course i am i'm just as prone to the weakness of the flesh as the rest of you
but i'll also be damned glad to see the ships land to pull us out the only skin that i really feel emotionally concerned about right now is my own and if you want to be let in on a public secret
i never did brion said to the retreating back lea's room was dark illuminated only by the light of dis's moon slanting in through the window
walking quietly he went over to the bed
a night's sleep now would do as much good as all the medication he should have gone then instead he sat down in the chair placed next to the head of the bed
the guards knew where he was he could wait here just as well as any place else it was a stolen moment of peace on a world at the brink of destruction he was grateful for it
everything looked less harsh in the moonlight and he rubbed some of the tension from his eyes lea's face was ironed smooth by the light beautiful and young a direct contrast to everything else on this poisonous world
her hand was outside of the covers and he took it in his own obeying a sudden impulse looking out of the window at the desert in the distance he let the peace wash over him forcing himself to forget for the moment
that in one more day life would be stripped from this planet later when he looked back at lea he saw that her eyes were open though she hadn't moved how long had she been awake he jerked his hand away from hers feeling suddenly guilty
is the boss man looking after the serfs to see if they're fit for the treadmills in the morning she asked it was the kind of remark she had used with such frequency in the ship though it didn't sound quite as harsh now
how do you feel he asked realizing and hating the triteness of the words even as he said them terrible i'll be dead by morning reach me a piece of fruit from that bowl will you
my mouth tastes like an old boot heel i wonder how fresh fruit ever got here probably a gift to the working classes from the smiling planetary murderers on nyjord
did you ever think of going to earth
this was too close to his own thoughts about planetary backgrounds there couldn't possibly be a connection though never he told her up until a few months ago i never even considered leaving anvhar
the twenties are such a big thing at home that it is hard to imagine that anything else exists while you are still taking part in them spare me the twenties she pleaded
at the universities i suppose though i wouldn't know for sure and you must realize that when i say no big cities i also mean no little cities we aren't organized that way at all
i imagine the basic physical unit is the family and the circle of friends
something in the genes i suppose we all enjoy being alone i suppose you might call it an inbred survival trait up to a point she said biting delicately into the apple
that or complete promiscuity on anvhar the emphasis is on personal responsibility and that seems to take care of the problem if we didn't have an adult way of looking at things our kind of life would be impossible
individuals are brought together either by accident or design and with this proximity must be some certainty of relations you're losing me lea protested either i'm still foggy from the dope
or you are suddenly unable to speak a word of less than four syllables you know whenever this happens with you i get the distinct impression that you are trying to cover up something for occam's sake be specific
since i like cross country skiing i make my home in this big house our family has right at the edge of the broken hills in summer i looked after a drumtum herd but after slaughtering my time was my own all winter
i did a lot of skiing and used to work for the twenties sometimes i would go visiting then again people would drop in on me houses are few and far between on anvhar we don't even have locks on our doors
you accept and give hospitality without qualification whoever comes male female in groups or just traveling alone i get the drift
she must surely have to stay home a lot only if she wants to otherwise she can go wherever she wishes and be welcomed as another individual i suppose it is out of fashion in the rest of the galaxy
sounds exceedingly dull if you are all such cool and distant friends how do babies get made
the same damn way they get made any place else but it's not just a reflexive process like a couple of rabbits that happen to meet under the same bush
is marriage the only thing your women are interested in
are you suggesting that your girls see if a man can father children before considering marriage of course otherwise anvhar would have been depopulated centuries ago therefore
the woman does the choosing if she is interested in a man she says so if she is not interested the man would never think of suggesting anything it's a lot different from other planets but so is our planet anvhar
it works well for us which is the only test that applies just about the opposite of earth lea told him dropping the apple core into a dish and carefully licking the tips of her fingers i guess you anvharians
birth control came late and is still being fought if you can possibly imagine that there are just too many of the archaic religions still around
not physically at least not often and women take the most outrageous kinds of flattery for granted at parties there are always a couple of hot breaths of passion fanning your neck
a girl has to keep her spike heels filed sharp she has to what a figure of speech brion meaning you fight back all the time if you don't want to be washed under by the flood sounds rather
repellent from your point of view it would be i'm afraid we get so used to it that we even take it for granted sociologically speaking
her eyes widened and her mouth opened in an unspoken oh of sudden realization i'm being a fool she said
you weren't speaking generally at all you had a very specific subject in mind namely
please lea you must understand but i do she laughed all the time i thought you were being a frigid and hard hearted lump of ice you were really being very sweet
just playing the game in good old anvharian style waiting for a sign from me we'd still be playing by different rules if you hadn't had more sense than i
and finally realized that somewhere along the line we must have got our signals mixed and i thought you were some kind of frosty offworld celibate she let her hand go out and her fingers rustled through his hair
something she had been wanting to do for a long time i had to he said trying to ignore the light touch of her fingers because i thought so much of you i couldn't have done anything to insult you
such as forcing my attentions on you until i began to worry where the insult would lie since i knew nothing about your planet's mores
she said very softly the men aggress now that i understand i think i like your way better but i'm still not sure of all the rules
but i would certainly like his arms were around her holding her to him
next day during the service at the palace church in honor of the emperor's birthday prince volkonski was called out of the church and received a dispatch from prince kutuzov it was kutuzov's report written from tatarinova on the day of the battle
kutuzov wrote that the russians had not retreated a step that the french losses were much heavier than ours and that he was writing in haste from the field of battle before collecting full information it followed that there must have been a victory and at once without leaving the church
thanks were rendered to the creator for his help and for the victory anna pavlovna's presentiment was justified and all that morning a joyously festive mood reigned in the city everyone believed the victory to have been complete
and some even spoke of napoleon's having been captured of his deposition and of the choice of a new ruler for france it is very difficult for events to be reflected in their real strength and completeness amid the conditions of court life and far from the scene of action
general events involuntarily group themselves around some particular incident so now the courtiers pleasure was based as much on the fact that the news had arrived on the emperor's birthday as on the fact of the victory itself
it was like a successfully arranged surprise mention was made in kutuzov's report of the russian losses
in the petersburg world this sad side of the affair again involuntarily centered round a single incident kutaysov's death everybody knew him the emperor liked him and he was young and interesting that day everyone met with the words
what a wonderful coincidence just during the service but what a loss kutaysov is how sorry i am what did i tell about kutuzov prince vasili now said with a prophet's pride i always said he was the only man capable of defeating napoleon
but next day no news arrived from the army and the public mood grew anxious the courtiers suffered because of the suffering the suspense occasioned the emperor fancy the emperor's position said they and instead of extolling kutuzov as they had done the day before
they condemned him as the cause of the emperor's anxiety that day prince vasili no longer boasted of his protege kutuzov but remained silent when the commander in chief was mentioned moreover toward evening
a terrible piece of news was added
had suddenly died of that terrible malady it had been so agreeable to mention officially at large gatherings
had prescribed small doses of a certain drug to produce a certain effect but helene tortured by the fact that the old count suspected her and that her husband to whom she had written that wretched profligate pierre had not replied
had suddenly taken a very large dose of the drug and had died in agony before assistance could be rendered her it was said that prince vasili and the old count had turned upon the italian but the latter had produced such letters from the unfortunate deceased that they had immediately let the matter drop
and the death of helene on the third day after kutuzov's report a country gentleman arrived from moscow and news of the surrender of moscow to the french spread through the whole town this was terrible what a position for the emperor to be in
kutuzov was a traitor and prince vasili during the visits of condolence paid to him on the occasion of his daughter's death said of kutuzov whom he had formerly praised it was excusable for him in his grief to forget what he had said
that it was impossible to expect anything else from a blind and depraved old man i only wonder that the fate of russia could have been entrusted to such a man as long as this news remained unofficial it was possible to doubt it but the next day the following communication was received from count rostopchin
sire kutuzov's action decides the fate of the capital and of your empire russia will shudder to learn of the abandonment of the city in which her greatness is centered and in which lie the ashes of your ancestors i shall follow the army i have had everything removed
and it only remains for me to weep over the fate of my fatherland on receiving this dispatch the emperor sent prince volkonski to kutuzov with the following rescript prince michael ilarionovich since the twenty ninth of august
i have received no communication from you yet on the first of september i received from the commander in chief of moscow
the sad news that you with the army have decided to abandon moscow
it is natural for us who were not living in those days to imagine that when half russia had been conquered and the inhabitants were fleeing to distant provinces and one levy after another was being raised for the defense of the fatherland
all russians from the greatest to the least were solely engaged in sacrificing themselves
or weeping over its downfall the tales and descriptions of that time without exception speak only of the self sacrifice patriotic devotion despair grief and the heroism of the russians but it was not really so
it appears so to us because we see only the general historic interest of that time and do not see all the personal human interests that people had
yet in reality those personal interests of the moment so much transcend the general interests that they always prevent the public interest from being felt or even noticed most of the people at that time paid no attention to the general progress of events
but were guided only by their private interests and they were the very people whose activities at that period were most useful those who tried to understand the general course of events and to take part in it by self sacrifice and heroism
were the most useless members of society they saw everything upside down and all they did for the common good turned out to be useless and foolish like pierre's and mamonov's regiments which looted russian villages and the lint the young ladies prepared
even those fond of intellectual talk and of expressing their feelings who discussed russia's position at the time involuntarily introduced into their conversation either a shade of pretense and falsehood
or useless condemnation and anger directed against people accused of actions no one could possibly be guilty of in historic events the rule forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge is specially applicable
only unconscious action bears fruit and he who plays a part in an historic event never understands its significance if he tries to realize it his efforts are fruitless
the more closely a man was engaged in the events then taking place in russia the less did he realize their significance in petersburg and in the provinces at a distance from moscow
wept for russia and its ancient capital and talked of self sacrifice and so on but in the army which retired beyond moscow there was little talk or thought of moscow
and when they caught sight of its burned ruins no one swore to be avenged on the french but they thought about their next pay their next quarters of matreshka the vivandiere and like matters as the war had caught him in the service
nicholas rostov took a close and prolonged part in the defense of his country but did so casually without any aim at self sacrifice and he therefore looked at what was going on in russia without despair and without dismally racking his brains over it
had he been asked what he thought of the state of russia he would have said that it was not his business to think about it that kutuzov and others were there for that purpose but that he had heard that the regiments were to be made up to their full strength
that fighting would probably go on for a long time yet and that things being so it was quite likely he might be in command of a regiment in a couple of years time as he looked at the matter in this way
remounts for his division not only without regret at being prevented from taking part in the coming battle but with the greatest pleasure which he did not conceal and which his comrades fully understood a few days before the battle of borodino
nicholas received the necessary money and warrants and having sent some hussars on in advance he set out with post horses for voronezh only a man who has experienced it that is has passed some months continuously
can understand the delight nicholas felt when he escaped from the region covered by the army's foraging operations provision trains and hospitals when free from soldiers wagons and the filthy traces of a camp
he saw villages with peasants and peasant women gentlemen's country houses fields where cattle were grazing posthouses with stationmasters asleep in them he rejoiced as though seeing all this for the first time
what for a long while specially surprised and delighted him were the women young and healthy without a dozen officers making up to each of them women too who were pleased and flattered that a passing officer should joke with them
ordered things he had long been deprived of in camp and next day very clean shaven and in a full dress uniform he had not worn for a long time went to present himself to the authorities
the commander of the militia was a civilian general an old man who was evidently pleased with his military designation and rank he received nicholas brusquely imagining this to be characteristically military and questioned him with an important air
as if considering the general progress of affairs and approving and disapproving with full right to do so nicholas was in such good spirits that this merely amused him from the commander of the militia he drove to the governor
the governor was a brisk little man very simple and affable he indicated the stud farms at which nicholas might procure horses recommended to him a horse dealer in the town and a landowner fourteen miles out of town who had the best horses and promised to assist him in every way
my wife was a great friend of your mother's we are at home on thursdays today is thursday so please come and see us quite informally said the governor taking leave of him immediately on leaving the governor's nicholas hired post horses and
taking his squadron quartermaster with him drove at a gallop to the landowner fourteen miles away who had the stud everything seemed to him pleasant and easy during that first part of his stay in voronezh and as usually happens when a man is in a pleasant state of mind
everything went well and easily the landowner to whom nicholas went was a bachelor an old cavalryman a horse fancier a sportsman the possessor of some century old brandy and some old hungarian wine who had a snuggery where he smoked
and who owned some splendid horses in very few words nicholas bought seventeen picked stallions for six thousand rubles to serve as he said as samples of his remounts after dining and taking rather too much of the hungarian wine
nicholas having exchanged kisses with the landowner with whom he was already on the friendliest terms galloped back over abominable roads in the brightest frame of mind continually urging on the driver so as to be in time for the governor's party
when he had changed poured water over his head and scented himself nicholas arrived at the governor's rather late but with the phrase better late than never on his lips it was not a ball nor had dancing been announced
would play valses and the ecossaise
and so everyone had come as to a ball provincial life in eighteen twelve went on very much as usual but with this difference that it was livelier in the towns in consequence of the arrival of many wealthy families from moscow
and as in everything that went on in russia at that time a special recklessness was noticeable an in for a penny in for a pound who cares spirit and the inevitable small talk instead of turning on the weather and mutual acquaintances
now turned on moscow the army and napoleon the society gathered together at the governor's was the best in voronezh
but there were no men who could at all vie with the cavalier of saint george the hussar remount officer the good natured and well bred count rostov among the men was an italian prisoner an officer of the french army
and nicholas felt that the presence of that prisoner enhanced his own importance as a russian hero the italian was as it were a war trophy nicholas felt this it seemed to him that everyone regarded the italian in the same light
and he treated him cordially though with dignity and restraint as soon as nicholas entered in his hussar uniform diffusing around him a fragrance of perfume and wine and had uttered the words better late than never and heard them repeated several times by others
people clustered around him all eyes turned on him and he felt at once that he had entered into his proper position in the province that of a universal favorite a very pleasant position and intoxicatingly so after his long privations
at posting stations at inns and in the landowner's snuggery maidservants had been flattered by his notice and here too at the governor's party there were as it seemed to nicholas an inexhaustible number of pretty young women married and unmarried
impatiently awaiting his notice the women and girls flirted with him and from the first day the people concerned themselves to get this fine young daredevil of an hussar married and settled down among these was the governor's wife herself
who welcomed rostov as a near relative and called him nicholas
and dancing began in which nicholas still further captivated the provincial society by his agility his particularly free manner of dancing even surprised them all nicholas was himself rather surprised at the way he danced that evening
he had never danced like that in moscow and would even have considered such a very free and easy manner improper and in bad form but here he felt it incumbent on him to astonish them all by something unusual
something they would have to accept as the regular thing in the capital though new to them in the provinces all the evening nicholas paid attention to a blue eyed plump and pleasing little blonde the wife of one of the provincial officials
with the naive conviction of young men in a merry mood that other men's wives were created for them
as if without speaking of it they knew how capitally nicholas and the lady would get on together the husband however did not seem to share that conviction and tried to behave morosely with rostov
nine days after the abandonment of moscow a messenger from kutuzov reached petersburg
caused russians to grieve he had such a sad face when shown into the emperor's study that the latter at once asked have you brought me sad news colonel very sad sire replied michaud lowering his eyes with a sigh the abandonment of moscow
have they surrendered my ancient capital without a battle asked the emperor quickly his face suddenly flushing michaud respectfully delivered the message kutuzov had entrusted to him which was that it had been impossible to fight before moscow
and that as the only remaining choice was between losing the army as well as moscow or losing moscow alone
the emperor listened in silence not looking at michaud has the enemy entered the city he asked yes sire and moscow is now in ashes i left it all in flames replied michaud in a decided tone
the emperor began to breathe heavily and rapidly his lower lip trembled and tears instantly appeared in his fine blue eyes but this lasted only a moment he suddenly frowned as if blaming himself for his weakness
and raising his head addressed michaud in a firm voice i see colonel from all that is happening that providence requires great sacrifices of us i am ready to submit myself in all things to his will but tell me michaud
how did you leave the army when it saw my ancient capital abandoned without a battle did you not notice discouragement seeing that his most gracious ruler was calm once more
which required a direct answer sire will you allow me to speak frankly as befits a loyal soldier he asked to gain time colonel i always require it replied the emperor conceal nothing from me i wish to know absolutely how things are sire
said michaud with a subtle scarcely perceptible smile on his lips having now prepared a well phrased reply sire i left the whole army from its chiefs to the lowest soldier without exception in desperate and agonized terror
how is that the emperor interrupted him frowning sternly would misfortune make my russians lose heart never michaud had only waited for this to bring out the phrase he had prepared sire he said with respectful playfulness
they are only afraid lest your majesty in the goodness of your heart should allow yourself to be persuaded to make peace they are burning for the combat declared this representative of the russian nation
how devoted they are ah said the emperor reassured and with a kindly gleam in his eyes he patted michaud on the shoulder you set me at ease colonel he bent his head and was silent for some time well then
go back to the army he said drawing himself up to his full height and addressing michaud with a gracious and majestic gesture and tell our brave men and all my good subjects wherever you go that when i have not a soldier left i shall put myself at the head of my beloved nobility
and my good peasants and so use the last resources of my empire it still offers me more than my enemies suppose said the emperor growing more and more animated but should it ever be ordained by divine providence he continued
raising to heaven his fine eyes shining with emotion that my dynasty should cease to reign on the throne of my ancestors then after exhausting all the means at my command i shall let my beard grow to here he pointed halfway down his chest
and go and eat potatoes with the meanest of my peasants rather than sign the disgrace of my country and of my beloved people whose sacrifices i know how to appreciate having uttered these words in an agitated voice
the emperor suddenly turned away as if to hide from michaud the tears that rose to his eyes and went to the further end of his study having stood there a few moments he strode back to michaud and pressed his arm below the elbow with a vigorous movement the emperor's mild and handsome face
was flushed and his eyes gleamed with resolution and anger colonel michaud
perhaps we may recall it with pleasure someday napoleon or i said the emperor touching his breast we can no longer both reign together i have learned to know him and he will not deceive me any more and the emperor paused with a frown
i must pass rapidly over the stirring events of my early life when i was about fourteen years old i went to live with my master's eldest son a presbyterian minister
a girl that he had married in the humble walks of life
i was their only servant and a gracious loan at that
from the very first i did the work of three servants and yet i was scolded and regarded with distrust the years passed slowly and i continued to serve them
and at the same time grew into strong healthy womanhood i was nearly eighteen when we removed from virginia to hillsboro north carolina
the salary was small and we still had to practise the closest economy mister bingham a hard cruel man the village schoolmaster was a member of my young master's church and he was a frequent visitor to the parsonage
she whom i called mistress seemed to be desirous to wreak vengeance on me for something
during this time my master was unusually kind to me he was naturally a good hearted man but was influenced by his wife it was saturday evening and while i was bending over the bed watching the baby that i had just hushed into slumber
mister bingham came to the door and asked me to go with him to his study wondering what he meant by his strange request i followed him and when we had entered the study he closed the door and in his blunt way remarked lizzie i am going to flog you
i was thunderstruck and tried to think if i had been remiss in anything i could not recollect of doing anything to deserve punishment and with surprise exclaimed whip me mister bingham what for no matter he replied
i am going to whip you so take down your dress this instant recollect i was eighteen years of age was a woman fully developed and yet this man coolly bade me take down my dress i drew myself up proudly firmly
and said no mister bingham i shall not take down my dress before you moreover you shall not whip me unless you prove the stronger nobody has a right to whip me but my own master and nobody shall do so if i can prevent it
my words seemed to exasperate him he seized a rope caught me roughly and tried to tie me i resisted with all my strength but he was the stronger of the two and after a hard struggle succeeded in binding my hands and tearing my dress from my back
and began to ply it freely over my shoulders with steady hand and practised eye he would raise the instrument of torture nerve himself for a blow
it cut the skin raised great welts and the warm blood trickled down my back oh god i can feel the torture now the terrible excruciating agony of those moments i did not scream
i was too proud to let my tormentor know what i was suffering
and i stood like a statue while the keen lash cut deep into my flesh as soon as i was released stunned with pain bruised and bleeding i went home and rushed into the presence of the pastor and his wife wildly exclaiming master robert
why did you let mister bingham flog me what have i done that i should be so punished
i rose bewildered almost dead with pain crept to my room dressed my bruised arms and back as best i could and then lay down but not to sleep no i could not sleep
for i was suffering mental as well as bodily torture my spirit rebelled against the unjustness that had been inflicted upon me and though i tried to smother my anger and to forgive those who had been so cruel to me it was impossible the next morning i was more calm
but the kind word was not proffered and it may be possible that i grew somewhat wayward and sullen though i had faults i know now as i felt then
it seems that mister bingham had pledged himself to missus burwell to subdue what he called my stubborn pride on friday following the saturday on which i was so savagely beaten
on entering the room i found him prepared with a new rope and a new cowhide i told him that i was ready to die but that he could not conquer me in struggling with him i bit his finger severely
when he seized a heavy stick and beat me with it in a shameful manner again i went home sore and bleeding but with pride as strong and defiant as ever the following thursday mister bingham again tried to conquer me but in vain we struggled
and he struck me many savage blows as i stood bleeding before him nearly exhausted with his efforts he burst into tears and declared that it would be a sin to beat me any more my suffering at last subdued his hard heart
who expounded the holy scriptures sabbath after sabbath from the pulpit when mister bingham refused to whip me any more
one morning he went to the wood pile took an oak broom cut the handle off
i was so badly bruised that i was unable to leave my bed for five days i will not dwell upon the bitter anguish of these hours for even the thought of them now makes me shudder
he resolved to make another attempt to subdue my proud rebellious spirit made the attempt and again failed when he told me with an air of penitence that he should never strike me another blow and faithfully he kept his word these revolting scenes created a great sensation at the time
and i flatter myself that the actions of those who had conspired against me were not viewed in a light to reflect much credit upon them the savage efforts to subdue my pride were not the only things that brought me suffering and deep mortification during my residence at hillsboro
i was regarded as fair looking for one of my race and for four years a white man i spare the world his name had base designs upon me
suffice it to say that he persecuted me for four years and i i became a mother the child of which he was the father was the only child that i ever brought into the world if my poor boy ever suffered any humiliating pangs on account of birth
he could not blame his mother for god knows that she did not wish to give him life he must blame the edicts of that society which deemed it no crime to undermine the virtue of girls in my then position
north carolina hillsboro april tenth eighteen thirty eight my dear mother
and for that reason you must excuse me i thought very hard of you for not writing to me
and tell me how you like marsfield and if you have seen any of old acquaintances
i want to hear of the family at home very much indeed i really believe you and all the family have forgotten me if not i certainly should have heard from some of you since you left boyton if it was only a line nevertheless
i love you all very dearly and shall although i may never see you again nor do i ever expect to miss anna is going to petersburgh next winter but she says that she does not intend take me
i have often wished that i lived where i knew i never could see you for then i would not have my hopes raised and to be disappointed in this manner however it is said that a bad beginning makes a good ending
but i hardly expect to see that happy day at this place give my love to all the family both white and black
though it is quite late in the day to be thanking for them tell aunt bella that i was very much obliged to her for her present i have been so particular with it that i have only worn it once there have been six weddings since october
the most respectable one was about a fortnight ago i was asked to be the first attendant but as usual with all my expectations i was disappointed for on the wedding day i felt more like being locked up in a three cornered box than attending a wedding
when the night came i was in quite a trouble i did not know whether my frock was clean or dirty i only had a week's notice and the body and sleeves to make and only one hour every night to work on it
so you can see with these troubles to overcome my chance was rather slim i must now close although i could fill ten pages with my griefs and misfortunes no tongue could express them as i feel don't forget me though and answer my letters soon
but miss anna says it is time i had finished tell miss elizabeth that i wish she would make haste and get married for mistress says that i belong to her when she gets married
chapter ten contraceptives or abortion society has not yet learned the significance of the age long effort of the feminine spirit to free itself of the burden of excessive childbearing
it has been singularly blind to the real forces underlying the cause of infanticide child abandonment and abortion it has permitted the highest and most powerful thing in woman's nature to be hindered diverted repressed and confused
society has permitted this inner urge of woman to be rendered violent by repression until it has expressed itself in cruel forms of family limitation which this same society has promptly labeled crimes and sought to punish it has gone on blindly forcing women into these crimes
deaf alike to their entreaties and to the lessons of history as we have seen in the second chapter of this book child abandonment and infanticide are by no means obsolete practices as for abortion it has not decreased but increased with the advance of civilization
while another estimates double that number most of the women of the middle and upper classes in america seem secure in their knowledge of contraceptives as a means of birth control under present conditions when the laws in most states regard this knowledge howsoever it be imparted
as illicit and the federal statutes prohibit the sending of it through the mails even the women in more fortunate circumstances sometimes have difficulty in getting scientific information nevertheless so strong is their purpose that they do obtain it and use it correctly or incorrectly
nearly all of these women will fall into one of two general groups the ones who are having children against their wills and those who to escape this evil find refuge in abortion being given their choice by society to continue to be overburdened mothers
painful and too often gravely dangerous operation those women in whom the feminine urge to freedom is strongest choose the abortionist one group goes on bringing children to birth hoping that they will be born dead or die
the women of the other group strive consciously by drastic means to protect themselves and the children already born our examinations says doctor max hirsch an authority on the subject
this fact brings us to the conclusion that contraceptive measures among the upper classes and the practice of abortion among the lower class are the real means employed to regulate the number of offspring thus a high percentage of women in comfortable circumstances
escape overbreeding by the use of contraceptives a similarly high percentage of women not in comfortable circumstances are forced to submit to forced maternity because their only alternative at present is abortion
when accidental conception takes place some women of both classes resort to abortion if they can obtain the services of an abortionist when society holds up its hands in horror at the crime of abortion it forgets at whose door the first and principal responsibility for this practice rests
does anyone imagine that a woman would submit to abortion if not denied the knowledge of scientific effective contraceptives
the abortionist could not continue his practice for twenty four hours if it were not for the fact that women come desperately begging for such operations he could not stay out of jail a day if women did not so generally approve of his services
will also enable us to comprehend more thoroughly the dangers to which woman is exposed by our antiquated laws and how much better it would be for her to employ such preventive measures
into which the laws now drive her
at a certain age varying slightly with the individual
and passes out of the body when this takes place it is said that the girl is at the age of puberty when it reaches the womb the ovule is ready for the process of conception that is fertilization by the male sperm
if fertilization takes place the fertilized ovule or ovum will cling to the lining of the womb and there gather its nourishment if fertilization does not take place the ovum passes out of the body and the uterus throws off its surplus blood supply
this is called the menstrual period it occurs about once a month or every twenty eight days in the male organs there are glands called testes they secrete a fluid called the semen in the semen is the life giving principle called the sperm
when intercourse takes place if no preventive is employed the semen is deposited in the woman's vagina the ovule is not in the vagina but is in the womb farther up or perhaps in the tube on its way to the womb
several of these sperm cells start but only one enters the ovum and is absorbed into it this process is called fertilization conception or impregnation if no children are desired the meeting of the male sperm and the ovum must be prevented
when scientific means are employed to prevent this meeting one is said to practice birth control the means used is known as a contraceptive
any attempt at removing it or stopping its further growth is called abortion there is no doubt that women are apt to look upon abortion as of little consequence and to treat it accordingly
an abortion is as important a matter as a confinement and requires as much attention as the birth of a child at its full term the immediate dangers of abortion says doctor j clifton edgar in his book the practice of obstetrics
are hemorrhage retention of an adherent placenta sepsis tetanus perforation of the uterus they also cause sterility anemia malignant diseases displacements neurosis and endometritis in plain everyday language
it is only the women of wealth who can afford the best medical skill care and treatment
in this way they escape the usual serious consequences the women whose incomes are limited and who must continue at work before they have recovered from the effects of an abortion are the great army of sufferers it is among such that the deaths due to abortion usually ensue
it is these too who are most often forced to resort to such operations if death does not result the woman who has undergone an abortion is not altogether safe from harm
the womb may not return to its natural size but remain large and heavy tending to fall away from its natural position abortion often leaves the uterus in a condition to conceive easily again and unless prevention is strictly followed another pregnancy will surely occur
these and other conditions arising from such operations are very likely to ruin a woman's general health
while there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician i assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in america each year are a disgrace to civilization
the effects of such operations upon a woman serious as they may be are nothing as compared to the injury done her general health by drugs taken to produce the same result even such drugs as are prescribed by physicians have harmful effects
and nostrums recommended by druggists are often worse still even more drastic may be the effect upon the unborn child
only to decide at last when drugs have failed as they usually do to bring the child to birth there are no statistics of course by which we may compute the amount of suffering to mother and child from the use of such drugs
but we know that the total of physical weakness and disease must be astounding we know that the woman's own system feels the strain of these drugs and that the embryo is usually poisoned by them the child is likely to be
concerning the preventing of conception are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths each year in this country and an untold amount of sickness and sorrow the suffering and the death of these women is squarely upon the heads of the lawmakers and the puritanical
masculine minded person who insist upon retaining the abominable legal restrictions try as they will they cannot escape the truth nor hide it under the cloak of stupid hypocrisy if the laws against imparting knowledge of scientific birth control were repealed
nearly all of the one million or two million women who undergo abortions in the united states each year
suffering and death which so often follows he who would combat abortion says doctor hirsch and at the same time combat contraceptive measures may be likened to the person who would fight contagious diseases and forbid disinfection
for contraceptive measures are important weapons in the fight against abortion america has a law since eighteen seventy three which prohibits by criminal statute the distribution and regulation of contraceptive measures
it follows therefore that america stands at the head of all nations in the huge number of abortions there is the case in a nutshell family limitation will always be practiced as it is now being practiced either by birth control or by abortion we know that
the one means health and happiness a stronger better race the other means disease suffering death the woman who goes to the abortionist's table is not a criminal but a martyr a martyr to the bitter unthinkable conditions brought about by the blindness of society at large
these conditions give her the choice between the surgeon's instruments and the sacrificing of what is highest and holiest in her her aspiration to freedom her desire to protect the children already hers these conditions not the woman outface society with this question
chapter fifteen legislating woman's morals
is the changing of our so called obscenity laws this will be no easy undertaking it is usually much easier to enact statutes than to revise them laws are seldom exactly what they seem rarely what their advocates claim for them
the obscenity statutes are particularly deceptive enacted
they make no distinction between the scientific works of human emancipators like forel and ellis and printed matter such as they are ostensibly aimed at naturally enough then detectives and narrow minded judges and prosecutors who would chuckle over pictures that would make a clean minded woman shudder
in the birth control movement she has already begun to fight for her right to have without legal interference all knowledge pertaining to her sex nature this is the third and most important of the epoch making battles for general liberty upon american soil
it is most important because it is to purify the very fountain of the race and make the race completely free the first and most dramatic of the three great struggles for liberty
it had for its object the right to hold such political beliefs as one might choose and to act in accordance with those beliefs if this political freedom is now lost to us it is because we did not hold strongly enough to those liberties fought for by our forefathers
his championship of the much vaunted and little exercised freedom of religious opinion
and then the effort to enforce them is ridiculous within a few years the tragic combination of false moral standards and infamous obscenity laws will be as ridiculous in the public mind as are the now all but forgotten blasphemy laws if the obscenity laws are not radically revised or repealed
few reactionaries will dare to face the public derision that will greet their attempts to use them to stay woman's progress the french have a saying concerning mort main the dead hand this hand of the past reaches up into the present to smother the rising flame of modern ideals
to reforge our chains when we have broken them to arrest progress it is the hand of such as have lived on earth but have not loved humanity at the call of those who fear progress and freedom it rises from the gloom of forgotten things to oppress the living
it is the dead hand that holds imprisoned within the obscenity laws all direct information concerning birth control it is the dead hand that thus compels millions of american women to remain in the bondage of maternity previous to the year eighteen sixty eight
of information concerning contraceptives in that year however the general assembly of new york passed an act which specifically included the subject of contraceptives
the act made it exactly as great an offense to give such information as to exhibit the sort of pictures and writings at which the legislation was ostensibly aimed in eighteen seventy three the late anthony comstock
who with a list of contributors most of whom did not realize the real effects of his work
succeeded in obtaining the passage of the federal obscenity act this act was presented as one to prevent the circulation of pornographic literature and pictures among school children as such
this act made it a crime to use the mails to convey contraceptives or information concerning contraceptives other acts later made the original law applicable to express companies and other common carriers as well as to the mails with this precedent established
a precedent which a majority of the congressmen could hardly have understood because of the hasty passage of the act comstock secured the enactment of state laws to the same effect meanwhile the provisions regarding contraceptives had been dropped from the amended new york state law of eighteen seventy two
in eighteen seventy three however a new section said to have been drafted by comstock himself
and that section is essentially the substance of the present law none of these acts made it an offense to prevent conception all of them provided punishment for anyone disseminating information concerning the prevention of conception
comstock has passed out of public notice his body has been entombed but the evil that he did lives after him
those laws still live legal monuments to ignorance and to oppression
who undergo the agony of abortion each year this hand reaches out to compel the birth of hundreds of thousands of infants who must die before they are twelve months old like many laws upon our statute books these are being persistently and intelligently violated
has no children at all or a small family the family of the judge who passes upon the case is likely to be smaller still the words it is the law sums it all up for these officials when they pass sentence in court
but these words so magical to the official mind have no weight when these same officials are adjusting their own private lives they then obey the higher laws of their own beings they break the obsolete statutes for themselves while enforcing them for others
this is not the situation with the poorer people of the united states however millions of them know nothing of reliable contraceptives when women of the impoverished strata of society do not break these laws against contraceptives
or upon family limitation was prosecuted if detected
the darkness that surrounded the whole field of sex was made as complete as possible since then the feeling of the awakened women of america has intensified
the arousing of public conscience have all operated to give force and volume to the demand for woman's right to control her own body that she may work out her own salvation those who believe in strictly legal measures as well as those who believe both in legal measures
and in open defiance of these brutal and unjust laws are demanding amendments to the obscenity statutes which shall remove information concerning contraceptives from its present classification among things filthy and obscene
an amendment typical of those offered is that drawn up for the new york statutes under the direction of samuel mc clure lindsey of columbia university
physicians instruments and information an article or instrument used or applied by physicians lawfully practicing or by their direction or prescription for the cure or prevention of disease
is not an article of indecent or immoral nature or use within this article the supplying of such articles to such physicians or by their direction or prescription is not an offense under this article
the giving by a duly licensed physician or registered nurse lawfully practicing of information or advice in regard to or the supplying to any person of any article or medicine for the prevention of conception
is not a violation of any provision of this article this proposed amendment should without doubt include midwives as well as nurses there are thousands of women who never see a nurse or a physician under this section even as it now stands physicians have a right to prescribe contraceptives
but few of them have claimed that right or have even known that it has existed it does exist however and was specifically declared by the new york state court of appeals as we shall see when we consider that court's opinion in the sanger case farther on in the book
it can do no harm to make the intent of the law as regards physicians plainer and it would be an immense step forward to include nurses and midwives in the section with this addition it would remove one of the most serious obstacles to the freedom and advancement of american womanhood
and who are not yet suffering from diseases complicated by pregnancy
it is each woman's duty to herself and to society to hasten the repeal of all laws against the communication of birth control information now that she has the vote she should use her political influence to strike first of all at these restrictive statutes
is in this direction these laws were made by men and have been instruments of martyrdom and death for unnumbered thousands of women women now have the opportunity to sweep them into the trash heap they will do it at once unless like men
to which in his wilder state he appears to have been a stranger his vocabulary if it may be so called then increases in order to express his enlarged and varying emotions he anticipates rewards and punishments
and learns to solicit the former and deprecate the latter he bounds exultingly forth to accompany his master in his walks rides and sports of the field he acts as the faithful guardian of his property he is his fire side companion
evidently discerns days of household mirth or grief and deports himself accordingly hence his energies and his sensibilities are all expanded and what he feels he seeks to tell in various accents and in different ways
i have seen a dog pick up a stick and bring it in his mouth to his master looking at the water first and then at his master evidently that the stick might be thrown into it that he might have the pleasure of swimming after it
in my younger days i was in the habit of teazing a favourite dog by twitching his nose and pretending to pull his ears he would snap gently at me
as if grateful for what he was doing those who are in the habit of having dogs constantly in the room with them will have perceived how alive they are to the slightest change in the countenance of their master how gently they will touch him with their paw when he is eating
in order to remind him of their own want of food and how readily they distinguish the movements of any inmate of the house from those of a stranger
these and many other circumstances which might be mentioned show a marked distinction between a domesticated dog and one that is wild or who has lived with people who are in an uncivilized state such as the esquimaux
they will bury or hide food which they are unable to consume at once and return for it but the domestic dog perhaps gives stronger proofs of forethought and i will give an instance of it
a large metal pot turned on one side in which a great quantity of porridge had been boiled
i had a dog who having once scalded his tongue always afterwards when i gave him his milk and water at breakfast put his paw very cautiously into the saucer to see if the liquid was too hot before he would touch it with his tongue
without owners amongst the number two more particularly distinguished themselves for their animosity to cats one day they were in pursuit of a cat which seeing no other place of refuge near made her escape into a long earthen water pipe
which was lying on the ground these two inseparable companions who always supported each other pursued the cat to the pipe where they were seen to stop and apparently to consult each other as to
the memory of dogs is quite extraordinary and only equalled by that of the elephant mister swainson in his work on the instincts of animals gives the following proof of this he says that
being always told that he must not follow his master to church on sundays used on those days to set off long before the service and lie concealed under the hedge so near the church that at length the point was yielded to him
my little parlour dog never offers to go with me on a sunday although on other days he is perfectly wild to accompany me in my walks in my younger days i had a favourite dog which always accompanied me to church my mother
seeing that he attracted too much of my attention ordered the servant to shut him every sunday morning this was done once but never afterwards for he concealed himself early every sunday morning and i was sure to find him either under my seat at church or else
at the church door that dogs clearly distinguish the return of sunday cannot be doubted the almost incredible penetration and expedition
in essex a still more extraordinary circumstance is upon record of the late colonel hardy who having been sent for express to bath was accompanied by a favourite spaniel bitch
in his chaise which he never quitted till his arrival there after remaining there four days he accidentally left his spaniel behind him and returned to his residence at springfield in essex with equal expedition where in three days after
his faithful and steady adherent arrived also notwithstanding the distance between that place and bath is one hundred forty miles and she had to explore her way through london to which she had never been except in her passage to bath and then within the confines of a close carriage
but his intentions were of a more benevolent nature after guarding the entrance of the kennel for some time he trotted down the yard into the street looked about to the right and left and seeing that the coast was clear he went back again
he says that the cook in the house of a friend of his a lady on whose accuracy he could rely and from whom he had the anecdote missed a marrow bone
suspicion fell on a well behaved dog a great favourite and up to that time distinguished for his honesty he was charged with the theft he hung down his tail and for a day or two was altered in his manner having become shy sullen
and sheepish to use these expressions for want of better in this mood he continued till to the amusement of the cook he brought back the bone and laid it at her feet then with the restoration of her stolen property he resumed his cheerful manner
how can we interpret this conduct of the dog better than by supposing that he was aware he had done amiss and that the evil doing preyed on him till he had made restitution was not this a kind of moral sense
by acting in this manner he never loses sight of his master a dog has been known to convey food to another of his species who was tied up and pining for want of it
a dog has frequently been seen to plunge voluntarily into a rapid stream to rescue another that was in danger of drowning
he has defended helpless curs from the attacks of other dogs and learns to apportion punishment according to the provocation received frequently disdaining to exercise his power and strength on a weaker adversary
repeated provocation will however excite and revenge for instance a newfoundland dog was quietly eating his mess of broth and broken scraps while so employed a turkey endeavoured to share the meal with him
the dog growled and displayed his teeth the intruder retired for a moment but quickly returned to the charge and was again warned off with a like result after three or four attempts of the same kind the dog became provoked
gave a sudden ferocious growl bit off the delinquent's head and then quietly finished his meal without bestowing any further attention on his victim
the celebrated leibnitz related to the french academy an account of a dog he had seen which was taught to speak and could call in an intelligible manner for tea coffee chocolate
a little boy the peasant's son imagined that he perceived in the dog's voice an indistinct resemblance to certain words and was therefore determined to teach him to speak distinctly
for this purpose he spared neither time nor pains with his pupil who was about three years old when his learned education commenced and at length he made such progress in language as to be able to articulate no less than thirty words
it appears however that he was somewhat of a truant and did not very willingly exert his talents being rather pressed into the service of literature and it was necessary that the words should be first pronounced to him each time before he spoke
gathered from various authorities by h g bohn a few words may not be out of place here on the feeding and management of dogs for all else which concerns canine science the reader cannot do better than consult among modern works
blaine's canine pathology the article dog in the encyclopaedia britannica or penny cyclopaedia hutchinson on dog breaking radcliffe on fox hunting mayhew on the dog or colonel hamilton smith on dogs
the natural food of the dog is flesh and it is found that those in a wild state prefer it to every other kind of nutriment but as raw meat engenders ferocity it should not be given too freely
especially to house dogs and such as are not actively exercised the dog can subsist on many kinds of food and it is a curious fact that when fed entirely on flesh he will sometimes get lean
because as has been well observed it is not on what animals eat that they thrive but on what they digest the diet of sporting dogs in full work should it is said by some consist of at least two thirds of flesh
with a judicious mixture of farinaceous vegetables but there is great diversity of opinion on this subject and in france they are fed almost exclusively on soaked bread dogs it is generally said
and the pans be cleaned out daily but some feeders we are told and it seems strange limit the supply of water and substitute moistened food a piece of rock brimstone kept in the pan will be found useful
although the dog is naturally a voracious animal he can endure hunger for a very great length of time and be brought by habit to subsist on a very scanty meal
in the memoirs of the academy of sciences it is stated that a bitch which was forgotten in a country house where she had access to no other nourishment lived forty days on the wool of an old mattress which she had torn to pieces and digested
an extraordinary instance of a similar kind occurred with a terrier bitch named gipsy one day when following her master through a grass park near gilmerton it happened that she started a hare
during the pursuit her master suddenly lost sight of her and in a few days she was considered either killed or lost six weeks afterwards a person happening to look down an old coal pit was surprised to hear a dog howling
he lost no time in returning to the village and having procured a hand basket let it down by a rope into the shaft the dog immediately leapt into it and on being brought to the surface proved to be gipsy worn to perfect skin and bone
and what she had found to support her there it is impossible to tell stag hounds fox hounds harriers and beagles are generally fed on oatmeal some add well boiled flesh to it once in two days
others are of opinion that oatmeal and barleymeal in equal proportions form a preferable food in either case the meal should be made into porridge with the addition of a little milk and occasionally the kitchen offal
well boiled greens or mangel wurzel boiled to a jelly are an excellent addition to the food of all dogs and may be given twice a week but they ought to be discontinued during the shooting season with pointers setters
cockers and greyhounds and also during the hunting season with foxhounds harriers and beagles as they are apt to render the bowels too open for hard work
although in general dogs are sagacious enough not to scald themselves as we see in landseer's exquisite little picture on the opposite page dogs which are hard worked are by some said to be the better for having two meals a day
a very light one of mixed food in the morning before going out and a full meal principally of flesh on their return in the evening but as a general rule one good meal a day towards the evening is sufficient and they may be left to pick up what they can
indeed the dealers never give more than one meal a day bones to pick may be allowed them occasionally but hard bones in excess are likely to wear and damage the teeth nothing is better than paunch tripe
or good wholesome horse or cow flesh boiled and the liquor mixed well with oatmeal porridge the quantity of each about equal if horse or cow flesh is not to be had graves in moderate quantity and well scalded are a tolerable
though not very desirable substitute they are generally broken small mixed with about one half the quantity of oatmeal then thoroughly soaked in boiling water and well stirred or a better way still is to boil them together like porridge
dogs like men require a change of food and it has been strongly asserted that barleymeal and oatmeal without change predisposes to cutaneous disease and even produces it therefore a judicious feeder like a good cook
will contrive to vary his bill of fare porridge and milk dog biscuit farinaceous food the scraps of the kitchen the offal of bullocks or sheep which should be well boiled make an excellent variety
care should be taken never to present more to a dog than he will eat with a good appetite and when oatmeal and barleymeal are given mixed the former should first be boiled for twenty minutes and then the latter added and boiled only for about eight or ten minutes
this meal should however never be given in the hunting season as it is too heating and occasions the dogs to be perpetually drinking their food ought as a general rule
to be given to them pretty thick as thin porridge does not stay the stomach so well the feeding troughs for hounds should be sufficiently wide at the bottom and carefully cleaned out and scalded with hot water every second day
after a hard day's work a meal of horse flesh may be given them as fresh killed as possible or bullocks paunches or sheeps trotters all of which should be well boiled greyhounds should be fed principally on animal food such as
sheeps trotters or neats feet boiled or stewed down and mixed with bread and given moderately in the morning and afternoon the dog never being allowed on any occasion to eat a great quantity at once
or on other hand meat as it will enlarge and strengthen the muscular fibre without increasing the cellular tissue and adipose substance which has an invariable tendency to affect their breathing
the butchers meat should be of the best quality and not over fat as greasy substances of all kinds are apt to render the body gross and the skin diseased after they have been coursed they should be well brushed
nothing is more essential to the health and efficiency of all dogs than pure air and cleanliness their beds should if possible be placed on a wooden bench or at least on some dry position
on attention to cleanliness depends in some degree the dog's exquisite sense of smelling for if accustomed to strong or disagreeable effluvia he will be but ill adapted to trace the fall of a deer or scent of a fox
indeed even animal food too freely given is said to have a prejudicial effect upon the nose of a sporting dog a dog employed in watching premises
should not be needlessly exposed to the damp or cutting night winds but placed in as dry and sheltered a situation as possible if kept in the dwelling house he should have a place appropriated to his night's rest
this may be an open box or a basket with a piece of carpet or blanket or clean straw at the bottom if either of the former it should be often beaten to free it from fleas or nits which soon infest it and frequently washed and dried
and blaine and to the practical information obtained from mister herring of the new road and mister william george an extensive dog fancier at kensall new town may be appropriately subjoined a lively chapter from the recent work of mister francis butler
a leading american authority on the subject it is more important to understand the management of a dog than to be possessed of a thousand nominal remedies for the cure of his various ailments inasmuch as the antidote is at all times preferable
to the cure i shall first throw out a few hints on the management of pets whilst many are sacrificed for lack of necessary attendance there are thousands who perish prematurely from overdoses of kindness
delicate breeds of dogs certainly require great care and attention in rearing but overstrained tenderness is often more dangerous than culpable neglect
i ask you then neither to stuff nor starve neither to chill nor burn a house pet should always have a sleeping place allotted to him warm and comfortable not near the fire nor in the damp
anything round is best for an animal to lay in such as a tastefully ornamented box in cold weather it should not be larger than to contain him comfortably it is best for the following reasons
and his bed may be made exactly to fit him it also takes up less available space than any other shape he should never be fed to the full neither excited to eat when he appears disinclined lack of appetite
so common to pampered favourites is generally the result of an overloaded stomach and disordered digestion this is easily cured by medicine but more safely and simply without it fast him for twenty four hours
after which keep him on half his ordinary allowance if this agrees with him and he keeps in fair condition continue the regimen nursing in the lap is injurious
not in itself but the animal is thereby subjected to constant chills in emerging from a snoozy warmth to a cold carpet or chilly bed
a dog accustomed to the lap is always shivering after it and renders himself quite troublesome by his importunate addresses a moderate share of nursing is well enough but should be indulged in only as an occasional treat
great care should be taken in the washing of delicate dogs when this operation is performed they should be rubbed perfectly dry after which they should be covered and remain so till the shivering has completely subsided
is far better than hot and not so likely to give the animal cold injudicious washing and bad drying are productive of running sore eyes
more especially visible in white poodles where the hair is long and woolly retaining the moisture once a fortnight is often enough to wash any dog but a white one washing has very little effect in the destruction of vermin
fleas can live some time under water which i have often thought only makes them bite the harder and stick the closer when reanimated from their temporary torpidity
if butler's mange liniment and flea exterminator cannot be obtained the animal may be well sodden with soft soap and washed about ten minutes after this cannot be done with safety except in warm weather
in cold weather the comb may be used immediately after the application of the soap as the fleas will then be too stupid to effect their escape
no flea will remain alive the skin will be thoroughly cleansed and the coat beautified dogs should never be allowed to suffer the torment imposed on them by these detestable vermin
if the owners could only realise the importance of ridding them of these ever noisome pests there would be far less of snappishness mange
perfectly exhausted from incessant irritation at last worn to a skeleton and gradually extinguished by a creeping consumption besides who
for his own personal comfort would not rid his immediate vicinity of a worthless mob of blood suckers awaiting the first favourable opportunity of regaling themselves on human blood if your dog lie on straw burn it once a week
as fleas harbour and propagate in the tubes of the straw if the bed be carpet or anything similar let it be often cleansed or changed vermin revel in filth and their extirpation depends mainly on cleanliness
by attending to the general health of a dog much disease may be avoided indeed this is far more essential than prescriptions for a cure it is very easy to carry off a slight indisposition by gentle purgatives and a reformed diet
the breath should be carefully noted the eyes may be red or pale sunken or protruded the nose may be hot or dry or matted with dirt the gums may be pale
if you are in the habit of keeping your dog on the chain let him at least run a few minutes every day if he be kept indoors he should also be allowed a little daily exercise outside change of air
will sometimes renovate when all remedies fail a change from city to country from greasy meat to fresh milk from a confined yard to the green fields will generally recruit him without the aid of medicine
nature to whom physicians are so deeply indebted for so many wonderful restorations often effects a cure unaided
early in the morning is preferable for summer exercise the kennel should be located in a shady spot during the summer in winter it should be sheltered from the wind and so placed as to enable the dog to enjoy the sunshine at will
above all things never chain a dog where he cannot screen himself from the sun's rays he must have the option of sunshine or shade he should not be allowed to drink water that has been standing in the sun or is otherwise damaged
if you should chance to forget to feed him for forty eight hours
should be made under it and left open at both ends that the animal may have a cool retreat during the heat those who do not object to a trifling expense may have the house posted on a large paving stone with an excavation under it as before recommended
all burrowing animals seek the earth in hot weather everything on the surface is heated their own instinct dictates the most reasonable method of sheltering themselves from the heat at the same time absorbing the cool exhalations from the ground
in southern climates especially this method is all important in this manner i have kept dogs from the polar regions in comparative comfort whilst many native born and neglected have been scalded into fits paralysis rabies
or hydrophobia in the hot season with young dogs raw meat should be avoided except it be quite fresh and then they should not be over fed especially if debarred of abundant exercise and excluded from their own natural medicine grass
but he should be fed with discretion and his health attended to should his diet visibly disagree with him
he will grow fatter and be more healthy on moderate meals than if overgorged the better plan is to ascertain his average consumption and then allow him a little less keep his digestion in good order and disease will rarely trouble him
his coat and ribs will generally indicate whether he be sufficiently cared for whether he be sick or sound in his digestive organs feed him always in the same place and at the same hour once a day is sufficient if he be over six months old
dogs are pretty quiet during the digestive process when left to themselves and should not have much exercise after a heavy meal they should only be lightly fed before training lessons or on sporting days
on the latter occasions a little refreshment may be administered as occasion may require those kept in doors should be allowed to run a little after meals when they generally require an evacuation
if a dog be regularly exercised he will seldom even soil around his kennel and a healthy house pet is rarely troublesome except after eating if a dog be uncleanly in the house he should decidedly be broken of it
although it would be useless to correct him unless he has a fair opportunity of avoiding it he should be invariably taken to the spot be sufficiently twigged there and unceremoniously scolded into the yard
the punishment will be far more justly administered if the animal be let out at regular intervals this being done he will not attempt to infringe the law except in cases of dire necessity i am satisfied as a general rule
that a well amalgamated mixture of animal and vegetable is the most healthful diet for dogs of all ages breeds and conditions
the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same they believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy
but that the power ought not to be exercised unless at the request of the people of the district the difference between these opinions and those contained in the above resolutions is their reason for entering this protest signed dan stone
and this remained in force in the illinois country after its separation another act providing for the hiring of slaves from southern states was passed in eighteen fourteen for the ostensible reason that
mills could not be successfully operated in the territory for want of laborers and that the manufacture of salt could not be successfully carried on by white laborers
from time to time the most savage acts were passed to prohibit the immigration of free negroes into the territory which was represented as pining for black labor those who held slaves under the french domination and their heirs
continued to hold them and their descendants in servitude after illinois had become nominally a free territory and a free state on the ground that their vested rights of property could not have been abrogated by the ordinance
and that under the rule of the civil law partus sequitur ventrem but this quasi toleration of the institution was not enough for the advocates of slavery soon after the adoption of the state constitution which prohibited slavery hereafter
it was evident that there was a strong under current of desire for its introduction into the state some of the leading politicians exaggerating the extent of this desire imagined they saw in it a means of personal advancement
and began to agitate the question of a convention to amend the constitution at that time there was a considerable emigration setting through the state from kentucky and tennessee to missouri
trips of business or pleasure they dazzled the eyes of the women and excited the envy of their male rivals with their black retainers the early illinoisans were perplexed with a secret and singular sense of inferiority
they are to be considered as gentlefolks entitled to higher consideration than us plain free state folks who have to work for ourselves the attempt
the governor edward coles of virginia a strong antislavery man had been elected by a division of the pro slavery party but came in with a legislature largely against him the senate had the requisite pro slavery majority of two thirds for a convention
in the house of representatives there was a contest for a seat upon the result of which the two thirds majority depended the seat was claimed by john shaw and nicholas hansen of pike county
the way in which the contest was decided affords a curious illustration of the moral sense of the advocates of slavery they wanted at this session to elect a senator and provide for the convention hansen would vote for their senator
and not for the convention shaw would vote for the convention but not for thomas their candidate for senator
but impartially to use both they gave the seat to hansen and with his vote elected thomas they then turned him out gave the place to shaw
they were not more magnanimous in their victory than scrupulous in the means by which they had gained it the night after the vote was taken they formed in a wild and drunken procession and visited the residences of the governor and the other free state leaders
with loud and indecent demonstrations of triumph they considered their success already assured but they left out of view the value of the moral forces called into being by their insolent challenge the better class of people in the state
those heretofore unknown in politics the schoolmasters the ministers
was indicted and severely fined for having brought his own freedmen into the state and having assisted them in establishing themselves around him upon farms of their own the legislature remitted the fine
but the circuit court declared it had no constitutional power to do so though the supreme court afterwards overruled this decision any mention of the subject of slavery was thought in the worst possible taste and no one could avow himself opposed to it
without the risk of social ostracism every town had its one or two abolitionists who were regarded as harmless or dangerous lunatics according to the energy with which they made their views known
from this arose a singular prejudice against new england people it was attributable partly to the natural feeling of distrust of strangers which is common to ignorance and provincialism but still more
to a general suspicion that all eastern men were abolitionists mister cook who so long represented the state in congress used to relate with much amusement how he once spent the night in a farmer's cabin and listened to the honest man's denunciations of
that yankee cook cook was a kentuckian but his enemies could think of no more dreadful stigma to apply to him than that of calling him a yankee senator james a mc dougall once told us that although he made no pretense of concealing his eastern nativity
he never could keep his ardent friends in pike county from denying the fact and fighting any one who asserted it the great preacher peter cartwright used to denounce eastern men roundly in his sermons calling them
imps who lived on oysters instead of honest corn bread and bacon the taint of slavery the contagion of a plague they had not quite escaped was on the people of illinois they were strong enough to rise once in their might
their readiness to do what came to be called later in a famous speech the dirty work of the south was seen
in this very year of eighteen thirty seven he had for some years been publishing a religious newspaper in saint louis but finding the atmosphere of that city becoming dangerous to him on account of the freedom of his comments upon southern institutions
he moved to alton in illinois twenty five miles further up the river his arrival excited an immediate tumult in that place a mob gathered there on the day he came it was sunday and the good people were at leisure
and threw his press into the mississippi having thus expressed their determination to vindicate the law they held a meeting and cited him before it to declare his intentions he said they were altogether peaceful and legal
that he intended to publish a religious newspaper and not to meddle with politics this seemed satisfactory to the people and he was allowed to fish out his press buy new types and set up his paper but mister lovejoy was a predestined martyr
he felt there was a woe upon him if he held his peace against the wickedness across the river he wrote and published what was in his heart to say and alton was again vehemently moved a committee appointed itself to wait upon him
which makes it seem to the participants legal and orderly the preacher met them with an undaunted front and told them he must do his duty as it appeared to him that he was amenable to law but nothing else he even spoke in condemnation of mobs
such language from a minister of the gospel shocked and infuriated the committee and those whom they represented the people assembled says governor ford and quietly took the press and types and threw them into the river we venture to say that the word quietly
and which he firmly rejected the threats of the mob were answered by defiance from the little band that surrounded the abolitionist a new press was ordered and arrived and was stored in a warehouse where lovejoy and his friends shut themselves up
determined to defend it with their lives they were there besieged by the infuriated crowd and after a short interchange of shots lovejoy was killed his friends dispersed and the press once more and this time finally
had since eighteen thirty one been pouring forth once a week in the liberator his earnest and eloquent denunciations of slavery taking no account of the expedient or the possible but demanding with all the fervor of an ancient prophet
the immediate removal of the cause of offense oliver johnson attacked the national sin and wrong in the standard with zeal and energy equally hot and untiring
their words stung the slave holding states to something like frenzy the georgia legislature offered a reward of five thousand dollars to any one who should kidnap garrison or who should bring to conviction any one circulating the liberator in the state
yet so little known in their own neighborhoods were these early workers in this great reform that when the mayor of boston received remonstrances from certain southern states against such an incendiary publication as the liberator he was able to say
that no member of the city government and no person of his acquaintance had ever heard of the paper or its editor that on search being made it was found that his office was an obscure hole his only visible auxiliary a negro boy
petitions to congress which were met by gag laws constantly increasing in severity
prohibit under severe penalties the further progress of such incendiary proceedings as were calculated to stimulate the slaves to insurrection and to produce all the horrors of civil war but in spite of all this
people with uneasy consciences continued to write and talk and petition congress against slavery and most of the state legislatures began to pass resolutions denouncing them in the last days of eighteen thirty six governor duncan sent to the illinois legislature
cannot abolish slavery in the district of columbia against the consent of the citizens of said district without a manifest breach of good faith and requesting the governor to transmit to the states which had sent their resolutions to him
a copy of those tranquilizing expressions a long and dragging debate ensued of which no record has been preserved the resolutions after numberless amendments had been voted upon were finally passed in the senate unanimously
in the house with none but lincoln and five others in the negative footnote we are under obligations to john m adair for transcripts of the state records bearing on this matter
there was no reason that abraham lincoln should take especial notice of these resolutions more than another he had done his work at this session in effecting the removal of the capital he had only to shrug his shoulders at the violence and untruthfulness of the majority
vote against them and go back to his admiring constituents to his dinners and his toasts but his conscience and his reason forbade him to be silent he felt a word must be said on the other side to redress the distorted balance
he wrote his protest saying not one word he was not ready to stand by then and thereafter wasting not a syllable in rhetoric or feeling keeping close to law and truth and justice when he had finished it he showed it to some of his colleagues for their adhesion
but one and all refused except dan stone who was not a candidate for reelection having retired from politics to a seat on the bench the risk was too great for the rest to run lincoln was twenty eight years old
after a youth of singular privations and struggles he had arrived at an enviable position in the politics and the society of the state his intimate friends those whom he loved and honored were browning butler logan and stuart kentuckians all
could not withhold him from performing a simple duty a duty which no one could have blamed him for leaving undone the crowning grace of the whole act is in the closing sentence
the difference between these opinions and those contained in the said resolutions is their reason for entering this protest reason enough for the lincolns and luthers he had many years of growth and development before him
there was a long distance to be traversed between the guarded utterances of this protest and the heroic audacity which launched the proclamation of emancipation
in the midst of a community imbued with slave state superstitions that
attacking thus its moral and material supports
had in him the making of a statesman and if need be a martyr his whole career was to run in the lines marked out by these words written in the hurry of a closing session
mister lincoln had made thus far very little money nothing more in fact than a subsistence of the most modest character but he had made some warm friends and this meant much among the early illinoisans
he had become intimately acquainted at vandalia with william butler who was greatly interested in the removal of the capital to springfield and who urged the young legislator
of whom seventy eight were free negroes twenty registered indentured servants and six slaves scarcely a perceptible trace of color one would say yet we find in the springfield paper a leading article beginning with the startling announcement
our state is threatened to be overrun with free negroes the county was one of the richest in illinois possessed of a soil of inexhaustible fertility and divided to the best advantage between prairie and forest it was settled early in the history of the state
and the country was held in high esteem by the aborigines the name of sangamon is said to mean in the pottawatomie language land of plenty
a large majority of them from kentucky
men of education and character there had been very little of what might be called pioneer life in springfield civilization came in with a reasonably full equipment at the beginning the edwardses in fair top boots and ruffled shirts
will show how much attention to dress was paid in the new capital cloths cassinetts cassimeres velvet silk satin and marseilles vestings fine calf boots seal and morocco pumps for gentlemen
and for the sex which in barbarism dresses less and in civilization dresses more than the male
lace veils thread lace thibet shawls lace handkerchiefs fine prunella shoes
from the garb of men the deerskin moccasin supplanted by the leather boot and shoe
which were good enough for their fathers but with the change in dress came other alterations which were all for the better a growing self respect among the young an industry and thrift by which they could buy good clothes a habit of attending religious service where they could show them
a progress in sociability civility trade and morals the taste for civilization had sometimes a whimsical manifestation mister stuart said the members of the legislature bitterly complained of the amount of game
wheat was fifty cents a bushel rye thirty three corn and oats were twenty five potatoes twenty five butter was eight cents a pound and eggs were eight cents a dozen pork was two and a half cents a pound
the town was built on the edge of the woods the north side touching the timber the south encroaching on the prairie the richness of the soil was seen in the mud of the streets black as ink and of an unfathomable depth in time of thaw
there were of course no pavements or sidewalks an attempt at crossings was made by laying down large chunks of wood the houses were almost all wooden and were disposed in rectangular blocks
in anticipation of future greatness and there when lincoln began his residence the work of clearing the ground for the new state house was already going forward in one of the largest houses looking on the square at the north west corner the county court had its offices
and other rooms in the building were let to lawyers one of these was occupied by stuart and lincoln for the friendship formed in the black hawk war and strengthened at vandalia induced major stuart to offer a partnership to captain lincoln
never used the designation after he laid down his command lincoln did not gain any immediate eminence at the bar his preliminary studies had been cursory and slight and stuart was then too much engrossed in politics to pay the unremitting attention to the law
which that jealous mistress requires he had been a candidate for congress the year before and had been defeated by w l may he was a candidate again in eighteen thirty eight and was elected over so agile an adversary as stephen arnold douglas
his paramount interest in these canvasses necessarily prevented him from setting to his junior partner the example which lincoln so greatly needed of close and steady devotion to their profession
it was several years later that lincoln found with judge logan the companionship and inspiration which he required and began to be really a lawyer during the first year or two he is principally remembered in springfield as an excellent talker
the life and soul of the little gatherings about the county offices a story teller of the first rank a good natured friendly fellow whom everybody liked and trusted he relied more upon his influence with a jury than upon his knowledge of law in the few cases he conducted in court
and lincoln remained a member of the legislature by successive reelections from eighteen thirty four to eighteen forty two his campaigns were carried on almost entirely without expense
joshua speed told the writers that on one occasion some of the whigs contributed a purse of two hundred dollars which speed handed to lincoln to pay his personal expenses in the canvass
with the request that he return it to the subscribers i did not need the money he said i made the canvass on my own horse my entertainment being at the houses of friends cost me nothing and my only outlay was seventy five cents for a barrel of cider
the magnificent schemes of the foregoing winter required some repairing the banks throughout the united states had suspended specie payments in the spring and as the state banks in illinois were the fiscal agents of the railroads and canals
the governor called upon the law makers to revise their own work to legalize the suspension and bring their improvement system within possible bounds they acted as might have been expected complied with the former suggestion but flatly refused to touch their masterpiece
they had been glorifying their work too energetically to destroy it in its infancy it was said you could recognize a legislator that year in any crowd by his automatic repetition of the phrase thirteen hundred fellow citiztens and fifty miles of railroad
there was nothing to be done but to go on with the stupendous folly loans were effected with surprising and fatal facility and before the end of the year work had begun at many points on the railroads the whole state was excited to the highest pitch of frenzy and expectation
the work was begun on a magnificent scale nine millions of dollars were thought to be a mere trifle in view of the colossal sum expected to be realized from the sale of canal lands three hundred thousand acres of which had been given by the general government
there were rumors of coming trouble and of an unhealthy condition of the banks
mister cyrus edwards boldly made his canvass for governor as a supporter of the system of internal improvements and his opponent thomas carlin was careful not to commit himself strongly on the other side
carlin was elected and finding that a majority of the legislature was still opposed to any steps backward he made no demonstration against the system at the first session lincoln was a member of this body
and being by that time the unquestioned leader of the whig minority was nominated for speaker and came within one vote of an election the legislature was still stiff necked and perverse in regard to the system
it refused to modify it in the least and voted as if in bravado another eight hundred thousand dollars to extend it but this was the last paroxysm of a fever that was burnt out the market was glutted with illinois bonds
failed or made away with the proceeds of sales the system had utterly failed there was nothing to do but repeal it stop work upon the visionary roads and endeavor to invent some means of paying the enormous debt
this work taxed the energies of the legislature in eighteen thirty nine
not especially wiser than the rest was contributed by mister lincoln it provided for the issue of bonds for the payment of the interest due by the state and for the appropriation of a special portion of state taxes to meet the obligations thus incurred
he supported his bill in a perfectly characteristic speech making no effort to evade his share of the responsibility for the crisis and submitting his views with diffidence to the approval of the assembly his plan was not adopted
it was too simple and straightforward even if it had any other merits to meet the approval of an assembly intent only upon getting out of immediate embarrassment by means which might save them future trouble on the stump there was even an undercurrent of sentiment in favor of repudiation
and how much interest was therefore to be paid bonds were sold for this purpose at a heavy loss this session of the legislature was enlivened by a singular contest between the whigs and democrats in relation to the state banks
their suspension of specie payments had been legalized up to the adjournment of the next session of the legislature they were not now able to resume
the charter of the banks would be forfeited a purpose the party was eager to accomplish
by the banks in which it may be here said they were finally successful but on one occasion being in the minority and having exhausted every other parliamentary means of opposition and delay and seeing the vote they dreaded imminent
they tried to defeat it by leaving the house in a body and the doors being locked a number of them
jumped from the windows of the church where the legislature was then holding its sessions i think says mister joseph gillespie who was one of those who performed this feat of acrobatic politics mister lincoln always regretted it
nothing was left of the brilliant schemes of the historic legislature of eighteen thirty six but a load of debt which crippled for many years the energies of the people a few miles of embankments which the grass hastened to cover
and a few abutments which stood for years by the sides of leafy rivers waiting for their long delaying bridges and trains
but we think that few men have ever lived who were more free from those degrading passions than abraham lincoln and the personal reprobation with which he always visited the public acts of douglas arose from his sincere conviction that able as douglas was
and in many respects admirable in character he was essentially without fixed political morals
where douglas was busy in getting the circuit attorneyship away from john j hardin he held it only long enough to secure a nomination to the legislature in eighteen thirty six
where he lived but he gave up the fight for the purpose of having himself appointed register of the land office at springfield he held this place as a means of being nominated for congress the next year he was nominated and defeated in eighteen forty
meant to include aliens in that category as the aliens were nearly all democrats that party insisted on their voting and the whigs objected
chief among whom was mister douglas were in some anxiety as an unfavorable decision would lose them about ten thousand alien votes in the presidential election in november in this conjuncture one judge smith of the supreme court an ardent democrat
communicated to mister douglas two important facts first that a majority of the court would certainly decide against the aliens and secondly
and save the alien vote for van buren and the democratic ticket this was done
mister douglas handed in a bill reforming the judiciary for they had learned that serviceable word already the circuit judges were turned out of office and five new judges were added to the supreme court who were to perform circuit duty also
it is needless to say that judge douglas was one of these
there was no resource but a protest and here again lincoln uttered the voice of the conscience of the party he was joined on this occasion by edward d baker footnote afterwards senator from oregon and as colonel of the seventy first pennsylvania
called the first california killed at ball's bluff and some others who protested against the act because first it violates the principles of free government by subjecting the judiciary to the legislature
fourth it will greatly increase the expense of our courts or else greatly diminish their utility fifth it will give our courts a political and partisan character thereby impairing public confidence in their decisions sixth
it was a long time before pierre could fall asleep that night he paced up and down his room
now suddenly shrugging his shoulders and wincing and now smiling happily he was thinking of prince andrew of natasha and of their love at one moment jealous of her past then reproaching himself for that feeling
it was already six in the morning and he still paced up and down the room well what's to be done if it cannot be avoided what's to be done evidently it has to be so said he to himself and hastily undressing he got into bed
happy and agitated but free from hesitation or indecision strange and impossible as such happiness seems i must do everything that she and i may be man and wife he told himself a few days previously pierre had decided to go to petersburg on the friday
what to petersburg what is petersburg who is there in petersburg he asked involuntarily though only to himself oh yes long ago before this happened i did for some reason mean to go to petersburg he reflected why
but perhaps i shall go what a good fellow he is and how attentive and how he remembers everything he thought
and what a pleasant smile he has
do you still not wish to accept your freedom pierre asked him what's the good of freedom to me your excellency we lived under the late count the kingdom of heaven be his and we have lived under you too without ever being wronged
and your children the children will live just the same with such masters one can live but what about my heirs said pierre supposing i suddenly marry it might happen he added with an involuntary smile
it would be a good thing how easy he thinks it thought pierre he doesn't know how terrible it is and how dangerous too soon or too late it is terrible
no i'll put it off for a bit i'll tell you later you must forgive the trouble i have put you to said pierre and seeing savelich smile he thought
but probably he knows it well enough and is only pretending shall i have a talk with him and see what he thinks pierre reflected no another time at breakfast pierre told the princess his cousin that he had been to see princess mary the day before
and had there met whom do you think natasha rostova
do you know her asked pierre
that they were arranging a match for her with young rostov it would be a very good thing for the rostovs they are said to be utterly ruined no i mean do you know natasha rostova
i heard about that affair of hers at the time it was a great pity no she either doesn't understand or is pretending thought pierre better not say anything to her either the princess too had prepared provisions for pierre's journey
how kind they all are thought pierre
and all for me on the same day the chief of police came to pierre inviting him to send a representative to the faceted palace to recover things that were to be returned to their owners that day
and this man too thought pierre looking into the face of the chief of police what a fine good looking officer and how kind fancy bothering about such trifles now and they actually say he is not honest and takes bribes what nonsense
that's the way he was brought up and everybody does it but what a kind pleasant face and how he smiles as he looks at me pierre went to princess mary's to dinner
as he drove through the streets past the houses that had been burned down he was surprised by the beauty of those ruins the picturesqueness of the chimney stacks and tumble down walls of the burned out quarters of the town
stretching out and concealing one another reminded him of the rhine and the colosseum the cabmen he met and their passengers the carpenters cutting the timber for new houses with axes
all looked at him with cheerful beaming eyes that seemed to say
there he is let's see what will come of it
and really seen natasha and talked to her perhaps i imagined it perhaps i shall go in and find no one there but he had hardly entered the room before he felt her presence with his whole being by the loss of his sense of freedom
she was in the same black dress with soft folds and her hair was done the same way as the day before yet she was quite different had she been like this when he entered the day before he could not for a moment have failed to recognize her
she was as he had known her almost as a child and later on as prince andrew's fiancee a bright questioning light shone in her eyes and on her face was a friendly and strangely roguish expression
though princess mary and natasha were evidently glad to see their visitor and though all pierre's interest was now centered in that house by the evening they had talked over everything and the conversation passed from one trivial topic to another and repeatedly broke off
he stayed so long that princess mary and natasha exchanged glances evidently wondering when he would go pierre noticed this but could not go he felt uneasy and embarrassed but sat on because he simply could not get up and take his leave
princess mary foreseeing no end to this rose first and complaining of a headache began to say good night so you are going to petersburg tomorrow she asked
yes no to petersburg tomorrow but i won't say good by yet i will call round in case you have any commissions for me said he standing before princess mary and turning red but not taking his departure
natasha gave him her hand and went out princess mary on the other hand instead of going away sank into an armchair and looked sternly and intently at him with her deep radiant eyes
the weariness she had plainly shown before had now quite passed off with a deep and long drawn sigh she seemed to be prepared for a lengthy talk
when natasha left the room pierre's confusion and awkwardness immediately vanished and were replaced by eager excitement he quickly moved an armchair toward princess mary yes i wanted to tell you said he answering her look as if she had spoken
princess help me what am i to do can i hope princess my dear friend listen
when i began to love her but i have loved her and her alone all my life and i love her so that i cannot imagine life without her i cannot propose to her at present but the thought
that perhaps she might someday be my wife and that i may be missing that possibility that possibility is terrible tell me can i hope
tell me what i am to do dear princess he added after a pause and touched her hand as she did not reply i am thinking of what you have told me answered princess mary this is what i will say
at present princess mary stopped she was going to say that to speak of love was impossible but she stopped because she had seen by the sudden change in natasha two days before that she would not only not be hurt if pierre spoke of his love
but that it was the very thing she wished for to speak to her now wouldn't do
but what am i to do leave it to me said princess mary i know pierre was looking into princess mary's eyes well well he said i know that she loves will love you
princess mary corrected herself before her words were out pierre had sprung up and with a frightened expression seized princess mary's hand what makes you think so you think i may hope you think yes i think so said princess mary with a smile write to her parents and leave it to me
i will tell her when i can i wish it to happen and my heart tells me it will no it cannot be how happy i am but it can't be how happy i am no it can't be
pierre kept saying as he kissed princess mary's hands go to petersburg that will be best and i will write to you she said
but i may come again tomorrow next day pierre came to say good by natasha was less animated than she had been the day before but that day as he looked at her pierre sometimes felt as if he was vanishing
and that neither he nor she existed any longer that nothing existed but happiness is it possible no it can't be he told himself at every look gesture and word that filled his soul with joy
when on saying good by he took her thin slender hand he could not help holding it a little longer in his own is it possible that this hand that face those eyes all this treasure of feminine charm so strange to me now
is it possible that it will one day be mine forever as familiar to me as i am to myself
good bye count she said aloud
and these simple words her look and the expression on her face which accompanied them formed for two months the subject of inexhaustible memories interpretations and happy meditations for pierre
i shall look forward very much to your return yes yes how did she say it yes i shall look forward very much to your return oh how happy i am
she had grown stouter and broader so that it was difficult to recognize in this robust motherly woman the slim lively natasha of former days her features were more defined and had a calm soft and serene expression
in her face there was none of the ever glowing animation that had formerly burned there and constituted its charm now her face and body were often all that one saw and her soul was not visible at all all that struck the eye was a strong handsome and fertile woman
that happened only when as was the case that day her husband returned home or a sick child was convalescent or when she and countess mary spoke of prince andrew she never mentioned him to her husband who she imagined was jealous of prince andrew's memory
or on the rare occasions when something happened to induce her to sing a practice she had quite abandoned since her marriage at the rare moments when the old fire did kindle in her handsome fully developed body
she was even more attractive than in former days since their marriage natasha and her husband had lived in moscow in petersburg on their estate near moscow or with her mother
the young countess bezukhova was not often seen in society and those who met her there were not pleased with her and found her neither attractive nor amiable not that natasha liked solitude she did not know whether she liked it or not she even thought that she did not
but with her pregnancies her confinements the nursing of her children and sharing every moment of her husband's life she had demands on her time which could be satisfied only by renouncing society
all who had known natasha before her marriage wondered at the change in her as at something extraordinary only the old countess with her maternal instinct had realized that all natasha's outbursts had been due to her need of children and a husband
as she herself had once exclaimed at otradnoe not so much in fun as in earnest
natasha did not follow the golden rule advocated by clever folk especially by the french which says that a girl should not let herself go when she marries should not neglect her accomplishments
and should fascinate her husband as much as she did before he became her husband natasha on the contrary had at once abandoned all her witchery of which her singing had been an unusually powerful part
or to avoid inconveniencing him by being too exacting she acted in contradiction to all those rules she felt that the allurements instinct had formerly taught her to use would now be merely ridiculous in the eyes of her husband
that is with her whole soul leaving no corner of it hidden from him she felt that her unity with her husband was not maintained by the poetic feelings that had attracted him to her but by something else indefinite but firm as the bond between her own body and soul
to fluff out her curls put on fashionable dresses and sing romantic songs to fascinate her husband would have seemed as strange as to adorn herself to attract herself to adorn herself for others might perhaps have been agreeable she did not know
but she had no time at all for it the chief reason for devoting no time either to singing to dress or to choosing her words was that she really had no time to spare for these things we know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed in a subject however trivial it may be
and that there is no subject so trivial that it will not grow to infinite proportions if one's entire attention is devoted to it the subject which wholly engrossed natasha's attention was her family that is her husband whom she had to keep
so that he should belong entirely to her and to the home and the children whom she had to bear bring into the world nurse and bring up and the deeper she penetrated not with her mind only but with her whole soul her whole being
into the subject that absorbed her the larger did that subject grow and the weaker and more inadequate did her powers appear so that she concentrated them wholly on that one thing and yet was unable to accomplish all that she considered necessary
discussions and questions of that kind which are like the question of how to get the greatest gratification from one's dinner
if the purpose of marriage is the family the person who wishes to have many wives or husbands may perhaps obtain much pleasure but in that case will not have a family if the purpose of food is nourishment and the purpose of marriage is the family
the whole question resolves itself into not eating more than one can digest and not having more wives or husbands than are needed for the family that is one wife or one husband natasha needed a husband
and she not only saw no need of any other or better husband but as all the powers of her soul were intent on serving that husband and family she could not imagine and saw no interest in imagining how it would be if things were different
natasha did not care for society in general
countess mary and her brother her mother and sonya
and with joyful face show a yellow instead of a green stain on baby's napkin
to such an extent had natasha let herself go that the way she dressed and did her hair
were habitual subjects of jest to those about her the general opinion was that pierre was under his wife's thumb
but they also flattered him and he submitted to them pierre's subjection consisted in the fact that he not only dared not flirt with but dared not even speak smilingly to any other woman
in which his wife included his intellectual pursuits which she did not in the least understand but to which she attributed great importance to make up for this at home pierre had the right to regulate his life and that of the whole family exactly as he chose
at home natasha placed herself in the position of a slave to her husband and the whole household went on tiptoe when he was occupied that is was reading or writing in his study
he had only to express a wish and natasha would jump up and run to fulfill it the entire household was governed according to pierre's supposed orders that is by his wishes which natasha tried to guess their way of life and place of residence
their acquaintances and ties natasha's occupations the children's upbringing were all selected not merely with regard to pierre's expressed wishes
and she deduced the essentials of his wishes quite correctly and having once arrived at them clung to them tenaciously
thus in a time of trouble ever memorable to him after the birth of their first child who was delicate when they had to change the wet nurse three times and natasha fell ill from despair
with which he quite agreed that to have a wet nurse is unnatural and harmful when her next baby was born despite the opposition of her mother the doctors and even of her husband himself
she insisted on having her own way and after that nursed all her babies herself it very often happened that in a moment of irritation husband and wife would have a dispute but long afterwards pierre to his surprise and delight
would find in his wife's ideas and actions the very thought against which she had argued but divested of everything superfluous that in the excitement of the dispute he had added when expressing his opinion
after seven years of marriage pierre had the joyous and firm consciousness that he was not a bad man and he felt this because he saw himself reflected in his wife he felt the good and bad within himself inextricably mingled and overlapping
they had evidently both formed the same resolution the eyes of both shone with satisfaction and a confession
do you take vodka count asked princess mary and those words suddenly banished the shadows of the past
yes replied pierre with the smile of mild irony now habitual to him they even tell me wonders i myself never dreamed of
in general i have noticed that it is very easy to be an interesting man i am an interesting man now people invite me out and tell me all about myself natasha smiled and was on the point of speaking we have been told princess mary interrupted her
that you lost two millions in moscow is that true but i am three times as rich as before returned pierre though the position was now altered by his decision to pay his wife's debts and to rebuild his houses
what i have certainly gained is freedom he began seriously
we were not an exemplary couple he added quickly glancing at natasha and noticing on her face curiosity as to how he would speak of his wife but her death shocked me terribly
when two people quarrel they are always both in fault and one's own guilt suddenly becomes terribly serious when the other is no longer alive and then such a death without friends and without consolation i am very very sorry for her he concluded
and was pleased to notice a look of glad approval on natasha's face yes and so you are once more an eligible bachelor said princess mary pierre suddenly flushed crimson and for a long time tried not to look at natasha
when he ventured to glance her way again her face was cold stern and he fancied even contemptuous and did you really see and speak to napoleon as we have been told said princess mary pierre laughed no not once
everybody seems to imagine that being taken prisoner means being napoleon's guest not only did i never see him but i heard nothing about him i was in much lower company supper was over and pierre who at first declined to speak about his captivity was gradually led on to do so
pierre admitted that it was true and from that was gradually led by princess mary's questions and especially by natasha's into giving a detailed account of his adventures at first he spoke with the amused and mild irony now customary with him toward everybody
and especially toward himself but when he came to describe the horrors and sufferings he had witnessed he was unconsciously carried away and began speaking with the suppressed emotion of a man re experiencing in recollection strong impressions he has lived through
watched pierre with an attention that never wandered evidently herself experiencing all that he described not only her look but her exclamations and the brief questions she put showed pierre that she understood just what he wished to convey
it was clear that she understood not only what he said but also what he wished to but could not express in words the account pierre gave of the incident with the child and the woman for protecting whom he was arrested was this it was an awful sight
something fine pierre continued when he spoke of the execution he wanted to pass over the horrible details but natasha insisted that he should not omit anything pierre began to tell about karataev but paused
by this time he had risen from the table and was pacing the room natasha following him with her eyes then he added no you can't understand what i learned from that illiterate man that simple fellow yes yes go on said natasha where is he
they killed him almost before my eyes and pierre his voice trembling continually went on to tell of the last days of their retreat of karataev's illness and his death he told of his adventures as he had never yet recalled them
he now as it were saw a new meaning in all he had gone through now that he was telling it all to natasha he experienced that pleasure which a man has when women listen to him
not clever women who when listening either try to remember what they hear to enrich their minds and when opportunity offers to retell it or who wish to adopt it to some thought of their own and
promptly contribute their own clever comments prepared in their little mental workshop but the pleasure given by real women gifted with a capacity to select and absorb the very best a man shows of himself natasha without knowing it was all attention
she did not lose a word no single quiver in pierre's voice no look no twitch of a muscle in his face nor a single gesture she caught the unfinished word in its flight and took it straight into her open heart divining the secret meaning of all pierre's mental travail
princess mary understood his story and sympathized with him but she now saw something else that absorbed all her attention she saw the possibility of love and happiness between natasha and pierre and the first thought of this filled her heart with gladness
it was three o'clock in the morning the footmen came in with sad and stern faces to change the candles but no one noticed them pierre finished his story natasha continued to look at him intently with bright attentive and animated eyes
as if trying to understand something more which he had perhaps left untold pierre in shamefaced and happy confusion glanced occasionally at her and tried to think what to say next to introduce a fresh subject princess mary was silent
it occurred to none of them that it was three o'clock and time to go to bed people speak of misfortunes and sufferings remarked pierre but if at this moment i were asked would you rather be what you were before you were taken prisoner
we imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost but it is only then that what is new and good begins while there is life there is happiness there is much much before us i say this to you he added turning to natasha yes
yes she said answering something quite different
pierre looked intently at her yes and nothing more said natasha it's not true not true cried pierre i am not to blame for being alive and wishing to live nor you either
suddenly natasha bent her head covered her face with her hands and began to cry what is it natasha said princess mary nothing nothing she smiled at pierre through her tears good night it is time for bed pierre rose and took his leave
they talked of what pierre had told them princess mary did not express her opinion of pierre nor did natasha speak of him well good night mary said natasha do you know
she meant prince andrew for fear of not doing justice to our feelings we forget him princess mary sighed deeply and thereby acknowledged the justice of natasha's remark but she did not express agreement in words is it possible to forget
good very good said natasha i am sure he really loved him
natasha suddenly said with a mischievous smile such as princess mary had not seen on her face for a long time he has somehow grown so clean smooth and fresh as if he had
just come out of a russian bath do you understand out of a moral bath isn't it true yes replied princess mary he has greatly improved with a short coat and his hair cropped
just as if well just as if he had come straight from the bath papa used to
liked no one so much as him said princess mary yes and yet he is quite different they say men are friends when they are quite different that must be true really he is quite unlike him in everything yes but he's wonderful
well good night said natasha
the reading went on not of course for ever like that harvest melody he spoke of but for a considerable time the words i concluded were for the initiated and not for me and after a while i gave up trying to make out what it was all about
those last expressions i have quoted about the august mother of the house were unintelligible and appeared to me meaningless i had already come to the conclusion that however many of the ladies of the establishment might have experienced
the pleasures and pains of maternity there was really no mother of the house in the sense that there was a father of the house that is to say one possessing authority over the others and calling them all her children indiscriminately
yet this mysterious non existent mother of the house was continually being spoken of as i found now and afterwards when i listened to the talk around me after thinking the matter over i came to the conclusion that mother of the house was merely a convenient fiction
and simply stood for the general sense of the women folk or something of the sort it was perhaps stupid of me but the story of mistrelde who died young leaving only eight children i had regarded as a mere legend or fable of antiquity to return to the reading
just as i had been absorbed before in that beautiful book without being able to read it so now i listened to that melodious and majestic voice experiencing a singular pleasure without properly understanding the sense
i remembered now with a painful feeling of inferiority that my thick speech had been remarked on earlier in the day and i could not but think that compared with the speech of this people it was thick in their rare physical beauty
the color of their eyes and hair and in their fascinating dress they had struck me as being utterly unlike any people ever seen by me but it was perhaps in their clear sweet penetrative voice which sometimes reminded me of a tender toned wind instrument
that they most differed from others the reading i have said had struck me as almost of the nature of a religious service nevertheless everything went on as before reading working and occasional conversation
but the subdued talking and moving about did not interfere with one's pleasure in the old man's musical speech any more than the soft murmur and flying about of honey bees would prevent one from enjoying the singing of a skylark
emboldened by what i saw the others doing i left my seat and made my way across the floor to yoletta's side stealing through the gloom with great caution to avoid making a clatter with those abominable boots may i sit down near you
said i with some hesitation but she encouraged me with a smile and placed a cushion for me i settled myself down in the most graceful position i could assume which was not at all graceful doubling my objectionable legs out of her sight
and then began my trouble for i was greatly perplexed to know what to say to her i thought of lawn tennis and archery ellen terry's acting the royal academy exhibition private theatricals and twenty things besides
but they all seemed unsuitable subjects to start conversation with in this case there was i began to fear no common ground on which we could meet and exchange thoughts or at any rate words then i remembered that ground
common and broad enough of our human feelings especially the sweet and important feeling of love but how was i to lead up to it the work she was engaged with at length suggested an opening and the opportunity to make a pretty little speech
your sight must be as good as your eyes are pretty said i to enable you to work in such a dim light oh the light is good enough she answered taking no notice of the compliment besides this is such easy work i could do it in the dark
it is very pretty work may i look at it she handed the stuff to me but instead of taking it in the ordinary way i placed my hand under hers and holding up cloth and hand together
proceeded to give a minute and prolonged scrutiny to her work do you know that i am enjoying two distinct pleasures at one and the same time said i one is in seeing your work the other in holding your hand and i think the last pleasure
even greater than the first as she made no reply i added somewhat lamely may i keep on holding it that would prevent me from working she answered with the utmost gravity but you may hold it for a little while
oh thank you i exclaimed delighted with the privilege and then to make the most of my precious little while i pressed it warmly whereupon she cried out aloud oh smith you are squeezing too hard you hurt my hand
i dropped it instantly in the greatest confusion oh for goodness sake i stammered please do not make such an outcry you don't know what a hobble you'll get me into fortunately no notice was taken of the exclamation
though it was hard to believe that her words had not been overheard and presently recovering from my fright i apologized for hurting her and hoped she would forgive me there is nothing to forgive she returned gently you did not really squeeze hard
only my hand hurts because to day when i pressed it on the ground beside the grave i ran a small thorn into it then the remembrance of that scene at the burial brought a sudden mist of tears into her lovely eyes i am so sorry i hurt you yoletta
may i call you yoletta said i all at once remembering that she had called me smith without the customary prefix why that is my name what else should you call me she returned evidently with surprise
it is a pretty name and so sweet on the lips that i should like to be repeating it continually i answered but it is only right that you should have a pretty name because well if i may tell you because you are so very beautiful
yes but is that strange are not all people beautiful i thought of certain london types especially among the criminal classes and of the old women with withered simian faces and wearing shawls
slinking in or out of public houses at the street corners and also of some people of a better class i had known personally some even in the house of commons and i felt that i could not agree with her much as i wished to do so without straining my conscience
at all events you will allow said i evading the question that there are degrees of beauty just as there are degrees of light you may be able to see to work in this light
but it is very faint compared with the noonday light when the sun is shining oh there is not so great a difference between people as that she replied with the air of a philosopher there are different kinds of beauty i allow and some people seem more beautiful to us than others
but that is only because we love them more the best loved are always the most beautiful this seemed to reverse the usual idea that the more beautiful the person is the more he or she gets loved however i was not going to disagree with her any more
and only said how sweetly you talk yoletta you are as wise as you are beautiful i could wish for no greater pleasure than to sit here listening to you the whole evening ah then i am sorry i must leave you now she answered
with a bright smile which made me think that perhaps my little speech had pleased her do you wonder why i smile she added as if able to read my thoughts it is because i have often heard words like yours from one who is waiting for me now
this speech caused me a jealous pang but for a few moments after speaking she continued regarding me with that bright spiritual smile on her lips then it faded and her face clouded and her glance fell
i did not ask her to tell me nor did i ask myself the reason of that change and afterwards how often i noticed that same change in her and in the others too that sudden silence and clouding of the face
such as may be seen in one who freely expresses himself to a person who cannot hear and then all at once but too late remembers the other's infirmity must you go i only said what shall i do alone
oh you shall not be alone she replied and going away returned presently with another lady this is edra she said simply she will take my place by your side and talk with you i could not tell her that she had taken my words too literally
that being alone simply meant being separated from her but there was no help for it and some one alas some one i greatly hated was waiting for her i could only thank her and her friend for their kind intentions
but what in the name of goodness was i to say to this beautiful woman who was sitting by me she was certainly very beautiful with a far more mature and perhaps a nobler beauty than yoletta's her age being about twenty seven or twenty eight
but the divine charm in the young girl's face could for me exist in no other presently she opened the conversation by asking me if i disliked being alone well no perhaps not exactly that i said
but i think it much jollier much more pleasant i mean to have some very nice person to talk to
pleased at her ready intelligence i added and it is particularly pleasant when you are understood but i have no fear that you at any rate will fail to understand anything i may say
you have had some trouble to day she returned with a charming smile i sometimes think that women can understand even more readily than men there's not a doubt of it i returned warmly
glad to find that with edra it was all plain sailing it must be patent to every one that women have far quicker finer intellects than men although their brains are smaller but then quality is more important than mere quantity
and yet i continued some people hold that women ought not to have the franchise or suffrage or whatever it is not that i care two straws about the question myself and i only hope they'll never get it but then i think it is so illogical
don't you i am afraid i do not understand you smith she returned looking much distressed well no i suppose not but what i said was of no consequence i replied
then wishing to make a fresh start i added but i am so glad to hear you call me smith it makes it so much more pleasant and homelike to be treated without formality it is very kind of you i'm sure
but surely your name is smith said she looking very much surprised oh yes my name is smith only of course well
i was just wondering what to call you
the moment of retiring to which i had been looking forward with considerable interest as one likely to bring fresh surprises arrived at last it brought only extreme discomfort i was conducted without a flat candlestick
along an obscure passage then at right angles with the first a second broader lighter passage leading past a great many doors placed near together these i ascertained later were the dormitories or sleeping cells
and were placed side by side in a row opening on the terrace at the back of the house having reached the door of my box my conductor pushed back the sliding panel and when i had groped my way to the dark interior closed it again behind me
there was no light for me except the light of the stars for directly opposite the door by which i had entered stood another open wide to the night which was apparently not intended ever to be closed the prospect was the one i had already seen
the wilderness sloping to the river
there was no sound save the hooting of an owl in the distance and the wailing note of some mournful minded water fowl the night air blew in cold and moist which made my bones ache though they were not broken
and feeling very sleepy and miserable i groped about until i was rewarded by discovering a narrow bed or cot of trellis work on which was a hard straw pallet and a small straw pillow also folded small
a kind of woolen sleeping garment too tired to keep out of even such an uninviting bed i flung off my clothes and with my moldy tweeds for only covering i laid me down but not to sleep the misery of it
for although my body was warm too warm in fact the wind blew on my face and bare feet and legs and made it impossible to sleep about midnight i was just falling into a doze
when a sound as of a person coming with a series of jumps into the room disturbed me and starting up i was horrified to see sitting on the floor a great beast much too big for a dog with large erect ears he was intently watching me
his round eyes shining like a pair of green phosphorescent globes having no weapon i was at the brute's mercy and was about to utter a loud shout to summon assistance but as he sat so still i refrained
and began even to hope that he would go quietly away then he stood up went back to the door and sniffed audibly at it and thinking that he was about to relieve me of his unwelcome presence i dropped my head on the pillow and lay perfectly still
then he turned and glared at me again and finally advancing deliberately to my side sniffed at my face it was all over with me now i thought and closing my eyes and feeling my forehead growing remarkably moist in spite of the cold
i murmured a little prayer when i looked again the brute had vanished to my inexpressible relief it seemed very astonishing that an animal like a wolf should come into the house but i soon remembered that i had seen no dogs about
so that all kinds of savage prowling beasts could come in with impunity it was getting beyond a joke but then all this seemed only a fit ending to the perfectly absurd arrangement into which i had been induced to enter goodness gracious i exclaimed
sitting bolt upright on my straw bed am i a rational being or an inebriated donkey or what to have consented to such a proposal
and i am therefore not morally bound to observe it what be a field laborer a hewer of wood and drawer of water and sleep on a miserable straw mat in an open porch with wolves for visitors at all hours of the night and all for a few barbarous rags
but i suppose any able bodied man can earn a pound a week and that would be fifty two pounds for a suit of clothes who ever heard of such a thing wolves and all thrown in for nothing
no no my venerable friend that was all excellent acting about my extraordinary delusions and the rest of it but i am not going to be carried so far by them as to adhere to such an outrageously one sided bargain presently
i remembered two things divine yoletta was the first and the second was that thought of the rare pleasure it would be to array myself in those same barbarous rags as i had blasphemously called them
these things had entered into my soul and had become a part of me especially well both those strange garments had looked so refreshingly picturesque and i had conceived such an intense longing to wear them
was it a very contemptible ambition on my part is it sinful to wish for any adornments other than wisdom and sobriety a meek and loving spirit good works and other things of the kind
straight into my brain flashed the words of a sentence i had recently read that is to say just before my accident in a biological work and it comforted me as much as if an angel with shining face and rainbow colored wings
had paid me a visit in my dusky cell unto adam also and his wife did the lord god make coats of skin and clothed them this has become as every one knows a custom among the race of men
and shows at present no sign of becoming obsolete moreover that first correlation namely milk glands and a hairy covering appears to have entered the very soul of creatures of this class
and to have become psychical as well as physical for in that type which is only for a while inferior to the angels the fondness for this kind of outer covering is a strong ineradicable passion
most true and noble words o biologist of the fiery soul it was a delight to remember them a strong and ineradicable passion not merely to clothe the body but to clothe it appropriately that is to say beautifully
this being so must we go on for ever scraping our faces with a sharp iron until they are blue and spotty with manifold scrapings and cropping our hair short to give ourselves an artificial resemblance to old dogs and monkeys
creatures lower than us in the scale of being and array our bodies like mutes at a funeral in repulsive black we eutheria of the eutheria the noble of the noble and all for what
since it pleases not heaven nor accords with our own desires for the sake of respectability perhaps whatever that may mean oh then a million curses take it respectability i mean may it sink into the bottomless pit
and the smoke of its torment ascend for ever and ever and having thus by taking thought brought my mind into this temper i once more finally determined to have the clothes and religiously to observe the compact
it made me quite happy to end it in this way the hard bed the cold night wind blowing on me my wolfish visitor were all forgotten once more i gave loose to my imagination and saw myself
clothed and in my right mind sitting at yoletta's feet learning the mystery of that sweet tranquil life from her precious lips a whole year was mine in which to love her and win her gentle heart but her hand ah that was another matter
what had i to give in return for such a boon as that only that strength concerning which my venerable host had spoken somewhat encouragingly he had also been so good as to mention my skill
but i could scarcely trade on that and if a whole year's labor was only sufficient to pay for a suit of clothing how many years of toil would be required to win yoletta's hand naturally at this juncture
i began to draw a parallel between my case and that of an ancient historical personage whose name is familiar to most history repeats itself with variations jacob namely smith cometh to the well of haran
he taketh acquaintance of rachel here called yoletta and jacob kissed rachel and lifted up his voice and wept that is a touch of nature i can thoroughly appreciate the kissing i mean but why he wept i cannot tell
unless it be because he was not an englishman and jacob told rachel that he was her father's brother i am glad to have no such startling piece of information to give to the object of my affections we are not even distant relations and her age being
say fifteen and mine twenty one we are so far well suited to each other according to my notions smith covenanted for yoletta and said i will serve thee seven years for yoletta thy younger daughter
and the old gentleman answered abide with me for i would rather you should have her than some other person now i wonder whether the matter will be complicated with leah that is edra
and like edra tender eyed i do not aspire or desire to marry both especially if i should like jacob have to begin with the wrong one however tender eyed
chapter ten the assistant commissioner driven rapidly in a hansom from the neighbourhood of soho in the direction of westminster got out at the very centre of the empire on which the sun never sets
some stalwart constables who did not seem particularly impressed by the duty of watching the august spot saluted him penetrating through a portal by no means lofty into the precincts of the house which is the house
par excellence in the minds of many millions of men he was met at last by the volatile and revolutionary toodles that neat and nice young man concealed his astonishment at the early appearance of the assistant commissioner
whom he had been told to look out for some time about midnight his turning up so early he concluded to be the sign that things whatever they were had gone wrong
with an extremely ready sympathy which in nice youngsters goes often with a joyous temperament he felt sorry for the great presence he called the chief and also for the assistant commissioner
whose face appeared to him more ominously wooden than ever before and quite wonderfully long what a queer foreign looking chap he is he thought to himself smiling from a distance with friendly buoyancy
it looked as if the great assault threatened for that night were going to fizzle out an inferior henchman of that brute cheeseman was up boring mercilessly a very thin house with some shamelessly cooked statistics
he toodles hoped he would bore them into a count out every minute
anyway the chief could not be persuaded to go home he will see you at once i think he's sitting all alone in his room thinking of all the fishes of the sea concluded toodles airily come along
notwithstanding the kindness of his disposition the young private secretary unpaid was accessible to the common failings of humanity he did not wish to harrow the feelings of the assistant commissioner
who looked to him uncommonly like a man who has made a mess of his job but his curiosity was too strong to be restrained by mere compassion he could not help
and your sprat got him answered the assistant commissioner with a concision which did not mean to be repellent in the least good you've no idea how these great men dislike to be disappointed in small things
after this profound observation the experienced toodles seemed to reflect at any rate he said nothing for quite two seconds then i'm glad
do you know what may be done with a sprat the assistant commissioner asked in his turn he's sometimes put into a sardine box chuckled toodles whose erudition on the subject of the fishing industry was fresh
and in comparison with his ignorance of all other industrial matters immense
the assistant commissioner interrupted the apprentice statesman yes yes but a sprat is also thrown away sometimes in order to catch a whale a whale phew exclaimed toodles with bated breath you're after a whale then
not exactly what i am after is more like a dog fish you don't know perhaps what a dog fish is like yes i do we're buried in special books up to our necks whole shelves full of them with plates
it's a noxious rascally looking altogether detestable beast with a sort of smooth face and moustaches described to a t commended the assistant commissioner only mine is clean shaven altogether you've seen him
it's a witty fish i have seen him said toodles incredulously i can't conceive where i could have seen him at the explorers i should say dropped the assistant commissioner calmly
at the name of that extremely exclusive club toodles looked scared and stopped short nonsense he protested but in an awe struck tone what do you mean a member
honorary muttered the assistant commissioner through his teeth heavens toodles looked so thunderstruck that the assistant commissioner smiled faintly that's between ourselves strictly he said
the assistant commissioner gave him an unsmiling glance till they came to the door of the great man's room toodles preserved a scandalised and solemn silence
as though he were offended with the assistant commissioner for exposing such an unsavoury and disturbing fact it revolutionised his idea of the explorers club's extreme selectness of its social purity toodles was revolutionary only in politics
which upon the whole he believed to be a nice place to live on he stood aside go in without knocking he said
shades of green silk fitted low over all the lights imparted to the room something of a forest's deep gloom the haughty eyes were physically the great man's weak point this point was wrapped up in secrecy
the assistant commissioner entering saw at first only a big pale hand supporting a big head and concealing the upper part of a big pale face an open despatch box stood on the writing table near a few oblong sheets of paper
and a scattered handful of quill pens there was absolutely nothing else on the large flat surface except a little bronze statuette draped in a toga mysteriously watchful in its shadowy immobility
the assistant commissioner invited to take a chair sat down in the dim light the salient points of his personality the long face the black hair his lankness made him look more foreign than ever
the great man manifested no surprise no eagerness no sentiment whatever the attitude in which he rested his menaced eyes was profoundly meditative he did not alter it the least bit
but his tone was not dreamy well what is it that you've found out already you came upon something unexpected on the first step not exactly unexpected sir ethelred what i mainly came upon was a psychological state
the great presence made a slight movement you must be lucid please yes sir ethelred
feel an irresistible need of confessing of making a clean breast of it to somebody to anybody and they do it often to the police in that verloc whom heat wished so much to screen i've found a man in that particular psychological state
the man figuratively speaking flung himself on my breast it was enough on my part to whisper to him who i was and to add i know that you are at the bottom of this affair
it must have seemed miraculous to him that we should know already but he took it all in the stride the wonderfulness of it never checked him for a moment
who put you up to it and who was the man who did it he answered the first with remarkable emphasis as to the second question i gather that the fellow with the bomb was his brother in law quite a lad a weak minded creature
it is rather a curious affair too long perhaps to state fully just now what then have you learned asked the great man first i've learned that the ex convict michaelis had nothing to do with it
though indeed the lad had been living with him temporarily in the country up to eight o'clock this morning it is more than likely that michaelis knows nothing of it to this moment you are positive as to that asked the great man quite certain sir ethelred
and took away the lad on the pretence of going out for a walk in the lanes as it was not the first time that he did this michaelis could not have the slightest suspicion of anything unusual for the rest sir ethelred
the indignation of this man verloc had left nothing in doubt nothing whatever he had been driven out of his mind almost by an extraordinary performance
the assistant commissioner then imparted briefly to the great man who sat still resting his eyes under the screen of his hand mister verloc's appreciation of mister vladimir's proceedings and character
the assistant commissioner did not seem to refuse it a certain amount of competency but the great personage remarked all this seems very fantastic doesn't it one would think a ferocious joke
but our man took it seriously it appears he felt himself threatened
with old stott wartenheim himself and had come to regard his services as indispensable it was an extremely rude awakening
he became angry and frightened upon my word my impression is that he thought these embassy people quite capable
in some manner or other how long were you with him interrupted the presence from behind his big hand some forty minutes sir ethelred in a house of bad repute called continental hotel
closeted in a room which by the by i took for the night i found him under the influence of that reaction which follows the effort of crime the man cannot be defined as a hardened criminal
it is obvious that he did not plan the death of that wretched lad his brother in law that was a shock to him i could see that perhaps he is a man of strong sensibilities perhaps he was even fond of the lad who knows
he might have hoped that the fellow would get clear away in which case it would have been almost impossible to bring this thing home to anyone at any rate
the assistant commissioner paused in his speculations to reflect for a moment though how in that last case he could hope to have his own share in the business concealed is more than i can tell he continued in his ignorance of poor stevie's devotion to mister verloc
who was good and of his truly peculiar dumbness which in the old affair of fireworks on the stairs had for many years resisted entreaties coaxing anger and other means of investigation used by his beloved sister
but in truth there is a sort of lucidity proper to extravagant language and the great man was not offended a slight jerky movement of the big body half lost in the gloom of the green silk shades
of the big head leaning on the big hand accompanied an intermittent stifled but powerful sound the great man had laughed what have you done with him the assistant commissioner answered very readily
you did but the fellow will disappear pardon me i don't think so where could he go to moreover you must remember that he has got to think of the danger from his comrades too he's there at his post
how could he explain leaving it but even if there were no obstacles to his freedom of action he would do nothing at present he hasn't enough moral energy to take a resolution of any sort permit me also to point out that if i had detained him
we would have been committed to a course of action on which i wished to know your precise intentions first the great personage rose heavily an imposing shadowy form in the greenish gloom of the room
i'll see the attorney general to night and will send for you to morrow morning is there anything more you'd wish to tell me now the assistant commissioner had stood up also slender and flexible i think not sir ethelred unless i were to enter into details which
no no details please the great shadowy form seemed to shrink away as if in physical dread of details then came forward expanded enormous and weighty offering a large hand and you say that this man has got a wife
yes sir ethelred said the assistant commissioner pressing deferentially the extended hand a genuine wife and a genuinely respectably marital relation he told me that after his interview at the embassy he would have thrown everything up
only he felt certain that his wife would not even hear of going abroad nothing could be more characteristic of the respectable bond than that went on with a touch of grimness the assistant commissioner whose own wife too had refused to hear of going abroad
yes a genuine wife and the victim was a genuine brother in law from a certain point of view we are here in the presence of a domestic drama the assistant commissioner laughed a little but the great man's thoughts seemed to have wandered far away
perhaps to the questions of his country's domestic policy the battle ground of his crusading valour against the paynim cheeseman the assistant commissioner withdrew quietly unnoticed as if already forgotten
he had his own crusading instincts this affair which in one way or another disgusted chief inspector heat seemed to him a providentially given starting point for a crusade he had it much at heart to begin
he walked slowly home meditating that enterprise on the way and thinking over mister verloc's psychology in a composite mood of repugnance and satisfaction he walked all the way home
finding the drawing room dark he went upstairs and spent some time between the bedroom and the dressing room changing his clothes going to and fro with the air of a thoughtful somnambulist
but he shook it off before going out again to join his wife at the house of the great lady patroness of michaelis he knew he would be welcomed there on entering the smaller of the two drawing rooms he saw his wife in a small group near the piano
to two thick men whose backs looked old and three slender women whose backs looked young behind the screen the great lady had only two persons with her a man and a woman who sat side by side on arm chairs at the foot of her couch
she extended her hand to the assistant commissioner i never hoped to see you here to night annie told me yes i had no idea myself that my work would be over so soon
the patroness of the ex convict received this assurance indignantly why were your people stupid enough to connect him with not stupid interrupted the assistant commissioner contradicting deferentially
clever enough quite clever enough for that a silence fell the man at the foot of the couch had stopped speaking to the lady and looked on with a faint smile
i don't know whether you ever met before said the great lady mister vladimir and the assistant commissioner introduced acknowledged each other's existence with punctilious and guarded courtesy
he's been frightening me declared suddenly the lady who sat by the side of mister vladimir
the assistant commissioner knew the lady you do not look frightened he pronounced after surveying her conscientiously with his tired and equable gaze he was thinking meantime to himself that in this house
one met everybody sooner or later mister vladimir's rosy countenance was wreathed in smiles because he was witty but his eyes remained serious like the eyes of convinced man well he tried to at least
amended the lady force of habit perhaps said the assistant commissioner moved by an irresistible inspiration he has been threatening society with all sorts of horrors continued the lady
whose enunciation was caressing and slow apropos of this explosion in greenwich park it appears we all ought to quake in our shoes at what's coming if those people are not suppressed all over the world i had no idea this was such a grave affair
mister vladimir affecting not to listen leaned towards the couch talking amiably in subdued tones but he heard the assistant commissioner say i've no doubt that mister vladimir has a very precise notion of the true importance of this affair
mister vladimir asked himself what that confounded and intrusive policeman was driving at descended from generations victimised by the instruments of an arbitrary power he was racially
nationally and individually afraid of the police it was an inherited weakness altogether independent of his judgment of his reason of his experience he was born to it
but that sentiment which resembled the irrational horror some people have of cats did not stand in the way of his immense contempt for the english police he finished the sentence addressed to the great lady and turned slightly in his chair
you mean that we have a great experience of these people yes indeed we suffer greatly from their activity while you mister vladimir hesitated for a moment in smiling perplexity while you suffer their presence gladly in your midst
he finished displaying a dimple on each clean shaven cheek then he added more gravely i may even say because you do when mister vladimir ceased speaking the assistant commissioner lowered his glance
and the conversation dropped almost immediately afterwards mister vladimir took leave directly his back was turned on the couch the assistant commissioner rose too
i thought you were going to stay and take annie home said the lady patroness of michaelis i find that i've yet a little work to do to night in connection
well yes in a way tell me what is it really this horror it's difficult to say what it is but it may yet be a cause celebre said the assistant commissioner
he left the drawing room hurriedly and found mister vladimir still in the hall wrapping up his throat carefully in a large silk handkerchief behind him a footman waited holding his overcoat another stood ready to open the door
the assistant commissioner was duly helped into his coat and let out at once after descending the front steps he stopped as if to consider the way he should take on seeing this through the door held open mister vladimir lingered in the hall to get out a cigar
and asked for a light it was furnished to him by an elderly man out of livery with an air of calm solicitude but the match went out the footman then closed the door and mister vladimir lighted his large havana with leisurely care
when at last he got out of the house he saw with disgust the confounded policeman still standing on the pavement can he be waiting for me thought mister vladimir looking up and down for some signs of a hansom
he saw none a couple of carriages waited by the curbstone their lamps blazing steadily the horses standing perfectly still as if carved in stone
without as much as a quiver stirring the white thongs of their big whips mister vladimir walked on and the confounded policeman fell into step at his elbow he said nothing
at the end of the fourth stride mister vladimir felt infuriated and uneasy this could not last rotten weather he growled savagely mild said the assistant commissioner without passion
he remained silent for a little while we've got hold of a man called verloc he announced casually
but he could not prevent himself from exclaiming what the assistant commissioner did not repeat his statement you know him he went on in the same tone mister vladimir stopped and became guttural
what makes you say that i don't it's verloc who says that a lying dog of some sort said mister vladimir in somewhat oriental phraseology
but in his heart he was almost awed by the miraculous cleverness of the english police the change of his opinion on the subject was so violent that it made him for a moment feel slightly sick he threw away his cigar and moved on
what pleased me most in this affair the assistant went on talking slowly
in my opinion they are a ghastly nuisance also an element of danger but we can't very well seek them out individually the only way is to make their employment unpleasant to their employers
the thing's becoming indecent and dangerous too for us here mister vladimir stopped again for a moment what do you mean
the prosecution of this verloc will demonstrate to the public both the danger and the indecency nobody will believe what a man of that sort says said mister vladimir contemptuously
the wealth and precision of detail will carry conviction to the great mass of the public advanced the assistant commissioner gently
we've got the man we have no choice
what do you want to make a scandal for from morality or what mister vladimir's anxiety was obvious the assistant commissioner having ascertained in this way that there must be some truth in the summary statements of mister verloc
said indifferently there's a practical side too we have really enough to do to look after the genuine article you can't say we are not effective
mister vladimir's tone became lofty for my part i can't share your view it is selfish my sentiments for my own country cannot be doubted but i've always felt that we ought to be good europeans besides
i mean governments and men yes said the assistant commissioner simply only you look at europe from its other end
the foreign governments cannot complain of the inefficiency of our police look at this outrage
in less than twelve hours we have established the identity of a man literally blown to shreds have found the organiser of the attempt and have had a glimpse of the inciter behind him
so this instructive crime was planned abroad mister vladimir said quickly you admit it was planned abroad theoretically theoretically only on foreign territory abroad only by a fiction said the assistant commissioner
you see that we are not so bad i wanted particularly to tell you of our success i'm sure i'm very grateful muttered mister vladimir through his teeth
as though he were quoting chief inspector heat all that's wanted now is to do away with the agent provocateur to make everything safe mister vladimir held up his hand to a passing hansom
you're not going in here remarked the assistant commissioner looking at a building of noble proportions and hospitable aspect with the light of a great hall falling through its glass doors on a broad flight of steps
but mister vladimir sitting stony eyed inside the hansom drove off without a word the assistant commissioner himself did not turn into the noble building it was the explorers club
the thought passed through his mind that mister vladimir honorary member would not be seen very often there in the future he looked at his watch it was only half past ten
three months later the kangaroo still continues to grow which is very strange and perplexing i never knew one to be so long getting its growth it has fur on its head now not like kangaroo fur but exactly like our hair
i am like to lose my mind over the capricious and harassing developments of this unclassifiable zoological freak if i could catch another one but that is hopeless it is a new variety and the only sample this is plain
but i caught a true kangaroo and brought it in thinking that this one being lonesome would rather have that for company than have no kin at all
among friends but it was a mistake
i pity the poor noisy little animal but there is nothing i can do to make it happy if i could tame it but that is out of the question the more i try the worse i seem to make it it grieves me to the heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow and passion
i wanted to let it go but she wouldn't hear of it that seemed cruel and not like her and yet she may be right it might be lonelier than ever for since i cannot find another one how could it five months later
it is not a kangaroo no for it supports itself by holding to her finger and thus goes a few steps on its hind legs and then falls down it is probably some kind of a bear and yet it has no tail as yet and no fur except on its head
for bears get their growth earlier than this bears are dangerous since our catastrophe
she is determined to run us into all sorts of foolish risks i think she was not like this before she lost her mind a fortnight later i examined its mouth there is no danger yet
it has only one tooth it has no tail yet it makes more noise now than it ever did before and mainly at night i have moved out
for a bear does not need a tail in order to be dangerous four months later
in the mean time without stirring from the home estate she has caught another one i never saw such luck
next day
so i have relinquished the idea though i think it is a mistake it would be an irreparable loss to science if they should get away the old one is tamer than it was and can laugh and talk like the parrot having learned this no doubt from being with the parrot so much
and having the imitative faculty in a highly developed degree i shall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot
since those first days when it was a fish the new one is as ugly now as the old one was at first has the same sulphur and raw meat complexion and the same singular head without any fur on it she calls it abel
ten years later they are boys we found it out long ago
after all these years i see that i was mistaken about eve in the beginning it is better to live outside the garden with her than inside it without her at first i thought she talked too much but now
i should be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life blessed be the chestnut that brought us near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart
tuesday she has littered the whole estate with execrable names and offensive signs this way to the whirlpool this way to goat island cave of the winds this way
she says this park would make a tidy summer resort if there was any custom for it summer resort another invention of hers just words without any meaning what is a summer resort
she has such a rage for explaining friday
what harm does it do says it makes her shudder i wonder why i have always done it always liked the plunge and the excitement and the coolness i supposed it was what the falls were for they have no other use that i can see
she says they were only made for scenery like the rhinoceros and the mastodon i went over the falls in a barrel not satisfactory to her went over in a tub still not satisfactory
swam the whirlpool and the rapids in a fig leaf suit it got much damaged hence tedious complaints about my extravagance i am too much hampered here
saturday i escaped last tuesday night and travelled two days and built me another shelter in a secluded place and obliterated my tracks as well as i could
but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she has tamed and calls a wolf and came making that pitiful noise again and shedding that water out of the places she looks with
but will presently emigrate again when occasion offers she engages herself in many foolish things among others trying to study out why the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and flowers when as she says
the sort of teeth they wear would indicate that they were intended to eat each other this is foolish because to do that would be to kill each other and that would introduce what as i understand it is called death and death
has not yet entered the park which is a pity on some accounts sunday pulled through monday
clodded her out of it she said nobody was looking seems to consider that a sufficient justification for chancing any dangerous thing told her that the word justification moved her admiration and envy too i thought
it is a good word thursday she told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body this is at least doubtful if not more than that i have not missed any rib she is in much trouble about the buzzard
says grass does not agree with it is afraid she can't raise it thinks it was intended to live on decayed flesh the buzzard must get along the best it can with what is provided
we cannot overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the buzzard saturday she fell in the pond yesterday when she was looking at herself in it
she nearly strangled and said it was most uncomfortable this made her sorry for the creatures which live in there which she calls fish for she continues to fasten names on to things that don't need them and don't come when they are called by them
which is a matter of no consequence to her as she is such a numskull anyway so she got a lot of them out and brought them in last night and put them in my bed to keep warm but i have noticed them now and then all day and i don't see that they are any happier there than they were before only quieter
when night comes i shall throw them out doors i will not sleep with them again for i find them clammy and unpleasant to lie among when a person hasn't anything on sunday pulled through tuesday
the other animals are glad for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them and i am glad because the snake talks and this enables me to get a rest friday she says the snake advises her to try the fruit of that tree
and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education i told her there would be another result too it would introduce death into the world that was a mistake it had been better to keep the remark to myself it only gave her an idea
she could save the sick buzzard and furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers i advised her to keep away from the tree she said she wouldn't
i escaped that night and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go hoping to get clear out of the park and hide in some other country before the trouble should begin but it was not to be
about an hour after sunup as i was riding through a flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing slumbering or playing with each other according to their wont all of a sudden they broke into a tempest of frightful noises and in one moment
and every beast was destroying its neighbor i knew what it meant eve had eaten that fruit and death was come into the world the tigers ate my horse paying no attention when i ordered them to desist
which i didn't but went away in much haste i found this place outside the park and was fairly comfortable for a few days but she has found me out found me out and has named the place tonawanda says it looks like that
in fact i was not sorry she came for there are but meagre pickings here and she brought some of those apples
this was correct hungry as i was i laid down the apple half eaten certainly the best one i ever saw considering the lateness of the season
severity and ordered her to go and get some more and not make such a spectacle of herself she did it and after this we crept down to where the wild beast battle had been and collected some skins and i made her patch together a couple of suits proper for public occasions
they are uncomfortable it is true but stylish and that is the main point about clothes i find she is a good deal of a companion i see i should be lonesome and depressed without her now that i have lost my property
another thing she says it is ordered that we work for our living hereafter she will be useful i will superintend ten days later she accuses me of being the cause of our disaster she says
with apparent sincerity and truth that the serpent assured her that the forbidden fruit was not apples it was chestnuts i said i was innocent then for i had not eaten any chestnuts she said the serpent informed her that chestnut
was a figurative term meaning an aged and mouldy joke i turned pale at that for i have made many jokes to pass the weary time and some of them could have been of that sort though i had honestly supposed that they were new when i made them
i was obliged to admit that i had made one to myself though not aloud it was this i was thinking about the falls and i said to myself how wonderful it is to see that vast body of water tumble down there then in an instant
a bright thought flashed into my head and i let it fly saying it would be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble up there and i was just about to kill myself with laughing at it
there she said with triumph that is just it the serpent mentioned that very jest and called it the first chestnut and said it was coeval with the creation alas i am indeed to blame would that i were not witty
oh would that i had never had that radiant thought next year we have named it cain she caught it while i was up country trapping on the north shore of the erie
that is what she thinks but this is an error in my judgment the difference in size warrants the conclusion that it is a different and new kind of animal a fish perhaps
i still think it is a fish but she is indifferent about what it is and will not let me have it to try i do not understand this
and made her unreasonable about experiments
her mind is disordered everything shows it sometimes she carries the fish in her arms half the night when it complains and wants to get to the water at such times the water comes out of the places in her face that she looks out of and she pats the fish on the back and makes soft sounds with her mouth to soothe it
and betrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways
extracts from adam's diary
by mark twain note i translated a portion of this diary some years ago and a friend of mine printed a few copies in an incomplete form but the public never got them
since then i have deciphered some more of adam's hieroglyphics and think he has now become sufficiently important as a public character to justify this publication m t
monday this new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way it is always hanging around and following me about i don't like this
i am not used to company i wish it would stay with the other animals cloudy to day wind in the east think we shall have rain where did i get that word i remember now
the new creature uses it tuesday been examining the great waterfall it is the finest thing on the estate i think the new creature calls it niagara falls
why i am sure i do not know says it looks like niagara falls that is not a reason it is mere waywardness and imbecility i get no chance to name anything myself
the new creature names everything that comes along before i can get in a protest and always that same pretext is offered it looks like the thing there is the dodo for instance says the moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it
looks like a dodo it will have to keep that name no doubt it wearies me to fret about it and it does no good anyway dodo it looks no more like a dodo than i do
wednesday built me a shelter against the rain but could not have it to myself in peace the new creature intruded when i tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with and
wiped it away with the back of its paws and made a noise such as some of the other animals make when they are in distress i wish it would not talk it is always talking that sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature a slur but i do not mean it so
i have never heard the human voice before and any new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note
and this new sound is so close to me it is right at my shoulder right at my ear first on one side and then on the other and i am used only to sounds that are more or less distant from me friday
i had a very good name for the estate and it was musical and pretty garden of eden
the new creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery and therefore has no resemblance to a garden says it looks like a park and does not look like anything but a park consequently without consulting me
it has been new named niagara falls park this is sufficiently high handed it seems to me and already there is a sign up keep off the grass my life is not as happy as it was
saturday the new creature eats too much fruit
we again that is its word mine too now from hearing it so much good deal of fog this morning i do not go out in the fog myself the new creature does
it goes out in all weathers and stumps right in with its muddy feet
sunday pulled through this day is getting to be more and more trying it was selected and set apart last november as a day of rest i already had six of them per week before
this morning found the new creature trying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree monday the new creature says its name is eve that is all right i have no objections says it is to call it by
i said it was superfluous then the word evidently raised me in its respect and indeed it is a large good word and will bear repetition
chapter ten shortly afterward an incident occurred which i am induced to look upon as more intensely productive of emotion as far more replete with the extremes
first of delight and then of horror than even any of the thousand chances which afterward befell me in nine long years crowded with events of the most startling and in many cases of the most unconceived and unconceivable character
we were lying on the deck near the companion way and debating the possibility of yet making our way into the storeroom when looking toward augustus who lay fronting myself i perceived that he had become all at once deadly pale
and that his lips were quivering in the most singular and unaccountable manner greatly alarmed i spoke to him but he made me no reply and i was beginning to think that he was suddenly taken ill
when i took notice of his eyes which were glaring apparently at some object behind me i turned my head and shall never forget the ecstatic joy which thrilled through every particle of my frame when i perceived a large brig
and unable to articulate a syllable
the former danced about the deck like a madman uttering the most extravagant rhodomontades intermingled with howls and imprecations while the latter burst into tears and continued for many minutes weeping like a child
the vessel in sight was a large hermaphrodite brig of a dutch build and painted black with a tawdry gilt figure head she had evidently seen a good deal of rough weather and we supposed
had suffered much in the gale which had proved so disastrous to ourselves for her foretopmast was gone and some of her starboard bulwarks when we first saw her she was as i have already said
about two miles off and to windward bearing down upon us the breeze was very gentle and what astonished us chiefly was that she had no other sails set than her foremast and mainsail with a flying jib
of course she came down but slowly and our impatience amounted nearly to phrensy the awkward manner in which she steered too was remarked by all of us even excited as we were
that once or twice we thought it impossible she could see us or imagined that having seen us and discovered no person on board she was about to tack and make off in another direction
upon each of these occasions we screamed and shouted at the top of our voices when the stranger would appear to change for a moment her intention and again hold on toward us this singular conduct being repeated two or three times
we then saw three seamen whom by their dress we took to be hollanders two of these were lying on some old sails near the forecastle and the third who appeared to be looking at us with great curiosity
this last was a stout and tall man with a very dark skin he seemed by his manner to be encouraging us to have patience nodding to us in a cheerful although rather odd way
and smiling constantly so as to display a set of the most brilliantly white teeth as his vessel drew nearer we saw a red flannel cap which he had on fall from his head into the water
but of this he took little or no notice continuing his odd smiles and gesticulations
and i relate them it must be understood precisely as they appeared to us the brig came on slowly and now more steadily than before and i cannot speak calmly of this event
our hearts leaped up wildly within us and we poured out our whole souls in shouts and thanksgiving to god for the complete unexpected and glorious deliverance that was so palpably at hand of a sudden and all at once
there came wafted over the ocean from the strange vessel which was now close upon us a smell a stench such as the whole world has no name for no conception of hellish utterly suffocating
insufferable inconceivable i gasped for breath and turning to my companions perceived that they were paler than marble but we had now no time left for question or surmise the brig was within fifty feet of us
as she passed under our stern at the distance of about twenty feet we had a full view of her decks shall i ever forget the triple horror of that spectacle twenty five or thirty human bodies among whom were several females
lay scattered about between the counter and the galley in the last and most loathsome state of putrefaction we plainly saw that not a soul lived in that fated vessel
in the agony of the moment that those silent and disgusting images would stay for us would not abandon us to become like them would receive us among their goodly company we were raving with horror and despair
thoroughly mad through the anguish of our grievous disappointment as our first loud yell of terror broke forth it was replied to by something from near the bowsprit of the stranger
so closely resembling the scream of a human voice that the nicest ear might have been startled and deceived at this instant another sudden yaw brought the region of the forecastle for a moment into view
and we beheld at once the origin of the sound we saw the tall stout figure still leaning on the bulwark and still nodding his head to and fro but his face was now turned from us so that we could not behold it
his arms were extended over the rail and the palms of his hands fell outward his knees were lodged upon a stout rope
on his back from which a portion of the shirt had been torn leaving it bare
busily gorging itself with the horrible flesh its bill and talons deep buried and its white plumage spattered all over with blood as the brig moved farther round so as to bring us close in view
the bird with much apparent difficulty drew out its crimsoned head and after eyeing us for a moment as if stupefied
and flying directly above our deck hovered there a while with a portion of clotted and liver like substance in its beak the horrid morsel dropped at length with a sullen splash immediately at the feet of parker
may god forgive me but now for the first time there flashed through my mind a thought a thought which i will not mention and i felt myself making a step toward the ensanguined spot
i looked upward and the eyes of augustus met my own with a degree of intense and eager meaning which immediately brought me to my senses i sprang forward quickly
and with a deep shudder threw the frightful thing into the sea the body from which it had been taken resting as it did upon the rope had been easily swayed to and fro by the exertions of the carnivorous bird
and it was this motion which had at first impressed us with the belief of its being alive as the gull relieved it of its weight it swung round and fell partially over so that the face was fully discovered
never surely was any object so terribly full of awe the eyes were gone and the whole flesh around the mouth leaving the teeth utterly naked
this then was the smile which had cheered us on to hope this the but i forbear the brig as i have already told passed under our stern and made its way slowly but steadily to leeward
with her and with her terrible crew went all our gay visions of deliverance and joy deliberately as she went by we might possibly have found means of boarding her
had not our sudden disappointment and the appalling nature of the discovery which accompanied it laid entirely prostrate every active faculty of mind and body we had seen and felt
how much our intellects had been weakened by this incident may be estimated by the fact that when the vessel had proceeded so far that we could perceive no more than the half of her hull
the proposition was seriously entertained of attempting to overtake her by swimming i have since this period vainly endeavoured to obtain some clew to the hideous uncertainty which enveloped the fate of the stranger
her build and general appearance as i have before stated led us to the belief that she was a dutch trader and the dresses of the crew also sustained this opinion we might have easily seen the name upon her stern
and indeed taken other observations which would have guided us in making out her character but the intense excitement of the moment blinded us to every thing of that nature
from the saffron like hue of such of the corpses as were not entirely decayed we concluded that the whole of her company had perished by the yellow fever or some other virulent disease of the same fearful kind
if such were the case and i know not what else to imagine death to judge from the positions of the bodies must have come upon them in a manner awfully sudden and overwhelming
in a way totally distinct from that which generally characterizes even the most deadly pestilences with which mankind are acquainted it is possible indeed that poison accidentally introduced into some of their sea stores
may have brought about the disaster or that the eating of some unknown venomous species of fish or other marine animal or oceanic bird might have induced it
the pangs of hunger and thirst then returned absorbing all other cares and considerations nothing however could be done until the morning and securing ourselves as well as possible we endeavoured to snatch a little repose
in this i succeeded beyond my expectations sleeping until my companions who had not been so fortunate aroused me at daybreak to renew our attempts at getting up provisions from the hull
it was now a dead calm with the sea as smooth as have ever known it the weather warm and pleasant the brig was out of sight we commenced our operations by wrenching off with some trouble another of the forechains
and having fastened both to peters feet he again made an endeavour to reach the door of the storeroom thinking it possible that he might be able to force it open provided he could get at it in sufficient time
and this he hoped to do as the hulk lay much more steadily than before he succeeded very quickly in reaching the door when loosening one of the chains from his ankle he made every exertion to force the passage with it but in vain
the framework of the room being far stronger than was anticipated he was quite exhausted with his long stay under water and it became absolutely necessary that some other one of us should take his place
for this service parker immediately volunteered but after making three ineffectual efforts found that he could never even succeed in getting near the door the condition of augustus's wounded arm rendered it useless for him to attempt going down
as he would be unable to force the room open should he reach it and it accordingly now devolved upon me to exert myself for our common deliverance peters had left one of the chains in the passage and i found upon plunging in
that i had not sufficient balance to keep me firmly down i determined therefore to attempt no more in my first effort than merely to recover the other chain
i felt a hard substance which i immediately grasped not having time to ascertain what it was but returning and ascending instantly to the surface the prize proved to be a bottle and our joy may be conceived
when i say that it was found to be full of port wine giving thanks to god for this timely and cheering assistance we immediately drew the cork with my penknife and each taking a moderate sup felt the most indescribable comfort from the warmth
strength and spirits with which it inspired us we then carefully recorked the bottle and by means of a handkerchief swung it in such a manner that there was no possibility of its getting broken
having rested a while after this fortunate discovery i again descended and now recovered the chain with which i instantly came up i then fastened it on and went down for the third time
when i became fully satisfied that no exertions whatever in that situation would enable me to force open the door of the storeroom i therefore returned in despair there seemed now to be no longer any room for hope
and i could perceive in the countenances of my companions that they had made up their minds to perish the wine had evidently produced in them a species of delirium
which perhaps i had been prevented from feeling by the immersion i had undergone since drinking it they talked incoherently and about matters unconnected with our condition peters repeatedly asking me questions about nantucket
augustus too i remember approached me with a serious air and requested me to lend him a pocket comb as his hair was full of fish scales and he wished to get them out before going on shore parker appeared somewhat less affected
and urged me to dive at random into the cabin and bring up any article which might come to hand to this i consented and in the first attempt after staying under a full minute brought up a small leather trunk belonging to captain barnard
this was immediately opened in the faint hope that it might contain something to eat or drink we found nothing however except a box of razors and two linen shirts i now went down again and returned without any success
as my head came above water i heard a crash on deck and upon getting up saw that my companions had ungratefully taken advantage of my absence to drink the remainder of the wine having let the bottle fall in the endeavour to replace it before i saw them
i remonstrated with them on the heartlessness of their conduct when augustus burst into tears the other two endeavoured to laugh the matter off as a joke but i hope never again to behold laughter of such a species
the distortion of countenance was absolutely frightful indeed it was apparent that the stimulus in the empty state of their stomachs had taken instant and violent effect and that they were all exceedingly intoxicated
with great difficulty i prevailed upon them to lie down when they fell very soon into a heavy slumber accompanied with loud stertorous breathing i now found myself as it were alone in the brig and my reflections to be sure
were of the most fearful and gloomy nature no prospect offered itself to my view but a lingering death by famine or at the best by being overwhelmed in the first gale which should spring up
for in our present exhausted condition we could have no hope of living through another the gnawing hunger which i now experienced was nearly insupportable and i felt myself capable of going to any lengths in order to appease it
with my knife i cut off a small portion of the leather trunk and endeavoured to eat it but found it utterly impossible to swallow a single morsel although i fancied that some little alleviation of my suffering was obtained
by chewing small pieces of it and spitting them out toward night my companions awoke one by one each in an indescribable state of weakness and horror brought on by the wine whose fumes had now evaporated
and uttered the most lamentable cries for water their condition affected me in the most lively degree at the same time causing me to rejoice in the fortunate train of circumstances which had prevented me from indulging in the wine
i had not yet abandoned all idea being able to get up something from below but the attempt could not possibly be resumed until some one of them was sufficiently master of himself to aid me by holding the end of the rope while i went down
parker appeared to be somewhat more in possession of his senses than the others and i endeavoured by every means in my power to rouse him thinking that a plunge in the sea water might have a beneficial effect i contrived to fasten the end of a rope around his body
and then leading him to the companion way he remaining quite passive all the while pushed him in and immediately drew him out i had good reason to congratulate myself upon having made this experiment
for he appeared much revived and invigorated and upon getting out asked me in a rational manner why i had so served him
having explained my object he expressed himself indebted to me and said that he felt greatly better from the immersion afterward conversing sensibly upon our situation we then resolved to treat augustus and peters in the same way which we immediately did
when they both experienced much benefit from the shock this idea of sudden immersion had been suggested to me by reading in some medical work the good effect of the shower bath in a case where the patient was suffering from mania a potu
finding that i could now trust my companions to hold the end of the rope i again made three or four plunges into the cabin although it was now quite dark and a gentle but long swell from the northward rendered the hulk somewhat unsteady
in the course of these attempts i succeeded in bringing up two case knives a three gallon jug empty and a blanket but nothing which could serve us for food i continued my efforts after getting these articles until i was completely exhausted
but brought up nothing else during the night parker and peters occupied themselves by turns in the same manner but nothing coming to hand we now gave up this attempt in despair concluding that we were exhausting ourselves in vain
we passed the remainder of this night in a state of the most intense mental and bodily anguish that can possibly be imagined the morning of the sixteenth at length dawned and we looked eagerly around the horizon for relief
but to no purpose the sea was still smooth with only a long swell from the northward as on yesterday this was the sixth day since we had tasted either food or drink
had i met them on shore in their present condition i should not have had the slightest suspicion that i had ever beheld them their countenances were totally changed in character
so that i could not bring myself to believe them really the same individuals with whom i had been in company but a few days before parker although sadly reduced and so feeble that he could not raise his head from his bosom was not so far gone as the other two
he suffered with great patience making no complaint and endeavouring to inspire us with hope in every manner he could devise for myself although at the commencement of the voyage i had been in bad health
and was at all times of a delicate constitution i suffered less than any of us being much less reduced in frame and retaining my powers of mind in a surprising degree while the rest were completely prostrated in intellect
generally simpering in their expressions with idiotic smiles and uttering the most absurd platitudes at intervals however they would appear to revive suddenly as if inspired all at once with a consciousness of their condition
when they would spring upon their feet in a momentary flash of vigour and speak for a short period of their prospects in a manner altogether rational although full of the most intense despair
it is possible however that my companions may have entertained the same opinion of their own condition as i did of mine and that i may have unwittingly been guilty of the same extravagances and imbecilities as themselves
this is a matter which cannot be determined about noon parker declared that he saw land off the larboard quarter and it was with the utmost difficulty i could restrain him from plunging into the sea with the view of swimming toward it
peters and augustus took little notice of what he said being apparently wrapped up in moody contemplation upon looking in the direction pointed out i could not perceive the faintest appearance of the shore
indeed i was too well aware that we were far from any land to indulge in a hope of that nature it was a long time nevertheless before i could convince parker of his mistake
weeping like a child with loud cries and sobs for two or three hours when becoming exhausted he fell asleep peters and augustus now made several ineffectual efforts to swallow portions of the leather
i advised them to chew it and spit it out but they were too excessively debilitated to be able to follow my advice i continued to chew pieces of it at intervals and found some relief from so doing
my chief distress was for water and i was only prevented from taking a draught from the sea by remembering the horrible consequences which thus have resulted to others who were similarly situated with ourselves
the day wore on in this manner when i suddenly discovered a sail to the eastward and on our larboard bow she appeared to be a large ship and was coming nearly athwart us being probably twelve or fifteen miles distant
none of my companions had as yet discovered her and i forbore to tell them of her for the present lest we might again be disappointed of relief at length upon her getting nearer i saw distinctly that she was heading immediately for us with her light sails filled
i could now contain myself no longer and pointed her out to my fellow sufferers
again indulging in the most extravagant demonstrations of joy weeping laughing in an idiotic manner jumping stamping upon the deck tearing their hair and praying and cursing by turns i was so affected by their conduct
as well as by what i considered a sure prospect of deliverance that i could not refrain from joining in with their madness and gave way to the impulses of my gratitude and ecstasy by lying and rolling on the deck
clapping my hands shouting and other similar acts until i was suddenly called to my recollection and once more to the extreme human misery and despair by perceiving the ship all at once with her stern fully presented toward us
and steering in a direction nearly opposite to that in which i had at first perceived her it was some time before i could induce my poor companions to believe that this sad reverse in our prospects had actually taken place
they replied to all my assertions with a stare and a gesture implying that they were not to be deceived by such misrepresentations the conduct of augustus most sensibly affected me in spite of all i could say or do to the contrary
he persisted in saying that the ship was rapidly nearing us and in making preparations to go on board of her some seaweed floating by the brig he maintained that it was the ship's boat and endeavoured to throw himself upon it
howling and shrieking in the most heartrending manner when i forcibly restrained him from thus casting himself into the sea having become in some degree pacified we continued to watch the ship until we finally lost sight of her
the weather becoming hazy with a light breeze springing up as soon as she was entirely gone parker turned suddenly toward me with an expression of countenance which made me shudder
there was about him an air of self possession which i had not noticed in him until now and before he opened his lips my heart told me what he would say
they were not at home like a child who has no one to play with she loitered through the dark hall she saw a light under an office door she knocked to the person who opened she murmured do you happen to know where the perrys are
she realized that it was guy pollock i'm awfully sorry missus kennicott but i don't know won't you come in and wait for them
she observed as she reflected that in gopher prairie it is not decent to call on a man as she decided that no really she wouldn't go in and as she went in i didn't know your office was up here
you remember my saying that of course i always shall please try this chair she glanced about the rusty office gaunt stove shelves of tan law books desk chair filled with newspapers so long sat upon
that they were in holes and smudged to grayness there were only two things which suggested guy pollock on the green felt of the table desk between legal blanks and a clotted inkwell
on a swing shelf was a row of books unfamiliar to gopher prairie mosher editions of the poets black and red german novels a charles lamb in crushed levant guy did not sit down he quartered the office
a grayhound on the scent a grayhound with glasses tilted forward on his thin nose and a silky indecisive brown mustache he had a golf jacket of jersey worn through at the creases in the sleeves she noted
champ is the salt of the earth but somehow i can't imagine him joining you in symbolic dancing or making improvements on the diesel engine no he's a dear soul bless him but he belongs in the national museum
along with general grant's sword and i'm oh i suppose i'm seeking for a gospel that will evangelize gopher prairie really evangelize it to what to anything that's definite seriousness or frivolousness or both
i wouldn't care whether it was a laboratory or a carnival but it's merely safe tell me mister pollock what is the matter with gopher prairie is anything the matter with it isn't there perhaps something the matter with you and me
may i join you in the honor of having something the matter yes thanks no i think it's the town because they enjoy skating more than biology but i'm not only more interested in biology than the jolly seventeen
but also in skating i'll skate with them or slide or throw snowballs just as gladly as talk with you oh no yes but they want to stay home and embroider perhaps i'm not defending the town
it's merely i'm a confirmed doubter of myself probably i'm conceited about my lack of conceit anyway gopher prairie isn't particularly bad it's like all villages in all countries most places that have lost the smell of earth
but not yet acquired the smell of patchouli or of factory smoke are just as suspicious and righteous i wonder if the small town isn't with some lovely exceptions a social appendix some day these dull market towns may be as obsolete as monasteries
she asked impulsively you why do you stay here i have the village virus it sounds dangerous it is more dangerous than the cancer that will certainly get me at fifty unless i stop this smoking
the village virus is the germ which it's extraordinarily like the hook worm it infects ambitious people who stay too long in the provinces you'll find it epidemic among lawyers and doctors and ministers and college bred merchants
he dropped into the shrieking desk chair he looked squarely at her she was conscious of the pupils of his eyes of the fact that he was a man and lonely they were embarrassed they elaborately glanced away and were relieved as he went on
the diagnosis of my village virus is simple enough i was born in an ohio town about the same size as gopher prairie and much less friendly it'd had more generations in which to form an oligarchy of respectability
here a stranger is taken in if he is correct if he likes hunting and motoring and god and our senator there we didn't take in even our own till we had contemptuously got used to them
i went to a denominational college and learned that since dictating the bible and hiring a perfect race of ministers to explain it god has never done much but creep around and try to catch us disobeying it from college i went to new york to the columbia law school
and for four years i lived oh i won't rhapsodize about new york it was dirty and noisy and breathless and ghastly expensive but compared with the moldy academy in which i had been smothered i went to symphonies twice a week
from the top gallery i walked in gramercy park and i read oh everything through a cousin i learned that julius flickerbaugh was sick and needed a partner i came here julius got well
i thought i was keeping up but i guess the village virus had me already i was reading four copies of cheap fiction magazines to one poem i'd put off the minneapolis trips till i simply had to go there on a lot of legal matters
a few years ago i was talking to a patent lawyer from chicago and i realized that i'd always felt so superior to people like julius flickerbaugh but i saw that i was as provincial and behind the times as julius worse
then i found that the village virus had me absolute i didn't want to face new streets and younger men real competition it was too easy to go on making out conveyances and arguing ditching cases so
that's all of the biography of a living dead man except the diverting last chapter the lies about my having been a tower of strength and legal wisdom which some day a preacher will spin over my lean dry body
he looked down at his table desk fingering the starry enameled vase she could not comment she pictured herself running across the room to pat his hair she saw that his lips were firm under his soft faded mustache
she sat still and maundered i know the village virus perhaps it will get me some day i'm going oh no matter at least i am making you talk
usually you have to be polite to my garrulousness but now i'm sitting at your feet it would be rather nice to have you literally sitting at my feet by a fire would you have a fireplace for me naturally please don't snub me now
let the old man rave how old are you carol twenty six guy twenty six i was just leaving new york at twenty six i heard patti sing at twenty six and now i'm forty seven
i feel like a child yet i'm old enough to be your father so it's decently paternal to imagine you curled at my feet of course i hope it isn't but we'll reflect the morals of gopher prairie by officially announcing that it is these standards that you and i live up to
there's one thing that's the matter with gopher prairie at least with the ruling class there is a ruling class despite all our professions of democracy and the penalty we tribal rulers pay is that our subjects watch us every minute
we can't get wholesomely drunk and relax we have to be so correct about sex morals and inconspicuous clothes and doing our commercial trickery only in the traditional ways that none of us can live up to it and we become horribly hypocritical unavoidably
the widow robbing deacon of fiction can't help being hypocritical the widows themselves demand it they admire his unctuousness and look at me suppose i did dare to make love to some exquisite married woman i wouldn't admit it to myself
when i get hold of one in chicago yet i shouldn't even try to hold your hand i'm broken it's the historical anglo saxon way of making life miserable
guy can't we do something with the town really no we can't he disposed of it like a judge ruling out an improper objection returned to matters less uncomfortably energetic curious
most troubles are unnecessary we have nature beaten we can make her grow wheat we can keep warm when she sends blizzards so we raise the devil just for pleasure wars politics race hatreds labor disputes
here in gopher prairie we've cleared the fields and become soft so we make ourselves unhappy artificially at great expense and exertion methodists disliking episcopalians the man with the hudson laughing at the man with the flivver
the worst is the commercial hatred the grocer feeling that any man who doesn't deal with him is robbing him what hurts me is that it applies to lawyers and doctors and decidedly to their wives as much as to grocers the doctors you know about that
how your husband and westlake and gould dislike one another
he grinned oh maybe once or twice when will has positively known of a case where doctor
where one of the others has continued to call on patients longer than necessary he has laughed about it but he still grinned no really and when you say the wives of the doctors share these jealousies
missus mc ganum and i haven't any particular crush on each other she's so stolid but her mother missus westlake nobody could be sweeter yes i'm sure she's very bland
but i wouldn't tell her my heart's secrets if i were you my dear i insist that there's only one professional man's wife in this town who doesn't plot and that is you you blessed credulous outsider i won't be cajoled
i won't believe that medicine the priesthood of healing can be turned into a penny picking business see here hasn't kennicott ever hinted to you that you'd better be nice to some old woman because she tells her friends which doctor to call in but i oughtn't to
she remembered certain remarks which kennicott had offered regarding the widow bogart she flinched looked at guy beseechingly he sprang up strode to her with a nervous step smoothed her hand
she wondered if she ought to be offended by his caress then she wondered if he liked her hat the new oriental turban of rose and silver brocade he dropped her hand his elbow brushed her shoulder he flitted over to the desk chair his thin back stooped
across it he peered at her with such loneliness that she was startled but his eyes faded into impersonality as he talked of the jealousies of gopher prairie he stopped himself with a sharp good lord carol you're not a jury
you are within your legal rights in refusing to be subjected to this summing up i'm a tedious old fool analyzing the obvious while you're the spirit of rebellion tell me your side what is gopher prairie to you a bore
can i help how could you i don't know perhaps by listening i haven't done that tonight but normally can't i be the confidant of the old french plays the tiring maid with the mirror and the loyal ears
oh what is there to confide the people are savorless and proud of it and even if i liked you tremendously i couldn't talk to you without twenty old hexes watching whispering
i'm not sure that i shall i'm trying to develop my own large capacity for dullness and contentment i've failed at every positive thing i've tried i'd better settle down as they call it and be satisfied to be nothing don't be cynical
it hurts me in you it's like blood on the wing of a humming bird i'm not a humming bird i'm a hawk a tiny leashed hawk pecked to death by these large white flabby wormy hens but i am grateful to you for confirming me in the faith
he stalked to her took her unresponsive hand carol you have been happy here tonight yes i'm begging she squeezed his hand quickly then snatched hers away she had but little of the curiosity of the flirt
and none of the intrigante's joy in furtiveness if she was the naive girl guy pollock was the clumsy boy he raced about the office he rammed his fists into his pockets he stammered i i i oh the devil
the dillons yes really quite a decent young pair harvey dillon and his wife he's a dentist just come to town they live in a room behind his office same as i do here they don't know much of anybody i've heard of them
and i've never thought to call i'm horribly ashamed do bring them she stopped for no very clear reason but his expression said her faltering admitted that they wished they had never mentioned the dillons
with spurious enthusiasm he said splendid i will from the door he glanced at her curled in the peeled leather chair he slipped out came back with doctor and missus dillon
the four of them drank rather bad coffee which pollock made on a kerosene burner they laughed and spoke of minneapolis and were tremendously tactful
a lonely ride as i stepped into the slumgullion stage i saw that it was a dark night a lonely road
let me assure the reader that i have no ulterior design in making this assertion
the storyteller who willfully tempts fate by such obvious beginnings who is to the expectant reader in danger of being robbed or half murdered or frightened by an escaped lunatic or introduced to his ladylove for the first time
deserves to be detected i am relieved to say that none of these things occurred to me the road from wingdam to slumgullion knew no other banditti than the regularly licensed hotelkeepers
lunatics had not yet reached such depth of imbecility as to ride of their own free will in california stages and my laura amiable and long suffering as she always is could not i fear
have borne up against these depressing circumstances long enough to have made the slightest impression on me i stood with my shawl and carpetbag in hand gazing doubtingly on the vehicle
even in the darkness the red dust of wingdam was visible on its roof and sides and the red slime of slumgullion clung tenaciously to its wheels i opened the door the stage creaked easily
and in the gloomy abyss the swaying straps beckoned me like ghostly hands to come in now and have my sufferings out at once i must not omit to mention the occurrence of a circumstance which struck me as appalling and mysterious
a lounger on the steps of the hotel who i had reason to suppose was not in any way connected with the stage company gravely descended and walking toward the conveyance tried the handle of the door opened it expectorated in the carriage
expectorated carefully on the axle and returned slowly and pensively to the hotel a third spectator wearily disengaged himself from one of the ionic columns of the portico and walked to the box
remained for a moment in serious and expectorative contemplation of the boot and then returned to his column there was something so weird in this baptism that i grew quite nervous perhaps i was out of spirits
a number of infinitesimal annoyances winding up with the resolute persistency of the clerk at the stage office to enter my name misspelt on the waybill had not predisposed me to cheerfulness
the inmates of the eureka house from a social viewpoint were not attractive there was the prevailing opinion so common to many honest people that a serious style of deportment and conduct toward a stranger indicates high gentility and elevated station
obeying this principle all hilarity ceased on my entrance to supper and general remark merged into the safer and uncompromising chronicle of several bad cases of diphtheria then epidemic at wingdam
when i left the dining room with an odd feeling that i had been supping exclusively on mustard and tea leaves i stopped a moment at the parlor door a piano harmoniously related to the dinner bell
tinkled responsive to a diffident and uncertain touch on the white wall the shadow of an old and sharp profile was bending over several symmetrical and shadowy curls i sez to mariar mariar sez i
praise to the face is open disgrace i heard no more dreading some susceptibility to sincere expression on the subject of female loveliness i walked away
checking the compliment that otherwise might have risen unbidden to my lips and have brought shame and sorrow to the household it was with the memory of these experiences resting heavily upon me that i stood hesitatingly before the stage door
he took no further notice of me i looked longingly at the box seat but he did not respond to the appeal i flung my carpetbag into the chasm dived recklessly after it and before i was fairly seated
and the night and its shadows moved solemnly upon us to say it was dark expressed but faintly the pitchy obscurity that encompassed the vehicle the roadside trees were scarcely distinguishable as deeper masses of shadow
i knew them only by the peculiar sodden odor that from time to time sluggishly flowed in at the open window as we rolled by we proceeded slowly so leisurely that leaning from the carriage i more than once detected the fragrant sigh of some astonished cow
whose ruminating repose upon the highway we had ruthlessly disturbed but in the darkness our progress more the guidance of some mysterious instinct than any apparent volition of our own gave an indefinable charm of security to our journey
that a moment's hesitation or indecision on the part of the driver would have destroyed i had indulged a hope that in the empty vehicle i might obtain that rest so often denied me in its crowded condition it was a weak delusion
when i stretched out my limbs it was only to find that the ordinary conveniences for making several people distinctly uncomfortable were distributed throughout my individual frame at last resting my arms on the straps
by dint of much gymnastic effort i became sufficiently composed to be aware of a more refined species of torture the springs of the stage rising and falling regularly produced a rhythmical beat which began to absorb my attention painfully
inequalities of the road only quickened its utterance or drawled it to an exasperating length it was of no use to consider the statement seriously it was of no use to except to it indignantly
it was of no use to recall the many instances where praise to the face had redounded to the everlasting honor of praiser and bepraised of no use to dwell sentimentally on modest genius and courage lifted up and strengthened by open commendation
of no use to except to the mysterious female to picture her as rearing a thin blooded generation on selfish and mechanically repeated axioms all this failed to counteract the monotonous repetition of this sentence
there was nothing to do but to give in and i was about to accept it weakly as we too often treat other illusions of darkness and necessity for the time being
when i became aware of some other annoyance that had been forcing itself upon me for the last few moments how quiet the driver was was there any driver had i any reason to suppose that he was not lying gagged and bound on the roadside
and the highwayman with blackened face who did the thing so quietly driving me whither the thing is perfectly feasible and what is this fancy now being jolted out of me a story it's of no use to keep it back
particularly in this abysmal vehicle and here it comes i am a marquis a french marquis french because the peerage is not so well known
a marquis because the democratic reader delights in the nobility my name is something ligny
it is a dark night and i fall asleep and tell my honest coachman andre not to disturb me and dream of an angel the carriage at last stops at the chateau
it is so dark that when i alight i do not recognize the face of the footman who holds the carriage door but what of that peste i am heavy with sleep the same obscurity also hides the old familiar indecencies of the statues on the terrace
but there is a door and it opens and shuts behind me smartly then i find myself in a trap in the presence of the brigand who has quietly gagged poor andre and conducted the carriage thither there is nothing for me to do as a gallant french marquis but to say
parbleu draw my rapier and die valorously i am found a week or two after outside a deserted cabaret near the barrier with a hole through my ruffled linen and my pockets stripped no on second thoughts i am rescued
rescued by the angel i have been dreaming of who is the assumed daughter of the brigand but the real daughter of an intimate friend looking from the window again in the vain hope of distinguishing the driver
i found my eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness
it had an indescribably unreal and theatrical effect it was the full moon of norma that remarkable celestial phenomenon which rises so palpably to a hushed audience and a sublime andante chorus until the casta diva is sung
the inconstant moon that then and thereafter remains fixed in the heavens as though it were a part of the solar system inaugurated by joshua again the white robed druids filed past me
again i saw that improbable mistletoe cut from that impossible oak and again cold chills ran down my back with the first strain of the recitative
my fears for the driver were dissipated with the rising moon a familiar sound had assured me of his presence in the full possession of at least one of his most important functions
frequent and full expectoration convinced me that his lips were as yet not sealed by the gag of highwaymen and soothed my anxious ear
with this load lifted from my mind and assisted by the mild presence of diana who left as when she visited endymion much of her splendor outside my cavern i looked around the empty vehicle on the forward seat lay a woman's hairpin
i picked it up with an interest that however soon abated there was no scent of the roses to cling to it still not even of hair oil no bend or twist in its rigid angles betrayed any trait of its wearer's character
i tried to think that it might have been mariar's i tried to imagine that confining the symmetrical curls of that girl it might have heard the soft compliments whispered in her ears which provoked the wrath of the aged female but in vain
it was reticent and unswerving in its upright fidelity and at last slipped listlessly through my fingers i had dozed repeatedly waked on the threshold of oblivion by contact with some of the angles of the coach
and feeling that i was unconsciously assuming in imitation of a humble insect of my childish recollection that spherical shape which could best resist those impressions when i perceived that the moon riding high in the heavens
had begun to separate the formless masses of the shadowy landscape trees isolated in clumps and assemblages changed places before my window the sharp outlines of the distant hills came back as in daylight
faustus might have been spared his agonizing prayer when a sudden spasm of activity attacked my driver a succession of whip snappings like a pack of chinese crackers broke from the box before me the stage leaped forward
and when i could pick myself from under the seat a long white building had in some mysterious way rolled before my window it must be slumgullion as i descended from the stage i addressed the driver i thought you changed horses on the road
so we did two hours ago that's odd i didn't notice it
lady russell was most anxiously zealous on the subject and gave it much serious consideration she was a woman rather of sound than of quick abilities whose difficulties in coming to any decision in this instance were great
from the opposition of two leading principles she was of strict integrity herself with a delicate sense of honour but she was as desirous of saving sir walter's feelings as solicitous for the credit of the family
strict in her notions of decorum and with manners that were held a standard of good breeding she had a cultivated mind and was generally speaking rational and consistent but she had prejudices on the side of ancestry
she had a value for rank and consequence which blinded her a little to the faults of those who possessed them herself the widow of only a knight she gave the dignity of a baronet all its due and sir walter
under his present difficulties they must retrench that did not admit of a doubt but she was very anxious to have it done with the least possible pain to him and elizabeth she drew up plans of economy
she made exact calculations and she did what nobody else thought of doing she consulted anne who never seemed considered by the others as having any interest in the question she consulted and in a degree was influenced by her
in marking out the scheme of retrenchment which was at last submitted to sir walter every emendation of anne's had been on the side of honesty against importance she wanted more vigorous measures a more complete reformation a quicker release from debt
a much higher tone of indifference for everything but justice and equity if we can persuade your father to all this said lady russell looking over her paper much may be done if he will adopt these regulations in seven years he will be clear
that kellynch hall has a respectability in itself which cannot be affected by these reductions and that the true dignity of sir walter elliot will be very far from lessened in the eyes of sensible people
we must be serious and decided
she considered it as an act of indispensable duty to clear away the claims of creditors with all the expedition which the most comprehensive retrenchments could secure and saw no dignity in anything short of it she wanted it to be prescribed
and felt as a duty she rated lady russell's influence highly and as to the severe degree of self denial which her own conscience prompted she believed there might be little more difficulty in persuading them to a complete than to half a reformation
and so on through the whole list of lady russell's too gentle reductions how anne's more rigid requisitions might have been taken is of little consequence lady russell's had no success at all could not be put up with were not to be borne
what every comfort of life knocked off journeys london servants horses table contractions and restrictions every where to live no longer with the decencies even of a private gentleman no
he would sooner quit kellynch hall at once than remain in it on such disgraceful terms quit kellynch hall the hint was immediately taken up by mister shepherd whose interest was involved in the reality of sir walter's retrenching
and who was perfectly persuaded that nothing would be done without a change of abode since the idea had been started in the very quarter which ought to dictate he had no scruple he said in confessing his judgement to be entirely on that side
it did not appear to him that sir walter could materially alter his style of living in a house which had such a character of hospitality and ancient dignity to support in any other place sir walter might judge for himself and would be looked up to as regulating the modes of life
in whatever way he might choose to model his household sir walter would quit kellynch hall and after a very few days more of doubt and indecision the great question of whither he should go was settled and the first outline of this important change made out
london bath or another house in the country all anne's wishes had been for the latter a small house in their own neighbourhood where they might still have lady russell's society still be near mary
and still have the pleasure of sometimes seeing the lawns and groves of kellynch was the object of her ambition but the usual fate of anne attended her in having something very opposite from her inclination fixed on she disliked bath and did not think it agreed with her
and bath was to be her home sir walter had at first thought more of london but mister shepherd felt that he could not be trusted in london and had been skilful enough to dissuade him from it and make bath preferred
it was a much safer place for a gentleman in his predicament he might there be important at comparatively little expense two material advantages of bath over london had of course been given all their weight
that they should lose neither consequence nor enjoyment by settling there lady russell felt obliged to oppose her dear anne's known wishes
by passing all the warm months with her at kellynch lodge every danger would be avoided and it was in fact a change which must do both health and spirits good anne had been too little from home too little seen her spirits were not high
a larger society would improve them she wanted her to be more known the undesirableness of any other house in the same neighbourhood for sir walter was certainly much strengthened by one part and a very material part of the scheme
which had been happily engrafted on the beginning he was not only to quit his home but to see it in the hands of others a trial of fortitude which stronger heads than sir walter's have found too much kellynch hall was to be let
this however was a profound secret not to be breathed beyond their own circle sir walter could not have borne the degradation of being known to design letting his house mister shepherd had once mentioned the word advertise
on his own terms and as a great favour that he would let it at all how quick come the reasons for approving what we like lady russell had another excellent one at hand for being extremely glad that sir walter and his family were to remove from the country
elizabeth had been lately forming an intimacy which she wished to see interrupted it was with the daughter of mister shepherd who had returned after an unprosperous marriage to her father's house with the additional burden of two children
she was a clever young woman who understood the art of pleasing
as to have been already staying there more than once in spite of all that lady russell who thought it a friendship quite out of place could hint of caution and reserve lady russell indeed had scarcely any influence with elizabeth
and seemed to love her rather because she would love her than because elizabeth deserved it she had never received from her more than outward attention nothing beyond the observances of complaisance had never succeeded in any point which she wanted to carry against previous inclination
she had been repeatedly very earnest in trying to get anne included in the visit to london sensibly open to all the injustice
and on many lesser occasions had endeavoured to give elizabeth the advantage of her own better judgement and experience but always in vain elizabeth would go her own way and never had she pursued it in more decided opposition to lady russell than in this selection of missus clay
turning from the society of so deserving a sister to bestow her affection and confidence on one who ought to have been nothing to her but the object of distant civility from situation missus clay was in lady russell's
from his fortune his house and his daughter he could command the visits of his own little circle in a great measure as he liked he had not much intercourse with any families beyond that circle his horror of late hours and large dinner parties
made him unfit for any acquaintance but such as would visit him on his own terms fortunately for him highbury including randalls in the same parish and donwell abbey in the parish adjoining the seat of mister knightley
comprehended many such not unfrequently through emma's persuasion he had some of the chosen and the best to dine with him but evening parties were what he preferred and unless he fancied himself at any time unequal to company
there was scarcely an evening in the week in which emma could not make up a card table for him real long standing regard brought the westons and mister knightley and by mister elton a young man living alone without liking it
the privilege of exchanging any vacant evening of his own blank solitude for the elegancies and society of mister woodhouse's drawing room and the smiles of his lovely daughter was in no danger of being thrown away
after these came a second set among the most come at able of whom were missus and miss bates and missus goddard three ladies almost always at the service of an invitation from hartfield
and who were fetched and carried home so often that mister woodhouse thought it no hardship for either james or the horses
missus bates the widow of a former vicar of highbury was a very old lady almost past every thing but tea and quadrille she lived with her single daughter in a very small way
and was considered with all the regard and respect which a harmless old lady under such untoward circumstances can excite her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree of popularity
miss bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having much of the public favour and she had no intellectual superiority to make atonement to herself or frighten those who might hate her into outward respect
she had never boasted either beauty or cleverness her youth had passed without distinction and her middle of life was devoted to the care of a failing mother and the endeavour to make a small income go as far as possible
and yet she was a happy woman and a woman whom no one named without good will it was her own universal good will and contented temper which worked such wonders she loved every body
was interested in every body's happiness quicksighted to every body's merits thought herself a most fortunate creature and surrounded with blessings in such an excellent mother and so many good neighbours and friends and a home that wanted for nothing
the simplicity and cheerfulness of her nature her contented and grateful spirit were a recommendation to every body and a mine of felicity to herself she was a great talker upon little matters
or any thing which professed in long sentences of refined nonsense to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality upon new principles and new systems
but a real honest old fashioned boarding school
for highbury was reckoned a particularly healthy spot she had an ample house and garden gave the children plenty of wholesome food let them run about a great deal in the summer and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own hands it was no wonder
that a train of twenty young couple now walked after her to church she was a plain motherly kind of woman who had worked hard in her youth and now thought herself entitled to the occasional holiday of a tea visit
and having formerly owed much to mister woodhouse's kindness felt his particular claim on her to leave her neat parlour hung round with fancy work whenever she could and win or lose a few sixpences by his fireside
these were the ladies whom emma found herself very frequently able to collect and happy was she for her father's sake in the power though as far as she was herself concerned it was no remedy for the absence of missus weston
she was delighted to see her father look comfortable and very much pleased with herself for contriving things so well but the quiet prosings of three such women made her feel that every evening so spent
was indeed one of the long evenings she had fearfully anticipated as she sat one morning looking forward to exactly such a close of the present day a note was brought from missus goddard requesting in most respectful terms
and the evening no longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion harriet smith was the natural daughter of somebody somebody had placed her several years back at missus goddard's school
and somebody had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of parlour boarder this was all that was generally known of her history she had no visible friends but what had been acquired at highbury
and was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young ladies who had been at school there with her she was a very pretty girl and her beauty happened to be of a sort which emma particularly admired she was short
plump and fair with a fine bloom blue eyes light hair regular features and a look of great sweetness and before the end of the evening emma was as much pleased with her manners as her person
and quite determined to continue the acquaintance she was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in miss smith's conversation but she found her altogether very engaging not inconveniently shy not unwilling to talk
and yet so far from pushing shewing so proper and becoming a deference seeming so pleasantly grateful for being admitted to hartfield and so artlessly impressed by the appearance of every thing in so superior a style to what she had been used to
that she must have good sense and deserve encouragement encouragement should be given those soft blue eyes and all those natural graces should not be wasted on the inferior society of highbury and its connexions
the acquaintance she had already formed were unworthy of her the friends from whom she had just parted though very good sort of people must be doing her harm they were a family of the name of martin
as renting a large farm of mister knightley and residing in the parish of donwell very creditably she believed she knew mister knightley thought highly of them but they must be coarse and unpolished
she would improve her she would detach her from her bad acquaintance and introduce her into good society she would form her opinions and her manners it would be an interesting and certainly a very kind undertaking
highly becoming her own situation in life her leisure and powers she was so busy in admiring those soft blue eyes in talking and listening and forming all these schemes in the in betweens
that the evening flew away at a very unusual rate and the supper table which always closed such parties and for which she had been used to sit and watch the due time was all set out and ready and moved forwards to the fire before she was aware
of doing every thing well and attentively with the real good will of a mind delighted with its own ideas did she then do all the honours of the meal and help and recommend the minced chicken and scalloped oysters with an urgency which she knew would be acceptable
to the early hours and civil scruples of their guests upon such occasions poor mister woodhouses feelings were in sad warfare he loved to have the cloth laid because it had been the fashion of his youth
his care for their health made him grieve that they would eat such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that he could with thorough self approbation recommend
though he might constrain himself while the ladies were comfortably clearing the nicer things to say missus bates let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs
serle understands boiling an egg better than any body i would not recommend an egg boiled by any body else but you need not be afraid they are very small you see one of our small eggs will not hurt you
what say you to half a glass of wine a small half glass put into a tumbler of water i do not think it could disagree with you emma allowed her father to talk but supplied her visitors in a much more satisfactory style
and on the present evening had particular pleasure in sending them away happy the happiness of miss smith was quite equal to her intentions miss woodhouse was so great a personage in highbury
that the prospect of the introduction had given as much panic as pleasure but the humble grateful little girl went off with highly gratified feelings
do you really think it a bad thing why so i think they will neither of them do the other any good
emma must do harriet good and by supplying her with a new object of interest harriet may be said to do emma good i have been seeing their intimacy with the greatest pleasure how very differently we feel not think they will do each other any good
this will certainly be the beginning of one of our quarrels about emma mister knightley
knowing weston to be out and that you must still fight your own battle mister weston would undoubtedly support me if he were here for he thinks exactly as i do on the subject we were speaking of it only yesterday and agreeing how fortunate it was for emma
that there should be such a girl in highbury for her to associate with mister knightley i shall not allow you to be a fair judge in this case you are so much used to live alone
and perhaps no man can be a good judge of the comfort a woman feels in the society of one of her own sex after being used to it all her life i can imagine your objection to harriet smith she is not the superior young woman which emma's friend ought to be
but on the other hand as emma wants to see her better informed it will be an inducement to her to read more herself they will read together she means it i know emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old
the list she drew up when only fourteen i remember thinking it did her judgment so much credit that i preserved it some time and i dare say she may have made out a very good list now but i have done with expecting any course of steady reading from emma
she will never submit to any thing requiring industry and patience and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding where miss taylor failed to stimulate i may safely affirm that harriet smith will do nothing
you never could persuade her to read half so much as you wished you know you could not i dare say replied missus weston smiling that i thought so then but since we have parted i can never remember emma's omitting to do any thing i wished
there is hardly any desiring to refresh such a memory as that said mister knightley feelingly and for a moment or two he had done but i he soon added who have had no such charm thrown over my senses
must still see hear and remember emma is spoiled by being the cleverest of her family at ten years old she had the misfortune of being able to answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen she was always quick and assured
isabella slow and diffident and ever since she was twelve emma has been mistress of the house and of you all in her mother she lost the only person able to cope with her she inherits her mother's talents and must have been under subjection to her
i should have been sorry mister knightley to be dependent on your recommendation had i quitted mister woodhouse's family and wanted another situation
i am sure you always thought me unfit for the office i held yes said he smiling you are better placed here
but you were preparing yourself to be an excellent wife all the time you were at hartfield you might not give emma such a complete education as your powers would seem to promise but you were receiving a very good education from her
why to own the truth i am afraid you are rather thrown away and that with every disposition to bear there will be nothing to be borne we will not despair however weston may grow cross from the wantonness of comfort or his son may plague him
i hope not that it is not likely no mister knightley do not foretell vexation from that quarter not i indeed i only name possibilities i do not pretend to emma's genius for foretelling and guessing
how can emma imagine she has any thing to learn herself while harriet is presenting such a delightful inferiority and as for harriet i will venture to say that she cannot gain by the acquaintance
hartfield will only put her out of conceit with all the other places she belongs to she will grow just refined enough to be uncomfortable with those among whom birth and circumstances have placed her home
i am much mistaken if emma's doctrines give any strength of mind or tend at all to make a girl adapt herself rationally
oh you would rather talk of her person than her mind would you very well i shall not attempt to deny emma's being pretty pretty say beautiful rather can you imagine any thing nearer perfect beauty than emma altogether
face and figure i
but i confess that i have seldom seen a face or figure more pleasing to me than hers but i am a partial old friend such an eye the true hazle eye and so brilliant regular features
what a bloom of full health and such a pretty height and size such a firm and upright figure there is health not merely in her bloom but in her air her head her glance one hears sometimes of a child being the picture of health
now emma always gives me the idea of being the complete picture of grown up health she is loveliness itself mister knightley is not she i have not a fault to find with her person he replied i think her all you describe i love to look at her
or my dread of its doing them both harm and i mister knightley am equally stout in my confidence of its not doing them any harm with all dear emma's little faults she is an excellent creature where shall we see a better daughter
or a kinder sister or a truer friend no no she has qualities which may be trusted she will never lead any one really wrong she will make no lasting blunder where emma errs once she is in the right a hundred times
i consider myself you know as having somewhat of the privilege of speech that emma's mother might have had the liberty of hinting that i do not think any possible good can arise from harriet smith's intimacy being made a matter of much discussion among you pray excuse me
but supposing any little inconvenience may be apprehended from the intimacy it cannot be expected that emma accountable to nobody but her father who perfectly approves the acquaintance should put an end to it so long as it is a source of pleasure to herself
it has been so many years my province to give advice that you cannot be surprized mister knightley at this little remains of office not at all cried he i am much obliged to you for it
i will not raise any outcry i will keep my ill humour to myself i have a very sincere interest in emma isabella does not seem more my sister has never excited a greater interest perhaps hardly so great
there is an anxiety a curiosity in what one feels for emma i wonder what will become of her so do i said missus weston gently very much
she always declares she will never marry which of course means just nothing at all but i have no idea that she has yet ever seen a man she cared for it would not be a bad thing for her to be very much in love with a proper object
i should like to see emma in love and in some doubt of a return it would do her good but there is nobody hereabouts to attach her and she goes so seldom from home there does indeed
seem as little to tempt her to break her resolution at present said missus weston as can well be and while she is so happy at hartfield i cannot wish her to be forming any attachment which would be creating such difficulties on poor mister woodhouse's account
one day while he was out hunting a little rabbit that his dogs were about to kill threw itself into his arms the king caressed the little creature and said
and he carried the rabbit to his palace and ordered a pretty little hutch to be made for it that night when he was alone in his room there appeared a lovely lady
she wore a robe as white as snow and a wreath of white roses on her head she addressed him thus
i wished to see if you were as good as everybody declares you are and for this reason i changed myself into the little rabbit
for i know that those who have pity for dumb creatures have still more pity for mankind i have come to thank you for what you did and to say that i shall always be your friend
you know he would be unhappy for it is only goodness which brings content you are right answered the fairy but that i cannot do
all that i can promise is that i will give him good advice and punish him for his faults if he will not himself correct them and with this the father had to rest content not long afterwards the good king died
but one day when he returned from the chase having caught nothing he felt so ill humoured that when his dog bibi came fawning upon him he kicked the poor faithful creature from him
i know you are higher than a dog but the advantage of being ruler of a great empire is not in doing all the harm one wishes but in doing all the good one can
and ordered his officers to carry zelie to the palace but she was not used unkindly there for the prince loved her however after a while urged by his foster brother
determined that if she still refused to marry him
while all others at the court were full of flattery and praise but in his heart of hearts the prince respected this good man and this the wicked flatterers knew full well and therefore feared lest he should come into the prince's favour
i promised your father said she in a stern voice to give you good advice and to punish you if you refused to follow it you have despised my counsels and your crimes have converted you into a monster the horror of heaven and earth
a serpent for destroying him who has been your second father a bull
he had a lion's head a bull's horns the feet of a wolf and the tail of a viper at the same moment he found himself in a forest and there after roaming about miserably for some time he fell into a pit dug by hunters
he was captured and led into the capital of his kingdom on the way thither instead of acknowledging that he had brought this evil plight upon himself he bit at his chains and cursed the fairy
as he was nearing the city great rejoicings were seen on every side and on the hunters enquiring the reason
whose only pleasure it was to torment his people had been crushed to death in his chamber by a thunder bolt a just punishment for his offences four of his wicked companions had tried to partition the kingdom between them but the people would have none such to rule
and all the people who shouted with joy and wished him a long life to repair the evil brought about by their former sovereign i accept the throne said suliman
and one day when this keeper lay asleep and a tiger who had broken loose was about to devour him
one day he carried his little piece of bread into the garden to eat it there but wandering with it in his mouth still further on
and almost fainting for want of food
but if i give my breakfast to this poor thing perhaps i shall save her life he placed his bread in the girl's hand and she ate it hungrily
that she now accepted his gift and would love him always
and that was that they had no child one day when the queen was staying in a watering place some distance from home she was sitting by a fountain alone sadly thinking of the daughter she longed to have
i will lead you to a fairies palace and your wish shall be fulfilled i would certainly come with you replied the queen but i am afraid that i cannot walk backwards
the crab smiled and transforming herself into a beautiful little old woman said now madam it is not necessary to go backwards come with me and i beg of you to look upon me as your friend
she then escorted the queen to the most magnificent palace that could possibly be imagined it was built entirely of diamonds in this superb place dwelt six fairies who received the queen with the greatest respect
and each one presented her with a flower made of precious stones a rose tulip an anemone a columbine a violet and a carnation
a baby princess was born whom she named desiree then taking the bouquet into her hand the queen one by one pronounced the names of the flowers when there immediately appeared flying through the air in elegant chariots drawn by different kinds of birds
with the history of the world worked into its pattern toys of all descriptions that a child would love to play with and a cradle ornamented with rubies and diamonds and supported by four cupids ready to rock it should the baby cry but
for your friendship instead of advancing has gone backwards then in spite of all the queen and the fairies could say the crab went backwards out of the door leaving them in the saddest consternation
and it was long before they could decide what was best to be done then with three waves of a wand the fairies caused a high tower to spring up it had neither door nor window an underground passage was made
through which everything necessary could be carried and in this tower the little princess was shut up and there she lived by candlelight where never a glimpse of the sun could come
so great is my love for the princess desiree but where have you seen her enquired the king the prince hastened to fetch her portrait and the king was so greatly struck by desiree's beauty that he agreed to follow his son's wishes
besides numerous magnificent presents becafigue took with him the prince's portrait which had been painted by such a clever artist that it would speak it could not exactly answer questions but could make certain remarks
it was truly a speaking likeness of the young prince
for they knew him to be a brave and noble young man but as it still wanted three months to the princess's fifteenth year warned by the fairy tulip who had taken desiree under her special care they refused to let him see their daughter
but they showed her the prince's portrait with which she was greatly pleased and particularly when it said
you cannot imagine how ardently i am waiting for you come soon into our court
than he had had admiring hers and this was soon discovered by those around her
her maids of honour giroflee loved her passionately and faithfully but longue epine was full of envy of the princess who was so good and beautiful and besides longue epine
this princess noire now went to the fairy of the fountain who was her best friend
and this the fairy promised to do meanwhile once more becafigue came to the capital where desiree's father lived and throwing himself at the king's feet
so in a carriage like a large dark box shut up with her lady in waiting and her two maids of honour
the king and queen had begged the lady in waiting to take the greatest of care of their dear daughter and above all to be heedful that she did not see the light of day until her fifteenth birthday saying that the ambassador had promised that until then
she should be placed where there was no other light than that of candles but now as they drew near their destination while it was broad daylight the wicked woman urged by her envious daughter longue epine
hardly had she perceived it when uttering a deep sigh she threw herself from the carriage and in the form of a white fawn fleetly fled into a forest near by the fairy of the fountain who was the cause of this disaster
who ran after her mistress making the trees and rocks echo with her mournful calls then longue epine clothed herself in the rich bridal robes
the sceptre and orb she carried in her hands
at first the prince could not speak a word he simply gazed at her in amazement then he said turning to his father we have been deceived that portrait was painted to mislead us it will be the death of me
fiercely exclaimed longue epine it is not to be wondered at remarked the king that your father kept such a treasure
and think of some revenge upon the deceitful king her father after three or four days journeying the wanderers found themselves in a thick forest quite wearied out the prince threw himself upon the ground
while becafigue went on further in search of fruit wherewith to refresh his royal master it is a long time since we left the white fawn that is to say the charming princess very desolately she wept when in a stream she saw her figure reflected
and when night came she was in great fear for she heard wild beasts about her and sometimes forgetting she was a fawn she would try to climb a tree but with morning dawn she felt a little safer
her delight was boundless it did not take giroflee long to discover that this was her dearly loved mistress and she promised the white fawn never to forsake her for she found she could hear all that was said although she could not speak
i cannot release you altogether from this enchantment but i have power to shorten the time and also to say that during the night you may regain your rightful form but by day again must you run through the forest as a fawn
the fairy also told them where they could find a little hut in which to pass the nights then she disappeared
but when day appeared she was once more a fawn and escaping into the thicket commenced to run about in the ordinary way
quite late in the evening becafigue arrived at the cottage of the good woman
but at any rate it is secure from the lions becafigue went back to the prince and together they returned to the cottage where they were led into the room next to that occupied by the princess next morning the prince arose early and went out
and as evening fell the fawn slipped away and gained the little hut
and on hearing her adventure the maid of honour told her she must never again venture out but the princess replied it is no use talking thus when i am a fawn this room is stifling to me and i must depart from it
the next day the young prince sought in vain for the white fawn and finally tired out threw himself upon the grass and fell asleep while he lay there the little fawn drew near and looking at him quietly
coming nearer and nearer she presently touched him and he awoke his surprise was great at seeing close by the shy little fawn who stayed not an instant longer but fled away the prince following stay dear little fawn
for what would happen should she suddenly change into a princess there in the forest
the next day for a long time she hid from the prince but at last he found her and as she dashed off he shot an arrow which wounded her in the leg
while she was straining at the ribbons trying to break them
and she spoke to the fawn and the fawn obeyed her in such a way that the prince could not doubt that what she said was true
and to the surprise of the prince and becafigue entered the old woman's house where they themselves lodged then becafigue told the prince that unless he was much mistaken the owner of the fawn had lived with the princess desiree when he
bandaging up one arm from which the blood was flowing they both seemed greatly concerned about the wound
for did he not know that desiree and her lady in waiting were shut up in the castle he went softly and knocked at the chamber door
charles dickens charles john huffham dickens the master story teller was born in landport england february seventh eighteen twelve
his father was a clerk in one of the offices of the navy and he was one of eight children when he was four years old his father moved to the town of chatham near the old city of rochester
round about are chalk hills green lanes forests and marshes and amid such scenes the little charles's genius first began to show itself he did not like the rougher sports of his school fellows
and preferred to amuse himself in his own way or to wander about with his older sister fanny whom he especially loved they loved to watch the stars together and there was one particular star which they used to pretend was their own
and robinson crusoe he had a great affection for chatham and rochester and after he began to write stories that were printed he often used to put these places into them
rode with jingle rochester was really the cloisterham where the wicked choir master john jasper killed his nephew in the mystery of edwin drood and it was in those very marshes near by that magwitch
the escaped convict in great expectations so frightened little pip it is easy to see that the young charles dickens noted carefully and remembered everything he saw and this habit was of great use to him all his life
these happy years were not to last long when he was nine years old his father became poor and the family was obliged to move to london where it lived in a shabby house in a poor suburb
his father was put into prison for debt the same prison in which little dorrit in the story of that name grew up a very bitter period followed for the solitary ten year old boy a time in which he long afterward wrote
but for the mercy of god he might easily have become for any care that was taken of him a little robber or a little vagabond the earlier history of david in david copperfield is really and truly a history of the real charles dickens in london
dickens's life at this time was so miserable that always afterward he dreaded to speak of it and never could bear even to walk in the street where the blacking warehouse of his boyhood had stood
better days however came at last he was able to begin school again and though the head master was ignorant and brutal just such a one as mister creakle in david copperfield yet dickens profited by such teaching as he received
this was by no means an easy task but dickens had great strength of will and a determination to do well whatever he did at all and he succeeded just as david copperfield did in the story
at mister crummles's theater but his acting was for his own amusement and it is doubtful if he ever thought seriously of adopting the stage as a profession if he did his success as a reporter soon determined him otherwise
and read it now through tears of joy and pride he followed this with others as successful
perhaps indeed the most popular book ever published in england soon after the appearance of its first chapters dickens married miss catherine hogarth daughter of the editor of one of the london newspapers who had helped him in his career
certainly its honest fun its merriment its quaintness good humor and charity appealed to every reader more than all it made people acquainted with a new company of characters none of whom had ever existed or could ever exist
and yet whose manners and appearance were pictured so really that they seemed to be actual persons whom one might meet and laugh with anywhere with such a success and the money it brought him dickens had leisure to begin the wonderful series of stories
which endeared him to the whole english speaking world and made him the most famous author of his day oliver twist came first and it was followed by nicholas nickleby and the old curiosity shop
in the first two of these stories one may see most clearly the principle that underlay almost all of dickens's work he was never content merely to tell an interesting story he wrote with a purpose
numbers of which at that time were managed by men almost as cruel and inhuman as was squeers in the story it is good to learn that as a result of this novel an end was made of many such boys schools
without realizing how much wrong and misery was caused by the law which made it possible to throw a man into prison for debt nor can one read bleak house without seeing that the legal system which robbed quaint miss flite of her mind
and kept poor richard carstone from his fortune till the fortune itself had disappeared was a very wrong legal system indeed often too dickens's stories are in a sense sermons against very human sins
the evil and folly of selfishness is what dickens had in mind with his increasing wealth dickens had of course changed his manner of life he lived part of the time in the country near london in brighton in dover and in france and italy
he liked best however a little english watering place called broadstairs a tiny fishing village built on a cliff with the sea rolling and dashing beneath it
but he greatly missed his london friends he used to say that being without them was like losing his arms and legs the first great grief of his life came to him at this time in the death of his wife's sister mary hogarth
a gentle lovable girl of seventeen no sorrow ever touched him as this did after she died he wrote years afterward i dreamed of her every night for many weeks and always with a kind of quiet happiness
so that i never lay down at night without a hope of the vision coming back hers was the character he drew in little nell in the old curiosity shop when he came to the part of the story which tells of little nell's death
he decided now to visit this country and meet his american readers face to face he landed at boston accompanied by his wife in eighteen forty two and visited many of the greater cities of the eastern states
everywhere he was counted the guest of the nation and the four months of his stay were one continual welcome unfortunately however dickens had taken a dislike to american ways and this dislike appeared in many things he wrote
after his return to england the pictures he drew of american life in martin chuzzlewit were both unjust and untrue and made him for a time lose a large part of the good opinion which american readers had had for him
dickens soon came to regret the writing of these chapters and when twenty five years later he visited the united states a second time he did all in his power to show his kindly feeling and america admired and loved him so much that it gradually forgot the incident
in the great pleasure with which it read his stories dickens was a very active man and his life was simple and full of work and exercise he rose early and almost every day might have been seen tramping for miles along the country roads
or riding horseback with his dogs racing after him he liked best to wander along the cliffs or across the downs by the sea when he was in london he often walked the streets half the night thinking out his stories
or searching for the odd characters which he put in them this natural activity and restlessness even led him sometimes to make political speeches and finally to the establishment of a new london newspaper the daily news of which he was the first editor
and he prided himself on his punctuality he could not work in a room unless everything in it was in its proper place as a consequence of this habit of regularity he never wasted time the work of editorship was very pleasant to dickens
and scarcely three years after his leaving the daily news he began the publication of a new magazine which he called household words his aim was to make it cheerful useful and at the same time cheap so that the poor could afford to buy it as well as the rich
as from the most famous it was while engaged in this work that dickens wrote the best one of all his tales david copperfield the one which is in so large a part the history of his own early life this book brought dickens to the height of his career
he was now both famous and rich he bought a house on gad's hill a place near chatham where he had spent the happiest part of his childhood and settled down to a life of comfort and labor
when he was a little boy his father had pointed out this fine house to him and told him he might even come to live there some day if he were very persevering and worked hard and so indeed it had proved
that the world oftenest remembers dickens now everyone old and young throughout the neighborhood liked him children dogs and horses were his friends his hand was open for charity
unknown to him a little child of his own was lying dead at home with such a tender heart for all the world he was more than an affectionate father to his own children and gave much thought to their happiness and education
as the years went by his letters to his oldest son told of his own work and plans when his youngest son sailed away to live in australia he wrote poor plorn is gone it was a hard parting at the last
when he moved to gad's hill it seemed as though dickens had gained almost all of the things men strive most for but he was not to be happy there nor perhaps was he ever again to be really happy anywhere
he and his wife were very different in all their tastes and habits and had never loved each other as well as people should when they marry perhaps after all it would have been better if in his youth he had married his dora
the one whom he had pictured in the love story of david copperfield and his child wife but however this may be dickens and his wife had not lived happily together and now decided to part and from that time though they wrote to each other he never saw her again
it is sad to reflect that he who has painted so beautifully for others the joys and sorrows of perfect love and home was himself destined to know neither the years that followed this separation were years of constant labor for dickens
the idea of giving public readings from his stories suggested itself to him and he was soon engaged in preparation i must do something he wrote or i shall wear my heart away that heart his physician had declared out of order
and this effort was destined to wear it away in quite another sense though for some time dickens felt no ill effects he gave readings not only in england but also in scotland and ireland and everywhere he met with enormous success
the first series was hardly over when he was at work on a new story and this was scarcely completed when he was planning more readings the strain of several seasons of such work told on his health a serious illness followed
a great banquet of farewell was given to him in new york and he returned to england bearing the admiration and love of the whole american people before leaving england he had promised to give one other course of readings there and this promise
he attempted to fulfil but he was too ill he found himself for the first time in his life feeling as he said giddy jarred shaken faint uncertain of voice and sight and tread and touch
he attempted one more series of readings and with their close bade farewell for ever to his english audience
as he sat down to dinner all present noticed that he looked very ill they begged him to lie down yes on the ground he said these were the last words he ever uttered and as he spoke he slipped down upon the floor
when i was a young lad i had no home and no one to care for me and i wandered from village to village all over the country with my knapsack on my back
though we searched among the bushes till night fell and then as i did not know the country and could not find my way home in the dark i decided to sleep under a tree
he had a garland upon his head and a girdle of oak leaves about his body and carried an uprooted fir tree in his right hand
but as i did not stir from the spot
take courage fainthearted shepherd
i do not desire your treasures at this the spectre grinned in my face and cried mockingly simpleton do you scorn your good fortune well then remain a ragamuffin all your days he turned as if to go away from me
bethink yourself bethink yourself rogue i will fill your knapsack i will fill your pouch away from me monster i answered i will have nothing to do with you
some day you will rue this and looked at me sadly then he cried
deep under the earth at twilight and at high noon it is hidden but at midnight it may be dug up for seven hundred years have i watched over it but now
let him find it who can so i thought to give it into your hand having a kindness for you because you feed your flock upon my mountain thereupon the spectre told me exactly where the treasure lay and how to find it
when you find this hollow dig it out but it will be hard work for the earth has been pressed down into it with care still work away till you find solid rock on all sides of you and soon you will come to a square slab of stone
where adders and serpents lodge but open the fast closed door by means of the well known spring root which you must on no account forget to take with you or all your trouble will be for naught for no crowbar or mortal tools will help you
the noise is caused by the power of the magic root and you will not be hurt now trim your lamp that it may not fail you for you will be nearly blinded by the flash and glitter of the gold and precious stones on the walls and pillars of the vault
but beware how you stretch out a hand towards the jewels in the midst of the cavern stands a copper chest in that you will find gold and silver
and you may help yourself to your heart's content if you take as much as you can carry you will have sufficient to last your lifetime and you may return three times but woe betide you if you venture to come a fourth time
do not neglect each time to heap back the loose earth which concealed the entrance of the king's treasure chamber
so ended the shepherd's tale
that no one could ever tell me where the spring root was to be found then blaize another aged shepherd lifted up his voice tis a pity father martin that your secret has grown old with you
how it is to be found the easiest way to get it is by the help of a black woodpecker look in the spring where she builds her nest in a hole in a tree and when the time comes for her brood to fly off
block up the entrance to the nest with a hard sod and lurk in ambush behind the tree till the bird returns to feed her nestlings when she perceives that she cannot get into her nest she will fly round the tree uttering cries of distress
and then dart off towards the sun setting when you see her do this take a scarlet cloak or if that be lacking to you buy a few yards of scarlet cloth and hurry back to the tree before the woodpecker returns with the spring root in her beak
so soon as she touches with the root the sod that blocks the nest it will fly violently out of the hole then spread the red cloth quickly under the tree so that the woodpecker may think it is a fire and in her terror drop the root some people really light a fire and
the party had listened with interest to this speech but by the time it was ended the hour was late and they went their ways homeward
master peter bloch had once been a prosperous innkeeper and a master cook but he had gone steadily down in the world for some time and was now quite poor formerly he had been a merry fellow
fond of a joke and in the art of cooking had no equal in the town he could make fish jelly and quince fritters and even wafer cakes and he gilded the ears of all his boars heads peter had looked about him for a wife early in life but unluckily
his choice fell upon a woman whose evil tongue was well known in the town
for she had some ill word for everyone therefore when master peter came along and let himself be taken in by her boasted skill as a housewife she jumped at his offer and they were married the next day but they had not got home before they began to quarrel
in the joy of his heart peter had tasted freely of his own good wine and as the bride hung upon his arm he stumbled and fell dragging her down with him whereupon she beat him soundly and the neighbours said truly that things did not promise well for master peter's comfort
even when the ill matched couple were presently blessed with children his happiness was but short lived the savage temper of his quarrelsome wife seemed to blight them from the first
though master peter had no great wealth to leave behind him still it was sad to him to be childless and he would bemoan himself to his friends when he laid one baby after another in the grave saying the lightning has been among the cherry blossoms again
so there will be no fruit to grow ripe but by and by he had a little daughter so strong and healthy that neither her mother's temper nor her father's spoiling could keep her from growing up tall and beautiful
his motto was it will all come right in the end but what it did come to was ruin for master peter he was at his wits end to know how to earn an honest living for try as he might ill luck seemed to pursue him
and he lost one post after another till at last all he could do
this grieved the tender heart of his pretty daughter who loved him dearly and was the comfort of his life peter was thinking of her as he sat in the inn kitchen and heard the shepherds talking about the buried treasure
that he might not forget anything and when it lay clear and plain before his eyes he comforted himself with the thought that though he must do the rough work for his wife during one more winter at least he would not have to tread the path to the mill
for the rest of his life soon he heard his wife's harsh voice singing its morning song as she went about her household affairs scolding her daughter the while she burst open his door while he was still dressing well toper was her greeting
then he said calmly do not be annoyed dear wife i have a good piece of business in hand which may turn out well for us you with a good business
i am making my will said he that when my hour comes my house may be in order these unexpected words cut his daughter to the heart she remembered that all night long she had dreamed of a newly dug grave
and at this thought she broke out into loud lamentations but her mother only cried
have you not wasted goods and possessions and now do you talk of making a will and she seized him like a fury and tried to scratch out his eyes but by and by the quarrel was patched up and everything went on as before from that day
peter saved up every penny that his daughter lucia gave him on the sly and bribed the boys of his acquaintance to spy out a black woodpecker's nest for him he sent them into the woods and fields but instead of looking for a nest they only played pranks on him
they led him miles over hill and vale stock and stone to find a raven's brood
they laughed in his face and ran away this went on for some time but at last one of the boys spied out a woodpecker in the meadow lands among the wood pigeons and when he had found her nest in a half dead alder tree came running to peter with the news of his discovery
peter could hardly believe his good fortune and went quickly to see for himself if it was really true and when he reached the tree there certainly was a bird flying in and out as if she had a nest in it peter was overjoyed at this fortunate discovery
it cost master peter many struggles before he could bring himself to visit such a person but there was no help for it and little as he liked it
that so respectable a man as peter should borrow his robe of office and willingly lent it to him peter now had all that was necessary to secure the magic root he stopped up the entrance to the nest
and everything fell out exactly as blaize had foretold as soon as the woodpecker came back with the root in her beak out rushed master peter from behind the tree and displayed the fiery red cloak so adroitly that the terrified bird dropped the root just where it could be easily seen
he took with him only a staff a strong sack and a little box which his daughter lucia had given him it happened that on the very day peter had chosen for setting out lucia and her mother went off early to the town leaving him to guard the house
but in spite of that he was on the point of taking his departure when it occurred to him that it might be as well first to test the much vaunted powers of the magic root for himself
always hung about her neck master peter had no control at all of the money affairs of the household so the contents of this secret hoard were quite unknown to him and this seemed to be a good opportunity for finding out what they were
he held the magic root to the keyhole and to his astonishment heard all the seven locks creaking and turning the door flew suddenly wide open and his greedy wife's store of gold pieces lay before his eyes he stood still in sheer amazement
not knowing which to rejoice over most this unexpected find or the proof of the magic root's real power but at last he remembered that it was quite time to be starting on his journey
he carefully locked the empty cupboard again and left the house without further delay
and master peter nowhere to be seen they knocked and called but nothing stirred within but the house cat
then the house was searched from garret to cellar but no master peter was to be found who knows
the wretch may have been idling in some tavern since early morning then a sudden thought startled her and she felt for her keys suppose they had fallen into her good for nothing husband's hands and
and remorse caused her the gloomiest forebodings ah lucia she cried
and they sat till morning weeping over their own fancies as soon as it was light
and every beam but luckily master peter was not hanging from any of them after that the neighbours went out with long poles to fish in every ditch and pond but they found nothing
only wondering how the sacks of corn were to be carried to the mill in future she decided to buy a strong ass to do the work and having chosen one and after some bargaining with the owner as to its price she went to the cupboard in the wall to fetch the money
but what were her feelings when she perceived that every shelf lay empty and bare before her for a moment she stood bewildered then broke into such frightful ravings that lucia ran to her in alarm
someone knocked at dame ilse's door one day and she went to see if it was a customer for meal but in stepped a handsome young man dressed like a duke's son who greeted her respectfully and asked after her pretty daughter as if he were an old friend
though she could not remember having ever set eyes upon him before however she invited him to step into the house and be seated while he unfolded his business with a great air of mystery he begged permission to speak to the fair lucia
of whose skill in needlework he had heard so much
however as the meeting would be under her own eye she made no objection
no dearest girl answered he i am come to complete your happiness and my own since we last met my fortune has utterly changed i am no longer the poor vagabond that i was then
so that i dare to present myself to your mother as a suitor for your hand that i love you i know well if you can love me i am indeed a happy man lucia's pretty blue eyes had looked up shyly as he spoke
was already well acquainted with the handsome stranger and quite willing to be his bride before she had done staring this hasty wooer had smoothed his way by covering the shining table with gold pieces as a wedding gift to the bride's mother
after which the dame made no difficulties and the matter was speedily settled
and what friedlin told her seemed to make lucia every moment more happy and contented
the day for the wedding was chosen and all their friends and neighbours were bidden to the feast as lucia was trying on her bridal wreath she said to her mother this wedding garland would please me indeed if father peter could lead me to the church
if only he could come back again here we are rolling in riches while he may be nibbling at hunger's table and the very idea of such a thing made her weep
i should not be sorry myself to see him come back there is always something lacking in a house when the good man is away but the fact was that she was growing quite tired of having no one to scold
and there stood father peter
we must next consider the work of adornment first as to each day by itself secondly as to all seven days in general in the first place then we consider the work of the fourth day secondly that of the fifth day
thirdly that of the sixth day and fourthly such matters as belong to the seventh day under the first head there are three points of inquiry one as to the production of the lights two
it would seem that the lights ought not to have been produced on the fourth day for the heavenly luminaries are by nature incorruptible bodies wherefore their matter cannot exist without their form
further the luminaries are as it were vessels of light but light was made on the first day the luminaries therefore should have been made on the first day
further the lights are fixed in the firmament as plants are fixed in the earth for the scripture says he set them in the firmament but plants are described as produced when the earth to which they are attached
received its form the lights therefore
that is to say on the second day
further plants are an effect of the sun moon and other heavenly bodies now cause precedes effect in the order of nature the lights therefore ought not to have been produced on the fourth day but on the third day
further as astronomers say there are many stars larger than the moon therefore the sun and the moon alone are not correctly described as the two great lights on the contrary
suffices the authority of scripture i answer that in recapitulating the divine works scripture says
in the second or work of distinction
those things that belong to them intrinsically but the adornment those that are extrinsic just as the perfection of a man lies in his proper parts and forms and his adornment in clothing or such like
but it has been stated above
namely the heaven the water and the earth
so that heaven was formed on the first day on the second day the waters were separated and on the third day the earth was divided into sea and dry land so also is it in the work of adornment
on the first day of this work which is the fourth of creation are produced the lights to adorn the heaven by their movements on the second day which is the fifth birds and fishes are called into being
to make beautiful the intermediate element for they move in air and water
and not merely virtually for the firmament
as the earth has of producing plants wherefore scripture does not say let the firmament produce lights though it says let the earth bring forth the green herb reply
in augustine's opinion there is no difficulty here for he does not hold a succession of time in these works and so there was no need for the matter of the lights to exist under another form
to be of the nature of the four elements for it may be said that they were formed out of matter already existing as animals and plants were formed for those however who hold the heavenly bodies to be of another nature from the elements and naturally incorruptible
by the fact that they were not from the beginning
and that on the fourth day the lights received a definite power to produce determinate effects thus we observe that the rays of the sun have one effect those of the moon another and so forth hence speaking
yet the influence of the moon is more perceptible to the senses in this lower world moreover as far as the senses are concerned its apparent size is greater
whether the cause assigned for the production of the lights is reasonable objection one
which the heathens fear therefore the heavenly lights were not made to be signs
further sign is contradistinguished from cause but the lights are the cause of what takes place upon the earth therefore they are not signs
further the distinction of seasons and days began from the first day therefore the lights were not made
in order to distinguish them
further nothing is made for the sake of that which is inferior to itself
therefore they were not made to enlighten it
further the new moon cannot be said to rule the night but such it probably did when first made for men begin to count from the new moon the moon therefore was not made to rule the night
on the contrary suffices the authority of scripture i answer that
or for the glory of god of these reasons only that which points out the usefulness of these things to man is touched upon by moses in order to withdraw his people from idolatry hence it is written
lest perhaps lifting up thy eyes to heaven thou see the sun and the moon and all the stars of heaven and being deceived by error thou adore and serve them which the lord thy god created for the service of all nations now
he explains this service at the beginning of genesis as threefold first the lights are of service to man in regard to sight which directs him in his works and is most useful for perceiving objects in reference to this he says
which prevent weariness preserve health and provide for the necessities of food all of which things could not be secured
in reference to this he says let them be for seasons and for days and years thirdly as regards the convenience of business and work
in so far as the lights are set in the heavens to indicate fair or foul weather as favorable to various occupations and in this respect he says let them be for signs reply
we are sometimes brought to the knowledge of hidden effects through their sensible causes and conversely hence nothing prevents a sensible cause from being a sign but he says signs rather than causes to guard against idolatry
according as one day is hotter than another one season than another and one year than another are due to certain particular movements of the stars which movements may have had their beginning on the fourth day
light was given to the earth for the service of man who by reason of his soul is nobler than the heavenly bodies nor is it untrue to say that a higher creature may be made for the sake of a lower
considered not in itself but as ordained to the good of the universe
when the moon is at its perfection it rises in the evening and sets in the morning and thus it rules the night and it was probably made in its full perfection as were plants yielding seed as also were animals and man himself
whether the lights of heaven are living beings
a cause is nobler than its effect but the sun moon and stars are a cause of life as is especially evidenced in the case of animals
which receive life from the power of the sun and stars much more therefore have the heavenly bodies a living soul
which is to a certain extent its end yet for some of these operations as sensation and nutrition our body is a necessary instrument hence it is clear
that the sensitive and nutritive souls must be united to a body in order to exercise their functions there are however operations of the soul which are not exercised through the medium of the body though the body ministers as it were
to their production the intellect for example
and thus far is dependent on the body although capable of existing apart from it it is not however possible that the functions of nutrition growth and generation through which the nutritive soul operates
can be exercised by the heavenly bodies for such operations are incompatible with a body naturally incorruptible equally impossible is it that the functions of the sensitive soul can appertain to the heavenly body
but the operations of the intellect which does not act through the body do not need a body as their instrument except to supply phantasms through the senses moreover the operations of the sensitive soul as we have seen
cannot be attributed to the heavenly bodies accordingly the union of a soul to a heavenly body
which having attained it rests this does not appear in the movement of heavenly bodies hence it follows that they are moved by some intellectual substances augustine appears to be of the same opinion when he expresses his belief
it is clear that the heavenly bodies are not living beings in the same sense as plants and animals and that if they are called so it can only be equivocally it will also be seen that the difference of opinion between those who affirm and those who deny
that these bodies have life is not a difference of things but of words
certain things belong to the adornment of the universe by reason of their proper movement and in this way the heavenly luminaries agree with others that conduce to that adornment for they are moved by a living substance
one being may be nobler than another absolutely but not in a particular respect while then it is not conceded that the souls of heavenly bodies are nobler than the souls of animals absolutely it must be conceded that they are superior to them
with regard to their respective forms since their form perfects their matter entirely which is not in potentiality to other forms whereas a soul does not do this also as regards movement the power that moves the heavenly bodies is of a nobler kind
since the heavenly body is a mover moved it is of the nature of an instrument which acts in virtue of the agent and therefore since this agent is a living substance the heavenly body can impart life in virtue of that agent
the movements of the heavenly bodies are natural not on account of their active principle but on account of their passive principle that is to say from a certain natural aptitude for being moved by an intelligent power
the heaven is said to move itself in as far as it is compounded of mover and moved not by the union of the mover as the form with the moved as the matter but by contact with the motive power as we have said
for i know that he granteth unto men according to their desire
and if he robbed he was also punished and if he stole he was also punished and if he committed adultery he was also punished
nevertheless there was no law against a man's belief therefore a man was punished only for the crimes which he had done
and the law could have no hold upon him began to preach unto the people that there should be no christ
why do ye yoke yourselves with such foolish things why do ye look for a christ
which ye say are handed down by holy prophets
behold ye cannot know of things which ye do not see
but behold it is the effect of a frenzied mind and this derangement of your minds comes because of the traditions of your fathers
telling them that there could be no atonement made for the sins of men but every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature therefore every man prospered according to his genius and that every man conquered according to his strength
leading away the hearts of many causing them to lift up their heads in their wickedness yea leading away many women and also men to commit whoredoms
for they took him and bound him and carried him before ammon
and he came over into the land of gideon and began to preach unto them also and here he did not have much success for he was taken and bound and carried before the high priest
why do ye go about perverting the ways of the lord why do ye teach this people that there shall be no christ to interrupt their rejoicings
and korihor said unto him because i do not teach the foolish traditions of your fathers
under the foolish ordinances and performances which are laid down by ancient priests to usurp power and authority over them to keep them in ignorance that they may not lift up their heads
behold i say they are in bondage
because of the transgression of a parent
that christ shall come but behold i say that ye do not know that there shall be a christ
and according to your own desires and ye keep them down even as it were in bondage that ye may glut yourselves with the labors of their hands
lest they should offend their priests who do yoke them according to their desires and have brought them to believe by their traditions and their dreams and their whims and their visions and their pretended mysteries
offend some unknown being who they say is god
yea when they saw that he would revile even against god they would not make any reply to his words but they caused that he should be bound and they delivered him up into the hands of the officers and sent him to the land of zarahemla
that he might be brought before alma and the chief judge
and the chief judge he did go on in the same manner as he did in the land of gideon
and did revile against the priests and teachers accusing them of leading away the people after the silly traditions of their fathers
neither has any of my brethren save it were in the judgment seat
what doth it profit us to labor in the church save it were to declare the truth
when thou of thyself knowest that we receive no gain and now believest thou that we deceive this people
will ye deny again that there is a god and also deny the christ for behold i say unto you i know there is a god
and ye also have all things as a testimony unto you that they are true and will ye deny them
and ye have put off the spirit of god that it may have no place in you but the devil has power over you and he doth carry you about
that i may be convinced that there is a god
thou hast had signs enough will ye tempt your god will ye say show unto me a sign when ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren and also all the holy prophets the scriptures are laid before thee
yea and all things denote there is a god yea even the earth and all things that are upon the face of it yea and its motion
and yet will ye deny against all these witnesses and he said yea
behold i am grieved because of the hardness of your heart yea that ye will still resist the spirit of the truth
by thy lying and by thy flattering words therefore if thou shalt deny again behold god shall smite thee that thou shalt become dumb that thou shalt never open thy mouth any more
but i do not believe that there is a god and i say also that ye do not know that there is a god
and i say that in the name of god ye shall be struck dumb
korihor was struck dumb that he could not have utterance
he put forth his hand and wrote unto korihor saying art thou convinced of the power of god in whom did ye desire that alma should show forth his sign would ye that he should afflict others to show unto thee a sign
behold he has showed unto you a sign
i know that i am dumb for i cannot speak and i know that nothing save it were the power of god could bring this upon me
for he appeared unto me in the form of an angel and said unto me go and reclaim this people for they have all gone astray after an unknown god and he said unto me there is no god yea and he taught me that which i should say and i have taught his words
and i taught them because they were pleasing unto the carnal mind and i taught them even until i had much success insomuch that i verily believed that they were true and for this cause i withstood the truth even until i have brought this great curse upon me
he besought that alma should pray unto god
if this curse should be taken from thee thou wouldst again lead away the hearts of this people
was immediately published throughout all the land yea the proclamation was sent forth by the chief judge to all the people in the land
therefore they were all converted again unto the lord
yea among a people who had separated themselves from the nephites and called themselves zoramites being led by a man whose name was zoram and as he went forth amongst them behold he was run upon and trodden down
they found that the zoramites had built synagogues and that they did gather themselves together on one day of the week which day they did call the day of the lord
a place for standing which was high above the head
and stretch forth his hands towards heaven
we believe that thou art god and we believe that thou art holy and that thou wast a spirit and that thou art a spirit
and we do not believe in the tradition of our brethren which was handed down to them by the childishness of their fathers but we believe that thou hast elected us to be thy holy children
and thou hast elected us that we shall be saved whilst all around us are elected to be cast by thy wrath down to hell for the which holiness o god we thank thee and we also thank thee that thou hast elected us
that we may not be led away after the foolish traditions of our brethren which doth bind them down to a belief of christ
in the morning i started with six horses and two gauchos the latter were capital men for the purpose and well accustomed to living on their own resources the weather was very boisterous and cold with heavy hail storms
we got on however pretty well but except the geology nothing could be less interesting than our day's ride the country is uniformly the same undulating moorland
and everywhere the ground was so soft that the snipe were able to feed besides these two birds there were few others there is one main range of hills nearly two thousand feet in height and composed of quartz rock
in the evening we came across a small herd one of my companions saint jago by name soon separated a fat cow he threw the bolas and it struck her legs but failed in becoming entangled
then dropping his hat to mark the spot where the balls were left while at full gallop he uncoiled his lazo and after a most severe chase again came up to the cow and caught her round the horns
the other gaucho had gone on ahead with the spare horses so that saint jago had some difficulty in killing the furious beast he managed to get her on a level piece of ground by taking advantage of her
for its own safety to keep the lazo tight so that if the cow or ox moves forward the horse moves just as quickly forward otherwise it stands motionless leaning on one side
this horse however was a young one and would not stand still but gave in to the cow as she struggled it was admirable to see with what dexterity saint jago
dodged behind the beast till at last he contrived to give the fatal touch to the main tendon of the hind leg after which without much difficulty he drove his knife into the head of the spinal marrow and the cow dropped
as if struck by lightning he cut off pieces of flesh with the skin to it but without any bones sufficient for our expedition we then rode on to our sleeping place and had for supper
or meat roasted with the skin on it this is as superior to common beef as venison is to mutton a large circular piece taken from the back is roasted on the embers with the hide downwards
so that none of the gravy is lost if any worthy alderman had supped with us that evening
without doubt would soon have been celebrated in london during the night it rained and the next day seventeenth was very stormy with much hail and snow
we rode across the island to the neck of land which joins the rincon del toro
to the rest of the island from the great number of cows which have been killed there is a large proportion of bulls these wander about single or two and three together and are very savage i never saw such magnificent beasts
they equalled in the size of their huge heads and necks the grecian marble sculptures captain sulivan informs me that the hide of an average sized bull weighs forty seven pounds whereas a hide of this weight
and many horses have been thus killed an old bull crossed a boggy stream and took his stand on the opposite side to us we in vain tried to drive him away and failing were obliged to make a large circuit
one lazo was thrown over his horns as he rushed at the horse and another round his hind legs in a minute the monster was stretched powerless on the ground after the lazo has once been drawn tightly round the horns of a furious animal
it does not at first appear an easy thing to disengage it again without killing the beast nor i apprehend would it be so if the man was by himself by the aid however of a second person throwing his lazo
so as to catch both hind legs it is quickly managed for the animal as long as its hind legs are kept outstretched is quite helpless and the first man can with his hands loosen his lazo from the horns
and then quietly mount his horse but the moment the second man by backing ever so little relaxes the strain the lazo slips off the legs of the struggling beast which then rises free shakes himself
and vainly rushes at his antagonist during our whole ride we saw only one troop of wild horses these animals as well as the cattle were introduced by the french in seventeen sixty four
to any locality to which they are accustomed considering that the island does not appear fully stocked and that there are no beasts of prey i was particularly curious to know what has checked their originally rapid increase
captain sulivan has taken much pains for me in this inquiry the gauchos employed here attribute it chiefly to the stallions constantly roaming from place to place and compelling the mares to accompany them
whether or not the young foals are able to follow one gaucho told captain sulivan that he had watched a stallion for a whole hour
till he forced her to leave her foal to its fate captain sulivan can so far corroborate this curious account that he has several times found young foals dead
whereas he has never found a dead calf moreover the dead bodies of full grown horses are more frequently found as if more subject to disease or accidents than those of the cattle
from the softness of the ground their hoofs often grow irregularly to a great length and this causes lameness
in consequence it is necessary to go to the great expense of importing fresh horses from the plata at some future period the southern hemisphere probably will have its breed of falkland ponies
captain sulivan informs me that they vary much less in the general form of their bodies and in the shape of their horns than english cattle in colour they differ much and it is a remarkable circumstance
that in different parts of this one small island different colours predominate
about half of some of the herds are mouse or lead coloured
near port pleasant dark brown prevails
which almost divides the island into two parts white beasts with black heads and feet are the most common in all parts black and some spotted animals may be observed captain sulivan remarks
they appeared like white spots on the hill sides captain sulivan thinks that the herds do not mingle and it is a singular fact that the mouse coloured cattle
for they have not crossed the central chain of hills nor would they have extended even so far as its base if as the gauchos informed me small colonies has not been carried there i should not have supposed that these animals
natives of northern africa could have existed in a climate so humid as this and which enjoys so little sunshine that even wheat ripens only occasionally it is asserted that in sweden
which any one would have thought a more favourable climate the rabbit cannot live out of doors the first few pairs moreover had here to content against pre existing enemies in the fox and some large hawks
the french naturalists have considered the black variety a distinct species and called it lepus magellanicus
in the strait of magellan referred to this species but he was alluding to a small cavy which to this day is thus called by the spaniards the gauchos laughed at the idea of the black kind being different from the grey
and they said that at all events it had not extended its range any further than the grey kind that the two were never found separate and that they readily bred together and produced piebald offspring
which is common to both east and west falkland
which the sailors who ran into the water to avoid them mistook for fierceness to this day their manners remain the same they have been observed to enter a tent
as far as i am aware there is no other instance in any part of the world of so small a mass of broken land distant from a continent possessing
peculiar to itself their numbers have rapidly decreased they are already banished from that half of the island which lies to the eastward of the neck of land between saint salvador bay and berkeley sound
within a very few years after these islands shall have become regularly settled in all probability this for will be classed with the dodo as an animal which has perished from the face of the earth
at night seventeenth we slept on the neck of land
but there was very little brushwood for fuel the gauchos however soon found what to my great surprise made nearly as hot a fire as coals this was the skeleton of a bullock lately killed
and there was not a dry spot to sit down on after our day's ride i have in another part stated how singular it is that there should be absolutely no trees on these islands although
which has the useful property of burning while fresh and green it was very surprising to see the gauchos in the midst of rain and everything soaking wet with nothing more than a tinder box and a piece of rag
immediately make a fire they sought beneath the tufts of grass and bushel for a few dry twigs and these they rubbed into fibres then surrounding them with coarser twigs something like a bird's nest
they put the rag with its spark of fire in the middle and covered it up the nest being then held up to the wind by degrees it smoked more and more
i do not think any other method would have had a chance of succeeding with such damp materials
each morning from not having ridden for some time previously i was very stiff i was surprised to hear the gauchos who have from infancy almost lived on horseback say that under similar circumstances
that he was obliged to lie in bed this shows that the gauchos although they do not appear to do so yet really must exert much muscular effort in riding
the gauchos say they often pass at full speed over ground which would be impassable at a slower pace in the same manner as a man is able to skate over thin ice when hunting
at as many cattle which when once entangled are left for some days till they become a little exhausted by hunger and struggling they are then let free and driven towards a small herd of tame animals
which have been brought to the spot on purpose from their previous treatment being too much terrified to leave the herd they are easily driven if their strength last out to the settlement
the weather continued so very bad that we determine to make a push and try to reach the vessel before night from the quantity of rain which had fallen the surface of the whole country was swampy
i suppose my horse fell at least a dozen times and sometimes the whole six horses were floundering in the mud together all the little streams are bordered by soft peat
which makes it very difficult for the horses to leap them without falling to complete our discomforts we were obliged to cross the head of a creek of the sea in which the water was as high as our horses backs and the little waves
even the iron framed gauchos professed themselves glad when they reached the settlement after our little excursion the geological structure of these islands is in most respects simple
the lower country consists of clay slate and sandstone
and the appearance of some of the masses is in consequence most singular
when it underwent such remarkable flexures without being shattered into fragments as the quartz insensibly passes into the sandstone it seems probable that the former owes its origin to the sandstone having been heated to such a degree
and upon cooling crystallized while in the soft state it must have been pushed up through the overlying beds
or even more than twenty times as much they are not thrown together into irregular piles but are spread out into level sheets or great streams it is not possible to ascertain their thickness but the water of
small streamlets can be heard trickling through the stones many feet below the surface the actual depth is probably great because the crevices between the lower fragments must long ago have been filled up with sand
the width of these sheets of stones varied from a few hundred feet to a mile but the peaty soil daily encroaches on the borders and even forms islets wherever a few fragments happen to lie close together
in a valley south of berkeley sound which some of our party called the great valley of fragments it was necessary to cross an uninterrupted band half a mile wide by jumping from one pointed stone to another
streams of stones on the hill sides i have seen them sloping at an angle of ten degrees with the horizon but in some of the level broad bottomed valleys the inclination is only just sufficient to be clearly perceived
and even extended to the very crest of the hill on these crests huge masses exceeding in dimensions any small building seemed to stand arrested in their headlong course there also
we may imagine that streams of white lava had flowed from many parts of the mountains into the lower country and that when solidified they had been rent by some enormous convulsion into myriads of fragments the expression
streams of stones which immediately occurred to every one conveys the same idea these scenes are on the spot rendered more striking by the contrast of the low rounded forms of the neighbouring hills
i was interested by finding on the highest peak of one range about seven hundred feet above the sea a great arched fragment lying on its convex side or back downwards
must we believe that it was fairly pitched up in the air and thus turned or with more probability that there existed formerly a part of the same range more elevated than the point on which this monument
the waters of the sea in a transverse section within these valleys the bottom is nearly level or rises but very little towards either side hence the fragments appear to have travelled from the head of the valley
but in reality it seems more probable that they have been hurled down from the nearest slopes
overthrew concepcion in chile it was thought wonderful that small bodies should have been pitched a few inches from the ground what must we say to a movement which has caused fragments many tons in weight to move onwards
like so much sand on a vibrating board and find their level
but never did any scene like these streams of stones so forcibly convey to my mind the idea of a convulsion of which in historical records we might in vain seek for any counterpart
of polyborus there are some other hawks owls and a few small land birds the water fowl are particularly numerous and they must formerly from the accounts of the old navigators have been much more so
one day i observed a cormorant playing with a fish which it had caught eight times successively the bird let its prey go then dived after it and although in deep water
appears so wilfully cruel another day having placed myself between a penguin
and the water i was much amused by watching its habits it was a brave bird and till reaching the sea it regularly fought and drove me backwards nothing less than heavy blows would have stopped him
every inch he gained he firmly kept standing close before me erect and determined when thus opposed he continually rolled his head from side to side in a very odd manner as if
lay only in the anterior and basal part of each eye this bird is commonly called the jackass penguin from its habit while on shore of throwing its head backwards and making a loud strange noise
very like the braying of an ass but while at sea and undisturbed its note is very deep and solemn and is often heard in the night time in diving its little wings are used as fins but on the land as front legs
that it might easily be mistaken for a quadruped when at sea and fishing it comes to the surface for the purpose of breathing with such a spring and dives again so instantaneously that i defy any one at first sight
to be sure that it was not a fish leaping for sport two kinds of geese frequent the falklands the upland species anas magellanica is common in pairs and in small flocks throughout the island
they do not migrate but build on the small outlying islets this is supposed to be from fear of the foxes and it is perhaps from the same cause that these birds though very tame by day
are shy and wild in the dusk of the evening they live entirely on vegetable matter the rock goose so called from living exclusively on the sea beach anas antarctica
the snow white gander invariably accompanied by his darker consort and standing close by each other on some distant rocky point is a common feature in the landscape in these islands
a great loggerheaded duck or goose anas brachyptera which sometimes weighs twenty two pounds is very abundant these birds were in former days called
from their extraordinary manner of paddling and splashing upon the water race horses but now they are named much more appropriately steamers their wings are too small and weak to allow of flight
but i am nearly sure that the steamer moves its wings alternately instead of both together as in other birds these clumsy loggerheaded ducks make such a noise and splashing that the effect is exceedingly curious
thus we find in south america three birds which use their wings for other purposes besides flight the penguins as fins the steamer as paddles and the ostrich as sails
new zealand as well as its gigantic extinct prototype
pluming themselves in a flock they make the same odd mixture of sounds which bull frogs do within the tropics
the head itself possessed considerable powers of movement by means of a short neck in one zoophyte the head itself was fixed but the lower jaw free in another
it was replaced by a triangular hood with beautifully fitted trap door which evidently answered to the lower mandible in the greater number of species each cell was provided with one head but in others
each cell had two the young cells at the end of the branches of these corallines
yet the vulture head attached to them though small are in every respect perfect when the polypus was removed by a needle from any of the cells these organs did not appear in the least affected
the lower mandible retained its power of opening and closing perhaps the most singular part of their structure is that when there were more than two rows of cells on a branch the central cells were furnished
with these appendages of only one fourth the size of the outside ones their movements varied according to the species but in some i never saw the least motion while others
appear in the cells at the end of the growing branches
and as they differ in size on the outer and inner rows of cells i have little doubt that in their functions they are related rather to the horny axis
also forms part of the zoophyte as a whole in the same manner as the roots of a tree form part of the whole tree and not of the individual leaf or flower buds
generally moved quite independently of the others but sometimes all on both sides of a branch sometimes only those on one side moved together coinstantaneously sometimes each moved in regular order
one after another in these actions we apparently behold as perfect a transmission of will in the zoophyte
i will state one other instance of uniform action though of a very different nature in a zoophyte closely allied to clytia and therefore very simply organized having kept a large tuft of it in a basin of salt water
when it was dark i found that as often as i rubbed any part of a branch the whole became strongly phosphorescent with a green light i do not think i ever saw any object more beautifully so
with innumerable distinct animals often of complicated organizations the branches moreover as we have just seen sometimes possess organs capable of movement and independent of the polypi
so that the union of separate individuals in a common body is more striking in a coralline than in a tree our conception of a compound animal where in some respects the individuality of each is not completed
may be aided by reflecting on the production of two distinct creatures by bisecting a single one with a knife or where nature herself performs the task of bisection
in a zoophyte or the buds in a tree as cases where the division of the individual has not been completely effected
individuals propagated by buds seem more intimately related to each other than eggs or seeds are to their parents it seems now pretty well established that plants propagated by buds
all partake of a common duration of life and it is familiar to every one what singular and numerous peculiarities are transmitted with certainty
checkmated constance channing proceeded to her duties as usual at lady augusta yorke's she drew her veil over her face only to traverse the very short way that conveyed her thither for the sense of shame was strong upon her
not shame for arthur but for hamish it had half broken constance's heart there are times in our every day lives when all things seem to wear a depressing aspect turn which way we will they were wearing it that day to constance
apart from home troubles she felt particularly discouraged in the educational task she had undertaken you heard the promise made to her by caroline yorke to be up and ready for her every morning at seven caroline kept it for two mornings and then failed
this morning and the previous morning constance had been there at seven and returned home without seeing either of the children both were ready for her when she entered now how am i to deal with you she said to caroline in a sad but affectionate tone
i do not wish to force you to obey me i would prefer that you should do it cheerfully it is tiresome to get up early responded caroline i can't wake when martha comes
i don't see any good in getting up early cried caroline
but miss channing why need we learn to get up early we are ladies it's only the poor who need get up at unreasonable hours those who have their living to earn is it only the poor who are accountable to god for waste of time caroline caroline paused
she did not like to give up her argument it's so very low lived to get up with the sun i don't think real ladies ever do it you think real ladies wait until the sun has been up a few hours and warmed the earth for them
said caroline but it was not spoken very readily for she had a suspicion that miss channing was laughing at her may i ask where you have acquired your notions of real ladies caroline caroline pouted don't you call colonel jolliffe's daughters ladies miss channing
yes in position that's where we went yesterday you know mary jolliffe says she never gets up until half past eight and that it is not lady like to get up earlier real ladies don't miss channing
oh yes replied caroline her listless mood changing to animation anecdotes or anything of that desultory kind being far more acceptable to the young lady than lessons
before i begin will you tell me whether you condescend to admit that our good queen is a real lady oh miss channing now you are laughing at me as if any one in all england could be so great a lady as the queen very good
when she was a little girl a child of her own age the daughter of one of the nobility was brought to kensington palace to spend the day with her in talking together the princess victoria mentioned something she had seen when out of doors that morning at seven o'clock
at seven o'clock exclaimed the young visitor how early that is to be abroad i never get out of bed until eight is there any use in rising so early the duchess of kent who was present took up the answer
my daughter may be called to fill the throne of england when she shall be grown up therefore it is especially necessary that she should learn the full value of time you see caroline the princess was not allowed to waste her mornings in bed although she was destined to be the first lady in the land
we may be thankful to her admirable mother for making her in that as in many other things a pattern to us is it a true anecdote miss channing it was related to my mother many years ago by a lady who was at that time
very much at kensington palace i think there is little doubt of its truth one fact we all know caroline the queen retains her early habits and implants them in her children what do you suppose would be her majesty's surprise were one of her daughters
say the princess helena or the princess louise to decline to rise early for their morning studies with their governess miss hildyard on the plea that it was not lady like caroline's objection appeared to be melting away under her
but it is a dreadful plague she grumbled to be obliged to get up from one's nice warm bed for the sake of some horrid old lessons you spoke of the poor' those who have their living to earn' as the only class who need rise early resumed constance
put that notion away from you at once and for ever caroline there cannot be a more false one the higher we go in the scale of life the more onerous become our duties in this world and the greater is our responsibility to god he to whom five talents were intrusted
did not make them other five by wasting his days in idleness oh caroline fanny come closer and listen to me your time and opportunities for good must be used not abused or wasted
said caroline repentantly i wish mamma had trained me to it when i was a child as the duchess of kent trained the princess i might have learned to like it by this time long before this said constance do you remember the good old saying
do what you ought that you may do what you like habit is second nature were i told that i might lie in bed every morning until nine or ten o'clock as a great favour i should consider it a great punishment but i have not been trained to get up miss channing
and it is nothing short of punishment to me to do so the punishment of self denial we all have to bear caroline but i can tell you what will take away half its sting what asked caroline eagerly constance bent towards her
jesus christ said if any will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me when once we learn how to take it up cheerfully bravely for his sake looking to him to be helped the sting is gone
no cross no crown you know my children no cross no crown constance had sufficient cross to carry just then in the course of the morning lady augusta came into the room boisterously her manner indicative of great surprise
miss channing what is this tale about your brother's having been arrested for stealing that missing bank note some visitors have just called in upon me and they say the town is ringing with the news
it was one of the first of constance channing's bitter pills they were to be her portion for many a day her heart fluttered her cheek varied and her answer to lady augusta yorke was low and timid it is true that he was arrested yesterday on suspicion
what a shocking thing is he in prison oh no did he take the note the question pained constance worse than all he did not take it she replied in a clear soft tone to those who know arthur well it would be impossible to think so
but he was before the magistrates yesterday i hear and is going up again to day yes that is so and roland could not open his lips to tell me of this when i came home last night grumbled my lady we were late and he was the only one up
gerald and tod were in bed i shall ask him why he did not but miss channing this must be a dreadful blow for you all it would be far worse lady augusta if we believed him guilty she replied from her aching heart
continued my lady displaying as little delicacy of feeling as she could well do it would be quite a dangerous thing you know for my roland to be in the same office be at ease lady augusta returned constance with a tinge of irony she could not wholly suppress
your son will incur no harm from the companionship of arthur what does hamish say handsome hamish he does not deserve that such a blow should come to him
she bent her face over the exercise she was correcting is he likely to be cleared of the charge perseveringly resumed lady augusta
not by actual proof i fear answered constance pressing her hand upon her brow as she remembered that he could only be proved innocent by another's being proved guilty
that positive proof of his innocence will be difficult well it is a dreadful thing concluded lady augusta meanwhile at the very moment her ladyship was speaking the magistrates were in the town hall in full conclave the case before them the news had spread
had excited interest far and wide the bench was crowded and the court was one dense sea of heads arthur appeared escorted by his brother hamish and by roland yorke roland was in high feather throwing his haughty glances everywhere
for he had an inkling of what was to be the termination of the affair and did not conceal his triumph mister galloway also was of their party mister galloway was the first witness put forth by mister butterby the latter gentleman was in high feather also
believing he saw his way clear to a triumphant conviction mister galloway was questioned and for some minutes it all went on swimmingly on the afternoon of the loss before you closed your letter who were in your office
my clerks roland yorke and arthur channing they saw the letter i believe they did and the bank note most probably it was the prisoner arthur channing who fetched the bank note from your private room to the other did he see you put it into the letter
i cannot say a halt but he was in full possession of his eyes just then no doubt he was then what should hinder his seeing you put the note into the letter i will not swear that i put the note into the letter
the magistrates pricked up their ears mister butterby pricked up his and looked at the witness what do you say i will not swear that i put the bank note inside the letter deliberately repeated mister galloway
not swear that you put the bank note into the letter what is it that you mean the meaning is plain enough replied mister galloway calmly must i repeat it for the third time i will not swear that i put the note into the letter
but your instructions to me were that you did put the note into the letter cried mister butterby interrupting the examination i will not swear it
and there was an end of the case at any rate for the present for nothing more satisfactory could be got out of mister galloway i have been checkmated ejaculated the angry butterby
they walked back arm in arm to mister galloway's roland and arthur hamish went the other way to his own office and mister galloway lingered somewhere behind jenkins truehearted jenkins in the black handkerchief still
was doubly respectful to arthur and rose to welcome him a faint hectic of pleasure illumining his face at the termination of the charge who said our office was going to be put down for a thief's uttered roland old galloway's a trump here's your place arthur
arthur did not take it he had seen from the window the approach of mister galloway and delicacy prevented his assuming his old post until bade to do so mister galloway came in and motioned him into his own room arthur channing he said
i have acted leniently in this unpleasant matter for your father's sake but from my very heart i believe you to be guilty i thank you sir arthur said for that and all other kindness i am not as guilty as you think me
if you can give me no better assurance of your innocence if you can give me no explanation of the peculiar and most unsatisfactory manner in which you have met the charge yes to retain you here would be unjust to my own interests
and unfair as regards jenkins and roland yorke to give this explanation was impossible neither dared arthur assert more emphatically his innocence
once convince mister galloway that he was not the guilty party and that gentleman would forthwith issue fresh instructions to butterby for the further investigation of the affair of this arthur felt convinced he could only be silent and remain under the stigma then
i had better you would wish me perhaps to go at once hesitated arthur yes shortly replied mister galloway he spoke a word of farewell which mister galloway replied to by a nod and went into the front office
there he began to collect together certain trifles that belonged to him what's that for asked roland yorke i am going he replied going roared roland jumping to his feet and dashing down his pen full of ink with little regard to the deed he was copying
galloway has never turned you off yes he has then i'll go too thundered roland who truth to say had flown into an uncontrollable passion startling jenkins and arousing mister galloway
i'll not stop in a place where that sort of injustice goes on he'll be turning me out next catch me stopping for it are you taken crazy mister roland yorke the question proceeded from his master who came forth to make it
channing never took the money sir it is not just to turn him away did you help him to take it pray that you identify yourself with the affair so persistently and violently demanded mister galloway in a cynical tone and roland answered with a hot and haughty word
you won't require to dismiss yourself said mister galloway sit down sir and go on with your work
it were surely a breach of politeness on our part not to attend mister ketch in his impromptu evening visit he shuffled along at the very top of his speed his mouth watering while the delicious odour of tripe and onions appeared to be borne on the air to his olfactory nerves
so strong is the force of fancy arrived at his destination he found the shop closed it was missus jenkins's custom to close at seven from october to april and the shutters had now just been put up mister ketch seized the knocker on the shop door
there was no other entrance to the house and brought it down with a force that shook the first floor sitting room and startled mister harper the lay clerk almost out of his armchair as he sat before the fire missus jenkins's maid a young person of seventeen very much given to blacking her face opened it
be i in time demanded ketch his voice shaking in time for what responded the girl why for supper said ketch penetrating into the shop which was lighted by a candle that stood on the counter the one the girl had brought in her hand
ketch went down the shop sniffing curiously sharp as fancy is he could not say that he was regaled with the scent of onions but he supposed the saucepan lid might be on for as was known to mister ketch and to other of the initiated in tripe mysteries
it was generally thought advisable by good housewives to give the tripe a boil up at home lest it should have become cold in its transit from the vendor's the girl threw open the door of the small parlour and told him he might sit down if he liked sh did not overburden the gentleman with civility
missis'll be here soon said she ketch entered the parlour and sat down there was a fire in the grate but no light and there were not so far as ketch could see any preparations yet for the entertainment they're going to have it downstairs in the kitchen soliloquized he
and that's a sight more comfortabler she's gone out to fetch it i shouldn't wonder he continued alluding to missus jenkins and sniffing again strongly but without result that's right she won't let em serve her with short onions she won't she has a tongue of her own
he sat on pretty patiently for him about half an hour and then took the liberty of replenishing the fire from a coal box that stood there another quarter of an hour was passed much more impatiently when ketch began to grow uneasy and lose himself in all sorts of grave conjectures
could she have arrived too late and found the tripe all sold and so had stopped out to supper herself somewhere such a thing as a run on the delicacy had occurred more than once to ketch's certain knowledge and tardy customers had been sent away disappointed
to wait in longing anticipations for the next tripe night he went into a cold perspiration at the bare idea and where was old jenkins all this time that he had not come in and where was joe
a pretty thing to invite a gentleman out to an impromptu supper and serve him in this way what could they mean by it he groped his way round the corner of the shop to where lay the kitchen stairs whose position he pretty well knew and called here sally betty
whatever your name is ain't there nobody at home the girl heard and came forth the same candle in hand who be you calling to i'd like to know my name's lidyar if you please where's your missis responded ketch suffering the name to drop into abeyance is she gone out for the tripe
gone out for what tripe asked the girl what be you talking of the tripe for supper said ketch there ain't no tripe for supper replied she there is tripe for supper persisted ketch
the girl shook her head i dun know nothing about it missis is upstairs fixing the mustard oh come this gave a promise of something old ketch thought mustard the greatest condiment that tripe could be accompanied by in conjunction with onions
but she must have been a long time fixing the mustard whatever that might mean his spirits dropped again and he grew rather exasperated go up and ask your missis how long i be to wait he growled i was told to come here at seven for supper and now it's a'most eight
the girl possibly feeling a little curiosity herself came up with her candle master ain't so well to night remarked she he's gone to bed and missis is putting him a plaster on his chest the words fell as ice on old ketch a mustard plaster
shrieked he what else but a mustard plaster she retorted did you think it was a pitch there's a fire lighted in his room and she's making it there nothing more certain poor jenkins who had coughed more than usual the last two days perhaps from the wet weather
and whose chest in consequence was very painful had been ordered to bed this night by his wife when tea was over she had gone up herself as soon as her shop was shut to administer a mustard plaster ketch was quite stunned with uncertainty
a man in bed with a plaster on his chest was not likely to invite company to supper before he had seen his way out of the shock or the girl had done staring at him missus jenkins descended the stairs and joined them having been attracted by the conversation
she had slipped an old buff dressing gown over her clothes in her capacity of nurse
he says he's come to supper tripe and onions said the girl unceremoniously introducing mister ketch and the subject to her wondering mistress missus jenkins not much more famous for meekness in expressing her opinions than was ketch turned her gaze upon that gentleman
asked she why i have come for supper that's what i have come for shrieked ketch trembling jenkins invited me to supper tripe and onions and i'd like to know what it all means and where the supper is you are going into your dotage
said missus jenkins with an amount of scorn so great that it exasperated ketch as much as the words themselves you'll be wanting a lunatic asylum next tripe and onions if jenkins was to hint at such a thing as a plate of tripe coming inside my house i'd tripe him
there's nothing i have such a hatred to as tripe and he knows it is this the way to treat a man foamed ketch disappointment and hunger driving him almost into the state hinted at by missus jenkins
joe jenkins sends me down a note an hour ago to come here to supper with his old father and it was to be tripe and onions it is tripe night he continued rather wandering from the point of argument as tears filled his eyes
here lydia open the door and let him out cried missus jenkins waving her hand imperatively towards it and what have you been at with your face again continued she as the candle held by that damsel reflected its light one can't see it for colly
if i do put you into that mask i have threatened you won't like it girl hold your tongue old ketch or i'll call mister harper down to you write a note what else he has wrote no note he has been too suffering the last few hours to think of notes or of you either
you are a lunatic it's my belief i shall be drove one sobbed ketch i was promised a treat of is that door open lydia there take yourself off my goodness me disturbing my house with such a crazy errand and taking old ketch by the shoulders
who was rather feeble and tottering from lumbago and age missus jenkins politely marshalled him outside and closed the door upon him insolent old fellow she exclaimed to her husband to whom she went at once and related the occurrence
i wonder what he'll pretend he has next from you a note of invitation indeed my dear said jenkins revolving the news and speaking as well as his chest would allow him it must have been a trick played him by the young college gentlemen we should not be too hard upon the poor old man
he's not very agreeable or good tempered i'm afraid it must be allowed but i'd not have sent him away without a bit of supper my dear i dare say you'd not retorted missus jenkins all the world knows you are soft enough for anything i have sent him away with a flea in his ear
that's what i have done mister ketch had at length come to the same conclusion the invitation must be the work of the college gentlemen only fancy the unhappy man standing outside missus jenkins's inhospitable door deceived betrayed fainting for supper
done out of the delicious tripe and onions he leaned against the shutters and gave vent to a prolonged and piteous howl it might have drawn tears from a stone in a frame of mind that was not enviable he turned his steps homeward clasping his hands upon his empty stomach
and vowing the most intense vengeance upon the college boys the occurrence naturally caused him to cast back his thoughts to that other trick the locking him into the cloisters in which jenkins had been a fellow victim and he doubled his fists in impotent anger
this comes of their not having been flogged for that he groaned engaged in these reflections of gall and bitterness old ketch gained his lodge unlocked it and entered no wonder that he turned his eyes upon the cloister keys the reminiscence being so strong within him
but to say he turned his eyes upon the cloister keys is a mere figure of speech no keys were there ketch stood a statue transfixed and stared as hard as the flickering blaze from his dying fire would allow him
seizing a match box he struck a light and held it to the hook the keys were not there ketch was no conjuror and it never occurred to him to suspect that the keys had been removed before his own departure how had them wicked ones got in he foamed
had they forced his winder had they took a skeleton key to his door had they come down the chimbley they were capable of all three exploits and the more soot they collected about em in the descent the better they'd like it he didn't think they'd mind a little fire
it was that insolent bywater or that young villain tod yorke or that undaunted tom channing or perhaps all three leagued together nothing wouldn't tame them he examined the window he examined the door he cast a glance up the chimney
nothing however appeared to have been touched or disturbed and there was no soot on the floor cutting himself a piece of bread and cheese lamenting at its dryness and eating it as he went along he proceeded out again locking up his lodge as before
of course he bent his steps to the cloisters going to the west gate and there perhaps to his surprise perhaps not he found the gate locked just as he might have left it himself that very evening and the keys hanging ingeniously by means of the string from one of the studded nails
right over the keyhole there ain't a boy in the school but what'll come to be hung danced old ketch in his rage he would have preferred not to find the keys but to go to the head master with a story of their theft it was possible it was just possible that
going keys in hand the master might refuse to believe his tale away he hobbled and arrived at the house of the head master check the first the master was not at home he had gone to a dinner party the other masters lived at a distance and ketch's old legs were aching
what was he to do make his complaint to some one he was determined upon the new senior huntley lived too far off for his lumbago so he turned his steps to the next senior's tom channing and demanded to see him tom heard the story which was given him in detail
he told ketch and with truth that he knew nothing about it but would make inquiries in the morning ketch was fain to depart and tom returned to the sitting room and threw himself into a chair in a burst of laughter what is the matter they asked the primest lark returned tom
some of the fellows have been sending ketch an invitation to sup at jenkins's off tripe and onions and when he arrived there he found it was a hoax and missus jenkins turned him out again that's what master charley must have gone after hamish turned round where is charley by the way
an underwater forest we had finally arrived on the outskirts of this forest
what other bolder pioneer would come ax in hand to clear away its dark underbrush this forest was made up of big treelike plants and when we entered beneath their huge arches
my eyes were instantly struck by the unique arrangement of their branches an arrangement that i had never before encountered
none of the weeds carpeting the seafloor none of the branches bristling from the shrubbery crept or leaned or stretched on a horizontal plane they all rose right up toward the surface of the ocean
every filament or ribbon no matter how thin stood ramrod straight fucus plants and creepers were growing in stiff perpendicular lines governed by the density of the element that generated them
likewise to the comparative darkness surrounding us the seafloor in this forest was strewn with sharp chunks of stone that were hard to avoid here the range of underwater flora seemed pretty comprehensive to me
as well as more abundant than it might have been in the arctic or tropical zones where such exhibits are less common but for a few minutes i kept accidentally confusing the two kingdoms mistaking zoophytes for water plants
were attached to the seafloor by only the most makeshift methods they had no roots and didn't care which solid objects secured them sand shells husks or pebbles they didn't ask their hosts for sustenance
just a point of purchase these plants are entirely self propagating and the principle of their existence lies in the water that sustains and nourishes them in place of leaves
but not yet pressed and dried like the nautilus's specimens some peacock's tails spread open like fans to stir up a cooling breeze
sea tangle stretching out their young and edible shoots twisting strings of kelp from the genus nereocystis that bloomed to a height of fifteen meters bouquets of mermaid's cups
whose stems grew wider at the top and a number of other open sea plants all without flowers it's an odd anomaly in this bizarre element as one witty naturalist puts it the animal kingdom blossoms
and the vegetable kingdom doesn't these various types of shrubbery were as big as trees in the temperate zones in the damp shade between them there were clustered actual bushes of moving flowers
hedges of zoophytes in which there grew stony coral striped with twisting furrows yellowish sea anemone from the genus
while there rose underfoot like a covey of snipe yellow fish from the genus lepisocanthus with bristling jaws and sharp scales flying gurnards
near one o'clock captain nemo gave the signal to halt speaking for myself i was glad to oblige and we stretched out beneath an arbor of winged kelp whose long thin tendrils stood up like arrows
i saw a happy gleam in the gallant lad's eyes and to communicate his pleasure
in the world's silliest way after four hours of strolling i was quite astonished not to feel any intense hunger what kept my stomach in such a good mood i'm unable to say
but in exchange i experienced that irresistible desire for sleep that comes over every diver accordingly my eyes soon closed behind their heavy glass windows
and i fell into an uncontrollable doze which until then i had been able to fight off only through the movements of our walking
and i had started to stretch my limbs when an unexpected apparition brought me sharply to my feet a few paces away a monstrous meter high sea spider was staring at me with beady eyes
poised to spring at me although my diving suit was heavy enough to protect me from this animal's bites i couldn't keep back a shudder of horror just then conseil woke up together with the nautilus's sailor
captain nemo alerted his companion to this hideous crustacean which a swing of the rifle butt quickly brought down and i watched the monster's horrible legs writhing in dreadful convulsions
this encounter reminded me that other more daunting animals must be lurking in these dark reaches and my diving suit might not be adequate protection against their attacks such thoughts hadn't previously crossed my mind
and i was determined to keep on my guard meanwhile i had assumed this rest period would be the turning point in our stroll but i was mistaken and instead of heading back to the nautilus captain nemo continued his daring excursion
the seafloor kept sinking and its significantly steeper slope took us to greater depths it must have been nearly three o'clock when we reached a narrow valley gouged between high vertical walls
thanks to the perfection of our equipment we had thus gone ninety meters below the limit that nature had until then set on man's underwater excursions
not a single object was visible past ten paces consequently i had begun to grope my way when suddenly i saw the glow of an intense white light captain nemo had just activated his electric device
his companion did likewise conseil and i followed suit by turning a switch i established contact between the induction coil and the glass spiral and the sea lit up by our four lanterns
i observed that vegetable life was disappearing more quickly than animal life the open sea plants had already left behind the increasingly arid seafloor where a prodigious number of animals were still swarming
zoophytes articulates mollusks and fish while we were walking i thought the lights of our ruhmkorff devices would automatically attract some inhabitants of these dark strata but if they did approach us
at least they kept at a distance regrettable from the hunter's standpoint several times i saw captain nemo stop and take aim with his rifle then after sighting down its barrel for a few seconds
he would straighten up and resume his walk finally at around four o'clock this marvelous excursion came to an end a wall of superb rocks stood before us imposing in its sheer mass
the captain stopped suddenly a gesture from him brought us to a halt and however much i wanted to clear this wall i had to stop here ended the domains of captain nemo
he had no desire to pass beyond them farther on lay a part of the globe he would no longer tread underfoot our return journey began
i noted that we didn't follow the same path in returning to the nautilus this new route very steep and hence very arduous quickly took us close to the surface of the sea but this return to the upper strata
wasn't so sudden that decompression took place too quickly which could have led to serious organic disorders and given us those internal injuries so fatal to divers with great promptness the light reappeared and grew stronger
and the refraction of the sun already low on the horizon again ringed the edges of various objects with the entire color spectrum at a depth of ten meters we walked amid a swarm of small fish from every species
more numerous than birds in the air more agile too but no aquatic game worthy of a gunshot had yet been offered to our eyes just then i saw the captain's weapon spring to his shoulder
and track a moving object through the bushes a shot went off i heard a faint hissing and an animal dropped a few paces away literally struck by lightning it was a magnificent sea otter from the genus enhydra
hunted and trapped by fishermen this valuable carnivore has become extremely rare and it takes refuge chiefly in the northernmost parts of the pacific where in all likelihood its species will soon be facing extinction
captain nemo's companion picked up the animal loaded it on his shoulder and we took to the trail again for an hour plains of sand unrolled before our steps
often the seafloor rose to within two meters of the surface of the water i could then see our images clearly mirrored on the underside of the waves but reflected upside down above us there appeared an identical band
that duplicated our every movement and gesture in short a perfect likeness of the quartet near which it walked but with heads down and feet in the air another unusual effect
heavy clouds passed above us forming and fading swiftly but after thinking it over
swiftly skimming the surface of the sea on this occasion i witnessed one of the finest gunshots ever to thrill the marrow of a hunter
quite clearly visible approached and hovered over us when it was just a few meters above the waves captain nemo's companion took aim and fired the animal dropped electrocuted
and its descent brought it within reach of our adroit hunter who promptly took possession of it it was an albatross of the finest species a wonderful specimen of these open sea fowl
this incident did not interrupt our walk for two hours we were sometimes led over plains of sand sometimes over prairies of seaweed that were quite arduous to cross
in all honesty i was dead tired by the time i spotted a hazy glow half a mile away cutting through the darkness of the waters it was the nautilus's beacon within twenty minutes we would be on board
and there i could breathe easy again because my tank's current air supply seemed to be quite low in oxygen but i was reckoning without an encounter that slightly delayed our arrival i was lagging behind some twenty paces
with his powerful hands he sent me buckling to the ground while his companion did the same to conseil at first i didn't know what to make of this sudden assault
but i was reassured to observe the captain lying motionless beside me i was stretched out on the seafloor directly beneath some bushes of algae when i raised my head and spied two enormous masses hurtling by
throwing off phosphorescent glimmers my blood turned cold in my veins i saw that we were under threat from a fearsome pair of sharks they were blue sharks
dull glassy stares and phosphorescent matter oozing from holes around their snouts they were like monstrous fireflies that could thoroughly pulverize a man in their iron jaws
than as a professor of natural history luckily these voracious animals have poor eyesight
grazing us with their brownish fins and miraculously we escaped a danger greater than encountering a tiger deep in the jungle half an hour later guided by its electric trail we reached the nautilus
then he pressed a button i heard pumps operating within the ship i felt the water lowering around me and in a few moments the cell was completely empty the inside door opened and we passed into the wardrobe
there our diving suits were removed not without difficulty
this cell properly speaking was the nautilus's arsenal and wardrobe hanging from its walls a dozen diving outfits were waiting for anybody who wanted to take a stroll
after seeing these ned land exhibited an obvious distaste for the idea of putting one on but my gallant ned i told him the forests of crespo island are simply underwater forests
oh great put in the disappointed harpooner watching his dreams of fresh meat fade away and you professor aronnax are you going to stick yourself inside these clothes it has to be mister ned
have it your way sir the harpooner replied shrugging his shoulders but speaking for myself i'll never get into those things unless they force me no one will force you mister land captain nemo said
and is conseil going to risk it ned asked where master goes i go conseil replied at the captain's summons two crewmen came to help us put on these heavy waterproof clothes
made from seamless india rubber and expressly designed to bear considerable pressures they were like suits of armor that were both yielding and resistant you might say these clothes consisted of jacket and pants
the fabric of the jacket was reinforced with copper mail that shielded the chest protected it from the water's pressure and allowed the lungs to function freely the sleeves ended in supple gloves that didn't impede hand movements
these perfected diving suits it was easy to see were a far cry from such misshapen costumes as the cork breastplates leather jumpers seagoing tunics
invented and acclaimed in the eighteenth century conseil and i were soon dressed in these diving suits
all that remained was to encase one's head in its metal sphere but before proceeding with this operation i asked the captain for permission to examine the rifles set aside for us
one of the nautilus's men presented me with a streamlined rifle whose butt was boilerplate steel hollow inside and of fairly large dimensions this served as a tank for the compressed air
which a trigger operated valve could release into the metal chamber in a groove where the butt was heaviest a cartridge clip held some twenty electric bullets that by means of a spring
automatically took their places in the barrel of the rifle as soon as one shot had been fired another was ready to go off captain nemo i said this is an ideal easy to use weapon i ask only to put it to the test
conseil and i did the same but not without hearing the canadian toss us a sarcastic happy hunting on top the suit ended in a collar of threaded copper onto which the metal helmet was screwed
three holes protected by heavy glass allowed us to see in any direction with simply a turn of the head inside the sphere placed on our backs the rouquayrol device went into operation as soon as it was in position
and for my part i could breathe with ease the ruhmkorff lamp hanging from my belt my rifle in hand i was ready to go forth but in all honesty while imprisoned in these heavy clothes
and nailed to the deck by my lead soles it was impossible for me to take a single step but this circumstance had been foreseen because i felt myself propelled into a little room adjoining the wardrobe
towed in the same way my companions went with me i heard a door with watertight seals close after us and we were surrounded by profound darkness after some minutes a sharp hissing reached my ears
i felt a distinct sensation of cold rising from my feet to my chest apparently a stopcock inside the boat was letting in water from outside which overran us and soon filled up the room
contrived in the nautilus's side a second door then opened
words are powerless to describe such wonders when even the painter's brush can't depict the effects unique to the liquid element how can the writer's pen hope to reproduce them
all these objects lost a part of their weight equal to the weight of the liquid they displaced and thanks to this law of physics discovered by archimedes i did just fine
i was no longer an inert mass and i had comparatively speaking great freedom of movement
the sun astonished me with its power the solar rays easily crossed this aqueous mass and dispersed its dark colors i could easily distinguish objects one hundred meters away farther on
the bottom was tinted with fine shades of ultramarine then off in the distance it turned blue and faded in the midst of a hazy darkness truly this water surrounding me
was just a kind of air denser than the atmosphere on land but almost as transparent above me i could see the calm surface of the ocean we were walking on sand that was fine grained and smooth
not wrinkled like beach sand which preserves the impressions left by the waves this dazzling carpet was a real mirror throwing back the sun's rays with startling intensity the outcome
an immense vista of reflections that penetrated every liquid molecule will anyone believe me if i assert that at this thirty foot depth i could see as if it was broad daylight
but when night fell in the midst of the waters the ship's beacon would surely facilitate our return on board since its rays carried with perfect distinctness
my hands parted liquid curtains that closed again behind me and my footprints faded swiftly under the water's pressure soon scarcely blurred by their distance from us
the forms of some objects took shape before my eyes i recognized the lower slopes of some magnificent rocks carpeted by the finest zoophyte specimens and right off
i was struck by an effect unique to this medium by then it was ten o'clock in the morning the sun's rays hit the surface of the waves at a fairly oblique angle decomposing by refraction as though passing through a prism
and when this light came in contact with flowers rocks buds seashells and polyps the edges of these objects were shaded with all seven hues of the solar spectrum
this riot of rainbow tints was a wonder a feast for the eyes a genuine kaleidoscope of red green yellow orange violet indigo and blue in short
the whole palette of a color happy painter if only i had been able to share with conseil the intense sensations rising in my brain competing with him in exclamations of wonderment if only i had known
how to exchange thoughts by means of prearranged signals so for lack of anything better i talked to myself i declaimed inside this copper box that topped my head
spending more air on empty words than was perhaps advisable conseil like me had stopped before this splendid sight
obviously in the presence of these zoophyte and mollusk specimens the fine lad was classifying his head off
various isis coral cornularian coral living in isolation tufts of virginal genus oculina formerly known by the name white coral prickly fungus coral in the shape of mushrooms
sea anemone holding on by their muscular disks providing a literal flowerbed adorned by jellyfish from the genus porpita
and starfish that spangled the sand including veinlike feather stars from the genus asterophyton that were like fine lace embroidered by the hands of water nymphs
their festoons swaying to the faint undulations caused by our walking it filled me with real chagrin to crush underfoot the gleaming mollusk samples that littered the seafloor by the thousands
concentric comb shells hammer shells
seashells that actually hop around top shell snails red helmet shells angel wing conchs sea hares and so many other exhibits from this inexhaustible ocean
and we went forward while overhead there scudded schools of portuguese men of war that let their ultramarine tentacles drift in their wakes medusas whose milky white or dainty pink parasols
and shaded us from the sun's rays
all these wonders i glimpsed in the space of a quarter of a mile
then we crossed a prairie of algae open sea plants that the waters hadn't yet torn loose whose vegetation grew in wild profusion soft to the foot
these densely textured lawns would have rivaled the most luxuriant carpets woven by the hand of man but while this greenery was sprawling under our steps it didn't neglect us overhead
the surface of the water was crisscrossed by a floating arbor of marine plants belonging to that superabundant algae family that numbers more than two thousand known species i saw long ribbons of fucus
these algae are a genuine prodigy of creation one of the wonders of world flora this family produces both the biggest and smallest vegetables in the world
because just as forty thousand near invisible buds have been counted in one five square millimeter space so also have fucus plants been gathered that were over five hundred meters long
we had been gone from the nautilus for about an hour and a half it was almost noon i spotted this fact in the perpendicularity of the sun's rays which were no longer refracted
by which point we were undergoing a pressure of ten atmospheres but my diving clothes were built along such lines that i never suffered from this pressure i felt only a certain tightness in the joints of my fingers
and even this discomfort soon disappeared as for the exhaustion bound to accompany a two hour stroll in such unfamiliar trappings it was nil helped by the water
my movements were executed with startling ease arriving at this three hundred foot depth i still detected the sun's rays but just barely
a midpoint between day and night but we could see well enough to find our way and it still wasn't necessary to activate the ruhmkorff device
captain mac whirr of the steamer nan shan had a physiognomy that in the order of material appearances was the exact counterpart of his mind it presented no marked characteristics of firmness or stupidity
it had no pronounced characteristics whatever it was simply ordinary irresponsive and unruffled the only thing his aspect might have been said to suggest at times was bashfulness because he would sit in business offices ashore
sunburnt and smiling faintly with downcast eyes when he raised them they were perceived to be direct in their glance and of blue colour his hair was fair and extremely fine clasping from temple to temple the bald dome of his skull in a clamp
as of fluffy silk the hair of his face on the contrary carroty and flaming resembled a growth of copper wire clipped short to the line of the lip while no matter how close he shaved
fiery metallic gleams passed when he moved his head over the surface of his cheeks he was rather below the medium height
he wore a brown bowler hat a complete suit of a brownish hue and clumsy black boots these harbour togs gave to his thick figure an air of stiff and uncouth smartness a thin silver watch chain looped his waistcoat
and he never left his ship for the shore without clutching in his powerful hairy fist an elegant umbrella of the very best quality but generally unrolled young jukes the chief mate attending his commander to the gangway
would sometimes venture to say with the greatest gentleness allow me sir and possessing himself of the umbrella deferentially would elevate the ferule shake the folds twirl a neat furl in a jiffy
and hand it back going through the performance with a face of such portentous gravity that mister solomon rout the chief engineer smoking his morning cigar over the skylight would turn away his head in order to hide a smile
oh aye the blessed gamp thank ee jukes thank ee would mutter captain mac whirr heartily without looking up having just enough imagination to carry him through each successive day and no more he was tranquilly sure of himself
and from the very same cause he was not in the least conceited it is your imaginative superior who is touchy overbearing and difficult to please but every ship captain mac whirr commanded was the floating abode of harmony and peace
with nothing except a two pound hammer and a whip saw in the way of tools yet the uninteresting lives of men so entirely given to the actuality of the bare existence have their mysterious side it was impossible
what under heaven could have induced that perfectly satisfactory son of a petty grocer in belfast to run away to sea and yet he had done that very thing at the age of fifteen it was enough when you thought it over
potent and invisible hand thrust into the ant heap of the earth laying hold of shoulders knocking heads together and setting the unconscious faces of the multitude towards inconceivable goals and in undreamt of directions
his father never really forgave him for this undutiful stupidity we could have got on without him he used to say later on but there's the business and he an only son too his mother wept very much after his disappearance
as it had never occurred to him to leave word behind he was mourned over for dead till after eight months his first letter arrived from talcahuano it was short and contained the statement we had very fine weather on our passage out
his captain had on the very day of writing entered him regularly on the ship's articles as ordinary seaman because i can do the work he explained the mother again wept copiously while the remark tom's an ass expressed the emotions of the father
which to the end of his life he exercised in his intercourse with his son a little pityingly as if upon a half witted person
and in the course of years he despatched other letters to his parents informing them of his successive promotions and of his movements upon the vast earth in these missives could be found sentences like this the heat here is very great or
on christmas day at four p m we fell in with some icebergs the old people ultimately became acquainted with a good many names of ships and with the names of the skippers who commanded them with the names of scots and english shipowners with the names of seas oceans straits promontories
with outlandish names of lumber ports of rice ports of cotton ports
she was called lucy it did not suggest itself to him to mention whether he thought the name pretty and then they died
following shortly upon the great day when he got his first command all these events had taken place many years before the morning when in the chart room of the steamer nan shan he stood confronted by the fall of a barometer he had no reason to distrust
was of a nature ominously prophetic but the red face of the man betrayed no sort of inward disturbance omens were as nothing to him and he was unable to discover the message of a prophecy till the fulfilment had brought it home to his very door
that's a fall and no mistake he thought there must be some uncommonly dirty weather knocking about the nan shan was on her way from the southward to the treaty port of fu chau
with some cargo in her lower holds and two hundred chinese coolies returning to their village homes in the province of fo kien after a few years of work in various tropical colonies the morning was fine the oily sea heaved without a sparkle
and there was a queer white misty patch in the sky like a halo of the sun the fore deck packed with chinamen was full of sombre clothing yellow faces and pigtails
and the heat was close the coolies lounged talked smoked or stared over the rail some drawing water over the side sluiced each other a few slept on hatches while several small parties of six sat on their heels
surrounding iron trays with plates of rice and tiny teacups and every single celestial of them was carrying with him all he had in the world a wooden chest with a ringing lock and brass on the corners containing the savings of his labours
some clothes of ceremony sticks of incense a little opium maybe bits of nameless rubbish of conventional value and a small hoard of silver dollars toiled for in coal lighters won in gambling houses or in petty trading
grubbed out of earth sweated out in mines on railway lines in deadly jungle under heavy burdens amassed patiently guarded with care cherished fiercely
a cross swell had set in from the direction of formosa channel about ten o'clock without disturbing these passengers much because the nan shan with her flat bottom rolling chocks on bilges and great breadth of beam
had the reputation of an exceptionally steady ship in a sea way mister jukes in moments of expansion on shore would proclaim loudly that the old girl was as good as she was pretty
to express his favourable opinion so loud or in terms so fanciful she was a good ship undoubtedly and not old either she had been built in dumbarton less than three years before to the order of a firm of merchants in siam
when she lay afloat finished in every detail and ready to take up the work of her life the builders contemplated her with pride sigg has asked us for a reliable skipper to take her out remarked one of the partners and the other after reflecting for a while said
next morning mac whirr stood before them unperturbed having travelled from london by the midnight express after a sudden but undemonstrative parting with his wife she was the daughter of a superior couple who had seen better days
we had better be going together over the ship captain said the senior partner and the three men started to view the perfections of the nan shan from stem to stern and from her keelson to the trucks of her two stumpy pole masts captain mac whirr had begun by taking off his coat
which he hung on the end of a steam windless embodying all the latest improvements my uncle wrote of you favourably by yesterday's mail to our good friends messrs sigg you know
said the junior partner you'll be able to boast of being in charge of the handiest boat of her size on the coast of china captain he added have you thank ee mumbled vaguely mac whirr
to whom the view of a distant eventuality could appeal no more than the beauty of a wide landscape to a purblind tourist and his eyes happening at the moment to be at rest upon the lock of the cabin door he walked up to it
while he observed in his low earnest voice
a brand new lock and it won't act at all stuck fast see see as soon as they found themselves alone in their office across the yard you praised that fellow up to sigg
with faint contempt i admit he has nothing of your fancy skipper about him if that's what you mean said the elder man curtly is the foreman of the joiners on the nan shan outside come in bates
how is it that you let tait's people put us off with a defective lock on the cabin door the captain could see directly he set eye on it have it replaced at once the little straws bates the little straws the lock was replaced accordingly
and a few days afterwards the nan shan steamed out to the east without mac whirr having offered any further remark as to her fittings
there were matters of duty of course
but the past being to his mind done with and the future not there yet the more general actualities of the day required no comment because facts can speak for themselves with overwhelming precision
old mister sigg liked a man of few words and one that you could be sure would not try to improve upon his instructions
she had come out on a british register but after some time messrs sigg judged it expedient to transfer her to the siamese flag at the news of the contemplated transfer jukes grew restless as if under a sense of personal affront
he went about grumbling to himself and uttering short scornful laughs fancy having a ridiculous noah's ark elephant in the ensign of one's ship he said once at the engine room door dash me if i can stand it i'll throw up the billet don't it make you sick mister rout
the chief engineer only cleared his throat with the air of a man who knows the value of a good billet the first morning the new flag floated over the stern of the nan shan jukes stood looking at it bitterly from the bridge
he struggled with his feelings for a while and then remarked queer flag for a man to sail under sir what's the matter with the flag inquired captain mac whirr seems all right to me and he walked across to the end of the bridge to have a good look
well it looks queer to me burst out jukes greatly exasperated and flung off the bridge captain mac whirr was amazed at these manners after a while he stepped quietly into the chart room and opened his international signal code book
he ran his finger over them and when he came to siam he contemplated with great attention the red field and the white elephant nothing could be more simple but to make sure he brought the book out on the bridge for the purpose of comparing the coloured drawing with the real thing at the flagstaff astern
when next jukes who was carrying on the duty that day with a sort of suppressed fierceness happened on the bridge his commander observed there's nothing amiss with that flag isn't there
no i looked up the book length twice the breadth and the elephant exactly in the middle
well sir began jukes getting up excitedly all i can say he fumbled for the end of the coil of line with trembling hands that's all right captain mac whirr soothed him sitting heavily on a little canvas folding stool he greatly affected
jukes flung the new lead line over on the fore deck with a loud
and turned with immense resolution towards his commander but captain mac whirr spread his elbows on the bridge rail comfortably
he went on what do you think that elephant there i take it stands for something in the nature of the union jack in the flag
looked towards the bridge then he sighed and with sudden resignation it would certainly be a dam distressful sight he said meekly later in the day he accosted the chief engineer with a confidential
here let me tell you the old man's latest mister solomon rout frequently alluded to as long sol old sol or father rout from finding himself almost invariably the tallest man on board every ship he joined
had acquired the habit of a stooping leisurely condescension
his flat cheeks were pale his bony wrists and long scholarly hands were pale too
he smiled from on high at jukes and went on smoking and glancing about quietly in the manner of a kind uncle lending an ear to the tale of an excited schoolboy then greatly amused but impassive he asked
no cried jukes raising a weary discouraged voice above the harsh buzz of the nan shan's friction winches all of them were hard at work snatching slings of cargo high up to the end of long derricks only as it seemed to let them rip down recklessly by the run
rattled over the side and the whole ship quivered with her long gray flanks smoking in wreaths of steam no cried jukes i didn't what's the good i might just as well fling my resignation at this bulkhead i don't believe you can make a man like that understand anything
he simply knocks me over at that moment captain mac whirr back from the shore crossed the deck umbrella in hand escorted by a mournful self possessed chinaman walking behind in paper soled silk shoes and who also carried an umbrella
speaking just audibly and gazing at his boots as his manner was
and desired mister rout to have steam up to morrow afternoon at one o'clock sharp he pushed back his hat to wipe his forehead observing at the same time that he hated going ashore anyhow while overtopping him mister rout without deigning a word smoked austerely
nursing his right elbow in the palm of his left hand then jukes was directed in the same subdued voice to keep the forward tween deck clear of cargo two hundred coolies were going to be put down there the bun hin company were sending that lot home
twenty five bags of rice would be coming off in a sampan directly for stores all seven years' men they were said captain mac whirr with a camphor wood chest to every man
d'ye hear jukes this chinaman here was coming with the ship as far as fu chau a sort of interpreter he would be
jukes had better take him forward d'ye hear jukes
ejaculated without enthusiasm his brusque come along john make look see set the chinaman in motion at his heels wanchee look see all same look see can do said jukes
who having no talent for foreign languages mangled the very pidgin english cruelly he pointed at the open hatch catchee number one piecie place to sleep in eh he was gruff as became his racial superiority but not unfriendly
the chinaman gazing sad and speechless into the darkness of the hatchway seemed to stand at the head of a yawning grave no catchee rain down there savee pointed out jukes suppose all'ee same fine weather
one piecie coolie man come topside he pursued warming up imaginatively make so phooooo he expanded his chest and blew out his cheeks savee john
breathe fresh air good eh washee him piecie pants chow chow top side see john with his mouth and hands he made exuberant motions of eating rice and washing clothes and the chinaman who concealed his distrust of this pantomime
under a collected demeanour tinged by a gentle and refined melancholy glanced out of his almond eyes from jukes to the hatch and back again velly good he murmured in a disconsolate undertone and hastened smoothly along the decks dodging obstacles in his course
he disappeared ducking low under a sling of ten dirty gunny bags full of some costly merchandise and exhaling a repulsive smell captain mac whirr meantime had gone on the bridge and into the chart room
where a letter commenced two days before awaited termination these long letters began with the words my darling wife and the steward between the scrubbing of the floors and the dusting of chronometer boxes snatched at every opportunity to read them
they interested him much more than they possibly could the woman for whose eye they were intended and this for the reason that they related in minute detail each successive trip of the nan shan her master faithful to facts which alone his consciousness reflected
would set them down with painstaking care upon many pages the house in a northern suburb to which these pages were addressed had a bit of garden before the bow windows a deep porch of good appearance coloured glass with imitation lead frame in the front door
a pretentious person with a scraggy neck and a disdainful manner was admittedly ladylike and in the neighbourhood considered as quite superior the only secret of her life was her abject terror of the time when her husband would come home to stay for good
under the same roof there dwelt also a daughter called lydia and a son tom these two were but slightly acquainted with their father mainly they knew him as a rare but privileged visitor
who of an evening smoked his pipe in the dining room and slept in the house the lanky girl upon the whole was rather ashamed of him the boy was frankly and utterly indifferent in a straightforward delightful unaffected way manly boys have
and captain mac whirr wrote home from the coast of china twelve times every year desiring quaintly to be remembered to the children and subscribing himself your loving husband
as calmly as if the words so long used by so many men were apart from their shape worn out things and of a faded meaning the china seas north and south are narrow seas
they are seas full of every day eloquent facts such as islands sand banks reefs swift and changeable currents tangled facts that nevertheless speak to a seaman in clear and definite language
that he had given up his state room below and practically lived all his days on the bridge of his ship often having his meals sent up and sleeping at night in the chart room and he indited there his home letters each of them without exception contained the phrase
the weather has been very fine this trip or some other form of a statement to that effect and this statement too in its wonderful persistence was of the same perfect accuracy as all the others they contained mister rout likewise wrote letters
because the chief engineer had enough imagination to keep his desk locked his wife relished his style greatly they were a childless couple and missus rout a big high bosomed jolly woman of forty
shared with mister rout's toothless and venerable mother a little cottage near teddington she would run over her correspondence at breakfast with lively eyes and scream out interesting passages in a joyous voice at the deaf old lady prefacing each extract by the warning shout
solomon says she had the trick of firing off solomon's utterances also upon strangers astonishing them easily by the unfamiliar text and the unexpectedly jocular vein of these quotations on the day the new curate called for the first time at the cottage
she found occasion to remark as solomon says the engineers that go down to the sea in ships behold the wonders of sailor nature when a change in the visitor's countenance made her stop and stare solomon oh missus rout
stuttered the young man very red in the face i must say i don't he's my husband she announced in a great shout throwing herself back in the chair perceiving the joke she laughed immoderately with a handkerchief to her eyes
and from his inexperience of jolly women fully persuaded that she must be deplorably insane they were excellent friends afterwards
he came to think she was a very worthy person indeed and he learned in time to receive without flinching other scraps of solomon's wisdom for my part
give me the dullest ass for a skipper before a rogue
had the heavy obviousness of a lump of clay on the other hand mister jukes unable to generalize unmarried and unengaged was in the habit of opening his heart after another fashion to an old chum and former shipmate
actually serving as second officer on board an atlantic liner first of all he would insist upon the advantages of the eastern trade hinting at its superiority to the western ocean service
he extolled the sky the seas the ships and the easy life of the far east the nan shan he affirmed was second to none as a sea boat we have no brass bound uniforms but then we are like brothers here he wrote
we all mess together and live like fighting cocks all the chaps of the black squad are as decent as they make that kind and old sol the chief is a dry stick we are good friends as to our old man you could not find a quieter skipper
sometimes you would think he hadn't sense enough to see anything wrong and yet it isn't that
i believe he hasn't brains enough to enjoy kicking up a row i don't take advantage of him i would scorn it outside the routine of duty he doesn't seem to understand more than half of what you tell him we get a laugh out of this at times
but it is dull too to be with a man like this in the long run old sol says he hasn't much conversation conversation o lord he never talks the other day i had been yarning under the bridge with one of the engineers and he must have heard us
that's his regular performance by and by he says
yes sir with the third engineer yes sir he walks off to starboard and sits under the dodger on a little campstool of his and for half an hour perhaps he makes no sound except that i heard him sneeze once then after a while
i can't understand what you can find to talk about says he
i see people ashore at it all day long and then in the evening they sit down and keep at it over the drinks must be saying the same things over and over again i can't understand did you ever hear anything like that and he was so patient about it
it made me quite sorry for him but he is exasperating too sometimes
but it isn't he's so jolly innocent that if you were to put your thumb to your nose and wave your fingers at him
he's too dense to trouble about and that's the truth
out of the fulness of his heart and the liveliness of his fancy he had expressed his honest opinion it was not worthwhile trying to impress a man of that sort if the world had been full of such men
he was not alone in his opinion the sea itself as if sharing mister jukes good natured forbearance had never put itself out to startle the silent man who seldom looked up and wandered innocently over the waters with the only visible purpose of getting food
dirty weather he had known of course he had been made wet uncomfortable tired in the usual way felt at the time and presently forgotten so that upon the whole he had been justified in reporting fine weather at home
but he had never been given a glimpse of immeasurable strength and of immoderate wrath the wrath that passes exhausted but never appeased the wrath and fury of the passionate sea he knew it existed
as we know that crime and abominations exist he had heard of it as a peaceable citizen in a town hears of battles famines and floods and yet knows nothing of what these things mean though
have gone without his dinner once or been soaked to the skin in a shower captain mac whirr had sailed over the surface of the oceans as some men go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave ignorant of life to the last
without ever having been made to see all it may contain of perfidy of violence and of terror there are on sea and land such men thus fortunate
we embarked on board a good ship and after recommending ourselves to god set sail we traded from island to island and exchanged commodities with great profit
while some diverted themselves with gathering flowers and others fruits i took my wine and provisions and sat down near a stream betwixt two high trees which formed a thick shade
i made a good meal and afterward fell asleep i cannot tell how long i slept but when i awoke the ship was gone in this sad condition i was ready to die with grief
i upbraided myself a hundred times for not being content with the produce of my first voyage
but all this was in vain
of god not knowing what to do i climbed up to the top of a lofty tree from whence i looked about on all sides to see if i could discover anything that could give me hopes
but looking over the land i beheld something white
that i could not distinguish what it was as i approached
it was at least fifty paces round by this time the sun was about to set and all of a sudden
i was much astonished at this sudden darkness but much more when i found it occasioned by a bird of a monstrous size that came flying toward me
i remembered that i had often heard mariners speak of a miraculous bird called the roc and conceived that the great dome which i so much admired
in short the bird alighted and sat over the egg as i perceived her coming i crept close to the egg so that i had before me one of the legs of the bird which was as big as the trunk of a tree
i tied myself strongly to it with my turban in hopes that the roc next morning would carry me with her out of this desert island after having passed the night in this condition the bird flew away as soon as it was daylight
and carried me so high that i could not discern the earth she afterward descended with so much rapidity that i lost my senses but when i found myself on the ground i speedily untied the knot
the spot where it left me was encompassed on all sides by mountains that seemed to reach above the clouds
this was a new perplexity
i found that i had gained nothing by the change as i walked through this valley i perceived it was strewed with diamonds some of which were of surprising bigness i took pleasure in looking upon them but shortly
saw at a distance such objects as greatly diminished my satisfaction and which i could not view without terror namely a great number of serpents so monstrous that the least of them was capable of swallowing an elephant
their enemy and came out only in the night i spent the day in walking about in the valley resting myself at times in such places as i thought most convenient
i secured the entrance which was low and narrow with a great stone to preserve me from the serpents but not so far as to exclude the light
which began hissing round me put me into such extreme fear that i did not sleep
trembling i can justly say that i walked upon diamonds without feeling any inclination to touch them at last i sat down and notwithstanding my apprehensions not having closed my eyes during the night fell asleep
after having eaten a little more of my provisions but i had scarcely shut my eyes when something
and at the same time i saw several others fall down from the rocks in different places i had always regarded as fabulous what i had heard sailors and others
i took the largest of the pieces of meat tied it close round me with the cloth of my turban and then laid myself upon the ground with my face downward the bag of diamonds being made fast to my girdle
i had scarcely placed myself in this posture when one of the eagles having taken me up with the piece of meat to which i was fastened carried me to his nest on the top of the mountain the merchants immediately began their shouting to frighten the eagles
and when they had obliged them to quit their prey one of them came to the nest where i was he was much alarmed when he saw me but recovering himself instead of inquiring how i came thither began to quarrel with me
you will treat me replied i with more civility when you know me better do not be uneasy i have diamonds enough for you and myself more than all the other merchants together whatever they have they owe to chance but i selected for myself
in the bottom of the valley those which you see in this bag i had scarcely done speaking when the other merchants came crowding about us much astonished to see me but they were much more surprised when i told them my story they conducted me to their encampment
and there having opened my bag they were surprised at the largeness of my diamonds and confessed that they had never seen any of such size and perfection i prayed the merchant who owned the nest to which i had been carried for every merchant had his own
to take as many for his share as he pleased he contented himself with one and that too the least of them and when i pressed him to take more without fear of doing me any injury
which is valuable enough to save me the trouble of making any more voyages and will raise as great a fortune as i desire i spent the night with the merchants to whom i related my story a second time for the satisfaction of those who had not heard it
i could not moderate my joy when i found myself delivered from the danger i have mentioned i thought myself in a dream and could scarcely believe myself out of danger
and each of them being satisfied with the diamonds that had fallen to his lot we left the place the next morning and travelled near high mountains where there were serpents of a prodigious length which we had the good fortune to escape
we took shipping at the first port we reached and touched at the isle of roha where the trees grow that yield camphire
and its branches so thick that one hundred men may easily sit under its shade the juice of which the camphire is made exudes from a hole bored in the upper part of the tree and is received
after the juice is thus drawn out the tree withers and dies
but the blood and the fat of the elephant running into his eyes and making him blind he falls to the ground and then strange to relate the roc comes and carries them both away in her claws for food for her young ones
at seven o'clock precisely anthony dexter's old housekeeper rang the rising bell
the doctor did not at once respond to the summons in fact the breakfast bell had rung before he was fully awake he dressed leisurely and was haunted by a vague feeling that something unpleasant had happened
at length he remembered that just before dusk in the garden of evelina grey's old house he had seen a ghost a ghost who confronted him mutely with a thing he had long since forgotten
it was subjective purely mused anthony dexter
his reason was fully satisfied with the plausible explanation but he was not a man who was likely to have an hallucination of any sort he was strong and straight of body finely muscular and did not look over forty
though it was more than eight years ago that he had reached the fortieth milestone his hair was thinning a little at the temples and the rest of it was touched generously with grey his features were regular and his skin clear a full beard closely cropped hid the weakness of his chin
but did not entirely conceal those fine lines about the mouth which mean cruelty someway in looking at him one got the impression of a machine well nigh perfect of its kind his dark eyes were sharp and penetrating
once they had been sympathetic but he had outgrown that his hands were large white and well kept his fingers knotted and blunt at the tips he had pre eminently the hand of the surgeon capable of swiftness and strength
and yet of delicacy it was not a hand that would tremble easily it was powerful and in a way brutal he was thoroughly self satisfied as well he might be for the entire countryside admitted his skill
and even in the operating rooms of the hospitals in the city not far distant doctor dexter's name was well known he had thought seriously at times of seeking a wider field but he liked the country and the open air and his practice would give ralph the opportunity he needed
doctor dexter's own alma mater he had not been at home since he entered the school having undertaken to do in three years the work which usually required four he wrote frequently however and doctor dexter invariably went to the post office himself
on the days ralph's letters were expected he had the entire correspondence on file and whiled away many a lonely evening
all ready to hang up on the front of the house beside yours i'll be glad to get out of the grind for a while i can tell you that i've worked as his satanic majesty undoubtedly does when he receives word that a fresh batch of mormons has hit the trail for the good intentions pavement
at first i suppose there won't be much for me to do i'll have to win the confidence of the community by listening to the old ladies symptoms three or four hours a day regularly finally they'll let me vaccinate the kids and the rest will be pitifully easy
kids always like me for some occult reason
never mind though dad i'll be generous and whack up as you've always done with me remembering the boyishness of it anthony dexter smiled a little and took another satisfying look at the pictured face before him
ralph's eyes were as his father's had been frank and friendly and clear with no hint of suspicion his chin was firm and his mouth determined but the corners of it turned up decidedly and the upper lip was short
the unprejudiced observer would have seen merely an honest intelligent manly young fellow who looked as if he might be good company anthony dexter saw all this and a great deal more it was his pride that he was unemotional
by rigid self discipline he had wholly mastered himself his detachment from his kind was at first spasmodic then exceptionally complete excepting ralph his relation to the world was that of an unimpassioned critic
he was so sure of his own ground that he thought he considered ralph impersonally also over a nature which at the beginning was warmly human doctor dexter had laid this glacial mask he did what he had to do with neatness and dispatch
if an operation was necessary he said so at once not troubling himself to approach the subject gradually if there was doubt as to the outcome he would cheerfully advise the patient to make a will first but there was seldom doubt
for those white blunt fingers were very sure he believed in the clean cut sudden stroke and conducted his life upon that basis without so much as the quiver of an eyelash anthony dexter could tell a man that within an hour his wife would be dead
and admired his skill but no one loved him except his son among all his acquaintances there was none who called him friend except austin thorpe the old minister who had but lately come to town
this in itself was no distinction for thorpe was the friend of every man woman child and animal in the village no two men could have been more unlike but friendship like love is often a matter of chemical affinity wherein opposites rush together in obedience to a hidden law
the broadly human creed of the minister included every living thing and the man himself interested doctor dexter in much the same way that a new slide for his microscope might interest him they exchanged visits frequently when the duties of both permitted
and the doctor reflected that when ralph came thorpe would be lonely the dexter house was an old one but it had been kept in good repair from time to time
one wing at the right of the house contained the doctor's medical library office reception room and laboratory doors were arranged in metropolitan fashion so that patients might go out of the office without meeting any one
the laboratory at the back of the wing was well fitted with modern appliances for original research and had too its own outside door
when ralph came home the other wing at the left of the house was to be arranged in like manner for him if he so desired doctor dexter had some rough drawings under consideration but wanted ralph to order the plans in accordance with his own ideas
the breakfast bell rang again and doctor dexter went downstairs the servant met him in the hall breakfast is waiting sir she said all right returned the doctor absently
he picked it up wonderingly and opened it inside were the discoloured pearls on their bed of yellowed satin and the ivory tinted slip of paper on which he had written so long ago in his clear boyish hand first
from the depths of the sea and then from the depths of my love being unemotional he experienced nothing at first save natural surprise he stood there staring into vacancy idly fingering the pearls
by some evil magic of the moment the hour seemed set back a full quarter of a century as though it were yesterday he saw evelina before him she had been a girl of extraordinary beauty and charm
he had travelled far and seen many but there had been none like evelina how he had loved her in those dead yesterdays and how she had loved him the poignant sweetness of it came back
he had displaced the unpleasant ones which constantly strove for the right of possession hard work and new love and daily wearying of the body to the point of exhaustion had banished those phantoms of earlier years save in his dreams
at night the soul claims its own its right to suffer for its secret sins its shirking its betrayals it is not pleasant for a man to be branded in his own consciousness a coward
refusal to admit it by day does not change the hour of the night when life is at its lowest ebb and sleepless man faces himself as he is the necklace slipped snakily over his hand
one of those white firm hands which could guide the knife so well and anthony dexter shuddered he flung the box far from him into the shrubbery went back into the house and slammed the door he sat down at the table but could not eat
the past had come from its grave veiled like the ghost in the garden that he had seen yesterday it was not an hallucination then only one person in the world could have laid those discoloured pearls at his door in the dead of night
the black figure in the garden with the chiffon fluttering about its head was evelina grey or what was left of her
why he had repeatedly told himself that any other man in his position would do as he had done yet it was as though some one had slipped a stiletto under his armour and found a vulnerable spot before his mental vision hovered two women
one was a girl of twenty laughing exquisitely lovely the other was a bent and broken woman in black whose veil concealed the dreadful hideousness of her face pshaw grumbled doctor dexter aloud
the buildings rising one above the other the lowest or main building on a level with the street that ran at right angles with the hillside while the topmost known as hillview crowned the summit
whose spacious rooms were now used as parlors library offices and teachers rooms there were wide beautiful porches in front and back and massive stone steps
ending in great stone urns overflowing with bright flowers at the foot of each flight these steps led down into wide shady gardens where the girls walked up and down with arms intertwined
or sat and studied and talked on rustic seats under the trees on the shady lawns the other buildings briarley hall elmtree hall and hillview were devoted to class rooms and dormitories
each hall being presided over by a teacher in these pleasant courts of learning alison fair arrived on a golden september afternoon and was warmly welcomed by miss harland the principal
miss harland said kissing the girl affectionately i was rather afraid from what you wrote some time ago that you might not return to us this year oh so was i miss harland i was dreadfully afraid of it
i was so disappointed i hardly realize yet that it is all right and i am really here and may i have my same old room and joan for roommate the same room dear but i am so sorry about joan
we have a very large school this year
i really had no other place for
alison did mind but after the first pang of disappointment she spoke cheerfully it's all right miss harland i'm so thankful to be here at all i shan't grumble at anything
joan is coming isn't she in sudden alarm oh yes i expect her this evening her father is driving her through the country run up then and get acquainted with your new roommate marcia west is her name she looked homesick
alison marvelled as she ran lightly up the familiar staircase and along the corridor to the end room which had been hers and joan wentworth's last year she was so happy to find herself here again
but then she was not a new girl and she knew there were many freshmen lying on their beds at this moment and crying their eyes out for homesickness well it would not last long
she reached her door and tapped lightly it was opened after an instant's delay and the new girl stood there in silence still holding the door and looking at her with an expression which if not exactly forbidding
was certainly not encouraging she was about alison's own age rather tall and slight with dark sombre eyes and dark heavy hair worn low on her forehead the heavy hair
miss harland told me you were here i'm sorry to be late i hope you like our room pretty
said the girl nonchalantly i came in this morning i've been unpacking it was evident as alison entered and looked about her marcia had unpacked her trunk which stood open in the hall beside their door
and had strewed her belongings about as freely as though she had expected to occupy the room alone it was a fairly good sized room containing two single beds and a dresser chair and small table for each girl
a roomy closet was well supplied with hangers and shoe racks a glance showed alison that marcia had placed her dresser and table close to the window and strewn them with photographs and toilet articles in lavish profusion
proceeded to open her own trunk which had been brought up and placed in the hall according to custom and to arrange her part of the room marcia had encroached on her side of the closet she noticed but she said nothing
only hanging up a few dresses and leaving the rest in her trunk she placed a few favorite books between a pair of bronze bookends her father's parting gift laid her bible beside them and her pretty new portfolio her mother had given her
and finally set her cherished lamp on the dresser she had scarcely finished and stood surveying the effect when there was a rush of little feet in the corridor the door was flung open and a small rosy faced curly haired girl rushed in
lovely to be back said alison warmly kissing the pretty childish face
a new girl marcia west marcia this is joan wentworth who roomed with me last year joan shook back her light fluffy hair looking rather taken aback for an instant as marcia emerged from the closet
leaving alison and marcia to shake down together as best they could conversation languished
but marcia seemed to have no enthusiasms she had come to school because she was made to and she looked forward to nothing but getting through finally she said she was tired and lay down on her bed
and seeing presently that she had fallen asleep alison slipped out of the room across the hall to the room opposite which was katherine bertram's katherine was better off financially than most of the girls
it was prettily furnished and her pictures and rugs were better and more luxurious than most schoolgirls rooms could boast nevertheless she was known as a good fellow and was popular with the girls
alison's tap at the door was answered by a cordial come in and she entered to find katherine and joan curled up on the bed talking vigorously
or i would have spoken to miss harland and tried to get one of the old girls to change with her oh well it's only the first day maybe something will happen or we may like her better when we know her said alison hopefully
and in the mean time joan is welcome with me as long as she likes i'll ask for a cot for her there's plenty of room said katherine hospitably we shall be close by and can get together whenever we like
so cheer up jo it won't be so bad they fell into an animated discussion of school matters which was presently interrupted by a tumultuous rush outside the door was opened without ceremony
and in flocked the rest of the kindred spirit evelyn and polly boon companions unlike as they were studious rachel rosalind the school beauty
whose golden head and apple blossom face scarcely suggested books or scholarship these with alison katherine and joan made up the seven kindred spirits an informal little club of loyal friends
their favorite gathering place last year had been the room occupied by alison and joan and consternation reigned when the news spread that the newcomer had usurped joan's place
of disappointment katherine poured oil on the troubled waters you can meet here just as well and maybe as alison says we shall like her when we know her don't let us judge her too hardly beforehand
so charitable kathy always is murmured evelyn rachel changed the subject well did you know we have a new english teacher no what's her name
miss burnett cecil burnett she's lovely
yes i saw them this morning as musical as ever oh is that the supper bell it can't be six o'clock already
said alison consulting her wrist watch and finding it correspond with the bell i must go and see if my roommate is awake and take her down to supper please be nice to her girls i don't know yet whether she is cross or just shy
she gave the group an appealing look as she left the room
the weather which had been mild and clear since the storm now changed with the suddenness of the american climate towards evening the cold blasts poured down from the mountains and flurries of snow plainly indicated that the month of november had arrived
a season whose temperature varies from the heats of summer to the cold of winter frances had stood at the window of her own apartment watching the slow progress of the funeral procession with a melancholy that was too deep to be excited by the spectacle
there was something in the sad office that was in unison with her feelings as she gazed around she saw the trees bending to the force of the wind that swept through the valley with an impetuosity that shook even the buildings
and the forest that had so lately glittered in the sun with its variegated hues was fast losing its loveliness as the leaves were torn from the branches and were driving irregularly before the eddies of the blast
could be distinguished at a distance on the heights bending to their pommels as they faced the keen air which had so lately traversed the great fresh water lakes and drawing their watch coats about them in tighter folds
frances witnessed the disappearance of the wooden tenement of the deceased
and the sight added to the chilling dreariness of the view captain singleton was sleeping under the care of his own man while his sister had been persuaded to take possession of her room
her last night's journeying had robbed her the apartment of miss singleton communicated with the room occupied by the sisters through a private door as well as through the ordinary passage of the house this door was partly open
and frances moved towards it with the benevolent intention of ascertaining the situation of her guest when the surprised girl saw her whom she had thought to be sleeping not only awake but employed in a manner
that banished all probability of present repose the black tresses that during the dinner had been drawn in close folds over the crown of the head were now loosened and fell in profusion over her shoulders and bosom imparting a slight degree of wildness to her countenance
the chilling white of her complexion was strongly contrasted with eyes of the deepest black that were fixed in rooted attention on a picture she held in her hand frances hardly breathed as she was enabled by a movement of isabella
to see that it was the figure of a man in the well known dress of the southern horse but she gasped for breath and instinctively laid her hand on her heart to quell its throbbings as she thought she recognized the lineaments that were so deeply seated in her own imagination
frances felt she was improperly prying into the sacred privacy of another but her emotions were too powerful to permit her to speak
and she drew back to a chair where she still retained a view of the stranger from whose countenance she felt it to be impossible to withdraw her eyes isabella was too much engrossed by her own feelings to discover the trembling figure of the witness to her actions and she pressed
that denoted the most intense passion the expression of the countenance of the fair stranger was so changeable and the transitions were so rapid that frances had scarcely time to distinguish the character of the emotion
before it was succeeded by another equally powerful and equally attractive admiration and sorrow were however the preponderating passions the latter was indicated by large drops that fell from her eyes on the picture
and which followed each other over her cheek at such intervals as seemed to pronounce the grief too heavy to admit of
every movement of isabella was marked by an enthusiasm that was peculiar to her nature and every passion in its turn triumphed in her breast the fury of the wind as it whistled round the angles of the building was in consonance with those feelings
and she rose and moved to a window of her apartment
and she stood endeavoring to stifle the sounds of her own gentle breathing until the following song was concluded
and bare is the oak on the hill slowly the vapors exhale from the fountain and bright gleams the ice bordered rill all nature is seeking its annual rest but the slumbers of peace have deserted my breast
long has the storm poured its weight on my nation and long have her braves stood the shock long has her chieftain ennobled his station a bulwark on liberty's rock unlicensed ambition relaxes its toil
yet blighted affection represses my smile abroad the wild fury of winter is lowering and leafless and drear is the tree but the vertical sun of the south appears pouring its fierce killing heats upon me
without all the season's chill symptoms begin but the fire of passion is raging within frances abandoned her whole soul to the suppressed melody of the music
though the language of the song expressed a meaning which united with certain events of that and the preceding day left a sensation of uneasiness in the bosom of the warm hearted girl to which she had hitherto been a stranger
isabella moved from the window as her last tones melted on the ear of her admiring listener and for the first time her eye rested on the pallid face of the intruder a glow of fire lighted the countenance of both at the same instant
and the blue eye of frances met the brilliant black one of her guest for a single moment and both fell in abashed confusion on the carpet they advanced however until they met and had taken each other's hand before either ventured again to look her companion in the face
this sudden change in the weather and perhaps the situation of my brother have united to make me melancholy miss wharton said isabella in a low tone and in a voice that trembled as she spoke
tis thought you have little to apprehend for your brother said frances in the same embarrassed manner had you seen him when he was brought in by major dunwoodie frances paused with a feeling of conscious shame
and in raising her eyes she saw isabella studying her countenance with an earnestness that again drove the blood tumultuously to her temples you were speaking of major dunwoodie said isabella faintly he was with captain singleton
do you know dunwoodie have you seen him often once more frances ventured to look her guest in the face and again she met the piercing eyes bent on her as if to search her inmost heart speak miss wharton is major dunwoodie known to you
he is my relative said frances appalled at the manner of the other a relative echoed miss singleton in what degree speak miss wharton i conjure you to speak our parents were cousins faintly replied frances
and he is to be your husband said the stranger impetuously frances felt shocked and all her pride awakened by this direct attack upon her feelings and she raised her eyes from the floor to her interrogator a little proudly
when the pale cheek and quivering lip of isabella removed her resentment in a moment it is true my conjecture is true speak to me miss wharton i conjure you in mercy to my feelings to tell me do you love dunwoodie
there was a plaintive earnestness in the voice of miss singleton that disarmed frances of all resentment and the only answer she could make was to hide her burning face between her hands as she sank back in a chair to conceal her confusion
isabella paced the floor in silence for several minutes until she had succeeded in conquering the violence of her feelings when she approached the place where frances yet sat endeavoring to exclude the eyes of her companion from reading the shame expressed in her countenance and taking the hand of the other
pardon me miss wharton if my ungovernable feelings have led me into impropriety the powerful motive the cruel reason she hesitated frances now raised her face and their eyes once more met
they fell in each other's arms and laid their burning cheeks together the embrace was long was ardent and sincere but neither spoke and on separating frances retired to her own room without further explanation
while this extraordinary scene was acting in the room of miss singleton matters of great importance were agitated in the drawing room the disposition of the fragments of such a
notwithstanding several of the small game had nestled in the pocket of captain lawton's man and even the assistant of doctor sitgreaves had calculated the uncertainty of his remaining long in such good quarters
still there was more left unconsumed than the prudent miss peyton knew how to dispose of to advantage caesar and his mistress had therefore a long and confidential communication on this important business and the consequence was
that colonel wellmere was left to the hospitality of sarah wharton all the ordinary topics of conversation were exhausted when the colonel with a little of the uneasiness that is in some degree inseparable from conscious error
touched lightly on the transactions of the preceding day we little thought miss wharton when i first saw this mister dunwoodie in your house in queen street that he was to be the renowned warrior he has proved himself said wellmere endeavoring to smile away his chagrin
twas unfortunate indeed in every respect that you met with the accident or doubtless the royal arms would have triumphed in their usual manner and yet the pleasure of such society as this accident has introduced me to
would more than repay the pain of a mortified spirit and wounded body added the colonel in a manner of peculiar softness i hope the latter is but trifling said sarah
trifling indeed compared to the former returned the colonel in the same manner ah miss wharton it is in such moments that we feel the full value of friendship and sympathy those who have never tried it cannot easily imagine what a rapid progress
a warm hearted female can make in love in the short space of half an hour particularly where there is a predisposition to the distemper sarah found the conversation when it began to touch on friendship and sympathy too interesting to venture her voice with a reply
and saw him gazing at her fine face with an admiration that was quite as manifest and much more soothing than any words could make it their tete a tete was uninterrupted for an hour and although nothing that would be called decided by an experienced matron
was said by the gentleman he uttered a thousand things that delighted his companion
felicity was cumbered with many cares the next morning for one thing the whole house must be put in apple pie order and for another an elaborate supper must be prepared for the expected return of the travellers that night felicity devoted her whole attention to this
and left the secondary preparation of the regular meals to cecily and the story girl it was agreed that the latter was to make a cornmeal pudding for dinner in spite of her disaster with the bread
the story girl had been taking cooking lessons from felicity all the week and getting on tolerably well although mindful of her former mistake she never ventured on anything without felicity's approval but felicity had no time to oversee her this morning
you must attend to the pudding yourself she said the recipe's so plain and simple even you can't go astray and if there's anything you don't understand you can ask me but don't bother me if you can help it
as the story girl proudly informed us when we came to the dinner table all on her own hook she was very proud of it and certainly as far as appearance went it justified her triumph the slices were smooth and golden
were very fair to view nevertheless although none of us not even uncle roger or felicity said a word at the time for fear of hurting the story girl's feelings the pudding did not taste exactly as it should it was tough decidedly tough
and lacked the richness of flavour which was customary in aunt janet's cornmeal puddings if it had not been for the abundant supply of sauce it would have been very dry eating indeed eaten it was however to the last crumb
if it were not just what a cornmeal pudding might be the rest of the bill of fare had been extra good and our appetites matched it i wish i was twins so's i could eat more said dan when he simply had to stop
what good would being twins do you asked peter people who squint can't eat any more than people who don't squint can they we could not see any connection between peter's two questions what has squinting got to do with twins asked dan
why twins are just people that squint aren't they said peter we thought he was trying to be funny until we found out that he was quite in earnest then we laughed until peter got sulky i don't care he said how's a fellow to know
tommy and adam cowan over at markdale are twins and they're both cross eyed so i s'posed that was what being twins meant it's all very fine for you fellows to laugh i never went to school half as much as you did and you was brought up in toronto too
if you'd worked out ever since you was seven and just got to school in the winter there'd be lots of things you wouldn't know either
you know lots of things they don't but peter was not to be conciliated and took himself off in high dudgeon to be laughed at before felicity to be laughed at by felicity was something he could not endure let cecily and the story girl cackle all they wanted to
and let those stuck up toronto boys grin like chessy cats but when felicity laughed at him the iron entered into peter's soul if the story girl laughed at peter the mills of the gods ground out his revenge for him in mid afternoon
felicity having used up all the available cooking materials in the house had to stop perforce and she now determined to stuff two new pincushions she had been making for her room
we heard her rummaging in the pantry as we sat on the cool spruce shadowed cellar door outside where uncle roger was showing us how to make elderberry pop guns presently she came out frowning cecily
do you know where mother put the sawdust she emptied out of that old beaded pincushion of grandmother king's after she had sifted the needles out of it i thought it was in the tin box so it is said cecily it isn't there isn't a speck of sawdust in that box
the story girl's face wore a quite indescribable expression compound of horror and shame she need not have confessed if she had but held her tongue the mystery of the sawdust's disappearance might have forever remained a mystery she would have held her tongue
if it had not been for a horrible fear which flashed into her mind that possibly sawdust puddings were not healthy for people to eat
direction it was her duty to undo it if possible at any cost of ridicule to herself oh felicity she said her voice expressing a very anguish of humiliation i
felicity and cecily stared blankly at the story girl we boys began to laugh but were checked midway by uncle roger he was rocking himself back and forth with his hand pressed against his stomach oh he groaned
i've been wondering what these sharp pains i've been feeling ever since dinner meant i know now i must have swallowed a needle several needles perhaps i'm done for
the poor story girl went very white oh uncle roger could it be possible you couldn't have swallowed a needle without knowing it it would have stuck in your tongue or teeth i didn't chew the pudding groaned uncle roger it was too tough i just swallowed the chunks whole
he groaned and twisted and doubled himself up but he overdid it he was not as good an actor as the story girl felicity looked scornfully at him uncle roger you are not one bit sick she said deliberately you are just putting on
felicity if i die from the effects of eating sawdust pudding flavoured with needles you'll be sorry you ever said such a thing to your poor old uncle said uncle roger reproachfully even if there were no needles in it
sixty year old sawdust can't be good for my tummy i daresay it wasn't even clean well you know every one has to eat a peck of dirt in his life giggled felicity
but nobody has to eat it all at once retorted uncle roger with another groan oh sara stanley it's a thankful man i am that your aunt olivia is to be home to night you'd have me kilt entirely by another day
i believe you did it on purpose to have a story to tell uncle roger hobbled off to the barn still holding on to his stomach do you think he really feels sick asked the story girl anxiously no i don't said felicity
i don't believe there were any needles in that sawdust mother sifted it very carefully i know a story about a man whose son swallowed a mouse said the story girl who would probably have known a story and tried to tell it
if she were being led to the stake and he ran and wakened up a very tired doctor just as he had got to sleep oh doctor my son has swallowed a mouse he cried what shall i do
tell him to swallow a cat roared the poor doctor and slammed his door now if uncle roger has swallowed any needles maybe it would make it all right if he swallowed a pincushion
how on earth did you make such a mistake it looked just like cornmeal said the story girl going from white to red in her shame well i'm going to give up trying to cook and stick to things i can do
and if ever one of you mentions sawdust pudding to me i'll never tell you another story as long as i live the threat was effectual never did we mention that unholy pudding
he tormented her for the rest of the summer never a breakfast did he sit down to without gravely inquiring if they were sure there was no sawdust in the porridge
or rather he began to think of alice's behaviour then and of alice's words alice had steadfastly refused to give any aid no less likely assistant for such a purpose could have been selected
but she had been very earnest in declaring that it was glencora's duty to stand by her promise to burgo he is a desperate spendthrift kate vavasor had said to her then let her teach him to be otherwise alice had answered
that might have been a good reason for refusing his offer when he first made it but it can be no excuse for untruth now that she has told him that she loves him if a woman she had said again won't venture her fortune for the man she loves her love is not worth having
all this george vavasor remembered now and as he remembered it he asked himself whether the woman that had once loved him would venture her fortune for him still though his sister had pressed him on the subject with all the vehemence that she could use
he had hardly hitherto made up his mind that he really desired to marry alice there had grown upon him lately certain bohemian propensities a love of absolute independence in his thoughts as well as actions which were antagonistic to marriage
as many men both in heathen and in christian ages have taught themselves to think of religion but which was not adapted to his advanced intelligence if he loved any woman he loved his cousin alice if he thoroughly respected any woman he respected her
but that idea of tying himself down to a household was in itself distasteful to him it is a thing terrible to think of he once said to a congenial friend in these days of his life
that a man should give permission to a priest to tie him to another human being like a siamese twin so that all power of separate and solitary action should be taken from him for ever the beasts of the field do not treat each other so badly they neither drink themselves drunk nor eat themselves stupid
had taught himself some theories of a peculiar nature but nevertheless as he thought of alice vavasor on this occasion he began to feel that if a siamese twin were necessary for him she of all others was the woman to whom he would wish to be so bound
and if he did it at all he must do it now under the joint instigation of himself and his sister as he thought and perhaps not altogether without reason she had broken her engagement with mister grey that she would renew it again if left to herself he believed probable
and then despite that advanced intelligence which had taught him to regard all forms and ceremonies with the eye of a philosopher he had still enough of human frailty about him to feel keenly alive to the pleasure of taking from john grey the prize which john grey
had so nearly taken from him if alice could have been taught to think as he did as to the absurdity of those indissoluble ties that would have been better but nothing would have been more impossible than the teaching of such a lesson to his cousin alice
george vavasor was a man of courage and dared do most things but he would not have dared to commence the teaching of such a lesson to her and now at this moment what was his outlook into life generally
he had very high ambition and a fair hope of gratifying it if he could only provide that things should go well with him for a year or so he was still a poor man having been once nearly a rich man but still so much of the result of his nearly acquired riches
remained to him that on the strength of them he might probably find his way into parliament he had paid the cost of the last attempt and might in a great degree carry on this present attempt on credit
if he succeeded there would be open to him a mode of life agreeable in itself and honourable among men but how was he to bear the cost of this for the next year or the next two years his grandfather was still alive and would probably live over that period
if he married alice he would do so with no idea of cheating her out of her money she should learn nay she had already learned from his own lips how perilous was his enterprise but he knew her to be a woman who would boldly risk all in money
though no consideration would induce her to stir a hair's breadth towards danger in reputation towards teaching her that doctrine at which i have hinted he would not have dared to make an attempt
but he felt that he should have no repugnance to telling her that he wanted to spend all her money in the first year or two of their married life he was still in his arm chair thinking of all this with that small untasted modicum of brandy and water beside him
when he heard some distant lambeth clock strike three from over the river then he rose from his seat and taking the candles in his hand sat himself down at a writing desk on the other side of the room i needn't send it when it's written he said to himself and the chances are that i won't
then he took his paper and wrote as follows dear alice the time was when the privilege was mine of beginning my letters to you with a warmer show of love than the above word contains when i might and did call you dearest
but i lost that privilege through my own folly and since that it has been accorded to another but you have found with a thorough honesty of purpose than which i know nothing greater that it has behoved you to withdraw that privilege also
i need hardly say that i should not have written as i now write had you not found it expedient to do as you have done i now once again ask you to be my wife in spite of all that passed in those old days
of all the selfish folly of which i was then guilty i think you know and at the time knew that i ever loved you i claim to say for myself that my love to you was true from first to last and i claim from you belief for that statement
indeed i do not think that you ever doubted my love nevertheless when you told me that i might no longer hope to make you my wife i had no word of remonstrance that i could utter you acted as any woman would act whom love had not made a fool
then came the episode of mister grey and bitter as have been my feelings whilst that engagement lasted i never made any attempt to come between you and the life you had chosen in saying this i do not forget the words which i spoke last summer at basle when as far as i knew
you still intended that he should be your husband but what i said then was nothing to that which with much violence i refrained from saying whether you remember those few words i cannot tell but certainly you would not have remembered them
would not even have noticed them had your heart been at nethercoats but all this is nothing you are now again a free woman and once again i ask you to be my wife we are both older than we were when we loved before and will both be prone to think of marriage in a somewhat different light
then personal love for each other was most in our thoughts god forbid that it should not be much in our thoughts now perhaps i am deceiving myself in saying that it is not even now stronger in mine than any other consideration but we have both reached that time of life
that in any proposition of marriage we should think more of our adaptability to each other than we did before for myself i know that there is much in my character and disposition to make me unfit to marry a woman of the common stamp you know my mode of life
and what are my hopes and my chances of success i run great risk of failing it may be that i shall encounter ruin where i look for reputation and a career of honour
but whatever may be the chances i shall go on as long as any means of carrying on the fight are at my disposal if you were my wife to morrow i should expect to use your money if it were needed in struggling to obtain a seat in parliament and a hearing there
i will hardly stoop to tell you that i do not ask you to be my wife for the sake of this aid but if you were to become my wife i should expect all your cooperation with your money possibly but certainly with your warmest spirit and now once again alice dearest alice
will you be my wife i have been punished
you cannot accuse my love since the time in which i might sit with my arm round your waist i have sat with it round no other waist since your lips were mine no other lips have been dear to me since you were my counsellor i have had no other counsellor
unless it be poor kate whose wish that we may at length be married is second in earnestness only to my own nor do i think you will doubt my repentance such repentance indeed claims no merit
providence has hitherto been very good to me in not having made that loss irremediable by your marriage with mister grey i wish you now to consider the matter well and to tell me whether you can pardon me and still love me
do i flatter myself when i feel that i doubt your pardon almost more than i doubt your love think of this thing in all its bearings before you answer me i am so anxious that you should think of it that i will not expect your reply till this day week
it can hardly be your desire to go through life unmarried i should say that it must be essential to your ambition that you should join your lot to that of some man the nature of whose aspirations
it is because this was not so as regarded him whose suit you had accepted that you found yourself at last obliged to part from him may i not say that with us there would be no such difference it is because i believe that in this respect we are fitted for each other
as man and woman seldom are fitted that i once again ask you to be my wife this will reach you at vavasor where you will now be with the old squire and kate i have told her nothing of my purpose in writing this letter
if it should be that your answer is such as i desire i should use the opportunity of our re engagement to endeavour to be reconciled to my grandfather he has misunderstood me and has ill used me but i am ready to forgive that if he will allow me to do so
in such case you and kate would arrange that and i would if possible go down to vavasor while you are there but i am galloping on a head foolishly in thinking of this and am counting up my wealth while the crockery in my basket is so very fragile
one word from you will decide whether or no i shall ever bring it into market if that word is to be adverse do not say anything of a meeting between me and the squire under such circumstances it would be impossible but oh alice do not let it be adverse
i think you love me your woman's pride towards me has been great and good and womanly but it has had its way and if you love me might now be taught to succumb dear alice will you be my wife
yours in any event most affectionately george vavasor vavasor when he had finished his letter went back to his seat over the fire and there he sat with it close at his hand for nearly an hour once or twice he took it up with fingers almost itching to throw it into the fire
he took it up and held the corners between his forefinger and thumb throwing forward his hand towards the flame as though willing that the letter should escape from him and perish if chance should so decide but chance did not so decide and the letter was put back upon the table at his elbow
then when the hour was nearly over he read it again i'll bet two to one that she gives way he said to himself as he put the sheet of paper back into the envelope women are such out and out fools then he took his candle and carrying his letter with him went into his bedroom
the next morning was the morning of christmas eve at about nine o'clock a boy came into his room who was accustomed to call for orders for the day jem he said to the boy there's half a crown lying there on the looking glass jem looked and acknowledged the presence of the half crown
asked the boy's master jem scrutinized the coin and declared that the uppermost surface showed a tail then take that letter and post it said george vavasor whereupon jem asking no question and thinking but little of the circumstances under which the command was given
did take the letter and did post it in due accordance with postal regulations
on the christmas morning a merry christmas did not fall to the lot of george vavasor on the present occasion an early christmas box he did receive in the shape of a very hurried note from his friend burgo this will be brought to you by stickling the note said
but who stickling was vavasor did not know i send the bill couldn't you get the money and send it me as i don't want to go up to town again before the thing comes off you're a trump and will do the best you can don't let that rogue off for less than a hundred and twenty
yours b f vavasor therefore having nothing better to do spent his christmas morning in calling on mister magruin
really this is no morning for business time and tide wait for no man mister magruin and my friend wants his money to morrow oh mister vavasor to morrow yes to morrow if time and tide won't wait neither will love
come mister magruin out with your cheque book and don't let's have any nonsense
ladies never are sure said vavasor hardly more sure than bills made over to money lenders
christmas day mister vavasor there's no getting money in the city to day
and carried it off in triumph do tell him to be punctual said mister magruin when vavasor took his leave i do so like young men to be punctual but i really think mister fitzgerald is the most unpunctual young man i ever did know yet
i think he is said george vavasor as he went away he ate his christmas dinner in absolute solitude at an eating house near his lodgings
he at any rate did not so dare and after dinner he wandered about through the streets wondering within his mind how he would endure the restraints of married life
during which he waited not impatiently for an answer to his letter and before the end of the week
what the frost giants did to nannie's run the frost giants do you believe in giants no do you say well listen to my story which is a really true one and then answer my question
many hundreds of years ago certain people who lived in the north and were therefore called northmen had a strange idea of the form and situation of the earth they thought it was a flat circular piece of land surrounded by a great ocean
and that this ocean was again surrounded by a wall of snow covered mountains where lived the race of frost giants i have seen a pretty picture of this world of theirs with a lovely rainbow bridge arching up over the sea to the earth
and a great coiled serpent holding his tail in his mouth lying in mid ocean like a ring around the land perhaps you will some day read about it all
we have only to do with the frost giants for i want to tell you that although no one now thinks of believing about the serpent or the flat earth or the rainbow bridge yet the frost giants still live
and their home is really among the mountains you may call them by what name you like and we may all know certainly that they are not what the old northmen believed them to be but are god's workmen a part of nature's family
employed to work in the great garden of the world but whenever we look at their work we cannot fail to admit that to do it needed a giant's strength and so they deserve their title
as big as a small house that stand alone by themselves in some field or on some seashore where no other rocks are near well the frost giants carried these boulders about
and dropped them down miles away from their homes as you might take a pocketful of pebbles and drop them along the road as you walk sometimes they roll great rocks down the mountain sides playing a desperate game of ball with each other
sometimes they are sent to make a bridge over niagara falls or to build a dam across a mountain torrent in an hour's time now and then they have to rake off a steep mountain side as you might a garden bed
and sometimes to bury a whole village so quickly that the poor inhabitants do not know what strange hand brought such sudden destruction upon them their deeds often seem to be cruel and we cannot understand their meaning
but we shall some time know that the loving father who sent them orders nothing for our hurt but has always a loving purpose though it may be hidden while i thus introduce to you the frost giants
let me also present their tiny brethren and sisters the frost fairies who always accompany them on their expeditions and however terrible is the deed that has to be done these little people adorn it with the most lovely handiwork
tiny flowers and crystals and veils of delicate lace work fringes and spangles and star work and carving so that nothing is so hard and ugly and bare that they cannot beautify it
now that you are introduced you will perhaps like to join a frost party that started out to work one day in the early spring of eighteen sixty one from their homes among the olympic mountains nannie's run
can you imagine a beautiful oval shaped bay almost encircled by a long arm of sand stretching out from the mainland in its deep water the largest vessels might ride at anchor
but at the time of my story a lonelier place could scarcely be found now and then indian canoes glided over the water and at long intervals some vessel from the great island away yonder to the north
visited the little settlement upon the shore of the bay it is indeed a very little settlement a few houses clustered together upon the sandy beach close to the blue water behind the houses
rises a cliff crowned with great fir trees standing tall and dark in thick ranks making a dense forest and beyond this forest cold snow covered mountains lift their peaks against the sky
a fitting home for the frost giants three streams straying from the far away mountains and fed by their melted snows and hidden springs find their way through the forest leap and tumble over the cliff
and passing through the little settlement reach the sea the people who live here call these little streams runs and one of them is nannie's run and now who is nannie
why nannie is nannie dwight a little girl not yet five years old who lives in the small square house standing under the cliff she sits even now on the door step
of the firs her father and mother came here to live when she was but a baby and before there was a single house built in the place and it is out of compliment to her that one of the streams has been named nannie's run
while nannie sits on the doorstep and looks out at the sea watching for the vessel that will bring her father home from victoria we will go through the forest and up the mountain sides till we find the home of the frost giants
and see what they are about to day they have been working all winter but not quite so busily as now for since yesterday they have cracked that big rock in two and dug the great cave under the hill and now
they are gathered in council on the mountain side that overlooks a dashing little stream as we followed this stream from the seashore we happen to know that it is no other than nannie's run
we are anxious to know what the giants think of doing we have not long to wait before we shall see and hear too for a great creaking and cracking begins and while we gaze astonished
the mountain side begins to slide and presently with a rush and a roar dashes into the stream and chokes it with a huge dam of earth and rocks and trees
what will the stream do now for a moment the water leaps into the air all foam and sparkle as if it would jump over the barrier and find its way to the sea at any rate but this proves entirely unsuccessful
and at last after whirling and tumbling trying to creep under trying to leap over it settles itself quietly in its prison as if to think about the matter now if you will stay and watch it day after day
you will see what good result will come from this waiting for every hour more and more water is running to its aid and as its forces increase we begin to feel sure that although it can neither pass over nor under
it will some day be strong enough to break through the frost giants dam and the day comes at last when summoning all its waters to the attack it makes a breach in the great earth wall and in a strong grand column
as high as this room marches away towards the sea as we have the wings of thought to travel with let us hurry back to the settlement and see where nannie is now and tell the people if we only can
what a wall of water is marching down upon them for you see the little channel that used to hold nannie's run is not a quarter large enough for this torrent that has gathered so long behind the dam peep in at the window and see how nannie stands at the kitchen table
cutting out little cakes from a bit of dough that her mother has given her she is all absorbed in her play and her mother has gone to look into the oven at the nicely browning loaves
safe above the reach of the water but alas here it stands just in the path that the torrent will take and we have no power to tell of the danger that is approaching missus dwight turns from the oven
and passing the window on her way to the table suddenly sees the great wall of water only a few rods from her house with one step she reaches the bedroom seizes the blankets from the bed wraps nannie in them and with the little girl on one arm grasps frankie's hand
and telling harry to run beside her opens the door nearest the cliff and almost flies up its steep side five minutes afterwards sitting breathless on the roots of an old tree with her children safe beside her
she sees the whole shore covered with surging water and the houses swept into the bay tossing and drifting there like boats in a stormy sea and this is what the frost giants did to nannie's run
the indians what will nannie do now here in our new england towns it would seem hard enough to have one's house swept away before one's eyes
or your uncle in new york to stay until a new house could be prepared for you but here is nannie hundreds and thousands of miles away from any such help for there are not only no railroads to travel upon
but not even common roads nor horses nor wagons nevertheless there are neighbors who will bring help you remember reading in your history how when our great great grandfathers came to this country to live
they found it occupied by indians the indians are all gone from our part of the country now but out in the far north west where nannie lives they still have their wigwams and canoes still dress in blankets
and wear feathers on their heads and in that particular part of the country lives a tribe called the flatheads they take this odd name because of a fashion they have of binding a board upon the top of a child's head
while he is yet very young in order that he may grow up with a flattened head which is considered a mark of beauty among these savages just as small feet are so considered among the chinese you know
the flatheads are nannie's only neighbors and perhaps you would consider them rather undesirable friends but when i tell you how they came at once with blankets and food and all sorts of friendly offers of shelter and help
you will think that some white people might well take a lesson from them they had been in the habit of bringing venison and salmon to the settlement for sale and when nannie's mother tells them that she has no longer any money to buy they say oh no it is a potlatch
happily the warm weather is approaching and a little girl who has lived out of doors so much does not find it unsafe to sleep in the hammock which hunter has slung for her among the trees or even on the ground rolled in an indian blanket
and when her shoes wear out she can safely run barefooted in the woods or on the sand
just before we left my father said mister borlsover may my son here shake hands with you it will be a thing to look back upon with pride when he grows to be a man i came up to the bed on which the old man was lying
and put my hand in his awed by the still beauty of his face he spoke to me kindly and hoped that i should always try to please my father then he placed his right hand on my head and asked for a blessing to rest upon me
amen said my father and i followed him out of the room feeling as if i wanted to cry but my father was in excellent spirits that old gentleman jim said he is the most wonderful man in the whole town
for ten years he has been quite blind but i saw his eyes i said they were ever so black and shiny they weren't shut up like nora's puppies can't he see at all and so i learnt for the first time
that a man might have eyes that looked dark and beautiful and shining without being able to see just like missus tomlinson has big ears i said
jim said my father it's not right to talk about a lady's ears remember what mister borlsover said about pleasing me and being a good boy that was the only time i saw adrian borlsover i soon forgot about him and the hand which he laid in blessing on my head
but for a week i prayed that those dark tender eyes might see his spaniel may have puppies i said in my prayers and he will never be able to know how funny they look with their eyes all closed up please let old mister borlsover see
adrian borlsover as my father had said was a wonderful man he came of an eccentric family borlsovers sons for some reason always seemed to marry very ordinary women
which perhaps accounted for the fact that no borlsover had been a genius and only one borlsover had been mad but they were great champions of little causes generous patrons of odd sciences founders of querulous sects
trustworthy guides to the bypath meadows of erudition adrian was an authority on the fertilization of orchids he had held at one time the family living at borlsover conyers until a congenital weakness of the lungs
obliged him to seek a less rigorous climate in the sunny south coast watering place where i had seen him occasionally he would relieve one or other of the local clergy my father described him as a fine preacher
who gave long and inspiring sermons from what many men would have considered unprofitable texts an excellent proof he would add of the truth of the doctrine of direct verbal inspiration adrian borlsover was exceedingly clever with his hands
his penmanship was exquisite he illustrated all his scientific papers made his own woodcuts and carved the reredos that is at present the chief feature of interest in the church at borlsover conyers
he had an exceedingly clever knack in cutting silhouettes for young ladies and paper pigs and cows for little children and made more than one complicated wind instrument of his own devising
he quickly learned to read braille so marvelous indeed was his sense of touch that he was still able to maintain his interest in botany the mere passing of his long supple fingers over a flower was sufficient means for its identification
though occasionally he would use his lips i have found several letters of his among my father's correspondence in no case was there anything to show that he was afflicted with blindness
and this in spite of the fact that he exercised undue economy in the spacing of lines towards the close of his life the old man was credited with powers of touch that seemed almost uncanny it has been said
that he could tell at once the color of a ribbon placed between his fingers my father would neither confirm nor deny the story
adrian borlsover was a bachelor his elder brother george had married late in life leaving one son eustace who lived in the gloomy georgian mansion at borlsover conyers
where he could work undisturbed in collecting material for his great book on heredity like his uncle he was a remarkable man the borlsovers had always been born naturalists
but eustace possessed in a special degree the power of systematizing his knowledge he had received his university education in germany and then after post graduate work in vienna and naples
getting together a huge store of material for a new study into the processes of variation he lived alone at borlsover conyers with saunders his secretary a man who bore a somewhat dubious reputation in the district
but whose powers as a mathematician combined with his business abilities were invaluable to eustace uncle and nephew saw little of each other the visits of eustace were confined to a week in the summer or autumn
long weeks that dragged almost as slowly as the bath chair in which the old man was drawn along the sunny sea front in their way the two men were fond of each other though their intimacy would doubtless have been greater
had they shared the same religious views adrian held to the old fashioned evangelical dogmas of his early manhood his nephew for many years had been thinking of embracing buddhism both men possessed too
the reticence the borlsovers had always shown and which their enemies sometimes called hypocrisy with adrian it was a reticence as to the things he had left undone but with eustace
it seemed that the curtain which he was so careful to leave undrawn hid something more than a half empty chamber two years before his death adrian borlsover developed unknown to himself the not uncommon power of automatic writing
eustace made the discovery by accident adrian was sitting reading in bed the forefinger of his left hand tracing the braille characters when his nephew noticed that a pencil the old man held in his right hand was moving slowly along the opposite page
he left his seat in the window and sat down beside the bed the right hand continued to move and now he could see plainly that they were letters and words which it was forming adrian borlsover wrote the hand eustace borlsover
george borlsover francis borlsover sigismund borlsover adrian borlsover eustace borlsover saville borlsover b for borlsover honesty is the best policy
beautiful belinda borlsover what curious nonsense said eustace to himself king george the third ascended the throne in seventeen sixty wrote the hand crowd a noun of multitude a collection of individuals
adrian borlsover eustace borlsover it seems to me said his uncle closing the book that you had much better make the most of the afternoon sunshine and take your walk now i think perhaps i will eustace answered as he picked up the volume
i won't go far and when i come back i can read to you those articles in nature about which we were speaking he went along the promenade but stopped at the first shelter and seating himself in the corner best protected from the wind he examined the book at leisure
nearly every page was scored with a meaningless jungle of pencil marks rows of capital letters short words long words complete sentences copy book tags the whole thing in fact had the appearance of a copy book
eustace thought that there was ample evidence to show that the handwriting at the beginning of the book good though it was was not nearly so good as the handwriting at the end he left his uncle at the end of october
it seemed to him quite clear that the old man's power of automatic writing was developing rapidly and for the first time he looked forward to a visit that combined duty with interest but on his return he was at first disappointed
his uncle he thought looked older he was listless too preferring others to read to him and dictating nearly all his letters not until the day before he left had eustace an opportunity of observing adrian borlsover's new found faculty
the old man propped up in bed with pillows had sunk into a light sleep his two hands lay on the coverlet his left hand tightly clasping his right eustace took an empty manuscript book
and placed a pencil within reach of the fingers of the right hand they snatched at it eagerly then dropped the pencil to unloose the left hand from its restraining grasp perhaps to prevent interference i had better hold that hand said eustace to himself
as he watched the pencil almost immediately it began to write blundering borlsovers unnecessarily unnatural extraordinarily eccentric culpably curious who are you asked eustace in a low voice
never you mind wrote the hand of adrian is it my uncle who is writing oh my prophetic soul mine uncle is it anyone i know silly eustace you'll see me very soon
when shall i see you when poor old adrian's dead where shall i see you where shall you not instead of speaking his next question borlsover wrote it what is the time
then picking up the pencil they wrote ten minutes before four put your book away eustace adrian mustn't find us working at this sort of thing he doesn't know what to make of it and i won't have poor old adrian disturbed
adrian borlsover awoke with a start i've been dreaming again he said
you were mixed up in this one eustace though i can't remember how eustace i want to warn you
it's too late adrian he read we're friends already aren't we eustace borlsover on the following day eustace borlsover left he thought his uncle looked ill when he said good by and the old man spoke despondently of the failure his life had been
nonsense uncle said his nephew you have got over your difficulties in a way not one in a hundred thousand would have done every one marvels at your splendid perseverance in teaching your hand to take the place of your lost sight
to me it's been a revelation of the possibilities of education education said his uncle dreamily as if the word had started a new train of thought education is good so long as you know to whom and for what purpose you give it
but with the lower orders of men the base and more sordid spirits i have grave doubts as to its results well good by eustace i may not see you again you are a true borlsover
marry eustace marry some good sensible girl and if by any chance i don't see you again my will is at my solicitor's i've not left you any legacy because i know you're well provided for but i thought
you might like to have my books oh and there's just one other thing you know before the end people often lose control over themselves and make absurd requests don't pay any attention to them eustace good by and he held out his hand
eustace took it it remained in his a fraction of a second longer than he had expected and gripped him with a virility that was surprising there was too in its touch a subtle sense of intimacy why uncle he said
i shall see you alive and well for many long years to come two months later adrian borlsover died
eustace borlsover was in naples at the time he read the obituary notice in the morning post on the day announced for the funeral poor old fellow he said i wonder where i shall find room for all his books
the question occurred to him again with greater force
he found himself standing in the library at borlsover conyers a huge room built for use and not for beauty in the year of waterloo by a borlsover who was an ardent admirer of the great napoleon it was arranged
on the plan of many college libraries with tall projecting bookcases forming deep recesses of dusty silence fit graves for the old hates of forgotten controversy the dead passions of forgotten lives
at the end of the room behind the bust of some unknown eighteenth century divine an ugly iron corkscrew stair led to a shelf lined gallery nearly every shelf was full i must talk to saunders about it said eustace
i suppose that it will be necessary to have the billiard room fitted up with book cases the two men met for the first time after many weeks in the dining room that evening hullo said eustace standing before the fire with his hands in his pockets
how goes the world saunders why these dress togs he himself was wearing an old shooting jacket he did not believe in mourning as he had told his uncle on his last visit and though he usually went in for quiet colored ties
he wore this evening one of an ugly red in order to shock morton the butler
in the servants hall eustace was a true borlsover the world said saunders goes the same as usual confoundedly slow the dress togs are accounted for by an invitation from captain lockwood to bridge
how are you getting there i've told your coachman to drive me in your carriage any objection oh dear me no we've had all things in common for far too many years for me to raise objections at this hour of the day
you'll find your correspondence in the library went on saunders most of it i've seen to there are a few private letters i haven't opened there's also a box with a rat or something inside it that came by the evening post
very likely it's the six toed albino i didn't look because i didn't want to mess up my things but i should gather from the way it's jumping about that it's pretty hungry oh i'll see to it said eustace while you and the captain earn an honest penny
dinner over and saunders gone eustace went into the library though the fire had been lit the room was by no means cheerful we'll have all the lights on at any rate he said as he turned the switches and morton he added
when the butler brought the coffee get me a screwdriver or something to undo this box whatever the animal is he's kicking up the deuce of a row what is it why are you dawdling if you please sir when the postman brought it
he told me that they'd bored the holes in the lid at the post office there were no breathin holes in the lid sir and they didn't want the animal to die that is all sir it's culpably careless of the man whoever he was said eustace
as he removed the screws packing an animal like this in a wooden box with no means of getting air confound it all
now i suppose i shall have to get one myself he placed a heavy book on the lid from which the screws had been removed and went into the billiard room as he came back into the library with an empty cage in his hand he heard the sound of something falling
and then of something scuttling along the floor bother it the beast's got out how in the world am i to find it again in this library to search for it did indeed seem hopeless he tried to follow the sound of the scuttling in one of the recesses
where the animal seemed to be running behind the books in the shelves but it was impossible to locate it eustace resolved to go on quietly reading very likely the animal might gain confidence and show itself
in his usual methodical manner with most of the correspondence there were still the private letters what was that two sharp clicks and the lights in the hideous candelabra that hung from the ceiling suddenly went out
i wonder if something has gone wrong with the fuse said eustace
as if something was crawling up the iron corkscrew stair if it's gone into the gallery he said well and good he hastily turned on the lights crossed the room and climbed up the stair but he could see nothing
his grandfather had placed a little gate at the top of the stair so that children could run and romp in the gallery without fear of accident this eustace closed
returned to his desk by the fire how gloomy the library was there was no sense of intimacy about the room the few busts that an eighteenth century borlsover had brought back from the grand tour might have been in keeping in the old library
here they seemed out of place they made the room feel cold in spite of the heavy red damask curtains and great gilt cornices with a crash two heavy books fell from the gallery to the floor then
as borlsover looked another and yet another very well you'll starve for this my beauty he said we'll do some little experiments on the metabolism of rats deprived of water go on chuck them down i think i've got the upper hand
he turned once again to his correspondence the letter was from the family solicitor it spoke of his uncle's death and of the valuable collection of books that had been left to him in the will
which certainly came as a surprise to me as you know mister adrian borlsover had left instructions that his body was to be buried in as simple a manner as possible at eastbourne he expressed a desire
and hoped that his friends and relatives would not consider it necessary to wear mourning the day before his death we received a letter canceling these instructions he wished his body to be embalmed he gave us the address of the man we were to employ
pennifer ludgate hill with orders that his right hand was to be sent to you stating that it was at your special request
good lord said eustace what in the world was the old boy driving at and what in the name of all that's holy is that someone was in the gallery someone had pulled the cord attached to one of the blinds
and it had rolled up with a snap someone must be in the gallery for a second blind did the same someone must be walking round the gallery for one after the other the blinds sprang up letting in the moonlight
i haven't got to the bottom of this yet said eustace but i will do before the night is very much older and he hurried up the corkscrew stair he had just got to the top when the lights went out a second time and he heard again the scuttling along the floor
quickly he stole on tiptoe in the dim moonshine in the direction of the noise feeling as he went for one of the switches his fingers touched the metal knob at last he turned on the electric light about ten yards in front of him
crawling along the floor was a man's hand eustace stared at it in utter astonishment it was moving quickly in the manner of a geometer caterpillar the fingers humped up one moment flattened out the next
the thumb appeared to give a crab like motion to the whole while he was looking too surprised to stir the hand disappeared round the corner eustace ran forward he no longer saw it but he could hear it
as it squeezed its way behind the books on one of the shelves a heavy volume had been displaced there was a gap in the row of books where it had got in in his fear lest it should escape him again
he seized the first book that came to his hand and plugged it into the hole then emptying two shelves of their contents he took the wooden boards and propped them up in front to make his barrier doubly sure i wish saunders was back he said
one can't tackle this sort of thing alone it was after eleven and there seemed little likelihood of saunders returning before twelve he did not dare to leave the shelf unwatched even to run downstairs to ring the bell
morton the butler often used to come round about eleven to see that the windows were fastened but he might not come eustace was thoroughly unstrung
morton he shouted morton sir has mister saunders got back yet not yet sir well bring me some brandy and hurry up about it i'm up here in the gallery you duffer
thanks said eustace as he emptied the glass don't go to bed yet morton there are a lot of books that have fallen down by accident bring them up and put them back in their shelves
as on that night here said eustace when the books had been put back and dusted you might hold up these boards for me morton that beast in the box got out and i've been chasing it all over the place
i think i can hear it chawing at the books sir they're not valuable i hope i think that's the carriage sir i'll go and call mister saunders it seemed to eustace that he was away for five minutes but it could hardly have been more than one
when he returned with saunders all right morton you can go now i'm up here saunders what's all the row asked saunders as he lounged forward with his hands in his pockets the luck had been with him all the evening
he was completely satisfied both with himself and with captain lockwood's taste in wines what's the matter you look to me to be in an absolute blue funk that old devil of an uncle of mine began eustace
oh i can't explain it all it's his hand that's been playing old harry all the evening but i've got it cornered behind these books you've got to help me catch it what's up with you eustace what's the game it's no game you silly idiot
if you don't believe me take out one of those books and put your hand in and feel all right said saunders but wait till i've rolled up my sleeve the accumulated dust of centuries eh he took off his coat knelt down and thrust his arm along the shelf
there's something there right enough he said it's got a funny stumpy end to it whatever it is and nips like a crab ah no you don't he pulled his hand out in a flash shove in a book quickly now it can't get out
what was it asked eustace it was something that wanted very much to get hold of me i felt what seemed like a thumb and forefinger give me some brandy how are we to get it out of there what about a landing net no good
it would be too smart for us i tell you saunders it can cover the ground far faster than i can walk but i think i see how we can manage it
the others are very thin i'll take out one at a time and you slide the rest along until we have it squashed between the end two it certainly seemed to be the best plan one by one as they took out the books
the space behind grew smaller and smaller there was something in it that was certainly very much alive once they caught sight of fingers pressing outward for a way of escape at last they had it pressed between the two big books
there's muscle there if there isn't flesh and blood said saunders as he held them together it seems to be a hand right enough too
i've read about such cases before infectious fiddlesticks said eustace his face white with anger bring the thing downstairs we'll get it back into the box it was not altogether easy but they were successful at last
drive in the screws said eustace we won't run any risks put the box in this old desk of mine there's nothing in it that i want here's the key thank goodness there's nothing wrong with the lock
now let's hear more about your uncle they sat up together until early morning
chapter thirty two how we heard a black discussion and did not understand the rescue party consisted of the doctor
and myself with jimmy for guide jack penny was to take command of the cave and be ready to defend it and help us if attacked or we were pursued at the same time he was to have the bearers
and everything in readiness for an immediate start in case we decided to continue our flight i think that's all we can say penny said the doctor in a low grave voice as we stood ready to start
and his voice sounded hollow and strange gyp uttered a whine that dog had been so well trained that he rarely barked ran quickly up the further bank of the rivulet
the excitement i felt was so great that it seemed a very little while before jimmy stopped short to listen hear um talkum talkum he whispered we could neither of us hear a sound
but i had great faith in jimmy's hearing for in old times he had given me some remarkable instances of the acuteness of this sense
you have found him i cried not talk shouto so whispered jimmy black fellow come but have you found him i whispered going a find um all soon nuff he replied coolly
come long now he struck off to the right and we followed
for we soon heard the busy hum of many voices a hum which soon after developed into a loud chatter with occasional angry outbursts as if something were being discussed
jimmy went on gyp keeping close to his heels now as if he quite understood the importance of not being seen we had left the dense forest and were walking in a more open part among tall trees
beneath which it was black as ever but outside the stars shone brilliantly and it was comparatively light
the voices seemed so near now that i thought we were going too far and just then jimmy raised his hand and stopped us before what seemed to be a patch of black darkness
and i found that we were in the shadow cast by a long hut whose back was within a yard or so of our feet jimmy placed his lips close to my ear then to the doctor's and to each of us he whispered soon go sleep sleep
all top here jimmy go see i quite shared with the doctor the feeling of helpless annoyance at having to depend so much on the black
from where we stood we could see a group of the savages standing not thirty yards from us their presence being first made plain by their eager talking and i pressed the doctor's arm and pointed yes he whispered
but we are in the shadow from huts to right and left we could hear talking but that in front of us was silent and i began wondering whether it was the one that had been my prison but it was impossible to tell
i could not even make out the tree where jimmy had been tied all at once a sensation as of panic seized me for the group of blacks set up a loud shout and came running towards where we were
i was sure they saw us and with a word of warning to the doctor i turned and should have fled but for two hands that were laid upon my shoulders pressing me down the doctor crouching likewise
at first i thought it was jimmy but turning my head
whose hand now moved from my shoulder to my lips i drew a breath full of relief the next moment for in place of dashing down upon us the blacks rushed into the hut behind which we were standing crowding it
and there was nothing now but a wall of dried and interwoven palm leaves between us and our fierce enemies here a loud altercation seemed to ensue angry voices being heard
and several times over i thought there was going to be a fight
and another began we dared not stir for now it seemed to be so light
and there was a dead silence as if those within were listening intently we held our breath and listened too trembling with excitement for all at once we heard a voice utter a few words
and then there was a faint sound of rustling with the cracking noise made by a joint as if some one had risen to a standing position were the savages coming round to our side and about to leap upon us
and my heart in the terrible excitement kept on a heavy dull throb which seemed to beat right up into my throat the moments passed away though and at last i began to breathe more freely
it was evident that the savages had quitted the hut in this belief i laid my hand upon the doctor's arm and was about to speak when close by us as it seemed
waiting to see if the black had made any discovery after what seemed to me an interminable time i heard a slight rustling sound and almost at the same moment there was a hand upon my arm and directly after a warm pair of lips upon my ear
take um out o place place put um somewhere no know tell i placed my lips to his ear in turn and whispered that there was some one left in the hut jimmy go see he said softly and before i could stay him
he was gone what is it whispered the doctor and i told him the doctor drew his pistol i heard him in the darkness and grasped my arm as if to be ready for flight but
just then i heard a voice in the hut which made me start with joy then there was a rustling sound and jimmy came round the corner of the hut all rightums he whispered
said the poor fellow in a low puzzled voice as if his mind were wandering yes i am the doctor they made me their doctor when the fever when oh my boy my boy
he slipped away from us before we could stop him and while we were debating as to whether we had not better rush in and fight in his defence the savages crowded into the hut and once more there was a loud buzz of voices
and more stern than the others which were silenced and after a minute or two we heard our friend the englishman respond in a deprecating voice and apparently plead for mercy
then the chief savage spoke again in stern tones there was a buzz of voices once more and the savages seemed to file out and cross the opening towards the other side of the village
we dared not move but remained there listening not knowing but that a guard might have been left but at the end of a minute or two our friend was back at our side to say excitedly i want to help you but my head
i forget i cannot speak sometimes i cannot think it is all dark here here in my mind why have you come we are friends said the doctor where is mister carstairs
carstairs mister carstairs
tantalising me so that i grasped his arm exclaiming fiercely speak english where is my father i could hardly see his face but there was light enough to tell that he turned towards me and he stopped speaking
and seemed to be endeavouring to comprehend what i said my father the prisoner i said again with my lips now to his ear prisoner
the chief's hut he began speaking again volubly and then stopped and bent his head at the chief's hut said the doctor excitedly wait a moment or two to give him time to collect himself then ask him again
the poor dazed creature turned to the doctor now and bent towards him holding him by the arm this time chief's hut yes right across
he pointed in the direction the savages seemed to have taken and from whence we could hear the voices rising and falling in busy speech my heart leaped for we knew now definitely where he whom we sought was kept
chapter thirty nine how we took a last look round and found it was time to go that next evening seemed as it would never come
it was fortunate that we did for just as it was growing dusk after a good look round we were about to cross the rivulet and go through the cavern and up the rift back into camp when i caught the doctor's arm without a word
he started and looked in the same direction as i did which was right down the gully and saw what had taken my attention namely the stooping bodies of a couple of blacks hurrying away through the bushes at a pretty good rate
and they'll come back with a lot of their warriors to attack us to night and find us gone and while they are gone joe we will attack their place and carry off our prize
and as we entered i looked round again to catch sight of another black figure crouching far up the opposite bank at the foot of a great tree i did not speak for it was better that the black should not think he had been seen
so followed the doctor into the cave climbed the rift with him
smell um black fellow one eye peeping round um trees yes we have seen them too i said
gliding silently through the forest for quite three hours when mister francis stopped and it was decided to rest and refresh ourselves a little before proceeding farther the doctor had settled
if you go alone you will lose time and your expedition may he stopped short and lay down upon the earth for a few minutes during which the doctor remained undecided
at last he bent down and whispered a few words to his patient who immediately rose orders were then given to the blacks who were to stay under the command of jack penny and followed by jimmy
and stepping more cautiously we were soon close up behind a great hut this is the place whispered mister francis he is kept prisoner here or else at the great hut on the other side hist
i'll creep forward and listen he went down in a stooping position and disappeared leaving us listening to the continuous talk of evidently a numerous party of the savages
and so like did it all seem to the last time that no time might have elapsed since we crouched there breathing heavily with excitement
i whispered once or twice to the doctor but he laid his hand upon my lips i turned to jimmy but he had crouched down and was resting himself according to his habit
and so quite an hour passed away before we were aware by a slight rustle that mister francis was back looming up out of the darkness like some giant so strangely did the obscurity
distort everything near at hand here he said in a low voice and bending down we all listened to his words which came feebly consequent upon his exertions i have been to the far hut
and then he muttered something in the savages tongue and then broke down and began to sob take no notice the doctor whispered to me as i stood trembling there feeling as i did that i was only a few yards
from him we had come to save and who was lying bound there waiting for the help that seemed as if it would never come the doctor realised my feelings for he came a little closer and pressed my hand
don't be downhearted my lad he whispered
than when we started yes i said but but nonsense boy why we've found your father we know where he is and if we can't get him away by stratagem
we'll go to another tribe of the blacks make friends with them and get them to fight on our side nonsense doctor i said bitterly you are only saying this to comfort me to get you to act like a man he said sharply
and to set my brain at work scheming it seemed to grow darker just then the stars fading out behind a thick veil of clouds and creeping nearer to the doctor i sat down beside where he knelt
listening to the incessant talking of the savages
and now rising into quite an angry shout now descending into a low buzz the talk talk talk went on as if they were saying the same things over and over again
and all this while the talking went on rising and falling till it seemed almost maddening to hear we must have waited there quite a couple of hours and still there was no change
at last he crept from me to speak to mister francis it is of no use to stay longer i'm afraid my lad he whispered unless we wait and see whether the hut is left empty when the expedition party comes back
what are you going to do then i said ask francis to suggest a better hiding place for us where we can go to night and wait for another opportunity i sighed
for i was weary of waiting for opportunities fast asleep poor fellow he whispered coming back so silently that he startled me where's the black
i turned sharply to where jimmy had been curled up but he was gone i crept a little way in two or three directions but he was not with us and i said so how
dare he go the doctor said angrily he will ruin our plans what's that gyp i said as the dog crept up to us and thrust his head against my hand jack penny is getting anxious
it is a signal for us to come back how do you know we agreed upon it i said he was to send the dog in search of us if we did not join him in two hours and if we were in trouble
i was either to tie something to his collar or take it off do neither said the doctor quietly look they are lighting a fire the others must have come back
i turned and saw a faint glow away over the right corner of the hut and then there was a shout and the shrill cries of some women and children in a moment there was a tremendous excitement in the hut before us
the savages swarming out like angry bees and almost at the same moment the whole shape of the great long hut stood out against the sky the village is on fire whispered the doctor back my boy francis quick
men women and children running to and fro as if wild now would be the time said the doctor we might take advantage of the confusion and get your father away yes i cried excitedly
i'm ready stop for your lives said a voice at our elbow and turning i saw mister francis with his swarthy face lit up by the fire you could not get near the hut now without being seen
if you had acted at the moment the alarm began you might have succeeded it is now too late no no i cried let us try
the village is on fire and the blacks must see you if you are taken now you will be killed without mercy we must risk it i said excitedly stepping forward and your father too i recoiled
go on then i said with a groan of disappointment and mister francis took the lead once more and the doctor following i was last but jimmy i said
stood up clearly before us and we had no difficulty in going on i followed more reluctantly when i remembered gyp and chirruped to him expecting to find him at my heels but he was not there
he has gone on in front i thought and once more i tramped wearily on
chapter thirty how i talked with my new friend as i heard the sound of the pursuit a horrible sensation of dread came over me i felt that we must be taken and in addition
vague ideas of trouble and bloodshed floated through my brain with memories of the fight in the gorge and i shuddered at the idea of there being more people slain the effect was different upon jimmy
the distant cries seeming to excite him
he had obtained from our guide the latter checked him though laying a hand upon his arm as he said to me after listening intently you don't want to fight these people are too strong you must escape
that this was he whom i sought but terribly changed he said something in reply in the savage tongue stopped and then went on i forget i don't know
i am the doctor a savage what did you say come with us i whispered and he bent his head in the dark but my words seemed to have no effect upon him one idea
seeming to be all that he could retain for he hurried me on grasping my arm tightly and then loosed it and went on in front jimmy took his place gripping my arm in turn and whispering
don't know know oh no impossible jimmy i whispered back with emotion it cannot be my father
all um white fellow got mud mud in head can't see can't know know
tupid white fellow all a same mud in um head he seems strange in his head i said yes iss mad mad no wash um head clean can't tink straight up
but he is saving us i said taking us to our friends jimmy no know jimmy tink doctor somewhere right long big hill gib black white fellow topper topper make um tink more
no no i whispered for he had grasped his waddy
be quiet and follow him just then our guide stopped and let me go to his side fever my head he said softly and as if apologising can't think
but you will come with us i said my friend the doctor will help you you shall help us you must not go back to that degraded life doctor he said as if he had only caught that word yes the doctor
talking rapidly to me all the while in the savages tongue and apparently under the impression that i understood every word though it was only now and then that i caught his meaning and then it was because they were english words
and apparently bent on getting us away i caught such words as fever prisoner my head years misery despair always
to me staring as if in wonder the words were fellow prisoner and they made me stop short for i felt that i had really
and providentially hit upon the right place after all and that there could be only one man likely to be a fellow prisoner and that my poor father it was impossible to flee farther i felt
and leave him whom i had come to seek behind then common sense stepped in and made me know that it was folly to stay while jimmy supplemented these thoughts by saying
mass joe no gun no powder pop no chopper no knife no fight works tall where is he i said excitedly as i held the arm of our guide blacks coming after us
he talked on rapidly in the savage tongue and i uttered a groan of despair what um say mass joe whispered jimmy excitedly talk talk poll parrot can't say know what um say come along run
black fellow come along he caught my arm and following our guide we hurried on through the darkness which was so dense that if it had not been for the wonderful eyesight of my black companion a faculty which seemed to have been acquired
or shared by our guide i should have struck full against the trunk of some tree as it was i met with a few unpleasant blows on arm or shoulder though the excitement of our flight was too great for me to heed them then
it might have been foolish seeing how much better i could serve him by being free but i felt ready to hurry back and share my father's captivity for i felt assured that it must be he of whom our guide spoke
we were hurrying on all this time entirely under the guidance of the strange being who had set us free but not without protests from the black who was growing jealous of our guide and who kept on whispering
no go no farrer mass joe jimmy fine a doctor an mass jack penny hi come along jimmy now he was just repeating this in my ear when we were hurrying on faster
his words evidently meant fall back but i had recognised that growl gyp i cried and the growling changed to a whining cry of joy and in an instant the dog was leaping up at my face
him eat piece jimmy all up leggum cried the black here gyp i cried as the dog stopped his whining cry of pleasure but growled once more here i said this is a friend pat his head sir and
where is he jimmy black white fellow mass joe yes yes where is he
stop him run after him he must not go i cried i stopped for there was a low piping whistle like the cry of a blue mountain parrot back at home jack penny i gasped and i answered the call
and gyp made a bound from my side into the darkness leaving us alone
then there was more rustling the dog came panting back and as the rustling continued there came out of the darkness a sound that made my heart leap it was only my name softly uttered apparently close at hand
dear joe came back and well it was in the dark and we were not ashamed
chapter ten a place of refuge the french excited to the utmost by the exhortations of their commanders and by their desire to wipe out the disgrace
advanced with ardour to the assault and officers and men vied with each other in the valour which they displayed in vain did the garrison shower arrows and cross bow bolts among them and pour down burning oil and quicklime upon them
who shot such a storm of bolts that great numbers of the defenders were killed the assault was made at a score of different points and the garrison was too weak to defend all with success
sir john powis and his party repulsed over and over again the efforts of the assailants against that part of the wall entrusted to them but at other points the french gained a footing and swarming up rushed along the walls
slaying all whom they encountered all is lost sir john exclaimed let us fall back to the castle and die fighting there descending from the wall the party made their way through the streets the french were already in the town
every house was closed and barred and from the upper windows the burghers hurled down stones and bricks upon the fugitives while parties of the french soldiers fell upon them fiercely many threw down their arms and cried for quarter but were instantly slain
some tried in vain to gain shelter in the houses sir john powis's band was soon broken and scattered and their leader slain by a heavy stone from a housetop walter fought his way blindly forward towards the castle
they made their way through their assailants and dashed in at the castle gate a crowd of their assailants were close upon their heels walter glanced round dashing across the courtyard he ran through some passages into an inner yard in which as he knew was the well
the bucket hung at the windlass catch hold ralph he exclaimed
with great efforts they managed to rid themselves of their armour and then held on with ease to the rope they hauled the bucket to the surface and tied a knot in the slack of the rope so that the bucket hung four feet below the level of the water
i think it would have been just as well to have been killed at once they are sure to find us here and if they don't we shall die of cold before tomorrow morning i don't think they will find us walter said cheerfully
when they have searched the castle thoroughly it may occur to some of them that we have jumped down the well but it will be no particular business of anyone to look for us and they will all be too anxious
to get at the wine butts to trouble their heads about the matter besides it must be a heavy job to wind up this bucket and it is not likely there will be such urgent need of water that anyone will undertake the task
for we must die here if we are not hauled out i suppose you don't intend to try and climb that rope i might do twenty feet or so on a pinch but i could no more get up to the top there than i could fly we
where there is a will there is a way you know we will take it by turns to watch that little patch of light overhead
and swim to the side without making the least noise they may give a few turns of the windlass to see if anyone has hold of the rope below be sure you do not make the slightest splashing or noise for the sound would be heard above
then though it was too dark to see anything they heard the bucket lifted from the water a minute later it fell back again with a splash
they are satisfied that if we did jump down here we are drowned and now we must think about climbing up aye that will require a good deal of thinking ralph grumbled for some time there was silence then walter said
the first thing to do is to cut off the slack of the rope there are some twelve feet of it then we will unwind the strands of that there are five or six large strands as far as i can feel we will cut them up into lengths of about a couple of feet
and we ought to be able to tie these to the rope in such a way as not to slip down with our weight if we tie them four feet apart
no ralph said much more cheerfully
by which it would not slip down the rope they made many fruitless attempts
it slid down the rope when their weight was applied to it at last they succeeded in finding out a knot which would hold this was done by tying a knot close to one end of a piece of the strand then sufficient was left to form the loop
the vibration of the rope when our weight once gets on it might be noticed by anyone crossing the courtyard do you think we have sufficient bits of rope ralph asked just enough i think walter replied
there were six strands and each has made six pieces so we have thirty six i know the well is about a hundred feet deep
which will leave three over but we had better place them a little over a yard
in a short time the fading brightness of the circle of light far overhead told them that twilight had commenced and shortly afterwards they attached the first strand to the rope some three feet above the water now walter said
i will go first at any rate for a time i must put one leg through the loop and sit as it were while i fasten the one above as i shall want both hands for the work you will find it a good deal easier to stand with your foot in the loop
if i get tired i will fasten another loop by the side of that on which i am resting so you can come up and pass me there is no hurry it ought not to take up above an hour
and it will not do for us to get to the top until the place becomes a little quiet tonight they are sure to be drinking and feasting over their victory until late they now set to work and step by step mounted the rope
they found the work less arduous than they had expected the rope was dry and the strands held tightly to it two or three times they changed places resting in turn from the work but in less than two hours from the time they made the first loop walter's head and shoulders
appeared above the level of the courtyard he could hear sounds of shouting and singing within the castle and knew that a great feast was going on descending a step or two he held parley with ralph
everyone is intent on his own pleasure and we shall have no difficulty in slipping out of the castle unnoticed
besides the gates of the town will stand open late for people from the villages round will have come in to join in the revels i am ready to try it master walter ralph replied for i ache from head to foot
with holding on to this rope the sooner the better say i in another minute both stood in the courtyard it was a retired spot and none were passing going along the passage they issued into the main yard here great fires were blazing
and groups of men sat round them drinking and shouting many lay about in drunken sleep
you had best lie down by the foot of the wall anyone who passes will think that you are in a drunken sleep
and by dint of unbuckling the cloaks and rolling their wearers gently over walter succeeded at last in obtaining two of them he also picked up a sword for ralph his own still hung in its sheath and then he joined his companion
and the two putting on the steel caps and cloaks walked quietly to the gate there were none on guard and they issued unmolested into the town
then turning off from the principal streets they made their way by quiet lanes down to one of the gates to their dismay they found that this was closed the french commanders knew that sir walter manny or salisbury
to the main body of their forces they had placed a certain number of their best troops on the walls giving them a handsome largess to make up for their loss of the festivities
and i cannot keep opening and closing the gate
before that time elapsed some fifty or sixty people anxious to return to their villages gathered round the gate best lay aside your steel cap ralph before we join them walter said in the dim light of that lamp
presently the officer came out from the guard room again there was a forward movement of the little crowd and walter and ralph closed in to their midst the gates were opened and without any question the villagers passed out
and the gates were shut instantly behind them walter and his comrade at once started at a brisk pace
in the direction of hennebon their clothes soon dried and elated at their escape from danger they struggled on briskly when morning broke they entered a wood and lay there till evening
as they feared to continue their journey lest they might fall into the hands of some roving band of french horse they were too dog tired and were asleep a few minutes after they lay down the sun was setting when they awoke
and as soon as it was dark they resumed their journey i don't know what you feel master walter but i am well nigh famished it is thirty six hours since i swallowed a bit of food
just as the french were moving to the attack hard blows i don't mind i have been used to it but what with fighting and being in the water for five or six hours and climbing up that endless rope
and walking all night on an empty stomach it does not suit me at all i feel ravenous too ralph
we shall eat nothing till we are within the walls of hennebon and that will be by daylight tomorrow if all goes well draw your belt an inch or two tighter it will help to keep out the wolf
that they could with difficulty drag their legs along upon entering the town walter made his way at once to the quarters of the leader sir walter had just risen and was delighted at the sight of his esquire
that some food be placed before us or we shall have escaped from the french only to die of hunger here we have tasted nought since the attack on vannes began have any beside us escaped
bringing with them robert of artois who is grievously wounded
have made their way here in a few minutes a cold capon several manchets of bread and a stoop of wine were placed before walter while ralph's wants were attended to below
when he had satisfied his hunger the young esquire related his adventures to sir walter and several other knights and nobles who had by this time gathered in the room in faith master somers
than drop down into the deep hole of that well and your brains served you shrewdly in devising a method of escape what say you gentlemen all present joined in expressions of praise at the lad's coolness and presence of mind
you are doing well young sir the english leader went on and have distinguished yourself on each occasion on which we have been engaged i shall be proud
when the time comes to bestow upon you myself the order of knighthood if our king does not take the matter off my hands a little later robert of artois died of his wounds and disappointment at the failure of his hopes
in october king edward himself set sail with a great army and landing in brittany early in november marched forward through the country and soon reduced ploermel malestrail redon
and the rest of the province in the vicinity of vannes and then laid siege to that town as his force was far more than sufficient for the siege the earls of norfolk and warwick were despatched in the direction of nantes
to reconnoitre the country and clear it of any small bodies of the enemy they might encounter in the meantime edward opened negotiations with many of the breton lords
who seeing that such powerful aid had arrived for the cause of the countess of montford were easily persuaded to change sides among them were the lords of clisson
who commanded the garrison of vannes supported the siege with great courage and fortitude knowing that charles of blois and the king of france were collecting a great army for his relief uniting their forces they advanced towards the town
before the force of the french forty thousand strong the earl of norfolk had fallen back and rejoined the king but even after this junction the french forces exceeded those of edward fourfold they advanced towards vannes
and formed a large entrenched camp near that of the english who thus while still besieging vannes were themselves enclosed by a vastly superior force the king of france himself arrived at the french camp the french although so greatly superior
which cruised off the coast and captured all vessels arriving with stores at this moment two legates
and the cardinal bishop of tusculum arrived from the pope and strove to mediate between the two sovereigns and to bring about a cessation of hostilities pointing out to them
the scandal and desolation which their rivalry caused in christendom the waste of noble lives the devastation of once happy provinces and the effusion of innocent blood going from camp to camp they exhorted
king edward however felt that his position was growing desperate for starvation was staring him in the face and only by a victory over an immensely superior force in a strongly entrenched position could he extricate himself
upon the part of the french however circumstances were occurring which rendered them anxious for a release from their position
while the english army lay on a hill the french camp was pitched on low ground an unusually wet season had set in with bitterly cold wind the rain was incessant a pestilence had destroyed a vast number of their horses
and their encampment was flooded their forces were therefore obligated to spread themselves over the neighbouring fields and a sudden attack by the english might have been fatal thus distress pressed upon both commanders
and to be prolonged from that day for the full term of three years it was agreed that the truce should embrace not only the sovereigns but all the adherents of each of them the truce was to hold good in brittany between all parties
and the city of vannes was to be given into the hands of the cardinals to dispose of as they chose it was specially provided
on the nineteenth of january thirteen forty three the king of france dismissed his army and edward sailed for england with the greater part of his troops the countess of montford and her son accompanied him and the possessions of her husband in brittany
were left to the guardianship of her partisans with a small but choice body of english troops the towns which had fallen into their hands and still remained were brest quimper corentin quimperle redon
and hennebon of course remained in their possession
who were never tired of listening to his tales of the wars
the time now for a while passed very quietly walter and the other young squires practised diligently under the instructions of sir walter at knightly exercises walter learned to bear himself well on horseback and to tilt in the ring
chapter nine the siege of hennebon the besiegers of hennebon were greatly discouraged at the success of the enterprise of the countess they had already attempted several desperate assaults
but had each time been repulsed with very heavy loss they now sent to rennes for twelve of the immense machines used in battering walls which had been left behind there on a false report of the weakness of hennebon
in a few days these arrived and were speedily set to work and immense masses of stone were hurled at the walls walter continued to act as the countess's especial squire she had informed sir william caddoudal
and sir john powis that it was at his suggestion that she had made the sudden attack upon the french camp and he had gained great credit thereby the effect of the new machines was speedily visible
the walls crumbled under the tremendous blows and although the archers harassed by their arrows the men working them the french speedily erected screens which sheltered them from their fire the spirits of the defenders began to sink rapidly
as they saw that in a very short time great breaches would be made in the walls and that all the horrors and disasters of a city taken by assault awaited them the bishop of quimper who was within the walls entered into secret negotiations with his nephew
who had gone over to the enemy
and was now with the besieging army the besiegers delighted to find an ally within the walls who might save them from the heavy losses which an assault would entail upon them at once embraced his offers and promised him a large recompense
if he would bring over the other commanders and nobles the wily bishop set to work and the consequences were soon visible open grumbling broke forth at the hardships which were endured
and at the prospect of the wholesale slaughter which would attend a storm when all hope of a successful resistance was at an end i fear walter sir john said one morning that the end is at hand
and all that i can say to keep up their spirits is useless upon our own little band we can rely but i doubt if outside them a single determined man is to be found in the town in vain do i speak of the arrival of sir walter manny
nearly ninety days have elapsed since we sailed and all hope of his coming is gone i point out to them that contrary winds have been blowing and that at any moment he may arrive but they will not hear me
the bishop has gained over the whole of them by his promises that none shall be molested in property or estate should they surrender it is sad to see the countess walter replied she who has shown such high spirit throughout the siege
now does nothing but weep for she knows that with her and her child in the hands of the french the cause of the count is lost if she could carry off the child by sea she would not so much care for the fall of the town but the french ships lie thick round the port
the countess begged for a little further delay but in vain and withdrew to the turret where she had for so many weary weeks watched the horizon in hopes of seeing the sails of the approaching fleet walter was at the time with sir john powis on the walls
who summoned the town to surrender many standing on the walls shouted that the gates should be thrown open but sir john returned for answer that he must consult the countess and that upon her answer must depend whether he and his men would defend the breach until the last
come with me walter he said we must fain persuade the countess if she says no we englishmen will die in the breach but though ready to give my life for so brave a lady i own that it is useless to fight longer
save our own little band not one in the town will lift a sword again such resistance as we can offer will but inflame them to fury and all the horrors of a sack will be inflicted upon the inhabitants there she is poor lady on the turret
gazing as usual seaward suddenly they saw her throw up her arms and then turning towards the city she cried as she perceived the english knight i see them i see them the english fleet are coming run up walter
sir john exclaimed maybe the countess is distraught with her sorrows walter dashed up to the turret and looking seaward beheld rising over the horizon a number of masts hurrah sir john he shouted we are saved
the english fleet is in sight many others heard the shout and the tidings ran like lightning through the town in wild excitement the people ran to the battlements and roofs and with cheering
gathered around him some of those who had taken a leading part in the intrigue these leaving the city by a gate at which they had placed some of their own faction to open it to the french issued out and made their way to the assailants camp
to give news of the altered situation don louis at once ordered an attack to be made with his whole force in hopes of capturing the place before the arrival of the english succour but animated by their new hopes those so lately despondent and ready to yield
manned the breaches and repulsed with great slaughter all attempts on the part of the french to carry them while the struggle was still going on the countess aided by the wives of the burghers busied herself in preparing a sumptuous feast in honour of her deliverers
who were fast approaching their ships impelled by a strong and favourable breeze the vessels of the french hastily drew off and the english fleet sailed into the port hailed by the cheers of the inhabitants the countess herself received sir walter manny
on his landing and the townspeople vied with each other in offering hospitality to the men at arms and archers ah sir john powis sir walter exclaimed what
i had given you up for lost we thought you had gone down in the gale the night you started we were separated from the fleet sir walter but the master held on and we arrived here four days after we put out we took part in the siege of rennes
and have since done our best to aid the countess here and their best has been much the countess said not to say how bravely they have fought upon the walls it is to sir john and his little band that i owe it that the town was not surrendered days ago
they alone remained steadfast when all others fell away and it is due to them that i am still able as mistress of this town to greet you on your arrival next to sir john himself
and stood by me and to whose suggestions i owe it that i was able at the first to sally out and destroy the french camp while they were attacking the walls and so greatly hindered their measures against the town and now sir will you follow me
i have prepared for you and your knights such a banquet of welcome as our poor means will allow and my townspeople will see that good fare is set before your soldiers
that evening there was high feasting in the town although the crash of the heavy stones cast by the french machines against the walls never ceased early the next morning sir walter manny made a survey of the place and of the disposition of the enemy
and proposed to his knights to sally forth at once and destroy the largest of the enemy's machines which had been brought up close to the walls in a few minutes the knights were armed and mounted three hundred knights and esquires were to take part in the sortie
they were to be followed by a strong body of men at arms as soon as the gates were opened a number of archers issued out and taking their place at the edge of the moat poured a rain of arrows upon the men working the machine and those guarding it most of these
cut down all who opposed them and setting fire to the huts retired towards the city by this time the french were thoroughly alarmed and numbers of knights and men at arms dashed after the little body of english cavalry
and many on both sides were overthrown then as large reinforcements were continually arriving to the french sir walter called off his men and retired slowly on reaching the moat he halted his forces
the knights wheeled and presented a firm face to the enemy covering the entrance of their followers into the gate the french chivalry thundered down upon the little body
many knights were struck through the bars of their vizors or the joints of their mail the horses though defended by iron trappings
the arrival of the reinforcements and the proof of skill and vigour given by the english leader together with the terror caused by the terrible effect of the english arrows shook the resolution of don louis and his troops
chapter four the food question objections to paraffine oil as an atmosphere advantages of cheese as a travelling companion a married woman deserts her home
further provision for getting upset i pack cussedness of tooth brushes george and harris pack awful behaviour of montmorency we retire to rest
then we discussed the food question george said begin with breakfast george is so practical now for breakfast we shall want a frying pan
a tea pot and a kettle and a methylated spirit stove no oil said george with a significant look and harris and i agreed we had taken up an oil stove once but never again
it had been like living in an oil shop that week it oozed i never saw such a thing as paraffine oil is to ooze we kept it in the nose of the boat and from there it oozed down to the rudder
impregnating the whole boat and everything in it on its way and it oozed over the river and saturated the scenery and spoilt the atmosphere sometimes a westerly oily wind blew and at other times an easterly oily wind
and sometimes it blew a northerly oily wind and maybe a southerly oily wind but whether it came from the arctic snows or was raised in the waste of the desert sands it came alike to us laden with the fragrance of paraffine oil
and that oil oozed up and ruined the sunset and as for the moonbeams they positively reeked of paraffine we tried to get away from it at marlow we left the boat by the bridge
and took a walk through the town to escape it but it followed us the whole town was full of oil we passed through the church yard and it seemed as if the people had been buried in oil the high street stunk of oil
we wondered how people could live in it and we walked miles upon miles out birmingham way but it was no use the country was steeped in oil at the end of that trip we met together at midnight in a lonely field
under a blasted oak and took an awful oath we had been swearing for a whole week about the thing in an ordinary middle class way but this was a swell affair
an awful oath never to take paraffine oil with us in a boat again except of course in case of sickness therefore in the present instance
we confined ourselves to methylated spirit even that is bad enough you get methylated pie and methylated cake but methylated spirit is more wholesome when taken into the system in large quantities than paraffine oil
for other breakfast things george suggested eggs and bacon which were easy to cook cold meat tea bread and butter and jam for lunch he said we could have biscuits cold meat
bread and butter and jam but no cheese cheese like oil makes too much of itself it wants the whole boat to itself it goes through the hamper and gives a cheesy flavour to everything else there
you can't tell whether you are eating apple pie or german sausage or strawberries and cream it all seems cheese there is too much odour about cheese i remember a friend of mine
buying a couple of cheeses at liverpool splendid cheeses they were ripe and mellow and with a two hundred horse power scent about them that might have been warranted to carry three miles and knock a man over at two hundred yards
he would get me to take them back with me to london as he should not be coming up for a day or two himself and he did not think the cheeses ought to be kept much longer oh with pleasure dear boy i replied with pleasure
i called for the cheeses and took them away in a cab it was a ramshackle affair dragged along by a knock kneed broken winded somnambulist which his owner
in a moment of enthusiasm during conversation referred to as a horse
that would have done credit to the swiftest steam roller ever built and all went merry as a funeral bell until we turned the corner there the wind carried a whiff from the cheeses full on to our steed
it woke him up and with a snort of terror he dashed off at three miles an hour the wind still blew in his direction and before we reached the end of the street he was laying himself out at the rate of nearly four miles an hour
leaving the cripples and stout old ladies simply nowhere it took two porters as well as the driver to hold him in at the station and i do not think they would have done it even then had not one of the men had the presence of mind
to put a handkerchief over his nose and to light a bit of brown paper i took my ticket and marched proudly up the platform with my cheeses the people falling back respectfully on either side the train was crowded
and i had to get into a carriage where there were already seven other people one crusty old gentleman objected but i got in notwithstanding and putting my cheeses upon the rack squeezed down with a pleasant smile and said it was a warm day
a few moments passed and then the old gentleman began to fidget very close in here he said quite oppressive said the man next him and then they both began sniffing and at the third sniff they caught it right on the chest
and rose up without another word and went out and then a stout lady got up and said it was disgraceful that a respectable married woman should be harried about in this way and gathered up a bag and eight parcels and went
the remaining four passengers sat on for a while until a solemn looking man in the corner who from his dress and general appearance seemed to belong to the undertaker class said it put him in mind of dead baby
and said i thought we were going to have the carriage to ourselves and he laughed pleasantly and said that some people made such a fuss over a little thing but even he grew strangely depressed after we had started and so when we reached crewe
i asked him to come and have a drink he accepted and we forced our way into the buffet where we yelled and stamped and waved our umbrellas for a quarter of an hour and then a young lady came and asked us if we wanted anything
what's yours i said turning to my friend i'll have half a crown's worth of brandy neat if you please miss he responded and he went off quietly after he had drunk it and got into another carriage which i thought mean
from crewe i had the compartment to myself though the train was crowded as we drew up at the different stations the people seeing my empty carriage would rush for it
all right tom we'll get in here they would shout and they would run along carrying heavy bags and fight round the door to get in first and one would open the door and mount the steps and stagger back into the arms of the man behind him
and they would all come and have a sniff and then droop off and squeeze into other carriages or pay the difference and go first from euston i took the cheeses down to my friend's house
when his wife came into the room she smelt round for an instant then she said what is it tell me the worst i said it's cheeses tom bought them in liverpool and asked me to bring them up with me
and i added that i hoped she understood that it had nothing to do with me and she said that she was sure of that but that she would speak to tom about it when he came back my friend was detained in liverpool longer than he expected
and three days later as he hadn't returned home his wife called on me she said what did tom say about those cheeses i replied that he had directed they were to be kept in a moist place and that nobody was to touch them
she said nobody's likely to touch them had he smelt them i thought he had and added that he seemed greatly attached to them you think he would be upset she queried
if i gave a man a sovereign to take them away and bury them i answered that i thought he would never smile again an idea struck her she said do you mind keeping them for him let me send them round to you
madam i replied for myself i like the smell of cheese and the journey the other day with them from liverpool i shall ever look back upon as a happy ending to a pleasant holiday but in this world we must consider others
the lady under whose roof i have the honour of residing is a widow and for all i know possibly an orphan too she has a strong i may say an eloquent objection to being what she terms put upon
the presence of your husband's cheeses in her house she would i instinctively feel regard as a put upon and it shall never be said that i put upon the widow and the orphan very well then said my friend's wife rising
all i have to say is that i shall take the children and go to an hotel until those cheeses are eaten i decline to live any longer in the same house with them she kept her word leaving the place in charge of the charwoman
who when asked if she could stand the smell replied what smell and who when taken close to the cheeses and told to sniff hard said she could detect a faint odour of melons
it was argued from this that little injury could result to the woman from the atmosphere and she was left the hotel bill came to fifteen guineas and my friend after reckoning everything up
he said he dearly loved a bit of cheese but it was beyond his means
but had to fish them out again as the bargemen complained they said it made them feel quite faint and after that he took them one dark night and left them in the parish mortuary but the coroner discovered them and made a fearful fuss
my friend got rid of them at last
and burying them on the beach it gained the place quite a reputation visitors said they had never noticed before how strong the air was and weak chested and consumptive people used to throng there for years afterwards
fond as i am of cheese therefore i hold that george was right in declining to take any we shan't want any tea said george harris's face fell at this but we'll have a good round square slap up meal at seven
dinner tea and supper combined harris grew more cheerful george suggested meat and fruit pies cold meat tomatoes fruit and green stuff for drink we took some wonderful sticky concoction of harris's
which you mixed with water and called lemonade plenty of tea and a bottle of whisky in case as george said we got upset it seemed to me that george harped too much on the getting upset idea
it seemed to me the wrong spirit to go about the trip in but i'm glad we took the whisky we didn't take beer or wine they are a mistake up the river they make you feel sleepy and heavy
and looking at the girls is all right enough but don't drink when the sun is blazing down on your head and you've got hard work to do
the next day which was friday we got them all together and met in the evening to pack we got a big gladstone for the clothes and a couple of hampers for the victuals and the cooking utensils we moved the table up against the window
piled everything in a heap in the middle of the floor and sat round and looked at it i said i'd pack i rather pride myself on my packing packing is one of those many things that i feel i know more about than any other person living
it surprises me myself sometimes how many of these subjects there are i impressed the fact upon george and harris and told them that they had better leave the whole matter entirely to me they fell into the suggestion with a readiness
that had something uncanny about it george put on a pipe and spread himself over the easy chair and harris cocked his legs on the table and lit a cigar this was hardly what i intended what i had meant of course
was that i should boss the job and that harris and george should potter about under my directions i pushing them aside every now and then with oh you here let me do it there you are simple enough really teaching them as you might say
their taking it in the way they did irritated me there is nothing does irritate me more than seeing other people sitting about doing nothing when i'm working i lived with a man once who used to make me mad that way
he would loll on the sofa and watch me doing things by the hour together following me round the room with his eyes wherever i went he said it did him real good to look on at me messing about
he said it made him feel that life was not an idle dream to be gaped and yawned through but a noble task full of duty and stern work he said he often wondered now how he could have gone on before he met me
never having anybody to look at while they worked now i'm not like that i can't sit still and see another man slaving and working i want to get up and superintend and walk round with my hands in my pockets
i can't help it however i did not say anything but started the packing it seemed a longer job than i had thought it was going to be but i got the bag finished at last and i sat on it and strapped it
ain't you going to put the boots in said harris and i looked round and found i had forgotten them that's just like harris he couldn't have said a word until i'd got the bag shut and strapped of course and george laughed one of those irritating senseless
chuckle headed crack jawed laughs of his they do make me so wild i opened the bag and packed the boots in and then just as i was going to close it a horrible idea occurred to me
had i packed my tooth brush i don't know how it is but i never do know whether i've packed my tooth brush my tooth brush is a thing that haunts me when i'm travelling and makes my life a misery
i dream that i haven't packed it and wake up in a cold perspiration and get out of bed and hunt for it and in the morning i pack it before i have used it and have to unpack again to get it and it is always the last thing i turn out of the bag
and then i repack and forget it and have to rush upstairs for it at the last moment and carry it to the railway station
i could not find it i rummaged the things up into much the same state that they must have been before the world was created and when chaos reigned of course i found george's and harris's eighteen times over but i couldn't find my own
i put the things back one by one and held everything up and shook it then i found it inside a boot i repacked once more when i had finished george asked if the soap was in
i said i didn't care a hang whether the soap was in or whether it wasn't and i slammed the bag to and strapped it and found that i had packed my tobacco pouch in it and had to re open it
and then there remained the hampers to do harris said that we should be wanting to start in less than twelve hours time and thought that he and george had better do the rest and i agreed and sat down and they had a go
they began in a light hearted spirit evidently intending to show me how to do it i made no comment i only waited when george is hanged harris will be the worst packer in this world
and i looked at the piles of plates and cups and kettles and bottles and jars and pies and stoves and cakes and tomatoes
and felt that the thing would soon become exciting it did they started with breaking a cup that was the first thing they did
and to get you interested then harris packed the strawberry jam on top of a tomato and squashed it and they had to pick out the tomato with a teaspoon and then it was george's turn and he trod on the butter i didn't say anything
but i came over and sat on the edge of the table and watched them it irritated them more than anything i could have said i felt that it made them nervous and excited and they stepped on things and put things behind them and then couldn't find them when they wanted them
and they packed the pies at the bottom and put heavy things on top and smashed the pies in they upset salt over everything and as for the butter i never saw two men do more with one and twopence worth of butter in my whole life than they did
after george had got it off his slipper they tried to put it in the kettle it wouldn't go in and what was in wouldn't come out they did scrape it out at last and put it down on a chair and harris sat on it and it stuck to him
and they went looking for it all over the room i'll take my oath i put it down on that chair said george staring at the empty seat i saw you do it myself not a minute ago said harris then they started round the room again looking for it
and then they met again in the centre and stared at one another most extraordinary thing i ever heard of said george so mysterious said harris then george got round at the back of harris and saw it
why here it is all the time he exclaimed indignantly where cried harris spinning round stand still can't you roared george flying after him and they got it off and packed it in the teapot
montmorency was in it all of course montmorency's ambition in life is to get in the way and be sworn at if he can squirm in anywhere where he particularly is not wanted and be a perfect nuisance and make people mad
and have things thrown at his head then he feels his day has not been wasted to get somebody to stumble over him and curse him steadily for an hour is his highest aim and object and when he has succeeded in accomplishing this
his conceit becomes quite unbearable he came and sat down on things just when they were wanted to be packed
whenever harris or george reached out their hand for anything it was his cold damp nose that they wanted he put his leg into the jam and he worried the teaspoons and he pretended that the lemons were rats
and got into the hamper and killed three of them before harris could land him with the frying pan harris said i encouraged him i didn't encourage him a dog like that don't want any encouragement it's the natural original sin
that is born in him that makes him do things like that
and said he hoped nothing would be found broken
which reflection seemed to comfort him he also said he was ready for bed we were all ready for bed harris was to sleep with us that night and we went upstairs we tossed for beds and harris had to sleep with me he said
do you prefer the inside or the outside j i said i generally preferred to sleep inside a bed harris said it was old george said what time shall i wake you fellows harris said seven
i said no six because i wanted to write some letters harris and i had a bit of a row over it but at last split the difference and said half past six
that night in olaf's cabin alan put himself back on the old track again he made no effort to minimize the tragedy that had come into his life and he knew its effect upon him would never be wiped away
and that mary standish would always live in his thoughts no matter what happened in the years to come but he was not the sort to let any part of himself wither up and die because of a blow that had darkened his mental visions of things his plans lay ahead of him
his old ambitions and his dreams of achievement they seemed pulseless and dead now but he knew it was because his own fire had temporarily burned out and he realized the vital necessity of building it up again
while he was attending to his affairs at the bank olaf secured information that rossland was resting comfortably in the hospital and had not one chance in ten of dying it was not alan's intention to see him
and businesslike intention of sifting the matter to the bottom that he might disprove his own responsibility and set himself right in his own eyes in self defense he would have given rossland an opportunity to break down with cold facts
the disturbing something which his mind had unconsciously built up but the new alan revolted he wanted to carry the thing away with him he wanted it to live and so it went with him uncontaminated by any truths or lies
which rossland might have told him they left cordova early in the afternoon and at sunset that evening camped on the tip of a wooded island a mile or two from the mainland olaf knew the island
and had chosen it for reasons of his own it was primitive and alive with birds olaf loved the birds and the cheer of their vesper song and bedtime twitter comforted alan he seized an ax
and for the first time in seven months his muscles responded to the swing of it and ericksen old as his years in the way of the north whistled loudly and rumbled a bit of crude song through his beard as he lighted a fire
and the bubbling of coffee over a bed of coals with the mysterious darkness of the timber gathering in about him
and sat watching olaf as he mothered the half baked bannock loaf it made him think of his father a thousand times the two must have camped like this in the days when alaska was new and there were no maps to tell them what lay beyond the next range
olaf felt resting upon him something of the responsibility of a doctor and after supper he sat with his back to a tree and talked of the old days as if they were yesterday and the day before
with tomorrow always the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow which he had pursued for thirty years he was sixty just a week ago this evening he said and he was beginning to doubt if he would remain on the beach at cordova much longer
siberia was dragging him that forbidden world of adventure and mystery and monumental opportunity which lay only a few miles across the strait from the seward peninsula in his enthusiasm he forgot alan's tragedy
he cursed cossack law and the prohibitory measures to keep americans out more gold was over there than had ever been dreamed of in alaska even the mountains and rivers were unnamed and he was going if he lived another year or two
twice he had tried it since his old comrade had died and twice he had been driven out the next time he would know how to go about it and he invited alan to go with him there was a thrill in this talk of a land so near
scarcely a night ride across the neck of bering sea and yet as proscribed as the sacred plains of tibet it stirred old desires in alan's blood for he knew that of all frontiers the siberian would be the last and the greatest
and that not only men but nations would play their part in the breaking of it he saw the red gleam of firelight in olaf's eyes and if we don't go in first from this side alan
the yellow fellows will come out some day from that rumbled the old sour dough striking his pipe in the hollow of his hand and when they do they won't come over to us in ones an twos an threes but in millions that's what the yellow fellows will do
when they once get started an it's up to a few alaska jacks an tough nut bills to get their feet planted first on the other side will you go alan shook his head some day but not now
the old flash was in his eyes and he was seeing the fight ahead of him again the fight to do his bit in striking the shackles of misgovernment from alaska and rousing the world to an understanding of the menace which hung over her
like a smoldering cloud but you're right about the danger he said it won't come from japan to california it will pour like a flood through siberia and jump to alaska in a night it isn't the danger of the yellow man alone olaf
you've got to combine that with bolshevism the menace of blackest russia a disease which if it crosses the little neck of water and gets hold of alaska will shake the american continent to bed rock
it may be a generation from now maybe a century but it's coming sure as god makes light if we let alaska go down and out and my way of preventing it is different from yours he stared into the fire
watching the embers flare up and die i'm not proud of the states he went on as if speaking to something which he saw in the flames i can't be after the ruin their unintelligent propaganda and legislation have brought upon alaska
it's god's own country we have north of fifty eight olaf and we have ten times the wealth of california we can care for a million people easily but bad politics and bad judgment both here in alaska and at washington
won't let them come with coal enough under our feet to last a thousand years we are buying fuel from the states we've got billions in copper and oil but can't touch them we should have some of the world's greatest manufacturing plants
but we can not because everything up here is locked away from us i repeat that isn't conservation if they had applied a little of it to the salmon industry but they didn't and the salmon are going like the buffalo of the plains
the destruction of the salmon shows what will happen to us if the bars are let down all at once to the financial banditti understanding and common sense must guard the gates
the fight we must win is to bring about an honest and reasonable adjustment olaf and that fight will take place right here in alaska and not in siberia and if we don't win he raised his eyes from the fire
and smiled grimly into olaf's bearded face then we can count on that thing coming across the neck of sea from the gulf of anadyr he finished and if it ever does come the people of the states will at last
face the tragic realization of what alaska could have meant to the nation
and after that for an hour or more something lived for him in the glow of the fire which olaf kept burning it was the memory of mary standish her quiet beautiful eyes gazing at him her pale face
and it pleased him to think she would have made this same fight for alaska if she had lived it was a thought which brought a painful thickening in his breath for always these visions which olaf could not see ended with mary standish
and always they awakened him so that he was looking at the stars again and trying not to think in spite of the grief in his soul they were pleasant dreams as though some gentle force were at work in him subconsciously
to wipe away the shadows of tragedy mary standish was with him again between the mountains at skagway she was at his side in the heart of the tundras the sun in her shining hair and eyes
and all about them the wonder of wild roses and purple iris and white seas of sedge cotton and yellow eyed daisies and birds singing in the gladness of summer he heard the birds
and he heard the girl's voice answering them in her happiness and turning that happiness from the radiance of her eyes upon him
any life of wolfe can be artificially simplified by treating his purely military work as something complete in itself
but since such treatment gives a totally false idea of his achievement this little sketch drawn straight from original sources tries to show him as he really was a co worker with the british fleet in a war based entirely on naval strategy
and inseparably connected with international affairs
many of his ancestors had stood ready to fight for king and country at a moment's notice his father fought under the great duke of marlborough in the war against france at the beginning of the eighteenth century his grandfather his great grandfather his only uncle
nor has the martial spirit deserted the descendants of the wolfes in the generation now alive they are soldiers still the present head of the family who represented it at the celebration of the tercentenary of the founding of quebec
fought in egypt for queen victoria and the member of it who represented wolfe on that occasion in the pageant of the quebec campaign
are of an old and honourable line many hundreds of years ago their forefathers lived in england and later on in wales later still in the fifteenth century before america was discovered they were living in ireland wolfe's father however
was born in england and as there is no evidence that any of his ancestors in ireland had married other than english protestants and as wolfe's mother was also english we may say that the victor of quebec was a pure bred englishman
among his anglo irish kinsmen were the goldsmiths and the seymours oliver goldsmith himself
wolfe's mother to whom he owed a great deal of his genius was a descendant of two good families in yorkshire she was eighteen years younger than his father and was very tall and handsome wolfe thought there was no one like her
when he was a colonel and had been through the wars and at court he still believed she was a match for all the beauties he was not lucky enough to take after her in looks except in her one weak feature a cutaway chin his body indeed
wolfe's parents went to live at westerham in kent shortly after they were married and there on january second seventeen twenty seven
two other houses in the little country town of westerham are full of memories of wolfe one of these was his father's a house more than two hundred years old when he was born
the soldier who won canada for england in seventeen fifty nine sat under the arms of the king in whose service the sailor cabot hoisted the flag of england over canadian soil in fourteen ninety seven
in seventeen fifty nine the other house is squerryes court belonging then and now to the warde family the wolfes closest friends wolfe and george warde were chums from the first day they met
both wished to go into the army and both of course played soldiers like other virile boys warde lived to be an old man and actually did become a famous cavalry leader
where he was sent to school at swinden's here he worked quietly enough till just before he entered on his teens then the long pent rage of england suddenly burst in war with spain the people went wild when the british fleet took porto bello
a spanish port in central america the news was cried through the streets all night the noise of battle seemed to be sounding all round swinden's school where most of the boys belonged to naval and military families
ships were fitting out in english harbours soldiers were marching into every english camp crowds were singing and cheering first one boy's father and then another's was under orders for the front among them was wolfe's father
to the forces assembling in the isle of wight
when a whole nation was afoot to fight and who would not fight the spaniards when they cut off british sailors ears that was an old tale by this time but the flames of anger threw it into lurid relief once more
wolfe was determined to go and fight nothing could stop him there was no commission for him as an officer never mind he would go as a volunteer and win his commission in the field so one hot day in july seventeen forty
the lanky red haired boy of thirteen and a half took his seat on the portsmouth coach beside his father the veteran soldier of fifty five his mother was a woman of much too fine a spirit to grudge anything for the service of her country
but she could not help being exceptionally anxious about the dangers of disease for a sickly boy in a far off land of pestilence and fever she had written to him the very day he left
but he full of the stir and excitement of a big camp had carried the letter in his pocket for two or three days before answering it then he wrote her the first of many letters from different seats of war the last one of all being written just before he won the victory
that made him famous round the world newport isle of wight august sixth seventeen forty i received my dearest mamma's letter on monday last but could not answer it then
by reason i was at camp to see the regiments off to go on board and was too late for the post but am very sorry dear mamma that you doubt my love which i'm sure is as sincere as ever any son's was to his mother
papa and i are just going on board but i believe shall not sail this fortnight in which time if i can get ashore at portsmouth or any other town i will certainly write to you and when we are gone by every ship we meet because i know it is my duty
besides if it is not i would do it out of love with pleasure i am sorry to hear that your head is so bad which i fear is caused by your being so melancholy but pray dear mamma if you love me don't give yourself up to fears for us
pray my love to my brother pray my service to mister streton and his family to mister and missus weston and to george warde when you see him and pray believe me to be my dearest mamma your most dutiful loving and affectionate son
j wolfe to missus wolfe at her house in greenwich kent wolfe's very good state of health was not likely to continue so either in camp or on board ship
a long peace had made the country indifferent to the welfare of the army and navy now men were suddenly being massed together in camps and fleets as if on purpose to breed disease sanitation on a large scale never having been practised in peace
could not be improvised in this hurried though disastrously slow preparation for a war the ship in which wolfe was to sail had been lying idle for years and her pestilential bilge water soon began to make the sailors and soldiers sicken and die
most fortunately wolfe was among the first to take ill and so he was sent home in time to save him from the fevers of spanish america wolfe was happy to see his mother again to have his pony to ride and his dogs to play with
but though he tried his best to stick to his lessons his heart was wild for the war he and george warde used to go every day during the christmas holidays behind the pigeon house at squerryes court and practise with their swords and pistols
inside was a commission as second lieutenant in the marines
when the squire handed him his first commission and there it is to day and on it are the verses ending this spot so sacred will forever claim a proud alliance with its hero's name wolfe was at last an officer
but the marines were not the corps for him their service companies were five thousand miles away while war with france was breaking out much nearer home so what was his delight at receiving another commission on march twenty fifth seventeen forty two
as an ensign in the twelfth regiment of foot he was now fifteen an officer a soldier born and bred eager to serve his country and just appointed to a regiment ordered to the front
within a month an army such as no one had seen since the days of marlborough had been assembled at blackheath
and the duke of cumberland came down to review them
it leaves the city every day about five o'clock in the evening the train for mariposa strange that you did not know of it though you come from the little town or did long years ago odd that you never knew in all these years
that the train was there every afternoon puffing up steam in the city station and that you might have boarded it any day and gone home no not home of course you couldn't call it home now
home means that big red sandstone house of yours in the costlier part of the city home means in a way this mausoleum club where you sometimes talk with me
but of course home would hardly be the word you would apply to the little town unless perhaps late at night when you'd been sitting reading in a quiet corner somewhere such a book as the present one naturally you don't know of the mariposa train now
you used to wander down to the station on a friday afternoon after your work and watch the mariposa people getting on the train and wish that you could go why you knew that train at one time better i suppose than any other single thing in the city
and loved it too for the little town in the sunshine that it ran to
you'd go back home again to the little town and build a great big house with a fine verandah no stint about it the best that money could buy planed lumber every square foot of it and a fine picket fence in front of it
it was to be one of the grandest and finest houses that thought could conceive much finer in true reality than that vast palace of sandstone with the porte cochere and the sweeping conservatories that you afterwards built in the costlier part of the city
but if you have half forgotten mariposa and long since lost the way to it you are only like the greater part of the men here in this mausoleum club in the city would you believe it that practically every one of them came from mariposa once upon a time
and that there isn't one of them that doesn't sometimes dream in the dull quiet of the long evening here in the club that some day he will go back and see the place they all do only they're half ashamed to own it
ask your neighbour there at the next table whether the partridge that they sometimes serve to you here can be compared for a moment to the birds that he and you or he and some one else used to shoot as boys in the spruce thickets along the lake
ask him if he ever tasted duck that could for a moment be compared to the black ducks in the rice marsh along the ossawippi and as for fish and fishing
but no wonder they don't know about the five o'clock train for mariposa very few people know about it hundreds of them know that there is a train that goes out at five o'clock but they mistake it ever so many of them think it's just a suburban train
lots of people that take it every day think it's only the train to the golf grounds but the joke is that after it passes out of the city and the suburbs and the golf grounds it turns itself little by little into the mariposa train
thundering and pounding towards the north with hemlock sparks pouring out into the darkness from the funnel of it of course you can't tell it just at first all those people that are crowding into it with golf clubs and wearing knickerbockers and flat caps would deceive anybody
that crowd of suburban people going home on commutation tickets and sometimes standing thick in the aisles those are of course not mariposa people but look round a little bit and you'll find them easily enough
here and there in the crowd those people with the clothes that are perfectly all right and yet look odd in some way the women with the peculiar hats
mariposa people oh yes there are any number of them on the train every day but of course you hardly recognize them while the train is still passing through the suburbs
but wait a little and you will see that when the city is well behind you bit by bit the train changes its character the electric locomotive that took you through the city tunnels is off now
i suppose very probably you haven't seen one of these wood engines since you were a boy forty years ago the old engine with a wide top like a hat on its funnel and with sparks enough to light up a suit for damages once in every mile
do you see too that the trim little cars that came out of the city on the electric suburban express are being discarded now at the way stations one by one and in their place is the old familiar car with the stuff cushions in red plush
how gorgeous it once seemed and with a box stove set up in one end of it the stove is burning furiously at its sticks this autumn evening for the air sets in chill as you get clear away from the city
and are rising up to the higher ground of the country of the pines and the lakes look from the window as you go the city is far behind now
you would take the train and go back to the little town to see what it was like now and if things had changed much since your day but each time when your holidays came somehow you changed your mind and went down to
they have lengthened out the train by this time with a string of flat cars and freight cars between where we are sitting and the engine but at every crossway
the woods i say for the farms are thinning out and the track plunges here and there into great stretches of bush tall tamerack and red scrub willow
and with a tangled undergrowth of bush that has defied for two generations all attempts to clear it into the form of fields why look that great space that seems to open out
why surely yes lake ossawippi the big lake as they used to call it from which the river runs down to the smaller lake lake wissanotti where the town of mariposa has lain waiting for you there for thirty years
this is lake ossawippi surely enough you would know it anywhere by the broad still black water with hardly a ripple and with the grip of the coming frost already on it such a great sheet of blackness it looks as the train thunders along the side
swinging the curve of the embankment at a breakneck speed as it rounds the corner of the lake how fast the train goes this autumn night you have travelled i know you have in the empire state express
and the new limited and the maritime express that holds the record of six hundred whirling miles from paris to marseilles but what are they to this this mad career this breakneck speed this thundering roar of the mariposa local driving hard to its home
don't tell me that the speed is only twenty five miles an hour i don't care what it is
that that train of mingled flat cars and coaches that goes tearing into the night
yes and the best too the most comfortable the most reliable the most luxurious and the speediest train that ever turned a wheel and the most genial
that dull reserve that seemed to hold the passengers in the electric suburban has clean vanished and gone they are talking listen of the harvest and the late election and of how the local member is mentioned for the cabinet and all the old familiar topics of the sort
already the conductor has changed his glazed hat for an ordinary round christie
bill and sam as if they were all one family what is it now nine thirty ah then we must be nearing the town this big bush that we are passing through you remember it surely as the great swamp just this side of the bridge over the ossawippi
there is the bridge itself and the long roar of the train as it rushes sounding over the trestle work that rises above the marsh hear the clatter as we pass the semaphores and switch lights we must be close in now
no don't bother to look at the reflection of your face in the window pane shadowed by the night outside nobody could tell you now after all these years
perhaps if you had come back now and again just at odd times it wouldn't have been so there you hear it
one two three
closing the letter after reading it aloud to the assembled family mamma papa edward
we can do just what they are doing replied rose with energy i wonder i had not thought of it before shirts stockings lint bandages we can prepare them all
i think you can was the simultaneous reply
said her father several busy weeks followed and a large box was packed and sent off if that arrives safely we will send another they said
what at it again little wife queried mister travilla entering elsie's boudoir the next morning to find her delicate fingers busy with knitting needles and coarse blue yarn yes sir she said
he returned laughingly drawing up a chair and taking a seat by her side mammy can you supply another set of needles and more yarn yes massa and laying down the stocking she was at work upon away she went in search of them
but rather too valuable a plaything for my little pet how did she get hold of it dearest
elsie have it pleaded the little one with quivering lip and fast filling eyes i gave her leave to look over the contents of my jewel box
and mammy and i are both on the watch answered mamma it is a great treat to her and she takes up only one article at a time examines it till satisfied then lays it back exactly as she found it so please papa
may she go on yes if mamma gave permission it is all right darling he said caressing the child and returning the necklace tank oo
she cried with a gleeful laugh holding up her rosebud mouth for a kiss first to one then the other let papa see where you put it precious he said
following her as she tripped across the room and seated herself on a cushion in front of the box dere papa dus where elsie dot it she said laying it carefully back in its proper place
see so many many pitty sings in mamma's box yes he said passing his eye thoughtfully from one to another of the brilliant collection of rings brooches chains bracelets
and necklaces sparkling with gems diamonds rubies amethysts pearls emeralds and other precious stones little wife your jewels alone are worth what to very many would be a handsome fortune
aunt chloe had returned with the needles and yarn and now elsie began giving the lesson in knitting both she and her pupil making very merry over it rose and mister dinsmore presently joined them
and the latter not to be outdone by his son in law invited his wife to teach him horace was at his lessons but rosebud or rosie as she had gradually come to be called soon followed her parents she was a bright merry little girl of six
very different from what her sister had been at that age full of fun and frolicsome as a kitten very fond of her father liking to climb upon his knee to be petted and caressed but clinging still more to her sweet gentle mamma
mister travilla and she were the best of friends
may you what asked rose why what is the child doing playing with your jewels elsie asked mister dinsmore in a tone of surprise noticing for the first time what was the employment of his little granddaughter
quickly gave it up her face clearing as if by magic papa elsie asked in a low tone do you wish me to take away those costly playthings from my little girl
my dear daughter he said smiling tenderly upon her i have neither the right nor the wish to interfere with you and your children especially when your husband approves of your management i only fear you may suffer loss
how easy a valuable ring may slip through the little fingers and roll away into some crevice
i'm afraid it is rather hazardous she acknowledged mammy sit close to elsie and keep a careful watch lest she should drop something
because i know he's bright and talented ah then i shall try harder than ever to save your reputation but take a recess now for here comes my boy reaching out his arms to papa bring him here dinah
papa's own boy he looks beautiful and as bright as the day mamma thinks he's a very handsome mixture of papa and grandpa elsie said leaning over to caress the babe now crowing in his father's arms
i'm afraid he inherits too much of his grandpa's temper remarked mister dinsmore but with a glance of loving pride bestowed upon the beautiful babe i for one have no objection provided he learns to control it as well
said mister travilla he will make the finer character little elsie had grown weary of her play put box way now mammy she said getting up from her cushion wee elsie don't want any more
mamma take elsie so tired the baby voice sounded weak and languid and tottering to her mother's side she almost fell into her lap oh
papa edward she
the eyes were rolled upward the tiny fists tightly clenched and the little limbs had grown stiff and rigid on the mother's lap mister travilla hastily set down the babe laid turned to look at his little girl his face full of alarm and distress
said rose dropping her work and hurrying to elsie's assistance they are not unusual with children i have seen both may and daisy have them quick aunt chloe a cloth dipped in spirits of turpentine to lay over the stomach and bowels and another to put between her shoulders
it is the best thing we can do till we get a doctor here but ah see it is already passing away that was true the muscles were beginning to relax and in another moment the eyes resumed their natural appearance the hands were no longer clenched
and a low plaintive mamma came from the little lips mamma is here darling elsie said amid her fast dropping tears covering the little wan face with kisses as she held it to her bosom thank
god she is still ours exclaimed the father almost under his breath then a little louder elsie dear wife i shall go at once for doctor channing an english physician who has been highly recommended to me
do dear husband and urge him to come at once she answered in a tone full of anxiety he left the room returning with the physician within half an hour to find the little girl asleep on her mother's breast ah
i hope she is not going to be very ill said the doctor taking gentle hold of her tiny wrist she seems easy now and her papa tells me the spasm was of very short duration she woke apparently free from suffering
allowed her papa to take her that mamma's weary arms might rest and in the course of the afternoon even got down from his knee and played about the room for a little while but languidly and was soon quite willing to be nursed again
revenge at first though sweet bitter erelong back on itself recoils milton's paradise lost at the instant of discharging his revolver
jackson felt a sharp stinging pain in his right arm and it dropped useless at his side he hoped he had killed both mister travilla and elsie
did not dare to remain a moment to learn with certainty the effect of his shot but rushing along the veranda threw himself over the railing and sliding down a pillar by the aid of the one hand and with no little pain and difficulty
made off with all speed across the lawn but he was bleeding at so fearful a rate that he found himself compelled to pause long enough to improvise a tourniquet by knotting his handkerchief above the wound
tying it as tightly as he could with the left hand aided by his teeth he stooped and felt on the ground in the darkness and rain for a stick by means of which to tighten it still more for the bleeding though considerably checked
was by no means stanched but sticks stones and every kind of litter had long been banished thence his fingers came in contact with nothing but the smooth velvety turf and with a muttered curse
he rose and fled again for the flashing of lights the loud ringing of a bell peal after peal and sounds of running feet and many voices in high excited tones told him there was danger of a quick and hot pursuit
clearing the lawn he presently struck into a bridle path that led to the woods here he again paused to search for the much needed stick found one suited to his purpose
panting with weakness pain and affright leaving the path he plunged deeper into the woods ran for some distance along the edge of a swamp and leaping in up to his knees in mud and water doubled on his track then turned again
and penetrating farther and farther into the depths of the morass finally climbed a tree groaning with the pain the effort cost him and concealed himself among the branches his pursuers came up to the spot
where he had made his plunge into the water here they paused evidently at fault he could hear the sound of their footsteps and voices and judge of their movements by the gleam of the torches many of them carried
some now took one direction some another and he perceived with joy that his stratagem had been at least partially successful one party however soon followed him into the swamp
he could hear spriggs urging them on and anathematizing him as a scoundrel robber burglar murderer who ought to be swung up to the nearest tree
every thicket was undergoing a thorough search heads were thrown back and torches held high that eager blacks eyes might scan the tree tops and jackson began to grow sick with the almost certainty of being taken
as several stout negroes drew nearer and nearer his chosen hiding place he uttered a low breathed imprecation upon his useless right arm and the man whose sure aim had made it so
but for you he muttered grinding his teeth i'd sell my life dear but the rain which had slackened for a time again poured down in torrents
the torches sputtered and went out and the pursuers turned back in haste to gain the firmer soil where less danger was to be apprehended from alligators panthers and poisonous reptiles
the search was kept up for some time longer with no light but an occasional flash from the skies but finally abandoned as we have seen
jackson passed several hours most uncomfortably and painfully on his elevated perch quaking with fear of both man and reptile not daring to come down or to sleep in his precarious position
or able to do so for the pain of his wound and growing hour by hour weaker from the bleeding which it was impossible to check entirely then his mind was in a state of great disturbance
his wound must be dressed and that speedily yet how could it be accomplished without imperiling life and liberty perhaps he had now two new murders on his hands he did not know
an excellent physician and surgeon lived on a plantation
he must contrive a plausible story and go to him
would be likely to reach him it would be a risk but what better could be done he might succeed in quieting the doctor's suspicions and yet make good his escape from the vicinity
the storm had spent itself before the break of day and descending from his perch with the first faint rays of light that penetrated the gloomy recesses of the swamp he made his way out of it
slowly and toilsomely with weary aching limbs suffering intensely from the gnawings of hunger and thirst the pain of his injury and the fear of being overtaken by the avengers of his innocent victims
truly as the bible tells us the way of transgressors is hard
ready to start upon his morning round and pacing thoughtfully to and fro upon the veranda of his dwelling while waiting for his horse saw a miserable looking object coming up the avenue
a man almost covered from head to foot with blood and mud a white handkerchief also both bloody and muddy knotted around the right arm which hung apparently useless at his side
the man reeled as he walked either from intoxication or weakness and fatigue the doctor judged the latter
nap go and help that man into the office then hurrying thither himself got out lint bandages instruments whatever might be needed for the dressing of a wound with the assistance of nap's strong arm
the man tottered in then sank half fainting into a chair a glass of wine nap quick cried the doctor sprinkling some water in his patient's face and applying ammonia to his nostrils
he revived sufficiently to swallow with eager avidity the wine nap held to his lips food for the love of god he gasped i'm starving
bread meat coffee anything that is on the table nap said his master and don't let the grass grow under your feet then to the stranger and taking gentle hold of the wounded limb
but you need this flow of blood stanched more than anything else you came to me for surgical aid of course
never mind i'll hear your story after your arm's dressed and you've had your breakfast you haven't strength for talk just now
bared the swollen limb and carefully dressed the wound but kept them to himself the stranger's clothes though much soiled and torn in several places by contact with thorns and briers were of good material
fashionable cut and not old or worn his manners were gentlemanly and his speech was that of an educated man but all this was no proof that he was not a villain is that mortification
will the limb ever be good for anything again oh yes neither the bone nor nerve has suffered injury the ball has glanced from the bone passed under the nerve and cut the humeral artery
your tourniquet has saved you from bleeding to death tis well you knew enough to apply it the flesh is much torn where the ball passed out but that will heal in time the doctor's task was done
nap had set a plate of food within reach of the stranger's left hand and he was devouring it like a hungry wolf now sir said the good doctor when the meal was finished
i should like to hear how you came by that ugly wound i can't deny that things look suspicious i know everybody high and low rich and poor for miles in every direction
no a party of us from new orleans last came out to visit this beautiful region we were roaming through a forest yesterday looking for game when i somehow got separated from the rest
lost my way darkness came on and wondering hither and thither in the vain effort to find my comrades tumbling over logs and fallen trees scratched and torn by brambles almost eaten up by mosquitos
i thought i was having a dreadful time of it but worse was to come for i presently found myself in a swamp up to my knees in mud and water and in the pitchy darkness tumbling over another fallen tree struck my revolver
which i had foolishly been carrying in my coat pocket it went off and shot me in the arm as you see that must have been early in the night and what with loss of blood pain fatigue and long fasting
i had but little strength when daylight came and i could see to get out of swamp and woods and come on here the doctor listened in silence his face telling nothing of his thoughts a bad business
he said rising and beginning to draw on his gloves you are not fit to travel but are welcome to stay here for the present had better lie down on the sofa there and take a nap while i am away visiting my patients
nap clean the mud and blood from the gentleman's clothes take his boots out and clean them too and see that he doesn't want for attention while i am gone good morning sir make yourself at home and the doctor walked out
giving nap a slight sign to follow him nap he said when they were out of ear shot of the stranger watch that man and keep him here if possible till i come back yes sah
nap went back into the office while the doctor mounted and rode away humph he said half aloud as he cantered briskly along took me for a fool did he
thought i couldn't tell where the shot went in and where it came out
no sir you never gave yourself that wound but the question is who did and what for have you been house breaking or some other mischief
intending to call there too but having several patients to visit on the way did not arrive until the late breakfast of its master and mistress was over they were seated together on the veranda her hand in his
the other arm thrown lightly about her waist talking earnestly and so engrossed with each other and the subject of their conversation that they did not at first observe the doctor's approach uncle joe was at work on the lawn
clearing away the leaves and twigs blown down by the storm mornin massa doctah
he said pulling off his hat and making a profound obeisance as he stepped forward to take the visitor's horse no uncle what is it burglah sir burglah broke in de house las night
an fire he revolvah at massa an miss elsie miss dem dough an got shot hisself possible cried the doctor in great excitement springing from the saddle and hurrying up the steps of the veranda
ah doctor good morning glad to see you sir said mister travilla rising to give the physician a hearty shake of the hand thank you sir how are you after your fright
missus travilla you are looking a little pale and no wonder uncle joe tells me you had a visit from a burglar last night a murderer sir one whose object was to take my husband's life
elsie answered with a shudder and in low tremulous tones leaning on edward's arm and gazing into his face with eyes swimming with tears of love and gratitude my wife's also i fear
mister travilla said with emotion fondly stroking her sunny hair indeed why this is worse and worse but he did not succeed in wounding either of you no his ball passed over our heads
grazing mine so closely as to cut off a lock of my hair but i wounded him must have cut an artery i think from the bloody trail he left behind him an artery cried the doctor
growing more and more excited where do you know where your ball struck a flash of lightning showed us to each other and we fired simultaneously i aiming for his right arm i do not often miss my aim
we heard his revolver fall to the floor and he fled instantly leaving it and a trail of blood before him you had him pursued promptly of course yes but they did not find him
i expected to see them return with his corpse thinking he must bleed to death in a very short time but i presume he had an accomplice who was able to stanch the flow of blood and carry him away no
i don't think he had and if i'm not greatly mistaken i dressed his wound in my office this morning and left him there in charge of my boy nap bidding him keep the fellow there if possible till i came back i'd better return at once
lest he should make his escape do you know the man and can you describe him i do i can replied mister travilla but my little wife how you are trembling sit down here dearest and lean on me
leading her to a sofa and doctor take that chair the man's name is tom jackson he is a noted gambler and forger has been convicted of manslaughter and other crimes sent to the penitentiary and pardoned out
he hates me because i have exposed his evil deeds and prevented the carrying out of some of his wicked designs he has before this threatened both our lives he is about your height and build doctor
can assume the manners and speech of a gentleman has dark hair eyes and whiskers regular features and but for a sinister look would be very handsome it's he and no mistake
i must hurry home and prevent his escape why it's really dangerous to have him at large if he wasn't so disabled i'd tremble for the lives of my wife and children he trumped up a story to tell me
had his revolver in his coat pocket set it off in tumbling over a log in the dark and so shot himself of course i knew twas a lie because in that case the ball would have entered from below at the back of the arm
and come out above while the reverse was the case
inquired elsie how missus travilla why where it goes in it makes merely a small hole you see nothing but a blue mark but a much larger opening in passing out
often tearing the flesh a good deal as in this case ah either he was a fool or thought i was but good bye i shall gallop home as fast as possible and send back word whether i find him there or not
don't take the trouble doctor said mister travilla we will mount and follow you at once to identify him if he is to be found shall we not wife
chapter six peggy presents his bill millville waited in agonized suspense for three days for tangible evidence that the nabob was in their midst as nib corkins poetically expressed it
but the city folks seemed glued to the farm and no one of them had yet appeared in the village as a matter of fact
far up in the pine woods and having the time of their lives in spite of their scant success in capturing trout old hucks could go out before breakfast and bring in an ample supply of speckled beauties for mary to fry
but uncle john's splendid outfit seemed scorned by the finny folk and after getting her dress torn in sundry places and a hook in the fleshy part of her arm patsy learned to seek shelter behind a tree whenever her uncle cast his fly
but they reveled in the woods and would lie on the bank for hours listening to the murmur of the brook and the songs of the birds the temper of the other two girls was different beth de graf had brought along an archery outfit
and she set up her target on the ample green the day following her arrival here she practiced persistently shooting at sixty yards with much skill but occasionally when louise tired of her novel and her cushions in the hammock
the two girls would play tennis or croquet together beth invariably winning such delightful laziness could brook no interference for the first days of their arrival and it was not until peggy mc nutt ventured over on monday morning
for a settlement with mister merrick that any from the little world around them dared intrude upon the dwellers at the wegg farm although the agent had been late in starting from millville
and nick thorne's sorrel mare had walked every step of the way peggy was obliged to wait in the yard a good half hour for the nabob to finish his breakfast during that time he tried to decide
he had learned from the liveryman at the junction that mister merrick had paid five dollars for a trip that was usually made for two and also that the extravagant man had paid seventy five cents more to lucky todd the hotel keeper than his bill came to
the knowledge of such reckless expenditures had fortified little mc nutt in marking up the account of the money he had received and instead of charging two dollars a day for his own services
he put them down at three dollars a day and made the days stretch as much as possible also he charged a round commission on the wages of lon taft and ned long and doubled the liveryman's bill for hauling the goods over from the junction
ethel thompson had refused to accept any payment for what she had done but peggy bravely charged it up at good round figures when the bill was made out and figured up
but at the last his heart failed him and he made out another bill more modest in its extortions he had brought them both along though one in each pocket vacillating between them as he thought first of the merrick millions
and then of the righteous anger he might incur by the time uncle john came out to him smiling and cordial he had not thoroughly made up his mind which account to present
i must thank you for carrying out my orders so intelligently began the millionaire without your assistance i might have found things in bad shape i fear mc nutt was reassured
without a doubt i tried fer to do my best sir he said and you did very well was the reply i hope you kept your expenditures well within bounds the agent's heart sank at the question
and the shrewd alert look that accompanied it even millionaires do not allow themselves to be swindled if they can help it
he might even have to knock a few dollars off from that most things is high in millville he faltered an wages has gone up jest terr'ble
that is the case everywhere responded mister merrick thoughtfully and between us mc nutt i'm glad wages are better in these prosperous times
for he has to pay well for his living adequately paid labor is the foundation of all prosperity peggy smiled cheerfully
hosses is high too he remarked complacently an lumber an nails is up as fer the live stock i bought fer ye i found i had to pay like sixty for it
i suppose they overcharged you because a city man wanted the animals but of course you would not allow me to be robbed oh course not mister merrick and that nag in the stable is a sorry old beast
peggy was in despair why in the world hadn't he charged for the beast
it went with the farm long o old hucks an nora i'm glad you reminded me of those people said uncle john seriously tell me their history louise sauntered from the house at this juncture
she carried a book but did not open it ain't much to tell sir bout them folks replied the agent cap'n wegg brung the huckses with him when he settled here wegg were a sea cap'n ye see
an when he retired he wanted to git as far from the sea's he could that was strange a sailor usually loves to be near salt water all his days observed uncle john wall wegg he were diff'rent he come here when i were a boy
bringin a sad faced young woman an ol hucks an nora i s'pose hucks were a sailor too
the cap'n bought this no'count farm an had this house built on it a proceedin that ef i do say it
but the cur'ous'est thing was thet he didn't make no tempt at farmin folks said he had money to burn
ol hucks planted the berry patch an looked arter the orchard an the stock but cap'n wegg on'y smoked an sulked people at millville was glad to leave him alone an the on'y friend he ever had were crazy will thompson
crazy as a loon the agent hitched uneasily on the lawn bench where he was seated and then continued hastily but thet ain't neither here ner there a baby was born arter a time
an while he was young the sad faced mother sickened an died cap'n wegg give her a decent fun'ral an went right on smokin his pipe an sulkin same as ever then he he died
rather lamely an joe thet's the boy bein then about sixteen dug out n run away we hain't seen him sense nice boy asked uncle john joe were pretty well liked here
though he had a bit o his dad's sulkiness he n ethel thompson crazy will's gran'daughter seemed like to make up together but even she don't know what drav him off
uncle john seemed thoughtful but asked no more questions and mc nutt appeared to be relieved that he refrained but the bill ought to be forthcoming now and the agent gave a guilty start as his patron remarked
i'm willing to pay a liberal price you understand but i won't submit to being robbed outrageously by you or any of your millville people
he fumbled for the smallest bill tremblingly placed it in mister merrick's hand
uncle john ran his eye over the bill what are plymouth rocks he demanded
hens at a dollar apiece
you've charged them twice
here's an item twelve plymouth rocks twelve dollars and farther down twelve plymouth rocks eighteen dollars
i sold you a dozen first of the dollar kind then i thought as how bein fine young birds you'd be tempted fer to eat em an a dozen don't go fur on the table so i up an sold ye another dozen extry ol stock an remarkable high bred
fer a dollar an' a half each which is dirt cheap
an jest right fer layers are they here every one of em very good i'm glad to have them the cow seems reasonably priced for a jersey it is jest extror'nary exclaimed peggy reassured
i am very much pleased there seems to be a hundred and forty dollars my due remaining from the five hundred i sent you here it is sir responded mc nutt taking the money from his pocket book in another place he had more money
which he had intended to pay if the smaller bill had been presented uncle john took the money you are an honest fellow mc nutt said he i hadn't expected a dollar back
for folks usually take advantage of a stranger if he gives them half a chance so i thank you for your honesty as well as for your services good morning the agent was thoroughly ashamed of himself to be sech a
duffer as to return that money
made him feel both humiliated
a hundred and forty dollars when would he have a chance to get such a windfall again pah he was a fool to copy his identical thoughts a gol dum blithering idjit
all the way home he reflected dismally upon his lack of business foresight
didn't the man rob you uncle asked louise when the agent had disappeared yes dear but i wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing i realized it that was what i thought
don't you scent some mystery in what the man said of it mystery cried uncle john lordy no louise you've been readin too many novels romances don't grow in parts like these but i think this is where they are most likely to grow uncle
persisted the girl just consider a retired sea captain hides inland with no companions
except his pale wife of course and she is described as sad and unhappy who was she do you think i don't think said uncle john smiling and patting the fair check of his niece
and it don't matter who she was i'm sure it does it is the key to the whole mystery even her baby could not cheer the poor thing's broken heart even the fine house the captain built failed to interest her she pined away and died and
and that finished the romance louise oh no that added to its interest the boy grew up in this dismal place and brooded on his mother's wrongs his stern sulky old father died suddenly was he murdered
in a low voice did the son revenge his mother's wrongs figglepiff louise you're getting theatric and so early in the morning too want to saddle my new farm with a murder do you well it's rubbish
joe wegg ran away from here to get busy in the world major doyle helped him with my money in exchange for this farm which the boy was sensible to get rid of although i'm glad it's now mine
the major liked joe wegg and says he's a clean cut fine young feller he's an inventor too even if an unlucky one and i've no doubt he'll make his way in the world and become a good citizen
with these words uncle john arose and sauntered around to the barn to look at the litter of new pigs that just then served to interest and amuse him
the chase i approached my native north for such i esteemed it with that enthusiasm which romantic and wild scenery inspires in the lovers of nature no longer interrupted by the babble of my companion
i could now remark the difference which the country exhibited from that through which i had hitherto travelled the streams now more properly deserved the name for instead of slumbering stagnant among reeds and willows
they brawled along beneath the shade of natural copsewood were now hurried down declivities and now purled more leisurely but still in active motion through little lonely valleys which opening on the road from time to time
seemed to invite the traveller to explore their recesses the cheviots rose before me in frowning majesty not indeed with the sublime variety of rock and cliff which characterizes mountains of the primary class
but huge round headed and clothed with a dark robe of russet gaining by their extent and desolate appearance an influence upon the imagination as a desert district possessing a character of its own
the abode of my fathers which i was now approaching was situated in a glen or narrow valley which ran up among those hills extensive estates which once belonged to the family of osbaldistone had been long dissipated by the misfortunes
or misconduct of my ancestors but enough was still attached to the old mansion to give my uncle the title of a man of large property this he employed as i was given to understand by some inquiries which i made on the road
in maintaining the prodigal hospitality of a northern squire of the period which he deemed essential to his family dignity from the summit of an eminence i had already had a distant view of osbaldistone hall a large and antiquated edifice
peeping out from a druidical grove of huge oaks and i was directing my course towards it as straightly and as speedily as the windings of a very indifferent road would permit when my horse tired as he was
cheered by the occasional bursts of a french horn which in those days was a constant accompaniment to the chase i made no doubt that the pack was my uncle's and drew up my horse with the purpose of suffering the hunters to pass without notice
aware that a hunting field was not the proper scene to introduce myself to a keen sportsman and determined when they had passed on to proceed to the mansion house at my own pace and there to await the return of the proprietor from his sport
i paused therefore on a rising ground and not unmoved by the sense of interest which that species of silvan sport is so much calculated to inspire
although my mind was not at the moment very accessible to impressions of this nature i expected with some eagerness the appearance of the huntsmen the fox hard run and nearly spent
first made his appearance from the copse which clothed the right hand side of the valley his drooping brush his soiled appearance and jaded trot proclaimed his fate impending
and the carrion crow which hovered over him already considered poor reynard as soon to be his prey he crossed the stream which divides the little valley and was dragging himself up a ravine on the other side of its wild banks
when the headmost hounds followed by the rest of the pack in full cry burst from the coppice followed by the huntsman and three or four riders
the dogs pursued the trace of reynard with unerring instinct and the hunters followed with reckless haste regardless of the broken and difficult nature of the ground they were tall stout young men well mounted
and dressed in green and red the uniform of a sporting association formed under the auspices of old sir hildebrand osbaldistone my cousins thought i as they swept past me the next reflection was
what is my reception likely to be among these worthy successors of nimrod and how improbable is it that i knowing little or nothing of rural sports shall find myself at ease or happy in my uncle's family
a vision that passed me interrupted these reflections it was a young lady the loveliness of whose very striking features was enhanced by the animation of the chase and the glow of the exercise
mounted on a beautiful horse jet black unless where he was flecked by spots of the snow white foam which embossed his bridle she wore what was then somewhat unusual a coat vest and hat
resembling those of a man which fashion has since called a riding habit the mode had been introduced while i was in france and was perfectly new to me her long black hair streamed on the breeze
having in the hurry of the chase escaped from the ribbon which bound it some very broken ground through which she guided her horse with the most admirable address and presence of mind retarded her course and brought her closer to me than any of the other riders had passed
i had therefore a full view of her uncommonly fine face and person to which an inexpressible charm was added by the wild gaiety of the scene and the romance of her singular dress and unexpected appearance
as she passed me her horse made in his impetuosity an irregular movement just while coming once more upon open ground she was again putting him to his speed it served as an apology for me to ride close up to her
as if to her assistance there was however no cause for alarm it was not a stumble nor a false step and if it had the fair amazon had too much self possession to have been deranged by it she thanked my good intentions however by a smile
and i felt encouraged to put my horse to the same pace and to keep in her immediate neighbourhood the clamour of whoop dead dead and the corresponding flourish of the french horn soon announced to us that there was no more occasion for haste since the chase
was at a close one of the young men whom we had seen approached us waving the brush of the fox in triumph as if to upbraid my fair companion i see she replied i see but make no noise about it if phoebe she said
patting the neck of the beautiful animal on which she rode had not got among the cliffs you would have had little cause for boasting they met as she spoke
and with a sort of sheepish sullenness she instantly turned her horse's head towards me saying well well thornie if you won't i must that's all sir she continued addressing me
i have been endeavouring to persuade this cultivated young gentleman to make inquiry of you whether in the course of your travels in these parts you have heard anything of a friend of ours one mister francis osbaldistone
who has been for some days expected at osbaldistone hall i was too happy to acknowledge myself to be the party inquired after and to express my thanks for the obliging inquiries of the young lady in that case sir she rejoined
as my kinsman's politeness seems to be still slumbering you will permit me though i suppose it is highly improper to stand mistress of ceremonies and to present to you young squire thorncliff osbaldistone your cousin
and die vernon who has also the honour to be your accomplished cousin's poor kinswoman there was a mixture of boldness satire and simplicity in the manner in which miss vernon pronounced these words
my knowledge of life was sufficient to enable me to take up a corresponding tone as i expressed my gratitude to her for her condescension and my extreme pleasure at having met with them to say the truth the compliment was so expressed
that the lady might easily appropriate the greater share of it for thorncliff seemed an arrant country bumpkin awkward shy and somewhat sulky withal he shook hands with me however
and then intimated his intention of leaving me that he might help the huntsman and his brothers to couple up the hounds a purpose which he rather communicated by way of information to miss vernon than as apology to me there he goes said the young lady
following him with eyes in which disdain was admirably painted the prince of grooms and cock fighters and blackguard horse coursers but there is not one of them to mend another have you read markham said miss vernon read whom ma'am
i do not even remember the author's name o lud on what a strand are you wrecked replied the young lady a poor forlorn and ignorant stranger unacquainted with the very alcoran of the savage tribe whom you are come to reside among never to have heard of markham
then i fear you are equally a stranger to the more modern names of gibson and bartlett i am indeed miss vernon and do you not blush to own it said miss vernon why we must forswear your alliance
then i suppose you can neither give a ball nor a mash nor a horn
or to my groom incredible carelessness and you cannot shoe a horse or cut his mane and tail or worm a dog or crop his ears or cut his dew claws or reclaim a hawk or give him his casting stones
or direct his diet when he is sealed or to sum up my insignificance in one word replied i i am profoundly ignorant in all these rural accomplishments then in the name of heaven mister francis osbaldistone
what can you do very little to the purpose miss vernon something however i can pretend to when my groom has dressed my horse i can ride him and when my hawk is in the field i can fly him can you do this
said the young lady putting her horse to a canter there was a sort of rude overgrown fence crossed the path before us with a gate composed of pieces of wood rough from the forest i was about to move forward to open it
when miss vernon cleared the obstruction at a flying leap i was bound in point of honour to follow and was in a moment again at her side there are hopes of you yet she said i was afraid you had been a very degenerate osbaldistone
but what on earth brings you to cub castle for so the neighbours have christened this hunting hall of ours you might have stayed away i suppose if you would
within pellucidar one time is as good as another there were no nights to mask our attempted escape all must be done in broad daylight all but the work i had to do in the apartment beneath the building
so we determined to put our plan to an immediate test lest the mahars who made it possible should awake before i reached them but we were doomed to disappointment for no sooner had we reached the main floor of the building on our way to the pits beneath
than we encountered hurrying bands of slaves being hastened under strong sagoth guard out of the edifice to the avenue beyond other sagoths were darting hither and thither in search of other slaves
what the purpose or nature of the general exodus we did not know but presently through the line of captives ran the rumor that two escaped slaves had been recaptured a man and a woman and that we were marching to witness their punishment
for the man had killed a sagoth of the detachment that had pursued and overtaken them at the intelligence my heart sprang to my throat for i was sure that the two were of those who escaped in the dark grotto with hooja the sly one and that dian must be the woman
ghak thought so too as did perry
naught he replied
as though we too had been implicated in the murder of their fellow the occasion was to serve as an object lesson to all other slaves of the danger and futility of attempted escape and the fatal consequences of taking the life of a superior being
and so i imagine that sagoths felt amply justified in making the entire proceeding as uncomfortable and painful to us as possible they jabbed us with their spears and struck at us with the hatchets at the least provocation and at no provocation at all
it was a most uncomfortable half hour that we spent before we were finally herded through a low entrance into a huge building the center of which was given up to a good sized arena benches surrounded this open space upon three sides
and along the fourth were heaped huge bowlders which rose in receding tiers toward the roof at first i couldn't make out the purpose of this mighty pile of rock unless it were intended as a rough and picturesque background for the scenes which were enacted in the arena before it
but presently after the wooden benches had been pretty well filled by slaves and sagoths i discovered the purpose of the bowlders for then the mahars began to file into the enclosure they marched directly across the arena toward the rocks upon the opposite side where
spreading their bat like wings they rose above the high wall of the pit settling down upon the bowlders above these were the reserved seats the boxes of the elect
reptiles that they are the rough surface of a great stone is to them as plush as upholstery to us here they lolled blinking their hideous eyes and doubtless conversing with one another in their sixth sense fourth dimension language
for the first time i beheld their queen she differed from the others in no feature that was appreciable to my earthly eyes in fact all mahars look alike to me but when she crossed the arena after the balance of her female subjects had found their bowlders
while behind came another score of sagoth guardsmen at the barrier the sagoths clambered up the steep side with truly apelike agility
and settled down upon the largest bowlder of them all in the exact center of that side of the amphitheater which is reserved for the dominant race here she squatted a most repulsive and uninteresting queen though doubtless quite as well assured of her beauty and divine right to rule
as the proudest monarch of the outer world and then the music started music without sound the mahars cannot hear so the drums and fifes and horns of earthly bands are unknown among them the band consists of a score or more mahars
it filed out in the center of the arena where the creatures upon the rocks might see it and there it performed for fifteen or twenty minutes their technic consisted in waving their tails and moving their heads in a regular succession
of measured movements resulting in a cadence which evidently pleased the eye of the mahar as the cadence of our own instrumental music pleases our ears sometimes the band took measured steps in unison to one side or the other or backward and again forward
it all seemed very silly and meaningless to me but at the end of the first piece the mahars upon the rocks showed the first indications of enthusiasm that i had seen displayed by the dominant race of pellucidar they beat their great wings up and down
and smote their rocky perches with their mighty tails until the ground shook then the band started another piece and all was again as silent as the grave that was one great beauty about mahar music if you didn't happen to like a piece that was being played
all you had to do was shut your eyes when the band had exhausted its repertory it took wing and settled upon the rocks above and behind the queen then the business of the day was on
a man and woman were pushed into the arena by a couple of sagoth guardsmen i leaned forward in my seat to scrutinize the female hoping against hope that she might prove to be another than dian the beautiful
her back was toward me for a while and the sight of the great mass of raven hair piled high upon her head filled me with alarm presently a door in one side of the arena wall was opened to admit a huge shaggy bull like creature
a bos whispered perry excitedly his kind roamed the outer crust with the cave bear and the mammoth ages and ages ago we have been carried back a million years david to the childhood of a planet is it not wondrous
but i saw only the raven hair of a half naked girl and my heart stood still in dumb misery at the sight of her nor had i any eyes for the wonders of natural history
lay in store for this priceless treasure of the stone age with the advent of the bos they call the thing a thag within pellucidar two spears were tossed into the arena at the feet of the prisoners
as the animal approached the two bellowing and pawing the ground with the strength of many earthly bulls another door directly beneath us was opened
i could not at first see the beast from which emanated this fearsome challenge but the sound had the effect of bringing the two victims around with a sudden start and then i saw the girl's face she was not dian i could have wept for relief and now as the two stood frozen in terror
i saw the author of that fearsome sound creeping stealthily into view it was a huge tiger such as hunted the great bos through the jungles primeval when the world was young in contour and markings it was not unlike the noblest of the bengals of our own world
but as its dimensions were exaggerated to colossal proportions so too were its colorings exaggerated its vivid yellows fairly screamed aloud its whites were as eider down its blacks glossy as the finest anthracite coal
and its coat long and shaggy as a mountain goat that it is a beautiful animal there is no gainsaying but if its size and colors are magnified here within pellucidar so is the ferocity of its disposition
all are man hunters
for there is no flesh or fish within pellucidar that they will not eat with relish in the constant efforts which they make to furnish their huge carcasses with sufficient sustenance to maintain their mighty thews
upon one side of the doomed pair the thag bellowed and advanced and upon the other tarag the frightful crept toward them with gaping mouth and dripping fangs the man seized the spears handing one of them to the woman
at the sound of the roaring of the tiger the bull's bellowing became a veritable frenzy of rageful noise never in my life had i heard such an infernal din as the two brutes made and to think it was all lost upon the hideous reptiles for whom the show was staged
the thag was charging now from one side
the two puny things standing between them seemed already lost but at the very moment that the beasts were upon them the man grasped his companion by the arm and together they leaped to one side while the frenzied creatures came together like locomotives in collision
there ensued a battle royal which for sustained and frightful ferocity transcends the power of imagination or description
but each time that the huge cat touched the ground he returned to the encounter with apparently undiminished strength and seemingly increased ire
but finally i saw them separate and each creep stealthily toward one of the combatants the tiger was now upon the bull's broad back clinging to the huge neck with powerful fangs while its long strong talons ripped the heavy hide into shreds and ribbons
for a moment the bull stood bellowing and quivering with pain and rage its cloven hoofs widespread its tail lashing viciously from side to side and then in a mad orgy of bucking
it went careening about the arena in frenzied attempt to unseat its rending rider it was with difficulty that the girl avoided the first mad rush of the wounded animal all its efforts to rid itself of the tiger seemed futile
a little of this so disconcerted the tiger knocking its breath from it i imagine that it lost its hold and then quick as a cat the great thag was up again and had buried those mighty horns deep in the tarag's abdomen pinning him to the floor of the arena
the great cat clawed at the shaggy head until eyes and ears were gone and naught but a few strips of ragged bloody flesh remained upon the skull yet through all the agony of that fearful punishment the thag still stood motionless pinning down his adversary
and then the man leaped in seeing that the blind bull would be the least formidable enemy and ran his spear through the tarag's heart as the animal's fierce clawing ceased
ran headlong across the arena with great leaps and bounds he came straight toward the arena wall directly beneath where we sat
in one of his mighty springs completely over the barrier into the midst of the slaves and sagoths just in front of us swinging his bloody horns from side to side the beast cut a wide swath before him straight upward toward our seats
before him slaves and gorilla men fought in mad stampede to escape the menace of the creature's death agonies for such only could that frightful charge have been
after the beast cleared the wall of the arena each intent upon saving his own hide i ran to the right passing several exits choked with the fear mad mob that were battling to escape
one would have thought that an entire herd of thags was loose behind them rather than a single blinded dying beast
slaves as we descended the broad staircase which led to the main avenue of phutra i caught my first sight of the dominant race of the inner world involuntarily i shrank back as one of the creatures approached to inspect us
a more hideous thing it would be impossible to imagine
with long narrow heads and great round eyes their beak like mouths are lined with sharp white fangs and the backs of their huge lizard bodies are serrated into bony ridges from their necks to the end of their long tails
their feet are equipped with three webbed toes while from the fore feet membranous wings which are attached to their bodies just in front of the hind legs protrude at an angle of forty five degrees toward the rear
ending in sharp points several feet above their bodies i glanced at perry as the thing passed me to inspect him
when it passed on he turned to me a rhamphorhynchus of the middle olitic david he said but gad how enormous
have never indicated a size greater than that attained by an ordinary crow as we continued on through the main avenue of phutra
they paid but little attention to us phutra is laid out underground with a regularity that indicates remarkable engineering skill it is hewn from solid limestone strata the streets are broad and of a uniform height of twenty feet
at intervals tubes pierce the roof of this underground city and by means of lenses and reflectors transmit the sunlight softened and diffused
in like manner air is introduced
to a large public building where one of the sagoths who had formed our guard
the method of communication between these two was remarkable in that no spoken words were exchanged they employed a species of sign language as i was to learn later the mahars have no ears not any spoken language
among themselves they communicate by means of what perry says must be a sixth sense which is cognizant of a fourth dimension i never did quite grasp him
i suggested telepathy but he said no that it was not telepathy since they could only communicate when in each others presence nor could they talk with the sagoths or the other inhabitants of pellucidar by the same method they used to converse with one another
what they do said perry is to project their thoughts into the fourth dimension when they become appreciable to the sixth sense of their listener do i make myself quite clear
he shook his head in despair and returned to his work they had set us to carrying a great accumulation of maharan literature from one apartment to another
i suggested to perry that we were in the public library of phutra but later as he commenced to discover the key to their written language he assured me that we were handling the ancient archives of the race
during this period my thoughts were continually upon dian the beautiful i was of course glad that she had escaped the mahars and
i often wondered if the little party of fugitives had been overtaken by the guards who had returned to search for them
than to think of her at the mercy of hooja the sly one ghak perry and i often talked together of possible escape but the sarian was so steeped in his lifelong belief that no one could escape from the mahars except by a miracle
that he was not much aid to us his attitude was of one who waits for the miracle to come to him at my suggestion perry and i fashioned some swords of scraps of iron
for we were permitted almost unrestrained freedom of action within the limits of the building
so great were the number of slaves who waited upon the inhabitants of phutra that none of us was apt to be overburdened with work nor were our masters unkind to us we hid our new weapons beneath the skins which formed our beds
and then perry conceived the idea of making bows and arrows weapons apparently unknown within pellucidar next came shields but these i found it easier to steal from the walls of the outer guardroom of the building
we had completed these arrangements for our protection after leaving phutra when the sagoths who had been sent to recapture the escaped prisoners returned with four of them of whom hooja was one dian and two others had eluded them
it so happened that hooja was confined in the same building with us he told ghak that he had not seen dian or the others after releasing them within the dark grotto what had become of them he had not the faintest conception
they might be wandering yet lost within the labyrinthine tunnel if not dead from starvation i was now still further apprehensive as to the fate of dian and at this time
i imagine came the first realization that my affection for the girl might be prompted by more than friendship during my waking hours she was constantly the subject of my thoughts and when i slept her dear face haunted my dreams
perry i confided to the old man
that was the excuse i made for perry's benefit diminutive world he scoffed
and then he showed me a map of pellucidar which he had recently discovered among the manuscript he was arranging look he cried pointing to it this is evidently water and all this land do you notice the general configuration of the two areas
where the oceans are upon the outer crust is land here these relatively small areas of ocean follow the general lines of the continents of the outer world we know that the crust of the globe is five hundred miles in thickness then the inside diameter of pellucidar must be seven thousand miles
and the superficial area one hundred sixty five million
three fourths of this is land think of it
our own world contains but fifty three million square miles of land the balance of its surface being covered by water just as we often compare nations by their relative land areas so if we compare these two worlds in the same way
we have the strange anomaly of a larger world within a smaller one where within vast pellucidar would you search for your dian without stars or moon or changing sun how could you find her even though you knew where she might be found the proposition was a corker
it quite took my breath away but i found that it left me all the more determined to attempt it if ghak will accompany us we may be able to do it i suggested perry and i sought him out and put the question straight to him ghak i said we are determined to escape from this bondage will you accompany us
they will set the thipdars upon us he said and then we shall be killed but he hesitated i would take the chance if i thought that i might possibly escape and return to my own people could you find your way back to your own land asked perry
and could you aid david in his search for dian yes but how persisted perry could you travel to strange country
ghak didn't know what perry meant by heavenly bodies or a compass but he assured us that you might blindfold any man of pellucidar
yet he would be able to come directly to his own home again by the shortest route
perry said it must be some sort of homing instinct such as is possessed by certain breeds of earthly pigeons i didn't know of course but it gave me an idea
surely replied ghak unless some mighty beast of prey killed her i was for making the attempted escape at once but both perry and ghak counseled waiting for some propitious accident which would insure us some small degree of success
i didn't see what accident could befall a whole community in a land of perpetual daylight where the inhabitants had no fixed habits of sleep
while others may at long intervals crawl into the dark recesses beneath their dwellings and curl up in protracted slumber perry says that if a mahar stays awake for three years he will make up all his lost sleep in a long year's snooze
for our means of escape i had been searching about far below the levels that we slaves were supposed to frequent possibly fifty feet beneath the main floor of the building among a network of corridors and apartments when i came suddenly upon three mahars curled up upon a bed of skins
at first i thought they were dead but later their regular breathing convinced me of my error like a flash the thought came to me of the marvelous opportunity these sleeping reptiles offered as a means of eluding the watchfulness of our captors and the sagoth guards
hastening back to perry where he pored over a musty pile of to me meaningless hieroglyphics i explained my plan to him to my surprise he was horrified it would be murder david he cried
murder to kill a reptilian monster i asked in astonishment here they are not monsters david he replied here they are the dominant race we are the monsters' the lower orders in pellucidar evolution has progressed along different lines than upon the outer earth
these terrible convulsions of nature time and time again wiped out the existing species but for this fact some monster of the saurozoic epoch might rule today upon our own world we see here what might well have occurred in our own history had conditions
been what they have been here life within pellucidar is far younger than upon the outer crust here man has but reached a stage analogous to the stone age of our own world's history but for countless millions of years these reptiles have been progressing
but this we may never know they look upon us as we look upon the beasts of our fields and i learn from their written records that other races of mahars feed upon men they keep them in great droves as we keep cattle they breed them most carefully and when they are quite fat
they kill and eat them i shuddered what is there horrible about it david the old man asked they understand us no better than we understand the lower animals of our own world why
gilaks that is men have any means of communication one writer claims that we do not even reason that our every act is mechanical or instinctive the dominant race of pellucidar david have not yet learned that men converse among themselves or reason
they know that the sagoths have a spoken language but they cannot comprehend it or how it manifests itself since they have no auditory apparatus they believe that the motions of the lips alone convey the meaning
that the sagoths can communicate with us is incomprehensible to them yes david he concluded it would entail murder to carry out your plan very well then perry i replied i shall become a murderer he got me to go over the plan again most carefully
i wonder david he said at length
for the human race of pellucidar at the same time listen i have learned much of a most surprising nature from these archives of the mahars
once the males were all powerful but ages ago the females little by little assumed the mastery for other ages no noticeable change took place in the race of mahars it continued to progress under the intelligent and beneficent rule of the ladies
science took vast strides this was especially true of the sciences which we know as biology and eugenics finally a certain female scientist announced the fact that she had discovered a method whereby eggs might be fertilized by chemical means
after they were laid all true reptiles you know are hatched from eggs what happened immediately the necessity for males ceased to exist the race was no longer dependent upon them
exclusively of females but here is the point the secret of this chemical formula is kept by a single race of mahars
i judge from your description of the vaults through which you passed today that it lies hidden in the cellar of this building for two reasons they hide it away and guard it jealously first because upon it depends the very life of the race of mahars and second
owing to the fact that when it was public property as at first so many were experimenting with it that the danger of over population became very grave david if we can escape and at the same time take with us this great secret
what will we not have accomplished for the human race within pellucidar the very thought of it fairly overpowered me why we two would be the means of placing the men of the inner world in their rightful place among created things
only the sagoths would then stand between them and absolute supremacy and i was not quite sure but that the sagoths owed all their power to the greater intelligence of the mahars i could not believe that these gorilla like beasts were the mental superiors of the human race of pellucidar
why perry i exclaimed you and i may reclaim a whole world together we can lead the races of men out of the darkness of ignorance into the light of advancement and civilization
at one step we may carry them from the age of stone to the twentieth century it's marvelous absolutely marvelous just to think about it david said the old man i believe that god sent us here for just that purpose it shall be my life work to teach them his word
to lead them into the light of his mercy while we are training their hearts and hands in the ways of culture and civilization you are right perry i said and while you are teaching them to pray i'll be teaching them to fight and between us we'll make a race of men that will be an honor to us both
ghak had entered the apartment some time before we concluded our conversation and now he wanted to know what we were so excited about perry thought we had best not tell him too much and so i only explained that i had a plan for escape
when i had outlined it to him he seemed about as horror struck as perry had been but for a different reason the hairy one only considered the horrible fate that would be ours were we discovered but at last i prevailed upon him to accept my plan as the only feasible one
chapter one rosalie rain rain rain how mercilessly it fell on the fair field that sunday afternoon
every moment the pools increased and the mud became thicker how dismal the fair looked then on saturday evening it had been brilliantly lighted with rows of flaring naphtha lights and the grand shows
in the most aristocratic part of the field had been illuminated with crosses stars anchors and all manner of devices but there were no lights now there was nothing to cast a halo round the dirty weather stained tents
and the dingy caravans yet in spite of this and in spite of the rain a crowd of sunday idlers lingered about the fair
peeping curiously into the deserted shows and making many schemes for further enjoyment on the morrow when the fair was once more to be in its glory inside the caravans the show people were crouching over their fires
and grumbling at the weather murmuring at having to pay so much for the ground on which their shows were erected at a time when they would be likely to make so little profit a little old man
with a rosy good tempered face was making his way across the sea of mud which divided the shows from each other he was evidently no idler in the fair he had come into it that sunday afternoon
for a definite purpose and he did not intend to leave it until it was accomplished after crossing an almost impassable place he climbed the steps leading to one of the caravans and knocked at the door
it was a curious door the upper part of it being used as a window was filled with glass behind which you could see two small muslin curtains tied up with pink ribbon
no one came to open the door when the old man knocked and he was about to turn away when some little boys who were standing near called out to him rap again sir rap again
there's a little lass in there she went in a bit since don't you wish you was her said one of the little boys to the other ay said the little fellow i wish our house would move about and had little windows with white curtains and pink bows
the old man laughed a hearty laugh at the children's talk and rapped again at the caravan door this time a face appeared between the muslin curtains and peered cautiously out it was a very pretty little face
so pretty that the old man sighed to himself when he saw it then the small head turned round and seemed to be telling what it had seen to some one within and asking leave to admit the visitor
for a minute afterwards the door was opened and the owner of the pretty face stood before the old man she was a little girl about twelve years of age very slender and delicate in appearance
her hair which was of a rich auburn colour was hanging down to her waist and her eyes were the most beautiful the old man thought he had ever seen she was very poorly dressed and she shivered as the damp
cold air rushed in through the open door good afternoon my little dear said the old man she was just going to answer him when a violent fit of coughing from within caused her to look round and when it was over
shut the door rosalie it's so cold ask whoever it is to come in the old man did not wait for a second invitation he stepped inside the caravan and the child closed the door
it was a very small place there was hardly room for him to stand at the end of the caravan was a narrow bed something like a berth on board ship and on it a woman was lying who was evidently very ill
she was the child's mother the old man felt sure she had the same beautiful eyes and sunny hair though her face was thin and wasted there was not room for much furniture in the small caravan
a tiny stove the chimney of which went through the wooden roof a few pans a shelf containing cups and saucers and two boxes which served as seats completely filled it there was only just room for the old man to stand
and the fire was so near him that he was in danger of being scorched rosalie had seated herself on one of the boxes close to her mother's bed you must excuse my intruding ma'am said the old man with a polite bow
but i'm so fond of little folks and i've brought this little girl of yours a picture if she will accept it from me a flush of pleasure came into the child's face as he brought out of his pocket his promised gift she seized it eagerly
and held it up before her with evident delight whilst her mother raised herself on her elbow to look at it with her it was the picture of a shepherd with a very kind and compassionate face who was bearing home in his bosom a lost lamb
the lamb's fleece was torn in several places and there were marks of blood on its back as if it had been roughly used by some cruel beast in a recent struggle but the shepherd seemed to have suffered more than the lamb
for he was wounded in many places and his blood was falling in large drops on the ground yet he did not seem to mind it his face was full of love and full of joy as he looked at the lamb
he had forgotten his sorrow in his joy that the lamb was saved in the distance were some of the shepherd's friends who were coming to meet him and underneath the picture were these words printed in large letters
rejoice with me for i have found my sheep which was lost there is joy in the presence of the angels of god over one sinner that repenteth the little girl read the words aloud in a clear
distinct voice and her mother gazed at the picture with tears in her eyes those are sweet words ain't they said the old man yes said the woman with a sigh i have heard them many times before
has the good shepherd ever said them of you ma'am has he ever called the bright angels together and said to them of you rejoice with me for i have found my sheep which was lost
the woman did not speak a fit of coughing came on and the old man stood looking at her with a very pitying expression you are very ill ma'am i'm afraid he said yes
very ill gasped the woman bitterly every one can see that but augustus that's my father said the little girl no he doesn't see it repeated the woman
he thinks i ought to get up and act in the play just as usual i did try at the last place we went to but i fainted as soon as my part was over and i've been in bed ever since you must be tired of moving about ma'am
said the old man compassionately tired said she i should think i was tired it isn't what i was brought up to i was brought up to a very different kind of life from this
she said with a very deep drawn sigh it's a weary time i have of it a weary time are you always on the move ma'am asked the old man all the summer time said the woman
and then we let ourselves out to some of the small town theatres but all the rest of the year we're going from feast to feast and from fair to fair no rest nor comfort not a bit poor thing
poor thing said the old man and then a choking sensation appeared to have seized him for he cleared his throat vigorously many times but seemed unable to say more
the child had climbed on one of the boxes and brought down a square red pincushion from the shelf which ran round the top of the caravan
so that her mother could see it as she was lying in bed it does look pretty there said the little girl mammie you can look at it nicely now yes ma'am said the old man as he prepared to take his leave and as you look at it
he wants to find you and take you up in his arms and carry you home and he won't mind the wounds it has cost him if you'll only let him do it good day ma'am said the old man i shall maybe
never see you again but i would like the good shepherd to say those words of you he went carefully down the steps of the caravan and rosalie stood at the window watching him picking his way to the other shows
to which he was carrying the same message of peace she looked out from between the muslin curtains until he had quite disappeared to a distant part of the field and then she turned to her mother and said eagerly it's a very pretty picture
isn't it mammie dear but no answer came from the bed rosalie thought her mother was asleep and crept on tiptoe to her side fearful of waking her but she found her mother's face buried in the pillow
on which large tears were falling and when the little girl sat down by her side and tried to comfort her by stroking her hand very gently and saying mammie dear mammie dear don't cry what's the matter mammie dear
her mother only wept the more at length her sobs brought on such a violent fit of coughing that rosalie was much alarmed and fetched her a mug of water which was standing on the shelf near the door by degrees
her mother grew calmer the sobs became less frequent and to the little girl's joy she fell asleep rosalie sat beside her without moving lest she should awake her and kept gazing at her picture till she knew every line of it
and the first thing her mother heard when she awoke from sleep was rosalie's voice saying softly rejoice with me for i have found my sheep which was lost
again a wanderer the months sped on
until then it had always been to mary a day of great joy but this time when the day dawned she was bathed in tears previously she had had the pleasure and excitement of preparing something which she knew would please her father
but now alas this delightful occupation was rendered useless the country people round about their home used to beg flowers from her for the purpose of decorating the graves of their friends it had always been a pleasure to mary
to give her flowers for this purpose and she now determined to decorate her father's tomb in the same manner taking from a cupboard the beautiful basket which had been the first cause of all her unhappiness she filled it with choice flowers
of all colours artistically interspersed with fresh green leaves and carried it to erlenbrunn before the hour of divine service and laid it on her father's tomb watering it at the same time with tears that could not be repressed
said she you have strewed with flowers the path of life for me let me at least ornament your grave with them mary left the basket on the grave and went back to the misery of pine farm
she had no fear that any one would dare to steal either the basket or the flowers many of the country people who saw her offering were moved to tears and blessing the old gardener's pious daughter they prayed for her prosperity
the next day the labourers at the farm were busy taking in the hay from a large meadow just beyond the forest the farmer's wife had a large piece of fine linen spread out on the grass a few steps from the house
and in the evening this was found to have disappeared unfortunately the young farmer's wife had heard the story of mary and the ring from her husband to whom it had been told by his father and mother instantly
then she connected mary with the disappearance of the linen and saw in the circumstance a means of venting her spite upon the girl whom she had always disliked when mary was returning from her work in the evening
with a rake on her shoulder and a pitcher in her hand along with the other servants this passionate woman came out of the kitchen and met her with a torrent of abuse and ordered her to give up the linen immediately at first
mary was too stunned to reply but when she understood the charge she answered meekly that it was impossible she could have taken the linen as she had passed the whole day in the hay field with the other servants
that a stranger might easily have taken advantage of a moment when there was no one in the kitchen to commit the theft this conjecture turned out to be the true one but the farmer's wife was not to be turned from her conviction thief
she cried coarsely do you think i am ignorant of the theft of the ring and what difficulty you had to escape the executioner's sword begone as soon as possible there is no room in my house for creatures like you it is too late said her husband
to send mary away now let her sup with us as she has worked all day in the great heat let her but remain this one night not even one hour cried his wife passionately and her husband
seeing that advice would only irritate her more remained silent mary made no further attempt to defend herself against the unjust accusation she immediately made her simple preparations for her departure
wrapping up all that she had in a clean napkin when she had put the little bundle under her arm thanked the servants of pine farm for their kindness to her and protested once more her innocence she asked permission to take leave of her friends
the old farmer and his wife you may do that said the young farmer's wife with a scornful smile indeed if you wish to take with you these two old people it will give me great pleasure
it is evident death does not mean to rid me of them for some time the good old people who had heard the altercation wept when mary came to bid them good bye however they consoled her as well as they could
and gave her a little money to assist her on her journey go good girl said they to her and may god take care of you it was towards the close of the day when mary set out with her little bundle under her arm
and began to climb up the mountain following the narrow road to the woods she wished before leaving the neighbourhood to visit her father's grave once more when she came out of the forest the village clock struck seven
it was nearly dark but she was not afraid and went up to her father's grave where she sat down and gave way to a burst of grief the full moon was shining through the trees illumining with a silver light
the roses on the grave and the basket of flowers the soft evening breeze murmured among the branches making the rose trees planted on her father's grave tremble oh my father cried mary
would that you were still here that i might pour my trouble into your ears but yet i know that it is better that you are gone and i thank the lord that you did not live to witness this last affliction you are now happy
and beyond the reach of grief oh that i were with you alas never have i been so much to be pitied as now when the moon shone into the prison which confined me you were then alive
when i was driven from the home which i loved so much you were left me i had in you a good father and protector and faithful friend now i have no one poor forsaken
suspected of crime i am alone in the world a stranger not knowing where to lay my head the only little corner that remained to me on the earth i am driven from and now
to weep by your grave at these words the tears rushed forth afresh alas said she i dare not at this hour beg a lodging for the night indeed if i tell why i was turned out of doors
no one perhaps will consent to receive me she looked around against the wall near her father's tomb was a gravestone very old and covered with moss as the inscription had been effaced by time
it was left there to be used as a seat i will sit down on this stone said she and pass the night by my father's grave it is perhaps the last time i shall ever be here to morrow at daybreak
if it be god's will i shall continue my journey going wherever his hand may direct me
a strange meeting mary sat down on the stone near the wall shaded by the thick foliage of a tree which covered her with its dark branches here she poured out her soul in fervent prayer to god
suddenly she heard a sweet voice calling her familiarly by her name mary mary the late hour of night and the solitude of the graveyard and her loneliness made mary start with fear
looking up she saw the beautiful face and figure of a woman
and i have come to help you look at me is it possible you do not know me the moon was shining brightly upon her face and with an exclamation of surprise mary cried out is it you the countess amelia
oh how did you get here here in so lonely a place at this hour of the night so far from your home the countess raised mary gently from the ground pressed her to her heart and kissed her tenderly
dear mary said she we have done you great injustice you have been ill rewarded for the pleasure which you gave me with the basket of flowers but at last your innocence has been made known
can you ever forgive my parents and me we are ready to make amends as far as it lies in our power forgive us dear mary mary was distressed at these words and begged the countess not to talk of forgiveness
considering the circumstances she said you showed great indulgence towards me and it never entered my mind to nourish the least resentment towards you i had grateful thoughts of all your kindness and my only sorrow was that you and your dear parents
should regard me as ungrateful enough to be guilty of stealing your ring my great desire was that you might one day be convinced of my innocence and god has granted this desire may his name be praised
the countess pressed mary to her heart and bathed her face in tears afterwards she looked at james's grave and clasping her hands she cried out passionately oh noble man
whose body lies here whom i learned to love in my tender youth whose affectionate counsels i have often received and whose fervent prayers i have so often listened to why cannot i see your face to ask pardon
for all the injustice done you oh if we had only taken more precaution if we had placed more confidence in an old servant who had always shown unimpeachable honesty and faithfulness perhaps thou hadst still been living with us
believe me good countess said mary my father was far from feeling the least resentment towards you he prayed for you daily as he was accustomed to do when he lived at eichbourg and at the hour of his death he blessed you all
a little before he died i feel confident that those whom we once served will one day recognise your innocence and recall you from exile when that day comes assure the countess and count and amelia
that my heart was full of respect and love and gratitude towards them till my last breath these my dear countess were his last words the tears of the good amelia flowed copiously come mary
said she and sit down here with me on the stone we are safe here in the sanctuary of the lord
rounding up indians in october eighteen sixty seven general sheridan organized an expedition to operate against the indians who infested the republican river region cody said he
i have decided to appoint you as guide and chief of scouts with the command how does that suit you first rate general and thank you for the honor i replied as gracefully as i knew how
the dog soldier indians were a band of cheyennes and unruly turbulent members of other tribes who would not enter into any treaty or keep a treaty if they made one and who had always refused to go upon a reservation
they were a warlike body of well built daring and restless braves and were determined to hold possession of the country in the vicinity of the republican and solomon rivers they were called dog soldiers because they were principally cheyennes
general sheridan being anxious to punish the indians who had lately fought general forsyth did not give the regiment much of a rest and accordingly on the fifth of october it began its march for the beaver creek country the first night we camped on the south fork of big creek
four miles west of hays city by this time i had become pretty well acquainted with major brown and captain sweetman who invited me to mess with them on this expedition and a jolly mess we had there were other scouts in the command besides myself
and i particularly remember tom renahan hank fields and a character called nosey on account of his long nose the next day we marched thirty miles and late in the afternoon we came into camp on the south fork of the solomon
at this encampment colonel royal asked me to go out and kill some buffaloes for the boys all right colonel send along a wagon or two to bring in the meat i said i am not in the habit of sending out my wagons until i know that there is something to be hauled in
kill your buffaloes first and then i'll send out the wagons was the colonel's reply i said no more but went out on a hunt and after a short absence returned and asked the colonel to send out his wagons over the hill for the half dozen buffaloes i had killed
the following afternoon he again requested me to go out and get some fresh buffalo meat i didn't ask him for any wagons this time but rode out some distance and coming up with a small herd i managed to get seven of them headed straight for the encampment
and instead of shooting them just then i ran them at full speed right into the camp and then killed them all one after another in rapid succession colonel royal witnessed the whole proceeding which puzzled him somewhat as he could see no reason why i had not killed them on the prairie
he came up rather angrily and demanded an explanation i can't allow any such business as this cody said he what do you mean by it i didn't care about asking for any wagons this time colonel so i thought i would make the buffaloes furnish their own transportation
was my reply the colonel saw the point in a moment and had no more to say on the subject no indians had been seen in the vicinity during the day and colonel royal having carefully posted his pickets supposed everything was serene for the night
but before morning we were aroused from our slumbers by hearing shots fired and immediately afterward one of the mounted pickets came galloping into camp saying that there were indians close at hand the companies all fell into line
and were soon prepared and anxious to give the redskins battle but as the men were yet new in the indian country a great many of them were considerably excited no indians however made their appearance
and upon going to the picket post where the picket said he had seen them none could be found nor could any traces of them be discovered the sentinel who was an irishman insisted that there had certainly been redskins there but you must be mistaken
as shure ez me name's pat maloney one of them redskins hit me on the head with a club so he did said pat and so when morning came the mystery was further investigated and was easily solved elk tracks were found in the vicinity
and it was undoubtedly a herd of elks that had frightened pat as he had turned to run he had gone under a limb of a tree against which he hit his head
a three days uninteresting march brought us to beaver creek where we were camped and from which point scouting parties were sent out in different directions none of these however discovering indians they all returned to camp about the same time
it having been attacked a few hours previously by a party of indians who had succeeded in killing two men and in making off with sixty horses belonging to company h that evening the command started on the trail of these indian horse thieves
major brown with two companies and three days rations pushing ahead in advance of the main command being unsuccessful however in overtaking the indians and getting nearly out of provisions it being our eighteenth day out
the entire command marched toward the nearest railway point and camped on the saline river distant three miles from buffalo tank while waiting for supplies we received a new commanding officer brevet major general e a carr
he brought with him the celebrated forsyth scouts who were commanded by lieutenant pepoon a regular army officer the next morning at an early hour the command started out on a hunt for indians
general carr having a pretty good idea where he would be most likely to find them directed me to guide them by the nearest route to elephant rock on beaver creek upon arriving at the south fork of the beaver on the second day's march
we discovered a large fresh indian trail which we hurriedly followed for a distance of eight miles when suddenly we saw on the bluffs ahead of us quite a large number of indians general carr ordered lieutenant pepoon's scouts and company m to the front
this company was commanded by lieutenant schinosky a frenchman by birth and reckless by nature having advanced his company nearly a mile ahead of the main command about four hundred indians suddenly charged down upon him and gave him a lively little fight
until he was supported by our full force the indians kept increasing in numbers all the while until it was estimated that we were fighting from eight hundred to one thousand of them the engagement became quite general and several were killed and wounded on each side
the indians were evidently fighting to give their families and village a chance to get away we had undoubtedly surprised them with a larger force than they had expected to see in that part of the country we fought them until dark all the time driving them before us
at night they annoyed us considerably by firing down into our camp from the higher hills and several times the command was ordered to dislodge them from their position and drive them back after having returned from one of these sallies
major brown captain sweetman lieutenant bache and myself were taking supper together when whang came a bullet into lieutenant bache's plate breaking a hole through it the bullet came from the gun of one of the indians who had returned to the high bluff overlooking our camp
major brown declared it was a crack shot because it broke the plate we finished our supper without having any more such close calls at daylight next morning we struck out on the trail and soon came to the spot where the indians had camped the day before we could see that their village was a very large one
consisting of about five hundred lodges and we pushed forward rapidly from this point on the trail which ran back toward prairie dog creek about two o'clock we came in sight of the retreating village and soon the warriors turned back to give us battle
they set fire to the prairie grass in front of us and on all sides in order to delay us as much as possible we kept up a running fight for the remainder of the afternoon and the indians repeatedly attempted to lead us off the track of their flying village but their trail was easily followed
as they were continually dropping tepee poles camp kettles robes furs and all heavy articles belonging to them they were evidently scattering and it finally became difficult for us to keep on the main trail when darkness set in we went into camp
it being useless to try to follow the indians after nightfall next morning we were again on the trail the indians soon scattered in every direction but we followed the main trail to the republican river where we made a cut off and then went north toward the platte river
we found however that the indians by traveling night and day had got a long start and the general concluded that it was useless to follow them any farther the general told me that the next day's march would be toward the headwaters of the beaver and asked me the distance
i replied that it was about twenty five miles and he said he would make it the next day getting an early start in the morning we struck out across the prairie my position as guide being ahead of the advance guard about two o'clock general carr overtook me
and asked me how far i supposed it was to water i thought it was about eight miles although we could see no sign or indication of any stream in front pepoon's scouts say you are going in the wrong direction said the general
and in the way you are bearing it will be fifteen miles before you can strike any of the branches of the beaver and that when you do you will find no water for the beavers are dry at this time of the year at that point general i think the scouts are mistaken said i
for the beaver has more water near its head than it has below and at the place where we will strike the stream we will find immense beaver dams large enough and strong enough to cross the whole command if you wish well cody go ahead said he i'll leave it to you but remember that i don't want a dry camp
no danger of that said i and then i rode on leaving him to return to the command as i had predicted we found water seven or eight miles farther on where we came upon a beautiful little stream a tributary of the beaver hidden in the hills
we had no difficulty in selecting a good halting place and obtaining fresh spring water and grass the general upon learning from me that the stream which was only eight or nine miles long had no name took out his map and located it
and named it cody's creek which name it still bears we pulled out early next morning for the beaver and when we were approaching the stream i rode on ahead of the advance guard in order to find the crossing just as i turned a bend of the creek
bang went a shot and down went my horse myself with him i disentangled myself and jumped behind the dead body looking in the direction whence the shot had come i saw two indians and at once turned my gun loose on them
but in the excitement of the moment i missed my aim they fired two or three more shots and i returned the compliment wounding one of their horses on the opposite side of the creek going over the hill i observed a few lodges moving rapidly away
and also some mounted warriors who could see me and who kept blazing away with their guns the two indians who had fired at me and had killed my horse were retreating across the creek on a beaver dam i sent a few shots after them to accelerate their speed
and also fired at the ones on the other side of the stream i was undecided as to whether it was best to run back to the command on foot or hold my position i knew that within a few minutes the troops would come up and i therefore decided to hold my position
when general carr came up he ordered company i to go in pursuit of the band i accompanied lieutenant brady who commanded and we had a running fight with the indians lasting several hours we captured several head of their horses and most of their lodges
at night we returned to the command which by this time had crossed the creek on the beaver dam we scouted for several days along the river and had two or three lively skirmishes finally our supplies began to run low and general carr gave orders to return to fort wallace
which we reached three days afterward and where we remained several days very soon after general carr received orders from general sheridan for a winter's campaign in the canadian river country instructing him to proceed at once to fort lyon colorado
and there to fit out for the expedition leaving fort wallace in november eighteen sixty eight we arrived at fort lyon in the latter part of the month without special incident and at once began our preparations for invading the enemy's country
general penrose had left his post three weeks previously with a command of some three hundred men he had taken no wagons with him and his supply train was composed only of pack mules general carr was ordered to follow with supplies on his trail and overtake him as soon as possible
i was particularly anxious to catch up with penrose's command as my old friend wild bill was among his scouts we followed the trail very easily for the first three days and then we were caught in freeze out canyon by a fearful snowstorm
which compelled us to go into camp for a day the ground now being covered with snow we found it would be impossible to follow penrose's trail any farther especially as he had left no sign to indicate the direction he was going general carr sent for me
and said that as it was very important that we should not lose the trail he wished that i would take some scouts with me and while the command remained in camp push on as far as possible and see if i could not discover some traces of penrose or where he had camped at any time accompanied by four men
i started out in the blinding snowstorm taking a southerly direction we rode twenty four miles and upon reaching a tributary of the cimarron we scouted up and down the stream for a few miles and finally found one of penrose's old camps it was now late in the afternoon
so riding down into a sheltered place in the bend of the creek we built a fire and broiled some venison from a deer which we had shot during the day and after eating a substantial meal i left the four men there while i returned to bring up the troops
it was eleven o'clock at night when i got back to the camp a light was still burning in the general's tent he having remained awake anxiously awaiting my return he was glad to see me and was overjoyed at the information i brought
for he had great fears concerning the safety of general penrose the command took up its march next day for the cimarron and had a hard tramp of it on account of the snow having drifted to a great depth in many of the ravines and in some places the teamsters had to shovel their way through
we arrived at the cimarron at sundown and went into camp upon looking around next morning we found that penrose having been unencumbered by wagons had kept on the west side of the cimarron
but knowing that we would certainly follow down the river general carr concluded to take the best wagon route along the stream which i discovered to be on the east side before we could make any headway with our wagon train we had to leave the river and get out on the divide
we were very fortunate that day in finding a splendid road for some distance until we were all at once brought to a standstill on a high tableland overlooking a beautiful winding creek that lay far below us in the valley the question that troubled us
was how we were to get the wagons down we were now in the foothills of the rattoon mountains and the bluff we were on was very steep cody we're in a nice fix now said general carr oh that's nothing was my reply
but you can never take the train down said he never you mind the train general you say you are looking for a good camp how does that beautiful spot down in the valley suit you i asked him that will do i can easily descend with the cavalry
but how to get the wagons down there is a puzzler to me said he by the time you are located in your camp your wagons shall be there said i all right cody i'll leave it to you as you seem to want to be boss he replied pleasantly
he at once ordered the command to dismount and lead the horses down the mountain side the wagon train was a mile in the rear and when it came up one of the drivers asked how are we going down there run down slide down or fall down any way to get down
said i we can never do it it's too steep the wagons will run over the mules
the mules have got to keep out of the way was my reply i told wilson the chief wagon master to bring on his mess wagon which was at the head of the train and i would try the experiment at least wilson drove the team and wagon to the brink of the hill
and following my directions he brought out some extra chains with which we locked the wheels on each side and then rough locked them we now started the wagon down the hill the wheel horses or rather the wheel mules
were good on the hold back and we got along finely until we nearly reached the bottom when the wagon crowded the mules so hard
three other wagons immediately followed in the same way and in half an hour every wagon was in camp without the least accident having occurred it was indeed an exciting sight to see the six mule teams come straight down the mountain
we had no trouble in following penrose's trail which led us in a southeasterly direction toward the canadian river no indians were seen nor any signs of them found one day while riding in advance of the command down san francisco creek
i heard some one calling my name from a little bunch of willow brush on the opposite bank and upon looking closely at the spot i saw a negro sakes alive massa bill am dat you asked the man
whom i recognized as one of the colored soldiers of the tenth cavalry i next heard him say to some one in the brush
dar's massa buffalo bill then he sang out massa bill is you got any hawdtack nary a hardtack but the wagons will be along presently and then you can get all you want said i
dat's de best news i's heerd foah sixteen long days massa bill said he where's your command where's general penrose
said the darky we got lost and we's been starvin eber since by this time two other negroes had emerged from their place of concealment they had deserted penrose's command which was out of rations and nearly in a starving condition and were trying to make their way back to fort lyon
general carr concluded from what they could tell him
for they knew not where they were themselves having learned that general penrose's troops were in such bad shape general carr ordered major brown to start out the next morning with two companies of cavalry and fifty pack mules loaded with provisions
and to make all possible speed to reach and relieve the suffering soldiers i accompanied this detachment and on the third day out we found the half famished soldiers camped on the palladora the camp presented a pitiful sight indeed
for over two weeks the men had had only quarter rations and were now nearly starved to death over two hundred horses and mules were lying dead having died from fatigue and starvation general penrose fearing that general carr would not find him
had sent back a company of the seventh cavalry to fort lyon for supplies but no word had as yet been heard from them the rations which major brown brought to the command came none too soon and were the means of saving many lives
general carr upon arriving with his force took command of all the troops he being the senior officer and ranking general penrose after selecting a good camp he unloaded the wagons and sent them back to fort lyon for fresh supplies
he then picked out five hundred of the best men and horses and taking his pack train with him started south for the canadian river leaving the rest of the troops at the supply camp for several days we scouted along the canadian river but found no signs of indians
general carr then went back to his camp and soon afterward our wagon train came in from fort lyon with a fresh load of provisions
the shadow it is in the hot lands that the sun burns sure enough there the people become quite a mahogany brown ay and in the hottest lands they are burnt to negroes
but now it was only to the hot lands that a learned man had come from the cold there he thought that he could run about just as when at home but he soon found out his mistake he
and all sensible folks were obliged to stay within doors the window shutters and doors were closed the whole day it looked as if the whole house slept or there was no one at home
the narrow street with the high houses was built so that the sunshine must fall there from morning till evening it was really not to be borne the learned man from the cold lands he was a young man
it was first towards evening when the sun was down that they began to freshen up again in the warm lands every window has a balcony and the people came out on all the balconies in the street
for one must have air even if one be accustomed to be mahogany it was lively both up and down the street tailors and shoemakers and all the folks moved out into the street chairs and tables were brought forth
and candles burnt yes above a thousand lights were burning and the one talked and the other sung and people walked and church bells rang and asses went along with a dingle dingle dong for they too had bells on
the street boys were screaming and hooting and shouting and shooting with devils and detonating balls and there came corpse bearers and hood wearers for there were funerals with psalm and hymn and then
the din of carriages driving and company arriving yes it was in truth lively enough down in the street
only in that single house which stood opposite that in which the learned foreigner lived it was quite still and yet some one lived there for there stood flowers in the balcony
they grew so well in the sun's heat and that they could not do unless they were watered and some one must water them there must be somebody there the door opposite was also opened late in the evening
for he found everything marvellous out there in the warm lands if there had only been no sun the stranger's landlord said that he didn't know who had taken the house opposite one saw no person about
and as to the music it appeared to him to be extremely tiresome it is as if some one sat there and practised a piece that he could not master
and he thought that a strange lustre came from the opposite neighbor's house all the flowers shone like flames in the most beautiful colors and in the midst of the flowers stood a slender graceful maiden
it was as if she also shone the light really hurt his eyes
yes he was quite awake with one spring he was on the floor he crept gently behind the curtain but the maiden was gone the flowers shone no longer but there they stood fresh and blooming as ever
the door was ajar and far within the music sounded so soft and delightful one could really melt away in sweet thoughts from it yet it was like a piece of enchantment
and who lived there where was the actual entrance the whole of the ground floor was a row of shops and there people could not always be running through one evening the stranger sat out on the balcony
the light burnt in the room behind him and thus it was quite natural that his shadow should fall on his opposite neighbor's wall yes there it sat directly opposite between the flowers on the balcony
come now be useful and do me a service said he in jest have the kindness to step in now art thou going and then he nodded to the shadow and the shadow nodded again
well then go but don't stay away the stranger rose and his shadow on the opposite neighbor's balcony rose also
and the shadow also turned round yes if anyone had paid particular attention to it they would have seen quite distinctly that the shadow went in through the half open balcony door of their opposite neighbor
just as the stranger went into his own room and let the long curtain fall down after him next morning the learned man went out to drink coffee and read the newspapers what
i have no shadow so then it has actually gone last night and not come again it is really tiresome this annoyed him not so much because the shadow was gone
but because he knew there was a story about a man without a shadow it was known to everybody at home in the cold lands and if the learned man now came there and told his story
for he knew that the shadow would always have its master for a screen but he could not entice it he made himself little he made himself great but no shadow came again he said hem hem
but it was of no use it was vexatious but in the warm lands everything grows so quickly and after the lapse of eight days he observed to his great joy that a new shadow came in the sunshine
in the course of three weeks he had a very fair shadow which when he set out for his home in the northern lands grew more and more in the journey so that at last it was so long and so large
that it was more than sufficient the learned man then came home and he wrote books about what was true in the world and about what was good and what was beautiful and there passed days and years
one evening as he was sitting in his room there was a gentle knocking at the door
but no one came in so he opened the door and there stood before him such an extremely lean man that he felt quite strange as to the rest the man was very finely dressed he must be a gentleman
asked the learned man yes i thought as much said the fine man i thought you would not know me i have got so much body i have even got flesh and clothes
you certainly never thought of seeing me so well off do you not know your old shadow you certainly thought i should never more return things have gone on well with me since i was last with you i have in all respects
become very well off shall i purchase my freedom from service if so i can do it and then he rattled a whole bunch of valuable seals that hung to his watch and he stuck his hand
in the thick gold chain he wore around his neck nay how all his fingers glittered with diamond rings and then all were pure gems nay i cannot recover from my surprise said the learned man
but you yourself do not belong to the common order and i as you know well have from a child followed in your footsteps as soon as you found i was capable to go out alone in the world i went my own way
i am in the most brilliant circumstances but there came a sort of desire over me to see you once more before you die you will die i suppose i also wished to see this land again
for you know we always love our native land i know you have got another shadow again have i anything to pay to it or you if so you will oblige me by saying what it is
nay is it really thou said the learned man it is most remarkable i never imagined that one's old shadow could come again as a man tell me what i have to pay said the shadow
i am extremely glad to hear of thy good fortune sit down old friend and tell me a little how it has gone with thee and what thou hast seen at our opposite neighbor's there in the warm lands
that i have been your shadow i intend to get betrothed for i can provide for more than one family be quite at thy ease about that said the learned man i shall not say to anyone who thou actually art
it was really quite astonishing how much of a man it was it was dressed entirely in black and of the very finest cloth it had patent leather boots and a hat that could be folded together
so that it was bare crown and brim not to speak of what we already know it had seals gold neck chain and diamond rings yes the shadow was well dressed and it was just that which made it quite a man
said the shadow and then he sat with the polished boots as heavily as he could on the arm of the learned man's new shadow which lay like a poodle dog at his feet now this was perhaps from arrogance
and the shadow on the ground kept itself so still and quiet that it might hear all that passed it wished to know how it could get free and work its way up so as to become its own master
do you know who lived in our opposite neighbor's house said the shadow it was the most charming of all beings it was poesy i was there for three weeks
poesy cried the learned man yes yes she often dwells a recluse in large cities poesy yes i have seen her
a single short moment but sleep came into my eyes she stood on the balcony and shone as the aurora borealis shines go on go on thou wert on the balcony and went through the doorway
and then then i was in the antechamber said the shadow you always sat and looked over to the antechamber there was no light there was a sort of twilight
but the one door stood open directly opposite the other through a long row of rooms and saloons and there it was lighted up i should have been completely killed if i had gone over to the maiden but i was circumspect i took time to think
and that one must always do and what didst thou then see asked the learned man i saw everything and i shall tell all to you but it is no pride on my part as a free man and with the knowledge i have
but now you must tell me all you saw everything said the shadow for i saw everything and i know everything how did it look in the furthest saloon asked the learned man
was it there as in the fresh woods was it there as in a holy church were the saloons like the starlit firmament when we stand on the high mountains everything was there said the shadow
i did not go quite in i remained in the foremost room in the twilight but i stood there quite well i saw everything and i know everything i have been in the antechamber at the court of poesy
i tell you i was there and you can conceive that i saw everything there was to be seen had you come over there you would not have been a man but i became so and besides
i learned to know my inward nature my innate qualities the relationship i had with poesy at the time i was with you i thought not of that but always you know it well
when the sun rose and when the sun went down i became so strangely great in the moonlight i was very near being more distinct than yourself at that time i did not understand my nature
i became a man i came out matured but you were no longer in the warm lands as a man i was ashamed to go as i did i was in want of boots of clothes
of the whole human varnish that makes a man perceptible i took my way i tell it to you but you will not put it in any book i took my way to the cake woman i hid myself behind her
the woman didn't think how much she concealed i went out first in the evening i ran about the streets in the moonlight i made myself long up the walls it tickles the back so delightfully
i ran up and ran down peeped into the highest windows into the saloons and on the roofs i peeped in where no one could peep and i saw what no one else saw what no one else should see
this is in fact a base world i would not be a man if it were not now once accepted and regarded as something to be so i saw the most unimaginable things with the women with the men
with parents and with the sweet matchless children i saw said the shadow what no human being must know but what they would all so willingly know what is bad in their neighbor
had i written a newspaper it would have been read
the master of the mint struck new coin for me and the women said i was so handsome and so i became the man i am
here is my card i live on the sunny side of the street and am always at home in rainy weather and so away went the shadow that was most extraordinary said the learned man
then the shadow came again how goes it said the shadow alas said the learned man i write about the true and the good and the beautiful but no one cares to hear such things i am quite desperate
for i take it so much to heart but i don't said the shadow i become fat and it is that one wants to become you do not understand the world you will become ill by it you must travel
was not at all in the most enviable state grief and torment followed him and what he said about the true and the good and the beautiful was to most persons like roses for a cow he was quite ill at last
you really look like a shadow said his friends to him and the learned man trembled for he thought of it you must go to a watering place said the shadow who came and visited him there is nothing else for it
i will take you with me for old acquaintance sake i will pay the travelling expenses and you write the descriptions and if they are a little amusing for me on the way i will go to a watering place
my beard does not grow out as it ought that is also a sickness and one must have a beard now you be wise and accept the offer we shall travel as comrades and so they travelled
the shadow was master and the master was the shadow they drove with each other they rode and walked together side by side before and behind just as the sun was
the shadow always took care to keep itself in the master's place now the learned man didn't think much about that he was a very kind hearted man and particularly mild and friendly and so he said one day to the shadow
as we have now become companions and in this way have grown up together from childhood shall we not drink thou together it is more familiar you are right said the shadow who was now the proper master
it is said in a very straight forward and well meant manner you as a learned man certainly know how strange nature is some persons cannot bear to touch grey paper or they become ill
you see that it is a feeling that it is not pride i cannot allow you to say thou to me but i will willingly say thou to you so it is half done so the shadow said thou to its former master
this is rather too bad thought he that i must say you and he say thou but he was now obliged to put up with it so they came to a watering place where there were many strangers
and amongst them was a princess who was troubled with seeing too well and that was so alarming she directly observed that the stranger who had just come was quite a different sort of person to all the others
he has come here in order to get his beard to grow they say but i see the real cause he cannot cast a shadow she had become inquisitive
and so she entered into conversation directly with the strange gentleman on their promenades as the daughter of a king she needed not to stand upon trifles so she said your complaint is
that you cannot cast a shadow your royal highness must be improving considerably said the shadow i know your complaint is that you see too clearly but it has decreased you are cured
i just happen to have a very unusual shadow do you not see that person who always goes with me other persons have a common shadow but i do not like what is common to all
yes you see i have even given him a shadow it is somewhat expensive but i like to have something for myself what thought the princess should i really be cured these baths are the first in the world
in our time water has wonderful powers
for it now begins to be amusing here i am extremely fond of that stranger would that his beard should not grow for in that case he will leave us in the evening the princess and the shadow danced together
in the large ball room she was light but he was still lighter she had never had such a partner in the dance she told him from what land she came and he knew that land he had been there
but then she was not at home he had peeped in at the window above and below he had seen both the one and the other and so he could answer the princess and make insinuations
so that she was quite astonished he must be the wisest man in the whole world she felt such respect for what he knew so that when they again danced together she fell in love with him
and that the shadow could remark for she almost pierced him through with her eyes so they danced once more together and she was about to declare herself but she was discreet she thought of her country and kingdom
and of the many persons she would have to reign over he is a wise man
they belong to my childhood's learning said the shadow i really believe my shadow by the door there can answer them your shadow said the princess that would indeed be marvellous
i will not say for a certainty that he can said the shadow but i think so he has now followed me for so many years and listened to my conversation i should think it possible
but your royal highness will permit me to observe that he is so proud of passing himself off for a man that when he is to be in a proper humor and he must be so to answer well he must be treated quite like a man
oh i like that said the princess so she went to the learned man by the door and she spoke to him about the sun and the moon and about persons out of and in the world and he answered with wisdom and prudence
what a man that must be who has so wise a shadow thought she it will be a real blessing to my people and kingdom if i choose him for my consort i will do it they were soon agreed
both the princess and the shadow but no one was to know about it before she arrived in her own kingdom no one not even my shadow said the shadow and he had his own thoughts about it
now they were in the country where the princess reigned when she was at home listen my good friend said the shadow to the learned man i have now become as happy and mighty as anyone can be
i will therefore do something particular for thee thou shalt always live with me in the palace drive with me in my royal carriage and have ten thousand pounds a year but then
thou must submit to be called shadow by all and everyone thou must not say that thou hast ever been a man and once a year when i sit on the balcony in the sunshine
thou art only dressed up there is no one who will believe it said the shadow be reasonable or i will call the guard i will go directly to the princess said the learned man but i will go first said the shadow
and thou wilt go to prison and that he was obliged to do for the sentinels obeyed him whom they knew the king's daughter was to marry you tremble said the princess as the shadow came into her chamber
only imagine yes it is true such a poor shadow skull cannot bear much only think my shadow has become mad he thinks that he is a man and that i
now only think that i am his shadow it is terrible said the princess but he is confined is he not that he is i am afraid that he will never recover poor shadow said the princess
it is certainly hard said the shadow for he was a faithful servant and then he gave a sort of sigh you are a noble character said the princess the whole city was illuminated in the evening
and the cannons went off with a bum bum and the soldiers presented arms that was a marriage the princess and the shadow went out on the balcony to show themselves and get another hurrah
chapter thirty six kennicott was not so inhumanly patient that he could continue to forgive carol's heresies to woo her as he had on the venture to california she tried to be inconspicuous
but she was betrayed by her failure to glow over the boosting kennicott believed in it demanded that she say patriotic things about the white way and the new factory he snorted by golly i've done all i could
and now i expect you to play the game
why you say he's a roughneck and you won't jump on the band wagon once when kennicott announced at noon dinner
they say there's a chance we may get another factory cream separator works he added you might try to look interested even if you ain't the baby was frightened by the jovian roar ran wailing to hide his face in carol's lap
and kennicott had to make himself humble and court both mother and child the dim injustice of not being understood even by his son left him irritable he felt injured an event which did not directly touch them brought down his wrath
in the early autumn news came from wakamin that the sheriff had forbidden an organizer for the national nonpartisan league to speak anywhere in the county the organizer had defied the sheriff
and announced that in a few days he would address a farmers political meeting that night the news ran a mob of a hundred business men led by the sheriff the tame village street and the smug village faces ruddled by the light of bobbing lanterns
the mob flowing between the squatty rows of shops had taken the organizer from his hotel ridden him on a fence rail put him on a freight train and warned him not to return the story was threshed out in dave dyer's drug store
with sam clark kennicott and carol present that's the way to treat those fellows
declared sam and kennicott and dave dyer joined in a proud you bet carol walked out hastily kennicott observing her through supper time she knew that he was bubbling and would soon boil over
when the baby was abed and they sat composedly in canvas chairs on the porch he experimented
wasn't sam rather needlessly heroic all these organizers yes
disloyal non patriotic pro german pacifists that's what they are did this organizer say anything pro german not on your life they didn't give him a chance his laugh was stagey
so the whole thing was illegal and led by the sheriff precisely how do you expect these aliens to obey your law if the officer of the law teaches them to break it is it a new kind of logic
maybe it wasn't exactly regular but what's the odds they knew this fellow would try to stir up trouble whenever it comes right down to a question of defending americanism and our constitutional rights it's justifiable to set aside ordinary procedure
what editorial did he get that from she wondered as she protested see here my beloved why can't you tories declare war honestly you don't oppose this organizer because you think he's seditious
but because you're afraid that the farmers he is organizing will deprive you townsmen of the money you make out of mortgages and wheat and shops of course since we're at war with germany anything that any one of us doesn't like is pro german
whether it's business competition or bad music if we were fighting england you'd call the radicals pro english when this war is over i suppose you'll be calling them red anarchists what an eternal art it is such a glittery delightful art
finding hard names for our opponents how we do sanctify our efforts to keep them from getting the holy dollars we want for ourselves the churches have always done it and the political orators and i suppose i do it when i call missus bogart a puritan
and mister stowbody a capitalist but you business men are going to beat all the rest of us at it with your simple hearted energetic pompous she got so far only because kennicott was slow in shaking off respect for her now he bayed
that'll be about all from you i've stood for your sneering at this town and saying how ugly and dull it is i've stood for your refusing to appreciate good fellows like sam i've even stood for your ridiculing our watch gopher prairie grow campaign
but one thing i'm not going to stand i'm not going to stand my own wife being seditious you can camouflage all you want to but you know darn well that these radicals as you call em are opposed to the war and let me tell you right here and now
and you and all these long haired men and short haired women can beef all you want to but we're going to take these fellows and if they ain't patriotic we're going to make them be patriotic and lord knows i never thought i'd have to say this to my own wife
but if you go defending these fellows then the same thing applies to you next thing i suppose you'll be yapping about free speech free speech there's too much free speech and free gas and free beer and free love
and if i had my way i'd make you folks live up to the established rules of decency even if i had to take you will she was not timorous now am i pro german if i fail to throb to honest jim blausser too
let's have my whole duty as a wife he was grumbling the whole thing's right in line with the criticism you've always been making might have known you'd oppose any decent constructive work for the town or for you're right all i've done has been in line
i don't belong to gopher prairie that isn't meant as a condemnation of gopher prairie and it may be a condemnation of me all right i don't care i don't belong here and i'm going i'm not asking permission any more i'm simply going he grunted
do you mind telling me if it isn't too much trouble how long you're going for i don't know perhaps for a year perhaps for a lifetime i see well of course i'll be tickled to death to sell out my practise and go anywhere you say
would you like to have me go with you to paris and study art maybe and wear velveteen pants and a woman's bonnet and live on spaghetti no i think we can save you that trouble you don't quite understand i am going i really am
and alone i've got to find out what my work is work work sure that's the whole trouble with you you haven't got enough work to do if you had five kids and no hired girl
then you wouldn't be so discontented i know that's what most men and women like you would say that's how they would explain all i am and all i want and i shouldn't argue with them
these business men from their crushing labors of sitting in an office seven hours a day would calmly recommend that i have a dozen children as it happens i've done that sort of thing
there've been a good many times when we hadn't a maid and i did all the housework and cared for hugh and went to red cross and did it all very efficiently i'm a good cook and a good sweeper
but was i more happy when i was drudging i was not i was just bedraggled and unhappy it's work but not my work i could run an office or a library or nurse and teach children
but solitary dish washing isn't enough to satisfy me or many other women we're going to chuck it we're going to wash em by machinery and come out and play with you men in the offices and clubs and politics you've cleverly kept for yourselves
oh we're hopeless we dissatisfied women then why do you want to have us about the place to fret you so it's for your sake that i'm going of course a little thing like hugh makes no difference yes all the difference
that's why i'm going to take him with me suppose i refuse you won't forlornly uh carrie what the devil is it you want anyway oh conversation
no it's much more than that i think it's a greatness of life a refusal to be content with even the healthiest mud don't you know that nobody ever solved a problem by running away from it perhaps
only i choose to make my own definition of running away i don't call do you realize how big a world there is beyond this gopher prairie where you'd keep me all my life it may be that some day i'll come back but not till i can bring something more than i have now
and even if i am cowardly and run away all right call it cowardly call me anything you want to i've been ruled too long by fear of being called things i'm going away to be quiet and think i'm i'm going i have a right to my own life
so have i to mine well i have a right to my life and you're it you're my life you've made yourself so i'm damned if i'll agree to all your freak notions but i will say i've got to depend on you
never thought of that complication did you in this off to bohemia and express yourself and free love and live your own life stuff you have a right to me if you can keep me can you he moved uneasily
for a month they discussed it they hurt each other very much and sometimes they were close to weeping and invariably he used banal phrases about her duties and she used phrases quite as banal about freedom and through it all
her discovery that she really could get away from main street was as sweet as the discovery of love kennicott never consented definitely at most he agreed to a public theory that she was going to take a short trip
and see what the east was like in wartime she set out for washington in october just before the war ended she had determined on washington because it was less intimidating than the obvious new york because she hoped to find streets in which hugh could play
and because in the stress of war work with its demand for thousands of temporary clerks she could be initiated into the world of offices hugh was to go with her despite the wails and rather extensive comments of aunt bessie
she wondered if she might not encounter erik in the east but it was a chance thought soon forgotten
the last thing she saw on the station platform was kennicott faithfully waving his hand his face so full of uncomprehending loneliness that he could not smile but only twitch up his lips she waved to him as long as she could
and when he was lost she wanted to leap from the vestibule and run back to him she thought of a hundred tendernesses she had neglected she had her freedom and it was empty the moment was not the highest of her life but the lowest and most desolate
which was altogether excellent for instead of slipping downward she began to climb she sighed i couldn't do this if it weren't for will's kindness his giving me money but a second after
i wonder how many women would always stay home if they had the money hugh complained notice me mummy he was beside her on the red plush seat of the day coach a boy of three and a half
i'm tired of playing train let's play something else let's go see auntie bogart oh no
yes she gives me cookies and she tells me about the dear lord you never tell me about the dear lord why don't you tell me about the dear lord auntie bogart says i'm going to be a preacher can i be a preacher can i preach about the dear lord
oh please wait till my generation has stopped rebelling before yours starts in what's a generation it's a ray in the illumination of the spirit that's foolish
he was a serious and literal person and rather humorless she kissed his frown and marveled i am running away from my husband after liking a swedish ne'er do well and expressing immoral opinions just as in a romantic story
and my own son reproves me because i haven't given him religious instruction but the story doesn't go right i'm neither groaning nor being dramatically saved i keep on running away and i enjoy it i'm mad with joy over it
gopher prairie is lost back there in the dust and stubble and i look forward she continued it to hugh darling do you know what mother and you are going to find beyond the blue horizon rim what
flatly we're going to find elephants with golden howdahs from which peep young maharanees with necklaces of rubies and a dawn sea colored like the breast of a dove
and a white and green house filled with books and silver tea sets and cookies cookies oh most decidedly cookies we've had enough of bread and porridge
but ever so much sicker on no cookies at all that's foolish it is o male kennicott huh said kennicott two and went to sleep on her shoulder
missus kennicott confided to ye scribe that she will be connected with one of the multifarious war activities now centering in the nation's capital for a brief period before returning her countless friends who appreciate her splendid labors with the local red cross
realize how valuable she will be to any war board with which she chooses to become connected gopher prairie thus adds another shining star to its service flag and without wishing to knock any neighboring communities
we would like to know any town of anywheres near our size in the state that has such a sterling war record another reason why you'd better watch gopher prairie grow
through late november and all december it snowed daily the thermometer was at zero and might drop to twenty below or thirty winter is not a season in the north middlewest it is an industry
storm sheds were erected at every door in every block the householders sam clark the wealthy mister dawson all save asthmatic ezra stowbody who extravagantly hired a boy
were seen perilously staggering up ladders carrying storm windows and screwing them to second story jambs while kennicott put up his windows carol danced inside the bedrooms and begged him not to swallow the screws
which he held in his mouth like an extraordinary set of external false teeth the universal sign of winter was the town handyman miles bjornstam a tall thick red mustached bachelor opinionated atheist general store arguer
cynical santa claus children loved him and he sneaked away from work to tell them improbable stories of sea faring and horse trading and bears the children's parents either laughed at him or hated him he was the one democrat in town
he called both lyman cass the miller and the finn homesteader from lost lake by their first names he was known as the red swede and considered slightly insane bjornstam could do anything with his hands solder a pan
weld an automobile spring soothe a frightened filly tinker a clock carve a gloucester schooner which magically went into a bottle now for a week he was commissioner general of gopher prairie
he was the only person besides the repairman at sam clark's who understood plumbing everybody begged him to look over the furnace and the water pipes he rushed from house to house till after bedtime ten o'clock
icicles from burst water pipes hung along the skirt of his brown dog skin overcoat his plush cap which he never took off in the house was a pulp of ice and coal dust his red hands were cracked to rawness
he chewed the stub of a cigar but he was courtly to carol he stooped to examine the furnace flues he straightened glanced down at her and hemmed got to fix your furnace no matter what else i do
the poorer houses of gopher prairie where the services of miles bjornstam were a luxury which included the shanty of miles bjornstam were banked to the lower windows with earth and manure
along the railroad the sections of snow fence which had been stacked all summer in romantic wooden tents occupied by roving small boys were set up to prevent drifts from covering the track
the farmers came into town in home made sleighs with bed quilts and hay piled in the rough boxes fur coats fur caps fur mittens overshoes buckling almost to the knees gray knitted scarfs ten feet long thick woolen socks
canvas jackets lined with fluffy yellow wool like the plumage of ducklings moccasins red flannel wristlets for the blazing chapped wrists of boys these protections against winter were busily dug out of moth ball sprinkled drawers
and tar bags in closets and all over town small boys were squealing oh there's my mittens or look at my shoe packs there is so sharp a division between the panting summer and the stinging winter of the northern plains
that they rediscovered with surprise and a feeling of heroism this armor of an artic explorer winter garments surpassed even personal gossip as the topic at parties it was good form to ask put on your heavies yet
there were as many distinctions in wraps as in motor cars the lesser sort appeared in yellow and black dogskin coats but kennicott was lordly in a long raccoon ulster and a new seal cap when the snow was too deep for his motor
he went off on country calls in a shiny floral steel tipped cutter only his ruddy nose and his cigar emerging from the fur carol herself stirred main street by a loose coat of nutria her finger tips loved the silken fur
her liveliest activity now was organizing outdoor sports in the motor paralyzed town the automobile and bridge whist had not only made more evident the social divisions in gopher prairie but they had also enfeebled the love of activity
it was so rich looking to sit and drive and so easy skiing and sliding were stupid and old fashioned in fact the village longed for the elegance of city recreations almost as much as the cities longed for village sports
and gopher prairie took as much pride in neglecting coasting as saint paul or new york in going coasting carol did inspire a successful skating party in mid november
ringing to the skates on shore the ice tipped reeds clattered in the wind and oak twigs with stubborn last leaves hung against a milky sky harry haydock did figure eights and carol was certain that she had found the perfect life
but when snow had ended the skating and she tried to get up a moonlight sliding party the matrons hesitated to stir away from their radiators and their daily bridge whist imitations of the city she had to nag them they scooted down a long hill on a bob sled
they upset and got snow down their necks they shrieked that they would do it again immediately and they did not do it again at all she badgered another group into going skiing they shouted and threw snowballs
and they'd have another skiing expedition right away and they jollily returned home and never thereafter left their manuals of bridge carol was discouraged she was grateful when kennicott invited her to go rabbit hunting in the woods
she waded down stilly cloisters between burnt stump and icy oak through drifts marked with a million hieroglyphics of rabbit and mouse and bird she squealed as he leaped on a pile of brush and fired at the rabbit which ran out he belonged there
she rose to a radiance of sun on snow snug in her furs she trotted up town frosted shingles smoked against a sky colored like flax blossoms sleigh bells clinked shouts of greeting were loud in the thin bright air
and everywhere was a rhythmic sound of wood sawing it was saturday and the neighbors sons were getting up the winter fuel behind walls of corded wood in back yards their sawbucks stood in depressions scattered with canary yellow flakes of sawdust
the frames of their buck saws were cherry red the blades blued steel and the fresh cut ends of the sticks poplar maple iron wood birch were marked with engraved rings of growth
the boys wore shoe packs blue flannel shirts with enormous pearl buttons and mackinaws of crimson lemon yellow and foxy brown carol cried fine day to the boys she came in a glow to howland and gould's grocery
her collar white with frost from her breath she bought a can of tomatoes as though it were orient fruit and returned home planning to surprise kennicott with an omelet creole for dinner so brilliant was the snow glare
that when she entered the house she saw the door knobs the newspaper on the table every white surface as dazzling mauve and her head was dizzy in the pyrotechnic dimness when her eyes had recovered she felt expanded drunk with health mistress of life
the world was so luminous that she sat down at her rickety little desk in the living room to make a poem she got no farther than the sky is bright the sun is warm there ne'er will be another storm
in the mid afternoon of this same day kennicott was called into the country it was bea's evening out her evening for the lutheran dance carol was alone from three till midnight
thus she chanced to discover that she had nothing to do
she had she meditated passed through the novelty of seeing the town and meeting people of skating and sliding and hunting bea was competent there was no household labor except sewing and darning and gossipy assistance to bea in bed making
she couldn't satisfy her ingenuity in planning meals at dahl and oleson's meat market you didn't give orders you wofully inquired whether there was anything today besides steak and pork and ham the cuts of beef were not cuts they were hacks
lamb chops were as exotic as sharks fins the meat dealers shipped their best to the city with its higher prices in all the shops there was the same lack of choice she could not find a glass headed picture nail in town
she did not hunt for the sort of veiling she wanted she took what she could get and only at howland and gould's was there such a luxury as canned asparagus routine care was all she could devote to the house
only by such fussing as the widow bogart's could she make it fill her time she could not have outside employment to the village doctor's wife it was taboo she was a woman with a working brain and no work
there were only three things which she could do have children start her career of reforming or become so definitely a part of the town that she would be fulfilled by the activities of church and study club and bridge parties
children yes she wanted them but she was not quite ready she had been embarrassed by kennicott's frankness but she agreed with him that in the insane condition of civilization
which made the rearing of citizens more costly and perilous than any other crime it was inadvisable to have children till he had made more money she was sorry perhaps he had made all the mystery of love a mechanical cautiousness but
she fled from the thought with a dubious some day her reforms her impulses toward beauty in raw main street they had become indistinct but she would set them going now she would
she swore it with soft fist beating the edges of the radiator and at the end of all her vows she had no notion as to when and where the crusade was to begin become an authentic part of the town
she began to think with unpleasant lucidity she reflected that she did not know whether the people liked her she had gone to the women at afternoon coffees to the merchants in their stores with so many outpouring comments and whimsies
that she hadn't given them a chance to betray their opinions of her the men smiled but did they like her she was lively among the women but was she one of them
with a view to stopping serbian agitation for independence austria hungary laid the blame for this incident on the government of serbia and made humiliating demands on that country germany at once proposed that the issue should be regarded as
an affair which should be settled solely between austria hungary and serbia meaning that the small nation should be left to the tender mercies of a great power russia refused to take this view great britain proposed a settlement by mediation germany backed up austria to the limit
to use the language of the german authorities we were perfectly aware that a possible warlike attitude of austria hungary against serbia might bring russia upon the field and that it might therefore involve us in a war in accordance with our duties as allies
we could not however in these vital interests of austria hungary which were at stake advise our ally to take a yielding attitude not compatible with his dignity nor deny him our assistance that made the war inevitable
and notified the king of belgium that they were preparing to violate the neutrality of his realm on their way to paris on the same day great britain anxiously besought by the french government promised the aid of the british navy if german warships made hostile demonstrations in the channel
the storm now broke in all its pitiless fury the state of american opinion although president wilson promptly proclaimed the neutrality of the united states
the sympathies of a large majority of the american people were without doubt on the side of great britain and france to them the invasion of the little kingdom of belgium and the horrors that accompanied german occupation were odious in the extreme moreover
they regarded the german imperial government as an autocratic power wielded in the interest of an ambitious military party
and the crown prince were the symbols of royal arrogance on the other hand many americans of german descent in memory of their ties with the fatherland openly sympathized with the central powers and many americans of irish descent
recalling their long and bitter struggle for home rule in ireland would have regarded british defeat as a merited redress of ancient grievances extremely sensitive to american opinion but ill informed about it
the german government soon began systematic efforts to present its cause to the people of the united states in the most favorable light possible doctor bernhard dernburg the former colonial secretary of the german empire was sent to america as a special agent
for months he filled the newspapers magazines and periodicals with interviews articles and notes on the justice of the teutonic cause from a press bureau in new york flowed a stream of pamphlets leaflets and cartoons a magazine the fatherland
was founded to secure fair play for germany and austria several professors in american universities who had received their training in germany took up the pen in defense of the central empires the german language press without exception it seems
to the spokesmen for all the contending powers of europe before two weeks had elapsed the controversy had become so intense that president wilson august eighteenth nineteen fourteen was moved to caution his countrymen against falling into angry disputes
every man he said who really loves america will act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality which is the spirit of impartiality and fairness and friendliness to all concerned we must be impartial in thought as well as in action
must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another the clash over american trade as in the time of the napoleonic wars
the conflict in europe raised fundamental questions respecting rights of americans trading with countries at peace as well as those at war on this point there existed on august first nineteen fourteen a fairly definite body of principles by which nations were bound
among them the following were of vital significance in the first place it was recognized that an enemy merchant ship caught on the high seas was a legitimate prize of war which might be seized and confiscated
in the second place it was agreed that contraband of war found on an enemy or neutral ship was a lawful prize any ship suspected of carrying it was liable to search and if caught with forbidden goods was subject to seizure in the third place
international law prescribed that a peaceful merchant ship whether belonging to an enemy or to a neutral country should not be destroyed or sunk without provision for the safety of crew and passengers in the fourth place it was understood that a belligerent had the right
if it could to blockade the ports of an enemy and prevent the ingress and egress of all ships but such a blockade to be lawful had to be effective these general principles left undetermined two important matters what is an effective blockade
and what is contraband of war the task of answering these questions fell to great britain as mistress of the seas although the german submarines made it impossible for her battleships to maintain a continuous patrol of the waters in front of blockaded ports
she declared the blockade to be none the less effective because her navy was supreme as to contraband of war great britain put such a broad interpretation upon the term as to include nearly every important article of commerce
early in nineteen fifteen she declared even cargoes of grain and flour to be contraband defending the action on the ground that the german government had recently taken possession of all domestic stocks of corn wheat and flour
a new question arose in connection with american trade with the neutral countries surrounding germany great britain early began to intercept ships carrying oil gasoline and copper all war materials of prime importance
on the ground that they either were destined ultimately to germany or would release goods for sale to germans on november second nineteen fourteen the english government announced that the germans wore sowing mines in open waters and that therefore the whole of the north sea was a military zone
ships bound for denmark norway and sweden were ordered to come by the english channel for inspection and sailing directions in effect americans were now licensed by great britain to trade in certain commodities and in certain amounts with neutral countries
against these extraordinary measures the state department at washington lodged pointed objections saying this government is reluctantly forced to the conclusion that the present policy of his majesty's government toward neutral ships and cargoes
exceeds the manifest necessity of a belligerent and constitutes restrictions upon the rights of american citizens on the high seas which are not justified by the rules of international law or required under the principle of self preservation
germany begins the submarine campaign germany now announced that on and after february eighteenth nineteen fifteen the whole of the english channel and the waters around great britain would be deemed a war zone
the german decree added that as the british admiralty had ordered the use of neutral flags by english ships in time of distress neutral vessels would be in danger of destruction if found in the forbidden area
it was clear that germany intended to employ submarines to destroy shipping a new factor was thus introduced into naval warfare one not provided for in the accepted laws of war
a warship overhauling a merchant vessel could easily take its crew and passengers on board for safe keeping as prescribed by international law but a submarine ordinarily could do nothing of the sort of necessity the lives and the ships of neutrals as well as of belligerents
were put in mortal peril this amazing conduct germany justified on the ground that it was mere retaliation against great britain for her violations of international law the response of the united states to the ominous german order was swift and direct
on february tenth nineteen fifteen it warned germany that if her commanders destroyed american lives and ships in obedience to that decree the action would be very hard indeed to reconcile with the friendly relations happily subsisting between the two governments
the american note added that the german imperial government would be held to strict accountability and all necessary steps would be taken to safeguard american lives and american rights this was firm and clear language but the only response which it evoked from germany
was a suggestion that if great britain would allow food supplies to pass through the blockade the submarine campaign would be dropped violations of american rights meanwhile germany continued to ravage shipping on the high seas
on january twenty eighth a german raider sank the american ship william p frye in the south atlantic on march twenty eighth a british ship the falaba was sunk by a submarine and many on board including an american citizen
were killed and on april twenty eighth a german airplane dropped bombs on the american steamer cushing on the morning of may first nineteen fifteen americans were astounded to see in the newspapers an advertisement signed by the german imperial embassy
warning travelers of the dangers in the war zone and notifying them that any who ventured on british ships into that area did so at their own risk on that day the lusitania a british steamer
the ship was struck by two torpedoes and in a few minutes went down by the bow
including one hundred fourteen american men women and children a cry of horror ran through the country
the lusitania notes on may fourteenth the department of state at washington made public the first of three famous notes on the lusitania case it solemnly informed the german government that no warning that an unlawful and inhumane act will be committed
can possibly be accepted as an excuse or palliation for that act or as an abatement of the responsibility for its commission it called upon the german government to disavow the act make reparation as far as possible and take steps to prevent
the recurrence of anything so obviously subversive of the principles of warfare the note closed with a clear caution to germany that the government of the united states would not omit any word or any act necessary to the performance of its sacred duty
of maintaining the rights of the united states and its citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment the die was cast but germany in reply merely temporized in a second note made public on june eleventh
president wilson made it clear to germany that he meant what he said when he wrote that he would maintain the rights of american citizens finally after much discussion and shifting about the german ambassador on september first nineteen fifteen
it is a triumph not only of diplomacy but of reason of humanity of justice and of truth the secretary of state saw in it a recognition of the fundamental principles for which we have contended
on the republican side everything seemed to depend upon the action of the progressives if the breach created in nineteen twelve could be closed victory was possible if not defeat was certain
a promise of unity lay in the fact that the conventions of the republicans and progressives were held simultaneously in chicago the friends of roosevelt hoped that both parties would select him as their candidate but this hope was not realized
the republicans chose and the progressives accepted charles e hughes an associate justice of the federal supreme court who as governor of new york had won a national reputation by waging war on machine politicians
in the face of the clamor for expressions of sympathy with one or the other of the contending powers of europe the republicans chose a middle course declaring that they would uphold all american rights at home and abroad by land and by sea
this sentiment mister hughes echoed in his acceptance speech by some it was interpreted to mean a firmer policy in dealing with great britain by others a more vigorous handling of the submarine menace the democrats on their side
renominated president wilson by acclamation reviewed with pride the legislative achievements of the party and commended the splendid diplomatic victories of our great president who has preserved the vital interests of our government and its citizens and kept us out of war
in the election which ensued president wilson's popular vote exceeded that cast for mister hughes by more than half a million while his electoral vote stood two hundred seventy seven to two hundred fifty four
the result was regarded and not without warrant as a great personal triumph for the president he had received the largest vote yet cast for a presidential candidate the progressive party practically disappeared
and the socialists suffered a severe set back falling far behind the vote of nineteen twelve president wilson urges peace upon the warring nations apparently convinced that his pacific policies had been profoundly approved by his countrymen
president wilson soon after the election addressed peace notes to the european belligerents on december sixteenth the german emperor proposed to the allied powers that they enter into peace negotiations
to these notes the central powers replied that they were ready to meet their antagonists in a peace conference and allied powers answered by presenting certain conditions precedent to a satisfactory settlement on january twenty second nineteen seventeen
president wilson in an address before the senate declared it to be a duty of the united states to take part in the establishment of a stable peace on the basis of certain principles these were in short peace without victory
the right of nationalities to freedom and self government the independence of poland freedom of the seas the reduction of armaments and the abolition of entangling alliances the whole world was discussing the president's remarkable message
when it was dumbfounded to hear on january thirty first that the german ambassador at washington had announced the official renewal of ruthless submarine warfare the united states at war steps toward war
three days after the receipt of the news that the german government intended to return to its former submarine policy president wilson severed diplomatic relations with the german empire at the same time he explained to congress that he desired no conflict with germany
and would await an overt act before taking further steps to preserve american rights god grant he concluded that we may not be challenged to defend them by acts of willful injustice on the part of the government of germany yet the challenge came
the reply of congress on april sixth was a resolution passed with only a few dissenting votes declaring the existence of a state of war with germany austria hungary at once severed diplomatic relations with the united states but it was not until december seventh that congress
acting on the president's advice declared war also on that vassal of the german government american war aims in many addresses at the beginning and during the course of the war president wilson stated the purposes which actuated our government in taking up arms
he first made it clear that it was a war of self defense the military masters of germany he exclaimed denied us the right to be neutral proof of that lay on every hand agents of the german imperial government had destroyed american lives and american property on the high seas
in a very remarkable message read to congress on january eighth nineteen eighteen president wilson laid down his famous fourteen points summarizing the ideals for which we were fighting they included open treaties of peace openly arrived at
absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas the removal as far as possible of trade barriers among nations reduction of armaments adjustment of colonial claims in the interest of the populations concerned fair and friendly treatment of russia
the restoration of belgium righting the wrong done to france in eighteen seventy one in the matter of alsace lorraine adjustment of italian frontiers along the lines of nationality more liberty for the peoples of austria hungary the restoration of serbia and rumania
the readjustment of the turkish empire an independent poland and an association of nations to afford mutual guarantees to all states great and small
these were the ideals for which the american people were to pour out their blood and treasure the selective draft the world war became a war of nations the powers against which we were arrayed
had every able bodied man in service and all their resources human and material thrown into the scale for this reason president wilson summoned the whole people of the united states to make every sacrifice necessary for victory
congress by law decreed that the national army should be chosen from all male citizens and males not enemy aliens who had declared their intention of becoming citizens
by the first act of may eighteenth nineteen seventeen it fixed the age limits at twenty one to thirty one inclusive later in august nineteen eighteen it extended them to eighteen and forty five
from the men of the first group so enrolled were chosen by lot the soldiers for the world war who with the regular army and the national guard formed the american expeditionary force upholding the american cause on the battlefields of europe the whole nation said the president
must be a team in which each man shall play the part for which he is best fitted liberty loans and taxes in order that the military and naval forces should be stinted in no respect the nation was called upon to place its financial resources at the service of the government
some urged the conscription of wealth as well as men meaning the support of the war out of taxes upon great fortunes but more conservative counsels prevailed four great liberty loans were floated
all the agencies of modern publicity being employed to enlist popular interest the first loan had four and a half million subscribers the fourth more than twenty million combined with loans were heavy taxes
a progressive tax was laid upon incomes beginning with four per cent on incomes in the lower ranges and rising to sixty three per cent of that part of any income above two million dollars a progressive tax was levied upon inheritances
is the high water mark in the history of taxation never before in the annals of civilization has an attempt been made to take as much as two thirds of a man's income by taxation mobilizing material resources
no stone was left unturned to provide the arms munitions supplies and transportation required in the gigantic undertaking between the declaration of war and the armistice congress enacted law after law relative to food supplies
raw materials railways mines ships forests and industrial enterprises no power over the lives and property of citizens deemed necessary to the prosecution of the armed conflict was withheld from the government
the farmer's wheat the housewife's sugar coal at the mines labor in the factories ships at the wharves trade with friendly countries the railways banks stores private fortunes all were mobilized and laid under whatever obligations the government deemed imperative
the government assumed for the period of the war the operation of the railways under a presidential proclamation which was elaborated in march nineteen eighteen by act of congress
in the summer of nineteen eighteen the express telephone and telegraph business of the entire country passed under government control by war risk insurance acts allowances were made for the families of enlisted men compensation for injuries was provided
death benefits were instituted and a system of national insurance was established in the interest of the men in service never before in the history of the country had the government taken such a wise and humane view of its obligations to those who served on the field of battle or on the seas
the espionage and sedition acts by the espionage law of june fifteenth nineteen seventeen and the amending law known as the sedition act passed in may of the following year the government was given a drastic power over the expression of opinion
the first measure penalized those who conveyed information to a foreign country to be used to the injury of the united states those who made false statements designed to interfere with the military or naval forces of the united states
abusive language about the government or institutions of the country it authorized the dismissal of any officer of the government who committed disloyal acts or uttered disloyal language and empowered the postmaster general to close the mails
to persons violating the law this measure prepared by the department of justice encountered vigorous opposition in the senate where twenty four republicans and two democrats voted against it senator johnson of california denounced it as a law
to suppress the freedom of the press in the united states and to prevent any man no matter who he is
labor was given representation on the important boards and commissions dealing with industrial questions trade union standards were accepted by the government and generally applied in industry
the department of labor became one of the powerful war centers of the nation in a memorable address to the american federation of labor president wilson assured the trade unionists that labor conditions should not be made unduly onerous by the war
and such a peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice the failure of any nation to adopt humane conditions of labor is an obstacle in the way of other nations which desire to improve the conditions in their own countries
the american navy in the war as soon as congress declared war the fleet was mobilized american ports were thrown open to the warships of the allies
in their life and death contest with submarines special effort was made to stimulate the production of submarine chasers and scout cruisers to be sent to the danger zone convoys were provided to accompany the transports conveying soldiers to france
the battleships of the united states were always ready to do their full duty in such an event as things turned out the service of the american navy was limited mainly to helping in the campaign that wore down the submarine menace to allied shipping the war in france
owing to the peculiar character of the warfare in france it required a longer time for american military forces to get into action but there was no unnecessary delay soon after the declaration of war steps were taken to give military assistance to the allies
the regular army was enlarged and the troops of the national guard were brought into national service on june thirteenth general john j pershing chosen head of the american expeditionary forces reached paris and began preparations for the arrival of our troops
in june the vanguard of the army reached france a slow and steady stream followed as soon as the men enrolled under the draft were ready it became a flood during the period of the war the army was enlarged from about one hundred ninety thousand men
to three million six hundred sixty five thousand of whom more than two million were in france when the armistice was signed although american troops did not take part on a large scale until the last phase of the war in nineteen eighteen
several battalions of infantry were in the trenches by october nineteen seventeen and had their first severe encounter with the germans early in november in january nineteen eighteen they took over a part of the front line as an american sector
in september american troops with french aid wiped out the german salient at saint mihiel by this time general pershing was ready for the great american drive to the northeast in the argonne forest
while he also cooeperated with the british in the assault on the hindenburg line in the meuse argonne battle our soldiers encountered some of the most severe fighting of the war and pressed forward steadily against the most stubborn resistance from the enemy
on the sixth of november reported general pershing
twenty five miles from our line of departure the strategical goal which was our highest hope was gained we had cut the enemy's main line of communications and nothing but a surrender or an armistice could save his army from complete disaster
five days later the end came on the morning of november eleventh the order to cease firing went into effect the german army was in rapid retreat and demoralization had begun the kaiser had abdicated and fled into holland
and its swaying and jerking were pleasant and life like i fancy i was in one of those moods which under similar circumstances i sometimes experience still a semi narcotic excitement silent but delightful
an undulating landscape with a homely farmstead here and there and plenty of old english timber scattered grandly over it extended mistily to my right on the left the road is overtopped by masses of noble forest
the old park of brandon lies there more than four miles from end to end these masses of solemn and discoloured verdure the faint but splendid lights and long filmy shadows the slopes and hollows
my eyes wandered over them all with that strange sense of unreality and that mingling of sweet and bitter fancy with which we revisit a scene familiar in very remote and early childhood and which has haunted a long interval of maturity and absence
like a romantic reverie as i looked through the chaise windows every moment presented some group or outline or homely object for years forgotten and now with a strange surprise how vividly remembered and how affectionately greeted
still stood in memory at the door in his black shorts and gaiters with his hands in his pockets and a puckered smile on his hard ruddy countenance as i approached he smiled little on others i believe
but always kindly upon me this general liking for children and instinct of smiling on them is one source of the delightful illusions which make the remembrance of early days so like a dream of paradise and give us at starting such false notions of our value
there was a little fair haired child playing on the ground before the steps as i whirled by the old rector had long passed away the shorts gaiters and smile a phantom and nature who had gathered in the past was providing for the future
up church street i contrived a peep at the old gray tower where the chimes hung and as we turned the corner a glance at the brandon arms how very small and low that palatial hostelry of my earlier recollections had grown there were new faces at the door
and as i write i open my eyes and start and cry can it be twenty five and twenty aye by jove five and thirty years since then how my days have flown and i think when another such yesterday shall have arrived where shall i be
it is the first ten that emerge from nothing and commencing in a point it is during them that consciousness memory all the faculties grow and the experience of sense is so novel crowded and astounding
but i beg your pardon my journey was from london when i had reached my lodgings after my little excursion up the rhine upon my table there lay among the rest one letter
i could not in the least tell why it was a broad faced letter of bluish complexion and had made inquisition after me in the country had asked for me at queen's folkstone and vised by my cousin had presented itself at the friars in shropshire
the scars and furrows of disappointment and adventure it had not a good countenance somehow the original lines were not prepossessing the handwriting i knew as one sometimes knows a face without being able to remember who the plague it belongs to
but still with an unpleasant association about it i examined it carefully and laid it down unopened i went through half a dozen others and recurred to it and puzzled over its exterior again and again postponed what i fancied would prove a disagreeable discovery and this happened every now and again
i exclaimed a good deal relieved mark wylder yes master mark could not hurt me there was nothing about him to excite the least uneasiness on the contrary i believe he liked me as well as he was capable of liking anybody and it was now seven years since we had met
where for many days i groped and stumbled looking for light and was in a manner lost hearing strange sounds witnessing imperfectly strange sights and at last arriving at a dreadful chamber a sad sort of superstition steals over me
i had then been his working junior in the cause of wylder versus trustees of brandon minor dorcas brandon his own cousin there was a complicated cousinship among these brandons wylders and lakes
inextricable intermarriages which five years ago before i renounced the bar i had at my fingers ends but which had now relapsed into haze
a spice of the insane and the diabolical they were an ill conditioned race that is to say
every now and then there emerged a miscreant with a pretty evident vein of madness there was sir jonathan brandon for instance who ran his own nephew through the lungs in a duel fought in a paroxysm of cencian jealousy
and afterwards shot his coachman dead upon the box through his coach window and finally died in vienna whither he had absconded of a pike thrust received from a sentry in a brawl the wylders had not much to boast of even in contrast with that wicked line
they had produced their madmen and villains too and there had been frequent intermarriages not very often happy
and even worse doings the wylders of brandon appear very early in history and the wylder arms with their legend resurgam stands in bold relief over the great door of brandon hall so there were wylders of brandon and brandons of brandon
in one generation a wylder ill using his wife and hating his children would cut them all off and send the estate bounding back again to the brandons
until the old brandon type reappeared
the estates were back again with the wylders a statement of title is usually a dry affair but that of the dynasty of brandon hall was a truculent romance their very wills were spiced with the devilment of the testators and abounded in insinuations and even language which were scandalous
and committed waste beside in timber he had no right to in life as i am told but that don't signify much only the house will cost me a pretty penny to get it into order and furnish the rental is five thousand a year and some hundreds and the rents can be got up a bit so larkin tells me
i'm grown brown and great whiskers i met poor dominick what an ass that chap is but he did not know me till i introduced myself so i must be a good deal changed our ship was at malta when i got the letter i was sick of the service and no wonder a lieutenant
and there likely to stick all my days six months last year on the african coast watching slavers think of that
advice and that sort of thing i do not think he is a year older than i but takes airs because he's a trustee but i only laugh at trifles that would have riled me once
and drew it uncommon mild and he has been useful to me and i think matters are pretty well arranged to disappoint the kind intention of good uncle wylder the brute he hated my father but that was no reason to persecute me and i but an infant almost when he died
well you know he left brandon with some charges to my cousin dorcas she is a superbly fine girl our ship was at naples when she was there two years ago and i saw a good deal of her of course it was not to be thought of then
you see the old brute meant to leave her a life estate but it does not amount to that though it won't benefit me for he settled that when i die it shall go to his right heirs that will be to my son if i ever have one so miss dorcas must pack and turn out whenever i die
that is if i slip my cable first larkin told me this and i took an opinion and found it is so
as well as me would be we should marry she is a wide awake young lady and nothing the worse for that i'm a bit that way myself and so very little courtship has sufficed she is a splendid beauty and when you see her you'll say any fellow might be proud of such a bride
and so i am and now dear charlie you have it all it will take place somewhere about the twenty fourth of next month and you must come down by the first if you can don't disappoint i want you for best man maybe
and besides i would like to talk to you about some things they want me to do in the settlements and you were always a long headed fellow so pray don't refuse dear charlie ever most sincerely your old friend
until after the marriage and then you can have a room at the hall and capital shooting when we return
i can't say that wylder was an old friend but he was certainly one of the oldest and most intimate acquaintances i had we had been for nearly three years at school together and when his ship came to england met frequently
and twice when he was on leave we had been for months together under the same roof and had for some years kept up a regular correspondence which first grew desultory and finally as manhood supervened died out the plain truth is i did not very much like him
then there was that beautiful apathetic dorcas brandon where is the laggard so dull as to experience no pleasing flutter at his heart in anticipation of meeting a perfect beauty in a country house
i was romantic like every other youngish fellow who is not a premature curmudgeon
the young lady still was fancy free not a bit in love
about four days after the receipt of the despatches to which the conference of captain lake and the attorney referred there came a letter from the same prolific correspondent dated twentieth march from genoa which altogether puzzled mister larkin
and get it looked at first there was a great deal more but these were the passages which perplexed larkin he unlocked the iron safe and took out the sheaf of wylder's letters and conned the last one over very carefully
and what is this job of martin's is it martin of the china kilns or martin of the bank that too plainly refers to a former letter not a word of the sort this is very odd indeed larkin's finger tips descended over his eyebrow
and scratched in a miniature way there for a few seconds and then his large long hand descended further to his chin and his under lip was as usual in deep thought fondled and pinched between his finger and thumb there has plainly been a letter lost manifestly
i never knew anything wrong in this gylingden office driver has been always correct but it is hard to know any man for certain in this world i don't think the captain would venture anything so awfully hazardous i really can't suspect so monstrous a thing
before he replaced it in its iron drawer it is not a thing to be passed over murmured the attorney who had come to a decision as to the first step to be taken and he thought with a qualm of the effect of one of wylder's confidential notes
getting into captain lake's hands while he was buttoning his walking boots with his foot on the chair before the fire a tap at his study door surprised him a hurried glance on the table satisfying him that no secret paper or despatch lay there he called come in
and mister larcom the grave butler of brandon wearing outside his portly person a black garment then known as a zephyr a white choker and black trousers and well polished but rather splay shoes
entered the room with a solemn and gentlemanlike reverence oh mister larcom a message or business said mister larkin urbanely not a message sir only an enquiry about them few shares
answered mister larcom with another serene reverence and remaining standing hat in hand at the door oh yes and how do you do mister larcom quite well i trust yes about the naunton junction well i'm happy to tell you
but pray take a chair that i have succeeded and the directors have allotted you five shares
and he pointed to the times mister larcom's fat face smiled in spite of his endeavour to keep it under it was part of his business to look always grave and he coughed and recovered his gravity i'm very thankful sir said mister larcom very
but do sit down mister larcom pray do said the attorney who was very gracious to larcom you'll get the scrip you know on executing but the shares are allotted they sent the notice for you here and and how are the family at brandon all well i trust
mister larcom blew his nose all sir well and
i can't compete with the brandon sherry mister larcom wonderful fine wine that but still i'm told this is not a bad wine notwithstanding larcom received it with grave gratitude and sipped it and spoke respectfully of it and
and any news in that quarter of mister mark wylder any any surmise i you know i'm interested for all parties well sir of mister wylder
yes you mentioned something of the kind and your own impression that captain lake which i trust may turn out to be so knows where mister mark wylder is at present staying
i much misdoubt sir it won't turn out to be no good story for no one said mister larcom in a low and sad tone and with a long shake of his head no good story hey how do you mean larcom well sir
i know you won't mention me mister larkin certainly not go on
though me coming into the room just so and what do you found your opinion about mister mark wylder on well sir i could not hear more than a word now and a sentince again and pickin what meaning i could out of what miss lake said and the capting could not deny
i do suspeck sir most serious as how they have put mister mark wylder into a mad house and that's how i think it's gone with him an you'll never see him out again if the capting has his will do you mean to say
you actually think he's shut up in a madhouse at this moment demanded the attorney his little pink eyes opened quite round and his lank cheeks and tall forehead flushed at the rush of wild ideas that whirred round him like a covey of birds at the startling suggestion
the butler nodded gloomily larkin continued to stare on him in silence with his round eyes for some seconds after in a mad house pooh pooh incredible pooh impossible quite impossible
i can't say sir as i remember but i rayther think not i only know for certain i took it so and i do believe as how mister mark wylder is confined in a mad house and the captain knows all about it and won't do nothing to get him out
very odd very strange but it is only from the general tenor of what passed by a sort of guess work you have arrived at that conclusion larcom assented well mister larcom
in fact a very confidential one alike in relation to mister wylder and to the family of brandon hall is of course sacred and anything that comes from you mister larcom is never heard in connection with your name beyond these walls
he stopped with his fingertips to his eyebrow and thought more then he took another turn and stopped again and threw back his head and gazed for a while on the ceiling and then he stood for a time at the window with his lip between his finger and thumb
no it was a mistake it could not be it was mark wylder's penmanship he could swear to it there was no trace of madness in his letters nor of restraint it was not possible even that he was wandering from place to place under the coercion of a couple of keepers
no wylder was an energetic and somewhat violent person with high animal courage and would be sure to blow up and break through any such machination no no
with mark wylder it was quite out of the question altogether visionary and impracticable persons like larcom do make such absurd blunders and so misapprehend the conversation of educated people nothwithstanding all which
there remained in his mind an image of mark wylder in the straw and darkness of a solitary continental mad house squalid neglected and becoming gradually that which he was said to be
and with his teeth buried in his own arm quite impossible mark wylder was the last man in the world to submit to physical coercion the idea besides could not be reconciled with the facts of the case it was all a blundering chimera
mister larkin walked down direct to gylingden and paid a rather awful visit to mister driver of the post office a foreign letter addressed to him had most positively been lost he had called to mention the circumstance lest mister driver should be taken by surprise by official investigation
i was beginning to feel so solitary he placed himself beside miss lake i've had such a long walk across the park how do you do lake when did you come and so on lake answering and looking wonderfully as usual
i think lord chelford perceived there was something amiss between the young people for his eye rested on rachel with a momentary look of enquiry unconscious no doubt and quickly averted and he went on chatting pleasantly
but though he never hinted at an unfavourable estimate of the captain his intimacies with him were a little reserved and i think i have seen him even when he smiled look the least little bit in the world uncomfortable as if he did not quite enter into the captain's pleasantries
they had not walked together very far when stanley recollected that he must take his leave and walk back to gylingden and so the young lady and lord chelford were left to pursue their way towards redman's farm together
it would have been a more unaccountable proceeding on the part of stanley lake and a more romantic situation if rachel and his lordship had not had before two or three little accidental rambles together in the grounds and gardens of brandon
the shock of her brief interview with her brother over reflection assured her knowing all she did that stanley's wooing would prosper and so this cause of quarrel had really nothing in it
no nothing but a display of his temper and morals not very astonishing after all and like an ugly picture or a dreadful dream in no way to affect her after life except as an odious remembrance therefore little by little
it was rather a marked thing as lean missus loyd of gylingden who had two thin spinsters with pink noses under her wing remarked this long walk of lord chelford and miss lake in the park and she enjoined upon her girls the propriety
she preferred the old fashion and thought the men did also and was sure too that young ladies lost nothing by a little reserve and modesty now something of this no doubt passed in the minds of lord chelford and his pretty companion but what was to be done
that perverse and utterly selfish brother stanley lake had chosen to take his leave lord chelford could not desert the young lady and would it have been a very nice delicacy in miss lake to make her courtesy in the middle of the park and protest against pursuing their walk together any further
lord chelford was a lively and agreeable companion but there was something unusually gentle almost resembling tenderness in his manner she was so different from her gay fiery self in this walk so gentle so subdued
and he was more interested by her perhaps than he had ever been before the sun just touched the verge of the wooded uplands as the young people began to descend the slope of redman's dell how very short
lord chelford paused with a smile at these words i was just going to say how short the days have grown as if it had all happened without notice and contrary to the almanac but really the sun sets cruelly early this evening and i am
so very sorry our little walk is so soon to end there was not much in this little speech but it was spoken in a low sweet voice and rachel looked down on the ferns before her feet as they walked on side by side not with a smile but with a blush
and that beautiful look of gratification so becoming and indescribable happy that moment that enchanted moment of oblivion and illusion but the fitful evening breeze came up through redman's dell with a gentle sweep over the autumnal foliage
sudden as a sigh and cold in her ear it sounded like a whisper or a shudder and she lifted up her eyes and saw the darkening dell before her and with a pang the dreadful sense of reality returned
and in a few minutes more they parted at the little wicket of redman's farm they shook hands he had a few pleasant lingering words to say
and then she walked up the little gravel walk hardly a dozen steps and disappeared within the door of redman's farm without turning another parting look on lord chelford who remained at the little paling expecting one i think to lift his hat and say one more parting word
she turned into the little drawing room at the left and herself unseen did take that last look and saw him go up the road again towards brandon the shadows and mists of redman's dell anticipated night and it was already deep twilight there
on the table there lay a letter which margery had brought from the post office so rachel lighted her candles and read it with very little interest for it concerned a world towards which she had few yearnings there was just one sentence which startled her attention it said
much too dark for my taste but they say clever and not another word was there on this subject lady constance arranged i suppose by lady chelford no great dot
and an unamiable family an odious family nothing to recommend her but her rank so ruminated rachel lake as she looked out on her shadowy garden and tapped a little feverish tattoo with her finger on the window pane
can i have mistaken the name but no nothing could be more perfectly distinct than chelford traced in her fair correspondent's very legible hand he treats the young lady very coolly thought rachel
forgetting perhaps that his special relations to dorcas brandon had compelled his stay in that part of the world mingled with this criticism was a feeling quite unavowed even to herself a sore feeling that lord chelford had been
and this she never admitted to herself before more particular no not exactly that but more something or other not exactly expressible in words in his approaches to her than was consistent with his situation
with the same dubious smile looking down upon the ground and shaking her head yes i do really think you had begun to like lord chelford only begun the least little insidious
rachel rachel girl what a fool you were near becoming she looked like her old pleasant self during this little speech arch and fresh and still smiling
she looked up and sighed and then her dark look returned and she said dismally what utter madness and leaned for a while with her fingers upon the window sash and when she turned to old tamar
who brought in her tiny tea equipage it seemed as if the shadow of the dell into which she had been vacantly gazing still rested on her face not here tamar i'll drink tea in my room and you must bring your tea cup too and we'll take it together
i am i think i am a little nervous darling and you won't leave me so they sat down together in her chamber it was a cheery little bed room when the shutters were closed and the fire burning brightly in the grate
though the words you read are sad and awful they are also sweet like funeral music a long way off and they tranquillise me without making me better as the harping of david did the troubled and forsaken king saul
so the old nurse mounted her spectacles glad of the invitation and began to read her reading was very slow and had other faults too being in that sing song style to which some people inexplicably like to read holy writ
but you must first tell me that story you used to tell me long ago of lady ringdove that lived in epping forest to whom the ghost came and told something she was never to reveal and who slowly died of the secret growing all the time more and more like the spectre
and besought the priest when she was dying that he would have her laid in the abbey vault with her mouth open and her eyes and ears sealed in token that her term of slavery was over that her lips might now be open
and that her eyes were to see no more the dreadful sight nor her ears to hear the frightful words that used to scare them in her life time and then you remember
whenever afterwards they opened the door of the vault the wind entering in made such moanings in her hollow mouth and declared things so horrible that they built up the door of the vault and entered it no more let me have the entire story
just as you used to tell it so old tamar who knew it was no use disputing a fancy of her young mistress although on sunday night she would have preferred other talk recounted her old tale of wonder yes it is true
a true allegory i mean tamar death will close the eyes and ears against the sights and sounds of earth but even the tomb secures no secrecy the dead themselves declare their dreadful secrets open mouthed to the winds
oh tamar turn over the pages and try to find some part which says where safety and peace may be found at any price for sometimes i think i am
notably in the city of mecca where there also remained a temple built in the time of the older religion that the arabs still held to be sacred as the arabian tribes were very different from each other in many ways
it was only natural that their religion should grow different also some men worshipped the fire and some worshipped the stars some became jews or christians
and many wise men preached and labored among them in vain to bring back the old religion of their fathers such was the state of affairs when a child was born in the city of mecca who was destined to become one of the greatest prophets of the world
and draw all the arabs into a single religion that would spread as far as spain and india this child was named mohammed and he was born five hundred and seventy years after the death of christ
his father abdallah died soon after he was born and mohammed's mother according to custom gave the baby into the charge of a nurse who might rear him in the free open air of the desert where arabs believed that children became strong and vigorous
mohammed was strong in many ways but had one great physical failing he was often seized with fits of a kind that nowadays would be ascribed to the disease called epilepsy in those days however these fits were thought to be the work of devils
who entered into and possessed the body when he was six years old his mother died and he was brought up by his grandfather abd al muttalib a poor man but one who was greatly respected by everybody that knew him
abd al muttalib put him to work when he grew old enough he watched the flocks of the people of mecca and gained a meager livelihood by doing this he had no schooling but once or twice had the opportunity to travel
where he saw people different from those of mecca and learned of many different forms of religion when mohammed was twenty five years old there befell a change in his fortunes in this year he entered the service of a rich widow whose name was kadijah
and went with her to the great fairs and bazaars on which journeys perhaps he acted as her camel driver kadijah soon fell in love with the young man of bright piercing eyes and thoughtful demeanor
and one day she drew mohammed aside and told him that she loved him offering to become his wife and to give him her hand in marriage by marrying kadijah mohammed became rich he managed his wife's affairs at mecca with great success
and became greatly respected there as a man of business he and kadijah had six children four girls and two boys but both of the boys died in their infancy but mohammed was soon marked as being different from other men
he spent a great deal of his time in religious contemplation and would go off by himself into the solitude of the mountains to think and ponder without interruption when he was forty years old he went one day to a mountain called hira which was not far from mecca
and here a trance came upon him and in the night he believed that he saw the angel gabriel
and in his hand he held a scroll of fire from which he commanded mohammed to read now mohammed knew not how to read or write but to his amazement he found that the words on the scroll were quite plain to him
and he read a wonderful message that proclaimed the glory and the greatness of god whom he called allah mohammed was frightened by what he had seen he thought that perhaps the form of the angel had been taken by some evil spirit
but at last he had another vision in which gabriel came to him again and called upon him to arise and preach the word of allah throughout the land and bring back to the arabs the faith of their fathers and the worship of a single god
and then for the first time mohammed believed his visions and thought himself god's prophet and he called the new faith that he was to teach the faith of islam which means righteousness
mohammed went back to kadijah and told her what he had seen he said he was chosen by allah to spread his faith over the land and he himself was a prophet greater than any other in the world
she believed that he spoke the truth and looked upon him as some one who through god's means had become more than a man
but contented himself with teaching the word of allah to his nearest relatives most of them believed in him but one of his uncles called him a fool and would have nothing to do with the new religion after four years of teaching mohammed had only converted to the new belief forty people
who were mostly men of low degree or slaves he then thought that allah called upon him to go forth publicly and preach his new belief to the entire world and soon afterward mohammed could have been seen in the market place preaching the word of allah
the faith that mohammed taught was very much like the faith that we ourselves believe in that is it was much more like the religion of christ than the worship of idols or the belief of the romans and greeks in gods and goddesses or the worship of fire or the stars
mohammed preached that there was one god only and that this god was greater than all things if you died and had led a righteous life you went to paradise if you had been wicked you went to the lower regions to undergo eternal punishment
and there were a great many things in mohammed's religion that any one would do well to follow for he preached that god was merciful and his people on earth must be merciful also that cleanliness was next to godliness
and that all his followers must wash themselves before they prayed in many ways however the mohammedan faith was not so pure as the christian faith for the heaven that mohammed believed in was a place of feasting and merriment but little else
and mohammed also believed that it was right to teach his religion by the sword in this however mohammed's followers became more zealous than he had ever thought of being
and we must remember also that christians of those days did not hesitate to use the sword themselves to spread the faith mohammed set about preparing a great book which was to be the bible of those who believed in his religion this book
was called the koran because mohammed could not write and still produced this marvelous book which contained the word of allah he claimed that he was divinely inspired it is thought however
that he was helped in preparing the koran by one of his disciples who could read and write when mohammed prepared the koran there was no paper and writing materials were far removed from the arabs who made little use of them
so mohammed was compelled as we are told to write the koran on any material that came to hand he wrote it on pieces of stone and strips of leather and on dried palm leaves and some of the verses were even written on the bleached shoulder blades of sheep
anything that could hold a mark was used by him as writing material and the verses were later collected and made into a book by his disciples when mohammed commenced to preach before the people the citizens of mecca looked on him as a madman
they did not molest him however because they held him to be a worthless dreamer who could do no harm to anybody but as weeks went by and the number of those who became converted to his faith grew larger
they were too cowardly to molest mohammed because he was a rich man and was protected by his uncle who had much influence among them but they vented their spite on the humbler people who followed him and who were unable to protect themselves
so it came to pass that the poor men who were mohammedans particularly the slaves were made to suffer dreadful tortures
at last however the people of mecca became bold enough to go to mohammed's uncle and tell him that mohammed must cease preaching against their idols mohammed however indignantly refused and went on preaching and his uncle continued to protect him
at last mohammed's enemies became so afraid of the success he was gaining that they decided they must have his life at all costs and a plot was hatched against him he was saved by being warned of this and hidden away
for his faithful wife kadijah whom he had loved deeply and who was the first person to believe in him as a prophet died and left him inconsolable his uncle also died and mohammed lost his protection
in which he thought that he was preaching to certain spirits whose bodies were made of fire and who were known to the meccans as djinns and these spirits listened attentively to what mohammed said and did him reverence
he and his followers fled to yathrib and were made welcome this flight was called the hegira and the date of it is very important to the mohammedans for their calendar dates from it and for them is practically the beginning of time
in yathrib the faith of mohammed spread quickly and he received attention and reverence wherever he went and when he had a large following he desired to put up a house of prayer or a temple which he called a mosque
she was so unhappy that she felt as if the walls would stifle her so she wandered out into the garden and threw herself down on a grassy bank under the shade of a lime tree
the queen looked at her doubtfully and answered you do not seem as if you had been very lucky yourself or to have much good fortune to spare for anyone else under rough bark lies smooth wood and sweet kernel
replied the old woman let me see your hand that i may read the future the queen held out her hand and the old woman examined its lines closely then she said
your heart is heavy with two sorrows one old and one new the new sorrow is for your husband who is fighting far away from you but believe me he is well and will soon bring you joyful news
but your other sorrow is much older than this your happiness is spoilt because you have no children at these words the queen became scarlet and tried to draw away her hand but the old woman said
but rejoice that it is permitted to me to show you a way to lessen your grief you must however promise to do exactly what i tell you if any good is to come of it oh i will obey you exactly cried the queen
and if you can help me you shall have in return anything you ask for the old woman stood thinking for a little then she drew something from the folds of her dress and undoing a number of wrappings
brought out a tiny basket made of birch bark she held it out to the queen saying in the basket you will find a bird's egg this you must be careful to keep in a warm place for three months when it will turn into a doll
lay the doll in a basket lined with soft wool and leave it alone for it will not need any food and by and by you will find it has grown to be the size of a baby then you will have a baby of your own
and you must put it by the side of the other child and bring your husband to see his son and daughter the boy you will bring up yourself but you must entrust the little girl to a nurse
you will invite me to be godmother to the princess and this is how you must send the invitation hidden in the cradle you will find a goose's wing throw this out of the window and i will be with you directly
the queen was about to reply but the old woman was already limping away and before she had gone two steps she had turned into a young girl who moved so quickly that she seemed rather to fly than to walk
the queen watching this transformation could hardly believe her eyes and would have taken it all for a dream had it not been for the basket which she held in her hand
feeling a different being from the poor sad woman who had wandered into the garden so short a time before she hastened to her room and felt carefully in the basket for the egg there it was a tiny thing of soft blue with little green spots
and she took it out and kept it in her bosom which was the warmest place she could think of a fortnight after the old woman had paid her visit the king came home having conquered his enemies at this proof that the old woman had spoken truth
the queen's heart bounded for she now had fresh hopes that the rest of the prophecy might be fulfilled she cherished the basket and the egg as her chiefest treasures and had a golden case made for the basket
so that when the time came to lay the egg in it it might not risk any harm three months passed and as the old woman had bidden her the queen took the egg from her bosom and laid it snugly amidst the warm woollen folds
the next morning she went to look at it and the first thing she saw was the broken eggshell and a little doll lying among the pieces then she felt happy at last and leaving the doll in peace to grow waited as she had been told
for a baby of her own to lay beside it in course of time this came also and the queen took the little girl out of the basket and placed it with her son in a golden cradle which glittered with precious stones next she sent for the king
who nearly went mad with joy at the sight of the children soon there came a day when the whole court was ordered to be present at the christening of the royal babies and when all was ready the queen softly opened the window a little
and let the goose wing fly out the guests were coming thick and fast when suddenly there drove up a splendid coach drawn by six cream coloured horses and out of it stepped a young lady dressed in garments that shone like the sun
her face could not be seen for a veil covered her head but as she came up to the place where the queen was standing with the babies she drew the veil aside and everyone was dazzled with her beauty
she took the little girl in her arms and holding it up before the assembled company announced that henceforward it would be known by the name of dotterine a name which no one understood but the queen
who knew that the baby had come from the yolk of an egg the boy was called willem after the feast was over and the guests were going away the godmother laid the baby in the cradle and said to the queen whenever the baby goes to sleep
and leave the eggshells in it as long as you do that no evil can come to her so guard this treasure as the apple of your eye and teach your daughter to do so likewise then kissing the baby three times she mounted her coach and drove away
the children throve well and dotterine's nurse loved her as if she were the baby's real mother every day the little girl seemed to grow prettier and people used to say she would soon be as beautiful as her godmother but no one knew except the nurse
that at night when the child slept a strange and lovely lady bent over her at length she told the queen what she had seen but they determined to keep it as a secret between themselves the twins were by this time nearly two years old
when the queen was taken suddenly ill all the best doctors in the country were sent for but it was no use for there is no cure for death the queen knew she was dying and sent for dotterine and her nurse who had now become her lady in waiting
to her as her most faithful servant she gave the lucky basket in charge and besought her to treasure it carefully when my daughter said the queen is ten years old you are to hand it over to her but warn her solemnly
that her whole future happiness depends on the way she guards it about my son i have no fears he is the heir of the kingdom and his father will look after him the lady in waiting promised to carry out the queen's directions
and above all to keep the affair a secret and that same morning the queen died after some years the king married again but he did not love his second wife as he had done his first and had only married her for reasons of ambition
she hated her step children and the king seeing this kept them out of the way under the care of dotterine's old nurse but if they ever strayed across the path of the queen she would kick them out of her sight like dogs
on dotterine's tenth birthday her nurse handed her over the cradle and repeated to her her mother's dying words but the child was too young to understand the value of such a gift and at first thought little about it two more years slipped by
when one day during the king's absence the stepmother found dotterine sitting under a lime tree she fell as usual into a passion and beat the child so badly that dotterine went staggering to her own room her nurse was not there
but suddenly as she stood weeping her eyes fell upon the golden case in which lay the precious basket she thought it might contain something to amuse her and looked eagerly inside
rubbish said the child to herself and turning threw the wing out of the open window in a moment a beautiful lady stood beside her do not be afraid said the lady stroking dotterine's head
i am your godmother and have come to pay you a visit your red eyes tell me that you are unhappy i know that your stepmother is very unkind to you but be brave and patient and better days will come
or to lose the eggshells that are in it make a silken case for the little basket and hide it away in your dress night and day and you will be safe from your stepmother and anyone that tries to harm you but
if you should happen to find yourself in any difficulty and cannot tell what to do
and in a moment i will come to help you
they had so much to say to each other that the sun was already setting when the godmother had ended all the good advice she wished to give the child
said she for you must have some supper i cannot let you go hungry to bed then bending over the basket she whispered some magic words and instantly a table covered with fruits and cakes stood on the ground before them
when they had finished eating the godmother led the child back and on the way taught her the words she must say to the basket when she wanted it to give her something in a few years more dotterine was a grown up young lady
it lasted so long that food began to fail and even in the palace there was not enough to eat so one morning dotterine who had had neither supper nor breakfast and was feeling very hungry let her wing fly away
she was so weak and miserable that directly her godmother appeared she burst into tears and could not speak for some time do not cry so dear child said the godmother i will carry you away from all this
but the others i must leave to take their chance then bidding dotterine follow her she passed through the gates of the town and through the army outside and nobody stopped them or seemed to see them the next day the town surrendered
and the king and all his courtiers were taken prisoners but in the confusion his son managed to make his escape the queen had already met her death from a spear carelessly thrown as soon as dotterine and her godmother were clear of the enemy
dotterine took off her own clothes and put on those of a peasant and in order to disguise her better her godmother changed her face completely when better times come her protectress said cheerfully
and say you would like to have your own face once more and it will be all right in a moment but you will have to endure a little longer yet then warning her once more to take care of the basket the lady bade the girl farewell
for many days dotterine wandered from one place to another without finding shelter and though the food which she got from the basket prevented her from starving she was glad enough to take service in a peasant's house till brighter days dawned
at first the work she had to do seemed very difficult but either she was wonderfully quick in learning or else the basket may have secretly helped her anyhow
at the end of three days she could do everything as well as if she had cleaned pots and swept rooms all her life one morning dotterine was busy scouring a wooden tub when a noble lady happened to pass through the village
and she stopped and called the girl to come and speak to her
very much replied dotterine if my present mistress will allow me oh i will settle that answered the lady and so she did and the same day they set out for the lady's house dotterine sitting beside the coachman
six months went by and then came the joyful news that the king's son had collected an army and had defeated the usurper who had taken his father's place but at the same moment dotterine learned that the old king had died in captivity
the girl wept bitterly for his loss but in secrecy as she had told her mistress nothing about her past life at the end of a year of mourning the young king let it be known that he intended to marry
and commanded all the maidens in the kingdom to come to a feast so that he might choose a wife from among them for weeks all the mothers and all the daughters in the land were busy preparing beautiful dresses and trying new ways of putting up their hair
and the three lovely daughters of dotterine's mistress were as much excited as the rest the girl was clever with her fingers and was occupied all day with getting ready their smart clothes but at night
when she went to bed she always dreamed that her godmother bent over her and said dress your young ladies for the feast and when they have started follow them yourself nobody will be so fine as you when the great day came
dotterine could hardly contain herself and when she had dressed her young mistresses and seen them depart with their mother she flung herself on her bed and burst into tears
look in your basket and you will find in it
dotterine did not want to be told twice up she jumped seized her basket and repeated the magic words and behold there lay a dress on the bed shining as a star she put it on with fingers that trembled with joy
and looking in the glass was struck dumb at her own beauty she went downstairs and in front of the door stood a fine carriage into which she stepped and was driven away like the wind the king's palace was a long way off
yet it seemed only a few minutes before dotterine drew up at the great gates she was just going to alight when she suddenly remembered she had left her basket behind her what was she to do go back and fetch it lest some ill fortune should befall her
or enter the palace and trust to chance that nothing evil would happen but before she could decide a little swallow flew up with the basket in its beak and the girl was happy again the feast was already at its height
and the hall was brilliant with youth and beauty when the door was flung wide and dotterine entered making all the other maidens look pale and dim beside her their hopes faded as they gazed but their mothers whispered together saying
surely this is our lost princess the young king did not know her again but he never left her side nor took his eyes from her
and at midnight a strange thing happened a thick cloud suddenly filled the hall so that for a moment all was dark then the mist suddenly grew bright
this she said turning to the king is the girl whom you have always believed to be your sister and who vanished during the siege she is not your sister at all but the daughter of the king of a neighbouring country
who was given to your mother to bring up to save her from the hands of a wizard then she vanished and was never seen again nor the wonder working basket either
conversation my dear daughter to give and receive pleasure in those pleasant assemblages and meetings of acquaintances and friends known by the general name of society
is one of the worthy minor aims of life it is one of the marks of an advancing state of intelligence and culture when an assemblage of gentlemen and ladies can pass delightful hours in the mere interchange of thought in conversation
and while games and other amusements may serve for a temporary variety always excepting games known as kissing games which should be promptly tabooed and denounced
how shall a young girl fit herself to enjoy and to afford enjoyment in general society certainly the first requisites are intelligence
a good knowledge of standard literature a general knowledge of the more important events that are taking place in the world and such a knowledge of the best current literature
as may be obtained from the regular reading of one or two of the standard monthly magazines and here it may help you if i particularize a little in regard to a knowledge of important events of the day
and also of general and current literature of course the main source of knowledge of the more important events that are going on in the world is the daily or weekly newspaper and yet
there is scarcely any reading so utterly demoralizing to good mental habits as the ordinary daily paper more than three fourths of the matter printed in the great city dailies is not only of no use to anyone
but it is a positive damage to habits of mental application to read it it is a waste of time even to undertake to sift the important from the unimportant
the most that any earnest person should attempt to do with a daily paper is to glance over the headlines which give the gist of the news and then to read such editorial comments
yet should every week carefully read a digest of news prepared for a good weekly paper one would be thoroughly furnished with all necessary knowledge of contemporaneous events and the time thus saved from daily papers
could be profitably employed in other reading the field of literature is now so vast that no one can hope to be well acquainted with more than a small portion of it yet every well informed young person
even though one should never read their works you may remember how in the recently finished novel of the rise of silas lapham the novelist with a few sentences
shows how ridiculous a really beautiful and amiable girl with a high school education may make herself in conversation by her lack of knowledge of standard literature she was telling a young gentleman where the book shelves were to be
in the splendid new house being built by her father and suggesting that the shelves would look nice if the books had nice bindings of course i presume said irene thoughtfully we shall have to have gibbon
if you want to read him said corey with a laugh of sympathy for an imaginable joke we had a good deal about him in school i believe we had one of his books mine's lost but pen will remember
that's what gibbon was is it gibbon or gibbons the young man decided the point with apparently superfluous delicacy gibbon i think there used to be so many of them said irene gaily
i used to get them mixed up with each other and i couldn't tell them from the poets should you want to have poetry yes i suppose some edition of the english poets we don't any of us like poetry
corey owned but of course there was a time when tennyson was a great deal more to me than he is now
well not all five or six of the best you want longfellow and bryant and whittier and emerson and lowell
weren't you perfectly astonished when you found out how many other plays there were of his i always thought there was nothing but hamlet and romeo and juliet and macbeth
and king lear and that one that robson and crane have oh yes comedy of errors so you see how ridiculous this young girl by the betrayal of such ignorance
made herself in conversation with a cultured young gentleman whose good opinion she was most anxious to win and yet to talk too much about books is not well it often marks the pedantic and egotistic character
it is safe to say that unless one happens to meet a very congenial mind among conversers in general society to introduce the subject of books is liable to be misconstrued
it is not very long since another popular modern novelist held up to scorn and ridicule the young woman whose particular ambition seemed to be to let society know what an immense number of books she had been reading
nevertheless one must have a good groundwork of knowledge of books in order to avoid mistakes such as poor irene made in talking with young corey
good sense intelligence and a genuine interest in her companions and the world around her is observing and can speak grammatically without hesitating knows the difference between you and i
and you and me which i am sorry to say a great many young girls of my acquaintance do not for i constantly hear them saying he brought you and i a bouquet or you and me are invited to tea this evening
she can almost certainly be a pleasant and entertaining converser if she avoids certain things as for instance one she must avoid talking about herself her exploits
her acquirements her entertainments
especially should she avoid seeking to make an impression by frequent mention of advantageous friends or circumstances the greatest observer and commentator upon manners that ever wrote
was mister emerson in one of his essays he says you shall not enumerate your brilliant acquaintances nor tell me by their titles what books you have read
two she must avoid a loud tone of voice and also avoid laughing too much and too easily to laugh aloud is a dangerous thing
unless all noise and harshness have been cultivated out of the voice as ought to be done in every good school the culture of the voice is one of the most important elements in making a pleasant converser
american girls and women are accused by cultivated foreigners of having loud harsh strident voices and there is too much truth in the accusation
nor is there any excuse for unpleasant harsh rough nasal tones of voice in these days when in every good school instruction is given in the management of the voice for reading and conversation
the cause of harshness and loudness is often mere carelessness on the part of young people but talking in too loud a tone is scarcely less unpleasant to the listeners
than the use of too low a tone which is generally an affectation three she must avoid frequent attempts at wit avoid punning
which is the cheapest possible form of wit and avoid sarcasm the talent for being sarcastic is a most dangerous one no one ever knew a sarcastic woman who could keep friends
the temptation to be bright and interesting and to attract attention by the use of sarcasm is very strong for nearly all will be interested in it and enjoy it for a little
that about courtship and marriage much harm much blunting of fine sensibilities much destruction of that delicate modesty which is the priceless dower of young girlhood
comes of such jesting and joking where it is permitted without restraint or reproof a young girl may not be called upon to reprove it but she certainly can shun
that to be a good converser you must be a good listener very often people acquire a pleasant reputation and popularity in society by the exercise of this talent alone
that of listening with attention and interest to what other people say be especially careful to avoid interrupting one who is speaking many a fine and noble thought
many an interesting discussion is broken off and lost by the irrelevant interruption of some thoughtless person one reason why the art of conversation has so degenerated in these days
as well as wide reading and information have given you the right to express freely your opinions in society it will be well to listen a great deal more than you speak especially when in the company of your elders
avoid all sentimentality or the discussion of subjects that would expose the private and sacred feelings of the heart do not quote poetry
do not ask people's opinions on delicate and individual questions i have heard a young boarding school graduate embarrass a whole room full of excellent and educated people by asking a young gentleman
more than to the doings or sayings of other people in this way you will avoid that bane of social conversation gossip in all social relations
strive to be worthy of the confidence and respect and love of your associates and all your relations to society will be easily and naturally
chapter one where i was born my life has been an eventful one i was born a slave was the child of slave parents
therefore i came upon the earth free in god like thought but fettered in action
my recollections of childhood are distinct perhaps for the reason that many stirring incidents are associated with that period i am now on the shady side of forty
and as i sit alone in my room the brain is busy and a rapidly moving panorama brings scene after scene before me some pleasant and others sad
and when i thus greet old familiar faces i often find myself wondering if i am not living the past over again the visions are so terribly distinct
that i almost imagine them to be real hour after hour i sit while the scenes are being shifted and as i gaze upon the panorama of the past
i realize how crowded with incidents my life has been every day seems like a romance within itself and the years grow into ponderous volumes
as i cannot condense i must omit many strange passages in my history from such a wilderness of events it is difficult to make a selection
but as i am not writing altogether the history of myself i will confine my story to the most important incidents which i believe influenced the moulding of my character
as i glance over the crowded sea of the past these incidents stand forth prominently the guide posts of memory i presume that i must have been four years old
when i first began to remember at least i cannot now recall anything occurring previous to this period my master colonel a burwell was somewhat unsettled in his business affairs
and while i was yet an infant he made several removals while living at hampton sidney college prince edward county virginia missus burwell gave birth to a daughter
a sweet black eyed baby my earliest and fondest pet to take care of this baby was my first duty true i was but a child myself only four years old
but then i had been raised in a hardy school had been taught to rely upon myself and to prepare myself to render assistance to others the lesson was not a bitter one
for i was too young to indulge in philosophy and the precepts that i then treasured and practised i believe developed those principles of character which have enabled me to triumph over so many difficulties
notwithstanding all the wrongs that slavery heaped upon me i can bless it for one thing youth's important lesson of self reliance
and it was pleasant to me to be assigned a duty in connection with it for the discharge of that duty transferred me from the rude cabin to the household of my master
my simple attire was a short dress and a little white apron my old mistress encouraged me in rocking the cradle by telling me that if i would watch over the baby well
keep the flies out of its face and not let it cry i should be its little maid this was a golden promise and i required no better inducement for the faithful performance of my task
i began to rock the cradle most industriously when lo out pitched little pet on the floor
oh the baby is on the floor and not knowing what to do i seized the fire shovel in my perplexity and was trying to shovel up my tender charge when my mistress called to me to let the child alone
was the cause of much trouble to me i grew strong and healthy and notwithstanding i knit socks and attended to various kinds of work i was repeatedly told when even fourteen years old
my mother was kind and forbearing missus burwell a hard task master and as mother had so much work to do in making clothes et cetera for the family besides the slaves
i determined to render her all the assistance in my power and in rendering her such assistance my young energies were taxed to the utmost i was my mother's only child
which made her love for me all the stronger i did not know much of my father for he was the slave of another man and when mister burwell moved from dinwiddie he was separated from us
and only allowed to visit my mother twice a year during the easter holidays and christmas at last mister burwell determined to reward my mother
by making an arrangement with the owner of my father by which the separation of my parents could be brought to an end it was a bright day indeed for my mother
when it was announced that my father was coming to live with us the old weary look faded from her face and she worked as if her heart was in every task
but the golden days did not last long the radiant dream faded all too soon in the morning my father called me to him and kissed me
then held me out at arms length as if he were regarding his child with pride she is growing into a large fine girl he remarked to my mother i dun no which i like best you
or lizzie as both are so dear to me my mother's name was agnes and my father delighted to call me his little lizzie while yet my father and mother were speaking hopefully
his last kiss his wild straining of my mother to his bosom the solemn prayer to heaven the tears and sobs
the shadow eclipsed the sunshine and love brought despair the parting was eternal the cloud had no silver lining
earn our right to enjoy the sunshine in the great hereafter at the grave at least we should be permitted to lay our burdens down that a new world a world of brightness
deep as was the distress of my mother in parting with my father her sorrow did not screen her from insult my old mistress said to her stop your nonsense
there is no necessity for you putting on airs your husband is not the only slave that has been sold from his family and you are not the only one that has had to part there are plenty more men about here and if you want a husband so badly
stop your crying and go and find another to these unfeeling words my mother made no reply she turned away in stoical silence
with a curl of that loathing scorn upon her lips which swelled in her heart my father and mother never met again in this world they kept up a regular correspondence for years
and the most precious mementoes of my existence are the faded old letters that he wrote full of love and always hoping that the future would bring brighter days
and tell her that i will come to see her some day thus he wrote time and again but he never came he lived in hope
without ever seeing his wife and child i note a few extracts from one of my father's letters to my mother following copy literally
as i feele determid to see you if life last again i am now here and out at this pleace
i am write well and hearty
i am a living in a town called shelbyville and i have wrote a greate many letters since ive beene here
my dear wife i dont feeld no whys like giving out writing to you as yet and i hope when you get this letter that you be inncougege to write me a letter i am well satisfied at my living at this place
i am a making money for my own benifit and i hope that its to yours also if i live to see nexct year
and i thinke i shall be doing good bisness at that and heve something more thean all that i hope with gods helpe that i may be abble to rejoys with you on the earth and in heaven lets meet
not in this earth and i hope to praise god in glory there weel meet to part no more forever so my dear wife i hope to meet you
i want elizabeth to be a good girl
george pleasant hobbs a servant of grum the last letter that my mother received from my father was dated shelbyville tennessee march twentieth eighteen thirty nine
but the hope was only realized beyond the dark portals of the grave when i was about seven years old i witnessed for the first time the sale of a human being
we were living at prince edward in virginia and master had just purchased his hogs for the winter for which he was unable to pay in full
to escape from his embarrassment it was necessary to sell one of the slaves little joe the son of the cook was selected as the victim his mother was ordered to dress him up in his sunday clothes
he came in with a bright face was placed in the scales and was sold like the hogs at so much per pound his mother was kept in ignorance of the transaction
but her suspicions were aroused when her son started for petersburgh in the wagon the truth began to dawn upon her mind and she pleaded piteously that her boy should not be taken from her
morning after morning passed and the mother went down to the grave without ever seeing her child again one day she was whipped for grieving for her lost boy
owned about seventy slaves all of which were sold and in a majority of instances wives were separated from husbands and children from their parents slavery in the border states forty years ago
was different from what it was twenty years ago time seemed to soften the hearts of master and mistress and to insure kinder and more humane treatment to bondsmen and bondswomen
when i was quite a child an incident occurred which my mother afterward impressed more strongly on my mind one of my uncles a slave of colonel burwell
lost a pair of ploughlines and when the loss was made known the master gave him a new pair and told him that if he did not take care of them he would punish him severely
and my uncle hung himself rather than meet the displeasure of his master
and on looking up into the willow tree which shaded the bubbling crystal stream she discovered the lifeless form of her brother suspended beneath one of the strong branches
rather than be punished the way colonel burwell punished his servants he took his own life slavery had its dark side
discourse first part however important it may be in order to form a proper judgment of the natural state of man to consider him from his origin and to examine him as it were in the first embryo of the species
i shall not attempt to trace his organization through its successive approaches to perfection i shall not stop to examine in the animal system what he might have been in the beginning to become at last what he actually is
did not at once point out the nature and limits of his ideas i could only form vague and almost imaginary conjectures on this subject comparative anatomy has not as yet been sufficiently improved
if i consider him in a word such as he must have issued from the hands of nature i see an animal less strong than some and less active than others but upon the whole the most advantageously organized of any
i see him satisfying the calls of hunger under the first oak and those of thirst at the first rivulet i see him laying himself down to sleep at the foot of the same tree that afforded him his meal and behold this done all his wants are completely supplied
and lives equally upon most of the different aliments which they only divide among themselves a circumstance which qualifies him to find his subsistence with more ease than any of them men accustomed from their infancy to the inclemency of the weather
acquire a robust and almost unalterable habit of body the children bringing with them into the world the excellent constitution of their parents and strengthening it by the same exercises that first produced it
attain by this means all the vigour that the human frame is capable of nature treats them exactly in the same manner that sparta treated the children of her citizens those who come well formed into the world she renders strong and robust and destroys all the rest
differing in this respect from our societies in which the state by permitting children to become burdensome to their parents murders them all without distinction even in the wombs of their mothers the body being the only instrument that savage man is acquainted with
had he a sling would it dart a stone to so great a distance
had he a horse would he with such swiftness shoot along the plain give civilized man but time to gather about him all his machines and no doubt he will be an overmatch for the savage but if you have a mind to see a contest still more unequal
place them naked and unarmed one opposite to the other and you will soon discover the advantage there is in perpetually having all our forces at our disposal in being constantly prepared against all events
and in always carrying ourselves as it were whole and entire about us hobbes would have it that man is naturally void of fear and always intent upon attacking and fighting an illustrious philosopher thinks on the contrary and cumberland and puffendorff likewise affirm it
that nothing is more fearful than man in a state of nature that he is always in a tremble and ready to fly at the first motion he perceives at the first noise that strikes his ears
provided with stones and a good stick and you will soon find that the danger is at least equal on both sides and that after several trials of this kind wild beasts who are not fond of attacking each other will not be very fond of attacking man
whom they have found every whit as wild as themselves as to animals who have really more strength than man has address he is in regard to them what other weaker species are who find means to subsist notwithstanding
he has even this great advantage over such weaker species that being equally fleet with them and finding on every tree an almost inviolable asylum he is always at liberty to take it or leave it as he likes best and of course to fight or to fly
which seem to indicate that some particular species are intended by nature for the food of others but there are other more formidable enemies and against which man is not provided with the same means of defence
i mean natural infirmities infancy old age and sickness of every kind melancholy proofs of our weakness whereof the two first are common to all animals and the last chiefly attends man living in a state of society
one way to look out for their own subsistence and another to suckle and feed their young ones
true it is that if the woman happens to perish her child is exposed to the greatest danger of perishing with her but this danger is common to a hundred other species whose young ones require a great deal of time to be able to provide for themselves
so that in this respect too all things are in a manner equal
and the number of the young of man and other animals but they do not belong to my subject with old men who stir and perspire but little the demand for food diminishes with their abilities to provide it
i shall only ask if there are any solid observations from which we may conclude that in those countries where the healing art is most neglected the mean duration of man's life is shorter than in those where it is most cultivated
and the want of which tempts them every opportunity that offers to eat greedily and overload their stomachs watchings excesses of every kind immoderate transports of all the passions fatigues waste of spirits
and which the mind of man is constantly a prey to these are the fatal proofs that most of our ills are of our own making and that we might have avoided them all by adhering to the simple uniform and solitary way of life prescribed to us by nature
we need only call to mind the good constitution of savages of those at least whom we have not destroyed by our strong liquors we need only reflect that they are strangers to almost every disease except those occasioned by wounds and old age
and whose cures were not the less perfect for their not having been tortured with incisions poisoned with drugs or worn out by diet and abstinence in a word however useful medicine well administered may be to us who live in a state of society
they lose half these advantages by becoming domestic animals it looks as if all our attention to treat them kindly and to feed them well served only to bastardize them it is thus with man himself
in proportion as he becomes sociable and a slave to others he becomes weak fearful mean spirited and his soft and effeminate way of living at once completes the enervation of his strength and of his courage
we may add that there must be still a wider difference between man and man in a savage and domestic condition than between beast and beast
all the conveniences with which men indulge themselves more than they do the beasts tamed by them are so many particular causes which make them degenerate more sensibly
are not such mighty evils in respect to these primitive men and much less still any obstacle to their preservation their skins it is true are destitute of hair but then they have no occasion for any such covering in warm climates
and in cold climates they soon learn to apply to that use those of the animals they have conquered
and provide for all their wants
but the mothers carry them with ease an advantage not granted to other species of animals with whom the mother when pursued is obliged to abandon her young ones or regulate her steps by theirs
since he had lived without them till then and why should he not have been able to support in his riper years the same kind of life which he had supported from his infancy alone idle and always surrounded with danger
savage man must be fond of sleep and sleep lightly like other animals who think but little and may in a manner be said to sleep all the time they do not think self preservation being almost his only concern
whether to subdue his prey or to prevent his becoming that of other animals
utterly incompatible with all manner of delicacy and as his senses are divided on this point his touch and his taste must be extremely coarse and blunt his sight his hearing and his smelling equally subtle
such is the animal state in general and accordingly if we may believe travellers it is that of most savage nations
a discourse upon the origin and the foundation of the inequality among mankind
introductory note jean jacques rousseau was born at geneva june twenty eighth seventeen twelve the son of a watchmaker of french origin his education was irregular
he found it difficult to support himself in any of them the discovery of his talent as a writer came with the winning of a prize offered by the academy of dijon for a discourse on the question whether the progress of the sciences and of letters
was written in a similar competition he now concentrated his powers upon literature producing two novels
a work which has had enormous influence on the theory and practise of pedagogy down to our own time
elaborated the doctrine of the discourse on inequality both historically and philosophically it is unsound but it was the chief literary source of the enthusiasm for liberty fraternity and equality which inspired the leaders of the french revolution
is often unpleasing in the highest degree but it is one of the great autobiographies of the world during rousseau's later years he was the victim of the delusion of persecution
he came to distrust and quarrel with each in turn he died at ermenonville near paris july second seventeen seventy eight the most widely influential french writer of his age
because he wishes to exhibit his principles as those which should be taught but to give an example of the way in which religious matters should be discussed with the young nevertheless it is universally recognized that these opinions are rousseau's own
and represent in short form his characteristic attitude toward religious belief
a discourse upon the origin and the foundation of the inequality among mankind tis of man i am to speak and the very question in answer to which i am to speak of him
sufficiently informs me that i am going to speak to men for to those alone who are not afraid of honouring truth it belongs to propose discussions of this kind
i conceive two species of inequality among men one which i call natural or physical inequality because it is established by nature and consists in the difference of age
others without further ceremony ascribing to the strongest an authority over the weakest have immediately struck out government without thinking of the time requisite for men to form any notion of the things signified by the words authority and government
all of them in fine constantly harping on wants avidity oppression desires and pride have transferred to the state of nature ideas picked up in the bosom of society
though it plainly appears by sacred history that even the first man immediately furnished as he was by god himself with both instructions and precepts never lived in that state
like those systems which our naturalists daily make of the formation of the world religion commands us to believe that men having been drawn by god himself out of a state of nature are unequal because it is his pleasure they should be so
but religion does not forbid us to draw conjectures solely from the nature of man considered in itself and from that of the beings which surround him concerning the fate of mankind had they been left to themselves this is then the question i am to answer
the question i propose to examine in the present discourse as mankind in general have an interest in my subject i shall endeavour to use a language suitable to all nations or rather forgetting the circumstances of time and place in order to think of nothing but the men i speak to
the times i am going to speak of are very remote how much you are changed from what you once were tis in a manner the life of your species that i am going to write from the qualities which you have received
as yet i have considered man merely in his physical capacity let us now endeavour to examine him in a metaphysical and moral light i can discover nothing in any mere animal
that nature alone operates in all the operations of the beast whereas man as a free agent has a share in his one chooses by instinct
for which reason the beast cannot deviate from the rules that have been prescribed to it even in cases where such deviation might be useful and man often deviates from the rules laid down for him to his prejudice
thus a pigeon would starve near a dish of the best flesh meat and a cat on a heap of fruit or corn
did they but bethink themselves to make a trial of it it is in this manner dissolute men run into excesses which bring on fevers and death itself because the mind depraves the senses and when nature ceases to speak
the will still continues to dictate
than between some men and some beasts it is not therefore so much the understanding that constitutes among animals the specifical distinction of man as his quality of a free agent nature speaks to all animals
for natural philosophy explains in some measure the mechanism of the senses and the formation of ideas but in the power of willing or rather of choosing and in the consciousness of this power nothing can be discovered but acts
that are purely spiritual and cannot be accounted for by the laws of mechanics but though the difficulties in which all these questions are involved should leave some room to dispute on this difference between man and beast
there is another very specific quality that distinguishes them and a quality which will admit of no dispute this is the faculty of improvement a faculty which
as circumstances offer successively unfolds all the other faculties and resides among us not only in the species but in the individuals that compose it
and his species at the end of a thousand years precisely what it was the first year of that long period why is man alone subject to dotage is it not because he thus returns to his primitive condition
continues always in possession of his instinct man losing by old age or by accident all the acquisitions he had made in consequence of his perfectibility
it would be a melancholy necessity for us to be obliged to allow that this distinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the source of all man's misfortunes that it is this faculty which though by slow degrees draws them out of their original condition
savage man abandoned by nature to pure instinct or rather indemnified for that which has perhaps been denied to him by faculties capable of immediately supplying the place of it and of raising him afterwards a great deal higher
would therefore begin with functions that were merely animal
which he would enjoy in common with other animals to will and not to will to wish and to fear would be the first and in a manner the only operations of his soul till new circumstances occasioned new developments
let moralists say what they will the human understanding is greatly indebted to the passions which on their side are likewise universally allowed to be greatly indebted to the human understanding
it is by the activity of our passions that our reason improves we covet knowledge merely because we covet enjoyment and it is impossible to conceive why a man exempt from fears and desires should take the trouble to reason
he fears no evil but pain and hunger i say pain and not death for no animal merely as such will ever know what it is to die and the knowledge of death and of its terrors
to which nature had left the inhabitants exposed or to which circumstances had subjected them and consequently to the passions which inclined them to provide for these wants
i could exhibit in egypt the arts starting up and extending themselves with the inundations of the nile i could pursue them in their progress among the greeks where they were seen to bud forth grow and rise to the heavens in the midst of the sands and rocks of attica
as if nature thus meant to make all things equal by giving to the mind that fertility she has denied to the soil but exclusive of the uncertain testimonies of history
that he can neither have foresight nor curiosity the spectacle of nature by growing quite familiar to him becomes at last equally indifferent it is constantly the same order constantly the same revolutions
such is even at present the degree of foresight in the caribbean he sells his cotton bed in the morning and comes in the evening with tears in his eyes to buy it back not having foreseen that he should want it again the next night
the more we meditate on this subject the wider does the distance between mere sensation and the most simple knowledge become in our eyes and it is impossible to conceive how man by his own powers alone
without the assistance of communication and the spur of necessity could have got over so great an interval how many ages perhaps revolved before men beheld any other fire but that of the heavens
what shall we say of agriculture an art which requires so much labour and foresight which depends upon other arts which it is very evident cannot be practised but in a society if not a formed one at least one of some standing
and which does not so much serve to draw aliments from the earth for the earth would yield them without all that trouble as to oblige her to produce those things which we like best preferably to others
and plant trees that they had found out the art of grinding their corn and improving by fermentation the juice of their grapes all operations which we must allow them to have learned from the gods
after all these fine presents what man would be mad enough to cultivate a field that may be robbed by the first comer man or beast who takes a fancy to the produce of it
in a word how could this situation engage men to cultivate the earth as long as it was not parcelled out among them that is as long as a state of nature subsisted
in a word though we were to suppose his mind as intelligent and enlightened as it must and is in fact found to be dull and stupid what benefit would the species receive from all these metaphysical discoveries
which could not be communicated but must perish with the individual who had made them what progress could mankind make in the forests scattered up and down among the other animals and to what degree could men mutually improve and enlighten each other when they had no fixed habitation
let us besides reflect on the immense pains and time that the first invention of languages must have required let us add these reflections to the preceding and then we may judge how many thousand ages must have been requisite to develop successively
the operations which the human mind is capable of producing i must now beg leave to stop one moment to consider the perplexities attending the origin of languages i might here barely cite or repeat the researches made
i think it my duty at the same time that i refer to his reflections to give my own in order to expose the same difficulties in a light suitable to my subject the first that offers is how languages could become necessary
i might say with many others that languages are the fruit of the domestic intercourse between fathers mothers and children but this besides its not answering any difficulties would be committing the same fault with those who reasoning on the state of nature
where so many common interests conspire to unite them whereas in this primitive state as there were neither houses nor cabins nor any kind of property
males and females united without any premeditated design as chance occasion or desire brought them together nor had they any great occasion for language to make known their thoughts to each other they parted with the same ease
the mother suckled her children when just born for her own sake but afterwards out of love and affection to them when habit and custom had made them dear to her
it is he that must be at the chief expense of invention
this makes the number of languages equal to that of the individuals who are to speak them and this multiplicity of languages is further increased by their roving and vagabond kind of life which allows no idiom time enough to acquire any consistency
for to say that the mother would have dictated to the child the words he must employ to ask her this thing and that
let us for a moment consider ourselves at this side of the immense space which must have separated the pure state of nature from that in which languages became necessary and let us after allowing such necessity examine how languages could begin to be established
a new difficulty this still more stubborn than the preceding for if men stood in need of speech to learn to think they must have stood in still greater need of the art of thinking to invent that of speaking
and though we could conceive how the sounds of the voice came to be taken for the conventional interpreters of our ideas we should not be the nearer knowing who could have been the interpreters of this convention for such ideas as in consequence of their not having any sensible objects
could not be made manifest by gesture or voice so that we can scarce form any tolerable conjectures concerning the birth of this art of communicating our thoughts and establishing a correspondence between minds a sublime art which though so remote from its origin
as this cry was never extorted but by a kind of instinct in the most urgent cases to implore assistance in great danger or relief in great sufferings it was of little use in the common occurrences of life where more moderate sentiments generally prevail
when the ideas of men began to extend and multiply and a closer communication began to take place among them
they multiplied the inflections of the voice and added to them gestures which are in their own nature more expressive and whose meaning depends less on any prior determination
they therefore expressed visible and movable objects by gestures and those which strike the ear by imitative sounds but as gestures scarcely indicate anything except objects that are actually present or can be easily described
and visible actions as they are not of general use since darkness or the interposition of an opaque medium renders them useless and as besides they require attention rather than excite it
men at length bethought themselves of substituting for them the articulations of voice which without having the same relation to any determinate object are in quality of instituted signs fitter to represent all our ideas
a substitution which could only have been made by common consent and in a manner pretty difficult to practise by men whose rude organs were unimproved by exercise
a substitution which is in itself more difficult to be conceived since the motives to this unanimous agreement must have been somehow or another expressed and speech therefore appears to have been exceedingly requisite to establish the use of speech
we must allow that the words first made use of by men had in their minds a much more extensive signification than those employed in languages of some standing
and that considering how ignorant they were of the division of speech into its constituent parts they at first gave every word the meaning of an entire proposition when afterwards they began to perceive the difference between the subject and attribute
and every individual presented itself solitary to their minds as it stands in the table of nature if they called one oak a they called another oak b so that their dictionary must have been more extensive in proportion as their knowledge of things was more confined
as in order to marshal the several beings under common and generic denominations it was necessary to be first acquainted with their properties and their differences to be stocked with observations and definitions that is to say
advantages which the men of these times could not have enjoyed besides general ideas cannot be conveyed to the mind without the assistance of words nor can the understanding seize them without the assistance of propositions
the definition of a triangle can alone give you a just idea of that figure the moment you form a triangle in your mind it is this or that particular triangle and no other
it was the one sentinel beside the gateway to new france therefore it ought to be taken before quebec and canada were attacked it was the one corsair lying in perpetual wait beside the british lines of seaborne trade
therefore it must be taken before british shipping could be safe it was the one french sea link between the old world and the new therefore its breaking was of supreme importance it was the one real fortress ever heard of in america
and it was in absolutely alien hands therefore so ran new england logic it was most offensive to all true britons new englanders and puritans to all rivals in smuggling trade and privateering and to all right thinking people generally
in seventeen forty four when frederick the great had begun the war of the austrian succession and france had taken arms against great britain du quesnel the governor of louisbourg who had received the intelligence of these events some weeks before the alert bostonians
at once decided to win credit by striking the first blow he was much disliked in louisbourg he drank hard cursed his subordinates when in his cups and set the whole place by the ears
moreover many of those under him wished to avoid giving the british americans any provocation in the hope that the war might be confined to europe but none dared to refuse a legal and positive order so in may his expedition left for canso
who sent them on to boston after burning their fort to the ground elated by this somewhat absurd success and strengthened by nearly a hundred regulars and four hundred indians who raised his total force to at least a thousand men
the british received a slight reinforcement the french did not and in september du vivier suddenly retired without attempting an assault the burning of canso and the attack on annapolis stirred up the wrath of new england a wild enthusiast
william vaughan urged governor shirley of massachusetts to make an immediate counter attack shirley was an english lawyer good at his own work but very anxious to become famous as a conqueror he lent a willing ear to vaughan
and astounded the general court of massachusetts on january twenty first seventeen forty five by first inducing the members to swear secrecy and then asking them to consider a plan for a colonial expedition against louisbourg
he and they were on very good terms but they were provincial cautious and naturally slow when it came to planning campaigns and pledging their credit for what was then an enormous sum of money nor could they be blamed
none of them knew much about armies and navies most thought louisbourg was a real transatlantic dunkirk and all knew that they were quite insolvent already
reported against the scheme whereupon each house carried a secret adverse vote by a large majority but just before these votes were taken a puritan member from a country district
wrestled in what he thought confidential prayer with such loud ejaculations that an eavesdropper overheard him and passed the secret on of course the momentous news at once began to run like wildfire through the province still the noes had it both in the country and the house
shirley was dejected and in doubt what to do next but james gibson the merchant militiaman suddenly hit on the idea of getting up a petition among the business community the result surpassed every expectation all the merchants were eager for attack
the whole subject was again debated provincial insolvency and the absence of either a fleet or an army were urged by the opposition but the fighting party put forth all their strength and pleaded that delay meant reinforcements for louisbourg and a good chance lost for ever
the vote would have been a tie if a member of the opposition had not slipped and broken his leg as he was hurrying down to the house once the decision had been reached however all did their best to ensure success shirley wrote to his brother governors
vaughan galloped off post haste to new hampshire with the first official letter gibson led the merchants in local military zeal the result was that massachusetts which then included maine raised over three thousand men while new hampshire and connecticut
raised about five hundred each rhode island concurred but ungraciously and ineffectually late she nursed two grudges against massachusetts one about the undeniably harsh treatment meted out to her great founder roger williams
there was no military leader in the whole of new england so the next most suitable man was the civilian who best combined the necessary qualities of good sense sound knowledge of men and affairs firmness diplomacy and popularity popularity was essential
since none of them recognized any common authority except that of the crown he was ably seconded by many leading men who if not trained soldiers were at least accustomed to the organization of public life
which were afterwards redeemed by the imperial government at a total cost of nearly a quarter of a million sterling there was no time and there were no means to change the militia into an army but many compensating advantages helped to make up for its deficiencies
the men volunteered eagerly they were all very keen to fight the french most of them understood the individual use of firearms many of them had been to sea and had learned to work together as a crew
nearly all of them had the handiness then required for life in a new country and what with conviction and what with prejudice they were also quite disposed to look upon the expedition as a sort of crusade against idolatrous papists
and therefore as a very proper climax to the great awakening which had recently roused new england to the heights of religious zealotry under the leadership of the famous george whitefield himself
whitefield warned pepperrell that he would be envied if he succeeded and abused if he failed the reverend thomas prince openly regretted the change of enemy the heavenly shower is over from fighting the devil they needs must turn to fighting the french
but parson moody most truculent of puritans had no doubts whatever the french the pope and the devil were all one to him and when he embarked as senior chaplain he took a hatchet with which to break down the graven images of louisbourg
in the end whitefield warmed up enough to give the expedition its official motto nil desperandum christo duce the never despair heartened the worldlings
but having no orders from england he at first felt obliged to refuse within a short time however he was given a free hand by the imperial government which authorized him to concert measures with shirley
warren immediately sailed for canso with three men of war and sent for another to join him his wait for orders made him nearly three weeks later than the new englanders in arriving at the rendezvous but this delay due to no fault of his own
the thirteen provincial armed vessels carried more than one thousand men no exact returns were ever made out for the transports but as sixty eight lay at anchor in canso harbour while others came dropping in from day to day
in addition to all the stores and as the french counted ninety six transports making for gabarus bay
while the crews could hardly have mustered less than an average of twenty men each the grand total at the beginning of the expedition could not therefore have been less than eight thousand men of all sorts put together over four thousand american provincial militia
over one thousand men of the royal navy quite one thousand men aboard the provincial fighting vessels and at least two thousand more as crews to work the transports may first the first sunday the provincials spent at canso
a conscientious diarist though full of sabbatarian zeal was fain to admit that severall sorts of busnesses was a going on sum a exercising sum a hearing o the preaching on may fifth warren sailed into canso
the provincials thought the date of his arrival a very happy omen as it fell on what was then according to the old style calendar saint george's day april twenty third after a conference with pepperrell he hurried off to begin the blockade of louisbourg
a week later may twenty first the transports joined him there and landed their militiamen for one of the most eccentric sieges ever known while the british had been spending the first four months of seventeen forty five in preparing eight thousand men
the news from boston was not heeded worse yet no attention was paid to the american scouting vessels which had been hovering off the coast for more than a month the bibulous du quesnel had died in october but his successor du chambon
without a siege and left one sleepy sentry to watch wolfe's cove the night before the battle of the plains it is true that du chambon had succeeded to a thoroughly bad command
and the military force had become worse instead of better
they knew that acquisitive government officials were cheating them out of their proper rations of bacon and beans the officials knew that the soldiers knew and so suspicion and resentment grew strong between them
the only other force was the militia which with certain exceptions comprised every male inhabitant of cape breton who could stand on two legs and hold a musket with both hands there were boys in their early teens and old men in their sixties
nearly one thousand eight hundred ought to have been available but four or five hundred that might have been brought in never received their marching orders so the total combatants only amounted to some one thousand nine hundred
the non combatants numbered nearly as many the cramped hundred acres of imprisoned louisbourg thus contained almost four thousand people mutineers and militia women and children drones and other officials all huddled up together
no reinforcements arrived after the first appearance of the british fleet marin a well known guerilla leader had been sent down from quebec through the bush with six or seven hundred whites and indians
and this time a general attack on acadia but these other two thousand were never sent and marin having failed to take annapolis by the first week in june was too late and too weak to help louisbourg afterwards the same ill luck pursued the french by sea
was not managed according to shirley's written instructions nor was the siege shirley had been playing a little war game in his study with all the inconvenient obstacles left out
the rocks and bogs of the surrounding country the difficulties of entering a narrow necked harbour under a combination of end on and broadside fire the terrible lee shore off the islands reefs and lighthouse point
the commonest vigilance of the most slovenly garrison and even the offensive power of the guns on the walls of louisbourg itself shirley's plan was that pepperrell should arrive in the offing too late to be seen land unobserved
and march on louisbourg in four detachments while the garrison was wrapped in slumber two of these detachments were to march within striking distance and then halt and keep a profound silence the third was to march under cover of said hills
a large open roadstead running west from the little louisbourg peninsula the provincials eyed the fortress eagerly it looked mean squat and shrunken in the dim grey light of early dawn but it looked hard enough for all that its alarm bells began to ring
its signal cannon fired and all the people who had been living outside hurried in behind the walls the new englanders were so keen to land that they ran some danger of falling into complete disorder but pepperrell managed very cleverly
having completely outdistanced the handful of panting frenchmen he landed in perfect safety and presently scattered them with a wild charge which cost them about twenty in killed wounded and prisoners before dark two thousand provincials were ashore
the other two thousand landed at their leisure the following day the next event in this extraordinary siege is one of the curiosities of war
on may fourteenth the enthusiastic vaughan took several hundreds of these newly landed men to the top of the nearest hillock and saluted the walls with three cheers he then circled the whole harbour keeping well inland
till he reached the undefended storehouses on the inner side of the north east harbour a little beyond the royal battery these he at once set on fire the pitch tar wood and other combustibles made a blinding smoke
suspecting a ruse he bribed an indian with a flask of brandy to feign being drunk and reel up to the walls the indian reached the fort unchallenged climbed into an embrasure and found the whole place deserted
vaughan followed at once and a young volunteer shinning up the flag pole made his own red coat fast to the top this defiance was immediately answered by a random salvo from louisbourg less than a mile across the harbour
vaughan's next move was to write a dispatch to pepperrell may it please your honour to be informed that by the grace of god and the courage of thirteen men i entered the royal battery about nine o the clock and am waiting for a reinforcement and a flag
and kept them all at bay till the reinforcement and the flag arrived with bradstreet who was afterwards to win distinction as the captor of fort frontenac during the great campaign of seventeen fifty nine
because everything seemed to conspire against the french and in favour of the british even the elements as the anonymous habitant de louisbourg complains in his wonderfully candid diary seemed to have taken sides
there had never been so fine a spring for naval operations but this was the one thing which was entirely independent of french fault or british merit all the other strokes of luck owed something to human causes
wise acres had shaken their heads over the crazy idea of taking british cannon balls solely to fit french cannon that were to be taken at the beginning of the siege it was too much like selling the pelt before the trap was sprung
moreover as if to cap the climax
and again spare british balls were found to fit exactly the fact is that what we should now call the intelligence department had been doing good work the year before by spying out the land at louisbourg and reporting to the proper men in boston
the bostonians had always intended to take the royal battery at the earliest possible moment but nobody had thought that the french would abandon it without a blow and leave it intact for their enemy with all its armament complete
to burn the carriages or knock the trunnions off the invaluable stores were left in their places the only real destruction was caused by a barrel of powder which some bunglers blew up by mistake
was that the royal battery roared against louisbourg the very next morning with tremendous effect smashing the works most exposed to its fire bringing down houses about the inhabitants ears and sending the terrified non combatants scurrying off to underground cover
meanwhile the bulk of the new englanders were establishing their camp along the brook which fell into gabarus bay beside flat point and within two miles of louisbourg equipment of all kinds was very scarce
tents were so few and bad that old sails stretched over ridge poles had to be used instead when sails ran short brushwood shelters roofed in with overlapping spruce boughs were used as substitutes
there was at first more risk of foundering ashore than afloat there were neither roads nor yet the means to make them there were no horses oxen mules or any other means of transport except the brawny men themselves
who literally buckled to with anchor cable drag ropes a hundred pair of straining men for each great lumbering gun over the sand they went at a romp over the rocks they had to take care and in the dense obstructing scrub
they had to haul through by main force but this was child's play to what awaited them in the slimy shifting and boulder strewn bog they had to pass before reaching the hillocks which commanded louisbourg the first attempts here were disastrous
the guns sank out of sight in the engulfing bog while the toiling men became regular human targets for shot and shell from louisbourg
meserve of new hampshire came to the rescue by designing a gun sleigh sixteen feet in length and five in the beam then the crews were told off again
two hundred men for each sleigh and orders were given that the work should not be done except at night or under cover of the frequent fogs after this things went much better than before but the labour was tremendous still
while the danger from random shells bursting among the boulders was not to be despised four hundred struggling feet four hundred straining arms each team hove on its long taut cable through fog rain and the blackness of the night
so when the last two hundred men had wallowed through the whole ensnaring bog was seamed with a perfect maze of decoying death trails snaking in and out of the forbidding scrub and boulders
pepperrell's dispatches could not exaggerate these almost incredible hardships afloat and ashore awake and asleep the men were soaking wet for days together at the end of the longest haul they had nothing but a choice of evils
they could either lie down where they were on hard rock or oozing bog exposed to the enemy's fire the moment it was light enough to see the british batteries or they could plough their way back to camp here they were safe enough from shot and shell
but in other respects no better off than in the batteries most men's kits were of the very scantiest very few had even a single change of clothing a good many went bare foot nearly all were in rags before the siege was over
in this most extraordinary siege it took at least a horse's weight as well the approach to the walls defied all the usual precautions of regular war but the circumstances justified its boldness with only four thousand men at the start
with nearly half of this total on the sick list at one rather critical juncture with very few trained gunners and without any corps of engineers at all the provincials adapted themselves to the situation so defiantly that they puzzled shook and overawed the french
who thought them two or three times stronger than they really were recklessly defiant though they were however they did provide the breaching batteries with enough cover for the purpose in hand this is amply proved both by the fewness of their casualties
the british engineer at annapolis
and reported them sufficiently protected where the provincials showed their prentice hands to genuine disadvantage was in their absurdly solemn and utterly futile councils of war
no schoolboys debating club could well have done worse than the council held to consider du chambon's stereotyped answer to the usual summons sent in at the beginning of a siege the formula that his cannon would answer for him
provoked a tremendous storm in the council's teacup and immediately resulted in the following resolution advised unanimously that the towne of louisbourg be attacked this night
but confronted with a great dissatysfaction in many of the officers and souldiers at the designed attack of the towne this night it was advised unanimously by a second council called in great haste
that the said attack be deferred for the present this present lasted during the rest of the siege once the new englanders had settled down however they wisely began to increase their weight of metal as well as to decrease the range at which they used it
they set to work with a will to make a breach at the north west gate of louisbourg near where the inner angle of the walls abutted on the harbour and they certainly needed all their indomitable perseverance when it came to arming their new north western or titcomb's battery
the twenty two pounders had required two hundred men apiece the forty two pounders took three hundred two of these unwieldy guns were hauled a couple of miles round the harbour in the dark
from that royal battery which vaughan had taken by the grace of god and the courage of thirteen men and then successfully mounted at titcomb's just where they could do the greatest damage to their former owners the french well trained gunners were exceedingly scarce
pepperrell could find only six among his four thousand men but warren lent him three more whom he could ill spare as no one knew when a fleet might come out from france with these nine instructors to direct them
pepperrell's men closed in their line of fire till besieged and besiegers came within such easy musket shot of one another that taunting challenges and invitations could be flung across the intervening space
each side claimed advantages and explained shortcomings to its own satisfaction a new england diarist says we began our fire with as much fury as possible and the french returned it as warmly with cannon mortars and continual showers of musket balls
but by eleven o'clock we had beat them all from their guns a french diarist of the same day says that the fire from the walls was stopped on purpose chiefly to save powder while the same reason is assigned for the british order to cease fire exactly one hour later
the practice continued to be exceedingly bad on both sides so bad indeed that the new englanders suffered more from the bursting of their own guns than from the enemy's fire the nine instructors could not be everywhere
and all their good advice could not prevent the eager amateurs from grossly overloading the double shotted pieces another forty two pound gun burst at the grand battery captain hale is dangerously hurt by the bursting of another gun
a misfortune due to the same cause but in spite of all such drawbacks on the british side louisbourg got much the worst of it the french had to fire from the centre outwards at a semicircle of batteries that fired back convergingly at them
many houses were laid in ruins only one remained intact when the siege was over the non combatants who now exceeded the garrison effectives were half buried in the smothering casemates underground and though the fighting men had light air and food enough
and though they were losing very few in killed and wounded they too began to feel that louisbourg must fall if it was not soon relieved from outside the british on the contrary grew more and more confident both afloat and ashore
though they had one quite alarming scare ashore they knew their navy outmatched the french and they saw that while warren was being strengthened du chambon was being left as devoid of naval force as ever
but their still greater confidence ashore was for the time being very rudely shaken when they heard that marin the same french guerilla leader who had been sent down from quebec against annapolis with six or seven hundred whites and indians
discipline never good had been growing worse punishments were unknown officers and men were petitioning for leave to go home quite regardless of the need for their services at the front demands for promotion for extra allowances
and for increased pay were becoming a standing nuisance then just as the leaders were at their wits ends what to do marin's threatened attack came to their aid and their brave armed mob once more began to wear the semblance of an army
sentries piquets and outposts appeared as if by magic officers went their rounds with zeal the camp suddenly ceased to be a disorderly playground for every one off duty the breaching batteries redoubled their efforts against the walls
the threat of danger once past however the men soon slipped back into their careless ways a new england chronicler records that those who were on the spot have frequently in my hearing laughed at the recital of their own irregularities and expressed their admiration
even a massachusetts puritan could recommend a sermon for general distribution in the camp because it will please your whole army as it shows them the way to gain by their gallantry the hearts and affections of the ladys and even a city of the great awakening like boston
could produce a letter like the following i hope this will find you at louisbourg with a bowl of punch a pipe and a pack of cards and whatever else you desire i had forgot to mention a pretty french madammoselle your friend luke has lost several beaver hatts already concerning the expedition
damn his blood says luke let him be an englishman or a frenchman and not pretend to be an englishman when he is a frenchman in his heart if drinking to your success would take cape britton you must be in possession of it now for it's a standing toast
the day this letter was written in boston may sixth warren had already begun the regular blockade only a single ship eluded him an ably handled basque
but warren's boat crews took her some men who escaped from her brought du chambon the news that a third french ship the vigilant was coming to the relief of louisbourg with ammunition and other stores
large production and monopoly power capital in the sense of valuable agents
and every owner from the small shop keeper to the wealthiest bondholder is a capitalist in popular discussion however the word frequently implies great wealth in a single hand
though this wealth may be invested in a large number of small industries large production is the concentration of capital into large units of industry the capital may be the same as before the ownership may or may not be widely diffused
but the control and management are unified large factories may or may not have monopoly power as factories grow in size competition among them often becomes more not less complete and severe on the contrary
monopoly as before defined may exist where the industry is small as the waterworks in a small town or a small factory for making patented articles in periods of depression
a business with a capital of ten thousand dollars may go on and prosper while one with millions may be forced into bankruptcy these three ideas great individual wealth large industry
over two thirds of the people on the globe are still in the first industrial stage one billion people use only tools and have no better source and means of power than domestic animals this is true in the most of asia and africa
and in many portions of north america about two hundred million people live in the stage of simple machines and small factories these are found in eastern and southern europe small portions of south america some parts even of the united states
in this stage there is not enough manufacturing power in the community to supply much more than its own needs about two hundred million people in the united states and western europe have reached the third and highest industrial plane
where the highest mechanical devices are employed and industry becomes highly specialized these differences are broadly stated there are contrasts within every nation three hundred miles from here in the alleghanies
people still can be found spinning and weaving and wearing homespun as in colonial days
on farms and in homes where the greater part of the things used were produced in the family was still the typical organization in the united states the early factories growing out of the household industry were small
a family specialized in producing cloth and exchanged with its neighbors so with shoes candles soap canned goods cured meats et cetera since that time two counter forces have been at work
to affect the ratio of manufacturing establishments to population the number of establishments has been increased by specialization of farming which has called for many industries to produce the things once made on farms and by increasing wealth and invention
which has made possible many small industries supplying things before almost unknown the number of establishments has been diminished as the staple products that can be transported have come to be made in larger factories
the resultant of these movements during the thirty years ending in nineteen hundred is somewhat surprising the ratio of factories with an output worth five hundred dollars to population has somewhat increased
in eighteen seventy there were two hundred and fifty two thousand establishments in eighteen ninety three hundred and fifty five thousand and in nineteen hundred five hundred and twelve thousand a ratio to population of one
to one hundred and sixty two one hundred and seventy seven and one hundred and forty four respectively the last date was one of great industrial prosperity and doubtless many ephemeral enterprises had been called into existence
thus giving a somewhat abnormal result moreover there has been a large increase in the number of things made in factories which were formerly made in the homes and which then did not appear at all
the unit of industry is growing factories in eighteen seventy numbering nine hundred and fifty six
nine hundred and five in nineteen hundred one thousand and fifty five the later increase being due to the fact that many new factories in the south have been started in the last decade the population meantime doubled
this movement has been going on for seventy years there being about the same number of mills in nineteen hundred as in eighteen thirty though population had multiplied six fold iron and steel mills numbered one thousand three hundred in eighteen eighty
one thousand in eighteen ninety and nine hundred and sixty five in nineteen hundred in industries having local markets and sources of supply for materials the change has been less rapid there were twenty four thousand grist mills in eighteen eighty
eighteen thousand in eighteen ninety and twenty five thousand in nineteen hundred a change of ratio from two thousand one hundred to three thousand population per grist mill there were twenty six thousand sawmills in eighteen eighty
twenty two thousand in eighteen ninety and thirty three thousand in nineteen hundred a change from about one thousand nine hundred and twenty to two thousand two hundred and seventy persons per sawmill
but while the number of establishments in these staple industries was decreasing the number of employees per establishment in most cases was increasing the average in all industries in eighteen seventy was eight in eighteen ninety twelve in nineteen hundred
ten and four tenths in cotton mills in eighteen seventy the average was one hundred and eighty four in eighteen ninety two hundred and forty four in nineteen hundred two hundred and eighty seven
the grist mills in eighteen eighty had two and four tenths persons per establishment in eighteen ninety three and four tenths the sawmills in eighteen eighty
and it is recognized that the census figures on this subject are only approximately correct we are told that in cotton mills in eighteen thirty the average capital invested was fifty thousand dollars in eighteen ninety
nearly four hundred thousand dollars in nineteen hundred four hundred and forty thousand dollars it is easy to observe the large increase in investment of capital in flouring mills since the new processes came into use
the average capital of all industries does not grow as in the staple ones
showing the number of establishments and of employees many discrepancies appear in the data regarding this movement given by different authorities as there is no generally accepted rule by which to determine the selection
of the companies to be included in the lists and as the conditions are changing from day to day
regarding the industrial trusts
and gas trusts organized in the united states between eighteen sixty and eighteen ninety nine not including combinations in such businesses as banking shipping railroad transportation et cetera
the figures refer to the reorganization and consolidation of industries into larger units some of which have much
the same authority in a more comprehensive list classifies in six groups all so called trusts of the united states
a great technical advantage of large production is the better and fuller use of machinery a large factory with a large output can keep a special machine adjusted for each pattern and process
whereas in a small factory much time and energy are wasted in adjusting one machine for various processes the machinery in a large factory is thus more fully utilized
compare the machinery used in a large ax factory with that used in twenty five small ax factories having the same total output the one hundred and fifty workmen in twenty five small factories would use twenty five shears
one hundred trip hammers fifty grindstone pits fifty polishing frames a total of two hundred and twenty five machines the same one hundred and fifty men in one large factory would require three shears
a saving of twenty two twenty trip hammers a saving of eighty thirty seven grindstone pits a saving of thirteen thirty polishing frames a saving of twenty
a total of ninety machines a saving of one hundred and thirty five machines the difference in cost due to machinery is not so great as these figures indicate as the unused machines last longer
but in the small factory there is more depreciation from rust and decay and a larger proportionate investment of capital for which interest must be earned
the technical economies of the division of labor can be realized in large measure only when a number of men work together partly because of the advantages in the use of machinery but partly from other causes
labor in a large group is proportionately more effective than in a small group especially in producing form value in making plows nine men working separately will average sixty six plows each per year
while one hundred and eighty men working together will average one hundred and ten each per year the output per man being increased sixty six and two thirds per cent in a rifle factory with a daily output of fifty eight men are needed for the same product
in the larger industry the costs of management supervision and marketing are relatively less division of labor decreases the difficulty of supervision in larger factories where the processes are divided systematized and made a matter of routine
the necessary inspection of the results is more rapid and easy the advertising of certain kinds of goods involves a large and inevitable outlay
when each man is working on the smallest possible subdivision of the product
when the finest machinery can be kept constantly in use economy in its use has reached the maximum as large factories tend to create cities around them land rises in value and higher wages must be paid the workmen
small factories are constantly seeking out lower rents taxes wages salaries cheaper local sources of materials cheap though limited sources of power and thus they compete successfully in many markets
the point is reached in the growth of establishments where oversight cannot be as perfect and complete
does not include the idea of monopoly the old legal idea of a trust is the confidence imposed in a trustee the method that was adopted by the early combinations was the trust method that is they made use of this legal device
the stock of the separate companies was put into the hands of a board of trustees to whom was thus given the right to control as it has been found possible to accomplish the same end without the use of this legal method
no longer agrees with the legal meaning the word trust is popularly used of any large industry though usually there is connected with it the idea of some evil power
a large aggregation can control credit better and escape loss from bad debts by regulating and equalizing the output in the different localities it can run more nearly full time
a strong combination has advantages in shipment it can have a clearing house for orders and ship from the nearest source of supply the least efficient factories can be first closed when demand falls off
factories can be specialized to produce that for which each is best fitted the magnitude of the industry and its presence in different localities strengthens its influence with the railroads
that is the grouping under one control of a whole series of industries one company may carry the iron ore through all the processes from the mine to the finished product a railroad line across the continent
there is the gain from the production and sale of goods to consumers and there is the gain from the financial management from the rise and fall in the value of stock the promoters of a combination often expect to make from sales to the investing public
far more than from sales to the consumer of the product a season of prosperity and confidence when trusts and their enormous profits are constantly discussed has an effect on the public mind like that of the discovery of a new el dorado a california or a klondike
then is the time for the wily promoter to offer shares without limit to investors these considerations show that the trust is not simple in its cause nor in its nature in a sense the most artificial of industrial arrangements
in another sense it is a natural evolution of industry more and more it is being recognized that though it has in it something of evil it has as well something of good
one a logical explanation of industry must begin with a discussion of the nature of wants for the purpose of industry is to gratify wants an economic want may be defined as a feeling of incompleteness
because of the lack of a part of the outer world or of some change in it often the question asked when one first sees a moving trolley car or automobile or bicycle is what makes it go
the first question to ask in the part of the study of economic society here undertaken is what is its motive force
without an answer to that question one cannot hope to understand the ceaseless and varied activities of men occupied in the making of a living the question merits long and careful study but the general answer is so simple
that it seems almost self evident the motive force in economics is found in the feelings of men
two wants among animals depend on the environment that is to say the utmost that creatures of a lower order than man can do is to take things as they find them the imagination and intelligence of animals are not developed enough
to lead them to desire much beyond that which is ordinarily to be obtained and so the environment shapes and affects the animal the fish is fitted to live in the water and thrives there and we must believe enjoys living there
the horse and the cow like best the food of the fields and so each species of animal in order to survive in the severe struggle for existence has been forced to fit itself to the conditions in which it lives after the animal has been thus fitted
its desire is for those things normally to be found in its surroundings so different animals desire or want different things but always it is the environment that determines the want
three in simpler human societies wants are mostly confined to physical necessities that is in the earlier stages of society man's wants are very much like those of the animals
man bends his energies to securing the things necessary to survival he feels the pangs of hunger and he strives to secure food he feels the need of companionship for it is only through association and mutual help that men
so weak as compared with many kinds of animals are able to resist the enemies which beset them he needs clothing to protect him against the harsher climates of the lands to which he moves
he needs a shelter a cave a wigwam or a hut
four in human society wants develop and transform the world in the rudest societies of which there is any record savages are found with wants developed in a great number of directions beyond the wants of any animals
man is not a passive victim of circumstances his wants are not determined solely by his environment his desires soar beyond the things about him as men become more the masters of circumstances
their desires anticipate mere physical wants they seek a more varied food of finer flavor and more delicately prepared dress is not limited by physical comfort for one of the earliest of the esthetic wants to develop is the love of personal ornament
the rude hut or communal lodge to protect against rain and cold becomes a home out of the earlier rude companionship develop the noblest sentiments of friendship and family life seeking to gratify the senses
and the love of action men develop esthetic tastes the love of the beautiful in sound in form in taste in color in motion
there grow up the various forms of intellectual pleasures the love of reading of study of travel and of thought the various wants of man are sometimes classified as necessities comforts and luxuries
but all economists take care to emphasize that these terms have only relative meanings which in the rapidly changing conditions of modern life are changing constantly the comforts of one generation or of one country become the necessities in another
and luxuries becoming comforts are looked upon finally as necessities and as the desires grow they more and more alter the world man has changed the face of the earth he has affected its climate
its fertility its beauty because either for better or for worse
five in human society the growth of wants is necessary to progress from the earliest times teachers of morals have argued for simplicity of life and against the development of refinements
we do not now raise the moral question but there is no doubt that the economic effect of developing wants is in the main to impel to greater effort they are the mainspring of economic progress
the too great contentedness of tropical peoples has been brought out prominently some one has said that if a colony of new england school teachers and presbyterian deacons
their descendants would in a single generation be wearing breech clouts and going to cock fights on sunday certain it is that the energy and ambition of the temperate zone are hard to maintain in warmer lands
the negro's content with hard conditions so often counted as a virtue is one of the difficulties in the way of solving the race problem in our south to day booker t washington and others
who are laboring for the elevation of the american negroes would try first to make them discontented with the one room cabins in which hundreds of thousands of families live if only the desire for a two or three room cabin can be aroused
not only in america but in most civilized lands to day is seen a rapid growth of wants in the working classes the incomes and the standard of living have become increasing but not so fast as have the desires of the working classes
regret has been expressed by some that the workers of europe are becoming declassed increasing wages it is said bring not welfare but unhappiness to the complaining masses
if discontent with one's lot goes beyond a moderate degree if it is more than the desire to better one's lot by personal efforts if it becomes an unhappy longing for the impossible then indeed it may be a misfortune
but a moderate ambition to better one's condition is the divine discontent absolutely indispensable if energy and enterprise
it is a suggestive fact that civilized man equipped with all of the inventions and the advantages of science spends more hours of effort in gaining a livelihood than does the savage with his almost unaided hands
activity is dependent not on bare physical necessity but on developed wants in the economic sense of the term such social institutions as property and inheritance owe their origin and their justification
to their average effect on the motives to activity if society is to develop if progress is to continue human wants not of the grosser sort but ever more refined must continue to emerge and urge men to action
one the spiritual nature of man must not be ignored in economic reasoning there has been much and just criticism of the earlier writers and of their conclusions because so little account was taken by them
of any but the motive of self interest in economic affairs generally it was assumed that men knew their own interest and sought in a very unsympathetic way those things which would gratify their material wants
thus man in economic reasoning was made an abstraction
may become economic motives two the main classes of non material wants that are secondarily economic are fear of temporal punishment sentiments of moral and religious duty pride
honor and fear of disgrace and pleasure in work for itself for social approval or for a social result the first is best illustrated by slavery where the slave is not impelled to seek wealth for his own welfare
but is driven by punishment to perform the task the object is to create within the mind of the slave a motive that will take the place of the ordinary economic motive the feeling of religious or moral duty
leads men to act often in direct opposition to the usual economic motive the taboo is faithfully observed by the members of a savage tribe
a religious injunction prevents the use of food that would save from starvation pride either of family or of calling the soldier's honor leading him to sacrifice not only his future but his life
the love of social approval holding men to the most disagreeable tasks these illustrate how strongly social sentiments oppose the narrower motive of immediate self interest as generally thought of pleasure in work for work's sake
and pride in the result may act as motives quite as strong in some cases as desire for the product that can be used and even where this does not change the kind of work done
three whatever motive in man's complex nature makes him desire things more or less becomes for the time and in so far an economic motive these various social and spiritual motives sometimes work positively
in the direction of magnifying man's desire for things sometimes negatively to diminish it if we are to understand economic action we must take men as they are a religious motive that leads men to refrain from the eating of meat
or to eat fish in preference on certain days is a fact which the economist has but to accept for it is sure to affect the value of meat and fish at that place and time moral convictions whatever be their origin
whether due to the teaching of parents to unconscious influences or to native temperament may be quite as effective as the pangs of hunger in determining what men desire therefore
to be told repeatedly that one's future is blighted because of the possession of a silver mine is not at the age of fourteen a matter of prime importance as to its main statement but in its form it is calculated to excite a certain amount of wonder and attention
in course of time the boy at first only puzzled by the angry jeremiads but rather sorry for his dad began to turn the matter over in his mind in such moments as he could spare from play and study
in about a year he had evolved from the lecture of the letters a definite conviction that there was a silver mine in the sulaco province of the republic of costaguana where poor uncle harry had been shot by soldiers a great many years before
apparently written on a paper which his father desired ardently to tear and fling into the faces of presidents members of judicature and ministers of state
and this desire persisted though the names of these people he noticed seldom remained the same for a whole year together this desire since the thing was iniquitous seemed quite natural to the boy though why the affair was iniquitous he did not know
afterwards with advancing wisdom he managed to clear the plain truth of the business from the fantastic intrusions of the old man of the sea vampires and ghouls which had lent to his father's correspondence the flavour of a gruesome arabian nights tale
as the old man who wrote these plaintive and enraged letters on the other side of the sea
besides other sums extracted from him on account of future royalties on the ground that a man with such a valuable concession in his pocket could not refuse his financial assistance to the government of the republic
the last of his fortune was passing away from him against worthless receipts he wrote in a rage whilst he was being pointed out as an individual who had known how to secure enormous advantages from the necessities of his country
he thought of it every day but he thought of it without bitterness it might have been an unfortunate affair for his poor dad and the whole story threw a queer light upon the social and political life of costaguana
yet calm and reflective his personal feelings had not been outraged and it is difficult to resent with proper and durable indignation the physical or mental anguish of another organism even if that other organism is one's own father
by the time he was twenty charles gould had in his turn
but it was another form of enchantment more suitable to his youth into whose magic formula there entered hope vigour and self confidence instead of weary indignation and despair
left after he was twenty to his own guidance except for the severe injunction not to return to costaguana he had pursued his studies in belgium and france with the idea of qualifying for a mining engineer
but this scientific aspect of his labours remained vague and imperfect in his mind mines had acquired for him a dramatic interest he studied their peculiarities from a personal point of view too as one would study the varied characters of men
he visited them as one goes with curiosity to call upon remarkable persons he visited mines in germany in spain in cornwall abandoned workings had for him strong fascination
their desolation appealed to him like the sight of human misery whose causes are varied and profound they might have been worthless but also they might have been misunderstood his future wife was the first
and perhaps the only person to detect this secret mood which governed the profoundly sensible almost voiceless attitude of this man
lingering with half open wings like those birds that cannot rise easily from a flat level found a pinnacle from which to soar up into the skies
had married a middle aged impoverished italian marquis she now mourned that man who had known how to give up his life to the independence and unity of his country who had known how to be as enthusiastic in his generosity
as the youngest of those who fell for that very cause of which old giorgio viola was a drifting relic as a broken spar is suffered to float away disregarded after a naval victory
the marchesa led a still whispering existence nun like in her black robes and a white band over the forehead in a corner of the first floor of an ancient and ruinous palace
whose big empty halls downstairs sheltered under their painted ceilings the harvests the fowls and even the cattle together with the whole family of the tenant farmer the two young people had met in lucca
after that meeting charles gould visited no mines though they went together in a carriage once to see some marble quarries where the work resembled mining in so far that it also was the tearing of the raw material of treasure from the earth
he simply went on acting and thinking in her sight this is the true method of sincerity one of his frequent remarks was
and they discussed that opinion long and earnestly as if they could influence a mind across half the globe but in reality they discussed it because the sentiment of love can enter into any subject and live ardently in remote phrases for this natural reason
these discussions were precious to missus gould in her engaged state charles feared that mister gould senior was wasting his strength and making himself ill by his efforts to get rid of the concession
i fancy that this is not the kind of handling it requires he mused aloud as if to himself and when she wondered frankly that a man of character should devote his energies to plotting and intrigues charles would remark with a gentle concern that understood her wonder
you must not forget that he was born there she would set her quick mind to work upon that and then make the inconsequent retort which he accepted as perfectly sagacious because in fact it was so well and you you were born there too
he knew his answer that's different i've been away ten years dad never had such a long spell and it was more than thirty years ago she was the first person to whom he opened his lips after receiving the news of his father's death
it has killed him he said he had walked straight out of town with the news straight out before him in the noonday sun on the white road and his feet had brought him face to face with her in the hall of the ruined palazzo
a room magnificent and naked with here and there a long strip of damask black with damp and age
with a broken back and an octagon columnar stand bearing a heavy marble vase ornamented with sculptured masks and garlands of flowers and cracked from top to bottom
charles gould was dusty with the white dust of the road lying on his boots on his shoulders on his cap with two peaks water dripped from under it all over his face and he grasped a thick oaken cudgel in his bare right hand
she went very pale under the roses of her big straw hat gloved swinging a clear sunshade
where three poplars stand near the wall of a vineyard it has killed him he repeated he ought to have had many years yet we are a long lived family she was too startled to say anything
he was contemplating with a penetrating and motionless stare the cracked marble urn as though he had resolved to fix its shape for ever in his memory it was only when turning suddenly to her he blurted out twice i've come to you i've come straight to you
without being able to finish his phrase that the great pitifulness of that lonely and tormented death in costaguana came to her with the full force of its misery
and began to dry her eyes under the downward curve of her hat brim very small in her simple white frock almost like a lost child crying in the degraded grandeur of the noble hall while he stood by her again perfectly motionless in the contemplation of the marble urn
yes but if he had only grappled with it in a proper way and then they stopped everywhere there were long shadows lying on the hills on the roads on the enclosed fields of olive trees
the shadows of poplars of wide chestnuts of farm buildings of stone walls and in mid air the sound of a bell thin and alert was like the throbbing pulse of the sunset glow
her lips were slightly parted as though in surprise that he should not be looking at her with his usual expression his usual expression was unconditionally approving and attentive he was in his talks with her the most anxious and deferential of dictators
an attitude that pleased her immensely it affirmed her power without detracting from his dignity that slight girl with her little feet little hands little face attractively overweighted by great coils of hair with a rather large mouth
whose mere parting seemed to breathe upon you the fragrance of frankness and generosity had the fastidious soul of an experienced woman she was before all things and all flatteries careful of her pride in the object of her choice
but now he was actually not looking at her at all and his expression was tense and irrational as is natural in a man who elects to stare at nothing past a young girl's head well yes it was iniquitous they corrupted him thoroughly the poor old boy
oh why wouldn't he let me go back to him but now i shall know how to grapple with this after pronouncing these words with immense assurance he glanced down at her and at once fell a prey to distress incertitude and fear
the only thing he wanted to know now he said was whether she did love him enough whether she would have the courage to go with him so far away
for he was a determined man she did she would and immediately the future hostess of all the europeans in sulaco had the physical experience of the earth falling away from under her
it vanished completely even to the very sound of the bell when her feet touched the ground again the bell was still ringing in the valley
meantime charles stepping with one foot into a dry and dusty ditch picked up the open parasol which had bounded away from them with a martial sound of drum taps he handed it to her soberly a little crestfallen
they turned back and after she had slipped her hand on his arm the first words he pronounced were it's lucky that we shall be able to settle in a coast town you've heard its name it is sulaco
he bought a big house there years ago in order that there should always be a casa gould in the principal town of what used to be called the occidental province i lived there once as a small boy with my dear mother for a whole year
you shall be the new mistress of the casa gould and later in the inhabited corner of the palazzo above the vineyards the marble hills the pines and olives of lucca he also said
the name of gould has been always highly respected in sulaco my uncle harry was chief of the state for some time and has left a great name amongst the first families by this i mean the pure creole families who take no part in the miserable farce of governments
uncle harry was no adventurer in costaguana we goulds are no adventurers he was of the country and he loved it but he remained essentially an englishman in his ideas
but he was no politician he simply stood up for social order out of pure love for rational liberty and from his hate of oppression there was no nonsense about him he went to work in his own way because it seemed right just as i feel i must lay hold of that mine
in such words he talked to her because his memory was very full of the country of his childhood his heart of his life with that girl
he added that he would have to leave her for a few days to find an american a man from san francisco who was still somewhere in europe a few months before he had made his acquaintance in an old historic german town situated in a mining district
the american had his womankind with him but seemed lonely while they were sketching all day long the old doorways and the turreted corners of the mediaeval houses charles gould had with him the inseparable companionship of the mine
the other man was interested in mining enterprises knew something of costaguana and was no stranger to the name of gould they had talked together with some intimacy which was made possible by the difference of their ages
charles wanted now to find that capitalist of shrewd mind and accessible character his father's fortune in costaguana which he had supposed to be still considerable seemed to have melted in the rascally crucible of revolutions
apart from some ten thousand pounds deposited in england there appeared to be nothing left except the house in sulaco a vague right of forest exploitation in a remote and savage district
he explained those things it was late when they parted she had never before given him such a fascinating vision of herself all the eagerness of youth for a strange life for great distances
for a future in which there was an air of adventure of combat
which she returned to the giver with a more open and exquisite display of tenderness he left her to walk down the hill and directly he found himself alone he became sober
that irreparable change a death makes in the course of our daily thoughts can be felt in a vague and poignant discomfort of mind it hurt charles gould to feel that never more
by no effort of will would he be able to think of his father in the same way he used to think of him when the poor man was alive his breathing image was no longer in his power this consideration closely affecting his own identity
filled his breast with a mournful and angry desire for action in this his instinct was unerring action is consolatory it is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions
only in the conduct of our action can we find the sense of mastery over the fates for his action the mine was obviously the only field it was imperative sometimes to know how to disobey the solemn wishes of the dead
he resolved firmly to make his disobedience as thorough by way of atonement as it well could be the mine had been the cause of an absurd moral disaster its working must be made a serious and moral success
he owed it to the dead man's memory such were the properly speaking emotions of charles gould his thoughts ran upon the means of raising a large amount of capital in san francisco or elsewhere and incidentally
there occurred to him also the general reflection that the counsel of the departed must be an unsound guide not one of them could be aware beforehand what enormous changes the death of any given individual may produce in the very aspect of the world
the latest phase in the history of the mine missus gould knew from personal experience it was in essence the history of her married life the mantle of the goulds hereditary position in sulaco had descended amply upon her little person
but she would not allow the peculiarities of the strange garment to weigh down the vivacity of her character which was the sign of no mere mechanical sprightliness but of an eager intelligence
it must not be supposed that missus gould's mind was masculine a woman with a masculine mind is not a being of superior efficiency she is simply a phenomenon of imperfect differentiation interestingly barren and without importance
dona emilia's intelligence being feminine led her to achieve the conquest of sulaco simply by lighting the way for her unselfishness and sympathy she could converse charmingly but she was not talkative
has no random words at its command the words it pronounces have the value of acts of integrity tolerance and compassion a woman's true tenderness like the true virility of man is expressed in action of a conquering kind
the ladies of sulaco adored missus gould they still look upon me as something of a monster missus gould had said pleasantly to one of the three gentlemen from san francisco she had to entertain in her new sulaco house just about a year after her marriage
she jested most agreeably they thought and charles gould besides knowing thoroughly what he was about had shown himself a real hustler these facts caused them to be well disposed towards his wife
an unmistakable enthusiasm pointed by a slight flavour of irony made her talk of the mine absolutely fascinating to her visitors and provoked them to grave and indulgent smiles in which there was a good deal of deference
they would have been amazed at the state of her mind as the spanish american ladies had been amazed at the tireless activity of her body she would in her own words have been for them something of a monster however the goulds were in essentials a reticent couple
and their guests departed without the suspicion of any other purpose but simple profit in the working of a silver mine missus gould had out her own carriage with two white mules to drive them down to the harbour
whence the ceres was to carry them off into the olympus of plutocrats captain mitchell had snatched at the occasion of leave taking to remark to missus gould in a low confidential mutter this marks an epoch
missus gould loved the patio of her spanish house a broad flight of stone steps was overlooked silently from a niche in the wall by a madonna in blue robes with the crowned child sitting on her arm
subdued voices ascended in the early mornings from the paved well of the quadrangle with the stamping of horses and mules led out in pairs to drink at the cistern
a tangle of slender bamboo stems drooped its narrow blade like leaves over the square pool of water and the fat coachman sat muffled up on the edge holding lazily the ends of halters in his hand
barefooted servants passed to and fro issuing from dark low doorways below two laundry girls with baskets of washed linen the baker with the tray of bread made for the day leonarda her own camerista
bearing high up swung from her hand raised above her raven black head a bunch of starched under skirts dazzlingly white in the slant of sunshine then the old porter would hobble in sweeping the flagstones
all the lofty rooms on three sides of the quadrangle opened into each other and into the corredor with its wrought iron railings and a border of flowers whence like the lady of the mediaeval castle she could witness from above all the departures and arrivals of the casa
motte our english has changed with the years so that many words now connote more than they did originally this is true of the word monotonous from having but one tone it has come to mean more broadly
lack of variation the monotonous speaker not only drones along in the same volume and pitch of tone but uses always the same emphasis the same speed the same thoughts or dispenses with thought altogether
monotony the cardinal and most common sin of the public speaker is not a transgression it is rather a sin of omission for it consists in living up to the confession of the prayer book
we have left undone those things we ought to have done
so let us look at the nature and the curse of monotony in other spheres of life then we shall appreciate more fully how it will blight an otherwise good speech
if the victrola in the adjoining apartment grinds out just three selections over and over again it is pretty safe to assume that your neighbor has no other records if a speaker uses only a few of his powers
it points very plainly to the fact that the rest of his powers are not developed monotony reveals our limitations in its effect on its victim monotony is actually deadly
it will drive the bloom from the cheek and the lustre from the eye as quickly as sin and often leads to viciousness the worst punishment that human ingenuity has ever been able to invent is extreme monotony
solitary confinement lay a marble on the table and do nothing eighteen hours of the day but change that marble from one point to another and back again and you will go insane if you continue long enough so this thing that shortens life
and is used as the most cruel of punishments in our prisons is the thing that will destroy all the life and force of a speech avoid it as you would shun a deadly dull bore the idle rich can have half a dozen homes
command all the varieties of foods gathered from the four corners of the earth and sail for africa or alaska at their pleasure but the poverty stricken man must walk or take a street car he does not have the choice of yacht auto or special train
he must spend the most of his life in labor and be content with the staples of the food market monotony is poverty whether in speech or in life strive to increase the variety of your speech as the business man
labors to augment his wealth bird songs forest glens and mountains are not monotonous it is the long rows of brown stone fronts and the miles of paved streets that are so terribly same
nature in her wealth gives us endless variety man with his limitations is often monotonous get back to nature in your methods of speech making the power of variety lies in its pleasure giving quality
the great truths of the world have often been couched in fascinating stories les miserables for instance if you wish to teach or influence men you must please them first or last
strike the same note on the piano over and over again this will give you some idea of the displeasing jarring effect monotony has on the ear the dictionary defines monotonous as being synonymous with wearisome
that is putting it mildly it is maddening
and the pleased people naturally slip into a buying mood how to conquer monotony we obviate monotony in dress by replenishing our wardrobes we avoid monotony in speech by multiplying our powers of speech
we multiply our powers of speech by increasing our tools the carpenter has special implements with which to construct the several parts of a building the organist has certain keys and stops
which he manipulates to produce his harmonies and effects in like manner the speaker has certain instruments and tools at his command by which he builds his argument plays on the feelings and guides the beliefs of his audience
and why did not noah have moving picture entertainments and talking machines on the ark the laws that enable us to operate an automobile produce moving pictures or music on the victrola would have worked just as well then as they do today
it was ignorance of law that for ages deprived humanity of our modern conveniences many speakers still use ox cart methods in their speech instead of employing automobile or overland express methods
they are ignorant of laws that make for efficiency in speaking just to the extent that you regard and use the laws that we are about to examine and learn how to use will you have efficiency and force in your speaking
and just to the extent that you disregard them will your speaking be feeble and ineffective we cannot impress too thoroughly upon you the necessity for a real working mastery of these principles
they are the very foundations of successful speaking get your principles right said napoleon and the rest is a matter of detail it is useless to shoe a dead horse and all the sound principles in christendom
will never make a live speech out of a dead one so let it be understood that public speaking is not a matter of mastering a few dead rules
force feeling and life forget all else but not this when you have mastered the mechanics of speech outlined in the next few chapters you will no longer be troubled with monotony
practise if no one else will listen to you listen to yourself you must always be your own best critic and the severest one of all
the technical principles that we lay down in the following chapters are not arbitrary creations of our own they are all founded on the practices that good speakers and actors adopt either naturally and unconsciously or under instruction
the little strawberry up in the arctics with a few tiny seeds and an acid tang is a natural berry but it is not to be compared with the improved variety that we enjoy here the dwarfed oak on the rocky hillside is natural
but a poor thing compared with the beautiful tree found in the rich moist bottom lands be natural but improve your natural gifts until you have approached the ideal for we must strive after idealized nature in fruit
tree and speech questions and exercises one what are the causes of monotony two cite some instances in nature three
cite instances in man's daily life four describe some of the effects of monotony in both cases five read aloud some speech without paying particular attention to its meaning or force
six now repeat it after you have thoroughly assimilated its matter and spirit what difference do you notice in its rendition seven
c s baldwin writing and speaking the gun that scatters too much does not bag the birds the same principle applies to speech the speaker that fires his force and emphasis at random into a sentence
will not get results not every word is of special importance therefore only certain words demand emphasis
you do not emphasize each syllable alike but hit the accented syllable with force and hurry over the unimportant ones now why do you not apply this principle in speaking a sentence to some extent you do in ordinary speech
but do you in public discourse it is there that monotony caused by lack of emphasis is so painfully apparent so far as emphasis is concerned you may consider the average sentence as just one big word
with the important word as the accented syllable note the following
destiny is not a matter of chance it is a matter of choice
you might as well say mass a chu setts emphasizing every syllable equally as to lay equal stress on each word in the foregoing sentences speak it aloud and see of course you will want to emphasize destiny
for it is the principal idea in your declaration and you will put some emphasis on not else your hearers may think you are affirming that destiny is a matter of chance by all means you must emphasize chance
for it is one of the two big ideas in the statement another reason why chance takes emphasis is that it is contrasted with choice in the next sentence obviously the author has contrasted these ideas purposely
so that they might be more emphatic and here we see that contrast is one of the very first devices to gain emphasis as a public speaker you can assist this emphasis of contrast with your voice if you say
my horse is not black what color immediately comes into mind white naturally for that is the opposite of black if you wish to bring out the thought that destiny is a matter of choice you can do so more effectively by first saying that
destiny is not a matter of chance is not the color of the horse impressed upon us more emphatically when you say my horse is not black he is white than it would be by hearing you assert merely that your horse is white
in the second sentence of the statement there is only one important word choice it is the one word that positively defines the quality of the subject being discussed and the author of those lines desired to bring it out emphatically
as he has shown by contrasting it with another idea these lines then would read like this destiny is not a matter of chance it is a matter of choice now read this over striking the words in capitals
with a great deal of force in almost every sentence there are a few mountain peak words that represent the big important ideas
thanks to the editor he does not tell about a hold up in hong kong in the same sized type as he uses to report the death of five firemen in your home city size of type is his device to show emphasis in bold relief
he brings out sometimes even in red headlines the striking news of the day it would be a boon to speech making if speakers would conserve the attention of their audiences in the same way
and emphasize only the words representing the important ideas the average speaker will deliver the foregoing line on destiny with about the same amount of emphasis on each word instead of saying it is a matter of choice he will deliver it
it is a matter of choice or it is a matter of choice both equally bad charles dana the famous editor of the new york sun
the sun could not afford to waste the time and attention of its readers on such unimportant happenings but said mister dana if you see a man bite a dog hurry back to the office and write the story
of course that is news that is unusual now the speaker who says it is a matter of choice is putting too much emphasis upon things that are of no more importance to metropolitan readers than a dog bite
and when he fails to emphasize choice he is like the reporter who passes up the man's biting a dog the ideal speaker makes his big words stand out like mountain peaks his unimportant words are submerged like stream beds
his big thoughts stand like huge oaks his ideas of no especial value are merely like the grass around the tree from all this we may deduce this important principle emphasis is a matter of contrast and comparison
but we do know what the president did the words thought and did immediately catch the reader's attention because they are different from the others not especially because they are larger
if all the rest of the words in this sentence were made ten times as large as they are and did and thought were kept at their present size they would still be emphatic because different
take the following from robert chambers novel the business of life
had would are all emphatic because they have been made different he looked at her in angry astonishment well what do you call it if it isn't cowardice to slink off and marry a defenseless girl like that
did you expect me to give you a chance to destroy me and poison jacqueline's mind if i had been guilty of the thing with which you charge me what i have done would have been cowardly otherwise it is justified
a fifth avenue bus would attract attention up at minisink ford new york
to make a word emphatic deliver it differently from the manner in which the words surrounding it are delivered if you have been talking loudly utter the emphatic word in a concentrated whisper and you have intense emphasis
if you have been going fast go very slow on the emphatic word if you have been talking on a low pitch jump to a high one on the emphatic word if you have been talking on a high pitch take a low one on your emphatic ideas
read the chapters on inflection feeling pause change of pitch change of tempo each of these will explain in detail how to get emphasis through the use of a certain principle
in this chapter however we are considering only one form of emphasis that of applying force to the important word and subordinating the unimportant words do not forget
this is one of the main methods that you must continually employ in getting your effects let us not confound loudness with emphasis to yell is not a sign of earnestness intelligence or feeling
the kind of force that we want applied to the emphatic word is not entirely physical true the emphatic word may be spoken more loudly or it may be spoken more softly but the real quality desired is intensity
earnestness it must come from within outward last night a speaker said the curse of this country is not a lack of education it's politics he emphasized curse lack education
politics the other words were hurried over and thus given no comparative importance at all the word politics was flamed out with great feeling as he slapped his hands together indignantly
his emphasis was both correct and powerful he concentrated all our attention on the words that meant something instead of holding it up on such words as of this a of it's
what would you think of a guide who agreed to show new york to a stranger and then took up his time by visiting chinese laundries and boot blacking parlors on the side streets
he must have either truth or entertainment for them if he wearies their attention with trifles they will have neither vivacity nor desire left when he reaches words of wall street and skyscraper importance
you do not dwell on these small words in your everyday conversation because you are not a conversational bore apply the correct method of everyday speech to the platform as we have noted elsewhere
public speaking is very much like conversation enlarged sometimes for big emphasis it is advisable to lay stress on every single syllable in a word as absolutely in the following sentence
now and then this principle should be applied to an emphatic sentence by stressing each word it is a good device for exciting special attention and it furnishes a pleasing variety
patrick henry's notable climax could be delivered in that manner very effectively give me liberty or give me death
the italicized part of the following might also be delivered with this every word emphasis of course there are many ways of delivering it this is only one of several good interpretations that might be chosen knowing the price we must pay
the sacrifice we must make the burdens we must carry the assaults we must endure knowing full well the cost yet we enlist and we enlist for the war for we know the justice of our cause and we know too
its certain triumph from pass prosperity around by albert j beveridge before the chicago national convention of the progressive party
strongly emphasizing a single word has a tendency to suggest its antithesis notice how the meaning changes by merely putting the emphasis on different words in the following sentence
the parenthetical expressions would really not be needed to supplement the emphatic words i intended to buy a house this spring even if you did not
instead of next spring i intended to buy a house this spring instead of in the autumn when a great battle is reported in the papers they do not keep emphasizing the same facts over and over again
they try to get new information or a new slant the news that takes an important place in the morning edition will be relegated to a small space in the late afternoon edition we are interested in new ideas and new facts
this principle has a very important bearing in determining your emphasis do not emphasize the same idea over and over again unless you desire to lay extra stress on it senator thurston desired to put the maximum amount of emphasis on force
in his speech on page fifty note how force is emphasized repeatedly as a general rule however the new idea the new slant whether in a newspaper report of a battle or a speaker's enunciation of his ideas
this man with the larger eye says he will discover not rivers or safety appliances for aeroplanes but new stars and suns new stars and suns are hardly as emphatic as the word larger
why because we expect an astronomer to discover heavenly bodies rather than cooking recipes the words republic needs in the next sentence are emphatic they introduce a new and important idea
the most emphatic words are italicized in this selection are there any others you would emphasize why the old astronomer said give me a larger eye and i will discover new stars and suns
that is what the republic needs today new men men who are wise toward the soil toward the grains toward the tools if god would only raise up for the people two or three men like watt
fulton and mc cormick they would be worth more to the state than that treasure box named california or mexico and the real supremacy of man is based upon his capacity for education
man is unique in the length of his childhood which means the period of plasticity and education the childhood of a moth the distance that stands between the hatching of the robin and its maturity
represent a few hours or a few weeks but twenty years for growth stands between man's cradle and his citizenship this protracted childhood makes it possible to hand over to the boy
all the accumulated stores achieved by races and civilizations through thousands of years anonymous you must understand that there are no steel riveted rules of emphasis
it is not always possible to designate which word must and which must not be emphasized one speaker will put one interpretation on a speech another speaker will use different emphasis to bring out a different interpretation
no one can say that one interpretation is right and the other wrong this principle must be borne in mind in all our marked exercises here your own intelligence must guide and greatly to your profit
questions and exercises one what is emphasis two describe one method of destroying monotony of thought presentation three
what relation does this have to the use of the voice four which words should be emphasized which subordinated in a sentence five read the selections on pages fifty
six read some sentence repeatedly emphasizing a different word each time and show how the meaning is changed as is done on page twenty two seven
what is the effect of a lack of emphasis eight read the selections on pages thirty and forty eight emphasizing every word what is the effect on the emphasis nine
when is it permissible to emphasize every single word in a sentence ten note the emphasis and subordination in some conversation or speech you have heard were they well made why
can you suggest any improvement eleven from a newspaper or a magazine clip a report of an address or a biographical eulogy mark the passage for emphasis and bring it with you to class
twelve in the following passage would you make any changes in the author's markings for emphasis where why bear in mind that not all words marked require the same degree of emphasis
in a wide variety of emphasis and in nice shading of the gradations lie the excellence of emphatic speech i would call him napoleon but napoleon made his way to empire over broken oaths and through a sea of blood
this man never broke his word no retaliation was his great motto and the rule of his life and the last words uttered to his son in france were these
my boy you will one day go back to santo domingo forget that france murdered your father
i would call him cromwell but cromwell was only a soldier and the state he founded went down with him into his grave i would call him washington but the great virginian held slaves
this man risked his empire rather than permit the slave trade in the humblest village of his dominions you think me a fanatic to night for you read history not with your eyes but with your prejudices but fifty years hence
when truth gets a hearing the muse of history will put phocion for the greek and brutus for the roman hampden for england lafayette for france choose washington as the bright consummate flower of our earlier civilization
and john brown the ripe fruit of our noonday then dipping her pen in the sunlight will write in the clear blue above them all the name of the soldier the statesman the martyr toussaint l'ouverture
wendell phillips toussaint l'ouverture practise on the following selections for emphasis beecher's abraham lincoln page seventy six lincoln's gettysburg speech page fifty
seward's irrepressible conflict page sixty seven
chapter five first victories
he smiled when he saw the boy
and so they sauntered up the shady lane the old rector with his head bent and his hands crossed behind him and the boy all eager excitement and motion with suppressed importance in his tone
mister upton looked amused have you had any battles with him yet i think i had one yesterday may i tell you granny was very angry with me because i had made uncle jake's best handkerchief into a banner of love
i didn't really think it was naughty i wrote love in ink right across it and i took such pains for i wanted to show it to nancy and when i got home granny was so angry that she took me by the collar and she locked me into the back kitchen
and mother was out and i cried i was so miserable granny said i would come to the workhouse she called me the wickedest mischievousest boy she'd ever seen and
so i climbed up and then i thought i would jump out and run away across the fields till mother came home and i was very happy then and i jumped right out and then i remembered but i didn't want to go back again and then the fight began
suggested the rector as the boy paused teddy nodded i asked god to drive my enemy away
was that being a soldier yes my boy and granny let me out soon after
you will have plenty of fighting don't shirk the hottest part of the field that isn't being brave will you give me a horrid ugly name please sir i thought your enemy's name was teddy no that's mine i must have a name for him
how do you like ego or ipse what funny names
and presently he said as if to himself the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us it is a fight with certain victory ahead then why do we fail
shall i fail questioned a soft voice by his side without me ye can do nothing that's our captain's word if you fight without him you are done for
will that be deserting to the enemy it will be sure and certain defeat but then of course my captain won't let me be beaten if i stick close to him and so they talked a strange couple but the younger of them had a faith which the elder might envy
and a grasp of the unseen that the ripest saint could not surpass not long after this teddy and his schoolfellows were having a delightful afternoon in the woods
teddy of course being prime instigator of the whole affair a few of the more adventurous girls had joined them nancy amongst them her respect for teddy was gradually increasing though nothing seemed to quench her self assertion and independence of thought and action
at length teddy announced his intention of going off on an expedition as a scout and on nancy's insisting that she should come too the two children started made their way out of the wood and down to the banks of the stream which soon joined the river
we must crawl through the long grass or we must climb a tree or get through the bushes all kinds of adventures we have and if we don't meet anybody that's why i came down this way
now look out don't you talk loud and step softly just think that the first person who sees us will shoot us dead but they won't you must make believe they will teddy's tone was stern
and nancy was too occupied in holding her hat on her head as they crept through some low bushes to advance any more sceptical opinions and then suddenly a short time after they came upon a fisherman
for he sat under the shade of a tree with the remnants of a substantial lunch around him his fishing rod was in his hand but the line was out of the water and he with head thrown back and mouth wide open was fast asleep hush said teddy in an excited whisper
this was accomplished safely but having passed him teddy stood still and the spirit of mischief seized hold of him turning to nancy he said with sparkling eyes what fun to take him prisoner and tie him up to the tree with his own fishing line
he's an enemy i really think it's our duty to do it you stay here and watch me deftly and quickly
he had no difficulty in finishing the work he had begun dancing like an elf with the line in his hand he spun round and round the tree till the line was wound round to its very last extremity and the farmer looked like some big bluebottle fly entangled in the fine meshes of a spider's web
still he slept on and with a delighted chuckle teddy sped back to his little companion
what fun how i should like to see him come on quick he's farmer green and he's an awful angry man he gave sam such a thrashing for tying an old saucepan to one of his pigs tails he won't know who has done it and i did tie the knots awful tight
away they ran but they had not proceeded far before teddy came to a standstill and all the saucy sparkle died out of his eyes what's the matter asked nancy have you got a pain
the words were uttered almost in a whisper and nancy looked on with wonder it isn't right he said after a long pause i do want at least ipse wants to leave him there awfully but mother would say it was very naughty and i think
i think my captain doesn't like it i shall have to go back and undo him oh you mustn't cried nancy you'll wake him up and then you'll catch it let him undo himself teddy shook his head and then stole softly back to the tree
nancy following him at a respectful distance it seemed a harder business to untie the knots than to tie them but at length it was done and the unwinding process began alas farmer green's nap was over and with a hasty start he was roused to the full use of his faculties
when he discovered his condition he swore a round oath and turned upon teddy in great wrath as he vainly tried to extricate himself please sir said teddy nothing daunted if you keep still i shall undo you very soon and i won't break your line if i can help it
you young scoundrel how dare you show your face after such an audacious piece of impudence you're the plague of the parish and a good thrashing is what you will get sure as my name's jonathan green teddy's face was hot and red
was so irresistibly comic to nancy that she burst out laughing jonathan green was soon on his feet again and seizing hold of teddy by the collar shook him like a terrier would shake a rat
tying his hands together with his handkerchief then as nancy stepped forward indignant at this severe treatment he turned upon her there are two of you are there
soon settled her in the same fashion as he had done the boy and then picking up his fishing basket strode away calling out
button boy did he hurt you asked nancy anxiously for all this time teddy had not said a word he turned his head and looked at her i feel shooken up dreadful he's so awful strong but i'm not very hurt only i'm sorry
and i've been telling my captain about it and asking him to forgive me shall we stay here all the evening and all the night oh no he'll come and let us go soon it isn't fair on you for you didn't do anything i laughed at him
sailors fight i know they do grandfather read me about nelson the other evening and showed me a picture of sailors cutting the enemy's arms off as they tried to scramble on board ship i shan't never change to soldiers
sailors are much nicer and if sailors fight i can be a sailor for jesus their conversation was interrupted by voices and steps approaching and in another moment two ladies and a gentleman appeared evidently going home after a fishing excursion
teddy was the first to speak he recognised the newcomers to be the squire colonel graham and his wife with a visitor staying with them please sir will you undo us he asked appealingly the colonel laughed heartily
ah young fellow you're caught are you lady helen this is one of the young hopefuls in our village i have been told the ringleader in every bit of mischief set going you wouldn't think it to look at him would you what an angel's face
said that lady admiringly and who is the little girl she looks a regular little gipsy
having got his hands free teddy stood up bravely and told the story briefly and clearly to the great amusement of his hearers and he would never have been caught if he hadn't gone back to undo him put in nancy
what made you go back my boy asked missus graham gently
but he never hesitated to speak the truth i went back when i remembered it was wrong to have done it he said simply but you are not such a paragon of goodness generally said the colonel
wasn't it you and some others who scared our dairymaid into fits one night last winter by playing pranks after dark outside the dairy window yes sir said teddy humbly and why didn't you run away when the old man woke asked lady helen
oh ah i remember now though i'm not sure that i recollect the details said the colonel musingly your father was john platt who enlisted in one of the line regiments the twenty fourth wasn't it tell us the story by all means teddy obeyed delightedly
not seeing in the interest of his tale how keenly he was being watched by the ladies he told it as he always did with enthusiastic effect and when he offered to show the ladies his button they were charmed with him the colonel patted him on his head as he left saying
keep your father's spirit in you my lad and you'll live to do something great yet i should like to have him as a page boy said lady helen as they walked away what a sensitive refined little face it is too good to be spoilt by house service said colonel graham
he's my enemy mister upton told me about and he he hates farmer green but i tell him the banner is love and we must try to love him and how can i show him i love him mother
chapter ten found it was winter time and teddy was back at school full of health and spirits yet through all his boyish mirth the loss of his button was never forgotten
daily he prayed for it to be found and his hope and faith in god never failed him perhaps god will send it to me for a christmas surprise perhaps i shall find it in my stocking on christmas morning he used to say to his mother and she told him to pray on
the master wants you to let the youngster come up with me now and speak to him what about questioned missus john rather alarmed at this summons and wondering if teddy had been up to mischief he won't keep him long
which had the effect of completely reassuring her and bringing a pleased smile about her lips
don't you never kick your legs out in the kitchen or have you got stiff knees i can kick out as much as i like responded the young man in rather an offended tone don't you think it's nicer to be a soldier wouldn't you like to be one no their grub is something shocking and they live like cattle
when their arrival at the house put an end to it i say just tell me is the colonel angry asked teddy as looking into the large brightly lighted hall he suddenly felt his diminutive size
not he wipe your feet and take your cap off teddy stepped in upon the soft rugs almost on tiptoe and the colonel himself came out into the hall to meet him come in my little man and don't be frightened teddy held his head erect
as he followed the colonel into a bright cheery room where a group of ladies and gentlemen were round the fire enjoying their cup of five o'clock tea missus graham came forward and gave him a kindly greeting this is our would be soldier said colonel graham
some of you remember his story told in our schoolroom to the regiment passing through in the summer
i'd rather have it back than anything else in the world and i'm going to get it back too but it's at the bottom of the river isn't it i don't know where it is but god does and i ask him every day to send it back to me i'm quite sure he will
fact is stranger than fiction certainly said the colonel now my boy come here he was standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire and putting his hand into his pocket he drew out a small box and placed it in the child's hand
open it and tell me if you recognise the contents teddy lifted the lid and then a gasp
oh my button my own button oh sir and here the tears welled up in the blue eyes and utterly regardless of the place he was in he flung himself down on the hearthrug and buried his head face foremost in his arms he lay there so still for a moment that missus graham bent forward to touch him
fearing that the excitement might be too much for him but he was only trying to hide his emotion from those looking on in another minute he rose to his feet and with a face perfectly radiant he turned to the colonel it's lovely sir it's lovely
the other day i brought home a few fish and in preparing one of these for table our cook discovered your button inside it i wonder the fish had not come to an untimely end before from such an indigestible meal she told us of it not recognising what a valuable treasure she had brought to light
and directly we saw it we knew it was the redoubtable button that has been the means of causing such interest in our neighbourhood teddy listened eagerly no wonder no one couldn't find it he said fingering his adornment proudly
it's like the fish that brought peter some money once then the colonel turned to one of his friends now major what do you think of this youngster would you like to take him as a drummer boy into your regiment the major scanned the boy from head to foot then answered emphatically
when i see a fresh drummer brought in i wonder how long he will keep his innocence and sometimes wish his friends could see the life he is subjected to i give them a month generally and then away flies their bloom and all their home training but major tracy
you are giving us a shocking idea of the morals in the service said one lady he shrugged his shoulders i grant you on the whole they are better than they were but the service is no place for highly strung boys like this one the rougher harder natures get on best
when they get older and have sense and strength enough to stick to their principles then let them enlist but i have always heard said missus graham that the drummer boys are well looked after now
that may be i would only ask you to watch a boy as i have from the start and see what kind of a man he grows into after having spent most of his early youth in the service there are exceptions i know but precious few as far as my experience goes
teddy did not understand this conversation but he gathered from the major's tone that he did not approve of him
i don't want to be a drummer said teddy earnestly i'd rather wait and be a proper soldier a soldier that fights a capital decision stick to it little chap and you have my hearty approval
you have your father's blood in your veins said the colonel laughing meanwhile i suppose you try your hand on the village boys to content your fighting propensities no said teddy a grave look coming into his sunny blue eyes
who is ipse asked missus graham he's my own enemy mister upton told me about him you see i belong to god's army he takes very little soldiers i've been enlisted for months and months and ipse is just another part of me
the bad part there was silence on the little company for a minute then major tracy said with a laugh what an original little oddity it is quite a character and then teddy was dismissed he flew down the avenue home as fast as he could go
snow was falling but he heeded it not and burst into the kitchen a little later in a breathless state of excitement his mother knew already so was prepared for his news
teddy's prayer of thanksgiving that night touched his mother greatly o god i do thank you i knew you would answer me for you knew how dreadful it was to live without my button and you knew how unhappy my heart was about it though i tried to be brave and not talk about it
please do help me to take great care of it and never let me lose it again the next morning before breakfast teddy ran off to tell nancy and to show her the long lost treasure she was quite as delighted as he was but said a few minutes after button boy
do you remember telling me you couldn't live without your button you said you'd pine away and die yes i thought i should but as soon as i began to pray about it i knew it was coming back and so i got better
but i will now because i'm trying to be good and we'll always remember that soldiers and sailors are just as good as each other they're quite even yes nodded nancy sailors and soldiers are quite even and my father is just as good as your father was
and then they parted nancy calling out after him and when you die and i get the button i shall wear it as a brooch mother said teddy a few days after this as she was paying him her usual good night visit it's a very funny thing
but do you know i used to wish for an enemy so much to fight and carry on with
he does trouble me a lot now soldiers must never get tired of fighting sonny and you have your captain to help you yes and i suppose when i get bigger and stronger it will be much easier won't it
mother do you have any fighting have you got an enemy like me yes indeed i have my boy but you're never beaten are you you never do anything wrong i don't get into mischief and disobey orders perhaps missus john said smiling
and i am afraid i very often get beaten by the enemy teddy pondered over this when i get to heaven i shan't have to fight with ipse shall i no darling there will be no fighting with sin there teddy smiled
fight god's battles than be the bravest soldier in the queen's army but said teddy i mean to do both and now mother just before i go to sleep
with a deep far away look in them they were dancing and flashing with excitement now and his whole frame was quivering with enthusiasm with head thrown back and tongue hand and foot all in motion
with one hand he was fingering a large brass button which figured conspicuously in the centre of his small waistcoat and this button was the subject of his theme
and they shouted hurrah as they made after him there were guns going and shells flying and swords flashing and hacking away
and no one could stand against him no one he cut and he slashed and heads and arms and legs rolled off as quick as lightning one after the other he got up to the colours and with a shout he plunged his sword right through the enemy's body that had stolen them the enemy fell stone dead
my father seized the colours and looked round he was alone the other soldiers had been beaten back but was he in a funk no he gave a loud hurrah picked up his sword and fought his way back the enemy hard after him it was a race for life and he ran backwards the whole way
he wasn't going to turn his back to the enemy he pressed on shouting hurrah till he got to his own side again and then he reached his colonel captain dead sir i've got the colours he saluted as he said it
and that's the story of my button pursued the boy ignoring with scorn this last remark and did your father have only one button to his coat the voice was a strange one and the boys turned round to meet the curious gaze
of a sturdy little damsel who had unnoticed joined the group she was not dressed as an ordinary village child but in a little rough serge sailor suit with a large hat to match set well back on a quantity of loose dark hair
a rosy cheeked square set little figure she was and her brown eyes fringed with long black lashes looked straight at teddy with something of defiance
one button he said with emphasis the coat was sent to mother with only one button left on and if you here he turned upon his questioner with a little fierceness
and killed so many men you would have burst and lost all your buttons and not had one left like father there was a round of applause at this but the small maiden remained undaunted is that a true story you told she demanded with severity in her tone
of course it's true was the indignant shout of all then i tell you boy i don't believe a word of it and with set determined lips she turned on her heel and walked away having sown seeds of anger and resentment in more than one boyish breast
who is she asked teddy as tired and exhausted by his recital he threw himself on the grass to rest one of the bigger boys answered him i seed her come yesterday in a cab from the town to old sol at the turnpike she and her mother i reckon
they had two carpet bags and a box and a poll parrot in a cage i counted them myself for i was havin a ride behind and the woman she called sol father so the little un must be his grandarter
no i couldn't have fought her sam if she'd been a boy i've promised my mother i won't fight again till she gives me leave you see i fought four boys in one week last time and she says she won't have it i don't see if it is right for soldiers to fight why it isn't right for boys
besides it was only tom larken who set them on to try and get your button from you and he's gone off to another part of the country now i think p'raps went on teddy slowly
there was none in the village so quick footed as teddy and for daring feats and downright pluck he held the foremost place
perhaps it was his marvellous aptitude for telling stories many of them wild productions from his fertile brain
and none as yet had resisted his sway over the green up a shady lane across two fields and then breathless and panting teddy paused before an old fashioned farmhouse he passed his hands lightly through his curls
home made bread and golden butter a glass dish of honey in its comb a plate of fresh watercress and a currant loaf completed the simple fare presiding at the tea tray was a stern forbidding looking woman of sixty or more
opposite her was seated her son the master of the farm a heavy faced sleepy looking man and at his side facing the door sat teddy's mother a sweet
time proved to her that for steady quiet work no one could eclipse her daughter in law young missus john as she was called was now her right hand and the dairy work of the farm was made over entirely to her
late again you young scamp was the stern greeting of his grandmother as teddy appeared on the scene the boy looked at her with a twinkle in his eye put his little hand to his forehead and gave her a military salute sorry
was all he said as he slipped into the chair that was waiting for him what have you been doing sonny asked the young mother whose eyes had brightened at the sight of him telling father's story replied teddy with alacrity
a shadow came over his mother's face her lips took a distressed curve but she said nothing only occupied herself with attending to the child's wants your father was never late for his meals the grandmother put in with asperity
never granny not when he was a boy i shall be always in time when i'm a soldier better begin now then bad habits like weeds grow apace teddy had no answer for this his mouth
then whilst tea was being taken away by the women he turned to his uncle who pulling out a pipe from his pocket sat down by the open door to smoke uncle jake a grunt was the only response but that was sufficient
and i haven't one i should like to have a good right down enemy to fight asked his uncle to carry on with you know he would lay traps for me and i would for him like david and saul
mother would give me leave to fight him just once in a way don't you think that would be nice fightin ain't the only grand thing in this world peace is grander was the slow response to this appeal that's what mother says she made me learn this morning
but you must have an enemy to make peace with and i haven't got one there was silence the uncle puffed away at his pipe he was a good man and had more brains than his appearance warranted but teddy's speeches were often a sore puzzle to him
the boy continued in a slow thoughtful tone i saw some one to day that i feel might be an enemy but she's a girl men don't fight with women i'd rather tackle a man than a woman any day
they be a powerful enemy sometimes lad and what have this young maid done to you she said
and she laughed and walked away that was coming it strong and who is she to talk so she's a stranger
that must be grace's child said old missus platt coming up and joining in the conversation i heard she was coming to stay with her father this summer and glad i am of it too the old man is very lonely i suppose her husband is at sea again
what is her husband inquired teddy's mother as with work in hand she came out and took a seat in the old fashioned porch a sailor grace was always a roving nature herself
mister hare stood looking at his dead daughter john norton sat by the window his brain was empty everything was far away he saw things moving moving but they were all far away
she had walked with him on the hills she had accompanied him as far as the burgh she had waved her hand to him before they walked quite out of each other's sight now she was dead had he loved her
why was there neither burning grief nor tears he envied the hard sobbing father's grief the father who held his dead daughter's hand and showed a face on which was printed so deeply the terror of the soul's emotion
that john felt a supernatural awe creep upon him felt that his presence was a sort of sacrilege he crept downstairs
he went into the drawing room and looked about for the place he had last seen her in she usually sat on that sofa
and now he should not see her any more only three days ago she had been sitting in that basket chair how well he remembered her words her laughter
shadow like is human life one moment it is here the next it is gone her work basket the very ball of wool which he had held for her to wind the novel which she had lent to him
to walk home across the downs all the while thinking thinking over what had happened he had asked her to be his wife she had consented and alarmed at the prospect of the new duties he had contracted
he had returned home these newly contracted duties had stirred his being to its very depth the chance appearance of a gipsy girl without the aid of that circumstance he felt he would never have spoken
had set his life about with endless eventuality he could not see to the end the future he had indefinitely plighted and his own intimate and personal life had been abandoned for ever
he had walked up and down his study his mind aflame he had sat in his arm chair facing the moonlight considering a question to him so important so far reaching that his mind at moments seemed as if like to snap
to break but which was accepted by nine tenths of humanity without a second thought as lightly as the most superficial detail of daily life but how others acted was not his concern he must consider his own competence
to bear the burden the perilous burden he had asked and which had been promised to him he must not adventure into a life he was not fitted for he must not wreck another's life
their interests were mutual they were identical there was no question of egotism
it had haunted his thought it had become his daily companion his familiar spirit
it faced him always with the same unmovable mysterious eyes in which he read nothing which told him nothing of what he longed to know he only knew that he had desired this girl as a wife
on this point he was uncertain this was nature's secret in the midst of his stress of mind his eyes had wandered over his books they had been caught by the colour of a small thin volume
and obeying an instinct he had taken the volume down he knew it well
is his master faculty as the body is for the physician and the trainer and the soil is the subject for the husbandman and the work of the good and wise man is to use appearances according to nature
and neither way for what is neither good nor evil in the light of these words john's mind grew serene as a landscape on which the moon is shining and he asked himself why he had hesitated if marriage were the state
which he was destined to fulfil if a habit affects us
against that must we endeavour to find some remedy and what remedy is to be found against a habit the contrary habit a temptation of the flesh had come upon him he had yielded to it instead of opposing it with the contrary habit
of chastity for chastity had never afflicted him it had ever been to him a source of strength and courage chastity had brought him peace of mind but the passion to which he had in a measure yielded
and love robs us of that therefore it must be maleficent and this passion which has caused me so much trouble what is it a passing emotion of which i am ashamed of which i would speak to no one
an emotion which man shares with the lowest animals but which his higher nature teaches him to check and subject then he remembered that this emotion might come upon him again but each time he thought
i shall be able to control it better than the last and it will grow weaker and weaker until at last it will pass and to return no more but he had proposed to kitty and had been accepted
and for some solution of this material difficulty he had to fall back upon the argument that he had no right to wreck another's life that in considering his interests he was considering hers
and he had stood in the dawn light pondering a means of escape from a position into which a chance circumstance had led him he had gone to bed hoping to find counsel in the night and in the morning he had waked firm in his resolve
and had gone to shoreham in the intention of breaking his engagement but instead he had witnessed a cruel and terrible suicide the reason of which was hidden from him possibly none would ever know the reason
perhaps it were better so the reasons that prompted suicide were better unrevealed and now as he returned home after the tragedy about midway in his walk across the downs
might have been sufficient reason in an affected mind for suicide but this was not so he knew it was not so he had been spared that she was here with me yesterday he said
and he looked down the landscape now wrapped in a white mist the hills were like giants sleeping the long distance vanished in mysterious moonlight he could see brighton nearer was southwick
and further away past the shadowy shore was worthing
ah life life what hast thou for giving save deceptions why did i leave my life of contemplation and prayer to enter into that of desire did i not know that there was no happiness save in calm and contemplation
and foolish is he who places his happiness in the things of this world but what had befallen her she was mad when she threw herself out of the window to escape from him but how had she become mad
by what sudden snapping of the sense had madness come something must have happened did madness fall like that like a bolt from the blue if so she must have always been mad
and walking home the slight thread of sense half worn through had suddenly snapped he knew that she liked him had she guessed that when it came to the point that he would not
mister hoskin a young painter whose pictures were sometimes rejected in the academy but who was a little lion in the minor exhibitions came once a week to give her lessons and when she went to town she called at his studio with her sketches
he was a good looking blond man somewhat inclined to the poetical and melancholy type his hair bristled and he wore a close cut red beard the moustache was long and silky
there was a gentle pathetic look in his pale blue eyes and a slight hesitation of speech an inability to express himself in words created a passing impression of a rather foolish tiresome person
and he lived principally by teaching but he had not given mildred her fourth lesson in landscape painting when he received an advantageous offer to copy two pictures by turner in the national gallery
she listened to him her eyes wide open and then in her little allusive way suggested that she would like to copy something she might as well take her lesson in the national gallery as in sutton besides
he would be able to take her round the gallery and explain the merits of the pictures she was anxious to get away from sutton and the prospect of long days spent in london pleased her
and on the following thursday harold took her up to london by the ten minutes past nine for the first time she found something romantic in that train they drove from victoria in a hansom
i'm afraid i don't paint well enough you'll get on all right i'll see you through this way i've got your easel and your place is taken they went up to the galleries oh dear me this seems rather alarming she exclaimed
stopping before the crowd of easels the paint boxes the palettes on the thumbs the sheaves of brushes the maulsticks in the air she glanced at the work seeking eagerly for copies worse than any she was likely to perpetrate
and she experienced a little thrill when he led her to the easel a beautiful white canvas stood on it ready for her to begin and on a chair by the side of the easel was her paint box and brushes he told her where she would find him
in the turner room and that she must not hesitate to come and fetch him whenever she was in difficulties i should like you to see the drawing she said before i begin to paint
i shall look to your drawing many times before i allow you to begin painting it will take you at least a couple of days to get it right don't be afraid he said glancing round lots of them can't do as well as you i shall be back about lunch time
already she despaired but before she began to paint she would have to draw those heavenly faces in every feature it was more difficult than sketching from nature she could not follow the drawing it seemed to escape her
which she could not hope to catch the girl in front of her was making it seemed to mildred a perfect copy there seemed to be no difference or very little between her work and reynolds's mildred felt that she could copy the copy easier
than she could the original but on the whole she got on better than she had expected and it was not till she came to the fifth head
and had not sufficient space left on her canvas this was a disappointment there was nothing for it but to dust out her drawing and begin it all again she grew absorbed in her work she did not see the girl in front of her
nor the young man copying opposite she did not notice their visits to each other's easels she forgot everything in the passion of drawing time went by without her perceiving it
she was startled by the sound of her master's voice and looked in glad surprise
very badly can't you see
will you give me your charcoal the first thing is to get the heads into their places on the canvas don't think of detail but of two or three points the crown of the head the point of the chin the placing of the ear
let me introduce you to miss laurence he said the women bowed you're doing an excellent copy miss laurence praise from you is praise indeed i would give anything to paint like that said mildred
you've only just begun painting said miss laurence only a few months said mildred miss lawson does some very pretty sketches from nature said mister hoskin this is her first attempt at copying
you must tell me which you use mister hoskin can tell you better than i you can't have a better master do you copy much here asked mildred i paint portraits when i can get them to do when i can't i come here and copy
we're in the same boat she said turning to mister hoskin mister hoskin paints beautiful landscapes as long as he can find customers when he can't he undertakes to copy a turner
mildred noticed the expression that passed over her master's face it quickly disappeared and he said will you take miss lawson to the refreshment room miss laurence you're going there i suppose
yes i'm going to the lunch room and shall be very glad to show miss lawson the way and in company with quite a number of students they walked through the galleries mildred noticed that miss laurence's nose was hooked
brown leather shoes suddenly miss laurence said this way and she went through a door marked students only mister hoskin held the door open for her they went down some stone steps looking on a courtyard
mister hoskin said i always think of peter de hooch when i go down these stairs the contrast between its twilight and the brightness of the courtyard is quite in his manner
and i always think how much i can afford to spend on my lunch said elsie laughing the men turned to the left top to go to their room the women turned to the right to go to theirs this way said miss laurence and she opened a glass door and mildred found herself
in what looked like an eating house of the poorer sort there was a counter where tea and coffee and rolls and butter were sold plates of beef and ham could be had there too
but you don't know what it is to want money and in a rapid glance miss laurence roughly calculated the price of mildred's clothes a tall
rather handsome girl with dark coarse hair and a face lit up by round grey eyes entered so you are here elsie and she stared at mildred let me introduce you to miss lawson miss lawson miss cissy clive
i haven't seen you here before miss lawson is this your first day yes this is my first day they took their food to the nearest table and elsie asked cissy if she had finished her copy of etty's bather
but cissy had insisted and he had put her and the picture into a little room off the main gallery where she could pursue her nefarious work unperceived the girls laughed heartily
elsie asked for whom cissy was making the copy for a friend of freddy's a very rich fellow herbert is going to get him to give me a commission for a set of nude figures
he has lost all his money
and doesn't know how he'll pull through was he here this morning he ran in for a moment to see me i'm dining with him to night
some black and white then he'd want to come round to the studio i don't like to put him off as you like it'll be a very jolly dinner johnny and herbert are coming but i daresay freddy'll ask walter
he'll do anything i ask him when lunch was over cissy and elsie took each other's arms and went upstairs together mildred heard cissy ask who she was elsie whispered a pupil of ralph's
i'm not disturbing you father no dear you never disturb me he said getting up from the type writer and giving her his chair but what is the matter nothing at least nothing in particular
i thought i'd like to sit and watch you here take your chair i can get another
he won't mind just for once he's a very particular man but i'll tell him i took it for you the major returned a moment after with a chair he gave it to agnes and resumed his place at the machine
and the dexterity with which he passed fresh sheets of paper under the roller when he had finished and was gathering the sheets together she said how clever you are i think i picked it up pretty quickly i can do seventy words a minute
some typists can do eighty but my fingers are too old for that still seventy is a good average and i have hardly any corrections to make they are very pleased with my work i'll teach you you'd soon pick it up
will you father then i should be able to assist you we could sit together you in that corner i in this i wonder if mother would buy me a machine i could pay her back out of the money i earned just like you
your mother would say you were wasting your time you've come home she'd say to go into society and not to learn type writing i'm afraid she would but father there is no use my going into society
i shall never get on in society last night at lord chiselhurst's yes tell me about it you must have enjoyed yourself there agnes did not answer for a long while at last she said
mother thinks i ought to marry lord chiselhurst that i ought to make up to him and catch him if i can she says that he likes very young girls and that she could see that he liked me but father i cannot marry him he is
no i cannot marry him i do not like him i'm only sixteen and he's forty or fifty but that isn't the reason at least not the only reason i don't want to marry any one and mother doesn't seem to understand that
to notice the light which flashed in the major's eyes i said mother i never wanted to leave the convent it was you who wanted me home no she said it was not i it was your father
but now that you are here i should like you to make a good marriage then she turned and kissed me i don't want to say anything against mother she loves me i'm sure but we're so different i shall never understand mother
i shall never get on in society i cannot father dear i cannot i feel so far away i do not know what to say to the people i meet i do not feel that i understand them when they speak to me i am far away
that is what i feel i shall never get over that feeling i shall not succeed and then mother will get to hate me i am so unhappy father i'm so unhappy agnes dropped on her knees
and throwing her arms on her father's shoulder she said but father you're not listening listen to me i've only you i'm thinking of what of many things poor father you have a great deal to think of
how was it father that our drawing room came to be what it is a great deal of it is my fault dear when i lost my money i got disheartened and little by little i lost control
your mother said in reply to some question about me that i was merely an expense i believe the phrase was considered very clever it went the round of society and eventually was put into a play
and that is why i told you that money is everything
never mind best not to ask my dearest daughter i would bear it all over again for your sake
touching his forehead it does indeed but father you mustn't bear this any longer not for my sake father no not for my sake you must find some way out of it i have found a way out of it
it took me a long while but i have found the way there it is he said pointing to the type writing machine they don't suspect anything not they the fools they don't know what is hanging over their heads i'll tell you
agnes but you must not breathe a word of it to any one if you did they would take the machine from me for they'd like me to remain a mere expense as long as i'm that they can do what they like
but as soon as i gain an independence as soon as i am able to pay for my meals he whispered i mean to put my house in order but you mustn't breathe a word i'll never do anything father you ask me not to do
i shall be able to sweep out all those you don't like there are too many men hanging about here tell me father do you like lord chadwick the major's face changed expression
he thinks me crazy but so do others i know that my conversation bores him he always tries to get away from me yet somehow it seems to me that i do like him is he a fast man father
is he like lord chiselhurst he is much the same as the other men that come here i don't think he's a bad man no worse than other men is he kind to you dear tell me that do you like him yes father
when i've got together a little independence when i can pay for my meals and my clothes you shall see none that you dislike shall ever come here dearest i'll put my house in order
what dear mother will want me to marry they shall not force you to marry they shall not ask you to do anything you do not like lord chiselhurst ought to be ashamed
a man of his age to want to marry a young girl like you i will go and tell him so the major stood up he was pale and agnes noticed that his lips trembled no father she said do not go to him
i do not know that he wants to marry me it is only mother's idea she may be mistaken you shall not be persecuted by his attentions lord chiselhurst is a gentleman father whatever his faults may be
i feel sure when he sees that i do not want him that he will cease to think of me lord chiselhurst is not the worst who then is the worst who is it that you wish me to rid you of
i don't wish you to be violent father but you might hint to mister moulton that i do not wish that man he too is merely an expense i am sure father that it is not right of him to put his arms round me
he tried to kiss me i was alone in the drawing room and he speaks in a way that i do not like i don't know i don't like him he frightens me frightens you that fellow that fellow yes he asks me questions
he never shall do so again is he in the drawing room yes but father you cannot speak to him now there are people in the drawing room i don't care who's there
mother will never forgive me father you mustn't make a scene father you cannot go to the drawing room in those clothes and in desperate resolve agnes threw herself between the major and the door pressing him back with both hands
i want you to speak to mister moulton but not now this is not the time he tried to push past her but she resisted him and sat down in front of his type writing machine pale and exhausted the sweat
pearling his bald forehead she tried to calm him and to induce him to understand the scandal he would make if he were to go down to the drawing room dressed as he was but her words did not seem to reach the major's brain
he only muttered that the time had come to put his house in order agnes answered father for my sake not now
in the heart of italy what a relief it is sometimes to have a good waiter say you do not know what you want will you let me bring you the best there is in the house sometimes you know you really do not know what you want
and usually when that is the case you are not very hungry that is always a good time to try new things it is also possible that you do not know what you want because you do not know how to order in either instance our advice is if the waiter gets confidential and offers his assistance
you will certainly miss something if you do not accept his good offices this was the case with us one day when we were over at fifteen forty nine stockton street near washington square at the gianduja the proper pronunciation of this
this is one of the good italian restaurants of the latin quarter
good cooking and excellent service it matters not whether you take their thirty five cent luncheon or order a most elaborate meal you will find that the service is just what it ought to be we asked brenti what he considered his most famous dish
and like all other proprietors he shrugged his shoulders and said with hands emphasizing his words we have so many fine dishes of course we know that
there is no one the very best i could give you two let it be two then was our immediate rejoinder and here is what he gave us as the best recipes of the gianduja
first let us give you an idea of the difficulty under which we secured these recipes by printing them just as he wrote them down for us and then we shall elaborate a little and show the result of skillful questioning this is the way he wrote the recipe for risotto milanaise
risotto ala milanaise onions chop fine marrow and little butter rice saffron chicken broth wen cook add fresh butter and parmesan cheese seasoned
what was embodied in the words wen cook was the essential of the recipe and here is the way we got it chop one large onion fine cut a beef marrow into small dice and stir it with the chopped onion put a small piece of butter in a frying pan
and into this put the onion and marrow and fry to a delicate brown now add one scant cup of rice stirring constantly and into this put a pinch of saffron that has been bruised when the rice takes on a brown color add slowly
chicken broth as needed until the rice is thoroughly cooked then add a lump of fresh butter about the size of a walnut and sprinkle liberally with grated parmesan cheese seasoning to taste with pepper and salt this is to be served with chicken or veal
the second recipe was for fritto misto and he wrote it as follows fritto misto lamb chops and brains breaded sweetbreads escallop of veal fresh mushrooms
italian squash when in season asparagus or cauliflower fried in fresh butter dipped in beaten eggs lime jus fritto misto means fried mixture and the recipe as we finally elucidated it
is as follows take a lamb chop a piece of calf brain one sweetbread a slice of veal a fresh mushroom sliced italian squash a piece of asparagus or of cauliflower and dip these into a batter made of an egg
well beaten with a little flour sprinkle these with a little lime juice and fry to a delicate brown in butter adding salt and pepper to taste at the gianduja as at all other italian restaurants not much affected by americans
you will find an atmosphere of unconventionality that is delightful to the bohemian there is no irksome espionage on the part of other patrons all of whom are there for the purpose of attending strictly to their own business
and the affairs of other diners are of no consequence to them there is freedom of expression and unconsciousness most pleasing after having experienced those other restaurants where it seems to be the business of all the rest of the guests to know just what you are eating and drinking
there is little of the obnoxious posing that one finds in restaurants of the downtown districts for while italians in common with all other latins are natural born poseurs they are not offensive in it but rather impress you with the same feeling as the antics of a child
one of the little out of the way restaurants of the italian quarter is the leon d'oro at fifteen twenty five grant avenue and it is one of the surprises of that district lazzarini he with the big voice
presides over the tiny kitchen in the rear of the room devoted to public service and family affairs soft voiced rita with her demure air and her resemblance to evangeline with her crossed apron strings and delicate features takes your order
and soon comes the booming sound from the neighborhood of the range that announces to all patrons as well as to some who may be in the vicinity on the street that your order is ready and then everybody knows what you are eating
as you sit either in curtained alcove or at the common table in the main room little andrea will visit you with his cat both are institutions of the place and one is prone to wonder how a cat can have so much patience with a little boy
andrea speaks italian so fluently and so rapidly that it gives you the impression of a quick rushing stream of pure water tumbling over the stones of a steep declivity he is not yet old enough to understand that it is not everybody who knows how to speak italian
for he talks without ever expecting an answer lazzarini understands the art and science of cooking and some of the dishes he prepares are so unusual that one goes again and again to partake of them possibly his best dish is the following
chicken a la leon d'oro cut a spring chicken into pieces place these in a pan containing hot olive oil and season with salt and pepper turn the chicken until it is thoroughly browned
and add finely chopped green peppers let it cook awhile then add a finely chopped clove of garlic and a little sage put in a small glass of marsala wine tomato sauce
before taking from the pan add half a tablespoonful of butter and serve on a hot plate lazzarini also makes a specialty of snails and they are well worth trying while you are experimenting with the unusual things to eat
the recipe for these is as follows snails a la bordelaise put ten pounds of snails in a covered barrel and keep for ten days then put in a tub with a handful of salt and a quarter of a gallon of vinegar
stir for twenty minutes until a foam rises then take out and wash thoroughly until the water runs clear put in a large pot a pint of virgin olive oil four large onions and eight cloves of garlic all chopped fine
and a small bunch of parsley chopped fine put the pot over the fire and when the onions are browned stir in some white wine or marsala and then put in the snails cover and let simmer for thirty five minutes
while cooking add a pint of meat stock a little butter and some anise seed when done put in a soup tureen and serve to remove the snails use small wooden toothpicks a breath of the orient
san francisco's world famed chinatown like the rest of the city is changed since the big fire and the chinatown of today is but a reminiscence of the old oriental city that was set in the midst of the most thriving occidental metropolis
the city that was there has never been much of chinatown that savored of bohemianism but it has always been the vogue for visitors to make a trip through its mysterious alleys peering into the fearsome dark doorways listening to the ominous slamming doors of the clubs
and shuddering in a delightful horror at the recumbent opium smokers pointed out to them by the industrious guide and when they were taken into one of the gambling houses and shown the double doors
and the many contrivances used to prevent police interference with the innocent games of fan tan and then were shown the secret underground passage leading from one of the gambling houses to the stage of the great chinese theatre two blocks away they went home ready to believe anything told them about
the ways that are dark and tricks that are vain for they were sure the heathen chinee was peculiar chinese restaurant life never appealed to bohemians and when it became necessary to entertain visitors with a trip to a chinatown restaurant
the ordinary service was of tea and rice cakes served from lacquered trays in gaudy rooms and the admiring visitors could well imagine themselves in far off cathay then came the fire and chinatown with the rest of the down town portion of san francisco
passed away in the rebuilding the owners of the properties concluded to give the quarter a more chinese aspect and pagoda like structures are now to be found in all parts of the section the curiosity of the tourist is an available asset to chinatown
and with queer houses and queerer articles on sale there is always plenty of uninitiated to keep the guides busy but from a city of more than twenty five thousand orientals in the midst of an enlightened city an asiatic city that had its own laws and executed its criminals
with the most utter disregard for american laws it has changed into one of the most law abiding parts of the great city with the passing of the queue came the adoption of the american style of dressing and much of the picturesqueness
of the old chinatown has disappeared but with the changed conditions there has come a change in the restaurant life of the quarter and now a number of places have been opened to cater to americans and on every hand one sees chop suey signs and chinese noodles
it goes without saying that one seldom sees a chinaman eating in the restaurants that are most attractive to americans some serve both white and yellow and others serve but the chinese and a few favored white friends probably the best restaurant in chinatown
here is served such a variety of strange dishes that one has to be a brave bohemian indeed to partake without question ordinarily when chinese restaurants are mentioned but two dishes are thought of chop suey and chow main
but neither is considered among the fine dishes served to chinese epicures it is much as if one of our best restaurants were to advertise hash as its specialty both these dishes might be termed glorified hash
the ingredients are so numerous and so varied with occasion that one is tempted to imagine them made of the table leavings and that is not at all pleasant to contemplate
we asked one of the managers at the hang far low what he would order if he wished to get the best dish prepared in the restaurant and he was even more emphatic in his shrugs than the french or italian managers
he protested that there were so many good things it was impossible to name just one as being the best you see we have fish fins they are very good snails china style very good too then we have turtle
brought from china different from the turtle they have here and we cook it china style eels come from china and they are cooked china style too what is china style
we have here the very best tea this may be taken as a sample of what to expect when visiting chinatown's restaurants and while we confess to having some excellent dishes served us in chinatown our preference lies in other paths of endeavor
we suppose it is all in the point of view and our point of view is that there is nothing except superficiality in the ordinary chinese restaurants frequented by americans
desiring to observe in fitting manner a birthday anniversary we asked a japanese friend if he could secure admission for a little party at a restaurant noted for serving none but the highest class japanese we did not even know where the restaurant was
but had heard of such a place and when we received word that we would be permitted to have a dinner there we invited a newspaper friend who was in the city from new york together with two other friends
he took us to a dwelling house in o'farrell street having given previous notice of our coming there was nothing on the outside to indicate that it was anything but a residence
but when we were ushered into the large front room we found it beautifully decorated with immense chrysanthemums and glittering with silver and cut glass on a magnificently arranged table
forks were placed on the table as well as the little sticks that the orientals use so deftly at each place was a beautiful lacquer tray about twelve by eighteen inches a pair of chopsticks a fork and a teaspoon
before the meal was over several of us became quite expert in using the chopsticks when we were seated in came two little japanese women in full native costume bearing a service of tea
the cups and saucers were of a most delicate blue and white ware with teapot to match our first cup was taken standing in deference to a japanese custom where all drank to the host
then followed saki in little artistic bottles and saki cups that hold not much more than a double tablespoonful saki is the japanese wine made of rice and is taken in liberal quantities at each serving
some one drank to some one else then a return of the compliment was necessary having always heard that orientals turned menus topsy turvy we were not at all surprised when the little serving women brought to each of us two silver plates and set them on our trays
these plates contained what appeared to be cake one seeming to be angel food with icing and the other fruit cake with the same covering with these came bowls of soup served in lacquer ware made of glutinous nests of swallows
and also a salad made of shark fins we ate the soup and salad and found it good and then made tentative investigation of the cake to our great surprise we discovered the angel food to be fish and the icing
was shredded and pressed lobster the fruitcake developed into pressed dark meat of chicken with an icing of pressed and glazed white meat of the same fowl following this came the second service of tea
this time in cups of a rare yellow color and beautiful design with similar teapot the next course was a mixture of immature vegetables served in a sort of saute these were sprouting beans lentils
peas and a number of others with which we were unfamiliar the whole was delicately flavored with a peculiar sauce after a short wait during which the saki bottles circulated freely
one of the women came in bearing aloft a large silver tray on which reposed a mammoth crayfish or california lobster this appeared to be covered with shredded cocoanut and when it was placed before the host for serving he was at loss
for no previous experience told him what to do it developed that the shredded mass on top was the meat of the lobster which had been removed leaving the shell fish in perfect form it was served cold with a peculiar sauce
now followed the piece de resistance a tub of water was brought in and in this was swimming a live fish apparently of the carp family after being on view for a few minutes it was removed
and soon the handmaidens appeared with thinly sliced raw fish served with soy sauce ordinarily one can imagine nothing more repulsive than a dish of raw fish but we were tempted and did eat and found it most delicious delicate
and with a flavor of raw oysters next came the third service of tea this time in a deep red ware then came a dessert of unusual flavor and appearance followed by preserved ginger and fruit
it must be remembered that during the meal which lasted from seven until past midnight saki was served constantly yet no one felt its influence in more than a sense of increased exhilaration
it is customary to let the emptied bottles remain on the table until the close of the meal and there was a mighty showing it was impossible to eat all that was set before us
but japanese custom forbids such a breach of etiquette as an indication that the food was not perfection consequently the serving maids appeared bearing six carved teak boxes and placed one at each plate
into these we arranged the food that was unconsumed and when we went away we carried it with us to cap the climax the japanese stripped the room of its bounteous decoration of chrysanthemums and piled them into our arms and we went home loaded with food and flowers
proprietor and all his household accompanied us to the door with many bows and gesticulations wishing us best of luck and we went back to our homes in the desolated city with the feeling of having been transported to fairyland of the orient
we discovered later that our japanese friend was of the family of the emperor and was here on a diplomatic mission old and new palace one cannot well write a book on bohemian restaurants of san francisco
without saying something about the great hotel whose history is so intimately intertwined with that of the city since eighteen seventy three when william c ralston determined that the city by the golden gate should have a hotel commensurate with its importance
san francisco and the palace hotel were almost synonymous all over the world and it was conceded by travelers that nowhere else was there a hostelry to equal this great hotel
to the bon vivant the grills of the palace hotel contained more to enhance the joy of living than anywhere else and here the chefs prided themselves with providing the best in the land
prepared in such perfect ways as to make a meal at the palace the perfection of gastronomic art there are three distinct eras to the history of the palace hotel the first being from eighteen seventy six to eighteen ninety
the second from eighteen ninety to nineteen o six and the third from nineteen o six to the present day in the earlier days the grills both that for gentlemen and that for ladies were noted for their magnificent service and their wonderful cooking
a breakfast in the ladies grill with an omelet of california oysters toast and coffee was a meal long to be remembered possibly the most famous dish of the old palace was this one of omelet with california oysters
and it was prepared in the following manner oyster omelet for two take six eggs one hundred california oysters one small onion one tablespoonful of butter
salt and pepper to taste beat the eggs to a froth and stir in the onion chopped fine put the eggs into an omelet pan over a slow fire mix the flour and butter to a soft paste with a little cream
and stir in with the oysters adding salt and pepper to taste when the eggs begin to stiffen pour the oysters over and turn the omelet together serve on hot plate with a dash of paprika this is the recipe of
ernest arbogast the chef for many years of the old palace the slightly coppery taste of the california oysters gives a piquancy to the flavor of the omelet that can be obtained in no other way
and those who once ate of arbogast's california oyster omelet invariably called for it again and again
and he said he would give us two as it was difficult to decide which was the best and most distinctive these are the recipes as he wrote them for us planked fillet mignon
trim some select fillet mignon of beef about four ounces of each nicely saute these in a frying pan with clarified butter on a hot fire dress on a small round plank about four and a half inches in diameter
decorated with a border of mashed potatoes over the fillet mignon pour stuffed pimentoes covered with a sauce made of fresh mushrooms
serve chateaubriand sauce in a bowl the second is cold fillet of sand dabs palace select six nice fresh sand dabs raise the fillets from the bone skin and pare nicely
and season with salt and paprika arrange them in an earthenware dish cut in julienne one stalk of celery one green pepper one cucumber two or three tomatoes depending on their size
with the bone of the sand dab well cleaned make a stock with one bottle of riesling juice of one lemon and seasoning add chervil and tarragon season to taste and cook the julienne ingredients with some of the stock
when the rest of the stock is boiling poach it in the fillets of sand dab then remove from the fire and let get cold put the garnishing around the fillets and put on ice to get in jelly
when ready to serve decorate around the dish with any kind of salad you like and with beets capers olives and marinated mushrooms this must be served very cold and you may serve mayonnaise sauce on the side we asked dauviller what he considered his most delicate salad
and he gave us this recipe palace grill salad select three hearts of celery and cut them julienne cut some pineapple and pimentoes into dice mix all well together in a bowl and add mayonnaise sauce and a little whipped cream
slowly we were driven back down the broad street and toward the palace as we retreated old people and children came from the houses and went with us leaving their dwellings to the mercy of the monsters
a block from the palace we bunched together and by sheer mass and ferocity actually stopped the machinelike advance for a few moments miscellaneous weapons had been brought from the houses sledges stone benches
and handed to us in silence by the noncombatants somebody tugged at my sleeve looking down i saw a little girl
i seized the formidable weapon and jumped at the nearest quabo a ten foot giant whose eyes were glinting gigantically at me through the distorting curve of the glass disregarding the clutching tentacles entirely i swung the bar against the helmet it cracked
i swung again and it fell in fragments spilling the gallons of water it had contained the tentacles wound vengefully around me but in a few seconds they relaxed as the thing gasped out its life in the air
and found myself facing the queen her head was held bravely high though the violet of her eyes had gone almost black with fear
why art thou here go back to the palace at once i came to fight beside thee she answered composedly though her delicate lips quivered all is lost it seems so shall i die beside thee
i started to reply to urge her again to seek the safety of the palace but by now the deadly advance of the tentacled demons had begun once more fighting vainly the population of zyobor was swept into the palace grounds then into the building itself men
replied stanley with a shrug these fish have out thought us nonsense there may still be a way a brace of machine guns i murmured hopefully you might as well wish for a dozen light cannon snapped the professor please try to
concentrate and see if any effective weapon suggests itself to you something more available at the moment than machine guns in silence the three of us racked our brains for a means of defence
came quietly over to us and sat on the bench beside me frankly i could think of nothing to my mind we were surely doomed what arms could possibly be contrived at such short notice what weapon could be called forth
glass what destroys it sharp blows certain acids
that's it he turned excitedly to the queen i think we have it at least it's worth trying
hast thou in the palace any lengths of pipe like to that which the quabos drag behind them no
her eyes round and wondering then she interrupted herself ah yes there is in a vault near that of kilor's there is a great spool of it
was cut into three pieces each about fifty yards long these were connected to three of the largest gas vents of the palace stanley the professor and i each took an end and we prepared to fight with fire the creatures of water
it ought to work stanley repeated several times as though trying to reassure himself as well as us it's simple enough the water in those helmets is ice cold
dragging our hose to the big front entrance of the palace and warning the crowded people to keep their feet clear of it we prepared to test out the efficiency of this our last resource against the enemy
for an instant we paused just inside the doorway looking out at the ugly glassed in things that were massing to attack us again the ranks of quabos had closed in now
till they extended down the street for several hundred yards in close formation a forest of great pulpy heads with huge eyes that glared unblinkingly at the glittering pink building that was their objective light up ordered stanley
setting an example by touching his hose nozzle to the nearest wall jet a spurt of fire belched from his hose streaming out for four or five feet in a solid red cone the professor and i touched off our torches
and we moved slowly out the door toward the ranks of quabos don't try to save yourselves from their tentacles advised stanley walk right up to them direct the fire against their helmets
unblinking eyes glaring tentacles writhing warily little spurts of used water trickling from their helmets keep together warned stanley so that if any one of us loses his light he can get it from the hose of one of the other two and
the last stand was begun it was not a battle so much as a series of fierce duels the quabos realized their new danger instantly and devoted all their efforts to extinguishing our torches
we parried and thrust with the flaming hoses in an equally desperate effort to prevent it one of them scuttled toward me like a great crab a tentacle darted toward my right arm another was pressed against the nozzle there was a sickening smell
and the tentacle was jerked spasmodically away
a shout of savage exultation broke from my lips hardly
i went toward the next one swinging the flaring hose in a slow arc as i advanced the creature lunged at me and threshed at the burning jet with all four of its feelers
the ghastly tentacles were dry withered and soft
nevertheless with a swift move it slapped a tentacle squarely down over the hose nozzle the flame was extinguished as the flame of a candle is pinched out between thumb and forefinger i retreated catch
the welcome rush of water over the cream colored grass and another monster was writhing in the death throes keeping close together
again and again the fiery weapon of one or the other of us was dashed out to be re lighted from the nearest hose again and again loud detonations heralded the collapse of more of the invaders
but it seemed as though their flailing tentacles were as myriad as the stars they had never seen it seemed as though their numbers would never appreciably diminish we thrust and parried till our arms grew numb and still there appeared to be hundreds of the quabos left
by order of the queen three stout zyobites stepped up to us and relieved us of our exhausting labor gladly we handed the hoses to them and went to the palace for a much needed rest
toward their tunnel and here the professor took command again we mustn't let them get away to try some new scheme he snapped martin take fifty men and beat them back to the break in the wall
they move so slowly that you can easily cut off their retreat there isn't any more hose began stanley there's plenty of it the quabos brought it with them the professor turned to me again take metal saws with you
to the nearest wall jets run i ran with fifty of the men of zyobor close behind me we dodged out the side of the palace grounds least guarded by the quabos ducking between their ranks like infantry men threading through an opposition
of powerful but slow moving tanks four of our number were caught but the rest got through unscathed down a side street we raced and along a parallel avenue toward the tunnel as we went i prayed that all the quabos had centered
their attention on the palace and left their vulnerable water hoses unguarded they had when we stole up the last block toward the break we found the nearest quabo was a hundred yards down the street and working further away with every move
at once we set to work on the scores of hoses that quivered over the floor with each move of the distant monsters a zyobite with the muscles of a hercules swung his ax mightily down on a hose
the metal was soft enough to be sheered through by the stroke the cut ends were smashed so that they could not be crammed down over the tapering jets
before the quabos had reached us we had rigged six fire hoses and had cut through forty or fifty more water lines the end was certain and not long in coming we sprayed the monsters with fire as workmen spray fruit trees with insect poison
stanley the professor and a zyobite came up in the rear with their three hoses caught between the two forces the beaten fish milled in hopeless confusion and indecision in half an hour they were all reduced to huddles of slimy wet flesh
that dotted the pavement from the break back to the palace grounds the invaders were completely annihilated and the city of zyobor was saved now said the professor triumphantly
we have only to knock out the bottom half of the tunnel wall empty the tunnel and make sure there are no more quabos lurking there after that we can fill it in with solid cement the queen can order her fish servants to guard the outer cave
we knew each others thoughts well enough he could resume his companionship
with the menace of the quabos banished forever the city of zyobor resumed its normal way the citizens lowered their dead into the great well we had cut with appropriate rites performed by the queen
the daily tasks and pleasures were picked up where they had been dropped the haunting fear died from the eyes of the people shortly afterward with great ceremony and celebration i was made king of zyobor
to rule by aga's side
he is second to me in power the professor is the official wise man of the city life flows smoothly for us in this pink lighted community we are more than content with our lot here our only concern has been the grief
that must have been occasioned our relatives and friends when the rosa sailed home without us now we have thought of a way in which with luck we may communicate with the upper world by relays of my queen's fish servants
editor's note there was no trace of any notes the yacht rosa was reported lost with all hands in a hurricane off new zealand aboard her were a professor george berry and the owner
cubes of chaos sarka raced into the observatory wondering as he ran how the attack of the martians would manifest itself but scarcely prepared for the brilliant display which greeted his gaze
compared to the oncoming flames from mars the preceding display of lights had been as nothing the whole heavens between the earth and mars seemed alight with an unearthly glare
as though the very heart of the sun had burst and hurled part of its flaming mass outward into space on it came with unbelievable speed but there was no telling yet the form of the things which were coming
what are they whispered jaska standing fearlessly at sarka's side interplanetary cars rockets balls of fire or beings of mars i think said sarka
we can expect to see the people of mars themselves when or soon after those balls of fire strike the earth sarka raced back to the room of the master beryl as a strident humming came through to him
and the cubes themselves are forming into larger cubes some square some rectangular in the midst of these formations are others mostly columnar each column consisting of cubes which have coalesced into the larger form from the same small cubes
the columnar formations are topped by globes which emit an ethereal radiance listen sarka's voice was vibrant with excitement spokesmen of the gens
make sure that every individual member of your gens is fully equipped with flying clothing including belts and ovoids prepared for an indefinite stay outside on the roof of the world get your people out swiftly keeping them in formation
and understand before you break contact with your beryls that instructions received from these people come from me in turn after you have quitted the hives
the contacts were broken sarka stared into the beryl glancing swiftly in all directions to see whether his orders were obeyed out of the myriads of hives were flying the people of all the gens of earth
their vast numbers already darkening the roof of the world the advance fires from mars seemed to have no effect on them which sarka had expected since the fires seemed to consume nothing they had touched previously
by millions the people came forth people dressed in the clothing of this gens or that wearing each the insignia of the house of his spokesman a brave show sarka could see the faces of many now in light now in shadow
as the advance fires of mars lighted them for a moment in passing then left them in shadow as the bursting balls of fire faded and died strange too that the fireballs made no noise
noiseless flame which rebounded from the surface of the earth broke in silence deluging the heavens with shooting stars of great brilliance
each to his own level under command of the spokesmen of the gens how long father queried sarka should it take to empty the gens areas
the people of earth have been waiting for word to go into battle since we first sent the people of dalis against the moon men they still are ready the dwellings of our people all of them can be emptied within an hour
i wonder mused sarka if that is soon enough perhaps yes perhaps no it would be a race in any case
sarka divided his attention between the rapidly changing formations of the moon cubes in that devasted area and the onrushing charge of the fire balls from mars all were visible to him through the master beryl
adjusted to view only activities on the surface of the earth even as the last flights of the gens of earth were slipping into the icy air from the roof of the world the moon cubes began their terrifying appalling attack
every detail of which could be seen by sarka from the master beryl those columns composed of cubes seemed to be the leaders of a vast cube army
sarka sought swiftly among the columns for the one which might conceivably be in supreme command but even as he sought the moon cubes moved to the attack the globes on the tops of the columns dimmed their lights and the squares rectangles
and globes got instantly into terrible motion southward from the position in which they had formed they began to move the squares and rectangles apparently sliding along the surface of the scarred and broken soil the globes rolling
southward there was the vast wall of the gens that bordered the devasted area in that direction and the cube army was instantly at full charge toward this in what sarka realized was to be a war of demolition
within a minute sarka was conscious of a trembling of all the laboratory and the eyes of jaska were wide with fear swiftly the trembling grew until sound now was added to the vast awesome tremor
a vast roaring crescendo of sound that mounted and mounted as the speed of the cube army increased
and a mighty rocketing roar sounded in the master beryl was audible inside the laboratory even without the aid of the beryl at whose surface sarka stared as a man fascinated hypnotized
the cube army struck the dwellings disappeared into them as though they had been composed of tissue paper and continued on over the tops of the cube army toppled the roofs of the dwellings
there in the midst of the cubes to be ground to powder with a sound as of a million avalanches grinding together in some awesome sun size valley southward in the wake of the chaotic charge moved a mighty gigantic crevasse
grinding everything it touched to dust trampling buildings into nothingness destroying utterly along a front hundreds of miles wide and as deep as the dwellings of men god cried sarka
there must be a way said sarka the second quietly to circumvent the cubes but what your will still rules the cubes which piloted you from the moon yes replied sarka tersely
but there are only a dozen of the cubes what can they do against countless millions of them cubes which are moon cubes brought to the earth in the heart of that blue column here reformed to create an army which is invincible
i believe you are right he said softly those of us who have passed through the flames which bore these moon cubes will control the cubes even bend them to our will
the spokesmen must vanquish the martians or perish then he sent his mental commands to the spokesmen meet the martians when they arrive and destroy or drive them back you live
only if you win we speak no more until victory is ours people of the gens of dalis go to the areas being devasted by the cubes taking your cubes and aircars with you and i will join you there
and jaska with me sarka had not himself mentally spoken the last four words jaska had thought spoken them before he could prevent he turned upon her
but she forestalled him i too have been through the white flames
somehow however communication if sarka the second had guessed correctly had been managed between mars and the moon
perhaps for the same reason that the earth had gone a voyaging side by side sat sarka and jaska
growing minute by minute larger they were able after some hours to make out the outlines of what had once been continents to see the shadows in valleys which had once held the oceans of earth
and always as they stared and literally willed the cubes which piloted and were the motive power of the aircars to speed and more speed that marvelous display of interplanetary fireworks
which had aroused the concern of sarka the second what were those lights whence did they emanate sarka the second had said that they came from mars yet mars was invisible to those in the speeding aircars
which argued that it was hidden behind the earth there was
to the effect that luar for all her sovereignty of the moon might be nonetheless a native of the earth but how why when there were no answers to any of the questions yet
if she were a native of earth how had she reached the moon when had she been sent there who was she her name luar was a strange one and sarka studied it for many minutes rolling the odd syllables of it over his tongue
wondering where on the earth he had heard names or words similar to it this produced no result until he tried substituting various letters then again adding various letters
when he achieved a certain result at last he gasped and his brain was a whirl luar by the addition of the letter n
meaning of the moon yet lunar was unmistakably a word derived from the language of the earth it was possible of course that this was mere coincidence but taken in connection with the suspicions of jaska
and the incontrovertible fact that luar resembled people of the earth
who was luar his mind went back to the clucking sounds which among the gnomes of the moon passed for speech he pondered anew he shaped his lips as nearly as possible to make the clucking sounds he had heard
and discovered that it was very difficult to manage the letter n the conclusion was inescapable this woman luar
the n down the centuries being dropped because difficult for the gnomes to pronounce yes jaska he said suddenly somewhere on earth when we reach it we may discover the secret of luar
jaska merely smiled her inscrutable smile and did not answer by intuition she already knew let sarka arrive at her conclusion by scientific methods if he desired and she would simply smile anew
and still the one question remained unanswered who was luar the earth was now so close that details were plainly seen the himalayas were out of sight over the earth
and by a mental command sarka managed to change slightly the course of the dozen aircars
he hoped also to see from above something of the result of the strange aerial bombardment of which his father had spoken in their flight which had been to them a flight through the glories of a super heavenly universe they had lost all count of time
nor yet the people in those other aircars could have told how long they had been flying when coming over the curve of the earth at an elevation of something like three miles they were able at last
to see into the area which had once housed the gens of dalis
the gens of dalis had occupied all the territory northward to the pole from a line drawn east and west through the southernmost of what had once been the hawaiian islands upon this area had struck the strange blue light from the deep cone of the moon
here however the light was invisible and sarka flew on in fear that somehow his aircars would blunder into it and be destroyed for that the blue light was an agent of ghastly destruction
became instantly apparent the dwellings of the gens of dalis were broken and smashed into chaotic ruins
the blind gods of destruction had practically made a clean sweep sarka had opportunity to thank god that at the time the blue column had struck the earth it had struck at the spot which had been almost emptied of people
and realized that blind chance had caused it for in order for the gens of dalis to be in position to launch their attack against the moon he had managed by manipulating the speed of the beryls
think of a shoreline once lined with mighty buildings after the passage of a tidal wave greater than ever before known to man the devastation would be indescribable
and the mental picture is almost too big to grasp chaos catastrophe approaching an infinity of destruction
had been twisted into grotesque nightmarish shapes and the whole fused into a burned and gleaming mass which covered half of what had once been a mighty ocean
yet sarka knew remembering the murmuring of the blue column as it came out of the cone all this devastation had been caused in almost absolute silence
sarka shuddered trying to picture in his mind the massing of the minions of mars who thus saw a new country given into their hands if they could take it had the earth been taken by surprise
father he sent his thoughts racing on ahead of him are those lights which are striking the earth causing any damage only came back the instant answer in that they destroy the courage of the people of the earth
the people however now know that sarka is returning and their courage rises again the flames are merely a hint of what faces us but the people will rise and follow you wherever you lead
so as they raced across the area of devastation the face of sarka became calm again on a chance he sent a single sentence of strange meaning to his father
the ruler of the moon is a woman called luar which seems a contraction of lunar for many minutes sarka the second made no answer
i am an old man i live here in this ancient house surrounded by huge unkempt gardens the peasantry who inhabit the wilderness beyond say that i am mad
i would sooner have old pepper than the rest of creation together he at least understands me and has sense enough to leave me alone when i am in my dark moods i have decided to start a kind of diary
it may enable me to record some of the thoughts and feelings that i cannot express to anyone but beyond this
during many years of loneliness in this weird old building for a couple of centuries this house has had a reputation a bad one and until i bought it for more than eighty years no one had lived here consequently
by writing down an account of them to the best of my ability though should this my diary ever be read when i am gone the readers will but shake their heads and be the more convinced that i was mad this house how ancient it is
which is curious and fantastic to the last degree little curved towers and pinnacles with outlines suggestive of leaping flames predominate while the body of the building is in the form of a circle i have heard that there is an old story
told amongst the country people to the effect that the devil built the place however that is as may be true or not i neither know nor care save as it may have helped to cheapen it ere i came i must have been here some ten years
before i saw sufficient to warrant any belief in the stories current in the neighborhood about this house it is true that i had on at least a dozen occasions seen vaguely things that puzzled me and perhaps
had felt more than i had seen then as the years passed bringing age upon me i became often aware of something unseen yet unmistakably present in the empty rooms and corridors still
it was as i have said many years before i saw any real manifestations of the so called supernatural it was not halloween if i were telling a story for amusement's sake i should probably place it on that night of nights
but this is a true record of my own experiences and i would not put pen to paper to amuse anyone no it was after midnight on the morning of the twenty first day of january i was sitting reading as is often my custom in my study
pepper lay sleeping near my chair without warning the flames of the two candles went low and then shone with a ghastly green effulgence i looked up quickly and as i did so i saw the lights sink into a dull ruddy tint
i had been considerably startled when the lights burnt first green and then red but had been momentarily under the impression that the change was due to some influx of noxious gas into the room now however i saw that it was not so
for the candles burned with a steady flame and showed no signs of going out
until presently they showed minute specks of red fire like the gleamings of rubies in the darkness still i sat watching while a sort of dreamy indifference seemed to steal over me banishing altogether the fear that had begun to grip me
i became conscious of a faint glow
filling the room with gleams of quivering green light then they sank quickly and changed even as the candle flames had done into a deep somber crimson that strengthened and lit up the room with a flood of awful glory
the first thing i noticed was that the light had decreased greatly so that it no longer tried my eyes then as it grew still duller i was aware all at once that instead of looking at the redness i was staring through it
the immensity of this plain scarcely can be conceived in no part could i perceive its confines it seemed to broaden and spread out so that the eye failed to perceive any limitations slowly the details
of the nearer portions began to grow clear then in a moment almost the light died away and the vision if vision it were faded and was gone suddenly i became conscious that i was no longer in the chair instead
i seemed to be hovering above it and looking down at a dim something huddled and silent in a little while a cold blast struck me and i was outside in the night floating like a bubble up through the darkness as i moved
an icy coldness seemed to enfold me so that i shivered after a time i looked to right and left and saw the intolerable blackness of the night pierced by remote gleams of fire onward outward i drove
then for the last time i saw the earth an enduring globule of radiant blue swimming in an eternity of ether and there i a fragile flake of soul dust flickered silently across the void from the distant blue into the expanse of the unknown
a great while seemed to pass over me and now i could nowhere see anything i had passed beyond the fixed stars and plunged into the huge blackness that waits beyond all this time i had experienced little
save a sense of lightness and cold discomfort now however the atrocious darkness seemed to creep into my soul and i became filled with fear and despair what was going to become of me where was i going even as the thoughts were formed
it seemed extraordinarily remote and mistlike yet at once the feeling of oppression was lightened and i no longer despaired slowly the distant redness became plainer and larger until as i drew nearer
it spread out into a great somber glare dull and tremendous still i fled onward and presently i had come so close that it seemed to stretch beneath me like a great ocean of somber red i could see little
surrounded by a great waste of loneliness the place was lit with a gloomy twilight that gave an impression of indescribable desolation afar to my right within the sky there burnt a gigantic ring of dull red fire
from the outer edge of which were projected huge writhing flames darted and jagged the interior of this ring was black black as the gloom of the outer night
that the place derived its doleful light from that strange source of light i glanced down again to my surroundings everywhere i looked i saw nothing but the same flat weariness of interminable plain
nowhere could i descry any signs of life not even the ruins of some ancient habitation gradually i found that i was being borne forward floating across the flat waste for what seemed an eternity i moved onward
i was unaware of any great sense of impatience though some curiosity and a vast wonder were with me continually always i saw around me the breadth of that enormous plain and always
i searched for some new thing to break its monotony but there was no change only loneliness silence and desert presently in a half conscious manner i noticed that there was a faint mistiness ruddy in hue
lying over its surface still when i looked more intently i was unable to say that it was really mist for it appeared to blend with the plain giving it a peculiar unrealness
and conveying to the senses the idea of unsubstantiality gradually i began to weary with the sameness of the thing yet it was a great time before i perceived any signs of the place toward which i was being conveyed
a careful survey of the territory showed that it was only the northern sections and slopes that had been beamed by the first han ship
the forest screen above it however had been annihilated and it was determined to abandon it after removing all usable machinery and evidences of the processes that might be of interest to the han scientists should they return to the valley in the future
the ammunition plant and the rocket ship plant which had just been about to start operation at the time of the raid were intact as were the other important plants
and laid out new camp locations scattering them farther to the south and avoiding ground which had been seared by the han beams and the immediate locations of the han wrecks during this period a sharp check was kept upon han messages
the entire membership of the community was summoned back and normal life was resumed wilma and i had been married the day after the destruction of the ships and spent this intervening period in a delightful honeymoon camping high in the mountains
on our return we had a camp of our own of course
and as might be expected we had a great deal of banter over which one of us was camp boss the title stood after my name on the big boss records and those of the big camboss of course but wilma airily held that this meant nothing at all
i found myself a full fledged member of the gang now
much as i would have liked to familiarize myself with this twenty fifth century life in other sections of the country the wyomings had a high morale
lacked strong hands in authority and were rife with intrigue on the whole i thought i would be wise to stay with a group which had already proved its friendliness and in which i seemed to have prospects of advancement
under these modern social and economic conditions the kind of individual freedom to which i had been accustomed in the twentieth century was impossible i would have been as much of a nonentity in every phase of human relationship
by attempting to avoid alliances as any man of the twentieth century would have been politically who aligned himself with no political party
judging from my ancient viewpoint was organized along what i called political lines
for the ability to maintain his autocracy the sub boss who could not command the loyalty of his followers was as quickly deposed either by them or by his superiors as the ancient ward leader of the twentieth century who lost control of his votes
as society was organized in the twentieth century
i tremble to think what would have happened had the attempt been made to handle the a e f this way during the first world war instead of by that rigid military discipline and complete assumption of the individual as a mere standardized cog in the machine
there developed a spirit of self sacrifice and consideration for the common good that made the scheme applicable and efficient in all forms of human co operation i have a little heresy about all this however my associates regard the thought
as to those of the early nineteenth in later years
since the hans had been finally destroyed with all their works and americans have developed a new luxury economy i have seen signs of the reawakening of greed of selfishness the eternal cycle seems to be at work i fear that slowly though surely
which concerns our early battles against the hans and not our more modern problems of self control our victory over the seven han ships had set the country ablaze the secret had been carefully communicated to the other gangs
came the report of a great transpacific liner of seventy five thousand tons lift being brought to earth from a position of invisibility above the clouds a dozen sacramentos had caught the hazy outlines of its rep rays approaching them head on in the twilight
whereas they would have had difficulty in hitting it if it had been moving at right angles to their position they got one rep ray the other was not strong enough to hold it up it floated to earth nose down and since it was unarmed and unarmored
they had no difficulty in shooting it to pieces and massacring its crew and passengers it seemed barbarous to me but then i did not have centuries of bitter persecution in my blood
the sand snipers practically invisible in their sand colored clothing and half buried along the beaches lay in wait for days risking the play of dis beams along the route and finally registering four hits within a week
the hans discontinued their service along this route and as evidence that they were badly shaken by our success sent no raiders down the beaches it was a few weeks later that big boss hart sent for me tony he said
they're putting armor of great thickness in the hulls of their ships below the rep ray machines near bah flo
the big bosses have just held a national ultrophone council it was decided that america must organize on a national basis the first move is to develop sectional organization by zones i have been made superboss of the mid atlantic zone
we're in for it now the hans are sure to launch reprisal expeditions if we're to save the race we must keep them away from our camps and plants i'm thinking of developing a permanent field force
along the lines of the regular armies of the twentieth century you told me about its business will be twofold to carry the warfare as much as possible to the hans and to serve as a decoy
amazing and impossible as it seems there is a group or perhaps an entire gang somewhere among us that is betraying us to the hans it may be the bad bloods or it may be one of those gangs who live near one of the han cities you know
a hundred and fifteen or twenty years ago there were certain of these people's ancestors who actually degraded themselves by mating with the hans sometimes even serving them as slaves in the days before they brought all their service machinery to perfection
that first han ship knew the location of our plants exactly you remember it floated directly into position above the valley and began a systematic beaming then the hans quite obviously have learned that we are picking up their electrophone waves
for they've gone back to their old but extremely accurate system of directional control but we've been getting them for the past week by installing automatic re broadcast units along the scar paths this is what the americans called those strips of country
directly under the regular ship routes of the hans who as a matter of precaution
which might give shelter to the americans but they've been beaming those paths so hard it looks as though they even had information of this strategy and in addition they've been using code finally we've picked up three of their messages
in which they discuss with some nervousness the existence of our mysterious ultrophone but they still have no knowledge of the nature and control of ultronic activity i asked no said the big boss thoughtfully
that whoever is clearing us to them is doing it piecemeal it sounds like a bit of occasional barter rather than an out and out alliance they're holding back as much information as possible for future bartering perhaps yes hart said
and it isn't information the hans are giving in return but some form of goods or privilege
some twenty minutes later the ship arrived it settled down slowly into the ravine on its repeller rays
there it was stopped and floated steadily
into which it fitted snugly and i stepped into the interior of a craft not unlike the one with which i had had my fateful encounter the cage being unlocked the cabin in which i was confined was not an outside compartment but was equipped with a number of viewplates
the ship rose to a great height and headed westward at such speed that the hum of the air past its smooth plates rose to a shrill almost inaudible moan after a lapse of some hours we came in sight of an impressive mountain range
which i correctly guessed to be the rockies swerving slightly we headed down toward one of the topmost pinnacles of the range
nor was there any sheen of shimmering disintegrator rays surrounding it to interfere with the sparkling sight so far flung were the defenses of lo tan i found that it was considered impossible for an american rocket gunner to get within effective range
and so numerous were the dis ray batteries on the mountain peaks and in the ravines in this encircling line of defenses drawn on a radius of no less than one hundred miles that even the largest craft in the opinion of the hans
could easily be brought to earth through air pocketing tactics and this i was the more ready to believe after my own recent experience i spent two months as a prisoner in lo tan
every attention was paid to my physical comfort luxuries were showered upon me
most elaborately staged attempts at seduction were made upon me with drugs with women hypnotism was resorted to viewplates were faked to picture to me the complete rout of american forces all over the continent
with incredible patience and laboring under great handicaps in view of the vigor of the american offensive the han intelligence department dug up the fact that somewhere in the forces surrounding nu yok i had left behind me wilma my bride of less than a year
in some manner i will never tell how they discovered some likeness of her and faked an electronoscopic picture of her in the hands of torturers in nu yok in which she was shown holding out her arms piteously toward me as though begging me to save her by surrender
surrender of what strangely enough they never indicated that to me directly and to this day i do not know precisely what they expected or hoped to get out of me
that did not seem real to me and my mind still resisted i remember gazing with staring eyes at that picture the sweat pouring down my face searching eagerly for some visible evidence of fraud and being unable to find it it was the identical likeness of wilma
perhaps had my love for her been less great
but all the while i knew subconsciously that this was not wilma product of the utmost of nobility in this modern virile rugged american race she would have died under even worse torture
before she would have pleaded with me this way to betray my race and her honor but these were things that not even the most skilled of the han hypnotists and psychoanalysts could drag from me their intelligence division also failed to pick up the fact
that i was myself the product of the twentieth century and not the twenty fifth had they done so it might have made a difference i have no doubt that some of their most subtle mental assaults missed fire
their hypnotists inflicted many horrifying nightmares on me and made me do and say many things that i would not have done in my right senses but even in the twentieth century we had learned that hypnotism cannot make a person violate
his fundamental concepts of morality against his will and steadfastly i steeled my will against them i have since thought that i was greatly aided by my newness to this age
become entirely attuned to it and even today i confess to a longing wish that man might travel backward as well as forward in time now that my wilma has been at rest these many years
and take up my old life where i left it off
and at the period of which i speak i was less attuned than now to the modern world real as my life was and my love for my wife there was much about it all that was like a dream and in the midst of my tortures by the hans this complex
this habit of many months helped me to tell myself that this too was all a dream that i must not succumb for i would wake up in a moment and so they failed more than that i think i won something nearer to genuine respect from those around me
than any other hans of that generation accorded to anybody among these was san lan himself the ruler in the end it was he who ordered the cessation of these tortures
instead of having me executed he continued to shower luxuries and attentions on me
another was his favorite concubine
a creature of the most alluring beauty young graceful and most delicately seductive
this creature his most prized possession san lan with the utmost moral callousness ordered to seduce me urging her to apply without stint and to its fullest extent her knowledge of evil arts had i not seen the naked horror of her soul
that she let creep into her eyes for just one unguarded instant and had it not been for my conviction of wilma's faith in me i do not know what but suffice it to say that i resisted this assault also had san lan only known it
he might have had a better chance of breaking down my resistance through another bit of femininity in his household the little nine year old princess lu yan his daughter i think san lan held something of real affection for this sprightly little mite
who in spite of the sickening knowledge of rottenness she had already acquired at this early age was the nearest thing to innocence i found in lo tan but he did not realize this and could not for even the most natural and fundamental affection of the human race
that of parents for their offspring had been so degraded and suppressed in this vicious han civilization as to be unrecognizable naturally san lan could not understand the nature of my pity for this poor child
but had he done so i truly believe he would have been ready to inflict degradation torture and even death upon her to make me surrender the information he wanted yet this man perverted product of a morally degraded race
something of sincerity in a warped twisted way there were times when he seemed to sense vaguely gropingly wonderingly that he might have a soul the han philosophy for centuries had not admitted the existence of souls
its conception embraced nothing but electrons protons and molecules and still was struggling desperately for some shred of evidence that thoughts will power and consciousness of self were nothing but chemical reactions
however it had gotten no further than the negative knowledge we had in the twentieth century that a sick body dulls consciousness of the material world and that knowledge which all mankind has had from the beginning of time that a dead body
they had succeeded in producing by synthesis what appeared to be living tissues and even animals of moderately complex structure and rudimentary brains but they could not give these creatures the full complement of life's characteristics
nor raise the brains to more than mechanical control of muscular tissues it was my own opinion that they never could succeed in doing so this opinion impressed san lan greatly i had expected him to snort his disgust
as the extreme school of evolutionists would have done in the twentieth century but the idea was as new to him and the scientists of his court as darwinism was to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries so it was received with much respect
painfully and with enforced mental readjustments they began a philosophical search for excuses and justifications for the idea
for of course neither the newness nor the orthodoxy of a hypothesis will make it true if it is not true nor untrue if it is true nor could the luck or will power with which i had resisted their hypnotists and psychoanalysts
make what might or might not be a universal fact one whit more or less of a fact than it really was
and the novelty of my expressed opinion carried much weight with them yet did not even brilliant scientists frequently exhibit the same lack of logic back in the twentieth century did not the historians the philosophers of ancient greece and rome
show themselves to be the same shrewd observers as those of succeeding centuries the same masters of the logical and slaves of the illogical after all i reflected man makes little progress within himself
through succeeding generations he piles up those resources which he possesses outside of himself the tools of his hands and the warehouses of knowledge for his brain whether they be parchment manuscripts printed book or electronorecordographs
for the rest he is born today as in ancient greece with a blank brain and struggles through to his grave with a more or less beclouded understanding and with distinct limitations to what we used to call his think tank
this particular reflection of mine proved unpopular with them for it stabbed their vanity and neither my prestige nor the novelty of the idea was sufficient salve these hans for centuries had believed and taught their children that they were a super race
a race of destiny destined to whom for what was not so clear to them but nevertheless destined to elevate humanity to some sort of super plane
whether missus maloney's tent door opened south or east i think she never discovered for it is quite certain she always slept with the flap tightly fastened i only know that my own little five by seven all silk faced due east
because next morning the sun pouring in as only the wilderness sun knows how to pour woke me early and a moment later with a short run over soft moss and a flying dive from the granite ledge i was swimming in the most sparkling water
to the open sea and finland nearer by rose the wooded domes of our own property still capped and wreathed with smoky trails of fast melting mist
and they had just issued clean and brilliant from the hands of the great architect in the open spaces the ground was drenched with dew and from the sea a cool salt wind stole in among the trees and set the branches trembling
in an atmosphere of shimmering silver the tents shone white where the sun caught them in patches below lay the lagoon still dreaming of the summer night in the open the fish were jumping busily
sending musical ripples towards the shore and in the air hung the magic of dawn silent incommunicable i lit the fire
but hardly had i gone a dozen yards when i saw a figure standing a little in front of me where the sunlight fell in a pool among the trees it was joan
i saw at once that the new spirit of this solitary region had entered into her banishing the fears of the night for her face was like the face of a happy denizen of the wilderness and her eyes stainless and shining her feet were bare
and drops of dew she had shaken from the branches hung in her loose flying hair obviously she had come into her own i've been all over the island she announced laughingly and there are two things wanting
there's no animal life and there's no water they go together i said animals don't bother with a rock like this unless there's a spring on it and as she led me from place to place happy and excited
for fear or anxiety and nature had everything her own way the island we found was some three quarters of a mile from point to point built in a circle or wide horseshoe
pine trees grew thickly all over but here and there were patches of silver birch scrub oak and considerable colonies of wild raspberry and gooseberry bushes
the outer shore line was much indented with numberless coves and bays and sandy beaches with here and there caves and precipitous little cliffs against which the sea broke in spray and thunder
but the inner shore the shore of the lagoon was low and regular and so well protected by the wall of trees along the ridge that no storm could ever send more than a passing ripple along its sandy marges eternal shelter reigned there
on one of the other islands a few hundred yards away
we discovered a spring of fresh water untainted by the brackish flavour of the baltic and having thus solved the most important problem of the camp we next proceeded to deal with the second fish
and in half an hour we reeled in and turned homewards for we had no means of storage and to clean more fish than may be stored or eaten in a day is no wise occupation for experienced campers
and as we landed towards six o'clock we heard the clergyman singing as usual and saw his wife and sangree shaking out their blankets in the sun and dressed in a fashion that finally dispelled all memories of streets and civilisation
we reported the discovery of water and held up the fish good good again he cried we'll have the first decent breakfast we've had this year sangree'll clean em in no time and the bo'sun's mate will fry them to a turn
laughed the voice of missus maloney appearing on the scene in a tight blue jersey and sandals and catching up the frying pan
because it was her duty among others to pipe all hands to meals and as for you joan went on the happy man you look like the spirit of the island with moss in your hair and wind in your eyes and sun and stars mixed in your face
i watched the canadian as he slowly moved off to the cleaning pail his eyes were drinking in the girl's beauty and a wave of passionate almost feverish joy passed over his face
expressive of the ecstasy of true worship more than anything else perhaps he was thinking that he still had three weeks to come with that vision always before his eyes
but i noticed the curious mingling of yearning and happiness in his eyes and the strength of the impression touched my curiosity something in his face held my gaze for a second something to do with its intensity
that so timid so gentle a personality should conceal so virile a passion almost seemed to require explanation but the impression was momentary for that first breakfast in camp
the first clear day in a new camp is always a furiously busy one and we soon dropped into the routine upon which in large measure the real comfort of every one depends
about the cooking fire greatly improved with stones from the shore we built a high stockade consisting of upright poles thickly twined with branches the roof lined with moss and lichen and weighted with rocks
and round the interior we made low wooden seats so that we could lie round the fire even in rain and eat our meals in peace paths too outlined themselves from tent to tent from the bathing places and the landing stage
and a fair division of the island was decided upon between the quarters of the men and the women wood was stacked awkward trees and boulders removed hammocks slung and tents strengthened in a word camp was established
proving that we were a definite whole and not merely separate human beings living for a while in tents upon a desert island each fell willingly into the routine sangree as by natural selection
took upon himself the cleaning of the fish and the cutting of the wood into lengths sufficient for a day's use and he did it well the pan of water was never without a fish cleaned and scaled ready to fry for whoever was hungry
the nightly fire never died down for lack of material to throw on without going farther afield to search and timothy once reverend caught the fish and chopped down the trees he also assumed responsibility for the condition of the boat
and did it so thoroughly that nothing in the little cutter was ever found wanting and when for any reason his presence was in demand the first place to look for him was in the boat and there too he was
usually found tinkering away with sheets sails or rudder and singing as he tinkered nor was the reading neglected for most mornings there came a sound of droning voices
the mending and general supervision of the rough comforts she also made herself peculiarly mistress of the megaphone which summoned to meals and carried her voice easily from one end of the island to the other and in her hours of leisure
she daubed the surrounding scenery on to a sketching block with all the honesty and devotion of her determined but unreceptive soul joan meanwhile joan elusive creature of the wilds
sometimes under the stars with a blanket she knew every inch of the island and kept turning up in places where she was least expected for ever wandering about reading her books in sheltered corners making little fires on sunless days to
worship by to the gods as she put it ever finding new pools to dive and bathe in and swimming day and night in the warm and waveless lagoon like a fish in a huge tank she went bare legged and bare footed
joan maloney was certainly that human being she ran wild so completely too
seemed to have been utterly dispossessed as i hoped and expected she made no reference to our conversation of the first evening sangree bothered her with no special attentions and after all they were very little together
his behaviour was perfect in that respect and i for my part hardly gave the matter another thought
mercifully for the happiness of all concerned it had melted away before the spirit of busy active life and deep content that reigned over the island every one was intensely alive and peace was upon all
meanwhile the effect of the camp life began to tell always a searching test of character its results sooner or later are infallible for it acts upon the soul as swiftly and surely
as the hypo bath upon the negative of a photograph a readjustment of the personal forces takes place quickly some parts of the personality go to sleep others wake up
the mind like the body grows quickly hard simple uncomplex and in a camp as primitive and close to nature as ours was these effects became speedily visible some folk of course
who talk glibly about the simple life when it is safely out of reach betray themselves in camp by for ever peering about for the artificial excitements of civilisation which they miss some get bored at once some grow slovenly
some reveal the animal in most unexpected fashion and some the select few find themselves in very short order and are happy and in our little party we could flatter ourselves that we all belonged to the last category
although this is the proper place i think to speak of them for having myself no other duty than to enjoy a well earned holiday i used to load my canoe with blankets and provisions and journey forth on exploration trips among the islands of several days together
and it was on my return from the first of these when i rediscovered the party so to speak that these changes first presented themselves vividly to me and in one particular instance produced a rather curious impression
in a word then while every one had grown wilder naturally wilder sangree it seemed to me had grown much wilder and what i can only call unnaturally wilder he made me think of a savage
and the full brown cheeks the brighter eyes of absolute health and the general air of vigour and robustness
had worked such an improvement that i hardly knew him for the same man his voice too was deeper and his manner bespoke for the first time a greater measure of confidence in himself he now had some claims to be called nice looking
or at least to a certain air of virility that would not lessen his value in the eyes of the opposite sex all this of course was natural enough and most welcome but altogether apart from this physical change which no doubt had also been going forward in the rest of us
leaped up in my mind unbidden as though connected in some way i could not at the moment divine first the curious judgment formed of him by joan and secondly
which had always been a distinguishing characteristic of the man had been replaced by something far more vigorous and decided that yet utterly eluded analysis the change which impressed me so oddly was not easy to name
the others singing maloney the bustling bo'sun's mate and joan that fascinating half breed of undine and salamander all showed the effects of a life so close to nature but in their case the change was perfectly natural
that something in him had turned savage yet this more or less is the impression that he did convey it was not that he seemed really less civilised or that his character had undergone any definite alteration
but rather that something in him hitherto dormant had awakened to life some quality latent till now so far at least as we were concerned who after all knew him but slightly had stirred into activity and risen to the surface of his being
and while for the moment this seemed as far as i could get it was but natural that my mind should continue the intuitive process and acknowledge that john silence owing to his peculiar faculties and the girl owing to her singularly receptive temperament
might each in a different way have divined this latent quality in his soul and feared its manifestation later on looking back to this painful adventure too it now seems equally natural that the same process carried to its logical conclusion
should have wakened some deep instinct in me that wholly without direction from my will set itself sharply and persistently upon the watch from that very moment thenceforward the personality of sangree was never far from my thoughts
and later at supper it amused me to observe that the distinguished tutor once clergyman did not eat his food quite as nicely as he did at home he devoured it that missus maloney ate more
and gnawed at his laughing and talking
with secret amusement of a starved animal at its first meal while from their remarks about myself i judged that i had changed and grown wild as much as the rest of them
in this and in a hundred other little ways the change showed ways difficult to define in detail but all proving not the coarsening effect of leading the primitive life but
let us say the more direct and unvarnished methods
prevalent for all day long we were in the bath of the elements wind water sun and just as the body became insensible to cold and shed unnecessary clothing the mind grew straightforward
and in each according to temperament and character there stirred the life instincts that were natural untamed and in a sense
i have finished my hungary business he wrote and am here for ten days do not hesitate to send if you need me if you telephone any morning from waxholm i can catch the afternoon steamer my years of intercourse with him were full of coincidences of this description
and although he never sought to explain them by claiming any magical system of communication with my mind i have never doubted that there actually existed some secret telepathic method by which he knew my circumstances and gauged the degree of my need
meaning to start for home early next morning
my voice unbroken by a single question from doctor silence ran on for the next half hour with the best account i could give of what had happened my listener lay on the other side of the fire his face half hidden by a big sombrero
sometimes he glanced up questioningly when a point needed elaboration but he uttered no single word till i had reached the end and his manner all through the recital was grave and attentive
overhead the wash of the wind in the pine branches filled in the pauses the darkness settled down over the sea and the stars came out in thousands and by the time i finished the moon had risen to flood the scene with silver
yet by his face and eyes i knew quite well that the doctor was listening to something he had expected to hear even if he had not actually anticipated all the
you did well to send for me he said very low with a significant glance at me when i finished very well and for one swift second his eye took in sangree for what we have to deal with here is nothing more than a werewolf
rare enough i am glad to say but often very sad and sometimes very terrible i jumped as though i had been shot but the next second was heartily ashamed of my want of control
shutting a door somewhere that locked us in with the animal and the horror and turning the key whatever it was had now to be faced and dealt with no one has been actually injured so far he asked aloud
but in a matter of fact tone that lent reality to grim possibilities good heavens no cried the canadian throwing down his dishcloths
surely there can be no question of this poor starved beast injuring anybody can there
i trust not indeed doctor silence said quietly
he asked the question with his eyes straight on the other's face the prompt question explained to me why i had started and i waited with just a tremor of excitement for the reply sangree hesitated a moment
as though the question took him by surprise but he met the doctor's gaze unflinchingly across the fire and with complete honesty really he faltered with a little shrug of the shoulders i can hardly tell you the phrase seemed to come out of its own accord
i have felt from the beginning that it was in pain and starved though why i felt this never occurred to me till you asked you really know very little about it then said the other with a sudden gentleness in his voice no more than that
sangree replied looking at him with a puzzled expression that was unmistakably genuine in fact nothing at all really he added by way of further explanation i am glad of that i heard the doctor murmur under his breath
but so low that i only just caught the words and sangree missed them altogether as evidently he was meant to do and now he cried getting on his feet and shaking himself with a characteristic gesture as though to shake out the horror and the mystery
let us leave the problem till to morrow and enjoy this wind and sea and stars i've been living lately in the atmosphere of many people and feel that i want to wash and be clean i propose a swim and then bed who'll second me
and two minutes later we were all diving from the boat into cool deep water that reflected a thousand moons as the waves broke away from us in countless ripples we slept in blankets under the open sky sangree and i taking the outside places
and were up before sunrise to catch the dawn wind helped by this early start we were half way home by noon and then the wind shifted to a few points behind us so that we fairly ran
where he held the jib sheet his hat was off
presently he changed places with sangree and came down to talk with me by the tiller a wonderful region all this world of islands he said waving his hand to the scenery rushing past us but doesn't it strike you there's something lacking
exactly he said the picturesqueness of stage scenery that is not real not alive it's like a landscape by a clever painter yet without true imagination soulless that's the word you wanted
something like that i answered watching the gusts of wind on the sails not dead so much as without soul that's it of course he went on in a voice calculated it seemed to me not to reach our companion in the bows to live long in a place like this
long and alone might bring about a strange result in some men i suddenly realised he was talking with a purpose and pricked up my ears there's no life here these islands are mere dead rocks pushed up from below the sea
not living land and there's nothing really alive on them even the sea this tideless brackish sea neither salt water nor fresh is dead it's all a pretty image of life without the real heart and soul of life
doctor silence continued here i mean a long sojourn would lead to deterioration to degeneration the place is utterly unsoftened by human influences by any humanising associations of history good or bad
this landscape has never awakened into life it's still dreaming in its primitive sleep in time i put in you mean a man living here might become brutal the passions would run wild selfishness become supreme
the instincts coarsen and turn savage probably but in other places just as wild parts of italy for instance where there are other moderating influences it could not happen the character might grow wild savage too in a sense
but with a human wildness one could understand and deal with but here in a hard place like this it might be otherwise he spoke slowly weighing his words carefully i looked at him with many questions in my eyes
and a precautionary cry to sangree to stay in the fore part of the boat out of earshot first of all there would come callousness to pain and indifference to the rights of others
or with enthusiasm but by deadening down into a kind of cold primitive emotionless savagery by turning like the landscape soulless and a man with strong desires you say might change
without being aware of it yes he might turn savage his instincts and desires turn animal and if he lowered his voice and turned for a moment towards the bows and then continued in his most weighty manner
owing to delicate health or other predisposing causes his double you know what i mean of course his etheric body of desire or astral body as some term it
sangree came aft with a sudden rush his face aflame but whether with wind or sun or with what he had heard i cannot say in my surprise i let the tiller slip and the cutter
too low for any ear but mine entirely unknown to himself however we righted the boat and laughed and then sangree produced the map and explained exactly where we were
far away on the horizon across an open stretch of water lay a blue cluster of islands with our crescent shaped home among them and the safe anchorage of the lagoon an hour with this wind would get us there comfortably
and while doctor silence and sangree fell into conversation i sat and pondered over the strange suggestions that had just been put into my mind concerning the double and the possible form it might assume when dissociated temporarily from the physical body
the whole way home these two chatted and john silence was as gentle and sympathetic as a woman i did not hear much of their talk for the wind grew occasionally to the force of a hurricane and the sails and tiller absorbed my attention
but i could see that sangree was pleased and happy and was pouring out intimate revelations to his companion in the way that most people did when john silence wished them to do so but it was quite suddenly
for his admission that he knew it was in pain and starved was in reality nothing more or less than a revelation of his deeper self it was in the nature of a confession he was speaking of something that he knew positively
something that was beyond question or argument something that had to do directly with himself poor starved beast he had called it in words that had come out of their own accord
and there had not been the slightest evidence of any desire to conceal or explain away he had spoken instinctively
and half an hour before sunset we raced through the narrow opening of the lagoon and saw the smoke of the dinner fire blowing here and there among the trees and the figures of joan and the bo'sun's mate running down to meet us
part two of propriety of deportment in regard to our social relations chapter one of deportment in the street some readers will perhaps be surprised to see me commence a chapter with the duty we owe to persons passing the street
but if they reflect upon it they will see that there are even on this subject a sufficient number of things proper to be mentioned when you are passing in the street and see coming towards you a person of your acquaintance whether a lady a man raised to dignity or an elderly person
beware of elbowing and rudely crowding the passengers with a view to getting by more expeditiously wait your turn and if any one of the persons before mentioned comes up you should edge up to the wall in order to give them the place
they also as they pass ought to bow politely to you if stormy weather has made it necessary to lay a plank across the gutters which have become suddenly full of water it is not proper to crowd before another in order to pass over the frail bridge
further a young man of good breeding should promptly offer his hand to ladies even if they are not acquaintances when they pass such a place you must pay attention to your manner of walking
for fear of throwing mud around you and spattering yourself as well as those who accompany you or who walk behind you any person particularly a lady who walks in this improper manner whatever her education may be in other respects
will always appear awkward and clumsy
we see them in white stockings and thin shoes passing through long dirty and blocked up streets gliding by careless persons and by vehicles crossing each other in every direction
and yet return home after a walk of several hours without soiling their clothes in the least to arrive at this astonishing result which causes the wonder and vexation of provincial visitors on their first coming to paris
we must be careful to put the foot on the middle of the paving stones and never on the edges for in that case one inevitably slips into the interstice between one pavement and another we must begin by supporting the toe before we do the heel
and even when the mud is quite deep we must put down the heel but seldom when the street becomes less muddy we can compensate ourselves for this fatigue which however in the end leaves us hardly sensible
this manner of walking is strictly necessary when you offer your arm to any one when tripping over the pavement as the saying is a lady should gracefully raise her dress a little above her ancle with the right hand she should hold together the folds of her gown
and draw them towards the right side to raise the dress on both sides and with both hands is vulgar this ungraceful practice can be tolerated only for a moment when the mud is very deep
that is to avoid jostling and being jostled by those who are passing a neglect of this attention will make you appear not only awkward and ridiculous but you will receive or give dangerous blows one can edge along by turning sideways contracting his arms
and watching with his eye the direction which it is best to take in order not to come in contact with the person who meets him a little practice and care will soon make this duty familiar
to make our way along becomes more difficult when we have a packet or an umbrella to carry especially if the latter is open it is then necessary to lower or raise it or to turn it on one side
if you neglect these precautions you run the risk of striking it against those who are coming and going or of seeing it twirled round and of being thrown against a carriage or against some one who will complain bitterly of your incivility and awkwardness
if you have no umbrella and find yourself overtaken by a sudden shower and any person provided with one is going in the same direction you may request them to shelter you they should receive your request with much politeness inform themselves of the place where you wish to stop
and offer to conduct you there unless it is too much out of the way or they be pressed for business in this case they should express their regret at not being able to accompany you so far as you wish what we are now about to say proves that a person truly polite
will not wait for you to make this request but will use every exertion to anticipate it we must observe however whether age sex or dress present no objection for sometimes one would be treated with ill humor and contempt
and if you are a lady particularly arrived at a certain age it would be extremely unpleasant to accost a person who on his part ought never to offer this favor nor any other to ladies and whose air and immodest manners indicate at once his vulgarity
it is proper to receive it with politeness another not uncommon point of propriety to be observed consists in asking and pointing out the different streets if you have occasion for this service you speak politely
and say in a kind tone madam or sir where is such a street if you please you should be careful to give this title to persons whom you address even if they should be porters or hucksters it is particularly to these that you should have recourse for in addressing persons passing by
you are liable to meet those who as well as yourself are strangers to the neighborhood or to hinder those who are busy
the direction being given us we should thank them at the same time bowing parisians are justly celebrated for the politeness and complaisance with which they show the way to passengers and you ought to imitate them every time that occasion offers
if you are a man and a lady or distinguished person asks this favor of you you should take off your hat while answering them there are some ill mannered and malicious persons who take pleasure in misleading strangers by wrong directions
it will be enough to mention such impertinence in order to despise it as we ought as to those young men who entertain a false idea that parisian ladies are coquettes or forward in their manners and besides that everything is allowable in a large city
let them be assured that a man who dares as often happens to address improper compliments to ladies to follow them to listen to their conversation or to finish a sentence which they have begun
is a model of rudeness an object of aversion to ladies and of contempt to gentlemen a young man of good manners ought not to look at a lady too narrowly or he will pass for an impertinent fellow who as the saying is
stares people full in the face sous le nez it is especially when there are many persons assembled in one place that these boors play off their rude tricks to which they give the name hoaxes for the multitude at first because they are unperceived and afterwards
because the least bad among them think that the crowd are out of the jurisdiction of propriety this opinion which obtains among some persons is an error politeness becomes still more indispensable in proportion to the assemblage
why are crowds usually so disagreeable and even dangerous it is because they are composed of people without education who rudely push against their neighbors with their fist or elbow who neglect to follow the movement of going and coming
who on occasion of the slightest collision raise loud complaints and by their lamentations their cries and continual trepidation render insupportable a situation which without this would be but troublesome enough when we meet in the street a person of our acquaintance
we salute them by bowing and uncovering ourselves if there is occasion sometimes it is not enough to give a simple salutation but we must go to the person and inquire how they are if we see them frequently while we are speaking if there is occasion and it be a lady or an aged and respectable man
we remain uncovered it is for the latter who see how troublesome this politeness is in winter to insist that the person addressing them should put on his hat it also belongs to the person who is the more important of the two to take leave first for example
in a meeting of this kind a gentleman never leaves a lady until she takes leave of him nor is a young lady allowed to leave first a married or elderly lady during this interview which should be very short
the speaker of least importance ought to take the lower part of the side walk in order to keep the person with whom he is conversing from the neighborhood of the carriages it would be supremely ridiculous to enter into a long conversation and thus detain against their will the person accosted
if we have anything urgent to say to them we may ask permission to accompany them we will add that at paris a young man ought to avoid approaching and even saluting a young lady of his acquaintance out of regard to the natural timidity of her sex
if there is a stranger with the one whom we meet we must be contented with saluting the latter without stopping otherwise we put his companion in a disagreeable position this civility becomes a rigorous duty if they are accompanied by a lady
ancient gallantry required that in this last case we not only should not stop but still more that we should not salute an acquaintance or friend who may pass this is in order not to force her companion to salute an unknown person
it is necessary to salute them saying to the companion i take the liberty to salute mister or madam n if a person of your acquaintance is at a window and you are thought to perceive them you ought to address a salutation to them
chapter thirty seven margaret's letter life seemed very blank to clement austin when he returned to london a day or two after margaret wilmot's departure from the reindeer he told his mother that he and his betrothed had parted but he would tell no more
i have been cruelly disappointed mother and the subject is very bitter to me he said and missus austin had not the courage to ask any further questions i suppose i must be satisfied clement she said
it seems to me as if we had been living lately in an atmosphere of enigmas but i can afford to be contented clement so long as i have you with me clement went back to london his life seemed to have altogether slipped away from him
and he felt like an old man who has lost all the bright chances of existence the hope of domestic happiness and a pleasant home the opportunity of a useful career and an honoured name
whose chiefs were eager to secure the well known cashier of messrs dunbar dunbar and balderby's establishment poor clement could not go into the world yet his disappointment had been too bitter and he had no heart to go out amongst hard men of business and begin life again
he wasted hour after hour and day after day in gloomy thoughts about the past what a dupe he had been what a shallow miserable fool for he had believed as firmly in margaret wilmot's truth
as he had believed in the blue sky above his head one day a new idea flashed into clement austin's mind an idea which placed margaret wilmot's character even in a worse light than that in which she had revealed herself in her own confession
there could be only one reason for the sudden change in her sentiments about henry dunbar the millionaire had bribed her to silence this girl who seemed the very incarnation of purity and candour had her price perhaps as well as other people
it was the knowledge of this business that made her shrink away from me that night when she told me that she was a contaminated creature unfit to be the associate of an honest man oh margaret margaret
poverty must indeed be a bitter school if it has prepared you for such degradation as this the longer clement thought of the subject the more certainly he arrived at the conclusion that margaret wilmot had been either bribed
or frightened into silence by henry dunbar it might be that the banker had terrified this unhappy girl by some awful threat that had preyed upon her mind and driven her from the man who loved her whom she loved perhaps
in spite of those heartless words which she had spoken in the bitter hour of their parting clement could not thoroughly believe in the baseness of the woman he had trusted again and again he went over the same ground trying to find some lurking circumstance no matter how unlikely in its nature
which should explain and justify margaret's conduct sometimes in his dreams he saw the familiar face looking at him with pensive half reproachful glances and then a dark figure that was strange to him came between him and that gentle shadow
there was falsehood and treachery in the business but margaret wilmot was neither false nor treacherous there was a mystery and henry dunbar was at the bottom of it it seems as if the spirit of the murdered man troubled our lives
and cried to us for vengeance clement thought there will be no peace for us until the secret of the deed done in the grove near winchester has been brought to light this thought working night and day in clement austin's brain gave rise to a fixed resolve
before he went back to the quiet routine of life he set himself a task to accomplish and that task was the solution of the winchester mystery on the very day after this resolution took a definite form clement received a letter from margaret wilmot
the sight of the well known writing gave him a shock of mingled surprise and hope and his fingers were faintly tremulous as they tore open the envelope the letter was carefully worded and very brief you are a good man mister austin margaret wrote
and though you have reason to despise me i do not think you will refuse to receive my testimony in favour of another who has been falsely suspected of a terrible crime and who has need of justification henry dunbar was not the murderer of my father
as heaven is my witness this is the truth and i know it to be the truth let this knowledge content you and allow the secret of the murder to remain for ever a mystery upon earth god knows the truth and has doubtless punished the wretched sinner who was guilty of that crime
as he punishes every other sinner sooner or later in the course of his ineffable wisdom leave the sinner wherever he may be hidden to the judgment of god which penetrates every hiding place and forget that you have ever known me or my miserable story
margaret wilmot even this letter did not shake clement austin's resolution no margaret he thought even your pleading shall not turn me from my purpose besides how can i tell in what manner this letter may have been written
it may have been written at henry dunbar's dictation and under coercion be it as it may the mystery of the winchester murder shall be set at rest if patience or intelligence can solve the enigma no mystery shall separate me from the woman i love
clement put margaret's letter in his pocket and went straight to scotland yard where he obtained an introduction to a businesslike looking man short and stoutly built with close cropped hair very little shirt collar a shabby black satin stock
and the decided expression of his thin lips and prominent chin the detective business happened to be rather dull just now there was nothing stirring but a bank of england forgery case and mister carter informed clement that there were more cats in scotland yard than could find mice to kill
under these circumstances mister carter was able to enter into clement's views and sequestrate himself for a short period for the more deliberate investigation of the winchester business i'll look up a file of newspapers and run my eye over the details of the case
said the detective i was away in glasgow hunting up the particulars of the great scotch plaid robberies all last summer and i can't say i remember much of what was done in the wilmot business mister dunbar himself offered a reward for the apprehension of the guilty party didn't he
but then on the other hand it mightn't you must always look at these sort of things from every point of view start with a conviction of the man's guilt and you'll go hunting up evidence to bolster that conviction
my plan is to begin at the beginning learn the alphabet of the case and work up into the syntax and prosody i should like to help you in this business clement austin said for i have a vital interest in the issue of the case
you're rather more likely to hinder than help sir mister carter answered with a smile but you're welcome to have a finger in the pie if you like as long as you'll engage to hold your tongue when i tell you clement promised to be the very spirit of discretion
the detective called upon him two days after the interview at scotland yard i've read up the wilmot case sir mister carter said and i think the next best thing i can do is to see the scene of the murder i shall start for winchester to morrow morning
well i thought i would just step over and speak to you hiram began in a slow puzzled sort of a way you know what i was telling you the other day about my girl yes i remember very well
you don't know mister armstrong whether she has said anything to your daughter no at least not so far as i have heard of mary said that they were talking together and something was said about miss carne's murder
that your daughter turned very pale and that she thought she was going to faint that's it that's it hiram said stroking his chin thoughtfully that murder is at the bottom of it hesba thinks it must be that any talk about it
brings the scene back to her but it does not seem to me that that accounts for it at all and i would give a lot to know what is on the girl's mind she came in yesterday afternoon as white as a sheet and fainted right off at the door i shouldn't think so much of that
because she has often fainted since her illness but that wasn't all when her mother got her round she went upstairs to her room and didn't come down again there is not much in that you would say after a girl has fainted she likes to lie quiet a bit
but she didn't lie quiet we could hear her walking up and down the room for hours and hesba stole up several times to her door and said she was sobbing enough to break her heart she is going about the house again this morning
but that white and still that it is cruel to look at her so i thought after breakfast that i would put on my hat and come and have a talk with you seeing that you were good enough to be interested in her
it isn't as if i thought that my ruth could have done anything wrong if i did i would cut my tongue out before i would speak a word but i know my ruth she has always been a good girl not one of your light sort
but earnest and steady whatever is wrong it's not wrong with her i believe she has got some secret or other that is just wearing her out and if we can't get to the bottom of it i don't believe ruth will see christmas and hiram powlett wiped his eyes violently
i feel sure from what i have seen of your daughter that if a wrong has been done of any kind it is not by her i agree with you that she has a secret and that that secret is wearing her out i may say that my daughter is of the same opinion
i believe that there is a struggle going on in her mind on the subject and that if she is to have peace and as you say health she must unburden her mind however mister powlett my advice in the matter is leave her alone do not press her in any way
i think that what you said to me before is likely to be verified and that if she unburdens herself it will be to mary and you may be sure whatever is the nature of the secret my daughter will keep it inviolate unless it is ruth's own wish that it should be told to others
i feel more hopeful now i have been worrying and fretting over this for months till i can scarce look after my work and often catch myself going on drawing at my pipe when it's gone out and got cold but i think it's coming on
i think that crying last night meant something one way or the other well we shall see we shall see i will be off back again to my work now i feel all the better for having had this talk with you hesba's a good woman and she is fond of the child
but she is what she calls practical she looks at things hard and straight and sensible and naturally she don't quite enter into my feelings about ruth though she is fond of her too well good morning mister armstrong you have done me good
an hour later mary armstrong went down to the mill to inquire after ruth she found her quiet and pale
hesba said our ruth wants cheering up a bit she had a faint yesterday when she got back from your place and she is never fit for anything after that except just to sit in her chair and look in the fire
mary said and i am sure ruth does not look equal to talking now however she shall sit still and i will tell her a story i have never told you yet that i was once carried off by the kaffirs
and that worse than death would have befallen me and that i should have been afterwards tortured and killed if i had not been rescued by a brave man
why you make my flesh creep at the thought of such a thing and you say it all happened to you why now to look at you
you always seem so bright and happy that's what ruth has said again and again you shall judge for yourself missus powlett if you can find time to sit down and listen as well as ruth
hesba said though it isn't often as i sits down till the tea is cleared away and hiram has lit his pipe mary sat down facing the fire with ruth in an arm chair on one side of her and missus powlett stiff and upright on a hard settle on the other
then she began to tell the story first saying a few words to let her hearers know of the fate of women who fell into the hands of the kaffirs then she began with the story of her journey down from king williamstown the sudden attack by natives
then she described the dreary journey i had only one hope she said and it was so faint that it could not be called a hope but there was one man in the colony who somehow i felt sure would if he knew of my danger
and what could he do against the three hundred natives who were with me still i had a little ray of hope the faintest tiniest ray until we entered the amatolas they are strong steep hills covered with forest and bush
then mary described the journey through the forest to the kraal the long hours she had sat waiting for her fate with every movement watched by the kaffir women and her sensations when she heard the message in english then she described her rescue from the kraal
her flight through the woods her concealment in the cave her escape from the amatolas the ride with the trooper holding her on his saddle and the final dash through the kaffirs her hearers had thrown in many interjections of horror and pity
loud on the part of hesba mere murmurs on that of ruth who had taken mary's hand in hers but the sympathetic pressure told more than words and you shot four of them miss armstrong hesba ejaculated in wide eyed astonishment
because christians are not forbidden to fight for their lives
it has never troubled me for a single moment mary said they tried to kill me and i killed them that is the light i saw it in and so would you if you had been living in the colony but you have not finished your story ruth said earnestly
surely that is not the end of it no my father recovered from his wound and so did the soldier who saved me and as soon as my father was able to travel he and i went down to the coast and came home that cannot be all
ruth whispered there must be something more to tell mary i will tell you another time ruth mary said in equally low tones and then rising put on her hat again said good bye and went out did you
didn't it yours there were other parts of the story that made my flesh creep a great deal more mother
and she didn't say a single word in praise of what the soldier had done for her now that seems to me downright ungrateful and not at all what i should have thought of miss armstrong i suppose she thought mother
that there was no occasion to express her opinion of his bravery or to mention her gratitude
i never did hear such expressions two days passed without ruth going up to the armstrongs
instead of your staying here we are quieter there you know somehow one cannot think or talk when people come in and out of the room every two or three minutes
and if you don't mind my saying so i would very much rather have you all to myself the two girls accordingly went back to the cottage mary who was rather an industrious needlewoman brought out a basket of work ruth who for a long time had scarcely taken up a needle
sat with her hands before her when two people intend to have a serious conversation with each other they generally steer wide of the subject at first and the present was no exception i think it would be better for you ruth
it was all to have made none the less as i have said a date
even after long intervals other things that passed between them were in relation to this hour but the character of recalls and results its immediate effect had been indeed rather to lighten insistence almost to provoke a reaction
as if their topic had dropped by its own weight and as if moreover for that matter marcher had been visited by one of his occasional warnings against egotism he had kept up he felt and very decently on the whole
his consciousness of the importance of not being selfish and it was true that he had never sinned in that direction without promptly enough trying to press the scales the other way he often repaired his fault the season permitting
by inviting his friend to accompany him to the opera and it not infrequently thus happened that to show he didn't wish her to have but one sort of food for her mind he was the cause of her appearing there with him a dozen nights in the month
it even happened that seeing her home at such times he occasionally went in with her to finish as he called it the evening and the better to make his point sat down to the frugal but always careful little supper that awaited his pleasure
his point was made he thought by his not eternally insisting with her on himself made for instance at such hours when it befell that her piano at hand and each of them familiar with it they went over passages of the opera together
what is it that saves you saved her he meant from that appearance of variation from the usual human type if he had practically escaped remark as she pretended by doing in the most important particular
what most men do find the answer to life in patching up an alliance of a sort with a woman no better than himself how had she escaped it and how could the alliance such as it was since they must suppose it had been more or less noticed
have failed to make her rather positively talked about i never said may bartram replied that it hadn't made me a good deal talked about ah well then you're not saved
it hasn't been a question for me if you've had your woman i've had she said my man and you mean that makes you all right oh it was always as if there were so much to say
i don't know why it shouldn't make me humanly which is what we're speaking of as right as it makes you i see marcher returned humanly no doubt
as showing that you're living for something not that is just for me and my secret may bartram smiled i don't pretend it exactly shows that i'm not living for you it's my intimacy with you that's in question
she had her last grave pause as if there might be a choice of ways but she chose by going on as you are it was into this going on as he was
that they relapsed and really for so long a time that the day inevitably came for a further sounding of their depths these depths constantly bridged over by a structure firm enough in spite of its lightness
by the fact that she had all the while not appeared to feel the need of rebutting his charge of an idea within her that she didn't dare to express a charge uttered just before one of the fullest of their later discussions ended
it had come up for him then that she knew something and that what she knew was bad too bad to tell him when he had spoken of it as visibly so bad that she was afraid he might find it out
her reply had left the matter too equivocal to be let alone and yet for marcher's special sensibility almost too formidable again to touch he circled about it
at a distance that alternately narrowed and widened and that still wasn't much affected by the consciousness in him that there was nothing she could know after all any better than he did she had no source of knowledge he hadn't equally
except of course that she might have finer nerves that was what women had where they were interested they made out things where people were concerned that the people often couldn't have made out for themselves their nerves their sensibility
their imagination were conductors and revealers and the beauty of may bartram was in particular that she had given herself so to his case he felt in these days what oddly enough he had never felt before
the growth of a dread of losing her by some catastrophe some catastrophe that yet wouldn't at all be the catastrophe partly because she had almost of a sudden begun to strike him as more useful to him than ever yet
even to the point of making him ask himself if he were by any chance of a truth within sight or sound within touch or reach within the immediate jurisdiction of the thing that waited when the day came
as come it had to that his friend confessed to him her fear of a deep disorder in her blood he felt somehow the shadow of a change and the chill of a shock
and above all to think of her peril as the direct menace for himself of personal privation
in the early stages of her trouble to put that question to her but it had immediately sounded for him to his own concern and the possibility was what most made him sorry for her if she did know moreover
in the sense of her having had some what should he think mystical irresistible light this would make the matter not better but worse inasmuch as her original adoption of his own curiosity
had quite become the basis of her life she had been living to see what would be to be seen
to have to give up before the accomplishment of the vision these reflexions as i say quickened his generosity yet make them as he might he saw himself with the lapse of the period more and more disconcerted
it lapsed for him with a strange steady sweep and the oddest oddity was that it gave him independently of the threat of much inconvenience almost the only positive surprise his career
if career it could be called had yet offered him she kept the house as she had never done he had to go to her to see her she could meet him nowhere now
he had been struck one day after an absence exceeding his usual measure with her suddenly looking much older to him than he had ever thought of her being then he recognised that the suddenness was all on his side
he had just simply and suddenly noticed she looked older because inevitably after so many years she was old or almost which was of course true in still greater measure of her companion
if she was old or almost john marcher assuredly was and yet it was her showing of the lesson not his own that brought the truth home to him his surprises began here
when once they had begun they multiplied they came rather with a rush it was as if
they had all been kept back sown in a thick cluster for the late afternoon of life the time at which for people in general the unexpected has died out one of them
pass away from him he had never so unreservedly qualified her as while confronted in thought with such a possibility in spite of which there was small doubt for him that as an answer to his long riddle
the mere effacement of even so fine a feature of his situation would be an abject anticlimax it would represent as connected with his past attitude a drop of dignity
under the shadow of which his existence could only become the most grotesques of failures he had been far from holding it a failure long as he had waited for the appearance that was to make it a success he had waited for quite another thing
not for such a thing as that the breath of his good faith came short however as he recognised how long he had waited or how long at least his companion had that she at all events might be recorded
as having waited in vain this affected him sharply and all the more because of his at first having done little more than amuse himself with the idea it grew more grave as the gravity of her condition grew
and the state of mind it produced in him which he himself ended by watching as if it had been some definite disfigurement of his outer person may pass for another of his surprises this conjoined itself still with another
and the soundless admonition of it all unless that at this time of day it was simply it was overwhelmingly too late he had never at any stage of his queer consciousness admitted the whisper of such a correction
he had never till within these last few months been so false to his conviction as not to hold that what was to come to him had time whether he struck himself as having it or not that at last
at last he certainly hadn't it to speak of or had it but in the scantiest measure such soon enough as things went with him became the inference with which his old obsession had to reckon
and this it was not helped to do by the more and more confirmed appearance that the great vagueness casting the long shadow in which he had lived had to attest itself almost no margin left
since it was in time that he was to have met his fate so it was in time that his fate was to have acted and as he waked up to the sense of no longer being young
which was exactly the sense of being stale just as that in turn was the sense of being weak he waked up to another matter beside it all hung together
that and that only was failure it wouldn't have been failure to be bankrupt dishonoured pilloried hanged it was failure not to be anything
and so in the dark valley into which his path had taken its unlooked for twist he wondered not a little as he groped he didn't care what awful crash might overtake him
since he wasn't after all too utterly old to suffer if it would only be decently proportionate to the posture he had kept all his life in the threatened presence of it he had but one desire left
then it was that one afternoon while the spring of the year was young and new she met all in her own way his frankest betrayal of these alarms he had gone in late to see her but evening hadn't settled
and she was presented to him in that long fresh light of waning april days which affects us often with a sadness sharper than the greyest hours of autumn the week had been warm the spring was supposed to have begun early
that it would never see a fire again her own aspect he could scarce have said why intensified this note almost as white as wax with the marks and signs in her face as numerous and as fine
as if they had been etched by a needle with soft white draperies relieved by a faded green scarf on the delicate tone of which the years had further refined she was the picture of a serene and exquisite
wonderfully imitated and constantly kept without dust or stain though not exempt from a slight droop and a complexity of faint creases
which was what he in all the other years had never been and the oddity was that his nervousness should have waited till he had begun to doubt should have held off so long as he was sure there was something it seemed to him that the wrong word would bring down on his head
something that would so at least ease off his tension but he wanted not to speak the wrong word that would make everything ugly he wanted the knowledge he lacked to drop on him if drop it could by its own august weight
if she was to forsake him it was surely for her to take leave this was why he didn't directly ask her again what she knew but it was also why approaching the matter from another side he said to her in the course of his visit
what do you regard as the very worst that at this time of day can happen to me he had asked her that in the past often enough they had with the odd irregular rhythm of their intensities and avoidances
and reaction to come out again sounding for the hour as new she could thus at present meet his enquiry quite freshly and patiently oh yes i've repeatedly thought only it always seemed to me of old
that i couldn't quite make up my mind i thought of dreadful things between which it was difficult to choose and so must you have done rather i feel now as if i had scarce done anything else
dreadful things a great many of them i've at different times named to you but there were others i couldn't name they were too too dreadful too too dreadful some of them she looked at him a minute
and there came to him as he met it an inconsequent sense that her eyes when one got their full clearness were still as beautiful as they had been in youth only beautiful with a strange cold light
though even of this he was to take the full measure but afterwards and the note of it already trembled it was for the matter of that one of the signs that her eyes were having again the high flicker of their prime
well he wished it were and the consummation depended for him clearly more and more on his friend but she had now a soft smile
it was oddly ironic do you mean you're prepared to go further she was frail and ancient and charming as she continued to look at him yet it was rather as if she had lost the thread
do you consider that we went far why i thought it the point you were just making that we had looked most things in the face including each other she still smiled
but you're quite right we've had together great imaginations often great fears but some of them have been unspoken then the worst we haven't faced that i could face it i believe if i knew what you think it
i feel he explained as if i had lost my power to conceive such things and he wondered if he looked as blank as he sounded it's spent then why do you assume
you know something i don't you've shown me that before these last words had affected her he made out in a moment exceedingly and she spoke with firmness
i've shown you my dear nothing he shook his head you can't hide it oh oh may bartram sounded over what she couldn't hide it was almost a smothered groan
you admitted it months ago when i spoke of it to you as of something you were afraid i should find out your answer was that i couldn't that i wouldn't and i don't pretend i have but you had something therefore in mind
and i see now how it must have been how it still is the possibility that of all possibilities has settled itself for you as the worst this he went on is why i appeal to you i'm only afraid of ignorance to day
i'm not afraid of knowledge and then as for a while she said nothing what makes me sure is that i see in your face and feel here in this air and amid these appearances that you're out of it
you've done you've had your experience you leave me to my fate well she listened motionless and white in her chair as on a decision to be made so that her manner was fairly an avowal
though still with a small fine inner stiffness an imperfect surrender it would be the worst she finally let herself say i mean the thing i've never said it hushed him a moment
more monstrous than all the monstrosities we've named more monstrous isn't that what you sufficiently express she asked in calling it the worst marcher thought
assuredly if you mean as i do something that includes all the loss and all the shame that are thinkable it would if it should happen said may bartram what we're speaking of remember is only my idea
it's your belief marcher returned that's enough for me i feel your beliefs are right therefore if having this one you give me no more light on it you abandon me no no she repeated
in her fairness and slimness i haven't forsaken you it was really in its effort against weakness a generous assurance and had the success of the impulse not happily been great
it would have touched him to pain more than to pleasure but the cold charm in her eyes had spread as she hovered before him to all the rest of her person so that it was for the minute almost a recovery of youth
he couldn't pity her for that he could only take her as she showed as capable even yet of helping him it was as if at the same time her light might at any instant go out wherefore he must make the most of it
there passed before him with intensity the three or four things he wanted most to know but the question that came of itself to his lips really covered the others then tell me if i shall consciously suffer
she promptly shook her head never it confirmed the authority he imputed to her and it produced on him an extraordinary effect
you think nothing is better she asked she seemed to mean something so special that he again sharply wondered though still with the dawn of a prospect of relief why not if one doesn't know
after which as their eyes over his question met in a silence the dawn deepened and something to his purpose came prodigiously out of her very face his own as he took it in
i see if i don't suffer in her own look however was doubt you see what why what you mean what you've always meant
it's not what you think i see what you think his divination drew breath then only her correction might be wrong it isn't that i am a blockhead he asked between faintness and grimness
it isn't that it's all a mistake a mistake she pityingly echoed that possibility for her he saw would be monstrous and if she guaranteed him the immunity from pain
it would accordingly not be what she had in mind oh no she declared it's nothing of that sort you've been right yet he couldn't help asking himself if she weren't thus pressed
speaking but to save him it seemed to him he should be most in a hole if his history should prove all a platitude are you telling me the truth so that i shan't have been a bigger idiot than i can bear to know
whatever the reality it is a reality the door isn't shut the door's open said may bartram then something's to come
she waited once again always with her cold sweet eyes on him it's never too late she had with her gliding step diminished the distance between them and she stood nearer to him
he had been standing by the chimney piece fireless and sparely adorned a small perfect old french clock and two morsels of rosy dresden constituting all its furniture and her hand grasped the shelf
while she kept him waiting grasped it a little as for support and encouragement she only kept him waiting however that is he only waited it had become suddenly
from her movement and attitude beautiful and vivid to him that she had something more to give him her wasted face delicately shone with it it glittered almost as with the white lustre of silver in her expression
her contact imponderably pressing and his stare all kind but all expectant the end none the less was that what he had expected failed to come to him something else took place instead
it was the end of what she had been intending but it left him thinking only of that well you don't say she had touched in her passage a bell near the chimney
and had sunk back strangely pale i'm afraid i'm too ill too ill to tell me it sprang up sharp to him and almost to his lips the fear she might die without giving him light
he checked himself in time from so expressing his question but she answered as if she had heard the words don't you know now now'
she had spoken as if some difference had been made within the moment but her maid quickly obedient to her bell was already with them i know nothing and he was afterwards to say to himself
that he must have spoken with odious impatience such an impatience as to show that supremely disconcerted he washed his hands of the whole question oh said may bartram are you in pain
he asked as the woman went to her no said may bartram her maid who had put an arm round her as if to take her to her room fixed on him eyes that appealingly contradicted her
in spite of which however he showed once more his mystification what then has happened she was once more with her companion's help on her feet and feeling withdrawal imposed on him
he had blankly found his hat and gloves and had reached the door yet he waited for her answer
parallel references
ancient law jehovah spake to moses face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend
and moses chose able men out of all israel and made them heads over the people rulers of thousands rulers of hundreds
rulers of fifties and rulers of tens and they judged the people at all seasons the hard cases they brought unto moses but every small matter they judged themselves
twenty five twenty six love is the fulfilling of the law saint paul now this is the law of the jungle as old and as true as the sky and the wolf that shall keep it may prosper
but the wolf that shall break it must die as the creeper that girdles the tree trunk
kipling nothing is that errs from law tennyson in vain we call old notions fudge and bend conventions to our dealing the ten commandments will not budge
and stealing still continues stealing lowell if chosen men could never be alone in deep mid silence open doored with god no greatness ever had been dreamed or done
these roots bear up dominion knowledge will these twain are strong but stronger yet the third obedience
knit round the rock of duty is not stirred though heaven loosed tempests spend their utmost skill lowell
kipling's law of the jungle in which he lays down the principles by which the wolf pack secured united action in its hunting names the rules that apply almost universally to peoples in the savage stage of society
according to the researches of the best anthropologists savages live in very loosely organized groups with no permanent ruler no regular family law each separate group has its totem
its general rules with reference to the marriage relation to hunting and fishing to shelter and protection
the rules fixed by custom deal primarily with the marriage relation and with the securing of food and shelter they are largely negative if a member of the group has met with a misfortune in a certain by path
or from eating certain food or in other ways
that path or that food becomes taboo and from that time on it is forbidden the rules seem generally to be largely the product of instinct or of experience without any law making
as this loosely associated group condenses into the tribe all the members of which regard themselves as descended from a common ancestor the organization becomes much more definite under a patriarchal ruler
soon through his activities these almost instinctive habits guided by rules assume the nature of customs that have a sanction often of religion practically always of enforcement through the patriarch
no better illustration of the crystallization of customs into laws can be found
moses sat all day long as judge to decide cases for the people until his practical minded father in law jethro seeing the waste of time and energy of the ruler upon whom the welfare of the tribe depended
proposed a wise plan he advised that instead of rendering decisions regarding each individual case moses should formulate the principles and leave their application to minor judges appointed by himself
as rulers over thousands and over hundreds and fifties and tens in modern days the law making body is distinct from the judicial is there any reason why the judge should not be the maker of the law he interprets
doubtless many of the customs thus formulated by moses had come down through the preceding ages from the babylonian and common semitic ancestors of the hebrews
the most striking example of the pre mosaic formulation of custom into law under the sanction of the deity is found in the so called code of hammurabi which comes from about nineteen hundred b c
which records these laws this enlightened king depicted himself
hammurabi looked upon himself as a shepherd chosen by the gods to care for his people it was his duty to see that the great should not oppress the weak to counsel the widow and orphan
to render judgment and decide the decisions of the land and to succor the injured in order that by the command of shamash the judge supreme of heaven and earth justice might shine in the land
many of the principles laid down by him are also found among the laws attributed to moses which were afterward codified in the early decalogues at times though rarely among the hebrews
we may study custom in the making as when in a new situation a ruler renders a decision which henceforth becomes a law thus david dividing the spoil after his victory over the amalekites
established a precedent that henceforth had binding force upon his followers
and the interests of individuals and classes in society clash besides the judges we find legislatures making new rules in the form of law
in the earlier communities practically all law relates to the preservation of life and of the tribe later as the tribe enters the pastoral state
private property is established and laws for its care are made still later with the development of a higher civilization and with the individual conscience stimulating men to care for the welfare not merely of their family
but of their nation legislation considers primarily the welfare of society yet as one of our great judges has lately explained in practically all stages of society
whenever the population becomes numerous and business is so developed that we may recognize different classes in a community legislation has been primarily in the interests of a ruling class
often at the expense of the other classes this principle is illustrated by certain of the later jewish ceremonial laws that brought to the priests a large income at the expense of the people
have been made clearly in the interests of certain classes in society
the pack that is best disciplined by the strongest and most successful leader is the one that survives
in the earlier savage groups the rules which guided united action grew up as a result of successful experience in securing food and warding off enemies among them the less disciplined
through his fear of the unknown stimulated by the terrible vindications of nature's laws when poison and pestilence and storms and floods do their deadly work the savage feels the presence of unknown forces that he calls gods
and he thus gives to his rules of action the sanction of divinity and as society develops through the pastoral agricultural and industrial stages into the tribe and state with the development of religion and the growing sense of right
and love for one's fellow men springing from the firm belief in the divine creation and direction of the universe and in god's care for men but as this sense of fear or right or justice or love
associated with a being felt to be divine is not universal inasmuch as many members of society are found ready to act selfishly taking the law into their own hands
and when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his other sons they hated him
so that he became a prosperous man and was in the house of his master the egyptian when his master saw that jehovah was with him and that jehovah caused everything that he did to prosper in his hands
joseph found favor in his eyes as he ministered to him so that he made him overseer of his house and all that he had he put in his charge and jehovah was with joseph and showed kindness to him
and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison so that the keeper of the prison gave to joseph's charge all the prisoners who were in the prison and for whatever they did he was responsible
and pharaoh said to joseph see i have appointed you over all the land of egypt and pharaoh took off his signet ring from his finger and put it upon joseph's finger
thus he set him over all the land of egypt pharaoh also said to joseph i am pharaoh but without your consent shall no man lift up his hand or his foot in all the land of egypt
for what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul
men at some time are masters of their fates the fault dear brutus is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings
but we must sail and not drift nor lie at anchor o w holmes he that respects himself is safe from others he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce
the late samuel l clemens mark twain advised a young man who desired to enter business to select the firm with which he wished to be associated then ask that they give him work
without mentioning the subject of compensation having secured this opportunity to demonstrate his ability and willingness to work recognition would come in due time this advice received the approval of many prominent business men
it concretely illustrates the fact that the first essential of success is the willingness to serve it also emphasizes the necessity of being ready to do the work in accordance with the employer's wishes
ultimate success also requires knowledge and trained ability these however come through apprenticeship and a faithful improvement of opportunities the hebrew sages with true insight emphasized the importance of knowledge
but they taught also that wisdom which is not only knowledge but the power to apply it practically in the various relations of life was far more important what other qualities are essential to the highest success
is it very important that a man should have the right moral standards how do a man's habits affect his efficiency is it only the genius who is able to attain the highest success to day in business and professional life
do you accept george eliot's definition of genius as the capacity for unlimited work to what extent does a man's faith in god and in his fellow men determine his ability to win success
the hebrew sage who uttered the prayer remove far from me falsehood and lies give me neither poverty nor riches feed me with the food that is needful for me
voiced a great economic as well as moral principle the men who are handicapped to day in the race for success are either those who are born in homes of extreme poverty or of extreme wealth
where they are unnaturally barred or shielded from the real problems and tasks of life which is probably the greater handicap to which class did joseph belong
in what ways did his father show his favoritism towards joseph the hebrew word rendered in the older translations coat of many colors means literally long sleeved tunic this garment
the dreams which joseph told to his brothers reveal his high estimate of his own importance and were probably suggested by his father's attitude toward him they were indeed a revelation of the ambitions already stirring in the young boy's mind
but joseph required closer contact with real life in order to transform his ambitions into actual achievements joseph gave his brothers cause for hatred toward him but their action in selling him to the ishmaelites
was by no means justifiable nevertheless it brought to joseph the experiences and opportunities absolutely essential to the attainment of his ultimate success
often what seem man's greatest misfortunes are in reality the door that opens to the new and larger opportunities
egypt with its marvelous natural resources its peculiar climate its irrigation which usually guarantees good crops and its versatile people has always been pre eminently the land of opportunity
especially was this true during the reigns of the powerful despots of the eighteenth dynasty when the relations between egypt and palestine were exceedingly close thus for example according to contemporary records
during the reign of the great reformer king
a certain dudu david was one of the most trusted officials of this king he is addressed by one of the egyptian governors as my lord my father another semite named yanhamu
that his authority was almost equal to that of pharaoh himself this was perhaps the joseph of the biblical account is there any evidence that joseph complained because of the injustice of his brothers
by loyal attention to his duties he made himself indispensable to his egyptian master a great temptation came to him in the new home what influences led him to resist this temptation
analyze his probable motives in detail the great injustice which he suffered and the seeming misfortune proved in turn a new door of opportunity but this would not have been the case had not joseph forgotten his own personal wrongs
and given himself to the service of his fellow prisoners was the prosperity which generally attended joseph a miraculous gift or the natural consequences of his courageous helpful spirit and his skill in making the best of every situation
in modern life as in the ancient story the place usually seeks the man who is fitted to fill it the ever recurring complaint of employers is the scarcity of good men
especially of men able to exercise discretion in positions of responsibility was it joseph's skill in interpreting pharaoh's dreams or his wise counsel in suggesting methods of providing for the people during famine
was the policy which made pharaoh practical owner of all the land first instituted by joseph or was it already in force in egypt
one hundred thirty three in the thought of the prophetic narrative was joseph's fiscal system regarded as evidence of his loyalty to his master rather than of disloyalty to the interests of the people
was the system suited to that stage and kind of civilization can this be cited by socialists to day as a valid argument in favor of public ownership of all land if not why not
three principles illustrated by joseph's life are true to all time one the only successful way to forget one's own burdens is to help bear another's two
god makes all things work together for good to those that love him three
israel's experience in the wilderness and east of the jordan
then as they journeyed from the mountain of jehovah the ark of jehovah went before them to seek out a halting place for them and whenever the ark started moses would say arise o jehovah
and let thine enemies be scattered and let those who hate thee flee before thee and when it rested he would say return o jehovah to the ten thousand of thousands of israel
thirty three thirty five thirty six as an eagle stirreth up her nest hovereth over her young taketh them beareth them upon her wings so the lord his god did lead him and there was no strange god with him
before man made us citizens great nature made us men lowell oh east is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet
till earth and sky stand presently at god's great judgment seat but there is neither east nor west border nor breed nor birth when two strong men stand face to face
tho they come from the ends of the earth rudyard kipling the measure of the success of our lives can only lie in the stature of our manhood in the growth in unworldliness and in the moral elevation of our inner self
the accounts regarding the experiences of the israelites in the wilderness lack the unity which characterizes the records of the earlier and later periods they simply give occasional pictures of the life of the hebrew fugitives
they must be interpreted in the light of the peculiar background of the wilderness and of the nomadic life which flourishes there to day as it did in the past the hebrews on escaping from egypt
entered the south country which extends seventy miles from the rocky hills of judah southward until it merges into the barren desert during the later roman period the northern and northwestern portions of this territory
were partially reclaimed by agriculturalists but in early periods as to day it was pre eminently the home of wandering nomadic tribes
this wild treeless region is divided by rocky ranges running from east to west parallel to these are deep hot and for the most part waterless valleys in the springtime
the home of the hebrews at this time like that of the modern arabs was the tent the stories that have come down from this period suggest the experiences through which they passed the constant insistent problem in this region was and is
how to secure adequate supplies of food and water during the greater part of the year the chief food of the people is the milk and curds supplied by their herds at times however
these fail to meet the needs even of the modern bedouin inhabitants of this south country they then gather the gum that exudes from the tamarisk tree or the lichens from the rocks
from these they make a coarse flour and bread which keeps them alive until the winter rains again bring their supply of water and pasturage some scholars hold that this coarse food was the manna of the biblical accounts
they argue that later generations familiar with the barrenness of the wilderness and believing that the hebrews at this time numbered many thousands
at certain periods also the meagre fare of the desert dweller is supplemented by the quails which he is able to capture and these are a welcome relief to his monotonous diet about the perennial springs
even in more fertile lands the greeks reared beside such springs temples to the god whom they thought of as thus signally revealing himself in the deeper sense each of these early hebrew stories is historical
for they all record the fundamental thought and belief that through this strenuous painful period even as in later crises in their history jehovah was guiding his people and giving them not only food and water
but also that training in the school of danger and privation which was essential for their highest development
even more insistent than the constant struggle for food and water were the dangers that came from the hostile tribes which already occupied this much contested territory for the possession of the springs and pasture lands they fought
with the energy and craft that characterize the bedouin tribes to day hence to the hebrews fresh from the fertile fields of egypt their life in the wilderness represented constant hardship privation
ov the nomadic life upon israel's character and ideals the wilderness left a stamp upon hebrew character and life that may be traced even to day in the later descendants of that race
it tightened their muscles and gave them that physical virility which has enabled them to survive even amidst the most unfavorable conditions it taught them how to subsist on the most meagre food supply
and to thrive where the citizen of a more prosperous land would inevitably starve it is probable that in their early nomadic experiences the hebrews acquired those migratory habits
which intensified by unwonted vicissitudes have carried them to almost every civilized land in the wilderness they also learned the art of nomadic warfare
which to win victories depended not so much upon open attack as upon strategy the common dangers of the wilderness life tightened the racial and religious bonds that held them together
only by the closest union could they resist the perils that beset them upon the complete devotion of each man to the interest of the tribe hung his fate as well as that of the community as a whole
even if it cost the life blood of the tribe which is illustrated in many of the stories that come from this early period how far has this racial characteristic survived
by public stoning how far has this characteristic survived to the glory of the jewish race the tribal organization also cherished the freedom of each individual
under the influence of a new agricultural environment the hebrews established the kingship and monarchy it was the struggle between these inherited democratic ideals and those of the neighbors who were ruled by despots
that ultimately disrupted the hebrew kingdom and called forth those great champions of liberty and social justice the prophets of the assyrian period
it was this same democratic atmosphere that made possible the work of those prophets who openly denounced the crimes of king and people how far have the jews throughout all their history
upon a power outside and above themselves it led them to look constantly to jehovah as their sole guide and deliverer a continued attitude crystallized into a habit hence throughout their troubled career
the hebrews have been conscious of the presence of god and have found in him their defender and personal friend as has no other people in human history
chapter four on the spartacus the ulster and the felt hat soon came off again for a head wind lay waiting in the offing
and the spartacus began to pitch and toss in a manner which made all her unseasoned passengers glad to betake themselves to their berths missus ashe and amy were among the earliest victims of sea sickness and katy after helping them to settle in their staterooms
found herself too dizzy and ill to sit up a moment longer and thankfully resorted to her own as the night came on the wind grew stronger and the motion worse the spartacus had the reputation of being a dreadful roller
down down down the great hull would slide till katy would hold her breath with fear lest it might never right itself again then slowly slowly the turn would be made and up up up it would go till the cant on the other side was equally alarming
on the whole katy preferred to have her own side of the ship the downward one for it was less difficult to keep herself in the berth from which she was in continual danger of being thrown
the night seemed endless for she was too frightened to sleep except in broken snatches and when day dawned and she looked through the little round pane of glass in the port hole only gray sky and gray weltering waves and flying spray and rain met her view
oh dear why do people ever go to sea unless they must she thought feebly to herself she wanted to get up and see how missus ashe had lived through the night but the attempt to move made her so miserably ill that she was glad to sink again on her pillows
the very idea of which was simply dreadful and pronounced the other lady orridly ill worse than you are miss and the little girl
of this fact katy soon had audible proof for as her dizzy senses rallied a little she could hear amy in the opposite stateroom crying and sobbing pitifully she seemed to be angry as well as sick for she was scolding her poor mother in the most vehement fashion
i hate being at sea katy heard her say i won't stay in this nasty old ship
it wasn't a bit kind of you to bring me to such a horrid place it was very unkind it was cru el i want to go back mamma tell the captain to take me back to the land mamma why don't you speak to me oh i am so sick and so very un happy
don't you wish you were dead i do and then came another storm of sobs but never a sound from missus ashe who katy suspected was too ill to speak
she felt very sorry for poor little amy raging there in her high berth like some imprisoned creature but she was powerless to help her she could only resign herself to her own discomforts and try to believe that somehow sometime this state of things must mend
either they should all get to land or all go to the bottom and be drowned and at that moment she didn't care very much which it turned out to be the gale increased as the day wore on and the vessel pitched dreadfully twice katy was thrown out of her berth on the floor
then the stewardess came and fixed a sort of movable side to the berth which held her in but made her feel like a child fastened into a railed crib at intervals she could still hear amy crying and scolding her mother and conjectured that they were having a dreadful time of it in the other stateroom
it was all like a bad dream and they call this travelling for pleasure thought poor katy one droll thing happened in the course of the second night at least it seemed droll afterward at the time katy was too uncomfortable to enjoy it
amid the rush of the wind the creaking of the ship's timbers and the shrill buzz of the screw she heard a sound of queer little footsteps in the entry outside of her open door hopping and leaping together in an odd irregular way like a regiment of mice or toy soldiers
nearer and nearer they came and katy opening her eyes saw a procession of boots and shoes of all sizes and shapes which had evidently been left on the floors or at the doors of various staterooms and which in obedience to the lurchings of the vessel had collected in the cabin
they now seemed to be acting in concert with one another and really looked alive as they bumped and trotted side by side and two by two in at the door and up close to her bedside there they remained for several moments executing what looked like a dance
then the leading shoe turned on its heel as if giving a signal to the others and they all hopped slowly again into the passage way and disappeared it was exactly like one of hans christian andersen's fairy tales katy wrote to clover afterward
she heard them going down the cabin but how it ended or whether the owners of the boots and shoes ever got their own particular pairs again she never knew toward morning the gale abated the sea became smoother and she dropped asleep
when she woke the sun was struggling through the clouds and she felt better the stewardess opened the port hole to freshen the air and helped her to wash her face and smooth her tangled hair then she produced a little basin of gruel and a triangular bit of toast
and katy found that her appetite was come again and she could eat and ere's a letter ma'am which has come for you by post this morning said the nice old stewardess producing an envelope from her pocket
by post cried katy in amazement why how can that be then catching sight of rose's handwriting on the envelope she understood and smiled at her own simplicity the stewardess beamed at her as she opened it then saying again
yes m by post m'm withdrew and left katy to enjoy the little surprise the letter was not long but it was very like its writer rose drew a picture of what katy would probably be doing at the time it reached her
a picture so near the truth that katy felt as if rose must have the spirit of prophecy especially as she kindly illustrated the situation with a series of pen and ink drawings in which katy was depicted as prone in her berth refusing with horror to go to dinner
looking longingly backward toward the quarter where the united states was supposed to be and fishing out of her port hole with a crooked pin in hopes of grappling the submarine cable and sending a message to her family to come out at once and take her home
it ended with this short poem over which katy laughed till missus ashe called feebly across the entry to ask what was the matter break break break and mis behave o sea and i wish that my tongue could utter the hatred i feel for thee
oh well for the fisherman's child on the sandy beach at his play
but this horrible ship keeps on and is never a moment still and i yearn for the touch of the nice dry land where i needn't feel so ill break break break there is no good left in me
for the dinner i ate on the shore so late has vanished into the sea laughter is very restorative after the forlornity of sea sickness and katy was so stimulated by her letter that she managed to struggle into her dressing gown and slippers
amy had fallen asleep at last and must not be waked up so their interview was conducted in whispers missus ashe had by no means got to the tea and toast stage yet and was feeling miserable enough
all day yesterday when she wasn't sick
i never knew her so naughty and it seemed very neglectful not to come to see after you poor dear child but really i couldn't raise my head neither could i and i felt just as guilty not to be taking care of you said katy well
the worst is over with all of us i hope the vessel doesn't pitch half so much now and the stewardess says we shall feel a great deal better as soon as we get on deck she is coming presently to help me up and when amy wakes won't you let her be dressed
and i will take care of her while missus barrett attends to you i don't think i can be dressed sighed poor missus ashe
and seated her on deck in a chair with a great rug wrapped about her feet with very little effort on katy's part then she dived down the companion way again and in the course of an hour appeared escorting a big burly steward
who carried poor little pale amy in his arms as easily as though she had been a kitten amy gave a scream of joy at the sight of katy and cuddled down in her lap under the warm rug with a sigh of relief and satisfaction
i thought i was never going to see you again she said with a little squeeze oh miss katy it has been so horrid i never thought that going to europe meant such dreadful things as this this is only the beginning
she couldn't answer she was too ill explained katy well my pet it was pretty hard for you i hope we sha'n't have any more such days the sea is a great deal smoother now mabel looks quite pale
she was sick too said amy regarding the doll in her arms with an anxious air
only i keep thinking of poor little maria matilda shut up in the trunk in that dark place and wondering if she's sick there's nobody to explain to her down there they say that you don't feel the motion half so much in the bottom of the ship said katy
perhaps she hasn't noticed it at all dear me how good something smells i wish they would bring us something to eat a good many passengers had come up by this time and robert the deck steward was going about tray in hand taking orders for lunch
amy and katy both felt suddenly ravenous and when missus ashe awhile later was helped up the stairs she was amazed to find them eating cold beef and roasted potatoes with the finest appetites in the world
so it proved for after these two bad days none of the party were sick again during the voyage amy had a clamorous appetite for stories as well as for cold beef and to appease this craving katy started a sort of ocean serial called
the history of violet and emma
but which in reality lasted much longer it might with equal propriety have been called the adventures of two little girls who didn't have any adventures for nothing in particular happened to either violet or emma during the whole course of their long drawn out history
amy however found them perfectly enchanting and was never weary of hearing how they went to school and came home again how they got into scrapes and got out of them how they made good resolutions and broke them about their christmas presents and birthday treats
and what they said and how they felt the first instalment of this un exciting romance was given that first afternoon on deck and after that amy claimed a new chapter daily and it was a chief ingredient of her pleasure during the voyage
on the third morning katy woke and dressed so early that she gained the deck before the sailors had finished their scrubbing and holystoning she took refuge within the companion way and sat down on the top step of the ladder to wait till the deck was dry enough to venture upon it
there the captain found her and drew near for a talk captain bryce was exactly the kind of sea captain that is found in story books but not always in real life he was stout and grizzled and brown and kind
he had a bluff weather beaten face lit up with a pair of shrewd blue eyes which twinkled when he was pleased and his manner though it was full of the habit of command was quiet and pleasant he was a martinet on board his ship
not a sailor under him would have dared dispute his orders for a moment but he was very popular with them notwithstanding they liked him as much as they feared him for they knew him to be their best friend if it came to sickness or trouble with any of them
katy and he grew quite intimate during their long morning talk the captain liked girls he had one of his own about katy's age and was fond of talking about her lucy was his mainstay at home he told katy
her mother had been weakly now this long time back and bess and nanny were but children yet so lucy had to take command and keep things ship shape when he was away she'll be on the lookout when the steamer comes in said the captain
there's a signal we've arranged which means all's well and when we get up the river a little way i always look to see if it's flying it's a bit of a towel hung from a particular window and when i see it i say to myself thank god another voyage safely done and no harm come of it
it's a sad kind of work for a man to go off for a twenty four days cruise leaving a sick wife on shore behind him if it wasn't that i have lucy to look after things i should have thrown up my command long ago indeed i am glad you have lucy
she must be a great comfort to you said katy sympathetically for the captain's hearty voice trembled a little as he spoke she made him tell her the color of lucy's hair and eyes and exactly how tall she was and what she had studied and what sort of books she liked
it contained a pretty little green bound copy of emerson's poems with katy's name and to be read at sea written on the flyleaf somehow the little gift seemed to bridge the long misty distance which stretched between the vessel's stern and boston bay
and to bring home and friends a great deal nearer with a half happy half tearful pleasure katy recognized the fact that distance counts for little if people love one another
and that hearts have a telegraph of their own whose messages are as sure and swift as any of those sent over the material lines which link continent to continent and shore with shore later in the morning
katy going down to her stateroom for something came across a pallid exhausted looking lady who lay stretched on one of the long sofas in the cabin with a baby in her arms and a little girl sitting at her feet quite still with a pair of small hands folded in her lap
the little girl did not seem to be more than four years old she had two pig tails of thick flaxen hair hanging over her shoulders and at katy's approach raised a pair of solemn blue eyes which had so much appeal in them though she said nothing
that katy stopped at once can i do anything for you she asked i am afraid you have been very ill at the sound of her voice the lady on the sofa opened her eyes she tried to speak but to katy's dismay began to cry instead
and when the words came they were strangled with sobs
if you would give my little girl something to eat she has had nothing since yesterday and i have been so ill and no
oh cried katy with horror nothing to eat since yesterday how did it happen everybody has been sick on our side the ship explained the poor lady and i suppose the stewardess thought as i had a maid with me
that i needed her less than the others but my maid has been sick too and oh so selfish she wouldn't even take the baby into the berth with her and i have had all i could do to manage with him when i couldn't lift up my head
little gretchen has had to go without anything and she has been so good and patient katy lost no time but ran for missus barrett whose indignation knew no bounds when she heard how the helpless party had been neglected
all the time that she talked missus barrett was busy in making missus ware for that it seemed was the sick lady's name more comfortable and katy was feeding gretchen out of a big bowl full of bread and milk which one of the stewards had brought
the little uncomplaining thing was evidently half starved but with the mouthfuls the pink began to steal back into her cheeks and lips
and others not so pleasant perhaps who were rather curious and interesting to watch katy grew to feel as if she knew a great deal about her fellow travellers as time went on there was the young girl going out to join her parents under the care of a severe governess
whom everybody on board rather pitied there was the other girl on her way to study art who was travelling quite alone and seemed to have nobody to meet her or to go to except a fellow student of her own age already in paris but who seemed quite unconscious of her lonely position
and competent to grapple with anything or anybody there was the queer old gentleman who had crossed eleven times before and had advice and experience to spare for any one who would listen to them and the other gentleman not so old but even more queer
who had frozen his stomach eight years before by indulging on a hot summer's day in sixteen successive ice creams alternated with ten glasses of equally cold soda water and who related this exciting experience in turn to everybody on board
there was the bad little boy whose parents were powerless to oppose him and who carried terror to the hearts of all beholders whenever he appeared and the pretty widow who filled the role of reigning belle and the other widow not quite so pretty or so much a belle
who had a good deal to say in a voice made discreetly low about what a pity it was that dear missus so and so should do this or that and doesn't it strike you as very unfortunate that she should not consider the other thing
a great sea going steamer is a little world in itself and gives one a glimpse of all sorts and conditions of people and characters on the whole there was no one on the spartacus whom katy liked so well as sedate little gretchen except the dear old captain
with whom she was a prime favorite he gave missus ashe and herself the seats next to him at table looked after their comfort in every possible way and each night at dinner sent katy one of the apple dumplings made specially for him by the cook
who had gone many voyages with the captain and knew his fancies katy did not care particularly for the dumpling but she valued it as a mark of regard and always ate it when she could
meanwhile every morning brought a fresh surprise from that dear painstaking rose who had evidently worked hard and thought harder in contriving pleasures for katy's first voyage at sea missus barrett was enlisted in the plot there could be no doubt of that
and enjoyed the joke as much as any one as she presented herself each day with the invariable formula a letter for you ma'am or a bundle miss come by the parcels delivery on the fourth morning it was a photograph of baby rose in a little flat morocco case
the fifth brought a wonderful epistle full of startling pieces of news none of them true on the sixth appeared a long narrow box containing a fountain pen then came mister howells's a foregone conclusion which katy had never seen
then a box of quinine pills then a sachet for her trunk then another burlesque poem last of all a cake of delicious violet soap to wash the sea smell from her hands the label said
it grew to be one of the little excitements of ship life to watch for the arrival of these daily gifts and what did the mail bring for you this time miss carr was a question frequently asked each arrival katy thought must be the final one
but rose's forethought had gone so far even as to provide an extra parcel in case the voyage was a day longer than usual and miss carr's mail continued to come in till the very last morning katy never forgot the thrill that went through her when after so many days of sea
her eyes first caught sight of the dim line of the irish coast an exciting and interesting day followed as after stopping at queenstown to leave the mails they sped northeastward between shores which grew more distinct and beautiful with every hour
on one side ireland on the other the bold mountain lines of the welsh coast it was late afternoon when they entered the mersey and dusk had fallen before the captain got out his glass to look for the white fluttering speck in his own window which meant so much to him
long he studied before he made quite sure that it was there at last he shut the glass with a satisfied air it's all right he said to katy who stood near almost as much interested as he lucy never forgets bless her
well there's another voyage over and done with thank god and my mary is where she was it's a load taken from my mind the moon had risen and was shining softly on the river as the crowded tender landed the passengers from the spartacus
at the liverpool docks we shall meet again in london or in paris said one to another and cards and addresses were exchanged then after a brief delay at the custom house they separated each to his own particular destination
and as a general thing none of them ever saw any of the others again it is often thus with those who have been fellow voyagers at sea and it is always a surprise and perplexity to inexperienced travellers that it can be so
and that those who have been so much to each other for ten days can melt away into space and disappear as though the brief intimacy had never existed four wheeler or hansom ma'am said a porter to missus ashe which katy oh
let us have a hansom i never saw one and they look so nice in punch so a hansom cab was called the two ladies got in amy cuddled down between them the folding doors were shut over their knees like a lap robe
and away they drove up the solidly paved streets to the hotel where they were to pass the night it was too late to see or do anything but enjoy the sense of being on firm land once more how lovely it will be to sleep in a bed that doesn't tip or roll from side to side said missus ashe
yes and that is wide enough and long enough and soft enough to be comfortable replied katy i feel as if i could sleep for a fortnight to make up for the bad nights at sea everything seemed delightful to her the space for undressing
the great tub of fresh water which stood beside the english looking washstand with its ample basin and ewer the chintz curtained bed the coolness the silence and she closed her eyes with the pleasant thought in her mind
it was a bright clear day and she wished that she had some other girl to walk with her for when by herself she never ventured beyond the entrance to the park although if her cousin or one of her school friends could go with her
her aunt had no objection to her walking in the park itself one of the disadvantages of her friendship with ruth roberts lay in the fact that they could seldom be together in the afternoons their homes were too far apart sometimes on saturday
julia would go to roxbury to spend the half day with ruth and on other saturdays ruth would come in town to stay with julia it was hard to tell which was the pleasanter thing to do at roxbury there were ruth's ponies to drive
and in snowy weather a chance to coast down a quiet side street out of town there are many more chances for fun for girls past sixteen than can possibly be found in town or the city
when ruth visited julia the two usually went to a concert accompanied by missus barlow or when she could not go by one of their teachers of late julia had been in the habit of inviting miss south to go with them brenda never went to these concerts
the only matinee that she cared for was the theatre
she could not indulge herself half as much as she wished on this particular afternoon julia felt especially lonely doubtless no small part of her loneliness came from the fact that she was perfectly well aware of the presence of the four in the house
and though she had tried not even to say to herself that she felt slighted she would have been less than human not to feel that her cousin had slighted her in not asking her to the club to look up and not down to look out and not in
had been one of the lessons which her father had been most careful to teach her it was therefore not very often that she let her thoughts dwell too long on her own affairs but on this particular day she felt a little low spirited
without realizing it she had walked some distance into the park and pausing to admire a bit of distant view that she was able to get from a slightly elevated point she lingered a moment or two longer
when she found that there was no other way of satisfying herself she walked up to the bushes and there standing forlornly on three legs was a tiny italian greyhound why you poor little thing she cried what is the matter
and as she spoke she took the little creature in her arms is your leg broken or sprained or what she continued though of course she did not expect any reply from the dog the greyhound showed great joy at the sound of a friendly voice
and looked up in julia's face with an expression of confidence and gratitude come i am going to put you down on the ground for a minute to see whether you are hurt or only pretending so suiting the action to the word she stood the little dog on its feet
as if understanding her purpose the little creature limped in front of her for a few steps but the limp was so slight as to assure julia that no serious accident had befallen the leg which the dog still seemed inclined to hold off the ground
now let me see if your collar tells who your owner is added julia and she bent down towards the dog there to her surprise she read in clear letters fidessa madame du launy
now immediately julia decided that the owner of the dog must be the mistress of the large house near the school about which her friends were so curious in an instant too she remembered that she had seen this little animal or one very like it
taking its exercise in front of the great mysterious house julia had always been fond of dogs and the little trembling creature appealed strongly to her for a moment she almost wished that there were no name on the collar
so that she might have kept it with her for a day or two while finding the owner o if only it had no owner what joy she thought as she gazed into its dark eyes to keep it for myself
and taking the little fidessa in her arms she retraced her steps to the other side of the city where madame du launy lived as she stood in front of the house which nora and brenda had tried so unsuccessfully to enter a few weeks before
the old timidity which at one time had been the trial of her life returned to her nevertheless she rang the bell bravely and was welcomed almost with open arms by the serious faced servant who opened the door he had seen fidessa instantly
and if he had not the little creature would have made herself quickly known when julia released her she jumped about in the greatest excitement whirling around in a circle and then rushing ahead up the stairs all trace of the lameness seemed to be gone greatly to julia's surprise
while fidessa was running ahead the man asking julia to follow him had shown her into a large room rather dimly lighted at first she thought that she was alone but far at the other end of the apartment
she saw a slight figure arise from the depths of a large armchair as the man said solemnly madame du launy here is a young lady who has found fidessa at that moment the truant dog bounded into the room
and leaping up towards the old lady almost knocked her over at the same moment a plain elderly woman entered behind fidessa and julia could see as she stood in the doorway that her eyes were rather red around the edges as if she had been weeping
said madame du launy querulously we are not at a funeral
where did you find my poor little dog by this time the poor little dog was seated calmly on a cushion with its slender front legs crossed as if it had never given any one a moment's uneasiness
as julia looked at the lady who had addressed her she saw that she was or had been tall her figure though somewhat bent gave the impression of stateliness this aspect was increased by the large towering structure which she wore on her head
whether to be called cap or turban it was hard to tell
in answer to madame du launy's question julia described finding the little dog in the park and her fear at first lest it had hurt its leg that is an old trick of fidessa said her mistress smiling
when she is at all unhappy she limps about on three legs as if really lame she does not know her way about the city and she is never supposed to go anywhere without her leash
fidessa went out for a drive to day under her care when jane left the carriage to call on a friend of hers who lives near the park she forgot all about my dog fidessa probably jumped out of the carriage to take a walk herself
but i must say that it seems most extraordinary that no one saw her neither the coachman the footman nor jane when the carriage started home none of them took the trouble to look under the rugs to see if she was there
here jane began to sniffle a little well continued madame du launy it is a great wonder that she was not stolen or run over poor little thing it's no thanks to you jane
and she looked daggers at the unfortunate maid it is a wonder too that none of you could find fidessa for i don't believe that the little thing was actually hiding and you all three have come back with the report that it was impossible to find her
while madame du launy was speaking julia said to herself that she would be very sorry to bring on herself a scolding from so sharp voiced an old lady and she could not help feeling sorry for jane even though the latter had probably been careless
but now with a sudden change of manner madame du launy turned toward the young girl there is no reason however why you should suffer for jane's misdeeds
and then in what seemed an incredibly short time a man entered with a butler's tray which he placed on a table in front of madame du launy while the latter invited julia to come nearer and take a cup of tea now as julia sat there drinking tea
from the quaintest of old fashioned china cups and eating slices of thin bread and butter and cakes that almost melted in her mouth she could not help wondering what her friends and her cousin would say to see her actually seated in the house
which most of them considered absolutely impossible to enter in spite of the fact that the curtains at one or two windows had been raised a little the room was still rather dark and as she glanced about julia could see the pictures and furniture rather indistinctly
she noticed however that one wall was quite covered with large pieces of tapestry representing medieval battle scenes and that on the opposite wall on either side of a long mirror
that madame du launy should prove to be altogether less of an ogre than she had been represented although a trembling hand and a rather weak voice betrayed her age she talked brightly of various things asking julia about her school and her studies
and drawing the young girl out to talk about the western country in which she had spent so much time on one subject however the old lady was silent she said nothing in praise of boston either ancient or modern
she never alluded to a single individual as my friend or my neighbor she spoke only of things and for the most part of things that had no connection with new england her questions about the school were evidently prompted by politeness
in accordance with the general rule that one should show an interest in whatever probably interests the one
and james who kept his post near the drawing room door looked in amazement on madame du launy and her young guest in all their remembrance and both had lived in the house more than twenty five years they had never seen a young girl in conversation with their mistress
indeed they had seen very few guests in that gloomy old drawing room and certainly they had never known any one else to be asked to drink tea it was as pleasant as it was novel to madame du launy to have julia sitting with her and as for fidessa
she altogether forgot the strict discipline under which she had been reared and instead of sitting calmly on her cushion she jumped up in julia's lap and from time to time planted a cold moist little kiss on her cheek when at last julia rose to go
and that she had some distance to go to reach her uncle's house when however she rose to go madame du launy begged her to wait a moment i have ordered my carriage she added for it is altogether too late for you to go home alone
let me thank you very much for your kindness to my little fidessa for it would have been a very serious loss for me had she fallen into the wrong hands then when she saw james returning to announce that the carriage was ready she added
and spare an hour or so for me you will add more than you can imagine to relieve my very monotonous life thus julia
felt that she had made a new friend and in a very unexpected way the carriage in which she rode home though old fashioned in shape was delightfully comfortable and when she descended from it at her uncle's door still another surprise awaited her
the footman placed in her hand a little box with madame du launy's compliments he said this when she opened
shaped like a tiny scimitar really she thought i have had a most exciting adventure better than i deserve for it was only this afternoon that i was feeling so cross and so disheartened because the four would not include me in the club
but if i had been with them this afternoon
why even i in all my years of residence here have never had a glimpse of the old lady i have sometimes thought it a pity that she should lead so solitary a life but it's her own choice
they say she has a regular hermit disposition how did it strike you julia not that way uncle at all not at all though she seemed very sad
interposed brenda are you sure that there are any grandchildren enquired missus barlow
answered brenda mister barlow laughed i am afraid that you cannot make out a very strong case of cruelty to children unless you can prove the existence of the children oh well interposed missus barlow
to prevent that ruffling of brenda's feelings which was sure to follow when she felt that some one was laughing at her
it is never the easiest thing in the world to settle down to work after the holidays and even julia for a day or two found herself a little dreamy with her thoughts constantly going back to the many pleasant things of that christmas week
but it was not as hard for her as for her cousins to resume the regular routine she had a more definite aim than they with the prospect of college examinations not so very far away
brenda had not yet made up her mind to give her approval to her cousin's studying greek and she did not take the trouble to contradict belle and frances pounder when they said that it must be a very disagreeable thing to have a cousin who intended to be a teacher
it is true that neither belle nor frances was thoroughly informed as to julia's intentions but they never needed very definite facts on which to base their theories consequently when they were at a loss for a subject of conversation
they were in the habit of discussing julia's peculiarities other persons did not find julia peculiar to older people she seemed an especially well mannered girl with a delightful vein of thoughtfulness that was not too often met in young girls
she had become also a decided favorite with the brothers of her school friends to an extent that sometimes seemed surprising for julia was not an extremely pretty girl
and she was not half so well informed on sports and games as were the girls who had lived all their lives in boston but she had a way of listening attentively to whatever any boy happened to be saying to her and the questions that she asked always showed an unusual degree of attention
an attention that any one could see was not a mere pretence philip blair had already begun to confide to her a larger share of his college woes
for edith had an uncomfortable habit of forgetting just what was to be kept secret and though philip had no very dark secrets there were still little things that he preferred not to have told
julia was also very ready to help nora's younger brothers in their lessons and as harry gostar said there isn't another girl nora knows that could help a fellow with his greek exercises and even if she hasn't studied greek any longer than i have
she has learned more than enough to show me where i make mistakes in these beastly old conjugations there was probably some jealousy in the feeling of frances and belle toward julia but jealousy was not a strong motive with brenda in her case
there had been little more than pettishness in her first attitude towards her cousin the pettishness of a spoiled child yet this pettishness
hardly worth noticing when fanned by belle and frances took on the aspect of jealousy in consequence of this feeling julia had been made at times very uncomfortable
sometimes she found it very hard not to say a word when she heard the four rushing upstairs on the afternoons of the club meetings strange though it may seem no invitation had yet been given her to assist in the work for the bazaar
although all the other girls realized that the success of the rosas christmas tree had been largely due to her
for even after these many weeks of work there was hardly a single finished article belle's centrepiece was so elaborate that a whole afternoon showed hardly more than a single finished leaf or one exquisitely wrought blossom
if any one would pay you for your time belle nora said mischievously one day we should have money enough to send one of the rosa children to europe you'd better talk nora belle replied
and it isn't even artistic or oh well nora replied this is not the only thing that i have done i keep it to work on here but i have finished a small shawl at home and a pair of baby's shoes
ah said belle tossing her head you won't find me working myself to death over a bazaar i think one afternoon a week is a great deal to give to any poor family for that is what it amounts to and you know that i don't care much about those rosas anyway
oh belle cried edith looking shocked no indeed i don't and i am sure that brenda does not care half as much as she pretends why edith as for that you yourself never go down to the north end to see them
i can't my mother won't let me go into dirty streets or into tenement houses oh if you cared very much you'd find some way to go there occasionally you could drive edith looked so uncomfortable at this suggestion that nora
on whom usually fell the duty of taking up the cudgels exclaimed you know that edith was very generous at christmas and that she is ready to do ever so much more for the rosas and it isn't a bit fair to speak in that way
belle discreetly said nothing further for she had learned that when nora assumed this positive tone brenda was apt to go over on her side and then belle herself would be so in the minority as to be obliged to seem an unpopular person
and if there was one thing in the world that she dreaded it was to be considered unpopular so trimming her sails she said why how silly you are nora you know that i was only in fun
or three centrepieces for the bazaar but i am always so busy at this season you busy belle cried nora who ever heard of such a thing you are just the idlest person i know indeed i am not
and half my clothes are made in the house and we always have such stupid seamstresses that i should say so belle i do think that you have had some of the ugliest clothes lately that i have seen this winter interrupted nora rather unceremoniously
belle reddened very deeply at this speech for as a matter of fact she was extremely sensitive on the subject of her clothes unlike brenda or edith she never had the privilege of going to a fine costumer
nor could she even employ the dressmaker who made some of the gowns worn by others of her set of friends the circumstances in her family were such that she could not gratify her taste in dress she must wear this thing or that thing that her grandmother had selected
or must have something of her mother's altered to the present fashion for girls however skilful the alterations she felt as if she were in some way disgraced now to tell the truth belle herself had so much natural taste that only a very severe critic
could see anything to criticise in her dress
with the somewhat economical habits that had to be belle's
but girls will be girls and belle's great grievance was that when fawn brown for example was the fashionable spring shade
because somewhere in the cedar chests in her grandmother's attic there was a stone grey thibet ample enough to cut over into a spring gown for her as to hats neither her mother nor her grandmother approved of her having her hats trimmed at a milliner's
in consequence after her mother had put on a hat a simple trimming such as she approved herself belle would spend her first spare afternoon in ripping it all off in order to retrim it indeed she usually spent not one afternoon but several in this operation
and even ventured to lay out her own pocket money in little ornaments or in ribbons that she thought would add to the appearance of the hat in the same way she was able too to make slight alterations in the appearance of her gowns and sometimes the changes were improvements
at other times what she had considered a genuine addition to the style of her garment or hat to other eyes seemed only queer or in schoolgirl parlance weird
the ugliest she had seen she touched a tender cord in the first place belle had had a strong dislike for the coat and hat which her mother and grandmother had selected for her and in the second place she thought that she had improved the appearance of her costume as a whole
by entirely altering the style of her winter hat
had added a deep blue bow to the trimming and she believed that altogether she had accomplished wonders at nora's speech the tears came to her eyes
i do think nora that you might be careful what you say you know that belle dresses as well as she can and i think that she always looks well i wish that i could trim hats oh brenda it is a good thing that you can't for if you could you never would have a thing to wear
while nora was talking belle had been folding up her work
you are not going now cried brenda oh don't go you're not mad at nora are you oh no answered belle with the air of injured innocence oh no but i think that i ought to be going
i did not mean to stay the whole afternoon oh don't go urged edith if you'll wait half an hour i will go with you but i must finish this piece of drawn work but belle continued to put on her outer wraps
as a matter of fact belle was deeply offended and she knew that if she had stayed much longer with her friends
now a general quarrel was a thing to be dreaded and she knew that it would be unwise to risk it belle was certainly a sensible girl and what she now did was really the best thing under the circumstances left to themselves
it was something new for the rather loquacious belle to go off without a word
really nora i don't see how you could speak in that way to belle
clothes and sometimes she does look so queer but you shouldn't say so to her face better to her face than behind her back i don't know rejoined edith
belle has a right to wear whatever kind of hats she likes oh edith responded nora you are altogether too fair i am tired of having belle find fault with every one else as if she were just perfect herself for my own part i
well nora said brenda you ought not to say anything to belle when she is in my house i happen to know that she is very sensitive about her clothes in the first place her mother will never let her have what she wants no it's her grandmother interrupted edith
she really does have a hard time and it isn't fair to criticise her no added brenda it is not well brenda said nora you ought not to say anything you make belle awfully mad sometimes by what you say i heard you telling her the other day
the fur is so very unbecoming and you asked her why she didn't have a chinchilla collar and muff
don't let us bicker any one would think that we were all enemies instead of the inseparable four oh edith we can't all be as amiable as you responded nora but really i am a little sorry that i offended belle
for i know that she has a rather hard time at home
and i do wish that she would not wear her hats hind side before
never heard of such a thing i did not know that you attached the least importance to appearances besides i thought that you always wanted to make every one comfortable in her feelings
it seems strange that you should have been so awfully thoughtless towards belle i dare say that you are perfectly correct responded nora you usually are edith blair
that i shall go down on my knees to morrow at recess and apologize to belle and to every one else whom i have ever offended but i say that we have had enough of this exchange of compliments for to day let us put up our work and talk about something else
why see here belle has left her centrepiece behind her oh give it to me cried brenda i will put it away and she took it from nora's hands
you don't call this a fuss rejoined nora only a slight misunderstanding now in spite of her outspokenness nora was really a very fair minded young person or perhaps i ought to say because of it
and not all of them have the courage to admit that they have been wrong it does require some courage to go to a girl who is in the habit of justifying all her own words and deeds to tell her that you yourself have been wrong
yet this was just what nora did a day or two later when she began to reflect on the criticisms she had made in the matter of belle's clothes she was surprised herself at the graciousness with which belle received her apology
but this was one of the cases rather exceptional to be sure in which nora was decidedly in the wrong belle therefore could afford to be magnanimous
mister tombe had gained nothing for the cause by his crafty silence george vavasor felt perfectly certain as he walked out from the little street which runs at the back of doctors commons that the money which he had been using had come in some shape
through the hands of john grey he did not care much to calculate whether the payments had been made from the personal funds of his rival or whether that rival had been employed to dispense alice's fortune under either view of the case his position was sufficiently bitter
the truth never for a moment occurred to him he never dreamed that there might be a conspiracy in the matter of which alice was as ignorant as he himself had been he never reflected that his uncle john together with john the lover whom he so hated
to him it seemed to be certain that alice and mister grey were in league and if they were in league what must he think of alice and of her engagement with himself there are men who rarely think well of women who hardly think well of any woman
they put their mothers and sisters into the background as though they belonged to some sex or race apart and then declare to themselves and to their friends that all women are false that no woman can be trusted unless her ugliness protect her
and that every woman may be attacked as fairly as may game in a cover or deer on a mountain what man does not know men who have so thought i cannot say that such had been vavasor's creed not entirely such
there had been periods of his life when he had believed implicitly in his cousin alice but then there had been other moments in which he had ridiculed himself for his quixotism in believing in any woman
and as he had grown older the moments of his quixotism had become more rare there would have been no such quixotism left with him now had not the various circumstances which i have attempted to describe filled him during the last twelve months
with a renewed desire to marry his cousin every man tries to believe in the honesty of his future wife and therefore vavasor had tried and had in his way believed he had flattered himself too that alice's
been more prone to him than to that other suitor grey as he thought had been accepted by her cold prudence but he thought also that she had found her prudence to be too cold
vavasor though he did not love much himself was willing enough to be the object of love this idea of his however had been greatly shaken by alice's treatment of himself personally but still he had not hitherto believed
that she was false to him now what could he believe of her what was there within the compass of such a one to believe as he walked out into saint paul's churchyard he called her by every name which is most offensive to a woman's ears
he hated her at this moment with even a more bitter hatred than that which he felt towards john grey
as hardly any woman had ever lied before or could it be that kate also was lying to him if so kate also should be included in the punishment but why should they have conspired to feed him
with these moneys there had been no deceit at any rate in reference to the pounds sterling which scruby had already swallowed they had been supplied whatever had been the motives of the suppliers and he had no doubt that more would be supplied
if he would only keep himself quiet he was still walking westward as he thought of this down ludgate hill on his direct line towards suffolk street
and he tried to persuade himself that it would be well that he should hide his wrath till after provision should have been made for this other election they were his enemies alice and mister grey and why should he keep any terms with his enemies
but the terrible thing had been done the evil had occurred what would he gain by staying his hand now still however he walked on quickly along fleet street and along the strand
towards pall mall east before he had definitely decided what steps he would take on this very day exactly at the corner of suffolk street he met john grey mister grey he said stopping himself suddenly
i was this moment going to call on you at your lodgings at my lodgings were you shall i return with you if you please said vavasor leading the way up suffolk street
mister grey himself though a man very courteous in his general demeanour would probably have passed vavasor in the street with no more than the barest salutation situated as they were towards each other there could hardly be any show of friendship between them
but when vavasor had spoken to him he had dressed his face in that guise of civility which men always use who do not intend to be offensive but vavasor dressed his as men dress theirs who do mean to be offensive
and mister grey had thoroughly appreciated the dressing if you will allow me i have the key said grey then they both entered the house and vavasor followed his host up stairs mister grey as he went up felt almost angry with himself
in having admitted his enemy into his lodgings he was sure that no good could come of it and remembered when it was too late that he might easily have saved himself from giving the invitation while he was still in the street
there they were however together in the sitting room
no said vavasor i will stand up and he stood up holding his hat behind his back with his left hand with his right leg forward and the thumb of his right hand in his waistcoat pocket he looked full into grey's face
and grey looked full into his and as he looked
and to become purple with fresh blood stains i have come here from mister tombe's office in the city said vavasor to ask you
this was a question which mister grey could not answer very quickly in the first place it was altogether unexpected
and what he had not told and then before he replied he must think how much of the truth he was bound to tell in answer to a question so put to him
from mister tombe he asked i think you heard me say so i have come here direct from mister tombe's chambers he is your lawyer i believe he is so and i have come from him to ask you
what interference you have lately taken in my money matters when you have answered that i shall have other questions to ask you but mister vavasor has it occurred to you that i may not be disposed to answer questions so asked
it has not occurred to me to think that you will prevaricate if there has been no such interference i will ask your pardon and go away but if there has been such interference on your part
its nature grey had now made up his mind that it would be better that he should tell the whole story better not only for himself but for all the vavasors including this angry man himself
the angry man evidently knew something and it would be better that he should know the truth there has been such interference mister vavasor if you choose to call it so money
has by my directions been paid to your credit by mister tombe well said vavasor taking his right hand away from his waistcoat
i dare say not but nevertheless you must explain them grey was a man tranquil in temperament very little prone to quarrelling with perhaps an exaggerated idea of the evil results of a row
as that which now seemed to be imminent but he was a man whose courage was quite as high as that of his opponent to bully or be bullied were alike contrary to his nature
and he made up his mind at once that if the quarrel were forced upon him it should find him ready to take his own part my difficulty in explaining it comes from consideration for you he said
and that you will have no consideration for me we are so circumstanced towards each other that any consideration must be humbug and nonsense at any rate i intend to have none for you
i think i might perhaps better refer you to your uncle no sir mister tombe is not my uncle's lawyer
from you but it was by agreement with your uncle that i commissioned mister tombe to raise for you the money you were desirous of borrowing from your cousin we thought it better that her fortune should not be for the moment disturbed
but what had you to do with it why should you have done it in the first place i don't believe your story
but why should he come to you of all men to raise money on his daughter's behalf unless you can behave yourself with more discretion mister vavasor
then as vavasor simply sneered at him but spoke nothing he went on it was i who suggested to your uncle that this arrangement should be made i did not wish to see miss vavasor's fortune squandered and what was her fortune to you sir
are you aware that she is engaged to me as my wife i ask you sir whether you are aware that miss vavasor is to be my wife i must altogether decline to discuss with you miss vavasor's present or future position
by heavens then you shall hear me discuss it
and she has given you your dismissal if you had understood anything of the conduct which is usual among gentlemen or if you had had any particle of pride in you sir you would have left her and never mentioned her name again
i now find you meddling with her money matters so as to get a hold upon her fortune i have no hold upon her fortune
you do not advance two thousand pounds without knowing that you have security
the scene was on the high road from shap to vavasor and as she was still dressed in all the sombre habiliments of early widowhood and as neither he nor his sweetheart were under forty perhaps it was as well that they were not caught toying
together in so very public a place but they were only just in time to escape the vigilant eyes of a new visitor round the corner of the road at a sharp trot came the shap post horse with the shap gig behind him
the same gig which had brought bellfield to vavasor on the previous day and seated in the gig looming large with his eyes wide awake to everything round him was mister cheesacre
and by no means welcome to those of missus greenow as regarded her her annoyance had chiefly reference to her two nieces and especially to alice how was she to account for this second lover kate of course knew all about it
that she had in sober truth told this ardent gentleman that there was no hope for him and even as to kate kate whom her aunt had absurdly chosen to regard as the object of mister cheesacre's pursuit
what sort of a welcome would she extend to the owner of oileymead before the wheels had stopped
but if missus greenow was dismayed what were the feelings of the captain for he was aware that cheesacre knew that of him which he had not told how ardently did he now wish that he had sailed nearer to the truth
to missus greenow that man's wanted by the police said cheesacre
he's wanted by the police missus greenow and in his ardour he stood up in the gig and pointed at bellfield
and he fell back into his seat in his effort to prevent his falling forward he's wanted by the police he shouted out again as soon as he was able to recover his voice missus greenow turned pale beneath the widow's veil which she had dropped
what might not her captain have done he might have procured things to be sent to him out of shops on false pretences or urged on by want and famine he might have committed forgery oh my she said
and dropped her hand from his arm which she had taken it's false said bellfield it's true said cheesacre i'll indict you for slander my friend said bellfield pay me the money you owe me said cheesacre you're a swindler
missus greenow cared little as to her lover being a swindler in mister cheesacre's estimation such accusations from him she had heard before
what is this i hear captain bellfield she said it's a lie and a slander he merely wants to make a quarrel between us what police are after me mister cheesacre it's the police or the sheriff's officer or something of the kind said cheesacre
oh the sheriff's officers exclaimed missus greenow in a tone of voice which showed how great had been her relief mister cheesacre you shouldn't come and say such things you shouldn't indeed sheriff's officers can be paid and there's an end of them
i'll indict him for the libel i will as sure as i'm alive said bellfield nonsense said the widow don't you make a fool of yourself
when men can't pay their way they must put up with having things like that said of them mister cheesacre where were you going i was going to vavasor hall on purpose to caution you it's too late said missus greenow sinking behind her veil
why you haven't been and married him since yesterday he only had twenty four hours start of me i know
he got out of the gig and the three walked back towards the hall together
i'm not one to intrude where i'm not wanted you may be sure of that if i can't get my supper for love i can get at for money
moreover had contrived to whisper into the widow's ears the true extent of his errand into westmoreland this however he did not do altogether in bellfield's hearing when missus greenow ascertained that there was something to be said she made no scruple in sending
her betrothed away from her you won't throw a fellow over will you now
she merely frowned at him and bade him begone so that the walk which missus greenow began with one lover she ended in company with the other bellfield who was sent on to the house
found alice and kate surveying the newly arrived carpet bag he knows un said the boy who had driven the gig pointing to the captain
he never had a chance in that quarter not enough of the rocks and valleys about him was there captain bellfield said kate but captain bellfield understood nothing about the rocks and valleys
in the meantime cheesacre was telling his story he first asked in a melancholy tone whether it was really necessary that he must abandon all his hopes
if things were really fixed he never begrudged any man his chance things are really fixed said missus greenow
and that bellfield had not as much as a straw mattress to lie upon in answer to this missus greenow told him that there was so much more reason why some one should provide the poor man with a mattress if you look at it in that light of course it's true
said cheesacre missus greenow told him that she did look at it in that light
i must give him his time about it i suppose missus greenow assured him that it should be paid as soon as possible after the nuptial benediction had been said over them she offered indeed to pay it at once if he was in distress for it
but he answered contemptuously that he never was in distress for money he liked to have his own that was all after this he did not get away to his next subject quite so easily as he wished and it must be admitted
that there was a difficulty as he could not have missus greenow he would be content to put up with kate for his wife that was his next subject rumours as to the old squire's will had no doubt reached him
and he was now willing to take advantage of that assistance which missus greenow had before offered him in this matter the time had come in which he ought to marry of that he was aware he had told many of his friends in norfolk that kate vavasor had thrown herself at his head
and very probably he had thought it true in answer to all his love speeches to herself the aunt had always told him what an excellent wife her niece would make him so now he had come to westmoreland with this second string to his bow
you know you put it into my head your own self pleaded mister cheesacre didn't you now but things are so different since that said the widow how different i ain't different
how are things different my niece has inherited property and is that to make a change oh missus greenow who would have thought to find you mercenary like that inherited property is she going to fling a man over because of that
why mister cheesacre i am quite sure she never gave you a word of encouragement in her life but you always told me i might have her for the asking and now i tell you that you mayn't it's of no use your going on there to ask her
for she will only send you away with an answer you won't like look here mister cheesacre you want to get married and it's quite time you should there's my dear friend charlie fairstairs how could you get a better wife than charlie
she hasn't got a penny nor any one belonging to her the man who marries her will have to find the money for the smock she stands up in who's mercenary now mister cheesacre do you go home and think of it
and if you'll marry charlie i'll go to your wedding you shan't be ashamed of her clothing i'll see to that they were now close to the gate and cheesacre paused before he entered
i've heard her speak about it somebody else perhaps is the happy man i can't say anything about that but i know that she wouldn't take you i like farming you know but she doesn't i might give that up said cheesacre readily
at any rate for a time no no no it would do no good
he still paused at the gate
to this she made him no answer there's a pride about me he continued that i don't choose to go where i'm not wanted i can't tell you mister cheesacre that you are wanted in that light certainly then i'll go
perhaps you'll be so good as to tell the boy with the gig to come after me that's six pound ten
bellfield did it cheaper of course he travelled second class i heard of him as i came along the expense does not matter to you mister cheesacre to this he assented and then took his leave
at first offering his hand to missus greenow with an air of offended dignity but falling back almost into humility during the performance of his adieu before he was gone he had invited her to bring the captain to oileymead when she was married
as he walked back along the road don't forget dear charlie fairstairs
alice kate captain bellfield the shap boy and the shap horse and gig where is he kate asked in a low voice and everyone there felt how important was the question he has gone said the widow
kate's satisfaction was almost as intense
i have heard so much of mister cheesacre but have never seen him kate suggested that she should get into the gig and drive after him he ain't a been and took hisself off suggested the boy whose face became very dismal as the terrible idea struck him
but with juvenile craft he put his hand on the carpet bag and finding that it did not contain stones was comforted you drive after him young gentleman and you'll find him on the road to shap said missus greenow mind you give him my love
he'll get his turnips in well this little episode went far to break the day
it created a little joint stock fund of merriment between the whole party which was very much needed the absence of such joint stock fund is always felt when a small party is thrown together without such assistance some bond is necessary on these occasions
he had plenty of subjects for small talk yes indeed old cheesacre in spite of his absurdities is not a bad sort of fellow at bottom awfully fond of his money you know miss vavasor and always boasting about it
no the most unpleasant thing in the world there's nothing i hate so much miss vavasor as that kind of talking my idea is this when a man has lots of money let him make the best use he can of it and say nothing about it
nobody ever heard me talking about my money he knew that alice knew that he was a pauper but nevertheless he had the satisfaction of speaking of himself as though he were not a pauper in this way the afternoon went very pleasantly
for an hour before dinner captain bellfield was had into the drawing room and was talked to by his widow on matters of business but he had of course known that this was necessary she scolded him soundly
when all was counted it was not so very much three or four hundred pounds would make him a new man and what was such a sum as that to his wealthy widow indeed for a woman wanting a husband of that sort
it is true bellfield might have been a forger or a thief or a returned convict but then his debts could not be large let him have done his best
whereas no one could tell the liabilities of a gentleman of high standing burgo fitzgerald was a gentleman of high standing and his creditors would have swallowed up every shilling that missus greenow possessed but with captain bellfield she was comparatively safe
upon the whole i think that she was lucky in her choice or perhaps i might more truly say that she had chosen with prudence he was no forger or thief in the ordinary sense of the word
nor was he a returned convict he was simply an idle scamp who had hung about the world for forty years doing nothing without principle shameless
and to be kicked morally kicked
but he was moderate in his greediness and possessed of a certain appreciation of the comfort of a daily dinner
should be able to keep the purse strings altogether in her own hands therefore i say that missus greenow had been lucky in her choice and not altogether without prudence i think of taking this house said she and of living here
what in westmoreland said the captain with something of dismay in his tone what on earth would he do with himself all his life in that gloomy place yes in westmoreland why not in westmoreland as well as anywhere else
if you don't like westmoreland it's not too late yet you know
i've been talking to my niece about it continued missus greenow and i find that such an arrangement can be made very conveniently the property is left between her and her uncle the father of my other niece and neither of them want to live here
we could go to yarmouth you know in the autumn then the captain's visage became somewhat bright again and perhaps if you are not extravagant we could manage a month or so in london during the winter just to see the plays and do a little shopping
then the captain's face became very bright
when people grow old they must be dull dancing can't go on for ever in answer to this the widow's captain assured the widow that she was not at all old and now on this occasion that ceremony came off successfully
which had been interrupted on the shap road by the noise of mister cheesacre's wheels
bother jeannette said the captain in his bliss she can do another cap and many more won't be wanted then i think the ceremony was repeated upon the whole the captain's visit was satisfactory at any rate to the captain
everything was settled he was to go away on saturday morning and remain in lodgings at penrith till the wedding which they agreed to have celebrated at vavasor church
we'll have her afterwards said the widow to kate when you are gone and we shall want her more and i'll get cheesacre here and make him marry her there's no good in paying for two journeys the captain was to be allowed to come over from penrith twice a week previous to his marriage
or perhaps i might more fairly say that he was commanded to do so i wonder how he felt when missus greenow gave him his first five pound note and told him that he must make it do for a fortnight
or whether there was about his heart any touch of manly regret
a giant of a man and a great leader immediately behind this group were more than three hundred pack horses and burros their packs bore tanned skins fruit of the saguaro cactus
edible roots of the mescal plant and other trade goods the pack train was guarded by warriors who rode on either side far enough behind so that they would not be bothered too much by the dust of the pack train
came the remainder of the warriors the old people and the women and children all were mounted some of the smaller children rode four or five to a pony
they had arranged a peace so that they might have their great annual trading party or fiesta in mexico most of their trading would be done in the town of casas grandes deep in the mexican state of chihuahua
but before reaching casas grandes they intended to stop and trade at a smaller town which they called kas kai ya two and a half miles short of town they halted and set up camp
this was a simple enough business most of the indians just cast their blankets down on the ground and arranged a fireplace some cut green saplings and thrust the thick ends in the ground to form a circle next they bent the tops together and held them
with buckskin thongs then they thatched the walls with deer skins or blankets
and his three children his two daughters ten and five and his seven year old son tried so enthusiastically to help him
the apaches had not stopped so far from kas kai ya because they were afraid of the mexicans but though mexican women might roam at will in apache villages no apache woman would think of showing herself in a mexican town
besides trading was a man's business leaving enough warriors to protect a peaceful camp the eighty men who were going in town to trade set out led by mangus coloradus himself they took only thirty horses
twelve of which were laden with trade goods the rest of the trade goods and the pack horses and burros were saved for trading in casas grandes every warrior except geronimo had a hidden knife some carried hidden pistols
and a few had carbines or short rifles thrust inside their breeches to enter the town openly armed would surely provoke a fight and a fight would spoil the holiday
but even though they were supposedly at peace no apache ever trusted any mexican and no mexican ever trusted any apache geronimo carried only a buckskin pouch filled with yellow metal that to him hadn't the slightest value
made into arrow or lance heads it blunted on almost any target it was too heavy for hair or ear ornaments and useless to the apaches except as playthings for the children but the mexicans who called the metal oro
gold prized it greatly the traders reached the sun dried brick wall enclosing the town of kas kai ya
drawn in formation across the gate all these soldier police were mounted and armed and their snapping black eyes were filled with hatred for apaches
whose duty it was to stop them mangus coloradus addressed the uniformed officer
we would trade the officer made an effort to stare mangus coloradus down and when he couldn't do it flushed angrily but he replied civilly
let the apaches through the gate and then reformed across it the apaches braced themselves to meet the horde of peddlers that screeched and squawked down on them geronimo was confronted by a lanky man whose only garment was a tattered
or blanket like robe that was draped over one shoulder and pinned at the sides with thorns his hair looked as though it hadn't been combed in years his beard was as tangled his body was dirty his eyes were both cunning and humble
in sharp contrast were the fierce eyes of a golden eagle that the mexican had imprisoned in a wooden cage in spite of broken and bedraggled feathers the eagle still looked royal the mexican lifted the cage
see senor apache grieved though i must be to part with anything so precious
the peddler called anxiously will you give me some mescal geronimo's eyes expressed his disgust
would not have placed them there they might be hunted for food
some tobacco the eagle's captor wailed geronimo turned glared and the mexican scurried away
largely geronimo thought because so many people could live in such a small area they were so crowded that geronimo wondered how they kept from suffocating each other
of adobe the same sun dried brick from which the town walls and all the buildings were fashioned suddenly the man leaped up and began to scream
other mexican men women even children at once started to scream or shout as loudly as they could the clamor was deafening the amazed apaches halted and gaped after a bit
assuring himself that this senseless yelling must be a sickness suffered by those who allow themselves too little room
he took out his pouch of gold but though he yearned for the beads and would gladly have given all his gold for them he was too good a trader to offer everything at once geronimo dropped two small nuggets onto the palm of his hand and held them out
no the bead vendor refused but excitement made him breathe hard and he could not take his eyes from the pouch geronimo gave him two more nuggets the mexican gasped and geronimo thought he was once more refusing
recklessly he poured half the gold into the bead vendor's palm the mexican moaned slipped the basket from his own shoulder and hung it on geronimo's cupped the gold with both hands and ran
geronimo dropped the still half filled pouch of gold into the dust and forgot it he noticed for the first time that his comrades were making their way toward the gate trading had been brisk the apache trade goods were gone
and each warrior had at least a double handful of knickknacks
but when they were halfway there mangus coloradus halted suddenly
or gully came the hushed voice of pedro gonzalez one of those who had stayed behind
the wives of five of the men who had gone into town and the wives of four who had stayed behind were there also and two girl children the faces of all showed shocked numbing grief
but the eyes of all even the two children blazed with fury
i know not from where but they outnumbered us two to one and when we warriors would have fought rather than let them enter the camp they reminded us that this is a time of peace they said they wished only to trade and talk
but once among us they attacked without warning we slew many but our horses our arms our trade goods are now theirs of those men women and children who stayed behind we alone live
asked mangus coloradus in what was our camp awaiting your return pedro said mangus coloradus said when apaches do not make fools of mexicans
the mexicans seem determined to make fools of themselves
and that we would be warned they should have ambushed us as we left the gates of kas kai ya
his knife was on his belt his muzzle loading rifle powder horn and bullet pouch were in easy reach a red blanket was draped over his body which was naked except for breech cloth moccasins
and the warrior's headband that bound his black hair two young warriors zayigo and pedro gonzalez sat beside him both were older than geronimo
yet both had chosen to let the seventeen year old warrior lead this raid into mexico because of his cunning and courage now they were a little uneasy because of their leader's silence usually geronimo loved to talk
and he was already a leading orator among the mimbreno apaches when he was least talkative he was most dangerous finally zayigo said impatiently
we sit beside the youngest mimbreno apache ever to become a member of the council of warriors yet he sulks like a scolded child
since leaving the mimbreno village geronimo you have smoldered like a fire that is not quite able to burst into flame
is it because some warriors spoke against you when they met to determine whether you might be admitted to the council i care not who speaks against me geronimo said sourly
any who consider me unworthy of being a mimbreno warrior i'll fight gladly
zayigo said quickly they said only that you are reckless and headstrong and that trouble goes where you do
there are some mimbreno warriors who have the cowardly souls of mexicans geronimo grunted and i do not mean that you are a coward pedro
pedro gonzalez said quietly mexican i was once apache i am now that was true captured in mexico when he was five years old
pedro had been adopted by an apache family he had taken so readily to apache ways that he was now one of their finest and fiercest warriors he spoke again
if you care not because some spoke against you what is the trouble it is no pleasure to go raiding
geronimo said bitterly ne po se was one of the men who spoke against me
zayigo said but that is no news in the mimbreno village
when it is possible
for a moment geronimo did not answer
her image accompanied him wherever he went by day and haunted his dreams by night he was as deeply in love as a young man can be he said finally when i became a warrior in full standing
he sneered at me and said to come back when i could offer ten horses for his daughter's hand
zayigo said in astonishment that is unheard of
pay for my bride what she is worth geronimo said that is why we are in mexico where there are plenty of horses for the taking he spoke more easily
for talking about his troubles had made them seem less zayigo and pedro gonzalez smiled their white teeth flashing in the darkness now you talk as the leader we hoped we were following pedro gonzalez said happily
and when it comes to stealing horses no warriors are more clever than geronimo you shall gain the price of your bride i shall have the price or i shall not return to the mimbreno village
geronimo vowed and i know we shall return for we go against mexicans i think it must be true that something in the food they eat
or the water they drink turns the marrow of mexican men's bones to jelly as soon as they become men captive mexican women fit very well into our tribe as do children if taken young enough
the men do little except tremble with fear and that is why it is better to kill than capture them pedro gonzalez laughed joyously
it is long since i have fought mexicans let us hope this is a good fight they curled up in their blankets and slept the night was still black about them when they rose to go on
traveling at a loose legged gait that covered the ground with amazing speed they were many miles from their camping place when the sun rose they stopped to nibble parched corn from pouches that hung at their belts
rested less than five minutes and went on geronimo who had been this way many times and who also had a splendid sense of direction led the others through steep walled canyons and over
brush grown hilltops by midafternoon they were looking from the top of a hill down on the rancheria they intended to raid the house and other buildings were built of adobe or sun dried brick
to one side were extensive corrals made of poles that had been laboriously hauled from some river bottom or other where trees were plentiful there were about fifty horses in the corrals
the three apaches crouched in the brush and bided their time they were heedless of the sun that burned down upon them thirst that would have driven a white man mad bothered them not at all
they were trained to endure thirst an hour before dark several mexican riders came with a herd of forty horses they put them in the same corral where the fifty were already confined
and turned their own saddle mounts in with them two more riders came stripped saddles and bridles from their mounts and shut them in the corral then all the mexicans went into the house
night fell before the three apaches stirred geronimo gave his orders zayigo and pedro keep those in the house from coming out i go to the corral
geronimo slipped away in the darkness he could no longer see the corral but his sense of direction was so sure that he went exactly to it the mexicans had draped their saddles over the top rail
and hung their bridles on the saddle horns taking no saddles for all three raiders were expert bareback riders geronimo looped three bridles over his shoulder and entered the corral
then wheeled to run to the corral's far side
the door of the house was flung open but when zayigo's rifle spoke the door was slammed shut quickly still refusing to hurry geronimo caught and bridled two more horses sitting his own mount
and holding the reins of the other two he whistled shrilly zayigo and pedro gonzalez appeared out of the darkness not speaking for each knew exactly what he must do they mounted the two bridled horses
geronimo opened the gate and the three drove the herd through there were hundreds of other horses grazing on the vast acreage of the rancheria but this was the only herd kept near the house and the raiders had been careful to take all of them
came to inquire about it
several thousand people lived in the mimbreno village but since most apaches liked plenty of room between themselves and their neighbors the village was spread over several hills
deer antelope puma and other creatures that fell to his hunting arrows there were no bear skins because bears are sacred to apaches the following twelve years were probably the only truly happy ones geronimo ever knew
chapter fourteen the pentland hills helen listened with astonishment and grief to this too probable story of her step mother's ill judged tenderness or cruel treachery
and remembering the threats which had escaped that lady in their last conversation she saw no reason to doubt what so clearly explained the before inexplicable seizure of her father the betraying of wallace and her own present calamity
you do not answer me rejoined the woman but if you think i don't say true lord soulis himself will assure you of the fact alas no returned helen profoundly sighing i believe it too well
and yet cried she recollecting the imposition the men had put upon her yet i shall not be wholly so if my father lives and was not in the extremity they told me of
it inspires me with redoubled trust in thee margery shook her head ah poor victim thought she how vain is thy devotion but she had not time to say so for her husband and the deserter from cressingham
the man hastily closed his helmet and speaking through the clasped steel for the first time she heard his voice it sounded hollow and decisive he bade her prepare to accompany lord soulis in a journey to the south
helen looked at her shackled arms and despairing of effecting her escape by any effort of her own she thought that gaining time might be some advantage and allowing the man to take her hand while macgregor supported her on the other side
they led her out of the cave she observed the latter smiled significantly at his wife oh cried she to what am i betrayed unhand me leave me
at that moment soulis mounted on his steed approached and ordered her to be put into the litter incapable of contending with the numbers which surrounded her she allowed them to execute their master's commands
macgregor's wife was set on a pillion behind him and soulis giving the word they all marched on at a rapid pace in a few hours having cleared the shady valleys of the clyde
all is desolation like myself thought helen but neither the cold wind nor the rain now drifting into her vehicle occasioned her any sensation it is only when the mind is at ease that the body is delicate
that the men who carried the litter stopped and told their lord it would be impossible to proceed in the approaching darkness they conjured him to look at the perpendicular rocks rendered indistinct by the gathering mist
to observe the overwhelming gusts of the tempest and then judge whether they dare venture with the litter on so dangerous a pathway made slippery by descending rain to halt in such a spot seemed to soulis as unsafe as to proceed
we shall not be better off answered he should we attempt to return precipices lie on either side and to stand still would be equally perilous the torrents from the heights increase so rapidly
on the remonstrance of their master the men resumed their pace and after a hard contention with the storm they gained the summit of the west side of the mountain and were descending its eastern brow when the shades of night closed in upon them
looking down into the black chaos on the brink of which they must pass along they once more protested they could not advance a foot until the dawn should give them some security at this declaration which soulis saw could not now be disputed
he ordered the troop to halt under the shelter of a projecting rock its huge arch overhung the ledge that formed the road while the deep gulf at his feet by the roaring of its waters
proclaimed itself the receptacle of those cataracts which rush tremendous from the ever streaming pentland hills soulis dismounted the men set down the litter and removed to a distance as he approached
he opened one of the curtains and throwing himself beside the exhausted but watchful helen clasped his arms roughly about her and exclaimed sweet minion i must pillow on your bosom till the morn awakes
her shrieks again pierced the heavens scream thy soul away poor foul exclaimed soulis seizing her fiercely in his arms for thou art now so surely mine that heaven itself cannot deprive me
at that moment her couch was shaken by a sudden shock and in the next she was covered with the blood of soulis a stroke from an unseen arm had reached him and starting on his feet a fearful battle of swords took place over the prostrate helen
one of the men out of the numbers who hastened to the assistance of their master fell dead on her body while the chief himself sorely wounded and breathing revenge and blasphemy was forced off by the survivors
separate me not from the vengeance i will yet hurl on that demon who has robbed me of my victim or ye shall die a death more horrible than hell can inflict he raved but more unheeded than the tempest
terrified that the spirits of darkness were indeed their pursuers in spite of his reiterated threats the men carried him to a distant hollow in the rock and laid him down now insensible from loss of blood
well aware that if they could regain her their master would be satisfied but on the reverse should she be lost the whole troop knew their fate would be some merciless punishment macgregor and the deserter of cressingham
or she had thrown herself into the foaming gulf beneath they could not determine they decided however the latter should be their report to soulis
on hearing that the beautiful creature he had so lately believed his own beyond the power of fate that his property as he called her the devoted slave of his will the mistress of his destiny was lost to him forever
he became frantic there was desperation in every word he raved tore up the earth like a wild beast and foaming at the mouth dashed the wife of macgregor from him as she approached with a fresh balsam for his wounds
off scum of a damned sex cried he where is she whom i intrusted to thy care my lord answered the affrighted woman you know best you terrified the poor young creature you forced yourself into a litter
and can you wonder that i should force you to perdition execrable witch cried he
as he spoke he struck her again but it was with his gauntlet hand and the eyes of the unfortunate woman opened no more the blow fell on her temple and a motionless corpse lay before him
my wife cried the poor macgregor putting his trembling arms about her neck oh my lord how have i deserved this you have slain her suppose i have returned the chief with a cold scorn
she was old and ugly and could you recover helen you should cull hermitage for a substitute for this prating bedlam
instead of joining wallace in person would
retire with his family into the highlands and there await the issue of the contest it is too late to retreat dear madam continued she
and would you have my father act so base a part as to abandon his preserver to the wrath such generous assistance has provoked alas my child answered the countess
what great service will he have done to me or to your father if he deliver him from one danger only to plunge him into another edward's power in this country is too great to be resisted now have not most of our barons sworn fealty to him
you may perhaps say that most of these are my relations and that i may turn them which way i will but if i have no influence with a husband it would be madness to expect it over more distant kindred how then with such a host against him
can your infatuated father venture without despair to support the man who breaks the peace with england who can despair honored lady returned helen in so just a cause
our mountains are his seal plains are the proper territories of tyranny there the armies of a usurper may extend themselves with ease leaving no corner unoccupied in which patriotism might shelter or treason hide
but mountains glens morasses lakes set bounds to conquest and amidst these stands the impregnable seat of liberty to such a fortress
to the deep defiles of loch katrine or to the cloud curtained heights of corryarraick i would have my father retire in safety he may there watch the footsteps of our mountain goddess
and what o foolish helen
duty of any kind respectfully answered the young daughter of mar cannot be transgressed with innocence nor would it be any relinquishing of duty to you should my father leave you to take up arms in the assertion of his country's rights
her rights are your safety and therefore in defending them a husband or a son best shows his sense of domestic as well as of public duty who taught you this sophistry helen not your heart
and to abandon sir william wallace to the blood hounds who hunt his life would be to devote his name of mar to infamy and deservedly bring a curse upon his offspring then it is to preserve sir william wallace you are thus anxious
your spirit of freedom is now disallowed and all this mighty gathering is for him my husband his vassals your cousin and in short the sequestration of the estates of mar and bothwell are all to be put to the hazard on account of a frantic outlaw
to whom since the loss of his wife i should suppose death would be preferable to any gratitude we can pay him lady helen at this ungrateful language inwardly thanked heaven that she inherited no part of the blood which animated so unfeeling a heart
that he is an outlaw lady mar springs from us that death is the preferable comforter of his sorrows also he owes to us for was it not for my father's sake that his wife fell
we shall see whose prayers will be answered first resumed lady mar rising coldly from her seat my saints are perhaps nearer than yours and before the close of this day you will have reason to repent such extravagant opinions
i do not understand them till now you never disapproved them i allowed them in your infancy replied the countess because i thought they went no further than a minstrel's song
had not sir richard been your own mother's father i would not have been so easily prevailed on and thus am i rewarded for my indulgence few personages are so renowned in tradition as thomas of ercildown
usually called the rhymer he was a poet and a sage and believed by his contemporaries to be a prophet he was born at ercildown a village on the leeder or lauder where the ruins of his paternal castle called learmont tower still remain
eighteen o nine i hope honored madam said helen still wishing to soften the displeasure of her step mother i hope you will never be ill rewarded for that indulgence either by my grandfather my sister or myself
has no chance of giving you the offense that i do and i am forced to offend you because i cannot disobey my conscience a tear stood in the eye of lady helen cannot you dear lady mar continued she forcing a smile
and attended by her page proceeded to the armory the armorer was already there having just given out arms for three hundred men who by the earl's orders were to assemble by noon on bothwell moor
one of the most excellent proof he drew from an oaken chest a coat of black mail studded with gold helen admired its strength and beauty it is the richest in all scotland answered he
the armorer took it up and accompanied by the page carrying the lighter parts followed her into the western tower when helen was again alone it being yet very early in the morning she employed herself in pluming the casque
and forming the scarf she meant should adorn her present thus time flew till the sand glass told her it was the eighth hour but ere she had finished her task she was roused from the profound stillness in which that part of the castle lay
by the doleful lament of the troop returning from ellerslie she dropped the half formed scarf from her hand and listened without daring to draw her breath to the deep toned lamentations
she thought that she had never before heard the dirge of her country so piercing so thrillingly awful her head fell on the armor and scarf
who is it that dares thus invade thy duties but my gratitude gratitude to the once loved lord will not offend thy pure spirit
again the mournful wailings rose on the air and with a convulsion of feelings she could not restrain she threw herself on her knees and leaning her head on the newly adorned helmet wept profusely
murray entered the room unobserved helen my dear cousin cried he she started and rising apologized for her tears by owning the truth
he now told her that the body of the deceased lady was deposited in the chapel of the castle and that the priests from the adjacent priory only awaited her presence to consign it with the church's rites to its tomb
helen retired for a few minutes to recover herself and then re entering covered with a black veil was led by her cousin to the awful scene
the prior of saint fillan in his holy vestments stood at its head a band of monks were ranged on each side the maids of lady helen in mourning garments met their mistress at the portal
they advanced to their trembling lady expecting her to approve their services helen drew near she bowed to the priests one of the women put her hand on the pall to uncover the once lovely face of the murdered marion
as it descended helen sunk upon her knees and the anthem for departed souls was raised the pealing notes as they rose and swelled seemed to bear up the spirit of the sainted marion to its native heaven
and the tears which now flowed from the eyes of helen as they mingled with her pious aspirations seemed the balm of paradise descending upon her soul when all was over the venerable halbert who had concealed his overwhelming sorrow behind a pillar
threw himself on the cold stone which now closed the last chamber of his mistress with faint cries he gave way to the woe that shook his aged bosom and called on death to lay him low with her
chapter seven bothwell castle meanwhile the lady helen had retired to her own apartments lord mar's banner being brought to her from the armory she sat down to weave into its silken texture
the amber locks of the scottish chief admiring their softness and beauty while her needle flew she pictured to herself the fine countenance they had once adorned the duller extremities of the hair
when for her sake he thus forswears all future joys but those which camps and victories may yield ah what would i give to be my cousin murray to bear this pennon at his side
what would i give to reconcile so admirable a being to happiness again to weep his griefs or smile him into comfort to be that man's friend would be a higher honor than to be edward's queen
you know not my good old man said the gallant murray to halbert as he conducted him across the galleries what a noble mind is contained in that lovely young creature i was brought up with her
and to the sweet contagion of her taste do i owe that love of true glory which carries me to the side of sir william wallace the virtuous only can awaken any interest in her heart
and in these degenerate days long might have been its sleep had not the history which my uncle recounted of your brave master aroused her attention and filled her with an admiration equal to my own i know she rejoices in my present destination
and to prevent her hearing from your own lips all you have now told me
or to recite in her ears the story of the departed loveliness fairer than poet ever feigned helen rose as he and her cousin appeared murray approved the execution of her work
and halbert with a full heart took the pennon in his hand ah little did my dear lady think exclaimed he that one of these loved locks would ever be suspended on a staff to lead men to battle what changes have a few days made
she the gentlest of women laid in a bloody grave and he the most benevolent of human beings wielding an exterminating sword you speak of her grave venerable man inquired helen
after the worthy english soldier now in this castle assisted me to place her precious body in my lord's oratory i had no opportunity of returning to give her a more holy grave alas cried helen
then her sacred relics have been consumed in the burning house i hope not rejoined halbert the chapel i speak of is at some distance from the main building it was excavated in the rock by sir ronald crawford
and well it might be for it was not only the home of all his wedded joys but under its roof his mother the lady margaret crawford drew her first breath ah woe is me
that happy house is now like herself reduced to cold cold ashes she married sir malcolm wallace and he is gone too both the parents of my honored master died in the bloom of their lives
and cast far away into the waste wilderness the ellerslie in renfrewshire here referred to and which was the birthplace of william wallace
and the hereditary property of his father sir malcolm wallace was situated in the abbey parish of paisley
still called wallace's oak stands close to the road from paisley to leith and within a short distance from it once stood the manor of ellerslie the venerable name is now corrupted into elderslie
for this topographical account i am indebted to a renfrewshire gentleman eighteen o nine the tears of the venerable harper bore testimony to his inward resolve that this messenger should not be himself
but perhaps the access of the english soldiers would it not comfort your lord to have that sweet victim entombed according to the rites of the church surely my lady but how can that be done
and for fear of precipitating him into the new dangers which might have menaced him had he sought to bring away her body i did not disprove his mistake but her body shall be brought away rejoined lady helen it shall have holy burial
to effect this command my services exclaimed murray helen thanked him for an assistance which would render the completion of her design easy the english soldier as guide and a troop from bothwell must accompany him
alas my young lord interposed halbert suppose you should meet some of the english still loitering there and what of that my honest halbert would not i and my trusty band make them clear the way
helen loved the resolution of her cousin and believing that the now ravaged ellerslie had no attractions to hold marauders amongst its ruins she dismissed lord andrew to make his preparations and turned herself to prefer her suit accordingly to her father
ere halbert withdrew he respectfully put her hand to his lips good night continued she ere you see me again i trust the earthly part of the angel now in paradise will be safe within these towers
he poured a thousand blessings on her head and almost thought that he saw in her beautiful form one of heaven's inhabitants sent to bear away his dear mistress to her divine abode on entering her father's apartment
lady helen found him alone she repeated to him the substance of her conversation with wallace's faithful servant and my wish is continued she to have the murdered lady's remains entombed in the cemetery of this castle
may i have what i please from the bothwell armory command even there said the earl your uncle bothwell is too true a scot to grudge a sword in so pious a cause helen threw her arms about her father's neck thanking him tenderly
and with a beating heart retired to prosecute her plans murray who met her in the anteroom informed her that fifty men the sturdiest in the glen awaited her orders while she telling her cousin of the earl's approval
took the sacred banner in her hand and followed him to the gallery in the hall the moment she appeared a shout of joy bade her welcome murray waved his hands in token of silence while she
my brave friends said she i thank you for the ardor with which by this night's enterprise you assist me to pay in part the everlasting tribute due to the man who preserved to me the blessing of a father
with that spirit then returned she i address ye with greater confidence who amongst you will shrink from following this standard to the field for scotland's honor
who will refuse to make himself the especial guardian of the life of sir william wallace and who in the moment of peril will not stand by him to the last
who would not gladly die in his defense we swear it burst from every lip at once she bowed her head and said return from ellerslie to morrow
and remember that god not only armeth the patriot's hand but shieldeth his heart in this faith be ye the bucklers which heaven sends to guard the life of wallace and so honored exult in your station and expect the future gratitude of scotland
wallace and lady helen to death or liberty was the animated response to this exhortation and smiling and crossing her hands over her bosom in token of thanks of them and to heaven she retired in the midst of their acclamations
murray ready armed for his expedition met her at the door restored to his usual vivacity by the spirit moving emotions which the present scene awakened in his heart he forgot the horror which had aroused his zeal in the glory of some anticipated victory
and giving her a gay salutation led her back to her apartments where the english soldier awaited her commands lady helen with a gentle grace commended his noble resentment of heselrigge's violence
lands in mar shall be yours added she or a post of honor in the little army the earl is now going to raise speak but the word and you shall find worthy englishman that neither a scotsman nor his daughter know what it is to be ungrateful
lady helen replied that she revered his sentiments too sincerely to insult them by any persuasions to the contrary and taking a diamond clasp from her bosom she put it into his hand wear it in remembrance of your virtue
and of helen mar's gratitude the man kissed it respectfully and bowing swore to preserve so distinguishing a gift to the latest hour of his existence
miss bennet's astonishment was soon lessened by the strong sisterly partiality which made any admiration of elizabeth appear perfectly natural and all surprise was shortly lost in other feelings
she was sorry that mister darcy should have delivered his sentiments in a manner so little suited to recommend them but still more was she grieved for the unhappiness which her sister's refusal must have given him
his being so sure of succeeding was wrong said she and certainly ought not to have appeared but consider how much it must increase his disappointment
nor was darcy's vindication though grateful to her feelings capable of consoling her for such discovery most earnestly did she labour to prove the probability of error
but you must be satisfied with only one there is but such a quantity of merit between them just enough to make one good sort of man and of late it has been shifting about pretty much for my part
said she wickham so very bad it is almost past belief and poor mister darcy dear lizzy only consider what he must have suffered such a disappointment
my regret and compassion are all done away by seeing you so full of both i know you will do him such ample justice that i am growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent your profusion makes me saving
and if you lament over him much longer my heart will be as light as a feather poor wickham there is such an expression of goodness in his countenance such an openness and gentleness in his manner
i never thought mister darcy so deficient in the appearance of it as you used to do and yet i meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike to him without any reason
it is such a spur to one's genius such an opening for wit to have a dislike of that kind one may be continually abusive without saying anything just
but one cannot always be laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty lizzy when you first read that letter i am sure you could not treat the matter as you do now
indeed i could not i was uncomfortable enough i may say unhappy and with no one to speak to about what i felt
for now they do appear wholly undeserved certainly but the misfortune of speaking with bitterness is a most natural consequence of the prejudices i had been encouraging
surely there can be no occasion for exposing him so dreadfully what is your opinion that it ought not to be attempted mister darcy has not authorised me to make his communication public
the general prejudice against mister darcy is so violent that it would be the death of half the good people in meryton to attempt to place him in an amiable light i am not equal to it wickham will soon be gone
some time hence it will be all found out and then we may laugh at their stupidity in not knowing it before at present i will say nothing about it you are quite right
to have his errors made public might ruin him for ever he is now perhaps sorry for what he has done and anxious to re establish a character we must not make him desperate
she had got rid of two of the secrets which had weighed on her for a fortnight and was certain of a willing listener in jane whenever she might wish to talk again of either but there was still something lurking behind
of which prudence forbade the disclosure she dared not relate the other half of mister darcy's letter nor explain to her sister how sincerely she had been valued by her friend here was knowledge in which no one could partake
and she was sensible that nothing less than a perfect understanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off this last encumbrance of mystery and then said she
if that very improbable event should ever take place i shall merely be able to tell what bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself the liberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all its value
she was now on being settled at home at leisure to observe the real state of her sister's spirits jane was not happy she still cherished a very tender affection for bingley
having never even fancied herself in love before her regard had all the warmth of first attachment and from her age and disposition greater steadiness than most first attachments often boast
and so fervently did she value his remembrance and prefer him to every other man that all her good sense and all her attention to the feelings of her friends
i am determined never to speak of it again to anybody i told my sister phillips so the other day but i
i do not believe he will ever live at netherfield any more oh well it is just as he chooses nobody wants him to come though i shall always say he used my daughter extremely ill
well my comfort is i am sure jane will die of a broken heart
but as elizabeth could not receive comfort from any such expectation
there is nothing extravagant in their housekeeping i dare say no nothing at all
yes yes they will take care not to outrun their income they will never be distressed for money
it was a subject which they could not mention before me no it would have been strange if they had but i make no doubt they often talk of it between themselves well
if they can be easy with an estate that is not lawfully their own so much the better
chapter twenty three elizabeth was sitting with her mother and sisters reflecting on what she had heard and doubting whether she was authorised to mention it when sir william lucas himself appeared sent by his daughter
to announce her engagement to the family with many compliments to them and much self gratulation on the prospect of a connection between the houses he unfolded the matter to an audience not merely wondering but incredulous
for missus bennet with more perseverance than politeness protested he must be entirely mistaken and lydia always unguarded and often uncivil boisterously exclaimed
good lord sir william how can you tell such a story do not you know that mister collins wants to marry lizzy nothing less than the complaisance of a courtier could have borne without anger such treatment
but sir william's good breeding carried him through it all and though he begged leave to be positive as to the truth of his information he listened to all their impertinence with the most forbearing courtesy elizabeth
feeling it incumbent on her to relieve him from so unpleasant a situation now put herself forward to confirm his account by mentioning her prior knowledge of it from charlotte herself
and endeavoured to put a stop to the exclamations of her mother and sisters by the earnestness of her congratulations to sir william in which she was readily joined by jane
and by making a variety of remarks on the happiness that might be expected from the match the excellent character of mister collins and the convenient distance of hunsford from london
missus bennet was in fact too much overpowered to say a great deal while sir william remained but no sooner had he left them than her feelings found a rapid vent in the first place
she persisted in disbelieving the whole of the matter secondly she was very sure that mister collins had been taken in thirdly she trusted that they would never be happy together and fourthly
that the match might be broken off two inferences however were plainly deduced from the whole one that elizabeth was the real cause of the mischief
and the other that she herself had been barbarously misused by them all and on these two points she principally dwelt during the rest of the day nothing could console and nothing could appease her
nor did that day wear out her resentment a week elapsed before she could see elizabeth without scolding her a month passed away before she could speak to sir william or lady lucas without being rude
and many months were gone before she could at all forgive their daughter mister bennet's emotions were much more tranquil on the occasion and such as he did experience he pronounced to be of a most agreeable sort
for it gratified him he said to discover that charlotte lucas whom he had been used to think tolerably sensible was as foolish as his wife and more foolish than his daughter
jane confessed herself a little surprised at the match but she said less of her astonishment than of her earnest desire for their happiness nor could elizabeth persuade her to consider it as improbable
kitty and lydia were far from envying miss lucas for mister collins was only a clergyman and it affected them in no other way than as a piece of news to spread at meryton
lady lucas could not be insensible of triumph on being able to retort on missus bennet the comfort of having a daughter well married and she called at longbourn rather oftener than usual to say how happy she was
though missus bennet's sour looks and ill natured remarks might have been enough to drive happiness away between elizabeth and charlotte there was a restraint which kept them mutually silent on the subject
her disappointment in charlotte made her turn with fonder regard to her sister of whose rectitude and delicacy she was sure her opinion could never be shaken and for whose happiness she grew daily more anxious
as bingley had now been gone a week and nothing more was heard of his return jane had sent caroline an early answer to her letter and was counting the days till she might reasonably hope to hear again
the promised letter of thanks from mister collins arrived on tuesday addressed to their father and written with all the solemnity of gratitude which a twelvemonth's abode in the family might have prompted
after discharging his conscience on that head he proceeded to inform them with many rapturous expressions of his happiness in having obtained the affection of their amiable neighbour miss lucas
that he had been so ready to close with their kind wish of seeing him again at longbourn whither he hoped to be able to return on monday fortnight for lady catherine he added so heartily approved his marriage
that she wished it to take place as soon as possible which he trusted would be an unanswerable argument with his amiable charlotte to name an early day for making him the happiest of men
mister collins's return into hertfordshire was no longer a matter of pleasure to missus bennet on the contrary she was as much disposed to complain of it as her husband
it was very strange that he should come to longbourn instead of to lucas lodge it was also very inconvenient and exceedingly troublesome she hated having visitors in the house while her health was so indifferent
and lovers were of all people the most disagreeable such were the gentle murmurs of missus bennet
neither jane nor elizabeth were comfortable on this subject day after day passed away without bringing any other tidings of him than the report which shortly prevailed in meryton of his coming no more to netherfield the whole winter
but that his sisters would be successful in keeping him away unwilling as she was to admit an idea so destructive of jane's happiness and so dishonorable to the stability of her lover she could not prevent its frequently occurring
as for jane her anxiety under this suspense was of course more painful than elizabeth's but whatever she felt she was desirous of concealing and between herself and elizabeth therefore
the subject was never alluded to but as no such delicacy restrained her mother an hour seldom passed in which she did not talk of bingley express her impatience for his arrival
or even require jane to confess that if he did not come back she would think herself very ill used it needed all jane's steady mildness to bear these attacks with tolerable tranquillity
mister collins returned most punctually on monday fortnight but his reception at longbourn was not quite so gracious as it had been on his first introduction he was too happy however to need much attention
and luckily for the others the business of love making relieved them from a great deal of his company the chief of every day was spent by him at lucas lodge
and he sometimes returned to longbourn only in time to make an apology for his absence before the family went to bed missus bennet was really in a most pitiable state
the very mention of anything concerning the match threw her into an agony of ill humour and wherever she went she was sure of hearing it talked of the sight of miss lucas was odious to her
as her successor in that house she regarded her with jealous abhorrence whenever charlotte came to see them she concluded her to be anticipating the hour of possession and whenever she spoke in a low voice to mister collins
and resolving to turn herself and her daughters out of the house as soon as mister bennet were dead she complained bitterly of all this to her husband indeed mister bennet said she
it is very hard to think that charlotte lucas should ever be mistress of this house that i should be forced to make way for her and live to see her take her place in it my dear
do not give way to such gloomy thoughts let us hope for better things let us flatter ourselves that i may be the survivor this was not very consoling to missus bennet
instead of making any answer she went on as before i cannot bear to think that they should have all this estate if it was not for the entail i should not mind it what should not you mind
i should not mind anything at all let us be thankful that you are preserved from a state of such insensibility
chapter twenty six in which phileas fogg and party travel by the pacific railroad from ocean to ocean so say the americans
and these four words compose the general designation of the great trunk line which crosses the entire width of the united states the pacific railroad is however really divided into two distinct lines
between omaha and the pacific the railway crosses a territory which is still infested by indians and wild beasts and a large tract which the mormons after they were driven from illinois in eighteen forty five began to colonise
the journey from new york to san francisco consumed formerly under the most favourable conditions at least six months it is now accomplished in seven days
it was in eighteen sixty two that in spite of the southern members of congress who wished a more southerly route it was decided to lay the road between the forty first and forty second parallels
president lincoln himself fixed the end of the line at omaha in nebraska the work was at once commenced and pursued with true american energy
nor did the rapidity with which it went on injuriously affect its good execution the road grew on the prairies a mile and a half a day a locomotive running on the rails laid down the evening before
brought the rails to be laid on the morrow and advanced upon them as fast as they were put in position the pacific railroad is joined by several branches in iowa kansas colorado and oregon on leaving omaha
it passes along the left bank of the platte river as far as the junction of its northern branch follows its southern branch crosses the laramie territory and the wahsatch mountains turns the great salt lake and reaches salt lake city
the mormon capital plunges into the tuilla valley across the american desert cedar and humboldt mountains the sierra nevada and descends via sacramento to the pacific
its grade even on the rocky mountains never exceeding one hundred and twelve feet to the mile such was the road to be traversed in seven days which would enable phileas fogg at least so he hoped
to take the atlantic steamer at new york on the eleventh for liverpool the car which he occupied was a sort of long omnibus on eight wheels and with no compartments in the interior it was supplied with two rows of seats
perpendicular to the direction of the train on either side of an aisle which conducted to the front and rear platforms these platforms were found throughout the train and the passengers were able to pass from one end of the train to the other
it was supplied with saloon cars balcony cars restaurants and smoking cars theatre cars alone were wanting
it was already night cold and cheerless the heavens being overcast with clouds which seemed to threaten snow the train did not proceed rapidly counting the stoppages it did not run more than twenty miles an hour
there was but little conversation in the car and soon many of the passengers were overcome with sleep
but he did not talk to him after recent events their relations with each other had grown somewhat cold there could no longer be mutual sympathy or intimacy between them
snow began to fall an hour after they started a fine snow however which happily could not obstruct the train
and in a few minutes the car was transformed into a dormitory the backs of the seats were thrown back bedsteads carefully packed
berths were suddenly improvised and each traveller had soon at his disposition a comfortable bed protected from curious eyes by thick curtains the sheets were clean and the pillows soft
the central pacific taking sacramento for its starting point extends eastward to meet the road from omaha the line from san francisco to sacramento runs in a north easterly direction along the american river
which empties into san pablo bay the one hundred and twenty miles between these cities were accomplished in six hours and towards midnight while fast asleep
the travellers passed through sacramento so that they saw nothing of that important place
its broad streets its noble hotels squares and churches the train on leaving sacramento and passing the junction roclin auburn and colfax entered the range of the sierra nevada
cisco was reached at seven in the morning and an hour later the dormitory was transformed into an ordinary car and the travellers could observe the picturesque beauties of the mountain region through which they were steaming
plunging into narrow defiles which seemed to have no outlet the locomotive its great funnel emitting a weird light with its sharp bell and its cow catcher extended like a spur
mingled its shrieks and bellowings with the noise of torrents and cascades and twined its smoke among the branches of the gigantic pines there were few or no bridges or tunnels on the route
the railway turned around the sides of the mountains and did not attempt to violate nature by taking the shortest cut from one point to another the train entered the state of nevada through the carson valley about nine o'clock
going always northeasterly and at midday reached reno where there was a delay of twenty minutes for breakfast from this point the road running along humboldt river
passed northward for several miles by its banks then it turned eastward and kept by the river until it reached the humboldt range
having breakfasted mister fogg and his companions resumed their places in the car and observed the varied landscape which unfolded itself as they passed along the vast prairies
the mountains lining the horizon and the creeks with their frothy foaming streams sometimes a great herd of buffaloes massing together in the distance seemed like a moveable dam
these innumerable multitudes of ruminating beasts often form an insurmountable obstacle to the passage of the trains thousands of them have been seen passing over the track for hours together in compact ranks
encumbered the track the locomotive slackening its speed tried to clear the way with its cow catcher but the mass of animals was too great the buffaloes marched along with a tranquil gait uttering now and then
the travellers gazed on this curious spectacle from the platforms but phileas fogg who had the most reason of all to be in a hurry remained in his seat and waited philosophically until it should please the buffaloes to get out of the way
and longed to discharge his arsenal of revolvers upon them what a country cried he mere cattle stop the trains and go by in a procession just as if they were not impeding travel parbleu
i should like to know if mister fogg foresaw this mishap in his programme
the engineer did not try to overcome the obstacle and he was wise he would have crushed the first buffaloes no doubt with the cow catcher but the locomotive however powerful would soon have been checked
the train would inevitably have been thrown off the track and would then have been helpless the best course was to wait patiently and regain the lost time by greater speed when the obstacle was removed
the procession of buffaloes lasted three full hours and it was night before the track was clear the last ranks of the herd were now passing over the rails while the first had already disappeared below the southern horizon
it was eight o'clock when the train passed through the defiles of the humboldt range and half past nine when it penetrated utah
sophistication it was early evening of a day in the late fall and the winesburg county fair had brought crowds of country people into town the day had been clear and the night came on warm and pleasant
on the trunion pike where the road after it left town stretched away between berry fields now covered with dry brown leaves the dust from passing wagons arose in clouds children curled into little balls
slept on the straw scattered on wagon beds their hair was full of dust and their fingers black and sticky the dust rolled away over the fields and the departing sun set it ablaze with colors in the main street of winesburg
night came on horses whinnied
children became lost and cried lustily an american town worked terribly at the task of amusing itself pushing his way through the crowds in main street young george willard concealed himself in the stairway leading to doctor reefy's office
and looked at the people with feverish eyes he watched the faces drifting past under the store lights thoughts kept coming into his head and he did not want to think he stamped impatiently on the wooden steps
and looked sharply about well is she going to stay with him all day have i done all this waiting for nothing he muttered george willard the ohio village boy was fast growing into manhood
and new thoughts had been coming into his mind all that day
he had gone about feeling lonely he was about to leave winesburg
and he felt grown up the mood that had taken possession of him was a thing known to men and unknown to boys he felt old and a little tired
memories awoke in him to his mind his new sense of maturity set him apart made of him a half tragic figure he wanted someone to understand the feeling
there is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into manhood the boy is walking through the street of his town
he is thinking of the future and of the figure he will cut in the world ambitions and regrets awake within him suddenly something happens he stops under a tree
and waits as for a voice calling his name ghosts of old things creep into his consciousness the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life
from being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure if he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the first time he looks out upon the world
seeing as though they marched in procession before him the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness
the sadness of sophistication has come to the boy with a little gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his village he knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows
he must live and die in uncertainty a thing blown by the winds a thing destined like corn to wilt in the sun he shivers and looks eagerly about the eighteen years he has lived seem but a moment
already he hears death calling with all his heart he wants to come close to some other human touch someone with his hands be touched by the hand of another if he prefers that the other be a woman
that is because he believes that a woman will be gentle that she will understand he wants most of all understanding when the moment of sophistication came to george willard
his mind turned to helen white the winesburg banker's daughter always he had been conscious of the girl growing into womanhood as he grew into manhood once on a summer night when he was eighteen
he had walked with her on a country road and in her presence had given way to an impulse to boast to make himself appear big and significant in her eyes now he wanted to see her for another purpose
he had tried to make her think of him as a man when he knew nothing of manhood and now he wanted to be with her and to try to make her feel the change he believed had taken place in his nature as for helen white
she also had come to a period of change what george felt she in her young woman's way felt also she was no longer a girl and hungered to reach into the grace and beauty of womanhood
she had come home from cleveland where she was attending college to spend a day at the fair she also had begun to have memories during the day she sat in the grand stand with a young man
one of the instructors from the college who was a guest of her mother's the young man was of a pedantic turn of mind and she felt at once he would not do for her purpose at the fair she was glad to be seen in his company
as he was well dressed and a stranger she knew that the fact of his presence would create an impression during the day she was happy but when night came on she began to grow restless
she wanted to drive the instructor away to get out of his presence while they sat together in the grand stand and while the eyes of former schoolmates were upon them she paid so much attention to her escort
that he grew interested a scholar needs money i should marry a woman with money he mused helen white was thinking of george willard even as he wandered gloomily through the crowds thinking of her
she remembered the summer evening when they had walked together and wanted to walk with him again she thought that the months she had spent in the city
had changed her profoundly she wanted him to feel and be conscious of the change in her nature the summer evening together that had left its mark on the memory of both the young man and woman had
when looked at quite sensibly been rather stupidly spent
then they had stopped by a fence near a field of young corn and george had taken off his coat and let it hang on his arm well i've stayed here in winesburg yes i've not yet gone away but i'm growing up
he had said i've been reading books and i've been thinking i'm going to try to amount to something in life well he explained that isn't the point perhaps i'd better quit talking
the confused boy put his hand on the girl's arm his voice trembled the two started to walk back along the road toward town in his desperation george boasted
he declared i want you to do something i don't know what perhaps it is none of my business i want you to try to be different from other women you see the point it's none of my business i tell you i want you to be a beautiful woman
you see what i want the boy's voice failed and in silence the two came back into town and went along the street to helen white's house at the gate he tried to say something impressive
speeches he had thought out came into his head but they seemed utterly pointless i thought i used to think i had it in my mind you would marry seth richmond
now i know you won't was all he could find to say
and toward the door of her house on the warm fall evening as he stood in the stairway and looked at the crowd drifting through main street george thought of the talk beside the field of young corn
and was ashamed of the figure he had made of himself in the street the people surged up and down like cattle confined in a pen buggies and wagons almost filled the narrow thoroughfare a band played
and small boys raced along the sidewalk diving between the legs of men young men with shining red faces walked awkwardly about with girls on their arms in a room above one of the stores where a dance was to be held
the fiddlers tuned their instruments the broken sounds floated down through an open window and out across the murmur of voices
everywhere on all sides the sense of crowding moving life closed in about him he wanted to run away by himself and think if she wants to stay with that fellow she may
why should i care what difference does it make to me he growled and went along main street and through hern's grocery into a side street george felt so utterly lonely and dejected
that he wanted to weep but pride made him walk rapidly along swinging his arms he came to wesley moyer's livery barn and stopped in the shadows to listen to a group of men who talked of a race wesley's stallion tony tip
had won at the fair during the afternoon a crowd had gathered in front of the barn and before the crowd walked wesley prancing up and down boasting
and kept tapping the ground little puffs of dust arose in the lamplight hell quit your talking wesley exclaimed i wasn't afraid i knew i had em beat all the time i wasn't afraid
old windbag he sputtered
why don't he shut up george went into a vacant lot and as he hurried along fell over a pile of rubbish a nail protruding from an empty barrel tore his trousers he sat down on the ground and swore
with a pin he mended the torn place and then arose and went on i'll go to helen white's house that's what i'll do i'll walk right in
i'll walk right in and sit down that's what i'll do he declared climbing over a fence and beginning to run on the veranda of banker white's house
helen was restless and distraught the instructor sat between the mother and daughter his talk wearied the girl
the instructor began to put on the airs of the city he wanted to appear cosmopolitan i like the chance you have given me to study the background out of which most of our girls come he declared
it was good of you missus white to have me down for the day he turned to helen and laughed your life is still bound up with the life of this town he asked
there are people here in whom you are interested to the girl his voice sounded pompous and heavy helen arose and went into the house
at the door leading to a garden at the back she stopped and stood listening her mother began to talk there is no one here fit to associate with a girl of helen's breeding she said
helen ran down a flight of stairs at the back of the house and into the garden in the darkness she stopped and stood trembling it seemed to her that the world was full of meaningless people saying words
afire with eagerness she ran through a garden gate and turning a corner by the banker's barn went into a little side street george where are you george she cried filled with nervous excitement
she stopped running and leaned against a tree to laugh hysterically along the dark little street came george willard still saying words
i'll go right in and sit down he declared as he came up to her he stopped and stared stupidly come on he said and took hold of her hand
with hanging heads they walked away along the street under the trees dry leaves rustled under foot now that he had found her george wondered what he had better do and say
at the upper end of the fair ground in winesburg there is a half decayed old grand stand
and the boards are all warped out of shape the fair ground stands on top of a low hill rising out of the valley of wine creek and from the grand stand one can see at night over a cornfield the lights of the town reflected against the sky
george and helen climbed the hill to the fair ground coming by the path past waterworks pond
was both broken and intensified by the presence of helen what he felt was reflected in her in youth there are always two forces fighting in people
the warm unthinking little animal struggles against the thing that reflects and remembers and the older the more sophisticated thing
sensing his mood helen walked beside him filled with respect when they got to the grand stand they climbed up under the roof and sat down on one of the long bench like seats
there is something memorable in the experience to be had by going into a fair ground that stands at the edge of a middle western town
the sensation is one never to be forgotten on all sides are ghosts not of the dead but of living people here
during the day just passed have come the people pouring in from the town and the country around farmers with their wives and children
have gathered within these board walls young girls have laughed and men with beards have talked of the affairs of their lives the place has been filled to overflowing with life
and now it is night and the life has all gone away the silence is almost terrifying one conceals oneself standing silently beside the trunk of a tree
and what there is of a reflective tendency in his nature is intensified one shudders at the thought of the meaninglessness of life
and if the people of the town are his people one loves life so intensely that tears come into the eyes in the darkness under the roof of the grand stand
george willard sat beside helen white
now that he had come out of town where the presence of the people stirring about busy with a multitude of affairs had been so irritating the irritation was all gone
the presence of helen renewed and refreshed him it was as though her woman's hand was assisting him to make some minute readjustment of the machinery of his life
he had reverence for helen
but he did not want at the moment to be confused by her womanhood in the darkness he took hold of her hand and when she crept close put a hand on her shoulder a wind began to blow
and he shivered with all his strength
in that high place in the darkness the two oddly sensitive human atoms held each other tightly and waited in the mind of each was the same thought i have come to this lonely place
was the substance of the thing felt in winesburg
farm horses jogged away along lonely country roads pulling their portion of weary people clerks began to bring samples of goods in off the sidewalks and lock the doors of stores in the opera house
a crowd had gathered to see a show and further down main street the fiddlers their instruments tuned sweated and worked to keep the feet of youth flying over a dance floor
helen white and george willard remained silent now and then the spell that held them was broken and they turned and tried in the dim light to see into each other's eyes
they kissed but that impulse did not last at the upper end of the fair ground a half dozen men worked over horses that had raced during the afternoon the men had built a fire and were heating kettles of water
only their legs could be seen as they passed back and forth in the light when the wind blew the little flames of the fire danced crazily about
george and helen arose and walked away into the darkness they went along a path past a field of corn that had not yet been cut the wind whispered
among the dry corn blades for a moment during the walk back into town the spell that held them was broken when they had come to the crest of waterworks hill
they stopped by a tree and george again put his hands on the girl's shoulders she embraced him eagerly
they stopped kissing and stood a little apart mutual respect grew big in them they were both embarrassed and to relieve their embarrassment dropped into the animalism of youth
they laughed and began to pull and haul at each other in some way chastened and purified by the mood they had been in they became not man and woman not boy and girl but excited little animals
it was so they went down the hill in the darkness they played like two splendid young things in a young world once running swiftly forward helen tripped george and he fell
he squirmed and shouted shaking with laughter he roiled down the hill helen ran after him for just a moment she stopped in the darkness
there was no way of knowing what woman's thoughts went through her mind but when the bottom of the hill was reached and she came up to the boy she took his arm and walked beside him in dignified silence
man or boy
the scarecrow plans an escape tip slipped away from the girls and followed swiftly after the soldier with the green whiskers
the invading army entered the city more slowly for they stopped to dig emeralds out of the walls and paving stones with the points of their knitting needles so the soldier and the boy reached the palace before the news had spread that the city was conquered
the scarecrow and jack pumpkinhead were still playing at quoits in the courtyard when the game was interrupted by the abrupt entrance of the royal army of oz who came flying in without his hat or gun
your majesty the city is conquered gasped the royal army who was all out of breath this is quite sudden said the scarecrow but please go and bar all the doors and windows of the palace while i show this pumpkinhead how to throw a quoit
the soldier hastened to do this while tip who had arrived at his heels remained in the courtyard to look at the scarecrow with wondering eyes his majesty continued to throw the quoits
as coolly as if no danger threatened his throne but the pumpkinhead having caught sight of tip ambled toward the boy as fast as his wooden legs would go good afternoon noble parent he cried delightedly
i'm glad to see you are here that terrible saw horse ran away with me i suspected it said tip did you get hurt are you cracked at all
and his majesty has been very kind indeed to me
replied the soldier still pale with fear but where was my standing army at the time inquired his majesty looking at the soldier gravely your standing army was running answered the fellow honestly
for no man could face the terrible weapons of the invaders well said the scarecrow after a moment's thought
and this crown is so heavy that it makes my head ache but i hope the conquerors have no intention of injuring me just because i happen to be the king i heard them say remarked tip with some hesitation that they
then i am really in danger declared his majesty positively and it will be wise for me to consider a means to escape
it is too late to escape they would soon tear you to pieces the scarecrow sighed in an emergency he announced it is always a good thing to pause and reflect
nonsense exclaimed the scarecrow they're too busy to cook even if they know how but should i remain here a prisoner for any length of time protested jack i'm liable to spoil
ah then you would not be fit to associate with returned the scarecrow the matter is more serious than i suspected you said the pumpkinhead gloomily
are liable to live for many years my life is necessarily short so i must take advantage of the few days that remain to me there there don't worry answered the scarecrow soothingly
if you'll keep quiet long enough for me to think i'll try to find some way for us all to escape
at the end of that time he faced them with a more cheerful expression upon his painted face where is the saw horse you rode here he asked the pumpkinhead
it was the only place i could think of your majesty added the soldier fearing he had made a blunder it pleases me very much said the scarecrow has the animal been fed
excellent cried the scarecrow bring the horse here at once the soldier hastened away and presently they heard the clattering of the horse's wooden legs upon the pavement as he was led into the courtyard his majesty regarded the steed critically
he doesn't seem especially graceful he remarked musingly but i suppose he can run he can indeed said tip gazing upon the saw horse admiringly
objected tip no but he may be induced to carry three said his majesty i shall therefore leave my royal army behind for from the ease with which he was conquered
i have little confidence in his powers still he can run
i expected this blow said the soldier sulkily but i can bear it i shall disguise myself by cutting off my lovely green whiskers and after all
it is no more dangerous to face those reckless girls than to ride this fiery untamed wooden horse perhaps you are right observed his majesty but for my part not being a soldier i am fond of danger
now my boy you must mount first and please sit as close to the horse's neck as possible tip climbed quickly to his place and the soldier and the scarecrow managed to hoist the pumpkinhead to a seat just behind him
there remained so little space for the king that he was liable to fall off as soon as the horse started fetch a clothesline said the king to his army and tie us all together
then if one falls off we will all fall off and while the soldier was gone for the clothesline his majesty continued
not exactly replied the scarecrow for if anything happened to me
they could use you for seed the soldier now returned with a long line and tied all three firmly together also lashing them to the body of the saw horse so there seemed little danger of their tumbling off now throw open the gates commanded the scarecrow
and we will make a dash to liberty or to death the courtyard in which they were standing was located in the center of the great palace which surrounded it on all sides but in one place a passage led to an outer gateway
it was through this gateway his majesty proposed to escape and the royal army now led the saw horse along the passage
others ran screaming out of the way and only one or two jabbed their knitting needles frantically at the escaping prisoners
which smarted for an hour afterward but the needles had no effect upon the scarecrow or jack pumpkinhead who never even suspected they were being prodded as for the saw horse he made a wonderful record upsetting a fruit cart
overturning several meek looking men and finally bowling over the new guardian of the gate a fussy little fat woman appointed by general jinjur nor did the impetuous charger stop then
so the saw horse continued his wild career unchecked and with unabated speed presently they came to the banks of a wide river
and without a pause the wooden steed gave one final leap and launched them all in mid air a second later they were rolling splashing and bobbing about in the water
knowing no better i used my arms as well as my legs for walking and crawled under the edges of stones or hid among the roots of grasses with no thought beyond finding a few insects smaller than myself to feed upon
the chill nights rendered me stiff and motionless for i wore no clothing but each morning the warm rays of the sun gave me new life and restored me to activity
you must remember it is the regular ordained existence of woggle bugs
i resolved to establish my future home beside it so i found a charming nest between two bricks and hid myself therein for many many months
professor nowitall is doubtless the most famous scholar in the land of oz and after a few days i began to listen to the lectures and discourses he gave his pupils not one of them was more attentive than the humble unnoticed woggle bug
and i acquired in this way a fund of knowledge that i will myself confess is simply marvelous that is why i place t e thoroughly educated upon my cards
to me said the saw horse a good leg is more desirable than either
keep quiet commanded tip sternly very well dear father answered the obedient jack the woggle bug listened patiently even respectfully to these remarks and then resumed his story
i must have lived fully three years in that secluded school house hearth said he drinking thirstily of the ever flowing fount of limpid knowledge before me quite poetical
said he i have captured a woggle bug a very rare and interesting specimen do any of you know what a woggle bug is no yelled the scholars in chorus then said the professor
i will get out my famous magnifying glass and throw the insect upon a screen in a highly magnified condition that you may all study carefully its peculiar construction
in a highly magnified state even as you now behold me the students stood up on their stools and craned their heads forward to get a better view of me and two little girls jumped upon the sill of an open window where they could see more plainly behold
cried the professor in a loud voice this highly magnified woggle bug
for one of the little girls perched upon the window sill gave a scream and fell backward out the window drawing her companion with her as she disappeared the professor uttered a cry of horror and rushed away through the door to see if the poor children were injured by the fall
the scholars followed after him in a wild mob and i was left alone in the school room still in a highly magnified state and free to do as i pleased it immediately occurred to me
i was proud of my great size and realized that now i could safely travel anywhere in the world while my superior culture would make me a fit associate for the most learned person i might chance to meet so while the professor picked the little girls
who were more frightened than hurt off the ground and the pupils clustered around him closely grouped i calmly walked out of the school house turned a corner and escaped unnoticed
that insects wore clothes nor do they in their natural state returned the stranger but in the course of my wanderings i had the good fortune to save the ninth life of a tailor
tailors having like cats nine lives as you probably know the fellow was exceedingly grateful for had he lost that ninth life it would have been the end of him so he begged permission to furnish me with the stylish costume i now wear
it fits very nicely does it not and the woggle bug stood up and turned himself around slowly
nowhere in particular was the reply although it is my intention soon to visit the emerald city
to accept your kind invitation for nowhere in the land of oz could i hope to meet with so congenial a company that is true acknowledged the pumpkinhead we are quite as congenial as flies and honey
but pardon me if i seem inquisitive
asked the woggle bug looking from one to another with unconcealed interest not more so than yourself answered the scarecrow everything in life is unusual until you get accustomed to it what rare philosophy
exclaimed the woggle bug admiringly yes my brains are working well today admitted the scarecrow an accent of pride in his voice then
let us bend our steps toward the emerald city
why not use one of his legs to make a leg for the horse that carries him i judge that both are made of wood now that is what i call real cleverness said the scarecrow approvingly i wonder my brains did not think of that long ago
get to work my dear nick and fit the pumpkinhead's leg to the saw horse jack was not especially pleased with this idea but he submitted to having his left leg amputated by the tin woodman and whittled down to fit the left leg of the saw horse
nor was the saw horse especially pleased with the operation either for he growled a good deal about being butchered as he called it and afterward declared that the new leg was a disgrace to a respectable saw horse
i beg you to be more careful in your speech said the pumpkinhead sharply remember if you please that it is my leg you are abusing i cannot forget it retorted the saw horse
as a matter of fact we are none of us above criticism so let us bear with each others faults an excellent suggestion said the woggle bug approvingly you must have an excellent heart my metallic friend i have
returned nick well pleased my heart is quite the best part of me but now let us start upon our journey they perched the one legged pumpkinhead upon the saw horse and tied him to his seat with cords
doctor nikidik's famous wishing pills the tin woodman was usually a peaceful man but when occasion required he could fight as fiercely as a roman gladiator
so when the jackdaws nearly knocked him down in their rush of wings and their sharp beaks and claws threatened to damage his brilliant plating the woodman picked up his axe and made it whirl swiftly around his head
but although many were beaten off in this way the birds were so numerous and so brave that they continued the attack as furiously as before some of them pecked at the eyes of the gump which hung over the nest in a helpless condition
but the gump's eyes were of glass and could not be injured
but that animal being still upon his back kicked out so viciously with his wooden legs
covering tip and the woggle bug and jack's pumpkin head and began tearing it away and flying off with it only to let it drop straw by straw into the great gulf beneath the scarecrow's head noting with dismay this wanton destruction of his interior
cried to the tin woodman to save him and that good friend responded with renewed energy his axe fairly flashed among the jackdaws and fortunately the gump began wildly waving the two wings remaining on the left side of its body
the flutter of these great wings filled the jackdaws with terror and when the gump
and they fled screaming over the mountains when the last foe had disappeared tip crawled from under the sofas and assisted the woggle bug to follow him
we owe you many thanks for the gallant fight you made i really think we have escaped very nicely remarked the tin woodman in a tone of pride not so exclaimed a hollow voice
at this they all turned in surprise to look at the scarecrow's head which lay at the back of the nest i am completely ruined declared the scarecrow as he noted their astonishment
said the tin woodman taking up the scarecrow's head and caressing it tenderly
i did it to save my friends returned the head and i am glad that i perished in so noble and unselfish a manner but why are you all so despondent inquired the woggle bug the scarecrow's clothing is still safe
yes answered the tin woodman but our friend's clothes are useless without stuffing why not stuff him with money
and tip's suggestion was with the scarecrow's consent quickly acted upon they selected all the newest and cleanest bills and assorted them into various piles the scarecrow's left leg and boot were stuffed with five dollar bills
how about these wishing pills enquired the scarecrow taking the box from his jacket pocket can't we use them to escape not unless we can count seventeen by twos answered the tin woodman
but our friend the woggle bug claims to be highly educated so he ought easily to figure out how that can be done it isn't a question of education
added the scarecrow your mathematics seem to me very like a bottle of mixed pickles the more you fish for what you want the less chance you have of getting it i am certain that if the thing can be accomplished at all it is in a very simple manner
yes said tip
for she never went to school why not start counting at a half of one asked the saw horse abruptly then anyone can count up to seventeen by twos very easily they looked at each other in surprise for the saw horse was considered
the most stupid of the entire party you make me quite ashamed of myself said the scarecrow bowing low to the saw horse nevertheless the creature is right declared the woggle bug
suggested tip i can't said the scarecrow why not you've a mouth haven't you asked the boy yes but my mouth is painted on and there's no swallow connected with it answered the scarecrow in fact he continued
looking from one to another critically i believe the boy and the woggle bug are the only ones in our party that are able to swallow observing the truth of this remark tip said then i will undertake to make the first wish
this the scarecrow tried to do but his padded gloves were too clumsy to clutch so small an object and he held the box toward the boy while tip selected one of the pills and swallowed it count cried the scarecrow
entreated the tin woodman tears of sympathy running down his nickel cheeks i i don't know
then at once the pain stopped and the boy rose to his feet again and found the scarecrow looking with amazement at the end of the pepper box what's happened asked the boy a little ashamed of his recent exhibition
why the three pills are in the box again said the scarecrow of course they are the woggle bug declared
that may be but the pill gave me a dreadful pain just the same
but i won't take another pill i promise you and with this remark he retired sulkily to the back of the nest well said the woggle bug it remains for me to save us in my most highly magnified and thoroughly educated manner for i seem to be the only one able and willing to make a wish
a nickel plated emperor tip awoke soon after dawn but the scarecrow had already risen and plucked with his clumsy fingers a double handful of ripe berries from some bushes near by
and afterward the little party resumed its journey
scarecrow became greatly animated at this sight and exclaimed how delighted i shall be to see my old friend the tin woodman again
don't mention that to the tin woodman exclaimed the scarecrow earnestly you would hurt his feelings terribly he is a proud man as he has every reason to be and it pleases him to be termed emperor rather than king
i'm sure it makes no difference to me replied the boy the saw horse now ambled forward at a pace so fast that its riders had hard work to stick upon its back so there was little further conversation
until they drew up beside the palace steps an aged winkie dressed in a uniform of silver cloth came forward to assist them to alight said the scarecrow to his personage show us at once to your master the emperor
and i suppose he is now more proud than ever of his personal appearance he is indeed said the man with a polite bow
has lately caused himself to be nickel plated good gracious the scarecrow exclaimed at hearing this if his wit bears the same polish how sparkling it must be but show us in
i'm sure the emperor will receive us even in his present state the emperor's state is always magnificent said the man
caught up into knots and fastened with tiny silver axes upon a handsome center table stood a large silver oil can richly engraved with scenes from the past adventures of the tin woodman dorothy
the cowardly lion and the scarecrow the lines of the engraving being traced upon the silver in yellow gold on the walls hung several portraits
in act of presenting the tin woodman with a heart covered almost one entire end of the room while the visitors gazed at these things in silent admiration they suddenly heard a loud voice in the next room exclaim
the face of the scarecrow and many portions of his body bore great blotches of putz pomade for the tin woodman in his eagerness to welcome his friend had quite forgotten the condition of his toilet and had rubbed the thick coating of paste from his own body
to that of his comrade dear me said the scarecrow dolefully what a mess i'm in never mind my friend returned the tin woodman i'll send you to my imperial laundry and you'll come out as good as new
but tell me how came your majesty here and who are your companions the scarecrow with great politeness introduced tip and jack pumpkinhead and the latter personage seemed to interest the tin woodman greatly
but in a kindly sympathetic tone do not i beg of you dampen today's sun with the showers of tomorrow for before your head has time to spoil you can have it canned and in that way it may be preserved indefinitely
tip during this conversation was looking at the woodman with undisguised amazement and noticed that the celebrated emperor of the winkies was composed entirely of pieces of tin
he rattled and clanked a little as he moved but in the main he seemed to be most cleverly constructed and his appearance was only marred by the thick coating of polishing paste that covered him from head to foot
so he begged his friends to excuse him while he retired to his private apartment and allowed his servants to polish him this was accomplished in a short time and when the emperor returned his nickel plated body shone so magnificently
that the scarecrow heartily congratulated him on his improved appearance that nickel plate was i confess a happy thought said nick
and it was the more necessary because i had become somewhat scratched during my adventurous experiences you will observe this engraved star upon my left breast it not only indicates where my excellent heart lies but
are your subjects happy and contented my dear friend i cannot say was the reply for the girls of oz have risen in revolt and driven me out of the emerald city great goodness cried the tin woodman what a calamity
they surely do not complain of your wise and gracious rule no but they say it is a poor rule that don't work both ways answered the scarecrow and these females are also of the opinion that men have ruled the land long enough
and are running things to suit themselves dear me what an extraordinary idea cried the emperor who was both shocked
how large an army can you assemble we do not need an army replied the woodman we four with the aid of my gleaming axe are enough to strike terror into the hearts of the rebels we five corrected the pumpkinhead five
repeated the tin woodman yes
the tin woodman looked around him in a puzzled way for the saw horse had until now remained quietly standing in a corner where the emperor had not noticed him tip immediately called the odd looking creature to them
and the engraved oil can i begin to think
the saw horse answered for himself but i seem to learn very quickly and often it occurs to me that i know more than any of those around me perhaps you do said the emperor for experience does not always mean wisdom
but time is precious just now so let us quickly make preparations to start upon our journey the emperor called his lord high chancellor and instructed him how to run the kingdom during his absence meanwhile the scarecrow was taken apart
and the painted sack that served him for a head was carefully laundered and restuffed with the brains originally given him by the great wizard his clothes were also cleaned and pressed by the imperial tailors and his crown polished and again sewed upon his head
then bright and early the next morning they set out upon the return journey to the emerald city
question seventy six of the union of body and soul in eight articles
we now consider the union of the soul with the body and concerning this there are eight points of inquiry one whether the intellectual principle is united to the body as its form two
whether the intellectual principle is multiplied numerically according to the number of bodies or is there one intelligence for all men three whether in the body the form of which is an intellectual principle there is some other soul four
whether in the body there is any other substantial form five of the qualities required in the body of which the intellectual principle is the form six
seven whether by means of an accident eight whether the soul is wholly in each part of the body
whether the intellectual principle is united to the body as its form objection one it seems that the intellectual principle is not united to the body as its form for the philosopher says
that the intellect is separate and that it is not the act of any body therefore it is not united to the body as its form
further every form is determined according to the nature of the matter of which it is the form otherwise no proportion would be required between matter and form therefore if the intellect were united to the body as its form
since every body has a determinate nature it would follow that the intellect has a determinate nature and thus it would not be capable of knowing all things as is clear from what has been said
two which is contrary to the nature of the intellect therefore the intellect is not united to the body as its form
further whatever receptive power is an act of a body receives a form materially and individually for what is received must be received according to the condition of the receiver
but the form of the thing understood is not received into the intellect materially and individually but rather immaterially and universally
otherwise the intellect would not be capable of the knowledge of immaterial and universal objects but only of individuals like the senses therefore the intellect is not united to the body as its form
further power and action have the same subject for the same subject is what can and does act but the intellectual action is not the action of a body as appears from above
therefore neither is the intellectual faculty a power of the body but virtue or power cannot be more abstract or more simple than the essence from which the faculty or power is derived therefore neither is the substance of the intellect the form of a body
further whatever has per se existence is not united to the body as its form because a form is that by which a thing exists so that the very existence of a form does not belong to the form by itself
therefore it is not united to the body as its form
further whatever exists in a thing by reason of its nature exists in it always but to be united to matter belongs to the form by reason of its nature because form is the act of matter not by an accidental quality
but by its own essence otherwise matter and form would not make a thing substantially one but only accidentally one therefore a form cannot be without its own proper matter but the intellectual principle since it is incorruptible
remains separate from the body after the dissolution of the body therefore the intellectual principle is not united to the body as its form on the contrary according to the philosopher
difference is derived from the form but the difference which constitutes man is rational which is applied to man on account of his intellectual principle therefore the intellectual principle is the form of man i answer that
we must assert that the intellect which is the principle of intellectual operation is the form of the human body for that whereby primarily anything acts is a form of the thing to which the act is to be attributed
for instance that whereby a body is primarily healed is health and that whereby the soul knows primarily is knowledge hence health is a form of the body and knowledge is a form of the soul
the reason is because nothing acts except so far as it is in act wherefore a thing acts by that whereby it is in act now it is clear that the first thing by which the body lives is the soul
and as life appears through various operations in different degrees of living things that whereby we primarily perform each of all these vital actions is the soul for the soul is the primary principle of our nourishment sensation and local movement
and likewise of our understanding therefore this principle by which we primarily understand whether it be called the intellect or the intellectual soul is the form of the body this is the demonstration used by aristotle
but if anyone says that the intellectual soul is not the form of the body he must first explain how it is that this action of understanding is the action of this particular man for each one is conscious that it is himself who understands
now an action may be attributed to anyone in three ways as is clear from the philosopher
for instance as a physician heals or by virtue of a part as a man sees by his eye or through an accidental quality as when we say that something that is white builds because it is accidental to the builder to be white
so when we say that socrates or plato understands it is clear that this is not attributed to him accidentally since it is ascribed to him as man which is predicated of him essentially
we must therefore say either that socrates understands by virtue of his whole self as plato maintained holding that man is an intellectual soul or that intelligence is a part of socrates the first cannot stand as was shown above
for this reason that it is one and the same man who is conscious both that he understands and that he senses but one cannot sense without a body therefore the body must be some part of man
it follows therefore that the intellect by which socrates understands is a part of socrates so that in some way it is united to the body of socrates
the commentator held that this union is through the intelligible species as having a double subject in the possible intellect and in the phantasms which are in the corporeal organs
thus through the intelligible species the possible intellect is linked to the body of this or that particular man but this link or union does not sufficiently explain the fact that the act of the intellect is the act of socrates
this can be clearly seen from comparison with the sensitive faculty from which aristotle proceeds to consider things relating to the intellect for the relation of phantasms to the intellect is like the relation of colors to the sense of sight
therefore as the species of colors are in the sight so are the species of phantasms in the possible intellect now it is clear that because the colors the images of which are in the sight are on a wall
the action of seeing is not attributed to the wall for we do not say that the wall sees but rather that it is seen therefore from the fact that the species of phantasms are in the possible intellect it does not follow that socrates in whom are the phantasms
understands but that he or his phantasms are understood some however tried to maintain that the intellect is united to the body as its motor
and hence that the intellect and body form one thing so that the act of the intellect could be attributed to the whole this is however absurd for many reasons first because the intellect does not move the body except through the appetite
the movement of which presupposes the operation of the intellect the reason therefore why socrates understands is not because he is moved by his intellect but rather contrariwise he is moved by his intellect because he understands
secondly because since socrates is an individual in a nature of one essence composed of matter and form if the intellect be not the form it follows that it must be outside the essence and then the intellect is the whole socrates as a motor to the thing moved
whereas the act of intellect remains in the agent and does not pass into something else as does the action of heating therefore the action of understanding cannot be attributed to socrates for the reason that he is moved by his intellect
thirdly because the action of a motor is never attributed to the thing moved except as to an instrument as the action of a carpenter to a saw therefore if understanding is attributed to socrates as the action of what moves him
it follows that it is attributed to him as to an instrument this is contrary to the teaching of the philosopher who holds that understanding is not possible through a corporeal instrument
the same can be clearly shown from the nature of the human species for the nature of each thing is shown by its operation now the proper operation of man as man is to understand because he thereby surpasses all other animals
whence aristotle concludes
that the ultimate happiness of man must consist in this operation as properly belonging to him man must therefore derive his species from that which is the principle of this operation but the species of anything is derived from its form
it follows therefore that the intellectual principle is the proper form of man but we must observe that the nobler a form is the more it rises above corporeal matter
the less it is merged in matter and the more it excels matter by its power and its operation hence we find that the form of a mixed body has another operation not caused by its elemental qualities
and the higher we advance in the nobility of forms the more we find that the power of the form excels the elementary matter as the vegetative soul excels the form of the metal and the sensitive soul excels the vegetative soul
now the human soul is the highest and noblest of forms wherefore it excels corporeal matter in its power by the fact that it has an operation and a power in which corporeal matter has no share whatever
the soul communicates that existence in which it subsists to the corporeal matter out of which and the intellectual soul there results unity of existence so that the existence of the whole composite is also the existence of the soul
this is not the case with other non subsistent forms for this reason the human soul retains its own existence after the dissolution of the body whereas it is not so with other forms
as it belongs to a light body by reason of itself to be raised up and as a light body remains light when removed from its proper place retaining meanwhile an aptitude and an inclination for its proper place
so the human soul retains its proper existence when separated from the body having an aptitude and a natural inclination to be united to the body
everything has unity in the same way that it has being consequently we must judge of the multiplicity of a thing as we judge of its being now it is clear that the intellectual soul by virtue of its very being is united to the body as its form
yet after the dissolution of the body the intellectual soul retains its own being in like manner the multiplicity of souls is in proportion to the multiplicity of the bodies yet after the dissolution of the bodies the souls retain their multiplied being
individuality of the intelligent being or of the species whereby it understands does not exclude the understanding of universals otherwise since separate intellects are subsistent substances
and consequently individual they could not understand universals but the materiality of the knower and of the species whereby it knows impedes the knowledge of the universal
for as every action is according to the mode of the form by which the agent acts as heating is according to the mode of the heat so knowledge is according to the mode of the species by which the knower knows
therefore if the form which is the means of knowledge is material that is not abstracted from material conditions its likeness to the nature of a species or genus will be according to the distinction and multiplication of that nature
by means of individuating principles so that knowledge of the nature of a thing in general will be impossible but if the species be abstracted from the conditions of individual matter
there will be a likeness of the nature without those things which make it distinct and multiplied thus there will be knowledge of the universal nor does it matter as to this particular point
because even if there were but one it would necessarily be an individual intellect and the species whereby it understands an individual species
whether the intellect be one or many what is understood is one for what is understood is in the intellect not according to its own nature but according to its likeness for the stone is not in the soul but its likeness is
yet it is the stone which is understood not the likeness of the stone
otherwise the objects of sciences would not be things but only intelligible species now it happens that different things according to different forms are likened to the same thing
and since knowledge is begotten according to the assimilation of the knower to the thing known it follows that the same thing may happen to be known by several knowers as is apparent in regard to the senses for several see the same color
according to different likenesses in the same way several intellects understand one object understood but there is this difference according to the opinion of aristotle between the sense and the intelligence
that a thing is perceived by the sense according to the disposition which it has outside the soul that is in its individuality
whereas the nature of the thing understood is indeed outside the soul but the mode according to which it exists outside the soul is not the mode according to which it is understood for the common nature is understood as apart from the individuating principles
whereas such is not its mode of existence outside the soul but according to the opinion of plato the thing understood exists outside the soul in the same condition as those under which it is understood for he supposed that the natures of things exist separate from matter
one knowledge exists in the disciple and another in the master how it is caused will be shown later on
augustine denies a plurality of souls that would involve a plurality of species
whether besides the intellectual soul there are in man other souls essentially different from one another objection one it would seem that besides the intellectual soul there are in man other souls essentially different from one another
such as the sensitive soul and the nutritive soul for corruptible and incorruptible are not of the same substance but the intellectual soul is incorruptible whereas the other souls as the sensitive and the nutritive
are corruptible as was shown above question seventy five a six therefore in man the essence of the intellectual soul the sensitive soul and the nutritive soul cannot be the same
further if it be said that the sensitive soul in man is incorruptible on the contrary corruptible and incorruptible differ generically says the philosopher
but the sensitive soul in the horse the lion and other brute animals is corruptible if therefore in man it be incorruptible
the sensitive soul in man and brute animals will not be of the same genus now an animal is so called from its having a sensitive soul and therefore animal will not be one genus common to man and other animals which is absurd
that the genus is taken from the matter and difference from the form but rational which is the difference constituting man is taken from the intellectual soul while he is called animal by reason of his having a body animated by a sensitive soul
therefore the intellectual soul may be compared to the body animated by a sensitive soul as form to matter therefore in man the intellectual soul is not essentially the same as the sensitive soul
by one form the vegetative soul and animal by another form the sensitive soul and man by another form the intellectual soul it would follow that man is not absolutely one
then a biped animal is not absolutely one for this reason against those who hold that there are several souls in the body
what contains them that is what makes them one it cannot be said that they are united by the one body because rather does the soul contain the body and make it one than the reverse
secondly this is proved to be impossible by the manner in which one thing is predicated of another
either accidentally if the forms are not ordered to one another as when we say that something white is sweet or essentially in the second manner of essential predication if the forms are ordered one to another
the subject belonging to the definition of the predicate as a surface is presupposed to color so that if we say that a body with a surface is colored we have the second manner of essential predication
therefore if we have one form by which a thing is an animal and another form by which it is a man it follows either that one of these two things could not be predicated of the other except accidentally
supposing these two forms not to be ordered to one another or that one would be predicated of the other according to the second manner of essential predication if one soul be presupposed to the other but both of these consequences are clearly false
because animal is predicated of man essentially and not accidentally and man is not part of the definition of an animal but the other way about therefore of necessity by the same form a thing is animal and man
otherwise man would not really be the thing which is an animal so that animal can be essentially predicated of man thirdly this is shown to be impossible by the fact that when one operation of the soul is intense it impedes another
which could never be the case unless the principle of action were essentially one we must therefore conclude that in man the sensitive soul the intellectual soul and the nutritive soul are numerically one soul
this can easily be explained if we consider the differences of species and forms for we observe that the species and forms of things differ from one another as the perfect and imperfect
as in the order of things the animate are more perfect than the inanimate and animals more perfect than plants and man than brute animals and in each of these genera there are various degrees for this reason aristotle
one of which contains another as a pentagon contains and exceeds a tetragon thus the intellectual soul contains virtually whatever belongs to the sensitive soul of brute animals
and to the nutritive souls of plants therefore as a surface which is of a pentagonal shape is not tetragonal by one shape and pentagonal by another since a tetragonal shape would be superfluous as contained in the pentagonal
and animal by another but by one and the same soul he is both animal and man
i shall send her away if she does not improve the duchess said she shall go to some remote place in the highlands and she shall not be allowed to remember that there is a war in the world
if i can manage to send her old nurse dowie with her she will stand guard over her like an old shepherd
but she discovered no reason common or uncommon for the thing she recognised each time she looked at her it was inevitable that she should talk to lord coombe but she met in him a sort of barrier
she could not avoid seeing that he was preoccupied she remotely felt that he was turning over in his mind something which precluded the possibility of his giving attention to other questions
i almost feel as if your interest in her had lapsed she said at last no it has taken a an entirely new form was his answer
something came to life in each pair of eyes and it was something disturbed and reluctant the duchess spoke first she has had no companions she said painfully the war put an end to what i thought i might do for her
as redcliff said in speaking of her and girls generally all the gates are thrown wide open the duchess was very silent for a space before she made her reply yes you do not know her mother no
two weeks ago she gave me something to reflect on her feeling for her daughter is that of a pretty cat like woman for something enragingly younger than herself she always resented her she was infuriated by your interest in her
she said to me one afternoon i hope the duchess is still pleased with her companion i saw her to day in bond street and she looked like a housemaid i once had to dismiss rather suddenly
after a few seconds
he told me so himself at the erwyn's i asked him if he had seen her since the dance and he owned that he had and then was cross at himself for making the slip
he would not have told me but if he met her once he met her as often as he chose she was not lying when she said it i know her i have been thinking constantly ever since there was a brief silence between them then he proceeded
robin worshipped him when she was a mere baby they were very beautiful together on the night of the dance she fainted on the stairway after hearing of his death
poor child it is one of the tragedies perhaps you and i together the duchess was seeing again the two who had come forth shining from the conservatory she continued to see them as lord coombe went on speaking
telling her what doctor redcliff had told him on her part robin scarcely understood anything which was happening because nothing seemed to matter
she looked at her with a curious sort of pitifulness as if she were sorry my poor child she said whatsoever he tells you don't be frightened don't think you are without friends i will take care of you
thank you she said i don't think anything would frighten me nothing seems frightening now after which she went into the room where doctor redcliff was waiting for her the duchess sat alone and thought deeply
what she thought of chiefly was the head of the house of coombe she had always known that more than probably his attitude towards a circumstance of this sort would not even remotely approach in likeness that of other people
his point of view would detach itself from ordinary theories of moralities and immoralities he would see with singular clearness all sides of the incident he would not be indignant or annoyed or embarrassed
he had had an interest in robin as a creature representing peculiar loveliness and undefended potentialities sometimes she had felt that this had even verged on a tenderness of which he was himself
he had believed fine things of him and had watched him silently he had wished he had been his own flesh and blood perhaps he had always felt a longing for a son who might have been his companion as well as his successor
who knew whether a thwarted paternal instinct might not now be giving him such thinking to do as he might have done if donal muir had been the son of his body dead on the battlefield but leaving behind him something to be gravely considered what would a man think
what would a man do under such circumstances one might imagine what some men would do but it would depend entirely upon the type she thought what he will do will be different it might seem cold
it might be merely judicial but it might be surprising she was quite haunted by the haggard look of his face as he had exclaimed i wish to god i had known him better i wish to god i had talked to him more
what he had done this morning was to go to mersham wood to see missus bennett there were things it might be possible to learn by amiable and carefully considered expression of interest in her loss and loneliness
the tragedy is understandable the duchess thinking ended pityingly because just at this time it was that robin opened the door and stood looking at her it seemed as though doctor redcliff must have talked to her for a long time
but she had on her small hat and coat and what the duchess seemed chiefly to see was the wide darkness of her eyes set in a face suddenly pinched small and snow white she looked like a starved baby
please she said with her hands clasped against her chest please may i go to mersham wood to mersham wood the duchess felt aghast and then suddenly a flood of thought rushed upon her
it is not very far the little gasping voice uttered i must go please oh i must just to mersham wood something almost uncontrollable rose in the duchess throat child she said
come here robin went to her oh poor little soul in utter obedience as she drew close to her she went down upon her knees holding up her hands like a little nun at prayer please let me go she said again
stay here my poor child and talk to me the duchess said
when i come back i will try i i want to ask the wood
it is not far doctor redcliff said i might go missus bennett is there she loves me are you going to talk to missus bennett no no no no not to any one in the world
hapless young creatures in her plight must always be touching but her touchingness was indescribable almost unendurable to the ripe aged woman of the world who watched and heard her
it was as if she knew nothing of the meaning of things as if some little spirit had been torn from heaven and flung down upon the dark earth one felt that one must weep aloud over the exquisite incomprehensible remoteness of her
and it was so awfully plain that there was some tragic connection with the wood and that her whole soul cried out to it and she would not speak to any one in the world such things had been known was the child's brain wavering
why not all the world was mad was the older woman's thought and she herself after all the years had for this moment no sense of balance and felt as if all old reasons for things had been swept away
if you will come back she said i will let you go after the poor child had gone there formulated itself in her mind the thought that if lord coombe and missus bennett met her together some clarity might be reached
but then again she said to herself oh why after all should she be asked questions what can it matter to the rest of the woeful world if she hides it forever in her heart
since the dowager took her up she's far too grand for the likes of us she said so to speak feather blew about from one place to another she had never found life so exciting
and excitement had become more vitally necessary to her existence as the years had passed she still looked extraordinarily youthful and if her face was at times rather marvelous
in its white and red and her lips daring in their pomegranate scarlet the fine grain of her skin aided her effects and she was dazzlingly in the fashion she had never worn such enchanting clothes
and never had seemed to possess so many i twist my rags together myself she used to laugh that's my gift helene says i have genius
out of one of your old petticoats and mine were never very old there was probably a modicum of truth in this the fact remained that the garments which were more scant and shorter than those of any other feathery person
were also more numerous and exquisite her patriotic entertainment of soldiers who required her special order of support and recreation was fast and furious
she danced with them at cabarets she danced as a nymph for patriotic entertainments with snow white bare feet and legs
and leaves and primroses she was such a success that important personages smiled on her and asked her to appear under undreamed of auspices
secretly triumphant though she was she never so far lost her head as to do anything which would bore her or cause her to appear at less than an alluring advantage
when she could invent a particularly unique and inspiring shred of a garment to startle the public with she danced for some noble object and intoxicated herself with the dazzle of light and applause
those so excited somehow seemed to feel themselves immune feather chattered about zepps as if bombs could only wreak their vengeance upon coast towns and the lower orders when lord coombe
and had prepared places for themselves sometimes she was even rather indecently exhilarated by her sense of high adventure the fact was that the excitement of the seething world about her
had overstrung her trivial being and turned her light head until it whirled too fast it may seem horrid to say so and i'm not horrid but i like the war you know what i mean
coming and going in swarms and being so grateful for kindness and entertainment one is really doing good all the time and being adored for it
i own i like being adored myself and of course one likes doing good i never was so happy in my life i used to be rather a coward i suppose
she chattered gaily on another occasion i was horribly afraid of things i believe the war and living among soldiers has had an effect on me and made me braver the zepps don't frighten me at all
at least they excite me so that they make me forget to be frightened i don't know what they do to me exactly the whole thing gets into my head and makes me want to rush about and see everything
apart from which his hours were filled he also objected to a certain raffishness which in an extremely mixed crowd of patriots rather too obviously swept away silly old fads
and left the truly advanced to do as they liked what they liked he did not and was wholly undisturbed by the circumstances of being considered a rigid old fossil
feather herself had no need of him an athletic and particularly well favoured young actor who shared her thrills of elation seemed to permeate the atmosphere about her
are we growing callous or are we losing our wits through living at such high temperature the duchess asked there's a delirium in the air among those who are not shuddering in cellars
there are some who seem possessed by a sort of light insanity half defiance half excited curiosity people say exultantly
i had a perfectly splendid view of the last zepp a mother whose daughter was paying her a visit said to her i wish you could have seen the zepps while you were here it is such an experience
had increased and was more deeply touched with awe she opened certain windows every night and felt that she was living in the world of supernatural things robin's eyes sometimes gave her a ghost of a shock
when she came upon her sitting alone with her work in her idle hands but supported by the testimony of such realities as breakfasts long untiring walks
and unvarying blooming healthfulness she thanked god hourly doctor benton says plain that he has never had such a beautiful case and one that promised so well she wrote
and he tells me i need not look forward with dread as perhaps i had been doing robin herself wrote to coombe letters whose tender hearted comprehension of what he was doing always held the desire to surround him
with the soothing quiet he had so felt when he was with her what he discovered was that she had been born of the elect the women who know what to say what to let others say
and what to beautifully leave unsaid her unconscious genius was quite exquisite now and then he made the night journey to darreuch castle and each time she met him
which she showed him with unaffected sweetness she told him stories of dowie and mademoiselle and how they had taught her to sew and embroider once she told him the story of her first meeting with donal
but she passed over the tragedy of their first parting it was too sad she said he noticed that she never spoke of sad and dark hours
he was convinced that she purposely avoided them and he was profoundly glad i know she said once that you do not want me to talk to you about the war thank you for knowing it
he answered i come here on a pilgrimage to a shrine where peace is darreuch is my shrine it is mine too was her low response yes i think it is
his look at her was deep suddenly but gently he laid his hand on her shoulder i beg you he said fervently i beg you never to allow yourself to think of it
you are here for you there must be no war how kind his face looked was robin's thought as he hesitated a second and then went on
i know very little of such sacrosanct things as mothers and children but lately i have had fancies of a place for them where there are only smiles and happiness and beauty as a beginning
it was she who now put her hand on his arm
as for ferdinand the spring had gradually restored him to health but not to his former frame of mind he remained moody and indolent incapable of exertion and a prey to the darkest humours
circumstances however occurred which rendered some energy on his part absolutely necessary his creditors grew importunate and the arrangement of his affairs or departure from his native land
was an alternative now inevitable the month of april
welcomed also to london miss grandison and her guests a few weeks after ferdinand who had evaded the journey with his family and who would not on any account become a guest of his cousin
settled himself down at a quiet hotel in the vicinity of grosvenor square
and his blighted hopes without reserve acceded to his wish with the greatest satisfaction a sudden residence in a vast metropolis after a life of rural seclusion has without doubt
the noise the bustle the general and widely spread excitement all combine to make us keenly sensible of our individual insignificance and those absorbing passions that in our solitude
fed by our imagination have assumed such gigantic and substantial shapes rapidly subside by an almost imperceptible process into less colossal proportions and seem invested
as it were with a more shadowy aspect as ferdinand armine jostled his way through the crowded streets of london urged on by his own harassing and inexorable affairs
and conscious of the impending peril of his career while power and wealth dazzled his eyes in all directions he began to look back upon the passionate past with feelings of less keen sensation than heretofore
and almost to regret that a fatal destiny or his impetuous soul had entailed upon him so much anxiety and prompted him to reject the glittering cup of fortune that had been proffered to him so opportunely
he sighed for enjoyment and repose the memory of his recent sufferings made him shrink from that reckless indulgence of the passions of which the consequences had been so severe
it was in this mood exhausted by a visit to his lawyer that he stepped into a military club and took up a newspaper caring little for politics his eye wandered over uninterested
its pugnacious leading articles and tedious parliamentary reports and he was about to throw it down when a paragraph caught his notice which instantly engrossed all his attention it was in the morning post that he thus read
whose return to england we recently noticed has resided for several years in italy his lordship is considered one of the most accomplished noblemen of the day and was celebrated at rome for his patronage of the arts
lord montfort will shortly be united to the beautiful miss temple the only daughter of the right honourable pelham temple miss temple is esteemed one of the richest heiresses in england as she will doubtless inherit the whole of the immense fortune
to which her father so unexpectedly acceded mister temple is a widower and has no son mister temple was formerly our minister at several of the german courts where he was distinguished by his abilities
we understand that mister temple
lord montfort accompanied mister temple and his amiable daughter to this country what a wild and fiery chaos was the mind of ferdinand armine when he read this paragraph
the wonders it revealed succeeded each other with such rapidity that for some time he was deprived of the power of reflection henrietta temple in england henrietta temple
whose beautiful lock of hair was at this very moment on his heart the henrietta temple for whom he had forfeited fortune family power almost life o woman woman
was there another to whom she had poured forth her heart as to him and all that beautiful flow of fascinating and unrivalled emotion was there another to whom she had pledged her pure and passionate soul ah no
he would not he could not believe it light and false henrietta could never be she had been seen she had been admired she had been loved who that saw her would not admire and love
and he was the victim of her pique perhaps of her despair but she was not yet married they were according to these lines to be soon united
whose accents had once been her joy that glance which had once filled her heart with rapture and when she found that ferdinand her own ferdinand had indeed never deceived her was worthy of her choice affection
and suffering even at this moment for her sweet sake what were all the cold blooded ties
should he not claim his right could she deny it claim what the hand of an heiress should it be said that an armine came crouching for lucre where
never whatever she might think his conduct had been faultless to her it was not for henrietta to complain she was not the victim if one indeed there might chance to be he had loved her
she had returned his passion for her sake he had made the greatest of sacrifices forfeited a splendid inheritance and a fond and faithful heart when he had thought of her before pining perhaps in some foreign solitude
he had never ceased reproaching himself for his conduct and had accused himself of deception and cruelty but now in this moment of her flush prosperity esteemed one of the richest heiresses in england
he ground his teeth as he recalled that phrase and the affianced bride of a great noble his old companion lord montfort too what a strange thing is life proud smiling and prosperous
while he was alone with a broken heart and worse than desperate fortunes and all for her sake his soul became bitter he reproached her with want of feeling he pictured her as void of genuine sensibility
he dilated on her indifference since they had parted her silence so strange now no longer inexplicable the total want of interest she had exhibited as to his career he sneered at the lightness of her temperament
it was the first time he had experienced the maddening pangs of jealousy yet how he had loved this woman how he had doated on her and now they might have been so happy there is nothing that depresses a man so much
as the conviction of bad fortune there seemed in this sudden return great wealth and impending marriage of henrietta temple such a combination so far as ferdinand armine was concerned
of vexatious circumstances it would appear that he had been so near perfect happiness
it so happened that he had promised this day to dine at his cousin's for glastonbury who was usually his companion had accepted an invitation this day to dine with the noble widow of his old patron
m one experiment that few are willing to make money cannot buy happiness but most of us are willing to make the experiment many people would take a short walk on the road to ruin if they were sure their friends wouldn't see them
money is the root of much friendship marry in haste and repent in dakota m the thirteenth letter of the alphabet which very few people use because thirteen is unlucky
macaroni an excuse for opening an italian restaurant map
a man who never tells you his troubles medal a gold or silver dingus which you get for doing something you intended to do anyway meddler the fellow who butts in and says you're not entitled to a medal
for the meaning of epiglottis consult the first doctor you meet
no matter how many good things our friends say about us we are never surprised nothing is so astonishing to us as another man's success needless to say a friend in need is a friend in the soup
nothing ventured nothing wonderful n the fourteenth letter of the alphabet sometimes called a nasal by those who ought to know better nabob a man who can put on a new suit of clothes every fifteen minutes
nation a large principality ready to go to war at a moment's notice for example carrie nation nature something which makes no mistakes with the exception of a crowded street car necessity
a place to get it in next the battle cry in a barber shop before blood is shed nit an abbreviation of nix nix an abbreviation of nit nope
the sound of a new suit of clothes on a loud man noddle the place where some people think they think novel
a well balanced head of two evils choose the one least likely to be talked about oh yes the man with a jag can hold on to the fence but he can't hold on to his reputation
opportunity is something a fool waits for while the wise guy runs down the road to meet it occasionally we meet men who have to part their hair in the middle in order to have a well balanced head o
the fifteenth letter of the alphabet used principally by the irish in front of their names oh the mild mannered sister of ouch oats
a substance invented by nature and intended for a breakfast food but because pine shavings are cheaper it is now obsolete obey
a man many young people should consult who think they have fallen in love at first sight oil see john d rockerfeller if you can old hen the pet name a man has for his wife because she rules the roost
olive a green grape dropped in a cocktail so the customer can pull it out with his fingers see cherry onion a noisy vegetable eaten principally by people who sit next to us in street cars opera
a device used for the purpose of making a fortune for a good singer opportunity something never seen until it is not there to be looked at originality the gift some people have of saying the bright things which we intended to think about later on
osler a modern abbreviation of chloroform an up to date bogie man invented for the purpose of chasing has beens to the woods osleresque the state of being ready for oslerizing see any man over forty
oslerism the art of picking out a fit subject for the osler treatment you can lead an old man into a drugstore but you can't make him drink chloroform tupper's proverbial philosophy page nineteen oslerize
to pour chloroform over an old man's breakfast food and telephone for the undertaker osleritis an attack of hysteria which broke out at a banquet and became epidemic in the newspapers oslerooza a man who believes in oslerism
osleretta a young woman who believes in oslerism
philosophy makes good reading for the man who has his rent paid perseverance is the root of all money perhaps you have met the man who is so wrapped up in himself that he thinks he is a warm baby
pleasure travels with a brass band but trouble sneaks in on rubber shoes philosophers do not believe half the things they tell themselves p
the sixteenth letter of the alphabet used principally in pickled peppers paint a polite name for balloon juice see the bartender palpitation of the tongue a disease that affects many women
patriot a man who spends all his money for fireworks for the little boy and doesn't hold out two dollars for the doctor's bill pathos a poor man laughing at his rich wife's poor joke peach
a bit of domestic fruit consisting of blonde tresses a dimple and three bows of pink ribbon peekaboo a summer idea invented for the purpose of making a girl's shirtwaist something like a barb wire fence with a full view of the scenery
it is constructed by making one stitch and forgetting seven the peekaboo is the only friend the mosquito has on earth penitentiary an assembly hall which always plays to a full house because whiskey is it's advance agent
philosopher a man who can size himself up and forget the result plan something which any fool can lay but it takes patience like a hen to hatch it pleasure
a woman who weighs two hundred seventy five pounds and listens to the name of birdie politics the place where a man gets it sometimes in the neck sometimes in the bank politician the reason we have so much politics
popularity the cold storage house where the world sends her favorites before she forgets them posterity a lot of people who will forget all about you before they are born practical joke
when nature makes a pink lobster look like a man prediction a bit of funny business invented by the weather man for the purpose of playing tiddledewinks with the weather
what a man says to a woman or a child to keep them quiet prude a female lady who wishes someone will say something so she can blush to listen and listen to blush
quitters cannot be trained to quit quitting queer isn't it that the lazier a man gets the more he wants to work somebody else quotation marks cover a multitude of plagiarists
qualmless consciences are fashionable nowadays
quack a doctor who ducks the law quarrel something that shouldn't be picked before it's ripe quart the amount of wine a sport always wants to open quire
a bunch of singers in a church sometimes called choir sometimes called down see scrap fight
to shake for the drinks quitter
the rolling stone at the bottom of the hill remember you can fool some of the people all the time if you care to spend your money that way reasons may be found for everything except why does a woman get off a street car backwards
race suicide doesn't appeal to poor people rolling stones gather no moss but look at the excitement they have r the eighteenth letter of the alphabet used principally to began a college yell thus
a material invented for chewing purposes rake a man about town after he gets shop worn rare the way you get roast beef when you order it well done reform
a bird which is always flying towards us but which never gets here retribution a man who marries for money
something which is said to have wings but i can't prove it because they never flew my way roysterer
a disease which was cured by t roosevelt esquire
for instance rondeau there was a nice old lady and she lived within her shoe she had so many children that she didn't know what to do
the president replied to her encore old girl encore
and he replied why don't you go and get another shoe sir walter scott page ninety six riddle a question mark gone mad a foolish member of the interrogation family
whose most fiendish offspring is how old is ann some examples ann's father sends his pitcher to the well mary's father sends his pitcher to the saloon how much money has ann's father saved
ann's mother has just finished reading a very beautiful story mary's mother sent over and borrowed the book how old will ann's mother be when the book gets back ann's little brother is entertaining ann's sweetheart in the parlor
ann's little brother has just told ann's sweetheart how old ann is how long did ann's sweetheart remain after he learned the bitter truth ann has a brother by the name of james james wrote two letters one to his wife and one to his lady typewriter
ten minutes after mailing them he discovered that the right letter was in the wrong envelope which train did james take and when does ann expect him back ann took a dollar bill and went to a department store she saved twenty cents for car fare
and spent eighty cents for lunch what were the clerks swearing at after ann went out ann had dark hair but she put peroxide on it to frighten it lighter ann's hair became angry at the peroxide and got up and left her head why does ann converse with callers through the speaking tube
ann's friend mary has seven brothers one of them paints sawdust in a delicatessen factory at twelve dollars per the other six play the races what time does the dinner bell ring and who squares it with the grocer
ann has another friend by the name of ellen ellen's father has one sitting room and four daughters the four daughters are engaged to four nice young gentlemen at what time in the evening does papa and mamma crawl out of the dumb waiter and how much is the gas bill
ann rode home in the elevated rough house at the twilight hour eighty seven gentlemen were there hiding behind eighty seven newspapers ann joined a strap and swung to and fro
the black sheep some people's talk is too cheap at any price some men are just like a mule because they kick at the wrong time some people save up their money for a rainy day and finally decide that a foggy day is a good enough excuse to spend it
scandal is the black sheep in the family of love s
something which can be opened on credit but it takes cash to start a church sarcasm a thirty dollar panama hat on a thirty cent man satan
an accommodating chap who picks out cosey corners in his hot house for the men that brag about being such devils among the women sceptic a man who will stop to see if there is a microbe in a kiss seashore
a violent disease which breaks out all over people when the weather gets warm the cure costs anywhere from two dollars to fifteen dollars per day according to the mood the landlord is in sincerity what our friends think about us when our backs are turned speculation
stubbornness a man who knows he is wrong but believes he is right for personal reasons suckers
failure kicked to pieces by hard work a man who can make enough noise when he wins out to drown the voices of the knockers something which can be caught if a man only runs long enough swiftness the manner in which a fool and his rich wife's money are parted
synonym a lazy man trying to win success and a hen trying to lay a corner stone seat a mythical place in a street car where many are called but few are chosen for instance
riding down town on the l he jumped to his feet gave a lady his seat i'm a liar but don't it sound well oliver goldsmith page thirty four sardine car a term of endearment given to crowded street cars
marcus aurelius
as follows the sardine cars consist of fifty people trying to squeeze into a space that was built only for a pajama hat and two newspapers the seats in the sardine cars run sideways
of a rough house that has ever been invented the are called sardine cars because the conductor has to let the passengers out with a can opener brave and strong men climb into a street car and they are full of health and life and vigor
but a few blocks up the road they fall out backwards and inquire feebly for a sanitarium to ride on the street cars in a big city of an evening brings out all that is in a man including a lot of loud words he didn't know he had
the last census shows us that the street cars in the city of new york have more ways of producing nervous prostration and palpitation of the brain to the square inch than the combined population of amsterdam rotterdam tinkersdam
and gotterdammerung to get in some of the street cars about six o'clock is a problem and to get out again is an assassination one evening i rode from forty second street to fifty ninth without once touching the floor with my feet
part of the time i used the outposts of a stout gentleman to come between me and the ground and during the rest of the occasion i hung on to a strap and swung out wild and free like the japanese flag on a windy day some of our street cars lead a double life
because they are used all winter to act the part of a refrigerator
in the street cars in germany we find germans in the cars but in america we find germs that is because this country is young and impulsive
because the law says we must not be disrespectful to the dumb brutes of the field many of our street cars are made out of the same idea as a can of condensed milk the only difference is that the street cars have a sour taste like a lemon squeezer when you get out
you cannot get in and when you get in you cannot get out
unless one of them happens to have a wooden leg under ordinary circumstances four into two won't go but the sardine cars defy the laws of gravitation a sardine car conductor can put twenty six into nine and still have four to carry the idea of expansion
which is now used by our congress was suggested by one of these sardine cars the ladies of america have started a rebellion against the sardine cars but every time they start it the conductor pulls the bell and leaves the rebellious standing on the corner we are a very nervous and careless people in america
to prove how careless we are i will cite the fact that manhattan island is called after a cocktail this nervousness is our undoing because we are always in such a hurry to get somewhere that we would rather take the first car and get squeezed into breathlessness
than wait for the next which would likely squeeze us into insensibility breathlessness can be cured but insensibility is dangerous without an alarm clock for a man with a small dining room the sardine car has its advantages
but when a stout man rides in them he finds himself supporting a lot of strangers he never met before one morning i jumped on one of those sardine cars feeling just like a two year old full of health and happiness during the first seven blocks
three men fresh from a distillery grew up in front of me and removed the scenery one of them had to get out in a hurry so he kicked me on the shins to show how sorry he was to leave me one of the other two must have been in the distillery a long time because pretty soon he neglected to use his memory and sat down in my lap
when i remonstrated with him he replied that this is a free country and if he wished to sit down i had no business to stop him then his friend pulled us apart and i resumed the use of my lap
during the next twenty blocks i had one of the worst daylight nightmares i ever rode behind the party which had been studying the exhibits in the distillery got the idea in his head that my foot was the loud pedal on a piano and he started to play the overture from william tell until i yelled
then i jumped off and swore off and swore at and walked home if the man who invented the idea of standing up between the seats in a sardine car is alive he should have a monument
chapter fourteen eleanor finds a way now that thanksgiving was past basketball became the topic of the hour the juniors had accepted the challenge of the senior class
and had agreed to play them on saturday december twelfth at two o'clock in the gymnasium only two weeks remained in which to practise their sorority enthusiasm had so completely run away with them that they had even neglected basketball until now
therefore grace harlowe lost no time in getting miss thompson's permission to use the gymnasium and promptly notified her team and the subs to meet there in gymnasium suits prepared to play that afternoon
the instant the last bell sounded on lessons ten girls made for their lockers and fifteen minutes later the first team and the subs were moving toward the gymnasium deep in the discussion of the coming game and their chances for success over their opponents
a brief meeting was held and the girls were assigned to their positions grace had fully intended that miriam should play center but when she proposed it miriam flatly refused to do so and asked for her old position of right forward
you are our captain she declared to grace and the best center i ever saw on a girls team
don't you agree with me girls nora was detailed as left forward while marian barber and eva allen played right and left guards the substitutes were also assigned their positions and practice began
and worked with the old time dash and spirit that had won them the championship the previous year now that they were in harmony with each other they played with remarkable unity and after an hour's practice grace decided that they were in a fair way to whip the seniors off the face of the earth
i never saw you girls work better she exclaimed it will be a sorry day for the seniors when we line up on the twelfth there'll be a great gnashing of senior teeth after the game remarked nora confidently do you know girls
said grace as they left the gymnasium that afternoon
i wanted her to like every bit of our school life and thought she'd surely be interested in basketball
grace harlowe are you ever going to stop mourning over eleanor cried miriam impatiently
i know what i am talking about because i used to be just as ridiculous as she is and knowing what you suffered through me i can't bear to see you unhappy again over some one who is too trivial to be taken seriously you're a dear miriam exclaimed nora impulsively
although from the time she and grace had settled their difficulties at the close of the sophomore year
where are anne and jessica to day asked eva allen anne and jessica have refused point blank to honor us with their presence during practice announced nora i asked jessica to day
for then they could wax enthusiastic and make a great deal more noise it is their ambition to become loud and loyal fans what a worthy ambition said marian barber with a giggle they are such noisy creatures already
remember we practise to morrow after school called grace as she separated from her team at her street as she walked slowly down the quiet street deep in thought her ear caught the sound of an approaching automobile and she looked up just in time to see eleanor drive by in her machine
grace nodded to her but her salutation met with a chilly stare how childish she is thought grace i suppose she thinks that hurts me
although i have far greater cause to be but before the close of the week grace was destined to cross swords with eleanor in earnest and the toleration she had felt was swallowed up in righteous indignation during the winter
theatrical companies sometimes visited oakdale for a week at a time presenting at popular prices old worn out plays and cheap melodramas these companies gave daily matinees as well as evening performances and the more frivolous element of high school girls
skipped school to spend the afternoon in the theatre by the girls this form of truancy was considered a lark
that the girls were slow to offend in this respect all this eleanor had heard among other things from edna wright but had paid little attention to it when edna had told her directly after cutting grace harlowe she had turned her runabout into main street
where a billboard had caught her eye displaying in glaring red and blue lettering the fact that the peerless dramatic company would open a week's engagement in oakdale with daily matinees eleanor's eyes sparkled she halted her machine
scanning curiously the list of plays on the billboard the nihilist's daughter was scheduled for thursday afternoon and eleanor decided to go she wasn't afraid of miss thompson
you know perfectly well that you've been shut up in your old laboratory all fall
that's what comes of having a sister who belongs to a sorority however you folks are equally guilty you've all gone mad over your sorority and left hippy and reddy and me to wander about oakdale like lost souls i hear you've adopted a girl too
reddy is horribly jealous of her he says jessica won't look at him any more reddy is laboring under a false impression said anne he is head over heels in football practice and has forgotten he ever knew jessica as for hippy
replied david you see this is our senior year and we are going to enter the same college next year if all goes well you know hippy never bothered himself much about study just managed to scrape through
said grace severely you'll have to have better excuses than football and experiments i'll tell you what we'll do to square ourselves said david smiling we'll take you girls to the football game next thursday it's thanksgiving day you know and oakdale is going to play georgetown college
reddy's on the team but hippy and i will do the honors fine replied grace but are you willing to burden yourselves with some extra girls you see it's this way one of the things that our sorority has pledged itself to do this year
is to look up the stray girls in high school and see that they are not lonely and homesick during holiday seasons i used to know nearly all the girls in school but ever so many new ones have crept in and some of them have come here from quite a distance on account of the excellence of our high school
and found out about these girls so every girl in the sorority has invited one or more of these lonely ones for thanksgiving day they are to come in the morning and stay until the lights go out
continued grace missus gray had planned a party for us but when we told her what we were about to do she gave up her party and agreed to go to mine instead on condition that anne's family plus anne's two guests should have dinner with her bless her dear heart said david
now about the football game bring your girls along and i'll do my best to give them a good time although i'm generally anything but a success with new girls however hippy makes up for what i lack he can entertain a regiment of them and not even exert himself
now i must leave you for i have a very important engagement at home in the laboratory i suppose said anne teasingly just so replied david good bye girls let me know how many tickets you want for the game
he raised his cap mounted his machine and was off down the street it will seem good to have a frolic with the boys again won't it said grace to anne as they strolled along we do seem to be getting awfully serious and settled of late replied anne
why this sorority business has taken up all our spare time lately we've had so many special meetings
but after thanksgiving we'll only meet once in two weeks for i must get my basketball team in shape and you see all the members belong to the society you ought to do extra good work this year observed anne
for the team is absolutely harmonious last season seems like a dream to me now
replied grace grimly i have forgiven long ago but i have not forgotten the way some of those girls performed last year it was remarkable that things ever straightened themselves the clouds looked black for a while didn't they anne pressed grace's hand by way of answer
the sophomore year had been crowded with many trials some of them positive school tragedies in which anne and grace had been the principal actors what are you two mooning over
asked a gay voice and the two girls turned with a start to find julia crosby grinning cheerfully at them o julia how glad i am to see you at close range exclaimed grace
that's the only thing that keeps me from your side the duties of the class president are many and irksome
why of course answered grace and anne in the same breath what is it you want us to do well it seems that some of your juniors are still in need of discipline you remember the hatchet that we buried last year with such pomp and ceremony
yes yes was the answer this morning i overheard certain girls planning to go out to the omnibus house after school to morrow and dig up the poor hatchet and flaunt it in the seniors faces the day of the opening basketball game simply to rattle us
just as though it wouldn't upset your team as much as ours it's an idiotic trick at any rate and anything but funny
select your girls but don't tell them what you want or they may tell some one about it beforehand well of all impudence exclaimed anne who are the girls julia are you sure they're juniors the two i heard talking are juniors i don't know who else is in it
they'll be very much astonished to find us waiting at the church'
tell us who they are julia said grace we don't want to go into this blindfolded wait and see replied julia tantalizingly then you'll feel more indignant and can help my cause along all the better
i give you my word that the girls i overheard talking are not particular friends of yours you aren't going to back out are you and leave me without proper support of course not laughed grace don't worry we'll support you only you must agree to do all the talking
i shall endeavor to overcome their insane freshness with a few well chosen words julia promised be sure and be on hand early grace chose anne nora jessica and marian barber the latter three being considerably mystified at her request
but nevertheless agreeing to be on hand when school closed they were met at the gate by julia and four other seniors and the whole party set out for the omnibus house without delay grace walked with julia and the two girls found plenty to say to each other during the walk
julia was studying hard she told grace she wanted to enter smith next year i don't know where i shall go after i finish high school said grace ethel post wants me to go to wellesley she'll be a junior when i'm a freshman
but i don't know whether i should like wellesley i shall not try to decide where i want to go for a while yet
said julia and grace warmly acquiesced as they neared the old omnibus house they could see no one about
thank goodness it's not cold to day or we might have a chilly vigil now listen all ye faithful while i set forth the object of this walk she thereupon related what grace and anne already knew
cried marian barber it isn't the hatchet we care for it's the principle of the thing give them what they deserve julia never fear replied julia i'll effectually attend to their case now we'd better dodge around the corner and keep out of sight until they get here
then we'll swoop down upon them unawares the avengers hurriedly concealed themselves at the side of the old house
they had not waited long before they heard voices they're coming whispered julia there are eight of them form in line and when they get nicely started we'll circle about them
the girls waited in silence they have trowels julia informed them from time to time they have a spade they've begun to dig and they are having their own troubles for the ground is hard all ready march
softly the procession approached the spot where the marauders were energetically digging
the girl using the spade was eleanor now i'm in for it groaned grace she's down on me now and she'll be sure to think i organized the whole thing for an instant grace regretted making the promise to julia before learning the situation
then holding her head a trifle more erect she decided to make the best of her unfortunate predicament it isn't julia's fault she thought she probably knows nothing about our acquaintance with eleanor besides eleanor has no business to play such tricks
edna wright must have told her all about last year her reflections were cut short for one of the girls glanced up from her digging with a sudden exclamation which drew all eyes toward julia and her party well little folks
said julia in mock surprise what sort of a party is this
at julia's first words eleanor dropped the small spade she held and straightened up the picture of defiance
who stood eyeing them in a way that made them feel too foolish for anything as one of them afterwards expressed it why don't you answer me little girls asked julia has the kitty stolen your tongue this was too much for eleanor
how dare you speak to us in that manner and treat us as though we were children she burst forth what business is it of yours why we are here do you own this property mercy no
do you no replied eleanor a trifle less rudely but we have as much right here as you have granted replied julia calmly however there is this difference you are here
to make mischief and we are here to prevent it and furthermore are going to do so what do you mean retorted eleanor her eyes flashing just this replied julia
last year the girls belonging to the present senior and junior classes met on this very spot and amicably disposed of a two year old class grudge emblematic of this they buried a hatchet
but cheerfully sacrificed for the good of the cause yesterday continued julia i overheard two juniors plotting to get possession of this same hatchet for the purpose of flaunting it in the faces of the seniors at the opening basketball game
therefore i decided to take a hand in things and here i am backed by girls from both classes who are of the self same mind really miss crosby said edna wright you are very amusing my friends all think so returned julia sweetly
but never mind now about my amusing qualities edna let's talk about the present situation she looked at edna with the old time aggravating smile that was always warranted to further incense her opponent it had its desired effect for edna fairly bristled with indignation
and was about to make a furious reply when she was pushed aside by eleanor who said loftily allow me to talk to this person edna no said julia resolutely every vestige of a smile leaving her face at eleanor's words
it would be useless for you to attempt to be spokesman in this matter because you are a new girl in high school and know nothing of past class matters except from hearsay but you have with you seven girls who do know all about the enmity that was buried here last spring
and who ought to have enough good sense to know that this afternoon's performance is liable to bring it to life again if you girls carry this hatchet to school and exhibit it to the seniors on the day of the game
she said turning to the others there are sure to be some girls in the senior class who would resent it neither class has played tricks on the other since peace was declared
that's the reason i asked grace to appoint a committee of juniors and come out here with me i feel sure that under the circumstances the absent members of both classes would agree with us if they were present digging up a rusty old hatchet is nothing but digging up a rusty old grudge is quite another matter
we didn't come here to quarrel but i appeal to you as members of the junior class to think before you do something that is bound to cause us all annoyance and perhaps unhappiness there was complete silence after julia finished speaking
eleanor alone looked belligerent perhaps we'd better let the old hatchet alone daisy culver said sullenly the fun is all spoiled now and everyone will know about it before school begins to morrow daisy how can you say so exclaimed grace
who fearing a scene with eleanor had hitherto remained silent you know perfectly well that none of us will say anything about it
this was eleanor's opportunity turning furiously on grace her eyes flashing she exclaimed yes there is one girl who would tell anything and that girl is you you pretend to be honorable and high principled
but you are nothing but a hypocrite and a sneak i would not trust you as far as i could see you i have no doubt miss crosby obtained her information about this affair to day from you
you seem determined to meddle with matters that do not concern you and i warn you that if you do not change your tactics you may regret it you seem to think yourself the idol of your class but there are some of the girls who are too clever to be deceived
they do not belong among the number who trail tamely after you either and now i wish to say that i despise you and all your friends and wish never to speak to any of you again come on girls she said
turning to the members of her party who had listened in silent amazement to her attack upon grace let us go let them keep their trumpery hatchet with these words she turned and stalked across the field to the road where her runabout stood after an instant's hesitation
henceforth there would again be two distinct factions in the junior class good gracious exclaimed julia crosby talk about your human whirlwinds what on earth did you ever do to her grace but grace could not answer
she was winking hard to keep back the tears twice she attempted to speak and failed
said julia slipping her arm about grace while the other girls gathered round with many expressions of displeasure at eleanor's cruel speech i can't help feeling badly said grace with a sob she said such dreadful things no one who knows you would believe them
replied julia by the way who is she
and that she's a recent arrival in oakdale
you must have seriously offended her ladyship i'll tell you about her as we walk along replied grace wiping her eyes and smiling a little
and a loving mother's arms only to be thrust instantly into poverty misery and loneliness and then to be after four long years suddenly returned
and questioned if it all indeed were true bit by bit the little girl's history was related in every house in town and many a woman and some men wept over the tale of how the little fingers
had sewed on buttons in the attic sweat shop and pasted bags in the ill smelling cellar the story of the cooperative housekeeping establishment in one corner of the basement kitchen where she together with patty and the twins divvied up the day's haul
that too came in for its share of exclamatory adjectives as did the account of how she was finally discovered through her finding her own name over the little cot bed at mont lawn the little bed that missus kendall had endowed in the name of her lost daughter
in the children's vacation home for the poor little waifs from the city an ter think of her findin her own baby jest by givin some other woman's baby a bit of joy cried missus merton
of the old red farmhouse when the story was told to her but there
an the boy bobby back from the city and ain't sadie gettin well an strong on the farm here and it's a comfort ter me too when i remember twas bobby who first found the little margaret
an took her home ter my sadie twa'n't much sadie could do for the poor little lamb but she did what she could till old sullivan got his claws on her and kept her shut up out o sight but there
she's home now in her own mother's arms
this time to the embarrassment of both missus kendall and her daughter
on the lost and found nor was this all to missus kendall it seemed that almost every man woman and child in the place came to her door with inquiries and congratulations together
from flowers and frosted cakes
certainly but she was overwhelmed not only the cakes and the tidies however gave missus kendall food for thought during those first few days after margaret's return
of necessity a period of adjustment and to missus kendall's consternation
and then under only such as a city missionary and an overworked schoolteacher could afford supplemented by the two trips to mont lawn to be sure behind it all had been margaret's careful training for the first five years of her life
to become at once margaret kendall the dainty little daughter of a well bred fastidious mother to the doctor
and who knew her as she was missus kendall went for advice what shall i do she asked anxiously a hundred times a day the dear child's speech movements and actions are not what i like them to be and yet
if i correct each one twill be a continual don't all day why doctor the child will hate me
and at the look in his eyes missus kendall dropped her own the happiness that had come to her with this man's love was very new she had scarcely yet looked it squarely in the face the child is so good and loving she went on a little hurriedly
that it makes it all the harder but i must do something only this morning she told the minister that
she'll have to be corrected some of course it's out of the question that she shouldn't be but she'll come out straight her heart is all right missus kendall laughed softly her heart doctor she exclaimed just there lies the greatest problem of all
the one creed of her life is to divvy up and how i'm going to teach her ordinary ideas of living without shattering all her faith in me i don't know why harry missus kendall's voice was tragic
so far her horror is tempered by the fact that she is sure i didn't know before that there were any people who did not have all these things now that she has told me of them she confidently looks to me
to do my obvious duty at once the doctor laughed as if you weren't always doing things for people he said fondly then he grew suddenly grave the dear child i'm afraid that along with her education
and civilization her altruism will get a few hard knocks but she'll get over that too you'll see at heart she's so gentle and why what he broke off with an unspoken question
his eyes widely opened at the change that had come to her face oh nothing returned missus kendall almost despairingly only if you'd seen joe bagley yesterday morning i'm afraid you'd
have changed your opinion of her gentleness she she fought him
joe bagley gasped the doctor why he's almost twice her size yes i know but that didn't seem to occur to margaret returned missus kendall
well she rescued the kitten and then administered what she deemed to be fit punishment there and then when i arrived on the scene they were the center of an admiring crowd of children missus kendall shivered visibly
straight from the heart harry
no no of course not murmured the doctor hastily though his eyes still glowed it won't do of course but you must remember her life her struggle for very existence all those years she had to train her fists to fight her way
chapter thirty one
the household at hilcrest did not break up as early as usual that year a few days were consumed in horrified remonstrances and tearful pleadings on the part of missus merideth and ned when margaret's plans became known then
of despair had brought something like peace to the family it is not so dreadful at all margaret had assured them i have taken a large house not far from the mills and i am having it papered and painted and put into very comfortable shape
patty and her family will live with me and we are going to open classes in simple little things that will help toward better living but that is regular settlement work sighed missus merideth
well perhaps it is anyway i hope that just the presence of one clean beautiful home among them will do some good i mean to try it at all events but are you going to do nothing but that all the time
just teach those dreadful creatures and and live there certainly not declared margaret with a bright smile i've planned a trip to new york to new york missus merideth sat up suddenly her face alight oh that will be fine lovely
you'll need a rest all right i'm thinking and we'll keep you just as long as we can too with lightning rapidity missus merideth had changed their plans in her mind they would go to new york not egypt egypt had seemed desirable
but if margaret was going to new york that altered the case oh
besides i'm going with patty with patty
missus merideth's shocked recoil at the girl's words yes
we shall have teachers to help us you know patty and i are going to new york to see if we can't find her sisters arabella and clarabella what absurd names missus merideth spoke sharply in reality
or were not absurd but they chanced at the moment to be a convenient scapegoat for her anger and discomfiture patty doesn't think them absurd laughed margaret she would tell you that she named them herself
you should hear patty say it really to appreciate it
ye don't have ter have em if ye don't want em you can change em ugh shuddered missus merideth margaret how can you laugh why it's funny i think laughed margaret again as she turned away
even the most urgent entreaties on the part of margaret failed to start the spencers on their trip and not until she finally threatened to make the first move herself and go down to the town did they consent to go
but that absurd house of yours isn't ready yet protested missus merideth
as you insist upon calling it but if you won't why i must that is all i must be there to superintend matters then i suppose i shall have to go moaned missus merideth
only on that one condition margaret smiled but she made no comment it was enough to fight present battles without trying to win future ones
margaret moved to patty's little house on the hill road her tiny room up under the eaves
and the supper which to patty was sumptuous in the extravagance she had allowed herself in her visitor's honor did not tempt her appetite in the least she told herself however that all this was well and good and she ate the supper and laid herself down upon the hard bed
with an exaltation that rendered her oblivious to taste and feeling in due time the mill house as margaret called her new home was ready for occupancy and the family moved in naming the place had given margaret no little food for thought
something that the people will like and feel an interest in but i don't want any refuges or havens or rests or homes about it it is a home but not the kind that begins with a capital letter it is just one of the mill houses
well why don't ye call it the mill house then an done with it demanded patty patty you're a genius i will cried margaret and the mill house it was from that day
only a few enrolled themselves as pupils never mind said margaret we shall grow you'll see the mill people however were not the only ones that learned something during the next few months margaret herself learned much
she learned that while there were men
away and drank up their children's hard earned wages there were others
i hain't got nothin ter do yit miss one such said to margaret in answer to her sympathetic inquiries but thar ain't a boss but what said if i'd got kids i might send them along they was short o kids i been tryin ter keep
rosy an katy ter school i was cal'latin ter make somethin of em more'n their dad an their mammy is but i reckon as how i'll have ter set em ter work oh but you mustn't remonstrated margaret
that would spoil everything don't you see that you mustn't they must go to school get an education the man gazed at her with dull eyes they got ter eat first he said yes yes i know
interposed margaret eagerly i understand all that and i'll help about that part
his shoulders straightened thank ye miss
and he turned away a week later margaret learned that rosy and katy were out of school when she looked them up she found them at work in the mills this matter of the school question was a great puzzle to margaret very early in her efforts
she had sought out the public school teachers and asked their help and advice she was appalled at the number of children who appeared scarcely to understand that there was such a thing as school this state of affairs
she could not seem to remedy however in spite of her earnest efforts the parents in many cases were indifferent and the children more so some of the children in the mills indeed were there solely according to the parents version
because they could not get on in school conscious that there must be a school law margaret went vigorously to work to find and enforce it then and not until then did she realize the seriousness
there were other phases too
sometimes it was ambition there were men who could not even speak the language of their adopted country intelligibly yet who had ever before them the one end and aim money to this end and aim
were sacrificed all the life and strength of whatever was theirs the minute such a man's boys and girls were big enough and tall enough to be sworn in he got the papers and set them to work
for some time after mc ginnis went away margaret remained at the mill house but she was restless and unhappy in the position in which she found herself mc ginnis taught an evening class at the mill house and she knew
that it could not be easy for him to see her so frequently now that the engagement was broken margaret blamed herself bitterly not for the broken engagement but for the fact
she told herself that she ought to have known that the feeling she had for bobby was not love and she asked herself scornfully what she thought of a young woman who could give that love all unsought to a man
it seemed to margaret as she thought of it that there was no way for her to turn but to leave both the mill house and hilcrest for a time bobby would be happier with her away and the mill house did not need her
and had materially strengthened the teaching force as for hilcrest she certainly would not stay at hilcrest anyway now
but not now it did not take much persuasion on the part of margaret to convince missus merideth that a winter abroad would be delightful just they two together the news of margaret's broken engagement had been received at hilcrest
with a joyous relief that was nevertheless carefully subdued in the presence of margaret herself but missus merideth could not conceal her joy that she was to take margaret away from the whole unfortunate affair as she expressed it to her brothers
but margaret i don't see why you must go he protested
then she turned swiftly and faced him frank bobby mc ginnis was my good friend from the time when i was a tiny little girl he has been that he is good and true and noble but i have brought him nothing but sorrow
he will be happier now if i am quite out of his sight at present i am going away frank spencer stirred uneasily but
oh but if i'm here i shall be there contested margaret with a haste that refused to consider logic then as she saw the whimsical smile come into the man's eyes she added brokenly
you poor child of course you do and no wonder you are worn out with the strain margaret she raised a protesting hand no no you do not understand i i have made a failure of it
there was a feverishness in margaret's manner and a tremulousness in her voice
but my dear margaret argued the man there's nothing the matter with it it's no failure at all you've done wonders down there at the mill house margaret shook her head slowly it's so little
so very little compared to what ought to be done she sighed the mill house is good and does good i acknowledge but it's so puny after all it's like a tiny little oasis in a huge desert of poverty and distress
what more could you do ventured the man margaret rose and moved restlessly around the room i don't know she said at last
of the fire on one side is the man trying to put it out on the other is the evil one pouring on oil my two hands are the two men with one i feed a hungry child or nurse a sick woman
with the other i make more children hungry and more women sick margaret are you mad what can you mean merely this it is very simple after all with one hand i relieve the children's suffering with the other
i take dividends from the very mills that make the children suffer a long time ago i wanted to divvy up with patty and bobby and the rest i have even thought lately
now with my people down there at the mills and her voice rang with self scorn the man frowned he too got to his feet and walked nervously up and down the room when he came back the girl had sat down again
her elbows were on the table and her linked fingers were shielding her eyes involuntarily the man reached his hand
it is at the mills themselves that the first start must be made the first beginning of the divvying up perhaps if there were some one to show us he paused then went on unsteadily
i suppose it's useless to say again what i said that day months ago that if you stayed here and showed him the man who loves you the better way
and picked up a bit of paper from the floor of course it is useless she retorted in what she hoped was a merry voice and he doesn't even love me now besides he doesn't love you frank spencer's eyes and voice were amazed
of course not he never did for that matter twas only the fancy of a moment why frank ned never cared for me that way ned the tone and the one word were enough
for one moment margaret gazed into the man's face with startled eyes then she turned and covered her own telltale face with her hands and because it was a telltale face spencer took a long stride toward her
margaret and did you think it was ned i was pleading for when all the while it was i who was hungering for you with a love that sent me across the seas to rid myself of it did you margaret there was no answer
margaret look at me let me see your eyes there was a note of triumphant joy in his voice now still no answer margaret it did not go that love it stayed with me day after day
and month after month and it only grew stronger and deeper until there was nothing left me in all this world but you just you and now margaret my margaret he said softly and very tenderly
even already a visible influence had radiated from its shining windows and orderly yard and the neighboring houses with their obvious attempt at slickin up
the classes boasted a larger attendance and the stomachs and the babies
were feeling the beneficial results of the lessons to margaret however the whole thing seemed hopelessly small there was so much to do so little done she was still the little girl with the teaspoon and the bowl of sand and the chasm yawned
had come a breathing space when the intricate machinery of her scheme could run for a moment without her hand at the throttle she was left weak and nerveless she was in fact perilously near a breakdown
added to all this she was lonely more than she would own to herself she missed her friends her home life at hilcrest and the tender care and sympathetic interest that had been lavished upon her for so many years
which was seldom treated her with a frigid deference that was inexpressibly annoying to her
earlier in the winter the letters had been more frequent nervously anxious epistles of some length from missus merideth stilted notes half protesting half pleading from ned and short but wonderfully sympathetic communications from frank
later frank had fallen very ill with a fever of some sort and missus merideth and ned
little bulletins from the sick room then had come the good news that frank was out of danger though still far too weak to undertake the long journey home their letters showed unmistakably their impatience at the delay and questioned her as to her health and welfare
but could set no date for their return frank in particular was disturbed they said he had not planned to leave either herself or the mills so long it being his intention when he went away merely to take a short trip with his sister and brother
and then hurry back to america alone as for frank himself he had not written her since his illness margaret was thinking of all this and was feeling specially forlorn
she held a book before her but she was not reading and she looked up at once when patty entered the room i'm sorry ter trouble ye began patty hesitatingly but bobby mc ginnis is here an wanted me ter ask ye
margaret raised an imperious hand that's all right patty she said so sharply
but suppose you just ask bobby mc ginnis to come here to me and ask his question direct i will see him now and patty wondering vaguely what had come to her gentle eyed gentle voiced mistress as she insisted upon calling margaret fled
precipitately two minutes later bobby mc ginnis himself stood tall and straight just inside the door you sent for me he asked margaret sprang to her feet all the pent loneliness of the past weeks and months
burst forth in a stinging whip of retort yes i sent for you she paused but the man did not speak and in a moment she went on hurriedly feverishly i always send for you if i see you at all and yet you know how hard i'm trying to help these people
didn't i appoint us a committee of two to do the work her voice shook and her chin trembled like that of a grieved child yes again that strained almost harsh monosyllable margaret made an impatient gesture
why don't you come to me frankly and freely and tell me the best way to deal with these people there was no answer the man had half turned his face so that only his profile showed clean cut and square chinned against the close shut door
don't you know that i am alone here that i have no friends but you and patty she went on tremulously
sometimes it seems almost as if you were afraid i am afraid
bobby breathed margaret in surprised dismay falling back before the fire in the eyes that suddenly turned and flashed straight into hers
if the man heard he did not heed the bonds of his self control had snapped and the torrent of words came with a force that told how great had been the pressure
as she fell back and his eyes still blazed into hers i am afraid i'm afraid of myself he cried i don't dare to trust myself within sight of your dear eyes or within touch of your dear hands though all the while i'm hungry for both
perhaps i do let you send for me instead of coming of my own free will but i'm never without the thought of you and the hope of catching somewhere a glimpse of even your dress
many's the night i've walked the street outside watching the light at your window and many's the night i've not gone home until dawn
he broke off hoarsely dropping his face into his hands and sinking into the chair behind him over by the table margaret stood silent motionless her eyes on the bowed figure of the man before her
gradually her confused senses were coming into something like order slowly her dazed thoughts were taking shape it was her own fault she had brought this thing upon herself
was it not after all the very best thing that could have happened where and how could she do more good in the world than right here with this strong loving heart to help her she loved him too
doubtless that was half the cause of her present restlessness and unhappiness she had loved him all the time and did not know it surely there was no one in the world who could so wisely help her in her dear work
any more won't have to stay away the man was on his feet incredulous wonder in his eyes no we we will do it together this work
but you don't mean
mc ginnis paused his breath suspended but i do she answered the quick red flying to her cheeks then half laughing half crying she faltered and
soon the entire party was gathered on the road of yellow bricks quite beyond the reach of the beautiful but treacherous plants the shaggy man staring first at one and then at the other seemed greatly pleased and interested
said he but never anything queerer than this band of adventurers
haven't you always lived in the land of oz asked the munchkin boy
but i came here once with dorothy and ozma let me stay
it's the finest country in all the world even if it is a fairyland and i'm happy every minute i live in it said the shaggy man but tell me something about yourselves
so ojo related the story of his visit to the house of the crooked magician and how he met there the glass cat and how the patchwork girl was brought to life and of the terrible accident to unc nunkie and margolotte
then he told how he had set out to find the five different things which the magician needed to make a charm that would restore the marble figures to life one requirement being three hairs from a woozy's tail we found the woozy explained the boy
and he agreed to give us the three hairs but we couldn't pull them out so we had to bring the woozy along with us i see returned the shaggy man
said the woozy so the shaggy man tried it but pull as hard as he could he failed to get the hairs out of the woozy's tail so he sat down again and wiped his shaggy face with a shaggy silk handkerchief and said it doesn't matter
if you can keep the woozy until you get the rest of the things you need you can take the beast and his three hairs to the crooked magician and let him find a way to extract em
one said ojo is a six leaved clover
said the shaggy man there is a law against picking six leaved clovers but i think i can get ozma to let you have one thank you replied ojo the next thing is the left wing of a yellow butterfly
for that you must go to the winkie country the shaggy man declared i've never noticed any butterflies there but that is the yellow country of oz and it's ruled by a good friend of mine
the tin woodman oh i've heard of him exclaimed ojo he must be a wonderful man so he is and his heart is wonderfully kind i'm sure the tin woodman will do all in his power to help you to save your unc nunkie and poor margolotte
the next thing i must find said the munchkin boy is a gill of water from a dark well indeed well that is more difficult said the shaggy man scratching his left ear in a puzzled way
no said ojo do you know where one may be found inquired the shaggy man i can't imagine said ojo then we must ask the scarecrow the scarecrow
but surely sir a scarecrow can't know anything most scarecrows don't i admit answered the shaggy man but this scarecrow of whom i speak is very intelligent
asked scraps better than mine echoed the glass cat mine are pink and you can see em work well you can't see the scarecrow's brains work
but they do a lot of clever thinking asserted the shaggy man if anyone knows where a dark well is it's my friend the scarecrow where does he live inquired ojo
he has a splendid castle in the winkie country near to the palace of his friend the tin woodman and he is often to be found in the emerald city where he visits dorothy at the royal palace then we will ask him about the dark well
said ojo but what else does this crooked magician want asked the shaggy man a drop of oil from a live man's body oh but there isn't such a thing
that is what i thought replied ojo but the crooked magician said it wouldn't be called for by the recipe if it couldn't be found and therefore i must search until i find it i wish you good luck
said the shaggy man shaking his head doubtfully but i imagine you'll have a hard job getting a drop of oil from a live man's body there's blood in a body but no oil there's cotton in mine said scraps dancing a little jig
i don't doubt it returned the shaggy man admiringly
explained the glass cat the shaggy man laughed
he said i'm sure dorothy will be pleased with her and the scarecrow will dote on her did you say you were traveling toward the emerald city yes replied ojo i thought that the best place to go at first
because the six leaved clover may be found there i'll go with you said the shaggy man and show you the way thank you exclaimed ojo i hope it won't put you out any
i've been a rover all my life and although ozma has given me a suite of beautiful rooms in her palace
to accompany you to the great city of oz and introduce you to my friends that will be very nice said the boy gratefully i hope your friends are not dignified observed scraps some are and some are not he answered
with this she ran up the path skipping and dancing and then turned to await them it is quite a distance from here to the emerald city remarked the shaggy man so we shall not get there to day nor to morrow therefore
let us take the jaunt in an easy manner i'm an old traveler and have found that i never gain anything by being in a hurry take it easy is my motto if you can't take it easy take it as easy as you can
after walking some distance over the road of yellow bricks ojo said he was hungry and would stop to eat some bread and cheese he offered a portion of the food to the shaggy man who thanked him but refused it
said he i carry along enough square meals to last me several weeks think i'll indulge in one now as long as we're stopping anyway saying this he took a bottle from his pocket and shook from it a tablet about the size of one of ojo's finger nails
that announced the shaggy man is a square meal in condensed form invention of the great professor woggle bug of the royal college of athletics it contains soup fish
roast meat salad apple dumplings ice cream and chocolate drops all boiled down to this small size so it can be conveniently carried
said the woozy give me one please so the shaggy man gave the woozy a tablet from his bottle and the beast ate it in a twinkling
there's no fun in that sort of eating one should only eat to sustain life replied the shaggy man and that tablet is equal to a peck of other food i don't care for it
i want something i can chew and taste grumbled the woozy you are quite wrong my poor beast said the shaggy man in a tone of pity
which you can swallow in a jiffy chewing isn't tiresome it's fun maintained the woozy
protested the shaggy man may be answered the woozy
having eaten all those things you gave me but i consider this eating business a matter of taste and i like to realize what's going into me ojo gave the beast what he wanted
but the shaggy man shook his shaggy head reproachfully and said there was no animal so obstinate or hard to convince as a woozy at this moment a patter of footsteps was heard
and looking up they saw the live phonograph standing before them it seemed to have passed through many adventures since ojo and his comrades last saw the machine for the varnish of its wooden case was all marred and dented and scratched in a way that gave it an aged and disreputable appearance
dear me exclaimed ojo staring hard what has happened to you nothing much replied the phonograph in a sad and depressed voice
just now i've a record on tap that is really superb said the phonograph growing more cheerful that is too bad
they looked at one another inquiringly but no one could answer such a puzzling question finally the shaggy man said i'd like to hear the phonograph play ojo sighed
we've been very happy since we met you sir he said i know but a little misery at times makes one appreciate happiness more tell me phony
which you say you have on tap it's a popular song sir in all civilized lands the common people have gone wild over it
then it's dangerous wild with joy i mean explained the phonograph listen this song will prove a rare treat to you i know it made the author rich for an author
it is called my lulu then the phonograph began to play a strain of odd jerky sounds was followed by these words sung by a man through his nose with great vigor of expression
mah coal black lulu ah wants mah loo loo loo loo loo loo lu ah loves mah lulu mah coal black lulu there ain't nobody else loves loo loo lu here shut that off
it's the latest popular song declared the phonograph speaking in a sulky tone of voice a popular song yes
one that the feeble minded can remember the words of and those ignorant of music can whistle or sing that makes a popular song popular and the time is coming
that time won't come to us just yet said the shaggy man sternly i'm something of a singer myself and i don't intend to be throttled by any lulus like your coal black one
having performed this painful duty i shall but before he could say more the phonograph turned and dashed up the road as fast as its four table legs could carry it and soon it had entirely disappeared from their view
the shaggy man sat down again and seemed well pleased
said he for it is not possible that such a music maker can last long in the land of oz when you are rested friends let us go on our way during the afternoon the travelers found themselves in a lonely and uninhabited part of the country
even the fields were no longer cultivated and the country began to resemble a wilderness the road of yellow bricks seemed to have been neglected and became uneven and more difficult to walk upon scrubby under brush grew on either side of the way
while huge rocks were scattered around in abundance but this did not deter ojo and his friends from trudging on and they beguiled the journey with jokes and cheerful conversation toward evening they reached a crystal spring which gushed from a tall rock by the roadside
and near this spring stood a deserted cabin said the shaggy man halting here we may as well pass the night here where there is shelter for our heads and good water to drink road beyond here is pretty bad worst we shall have to travel so let's wait until morning before we tackle it
they agreed to this and ojo found some brushwood in the cabin and made a fire on the hearth the fire delighted scraps who danced before it until ojo warned her she might set fire to herself and burn up
but the woozy lay down before the fire like a big dog and seemed to enjoy its warmth for supper the shaggy man ate one of his tablets but ojo stuck to his bread and cheese as the most satisfying food he also gave a portion to the woozy
when darkness came on and they sat in a circle on the cabin floor facing the firelight there being no furniture of any sort in the place ojo said to the shaggy man won't you tell us a story i'm not good at stories
was the reply but i sing like a bird
like a song bird i'll prove it i'll sing a song i composed myself don't tell anyone i'm a poet they might want me to write a book
haven't time to be a public benefactor so i'll just sing you this little song for your own amusement they were glad enough to be entertained and listened with interest while the shaggy man chanted the following verses to a tune that was not unpleasant
i'll sing a song of ozland where wondrous creatures dwell and fruits and flowers and shady bowers abound in every dell where magic is a science and where no one shows surprise if some amazing thing takes place before his very eyes
and then there's princess dorothy as sweet as any rose a lass from kansas where they don't grow fairies i suppose and there's the brainy scarecrow with a body stuffed with straw
i'll not forget nick chopper the woodman made of tin whose tender heart thinks killing time is quite a dreadful sin nor old professor woggle bug who's highly magnified and looks so big to everyone that he is filled with pride
jack pumpkinhead's a dear old chum who might be called a chump
the sawhorse is a splendid steed and though he's made of wood he does as many thrilling stunts as any meat horse could
the cowardly lion shakes with fear most ev'ry time he roars
because he knows that cowardice is not considered right there's tik tok he's a clockwork man and quite a funny sight he talks and walks mechanically when he's wound up tight and we've a hungry tiger who would babies love to eat
but never does because we feed him other kinds of meat it's hard to name all of the freaks this noble land's acquired twould make my song so very long that you would soon be tired but give attention while i mention one wise yellow hen
just search the whole world over sail the seas from coast to coast no other nation in creation queerer folk can boast and now our rare museum will include a cat of glass
a woozy and last but not least
ojo was so pleased with this song that he applauded the singer by clapping his hands and scraps followed suit by clapping her padded fingers together although they made no noise the cat pounded on the floor with her glass paws gently so as not to break them
and the woozy which had been asleep woke up to ask what the row was about i seldom sing in public for fear they might want me to start an opera company remarked the shaggy man who was pleased to know his effort was appreciated
said the patchwork girl earnestly do all those queer people you mention really live in the land of oz every one of em i even forgot one thing dorothy's pink kitten
how absurd is it glass
then it can't amount to much
said the shaggy man yawning the glass cat seemed annoyed do you think a pink kitten common meat is as pretty as i am she asked can't say tastes differ you know replied the shaggy man yawning again
but here's a pointer that may be of service to you make friends with eureka and you'll be solid at the palace i'm solid now solid glass you don't understand rejoined the shaggy man sleepily
anyhow make friends with the pink kitten and you'll be all right if the pink kitten despises you look out for breakers would anyone at the royal palace break a glass cat might you never can tell
advise you to purr soft and look humble if you can and now i'm going to bed bungle considered the shaggy man's advice so carefully that her pink brains were busy long after the others of the party
chapter ten shaggy man to the rescue they had not gone very far before bungle who had run on ahead came bounding back to say that the road of yellow bricks was just before them
at once they hurried forward to see what this famous road looked like it was a broad road
and picked out the easiest places to go all its length and breadth was paved with smooth bricks of a bright yellow color so it was smooth
leaving holes that might cause the unwary to stumble i wonder said ojo looking up and down the road which way to go
with my heart rending growl my horrible shudderful growl i should say not i am not afraid of anything declared the woozy i wish i could say the same sighed ojo
i don't think we need be afraid when we get to the emerald city for unc nunkie has told me that ozma our girl ruler is very lovely and kind and tries to help everyone who is in trouble
but they say there are many dangers lurking on the road to the great fairy city and so we must be very careful i hope nothing will break me
said the glass cat in a nervous voice i'm a little brittle you know and can't stand many hard
said the patchwork girl i'm not sure you have a heart
do you think they are all fast colors ojo she asked anxiously they seem fast enough when you run he replied and then
oh what lovely trees they were certainly pretty to look upon and the travelers hurried forward to observe them more closely
the plants formed rows on both sides of the road and from each plant rose a dozen or more of the big broad leaves which swayed continually from side to side
they seemed to have a general groundwork of blue
gorgeous yellows turning to pink purple orange and scarlet mingled with more sober browns and grays each appearing as a blotch or stripe anywhere on a leaf and then disappearing
the changeful coloring of the great leaves was very beautiful
and the novelty of the scene drew our travelers close to the line of plants where they stood watching them with rapt interest suddenly a leaf bent lower than usual and touched the patchwork girl swiftly
it enveloped her in its embrace covering her completely in its thick folds and then it swayed back upon its stem why she's gone gasped ojo in amazement and listening carefully he thought he could hear the muffled screams of scraps coming from the center of the folded leaf
but before he could think what he ought to do to save her another leaf bent down and captured the glass cat
ojo turned and saw the woozy running swiftly up the road but the last leaf of the row of plants seized the beast even as he ran and instantly he disappeared from sight the boy had no chance to escape
half a dozen of the great leaves were bending toward him from different directions and as he stood hesitating one of them clutched him in its embrace in a flash he was in the dark then he felt himself gently lifted until he was swaying in the air
but neither struggles nor protests had any effect whatever the leaf held him firmly and he was a prisoner then ojo quieted himself and tried to think
even as he was and there was none to save them i might have expected it he sobbed miserably i'm ojo the unlucky and something dreadful was sure to happen to me he pushed against the leaf that held him
and found it to be soft but thick and firm
the minutes passed and became hours ojo wondered how long one could live in such a condition and if the leaf would gradually sap his strength and even his life in order to feed itself the little munchkin boy had never heard of any person dying in the land of oz
but he knew one could suffer a great deal of pain his greatest fear at this time was that he would always remain imprisoned in the beautiful leaf and never see the light of day again no sound came to him through the leaf
all around was intense silence ojo wondered if scraps had stopped screaming or if the folds of the leaf prevented his hearing her by and by he thought he heard a whistle as of some one whistling a tune yes
it really must be some one whistling he decided for he could follow the strains of a pretty munchkin melody
the sounds were low and sweet and although they reached ojo's ears very faintly they were clear and harmonious could the leaf whistle ojo wondered nearer and nearer came the sounds
and then they seemed to be just the other side of the leaf that was hugging him suddenly the whole leaf toppled and fell carrying the boy with it and while he sprawled at full length the folds slowly relaxed and set him free he scrambled quickly to his feet
and found that a strange man was standing before him a man so curious in appearance that the boy stared with round eyes he was a big man with shaggy whiskers shaggy eyebrows shaggy hair
on his head was a green velvet hat with a jeweled band which was all shaggy around the brim rich but shaggy laces were at his throat a coat with shaggy edges was decorated with diamond buttons
the velvet breeches had jeweled buckles at the knees and shags all around the bottoms on his breast hung a medallion bearing a picture of princess dorothy of oz and in his hand as he stood looking at ojo was a sharp knife shaped like a dagger
oh exclaimed ojo greatly astonished at the sight of this stranger and then he added who has saved me sir can't you see
replied the other with a smile i'm the shaggy man yes i can see that said the boy nodding was it you who rescued me from the leaf none other you may be sure
but take care or i shall have to rescue you again ojo gave a jump for he saw several broad leaves leaning toward him
past the last of the great plants and not till he was safely beyond their reach did he cease his whistling
singing or whistling it doesn't matter which makes em behave and nothing else will i always whistle as i go by em and so they always let me alone to day as i went by whistling i saw a leaf curled and knew there must be something inside it
i cut down the leaf with my knife and out you popped lucky i passed by wasn't it you were very kind said ojo and i thank you will you please rescue my companions also what companions asked the shaggy man
the leaves grabbed them all said the boy there's a patchwork girl and
a girl made of patchwork you know she's alive and her name is scraps and there's a glass cat glass asked the shaggy man all glass and alive yes said ojo she has pink brains
why i i can't describe it answered the boy greatly perplexed but it's a queer animal with three hairs on the tip of its tail that won't come out and what won't come out asked the shaggy man the tail
the hairs won't come out but you'll see the woozy if you'll please rescue it and then you'll know just what it is of course said the shaggy man nodding his shaggy head and then he walked back among the plants still whistling
the first leaf he cut down released scraps and on seeing her the shaggy man threw back his shaggy head opened wide his mouth and laughed so shaggily and yet so merrily that scraps liked him at once
then he took off his hat and made her a low bow saying my dear you're a wonder i must introduce you to my friend the scarecrow
when he cut down the second leaf he rescued the glass cat and bungle was so frightened that she scampered away like a streak and soon had joined ojo when she sat beside him panting and trembling the last plant of all the row had captured the woozy
and a big bunch in the center of the curled leaf showed plainly where he was
write down the series zero three six twelve twenty four
pallas in march eighteen o two by olbers juno in eighteen o four by harding and vesta in eighteen o seven by olbers no more asteroids were discovered till eighteen forty five
but there are now several hundreds known their diameters range from five hundred to twenty miles neptune was discovered from the perturbations of uranus by sheer calculation
it was first knowingly seen by galle of berlin on the twenty third of september eighteen forty six
the discovery of the asteroids up to the time of herschel astronomical interest centred on the solar system since that time it has been divided and a great part of our attention has been given to the more distant celestial bodies
the solar system has by no means lost its interest it has indeed gained in interest continually as we gain in knowledge concerning it but in order to follow the course of science it will be necessary for us to oscillate to and fro
sometimes attending to the solar system the planets and their satellites sometimes extending our vision to the enormously more distant stellar spaces
an empirical relation is however known
bode's law asserts that the distance of each planet is approximately double the distance of the inner adjacent planet from the sun but that the rate of increase is distinctly slower than this for the inner ones
consequently a better approximation will be obtained by adding a constant to each term of an appropriate geometrical progression thus form a doubling series like this
six twelve
then add four to each and you get a series which expresses very fairly the relative distances of the successive planets from the sun except that the number for mercury is rather erroneous
a quiet astronomer in sicily piazzi was engaged in making a catalogue of the stars his attention was directed to a certain region in taurus by an error in a previous catalogue which contained a star really non existent
in the course of his scrutiny on the first of january eighteen o one he noticed a small star which next evening appeared to have shifted
he watched it anxiously for successive evenings and by the twenty fourth of january he was quite sure he had got hold of some moving body not a star probably he thought a comet it was very small only of the eighth magnitude
and he wrote to two astronomers one of them bode himself saying what he had observed he continued to observe till the eleventh of february when he was attacked by illness and compelled to cease his letters did not reach their destination till the end of march
but unfortunately he was unable to verify the guess for the object whatever it was had now got too near the sun to be seen it would not be likely to be out again before september and by that time it would be hopelessly lost again
and have just as much to be rediscovered as if it had never been seen mathematical astronomers tried to calculate a possible orbit for the body from the observations of piazzi but the observed places were so desperately few and close together
it was like having to determine a curve from three points close together
all the calculations gave different results and none were of the slightest use the difficulty as it turned out was most fortunate it resulted in the discovery of one of the greatest mathematicians perhaps the greatest that germany has ever produced
gauss he was then a young man of twenty five eking out a living by tuition he had invented but not published several powerful mathematical methods one of them now known as the method of least squares and he applied them to piazzi's observations
he was thus able to calculate an orbit and to predict a place where by the end of the year the planet should be visible on the thirty first of december of that same year very near the place predicted by gauss von zach
rediscovered it and olbers discovered it also the next evening piazzi called it ceres after the tutelary goddess of sicily its distance from the sun as determined by gauss was two point seven six seven times the earth's distance
which was an exceptionally large amount very soon a more surprising discovery followed olbers while searching for ceres had carefully mapped the part of the heavens where it was expected
and in march eighteen o two he saw in this place a star he had not previously noticed in two hours he detected its motion and in a month he sent his observations to gauss who returned as answer the calculated orbit
it was distant two point six seven like ceres and was a little smaller but it had a very excentric orbit
in the course of charting the region of the heavens traversed by ceres and pallas it was smaller than either and was called juno in eighteen o seven the persevering search of olbers resulted in the discovery of another with a very oblique orbit
which gauss named vesta vesta is bigger than any of the others being five hundred miles in diameter and shines like a star of the sixth magnitude
gauss by this time had become so practised in the difficult computations that he worked out the complete orbit of vesta within ten hours of receiving the observational data from olbers
for many weary years olbers kept up a patient and unremitting search for more of these small bodies or fragments of the large planet as he thought them but his patience went unrewarded and he died in eighteen forty without seeing or knowing of any more
where professors peters and watson have made a specialty of them and have themselves found something like a hundred vesta is the largest
without russia or spain and the smallest known is about twenty miles in diameter or with a surface about the size of kent the whole of them together do not nearly equal the earth in bulk the main interest of these bodies to us lies in the question
what is their history can they have been once a single planet broken up or are they rather an abortive attempt at a planet never yet formed into one the question is not entirely settled but i can tell you which way opinion strongly tends at the present time
and would complete its orbit quite undisturbed each fragment would describe an orbit of its own because it would be affected by a different initial velocity but every orbit would be a simple ellipse and consequently every piece would in time return through its starting point
a zone everywhere as broad as the earth's distance from the sun ninety two million miles with no sort of law indicating an origin of this kind it must be admitted however that the fragments of our supposed shell
might in the course of ages if left to themselves mutually perturb each other into a different arrangement of orbits from that with which they began but their perturbations would be very minute and moreover on laplace's theory would only result in periodic changes
provided each mass were rigid it is probable that the asteroids were at one time not rigid and hence it is difficult to say what may have happened to them but there is not the least reason to believe that their present arrangement is derivable in any way from an explosion
and it is certain that an enormous time must have elapsed since such an event if it ever occurred it is far more probable that they never constituted one body at all but are the remains of a cloudy ring thrown off by the solar system in shrinking past that point
a small ring after the immense effort which produced jupiter and his satellites a ring which has aggregated into a multitude of little lumps instead of a few big ones such an event is not unique in the solar system there is a similar ring round saturn
at first sight and to ordinary careful inspection this differs from the zone of asteroids in being a solid lump of matter like a quoit but it is easy to show from the theory of gravitation that a solid ring could not possibly be stable
but would before long get precipitated excentrically upon the body of the planet devices have been invented such as artfully distributed irregularities calculated to act as satellites and maintain stability but none of these things really work
nor will it do to imagine the rings fluid they too would destroy each other the mechanical behaviour of a system of rings on different hypotheses as to their constitution has been worked out with consummate skill by clerk maxwell
who finds that the only possible constitution for saturn's assemblage of rings is a multitude of discrete particles each pursuing its independent orbit saturn's ring is in fact a very concentrated zone of minor asteroids
and there is every reason to conclude that the origin of the solar asteroids cannot be very unlike the origin of the saturnian ones the nebular hypothesis lends itself readily to both the interlockings and motions of the particles in saturn's rings are most beautiful
and have been worked out and stated by maxwell with marvellous completeness his paper constituted what is called the adams prize essay for eighteen fifty six sir george airy one of the adjudicators recently astronomer royal
characterized it as one of the most remarkable applications of mathematics to physics that i have ever seen there are several distinct constituent rings in the entire saturnian zone and each perturbs the other with the result that they ripple and pulse in concord
the waves thus formed absorb the effect of the mutual perturbations and prevent an accumulation which would be dangerous to the persistence of the whole the only effect of gravitational perturbation and of collisions is gradually to broaden out the whole ring
the discovery of neptune we approach to night perhaps the greatest certainly the most conspicuous triumphs of the theory of gravitation the explanation by newton of the observed facts of the motion of the moon
the way he accounted for precession and nutation and for the tides the way in which laplace explained every detail of the planetary motions these achievements may seem to the professional astronomer equally if not more striking and wonderful
but of the facts to be explained in these cases the general public are necessarily more or less ignorant and so no beauty or thoroughness of treatment appeals to them nor can excite their imaginations but to predict in the solitude of the study
with no weapons other than pen ink and paper an unknown and enormously distant world to calculate its orbit when as yet it had never been seen and to be able to say to a practical astronomer
point your telescope in such a direction at such a time and you will see a new planet hitherto unknown to man this must always appeal to the imagination with dramatic intensity
prediction is no novelty in science and in astronomy least of all is it a novelty
could predict eclipses with some certainty though with only rough accuracy and many other phenomena were capable of prediction by accumulated experience we have seen for instance coming to later times
how a gap between mars and jupiter caused a missing planet to be suspected and looked for and to be found in a hundred pieces we have seen also how the abnormal proper motion of sirius suggested to bessel the existence of an unseen companion
as that of the discovery of neptune wherein then lies the difference how comes it that some classes of prediction
are childishly easy and commonplace while others excite in the keenest intellects the highest feelings of admiration mainly the difference lies first in the grounds on which the prediction is based second on the difficulty of the investigation whereby it is accomplished
third in the completeness and the accuracy with which it can be verified in all these points the discovery of neptune stands out pre eminently among the verified predictions of science and the circumstances surrounding it are of singular interest
it had been thought of course to be a star for it shines like a star of the sixth magnitude and can therefore be just seen without a telescope if one knows precisely where to look for it and if one has good sight but if it had been seen and catalogued as a star
and the catalogue would by that entry be wrong the thing to detect therefore was errors in the catalogues to examine all entries and see if the stars entered actually existed or were any of them missing if a wrong entry were discovered
and see if by any possibility the planet could have been in that place at that time examined in this way the tabulated observations of flamsteed showed that he had unwittingly observed uranus five distinct times the first time in sixteen ninety
nearly a century before herschel discovered its true nature but more remarkable still le monnier of paris had observed it eight times in one month cataloguing it each time as a different star
if only he had reduced and compared his observations he would have anticipated herschel by twelve years as it was he missed it altogether it was seen once by bradley also altogether it had been seen twenty times
these old observations of flamsteed and those of le monnier combined with those made after herschel's discovery were very useful in determining an exact orbit for the new planet and its motion was considered thoroughly known
it was not an exact ellipse of course none of the planets describe exact ellipses each perturbs all the rest and these small perturbations must be taken into account those of jupiter and saturn being by far the most important
for a time uranus seemed to travel regularly and as expected in the orbit which had been calculated for it but early in the present century it began to be slightly refractory
there was an unmistakable discrepancy between theory and observation some cause was evidently at work on this distant planet causing it to disagree with its motion as calculated according to the law of gravitation
some thought that the exact law of gravitation did not apply to so distant a body others surmised the presence of some foreign and unknown body some comet or some still more distant planet perhaps whose gravitative attraction for uranus was the cause of the whole difficulty
some perturbations in fact which had not been taken into account because of our ignorance of the existence of the body which caused them but though such an idea was mentioned among astronomers it was not regarded with any special favour
and was considered merely as one among a number of hypotheses which could be suggested as fairly probable it is perfectly right not to attach much importance to unelaborated guesses not until the consequences of an hypothesis have been laboriously worked out
a later stage still occurs when the theory has been actually and completely verified by agreement with observation
plus sixty one point two
seventeen twelve plus ninety two point seven
seventeen fifteen plus seventy three point eight le monnier seventeen fifty minus forty seven point six bradley seventeen fifty three minus thirty nine point five
seventeen fifty six minus forty five point seven le monnier seventeen sixty four minus thirty four point nine
seventeen sixty nine minus nineteen point three
plus twelve point three six seventeen eighty nine plus nineteen point zero two eighteen o one plus twenty two point two one eighteen ten plus twenty three point one six
eighteen twenty two plus twenty point nine seven eighteen twenty five plus eighteen point one six eighteen twenty eight plus ten point eight two eighteen thirty one minus three point nine eight
eighteen thirty four minus twenty point eight zero eighteen thirty seven minus forty two point six six eighteen forty minus sixty six point six four these are the numbers plotted in the above diagram
something was evidently the matter with the planet if the law of gravitation held exactly at so great a distance from the sun there must be some perturbing force acting on it besides all those known ones
the ordinary problem of perturbation is difficult enough given a disturbing planet in such and such a position to find the perturbations it produces this problem it was that laplace worked out in the mecanique celeste but the inverse problem
given the perturbations to find the planet which causes them such a problem had never yet been attacked and by only a few had its possibility been conceived bessel made preparations for trying what he could do at it in eighteen forty
but he was prevented by fatal illness in eighteen forty one the difficulties of the problem presented by these residual perturbations of uranus excited the imagination of a young student an undergraduate of saint john's college cambridge john couch adams by name
and he determined to have a try at it as soon as he was through his tripos in january eighteen forty three he graduated as senior wrangler and shortly afterwards he set to work in less than two years he reached a definite conclusion
and in october eighteen forty five he wrote to the astronomer royal at greenwich professor airy saying that the perturbations of uranus would be explained by assuming the existence of an outer planet which he reckoned was now situated in a specified latitude and longitude
and out of this mass of rubbish it requires great skill and patience to detect such gems of value as there may be now this letter of mister adams's was indeed a jewel of the first water and no doubt bore on its face a very different appearance from the chaff of which i have spoken
but still mister adams was an unknown man he had graduated as senior wrangler it is true but somebody must graduate as senior wrangler every year and every year by no means produces a first rate mathematician
those behind the scenes as professor airy of course was having been a senior wrangler himself knew perfectly well that the labelling of a young man on taking his degree is much more worthless as a testimony to his genius and ability than the general public are apt to suppose
was it likely that a young and unknown man should have successfully solved so extremely difficult a problem it was altogether unlikely still he would test him
he would ask for further explanations concerning some of the perturbations which he himself had specially noticed and see if mister adams could explain these also by his hypothesis if he could there might be something in his theory if he failed well there was an end of it
the questions were not difficult they concerned the error of the radius vector mister adams could have answered them with perfect ease but sad to say
he was not a man of business he did not answer professor airy's letter
but it is no light matter to derange the work of an observatory and alter the work mapped out for the staff into a sudden sweep for a new planet on the strength of a mathematical investigation just received by post
if observatories were conducted on these unsystematic and spasmodic principles they would not be the calm accurate satisfactory places they are of course if any one could have known that a new planet was to be had for the looking any course would have been justified
but no one could know this i do not suppose that mister adams himself could feel all that confidence in his attempted prediction so there the matter dropped mister adams's communication was pigeon holed and remained in seclusion for eight or nine months
meanwhile and quite independently something of the same sort was going on in france a brilliant young mathematician born in normandy in eighteen eleven had accepted the post of astronomical professor at the ecole polytechnique then recently founded by napoleon
his first published papers directed attention to his wonderful powers and the official head of astronomy in france the famous arago suggested to him the unexplained perturbations of uranus as a worthy object for his fresh and well armed vigour
at once he set to work in a thorough and systematic way he first considered whether the discrepancies could be due to errors in the tables or errors in the old observations he discussed them with minute care and came to the conclusion that they were not thus to be explained away
this part of the work he published in november eighteen forty five he then set to work to consider the perturbations produced by jupiter and saturn to see if they had been with perfect accuracy allowed for or whether some minute improvements could be made sufficient to destroy the irregularities
he introduced several fresh terms into these perturbations but none of them of sufficient magnitude to do more than slightly lessen the unexplained perturbations he next examined the various hypotheses that had been suggested to account for them
or was it due to a collision with some comet all these he examined and dismissed for various reasons one after the other it was due to some steady continuous cause for instance some unknown planet
so striking a coincidence seemed sufficient to justify a herschelian sweep for a week or two but a sweep for so distant a planet would be no easy matter
when seen in a large telescope it would still only look like a star and it would require considerable labour and watching to sift it out from the other stars surrounding it we know that uranus had been seen twenty times and thought to be a star before its true nature was by herschel discovered
and uranus is only about half as far away as neptune is neither in paris nor yet at greenwich was any optical search undertaken
did the new theory explain the errors of the radius vector or not
and sir john herschel was one of its sectional presidents
the past year has given to us the new minor planet astraea it has done more it has given us the probable prospect of another we see it as columbus saw america from the shores of spain
professor challis said he would conduct the search himself and shortly commenced a leisurely and dignified series of sweeps round about the place assigned by theory
cataloguing all the stars which he observed intending afterwards to sort out his observations compare one with another and find out whether any one star had changed its position because if it had it must be the planet
and if he had compared his observations with this map as they were made the process would have been easy and the discovery quick but he had no such map nevertheless one was in existence it had just been completed in that country of enlightened method and industry germany
doctor bremiker had not indeed completed his great work a chart of the whole zodiac down to stars of the tenth magnitude but portions of it were completed and the special region where the new planet was expected happened to be among the portions already just done but in england
this was not known meanwhile mister adams wrote to the astronomer royal several additional communications making improvements in his theory and giving what he considered nearer and nearer approximations for the place of the planet he also now answered quite satisfactorily
actuated probably by the knowledge that in such matters as cataloguing and mapping germany was then as now far ahead of all the other nations of the world he wrote in september the same september as sir john herschel delivered his eloquent address at southampton to berlin
head of the observatory at berlin saying to him clearly and decidedly that the new planet was now in or close to such and such a position and that if he would point his telescope to that part of the heavens he would see it
and moreover that he would be able to tell it from a star by its having a sensible magnitude or disk instead of being a mere point galle got the letter on the twenty third of september eighteen forty six
and he saw the planet that very night he recognized it first by its appearance
he then consulted bremiker's great star chart the part just engraved and finished and sure enough on that chart there was no such star there undoubtedly it was the planet
the news flashed over europe at the maximum speed with which news could travel at that date which was not very fast
and had the pleasure of knowing that they were forestalled and that england was out of the race it was an unconscious race to all concerned however those in france knew nothing of the search going on in england mister adams's papers had never been published
and very annoyed the french were when a claim was set up on his behalf to a share in this magnificent discovery controversies and recriminations excuses and justifications followed but the discussion has now settled down
all the world honours the bright genius and mathematical skill of mister adams and recognizes that he first solved the problem by calculation
of their early history little is known beyond the fact
known to be more than two thousand years old were found within the sacred precincts the dogs were and are to this day jealously guarded under the supervision of the chief eunuch
of the court and few have ever found their way into the outer world so far as the writer is aware the history of the breed in england dates from the importation in eighteen sixty
of five dogs taken from the summer palace where they had no doubt been forgotten on the flight of the court to the interior admiral lord john hay
who was present on active service
in a part of the garden frequented by an aunt of the emperor who had committed suicide on the approach of the allied forces lord john and another naval officer
lord john took pains to ascertain that none had found their way into the french camp and he heard then
which lasted more than two years but we succeeded in obtaining confirmation of what we had always understood namely that the palace dogs are rigidly guarded
and that their theft is punishable by death at the time of the boxer rebellion only spaniels pugs and poodles were found in the imperial palace
the duchess of richmond occasionally gave away a dog to intimate friends such as the dowager lady wharncliffe lady dorothy nevill and others
but in those days the pekinese was practically an unknown quantity and it can therefore be more readily understood what interest was aroused about eleven years ago by the appearance of a small dog
to those so carefully cherished at goodwood
ah cum owned by missus douglas murray whose husband having extensive interests in china had managed after many years to secure a true palace dog smuggled in a box of hay
ah cum was mated without delay to two goodwood bitches the result being in the first litters
to these three sires
goodwood ming marland myth and others it must however be clearly admitted that since the popularity of the breed has become established
who have lost all resemblance to the original type and for this the pekinese club is in some measure to blame the original points for the guidance of breeders and judges were drawn up
since then the club has amended the scale of points no doubt in order to secure a larger membership and the maximum now stands at eighteen pounds
is it therefore to be wondered at that confusion exists as to what is the true type at shows
wide and flat between the ears not dome shaped wide between the eyes nose black broad very short and flat
eyes large dark prominent round lustrous stop deep ears heart shaped
not set too high leather never long enough to come below the muzzle not carried erect but rather drooping long feather
muzzle very short and broad not underhung nor pointed wrinkled mane profuse
broad chest falling away lighter behind lion like not too long in the body
long with thick undercoat straight and flat not curly nor wavy rather coarse but soft feather on thighs
legs tail and toes long and profuse
black masks and spectacles round the eyes with lines to the ears are desirable legs short fore legs heavy
bowed out at elbows hind legs lighter but firm and well shaped feet flat not round should stand well up on toes
not on ankles tail curled and carried well up on loins long profuse straight feather size
being a toy dog the smaller the better provided type and points are not sacrificed anything over eighteen pounds should disqualify when divided by weight
crossing feet or throwing them out in running should not take off marks weakness of joints should be penalised lady algernon gordon lennox
has occasionally been criticised for her advocacy of whole coloured specimens but in support of this preference it can be proved that the original pair brought to goodwood
as well as missus murray's ah cum
and as no brindled parti coloured or black dog has ever been born at goodwood or broughton
as an important point this view was in the first place confirmed by the late chinese ambassador in london and further by baron speck von sternberg
and had very special facilities for noting the points of the palace dogs in every case a black muzzle is indispensable also black points to the ears
with trousers tail and feathering a somewhat lighter shade than the body
especially in the case of the bitches for instance a pinkish tinge
resembles most nearly the old goodwood dogs he has the same square cobby appearance broad chest bowed legs profuse feather and large lustrous eyes
points which are frequently looked for in vain nowadays and his breeder and owner may well be proud of him the pekinese differs from the japanese dog
in that it appears to be far stronger in constitution and withstands the changes of the english climate with much greater ease in fact they are as hardy
under healthy conditions as any english breed
which is developing in the eyes small abscesses frequently appear when the puppies are a few months old and although they may not affect the sight
they almost inevitably leave a bluish mark while in some cases the eye itself becomes contracted whether this is one of the results of in breeding it is difficult to say
this was discovered at goodwood years ago by the fact that on two or three occasions one celestial lady who had been given greater attention than she considered necessary
revenged herself by devouring her own family of puppies one thing seems from experience to be especially advisable
is more likely to develop well than one born in the autumn great attention should be paid with reference to the frequent
which trouble seems more prevalent with pekinese
wherever possible fish should be given as part of the dietary some pekinese devour it with relish others will not touch it but there is no doubt
it is a useful item in the bill of fare bread well soaked in very strong stock sheep's head and liver are always better as regular diet than meat
but in cases of debility a little raw meat given once a day is most beneficial it would not be fitting to close an article on pekinese
that quality is more essential than quantity as their breed name implies these tiny black and white long haired lap dogs are reputed to be natives of the land of the chrysanthemum
the japanese who have treasured them for centuries have the belief that they are not less ancient than the dogs of malta there seems to be a probability however
the hon missus mc laren morrison an authority on exotic dogs whose opinion must always be taken with respect
while other experts are equally of opinion
that they are indigenous to the far east whence we have derived so many of our small snub nosed large eyed and long haired pets the oriental peoples
have always bred their lap dogs to small size convenient for carrying in the sleeve the sleeve dog and the chin dog are common and appropriate appellations in the east
the japanese spaniel was certainly known in england half a century ago and probably much earlier
it was by crossing with the already long established king charles or blenheim spaniels
or white with lemon yellow patches the colouring other than white was usually about the long fringed ears and the crown of the head with a line of white
as far as the occiput this blaze up the face was commonly said to resemble the body of a butterfly whose closed wings
were represented by the dog's expansive ears the white and black colouring is now the most frequent the points desired are a broad and rounded skull
large in proportion to the dog's body a wide strong muzzle and a turned up lower jaw
the back should be short and level the legs are by preference slender and much feathered the feet large and well separated an important point is the coat
it should be abundant particularly about the neck where it forms a ruffle
and manufactured foods are to be avoided rice usually agrees well fresh fish sheep's head tongue chicken livers milk
or batter puddings are also suitable and occasionally give oatmeal porridge alternated with a little scraped raw meat as an especial favour for puppies newly weaned
it is well to limit the supply of milk foods and to avoid red meat finely minced rabbit or fish are better
of the japanese spaniels which have recently been prominent in competition may be mentioned miss serena's champion fuji of kobe a remarkably beautiful bitch
tora of braywick a fine red and white dog somewhat over seven pounds is also to be remembered as a typical example of the breed together with kara
lady samuelson's togo
there has lately been a tendency to lay too much stress upon
but on the whole it may be stated with confidence that the japanese is prospering in england thanks largely to the energetic work of the japanese chin club which was formed some three years ago
to promote the best interests of the breed the following is the official standard issued by the club head should be large for size of animal
muzzle strong and wide very short from eyes to nose upper jaw should look slightly turned up between the eyes
or finished so as to meet it but should the lower jaw be slightly underhung it is not a blemish provided the teeth are not shown in consequence nose
very short in the muzzle part the end or nose proper should be wide with open nostrils
black in black marked dogs
in red or lemon marked dogs eyes large dark lustrous
ears small and v shaped nicely feathered set wide apart and high on the head and carried slightly forward neck
should be short and moderately thick body very compact and squarely built with a short back rather wide chest
the body and legs should really go into a square
the length of the dog should be about its height legs the bones of the legs should be small giving them a slender appearance
it should be absolutely free from wave or curl and not lie too flat but have a tendency to stand out especially at the neck so as to give a thick mane or ruff
which with profuse feathering on thighs and tail gives a very showy appearance
either black and white or red and white
the term red includes all shades sable brindle lemon or orange but the brighter and clearer the red the better the white should be clear white
whether black or red should be evenly distributed in patches over the body cheeks and ears height at shoulder about ten inches weight
waiting on destiny throughout the day marian kept her room her intention to leave the house was of course abandoned she was the prisoner of fate
missus yule would have tended her with unremitting devotion but the girl desired to be alone at times she lay in silent anguish frequently her tears broke forth
and she sobbed until weariness overcame her in the afternoon she wrote a letter to mister holden begging that she might be kept constantly acquainted with the progress of things at five her mother brought tea
i have to go out mother so we won't speak of it it was not safe to reply missus yule sat down and watched the girl raise the cup to her mouth with trembling hand
this won't make any difference to you in the end my darling the mother ventured to say at length
of course not was the reply in a tone of self persuasion mister milvain is sure to have plenty of money before long yes
she stopped an empty cab that presently passed her and so drove to the milvains lodgings
as was her habit it mattered very little for the landlady and her servants were of course under no misconception regarding this young lady's visits jasper was at home and working
he had but to look at marian to see that something wretched had been going on at her home
your father has been behaving brutally he said holding her hands and gazing anxiously at her there is something far worse than that jasper worse
she threw off her outdoor things then took the fatal letter from her pocket and handed it to him jasper gave a whistle of consternation and looked vacantly from the paper to marian's countenance
how the deuce comes this about he exclaimed why wasn't your uncle aware of the state of things perhaps he was he may have known that the legacy was a mere form
you are the only one affected so father says
this has upset you horribly i can see sit down marian when did the letter come this morning and you have been fretting over it all day but come
you may get something substantial out of the scoundrels still even whilst he spoke his eyes wandered absently
she asked making involuntary diversion from the calamitous theme rubbish for the will o' the wisp listen to this paragraph about english concert audiences it was as necessary to him as to her
to have a respite before the graver discussion began
slipping from one topic to another to hear him one would have supposed that he was in his ordinary mood he laughed at his own jokes and points they'll have to pay me more
was the remark with which he closed i only wanted to make myself indispensable to them and at the end of this year i shall feel pretty sure of that
and you may hope for much more than that mayn't you before long oh i shall transfer myself to a better paper presently it seems to me i must be stirring to some purpose
father said i had better sign that harrington article myself if i do that i shall have a right to the money i think it will at least be eight guineas and why shouldn't i go on writing for myself for us
first of all what about my letter to your father we are forgetting all about it he refused to answer marian avoided closer description of what had happened
that she was unwilling to pain her lover by making display of all she had undergone oh he refused to reply surely that is extreme behaviour what she dreaded seemed to be coming to pass
jasper stood rather stiffly and threw his head back you know the reason dear that prejudice has entered into his very life it is not you he dislikes that is impossible he thinks of you
only as he would of anyone connected with mister fadge well well it isn't a matter of much moment but what i have in mind is this will it be possible for you whilst living at home
when i am your wife i may be able to help i could earn thirty or forty pounds a year i think that would pay the rent of a small house she spoke with shaken voice
her eyes fixed upon his face but my dear marian
no i only meant she faltered and her tongue became silent as her heart sank it simply means pursued jasper
seating himself and crossing his legs that i must move heaven and earth to improve my position you know that my faith in myself is not small there's no knowing what i might do if i used every effort
can you promise to keep a little love for me all that time he asked with a constrained smile you know me too well to fear
i thought you seemed a little doubtful his tone was not altogether that which makes banter pleasant between lovers marian looked at him fearfully
was it possible for him in truth so to misunderstand her he had never satisfied her heart's desire of infinite love she never spoke with him
but she was oppressed with the suspicion that his love was not as great as hers and worse still that he did not wholly comprehend the self surrender which she strove to make plain in every word
it mustn't be years that's very certain i think it preposterous for a man to hold a woman bound in that hopeless way
is love dependent on fixed engagements do you feel that if we agreed to part your love would be at once a thing of the past why no of course not
that she did not entirely trust him and viewed his character as something less than noble very seldom indeed is a woman free from such doubts
all the praises he speaks of his beloved passion is compatible with a great many of these imperfections of intellectual esteem to see more clearly into jasper's personality was for marian to suffer the more intolerable dread
she went to his side her heart ached because in her great misery he had not fondled her and intoxicated her senses with loving words
how can i make you feel how much i love you she murmured you mustn't be so literal dearest women are so desperately matter of fact
it comes out even in their love talk marian was not without perception of the irony of such an opinion on jasper's lips i am content for you to think so she said
chapter five the talk of the town nowadays events political social and criminal crowd so closely on one another's heels that what was formerly a nine days wonder is scarcely marvelled at the same number of minutes
and provoke an immense amount of discussion and surmise in this category may be placed the crime committed in geneva square for when the extraordinary circumstances of the case became known much curiosity was manifested regarding the possible criminal
they had first to discover the name of the dead man second to learn who it was had so foully murdered him and third to find out the reason why the unknown assassin should have slain an apparently harmless man but these hidden things were not easily brought to light
at all events until after the inquest when the jury brought in a verdict that the deceased had been violently done to death by some person or persons unknown the twelve good men and true stated the full extent of knowledge gained by justice in her futile scramble after clues
berwin so called was dead his assassin had melted into thin air and the silent house had added a second legend to its already uncanny reputation formerly it had been simply haunted
as the sex of the assassin for obvious reasons could not be decided missus kebby swore that she had left the deceased sitting over the fire at eight o'clock on christmas eve
though far from enjoying the best of health when she returned shortly after nine on christmas morning the man was dead and cold medical aid was called in at the same time as the police were summoned
and the evidence of the doctor who examined the body went to prove that berwin had been dead at least ten hours therefore he must have been assassinated between the hours of eleven and twelve of the previous night search was immediately made for the murderer
if it was a man who had done the deed could have escaped blinders the policeman on duty at the entrance of the square gave evidence that he had been on duty there all night and that although many servants and owners of houses belonging to the square had passed in from their christmas marketings
yet no stranger had entered the policeman knew every one even to the errand boys of the neighbourhood who brought parcels of christmas goods and in many cases had exchanged greetings with the passers by
but he was prepared to swear and in fact did swear at the inquest that no stranger either came into or went out of geneva square
only to find that all was safe blinders declared on oath that he had not on christmas eve the slightest suspicion of the horrid tragedy which had taken place in the silent house during the time he was on duty
when the police took possession of the body and mansion search was made in bedroom and sitting room for papers likely to throw light on the identity of the victim but in vain no letters or telegrams or even writing of any kind could be discovered
there was no name in the dead man's books no mark on his clothes no initials on his linen the landlord of the house declared that the deceased had hired the mansion six months before but had given no references
he had not insisted upon having them the deceased said the landlord had paid a month's rent in advance in ready money
they could not find out the name of the victim and therefore were unable to learn his past life or trace thereby if he had an enemy likely to harm him beyond the report given by lucian of his conversation with the man
which showed that berwin certainly had some enemy whom he dreaded there was nothing discovered to show reason for the committal of the crime berwin so called was dead he was buried under his assumed name and there so far as the obtainable evidence went
was an end to the strange tenant of the silent house gordon link the detective charged with the conduct of the case confessed as much to denzil i do not see the slightest chance of tracing berwin's past
said he to the barrister we are as ignorant about him as we are of the name of the assassin are you sure there is no clue mister link absolutely none even the weapon with which the crime was committed cannot be found you have searched the house
every inch of it and with the result that i have found nothing the surroundings of the case are most mysterious if we do not identify the dead we cannot hope to trace the murderer
yet in some secret way people were in the habit of entering the house and berwin knew as much not only that but he protected them from curiosity by denying that they even existed i don't quite follow you mister denzil
i allude to the shadows on the blind which i saw myself a week before the murder took place they were those of a man and a woman
therefore two people must have been in berwin's sitting room on that night
more he actually insisted that i should satisfy myself as to the truth of this by examining the house which you did yes but found nothing yet
i asked him replied the detective but he stated that houses nowadays were not built with secret passages when berwin denied that anyone was in the house was he afraid mister denzil yes he seemed to be nervous and he told you he had enemies
perhaps but to my mind there is more melodrama in actual life than people fancy
your third conclusion brings us round to the point whence we started retorted link how am i to discover the man's past by learning who he is and what is his real name an easy task said the detective sarcastically
considering the meagre material upon which we have to work and how is the business to be accomplished by advertisement advertisement yes i wonder the idea did not strike you before seeing how often it is used in similar cases
advertise a full description of the man who called himself berwin note his physical peculiarities and looks and circulate such description by means of handbills and newspapers link looked angry and laughed rather contemptuously
as his professional pride was touched by the fact of being advised by an individual not of his calling i am not so ignorant of my business as you think he said sharply what you suggest has already been done
there are handbills describing the appearance of berwin in every police office in the kingdom in the newspapers also
no it is not necessary i don't agree with you many people in private life are not likely to see your handbills i don't pretend to advise mister link he added in soothing tones but would it not be wise to use the medium of the daily papers
i'll think of it said link too jealous of his dignity to give way at once oh i quite rely on your discretion said denzil hastily you know your own business best but if you succeed in identifying berwin will you let me know
satisfied that the only way to learn the truth had been adopted by the authorities
within the week he received a visit from the detective you were right and i was wrong mister denzil admitted link generously the newspapers were of more use than the handbills
yesterday i received a letter from a lady who is coming to see me to morrow at my office so if you care to be present at the interview you have only to say so
who is the lady a missus vrain who writes from bath can she identify the dead man she thinks she can but of course she cannot be certain until she sees the body going by the description however added link
chapter six missus vrain's story denzil was much pleased with the courtesy of the detective link in permitting him to gain at first hand further details of this mysterious case
with a natural curiosity engendered by his short acquaintance with the unfortunate berwin he was most anxious to learn why the man had secluded himself from the world in geneva square who were the enemies he hinted at as desirous of his death
and in what manner and for what reason he had met with so barbarous a fate at their hands it seemed likely that missus vrain who asserted herself to be the wife of the deceased would be able to answer these questions in full therefore
as the dead man had been close on sixty years of age and missus vrain claimed to be his wife denzil had quite expected to meet with an elderly woman instead of doing so however he beheld a pretty young lady of not more than twenty five
she was a charming blonde with golden hair and blue eyes and a complexion of rose leaf hue in spite of her grief her demeanour was lively and engaging and her smile particularly attractive lighting up her whole face in the most fascinating manner
perhaps with such an elderly husband her eagerness was natural
a rosy cheeked plump little man of between fifty and sixty from his resemblance to missus vrain for he had the same blue eyes and pink and white complexion
and such indeed proved to be the case link
introduced him to the sylph in black
at least denzil thought so but then on occasions he was disposed to be hyper critical say now said missus vrain casting an approving glance on lucian's face i'm right down glad to see you
mister link here was just saying you knew my husband mister vrain i knew him as mister berwin mark berwin replied denzil taking a seat just think of that now cried missus vrain with a liveliness rather subdued in compliment to her apparel
maybe he's an angel by this time lyddy said mister clyne in a cheerful chirping voice so it ain't no use wishing him back as i can see we've all got to negotiate kingdom come some time or another not in the same way i hope
but i beg your pardon link i interrupt your conversation by no means replied the detective readily we had just begun when you entered mister denzil and it wasn't much of a talk anyhow said missus vrain i was only replying to some stupid questions
stupid if you will but necessary observed link with gravity let us continue are you certain that this dead man is or rather was your husband i'm as sure as sure can be sir berwin manor is the name of our place near bath
and isn't his first name mark pursued the pretty widow well my husband was called mark too so there you are mark berwin is this all your proof asked link calmly i guess not though it's enough i should say
my husband had a mark on his right cheek got it fighting a duel with a german student when he was having a high time as one of the boys at heidelberg then he lost part of his little finger left hand finger in an accident out west what other proof do you want mister link
the proofs you have given seem sufficient missus vrain but may i ask when your husband left his home
you are overdoing it lyddy corrected the father size it up as ten months and you'll do ten months said lucian suddenly and mister berwin vrain struck in lydia the widow mark vrain i beg your pardon well
mark vrain took the house in geneva square six months back where was he during the other four ask me something easier mister denzil i know no more than you do
mark and i didn't pull together nohow so he kicked over the traces and made tracks for the back of beyond
well i should smile to think so said missus vrain vigorously i was as good as pie to that old man you did not get on well together said link sharply
got on as well as a cat hitched along with a dog my stars there was no living with him if he hadn't left me i'd have left him that's an almighty truth so the gist of all this is that mister vrain left you ten months ago
and did not leave his address that's so said the widow calmly i've not seen nor heard of him for most a year till pop there tumbled across your paragraph in the papers then i surmised from the name and the missing finger and the scarred cheek
that i'd dropped right on to mark i wouldn't take all this trouble for any one else no sir not me my lyddy does not care about being a grass widow gentlemen
so long as i know how to ticket myself said the candid lydia but seems to me there's no question that mark's sent in his checks i certainly think that this man who called himself berwin was your husband said denzil for missus vrain's eyes rested on him
and she seemed to expect an answer well then that means i'm mister vrain's widow i should say so and entitled to all his pile that depends on the will
for the light tone of the pretty woman jarred upon his ear
replied missus vrain putting a gold topped smelling bottle to her nose i saw the will made
the old man's daughter by his first wife gets the manor and the rents and i take the assurance money was mister berwin i beg pardon vrain was he married twice i should think so said lydia
he was a widower with a grown up daughter when i took him to church well can i get this assurance money i suppose so said link provided you can prove your husband's death sakes alive cried missus vrain briskly wasn't he murdered
the man called berwin was murdered well sir said the rosy cheeked clyne with more sharpness than might have been expected from his peaceful aspect and ain't berwin vrain it would seem so replied link coolly
lyddy interposed clyne hastening to obliterate if possible
how you do go on but you know your heart is better than your tongue it was to put up so long with mister vrain said lydia resentfully but i'm honest if i'm nothing else i guess i'm sorry that vrain got stuck like a pig
but it wasn't my fault and i've done my best to show respect by wearing black but it is no good going on in this way poppa for i've no call to excuse myself to strangers
you'll have to see the assurance company about that said link coldly my business with you missus vrain is about this murder i know nothing about it retorted the widow i haven't set eyes on mark for most a year
have you any idea who killed him i guess not how should i you might know if he had enemies he said missus vrain with supreme contempt why he hadn't backbone enough for folks to get riz at him
said clyne that was my son in law all over lyddy and he had a tiff just like other married couples and he clears out to lie low in an out of the way shanty in pimlico i tell you gentlemen that vrain had a chip out of his head
he fancied things he did but no one wanted to harm him that i know of yet he died a violent death said denzil gravely that's a frozen fact sir cried clyne
but with some long sharp instrument a dagger suggested clyne i should be even more precise said denzil slowly i should say a stiletto an italian stiletto a stiletto
oh oh i i
chapter four missus kebby's discovery the pertinacity which berwin displayed in insisting that lucian should explore the silent house was truly remarkable
he appeared to be bent upon banishing the idea which denzil entertained that strangers were hiding in the mansion from attic to basement from front to back premises he led the way and made lucian examine every corner of the empty rooms he showed him even the unused kitchen
this exploration finished and lucian being convinced that himself and his host were the only two living beings in the house berwin conducted his half frozen guest back to the warm sitting room and poured out a glass of wine here mister denzil
said he in good natured tones drink this and draw near the fire you must be chilled to the bone after our arctic expedition lucian willingly accepted both these attentions and sipped his wine it was particularly fine claret
before the fire while berwin coughed and shivered and muttered to himself about the cold of the season when lucian stood up to take his departure he addressed him directly well sir said he with a sardonic smile
are you convinced that the struggling shadows on yonder blind were children of your heated fancy no said denzil stoutly i am not yet you have seen that there is no one in the house mister berwin
you propose a riddle which i cannot answer and which i do not wish to answer i cannot explain what i saw to night but as surely as you were out of this house some people were in it how this affects you or what reason you have for denying it i do not ask
keep your own secrets and go your own way i wish you good night sir and lucian moved towards the door berwin who was holding a full tumbler of rich strong port drank the whole of it in one gulp
yet they may interest the three kingdoms one day said berwin softly oh if they deal with danger to society said denzil thinking his strange neighbour spoke of anarchistic schemes i would they deal with danger to myself
interrupted berwin i am a hunted man and i hide here from those who wish me ill i am dying as you see he cried striking his hollow chest but i may not die quickly enough for those who desire my death who are they
cried lucian rather startled by this outburst people with whom you have no concern replied the man sullenly that is true enough mister berwin so i'll say good night berwin berwin ha ha a very good name berwin
but not for me oh was there ever so unhappy a creature as i false name false friend in disgrace in hiding curse everybody go go mister denzil and leave me to die here like a rat in its hole
you are ill said lucian amazed by the man's fury shall i send a doctor to see you send no one cried berwin commanding himself by a visible effort only go away and leave me to myself thou can'st not minister to a mind diseased
go go good night then said denzil seeing that nothing could be done i hope you will be better in the morning berwin shook his head and with a silent tongue which contrasted strangely with his late outcry
ushered denzil out of the house as the heavy door closed behind him lucian descended the steps and looked thoughtfully at the grim mansion which was tenanted by so mysterious a person he could make nothing of berwin as he chose to call himself
he could see no meaning in his wild words and mad behaviour but as he walked briskly back to his lodgings he came to the conclusion that the man was nothing worse than a tragic drunkard haunted by terrors engendered by over indulgence in stimulants
the episode of the shadows on the blind he did not attempt to explain for the simple reason that he was unable to find any plausible explanation to account therefor and why should i trouble my head to do so mused lucian as he went to bed
the man and his mysteries are nothing to me bah i have been infected by the vulgar curiosity of the square henceforth i'll neither see nor think of this drunken lunatic and with such resolve he dismissed all thoughts of his strange acquaintance from his mind which
under the circumstances was perhaps the wisest thing he could do but later on certain events took place which forced him to alter his determination fate with her own ends to bring about is not to be denied by her puppets
designed for an important part in the drama which was to be played missus margery kebby who attended to the domestic economy of berwin's house was a deaf old crone with a constant thirst only to be assuaged by strong drink
and while he was enjoying it in bed after his fashion she cleaned out and made tidy the sitting room berwin then dressed and went out for a walk despite miss greeb's contention that he took the air only at night like an owl and during his absence missus kebby attended to the bedroom
she then went about her own business which was connected with the cleaning of various other apartments and only returned at midday and at night to lay the table for berwin's luncheon and dinner or rather dinner and supper which were also sent in from the hotel
for these services berwin paid her well and only enjoined her to keep a quiet tongue about his private affairs which missus kebby usually did until excited by too copious drams of gin when she talked freely and unwisely to all the servants in the square
it was to her observation and invention that berwin owed his bad reputation well known in every kitchen missus kebby hobbled from one to the other gossiping about the various affairs of her various employers
and when absolute knowledge failed she took to inventing details which did no small credit to her imagination also she could tell fortunes by reading tea leaves and shuffling cards and was not above aiding the maid servants in their small love affairs
in short missus kebby was a dangerous old witch who a century back would have been burnt at the stake and the worst possible person for berwin to have in his house had he known of her lying and prating she would not have remained an hour under his roof
and was always on the look out to learn the secret of his isolated life in order to betray him or blackmail him or get him in some way under her thumb as yet she had been unsuccessful deeming her a weak quiet old creature
berwin in spite of his suspicious nature entrusted missus kebby with the key of the front door so that she could enter for her morning's work without disturbing him the sitting room door itself was not always locked but berwin usually bolted the portal of his bedroom
the same routine was observed each morning and everything went smoothly missus kebby had heard of the blind shadows from several people
but in this quest which was intended to put money into her own pocket she failed entirely and during the whole six months of berwin's tenancy
save her employer nor could she ever find any evidence to show that berwin had received visitors during her absence the man was as great a mystery to missus kebby as he was to the square in spite of her superior opportunities of learning the truth
on christmas eve the old woman brought in a cold supper for berwin as usual making several journeys to and fro between hotel and house for that purpose she laid the table made up the fire and before taking her leave asked mister berwin if he wanted anything else
no i think not replied the man who looked wretchedly ill you can bring my breakfast to morrow at nine sir at the usual time answered berwin impatiently go away
missus kebby gave a final glance round to see that all was in order and shuffled out of the room as fast as her rheumatism would let her as she left the house eight o'clock chimed from the steeple of a near church and missus kebby clinking her newly received wages in her pocket
hurried out of the square to do her christmas marketing as she went down the street which led to it blinders a burly ruddy faced policeman who knew her well stopped to make an observation is that good gentleman of yours home missus kebby
he asked in the loud tones used to deaf people oh he's home grumbled missus kebby ungraciously sittin afore the fire like solomon in all his glory
i saw him an hour ago explained blinders and i thought he looked ill so he do like a corpse what of that we've all got to come to it some day ow d'ye know but what he won't be dead afore morning
well i don't care he's paid me up till to night
y'are on duty early i'm taking the place of a sick comrade and i'll be on duty all night that's my christmas well well let every one enj'y hisself as he likes muttered missus kebby
with the aid of gin and water celebrated the season until she drank herself to sleep next morning she woke in anything but an amiable mood and had to fortify herself with an early drink before she was fit to go about her business
it was almost nine when she reached the nelson hotel and found the covered tray with mister berwin's breakfast waiting for her so she hurried with it to geneva square as speedily as possible fearful of a scolding
having admitted herself into the house missus kebby took up the tray with both hands and pushed open the sitting room door with her foot here at the sight which met her eyes she dropped the tray with a crash and let off a shrill yell
when it was the six hundred and eighty fifth night she continued it hath reached me o auspicious king that when yunus the scribe said to walid allah forbid i should repent over her
had i made gift of her to the prince she were the least of gifts that are given to him nor indeed is she worthy of his rank walid rejoined by allah but i repented me of having carried her away from thee and said to myself this man is a stranger and knoweth me not
and i have taken him by surprise and acted inconsiderately by him in my haste to take the damsel dost thou recall what passed between us quoth yunus yes and quoth walid dost thou sell this damsel to me for fifty thousand dirhams
and yunus said i do then the prince called to one of his servants to bring him fifty thousand dirhams and a thousand and five hundred dinars to boot and gave them all to yunus saying take the slave's price
the thousand dinars are for thy fair opinion of us and the five hundred are for thy viaticum and for what present thou shalt buy for thy people art thou content i am content answered yunus and kissed his hands saying
quoth walid by allah i have as yet had no privacy of her nor have i taken my fill of her singing bring her to me so she came and he bade her sit then said to her sing and she sang these verses
o thou who dost comprise all beauty's boons o sweet of nature fain of coquetry in turks and arabs many beauties dwell but o my fawn in none thy charms i see turn to thy lover o my fair
and keep thy word though but in visioned phantasy shame and disgrace are lawful for thy sake and wakeful nights full fill with joy and glee i'm not the first for thee who fared distraught
slain by thy love how many a many be i am content with thee for worldly share dearer than life and good art thou to me
when he heard this he was delighted exceedingly and praised yunus for his excellent teaching of her and her fair education then he bade his servants bring him a roadster with saddle and housings for his riding and a mule to carry his gear and said to him
o yunus when it shall reach thee that command hath come to me do thou join me and by allah i will fill thy hands with good and advance thee to honour and make thee rich as long as thou livest so yunus said
i took his goods and went my ways and when walid succeeded to the caliphate i repaired to him and by allah he kept his promise and entreated me with high honour and munificence then i abode with him in all content of case and rise of rank
and mine affairs prospered and my wealth increased and goods and farms became mine such as sufficed me and will suffice my heirs after me nor did i cease to abide with walid till he was slain the mercy of almighty allah be on him
and men tell a tale concerning harun al rashid and the arab girl the caliph harun al rashid was walking one day with ja'afar the barmecide
as he drew near one of them turned to her fellows and improvised these lines thy phantom bid thou fleet and fly far from the couch whereon i lie so i may rest and quench the fire bonfire in bones aye flaming high
my love sick form love's restless palm rolls o'er the rug whereon i sigh how tis with me thou wottest well how long then union wilt deny
the caliph marvelled at her elegance and eloquence and shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say when it was the six hundred and eighty sixth night she resumed
it hath reached me o auspicious king that the caliph hearing the girl's verses marvelled at her elegance and eloquence and said to her o daughter of nobles are these thine own or a quotation replied she they are my very own and he rejoined
an thou say sooth keep the sense and change the rhyme so she said bid thou thy phantom distance keep and quit this couch the while i sleep so i may rest and quench the flames through all my body rageful creep
in love sick one whom passion's palms roll o'er the bed where grief i weep how tis with me thou wottest well all but thy union hold i cheap quoth the caliph this also is stolen
he said if it be indeed thine own change the rhyme again and keep the sense so she recited the following unto thy phantom deal behest to shun my couch the while i rest so i repose and quench the fire
my weary form love's restless palm
how tis with me thou wottest well when union's bought tis haply best quoth al rashid this too is stolen and quoth she not so tis mine he said if thy words be true
change the rhyme once more and she recited drive off the ghost that ever shows beside my couch when i'd repose so i may rest and quench the fire beneath my ribs e'er flames and glows in love sick one whom passion's palms
how tis with me thou wottest well will union come as union goes then said the caliph
of the highest in tree and of the ripest in fruit allah protect thee o commander of the faithful said she and kissing ground called down blessings on him then she went away with the maidens of the arabs and the caliph said to ja'afar
there is no help for it but i take her to wife so ja'afar repaired to her father and said to him the commander of the faithful hath a mind to thy daughter he replied
with love and goodwill she is a gift as a handmaid to his highness our lord the commander of the faithful so he equipped her and carried her to the caliph who took her to wife and went in to her and she became of the dearest of his women to him
furthermore he bestowed on her father largesse such as succoured him among arabs till he was transported to the mercy of almighty allah the caliph hearing of his death went in to her greatly troubled and when she saw him looking afflicted
she entered her chamber and doffing all that was upon her of rich raiment donned mourning apparel and raised lament for her father it was said to her what is the reason of this and she replied my father is dead
so they repaired to the caliph and told him and he rose and going in to her asked her who had informed her of her father's death and she answered it was thy face o commander of the faithful said he how so
and she said since i have been with thee i never saw thee on such wise till this time and there was none for whom i feared save my father by reason of his great age but may thy head live o commander of the faithful
the caliph's eyes filled with tears and he condoled with her but she ceased not to mourn for her father till she followed him allah have mercy on the twain and a tale is also told of al asma'i and the three girls of bassorah
the commander of the faithful harun al rashid was exceeding restless one night and rising from his bed paced from chamber to chamber
of stories of women and their verses answered al asma'i hearkening and obedience i have heard great store of women's verses but none pleased me save three sets of couplets i once heard from three girls
and shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say when it was the six hundred and eighty seventh night she pursued it hath reached me o auspicious king that al asma'i said to the prince of true believers
verily i have heard much but nothing pleased me save three sets of couplets improvised by as many girls quoth the caliph tell me of them and quoth he know then o commander of the faithful that i once abode in bassorah
and one day as i was walking the heat was sore upon me and i sought for a siesta place but found none however by looking right and left i came upon a porch swept and sprinkled
at the upper end whereof was a wooden bench under an open lattice window whence exhaled a scent of musk i entered the porch and sitting down on the bench would have stretcht me at full length
when i heard from within a girl's sweet voice talking and saying o my sisters we are here seated to spend our day in friendly converse so come let us each put down an hundred dinars and recite a line of verse
and whoso extemporiseth the goodliest and sweetest line the three hundred dinars shall be hers with love and gladness said the others and the eldest recited the first couplet which is this would he come to my bed during sleep twere delight
but a visit on wake were delightsomer sight quoth the second naught came to salute me in sleep save his shade but welcome fair welcome i cried to the spright then said the youngest my soul and my folk i engage for the youth
to know that we are three maidens sisters sitting in friendly converse who have laid down each an hundred dinars conditioning that whoso recite the goodliest and sweetest couplet shall have the whole three hundred dinars
and we appoint thee umpire between us so decide as thou seest best and the peace be on thee quoth i to the girl
who slept and their modesty mote not affright so they opened whatever lay hid in their hearts and in frolicsome fun began verse to indite quoth one fair coquette with her amorous grace whose teeth for the sweet of her speech flashed bright
would he come to my bed during sleep twere delight but a visit on wake were delightsomer sight when she ended her verse by her smiling was gilt then the second gan singing as nightingale might naught came to salute me in sleep save his shade
but welcome fair welcome i cried to the spright but the third i preferred for she said in reply with expression most apposite exquisite my soul and my folk i engage for the youth musk scented i see in my bed every night
so when i considered their words to decide and not make me the mock of the cynical wight i pronounced for the youngest declaring her verse of all verses be that which is nearest the right then i gave scroll to the slave girl
who went upsatirs with it and behold i heard a noise of dancing and clapping of hands and doomsday astir quoth i to myself tis no time of me to stay here so i came down from the platform and was about to go away when the damsel cried out to me
sit down o asma'i asked i who gave thee to know that i was al asma'i and she answered o shaykh an thy name be unknown to us thy poetry is not so i sat down again
and suddently the door opened and out came the first damsel with a dish of fruits and another of sweetmeats i ate of both and praised their fashion and would have ganged my gait but she cried out sit down o asma'i
wherewith i raised my eyes to her and saw a rosy palm in a saffron sleeve meseemed it was the full moon rising splendid in the cloudy east then she threw me a purse containing three hundred dinars and said to me
and quoth al asma'i o commander of the faithful whose life allah prolong the eldest said i should delight in him if he visited my couch in sleep now this is restricted and dependent upon a condition which may befal or may not befal
whilst for the second an image of dreams came to her in sleep and she saluted it but the youngest's couplet said that she actually lay with her lover and smelt his breath sweeter than musk and she engaged her soul and her folk for him
which she had not done were he not dearer to her than her sprite said the caliph thou didst well o asma'i and gave him other three hundred ducats in payment of his story and i have heard a tale concerning
i asked al rashid once to give me a day's leave that i might be private with the people of my household and my brethren and he gave me leave for saturday the sabbath so i went home and betook myself to making ready meat and drink and other necessaires
and bade the doorkeepers shut the doors and let none come in to me however presently as i sat in my sitting chamber with my women who were looking after my wants
and thought to turn away the doorkeepers but he saluted me after the goodliest fashion and i returned his greeting and bade him be seated so he sat down and began entertaining me with stories of the arabs and their verses till my anger left me
and methought my servants had sought to pleasure me by admitting a man of such good breeding and fine culture then i asked him art thou for meat and he answered i have no need of it and for drink quoth i and quoth he that is as thou wilt
so i drank off a pint of wine and poured him out the like
wilt thou sing us somewhat so we may hear of thine art that wherein thou excellest high and low
quoth he an thou wilt sing something more we will requite thee i dissembled my annoyance and took the lute and sang again taking pains with what i sang
i learned the little tale from an old woman who lived in the valley of the connecticut which the indians called the long river of pines with this very short preface aunt elinor began to read in her best manner the story of onawandah
long ago when hostile indians haunted the great forests and every settlement had its fort for the protection of the inhabitants in one of the towns on the connecticut river lived parson bain and his little son and daughter
the wife and mother was dead but an old servant took care of them and did her best to make reuben and eunice good children her direst threat when they were naughty was the indians will come and fetch you if you don't behave
so they grew up in great fear of the red men even the friendly indians who sometimes came for food or powder were regarded with suspicion by the people no man went to work without his gun near by
on sundays when they trudged to the rude meeting house all carried the trusty rifle on the shoulder and while the pastor preached a sentinel mounted guard at the door to give warning if canoes came down the river or a dark face peered from the wood
one autumn night when the first heavy rains were falling and a cold wind whistled through the valley a knock came at the minister's door and opening it he found an indian boy ragged hungry and foot sore who begged for food and shelter
in his broken way he told how he had fallen ill and been left to die by enemies who had taken him from his own people months before
how he had wandered for days till almost sinking and that he had come now to ask for help led by the hospitable light in the parsonage window send him away master or harm will come of it he is a spy
and we shall all be scalped by the murdering injuns who are waiting in the wood said old becky harshly while little eunice hid in the old servant's ample skirts and twelve year old reuben laid his hand on his cross bow ready to defend his sister if need be
but the good man drew the poor lad in saying with his friendly smile shall not a christian be as hospitable as a godless savage come in child and be fed you sorely need rest and shelter
leaving his face to express the gratitude he had no words to tell the boy sat by the comfortable fire and ate like a famished wolf while becky muttered her forebodings and the children eyed the dark youth at a safe distance
something in his pinched face wounded foot and eyes full of dumb pain and patience touched the little girl's tender heart and yielding to a pitiful impulse she brought her own basin of new milk and setting it beside the stranger
ran to hide behind her father suddenly remembering that this was one of the dreaded indians that was well done little daughter thou shalt love thine enemies and share thy bread with the needy see he is smiling
that pleased him and he wishes us to be his friends but eunice ventured no more that night and quaked in her little bed at the thought of the strange boy sleeping on a blanket before the fire below reuben hid his fears better and resolved to watch while others slept
but was off as soon as his curly head touched the pillow and dreamed of tomahawks and war whoops till morning next day neighbors came to see the waif and one and all advised sending him away as soon as possible since he was doubtless a spy as becky said
and would bring trouble of some sort when he is well he may go whithersoever he will but while he is too lame to walk weak with hunger and worn out with weariness i will harbor him he cannot feign suffering and starvation like this
i shall do my duty and leave the consequences to the lord answered the parson with such pious firmness that the neighbors said no more but they kept a close watch upon onawandah when he went among them silent and submissive
but with the proud air of a captive prince and sometimes a fierce flash in his black eyes when the other lads taunted him with his red skin he was very lame for weeks and could only sit in the sun weaving pretty baskets for eunice and shaping bows and arrows for reuben
the children were soon his friends for with them he was always gentle trying in his soft language and expressive gestures to show his good will and gratitude for they defended him against their ruder playmates and following their father's example trusted and cherished the homeless youth
when he was able to walk he taught the boy to shoot and trap the wild creatures of the wood to find fish where others failed and to guide himself in the wilderness by star and sun wind and water
to eunice he brought little offerings of bark and feathers taught her to make moccasins of skin belts of shells or pouches gay with porcupine quills and colored grass he would not work for old becky who plainly showed her distrust saying
a brave does not grind corn and bring wood that is squaw's work onawandah will hunt and fish and fight for you but no more and even the request of the parson could not win obedience in this though the boy would have died for the good man
we can not tame an eagle as we can a barnyard fowl let him remember only kindness of us and so we turn a foe into a friend said parson bain stroking the sleek dark head that always bowed before him
with a docile reverence shown to no other living creature winter came and the settlers fared hardly through the long months when the drifts rose to the eaves of their low cabins and the stores carefully harvested failed to supply even their simple wants
but the minister's family never lacked wild meat for onawandah proved himself a better hunter than any man in the town and the boy of sixteen led the way on his snow shoes when they went to track a bear to its den chase the deer for miles
or shoot the wolves that howled about their homes in the winter nights but he never joined in their games and sat apart when the young folk made merry as if he scorned such childish pastimes and longed to be a man in all things why he stayed when he was well again no one could tell
unless he waited for spring to make his way to his own people but reuben and eunice rejoiced to keep him for while he taught them many things he was their pupil also learning english rapidly and proving himself a very affectionate and devoted friend and servant in his own quiet way
be of good cheer little daughter i shall be gone but three days and our brave onawandah will guard you well said the parson one april morning as he mounted his horse to visit a distant settlement where the bitter winter had brought sickness and death to more than one household
the boy showed his white teeth in a bright smile as he stood beside the children
i hope you mayn't find you've warmed a viper in your bosom master two days later it seemed as if becky was a true prophet and that the confiding minister had been terribly deceived for onawandah went away to hunt
and that night the awful war whoop woke the sleeping villagers to find their houses burning while the hidden indians shot at them by the light of the fires kindled by dusky scouts in terror and confusion the whites flew to the fort
and while the men fought bravely the women held blankets to catch arrows and bullets or bound up the hurts of their defenders it was all over by daylight and the red men sped away up the river with several prisoners and such booty as they could plunder from the deserted houses
not till all fear of a return of their enemies was over did the poor people venture to leave the fort and seek their ruined homes then it was discovered that becky and the parson's children were gone and great was the bewailing
for the good man was much beloved by all his flock suddenly the smothered voice of becky was heard by a party of visitors calling dolefully i am here betwixt the beds pull me out neighbors for i am half dead with fright and smothering
the old woman was quickly extricated from her hiding place and with much energy declared that she had seen onawandah disguised with war paint among the indians and that he had torn away the children from her arms before she could fly from the house
he chose his time well when they were defenceless dear lambs spite of all my warnings master trusted him and this is the thanks we get oh my poor master how can i tell him this heavy news
there was no need to tell it for as becky sat moaning and beating her breast on the fireless hearth and the sympathizing neighbors stood about her the sound of a horse's hoofs was heard and the parson came down the hilly road like one riding for his life
he had seen the smoke afar off guessed the sad truth and hurried on to find his home in ruins and to learn by his first glance at the faces around him that his children were gone when he had heard all there was to tell
he sat down upon his door stone with his head in his hands praying for strength to bear a grief too deep for words the wounded and weary men tried to comfort him with hope
suddenly a stir went through the mournful group as onawandah came from the wood with a young deer upon his shoulders and amazement in his face as he saw the desolation before him dropping his burden he stood an instant looking with eyes that kindled fiercely
then he came bounding toward them undaunted by the hatred suspicion and surprise plainly written on the countenances before him he missed his playmates and asked but one question the boy the little squaw where gone
his answer was a rough one for the men seized him and poured forth the tale heaping reproaches upon him for such treachery and ingratitude he bore it all in proud silence till they pointed to the poor father
whose dumb sorrow was more eloquent than all their wrath onawandah looked at him and the fire died out of his eyes as if quenched by the tears he would not shed shaking off the hands that held him he went to his good friend saying with passionate earnestness onawandah is not traitor
onawandah remembers onawandah grateful you believe the poor parson looked up at him and could not doubt his truth for genuine love and sorrow ennobled the dark face and he had never known the boy to lie
i believe and trust you still but others will not go you are no longer safe here and i have no home to offer you said the parson sadly feeling that he cared for none unless his children were restored to him onawandah has no fear
he goes but he comes again to bring the boy the little squaw few words but they were so solemnly spoken that the most unbelieving were impressed for the youth laid one hand on the gray head bowed before him and lifted the other toward heaven
as if calling the great spirit to hear his vow a relenting murmur went through the crowd but the boy paid no heed as he turned away and with no arms but his hunting knife and bow no food but such as he could find
no guide but the sun by day the stars by night plunged into the pathless forest and was gone then the people drew a long breath and muttered to one another he will never do it yet he is a brave lad for his years
harry left the valley with the keenest feeling of regret realizing at the parting how strong a friendship he had formed with this family
affairs must be moving now in the great world in the east and he wished to be at the heart of them he had a strong sure footed horse and he had supplies and an extra suit of clothes in his saddle bags
the rifle across his back would attract no attention as all the men in the mountains carried rifles jarvis had instructed harry carefully about the road or path and as the boy was already an experienced traveler with an excellent sense of direction
there was no danger of his getting lost in the wilderness jarvis ike and missus simmons gave him farewells which were full of feeling aunt suse had come down the brick walk tap tapping with her cane as harry stood at the gate ready to mount his horse
good bye aunt susan he said i came a stranger but this house has been made a home to me she peered up at him and harry saw that once more her old eyes were flaming with the light he had seen there when he arrived
good bye governor she said holding out a wrinkled and trembling hand i am proud that our house has sheltered you but it is not for the last time you will come again
and you will be thin and pale and in rags and you will fall at the door i see you coming with these two eyes of mine hush aunt suse exclaimed missus simmons it is not governor ware it is his great grandson
and you mustn't send him away tellin of terrible things that will happen to him i'm not afraid said harry and i hope that i'll see aunt susan and all of you again he lifted her hand and kissed it in the old fashioned manner she smiled and he heard her murmur
on the lumber raft good bye harry
be shore you follow the trail jest as i laid it out to you an in two days you'll strike the wilderness road after that it's easy when harry rode away something rose in his throat and choked him for a moment
he knew that he would never again find more kindly people than these simple mountaineers then in vivid phrases he heard once more the old woman's prophecy you will come again and you will be thin and pale and in rags and you will fall at the door
no one could see into the future he was now across the valley and his path led along the base of the mountain he looked back and saw the four standing on the porch jarvis ike missus simmons and old aunt suse
he waved his hand to them and all four waved back a singular thrill ran through him could it be possible that he would come again and in the manner that the old woman had predicted the path in another minute curved around the mountain
and the valley was shut from view nor as he rode on did he catch another glimpse of it one might roam the mountains for months and never see the home of samuel jarvis the two days passed without event the weather remained fair and no one interfered with him
he slept the first night at a log cabin that jarvis had named having reached it in due time and the second day he reached also in due time the old wilderness road
thence the boy advanced by easy stages into virginia until he reached a railroad where he sold his horse and took a train for richmond having come in a few days out of the cool peaceful atmosphere of the mountains into another which was
surcharged everywhere with the fiery breath of war harry realized as he approached the capital the deep intensity of feeling in everybody the virginians were less volatile than the south carolinians and they had long refused to go out
but now that they were out they were pouring into the southern army and they were animated by an extraordinary zeal he began to hear new or unfamiliar names early and ewell and jackson and lee and johnston and hill and stuart and ashby
names that he would never forget but names that as yet meant little to him he had letters from his father and he expected to find his friends of charleston in richmond or at the front
general beauregard whom he knew would be in command of the army threatening washington and he would not go into a camp of strangers it was now early in june and the country was at its best on both sides of the railway spread the fair virginia fields
and the earth save where the ploughed lands stretched was in its deepest tints of green harry thrusting his head from the window looked eagerly ahead at the city rising on its hills then a shade smaller than charleston it too was a famous place in the south
and it was full of great associations harry like all the educated boys of the south honored and admired its public men they were mighty names to him he was about to tread streets that had been trod by the famous jefferson by madison monroe
randolph of roanoke and many others the shades of the great virginians rose in a host before him he arrived about noon and as he carried no baggage except his saddle bags and weapons he was quickly within the city
his papers being in perfect order he ate dinner as the noonday meal was then called and decided to seek general beauregard at once having learned from an officer on the train that he was in the city
it was said that he was at the residence of president davis called the white house after that other and more famous one at washington in which the lank awkward man abraham lincoln now lived but harry paused frequently on the way
as there was nothing to hurry him and there was much to be seen if charleston had been crowded richmond was more so like all capitals on the verge of a great war but as yet untouched by its destructive breath it throbbed with life
the streets swarmed with people young officers and soldiers in their uniforms civilians of all kinds and many pretty girls in white or light dresses often with flowers in their hair or on their breasts light heartedness and gaiety seemed predominant
harry stopped a while to look at the ancient and noble state house now the home also of the confederate congress standing in capitol square and the spire of the bell tower on shockoe hill
he saw important looking men coming in or going out of the square but he did not linger long intending to see the sights another time he was informed at the white house that general beauregard was there and sending in his card he was admitted promptly
beauregard was sitting with president davis and secretary benjamin in a room furnished plainly and the general in his quick nervous manner rose and greeted him warmly you did good service with us at charleston he said and we welcome you here
he wrote us that you were coming across the mountains from frankfort said mister davis harry thought that the president already looked worn and anxious yes sir replied the boy i came chiefly by the river and the wilderness road
continued the head of the confederacy the southern leaders did their best but they could not move the state and you wish then to serve at the front continued the president if i may returned harry in south carolina i was with colonel leonidas talbot
i have had a letter from him here and if it is your pleasure and that of general beauregard i shall be glad to join his command general beauregard laughed a little you do well he said i have known colonel talbot a long time
and although he may be slow in choosing he is bound to be in the very thick of events when he does choose colonel talbot is at the front and you'll probably find him closer than any other officer to the yankee army we need everybody whom we can get
especially lads of spirit and fire like you you shall be a second lieutenant in his command a train will leave here in four hours be ready it will take you part of the way and you will march on for the rest
mister benjamin did not speak throughout the interview but he watched harry closely
the boy's view of richmond was in truth brief as before night he saw its spires and roofs fading behind him the train was wholly military there were four coaches filled with officers and troops and two more coaches behind them loaded with ammunition
harry heard from some of the officers that the army was gathered at a place called manassas junction where beauregard had taken command on june first and to which he would quickly return but harry did not know any of these officers
and he felt a little lonely he slept after a while in the car seat awakened at times by the jolting or stopping of the train and arrived some time the next day in a country of green hills and red clay roads muddy from heavy rains
they left the train marched over the hills along one of the muddy roads and presently saw a vast array of tents fires and earthworks stretching to the horizon harry's heart leaped again this was the great army of the south
here were regiments and regiments thousands and thousands of men and here he would find his friends colonel talbot and major saint hilaire and saint clair and langdon the whole scene was inspiring in the extreme to the heart of youth
far to the right he saw cavalry galloping back and forth and to the left he saw infantry drilling from somewhere in front came the strains of a regimental band playing
a lingering farewell taking her sighs and tears my steps delayed i thought her heart was breaking in hurried words her name i blessed i breathed the vows that bind me and to my heart in anguish pressed the girl i left behind me
it was a favorite air of the southern bands and much as it stirred harry now he was destined to hear it again in moments far more thrilling he presented his order from general beauregard to a sentinel
who passed him to an officer who in turn told him to go about a quarter of a mile westward where he would find the regiment of colonel talbot quartered it's a mixed regiment he said made up of virginians south carolinians north carolinians
and a few kentuckians and tennesseeans but it's already one of the best in the service colonel talbot and his second in command lieutenant colonel saint hilaire have been thrashing it into shape in great fashion they're mostly boys and already they call themselves the invincibles
you can see the tents of their commanding officers over there by that little creek harry's eyes followed the pointing finger and again his heart leaped his friends were there the two colonels for whom he had such a strong affection and the two lads of his own age
theirs looked like a good camp too it was arranged neatly and by its side flowed the clear cool waters of young's branch a tributary of the little manassas river he walked briskly crossed the brook stepping from stone to stone
and entered the grounds of the invincibles a tall youth rushed forward seized his hand and shook it violently meanwhile uttering cries of welcome in an unbroken stream by all the powers it's our own harry he exclaimed
the new harry of the west whom we were afraid we should never see again everything is for the best but we hardly hoped for this how did you get here harry
not knowing what the future held and inspired perhaps by some counsel of caution he drew half of it in gold intending to keep it about his person risking the chance of robbery then he went toward the bay anxious to see the sea and those famous forts
sumter moultrie and the others of which he had heard so much it was a fine crisp morning one to make the heart of youth leap and he soon noticed that nearly the whole population of the city was going with him toward the harbor
saint clair who had departed for his bank overtook him and it was evident to harry that his friend was not thinking much now of banks what is it arthur asked harry they stole a march on us yesterday replied saint clair
the one with the stars and stripes flying so defiantly over it that's fort sumter yesterday while we were enjoying our christmas dinner and talking of the things that we would do major anderson who commanded the united states garrison in fort moultrie
quietly moved it over to sumter which is far stronger the wives and children of the soldiers and officers have been landed in the city with the request that we send them to their homes in the states which of course we will do
but major anderson who holds the fort in the name of the united states refuses to give it up to south carolina which claims it harry felt an extraordinary thrill a thrill that was in many ways most painful talk was one thing
action was another here stood south carolina and the union face to face looking at each other through the muzzles of cannon sumter had one hundred and forty guns most of which commanded the city
and the people of charleston had thrown up great earthworks mounting many cannon boy as he was harry was old enough to see that here were all the elements of a great conflagration it merely remained for somebody to touch fire to the tow
he was not one to sentimentalize but the sight of the defiant flag the most beautiful in all the world stirred him in every fiber it was the flag under which both his father and colonel talbot had fought
it has to be harry said saint clair who was watching him closely if it comes to a crisis we must fire upon it if we don't the south will be enslaved and black ignorance and savagery will be enthroned upon our necks
i suppose so said harry but look how the people gather the battery and all the harbor were now lined with the men women and children of charleston harry saw soldiers moving about sumter
but no demonstration of any kind occurred there he had not thought hitherto about the garrison of the forts in charleston harbor he recognized for the first time that they might not share the opinions of charleston and this name of anderson
was full of significance for him major anderson was a kentuckian he had heard his father speak of him they had served together but it was now evident to harry that anderson would not go with south carolina you'll see a small boat coming soon from sumter
said saint clair some of our people have gone over there to confer with major anderson and demand that he give up the fort i don't believe he'll do it said harry impulsively some one touched him upon the shoulder and turning quickly
he saw colonel leonidas talbot he shook the colonel's hand with vigor and introduced him to young saint clair i have just come into the city said the colonel and i heard only a few minutes ago that major anderson had removed his garrison from moultrie to sumter
it is true said saint clair he is defiant he says that he will hold the fort for the union i had hoped that he would give up said colonel talbot it might help the way to a composition he pulled his long mustache and looked somberly at the flag
the wind had risen a little and it whipped about the staff its fluttering motions seemed to harry more significant than ever of defiance he understood the melancholy ring in colonel talbot's voice he too like the boy's father had fought under that flag
the same flag that had led him up the flame swept slopes of cerro gordo and chapultepec here they come exclaimed saint clair and i know already the answer that they bring the small boat that he had predicted
put out from sumter and quickly landed at the battery it contained three commissioners prominent men of charleston who had been sent to treat with major anderson and his answer was quickly known to all the crowd sumter was the property of the united states not of south carolina
and he would hold it for the union at that moment the wind strengthened and the flag stood straight out over the lofty walls of sumter i knew it would be so said colonel talbot with a sigh
i am to help in building the fortifications and as i am about to make a tour of inspection i will take you with me harry found that although secession was only a few days old the work of offense and defense was already far advanced
the planters were pouring into charleston bringing their slaves with them and white and black labored together at the earthworks rich men who had never soiled their hands with toil before now
now commander at the west point military academy would speedily resign and come south to take command of the forces in charleston strong works were going up along the mainland the south carolina forces had also seized sullivan's island
morris island and james island and were mounting guns upon them all circling batteries would soon threaten sumter and however defiantly the flag there might snap in the breeze it must come down
as they were leaving the last of the batteries harry noticed the broad strong back and erect figure of a young man who stood with his hands in his pockets he knew by his rigid attitude that he was looking intently at the battery and he knew moreover that it was shepard
he wished to avoid him and he wished also that his companion would not see him he started to draw colonel talbot away but it was too late shepard turned at that moment and the colonel caught sight of his face
that man here among our batteries he exclaimed in a menacing tone come away colonel said harry hastily we don't know anything against him but shepard himself acted first he came forward quickly
his hand extended and his eyes expressing pleasure i missed you this morning mister kenton he said you were too early for me but we meet nevertheless in a place of the greatest interest and here is colonel talbot too
harry took the outstretched hand he could not keep from liking shepard but colonel talbot by turning slightly avoided it without giving the appearance of brusqueness his courtesy concerning which the south carolinians of his type were so particular
would not fail him and while he avoided the hand he promptly introduced shepard and saint clair i did not expect to find events so far advanced in charleston said shepard with the federal garrison concentrated in sumter
and the batteries going up everywhere matters begin to look dangerous i suppose that you have made a careful examination of all the batteries said colonel talbot dryly casual not careful returned shepard in his usual cheerful tones
it is impossible at such a time to keep from looking at sumter the batteries and all the other preparations we would not be human if we didn't do it and i've seen enough to know that the yankees will have a hot welcome if they undertake to interfere with charleston
you see truly said colonel talbot with some emphasis a happy chance has put me at the same place as mister kenton continued shepard easily i have letters which admitted me to the inn of madame delaunay and i met him there last night
we are likely to see much of each other colonel leonidas talbot raised his eyebrows when they walked a little further he excused himself
and harry and arthur after talking a little longer with shepard left him near one of the batteries i'm going to my bank said saint clair i'm already long overdue but it will be forgiven at such a time as this and i must say harry that
colonel talbot does not seem to like your acquaintance mister shepard it is true he doesn't although i don't know just why said harry he saw shepard at a distance three more times in the course of the day but he sedulously avoided a meeting
he noticed that shepard was always near the batteries and earthworks but hundreds of others were near them too he did not return to madame delaunay's until evening when it was time for dinner where he found all the guests gathered with the addition of shepard
madame delaunay assigned the new man to a seat near the foot of the table and the talk ran on much as it had done at the christmas dinner major saint hilaire leading which harry surmised was his custom
shepard who had been introduced to the others by madame delaunay did not have much to say nor did the south carolinians warm to him as they had to harry a slight air of constraint appeared and harry was glad when the dinner was over
then he and saint clair slipped away and spent the evening roaming about the city looking at the old historic places the fine churches the homes of the wealthy and again at the earthworks and the harbor forts
the last thing harry saw as he turned back toward madame delaunay's was that defiant flag of the union still waving above the dark and looming mass of old sumter he was unlocking the door to his room when shepard came briskly down the hall
carrying his candle in his hand i want to tell you good bye mister kenton he said i thought we were to be together here at the inn for some time but it is not to be so what has happened
it appears that my room had been engaged already by another man beginning tomorrow morning i was not informed of it when i came here but madame delaunay has recalled the fact and i cannot doubt the word of a charleston lady it appears also that no other room is vacant
so i go he did not seem at all discouraged his tone being as cheerful as ever and he held out his hand harry liked this man although it seemed that others did not and when he released the hand he said take good care of yourself mister shepard
as i see it the people of charleston are not taking to you and we do not know what is going to happen both statements are true said shepard with a laugh as he vanished down the hail nothing yet had been able to disturb his poise
harry went into his own room and throwing open his front window to let in fresh air he heard the hum of voices he looked down into a piazza and he saw two figures there a man and a woman they were colonel talbot and madame delaunay
he closed the blind promptly feeling that unconsciously he had touched upon something hallowed the thread of an old romance a thread which though slender was nevertheless yet strong nor did he doubt that the suggestion of colonel leonidas talbot
had caused the speedy withdrawal of shepard several more days passed harry found that he was taken into the city's heart and its spell was very strong upon him he knew that much of his welcome was due to the powerful influence of colonel leonidas talbot
and to the warm friendship of arthur saint clair who apparently was related to everybody a letter came from his father to whom he had written at once of his purpose giving his approval and sending him more money colonel kenton wrote that he would come south himself
but he was needed in kentucky where a powerful faction was opposing their plans he said that harry's cousin dick mason had joined the home guards raised in the interests of the old union and was drilling zealously
the letter made the boy very thoughtful the news about his cousin opened his eyes the line of cleavage between north and south was widening into a gulf
his quickness and zeal caused him to be used as a messenger and he was continually passing back and forth among the confederate leaders in charleston he also came into contact with the union officers in fort sumter the relations of the town and the garrison were yet on a friendly basis
men were allowed to come ashore and to buy fresh meat vegetables and other provisions strict orders kept anyone from offering violence or insult to them harry saw anderson once but he did not give him his name
that no talk should pass between them he picked up a copy of the mercury one morning and saw that a steamer the star of the west was on its way to charleston from a northern port with supplies for the garrison in fort sumter he read the brief account
threw down the paper and rushed out for his friend saint clair
fifty eight herr stein sees and hears that i am more of a player than beecke that without making grimaces of any kind i play so expressively that according to his own confession
no one shows off his pianoforte as well as i that i always remain strictly in time surprises every one they can not understand that the left hand should not in the least be concerned in a tempo rubato
when they play the left hand always follows augsburg
seventeen seventy seven to his father we have here a suggestion of the tempo rubato as played by chopin according to the testimony of mikuli
who said that no matter how free chopin was either in melody or arabesque with his right hand the left always adhered strictly to the time mozart learned the principle from his father
who in his method for the violin condemned the accompanists who spoiled the tempo rubato of an artist by waiting to follow him h e k fifty nine
whoever can see and hear her the daughter of stein play without laughing must be a stone stein like her father she sits opposite the treble instead of in the middle of the instrument
so that there may be greater opportunities for swaying about and making grimaces then she rolls up her eyes and smirks if a passage occurs twice it is played slower the second time
if three times still slower when a passage comes up goes the arm and if there is to be an emphasis it must come from the arm heavily and clumsily not from the fingers
but the best of all is that when there comes a passage which ought to flow like oil in which there necessarily occurs a change of fingers there is no need of taking care when the time comes you stop
lift the hand and nonchalantly begin again this helps one the better to catch a false note and the effect is frequently curious augsburg
seventeen seventy seven the letter is to his father and the young woman whose playing is criticized is the little miss of eight years nanette stein sixty
when i told herr stein that i would like to play on his organ and that i was passionately fond of the instrument he marveled greatly and said what a man like you so great a clavier player
no expression neither piano nor forte but goes on always the same but all that signifies nothing to me the organ is nevertheless the king of instruments augsburg october seventeenth
seventeen seventy seven to his father sixty one i had the pleasure to hear herr franzl whose wife is a sister of madame cannabich play a concerto on the violin
he pleases me greatly you know that i am no great lover of difficulties he plays difficult things but one does not recognize that they are difficult but imagines that one
could do the same thing at once that is true art he also has a beautiful round tone not a note is missing one hears everything everything is well marked he has a fine staccato bow
up as well as down and i have never heard so good a double shake as his in a word though he is no wizard he is a solid violinist
seventeen seventy seven to his father sixty two wherein consists the art of playing prima vista in this to play in the proper tempo
january seventeenth seventeen seventy eight to his father
i am at herr von aurnhammer's after dinner nearly every day the young woman is a fright but she plays ravishingly
she is too jerky vienna june twenty seventh seventeen eighty one to his father beethoven found the same fault with mozart's playing that mozart here condemns
sixty four herr richter plays much and well so far as execution is concerned but as you will hear crudely laboriously and without taste or feeling
he is one of the best fellows in the world and without a particle of vanity whenever i played for him he looked immovably at my fingers and one day he said my god
how i am obliged to torment myself and sweat and yet without obtaining applause and for you my friend it is mere play yes said i i had to labor once in order not to show labor now
vienna april twenty eighth seventeen eighty four to his father in salzburg whither the pianist richter whom he recommends to his father is going on a concert trip
sixty five meissner as you know has the bad habit of purposely making his voice tremble marking thus entire quarter and eighth notes i never could endure it in him
it is indeed despicable and contrary to all naturalness in song true the human voice trembles of itself but only in a degree that remains beautiful it is in the nature of the voice
but as soon as you overstep the limit it is no longer beautiful because it is contrary to nature paris june twelfth seventeen seventy eight to his father
the statement that the tremolo effect could be imitated on the clavier seems to require an explanation mozart obviously had in view not the pianoforte which was just coming into use in his day
but the clavichord this instrument was sounded by striking the strings with bits of brass placed in the farther end of the keys
the tangents as they were called had to be held against the strings as long as it was desired that the tone should sound and by gently repeating the pressure on the key
a tremulousness was imparted to the tone which made the clavichord a more expressive instrument than the harpsichord or the early pianoforte
and balancement in french h e k sixty six before dinner herr vogler dashed through my sonata prima vista he played the first movement
with a vengeance as a rule he played a different bass than the one i had written and occasionally he changed the harmony as well as the melody
the eyes can not follow nor the hands grasp the music such playing at sight and are all one to me the hearers i mean those worthy of the name can say nothing more
you can imagine that it was all the more unendurable because i did not dare to say to him much too quick moreover it is much easier to play rapidly than slowly you can drop a few notes in passages without any one noticing it
but is it beautiful at such speed you can use the hands indiscriminately but is that beautiful mannheim january seventeenth seventeen seventy eight to his father
sixty seven
trill or pile on the adornments because they can neither study nor sustain a tone
ah if there is no fire in the composition you will surely never get it in by hurrying it
herr stein is completely daft on the subject of his daughter she is eight years old and learns everything by heart something may come of her for she has talent but not if she goes on as she is doing now
she will never acquire velocity because she purposely makes her hand heavy she will never learn the most necessary most difficult and principal thing in music that is time
because from childhood she has designedly cultivated the habit of ignoring the beat augsburg
seventeen seventy seven to his father
who was schiller's companion in his flight to franconia as frau streicher she became beethoven's faithful friend and frequently took it upon herself to straighten out his domestic affairs
fifty one if she does not get some thoughts and ideas for now she has absolutely none it will all be in vain for god knows i can not give her any
it is not her father's intention to make a great composer out of her she shall he says not write any operas or arias or symphonies but only great sonatas for her instrument and mine
i gave her her fourth lesson today and so far as the rules of composition and her exercises are concerned i am pretty well satisfied with her she wrote a very good bass to the first minuet which i set her
unfortunately she has none she must be taught artificially she has no ideas there are no results i have tried in every sort of way among other things it occurred to me to write down
a very simple minuet and to see if she could write a variation on it in vain well thought i it is because she does not know how to begin i then began a variation of the first measure and told her to continue it
in the same manner that went fairly well when she had made an end i asked her to begin something of her own only the first voice a melody
now look what an ass i am i have begun a minuet and can't finish even the first part be good enough to finish it for me she thought it impossible at length she produced a little something to my joy
then i made her finish the minuet
for her home work i have given her nothing to do except to alter my four measures and make something out of them to invent another beginning to keep to the harmony if she must but to write a new melody we shall see what comes of it
tomorrow paris may fourteenth seventeen seventy eight to his father the pupil was the daughter of the duke de guines an excellent flautist
she plays the harp magnificently writes mozart in the same letter has a great deal of talent and genius and an incomparable memory she knows two hundred pieces and plays them all by heart
was anything but a nobleman fifty two the andante is going to give us the most trouble for it is full of expression and must be played with taste
and accurately as written in the matter of forte and piano she is very clever and learns quickly the right hand is very good but the left utterly ruined i can say that i often pity her
and her that if i were her regular teacher i would lock up all her music cover the keyboard with a handkerchief and make her practice both hands at first slowly on nothing but passages trills mordents et cetera
until the difficulty with the left hand was remedied after that i am sure i could make a real clavier player out of her it is a pity she has so much genius reads respectably has a great deal of natural fluency
and plays with a great deal of feeling mannheim november sixteenth seventeen seventy seven to his father the pupil was rose cannabich to whom the sonata referred to is dedicated
her father whom mozart admired greatly as an able conductor was chapelmaster of the excellently trained orchestra at mannheim he lived from seventeen thirty one to seventeen ninety eight
the andante from which trouble was expected was that which mozart wrote with the purpose that it should reflect the character of rose cannabich a lovely and amiable girl according to all accounts
h e k fifty three this e is very forced one can see that it was written only to go from one consonance to another in parallel motion
just as bad poets write nonsense for the sake of a rhyme from the exercise book of the cousin of abbe stadler who took lessons in thorough bass from mozart in seventeen eighty four
and when your mind was not devoted to other pursuits you would perhaps have done wisely but now that your profession of the stage must and ought to occupy all your attention
it would be an unwise measure to enter into a dry study you may take my word for it nature has made you a melodist and you would only disturb and perplex yourself reflect a little knowledge is a dangerous thing
should there be errors in what you write you will find hundreds of musicians in all parts of the world capable of correcting them therefore do not disturb your natural gift to michael kelly the irish tenor
to whom mozart assigned the parts of basilio and don curzio at the first performance of le nozze di figaro in seventeen eighty six kelly had asked mozart whether or not he should study counterpoint
three years later kelly returned to england began his career as composer of musical pieces for the stage he was fairly prolific but failed to impress the public with the originality of his creative talent
he went into the wine business which fact led sheridan to make the witty suggestion that he inscribe over his shop michael kelly composer of wines and importer of music he was born in seventeen sixty four and died
in eighteen twenty six h e k fifty five this is generally the case with all who did not taste the rod or feel the teacher's tongue when boys
by mere talent and inclination many succeed fairly well but with other people's ideas having none of their own others who have ideas of their own do not know what to do with them that is your case
in a letter written in seventeen eighty nine to a noble friend criticizing a symphony fifty six do not wonder at me it was not a caprice
i noticed that most of the musicians were old men there would have been no end of dragging if i had not first driven them into the fire and made them angry out of pure rage they did their best
reported by rochlitz mozart was rehearsing the allegro of one of his symphonies in leipsic he worked up such a fit of anger that he stamped his foot and broke one of his shoe laces
his anger fled and he broke into a merry laugh fifty seven right that's the way to shriek at a rehearsal of don giovanni
the representative of zerlina did not act realistically enough to suit mozart thereupon he went unnoticed on the stage and at the repetition of the scene grabbed the singer so rudely and unexpectedly
that she involuntarily uttered the shriek which the scene called for
the place prague and the time
twenty ninth seventeen eighty seven
sixty nine we wish that it were in our power to introduce the german taste in minuets in italy minuets here last almost as long as whole symphonies
to his mother and sister mozart as a lad was making a tour through italy with his father there might be a valuable hint here touching the proper tempo for the minuets in mozart's symphonies
mozart himself was plainly of another opinion h e k seventy beecke told me and it is true
that music is now played in the cabinet of the emperor
then i thought to myself yes such a shallow pate as you feels a pain as soon as he hears something which he can not understand mannheim november thirteenth
seventeen seventy seven to his father beecke was a conceited pianist seventy one nothing gives me so much pleasure in the anticipation
as the concert spirituel in paris for i fancy i shall be called on to compose something the orchestra is said to be large and good and my principal favorites can be well performed there
that is to say choruses and i am right glad that the frenchmen are fond of them heretofore paris has been used to the choruses of gluck depend on me
mannheim february twenty eighth seventeen seventy eight to his father on march seventh he writes i have centered all my hopes on paris
for the german princes are all niggards seventy two i do not know whether or not my symphony pleases and to tell you the truth i don't much care
whom should it please i warrant it will please the few sensible frenchmen who are here and there will be no great misfortune if it fails to please the stupids
still i have some hope that the asses too will find something in it to their liking paris june twelfth seventeen seventy eight to his father
seventy three the most of the symphonies are not to the local taste if i find time i shall revise a few violin concertos shorten them for our taste in germany is for long things
as a matter of fact short and good is better paris september eleventh seventeen seventy eight to his father in salzburg in the same letter he says
that is to say in the matter of composition seventy four
it is abominable german is divine in comparison and then the singers men and women they are unmentionable they do not sing they shriek they howl with all their might through throat nose and gullet
paris july ninth seventeen seventy eight to his father mozart was thinking of writing a french opera seventy five
ah if we too had clarinets you can't conceive what a wonderful effect a symphony with flutes oboes and clarinets makes at the first audience with the archbishop i shall have much to tell him and
probably a few suggestions to make alas our music might be much better and more beautiful if only the archbishop were willing
to his father mozart was on his return to salzburg where he had received an appointment in the archiepiscopal chapel it seems that wood wind instruments were still absent from the symphony orchestra in salzburg
seventy six others know as well as you and i that tastes are continually changing and that the changes extend even into church music
this should not be but it accounts for the fact that true church music is now found only in the attic and almost eaten up by the worms vienna april twelfth seventeen eighty three
to his father who was active as court chapelmaster in salzburg and who had been asked by his son in the same letter when it grew a little warmer to look in the attic and send some of your his church music
seventy seven the themes pleased me most in the symphony yet it will be the least effective for there is too much in it and a fragmentary performance of it sounds like an ant hill looks
that is as if the devil had been turned loose in it in a letter written in seventeen eighty nine to a nobleman who was a composer and had submitted a symphony to mozart for criticism
seventy eight so far as melody is concerned yes for dramatic effect no moreover the scores which you may see here outside those of
and there is nothing french about them except the words
whom mozart frequently found occupied with french scores and who had asked whether the study of italian scores were not preferable seventy nine the ode is elevated
beautiful everything you wish but too exaggerated and bombastic for my ears but what would you the golden mean the truth is no longer recognized or valued to win applause one must write stuff so simple
that a coachman might sing it after you or so incomprehensible that it pleases simply because no sensible man can comprehend it but it is not this that i wanted to discuss with you but another matter i have a strong desire to write a book
a little work on musical criticism with illustrative examples n b not under my name vienna december twenty eighth seventeen eighty two to his father
a bardic song by denis on gibraltar it is a secret for a hungarian lady wants thus to honor denis
the little book of criticism never appeared eighty the orchestra in berlin contains the greatest aggregation of virtuosi in the world
i never heard such quartet playing as here but when all the gentlemen are together they might do better
in seventeen eighty nine when asked for an opinion on the orchestra in berlin the king asked mozart to transfer his services to the court at berlin mozart replied
chapter fifteen wherein it is told and known who the knight of the mirrors and his squire were don quixote went off satisfied elated and vain glorious in the highest degree
at having won a victory over such a valiant knight as he fancied him of the mirrors to be and one from whose knightly word he expected to learn whether the enchantment of his lady still continued
under the penalty of ceasing to be one to return and render him an account of what took place between him and her but don quixote was of one mind he of the mirrors of another for he just then had no thought of anything
but finding some village where he could plaster himself as has been said already
recommended don quixote to resume his knight errantry which he had laid aside it was in consequence of having been previously in conclave with the curate and the barber on the means to be adopted to induce don quixote
to stay at home in peace and quiet without worrying himself with his ill starred adventures at which consultation it was decided by the unanimous vote of all and on the special advice of carrasco
that don quixote should be allowed to go as it seemed impossible to restrain him and that samson should sally forth to meet him as a knight errant and do battle with him for there would be no difficulty about a cause and vanquish him
that being looked upon as an easy matter and that it should be agreed and settled that the vanquished was to be at the mercy of the victor then don quixote being vanquished the bachelor knight was to command him to return to his village and his house
and not quit it for two years or until he received further orders from him all which it was clear don quixote would unhesitatingly obey rather than contravene or fail to observe the laws of chivalry and during the period of his seclusion
he might perhaps forget his folly or there might be an opportunity of discovering some ready remedy for his madness
offered himself as his squire carrasco armed himself in the fashion described
fitted on over his own natural nose the false masquerade one
and so they followed the same route don quixote took and almost came up with him in time to be present at the adventure of the cart of death and finally encountered them in the grove where all that the sagacious reader has been reading about took place
and had it not been for the extraordinary fancies of don quixote and his conviction that the bachelor was not the bachelor senor bachelor would have been incapacitated for ever from taking his degree of licentiate
all through not finding nests where he thought to find birds
ill they had succeeded and what a sorry end their expedition had come to said to the bachelor sure enough senor samson carrasco we are served right it is easy enough to plan and set about an enterprise
but it is often a difficult matter to come well out of it don quixote a madman and we sane he goes off laughing safe and sound and you are left sore and sorry i'd like to know now which is the madder he who is so because he cannot help it
to which samson replied the difference between the two sorts of madmen is that he who is so will he nil he will be one always while he who is so of his own accord can leave off being one whenever he likes
i was a madman of my own accord when i volunteered to become your squire and of my own accord i'll leave off being one and go home that's your affair returned samson but to suppose that i am going home until i have given don quixote a thrashing is absurd
and it is not any wish that he may recover his senses that will make me hunt him out now but a wish for the sore pain i am in with my ribs won't let me entertain more charitable thoughts thus discoursing the pair proceeded until they reached a town
where it was their good luck to find a bone setter with whose help the unfortunate samson was cured
and went home while he stayed behind meditating vengeance and the history will return to him again at the proper time so as not to omit making merry with don quixote now chapter sixteen
of what befell don quixote with a discreet gentleman of la mancha don quixote pursued his journey in the high spirits satisfaction
and self complacency already described fancying himself the most valorous knight errant of the age in the world because of his late victory all the adventures that could befall him from that time forth he regarded as already done and brought to a happy issue
he made light of enchantments and enchanters he thought no more of the countless drubbings that had been administered to him in the course of his knight errantry nor of the volley of stones that had levelled half his teeth nor of the ingratitude of the galley slaves
and the shower of stakes that fell upon him in short he said to himself that could he discover any means mode or way of disenchanting his lady dulcinea he would not envy the highest fortune that the most fortunate knight errant of yore ever reached or could reach
he was going along entirely absorbed in these fancies when sancho said to him isn't it odd senor that i have still before my eyes that monstrous enormous nose of my gossip
and dost thou then believe sancho said don quixote
all i know is that the tokens he gave me about my own house wife and children nobody else but himself could have given me and the face once the nose was off
and the sound of the voice was just the same let us reason the matter sancho said don quixote come now by what process of thinking can it be supposed that the bachelor samson carrasco
would come as a knight errant in arms offensive and defensive to fight with me have i ever been by any chance his enemy have i ever given him any occasion to owe me a grudge am i his rival
or does he profess arms that he should envy the fame i have acquired in them well but what are we to say senor returned sancho
and if that be enchantment as your worship says was there no other pair in the world for them to take the likeness of
it is all said don quixote a scheme and plot of the malignant magicians that persecute me who foreseeing that i was to be victorious in the conflict arranged that the vanquished knight should display the countenance of my friend the bachelor
in order that the friendship i bear him should interpose to stay the edge of my sword and might of my arm and temper the just wrath of my heart so that he who sought to take my life by fraud and falsehood should save his own
and to prove it thou knowest already sancho by experience which cannot lie or deceive how easy it is for enchanters to change one countenance into another turning fair into foul and foul into fair
for it is not two days since thou sawest with thine own eyes the beauty and elegance of the peerless dulcinea in all its perfection and natural harmony
while i saw her in the repulsive and mean form of a coarse country wench with cataracts in her eyes and a foul smell in her mouth and when the perverse enchanter ventured to effect so wicked a transformation
and thy gossip in order to snatch the glory of victory out of my grasp for all that however i console myself
god knows what's the truth of it all said sancho and knowing as he did that the transformation of dulcinea had been a device and imposition of his own his master's illusions were not satisfactory to him
but he did not like to reply lest he should say something that might disclose his trickery as they were engaged in this conversation they were overtaken by a man who was following the same road behind them mounted on a very handsome flea bitten mare
and dressed in a gaban of fine green cloth with tawny velvet facings and a montera of the same velvet the trappings of the mare were of the field and jineta fashion and of mulberry colour and green
he carried a moorish cutlass hanging from a broad green and gold baldric the buskins were of the same make as the baldric the spurs were not gilt but lacquered green and so brightly polished that matching as they did the rest of his apparel
they looked better than if they had been of pure gold when the traveller came up with them he saluted them courteously and spurring his mare was passing them without stopping but don quixote called out to him gallant sir
if so be your worship is going our road and has no occasion for speed it would be a pleasure to me if we were to join company in truth replied he on the mare
i would not pass you so hastily but for fear that horse might turn restive in the company of my mare you may safely hold in your mare senor said sancho in reply to this for our horse is the most virtuous and well behaved horse in the world
and the only time he misbehaved my master and i suffered for it sevenfold i say again your worship may pull up if you like for if she was offered to him between two plates the horse would not hanker after her the traveller drew rein
amazed at the trim and features of don quixote who rode without his helmet which sancho carried like a valise in front of dapple's pack saddle
and if the man in green examined don quixote closely still more closely did don quixote examine the man in green who struck him as being a man of intelligence in appearance he was about fifty years of age
and an expression between grave and gay and his dress and accoutrements showed him to be a man of good condition
don quixote saw very plainly the attention with which the traveller was regarding him and read his curiosity in his astonishment and courteous as he was and ready to please everybody before the other could ask him any question he anticipated him by saying
the appearance i present to your worship being so strange and so out of the common i should not be surprised if it filled you with wonder but you will cease to wonder when i tell you as i do that i am one of those knights who as people say go seeking adventures
i have left my home i have mortgaged my estate i have given up my comforts and committed myself to the arms of fortune to bear me whithersoever she may please my desire was to bring to life again knight errantry now dead
and for some time past stumbling here falling there now coming down headlong now raising myself up again i have carried out a great portion of my design
succouring widows protecting maidens and giving aid to wives orphans and minors the proper and natural duty of knights errant and therefore because of my many valiant and christian achievements
i have been already found worthy to make my way in print to well nigh all or most of the nations of the earth thirty thousand volumes of my history have been printed and it is on the high road to be printed thirty thousand thousands of times
if heaven does not put a stop to it in short to sum up all in a few words or in a single one i may tell you i am don quixote of la mancha otherwise called the knight of the rueful countenance
for though self praise is degrading i must perforce sound my own sometimes that is to say when there is no one at hand to do it for me
nor the sallowness of my countenance nor my gaunt leanness will henceforth astonish you
with these words don quixote held his peace and from the time he took to answer
after a long pause however he said to him you were right when you saw curiosity in my amazement sir knight but you have not succeeded in removing the astonishment i feel at seeing you
it has not done so on the contrary now that i know i am left more amazed and astonished than before what is it possible that there are knights errant in the world in these days and histories of real chivalry printed
i cannot realise the fact that there can be anyone on earth now a days who aids widows or protects maidens or defends wives or succours orphans nor should i believe it had i not seen it in your worship with my own eyes blessed be heaven
for by means of this history of your noble and genuine chivalrous deeds which you say has been printed the countless stories of fictitious knights errant with which the world is filled so much to the injury of morality and the prejudice and discredit of good histories
will have been driven into oblivion there is a good deal to be said on that point said don quixote as to whether the histories of the knights errant are fiction or not why
i doubt it said don quixote
those who regard it as a matter of certainty that they are not true
and was waiting him to confirm it by something further but before they could turn to any new subject don quixote begged him to tell him who he was since he himself had rendered account of his station and life
to this he in the green gaban replied i sir knight of the rueful countenance am a gentleman by birth native of the village where please god we are going to dine today i am more than fairly well off and my name is don diego de miranda
i pass my life with my wife children and friends my pursuits are hunting and fishing but i keep neither hawks nor greyhounds nothing but a tame partridge or a bold ferret or two
some in our mother tongue some latin some of them history others devotional those of chivalry have not as yet crossed the threshold of my door i am more given to turning over the profane than the devotional so long as they are books of honest entertainment that charm by their style
and attract and interest by the invention they display though of these there are very few in spain sometimes i dine with my neighbours and friends and often invite them my entertainments are neat and well served without stint of anything
i have no taste for tattle nor do i allow tattling in my presence i pry not into my neighbours lives nor have i lynx eyes for what others do i hear mass every day i share my substance with the poor making no display of good works
lest i let hypocrisy and vainglory those enemies that subtly take possession of the most watchful heart find an entrance into mine i strive to make peace between those whom i know to be at variance i am the devoted servant of our lady
and my trust is ever in the infinite mercy of god our lord sancho listened with the greatest attention to the account of the gentleman's life and occupation and thinking it a good and a holy life and that he who led it ought to work miracles he threw himself off dapple
and almost with tears seeing this the gentleman asked him what are you about brother what are these kisses for let me kiss said sancho for i think your worship is the first saint in the saddle
i am no saint replied the gentleman but a great sinner but you are brother for you must be a good fellow as your simplicity shows sancho went back and regained his pack saddle having extracted a laugh from his master's profound melancholy
and excited fresh amazement in don diego don quixote then asked him how many children he had and observed that one of the things wherein the ancient philosophers who were without the true knowledge of god placed the summum bonum
was in the gifts of nature in those of fortune
i senor don quixote answered the gentleman have one son without whom perhaps i should count myself happier than i am not because he is a bad son but because he is not so good as i could wish he is eighteen years of age
he has been for six at salamanca studying latin and greek and when i wished him to turn to the study of other sciences i found him so wrapped up in that of poetry if that can be called a science that there is no getting him to take kindly to the law
which i wished him to study or to theology the queen of them all i would like him to be an honour to his family as we live in days when our kings liberally reward learning that is virtuous and worthy for learning without virtue is a pearl on a dunghill
he spends the whole day in settling whether homer expressed himself correctly or not in such and such a line of the iliad whether martial was indecent or not in such and such an epigram
whether such and such lines of virgil are to be understood in this way or in that in short all his talk is of the works of these poets
for of the moderns in our own language he makes no great account but with all his seeming indifference to spanish poetry just now his thoughts are absorbed in making a gloss on four lines that have been sent him from salamanca which i suspect are for some
poetical tournament to all this don quixote said in reply children senor are portions of their parents bowels and therefore be they good or bad are to be loved as we love the souls that give us life
it is for the parents to guide them from infancy in the ways of virtue propriety and worthy christian conduct so that when grown up they may be the staff of their parents old age and the glory of their posterity
and to force them to study this or that science i do not think wise though it may be no harm to persuade them
and it is the student's good fortune that heaven has given him parents who provide him with it
they may see him most inclined to and though that of poetry is less useful than pleasurable it is not one of those that bring discredit upon the possessor poetry gentle sir is as i take it
like a tender young maiden of supreme beauty to array bedeck and adorn whom is the task of several other maidens who are all the rest of the sciences and she must avail herself of the help of all and all derive their lustre from her
but this maiden will not bear to be handled nor dragged through the streets nor exposed either at the corners of the market places or in the closets of palaces she is the product of an alchemy of such virtue
that he who is able to practise it will turn her into pure gold of inestimable worth he that possesses her must keep her within bounds not permitting her to break out in ribald satires or soulless sonnets
be offered for sale unless indeed it be in heroic poems moving tragedies or sprightly and ingenious comedies she must not be touched by the buffoons nor by the ignorant vulgar incapable of comprehending
or appreciating her hidden treasures
and the lower orders for everyone who is ignorant be he lord or prince may and should be included among the vulgar he then who shall embrace and cultivate poetry under the conditions i have named shall become famous
and his name honoured throughout all the civilised nations of the earth and with regard to what you say senor of your son having no great opinion of spanish poetry i am inclined to think that he is not quite right there and for this reason
the great poet homer did not write in latin because he was a greek nor did virgil write in greek because he was a latin in short all the ancient poets wrote in the language they imbibed with their mother's milk and never went in quest of foreign ones to express
their sublime conceptions and that being so the usage should in justice extend to all nations and the german poet should not be undervalued because he writes in his own language nor the castilian nor even the biscayan
for writing in his but your son senor i suspect is not prejudiced against spanish poetry but against those poets who are mere spanish verse writers without any knowledge of other languages
or sciences to adorn and give life and vigour to their natural inspiration and yet even in this he may be wrong for according to a true belief a poet is born one that is to say
the poet by nature comes forth a poet from his mother's womb and following the bent that heaven has bestowed upon him without the aid of study or art he produces things that show how truly he spoke who said
at the same time i say that the poet by nature who calls in art to his aid will be a far better poet and will surpass him who tries to be one relying upon his knowledge of art alone the reason is
that art does not surpass nature but only brings it to perfection and thus nature combined with art and art with nature will produce a perfect poet to bring my argument to a close i would say then gentle sir
let your son go on as his star leads him for being so studious as he seems to be and having already successfully surmounted the first step of the sciences which is that of the languages with their help he will by his own exertions
reach the summit of polite literature which so well becomes an independent gentleman and adorns honours and distinguishes him as much as the mitre does the bishop or the gown the learned counsellor
if your son write satires reflecting on the honour of others chide and correct him and tear them up but if he compose discourses in which he rebukes vice in general in the style of horace and with elegance like his commend him
for it is legitimate for a poet to write against envy and lash the envious in his verse and the other vices too provided he does not single out individuals there are however poets who for the sake of saying something spiteful
would run the risk of being banished to the coast of pontus if the poet be pure in his morals he will be pure in his verses too the pen is the tongue of the mind and as the thought engendered there so will be the things that it writes down
and when kings and princes observe this marvellous science of poetry in wise virtuous and thoughtful subjects they honour value exalt them and even crown them with the leaves of that tree which the thunderbolt strikes not
as if to show that they whose brows are honoured and adorned with such a crown are not to be assailed by anyone
so much so that he began to abandon the notion he had taken up about his being crazy
of ideas their origin composition
and ideas the difference betwixt these consists in the degrees of force and liveliness with which they strike upon the mind and make their way into our thought or consciousness
those perceptions which enter with most force and violence we may name impressions and under this name i comprehend all our sensations passions and emotions
as they make their first appearance in the soul by ideas i mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning such as for instance are all the perceptions excited by the present discourse
in explaining this distinction every one of himself will readily perceive the difference betwixt feeling and thinking the common degrees of these are easily distinguished though it is not impossible
our ideas may approach to our impressions as on the other hand it sometimes happens that our impressions are so faint and low that we cannot distinguish them from our ideas
but notwithstanding this near resemblance in a few instances they are in general so very different that no one can make a scruple to rank them under distinct heads and assign to each a peculiar name
i here make use of these terms impression and idea in a sense different from what is usual and i hope this liberty will be allowed me perhaps i rather restore the word idea
in which our lively perceptions are produced in the soul but merely the perceptions themselves for which there is no particular name either in the english or any other language that i know of
there is another division of our perceptions which it will be convenient to observe and which extends itself both to our impressions and ideas this division is into simple and complex
simple perceptions or impressions and ideas are such as admit of no distinction nor separation the complex are the contrary to these and may be distinguished into parts
taste and smell are qualities all united together in this apple it is easy to perceive they are not the same but are at least distinguishable from each other
having by these divisions given an order and arrangement to our objects we may now apply ourselves to consider with the more accuracy their qualities and relations
the first circumstance that strikes my eye is the great resemblance betwixt our impressions and ideas in every other particular except their degree of force and vivacity
the one seem to be in a manner the reflexion of the other so that all the perceptions of the mind are double and appear both as impressions and ideas
when i shut my eyes and think of my chamber the ideas i form are exact representations of the impressions i felt nor is there any circumstance of the one which is not to be found in the other
in running over my other perceptions i find still the same resemblance and representation ideas and impressions appear always to correspond to each other
and that i must make use of the distinction of perceptions into simple and complex to limit this general decision that all our ideas and impressions are resembling
i observe that many of our complex ideas never had impressions that corresponded to them and that many of our complex impressions never are exactly copied in ideas
i can form such an idea of that city as will perfectly represent all its streets and houses in their real and just proportions i perceive therefore
that though there is in general a great resemblance betwixt our complex impressions and ideas yet the rule is not universally true that they are exact copies of each other
by a particular enumeration of them every one may satisfy himself in this point by running over as many as he pleases but if any one should deny this universal resemblance
if he does not answer this challenge as it is certain he cannot we may from his silence and our own observation establish our conclusion thus we find
that all simple ideas and impressions resemble each other and as the complex are formed from them we may affirm in general that these two species of perception are exactly correspondent
having discovered this relation which requires no farther examination i am curious to find some other of their qualities let us consider how they stand with regard to their existence
and which of the impressions and ideas are causes and which effects the full examination of this question is the subject of the present treatise and therefore we shall here content ourselves
represent in seeking for phenomena to prove this proposition i find only those of two kinds but in each kind the phenomena are obvious numerous and conclusive
i first make myself certain by a new review of what i have already asserted that every simple impression is attended with a correspondent idea and every simple idea
but clearly proves a dependence of the impressions on the ideas or of the ideas on the impressions that i may know on which side this dependence lies
i consider the order of their first appearance and find by constant experience that the simple impressions always take the precedence of their correspondent ideas but never appear in the contrary order
to give a child an idea of scarlet or orange of sweet or bitter i present the objects or in other words convey to him these impressions but proceed not so absurdly
as to endeavour to produce the impressions by exciting the ideas our ideas upon their appearance produce not their correspondent impressions
and is only different in the degrees of force and liveliness the constant conjunction of our resembling perceptions is a convincing proof that the one are the causes of the other
and this priority of the impressions is an equal proof that our impressions are the causes of our ideas not our ideas of our impressions to confirm this
i consider another plain and convincing phaenomenon which is that where ever by any accident the faculties which give rise to any impressions are obstructed in their operations
as when one is born blind or deaf not only the impressions are lost but also their correspondent ideas so that there never appear in the mind the least traces of either of them
nor is this only true where the organs of sensation are entirely destroyed but likewise where they have never been put in action to produce a particular impression
we cannot form to ourselves a just idea of the taste of a pine apple without having actually tasted it there is however one contradictory phaenomenon
which may prove that it is not absolutely impossible for ideas to go before their correspondent impressions i believe it will readily be allowed that the several distinct ideas of colours which enter by the eyes
or those of sounds which are conveyed by the hearing are really different from each other though at the same time resembling now if this be true of different colours it must be no less so
except that single one be placed before him descending gradually from the deepest to the lightest it is plain that he will perceive a blank
that there is a greater distance in that place betwixt the contiguous colours than in any other now i ask whether it is possible for him from his own imagination to supply this deficiency
and raise up to himself the idea of that particular shade though it had never been conveyed to him by his senses i believe there are few but will be of opinion that he can and this may serve as a proof
that the simple ideas are not always derived from the correspondent impressions though the instance is so particular and singular that it is scarce worth our observing and does not merit that for it alone
that as our ideas are images of our impressions so we can form secondary ideas which are images of the primary as appears from this very reasoning concerning them
but as the first ideas are supposed to be derived from impressions it still remains true that all our simple ideas proceed either mediately
from their correspondent impressions this then is the first principle i establish in the science of human nature nor ought we to despise it because of the simplicity of its appearance
for it is remarkable that the present question concerning the precedency of our impressions or ideas is the same with what has made so much noise in other terms when it has been disputed
whether there be any innate ideas or whether all ideas be derived from sensation and reflexion we may observe that in order to prove the ideas of extension and colour
they observe that we have a preceding experience of these emotions in ourselves now if we carefully examine these arguments we shall find that they prove nothing
of ideas their origin composition
of modes and substances
of abstract ideas part two of the ideas of space and time
of the infinite divisibility of space and time
of the other qualities of our idea of space and time
the same subject continued
of the idea of existence and of external existence part three of knowledge and probability
of probability and of the idea of cause and effect
of the impressions of the senses and memory
of the inference from the impression to the idea
of the influence of belief
of the probability of chances
of unphilosophical probability
rules by which to judge of causes and effects
of the immateriality of the soul
of the influence of these relations on pride and humility
limitations of this system
of property and riches
of benevolence and anger
with compassion and malice
of respect and contempt
of the effects of custom
of the influence of the imagination on the passions
of virtue and vice in general
moral distinctions not derived from reason
of the obligation of promises
some farther reflections concerning justice and injustice
i i of the other virtues and vices
of the origin of the natural virtues and vices
nothing is more usual and more natural for those who pretend to discover anything new to the world in philosophy and the sciences than to insinuate the praises of their own systems by decrying all those which have been advanced before them
and indeed were they content with lamenting that ignorance which we still lie under in the most important questions that can come before the tribunal of human reason there are few who have an acquaintance with the sciences
that would not readily agree with them it is easy for one of judgment and learning to perceive the weak foundation even of those systems which have obtained the greatest credit and have carried their pretensions highest
to accurate and profound reasoning principles taken upon trust consequences lamely deduced from them want of coherence in the parts and of evidence in the whole
these are every where to be met with in the systems of the most eminent philosophers and seem to have drawn disgrace upon philosophy itself
nor is there required such profound knowledge to discover the present imperfect condition of the sciences but even the rabble without doors may judge from the noise and clamour which they hear
that all goes not well within there is nothing which is not the subject of debate and in which men of learning are not of contrary opinions the most trivial question escapes not our controversy
and in the most momentous we are not able to give any certain decision disputes are multiplied as if every thing was uncertain and these disputes are managed with the greatest warmth
who has art enough to represent it in any favourable colours the victory is not gained by the men at arms who manage the pike and the sword but by the trumpeters drummers and musicians of the army
from hence in my opinion arises that common prejudice against metaphysical reasonings of all kinds even amongst those who profess themselves scholars
and have a just value for every other part of literature by metaphysical reasonings they do not understand those on any particular branch of science but every kind of argument which is any way abstruse
that they shall at least be natural and entertaining and indeed nothing but the most determined scepticism along with a great degree of indolence can justify this aversion to metaphysics
for if truth be at all within the reach of human capacity it is certain it must lie very deep and abstruse and to hope we shall arrive at it without pains
while the greatest geniuses have failed with the utmost pains must certainly be esteemed sufficiently vain and presumptuous i pretend to no such advantage in the philosophy i am going to unfold
and would esteem it a strong presumption against it were it so very easy and obvious it is evident that all the sciences have a relation greater or less to human nature
and that however wide any of them may seem to run from it they still return back by one passage or another even mathematics natural philosophy and natural religion are in some measure dependent on the science of man
and are judged of by their powers and faculties it is impossible to tell what changes and improvements we might make in these sciences were we thoroughly acquainted with the extent and force of human understanding
and could explain the nature of the ideas we employ and of the operations we perform in our reasonings and these improvements are the more to be hoped for in natural religion
as it is not content with instructing us in the nature of superior powers but carries its views farther to their disposition towards us and our duties towards them and consequently
we ourselves are not only the beings that reason but also one of the objects concerning which we reason if therefore the sciences of mathematics natural philosophy and natural religion
and the nature of our ideas morals and criticism regard our tastes and sentiments and politics consider men as united in society and dependent on each other in these four sciences of logic
morals criticism and politics is comprehended almost everything which it can any way import us to be acquainted with or which can tend either to the improvement or ornament of the human mind
we may extend our conquests over all those sciences which more intimately concern human life and may afterwards proceed at leisure to discover more fully
there is no question of importance whose decision is not comprised in the science of man and there is none which can be decided with any certainty before we become acquainted with that science
must be laid on experience and observation it is no astonishing reflection to consider that the application of experimental philosophy to moral subjects should come after that to natural
at the distance of above a whole century since we find in fact that there was about the same interval betwixt the origins of these sciences
the space of time is nearly equal to that betwixt my lord bacon and some late philosophers mister locke my lord shaftesbury doctor mandeville mister hutchinson doctor butler et cetera in england
who have begun to put the science of man on a new footing and have engaged the attention and excited the curiosity of the public so true it is that however other nations may rival us in poetry
and excel us in some other agreeable arts the improvements in reason and philosophy can only be owing to a land of toleration and of liberty nor ought we to think
that this latter improvement in the science of man will do less honour to our native country than the former in natural philosophy but ought rather to esteem it a greater glory upon account of the greater importance of that science
as well as the necessity it lay under of such a reformation for to me it seems evident that the essence of the mind being equally unknown to us with that of external bodies
it must be equally impossible to form any notion of its powers and qualities otherwise than from careful and exact experiments and the observation of those particular effects which result from its different circumstances
and situations and though we must endeavour to render all our principles as universal as possible by tracing up our experiments to the utmost and explaining all effects from the simplest and fewest causes
it is still certain we cannot go beyond experience and any hypothesis that pretends to discover the ultimate original qualities of human nature ought at first to be rejected as presumptuous
and chimerical i do not think a philosopher who would apply himself so earnestly to the explaining the ultimate principles of the soul would show himself a great master in that very science of human nature
which he pretends to explain or very knowing in what is naturally satisfactory to the mind of man for nothing is more certain than that despair has almost the same effect upon us with enjoyment
and that we are no sooner acquainted with the impossibility of satisfying any desire than the desire itself vanishes when we see that we have arrived at the utmost extent of human reason we sit down contented
though we be perfectly satisfied in the main of our ignorance and perceive that we can give no reason for our most general and most refined principles beside our experience of their reality which is the reason
is enough to satisfy the reader so the writer may derive a more delicate satisfaction from the free confession of his ignorance and from his prudence in avoiding that error into which so many have fallen
of imposing their conjectures and hypotheses on the world for the most certain principles when this mutual contentment and satisfaction can be obtained betwixt the master and scholar
i know not what more we can require of our philosophy but if this impossibility of explaining ultimate principles should be esteemed a defect in the science of man i will venture to affirm
that it is a defect common to it with all the sciences and all the arts in which we can employ ourselves whether they be such as are cultivated in the schools of the philosophers
or practised in the shops of the meanest artizans none of them can go beyond experience or establish any principles which are not founded on that authority moral philosophy has indeed
this peculiar disadvantage which is not found in natural that in collecting its experiments it cannot make them purposely with premeditation
and after such a manner as to satisfy itself concerning every particular difficulty which may be when i am at a loss to know the effects of one body upon another in any situation
i need only put them in that situation and observe what results from it but should i endeavour to clear up after the same manner any doubt in moral philosophy by placing myself in the same case with that which i consider
it is evident this reflection and premeditation would so disturb the operation of my natural principles as must render it impossible to form any just conclusion from the phenomenon we must therefore
glean up our experiments in this science from a cautious observation of human life and take them as they appear in the common course of the world by men's behaviour in company in affairs and in their pleasures
no screech owle stir a wing about thy sepulchre no boysterous winds or stormes come hither to starve or wither thy soft sweet earth but like a spring
love kept it ever flourishing herrick in the course of an excursion through one of the remote counties of england
i had struck into one of those cross roads that lead through the more secluded parts of the country and stopped one afternoon at a village the situation of which was beautifully rural and retired
there was an air of primitive simplicity about its inhabitants not to be found in the villages which lie on the great coach roads i determined to pass the night there and having taken an early dinner
strolled out to enjoy the neighboring scenery my ramble as is usually the case with travellers soon led me to the church which stood at a little distance from the village indeed
it was an object of some curiosity its old tower being completely overrun with ivy so that only here and there a jutting buttress an angle of gray wall
or a fantastically carved ornament peered through the verdant covering it was a lovely evening the early part of the day had been dark and showery but
in the afternoon it had cleared up and though sullen clouds still hung overhead yet there was a broad tract of golden sky in the west from which the setting sun gleamed through the dripping leaves
and lit up all nature into a melancholy smile it seemed like the parting hour of a good christian smiling on the sins and sorrows of the world and giving
in the serenity of his decline an assurance that he will rise again in glory i had seated myself on a half sunken tombstone
and was musing as one is apt to do at this sober thoughted hour on past scenes and early friends on those who were distant and those who were dead
and indulging in that kind of melancholy fancying which has in it something sweeter even than pleasure every now and then the stroke of a bell from the neighboring tower fell on my ear
and it was some time before i recollected that it must be tolling the knell of some new tenant of the tomb presently i saw a funeral train moving across the village green
it wound slowly along a lane was lost and reappeared through the breaks of the hedges until it passed the place where i was sitting the pall was supported by young girls dressed in white
and another about the age of seventeen walked before bearing a chaplet of white flowers a token that the deceased was a young and unmarried female
the corpse was followed by the parents they were a venerable couple of the better order of peasantry the father seemed to repress his feelings but his fixed eye
contracted brow and deeply furrowed face showed the struggle that was passing within his wife hung on his arm and wept aloud with the convulsive bursts of a mother's sorrow
i followed the funeral into the church the bier was placed in the centre aisle and the chaplet of white flowers with a pair of white gloves was hung over the seat which the deceased had occupied
for who is so fortunate as never to have followed some one he has loved to the tomb but when performed over the remains of innocence and beauty thus laid low in the bloom of existence
what can be more affecting at that simple but most solemn consignment of the body to the grave earth to earth ashes to ashes dust to dust
the tears of the youthful companions of the deceased flowed unrestrained the father still seemed to struggle with his feelings
but the mother only thought of her child as a flower of the field cut down and withered in the midst of its sweetness
mourning over her children and would not be comforted on returning to the inn i learnt the whole story of the deceased it was a simple one
and such as has often been told she had been the beauty and pride of the village her father had once been an opulent farmer but was reduced in circumstances
the good man watched over her education with paternal care it was limited and suitable to the sphere in which she was to move for he only sought to make her an ornament to her station in life
not to raise her above it the tenderness and indulgence of her parents and the exemption from all ordinary occupations had fostered a natural grace and delicacy of character
she appeared like some tender plant of the garden blooming accidentally amid the hardier natives of the fields
the superiority of her charms was felt and acknowledged by her companions but without envy
for it was surpassed by the unassuming gentleness and winning kindness of her manners it might be truly said of her this is the prettiest low born lass that ever ran on the green sward
nothing she does or seems but smacks of something greater than herself too noble for this place the village was one of those sequestered spots
which still retain some vestiges of old english customs it had its rural festivals and holiday pastimes and still kept up some faint observance of the once popular rites of may
these indeed had been promoted by its present pastor who was a lover of old customs and one of those simple christians that think their mission fulfilled by promoting joy on earth
and good will among mankind under his auspices the may pole stood from year to year in the centre of the village green on mayday it was decorated with garlands and streamers
and a queen or lady of the may was appointed as in former times to preside at the sports and distribute the prizes and rewards
would often attract the notice of casual visitors among these on one may day was a young officer whose regiment had been recently quartered in the neighborhood
he was charmed with the native taste that pervaded this village pageant but above all with the dawning loveliness of the queen of may
it was the village favorite who was crowned with flowers and blushing and smiling in all the beautiful confusion of girlish diffidence and delight
the artlessness of rural habits enabled him readily to make her acquaintance he gradually won his way into her intimacy
and paid his court to her in that unthinking way in which young officers are too apt to trifle with rustic simplicity there was nothing in his advances to startle or alarm
he never even talked of love but there are modes of making it more eloquent than language and which convey it subtilely and irresistibly to the heart
the tone of voice the thousand tendernesses which emanate from every word and look and action these form the true eloquence of love
but never described can we wonder that they should readily win a heart young guileless and susceptible as to her she loved almost unconsciously
she scarcely inquired what was the growing passion that was absorbing every thought and feeling or what were to be its consequences she indeed
looked not to the future when present his looks and words occupied her whole attention when absent she thought but of what had passed at their recent interview
she would wander with him through the green lanes and rural scenes of the vicinity
he talked in the language of polite and cultivated life and breathed into her ear the witcheries of romance and poetry
perhaps there could not have been a passion between the sexes more pure than this innocent girl's the gallant figure of her youthful admirer and the splendor of his military attire
might at first have charmed her eye but it was not these that had captivated her heart her attachment had something in it of idolatry
she looked up to him as to a being of a superior order she felt in his society the enthusiasm of a mind naturally delicate and poetical
and now first awakened to a keen perception of the beautiful and grand of the sordid distinctions of rank and fortune she thought nothing it was the difference of intellect
of demeanor of manners from those of the rustic society to which she had been accustomed that elevated him in her opinion she would listen to him with charmed ear
and downcast look of mute delight and her cheek would mantle with enthusiasm or if ever she ventured a shy glance of timid admiration it was as quickly withdrawn
and she would sigh and blush at the idea of her comparative unworthiness her lover was equally impassioned but his passion was mingled with feelings of a coarser nature
he had begun the connection in levity for he had often heard his brother officers boast of their village conquests
and thought some triumph of the kind necessary to his reputation as a man of spirit but he was too full of youthful fervor
there were the old obstacles which so incessantly occur in these heedless attachments his rank in life the prejudices of titled connections
his dependence upon a proud and unyielding father all forbade him to think of matrimony but when he looked down upon this innocent being
so tender and confiding there was a purity in her manners a blamelessness in her life
and to chill the glow of generous sentiment with that cold derisive levity with which he had heard them talk of female virtue whenever he came into her presence
she was still surrounded by that mysterious but impassive charm of virgin purity in whose hallowed sphere no guilty thought can live
he remained for a short time in a state of the most painful irresolution he hesitated to communicate the tidings until the day for marching was at hand
when he gave her the intelligence in the course of an evening ramble the idea of parting had never before occurred to her it broke in at once upon her dream of felicity
she looked upon it as a sudden and insurmountable evil and wept with the guileless simplicity of a child he drew her to his bosom and kissed the tears from her soft cheek
nor did he meet with a repulse for there are moments of mingled sorrow and tenderness which hallow the caresses of affection he was naturally impetuous
and the sight of beauty apparently yielding in his arms the confidence of his power over her and the dread of losing her forever all conspired to overwhelm his better feelings
he ventured to propose that she should leave her home and be the companion of his fortunes he was quite a novice in seduction and blushed and faltered at his own baseness
but so innocent of mind was his intended victim that she was at first at a loss to comprehend his meaning and why she should leave her native village
and the humble roof of her parents when at last the nature of his proposal flashed upon her pure mind the effect was withering she did not weep
she did not break forth into reproach she said not a word but she shrunk back aghast as from a viper gave him a look of anguish that pierced to his very soul and
clasping her hands in agony fled as if for refuge to her father's cottage the officer retired confounded humiliated and repentant
it is uncertain what might have been the result of the conflict of his feelings had not his thoughts been diverted by the bustle of departure new scenes new pleasures
and new companions soon dissipated his self reproach and stifled his tenderness yet amidst the stir of camps the revelries of garrisons
the array of armies and even the din of battles his thoughts would sometimes steal back to the scenes of rural quiet and village simplicity the white cottage
the footpath along the silver brook and up the hawthorn hedge and the little village maid loitering along it leaning on his arm
and listening to him with eyes beaming with unconscious affection the shock which the poor girl had received in the destruction of all her ideal world had indeed been cruel
the march of the departing troops she had seen her faithless lover borne off as if in triumph amidst the sound of drum and trumpet and the pomp of arms
she strained a last aching gaze after him as the morning sun glittered about his figure and his plume waved in the breeze
he passed away like a bright vision from her sight and left her all in darkness it would be trite to dwell on the particulars of her after story
it was like other tales of love melancholy she avoided society and wandered out alone in the walks she had most frequented with her lover
she sought like the stricken deer to weep in silence and loneliness and brood over the barbed sorrow that rankled in her soul
sometimes she would be seen late of an evening sitting in the porch of the village church and the milk maids returning from the fields would now and then overhear her singing some plaintive ditty in the hawthorn walk
she became fervent in her devotions at church and as the old people saw her approach so wasted away yet with a hectic gloom and that hallowed air which melancholy diffuses round the form
and looking after her would shake their heads in gloomy foreboding she felt a conviction that she was hastening to the tomb but looked forward to it as a place of rest
the silver cord that had bound her to existence was loosed and there seemed to be no more pleasure under the sun if ever her gentle bosom had entertained resentment against her lover
it was extinguished she was incapable of angry passions and in a moment of saddened tenderness she penned him a farewell letter
but touching from its very simplicity she told him that she was dying and did not conceal from him that his conduct was the cause
she even depicted the sufferings which she had experienced but concluded with saying that she could not die in peace until she had sent him her forgiveness
and her blessing by degrees her strength declined that she could no longer leave the cottage she could only totter to the window where propped up in her chair
it was her enjoyment to sit all day and look out upon the landscape still she uttered no complaint nor imparted to any one the malady that was preying on her heart
she never even mentioned her lover's name but would lay her head on her mother's bosom and weep in silence
her poor parents hung in mute anxiety over this fading blossom of their hopes still flattering themselves that it might again revive to freshness and that the bright unearthly bloom which sometimes flushed her cheek
might be the promise of returning health in this way she was seated between them one sunday afternoon her hands were clasped in theirs the lattice was thrown open
and the soft air that stole in brought with it the fragrance of the clustering honeysuckle which her own hands had trained round the window her father had just been reading a chapter in the bible
it spoke of the vanity of worldly things and of the joys of heaven it seemed to have diffused comfort and serenity through her bosom
the bell had tolled for the evening service the last villager was lagging into the porch and everything had sunk into that hallowed stillness peculiar to the day of rest
her parents were gazing on her with yearning hearts sickness and sorrow which pass so roughly over some faces had given to hers the expression of a seraph's
a tear trembled in her soft blue eye was she thinking of her faithless lover or were her thoughts wandering to that distant churchyard
into whose bosom she might soon be gathered suddenly the clang of hoofs was heard a horseman galloped to the cottage he dismounted before the window
the poor girl gave a faint exclamation and sunk back in her chair it was her repentant lover he rushed into the house and flew to clasp her to his bosom
but her wasted form her deathlike countenance so wan yet so lovely in its desolation smote him to the soul and he threw himself in agony at her feet
she was too faint to rise she attempted to extend her trembling hand her lips moved as if she spoke
but no word was articulated she looked down upon him
and closed her eyes forever such are the particulars which i gathered of this village story they are but scanty
and i am conscious have little novelty to recommend them in the present rage also for strange incident and high seasoned narrative they may appear trite and insignificant
but they interested me strongly at the time and taken in connection with the affecting ceremony which i had just witnessed left a deeper impression on my mind
than many circumstances of a more striking nature i have passed through the place since and visited the church again from a better motive than mere curiosity
it was a wintry evening the trees were stripped of their foliage the churchyard looked naked and mournful and the wind rustled coldly through the dry grass evergreens however
had been planted about the grave of the village favorite
the church door was open and i stepped in there hung the chaplet of flowers and the gloves as on the day of the funeral the flowers were withered it is true
but care seemed to have been taken that no dust should soil their whiteness i have seen many monuments where art has exhausted its powers to awaken the sympathy of the spectator
but i have met with none that spoke more touchingly to my heart
the isle of blasted hopes there is a large island where the ninety mile beach ends in a wilderness of roaring breakers it is the isle of blasted hopes
its enchanting landscape has allured many a landsman to his ruin and its beacon seen through the haze of a south east gale has guided many a watchful mariner to shipwreck and death after the discovery of gippsland
pearson and black first occupied the island under a grazing license and they put eleven thousand sheep on it with some horses bullocks and pigs the sheep began to die so they sold them to captain cole at ten shillings a head giving in the other stock
they were of the opinion that they had made an excellent bargain but when the muster was made nine thousand six hundred of the sheep were missing the pigs ran wild but multiplied when the last sheep had perished cole sold his license to a man named thomas
who put on more sheep and afterwards exchanged as many as he could find with john king for cattle and horses morrison next occupied the island until he was starved out then another man named thomas took the fatal grazing license
but he did not live on the land he placed his brother in charge of it to be out of the way of temptation as he was too fond of liquor the brother was not allowed the use of a boat he with his wife and family was virtually a prisoner
condemned to sobriety but by this time a lighthouse had been erected and watts the keeper of it had a boat and was moreover fond of liquor the two men soon became firm friends and often found it necessary to make voyages to port albert for flour
or tea or sugar the last time they sailed together the barometer was low and a gale was brewing when they left the wharf they had taken on board all the stores they required and more they were happy and glorious
next day the masthead of their boat was seen sticking out of the water near sunday island the pilot schooner went down and hauled the boat to the surface but nothing was found in her except the sand ballast and a bottle of rum
her sheet was made fast and when the squall struck her she had gone down like a stone the isle of blasted hopes was useless even as an asylum for inebriates the ecliptic was carrying coals from newcastle the time was midnight
the sky was misty and the gale was from the south east when the watch reported a light ahead the cabin boy was standing on deck near the captain
father and son agreed they said the light ahead was the one on kent's group and then the vessel grounded amongst the breakers the seamen stripped off their heavy clothing and went overboard
he could not make up his mind to jump overboard he heard the men in the water shouting to one another make for the light that course led them away from the nearest land which they could not see at length a great sea swept the boy among the breakers
but his good angel pushed a piece of timber within reach
he then let the timber go and scrambled out of reach of the angry surge but when he came to the dry sand he fainted and fell down when he recovered his senses he began to look for shelter there was a signal station not far off but he could not see it
he went away from the pitiless sea through an opening between low conical hills covered with dark scrub over a pathway composed of drift sand and broken shells he found an old hut without a door there was no one in it
he went inside and lay down shivering at daybreak a boy the son of ratcliff the signal man started out to look for his goats and as they sometimes passed the night in the old fowlhouse he looked in for them but instead of the goats
he saw the naked cabin boy who are you he said and what are you doing here and where did you come from i have been shipwrecked replied the cabin boy and then he sat up and began to cry
and the boy was brought to the cottage put to bed and supplied with food and drink the signal for a wreck was hoisted at the flagstaff but when the signallman went to look for a wreck he could not find one he searched along the shore and found the dead body of the captain
and a piece of splintered spar seven or eight feet long on which the cabin boy had come ashore the ecliptic with her cargo and crew had completely disappeared while the signalman near at hand slept peacefully undisturbed by her crashing timbers
or the shouts of the drowning seamen ratcliff was not a seer and had no mystical lore he was a runaway sailor who had in the forties travelled daily over the egerton run unconscious of the tons of gold beneath his feet
there was a fair wind and a smooth sea when the clonmel went ashore at three o'clock in the morning of the second day of january eighteen forty one eighteen hours before she had taken a fresh departure from ram's head to wilson's promontory
the anchors were let go she swung to wind and at the fall of the tide she bedded herself securely in the sand her hull machinery and cargo uninjured the seventy five passengers and crew were safely landed
sails lumber and provisions were taken ashore in the whaleboats and quarter boats tents were erected the food supplies were stowed away under a capsized boat and a guard set over them by captain tollervey
next morning seven volunteers launched one of the whaleboats boarded the steamer took in provisions made a lug out of a piece of canvas hoisted the union jack to the mainmast upside down and pulled safely away from the clonmel against a head wind
they hoisted the lug and ran for one of the seal islands where they found a snug little cove ate a hearty meal and rested for three hours they then pulled for the mainland and reached sealer's cove about midnight where they landed cooked supper
and passed the rest of the night in the boat for fear of the blacks next morning three men went ashore for water and filled the breaker when they saw three blacks coming down towards them so they hurried on board and the anchor was hauled up
as the wind was coming from the east they had to pull for four hours before they weathered the southern point of the cove they then hoisted sail and ran for wilson's promentory which they rounded at ten o'clock a m
at eight o'clock in the evening they brought up in a small bay at the eastern extremity of western port glad to get ashore and stretch their weary limbs after a night's refreshing repose on the sandy beach they started at break of day
sailing along very fast with a strong and steady breeze from the east although they were in danger of being swamped as the sea broke over the boat repeatedly at two o'clock p m they were abreast of port philip heads
but they found a strong ebb tide with such a ripple and broken water that they did not consider it prudent to run over it they therefore put the boat's head to windward and waited for four hours when they saw a cutter bearing down on them which proved to be the sisters
captain mulholland who took the boat in tow and landed them at williamstown at eleven o'clock p m sixty three hours from the time they left the clonmel captain lewis the harbour master went to rescue the crew and passengers and brought them all to melbourne
together with the mails which had been landed on the island since known by the name of the clonmel for fifty two years the black boilers of the clonmel have lain half buried in the sandspit and they may still be seen among the breakers from the deck of every vessel sailing up the channel to port albert the clonmel with her valuable cargo was sold in sydney and the purchaser mister grose
set about the business of making his fortune out of her he sent a party of wreckers who pitched their camps on snake island where they had plenty of grass scrub and timber
the work of taking out the cargo was continued under various captains for six years and then mister grose lost a schooner and was himself landed in the court of insolvency while the pioneers at the old port were on the verge of starvation
the clonmel men were living in luxury they had all the blessings both of land and sea corned beef salt pork potatoes plum duff tea sugar coffee wine beer spirits and tobacco from the cargo of the clonmel
and oysters without end from a neighbouring lagoon they constructed a large square punt which they filled with cargo daily wind and weather permitting at other times they rested from their labours or roamed about the island shooting birds or hunting kangaroo
but though unseen he was watching them and all their works one morning the wreckers had gone to the wreck a man named kennedy was left in charge of the camp sambo the black cook was attending to his duties at the fire
and missus kennedy the only lady of the party was at the water hole washing clothes her husband had left the camp with his gun in the hope of shooting some wattle birds which were then fat with feeding on the sweet blossoms of the honeysuckle
he was sitting on a log near the water hole talking to his wife
she stood with her hands on her hips pensively contemplating the garments she had her troubles and was turning them over in her mind while her husband was thinking of something else quite different it is i believe a thing that often happens
i am thinking flora he said that this would be a grand island to live on far better than skye because it has no rocks on it
i could put sheep and cattle on it and they could not go away nor be lifted because
and mutton and wool and game and fish and oysters we could make a garden and haf plenty of kail and potatoes and apples it's all ferry well donald she replied for you to be talking about sheep and cattle
and apples but i'd like to know wherefer we would be getting the money to buy the sheep and cattle
and wherefer i'm to get another goon in a country like this i'm
donald thought his wife was troubling herself about mere trifles but before he had time to say so a blackfellow snatched his gun from across his knees
and a third did the same to flora and the unfortunate couple lay senseless on the ground
the tents occupied by the wreckers had been enclosed in a thick hedge of scrub to protect them from the drifting sand there was only one opening in the hedge through which the blacks could see sambo cooking the wreckers dinner before a fire his head was bare
and he was enjoying the genial heat of early summer singing snatches of the melodies of old virginny the hearing of the australian aboriginal is acute and his talent for mimicry astonishing
he can imitate the notes of every bird and the call of every animal with perfect accuracy sambo's senseless song enchanted the four blacks it was first heard with tremendous applause in new orleans
it was received with enthusiasm by every audience in the great republic and it had been the delight of every theatre in the british empire it may be said that jim crow buried the legitimate drama and danced on its grave
it really seemed to justify the severe judgment passed on us by the sage of chelsea that we were sixteen millions mostly fools no air was ever at the same time so silly and so successful as jim crow
and do just so and ebery time i turn about i jump jim crow they forgot their murderous errand
at last there was an echo of the closing words which seemed to come from a large gum tree beyond the tents against which a ladder had been reared to the forks used for the purpose of a look out by captain leebrace sambo paused
looked up to the gum tree and said
the echo was repeated and then he wheeled about in real earnest transfixed with horror unable to move a limb the blacks were close to him now
but first they examined their game critically poking their fingers about him pinching him in various parts of the body stroking his broad nose and ample lips with evident admiration and trying to pull out the curls on his woolly head
sambo was usually proud of his personal appearance but just now fear prevented him from enjoying the applause of the strangers at length he recovered his presence of mind sufficiently to make an effort to avert his impending doom
if the blacks could be induced to eat the dinner he was cooking their attention to himself might be diverted and their appetites appeased so he pointed towards the pots saying plenty beef pork plum duff
so instead of taking the food like sensible men they upset all the pots with their waddies and scattered the beef pork plum duff and potatoes so that they were covered with sand and completely spoiled
but there was a sound of voices from the waterhole and they quickly gathered together their stolen goods and disappeared in a few minutes captain leebrace and the wreckers arrived at the camp bringing with them kennedy and his wife who had recovered their senses and were able to tell what had happened
done spoil all de dinner and run away wid de knives and forks sambo said captain leebrace soon resolved on a course of reprisals
he went up the ladder to the forks of the gum tree with his telescope and soon obtained a view of the retreating thieves appearing occasionally and disappearing among the long grass and timber and after observing the course they were taking he came down the ladder
weapons suitable for game both large and small during the pursuit the captain every now and then from behind a tree searched for the enemy with his telescope until at last he could see that they had halted and had joined a number of their tribe
then he and his men crept slowly along the ground until they arrived within short range of the natives three of the blacks were wearing the stolen shirts a fourth had put on the lilac dress
and they were strutting around to display their brave apparel just like white folks
and never wastes any of it on his despicable wife but still captain leebrace had some doubt in the matter he whispered to his men i don't like to shoot at a gown
and you take the other two one to the right the other to the left when i say one two three fire the order was obeyed and when the smoke cleared away the print dress was gone
but all the rest of the plunder was recovered on the spot
and was found in the canoe at the old port the blackfellow who wore it had taken it off and put it under his knees in the bottom of his canoe and when the white men's boat came after him he was in so great a hurry to hide himself in the scrub that he left the dress behind
next day there was a sudden alarm in the camp at the old port clancy and dick the devil came running toward the beach full of fear and excitement screaming the blacks the blacks they are coming hundreds of them
and they are all naked and daubed over white and they have long spears the men who had guns campbell shay and davy fetched them out of their huts and stood ready to receive the enemy even mc clure although very weak left his bed and came outside to assist in the fight
the fringe of the scrub was dotted with the piebald bodies of the blacks dancing about brandishing their spears and shouting defiance at the white men
and they showed no disposition to make a rush or anything like a concerted attack campbell after watching the enemy's movements for some time said i think it will be better to give them a taste of the nine pounder keep a look out while i load her
he went into his store to get the charge ready he tied some powder tightly in a piece of calico and rammed it home
on this he put a nine pound shot but reflecting that the aim at the dancing savages would be uncertain he put in a double charge consisting of some broken glass and a handful of nails
he then thrust a wooden skewer down the touch hole into the powder bag below primed and directed the piece towards the scrub giving it as he judged sufficient elevation to send the charge among the thickest of the foe as this was the first time the gun had been brought into action
campbell thought it best to be cautious so he ordered all his men to take shelter behind the store he then selected a long piece of bark which he lighted at the fire and standing behind an angle of the building he applied the light to the touch hole
every man was watching the scrub to see the effect of the discharge there was a fearful explosion succeeded by shrieks of horror and fear from the blacks as the ball and nails and broken glass went whistling over their heads through the trees
then there was a moment of complete silence
but on arriving at the scrub no foe was to be seen either dead or alive the elevation of the artillery had been too great and the missiles had passed overhead but the result was all that could be hoped for
for two months afterwards not a single native was visible two victories had been gained by the pioneers and it was felt that they deserved some commemoration at night there was a feast around the camp fire it was of necessity a frugal one
campbell produced flour enough for a large damper a luxury unseen for the last eight weeks
davy brought out a box full of eggs and a dozen mutton birds
clancy and dick the devil the poor pirates gave all the game they had that day killed
the twelve canoes the spoils of victory were of little value they were placed on the camp fire one after another and reduced to ashes the warriors sat around on logs and boxes enjoying the good things provided and talking cheerfully
but they made no set speeches dinner oratory is full of emptiness and they had plenty of that every day they dipped pannikins of tea out of the iron pot when burke and wills were starving at cooper's creek on a diet of nardoo
the latter recorded in his diary that what the food wanted was sugar he believed that nardoo and sugar would keep him alive the pioneers at the old port were convinced that their great want was fat with that their supper would have been perfect
mc clure was dying of consumption as everybody knew but himself he could not believe that he had come so far from home only to die and he joined the revellers at the camp fire he said to kindly enquirers that he felt quite well
and would soon regain his strength before that terrible journey over the mountains he had been the life and soul of the port
looking as innocent as a child that no one could be long dispirited in his company
and he began playing the liveliest of tunes strathspeys jigs and reels until some of the men could hardly keep their heels still but it is hard to dance on loose sand and they had to be contented with expressing their feelings in song
davy sang ye mariners of england and other songs of the sea and pateley jim gave the angel's whisper followed by an old ballad of the days of robin hood called the wedding of aythur o'braidley
the violin accompanying the airs and putting the very soul of music into every song but by degrees the musician grew weary and began to play odds and ends of old tunes sacred and profane
and at last glided unconsciously as it were into the land o the leal i'm wearin away jean
to the land o the leal there's nae sorrow there jean there's nae caul or care jean the days aye fair jean i the land of the leal at last mc clure rose from his seat and said
and bid ye a good nicht i think i'll be going hame to my mither the morn he went into his tent it was high tide and there was a gentle swish of long low waves lapping the sandy beach
with the ebb he was the first man who died at the old port and he was buried on the bank of the river where friday first saw its waters flowing towards the mountain
whether the same immaterial substance remaining there can be two persons as to the second part of the question whether the same immaterial substance remaining there may be two distinct persons
which question seems to me to be built on this whether the same immaterial being being conscious of the action of its past duration may be wholly stripped of all the consciousness of its past existence
and lose it beyond the power of ever retrieving it again and so as it were beginning a new account from a new period have a consciousness that cannot reach beyond this new state all those who hold pre existence are evidently of this mind
since they allow the soul to have no remaining consciousness of what it did in that pre existent state either wholly separate from body or informing any other body and if they should not it is plain experience would be against them
so that personal identity reaching no further than consciousness reaches a pre existent spirit not having continued so many ages in a state of silence must needs make different persons
suppose a christian platonist or a pythagorean should upon god's having ended all his works of creation the seventh day think his soul hath existed ever since and should imagine it has revolved in several human bodies
as i once met with one who was persuaded his had been the soul of socrates how reasonably i will not dispute this i know that in the post he filled which was no inconsiderable one he passed for a very rational man
would any one say that he being not conscious of any of socrates's actions or thoughts could be the same person with socrates let any one reflect upon himself and conclude that he has in himself an immaterial spirit
which is that which thinks in him and in the constant change of his body keeps him the same and is that which he calls himself let his also suppose
for souls being as far as we know anything of them in their nature indifferent to any parcel of matter the supposition has no apparent absurdity in it which it may have been as well as it is now the soul of any other man
does or can he conceive himself the same person with either of them can he be concerned in either of their actions attribute them to himself or think them his own more than the actions of any other men that ever existed
so that this consciousness not reaching to any of the actions of either of those men he is no more one self with either of them than of the soul of immaterial spirit that now informs him had been created and began to exist when it began to inform his present body
for this would no more make him the same person with nestor than if some of the particles of smaller that were once a part of nestor were now a part of this man the same immaterial substance without the same consciousness
no more making the same person by being united to any body than the same particle of matter without consciousness united to any body makes the same person but let him once find himself conscious of any of the actions of nestor
he then finds himself the same person with nestor seventeen the body as well as the soul goes to the making of a man and thus may we be able without any difficulty to conceive the same person at the resurrection
though in a body not exactly in make or parts the same which he had here the same consciousness going along with the soul that inhabits it but yet the soul alone in the change of bodies would scarce to any one but to him that makes the soul the man
be enough to make the same man for should the soul of a prince carrying with it the consciousness of the prince's past life enter and inform the body of a cobbler as soon as deserted by his own soul every one sees he would be the same person with the prince
accountable only for the prince's actions but who would say it was the same man the body too goes to the making the man and would i guess to everybody determine the man in this case wherein the soul with all its princely thoughts about it would not make another man
but he would be the same cobbler to every one besides himself i know that in the ordinary way of speaking the same person and the same man stand for one and the same thing and indeed every one will always have a liberty to speak as he pleases
and to apply what articulate sounds to what ideas he thinks fit and change them as often as he pleases but yet when we will inquire what makes the same spirit man or person we must fix the ideas of spirit man or person in our minds
and having resolved with ourselves what we mean by them it will not be hard to determine in either of them or the like when it is the same and when not eighteen consciousness alone unites actions into the same person
but though the same immaterial substance or soul does not alone wherever it be and in whatsoever state make the same man yet it is plain consciousness as far as ever it can be extended should it be to ages past
unites existences and actions very remote in time into the same person as well as it does the existences and actions of the immediately preceding moment so that whatever has the consciousness of present and past actions
is the same person to whom they both belong had i the same consciousness that i saw the ark and noah's flood as that i saw an overflowing of the thames last winter or as that i write now i could no more doubt that i who write this now
that saw the thames overflowed last winter and that viewed the flood at the general deluge was the same self place that self in what substance you please than that i who write this am the same myself now whilst i write
whether i consist of all the same substance material or immaterial or no that i was yesterday for as to this point of being the same self it matters not whether this present self be made up of the same or other substances
i being as much concerned and as justly accountable for any action that was done a thousand years since appropriated to me now by this self consciousness as i am for what i did the last moment nineteen
self depends on consciousness not on substance self is that conscious thinking thing whatever substance made up of whether spiritual or material simple or compounded it matters not
which is sensible or conscious of pleasure and pain capable of happiness or misery and so is concerned for itself as far as that consciousness extends
thus every one finds that whilst comprehended under that consciousness the little finger is as much a part of himself as what is most so upon separation of this little finger should this consciousness go along with the little finger and leave the rest of the body
it is evident the little finger would be the person the same person and self then would have nothing to do with the rest of the body as in this case it is the consciousness that goes along with the substance
when one part is separate from another which makes the same person and constitutes this inseparable self so it is in reference to substances remote in time that with which the consciousness of this present thinking thing can join itself
makes the same person and is one self with it and with nothing else and so attributes to itself and owns all the actions of that thing as its own as far as that consciousness reaches and no further as every one who reflects will perceive
twenty persons not substances the objects of reward and punishment in this personal identity is founded all the right and justice of reward and punishment
happiness and misery being that for which every one is concerned for himself and not mattering what becomes of any substance not joined to or affected with that consciousness for as it is evident in the instance i gave but now
if the consciousness went along with the little finger when it was cut off that would be the same self which was concerned for the whole body yesterday as making part of itself whose actions then it cannot but admit as its own now
though if the same body should still live and immediately from the separation of the little finger have its own peculiar consciousness whereof the little finger knew nothing it would not at all be concerned for it as a part of itself
or could own any of its actions or have any of them imputed to him twenty one which shows wherein personal identity consists
this may show us wherein personal identity consists not in the identity of substance but as i have said in the identity of consciousness wherein if socrates and the present mayor of queenborough agree they are the same person
if the same socrates waking and sleeping do not partake of the same consciousness socrates waking and sleeping is not the same person and to punish socrates waking for what sleeping socrates thought and waking socrates was never conscious of
would be no more of right than to punish one twin for what his brother twin did whereof he knew nothing because their outsides were so like that they could not be distinguished for such twins have been seen
twenty two absolute oblivion separates what is thus forgotten from the person but not from the man but yet possibly it will still be objected
suppose i wholly lose the memory of some parts of my life beyond a possibility of retrieving them so that perhaps i shall never be conscious of them again yet am i not the same person that did those actions had those thoughts that i once was conscious of
though i have now forgot them to which i answer that we must here take notice what the word i is applied to which in this case is the man only and the same man being presumed to be the same person
i is easily here supposed to stand also for the same person but if it be possible for the same man to have distinct incommunicable consciousness at different times it is past doubt the same man would at different times make different persons
which we see is the sense of mankind in the solemnest declaration of their opinions human laws not punishing the mad man for the sober man's actions nor the sober man for what the mad man did thereby making them two persons
which is somewhat explained by our way of speaking in english when we say such an one is not himself or is beside himself in which phrases it is insinuated as if those who now or at least first used them thought that self was changed
to help us a little in this we must consider what is meant by socrates or the same individual man first it must be either the same individual immaterial thinking substance in short the same numerical soul and nothing else
secondly or the same animal without any regard to an immaterial soul thirdly or the same immaterial spirit united to the same animal
now take which of these suppositions you please it is impossible to make personal identity to consist in anything but consciousness or reach any further than that does
for by the first of them it must be allowed possible that a man born of different women and in distant times may be the same man a way of speaking which whoever admits must allow it possible for the same man to be two distinct persons
as any two that have lived in different ages without the knowledge of one another's thoughts by the second and third socrates in this life and after it cannot be the same man any way but by the same consciousness
and so making human identity to consist in the same thing wherein we place personal identity there will be difficulty to allow the same man to be the same person but then they who place human identity in consciousness only and not in something else
must consider how they will make the infant socrates the same man with socrates after the resurrection but whatsoever to some men makes a man and consequently the same individual man wherein perhaps few are agreed
personal identity can by us be placed in nothing but consciousness which is that alone which makes what we call self without involving us in great absurdities twenty four but is not a man drunk and sober the same person
why else is he punished for the fact he commits when drunk though he be never afterwards conscious of it just as much the same person as a man that walks and does other things in his sleep is the same person and is answerable for any mischief he shall do in it
human laws punish both with a justice suitable to their way of knowledge because in these cases they cannot distinguish certainly what is real what counterfeit and so the ignorance in drunkenness or sleep is not admitted as a plea
but in the great day wherein the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open it may be reasonable to think no one shall be made to answer for what he knows nothing of but shall receive his doom his conscience accusing or excusing him twenty five
consciousness alone unites remote existences into one person nothing but consciousness can unite remote existences into the same person the identity of substance will not do it
for whatever substance there is however framed without consciousness there is no person and a carcass may be a person as well as any sort of substance be so without consciousness could we suppose two distinct incommunicable consciousnesses
acting the same body the one constantly by day the other by night and on the other side the same consciousness acting by intervals two distinct bodies i ask in the first case whether the day and the night
man would not be two as distinct persons as socrates and plato and whether in the second case there would not be one person in two distinct bodies as much as one man is the same in two distinct clothings
nor is it at all material to say that this same and this distinct consciousness in the cases above mentioned is owing to the same and distinct immaterial substances bringing it with them to those bodies which whether true or no alters not the case
since it is evident the personal identity would equally be determined by the consciousness whether that consciousness were annexed to some individual immaterial substance or no for granting that the thinking substance in man must be necessarily supposed immaterial
it is evident that immaterial thinking thing may sometimes part with its past consciousness and be restored to it again as appears in the forgetfulness men often have of their past actions and the mind many times recovers the memory of a past consciousness
which it had lost for twenty years together make these intervals of memory and forgetfulness to take their turns regularly by day and night and you have two persons with the same immaterial spirit as much as in the former instance two persons with the same body
so that self is not determined by identity or diversity of substance which it cannot be sure of but only by identity of consciousness twenty six not the substance with which the consciousness may be united
indeed it may conceive the substance whereof it is now made up to have existed formerly united in the same conscious being but consciousness removed that substance is no more itself or makes no more a part of it than any other substance
as is evident in the instance we have already given of a limb cut off of whose heat or cold or other affections having no longer any consciousness it is no more of a man's self than any other matter of the universe
in like manner it will be in reference to any immaterial substance which is void of that consciousness whereby i am myself to myself so that i cannot upon recollection join with that present consciousness whereby i am now myself
it is in that part of its existence no more myself than any other immaterial being for whatsoever any substance has thought or done which i cannot recollect and by my consciousness make my own thought and action it will no more belong to me
whether a part of me thought or did it than if it had been thought or done by any other immaterial being anywhere existing twenty seven consciousness unites substances material or spiritual with the same personality
i agree the more probable opinion is that this consciousness is annexed to and the affection of one individual immaterial substance but let men according to their diverse hypotheses resolve of that as they please
this every intelligent being sensible of happiness or misery must grant that there is something that is himself that he is concerned for and would have happy that this self has existed in a continued duration more than one instant
and therefore it is possible may exist as it has done months and years to come without any certain bounds to be set to its duration and may be the same self by the same consciousness continued on for the future
and thus by this consciousness he finds himself to be the same self which did such and such an action some years since by which he comes to be happy or miserable now in all which account of self the same numerical substance is not considered a making the same self
but the same continued consciousness in which several substances may have been united and again separated from it which whilst they continued in a vital union with that wherein this consciousness then resided made a part of that same self
thus any part of our bodies vitally united to that which is conscious in us makes a part of ourselves but upon separation from the vital union by which that consciousness is communicated that which a moment since was part of ourselves
is now no more so than a part of another man's self is a part of me and it is not impossible but in a little time may become a real part of another person and so we have the same numerical substance become a part of two different persons
and the same person preserved under the change of various substances could we suppose any spirit wholly stripped of all its memory of consciousness of past actions as we find our minds always are of a great part of ours and sometimes of them all
the union or separation of such a spiritual substance would make no variation of personal identity any more than that of any particle of matter does any substance vitally united to the present thinking being
is a part of that very same self which now is anything united to it by a consciousness of former actions makes also a part of the same self which is the same both then and now twenty eight
person a forensic term person as i take it is the name for this self wherever a man finds what he calls himself there i think another may say is the same person it is a forensic term appropriating actions and their merit
and so belongs only to intelligent agents capable of a law and happiness and misery this personality extends itself beyond present existence to what is past only by consciousness
whereby it becomes concerned and accountable owns and imputes to itself past actions just upon the same ground and for the same reason as it does the present all which is founded in a concern for happiness
the unavoidable concomitant of consciousness that which is conscious of pleasure and pain desiring that that self that is conscious should be happy and therefore whatever past actions it cannot reconcile or appropriate to that present self by consciousness
on the account of any such action is all one as to be made happy or miserable in its first being without any demerit at all for supposing a man punished now for what he had done in another life whereof he could be made to have no consciousness at all
what difference is there between that punishment and being created miserable and therefore conformable to this the apostle tells us that at the great day when every one shall receive according to his doings the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open
are the same that committed those actions and deserve that punishment for them twenty nine suppositions that look strange are pardonable in our ignorance
i am apt enough to think i have in treating of this subject made some suppositions that will look strange to some readers and possibly they are so in themselves but yet i think they are such as are pardonable
and which we look on as ourselves did we know what it was or how it was tied to a certain system of fleeting animal spirits or whether it could or could not perform its operations of thinking
and memory out of a body organized as ours is and whether it has pleased god that no one such spirit shall ever be united to any but one such body upon the right constitution of whose organs its memory should depend
we might see the absurdity of some of those suppositions i have made but taking as we ordinarily now do in the dark concerning these matters the soul of a man for an immaterial substance independent from matter and indifferent alike to it all
there can from the nature of things be no absurdity at all to suppose that the same soul may at different times be united to different bodies and with them make up for that time one man as well as we suppose a part of a sheep's body yesterday
should be a part of a man's body to morrow and in that union make a vital part of meliboeus himself as well as it did of his ram thirty the difficulty from ill use of names to conclude
whatever substance begins to exist it must during its existence necessarily be the same whatever compositions of substances begin to exist during the union of those substances the concrete must be the same
and so if the composition be of distinct substances and different modes the same rule holds whereby it will appear that the difficulty or obscurity that has been about this matter rather rises from the names ill used
than from any obscurity in things themselves for whatever makes the specific idea to which the name is applied if that idea be steadily kept to the distinction of anything into the same and divers will easily be conceived and there can arise no doubt about it
thirty one continuance of that which we have made to be our complex idea of man makes the same man for supposing a rational spirit be the idea of a man it is easy to know what is the same man viz the same spirit
whether separate or in a body will be the same man supposing a rational spirit vitally united to a body of a certain conformation of parts to make a man whilst that rational spirit with that vital conformation of parts
though continued in a fleeting successive body remains it will be the same man but if to any one the idea of a man be but the vital union of parts in a certain shape as long as that vital union and shape remain in a concrete
no otherwise the same but by a continued succession of fleeting particles it will be the same man
near the fireplace and a dormer window as well the low walls up to the slope were filled with books books lay on the table on the bed on chairs and in corners everywhere aha
said wingfold as he entered and cast his eyes around there is no room for surprise that you should have found me out so easily mister polwarth here you have a legion of detectives for such rascals
the little man turned and for a moment looked at him with a doubtful and somewhat pained expression as if he had not been prepared for such an entrance on a solemn question
it is very kind of you sir to take my presumption in such good part pray sit down sir you will find that chair a comfortable one presumption echoed wingfold the presumption was all on my part and
the kindness on yours but you must first hear my explanation such as it is it makes the matter hardly a jot the better only a man would not willingly look worse or better either than he is
neither more nor less it is a noble weakness and far enough from common i am sorry to think returned polwarth the curate then told the gate keeper of his uncle's legacy
and his own ignorance of jeremy taylor but he concluded since you set me about it my judgment has capsized itself
only it be above board i believe some clergymen think the only evil lies in detection i doubt if they ever escape it and believe the amount of successful deception in that kind to be very small indeed
by a kind of instinct whether a man be preaching his own sermons or not
in the tacit understanding that a sermon must seem to be a man's own although all in the congregation know and the would be preacher knows that they know that it is none of his then
on his death bed expressed the hope that i should support their teaching by my example for having gone over them some ten or fifteen times in the course of his incumbency and bettered each
polwarth laughed but with a certain seriousness in his merriment which however took nothing from its genuineness indeed
wingfold was silent thoughtful saying to himself how straight an honest bow can shoot but this involves something awful
to stand up in that pulpit and speak about myself i who even if i had any opinions could never see reason for presenting them to other people it's my office is it not me
then i wish my office would write his own sermons he can read the prayers well enough all his life a little heave of pent up humour would now and then shake his burden into a more comfortable position upon his bending shoulders
whither some of our most noted preachers go to dig for their first inspirations
own heart your delight in something you had found out or something you felt much no answered wingfold i have nothing never had anything
worth giving to another and it would seem to me very unreasonable to subject a helpless congregation to the blundering attempts of such a fellow to put into the forms of reasonable speech
they know them already said polwarth i cannot imagine that a man who looks things in the face as you do the moment they confront you has not lived at all has never
in so far as the church of england has ceased to be a preaching church and i don't call nine tenths of what goes by the name of it preaching she has forgotten a mighty part of her high calling
of course a man to whom no message has been personally given has no right to take the place of a prophet and cannot save by more or less of simulation but there is room for teachers
the more need of teachers that the prophets are so few and a man may right honestly be a clergyman who teaches the people though he may possess none of the gifts of prophecy
i do not now see well how you are leading me said wingfold considerably astonished at both the aptness and fluency with which a man in his host's position was able to express himself pray
what do you mean by prophecy i mean
let him bring something old out of another man's
and has no business in any pulpit but ought to betake himself to some other employment whatever he may have been predestined to i mean made fit for
make up his sermons from the books he reads yes if he cannot do better
not with his sermon in his eye but with his people in his heart men in business and professions have so little time for reading or thinking and
idle people have still less that their means of grace as the theologians say are confined to discipline without nourishment whence their religion if they have any
is often from mere atrophy but a skeleton
wake them up lest their sleep turn to death next to make them hungry and lastly to supply that hunger and for all these things the pastor
and no shepherd at this moment rachel entered with a small tea tray she could carry only little things and a few at a time she cast a glance of almost loving solicitude at the young man
as if interceding for a culprit and begging the master not to be too hard upon him but the little man smiled such a sweet smile of re assurance that her face
that ought to have been removed a week ago out upon the old fashioned garden and meadows beyond where each lonely tree bowed with drifting garments
away from its storming enemy she did not feel inclined to go out
she always felt happier in a new dress when it was made to her mind and fitted her body and when the sun shone she was lighter hearted than when it rained i had written merrier but helen was seldom merry
and had she been made aware of the fact and questioned why would have answered because she so seldom saw reason she was what all her friends called a sensible girl
rather than the conviction that the fireside in her own room was rendered even more attractive by the unfriendly aspect of things outside and the roar in the chimney which happily was not accompanied by a change in the current of the smoke
the hours between luncheon and tea are confessedly dull but dulness is not inimical to a certain kind of comfort and helen liked to be that way comfortable
nor had she ever yet been aware of self rebuke because of the liking let us see what kind and degree of comfort she had in the course of an hour and a half attained
and in discovering this i shall be able to present her to my reader with a little more circumstance she sat before the fire in a rather masculine posture
parallel with the lines of the chair her arms lying on its arms and the fingers of each hand folded down over the end of each arm square straight right angled gazing into the fire with something of
the look of a sage but one who has made no discovery she had just finished the novel of the day and was suffering a mild reaction the milder perhaps
that she was not altogether satisfied with the consummation for the heroine had after much sorrow and patient endurance at length married a man whom she could not help knowing
indeed her dissatisfaction went so far that although the fire kept burning away in perfect content before her enhanced by the bellowing complaint of the wind in the chimney she yet came nearer thinking
than she had ever been in her life now thinking especially to one who tries it for the first time is seldom or never a quite comfortable operation and hence
african explorers pyramid inspectors and such like but for every man and woman born into the blindness of the planet is to discover after which discovery there is
far from it when i say that she came near thinking i say more for her than any but the few who know what thinking is will understand
for that which chiefly distinguishes man from those he calls the lower animals is the faculty he most rarely exercises true helen supposed she could think like other people because
the thoughts of other people had passed through her in tolerable plenty leaving many a phantom conclusion behind but this was their thinking not hers she had thought no more than was necessary now and then
but scanty ones indeed with the universe
every one of which nature fits for a queen but its nurses prevent from growing one by providing for it a cell too narrow for the unrolling of royalty
and supplying it with food not potent enough for the nurture of the ideal with this difference however that the cramped and stinted thing comes out if no queen then a working bee
partly through his marriage with a hindoo lady by whom he had one child a boy some three years younger than helen when he died he left his fortune equally divided between the two children
helen was now three and twenty and her own mistress her appearance suggested norwegian blood for she was tall blue eyed and dark haired but fair skinned with regular features and an over
still some who did not like her said hard expression of countenance no one had ever called her nelly yet she had long remained a girl
must at length get weary of his paltry self but helen from the slow rate of her expansion was not old enough yet nor was she in any special sense
wrapt up in herself it was only that she had never yet broken the shell which continues to shut in so many human chickens long after they imagine themselves citizens of the real world
being somewhat bored then and dimly aware that to be bored was out of harmony with something or other helen was on the verge of thinking
but as i have said escaped the snare in a very direct and simple fashion she went fast asleep and never woke till her maid brought her the cup of kitchen tea from which the inmates of some houses derive the strength
chapter four their talk during dinner bascombe had the talk mostly to himself and rattled well occasionally rebuked by his aunt for some remark which might
to a clergyman appear objectionable nor as a partisan was she altogether satisfied with the curate that he did not seem inclined to take clerical exception he ate his dinner quietly
which had usually more of vivacity than keenness more of good spirits than wit
a single word of agreement it might have seemed that he was humouring a younger man but the truth was the curate had not yet seen cause for opposing him how any friend
could have come to send helen poetry i cannot imagine but that very morning she had received by post a small volume of verse which although just out and by an unknown author had already been talked of
and then he resumed turning again to wingfold
or it may be only that it is their humour to be sad said wingfold but don't you think he continued it is hardly worth while to be indignant with them
their verses are a relief to them and do nobody any harm
and themselves who write them more harm than anybody confirming them in tearful habits and teaching eyes unused to weep
if i ever had a grief i should have along with it the decency to keep it to myself
who seemed more playfully inclined than usual but she added with a smile would your silence be voluntary or enforced what returned bascombe you think i could not plain my woes to the moon why not i as well as another
i could roar you as twere any nightingale you have had your sorrows then george never anything worse yet than a tailor's bill helen and i hope you won't provide me with any
in thy sleep did it make thee start twas a chord in twain that sprang but the lyre shell was my heart he took a pull at the stout laid his head on the table and sobbed like a locomotive
a woman's weakness for the side attacked in addition to a human partiality for fair play no not bad at all for absolute nonsense said bascombe he had been reading heine
said wingfold and burlesquing him
fancy hearing one of the fellow's heart strings crack and taking it for a string of his fiddle in the press
have they any anatomical synonym but i have no doubt it was good poetry do you think poetry and common sense necessarily opposed to each other asked wingfold i confess a
leaning to that opinion replied bascombe with a half conscious smile
possibly but what we have of it in horace would never have reached us but for the forms into which he has cast it how much more enticing acorns in the cup are
i was watching two children picking them up to day that may be there have always been more children than grown men returned bascombe for my part i would sweep away all illusions and get at the heart of the affair
the finer or at least more ethereal qualities of the thing itself you do not object to music in church for instance bascombe was on the point of saying he objected to it nowhere except in church
that its meaning was illegible ere it had quivered along his lip and vanished
he said and wingfold accepted the dismissal of the subject
neither of them cared to drink more than a couple of glasses they soon rejoined the ladies in the drawing room missus ramshorn was taking her usual forty winks in her arm chair and their entrance did not disturb her
helen was turning over some music
take you for a man of stone and lime
his voice was a full bass one full of tone each man has his lampful his lampful of oil
for mine it shall burn with a fearless flame in the front of the darkness that has no name sunshine and wind are ye there ho ho are ye comrades or lords as ye shine and blow i care not i
for the day draws nigh when we all go out i don't like the song said helen wrinkling her brows a little it sounds well heathenish
sad submission to the inevitable
no he makes the best of it and as merrily as he can as he can i grant you said wingfold here missus ramshorn woke
and the subject was dropped leaving mister wingfold in some perplexity as to this young man and his talk and what the phenomenon signified
was heathenism after all secretly cherished and about to become fashionable in english society he saw little of its phases and for
bascombe yawned behind his handkerchief and wingfold gazed at the profile of the player wondering how with such fine features and complexion with such a fine shaped and well set head her
it was of red brick and flat faced in the style of queen anne's time so that the light could do nothing with it in the way of shadow and dwelt only on the dignity of its unpretentiousness but aloft
over its ridge the moon floated in the softest loveliest blue with just a cloud here and there to show how blue it was and a sparkle where its blueness took fire in a star it was autumn almost winter below
lighted his cigar all round its extreme periphery took it from his mouth regarded its glowing end with a smile of satisfaction and burst into a laugh it was not a scornful laugh
he was not important enough in his own eyes for that but he did not choose to go farther that's a fine old church he said pointing to the dark mass invading the blue so solid yet so clear in outline
i am glad the mason work is to your mind returned bascombe almost compassionately it must be some satisfaction perhaps consolation to you
before he had thus concluded the sentence a little scorn had crept into his tone
now i am going to be honest with you said bascombe abruptly and stopping he turned towards his companion and took the full flavoured havannah from his lips i like you he went on for you seem
reasonable and besides a man ought to speak out what he thinks so here goes tell me honestly do you believe one word of all that
and he in his turn pointed in the direction of the great tower the curate was taken by surprise and made no answer
by faith no doubt answered bascombe laughing
no nor the faith of any of the last few generations
true but of what sort all imitation never an original amongst them all if they had found out the right way why change it good but it is rather ominous for the claim of a divine origin to your religion
backwards you are indebted to your forefathers for your would be belief as well as for their genuine churches
that she would never have discovered had she been as wide awake as she was sound asleep that the song i sung was anything but a good christian ballad pardon me i think you are wrong there
conquered death and all that rubbish did you never observe the way they look if the least allusion is made to death or the eternity they say they expect beyond it do they not stare as if you had committed a breach of manners
religion itself is the same way as much as you like about the church but don't mention christ
knows no waking she is gone for ever cries the mother over her daughter and that is why such things are not to be mentioned because in their hearts they have no hope
and in their minds no courage to face the facts of existence we haven't the pluck of the old fellows who that they might look death himself in the face without dismay
at once she would not but i am speaking not of creeds but of beliefs and i assert that the forms of common christian speech regarding death come nearer
than your saint the old jew saul of tarsus it did not occur to wingfold that people generally speak from the surfaces not the depths of their minds even when those depths are moved nor yet that possibly
which as i read it amounts to this that i am one of the greatest humbugs you have the misfortune to be acquainted with ha ha ha no no
foolish ancestors and which have been instilled into him as well with his earliest nourishment both bodily and mental but come now i do love open dealing i am myself open as the day
did you not take to the church as a profession in which you might eat a piece of bread as somebody says in your own blessed bible dry enough bread it may be for the old lady is not over generous to her younger children
in another profession to speak his mind but silence such as yours casting a shadow backward over your past require courage
six feet of it good he glanced at the church tower it had not vanished in mist it still made its own strong clear mark on the eternal blue
i must not allow you to mistake my silence mister bascombe he answered the same moment it is not easy to reply to such demands all at once it is not easy to say in times like these and at a moment's notice what or
how much a man believes but whatever my answer might be had i time to consider it my silence must at least not be interpreted to mean that i do not believe as my profession indicates that at all events would be untrue
then i am to understand mister wingfold that you neither believe nor disbelieve the tenets of the church whose bread you eat said bascombe with the air of a reprover of sin
decline to place myself between the horns of any such dilemma returned wingfold who was now more than a little annoyed at his persistency in forcing his way within the precincts of another's personality it is but one more proof
even to the self deception of a man otherwise remarkable for honesty and directness good night mister wingfold
but no hand shaking
a family affair was not subject to the investigation of the cardinal a family affair concerned nobody people might employ themselves in a family affair before all the world
family affair aramis had discovered the idea the lackeys porthos had discovered the means the diamond d'artagnan alone had discovered nothing he ordinarily the most inventive of the four
d'artagnan already wore his uniform for being nearly of the same size as aramis and as aramis was so liberally paid by the publisher who purchased his poem as to allow him to buy everything double he sold his friend a complete outfit
d'artagnan passed the day in exhibiting his musketeer's uniform in every street of the camp in the evening at the appointed hour the four friends met there only remained three things to decide
what they should write to milady's brother what they should write to the clever person at tours and which should be the lackeys to carry the letters everyone offered his own
confiding in the address of bazin made a pompous eulogium on his candidate finally d'artagnan had entire faith in the bravery of planchet and reminded them of the manner in which he had conducted himself
in the ticklish affair of boulogne these four virtues disputed the prize for a length of time and gave birth to magnificent speeches which we do not repeat here for fear they should be deemed too long
unfortunately said athos he whom we send must possess in himself alone the four qualities united
planchet is brave and shrewd they are two qualities out of the four gentlemen said aramis the principal question is not to know which of our four lackeys is the most discreet the most strong the most clever or the most brave
the principal thing is to know which loves money the best what aramis says is very sensible replied athos we must speculate upon the faults of people and not upon their virtues monsieur abbe you are a great moralist
doubtless said aramis for we not only require to be well served in order to succeed but moreover not to fail for in case of failure heads are in question not for our lackeys
well my dear friend add to his natural devotedness a good sum of money and then instead of answering for him once answer for him twice
who was an optimist when things were concerned and a pessimist when men were in question they will promise everything for the sake of the money and on the road fear will prevent them from acting once taken they will be pressed when pressed they will confess everything
not at all cried d'artagnan who was anxious the matter should be accomplished on the contrary i think it very easy it would be no doubt parbleu if we write to lord de winter about affairs of vast importance of the horrors of the cardinal
my lord do you remember the little goat pasture of the luxembourg good the luxembourg one might believe this is an allusion to the queen mother
my dear d'artagnan you will never make anything but a very bad secretary where your life was spared for shame that's unworthy a man of spirit is not to be reminded of such services
a benefit reproached is an offense committed the devil said d'artagnan you are insupportable if the letter must be written under your censure my faith i renounce the task and you will do right handle the musket and the sword my dear fellow
but let me be properly acquainted with the subject
made a sign of assent to d'artagnan who by it understood he was at liberty to speak well this is what you have to say said d'artagnan my lord your sister in law is an infamous woman who wished to have you killed that she might inherit your wealth
but she could not marry your brother being already married in france and having been
repudiated by her husband said athos because she had been branded continued d'artagnan bah cried porthos impossible what do you say that she wanted to have her brother in law killed yes
she was married asked aramis yes
d'artagnan and i or rather to observe the chronological order i and d'artagnan
and does the husband of this frightful creature still live said aramis he still lives are you quite sure of it i am he
d'artagnan has given us an excellent program and the letter must be written at once the devil
and it is a rather difficult matter the chancellor himself would be puzzled how to write such a letter and yet the chancellor draws up an official report very readily never mind be silent i will write
aramis accordingly took the quill reflected for a few moments wrote eight or ten lines in a charming little female hand and then with a voice soft and slow as if each word had been scrupulously weighed he read the following my lord
the person who writes these few lines had the honor of crossing swords with you in the little enclosure
he thinks it his duty to respond to that friendship by sending you important information twice you have nearly been the victim of a near relative whom you believe to be your heir because you are ignorant that before she contracted a marriage in england she was already married in france
but the third time which is the present you may succumb your relative left la rochelle for england during the night watch her arrival for she has great and terrible projects if you require to know positively what she is capable of
read her past history on her left shoulder
my dear aramis you have the pen of a secretary of state lord de winter will now be upon his guard if the letter should reach him and even if it should fall into the hands of the cardinal we shall not be compromised
let us give him only half the sum promised him with the letter with an agreement that he shall have the other half in exchange for the reply
seven thousand livres cried porthos that poor little diamond was worth seven thousand livres
i don't suppose that our friend d'artagnan has added any of his own to the amount but gentlemen in all this said d'artagnan we do not think of the queen let us take some heed of the welfare of her dear buckingham that is the least we owe her
well replied the latter blushing what must i say
his eminence is the most illustrious politician of times past of times present and probably of times to come he would extinguish the sun if the sun incommoded him give these happy tidings to your sister my dear cousin
i have dreamed that the unlucky englishman was dead i cannot recollect whether it was by steel or by poison only of this i am sure i have dreamed he was dead and you know my dreams never deceive me be assured then of seeing me soon return
you speak like the apocalypse and you are as true as the gospel there is nothing now to do but to put the address to this letter that is easily done said aramis he folded the letter fancifully and took up his pen and wrote
and places confidence in nobody but him any other person would fail besides bazin is ambitious and learned bazin has read history gentlemen he knows that sixtus the fifth became pope after having kept pigs
milady had him one day turned out of doors with sundry blows of a good stick to accelerate his motions now planchet has an excellent memory and i will be bound that sooner than relinquish any possible means of vengeance he will allow himself to be beaten to death
if your arrangements at tours are your arrangements aramis those of london are mine i request then that planchet may be chosen more particularly as he has already been to london with me and knows how to speak correctly
that will reduce the sum to five thousand livres
under the guardianship of monsieur abbe here for extraordinary occasions or common wants will that do
he is accustomed to my ways and i am particular yesterday's affair must have shaken him a little his voyage would upset him quite planchet was sent for and instructions were given him the matter had been named to him by d'artagnan who in the first place pointed out the money to him
then the glory and then the danger
then monsieur said planchet you must buy me a watch
and be a good lad remember if you talk if you babble if you get drunk you risk your master's head who has so much confidence in your fidelity and who answers for you
but remember also that if by your fault any evil happens to d'artagnan i will find you wherever you may be for the purpose of ripping up your belly
humiliated by the suspicion and moreover terrified at the calm air of the musketeer and i said porthos rolling his large eyes remember i will skin you alive ah monsieur
and i said aramis with his soft melodius voice remember that i will roast you at a slow fire like a savage ah monsieur planchet began to weep
we will not venture to say whether it was from terror created by the threats or from tenderness at seeing four friends so closely united d'artagnan took his hand
these gentlemen only say this out of affection for me but at bottom they all like you ah monsieur said planchet i will succeed or i will consent to be cut in quarters and if they do cut me in quarters be assured that not a morsel of me will speak
in the morning as he was mounting his horse d'artagnan who felt at the bottom of his heart a partiality for the duke took planchet aside
you will further say to him watch over his grace lord buckingham for they wish to assassinate him but this planchet is so serious and important that i have not informed my friends that i would entrust this secret to you and for a captain's commission i would not write it
you shall see if confidence can be placed in me mounted on an excellent horse which he was to leave at the end of twenty leagues in order to take the post
the four friends during the period of these two absences had as may well be supposed the eye on the watch the nose to the wind and the ear on the hark
and in looking out for all the couriers who arrived more than once an involuntary trembling seized them when called upon for some unexpected service they had besides to look constantly to their own proper safety
did not allow them to sleep very quietly
and smiling according to custom entered the cabaret of the parpaillot as the four friends were sitting down to breakfast saying as had been agreed upon
if she is as great a lady as her writing is large you are a lucky fellow gomrade
my cousin my sister and i are skillful in interpreting dreams and even entertain great fear of them but of yours it may be said i hope every dream is an illusion adieu take care of yourself
and act so that we may from time to time hear you spoken of marie michon and what dream does she mean asked the dragoon who had approached during the reading yez what's the dream said the swiss
it was only this i had a dream and i related it to her yez yez said the swiss it's simple enough to dell a dream but i neffer dream
neffer
neffer neffer
porthos and aramis remained behind to encounter the jokes of the dragoon and the swiss as to bazin he went and lay down on a truss of straw and as he had more imagination than the swiss he dreamed that aramis having become pope
adorned his head with a cardinal's hat but as we have said bazin had not by his fortunate return removed more than a part of the uneasiness which weighed upon the four friends the days of expectation are long
and d'artagnan in particular would have wagered that the days were forty four hours he forgot the necessary slowness of navigation he exaggerated to himself the power of milady
he credited this woman who appeared to him the equal of a demon with agents as supernatural as herself at the least noise he imagined himself about to be arrested and that planchet was being brought back to be confronted with himself and his friends
still further his confidence in the worthy picard at one time so great diminished day by day
and as if he breathed his customary atmosphere on the sixteenth day in particular these signs were so strong in d'artagnan and his two friends that they could not remain quiet in one place and wandered about like ghosts on the road by which planchet was expected
to let a woman terrify you so and what does it amount to after all to be imprisoned well but we should be taken out of prison madame bonacieux was released
who appears to me to be a very good lad but if he does not come said d'artagnan well if he does not come it will be because he has been delayed that's all he may have fallen from his horse he may have cut a caper from the deck
life is a chaplet of little miseries which the philosopher counts with a smile be philosophers as i am gentlemen sit down at the table and let us drink
that's all very well replied d'artagnan but i am tired of fearing when i open a fresh bottle that the wine may come from the cellar of milady
such a beautiful woman a woman of mark said porthos with his loud laugh
and rose in his turn with a nervous movement he could not repress the day however passed away and the evening came on slowly but finally it came the bars were filled with drinkers
a partner worthy of his company they were playing together as usual when seven o'clock sounded the patrol was heard passing to double the posts at half past seven the retreat was sounded we are lost said d'artagnan in the ear of athos
quietly drawing four pistoles from his pocket and throwing them upon the table come gentlemen said he they are beating the tattoo let us to bed and athos went out of the parpaillot followed by d'artagnan aramis came behind giving his arm to porthos
aramis mumbled verses to himself and porthos from time to time pulled a hair or two from his mustache in sign of despair but all at once a shadow appeared in the darkness the outline of which was familiar to d'artagnan and a well known voice said
and he restrained himself i have the note
and opened the so anxiously expected letter it contained half a line in a hand perfectly british and with a conciseness as perfectly spartan thank you be easy d'artagnan translated this for the others
and did not let go till it was reduced to a cinder then calling planchet he said now my lad you may claim your seven hundred livres
well cried d'artagnan tell us all about it
and me too said d'artagnan and me too said porthos and me too said aramis
in the town hall of the seaport of saint malo there hangs a portrait of jacques cartier the great sea captain of that place
whose name is associated for all time with the proud title of discoverer of canada the picture is that of a bearded man in the prime of life standing on the deck of a ship his bent elbow resting upon the gunwale
his chin supported by his hand while his eyes gaze outward upon the western ocean as if seeking to penetrate its mysteries the face is firm and strong with tight set jaw prominent brow
on his head is the tufted breton cap familiar in the pictures of the days of the great navigators at the waist on the left side hangs a sword and on the right close to the belt the dirk or poniard of the period
how like or unlike the features of cartier this picture in the town hall may be we have no means of telling painted probably in eighteen thirty nine it has hung there for more than seventy years
has pictured upon it a group of figures that represent the landing of the navigator and his followers among the indians of gaspe it was the fashion of the time to attempt by such decorations to make maps vivid
demons deities mythological figures and naked savages disported themselves along the borders of the maps and helped to decorate unexplored spaces of earth and ocean
the head is slightly bowed with the weight of years and the face is wanting in that suggestion of unconquerable will which is the dominating feature of the portrait of saint malo
this is the picture that appears in the form of a medallion or ring shaped illustration in more than one of the modern works upon the great adventurer but here again we have no proofs of identity
for we know nothing of the origin of the portrait curiously enough an accidental discovery of recent years seems to confirm in some degree the genuineness of the saint malo portrait
ravaged by perhaps two centuries of wind and weather the old house afforded but little shelter against the boisterous gales and the bitter cold of the rude climate of the gulf
its owner decided to tear it down and in doing so he stumbled upon a startling discovery he found a dummy window that generations before had evidently been built over and concealed
here again are the tufted hat the bearded face and the features of the picture of saint malo on the back of the wood the deeply graven initials j c seemed to prove
that the image which had lain hidden for generations behind the woodwork of the old canadian house is indeed that of the great discoverer beside the initials is carved the date seventeen o four
as it must have been made long before the saint malo portrait was painted the resemblance of the two faces perhaps indicates the existence of some definite and genuine portrait of jacques cartier of which the record has been lost
it appears therefore that we have the right to be content with the picture which hangs in the town hall of the seaport of saint malo if it does not show us cartier as he was and we have no absolute proof in the one or the other direction
with precisely the face and bearing which the hero worshipper would read into the character of such a discoverer the port of saint malo the birthplace and the home of cartier is situated in the old province of brittany
the situation of the port has made it a nursery of hardy seamen the town stands upon a little promontory that juts out as a peninsula into the ocean the tide pours in and out of the harbour thus formed
here for centuries has dwelt a race of adventurous fishermen and navigators whose daring is unsurpassed by any other seafaring people in the world the history
and sought shelter upon the sea girt promontory which has since borne the name of aaron's rock aaron founded a settlement to the same place came about twenty years later
a bishop of castle gwent with a small band of followers the leader of this flock was known as saint malo and he gave his name to the seaport
saint malo became famous as the headquarters of the corsairs of the northern coast these had succeeded the vikings of an earlier day and they showed a hardihood and a reckless daring equal to that of their predecessors later on
this jean cartier or quartier who was born in saint malo in fourteen twenty eight took to wife in fourteen fifty seven guillemette baudoin of the four sons that she bore him
and of their five children the second one jacques rose to greatness as the discoverer of canada there is little to chronicle
master pilot of the port of saincte malo
and constable of the town and city of saint malo cartier's marriage was childless so that he left no direct descendants but the branches of the family descended from the original jean cartier
appear on the registers of saint malo saint briac and other places in some profusion during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the family seems to have died out although not many years ago
direct descendants of pierre cartier the uncle of jacques were still surviving in france it is perhaps no great loss to the world that we have so little knowledge of the ancestors and relatives of the famous mariner it is however
deeply to be deplored that beyond the record of his voyages we know so little of jacques cartier himself we may take it for granted that he early became a sailor brought up at such a time and place he could hardly have failed to do so
within a few years after the great discovery of columbus
were sending forth adventurous fishermen to ply their trade among the fogs of the great banks of the new land the breton boy whom we may imagine wandering about the crowded wharves of the little harbour
might find behind the coasts and islands now revealed to europe in the western sea the half fabled empires of cipango and cathay
and that this adventure was soon followed by the sailing of other norman ships for the same goal we have however no record of cartier and his actual doings until we find his name in an entry on the baptismal register of saint malo
he stood as godfather to his nephew
the son of his sister jehanne strangely enough this proved to be only the first of a great many sacred ceremonies of this sort in which he took part there is a record of more than fifty baptisms at saint malo
in the next forty five years in which the illustrious mariner had some share in twenty seven of them he appeared as a godfather what voyages cartier actually made before he suddenly appears in history as a pilot of the king of france
and the protege of the high admiral of france we do not know this position in itself and the fact that at the time of his marriage in fifteen nineteen he had already the rank of master pilot
would show that he had made the atlantic voyage there is some faint evidence that he had even been to brazil
and in those days this would scarcely have occurred to a writer who had not seen both plants of which he spoke there groweth likewise so runs the quaint translation that appears in hakluyt's voyages
a kind of millet as big as peason
like unto that which groweth in bresil and later on in the account of his second voyage he repeats the reference to brazil then goodly and large fields
in a baptismal register of saint malo is recorded the christening in fifteen twenty eight of a certain catherine of brezil to whom cartier's wife stood godmother we may
in fancy at least suppose that this forlorn little savage with the regal title was a little girl whom the navigator after the fashion of his day had brought home as living evidence of the existence of the strange lands that he had seen
out of this background then of uncertainty and conjecture emerges in fifteen thirty four jacques cartier a
now sworn to the service of his most christian majesty
dinner time when adam heard that he was to dine upstairs with the large tenants he felt rather uncomfortable at the idea of being exalted in this way above his mother and seth who were to dine in the cloisters below
but mister mills the butler assured him that captain donnithorne had given particular orders about it and would be very angry if adam was not there adam nodded and went up to seth who was standing a few yards off seth lad he said
the captain has sent to say i'm to dine upstairs he wishes it particular mister mills says so i suppose it ud be behaving ill for me not to go but i don't like sitting up above thee and mother as if i was better than my own flesh and blood thee't not take it unkind i hope
nay nay lad said seth thy honour's our honour and if thee get'st respect thee'st won it by thy own deserts the further i see thee above me the better so long as thee feel'st like a brother to me it's because o thy being appointed over the woods and it's nothing but what's right
that's a place o trust and thee't above a common workman now aye said adam but nobody knows a word about it yet i haven't given notice to mister burge about leaving him and i don't like to tell anybody else about it before he knows for he'll be a good bit hurt i doubt
people ull be wondering to see me there and they'll like enough be guessing the reason and asking questions for there's been so much talk up and down about my having the place this last three weeks well thee canst say thee wast ordered to come without being told the reason that's the truth
and mother ull be fine and joyful about it let's go and tell her adam was not the only guest invited to come upstairs on other grounds than the amount he contributed to the rent roll there were other people in the two parishes who derived dignity from their functions
rather than from their pocket and of these bartle massey was one his lame walk was rather slower than usual on this warm day so adam lingered behind when the bell rang for dinner that he might walk up with his old friend
for he was a little too shy to join the poyser party on this public occasion opportunities of getting to hetty's side would be sure to turn up in the course of the day and adam contented himself with that for he disliked any risk of being joked about hetty
the big outspoken fearless man was very shy and diffident as to his love making well mester massey said adam as bartle came up i'm going to dine upstairs with you to day the captain's sent me orders
ah said bartle pausing with one hand on his back then there's something in the wind there's something in the wind have you heard anything about what the old squire means to do why yes said adam
i'll tell you what i know because i believe you can keep a still tongue in your head if you like and i hope you'll not let drop a word till it's common talk for i've particular reasons against its being known trust to me my boy trust to me
i've got no wife to worm it out of me and then run out and cackle it in everybody's hearing if you trust a man let him be a bachelor let him be a bachelor well then it was so far settled yesterday that i'm to take the management o the woods
the captain sent for me t offer it me when i was seeing to the poles and things here and i've agreed to't but if anybody asks any questions upstairs just you take no notice and turn the talk to something else and i'll be obliged to you
now let us go on for we're pretty nigh the last i think i know what to do never fear said bartle moving on the news will be good sauce to my dinner aye aye my boy you'll get on
and you've had good teaching you've had good teaching when they got upstairs the question which arthur had left unsettled as to who was to be president and who vice
was still under discussion so that adam's entrance passed without remark it stands to sense mister casson was saying as old mister poyser
should sit at top o the table i wasn't butler fifteen year without learning the rights and the wrongs about dinner nay nay said old martin i'n gi'en up to my son
well said mister poyser suppose we say the man wi the foulest land shall sit at top then
being a neutral in the dispute had no interest but in conciliation the schoolmaster ought to be able to tell you what's right who's to sit at top o the table mister massey why the broadest man said bartle and then he won't take up other folks room
and the next broadest must sit at bottom this happy mode of settling the dispute produced much laughter a smaller joke would have sufficed for that mister casson however did not feel it compatible with his dignity and superior knowledge to join in the laugh until it turned out
that he was fixed on as the second broadest man martin poyser the younger as the broadest was to be president and mister casson as next broadest was to be vice owing to this arrangement adam being of course
at the bottom of the table fell under the immediate observation of mister casson who too much occupied with the question of precedence had not hitherto noticed his entrance mister casson we have seen considered adam rather lifted up and peppery like
he thought the gentry made more fuss about this young carpenter than was necessary they made no fuss about mister casson although he had been an excellent butler for fifteen years
you've niver dined here before as i remember no mister casson said adam in his strong voice that could be heard along the table i've never dined here before but i come by captain donnithorne's wish and i hope it's not disagreeable to anybody here
nay nay said several voices at once we're glad ye're come who's got anything to say again it and ye'll sing us over the hills and far away after dinner wonna ye said mister chowne that's a song i'm uncommon fond on
peeh said mister craig it's not to be named by side o the scotch tunes i've never cared about singing myself i've had something better to do a man that's got the names and the natur o plants in's head isna likely to keep a hollow place t hold tunes in
but a second cousin o mine a drovier was a rare hand at remembering the scotch tunes he'd got nothing else to think on the scotch tunes said bartle massey contemptuously i've heard enough o the scotch tunes to last me while i live
they're fit for nothing but to frighten the birds with that's to say the english birds for the scotch birds may sing scotch for what i know give the lads a bagpipe instead of a rattle and i'll answer for it the corn ll be safe
why the scotch tunes are just like a scolding nagging woman bartle went on without deigning to notice mister craig's remark they go on with the same thing over and over again and never come to a reasonable end
anybody ud think the scotch tunes had always been asking a question of somebody as deaf as old taft and had never got an answer yet
adam minded the less about sitting by mister casson because this position enabled him to see hetty who was not far off him at the next table hetty however had not even noticed his presence yet
for she was giving angry attention to totty who insisted on drawing up her feet on to the bench in antique fashion and thereby threatened to make dusty marks on hetty's pink and white frock no sooner were the little fat legs pushed down than up they came again
for totty's eyes were too busy in staring at the large dishes to see where the plum pudding was for her to retain any consciousness of her legs hetty got quite out of patience and at last with a frown and pout and gathering tears she said
oh dear aunt i wish you'd speak to totty she keeps putting her legs up so and messing my frock what's the matter wi the child she can niver please you said the mother
adam was looking at hetty and saw the frown and pout and the dark eyes seeming to grow larger with pettish half gathered tears quiet mary burge who sat near enough to see that hetty was cross and that adam's eyes were fixed on her
thought that so sensible a man as adam must be reflecting on the small value of beauty in a woman whose temper was bad mary was a good girl not given to indulge in evil feelings but she said to herself that since hetty had a bad temper it was better adam should know it
and it was quite true that if hetty had been plain she would have looked very ugly and unamiable at that moment and no one's moral judgment upon her would have been in the least beguiled but really there was something quite charming in her pettishness
it looked so much more like innocent distress than ill humour and the severe adam felt no movement of disapprobation he only felt a sort of amused pity as if he had seen a kitten setting up its back or a little bird with its feathers ruffled
he could not gather what was vexing her but it was impossible to him to feel otherwise than that she was the prettiest thing in the world and that if he could have his way nothing should ever vex her any more
and presently when totty was gone she caught his eye and her face broke into one of its brightest smiles as she nodded to him
the health drinking when the dinner was over and the first draughts from the great cask of birthday ale were brought up room was made for the broad mister poyser at the side of the table and two chairs were placed at the head
it had been settled very definitely what mister poyser was to do when the young squire should appear and for the last five minutes he had been in a state of abstraction with his eyes fixed on the dark picture opposite
and his hands busy with the loose cash and other articles in his breeches pockets when the young squire entered with mister irwine by his side every one stood up and this moment of homage was very agreeable to arthur he liked to feel his own importance
and besides that he cared a great deal for the good will of these people he was fond of thinking that they had a hearty special regard for him the pleasure he felt was in his face as he said my grandfather and i hope all our friends here have enjoyed their dinner
and find my birthday ale good mister irwine and i are come to taste it with you and i am sure we shall all like anything the better that the rector shares with us all eyes were now turned on mister poyser who
with his hands still busy in his pockets began with the deliberateness of a slow striking clock captain my neighbours have put it upo me to speak for em to day for where folks think pretty much alike one spokesman's as good as a score
and though we've mayhappen got contrairy ways o thinking about a many things one man lays down his land one way an another another an i'll not take it upon me to speak to no man's farming but my own this i'll say
as we're all o one mind about our young squire we've pretty nigh all on us known you when you war a little un an we've niver known anything on you but what was good an honorable you speak fair
an we're joyful when we look forrard to your being our landlord for we b'lieve you mean to do right by everybody an ull make no man's bread bitter to him if you can help it that's what i mean an that's what we all mean
but the dinner was good an if there's anybody hasna enjoyed it it must be the fault of his own inside an as for the rector's company it's well known as that's welcome t all the parish wherever he may be an i hope
an we all hope as he'll live to see us old folks an our children grown to men an women an your honour a family man i've no more to say as concerns the present time an so we'll drink our young squire's health three times three
hereupon a glorious shouting a rapping a jingling a clattering and a shouting with plentiful da capo pleasanter than a strain of sublimest music in the ears that receive such a tribute for the first time
arthur had felt a twinge of conscience during mister poyser's speech but it was too feeble to nullify the pleasure he felt in being praised did he not deserve what was said of him on the whole
if there was something in his conduct that poyser wouldn't have liked if he had known it why no man's conduct will bear too close an inspection and poyser was not likely to know it and after all what had he done
gone a little too far perhaps in flirtation but another man in his place would have acted much worse and no harm would come no harm should come for
the next time he was alone with hetty he would explain to her that she must not think seriously of him or of what had passed it was necessary to arthur you perceive to be satisfied with himself uncomfortable thoughts must be got rid of by good intentions for the future
which can be formed so rapidly that he had time to be uncomfortable and to become easy again before mister poyser's slow speech was finished and when it was time for him to speak he was quite light hearted
i thank you all my good friends and neighbours arthur said for the good opinion of me and the kind feelings towards me which mister poyser has been expressing on your behalf and on his own and it will always be my heartiest wish to deserve them
in the course of things we may expect that if i live i shall one day or other be your landlord indeed it is on the ground of that expectation that my grandfather has wished me to celebrate this day and to come among you now and i look forward to this position
not merely as one of power and pleasure for myself but as a means of benefiting my neighbours it hardly becomes so young a man as i am to talk much about farming to you who are most of you so much older and are men of experience still
i have interested myself a good deal in such matters and learned as much about them as my opportunities have allowed
in improving their land and trying to bring about a better practice of husbandry it will be my wish to be looked on by all my deserving tenants as their best friend and nothing would make me so happy as to be able to respect every man on the estate and to be respected by him in return
it is not my place at present to enter into particulars i only meet your good hopes concerning me by telling you that my own hopes correspond to them that what you expect from me i desire to fulfil
but the pleasure i feel in having my own health drunk by you would not be perfect if we did not drink the health of my grandfather who has filled the place of both parents to me
perhaps there was no one present except mister irwine who thoroughly understood and approved arthur's graceful mode of proposing his grandfather's health the farmers thought the young squire knew well enough that they hated the old squire and missus poyser said
he'd better not ha stirred a kettle o sour broth the bucolic mind does not readily apprehend the refinements of good taste but the toast could not be rejected and when it had been drunk arthur said i thank you both for my grandfather and myself
and now there is one more thing i wish to tell you that you may share my pleasure about it as i hope and believe you will i think there can be no man here who has not a respect and some of you i am sure have a very high regard for my friend adam bede
it is well known to every one in this neighbourhood that there is no man whose word can be more depended on than his that whatever he undertakes to do he does well and is as careful for the interests of those who employ him as for his own
i'm proud to say that i was very fond of adam when i was a little boy and i have never lost my old feeling for him i think that shows that i know a good fellow when i find him
it has long been my wish that he should have the management of the woods on the estate which happen to be very valuable not only because i think so highly of his character but because he has the knowledge and the skill which fit him for the place and i am happy to tell you that it is my grandfather's wish too
and it is now settled that adam shall manage the woods a change which i am sure will be very much for the advantage of the estate and i hope you will by and by join me in drinking his health and in wishing him all the prosperity in life that he deserves
but there is a still older friend of mine than adam bede present and i need not tell you that it is mister irwine i'm sure you will agree with me that we must drink no other person's health until we have drunk his i know you have all reason to love him
but no one of his parishioners has so much reason as i come charge your glasses and let us drink to our excellent rector three times three this toast was drunk with all the enthusiasm that was wanting to the last
and it certainly was the most picturesque moment in the scene when mister irwine got up to speak and all the faces in the room were turned towards him the superior refinement of his face was much more striking than that of arthur's when seen in comparison with the people round them
arthur's was a much commoner british face and the splendour of his new fashioned clothes was more akin to the young farmer's taste in costume than mister irwine's powder and the well brushed but well worn black which seemed to be his chosen suit for great occasions
for he had the mysterious secret of never wearing a new looking coat this is not the first time by a great many he said that i have had to thank my parishioners for giving me tokens of their goodwill
but neighbourly kindness is among those things that are the more precious the older they get indeed our pleasant meeting to day is a proof that when what is good comes of age and is likely to live there is reason for rejoicing
for it is three and twenty years since i first came among you and i see some tall fine looking young men here as well as some blooming young women that were far from looking as pleasantly at me when i christened them as i am happy to see them looking now
but i'm sure you will not wonder when i say that among all those young men the one in whom i have the strongest interest is my friend mister arthur donnithorne
i had the pleasure of being his tutor for several years and have naturally had opportunities of knowing him intimately which cannot have occurred to any one else who is present and i have some pride as well as pleasure in assuring you that i share your high hopes concerning him
and your confidence in his possession of those qualities which will make him an excellent landlord when the time shall come for him to take that important position among you
and he has just been expressing a feeling which i share very heartily and i would not willingly omit the opportunity of saying so that feeling is his value and respect for adam bede
people in a high station are of course more thought of and talked about and have their virtues more praised than those whose lives are passed in humble everyday work but every sensible man knows how necessary that humble everyday work is and how important it is to us that it should be done well
and i agree with my friend mister arthur donnithorne in feeling that when a man whose duty lies in that sort of work shows a character which would make him an example in any station his merit should be acknowledged he is one of those to whom honour is due
and his friends should delight to honour him i know adam bede well i know what he is as a workman and what he has been as a son and brother and i am saying the simplest truth when i say that i respect him as much as i respect any man living
but i am not speaking to you about a stranger some of you are his intimate friends and i believe there is not one here who does not know enough of him to join heartily in drinking his health as mister irwine paused arthur jumped up
and filling his glass said a bumper to adam bede and may he live to have sons as faithful and clever as himself no hearer not even bartle massey was so delighted with this toast as mister poyser tough work as his first speech had been
he would have started up to make another if he had not known the extreme irregularity of such a course as it was he found an outlet for his feeling in drinking his ale unusually fast and setting down his glass with a swing of his arm and a determined rap
if jonathan burge and a few others felt less comfortable on the occasion they tried their best to look contented and so the toast was drunk with a goodwill apparently unanimous adam was rather paler than usual when he got up to thank his friends
he was a good deal moved by this public tribute very naturally for he was in the presence of all his little world and it was uniting to do him honour but he felt no shyness about speaking not being troubled with small vanity or lack of words
he looked neither awkward nor embarrassed but stood in his usual firm upright attitude with his head thrown a little backward and his hands perfectly still in that rough dignity which is peculiar to intelligent honest well built workmen
who are never wondering what is their business in the world i'm quite taken by surprise he said i didn't expect anything o this sort for it's a good deal more than my wages
but i've the more reason to be grateful to you captain and to you mister irwine and to all my friends here who've drunk my health and wished me well
that ud be poor thanks to you to say that you've known me all these years and yet haven't sense enough to find out a great deal o the truth about me you think if i undertake to do a bit o work i'll do it well be my pay big or little and that's true
i'd be ashamed to stand before you here if it wasna true but it seems to me that's a man's plain duty and nothing to be conceited about and it's pretty clear to me as i've never done more than my duty
for let us do what we will it's only making use o the sperrit and the powers that ha been given to us
and as to this new employment i've taken in hand i'll only say that i took it at captain donnithorne's desire and that i'll try to fulfil his expectations i'd wish for no better lot than to work under him and to know that while i was getting my own bread i was taking care of his int'rests
for i believe he's one o those gentlemen as wishes to do the right thing and to leave the world a bit better than he found it
whether he sets a good bit o work going and finds the money or whether he does the work with his own hands there's no occasion for me to say any more about what i feel towards him i hope to show it through the rest o my life in my actions
there were various opinions about adam's speech some of the women whispered that he didn't show himself thankful enough and seemed to speak as proud as could be
while such observations were being buzzed about mingled with wonderings as to what the old squire meant to do for a bailiff and whether he was going to have a steward the two gentlemen had risen and were walking round to the table where the wives and children sat
there was none of the strong ale here of course but wine and dessert sparkling gooseberry for the young ones and some good sherry for the mothers
missus poyser was at the head of this table and totty was now seated in her lap bending her small nose deep down into a wine glass in search of the nuts floating there how do you do missus poyser said arthur weren't you pleased to hear your husband make such a good speech to day
oh sir the men are mostly so tongue tied you're forced partly to guess what they mean as you do wi the dumb creaturs what you think you could have made it better for him said mister irwine laughing well sir when i want to say anything i can mostly find words to say it in thank god
not as i'm a finding faut wi my husband for if he's a man o few words what he says he'll stand to i'm sure i never saw a prettier party than this arthur said looking round at the apple cheeked children my aunt and the miss irwines will come up and see you presently
they were afraid of the noise of the toasts but it would be a shame for them not to see you at table he walked on speaking to the mothers and patting the children while mister irwine satisfied himself with standing still and nodding at a distance
that no one's attention might be disturbed from the young squire the hero of the day arthur did not venture to stop near hetty but merely bowed to her as he passed along the opposite side the foolish child felt her heart swelling with discontent for
what woman was ever satisfied with apparent neglect even when she knows it to be the mask of love hetty thought this was going to be the most miserable day she had had for a long while a moment of chill daylight and reality came across her dream
i was not dispirited now i was not afraid of the shabby coat and had no yearnings after gallant greys my whole manner of thinking of our late misfortune was changed what i had to do was to show my aunt that her past goodness to me
had not been thrown away on an insensible ungrateful object what i had to do was to turn the painful discipline of my younger days to account by going to work with a resolute and steady heart what i had to do
was to take my woodman's axe in my hand and clear my own way through the forest of difficulty by cutting down the trees until i came to dora and i went on at a mighty rate as if it could be done by walking when i found myself on the familiar highgate road
pursuing such a different errand from that old one of pleasure with which it was associated it seemed as if a complete change had come on my whole life but that did not discourage me with the new life came new purpose new intention
great was the labour priceless the reward dora was the reward and dora must be won i got into such a transport that i felt quite sorry my coat was not a little shabby already i wanted to be cutting at those trees in the forest of difficulty
under circumstances that should prove my strength i had a good mind to ask an old man in wire spectacles who was breaking stones upon the road to lend me his hammer for a little while and let me begin to beat a path to dora out of granite
i stimulated myself into such a heat and got so out of breath that i felt as if i had been earning i don't know how much in this state i went into a cottage that i saw was to let and examined it narrowly for i felt it necessary to be practical
it would do for me and dora admirably with a little front garden for jip to run about in and bark at the tradespeople through the railings and a capital room upstairs for my aunt i came out again hotter and faster than ever
and dashed up to highgate at such a rate that i was there an hour too early and though i had not been should have been obliged to stroll about to cool myself before i was at all presentable my first care after putting myself under this necessary course of preparation
was to find the doctor's house it was not in that part of highgate where missus steerforth lived but quite on the opposite side of the little town when i had made this discovery i went back in an attraction i could not resist
to a lane by missus steerforth's and looked over the corner of the garden wall his room was shut up close the conservatory doors were standing open and rosa dartle was walking bareheaded with a quick impetuous step
up and down a gravel walk on one side of the lawn she gave me the idea of some fierce thing that was dragging the length of its chain to and fro upon a beaten track and wearing its heart out i came softly away from my place of observation
and avoiding that part of the neighbourhood and wishing i had not gone near it strolled about until it was ten o'clock the church with the slender spire that stands on the top of the hill now was not there then to tell me the time
an old red brick mansion used as a school was in its place and a fine old house it must have been to go to school at as i recollect it when i approached the doctor's cottage
that had the look of being just completed i saw him walking in the garden at the side gaiters and all as if he had never left off walking since the days of my pupilage he had his old companions about him too for there were plenty of high trees in the neighbourhood
and two or three rooks were on the grass looking after him as if they had been written to about him by the canterbury rooks and were observing him closely in consequence knowing the utter hopelessness of attracting his attention from that distance
i made bold to open the gate and walk after him so as to meet him when he should turn round when he did and came towards me he looked at me thoughtfully for a few moments evidently without thinking about me at all
and then his benevolent face expressed extraordinary pleasure and he took me by both hands why my dear copperfield said the doctor you are a man how do you do i am delighted to see you my dear copperfield how very much you have improved you are quite
yes dear me i hoped he was well and missus strong too oh dear yes said the doctor annie's quite well and she'll be delighted to see you you were always her favourite she said so last night when i showed her your letter
and yes to be sure you recollect mister jack maldon copperfield perfectly sir of course said the doctor to be sure he's pretty well too has he come home sir i inquired from india
said the doctor yes mister jack maldon couldn't bear the climate my dear missus markleham you have not forgotten missus markleham forgotten the old soldier and in that short time missus markleham said the doctor was quite vexed about him poor thing
so we have got him at home again and we have bought him a little patent place which agrees with him much better i knew enough of mister jack maldon to suspect from this account that it was a place where there was not much to do and which was pretty well paid
the doctor walking up and down with his hand on my shoulder and his kind face turned encouragingly to mine went on now my dear copperfield in reference to this proposal of yours it's very gratifying and agreeable to me i am sure
but don't you think you could do better you achieved distinction you know when you were with us you are qualified for many good things you have laid a foundation that any edifice may be raised upon and is it not a pity that you should devote the spring time of your life
to such a poor pursuit as i can offer i became very glowing again and expressing myself in a rhapsodical style i am afraid urged my request strongly reminding the doctor that i had already a profession
well well said the doctor that's true certainly your having a profession and being actually engaged in studying it makes a difference but my good young friend what's seventy pounds a year it doubles our income doctor strong said i
dear me replied the doctor to think of that not that i mean to say it's rigidly limited to seventy pounds a year because i have always contemplated making any young friend i might thus employ a present too undoubtedly said the doctor
still walking me up and down with his hand on my shoulder i have always taken an annual present into account my dear tutor said i now really without any nonsense to whom i owe more obligations already than i ever can acknowledge
no no interposed the doctor pardon me if you will take such time as i have and that is my mornings and evenings and can think it worth seventy pounds a year you will do me such a service as i cannot express dear me said the doctor innocently
to think that so little should go for so much dear dear and when you can do better you will on your word now said the doctor which he had always made a very grave appeal to the honour of us boys on my word sir i returned
answering in our old school manner then be it so said the doctor clapping me on the shoulder and still keeping his hand there as we still walked up and down and i shall be twenty times happier sir said i with a little i hope innocent flattery
if my employment is to be on the dictionary the doctor stopped smilingly clapped me on the shoulder again and exclaimed with a triumph most delightful to behold as if i had penetrated to the profoundest depths of mortal sagacity
my dear young friend you have hit it it is the dictionary how could it be anything else his pockets were as full of it as his head it was sticking out of him in all directions he told me that since his retirement from scholastic life
he had been advancing with it wonderfully and that nothing could suit him better than the proposed arrangements for morning and evening work as it was his custom to walk about in the daytime with his considering cap on his papers were in a little confusion
in consequence of mister jack maldon having lately proffered his occasional services as an amanuensis and not being accustomed to that occupation but we should soon put right what was amiss and go on swimmingly
afterwards when we were fairly at our work i found mister jack maldon's efforts more troublesome to me than i had expected as he had not confined himself to making numerous mistakes but had sketched so many soldiers and ladies heads
over the doctor's manuscript that i often became involved in labyrinths of obscurity the doctor was quite happy in the prospect of our going to work together on that wonderful performance and we settled to begin next morning at seven o'clock
we were to work two hours every morning and two or three hours every night except on saturdays when i was to rest on sundays of course i was to rest also and i considered these very easy terms
our plans being thus arranged to our mutual satisfaction the doctor took me into the house to present me to missus strong whom we found in the doctor's new study dusting his books a freedom which he never permitted anybody else to take with those sacred favourites
they had postponed their breakfast on my account and we sat down to table together we had not been seated long when i saw an approaching arrival in missus strong's face before i heard any sound of it a gentleman on horseback came to the gate
and leading his horse into the little court with the bridle over his arm as if he were quite at home tied him to a ring in the empty coach house wall and came into the breakfast parlour whip in hand it was mister jack maldon
and my impression must be received with due allowance mister jack said the doctor copperfield mister jack maldon shook hands with me but not very warmly i believed and with an air of languid patronage at which i secretly took great umbrage
but his languor altogether was quite a wonderful sight except when he addressed himself to his cousin annie have you breakfasted this morning mister jack said the doctor i hardly ever take breakfast sir he replied
with his head thrown back in an easy chair i find it bores me is there any news today inquired the doctor nothing at all sir replied mister maldon there's an account about the people being hungry and discontented down in the north
but they are always being hungry and discontented somewhere the doctor looked grave
then there's no news at all and no news they say is good news there's a long statement in the papers sir about a murder observed mister maldon but somebody is always being murdered and i didn't read it
i have known it very fashionable indeed i have seen it displayed with such success that i have encountered some fine ladies and gentlemen who might as well have been born caterpillars perhaps it impressed me the more then
because it was new to me but it certainly did not tend to exalt my opinion of or to strengthen my confidence in mister jack maldon
it's the last good night there will be this season and there's a singer there whom she really ought to hear she is perfectly exquisite besides which she is so charmingly ugly relapsing into languor the doctor ever pleased with what was likely to please his young wife
turned to her and said you must go annie you must go i would rather not she said to the doctor i prefer to remain at home i would much rather remain at home without looking at her cousin she then addressed me
and asked me about agnes and whether she should see her and whether she was not likely to come that day and was so much disturbed that i wondered how even the doctor buttering his toast could be blind to what was so obvious but he saw nothing
he told her good naturedly that she was young and ought to be amused and entertained and must not allow herself to be made dull by a dull old fellow moreover he said he wanted to hear her sing all the new singer's songs to him
and how could she do that well unless she went so the doctor persisted in making the engagement for her and mister jack maldon was to come back to dinner this concluded he went to his patent place i suppose
but at all events went away on his horse looking very idle i was curious to find out next morning whether she had been she had not but had sent into london to put her cousin off and had gone out in the afternoon to see agnes
and had prevailed upon the doctor to go with her and they had walked home by the fields the doctor told me the evening being delightful i wondered then whether she would have gone if agnes had not been in town and whether agnes had some good influence over her too
she did not look very happy i thought but it was a good face or a very false one i often glanced at it for she sat in the window all the time we were at work and made our breakfast which we took by snatches as we were employed
when i left at nine o'clock she was kneeling on the ground at the doctor's feet putting on his shoes and gaiters for him there was a softened shade upon her face thrown from some green leaves overhanging the open window of the low room
and i thought all the way to doctors commons of the night when i had seen it looking at him as he read i was pretty busy now up at five in the morning and home at nine or ten at night but i had infinite satisfaction in being so closely engaged
and never walked slowly on any account and felt enthusiastically that the more i tired myself the more i was doing to deserve dora i had not revealed myself in my altered character to dora yet because she was coming to see miss mills in a few days
and i deferred all i had to tell her until then merely informing her in my letters all our communications were secretly forwarded through miss mills that i had much to tell her in the meantime i put myself on a short allowance of bear's grease
wholly abandoned scented soap and lavender water and sold off three waistcoats at a prodigious sacrifice as being too luxurious for my stern career not satisfied with all these proceedings but burning with impatience to do something more
i went to see traddles now lodging up behind the parapet of a house in castle street holborn mister dick who had been with me to highgate twice already and had resumed his companionship with the doctor i took with me
i took mister dick with me because acutely sensitive to my aunt's reverses and sincerely believing that no galley slave or convict worked as i did he had begun to fret and worry himself out of spirits and appetite as having nothing useful to do
in this condition he felt more incapable of finishing the memorial than ever and the harder he worked at it the oftener that unlucky head of king charles the first got into it seriously apprehending that his malady would increase
unless we put some innocent deception upon him and caused him to believe that he was useful or unless we could put him in the way of being really useful which would be better i made up my mind to try if traddles could help us
before we went i wrote traddles a full statement of all that had happened and traddles wrote me back a capital answer expressive of his sympathy and friendship we found him hard at work with his inkstand and papers
refreshed by the sight of the flower pot stand and the little round table in a corner of the small apartment he received us cordially and made friends with mister dick in a moment mister dick professed an absolute certainty of having seen him before
and we both said very likely the first subject on which i had to consult traddles was this i had heard that many men distinguished in various pursuits had begun life by reporting the debates in parliament
traddles having mentioned newspapers to me as one of his hopes i had put the two things together and told traddles in my letter that i wished to know how i could qualify myself for this pursuit
that the mere mechanical acquisition necessary except in rare cases for thorough excellence in it that is to say a perfect and entire command of the mystery of short hand writing and reading was about equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages
traddles reasonably supposed that this would settle the business but i only feeling that here indeed were a few tall trees to be hewn down immediately resolved to work my way on to dora through this thicket axe in hand
i am very much obliged to you my dear traddles said i i'll begin tomorrow traddles looked astonished as he well might but he had no notion as yet of my rapturous condition i'll buy a book said i
with a good scheme of this art in it i'll work at it at the commons where i haven't half enough to do i'll take down the speeches in our court for practice traddles my dear fellow i'll master it dear me said traddles opening his eyes
i had no idea you were such a determined character copperfield i don't know how he should have had for it was new enough to me i passed that off and brought mister dick on the carpet you see said mister dick wistfully if i could exert myself mister traddles
if i could beat a drum or blow anything poor fellow i have little doubt he would have preferred such an employment in his heart to all others traddles who would not have smiled for the world replied composedly but you are a very good penman sir
you told me so copperfield excellent said i and indeed he was he wrote with extraordinary neatness don't you think said traddles you could copy writings sir if i got them for you mister dick looked doubtfully at me
eh trotwood i shook my head mister dick shook his and sighed tell him about the memorial said mister dick i explained to traddles that there was a difficulty in keeping king charles the first out of mister dick's manuscripts
mister dick in the meanwhile looking very deferentially and seriously at traddles and sucking his thumb but these writings you know that i speak of are already drawn up and finished said traddles after a little consideration mister dick has nothing to do with them
wouldn't that make a difference copperfield at all events wouldn't it be well to try this gave us new hope traddles and i laying our heads together apart while mister dick anxiously watched us from his chair
we concocted a scheme in virtue of which we got him to work next day with triumphant success on a table by the window in buckingham street we set out the work traddles procured for him which was to make i forget how many copies
of a legal document about some right of way and on another table we spread the last unfinished original of the great memorial our instructions to mister dick were that he should copy exactly what he had before him without the least departure from the original
and that when he felt it necessary to make the slightest allusion to king charles the first he should fly to the memorial we exhorted him to be resolute in this and left my aunt to observe him my aunt reported to us afterwards
that at first he was like a man playing the kettle drums and constantly divided his attentions between the two but that finding this confuse and fatigue him and having his copy there plainly before his eyes he soon sat at it in an orderly business like manner
and postponed the memorial to a more convenient time in a word although we took great care that he should have no more to do than was good for him and although he did not begin with the beginning of a week he earned by the following saturday night ten shillings and nine pence
to all the shops in the neighbourhood to change this treasure into sixpences or his bringing them to my aunt arranged in the form of a heart upon a waiter with tears of joy and pride in his eyes he was like one under the propitious influence of a charm
from the moment of his being usefully employed and if there were a happy man in the world that saturday night it was the grateful creature who thought my aunt the most wonderful woman in existence and me the most wonderful young man no starving now trotwood said mister dick
shaking hands with me in a corner i'll provide for her sir and he flourished his ten fingers in the air as if they were ten banks i hardly know which was the better pleased traddles or i it really said traddles
put mister micawber quite out of my head the letter mister micawber never missed any possible opportunity of writing a letter was addressed to me by the kindness of t traddles esquire of the inner temple it ran thus
my dear copperfield you may possibly not be unprepared to receive the intimation that something has turned up i may have mentioned to you on a former occasion that i was in expectation of such an event i am about to establish myself
in one of the provincial towns of our favoured island where the society may be described as a happy admixture of the agricultural and the clerical in immediate connexion with one of the learned professions missus micawber and our offspring will accompany me
our ashes at a future period will probably be found commingled in the cemetery attached to a venerable pile for which the spot to which i refer has acquired a reputation shall i say from china to peru
and there giving himself to the service of the monks he strove diligently to learn and to practise those things
and being of a ready wit
having not yet received the tonsure but being in no small measure marked by those virtues of humility and obedience which are more important than the tonsure for which reason he was justly loved by his elders and his equals
he perceived that the way of virtue delivered by the scots was in no wise perfect and he resolved to go to rome to see what ecclesiastical or monastic rites were in use at the apostolic see
when he told the brethren they commended his design and advised him to carry out that which he purposed he forthwith went to queen eanfled for he was known to her and it was by her counsel and support that he had been admitted into the aforesaid monastery
he acquired from the teaching of that same master
whom wilfrid as his clerk attended to the place where he was to be beheaded being very desirous though the bishop strongly opposed it to die with him but the executioners understanding that he was a stranger and of the english nation spared him and would not put him to death with his bishop
and therefore finding him to be a catholic
which place he had formerly given to those that followed the doctrine of the scots to build a monastery there
and other canonical rites according to the custom of the roman apostolic church he gave the same to him whom he found to be instructed in better discipline and better customs
he with the advice and consent of his father oswy sent him into gaul
the same agilbert being then bishop of the city of paris eleven other bishops met at the consecration of the new bishop and that function was most honourably performed
as has been said above and having nobly ruled that church three years he retired to take charge of his monastery of laestingaeu and wilfrid was made bishop of all the province of the northumbrians
afterwards in the reign of egfrid he was expelled from his bishopric and others were consecrated bishops in his stead
to whom he preached christ and he instructed many thousands of them in the word of truth
thus he began there the work of the gospel which was afterwards finished with great devotion by the most reverend bishop of christ
acquitted of all blame and declared worthy of his bishopric at the same time the said pope agatho assembling a synod at rome of one hundred and twenty five bishops
and sitting among the bishops to declare his own faith and the faith of the province or island whence he came and he and his people being found orthodox in their faith it was thought fit to record the same among the acts of that synod which was done in in this manner
wilfrid the beloved of god bishop of the city of york appealing to the apostolic see and being by that authority acquitted of every thing whether specified against him or not
and being appointed to sit in judgement with one hundred and twenty five other bishops in the synod made confession of the true and catholic faith and confirmed the same with his subscription in the name of all the northern part of britain and ireland
they came to the place where it was written wilfrid the beloved of god bishop of the city of york appealing to the apostolic see and being by that authority acquitted of everything whether specified against him or not and the rest as above stated
this being read the hearers were amazed and the reader ceasing they began to ask of one another
this being heard the pope and all the rest said that a man of so great authority who had held the office of a bishop for nearly forty years ought by no means to be condemned but being altogether cleared of the faults laid to his charge should return home with honour
that he could not ride but was carried in his bed
knelt down and gave thanks to god with all the brethren there present when they had sat awhile and begun to discourse with great awe of the judgements of heaven the bishop bade the rest go out for a time and spoke to the priest acca after this manner
a dread vision has even now appeared to me which i would have you hear and keep secret till i know what god will please to do with me
i am sent to call you back from death for the lord has granted you life through the prayers and tears of your disciples and brethren and the intercession of his blessed mother mary of perpetual virginity wherefore i tell you that you shall now recover from this sickness
but be ready for i will return and visit you at the end of four years and when you come into your country you shall recover the greater part of the possessions that have been taken from you and shall end your days in peace and quiet the bishop accordingly recovered
to whom christ the judge of all the earth gave the keys of heaven and devoutly he clothed them with gold and tyrian purple yea and he placed here the trophy of the cross of shining ore uplifted high
moreover he caused the four books of the gospel to be written in gold in their order and he gave a case meet for them of ruddy gold and he also brought the holy season of easter returning in its course to accord with the true teaching of the catholic rule
which the fathers fixed and banishing all doubt and error gave his nation sure guidance in their worship and in this place he gathered a great throng of monks
or through neglect for bishop acca himself was a most skilful singer as well as most learned in holy writ sound in the confession of the catholic faith and well versed in the rules of ecclesiastical custom
chapter thirty nine gothic kingdom of italy part two among the barbarians of the west the victory of theodoric had spread a general alarm
but as soon as it appeared that he was satisfied with conquest and desirous of peace terror was changed into respect and they submitted to a powerful mediation which was uniformly employed for the best purposes
and if he sometimes accepted either slaves or arms white horses or strange animals the gift of a sun dial a water clock or a musician admonished even the princes of gaul of the superior art and industry of his italian subjects
united the family of theodoric with the kings of the franks the burgundians the visigoths the vandals and the thuringians and contributed to maintain the harmony
pursue the emigrations of the heruli a fierce people who disdained the use of armor and who condemned their widows and aged parents not to survive the loss of their husbands
whose fame had excited them to undertake an unknown and dangerous journey of fifteen hundred miles
and his justice might claim the lands which they oppressed either as a part of his kingdom or as the inheritance of his father the greatness of a servant who was named perfidious because he was successful
by the protection which the gothic king in the vicissitude of human affairs had granted to one of the descendants of attila sabinian a general illustrious by his own and father's merit advanced at the head of ten thousand romans
and the provisions and arms which filled a long train of wagons were distributed to the fiercest of the bulgarian tribes but in the fields of margus the eastern powers were defeated by the inferior forces of the goths and huns
the flower and even the hope of the roman armies was irretrievably destroyed and such was the temperance with which theodoric had inspired his victorious troops
the byzantine court despatched two hundred ships and eight thousand men to plunder the sea coast of calabria and apulia they assaulted the ancient city of tarentum interrupted the trade and agriculture of a happy country
and sailed back to the hellespont proud of their piratical victory over a people
and his firm moderation was soon rewarded by a solid and honorable peace he maintained with a powerful hand the balance of the west till it was at length overthrown by the ambition of clovis and although unable to assist his rash and unfortunate kinsman
the king of the visigoths he saved the remains of his family and people and checked the franks in the midst of their victorious career
and shall be content to add
and that the conquest of arles and marseilles opened a free communication with the visigoths who revered him as their national protector and as the guardian of his grandchild the infant son of alaric under this respectable character
the king of italy restored the praetorian praefecture of the gauls reformed some abuses in the civil government of spain and accepted the annual tribute and apparent submission of its military governor
might have gradually arisen from the mutual emulation of their respective virtues but the sublime merit of guiding or seconding such a revolution was not reserved for the reign of theodoric
he servilely copied the institutions and even the abuses of the political system which had been framed by constantine and his successors from a tender regard to the expiring prejudices of rome
the barbarian declined the name the purple and the diadem of the emperors but he assumed under the hereditary title of king
he celebrated in pompous style the harmony of the two republics applauded his own government as the perfect similitude of a sole and undivided empire and claimed above the kings of the earth
the same preeminence which he modestly allowed to the person or rank of anastasius
but it should seem that the italian candidate
the praetorian praefect the praefect of rome
still continued to act as the ministers of state and the subordinate care of justice and the revenue was delegated to seven consulars three correctors and five presidents
the civil administration with its honors and emoluments was confined to the italians and the people still preserved their dress and language their laws and customs their personal freedom
they derived more substantial comfort from the character of a gothic prince who had penetration to discern and firmness to pursue his own and the public interest theodoric loved the virtues which he possessed and the talents of which he was destitute
liberius was promoted to the office of praetorian praefect for his unshaken fidelity to the unfortunate cause of odoacer
more prudent or more fortunate than his colleague cassiodorus preserved his own esteem
the three blessings of a capital order plenty and public amusements
an allowance of bread and meat was distributed to the indigent citizens and every office was deemed honorable which was consecrated to the care of their health and happiness the public games such as the greek ambassador might politely applaud
exhibited a faint and feeble copy of the magnificence of the caesars yet the musical the gymnastic and the pantomime arts had not totally sunk in oblivion the wild beasts of africa still exercised in the amphitheatre
the courage and dexterity of the hunters and the indulgent goth either patiently tolerated or gently restrained the blue and green factions
theodoric visited the old capital of the world the senate and people advanced in solemn procession to salute a second trajan a new valentinian and he nobly supported that character
which he was not afraid to pronounce in public and to inscribe on a tablet of brass rome in this august ceremony shot a last ray of declining glory and a saint
excited the admiration of the romans and he contemplated with equal curiosity and surprise the monuments that remained of their ancient greatness he imprinted the footsteps of a conqueror on the capitoline hill
and frankly confessed that each day he viewed with fresh wonder the forum of trajan and his lofty column the theatre of pompey appeared even in its decay as a huge mountain artificially hollowed and polished
and adorned by human industry and he vaguely computed that a river of gold must have been drained
a pure and copious stream was diffused into every part of the city among these the claudian water which arose at the distance of thirty eight miles in the sabine mountains was conveyed along a gentle though constant declivity of solid arches
till it descended on the summit of the aventine hill the long and spacious vaults which had been constructed for the purpose of common sewers subsisted after twelve centuries in their pristine strength and these subterraneous channels
were anxious to preserve the monuments of the nation
and a professed architect the annual sum of two hundred pounds of gold twenty five thousand tiles and the receipt of customs from the lucrine port were assigned for the ordinary repairs of the walls and public edifices
the lincoln story book a judicious collection of the best stories and anecdotes of the great president many appearing here for the first time in book form compiled by henry l williams
the abraham lincoln statue at chicago is accepted as the typical westerner of the forum the rostrum and the tribune as he stood to be inaugurated under the war cloud in eighteen sixty one but there is another lincoln as dear to the common people
the lincoln of happy quotations the speaker of household words instead of the erect impressive penetrative platform orator we see a long gaunt figure divided between two chairs for comfort
the head bent forward smiling broadly the lips curved in laughter the deep eyes irradiating their caves of wisdom the story telling lincoln enjoying the enjoyment he gave to others
this talkativeness as lincoln himself realized was a very valuable asset leaving home he found in a venture at yankee notion pedling that glibness meant three hundred per cent in disposing of flimsy wares
in the camp of the lumber jacks and of the indian rangers he was regarded as the pride of the mess and the inspirator of the tent from these stages he rose to be a graduate of the college of the yarn spinner the village store where he became clerk
the store we know is the township vortex where all assemble to swap stories and deal out the news lincoln from behind the counter his pulpit not merely repeated items of information which he had heard
but also recited doggerel satire of his own concoction punning and emitting sparks of wit lincoln was hailed as the capper of any good things on the rounds even then his friends saw the germs of the statesman in the lank homely crack voiced hobbledehoy
their praise emboldened him to stand forward as the spokesman at schoolhouse meetings lectures log rollings huskings auctions fairs and so on the folk meets of our people one watching him in eighteen thirty said foresightedly
lincoln has touched land at last in commencing electioneering he cultivated the farming population and their ways and diction he learned by their parlance and bible phrases to construct short sentences of small words
but he had all along the idea that the plain people are more easily influenced by a broad and humorous illustration than in any other way it is the anglo saxon trait distinguishing all great preachers actors and authors of that breed
he acknowledged his personal defects with a frankness unique and startling told a girl whom he was courting that he did not believe any woman could fancy him publicly said that he could not be in looks what was rated a gentleman
disparaged himself like a brutus or a pope sixtus but the mass relished this plain blunt man who spoke right on he talked himself into being the local eminence but did not succeed in winning the election when first presented as the humble candidate for the state senate
he stood upon his imperfect education his not belonging to the first families but the seconds and his shunning society as debarring him from the study he required repulsed at the polls
he turned to the law as another channel supplementing forensic failings by his artful story telling judges would suspend business till that lincoln fellow got through with his yarn spinning
or underhandedly would direct the usher to get the rich bit lincoln told and repeat it at the recess missus lincoln the first to weigh this man justly said proudly that lincoln was the great favorite everywhere
meanwhile his fellow citizens stupidly tired of this merry andrew they sent him elsewhere to talk other folks to death to the state house where he served several terms creditably but was mainly the fund of jollity to the lobby and the chartered jester of the lawmakers
such loquacious witchery fitted him for the congress elected to the house he was immediately greeted by connoisseurs of the best stamp president martin van buren
webster another intellect saturnine in repose and mercurial in activity the convivial senator douglas and the like these formed the rapt ring around lincoln in his own chair in the snug corner of the congressional chat room
here he perceived that his rusticity and shallow skimmings placed him under the trained politicians it was here too that his stereotyped prologue to his digressions that reminds me became popular and even reached england
where a publisher so entitled a joke book lincoln displaced sam slick and opened the way to artemus ward and mark twain the longing for elevation was fanned by the association with the notables buchanan to be his predecessor as president
andrew johnson to be his vice and successor jefferson davis and alex h stephens president and vice president of the c s a adams winthrop sumner and the galaxy over whom his solitary star was to shine dazzlingly
but the fluent chatterer reined in and became a good listener he imbibed all the political ruses and returned home with his quiver full of new and victorious arrows for the presidential campaign
for his bosom friends urged him to try to gratify that ambition preposterous when he first felt it attack him he had grown out of the sensitiveness that once made him beg the critics not to put him out by laughing at his appearance
he learned the american humorist's art not to parade the joke with a discounting smile he worked out euclid to brace his fantasies as the steel bar in a cement fence post makes it irresistibly firm
but he allowed his vehement fervor to carry him into such flights as left the reporters unable to accompany his sentences throughout he was recognized as the destined national mouthpiece he was not of the universities but of the universe
elected and re elected president he continued to be a surprise to those who shrank from levity lincoln was their puzzle for he had a sweet sauce for every roast and showed the smile of invigoration to every croaking prophet
his state papers suited the war tragedies but still he delighted the people with those tales tagging all the events of what may be called the lincoln era the camp and the press echoed them though the cabinet frowned
secretaries said that they exposed the illustrious speaker to charges of clownishness and buffoonery but this perennial good humor perfectly poised by the people alleviated the strain of withstanding that terrible avalanche threatening to dismember and obliterate the states
even his official letters were in the same vein regarding the one to england which meant war he asked of secretary seward if its language would be comprehended by our minister at the victorian court and added dryly
will james the coachman at the door will he understand it receiving the answer he nodded grimly and said then it goes it went and there was no war with the bull time has refuted the purblind purists
the chilly wet blankets and the lincoln stories bright penetrative piquant and pertinent are our classics
lincoln calendar abraham lincoln born february twelfth eighteen o nine hardin county kentucky lincoln day eighteen seventeen
settled in perry county indiana father mother sister and self eighteen eighteen october fifth missus thomas lincoln nancy hanks died buried spencer county indiana
in nineteen o one a monument erected to her memory the base being the former abraham lincoln vault schooling a few months eighteen nineteen twenty and twenty eight about six months school
eighteen nineteen thomas
sally bush of kentucky eighteen thirty march
eighteen thirty one works for himself boatbuilding and sailing carpentering hog sticking sawmilling blacksmithing river pilot logger et cetera in menard county indiana eighteen thirty one
captain and private re enlisted in black hawk war store clerk and merchant new salem studies for the law eighteen thirty two first political speech henry clay whig platform
defeated through strong local vote deputy surveyor at three dollars a day sangamon county eighteen thirty four elected to state legislature as whig resides in springfield till eighteen sixty one
law partner with john l stuart till eighteen forty eighteen thirty five postmaster new salem appointed by president jackson eighteen thirty eight to eighteen forty reelected to state legislature
eighteen forty partner in law with s t logan eighteen forty two married miss mary todd of kentucky of the four sons edward died in infancy william willie at twelve at washington
thomas tad at springfield aged twenty robert m t minister to great britain presidential candidate secretary of war to president garfield his only grandson abraham died in london march eighteen ninety
eighteen forty four proposed for congress eighteen forty five law partner with w h herndon for life eighteen forty six elected to congress the single whig illinois member
voted antislavery sought abolition in the d c voted wilmot proviso declined reelection eighteen forty eight electioneered for general taylor eighteen forty nine
defeated by shields for united states senator eighteen fifty two electioneered for general scott eighteen fifty four won the state over to the republicans but by arrangement transferred his claim to the senatorship to trumbull
october debated with douglas declined the governorship in favor of bissell eighteen fifty six organized the republican party and became its chief nominated vice president but was not chosen by its first convention
worked for the fremont dayton presidential ticket eighteen fifty eight lost in the legislature the senatorship to douglas eighteen fifty nine placed for the presidential candidacy made eastern tour to get acquainted
eighteen sixty may ninth nominated for president shutting out seward chase cameron dayton wade bates and mc lean eighteen sixty one march fourth
inaugurated sixteenth president succeeds buchanan and precedes his vice andrew johnson whom general grant succeeded civil war began by firing on fort sumter april twelfth eighteen sixty two september twenty second
emancipation announced eighteen sixty three january first emancipation proclaimed november nineteenth gettysburg cemetery address december ninth pardon to rebels proclaimed eighteen sixty four
unanimous nomination as republican presidential candidate for re election june seventh reelected november eighth eighteen sixty five march fourth inaugurated for the second term
april fourteenth assassinated in ford's theater washington by a mad actor wilkes booth april nineteenth body lay in state at washington april twenty sixth booth slain in resisting arrest by sergeant boston corbett
near port royal april twenty first to may fourth funeral train through principal cities north to springfield illinois eighteen seventy one temporarily deposited in catacomb eighteen seventy four
in catacomb in sarcophagus the completed monument dedicated eighteen seventy six to frustrate repetition of body snatchers attempt reinterred deeper
chapter seventeen diamond goes on diamond became a great favourite with all the men about the mews some may think it was not the best place in the world for him to be brought up in but it must have been for there he was
at first he heard a good many rough and bad words but he did not like them and so they did him little harm he did not know in the least what they meant
and in the tone of voice in which they were said which diamond felt to be ugly so they did not even stick to him not to say get inside him he never took any notice of them
like a primrose in a hailstorm at first because his face was so quiet and sweet with a smile always either awake or asleep in his eyes and because he never heeded their ugly words and rough jokes they said he wasn't all there
and the words choked themselves before they got any farther when they talked to him nicely he had always a good answer sometimes a smart one ready and that helped much to make them change their minds about him
one day jack gave him a curry comb and a brush to try his hand upon old diamond's coat he used them so deftly so gently and yet so thoroughly as far as he could reach that the man could not help admiring him you must make haste and grow he said
it won't do to have a horse's belly clean and his back dirty you know give me a leg said diamond and in a moment he was on the old horse's back with the comb and brush he sat on his withers and reaching forward as he ate his hay
he curried and he brushed first at one side of his neck and then at the other when that was done he asked for a dressing comb and combed his mane thoroughly then he pushed himself on to his back
then he sat on his croup and did his back and sides
and once he sent the comb flying out of the stable door to the great amusement of the men but jack fetched it again and diamond began once more and did not leave off until he had done the whole business fairly well if not in a first rate experienced fashion
all the time the old horse went on eating his hay and but with an occasional whisk of his tail when diamond tickled or scratched him took no notice of the proceeding but that was all a pretence for he knew very well who it was that was perched on his back and rubbing away at him with the comb and the brush
so he was quite pleased and proud and perhaps said to himself something like this i'm a stupid old horse who can't brush his own coat but there's my young godson on my back cleaning me like an angel i won't vouch for what the old horse was thinking
for it is very difficult to find out what any old horse is thinking oh dear said diamond when he had done i'm so tired and he laid himself down at full length on old diamond's back by this time all the men in the stable were gathered about the two diamonds and all much amused
one of them lifted him down and from that time he was a greater favourite than before and if ever there was a boy who had a chance of being a prodigy at cab driving diamond was that boy for the strife came to be who should have him out with him on the box
his mother however was a little shy of the company for him and besides she could not always spare him also his father liked to have him himself when he could so that he was more desired than enjoyed among the cabmen
for one thing he never got frightened and consequently was never in too great a hurry yet when the moment came for doing something sharp he was always ready for it i must once more remind my readers that he had been to the back of the north wind
one day which was neither washing day nor cleaning day nor marketing day nor saturday nor monday upon which consequently diamond could be spared from the baby his father took him on his own cab
they drew up in the row upon the stand between cockspur street and pall mall they waited a long time but nobody seemed to want to be carried anywhere by and by ladies would be going home from the academy exhibition and then there would be a chance of a job
though to be sure said diamond's father with what truth i cannot say but he believed what he said some ladies is very hard and keeps you to the bare sixpence a mile when every one knows that ain't enough to keep a family and a cab upon to be sure it's the law
but mayhap they may get more law than they like some day themselves
and give another to the old waterman he left diamond on the box a sudden noise got up and diamond looked round to see what was the matter
some rough young imps had picked a quarrel with her and were now hauling at her broom to get it away from her but as they did not pull all together she was holding it against them scolding and entreating alternately diamond was off his box in a moment and running to the help of the girl
he got hold of the broom at her end and pulled along with her but the boys proceeded to rougher measures
but presently his father came back and missing diamond looked about
he rushed in and sent the assailants flying in all directions the girl thanked diamond and began sweeping as if nothing had happened while his father led him away with the help of old tom the waterman he was soon washed into decency
perfectly satisfied with the account he gave of the cause of his being in a fray i couldn't let them behave so to a poor girl could i father he said certainly not diamond said his father quite pleased for diamond's father was a gentleman
diamond's father turned instantly for he was the foremost in the rank and followed the girl one or two other passing cabs heard the cry and made for the place but the girl had taken care not to call till she was near enough to give her friends the first chance
when they reached the curbstone who should it be waiting for the cab but missus and miss coleman they did not look at the cabman however
she told the cabman and away they drove when they reached the house diamond's father got down and rang the bell
why joseph can it be you yes ma'am yes miss answered he again touching his hat with all the respect he could possibly put into the action it's a lucky day which i see you once more upon it who would have thought it said missus coleman
it's changed times for both of us joseph and it's not very often we can have a cab even
and she can't bear the motion of the omnibuses indeed we meant to walk a bit first before we took a cab but just at the corner for as hot as the sun was a cold wind came down the street and i saw that miss coleman must not face it
i didn't know you had got a cab well you see ma'am i had a chance of buying the old horse and i couldn't resist him
nobody knows the sense in that head of his the two ladies went near to pat the horse and then they noticed diamond on the box why you've got both diamonds with you said miss coleman how do you do diamond diamond lifted his cap and answered politely
and then missus coleman took out her purse saying and what's your fare joseph no thank you ma'am said joseph it was your own old horse as took you and me you paid long ago he jumped on his box before she could say another word
and dragging her broom after her and from that by degrees he recalled the whole adventure of the night when he got down from north wind's back in a london street but he could not quite satisfy himself whether the whole affair was not a dream which he had dreamed when he was a very little boy
he recalled another thing that had happened that morning which although it seemed a mere accident might have something to do with what had happened since
when they found the way blocked up and upon inquiry were informed that a stack of chimneys had been blown down in the night
they were just clearing the rubbish away diamond's father turned and made for charing cross that night the father and mother had a great deal to talk about poor things said the mother it's worse for them than it is for us
you see they've been used to such grand things and for them to come down to a little poky house like that it breaks my heart to think of it i don't know said diamond thoughtfully whether missus coleman had bells on her toes
said his mother she had rings on her fingers anyhow returned diamond of course she had as any lady would what has that to do with it when we were down at sandwich said diamond you said you would have to part with your mother's ring now we were poor
bless the child he forgets nothing said his mother really diamond a body would need to mind what they say to you why said diamond i only think about it
why is that why persisted diamond
and spoilt ones too missus coleman is none so poor as all that yet no thank heaven she's not come to that is it a great disgrace to be poor asked diamond because of the tone in which his mother had spoken
what is it what's the matter cried tom springing from his cot and hastening to the side of his chum in the tent
i don't know but jacinto is yelling something about vampires vampires
and in the gleam of it he and ned saw fluttering about the tent some dark shadow like form at the sight of which tom's chum cried
that's the shadow look out and he held up his hands instinctively to shield his face shadow yelled tom unconsciously adding to the din that seemed to pervade every part of the camp that isn't a shadow it's substance it's a monster bat
he caught up his camera tripod which was near his cot and made a swing with it at the creature that had flown into the tent through an opening it had made for itself look out yelled ned if it's a vampire it'll it won't do anything to me shouted tom as he struck the creature
knocking it into the corner of the tent with a thud that told it must be completely stunned if not killed
from without the tent came the indian cries of oshtoo oshtoo mingled with them were calls of jacinto partly in spanish partly in the indian tongue and partly in english it is a raid by vampire bats was all tom and ned could distinguish
we shall have to light fires to keep them away if we can succeed every one grab up a club and strike hard come on cried tom getting on some clothes by the light of his gleaming electric light which he had set on his cot you're not going out there are you asked ned
i certainly am if there's a fight
here you have a light like mine flash it on and hang it somewhere on yourself then get a club and come on the lights will blind the bats and we can see to hit em tom's plan seemed to be a good one his lamp and ned's had small hooks on them
so they could be carried in the upper coat pocket showing a gleam of light and leaving the hands free for use out of the tents rushed the young men to find professor bumper and mister damon before them the two men had clubs and were striking about in the half darkness
for now the indians had set several fires aglow and in the gleams constantly growing brighter as more fuel was piled on
saw a weird sight circling and wheeling about in the camp clearing were many of the black shadowy forms that had caused ned such alarm great bats they were and a dangerous species if jacinto was to be believed
the uncanny creatures flew in and out among the trees and tents now swooping low near the indians or the travelers at such times clubs would be used often with the effect of killing or stunning the flying pests
for a time it seemed as if the bats would fairly overwhelm the camp so many of them were there but the increasing lights and the attacks made by the indians and the white travelers turned the tide of battle and with silent flappings of their soft velvety wings
the bats flew back to the jungle whence they had emerged we are safe for the present exclaimed jacinto with a sigh of relief
they may there is no telling bless my speedometer cried mister damon if those beasts or birds whatever they are come back i'll go and hide in the river and take my chances with the alligators
can kill a horse or an ox in a short time by sucking its blood so when the villagers find they are visited by a colony of these vampires they get out taking their live stock with them and stay in caves or in densely wooded places until the bats fly on
i do not think this lot will come back we have killed too many of them
come back again cried mister damon bless my skin i hope not i've had enough of bats and mosquitoes he added as he slapped at his face and neck indeed the party of whites were set upon by the night insects to such an extent
tom and ned kicked outside the bat the former had killed in their tent and then both went back to their cots but it was some little time before they fell asleep and they did not have much time to rest
as he and tom arose in the gray dawn of the morning when jacinto announced the breakfast which the indian cook had prepared that was some night if this is a sample of the wilds of honduras give me the tameness of shopton
oh we've gone through with worse than this laughed tom it's all in the day's work we've only got started
though we had hard enough work in that tunnel digging after breakfast while the indians were making ready the canoes professor bumper who in a previous visit to central america had become interested in the subject made a brief examination of some of the dead bats
they were exceptionally large some almost as big as hawks and were of the sub family desmodidae the scientist said this is a true blood sucking bat went on the professor this and he pointed to the nose leaves is the sucking apparatus
the bat makes an opening in the skin with its sharp teeth and proceeds to extract the blood i can well believe two or three of them attacking a steer or mule at once could soon weaken it so the animal would die and a man too asked ned
but a helpless quadruped has not though if a sufficient number of these bats attacked a man at the same time he would have small chance to escape alive their bites too may be poisonous for all i know
the indians seemed glad to leave the place of the bats as they called the camp site jacinto explained that the indians believed a vampire could kill them while they slept and they were very much afraid of the blood sucking bats
most of which lived on fruit or on insects they caught the blood sucking bats were comparatively few and the migratory sort fewer still well we're on our way once more remarked tom as again they were in the canoes being paddled up the river
from then on we travel by land until well until you get to the place where you are going i suppose you know where it is he added nodding toward the professor i am leaving that part to you oh i have a map showing where i want to begin some excavations was the answer
after that well we shall trust to luck for what we shall find there are said to be many curious things went on jacinto speaking as though he had no interest
have you thought what may be in them great heathen temples idols perhaps for a moment none of the professor's companions spoke
finally the scientist said oh yes we may find an idol i understand the ancient people who were here long before the spaniards came worshiped idols but we shall take whatever antiquities we find huh grunted jacinto
and then he called to the paddlers to increase their strokes the journey up the river was not very eventful many alligators were seen and tom and ned shot several with the electric rifle toward the close of the third day's travel there was a cry from one of the rear boats
i see observed tom calmly hand me the rifle ned tom took quick aim and pulled the trigger the explosive electric bullet went true to its mark and the great animal turned over in a death struggle
the waters seethed and bubbled as the alligators fought under it for possession of the paddler tom fired bullet after bullet from his wonderful rifle into the spot but though he killed some of the alligators this did not save the man's life his body was not seen again
though search was made for it the accident cast a little damper over the party
professor bumper announced that he would see to it that the man's family did not want and this seemed to give general satisfaction especially to a brother who was with the party aside from being caught in a drenching storm and one or two minor accidents
nothing else of moment marked the remainder of the river journey and at the end of the third day the canoes pulled to shore and a night camp was made but where are the mules we are to use in traveling to morrow asked the professor of jacinto in the next village
we shall march there in the morning no use to go there at night when all is dark i suppose that is so the indians made camp as usual the goods being brought from the canoes and piled up near the tents then night settled down
we must have overslept ned we were to start before old sol got in his heavy work but we haven't had breakfast yet i didn't hear any one call us remarked ned nor i wonder if we're the only lazy birds
then tom noticed something queer the canoes were not on the river bank there was not an indian in sight and no evidence of jacinto what's the matter asked the young inventor have the others gone on ahead
i rather think they've gone back was the professor's dry comment gone back yes the indians seem to have deserted us at the ending of this stage of our journey bless my time table cried mister damon you don't say so what does it mean
i'm afraid he was rather a false friend was the professor's answer
the bell people said the evening bell is sounding the sun is setting for a strange wondrous tone was heard in the narrow streets of a large town it was like the sound of a church bell but it was only heard for a moment
for the rolling of the carriages and the voices of the multitude made too great a noise
where the houses were farther apart with gardens or little fields between them could see the evening sky still better and heard the sound of the bell much more distinctly it was as if the tones came from a church in the still forest people looked thitherward
and felt their minds attuned most solemnly a long time passed and people said to each other i wonder if there is a church out in the wood the bell has a tone that is wondrous sweet let us stroll thither and examine the matter nearer
and the rich people drove out and the poor walked but the way seemed strangely long to them and when they came to a clump of willows which grew on the skirts of the forest they sat down
and fancied they were now in the depth of the green wood the confectioner of the town came out and set up his booth there and soon after came another confectioner
there were three persons who asserted they had penetrated to the end of the forest
but it had seemed to them as if it had come from the town
and said the bell sounded like the voice of a mother to a good dear child and that no melody was sweeter than the tones of the bell the king of the country was also observant of it and vowed that he who could discover whence the sounds proceeded
should have the title of universal bell ringer even if it were not really a bell many persons now went to the wood for the sake of getting the place
for nobody went far enough that one not further than the others however he said that the sound proceeded from a very large owl in a hollow tree a sort of learned owl that continually knocked its head against the branches
but whether the sound came from his head or from the hollow tree that no one could say with certainty so now he got the place of universal bell ringer and wrote yearly a short treatise on the owl
from children they become all at once grown up persons it was as if their infant souls were now to fly all at once into persons with more understanding the sun was shining gloriously the children that had been confirmed went out of the town
and from the wood was borne towards them the sounds of the unknown bell with wonderful distinctness they all immediately felt a wish to go thither all except three one of them had to go home to try on a ball dress
for otherwise she would not have come the other was a poor boy who had borrowed his coat and boots to be confirmed in from the innkeeper's son
but two of the youngest soon grew tired and both returned to town two little girls sat down and twined garlands so they did not go either and when the others reached the willow tree where the confectioner was they said now we are there
woodroof and anemonies grew almost too high blooming convolvuluses and blackberry bushes hung in long garlands from tree to tree where the nightingale sang and the sunbeams were playing it was very beautiful but it was no place for girls to go
their clothes would get so torn large blocks of stone lay there overgrown with moss of every color the fresh spring bubbled forth and made a strange gurgling sound that surely cannot be the bell said one of the children lying down and listening
this must be looked to so he remained and let the others go on without him they afterwards came to a little house made of branches and the bark of trees a large wild apple tree bent over it
as if it would shower down all its blessings on the roof where roses were blooming the long stems twined round the gable on which there hung a small bell was it that which people had heard yes everybody was unanimous on the subject except one
his breast was filled more and more with the forest solitude but he still heard the little bell with which the others were so satisfied and now and then when the wind blew he could also hear the people singing who were sitting at tea where the confectioner had his tent
but the deep sound of the bell rose louder it was almost as if an organ were accompanying it and the tones came from the left hand the side where the heart is placed a rustling was heard in the bushes and a little boy stood before the king's son
a boy in wooden shoes and with so short a jacket that one could see what long wrists he had both knew each other the boy was that one among the children who could not come because he had to go home and return his jacket and boots to the innkeeper's son
this he had done and was now going on in wooden shoes and in his humble dress for the bell sounded with so deep a tone and with such strange power that proceed he must
but the poor child that had been confirmed was quite ashamed he looked at his wooden shoes pulled at the short sleeves of his jacket and said that he was afraid he could not walk so fast besides he thought that the bell must be looked for to the right
for that was the place where all sorts of beautiful things were to be found but there we shall not meet said the king's son nodding at the same time to the poor boy who went into the darkest thickest part of the wood where thorns tore his humble dress
and scratched his face and hands and feet till they bled the king's son got some scratches too but the sun shone on his path
for he was an excellent and resolute youth
he is the son of a king but on he went without being disheartened deeper and deeper into the wood where the most wonderful flowers were growing there stood white lilies with blood red stamina
skyblue tulips which shone as they waved in the winds and apple trees the apples of which looked exactly like large soapbubbles so only think how the trees must have sparkled in the sunshine around the nicest green meads
where the deer were playing in the grass grew magnificent oaks and beeches and if the bark of one of the trees was cracked there grass and long creeping plants grew in the crevices and there were large calm lakes there too
in which white swans were swimming and beat the air with their wings the king's son often stood still and listened he thought the bell sounded from the depths of these still lakes but then he remarked again that the tone proceeded not from there
sung his evening hymn and said i cannot find what i seek the sun is going down and night is coming the dark dark night yet perhaps i may be able once more to see the round red sun before he entirely disappears
i will climb up yonder rock and he seized hold of the creeping plants and the roots of trees climbed up the moist stones where the water snakes were writhing and the toads were croaking
all nature was a vast holy church in which the trees and the buoyant clouds were the pillars flowers and grass the velvet carpeting and heaven itself the large cupola
the red colors above faded away as the sun vanished but a million stars were lighted a million lamps shone
and wood and sea
appeared in his wooden shoes and jacket the poor boy who had been confirmed with him he had followed his own path and had reached the spot just as soon as the son of the king had done they ran towards each other and stood together hand in hand
in the vast church of nature and of poetry while over them sounded the invisible holy bell
ali baba and the forty thieves
there once lived in a town of persia two brothers one named cassim and the other ali baba their father divided a small inheritance equally between them cassim married a very rich wife and became a wealthy merchant
ali baba married a woman as poor as himself and lived by cutting wood and bringing it upon three asses into the town to sell one day when ali baba was in the forest
he saw at a distance a great cloud of dust which seemed to approach him he observed it with attention and distinguished soon after a body of horsemen whom he suspected might be robbers he determined to leave his asses to save himself
he climbed up a large tree planted on a high rock whose branches were thick enough to conceal him and yet enabled him to see all that passed without being discovered the troop who were to the number of forty all well mounted and armed
came to the foot of the rock on which the tree stood and there dismounted every man unbridled his horse tied him to some shrub and hung about his neck a bag of corn which they brought behind them then each of them took off his saddle bag
he followed them when the door shut again of itself the robbers stayed some time within the rock during which ali baba fearful of being caught remained in the tree at last the door opened again and as the captain went in last
so he came out first and stood to see them all pass by him when ali baba heard him make the door close by pronouncing these words shut sesame every man at once went and bridled his horse fastened his wallet
and mounted again when the captain saw them all ready he put himself at their head and they returned the way they had come ali baba followed them with his eyes as far as he could see them and afterward stayed a considerable time before he descended
he had the curiosity to try if his pronouncing them would have the same effect accordingly he went among the shrubs and perceiving the door concealed behind them stood before it and said open sesame the door instantly flew wide open
brocade and valuable carpeting piled upon one another gold and silver ingots in great heaps and money in bags
ali baba went boldly into the cave and collected as much of the gold coin which was in bags as he thought his three asses could carry when he had loaded them with the bags he laid wood over them in such a manner that they could not be seen
when he had passed in and out as often as he wished he stood before the door and pronouncing the words shut sesame the door closed of itself he then made the best of his way to town when ali baba got home
he drove his asses into a little yard shut the gates very carefully threw off the wood that covered the panniers carried the bags into the house and ranged them in order before his wife he then emptied the bags
which raised such a great heap of gold as dazzled his wife's eyes and then he told her the whole adventure from beginning to end and above all recommended her to keep it secret the wife rejoiced greatly at their good fortune and would count all the gold piece by piece
wife replied ali baba you do not know what you undertake when you pretend to count the money you will never have done i will dig a hole and bury it there is no time to be lost you are in the right husband replied she but let us know as nigh as possible
how much we have i will borrow a small measure and measure it while you dig the hole away the wife ran to her brother in law cassim who lived just by and addressing herself to his wife desired her to lend her a measure for a little while
the other asked for a small one she bade her stay a little and she would readily fetch one the sister in law did so but as she knew ali baba's poverty she was curious to know what sort of grain his wife wanted to measure
and emptied it often upon the sofa till she had done when she was very well satisfied to find the number of measures amounted to so many as they did
who had almost finished digging the hole while ali baba was burying the gold his wife to show her exactness and diligence to her sister in law carried the measure back again but without taking notice that a piece of gold had stuck to the bottom sister
said she giving it to her again you see that i have not kept your measure long i am obliged to you for it and return it with thanks as soon as ali baba's wife was gone cassim's wife looked at the bottom of the measure
and was in inexpressible surprise to find a piece of gold sticking to it envy immediately possessed her breast what said she has ali baba gold so plentiful as to measure it whence has he all this wealth
cassim her husband was at his counting house when he came home his wife said to him cassim i know you think yourself rich but ali baba is infinitely richer than you he does not count his money but measures it
cassim desired her to explain the riddle which she did by telling him the stratagem she had used to make the discovery and showed him the piece of money which was so old that they could not tell in what prince's reign it was coined
and went to him in the morning before sunrise ali baba said he i am surprised at you you pretend to be miserably poor and yet you measure gold my wife found this at the bottom of the measure you borrowed yesterday by this discourse
ali baba perceived that cassim and his wife through his own wife's folly knew what they had so much reason to conceal but what was done could not be undone therefore without showing the least surprise or trouble he confessed all
cassim rose the next morning long before the sun and set out for the forest with ten mules bearing great chests which he designed to fill and followed the road which ali baba had pointed out to him it was not long before he reached the rock
on examining the cave he was in great admiration to find much more riches than he had expected from ali baba's relation he quickly laid as many bags of gold as he could carry at the door of the cavern but his thoughts were so full of the great riches he should possess
that he could not think of the necessary word to make it open and instead of sesame said open barley and was much amazed to find that the door remained fast shut he named several sorts of grain but still the door would not open
he threw down the bags he had loaded himself with and walked distractedly up and down the cave without having the least regard to the riches that were round him about noon the robbers visited their cave
and resolved to make one effort for his life he rushed to the door and no sooner saw the door open than he ran out and threw the leader down but could not escape the other robbers who with their cimeters soon deprived him of life
the first care of the robbers after this was to examine the cave they found all the bags which cassim had brought to the door to be ready to load his mules and carried them again to their places but they did not miss what ali baba had taken away before
then holding a council and deliberating upon this occurrence they guessed that cassim when he was in could not get out again but could not imagine how he had learned the secret words by which alone he could enter they could not deny the fact of his being there
and to terrify any person or accomplice who should attempt the same thing they agreed to cut cassim's body into four quarters to hang two on one side and two on the other within the door of the cave
and when they had nothing more to detain them left the place of their hoards well closed they mounted their horses went to beat the roads again and to attack the caravans they might meet in the meantime cassim's wife was very uneasy when night came
and her husband was not returned she ran to ali baba in great alarm and said i believe brother in law that you know cassim is gone to the forest and upon what account it is now night and he has not returned i am afraid some misfortune has happened to him
went directly to the place of rendezvous and told his troop that they had lost their labor and must return to their cave he himself set them the example and they all returned as they had come when the troop was all got together
the captain told them the reason of their returning and presently the conductor was declared by all worthy of death he condemned himself acknowledging that he ought to have taken better precaution
but as the safety of the troop required the discovery of the second intruder into the cave another of the gang who promised himself that he should succeed better presented himself and his offer being accepted
he went and corrupted baba mustapha as the other had done and being shown the house marked it in a place more remote from sight with red chalk not long after morgiana whose eyes nothing could escape went out and seeing the red chalk
and arguing with herself as she had done before marked the other neighbors houses in the same place and manner the robber at his return to his company valued himself much on the precaution he had taken
which he looked upon as an infallible way of distinguishing ali baba's house from the others and the captain and all of them thought it must succeed
but when the robber and his captain came to the street they found the same difficulty at which the captain was enraged and the robber in as great confusion as his predecessor
thus the captain and his troop were forced to retire a second time and much more dissatisfied while the robber who had been the author of the mistake underwent the same punishment which he willingly submitted to
the captain having lost two brave fellows of his troop was afraid of diminishing it too much by pursuing this plan to get information of the residence of their plunderer he found by their example that their heads were not so good as their hands on such occasions
and therefore resolved to take upon himself the important commission accordingly he went and addressed himself to baba mustapha
he did not set any particular mark on the house
by passing often by it that it was impossible for him to mistake it the captain well satisfied with his attempt and informed of what he wanted to know returned to the forest and when he came into the cave where the troop waited for him said
now comrades nothing can prevent our full revenge as i am certain of the house and in my way hither i have thought how to put it into execution but if any one can form a better expedient let him communicate it he then told them his contrivance
and as they approved of it ordered them to go into the villages about and buy nineteen mules with thirty eight large leather jars one full of oil and the others empty
and as the mouths of the jars were rather too narrow for his purpose the captain caused them to be widened
with the weapons which he thought fit leaving open the seam which had been undone to leave them room to breathe he rubbed the jars on the outside with oil from the full vessel things being thus prepared when the nineteen mules were loaded with thirty seven robbers in jars
and the jar of oil the captain as their driver set out with them and reached the town by the dusk of the evening as he had intended he led them through the streets till he came to ali baba's
but was prevented by his sitting there after supper to take a little fresh air he stopped his mules addressed himself to him and said i have brought some oil a great way to sell at to morrow's market and it is now so late that i do not know where to lodge
if i should not be troublesome to you do me the favor to let me pass the night with you and i shall be very much obliged by your hospitality though ali baba had seen the captain of the robbers in the forest and had heard him speak
at the same time he called to a slave and ordered him when the mules were unloaded to put them into the stable and to feed them and then went to morgiana to bid her to get a good supper for his guest after they had finished supper ali baba
charging morgiana afresh to take care of his guest said to her to morrow morning i design to go to the bath before day take care my bathing linen be ready give them to abdalla which was the slave's name and make me some good broth against i return
after this he went to bed in the meantime the captain of the robbers went into the yard took off the lid of each jar and gave his people orders what to do beginning at the first jar and so on to the last he said to each man
got his bathing linen ready and ordered abdalla to set on the pot for the broth but while she was preparing it the lamp went out and there was no more oil in the house nor any candles what to do she did not know for the broth must be made
abdalla seeing her very uneasy said do not fret and tease yourself but go into the yard and take some oil out of one of the jars morgiana thanked abdalla for his advice took the oil pot and went into the yard
when as she came nigh the first jar the robber within said softly is it time though naturally much surprised at finding a man in the jar instead of the oil she wanted she immediately felt the importance of keeping silence as ali baba
his family and herself were in great danger and collecting herself without showing the least emotion she answered not yet but presently she went quietly in this manner to all the jars giving the same answer till she came to the jar of oil
by this means morgiana found that her master ali baba had admitted thirty eight robbers into his house and that this pretended oil merchant was their captain she made what haste she could to fill her oil pot
went and poured enough into every jar to stifle and destroy the robber within when this action worthy of the courage of morgiana was executed without any noise as she had projected she returned into the kitchen with the empty kettle
and having put out the great fire she had made to boil the oil and leaving just enough to make the broth put out the lamp also
which opened into the yard she had not waited long before the captain of the robbers got up opened the window and finding no light and hearing no noise or any one stirring in the house gave the appointed signal by throwing little stones
several of which hit the jars as he doubted not by the sound they gave he then listened but not hearing or perceiving anything whereby he could judge that his companions stirred he began to grow very uneasy
threw stones a second and also a third time and could not comprehend the reason that none of them should answer his signal much alarmed he went softly down into the yard and going to the first jar while asking the robber whom he thought alive
if he was in readiness smelled the hot boiled oil which sent forth a steam out of the jar hence he suspected that his plot to murder ali baba and plunder his house was discovered
and climbing over the walls made his escape when morgiana saw him depart she went to bed satisfied and pleased to have succeeded so well in saving her master and family ali baba rose before day and followed by his slave
went to the baths entirely ignorant of the important event which had happened at home when he returned from the baths he was very much surprised to see the oil jars and that the merchant was not gone with the mules he asked morgiana who opened the door
the reason of it my good master answered she god preserve you and all your family you will be better informed of what you wish to know when you have seen what i have to show you if you will follow me as soon as morgiana had shut the door
ali baba followed her when she requested him to look into the first jar and see if there was any oil ali baba did so and seeing a man started back in alarm and cried out do not be afraid said morgiana
moderate your astonishment and do not excite the curiosity of your neighbors for it is of great importance to keep this affair secret look into all the other jars ali baba examined all the other jars one after another
and when he came to that which had the oil in found it prodigiously sunk and stood for some time motionless sometimes looking at the jars and sometimes at morgiana without saying a word so great was his surprise
at last when he had recovered himself he said and what is become of the merchant merchant answered she he is as much one as i am i will tell you who he is and what is become of him but you had better hear the story in your own chamber
morgiana then told him all she had done
to the destruction of the robbers and the flight of their captain on hearing of these brave deeds from the lips of morgiana ali baba said to her god by your means has delivered me from the snares these robbers laid for my destruction
they were not long in doing it when this was done ali baba hid the jars and weapons and as he had no occasion for the mules he sent them at different times to be sold in the market by his slave
he determined however to avenge the fate of his companions and to accomplish the death of ali baba for this purpose he returned to the town and took a lodging in a khan and disguised himself as a merchant in silks
under this assumed character he gradually conveyed a great many sorts of rich stuffs and fine linen to his lodging from the cavern but with all the necessary precautions to conceal the place whence he brought them in order to dispose of the merchandise
when he had thus amassed them together he took a warehouse which happened to be opposite to cassim's which ali baba's son had occupied since the death of his uncle
and as a newcomer was according to custom extremely civil and complaisant to all the merchants his neighbors ali baba's son was from his vicinity one of the first to converse with cogia houssain who strove to cultivate his friendship more particularly
two or three days after he was settled ali baba came to see his son and the captain of the robbers recognized him at once and soon learned from his son who he was after this he increased his assiduities
caressed him in the most engaging manner made him some small presents and often asked him to dine and sup with him when he treated him very handsomely
son said he
ali baba's son led cogia houssain through the street where his father lived
without hazarding his own life or making any noise yet he excused himself and offered to take his leave but a slave having opened the door ali baba's son took him obligingly by the hand and in a manner forced him in
and in the most obliging manner he could wish he thanked him for all the favors he had done his son
not much acquainted with the world and that he might contribute to his information
he had good sense equal to the experience of many others
i am thoroughly persuaded of your good will but the truth is i can eat no victuals that have any salt in them
if that is the only reason said ali baba it ought not to deprive me of the honor of your company for in the first place there is no salt ever put into my bread and as to the meat we shall have to night i promise you there shall be none in that
therefore you must do me the favor to stay i will return immediately ali baba went into the kitchen and ordered morgiana to put no salt in the meat that was to be dressed that night
and to make quickly two or three ragouts besides what he had ordered but be sure to put no salt in them morgiana who was always ready to obey her master could not help being surprised at his strange order who is this strange man said she
who eats no salt with his meat your supper will be spoiled if i keep it back so long do not be angry morgiana replied ali baba he is an honest man therefore do as i bid you
morgiana obeyed though with no little reluctance and had a curiosity to see this man who ate no salt to this end when she had finished what she had to do in the kitchen she helped abdalla to carry up the dishes
knew him at first sight notwithstanding his disguise to be the captain of the robbers and examining him very carefully perceived that he had a dagger under his garment
but i will prevent him morgiana
to which there hung a poniard with a hilt and guard of the same metal and put a handsome mask on her face when she had thus disguised herself she said to abdalla
when she came to the door made a low obeisance by way of asking leave to exhibit her skill while abdalla left off playing come in morgiana said ali baba and let cogia houssain see what you can do that he may tell us what he thinks of your performance
cogia houssain who did not expect this diversion after supper began to fear he should not be able to take advantage of the opportunity he thought he had found but hoped if he now missed his aim to secure it another time
by keeping up a friendly correspondence with the father and son therefore though he could have wished ali baba would have declined the dance he pretended to be obliged to him for it and had the complaisance to express his satisfaction at what he saw which pleased his host
and accompanied it with an air to which morgiana who was an excellent performer danced in such a manner as would have created admiration in any company after she had danced several dances with much grace she drew the poniard and holding it in her hand
after the manner of those who get a livelihood by dancing and solicit the liberality of the spectators
as did also his son and cogia houssain seeing that she was coming to him
but while he was putting his hand into it morgiana with a courage and resolution worthy of herself plunged the poniard into his heart ali baba and his son shocked at this action cried out aloud unhappy woman exclaimed ali baba
it was to preserve not to ruin you answered morgiana for see here continued she
and showing the dagger what an enemy you had entertained look well at him and you will find him to be both the fictitious oil merchant and the captain of the gang of forty robbers remember too that he would eat no salt with you
and what would you have more to persuade you of his wicked design before i saw him i suspected him as soon as you told me you had such a guest i knew him
ali baba who immediately felt the new obligation he had to morgiana for saving his life a second time embraced her morgiana said he i gave you your liberty and then promised you that my gratitude should not stop there
then addressing himself to his son he said i believe you son to be so dutiful a child that you will not refuse morgiana for your wife you see that cogia houssain sought your friendship with a treacherous design to take away my life
and if he had succeeded there is no doubt but he would have sacrificed you also to his revenge consider that by marrying morgiana you marry the preserver of my family and your own
the son far from showing any dislike readily consented to the marriage not only because he would not disobey his father but also because it was agreeable to his inclination after this they thought of burying the captain of the robbers with his comrades
and did it so privately that nobody discovered their bones till many years after when no one had any concern in the publication of this remarkable history a few days afterward ali baba celebrated the nuptials of his son and morgiana with great solemnity
commended his generosity and goodness of heart ali baba did not visit the robbers cave for a whole year as he supposed the other two might be alive at the year's end when he found they had not made any attempt to disturb him
he had the curiosity to make another journey he mounted his horse and when he came to the cave he alighted tied his horse to a tree then approaching the entrance and pronouncing the words open sesame the door opened
he entered the cavern and by the condition he found things in judged that nobody had been there since the captain had fetched the goods for his shop from this time he believed he was the only person in the world who had the secret of opening the cave
and that all the treasure was at his sole disposal he put as much gold into his saddle bag as his horse could carry and returned to town
two hundred ninety three plain fritters stir a quart of milk gradually into a quart of flour put in a tea spoonful of salt and seven beaten eggs
drop them by the large spoonful into hot lard and fry them till a very light brown color they are the lightest fried in a great deal of fat
but less greasy if fried in just fat enough to keep them from sticking to the frying pan serve them up with liquid pudding sauce
apple fritters take four or five tart mellow apples pare and cut them in slices and soak them in sweetened lemon juice make a batter of a quart of milk a quart of flour
eight eggs grate in the rind of two lemons and the juice and apples drop the batter by the spoonful into hot lard taking care to have a slice of apple in each fritter
cream fritters mix a pint and a half of wheat flour with a pint of milk beat six eggs to a froth and stir them into the flour grate in half a nutmeg then add a pint of cream
a couple of tea spoonsful of salt stir the whole just long enough to have the cream get well mixed in then fry the mixture in small cakes
oxford dumplings take eight ounces of biscuit that is pounded fine
when soft stir in three beaten eggs a table spoonful of flour and a quarter of a pound of zante currants grate in half a nutmeg and do up the mixture into balls
of the size of an egg fry them till a light brown
apple dumplings pare tart mellow apples take out the cores with a small knife and fill the holes with sugar make good pie crust roll it out about two thirds of an inch thick
cut it into pieces just large enough to enclose one apple lay the apples on them and close the crust tight over them tie them up in small pieces of thick cloth that has been well floured
put the dumplings in a pot of boiling water and boil them an hour without any intermission if allowed to stop boiling they will be heavy serve them up with pudding sauce or butter and sugar
pare thin the rind of fresh lemons squeeze out the juice and to a pint of it when strained put a pound and three quarters of sugar and the rind of the lemons dissolve the sugar by a gentle heat
skim it clear then let it simmer gently eight or ten minutes strain it through a flannel bag when cool bottle cork and seal it tight and keep it in a cool place
orange syrup squeeze out the juice of fresh oranges and strain it to a pint of the juice put a pound and a half of sugar set it on a moderate fire when the sugar has dissolved put in the peel of the oranges
and set the syrup where it will boil slowly for six or eight minutes then strain it till clear through a flannel bag the bag should not be squeezed while the syrup is passing through it or it will not be clear
bottle cork and seal it tight this syrup is very nice to flavor puddings and pies three hundred blackberry syrup procure nice high vine blackberries that are perfectly ripe
the low vine blackberries will not answer for syrup as they do not possess the medicinal properties of the high vine blackberries set them on a moderate fire and let them simmer till they break to pieces
then strain them through a flannel cloth to each pint of juice put a pound of white sugar half an ounce of cinnamon powdered fine a quarter of an ounce of finely powdered mace
and a couple of tea spoonsful of powdered cloves boil the whole together fifteen minutes strain it and when cool add to each pint of syrup a wine glass of french brandy bottle cork and seal it
keep it in a cool place this mixed with cold water in the proportion of a wine glass of syrup to two thirds of a tumbler of water is an excellent remedy for the dysentery and similar complaints
it is also a very pleasant summer beverage
elderberry syrup wash and strain the berries which should be perfectly ripe to a pint of juice put a pint of molasses boil it twenty minutes stirring it constantly then take it from the fire when cold
bottle and cork it tight this is an excellent remedy for a tight cough
molasses syrup for preserving mix eight pounds of light sugar house or new orleans molasses eight pounds of water one pound of powdered charcoal boil the whole together twenty minutes
then strain it through a flannel bag when lukewarm put in the beaten whites of a couple of eggs and put it on the fire as soon as it boils take it from the fire and skim it till clear then put it on the fire and let it boil till it becomes a thick syrup
strain it for use this syrup does very well to preserve fruit in for common use
to clarify syrup for sweetmeats put your sugar into the preserving kettle turn in the quantity of cold water that you think will be sufficient to cover the fruit that is to be preserved in it
beat the whites of eggs to a froth allowing one white of an egg to three pounds of sugar mix the whites of the eggs with the sugar and water set it on a slow fire and let the sugar dissolve then stir the whole up well together
as soon as it boils up well take it from the fire let it remain for a minute then take off the scum set it back on the fire and let it boil a minute then take it off and skim it again this operation repeat till the syrup is clear
kate turned and placing the baby on the front seat she knelt and put her arms around the little thing but her lips only repeated the words praise the lord for this precious baby her heart was filled with high resolve she would rear the baby with such care
she would be more careful with adam she would make heroic effort to help him to clean unashamed manhood she would be a better sister to all her family she would be friendlier and have more patience with the neighbours
she would join in whatever effort the church was making to hold and increase its membership among the young people and to raise funds to keep up the organization all the time her mind was busy thinking out these fine resolves
kate arose with the benediction picked up the baby and started down the aisle among the people she had known all her life on every side strong hands stretched out to greet and welcome her a daughter of adam bates was something new as a church member
they all knew how she could work and what she could give if she chose while that she had stood at the altar and been baptized meant that something not customary with the bates family was taking place in her heart
so they welcomed her and praised the beauty and sweetness of the baby until kate went out into the sunshine her face glowing slowly she walked home and as she reached the veranda adam took the baby been to the cemetery he asked
kate nodded and dropped into a chair that's too far to walk and carry this great big woman he said snuggling his face in the baby's neck while she patted his cheeks and pulled his hair why didn't you tell me you wanted to go and let me get out the car
kate looked at him speculatively adam she said when i started out i meant only to take some flowers to mother and polly as i came around the corner of the church to take the footpath they were singing rejoice in the lord
i went inside and joined i'm going to church as often as i can after this and i'm going to help with the work of running it well i like that cried adam indignantly why didn't you let me go with you
kate sat staring down the road she was shocked speechless again she had followed an impulse without thinking of any one besides herself usually she could talk but in that instant she had nothing to say
then a carriage drew into the line of her vision stopped at york's gate and mister york alighted and swung to the ground a slim girlish figure and then helped his wife kate had a sudden inspiration
but you would want to wait a little and join with milly wouldn't you she asked uncle robert always has been a church member i think it's a fine stand for a man to take maybe that would be better he said i didn't think of milly
i'm sure milly will be joining very soon and that she'll want you with her said kate she was a very substantial woman but for the remainder of that day she felt that she was moving with winged feet
she sang she laughed she was unspeakably happy she kept saying over and over and a little child shall lead them
it never occurred to kate that she had done an unprecedented thing she had done as her heart dictated she did not know that she put the minister into a most uncomfortable position when he followed her request to baptize her and the child
she had never thought of probations and examinations and catechisms she had read the bible as was the custom every morning before her school in that book when a man wanted to follow jesus he followed
jesus accepted him and that was all there was to it with kate the middle of the week nancy ellen came flying up the walk on winged feet herself she carried photographs of several small children
that she might have been the original of the picture they just came said nancy ellen rather breathlessly i was wild for that little darling at once i had robert telegraph them to hold her until we could get there we're going to start on the evening train
and if her blood seems good and her ancestors respectable and she looks like that picture we're going to bring her back with us oh kate i can scarcely wait to get my fingers on her i'm hungry for a baby all of my own kate studied the picture she's charming she said
nancy ellen looked at kate and smiled peculiarly i knew you were crazy she said
missus whistler told robert when she called him in about her side tuesday i can't imagine a bates joining church if that is joining church it's the easiest thing in the world said kate we just loved doing it didn't we little poll
adam and milly are going to come in soon i'm almost sure at least he is willing i don't know what it is that i am to do but i suppose they will give me my work soon
kate you are making this place look fine i used to say i'd rather die than come back here to live but lately it has been growing so attractive i've been here about half my time and wished i were the other half
kate slipped her arm around nancy ellen as they walked to the gate you know said nancy ellen the more i study you the less i know about you usually it's sickness and sorrow and losing their friends that bring people to the consolations of the church
you bore those things like a stoic when they are all over and you are comfortable and happy just the joy of being sure of little poll has transformed you kate you make me think of the winged victory this afternoon
if i get this darling little girl will she make me big and splendid and fine like you kate suddenly drew nancy ellen to her and kissed her a long hard kiss on the lips nancy ellen she said you are big and splendid and fine
or you never would be going to chicago after this little motherless child you haven't said a word but i know from the joy of you and robert during the past months that missus southey isn't troubling you any more and i'm sure enough to put it into words
that when you get your little child she will lead you straight where mine as led me good bye and good luck to you and remember me to robert nancy ellen stood intently studying the picture she held in her hand then she looked at kate smiling with misty eyes
i think kate i'm very close if i am not really where you are this minute she said then she started her car but she looked back waving and smiling until the car swerved so that kate called after her do drive carefully nancy ellen
kate went slowly up the walk she stopped several times to examine the shrubs and bushes closely to wish for rain for the flowers she sat on the porch a few minutes talking to little poll then she went inside to answer the phone kate cried a sharp voice
yes said kate recognizing a neighbour living a few miles down the road did nancy ellen just leave your house came a breathless query yes said kate again i just saw a car that looked like hers slip in the fresh sand at the river levee
and it went down and two or three times over o god said kate then after an instant
i'll phone robert and come as soon as i can get there kate called doctor gray's office she said to the girl
have him bring what he might need to howe's and hurry rush him then she ran to her bell and rang so frantically that adam came running kate was at the little garage they had built and had the door open
she told him what she had heard ran to get the baby and met him at the gate on the way she said you take the baby when we get there and if i'm needed take her back and get milly and her mother to come stay with you you know where her things are and how to feed her
don't you dare let them change any way i do baby knows milly she will be good for her and for you you'll be careful of course mother said adam he called her attention to the road look at those tracks he said was she sick
she might have been drunk from them no said kate she wasn't sick she was drunk drunken with joy she had a picture of the most beautiful little baby girl they were to start to chicago after her to night
i suspect she was driving with the picture in one hand oh my god have mercy they had come to deep grooves in loose gravel then the cut in the embankment then they could see the wrecked car standing on the engine and lying against a big tree near the water
while two men and a woman were carrying a limp form across the meadow toward the house as their car stopped kate kissed the baby mechanically handed her to adam and ran into the house where she dragged a couch to the middle of the first room she entered
found a pillow and brought a bucket of water and a towel from the kitchen they carried nancy ellen in and laid her down kate began unfastening clothing and trying to get the broken body in shape for the doctor to work upon
but she spread the towel over what had been a face of unusual beauty robert came in a few minutes then all of them worked under his directions until he suddenly sank to the floor burying his face in nancy ellen's breast then they knew
the neighbours silently began taking away things that had been used while missus howe chose her whitest sheet and laid it on a chair near robert two days later they laid nancy ellen beside her mother then they began trying to face the problem of life without her
robert said nothing he seemed too stunned to think kate wanted to tell him of her final visit with nancy ellen but she could not at that time robert's aged mother came to him and said she could remain as long as he wanted her
so that was a comfort to kate who took time to pity him even in her blackest hour she had some very black ones she could have wailed and lamented and relinquished all she had gained but she did not
she merely went on with life as she always had lived it to the best of her ability when she was so numbed with grief she scarcely knew what she was doing she kept herself driven about the house
and when she could find no more to do took little poll in her arms and went out in the fields to adam where she found the baby a safe place and then cut and husked corn as usual every sabbath and often during the week her feet carried her to the cemetery
where she sat in the deep grass and looked at those three long mounds and tried to understand life deeper still to fathom death she and her mother had agreed that there was something now kate tried as never before to understand what and where
and why that something was many days she would sit for an hour at a time thinking and at last she arrived at fixed convictions that settled matters forever with her one day after she had arranged the fall roses she had grown
and some roadside asters she had gathered in passing she sat in deep thought when a car stopped on the road kate looked up to see robert coming across the churchyard with his arms full of greenhouse roses
he carried a big bunch of deep red for her mother white for polly and a large sheaf of warm pink for nancy ellen kate knelt up and taking her flowers she moved them lower and silently helped robert place those he had brought
then she sat where she had been and looked at him finally he asked still hunting the why kate why doesn't so much matter said kate as where i'm enough of a fatalist to believe that mother is here because she was old and worn out
polly had a clear case of uric poison while i'd stake my life nancy ellen was gloating over the picture she carried when she ran into that loose sand in each of their cases i am satisfied as to why as well as about father
the thing that holds me and fascinates me and that i have such a time being sure of is where robert glanced upward and asked isn't there room enough up there kate too much said kate
and what is the soul and how can it bridge the vortex lying between us and other worlds that man never can because of the lack of air to breathe and support him i don't know said robert and in spite of the fact that i do know
what a man cannot do i still believe in the immortality of the soul oh yes said kate if there is any such thing in science as a self evident fact that is one that is provable robert looked at her eager face
how would you go about proving it kate he asked why this way said kate leaning to straighten and arrange the delicate velvet petalled roses with her sure work abused fingers take the history of the world
and down to the ice of the southern pole again and in blackest africa farthest wildest borneo you will never discover one single tribe of creatures upright and belonging to the race of man
who did not come into the world with four primal instincts they all reproduce themselves they all make something intended for music they all express a feeling in their hearts by the exercise we call dance they all believe in the after life of the soul
this belief is as much a part of any man ever born in any location as his hands and his feet whether he believes his soul enters a cat and works back to man again after long transmigration or goes to a happy hunting ground as our indians
makes no difference with the fact that he enters this world with belief in after life of some kind we see material evidence in increase that man is not defeated in his desire to reproduce himself
we have advanced to something better than tom toms and pow wows for music and dance these desires are fulfilled before us now tell me why the very strongest of all the most deeply rooted the belief in after life should come to nothing
why should the others be real and that a dream i don't think it is said robert it's my biggest self evident fact said kate conclusively i never heard any one else say these things but i think them and they are provable
i always believed there was something but since i saw mother go i know there is she stood in full evening light i looked straight in her face and robert you know i'm no creature of fancies and delusions i tell you i saw her soul pass
i saw the life go from her and go on and on i saw her body stand erect long enough for me to reach her and pick her up after its passing that i know i shouldn't think of questioning it kate said robert
but don't you think you are rather limiting man when you narrow him to four primal instincts oh i don't know said kate air to breathe and food to sustain are presupposed man learns to fight in self defense and to acquire what he covets
he learns to covet by seeing stronger men in better locations surpass his achievements so if he is strong enough he goes and robs them by force he learns the desire for the chase in food hunting i think four are plenty to start with
i must go now shall i take you home kate glanced at the sun and shook her head i can stay half an hour longer i don't mind the walk i need exercise to keep me in condition good bye as he started his car he glanced back
she was leaning over the flowers absorbed in their beauty kate sat looking straight before her until time to help with the evening work and prepare supper then she arose she stood looking down a long time
finally she picked up a fine specimen of each of the roses and slowly dropped them on her father's grave there
which the popular notions are fond of characterising by a stiff stately carriage by a rigid expression of features by a hard severe intonation of voice by set speeches of contempt for poverty and rags and rhapsodical
braggadocio about rank and breeding my father's pride had nothing of this about it it was that quiet negative courteous inbred pride which only the closest observation could detect
which no ordinary observers ever detected at all who that observed him in communication with any of the farmers on any of his estates who that saw the manner in which he lifted his hat
when he accidentally met any of those farmers wives who that noticed his hearty welcome to the man of the people when that man happened to be a man of genius would have thought him proud
on such occasions as these if he had any pride it was impossible to detect it but seeing him when for instance an author and a new made peer of no ancestry entered his house together
observing merely the entirely different manner in which he shook hands with each remarking that the polite cordiality was all for the man of letters who did not contest his family rank with him
and the polite formality all for the man of title who did you discovered where and how he was proud in an instant here lay his fretful point
the aristocracy of rank as separate from the aristocracy of ancestry was no aristocracy for him he was jealous of it he hated it commoner though he was he considered himself the social superior
of any man from a baronet up to a duke whose family was less ancient than his own among a host of instances of this peculiar pride of his which i could cite i remember one characteristic enough to be taken as a sample
of all the rest it happened when i was quite a child and was told me by one of my uncles now dead who witnessed the circumstance himself and always made a good story of it to the end of his life a merchant of enormous wealth
who had recently been raised to the peerage was staying at one of our country houses his daughter my uncle and an italian abbe were the only guests besides the merchant was a portly purple faced man who bore his new honours
with a curious mixture of assumed pomposity and natural good humour the abbe was dwarfish and deformed lean sallow sharp featured with bright bird like eyes and a low liquid voice
he was a political refugee dependent for the bread he ate on the money he received for teaching languages he might have been a beggar from the streets and still my father would have treated him as the principal guest in the house for this all sufficient reason
he was a direct descendant of one of the oldest of those famous roman families whose names are part of the history of the civil wars in italy on the first day the party assembled for dinner comprised the merchant's daughter
my mother an old lady who had once been her governess and had always lived with her since her marriage the new lord the abbe my father and my uncle
when dinner was announced the peer advanced in new blown dignity to offer his arm as a matter of course to my mother my father's pale face flushed crimson in a moment he touched the magnificent merchant lord on the arm and pointed significantly
with a low bow towards the decrepit old lady who had once been my mother's governess then walking to the other end of the room where the penniless abbe was looking over a book in a corner he gravely and courteously led the little deformed limping language master
clad in a long threadbare black coat up to my mother whose shoulder the abbe's head hardly reached held the door open for them to pass out first with his own hand
to follow with the tottering old lady on his arm and then returned to lead the peer's daughter down to dinner himself he only resumed his wonted expression and manner
when he had seen the little abbe the squalid half starved representative of mighty barons of the olden time seated at the highest place of the table by my mother's side
it was by such accidental circumstances as these that you discovered how far he was proud he never boasted of his ancestors he never even spoke of them except when he was questioned on the subject but he never forgot them
they were the very breath of his life the deities of his social worship the family treasures to be held precious beyond all lands and all wealth all ambitions and all glories by his children and his children's children to the end of their race
i believe in his own way he loved us all but we his descendants had to share his heart with his ancestors we were his household property as well as his children
every fair liberty was given to us every fair indulgence was granted to us he never displayed any suspicion or any undue severity we were taught by his direction
that to disgrace our family either by word or action was the one fatal crime which could never be forgotten and never be pardoned we were formed under his superintendence in principles of religion honour and industry
and the rest was left to our own moral sense to our own comprehension of the duties and privileges of our station there was no one point in his conduct towards any of us that we could complain of and yet
there was something always incomplete in our domestic relations it may seem incomprehensible even ridiculous to some persons but it is nevertheless true that we were none of us ever on intimate terms with him
i mean by this that he was a father to us but never a companion there was something in his manner his quiet and unchanging manner which kept us almost unconsciously restrained
i never in my life felt less at my ease i knew not why at the time than when i occasionally dined alone with him i never confided to him my schemes for amusement as a boy
or mentioned more than generally my ambitious hopes as a young man
but that he seemed above them unfitted to enter into them too far removed by his own thoughts from such thoughts as ours thus all holiday councils were held with old servants thus
my first pages of manuscript when i first tried authorship were read by my sister and never penetrated into my father's study again his mode of testifying displeasure towards my brother or myself
any irritation he simply altered his manner towards us altogether
but when we came in contact with him we were treated with a cold contemptuous politeness especially if our fault showed a tendency to anything mean or ungentlemanlike which cut us to the heart
his whole course of conduct said as though in so many words you have rendered yourselves unfit to associate with your father and he is now making you feel that unfitness as deeply as he does
we were left in this domestic purgatory for days sometimes for weeks together to our boyish feelings to mine especially there was no ignominy like it while it lasted
i know not on what terms my father lived with my mother towards my sister his demeanour always exhibited something of the old fashioned affectionate gallantry of a former age
he paid her the same attention that he would have paid to the highest lady in the land he led her into the dining room when we were alone exactly as he would have led a duchess into a banqueting hall
he would allow us as boys to quit the breakfast table before he had risen himself
the servant was often forgiven if towards her the servant was sent away on the spot his daughter was in his eyes the representative of her mother the mistress of his house as well as his child
it was curious to see the mixture of high bred courtesy and fatherly love in his manner as he just gently touched her forehead with his lips when he first saw her in the morning in person
when i have already noticed its tendency to flush all over in an instant his eyes large and gray had something commanding in their look they gave a certain unchanging firmness and dignity to his expression not often met with
they betrayed his birth and breeding his old ancestral prejudices his chivalrous sense of honour in every glance it required indeed all the masculine energy of look about the upper part of his face
to redeem the lower part from an appearance of effeminacy so delicately was it moulded in its fine norman outline his smile was remarkable for its sweetness it was almost like a woman's smile
in speaking too his lips often trembled as women's do if he ever laughed as a young man his laugh must have been very clear and musical but since i can recollect him i never heard it in his happiest moments in the gayest society
i have only seen him smile there were other characteristics of my father's disposition and manner which i might mention but they will appear to greater advantage perhaps hereafter connected with circumstances
i learned afterwards that she sailed fast only in the newspaper advertisements my father owned one quarter of the typhoon and that is why we happened to go in her i tried to guess which quarter of the ship he owned and finally concluded it must be the hind quarter
the cabin in which we had the cosiest of state rooms with one round window in the roof and two shelves or boxes nailed up against the wall to sleep in there was a good deal of confusion on deck while we were getting under way
the captain shouted orders to which nobody seemed to pay any attention through a battered tin trumpet and grew so red in the face that he reminded me of a scooped out pumpkin with a lighted candle inside he swore right and left at the sailors
without the slightest regard for their feelings they didn't mind it a bit however but went on singing heave ho with the rum below and hurrah for the spanish main o i will not be positive about the spanish main but it was
hurrah for something o i considered them very jolly fellows and so indeed they were one weather beaten tar in particular struck my fancy a thick set jovial man about fifty years of age with twinkling blue eyes
and a fringe of gray hair circling his head like a crown as he took off his tarpaulin i observed that the top of his head was quite smooth and flat as if somebody had sat down on him when he was very young there was something noticeably hearty in this man's bronzed face
a heartiness that seemed to extend to his loosely knotted neckerchief but what completely won my good will was a picture of enviable loveliness painted on his left arm it was the head of a woman with the body of a fish her flowing hair was of livid green
and she held a pink comb in one hand i never saw anything so beautiful
came puffing up alongside the typhoon it was ridiculously small and conceited compared with our stately ship i speculated as to what it was going to do in a few minutes we were lashed to the little monster
only it didn't seem as if we were moving the shore with the countless steamboats the tangled rigging of the ships and the long lines of warehouses appeared to be gliding away from us it was grand sport to stand on the quarter deck and watch all this
before long there was nothing to be seen on other side but stretches of low swampy land covered with stunted cypress trees from which drooped delicate streamers of spanish moss
i turned and looked new orleans was just a colorless mass of something in the distance
upon which the sun shimmered for a moment was no bigger than the top of old aunt chloe's thimble what do i remember next the gray sky and the fretful blue waters of the gulf the steam tug had long since let slip her hawsers
i had been standing by my father near the wheel house all this while observing things with that nicety of perception which belongs only to children but now the dew began falling and we went below to have supper
the fresh fruit and milk and the slices of cold chicken looked very nice yet somehow i had no appetite there was a general smell of tar about everything then the ship gave sudden lurches that made it a matter of uncertainty
whether one was going to put his fork to his mouth or into his eye the tumblers and wineglasses stuck in a rack over the table kept clinking and clinking and the cabin lamp suspended by four gilt chains from the ceiling swayed to and fro crazily
now the floor seemed to rise and now it seemed to sink under one's feet like a feather bed there were not more than a dozen passengers on board including ourselves and all of these excepting a bald headed old gentleman a retired sea captain
then my father laughed but captain truck would grow very angry and vow that he would have won the game in a move or two more if the confounded old chicken coop that's what he called the ship hadn't lurched i i think i will go to bed now please i said
it was high time for the typhoon was plunging about in the most alarming fashion i was speedily tucked away in the upper berth where i felt a trifle more easy at first
for i made no doubt we should fall in with pirates before many hours this is the last thing i remember with any distinctness at midnight as i was afterwards told we were struck by a gale which never left us until we came in sight of the massachusetts coast
for days and days i had no sensible idea of what was going on around me that we were being hurled somewhere upside down and that i didn't like it was about all i knew
i have indeed a vague impression that my father used to climb up to the berth and call me his ancient mariner bidding me cheer up but the ancient mariner was far from cheering up if i recollect rightly and i don't believe that venerable navigator would have cared much
if it had been announced to him through a speaking trumpet that a low black suspicious craft with raking masts was rapidly bearing down upon us in fact one morning i thought that such was the case for bang went the big cannon
i had noticed in the bow of the ship when we came on board and which had suggested to me the idea of pirates bang went the gun again in a few seconds i made a feeble effort to get at my trousers pocket but the typhoon was only saluting cape cod
the first land sighted by vessels approaching the coast from a southerly direction the vessel had ceased to roll and my sea sickness passed away as rapidly as it came i was all right now
at cape cod the wind parted company with us without saying as much as excuse me so we were nearly two days in making the run which in favorable weather is usually accomplished in seven hours that's what the pilot said
i found him in the forecastle a sort of cellar in the front part of the vessel he was an agreeable sailor as i had expected and we became the best of friends in five minutes he had been all over the world two or three times and knew no end of stories
according to his own account he must have been shipwrecked at least twice a year ever since his birth he had served under decatur when that gallant officer peppered the algerines and made them promise not to sell their prisoners of war into slavery he had worked a gun at the bombardment of vera cruz in the mexican war
and he had been on alexander selkirk's island more than once there were very few things he hadn't done in a seafaring way i suppose sir i remarked that your name isn't typhoon
he added which increased my respect for him i don't know why and i didn't know then whether typhoon was the name of a vegetable or a profession not wishing to be outdone in frankness i disclosed to him that my name was tom bailey
i discovered that sailor ben as he wished me to call him was a perfect walking picturebook he had two anchors a star and a frigate in full sail on his right arm a pair of lovely blue hands clasped on his breast
and i've no doubt that other parts of his body were illustrated in the same agreeable manner i imagine he was fond of drawings and took this means of gratifying his artistic taste it was certainly very ingenious and convenient a portfolio might be misplaced or dropped overboard
with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes was accompanied by music on all occasions
madam how and lady why or first lessons in earth lore for children
to my son grenville arthur and to his school fellows at winton house this little book is dedicated preface my dear boys when i was your age
there were no such children's books as there are now those which we had were few and dull and the pictures in them ugly and mean while you have your choice of books without number clear amusing and pretty as well as really instructive
on subjects which were only talked of fifty years ago by a few learned men and very little understood even by them so if mere reading of books would make wise men you ought to grow up much wiser than us old fellows
but mere reading of wise books will not make you wise men you must use for yourselves the tools with which books are made wise and that is your eyes and ears and common sense
and in it was a story called eyes and no eyes a regular old fashioned prim sententious story and it began thus well robert where have you been walking this afternoon
oh robert had been to broom heath and round by camp mount and home through the meadows but it was very dull he hardly saw a single person he had much rather have gone by the turnpike road
and low shoes which always came off in sticky ground and terribly dirty and wet he is but he never he says had such a pleasant walk in his life and he has brought home his handkerchief
for boys had no pockets in those days much bigger than key holes full of curiosities he has got a piece of mistletoe wants to know what it is and he has seen a woodpecker and a wheat ear and gathered strange flowers on the heath
and hunted a peewit because he thought its wing was broken till of course it led him into a bog and very wet he got but he did not mind it because he fell in with an old man cutting turf who told him all about turf cutting and gave him a dead adder
and wanted to go again and make out the geography of the country from cary's old county maps which were the only maps in those days and then because the hill was called camp mount he looked for a roman camp and found one and then he went down to the river saw twenty things more
and so on and so on till he had brought home curiosities enough and thoughts enough to last him a week
tells him all about his curiosities and then it comes out if you will believe it that master william has been over the very same ground as master robert who saw nothing at all
whereon mister andrews says wisely enough in his solemn old fashioned way
and upon this difference depends all the superiority of knowledge which one man acquires over another
and the price and quality of the liquor on the other hand franklin could not cross the channel without making observations useful to mankind while many a vacant thoughtless youth is whirled through europe without gaining a single idea worth crossing the street for
the observing eye and inquiring mind find matter of improvement and delight in every ramble you then william continue to use your eyes and you robert
use so said mister andrews and so i say dear boys
to you therefore i beg all good boys among you to think over this story and settle in their own minds whether they will be eyes or no eyes whether they will as they grow up look and see for themselves what happens
or whether they will let other people look for them or pretend to look and dupe them and lead them about the blind leading the blind till both fall into the ditch
i say good boys not merely clever boys or prudent boys because using your eyes or not using them
god has given you eyes it is your duty to god to use them if your parents tried to teach you your lessons in the most agreeable way by beautiful picture books would it not be ungracious ungrateful and altogether naughty and wrong
and it is your interest god's book which is the universe and the reading of god's book which is science can do you nothing but good and teach you nothing but truth and wisdom
god did not put this wondrous world about your young souls to tempt or to mislead them if you ask him for a fish he will not give you a serpent if you ask him for bread he will not give you a stone
so use your eyes and your intellect your senses and your brains and learn what god is trying to teach you continually by them i do not mean that you must stop there and learn nothing more anything but that
there are things which neither your senses nor your brains can tell you and they are not only more glorious but actually more true
or touch but you must begin at the beginning in order to end at the end and sow the seed if you wish to gather the fruit god has ordained that you and every child which comes into the world should begin by learning something of the world about him
by his senses and his brain and the better you learn what they can teach you the more fit you will be to learn what they cannot teach you the more you try now to understand things the more you will be able hereafter to understand men
and that which is above men you began to find out that truly divine mystery that you had a mother on earth simply by lying soft and warm upon her bosom and so as our lord told the jews of old
it is by watching the common natural things around you and considering the lilies of the field how they grow that you will begin at least to learn that far diviner mystery that you have a father in heaven and so you will be delivered
if you will out of the tyranny of darkness and distrust and fear into god's free kingdom of light and faith and love and will be safe from the venom of that tree
who planted that tree i know not it was planted so long ago but surely it is none of god's planting neither of the son of god yet it grows in all lands and in all climes and sends its hidden suckers far and wide even
unless we be watchful into your hearts and mine and its name is the tree of unreason whose roots are conceit and ignorance and its juices folly and death
it drops its venom into the tenderest hearts alas and makes them call wrong right and right wrong love cruelty and cruelty love
over the whole earth for my part i know not save that all shall be as god wills the tree has been cut down already again and again and yet has always thrown out fresh shoots and dropped fresh poison from its boughs
and the best prayer i can offer for you is perhaps that you should never need to understand me but if that sore need should come and that poison should begin to spread its mist over your brains and hearts then you will be proof against it just in proportion
as you have used the eyes and the common sense which god has given you and have considered the lilies of the field how they grow
we have all heard the wonderful story recounted by plutarch in his treatise on the cessation of the oracles how
when a loud and terrible voice from the land called thamous the pilot and he having responded at the third appeal
the voice grown yet louder and more terrible
that pan the great was dead accordingly when the vessel reached this place
the good pantagruel goes on to expound the story after his own manner thinking that it referred not to the heathen god pan but to our lord and savior jesus christ ignominiously put to death
by the envy and iniquity of the pontiffs doctors presbyters and monks of the mosaic dispensation for with good right may he in the greek tongue be called pan seeing that he is our all all we are
is him in him of him by him he is the good pan the great shepherd at whose death were moanings sighs trepidations
and lamentations in all the machine of the universe heavens earth sea hells with this my interpretation the time agrees for that most good
most great pan our only savior died at jerusalem reigning in rome tiberius caesar pantagruel these words said rested in silence and profound contemplation
and my deep reverence for rabelais with whom no commentator in holy orders known to me can be compared except dean swift i am inclined on this point to follow the ordinary opinion that pan the great god whose death was thus
miraculously announced was the pan of the heathen greeks christ had died but only pro tem had descended into hell but with a return ticket
this world and life were contemned for the life and world to come nature the all the great pan was annulled and the supernatural nothing throned supreme
the poets have chanted this momentous revolution according to their religion their phantasy or their mood milton in his hymn on the nativity
shouts harsh puritanical scorn on the oracles stricken dumb and the deities overthrown shelley in a magnificent chorus of hellas
contests not the justice of their doom while in the final chorus he predicts the same doom for their conqueror in his turn in our own day
and elsewhere has bewailed the dead immortals with nothing but aversion and contempt for the pale galilean the ghastly glories of saints dead limbs of gibbeted gods
beautiful but not of his deepest regrets the banished divinities and since the halls of olympus are void appeals to nature to restore to his spirit its first fire if she indeed lives
and the real we accept perforce in its fulness but discern not how it can derive from an unreal god novalis in his hymns to the night laments with schiller
the unsouling of nature bound in iron chains by arid number and rigorous rule but goes on to celebrate the resurrection of humanity in christ
gods of greece after declaring in his wild way that he has never loved the old deities that to him the greek are repugnant and the romans thoroughly hateful yet
he feels ready to fight for the former against these this change of the celestial dynasty is indeed a favorite theme with him elsewhere he pictures the olympians holding high revelry
his brow bleeding from a crown of thorns trailing on his shoulder a heavy cross which he heaves upon the banquet table and forthwith the revel is no more
in his incomparable gods in exile he tells us what became of these dispersed olympians during the dark ages in the thick night of the noontide of christianity how they were transformed from celestial to infernal
by the monstrous superstition of that baleful era as we find the hoofs and horns of pan transferred to the devil himself as we find venus
it is full time to proclaim the death of the great god christ eighteen hundred years make a fairly long period even for a celestial dynasty but this one in its perishing
fate in the form of science has decreed the extinction of the gods mary and her babe must join venus and love isis and horus living with them only in the world of art
jesus on his cross must dwindle to a point even in the realms of legend under prometheus on caucasus for ages already the father has been as spectral as jupiter
for ages already the holy ghost has been but the shadow of a shade and the last not least member of the divine royal family satan the prince of darkness
is no more alive than pluto who also was born brother to the monarch of heaven the hebrew dynasty of the gods is no more it has done much evil in its long sovranty
which we will try to forget now it ceases to reign it has done some little good whose remembrance we will cherish when it is sepulchred christ the great is dead
but pan the great lives again as mister maccall told us in some lines published in this paper several years ago pan lives not as a god but as the all nature
now that the oppression of the supernatural is removed i may be told that christianity is yet alive and flourishing that its priesthood and its churches hold possession of europe and america and australia
when the noblest hearts worship not at its altars when the most vigorous intellects abandon its creeds the knell of its doom has rung at the risk of being thought bigoted or prejudiced
i must avow that to my mind the decomposition of christianity is so offensively manifest and advanced that with the exception of
a very few persons whose transcendent genius could throw a glamor of glory over any creed however crude and mean and whom i recognise as far above my judgment
i can no longer give my esteem to any educated man who has investigated and still professes this religion without grave deduction at the expense of his heart his intellect or his conscience
jesus as god
have even had the heart to degrade this first preacher of the mountain the purest hero of liberty for unable to deny that he was earth's greatest man they have made of him heaven's smallest god
and the character wherein it has been founded taking away all true grandeur from jesus benumbing our love and reverence jesus as a man commands my heart's best homage
his words as reported by the evangelists are ever flowing fountains of spiritual refreshments and i feel that he was in himself even far more wise and good than he appears in the gospel
what disciple could be expected to report perfectly the words of a teacher so mystically sublime the disciple intends and endeavors to report faithfully
but when he hears words which to him are without sense because they express some truth whose sphere is beyond the reach of his vision he makes sense of them by some slight change slight
as to the letter immense as to the spirit for the sense is a truth or truism of his own lower sphere
and when the reports are not put into writing until many years after the words were first uttered the changes will be important even as to the letter for a narrative
always alters year after year as much as the man himself alters for he continues grafting his own sense which may be deplorable nonsense upon words which have been spoken
when we find sentences of the purest beauty and wisdom in the records of a man's conversation we may safely proportion the whole philosophical character of the speaker to such sentences they mark the altitude
at which his spirit loved to dwell we are but completing the circle from the clearest fragment arc left
have perhaps been degraded by the reporter
jesus as a man whose words have been recorded by fallible men is not lowered in my esteem by such contradictions as i find between his various speeches every proverb
has its antagonist proverb each being true to a certain extent or in certain relations could we conceive an abstract intellect we might conceive it dwelling continually
lives in the relative and the conditioned and naturally reflects the character of this sphere the wise man finds himself surrounded and obstructed by certain concrete errors
had he lived in the same circumstances for a wise man only attacks the errors that are in his way things which he never meets he can scarcely think of as obstructions
he is rolling off on the right you push him up he then rolls over on the left exactly so and because one sage seeing him roll down to the right has pushed him up on the right while another sage
seeing him roll down to the left has pushed him up on the left are the two sages to be accounted antagonists now as a wise man in the course of his existence meets errors of many sorts
and deity reports the speeches all should be absolute truth transparently self consistent else what advantage or gain have we by the substitution of god for man
why bring in god to utter and record what could have been as well uttered and recorded by man everything for which we love and venerate the man jesus becomes a bitter and absurd mockery when attributed to the lord christ
he cured many sick if god why did he not give the whole world health he associated with publicans and sinners if god why did he make publicans and sinners at all
he preached the kingdom of heaven if god why did he not bring the kingdom with him and make all mankind fit for it he loved the poor he taught the ignorant if god
why did he let any remain poor and ignorant he rebuked the pharisees and sadducees it god why did he not wholly purify them from formalism hypocrisy and unbelief
if god why did he not restore mankind to himself without dying and what great thing was it to seem to die for three days he sent apostles to preach salvation to all men
if god why did he not reveal it at once to all men and so reveal it that doubt had been impossible he lived an example of holiness to us all if god
how can our humanity imitate deity and finally a question trampling down every assertion in his favor
one is ashamed of repeating these things for the ten thousandth time but they will have to be repeated occasionally
i am content to note one aspect of this unfortunate mystery which so far as i am aware has been seldom studied the whole scheme of the atonement as planned by god is based upon a crime
if all these turpitudes had not been secured the atonement could not have been consummated need one say more sometimes when musing upon this doctrine
i have a vision of the god man getting old upon the earth horribly anxious and wretched because no one will murder him judas has succeeded to a large property and would not be tempted to betray him by three hundred pieces of silver
the chief priests and elders think him insane and therefore as orientals hold him in a certain reverence
is henpecked and superstitious
and will have nothing to do with him even peter won't deny him although he has restored peter's mother in law to life the situation is desperate
may he be compelled to commit suicide must he go back to heaven unsacrificed foiled for want of an assassin benjamin disraeli attained the cynical sublime when he suggested
the heavenly trinity would not have triumphed in the scheme of salvation by atonement judas caiaphas
and as these three men could not have done what they did in furtherance of the glorious work without a well known inspiration a fourth memorial the grandest of all should have been erected to the devil
but the world even the religious world has always been ungrateful to its most generous benefactors is it not the worst of sacrilege a foul profanation of our human nature
the people who profess belief in this are shocked at the outrage offered to our humanity by the development theory while they themselves commit this outrage more flagitious little matters whence we sprang
we are what we are but much matters to what we may attain if the development theory plants our feet in the slime the christian theory bows our head to the dust
it asserts that human nature could not possibly be so good as jesus that human genius could not possibly write the books which tell of him it denies us our noblest prerogatives
yet the orthodox shudder and moan outraged in their pious sensibilities when one dares to speak with manly plainness of their doctrines which commence by polluting our common nature
resurrection and ascension of jesus eighteen seventy six in reviewing mister r h hutton's essay on christian evidences popular and critical
only from the new testament itself i confined myself to showing or attempting to show that such evidence is unsubstantial but i could not consider this argument adequate or conclusive
for there are large general considerations of incomparably greater importance which it leaves out altogether it is as if a case ruled by broad principles of equity were to be decided on the narrowest technical grounds
therefore while confident that even on these grounds the case must go against the christian believer i wish to add a few words on its wider relations in order that the decision may be established
were recorded of any other than jesus in any other sacred book than the bible mister hutton and all other intelligent christians would not only disbelieve it but would not even condescend to investigate it
condemning it offhand as too preposterous to be worthy of serious attention thus what christian has ever deigned to examine critically the marvels affirmed in the koran such as mohammed's visit to heaven
nay what bibliolater has ever seriously weighed the evidence for the miracles of his fellow christian the great saint bernard such as those which are minutely related and solemnly attested by ten eye witnesses
your enlightened protestant simply shrugs his shoulders at all such stories and says with a superior smile of course mere imposture and collusion or superstition and delusion
we don't think twice before determining whether the impossible ever really occurred how then can this enlightened protestant receive without question the miracles of the jewish books
while rejecting without question all others we have seen that it cannot be because of any superiority of evidence for the former since the evidence for the latter is in many cases infinitely greater and better authenticated
and since he does not attempt to weigh evidence before either accepting or rejecting though he may seek evidence and argument to confirm what he has already given himself to believe
he accepts the jewish miracles simply because they have come down to him through many generations of his forefathers invested with a glamor of sanctity and he regards them with the eye of faith which sees and sees not
and the graves were opened and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of their graves after his resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared unto many
this prodigal multiplicity and superfluity of resurrections seems to have been not a little embarrassing to modern christian champions though doubtless it did not in the least trouble the primitive non scientific believers
to whom nothing was more natural than the unnatural including the supernatural and the infranatural an apologist of our days who must affirm the one resurrection seeing that his whole religion is based upon it
and who though valiantly defying science seeks to conciliate historical possibility finds his task quite heavy enough in accounting for the facts
we are surely at the utmost limits of the possible in conceiving that jesus could appear unto five hundred of the brethren at once there is no hint elsewhere that he had so many permanent followers in his lifetime
we find that there were about one hundred and twenty gathered after the ascension without the priests and the roman officials hearing of the apparition and investigating it
once in the imperial archives the record of the miracle would have spread everywhere all subsequent historians would have related it all subsequent writers referred to it so it is no wonder that
is very significant that neither in the acts nor in the epistles is there any allusion to these resurrections when peter and the others were preaching the resurrection of christ
whose visible tangible living and speaking evidence would have been irresistible just as the resurrection of jesus could be accepted without misgiving by the non scientific early christians
to whom miracles appeared among the most frequent occurrences of life so could the ascension their earth was a plane vaulted by the sky lamped by the little sun and moon and stars
their christ standing in the flesh on the mount of olives floated up through this vault to sit enthroned beside his father in the most natural supernatural manner
we can conceive and sympathise with this simple faith but it is hard to conceive and sympathise with the blind faith which seems wilfully blind
it has been often remarked that copernicus and kepler and newton have destroyed all the old mythologies including of course the mythology of both the old and new testaments with the earth no longer the universe of mortal life
between a heaven above its domed firmament and a hades like a vast dungeon beneath but a quite infinitesimal grain of sand involved by an infinitesimal drop of dew
and at inconceivable distances from it with man no longer the lord of the creation for whose service all things were made but an animalcule inexpressibly small living for a moment inexpressibly brief
the christian mythology and system among others because ineffably absurd where is the heaven for its god where the hell for its devil where is above where beneath
if jesus had ascended and continued to ascend with the speed of light he might be ascending now
as we are learning to know it now try to conceive an infinite and eternal god of this infinite and eternal whole sacrificing his only son for the salvation of us most insignificant insects
naturally the churches have always hated and resisted science and the theologians have seldom dared to face its conclusions they ignore the immensities and confine their vision to the pages of a single book
to a history whose chronology counts not six thousand years but as i have remarked even this minute field they cannot hold against the sceptic who has made them abandon all the rest of the universe
why did their risen lord only slink about among his own disciples appearing to these but at flying instants why did he not with his well known features and with the wounds of the nails and the spear in his body
and the whole of jerusalem and compel them to acknowledge and bear enduring witness to his resurrection why did he not summon all the people from the highest to the lowest to the solemn spectacle of his ascension
securing multitudinous and permanently recorded evidence such as none of us could doubt we might go on asking why and why and why in this fashion on a hundred points
confident that to not one of our questions could the christian apologist give a straightforward and satisfactory answer as the scheme of the atonement is presented to us god sacrificed his only son
and the taking of constantinople by the turks in fourteen fifty three is usually known in history as the middle ages by some it is considered as synonymous with the dark ages because of the decline of learning and civilization during this long interval of time
the former designation seems preferable for as we shall see the latter is more or less misleading during the wandering of the nations in the fourth and fifth centuries and the long and fierce struggles between the barbarian hordes from the north
with the decadent peoples of the once great roman empire there was no doubt a partial eclipse of the sun of civilization but the consequent darkness was not so dense nor so general and long continued as is sometimes imagined
the progress of intellectual culture was indeed greatly retarded but there was no time when the light of learning was entirely extinguished for even during the most troublous times
there were centers of culture in one part of europe or another at one time the center was in italy at another in gaul and at still another it was in britain or ireland or germany but whether it was in the south
or the west or the north of europe that letters flourished it was always the convent or the monastery that was the home of learning and culture within these holy precincts
the literary treasures of antiquity were preserved and multiplied here monks and nuns labored and studied always keeping lighted the sacred torch of knowledge et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt
and passing it on to the generations that succeeded them that any of the great literary masterpieces of greece and rome have come to us in spite of the destructive agencies of time and the wreck of empires
of the zealous and intelligent inmates of the cloister of the monastic institutions for men there is no occasion to speak except in so far as they contributed to the intellectual advancement of woman in some cases
the women of the cloister owed much to ecclesiastics for their literary training but there are not wanting instances in which the nuns took the lead in education and had the direction of schools which gave to the church priests and bishops of recognized scholarship
among the first convent schools to achieve distinction were those of arles and poitiers in gaul in the latter part of the sixth century the abbess of poitiers is known to us as saint radegund
she not only had a knowledge of letters rare for her age but wrote poems of such merit that they were until recently accepted as the productions of her master
far more notable however than the convents of arles and poitiers was the celebrated convent of saint hilda at whitby hilda the foundress and first abbess of whitby was a princess of the blood royal
and a grand niece of edwin the first christian king of northumbria her convent and adjoining monastery for monks soon became the most noted center of learning and culture in britain
and so great was her reputation for knowledge and wisdom that not only priests and bishops but also princes and kings sought her counsel in important matters of church and state as to the monks subject to her authority
she inspired them with so great a love of knowledge and urged them to so thorough a study of the scriptures that her monastery became
five of them he describes as men of singular merit and sanctity singularis meriti et sanctitatis viros while the sixth he declared
celebrated however as hilda was for her great educational work at whitby she is probably better known to the world as the one who first recognized and fostered the rare gifts of the poet caedmon
she did not hesitate to regard it as a special gift of god worthy of all respect and of the most tender care and in order that she might the more readily develop the splendid talents of this literary prodigy the keen discerning abbess
received caedmon into the monastery of monks and had him translate the entire bible into anglo saxon
ruminated it as a clean animal ruminates its food and transformed it into songs so beautiful that all who heard were delighted as his poetical faculty became more developed his profoundly original genius became more marked
and his inspiration more earnest and impassioned it was this northumbrian cowherd transformed into a monk of whitby who sang before the abbess hilda the revolt of satan and paradise lost a thousand years earlier than milton
in verses which may still be admired even beside the immortal poem of the british homer so remarkable indeed in some instances is the similarity in the productions of the two poets that f palgrave one of the most competent of english critics
does not hesitate to declare that certain of caedmon's verses resembled so closely certain passages of the paradise lost that some of milton's lines seem almost like a translation from the work of his distinguished predecessor
but no one has ever equaled the man who had only god for a master and not without warrant does the eloquent montalembert in the masterly work just quoted pen the following statement
apart from the interest which attaches to caedmon from a historical and literary point of view his life discloses to us essential peculiarities in the outward organization
which in the seventh century studded the coast of northumbria and which with all their numerous dependents found often a more complete development under the crozier of such a woman as hilda
which were centers of literary activity and of nuns who distinguished themselves by their learning and by the benign influence which they exerted far beyond the walls of the cloister i cannot however refrain from referring to that group of learned english nuns
who are chiefly known by their latin correspondence with saint boniface the apostle of germany and by the assistance which they gave him in his arduous labors conspicuous among these was saint lioba who at the request of boniface
left her home in england to found a convent at bischopsheim in germany which under the direction of its learned and zealous abbess soon became the most important educational center in that part of europe teachers were formed here for other schools in germany
like her illustrious countrywoman saint hilda the abbess of bischopsheim was the friend and counselor of spiritual and temporal rulers charlemagne that eminent patron of scholars had a great admiration for her
and gave her many substantial proofs of his esteem and veneration princes writes her biographer loved her noblemen received her and bishops gladly entertained her and conversed with her on the scriptures
it is not surprising then that she was regarded as an oracle and that all classes flocked to her as they did to the abbess of whitby for guidance and assistance from what has been said of the accomplishments
and achievements of the anglo saxon nuns just mentioned it is evident that they were of a truth women of exceptional worth and of sterling character and it is equally clear
were also mistresses of several languages a woman's education at this time was not complete unless she could write latin and speak it fluently the author of that most interesting early english work ancren riwle
rule of anchoresses presupposes in his auditors for whose benefit his instructions were given a knowledge of latin and french as well as of english in certain convents latin was almost the sole medium of communication
the condition of women in rome
was quite different from what it was in athens even during her palmiest days owing to the lack of authentic documents we know but little of the history of the roman people during the first five hundred years of their existence
but we do know that during this period many and important changes were effected regarding the social and civil status of women in the first place the roman matron had much more freedom than was accorded the greek wife during the age of pericles
she took part in all reputable entertainment whether public or private besides this she had more and greater legal rights than greek women had ever known
and was treated rather as the peer and companion of man than as his toy or his slave besides this foreign women were never so conspicuous in rome as in athens even after greece had become a roman province
and after graecia capta romam cepit when greek ideas and greek customs were introduced into the capital of the roman world it was still the roman matron that was supreme and although many greek women some of them of rare beauty and culture
found their way to rome especially under the empire they were always kept in the background and never succeeded in achieving anything approaching the ascendancy which distinguished them during the time of aspasia their influence in literature and politics
was almost nil in the case of the women of rome on the contrary it may well be questioned whether woman has ever wielded a greater influence than she did during the three centuries that followed the reign of augustus
but she did not attain to this position of preeminence without a long and bitter struggle every advance toward the goal of social and intellectual equality was strenuously contested by the men
who wished to limit the activities of their wives to the spindle the distaff and the loom and the other occupations of the household for as in greece the generally accepted view was that woman in the language of gibbon was created to please and obey
she was never supposed to have reached the age of reason or experience and her noblest epitaph it was averred was couched in the following words she was gentle pious loved her husband was skillful at the loom
far from being considered on its own merits or as a factor in the world's growth it was flouted as mere woman's work expressing the comparative respect which means the absolute scorn
until she attained some proficiency in the rudiments then most probably her education in the scholastic sense came to an end her brothers and boy schoolmates if their parents wished it could proceed from the primary school to the secondary
where geography history and ethics were taught where the art of elocution was assiduously practiced and the works of the great greek and roman poets were carefully read and expounded
and the rapid progress in social and intellectual freedom there was a notable change in the character of the education given to women at least to those of the wealthier and patrician families this was in great measure
whose minds had hitherto been confined to the comparatively barren field of roman letters the splendid creations of greek genius came as a revelation to become thoroughly versed in greek poetry and proficient in the teachings of greek philosophy
was the ambition of scores of roman women who soon became noted for the extent and variety of their attainments as well as for their rare culture and charming personality among the pioneers of the intellectual movement in rome
and one of the most beautiful types of the learned women of her time was the celebrated daughter of the elder scipio africanus cornelia mother of the gracchi
she was their teacher and it was her educated and refined mind that more than anything else
the mother of julius caesar it is safe to say that this eminent man was as much indebted to his mother for his success and greatness
of the gentle and virtuous cornelia highly educated and of commanding personalities both these women like many others of their time contributed much to the making of roman history
by the success they achieved in molding the characters of some of the greatest men of their own or of any age it is a splendid tribute that cicero in his orator pays to laelia when he tells of the purity of her language and the charm of her conversation
when i listen he declares to my mother in law laelia for women preserve the traditional purity of accent the best because being limited in their intercourse with the multitude they retain their early impressions
the pronunciation is so plain and simple so perfectly free from all affectation and display from which i infer that such was the accent of her father and his ancestors not harsh like the pronunciation to which i have just referred
thus cicero tells us of an interview which he had at antium with brutus and cassius besides the men there were present on this occasion three women who took an active part in the discussion these were servilia
which might be adduced from the lives of the women of rome who took an active part in politics as we learn from tacitus their counsels and assistance were considered of peculiar value by the commonwealth for when some of the sterner old moralists
wished to exclude women from all participation in public affairs the senate after a heated debate decided by a large majority that the cooperation of women in questions of administration far from being a menace as some contended
was so beneficial to the state that it should be continued among other noteworthy makers of roman history besides those just mentioned is livia the wife of augustus and the mother of tiberius so great was her influence
and so persistent was her activity in government affairs that it is sometimes asserted that she was the prime mover of most of the public acts of both these rulers this woman whom ovid describes as having the features of venus and the manner of juno
and who he declares held her head above all vices
the purity of diana and the wisdom and craft of minerva
in all things more comparable to the gods than to men
and who so exerted her influence for peace during the troublous times in which she lived that she lives in history as a peacemaker in marked contrast to this gentle and sympathetic woman was the energetic and heroic agrippina
the wife of germanicus in many respects she was the most commanding personality of her age and exhibited in an eminent degree those sterling qualities which we are wont to associate with the strong dignified courageous women of ancient rome
who gave to the world so many and so great men in every sphere of human endeavor
and because they exhibit the wonderful advance that had been made in the general status of women since the days of pericles and aspasia i have referred to them also
when they are accorded the necessary freedom of action and when they are properly equipped for work by education and by association with men of learning and experience comparing the secluded and illiterate greek wife
with the free and highly accomplished roman matron we find almost as much difference between the two as there is between a child and a fully developed woman all the difference there was between the unsophisticated young wife not quite fifteen
of the greek maiden we are told that before her marriage she had been most carefully brought up to see and hear as little as possible and to ask the fewest questions that her whole experience before her marriage
consisted in knowing how to take the wool and make a dress and in seeing how her mother's handmaidens had their daily spinning tasks assigned to them cornelia on the contrary was not only as we have seen highly accomplished
but also one who after her husband's death was quite prepared as plutarch assures us to undertake the management of the extensive property which he left his family
more strikingly illustrates than the two instances given the vast difference in the status of the wives of greece and rome or exhibits more clearly the advantages accruing to early training and thorough mental development
it was so far as we can determine in favor of the greek the sole reason then for such a marked difference in their capacity for work and for achieving distinction in intellectual and administrative fields of action arose from the lack of education in the athenian wife
and the fullest measure of educational freedom enjoyed by the roman that aspasia in spite of all the odds against her was able to rise to such a pinnacle of glory does not prove that she was the superior of her countrywomen
the mothers of the greatest poets artists and philosophers of all time but it exhibits rather her good fortune in being able to effect a partnership with the greatest statesman of greece
speaks of them as a race used to living out of the sunshine and that too among a people that habitually lived out of doors we have already seen how much greater freedom roman women enjoyed and how much more important was the role they played in public as well as private life
and so eloquent and effective was her speech that she not only won her case but also won the praise of the critic quintilian for her splendid oratorical effort yet more a certain woman in the roman possessions in africa
had so impressed her fellow citizens by her intellectual capacity and administrative ability that she was chosen as one of the two chief magistrates of the place she is known in history as messia castula
it is true that the men of the older school who would limit woman's activities to the distaff and the loom strongly objected to the increasing freedom and power of women and endeavored to counteract their influence but all to no purpose
and it was the crabbed old cato the censor who growled in undisguised disgust we romans rule over all men and our wives rule over us
but great as were the freedom and educational advantages of the roman women the startling fact remains that with the exception of a few fragmentary verses of slight merit and of questionable authenticity
we have seen in considering her intellectual attainments
of whom martial writes let every girl whose wish it is to please a single man read sulpicia let every man whose wish it is to please a single maid read sulpicia but if the few amatory verses that are credited to her
martial does indeed speak of a young maiden in whom were combined the eloquence of plato with the austere philosophy of the porch and who wrote verses worthy of a chaste sappho but this was evidently a great exaggeration for we have no other evidence of her existence
quite as limited in prose as it was in poetry agrippina the mother of nero was one of the few prose writers whose name has come down to us from her memoirs it was that tacitus received much of the material incorporated in his annals
recently read me some letters which he averred had been written by his wife i believed that plautus or terence was being read in prose whether they were really his wife's as he maintains or his own which he denies he deserves equal honor
either because he composes them or because he has made his wife whom he married when a mere girl
and for her talent as a letter writer was pliny's wife calphurnia who at his request wrote to him in his absence every day and sometimes even twice a day according to cicero his daughter tulia was the best and most learned of women
considering the number of educated women that lived in the latter days of the republic and during the earlier part of the empire and their well known culture and love of letters it is reasonable to suppose that they may have written much in both prose and verse of which we have no record
literary productions must have more than ordinary value to survive two thousand years and especially two thousand years of such revolutions and upheavals as have convulsed the world since the time of the pax romana when all the world was at peace under augustus
how much of the literary work of the women of to day will receive recognition twenty centuries hence some of it may it is true find a place in the fireproof libraries of the time but who outside of a few antiquarians will take the trouble to read it
the wonder is not that we have so little of the literary remains of greece and rome but rather that we have anything at all as one might expect the literary women of rome
had their critics the satirists of the time
and as for men of the old conservative type a learned woman was as much an object of horror as is a militant suffragette in conservative england to day
had no more love for educated women than have some of our contemporaries for a blue stocking housekeeper he gives his opinion of them in the following characteristic fashion that woman is a worse nuisance than usual
pits bards against one another and compares them and weighs homer and mars in the balance
among these was the stoic philosopher c musonius rufus
to which had retired or in which were frequently gathered some of the most noble and learned women of the city among the most notable of these were marcella and her friends paula and eustochium for beauty of character and nobility of purpose
and rare mental endowments they recall the best traditions of a cornelia or a calphurnia while so great was their purity of life and so unbounded was their charity to the poor and suffering that they were honored by being numbered among the saints of the early church
become proficient in hebrew and deeply versed in scripture special mention should be made of paula
for it is probable that had it not been for their influence on jerome and their active cooperation in his great life work we should not have the latin version of the scriptures that is to day known as the vulgate this is evinced from the letters of the saint himself
and from what we know of the lives of these two remarkable women who as saint jerome informs us in the epitaph which he had engraved on paula's tomb in the church of the nativity in bethlehem were descended from the scipios the gracchi and the pauli on the mother's side
and on the father's side from the half mythical kings of sparta
read my book of kings read also the latin and greek translations and compare them with my version and they did read and compare and criticise and more than this they frequently suggested modifications and corrections
which the great man accepted with touching humility and incorporated in a revised copy more wonderful still the latin psalter as it has come down to us is not as is generally supposed
one requiring keener critical sense or more profound learning than were paula and eustochium or one in which their efforts were crowned with more brilliant success than were those of these two supreme exemplars
of the grace the knowledge the culture the refinement of roman womanhood the crowning glories of womanhood throughout the ages saint jerome showed his grateful recognition of the invaluable assistance received from his devoted and talented co workers
by dedicating to them a great number of his most important books
and resented particularly the preeminence given to paula and her accomplished daughter but their reproaches provoked a reply from the saint that was worthy of the most chivalrous champion of woman and revealed at the same time
all the nobility of soul of the roused lion of bethlehem it is not only a defence of his course but also a splendid tribute to his two illustrious friends and a tribute also to the great and good women of all time there are people
i pass over in silence anna and elizabeth and the other holy women of the gospel but humble stars when compared with the great luminary mary shall i speak now of the illustrious women among the heathen does not plato have aspasia speak in his dialogues
before whom pale the austere virtue of the father and the courage of the husband are they not the pride of the whole of rome i shall add but one word more
a letter which exhibits so well the rare culture and literary ability of the writers that we cannot but lament that we have not more of the correspondence which was carried on
such a collection would be beyond price as it would complete the picture of the age so well sketched by saint jerome
a few minutes after the scene of confusion produced in the salons of m danglars by the unexpected appearance of the brigade of soldiers and by the disclosure which had followed
the mansion was deserted with as much rapidity as if a case of plague or of cholera morbus had broken out among the guests in a few minutes through all the doors down all the staircases by every exit
every one hastened to retire or rather to fly for it was a situation where the ordinary condolences which even the best friends are so eager to offer in great catastrophes were seen to be utterly futile
only danglars closeted in his study and making his statement to the officer of gendarmes madame danglars terrified in the boudoir with which we are acquainted and eugenie
venting on their employers their anger at what they termed the insult to which they had been subjected they collected in groups in the hall in the kitchens or in their rooms thinking very little of their duty
which was thus naturally interrupted of all this household only two persons deserve our notice these are mademoiselle eugenie danglars and mademoiselle louise d'armilly
on reaching her room eugenie locked her door while louise fell on a chair ah what a dreadful thing said the young musician who would have suspected it m andrea cavalcanti a murderer
a galley slave escaped a convict an ironical smile curled the lip of eugenie in truth i was fated said she i escaped the morcerf only to fall into the cavalcanti
hold your tongue the men are all infamous and i am happy to be able now to do more than detest them i despise them what shall we do asked louise what shall we do yes
only to myself remain here what for that they may try a month hence to marry me again and to whom m debray perhaps as it was once proposed
said the fair frail girl to her brunette companion did you not yet know me come louise let us talk of our affairs the post chaise
yes our passport here it is and eugenie with her usual precision opened a printed paper and read m leon
twenty years of age profession artist hair black eyes black travelling with his sister capital how did you get this passport
when i went to ask m de monte cristo for letters to the directors of the theatres at rome and naples i expressed my fears of travelling as a woman he perfectly understood them
and undertook to procure for me a man's passport and two days after i received this to which i have added with my own hand travelling with his sister well said eugenie cheerfully
we have then only to pack up our trunks we shall start the evening of the signing of the contract instead of the evening of the wedding that is all but consider the matter seriously eugenie
oh i am done with considering i am tired of hearing only of market reports of the end of the month of the rise and fall of spanish funds of haitian bonds instead of that louise do you understand
a small portfolio with a lock in which she counted twenty three bank notes twenty three thousand francs said she and as much at least in pearls diamonds and jewels said eugenie
we are rich with forty five thousand francs we can live like princesses for two years and comfortably for four but before six months you with your music and i with my voice
the portmanteau let us make haste the portmanteau stop said louise going to listen at madame danglars door what do you fear that we may be discovered the door is locked they may tell us to open it
will you dress here certainly shall you have time do not be uneasy you little coward all our servants are busy discussing the grand affair besides what is there astonishing when you think of the grief i ought to be in
that i shut myself up tell me no truly you comfort me come and help me from the same drawer she took a man's complete costume from the boots to the coat and a provision of linen
where there was nothing superfluous but every requisite then with a promptitude which indicated that this was not the first time she had amused herself by adopting the garb of the opposite sex
and put on a coat which admirably fitted her beautiful figure oh that is very good indeed it is very good said louise looking at her with admiration
but that beautiful black hair those magnificent braids which made all the ladies sigh with envy will they go under a man's hat like the one i see down there you shall see said eugenie and with her left hand seizing the thick mass
which her long fingers could scarcely grasp she took in her right hand a pair of long scissors and soon the steel met through the rich and splendid hair
then she grasped the front hair which she also cut off without expressing the least regret on the contrary her eyes sparkled with greater pleasure than usual under her ebony eyebrows
oh the magnificent hair said louise with regret and am i not a hundred times better thus cried eugenie smoothing the scattered curls of her hair which had now quite a masculine appearance
and do you not think me handsomer so oh you are beautiful always beautiful cried louise now where are you going to brussels if you like it is the nearest frontier we can go to brussels
then up the rhine to strasburg we will cross switzerland and go down into italy by the saint gothard will that do yes
i am looking at you indeed you are adorable like that one would say you were carrying me off and they would be right pardieu
oh i think you swore eugenie and the two young girls whom every one might have thought plunged in grief the one on her own account the other from interest in her friend burst out laughing
scarcely raised with both hands the yard was empty the clock was striking twelve the porter was not yet gone to bed eugenie approached softly and saw the old man sleeping soundly in an arm chair
in his lodge she returned to louise took up the portmanteau which she had placed for a moment on the ground
eugenie concealed louise in an angle of the gateway so that if the porter chanced to awake he might see but one person then placing herself in the full light of the lamp which lit the yard
gate cried she with her finest contralto voice and rapping at the window the porter got up as eugenie expected and even advanced some steps to recognize the person who was going out
but seeing a young man striking his boot impatiently with his riding whip he opened it immediately louise slid through the half open gate like a snake and bounded lightly forward
eugenie apparently calm although in all probability her heart beat somewhat faster than usual went out in her turn a porter was passing and they gave him the portmanteau
rue de la victoire walked behind this man whose presence comforted louise as for eugenie she was as strong as a judith or a delilah they arrived at the appointed spot
eugenie ordered the porter to put down the portmanteau gave him some pieces of money and having rapped at the shutter sent him away the shutter where eugenie had rapped was that of a little laundress who had been previously warned
and was not yet gone to bed she opened the door mademoiselle said eugenie let the porter get the post chaise from the coach house and fetch some post horses from the hotel here are five francs for his trouble
indeed said louise i admire you and i could almost say respect you the laundress looked on in astonishment but
she made no remark in a quarter of an hour the porter returned with a post boy and horses which were harnessed and put in the post chaise in a minute
while the porter fastened the portmanteau on with the assistance of a cord and strap here is the passport said the postilion which way are we going young gentleman
may betray us for forty we will soon alter our direction and the young girl jumped into the britzska which was admirably arranged for sleeping in without scarcely touching the step
ah said louise breathing freely here we are out of paris yes my dear the abduction is an accomplished fact replied eugenie yes and without violence said louise
i shall bring that forward as an extenuating circumstance replied eugenie
he took a seat and quietly awaited the arrival of the notary noirtier saw him seat himself with an appearance of perfect indifference at the same time giving a side look at valentine
sir said villefort after the first salutations were over
all his limbs have become completely paralysed he has lost his voice also and we ourselves find much trouble in endeavoring to catch some fragments of his meaning noirtier cast an appealing look on valentine
which look was at once so earnest and imperative that she answered immediately sir said she i perfectly understand my grandfather's meaning at all times
and that is what i told the gentleman as we walked along permit me said the notary turning first to villefort and then to valentine permit me to state that the case in question is just one of those in which a public officer like myself
the first thing necessary to render an act valid is
now i cannot be sure of the approbation or disapprobation of a client who cannot speak and as the object of his desire or his repugnance cannot be clearly proved to me on account of his want of speech
my services here would be quite useless and cannot be legally exercised the notary then prepared to retire an imperceptible smile of triumph was expressed on the lips of the procureur
sir said she the language which i speak with my grandfather may be easily learnt and i can teach you in a few minutes to understand it almost as well as i can myself
in order to render an act valid i must be certain of the approbation or disapprobation of my client illness of body would not affect the validity of the deed but
sanity of mind is absolutely requisite well sir
presently you may ascertain with perfect certainty that my grandfather is still in the full possession of all his mental faculties
you now know quite enough to enable you to converse with m noirtier try noirtier gave valentine such a look of tenderness and gratitude that it was comprehended even by the notary himself
you have heard and understood what your granddaughter has been saying sir have you asked the notary noirtier closed his eyes and you approve of what she said that is to say
and you do not wish me to go away without fulfilling your original intentions the old man winked violently well sir said the young girl do you understand now
without any detriment to his mental faculties it is not exactly that sir said the notary which makes me uneasy but the difficulty will be in wording his thoughts and intentions so as to be able to get his answers
you must see that to be an utter impossibility said villefort valentine and the old man heard this conversation and noirtier fixed his eye so earnestly on valentine that she felt bound to answer to the look sir said she
i can discover and explain to you my grandfather's thoughts so as to put an end to all your doubts and fears on the subject i have now been six years with m noirtier
and let him tell you if ever once during that time he has entertained a thought which he was unable to make me understand no signed the old man
you accept this young lady as your interpreter m noirtier yes well sir what do you require of me and what document is it that you wish to be drawn up
valentine named all the letters of the alphabet until she came to w at this letter the eloquent eye of noirtier gave her notice that she was to stop
said the notary wait said valentine and turning to her grandfather she repeated wa
we wi the old man stopped her at the last syllable valentine then took the dictionary and the notary watched her while she turned over the pages she passed her finger slowly down the columns and when she came to the word will
will said the notary it is very evident that m noirtier is desirous of making his will yes yes yes motioned the invalid really sir you must allow that this is most extraordinary said the astonished notary
turning to m de villefort yes said the procureur and i think the will promises to be yet more extraordinary for i cannot see how it is to be drawn up without the intervention of valentine
and she may perhaps be considered as too much interested in its contents to allow of her being a suitable interpreter of the obscure and ill defined wishes of her grandfather no no no replied the eye of the paralytic
what said villefort do you mean to say that valentine is not interested in your will no sir said the notary whose interest had been greatly excited and who had
has now become quite easy and practicable and this may be a perfectly valid will provided it be read in the presence of seven witnesses approved by the testator and sealed by the notary in the presence of the witnesses
as to the time it will not require very much more than the generality of wills there are certain forms necessary to be gone through and which are always the same as to the details
the greater part will be furnished afterwards by the state in which we find the affairs of the testator
can doubtless give full information on the subject but besides all this in order that the instrument may not be contested i am anxious to give it the greatest possible authenticity therefore one of my colleagues will help me
at the ready interpretation of his meaning what is he going to do thought villefort whose position demanded much reserve but who was longing to know what his father's intentions were he left the room to give orders for another notary to be sent
a few words sufficed for a mutual understanding between the two officers of the law they read to noirtier the formal copy of a will
then in order to test the capacity of the testator the first notary said turning towards him
yes have you an exact idea of the amount of your fortune yes i will name to you several sums which will increase by gradation you will stop me when i reach the one representing the amount of your own possessions
yes there was a kind of solemnity in this interrogation never had the struggle between mind and matter been more apparent than now and if it was not a sublime it was at least a curious spectacle
they had formed a circle round the invalid the second notary was sitting at a table prepared for writing and his colleague was standing before the testator in the act of interrogating him on the subject to which we have alluded
your fortune exceeds three hundred thousand francs does it not asked he noirtier made a sign that it did do you possess four hundred thousand francs inquired the notary
five hundred thousand the same expression continued six hundred thousand seven hundred thousand eight hundred thousand
the stock is in your own hands
the old servant left the room and presently returned bringing with him a small casket do you permit us to open this casket asked the notary noirtier gave his assent
they opened it and found nine hundred thousand francs in bank scrip the first notary handed over each note as he examined it to his colleague the total amount was found to be as m noirtier had stated
you possess then nine hundred thousand francs of capital which according to the manner in which you have invested it
yes to whom do you desire to leave this fortune oh said madame de villefort there is not much doubt on that subject m noirtier tenderly loves his granddaughter mademoiselle de villefort
it is she who has nursed and tended him for six years and has by her devoted attention fully secured the affection i had almost said the gratitude of her grandfather and it is but just that she should reap the fruit of her devotion
the eye of noirtier clearly showed by its expression that he was not deceived by the false assent given by madame de villefort's words and manner to the motives which she supposed him to entertain
is it then to mademoiselle valentine de villefort that you leave these nine hundred thousand francs demanded the notary thinking he had only to insert this clause but waiting first for the assent of noirtier
which it was necessary should be given before all the witnesses of this singular scene valentine when her name was made the subject of discussion had stepped back to escape unpleasant observation
the old man looked at her for an instant with an expression of the deepest tenderness then turning towards the notary he significantly winked his eye in token of dissent what said the notary
do you not intend making mademoiselle valentine de villefort your residuary legatee no you are not making any mistake are you said the notary you really mean to declare that
such is not your intention no repeated noirtier no valentine raised her head struck dumb with astonishment
with so much affectionate tenderness that she exclaimed oh grandpapa i see now that it is only your fortune of which you deprive me you still leave me the love which i have always enjoyed
and expressed a feeling almost amounting to hatred no said the notary then perhaps it is to your son m de villefort no
the two notaries looked at each other in mute astonishment and inquiry as to what were the real intentions of the testator villefort and his wife both grew red one from shame the other from anger
what have we all done then dear grandpapa said valentine you no longer seem to love any of us
and rested on valentine with a look of unutterable fondness well said she if you love me grandpapa try and bring that love to bear upon your actions at this present moment
you know me well enough to be quite sure that i have never thought of your fortune besides they say i am already rich in right of my mother too rich even explain yourself then
yes yes yes signed the paralytic casting on valentine a look of joyful gratitude for having guessed his meaning you are angry with us all on account of this marriage are you not yes
really this is too absurd said villefort excuse me sir replied the notary on the contrary the meaning of m noirtier is quite evident to me and i can quite easily connect the train of ideas passing in his mind
you do not wish me to marry m franz d'epinay observed valentine i do not wish it said the eye of her grandfather and you disinherit your granddaughter continued the notary
there was a profound silence the two notaries were holding a consultation as to the best means of proceeding with the affair
and villefort was biting his lips with vexation while madame de villefort could not succeed in repressing an inward feeling of joy
but said villefort who was the first to break the silence i consider that i am the best judge of the propriety of the marriage in question i am the only person possessing the right to dispose of my daughter's hand
it is my wish that she should marry m franz d'epinay and she shall marry him valentine sank weeping into a chair sir said the notary
how do you intend disposing of your fortune in case mademoiselle de villefort still determines on marrying m franz the old man gave no answer you will of course dispose of it in some way or other
yes in favor of some member of your family no do you intend devoting it to charitable purposes then pursued the notary yes but said the notary
you are aware that the law does not allow a son to be entirely deprived of his patrimony yes you only intend then to dispose of that part of your fortune which the law allows you to subtract from the inheritance of your son
noirtier made no answer do you still wish to dispose of all yes but they will contest the will after your death no my father knows me replied villefort
he is quite sure that his wishes will be held sacred by me besides he understands that in my position i cannot plead against the poor the eye of noirtier beamed with triumph
what do you decide on sir asked the notary of villefort nothing sir it is a resolution which my father has taken and i know he never alters his mind i am quite resigned
these nine hundred thousand francs will go out of the family in order to enrich some hospital but it is ridiculous thus to yield to the caprices of an old man and i shall therefore act according to my conscience
in which fix comes face to face with phileas fogg while these events were passing at the opium house mister fogg unconscious of the danger he was in of losing the steamer was quietly escorting aouda about the streets of the english quarter
making the necessary purchases for the long voyage before them it was all very well for an englishman like mister fogg to make the tour of the world with a carpet bag a lady could not be expected to travel comfortably under such conditions
he acquitted his task with characteristic serenity and invariably replied to the remonstrances of his fair companion who was confused by his patience and generosity it is in the interest of my journey a part of my programme
had he been capable of being astonished at anything
but knowing that the steamer was not to leave for yokohama until the next morning he did not disturb himself about the matter
mister fogg not betraying the least vexation contented himself with taking his carpet bag calling aouda and sending for a palanquin it was then eight o'clock at half past nine it being then high tide
the carnatic would leave the harbour mister fogg and aouda got into the palanquin their luggage being brought after on a wheelbarrow
mister fogg then learned that the carnatic had sailed the evening before he had expected to find not only the steamer but his domestic and was forced to give up both but no sign of disappointment appeared on his face
and he merely remarked to aouda it is an accident madam nothing more at this moment a man who had been observing him attentively approached it was fix who bowing addressed mister fogg
were you not like me sir a passenger by the rangoon which arrived yesterday i was sir replied mister fogg coldly but i have not the honour pardon me i thought i should find your servant here
could he have gone on board the carnatic without us without you madam answered the detective excuse me did you intend to sail in the carnatic yes sir
so did i madam and i am excessively disappointed the carnatic its repairs being completed left hong kong twelve hours before the stated time
without any notice being given and we must now wait a week for another steamer as he said a week fix felt his heart leap for joy
there would be time for the warrant to arrive and fortune at last favoured the representative of the law his horror may be imagined when he heard mister fogg say in his placid voice
and offering his arm to aouda he directed his steps toward the docks in search of some craft about to start fix stupefied followed it seemed as if he were attached to mister fogg by an invisible thread
chance however appeared really to have abandoned the man it had hitherto served so well for three hours phileas fogg wandered about the docks with the determination if necessary to charter a vessel to carry him to yokohama
but he could only find vessels which were loading or unloading and which could not therefore set sail fix began to hope again but mister fogg far from being discouraged
was continuing his search resolved not to stop if he had to resort to macao when he was accosted by a sailor on one of the wharves is your honour looking for a boat have you a boat ready to sail
yes your honour a pilot boat no forty three the best in the harbour does she go fast between eight and nine knots the hour will you look at her yes your honour will be satisfied with her
is it for a sea excursion no for a voyage a voyage
the sailor leaned on the railing opened his eyes wide and said is your honour joking
i am sorry said the sailor but it is impossible i offer you a hundred pounds per day and an additional reward of two hundred pounds if i reach yokohama in time
are you in earnest very much so the pilot walked away a little distance and gazed out to sea
evidently struggling between the anxiety to gain a large sum and the fear of venturing so far fix was in mortal suspense
i could not risk myself my men or my little boat of scarcely twenty tons on so long a voyage at this time of year besides
we could not reach yokohama in time for it is sixteen hundred and sixty miles from hong kong only sixteen hundred said mister fogg it's the same thing
but added the pilot it might be arranged another way fix ceased to breathe at all how asked mister fogg
in going to shanghai we should not be forced to sail wide of the chinese coast which would be a great advantage as the currents run northward and would aid us pilot said mister fogg
i must take the american steamer at yokohama and not at shanghai or nagasaki why not
the san francisco steamer does not start from yokohama it puts in at yokohama and nagasaki but it starts from shanghai you are sure of that perfectly and when does the boat leave shanghai
on the eleventh at seven in the evening we have therefore four days before us that is ninety six hours and in that time if we had good luck and a south west wind and the sea was calm
we could make those eight hundred miles to shanghai
in an hour
it is a bargain are you the master of the boat yes john bunsby master of the tankadere would you like some earnest money
if it would not put your honour out here are two hundred pounds on account sir added phileas fogg turning to fix
thanks sir i was about to ask the favour very well in half an hour we shall go on board
i shall do all i can to find him replied phileas fogg while fix in a feverish nervous state repaired to the pilot boat the others directed their course to the police station at hong kong
the same formalities having been gone through at the french consulate
which had been sent back there they returned to the wharf
and its provisions stored away was ready for departure
as gracefully built as if she were a racing yacht her shining copper sheathing her galvanised iron work her deck white as ivory betrayed the pride taken by john bunsby in making her presentable
her two masts leaned a trifle backward she carried brigantine foresail storm jib and standing jib and was well rigged for running before the wind and she seemed capable of brisk speed which indeed
she had already proved by gaining several prizes in pilot boat races the crew of the tankadere was composed of john bunsby the master and four hardy mariners who were familiar with the chinese seas john bunsby himself
a man of forty five or thereabouts vigorous sunburnt with a sprightly expression of the eye and energetic and self reliant countenance would have inspired confidence in the most timid
phileas fogg and aouda went on board where they found fix already installed below deck was a square cabin of which the walls bulged out in the form of cots above a circular divan in the centre was a table provided with a swinging lamp
mister fogg and aouda who were seated on deck
lest chance should direct the steps of the unfortunate servant whom he had so badly treated in this direction in which case an explanation the reverse of satisfactory to the detective must have ensued
but the frenchman did not appear and without doubt was still lying under the stupefying influence of the opium
the gamin loves the city he also loves solitude since he has something of the sage in him
to roam thoughtfully about that is to say to lounge is a fine employment of time in the eyes of the philosopher particularly in that rather illegitimate species of campaign which is tolerably ugly
but odd and composed of two natures which surrounds certain great cities notably paris to study the suburbs is to study the amphibious animal end of the trees beginning of the roofs end of the grass
beginning of the pavements end of the furrows beginning of the shops end of the wheel ruts beginning of the passions end of the divine murmur beginning of the human uproar hence an extraordinary interest
hence in these not very attractive places indelibly stamped by the passing stroller with the epithet melancholy the apparently objectless promenades of the dreamer
he who writes these lines has long been a prowler about the barriers of paris and it is for him a source of profound souvenirs that close shaven turf those pebbly paths that chalk those pools
those harsh monotonies of waste and fallow lands the plants of early market garden suddenly springing into sight in a bottom that mixture of the savage and the citizen those vast desert nooks where the garrison drums practise noisily
a sort of lisping of battle those hermits by day and cut throats by night that clumsy mill which turns in the wind
the mysterious charm of great sombre walls squarely intersecting immense vague stretches of land inundated with sunshine and full of butterflies all this attracted him
there is hardly any one on earth who is not acquainted with those singular spots
the cunette the hideous wall of grenelle all speckled with balls mont parnasse
except to raise mushrooms and which is closed on a level with the ground by a trap door of rotten planks the campagna of rome is one idea the banlieue of paris is another to behold nothing but fields
houses or trees in what a stretch of country offers us is to remain on the surface all aspects of things are thoughts of god
piercing melancholy nature and humanity both appeal to you at the same time there local originalities there make their appearance any one who like ourselves
has wandered about in these solitudes contiguous to our faubourgs which may be designated as the limbos of paris has seen here and there in the most desert spot at the most unexpected moment
children grouped tumultuously fetid muddy dusty ragged dishevelled playing hide and seek and crowned with corn flowers all of them are little ones who have made their escape from poor families
the outer boulevard is their breathing space the suburbs belong to them there they are eternally playing truant there they innocently sing their repertory of dirty songs there they are
or rather there they exist far from every eye in the sweet light of may or june kneeling round a hole in the ground snapping marbles with their thumbs quarrelling over half farthings irresponsible volatile free and happy
and no sooner do they catch sight of you than they recollect that they have an industry and that they must earn their living and they offer to sell you an old woollen stocking filled with cockchafers or a bunch of lilacs
are they their sisters who are almost young maidens thin feverish with sunburnt hands covered with freckles crowned with poppies and ears of rye gay haggard barefooted they can be seen devouring cherries among the wheat
in the evening they can be heard laughing these groups
occupy the thoughtful man for a very long time and these visions mingle with his dreams paris centre banlieue circumference
stray children abounded in paris the statistics give an average of two hundred and sixty homeless children picked up annually at that period by the police patrols in unenclosed lands
in houses in process of construction and under the arches of the bridges one of these nests which has become famous produced the swallows of the bridge of arcola this is moreover the most disastrous of social symptoms all crimes of the man begin
let us make an exception in favor of paris nevertheless in a relative measure and in spite of the souvenir which we have just recalled the exception is just
the street boy of paris we insist on this point however defaced and injured on the surface is almost intact on the interior it is a magnificent thing to put on record
and one which shines forth in the splendid probity of our popular revolutions that a certain incorruptibility results from the idea which exists in the air of paris as salt exists in the water of the ocean to breathe paris
preserves the soul what we have just said takes away nothing of the anguish of heart which one experiences every time that one meets one of these children around whom one fancies that he beholds floating the threads of a broken family
in the civilization of the present day incomplete as it still is it is not a very abnormal thing to behold these fractured families pouring themselves out into the darkness not knowing clearly what has become of their children
and allowing their own entrails to fall on the public highway hence these obscure destinies this is called
to be cast on the pavements of paris let it be said by the way that this abandonment of children was not discouraged by the ancient monarchy a little of egypt and bohemia in the lower regions suited the upper spheres
and compassed the aims of the powerful the hatred of instruction for the children of the people was a dogma what is the use of half lights such was the countersign now the erring child is the corollary of the ignorant child
besides this the monarchy sometimes was in need of children and in that case it skimmed the streets
the king rightly desired to create a fleet the idea was a good one but let us consider the means there can be no fleet if
that plaything of the winds and for the purpose of towing it in case of necessity there is not the vessel which goes where it pleases either by means of oars or of steam the galleys were then to the marine what steamers are to day
therefore galleys were necessary but the galley is moved only by the galley slave hence galley slaves were required
a man kept his hat on in the presence of a procession it was a huguenot attitude he was sent to the galleys a child was encountered in the streets provided that he was fifteen years of age and did not know where he was to sleep he was sent to the galleys
grand reign grand century
the police carried them off for what mysterious purpose no one knew people whispered with terror monstrous conjectures as to the king's baths of purple barbier speaks ingenuously of these things
it sometimes happened that the exempts of the guard when they ran short of children took those who had fathers the fathers in despair attacked the exempts in that case the parliament intervened and had some one hung
the bird is called the sparrow the child is called the gamin couple these two ideas which contain the one all the furnace the other all the dawn strike these two sparks together paris childhood
he has no shirt on his body no shoes on his feet no roof over his head he is like the flies of heaven who have none of these things he is from seven to thirteen years of age he lives in bands
roams the streets lodges in the open air wears an old pair of trousers of his father's which descend below his heels an old hat of some other father which descends below his ears a single suspender of yellow listing he runs
lies in wait rummages about wastes time blackens pipes swears like a convict
calls gay women thou talks slang sings obscene songs and has no evil in his heart this is because he has in his heart a pearl innocence and pearls are not to be dissolved in mud
so long as man is in his childhood god wills that he shall be innocent if one were to ask that enormous city what is this she would reply it is my little one
chapter two some of his particular characteristics the gamin the street arab of paris is the dwarf of the giant let us not exaggerate
this cherub of the gutter sometimes has a shirt but in that case he owns but one he sometimes has shoes but then they have no soles he sometimes has a lodging and he loves it for he finds his mother there
but he prefers the street because there he finds liberty he has his own games
his peculiar metaphors to be dead is to eat dandelions by the root
calling hackney coaches letting down carriage steps establishing means of transit between the two sides of a street in heavy rains which he calls making the bridge of arts crying discourses pronounced by the authorities in favor of the french people
he has his own coinage which is composed of all the little morsels of worked copper which are found on the public streets this curious money which receives the name of loques rags
has an invariable and well regulated currency in this little bohemia of children lastly he has his own fauna which he observes attentively in the corners the lady bird the death's head plant louse the daddy long legs
the devil a black insect which menaces by twisting about its tail armed with two horns he has his fabulous monster which has scales under its belly but is not a lizard which has pustules on its back but is not a toad
which inhabits the nooks of old lime kilns and wells that have run dry which is black hairy sticky which crawls sometimes slowly sometimes rapidly which has no cry
but which has a look and is so terrible that no one has ever beheld it he calls this monster the deaf thing the search for these deaf things among the stones is a joy of formidable nature
another pleasure consists in suddenly prying up a paving stone and taking a look at the wood lice each region of paris is celebrated for the interesting treasures which are to be found there
as far as sayings are concerned this child has as many of them as talleyrand he is no less cynical but he is more honest he is endowed with a certain indescribable unexpected joviality
he upsets the composure of the shopkeeper with his wild laughter he ranges boldly from high comedy to farce a funeral passes by
there is a doctor hey there shouts some street arab how long has it been customary for doctors to carry home their own work another is in a crowd a grave man adorned with spectacles and trinkets turns round indignantly
i sir search me chapter three he is agreeable in the evening thanks to a few sous which he always finds means to procure
the homuncio enters a theatre on crossing that magic threshold he becomes transfigured he was the street arab
it is in that keel that the titi huddle together the titi is to the gamin what the moth is to the larva the same being endowed with wings and soaring it suffices for him to be there with his radiance of happiness
hideous abominable keel the name of paradise bestow on an individual the useless and deprive him of the necessary and you have the gamin the gamin is not devoid of literary intuition
we say it with the proper amount of regret would not constitute classic taste he is not very academic by nature thus to give an example the popularity of mademoiselle mars
among that little audience of stormy children was seasoned with a touch of irony the gamin called her mademoiselle muche hide yourself this being bawls and scoffs and ridicules and fights
has rags like a baby and tatters like a philosopher fishes in the sewer hunts in the cesspool extracts mirth from foulness whips up the squares with his wit grins and bites whistles and sings shouts and shrieks
finds without seeking knows what he is ignorant of is a spartan to the point of thieving is mad to wisdom is lyrical to filth would crouch down on olympus wallows in the dunghill and emerges from it covered with stars
the gamin of paris is rabelais in this youth he is not content with his trousers unless they have a watch pocket he is not easily astonished
he makes songs on superstitions he takes the wind out of exaggerations he twits mysteries he thrusts out his tongue at ghosts he takes the poetry out of stilted things he introduces caricature into epic extravaganzas
it is not that he is prosaic far from that but he replaces the solemn vision by the farcical phantasmagoria if adamastor were to appear to him the street arab would say hi there the bugaboo
chapter four he may be of use
paris alone has this in its natural history the whole of the monarchy is contained in the lounger
this pale child of the parisian faubourgs lives and develops makes connections grows supple in suffering in the presence of social realities and of human things a thoughtful witness he thinks himself heedless and he is not
he looks and is on the verge of laughter he is on the verge of something else also whoever you may be if your name is prejudice abuse ignorance oppression iniquity despotism injustice
fanaticism tyranny beware of the gaping gamin the little fellow will grow up of what clay is he made of the first mud that comes to hand
a handful of dirt a breath and behold adam it suffices for a god to pass by a god has always passed over the street arab fortune labors at this tiny being
by the word fortune we mean chance to some extent that pigmy kneaded out of common earth ignorant unlettered giddy vulgar low
currit rota the spirit of paris that demon which creates the children of chance and the men of destiny
it would seem that angels have bodies naturally united to them
that is it belongs to the father the son and the holy ghost as a property of nature that he is understood to exist without any material substance and without
needs the help of any corporeal organ but it is clear that every created spirit needs corporeal substance
is akin to that of aerial bodies but the nature of demons and angels is the same therefore angels have bodies naturally united to them
incorporeal i answer that the angels have not bodies naturally united to them for whatever belongs to any nature as an accident
while refusing to say such a thing of god followed the above opinion of others regarding the other substances being deceived here as he was also in many other points by following the opinions of the ancient philosophers
bernard's expression can be explained that the created spirit needs some bodily instrument which is not naturally united to it but assumed for some purpose as will be explained
not as asserting the fact but merely using the opinion of the platonists who maintained that there are some aerial animals which they termed demons
because an angel has no need for a body since his own power exceeds all bodily power therefore an angel does not assume a body
it is not said to be assumed otherwise it would follow that all bodies moved by the angels are assumed by them therefore the angels do not assume bodies
angels do not assume bodies from the earth or water or they could not suddenly disappear nor again from fire otherwise they would burn whatever things they touched nor again from air because air is without shape or color
therefore the angels do not assume bodies on the contrary augustine says
appeared to abraham under assumed bodies i answer that some have maintained that the angels never assume bodies but that all that we read in scripture of apparitions of angels happened
in prophetic vision that is according to imagination but this is contrary to the intent of scripture for whatever is beheld in imaginary vision is only in the beholder's imagination and consequently is not seen by everybody
yet divine scripture from time to time introduces angels so apparent as to be seen commonly by all just as the angels who appeared to abraham were seen by him and by his whole family by lot and by the citizens of sodom
in like manner the angel who appeared to tobias was seen by all present from all this it is clearly shown that such apparitions were beheld by bodily vision whereby the object seen exists outside the person beholding it
angels need an assumed body not for themselves but on our account that by conversing familiarly with men they may give evidence of that intellectual companionship which men expect to have with them in the life to come
moreover that angels assumed bodies under the old law was a figurative indication that the word of god would take a human body because all the apparitions in the old testament
were ordained to that one whereby the son of god appeared in the flesh
the body assumed is united to the angel not as its form nor merely as its mover but as its mover represented by the assumed movable body for as in the sacred scripture the properties of intelligible things are set forth
by the likenesses of things sensible in the same way by divine power sensible bodies are so fashioned by angels as fittingly to represent the intelligible properties of an angel and this is what we mean by an angel assuming a body
although air as long as it is in a state of rarefaction has neither shape nor color yet when condensed it can both be shaped and colored as appears in the clouds even so the angels assume bodies of air
condensing it by the divine power in so far
through assumed bodies i answer that some functions of living subjects have something in common with other operations just as speech which is the function of a living creature agrees with other sounds of inanimate things in so far
as it is sound and walking agrees with other movements in so far as it is movement consequently vital functions can be performed in assumed bodies by the angels as to that which is common in such operations
as it is in no wise contrary to truth for intelligible things to be set forth in scripture under sensible figures since it is not said for the purpose of maintaining that intelligible things are sensible
but in order that properties of intelligible things may be understood according to similitude through sensible figures so it is not contrary to the truth of the holy angels that through their assumed bodies they appear to be living men
although they are really not for the bodies are assumed merely for this purpose that the spiritual properties and works of the angels may be manifested by the properties of man and of his works
this could not so fittingly be done if they were to assume true men because the properties of such men would lead us to men and not to angels
sensation is entirely a vital function consequently it can in no way be said that the angels perceive through the organs of their assumed bodies yet such bodies are not fashioned in vain
for they are not fashioned for the purpose of sensation through them but to this end that by such bodily organs the spiritual powers of the angels may be made manifest just as by the eye the power of the angel's knowledge is pointed out
and other powers by the other members
movement coming from a united mover is a proper function of life but the bodies assumed by the angels are not thus moved since the angels are not their forms yet the angels are moved accidentally when such bodies are moved
since they are in them as movers are in the moved and they are here in such a way
but resolved into pre existing matter nevertheless christ had a body of such a true nature that food could be changed into it
but the food taken by angels was neither changed into the assumed body nor was the body of such a nature that food could be changed into it consequently it was not a true eating but figurative of spiritual eating
this is what the angel said to tobias when i was with you i seemed indeed to eat and to drink but i use
in whom nevertheless he worshipped god
question fifty
firstly the purely spiritual creature which in holy scripture is called angel secondly the creature wholly corporeal thirdly the composite creature corporeal and spiritual which is man
concerning the angels we consider first what belongs to their substance secondly what belongs to their intellect thirdly what belongs to their will fourthly what belongs to their creation
their substance we consider absolutely and in relation to corporeal things concerning their substance absolutely considered
it would seem that an angel is not entirely incorporeal for what is incorporeal only as regards ourselves and not
therefore every creature is corporeal now angels are god's creatures as appears
he commanded and they were created therefore angels are corporeal
i answer that there must be some incorporeal creatures for what is principally intended by god in creatures is good and this consists in assimilation to god himself
and the perfect assimilation of an effect to a cause is accomplished when the effect imitates the cause according to that whereby the cause
cannot be the action of a body nor of any corporeal faculty for every body is limited to here and now hence the perfection of the universe requires the existence of an incorporeal creature
the ancients however not properly realizing the force of intelligence and failing to make a proper distinction between sense and intellect thought that nothing existed in the world but what could be apprehended by sense
seems to be cold and thus it is said that angels compared to god are material and corporeal not however as if anything corporeal existed in them
movement is there taken in the sense in which it is applied to intelligence and will therefore an angel is called an ever mobile substance because he is ever actually intelligent
and not as if he were sometimes actually and sometimes potentially as we are hence it is clear that the objection rests on an equivocation
to be circumscribed by local limits belongs to bodies only whereas to be circumscribed by essential limits belongs to all creatures
for everything which is contained under any genus is composed of the genus and of the difference which
and the above properties are found in the angel therefore an angel is composed of matter and form
form is act so what is form only is pure act but an angel is not pure act for this belongs to god alone therefore an angel is not form only
but has a form in matter
form is properly limited and perfected by matter so the form which is not in matter is an infinite form but the form of an angel is not infinite for every creature is finite
therefore the form of an angel is in matter
to be as immaterial as they are incorporeal i answer that some assert that the angels are composed of matter and form
in his book of the fount of life for he supposes that whatever things are distinguished by the intellect are really distinct now as regards incorporeal substance
the intellect apprehends that which distinguishes it from corporeal substance and that which it has in common with it hence he concludes that what distinguishes incorporeal from corporeal substance is a kind of form to it
and whatever is subject to this distinguishing form as it were something common is its matter therefore he asserts the universal matter of spiritual and corporeal things is the same so that it must be understood that
the form of incorporeal substance is impressed in the matter of spiritual things in the same way as the form of quantity is impressed in the matter of corporeal things but one glance is enough to show
that there cannot be one matter of spiritual and of corporeal things for it is not possible that a spiritual and a corporeal form should be received into the same part of matter otherwise one and the same thing
would be corporeal and spiritual hence it would follow that one part of matter receives the corporeal form and another receives the spiritual form matter however is not divisible into parts
impossible for an intellectual substance to have any kind of matter for the operation belonging to anything is according to the mode of its substance now to understand is an altogether immaterial
operation as appears from its object whence any act receives its species and nature for a thing is understood according to its degree of immateriality because forms that exist in matter
are individual forms which the intellect cannot apprehend as such hence it must be that every individual substance is altogether immaterial
but things distinguished by the intellect are not necessarily distinguished in reality because the intellect does not apprehend things according to their mode but according to its own mode hence
material things which are below our intellect exist in our intellect in a simpler mode than they exist in themselves angelic substances
and from the former the difference whereas in immaterial things there is no separate determinator and thing determined each thing by its own self holds a determinate grade in being
and therefore in them genus and difference are not derived from different things but from one and the same nevertheless this differs in our mode of conception for inasmuch as our intellect considers it
as indeterminate it derives the idea of their genus and inasmuch as it considers it determinately it derives the idea of their difference reply
this reason is given in the book on the fount of life and it would be cogent supposing that the receptive mode of the intellect and of matter were the same but this is clearly false
for matter receives the form that thereby it may be constituted in some species either of air or of fire or of something else
hence such a way of receiving is not that of matter but of an immaterial substance
although there is no composition of matter and form in an angel yet there is act and potentiality and this can be made evident if we consider the nature of material things
which contain a twofold composition the first is that of form and matter whereby the nature is constituted such a composite nature is not its own existence but existence is its act
hence the nature itself is related to its own existence as potentiality to act therefore if there be no matter and supposing that the form itself subsists without matter
there nevertheless still remains the relation of the form to its very existence as of potentiality to act and such a kind of composition is understood to be in the angels and this is what some say
that an angel is composed of whereby he is and what is or existence and what is
for what is is the form itself subsisting
is not absolutely subsisting but is limited to some nature to which it belongs but there is nothing against a creature being considered relatively infinite material creatures are infinite on the part of matter
are not received in anything else as if we were to say for example that whiteness existing separate is infinite as regards the nature of whiteness forasmuch
the more a thing approaches to unity so much the less is it multiplied as is evident in numbers but among other created natures the angelic nature approaches nearest to god therefore since god is supremely one
it seems that there is the least possible number in the angelic nature
in greater number than the movements of the heavenly bodies
subsist because of the rays of the divine goodness but a ray is only multiplied according to the different things that receive it now it cannot be said that their matter is receptive of an intelligible ray
since intellectual substances
that the multiplication of intellectual substances can only be according to the requirements of the first bodies that is of the heavenly ones so that in some way the shedding form of the aforesaid rays
may be terminated in them and hence the same conclusion is to be drawn as before on the contrary
ministered to him and ten thousands times a hundred thousand stood before him i answer that there have been various opinions with regard to the number
of the separate substances plato contended that the separate substances are the species of sensible things as if we were to maintain that human nature is a separate substance of itself and according to this view
it would have to be maintained that the number of the separate substances is the number
to the custom of the scriptures for the powers of irrational things to be designated as angels hence it must be said that the angels even inasmuch as they are immaterial substances
exist in exceeding great number far beyond all material multitude this
the more perfect some things are in so much greater an excess are they created by god now as in bodies such excess is observed in regard to their magnitude so in things incorporeal
in regard to their multitude we see in fact that incorruptible bodies exceed corruptible bodies almost incomparably in magnitude for the entire sphere of things active and passive
is something very small in comparison with the heavenly bodies hence it is reasonable to conclude that the immaterial substances as it were incomparably exceed material substances as to multitude
in the angels number is not that of discrete quantity brought about by division of what is continuous
he was forced to make use of this argument since only through sensible things can we come to know
namely as one is simpler than another and of keener intellect therefore the angels do not differ specifically
the more ought it to be multiplied but this would not be so if there were but one individual under one species
that some have said that all spiritual substances even souls are of the one species others again that all the angels are of the one species but not souls while others allege
that all the angels of one hierarchy or even of one order are of the one species but this is impossible for such things as agree in species but differ in number agree in form
but are distinguished materially if therefore the angels
for two angels to be of one species just as it would be impossible for there to be several whitenesses apart or several humanities since whitenesses are not several except in so far as they are in several substances
and if the angels had matter not even then could there be several angels of one species for it would be necessary for matter to be the principle of distinction of one from the other not indeed according to the division
of quantity since they are incorporeal but according to the diversity of their powers and such diversity of matter causes diversity not merely of species but of genus
than the undetermined and the proper than the common but not as one nature is nobler than another otherwise it would be necessary that all irrational animals be of the same species or that there should be in them some form
which is higher than the sensible soul therefore irrational animals differ in species according to the various determined degrees of sensitive nature and in like manner all the angels differ in species according
to the diverse degrees of intellectual nature
more and less change the species not according as they are caused by the intensity or remissness of one form but according as they are caused by forms of diverse degrees for instance if we say that fire
is more perfect than air and in this way the angels are diversified according to more or less reply
the good of the species preponderates over the good of the individual hence it is much better for the species to be multiplied in the angels than for individuals to be multiplied
to be the angels therefore the angels are corruptible by their nature
unless the hand of the almighty preserved them but what can be brought to nothing is corruptible therefore since the angels were made by god it would appear that they are corruptible of their own nature on the contrary
have unfailing life being free from all corruption death matter and generation i answer that it must necessarily be maintained that the angels are incorruptible
of their own nature the reason for this is that nothing is corrupted except by its form being separated from the matter hence since an angel is a subsisting form
to be corruptible for what belongs to anything considered in itself can never be separated from it but what belongs to a thing considered in relation to something else can be separated when that something else is taken away
in view of which it belonged to it roundness can never be taken from the circle because it belongs to it of itself but a bronze circle can lose roundness if the bronze be deprived of its circular shape now to be
belongs to a form considered in itself for everything is an actual being according to its form whereas matter is an actual being by the form consequently a subject composed of matter and form
ceases to be actually when the form is separated from the matter but if the form subsists in its own being as happens
therefore the angel's immateriality is the cause why it is incorruptible by its own nature a token of this incorruptibility can be gathered from its intellectual operation
for since everything acts according as it is actual the operation of a thing indicates its mode of being now the species and nature of the operation is understood from the object but an intelligible object
being above time is everlasting hence every intellectual substance is incorruptible of its own nature
damascene is dealing with perfect immortality which includes complete immutability since every change is a kind of death
by the expression gods plato understands the heavenly bodies which he supposed to be made up of elements and therefore dissoluble of their own nature yet they are for ever preserved in existence by the divine will
missus mc lane had called on missus talbot that was known to all san francisco for her carriage had stood in front of the occidental hotel for an hour kind friends had called to offer their services in setting the new house in order
but were dismissed at the door with the brief announcement that missus mc lane was having the blues no one wasted time on a second effort to gossip with their leader it was known that just so often missus mc lane
drew down the blinds informed her household that she was not to be disturbed disposed herself on the sofa with her back to the room and indulged in the luxury of blues for three days
she took no nourishment but milk and broth and spoke to no one today this would be a rest cure and was equally beneficial when the attack was over missus mc lane would arise with a clear complexion
serene nerves and renewed strength for social duties her friends knew that her retirement on this occasion was timed to finish on the morning of her reception
and had not the least misgiving that her doors would still be closed the great double parlors of her new mansion were thrown into one and the simple furniture covered with gray rep was pushed against soft gray walls
hung with several old portraits in oil ferrotypes and silhouettes a magnificent crystal chandelier depended from the high and lightly frescoed ceiling and there were side brackets beside the doors
and the low mantel piece missus mc lane may not have been able to achieve beauty with the aid of the san francisco shops but at least she had managed to give her rooms a severe and stately simplicity
vastly different from the helpless surrenders of her friends to mid victorian deformities the rooms filled early missus mc lane stood before the north windows receiving her friends with her usual brilliant smile
her manner of high dignity and sweet cordiality
and increasing curves for the majesty was within and her head above a flat back had a lofty poise she wore her prematurely white hair in a tall pompadour
and this with the rich velvets she affected ample and long made her look like a french marquise of the eighteenth century stepped down from the canvas the effect was by no means accidental
missus mc lane's grandmother had been french and she resembled her her hoopskirt was small but the other women were inclined to the extreme of the fashion
they or their dressmakers subscribed to their handsome gowns spread widely and the rooms hardly could have seemed to sway and undulate more if an earthquake had rocked it
the older women wore small bonnets and cashmere shawls lace collars and cameos
the husbands had retired with mister mc lane to the smoking room
unlike as a reception of that day was in background and costumes from the refinements of modern art and taste it possessed one contrast that was wholly to its advantage
its men were gentlemen and the sons and grandsons of gentlemen
ambitious to push ahead in politics or the professions and appreciating the immediate opportunities of the new and famous city or left with an insufficient inheritance particularly after the war
and ashamed to work in communities where no gentleman had ever worked
if he did not occupy himself lucratively was unfit for the society of enterprising citizens few had come in time for the gold diggings but all
unless they had disappeared into the hot insatiable maw of the wicked little city had succeeded in one field or another and these in their dandified clothes made a fine appearance at fashionable gatherings
if they took up less room than the women they certainly were more decorative doctor talbot and his wife had not arrived to all eager questions missus mc lane merely replied that they would
be here she had the dramatic instinct of the true leader and had commanded the doctor not to bring his bride before four o'clock the reception began at three they should have an entrance
but missus abbott a lady of three chins and an eagle eye who had clung for twenty five years to black satin and bugles was too persistent to be denied
she extracted the information that the bostonian had sent her own furniture by a previous steamer and that her drawing room was graceful french and exquisite
at ten minutes after the hour the buzz and chatter stopped abruptly and every face was turned every neck craned toward the door the colored butler had announced with a grand flourish
doctor and missus talbot the doctor looked as rubicund as jovial as cynical as ever but few cast him more than a passing glance then they gave an audible gasp
induced by an ingenuous compound of amazement disappointment and admiration they had been prepared to forgive to endure to make every allowance
the poor thing could no more help being plain and dowdy than born in boston and as their leader had satisfied herself that she would do they would never let her know how deeply they deplored her disabilities
but they found nothing to deplore but the agonizing necessity for immediate readjustment missus talbot was unquestionably a product of the best society the south could have done no better
she was tall and supple and self possessed she was exquisitely dressed in dark blue velvet with a high collar of point lace tapering almost to her bust and revealing a long white throat
clasped at the base by a string of pearls on her head as proudly poised as missus mc lane's was a blue velvet hat higher in the crown than the prevailing fashion
rolled up on one side and trimmed only with a drooping gray feather and her figure her face her profile the young men crowded forward more swiftly than the still almost paralyzed women
she was no more than twenty her skin was as white as the san francisco fogs her lips were scarlet her cheeks pink her hair and eyes a bright golden brown
her features were delicate and regular the mouth not too small curved and sensitive her refinement was almost excessive oh she was high toned no doubt of that
as she moved forward and stood in front of missus mc lane or acknowledged introductions to those that stood near the women gave another gasp this time of consternation
she wore neither hoop skirt nor crinoline could it be that the most elegant fashion ever invented had been discarded by paris or was this lovely creature of surpassing elegance a law unto herself
her skirt was full but straight and did not disguise the lines of her graceful figure above her small waist it fitted as closely as a riding habit she was even more becomingly
dressed than any woman in the room missus abbott who was given to primitive sounds snorted maria ballinger whose finely developed figure might as well have been the trunk of a tree sniffed
her sister sally almost danced with excitement and even miss hathaway straightened her fichu missus ballinger who had been the belle of richmond and was still adjudged the handsomest woman in san francisco
lifted the eyebrows to which sonnets had been written with an air of haughty resignation but made up her mind to abate her scorn of the north and order her gowns from new york hereafter but the san franciscans
in a few moments they felt a pleasant titillation of the nerves as if the great world they might never see again had sent them one of her most precious gifts they all met her in the course of the afternoon
she was sweet and gracious but although there was not a hint of embarrassment she made no attempt to shine and they liked her the better for that the young men soon discovered they could make no impression on this lovely importation
for her eyes strayed constantly to her husband until he disappeared in search of cronies whiskey and a cigar then she looked depressed for a moment but gave a still closer attention to the women about her
in love with her husband but a woman of the world manners as fine as missus mc lane's but too aloof and sensitive to care for leadership she had made the grand tour in europe they discovered
and enjoyed a season in washington she should continue to live at the occidental hotel as her husband would be out so much at night and she was rather timid and she was bright unaffected responsive
could anything be more reassuring there was nothing to be apprehended by the socially ambitious the proud housewives
the girls drew little unconscious sighs of relief sally ballinger vowed she would become her intimate friend sibyl geary that she would copy her gowns missus abbott succumbed
in short they all took her to their hearts she was one of them from that time forth
after tea my father went to his study for it was late in the week and he was a most conscientious writer of sermons i read for an hour and then tired alike of my book and my own company
i strolled up and down the drive this restlessness was one of my greatest troubles when the fit came i could neither work nor read nor think connectedly it was a phase of incipient dissatisfaction with life
morbid but inevitable at the end of the drive nearest the road i met alice my youngest sister walking briskly with a book under her arm and a quiet smile upon her homely face i watched her coming towards me
and i almost envied her what a comfort to be blessed with a placid disposition and an optimistic frame of mind
so i have after a fashion she answered good humoredly are you wise to be without a hat kate to look at your airy attire one would imagine that it was summer instead of autumn
come back into the house with me i laughed at her in contempt there was a difference indeed between my muslin gown and the plain black skirt and jacket powdered with dust which was alice's usual costume
have you ever known me to catch cold through wearing thin clothes or going without a hat i asked i am tired of being indoors there have been people here all the afternoon
i wonder that your conscience allows you to shirk your part of the duty and leave all the tiresome entertaining to be done by me she looked at me with wide opened eyes and a concerned face
alice was always so painfully literal
she exclaimed i was in an evil mood and i determined to shock her it was never a difficult task so i do sometimes i answered but to day my callers have been all women
winding up with an hour and a half of lady naselton one gets so tired of one's own sex not a single man all the afternoon somebody else's husband to pass the bread and butter would have been a godsend
alice pursed up her lips and turned her head away with a look of displeasure i am surprised to hear you talk like that kate she said quietly do you think that it is quite good taste
be off you little goose i called after her as she passed on towards the house with quickened step and rigid head the little sober figure turned the bend and disappeared without looking around she was the perfect type of a clergyman's daughter
studiously conventional unremittingly proper inevitably a little priggish she was the right person in the right place she had the supreme good fortune to be in accord with her environment
i looked after her and sighed
on the other hand there was nothing to stay out for i hesitated for a moment and then strolled on to the end of the avenue a change in the weather seemed imminent
a grey murky twilight had followed the afternoon of brilliant sunshine and a low south wind was moaning amongst the norwegian firs i leaned over the gate with my face turned towards the great indistinct front of deville court
there was nothing to look at the trees had taken to themselves fantastic shapes little wreaths of white mist were rising from the hollows of the park the landscape was grey colorless monotonous
my whole life was like that i thought with a sudden despondent chill the lives of most girls must be unless they are domestic in our little family alice absorbed the domesticity
i realized with a start that i was becoming morbid and turned from the gate towards the house suddenly i heard an unexpected sound the sound of voices close at hand
i stopped short and half turned round a deep voice rang out upon the still damp air get over madam get over marvel
there was the sound of the cracking of a whip and the soft patter of dogs feet as they came along the lane below a narrow thoroughfare which was bounded on one side by our wall and on the other
by the open stretch of park at the head of which stood deville court there must have been quite twenty of them all of the same breed beagles and amongst them two people were walking a man and a woman
the man was nearest to me and i could see him more distinctly he was tall and very broad with a ragged beard and long hair he wore no collar and there was a great rent in his shabby shooting coat
of his features i could see nothing he wore knickerbockers and stockings and thick shoes he was by no means an ordinary looking person but he was certainly not prepossessing
the most favorable thing about him was his carriage which was upright and easy but even that was in a measure spoiled by a distinct suggestion of surliness
the woman by his side i could only see very indistinctly she was slim and wore some sort of a plain tailor gown but she did not appear to be young
standing for a moment in the shadow of a tall laurel bush i was not seen but i could hear their voices the woman was speaking a new vicar or curate in charge here isn't there bruce
i fancy i heard that one was expected a sullen impatient growl came from her side
the parson was bound to come i suppose but what the mischief does he want with a daughter a little laugh from the woman a pleasant musical laugh daughters i believe i heard some one say that there were two
what a misogynist you are getting why shouldn't the man have daughters if he likes i really believe that there are two of them there was a contemptuous snort and a moment's silence
they were exactly opposite to me now but the hedge and the shadow of the laurels beneath which i was standing completely shielded me from observation the man's huge form stood out with almost startling distinctness
against the grey sky he was lashing the thistles by the side of the road with his long whip maybe he growled
a pale faced black haired chit i smothered a laugh i was the pale faced black haired chit but it was scarcely a polite way of alluding to me mister bruce deville
when they had gone by i leaned over the gate again and watched them vanish amongst the shadows the sound of their voices came to me indistinctly but i could hear the deep bass of the man as he slung some scornful exclamation
out upon the moist air his great figure looming unnaturally large through the misty twilight was the last to vanish it was my first glimpse of mister bruce deville of deville court
i turned round with a terrified start almost at my side some heavy body had fallen to the ground with a faint groan a single step and i was bending over the prostrate form of a man
i caught his hand and gazed into his face with horrified eyes it was my father he must have been within a yard of me when he fell his eyes were half closed and his hands were cold
gathering up my skirts in my hand i ran swiftly across the lawn into the house i met alice in the hall get some brandy i cried breathlessly father is ill out in the garden quick she brought it in a moment
together we hurried back to where i had left him he had not moved his cheeks were ghastly pale and his eyes were still closed i felt his pulse and his heart and unfastened his collar
there is nothing serious the matter at least i think not i whispered to alice it is only a fainting fit i rubbed his hands and we forced some brandy between his lips
presently he opened his eyes and raised his head a little looking half fearfully around it was her voice he whispered hoarsely it came to me through the shadows where is she what have you done with her
there was a rustling of the leaves and then i heard her speak there is no one here but alice and myself i said bending over him you must have been fancying things are you better better
he looked up at both of us and the light came back into his face ah i see i must have fainted he exclaimed i remember the study was close and i came to get cool yet i thought i thought
i held out my arm and he staggered up he was still white and shaken but evidently his memory was returning i remember it was close in the study he said very close i was tired too
i must have walked too far i don't like it though i must see a doctor i must certainly see a doctor alice bent over him full of sympathy and he took her arm i walked behind him in silence
a curious thought had taken possession of me i could not get rid of the impression of my father's first words and his white terrified face was it indeed a wild fancy of his
or had he really heard this voice which had stirred him so deeply i tried to laugh at the idea i could not his cry was so natural his terror so apparent he had heard a voice
he had been stricken with a sudden terror whose was the voice whence his fear of it i watched him leaning slightly upon alice's arm and walking on slowly in front of me towards the house
already he was better his features had reassumed their customary air of delicate and reserved strength i looked at him with new and curious eyes for the first time i wondered
two or three days ago all along the front of the battle began the great festival in honour of our soldiers graves no matter where they lie grouped around churches in the ordinary village cemeteries
ranged in rows with military precision in little special cemeteries consecrated to them or even situated singly at the side of a road in a corner of a wood or alone and lost in the midst of fields
everywhere seen from afar off under the gloomy sky of these november days and against the greyish background of the countryside they attract the eyes with the brilliant newness of their decorations each grave is decked with at least four fine tricolours
their flagstaffs planted in the ground two at the head two at the foot and an infinite number of flowers and wreaths tied with ribbons it was the officers and the comrades of our dead soldiers who subscribed together to give them all this and who
sometimes in spite of great difficulties sent to the neighbouring towns for the decorations and then arranged them all with such pious care even on the graves of those of whom little was known and of those poor men few in number whose very names have perished
the cemetery is built in terraces and forms an amphitheatre on the side of a hill and the corner dedicated to the soldiers is high up visible to all the neighbourhood there are fifteen of these graves each with its four flags making sixty flags in all
and in the bitter autumn wind they flutter almost gaily unceasingly all these strips of bunting they wanton in the air intermingle and their bright colours shine out more conspicuously
for the matter of that no three other colours in combination set off one another so gaily as our three dear colours of france and these tombs moreover have such quantities and quantities of flowers dahlias chrysanthemums and roses
that they seem to be covered with one and the same richly decorated carpet during these days of festival the rest of the cemetery is also very full of flowers but it looks dull and colourless compared with that corner sacred to our soldiers
it is this favoured corner which is visible at first sight from a distance from all the roads leading to the village and wayfarers would ask themselves
two days before i remember coming to see the preparations for these ingenious decorations chasseurs with their hands full of bunches of flowers were working there rapidly and thoughtfully speaking in low tones in the distance could be heard
though much muffled the orchestra of the incessant battle in which the magnificent great voice of our heavy artillery predominated it seemed like the muttering of a storm all along the distant horizon it was very gloomy in that cemetery under an overcast sky
whence fell a semi darkness already wintry in aspect but the zeal of these chasseurs who were decking the tombs so well must yet have solaced the souls of the youthful dead with a little tender gaiety
and what beautiful moving masses were sung for them all along the front on the day of their festival all the little churches those at least that the barbarians have not destroyed had been decorated that day with all that the villages could muster in the way of flags banners
tapers and wreaths and they were too small these churches to hold the crowds that flocked to them there were officers soldiers civil population women mostly in mourning whose eyes under their veils were reddened with secret tears
some of the soldiers of their own accord desiring to honour the souls of their comrades with a very special concert had taken pains to learn the judgment hymns the dies irae the de profundis and their voices unskilfully led though they were
vibrated impressively in the unison of plain song which the organ accompanied indeed what could better prepare them for the supreme sacrifice and for a death nobly met than these prayers
they sang this morning these improvised choristers with a solemn transport then after mass in spite of the icy rain and the muddy roads the crowds that issued from each church in procession betook themselves to the cemeteries
in attendance on the priests bearing the solemn crucifix and again as on the day of the funerals all the little graves were blessed if i record these scenes
it is for the sake of mothers and wives and families living far from here in other provinces of france whose hearts no doubt grow heavier at the thought that the grave of someone dear to them may be neglected and very soon become unrecognisable
it is a crime that leaves with us in addition to immeasurable mourning an impression of infinite sadness and discouragement because it proves that one of the greatest countries in europe is hopelessly bankrupt of all that men have agreed to call honour civilisation and progress
the barbarian onslaughts of ancient days were not only a thousand times less murderous but let it be specially noted incomparably less revolting in character there were certain dastardly deeds certain acts of profanation
certain lies at which those hordes that came to us from asia hesitated an instinctive reverence still restrained them and moreover in those times they did not destroy with such impudent cynicism invoking the god of christians in a burlesque pathos of prayer
thus in our own day has arisen a grisly emperor with a pack of princelings his own progeny a litter of wolves whose most savage and at the same time most cowardly representative wears a death's head upon his helmet
and generals and millions of germans have been found ready to unite after a calculated preparation of nearly half a century in committing this same preliminary crime the forerunner of so many others and by way of prelude
to crush ignobly in their advance a little nation whom they had deemed without defence but lo the little nation arose quivering with sacred indignation and attempted to check the great barbarism suddenly unmasked
even at the cost of a seemingly inevitable doom of annihilation what starry crowns can history award worthy of that belgian nation and of their king who did not fear to bid them set themselves there as a barrier king albert of belgium
dispossessed to day of his all and banished to a hamlet what tribute of admiration and homage can we offer him worthy of his acceptance and sufficiently enduring upon tablets of flawless marble let us carve his name in deep letters
so that it may be well insured against the fugitiveness of our french memories which alas have sometimes proved a little untrustworthy at least in face of the age long infamies of germany may we remember for ever we
and even our far distant posterity that to save civilised europe and especially our own country of france king albert did not for one moment shrink from those sheer unconditional sacrifices which seemed beyond human strength
spurning the tempting compromises offered by that monstrous emperor he has fulfilled to the end his duty of loyal hero with a calm smile as if nothing were more natural and so perfect is his modesty that he is surprised if he is told that he has been sublime
as for queen elizabeth let each one of us dedicate to her a shrine in his soul
is having to reign over adopted countries while exiled from their own in the special case of this young martyred queen this doom of exile which has befallen her and many other queens must be a far more exquisite torture added to all the other evils endured
for a crushing fatality has come and separated her for ever from all who were once her own people even from that noble woman all devotion and charity who was her mother this additional sorrow she bears with calm and lofty courage which never falters
she is by the king's side his constant companion in the most terrible hours of all a companion whose energy halts at nothing
by the side of the wounded who are suffering or dying to them too she is a companion comforting the lowliest with her adorable simplicity
oh may she be blest reverenced and glorified
one observations respecting meat meat to be in perfection should be kept a number of days when the weather will admit of it beef and mutton should be kept at least a week in cold weather and poultry three or four days
if the weather is hot it will keep but a short time it should be kept in a cool airy place away from the flies and if there is any danger of its spoiling a little salt should be rubbed over it
when meat is frozen it should be put into lukewarm water and not taken out till the frost is extracted if there is any frost in it when put to the fire it will not cook well the best way to boil it is to put it in cold water and boil it gently
with just water enough to cover it as it hardens by furious boiling
as the scum that rises is apt to make the meat look dark the scum should be taken off as soon as it rises the liquor in which all kinds of fresh meat is boiled makes a good soup when thickened and seasoned boiling is the cheapest way of cooking meat
provided you make a soup of the liquor if not it is the dearest as most of the gelatine is extracted by the process of boiling which is the most nourishing part and if not used for soup is completely lost in roasting meat only the juices and fat are extracted
but not lost as the juices make good gravy and the fat is good for various culinary purposes when it is put down to roast there should be a little water in the dripping pan for broiling the bars of the gridiron should be perfectly clean and greased with lard or butter
otherwise the meat will retain the impression of the bars the bars of the gridiron should be concave and terminate in a trough to catch the juices or they will drop in the fire and smoke the meat a good fire of hot coals is necessary
the dish should be very hot on which broiled meat is put and it should not be seasoned till taken up if you wish to fry meat cut a small piece of pork into slices and fry them a light brown then take them up and put in your meat which should be perfectly dry
when the meat is sufficiently fried take it up remove the frying pan from the fire to cool when so turn in a little cold water for the gravy put it on the fire when it boils stir in a little mixed flour and water let it boil then turn it over the meat
if not rich enough add butter and catsup if you like two roast beef the tender loin and first and second cuts off the rack are the best roasting pieces the third and fourth cuts are good
when the meat is put to the fire a little salt should be sprinkled on it and the bony side turned towards the fire first when the bones get well heated through turn the meat and keep a brisk fire baste it frequently while roasting
there should be a little water put into the dripping pan when the meat is put down to roast if it is a thick piece allow fifteen minutes to each pound to roast it in if thin less time will be required three beef steak
the tender loin is the best piece for broiling a steak from the round or shoulder clod is good and comes cheaper if the beef is not very tender it should be laid on a board and pounded before broiling or frying it
wash it in cold water then lay it on a gridiron place it on a hot bed of coals and broil it as quick as possible without burning it if broiled slow it will not be good it takes from fifteen to twenty minutes to broil a steak for seven or eight pounds of beef
cut up about a quarter of a pound of butter heat the platter very hot that the steak is to be put on lay the butter on it take up the steak salt and pepper it on both sides beef steak to be good should be eaten as soon as cooked
there should always be a trough to catch the juices of the meat when broiled the same pieces that are good broiled are good for frying fry a few slices of salt pork brown then take them up and put in the beef when brown on both sides take it up
take the pan off from the fire to let the fat cool when cool turn in half a tea cup of water
stir it into the fat put the pan back on the fire stir it till it boils up then turn it over the beef four alamode beef the round of beef is the best piece to alamode
the shoulder clod is good and comes lower it is also good stewed without any spices for five pounds of beef soak about a pound of bread in cold water till soft then drain off the water mash the bread fine
put in a piece of butter of the size of a hen's egg half a tea spoonful of salt the same quantity of ground cloves allspice and pepper half a nutmeg a couple of eggs and a table spoonful of flour mix the whole well together
then cut gashes in the beef and fill them with about half of the dressing put the meat in a bake pan with lukewarm water enough to cover it set it where it will stew gently for a couple of hours cover it with a heated bake pan lid
when it has stewed a couple of hours turn the reserved dressing on top of the meat heat the bake pan lid hot enough to brown the dressing stew it an hour and a half longer after the meat is taken up if the gravy is not thick enough
mix a tea spoonful or two of flour with a little water and stir it into the gravy put in a little butter a wine glass of wine and turn it over the meat five beef liver liver is very good fried
but the best way to cook it is to broil it ten minutes with four or five slices of salt pork then take it cut it into small strips together with the pork
six to corn beef to every gallon of cold water put a quart of rock salt an ounce of salt petre quarter of a pound of brown sugar
no boiling is necessary put the beef in the brine as long as any salt remains at the bottom of the cask it is strong enough whenever any scum rises the brine should be scalded skimmed and more sugar salt and salt petre added
when a piece of beef is put in the brine rub a little salt over it if the weather is hot cut a gash to the bone of the meat and fill it with salt put a heavy weight on the beef in order to keep it under the brine
in very hot weather it is difficult to corn beef in cold brine before it spoils on this account it is good to corn it in the pot when boiled it is done in the following manner
to six or eight pounds of beef put a tea cup of salt sprinkle flour on the side that is to go up on the table and put it down in the pot turn the water into the pot after the beef is put in boil it a couple of hours then turn in more cold water and boil it an hour and a half longer
seven mutton the saddle is the best part to roast the shoulder and leg are good roasted but the best mode to cook the latter is to boil it with a piece of salt pork a little rice boiled with it improves the looks of it
mutton for roasting should have a little butter rubbed on it and a little salt and pepper sprinkled on it some people like cloves and allspice put a small piece of butter in the dripping pan and baste it frequently the bony side should be turned towards the fire first and roasted
for boiling or roasting mutton allow a quarter of an hour to each pound of meat the leg is good cut in gashes and filled with a dressing and baked the dressing is made of soaked bread a little butter salt and pepper and a couple of eggs
a pint of water with a little butter should be put in the pan the leg is also good cut into slices and broiled it is good corned a few days and then boiled the rack is good for broiling
it should be divided each bone by itself broiled quick and buttered salted and peppered the breast of mutton is nice baked the joints of the brisket should be separated the sharp ends of the ribs sawed off the outside rubbed over with a little piece of butter
salt it and put it in a bake pan with a pint of water when done take it up and thicken the gravy with a little flour and water and put in a small piece of butter a table spoonful of catsup cloves and allspice improve it but are not essential
the neck of mutton makes a good soup parsely or celery heads are a pretty garnish for mutton eight veal the loin of veal is the best piece for roasting the breast and rack are good roasted
the breast also is good made into a pot pie and the rack cut into small pieces and broiled the leg is nice for frying and when several slices have been cut off for cutlets the remainder is nice boiled with a small piece of salt pork
veal for roasting should be salted peppered and a little butter rubbed on it and basted frequently put a little water in the dripping pan and unless the meat is quite fat a little butter should be put in the fillet is good baked
the bone should be cut out and the place filled with a dressing made of bread soaked soft in cold water a little salt pepper a couple of eggs and a table spoonful of melted butter put in then sew it up put it in your bake pan with about a pint of water
cover the top of the meat with some of the dressing when baked sufficiently take it up
put in a small piece of butter and a little wine and catsup if you like the gravy rich nine veal cutlets fry three or four slices of pork until brown
about an inch thick cut from the leg when brown on both sides take them up stir half a pint of water into the gravy
soak a couple of slices of toasted bread in the gravy lay them on the bottom of the platter place the meat and pork over it then turn on the gravy a very nice way to cook the cutlets is to make a batter with half a pint of milk
and flour enough to render it thick when the veal is fried brown dip it into the batter then put it back into the fat and fry it until brown again
if you have any batter left it is nice dropped by the large spoonful into the fat and fried till brown then laid over the veal thicken the gravy and turn it over the whole it takes about an hour to cook this dish
if the meat is tough it will be better to stew it half an hour before frying it ten calf's head boil the head two hours together with the lights and feet put in the liver when it has boiled an hour and twenty minutes
before the head is done tie the brains in a bag and boil them with it when the brains are done take them up season them with salt pepper butter and sweet herbs or spices if you like use this as a dressing for the head some people prefer part of the liver and feet for dressing
they are prepared like the brains the liquor that the calf's head is boiled in makes a good soup seasoned in a plain way like any other veal soup or seasoned turtle fashion the liquor should stand until the next day after the head is boiled
in order to have the fat rise and skimmed off if you wish to have your calf's head look brown take it up when tender rub a little butter over it sprinkle on salt pepper and allspice sprinkle flour over it and put before the fire with a dutch oven over it
or in a brick oven where it will brown quick warm up the brains with a little water butter salt and pepper add wine and spices if you like serve it up as a dressing for the head calf's head is also good baked halve it
then cover it with a dressing made of bread soaked soft a little butter an egg and season it with salt pepper and powdered mace slice up the brains and lay them in the pan with the head bake it in a quick oven and garnish it with slices of lemon
or force meat balls eleven force meat balls chop a pound or two of veal fine mix it with one or two eggs a little butter or raw pork chopped fine season it with salt and pepper or curry powder
do them up into balls about the size of half an egg and fry them brown twelve calf's feet boil them with the head until tender then split and lay them round the head or dredge them with flour after they have been boiled tender
and fry them brown if you wish for gravy for them when you have taken them up stir a little flour into the fat they were fried in season it with salt pepper and mace add a little butter and wine if you like then turn it over the feet thirteen
calf's liver and heart are good broiled or fried some people like the liver stuffed and baked fourteen collops cut part of a leg of veal into pieces three or four inches broad
sprinkle flour on them fry them in butter until brown then turn in water enough to cover the veal when it boils take off the scum put in two or three onions a blade of mace a little salt and pepper when stewed tender
take up the meat thicken the gravy with flour and water mixed smoothly together squeeze in the juice of half a lemon then turn it over the collops garnish them with a lemon cut in thin slices fifteen plaw
boil a piece of lean veal till tender take it up cut it into strips three or four inches long put it back into the pot with the liquor it was boiled in with a tea cup of rice to three pounds of veal put in a piece of butter of the size of a hen's egg
stew it gently till the rice is tender and the water nearly stewed away a little curry powder in this converts it into a curry dish sixteen a fillet of veal cut off the shank of a leg of veal and cut gashes in the remainder
make a dressing of bread soaked soft in cold water and mashed season it with salt pepper and sweet herbs chop a little raw pork fine put it in the dressing and if you have not pork use a little butter instead fill the gashes in the meat with part of the dressing
put the remainder of the dressing on top of the meat and cover it with a heated bake pan lid for six pounds of veal allow two hours steady baking a leg of veal is nice prepared in this manner and roasted seventeen
lamb the fore and hind quarters are good roasting pieces sprinkle salt and pepper on the lamb turn the bony side towards the fire first if not fat rub a little butter on it and put a little in the dripping pan baste it frequently
these pieces are good stuffed like a fillet of veal and roasted the leg is also good cooked in the same manner but it is better boiled with a pound of salt pork allow fifteen minutes boiling to each pound of meat
the breast of lamb is good roasted broiled or corned and boiled it is also good made into a pot pie the fore quarter with the ribs divided is good broiled the bones of this as well as all kinds of meat
when put down to broil should first be put towards the fire and browned before the other side is broiled a little salt pepper and butter should be put on it when you take it up
the old gentleman and his diseased relatives a hungry spirit palming a ballot revelations on strips of paper an aptitude for deception is all the capital that a person requires
in order to become a spirit medium or at least to gain the reputation of being one backing up the pretence to mediumship with a show of something mysterious is all sufficient to enlist attention and insure the making of converts
one of the most noted of the mediumistic fraternity whose name i do not choose to give at present steadily pursued his business for several years in a room in broadway in this city and succeeded not only in humbugging a good many people
but in what was more important to him acquiring quite an amount of money his mode of operating was the ballot test and was as follows medium and investigator being seated opposite each other at a table
the latter was handed several slips of blank paper
of several of his deceased relatives which being done he was desired to touch the folded papers one after the other till one should be designated by three tips of the table as containing the name of the spirit who would communicate
the selected paper was laid aside and the others thrown upon the floor the investigator being further requested to write on as many different pieces of paper as contained the names and the relation to himself of the spirits bearing them
supposing the names written were mary joseph and samuel being respectively the investigator's mother father and brother the last named class would be secondly written
and one of them designated by three tips of the table as in the first instance the respective ages of the deceased parties at the time of their decease would also be written and one of them selected the first test consisted in having the selected name
relationship and age correspond that is refer to the same party to ascertain which the investigator was desired to look at them and state if it was the case if the correspondence was affirmed a communication was soon given
with the selected name relationship and age appended questions written in the presence of the medium were answered relevantly if not pertinently investigators generally did their part of the writing in a guarded manner
interposing their left hand between the paper on which they wrote and the medium's eyes and they were very much astonished when they received a communication couched in affectionate terms with the names of their spirit friends attached
by long practice the medium was enabled to determine what the investigator wrote by the motion of his hand in writing nine out of ten wrote the relationship first that corresponded with the first name they had written
therefore if the medium selected the first that was written of each class they in most cases referred to the same spirit he waited till the investigator had affirmed the coincidence before proceeding
when it ought to be your father john the reason he did not desire inquirers to write the surnames of their spirit friends was this almost all christian names are common and he was familiar with the motions which the hand must make in writing them
but there are comparatively few people who have the same surnames and to determine them would have been more difficult no fact was communicated that had not been surreptitiously gleaned from the investigator
an old gentleman apparently from the country one day entered the room of this medium and expressed a desire for a sperit communication he was told to take a seat at the table and to write the names of his deceased relatives
the medium like many others incorrectly pronounced the term deceased
the old gentleman carefully adjusted his specs and did what was required of him a name and relationship having been selected from those written the investigator was desired to examine and state if they referred to one party
wal i declare they do said he but i say mister what has them papers to do with a sperit communication you will see directly replied the medium whereupon the latter spasmodically wrote a communication
which read somewhat as follows my dear husband i am very glad to be able to address you through this channel keep on investigating and you will soon be convinced of the great fact of spirit intercourse i am happy in my spirit home
patiently awaiting the time when you will join me here et cetera your loving wife betsey
diseased returned the old man wal she ain't anything else for she's had the rumatiz orfully for six months saying which he took his hat and left concluding that it was not worth while to keep on investigating any longer at that time
this same medium not long since visited great britain for the purpose of practicing his profession there in one of the cities of scotland some shrewd investigator divined that he was able to nearly guess from the motion of the hand what questions were written
are you happy being a question commonly asked the spirits one of these gentlemen varied it by asking are you hungry the reply was an emphatic affirmative they tricked the trickster in other ways one of which was to write the names of mortals instead of spirits
it made no difference however as to getting a communication to tip the table without apparent muscular exertion this impostor placed his hands on it in such a way that the pisiform bone which may be felt projecting at the lower corner of the palm opposite the thumb
pressed against the edge by pushing the table tipped from him it being prevented from sliding by little spikes in the legs of the side opposite the operator there are other ballot test mediums as they are called who have a somewhat different method of cheating
they too require investigators to write the names in full however of their spirit friends the slips of paper containing the names to be folded and placed on a table the medium then seizes one of the ballots and asks
dropping that and taking another on this so he handles all the papers without getting a response during this time however he has dexterously palmed one of the ballots which while telling the investigator to be patient
as the spirits would doubtless soon come he opens with his left hand on his knee under the edge of the table a mere glance enables him to read the name refolding the paper and retaining it in his hand he remarks i will touch the ballots again
and perhaps one of them will be designated this time dropping among the rest the one he had palmed he soon picks it up again whereat three loud raps are heard that paper says he to the investigator
probably contains the name of the spirit who rapped please hold it in your hand then seizing a pencil he writes a name which the investigator finds to be the one contained in the selected paper if the ballots are few in number a blank is put with the pile
when the medium palms one else the latter might be missed it seems the spirits can never give their names without being reminded of them by the investigator and then they are so doubtful of their own identity that they have but little to say for themselves
one medium to whom i have already alluded after a sojourn of several years in california whither he went from boston seeking whom he might humbug has now returned to the east and is operating in this city besides answering sealed letters
he furnishes written communications to parties visiting him at his rooms a sitting however being granted to but one person at a time his terms are only five dollars an hour seated at a table in a part of the room where is the most light
he hands the investigator a strip of blank white paper rather thin and light of texture about a yard long and six inches wide requesting him to write across one end of it a single question addressed to a spirit friend then to sign his own name
and fold the paper once or twice over what he has written for instance brother samuel will you communicate with me through this medium william franklin to learn what has been written the medium lays the paper down on the table
made by the inquirer if that does not render the writing visible through the one thickness of paper that covers it he slightly raises the edge of the folds with his left hand while he continues to rub with his right and that admits of the light shining through so that the writing can be read
the other party is so situated that the writing is not visible to him through the paper and he is not likely to presume that it is visible to the medium the latter having assigned as a reason for his manipulations that spirits were able to read the questions
only by means of the odylic magnetic or some other emanation from the ends of his fingers having learned the question of course the medium can reply to it giving the name of the spirit addressed but before doing so
he doubles the two folds made by the inquirer and for a show of consistency again rubs his fingers over the paper then more folds and more rubbing all the folding additional to the inquirer's being done to keep the latter from observing when he comes to read the answer
that it was possible for the medium to read the question through the two folds of paper the answer is written upon the same strip of paper that accompanies the question the medium requires the investigator to write his questions each on a different strip of paper and before answering
he every time manipulates the paper in the way i have described when rubbing his fingers over the question he often shuts the eye which is toward the inquirer which prevents suspicion but the other eye is open wide enough to enable him to read the question through the paper
and to give her a message she sat and talked to him in the very room in which she had once received grushenka in the next room ivan fyodorovitch lay unconscious in a high fever
ordered the sick and unconscious man to be carried to her house disregarding the inevitable gossip and general disapproval of the public
the famous doctor had gone back to moscow refusing to give an opinion as to the probable end of the illness though the doctors encouraged katerina ivanovna and alyosha it was evident that they could not yet give them positive hopes of recovery
alyosha came to see his sick brother twice a day but this time he had specially urgent business and he foresaw how difficult it would be to approach the subject yet he was in great haste he had another engagement that could not be put off for that same morning
don't worry about his decision she said with confident emphasis to alyosha one way or another he is bound to come to it he must escape that unhappy man that hero of honor and principle not he
i've told you something already you see
when the party of prisoners is being taken to siberia oh it's a long way off yet
no i don't said alyosha of course he did not tell you it was about that plan of escape he had told me the main idea three days before and we began quarreling about it at once and quarreled for three days we quarreled because
and that she too should go abroad with dmitri katerina ivanovna exclaimed suddenly her lips quivering with anger as soon as ivan fyodorovitch saw that i was furious about that woman he instantly imagined i was jealous of dmitri
and that i still loved dmitri that is how our first quarrel began i would not give an explanation i could not ask forgiveness i could not bear to think that such a man could suspect me of still loving that
he brought me a sealed envelope which i was to open at once if anything happened to him oh he foresaw his illness he told me that the envelope contained the details of the escape
i was tremendously impressed to find that ivan fyodorovitch had not given up his idea of saving his brother and was confiding this plan of escape to me though he was still jealous of me and still convinced that i loved mitya oh that was a sacrifice
no you cannot understand the greatness of such self sacrifice alexey fyodorovitch i wanted to fall at his feet in reverence but i thought at once that he would take it only for my joy at the thought of mitya's being saved
and i was so exasperated at the mere possibility of such an unjust thought on his part that i lost my temper again and instead of kissing his feet flew into a fury again oh i am unhappy it's my character
my awful unhappy character oh you will see i shall end by driving him too to abandon me for another with whom he can get on better like dmitri but no i could not bear it i should kill myself and when you came in then
he had never never persuaded me that his brother was a murderer on the contrary it was i who persuaded him oh my vile temper was the cause of everything i paved the way to that hideous scene at the trial
he wanted to show me that he was an honorable man and that even if i loved his brother he would not ruin him for revenge or jealousy so he came to the court i am the cause of it all i alone am to blame
and he felt that she was now at that stage of unbearable suffering when even the proudest heart painfully crushes its pride and falls vanquished by grief oh alyosha knew another terrible reason of her present misery
it made the commission on which he had come even more difficult he spoke of mitya again it's all right it's all right don't be anxious about him she began again sharply and stubbornly all that is only momentary
he will have time to make up his mind to it ivan fyodorovitch will be well by that time and will manage it all himself so that i shall have nothing to do with it don't be anxious he will consent to run away he has agreed already
she paused and smiled he talks about some hymn she went on again some cross he has to bear some duty i remember ivan fyodorovitch told me a great deal about it and if you knew how he talked
if you knew how he loved that wretched man at the moment he told me and how he hated him perhaps at the same moment and i heard his story and his tears with sneering disdain brute yes i am a brute
i am responsible for his fever but that man in prison is incapable of suffering katya concluded irritably can such a man suffer men like him never suffer
there was a note of hatred and contemptuous repulsion in her words and yet it was she who had betrayed him perhaps because she feels how she's wronged him she hates him at moments alyosha thought to himself he hoped that it was only at moments
but he did not take it up i sent for you this morning to make you promise to persuade him yourself or do you too consider that to escape would be dishonorable cowardly or something unchristian perhaps
oh no i'll tell him everything muttered alyosha he asks you to come and see him to day he blurted out suddenly looking her steadily in the face she started and drew back a little from him on the sofa me can that be
she faltered turning pale it can and ought to be alyosha began emphatically growing more animated he needs you particularly just now i would not have opened the subject and worried you
he realizes that he has injured you beyond all reckoning he does not ask your forgiveness
he says himself but only that you would show yourself in his doorway it's so sudden
he had never grasped it before so fully he said
though he is condemned to penal servitude for twenty years he is still planning to be happy
think you must visit him though he is ruined he is innocent broke like a challenge from alyosha his hands are clean there is no blood on them for the sake of his infinite sufferings in the future visit him now go
greet him on his way into the darkness stand at his door that is all you ought to do it you ought to alyosha concluded laying immense stress on the word ought i ought to but i cannot katya moaned
he will look at me i can't your eyes ought to meet how will you live all your life if you don't make up your mind to do it now better suffer all my life you ought to go you ought to go alyosha repeated with merciless emphasis
but why to day why at once i can't leave our patient you can for a moment it will only be a moment if you don't come he will be in delirium by to night i would not tell you a lie have pity on him
katya said with bitter reproach and she burst into tears then you will come said alyosha firmly seeing her tears i'll go and tell him you will come directly no
alyosha got up to go and what if i meet any one she said suddenly in a low voice turning white again that's just why you must go now to avoid meeting any one there will be no one there i can tell you that for certain
setting forth that in such a year on such a day in such a place the investigating lawyer of such and such a district court having examined so and so to wit mitya accused of this and of that
in brief mitya was informed that he was from that moment a prisoner and that he would be driven at once to the town and there shut up in a very unpleasant place mitya listened attentively
and only shrugged his shoulders well gentlemen i don't blame you i'm ready i understand that there's nothing else for you to do
stay mitya interrupted suddenly and impelled by uncontrollable feeling he pronounced addressing all in the room gentlemen we're all cruel we're all monsters we all make men weep and mothers and babes at the breast
for the last time i am not guilty of my father's blood i accept my punishment not because i killed him but because i meant to kill him and perhaps i really might have killed him still i mean to fight it out with you
i warn you of that i'll fight it out with you to the end and then god will decide good by gentlemen don't be vexed with me for having shouted at you during the examination oh i was still such a fool then in another minute i shall be a prisoner
saying good by to you i say it to all men his voice quivered and he stretched out his hand
who happened to stand nearest to him with a sudden almost nervous movement hid his hands behind his back mitya instantly noticed this and started he let his outstretched hand fall at once
the preliminary inquiry is not yet over nikolay parfenovitch faltered somewhat embarrassed we will continue it in the town and i for my part of course am ready to wish you all success in your defense
as a matter of fact dmitri fyodorovitch i've always been disposed to regard you as so to speak more unfortunate than guilty all of us here if i may make bold to speak for all
we are all ready to recognize that you are at bottom a young man of honor but alas one who has been carried away by certain passions to a somewhat excessive degree
and of few words and did not at all satisfy nikolay parfenovitch grushenka made a deep bow to mitya i have told you i am yours and i will be yours i will follow you for ever wherever they may send you farewell
you are guiltless though you've been your own undoing her lips quivered tears flowed from her eyes forgive me grusha for my love for ruining you too with my love mitya would have said something more but he broke off and went out
two carts stood in readiness mavriky mavrikyevitch a sturdy thick set man with a wrinkled face was annoyed about something some sudden irregularity he was shouting angrily
he asked mitya to get into the cart with somewhat excessive surliness when i stood him drinks in the tavern the man had quite a different face thought mitya as he got in at the gates there was a crowd of people peasants women and drivers
trifon borissovitch came down the steps too all stared at mitya forgive me at parting good people mitya shouted suddenly from the cart forgive us too he heard two or three voices
good by to you too trifon borissovitch but trifon borissovitch did not even turn round he was perhaps too busy he too was shouting and fussing about something it appeared that everything was not yet ready in the second cart
they ran to look for him the peasant persisted and besought them to wait you see what our peasants are mavriky mavrikyevitch they've no shame exclaimed trifon borissovitch
akim gave you twenty five copecks the day before yesterday you've drunk it all and now you cry out i'm simply surprised at your good nature with our low peasants mavriky mavrikyevitch that's all i can say
let's start with the one mavriky mavrikyevitch i won't be unruly i won't run away from you old fellow what do we want an escort for i'll trouble you sir to learn how to speak to me if you've never been taught
i'm not old fellow to you and you can keep your advice for another time mavriky mavrikyevitch snapped out savagely as though glad to vent his wrath mitya was reduced to silence he flushed all over
at last mavriky mavrikyevitch too got into the cart sat down heavily and as though without noticing it squeezed mitya into the corner it is true that he was out of humor and greatly disliked the task that had been laid upon him
good by trifon borissovitch mitya shouted again and felt himself that he had not called out this time from good nature but involuntarily from resentment but trifon borissovitch stood proudly with both hands behind his back
and staring straight at mitya with a stern and angry face he made no reply good by dmitri fyodorovitch good by he heard all at once the voice of kalganov who had suddenly darted out running up to the cart
the bell began ringing and mitya was driven off kalganov ran back sat down in a corner bent his head hid his face in his hands and burst out crying for a long while he sat like that
crying as though he were a little boy instead of a young man of twenty oh he believed almost without doubt in mitya's guilt what are these people what can men be after this he exclaimed incoherently in bitter despondency almost despair
without putting his head out and says be done boys who's there i says it's me who's me george jackson sir what do you want i don't want nothing sir
i warn't prowling around sir i fell overboard off of the steamboat oh you did did you strike a light there somebody
if there's anybody with you let him keep backif
come along now come slow
but they followed a little behind me when i got to the three log doorsteps i heard them unlocking and unbarring and unbolting
and me at them for about a quarter of a minute three big men with guns pointed at me which made me wince i tell you the oldest gray and about sixty the other two thirty or moreall
the old gentleman he locked the door and barred it and bolted it and told the young men to come in with their guns and they all went in a big parlor that had a new rag carpet on the floor
they held the candle and took a good look at me and all said why he ain't a shepherdsonno
why bless you saul the poor thing's as wet as he can be and don't you reckon it may be he's hungry true for you rachel i forgot so the old lady says betsy this was a nigger woman
as quick as you can poor thing
buck take this little stranger and get the wet clothes off from him and dress him up in some of yours that's dry
though he was a little bigger than me he hadn't on anything but a shirt and he was very frowzy headed
and he was dragging a gun along with the other one he says ain't they no shepherdsons around they said no twas a false alarm well he says
if they'd a ben some i reckon i'd a got one they all laughed and bob says why buck they might have scalped us all you've been so slow in coming well nobody come after me
but you can guess can't you it's just as easy which candle i says
where was he why he was in the dark
why blame it it's a riddle don't you see say how long are you going to stay here you got to stay always we can just have booming timesthey don't have no school now do you own a dog
he'll go in the river and bring out chips that you throw in do you like to comb up sundays and all that kind of foolishness you bet i don't but ma she makes me confound these ole britches i reckon i'd better put em on
but i'd ruther not it's so warm are you all ready all right come along old hoss cold corn pone cold corn beef butter
and buttermilkthat is what they had for me down there and there ain't nothing better that ever i've come across yet buck and his ma and all of them smoked cob pipes except the nigger woman which was gone and the two young women
they all smoked and talked and i eat and talked the young women had quilts around them and their hair down their backs they all asked me questions
and tom and mort died and then there warn't nobody but just me and pap left and he was just trimmed down to nothing on account of his troubles so when he died i took what there was left
and started up the river deck passage and fell overboard and that was how i come to be here so they said i could have a home there as long as i wanted it then it was most daylight
and everybody went to bed and i went to bed with buck
drat it all i had forgot what my name was so i laid there about an hour trying to think and when buck waked up i says can you spell buck yes he says
r g e j a x o
well says i you done it but i didn't think you could
i set it down private because somebody might want me to spell it next and so i wanted to be handy with it and rattle it off like i was used to it it was a mighty nice family and a mighty nice house too
i hadn't seen no house out in the country before that was so nice and had so much style it didn't have an iron latch on the front door nor a wooden one with a buckskin string
there was a big fireplace that was bricked on the bottom and the bricks was kept clean and red by pouring water on them and scrubbing them with another brick sometimes they wash them over with red water paint that they call spanish brown
same as they do in town they had big brass dog irons that could hold up a saw log there was a clock on the middle of the mantelpiece with a picture of a town painted on the bottom half of the glass front
and a round place in the middle of it for the sun and you could see the pendulum swinging behind it it was beautiful to hear that clock tick and sometimes when one of these peddlers had been along
and scoured her up and got her in good shape she would start in and strike a hundred and fifty before she got tuckered out
there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock made out of something like chalk and painted up gaudy by one of the parrots was a cat made of crockery and a crockery dog by the other
on the table in the middle of the room was a kind of a lovely crockery basket that had apples and oranges and peaches and grapes piled up in it which was much redder and yellower and prettier than real ones is but they warn't real
with a red and blue spread eagle painted on it and a painted border all around it come all the way from philadelphia they said there was some books too piled up perfectly exact on each corner of the table one was a big family bible
full of pictures one was pilgrim's progress about a man that left his family it didn't say why i read considerable in it now and then the statements was interesting but tough another was friendship's offering
full of beautiful stuff and poetry but i didn't read the poetry another was henry clay's speeches and another was doctor gunn's family medicine which told you all about what to do if a body was sick or dead there was a hymn book
they had pictures hung on the wallsmainly washingtons and lafayettes and battles and highland marys and one called signing the declaration there was some that they called crayons
which one of the daughters which was dead made her own self when she was only fifteen years old they was different from any pictures i ever see beforeblacker mostly than is common one was a woman in a slim black dress
belted small under the armpits with bulges like a cabbage in the middle of the sleeves and a large black scoop shovel bonnet with a black veil and white slim ankles crossed about with black tape
and had a dead bird laying on its back in her other hand with its heels up and underneath the picture it said i shall never hear thy sweet chirrup more alas
everybody was sorry she died
and every day and every night it was her prayer to be allowed to live till she got it done but she never got the chance it was a picture of a young woman in a long white gown standing on the rail of a bridge all ready to jump off
with her hair all down her back
and every time her birthday come
but there was so many arms it made her look too spidery seemed to me this young girl kept a scrap book when she was alive and used to paste obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it out of the presbyterian observer
and did young stephen die and did the sad hearts thicken and did the mourners cry no such was not the fate of young stephen dowling bots though sad hearts round him thickened
whilst i his fate do tell his soul did from this cold world fly by falling down a well they got him out and emptied him alas it was too late his spirit was gone for to sport aloft
in the realms of the good and great if emmeline grangerford could make poetry like that before she was fourteen there ain't no telling what she could a done by and by buck said she could rattle off poetry like nothing
she called them tributes the neighbors said it was the doctor first then emmeline
and then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person's name which was whistler she warn't ever the same after that she never complained but she kinder pined away
poor thing many's the time i made myself go up to the little room that used to be hers and get out her poor old scrap book and read in it when her pictures had been aggravating me and i had soured on her a little
i liked all that family dead ones and all and warn't going to let anything come between us poor emmeline made poetry about all the dead people when she was alive and it didn't seem right that there warn't nobody to make some about her
now she was gone so i tried to sweat out a verse or two myself but i couldn't seem to make it go somehow they kept emmeline's room trim and nice and all the things fixed in it just the way she liked to have them when she was alive
and nobody ever slept there the old lady took care of the room herself though there was plenty of niggers and she sewed there a good deal and read her bible there mostly well as i was saying about the parlor
there was beautiful curtains on the windows white with pictures painted on them of castles with vines all down the walls and cattle coming down to drink there was a little old piano too that had tin pans in it i reckon
and nothing was ever so lovely as to hear the young ladies sing the last link is broken and play the battle of prague on it the walls of all the rooms was plastered and most had carpets on the floors and the whole house was whitewashed on the outside
it was a double house and the big open place betwixt them was roofed and floored and sometimes the table was set there in the middle of the day and it was a cool comfortable place nothing couldn't be better and warn't the cooking good
chapter seven dress as an expression of the pecuniary culture
to show in some detail how the economic principles so far set forth apply to everyday facts in some one direction of the life process
are also exemplified in the same contrivances other methods of putting one's pecuniary standing in evidence serve their end effectually
to all observers at the first glance it is also true that admitted expenditure for display is more obviously present and is perhaps more universally practiced in the matter of dress
and probably at no other point is the sense of shabbiness so keenly felt as it is if we fall short of the standard set by social usage in this matter of dress
in order to afford what is considered a decent amount of wasteful consumption so that it is by no means an uncommon occurrence in an inclement climate for people to go ill clad in order to appear well dressed
and the commercial value of the goods used for clotting in any modern community is made up to a much larger extent of the fashionableness the reputability of the goods
in the common run of cases the conscious motive of the wearer or purchaser of conspicuously wasteful apparel is the need of conforming to established usage
without reflection or analysis we feel that what is inexpensive is unworthy a cheap coat makes a cheap man cheap and nasty is recognized to hold true in dress
with even less mitigation than in other lines of consumption
an inexpensive article of apparel is held to be inferior under the maxim cheap and nasty we find things beautiful as well as serviceable somewhat in proportion as they are costly
with few and inconsequential exceptions we all find a costly hand wrought article of apparel much preferable in point of beauty and of serviceability to a less expensive imitation of it
however cleverly the spurious article may imitate the costly original and what offends our sensibilities in the spurious article is not that it falls short in form or color or indeed in visual effect in any way
because it falls to a lower pecuniary grade but the function of dress as an evidence of ability to pay
does not end with simply showing that the wearer consumes valuable goods in excess of what is required for physical comfort simple conspicuous waste of goods is effective and gratifying as far as it goes
but dress has subtler and more far reaching possibilities than this crude first hand evidence of wasteful consumption only if in addition to showing that the wearer can afford to consume freely and uneconomically
that the wearer is not engaged in any kind of productive labor in the evolutionary process by which our system of dress has been elaborated into its present admirably perfect adaptation to its purpose
will show that it is contrived at every point to convey the impression that the wearer does not habitually put forth any useful effort it goes without saying that no apparel can be considered elegant or even decent
of leisure exemption from personal contact with industrial processes of any kind much of the charm that invests the patent leather shoe the stainless linen the lustrous cylindrical hat and the walking stick
elegant dress serves its purpose of elegance not only in that it is expensive but also because it is the insignia of leisure it not only shows that the wearer is able to consume a relatively large value
but it argues at the same time that he consumes without producing the dress of women goes even farther than that of men in the way of demonstrating the wearer's abstinence from productive employment
it needs no argument to enforce the generalization that the more elegant styles of feminine bonnets go even farther towards making work impossible than does the man's high hat
the woman's shoe adds the so called french heel to the evidence of enforced leisure afforded by its polish because this high heel obviously makes any even the simplest and most necessary manual work
extremely difficult the like is true even in a higher degree of the skirt and the rest of the drapery which characterizes woman's dress the substantial reason for our tenacious attachment to the skirt is just this
but the woman's apparel not only goes beyond that of the modern man in the degree in which it argues exemption from labor it also adds a peculiar and highly characteristic feature which differs in kind
from anything habitually practiced by the men this feature is the class of contrivances of which the corset is the typical example the corset is in economic theory substantially a mutilation
undergone for the purpose of lowering the subject's vitality and rendering her permanently and obviously unfit for work it is true the corset impairs the personal attractions of the wearer
it may broadly be set down that the womanliness of woman's apparel resolves itself in point of substantial fact into the more effective hindrance to useful exertion offered by the garments peculiar to women
as the great and dominant norm of dress the broad principle of conspicuous waste subsidiary to this principle and as a corollary under it we get as a second norm the principle of conspicuous leisure
it must at the same time be up to date no explanation at all satisfactory has hitherto been offered of the phenomenon of changing fashions the imperative requirement of dressing in the latest accredited manner
we may of course say with perfect consistency and truthfulness that this principle of novelty is another corollary under the law of conspicuous waste obviously
pretty much all that this consideration warrants us in saying is that the norm of conspicuous waste exercises a controlling surveillance in all matters of dress
it leaves unanswered the question as to the motive for making and accepting a change in the prevailing styles and it also fails to explain why conformity to a given style at a given time
is so imperatively necessary as we know it to be for a creative principle capable of serving as motive to invention and innovation in fashions we shall have to go back to the primitive non economic motive
with which apparel originated the motive of adornment without going into an extended discussion of how and why this motive asserts itself under the guidance of the law of expensiveness it may be stated broadly
that each successive innovation in the fashions is an effort to reach some form of display which shall be more acceptable to our sense of form and color or of effectiveness than that which it displaces
the changing styles are the expression of a restless search for something which shall commend itself to our aesthetic sense
but as each innovation is subject to the selective action of the norm of conspicuous waste the range within which innovation can take place is somewhat restricted the innovation must not only be more beautiful
or perhaps oftener less offensive than that which it displaces but it must also come up to the accepted standard of expensiveness it would seem at first sight that the result of such an unremitting struggle
to attain the beautiful in dress should be a gradual approach to artistic perfection we might naturally expect that the fashions should show a well marked trend
in the direction of some one or more types of apparel eminently becoming to the human form and we might even feel that we have substantial ground for the hope that today after all the ingenuity and effort
on the other hand the assertion freely goes uncontradicted that styles in vogue two thousand years ago are more becoming than the most elaborate and painstaking constructions of today
have been worked out in various parts of the world as for instance among the japanese chinese and other oriental nations likewise among the greeks romans and other eastern peoples of antiquity
so also in later times among the peasants of nearly every country of europe these national or popular costumes are in most cases adjudged by competent critics to be more becoming more artistic
than the fluctuating styles of modern civilized apparel at the same time they are also at least usually less obviously wasteful
are more readily detected in their structure these relatively stable costumes are commonly pretty strictly and narrowly localized and they vary by slight and systematic gradations from place to place
is relatively homogeneous stable and immobile that is to say stable costumes which will bear the test of time and perspective are worked out under circumstances
the countries and classes which have in this way worked out stable and artistic costumes have been so placed that the pecuniary emulation among them has taken the direction of a competition in conspicuous leisure
rather than in conspicuous consumption of goods so that it will hold true in a general way that fashions are least stable and least becoming in those communities where the principle of a conspicuous waste of goods
asserts itself most imperatively as among ourselves all this points to an antagonism between expensiveness and artistic apparel in point of practical fact
nor that of beauty alone can account for the standard of reputability requires that dress should show wasteful expenditure but all wastefulness is offensive to native taste
the psychological law has already been pointed out that all men and women perhaps even in a higher degree abhor futility whether of effort or of expenditure
much as nature was once said to abhor a vacuum but the principle of conspicuous waste requires an obviously futile expenditure and the resulting conspicuous expensiveness of dress
is therefore intrinsically ugly hence we find that in all innovations in dress each added or altered detail strives to avoid condemnation by showing some ostensible purpose
at the same time that the requirement of conspicuous waste prevents the purposefulness of these innovations from becoming anything more than a somewhat transparent pretense
even in its freest flights fashion rarely if ever gets away from a simulation of some ostensible use the ostensible usefulness of the fashionable details of dress however
is always so transparent a make believe and their substantial futility presently forces itself so baldly upon our attention as to become unbearable and then we take refuge in a new style
and the only remedy which the law of waste allows us is to seek relief in some new construction equally futile and equally untenable
as indicated in the last chapter the canon of reputability to some extent shapes our tastes
so that under its guidance anything will be accepted as becoming until its novelty wears off or until the warrant of reputability is transferred to a new and novel structure serving the same general purpose
when seen in the perspective of half a dozen years or more the best of our fashions strike us as grotesque if not unsightly our transient attachment to whatever happens to be the latest rests on other than aesthetic grounds
and lasts only until our abiding aesthetic sense has had time to assert itself and reject this latest indigestible contrivance the process of developing an aesthetic nausea takes more or less time
affords ground for the inference that the more rapidly the styles succeed and displace one another the more offensive they are to sound taste the presumption therefore is that the farther the community
especially the wealthy classes of the community develop in wealth and mobility and in the range of their human contact the more imperatively will the law of conspicuous waste assert itself in matters of dress
will be the varying styles that successively come into vogue there remains at least one point in this theory of dress yet to be discussed most of what has been said applies to men's attire as well as to that of women
as has been seen in the discussion of woman's status under the heads of vicarious leisure and vicarious consumption it has in the course of economic development become the office of the woman to consume vicariously for the head of the household
to impress upon the beholder the fact often indeed a fiction that the wearer does not and can not habitually engage in useful work propriety requires respectable women to abstain more consistently from useful effort and to make
and of which she should be the chief ornament
this feature taken in conjunction with the other fact that propriety requires more unremitting attention to expensive display in the dress and other paraphernalia of women goes to enforce the view already implied in what has gone before
by virtue of its descent from a patriarchal past our social system makes it the woman's function in an especial degree to put in evidence her household's ability to pay according to the modern civilized scheme of life
the good name of the household to which she belongs should be the special care of the woman
is therefore the woman's sphere in the ideal scheme as it tends to realize itself in the life of the higher pecuniary classes this attention to conspicuous waste of substance and effort
came to be part of the services required of them the women being not their own masters obvious expenditure and leisure on their part would redound to the credit of their master rather than to their own credit and therefore
the more expensive and the more obviously unproductive the women of the household are the more creditable and more effective for the purpose of reputability of the household or its head will their life be
and for sufficient reason conspicuous waste and conspicuous leisure are reputable because they are evidence of pecuniary strength pecuniary strength is reputable or honorific because in the last analysis
so then wherever wasteful expenditure and the show of abstention from effort is normally or on an average carried to the extent of showing obvious discomfort or voluntarily induced physical disability
there the immediate inference is that the individual in question does not perform this wasteful expenditure and undergo this disability for her own personal gain in pecuniary repute
to apply this generalization to women's dress and put the matter in concrete terms the high heel the skirt the impracticable bonnet the corset and the general disregard
of the wearer's comfort which is an obvious feature of all civilized women's apparel are so many items of evidence to the effect that in the modern civilized scheme of life the woman is still in theory the economic dependent of the man
the homely reason for all this conspicuous leisure and attire on the part of women lies in the fact that they are servants to whom in the differentiation of economic functions
according to the ideal scheme of the pecuniary culture the lady of the house is the chief menial of the household besides servants currently recognized as such there is at least one other class of persons whose garb
assimilates them to the class of servants and shows many of the features that go to make up the womanliness of woman's dress this is the priestly class priestly vestments show in accentuated form
all the features that have been shown to be evidence of a servile status and a vicarious life even more strikingly than the everyday habit of the priest the vestments properly so called are ornate
grotesque inconvenient and at least ostensibly comfortless to the point of distress the priest is at the same time expected to refrain from useful effort and when before the public eye
to present an impassively disconsolate countenance very much after the manner of a well trained domestic servant the shaven face of the priest is a further item to the same effect
this assimilation of the priestly class to the class of body servants in demeanor and apparel is due to the similarity of the two classes as regards economic function in economic theory the priest is a body servant
constructively in attendance upon the person of the divinity whose livery he wears his livery is of a very expensive character as it should be in order to set forth in a beseeming manner the dignity of his exalted master
but it is contrived to show that the wearing of it contributes little or nothing to the physical comfort of the wearer for it is an item of vicarious consumption
and the repute which accrues from its consumption is to be imputed to the absent master not to the servant the line of demarcation between the dress of women priests and servants on the one hand and of men on the other hand
is not always consistently observed in practice but it will scarcely be disputed that it is always present in a more or less definite way in the popular habits of thought
to the extent of arraying themselves in apparel that is obviously designed to vex the mortal frame but everyone recognizes without hesitation that such apparel for men is a departure from the normal
and one sometimes hears the remark that such or such an exquisitely attired gentleman is as well dressed as a footman certain apparent discrepancies under this theory of dress merit a more detailed examination
especially as they mark a more or less evident trend in the later and maturer development of dress the vogue of the corset offers an apparent exception from the rule of which it has here been cited as an illustration
a closer examination however will show that this apparent exception is really a verification of the rule that the vogue of any given element or feature in dress rests on its utility as an evidence of pecuniary standing
the holiday use of the contrivance is due to imitation of a higher class canon of decency upwards from this low level of indigence and manual labor the corset was until within a generation or two
nearly indispensable to a socially blameless standing for all women including the wealthiest and most reputable this rule held so long as there still was no large class of people wealthy enough to be above the imputation
of any necessity for manual labor and at the same time large enough to form a self sufficient isolated social body
enforced by the current opinion of the class alone but now there has grown up a large enough leisure class possessed of such wealth that any aspersion on the score of enforced manual employment would be idle and harmless calumny
and the corset has therefore in large measure fallen into disuse within this class the exceptions under this rule of exemption from the corset are more apparent than real
they are the wealthy classes of countries with a lower industrial structure
which have recently and rapidly risen into opulence if the word be used as a technical term without any odious implication it may be said that the corset persists in great measure through the period of snobbery
wherever and so long as it serves its purpose as an evidence of honorific leisure by arguing physical disability in the wearer the same rule of course applies to other mutilations and contrivances
for decreasing the visible efficiency of the individual something similar should hold true with respect to divers items of conspicuous consumption and indeed something of the kind does seem to hold to a slight degree of sundry features of dress
especially if such features involve a marked discomfort or appearance of discomfort to the wearer during the past one hundred years there is a tendency perceptible in the development of men's dress especially
to discontinue methods of expenditure and the use of symbols of leisure which must have been irksome which may have served a good purpose in their time but the continuation of which among the upper classes today would be a work of supererogation
as for instance the use of powdered wigs and of gold lace and the practice of constantly shaving the face there has of late years been some slight recrudescence of the shaven face in polite society
and it may fairly be expected to go the way of the powdered wig of our grandfathers these indices and others which resemble them in point of the boldness with which they point out to all observers the habitual uselessness of those persons who employ them
the method of advertisement undergoes a refinement when a sufficiently large wealthy class has developed who have the leisure for acquiring skill in interpreting the subtler signs of expenditure loud dress becomes offensive to people of taste
as evincing an undue desire to reach and impress the untrained sensibilities of the vulgar to the individual of high breeding it is only the more honorific esteem accorded by the cultivated sense of the members of his own high class
that is of material consequence since the wealthy leisure class has grown so large or the contact of the leisure class individual with members of his own class has grown so wide
the result of all this is a refinement of methods a resort to subtler contrivances and a spiritualization of the scheme of symbolism in dress
the ability to pay is put in evidence by means which require a progressively nicer discrimination in the beholder
what though my words glance sideways from the thing which i would utter in thine ear my sire truth in the inward parts thou dost desire wise hunger not a fitness fine of speech
the little child that clamouring fails to reach with upstretched hand the fringe of her attire yet meets the mother's hand down hurrying
even when their foolish words they turned on him he did not his disciples send away he knew their hearts were foolish eyes were dim and therefore by his side needs must they stay thou will not lord send me away from thee
moon sun and wildest comets that do trail a crowd of small worlds for a swiftness tail up from thy depths in me my child heart bring the child alone inherits anything
thy great deliverance is a greater thing than purest imagination can foregrasp a thing beyond all conscious hungering beyond all hope that makes the poet sing it takes the clinging world undoes its clasp
floats it afar upon a mighty sea and leaves us quiet with love and liberty and thee six through all the fog through all earth's wintery sighs
i scent thy spring i feel the eternal air warm soft and dewy filled with flowery eyes and gentle murmuring motions everywhere of life in heart and tree and brook and moss thy breath wakes beauty love and bliss and prayer
and strength to hang with nails upon thy cross seven if thou hadst closed my life in seed and husk and cast me into soft warm damp dark mould
all unaware of light come through the dusk i yet should feel the split of each shelly fold should feel the growing of my prisoned heart and dully dream of being slow unrolled and in some other vagueness taking part
and little as the world i should foreknow up into which i was about to rise its rains its radiance airs and warmth and skies how it would greet me how its wind would blow
as little it may be i do know the good which i for years half darkling have pursued the second birth for which my nature cries
the life that knows not patient waits nor longs i know and would be patient yet would long i can be patient for all coming songs but let me sing my one monotonous song
to me the time is slow my mould among to quicker life i fain would spur and start the aching growth at my dull swelling heart
now have i many a mighty hope in thee then shall i rest although the universe should quake eleven haste to me lord when this fool heart of mine begins to gnaw itself with selfish craving
or like a foul thing scarcely worth the saving swoln up with wrath desireth vengeance fine haste lord to help when reason favours wrong haste when thy soul the high born thing divine is torn by passion's raving maniac throng
fair freshness of the god breathed spirit air pass through my soul and make it strong to love wither with gracious cold what demons dare shoot from my hell into my world above
let them drop down like leaves the sun doth sear and flutter far into the inane and bare leaving my middle earth calm wise and clear thirteen
even thou canst give me neither thought nor thing were it the priceless pearl hid in the land which if i fix thereon a greedy gaze becomes not poison that doth burn and cling
their own bad look my foolish eyes doth daze they see the gift see not the giving hand from the living root the apple dead i wring fourteen this versing
even the reading of the tale that brings my heart its joy unspeakable sometimes will softly unsuspectedly hale that heart from thee and all its pulses quell
discovery's pride joy's bliss take aback my sail and sweep me from thy presence and my grace because my eyes dropped from the master's face fifteen afresh i seek thee
lead me once more i pray even should it be against my will thy way let me not feel thee foreign any hour or shrink from thee as an estranged power through doubt through faith through bliss through stark dismay
through sunshine wind or snow or fog or shower draw me to thee who art my only day sixteen i would go near thee but i cannot press into thy presence it helps not to presume
thy doors are deeds the handles are their doing he whose day life is obedient righteousness who after failure or a poor success rises up stronger effort yet renewing he finds thee lord at length in his own common room
alas the moment i turn to my heart feeling runs out of doors or stands apart but such as i am lord take me as thou art
the word he then did speak fits now as then for the same kind of men doth mock at it god fools god drunkards these do call the men who think the poverty of their all not fit borne humbly by their art their voice their pen
save for its allness at thy feet to fling for whom all is unfit that is not everything nineteen o christ my life possess me utterly take me and make a little christ of me
tis hard for man to rouse his spirit up it is the human creative agony though but to hold the heart an empty cup or tighten on the team the rigid rein many will rather lie among the slain than creep through narrow ways the light to gain
than wake the will and be born bitterly
submiss and ready to the making will athirst and empty for god's breath to fill
all times are thine whose will is our remede man turns to thee thou hast not turned away the look he casts thy labour that did breed it is thy work thy business all the day
that look not foregone fitness thou dost heed for duty absolute how be fitter than now or learn by shunning lord i come help thou
ever above my coldness and my doubt rises up something reaching forth a hand this thing i know but cannot understand is it the god in me that rises out beyond my self trailing it up with him
towards the spirit home the freedom land beyond my conscious ken my near horizon's brim twenty four o god of man my heart would worship all my fellow men the flashes from thy fire
them in good sooth my lofty kindred call born of the same one heart the perfect sire love of my kind alone can set me free help me to welcome all that come to me not close my doors and dream solitude liberty
a loving word may set some door ajar where seemed no door and that may enter in which lay at the heart of that same loving word in my still chamber dwell thou always lord thy presence there will carriage true afford
and there thou mov'st in paths to us unknown out of strange strife thy peace is strangely wrought if the lion in us pray thou answerest the lamb twenty seven
so bound in selfishness am i so chained i know it must be glorious to be free but know not what full fraught the word doth mean by loss on loss i have severely gained wisdom enough my slavery to see
but liberty pure absolute serene no freest visioned slave has ever seen twenty eight for that great freedom how should such as i be able to imagine in such a self
freedom is to be like thee face and heart to know it lord i must be as thou art i cannot breed the imagination high
yet hints come to me from the realm unknown airs drift across the twilight border land odoured with life and as from some far strand sea murmured whispers to my heart are blown that fill me with a joy i cannot speak
o christ who didst appear in judah land thence by the cross go back to god's right hand plain history and things our sense beyond in thee together come and correspond
how rulest thou from the undiscovered bourne the world wise world that laughs thee still to scorn please lord let thy disciple understand
tis heart on heart thou rulest thou art the same at god's right hand as here exposed to shame and therefore workest now as thou didst then feeding the faint divine in humble men through all thy realms from thee goes out heart power
thou know'st how very hard it is to be how hard to rouse faint will not yet reviving to do the pure thing trusting all to thee to hold thou art there for all no face we see
that thou art nearer now than when eye seen on earth
have pity on us for the look of things when blank denial stares us in the face although the serpent mask have lied before it fascinates the bird that darkling sings and numbs the little prayer bird's beating wings
if through the darkness come no knocking to our door four if we might sit until the darkness go possess our souls in patience perhaps we might
but there is always something to be done and no heart left to do it to and fro the dull thought surges as the driven waves fight in gulfy channels oh victorious one give strength to rise go out and meet thee in the night
stumbling through the night to my dim lattice o calling christ i go and out into the dark look for thy star crowned head
there are who come to me and write and send whom i would love giving good things to all but friend that name i cannot on them spend tis from the centre of self love they call for cherishing
in my best times i long after thy will and think it glorious dear even in my worst perforce my will to thine is bent
until even to the soul with self love wan i yield the primal love that no return desires nine only no word of mine must ever foster the self that in a brother's bosom gnaws
i may not fondle failing nor the boaster encourage with the breath of my applause weakness needs pity sometimes love's rebuke strength only sympathy deserves and draws and grows by every faithful loving look
tis but as men draw nigh to thee my lord they can draw nigh each other and not hurt who with the gospel of thy peace are girt the belt from which doth hang the spirit's sword shall breathe on dead bones and the bones shall live
sweet poison to the evil self shall give and clean themselves lift men clean from the mire abhorred eleven my lord i have no clothes to come to thee
my shoes are pierced and broken with the road i am torn and weathered wounded with the goad and soiled with tugging at my weary load the more i need thee a very prodigal i stagger into thy presence lord of me
one look my christ and at thy feet i fall twelve why should i still hang back like one in a dream who vainly strives to clothe himself aright that in great presence he may seemly seem
why call up feeling dress me in the faint worn faded cast off nimbus of some saint why of old mood bring back a ghostly gleam while there he waits love's heart and loss's blight
thirteen son of the father elder brother mine see thy poor brother's plight see how he stands defiled and feeble hanging down his hands make me clean brother with thy burning shine
from thy rich treasures householder divine bring forth fair garments old and new i pray and like thy brother dress me in the old home bred way
my prayer bird was cold would not away
yea than the blue of heaven that ever flees us yet simple as the cry of sore hurt child or as his shout with sudden gladness wild when home from school he runs till morn set free
if i were sure thou father verily art true father of the nazarene as true sure as i am of my wife's shielding heart sure as of sunrise in the watching blue
but i must know thee in a deeper way than any of these ways or know thee not my heart at peace far loftier proof must lay than if the wind thou me the wave didst roll than if i lay before thee a sunny spot
no wind clasped ever a low meadow flower so close that as to nearness it could show thee no rainbow so makes one the sun and shower a something with thee i am a nothing fro thee because i am not save as i am in thee
my soul is ever setting out to win thee
i know not how for that i first must know thee i know i know thee not as i would know thee for my heart burns like theirs that did not know him till he broke bread and therein they must know him
i know thee knowing that i do not know thee nor ever shall till one with me i know thee even as thy son the eternal man doth know thee
creation under me in and above slopes upward from the base a pyramid on whose point i shall stand at last and love from the first rush of vapour at thy will to the last poet word that darkness chid thou hast been sending up creation's hill
to lift thy souls aloft in faithful godhead free
i think my thought and fancy i think thee lord wake me up rend swift my coffin planks i pray thee let me live alive and free my soul will break forth in melodious thanks
aware at last what thou wouldst have it be when thy life shall be light in me and when my life to thine is answer and amen
how oft i say the same things in these lines even as a man buried in during dark turns ever where the edge of twilight shines prays ever towards the vague eternal mark or as the sleeper having dreamed he drinks
back straightway into thirstful dreaming sinks so turns my will to thee for thee still longs still pines twenty four the mortal man all careful wise and troubled
the eternal child in the nursery doth keep to morrow on to day the man heaps doubled
the man rebukes the child for foolish trust the child replies thy care is for poor dust be still and let me wake that thou mayst sleep
till i am one with oneness manifold i must breed contradiction strife and doubt things tread thy court look real take proving hold my christ is not yet grown to cast them out
alas to me false judging twixt the twain the unseen oft fancy seems while all about the seen doth lord it with a mighty train twenty six but when the will hath learned obedience royal
he straight will set the child upon the throne to whom the seen things all grown instant loyal will gather to his feet in homage prone the child their master they have ever known then shall the visible fabric plainly lean on a reality that never can be seen
oft in the night oft at mid day when all is still around sudden will rise in dim pathetic light some childish memory of household bliss or sorrow by love's service robed and crowned rich in his love
she yet will sometimes miss the mother's folding arms the mother's sealing kiss twenty nine then first i think our eldest born although loving devoted tender watchful dear
the innermost of home bred love shall know yea when at last the janitor draws near a still pale joy will through the darkness go at thought of lying in those arms again which once were heaven enough for any pain
by love doth love grow mighty in its love once thou shalt love us child as we love thee
but like a virtuous medicine self diffused through all men's hearts thy love shall sink and float till every feeling false and thought unwise selfish and seeking shall sternly disused wither and die and shrivel up to nought
and christ whom they did hang twixt earth and skies up in the inner world of men arise
make me a fellow worker with thee christ nought else befits a god born energy of all that's lovely only lives the highest lifing the rest that it shall never die
but walkest crowned creation's heart and bloom six my god when i would lift my heart to thee imagination instantly doth set a cloudy something thin and vast and vague
to stand for him who is the fact of me then up the will and doth her weakness plague to pay the heart her duty and her debt showing the face that hearkeneth to the plea
and hence it comes that thou at times dost seem to fade into an image of my mind i dreamer cover hide thee up with dream thee primal individual entity no likeness will i seek to frame or find
but cry to that which thou dost choose to be to that which is my sight therefore i cannot see
i see yet fathom not the face he wore he is and out of him there is no stuff to make a man let fail me every spark of blissful vision on my pathway rough i have seen much and trust the perfect more
while to his feet my faith crosses the wayless dark
to share in the outgoing will that lives and is because outgoing still ten i am lost before thee father yet i will claim of thee my birthright ineffable
less than the gift to claim would be the giver to scorn eleven henceforth all things thy dealings are with me for out of thee is nothing or can be and all things are to draw us home to thee
they will not therefore cannot do not know him nothing they could know could be god in sooth unto the true alone exists the truth they say well saying nature doth not show him truly she shows not what she cannot show
and they deny the thing they cannot know who sees a glory towards it will go thirteen faster no step moves god because the fool shouts to the universe god there is none
the blindest man will not preach out the sun though on his darkness he should found a school it may be when he finds he is not dead though world and body sight and sound are fled some eyes may open in his foolish head
when i am very weary with hard thought and yet the question burns and is not quenched my heart grows cool when to remembrance wrought that thou who know'st the light born answer sought
is but a fool who judgment of true things has none however oft the claim renewed and he who thinks in his great plenitude to right himself and set his spirit free without the might of higher communings is foolish also save he willed himself to be
how many helps thou giv'st to those would learn to some sore pain to others a sinking heart to some a weariness worse than any smart to some a haunting fearing blind concern madness to some
to some the shaking dart of hideous death still following as they turn to some a hunger that will not depart
to some a bitter sorrow to some the sting of love misprized of sick abandoning to some a frozen heart oh worse than anything
to some a mocking demon that doth set the poor foiled will to scoff at the ideal but loathsome makes to them their life of jar the messengers of satan think to mar but make driving the soul from false to feal
in whom alone the would be and the is are met nineteen me thou hast given an infinite unrest a hunger not at first after known good but something vague i knew not and yet would
and something deeper that will not be expressed save as the spirit thinking in the spirit's brood
but now the spirit and i are one in this my hunger now is after righteousness my spirit hopes in god to set me free from the low self loathed of the higher me great elder brother of my second birth
dear o'er all names but one in heaven or earth teach me all day to love eternally
lo lord thou know'st i would not anything that in the heart of god holds not its root nor falsely deem there is any life at all that doth in him nor sleep nor shine nor sing
i know the plants that bear the noisome fruit of burning and of ashes and of gall from god's heart torn rootless to man's they cling
life giving love rots to devouring fire justice corrupts to despicable revenge motherhood chokes in the dam's jealous mire hunger for growth turns fluctuating change love's anger grand grows spiteful human wrath
hunting men out of conscience holy path and human kindness takes the tattler's range
nothing can draw the heart of man but good low good it is that draws him from the higher so evil poison uncreate from food never a foul thing with temptation dire tempts hellward force created to aspire
give me thine indignation which is love turned on the evil that would part love's throng thy anger scathes because it needs must bless gathering into union calm and strong all things on earth and under and above
make my forgiveness downright such as i should perish if i did not have from thee i let the wrong go withered up and dry cursed with divine forgetfulness in me tis but self pity pleasant mean and sly
low whispering bids the paltry memory live what am i brother for but to forgive twenty seven thou art my father's child come to my heart thus must i say or thou must say depart
thus i would say i would be as thou art thus i must say or still i work athwart the absolute necessity and law that dwells in me and will me asunder draw if in obedience i leave any flaw
lord i forgive and step in unto thee if i have enemies christ deal with them he hath forgiven me and jerusalem lord set me from self inspiration free
and let me live and think from thee not me rather from deepest me then think and feel at centre of thought's swift revolving wheel twenty nine i sit o'ercanopied with beauty's tent
through which flies many a golden winged dove well watched of fancy's tender eyes up bent a hundred powers wait on me ministering a thousand treasures art and knowledge bring will conscience reason tower the rest above
but in the midst alone i gladness am and love
tis but a vision lord i do not mean that thus i am or have one moment been tis but a picture hung upon my wall to measure dull contentment therewithal and know behind the human how i fall
and i too she said have besought my precious saviour to be the god of my children also from their birth what do you intend to call your son what do you she asked smiling up at him horace for your father if you like
and i had thought of edward for his father and yours horace edward will that do i am satisfied if you are but edward would do for the next but he may never come to claim it she said laughing is papa in the house
yes and delighted to learn that he has a grandson oh bring him here and let me see the first meeting between them can you bear the excitement i promise not to be excited and it always does me good to see my dear father
mister dinsmore came softly in kissed very tenderly the pale face on the pillow then took a long look at the tiny pink one nestling to her side ah isn't he a beauty
i have made you two grand fathers now you dear papa she said indulging in a little jest to keep down the emotions tugging at her heart strings
not very he said smiling and softly smoothing her hair not more so to day than i did yesterday but now i must leave you to rest and sleep try my darling for all our sakes to be very prudent very calm and quiet
i will papa and don't trouble about me you know i am in good hands
but she shall kiss her mamma dear precious little pet elsie said please hold her close for a minute papa and let her kiss her mother he complied under protest in which mister dinsmore joined that he feared it would be too much for her
and the soft baby hands patted the wan cheeks the tiny rosebud mouth was pressed again and again to the pale lips with rapturous cooings mamma mamma there pet that will do said her father now see what mamma has for you
look mother's darling elsie said with a glad smile exposing to view the tiny face by her side baby cried the little girl with a joyous shout clapping her chubby hands pretty baby elsie take and the small arms were held out entreatingly
no elsie is too little to hold it said her papa but she may kiss it very softly the child availed herself of the permission then gently patting the newcomer repeated her glad cry baby pretty baby elsie's little brother said her mamma tenderly
now dearest let mammy take her away she added sinking back on her pillows with a weary sigh
one more kiss papa before you go and then i'll try to sleep elsie did not recover so speedily and entirely as before after the birth of her first babe and those to whom she was so dear grew anxious and troubled about her
you want change daughter mister dinsmore said coming in one morning
i think i do papa she answered brightening edward took me for a short drive yesterday and i felt better for it
ah papa how nice to go back and feel at home in my own father's house again she said softly stroking his head with her thin white hand as he bent over her the sweet soft eyes gazing full into his brimming over with love and joy
i shall go if edward doesn't object i'd like to start this minute but you haven't told me how poor mamma is to day not well not very much stronger than you are i fear he answered with a slight sigh but your coming will do her a world of good where is travilla
she ran to her mother with a bouquet of lovely sweet scented spring blossoms they had been gathering for mamma thank you mother's darling elsie said accepting the gift and tenderly caressing the giver you and papa too but see who is here the child turned to look and with a joyous cry
grandpa's own wee pet he said hugging the little form close and covering the baby face with kisses will you come and live with grandpa in his home for awhile
oh yes yes indeed mamma and papa too baby yes baby and mammies and all will you come may elsie mamma yes pet we will all go if your papa is willing
he would never deny her any good in his power to bestow i have been proposing to my daughter to take possession again for as long a time as she finds it convenient and agreeable of her old suite of rooms at the oaks
i think the change would do her good and perhaps you and the little ones also mister dinsmore explained thank you i think it would when will you go little wife papa proposes taking me at once my carriage is at the door
ah yes then take elsie with you and i will follow shortly with children and servants there is no reason in the world why she should not go if she wishes and stay as long as she likes the change proved beneficial to elsie
it was so pleasant to find herself again a member of her father's family
here too absent from the scenes so closely associated with the memory of her beloved mother in law she dwelt less upon her loss while at the same time she was entertained and cheered by constant intercourse with father rose
and young brother and sister it was indeed a cheering thing to all parties to be thus brought together for a time as one family in delightful social intercourse
yet though the invalids improved in spirits and to some extent in other respects they did not regain their usual strength and the physicians recommending travel particularly a sea voyage it was finally decided to again visit europe for an indefinite period
the length of their stay to depend upon circumstances it was in june eighteen sixty they left their homes and traveling northward paid a short visit to relatives and friends in philadelphia then took the steamer for europe
a few weeks later found them cozily established in a handsome villa overlooking the beautiful bay of naples they formed but one family here as at the oaks each couple having their own private suite of apartments
while all other rooms were used in common and their meals taken together an arrangement preferred by all mister dinsmore and his daughter especially rejoicing in it as giving them almost as much of each other's society as before her marriage
in this lovely spot they planned to remain for some months
yes and more than half starved especially my friend here captain allison of the but the sentence was left unfinished for at that instant harold reeled and would have fallen but for the strong arm of another officer quickly outstretched to save him
he soon recovered from his faintness but was found to be totally unfit for duty and sent to the hospital at washington where he was placed in a bed adjoining that of his brother richard and allowed to share with him in the attentions of doctor king
miss lottie and his own sister may how they all wept over him reduced almost to a skeleton so wan so weak so aged in those few short months he recognized his brother and sister with a faint smile a murmured word or two
then sank into a state of semi stupor from which he roused only when spoken to relapsing into it again immediately slowly very slowly medical skill and tender careful nursing told upon his exhausted frame
till at length he seemed to awake to new life began to notice what was going on about him was able to take part in a cheerful chat now and then and became eager for news from home and of the progress of the war months had passed away
in the meantime richard had returned to camp and harry duncan wounded in a late battle now occupied his deserted bed in the hospital harry was suffering but in excellent spirits
cheer up allison he said you and i will never go back to andersonville the war can't last much longer and we may consider the union saved
each bearing a tray with a delicious little lunch upon it miss lottie i'm almost tempted to say it pays to be ill or wounded that one may be tended by fair ladies hands
ah that speech should have come from mister allison for may is fair and her hands are white while mine are brown she answered demurely as she set her tray within his reach may doing the same for harold none the less beautiful miss king returned duncan gallantly
many a whiter hand is not half so shapely or so useful now reward me for that pretty compliment by coaxing your father to get me well as fast as possible that i may have a share in the taking of richmond
but i'll do my part with coddling write all your letters for you business friendship love and do anything else desired if in my power you're very good he said with a furtive glance at may who seemed to see or hear nothing but her brother
who was asking about the last news from home very good indeed miss king especially as regards the love letters i presume it would not be necessary for me even to be at the trouble of dictating them oh no certainly not
joking aside i shall be greatly obliged if you will write to aunt wealthy to day for me with pleasure especially as i can tell her your wound is not a dangerous one and you will not lose a limb but do tell me
what did you poor fellows get to eat at andersonville well one week's daily ration consisted of one pint of corn meal ground up cob and all together four ounces of mule meat
generally spoiled and emitting anything but an appetizing odor but then we were not troubled with want of
for our meals hunger yes we'd plenty of that always in addition to the corn meal and meat we had a half pint of peas full of bugs oh you poor creatures i hope it was a little better the alternate week
just the same except in lieu of the corn meal we had three square inches of corn bread is it jest or earnest asked lottie appealing to harold dead earnest miss king and for medicine we had sumac and white oak bark no matter what ailed you
oh yes that made no difference to harry's impatience the winter wore slowly away while he was confined within the hospital walls yet the daily almost hourly sight of may allison's sweet face and the sound of her musical voice
went far to reconcile him to this life of inactivity and inglorious ease as he termed it in his moments of restless longing to be again in the field by the last of march
this ardent desire was granted and he hurried away in fine spirits leaving may pale and tearful but with a ring on her finger that had not been there before ah said lottie pointing to it with a merry twinkle in her eye and passing her arm about may's waist
it is good of you whispered may laying her wet cheek on her friend's shoulder and i'm ever so glad you're to be my sister and won't aunt wealthy rejoice over you as over a mine of gold
poor harold sitting pale and weak upon the side of his cot longing to be with his friend sharing his labors and perils
a familiar step drew near and doctor king laid his hand on the young man's shoulder cheer up my dear boy he said we are trying to get you leave to go home for thirty days and the war will be over before the time expires so that you will not have to come back
home and harold's eye brightened for a moment yes i should like to die at home with mother and father brothers and sisters about me but you are not going to die just yet returned the doctor with assumed gayety and home and mother will do wonders for you
doctor king and the blue eyes looked up calmly and steadily into the physician's face please tell me exactly what you think of my case is there any hope of recovery you may improve very much i think you will when you get home
and though there is little hope of the entire recovery of your former health and strength you may live for years but it is likely i shall not live another year do not be afraid to say so i should rather welcome the news am i not right
a moment's silence and harold said thank you it is what i have suspected for some time and it causes me no regret save for the sake of those who love me and will grieve over my early death
but don't forget that there is still a possibility of recuperation while there's life there's hope
the doctor passed on to another patient and harold was again left to the companionship of his own thoughts but not for long they were presently broken in upon by the appearance of may with a very bright face see she cried joyously holding up a package
letters from home and naples too rose writes to mamma and she has enclosed the letter for our benefit then let us enjoy it together sit here and read it to me will you my eyes are rather weak you know and i see the ink is pale but mamma's note to you
can wait its turn i always like to keep the best till the last harold hardly acknowledged to himself that he was very eager to hear news from elsie even more than to read the loving words from his mother's pen
very well then there seems to be no secret said may glancing over the contents and seating herself by his side she began after speaking of some other matters rose went on
but i have kept my greatest piece till now our family is growing we have another grandson who arrived about two weeks ago harold allison travilla by name elsie is doing finely the sleepy little newcomer is greatly admired and loved by old and young
my husband and i are growing quite patriarchal elsie is the loveliest and the best of mothers perfectly devoted to her children so patient and so tender so loving and gentle and yet so firm
mister travilla and she are of one mind in regard to their training requiring as prompt and cheerful obedience as horace always has yet exceedingly indulgent wherever indulgence can do no harm
one does not often see so well trained and yet so merry and happy a family of little folks tell our harold my poor dear brother that we hope his name child will be an honor to him are you not pleased asked may pausing to look up at him
yes he answered with a quiet rather melancholy smile they are very kind to remember me so i hope they will soon bring the little fellow to see me ah i knew elsie would make just such a lovely mother
nothing about the time of their return observed may as she finished reading but they will hardly linger long after the close of the war may had left the room and harold lay languid and weak upon his cot a confederate officer occupying the next addressed him
rousing him out of the reverie into which he had fallen excuse me sir but i could not help hearing some parts of the letter read aloud by the lady your sister i believe yes of course you could not help hearing and there is no harm done harold answered with a friendly tone and smile
so no need for apologies but there is something else did you know anything of a lieutenant walter dinsmore belonging to our side who fell in the battle of shiloh yes knew and loved him exclaimed harold raising himself on his elbow
and turning a keenly interested questioning gaze upon the stranger then it is it must be the same family said the latter half to himself half to harold same as what sir that letter
i could not help hearing was dated naples signed rose dinsmore and talked of elsie mister travilla and their children now lieutenant dinsmore told me he had a brother residing temporarily in naples and also a niece a missus elsie travilla
i would have it forwarded to her when an opportunity offered will you sir take charge of it and see that it reaches the lady's hands with pleasure how glad she will be to get it for she loved walter dearly they were near of an age
yes the uncle a trifle younger than the niece dinsmore and i were together almost constantly during the last six months of his life and became very intimate my haversack smith if you please addressing a nurse it was brought
opened and a small package taken from it and given to harold he gazed upon it with sad thoughtfulness for a moment then bestowing it safely in his breast pocket
shakespeare's julius caesar
and the opening spring witnessed no abatement of the fearful strife daring all these months nothing unusual had occurred in the family of our friends at naples but one lovely morning in april a sweet floweret blossomed among them bringing joy and gladness to all hearts
our little violet elsie said smiling up at the happy face of her husband as he bent over her and the babe she has come to us just as her namesakes in america are lifting their pretty heads among the grass thank you darling he answered softly touching his lips to her cheek
i should be so glad dear mother's was as lovely a character as i ever knew
and who is sufficient for these things our sufficiency is of god and he has promised wisdom to those who ask it what a comfort i should like to show this pretty one to walter where is he now i wonder poor fellow
ah though she knew it not he was then lying cold in death upon the bloody field of shiloh there had been news now and then from their northern friends and relatives richard allison had recovered from his wound and was again in the field
edward was with the army also harold too and philip ross lucy was like many others who had strong ties in both sections and their armies well nigh distracted with grief and fear
from their relatives in the south the last news received had been that of the death of dick percival nor did any further news reach there until the next november
then they heard that enna had been married again to another confederate officer about a year after her first husband's death that walter had fallen at shiloh that arthur was killed in the battle of luka and that his mother
hearing of it just as she was convalescing from an attack of fever had a relapse and died a few days after great was the grief of all for walter mister dinsmore mourned very much for his father also left thus almost alone in his declining years
oh cried elsie as she wept over walter's loss what would i not give to know that he was ready for death but surely we may rejoice in the hope that he was since we have offered so much united prayer for him yes returned her father
for if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask it shall be done for them of my father which is in heaven and god's promises are all yea and amen in christ jesus
papa said horace how can it be that good christian men are fighting and killing each other it is a very strange thing my son yet undoubtedly true that there are many true christians on both sides
they do not see alike and each is defending what he believes a righteous cause listen all said missus dinsmore who was reading a letter from daisy her youngest sister richard is ill in the hospital at washington and may has gone on to nurse him
and has lottie with him she will be company for our may don't worry about ritchie may writes that he is getting better fast rose smiled as she read the last sentence what is it mamma asked elsie
nothing much only i was thinking how greatly ritchie seemed to admire miss king at the time of the wedding well if he loses his heart i hope he will get another in exchange why sister elsie how could uncle ritchie lose his heart
did they shoot a hole so it might drop out queried rosebud in wide eyed wonder i hope the doctors will sew up the place quick fore it does fall out she added with a look of deep concern
poor dear uncle wal is killed she sobbed and uncle art too and i don't want all my uncles to die or to be killed we will ask god to take care of them dear daughter said rose caressing the little weeper and we know that he is able to do it
one day in the following january eighteen sixty three the gentlemen went into the city for a few hours leaving their wives and children at home they returned with faces full of excitement
what news queried both ladies in a breath lincoln has issued an emancipation proclamation freeing all the blacks there was a momentary pause then rose said if it puts an end to this dreadful war i shall not be sorry nor i said elsie
perhaps you don't reflect that it takes a good deal out of our pockets remarked her father several hundred thousand from yours
if i were only sure it would add to the happiness of my poor people i should rejoice over it but i am sorely troubled to know what has or will become of them it is more than two years now since we have heard a word from viamede
it is very likely we shall find nothing but ruins on all our plantations viamede the oaks ion and roselands
with an anxious and disturbed countenance let us hope for the best mister travilla responded cheerfully the land will still be there perhaps the houses too
and if the war stops now we shall probably find them still in pretty good condition said elsie no her father said the war is not at an end or likely to be for a long time to come but we will wait in patience and hope daughter
and not grieve over losses that perhaps may bring great happiness to others are we poor now papa asked horace anxiously no son your sister is still very wealthy and we all have comfortable incomes
it did me good to see uncle joe's delight over the news mister travilla smilingly remarked to his wife ah you told him then she returned with a keen interest and pleasure yes and it threw him into a transport of joy
neber spects dis chile lib to bee freedom come then sobering down but massa we's been a prayin for it we's been crying to the good lord like the chillen ob israel when dey's in de house ob bondage
massa you ain't gwine to send us off
well dear i hope you assured him that he had nothing to fear on that score certainly i told him they were free to go or stay as they liked and as long as they were with or near us we would see that they were made comfortable
then he repeated with great earnestness that he loved us all and could never forget what you had done in restoring him to his wife and making them both so comfortable and happy
that made freedom seem so precious a boon to him
as if her very heart would break her head bowed upon her knees and the sobs half smothered lest they should disturb the child why mammy dear what is the matter she asked going to her and laying a hand tenderly on her shoulder
chloe slid to her knees and taking the soft white hand in both of hers covered it with kisses and tears while her whole frame shook with her bitter weeping
mammy dear mammy what is it elsie asked in real alarm quite forgetting for the moment the news of the morning which indeed she could never have expected to cause such distress
she lubs to b'long to her darlin young missis uncle joe he sing an jump an praise de lord cause freedom come but your ole mammy don't want no freedom she can't go for to leave you miss elsie
come get up and don't cry any more
what could i or my babies ever do without our old mammy to look after our comfort
here the whole of the men of the people together had been ruthlessly slain through the transgressions of the women in the year gone by for the men had rejected their lawful wives loathing them and had conceived a fierce passion for captive maids
whom they themselves brought across the sea from their forays in thrace for the terrible wrath of cypris came upon them because for a long time they had grudged her the honours due
o hapless women and insatiate in jealousy to their own ruin not their husbands alone with the captives did they slay on account of the marriage bed but all the males at the same time
that they might thereafter pay no retribution for the grim murder
who was king over the people and she sent him in a hollow chest to drift over the sea if haply he should escape and fishermen dragged him to shore at the island of oenoe
but afterwards called sicinus from sicinus
now for all the women to tend kine to don armour of bronze and to cleave with the plough share the wheat bearing fields was easier than the works of athena with which they were busied aforetime yet for all that did they often gaze over the broad sea
but its fixed doom is to be ever changing its abode at one time to be numbered among the dwellers beneath the earth at another to be in the light of the sun among living men
bowed over a staff and she was eager to address them near her were seated four virgins unwedded
when the aged women die off and ye younger ones without children reach hateful old age how then will ye live hapless ones
will your oxen of their own accord yoke themselves for the deep plough lands and draw the earth cleaving share through the fallow and forthwith as the year comes round reap the harvest assuredly though the fates till now have shunned me in horror
i deem that in the coming year i shall put on the garment of earth when i have received my meed of burial even so as is right
and beg yonder man whoever it is that leads this array
the one party defending themselves the others the taphian raiders longing to rob them
and they brought back hither measureless booty and maidens too but the counsel of the baneful goddess cypris was working out its accomplishment who brought upon them soul destroying infatuation for they hated their lawful wives and
yielding to their own mad folly drove them from their homes and they took to their beds the captives of their spear cruel ones long in truth we endured it if haply again though late they might change their purpose
but ever the bitter woe grew twofold and the lawful children were being dishonoured in their halls and a bastard race was rising and thus unmarried maidens and widowed mothers too wandered uncared for through the city
no father heeded his daughter ever so little even though he should see her done to death before his eyes at the hands of an insolent step dame nor did sons as before defend their mother against unseemly outrage
nor did brothers care at heart for their sister but in their homes in the dance in the assembly and the banquet all their thought was only for their captive maidens
or might depart and begone elsewhither they and their captives so they begged of us all the male children that were left in the city and went back to where even now they dwell on the snowy tilths of thrace
do ye therefore stay and settle with us and shouldst thou desire to dwell here
and i deem that thou wilt not scorn our land at all
does it please us to dwell here and plough the rich soil of lemnos no fair renown shall we win by thus tarrying so long with stranger women nor will some god seize and give us at our prayer a fleece that moves of itself
let us then return each to his own
and the women came running towards them when they knew their intent
if on thy return hereafter thou shouldst choose to come hither again and easily couldst thou gather a countless host of men from other cities but thou wilt not have this desire
since by the grace of pelias it is enough for me to dwell in my native land may the gods only release me from my toils but if it is not my destiny to sail afar and return to the land of hellas
to heal the grief of my father and mother if so be that he find them still living
under the sea beaten rock whereupon they mightily smote the water with their long oars
in order that by gentle initiation they might learn the rites that may not be uttered
on the other imbros on the south
there a strong south wind blew for them
and at dawn the sea to the north was left behind and at night
with the land of ida on their right and leaving dardania they directed their course to abydus
and the sandy beach of abarnis
earthborn a great marvel to the neighbours to behold for each one has six mighty hands to lift up two from his sturdy shoulders and four below fitting close to his terrible sides
and over them cyzicus son of aeneus was king
and the king of his own bounty gave them sweet wine and sheep in their need for he had heard a report that whenever a godlike band of heroes should come straightway he should meet it with gentle words and should have no thought of war as with jason
nor yet had it been his lot to rejoice in children but still in his palace his wife was untouched by the pangs of child birth the daughter of percosian merops
casting all fears from his heart and they questioned one another in turn of them would he learn the end of their voyage and the injunctions of pelias
he could not tell them for all their desire to learn
that they might themselves behold the various paths of that sea and they brought their ship from its former anchorage to the harbour chytus
like men lying in wait for a wild beast within but there heracles had been left behind with the younger heroes and he quickly bent his back springing bow against the monsters and brought them to earth one after another
and they in their turn raised huge ragged rocks and hurled them for these dread monsters too i ween the goddess hera bride of zeus
and therewithal came the rest of the martial heroes returning to meet the foe before they reached the height of outlook and they fell to the slaughter of the earthborn receiving them with arrows and spears until they slew them all as they rushed fiercely to battle
and as when woodcutters cast in rows upon the beach long trees just hewn down by their axes in order that once sodden with brine they may receive the strong bolts
so these monsters at the entrance of the foam fringed harbour lay stretched one after another some in heaps bending their heads and breasts into the salt waves
and they stepped ashore that same night and the rock is still called the sacred rock round which they threw the ship's hawsers in their haste nor did anyone note with care that it was the same island nor in the night did the doliones clearly perceive that the heroes were returning
therefore they donned their armour and raised their hands against them and with clashing of ashen spears and shields they fell on each other like the swift rush of fire which falls on dry brushwood and rears its crest and the din of battle terrible and furious
fell upon the people of the doliones nor was the king to escape his fate and return home from battle to his bridal chamber and bed but aeson's son leapt upon him as he turned to face him and smote him in the middle of the breast
for that no mortal may escape but on every side a wide snare encompasses us and so when he thought that he had escaped bitter death from the chiefs fate entangled him that very night in her toils while battling with them
and many champions withal were slain heracles killed telecles and megabrontes
telamon of the strong spear slew basileus and idas slew promeus and clytius hyacinthus and the two sons of tyndareus slew
all of whom the inhabitants still honour with the worship due to heroes and the rest gave way and fled in terror just as doves fly in terror before swift winged hawks and with a din they rustled in a body to the gates
and quickly the city was filled with loud cries at the turning of the dolorous fight but at dawn both sides perceived the fatal and cureless error and bitter grief seized the minyan heroes
when they saw before them cyzicus son of aeneus fallen in the midst of dust and blood
then three times round his tomb they paced in armour of bronze and performed funeral rites and celebrated games as was meet upon the meadow plain where even now rises the mound of his grave to be seen by men of a later day
but to crown the ill she wrought an ill yet more awful when she clasped a noose round her neck her death even the nymphs of the grove bewailed and of all the tears for her that they shed to earth from their eyes the goddesses made a fountain
most terrible came that day from zeus upon the doliones women and men for no one of them dared even to taste food nor for a long time by reason of grief did they take thought for the toil of the cornmill
prophesying with shrill voice the ceasing of the stormy winds and mopsus heard and understood the cry of the bird of the shore fraught with good omen and some god made it turn aside
and they loosed the hawsers from the sacred rock and rowed to the thracian harbour and the heroes climbed the mountain leaving a few of their comrades in the ship and to them the macrian heights and all the coast of thrace opposite appeared to view close at hand
and on the other side the stream of the river aesepus and the city and nepeian plain of adrasteia now there was a sturdy stump of vine that grew in the forest
this they cut down to be the sacred image of the mountain goddess and argus smoothed it skilfully and they set it upon that rugged hill beneath a canopy of lofty oaks which of all trees have their roots deepest
and near it they heaped an altar of small stones and wreathed their brows with oak leaves and paid heed to sacrifice invoking the mother of dindymum most venerable dweller in phrygia
whom once the nymph anchiale as she grasped with both hands the land of oaxus bare in the dictaean cave
and at the same time by command of orpheus the youths trod a measure dancing in full armour and clashed with their swords on their shields so that the ill omened cry might be lost in the air the wail which the people were still sending up in grief for their king
hence from that time forward the phrygians propitiate rhea with the wheel and the drum and the gracious goddess i ween inclined her heart to pious sacrifices and favourable signs appeared the trees shed abundant fruit
and round their feet the earth of its own accord put forth flowers from the tender grass and the beasts of the wild wood left their lairs and thickets and came up fawning on them with their tails
and she caused yet another marvel for hitherto there was no flow of water on dindymum but then for them an unceasing stream gushed forth from the thirsty peak just as it was
and they trusting in the calm mightily drove the ship forward and as she sped through the salt sea not even the storm footed steeds of poseidon would have overtaken her nevertheless when the sea was stirred by violent blasts
which were just rising from the rivers about evening forspent with toil they ceased but heracles by the might of his arms pulled the weary rowers along all together and made the strong knit timbers of the ship to quiver but when
then heracles as he ploughed up the furrows of the roughened surge broke his oar in the middle
hospitably welcomed and gave them in their need provisions and sheep and abundant wine hereupon some brought dried wood others from the meadows leaves for beds which they gathered in abundance for strewing
wandering about he found a pine not burdened with many branches nor too full of leaves but like to the shaft of a tall poplar so great was it both in length and thickness to look at and quickly he laid on the ground his arrow holding quiver together with his bow
and took off his lion's skin and he loosened the pine from the ground with his bronze tipped club and grasped the trunk with both hands at the bottom relying on his strength and he pressed it against his broad shoulder with legs wide apart
and clinging close he raised it from the ground deep rooted though it was
that he might be quick in drawing water for the evening meal and actively make all things ready in due order against his lord's return
goodly theiodamas whom the hero pitilessly slew among the dryopians because he withstood him about an ox for the plough theiodamas was cleaving with his plough the soil of fallow land when he was smitten with the curse
and heracles bade him give up the ploughing ox against his will for he desired to find some pretext for war against the dryopians for their bane since they dwelt there reckless of right but these tales would lead me far astray from my song
and quickly hylas came to the spring
and the dances of the nymphs were just now being held there
all they were ranged far off guarding the woods but one a water nymph was just rising from the fair flowing spring
and the boy she perceived close at hand with the rosy flush of his beauty and sweet grace for the full moon beaming from the sky smote him and cypris made her heart faint and in her confusion she could scarcely gather her spirit back to her
and the brimming water rang loud as it poured against the sounding bronze straightway she laid her left arm above
urge them to go aboard and avail themselves of the wind and they embarked eagerly forthwith and they drew up the ship's anchors and hauled the ropes astern and the sails were bellied out by the wind
and far from the coast were they joyfully borne past the posideian headland but at the hour when gladsome dawn shines from heaven rising from the east and the paths stand out clearly and the dewy plains shine with a bright gleam
then at length they were aware that unwittingly they had abandoned those men and a fierce quarrel fell upon them and violent tumult for that they had sailed and left behind the bravest of their comrades and aeson's son
bewildered by their hapless plight said never a word
hapless ones assuredly a bitter vengeance came upon them thereafter at the hands of heracles because they stayed the search for him for when they were returning from the games over pelias dead he slew them in sea girt tenos and heaped the earth round them
and placed two columns above one of which a great marvel for men to see moves at the breath of the blustering north wind these things were thus to be accomplished in after times but to them appeared glaucus from the depths of the sea
was destined to found and build a city among the mysians bearing the river's name and the other heracles to return and toil at the labours of eurystheus
and he threatened to lay waste the mysian land at once should they not discover for him the doom of hylas whether living or dead and for him they gave pledges choosing out the noblest sons of the people
therefore to this day the people of cius enquire for hylas the son of theiodamas
the sheaves of banners were unfurled at the angles of the baptistery but there was no carpet yet on the steps of the duomo
were reasons why the preaching in the duomo could least of all be dispensed with but not all the feet in the piazza were hastening towards the steps people of high and low degree were moving to and fro with the brisk pace of men who had errands before them
groups of talkers were thickly scattered some willing to be late for the sermon and others content not to hear it at all the expression on the faces of these apparent loungers was not that of men who are enjoying the pleasant laziness of an opening holiday some were in close and eager discussion
others were listening with keen interest to a single spokesman and yet from time to time turned round with a scanning glance at any new passer by
just where the artificial rainbow light of the piazza ceased and the grey morning fell on the sombre stone houses there was a remarkable cluster of the working people most of them bearing on their dress or persons the signs of their daily labour and almost all of them carrying some weapon
or some tool which might serve as a weapon upon occasion standing in the grey light of the street with bare brawny arms and soiled garments they made all the more striking the transition from the brightness of the piazza
who had just paused on his way to the duomo
but now he spoke with the more complacent humour of a man whose party is uppermost and who is conscious of some influence with the people never talk to me he was saying in his incisive voice never talk to me of bloodthirsty swiss or fierce french infantry
they might as well be in the narrow passes of the mountains as in our streets and peasants have destroyed the finest armies of our condottieri in time past when they had once got them between steep precipices i tell you florentines need be afraid of no army in their own streets
looking round as if they thought the houses of the vespucci and the agli a poor pick of lodgings for them and eyeing us florentines like top knotted cocks as they are as if they pitied us because we didn't know how to strut yes my fine galli says i
when presently the old cow lowed note one
and i knew something had happened no matter what so i threw my cloth in at the first doorway and took hold of my meat axe and ran after my fine cavaliers towards the vigna nuova and what is it guccio said i when he came up with me i think it's the medici coming back
said guccio bembe i expected so and up we reared a barricade and the frenchmen looked behind and saw themselves in a trap and up comes a good swarm of our ciompi note two
it's true and the lasses peppered a few stones down to frighten them
for we'd have left him neither legs nor wings to go away with again well spoken oddo said a young butcher with his knife at his belt and it's my belief piero will be a good while before he wants to come back for he looked as frightened as a hunted chicken when we hustled and pelted him in the piazza
he's a coward else he might have made a better stand when he'd got his horsemen but we'll swallow no medici any more whatever else the french king wants to make us swallow but i like not those french cannon they talk of said goro
why shouldn't he have sent the french another way to naples ay goro said the dyer that's a question worth putting thou art not such a pumpkin head as i took thee for
but he was interrupted by the exclamation look there which burst from several voices at once
in some contempt at this interruption he pretends to look well satisfied that deep tornabuoni
for there was not only the distinguished presence of lorenzo tornabuoni and the splendid costume of the frenchman with his elaborately displayed white linen and gorgeous embroidery there were two other florentines of high birth in handsome dresses donned for the coming procession
and on the left hand of the frenchman was a figure that was not to be eclipsed by any amount of intention or brocade a figure we have often seen before he wore nothing but black for he was in mourning
for he too was to walk in procession as latin secretary to the ten tito melema had become conspicuously serviceable in the intercourse with the french guests from his familiarity with southern italy and his readiness in the french tongue which he had spoken in his early youth
the lustre of good fortune was upon him he was smiling listening and explaining with his usual graceful unpretentious ease and only a very keen eye bent on studying him could have marked a certain amount of change in him which was not to be accounted for by the lapse of eighteen months
but the gaze was not entirely cordial and admiring
delicate flattery of royal superfluity in toes
but lorenzo tornabuoni possessed that power of dissembling annoyance which is demanded in a man who courts popularity and tito besides his natural disposition to overcome ill will by good humour had the unimpassioned feeling of
the alien towards names and details that move the deepest passions of the native arrived where they could get a good oblique view of the duomo the party paused the festoons and devices placed over the central doorway excited some demur and tornabuoni beckoned to piero di cosimo
who as was usual with him at this hour was lounging in front of nello's shop there was soon an animated discussion and it became highly amusing from the frenchman's astonishment at picro's odd pungency of statement which tito translated literally
half humiliated expression of people who are not within hearing of the joke which is producing infectious laughter it was a delightful moment for tito for he was the only one of the party who could have made so amusing an interpreter
but they were being pressed upon by a larger and larger number of non admiring florentines in the van of the crowd were three men in scanty clothing each had his hands bound together by a cord and a rope was fastened round his neck and body in such a way that he who held the extremity of the rope
might easily check any rebellious movement by the threat of throttling the men who held the ropes were french soldiers and by broken italian phrases and strokes from the knotted end of the rope they from time to time stimulated their prisoners to beg
had held out their bound hands and said in piteous tones for the love of god and the holy madonna give us something towards our ransom we are tuscans we were made prisoners in lunigiana but the third man remained obstinately silent under all the strokes from the knotted cord
he was very different in aspect from his two fellow prisoners they were young and hardy and in the scant clothing which the avarice of their captors had left them looked like vulgar sturdy mendicants but he had passed the boundary of old age and could hardly be less than four or five and sixty
in the midst of his yellow bloodless deep wrinkled face with its lank grey hairs and yet there was something fitful in the eyes which contradicted the occasional flash of energy after looking round with quick fierceness at windows and faces they fell again with a lost and wandering look
but his lips were motionless and he held his hands resolutely down he would not beg this sight had been witnessed by the florentines with growing exasperation many standing at their doors or passing quietly along had at once given money
some in half automatic response to an appeal in the name of god others in that unquestioning awe of the french soldiery which had been created by the reports of their cruel warfare and on which the french themselves counted as a guarantee of immunity in their acts of insolence
that compliance had gradually disappeared and the soldiers found themselves escorted by a gathering troop of men and boys
intelligible to foreign ears without any interpreter the soldiers themselves began to dislike their position for with a strong inclination to use their weapons they were checked by the necessity for keeping a secure hold on their prisoners and they were now hurrying along in the hope of finding shelter in a hostelry
french dogs bullock feet snatch their pikes from them cut the cords and make them run for their prisoners they'll run as fast as geese don't you see they're web footed these were the cries which the soldiers vaguely understood to be jeers and probably threats
santiddio here's a sight said the dyer as soon as he had divined the meaning of the advancing tumult and the fools do nothing but hoot come along he added snatching his axe from his belt and running to join the crowd
followed by the butcher and all the rest of his companions except goro who hastily retreated up a narrow passage the sight of the dyer running forward with blood red arms and axe uplifted and with his cluster of rough companions behind him had a stimulating effect on the crowd not that he did anything else
than pass beyond the soldiers and thrust himself well among his fellow citizens flourishing his axe but he served as a stirring symbol of street fighting like the waving of a well known gonfalon and the first sign that fire was ready to burst out was something as rapid as a little leaping tongue of flame
who was dancing and jeering in front of the ingenuous boys that made the majority of the crowd lollo had no great compassion for the prisoners but being conscious of an excellent knife which was his unfailing companion it had seemed to him from the first that to jump forward
cut a rope and leap back again before the soldier who held it could use his weapon would be an amusing and dexterous piece of mischief and now when the people began to hoot and jostle more vigorously lollo felt that his moment was come he was close to the eldest prisoner in an instant he had cut the cord
the prisoner's sensations were not too slow for him to seize the opportunity
he ran at once but his speed would hardly have sufficed for him if the florentines had not instantaneously rushed between him and his captor he ran on into the piazza but he quickly heard the tramp of feet behind him for the other two prisoners had been released and the soldiers were struggling and fighting their way after them
impeded but not very resolutely attacked by the people one of the two younger prisoners turned lip the borgo di san lorenzo and thus made a partial diversion of the hubbub
the cause could not be precisely guessed for the french dress was screened by the impeding crowd
but the object of his pursuit had taken the other direction that object was the eldest prisoner who had wheeled round the baptistery and was running towards the duomo determined to take refuge in that sanctuary rather than trust to his speed but in mounting the steps his foot received a shock
it was tito melema who felt that clutch
the two men looked at each other silent as death baldassarre with dark fierceness and a tightening grip of the soiled worn hands on the velvet clad arm tito with cheeks and lips all bloodless fascinated by terror it seemed a long while to them it was but a moment
the first sound tito heard was the short laugh of piero di cosimo who stood close by him and was the only person that could see his face ha ha i know what a ghost should be now this is another escaped prisoner said lorenzo tornabuoni who is he i wonder some madman surely said tito
he hardly knew how the words had come to his lips
while baldassarre was possessed by the voice of savonarola he had not noticed that another man had entered through the doorway behind him
having come solely to look at the escaped prisoner during the pause in which the preacher and his audience had given themselves up to inarticulate emotion the new comer advanced and touched baldassarre on the arm he looked round with the tears still slowly rolling down his face
there was something so peculiar in the expression of his face well he thought if he does any mischief he'll soon get tied up again the poor devil shall have a chance at least you are afraid of me he said again in an undertone you don't want to tell me anything about yourself
baldassarre was folding his arms in enjoyment of the long absent muscular sensation he answered piero with a less suspicious look and a tone which had some quiet decision in it no i have nothing to tell as you please said piero but perhaps you want shelter
and may not know how hospitable we florentines are to visitors with torn doublets and empty stomachs there's an hospital for poor travellers outside all our gates
there's no danger from your french soldier he has been sent off baldassarre nodded and turned in silent acceptance of the offer and he and piero left the church together
on the way to the gate of santa croce i am a painter i would give you money to get your portrait the suspicion returned into baldassarre's glance as he looked at piero and said decidedly no ah said the painter curtly well go straight on and you'll find the porta santa croce
it is well said piero with a shrug and they turned away from each other a mysterious old tiger thought the artist well worth painting ugly with deep lines
a fine contrast to my bland and smiling messer greco my bacco trionfante who has married the fair antigone in contradiction to all history and fitness aha his scholar's blood curdled uncomfortably at the old fellow's clutch
when piero re entered the piazza del duomo the multitude who had been listening to fra girolamo were pouring out from all the doors and the haste they made to go on their several ways was a proof how important they held the preaching which had detained them from the other occupations of the day
the artist leaned against an angle of the baptistery and watched the departing crowd delighting in the variety of the garb and of the keen characteristic faces faces such as masaccio had painted more than fifty years before
had represented even more completely than usual the various classes and political parties of florence there were men of high birth accustomed to public charges at home and abroad who had become newly conspicuous not only as enemies of the medici and friends of popular government
very much gratified by an immediate divine authority for bringing about freedom in their own way others like soderini with less of the ardent piagnone and more of the wise politician there were men also of family like piero capponi
simply brave undoctrinal lovers of a sober republican liberty who preferred fighting to arguing and had no particular reasons for thinking any ideas false that kept out the medici and made room for public spirit
at their elbows were doctors of law whose studies of accursius and his brethren had not so entirely consumed their ardour as to prevent them from becoming enthusiastic piagnoni messer luca corsini himself for example
who on a memorable occasion yet to come was to raise his learned arms in street stone throwing for the cause of religion freedom and the frate and among the dignities who carried their black lucco or furred mantle with an air of habitual authority
there was an abundant sprinkling of men with more contemplative and sensitive faces scholars inheriting such high names as strozzi and acciajoli who were already minded to take the cowl and join the community of san marco
artists wrought to a new and higher ambition by the teaching of savonarola like that young painter who had lately surpassed himself in his fresco of the divine child on the wall of the frate's bare cell
and be called fra bartolommeo there was the mystic poet girolamo benevieni hastening perhaps to carry tidings of the beloved frate's speedy coming to his friend pico della mirandola who was never to see the light of another morning
conscious of purses threatened by war taxes and more striking and various perhaps than all the other classes of the frate's disciples there was the long stream of poorer tradesmen and artisans whose faith and hope in his divine message varied from the rude and undiscriminating trust in him
as the friend of the poor and the enemy of the luxurious oppressive rich to that eager tasting of all the subtleties of biblical interpretation
illuminating the long dim spaces beyond the board where he stitches with a pale flame that seems to him the light of divine science but among these various disciples of the frate were scattered many who were not in the least his disciples
begun to show the presiding spirit of the popular party a feigned deference others were sincere advocates of a free government but regarded savonarola simply as an ambitious monk half sagacious half fanatical
who had made himself a powerful instrument with the people and must be accepted as an important social fact
attracting the ears of curiosity and malice as well as of faith the men of ideas like young niccolo macchiavelli went to observe and write reports to friends away in country villas the men of appetites like dolfo spini
bent on hunting down the frate as a public nuisance who made game scarce went to feed their hatred and lie in wait for grounds of accusation perhaps while no preacher ever had a more massive influence than savonarola
no preacher ever had more heterogeneous materials to work upon and one secret of the massive influence lay in the highly mixed character of his preaching baldassarre wrought into an ecstasy of self martyring revenge
was only an extreme case among the partial and narrow sympathies of that audience in savonarola's preaching there were strains that appealed to the very finest susceptibilities of men's natures and there were elements that gratified low egoism
tickled gossiping curiosity and fascinated timorous superstition his need of personal predominance his labyrinthine allegorical interpretations of the scriptures his enigmatic visions and his false certitude about the divine intentions
never ceased in his own large soul to be ennobled by that fervid piety that passionate sense of the infinite that active sympathy that clear sighted demand for the subjection of selfish interests to the general good which he had in common with the greatest of mankind
but for the mass of his audience all the pregnancy of his preaching lay in his strong assertion of supernatural claims in his denunciatory visions in the false certitude which gave his sermons the interest of a political bulletin and having once held that audience in his mastery it was necessary to his nature
it was necessary for their welfare that he should keep the mastery the effect was inevitable no man ever struggled to retain power over a mixed multitude without suffering vitiation his standard must be their lower needs and not his own best insight
than in girolamo savonarola but we can give him a reverence that needs no shutting of the eyes to fact if we regard his life as a drama in which there were great inward modifications accompanying the outward changes
it is probable that his imperious need of ascendancy had burned undiscernibly in the strong flame of his zeal for god and man
at six o'clock that evening most people in florence were glad the entrance of the new charlemagne was fairly over doubtless when the roll of drums the blast of trumpets and the tramp of horses along the pisan road began to mingle with the pealing of the excited bells
it was a grand moment for those who were stationed on turreted roofs and could see the long winding terrible pomp on the background of the green hills and valley there was no sunshine to light up the splendour of banners and spears and plumes and silken surcoats
but there was no thick cloud of dust to hide it and as the picked troops advanced into close view they could be seen all the more distinctly for the absence of dancing glitter tall and tough scotch archers swiss halberdiers fierce and ponderous nimble gascons ready to wheel and climb
cavalry in which each man looked like a knight errant with his indomitable spear and charger it was satisfactory to be assured that they would injure nobody but the enemies of god
with that confidence at heart it was a less dubious pleasure to look at the array of strength and splendour in nobles and knights and youthful pages of choice lineage at the bossed and jewelled sword hilts at the satin scarfs embroidered with strange symbolical devices of pious or gallant meaning
at the gold chains and jewelled aigrettes at the gorgeous horse trappings and brocaded mantles and at the transcendent canopy carried by select youths above the head of the most christian king to sum up with an old diarist whose spelling and diction halted a little behind the wonders of this royal visit
fu gran magnificenza but for the signoria who had been waiting on their platform against the gates and had to march out at the right moment with their orator in front of them to meet the mighty guest the grandeur of the scene had been somewhat screened by unpleasant sensations
and reduced the representatives of the scholarly city to offer a makeshift welcome in impromptu french but that sudden confusion had created a great opportunity for tito as one of the secretaries he was among the officials who were stationed behind the signoria
and with whom these highest dignities were promiscuously thrown when pressed upon by the horses somebody step forward and say a few words in french said soderini but no one of high importance chose to risk a second failure you francesco gaddi you can speak
but gaddi distrusting his own promptness hung back and pushing tito said you melema
that came as naturally to him as walking said the few needful words in the name of the signoria then gave way gracefully and let the king pass on his presence of mind which had failed him in the terrible crisis of the morning had been a ready instrument this time
but when he was complimented on his opportune service he laughed it off as a thing of no moment and to those who had not witnessed it let gaddi have the credit of the improvised welcome
other things besides the oratorical welcome had turned out rather worse than had been expected
would not have found their way choked up and been obliged to take a makeshift course through the back streets so as to meet the king at the cathedral only also if the young monarch under the canopy seated on his charger with his lance upon his thigh
had looked more like a charlemagne and less like a hastily modelled grotesque the imagination of his admirers would have been much assisted it might have been wished that the scourge of italian wickedness and champion of the honour of women had had a less miserable leg and only the normal sum of toes
that his mouth had been of a less reptilian width of slit his nose and head of a less exorbitant outline but the thin leg rested on cloth of gold and pearls and the face was only an interruption of a few square inches in the midst of black velvet and gold
and the blaze of rubies and the brilliant tints of the embroidered and bepearled canopy fu gran magnificenza
canopy which they had torn to pieces as their spoil according to immemorial custom royal lips had duly kissed the altar and after all mischances the royal person and retinue were lodged in the palace of the via larga
the rest of the nobles and gentry were dispersed among the great houses of florence and the terrible soldiery were encamped in the prato and other open quarters the business of the day was ended but the streets still presented a surprising aspect such as florentines had not seen before under the november stars
instead of a gloom unbroken except by a lamp burning feebly here and there before a saintly image at the street corners or by a stream of redder light from an open doorway there were lamps suspended at the windows of all houses
so that men could walk along no less securely and commodiously than by day fu gran magnificenza along those illuminated streets tito melema was walking at about eight o'clock in the evening on his way homeward
if he had only not been wanting in the presence of mind necessary to recognise baldassarre under that surprise it would have been happier for him on all accounts for he still winced under the sense that he was deliberately inflicting suffering on his father
he would very much have preferred that baldassarre should be prosperous and happy but he had left himself no second path now there could be no conflict any longer the only thing he had to do was to take care of himself while these thoughts were in his mind he was advancing from the piazza di santa croce
and as he neared the angle turning into the borgo santa croce his ear was struck by a music which was not that of evening revelry but of vigorous labour the music of the anvil tito gave a slight start and quickened his pace for the sounds had suggested a welcome thought
famous resort of all florentines who cared for curious and beautiful iron work what makes the giant at work so late thought tito but so much the better for me i can do that little bit of business to night instead of to morrow morning
against the red light framed in by the outline of the fluted tiles and columns stood in black relief the grand figure of niccolo with his huge arms in rhythmic rise and fall first hiding and then disclosing the profile of his firm mouth and powerful brow
two slighter ebony figures one at the anvil the other at the bellows served to set off his superior massiveness
to pause and notice him that was not until the smith had beaten the head of an axe to the due sharpness of edge and dismissed it from his anvil but in the meantime tito had satisfied himself by a glance round the shop that the object of which he was in search had not disappeared
niccolo gave an unceremonious but good humoured nod as he turned from the anvil and rested his hammer on his hip what is it messer tito business assuredly niccolo else i should not have ventured to interrupt you when you are working out of hours since i take that as a sign that your work is pressing
and every fool that has passed my shop has put his pumpkin head in to say niccolo wilt thou not come and see the king of france and his soldiers and i've answered no i don't want to see their faces i want to see their backs are you making arms for the citizens then niccolo
we shall see arms are good and florence is likely to want them the frate tells us we shall get pisa again and i hold with the frate but i should be glad to know how the promise is to be fulfilled if we don't get plenty of good weapons forged the frate sees a long way before him that i believe
but he doesn't see birds caught with winking at them as some of our people try to make out he sees sense and not nonsense
ebbene so i've been myself in my time before the cask began to run sour what's your business simply to know the price of that fine coat of mail i saw hanging up here the other day
let him come and buy it himself then said niccolo bluntly i'm rather nice about what i sell and whom i sell to i like to know who's my customer i know your scruples niccolo but that is only defensive armour it can hurt nobody
true but it may make the man who wears it feel himself all the safer if he should want to hurt somebody no no it's not my own work but it's fine work of maso of brescia i should be loth for it to cover the heart of a scoundrel i must know who is to wear it
knowing it was useless to try persuasion the fact is i am likely to have a journey to take and you know what journeying is in these times you don't suspect me of treason against the republic no i know no harm of you said niccolo in his blunt way again
but have you the money to pay for the coat for you've passed my shop often enough to know my sign you've seen the burning account books
a tea table conversation the williamson place where eric boarded was on the crest of the succeeding hill he liked it as well as larry west had prophesied that he would the williamsons as well as the rest of the lindsay people
took it for granted that he was a poor college student working his way through as larry west had been doing eric did not disturb this belief although he said nothing to contribute to it the williamsons were at tea in the kitchen when eric went in
missus williamson was the saint in spectacles and calico which larry west had termed her eric liked her greatly she was a slight gray haired woman with a thin sweet high bred face
deeply lined with the records of outlived pain she talked little as a rule but in the pungent country phrase she never spoke but she said something the one thing that constantly puzzled eric was how such a woman
ever came to marry robert williamson she smiled in a motherly fashion at eric as he hung his hat on the white washed wall and took his place at the table outside of the window behind him was a birch grove
which in the westering sun was a tremulous splendour with a sea of undergrowth wavered into golden billows by every passing wind old robert williamson sat opposite him on a bench he was a small lean old man
half lost in loose clothes that seemed far too large for him when he spoke his voice was as thin and squeaky as he appeared to be himself the other end of the bench was occupied by timothy sleek and complacent with a snowy breast and white paws
after old robert had taken a mouthful of anything he gave a piece to timothy who ate it daintily and purred resonant gratitude you see we're busy waiting for you master said old robert you're late this evening keep any of the youngsters in
he left word for you to go up and have a game some evening soon don't beat him too often even if you can you'll need to stand in with him i tell you master for he's got a son that may brew trouble for you when he starts in to go to school
seth tracy's a young imp and he'd far sooner be in mischief than eat he tries to run on every new teacher and he's run two clean out of the school but he met his match in mister west william tracy's boys now you won't have a scrap of bother with them
they're always good because their mother tells them every sunday that they'll go straight to hell if they don't behave in school it's effective take some preserve master you know we don't help things here the way missus adam scott does when she has boarders
i s'pose you don't want any of this nor you nor you mother aleck says old george wright is having the time of his life his wife has gone to charlottetown to visit her sister and he is his own boss for the first time since he was married forty years ago
he's on a regular orgy aleck says he smokes in the parlour and sits up till eleven o'clock reading dime novels perhaps i met mister tracy said eric is he a tall man with gray hair and a dark stern face
no he's a round jolly fellow is aleck and he stopped growing pretty much before he'd ever begun i reckon the man you mean is thomas gordon i seen him driving down the road too
small fear of it the gordons ain't sociable to say the least of it no sir mother pass the biscuits to the master who was the young fellow he had with him asked eric curiously neil neil gordon
the boy looks like an italian well now you know master i reckon it's likely he does seeing that that's exactly what he is you've hit the nail square on the head italyun yes sir rather too much so i'm thinking for decent folks taste
how has it happened that an italian boy with a scotch name is living in a place like lindsay well master it was this way about twenty two years ago was it twenty two mother or twenty four yes it was twenty two
poor little fellow well master twenty two years ago a couple of italian pack peddlers came along and called at the gordon place the country was swarming with them then i useter set the dog on one every day on an average
well these peddlers were man and wife and the woman took sick up there at the gordon place and janet gordon took her in and nursed her a baby was born the next day and the woman died then the first thing anybody knew the father skipped clean out pack and all
and was never seen or heard tell of afterwards the gordons were left with the fine youngster to their hands folks advised them to send him to the orphan asylum and twould have been the wisest plan but the gordons were never fond of taking advice
old james gordon was living then thomas and janet's father and he said he would never turn a child out of his door he was a masterful old man and liked to be boss folks used to say he had a grudge against the sun cause it rose and set without his say so anyhow
they kept the baby they called him neil and had him baptized same as any christian child he's always lived there they did well enough by him he was sent to school and taken to church and treated like one of themselves some folks think they made too much of him
it doesn't always do with that kind for what's bred in bone is mighty apt to come out in flesh if taint kept down pretty well neil's smart and a great worker they tell me but folks hereabouts don't like him
they say he ain't to be trusted further'n you can see him if as far it's certain he's awful hot tempered and one time when he was going to school he near about killed a boy he'd took a spite to choked him till he was black in the face and neil had to be dragged off
well now father you know they teased him terrible protested missus williamson the poor boy had a real hard time when he went to school master the other children were always casting things up to him and calling him names
oh i daresay they tormented him a lot admitted her husband he's a great hand at the fiddle and likes company he goes to the harbour a good deal but they say he takes sulky spells when he hasn't a word to throw to a dog twouldn't be any wonder living with the gordons
but you're like old aunt nancy scott you never say anything uncharitable except in the way of business you know the gordons ain't like other people and never were and never will be they're about the only queer folks we have in lindsay master except old peter cook who keeps twenty five cats
lord master think of it what chanct would a poor mouse have none of the rest of us are queer leastwise we hain't found it out if we are but then we're mighty uninteresting i'm bound to admit that where do the gordons live asked eric
who had grown used to holding fast to a given point of inquiry through all the bewildering mazes of old robert's conversation away up yander half a mile in from radnor road with a thick spruce wood atween them and all the rest of the world they never go away anywheres except to church
they never miss that and nobody goes there there's just old thomas and his sister janet and a niece of theirs and this here neil we've been talking about they're a queer dour cranky lot and i will say it mother there give your old man a cup of tea and never mind the way his tongue runs on
speaking of tea do you know missus adam palmer and missus jim martin took tea together at foster reid's last wednesday afternoon no why i thought they were on bad terms said missus williamson betraying a little feminine curiosity
so they are so they are but they both happened to visit missus foster the same afternoon and neither would leave because that would be knuckling down to the other so they stuck it out on opposite sides of the parlour
and anyway i'm in a hurry my hired boy went home to day
a little child was born in the bird household they had intended to name the baby lucy if it were a girl but they hadn't expected her on christmas morning and a real christmas baby was not to be lightly named the whole family agreed in that
they were consulting about it in the nursery mister bird said that he had assisted in naming the three boys and that he should leave this matter entirely to missus bird donald wanted the child called maud after a pretty little curly haired girl who sat next him in school
paul chose luella for luella was the nurse who had been with him during his whole babyhood up to the time of his first trousers and the name suggested all sorts of comfortable things uncle jack said that the first girl should always be named for her mother no matter how hideous the name happened to be
and everybody suddenly remembered that missus bird had thought of naming the baby lucy for grandma herself and while it would be indelicate for her to favor that name it would be against human nature for her to suggest any other under the circumstances hugh
the hitherto baby if that is a possible term sat in one corner and said nothing but felt in some mysterious way that his nose was out of joint for there was a newer baby now a possibility he had never taken into consideration and the first girl too
a still higher development of treason which made him actually green with jealousy but it was too profound a subject to be settled then and there on the spot besides
mama had not been asked and everybody felt it rather absurd after all to forestall a decree that was certain to be absolutely wise just and perfect the reason that the subject had been brought up at all so early in the day
lay in the fact that missus bird never allowed her babies to go over night unnamed she was a person of so great decision of character that she would have blushed at such a thing she said that to let blessed babies go dangling and dawdling about without names for months and months
was enough to ruin them for life she also said that if one could not make up one's mind in twenty four hours it was a sign that but i will not repeat the rest as it might prejudice you against the most charming woman in the world
so donald took his new velocipede and went out to ride up and down the stone pavement and notch the shins of innocent people as they passed by while paul spun his musical top on the front steps but hugh refused to leave the scene of action he seated himself on the top stair in the hall
banged his head against the railing a few times just by way of uncorking the vials of his wrath and then subsided into gloomy silence waiting to declare war if more first girl babies were thrust upon a family already surfeited with that unnecessary article
meanwhile dear missus bird lay in her room weak but safe and happy with her sweet girl baby by her side and the heaven of motherhood opening before her nurse was making gruel in the kitchen and the room was dim and quiet
there was a cheerful open fire in the grate but though the shutters were closed the side windows that looked out on the church of our saviour next door were wide open suddenly a sound of music poured out into the bright air and drifted into the chamber
it was the boy choir singing christmas anthems higher and higher rose the clear fresh voices full of hope and cheer as children's voices always are fuller and fuller grew the burst of melody as one glad strain fell upon another in joyful harmony
and pray a gladsome christmas for all your fellow men
why my baby whispered missus bird in soft surprise i had forgotten what day it was you are a little christmas child and we will name you carol' mother's little christmas carol
why donald don't you think carol is a sweet name for a christmas baby it came to me just a moment ago in the singing as i was lying here half asleep and half awake i think it is a charming name dear heart and that it sounds just like you
and i hope that being a girl this baby has some chance of being as lovely as her mother at which speech from the baby's papa missus bird though she was as weak and tired as she could be blushed with happiness and so carol came by her name
of course it was thought foolish by many people though uncle jack declared laughingly that it was very strange if a whole family of birds could not be indulged in a single carol and grandma who adored the child thought the name much more appropriate than lucy
but people say there is everything in a good beginning and she may have breathed in unconsciously the fragrance of evergreens and holiday dinners while the peals of sleigh bells and the laughter of happy children may have fallen upon her baby ears
and wakened in them a glad surprise at the merry world she had come to live in her cheeks and lips were as red as holly berries her hair was for all the world the color of a christmas candle flame her eyes were bright as stars her laugh like a chime of christmas bells
and her tiny hands forever outstretched in giving such a generous little creature you never saw a spoonful of bread and milk had always to be taken by mama or nurse before carol could enjoy her supper and whatever bit of cake or sweetmeat found its way into her pretty fingers
it was straightway broken in half and shared with donald paul or hugh and when they made believe nibble the morsel with affected enjoyment she would clap her hands and crow with delight why does she do it asked donald thoughtfully none of us boys ever did
adam on a working day notwithstanding mister craig's prophecy the dark blue cloud dispersed itself without having produced the threatened consequences the weather as he observed the next morning the weather you see s a ticklish thing
an a fool ull hit on't sometimes when a wise man misses that's why the almanecks get so much credit it's one o them chancy things as fools thrive on
this unreasonable behaviour of the weather however could displease no one else in hayslope besides mister craig all hands were to be out in the meadows this morning as soon as the dew had risen
the wives and daughters did double work in every farmhouse that the maids might give their help in tossing the hay and when adam was marching along the lanes with his basket of tools over his shoulder he caught the sound of jocose talk and ringing laughter from behind the hedges
like those clumsy bells round the cows necks it has rather a coarse sound when it comes close and may even grate on your ears painfully but heard from far off it mingles very prettily with the other joyous sounds of nature men's muscles move better when their souls are making merry music
though their merriment is of a poor blundering sort not at all like the merriment of birds and perhaps there is no time in a summer's day more cheering than when the warmth of the sun is just beginning to triumph over the freshness of the morning
when there is just a lingering hint of early coolness to keep off languor under the delicious influence of warmth the reason adam was walking along the lanes at this time was because his work for the rest of the day lay at a country house about three miles off
which was being put in repair for the son of a neighbouring squire and he had been busy since early morning with the packing of panels doors and chimney pieces in a waggon which was now gone on before him while jonathan burge himself had ridden to the spot on horseback
to await its arrival and direct the workmen this little walk was a rest to adam and he was unconsciously under the charm of the moment it was summer morning in his heart and he saw hetty in the sunshine a sunshine without glare
with slanting rays that tremble between the delicate shadows of the leaves he thought yesterday when he put out his hand to her as they came out of church that there was a touch of melancholy kindness in her face such as he had not seen before
and he took it as a sign that she had some sympathy with his family trouble poor fellow that touch of melancholy came from quite another source but how was he to know we look at the one little woman's face we love as we look at the face of our mother earth
hitherto he had felt keenly the danger that some other man might step in and get possession of hetty's heart and hand while he himself was still in a position that made him shrink from asking her to accept him even if he had had a strong hope that she was fond of him
and his hope was far from being strong he had been too heavily burdened with other claims to provide a home for himself and hetty a home such as he could expect her to be content with after the comfort and plenty of the farm
like all strong natures adam had confidence in his ability to achieve something in the future he felt sure he should some day if he lived be able to maintain a family and make a good broad path for himself
to be sure if she loved him very much she would be content to wait for him but did she love him his hopes had never risen so high that he had dared to ask her he was clear sighted enough to be aware that her uncle and aunt would have looked kindly on his suit
but it was impossible to come to any but fluctuating conclusions about hetty's feelings she was like a kitten and had the same distractingly pretty looks that meant nothing for everybody that came near her
but now he could not help saying to himself that the heaviest part of his burden was removed and that even before the end of another year his circumstances might be brought into a shape that would allow him to think of marrying
it would always be a hard struggle with his mother he knew she would be jealous of any wife he might choose and she had set her mind especially against hetty perhaps for no other reason than that she suspected hetty to be the woman he had chosen
it would never do he feared for his mother to live in the same house with him when he was married and yet how hard she would think it if he asked her to leave him yes there was a great deal of pain to be gone through with his mother
but it was a case in which he must make her feel that his will was strong
for himself he would have liked that they should all live together till seth was married and they might have built a bit themselves to the old house and made more room
but adam had no sooner caught his imagination leaping forward in this way making arrangements for an uncertain future than he checked himself a pretty building i'm making without either bricks or timber i'm up the garret a'ready and haven't so much as dug the foundation
whenever adam was strongly convinced of any proposition it took the form of a principle in his mind it was knowledge to be acted on as much as the knowledge that damp will cause rust perhaps here lay the secret of the hardness he had accused himself of
he had too little fellow feeling with the weakness that errs in spite of foreseen consequences without this fellow feeling how are we to get enough patience and charity towards our stumbling falling companions in the long and changeful journey
and adam had at present only learned the alphabet of it in his father's sudden death which by annihilating in an instant all that had stimulated his indignation had sent a sudden rush of thought and memory over what had claimed his pity and tenderness
but it was adam's strength not its correlative hardness that influenced his meditations this morning he had long made up his mind that it would be wrong as well as foolish for him to marry a blooming young girl
so long as he had no other prospect than that of growing poverty with a growing family and his savings had been so constantly drawn upon besides the terrible sweep of paying for seth's substitute in the militia that he had not enough money beforehand to furnish even a small cottage
and keep something in reserve against a rainy day he had good hope that he should be firmer on his legs by and by but he could not be satisfied with a vague confidence in his arm and brain he must have definite plans and set about them at once
the partnership with jonathan burge was not to be thought of at present there were things implicitly tacked to it that he could not accept but adam thought that he and seth might carry on a little business for themselves in addition to their journeyman's work
by buying a small stock of superior wood and making articles of household furniture for which adam had no end of contrivances seth might gain more by working at separate jobs under adam's direction than by his journeyman's work
and adam in his overhours could do all the nice work that required peculiar skill the money gained in this way with the good wages he received as foreman would soon enable them to get beforehand with the world so sparingly as they would all live now
no sooner had this little plan shaped itself in his mind than he began to be busy with exact calculations about the wood to be bought and the particular article of furniture that should be undertaken first a kitchen cupboard of his own contrivance
with such an ingenious arrangement of sliding doors and bolts such convenient nooks for stowing household provender and such a symmetrical result to the eye that every good housewife would be in raptures with it and fall through all the gradations of melancholy longing till her husband promised to buy it for her
adam pictured to himself missus poyser examining it with her keen eye and trying in vain to find out a deficiency and of course close to missus poyser stood hetty and adam was again beguiled from calculations and contrivances into dreams and hopes
yes he would go and see her this evening it was so long since he had been at the hall farm he would have liked to go to the night school to see why bartle massey had not been at church yesterday for he feared his old friend was ill
but unless he could manage both visits this last must be put off till to morrow the desire to be near hetty and to speak to her again was too strong as he made up his mind to this he was coming very near to the end of his walk
within the sound of the hammers at work on the refitting of the old house the sound of tools to a clever workman who loves his work is like the tentative sounds of the orchestra to the violinist who has to bear his part in the overture
the strong fibres begin their accustomed thrill and what was a moment before joy vexation or ambition begins its change into energy all passion becomes strength when it has an outlet from the narrow limits of our personal lot
in the labour of our right arm the cunning of our right hand or the still creative activity of our thought look at adam through the rest of the day as he stands on the scaffolding with the two feet ruler in his hand
whistling low while he considers how a difficulty about a floor joist or a window frame is to be overcome or as he pushes one of the younger workmen aside and takes his place in upheaving a weight of timber saying let alone lad
tossed about like trodden meadow grass whenever he takes off his paper cap and with the strong barytone voice bursting every now and then into loud and solemn psalm tunes as if seeking an outlet for superfluous strength yet presently checking himself
apparently crossed by some thought which jars with the singing perhaps if you had not been already in the secret you might not have guessed what sad memories what warm affection what tender fluttering hopes had their home in this athletic body with the broken finger nails
in this rough man who knew no better lyrics than he could find in the old and new version and an occasional hymn who knew the smallest possible amount of profane history and for whom the motion and shape of the earth
to spell without any other mistakes than must in fairness be attributed to the unreasonable character of orthography rather than to any deficiency in the speller and moreover to learn his musical notes and part singing
besides all this he had read his bible including the apocryphal books poor richard's almanac taylor's holy living and dying the pilgrim's progress with bunyan's life and holy war a great deal of bailey's dictionary valentine and orson
and part of a history of babylon which bartle massey had lent him he might have had many more books from bartle massey but he had no time for reading the commin print as lisbeth called it so busy as he was with figures in all the leisure moments which he did not fill up with extra carpentry
adam you perceive was by no means a marvellous man nor properly speaking a genius yet i will not pretend that his was an ordinary character among workmen
and a paper cap on his head has the strong conscience and the strong sense the blended susceptibility and self command of our friend adam he was not an average man yet such men as he are reared here and there in every generation of our peasant artisans
with an inheritance of affections nurtured by a simple family life of common need and common industry and an inheritance of faculties trained in skilful courageous labour they make their way upwards rarely as geniuses
most commonly as painstaking honest men with the skill and conscience to do well the tasks that lie before them their lives have no discernible echo beyond the neighbourhood where they dwelt but you are almost sure to find there some good piece of road some building
some application of mineral produce some improvement in farming practice some reform of parish abuses with which their names are associated by one or two generations after them their employers were the richer for them the work of their hands has worn well
and the work of their brains has guided well the hands of other men they went about in their youth in flannel or paper caps in coats black with coal dust or streaked with lime and red paint in old age their white hairs are seen in a place of honour at church and at market
the harder she pulled the firmer seemed the plant and at last determined not to be beaten she gave one great tug and the rosemary remained in her hands then she heard a voice close to her saying well
and turning she saw before her a handsome young man who asked why she had come to steal his firewood the girl who felt much confused only managed to stammer out as an excuse that her father had sent her
very well replied the young man then come with me so he took her through the opening made by the torn up root and they travelled till they reached a beautiful palace splendidly furnished but only lighted from the top
and when they had entered he told her that he was a great lord and that never had he seen a maiden so beautiful as she and that
and the maiden said yes she would and so they were married the next day the old dame who looked after the house handed her all the keys but pointed her out one that she would do well never to use for if she did
the whole palace would fall to the ground and the grass would grow over it and the damsel herself would be remembered no more the bride promised to be careful but in a little while when there was nothing left for her to do
she began to wonder what could be in the chest which was opened by the key as everybody knows if we once begin to think we soon begin to do and it was not very long before the key was no longer in the maiden's hand
but the lock was stiff and resisted all her efforts and in the end she had to break it and what was inside after all
breaking a sprig of rosemary off a bush hard by she resolved cost what it might to seek him through the world till she found him so she walked and she walked and she walked till she arrived at a house built of straw and she knocked at the door
and her mistress answered her where he is none can tell better than the sun the moon and the wind for they go everywhere on hearing these words the damsel set forth once more
and walked till she reached the golden castle where lived the sun and she knocked boldly at the door saying all hail o sun i have come to ask if of your charity you will help me in my need
and i am weary for i seek my husband through the wide world indeed spoke the sun do you rich as you are need help but though you live in a palace without windows the sun enters everywhere
and he knows you then the bride told him the whole story and did not hide her own ill doing and the sun listened and was sorry for her and though he could not tell her where to go he gave her a nut
all hail said the girl
to ask your help it is my mistress the moon you seek i will tell her of your prayer so the moon came out and when she saw the maiden she knew her again
for she had watched her sleeping both in the cottage and in the palace and she spake to her and said do you rich as you are need help then the girl told her the whole story and the moon listened
till she came to another castle and she knocked at the door and said all hail i have come to ask if of your charity you will help me in my need it is my lord the wind that you want
answered the old woman who opened it i will tell him of your prayer and the wind looked on her and knew her again for he had seen her in the cottage and in the palace and he spake to her and said
rich as you are want help and she told him the whole story and the wind listened and was sorry for her and he gave her a walnut that she was to eat in time of need
but the girl did not go as the wind expected she was tired and sad and knew not where to turn so she began to weep bitterly the wind wept too for company and said don't be frightened
i will go and see if i can find out something and the wind departed with a great noise and fuss and in the twinkling of an eye he was back again beaming with delight
from what one person and another have let fall he exclaimed i have contrived to learn that he is in the palace of the king who keeps him hidden lest anyone should see him and that to morrow he is to marry the princess
has not been able to find any man to wed her who can tell the despair which seized the poor maiden when she heard this news
as soon as she could speak she implored the wind to do all he could to get the wedding put off for two or three days for it would take her all that time to reach the palace of the king the wind gladly promised to do what he could
catching jumping climbing but all to no purpose the lace was torn the satin stained the pearls knocked off
it was plainly quite impossible that the wedding clothes could be ready next day however the king was much too anxious to see his daughter married to listen to any excuses and he declared that a dress must be put together somehow for the bride to wear
so that the tailors might take the dress to pieces and make it fit but by this time the maiden had arrived footsore and weary at the castle
and as soon as she reached the door she cracked her nut and drew out of it the most beautiful mantle in the world then she rang the bell and asked is not the princess to be married to day yes she is
ask her if she would like to buy this mantle and when the princess saw the mantle she was delighted for her wedding mantle had been spoilt with all the other things and it was too late to make another so she told the maiden to ask what price she would
and it should be given her the maiden fixed a large sum many pieces of gold but the princess had set her heart on the mantle and gave it readily now the maiden hid her gold in the pocket of her dress
and turned away from the castle the moment she was out of sight she broke her almond and drew from it the most magnificent petticoats that ever were seen then she went back to the castle and asked if the princess wished to buy any petticoats
no sooner did the princess cast her eyes on the petticoats than she declared they were even more beautiful than the mantle and that she would give the maiden whatever price she wanted for them and the maiden named many pieces of gold
which the princess paid her gladly so pleased was she with her new possessions then the girl went down the steps where none could watch her and cracked her walnut and out came the most splendid court dress that any dressmaker had ever invented
and carrying it carefully in her arms she knocked at the door and asked if the princess wished to buy a court dress when the message was delivered the princess sprang to her feet with delight for she had been thinking that
after all it was not much use to have a lovely mantle and elegant petticoats if she had no dress and she knew the tailors would never be ready in time so she sent at once to say she would buy the dress and what sum did the maiden want for it
and contented herself with thinking that after all it did not matter much so the maiden was led to the rooms which had been given to her husband and when she came near she touched him with the sprig of rosemary that she carried and his memory came back and he knew her
and kissed her and declared that she was his true wife and that he loved her and no other
the wounded lion cuentos populars catalans there was once a girl so poor that she had nothing to live on and wandered about the world asking for charity one day
she arrived at a thatched cottage and inquired if they could give her any work the farmer said he wanted a cowherd as his own had left him and if the girl liked the place she might take it so she became a cowherd
one morning she was driving her cows through the meadows when she heard near by a loud groan that almost sounded human she hastened to the spot from which the noise came and found it proceeded from a lion
who lay stretched upon the ground you can guess how frightened she was but the lion seemed in such pain that she was sorry for him and drew nearer and nearer till she saw he had a large thorn in one foot
but they had gone and though she hunted everywhere she never found them and she had to return home and confess to her master who scolded her bitterly and afterwards beat her then he said now you will have to look after the asses
so every day she had to take the asses to the woods to feed until one morning exactly a year after she had found the lion she heard a groan which sounded quite human she went straight to the place from which the noise came and
to her great surprise beheld the same lion stretched on the ground with a deep wound across his face this time she was not afraid at all and ran towards him washing the wound and laying soothing herbs upon it
and when she had bound it up the lion thanked her in the same manner as before after that she returned to her flock but they were nowhere to be seen she searched here and she searched there but they had vanished completely
then she had to go home and confess to her master who first scolded her and afterwards beat her now go he ended and look after the pigs so the next day she took out the pigs
and found them such good feeding grounds that they grew fatter every day another year passed by and one morning when the maiden was out with her pigs she heard a groan which sounded quite human she ran to see what it was
and found her old friend the lion wounded through and through fast dying under a tree she fell on her knees before him and washed his wounds one by one and laid healing herbs upon them and the lion licked her hands and thanked her
and asked if she would not stay and sit by him but the girl said she had her pigs to watch and she must go and see after them
but they had vanished as if the earth had swallowed them up she whistled and called but only the birds answered her then she sank down on the ground and wept bitterly
next she thought i will not stir from here till i see him come out and discover who he is accordingly she waited and at dawn the next morning the rock moved to one side and a lion came out
he pushed aside the rock and disappeared behind it next morning out came the lion he looked sharply about him on all sides but saw no one and then vanished into the forest
the maiden then came down from the tree and did exactly as she had done the day before thus three days went by and every day she went and tidied up the palace at length when the girl found she was no nearer to discovering the secret
she resolved to ask him and in the evening when she caught sight of him coming through the wood she came down from the tree and begged him to tell her his name the young man looked very pleased to see her
and said he thought it must be she who had secretly kept his house for so many days and he added that he was a prince enchanted by a powerful giant but was only allowed to take his own shape at night for all day he was forced to appear as the lion whom she had so often helped
and more than this it was the giant who had stolen the oxen and the asses and the pigs in revenge for her kindness and the girl asked him what can i do to disenchant you but he said he was afraid it was very difficult
because the only way was to get a lock of hair from the head of a king's daughter to spin it and to make from it a cloak for the giant who lived up on the top of a high mountain very well answered the girl i will go to the city
and knock at the door of the king's palace and ask the princess to take me as a servant so they parted and when she arrived at the city she walked about the streets crying who will hire me for a servant who will hire me for a servant but
though many people liked her looks for she was clean and neat the maiden would listen to none and still continued crying who will hire me for a servant who will hire me for a servant at last there came the waiting maid of the princess
what can you do she said
by and bye it came to the ears of the princess and she sent for the girl and when she saw her and how beautifully she had dressed her hair the princess told her she was to come and comb out hers now the hair of the princess was very thick and long
and shone like the sun and the girl combed it and combed it till it was brighter than ever and the princess was pleased and bade her come every day and comb her hair till at length the girl took courage and begged leave to cut off one of the long thick locks
the princess who was very proud of her hair did not like the idea of parting with any of it so she said no but the girl could not give up hope and each day she entreated to be allowed to cut off just one tress
at length the princess lost patience and exclaimed you may have it then on condition that you shall find the handsomest prince in the world to be my bridegroom and the girl answered that she would
and cut off the lock and wove it into a coat that glittered like silk and brought it to the young man who told her to carry it straight to the giant but that she must be careful to cry out a long way off what she had with her or else he would spring upon her and run her through with his sword
so the maiden departed and climbed up the mountain but before she reached the top the giant heard her footsteps and rushed out breathing fire and flame having a sword in one hand and a club in the other
but she cried loudly that she had brought him the coat and then he grew quiet and invited her to come into his house he tried on the coat but it was too short and he threw it off and declared it was no use and the girl picked it up sadly
and returned quite in despair to the king's palace the next morning when she was combing the princess's hair she begged leave to cut off another lock at first the princess said no but the girl begged so hard that at length she gave in on condition
the maiden told her that she had already found him and spun the lock into shining stuff
and he was quite pleased and asked her what he could give her in return and she said that the only reward he could give her was to take the spell off the lion and bring him back to his own shape for a long time the giant would not hear of it
but in the end he gave in and told her exactly how it must all be done she was to kill the lion herself and cut him up very small then she must burn him and cast his ashes into the water
and weeping she joined the prince who was awaiting her at the bottom and when he had heard her story he comforted her and bade her be of good courage and to do the bidding of the giant and the maiden believed what the prince told her
and as glad to look upon as the sun himself then the young man thanked the maiden for all she had done for him and said she should be his wife and none other but the maiden only wept sore
that the prince should wed her and her only but the prince replied if it is the princess we must go quickly come with me so they went together to the king's palace
and when the king and queen and princess saw the young man a great joy filled their hearts for they knew him for the eldest son who had long ago been enchanted by a giant and lost to them
chapter twelve he had been drowned he was floating in a sea of light and now and then shining little fishes swam inquisitively up to him and stared
leaving a flashing wake behind them they hurtled through the murky light like shooting stars and once two of them dashed together and burst like a rocket
the sparks came falling down through a billion miles of space and as they fell they built up planets and systems of their own until a dark coil that had the shape of a dragon slithered across the milky way
murmuring sound it was neither sad nor glad something like the sound that the last bee of autumn makes
something was falling across the back of his neck and spreading out across his shoulders like a woman's hair he thought perhaps it was a bit coarser but not much
but then just as the strange soothing feeling was putting him back to sleep the hairs changed their soft caress and a dozen of them plunged into his spinal cord
where all the bogies of the stone age still cowered odin yelled in pain and fought but the hands held him tight in his ears he could hear someone else screaming and cursing threatening all sorts of vengeance
the voice was gunnar's three times more the soft mane of hair caressed him and three times more just as he was getting ready to go back to sleep the torture began
and all the while he was lying upon his belly his face thrust into a pillow
the hands held him securely and once when he almost struggled clear a strong knee was thrust into his back and forced him down at intervals he could hear gunnar's voice and his own
crying pleading threatening then at last it was over the hands turned odin upon his back and he lay there gasping and hurting like one who has just come up from deep water
the lights were so bright that at first he could see nothing then his vision cleared
trying to reassure him beside odin on another bed was gunnar lying flat on his back and stripped to the waist gunnar was howling curses and kicking like a frog a doctor and a nurse were there
and for a second she looked like a high priestess of the amazon holding two mummified heads before her the pain left him his mind cleared and he lay there gasping from the ordeal
so cheerfully that he almost expected them to write out a bill for surgical fees god that was a close one
and wiped his forehead five hours of it and it was touch and go all the time what happened odin asked he remembered something about a glittering tomb
tell him nea
she smiled proudly it was my invention that saved you you see i have two of them now i told you
and i also told you that there is much more to them than you saw they are destroyers and they are builders we found you dead or nearly so hagen had sent volt after volt through your bodies
might say that we are master electronicians rebuilding circuits repairing transistors and condensers you were plenty rough gunnar grumbled we had to be
do you remember a story about the bush men dying from a curse here she held her two precious kalis in one arm while she tapped the base of her skull in here is a bulb the old brain
not even an idiot's brain that brought you up from the jungle it is a simple worrying brain easily frightened easily convinced it was convinced that you were dead we had to arouse it
odin fancied that he could hear the two kalis purring contentedly like cats well they had done a good job let them purr he would like to have thanked them but how can you thank two bowling balls with scalps of cat's whisker wire
gunnar sat up and began grumbling anew well thanks now get me some clothes
and tell me where we are it was ato's turn to talk i threw the nebula into the fourth drive some time ago that may have helped to save your lives too we should check on that nea
will you please tell me where we are gunnar demanded give me time little man
the people were bled white graft corruption and patronage had taken its toll some of the brons were older and wanted to rest but injustice couldn't stop until the last tear had washed away the last drop of blood
a few of the brons and most of the slaves revolted they won of course grim hagen should have known the result he and his men were in flight when they found you and took maya
we brought you here and took off all this time i have had a fix on hagen can't we overtake him odin asked we are trying to he seems to be heading for a huge dust cloud
and in a surprisingly short time our willing and unwilling fugitives will have lived out their lives they have the vagaries of time space and speed upon their side nea laughed even as i said before
she gave jack odin a searching look but odin avoided her gaze then what have you done odin asked
i have a fix upon him we sapped all the energy from aldebaran that we could we have power enough but there are no stars nearby as i said before he is heading for a dust cloud there both ships can replenish their energy
after that we will have to stick close by him and see what happens after all we are behind him by the old airmen's rule of thumb a ship with another upon its tail is a hundred percent loss only at that moment
odin corrected if not destroyed it has a chance to improve its percentage when the pursuer has made its pass true enough
close behind it i can't seem to find that dust cloud on any map it must be far far away nea laughed again what is far what is near
you do not even have catch words for trans space you are looking into the books of the advanced classes and you have not yet opened the primers of space
nea i was my father's helper for years and years i know as much about space as any man she shrugged oh you can cover blackboards with formulas
and i don't doubt that they will be right but living things and living emotions demand something to cling to a measuring stick grim hagen tried to give them something substantial back there
he even threw in a goddess did he succeed she paused to caress the two things she held in her arms my pets know more about time and space and energy than all of you don't you dears
she kissed one of them and gave odin a mysterious smile the kalis began purring contentedly as though space were no more than a huge living room and they were beside a comfortable fireplace looking up
florence nightingale the red cross nurse has become a heroic figure in the world to day and has saved lives by hundreds of thousands in every quarter of the globe she has labored under fire on the battlefield
and in the reek of pestilence in the rear her form is as familiar in war as that of the soldier and her name betokens every charity and kindness
but of all the heroic women who ever bore their healing art into the dark places and black hours of history no name stands out with the luster of florence nightingale
she was born in eighteen twenty two in the city of florence in italy and was named after the place where she first drew breath her father was william nightingale an english gentleman and her elder sister
also took her name from the place where she was born
the nightingale family did not remain long in italy and soon after the birth of his youngest child william nightingale with his wife and two little daughters
returned to england where the two girls spent their childhood in a rambling old house in derbyshire with many traditions and stories attached to it here florence conceived a love for nursing and used to tend sick animals in the neighborhood
and when she grew older to sit up with and cheer the sick among the cottagers there were not many people even among those who were far older than herself who could minister to the sick with her kindness and skill
and her fame soon was general through the neighborhood poor men used to come hat in hand to the old house requesting that miss florence spend a few hours with a sick wife
and the nightingales were kind enough and sensible enough to allow their daughter to do the work for which she had so evident an inclination there were no trained nurses in those days
sick people were expected to be cared for by their relatives hospitals were inefficient and badly run and the comforts of the modern sickroom were unknown as florence grew older she thought a great deal about these things
and finally decided that she would do something which at that time was regarded almost as strange as if she had declared her intention of visiting the north pole she said she was going to become a professional trained nurse
and went abroad to study nursing on the continent which was far ahead of england in such matters in a european hospital that was more in accord with the standards we know to day and where comfort skill and cleanliness
went hand in hand florence nightingale nursed the sick and acquired a mastery of the profession as it was then understood it was so unusual for a woman of refinement to enter such a calling that she had become known in many places simply because she had decided to become a nurse
this home like many another benevolent institution in those times was badly administered as it constantly showed a deficit its friends had become discouraged in supporting it and the subscriptions on which it lived had been falling off
the ladies who were compelled to remain there did not receive the care that they should have had and were unhappy and dispirited this was the state of affairs when florence nightingale became the superintendent of the home in a very short time
the home was completely changed miss nightingale had personally visited the former subscribers and secured once more their help and patronage she had changed the system on which the home had been run to such an extent
that it served as a model for institutions of its kind and where the unfortunate women that lived there had been on the verge of actual physical suffering they were now well cared for and contented
then war broke out between england france and turkey on the one side and russia on the other a war that was brought about among other reasons by the desire of the russian czar to seize and hold the port of constantinople
great britain and france supported the turks and active fighting commenced the theater of war soon shifted to the crimean peninsula where the british and french laid siege to the town of sebastopol which was russia's most important fortress
and chief base of supplies before the walls of sebastopol there took place severe fighting which continued until bitter winter rendered further campaigning impossible while the war was going on
thousands of sick and wounded british soldiers were pouring into the base hospitals at scutari where no provision for their care had been made with the constant flood of wounded men
and men who were dying of dysentery and cholera with no medical supplies and little food with no nurses and only a few doctors the condition of the british wounded soon became terrible beyond description
as there were no field dressing stations they had to be carried for days with their wounds undressed before they reached the hospital and when they arrived it was often some time before the harassed doctors could care for them
they were brought in with their uniforms covered with filth and blood and were laid in long rows on the floors of the hospital where few cots were to be found vermin crawled over the floors over the walls and over the bodies of the helpless men
rats gnawed the fingers of the wounded who were too weak to drive them away there were no conveniences of any kind and many men died of exhaustion because no food adequate for the sick could be prepared all the food we are told
consisted of beef and vegetables boiled together in one huge caldron into which new supplies were thrown indiscriminately as fast as they were delivered the bread was moldy and the beef too tough even for well men to eat
owing to the efforts of a war correspondent of the london times the people at home were soon informed of the state of affairs in the crimea and gifts and supplies poured in profusely
but owing to the inefficiency and red tape of the war department the supplies were not delivered but lay rotting in warehouses and in the holds of vessels while men died for the want of them
on one occasion we are told a consignment of shoes for the soldiers turned out to be in women's sizes improper inspections resulted in high profits for the army contractors made uniforms out of shoddy and leather accouterments from paper
filled the cores of hay bales with kale stocks and cheated the government right and left without forbearance or conscience then the newspapers began calling for english women to go to the crimea and care for the sick
and florence nightingale heard the call she wrote a letter to sydney herbert who was minister of war volunteering to organize a body of nurses and go out to the crimea to care for the wounded right then a curious thing happened
the war department had already decided that miss nightingale was the one person who could take charge of the reorganization of the hospitals in the crimea and had written a letter requesting her services offer and request crossed each other in the mails
on the following day her appointment was officially announced and she was overwhelmed with proffers of assistance from all sides a large number of patriotic women volunteered to aid her
but only a very few possessed the necessary qualifications for such a task of all that offered to go miss nightingale was only able to accept thirty that she considered would be capable of performing the severe tasks that lay ahead
for she knew only too well the grim welcome she would receive at the crimea without farewells quietly and at night seen off only by a few intimate relatives the little group of nurses started on their mission
the first one where women were to care for the soldiers who had fallen in war they crossed the english channel and arrived at boulogne in france on the following morning
from there they made their way to the seat of the war and miss nightingale looked for the first time on the hospital where she was so soon to acquire immortal fame
it may well be thought that her heart sank when she saw the enormity of the task that lay before her for she had been sent to bring order from chaos plenty from want comfort from torture and cleanliness from wholesale filth
she had to contend not only with these awful conditions
but with the dislike and distrust of the medical officers with whom she was to work who resented the fact that a woman had been sent out to reorganize what they considered a part of their department and who doubted because she was a woman that she would be capable of doing so efficiently
and when she arrived there was no time to spend in preliminary planning for active fighting had been going on at the front and the wounded from recent battles were pouring in adding to the confusion that already existed
they were laid groaning in hallways and on the bare ground until such time as the doctors could look after them then florence nightingale hardly taking breath plunged into the task that awaited her
and sent her nurses to the quarters where they were most needed with their own hands these brave englishwomen scrubbed the reeking floors and supervised the work of the orderlies
they visited the quartermasters and obtained the supplies that had been tied up through faulty administration and through army red tape and in a short time they had established a diet kitchen where several hundred sick and wounded men could have the food they required
food that would save their lives the death rate we are told before this woman nurse and her little company arrived at the hospital was sixty percent of all the cases that were treated there and after she had effected the changes that she saw were necessary
and her bravery at times this indomitable woman was on her feet for twenty hours out of the twenty four supervising directing
feeding another who was too weak to feed himself the doctors who had been her opponents soon looked up to her and became her devoted friends
and the men who had been through such terrible sufferings thought she was indeed an angel from heaven and as she passed down the long wards would furtively kiss her shadow as it fell across their blankets
many a time she took charge of cases that had been given up by the doctors who turned their attention always to those whom they believed had a fighting chance for life and she nursed them back to life with a patience and a tenderness that the doctors could not spare
from the ships and warehouses there commenced to appear the comforts that sick men demanded sheets and nightgowns socks and pillows in the place of the nauseous beef stew the wounded began to get broths and jellies
should they die they were sure of a woman's hand and a kindly ministration at the last for florence nightingale had resolved that no man should die unattended in her hospital and the wonders she performed were heard of back in england where her name became national
she had gone to scutari in eighteen fifty four in may eighteen fifty five she visited other hospitals that were nearer the seat of war and went into the trenches themselves before sebastopol
one of her biographers tells us that when she entered the trenches she was warned by a sentinel to go no further because the enemy had the place under close watch and would certainly open fire when they beheld a group of people at that particular point
my good young man replied miss nightingale more dead and wounded have passed through my hands than i hope you will ever see on the battlefield during the whole of your military career believe me i have no fear of death
then she fell ill with crimean fever and through the army the news was received with more consternation than a severe defeat men broke down and cried like children when they heard that miss nightingale lay at the point of death
and the commander in chief lord raglan rode through sleet and mud for hours to visit her personally she did not die however but recovered to take up again her duties as chief nurse and organizer
when the war was ended miss nightingale remained at the crimea until the last soldiers were sent home and then and not till then she followed them after most of the men had left and only a few remained
she still worked faithfully to serve them establishing reading huts
some sixty years later as a matter of fact the work performed by miss nightingale was indirectly responsible for the birth of the red cross which was organized in switzerland some four years after she had finished her work at the crimea
and certainly no name in the red cross in spite of the host of noble men and women who have served there has ever equaled the glory of her own she returned to england quietly as she had left although a british government placed a battleship at her service
and she lived in england engaged in useful and philanthropic work for a great many years with a fund of about two hundred fifty thousand dollars she founded the nightingale home for the proper training of nurses
a fund that she could have doubled or trebled had she so desired or if the needs of the home had required it in the following years she was frequently consulted on hospital organization in the armies not only of great britain but of continental nations as well
molly pitcher in the days of the american revolution a young woman lived as a servant in carlisle pennsylvania with the family of general irving a retired british officer
who had fought in the french and indian war and had seen a great deal of service this young woman was named molly ludwig hays
he had won her hand with difficulty for molly was a belle throughout the countryside she was not only handsome but as strong as a man able to carry a heavy meal sack on her shoulder and one of the hardest workers that the town knew
she washed and scrubbed and scoured and baked from morning till night and seemed to revel in the hard work that gave the needed exercise to her strong muscles throughout her life molly hays had admired soldiers
and more than once she expressed herself in no undecided terms to the effect that she wished she were a man so that she could bear arms
and be a soldier herself when she was still a very young woman the american revolution for freedom from great britain broke out all the country was aflame and rang with the stories of what happened at lexington and bunker hill
man after man from the village took his powder horn and musket and went off to enlist for the war and molly grew more and more restless as she saw them go at last her husband came to her somewhat sheepishly
for he disliked to tell her the intention he had in his heart but at length he made her understand that just because he was married was no reason why he should remain at home with the women and he too intended to enlist that very day
molly consented with the utmost enthusiasm she told him that she would be proud to be the wife of a soldier since she could not be one herself and bade him farewell with the admonishment to do his part bravely
and to bear himself like the man she knew him to be and she stood at the door of their home waving good by to him with a cheerful face that gave no hint of her aching heart
when her husband had departed molly returned to the irving household where she worked as well as she had before her marriage trying to find relief in the heavy labor from the pain of having lost her husband
and the aching desire to go and do her part beside him even though she were a woman fate thought molly had made a sad mistake in making her a woman for she knew that in spite of her petticoats she could soldier as well as the men
and if she had only been a man she believed she could have risen to an important position in the army the tide of the struggle wavered and battles with the red coats were fought and won
it was hard to get the newspapers in those times and news of the armies and their doings was often weeks behind the actual events molly hoped and waited but for weeks at a time she went without word from her husband
and did not know whether he were alive or dead one day a messenger called for her at the irving household he had a letter from john hays for molly and it not only told her that he was alive and well but was in camp not far off from her former home
in trenton new jersey where her aged parents were still living the letter ended by telling her to come to trenton and live with her parents for he would be able without doubt to get leave from his command and see her often
soon the war itself was being fought in the neighborhood of her home the americans attacked the british near princeton killing and capturing a large number then washington with his small force withdrew from that region
before reenforcements could be brought against him and now molly found that there was something that she could do namely go and care for the wounded who were still lying where they had fallen on the field of battle
the british general cornwallis and his men were approaching but that did not worry her a whit and she went to and fro upon the battlefield carrying water for parched throats and binding wounds until the british soldiers were actually upon her
then molly saw a cannon pointed in the direction of the british and to her surprise it was loaded and there was a fuse still smoldering and lying near at hand she studied the cannon carefully
and it seemed to be aimed right at a group of the enemy that was approaching the brave girl dropped the pail of water that she had been carrying picked up the fuse and applied it to the touch hole
they had believed that the americans were far away and here this gun gave warning that they were still near at hand or at any rate had left a strong rear guard with artillery to delay them in their pursuit
she would have had but little chance of mercy at their hands and would at once have faced a firing squad or been hung to the nearest tree as it was they thought she was only some country girl who had perhaps lost some relative in the recent battle
and was carrying his dead body back to her home and so they paid no attention to her molly however by firing this shot had materially aided general washington for any delay of the british even a slight one
gave a great advantage to the americans who were hurrying from superior numbers to put themselves in a good tactical position as soon as they could on a hot day of july in the following summer
it chanced that washington's forces were again not far away from molly's home and she took a difficult journey on the chance of seeing her husband her first step in soldiering had been taken when she fired the cannon at the british in the preceding year
a far greater adventure lay before her for she fell in with the american soldiers just as they commenced the severe battle of monmouth this battle had considerable importance as a comparatively large number of troops were engaged in it
general washington was in command of the americans and the english were led by sir henry clinton the english had been retreating from philadelphia across new jersey followed by washington
and the american general had decided to launch an attack on the left wing of the retreating forces and general lee was ordered by washington to attack the english on the flank and hold them in battle until he himself could come up with the bulk of the american army
general lee however proved to be a poor man for this task and his indecision and semi cowardice left washington exposed to the brunt of the enemy's attack before he was prepared to meet it and against the intentions of the american commander
the situation was saved by general greene who saw what had happened changed his own plans and diverted the attack of the british to his own position from which he poured in a heavy artillery fire that caused them terrible losses
john hays was one of the cannoneers of greene's artillery and he worked all day loading and firing his piece it was a terribly hot day and many men in both the british and the american armies fell exhausted
and even died from the heat of the sun all this time molly hays had been caring for the wounded and carrying water to the thirsty gunners using for the purpose the bucket that was attached to her husband's cannon for cleaning purposes
tirelessly she continued her efforts to care for the wounded and comfort the fighting soldiers heedless of the bullets that came her way or of the general turmoil of battle as the day wore on the men would greet her coming with
here comes molly with her pitcher and gradually this was changed to here comes molly pitcher and this was the name that history has adopted in regard to the brave woman for whom it was so used
at last john hays succumbed to the heat and fell unconscious beside his gun the sun had proved too much for him molly stopped carrying water to care for her husband she bathed his head and moved him into the shade
returning to her duties just in time to hear general knox give orders that the cannon be removed because he had no other gunner cool enough and skilful enough to work it in its present exposed position at this molly sprang forward crying out
i can fire it i am a gunner's wife and know how to load and fire a cannon i'll take the place that my brave husband has left and running to the gun molly commenced to load and fire so determinedly and skilfully
that a gasp of amazement ran through the men that saw her for many weary hours she toiled at the gun until the british were driven back
before she left her cannon general greene himself came over to where she stood and grasping her hand thanked her in the name of the american army this was not all the triumph she received however
for word was soon brought to her that general washington himself wished to see her she was in her ragged grimy clothes in which she had fought and succored the wounded through the whole of that hot day
and she now put on a soldier's coat in which to meet the general washington praised her highly and before a large number of his officers and men
and not only the americans did her honor but the french as well for the marquis de lafayette with his own hand presented her with a purse of golden crowns
and the name of molly pitcher as she was ever after called became one of the great names of american history after the war was ended she lived with her husband until he died and later she married again
chapter twenty four mystery developed unfortunately for charlotte about three weeks before this unhappy rencontre captain beauchamp being ordered to rhode island his lady had accompanied him
so that charlotte was deprived of her friendly advice and consoling society the afternoon on which montraville had visited her she had found herself languid and fatigued
and after making a very slight dinner had lain down to endeavour to recruit her exhausted spirits and contrary to her expectations had fallen asleep she had not long been lain down when belcour arrived
for he took every opportunity of visiting her and striving to awaken her resentment against montraville he enquired of the servant where her mistress was and being told she was asleep took up a book to amuse himself
having sat a few minutes he by chance cast his eyes towards the road and saw montraville approaching he instantly conceived the diabolical scheme of ruining the unhappy charlotte in his opinion for ever
when montraville spurned the weeping charlotte from him and left her almost distracted with terror and despair belcour raised her from the floor and leading her down stairs assumed the part of a tender consoling friend
she listened to the arguments he advanced with apparent composure but this was only the calm of a moment the remembrance of montraville's recent cruelty again rushed upon her mind she pushed him from her with some violence and crying
leave me sir i beseech you leave me for much i fear you have been the cause of my fidelity being suspected go leave me to the accumulated miseries my own imprudence has brought upon me
she then left him with precipitation and retiring to her own apartment threw herself on the bed and gave vent to an agony of grief which it is impossible to describe it now occurred to belcour
he therefore called the servant and by the powerful persuasion of a bribe prevailed with her to promise whatever letters her mistress might write should be sent to him he then left a polite tender note for charlotte
and returned to new york his first business was to seek montraville and endeavour to convince him that what had happened would ultimately tend to his happiness he found him in his apartment solitary pensive
and wrapped in disagreeable reflexions why how now whining pining lover said he clapping him on the shoulder montraville started a momentary flush of resentment crossed his cheek
but instantly gave place to a death like paleness occasioned by painful remembrance remembrance awakened by that monitor whom though we may in vain endeavour we can never entirely silence
she had still been virtuous and happy in the affection and protection of her family pshaw replied belcour laughing if you had not taken advantage of her easy nature some other would
and where is the difference pray i wish i had never seen her cried he passionately and starting from his seat
added he with vehemence had it not been for her i might have been happy he paused with julia franklin said belcour the name like a sudden spark of electric fire
seemed for a moment to suspend his faculties for a moment he was transfixed but recovering he caught belcour's hand and cried stop stop i beseech you
by heavens i swear belcour i thought i loved the lost abandoned charlotte till i saw julia i thought i never could forsake her but the heart is deceitful
and i now can plainly discriminate between the impulse of a youthful passion and the pure flame of disinterested affection at that instant julia franklin passed the window leaning on her uncle's arm
she curtseyed as she passed and with the bewitching smile of modest cheerfulness cried do you bury yourselves in the house this fine evening gents there was something in the voice the manner
the look that was altogether irresistible perhaps she wishes my company said montraville mentally as he snatched up his hat if i thought she loved me i would confess my errors
and trust to her generosity to pity and pardon me he soon overtook her and offering her his arm they sauntered to pleasant but unfrequented walks
belcour drew mister franklin on one side and entered into a political discourse they walked faster than the young people and belcour by some means contrived entirely to lose sight of them
it was a fine evening in the beginning of autumn the last remains of day light faintly streaked the western sky while the moon with pale and virgin lustre in the room of gorgeous gold and purple
the zephyrs whispered softly through the trees which now began to shed their leafy honours a solemn silence reigned and to a happy mind an evening such as this would give serenity
and calm unruffled pleasure but to montraville while it soothed the turbulence of his passions it brought increase of melancholy reflections julia was leaning on his arm
he took her hand in his and pressing it tenderly sighed deeply but continued silent julia was embarrassed she wished to break a silence so unaccountable but was unable
she loved montraville she saw he was unhappy and wished to know the cause of his uneasiness but that innate modesty which nature has implanted in the female breast prevented her enquiring
and i cannot shake off the disagreeable impression it has made on my mind i am sorry she replied that you have any cause of inquietude i am sure if you were as happy as you deserve
and as all your friends wish you she hesitated and might i replied he with some animation presume to rank the amiable julia in that number certainly
said she the service you have rendered me the knowledge of your worth all combine to make me esteem you esteem my lovely julia said he passionately
is but a poor cold word i would if i dared if i thought i merited your attention but no i must not honour forbids
i am beneath your notice julia i am miserable and cannot hope to be otherwise alas said julia i pity you
just then they were again joined by mister franklin and belcour it had interrupted an interesting discourse they found it impossible to converse on indifferent subjects and proceeded home in silence
at mister franklin's door montraville again pressed julia's hand and faintly articulating good night
chapter eleven not pats but scratches missus colebrook went home the next day she wore the air of an injured martyr at breakfast she told her brother that of course
if he preferred to have an ignorant servant girl take care of his poor afflicted son she had nothing to say but that certainly he could not expect her to stay too especially after being insulted as she had been
what keith called her mad song when susan was particularly worked up over something jest b'ilin inside as she expressed it she always sang this song her own composition
when daniel burton this morning therefore heard susan singing this song he was in no doubt as to susan's state of mind a fact which certainly did not add to his own serenity upstairs keith
wearily indifferent as to everything that was taking place about him lay motionless as usual his face turned toward the wall and at ten o'clock missus colebrook went five minutes later daniel burton entered the kitchen
a proceeding so extraordinary that susan broke off her song in the middle of a hurrah and grew actually pale what is it keith is anything the matter with keith she faltered
ignoring her question the man strode into the room well susan this time you've done it he ejaculated tersely done it
why mister burton what do you mean is keith worse chattered susan with dry lips it was only a little hash i took up he simply won't eat that oatmeal stuff an' no no i don't mean the hash
interrupted the man irritably keith is all right that is he is just as he has been it's my sister missus colebrook she's gone gone for good
yes she's gone home glory be the color came back to susan's face in a flood and frank delight chased the terror from her eyes now we can do somethin worthwhile
i reckon you'll find you have to do something susan you know very well i can't afford to hire a nurse now i don't want one but there's all the other work too work why mister burton
you jest wait the first elemental thing is to learn him self defiance so he can do things for himself
it costs money for that susan's face fell
i know she hesitated then went on her color deepening an i hain't sold none o them poems yet but there's other magazines a whole lot of em that i hain't tried somebody's sure to take em some time
i'm glad your courage is still good susan but i'm afraid the dear public is going to appreciate your poems about the way it does my pictures
even to beat susan's record steadfastly he resisted all efforts to stir him into interest or action and a dismayed disappointed susan had to go downstairs in acknowledged defeat but
what could you expect she muttered to herself after a sorrowful meditation before the kitchen fire you can't put a backbone into a jellyfish by jest showin him the bone an that's what his aunt has made him
a flappy transparallel jellyfish drat her but i ain't goin to give up not much i ain't and susan attacked the little kitchen stove with a vigor that would have brought terror to the clinkers of a furnace fire pot
but the next morning after she had given keith his breakfast not of toast and oatmeal she suggested blithely that he get up and be dressed when he refused she tried coaxing mildly then more strenuously
when this failed she tried to sting his pride by telling him she did not believe he could get up now anyhow and dress himself all right susan let it go that i can't i don't want to anyhow
no i can't let you alone keith she replied voice and manner now coldly firm why not
how about thinkin for once what somebody else wants young man susan caught her breath again and glanced furtively at the half averted face on the pillow then doggedly she went on
maybe you think i hain't got anything to do but trespass up an down them stairs all day waitin on you when you are perfectly capacious of waitin on yourself some why susan
there was incredulous hurt amazement in the boy's voice but susan was visibly steeling herself against it what do you think that i'm loafin all day an your aunt gone now an me with it all on my hands she demanded
her stony gaze carefully turned away from the white face on the pillow an to have to keep runnin up here all the mornin when i've got to do the dishes an bake bread an make soap an' if you'll get my clothes susan i'll get up
said keith very quietly from the bed and susan not daring to unclose her lips
but she had not reached the hall below when the sobs shook her frame
she choked barely had susan whipped herself into presentable shape again when keith's voice at the kitchen door caused her to face about with a startled cry i'm downstairs susan the boy's voice challenged hers for coldness now
i'll take my meals down here after this why keith however in the world did you then susan pulled herself up good boy keith that will make it lots easier she said cheerfully impersonally
but later at least once every half hour through that long forenoon susan crept softly through the side hall to the half open living room door where she could watch keith
she watched him get up and move slowly along the side of the room picking his way she watched him pause and move hesitating fingers down the backs of the chairs that he encountered but when she saw him stop
and finger the books on the little table by the window she crept back to her kitchen and rattled still more loudly the pots and pans in the sink just before the noon meal keith appeared once more at the kitchen door susan
would it bother you very much if i ate out here with you he asked with me nonsense you'll eat in the dinin' room with your dad of course why what would he say to your eatin out here with me
he'd like it i'm sure insisted the boy feverishly you know sometimes i i don't get any food on my fork when i eat an i have to to feel for things an it it must be disagreeable to see me
an do you now run back to the settin' room i've got my dinner to get keith had not disappeared down the hall however before susan was halfway up the back stairs a moment later she was in the studio daniel burton
she panted company yes your son keith the man drew back perceptibly there now daniel burton
but susan it breaks my heart moaned the man turning quite away what if it does ain't his broke too can't you think of him a little
let me tell you this daniel burton that boy has more consolation for your feelin's than you have for his every time didn't he jest come to me an beg to eat with me cause his dad didn't like to see disagreeable things an' the man wheeled sharply
did keith do that he did jest now sir all right susan i i don't think you'll have to say any more and susan after a sharp glance into the man's half averted face
said no more a moment later she had left the room at dinner that day with red eyes but a vivacious manner she waited on a man who incessantly talked of nothing in particular
chapter twenty seven pensive she mourn'd
and hung her languid head like a fair lily overcharg'd with dew charlotte had now been left almost three months a prey to her own melancholy reflexions
sad companions indeed nor did any one break in upon her solitude but belcour who once or twice called to enquire after her health and tell her he had in vain endeavoured to bring montraville to hear reason
and once but only once was her mind cheered by the receipt of an affectionate letter from missus beauchamp often had she wrote to her perfidious seducer and with the most persuasive eloquence
endeavoured to convince him of her innocence but these letters were never suffered to reach the hands of montraville or they must though on the very eve of marriage have prevented his deserting the wretched girl
real anguish of heart had in a great measure faded her charms her cheeks were pale from want of rest and her eyes by frequent indeed almost continued weeping were sunk and heavy
sometimes a gleam of hope would play about her heart when she thought of her parents they cannot surely she would say refuse to forgive me or should they deny their pardon to me
they win not hate my innocent infant on account of its mother's errors how often did the poor mourner wish for the consoling presence of the benevolent missus beauchamp if she were here
she would cry she would certainly comfort me and sooth the distraction of my soul she was sitting one afternoon wrapped in these melancholy reflexions when she was interrupted by the entrance of belcour
great as the alteration was which incessant sorrow had made on her person she was still interesting still charming and the unhallowed flame which had urged belcour to plant dissension between her and montraville
that he might be a witness to his unmanly triumph when he entered the room where charlotte was sitting he assumed the look of tender consolatory friendship and how does my lovely charlotte
said he taking her hand i fear you are not so well as i could wish i am not well mister belcour said she very far from it
but the pains and infirmities of the body i could easily bear nay submit to them with patience were they not aggravated by the most insupportable anguish of my mind
deserted and forsaken as i am without a friend of my own sex to whom i can unburthen my full heart nay my fidelity suspected by the very man for whom i have sacrificed every thing valuable in life
for whom i have made myself a poor despised creature an outcast from society an object only of contempt and pity you think too meanly of yourself miss temple
all who have the pleasure of knowing you must admire and esteem
give me leave to conduct you to new york where the agreeable society of some ladies to whom i will introduce you will dispel these sad thoughts and i shall again see returning cheerfulness animate those lovely features
unknown and unpitied here let me die unlamented and my name sink to oblivion
belcour was awed to silence he dared not interrupt her and after a moment's pause she proceeded
to seek out the still dear though cruel ungenerous montraville to throw myself at his feet and entreat his compassion heaven knows not for myself if i am no longer beloved
i will not be indebted to his pity to redress my injuries but i would have knelt and entreated him not to forsake my poor unborn she could say no more a crimson glow rushed over her cheeks
and covering her face with her hands she sobbed aloud something like humanity was awakened in belcour's breast by this pathetic speech he arose and walked towards the window but
at the word attached a death like paleness overspread the countenance of charlotte but she applied to some hartshorn which stood beside her and belcour proceeded
he has been for some time past greatly attached to one miss franklin a pleasing lively girl with a large fortune she may be richer may be handsomer cried charlotte
but cannot love him so well oh may she beware of his art and not trust him too far as i have done he addresses her publicly said he and it was rumoured
they were to be married before he sailed for eustatia whither his company is ordered belcour said charlotte seizing his hand and gazing at him earnestly while her pale lips trembled with convulsive agony
tell me and tell me truly i beseech you do you think he can be such a villain as to marry another woman and leave me to die with want and misery in a strange land
said belcour he can be that villain perhaps cried she eagerly interrupting him perhaps he is married already come let me know the worst
continued she with an affected look of composure you need not be afraid i shall not send the fortunate lady a bowl of poison well then my dear girl
cried she in a distracted accent what without a last farewell without one thought on my unhappy situation oh montraville may god forgive your perfidy
she shrieked and belcour sprang forward just in time to prevent her falling to the floor alarming faintings now succeeded each other and she was conveyed to her bed from whence she earnestly prayed
she might never more arise belcour staid with her that night and in the morning found her in a high fever the fits she had been seized with had greatly terrified him
she was no longer an object of desire it is true for several days he went constantly to see her but her pale emaciated appearance disgusted him his visits became less frequent
he forgot the solemn charge given him by montraville he even forgot the money entrusted to his care and the burning blush of indignation and shame tinges my cheek while i write it
this disgrace to humanity and manhood at length forgot even the injured charlotte and attracted by the blooming health of a farmer's daughter
chapter seventeen barton's night errand mournful is't to say farewell though for few brief hours we part in that absence who can tell what may come to wring the heart
anonymous the events recorded in the last chapter took place on a tuesday on thursday afternoon mary was surprised in the midst of some little bustle in which she was engaged
by the entrance of will wilson he looked strange at least it was strange to see any different expression on his face to his usual joyous beaming appearance he had a paper parcel in his hand
he came in and sat down more quietly than usual why will what's the matter with you you seem quite cut up about something and i am mary i'm come to say good bye
and few folk like to say good bye to them they love good bye bless me will that's sudden isn't it mary left off ironing and came and stood near the fire place she had always liked will
but now it seemed as if a sudden spring of sisterly love had gushed up in her heart so sorry did she feel to hear of his approaching departure it's very sudden isn't it
yes it's very sudden said he dreamily no
rousing himself to think of what he was saying the captain told me in a fortnight he would be ready to sail again but it comes very sudden on me i had got so fond of you all mary understood the particular fondness
that was thus generalised she spoke again but it's not a fortnight since you came not a fortnight since you knocked at jane wilson's door and i was there you remember nothing like a fortnight
but you see i got a letter this afternoon from jack harris to tell me our ship sails on tuesday next and it's long since i promised my uncle my mother's brother him that lives at kirk christ beyond ramsay in the isle of man
that i'd go and see him and his this time of coming ashore i must go i'm sorry enough but i mustn't slight poor mother's friends i must go don't try to keep me said he
evidently fearing the strength of his own resolution if hard pressed by entreaty i'm not a going will i dare say you're right only i can't help feeling sorry you're going away it seems so flat to be left behind
when do you go to night i shan't see you again to night and you go to liverpool may be you and father will go together he's going to glasgow by way of liverpool
no i'm walking and i don't think your father will be up to walking well and why on earth are you walking you can get by railway for three and sixpence ay but mary
thou mustn't let out what i'm going to tell thee i haven't got three shillings no nor even a sixpence left at least not here
and may be a trifle for presents
and it's all gone but this jingling a few coppers in his hand nay never fret over my walking a matter of thirty mile added he as he saw she looked grave and sorry it's a fine clear night and i shall set off betimes
and get in afore the manx packet sails where's your father going to glasgow did you say perhaps he and i may have a bit of a trip together then for if the manx boat has sailed when i get into liverpool i shall go by a scotch packet
what's he going to do in glasgow seek for work trade is as bad there as here folk say no he knows that answered mary sadly i sometimes think he'll never get work again and that trade will never mend
it's very hard to keep up one's heart i wish i were a boy i'd go to sea with you it would be getting away from bad news at any rate and now there's hardly a creature that crosses the door step but has something sad and unhappy to tell one
father is going as a delegate from his union to ask help from the glasgow folk he's starting this evening mary sighed for the feeling again came over her that it was very flat to be left alone
you say no one crosses the threshold but has something sad to say you don't mean that margaret jennings has any trouble asked the young sailor anxiously no replied mary smiling a little
she's the only one i know i believe who seems free from care her blindness almost appears a blessing sometimes she was so downhearted when she dreaded it and now she seems so calm and happy when it's downright come
no margaret's happy i do think i could almost wish it had been otherwise said will thoughtfully i could have been so glad to comfort her and cherish her if she had been in trouble
oh i don't know she seems so much better than i am and her voice when i hear it and think of the wishes that are in my heart it seems as much out of place to ask her to be my wife
as it would be to ask an angel from heaven mary could not help laughing outright in spite of her depression at the idea of margaret as an angel it was so difficult even to her dress making imagination
to fancy where and how the wings would be fastened to the brown stuff gown or the blue and yellow print will laughed too a little out of sympathy with mary's pretty merry laugh then he said
ay you may laugh mary it only shows you've never been in love in an instant mary was carnation colour and the tears sprang to her soft gray eyes
it was unkind of him he did not notice her change of look and of complexion he only noticed that she was silent so he continued i thought i think that when i come back from this voyage i will speak
it's my fourth voyage in the same ship and with the same captain and he's promised he'll make me second mate after this trip then i shall have something to offer margaret and her grandfather and aunt alice shall live with her
i'm speaking as if she cared for me and would marry me d'ye think she does care at all for me mary asked he anxiously mary had a very decided opinion of her own on the subject but she did not feel as if she had any right to give it
so she said you must ask margaret not me will she's never named your name to me his countenance fell but i should say that was a good sign from a girl like her i've no right to say what i think
but if i was you i would not leave her now without speaking no i cannot speak i have tried i've been in to wish them good bye and my voice stuck in my throat i could say nought of what i'd planned to say
and i never thought of being so bold as to offer her marriage till i'd been my next trip and been made mate i could not even offer her this box said he undoing his paper parcel and displaying a gaudily ornamented accordion
i longed to buy her something and i thought if it were something in the music line she would may be fancy it more so will you give it to her mary when i'm gone and if you can slip in something tender something
you know of what i feel may be she would listen to you mary mary promised that she would do all that he asked i shall be thinking on her many and many a night when i'm keeping my watch in mid sea
i wonder if she will ever think on me when the wind is whistling and the gale rising you'll often speak of me to her mary and if i should meet with any mischance tell her how dear how very dear she was to me
and bid her for the sake of one who loved her well try and comfort my poor aunt alice dear old aunt you and margaret will often go and see her won't you she's sadly failed since i was last ashore
and so good as she has been when i lived with her a little wee chap i used to be wakened by the neighbours knocking her up
and for as tired as ever she might be she would be up and dressed in a twinkling never thinking of the hard day's wash afore her next morning them were happy times how pleased i used to be when she would take me into the fields with her to gather herbs
i've tasted tea in china since then but it wasn't half so good as the herb tea she used to make for me o sunday nights and she knew such a deal about plants and birds and their ways she used to tell me long stories about her childhood
please god that was always her word and live near her old home beyond lancaster
dear and how different it is here is she still in a back street o manchester never likely to see her own home again and i a sailor off for america next week
i wish she had been able to go to burton once afore she died she would may be have found all sadly changed said mary though her heart echoed will's feeling ay
ay i dare say it's best one thing i do wish though and i have often wished it when out alone on the deep sea
and that is that i'd never grieved her oh mary many a hasty word comes sorely back on the heart when one thinks one shall never see the person whom one has grieved again they both stood thinking
suddenly mary started that's father's step and his shirt's not ready she hurried to her irons and tried to make up for lost time john barton came in such a haggard and wildly anxious looking man
will thought he had never seen he looked at will but spoke no word of greeting or welcome
you'll think on me on tuesday mary that's the day we shall hoist our blue peter jack harris says mary was heartily sorry when the door closed it seemed like shutting out a friendly sunbeam and her father
what could be the matter with him he was so restless not speaking she wished he would but starting up and then sitting down and meddling with her irons he seemed so fierce too to judge from his face
she wondered if he disliked will being there or if he were vexed to find that she had not got further on with her work at last she could bear his nervous way no longer it made her equally nervous and fidgetty she would speak
when are you going father i don't know the time o the trains and why shouldst thou know replied he gruffly meddle with thy ironing but donnot be asking questions about what doesn't concern thee
i wanted to get you something to eat first answered she gently thou dost not know that i'm larning to do without food said he mary looked at him to see if he spoke jestingly no he looked savagely grave
she finished her bit of ironing and began preparing the food she was sure her father needed for by this time her experience in the degrees of hunger had taught her that his present irritability was increased if not caused by want of food
and out of this he had given mary a few shillings in the morning so she had been able to buy a sufficient meal and now her care was to cook it
if thou'rt doing that for me mary thou may'st spare thy labour i telled thee i were not for eating just a little bit father before starting coaxed mary perseveringly
mary knew from past experience they were any thing but short her father's countenance fell back into the deep gloom from which it was but just emerging at the sound of mary's sweet voice and pretty pleading he became again restless and fidgetty
in his own house job however did not stand upon ceremony he had come to pay a visit and was not to be daunted from his purpose he was interested in john barton's mission to glasgow and wanted to hear all about it
so he sat down and made himself comfortable in a manner that mary saw was meant to be stationary so thou'rt off to glasgow art thou he began his catechism ay when art starting
to night that i knowed but by what train that was just what mary wanted to know but what apparently her father was in no mood to tell he got up without speaking and went up stairs mary knew from his step
and his way how much he was put out and feared job would see it too but no job seemed imperturbable so much the better and perhaps she could cover her father's rudeness by her own civility to so kind a friend
so half listening to her father's movements up stairs passionate violent restless motions they were
she tried to pay him all due regard when does thy father start mary that plaguing question again oh very soon i'm just getting him a bit of supper is margaret very well
yes she's well enough she's meaning to go and keep alice wilson company for an hour or so this evening as soon as she thinks her nephew will have started for liverpool
yes they've given him a sovereign
ay i'm one sure enough
i were obliged to become a member for peace else i don't go along with em
well there's no harm in that but then they won't let me be silly in peace and quietness but will force me to be as wise as they are now that's not british liberty i say i'm forced to be wise according to their notions
else they parsecute me and sarve me out what could her father be doing up stairs tramping and banging about why did he not come down or why did not job go the supper would be spoilt
but job had no notion of going you see my folly is this mary i would take what i could get i think half a loaf is better than no bread i would work for low wages rather than sit idle and starve but
comes the trades union and says well if you take the half loaf we'll worry you out of your life will you be clemmed or will you be worried now clemming is a quiet death and worrying isn't so i choose clemming
creak creak went the stairs her father was coming down at last yes he came down but more doggedly fierce than before and made up for his journey too with his little bundle on his arm
he went up to job and more civilly than mary expected wished him good bye he then turned to her and in a short cold manner bade her farewell oh father don't go yet
stay one moment but he pushed her away and was gone she followed him to the door her eyes blinded by sudden tears she stood there looking after him he was so strange so cold so hard
suddenly at the end of the court he turned and saw her standing there he came back quickly and took her in his arms god bless thee mary god in heaven bless thee poor child she threw her arms round his neck
don't go yet father i can't bear you to go yet come in and eat some supper you look so ghastly dear father do no he said faintly and mournfully it's best as it is
i couldn't eat and it's best to be off i cannot be still at home i must be moving so saying he unlaced her soft twining arms and kissing her once more set off on his fierce errand
and he was out of sight she did not know why but she had never before felt so depressed so desolate she turned in to job who sat there still
her father as soon as he was out of sight slackened his pace and fell into that heavy listless step which told as well as words could do of hopelessness and weakness it was getting dark but he loitered on
returning no greeting to any one a child's cry caught his ear his thoughts were running on little tom on the dead and buried child of happier years he followed the sound of the wail that might have been his
and found a poor little mortal who had lost his way and whose grief had choked up his thoughts to the single want mammy mammy with tender address john barton soothed the little laddie and with beautiful patience
he gathered fragments of meaning from the half spoken words which came mingled with sobs from the terrified little heart so aided by inquiries here and there from a passer by he led and carried the little fellow home where his mother had been
too busy to miss him but now received him with thankfulness and with an eloquent irish blessing when john heard the words of blessing he shook his head mournfully and turned away to retrace his steps let us leave him
mary took her sewing after he had gone and sat on and sat on
she had conquered her feeling of impatience towards him so far as to be able to offer him her father's rejected supper and she even tried to eat herself but her heart failed her a leaden weight seemed to hang over her
a sort of presentiment of evil or perhaps only an excess of low spirited feeling in consequence of the two departures which had taken place that afternoon
she did not like putting down her work and crying before him and yet she had never in her life longed so much to be alone in order to indulge in a good hearty burst of tears well mary she suddenly caught him saying
i thought you'd be a bit lonely to night
and a very pleasant chatty evening we've had very only i wonder as margaret is not come back but perhaps she is suggested mary no no i took care o that look ye here and he pulled out the great house key
and that i'm sure she wouldn't do when she knew where to find me will she come back by hersel asked mary ay at first i were afraid o trusting her and i used to follow her a bit behind never letting on of course but
bless you she goes along as steadily as can be rather slow to be sure and her head a bit on one side as if she were listening and it's real beautiful to see her cross the road she'll wait above a bit to hear that all is still
not that she's so dark as not to see a coach or a cart like a big black thing but she can't rightly judge how far off it is by sight so she listens hark that's her yes in she came
with her usually calm face all tear stained and sorrow marked what's the matter my wench said job hastily oh grandfather alice wilson's so bad she could say no more for her breathless agitation
the afternoon and the parting with will had weakened her nerves for any after shock what is it do tell us margaret said mary placing her in a chair and loosening her bonnet strings i think it's a stroke o the palsy
any rate she has lost the use of one side
no he were gone before i got there said margaret
she spoke a bit but not much but that were only natural for missus wilson likes to have the talk to hersel you know she got up to go across the room
and presently a fall and missus wilson came running and set up such a cry i stopped wi alice while she fetched a doctor but she could not speak to answer me though she tried i think where was jem why didn't he go for the doctor
he were out when i got there and he never came home while i stopped
no no said margaret but oh grandfather it's now i feel how hard it is to have lost my sight i should have so loved to nurse her and i did try until i found i did more harm than good
oh grandfather if i could but see she sobbed a little and they let her give that ease to her heart then she went on no i went round by missus davenport's and she were hard at work but
the minute i told my errand she were ready and willing to go to jane wilson and stop up all night with alice and what does the doctor say asked mary oh much what all doctors say
he puts a fence on this side and a fence on that for fear he should be caught tripping in his judgment one moment he does not think there's much hope but while there is life there is hope
but her age is again her he's ordered her leeches to her head margaret having told her tale leant back with weariness both of body and mind mary hastened to make her a cup of tea while job
lately so talkative sat quiet and mournfully silent i'll go first thing to morrow morning and learn how she is and i'll bring word back before i go to work said mary it's a bad job will's gone said job
jane does not think she knows any one replied margaret it's perhaps as well he shouldn't see her now for they say her face is sadly drawn he'll remember her with her own face better if he does not see her again
with a few more sorrowful remarks they separated for the night and mary was left alone in her house to meditate on the heavy day that had passed over her head everything seemed going wrong
will gone her father gone and so strangely too and to a place so mysteriously distant as glasgow seemed to be to her she had felt his presence as a protection against harry carson and his threats
and now she dreaded lest he should learn she was alone her heart began to despair too about jem she feared he had ceased to love her and she she only loved him more and more for his seeming neglect
and as if all this aggregate of sorrowful thoughts was not enough
the lay of the two lovers once upon a time there lived in normandy two lovers who were passing fond and were brought by love to death the story of their love
was bruited so abroad that the bretons made a song in their own tongue and named this song the lay of the two lovers in neustria that men call normandy
where lie the relics of the two children near this high place the king of those parts caused to be built a certain fair and cunning city and since he was lord of the pistrians it was known as pistres
the town yet endures with its towers and houses to bear witness to the truth moreover the country thereabouts is known to us all as the valley of pistres this king had one fair daughter
a damsel sweet of face and gracious of manner very near to her father's heart since he had lost his queen the maiden increased in years and favour but he took no heed to her trothing so that men yea even his own people
blamed him greatly for this thing when the king heard thereof he was passing heavy and dolent and considered within himself how he might be delivered from this grief so then that none should carry off his child
he caused it to be proclaimed both far and near by script and trumpet that he alone should wed the maid who would bear her in his arms to the pinnacle of the great and perilous mountain and that without rest or stay
when this news was noised about the country many came upon the quest but strive as they would they might not enforce themselves more than they were able however mighty they were of body at the last they failed upon the mountain
and right desirous to win that prize which was so coveted of all he was a welcome guest at the court and the king talked with him very willingly this squire had set his heart upon the daughter of the king
yet in the end altogether distraught by love this prudent varlet sought his friend and showed her his case saying that he urgently required of her that she would flee with him for no longer could he endure the weariness of his days
well i know you may not carry me to that high place moreover should we take to flight my father would suffer wrath and sorrow beyond measure and go heavily all his days
for this is not to my heart hearken well i have kindred in salerno of rich estate for more than thirty years my aunt has studied there the art of medicine and knows the secret gift of every root and herb if you hasten to her
then return to this realm with your potion and ask me at my father's hand he will deem you but a stripling and set forth the terms of his bargain that to him alone shall i be given who knows how to climb the perilous mountain
without pause or rest bearing his lady between his arms when the varlet heard this cunning counsel of the maiden he rejoiced greatly and thanking her sweetly for her rede craved permission to depart
but as soon as he might went to the damsel's kindred to open out his mind he delivered to the aunt the letters he carried from his friend and bewailed their evil case when the dame had read these letters with him line by line
she charged him to lodge with her awhile till she might do according to his wish so by her sorceries and for the love of her maid she brewed such a potion that no man however wearied and outworn but by drinking this philtre
would not be refreshed in heart and blood and bones such virtue had this medicine directly it were drunken this simple she poured within a little flacket
who received the gift with great joy and delight and returned swiftly to his own land the varlet made no long sojourn in his home he repaired straightway to the court and seeking out the king required of him his fair daughter in marriage
promising for his part that were she given him he would bear her in his arms to the summit of the mount the king was no wise wrath at his presumption he smiled rather at his folly
for how should one so young and slender succeed in a business wherein so many mighty men had failed therefore he appointed a certain day for this judgment moreover he caused letters to be written to his vassals and his friends
passing none by bidding them to see the end of this adventure yea with public cry and sound of trumpet he bade all who would come to behold the stripling carry his fair daughter to the pinnacle of the mountain and from every region round about
men came to learn the issue of this thing but for her part the fair maiden did all that she was able to bring her love to a good end
ever was it fast day and fleshless day with her so that by any means she might lighten the burthen that her friend must carry in his arms now on the appointed day this young dansellon came very early to the appointed place
bringing the flacket with him when the great company were fully met together the king led forth his daughter before them and all might see that she was arrayed in nothing but her smock the varlet took the maiden in his arms
but first he gave her the flask with the precious brewage to carry since for pride he might not endure to drink therefrom save at utmost peril the squire set forth at a great pace and climbed briskly till he was halfway up the mount
because of the joy he had in clasping his burthen he gave no thought to the potion but she she knew the strength was failing in his heart fair friend said she well i know that you tire drink now i pray you of the flacket
so long as i can hold upon my way it is the noise of all this folk the tumult and the shouting that makes my steps uncertain their cries distress me i do not dare to stand but when two thirds of the course was won
urgently and often the maiden prayed him saying fair friend drink now of thy cordial but he would neither hear nor give credence to her words a mighty anguish filled his bosom he climbed upon the summit of the mountain
and pained himself grievously to bring his journey to an end this he might not do he reeled and fell nor could he rise again for the heart had burst within his breast when the maiden saw her lover's piteous plight
she deemed that he had swooned by reason of his pain she kneeled hastily at his side and put the enchanted brewage to his lips but he could neither drink nor speak for he was dead as i have told you she bewailed his evil lot
with many shrill cries and flung the useless flacket far away
making a garden of that desolate place for many saving herbs have been found there since that day by the simple folk of that country which from the magic philtre derived all their virtue but when the maiden knew that her lover was dead
she made such wondrous sorrow as no man had ever seen she kissed his eyes and mouth and falling upon his body took him in her arms and pressed him closely to her breast there was no heart so hard as not to be touched by her sorrow
for in this fashion died a dame who was fair and sweet and gracious beyond the wont of the daughters of men now the king and his company since these two lovers came not again presently climbed the mountain to learn their end
but when the king came upon them lifeless and fast in that embrace incontinent he fell to the ground bereft of sense after his speech had returned to him he was passing heavy and lamented their doleful case
and thus did all his people with him three days they kept the bodies of these two fair children from earth with uncovered face on the third day they sealed them fast in a goodly coffin of marble
and by the counsel of all men laid them softly to rest on that mountain where they died then they departed from them and left them together alone
it was not until nearly two hours later that percy was standing at the house beyond the junction
half of them had disappeared in the rush to the city for it had leaked out in spite of the government's precautions that paul's house known once as saint paul's cathedral was to be the scene of felsenburgh's reception the others seemed demented
one man on the platform had dropped dead from nervous exhaustion but no one appeared to care and the body lay huddled beneath a seat
in his search for a car that would take him to croydon it seemed that there was none to be had and the useless carriages collected like drift wood between the platforms as others whirled up from the country bringing loads of frantic delirious men
who vanished like smoke from the white rubber boards the platforms were continually crowded and as continually emptied and it was not until half an hour before midnight that the block began to move outwards again well
he was here at last dishevelled hatless and exhausted looking up at the dark windows he scarcely knew what he thought of the whole matter war of course was terrible
but to the priest's mind there were other things even worse
peace that is to say established by others than christ's method or was god behind even this the questions were hopeless felsenburgh it was he then who had done this thing
this thing undoubtedly greater than any secular event hitherto known in civilisation what manner of man was he what was his character his motive his method how would he use his success
he touched the button again three or four times and waited then a light sprang out overhead and he knew that he was heard i was sent for he exclaimed to the bewildered maid
she babbled out a question at him yes it is true i believe he said it is peace not war kindly take me upstairs he went through the hall with a curious sense of guilt this was brand's house then
that vivid orator so bitterly eloquent against god and here was he a priest slinking in under cover of night well well it was not of his appointment at the door of an upstairs room the maid turned to him
a doctor sir she said that is my affair said percy briefly and opened the door a little wailing cry broke from the corner before he had time to close the door again oh thank god
i thought he had forgotten me you are a priest father i am a priest do you not remember seeing me in the cathedral yes yes sir i saw you praying father oh thank god thank god
percy stood looking down at her a moment seeing her flushed old face in the nightcap her bright sunken eyes and her tremulous hands yes this was genuine enough now my child he said tell me
my confession father percy drew out the purple thread slipped it over his shoulders and sat down by the bed but she would not let him go for a while after that tell me father
when will you bring me holy communion he hesitated i understand that mister brand and his wife know nothing of all this no father tell me are you very ill
when would you wish me to bring you holy communion i will do as you say shall i send to you in a day or two father ought i to tell him you are not obliged i will if i ought well think about it and let me know
she nodded but almost uninterestedly and percy was conscious of a tiny prick of compunction at his own heart after all the reconciling of a soul to god was a greater thing than the reconciling of east to west
it may make a difference to mister brand he said he will be a great man now you know she still looked at him in silence smiling a little percy was astonished at the youthfulness of that old face then her face changed
father i must not keep you but tell me this who is this man felsenburgh yes no one knows we shall know more to morrow he is in town to night
she looked so strange that percy for an instant thought it was a seizure her face seemed to fall away in a kind of emotion half cunning half fear well my child
father i am a little afraid when i think of that man he cannot harm me can he i am safe now i am a catholic my child of course you are safe what is the matter how can this man injure you but the look of terror was still there
and percy came a step nearer you must not give way to fancies he said just commit yourself to our blessed lord this man can do you no harm
her old mouth was still sucked in and her eyes wandered past him into the gloom of the room behind
what do you know of felsenburgh
she nodded suddenly and energetically and percy for the first time felt his heart give a little leap of apprehension was this old woman out of her mind then
then he remembered that father blackmore had once talked like this he made an effort and sat down once more now tell me plainly he said
she raised herself a little in bed again glancing round the room then she put out her old ringed hand for one of his and he gave it wondering
no no my child why are you trembling you must not be superstitious father i will tell you dreams are nonsense are they not well at least this is what i dreamt i was somewhere in a great house i do not know where it was
it was a house i have never seen it was one of the old houses and it was very dark i was a child i thought and i was i was afraid of something the passages were all dark and i went crying in the dark looking for a light and there was none
then i heard a voice talking a great way off father her hand gripped his more tightly and again her eyes went round the room with great difficulty percy repressed a sigh yet he dared not leave her just now the house was very still
only from outside now and again sounded the clang of the cars as they sped countrywards again from the congested town and once the sound of great shouting he wondered what time it was
had you better tell me now he asked still talking with a patient simplicity what time will they be back not yet she whispered mabel said not till two o'clock what time is it now father
he pulled out his watch with his disengaged hand it is not yet one he said very well listen father i was in this house and i heard that talking and i ran along the passages till i saw light below a door
and then i stopped nearer father percy was a little awed in spite of himself her voice had suddenly dropped to a whisper and her old eyes seemed to hold him strangely i stopped father i dared not go in
i could hear the talking and i could see the light and i dared not go in father it was felsenburgh in that room from beneath came the sudden snap of a door then the sound of footsteps
hush he said who is that two voices were talking in the hall below now and at the sound the old woman relaxed her hold i i thought it to be him she murmured
percy stood up he could see that she did not understand the situation yes my child he said quietly but who is it my son and his wife she said then her face changed once more why why father
her voice died in her throat as a step vibrated outside for a moment there was complete silence then a whisper plainly audible in a girl's voice why her light is burning come in oliver but softly
oliver seemed altogether depressed at breakfast half an hour later his mother an old lady of nearly eighty who never appeared till noon seemed to see it at once for after a look or two at him and a word she subsided into silence behind her plate
it was a pleasant little room in which they sat immediately behind oliver's own and was furnished according to universal custom in light green its windows looked out upon a strip of garden at the back
and the high creeper grown wall that separated that domain from the next the furniture too was of the usual sort a sensible round table stood in the middle with three tall arm chairs with the proper angles and rests drawn up to it
and the centre of it resting apparently on a broad round column held the dishes it was thirty years now since the practice of placing the dining room above the kitchen and of raising and lowering the courses by hydraulic power into the centre of the dining table
they were crying out once more for free trade with america european facilities were not enough and it was oliver's business to keep them quiet it was useless he proposed to tell them to agitate until the eastern business was settled
they must not bother the government with such details just now he was to tell them too that the government was wholly on their side
they are pig headed he added fiercely pig headed and selfish they are like children who cry for food ten minutes before dinner time it is bound to come if they will wait a little
that they are pig headed certainly mabel looked at her husband with a pleased twinkle in her eyes she knew perfectly well that his popularity rested largely on his outspokenness
folks liked to be scolded and abused by a genial bold man who danced and gesticulated in a magnetic fury she liked it herself how shall you go she asked volor i shall catch the eighteen o'clock at blackfriars
the meeting is at nineteen and i shall be back at twenty one he addressed himself vigorously to his entree and his mother looked up with a patient old woman smile mabel began to drum her fingers softly on the damask
please make haste my dear she said i have to be at brighton at three oliver gulped his last mouthful pushed his plate over the line glanced to see if all plates were there and then put his hand beneath the table
but she too looked a little depressed this morning the entree was not very successful she thought the new food stuff was not up to the old it was a trifle gritty she would see about it afterwards
there was a clink a soft sound like a push and the centre piece snapped into its place bearing an admirable imitation of a roasted fowl oliver and his wife were alone again for a minute or two after breakfast
what's the matter with mother he said oh it's the food stuff again she's never got accustomed to it she says it doesn't suit her nothing else no my dear i am sure of it she hasn't said a word lately
oliver watched his wife go down the path reassured he had been a little troubled once or twice lately by an odd word or two that his mother had let fall she had been brought up a christian for a few years and it seemed to him sometimes
as if it had left a taint there was an old
superstition was a desperate thing for retaining life and as the brain weakened might conceivably reassert itself christianity was both wild and dull he told himself wild because of its obvious grotesqueness and impossibility
it crept dustily about still he knew in little dark churches here and there it screamed with hysterical sentimentality in westminster cathedral which he had once entered and looked upon with a kind of disgusted fury
it was intolerable that these two places should be definitely yielded up to this foolish treacherous nonsense they were hot beds of sedition plague spots on the face of humanity
rather than dispersed but at any rate there it was rome had been given up wholly to that old man in white in exchange for all the parish churches and cathedrals of italy and it was understood that mediaeval darkness reigned there supreme and ireland
after receiving home rule thirty years before had declared for catholicism and opened her arms to individualism in its most virulent form england had laughed and assented for she was saved from a quantity of agitation by the immediate departure
of half her catholic population for that island and had consistently with her communist colonial policy granted every facility for individualism to reduce itself there ad absurdum
all kinds of funny things were happening there oliver had read with a bitter amusement of new appearances there of a woman in blue and shrines raised where her feet had rested but he was scarcely amused at rome
for the movement to turin of the italian government had deprived the republic of quite a quantity of sentimental prestige and had haloed the old religious nonsense with all the meretriciousness of historical association however
it obviously could not last much longer the world was beginning to understand at last he stood a moment or two at the door after his wife had gone drinking in reassurance from that glorious vision of solid sense that spread itself before his eyes
that there was no god but man no priest but the politician no prophet but the schoolmaster then he went back once more to his speech constructing
mabel too was a little thoughtful as she sat with her paper on her lap spinning down the broad line to brighton this eastern news was more disconcerting to her than she allowed her husband to see yet it seemed incredible that there could be any real danger of invasion
this western life was so sensible and peaceful folks had their feet at last upon the rock and it was unthinkable that they could ever be forced back on to the mud flats it was contrary to the whole law of development
yet she could not but recognise that catastrophe seemed one of nature's methods she sat very quiet glancing once or twice at the meagre little scrap of news
that too seemed significant of dismay a couple of men were talking in the half compartment beyond on the same subject one described the government engineering works that he had visited the breathless haste that dominated them the other put in interrogations and questions
there was not much comfort there there were no windows through which she could look on the main lines the speed was too great for the eyes the long compartment flooded with soft light bounded her horizon she stared at the moulded white ceiling
the delicious oak framed paintings the deep spring seats the mellow globes overhead that poured out radiance at a mother and child diagonally opposite her then the great chord sounded the faint vibration increased ever so slightly
of brighton station as she went down the steps leading to the station square she noticed a priest going before her he seemed a very upright and sturdy old man for though his hair was white he walked steadily and strongly
at the foot of the steps he stopped and half turned and then to her surprise she saw that his face was that of a young man fine featured and strong with black eyebrows and very bright grey eyes then she passed on and began to cross the square
in the direction of her aunt's house then without the slightest warning except one shrill hoot from overhead a number of things happened a great shadow whirled across the sunlight at her feet a sound of rending tore the air
she stood there a moment longer dazed by the suddenness of the whole affair and watched almost unintelligently the grey haired young priest on his knees with his coat torn open and a crucifix out she saw him bend close wave his hand in a swift sign
and heard a murmur of a language she did not know then he was up again holding the crucifix before him and she saw him begin to move forward into the midst of the red flooded pavement looking this way and that as if for a signal
in the front rank of a crowd that was swaying and crying out
caesar's ambition was only fed by victories
before excited by the mariscotti old enemies of the bentivoglio family
but gian di bentivoglio whose ancestors had possessed this town from time immemorial had not only made all preparations necessary for a long resistance but he had also put himself under the protection of france
so scarcely had he learned that caesar was crossing the frontier of the bolognese territory with his army
louis kept it with his accustomed good faith and when caesar arrived before bologna he received an intimation from the king of france that he was not to enter on any undertaking against his ally bentivoglio caesar not being the man to have his plans upset for nothing
made conditions for his retreat to which bentivoglio consented only too happy to be quit of him at this price the conditions were the cession of castello bolognese a fortress between imola and faenza
to assassinate with his own hand agamemnon mariscotti the head of the family and ordered the massacre of four and thirty of his near relatives brothers sons daughters and nephews and two hundred other of his kindred and friends
whom bentivoglio forced to bathe their hands in this blood so that he might attach them to himself through their fear of reprisals caesar's plans with regard to florence were now no longer a mystery since the month of january
under the command of regniero della sassetta and piero di gamba corti and as soon as the conquest of the romagna was complete he had further despatched oliverotto di fermo with new detachments
by a hundred men at arms and two thousand infantry he had just been joined by vitellozzo vitelli lord of citta di castello and by the orsini who had brought him another two or three thousand men so without counting the troops sent to pisa he had under his control
he began to put a price on the friendship he had at first offered freely and to impose his own conditions instead of accepting those of others these were that piero dei medici kinsman and ally of the orsini should be reinstated in his ancient power
that six florentine citizens to be chosen by vitellozzo should be put into his hands that they might by their death expiate that of paolo vitelli unjustly executed by the florentines that the signoria should engage to give no aid to the lord of piombino
whom caesar intended to dispossess of his estates without delay and further that he himself should be taken into the service of the republic
but just as caesar had reached this point in his negotiations with florence
which he was at last in a position to undertake caesar dared not break his word to so powerful an ally he therefore replied that he was at the king's orders and as the florentines were not aware that he was quitting them on compulsion
and in any circumstances of need but hurried as he was caesar still hoped that he might find time to conquer the territory of piombino as he went by and take the capital by a single vigorous stroke
burned his fodder felled his trees torn down his vines and destroyed a few fountains that produced salubrious waters this did not hinder caesar from seizing in the space of a few days severeto scarlino the isle of elba and la pianosa
but he was obliged to stop short at the castle which opposed a serious resistance
and he received a fresh order to join it he took his departure the next day leaving behind him vitellozzo and gian paolo bagliani to prosecute the siege in his absence
to the throne of naples to those louis himself had through the house of anjou by this treaty the two kings were sharing their conquests beforehand louis would be master of naples of the town of lavore and the abruzzi and would bear the title of king of naples and jerusalem
with the title of duke of these provinces both were to receive the investiture from the pope and to hold them of him this partition was all the more likely to be made in fact because frederic supposing all the time that ferdinand was his good and faithful friend would open the gates of his towns
only to receive into his fortresses conquerors and masters instead of allies all this perhaps was not very loyal conduct on the part of a king who had so long desired and had just now received the surname of catholic but it mattered little to louis
and three genoese caracks carrying sixty five hundred invaders against this mighty host the king of naples had only seven hundred men at arms six hundred light horse and six thousand infantry under the command of the colonna
whom he had taken into his pay after they were exiled by the pope from the states of the church but he was counting on gonsalvo of cordova
and to whom he had confidingly opened all his fortresses in calabria but the feeling of safety inspired by frederic's faithless ally was not destined to endure long
on their arrival at rome the french and spanish ambassadors presented to the pope the treaty signed at grenada
a treaty which up to that time had been secret alexander foreseeing the probable future had by the death of alfonso loosened all the bonds that attached him to the house of aragon and then began by making some difficulty about it
that his ally ferdinand had deceived him and that alexander had pronounced the sentence of his downfall he understood that all was lost but he did not wish it to be said that he had abandoned his kingdom without even attempting to save it
so he charged his two new condottieri fabrizio calonna and ranuzia di marciano to check the french before capua with three hundred men at arms some light horse and three thousand infantry
having passed the volturno approached to lay siege to capua
and had fled thither from every side expecting to find protection beneath the walls so although bravely repulsed by fabrizio colonna the french from the moment of their first assault inspired so great and blind a terror that everyone began to talk of opening the gates
and it was only with great difficulty that calonna
from the check the besiegers had received and obtain good terms of capitulation
and had joined the french army with some of his troops on the very day on which the conference had been arranged for two days later and a capitulation of any nature would rob him of his share of the booty and the promise of such pleasure as would come from the capture of a city so rich and populous as capua
in a fortified outpost was discussing the conditions of capitulation with the french captains suddenly great cries of distress were heard these were caused by borgia who without a word to anyone had entered the town with his faithful army from romagna
the french when they saw that the town was half taken rushed on the gates with such impetuosity that the besieged did not even attempt to defend themselves any longer and forced their way into capua by three separate sides nothing more could be done then to stop the issue
butchery and pillage had begun and the work of destruction must needs be completed in vain did fabrizio colonna ranuzio di marciano and don ugo di cardona attempt to make head against the french and spaniards with such men as they could get together
fabrizia colonna and don ugo were made prisoners ranuzia wounded by an arrow fell into the hands of the duke of valentinois
the churches were pillaged the convents of nuns forced open and then might be seen the spectacle of some of these holy virgins casting themselves into pits or into the river to escape the soldiers three hundred of the noblest ladies of the town took refuge in a tower
the duke of valentinois broke in the doors chased out for himself forty of the most beautiful and handed over the rest to his army the pillage continued for three days capua once taken
frederic saw that it was useless any longer to attempt defence so he shut himself up in castel nuovo and gave permission to gaeta and to naples to treat with the conqueror
and naples with the surrender of the castle this surrender was made to d'aubigny by frederic himself
jewels and furniture and there remain with his family for six months secure from all hostile attack the terms of this capitulation were faithfully adhered to on both sides d'aubigny entered naples
at the age of twenty two lastly caesar the third son died at ferrara before he had attained his eighteenth birthday frederic's daughter charlotte married in france nicholas count of laval governor and admiral of brittany
a daughter was born of this marriage anne de laval who married francois de la trimauille through her those rights were transmitted to the house of la trimouille
which he had been forced to interrupt during this interval alexander had been visiting the scenes of his son's conquests and traversing all the romagna with lucrezia who was now consoled for her husband's death
favour with his holiness so when she returned to rome she no longer had separate rooms from him the result of this recrudescence of affection was the appearance of two pontifical bulls
converting the towns of nepi and sermoneta into duchies one was bestowed on gian bargia an illegitimate child of the pope who was not the son of either of his mistresses rosa vanozza
son of lucrezia and alfonso the lands of the colonna were in appanage to the two duchies but alexander was dreaming of yet another addition to his fortune
son of duke hercules of ferrara in favour of which alliance
his holiness was now having a run of good fortune and he learned on the same day that piombino was taken and that duke hercules had given the king of france his assent to the marriage both of these pieces of news were good for alexander
but the one could not compare in importance with the other and the intimation that lucrezia was to marry the heir presumptive to the duchy of ferrara was received with a joy so great that it smacked of the humble beginnings of the borgian house
the duke of valentinois was invited to return to rome to take his share in the family rejoicing and on the day when the news was made public the governor of saint angelo received orders that cannon should be fired every quarter of an hour from noon to midnight
issued from the vatican followed by all the nobility of rome and proceeded to the church of the madonna del papalo where the duke of gandia and cardinal gian borgia were buried
and in the evening accompanied by the same cavalcade which shone the more brightly under the torchlight and brilliant illuminations
which were shouted aloud by heralds clad in cloth of gold the next day an announcement was made in the town that a racecourse for women was opened between the castle of sant angelo and the piazza of saint peter's
that on every third day there would be a bull fight in the spanish fashion and that from the end of the present month which was october until the first day of lent masquerades would be permitted in the streets of rome such was the nature of the fetes outside
the programme of those going on within the vatican was not presented to the people for by the account of bucciardo an eye witness this is what happened on the last sunday of the month of october
was scattered on the ground these the fifty women skilfully picked up running about gracefully in and out between the burning lights the pope the duke of valentinois and his sister lucrezia
encouraged the most agile and industrious with their applause and they received prizes of embroidered garters velvet boots golden caps and laces then new diversions took the place of these we humbly ask forgiveness of our readers
and especially of our lady readers but though we have found words to describe the first part of the spectacle we have sought them in vain for the second suffice it to say that just as there had been prizes for feats of adroitness
her train carried by young girls dressed in white and crowned with roses issued from her palace to the sound of trumpets and clarions and made her way over carpets that were laid down in the streets through which she had to pass accompanied by the noblest cavaliers and the loveliest women in rome
she betook herself to the vatican where in the pauline hall the pope awaited her with the duke of valentinois don ferdinand acting as proxy for duke alfonso and his cousin cardinal d'este
while the envoys from ferrara stood on the other into their midst came lucrezia and don ferdinand placed on her finger the nuptial ring this ceremony over
then a casket was placed on the table richly inlaid with ivory whence the cardinal drew forth a great many trinkets chains necklaces of pearls and diamonds of workmanship as costly as their material these he also begged lucrezia to accept
before she received those the bridegroom was hoping to offer himself which would be more worthy of her lucrezia showed the utmost delight in accepting these gifts then she retired into the next room leaning on the pope's arm and followed by the ladies of her suite
leaving the duke of valentinois to do the honours of the vatican to the men that evening the guests met again and spent half the night in dancing while a magnificent display of fireworks lighted up the piazza of san paolo
the ceremony of betrothal over the pope and the duke busied themselves with making preparations for the departure the pope who wished the journey to be made with a great degree of splendour
sons of piero mattel chancellor of the town and a daughter of the pope whose mother was not rosa vanozza besides these the pope nominated in consistory francesco borgia cardinal of sosenza
to accompany his daughter to the frontiers of the ecclesiastical states also the duke of valentinois sent out messengers into all the cities of romagna to order that lucrezia should be received as sovereign lady and mistress
for the fulfilment of his orders but the messengers reported that they greatly feared
was that it was improbable that the same demonstrations of joy could be expected from a town plunged in mourning that were looked for from imala faenza and pesaro
in the prompt and efficacious fashion characteristic of him alone one morning the inhabitants of cesena awoke to find a scaffold set up in the square and upon it the four quarters of a man his head severed from the trunk stuck up on the end of a pike this man
was ramiro d'orco no one ever knew by whose hands the scaffold had been raised by night nor by what executioners the terrible deed had been carried out
what he thought of it he replied magnificent lords i can tell you nothing concerning the execution of ramiro d'orco except that caesar borgia is the prince who best knows how to make and unmake men according to their deserts
niccolo macchiavelli the duke of valentinois was not disappointed and the future duchess of ferrara was admirably received in every town along her route
and arrived the same evening at piombina the pontifical court made a stay there of several days partly with a view of making the duke known to the inhabitants and also in order to be present at certain ecclesiastical functions
of which the most important was a service held on the third sunday in lent in which the cardinal of cosenza sang a mass and the pope officiated in state with the duke and the cardinals after these solemn functions the customary pleasures followed and the pope summoned the prettiest girls of the country
and ordered them to dance their national dances before him following on these dances came feasts of unheard of magnificence during which the pope in the sight of all men completely ignored lent and did not fast
and so to make the duke of valentinois popular while poor jacopo d'appiano was forgotten
then the illustrious travellers embarked on their return journey to rome
and the pope not wishing to put in at porto ferrajo they remained five days on board though they had only two days provisions during the last three days the pope lived on fried fish that were caught under great difficulties because of the heavy weather
where at last he arrived after encountering so violent a tempest
the pope alone did not show one instant's fear but remained on the bridge during the storm sitting on his arm chair
where he landed and after sending to corneto to fetch horses he rejoined the duke
why miner the mole lives under ground striped chipmunk sat staring at a little ridge where the grass was raised up he had often seen little ridges like that without thinking much about them he knew that they were made by miner the mole
but now as he looked at this one it suddenly struck him that he had not seen miner the mole more than once or twice in all his life what a queer way of living thought striped chipmunk
it's all very well to have a snug house under the ground where one can sleep the long cold winter away and be perfectly safe
in the beautiful springtime and summertime and autumntime i can't understand just think of all that miner misses the sunshine the flowers the songs of the birds and the merry little breezes to play with i wonder
what do you wonder the voice was so close to striped chipmunk that it made him jump he whirled about there was johnny chuck who had tiptoed up as softly as he knew how to give striped chipmunk a scare johnny grinned
what do you wonder he repeated striped chipmunk made a face at johnny i wonder something that i bet you don't know he replied that's easy replied johnny there are more things i don't know than i do know
but i'm always ready to learn what is it this time why does miner the mole live under ground all the time striped chipmunk pointed to the ridge made by miner johnny chuck scratched his head thoughtfully
i don't know he confessed finally i never thought of it before of course there must be a reason he never comes out to play with the rest of us just spends all his time by himself down in the dark digging and digging i wonder
well what do you wonder the same thing you wonder laughed johnny chuck if you haven't got anything else to do let's go down to the smiling pool and ask grandfather frog he'll be sure to know
striped chipmunk hadn't anything else to do so off they started on the way they met jimmy skunk and danny meadow mouse neither of them knew why miner the mole lives under ground and because they hadn't anything better to do
they also started for the smiling pool grandfather frog was sitting on his big green lily pad in the warm sunshine and for once he didn't have to be teased for a story chug a rum said he in his deep voice
it's very strange to me how little some folks know about their nearest neighbors he looked up and winked at jolly round bright mister sun striped chipmunk johnny chuck jimmy skunk and danny meadow mouse
looked as though they felt very foolish as indeed they did you see all their lives miner the mole had been one of their nearest neighbors and yet they didn't know the first thing about him it happened a long time ago
continued grandfather frog when the world was young interrupted danny meadow mouse of course replied grandfather frog pretending to be very much put out at such a foolish question
in those days miner's great great grandfather a thousand times removed didn't live under ground continued grandfather frog nobody did he wasn't so very different from a lot of other animals
food was plenty and everybody was on the best of terms with everybody else mister mole lived just as the rest did he went and came as he pleased and enjoyed the sunshine and took part in all the good times of his neighbors
everybody liked him and whenever he made a call he was sure of a welcome but one thing mister mole never did he never meddled in other people's affairs no sir
mister mole never poked his nose in where he had no business for a long time everything went smoothly with all the people of the green forest and the green meadows
they grew harder and harder food was scarce and kept growing more scarce everybody was hungry and you know how it is with hungry people they grow ugly and quarrelsome matters grew worse and worse
and then it was that fear was born the big people like old king bear and mister wolf and mister panther and mister lynx began to look with hungry eyes on the little people
and the little people began to grow afraid and hide from the big people and all the time they were continually quarreling among themselves and stealing from each other to get enough to eat now as i said before
he went off by himself to think things over it isn't safe to run around any more said he i met mister wolf this morning and he looked at me with such a hungry look in his eyes that it gave me the cold shivers i believe he would have
eaten me if i hadn't crawled into an old hollow stump now i can't run fast because my legs are too short i can't climb trees like mister squirrel and i can't swim like mister muskrat the only thing i can do is to dig
you see
and he had done so much of it that his front legs and claws had grown very stout now if i dig a hole and keep out of sight i won't have to worry about mister wolf or anybody else continued mister mole to himself
so he went to work at once and dug a hole on the green meadows and because he wanted to be comfortable he made a big hole when it was finished he was tired so he curled up at the bottom for a nap
he was awakened by hearing voices outside he knew those voices right away they were the voices of mister fox and mister badger these are terrible times said mister fox i'm so hungry
i wonder who has dug this hole mister mole replied mister badger i saw him at work here this morning have you noticed how very plump he looks yes replied mister fox
he made my mouth water the very last time i saw him seems to me i can smell him now if he had made this hole just a little bit bigger i would go down and pull him out but i am too tired to do any digging now
i tell you what replied mister badger we'll hunt together a little longer and then if we can't find anything to eat we'll come back and i'll help you dig i hate to hurt mister mole because he always minds his own business
oh dear oh dear what ever can i do he lay there feeling very helpless and miserable
if he had made his hole small just big enough for him to crawl into mister badger and mister fox would have had to do a great deal of digging to make it big enough for either of them to get in he would make a little tunnel off one side
and hide in that so he went to work and made a little tunnel off one side just big enough for him to squeeze into he worked very hard and very fast and by the time mister badger and mister fox returned
mister mole was at the end of a long tunnel so far from the hole he had first dug that he knew it would take them a long time to dig him out even if they noticed his tunnel but they didn't they dug down to the bottom of his hole and then
because they didn't find him there they straightway fell to quarreling each blaming the other for suggesting such a lot of hard work for nothing finally they went away still calling each other names and from that day to this
mister mole spent all his time in his tunnels and seldom put his nose outside he was safe and he was comfortable and he could always find something to eat by digging for it little by little his old neighbors forgot all about him
because he had little use for them his eyes grew smaller and smaller and when he did come up into the light they hurt him so that he was glad to go back into the dark again he was perfectly happy and satisfied there
and what is there in life better than to be happy and satisfied nothing replied striped chipmunk at whom grandfather frog happened to be looking when he asked the question right replied grandfather frog
and now you know why miner the mole lives under ground because he is perfectly happy and satisfied there just then up came peter rabbit all out of breath has grandfather frog been telling a story he panted
she had seen him in cruel even savage moods but nothing that had ever approached the look of horrible pleasure that was on his face now it was a revelation of the real man with the thin layer of civilisation stripped from him
leaving only the primitive savage drunk with the lust of blood and she was afraid with a shuddering horror of the merciless crimson stained hands that would touch her of the smiling cruel mouth that would be pressed on hers
and once or twice a bullet ripped through the hangings one that came closer than the others made diana turn her head and she saw what ahmed ben hassan absorbed in the fulfilment of his horrible task had not even thought of
the three big negroes and a dozen arabs who had stolen in silently from the inner room for once in the intoxication of the moment the sheik was careless and caught off his guard
agony leaped into her eyes the fear of him was wiped out in the fear for him she tried to warn him but no sound would come from her throbbing throat and she crawled nearer to him and touched him
he dropped the dead chief back into the tumbled cushions and looked up swiftly and at the same moment ibraheim omair's men made a rush without a word he thrust her behind the divan and turned to meet them
before his revolver they gave way for a moment but the burly nubians behind swept the arabs forward three times he fired and one of the negroes and two arabs fell but the rest hurled themselves on him and diana saw him surrounded
his strength was abnormal and for some minutes the struggling mass of men strained and heaved about him diana was on her feet swaying giddily powerless to help him cold with dread
the sheik too heard and with a desperate effort for a moment won clear but one of the nubians was behind him
he brought down a heavy club with crashing force on ahmed ben hassan's head and as he fell another drove a broad knife deep into his back
and drew her aside she strained against the detaining arm but it was one of ahmed's men and she gave in as a growing faintness came over her mistily she saw saint hubert clear a way to his friend's side and then she fainted
but only for a few moments
looked only at the unconscious figure of their leader saint hubert glanced up hastily as diana came to his side
what did it matter about her
but who refused to surrender his privilege to any other moments of semi unconsciousness when she swayed against the arm of the watchful tribesman riding beside her and his muttered ejaculation of
to the god they both worshipped so differently he must not die god would not be so cruel from time to time saint hubert spoke to her and the quiet courage of his voice steadied her breaking nerves
the dawn was breaking when they reached the camp diana had a glimpse of rows of unusually silent men grouped beside the tent but all her mind was concentrated on the long limp figure that was being carefully lifted down
from the sweating horse they carried him into the tent and laid him on the divan beside which henri had already put out all the implements that his master would need while saint hubert with difficulty cleared the tent of the sheik's men
one blood covered hand hung down almost touching the rug
i shall go mad if you don't let me do something see my hands are quite steady she held them out as she spoke and saint hubert gave in without opposition the weakness that had sent her trembling into his arms the day before had been the fear of danger
to the man she loved but in the face of actual need the courage that was so much a part of her nature did not fail her he made no more remonstrances but set about his work quickly and all through the horrible time that followed she did not falter
she winced as if the hurt had been her own when saint hubert's gentle dexterous fingers touched the sheik's bruised head and when it was over and raoul had turned aside to wash his hands she slipped on to her knees beside him
would he live the courage that had kept her up so far had not extended to asking saint hubert again and a few muttered words from henri to which the vicomte had responded with only a shrug had killed the words that were hovering on her lips
she looked at him with anguished eyes only a few hours before he had come to her in all the magnificence of his strength she looked at the long limbs lying now so still so terribly
suggestively still and her lips trembled again but her pain filled eyes were dry she could not cry only her throat ached and throbbed perpetually she leaned over him whispering his name
and a sudden hunger came to her to touch him to convince herself that he was not dead she glanced back over her shoulder at saint hubert but he had gone to the open doorway to speak to yusef and was standing out under the awning
she bent lower over the unconscious man his lips were parted slightly and the usual sternness of his mouth was relaxed ahmed oh my dear she whispered unsteadily
and kissed him with lips that quivered against the stillness of his then for a moment she dropped her bright head beside the bandaged one on the pillow but when the vicomte came back she was kneeling where he had left her
and her face hidden against the cushions saint hubert put his hand on her shoulder
she shook her head without looking up i can't go i couldn't sleep saint hubert did not press it very well he said quietly
but if you are going to stay you must take off your riding boots and put on something more comfortable than those clothes she realised the sense of what he was saying and obeyed him without a word she even had to admit to herself a certain sensation of relief
after she had bathed her aching head and throat and substituted a thin silk wrap for the torn stained riding suit henri was pouring out coffee when she came back and saint hubert
turned to her with a cup in his outstretched hand please take it it will do you good he said with a little smile that was not reflected in his anxious eyes she took it unheeding and swallowing it hastily went to the side of the divan again
she slid down on to the rug where she had knelt before the sheik was lying as she had left him for a few moments she looked at him then drowsily her eyes closed and her head fell forward on the cushions
and with a half sad smile of satisfaction saint hubert gathered her up into his arms he carried her into the bedroom hesitating beside the couch before he put her down
surely one moment out of a lifetime might be granted to him he would never have the torturing happiness of holding her in his arms again would never again clasp her against the heart that was crying out for her with the same mad passion
that had swept over him yesterday he looked down longingly on the pale face lying against his arm and his features contracted at the sight of the cruel marks marring the whiteness of her delicate throat
the love that all his life he had longed for that he had sought vainly through many countries had come to him at last and it had come too late the helpless loveliness lying in his arms was not for him
ahmed who had waked to such a tardy recognition of the priceless gift that she had given him ahmed whom he must wrest from the grim spectre that was hovering near him lest the light that shone
what chance of happiness had any woman with a man like ahmed ben hassan at the mercy of his savage nature and passionate changeable moods what reason to suppose that the love that had flamed up so suddenly
at the thought that he had lost her would survive the knowledge of repossession to him all his life a thing desired had upon possession become valueless with the fulfilment of acquisition had come always disinterest
ahmed in the full power of his strength again would be the man he had always been implacable cruel merciless saint hubert's own longing his passionate gallic temperament were driving him
as they had driven him the day before the longing to save her from misery was acute that and his own love prompted by the urging of the desire within him then he trembled and a great fear of himself came over him
ahmed was his friend who was he that he should judge him he could at least be honest with himself he could own the truth he coveted what was not his and masked his envy with a hypocrisy that now appeared contemptible
the clasp of his arms around her seemed suddenly a profanation and he laid her down very gently on the low couch drawing the thin coverlet over her and went back slowly to the other room he sent henri away
and then as the day crept on and the early rays of the warm sun filled the tent he moved uneasily and began to mutter feverishly in confused arabic and french at first the words that came were almost unintelligible
pouring out with rapid indistinctness then by degrees his voice slowed and hesitating interrupted sentences came clearly from his lips and beside him with his face buried in his hands raoul
thanked god fervently that he had saved diana the added torture of listening to the revelations of the past four months the first words were in arabic
no i will not spare you give me what i want willingly and i will be kind to you but fight me and by allah you shall pay the cost i know you hate me you have told me so already shall i make you love me
content to give me everything i ask of her for four months she has fought me why does it give me no pleasure to have broken her at last why do i want her still she is english and i have made her pay for my
i have tortured her to keep my vow and still i want her diane diane how beautiful you are what devil makes me hate raoul after twenty years last night she only spoke to him
and when he went i cursed her till i saw the terror in her eyes she fears me why should i care if she loves him i knew she was not asleep when i went to her i felt her quivering beside me i wanted to kill raoul
when he would not come with me
allah how long the day has been has it been long to her will she smile or tremble when i come
diane diane how could i know how much you meant to me how could i know that i should love you diane diane my sunshine the tent is cold and dark without you
ibraheim omair that
grant me time to get to her how the jackals are howling see raoul there are the tents diane where are you grand dieu he has been torturing her you knew that i would come ma bien aimee only a
few moments while i kill him then i can hold you in my arms dieu
gaston and the horror and resolution in his eyes the convulsive working of his mouth as he faced her at the last moment her own dread not of the death that was imminent but lest the mercy it offered should be snatched from her
then before the valet could effect his supreme devotion had come the hail of bullets and he had fallen against her the blood that poured from his wounds saturating her linen coat and rolled over across her feet
she remembered vaguely the wild figures hemming her in but nothing more her eyes were still shut a leaden weight seemed fixed on them and the effort to open them was beyond her strength
gaston she whispered feebly and stretched out her hand but instead of his body or the dry hot sand her fingers had expected to encounter they closed over soft cushions
and with the shock she sat up with a jerk her eyes staring wide but sick and faint she fell back again her arm flung across her face shielding the light that pierced like daggers through her throbbing eye balls
the desire to know where she was and what had happened made her forget her bruised body she moved her arm slightly from before her eyes so that she could see and looked cautiously from under thick lashes screened by the sleeve of her coat
she was lying on a pile of cushions in one corner of a small tented apartment which was otherwise bare except for the rug that covered the floor in the opposite corner of the tent an arab woman crouched over a little brazier
a lump came into her throat as she thought of gaston in those last moments all inequality of rank had been swept away in their common peril they had been only a white man and a white woman together in their extremity
it must have been over his lifeless body that they had taken her he had proved his faithfulness sacrificing his life for his master's play thing gaston was in all probability dead
and sat up slowly looking at the arab woman who hearing her move turned to gaze at her instantly diana realised that there was no help or compassion to be expected from her
was inspired by personal hatred
and the feeling gave a necessary spur to the courage that was fast coming back to her she stared with all the haughtiness she could summon to her aid she had learned her own power among the natives of india the previous year
and here in the desert there was only one arab whose eyes did not fall beneath hers and presently with a muttered word the woman turned back to her coffee making
diana's muscles relaxed and she sat back easily on the cushions the little passage of wills had restored her confidence in herself she moved her hand and it brushed against her jacket
coming away stained and sticky and she noticed for the first time that all one side and sleeve were soaked with blood she ripped it off with a shudder and flung it from her rubbing the red smear from her hands with a kind of horror
the little tent was intensely hot and there was a close pungent smell
and scrupulous cleanliness of ahmed ben hassan's tents her sensitive lip curled with disgust all her innate fastidiousness in revolt the heat aggravated a burning thirst that was parching her throat
she got up on to her feet slowly and with infinite caution to prevent any jar that might start again the throbbing in her head but the effects of the blow were wearing off
it did no more than that and the sick giddy feeling had gone completely she crossed the tent to the side of the arab woman give me some water she said in french but the woman shook her head without looking up
diana repeated the request in arabic one of the few sentences she knew without stumbling this time the woman rose up hastily and held out a cup of the coffee she had been making diana hated the sweet thick stuff
a sudden suspicion shot through her mind the coffee was drugged what beyond the woman's expression made her think so she did not know but she was sure of it she put the cup aside impatiently
no not coffee water she said firmly before she realised what was happening the woman thrust a strong arm round her and forced the cup to her lips
gigantic nubian came in with outstretched hand shaking with rage pointing at diana she burst into voluble abuse punctuating every few words with the shrieks that had brought the negro
with denunciatory fist he picked up the last remaining embers that had scattered on the rug rubbing the smouldering patches till they were extinguished and then turned to leave the room but diana called him back
with a wider grin the negro made a gesture of acquiescence and went out returning in a few moments with a water skin the thought of its condition made her hesitate for a moment but only for a moment
but she needed it too much to mind in spite of being tepid it relieved the dry suffocating feeling in her throat and refreshed her the nubian went away again leaving the woman still crouching over the brazier
diana walked back to the cushions and dropped down on to them gladly the events of the last few moments had tried her more than she realised her legs were shaking under her and she was thankful to sit down
further restoring her confidence in herself her position was an appalling one but hope was strong within her
she had seen only the woman and the nubian seemed to argue that ibraheim omair must be absent from his camp the thought that he might purposely be delaying the moment of inspecting his captive
it had been early afternoon then now the lighted lamp told her it was night how late she did not know her watch had been broken some months before
and she had no means of even guessing the hour but it must be well on in the evening by now the absence of herself and gaston and their escort would be discovered he would know her peril and he would come to her
of that she had no doubt although he had changed so strangely in the last few days
still she never doubted even if desire had passed and indifference had become so great that she was no longer necessary to him still
the oriental jealousy with which he was so deeply imbued would never allow him to let her pass so lightly from his keeping he might discard her at his own pleasure
an inconsistent jealousy that had been unprovoked and unjustified but for which she had suffered she had known last night when she winced under his sarcastic tongue and later when saint hubert had left them
and his temper had suddenly boiled over that she was paying for the unaccustomed strain that he was putting on his own feelings his curses had eaten into her heart and she had fled from him to stifle the coward instinct
the usual cigarette between his lips indifference had taken the place of rage and he had ignored her as she had grown used to being ignored and long after she knew from his even breathing that he was asleep
she had lain wide eyed beside him grasping at what happiness she could living for the moment as she had schooled herself to live trying to be content with just the fact of his nearness
and the indifference of the night had been maintained when he had left her at dawn his persistent silence pointing the continuance of his displeasure but he would come
he would not let anything happen to her every moment that ibraheim omair stayed away was so much gained every moment he would be coming nearer the reversal of the role he played in her life
brought a quivering smile to her lips for the advent of the man who a few weeks before she had loathed for his brutal abduction of herself she now prayed with the desperation of despair
he represented safety salvation everything that made life worth living a sudden noise and men's voices in the adjoining room sent her to her feet with heaving breast and clenched hands
but the sharp guttural voice predominating over the other voices killed the wild hope that had sprung up in her by its utter dissimilarity to the soft low tones for which she longed ibraheim
omair he had come first she set her teeth with a long shuddering breath bracing herself to meet what was coming
the arab woman turned to look at her again with a sneering smile that was full of significance but beyond a fleeting glance of disdain diana paid no attention to her
she stood rigid one foot beating nervously into the soft rug she noticed irrelevantly
from the centre of importance even at a supreme moment she wondered with an annoyance that seemed curiously futile why it had been done the voices in the next room continued
and the same huge negro she had seen before entered he came towards her and her breath hissed in suddenly between her set teeth but before he reached her the arab woman intercepted him blocking his way
and with wild eyes and passionate gestures poured out a stream of low frenzied words the nubian turned on her impatiently and thrust her roughly out of his way
only her hands twitched her long fingers curling and uncurling spasmodically and she buried them deep in her breeches pockets to hide them she walked slowly to the curtain and nodded to the nubian to draw it aside
for all her attention was focussed on the central figure in the room ibraheim
lolling his great bulk on a pile of cushions a little inlaid stool with coffee beside him and behind him standing motionless as if formed of bronze two other negroes
and insolent half closed eyes the hold she was exercising over herself was tremendous her body was rigid with the effort and her hands deep down in her pockets clenched till the nails bit into the palms
every instinct was rebelling against the calm she forced upon herself she longed to scream and make a dash for the opening that she guessed was behind her and to take her chance in the darkness outside
showing even against his dark skin his heavy face lit up with a gleam of malicious satisfaction as diana came towards him his loose mouth broadened in a wicked smile
he hath not root in himself our lord with one stroke of his pencil our lord gives us this flaxman like outline of one of his well known hearers and then john bunyan takes up that so expressive profile and puts flesh and blood into it
till it becomes the well known pliable of the pilgrim's progress we call the text a parable but our lord's parables are all portraits portraits and groups of portraits rather than ordinary parables
our lord's short preliminary description of pliable goes like all his descriptions to the very bottom of the whole matter our lord in this passage is like one of those masterly artists who begin their portrait painting with the study of anatomy
all the great artists in this walk build up their best portraits from the inside of their subjects he hath not root in himself says our lord and we need no more than that to be told us to foresee how all his outside religion will end
you have no real root in yourselves
it is a deceit and a mischief to think that the christian doctrines can either be understood or aright accepted by any outward means it is just in proportion as we search our own hearts and understand our own nature
that we shall ever feel what a blessing the removal of sin will be redemption pardon sanctification are all otherwise mere words without meaning or power to us
happily for us our lord has annotated his own text and has told us that an honest heart is the alone root of all true religion honest that is with itself and with god and man about itself
as david says in his so honest psalm behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom
and indeed all the preachers and writers in scripture and all scriptural preachers and writers outside of scripture are at one in this that all true wisdom begins at home and that it all begins at the heart
and they all teach us that he is the wisest of men who has the worst opinion of his own heart as he is the foolishest of men who does not know his own heart to be the worst heart that ever any man was cursed with in this world here is wisdom
not to know the number of the beast but to know his mark and to read it written so indelibly in our own heart and where this first and best of all wisdom is not there in our lord's words there is no deepness of earth no root and no fruit
but even that slight root was all outside of himself his root what he had of a root was all in christian's companionship and impassioned appeals and then in those impressive passages of scripture that christian read to him
at your first attention to these things you would think that no possible root could be better planted than in the bible and in earnest preaching but even the bible and much more the best preaching
is all really outside of a man till true religion once gets its piercing roots down into himself we have perhaps all heard of men and men of no small eminence who were brought up to believe the teaching of the bible and the pulpit
but who when some of their inherited and external ideas about some things connected with the bible began to be shaken straightway felt as if all the grounds of their faith were shaken and all the roots of their faith pulled up
they were by and by offended and threw off their faith there is another well known class of men all whose religion is rooted in their church and in their church not as a member of the body of christ but as a social institution set up in this world
they believe in their church they worship their church they suffer and make sacrifices for their church they are proud of the size and the income of their church her past contendings and sufferings and present dangers all endear their church to their heart
but if tribulation and persecution arise that is to say if anything arises to vex or thwart or disappoint them with their church they incontinently pull up their roots and their religion with it
they love their earthly home with that supreme satisfaction and that all absorbing affection that truly religious men entertain for their heavenly home and thus it is that when anything happens to disturb or break up their earthly home their rootless religiosity goes with it
other men's religion again and all their interest in it is rooted in their shop you can make them anything or nothing in religion according as you do or do not do business in their shop
if they happen to fall in with godly lovers and friends they are sincerely godly with them but if their companions are indifferent or hostile to true religion they gradually fall into the same temper and attitude we sometimes see students destined for the christian ministry
also with all their religion so without root in themselves that a session in an unsympathetic class a sceptical book sometimes just a sneer or a scoff will wither all the promise of their coming service and so on through the whole of human life
he that hath not the root of the matter in himself dureth for a while but by and by for one reason or another he is sure to be offended so much then not enough nor good enough for our lord's swift stroke at the heart of his hearers
but let us now pass on to pliable as he so soon and so completely discovers himself to us under john bunyan's so skilful hand look well at our author's speaking portrait of a well known man in bedford who had no root in himself
and who as a consequence was pliable to any influence good or bad that happened to come across him don't revile are the first words that come from pliable's lips and they are not unpromising words
pliable is hurt with obstinate's coarse abuse of the christian life till he is downright ashamed to be seen in his company pliable at least is a gentleman compared with obstinate and his gentlemanly feelings and his good manners make him at once take sides with christian
obstinate's foul tongue has almost made pliable a christian and this finely conceived scene on the plain outside the city gate is enacted over again every day among ourselves where men are in dead earnest about religion it always arouses the bad passions of bad men
and where earnest preachers and devoted workers are assailed with violence or with bad language there is always enough love of fair play in the bystanders to compel them to take sides for the time at least with those who suffer for the truth
and we are sometimes too apt to count all that love of common fairness and that hatred of foul play as a sure sign of some sympathy with the hated truth itself when an onlooker says don't revile we are too ready to set down that expression of civility
as at least the first beginning of true religion but the religion of jesus christ cuts far deeper into the heart of man than to the dividing asunder of justice and injustice civility and incivility ribaldry and good manners
and it is always found in the long run that the cross of christ and its crucifixion of the human heart goes quite as hard with the gentlemanly mannered man the civil and urbane man as it does with the man of bad behaviour and of brutish manners
civil men says thomas goodwin are this world's saints and poor pliable was one of them my heart really inclines to go with my neighbour said pliable next yes he said i begin to come to a point i really think i will go along with this good man
yes i will cast in my lot with him come good neighbour let us be going the apocalyptic side of some men's imaginations is very easily worked upon no kind of book sells better among those of our people who have no root in themselves
than just picture books about heaven our missionaries make use of lantern slides to bring home the scenes in the gospels to the dull minds of their village hearers and with good success and at home a magic lantern filled with the splendours of the new jerusalem
would carry multitudes of rootless hearts quite captive for a time well said and what else this is excellent and what else christian could not tell pliable fast enough about the glories of heaven
there also you shall meet with thousands and ten thousands who have gone before us to that place elders with golden crowns and holy virgins with golden harps and all clothed with immortality as with a garment
the hearing of all this cried pliable is enough to ravish one's heart an overly faith says old thomas shepard is easily wrought as if the text itself was not graphic enough
bunyan's racy humorous pathetic style overflows the text and enriches the very margins of his pages as every possessor of a good edition of the pilgrim knows christian and obstinate pull for pliable's soul
is the eloquent summary set down on the side of the sufficiently eloquent page as the picture of a man's soul being pulled for rises before my mind i can think of no better companion picture to that of pliable than that of poor hard beset brodie of brodie
as he lets us see the pull for his soul in the honest pages of his inward diary under the head of pliable in my bunyan note book i find a crowd of references to brodie and if only to illustrate our author's marginal note i shall transcribe one or two of them
by which he labours to please men more than god and whence it comes that the wicked speak good of him the lord pity the proneness of his heart to comply with the men who have the power lord he is unsound and double in his heart
politically crafty selfish not savouring nor discerning the things of god let not self love wit craft and timorousness corrupt his mind but indue him with fortitude patience steadfastness
i stayed at home partly to decline the ill will and rage of men and to decline observation
i stayed at home because of the time and the observation and the earl of moray came to cuttiehillock i am neither cold nor hot i am not rightly principled as to the time i suspect that it is not all conscience that makes me conform
after this miserable fashion do heaven and earth duty and self interest the covenant and the crown pull for lord brodie's soul through four hundred twenty two quarto pages
glad i am my good companion said pliable after the passage about the cherubim and the seraphim and the golden crowns and the golden harps it ravishes my very heart to hear all this come on let us mend our pace
this is delightful this is perfect how often have we ourselves heard these very words of challenge and reproof from the pliable frequenters of emotional meetings and from the emotional members of an emotional but rootless ministry come on let us mend our pace
as indeed he would still have if he were carrying nothing but himself and he does have about him besides a few sobering thoughts
we must open our hearts to our religion we must have the inward soil broken up freely and deeply its roots must penetrate our inner being we must take to ourselves in silence and in sincerity its words of judgment with its words of hope
its sternness with its encouragement its denunciations with its promises its requirements with its offers its absolute intolerance of sin with its inconceivable and divine long suffering towards sinners
but preaching like this would have frightened away poor pliable he would not have understood it and what he did understand of it he would have hated with all his shallow heart where are we now
his present sinfulness and his anxious future but pliable had not knowledge enough of himself to make him ever despond he was always ready and able to mend his pace he had no burden on his back and therefore no doubt in his heart
but christian had enough of both for any ten men and it was christian's overflowing despondency and doubt at this point of the road that suddenly filled his own slough and i suppose overflowed into a slough for pliable also
he would have got out of it at the right side of it and been a tender stepping pilgrim all his days
may i get out of this with my life you may possess the brave country alone for me and with that he gave a desperate struggle or two and got out of the mire on that side of the slough which was next his own house so he went away and christian saw him no more
the side of the slough which was next his own house
no man hath seen god at any time the only begotten son who is in the bosom of the father he hath declared him the father hath sealed his divine image upon his son so that he that hath seen the son hath seen the father
the son is thus the father's character stamped upon and set forth in human nature the word was made flesh this is the highest and best use to which our so expressive word character has ever been put
and the use to which it is put when we speak of bunyan's characters partakes of the same high sense and usage for it is of the outstanding good or evil in a man that we think when we speak of his character
it is really either of his likeness or unlikeness to jesus christ we speak and then through him his likeness or unlikeness to god himself and thus it is that the adjective moral usually accompanies our word character' moral or immoral
a man's character does not have its seat or source in his body character is not a physical thing not even in his mind it is not an intellectual thing character comes up out of the will and out of the heart there are more good minds as we say in the world than there are good hearts
there are more clever people than good people character high spotless saintly character is a far rarer thing in this world than talent or even genius character is an infinitely better thing than either of these and it is of corresponding rarity
and yet so true is it that the world loves its own that all men worship talent and even bodily strength and bodily beauty while only one here and one there either understands or values or pursues moral character
though it is the strength and the beauty and the sweetness of the soul we naturally turn to bishop butler when we think of moral character butler is an author who has drawn no characters of his own butler's genius was not creative like shakespeare's or bunyan's
butler had not that splendid imagination which those two masters in character painting possessed but he had very great gifts of his own and he has done us very great service by means of his gifts bishop butler has helped many men in the intelligent formation of their character
and what higher praise could be given to any author butler will lie on our table all winter beside bunyan the bishop beside the tinker the philosopher beside the poet the moralist beside the evangelical minister
in seeking a solid bottom for our subject then we naturally turn to butler bunyan will people the house for us once it is built but butler lays bare for us the naked rock on which men like bunyan build and beautify
and people the dwelling place of god and man what exactly is this thing character we hear so much about we ask the sagacious bishop and how shall we understand our own character so as to form it well till it stands firm and endures
character answers butler in his bald dry deep way
from whence we act in one way rather than another those principles from which a man acts when they become fixed and habitual in him we call his character and consequently there is a far greater variety in men's characters
open bunyan now with butler's keywords in your mind and see the various tempers tastes dispositions frames of mind from which his various characters act and which at bottom really make them the characters good or bad which they are
the principles within them from which they have acted till they have become a habit and then a character that character which they themselves are and will remain see the variety of john bunyan's characters a richer and a more endless variety than are the features of their faces
christian and christiana obstinate and pliable mister fearing and mister feeblemind temporary and talkative mister by ends and mister facing both ways simple sloth presumption that brisk lad ignorance
and the genuine mister brisk himself and then captain boasting mister high mind mister wet eyes and so on through a less known but equally well worth knowing company of municipal and military characters in the holy war
we shall see as we proceed how this and that character in bunyan was formed and deformed but let us ask in this introductory lecture if we can find out any law or principle upon which all our own characters good or bad are formed
do our characters come to be what they are by chance or have we anything to do in the formation of our own characters and if so in what way and here again butler steps forward at our call with his key to our own and to all bunyan's characters in his hand
and in three familiar and fruitful words he answers our question and gives us food for thought and solemn reflection for a lifetime there are but three steps says butler from earth to heaven or if you will from earth to hell acts habits
character all butler's prophetic burden is bound up in these three great words acts habits character remember and ponder these three words and you will in due time become a moral philosopher
ponder and practise them and you will become what is infinitely better a moral man for acts often repeated gradually become habits and habits long enough continued settle and harden and solidify into character
and thus it is that the severe and laconic bishop has so often made us shudder as he demonstrated it to us that we are all with our own hands shaping our character not only for this world but much more for the world to come
by every act we perform by every word we speak almost by every breath we draw butler is one of the most terrible authors in the world he stands on our nearest shelf with dante on one side of him and pascal on the other
he is indeed terrible but it is with a terror that purifies the heart and keeps the life in the hour of temptation paul sometimes arms himself with the same terror only he composes in another style than that of butler
and with all his vivid intensity he calls it the terror of the lord paul and bunyan are of the same school of moralists and stylists butler went to school to the stoics to aristotle and to plato
our lord himself came to be the express image he was and is by living and acting under this same universal law of human life acts habits character he was made perfect on this same principle
he learned obedience both by the things that he did and the things that he suffered butler says in one deep place that benevolence and justice and veracity are the basis of all good character in god and in man and thus also in the god man
and those three foundation stones of our lord's character settled deeper and grew stronger to bear and to suffer as he went on practising acts and speaking words of justice goodness and truth
this world's evil and ill desert made it but the better arena and theatre for the development and the display of his moral character and the same instruments that fashioned him into the perfect and express image he was and is are still happily in full operation
take that divinest and noblest of all instruments for the carving out and refining of moral character the will of god how our lord made his own unselfish and unsinful will to bow to silence and to praise before the holy will of his father
and who are aiming at heaven in all they do and all they suffer upon the earth
its cup if not in all the depth and strength of its first mixture still in quite sufficient bitterness is put many times in life into every man's hand there is not a day there is not an hour of the day
that the disciple of the submissive and all surrendered son has not the opportunity to say with his master if it be possible let this cup pass nevertheless not as i will but as thou wilt
it is not in the great tragedies of life only that character is tested and strengthened and consolidated no man who is not himself under god's moral and spiritual instruments could believe how often in the quietest clearest and least tempestuous day
he has the chance and the call to say yea lord thy will be done and then when the confessedly tragic days and nights come
the practised soul is able with a calmness and a peace that confound and offend the bystanders to say to act so that he does not need to say not my will but thine and so of all the other forms and features of moral character
so of humility and meekness so of purity and temperance so of magnanimity and munificence so of all self suppression and self extinction and all corresponding exalting and magnifying and benefiting of other men
whatever other passing uses this present world so full of trial and temptation and suffering may have this surely is the supreme and final use of it to be a furnace a graving house a refining place for human character
literally all things in this life and in this world i challenge you to point out a single exception work together for this supreme and only good the purification the refining the testing and the approval of human character
not only so but we are all in the very heat of the furnace and under the very graving iron and in the very refining fire that our prefigured and predestinated character needs
your life and its trials would not suit the necessities of my moral character and you would lose your soul beyond redemption if you exchanged lots with me you do not put a pearl under the potter's wheel you do not cast clay into a refining fire
abraham's character was not like david's nor david's like christ's nor christ's like paul's as butler says there is a providential disposition of things around every one of us
and it is as exactly suited to the flaws and excrescences the faults and corruptions of our character as if providence had had no other life to make a disposition of things for but one and that one our own
have you discovered that in your life or any measure of that have you acknowledged to god that you have at last discovered the true key of your life have you given him the satisfaction to know that he is not making his providential dispositions around a stock or a stone
but that he has one under his hand who understands his hand and responds to it and rises up to meet and salute it and we cease to wonder so much at the care god takes of human character and the cost he lays out upon it
all else we possess and pursue shall fade and perish our moral character shall alone survive riches honours possessions pleasures of all kinds death with one stroke of his desolating hand
shall one day strip us bare to a winding sheet and a coffin of all the things we are so mad to possess but the last enemy with all his malice and all his resistless power cannot touch our moral character
unless it be in some way utterly mysterious to us that he is made under god to refine and perfect it the express image carried up to his father's house not only the divine life he had brought hither with him
when he came to obey and submit and suffer among us he carried back more than he brought for he carried back a human heart a human life a human character which was and is a new wonder in heaven
he carried up to heaven all the love to god and angels and men he had learned and practised on earth with all the earthly fruits of it he carried back his humility his meekness his humanity his approachableness and his sympathy
and we see to our salvation some of the uses to which those parts of his moral character are at this moment being put in his father's house and what we see not now of all the ends and uses and employments of our lord's glorified humanity
we shall mayhap see hereafter and we also shall carry our moral character to heaven it is the only thing we have worth carrying so far but then moral character is well worth achieving here and then carrying there
for it is nothing else and nothing less than the divine nature itself it is the divine nature incarnate incorporate and made manifest in man
chapter seventeen one day about a fortnight after the coroner's inquest had been held and when the excitement of the terrible affair was calming down and polk street beginning to resume its monotonous routine
old grannis sat in his clean well kept little room in his cushioned armchair his hands lying idly upon his knees it was evening not quite time to light the lamps old grannis had drawn his chair close to the wall
so close in fact that he could hear miss baker's grenadine brushing against the other side of the thin partition at his very elbow while she rocked gently back and forth a cup of tea in her hands old grannis's occupation was gone
that morning the bookselling firm where he had bought his pamphlets had taken his little binding apparatus from him to use as a model the transaction had been concluded old grannis had received his check it was large enough to be sure but when all was over
he returned to his room and sat there sad and unoccupied looking at the pattern in the carpet and counting the heads of the tacks in the zinc guard that was fastened to the wall behind his little stove by and by he heard miss baker moving about it was five o'clock
the time when she was accustomed to make her cup of tea and keep company with him on her side of the partition
the minutes passed side by side and separated by only a couple of inches of board the two old people sat there together while the afternoon grew darker but for old grannis all was different that evening there was nothing for him to do
his hands lay idly in his lap his table with its pile of pamphlets was in a far corner of the room and from time to time stirred with an uncertain trouble he turned his head and looked at it sadly reflecting that he would never use it again
the absence of his accustomed work seemed to leave something out of his life it did not appear to him that he could be the same to miss baker now their little habits were disarranged their customs broken up he could no longer fancy himself so near to her
when she knew that he would never again sit before his table binding uncut pamphlets he had sold his happiness for money he had bartered all his tardy romance for some miserable banknotes he had not foreseen that it would be like this a vast regret welled up within him
what was that on the back of his hand he wiped it dry with his ancient silk handkerchief old grannis leant his face in his hands not only did an inexplicable regret stir within him but a certain great tenderness came upon him
the tears that swam in his faded blue eyes were not altogether those of unhappiness no this long delayed affection that had come upon him in his later years filled him with a joy for which tears seemed to be the natural expression
for thirty years his eyes had not been wet but tonight he felt as if he were young again he had never loved before and there was still a part of him that was only twenty years of age he could not tell whether he was profoundly sad or deeply happy
but he was not ashamed of the tears that brought the smart to his eyes and the ache to his throat he did not hear the timid rapping on his door and it was not until the door itself opened that he looked up quickly and saw the little retired dressmaker standing on the threshold
carrying a cup of tea on a tiny japanese tray she held it toward him i was making some tea she said and i thought you would like to have a cup never after could the little dressmaker understand how she had brought herself to do this thing
one moment she had been sitting quietly on her side of the partition stirring her cup of tea with one of her gorham spoons she was quiet she was peaceful the evening was closing down tranquilly her room was the picture of calmness and order
the geraniums blooming in the starch boxes in the window the aged goldfish occasionally turning his iridescent flank to catch a sudden glow of the setting sun the next moment she had been all trepidation
it seemed to her the most natural thing in the world to make a steaming cup of tea and carry it in to old grannis next door
with the brusque resolve and intrepidity that sometimes seizes upon very timid people the courage of the coward greater than all others she had presented herself at the old englishman's half open door and when he had not heeded her knock had pushed it open
and at last after all these years stood upon the threshold of his room she had found courage enough to explain her intrusion i was making some tea and i thought you would like to have a cup old grannis dropped his hands upon either arm of his chair
and leaning forward a little looked at her blankly he did not speak the retired dressmaker's courage had carried her thus far now it deserted her as abruptly as it had come her cheeks became scarlet
her funny little false curls trembled with her agitation what she had done seemed to her indecorous beyond expression it was an enormity fancy she had gone into his room into his room mister grannis's room
she had done this she who could not pass him on the stairs without a qualm what to do she did not know she stood a fixture on the threshold of his room without even resolution enough to beat a retreat
helplessly and with a little quaver in her voice she repeated obstinately i was making some tea and i thought you would like to have a cup of tea her agitation betrayed itself in the repetition of the word
she felt that she could not hold the tray out another instant already she was trembling so that half the tea was spilled old grannis still kept silence still bending forward with wide eyes his hands gripping the arms of his chair
then with the tea tray still held straight before her the little dressmaker exclaimed tearfully oh i didn't mean i didn't mean i didn't know it would seem like this i only meant to be kind and bring you some tea
and now it seems so improper i i i'm so ashamed i don't know what you will think of me i she caught her breath improper she managed to exclaim unlady like you can never think well of me
i'll go i'll go she turned about stop cried old grannis finding his voice at last miss baker paused looking at him over her shoulder her eyes very wide open blinking through her tears
for all the world like a frightened child stop exclaimed the old englishman rising to his feet i didn't know it was you at first i hadn't dreamed i couldn't believe you would be so good so kind to me oh
he cried with a sudden sharp breath oh you are kind i i you have have made me very happy no no exclaimed miss baker ready to sob it was unlady like
you will you must think ill of me she stood in the hall the tears were running down her cheeks and she had no free hand to dry them let me i'll take the tray from you cried old grannis coming forward a tremulous joy came upon him
never in his life had he been so happy at last it had come come when he had least expected it that which he had longed for and hoped for through so many years behold it was come to night he felt his awkwardness leaving him
he was almost certain that the little dressmaker loved him and the thought gave him boldness he came toward her and took the tray from her hands and turning back into the room with it made as if to set it upon his table but the piles of his pamphlets were in the way
both of his hands were occupied with the tray he could not make a place for it on the table he stood for a moment uncertain his embarrassment returning oh won't you won't you please he turned his head looking appealingly at the little old dressmaker
wait i'll help you she said she came into the room up to the table and moved the pamphlets to one side thanks thanks murmured old grannis setting down the tray now now
now i will go back she exclaimed hurriedly no no returned the old englishman don't go don't go i've been so lonely to night and last night too all this year all my life he suddenly cried i
i i've forgotten the sugar but i never take sugar in my tea but it's rather cold and i've spilled it almost all of it i'll drink it from the saucer old grannis had drawn up his armchair for her oh i shouldn't
this is so you must think ill of me suddenly she sat down and resting her elbows on the table hid her face in her hands think ill of you cried old grannis think ill of you why you don't know
you have no idea all these years living so close to you i i he paused suddenly it seemed to him as if the beating of his heart was choking him i thought you were binding your books to night said miss baker suddenly
and you looked tired i thought you looked tired when i last saw you and a cup of tea you know it that that does you so much good when you're tired but you weren't binding books no no returned old grannis
drawing up a chair and sitting down no i the fact is i've sold my apparatus a firm of booksellers has bought the rights of it and aren't you going to bind books any more exclaimed the little dressmaker a shade of disappointment in her manner
i thought you always did about four o'clock i used to hear you when i was making tea
that the two were really chatting together face to face and without the dreadful embarrassment that used to overwhelm them both when they met on the stairs she had often dreamed of this but had always put it off to some far distant day
it was to come gradually little by little instead of as now abruptly and with no preparation that she should permit herself the indiscretion of actually intruding herself into his room had never so much as occurred to her yet here she was in his room
and they were talking together and little by little her embarrassment was wearing away yes yes i always heard you when you were making tea returned the old englishman i heard the tea things then i used to draw my chair and my work table close to the wall on my side
and sit there and work while you drank your tea just on the other side and i used to feel very near to you then i used to pass the whole evening that way and yes yes i did too she answered
i used to make tea just at that time and sit there for a whole hour and didn't you sit close to the partition on your side sometimes i was sure of it i could even fancy that i could hear your dress brushing against the wall paper close beside me didn't you sit close to the partition
i i don't know where i sat old grannis shyly put out his hand and took hers as it lay upon her lap didn't you sit close to the partition on your side he insisted no i don't know
perhaps sometimes oh yes she exclaimed with a little gasp oh yes i often did then old grannis put his arm about her and kissed her faded cheek that flushed to pink upon the instant
after that they spoke but little the day lapsed slowly into twilight and the two old people sat there in the gray evening quietly quietly their hands in each other's hands keeping company but now with nothing to separate them
it had come at last after all these years they were together they understood each other they stood at length in a little elysium of their own creating they walked hand in hand in a delicious garden where it was always autumn
the end of it yes and the bedpost was his own the bed was his own the room was his own best and happiest of all the time before him was his own to make amends in i will live in the past the present and the future
scrooge repeated as he scrambled out of bed the spirits of all three shall strive within me o jacob marley heaven and the christmas time be praised for this i say it on my knees old jacob on my knees
he was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call he had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the spirit and his face was wet with tears they are not torn down cried scrooge
folding one of his bed curtains in his arms they are not torn down rings and all they are here i am here the shadows of the things that would have been may be dispelled they will be i know they will
his hands were busy with his garments all this time turning them inside out putting them on upside down tearing them mislaying them making them parties to every kind of extravagance i don't know what to do cried scrooge
i am as light as a feather i am as happy as an angel i am as merry as a schoolboy i am as giddy as a drunken man a merry christmas to everybody a happy new year to all the world
whoop hallo he had frisked into the sitting room and was now standing there perfectly winded there's the saucepan that the gruel was in cried scrooge starting off again and going round the fireplace
there's the door by which the ghost of jacob marley entered there's the corner where the ghost of christmas present sat there's the window where i saw the wandering spirits it's all right it's all true it all happened ha ha ha
really for a man who had been out of practice for so many years it was a splendid laugh a most illustrious laugh the father of a long long line of brilliant laughs i don't know what day of the month it is said scrooge
i don't know anything i'm quite a baby never mind i don't care i'd rather be a baby hallo whoop hallo here he was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard
clash clash hammer ding dong bell bell dong ding hammer clash clash oh glorious glorious running to the window he opened it and put out his head
no fog no mist clear bright jovial stirring cold cold piping for the blood to dance to golden sunlight heavenly sky sweet fresh air merry bells oh glorious glorious
what's to day cried scrooge calling downward to a boy in sunday clothes who perhaps had loitered in to look about him
returned the boy with all his might of wonder what's to day my fine fellow said scrooge
why christmas day it's christmas day said scrooge to himself i haven't missed it the spirits have done it all in one night they can do anything they like of course they can of course they can hallo my fine fellow hallo
returned the boy do you know the poulterer's in the next street but one at the corner scrooge inquired i should hope i did replied the lad an intelligent boy said scrooge a remarkable boy
do you know whether they've sold the prize turkey that was hanging up there not the little prize turkey the big one
returned the boy what a delightful boy said scrooge it's a pleasure to talk to him yes my buck it's hanging there now replied the boy is it said scrooge go and buy it walk er
exclaimed the boy no no said scrooge i am in earnest go and buy it and tell em to bring it here that i may give them the directions where to take it come back with the man and i'll give you a shilling come back with him in less than five minutes and i'll give you half a crown
the boy was off like a shot he must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half as fast i'll send it to bob cratchit's whispered scrooge rubbing his hands and splitting with a laugh he shan't know who sends it
it's twice the size of tiny tim joe miller never made such a joke as sending it to bob's will be the hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one but write it he did somehow and went downstairs to open the street door ready for the coming of the poulterer's man
as he stood there waiting his arrival the knocker caught his eye i shall love it as long as i live cried scrooge patting it with his hand i scarcely ever looked at it before what an honest expression it has in its face it's a wonderful knocker
here's the turkey hallo whoop how are you merry christmas it was a turkey he never could have stood upon his legs that bird
why it's impossible to carry that to camden town said scrooge you must have a cab the chuckle with which he said this and the chuckle with which he paid for the turkey and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy
were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again
and shaving requires attention even when you don't dance while you are at it
and been quite satisfied he dressed himself all in his best and at last got out into the streets the people were by this time pouring forth as he had seen them with the ghost of christmas present and walking with his hands behind him
scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile he looked so irresistibly pleasant in a word that three or four good humoured fellows said good morning sir a merry christmas to you and scrooge said often afterwards that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard
those were the blithest in his ears he had not gone far when coming on towards him he beheld the portly gentleman who had walked into his counting house the day before and said scrooge and marley's i believe
it sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met but he knew what path lay straight before him and he took it my dear sir said scrooge quickening his pace and taking the old gentleman by both his hands
how do you do i hope you succeeded yesterday it was very kind of you a merry christmas to you sir mister scrooge yes said scrooge that is my name and i fear it may not be pleasant to you allow me to ask your pardon
and will you have the goodness here scrooge whispered in his ear lord bless me cried the gentleman as if his breath were taken away my dear mister scrooge are you serious if you please said scrooge not a farthing less
a great many back payments are included in it i assure you will you do me that favour my dear sir said the other shaking hands with him i don't know what to say to such munifi don't say anything please retorted scrooge come and see me
will you come and see me i will cried the old gentleman and it was clear he meant to do it thankee said scrooge i am much obliged to you i thank you fifty times bless you he went to church and walked about the streets
and watched the people hurrying to and fro and patted the children on the head and questioned beggars and looked down into the kitchens of houses and up to the windows and found that everything could yield him pleasure he had never dreamed that any walk that anything
could give him so much happiness in the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's house he passed the door a dozen times before he had the courage to go up and knock but he made a dash and did it is your master at home my dear said scrooge to the girl
nice girl very yes sir where is he my love said scrooge he's in the dining room sir along with mistress i'll show you upstairs if you please thankee he knows me said scrooge
with his hand already on the dining room lock i'll go in here my dear he turned it gently and sidled his face in round the door they were looking at the table which was spread out in great array for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points
will you let me in fred let him in it is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off he was at home in five minutes nothing could be heartier his niece looked just the same so did topper when he came
so did the plump sister when she came so did every one when they came wonderful party wonderful games wonderful unanimity won der ful happiness but he was early at the office next morning oh he was early there
if he could only be there first and catch bob cratchit coming late that was the thing he had set his heart upon and he did it yes he did the clock struck nine no bob a quarter past no bob
he was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time scrooge sat with his door wide open that he might see him come into the tank his hat was off before he opened the door his comforter too he was on his stool in a jiffy driving away with his pen
as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock hallo growled scrooge in his accustomed voice as near as he could feign it what do you mean by coming here at this time of day i am very sorry sir said bob i am behind my time you are
repeated scrooge yes i think you are step this way sir if you please it's only once a year sir pleaded bob appearing from the tank it shall not be repeated i was making rather merry yesterday sir
now i'll tell you what my friend said scrooge i am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer and therefore he continued leaping from his stool and giving bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the tank again
bob trembled and got a little nearer to the ruler he had a momentary idea of knocking scrooge down with it holding him and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait waistcoat a merry christmas bob said scrooge
with an earnestness that could not be mistaken as he clapped him on the back a merrier christmas bob my good fellow than i have given you for many a year i'll raise your salary and endeavour to assist your struggling family
as good a master and as good a man as the good old city knew
some people laughed to see the alteration in him but he let them laugh and little heeded them for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe for good at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset
and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins as have the malady in less attractive forms his own heart laughed and that was quite enough for him he had no further intercourse with spirits
but lived upon the total abstinence principle ever afterwards and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep christmas well if any man alive possessed the knowledge
on their journey back to portray the ladies were almost too tired for talking and sir griffin was sulky sir griffin had as yet heard nothing about greystock's adventure and did not care to be told
her marriage with sir florian had been triumphant but that was only a step to something good that was to come after she then had at her own disposal her little wits and her prettiness
and a world before her in which as it then seemed to her there was a deal of pleasure if she could only reach it up to this period of her career she had hardly reached any pleasure but this day had been very pleasant
and then to see lucinda fall into it and she could remember every jump and her feeling of ecstasy as she landed on the right side and she had by heart every kind word that lord george had said to her
and she loved the sweet pleasant corsair like intimacy that had sprung up between them she wondered whether frank was at all jealous it wouldn't be amiss that he should be a little jealous
and then somebody had brought home in his pocket the fox's brush which the master of the hounds had told the huntsman to give her it was all delightful and so much more delightful because missus carbuncle
had not gone quite so well as she liked to go and because lucinda had fallen into the water they did not dine till past eight and the ladies and gentlemen all left the room together
coffee and liqueurs were to be brought into the drawing room and they were all to be intimate comfortable and at their ease all except sir griffin tewett who was still very sulky did he say anything
missus carbuncle had asked yes well he proposed but of course i could not answer him when i was wet through
there had been but a moment and in that moment this was all that lucinda would say now i don't mean to stir again said lizzie throwing herself into a corner of a sofa
till somebody carries me to bed i never was so tired in all my life she was tired but there is a fatigue which is delightful as long as all the surroundings are pleasant and comfortable
i didn't call it a very hard day said missus carbuncle you only killed one fox said mister emilius pretending a delightfully clerical ignorance
and on monday you killed four why should you be tired i suppose it was nearly twenty miles said frank who was also ignorant about ten perhaps said lord george
it was an hour and forty minutes and there was a good bit of slow hunting after we had come back over the river i'm sure it was thirty said lizzie forgetting her fatigue in her energy
ten is always better than twenty said lord george and five generally better than ten it was just whatever is best said lizzie
but you see he took it out in calling your cousin mister greystockings i felt that blow said frank i shall always call you cousin greystockings said lizzie it was hard
continued lord george and i understood it all so well when he got into a mess in his wrath about booking the horse to kilmarnock if the horse had been on the roadside he or his men could have protected him
if it had happened to me i should have been very angry said missus carbuncle but frank wouldn't have had a horse at all said lizzie unless he had taken mister nappie's
it's all very well for your noble master to talk of being civil and hoping that the horse had carried him well and all that there are circumstances in which a man can't be civil and then everybody laughed at him
without naming the price he'd send you grey stockings instead said lizzie but though lizzie was in heaven it behoved her to be careful
the corsair was a very fine specimen of the corsair breed about the best corsair she had ever seen and had been devoted to her for the day but these corsairs are known to be dangerous
and it would not be wise that she should sacrifice any future prospect of importance on behalf of a feeling which no doubt was founded on poetry but which might too probably have no possible beneficial result
as far as she knew the corsair had not even an island of his own in the aegean sea and if he had might not the island too probably have a medora or two of its own
in a ride across the country the corsair was all that a corsair should be but knowing as she did but very little of the corsair she could not afford to throw over her cousin for his sake
as she was leaving the drawing room she managed to say one word to her cousin you were not angry with me because i got lord george to ride with me instead of you angry with you
i knew i should only be a hindrance to you it was a matter of course he knows all about it and i know nothing i am very glad that you liked it so much i did like it and so did you
i was so glad you got that poor man's horse you were not angry then they had now passed across the hall and were on the bottom stair certainly not and you are not angry for what happened before
she did not look into his face as she asked this question but stood with her eyes fixed on the stair carpet indeed no good night frank good night lizzie
then she went and he returned to a room below which had been prepared for purposes of tobacco and soda water and brandy why griff you're rather out of sorts to night said lord george to his friend
before frank had joined them so would you be out of sorts if you'd lost your run and had to pick a young woman out of the water i don't like young women when they're damp and smell of mud you mean to marry her i suppose
as for marrying the widow i should like to know the facts first as to missus c she wouldn't object in the least i generally have my horses so bitted that they can't very well object
and as to the other question i mean to stay here for the next fortnight and i advise you to make it square with miss roanoke here's my lady's cousin for a man who doesn't ride often he went very well to day
i wonder if he'd take a twenty pound note if i sent it to him said frank when they broke up for the night i don't like the idea of riding such a fellow's horse for nothing
he'll bring an action against the railway and then you can offer to pay if you like mister nappie did bring an action against the railway claiming exorbitant damages
england under harold the second and conquered by the normans harold was crowned king of england on the very day of the maudlin confessor's funeral he had good need to be quick about it when the news reached norman william
hunting in his park at rouen he dropped his bow returned to his palace called his nobles to council and presently sent ambassadors to harold calling on him to keep his oath and resign the crown
harold would do no such thing the barons of france leagued together round duke william for the invasion of england duke william promised freely to distribute english wealth and english lands among them
and requested that the normans would pay peter's pence' or a tax to himself of a penny a year on every house a little more regularly in future if they could make it convenient
king harold had a rebel brother in flanders who was a vassal of harold hardrada king of norway this brother and this norwegian king joining their forces against england with duke william's help
marched to stamford bridge upon the river derwent to give them instant battle he found them drawn up in a hollow circle marked out by their shining spears riding round this circle at a distance to survey it
he saw a brave figure on horseback in a blue mantle and a bright helmet whose horse suddenly stumbled and threw him who is that man who has fallen harold asked of one of his captains
seven feet of earth for a grave replied the captain no more returned the brother with a smile the king of norway being a tall man perhaps a little more replied the captain ride back said the brother
to whom he gave honourable dismissal were left dead upon the field the victorious army marched to york as king harold sat there at the feast in the midst of all his company a stir was heard at the doors
and messengers all covered with mire from riding far and fast through broken ground came hurrying in to report that the normans had landed in england the intelligence was true
they had been tossed about by contrary winds and some of their ships had been wrecked a part of their own shore to which they had been driven back was strewn with norman bodies but they had once more made sail
led by the duke's own galley a present from his wife upon the prow whereof the figure of a golden boy stood pointing towards england by day the banner of the three lions of normandy the diverse coloured sails
the gilded vans the many decorations of this gorgeous ship had glittered in the sun and sunny water by night a light had sparkled like a star at her mast head and now encamped near hastings
with their leader lying in the old roman castle of pevensey the english retiring in all directions the land for miles around scorched and smoking fired and pillaged was the whole norman power hopeful
and strong on english ground harold broke up the feast and hurried to london within a week his army was ready he sent out spies to ascertain the norman strength william took them
caused them to be led through his whole camp and then dismissed the normans said these spies to harold are not bearded on the upper lip as we english are but are shorn they are priests
my men replied harold with a laugh will find those priests good soldiers the saxons reported duke william's outposts of norman soldiers who were instructed to retire as king harold's army advanced
rush on us through their pillaged country with the fury of madmen let them come and come soon said duke william some proposals for a reconciliation were made but were soon abandoned
in the middle of the month of october in the year one thousand and sixty six the normans and the english came front to front all night the armies lay encamped before each other
in a part of the country then called senlac now called in remembrance of them battle
there in the faint light were the english on a hill a wood behind them in their midst the royal banner representing a fighting warrior woven in gold thread adorned with precious stones
was the norman force of a sudden a great battle cry god help us burst from the norman lines the english answered with their own battle cry god's rood holy rood
the normans then came sweeping down the hill to attack the english there was one tall norman knight who rode before the norman army on a prancing horse throwing up his heavy sword and catching it and singing
but then a third rode out and killed the norman this was in the first beginning of the fight it soon raged everywhere the english keeping side by side in a great mass
cared no more for the showers of norman arrows than if they had been showers of norman rain when the norman horsemen rode against them with their battle axes they cut men and horses down the normans gave way
the english pressed forward a cry went forth among the norman troops that duke william was killed duke william took off his helmet in order that his face might be distinctly seen and rode along the line before his men
fighting bravely the main body still remaining firm heedless of the norman arrows and with their battle axes cutting down the crowds of horsemen when they rode up like forests of young trees duke william pretended to retreat
the eager english followed the norman army closed again and fell upon them with great slaughter still said duke william there are thousands of the english
firms as rocks around their king shoot upward norman archers that your arrows may fall down upon their faces the sun rose high and sank and the battle still raged
all over the ground king harold wounded with an arrow in the eye was nearly blind his brothers were already killed twenty norman knights whose battered armour had flashed fiery and golden in the sunshine all day long
and now looked silvery in the moonlight dashed forward to seize the royal banner from the english knights and soldiers still faithfully collected round their blinded king the king received a mortal wound and dropped
the english broke and fled the normans rallied and the day was lost o what a sight beneath the moon and stars when lights were shining in the tent of the victorious duke william
which was pitched near the spot where harold fell and he and his knights were carousing within and soldiers with torches going slowly to and fro without sought for the corpse of harold among piles of dead
and the warrior worked in golden thread and precious stones lay low all torn and soiled with blood
no doubt lord fawn was a man subservient to the leaders of his party much afraid of the hard judgment of those with whom he was concerned painfully open to impression from what he would have called public opinion to a certain extent a coward
most anxious to do right so that he might not be accused of being in the wrong and at the same time gifted with but little of that insight into things which teaches men to know what is right and what is wrong
lady glencora having perceived all this felt that he was a man upon whom a few words from her might have an effect but even lady glencora might hesitate to tell a gentleman that he ought to marry a lady
when the gentleman had already declared his intention of not marrying and had attempted to justify his decision almost publicly by a reference to the lady's conduct lady glencora almost felt that she had undertaken too much
as she turned over in her mind the means she had of performing her promise to lady eustace the five farthing bill had been laid upon the table on a tuesday and was to be read the first time on the following monday week
on the wednesday lady glencora had written to the duke and had called in hertford street on the following sunday she was at matching looking after the duke but she returned to london on the tuesday
and on the wednesday there was a little dinner at mister palliser's house given avowedly with the object of further friendly discussion respecting the new palliser penny the prime minister was to be there
and those special members of the government who would be available for giving special help to the financial hercules of the day a question perhaps of no great practical importance had occurred to mister palliser
but one which if overlooked might be fatal to the ultimate success of the measure there is so much in a name and then an ounce of ridicule is often more potent than a hundredweight of argument
by what denomination should the fifth part of a penny be hereafter known some one had ill naturedly whispered to mister palliser that a farthing meant a fourth and at once there arose a new trouble
which for a time bore very heavily on him should he boldly disregard the original meaning of the useful old word or should he venture on the dangers of new nomenclature
october as he said to himself is still the tenth month of the year november the eleventh and so on though by these names they are so plainly called the eighth and ninth all france tried to rid itself of this absurdity and failed
should he stick by the farthing or should he call it a fifthing a quint or a semitenth there's the fortnightly review comes out but once a month he said to his friend mister bonteen
mister gresham had expressed an opinion somewhat off hand that english people would never be got to talk about quints and so there was a difficulty a little dinner was therefore arranged and mister palliser
as was his custom in such matters put the affair of the dinner into his wife's hands when he was told that she had included lord fawn among the guests he opened his eyes lord fawn
who might be good enough at the india office knew literally nothing about the penny he'll take it as the greatest compliment in the world said lady glencora i don't want to pay lord fawn a compliment
said mister palliser but i do said lady glencora and so the matter was arranged it was a very nice little dinner missus gresham and missus bonteen were there
and the great question of the day was settled in two minutes before the guests went out of the drawing room stick to your farthing said mister gresham i think so said mister palliser
quint's a very easy word said mister bonteen but squint is an easier said mister gresham with all a prime minister's jocose authority they'd certainly be called cock eyes
there's nothing of the sound of a quarter in farthing said mister palliser stick to the old word
lady glencora had exacted a promise from lord fawn that he would return to the drawing room lady glencora was very clever at such work and said nothing then of her purpose she did not want her guests to run away
and therefore lord fawn lord fawn especially must stay if he were to go there would be nothing spoken of all the evening but that weary new penny to oblige her he must remain
and of course he did remain whom do you think i saw the other day said lady glencora when she got her victim into a corner of course lord fawn had no idea whom she might have seen
and for a moment he was stricken dumb i do feel for her so much i think she has been so hardly used he was obliged to say something
my name has of course been much mixed up with hers yes lord fawn i know it has and it is because i am so sure of your high minded generosity and and thorough devotion
that i have ventured to speak to you i am sure there is nothing you would wish so much as to get at the truth certainly lady glencora all manner of stories have been told about her
and as i believe without the slightest foundation they tell me now that she had an undoubted right to keep the diamonds that even if sir florian did not give them to her they were hers under his will
those lawyers have given up all idea of proceeding against her because the necklace has been stolen altogether independently of that do you see mister eustace and ask him if what i say is not true
mister camperdown thought that the property should be given up oh yes that's the man's name a horrid man i am told that he was really most cruel to her
i don't think they quite said that lady glencora something very much like it lord fawn i have no doubt in my own mind who did steal all the things who was it oh
one mustn't mention names in such an affair without evidence at any rate she has been very badly treated and i shall take her up if i were you i would go and call upon her i would indeed
i think you owe it to her well duke what do you think of plantagenet's penny now will it ever be worth two halfpence this question was asked of the duke of saint bungay
a great nobleman whom all liberals loved and a member of the cabinet he had come in since dinner and had been asking a question or two as to what had been decided well yes if properly invested i think it will
i'm glad that it is not to contain five semitenths a semitenth would never have been a popular form of money in england we hate new names so much that we have not yet got beyond talking of fourpenny bits
there's a great deal in a name isn't there you don't think they'll call them pallisers or palls or anything of that sort do you i shouldn't like to hear that under the new regime two lollypops were to cost three palls
and i mean to see palliser's measure carried through the house of lords next session i shall be paying for my mutton chops at the club at so many quints a chop yet don't you think so fawn i don't know what to think
sir said tristram now i shall tell you all the truth my father's name is sir meliodas king of liones
and my mother died of me in the forest and because thereof she commanded or she died that when i were christened they should christen me tristram and because i would not be known in this country i turned my name and let me call tramtrist
and wit ye well said tristram unto the king i did the battle for the love of mine uncle king mark and for the love of the country of cornwall and for to increase mine honour for that same day that i fought with sir marhaus i was made knight and never or then did i battle with no knight
so god me help said the king i may not say but ye did as a knight should
sir said tristram i thank you of your good lordship that i have had with you here and the great goodness my lady your daughter hath shewed me and therefore said sir tristram
for in the parts of england it may happen i may do you service at some season
with more i promise you as i am true knight
and i shall never fail her to do as much as a knight may do also i beseech your good grace that i may take my leave at my lady your daughter and at all the barons and knights i will well said the king
and then he told her all what he was and how he had changed his name because he would not be known and how a lady told him that he should never be whole till he came into this country where the poison was made wherethrough i was near my death had not your ladyship been
and i shall amend it unto my power and if there be any that will proffer me wrong or say of me wrong or shame behind my back say it now or never
and when king mark was whole in his prosperity there came tidings that sir tristram was arrived and whole of his wounds thereof was king mark passing glad and so were all the barons and when he saw his time he rode unto his father king meliodas
and then largely king meliodas and his queen departed of their lands and goods to sir tristram then by the license of king meliodas his father he returned again unto the court of king mark and there he lived in great joy long time
for they loved both one lady and she was an earl's wife that hight sir segwarides and this lady loved sir tristram passingly well and he loved her again for she was a passing fair lady
then king mark understood that and was jealous for king mark loved her passingly well so it fell upon a day this lady sent a dwarf unto sir tristram and bade him as he loved her that he would be with her the night next following
also she charged you that ye come not to her but if ye be well armed for her lover was called a good knight sir tristram answered to the dwarf recommend me unto my lady
king mark armed him and made him ready and took two knights of his counsel with him
why hast thou betrayed me and therewithal he swang out a sword and said but if thou tell me who hath been here here thou shalt die ah my lord mercy said the lady and held up her hands saying slay me not and i shall tell you all who hath been here
to me all the truth anon for dread she said here was sir tristram with me and by the way as he came to me ward he was sore wounded
sir she said he is armed and departed on horseback not yet hence half a mile
and within a while he overtook sir tristram and then he bade him turn false traitor knight and sir tristram anon turned him against him and therewithal segwarides smote sir tristram with a spear that it all to brast
and then he swang out his sword and smote fast at sir tristram sir knight said sir tristram i counsel you that ye smite no more howbeit for the wrongs that i have done you i will forbear you as long as i may
that shall not be for either thou shalt die or i then sir tristram drew out his sword and hurtled his horse unto him fiercely
and so sir tristram departed and left him there
but as long as king mark lived he loved never sir tristram after that
and thus it passed many weeks and days and all was forgiven and forgotten for sir segwarides durst not have ado with sir tristram because of his noble prowess
and so went his way with her and so he took his horse and gart set her behind his squire and rode upon his way
when sir segwarides heard tell that his lady was gone with a knight of king arthur's court then he armed him and rode after that knight for to rescue his lady so when bleoberis was gone with this lady king mark and all the court was wroth that she was away
but she meant that either of them had loved other with entire heart but sir tristram answered her thus fair lady it is not my part to have ado in such matters while her lord and husband is present here
and if it had been that her lord had not been here in this court then for the worship of this court peradventure i would have been her champion and if so be sir segwarides speed not well it may happen that i will speak with that good knight or ever he pass from this country
then within a while came one of sir segwarides squires and told in the court that sir segwarides was beaten sore and wounded to the point of death as he would have rescued his lady sir bleoberis overthrew him and sore hath wounded him
then was king mark heavy thereof and all the court when sir tristram heard of this he was ashamed and sore grieved
and gouvernail his servant bare his shield and spear and so as sir tristram rode fast he met with sir andred his cousin that by the commandment of king mark was sent to bring forth an ever it lay in his power
two knights of arthur's court that rode by the country to seek their adventures when sir tristram saw sir andred he asked him what tidings
and that one beat me and wounded me and set nought by my message fair cousin said sir tristram ride on your way and if i may meet them it may happen i shall revenge you so sir andred rode into cornwall and sir tristram rode after the two knights
have ye no doubt but i will have ado with them to increase my worship
sithen i did any deeds of arms do as ye list said gouvernail and therewithal anon sir tristram asked them from whence they came
sir sagramore looked upon sir tristram and had scorn of his words and asked him again fair knight be ye a knight of cornwall whereby ask ye it said sir tristram for it is seldom seen said sir sagramore that ye cornish knights be valiant men of arms
and great words he spake and anon with little might he was laid to the earth
and therefore here do your best and wit ye well but if ye quit you the better here upon this ground one knight of cornwall shall beat you both when sir dodinas le savage heard him say so he gat a spear in his hand and said sir knight keep well thyself
and then they departed and came together as it had been thunder and sir dodinas spear brast in sunder but sir tristram smote him with a more might that he smote him clean over the horse croup that nigh he had broken his neck
when sir sagramore saw his fellow have such a fall he marvelled what knight he might be and he dressed his spear with all his might and sir tristram against him and they came together as the thunder
and there sir tristram smote sir sagramore a strong buffet that he bare his horse and him to the earth and in the falling he brake his thigh when this was done sir tristram asked them fair knights will ye any more be there no bigger knights in the court of king arthur
for it may happen a cornish knight may match you
but i require thee said sir sagramore tell us your right name by the faith and troth that ye owe to the high order of knighthood ye charge me with a great thing said sir tristram
nay said sir tristram for i must have ado with one of your fellows his name is sir bleoberis de ganis god speed you well said sir sagramore and dodinas sir tristram departed and rode onward on his way
the daring attempt to rob the count was the topic of conversation throughout paris for the next fortnight the dying man had signed a deposition declaring benedetto to be the assassin the police had orders to make the strictest search for the murderer
the count told every one that this adventure had happened during his absence at auteuil
being called on to prove the crime was preparing his brief with the same ardor that he was accustomed to exercise when required to speak in criminal cases but three weeks had already passed and the most diligent search had been unsuccessful
the attempted robbery and the murder of the robber by his comrade were almost forgotten in anticipation of the approaching marriage of mademoiselle danglars to the count andrea cavalcanti it was expected that this wedding would shortly take place
as the young man was received at the banker's as the betrothed
who highly approved of the union regretted his inability to leave parma at that time and promised a wedding gift of a hundred and fifty thousand livres it was agreed that the three millions should be intrusted to danglars to invest
some persons had warned the young man of the circumstances of his future father in law who had of late sustained repeated losses but with sublime disinterestedness and confidence the young man refused to listen
or to express a single doubt to the baron the baron adored count andrea cavalcanti not so mademoiselle eugenie danglars with an instinctive hatred of matrimony she suffered andrea's attentions in order to get rid of morcerf
but when andrea urged his suit she betrayed an entire dislike to him the baron might possibly have perceived it but attributing it to a caprice feigned ignorance the delay demanded by beauchamp had nearly expired
morcerf appreciated the advice of monte cristo to let things die away of their own accord no one had taken up the remark about the general and no one had recognized in the officer who betrayed the castle of yanina the noble count in the house of peers
albert however felt no less insulted the few lines which had irritated him were certainly intended as an insult besides
he cherished the thought of the duel hoping to conceal its true cause even from his seconds beauchamp had not been seen since the day he visited albert and those of whom the latter inquired always told him he was out on a journey which would detain him some days
i will facilitate it by repeating the question will you or will you not retract morcerf it is not enough to answer yes or no to questions which concern the honor the social interest
and the life of such a man as lieutenant general the count of morcerf peer of france what must then be done what i have done albert i reasoned thus
i must at least know why i do so i must meet him with a heart at ease and that quiet conscience which a man needs when his own arm must save his life well said morcerf impatiently what does all this mean
it means that i have just returned from yanina from yanina yes impossible here is my passport examine the visa
four days of quarantine and forty eight hours to stay there that makes three weeks i returned last night and here i am what circumlocution
not so murmured the journalist on the contrary albert turned frightfully pale he endeavored to speak but the words died on his lips my friend said beauchamp in the most affectionate tone
i should gladly make an apology but alas but what the paragraph was correct my friend what that french officer yes fernand yes
the traitor who surrendered the castle of the man in whose service he was pardon me my friend that man was your father albert advanced furiously towards beauchamp but the latter restrained him more by a mild look than by his extended hand
albert opened the paper it was an attestation of four notable inhabitants of yanina proving that colonel fernand mondego in the service of ali tepelini had surrendered the castle for two million crowns the signatures were perfectly legal
albert tottered and fell overpowered in a chair it could no longer be doubted the family name was fully given after a moment's mournful silence his heart overflowed and he gave way to a flood of tears
beauchamp who had watched with sincere pity the young man's paroxysm of grief approached him
i wished to see all and to judge of everything for myself
but on the contrary the particulars which are given prove that fernand mondego raised by ali pasha to the rank of governor general is no other than count fernand of morcerf
then recollecting the honor you had done me in admitting me to your friendship i hastened to you albert still extended on the chair covered his face with both hands as if to prevent the light from reaching him
i hastened to you continued beauchamp to tell you albert that in this changing age the faults of a father cannot revert upon his children few have passed through this revolutionary period in the midst of which we were born
these attestations which i alone possess to be destroyed do you wish this frightful secret to remain with us confided to me it shall never escape my lips say albert my friend do you wish it albert threw himself on beauchamp's neck
ah noble fellow cried he take these said beauchamp presenting the papers to albert albert seized them with a convulsive hand tore them in pieces and trembling lest the least vestige should escape and one day appear to confront him
he approached the wax light always kept burning for cigars and burned every fragment dear excellent friend murmured albert still burning the papers let all be forgotten as a sorrowful dream said beauchamp
and shall always remind me that i owe my life and the honor of my name to you for had this been known oh beauchamp i should have destroyed myself
i should have fled from my country dear albert said beauchamp but this sudden and factitious joy soon forsook the young man and was succeeded by a still greater grief well said beauchamp what still oppresses you my friend
i am broken hearted said albert listen beauchamp i cannot thus in a moment relinquish the respect the confidence and pride with which a father's untarnished name inspires a son oh beauchamp beauchamp how shall i now approach mine
shall i draw back my forehead from his embrace or withhold my hand from his i am the most wretched of men ah my mother my poor mother said albert gazing through his tears at his mother's portrait
come said beauchamp taking both his hands take courage my friend but how came that first note to be inserted in your journal some unknown enemy an invisible foe has done this
bear your grief as the cloud bears within it ruin and death a fatal secret known only when the storm bursts go my friend reserve your strength for the moment when the crash shall come
are you going to marry mademoiselle danglars why do you ask me now because the rupture or fulfilment of this engagement is connected with the person of whom we were speaking
and give them no undue weight no said albert the engagement is broken off well said beauchamp
and you shall attend to your affairs and i to mine willingly said albert but let us walk i think a little exertion would do me good the two friends walked out on the fortress
those who ask no questions are the best comforters
chapter eighty seven the challenge then continued beauchamp i took advantage of the silence and the darkness to leave the house without being seen
the usher who had introduced me was waiting for me at the door and he conducted me through the corridors to a private entrance opening into the rue de vaugirard i left with mingled feelings of sorrow and delight
excuse me albert sorrow on your account and delight with that noble girl thus pursuing paternal vengeance yes albert from whatever source the blow may have proceeded it may be from an enemy but that enemy is only the agent of providence
albert held his head between his hands he raised his face red with shame and bathed in tears and seizing beauchamp's arm my friend said he my life is ended i cannot calmly say with you providence has struck the blow
but i must discover who pursues me with this hatred and when i have found him i shall kill him or he will kill me i rely on your friendship to assist me beauchamp if contempt has not banished it from your heart
contempt my friend how does this misfortune affect you no happily that unjust prejudice is forgotten which made the son responsible for the father's actions review your life albert although it is only just beginning
did a lovely summer's day ever dawn with greater purity than has marked the commencement of your career no albert take my advice you are young and rich leave paris all is soon forgotten in this great babylon of excitement and changing tastes
you will return after three or four years with a russian princess for a bride and no one will think more of what occurred yesterday than if it had happened sixteen years ago thank you my dear beauchamp thank you for the excellent feeling which prompts your advice but it cannot be
i have told you my wish or rather my determination you understand that interested as i am in this affair i cannot see it in the same light as you do what appears to you to emanate from a celestial source
seems to me to proceed from one far less pure providence appears to me to have no share in this affair and happily so for instead of the invisible impalpable agent of celestial rewards and punishments i shall find one both palpable and visible
on whom i shall revenge myself i assure you for all i have suffered during the last month now i repeat beauchamp i wish to return to human and material existence and if you are still the friend you profess to be
be it so said beauchamp if you must have me descend to earth i submit and if you will seek your enemy i will assist you and i will engage to find him my honor being almost as deeply interested as yours
and he may hope that he will not be but on my honor
well listen morcerf ah beauchamp i see you know something already you will restore me to life i do not say there is any truth in what i am going to tell you but it is at least a ray of light in a dark night
by following it we may perhaps discover something more certain tell me satisfy my impatience well i will tell you what i did not like to mention on my return from yanina say on
i went of course to the chief banker of the town to make inquiries at the first word before i had even mentioned your father's name
how and why because a fortnight since i was questioned on the same subject
he the man who would be popular cannot forgive the count of morcerf for being created a peer and this marriage broken off without a reason being assigned yes it is all from the same cause
make inquiries and if it be true oh yes if it be true cried the young man he shall pay me all i have suffered beware morcerf he is already an old man i will respect his age as he has respected the honor of my family
if my father had offended him why did he not attack him personally oh no he was afraid to encounter him face to face i do not condemn you albert i only restrain you act prudently oh do not fear
besides you will accompany me beauchamp solemn transactions should be sanctioned by a witness
they sent for a cabriolet on entering the banker's mansion
ah parbleu that's good said albert with a gloomy tone
cavalcanti will certainly fight the servant announced the young man but the banker recollecting what had transpired the day before did not wish him admitted it was however too late albert had followed the footman
and hearing the order given forced the door open and followed by beauchamp found himself in the banker's study sir cried the latter am i no longer at liberty to receive whom i choose in my house you appear to forget yourself sadly
i mean said albert drawing near and without apparently noticing cavalcanti who stood with his back towards the fireplace i mean to propose a meeting in some retired corner where no one will interrupt us for ten minutes that will be sufficient
you have a claim being almost one of the family and i will give as many rendezvous of that kind as i can find persons willing to accept them cavalcanti looked at danglars with a stupefied air and the latter making an effort arose and stepped between the two young men
albert's attack on andrea had placed him on a different footing
i shall resign the case to the king's attorney you mistake sir said morcerf with a gloomy smile i am not referring in the least to matrimony
because he appeared disposed to interfere between us in one respect you are right for i am ready to quarrel with every one to day
sir replied danglars pale with anger and fear i warn you when i have the misfortune to meet with a mad dog i kill it and far from thinking myself guilty of a crime i believe i do society a kindness
now if you are mad and try to bite me i will kill you without pity is it my fault that your father has dishonored himself yes miserable wretch cried morcerf it is your fault
but you hypocritically provoked it i yes you how came it known i suppose you read it in the paper in the account from yanina who wrote to yanina to yanina yes who wrote for particulars concerning my father
i imagine any one may write to yanina but one person only wrote one only yes and that was you i doubtless wrote
it is not only a right but a duty you wrote sir knowing what answer you would receive i indeed i assure you cried danglars with a confidence and security proceeding less from fear than from the interest he really felt for the young man
i was speaking of your father's past history i said the origin of his fortune remained obscure the person to whom i addressed my scruples asked me where your father had acquired his property i answered in greece
you appear to accuse the count who is absent from paris at this moment and cannot justify himself i accuse no one sir said danglars i relate and i will repeat before the count what i have said to you does the count know what answer you received
yes i showed it to him did he know my father's christian name was fernand and his family name mondego yes i had told him that long since and i did only what any other would have done in my circumstances and perhaps less
when the day after the arrival of this answer your father came by the advice of monte cristo to ask my daughter's hand for you i decidedly refused him but without any explanation or exposure in short why should i have any more to do with the affair
it neither increased nor decreased my income albert felt the blood mounting to his brow there was no doubt upon the subject danglars defended himself with the baseness but at the same time with the assurance of a man who speaks the truth at least in part if not wholly
not for conscience sake but through fear besides what was morcerf seeking it was not whether danglars or monte cristo was more or less guilty it was a man who would answer for the offence whether trifling or serious it was a man who would fight
and it was evident danglars would not fight and in addition to this everything forgotten or unperceived before presented itself now to his recollection monte cristo knew everything as he had bought the daughter of ali pasha
and knowing everything he had advised danglars to write to yanina the answer known he had yielded to albert's wish to be introduced to haidee and allowed the conversation to turn on the death of ali and had not opposed haidee's recital
i must ascertain if your insinuations are just and am going now to inquire of the count of monte cristo
the twelve labors of hercules hercules the hero of strength and courage was the son of jupiter and alcmene his life was one long series of wonders
went to the fates and begged them to make the life of the newly born babe hard and perilous the fates were three namely clotho who spun the thread of life lachesis who settled the lot of gods and mortals in life
when once the fates had decided what the lot of any being whether god or man was to be jupiter himself could not alter their decision it was to these fateful three then that juno made her prayer concerning the infant hercules
she could not however prevent him from having an honorable career since it was written that he should triumph over all dangers and difficulties that might beset him all that was conceded to her was that hercules should be put under the dominion of eurystheus king of thebes
his eldest brother a harsh and pitiless man this only half satisfied the hatred of juno but it made the life of hercules exceedingly bitter in fact hercules was but a child when juno sent two enormous serpents against him
these serpents gliding into his cradle were on the point of biting the child when he with his own hands seized them and strangled the life out of their slimy bodies having grown up to man's estate hercules did many mighty deeds of valor
that need not be recounted here but the hatred of juno always pursued him at length when he had been married several years she made him mad and impelled him in his madness to kill his own beloved children when he came again to his sober senses
and learnt that he was the murderer of his own offspring he was filled with horror and betook himself into exile so that he might hide his face from his fellow men after a time he went to the oracle at delphi to ask what he should do in atonement for his dreadful deed
he was ordered to serve his brother eurystheus who by the help of juno had robbed him of his kingdom for twelve years after this he was to become one of the immortals eurystheus feared that hercules might use his great strength and courage against him
in punishment for the evil that he had done he therefore resolved to banish him and to impose such tasks upon him as must certainly bring about his destruction hence arose the famous twelve labors of hercules
eurystheus first set hercules to keep his sheep at nemea and to kill the lion that ofttimes carried off the sheep and sometimes the shepherd also the man eater lurked in a wood that was hard by the sheep run hercules would not wait to be attacked by him
arming himself with a heavy club and with a bow and arrows he went in search of the lion's lair and soon found it finding that arrows and club made no impression upon the thick skin of the lion the hero was constrained to trust entirely to his own thews and sinews
seizing the lion with both hands he put forth all his mighty strength and strangled the beast just as he had strangled the serpents in his cradle then having despoiled the dead man eater of his skin hercules henceforth wore this trophy as a garment
and as a shield and buckler in those days there was in greece a monstrous serpent known as the hydra of lerna because it haunted a marsh of that name whence it issued in search of prey as his second labor hercules was sent to slay this creature
this reptile had nine heads of which the midmost was immortal when hercules struck off one of these heads with his club two others at once appeared in its place by the help of his servant hercules burned off the nine heads
and buried the immortal one beneath a huge rock the blood of the hydra was a poison so subtle that hercules by dipping the points of his arrows therein made them so deadly that no mortal could hope to recover from a wound inflicted by them
we shall see later that hercules himself died from the poison of one of these self same arrows the third labor imposed upon hercules by eurystheus was the capture of the arcadian stag
this remarkable beast had brazen feet and antlers of solid gold hercules was to carry the stag alive to eurystheus it proved no easy task to do this the stag was so fleet of foot that no one had been able to approach it
for more than a year over hill and dale hercules pursued the beast without ever finding a chance of capturing it without killing it at length he shot at it and wounded it with an arrow not you may be sure with one of the poisoned ones
and having caught it thus wounded he carried it on his shoulder to his brother and thus completed the third of his labors in the neighborhood of mount erymanthus in arcadia there lived in those far off days a savage boar that was in the habit of sallying forth from his lair
and laying waste the country round about nor had any man been able to capture or restrain him to free the country from the ravages of this monster was the fourth labor of hercules having tracked the animal to his lurking place after chasing him through the deep snow
hercules caught him in a net and bore him away in triumph on his shoulders to the feet of the amazed eurystheus
not far from mount olympus owned a herd of oxen three thousand in number they were stabled in stables that had not been cleaned out for thirty years the stench was terrible and greatly troubled the health of the land
eurystheus set hercules the task of cleaning out these augean stables in a single day but the wit of the hero was equal to the occasion with his great strength he diverted the flow of two rivers that ran their courses near the stables
and made them flow right through the stables themselves and lo the nuisance that had been growing for thirty years was no more such was the fifth labor of hercules on an island in a lake near stymphalus in arcadia
there nested in those days some remarkable and terrible birds remarkable because their claws wings and beaks were brazen and terrible because they fed on human flesh and attacked with their terrible beaks and claws all who came near the lake
to kill these dreadful birds was the sixth labor minerva supplied hercules with a brazen rattle with which he roused the birds from their nests and then slew them with his poisoned arrows while they were on the wing this victory made hercules popular
throughout the whole of greece and eurystheus saw that nothing he could devise was too hard for the hero to accomplish the seventh labor was to capture a mad bull that the sea god neptune had let loose in the island of crete of which island minos was at that time king
this ferocious creature breathed out from his nostrils a whirlwind of flaming fire but hercules was as you no doubt have guessed too much for the brazen bull he not only caught the monster but tamed him and bore him aloft on his shoulders
into the presence of the affrighted eurystheus who was at a loss to find a task impossible for hercules to perform
these horses were not ordinary horses living on corn they were flesh eaters and moreover they devoured human beings and so were hateful to mankind on this occasion hercules was not alone he organised a hunt and by the help of a few friends
caught the horses and led them to eurystheus the scene of this labor was thrace
the euxine or black sea and the danube
this labor was due to the desire of the daughter of eurystheus for the girdle of hippolyte queen of the amazons a tribe of female warriors it is said that the girls had their right breasts cut off in order that they might use the bow with greater ease in battle
this indeed is the meaning of the term amazon which signifies breastless after a troublesome journey hercules arrived safely at the court of hippolyte who received him kindly and this labor might perchance have been a bloodless one
had not his old enemy juno stirred up the female warriors against him in the fight that followed hercules killed hippolyte a feat scarcely to be proud of and carried off her girdle and thus the vanity of the daughter of eurystheus was gratified
to capture the oxen of geryon was the tenth labor of hercules in the person of geryon we meet another of those strange beings in which the makers of myths and fairy tales seem to revel geryon was a three bodied monster
whose cattle were kept by a giant and a two headed dog it is said that hercules on his way to the performance of this tenth labor formed the pillars of hercules those two rocky steeps that guard the entrance to the straits of gibraltar
gibraltar and abyla ceuta
although now they are eighteen miles apart hercules slew the giant the two headed dog and geryon himself and in due course brought the oxen to eurystheus
sometime afterwards eurystheus having heard rumors of a wonderful tree which in some unknown land yielded golden apples was moved with great greed to have some of this remarkable fruit
hence he commanded hercules to make the quest of this tree his eleventh labor the hero had no notion where the tree grew but he was bound by his bond to obey the king so he set out and after a time reached the kingdom of atlas king of africa
he had been told that atlas could give him news of the tree
was undergoing punishment for this offence his penance being to hold up the starry vault of heaven upon his shoulders this means perhaps that in the kingdom of atlas there were some mountains so high that their summits seemed to touch the sky
hercules offered to relieve atlas of his load for a time if he would but tell him where the famous tree was upon which grew the golden fruit atlas consented and for some days hercules supported the earth and the starry vault of heaven upon his shoulders
and it was their duty in which they were helped by a dragon to guard the golden apples hercules killed the dragon and carried off the apples but they were afterwards restored to their place by minerva
cerberus as perhaps you know was the triple headed dog that guarded the entrance to the nether world to bring up this three headed monster from the land of the dead was the last of the twelve labors it was also the hardest
pluto the god of the nether world told hercules he might carry off the dog
never dreaming that the hero could perform such a difficult feat
he continued his deeds of daring to the end of his life one of the last of his exploits was to kill the eagle that daily devoured the liver of prometheus whose story is both curious and interesting he is said to have been the great friend of mankind
and was chained to a rock on mount caucasus because he stole fire from heaven and gave it as a gift to the sons of man while in chains an eagle was sent by jupiter daily to feed on prometheus's liver which jupiter made to grow again each night
from this continuous torture he was released by hercules who slew the eagle and burst asunder the bonds of this friend of man
hercules in the nether world theseus and pirithous were two athenians who after having been at enmity for a long time at last became the very best of friends they like hercules had passed their youth in doing doughty deeds for the benefit of mankind
and their fame had spread abroad throughout the land of greece this did not prevent them from forming a very foolish project they actually planned to go down to hades and carry off pluto's wife proserpina whom pirithous himself wished to marry
this rashness brought about their ruin for they were seized by pluto and chained to a rock all this hercules who was the friend of theseus learnt while on one of his journeys and he resolved to rescue theseus from his eternal punishment
as for pirithous the prime mover in the attempted outrage him hercules meant to leave to his fate
but he would not listen to such tales and meant to force his way to theseus when he found himself face to face with cerberus he seized him threw him down and chained him with strong chains
the first of the seven rivers that ran round hades and formed a barrier between the living and the departed this river had not always run under the vaults of hades formerly its course was upon the earth but when the titans attempted to scale the heaven this river had the ill luck to quench their thirst
and jupiter to punish even the waters of the river for abetting his enemies turned its course aside into the under world where its waves slow moving and filthy lost themselves in styx the largest of all the rivers of hades which ran round pluto's gloomy kingdom
no less than nine times on reaching the banks of styx hercules was surprised to see flying around him a crowd of disconsolate spirits whom charon the ferryman refused to row across styx because they could not pay him his fee of an obol
a greek coin worth about three cents of our money which the greeks were accustomed to place in the mouths of their dead for the purpose as they thought of paying charon his ferry fee fierce charon frowned when he beheld hercules for he feared his light boat of bark would sink under his weight
it being only adapted for the light and airy spirits of the dead but when the son of jupiter told him his name he was mollified and allowed the hero to take his place at his side as soon as the boat had touched the shore
saw pluto seated upon an ebony throne by the side of his beloved proserpina pluto was not at all pleased to see the hero
when hercules announced himself however he gave him a permit to go round his kingdom and in addition acceded to his prayer for the release of theseus at the foot of pluto's throne hercules saw death the reaper
he was clothed in a black robe spotted with stars and his fleshless hand held the sharp sickle with which he is said to cut down mortals as the reaper cuts down corn our hero was glad to escape from this dismal palace and as he did not know exactly where to find theseus
he began to make the circuit of hades during his progress he saw the shades of many people of whom on earth he had heard much talk he had been wandering about some time when in a gloomy chamber he saw three old sisters wan and worn
spinning by the feeble light of a lamp they were the fates deities whose duty it was to thread the days of all mortals who appeared on earth were it but for an instant clotho the spinner of the thread of life was the eldest of the three she held in her hand a distaff
wound with black and white woollen yarn with which were sparingly intermixed strands of silk and gold the wool stood for the humdrum everyday life of man the silk and gold marked the days of mirth and gladness always alas too few in number
lachesis the second of the fates was quickly turning with her left hand a spindle while her right hand was leading a fine thread which the third sister
used to cut with a pair of sharp shears at the death of each mortal you may imagine how hard these three sisters worked when you remember that the thread of life of every mortal had to pass through their fateful fingers
but they had no time to answer questions and so the hero passed on some steps farther he stopped before three venerable looking old men seated upon a judgment seat judging as it seemed a man newly come to pluto's kingdom
and rhadamanthus the three judges of hades whose duty it was to punish the guilty by casting them into a dismal gulf tartarus whence none might ever emerge and to reward the innocent by transporting them to the elysian fields
where delight followed delight in endless pleasure these judges could never be mistaken because themis the goddess of justice held in front of them a pair of scales in which she weighed the actions of men
their decrees were instantly carried out by a pitiless goddess nemesis or vengeance by name armed with a whip red with the gore of her sinful victims
black tartarus and the elysian fields immediately on quitting the presence of the three judges hercules saw them open out before him an immense gulf whence arose thick clouds of black smoke
this smoke hid from view a river of fire that rolled its fiery waves onwards with a deafening din not far remote from this rolled cocytus another endless stream fed by the tears of the wretches doomed to black tartarus
in which place of eternal torment hercules now found himself the rulers of these mournful regions were the furies who with unkempt hair and armed with whips tormented the condemned without mercy
by showing them continually in mirrors the images of their former crimes into tartarus were thrown never to come out again the shades or manes of traitors ingrates perjurers unnatural children murderers and hypocrites
who had during their lives pretended to be upright and honorable in order to deceive the just but these wretches were not the only denizens of black tartarus there were to be seen great scoundrels who had startled the world with their frightful crimes
for these pluto and the furies had invented special tortures among the criminals so justly overtaken by the divine vengeance hercules noticed salmoneus whom he had formerly met upon earth
this madman whose pride had overturned his reason thought himself to be a god equal to the thunderer himself in order to imitate remotely the rolling of thunder he used to be driven at night over a brazen bridge in a chariot
whence he hurled lighted torches upon his unhappy slaves who were crowded on the bridge
indignant at the pride and cruelty of the tyrant jupiter struck him with lightning in deadly earnest and then cast him into the outer darkness of tartarus where he was for ever burning without being consumed
sisyphus the brother of salmoneus was no better than he when on earth he had been the terror of attica where as a brigand he had robbed and murdered with relentless cruelty theseus whom hercules was bent on freeing from his torment
had met and killed this robber assassin and jupiter for his sins decreed that the malefactor should continually be rolling up a hill in tartarus a heavy stone which when with incredible pains he had brought nearly to the top always rolled back again
and he had to begin over and over again the heart breaking ascent some distance from sisyphus hercules came upon tantalus who in the flesh had been king of phrygia but who now weak from hunger and parched with thirst
was made to stand to his chin in water with branches of tempting luscious fruit hanging ripe over his head when he essayed to drink the water it always went from him and when he stretched out his hand to pluck the fruit back the branches sprang out of reach
in addition an immense rock hung over his head threatened every moment to crush him it is said that tantalus when in the flesh had betrayed the secrets of the gods and also committed other great crimes
for this he was tantalized with food and drink which seeming always to be within his reach ever mocked his hopes by eluding his grasp the groans of a crowd of disheveled women next attracted the affrighted attention of hercules
they were forty nine of the fifty daughters of danaus king of argos who at the instigation of their father had killed their husbands because danaus thought they were conspiring to depose him one only of the fifty to wit hypermnestra
had the courage to disobey this unlawful command and so saved the life of lynceus her husband with whom she fled later on lynceus returned and slew the cruel king in battle
where they were ever engaged in the hopeless task of pouring water into a sieve hypermnestra on the contrary was honored while alive and also after her death for loving goodness even more than she loved her father
glutted with horror hercules at length quitted gloomy tartarus and beheld in front of him still another river
whoso drank the waters of this river which separated the place of torment from the abode of the blest lost memory of all that had been aforetime in his mind and so was no longer troubled by even the remembrance of human misery
where the shades of the blest dwelt in bliss without alloy an enchanting greenness made the sweet smelling groves as pleasant to the eye as they were to the sense of smell sunlit yet never parched with torrid heat
everywhere their verdure charmed the delighted eye and all things conspired to make the shades of the good and wise who were privileged to dwell in these elysian fields delightfully happy hercules saw in these shady regions of the blest
a crowd of kings heroes and men and women of lower degree who while on earth had loved and served their fellow men having at length found and released theseus hercules set out with him for the upper world the two left hades by an ivory door
the key of which pluto had confided to their care what awesome tales they had to recount to their wondering friends of the marvels of black tartarus
there abode in thessaly in the days of hercules a strange race of men who had the head and arms of a man together with the body of a horse they were called centaurs or bull slayers
famous for his knowledge of medicine music and botany had been the teacher of hercules but many of them although learned were not good hercules and theseus had waged war on them and had killed many so that their numbers were greatly lessened
hercules was traveling home with her when he came to the banks of a river and was at a loss how to cross it seeing his perplexity nessus one of the centaurs
this offer hercules gladly accepted no sooner however did the crafty centaur obtain possession of deianira than he made off with her intending to have her as his own wife you can easily imagine how angry this outrage made hercules
he shot one of his poisoned arrows with so much force that it went right through the traitor centaur and wounded him even unto death but before dying
that if she wanted to keep hercules always true to her she had but to take his shirt and when her husband's love was waning prevail on him to wear it deianira took the shirt and shortly afterwards being afraid that her husband was ceasing to love her
she sent it to him as a present now you will remember that hercules had shot through the shirt of nessus one of his poisoned arrows and you will not be surprised to hear that some of the poison had remained in the shirt so when hercules put it on
which he did immediately upon receiving it he was seized with frenzy and in his madness he uttered terrible cries and did dreadful deeds with his powerful hands he broke off huge pieces of rock tore up pine trees by their roots
and hurled them with resounding din into the valley he could not take off the fatal shirt and as he tore off portions of it he tore at the same time his quivering flesh
and who wished to solace him in his pain he seized as she approached him and flung headlong into the sea where she was changed into a rock that long so runs the legend kept its human form but at length the majesty and the courage of the hero asserted themselves
and although still in agony his madness left him
he wished to embrace him once more before dying but fearful lest he should in so doing infect his friend with the deadly poison that was consuming him he cried in his agony alas i am not even permitted to embrace thee
then he gathered together the trees he had uprooted and made a huge funeral pyre such as was used by the ancients in burning their dead climbing to the top of the heap he spread out the skin of the nemean lion and supporting himself upon his club
gave the signal for philoctetes to kindle the fire that was to reduce him to ashes
he further enjoined his friend to let no man know of his departure from life to the intent that the fear of his approach might prevent fresh monsters and new robbers from ravaging the earth thus died hercules
and after his death he was received as a god amongst the immortals on mount olympus
i was in one of the fields of my estate when the ground trembled under my feet not as it does when the earth quakes but as though a terrible struggle was going on within the mountain a terror came upon me but i could not explain my fear
as i stood still mont pelee seemed to shudder and a moaning sound issued from its crater it was quite dark the sun being obscured by ashes and fine volcanic dust the air was dead about me
so dead that the floating dust seemingly was not disturbed then there was a rending crashing grinding noise which i can only describe as sounding as though every bit of machinery in the world had suddenly broken down
it was deafening and the flash of light that accompanied it was blinding more so than any lightning i have ever seen it was like a terrible hurricane and where a fraction of a second before there had been a perfect calm
i felt myself drawn into a vortex and i had to brace myself firmly it was like a great express train rushing by and i was drawn by its force
transfixed i stood not knowing in what direction to flee
above its apex there appeared a great black cloud which reached high in the air
it moved with a rapidity that made it impossible for anything to escape it from the cloud came explosions that sounded as though all of the navies of the world were in titanic combat
but i was prevented from seeing the destruction by a spur of the hill that shut off the view of the city it is impossible for me to tell how long i stood there inert
probably it was only a few seconds but so vivid were my impressions that it now seems as though i stood as a spectator for many minutes when i recovered possession of my senses i ran to my house and collected the members of the family all of whom were panic stricken
i hurried them to the seashore where we boarded a small steamship in which we made the trip in safety to fort de france i know that there was no flame in the first wave that was sent down upon saint pierre
new craters seemed to be opening all about the summit and lava was flowing in broad streams in every direction
what happened on the horace the british steamer horace experienced the effect of the explosion when farther from land
her decks being covered with several inches of dust when she was a hundred and twenty five miles distant we quote engineer anderson's story on the afternoon of may eighth thursday we noticed a peculiar haze in the direction of martinique
we all remarked in the engine room that there must be a heavy storm approaching several of the sailors experienced deep water seamen
so unusually peculiar were the weather conditions that we talked of nothing else during the evening that night in the direction of martinique there was a very black sky
great flashes of light as the night wore on those on watch noticed what appeared to be great flashes of lightning in the direction of martinique
not unlike the ending of a deep peal of thunder
there would suddenly come great flashes of light from the dark bank toward martinique
all night this continued and it was not until day came that the flashes disappeared the dark bank that covered the horizon toward martinique however did not fade away with the breaking of day and at eight in the morning of the ninth friday
the whole section of the sky in that direction seemed dark and troubled about nine o'clock friday morning i was sitting on one of the hatches aft with some of the other engineers and officers of the ship discussing the peculiar weather phenomena
i noticed a sort of grit that got into my mouth from the end of the cigar i was smoking
as we went forward we met one or two of the sailors from the forecastle who wanted to know about the dust that was falling on the ship then we found that the grayish looking ash was sifting all over the ship both forward and aft ashes rained on the ship
a few moments later the lookout called down that we were running into a fog bank dead ahead fog banks in that section are unheard of at nine o'clock in the morning at this season and we were more than a hundred miles from land and what could fog and sand be doing there
before we knew it we went into the fog which proved to be a big dense bank of this same sand and it rained down on us from every side ventilators were quickly brought to their places and later even the hatches were battened down
the dust became suffocating and the men at times had all they could do to keep from choking what the stuff was we could not at first conjecture or rather we didn't have much time to speculate on it for we had to get our ship in shape to withstand we hardly knew what
just as the storm of sand was at its height fourth engineer wild was nearly suffocated by it but was easily revived
the engine became choked then there was another anxious moment shortly after nine o'clock third engineer rennie had been running the donkey engine when suddenly it choked and when he finally got it clear from the sand or ashes he found the valves were all cut out
then came the danger that it would get into the valves of the engine and cut them out and for several moments all hands scurried about and helped make the engine room tight and even then the ash drifted in and kept all the engine room force wiping the engines clear of it
toward three o'clock in the afternoon of friday we were practically clear of the sand but at eleven o'clock that night we ran into a second bank of it though not as bad as the first we made some experiments and found the stuff was superior to emery dust
it cut deeper and quicker and only about half as much was required to do the work
so we gathered it up that night there were more of the same electric phenomena toward martinique
for an instant we could see nothing but the water and the flame that tidal wave picked the ship up like a canoe and then smashed her after one list to starboard the ship righted but the masts the bridge the funnel and all the upper works had gone overboard
before i could get up three men tumbled in on top of me two of them were dead captain muggah went overboard still clinging to the fragments of his wrecked bridge daniel taylor the ship's cooper and a kitts native jumped overboard to save him
taylor managed to push the captain on to a hatch that had floated off from us and then they swam back to the ship for more assistance but nothing could be done for the captain
there were burning men and some women and two or three children lying around the deck not just burned but burning then when we got to them more than half the ship's company had been killed in that first rush of flame
some had rolled overboard when the tidal wave came and we never saw so much as their bodies the cook was burned to death in his galley he had been paring potatoes for dinner and what was left of his right hand held the shank of his potato knife
below decks there were some twenty alive the ship was on fire of course what was left of it the stumps of both masts were blazing aft she was like a furnace but forward the flames had not got below deck
one boy a passenger and just a little shaver the four year old son of the late clement stokes above spoken of was picked up naked his hair and all his clothing had been burned off but he was alive we rolled him in a blanket and put him in a sailor's bunk
a few minutes later we looked at him and he was dead my own son's gone too
so i supposed at first when the fire struck us that he was asleep in his bunk and safe but he wasn't nobody could tell me where he was i don't know whether he was burned to death or rolled overboard and drowned
the four of us that were left half way ship shape started in to fight the fire
thanks to that tidal wave that cleared our decks there wasn't much left to burn so we got the fire down so's we could live on board with it for several hours more and then the four turned to to knock a raft together out of what timber and truck we could find below
the suchet came along and took us all off we thought for a minute just after we were wrecked that we were to get help from a ship that passed us we burned blue lights but she kept on we learned afterward that she was the roddam
while deep crevices had been formed on the land a still greater effect had seemingly been produced beneath the water
this indicating a lift and fall of the ocean bed off the isle
found the bottom of the caribbean sea so changed as to render the old charts useless
but extended as far north as porto rico and it was believed that the seismic wave would be found to have altered the ocean bed round jamaica
soundings showed seven fathoms where before the eruption there were thirty six fathoms of water
the following is the story told by captain eric lillien skjold the strange experience of the nordby on may fifth the captain said we touched at saint michael's for water
we left saint michael's on the same day nothing worth while talking about occurred until two days afterward wednesday may seventh we were plodding along slowly that day about noon i took the bridge to make an observation
it seemed to be hotter than ordinary i shed my coat and vest and got into what little shade there was as i worked it grew hotter and hotter i didn't know what to make of it
along about two o'clock in the afternoon it was so hot that all hands got to talking about it we reckoned that something queer was coming off but none of us could explain what it was you could almost see the pitch softening in the seams
then as quick as you could toss a biscuit over its rail the nordby dropped regularly dropped three or four feet down into the sea no sooner did it do this than big waves that looked like they were coming from all directions at once began to smash against our sides
i had all hands piped on deck and we battened down everything loose to make ready for a storm
there was something wrong with the sun that afternoon
all of a sudden there came a sheet of lightning that showed up the whole tumbling sea for miles and miles we sort of ducked expecting an awful crash of thunder but it didn't come there was no sound except the big waves pounding against our sides there wasn't a breath of wind
well sir at that minute there began the most exciting time i've ever been through and i've been on every sea on the map for twenty five years every second there'd be waves fifteen or twenty feet high belting us head on stern on and broadside all at once we could see them coming
a flock of them squawking and crying made for our rigging and perched there they seemed like they were scared to death but the queerest part of it all was the water itself it was hot not so hot that our feet could not stand it when it washed over the deck
well that sort of thing went on hour after hour the waves the lightning the hot water and the sharks and all the rest of the odd things happening frightened the crew out of their wits
mighty strange things happen on the sea but this topped them all i kept to the bridge all night
at two o'clock in the morning all the queer goings on stopped just the way they began all of a sudden we lay to until daylight then we took our reckonings and started off again we were about seven hundred miles off cape henlopen
none of us was hurt and the old nordby herself pulled through all right but i'd sooner stay ashore than see waves without wind and lightning without thunder fiery stream contained poisonous gases
careful inspection showed that the fiery stream which so completely destroyed saint pierre must have been composed of poisonous gases
it is believed that mont pelee threw off a great gasp of some exceedingly heavy and noxious gas something akin to firedamp which settled upon the city and rendered the inhabitants insensible this was followed by the sheet of flame that swept down the side of the mountain
the dumb animals were wiser than man and early took warning of the storm of fire which mont pelee was storing up to hurl upon the island even before the mountain began to rumble late in april live stock became uneasy and at times were almost uncontrollable
cattle lowed in the night dogs howled and sought the company of their masters and when driven forth they gave every evidence of fear wild animals disappeared from the vicinity of mont pelee even the snakes
which at ordinary times are found in great numbers near the volcano crawled away birds ceased singing and left the trees that shaded the sides of pelee
of the villages in the vicinity of saint pierre only one escaped the others suffering the fate of the city the fortunate one was le carbet on the south which escaped uninjured the flood of lava stopping when within two hundred feet of the town
a beautiful summer resort frequented by the people of the island during the hot season as a place of recreation also escaped in the height of the season several thousand people gathered there
there were but a few hundred though located on an elevation between the city and the crater it was by great good fortune saved
precisely as we have seen it going eastward up the mediterranean past the dardanelles and founding aryan hamitic and probably turanian colonies on the farther shores of the black sea and on the caspian
and in this universal empire senor lopez must find an explanation of the similarity which as we shall show exists between the speech of the south american pacific coast on the one hand and the speech of gaul ireland
england italy greece bactria and hindostan on the other
and means primitive chief and manco
we have here a tradition of castes like that preserved in the four tribal names of athens the laboring class naturally enough in a new colony obtained the supremacy
and became in time perou or peru was not the nubian island of merou with its pyramids built by red men a similar transplantation
and when the hindoo priest points to his sacred emblem with five projecting points upon it and tells us that they typify mero and the four quarters of the world does he not refer to atlantis and its ancient universal empire
it reminds us of menes minos et cetera who are found at the beginning of so many of the old world traditions
and even auburn hair they had regular features large heads and large bodies their descendants are to this day an olive skinned people much lighter in color than the indian tribes subjugated by them they were a great race
the incas were simply an offshoot who descending from the mountains subdued the rude races of the sea coast and imposed their ancient civilization upon them
this whole region when the spaniards arrived was a populous and prosperous empire complete in its civil organization supported by an efficient system of industry and presenting a notable development of some of the more important arts of civilized life
the companions of pizarro found everywhere the evidences of a civilization of vast antiquity cieca de leon mentions great edifices that were in ruins at tiahuanaca
an artificial hill raised on a groundwork of stone and two stone idols apparently made by skilful artificers ten or twelve feet high clothed in long robes
in this place also says de leon there are stones so large and so overgrown that our wonder is excited it being incomprehensible how the power of man could have placed them where we see them
they are variously wrought and some of them having the form of men must have been idols near the walls are many caves and excavations under the earth but in another place farther west are other and greater monuments such as large gate ways with hinges
platforms and porches each made of a single stone it surprised me to see these enormous gate ways made of great masses of stone some of which were thirty feet long fifteen high and six thick
prisons furnaces for smelting metals and almost every concomitant of civilization existed in the ancient chimu capital
the buildings here as throughout peru were all constructed of hewn stone and had doors and windows with posts sills and thresholds of stone at cuelap in northern peru remarkable ruins were found
the native traditions said this city was built by bearded white men who came there long before the time of the incas and established a settlement
the peruvians made large use of aqueducts which they built with notable skill using hewn stones and cement and making them very substantial one extended four hundred and fifty miles across sierras and over rivers
these roads were from twenty to twenty five feet wide were macadamized with pulverized stone mixed with lime and bituminous cement and were walled in by strong walls more than a fathom in thickness
in many places these roads were cut for leagues through the rock great ravines were filled up with solid masonry rivers were crossed by suspension bridges used here ages before their introduction into europe
extending from one degree north of quito to cuzco and from cuzco to chili it was quite as long as the two pacific railroads and its wild route among the mountains was far more difficult sarmiento describing it said
should see fit to order the construction of another road like that which leads from quito to cuzco or that which from cuzco goes toward chili i certainly think he would not be able to make it with all his power humboldt said
this road was marvellous none of the roman roads i had seen in italy in the south of france or in spain appeared to me more imposing than this work of the ancient peruvians
along these great roads caravansaries were established for the accommodation of travellers these roads were ancient in the time of the incas they were the work of the white auburn haired bearded men from atlantis thousands of years before the time of the incas
their works in cotton and wool exceeded in fineness anything known in europe at that time they had carried irrigation agriculture and the cutting of gems to a point equal to that of the old world
their accumulations of the precious metals exceeded anything previously known in the history of the world
in a description of one lot of golden articles sent to spain in fifteen thirty four by pizarro there is mention of
can any one read these details and declare plato's description of atlantis to be fabulous simply because he tells us of the enormous quantities of gold and silver possessed by the people
covered doubtless by hundreds of feet of volcanic debris an amount of gold and silver exceeding many times that brought to europe from peru mexico and central america since the time of columbus a treasure which if brought to light would revolutionize the financial values of the world
one they worshipped the sun moon and planets two they believed in the immortality of the soul three they believed in the resurrection of the body and accordingly embalmed their dead
four the priest examined the entrails of the animals offered in sacrifice and like the roman augurs divined the future from their appearance
six they divided the year into twelve months
eight they possessed castes and the trade of the father descended to the son as in india nine they had bards and minstrels who sung at the great festivals
ten their weapons were the same as those of the old world and made after the same pattern eleven they drank toasts and invoked blessings twelve they built triumphal arches for their returning heroes and strewed the road before them with leaves and flowers
thirteen they used sedan chairs fourteen they regarded agriculture as the principal interest of the nation and held great agricultural fairs and festivals for the interchange of the productions of the farmers
fifteen the king opened the agricultural season by a great celebration and like the kings of egypt he put his hand to the plough and ploughed the first furrow sixteen they had an order of knighthood in which the candidate knelt before the king
he was then allowed to use the girdle or sash around the loins corresponding to the toga virilis of the romans he was then crowned with flowers
it is enough for me to quote mister ferguson's words that the coincidence between the buildings of the incas and the cyclopean remains attributed to the pelasgians in italy and greece is the most remarkable in the history of architecture
owl headed vases troy and peru
the sloping jambs the window cornice the polygonal masonry and other forms so closely resemble what is found in the old pelasgic cities of greece and italy that it is difficult to resist the conclusion that there may be some relation between them
the doors were framed of gold
that a study of ancient peruvian pottery has constantly reminded me of forms with which we are familiar in egyptian archaeology
doctor schliemann in his excavations of the ruins of troy found a number of what he calls owl headed idols and vases
in peru we find vases with very much the same style of face
i might pursue those parallels much farther but it seems to me that these extraordinary coincidences must have arisen either from identity of origin or long continued ancient intercourse
there can be little doubt that a fair skinned light haired bearded race holding the religion which plato says prevailed in atlantis carried an atlantean civilization at an early day up the valley of the amazon to the heights of bolivia and peru precisely as a similar emigration of aryans went westward to the shores of the mediterranean and caspian and it is very likely that these diverse migrations habitually spoke the same language
senor lopez first combats the idea that the living dialect of peru is barbarous and fluctuating it is not one of the casual and shifting forms of speech produced by nomad races to which of the stages of language does this belong
the agglutinative in which one root is fastened on to another and a word is formed in which the constitutive elements are obviously distinct or the inflexional where the auxiliary roots get worn down and are only distinguishable by the philologist
and many again result from the casual spelling of the spaniards
huakia to call
to speak huasi a house vas to inhabit
a stani means i change a thing's place for ni or mi is the first person singular and added to the root of a verb is the sign of the first person of the present indicative for instance
so lord strangford was wrong when he supposed that the last verb in mi lived with the last patriot in lithuania peru has stores of a grammatical form which has happily perished in europe
i love munani i shall love munasa and that the affixes denoting cases in the noun are curiously like the greek prepositions
will here be observed very recently doctor rudolf falb has announced
that in fact they exhibit the most astounding affinities with the semitic tongue and particularly the arabic in which tongue doctor falb has been skilled from his boyhood following up the lines of this discovery doctor falb has found
one a connecting link with the aryan roots and two has ultimately arrived face to face with the surprising revelation that the semitic roots are universally aryan
since the above was written i have received a letter from doctor falb dated leipsic april fifth eighteen eighty one
the manuscript contains over two thousand pages and doctor falb has devoted to it ten years of study a work from such a source upon so curious and important a subject will be looked for with great interest
the very traditions to which we have referred as existing among the peruvians
and only in the direction of atlantis can we look for a white and bearded race in fact kindred races with the same arts and speaking the same tongue in an early age of the world separated in atlantis and went east and west
why did i live why in that instant did i not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed i know not
when night came i quitted my retreat and wandered in the wood and now no longer restrained by the fear of discovery i gave vent to my anguish in fearful howlings
i was like a wild beast that had broken the toils destroying the objects that obstructed me and ranging through the wood with a stag like swiftness oh what a miserable night i passed
the cold stars shone in mockery and the bare trees waved their branches above me now and then the sweet voice of a bird burst forth amidst the universal stillness all
spread havoc and destruction around me and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin but this was a luxury of sensation that could not endure
i became fatigued with excess of bodily exertion and sank on the damp grass in the sick impotence of despair there was none among the myriads of men
and should i feel kindness towards my enemies no from that moment i declared everlasting war against the species and more than all against him who had formed me
and sent me forth to this insupportable misery the sun rose i heard the voices of men and knew that it was impossible to return to my retreat during that day
accordingly i hid myself in some thick underwood determining to devote the ensuing hours to reflection on my situation the pleasant sunshine and the pure air of day restored me to some degree of tranquillity
and when i considered what had passed at the cottage i could not help believing that i had been too hasty in my conclusions i had certainly acted imprudently
it was apparent that my conversation had interested the father in my behalf and i was a fool in having exposed my person to the horror of his children i ought to have familiarized the old de lacey to me and by degrees
to have discovered myself to the rest of his family when they should have been prepared for my approach
these thoughts calmed me and in the afternoon i sank into a profound sleep but the fever of my blood did not allow me to be visited by peaceful dreams the horrible scene of the preceding day was
forever acting before my eyes the females were flying and the enraged felix tearing me from his father's feet i awoke exhausted
i crept forth from my hiding place and went in search of food when my hunger was appeased i directed my steps towards the well known path that conducted to the cottage all there was at peace
i trembled violently apprehending some dreadful misfortune the inside of the cottage was dark and i heard no motion i cannot describe the agony of this suspense
presently two countrymen passed by but pausing near the cottage they entered into conversation using violent gesticulations but i did not understand what they said as they spoke the language of the country
which differed from that of my protectors soon after however felix approached with another man i was surprised as i knew that he had not quitted the cottage that morning
and waited anxiously to discover from his discourse the meaning of these unusual appearances do you consider said his companion to him that you will be obliged to pay three months rent and to lose the produce of your garden
i do not wish to take any unfair advantage and i beg therefore that you will take some days to consider of your determination it is utterly useless replied felix we can never again inhabit your cottage the life of my father is in the greatest danger
my wife and my sister will never recover from their horror i entreat you not to reason with me any more take possession of your tenement and let me fly from this place felix trembled violently as he said this
i continued for the remainder of the day in my hovel in a state of utter and stupid despair my protectors had departed and had broken the only link that held me to the world
for the first time the feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom and i did not strive to control them but allowing myself to be borne away by the stream i bent my mind towards injury and death
and a gush of tears somewhat soothed me but again when i reflected that they had spurned and deserted me anger returned a rage of anger
and after having destroyed every vestige of cultivation in the garden i waited with forced impatience until the moon had sunk to commence my operations as the night advanced a fierce wind
was quickly enveloped by the flames which clung to it and licked it with their forked and destroying tongues as soon as i was convinced that no assistance could save any part of the habitation i quitted the scene
hated and despised every country must be equally horrible at length the thought of you crossed my mind i learned from your papers
that you were my father my creator and to whom could i apply with more fitness than to him who had given me life among the lessons that felix had bestowed upon safie geography had not been omitted
but how was i to direct myself i knew that i must travel in a southwesterly direction to reach my destination but the sun was my only guide i did not know the names of the towns that i was to pass through nor could i ask
information from a single human being but i did not despair from you only could i hope for succour although towards you i felt no sentiment but that of hatred
unfeeling heartless creator you had endowed me with perceptions and passions and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind but on you only
and the sufferings i endured intense it was late in autumn when i quitted the district where i had so long resided i travelled only at night fearful of encountering the visage of a human being
nature decayed around me and the sun became heatless rain and snow poured around me mighty rivers were frozen the surface of the earth was hard and chill and bare
and i found no shelter oh earth how often did i imprecate curses on the cause of my being
and all within me was turned to gall and bitterness
the more deeply did i feel the spirit of revenge enkindled in my heart snow fell and the waters were hardened but i rested not
no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food but a circumstance that happened when i arrived on the confines of switzerland
i generally rested during the day and travelled only when i was secured by night from the view of man one morning however finding that my path lay through a deep wood i ventured to continue my journey after the sun had risen
the day which was one of the first of spring cheered even me by the loveliness of its sunshine and the balminess of the air i felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure that had long appeared dead
revive within me half surprised by the novelty of these sensations i allowed myself to be borne away by them and forgetting my solitude and deformity dared to be happy
soft tears again bedewed my cheeks and i even raised my humid eyes with thankfulness towards the blessed sun which bestowed such joy upon me
here i paused not exactly knowing what path to pursue when i heard the sound of voices
i was scarcely hid when a young girl came running towards the spot where i was concealed laughing as if she ran from someone in sport
i sank to the ground and my injurer with increased swiftness escaped into the wood this
inflamed by pain i vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind but the agony of my wound overcame me my pulses paused and i fainted
i had no means of extracting it my sufferings were augmented also by the oppressive sense of the injustice and ingratitude of their infliction my daily vows rose for revenge a deep and deadly revenge
such as would alone compensate for the outrages and anguish i had endured after some weeks my wound healed and i continued my journey
of pleasure but my toils now drew near a close and in two months from this time i reached the environs of geneva it was evening when i arrived and i retired to a hiding place among the fields that surround it
to meditate in what manner i should apply to you i was oppressed by fatigue and hunger and far too unhappy to enjoy the gentle breezes of evening or the prospect of the sun setting behind the stupendous mountains of jura
suddenly as i gazed on him an idea seized me that this little creature was unprejudiced and had lived too short a time to have imbibed a horror of deformity
if therefore i could seize him and educate him as my companion and friend i should not be so desolate in this peopled earth urged by this impulse i seized on the boy as he passed and drew him towards me
i do not intend to hurt you listen to me
ugly wretch you wish to eat me and tear me to pieces you are an ogre let me go or i will tell my papa boy you will never see your father again you must come with me hideous monster let me go
he will punish you you dare not keep me frankenstein you belong then to my enemy to him towards whom i have sworn eternal revenge you shall be my first victim
the child still struggled and loaded me with epithets which carried despair to my heart i grasped his throat to silence him and in a moment he lay dead at my feet
i gazed on my victim and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph clapping my hands i exclaimed i too can create desolation my enemy is not invulnerable
this death will carry despair to him and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him as i fixed my eyes on the child i saw something glittering on his breast i took it
it was a portrait of a most lovely woman in spite of my malignity it softened and attracted me for a few moments i gazed with delight on her dark eyes
and her lovely lips but presently my rage returned i remembered that i was forever deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could bestow and that she whose resemblance i contemplated would in regarding me
to one expressive of disgust and affright can you wonder that such thoughts transported me with rage i only wonder that at that moment
instead of venting my sensations in exclamations and agony i did not rush among mankind and perish in the attempt to destroy them while i was overcome by these feelings i left the spot where i had committed the murder and seeking a more secluded hiding place
i entered a barn which had appeared to me to be empty a woman was sleeping on some straw she was young not indeed so beautiful as her whose portrait i held
but of an agreeable aspect and blooming in the loveliness of youth and health here i thought is one of those whose joy imparting smiles are bestowed on all but me and then i bent over her and whispered
my beloved awake the sleeper stirred a thrill of terror ran through me should she indeed awake and see me and curse me and denounce the murderer thus
would she assuredly act if her darkened eyes opened and she beheld me the thought was madness
not i but she shall suffer the murder i have committed because i am forever robbed of all that she could give me she shall atone the crime had its source in her
be hers the punishment thanks to the lessons of felix and the sanguinary laws of man i had learned now to work mischief i bent over her
and placed the portrait securely in one of the folds of her dress she moved again and i fled for some days i haunted the spot where these scenes had taken place
sometimes wishing to see you sometimes resolved to quit the world and its miseries forever at length i wandered towards these mountains and have ranged through their
immense recesses consumed by a burning passion which you alone can gratify we may not part until you have promised to comply with my requisition i am alone and miserable
man will not associate with me but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me my companion must be of the same species and have the same defects
he continued you must create a female for me with whom i can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being this you alone can do and i demand it of you as a right
which you must not refuse to concede the latter part of his tale had kindled anew in me the anger that had died away while he narrated his peaceful life among the cottagers and as he said this
i could no longer suppress the rage that burned within me i do refuse it i replied and no torture shall ever extort a consent from me you may render me the most miserable of men but you shall never make me base in my own eyes
shall i create another like yourself whose joint wickedness might desolate the world begone i have answered you you may torture me but i will never consent you are in the wrong replied the fiend
and instead of threatening i am content to reason with you i am malicious because i am miserable am i not shunned and hated by all mankind
remember that and tell me why i should pity man more than he pities me you would not call it murder if you could precipitate me into one of those ice rifts and destroy my frame the work of your own hands
shall i respect man when he condemns me let him live with me in the interchange of kindness and instead of injury i would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance
but that cannot be the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery i will revenge my injuries
if i cannot inspire love i will cause fear and chiefly towards you my arch enemy because my creator do i swear inextinguishable hatred have a care
i will work at your destruction nor finish until i desolate your heart so that you shall curse the hour of your birth a fiendish rage animated him as he said this
what i ask of you is reasonable and moderate i demand a creature of another sex but as hideous as myself the gratification is small
but it is all that i can receive and it shall content me it is true we shall be monsters cut off from all the world but on that account we shall be more attached to one another
let me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit let me see that i excite the sympathy of some existing thing do not deny me my request i was moved
i shuddered when i thought of the possible consequences of my consent but i felt that there was some justice in his argument his tale and the feelings he now expressed proved him to be a creature of fine sensations
and did i not as his maker owe him all the portion of happiness that it was in my power to bestow
and continued if you consent neither you nor any other human being shall ever see us again i will go to the vast wilds of south america my food is not that of man
i do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment my companion will be of the same nature as myself and will be content with the same fare we shall make our bed of dried leaves
the sun will shine on us as on man and will ripen our food the picture i present to you is peaceful and human and you must feel that you could deny it only in the wantonness of power and cruelty
replied i to fly from the habitations of man to dwell in those wilds where the beasts of the field will be your only companions how can you who long for the love and sympathy of man
persevere in this exile you will return and again seek their kindness and you will meet with their detestation your evil passions will be renewed and you will then have a companion to aid you in the task of destruction
and why do you again harden yourself to my complaints i swear to you by the earth which i inhabit and by you that made me that with the companion you bestow i will quit the neighbourhood of man and dwell as it may chance
in the most savage of places my evil passions will have fled for i shall meet with sympathy my life will flow quietly away and in my dying moments i shall not curse my maker
i had no right to withhold from him the small portion of happiness which was yet in my power to bestow you swear i said to be harmless but have you not
already shown a degree of malice that should reasonably make me distrust you may not even this be a feint that will increase your triumph by affording a wider scope for your revenge how is this
i must not be trifled with and i demand an answer if i have no ties and no affections hatred and vice must be my portion the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes
and i shall become a thing of whose existence everyone will be ignorant my vices are the children of a forced solitude that i abhor and my virtues will
necessarily arise when i live in communion with an equal i shall feel the affections of a sensitive being and become linked to the chain of existence and events from which i am now excluded
i thought of the promise of virtues which he had displayed on the opening of his existence and the subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him his power and threats
on your solemn oath to quit europe forever and every other place in the neighbourhood of man as soon as i shall deliver into your hands a female who will accompany you in your exile i swear he cried by the sun
and by the blue sky of heaven and by the fire of love that burns my heart that if you grant my prayer while they exist you shall never behold me again depart to your home and commence your labours
but that when you are ready i shall appear saying this he suddenly quitted me fearful perhaps of any change in my sentiments i saw him descend the mountain with greater speed than the flight of an eagle
and quickly lost among the undulations of the sea of ice
i knew that i ought to hasten my descent towards the valley as i should soon be encompassed in darkness but my heart was heavy and my steps slow the labour of winding among the little paths of the mountain
and fixing my feet firmly as i advanced perplexed me occupied as i was by the emotions which the occurrences of the day had produced night was far advanced when i came to the halfway resting place and seated myself beside the fountain
the stars shone at intervals as the clouds passed from over them the dark pines rose before me and every here and there a broken tree lay on the ground it was a scene of wonderful solemnity
and stirred strange thoughts within me i wept bitterly and clasping my hands in agony i exclaimed oh stars and clouds and winds ye are all about to mock me
but i cannot describe to you how the eternal twinkling of the stars weighed upon me and how i listened to every blast of wind as if it were a dull ugly siroc on its way to consume me morning dawned before i arrived at the village of
i took no rest but returned immediately to geneva even in my own heart i could give no expression to my sensations they weighed on me with a mountain's weight and their excess destroyed my agony beneath them
thus i returned home and entering the house presented myself to the family my haggard and wild appearance awoke intense alarm but i answered no question scarcely did i speak
and to save them i resolved to dedicate myself to my most abhorred task the prospect of such an occupation made every other circumstance of existence pass before me like a dream
thirty one how mary passed the night to think that all this long interminable night which i have passed in thinking on two words guilty'
like one happy moment o'er many a head hath flown unheeded by
or far happier still with deep breath buried in forgetfulness o all the dismallest images of death did swim before my eyes wilson and now where was mary
how job's heart would have been relieved of one of its cares if he could have seen her for he was in a miserable state of anxiety about her and many and many a time through that long night he scolded her and himself her for her obstinacy
and himself for his weakness in yielding to her obstinacy when she insisted on being the one to follow and find out will she did not pass that night in bed any more than job but she was under a respectable roof and among kind though rough people
she had offered no resistance to the old boatman when he had clutched her arm in order to insure her following him as he threaded the crowded dock ways and dived up strange bye streets she came on meekly after him
scarcely thinking in her stupor where she was going and glad in a dead heavy way that some one was deciding things for her he led her to an old fashioned house almost as small as house could be which had been built long ago
before all the other part of the street and had a country town look about it in the middle of that bustling back street he pulled her into the house place and relieved to a certain degree of his fear of losing her on the way he exclaimed there
giving a great slap of one hand on her back the room was light and bright and roused mary perhaps the slap on her back might help a little too and she felt the awkwardness of accounting for her presence to a little bustling old woman
who had been moving about the fire place on her entrance the boatman took it very quietly never deigning to give any explanation but sitting down in his own particular chair and chewing tobacco while he looked at mary with the most satisfied air imaginable half triumphantly
the girl's cheek flushed and then blanched to a dead whiteness a film came over her eyes and catching at the dresser for support in that hot whirling room she fell in a heap on the floor
both man and wife came quickly to her assistance they raised her up still insensible and he supported her on one knee while his wife pattered away for some cold fresh water she threw it straight over mary
but though it caused a great sob the eyes still remained closed and the face as pale as ashes who is she ben asked the woman as she rubbed her unresisting powerless hands
how should i know answered her husband gruffly well a well in a soothing tone such as you use to irritated children and as if half to herself i only thought you might you know
as you brought her home poor thing we must not ask aught about her but that she needs help i wish i'd my salts at home but i lent em to missus burton last sunday in church for she could not keep awake through the sermon dear a me how white she is
here you hold her up a bit said her husband she did as he desired still crooning to herself not caring for his short sharp interruptions as she went on and indeed to her old loving heart his crossest words
fell like pearls and diamonds for he had been the husband of her youth and even he rough and crabbed as he was was secretly soothed by the sound of her voice although not for worlds if he could have helped it
would he have shown any of the love that was hidden beneath his rough outside what's the old fellow after said she bending over mary so as to accommodate the drooping head
bless us and save us he's burning it
as he produced a square bottle of smuggled spirits labelled golden wasser from a corner cupboard in their little room that'll do said she as the dose he poured into mary's open mouth made her start and cough
i'm sure sir i don't know rightly how to thank you faltered mary softly forth be hanged to you and your thanks and he shook himself took his pipe and went out without deigning another word leaving his wife sorely puzzled as to the character and history
of the stranger within her doors mary watched the boatman leave the house and then turning her sorrowful eyes to the face of her hostess she attempted feebly to rise with the intention of going away where she knew not
nay nay who e'er thou be'st thou'rt not fit to go out into the street perhaps sinking her voice a little thou'rt a bad one i almost misdoubt thee thou'rt so pretty
well a well it's the bad ones as have the broken hearts sure enough good folk never get utterly cast down they've always getten hope in the lord it's the sinful as bear the bitter bitter grief in their crushed hearts poor souls
she shanna leave the house to night choose who she is worst woman in liverpool she shanna
mary had listened feebly to this soliloquy and now tried to satisfy her hostess in weak broken sentences i'm not a bad one missis indeed your master took me out to sea after a ship as had sailed
there was a man in it as might save a life at the trial to morrow the captain would not let him come but he says he'll come back in the pilot boat she fell to sobbing at the thought of her waning hopes and the old woman tried to comfort her beginning with her accustomed
and only drank a cup of tea with thirsty eagerness for the spirits had thrown her into a burning heat and rendered each impression received through her senses of the most painful distinctness and intensity while her head ached in a terrible manner
she disliked speaking her power over her words seemed so utterly gone she used quite different expressions to those she intended so she kept silent while missus sturgis for that was the name of her hostess talked away and put her tea things by
and moved about incessantly in a manner that increased the dizziness in mary's head she felt as if she ought to take leave for the night and go but where presently the old man came back crosser and gruffer than when he went away
he kicked aside the dry shoes his wife had prepared for him and snarled at all she said mary attributed this to his finding her still there and gathered up her strength for an effort to leave the house but she was mistaken by and bye
he said looking right into the fire as if addressing it wind's right against them ay ay and is it so said his wife who knowing him well knew that his surliness proceeded from some repressed sympathy
and as she was a sailor's wife she instantly recognised the unfavourable point at which the indicator seemed stationary and giving a heavy sigh turned into the room and began to beat about in her own mind for some other mode of comfort
there's no one else who can prove what you want at the trial to morrow is there asked she no one answered mary and you've no clue
mary did not answer but trembled all over sturgis saw it don't bother her with thy questions said he to his wife
i'll see after the wind hang it and the weather cock too tide will help em when it turns mary went up stairs murmuring thanks and blessings on those who took the stranger in missus sturgis led her into a little room redolent of the sea and foreign lands
there was a small bed for one son bound for china and a hammock slung above for another who was now tossing in the baltic the sheets looked made out of sail cloth but were fresh and clean in spite of their brownness
against the wall were wafered two rough drawings of vessels with their names written underneath on which the mother's eyes caught and gazed until they filled with tears but she brushed the drops away with the back of her hand
went on to assure mary the bed was well aired i cannot sleep thank you i will sit here if you please said mary sinking down on the window seat come now said missus sturgis my master told me to see you to bed and i mun
what's the use of watching a watched pot never boils and i see you are after watching that weather cock why now i try never to look at it else i could do nought else my heart many a time goes sick when the wind rises
but i turn away and work away and try never to think on the wind
let me stay up a little pleaded mary as her hostess seemed so resolute about seeing her to bed her looks won her suit well i suppose i mun i shall catch it down stairs i know
he'll be in a fidget till you're getten to bed i know so you mun be quiet if you are so bent upon staying up and quietly noiselessly mary watched the unchanging weather cock through the night
she sat on the little window seat her hand holding back the curtain which shaded the room from the bright moonlight without her head resting its weariness against the corner of the window frame her eyes burning and stiff with the intensity of her gaze
the ruddy morning stole up the horizon casting a crimson glow into the watcher's room
there was a curious social situation in black hawk all the young men felt the attraction of the fine well set up country girls who had come to town to earn a living and in nearly every case to help the father struggle out of debt
and who have had advantages never seem to me when i meet them now half as interesting or as well educated the older girls who helped to break up the wild sod learned so much from life from poverty from their mothers and grandmothers
they had all like antonia been early awakened and made observant by coming at a tender age from an old country to a new i can remember a score of these country girls who were in service in black hawk during the few years i lived there
developed into a positive carriage and freedom of movement and made them conspicuous among black hawk women that was before the day of high school athletics girls who had to walk more than half a mile to school were pitied
there was not a tennis court in the town physical exercise was thought rather inelegant for the daughters of well to do families some of the high school girls were jolly and pretty but they stayed indoors in winter because of the cold and in summer because of the heat
when one danced with them their bodies never moved inside their clothes their muscles seemed to ask but one thing not to be disturbed i remember those girls merely as faces in the schoolroom gay and rosy or listless and dull
that they were refined and that the country girls who worked out were not the american farmers in our county were quite as hard pressed as their neighbors from other countries all alike had come to nebraska with little capital
and no knowledge of the soil they must subdue all had borrowed money on their land but no matter in what straits the pennsylvanian or virginian found himself he would not let his daughters go out into service
determined to help in the struggle to clear the homestead from debt they had no alternative but to go into service some of them after they came to town remained as serious and as discreet in behavior
others like the three bohemian marys tried to make up for the years of youth they had lost but every one of them did what she had set out to do and sent home those hard earned dollars the girls i knew were always helping
to pay for ploughs and reapers brood sows or steers to fatten one result of this family solidarity was that the foreign farmers in our county were the first to become prosperous after the fathers were out of debt
the daughters married the sons of neighbors usually of like nationality and the girls who once worked in black hawk kitchens are to day managing big farms and fine families of their own their children are better off
than the children of the town women they used to serve i thought the attitude of the town people toward these girls very stupid if i told my schoolmates that lena lingard's grandfather was a clergyman and much respected in norway
they looked at me blankly what did it matter all foreigners were ignorant people who could n't speak english there was not a man in black hawk who had the intelligence or cultivation much less the personal distinction
yet people saw no difference between her and the three marys they were all bohemians all hired girls i always knew i should live long enough to see my country girls come into their own and i have
to day the best that a harassed black hawk merchant can hope for is to sell provisions and farm machinery and automobiles to the rich farms where that first crop of stalwart bohemian and scandinavian girls
are now the mistresses the black hawk boys looked forward to marrying black hawk girls and living in a brand new little house with best chairs that must not be sat upon and hand painted china that must not be used
but sometimes a young fellow would look up from his ledger or out through the grating of his father's bank and let his eyes follow lena lingard as she passed the window with her slow undulating walk or tiny soderball
tripping by in her short skirt and striped stockings the country girls were considered a menace to the social order their beauty shone out too boldly against a conventional background but anxious mothers need have felt no alarm
they mistook the mettle of their sons the respect for respectability was stronger than any desire in black hawk youth our young man of position was like the son of a royal house the boy who swept out his office
or drove his delivery wagon might frolic with the jolly country girls but he himself must sit all evening in a plush parlor where conversation dragged so perceptibly that the father often came in and made blundering efforts to warm up the atmosphere
on his way home from his dull call he would perhaps meet tony and lena coming along the sidewalk whispering to each other or the three bohemian marys in their long plush coats and caps comporting themselves with a dignity
that only made their eventful histories the more piquant if he went to the hotel to see a traveling man on business there was tiny arching her shoulders at him like a kitten if he went into the laundry to get his collars there were the four danish girls
and even grew bold enough to walk home with her if his sisters or their friends happened to be among the onlookers on popular nights sylvester stood back in the shadow under the cottonwood trees smoking and watching lena with a harassed expression
when lena went home for a week to visit her mother i heard from antonia that young lovett drove all the way out there to see her and took her buggy riding in my ingenuousness i hoped that sylvester would marry lena
and thus give all the country girls a better position in the town sylvester dallied about lena until he began to make mistakes in his work had to stay at the bank until after dark to make his books balance
nor lifted his eyes as he ceremoniously tipped his hat when he happened to meet her on the sidewalk so that was what they were like i thought these white handed high collared clerks and bookkeepers
perhaps the barn had burned perhaps the cattle had frozen to death perhaps a neighbor was lost in the storm down in the kitchen grandfather was standing before the stove with his hands behind him jake and otto had taken off their boots and were rubbing their woolen socks
their clothes and boots were steaming and they both looked exhausted on the bench behind the stove lay a man covered up with a blanket grandmother motioned me to the dining room i obeyed reluctantly
carrying dishes her lips were tightly compressed and she kept whispering to herself oh dear saviour lord thou knowest presently grandfather came in and spoke to me jimmy we will not have prayers this morning because we have a great deal to do
old mister shimerda is dead and his family are in great distress ambrosch came over here in the middle of the night and jake and otto went back with him the boys have had a hard night and you must not bother them with questions
come in to breakfast boys after jake and otto had swallowed their first cup of coffee they began to talk excitedly disregarding grandmother's warning glances i held my tongue but i listened with all my ears
no sir fuchs said in answer to a question from grandfather nobody heard the gun go off
it was dark and he did n't see nothing but the oxen acted kind of queer one of em ripped around and got away from him bolted clean out of the stable his hands is blistered where the rope run through
just as we seen him poor soul poor soul grandmother groaned i'd like to think he never done it he was always considerate and un wishful to give trouble how could he forget himself and bring this on us
he done everything natural you know he was always sort of fixy
he shaved after dinner and washed hisself all over after the girls was done the dishes antonia heated the water for him then he put on a clean shirt and clean socks and after he was dressed he kissed her and the little one
and took his gun and said he was going out to hunt rabbits he must have gone right down to the barn and done it then he layed down on that bunk bed
when we found him everything was decent except fuchs wrinkled his brow and hesitated
his coat was hung on a peg and his boots was under the bed he'd took off that silk neckcloth he always wore and folded it smooth and stuck his pin through it he turned back his shirt at the neck and rolled up his sleeves
i don't see how he could do it grandmother kept saying otto misunderstood her why mam it was simple enough he pulled the trigger with his big toe he layed over on his side and put the end of the barrel in his mouth
then he drew up one foot and felt for the trigger he found it all right
there's something mighty queer about it now what do you mean jake grandmother asked sharply
they'll hang me says he my god they'll hang me sure
grandmother broke in excitedly
we're deep enough in trouble otto reads you too many of them detective stories
if he shot himself in the way they think the gash will be torn from the inside outward just so it is mister burden otto affirmed i seen bunches of hair and stuff sticking to the poles and straw along the roof they was blown up there by gunshot
no question grandmother told grandfather she meant to go over to the shimerdas with him there is nothing you can do he said doubtfully the body can't be touched until we get the coroner here from black hawk and that will be a matter of several days this weather
well i can take them some victuals anyway and say a word of comfort to them poor little girls the oldest one was his darling and was like a right hand to him he might have thought of her he's left her alone in a hard world
she glanced distrustfully at ambrosch who was now eating his breakfast at the kitchen table
as he put on a second pair of socks i've got a good nose for directions and i never did need much sleep it's the gray i'm worried about i'll save him what i can but it'll strain him as sure as i'm telling you
this is no time to be over considerate of animals otto do the best you can for yourself
i was left with ambrosch i saw a side of him i had not seen before he was deeply even slavishly devout he did not say a word all morning but sat with his rosary in his hands praying now silently now aloud
he never looked away from his beads nor lifted his hands except to cross himself several times the poor boy fell asleep where he sat wakened with a start and began to pray again
tucked his bushy white beard inside his overcoat they looked very biblical as they set off i thought jake and ambrosch followed them riding the other black and my pony carrying bundles of clothes that we had got together for missus shimerda
i watched them go past the pond and over the hill by the drifted cornfield then for the first time i realized that i was alone in the house i felt a considerable extension of power and authority
and was anxious to acquit myself creditably i carried in cobs and wood from the long cellar and filled both the stoves i remembered that in the hurry and excitement of the morning nobody had thought of the chickens and the eggs had not been gathered
going out through the tunnel i gave the hens their corn emptied the ice from their drinking pan and filled it with water after the cat had had his milk i could think of nothing else to do and i sat down to get warm the quiet was delightful
it flashed upon me that if mister shimerda's soul were lingering about in this world at all it would be here in our house which had been more to his liking than any other in the neighborhood i remembered his contented face when he was with us on christmas day
if he could have lived with us this terrible thing would never have happened i knew it was homesickness that had killed mister shimerda and i wondered whether his released spirit would not eventually find its way back to his own country
i thought of how far it was to chicago and then to virginia to baltimore and then the great wintry ocean no he would not at once set out upon that long journey
surely his exhausted spirit so tired of cold and crowding and the struggle with the ever falling snow was resting now in this quiet house i was not frightened but i made no noise i did not wish to disturb him
i went softly down to the kitchen which tucked away so snugly underground always seemed to me the heart and center of the house there on the bench behind the stove i thought and thought about mister shimerda
i thought about the friends he had mourned to leave the trombone player the great forest full of game belonging as antonia said to the nobles from which she and her mother used to steal wood on moonlight nights
there was a white hart that lived in that forest and if any one killed it he would be hanged she said such vivid pictures came to me that they might have been mister shimerda's memories not yet faded out from the air in which they had haunted him
nobody could touch the body until the coroner came if any one did something terrible would happen apparently the dead man was frozen through just as stiff as a dressed turkey you hang out to freeze jake said the horses and oxen
would not go into the barn until he was frozen so hard that there was no longer any smell of blood they were stabled there now with the dead man because there was no other place to keep them a lighted lantern was kept hanging over mister shimerda's head
he was always coveting distinction poor marek ambrosch jake said showed more human feeling than he would have supposed him capable of but he was chiefly concerned about getting a priest and about his father's soul
which he believed was in a place of torment and would remain there until his family and the priest had prayed a great deal for him as i understand it jake concluded it will be a matter of years to pray his soul out of purgatory and right now he's in torment i don't believe it i said stoutly
i did not of course say that i believed he had been in that very kitchen all afternoon on his way back to his own country nevertheless after i went to bed this idea of punishment and purgatory came back on me crushingly
i remembered the account of dives in torment and shuddered
chapter seventy six lost in the chalk still continuing his fleet career the headless horseman galloped on over the prairie zeb stump following only with his eyes and not until he had passed out of sight behind some straggling groves of mezquite
did the backwoodsman abandon his kneeling position then only for a second or two did he stand erect taking council with himself as to what course he should pursue the episode strange as unexpected had caused some disarrangement in his ideas
should he continue along the trail he was already deciphering or forsake it for that of the steed that had just swept by by keeping to the former he might find out much but by changing to the latter he might learn more
he might capture the headless horseman and ascertain from him the why and wherefore of his wild wanderings while thus absorbed in considering what course he had best take he had forgotten the puff of smoke and the report heard far off over the prairie
only for a moment however they were things to be remembered and he soon remembered them turning his eyes to the quarter where the smoke had appeared he saw that which caused him to squat down again and place himself with more impressement than ever under cover of the mezquites
the old mare relishing the recumbent attitude had still kept to it and there was no necessity for re disposing of her what zeb now saw was a man on horseback a real horseman with a head upon his shoulders
he was still a long way off and it was not likely he had seen the tall form of the hunter standing shored up among the bushes much less the mare lying beneath them he showed no signs of having done so on the contrary he was sitting stooped in the saddle
his breast bent down to the pommel and his eyes actively engaged in reading the ground over which he was guiding his horse there could be no difficulty in ascertaining his occupation zeb stump guessed it at a glance he was tracking the headless rider
i ain't the only one who's got a reezun for solvin this hyur myst'ry who the hell kin he be i shed jest like to know that zeb had not long to wait for the gratification of his wish as the trail was fresh the strange horseman could take it up at a trot
in which pace he was approaching he was soon within identifying distance
i mout a know'd it wud be him an ef i'm not mistook about it hyurs goin to be a other chapter out o the same book a other link as ll help me to kumplete the chain o evydince i'm in sarch for
lay clost ye critter ef ye make ere a stir even to the shakin o them long lugs o yourn i'll cut yur darned throat the last speech was an apostrophe to the maar
this was a man who once seen was not likely to be soon forgotten scarce thirty years old he showed a countenance scathed less with care than the play of evil passions but there was care upon it now a care that seemed to speak of apprehension
keen prolonged yet looking forward with a hope of being relieved from it withal it was a handsome face such as a gentleman need not have been ashamed of but for that sinister expression that told of its belonging to a blackguard the dress but why need we describe it
the blue cloth frock of semi military cut the forage cap the belt sustaining a bowie knife with a brace of revolving pistols all have been mentioned before as enveloping and equipping the person of captain cassius calhoun it was he
it was not the batterie of small arms that kept zeb stump from showing himself he had no dread of an encounter with the ex officer of volunteers though he instinctively felt hostility he had as yet given no reason to the latter for regarding him as an enemy
he remained in shadow to have a better view of what was passing under the sunlight still closely scrutinising the trail of the headless horseman calhoun trotted past
interposed its verdant veil between him and the ex captain of cavalry the backwoodsman's brain having become the recipient of new thoughts required a fresh exercise of its ingenuity if there was reason before for taking the trail of the headless horseman it was redoubled now
with but short time spent in consideration so zeb concluded and commenced making preparations for a stalk after cassius calhoun these consisted in taking hold of the bridle and giving the old mare a kick that caused her to start instantaneously to her feet
zeb stood by her side intending to climb into the saddle and ride out into the open plain as soon as calhoun should be out of sight he had no thoughts of keeping the latter in view he needed no such guidance the two fresh trails would be sufficient for him
and he felt as sure of finding the direction in which both would lead as if he had ridden alongside the horseman without a head or him without a heart
for once in his life zeb stump had made a mistake on rounding the mezquite grove behind which both had made disappearance he discovered he had done so beyond extended a tract of chalk prairie over which one of the horsemen appeared to have passed him without the head
in transverse stretches like a pointer quartering the stubble in search of a partridge he too had lost the trail and was endeavouring to recover it crouching under cover of the mezquites the hunter remained a silent spectator of his movements the attempt terminated in a failure
the chalk surface defied interpretation at least by skill such as that of cassius calhoun after repeated quarterings he appeared to surrender his design and angrily plying the spur galloped off in the direction of the leona
as soon as he was out of sight zeb also made an effort to take up the lost trail but despite his superior attainments in the tracking craft he was compelled to relinquish it a fervid sun was glaring down upon the chalk and only the eye of a salamander could have withstood the reflection of its rays
dazed almost to blindness the backwoodsman determined upon turning late back and once more devoting his attention to the trail from which he had been for a time seduced he had learnt enough to know that this last promised a rich reward for its exploration
it took him but a short time to regain it nor did he lose any in following it up he was too keenly impressed with its value and with this idea urging him he strode rapidly on the mare following as before once only did he make pause
at a point where the tracks of two horses converged with that he was following from this point the three coincided at times parting and running parallel for a score of yards or so but again coming together and overlapping one another the horses were all shod
like that which carried the broken shoe and the hunter only stopped to see what he could make out of the hoof marks one was a states horse the other a mustang though a stallion of great size and with a hoof almost as large as that of the american zeb had his conjectures about both
he did not stay to inquire which had gone first over the ground that was as clear to him as if he had been a spectator at their passing the stallion had been in the lead how far zeb could not exactly tell but certainly some distance beyond that of companionship
the states horse had followed and behind him the roadster with the broken shoe also an american all three had gone over the same ground at separate times and each by himself
as one might read the index of a dial or thermometer whatever may have been in his thoughts he said nothing beyond giving utterance to the simple exclamation good and with satisfaction stamped upon his features he moved on the old mare appearing to mock him by an imitative stride
hyur they've seppurated he said once again coming to a stop and regarding the ground at his feet
thet air they've tuk the same way broken shoe hev strayed in a diffrent direkshun wonder now what thet's for he continued after standing awhile to consider durn me ef i iver seed sech perplexin sign it ud puzzle ole dan'l boone hisself
which on em shed i foller fust ef i go arter the two i know whar they'll lead
let's track up tother and see whether he hev rud into the same procksimmuty
else ye may get lost in the chapparal an the coyoats may make thur supper on yur tallow ho ho ho with this apostrophe to his critter ending in a laugh at the conceit of her tallow the hunter turned off on the track of the third horse
it led him along the edge of an extended tract of chapparal which following all three he had approached at a point well known to him as to the reader where it was parted by the open space already described the new trail skirted the timber only for a short distance
two hundred yards from the embouchure of the avenue it ran into it and fifty paces further on
zeb saw that the animal had proceeded no further for there was another set of tracks showing where it had returned to the prairie though not by the same path the rider had gone beyond the foot marks of a man could be seen beyond in the mud of a half dry arroyo
beside which the horse had been hitched leaving his critter to occupy the stall where broken shoe had for some time fretted himself the old hunter glided off upon the footmarks of the dismounted rider he soon discovered two sets of them one going another coming back
he followed the former he was not surprised at their bringing him out into the avenue close to the pool of blood by the coyotes long since licked dry he might have traced them right up to it but for the hundreds of horse tracks that had trodden the ground like a sheep pen
but before going so far he was stayed by the discovery of some fresh sign too interesting to be carelessly examined in a place where the underwood grew thick he came upon a spot where a man had remained for some time
there was no turf and the loose mould was baked hard and smooth evidently by the sole of a boot or shoe there were prints of the same sole leading out towards the place of blood and similar ones coming back again but upon the branches of a tree between
zeb stump saw something that had escaped the eyes not only of the searchers but of their guide spangler a scrap of paper blackened and half burnt evidently the wadding of a discharged gun it was clinging to the twig of a locust tree impaled upon one of its spines
a herd of a hundred horses or three times the number pasturing upon a prairie although a spectacle of the grandest kind furnished by the animal kingdom is not one that would strike a texan frontiersman as either strange or curious
he would think it stranger to see a single horse in the same situation the former would simply be followed by the reflection a drove of mustangs the latter conducts to a different train of thought in which there is an ambiguity the solitary steed might be one of two things
or a roadster strayed from some encampment of travellers the practised eye of the prairie man would soon decide which if the horse browsed with a bit in his mouth and a saddle on his shoulders there would be no ambiguity only the conjecture as to how he had escaped from his rider
if the rider were upon his back and the horse still browsing there would be no room for conjecture only the reflection that the former must be a lazy thick headed fellow not to alight and let his animal graze in a more commodious fashion if however the rider
instead of being suspected of having a thick head was seen to have no head at all
not one of which might come within a thousand miles of the truth such a horse and just such a rider were seen upon the prairies of south western texas in the year of our lord eighteen fifty something
i am not certain as to the exact year the unit of it though i can with unquestionable certainty record the decade i can speak more precisely as to the place though in this i must be allowed latitude
a circumference of twenty miles will include the different points where the spectral apparition made itself manifest to the eyes of men both on prairie and in chapparal in a district of country traversed by several northern tributaries of the rio de nueces
and some southern branches of the rio leona it was seen not only by many people but at many different times
second by the servant of maurice the mustanger thirdly by cassius calhoun on his midnight exploration of the chapparal fourthly by the sham indians on that same night and fifthly by zeb stump on the night following
but there were others who saw it elsewhere and on different occasions hunters herdsmen and travellers all alike awed alike perplexed by the apparition it had become the talk not only of the leona settlement but of others more distant
its fame already reached on one side to the rio grande
no one doubted that such a thing had been seen to have done so would have been to ignore the evidence of two hundred pairs of eyes all belonging to men willing to make affidavit of the fact for it could not be pronounced a fancy no one denied that it had been seen
at least half a score of theories were started more or less feasible more or less absurd some called it an indian dodge others believed it a lay figure others that it was not that but a real rider
with perhaps a pair of eye holes through which he could see to guide his horse while not a few pertinaciously adhered to the conjecture started at a very early period that the headless horseman was lucifer himself in addition to the direct attempts at interpreting the abnormal phenomenon
there was a crowd of indirect conjectures relating to it some fancied that they could see the head or the shape of it down upon the breast and under the blanket others affirmed to having actually seen it carried in the rider's hand while others went still further and alleged
that upon the head thus seen there was a hat a black glaze sombrero of the mexican sort with a band of gold bullion above the brim there were still further speculations that related less to the apparition itself than to its connection with the other grand topic of the time
the murder of young poindexter most people believed there was some connection between the two mysteries though no one could explain it he whom everybody believed could have thrown some light upon the subject was still ridden by the night mare of delirium
and for a whole week the guessing continued during which the spectral rider was repeatedly seen now going at a quick gallop now moving in slow tranquil pace across the treeless prairie his horse at one time halted and vaguely gazing around him
at another with teeth to the ground industriously cropping the sweet gramma grass that makes the pasturage of south western texas in my opinion the finest in the world rejecting many tales told of the headless horseman most of them too grotesque to be recorded
one truthful episode must needs be given since it forms an essential chapter of this strange history in the midst of the open prairie there is a motte a coppice or clump of trees of perhaps three or four acres in superficial extent
a prairie man would call it an island and with your eyes upon the vast verdant sea that surrounds it you could not help being struck with the resemblance the aboriginal of america might not perceive it it is a thought of the colonist transmitted to his descendants
who although they may never have looked upon the great ocean are nevertheless au fait to its phraseology by the timber island in question about two hundred yards from its edge a horse is quietly pasturing he is the same that carries the headless rider
and this weird equestrian is still bestriding him with but little appearance of change either in apparel or attitude since first seen by the searchers the striped blanket still hangs over his shoulders cloaking the upper half of his person
while the armas de agua strapped over his limbs cover them from thigh to spur concealing all but their outlines his body is bent a little forward as if to ease the horse in getting his snout to the sward which the long bridle rein surrendered to its full length enables him to do
though still retained in hand or resting over the horn of the saddle those who asserted that they saw a head only told the truth there is a head and as also stated with a hat upon it a black sombrero with bullion band as described
the head rests against the left thigh the chin being nearly down on a level with the rider's knee being on the near side it can only be seen when the spectator is on the same and not always then
at times too can a glimpse be obtained of the face its features are well formed but wearing a sad expression
though there is no perceptible change in the personnel of the headless horseman there is something new to be noted hitherto he has been seen going alone now he is in company it cannot be called agreeable consisting as it does of wolves
half a score of them squatting closely upon the plain and at intervals loping around him by the horse they are certainly not liked as is proved by the snorting and stamping of his hoof when one of them ventures upon a too close proximity to his heels
the rider seems more indifferent to a score of birds large dark birds that swoop in shadowy circles around his shoulders even when one bolder than the rest has the audacity to alight upon him he has made no attempt to disturb it raising neither hand nor arm to drive it away
three times one of the birds has alighted thus first upon the right shoulder then upon the left and then midway between upon the spot where the head should be the bird does not stay upon its singular perch or only for an instant
if the rider does not feel the indignity the steed does and resists it by rearing upward with a fierce neighing that frights the vultures off
his steed thus browsing now in quiet now disturbed by the too near approach of the wolves anon by the bold behaviour of the birds goes the headless horseman
chapter seventy seven another link it was less surprise than gratification that showed itself on the countenance of zeb stump as he deciphered the writing on the paper that ere's the backin o a letter muttered he tells a goodish grist o story
more'n war wrote inside i reck'n been used for the wad o a gun
i'stead o the proper an bessest thing which air a bit o greased buckskin the writin air in a sheemale hand he continued looking anew at the piece of paper
it's been sent to him all the same an he's hed it in purzeshun it air somethin to be tuk care o so saying he drew out a small skin wallet which contained his tinder of punk along with his flint and steel and after carefully stowing away the scrap of paper he returned the sack to his pocket
i kalkerlate as how this ole coon ll be able to unwind a good grist o this clue o mystery tho thur be a bit o the thread broken hyur an thur an a bit o a puzzle i can't clurly understan the man who hev been murdered whosomdiver he may be war out thur by thet puddle o blood
an the man as did the deed whosomdiver he be war a stannin behint this locust tree but for them greenhorns i mout a got more out o the sign now thur ain't the ghost o a chance
the bessest thing now air to take the back track if it air possable an diskiver whar the hoss wi the broke shoe toted his rider arter he went back from this leetle bit o still huntin
back ye go on the boot tracks with this grotesque apostrophe to himself he commenced retracing the footmarks that had guided him to the edge of the opening only in one or two places were the footprints at all distinct
having already noted that the man who made them had returned to the place where the horse had been left he knew the back track would lead him there there was one place however where the two trails did not go over the same ground there was a forking in the open list through which the supposed murderer had made his way
it was caused by an obstruction a patch of impenetrable thicket they met again but not till that on which the hunter was returning straggled off into an open glade of considerable size having become satisfied of this zeb looked around into the glade
for a time forsaking the footsteps of the pedestrian after a short examination he observed a trail altogether distinct and of a different character it was a well marked path entering the opening on one side and going out on the other in short a cattle track
zeb saw that several shod horses had passed along it some days before and it was this that caused him to come back and examine it he could tell to a day to an hour when the horses had passed and from the sign itself
but the exercise of his ingenuity was not needed on this occasion he knew that the hoof prints were those of the horses ridden by spangler and his party after being detached from the main body of searchers who had gone home with the major he had heard the whole story of that collateral investigation
how spangler and his comrades had traced henry poindexter's horse to the place where the negro had caught it on the outskirts of the plantation to an ordinary intellect this might have appeared satisfactory nothing more could be learnt by any one going over the ground again
zeb stump did not seem to think so as he stood looking along it his attitude showed indecision if i ked make shur o havin time he muttered i'd foller it fust jest as like as not i'll find a fluke thur too
he had turned to go out of the glade when a thought once more stayed him
i kin guess whar it'll lead as sartint as if i'd rud longside the skunk thet made it straight custrut to the stable o caser corver it's a durned pity to drop this un now whiles i'm hyur upon the spot it'll gie me the makin o another ten mile jurney
dog goned ef i don't try a leetle way along it the ole maar kin wait till i kum back bracing himself for a new investigation he started off upon the cattle track trodden by the horses of spangler and his party to the hoof marks of these he paid but slight attention
at times none whatever his eye only sought those of henry poindexter's horse though the others were of an after time and often destroyed the traces he was most anxious to examine he had no difficulty in identifying the latter as he would have himself said
any greenhorn could do that the young planter's horse had gone over the ground at a gallop the trackers had ridden slowly
it was about three quarters of a mile from the edge of the venue it was not a halt the galloping horse had made but only a slight departure from his direct course as if something he had seen wolf jaguar cougar or other beast of prey had caused him to shy
beyond he had continued his career rapid and reckless as ever beyond the party along with spangler had proceeded without staying to inquire why the horse had shied from his track zeb stump was more inquisitive and paused upon this spot
it was a sterile tract without herbage and covered with shingle and sand a huge tree overshadowed it with limbs extending horizontally one of these ran transversely to the path over which the horses had passed so low that a horseman to shun contact with it would have to lower his head
he observed an abrasion upon the bark that though very slight must have been caused by contact with some substance as hard if not sounder than itself thet's been done by the skull o a human critter reasoned he a human critter that must a been on the back o a hoss
hooraw he triumphantly exclaimed after a cursory examination of the ground underneath the tree i thort so thur's the impreshun o the throwed rider an thur's whar he hez creeped away now i've got a explication o thet big bump as hez been puzzlin me
i know'd it wan't did by the claws o any varmint an it didn't look like the blow eyther o a stone or a stick
with an elastic step his countenance radiant of triumph the old hunter strode away from the tree no longer upon the cattle path but that taken by the man who had been so violently dismounted to one unaccustomed to the chapparal he might have appeared going without a guide
and upon a path never before pressed by human foot a portion of it perhaps had not
were to him intelligible as the painted lettering upon a finger post the branch contorted to afford passage for a human form the displaced tendrils of a creeping plant the scratched surface of the earth all told that a man had passed that way the sign signified more
that the man was disabled had been crawling a cripple zeb stump continued on till he had traced this cripple to the banks of a running stream
black against the last gold of the sky the moss is soft and warm we shall sleep on this moss for many nights till the beasts of the forest come to tear our body we have no bed now save the moss and no future save the beasts we are old now
yet we were young this morning when we carried our glass box through the streets of the city to the home of the scholars no men stopped us for there were none about from the palace of corrective detention and the others knew nothing no men stopped us at the gate
we saw nothing as we entered save the sky in the great windows blue and glowing
and others from distant lands whose names we had not heard we saw a great painting on the wall over their heads of the twenty illustrious men who had invented the candle all the heads of the council turned to us as we entered
these great and wise of the earth did not know what to think of us and they looked upon us with wonder and curiosity as if we were a miracle it is true that our tunic was torn and stained with brown stains which had been blood
we raised our right arm and we said
the oldest and wisest of the council spoke and asked who are you our brother for you do not look like a scholar
we answered and we are a street sweeper of this city
for all the scholars spoke at once and they were angry and frightened a street sweeper a street sweeper walking in upon the world council of scholars it is not to be believed it is against all the rules and all the laws
but we knew how to stop them our brothers we said we matter not nor our transgression it is only our brother men who matter give no thought to us for we are nothing but listen to our words
listen to us for we hold the future of mankind in our hands then they listened
we spoke of it and of our long quest and of our tunnel and of our escape from the palace of corrective detention not a hand moved in that hall as we spoke nor an eye then we put the wires to the box and they all bent forward and sat still watching
and we stood still our eyes upon the wire and slowly slowly as a flush of blood a red flame trembled in the wire then the wire glowed but terror struck the men of the council
they leapt to their feet they ran from the table and they stood pressed against the wall huddled together seeking the warmth of one another's bodies to give them courage we looked upon them and we laughed and said fear nothing our brothers
it is yours we give it to you still they would not move we give you the power of the sky we cried we give you the key to the earth take it and let us be one of you the humblest among you
let us all work together and harness this power and make it ease the toil of men let us throw away our candles and our torches let us flood our cities with light let us bring a new light to men
but they looked upon us and suddenly we were afraid for their eyes were still and small and evil our brothers we cried have you nothing to say to us
moved forward they moved to the table and the others followed yes
we have much to say to you
no such crime has ever been committed and it is not for us to judge nor for any small council we shall deliver this creature to the world council itself and let their will be done we looked upon them and we pleaded our brothers
you are right let the will of the council be done upon our body we do not care but the light what will you do with the light
no we answered what is not thought by all men cannot be true
you have worked on this alone
we answered what is not done collectively cannot be good
have had strange new ideas in the past
but when the majority of their brother scholars voted against them they abandoned their ideas as all men must this box is useless
then it would bring ruin to the department of candles
therefore it cannot be destroyed by the whim of one
and without the plans of the world council the sun cannot rise it took fifty years to secure the approval of all the councils for the candle and to decide upon the number needed
this touched upon thousands and thousands of men working in scores of states
and if this should lighten the toil of men
then it is a great evil for men have no cause to exist save in toiling for other men
this thing they said must be destroyed and all the others cried as one it must be destroyed then we leapt to the table we seized our box we shoved them aside and we ran to the window
we turned and we looked at them for the last time and a rage such as it is not fit for humans to know choked our voice in our throat
you fools you thrice damned fools we swung our fist through the windowpane and we leapt out in a ringing rain of glass we fell but we never let the box fall from our hands then we ran
we ran blindly and men and houses streaked past us in a torrent without shape and the road seemed not to be flat before us but as if it were leaping up to meet us
but we ran we knew not where we were going we knew only that we must run run to the end of the world to the end of our days then we knew suddenly that we were lying on a soft earth and that we had stopped
then we knew we were in the uncharted forest we had not thought of coming here but our legs had carried our wisdom and our legs had brought us to the uncharted forest against our will our glass box lay beside us
so we walked on our box in our arms our heart empty we are doomed whatever days are left to us we shall spend them alone and we have heard of the corruption to be found in solitude
we have torn ourselves from the truth which is our brother men and there is no road back for us and no redemption we know these things but we do not care we care for nothing on earth we are tired
and its truth above their truth why wonder about this
there is not a thing behind us to regret then a blow of pain struck us our first and our only we thought of the golden one we thought of the golden one whom we shall never see again then the pain passed it is best
some time elapsed before i learned the history of my friends it was one which could not fail to impress itself deeply on my mind unfolding as it did a number of circumstances
each interesting and wonderful to one so utterly inexperienced as i was the name of the old man was de lacey he was descended from a good family in france where he had lived for many years in affluence
respected by his superiors and beloved by his equals his son was bred in the service of his country and agatha had ranked with ladies of the highest distinction
a few months before my arrival they had lived in a large and luxurious city called paris surrounded by friends and possessed of every enjoyment which virtue refinement of intellect or taste accompanied by a moderate fortune could afford
he was a turkish merchant and had inhabited paris for many years when for some reason which i could not learn
he was tried and condemned to death the injustice of his sentence was very flagrant all paris was indignant and it was judged that his religion and wealth rather than the crime alleged against him had been the cause of his condemnation
felix had accidentally been present at the trial his horror and indignation were uncontrollable when he heard the decision of the court
and then looked around for the means after many fruitless attempts to gain admittance to the prison he found a strongly grated window in an unguarded part of the building which lighted the dungeon of the unfortunate muhammadan
waited in despair the execution of the barbarous sentence felix visited the grate at night and made known to the prisoner his intentions in his favour the turk amazed and delighted endeavoured to kindle the zeal of his deliverer
by promises of reward and wealth felix rejected his offers with contempt
who was allowed to visit her father and who by her gestures expressed her lively gratitude
the turk quickly perceived the impression that his daughter had made on the heart of felix and endeavoured to secure him more entirely in his interests by the promise of her hand in marriage so soon as he should be conveyed to a place of safety felix was too delicate to accept this offer
during the ensuing days while the preparations were going forward for the escape of the merchant the zeal of felix was warmed by several letters that he received from this lovely girl
who found means to express her thoughts in the language of her lover by the aid of an old man a servant of her father who understood french she thanked him in the most ardent terms for his intended services towards her parent
and at the same time she gently deplored her own fate i have copies of these letters for i found means during my residence in the hovel to procure the implements of writing and the letters were often in the hands of felix or agatha
before i depart i will give them to you they will prove the truth of my tale but at present as the sun is already far declined i shall only have time to repeat the substance of them to you
seized and made a slave by the turks
the young girl spoke in high and enthusiastic terms of her mother who born in freedom spurned the bondage to which she was now reduced she instructed her daughter in the tenets of her religion
and taught her to aspire to higher powers of intellect and an independence of spirit forbidden to the female followers of muhammad this lady died but her lessons were indelibly impressed on the mind of safie who sickened at the prospect of again returning to asia
and being immured within the walls of a harem allowed only to occupy herself with infantile amusements ill suited to the temper of her soul now accustomed to grand ideas and a noble emulation for virtue
the prospect of marrying a christian and remaining in a country where women were allowed to take a rank in society was enchanting to her the day for the execution of the turk was fixed but on the night previous to it he quitted his prison
and before morning was distant many leagues from paris
where the merchant had decided to wait a favourable opportunity of passing into some part of the turkish dominions
before which time the turk renewed his promise that she should be united to his deliverer and felix remained with them in expectation of that event and in the meantime he enjoyed the society of the arabian
who exhibited towards him the simplest and tenderest affection they conversed with one another through the means of an interpreter and sometimes with the interpretation of looks
while in his heart he had formed far other plans he loathed the idea that his daughter should be united to a christian but he feared the resentment of felix if he should appear lukewarm
if he should choose to betray him to the italian state which they inhabited he revolved a thousand plans by which he should be enabled to prolong the deceit until it might be no longer necessary
and secretly to take his daughter with him when he departed his plans were facilitated by the news which arrived from paris the government of france were greatly enraged at the escape of their victim
and spared no pains to detect and punish his deliverer the plot of felix was quickly discovered and de lacey and agatha were thrown into prison the news reached felix and roused him from his dream of pleasure
his blind and aged father and his gentle sister lay in a noisome dungeon while he enjoyed the free air and the society of her whom he loved this idea was torture to him
he quickly arranged with the turk that if the latter should find a favourable opportunity for escape before felix could return to italy safie should remain as a boarder at a convent at leghorn
and then quitting the lovely arabian he hastened to paris and delivered himself up to the vengeance of the law hoping to free de lacey and agatha by this proceeding
they remained confined for five months before the trial took place the result of which deprived them of their fortune and condemned them to a perpetual exile from their native country they found a miserable asylum in the cottage in germany where i discovered them
such were the events that preyed on the heart of felix and rendered him when i first saw him the most miserable of his family he could have endured poverty and while this distress had been the meed of his virtue he gloried in it
the arrival of the arabian now infused new life into his soul when the news reached leghorn that felix was deprived of his wealth and rank the merchant commanded his daughter to think no more of her lover but to prepare to return to her native country
she attempted to expostulate with her father but he left her angrily reiterating his tyrannical mandate a few days after the turk entered his daughter's apartment
and told her hastily that he had reason to believe that his residence at leghorn had been divulged and that he should speedily be delivered up to the french government he had consequently hired a vessel to convey him to constantinople
for which city he should sail in a few hours he intended to leave his daughter under the care of a confidential servant to follow at her leisure with the greater part of his property which had not yet arrived at leghorn when alone
that it would become her to pursue in this emergency a residence in turkey was abhorrent to her her religion and her feelings were alike averse to it by some papers of her father which fell into her hands she heard of the exile of her lover
and learnt the name of the spot where he then resided she hesitated some time but at length she formed her determination taking with her some jewels that belonged to her and a sum of money she quitted italy with an attendant a native of leghorn
about twenty leagues from the cottage of de lacey when her attendant fell dangerously ill
but the poor girl died and the arabian was left alone unacquainted with the language of the country and utterly ignorant of the customs of the world
the being finished speaking and fixed his looks upon me in the expectation of a reply but i was bewildered perplexed and unable to arrange my ideas sufficiently to understand the full extent of his proposition he continued
you must create a female for me with whom i can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being this you alone can do and i demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede
the latter part of his tale had kindled anew in me the anger that had died away while he narrated his peaceful life among the cottagers and as he said this i could no longer suppress the rage that burned within me i do refuse it i replied
and no torture shall ever extort a consent from me you may render me the most miserable of men but you shall never make me base in my own eyes shall i create another like yourself whose joint wickedness might desolate the world begone
i have answered you you may torture me but i will never consent you are in the wrong replied the fiend and instead of threatening i am content to reason with you i am malicious because i am miserable
am i not shunned and hated by all mankind you my creator would tear me to pieces and triumph remember that and tell me why i should pity man more than he pities me
you would not call it murder if you could precipitate me into one of those ice rifts and destroy my frame the work of your own hands shall i respect man when he condemns me let him live with me in the interchange of kindness and instead of injury
i would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance but that cannot be the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery
i will work at your destruction nor finish until i desolate your heart so that you shall curse the hour of your birth a fiendish rage animated him as he said this
his face was wrinkled into contortions too horrible for human eyes to behold but presently he calmed himself and proceeded i intended to reason this passion is detrimental to me for you do not reflect that you are the cause of its excess
if any being felt emotions of benevolence towards me i should return them a hundred and a hundredfold for that one creature's sake i would make peace with the whole kind but i now indulge in dreams of bliss that cannot be realized
what i ask of you is reasonable and moderate i demand a creature of another sex but as hideous as myself the gratification is small but it is all that i can receive and it shall content me
it is true we shall be monsters cut off from all the world but on that account we shall be more attached to one another our lives will not be happy but they will be harmless and free from the misery i now feel oh my creator
make me happy let me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit let me see that i excite the sympathy of some existing thing do not deny me my request i was moved
i shuddered when i thought of the possible consequences of my consent but i felt that there was some justice in his argument his tale and the feelings he now expressed proved him to be a creature of fine sensations
and did i not as his maker owe him all the portion of happiness that it was in my power to bestow he saw my change of feeling and continued if you consent neither you nor any other human being shall ever see us again
i will go to the vast wilds of south america my food is not that of man i do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment my companion will be of the same nature as myself
and will be content with the same fare we shall make our bed of dried leaves the sun will shine on us as on man and will ripen our food the picture i present to you is peaceful and human
pitiless as you have been towards me i now see compassion in your eyes let me seize the favourable moment and persuade you to promise what i so ardently desire you propose replied i
to fly from the habitations of man to dwell in those wilds where the beasts of the field will be your only companions how can you who long for the love and sympathy of man persevere in this exile
you will return and again seek their kindness and you will meet with their detestation your evil passions will be renewed and you will then have a companion to aid you in the task of destruction this may not be cease to argue the point for i cannot consent
how inconstant are your feelings but a moment ago you were moved by my representations and why do you again harden yourself to my complaints i swear to you by the earth which i inhabit and by you that made me
that with the companion you bestow i will quit the neighbourhood of man and dwell as it may chance in the most savage of places my evil passions will have fled for i shall meet with sympathy my life will flow quietly away
and in my dying moments i shall not curse my maker his words had a strange effect upon me i compassionated him
when i saw the filthy mass that moved and talked my heart sickened and my feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred i tried to stifle these sensations i thought that as i could not sympathize with him
i had no right to withhold from him the small portion of happiness which was yet in my power to bestow you swear i said to be harmless but have you not already shown a degree of malice that should reasonably make me distrust you
must be my portion the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes and i shall become a thing of whose existence everyone will be ignorant
and my virtues will necessarily arise when i live in communion with an equal
and become linked to the chain of existence and events from which i am now excluded i paused some time to reflect on all he had related and the various arguments which he had employed i thought of the promise of virtues which he had displayed on the opening of his existence
his power and threats were not omitted in my calculations a creature who could exist in the ice caves of the glaciers and hide himself from pursuit among the ridges of inaccessible precipices was a being possessing faculties it would be vain to cope with
after a long pause of reflection i concluded that the justice due both to him and my fellow creatures demanded of me that i should comply with his request turning to him therefore i said i consent to your demand
on your solemn oath to quit europe forever and every other place in the neighbourhood of man as soon as i shall deliver into your hands a female who will accompany you in your exile i swear he cried by the sun
and by the blue sky of heaven and by the fire of love that burns my heart that if you grant my prayer while they exist you shall never behold me again depart to your home and commence your labours
and fear not but that when you are ready i shall appear saying this he suddenly quitted me fearful perhaps of any change in my sentiments i saw him descend the mountain with greater speed than the flight of an eagle and quickly lost among the undulations of the sea of ice
his tale had occupied the whole day and the sun was upon the verge of the horizon when he departed i knew that i ought to hasten my descent towards the valley as i should soon be encompassed in darkness but my heart was heavy and my steps slow
the labour of winding among the little paths of the mountain and fixing my feet firmly as i advanced perplexed me occupied as i was by the emotions which the occurrences of the day had produced night was far advanced when i came to the halfway resting place and seated myself beside the fountain
the stars shone at intervals as the clouds passed from over them the dark pines rose before me and every here and there a broken tree lay on the ground it was a scene of wonderful solemnity and stirred strange thoughts within me i wept bitterly
and clasping my hands in agony i exclaimed oh stars and clouds and winds ye are all about to mock me if ye really pity me crush sensation and memory let me become as nought but if not depart
depart and leave me in darkness these were wild and miserable thoughts but i cannot describe to you how the eternal twinkling of the stars weighed upon me and how i listened to every blast of wind as if it were a dull ugly siroc on its way to consume me
i took no rest but returned immediately to geneva even in my own heart i could give no expression to my sensations they weighed on me with a mountain's weight and their excess destroyed my agony beneath them
thus i returned home and entering the house presented myself to the family my haggard and wild appearance awoke intense alarm but i answered no question scarcely did i speak i felt as if i were placed under a ban as if i had no right to claim their sympathies
as if never more might i enjoy companionship with them yet even thus i loved them to adoration and to save them i resolved to dedicate myself to my most abhorred task the prospect of such an occupation made every other circumstance of existence pass before me like a dream
siamese cat among the beautiful varieties of the domestic cat brought into notice by the cat shows none deserve more attention than the royal cat of siam
as would be likely on account of the extreme shortness of their fur which is of both a hairy and a woolly texture and not so glossy as our ordinary common domestic cat nor is the tail which is thin
the late duke of wellington imported the breed also mister scott of rotherfield lady dorothy nevill thought them exceedingly docile and domestic but delicate in their constitution although her ladyship kept one for two years another over a year
but eventually all died of the same complaint that of worms which permeated every part of their body mister young of harrogate possesses a chocolate variety of this royal siamese cat it was sent from singapore to mister brennand
from whom he purchased it and is described as most loving and affectionate which i believe is usually the case
although this peculiar colour is very beautiful and scarce i am of opinion that the light gray or fawn colour with black and well marked muzzle ears and legs is the typical variety the markings being the same as the himalayan rabbits there are cavies so marked
however beautiful it might be even black pugs do not obtain prizes in competition with a true marked light dun
rich and not clouded in any way but i give mister young's own views the dun siamese we have has won whenever shown
part of the face ears feet and tail of a very dark chocolate brown nearly black eyes of a beautiful blue by day and of a red colour at night my other prize cat is of a very rich chocolate or seal with darker face ears and tail
the legs are a shade darker which intensifies towards the feet
and not so much hair between the eyes and the ears as the english cats have the dun unless under special judges invariably beats the chocolate at the shows the tail is shorter and finer than our english cats
i may add that we lately have had four kittens from the chocolate cat by a pure dun siamese he cat all the young are dun coloured and when born were very light nearly white but are gradually getting the dark points of the parents in fact
i expect that one will turn chocolate the cats are very affectionate and make charming ladies pets but are rather more delicate than our cats but after they have once wintered in england they seem to get acclimatised mister brennand who brought the chocolate one and another a male
from singapore last year informs me that there are two varieties a large and small ours are the small he also tells me the chocolate is the most rare i have heard a little more regarding the siamese cats from miss walker the daughter of general walker
who brought over one male and three females it seems the only pure breed is kept at the king of siam's palace and the cats are very difficult to procure for in siam it took three different gentlemen of great influence three months before they could get any
it is my intention to try and breed from a white english female with blue eyes and a siamese male the siamese cats are very prolific breeders having generally five at each litter and three litters a year we have never succeeded in breeding any like our chocolate cat
they all come fawn with black or dark brown points the last family are a little darker on their backs which gives them a richer appearance than the pale fawn hitherto we have never had any half bred siamese but there used to be a male siamese at hurworth on tees
and there were many young bred from english cats they invariably showed the siamese cross in the ground colour from the foregoing it will be seen how very difficult it is to obtain the pure breed even in siam
and were only got by those so fortunate as a most extraordinary favour as the king of siam is most jealous of keeping the breed entirely in siam as royal cats the one exhibited by lady dorothy nevill missus poodle had three kittens by an english cat
but none showed any trace of the siamese being all tabby although mister herbert young was informed by mister brennand that there is another and a larger breed in siam it does not appear that any of these have been imported nor have we any description of them
or whether they resemble the lesser variety in this or any respect yet it is to be hoped that ere long some specimens may be secured for this country besides mister herbert young i am also much indebted to the courtesy of missus vyvyan
of dover who is a lover of this beautiful breed and who kindly sends the following information the original pair were sent from bangkok and it is believed that they came from the king's palace where alone the breed are said to be kept pure
after much delay and great difficulty and since that time no others have been attainable by the same person we were in china when they reached us and the following year eighteen eighty six we brought the father mother and a pair of kittens to england
their habits are in general the same as the common cat though it has been observed by strangers there is a pleasant wild animal odour which is not apparent to us most of the kittens have a kink in the tail it varies in position sometimes in the middle
close to the body or at the extreme end like a hook this tallies with the description given by mister darwin of the malayan and also the siamese cats see my notes on the manx cat mister young had also noted this peculiarity in the royal cat of siam
not liking to be left alone and following us from room to room more after the manner of dogs than cats they are devoted parents the old father taking the greatest interest in the young ones they are friendly with the dogs of the house occupying the same baskets
but the males are very strong and fight with great persistency with strange dogs and conquer all other tom cats in their neighbourhood we lost one however a very fine cat in china in this way as he returned to the house almost torn to pieces and in a dying condition
we feed them on fresh fish boiled with rice until the two are nearly amalgamated they also take bread and milk warm the milk having been boiled and this diet seems to suit them better than any other they also like chicken and game
we find these cats require a great deal of care unless they live in the country and become hardy through being constantly out of doors the kittens are difficult to rear unless they are born late in the spring thus having the warm weather before them
most deaths occur before they are six months old we have lost several kittens from worms which they endeavour to vomit as relief we give them raw chicken heads with the feathers on with success we also give cod liver oil if the appetite fails
until about a year old they attain perfection when the points should be the deepest brown nearly black
no one unless a real cat lover should attempt to keep them they cannot with safety to their health be treated as common cats during susan's
the old he cat came daily to condole with her bringing delicate attentions in the form of freshly caught mice
we have at present two males four adult females and five kittens one of our kittens sent to scotland last august has done well missus lee of penshurst also has some fine specimens of the breed and of the same colours as described
i take it therefore that the true breed by consensus of opinion is that of the dun fawn or ash coloured ground with black points other colours should be shown in the variety classes the head should be long from the ears to the eyes and not over broad
and then rather sharply taper off towards the muzzle the forehead flat and receding the eyes somewhat aslant downwards towards the nose and the eyes of a pearly yet bright blue colour the ears usual size and black with little or no hair on the inside
with black muzzle and round the eyes black the form should be slight graceful and delicately made body long tail rather short and thin and the legs somewhat short slender and the feet oval not so round as the ordinary english cat
this battle was noteworthy in employing the cavalry in an open charge across the plains against the dervish infantry it was just such a charge as a skilled horseman such as haig would keenly enjoy despite the danger winston churchill the british minister
it was hardly possible to miss such a target at such a range horses and men fell at once the only course was plain and welcome to all the colonel nearer than his regiment
he ordered right wheel into line to be sounded the trumpet jerked out a shrill note
on the instant the troops swung round and locked up into a long galloping line two hundred and fifty yards away the dark blue men were firing madly in a thin film of light blue smoke
their bullets struck the hard gravel into the air and the troopers to shield their faces from the stinging dust bowed their helmets forward like the cuirassiers at waterloo the pace was fast and the distance short yet before it was half covered the whole aspect of the affair changed
and from it there sprang with the suddenness of a pantomime effect and a high pitched yell a dense white mass of men nearly as long as our front and about twelve deep a score of horsemen and a dozen bright flags rose as if by magic from the earth
the lancers acknowledged the apparition only by an increase of pace in such a melee as then followed that trooper was lucky indeed who escaped without a scratch as a result of his bravery at atbara and khartoum haig's name was mentioned in the official despatches
it is probable however that little more would have been heard of him had not the south african war broken out soon after it is the lot of military men to vegetate in days of peace they live upon action haig was no exception to this rule
he welcomed new fields he went to south africa as aide and right hand man to sir john french the general whom he was to succeed in later years on the battlefields of france in this war haig is not credited with many personal exploits
his was essentially a thinking part yet he served as chief of staff in a series of minor but important operations about colesburg
as usual haig pinned his faith upon the cavalry all his life he had made a close study of this arm of the service and was of opinion that it was not utilized in modern warfare nearly so much as it should be he was a warm admirer of the american officer
j e b stuart the confederate general whose dashing tactics turned the scale in so many encounters now he tried the same strategy in the operations around colesburg and paved the way for later victory
haig somewhat resembled another southern leader stonewall jackson in his piety it was not ostentatious but simply part and parcel of the man due to his presbyterian training haig did not swear or gamble or dance all night
he was more apt to be found in his tent when off duty either reading or writing they tell of him that one day at the officers mess after a particularly lively brush with the boers the quartermaster asked him if he had lost anything
yes replied haig solemnly my bible not once did his countenance relax its gravity as he met the grinning faces across the table but despite their chaffing there was not a man there who did not respect the courage of his convictions
no less than the bravery of the man himself almost daily he risked his life in these cavalry operations until the haig luck became a watchword the end of the south african war found haig promoted to acting adjutant general of the cavalry
one result of this visit was a letter which showed him possessed with wonderful powers of analysis and foresight he practically predicted the war that was to come he summed up his observations in a long letter to a friend which in the light of events of the war is little short of uncanny
it gave the german plan with a mastery of detail shrewd prophecy and earnest warning the future commander in chief of the british armies in france was convinced of the certainty of the conflict and besought the authorities to make better preparation but his warnings fell upon deaf ears
it required thirteen years to demonstrate the truth of haig's predictions and then the blow fell the kaiser viewed his strong hosts and boasted that he would soon wipe out england's contemptible little army he very nearly did so and would certainly have succeeded
had it not been for the fighting spirit of such men as haig during the intervening years since the south african campaign he had risen by fairly rapid stages to inspector general of the cavalry in india a situation which he handled with great skill for three years
then major general and lieutenant general at the outbreak of the world war he was hurriedly sent to france under the command of sir john french his old leader in africa french was generosity itself in his praise of haig in these early days of disaster
was of so skilful bold and decisive a character that he gained positions which alone have enabled me to maintain my position for more than three weeks of very severe fighting on the north bank of the river
the chief honors of victory were again awarded to him throughout this trying period sir douglas haig aided by his divisional commanders and his brigade commanders held the line with marvelous tenacity and undaunted courage
again and again the generous french pays tribute to his friend which while deserved reflects no less honor upon the speaker he was big enough to share honor it is not strange therefore when french was superseded for strategic reasons
that haig should have been given the chief command the appointment however left most of the world frankly amazed haig had come forward so quietly that few save those in official circles knew anything about him it was nevertheless but a matter of weeks possibly days
before a quiet confidence born of the man himself was manifest everywhere one war correspondent who visited headquarters in the midst of the war's turmoil thus describes his visit the environment of the commander in chief is strongly suggestive of his conduct of the war
before war became a thing of precise science the headquarters of an army head seethed with all the picturesque details so common to pictures of martial life couriers mounted on foam flecked horses dashed to and fro the air was vibrant with action
are totally different although army units have risen from thousands to millions of men and fields of operations stretch from sea to sea and more ammunition is expended in a single engagement than was employed in entire wars of other days
absolute serenity prevails it is only when your imagination conjures up the picture of flame and fury that lies beyond the horizon line that you get a thrill an occasional motorcar driven by a soldier chauffeur chugs up the gravel road to the chateau
his chest is broad and deep yet scarcely broad enough for the rows of service and order ribbons that plant a mass of color against the background of khaki into every detail of daily life at general headquarters the commander's character is impressed
after lunch for example he spends an hour alone and in this period of meditation the whole fateful panorama of the war passes before him when it is over the wires splutter and the fierce life of the coming night the army does not begin to fight until most people go to sleep
throughout the four long years of war he faced the enemy with a calm courage which if it ever wavered gave no outward sign and that is one reason why the little contemptibles grew and grew
and saying with their allies you shall not pass important dates in haig's life eighteen sixty one june nineteenth douglas haig born eighteen eighty
entered brasenose college oxford eighteen eighty five joined seventh hussars british army eighteen ninety eight
mentioned in despatches and brevetted major eighteen ninety nine served in south africa d a a g for cavalry then staff officer to general french nineteen o one lieutenant colonel commanding seventeenth lancers
nineteen o three inspector general cavalry india nineteen o four major general nineteen ten lieutenant general nineteen fourteen
general commanding first army in france nineteen fifteen commander in chief of british forces nineteen seventeen field marshal nineteen nineteen created an earl
cats like many other animals both wild and domestic are subject to diseases several being fatal others yielding to known curatives
some are epidemic others are undoubtedly contagious the two worst of these are what is known as the distemper and the mange through the kindness of friends i am enabled to give recipes for medicines considered as useful or at any rate
tending to abate the severity of the attack in the one and utterly eradicate the other care should always be taken on the first symptoms of illness to remove the animal at once from contact with others
c b principal veterinary surgeon of the army has courteously sent me a copy of a remedy for cat distemper from his very excellent work animal plagues their history nature and prevention which i give in full catarrhal fevers
cats are like some other of the domesticated animals liable to be attacked by two kinds of catarrhal fever one of which is undoubtedly very infectious like distemper in dogs and the other may be looked upon as the result of a simple cold
and therefore not transmissible the first is of course the most severe and fatal and often prevails most extensively affecting cats generally over wide areas sometimes entire continents being invaded by it
and in the following year when it had spread over europe and extended to america in eighteen o three it again appeared in this country and over a large part of the european continent the symptoms are intense fever prostration vomiting diarrhoea
sneezing cough and profuse discharge from the nose and eyes sometimes the parotid glands are swollen as in human mumps doctor darwin of derby uncle to charles darwin thought it was a kind of mumps and therefore designated it parotitis felina
the treatment consists in careful nursing and cleanliness keeping the animal moderately warm and comfortable the disease rapidly produces intense debility and therefore the strength should be maintained from the very commencement by frequent small doses of strong beef tea
into which one grain of quinine has been introduced twice a day a small quantity of port wine from half to one teaspoonful according to the size of the cat and the state of debility if there is no diarrhoea but constipation
a small dose of castor oil or syrup of buckthorn should be given solid food should not be allowed until convalescence has set in
warmth cleanliness broth and beef tea are the chief items of treatment with a dose of castor oil if constipation is present if the discharge obstructs the nostrils it should be removed with a sponge and these and the eyes may be bathed with a weak lotion of vinegar and water
as regards inoculation for distemper doctor fleming says it has been tried but the remedy is often worse than the disease at least as bad as the natural disease vaccination has also been tried but it is valueless probably inoculation with
cultivated or modified virus would be found a good and safe preventative i was anxious to know about this as inoculation used to be the practice with packs of hounds it will be observed that doctor fleming treats the distemper as a kind of influenza
as a last resource to arouse sinking vitality
it might be administered in milk or given in a small piece of beef or meat of any kind after the course give an aperient powder mange the best possible remedies for this disease are arsenicum two x trituration
and sulphur two x trituration given on alternate days as much as will lie on a threepenny piece night and morning administered as above a most useful lotion is acid sulphurous
adding about a teaspoonful of glycerine and sponging the affected parts twice or thrice daily colds the symptoms are twofold usually there is constant sneezing and discharge from the nose aconite one x tincture
one drop given every three hours in alternation with arsenicum three x trituration will speedily remove the disease should there be stuffing of the nose and difficult breathing give mercurius biniod three x trituration a dose every three or four hours
antimonium tartaric two x grains iij every two three or four hours according to the severity of the symptoms distemper early symptoms should be noted and receive prompt attention this will often cut short the duration of the malady
seeking a dark corner beneath a sofa et cetera the eyes flow freely the nose after becoming hard and dry becomes stopped with fluid the tongue parched and total aversion to food follows
and the animal creeps away into some quiet corner to die if before this its life has not been mercifully ended on discovery of first symptoms give two drops aconite and arsenicum in alternation every three hours
when the nose becomes dry and the eye restless and glaring give belladonna canker of ear when internal drop into the affected ear night and morning three or five drops of the following mixture
tincture of hydrastis canadensis two drachms carbolic acid pure
if external paint with the mixture the affected parts aperient get a chemist to rub down a medium size croton bean with about forty grains of sugar of milk and divide into four powders
one of these powders given in milk usually suffices large cats often require two powders the dose might be repeated if necessary dose when drops are ordered two drops
remedies and strengthening medicines aconite one x tincture arsenicum two x trituration antimonium tartaricum two x trituration belladonna
three x trituration mercurius biniodatus three x trituration hydrastis canadensis greek phi tincture sulphur two x trituration
that they may select which remedy they deem best distemper take yellow basilicon
oil of juniper three drachms mix for ointment
two or three times on alternate nights purgative nothing like castor oil for purgation half the quantity of syrup of buckthorn if necessary may be added worms
cold in the eyes and sneezing may be relieved by sweet spirits of nitre
well mixed for a lotion and apply night and morning eye ointment red oxide of mercury twelve grains
the above prescription was given to me many years ago by the late doctor walsh stonehenge and i have found it of great service both for my own eyes also those of animals and birds wash the eyes carefully with warm water dry off with a soft silk handkerchief
and apply a little of the ointment doctor walsh informed me that he deemed it excellent for canker in the ear but of that i have had no experience for mange
in the early stages of mange flowers of sulphur mixed in vaseline and rubbed in the coat of the cat is efficacious giving sulphur in the milk the water and on the food of the patient also give vegetable diet another remedy give a teaspoonful of castor oil
next day give raw meat dusted over with flowers of sulphur also give sulphur in milk if there are any sore places bathe with lotion made from camphorated oil in which some sulphur is mixed
camphor one quarter oz sulphur a teaspoonful as a rule when the animal is of value either intrinsically or as a pet the best plan is to consult a practitioner well versed in the veterinary science and art
especially when the cat appears to suffer from some obscure disease many of which it is very difficult to detect unless by the trained and practised eye of all the ailments both of dogs and cats distemper is the worst to combat and is so virulent and contagious
that i have thought it well to offer remedies that are at least worthy of a trial though when the complaint has firm hold and the attack very severe the case is generally almost hopeless especially with high bred animals poison
it is not generally known that the much admired laburnum contains a strong poison and is therefore an exceedingly dangerous plant all its parts blossoms leaves seeds even the bark and the roots
as few would suspect the cause to come from the lovely plant that so delights the eye it has however long been known to gamekeepers and others and used by them to destroy vermin
it was from henrietta stackpole that she learned how caspar goodwood had come to rome an event that took place three days after lord warburton's departure this latter fact
had been preceded by an incident of some importance to isabel the temporary absence once again of madame merle who had gone to naples to stay with a friend the happy possessor of a villa
at posilippo madame merle had ceased to minister to isabel's happiness who found herself wondering whether the most discreet of women might not also by chance be the most dangerous
sometimes at night she had strange visions she seemed to see her husband and her friend his friend in dim indistinguishable combination it seemed to her
that she had not done with her this lady had something in reserve isabel's imagination applied itself actively to this elusive point but every now and then it was checked by a nameless dread
so that when the charming woman was away from rome she had almost a consciousness of respite she had already learned from miss stackpole that caspar goodwood was in europe henrietta having written to make it known to her
immediately after meeting him in paris he himself never wrote to isabel and though he was in europe she thought it very possible he might not desire to see her their last interview before her marriage
had had quite the character of a complete rupture if she remembered rightly he had said he wished to take his last look at her since then he had been the most discordant survival of her earlier time
the only one in fact with which a permanent pain was associated he had left her that morning with a sense of the most superfluous of shocks it was like a collision between vessels in broad daylight
there had been no mist no hidden current to excuse it and she herself had only wished to steer wide he had bumped against her prow however while her hand was on the tiller and
to complete the metaphor had given the lighter vessel a strain which still occasionally betrayed itself in a faint creaking it had been horrid to see him
because he represented the only serious harm that to her belief she had ever done in the world he was the only person with an unsatisfied claim on her she had made him unhappy
she couldn't help it and his unhappiness was a grim reality she had cried with rage after he had left her at she hardly knew what
she tried to think it had been at his want of consideration he had come to her with his unhappiness when her own bliss was so perfect he had done his best to darken the brightness of those pure rays
he had not been violent and yet there had been a violence in the impression there had been a violence at any rate in something somewhere perhaps it was only in her own fit of weeping
and in that after sense of the same which had lasted three or four days the effect of his final appeal had in short faded away and all the first year of her marriage he had dropped out of her books
he was a thankless subject of reference it was disagreeable to have to think of a person who was sore and sombre about you and whom you could yet do nothing to relieve
even a little of his unreconciled state as she doubted of lord warburton's unfortunately it was beyond question and this aggressive uncompromising look of it was just what made it unattractive
she could never say to herself that here was a sufferer who had compensations as she was able to say in the case of her english suitor she had no faith in mister goodwood's compensations
and no esteem for them a cotton factory was not a compensation for anything least of all for having failed to marry isabel archer and yet beyond that she hardly knew what he had
save of course his intrinsic qualities oh he was intrinsic enough she never thought of his even looking for artificial aids if he extended his business that
belief was the only form exertion could take with him it would be because it was an enterprising thing
not in the least because he might hope it would overlay the past this gave his figure a kind of bareness and bleakness which made the accident of meeting it in memory or in apprehension
a peculiar concussion it was deficient in the social drapery commonly muffling in an overcivilized age the sharpness of human contacts his perfect silence moreover
heard from him and very seldom heard any mention of him deepened this impression of his loneliness she asked lily for news of him from time to time but lily knew nothing of boston
her imagination was all bounded on the east by madison avenue as time went on isabel had thought of him oftener and with fewer restrictions she had had more than once the idea of writing to him
she had never told her husband about him never let osmond know of his visits to her in florence a reserve not dictated in the early period by a want of confidence in osmond
but simply by the consideration that the young man's disappointment was not her secret but his own it would be wrong of her she had believed to convey it to another and mister goodwood's affairs could have after all
little interest for gilbert when it had come to the point she had never written to him it seemed to her that considering his grievance the least she could do
nevertheless she would have been glad to be in some way nearer to him it was not that it ever occurred to her that she might have married him even after the consequences of her actual union had grown vivid to her
that particular reflection though she indulged in so many had not had the assurance to present itself but on finding herself in trouble he had become a member of that circle of things
with which she wished to set herself right i have mentioned how passionately she needed to feel that her unhappiness should not have come to her through her own fault she had no near prospect of dying
and yet she wished to make her peace with the world to put her spiritual affairs in order it came back to her from time to time that there was an account still to be settled with caspar and she saw herself disposed
or able to settle it to day on terms easier for him than ever before still when she learned he was coming to rome she felt all afraid it would be more disagreeable for him than for any one else to make out
since he would make it out as over a falsified balance sheet or something of that sort the intimate disarray of her affairs deep in her breast
she believed that he had invested his all in her happiness while the others had invested only a part he was one more person from whom she should have to conceal her stress she was reassured however
after he arrived in rome for he spent several days without coming to see her henrietta stackpole it may well be imagined was more punctual and isabel was largely favoured with the society of her friend
she threw herself into it for now that she had made such a point of keeping her conscience clear that was one way of proving she had not been superficial the more so as the years in their flight
had rather enriched than blighted those peculiarities which had been humorously criticised by persons less interested than isabel and which were still marked enough to give loyalty a spice of heroism
henrietta was as keen and quick and fresh as ever and as neat and bright and fair her remarkably open eyes lighted like great glazed railway stations
had put up no shutters her attire had lost none of its crispness her opinions none of their national reference she was by no means quite unchanged however it struck isabel
she had grown vague of old she had never been vague though undertaking many enquiries at once she had managed to be entire and pointed about each she had a reason for everything she did
she fairly bristled with motives formerly when she came to europe it was because she wished to see it but now having already seen it she had no such excuse
she didn't for a moment pretend that the desire to examine decaying civilisations had anything to do with her present enterprise her journey was rather an expression of her independence of the old world
it's nothing to come to europe she said to isabel it doesn't seem to me one needs so many reasons for that it is something to stay at home this is much more important
it was not therefore with a sense of doing anything very important that she treated herself to another pilgrimage to rome she had seen the place before and carefully inspected it
her present act was simply a sign of familiarity of her knowing all about it of her having as good a right as any one else to be there this was all very well
she had a perfect right to be restless too if one came to that but she had after all a better reason for coming to rome than that she cared for it so little her friend easily recognised it
and with it the worth of the other's fidelity she had crossed the stormy ocean in midwinter because she had guessed that isabel was sad henrietta guessed a great deal
but she had never guessed so happily as that isabel's satisfactions just now were few but even if they had been more numerous
in having always thought highly of henrietta she had made large concessions with regard to her and had yet insisted that with all abatements she was very valuable it was not her own triumph however
that she found good it was simply the relief of confessing to this confidant the first person to whom she had owned it that she was not in the least at her ease henrietta had herself approached this point
with the smallest possible delay
she was a woman she was a sister she was not ralph nor lord warburton nor caspar goodwood and isabel could speak yes i'm wretched she said very mildly
she hated to hear herself say it she tried to say it as judicially as possible what does he do to you henrietta asked frowning as if she were enquiring into the operations of a quack doctor
he does nothing but he doesn't like me he's very hard to please cried miss stackpole why don't you leave him i can't change that way isabel said why not i should like to know
you won't confess that you've made a mistake you're too proud i don't know whether i'm too proud but i can't publish my mistake i don't think that's decent i'd much rather die
you won't think so always said henrietta i don't know what great unhappiness might bring me to but it seems to me i shall always be ashamed one must accept one's deeds
i married him before all the world i was perfectly free it was impossible to do anything more deliberate one can't change that way isabel repeated you have changed in spite of the impossibility
i hope you don't mean to say you like him isabel debated no i don't like him i can tell you because i'm weary of my secret but that's enough i can't announce it on the housetops
henrietta gave a laugh don't you think you're rather too considerate it's not of him that i'm considerate it's of myself isabel answered it was not surprising
gilbert osmond should not have taken comfort in miss stackpole his instinct had naturally set him in opposition to a young lady capable of advising his wife to withdraw from the conjugal roof when she arrived in rome
he had said to isabel that he hoped she would leave her friend the interviewer alone and isabel had answered that he at least had nothing to fear from her she said to henrietta
that as osmond didn't like her she couldn't invite her to dine but they could easily see each other in other ways isabel received miss stackpole freely in her own sitting room and took her repeatedly to drive face to face with pansy who
bending a little forward on the opposite seat of the carriage gazed at the celebrated authoress with a respectful attention which henrietta occasionally found irritating she complained to isabel that miss osmond
i don't want to be remembered that way miss stackpole declared i consider that my conversation refers only to the moment like the morning papers your stepdaughter as she sits there
looks as if she kept all the back numbers and would bring them out some day against me she could not teach herself to think favourably of pansy whose absence of initiative of conversation of personal claims seemed to her
in a girl of twenty unnatural and even uncanny isabel presently saw that osmond would have liked her to urge a little the cause of her friend insist a little upon his receiving her
so that he might appear to suffer for good manners sake her immediate acceptance of his objections put him too much in the wrong it being in effect one of the disadvantages of expressing contempt
that you cannot enjoy at the same time the credit of expressing sympathy osmond held to his credit and yet he held to his objections all of which were elements difficult to reconcile the right thing
would have been that miss stackpole should come to dine at palazzo roccanera once or twice so that in spite of his superficial civility always so great she might judge for herself how little pleasure it gave him
from the moment however that both the ladies were so unaccommodating there was nothing for osmond but to wish the lady from new york would take herself off it was surprising how little satisfaction he got from his wife's friends
he took occasion to call isabel's attention to it you're certainly not fortunate in your intimates i wish you might make a new collection he said to her one morning in reference to nothing visible at the moment
but in a tone of ripe reflection which deprived the remark of all brutal abruptness it's as if you had taken the trouble to pick out the people in the world that i have least in common with your cousin i have always thought a conceited ass
besides his being the most ill favoured animal i know then it's insufferably tiresome that one can't tell him so one must spare him on account of his health his health seems to me the best part of him
it gives him privileges enjoyed by no one else if he's so desperately ill there's only one way to prove it but he seems to have no mind for that i can't say much more for the great warburton
when one really thinks of it the cool insolence of that performance was something rare he comes and looks at one's daughter as if she were a suite of apartments
raps on the walls and almost thinks he'll take the place will you be so good as to draw up a lease then on the whole he decides that the rooms are too small he doesn't think he could live on a third floor
he must look out for a piano nobile and he goes away after having got a month's lodging in the poor little apartment for nothing miss stackpole however is your most wonderful invention she strikes me as a kind of monster
one hasn't a nerve in one's body that she doesn't set quivering you know i never have admitted that she's a woman do you know what she reminds me of of a new steel pen the most odious thing in nature
she talks as a steel pen writes aren't her letters by the way on ruled paper she thinks and moves and walks and looks exactly as she talks you may say that she doesn't hurt me
inasmuch as i don't see her i don't see her but i hear her i hear her all day long her voice is in my ears i can't get rid of it i know exactly what she says and every inflexion of the tone in which she says it
she says charming things about me and they give you great comfort i don't like at all to think she talks about me i feel as i should feel if i knew the footman were wearing my hat
henrietta talked about gilbert osmond as his wife assured him rather less than he suspected she had plenty of other subjects in two of which the reader may be supposed to be especially interested
she let her friend know that caspar goodwood had discovered for himself that she was unhappy though indeed her ingenuity was unable to suggest what comfort he hoped to give her by coming to rome and yet not calling on her
they met him twice in the street but he had no appearance of seeing them they were driving and he had a habit of looking straight in front of him as if he proposed to take in but one object at a time
isabel could have fancied she had seen him the day before it must have been with just that face and step that he had walked out of missus touchett's door at the close of their last interview he was dressed
just as he had been dressed on that day
and yet in spite of this familiar look there was a strangeness in his figure too something that made her feel it afresh
he looked bigger and more overtopping than of old and in those days he certainly reached high enough she noticed that the people whom he passed looked back after him but he went straight forward
lifting above them a face like a february sky miss stackpole's other topic was very different she gave isabel the latest news about mister bantling he had been out in the united states the year before
and she was happy to say she had been able to show him considerable attention
but she would undertake to say it had done him good he wasn't the same man when he left as he had been when he came it had opened his eyes and shown him that england wasn't everything
he had been very much liked in most places and thought extremely simple more simple than the english were commonly supposed to be there were people who had thought him affected
she didn't know whether they meant that his simplicity was an affectation some of his questions were too discouraging he thought all the chambermaids were farmers daughters or all the farmers daughters were chambermaids she couldn't exactly remember which
he hadn't seemed able to grasp the great school system it had been really too much for him on the whole he had behaved as if there were too much of everything as if he could only take in a small part
the part he had chosen was the hotel system and the river navigation he had seemed really fascinated with the hotels he had a photograph of every one he had visited but the river steamers were his principal interest
he wanted to do nothing but sail on the big boats they had travelled together from new york to milwaukee stopping at the most interesting cities on the route
the miles home still known in hamilton as the hackett place since it had been built more than thirty years before by flora's father old silas hackett dead these seven years
dominated one of the most beautiful of the wooded hills which encircled mirror lake in the brentwood section of modified tudor architecture its deep red mellowed bricks had achieved in three decades
on sunday the day after nita selim's murder when he had come to interview lydia carr and had secured the alibi which had eliminated dexter sprague as a suspect dundee had driven his car up this hill between the tall yew hedges
had descended the kitchen stairs with lydia to the servants sitting room in the basement now he continued along the main driveway to the more impressive entrance whose flanking slim turrets frowned down upon a line of police cars and motorcycles
the detective's first glance took in stately armchairs of the cromwell period thick mellow toned rugs and in the living room beyond splendid examples of jacobean furniture
a horrible thing to happen in a man's home dundee miles was saying his plump rosy face blighted with horror i can't realize yet that we actually slept as usual with a corpse lying down here all night and i have only myself to blame
what do you mean dundee asked why that the the body wasn't discovered sooner miles explained if it had occurred to me that whitson hadn't closed the trophy room windows i should have gone in to close and lock them when i made the rounds of living room
dining room and library after our guests were gone last night a pale faced bald headed butler had materialized while his master was speaking beg pardon sir
but i did not close the trophy room windows because i thought you might be using the room again you see sir and whitson turned to dundee mister miles and mister dunlap played ping pong in the trophy room after dinner until the other guests began to arrive
except sprague of course and i had no idea he'd gone there drake wanted to play anagrams and before the bridge game started i went to the trophy room to get the box miles explained i turned off the light when i left
and there was no light burning in there this morning when celia the parlor maid went there to put the anagram box back in the cabinet and found the body flora missus miles had brought the anagrams in from the porch and left them on a table in the living room
as our guests were getting ready to leave there was nothing else to bring in in case of rain the bridge tables are of iron covered with oilcloth and fitted with oilcloth bags for the cards score pads and pencils yes i know dundee interrupted
miss crain has already told me all about that and a good many details of the party itself by the way where is missus miles now in bed the doctor is with her she is prostrated from the shock
no don't bother to come with me just point it out it's on this floor i understand miles pointed past the great circular staircase that wound upward from the main hall you can't see the door from here but it's behind the staircase
celia found the door closed this morning and no light on as i said dundee cut him short by marching toward the door which was again closed he entered so noiselessly that captain strawn doctor price and the fingerprint expert carraway did not hear him
for a moment he stood just inside the door and let his eyes wander about the room which penny crain had already described it was not a large room twelve by fourteen feet possibly but it looked even smaller crowded as it was with the long ping pong table
bags of golf clubs fishing tackle tennis racquets skis and sleds there were two windows in the north wall of the room looking out upon the yew hedged driveway and between them stood a cabinet of numerous big and little drawers
a pool of which had formed and then half congealed upon the rug the right hand the fingers curled but not touching each other lay palm upward on the floor at the end of the rigid outstretched arm the one visible eye was half open
but on the sallow thin face which had been strikingly handsome in an obvious sort of way was a peace and dignity which dundee had never seen upon sprague's face when the man was alive the left leg was drawn upward so that the knee almost touched the bullet pierced stomach
how long has he been dead doctor dundee asked quietly hello boy doctor price greeted him placidly always the same question i've been here only a few minutes and i've already told strawn that i shall probably be unable to fix the hour of death
with any degree of accuracy took your time didn't you bonnie captain strawn greeted his former subordinate on the homicide squad doc says he's been dead between ten and twelve hours since it's nearly ten now
that means sprague was killed some time between nine and eleven o'clock last night better say between nine o'clock and midnight last night doctor price suggested he may have lived an hour or more unconscious of course
for the indications are that he did not die instantly but staggered a few steps clutching at the wound but of course i shall have to perform an autopsy first dundee crossed the room stepping over the dead man's stick
a swank affair of dark polished wood with a heavy knob of carved onyx which lay about a foot beyond the reach of the curled fingers of the stiff right hand sprague's hat he asked pointing to a brightly banded straw which lay upon the top of the cabinet
yes strawn answered and did you notice the window screen he pointed to the window in front of which the body lay the sash of leaded panes was raised as high as it would go and beneath it was a screen of the roller curtain type
and strawn began eagerly you'll have to admit i was right now boy you've sneered at my gunman theory and tried to pin nita's murder on one of hamilton's finest bunch of people but you'll have to admit now that every detail of this set up bears me out yes
and i have miles word for it ain't any too glad to see him and shows it he phones for a taxi to go back to his hotel about nine fifteen that was miles says but decides to walk down the hill to meet it
don't want to go back out on the porch and lie about having had a good time when he hasn't well he opens the front door or what would be the front door if this was any ordinary house but before he steps out he sees or hears something
probably a rustling in the hedge across the driveway or maybe he even sees a face in the light from the lanterns on each side of the door he feels sure nita's murderer has trailed him and is lying in wait for him in a panic he darts into this room
i've got miles word for it that neither he nor anybody else heard a shot of course nobody knew sprague was in here and since his hat and stick was both missing from the hall closet they took it for granted he'd beat it any objections to that theory boy
just a few one in particular dundee said but i grant it's a good one provided doctor price's autopsy bears you out as to the course of the bullet and that carraway finds sprague's fingerprints on that contrivance for raising the screen even then
but dundee was not allowed to finish his sentence for strawn was summoned to the telephone by whitson when he returned there was a slightly bewildered look on his heavy old face that's funny collins the lad i sent to check up on the taxi companies
says he's located the driver that answered sprague's call last night the driver says he was called about nine fifteen told to come immediately and to wait for sprague at the foot of the hill on the main road
the first snowfall came early in december i remember how the world looked from our sitting room window as i dressed behind the stove that morning the low sky was like a sheet of metal the blond cornfields had faded out into ghostliness at last
the little pond was frozen under its stiff willow bushes big white flakes were whirling over everything and disappearing in the red grass beyond the pond on the slope that climbed to the cornfield there was faintly marked in the grass
whenever one looked at this slope against the setting sun the circle showed like a pattern in the grass and this morning when the first light spray of snow lay over it it came out with wonderful distinctness like strokes of chinese white on canvas
and seemed a good omen for the winter as soon as the snow had packed hard i began to drive about the country in a clumsy sleigh that otto fuchs made for me by fastening a wooden goods box on bobs
it was a bright cold day i piled straw and buffalo robes into the box and took two hot bricks wrapped in old blankets when i got to the shimerdas i did not go up to the house
but sat in my sleigh at the bottom of the draw and called antonia and yulka came running out wearing little rabbit skin hats their father had made for them they had heard about my sledge from ambrosch and knew why i had come
they tumbled in beside me and we set off toward the north along a road that happened to be broken the sky was brilliantly blue and the sunlight on the glittering white stretches of prairie was almost blinding as antonia said
the whole world was changed by the snow we kept looking in vain for familiar landmarks the deep arroyo through which squaw creek wound was now only a cleft between snow drifts very blue when one looked down into it
the tree tops that had been gold all the autumn were dwarfed and twisted as if they would never have any life in them again the few little cedars which were so dull and dingy before now stood out a strong dusky green
the wind had the burning taste of fresh snow my throat and nostrils smarted as if some one had opened a hartshorn bottle the cold stung and at the same time delighted one my horse's breath rose like steam
and whenever we stopped he smoked all over the cornfields got back a little of their color under the dazzling light and stood the palest possible gold in the sun and snow all about us the snow was crusted in shallow terraces
with tracings like ripple marks at the edges curly waves that were the actual impression of the stinging lash in the wind the girls had on cotton dresses under their shawls they kept shivering beneath the buffalo robes and hugging each other for warmth
but they were so glad to get away from their ugly cave and their mother's scolding that they begged me to go on and on as far as russian peter's house the great fresh open after the stupefying warmth indoors made them behave like wild things
they laughed and shouted and said they never wanted to go home again could n't we settle down and live in russian peter's house yulka asked and could n't i go to town and buy things for us to keep house with all the way to russian peter's we were extravagantly happy
but when we turned back it must have been about four o'clock the east wind grew stronger and began to howl the sun lost its heartening power and the sky became gray and somber i took off my long woolen comforter and wound it around yulka's throat
but i refused to go in with them and get warm i knew my hands would ache terribly if i went near a fire yulka forgot to give me back my comforter and i had to drive home directly against the wind the next day i came down with an attack of quinsy
which kept me in the house for nearly two weeks the basement kitchen seemed heavenly safe and warm in those days like a tight little boat in a winter sea the men were out in the fields all day husking corn and when they came in at noon
with long caps pulled down over their ears and their feet in red lined overshoes i used to think they were like arctic explorers in the afternoons when grandmother sat upstairs darning or making husking gloves
i read the swiss family robinson aloud to her and i felt that the swiss family had no advantages over us in the way of an adventurous life i was convinced that man's strongest antagonist is the cold
i admired the cheerful zest with which grandmother went about keeping us warm and comfortable and well fed she often reminded me when she was preparing for the return of the hungry men that this country was not like virginia and that here a cook had
striped with currants and boiled in a bag next to getting warm and keeping warm dinner and supper were the most interesting things we had to think about our lives centered around warmth and food and the return of the men at nightfall
i used to wonder when they came in tired from the fields their feet numb and their hands cracked and sore how they could do all the chores so conscientiously feed and water and bed the horses milk the cows and look after the pigs
when supper was over it took them a long while to get the cold out of their bones while grandmother and i washed the dishes and grandfather read his paper upstairs jake and otto sat on the long bench behind the stove easing their inside boots
or rubbing mutton tallow into their cracked hands every saturday night we popped corn or made taffy and otto fuchs used to sing for i am a cowboy and know i've done wrong or bury me not on the lone prairee
and jake's shaggy hair slicked flat in front by a wet comb i can see the sag of their tired shoulders against the whitewashed wall what good fellows they were how much they knew and how many things they had kept faith with
fuchs had been a cowboy a stage driver a bar tender a miner had wandered all over that great western country and done hard work everywhere though as grandmother said he had nothing to show for it jake was duller than otto
it was a matter of pride with them not to spare themselves yet they were the sort of men who never get on somehow or do anything but work hard for a dollar or two a day on those bitter starlit nights
as we sat around the old stove that fed us and warmed us and kept us cheerful we could hear the coyotes howling down by the corrals and their hungry wintry cry used to remind the boys of wonderful animal stories about gray wolves and bears in the rockies
wildcats and panthers in the virginia mountains sometimes fuchs could be persuaded to talk about the outlaws and desperate characters he had known i remember one funny story about himself that made grandmother who was working her bread on the bread board
laugh until she wiped her eyes with her bare arm her hands being floury it was like this when otto left austria to come to america he was asked by one of his relatives to look after a woman who was crossing on the same boat
to join her husband in chicago the woman started off with two children but it was clear that her family might grow larger on the journey fuchs said he got on fine with the kids and liked the mother though she played a sorry trick on him
in mid ocean she proceeded to have not one baby but three this event made fuchs the object of undeserved notoriety since he was traveling with her the steerage stewardess was indignant with him the doctor regarded him with suspicion
the first cabin passengers who made up a purse for the woman took an embarrassing interest in otto and often inquired of him about his charge when the triplets were taken ashore at new york he had as he said to carry some of them
the trip to chicago was even worse than the ocean voyage on the train it was very difficult to get milk for the babies and to keep their bottles clean the mother did her best but no woman out of her natural resources could feed three babies the husband in chicago
but he had a sullen eye for me all right now did you ever hear of a young feller's having such hard luck missus burden
dundee laughed the parrot which had saved his life echoing his mirth raucously as his eyes hit upon the following lines of fine print
of who's who in america burns william john detective
baltimore october nineteenth eighteen sixty one a taunt and a joke which turned sour my dear watson he exulted to the parrot a joke i was not intended to live to laugh over he closed the book and replaced it in the bookcase
careless of fingerprints for he was sure the murderer had been too clever to leave any behind him in that room or upon the gun and silencer either for that matter interestedly dundee surveyed the scene of his attempted murder
just as there had been on dexter sprague's
on dundee's own typewriter and stationery strawn might even have got a mournful sort of amusement out of the fact that dundee had been advised to call upon a greater detective than himself for assistance yes ingenious indeed
and so amazingly simple suddenly the young detective snatched for his hat if the murderer was so ingenious in this case might he not have been equally clever in planning and executing the murder of nita leigh selim
twenty minutes later he parked his car in the rutty road before the selim house in primrose meadows and honked his horn loudly to attract the attention of the plainclothesmen captain strawn had detailed immediately after the murder
with which the front door was equipped straight down the main hall he went and into the little foyer between the hall and nita's bedroom he snatched up the telephone and to his relief it was not dead he gave the number of captain strawn's home and had the pleasure of learning that he had
interrupted his former chief at a late sunday breakfast when did you withdraw the guard from the selim house he asked abruptly cutting short strawn's cordial welcome home late thursday afternoon the chief of the homicide squad answered belligerently
no use to explain now to strawn that the murderer had been given every chance to remove any betraying traces of his crime besides his first excited hunch after his own attempted murder might very well be a wild groundless one
in his dundee's case the impossibility of the murder's being delayed or arranged so that the detective might be slain when the whole crowd was assembled was obvious the murderer had read in a late saturday afternoon extra
a copy of which was now in dundee's pocket district attorney sanderson's boast to the press that his office had been working on an entirely different theory than that which connected the two murders with swallow tail sammy
that special investigator dundee expected back in hamilton early sunday morning had been investigating nita leigh's past life in new york and despite dundee's telegraphed warning he had hinted sensational revelations connected with the twelve year old
royal blue velvet dress which nita had chosen to be her shroud and in his desire to reassure the public through the press sanderson had mysteriously promised even more specific revelations than dundee had actually brought home with him
prodded by reporters sanderson had admitted that he did not himself know the nature of those revelations the exasperated young detective could picture the murderer reading those sensational hints and promises
the need for immediate action so that special investigator dundee should not live to tell the tale of his new york discoveries to the district attorney or anyone else but whether he was right or wrong dundee determined to give his hunch a chance
shot through the back as she sat at her dressing table powdering her face if her murder had been accomplished by mechanical means how had it been done there was no hot air register here from the dressing table dundee walked to the window
upon whose pale green frame there was still the tiny pencil mark which doctor price had drawn to indicate the end of the path along which the bullet had traveled provided it had traveled so far nothing here to aid in a mechanical murder
but in a flash dundee changed his mind for just slightly above the pencil mark there was a small dent in the soft painted pine of the window frame and before his mind could frame words and sentences
nothing here not now because he himself had taken the lamp to the courthouse for safe keeping he saw it clearly in imagination that bronze floor lamp
which flora miles had described one of the big glass jewels had been missing leaving an unsightly hole
for if his hunch was correct the gun wedged into the big bowl with the silencer slightly protruding from the jewel hole had kicked just as it had kicked an hour before when it had dislodged itself from the hole in the hot air register
and clattered down the big pipe to the heat reservoir of the furnace that the big lamp when he following strawn had first examined the scene of nita's murder had not stood in front of the window frame did not dampen dundee's excitement in the least
after karen marshall's scream that room had been filled with excited people who had rushed about looking out of the window for the murderer and doing all the other things which terror stricken people do in such a crisis no the murderer or murderess
to the place it had always occupied before but how had the gun been fired from the lamp electrically another picture flashed into dundee's mind he saw himself stooping on monday afternoon
to see if the plug of the lamp's cord had been pulled from the socket saw it again as it was then nearly out so that no current could pass from the baseboard outlet under the bookcase into the bronze lamp
how far from the truth his conclusion that monday had been but what was the real truth suddenly dundee flung back the moss green wilton rug which almost entirely covered the bedroom floor and revealed the bell which dexter sprague
had rigged up so that nita might summon lydia from her basement room in case of dire need a precaution with which the murderer was probably familiar since lois dunlap might innocently have spread the news of its existence
there was a half inch hole in the hardwood floor and out of it issued a length of green electric cord connected with two small flat metal plates one upon the other so that when stepped upon a bell would ring in lydia's basement room
but there was something odd about the wire although it was obviously new a section of it near the two metal plates was wrapped with black adhesive tape another memory knocked for attention upon dundee's mind the long cord of the bronze lamp
had been mended with exactly the same sort of tape about a foot from where it ended in the contact plug within another two minutes dundee with a flashlight he had found in the kitchen was exploring the dark earthy portion of the basement
into lydia's room he was too late thanks to captain strawn the bell which sprague had rigged up was in working order again but as he was passing out of the basement he glanced at the ceiling of the large room devoted to furnace
hot water heater and laundry tubs and in the ceiling he saw a hole the murderer had left a trace he could not obliterate at three o'clock that sunday afternoon bonnie dundee fatigued after a strenuous day
and suffering to his own somewhat disgusted amusement from reaction even a detective feels some shock at having narrowly escaped death
playing anagrams after greeting him missus crain rose to surrender her place to the visitor you play with this girl of mine mister dundee she's too clever for me she's beaten me every game so far
because i wanted to find out exactly how nita selim was killed and i did dundee answered i wish i knew as well who murdered her mute before penny's excited questions the detective idly selected letters from the mass
of face up blocks on the table and spelled out in a long row the names of all the guests at nita's fatal bridge party suddenly and with a cry that startled penny dundee made a new name with the little wooden letters
he was sustained at first by that pride of conscious innocence which is the sequence to hope then he began to doubt his own innocence which justified in some measure the governor's belief in his mental alienation and then relaxing his sentiment of pride
he addressed his supplications not to god but to man god is always the last resource unfortunates who ought to begin with god do not have any hope in him till they have exhausted all other means of deliverance
for a change however disadvantageous was still a change and would afford him some amusement he entreated to be allowed to walk about to have fresh air books and writing materials his requests were not granted
but he went on asking all the same he accustomed himself to speaking to the new jailer although the latter was if possible more taciturn than the old one but still to speak to a man even though mute was something
dantes spoke for the sake of hearing his own voice he had tried to speak when alone but the sound of his voice terrified him often before his captivity
dantes mind had revolted at the idea of assemblages of prisoners made up of thieves vagabonds and murderers he now wished to be amongst them in order to see some other face besides that of his jailer
he sighed for the galleys with the infamous costume the chain and the brand on the shoulder the galley slaves breathed the fresh air of heaven and saw each other they were very happy he besought the jailer one day to let him have a companion were it even the mad abbe
and he laid the request of number thirty four before the governor but the latter sapiently imagined that dantes wished to conspire or attempt an escape and refused his request dantes had exhausted all human resources
and he then turned to god all the pious ideas that had been so long forgotten returned he recollected the prayers his mother had taught him
and discovered a new meaning in every word for in prosperity prayers seem but a mere medley of words until misfortune comes and the unhappy sufferer first understands the meaning
proposed tasks to accomplish and at the end of every prayer introduced the entreaty oftener addressed to man than to god forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us
yet in spite of his earnest prayers dantes remained a prisoner then gloom settled heavily upon him
and without education he could not therefore in the solitude of his dungeon traverse in mental vision the history of the ages bring to life the nations that had perished
and rebuild the ancient cities so vast and stupendous in the light of the imagination and that pass before the eye glowing with celestial colors in martin's babylonian pictures he could not do this he whose past life was so short
whose present so melancholy and his future so doubtful nineteen years of light to reflect upon in eternal darkness no distraction could come to his aid
his energetic spirit that would have exalted in thus revisiting the past was imprisoned like an eagle in a cage he clung to one idea that of his happiness destroyed without apparent cause by an unheard of fatality
devoured it so to speak as the implacable ugolino devours the skull of archbishop roger in the inferno of dante rage supplanted religious fervor
dantes uttered blasphemies that made his jailer recoil with horror dashed himself furiously against the walls of his prison wreaked his anger upon everything and chiefly upon himself
so that the least thing a grain of sand a straw or a breath of air that annoyed him led to paroxysms of fury then the letter that villefort had showed to him recurred to his mind
he told himself that it was the enmity of man and not the vengeance of heaven that had thus plunged him into the deepest misery he consigned his unknown persecutors to the most horrible tortures he could imagine and found them all insufficient
because after torture came death and after death if not repose at least the boon of unconsciousness by dint of constantly dwelling on the idea that tranquillity was death
and if punishment were the end in view other tortures than death must be invented he began to reflect on suicide unhappy he who on the brink of misfortune broods over ideas like these
before him is a dead sea that stretches in azure calm before the eye but he who unwarily ventures within its embrace finds himself struggling with a monster that would drag him down to perdition once thus ensnared
unless the protecting hand of god snatch him thence all is over and his struggles but tend to hasten his destruction this state of mental anguish is however less terrible than the sufferings that precede
or the punishment that possibly will follow there is a sort of consolation at the contemplation of the yawning abyss at the bottom of which lie darkness and obscurity edmond found some solace in these ideas
all his sorrows all his sufferings with their train of gloomy spectres fled from his cell when the angel of death seemed about to enter dantes reviewed his past life with composure
and looking forward with terror to his future existence chose that middle line that seemed to afford him a refuge sometimes said he in my voyages when i was a man and commanded other men
i have seen the heavens overcast the sea rage and foam the storm arise and like a monstrous bird beating the two horizons with its wings then i felt that my vessel was a vain refuge that trembled and shook before the tempest
soon the fury of the waves and the sight of the sharp rocks announced the approach of death and death then terrified me and i used all my skill and intelligence as a man and a sailor to struggle against the wrath of god but i did so because i was happy
i have lost all that bound me to life death smiles and invites me to repose i die after my own manner i die exhausted and broken spirited as i fall asleep when i have paced three thousand times round my cell
no sooner had this idea taken possession of him than he became more composed arranged his couch to the best of his power ate little and slept less
and found existence almost supportable because he felt that he could throw it off at pleasure like a worn out garment two methods of self destruction were at his disposal he could hang himself with his handkerchief to the window bars
or refuse food and die of starvation but the first was repugnant to him
who are hung up to the yard arm he would not die by what seemed an infamous death he resolved to adopt the second and began that day to carry out his resolve nearly four years had passed away
at the end of the second he had ceased to mark the lapse of time dantes said i wish to die and had chosen the manner of his death and fearful of changing his mind he had taken an oath to die
when my morning and evening meals are brought thought he i will cast them out of the window and they will think that i have eaten them he kept his word twice a day he cast out through the barred aperture the provisions his jailer brought him
at first gayly then with deliberation and at last with regret nothing but the recollection of his oath gave him strength to proceed
he held the plate in his hand for an hour at a time and gazed thoughtfully at the morsel of bad meat of tainted fish of black and mouldy bread it was the last yearning for life contending with the resolution of despair
his prospects less desperate he was still young he was only four or five and twenty he had nearly fifty years to live what unforseen events might not open his prison door and restore him to liberty
then he raised to his lips the repast that like a voluntary tantalus he refused himself but he thought of his oath and he would not break it he persisted until at last
he had not sufficient strength to rise and cast his supper out of the loophole the next morning he could not see or hear the jailer feared he was dangerously ill edmond hoped he was dying thus the day passed away
edmond heard a hollow sound in the wall against which he was lying so many loathsome animals inhabited the prison that their noise did not in general awake him but whether abstinence had quickened his faculties
or whether the noise was really louder than usual edmond raised his head and listened it was a continual scratching as if made by a huge claw a powerful tooth or some iron instrument attacking the stones
it seemed to him that heaven had at length taken pity on him and had sent this noise to warn him on the very brink of the abyss perhaps one of those beloved ones he had so often thought of was thinking of him
and striving to diminish the distance that separated them no no doubtless he was deceived and it was but one of those dreams that forerun death
some hours afterwards it began again nearer and more distinct edmond was intensely interested suddenly the jailer entered
and during the four days that he had been carrying out his purpose edmond had not spoken to the attendant had not answered him when he inquired what was the matter with him and turned his face to the wall when he looked too curiously at him
but now the jailer might hear the noise and put an end to it and so destroy a ray of something like hope that soothed his last moments the jailer brought him his breakfast
dantes raised himself up and began to talk about everything about the bad quality of the food about the coldness of his dungeon grumbling and complaining in order to have an excuse for speaking louder
and wearying the patience of his jailer who out of kindness of heart had brought broth and white bread for his prisoner fortunately he fancied that dantes was delirious and placing the food on the rickety table he withdrew
suddenly another idea took possession of his mind so used to misfortune that it was scarcely capable of hope the idea that the noise was made by workmen the governor had ordered to repair the neighboring dungeon
it was easy to ascertain this but how could he risk the question it was easy to call his jailer's attention to the noise and watch his countenance as he listened
he turned his eyes towards the soup which the jailer had brought rose staggered towards it raised the vessel to his lips and drank off the contents with a feeling of indescribable pleasure
he had often heard that shipwrecked persons had died through having eagerly devoured too much food edmond replaced on the table the bread he was about to devour and returned to his couch he did not wish to die
he soon felt that his ideas became again collected he could think and strengthen his thoughts by reasoning then he said to himself i must put this to the test but without compromising anybody
if it is a workman i need but knock against the wall and he will cease to work in order to find out who is knocking and why he does so but as his occupation is sanctioned by the governor he will soon resume it
if on the contrary it is a prisoner the noise i make will alarm him he will cease and not begin again until he thinks every one is asleep edmond rose again but this time his legs did not tremble and his sight was clear
he went to a corner of his dungeon detached a stone and with it knocked against the wall where the sound came he struck thrice at the first blow the sound ceased as if by magic edmond listened intently an hour passed
two hours passed and no sound was heard from the wall all was silent there full of hope edmond swallowed a few mouthfuls of bread and water and thanks to the vigor of his constitution found himself well nigh recovered
the day passed away in utter silence night came without recurrence of the noise it is a prisoner said edmond joyfully the night passed in perfect silence edmond did not close his eyes
in the morning the jailer brought him fresh provisions he had already devoured those of the previous day he ate these listening anxiously for the sound walking round and round his cell
restoring vigor and agility to his limbs by exercise and so preparing himself for his future destiny at intervals he listened to learn if the noise had not begun again and grew impatient at the prudence of the prisoner
who did not guess he had been disturbed by a captive as anxious for liberty as himself three days passed seventy two long tedious hours which he counted off by minutes at length one evening
as the jailer was visiting him for the last time that night
he moved away walked up and down his cell to collect his thoughts and then went back and listened the matter was no longer doubtful something was at work on the other side of the wall
the prisoner had discovered the danger and had substituted a lever for a chisel encouraged by this discovery edmond determined to assist the indefatigable laborer
the window grating was of iron but he had too often assured himself of its solidity all his furniture consisted of a bed a chair a table a pail and a jug the bed had iron clamps but they were screwed to the wood
and it would have required a screw driver to take them off the table and chair had nothing the pail had once possessed a handle but that had been removed
he let the jug fall on the floor and it broke in pieces dantes concealed two or three of the sharpest fragments in his bed leaving the rest on the floor the breaking of his jug was too natural an accident to excite suspicion edmond had all the night to work in
but in the darkness he could not do much and he soon felt that he was working against something very hard he pushed back his bed and waited for day all night he heard the subterranean workman who continued to mine his way day came the jailer entered
dantes told him that the jug had fallen from his hands while he was drinking and the jailer went grumblingly to fetch another without giving himself the trouble to remove the fragments of the broken one he returned speedily advised the prisoner to be more careful and departed
dantes heard joyfully the key grate in the lock he listened until the sound of steps died away and then hastily displacing his bed saw by the faint light that penetrated into his cell
but at the end of half an hour he had scraped off a handful a mathematician might have calculated that in two years supposing that the rock was not encountered a passage twenty feet long and two feet broad might be formed
the prisoner reproached himself with not having thus employed the hours he had passed in vain hopes prayer and despondency during the six years that he had been imprisoned what might he not have accomplished
in three days he had succeeded with the utmost precaution in removing the cement and exposing the stone work the wall was built of rough stones among which to give strength to the structure blocks of hewn stone were at intervals imbedded
it was one of these he had uncovered and which he must remove from its socket dantes strove to do this with his nails but they were too weak the fragments of the jug broke and after an hour of useless toil he paused
was he to be thus stopped at the beginning and was he to wait inactive until his fellow workman had completed his task suddenly an idea occurred to him he smiled and the perspiration dried on his forehead
the jailer always brought dantes soup in an iron saucepan this saucepan contained soup for both prisoners
now when evening came dantes put his plate on the ground near the door the jailer as he entered stepped on it and broke it
he was wrong to leave it there but the jailer was wrong not to have looked before him the jailer therefore only grumbled then he looked about for something to pour the soup into dantes entire dinner service consisted of one plate there was no alternative
you can take it away when you bring me my breakfast this advice was to the jailer's taste as it spared him the necessity of making another trip he left the saucepan
he rapidly devoured his food and after waiting an hour lest the jailer should change his mind and return he removed his bed took the handle of the saucepan inserted the point between the hewn stone and rough stones of the wall and employed it as a lever
at the end of an hour the stone was extricated from the wall leaving a cavity a foot and a half in diameter
carried it into the corner of his cell and covered it with earth then wishing to make the best use of his time while he had the means of labor he continued to work without ceasing at the dawn of day he replaced the stone
pushed his bed against the wall and lay down the breakfast consisted of a piece of bread the jailer entered and placed the bread on the table well don't you intend to bring me another plate said dantes no replied the turnkey
you destroy everything first you break your jug then you make me break your plate if all the prisoners followed your example the government would be ruined i shall leave you the saucepan and pour your soup into that so for the future i hope you will not be so destructive
he felt more gratitude for the possession of this piece of iron than he had ever felt for anything he had noticed however that the prisoner on the other side had ceased to labor no matter this was a greater reason for proceeding
if his neighbor would not come to him he would go to his neighbor all day he toiled on untiringly and by the evening he had succeeded in extracting ten handfuls of plaster and fragments of stone
when the hour for his jailer's visit arrived dantes straightened the handle of the saucepan as well as he could and placed it in its accustomed place the turnkey poured his ration of soup into it together with the fish
he listened all was silent as it had been for the last three days dantes sighed it was evident that his neighbor distrusted him however he toiled on all the night without being discouraged
it was necessary therefore to dig above or under it the unhappy young man had not thought of this o my god my god murmured he i have so earnestly prayed to you that i hoped my prayers had been heard
after having deprived me of my liberty after having deprived me of death after having recalled me to existence my god have pity on me and do not let me die in despair
who talks of god and despair at the same time said a voice that seemed to come from beneath the earth
edmond's hair stood on end and he rose to his knees ah said he i hear a human voice edmond had not heard any one speak save his jailer for four or five years
and a jailer is no man to a prisoner he is a living door a barrier of flesh and blood adding strength to restraints of oak and iron
a frenchman your name
a sailor how long have you been here since the twenty eighth of february eighteen fifteen your crime i am innocent
of having conspired to aid the emperor's return
for the emperor's return the emperor is no longer on the throne then he abdicated at fontainebleau in eighteen fourteen and was sent to the island of elba but how long have you been here that you are ignorant of all this
since eighteen eleven dantes shuddered this man had been four years longer than himself in prison do not dig any more said the voice only tell me how high up is your excavation
on a level with the floor how is it concealed behind my bed has your bed been moved since you have been a prisoner no what does your chamber open on a corridor and the corridor on a court
alas murmured the voice oh what is the matter cried dantes i have made a mistake owing to an error in my plans i took the wrong angle and have come out fifteen feet from where i intended
i took the wall you are mining for the outer wall of the fortress but then you would be close to the sea that is what i hoped and supposing you had succeeded i should have thrown myself into the sea
heaven would have given me strength but now all is lost all yes stop up your excavation carefully do not work any more and wait until you hear from me tell me at least who you are i am
edmond fancied he heard a bitter laugh resounding from the depths
i swear to you by him who died for us that naught shall induce me to breathe one syllable to my jailers but i conjure you do not abandon me if you do i swear to you for i have got to the end of my strength
how old are you your voice is that of a young man
all i do know is that i was just nineteen when i was arrested the twenty eighth of february eighteen fifteen not quite twenty six murmured the voice at that age he cannot be a traitor
i swear to you again rather than betray you i would allow myself to be hacked in pieces
you of those whom you love and i of those whom i love you must love somebody no i am alone in the world then you will love me if you are young i will be your comrade if you are old i will be your son
i have a father who is seventy if he yet lives i only love him and a young girl called mercedes my father has not yet forgotten me i am sure but god alone knows if she loves me still i shall love you as i loved my father
it is well returned the voice to morrow
and captivity that is shared is but half captivity plaints made in common are almost prayers and prayers where two or three are gathered together invoke the mercy of heaven
when the jailer moved his bed and stooped to examine the opening he would kill him with his water jug he would be condemned to die but he was about to die of grief and despair when this miraculous noise recalled him to life the jailer came in the evening
dantes was on his bed it seemed to him that thus he better guarded the unfinished opening doubtless there was a strange expression in his eyes for the jailer said come are you going mad again dantes did not answer
he feared that the emotion of his voice would betray him the jailer went away shaking his head night came dantes hoped that his neighbor would profit by the silence to address him but he was mistaken the next morning however
just as he removed his bed from the wall he heard three knocks he threw himself on his knees is it you said he i am here is your jailer gone
yes said dantes he will not return until the evening so that we have twelve hours before us i can work then said the voice oh yes yes this instant i entreat you in a moment that part of the floor on which dantes was resting his two hands
as he knelt with his head in the opening suddenly gave way he drew back smartly while a mass of stones and earth disappeared in a hole that opened beneath the aperture he himself had formed
we shall have to eat red meat now the donjon inn was of no imposing appearance but i like these buildings with their rafters blackened with age and the smoke of their hearths these inns of the coaching days crumbling erections that will soon exist in the memory only
they belong to the bygone days they are linked with history they make us think of the road of those days when highwaymen rode i saw at once that the donjon inn was at least two centuries old perhaps older
under its sign board over the threshold a man with a crabbed looking face was standing seemingly plunged in unpleasant thought if the wrinkles on his forehead and the knitting of his brows were any indication
as we expressed a hope that he would be good enough to furnish us with a breakfast he assured us that he had no provisions regarding us as he said this with a look that was unmistakably suspicious
we are not policemen i'm not afraid of the police i'm not afraid of anyone replied the man i had made my friend understand by a sign that we should do better not to insist but being determined to enter the inn
he slipped by the man on the doorstep and was in the common room come on he said it is very comfortable here a good fire was blazing in the chimney and we held our hands to the warmth it sent out
it was a morning in which the approach of winter was unmistakable the room was a tolerably large one furnished with two heavy tables some stools a counter decorated with rows of bottles of syrup and alcohol
three windows looked out on to the road a coloured advertisement lauded the many merits of a new vermouth on the mantelpiece was arrayed the innkeeper's collection of figured earthenware pots and stone jugs
that's a fine fire for roasting a chicken said rouletabille we have no chicken not even a wretched rabbit said the landlord i know said my friend slowly i know
we shall have to eat red meat now i confess i did not in the least understand what rouletabille meant by what he had said but the landlord as soon as he heard the words uttered an oath
which he at once stifled and placed himself at our orders as obediently as monsieur robert darzac had done
the presbytery has lost nothing of its charm nor the garden its brightness certainly my friend knew how to make people understand him by the use of wholly incomprehensible phrases i observed as much to him
but he merely smiled i should have proposed that he give me some explanation but he put a finger to his lips which evidently signified that he had not only determined not to speak but also enjoined silence on my part
meantime the man had pushed open a little side door and called to somebody to bring him half a dozen eggs and a piece of beefsteak the commission was quickly executed by a strongly built young woman with beautiful blonde hair and large handsome eyes
who regarded us with curiosity the innkeeper said to her roughly get out and if the green man comes don't let me see him she disappeared
and the meat which was on a dish placed all carefully beside him in the chimney unhooked a frying pan and a gridiron and began to beat up our omelette before proceeding to grill our beefsteak he then ordered two bottles of cider
and seemed to take as little notice of our host as our host did of him the landlord let us do our own cooking and set our table near one of the windows suddenly i heard him mutter ah there he is
his face had changed expressing fierce hatred he went and glued himself to one of the windows watching the road
he had already left our omelette and had joined the landlord at the window i went with him a man dressed entirely in green velvet his head covered with a huntsman's cap of the same colour was advancing leisurely lighting a pipe as he walked
he carried a fowling piece slung at his back his movements displayed an almost aristocratic ease he wore eye glasses and appeared to be about five and forty years of age his hair as well as his moustache were salt grey
he was remarkably handsome as he passed near the inn he hesitated as if asking himself whether or no he should enter it gave a glance towards us took a few whiffs at his pipe and then resumed his walk at the same nonchalant pace
the green man growled the innkeeper don't you know him then all the better for you he is not an acquaintance to make well he is monsieur stangerson's forest keeper
asked the reporter pouring his omelette into the frying pan nobody likes him monsieur he's an upstart who must once have had a fortune of his own and he forgives nobody because in order to live he has been compelled to become a servant
a keeper is as much a servant as any other isn't he upon my word
and that all the land and woods belong to him he'll not let a poor creature eat a morsel of bread on the grass his grass does he often come here too often but i've made him understand that his face doesn't please me
and for a month past he hasn't been here the donjon inn has never existed for him he hasn't had time
why the concierges of the chateau would turn their eyes away from a picture of him the concierges of the chateau are honest people then yes they are as true as my name's mathieu monsieur i believe them to be honest yet they've been arrested what does that prove
and what do you think of the murder of the murder of poor mademoiselle stangerson a good girl much loved everywhere in the country that's what i think of it and many things besides but that's nobody's business not even mine
the innkeeper looked at him sideways and said gruffly not even yours the omelette ready we sat down at table and were silently eating when the door was pushed open and an old woman dressed in rags leaning on a stick
her head doddering her white hair hanging loosely over her wrinkled forehead appeared on the threshold ah there you are mother angenoux it's long since we saw you last said our host
very ill very nearly dying said the old woman
and she entered followed by a cat larger than any i had ever believed could exist the beast looked at us
i had never heard so lugubrious a cry as if drawn by the cat's cry a man followed the old woman in it was the green man he saluted by raising his hand to his cap and seated himself at a table near to ours
a glass of cider daddy mathieu he said as the green man entered daddy mathieu had started violently but visibly mastering himself he said i've no more cider i served the last bottles to these gentlemen
then give me a glass of white wine said the green man without showing the least surprise i've no more white wine no more anything said daddy mathieu surlily how is madame mathieu quite well thank you
so the young woman with the large tender eyes whom we had just seen was the wife of this repugnant and brutal rustic whose jealousy seemed to emphasise his physical ugliness slamming the door behind him the innkeeper left the room
the cat at her feet you've been ill mother angenoux is that why we have not seen you for the last week asked the green man
i have been able to get up but three times
our good patroness and the rest of the time i have been lying on my bed there was no one to care for me but the bete du bon dieu did she not leave you neither by day nor by night
are you sure of that as i am of paradise then how was it madame angenoux that all through the night of the murder nothing but the cry of the bete du bon dieu was heard
i don't know anything about it she said but shall i tell you something there are no two cats in the world that cry like that well on the night of the murder i also heard the cry of the bete du bon dieu outside
and yet she was on my knees and did not mew once i swear i crossed myself when i heard that as if i had heard the devil i looked at the keeper when he put the last question
and i am much mistaken if i did not detect an evil smile on his lips at that moment the noise of loud quarrelling reached us we even thought we heard a dull sound of blows as if some one was being beaten
the green man quickly rose and hurried to the door by the side of the fireplace but it was opened by the landlord who appeared and said to the keeper don't alarm yourself monsieur it is my wife she has the toothache and he laughed
he held out a packet to the old woman who took it eagerly and went out by the door closely followed by her cat then you won't serve me asked the green man daddy mathieu's face was placid and no longer retained its expression of hatred
i've nothing for you nothing for you take yourself off the green man quietly refilled his pipe lit it bowed to us and went out
no sooner was he over the threshold than daddy mathieu slammed the door after him and turning towards us with eyes bloodshot and frothing at the mouth he hissed to us shaking his clenched fist at the door he had just shut on the man he evidently hated
i don't know who you are who tell me we shall have to eat red meat now but if it will interest you to know it that man is the murderer with which words daddy mathieu immediately left us
rouletabille returned towards the fireplace and said now we'll grill our steak
we saw no more of daddy mathieu that day and absolute silence reigned in the inn when we left it after placing five francs on the table in payment for our feast
rouletabille at once set off on a three mile walk round professor stangerson's estate he halted for some ten minutes at the corner of a narrow road black with soot
which touches on the road from epinay to corbeil to tell me that the murderer had certainly passed that way before entering the grounds and concealing himself in the little clump of trees you don't think then that the keeper knows anything of it i asked
we shall see that later he replied for the present i'm not interested in what the landlord said about the man the landlord hates him i didn't take you to breakfast at the donjon inn for the sake of the green man
followed by me towards the little building which standing near the park gate
who had been arrested that morning with the skill of an acrobat he got into the lodge by an upper window which had been left open and returned ten minutes later he said only ah a word which in his mouth
signified many things we were about to take the road leading to the chateau when a considerable stir at the park gate attracted our attention
and whether he is so much cleverer than anybody else
who were also desirous of entering the park but two gendarmes stationed at the gate had evidently received orders to refuse admission to anybody
the three of us went back towards the pavilion at some distance from the building the reporter made us stop and pointing to a small clump of trees to the right of us said that's where the murderer came from to get into the pavilion
as there were other patches of trees of the same sort between the great oaks i asked why the murderer had chosen that one rather than any of the others
that path is as you see topped with gravel he said the man must have passed along it going to the pavilion since no traces of his steps have been found on the soft ground the man didn't have wings he walked
but he walked on the gravel which left no impression of his tread the gravel has in fact been trodden by many other feet since the path is the most direct way between the pavilion and the chateau as to the thicket
and then daddy jacques leave the pavilion gravel has been spread nearly very nearly up to the windows of the pavilion the footprints of a man parallel with the wall marks which we will examine presently and which i have already seen
prove that he only needed to make one stride to find himself in front of the vestibule window left open by daddy jacques the man drew himself up by his hands and entered the vestibule after all it is very possible
i said after all what after all what cried rouletabille i begged of him not to be angry but he was too much irritated to listen to me and declared ironically
that he admired the prudent doubt with which certain people approached the most simple problems risking nothing by saying that is so or that is not so
their intelligence would have produced about the same result if nature had forgotten to furnish their brain pan with a little grey matter as i appeared vexed my young friend took me by the arm and admitted that he had not meant that for me he thought more of me than that
if i did not reason as i do in regard to this gravel he went on i should have to assume a balloon my dear fellow the science of the aerostation of dirigible balloons is not yet developed enough for me to consider it
and suppose that a murderer would drop from the clouds so don't say a thing is possible when it could not be otherwise we know now how the man entered by the window and we also know the moment at which he entered
during the five o'clock walk of the professor and his daughter the fact of the presence of the chambermaid who had come to clean up the yellow room in the laboratory when monsieur stangerson and his daughter returned from their walk at half past one
permits us to affirm that at half past one the murderer was not in the chamber under the bed unless he was in collusion with the chambermaid what do you say monsieur darzac monsieur darzac shook his head
and said he was sure of the chambermaid's fidelity and that she was a thoroughly honest and devoted servant besides he added at five o'clock monsieur stangerson went into the room to fetch his daughter's hat there is that also said rouletabille
that the man entered by the window at the time you say i admit i said but why did he shut the window it was an act which would necessarily draw the attention of those who had left it open it may be the window was not shut at once replied the young reporter
but if he did shut the window it was because of the bend in the gravel path a dozen yards from the pavilion and on account of the three oaks that are growing at that spot what do you mean by that
but i don't think i have anything of more importance to say on this affair if my hypothesis is justified and what is your hypothesis you will never know if it does not turn out to be the truth
it is of much too grave a nature to speak of it so long as it continues to be only a hypothesis have you at least some idea as to who the murderer is no monsieur i don't know who the murderer is
i shall know i could not but observe that monsieur darzac was deeply moved
why i asked myself if he was really afraid that the murderer should be discovered was he helping the reporter to find him my young friend seemed to have received the same impression for he said bluntly monsieur darzac
don't you want me to find out who the murderer was oh i should like to kill him with my own hand cried mademoiselle stangerson's fiance with a vehemence that amazed me i believe you said rouletabille gravely
but you have not answered my question we were passing by the thicket of which the young reporter had spoken to us a minute before i entered it and pointed out evident traces of a man who had been hidden there
was right yes yes he said we have to do with a thing of flesh and blood who uses the same means that we do it'll all come out on those lines having said this he asked me for the paper pattern of the footprint which he had given me to take care of
and applied it to a very clear footmark behind the thicket aha he said rising i thought he was now going to trace back the track of the murderer's footmarks to the vestibule window but he led us instead far to the left saying that it was useless ferreting in the mud
and that he was sure now of the road taken by the murderer he went along the wall to the hedge and dry ditch over which he jumped see just in front of the little path leading to the lake that was his nearest way to get out how do you know he went to the lake
because frederic larsan has not quitted the borders of it since this morning there must be some important marks there a few minutes later we reached the lake it was a little sheet of marshy water surrounded by reeds
on which floated some dead water lily leaves the great fred may have seen us approaching but we probably interested him very little for he took hardly any notice of us and continued to be stirring with his cane something which we could not see look
said rouletabille here again are the footmarks of the escaping man they skirt the lake here and finally disappear just before this path which leads to the high road to epinay the man continued his flight to paris
what makes you think that i asked since these footmarks are not continued on the path what makes me think that why these footprints which i expected to find he cried pointing to the sharply outlined imprint of a neat boot see
and he called to frederic larsan monsieur fred these neat footprints seem to have been made since the discovery of the crime yes young man yes they have been carefully made replied fred without raising his head
you see there are steps that come and steps that go back and the man had a bicycle cried the reporter here after looking at the marks of the bicycle which followed going and coming the neat footprints i thought i might intervene
the bicycle explains the disappearance of the murderer's big foot prints i said the murderer with his rough boots mounted a bicycle his accomplice the wearer of the neat boots had come to wait for him on the edge of the lake with the bicycle
it might be supposed that the murderer was working for the other no no replied rouletabille with a strange smile i have expected to find these footmarks from the very beginning these are not the footmarks of the murderer then there were two
no there was but one and he had no accomplice very good very good cried frederic larsan look continued the young reporter showing us the ground where it had been disturbed by big and heavy heels
the man seated himself there and took off his hobnailed boots which he had worn only for the purpose of misleading detection and then no doubt taking them away with him he stood up in his own boots and quietly and slowly regained the high road
holding his bicycle in his hand for he could not venture to ride it on this rough path that accounts for the lightness of the impression made by the wheels along it in spite of the softness of the ground if there had been a man on the bicycle
no no there was but one man there the murderer on foot bravo bravo cried fred again and coming suddenly towards us and planting himself in front of monsieur robert darzac he said to him
if we had a bicycle here we might demonstrate the correctness of the young man's reasoning monsieur robert darzac
no replied monsieur darzac there is not i took mine four days ago to paris the last time i came to the chateau before the crime that's a pity replied fred very coldly
if we go on at this rate we'll both come to the same conclusion have you any idea as to how the murderer got away from the yellow room yes said my young friend i have an idea
and it must be the same as yours there are no two ways of reasoning in this affair
yes this afternoon he is going to summon before the magistrate in the laboratory all those who have played any part in this tragedy it will be very interesting it is a pity you won't be able to be present i shall be present
said rouletabille confidently really you are an extraordinary fellow for your age replied the detective in a tone not wholly free from irony you'd make a wonderful detective
if you had a little more method if you didn't follow your instincts and that bump on your forehead
what do you say to the handkerchief full of blood and the red mark of the hand on the wall you have seen the stain on the wall but i have only seen the handkerchief bah cried rouletabille the murderer was wounded in the hand by mademoiselle stangerson's revolver ah
a simply instinctive observation take care
if you use it indiscriminately you are right when you say that mademoiselle stangerson fired her revolver but you are wrong when you say that she wounded the murderer in the hand i am sure of it
fred imperturbable interrupted him defective observation defective observation the examination of the handkerchief the numberless little round scarlet stains the impression of drops which i found in the tracks of the footprints at the moment when they were made on the floor
prove to me that the murderer was not wounded at all
the great fred spoke quite seriously however i could not refrain from uttering an exclamation the reporter looked gravely at fred who looked gravely at him and fred immediately concluded
the man allowed the blood to flow into his hand and handkerchief and dried his hand on the wall the fact is highly important he added because there is no need of his being wounded in the hand for him to be the murderer
after a moment he said there is something a something
in perfect good faith twist logic to the necessities of their preconceived ideas you already have your idea about the murderer monsieur fred don't deny it and your theory demands that the murderer should not have been wounded in the hand
otherwise it comes to nothing and you have searched
it's dangerous very dangerous monsieur fred to go from a preconceived idea to find the proofs to fit it that method may lead you far astray beware of judicial error monsieur fred it will trip you up
and laughing a little in a slightly bantering tone his hands in his pockets
frederic larsan silently contemplated the young reporter who pretended to be as wise as himself shrugging his shoulders he bowed to us and moved quickly away hitting the stones on his path with his stout cane
rouletabille watched his retreat and then turned toward us his face joyous and triumphant i shall beat him he cried i shall beat the great fred clever as he is i shall beat them all and he danced a double shuffle suddenly he stopped
my eyes followed his gaze they were fixed on monsieur robert darzac who was looking anxiously at the impression left by his feet side by side with the elegant footmarks there was not a particle of difference between them we thought he was about to faint
and now despairing face at length regaining his self possession he bowed to us and remarking in a changed voice that he was obliged to return to the chateau
he also appeared to be deeply concerned from his pocket book he took a piece of white paper as i had seen him do before and with his scissors cut out the shape of the neat bootmarks that were on the ground
then he fitted the new paper pattern with the one he had previously made the two were exactly alike
the deuce presently he added yet i believe monsieur robert darzac to be an honest man he then led me on the road to the donjon inn which we could see on the highway
then wheel my horse against the foe he's down and overpast my lord ye war against the sunset glow the darkness gathers fast my lord the fight of heriot's ford
this is a cheerful life said dick some days later torp's away bessie hates me i can't get at the notion of the melancolia maisie's letters are scrappy and i believe i have indigestion
what give a man pains across the head and spots before his eyes binkie shall us take some liver pills dick had just gone through a lively scene with bessie she had for the fiftieth time reproached him for sending torpenhow away
she explained her enduring hatred for dick and made it clear to him that she only sat for the sake of his money and mister torpenhow's ten times a better man than you she concluded he is
i should have stayed and made love to you the girl sat with her chin on her hand scowling
i'd like to catch you if i wasn't afraid o being hung i'd kill you that's what i'd do d'you believe me dick smiled wearily it is not pleasant to live in the company of a notion that will not work out a fox terrier that cannot talk
and a woman who talks too much he would have answered but at that moment there unrolled itself from one corner of the studio a veil as it were of the flimsiest gauze he rubbed his eyes but the gray haze would not go
binkie we will go to a medicine man we can't have our eyes interfered with for by these we get our bread also mutton chop bones for little dogs the doctor was an affable local practitioner with white hair
and he said nothing till dick began to describe the gray film in the studio we all want a little patching and repairing from time to time he chirped like a ship my dear sir exactly like a ship sometimes the hull is out of order
and we consult the surgeon sometimes the rigging and then i advise sometimes the engines and we go to the brain specialist sometimes the look out on the bridge is tired and then we see an oculist
a little patching and repairing from time to time is all we want an oculist by all means dick sought an oculist the best in london he was certain that the local practitioner did not know anything about his trade
and more certain that maisie would laugh at him if he were forced to wear spectacles i've neglected the warnings of my lord the stomach too long hence these spots before the eyes binkie i can see as well as i ever could
as he entered the dark hall that led to the consulting room a man cannoned against him dick saw the face as it hurried out into the street that's the writer type he has the same modelling of the forehead as torp he looks very sick
probably heard something he didn't like even as he thought a great fear came upon dick a fear that made him hold his breath as he walked into the oculist's waiting room with the heavy carved furniture the dark green paper and the sober hued prints on the wall
he recognised a reproduction of one of his own sketches many people were waiting their turn before him his eye was caught by a flaming red and gold christmas carol book little children came to that eye doctor and they needed large type amusement
that's idolatrous bad art he said drawing the book towards himself from the anatomy of the angels it has been made in germany he opened in mechanically and there leaped to his eyes a verse printed in red ink
the next good joy that mary had it was the joy of three to see her good son jesus christ making the blind to see making the blind to see good lord and happy we may be
praise father son and holy ghost to all eternity dick read and re read the verse till his turn came and the doctor was bending above him seated in an arm chair the blaze of the gas microscope in his eyes made him wince
the doctor's hand touched the scar of the sword cut on dick's head and dick explained briefly how he had come by it when the flame was removed dick saw the doctor's face and the fear came upon him again the doctor wrapped himself in a mist of words
frontal bone optic nerve extreme caution and the avoidance of mental anxiety verdict he said faintly my business is painting and i daren't waste time what do you make of it
again the whirl of words but this time they conveyed a meaning can you give me anything to drink many sentences were pronounced in that darkened room and the prisoners often needed cheering
dick found a glass of liqueur brandy in his hand as far as i can gather he said coughing above the spirit
or something and therefore hopeless what is my time limit avoiding all strain and worry perhaps one year
i really could not say one cannot ascertain the exact amount of injury inflicted by the sword cut the scar is an old one and exposure to the strong light of the desert did you say with excessive application to fine work
i really could not say i beg your pardon but it has come without any warning if you will let me i'll sit here for a minute and then i'll go
without any warning without any warning thanks dick went into the street and was rapturously received by binkie we've got it very badly little dog just as badly as we can get it
we'll go to the park to think it out they headed for a certain tree that dick knew well and they sat down to thin because his legs were trembling under him and there was cold fear at the pit of his stomach
it's as sudden as being shot it's the living death binkie we're to be shut up in the dark in one year if we're careful
not though we live to be a hundred binkie wagged his tail joyously binkie we must think let's see how it feels to be blind dick shut his eyes and flaming commas and catherine wheels floated inside the lids
yet when he looked across the park the scope of his vision was not contracted he could see perfectly until a procession of slow wheeling fireworks defiled across his eyeballs little dorglums we aren't at all well let's go home
if only torp were back now but torpenhow was in the south of england
his letters were brief and full of mystery dick had never asked anybody to help him in his joys or his sorrows he argued in the loneliness of his studio
that if his fate were blindness all the torpenhows in the world could not save him i can't call him off his trip to sit down and sympathise with me i must pull through this business alone he said he was lying on the sofa
eating his moustache and wondering what the darkness of the night would be like
a soldier had been nearly hacked in two by a broad bladed arab spear for one instant the man felt no pain looking down he saw that his life blood was going from him the stupid bewilderment on his face was so intensely comic
that both dick and torpenhow still panting and unstrung from a fight for life had roared with laughter in which the man seemed as if he would join but as his lips parted in a sheepish grin the agony of death came upon him
and he pitched grunting at their feet dick laughed again remembering the horror it seemed so exactly like his own case but i have a little more time allowed me he said he paced up and down the room quietly at first but afterwards
with the hurried feet of fear it was as though a black shadow stood at his elbow and urged him to go forward and there were only weaving circles and floating pin dots before his eyes we need to be calm binkie we must be calm
he talked aloud for the sake of distraction this isn't nice at all what shall we do we must do something our time is short i shouldn't have believed that this morning but now things are different binkie where was moses when the light went out
binkie smiled from ear to ear as a well bred terrier should but made no suggestion were there but world enough and time this coyness binkie were not crime but at my back i always hear he wiped his forehead
which was unpleasantly damp what can i do what can i do i haven't any notions left and i can't think connectedly but i must do something or i shall go off my head the hurried walk recommenced
dick stopping every now and again to drag forth long neglected canvases and old note books for he turned to his work by instinct as a thing that could not fail you won't do and you won't do he said at each inspection no more soldiers
i couldn't paint em sudden death comes home too nearly and this is battle and murder for me the day was failing and dick thought for a moment that the twilight of the blind had come upon him unaware allah almighty he cried despairingly
and i won't whine when my punishment comes what can i do now before the light goes there was no answer dick waited till he could regain some sort of control over himself his hands were shaking and he prided himself on their steadiness
he could feel that his lips were quivering and the sweat was running down his face he was lashed by fear driven forward by the desire to get to work at once and accomplish something
and maddened by the refusal of his brain to do more than repeat the news that he was about to go blind it's a humiliating exhibition he thought and i'm glad torp isn't here to see the doctor said i was to avoid mental worry
the little dog yelped because dick nearly squeezed the bark out of him then he heard the man speaking in the twilight and doglike understood that his trouble stood off from him
not quite so gentle as we could wish but we'll discuss that later
all those studies of bessie's head were nonsense and they nearly brought your master into a scrape i hold the notion now as clear as crystal the melancolia that transcends all wit there shall be maisie in that head because i shall never get maisie
and bess of course because she knows all about melancolia though she doesn't know she knows
that's for myself shall she giggle or grin
understand the speech and feel a stir of fellowship in all disastrous fight in all disastrous fight that's better than painting the thing merely to pique maisie i can do it now because i have it inside me
binkie i'm going to hold you up by your tail you're an omen come here binkie swung head downward for a moment without speaking rather like holding a guinea pig but you're a brave little dog and you don't yelp when you're hung up it is an omen
binkie went to his own chair and as often as he looked saw dick walking up and down rubbing his hands and chuckling that night dick wrote a letter to maisie full of the tenderest regard for her health but saying very little about his own
and dreamed of the melancolia to be born not till morning did he remember that something might happen to him in the future he fell to work whistling softly and was swallowed up in the clean clear joy of creation which does not come to man too often
lest he should consider himself the equal of his god and so refuse to die at the appointed time he forgot maisie torpenhow and binkie at his feet but remembered to stir bessie who needed very little stirring
into a tremendous rage that he might watch the smouldering lights in her eyes he threw himself without reservation into his work and did not think of the doom that was to overtake him for he was possessed with his notion and the things of this world had no power upon him
you're pleased to day said bessie dick waved his mahl stick in mystic circles and went to the sideboard for a drink in the evening when the exaltation of the day had died down he went to the sideboard again and after some visits became convinced
since he could still see everything very clearly
and that whether she liked it or not she should be his wife the mood passed next morning but the sideboard and all upon it remained for his comfort again he set to work and his eyes troubled him with spots and dashes and blurs
and the melancolia both on the canvas and in his own mind appeared lovelier than ever there was a delightful sense of irresponsibility upon him such as they feel who walking among their fellow men
and seeing that fear is but waste of the little time left are riotously happy the days passed without event bessie arrived punctually always and though her voice seemed to dick to come from a distance
her face was always very near the melancolia began to flame on the canvas in the likeness of a woman who had known all the sorrow in the world and was laughing at it it was true that the corners of the studio draped themselves in gray film
and retired into the darkness that the spots in his eyes and the pains across his head were very troublesome
and he could not laugh at her accounts of her own melancolia which was always going to be finished but the furious days of toil and the nights of wild dreams made amends for all and the sideboard was his best friend on earth bessie was singularly dull
she used to shriek with rage when dick stared at her between half closed eyes now she sulked or watched him with disgust saying very little torpenhow had been absent for six weeks an incoherent note heralded his return news
great news he wrote the nilghai knows and so does the keneu we're all back on thursday get lunch and clean your accoutrements dick showed bessie the letter and she abused him for that he had ever sent torpenhow away and ruined her life
well said dick brutally you're better as you are instead of making love to some drunken beast in the street he felt that he had rescued torpenhow from great temptation
mean you'll see when mister torpenhow comes back it was not long to wait torpenhow met bessie on the staircase without a sign of feeling he had news that was more to him than many bessies and the keneu and the nilghai were trampling behind him calling for dick
drinking like a fish bessie whispered he's been at it for nearly a month she followed the men stealthily to hear judgment done they came into the studio rejoicing to be welcomed over effusively by a drawn lined shrunken
haggard wreck unshaven blue white about the nostrils stooping in the shoulders and peering under his eyebrows nervously the drink had been at work as steadily as dick is this you said torpenhow
all that's left of me sit down binkie's quite well and i've been doing some good work he reeled where he stood you've done some of the worst work you've ever done in your life man alive you're torpenhow turned to his companions appealingly
and they left the room to find lunch elsewhere then he spoke but since the reproof of a friend is much too sacred and intimate a thing to be printed and since torpenhow used figures and metaphors which were unseemly and contempt untranslatable
it will never be known what was actually said to dick who blinked and winked and picked at his hands after a time the culprit began to feel the need of a little self respect he was quite sure that he had not in any way departed from virtue
of which torpenhow knew nothing he would explain he rose tried to straighten his shoulders and spoke to the face he could hardly see you are right he said but i am right too
after you went away i had some trouble with my eyes so i went to an oculist and he turned a gasogene i mean a gas engine into my eye that was very long ago he said scar on the head
sword cut and optic nerve make a note of that so i am going blind i have some work to do before i go blind and i suppose that i must do it i cannot see much now but i can see best when i am drunk
i did not know i was drunk till i was told but i must go on with my work if you want to see it there it is
and looked for applause torpenhow said nothing and dick began to whimper feebly for joy at seeing torpenhow again for grief at misdeeds if indeed they were misdeeds
that made torpenhow remote and unsympathetic and for childish vanity hurt since torpenhow had not given a word of praise to his wonderful picture bessie looked through the keyhole after a long pause and saw the two walking up and down as usual
torpenhow's hand on dick's shoulder hereat she said something so improper that it shocked even binkie
chapter twenty three knight errantry i must mention that my father never objected now to my riding his little mare missy as we called her indeed i had great liberty with regard to her
and took her out for a trot and a gallop as often as i pleased sometimes when there was a press of work she would have to go in a cart or drag a harrow for she was so handy they could do anything with her but this did not happen often
and her condition at all seasons of the year testified that she knew little of hard work my father was very fond of her and used to tell wonderful stories of her judgment and skill i believe he was never quite without a hope
that somehow or other he should find her again in the next world at all events i am certain that it was hard for him to believe that so much wise affection should have been created to be again uncreated
i cannot say that i ever heard him give utterance to anything of the sort but whence else should i have had such a firm conviction dating from a period farther back than my memory can reach that whatever might become of the other horses
missy was sure to go to heaven i had a kind of notion that being the bearer of my father upon all his missions of doctrine and mercy she belonged to the clergy and sharing in their privileges must have a chance before other animals of her kind
i believe this was a right instinct glad of a foolish reason i am wiser now and extend the hope to the rest of the horses for i cannot believe that the god who does nothing in vain ever creates in order to destroy
i made haste to learn my lessons for the monday although it was but after a fashion my mind was so full of the adventure before me as soon as prayers and supper were over that is about ten o'clock
i crept out of the house and away to the stable it was a lovely night a kind of grey peace filled earth and air and sky it was not dark although rather cloudy
only a dim dusk like a vapour of darkness floated around everything i was fond of being out at night but i had never before contemplated going so far alone i should not however feel alone with missy under me
for she and i were on the best of terms although sometimes she would take a fit of obstinacy and refuse to go in any other than the direction she pleased of late however she had asserted herself less frequently in this manner
i suppose she was aware that i grew stronger and more determined i soon managed to open the door of the stable for i knew where the key lay it was very dark but i felt my way through talking all the time
that the horses might not be startled if i came upon one of them unexpectedly for the stable was narrow and they sometimes lay a good bit out of their stalls i took care however to speak in a low tone
that the man who slept with only a wooden partition between him and the stable might not hear i soon had the bridle upon missy but would not lose time in putting on the saddle i led her out got on her back with the help of a stone
at the stable door and rode away she had scarcely been out all day and was rather in the mood for a ride the voice of andrew whom the noise of her feet had aroused came after me calling to know who it was
i called out in reply for i feared he might rouse the place and he went back composed if not contented it was no use at all events to follow me i had not gone far before the extreme stillness of the night began to sink into my soul
and make me quiet everything seemed thinking about me but nothing would tell me what it thought not feeling however that i was doing wrong i was only awed not frightened by the stillness i made missy slacken her speed
and rode on more gently in better harmony with the night not a sound broke the silence except the rough cry of the land rail from the fields and the clatter of missy's feet i did not like the noise she made and got upon the grass
for here there was no fence but the moment she felt the soft grass off she went at a sudden gallop her head was out before i had the least warning of her intention she tore away over the field
in quite another direction from that in which i had been taking her and the gallop quickened until she was going at her utmost speed the rapidity of the motion and the darkness together for it seemed darkness now
i confess made me frightened i pulled hard at the reins but without avail in a minute i had lost my reckoning and could not tell where i was in the field which was a pretty large one but soon finding that we were galloping down a hill
so steep that i had trouble in retaining my seat i began not at all to my comfort to surmise in what direction the mare was carrying me we were approaching the place where we had sat that same afternoon
close by the mound with the trees upon it the scene of my adventure with wandering willie and of the fancied murder i had scarcely thought of either until the shadows had begun to fall long and now in the night when all was shadow
both reflections made it horrible besides if missy should get into the bog but she knew better than that wild as her mood was she avoided it and galloped past but bore me to a far more frightful goal
suddenly dropping into a canter and then standing stock still it was a cottage half in ruins occupied by an old woman whom i dimly recollected having once gone with my father to see a good many years ago
as it appeared to me now she was still alive however very old and bedridden i recollected that from the top of her wooden bed hung a rope for her to pull herself up by when she wanted to turn for she was very rheumatic
and this rope for some cause or other had filled me with horror but there was more of the same sort the cottage had once been a smithy and the bellows had been left in its place
now there is nothing particularly frightful about a pair of bellows however large it may be and yet the recollection of that huge structure of leather and wood with the great iron nose projecting from the contracting cheeks of it
at the head of the old woman's bed so capable yet so useless did return upon me with terror in the dusk of that lonely night it was mingled with a vague suspicion that the old woman was a bit of a witch
and a very doubtful memory that she had been seen on one occasion by some night farer when a frightful storm was raging blowing away at that very bellows as hard as her skinny arms and lean body could work the lever
so that there was almost as great a storm of wind in her little room as there was outside of it if there was any truth in the story it is easily accounted for by the fact that the poor old woman had been a little out of her mind for many years
and no wonder for she was nearly a hundred they said neither is it any wonder that when missy stopped almost suddenly with her fore feet and her neck stretched forward and her nose pointed straight for the door of the cottage at a few yards distance
i should have felt very queer indeed whether my hair stood on end or not i do not know but i certainly did feel my skin creep all over me an ancient elder tree grew at one end of the cottage
and i heard the lonely sigh of a little breeze wander through its branches the next instant a frightful sound from within the cottage broke the night air into what seemed a universal shriek missy gave a plunge
turned round on her hind legs and tore from the place i very nearly lost my seat but terror made me cling the faster to my only companion
she flew home it did not take her a minute to reach the stable door there she had to stop for i had shut it when i brought her out it was mortifying to find myself there instead of under john adam's hayloft
the rescuer of jamie duff but i did not think of that for a while shaken with terror and afraid to dismount and be next the ground i called upon andrew as well as my fear would permit but my voice was nearly unmanageable
and i could do little more than howl with it in a few minutes to me a time of awful duration for who could tell what might be following me up from the hollow andrew appeared half dressed and not in the best of tempers
remarking it was an odd thing to go out riding when honest people were in their beds except he added i meant to take to the highway thereupon rendered more communicative by the trial i had gone through i told him the whole story
what i had intended and how i had been frustrated he listened scratched his head and saying someone ought to see if anything was the matter with the old woman turned in to put on the rest of his clothes
you had better go home to bed ranald he said won't you be frightened andrew i asked frightened what should i be frightened at it's all waste to be frightened before you know whether the thing is worth it
my courage had been reviving fast in the warm presence of a human being i was still seated on missy to go home having done nothing for jamie and therefore nothing for elsie
after all my grand ideas of rescue and restoration was too mortifying i should feel so small when i woke in the morning
till andrew came out again and as i sat still on the mare's back my courage gradually rose nothing increases terror so much as running away when he reappeared i asked him what do you think it could be andrew
how should i tell returned andrew the old woman has a very queer cock i know that always roosts on the top of her bed and crows like no cock i ever heard crow or it might be wandering willie
he goes to see her sometimes and the demented creature might strike up his pipes at any unearthly hour i was not satisfied with either suggestion but the sound i had heard had already grown so indistinct in my memory
that for anything i could tell it might have been either the terror which it woke in my mind had rendered me incapable of making any observations or setting down any facts with regard to it
i could only remember that i had heard a frightful noise but as to what it was like i could scarcely bear the smallest testimony i begged andrew to put the saddle on for me as i should then have more command of missy
he went and got it appearing i thought not at all over anxious about old betty and i meantime buckled on an old rusty spur which lay in the stable window the leathers of it crumbling off in flakes
thus armed and mounted with my feet in the stirrups and therefore a good pull on missy's mouth
chapter twenty nine a double exposure whether the kelpie had recognized us i could not tell but not much of the next morning passed before my doubt was over when she had set our porridge on the table
she stood up and with her fists in her sides addressed my father i'm very sorry sir to have to make complaints it's a thing i don't like and i'm not given to i'm sure i try to do my duty by master ranald
as well as everyone else in this house i felt a little confused for i now saw clearly enough that my father could not approve of our proceedings i whispered to allister run and fetch turkey tell him to come directly
allister always did whatever i asked him he set off at once the kelpie looked suspicious as he left the room but she had no pretext for interference i allowed her to tell her tale without interruption
after relating exactly how we had served her the night before when she had gone on a visit of mercy as she represented it she accused me of all my former tricks that of the cat having i presume enlightened her as to the others
and ended by saying that if she were not protected against me and turkey she must leave the place let her go father i said none of us like her i like her whimpered little davie silence sir
said my father very sternly are these things true yes father i answered
she's only told you her side of it you have confessed to the truth of what she alleges said my father i did think he went on more in sorrow than in anger though a good deal in both
that you had turned from your bad ways to think of my taking you with me to the death bed of a holy man and then finding you so soon after playing such tricks more like the mischievousness of a monkey than of a human being
i don't say it was right father and i'm very sorry if i have offended you you have offended me and very deeply you have been unkind and indeed cruel to a good woman who has done her best for you for many years
i was not too much abashed to take notice that the kelpie bridled at this i can't say i'm sorry for what i've done to her i said really ranald you are impertinent i would send you out of the room at once
but you must beg missus mitchell's pardon first and after that there will be something more to say i fear but father you have not heard my story yet well go on it is fair i suppose to hear both sides
but nothing can justify such conduct i began with trembling voice i had gone over in my mind the night before all i would say knowing it better to tell the tale from the beginning circumstantially
before i had ended turkey made his appearance ushered in by allister both were out of breath with running my father stopped me and ordered turkey away until i should have finished
i ventured to look up at the kelpie once or twice she had grown white and grew whiter when turkey left the room she would have gone too but my father told her she must stay and hear me to the end
several times she broke out accusing me of telling a pack of wicked lies but my father told her she should have an opportunity of defending herself and she must not interrupt me when i had done he called turkey
and made him tell the story i need hardly say that although he questioned us closely he found no discrepancy between our accounts he turned at last to missus mitchell who but for her rage
would have been in an abject condition now missus mitchell he said she had nothing to reply beyond asserting that turkey and i had always hated and persecuted her and had now told a pack of lies which we had agreed upon
to ruin her a poor lone woman with no friends to take her part i do not think it likely they could be so wicked said my father so i'm to be the only wicked person in the world very well sir
i will leave the house this very day no no missus mitchell that won't do one party or the other is very wicked that is clear and it is of the greatest consequence to me to find out which
if you go i shall know it is you and have you taken up and tried for stealing meantime i shall go the round of the parish i do not think all the poor people will have combined to lie against you they all hate me said the kelpie
and why asked my father she made no answer i must get at the truth of it said my father you can go now she left the room without another word and my father turned to turkey
i am surprised at you turkey lending yourself to such silly pranks why did you not come and tell me i am very sorry sir i was afraid you would be troubled at finding how wicked she was
and i thought we might frighten her away somehow but ranald began his tricks without letting me know and then i saw that mine could be of no use for she would suspect them after his mine would have been better sir i have no doubt of it
but equally unjustifiable and you as well as he acted the part of a four footed animal last night i confess i yielded to temptation then for i knew it could do no good it was all for the pleasure of frightening her
it was very foolish of me and i beg your pardon sir well turkey i confess you have vexed me not by trying to find out the wrong she was doing me and the whole parish but by taking the whole thing into your own hands
it is worse of you inasmuch as you are older and far wiser than ranald it is worse of ranald because i was his father i will try to show you the wrong you have done had you told me without doing anything yourselves
then i might have succeeded in bringing missus mitchell to repentance i could have reasoned with her on the matter and shown her that she was not merely a thief but a thief of the worst kind a judas who robbed the poor
and so robbed god i could have shown her how cruel she was please sir interrupted turkey i don't think after all she did it for herself i do believe he went on and my father listened
that wandering willie is some relation of hers he is the only poor person almost the only person except davie i ever saw her behave kindly to he was there last night and also i fancy that other time
when ranald got such a fright she has poor relations somewhere and sends the meal to them by willie you remember sir there were no old clothes of allister's to be found when you wanted them for jamie duff
you may be right turkey i dare say you are right i hope you are for though bad enough that would not be quite so bad as doing it for herself i am very sorry father i said i beg your pardon
i hope it will be a lesson to you my boy after what you have done rousing every bad and angry passion in her i fear it will be of no use to try to make her be sorry and repent it is to her
not to me you have done the wrong i have nothing to complain of for myself quite the contrary but it is a very dreadful thing to throw difficulties in the way of repentance and turning from evil works
what can i do to make up for it i sobbed i don't see at this moment what you can do i will turn it over in my mind you may go now thereupon turkey and i walked away
i to school he to his cattle the lecture my father had given us was not to be forgotten turkey looked sad and i felt subdued and concerned
everything my father heard confirmed the tale we had told him but the kelpie frustrated whatever he may have resolved upon with regard to her before he returned she had disappeared
how she managed to get her chest away i cannot tell i think she must have hid it in some outhouse and fetched it the next night many little things were missed from the house afterwards but nothing of great value
and neither she nor wandering willie ever appeared again we were all satisfied that poor old betty knew nothing of her conduct it was easy enough to deceive her for she was alone in her cottage only waited upon by a neighbour
who visited her at certain times of the day my father i heard afterwards gave five shillings out of his own pocket to every one of the poor people
her place in the house was to our endless happiness taken by kirsty and faithfully she carried out my father's instructions that along with the sacred handful of meal a penny should be given to every one of the parish poor
from that time forward so long as he lived at the manse not even little davie cried when he found that missus mitchell was really gone it was more his own affection than her kindness that had attached him to her
a spade a rake a hoe a pickaxe or a bill a hook to reap or a scythe to mow a flail or what ye will and here's a ready hand to ply the needful tool and skill'd enough by lessons rough in labour's rugged school
higgins's door was locked the next day when they went to pay their call on the widow boucher but they learnt this time from an officious neighbour
he had however been in to see missus boucher before starting on his day's business whatever that was it was but an unsatisfactory visit to missus boucher she considered herself as an ill used woman by her poor husband's suicide
and there was quite germ of truth enough in this idea to make it a very difficult one to refute still it was unsatisfactory to see how completely her thoughts were turned upon herself and her own position
and this selfishness extended even to her relations with her children whom she considered as incumbrances even in the very midst of her somewhat animal affection for them
she found that the children were truer and simpler mourners than the widow daddy had been a kind daddy to them each could tell in their eager stammering way of some tenderness shown some indulgence granted by the lost father
is yon thing upstairs really him it doesna look like him
margaret's heart bled to hear that the mother in her selfish requirement of sympathy had taken her children upstairs to see their disfigured father it was intermingling the coarseness of horror with the profoundness of natural grief she tried to turn their thoughts in some other direction
what father would have wished them to do margaret was more successful than mister hale in her efforts the children seeing their little duties lie in action close around them
began to try each one to do something that she suggested towards redding up the slatternly room but her father set too high a standard and too abstract a view before the indolent invalid
she could only look upon it as it affected herself she could not enter into the enduring mercy of the god who had not specially interposed to prevent the water from drowning her prostrate husband and although she was secretly blaming her husband for having fallen into such drear despair
she was inveterate in her abuse of all who could by any possibility be supposed to have driven him to such desperation the masters
mister thornton in particular whose mill had been attacked by boucher and who after the warrant had been issued for his apprehension on the charge of rioting had caused it to be withdrawn the union of which higgins was the representative to the poor woman
the children so numerous so hungry and so noisy all made up one great army of personal enemies whose fault it was that she was now a helpless widow margaret heard enough of this unreasonableness to dishearten her
and when they came away she found it impossible to cheer her father it is the town life said she their nerves are quickened by the haste and bustle and speed of everything around them to say nothing of the confinement in these pent up houses
which of itself is enough to induce depression and worry of spirits now in the country people live so much more out of doors even children and even in the winter but people must live in towns
and in the country some get such stagnant habits of mind that they are almost fatalists yes i acknowledge that i suppose each mode of life produces its own trials and its own temptations
as the country bred man must find it to be active and equal to unwonted emergencies both must find it hard to realise a future of any kind the one because the present is so living and hurrying and close around him
the other because his life tempts him to revel in the mere sense of animal existence not knowing of and consequently not caring for any pungency of pleasure for the attainment of which he can plan and deny himself and look forward
and thus both the necessity for engrossment and the stupid content in the present produce the same effects but this poor missus boucher how little we can do for her
and yet we dare not leave her without our efforts although they may seem so useless oh papa
so it is my child we feel it so just now at any rate but we have been very happy even in the midst of our sorrow what a pleasure frederick's visit was yes that it was said margaret brightly it was such a charming snatched forbidden thing
of all faults the one she most despised in others was the want of bravery the meanness of heart which leads to untruth
then came the thought of mister thornton's cognisance of her falsehood she wondered if she should have minded detection half so much from any one else she tried herself in imagination with her aunt shaw and edith with her father
with captain and mister lennox with frederick the thought of the last knowing what she had done even in his own behalf was the most painful for the brother and sister were in the first flush of their mutual regard and love
she felt at the thought of meeting mister thornton again and yet she longed to see him to get it over to understand where she stood in his opinion her cheeks burnt as she recollected how proudly she had implied an objection to trade
in the early days of their acquaintance because it too often led to the deceit of passing off inferior for superior goods in the one branch of assuming credit for wealth and resources not possessed in the other she remembered mister thornton's look of calm disdain
as in few words he gave her to understand that in the great scheme of commerce all dishonourable ways of acting were sure to prove injurious in the long run and that testing such actions simply according to the poor standard of success
there was folly and not wisdom in all such and every kind of deceit in trade as well as in other things she remembered she then strong in her own untempted truth asking him
if he did not think that buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market proved some want of the transparent justice which is so intimately connected with the idea of truth and she had used the word chivalric
and her father had corrected her with the higher word christian and so drawn the argument upon himself while she sate silent by with a slight feeling of contempt no more contempt for her no
henceforward she must feel humiliated and disgraced in his sight but when should she see him her heart leaped up in apprehension at every ring of the door bell
and was surprised that he did not come the truth was that there were points in their conversation the other night on which they had no time then to enlarge but it had been understood that if possible on the succeeding evening
if not then at least the very first evening that mister thornton could command they should meet for further discussion mister hale had looked forward to this meeting ever since they had parted
he had not yet resumed the instruction to his pupils which he had relinquished at the commencement of his wife's more serious illness so he had fewer occupations than usual and the great interest of the last day or so boucher's suicide
had driven him back with more eagerness than ever upon his speculations he was restless all evening he kept saying i quite expected to have seen mister thornton i think the messenger who brought the book last night must have had some note and forgot to deliver it
i will go and inquire papa said margaret after the changes on these sentences had been rung once or twice stay there's a ring she sate down instantly and bent her head attentively over her work she heard a step on the stairs
she lifted up her head and sighed and believed she felt glad it's that higgins sir he wants to see you or else miss hale
oh very well sir i've no wish to hear what he's got to say i'm sure only if you could see his shoes i'm sure you'd say the kitchen was the fitter place he can wipe them i suppose said mister hale so dixon flung off to bid him walk up stairs
she was a little mollified however when he looked at his feet with a hesitating air and then sitting down on the bottom stair he took off the offending shoes and without a word walked up stairs sarvant sir said he slicking his hair down when he came into the room
margaret thought that fatigue might account for the change in his manner for he was unusually quiet and subdued and he had evidently some difficulty in saying what he came to say mister hale's ever ready sympathy with anything of shyness or hesitation
or want of self possession made him come to his aid
i am sure you are tired if you've been out much this wet relaxing day margaret my dear can't you hasten tea
even dixon herself in the long run felt it a pleasure and an honour to forward any of her wishes and her readiness and margaret's sweet forbearance soon made dixon ashamed of herself
i cannot understand folk at helstone were never brought higher than the kitchen
what do you mean tell me out i have telled yo said higgins a little surprised at mister hale's agitation
mister hale got hold of higgins's hand and shook it heartily without speaking higgins looked awkward and ashamed
for all i telled hamper that let alone his pledge which i would not sign no i could na not e e n for this
i'm a poor black feckless sheep childer may clem for aught i can do unless parson yo'd help me help you how i would do anything but what can i do
for margaret had re entered the room and stood silent listening
now i dunnot know how far off it is
where food is cheap and wages good and all the folk rich and poor master and man friendly like yo could may be help me to work
in me measter but what kind of work could you do my man
and for that said margaret stepping forwards for anything you could do higgins with the best will in the world you would
food is much the same as here except that you might have a little garden the childer could work at that said he
you must not go to the south said margaret for all that you could not stand it
it would kill you with rheumatism the mere bodily work at your time of life would break you down the fare is far different to what you have been accustomed to i'se nought particular about my meat said he as if offended
but you've reckoned on having butcher's meat once a day if you're in work pay for that out of your ten shillings and keep those poor children if you can i owe it to you since it's my way of talking that has set you off on this idea
to put it all clear before you you would not bear the dulness of the life
they labour on from day to day in the great solitude of steaming fields never speaking or lifting up their poor bent downcast heads
the sameness of their toil deadens their imagination they don't care to meet to talk over thoughts and speculations even of the weakest wildest kind after their work is done they go home brutishly tired poor creatures
caring for nothing but food and rest you could not stir them up into any companionship
whether it be good or bad and that i don't know but i do know that you of all men are not one to bear a life among such labourers what would be peace to them would be eternal fretting to you think no more of it nicholas i beg
besides you could never pay to get mother and children all there that's one good thing i've reckoned for that
and men theer mun have their families to keep mappen six or seven childer god help em said he more convinced by his own presentation of the facts than by all margaret had said
god help em north an south have each getten their own troubles if work's sure and steady theer labour's paid at starvation prices
it needs fettling and who's to fettle it if it's as yon folks say and there's nought but what we see mister hale was busy cutting bread and butter margaret was glad of this for she saw that higgins was better left to himself
that if her father began to speak ever so mildly on the subject of higgins's thoughts the latter would consider himself challenged to an argument and would feel himself bound to maintain his own ground
she and her father kept up an indifferent conversation until higgins scarcely aware whether he ate or not had made a very substantial meal then he pushed his chair away from the table and tried to take an interest in what they were saying
but it was of no use and he fell back into dreamy gloom suddenly margaret said she had been thinking of it for some time but the words had stuck in her throat higgins have you been to marlborough mills to seek for work
thornton's asked he ay i've been at thornton's and what did he say such a chap as me is not like to see the measter
i wish you had seen mister thornton said mister hale he might not have given you work but he would not have used such language
no more nor ony other place as i minded but i wish you had seen mister thornton repeated margaret would you go again it's a good deal to ask i know but would you go to morrow and try him
i should be so glad if you would i'm afraid it would be of no use said mister hale in a low voice it would be better to let me speak to him margaret still looked at higgins for his answer
but yo're not a common wench axing yo'r pardon nor yet have yo common ways about yo i'll e'en make a wry face and go at it to morrow dunna yo think that he'll do it
i do it for yo'r sake miss hale and it's first time in my life as e'er i give way to a woman neither my wife nor bess could e'er say that much again me
and as to mister thornton said mister hale i'll give you a note to him which i think i may venture to say will ensure you a hearing
i dunnot stomach the notion of having favour curried for me by one as doesn't know the ins and outs of the quarrel
it takes a deal o wisdom for to do ony good i'll stand guard at the lodge door i'll stand there fro six in the morning till i get speech on him
dunna yo hope miss there'll be more chance o getting milk out of a flint i wish yo a very good night and many thanks to
i took them there to dry said margaret he turned round and looked at her steadily and then he brushed his lean hand across his eyes and went his way
how proud that man is said her father who was a little annoyed at the manner in which higgins had declined his intercession with mister thornton he is said margaret but what grand makings of a man there are in him pride and all
there's granite in all these northern people papa is there not
i should guess from their tones that they had irish blood in them i wonder what success he'll have to morrow if he and mister thornton would speak out together as man to man if higgins would forget that mister thornton was a master and speak to him as he does to us
and tell him honestly that i knew i deserved it it seems hard to lose him as a friend just when i had begun to feel his value how tender he was with dear mamma if it were only for her sake i wish he would come
polly is comforted yes it must be confessed polly was homesick all her imaginations of her mother's hard work increased by her absence loomed up before her till she was almost ready to fly home without a minute's warning
at night when no one knew it the tears would come racing over the poor forlorn little face and would not be squeezed back it got to be noticed finally and one and all redoubled their exertions to make everything twice as pleasant as ever
the only place except in front of the grand piano where polly approached a state of comparative happiness was in the greenhouse here she would stay comforted and soothed among the lovely plants and rich exotics
rejoicing the heart of old turner the gardener who since polly's first rapturous entrance had taken her into his good graces for all time every chance she could steal after practice hours were over and after the clamorous demands of the boys upon her time were fully satisfied
was seized to fly on the wings of the wind to the flowers but even with the music and flowers the dancing light in the eyes went down a little and polly growing more silent and pale
polly don't like us at last said van one day in despair then dear said missus whitney you must be kinder to her than ever think what it would be for one of you to be away from home even among friends
well said van and he showed signs of relenting a little at that but percy is perfectly awful mamma you don't know and he feels so smart too he said vindictively
let's think what we can do for polly it makes me feel very badly to see her sad little face i don't know said van running over in his mind all the possible ways he could think of for entertaining anybody
he added i'm afraid those wouldn't quite answer the purpose said his mamma smiling especially the last yet we must think of something
so with a great many chucklings and shruggings when no one was by he had departed after breakfast one day simply saying he shouldn't be back to lunch polly sat in the drawing room near the edge of the twilight practicing away bravely
if she could only see phronsie for just one moment i shall have to give up she moaned i can't bear it and over went her head on the music rack
where is she said a voice over in front of the piano in the gathering dusk unmistakably mister king's oh she's always at the piano said van she must be there now somewhere and then somebody laughed
oh jappy what'll she say hush said one of the other boys do be still dick polly sat up very straight and whisked off the tears quickly up came mister king with an enormous bundle in his arms
at this the bundle opened suddenly and out popped phronsie here i'm i'm here polly but polly couldn't speak
that brought polly to oh phronsie she cried and strained her to her heart while the boys crowded around and plied her with sudden questions now you'll stay cried van say polly won't you
weren't you awfully surprised cried percy say polly awfully
and to be sure our polly's face was a study to behold all its old sunniness was as nothing to the joy that now transfigured it
oh you are the dearest and best mister king i ever saw but how did you make mammy let her come isn't he splendid cried jasper in intense pride swelling up
there there he said soothingly patting her brown fuzzy head something was going down the old gentleman's neck that wet his collar and made him whisper very tenderly in her ear don't give way now polly phronsie'll see you
i know gasped polly controlling her sobs i won't only i can't thank you phronsie said jasper quickly what do you suppose prince said the other day what
did he really jasper cried phronsie delighted beyond measure and clasping her hands in rapture
and winking furiously to the others to stop their laughing he did now truly phronsie then mustn't i go and see him now jasper yes pretty soon now
and i'll go with you oh no cried phronsie shaking her yellow head oh no jasper i must go by my very own self there jap you've caught it laughed percy while the others screamed at the sight of jasper's face
how could you don't mind it polly whispered jasper twasn't her fault phronsie said missus whitney smilingly stooping over the child would you like to see a little pussy i have for you but the chubby face didn't look up brightly as usual
and the next moment without a bit of warning phronsie sprang past them all even polly and flung herself into mister king's arms in a perfect torrent of sobs oh let's go
and such a time as i've had to get her here too
but polly stood like a statue all jasper's frantic efforts at comfort utterly failed to think that phronsie had left her for any one
the room seemed to buzz and everything to turn upside down and just then she heard another cry oh i want polly i do with a bound polly was at mister king's side with her face on his coat
oh and then the next minute she had her arms around prince's neck too who was jumping all over her and trying as hard as he could to express his overwhelming delight she's the cunningest little thing i ever saw
said missus whitney enthusiastically afterward aside to mister king
and such exquisite brown eyes the combination is very striking how did her mother ever let her go she asked impulsively i didn't believe you could persuade her father i didn't have any fears if i worked it rightly
said the old gentleman complacently i wasn't coming without her marian if it could possibly be managed the truth is that phronsie had been pining for polly to such an extent that there was no other way but for her to have polly
and her mother was just on the point although it almost killed her of sending for polly as if we should have let her go he cried in high dudgeon just as if he owned the whole of the peppers and could dispose of them all to suit his fancy
so you see i was just in time in the very nick of time in fact so her mother was willing asked his daughter curiously oh she couldn't help it
cried mister king beginning to walk up and down the floor and beaming as he recalled his successful strategy there wasn't the smallest use in thinking of anything else i told her twould just stop polly from ever being a musician if she broke off now and so twould you know yourself marian
for we should never get the child here again if we let her go now and i talked well i had to talk some but well the upshot is i did get her and i did bring her and here she is and the old gentleman was so delighted with his success
at last he came out of them and wiped his face vigorously
said missus whitney who hadn't yet gotten over her extreme surprise at the old gentleman's complete subjection to the little peppers he whom all children had by instinct always approached so carefully and whom every one found it necessary to conciliate
well she's a nice child he said a very nice child and straightening himself up to his fullest height and looking so very handsome that his daughter could not conceal her admiration
i shall always take care of phronsie pepper marian so i hope said missus whitney and father i do believe they'll repay you for i do think there's good blood there these children have a look about them that shows them worthy to be trusted
the saturday afternoon matinee at the auditorium in chicago was just over and the usual crowd was struggling to get to its carriage before any one else
as the horses were driven rapidly up to the curb held there impatiently by the drivers who had shivered long in the raw east wind and then let go to plunge for a few minutes into the river of vehicles that tossed under the elevated railway and finally went whirling off up the avenue
he repeated and there dashed up to the curb a splendid span of black horses attached to a carriage having the monogram c r s in gilt letters on the panel of the door two girls stepped out of the crowd towards the carriage the older one had entered and taken her seat
and the attendant was still holding the door open for the younger who stood hesitating on the curb
and handed them to a small boy who was standing shivering on the edge of the sidewalk almost under the horses feet he took them with a look of astonishment and a thank ye lady and instantly buried a very grimy face in the bunch of perfume the girl stepped into the carriage
the door shut with the incisive bang peculiar to well made carriages of this sort
you are always doing some queer thing or other felicia said the older girl as the carriage whirled on past the great residences already brilliantly lighted am i what have i done that is queer now rose asked the other looking up suddenly and turning her head towards her sister
oh giving those violets to that boy he looked as if he needed a good hot supper more than a bunch of violets it's a wonder you didn't invite him home with us i shouldn't have been surprised if you had
felicia asked the question softly and almost as if she were alone queer isn't just the word of course replied rose indifferently it would be what madam blanc calls
decidedly therefore you will please not invite him or others like him to hot suppers because i suggested it oh dear i'm awfully tired she yawned
the concert was stupid and the violinist was simply a bore i don't see how you could sit so still through it all rose exclaimed a little impatiently i liked the music answered felicia quietly you like anything
i never saw a girl with so little critical taste felicia colored slightly but would not answer rose yawned again and then hummed a fragment of a popular song then she exclaimed abruptly i'm sick of most everything
murmured felicia the shadows of chicago the shadows of london the play
you know we have a box with the delanos tonight felicia turned her face towards her sister her great brown eyes were very expressive and not altogether free from a sparkle of luminous heat and yet
we never weep over the real thing on the actual stage of life what are the shadows of london on the stage to the shadows of london or chicago as they really exist
because the actual people are dirty and disagreeable and it's too much bother i suppose replied rose carelessly felicia you can never reform the world what's the use
we ought to be thankful we're rich suppose christ had gone on that principle replied felicia with unusual persistence do you remember doctor bruce's sermon on that verse a few sundays ago for ye know the grace of our lord jesus christ
that though he was rich yet for our sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might become rich i remember it well enough said rose with some petulance
if they are kind and give to the needs of the poor and i am sure that he himself is pretty comfortably settled he never gives up his luxuries just because some people go hungry what good would it do if he did i tell you felicia
people can't live at that concert pitch all the time you see if rachel doesn't give it up soon it's a great pity she doesn't come to chicago and sing in the auditorium concerts she has received an offer i'm going to write and urge her to come i'm just dying to hear her sing felicia
and was silent the carriage rolled on past two blocks of magnificent private residences
it was an elegant mansion of gray stone furnished like a palace every corner of it warm with the luxury of paintings sculpture art and modern refinement the owner of it all mister charles r sterling stood before an open grate fire smoking a cigar
and was reputed to be worth something over two millions
a very hard young lady to please her father said sometimes playfully sometimes sternly felicia was nineteen with a tropical beauty somewhat like her cousin rachel winslow with warm generous impulses just waking into christian feeling
a puzzle to her father a source of irritation to her mother and with a great unsurveyed territory of thought and action in herself of which she was more than dimly conscious there was that in felicia that would easily endure any condition in life
if only the liberty to act fully on her conscientious convictions were granted her here's a letter for you felicia said mister sterling handing it to her felicia sat down and instantly opened the letter saying as she did so it's from rachel well
what's the latest news from raymond asked mister sterling taking his cigar out of his mouth and looking at felicia with half shut eyes as if he were studying her rachel says doctor bruce has been staying in raymond for two sundays
which her friend virginia page is putting up are completed
she ought not to throw away her voice in that railroad town upon all those people who don't appreciate her mister sterling lighted a new cigar and rose exclaimed
she might set chicago wild with her voice if she sang in the auditorium and there she goes on throwing it away on people who don't know what they are hearing rachel won't come here unless she can do it and keep her pledge at the same time said felicia after a pause
what pledge mister sterling asked the question and then added hastily oh i know yes
alexander powers used to be a friend of mine we learned telegraphy in the same office
there have been queer doings in raymond during the past year
on the whole i must have a talk with him about it he is at home and will preach tomorrow said felicia perhaps he will tell us something about it there was silence for a minute
asked her father a little sharply about doctor bruce i say what if he should propose to our church what mister maxwell proposed to his
what would jesus do there's no danger of it said rose rising suddenly from the couch as the tea bell rang
missus sterling had her meals served in her room mister sterling was preoccupied he ate very little and excused himself early and although it was saturday night he remarked as he went out that he should be down town on some special business
said one of the girls with a nervous laugh
there's no danger said virginia briefly is it true that your brother rollin has been converted asked the first speaker looking at virginia curiously it impressed her during the drive to the rectangle that all three of her friends were regarding her with close attention
as if she were peculiar yes he certainly is
talking with his old friends there trying to preach to them doesn't that seem funny said the girl with the red silk parasol virginia did not answer
as they neared the district they grew more and more nervous the sights and smells and sounds which had become familiar to virginia struck the senses of these refined delicate society girls as something horrible as they entered farther into the district
at this fine carriage with its load of fashionably dressed young women slumming had never been a fad with raymond society and this was perhaps the first time that the two had come together in this way the girls felt that instead of seeing the rectangle
they were being made the objects of curiosity they were frightened and disgusted let's go back i've seen enough said the girl who was sitting with virginia they were at that moment just opposite a notorious saloon and gambling house
the street was narrow and the sidewalk crowded suddenly out of the door of this saloon a young woman reeled she was singing in a broken drunken sob
just as i am without one plea and as the carriage rolled past she leered at it raising her face so that virginia saw it very close to her own it was the face of the girl who had kneeled sobbing that night with virginia kneeling beside her and praying for her
stop cried virginia motioning to the driver who was looking around the carriage stopped and in a moment she was out and had gone up to the girl and taken her by the arm loreen she said and that was all the girl looked into her face
the girls in the carriage were smitten into helpless astonishment the saloon keeper had come to the door of the saloon and was standing there looking on with his hands on his hips and the rectangle from its windows its saloon steps its filthy sidewalk gutter and roadway paused
and with undisguised wonder stared at the two girls over the scene the warm sun of spring poured its mellow light a faint breath of music from the band stand in the park floated into the rectangle the concert had begun
and the fashion and wealth of raymond were displaying themselves up town on the boulevard when virginia left the carriage and went up to loreen she had no definite idea as to what she would do or what the result of her action would be
she simply saw a soul that had tasted of the joy of a better life
what would jesus do that question was becoming with her as with many others a habit of life she looked around now as she stood close by loreen and the whole scene was cruelly vivid to her
drive on don't wait for me i am going to see my friend home she said calmly enough the girl with the red parasol seemed to gasp at the word friend when virginia spoke it she did not say anything the other girls seemed speechless go on
i cannot go back with you said virginia the driver started the horses slowly one of the girls leaned a little out of the carriage can't we
do you want our help couldn't you no no exclaimed virginia you cannot be of any help to me the carriage moved on and virginia was alone with her charge she looked up and around many faces in the crowd were sympathetic
the holy spirit had softened a good deal of the rectangle where does she live asked virginia no one answered it occurred to virginia afterward when she had time to think it over
that the rectangle showed a delicacy in its sad silence that would have done credit to the boulevard for the first time it flashed across her
had no place that could be called home the girl suddenly wrenched her arm from virginia's grasp in doing so she nearly threw virginia down you shall not touch me leave me let me go to hell that's where i belong
the devil is waiting for me see him she exclaimed hoarsely she turned and pointed with a shaking finger at the saloon keeper the crowd laughed virginia stepped up to her and put her arm about her loreen she said firmly come with me
you do not belong to hell you belong to jesus and he will save you come the girl suddenly burst into tears she was only partly sobered by the shock of meeting virginia virginia looked around again where does mister gray live she asked
she knew that the evangelist boarded somewhere near the tent a number of voices gave the direction come loreen i want you to go with me to mister gray's she said
who moaned and sobbed and now clung to her as firmly as before she had repulsed her so the two moved on through the rectangle toward the evangelist's lodging place the sight seemed to impress the rectangle seriously
it never took itself seriously when it was drunk but this was different the fact that one of the richest most beautifully dressed girls in all raymond was taking care of one of the rectangle's most noted characters who reeled along under the influence of liquor
was a fact astounding enough to throw more or less dignity and importance about loreen herself the event of loreen's stumbling through the gutter dead drunk always made the rectangle laugh and jest
but loreen staggering along with a young lady from the society circles uptown supporting her was another thing the rectangle viewed it with soberness and more or less wondering admiration
or find some safe place for her until she was sober she stood now at the door after the woman had spoken and she was really at a loss to know what to do loreen sank down stupidly on the steps and buried her face in her arms
virginia eyed the miserable figure of the girl with a feeling that she was afraid would grow into disgust finally a thought possessed her that she could not escape what was to hinder her from taking loreen home with her why should not this homeless wretched creature
reeking with the fumes of liquor be cared for in virginia's own home instead of being consigned to strangers in some hospital or house of charity virginia really knew very little about any such places of refuge as a matter of fact there were two or three such institutions in raymond but
it is doubtful if any of them would have taken a person like loreen in her present condition but that was not the question with virginia just now what would jesus do with loreen that was what virginia faced
we will take the car here at the corner loreen staggered to her feet and to virginia's surprise made no trouble she had expected resistance or a stubborn refusal to move when they reached the corner and took the car it was nearly full of people going uptown
virginia was painfully conscious of the stare that greeted her and her companion as they entered but her thought was directed more and more to the approaching scene with her grandmother what would madam page say loreen was nearly sober now but she was lapsing into a state of stupor
virginia was obliged to hold fast to her arm several times the girl lurched heavily against her
breathed a sigh of relief even in the face of the interview with the grandmother and when the door shut and she was in the wide hall with her homeless outcast she felt equal to anything that might now come madam page was in the library hearing virginia come in she came into the hall
grandmother virginia spoke without hesitation and very clearly i have brought one of my friends from the rectangle she is in trouble and has no home i am going to care for her here a little while
madam page glanced from her granddaughter to loreen in astonishment
she asked in a cold sneering voice that hurt virginia more than anything she had yet felt yes i said so virginia's face flushed but she seemed to recall a verse that mister gray had used for one of his recent sermons
a friend of publicans and sinners surely jesus would do this that she was doing do you know what this girl is asked madam page in an angry whisper stepping near virginia i know very well
it even better than you do she is drunk at this minute but she is also a child of god i have seen her on her knees repentant and i have seen hell reach out its horrible fingers after her again and by the grace of christ
grandmother we call ourselves christians here is a poor lost human creature without a home slipping back into a life of misery and possibly eternal loss
what would virginia's action cost the family in the way of criticism and loss of standing and all that long list of necessary relations which people of wealth and position must sustain to the leaders of society
to madam page society represented more than the church or any other institution it was a power to be feared and obeyed the loss of its good will was a loss more to be dreaded than anything except the loss of wealth itself she stood erect and stern
and confronted virginia fully roused and determined virginia placed her arm about loreen and calmly looked her grandmother in the face you shall not do this virginia you can send her to the asylum for helpless women we can pay all the expenses
we cannot afford for the sake of our reputations to shelter such a person grandmother i do not wish to do anything that is displeasing to you but i must keep loreen here tonight and longer if it seems best then
you can answer for the consequences i do not stay in the same house with a miserable madam page lost her self control virginia stopped her before she could speak the next word grandmother this house is mine
it is your home with me as long as you choose to remain but in this matter i must act as i fully believe jesus would in my place i am willing to bear all that society may say or do society is not my god by the side of this poor soul
i shall not stay here then said madam page she turned suddenly and walked to the end of the hall she then came back and going up to virginia said with an emphasis that revealed her intensive excitement of passion
you can always remember that you have driven your grandmother out of your house in favor of a drunken woman then without waiting for virginia to reply she turned again and went upstairs virginia called a servant and soon had loreen cared for
she was fast lapsing into a wretched condition
knowing his studious habits he had hoped to see his light still burning nor was he disappointed he contrived to bring him to his window and a moment after the door was cautiously opened why lottchen where do you come from
from the grave heinrich or next door to it come in and tell me all about it we thought the old painter had made a model of you and tortured you to death perhaps you were not far wrong
but get me a horn of ale for even a vampire is thirsty you know a vampire exclaimed heinrich retreating a pace and involuntarily putting himself upon his guard karl laughed my hand was warm was it not old fellow he said
vampires are cold all but the blood what a fool i am rejoined heinrich
and thirsty too karl told him the whole story and the mental process of regarding it for the sake of telling it revealed to him pretty clearly some of the treatment of which he had been unconscious at the time heinrich was quite sure that his suspicions were correct
and now the question was what was to be done next at all events said heinrich
i will represent to my landlady that you are in hiding from enemies and her heart will rule her tongue she can let you have a garret room i know and i will do as well as i can to bear you company we shall have time then to invent some plan of operation
to this proposal karl agreed with hearty thanks and soon all was arranged the only conclusion they could yet arrive at was that somehow or other the old demon painter must be tamed meantime how fared it with lilith
she too had no doubt that she had seen the body ghost of poor karl and that the vampire had according to rule paid her the first visit because he loved her best this was horrible enough if the vampire were not really the person he represented but
if in any sense it were karl himself at least it gave some expectation of a more prolonged existence than her father had taught her to look for and if love anything like her mother's still lasted even along with the habits of a vampire
and then though he had visited her he had not
she could not be certain that he had not bitten her for she had been in such a strange condition of mind that she might not have felt it but she believed that he had restrained the impulses of his vampire nature and had left her lest he should yet yield to them she fell fast asleep
one of those triangular leech like perforations to be found upon her whole body will it be believed that the moment she was satisfied of this she was seized by a terrible jealousy lest karl should have gone and bitten some one else
most people will wonder that she should not have gone out of her senses at once but there was all the difference between a visit from a real vampire and a visit from a man she had begun to love even although she took him for a vampire all the difference does not lie in a name
they were very different causes and the effects must be very different when teufelsbuerst came down in the morning he crept into the studio like a murderer there lay the awful white block seeming to his eyes just the same as he had left it
what was to be done with it he dared not open it mould and model must go together but whither if inquiry should be made after wolkenlicht and this were discovered anywhere on his premises would it not be enough to bring him at once to the gallows
therefore it would be dangerous to bury it in the garden or in the cellar besides thought he with a shudder that would be to fix the vampire as a guest for ever and the horrors of the past night rushed back upon his imagination with renewed intensity
what would it be to have the dead karl crawling about his house for ever now inside now out now sitting on the stairs now staring in at the windows he would have dragged it to the bottom of his garden past which the moldau flowed and plunged it into the stream
but then should the spectre continue to prove troublesome it would be almost impossible to reach the body so as to destroy it by fire besides which he could not do it without assistance and the probability of discovery
if however the apparition should turn out to be no vampire but only a respectable ghost they might manage to endure its presence till it should be weary of haunting them he resolved at last to convey the body for the meantime into a concealed cellar in the house
seeing something must be done before his daughter came down proceeding to remove it his consternation as greatly increased when he discovered how the body had grown in weight since he had thus disposed of it leaving on his mind scarcely a hope that it could turn out not to be a vampire after all
he could scarcely stir it and there was but one whom he could call to his assistance the old woman who acted as his housekeeper and servant he went to her room roused her and told her the whole story devoted to her master for many years
and not quite so sensitive to fearful influences as when less experienced in horrors she showed immediate readiness to render him assistance utterly unable however to lift the mass between them they could only drag and push it along
and such a slow toil was it that there was no time to remove the traces of its track before lilith came down and saw a broad white line leading from the door of the studio down the cellarstairs she knew in a moment what it meant
but not a word was uttered about the matter and the name of karl wolkenlicht seemed to be entirely forgotten but how could the affairs of a house go on all the same when every one of the household knew that a dead body lay in the cellar nay more
that although it lay still and dead enough all day it would come half alive at nightfall and turning the whole house into a sepulchre by its presence go creeping about like a cat all over it in the dark perhaps with phosphorescent eyes
so it was not surprising that the painter abandoned his studio early and that the three found themselves together in the gorgeous room formerly described as soon as twilight began to fall
already teufelsbuerst had begun to experience a kind of shrinking from the horrid faces in his own pictures and to feel disgusted at the abortions of his own mind but all that he and the old woman now felt was an increasing fear as the night drew on
a kind of sickening and paralysing terror the thing down there would not lie quiet at least its phantom in the cellars of their imagination would not as much as possible however they avoided alarming lilith who
knowing all they knew was as silent as they but her mind was in a strange state of excitement partly from the presence of a new sense of love the pleasure of which all the atmosphere of grief into which it grew could not totally quench
it comforted her somehow as a child may comfort when his father is away bedtime came and no one made a move to go without a word spoken on the subject the three remained together all night the elders nodding and slumbering occasionally
and lilith getting some share of repose on a couch all night the shape of death might be somewhere about the house but it did not disturb them they heard no sound saw no sight and when the morning dawned they separated chilled and stupid and for the time beyond fear
to seek repose in their private chambers there they remained equally undisturbed but when the painter approached his easel a few hours after looking more pale and haggard still than he was wont from the fears of the night a new bewilderment took possession of him
he had been busy with a fresh embodiment of his favourite subject into which he had sketched the form of the student as the sufferer he had represented poor wolkenlicht as just beginning to recover from a trance while a group of surgeons unaware of the signs of returning life
were absorbed in a minute dissection of one of the limbs at an open door he had painted lilith passing with her face buried in a bunch of sweet peas but when he came to the picture he found to his astonishment and terror
that the face of one of the group was now turned towards that of the victim regarding his revival with demoniac satisfaction and taking pains to prevent the others from discovering it the face of this prince of torturers was that of teufelsbuerst himself
lilith had altogether vanished and in her place stood the dim vampire reiteration of the body that lay extended on the table staring greedily at the assembled company with trembling hands the painter removed the picture from the easel
and turned its face to the wall of course this was the work of lottchen when he left the house he took with him the key of a small private door which was so seldom used that while it remained closed the key would not be missed perhaps for many months
watching the windows he had chosen a safe time to enter and had been hard at work all night on these alterations teufelsbuerst attributed them to the vampire and left the picture as he found it not daring to put brush to it again
the next night was passed much after the same fashion but the fear had begun to die away a little in the hearts of the women who did not know what had taken place in the studio on the previous night it burrowed however with gathered force in the vitals of teufelsbuerst
but this night likewise passed in peace and before it was over the old woman had taken to speculating in her own mind as to the best way of disposing of the body seeing it was not at all likely to be troublesome but when the painter entered his studio in trepidation the next morning
he found that the form of the lovely lilith was painted out of every picture in the room this could not be concealed and lilith and the servant became aware that the studio was the portion of the house in haunting which the vampire left the rest in peace
karl recounted all the tricks he had played to his friend heinrich who begged to be allowed to bear him company the following night to this karl consented thinking it would be considerably more agreeable to have a companion so they took a couple of bottles of wine
and some provisions with them and before midnight found themselves snug in the studio they sat very quiet for some time for they knew that if they were seen two vampires would not be so terrible as one and might occasion discovery but at length heinrich could bear it no longer
for your dead body what has the old beggar done with it i think i know stop let me peep out all right come along with a lamp in his hand he led the way to the cellars and after searching about a little they discovered it
it looks horrid enough said heinrich but think a drop or two of wine would brighten it up a little so he took a bottle from his pocket and after they had had a glass apiece he dropped a third in blots all over the plaster
being red wine it had the effect hoellenrachen desired when they visit it next they will know that the vampire can find the food he prefers said he
so he carried them with him to the studio there he got hold of the lay figure what are you about heinrich
answered heinrich as he went on dressing the lay figure in karl's clothes he next seated the creature at an easel with its back to the door
she too recoiled a step or two when she saw the figure but with the sight of the back of karl as she supposed it to be came the longing to see the face that was on the other side so she crept round and round by the wall as far off as she could the figure remained motionless
it was a strange kind of shock that she experienced when she saw the face disgusting from its inanity the absurdity next struck her and with the absurdity flashed into her mind the conviction that this was not the doing of a vampire
for of all creatures under the moon he could not be expected to be a humorist a wild hope sprang up in her mind that karl was not dead of this she soon resolved to make herself sure she closed the door of the studio
in the strength of her new hope undressed the figure put it in its place concealed the garments all the work of a few minutes and then finding her father just recovering from the worst of his fear told him there was nothing in the studio but what ought to be there and persuaded him to go and see
he not only saw no one but found that no further liberties had been taken with his pictures reassured he soon persuaded himself that the spectre in this case had been the offspring of his own terror haunted brain but he had no spirit for painting now
he wandered about the house himself haunting it like a restless ghost when night came lilith retired to her own room the waters of fear had begun to subside in the house but the painter and his old attendant did not yet follow her example as soon however
as the house was quite still lilith glided noiselessly down the stairs went into the studio where as yet there assuredly was no vampire and concealed herself in a corner as it would not do for an earnest student like heinrich to be away from his work very often
he had not asked to accompany lottchen this time and indeed karl himself a little anxious about the result of the scarecrow greatly preferred going alone while she was waiting for what might happen the conviction grew upon lilith as she reviewed all the past of the story
that these phenomena were the work of the real karl and of no vampire in a few moments she was still more sure of this behind the screen where she had taken refuge hung one of the pictures out of which her portrait had been painted the night before last
with the intention of extinguishing it the moment she heard any sign of approach but as the vampire lingered she began to occupy herself with examining the picture beside her she had not looked at it long before she wetted the tip of her forefinger and began to rub away at the obliteration
her suspicions were instantly confirmed the substance employed was only a gummy wash over the paint the delight she experienced at the discovery threw her into a mischievous humour i will see she said to herself
in a closet in the room hung a number of costumes which lilith had at different times worn for her father among them was a large white drapery which she easily disposed as a shroud with the help of some chalk
she soon made herself ghastly enough and then placing her lamp on the floor behind the screen and setting a chair over it so that it should throw no light in any direction she waited once more for the vampire nor had she much longer to wait she soon heard a door move
the sound of which she hardly knew and then the studio door opened her heart beat dreadfully not with fear lest it should be a vampire after all but with hope that it was karl to see him once more was too great joy
would she not make up to him for all her coldness but would he care for her now perhaps he had been quite cured of his longing for a hard heart like hers she peeped it was he sure enough
looking as handsome as ever he was holding his light to look at her last work and the expression of his face even in regarding her handiwork was enough to let her know that he loved her still if she had not seen this
she dared not have shown herself from her hiding place taking the lamp in her hand she got upon the chair and looked over the screen
she then made a slight noise to attract karl's attention he looked up evidently rather startled and saw the face of lilith in the air he gave a stifled cry threw himself on his knees with his arms stretched towards her and moaned
i have killed her i have killed her lilith descended and approached him noiselessly he did not move she came close to him and said are you karl wolkenlicht
his lips moved but no sound came
and i am a ghost she said but a low happy laugh alone concluded the sentence karl sprang to his feet lilith's laugh changed into a burst of sobbing and weeping
and in another moment the ghost was in the arms of the vampire lilith had no idea how far her father had wronged karl and though from thinking over the past he had no doubt that the painter had drugged him
he did not wish to pain her by imparting this conviction but lilith was afraid of a reaction of rage and hatred in her father after the terror was removed and karl saw that he might thus be deprived of all further intercourse with lilith
and all chance of softening the old man's heart towards him while lilith would not hear of forsaking him who had banished all the human race but herself they managed at length to agree upon a plan of operation
the first thing they did was to go to the cellar where the plaster mass lay karl carrying with him a great axe used for cleaving wood lilith shuddered when she saw it stained as it was with the wine heinrich had spilt over it
and almost believed herself the midnight companion of a vampire after all visiting with him the terrible corpse in which he lived all day but karl soon reassured her and a few good blows of the axe revealed a very different core to that which teufelsbuerst supposed to be in it
karl broke it into pieces and with lilith's help who insisted on carrying her share the whole was soon at the bottom of the moldau and every trace of its ever having existed removed before morning too
the form of lilith had dawned anew in every picture there was no time to restore to its former condition the one karl had first altered for in it the changes were all that they seemed nor indeed was he capable of restoring it in the master's style
but they put it quite out of the way and hoped that sufficient time might elapse before the painter thought of it again when they had done and lilith for all his entreaties would remain with him no longer karl took his former clothes with him
and having spent the rest of the night in his old room dressed in them in the morning when teufelsbuerst entered his studio next day there sat karl as if nothing had happened finishing the drawing on which he had been at work when the fit of insensibility came upon him
the painter started stared rubbed his eyes thought it was another spectral illusion and was on the point of yielding to his terror when karl rose and approached him with a smile the healthy sunshiny countenance of karl
let him be ghost or goblin could not fail to produce somewhat of a tranquillising effect on teufelsbuerst he took his offered hand mechanically his countenance utterly vacant with idiotic bewilderment karl said
i was not well and thought it better to pay a visit to a friend for a few days but i shall soon make up for lost time for i am all right now he sat down at once taking no notice of his master's behaviour and went on with his drawing
teufelsbuerst stood staring at him for some minutes without moving then suddenly turned and left the room karl heard him hurrying down the cellar stairs in a few moments he came up again karl stole a glance at him
there he stood in the same spot no doubt more full of bewilderment than ever but it was not possible that his face should express more at last he went to his easel and sat down with a long drawn sigh as if of relief but though he sat at his easel
he painted none that day and as often as karl ventured a glance he saw him still staring at him the discovery that his pictures were restored to their former condition aided no doubt in leading him to the same conclusion as the other facts whatever that conclusion might be
probably that he had been the sport of some evil power and had been for the greater part of a week utterly bewitched lilith had taken care to instruct the old woman with whom she was all powerful and
which seemed to be slowly vitrifying his own brain he was at last perfectly satisfied that things had been going on all right everywhere but in his inner man
but when all was restored again to the old routine it became evident that the peculiar direction of his art in which he had hitherto indulged had ceased to interest him the shock had acted chiefly upon that part of his mental being which had been so absorbed
he would sit for hours without doing anything apparently plunged in meditation several weeks elapsed without any change and both lilith and karl were getting dreadfully anxious about him karl paid him every attention and the old man
for he now looked much older than before submitted to receive his services as well as those of lilith at length one morning he said in a slow thoughtful tone karl wolkenlicht i should like to paint you
certainly sir answered karl jumping up where would you like me to sit so the ice of silence and inactivity was broken and the painter drew and painted and the spring of his art flowed once more
and he made a beautiful portrait of karl a portrait without evil or suffering and as soon as he had finished karl he began once more to paint lilith and when he had painted her he composed a picture for the very purpose of introducing them together
and in this picture there was neither ugliness nor torture but human feeling and human hope instead then karl knew that he might speak to him of lilith and he spoke and was heard with a smile
till one day that teufelsbuerst was lying on the floor of a room in karl's ancestral castle half smothered in grandchildren when the only answer it drew from the old man was a kind of shuddering laugh and the words
and he had other things to see to besides her affairs his own patients scattered widely over a lonely countryside wemyss had nothing to see to he could concentrate entirely on lucy
and he was her friend linked to her so strangely and so strongly by death she felt she had known him for ever she felt that since the beginning of time she and he had been advancing hand in hand
towards just this place towards just this house and garden towards just this year this august this moment of existence wemyss dropped quite naturally into the place a near male relative would have been in
if there had been a near male relative within reach and his relief at having something to do something practical and immediate was so immense that never were funeral arrangements made with greater zeal and energy
really one might almost say with greater gusto fresh from the horrors of those other funeral arrangements clouded as they had been by the silences of friends and the averted looks of neighbours all owing to the idiotic jurors and their hesitations
and the vindictiveness of that woman because he concluded he had refused to raise her wages the previous month what he was arranging now was so simple and straightforward
there were no anxieties there were no worries and there was a grateful little girl after each fruitful visit to the undertaker and he paid several in his zeal he came back to lucy and she was grateful
and she was not only grateful but very obviously glad to get him back he saw she didn't like it when he went away off along the top of the cliff on his various business visits purpose in each step
a different being from the indignantly miserable person who had dragged about that very cliff killing time such a little while before he could see she didn't like it she knew he had to go she was grateful and immensely expressive of her gratitude
wemyss thought he had never met any one so expressively grateful that he should so diligently go but she didn't like it he saw she didn't like it he saw that she clung to him and it pleased him
don't be long she murmured each time looking at him with eyes of entreaty and when he got back and stood before her again mopping his forehead having triumphantly advanced the funeral arrangements another stage
and she had the relieved eyes of a child who has been left alone in the dark and sees its mother coming in with a candle vera usedn't to look like that vera had accepted everything he did for her as a matter of course
naturally he wasn't going to let the poor little girl sleep alone in that house with a dead body and the strange servants who had been hired together with the house and knew nothing either about her or her father probably getting restive as night drew on
when he told her he was going to stay the night was so grateful so really thankful that her eyes red from the waves of grief that had engulfed her at intervals during the afternoon ever since that is the sight of her dead father lying so remote from her
so wrapped it seemed in a deep absorbed attentiveness had unfrozen her and swept her away into a sea of passionate weeping filled again with tears oh she murmured how good you are
it was wemyss who had done all the thinking for her and in the spare moments between his visits to the undertaker about the arrangements and to the doctor about the certificate and to the vicar about the burial
and now this last instance of his thoughtfulness overwhelmed her she had been dreading the night hardly daring to think of it so much did she dread it and each time he had gone away on his errands
through her heart crept the thought of what it would be like when dusk came and he went away for the last time and she would be alone all alone in the silent house and upstairs that strange wonderful absorbed thing that used to be her father
and whatever happened to her whatever awful horror overcame her in the night whatever danger he wouldn't hear he wouldn't know he would still lie there content content
he answered and they stared at each other astonished at the nature of the bond between them at its closeness at the way it seemed almost miraculously to have been arranged that they should meet on the crest of despair and save each other
of his life and of the regular healthy calm with which it had proceeded till a week ago why this calm should have been interrupted and so cruelly he couldn't imagine it wasn't as if he had deserved it
he didn't know that a man could ever be justified in saying he had done good but he wemyss could at least fairly say that he hadn't done any one any harm oh but you have done good said lucy
always always i know that you've been doing good she said being kind i can't imagine you anything else but a help to people and a comfort and wemyss said well he had done his best and tried
and no man could say more but judging from what well what people had said to him it hadn't been much of a success sometimes and often and often he had been hurt deeply hurt by being misunderstood and lucy said
how was it possible to misunderstand him to misunderstand any one so transparently good so evidently kind
one would think he was easy enough to understand he was a very natural simple sort of person who had only all his life asked for peace and quiet it wasn't much to ask vera who is vera asked lucy my wife
ah don't said lucy earnestly taking his hand very gently in hers don't talk of that to night please don't let yourself think of it if i could only only find the words that would comfort you
and wemyss said that she didn't need words
clinging to each other alone in the dark so they talked on in subdued voices as people do who are in some holy place sitting close together looking out at the starlit sea darkness and coolness gathering round them
and the grass smelling sweetly after the hot day and the little waves such a long way down
twenty two said lucy you might just as easily be twelve he said except for the sorts of things you say it's my hair said lucy my father liked he liked don't said wemyss
in his turn taking her hand don't cry again don't cry any more to night come we'll go in it's time you were in bed and he helped her up and when they got into the light of the hall he saw that she had this time
successfully strangled her tears good night she said when he had lit her candle for her good night and god bless you god bless you said wemyss solemnly holding her hand in his great warm grip
he has said lucy indeed he has already in sending me you and she smiled up at him for the first time since he had known her and he too had the feeling that he had known her ever since he could remember
he saw her smile and the difference it made to her marred stained face surprised him do that again he said staring at her still holding her hand do what asked lucy smile said wemyss
then she laughed but the sound of it in the silent brooding house was shocking oh she gasped stopping short hanging her head appalled by what it had sounded like remember
you're to go to sleep and not think of anything wemyss ordered as she went slowly upstairs
early in their engagement wemyss had expounded his theory to lucy that there should be the most perfect frankness between lovers while as for husband and wife there oughtn't to be a corner anywhere about either of them mind body or soul
which couldn't be revealed to the other one you can talk about everything to your everard he assured her tell him your innermost thoughts whatever they may be you need no more be ashamed of telling him than of thinking them by yourself
he is you you and he are one in mind and soul now and when he is your husband you and he will become perfect and complete by being one in body as well everard lucy lucy everard
and fell to kissing him instead what ideal happiness to be for ever removed from the fear of loneliness by the simple expedient of being doubled and who so happy as herself
one she could so perfectly agree with and understand she felt quite sorry she had nothing in her mind in the way of thoughts she was ashamed of to tell him then and there but there wasn't a doubt
there wasn't a trace of sediment but marriage or was it sleeplessness completely changed this and there were perfect crowds of thoughts in her mind that she was thoroughly ashamed of
remembering his words and whole heartedly agreeing
to have no concealments was real marriage the day after her wedding she first of all reminded him of what he had said then plunged bravely into the announcement that she'd got a thought she was ashamed of wemyss pricked up his ears
thinking it was something interesting to do with sex and waited with an amused inquisitive smile but lucy in such matters was content to follow him aware of her want of experience and of the abundance of his
and the thought that was worrying her only had to do with a waiter a waiter if you please wemyss's smile died away he had had occasion to reprimand this waiter at lunch for gross negligence
and here was lucy alleging he had done so without any reason that she could see and anyhow roughly would he remove the feeling of discomfort she had at being forced to think her own heart's beloved
the kindest and gentlest of men hadn't been kind and gentle but unjust by explaining well that was at the very beginning she soon learned that a doubt in her mind was better kept there
if she brought it out to air it and dispel it by talking it over with him all that happened was that he was hurt and when he was hurt she instantly became perfectly miserable
seeing then that this happened about small things how impossible it was to talk with him of big things of especially her immense doubt in regard to the willows
for a long while she was sure he was bearing her feeling in mind since it couldn't have changed since christmas and that when she arrived there she would find that he had had everything altered and all traces of vera's life there removed
then when he began to talk about the willows she found that such an idea as alterations hadn't entered his head she was to sleep in the very room that had been his and vera's in the very bed and positively
so far was it from true that she could tell him every thought and talk everything over with him when she discovered this she wasn't able to say more than that hesitating remark on the chateau terrace at amboise about supposing he was going to change his bedroom
yet the willows haunted her and what a comfort it would have been to tell him all she felt and let him help her to get rid of her growing obsession by laughing at her what a comfort if
even if he had thought her too silly and morbid to be laughed at
but one learns a lot on a honeymoon lucy reflected and one of the things she had learned was that wemyss's mind was always made up there seemed to be no moment when it was in a condition of becoming
and she might have slipped in a suggestion or laid a wish before him his plans were sprung upon her full fledged and they were unalterable sometimes he said would you like
and if she didn't like and answered truthfully as she answered at first before she learned not to there was trouble silent trouble
for his question was only decorative and his little love should instinctively he considered like what he liked and there outside this aloofness after efforts to get at him with fond and anxious questions
she sat like a beggar in patient distress waiting for him to emerge and be kind to her of course as far as the minor wishes and preferences of every day went it was all quite easy once she had grasped the right answer to the question
she instantly did like oh yes very much she hastened to assure him and then his face continued content and happy instead of clouding with aggrievement but about the big things it wasn't easy
because of the difficulty of getting the right flavour of enthusiasm into her voice
and turn her to the light and repeat the question in a solemn voice precursor she had learned of the beginning of the cloud on his face how difficult it was sometimes when he said to her
you'll like the view from your sitting room at the willows she naturally wanted to cry out that she wouldn't and ask him how he could suppose she would like what was to her a view for ever associated with death
why shouldn't she be able to cry out naturally if she wanted to to talk to him frankly to get his help to cure herself of what was so ridiculous by laughing at it with him she couldn't laugh all alone
though she was always trying to with him she could have and so have become quite sensible for he was so much bigger than she was so wonderful in the way he had triumphed over diseased thinking
she found herself hurriedly saying in a small anxious voice oh yes very much is it possible she thought that i am abject yes she was extremely abject
she reflected lying awake at night considering her behaviour during the day love had made her so love did make one abject for it was full of fear of hurting the beloved the assertion of the scriptures
that perfect love casteth out fear only showed seeing that her love for everard was certainly perfect how little the scriptures really knew what they were talking about well if she couldn't tell him the things she was feeling
why couldn't she get rid of the sorts of feelings she couldn't tell him and just be wholesome why couldn't she be at least as wholesome about going to that house as everard if anybody was justified in shrinking from the willows it was everard not herself
sometimes lucy would be sure that deep in his character there was a wonderful store of simple courage he didn't speak of vera's death naturally he didn't wish to speak of that awful afternoon but how often he must think of it
hiding his thoughts even from her bearing them altogether alone sometimes she was sure of this and sometimes she was equally sure of the very opposite
from those tiny indications that one somehow has noticed without knowing that one has noticed and that are so far more revealing and conclusive than any words she sometimes was sure he really had forgotten
but this was too incredible she couldn't believe it what had perhaps happened she thought was that in self defence for the preservation of his peace he had made up his mind never to think of vera
only by banishing her altogether from his mind would he be safe yet that couldn't be true either for several times on the honeymoon he had begun talking of her of things she had said of things she had liked
if it was to be a serious talk because she wanted to help and comfort him whenever the remembrance of her death arose to torment him but she couldn't bear to hear her mentioned casually
in a way she admired this casualness because it was a proof of the supreme wholesomeness everard had attained to by sheer courageous determination
chapter twelve early one evening struggling with a sonnet that twisted all awry the beauty and thought that trailed in glow and vapor through his brain martin was called to the telephone it's a lady's voice a fine lady's
mister higginbotham who had called him jeered martin went to the telephone in the corner of the room and felt a wave of warmth rush through him as he heard ruth's voice in his battle with the sonnet he had forgotten her existence
crystal pure no mere woman had a voice like that there was something celestial about it and it came from other worlds he could scarcely hear what it said so ravished was he though he controlled his face
for he knew that mister higginbotham's ferret eyes were fixed upon him it was not much that ruth wanted to say
but that he had a headache and she was so disappointed and she had the tickets and that if he had no other engagement would he be good enough to take her would he he fought to suppress the eagerness in his voice it was amazing
go to a lecture with him with him martin eden she soared so far above him that there seemed nothing else for him to do than die for her it was the only fit way in which he could express the tremendous and lofty emotion he felt for her
it was the sublime abnegation of true love that comes to all lovers and it came to him there at the telephone in a whirlwind of fire and glory and to die for her he felt
was to have lived and loved well and he was only twenty one and he had never been in love before his hand trembled as he hung up the receiver and he was weak from the organ which had stirred him
his eyes were shining like an angel's and his face was transfigured purged of all earthly dross and pure and holy
his brother in law sneered you know what that means you'll be in the police court yet but martin could not come down from the height
anger and hurt were beneath him he had seen a great vision and was as a god and he could feel only profound and awful pity for this maggot of a man he did not look at him and though his eyes passed over him he did not see him
and as in a dream he passed out of the room to dress it was not until he had reached his own room and was tying his necktie that he became aware of a sound that lingered unpleasantly in his ears on investigating this sound
he identified it as the final snort of bernard higginbotham which somehow had not penetrated to his brain before as ruth's front door closed behind them and he came down the steps with her he found himself greatly perturbed
or only between husbands and wives and relatives just before he reached the sidewalk he remembered minnie minnie had always been a stickler she had called him down the second time she walked out with him because he had gone along on the inside
and whether it had filtered down from above and was all right it wouldn't do any harm to try it he decided by the time they had reached the sidewalk and he swung behind ruth and took up his station on the outside then the other problem presented itself
and heads against the fellows shoulders where the streets were unlighted but this was different she wasn't that kind of a girl he must do something
crooked it very slightly and with secret tentativeness not invitingly but just casually as though he was accustomed to walk that way and then the wonderful thing happened he felt her hand upon his arm
delicious thrills ran through him at the contact and for a few sweet moments it seemed that he had left the solid earth and was flying with her through the air but he was soon back again perturbed by a new complication they were crossing the street
this would put him on the inside he should be on the outside should he therefore drop her arm and change over and if he did so would he have to repeat the manoeuvre the next time and the next
yet he was not satisfied with his conclusion and when he found himself on the inside he talked quickly and earnestly making a show of being carried away by what he was saying so that in case he was wrong in not changing sides
his enthusiasm would seem the cause for his carelessness as they crossed broadway he came face to face with a new problem in the blaze of the electric lights he saw lizzie connolly and her giggly friend
not with soft and gentle eyes like ruth's but with eyes that were handsome and hard and that swept on past him to ruth and itemized her face and dress and station and he was aware that ruth looked too
what a pretty girl ruth said a moment later martin could have blessed her though he said i don't know i guess it's all a matter of personal taste but she doesn't strike me as being particularly pretty
you forget how i talked when you first met me i have learned a new language since then before that time i talked as that girl talks now i can manage to make myself understood sufficiently in your language to explain that you do not know that other girl's language
and do you know why she carries herself the way she does i think about such things now though i never used to think about them and i am beginning to understand much but why does she she has worked long hours for years at machines
because of the years i put in on the sea if i'd put in the same years cow punching with my body young and pliable i wouldn't be rolling now but i'd be bow legged and so with that girl you noticed that her eyes were what i might call hard she has never been sheltered
and a young girl can't take care of herself and keep her eyes soft and gentle like like yours for example i think you are right ruth said in a low voice and it is too bad she is such a pretty girl
he looked at her and saw her eyes luminous with pity and then he remembered that he loved her and was lost in amazement at his fortune that permitted him to love her and to take her on his arm to a lecture
who are you martin eden he demanded of himself in the looking glass that night when he got back to his room he gazed at himself long and curiously who are you what are you where do you belong
there are the stale vegetables now those potatoes are rotting smell them damn you smell them and yet you dare to open the books to listen to beautiful music to learn to love beautiful paintings to speak good english
to think thoughts that none of your own kind thinks to tear yourself away from the oxen and the lizzie connollys and to love a pale spirit of a woman
and sat down on the edge of the bed to dream for a space with wide eyes
among the thieves five citizens of thine like these i found whence shame comes unto me and thou thereby to no great honour risest but if when morn is near our dreams are true
would that it were seeing it needs must be for twill aggrieve me more the more i age we went our way and up along the stairs the bourns had made us to descend before
remounted my conductor and drew me and following the solitary path among the rocks and ridges of the crag the foot without the hand sped not at all then sorrowed i
have given me good i may myself not grudge it as many as the hind who on the hill rests at the time when he who lights the world his countenance keeps least concealed from us while as the fly gives place unto the gnat
as i grew aware as soon as i was where the depth appeared and such as he who with the bears avenged him beheld elijah's chariot at departing what time the steeds to heaven erect uprose
and every flame a sinner steals away i stood upon the bridge uprisen to see so that if i had seized not on a rock down had i fallen without being pushed and the leader who beheld me so attent exclaimed
my master i replied by hearing thee i am more sure but i surmised already it might be so and already wished to ask thee who is within that fire which comes so cleft at top
and pain for the palladium there is borne if they within those sparks possess the power to speak i said thee master much i pray and re pray that the prayer be worth a thousand
leave me to speak because i have conceived that which thou wishest for they might disdain perchance since they were greeks discourse of thine
when now the flame had come unto that point where to my leader it seemed time and place after this fashion did i hear him speak o ye who are twofold within one fire if i deserved of you while i was living
if i deserved of you or much or little when in the world i wrote the lofty verses do not move on but one of you declare whither being lost he went away to die then of the antique flame the greater horn murmuring
began to wave itself about even as a flame doth which the wind fatigues thereafterward the summit to and fro moving as if it were the tongue that spake it uttered forth a voice and said
or ever yet aeneas named it so nor fondness for my son nor reverence for my old father nor the due affection which joyous should have made penelope could overcome within me the desire i had
to be experienced of the world and of the vice and virtue of mankind but i put forth on the high open sea with one sole ship and that small company by which i never had deserted been
both of the shores i saw as far as spain far as morocco and the isle of sardes and the others which that sea bathes round about i and my company were old and slow
o brothers who amid a hundred thousand perils i said have come unto the west to this so inconsiderable vigil which is remaining of your senses
still be ye unwilling to deny the knowledge following the sun of the unpeopled world consider ye the seed from which ye sprang ye were not made to live like unto brutes
but for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge so eager did i render my companions with this brief exhortation for the voyage that then i hardly could have held them back and having turned our stern unto the morning
we of the oars made wings for our mad flight evermore gaining on the larboard side already all the stars of the other pole the night beheld and ours so very low it did not rise above the ocean floor
five times rekindled and as many quenched had been the splendour underneath the moon since we had entered into the deep pass when there appeared to us a mountain dim from distance
joyful were we and soon it turned to weeping for out of the new land a whirlwind rose and smote upon the fore part of the ship
three times it made her whirl with all the waters at the fourth time it made the stern uplift and the prow downward go as pleased another
and now departed from us with the permission of the gentle poet when yet another which behind it came caused us to turn our eyes upon its top by a confused sound that issued from it
as the sicilian bull that bellowed first with the lament of him and that was right who with his file had modulated it bellowed so with the voice of the afflicted that notwithstanding it was made of brass
still it appeared with agony transfixed thus by not having any way or issue at first from out the fire to its own language converted were the melancholy words but afterwards
when they had gathered way up through the point giving it that vibration the tongue had given them in their passage out we heard it said o thou at whom i aim my voice and who but now wast speaking lombard saying
now go thy way no more i urge thee because i come perchance a little late to stay and speak with me let it not irk thee thou seest it irks not me and i am burning
if thou but lately into this blind world hast fallen down from that sweet latian land wherefrom i bring the whole of my transgression say if the romagnuols have peace or war
for i was from the mountains there between urbino and the yoke whence tiber bursts i still was downward bent and listening when my conductor touched me on the side saying speak thou
and i who had beforehand my reply in readiness forthwith began to speak o soul that down below there art concealed romagna thine is not and never has been without war in the bosom of its tyrants
but open war i none have left there now ravenna stands as it long years has stood the eagle of polenta there is brooding so that she covers cervia with her vans
beneath the green paws finds itself again verrucchio's ancient mastiff and the new
the cities of lamone and santerno governs the lioncel of the white lair who changes sides twixt summer time and winter and that of which the savio bathes the flank even as it lies between the plain and mountain
lives between tyranny and a free state now i entreat thee tell us who thou art be not more stubborn than the rest have been
after the fire a little more had roared in its own fashion the sharp point it moved this way and that and then gave forth such breath
but inasmuch as never from this depth did any one return if i hear true without the fear of infamy i answer i was a man of arms then cordelier believing thus begirt to make amends and truly my belief had been fulfilled
but for the high priest whom may ill betide who put me back into my former sins and how and wherefore i will have thee hear while i was still the form of bone and pulp my mother gave to me the deeds i did were not those of a lion but a fox
and penitent and confessing i surrendered ah woe is me and it would have bestead me
and not with saracens nor with the jews for each one of his enemies was christian and none of them had been to conquer acre nor merchandising in the sultan's land nor the high office nor the sacred orders in him regarded
nor in me that cord which used to make those girt with it more meagre but even as constantine sought out sylvester to cure his leprosy within soracte so this one sought me out as an adept
to cure him of the fever of his pride counsel he asked of me and i was silent because his words appeared inebriate and then he said be not thy heart afraid henceforth i thee absolve
and thou instruct me how to raze palestrina to the ground heaven have i power to lock and to unlock as thou dost know therefore the keys are two the which my predecessor held not dear
then urged me on his weighty arguments there where my silence was the worst advice and said i father since thou washest me of that sin into which i now must fall
the promise long with the fulfilment short will make thee triumph in thy lofty seat francis came afterward when i was dead for me but one of the black cherubim said to him take him not do me no wrong
he must come down among my servitors because he gave the fraudulent advice from which time forth i have been at his hair for who repents not cannot be absolved nor can one both repent and will at once
because of the contradiction which consents not o miserable me how i did shudder when he seized on me saying peradventure thou didst not think that i was a logician he bore me unto minos
who entwined eight times his tail about his stubborn back and after he had bitten it in great rage said of the thievish fire a culprit this
and vested thus in going i bemoan me
by reason of our speech and memory that have small room to comprehend so much if were again assembled all the people which formerly upon the fateful land of puglia
were lamenting for their blood shed by the romans and the lingering war that of the rings made such illustrious spoils as livy has recorded who errs not
and all the rest whose bones are gathered still at ceperano where a renegade was each apulian and at tagliacozzo where without arms the old alardo conquered and one his limb transpierced and one lopped off
a cask by losing centre piece or cant was never shattered so as i saw one rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind
his heart was visible and the dismal sack that maketh excrement of what is eaten while i was all absorbed in seeing him he looked at me and opened with his hands his bosom saying
how mutilated see is mahomet in front of me doth ali weeping go cleft in the face from forelock unto chin and all the others whom thou here beholdest disseminators of scandal and of schism while living were
and therefore are cleft thus a devil is behind here who doth cleave us thus cruelly
by reason that our wounds are closed again ere any one in front of him repass but who art thou that musest on the crag perchance to postpone going to the pain that is adjudged upon thine accusations
and this is true as that i speak to thee more than a hundred were there when they heard him who in the moat stood still to look at me through wonderment oblivious of their torture
and said o thou whom guilt doth not condemn and whom i once saw up in latian land unless too great similitude deceive me
neptune ne'er yet beheld so great a crime neither of pirates nor argolic people that traitor who sees only with one eye and holds the land which some one here with me would fain be fasting from the vision of
and i to him show to me and declare if thou wouldst have me bear up news of thee who is this person of the bitter vision then did he lay his hand upon the jaw of one of his companions and his mouth oped crying
this is he and he speaks not this one being banished every doubt submerged in caesar by affirming the forearmed always with detriment allowed delay
o how bewildered unto me appeared with tongue asunder in his windpipe slit curio who in speaking was so bold and one who both his hands dissevered had
the stumps uplifting through the murky air so that the blood made horrible his face cried out thou shalt remember mosca also who said alas a thing done has an end which was an ill seed for the tuscan people
whence he accumulating woe on woe departed like a person sad and crazed but i remained to look upon the crowd and saw a thing which i should be afraid without some further proof even to recount
and by the hair it held the head dissevered hung from the hand in fashion of a lantern and that upon us gazed and said o me it of itself made to itself a lamp
and they were two in one and one in two
when it was come close to the bridge's foot it lifted high its arm with all the head to bring more closely unto us its words which were behold now the sore penalty
behold if any be as great as this and so that thou may carry news of me
the same who gave to the young king the evil comfort i made the father and the son rebellious
because i parted persons so united parted do i now bear my brain alas from its beginning which is in this trunk
that they were wishful to stand still and weep but said virgilius what dost thou still gaze at
consider if to count them thou believest that two and twenty miles the valley winds and now the moon is underneath our feet henceforth the time allotted us is brief and more is to be seen than what thou seest
if thou hadst i made answer thereupon attended to the cause for which i looked perhaps a longer stay thou wouldst have pardoned meanwhile my guide departed
and behind him i went already making my reply and superadding in that cavern where i held mine eyes with such attention fixed i think a spirit of my blood laments the sin which down below there costs so much then said the master
and threatening with his finger fiercely and heard him called geri del bello so wholly at that time wast thou impeded by him who formerly held altaforte thou didst not look that way
thus did we speak as far as the first place upon the crag which the next valley shows down to the bottom if there were more light when we were now right over the last cloister of malebolge so that its lay brothers could manifest themselves unto our sight
divers lamentings pierced me through and through which with compassion had their arrows barbed whereat mine ears i covered with my hands what pain would be if from the hospitals of valdichiana
twixt july and september and of maremma and sardinia all the diseases in one moat were gathered such was it here and such a stench came from it as from putrescent limbs is wont to issue
where the ministress of the high lord justice infallible punishes forgers which she here records i do not think a sadder sight to see was in aegina the whole people sick
when was the air so full of pestilence the animals down to the little worm all fell and afterwards the ancient people according as the poets have affirmed were from the seed of ants restored again
than was it to behold through that dark valley the spirits languishing in divers heaps this on the belly that upon the back one of the other lay and others crawling shifted themselves along the dismal road
we step by step went onward without speech gazing upon and listening to the sick who had not strength enough to lift their bodies i saw two sitting leaned against each other as leans in heating platter against platter
and never saw i plied a currycomb by stable boy for whom his master waits or him who keeps awake unwillingly as every one was plying fast the bite of nails upon himself for the great rage of itching
which no other succour had and the nails downward with them dragged the scab in fashion as a knife the scales of bream or any other fish that has them largest
so may thy nails suffice thee to all eternity unto this work latians are we whom thou so wasted seest both of us here one weeping made reply but who art thou that questionest about us and said the guide
one am i who descends down with this living man from cliff to cliff and i intend to show hell unto him then broken was their mutual support and trembling each one turned himself to me with others who had heard him by rebound
wholly to me did the good master gather saying say unto them whate'er thou wishest and i began since he would have it so so may your memory not steal away in the first world from out the minds of men
but so may it survive neath many suns say to me who ye are and of what people let not your foul and loathsome punishment make you afraid to show yourselves to me
and albert of siena had me burned but what i died for does not bring me here tis true i said to him speaking in jest that i could rise by flight into the air and he who had conceit but little wit would have me show to him the art and only because no daedalus i made him
his son but unto the last bolgia of the ten for alchemy which in the world i practised
has me condemned and to the poet said i now was ever so vain a people as the sienese not for a certainty the french by far whereat the other leper who had heard me replied unto my speech
and where his wit the abbagliato proffered but that thou know who thus doth second thee against the sienese make sharp thine eye tow'rds me so that my face well answer thee
and thou shalt see i am capocchio's shade who metals falsified by alchemy thou must remember if i well descry thee
against the theban blood as she already more than once had shown so reft of reason athamas became that seeing his own wife with children twain walking encumbered upon either hand he cried
spread out the nets that i may take the lioness and her whelps upon the passage and then extended his unpitying claws seizing the first who had the name learchus and whirled him round and dashed him on a rock and she
with the other burthen drowned herself and at the time when fortune downward hurled the trojan's arrogance that all things dared so that the king was with his kingdom crushed hecuba sad disconsolate and captive
when lifeless she beheld polyxena and of her polydorus on the shore of ocean was the dolorous one aware out of her senses like a dog she barked so much the anguish had her mind distorted
biting in the manner ran along that a boar does when from the sty turned loose one to capocchio came and by the nape seized with its teeth his neck
and raving goes thus harrying other people o said i to him so may not the other set teeth on thee let it not weary thee to tell us who it is ere it dart hence
and he to me that is the ancient ghost of the nefarious myrrha who became beyond all rightful love her father's lover she came to sin with him after this manner by counterfeiting of another's form
as he who goeth yonder undertook that he might gain the lady of the herd to counterfeit in himself buoso donati making a will and giving it due form and after the two maniacs had passed on whom i held mine eye
i turned it back to look upon the other evil born i saw one made in fashion of a lute if he had only had the groin cut off just at the point at which a man is forked the heavy dropsy
that so disproportions the limbs with humours which it ill concocts that the face corresponds not to the belly compelled him so to hold his lips apart as does the hectic who because of thirst one tow'rds the chin
the other upward turns o ye who without any torment are and why i know not in the world of woe he said to us behold and be attentive unto the misery of master adam
i had while living much of what i wished and now alas a drop of water crave
ever before me stand and not in vain for far more doth their image dry me up than the disease which strips my face of flesh the rigid justice that chastises me draweth occasion from the place in which i sinned
to put the more my sighs in flight there is romena where i counterfeited the currency imprinted with the baptist for which i left my body burned above
for branda's fount i would not give the sight one is within already if the raving shades that are going round about speak truth but what avails it me whose limbs are tied
if i were only still so light that in a hundred years i could advance one inch i had already started on the way seeking him out among this squalid folk although the circuit be eleven miles and be not less than half a mile across
for them am i in such a family they did induce me into coining florins which had three carats of impurity and i to him who are the two poor wretches that smoke like unto a wet hand in winter
lying there close upon thy right hand confines i found them here replied he when i rained into this chasm and since they have not turned nor do i think they will for evermore one the false woman is who accused joseph
from acute fever they send forth such reek and one of them who felt himself annoyed at being peradventure named so darkly smote with the fist upon his hardened paunch it gave a sound as if it were a drum
and master adam smote him in the face with arm that did not seem to be less hard saying to him although be taken from me all motion for my limbs that heavy are i have an arm unfettered for such need whereat he answer made
where thou wast questioned of the truth at troy if i spake false thou falsifiedst the coin said sinon and for one fault i am here and thou for more than any other demon
and to lick up the mirror of narcissus thou wouldst not want words many to invite thee
i turned me round towards him with such shame that still it eddies through my memory and as he is who dreams of his own harm who dreaming wishes it may be a dream so that he craves what is as if it were not such i became
not having power to speak for to excuse myself i wished and still excused myself and did not think i did it less shame doth wash away a greater fault the master said than this of thine has been
therefore thyself disburden of all sadness and make account that i am aye beside thee if e'er it come to pass that fortune bring thee where there are people in a like dispute
high water it was nearing the middle of june and it was getting to be a very hot june at that
then the sky threatened for a day and after that they plodded in the rain thank the lord that's done with sighed park when he saw the last of the herd climb all dripping up the north bank of the milk river
yuh notice how the river's coming up a day later and we'd have had to hold the herd on the other side no telling how long it is higher than usual i noticed that thurston agreed absently
he wondered if she would be at home he could easily ride down there and find out it wasn't far not a quarter of a mile but he assured himself that he wasn't going and that he was not quite a fool he hoped
even if she were at home what good could that possibly do him just give him several bad nights when he would lie in his corner of the tent and listen to the boys snoring with a different key for every man
such nights were not pleasant nor were the thoughts that caused them
the house half hidden among the cottonwoods through the last hours of the afternoon he watched it hungrily the big corral ran down to the water's edge and he noted idly that three panels of the fence extended out into the river
and that the muddy water was creeping steadily up until at sundown the posts of the first panel barely showed above the water park came up to him and looked down upon the little valley
there ain't a june flood that don't put his corral under water and some uh these days it's going to get the house he was too lazy to dig a well back on high ground he'd rather take chances on having the whole business washed off the face uh the earth
there must be danger of it this year if ever thurston observed uneasily the river is coming up pretty fast it seems to me it must have raised three feet since we crossed this afternoon
i'll course there's danger with all that snow coming out uh the mountains and like as not jack's in shellanne roosting on somebody's pool table and telling it scary
where yuh going bud i'm going to ride down there thurston answered constrainedly the women may be all alone
he had a poor opinion of jack and resented even that slight relation to mona the road was soggy with the rain which fell steadily down in the bottom the low places in the road were already under water
and the river widening almost perceptibly in its headlong rush down the narrow valley crept inch by inch up its low banks when they galloped into the yard which sloped from the house gently down to the river fifty yards away
when she opened the door her eyes greeted him with a certain wistful expression that he had never seen in them before he was guilty of wishing that park had stayed in camp
she welcomed but she was careful after that first swift glance to look at park jack wasn't at camp was he he went to town this morning and i looked for hi back long before now
but it's a mistake ever to look for jack until he's actually in sight park smiled vaguely he was afraid it would not be polite to agree with her as emphatically as he would like to have done
but thurston had no smile ready polite or otherwise instead he drew down his brows in a way not complimentary to jack where is your mother he asked almost peremptorily
mamma went to great falls last week she told him primly just grazing him with one of her impersonal glances which nearly drove him to desperation aunt mary has typhoid fever
there seems to be so much of that this spring and they sent for mamma she's such a splendid nurse you know thurston did know but he passed over the subject and you're alone he demanded
certainly not aren't you two here mona could be very pert when she tried jack and i are holding down the ranch just now the boys are all on roundup of course jack went to town today to see some one
it was park still trying to be polite and not commit himself on the subject of jack the some one whom jack went oftenest to see was the bartender in the palace saloon but it was not necessary to tell her that
the river's coming up pretty fast mona he ventured don't yuh think yuh ought to pull out and go visiting no i don't mona's tone was very decided
i wouldn't drop down on a neighbor without warning just because the river happens to be coming up it has come up every june since we've been living here and there have been several of them at the worst it never came inside the gate
probably she did not mean it at any rate the blood flew consciously to her cheeks after she had spoken and she caught her under lip sharply between her teeth and that did not help matters or make her temper more yielding
fleered park with the freedom of an old friend
she wrinkled her nose at him also with the freedom of an old friend and thurston stirred restlessly in his chair he did not like even park to be too familiar with mona
though he knew there was a girl in shellanne whose name park sometimes spoke in his sleep she lifted the big glass lamp down from its place on the clock shelf and lighted it with fingers not quite steady you men
the road from here to the hill is half under water right now the river's got over the bank above and is flooding down through the horse pasture by the time the water got up here the river'd be as wide and deep one side uh yuh as the other
then where'd yuh be at it won't get up here though mona asserted coolly it never has no and the lazy eight never had to work the yellowstone range on spring roundup before either park told her meaningly
whereupon mona got upon her pedestal and smiled her unpleasant smile against which even park had no argument ready they lingered till long after all good cowpunchers are supposed to be in their beds
and set bounds which it could not pass however much it might rage against their base when the clock struck a wheezy nine mona glanced at it significantly and smothered a yawn more than half affected
it was a hint which no man with an atom of self respect could overlook with mutual understanding the two rose i guess we'll have to be going park said with some ceremony
i kept think ing maybe jack would show up it ain't right to leave yuh here alone like this i don't see why not i'm not the least bit afraid mona said her tone was impersonal and had in it a note of dismissal
so there being nothing else that they could do they said good night and took themselves off this is sure fierce park grumbled when they struck the lower ground
say the water has come up a lot don't yuh think bud if it raises much more mona'll sure have a chance to cope with the situation it'd just about serve her right too
thurston did not think so but he was in too dispirited a mood to argue the point it had not been good for his peace of mind to sit and watch the color come and go in mona's cheeks
and the laughter spring unheralded into her dear big eyes and the light tangle itself in the waves of her hair he guided his horse carefully through the deep places and noted uneasily how much deeper it was
than when they had crossed before he cursed the conventions which forbade his staying and watching over the girl back there in the house which already stood upon an island cut off from the safe
high land by a strip of backwater that was widening and deepening every minute and when it rose high enough to flow into the river below would have a current that would make a nasty crossing
on the first rise he stopped and looked back at the light which shone out from among the dripping cottonwoods even then he was tempted to go back and brave her anger that he might feel assured of her safety
come on bud mona won't have us around so the sooner we get under cover the better for us she's got lots uh nerve i guess she'll make out all right there was common sense in the argument and thurston recognized it
and rode on to camp but instead of unsaddling as he would naturally have done he tied sunfish to the bed wagon and threw his slicker over his back to protect him from the rain
that sounded all right as far as it went but unfortunately it did not go far the boys winked at one another gravely behind his back and jerked their thumbs knowingly toward milk river
by which pantomime they reminded one another quite unnecessarily that mona stevens had come home however they kept their skepticism from becoming obtrusive so that thurston believed his excuses passed on their face value
and to ask her for the fourth time if she will reconsider her former decisions and marry him that is really what kept thurston at the lazy eight
during the winter when he did not see her he could bring himself to think occasionally of other things and it is a fact that the stories he wrote with no heroine at all hit the mark the straightest
now when he was once again under the spell of big clear blue gray eyes and crimply brown hair his stories lost something of their virility and verged upon the sentimental in tone and since he was not a fool
he realized the falling off and chafed against it and wondered why it was surely a man who is in love should be well qualified to write convincingly of the obsession but thurston did not
he came near going to the other extreme and refusing to write at all the wagons were out two weeks which is quite long enough for a crisis to arise in the love affair of any man
his thoughts still ran to blue gray eyes and ripply hair but he made no attempt to put them into a story he packed his trunk carefully with everything he would not need on the roundup and his typewriter he put in the middle
he told himself bitterly that he had done with crimply haired girls and with every other sort of girl if he could figure in something heroic only he said melodramatic he might possibly force her to think well of him
but heroic situations and opportunities come not every day to a man and girls who demand that their knights shall be brave in face of death
he wrote to reeve howard the night before they were to start and apologized gracefully for having neglected him during the past three weeks and told him he would certainly be home in another month he said that he was
if he had said civilized woman it would have been more just and more illuminating to reeve howard who wondered what scrape phil had gotten himself into with those savages
for the first few days of the trip thurston was in that frame of mind which makes a man want to ride by himself with shoulders hunched moodily and eyes staring straight before the nose of his horse but the sky was soft and seemed to smile down at him and
the clouds loitered in the blue of it and drifted aimlessly with no thought of reaching harbor on the sky line from under his horse's feet the prairie sod sent up sweet earthy odors into his nostrils
and the tinkle of the bells in the saddle bunch behind him made music in his ears the sort of music a true cowboy loves yellow throated meadow larks perched swaying in the top of gray sage bushes and sang to him that
the world was good sober gray curlews circled over his head their long funny bills thrust out straight as if to point the way for their bodies to follow and cried
seeing it and smelling it and feeling the riot of spring in his blood straightened the hunch out of his shoulders and admitted that it was all true that the world was good at miles city
he found himself in the midst of a small army the regulars of the range which grew hourly larger as the outfits rolled in the rattle of mess wagons driven by the camp cook and followed by the bed wagon was heard from all directions
jingling cavvies herds of saddle horses they were driven and watched over by the horse wrangler came out of the wilderness in the wake of the wagons thurston got out his camera and took pictures of the scene
in the first ten different camps appeared he mourned because two others were perforced omitted
and there were four beyond range of the lens park came along saw what he was doing and laughed
when yuh can stand on this little hill and count fifty or sixty outfits camped within two or three miles uh here yuh might begin taking pictures i think you're loading me thurston retorted calmly
winding up the roll for another exposure all right suit yourself about it park walked off and left him peering into the view finder still they came
from swift current to the cypress hills the canadian cattlemen sent their wagons to join the big meet from the sweet grass hills to the mouth of milk river
from the upper musselshell they came and from out the judith basin from shellanne east to fort buford truly it was a gathering of the clans such as eastern montana had never before seen
for a day and a night the cowboys made merry in town while their foremen consulted and the captains appointed by the association mapped out the different routes at times like these foremen such as park and deacon smith
and the long summer's work began each rider a unit in the war against the chaos which the winter had wrought in the fight of the stockmen to wrest back their fortunes from the wilderness and to hold once more their sway over the range land
two of the lazy eight wagons under park and gene wasson for hank that spring was running four crews and had promoted gene wagon boss of one joined forces with the circle bar the flying u and a yellowstone outfit
whose wagon boss knowing best the range was captain of the five crews and drove north gathering and holding all stock which properly ranged beyond the missouri
and all stock which belonged on that range was cut out leaving only those which had crossed the river during the storms of winter these were driven on to the next camping place and held which meant constant day herding and night guarding work
their carcasses made unsightly blots in the coulee bottoms and on the wind swept levels of the calves that had followed their mothers on the long trail hundreds had dropped out of the march and been left behind for the wolves but not all
range bred cattle are blessed with rugged constitutions and can bear much of cold and hunger
and roots out a very satisfactory living for herself breeds calves that will in time do likewise and grow fat and strong in the doing he is a sturdy self reliant little rascal is the range bred calf
thurston felt that he had gleaned about all the experience he needed and more than enough hard riding and short sleeping and hurried eating he announced that he was ready to bid good by to the range he would help take the herd home he told park and then
he intended to hit the trail for little old new york
chapter thirteen i'll stay always for a long time thurston lay with wide open eyes staring up at nothing listening to the rain and thinking
by and by the rain ceased and he could tell by the dim whiteness of the tent roof that the clouds must have been swept away from before the moon then just past the full he got up carefully so as not to disturb the others and
crept over two or three sleeping forms on his way to the opening untied the flap and went out the whole hilltop and the valley below were bathed in mellow radiance
he studied critically the wide sweep of the river he might almost have thought it the missouri itself it stretched so far from bank to bank indeed it seemed to know no banks but the hills themselves
the hand of park rested upon his shoulder looks kinda dubious don't it kid was yuh thinking about riding down there yes thurston answered simply
are you coming sure park assented they got upon their horses and headed down the trail to the stevens place thurston would have put sunfish to a run but park checked him
go easy he admonished if there's swimming to be done and it's a cinch there will be he's going to need all the wind he's got
down the hill they stopped at the edge of a raging torrent and strained their eyes to see what lay on the other side while they looked a light twinkled out from among the tree tops thurston caught his breath sharply
she's upstairs he said and his voice sounded strained and unnatural it's just a loft where they store stuff he started to ride into the flood
park roared get off and loosen the cinch before yuh go in there or yuh won't get far sunfish'll need room to breathe once he gets to bucking that current he's a good water horse just give him his head and don't get rattled and interfere with him
and sat there swaying drunkenly upon it a great yellow cat clung and yowled his fear that's old dutch henry's house park shouted above the roar
sunfish had carried him safely out of the stampede and he had no fear of him now his chief thought was a wish that he might do this thing quite alone he was jealous of park's leading and thought bitterly that mona would thank park alone
ashamed of what it had done thurston in that instant came near jerking sunfish around to follow but he checked the impulse as it was formed and left the reins alone which was wise
answered faintly from the loft he shouted again giving directions in a tone of authority which must have sounded strange to her but which she did not seem to resent and obeyed without protest
you didn't cope with the situation after all he remarked while she was settling herself firmly in the saddle i went to sleep and didn't notice the water till it was coming in at the door she explained
and then she stopped abruptly then what he demanded maliciously were you afraid a little she confessed reluctantly
thurston gloated over it in silence until he remembered park after that he could think of little else as before now sunfish battled as seemed to him best for thurston astride behind the saddle
held mona somewhat tighter than he need to have done and let the horse go so long as sunfish had footing he braced himself against the mad rush of waters and forged ahead
but out where the current ran swimming deep he floundered desperately under his double burden while his strength lasted he kept his head above water struggling gamely against the flood that lapped over his back and bubbled in his nostrils
thurston felt his laboring and clutched mona still tighter of a sudden the horse's head went under the black water came up around thurston's throat with a hungry swish and sunfish went out from under him like an eel
there was a confused roaring in his ears a horrid sense of suffocation for a moment but he had learned to swim when he was a boy at school and he freed one hand from its grip on mona and set to paddling with much vigor and considerably less skill
and though the under current clutched him and the weight of mona taxed his strength he managed to keep them both afloat and to make a little headway until the deepest part lay behind them how thankful he was when his feet touched bottom
no one but himself ever knew his ears hummed from the water in them and the roar of the river was to him as the roar of the sea his eyes smarted from the clammy touch of the dingy froth that went hurrying by in monster flakes
coughed his voice clear park went down he began hardly knowing what it was he was saying park he stopped then shouted the name aloud park
and from somewhere down the river came a faint reassuring whoop thank the lord gasped thurston and leaned against her for a second then he straightened are you all right he asked
and drew her toward a rock near at hand for in truth the knees of him were shaking they sat down and he looked more closely at her face and discovered that it was wet with something more than river water
mona the self assured mona the strong hearted was crying and instinctively he knew that not the chill alone made her shiver he was keeping his arm around her waist deliberately and it pleased him that she let it stay
he laid a hand tenderly against her cheek and wondered if he dared feel so happy little girl oh little girl he said softly and stopped
for the crowding emotions in his heart and brain the english language has no words mona lifted her face and looked into his eyes her own were soft and shining in the moonlight and she was smiling a little
the roguish little smile of the imitation pastel portrait you you'll unpack your typewriter won't you please and and stay
the range land will never get rid of me now he cried jubilantly hank wanted to take me into the lazy eight so now i'll buy an interest and stay always you dear mona snuggled close and learned how it feels to be kissed
if she had never known before sunfish having scrambled ashore a few yards farther down came up to them and stood waiting as if to be forgiven for his failure to carry them safe to land
thurston turned joyfully toward him park old fellow i was afraid yuh better reform and quit being afraid park bantered i got out uh the mix up fine but i guess my horse went on down poor devil
well mona
he laughed in his teasing way mona stood up and her shining eyes were turned to thurston i don't care she asserted with reddened cheeks i'm just glad it did get through
same here said thurston with much emphasis then with mona once more in the saddle and with thurston leading sunfish by the bridle rein
gone at precisely eight o'clock in the evening of this identical monday july seventeenth eighteen fifty four old jonathan perry sat tranquilly smoking his pipe at the door of the toll gate two miles north of millbrook
the atmosphere was too warm to admit of the wearing of any great display of apparel
he was an inveterate old gossip and was acquainted with the business of everybody in the neighborhood he knew all about the bargain entered into between savareen and squire harrington and how it was to be consummated on the following day
savareen when riding townwards that morning had informed him of the ostensible purpose of his journey and it now suddenly occurred to the old man to wonder why the young farmer had not returned home while he sat there pondering
the first stroke of the town bell proclaiming the hour was borne upon his ear before the ringing had ceased he caught the additional sound of a horse's hoofs rapidly advancing up the road ah said he to himself here he comes
i reckon his wife'll be apt to give him fits for being so late in another moment the horseman drew up before him but only to exchange a word of greeting as the gate was thrown wide open and there was nothing to bar his progress the venerable gate keeper had conjectured right
it was savareen on his black mare well jonathan a nice evening remarked the young farmer yes mister savareen a lovely night you've had a long day of it in town they'll be anxious about you at home did you find the money all right as you expected
and then for about the twentieth time within the last few hours he recounted the particulars of his interview with the bank clerk the old man expressed his entire concurrence in savareen's estimate of shuttleworth's conduct
i have to pay the gate money into the bank on the first of every month he remarked and that young feller always acts as if he felt too uppish to touch it i wonder you didn't drop into un o i wasn't likely to do that was the reply but i gave him a bit of my mind
and so it will i'd sooner keep my bit o money when i have any in the clock case at home there's never any housebreaking hereabouts jonathan responded by saying that in so far as he knew there hadn't been a burglary for many a year
but all the same he continued i shouldn't like to keep such a sum as four hundred pound about me even for a single night no more i shouldn't like to carry such a pot o money home in the night time even if nobody knew as i had it on me
and so saying savareen continued his course homeward at a brisk trot the old man watched him as he sped away up the road but could not keep him in view more than half a minute or so as by this time the light of day had wholly departed
what's the matter now i wonder but this time he was out in his conjecture when the horseman reached the gate he proved to be not savareen but mine host lapierre mounted on his fast trotting nag count frontenac
a name irreverently abbreviated by the sportsmen of the district into fronty the rider drew up with a boisterous woa and reached out towards the gate keeper a five cent piece by way of toll saying as he did so
vell mister perry how coes everytings wiss you o good evening mister lapierre i didn't know you till you spoke my eyesight's getting dimmer every day i think bound for town yes i want to see what has cot mister safareen
missus safareen cot so uneasy apout him to night that she came up to my place and pegged me to ride down and hunt him up i suppose you saw him on his way down saw him on his way down what are you talking about didn't you meet him just now meet who
savareen where when
how long pefore how long why don't i tell you not two minutes
then followed further explanations on the part of old jonathan
well of course the key to the situation was not hard to find savareen had left the toll gate and proceeded northward not more than two or three minutes before lapierre
but the space of time which had elapsed was too brief to admit of the latter's having ridden more than a hundred yards or thereabouts the only outlet from the road within four times that distance was the gateway leading into stolliver's house the explanation consequently was simple enough
savareen had called in at stollivers
and come to think of it it was hard to understand what possible reason he could have for calling at stolliver's he had never had any business or social relations of any kind with stolliver and in fact the two had merely a nodding acquaintance
still another strange thing was that savareen should have taken his horse inside the gate as there was a tying post outside and he could not have intended to make any prolonged stay however there was no use raising difficult problems which could doubt less be solved by a moment's explanation
it was absolutely certain that savareen was at stolliver's because he could not possibly have avoided meeting lapierre if he had not called there it was lapierre's business to find him and take him home accordingly the landlord of the royal oak turned his horse's head and cantered back up the road
till he reached the front of stolliver's place stolliver and his two boys were sitting out on the front fence having emerged from the house only a moment before
old stolliver was in the habit of smoking a pipe every night after his evening meal and in pleasant weather he generally chose to smoke it out of doors as he was doing this evening although the darkness had fallen lapierre as he drew rein
lapierre was astounded
who received the communication with his wonted stolidity and proceeded to light his pipe as much as to say that the affair was none of his funeral well he remarked with exasperating coolness i guess you must a passed him on the road
of course it was all nonsense about the landlord having passed him on the road without seeing or hearing anything of him but what other explanation did the circumstances admit of at any rate there was nothing for lapierre to do but ride back to savareen's house and see if he had arrived there
yes one other thing might be done he might return to the toll gate and ascertain whether jonathan perry was certain as to the identity of the man from whom he had parted a few minutes before so count frontenac's head was once more turned southward
a short trot brought him again to the toll house the gatekeeper was still sitting smoking at the door a moment's conference with him was sufficient to convince lapierre that there could be no question of mistaken identity
why said jonathan i know mister savareen as well as i know my right hand and then didn't he tell me about his row with shuttleworth and that he had the four hundred pounds in his pocket why dark as it was i noticed the scar on his cheek when he was talking about it
i say missus look here he called in a louder tone whereupon his wife presented herself at the threshold now resumed the old man just tell mister lapierre whether you saw mister savareen talking to me a few minutes since and whether you saw him ride off up the road just before mister lapierre came down
did you or did you not missus perry's answer was decisive and at the same time conclusive as to the facts she had not only seen savareen sitting on his black mare at the door immediately after the town bell ceased ringing for eight o'clock
but she had listened to the conversation between him and her husband and had heard pretty nearly every word lapierre cross examined her and found that her report of the interview exactly corresponded with what he had already heard from old jonathan why said she
there is no more doubt of its being mister savareen than there is of that gate post being there on the road side very good advice it is says he and i'll act upon it without more words then he said good night and off he went up the road
lapierre couldn't see it he knew well enough that it was no more possible for him to pass a man on horseback on that narrow highway on a clear night without seeing him more especially when he was out for the express purpose of finding that very man
he stayed not for brook there was a brook a short distance up the road and he stopped not for stone but tore along at a break neck pace as though he was riding for a wager in five minutes he reached savareen's front gate
missus savareen was waiting there on the look out for her husband no of course he had not got home she had neither seen nor heard anything of him and was by this time very uneasy
you may be sure that her anxiety was not lessened when she heard the strange tale which lapierre had to tell her even then however she did not give up the hope of her husband's arrival sometime during the night lapierre promised to look in again in an hour or two
a new lesson to learn it was a long time before the children ceased to talk and laugh over that jolly evening dorry declared he wished there could be a valentine's day every week don't you think saint valentine would be tired of writing verses asked katy
when she was discouraged and forlorn but katy's long year of schooling had taught her self control and as a general thing her discomforts were borne patiently she could not help growing pale and thin however and papa saw with concern that as the summer went on
she became too languid to read or study or sew and just sat hour after hour with folded hands gazing wistfully out of the window he tried the experiment of taking her to drive but the motion of the carriage
so there was nothing to be done but wait for cooler weather the summer dragged on and all who loved katy rejoiced when it was over when september came with cool mornings and nights and fresh breezes smelling of pine woods and hill tops all things seemed to revive
and katy with them she began to crochet and to read after a while she collected her books again and tried to study as cousin helen had advised but so many idle weeks made it seem harder work than ever one day she asked papa to let her take french lessons
this second winter was harder than the first it is often so with sick people there is a sort of excitement in being ill which helps along just at the beginning but as months go on and everything grows an old story and one day follows another day
and something was about to happen but she little guessed what it was going to be katy said clover coming in one day in november
aunt izzie has got such a headache no replied katy i don't or
i have told her that she had better lie still and not try to get up this evening old mary will come in to undress you katy you won't mind will you dear n o said katy reluctantly but she did mind aunt izzie had grown used to her and her ways
blessings brighten as they take their flight katy began to appreciate for the first time how much she had learned to rely on her aunt she missed her dreadfully when is aunt izzie going to get well she asked her father i want her so much
we all want her said doctor carr who looked disturbed and anxious is she very sick asked katy struck by the expression of his face pretty sick i'm afraid he replied i'm going to get a regular nurse to take care of her aunt izzie's attack
proved to be typhoid fever the doctors said that the house must be kept quiet so john and dorry and phil were sent over to missus hall's to stay elsie and clover were to have gone too but they begged so hard and made so many promises of good behavior
that finally papa permitted them to remain the dear little things stole about the house on tiptoe as quietly as mice whispering to each other and waiting on katy who would have been lonely enough without them for everybody else was absorbed in aunt izzie
it was a confused melancholy time the three girls didn't know much about sickness but papa's grave face and the hushed house weighed upon their spirits and they missed the children very much oh dear sighed elsie
yes added elsie so will i when she gets well it never occurred to either of them that perhaps aunt izzie might not get well little people are apt to feel as if grown folks are so strong and so big that nothing can possibly happen to them
katy was more anxious still she did not fairly realize the danger so it came like a sudden and violent shock to her when one morning on waking up she found old mary crying quietly beside the bed with her apron at her eyes
and things began to go on in their usual manner for several days she saw almost nothing of her father clover reported that he looked very tired and scarcely said a word did papa eat any dinner asked katy one afternoon not much
he said he wasn't hungry and missus jackson's boy came for him before we were through oh dear sighed katy i do hope he isn't going to be sick how it rains clovy i wish you'd run down and get out his slippers and put them by the fire to warm
oh and ask debby to make some cream toast for tea papa likes cream toast after tea doctor carr came up stairs to sit a while in katy's room he often did so but this was the first time since aunt izzie's death katy studied his face anxiously
she longed to do something for him but all she could do was to poke the fire bright and then to possess herself of his hand and stroke it gently with both hers it wasn't much to be sure but i think papa liked it what have you been about all day he asked
of course we shall have to get somebody to come and take charge but it isn't easy to find just the right person missus hall knows of a woman who might do
oh papa cried katy in dismay must we have anybody why how did you suppose we were going to arrange it clover is much too young for a housekeeper and beside she is at school all day
i don't know i hadn't thought about it said katy in a perplexed tone but she did think about it all that evening and the first thing when she woke in the morning papa she said the next time she got him to herself
i really don't see if you were well and strong perhaps but even then you would be pretty young for such a charge katy i shall be fourteen in two weeks said katy drawing herself up in her chair as straight as she could and if i were well papa
and they're such good women that all they want is just to be told a little now and then now why couldn't they come up to me when anything is wanted just as well as to have me go down to them clover and old mary will keep watch you know and see if anything is wrong
and you wouldn't mind if things were a little crooked just at first would you because you know i should be learning all the time do let me try it will be real nice to have something to think about as i sit up here alone so much better than having a stranger in the house who doesn't know the children or anything
i am sure it will make me happier please say yes papa please do it's too much for you a great deal too much replied doctor carr
as to the result of the experiment i will tell missus hall to put off writing to wisconsin for a month and we will see poor child anything to take her thoughts off herself he muttered as he walked down stairs she'll be glad enough to give the thing up by the end of the month
as katy had said all debby and bridget needed was a little telling now and then as soon as breakfast was over and the dishes were washed and put away debby would tie on a clean apron and come up stairs for orders at first katy thought this great fun
but after ordering dinner a good many times it began to grow tiresome she never saw the dishes after they were cooked and being inexperienced it seemed impossible to think of things enough to make a variety let me see there is roast beef leg of mutton
boiled chicken she would say counting on her fingers roast beef leg of mutton boiled chicken debby you might roast the chickens dear i wish somebody would invent a new animal where all the things to eat are gone to i can't imagine
then katy would send for every recipe book in the house and pore over them by the hour till her appetite was as completely gone as if she had swallowed twenty dinners poor debby learned to dread these books she would stand by the door with her pleasant red face drawn up into a pucker
while katy read aloud some impossible sounding rule this looks as if it were delicious debby i wish you'd try it take a gallon of oysters a pint of beef stock sixteen soda crackers the juice of two lemons four cloves a glass of white wine
no miss katy i never heard tell of it before miss carr never gave me no shell outs at all at all dear me how provoking katy would cry flapping over the leaves of her book then we must try something else poor debby
if she hadn't loved katy so dearly i think her patience must have given way but she bore her trials meekly except for an occasional grumble when alone with bridget doctor carr had to eat a great many queer things in those days but he didn't mind
and as for the children they enjoyed it dinner time became quite exciting when nobody could tell exactly what any dish on the table was made of dorry who was a sort of doctor livingstone where strange articles of food were concerned usually made the first experiment and if he said that it was good
the rest followed suit after a while katy grew wiser she ceased teasing debby to try new things and the carr family went back to plain roast and boiled much to the advantage of all concerned but then another series of experiments began
katy got hold of a book upon the stomach and was seized with a rage for wholesome food she entreated clover and the other children to give up sugar and butter and gravy and pudding sauce and buckwheat cakes and pies and almost everything else that they particularly liked
finally john and dorry started a rebellion and doctor carr was forced to interfere my dear you are overdoing it sadly he said as katy opened her book and prepared to explain her views i am glad to have the children eat simple food
but really boiled rice five times in a week is too much katy sighed but submitted later as the spring came on she had a fit of over anxiousness and was always sending clover down to ask debby if her bread was not burning
katy was too much in earnest not to improve month by month she learned how to manage a little better and a little better still matters went on more smoothly her cares ceased to fret her doctor carr watching the increasing brightness of her face and manner
the house to begin with was small and rather shabby there was no gilding no lavish diffusion of light the room they sat in after dinner with its green shaded lamps making faint pools of brightness and its rows of books from floor to ceiling
before the new marble building was put up then instead of a gas log or a polished grate with electric bulbs behind ruby glass there was an old fashioned wood fire like pictures of back to the farm for christmas and when the logs fell forward
missus pairford or her brother had to jump up to push them in place and the ashes scattered over the hearth untidily the dinner too was disappointing undine was too young to take note of culinary details
but she had expected to view the company through a bower of orchids and eat pretty coloured entrees in ruffled papers instead there was only a low centre dish of ferns and plain roasted and broiled meat that one could recognize as if they'd been dyspeptics on a diet
and the fourth a girl like herself who was introduced as miss harriet ray she dismissed at a glance as plain and wearing a last year's model the men too were less striking than she had hoped
she had not expected much of mister fairford since married men were intrinsically uninteresting and his baldness and grey moustache seemed naturally to relegate him to the background but she had looked for some brilliant youths of her own age in her inmost heart she had looked for mister popple
undine sat between mister bowen and young marvell who struck her as very sweet it was her word for friendliness but even shyer than at the hotel dance yet she was not sure if he were shy
but he left it to his sister and the others to draw her out and fit her into the pattern missus fairford talked so well that the girl wondered why missus heeny had found her lacking in conversation but though undine thought silent people awkward she was not easily impressed by
beating time for them with her smile and somehow harmonizing and linking together what they said she took particular pains to give undine her due part in the performance but the girl's expansive impulses were always balanced by odd reactions of mistrust
when her host asked her to try some grapes and i wouldn't wonder when she thought any one was trying to astonish her
to which missus fairford shrugged assentingly that delightful popple he paints so exactly as he talks the white haired lady took it up all his portraits seem to proclaim what a gentleman he is and how he fascinates women
they're not pictures of missus or miss so and so but simply of the impression popple thinks he's made on them missus fairford smiled i've sometimes thought she mused that mister popple must be the only gentleman i know
at least he's the only man who has ever told me he was a gentleman and mister popple never fails to mention it undine's ear was too well attuned to the national note of irony for her not to perceive that her companions were making sport of the painter
she winced at their banter as if it had been at her own expense yet it gave her a dizzy sense of being at last in the very stronghold of fashion her attention was diverted by hearing missus van degen under cover of the general laugh say in a low tone to young marvell
something in her tone made all undine's perceptions bristle and she strained her ears for the answer i think he'll do you capitally you must let me come and see some day soon marvell's tone was always so light so unemphasized
that she could not be sure of its being as indifferent as it sounded she looked down at the fruit on her plate and shot a side glance through her lashes at missus peter van degen missus van degen was neither beautiful nor imposing just a dark girlish looking creature with plaintive eyes
and a fidgety frequent laugh but she was more elaborately dressed and jewelled than the other ladies and her elegance and her restlessness made her seem less alien to undine she had turned on marvell a gaze at once pleading and possessive
but whether betokening merely an inherited intimacy undine had noticed that they were all more or less cousins or a more personal feeling her observer was unable to decide just as the tone of the young man's reply might have expressed the open avowal of good fellowship
or the disguise of a different sentiment all was blurred and puzzling to the girl in this world of half lights half tones eliminations and abbreviations and she felt a violent longing to brush away the cobwebs and assert herself as the dominant figure of the scene
yet in the drawing room with the ladies where missus fairford came and sat by her the spirit of caution once more prevailed she wanted to be noticed but she dreaded to be patronized and here again her hostess's gradations of tone were confusing
missus fairford made no tactless allusions to her being a newcomer in new york there was nothing as bitter to the girl as that but her questions as to what pictures had interested undine at the various exhibitions of the moment and which of the new books she had read
were almost as open to suspicion since they had to be answered in the negative undine did not even know that there were any pictures to be seen much less that people went to see them and she had read no new book but when the kissing had to stop
of which missus fairford seemed not to have heard on the theatre they were equally at odds for while undine had seen oolaloo fourteen times and was wild about ned norris in the soda water fountain
and knew only by name the clever american actress who was trying to give repertory plays with a good stock company the conversation was revived for a moment by her recalling that she had seen sarah bernhard in a play she called leg long
she inferred that the others didn't care to talk to her and that her host and hostess were in league to take her off their hands this discovery resulted in her holding her vivid head very high and answering i couldn't really say or is that so
to all mister fairford's ventures and as these were neither numerous nor striking it was a relief to both when the rising of the elderly lady gave the signal for departure in the hall where young marvell had managed to precede her
as she gathered it about her she laid her hand on marvell's arm ralphie dear you'll come to the opera with me on friday we'll dine together first peter's got a club dinner they exchanged what seemed a smile of intelligence and undine heard the young man accept
when she had drawn it on with haughty deliberation she found marvell at her side in hat and overcoat and her heart gave a higher bound he was going to escort her home of course this brilliant youth she felt now that he was brilliant who dined alone with married women
whom the van degen set called ralphie dear had really no eyes for any one but herself and at the thought her lost self complacency flowed back warm through her veins the street was coated with ice
and holding it fast while they waited for her cab to come up but when he had helped her in he closed the door and held his hand out over the lowered window good bye he said smiling and she could not help the break of pride in her voice as she faltered out stupidly from the depths of her disillusionment oh
in these fine early autumn days spent at matching the great trumpeton wood question was at last settled during the summer considerable acerbity had been added to the matter by certain articles which had appeared in certain sporting papers
in which the new duke of omnium was accused of neglecting his duty to the county in which a portion of his property lay the question was argued at considerable length is a landed proprietor bound or is he not to keep foxes for the amusement of his neighbours
to ordinary thinkers to unprejudiced outsiders to americans let us say or frenchmen there does not seem to be room even for an argument by what law of god or man can a man be bound to maintain a parcel of injurious vermin on his property
in the pursuit of which he finds no sport himself and which are highly detrimental to another sport in which he takes perhaps the keenest interest trumpeton wood was the duke's own to do just as he pleased with it why should foxes be demanded from him then
any more than a bear to be baited or a badger to be drawn in let us say his london dining room but a good deal had been said which though not perhaps capable of convincing the unprejudiced american or frenchman had been regarded as cogent arguments to country bred englishmen
many things are no doubt permissible under the law which if done would show the doer of them to be the enemy of his species and this destruction of foxes in a hunting country may be named as one of them the duke might have his foxes destroyed if he pleased
but he could hardly do so and remain a popular magnate in england if he chose to put himself in opposition to the desires and very instincts of the people among whom his property was situated he must live as a man forbid that was the general argument
and then there was the argument special to this particular case as it happened trumpeton wood was and always had been the great nursery of foxes for that side of the brake country gorse coverts make no doubt the charm of hunting
if all foxes so wandering be doomed to death if poison and wires and traps and hostile keepers await them there instead of the tender welcome of the loving fox preserver
and the whole country will be afflicted with a wild dismay all which lord chiltern understood well when he became so loud in his complaint against the duke but our dear old friend only the other day a duke planty pall as he was lately called
devoted to work and to parliament an unselfish friendly wise man who by no means wanted other men to cut their coats according to his pattern was the last man in england to put himself forward as the enemy of an established delight he did not hunt himself
but he knew that he was himself peculiar and he respected the habits of others it had fallen out in this wise as the old duke had become very old
or pay attention to the shooting and as the duke would not let the shooting of his wood mister fothergill the steward had gradually become omnipotent now mister fothergill was not a hunting man but the mischief did not at all lie there lord chiltern would not communicate with mister fothergill
lord chiltern would write to the duke and mister fothergill became an established enemy
there is something doubtless absurd in the intensity of the worship paid to the fox by hunting communities the animal becomes sacred and his preservation is a religion his irregular destruction is a profanity and words spoken to his injury are blasphemous
not long since a gentleman shot a fox running across a woodland ride in a hunting country he had mistaken it for a hare and had done the deed in the presence of keepers owner and friends
hoping that in spite of the sacrilege committed he might be able to face a world that would be ignorant of his crime as the vulpicide on the afternoon of the day of the deed went along the corridor to his room one maid servant whispered to another and the poor victim of an imperfect sight
heard the words that's he as shot the fox the gentleman did not appear at dinner nor was he ever again seen in those parts mister fothergill had become angry lord chiltern as we know had been very angry and even the duke was angry
the duke was angry because lord chiltern had been violent and lord chiltern had been violent because mister fothergill's conduct had been to his thinking not only sacrilegious but one continued course of wilful sacrilege
to kill a certain number of foxes in the year after the legitimate fashion had become to him the one great study of life and he did it with an energy equal to that which the duke devoted to decimal coinage his huntsman was always well mounted with two horses
but lord chiltern would give up his own to the man and take charge of a weary animal as a common groom when he found that he might thus further the object of the day's sport he worked as men work only at pleasure he never missed a day
even when cub hunting required that he should leave his bed at three a m he was constant at his kennel
the duke's property indeed surely all that was understood in england by this time now he had consented to come to matching bringing his wife with him in order that the matter might be settled there had been a threat that he would give up the country
in which case it was declared that it would be impossible to carry on the brake hunt in a manner satisfactory to masters subscribers owners of coverts or farmers unless a different order of things should be made to prevail in regard to trumpeton wood
the duke however had declined to interfere personally he had told his wife that he should be delighted to welcome lord and lady chiltern as he would any other friends of hers the guests indeed at the duke's house were never his guests but always hers
but he could not allow himself to be brought into an argument with lord chiltern as to the management of his own property the duchess was made to understand that she must prevent any such awkwardness and she did prevent it and now lord chiltern she said how about the foxes
lady chiltern and madame goesler were present and also phineas finn well how about them said the lord
that though the matter had been introduced somewhat jocosely there could not really be any joke about it why couldn't you keep it all out of the newspapers i don't write the newspapers duchess i can't help the newspapers when two hundred men ride through trumpeton wood and see one fox found
we may have traps if we like it lord chiltern certainly only say so and we shall know where we are he looked very angry and poor lady chiltern was covered with dismay the duke can destroy the hunt if he pleases no doubt said the lord but we don't like traps lord chiltern
i'd go and nurse the foxes myself if i knew how wouldn't i marie they have robbed the duchess of her sleep for the last six months said madame goesler and if they go on being not properly brought up and educated they'll make an old woman of me
as for the duke he can't be comfortable in his arithmetic for thinking of them but what can one do
to whom can i apply to appoint others don't you know what vested interests mean lord chiltern then nobody can manage his own property as he pleases nobody can unless he does the work himself if i were to go and live in trumpeton wood i could do it but you see i have to live here
i vote that we have an officer of state to go in and out with the government with a seat in the cabinet or not according as things go
then i suppose that nothing can be done said lord chiltern my dear lord chiltern everything has been done vested interests have been attended to keepers shall prefer foxes to pheasants wires shall be unheard of
and trumpeton wood shall once again be the glory of the brake hunt
i should be very sorry indeed to put the duke to any unnecessary expense said lord chiltern solemnly still fearing that the duchess was only playing with him it made him angry that he could not imbue other people with his idea of the seriousness of the amusement of a whole county
and so the great mister fothergill falls from power and goes down into obscurity said madame goesler he was an impudent old man and that's the truth said the duchess and he has always been my thorough detestation
on the next day lord and lady chiltern went back to harrington hall when the end of august comes a master of hounds who is really a master is wanted at home
nothing short of an embassy on behalf of the great coverts of his country would have kept this master away at present and now his diplomacy having succeeded he hurried back to make the most of its results lady chiltern before she went made a little speech to phineas finn
you'll come to us in the winter mister finn i should like you must no one was truer to you than we were you know indeed regarding you as we do how should we not have been true it was impossible to me that my old friend should have been oh lady chiltern
of course you'll come you owe it to us to come and may i say this if there be anybody to come with you that will make it only so much the better if it should be so of course there will be letters written
a few days later three men were closeted in the district attorney's office two of them were officials the district attorney himself and our old friend the inspector the third was the detective sweetwater chosen by them to keep watch on mister grey sweetwater had just come to town
this was evident from the gripsack he had set down in a corner on entering also from a certain tousled appearance which bespoke hasty rising and but few facilities for proper attention to his person these details counted little however in the astonishment created by his manner
and if he had had another fairbrother house experience he replied with a decided no that it was not his adventure which had upset him but the news he had to bring
here he glanced at every door and window and then leaning forward over the table at which the two officials sat he brought his head as nearly to them as possible and whispered five words they produced a most unhappy sensation both the men
hardened as they were by duties which soon sap the sensibilities started and turned as pale as the speaker himself then the district attorney with one glance at the inspector rose and locked the door
this done he so improved his opportunity that the two were soon on the best of terms and he learned that the englishman was without a valet and being unaccustomed to move about without one felt the awkwardness of his position very much this gave sweetwater his cue
and for the handling of affairs quite apart from personal tendance upon the gentleman himself he showed such an honest desire to fill the place and made out to give such a good account of himself that he found himself engaged for the work before reaching c
this was a great stroke of luck he thought but he little knew how big a stroke or into what a series of adventures it was going to lead him once on the platform of the small station at which mister grey had bidden him to stop he noticed two things
the utter helplessness of the man in all practical matters and his extreme anxiety to see all that was going on about him without being himself seen there was method in this curiosity too much method women did not interest him in the least
they could pass and repass without arousing his attention but the moment a man stepped his way he shrank from him only to betray the greatest curiosity concerning him the moment he felt it safe to turn and observe him
all of which convinced sweetwater that the englishman's errand was in connection with a man whom he equally dreaded and desired to meet of this he was made absolutely certain a little later as they were leaving the depot with the rest of the arrivals mister grey said
i want you to get me a room at a very quiet hotel this done you are to hunt up the man whose name you will find written in this paper
without his getting any sort of a look at me do this and you will earn a week's salary in one day sweetwater with his head in air and his heart on fire for matters were looking very promising indeed took the paper and put it in his pocket
then he began to hunt for a hotel not till he had found what he wished and installed the englishman in his room did he venture to open the precious memorandum and read the name he had been speculating over for an hour it was not the one he had anticipated but it came near to it
it was that of james wellgood satisfied now that he had a ticklish matter to handle he prepared for it with his usual enthusiasm and circumspection
his calculation was a correct one the store was crowded with people taking his place in the line drawn up before the post office window he awaited his turn
a stranger that young man put in volubly looking for james wellgood
i see that his letters pass through this office you're taking up another man's time complained the postmaster
ask dick over there he knows him the detective was glad enough to escape and ask dick but he was better pleased yet when dick a fellow with a squint whose hand was always in the sugar told him that mister wellgood would probably be in for his mail in a few moments
that is his buggy standing before the drug store on the opposite side of the way so he had netted jones quondam waiter at the first cast lucky was what he said to himself still lucky sauntering to the door he watched for the owner of that buggy
he had learned as such fellows do
that he was supposed by some to be sears himself in this way he would soon be looking upon the very man whose steps he had followed through the fairbrother house a few nights before and through whose resolute action he had very nearly run the risk of a lingering death from starvation
a dangerous customer thought he
it appeared to serve him now for when the man finally showed himself on the cross walk separating the two buildings he experienced a sudden indecision not unlike that of dread and there being nothing in the man's appearance to warrant apprehension
he took it for the instinctive recognition it undoubtedly was he therefore watched him narrowly and succeeded in getting one glance from his eye it was enough the man was commonplace commonplace in feature dress and manner but his eye gave him away
there was nothing commonplace in that it was an eye to beware of he had taken in sweetwater as he passed but sweetwater was of a commonplace type too and woke no corresponding dread in the other's mind
for he went whistling into the store from which he presently reissued with a bundle of mail in his hand the detective's first instinct was to take him into custody as a suspect much wanted by the new york police but reason assured him that he not only had no warrant for this
but how with the conditions laid on him by mister grey was this to be done
how then go to work to secure his cooperation in a scheme possibly as mysterious to him as it was to himself he could stop this stranger in mid street with some plausible excuse but it did not follow that he would succeed in luring him to the hotel where mister grey could see him
wellgood or as he believed sears knew too much of life to be beguiled by any open clap trap and sweetwater was obliged to see him drive off without having made the least advance in the purpose engrossing him but that was nothing he had all the evening before him
and reentering the store he took up his stand near the sugar barrel he had perceived that in the pauses of weighing and tasting dick talked if he were guided with suitable discretion why should he not talk of wellgood he was guided and he did talk and to some effect
that is he gave information of the man which surprised sweetwater if in the past and in new york he had been known as a waiter or should i say steward he was known here as a manufacturer of patent medicine designed to rejuvenate the human race
he had not been long in town and was somewhat of a stranger yet but he wouldn't be so long he was going to make things hum he was money for this money for that a horse where another man would walk and mail well that alone would make this post office worth while
then the drugs ordered by wholesale those boxes over there were his ready to be carted out to his manufactory count them some one and think of the bottles and bottles of stuff they stand for if it sells as he says it will then he will soon be rich and so on
till sweetwater brought the garrulous dick to a standstill by asking whether wellgood had been away for any purpose since he first came to town he received the reply that he had just come home from new york where he had been for some articles needed in his manufactory sweetwater felt all his convictions confirmed
and ended the colloquy with the final question and where is his manufactory might be worth visiting perhaps the other made a gesture said something about northwest and rushed to help a customer sweetwater took the opportunity to slide away
that the man who answered to the name of wellgood
and armed with definite information he appeared before mister grey who to his astonishment was dining in his own room he had dismissed the waiter and was rather brooding than eating he looked up eagerly however when sweetwater entered and asked what news
the detective with some semblance of respect answered that he had seen wellgood but that he had been unable to detain him or bring him within his employer's observation he is a patent medicine man he then explained
and manufactures his own concoctions in a house he has rented here on a lonely road some half mile out of town wellgood does the man named wellgood mister grey exclaimed with all the astonishment the other secretly expected yes wellgood james wellgood there is no other in town
ah mister grey rose precipitately his manner had changed i must see him what you tell me makes it all the more necessary for me to see him how can you bring it about without his seeing you sweetwater asked yes yes certainly without his seeing me
most noble vice chancellor and you eminent proctors a citizen of britain is before you once a student in this university now better known to the people of the new world than to our own
this is the man who fifteen years ago went to the coast of labrador to succor with medical aid the solitary fishermen of the northern sea in executing which service he despised the perils of the ocean which are there most terrible
rightly then we praise him by whose praise not he alone but our university also is honored i present to you wilfred thomason grenfell that he may be admitted to the degree of doctor in medicine
for the first time in its history the university of oxford conferred the honorary degree in medicine with these fitting words was presented a man whose simple faith has been the motive power of his works to whom pain and weariness of flesh have called no stay
on november ninth of the preceding year the king of england gave one of his birthday honors to the same man making him a companion of saint michael and saint george c m g wilfred thomason grenfell
was born on the twenty eighth day of february eighteen hundred and sixty five at mostyn house school parkgate by chester england of an ancestry which laid a firm foundation for his career and in surroundings which fitted him for it
on both sides of his inheritance have been exhibited the courage patience persistence and fighting and teaching qualities which are exemplified in his own abilities to command to administer and to uplift on his father's side were the grenvilles
grenville trevanion slanning godolphin slain there was also sir richard grenville immortalized by tennyson in the revenge and john pascoe grenville the right hand man of admiral cochrane
who boarded the spanish admiral's ship the esmeralda on the port side while cochrane came up on the starboard when together they made short work of the capture nor has the strain died out as is demonstrated in the present generation by many of doctor grenfell's cousins
among them general francis wallace grenfell lord kilvey and by doctor grenfell himself on the labrador in the fight against disease and disaster and distress along a stormy and uncharted coast
on his mother's side four of her brothers were generals or colonels in the trying times of service in india the eldest fought with distinction throughout the indian mutiny and in the defence of lucknow
and a fine classical scholar whose elder and younger brothers each felt the ancestral call of the sea and became admirals with brave records of daring and success doctor grenfell's father after a brilliant career at rugby school and at balliol college oxford
became assistant master at repton and later when he married head master of mostyn house school a position which he resigned in eighteen eighty two to become chaplain of the london hospital he was a man of much learning with a keen interest in science
mostyn house school still stands enlarged and modernized in the charge of doctor grenfell's elder brother and in it his mother is still the real head and controlling genius parkgate
the broad stretch of seaward trending sand with its interlacing rivulets of fresh and brackish water made a tempting though treacherous playground alluring alike in the varied forms of life it harbored and in the adventure which whetted exploration
thither came charles kingsley canon of chester who married a grenfell and who coupled his verse with scientific study and made geological excursions to the river's mouth with the then master of mostyn house school in these excursions the youthful wilfred was a participant
and therein he learned some of his first lessons in that accuracy of observation essential to his later life work here in this trained but untrammeled boyhood with an inherited incentive to labor and an educated thirst for knowledge
away from the thrall of crowded communities close to the wild places of nature with the sea always beckoning and a rocking boat as familiar as the land it is small wonder that there grew the fashioning of the purpose of a man dimly at first
both in books and in play for the one gained a scholarship and the other an enduring interest in rugby football matriculating later at the university of london grenfell entered the london hospital and there laid not only the foundation of his medical education
renowned surgeon and daring sailor and master mariner as well with plenty of work to the fore as a hospital interne the ruling spirit still asserted itself and the young doctor became an inspiration among the waifs of the teeming city
he was one of the founders of the great lads brigades which have done much good and fostered more in the example that they have set for allied activities nor were the needs of his own bodily machine neglected football rowing and the tennis court kept him in condition
and his athletics served to strengthen his appeals to the london boys whom he enrolled in the brigades he founded the inter hospital rowing club at putney and rowed in the first inter hospital race he played on the varsity football team and won the throwing the hammer at the sports
a couple of terms at queen's college oxford followed the london experience but here the conditions were too easy and luxurious for one who by both inheritance and training had within him the incentive to the strenuous life need called misery appealed
seeking some way in which he could satisfy his medical aspirations as well as his desire for adventure and for definite christian work
the existing traffic in spirituous liquors and in all other demoralizing influences had to be fought step by step prejudice and evil habit had to be overcome and to be replaced by better knowledge and better desire there was room for both fighting and teaching
must be reincarnate in our lives if it is to be received to day thus came about the outfitting of the albert hospital ship to carry the message and the help by cruising among the fleets on the fishing grounds and the organization of the deep sea mission
six hundred miles of almost barren rock with outlying uncharted ledges worn smooth by ice else still more vessels would have found wreckage there a scant constant population of hardy fishermen and their families
pious and god fearing most of them but largely at the mercy of the local traders who took their pay in fish for the bare necessities of living with a large account always on the trader's side with such medical aid and ministration as came only occasionally by the infrequent mail boat
to such a place came doctor grenfell in eighteen ninety two to cast in his lot with its inhabitants to live there so long as he should to die there were it god's will
as it stands to day the mission to deep sea fishermen which doctor grenfell represents administers and animates on the labrador coast not only brings hope new courage and spiritual comfort to an isolated people in a desolate land
but cares for the sick and injured in its four hospitals and dispensary provides house visitation by means of dog sledge journeys covering hundreds of miles in a year teaches wholesome and righteous living
encourages thrift and administers justice and adds to the wage earning capacity and therefore food obtaining power by operating a sawmill a schooner building yard and other productive industries to accomplish this
to make of the scattered settlements a united and independent people to safeguard their future by such measures as the establishment of a seamen's institute at saint john's newfoundland and the insurance of communication with the outside world
and to raise by personal solicitation the money needed for these enterprises requires an unusual personality faith courage insight foresight the power to win and the ability to command
chapter fifty four mister micawber's transactions this is not the time at which i am to enter on the state of my mind beneath its load of sorrow
i came to think that the future was walled up before me that the energy and action of my life were at an end that i never could find any refuge but in the grave
an interval occurred before i fully knew my own distress an interval in which i even supposed that its sharpest pangs were past and when my mind could soothe itself by resting on all that was most innocent and beautiful in the tender story
that was closed for ever when it was first proposed that i should go abroad or how it came to be agreed among us that i was to seek the restoration of my peace in change and travel
i do not even now distinctly know the spirit of agnes so pervaded all we thought and said and did in that time of sorrow that i assume i may refer the project to her influence
but her influence was so quiet that i know no more and now indeed i began to think that in my old association of her with the stained glass window in the church a prophetic foreshadowing of what she would be to me
in the calamity that was to happen in the fullness of time had found a way into my mind in all that sorrow
when she stood before me with her upraised hand she was like a sacred presence in my lonely house when the angel of death alighted there my child wife fell asleep they told me so when i could bear to hear it on her bosom with a smile
from my swoon i first awoke to a consciousness of her compassionate tears her words of hope and peace her gentle face bending down as from a purer region nearer heaven over my undisciplined heart
and softening its pain let me go on i was to go abroad that seemed to have been determined among us from the first
the ground now covering all that could perish of my departed wife i waited only for what mister micawber called the final pulverization of heep and for the departure of the emigrants
was my aunt's first salutation after we were seated pray have you thought about that emigration proposal of mine my dear madam returned mister micawber
perhaps i cannot better express the conclusion at which missus micawber your humble servant and i may add our children have jointly and severally arrived than by borrowing the language of an illustrious poet
and our bark is on the sea that's right said my aunt i augur all sort of good from your sensible decision madam you do us a great deal of honour he rejoined he then referred to a memorandum
with respect to the pecuniary assistance enabling us to launch our frail canoe on the ocean of enterprise i have reconsidered that important business point and would beg to propose my notes of hand
drawn it is needless to stipulate on stamps of the amounts respectively required by the various acts of parliament applying to such securities at eighteen twenty four and thirty months the proposition i originally submitted
was twelve eighteen and twenty four but i am apprehensive that such an arrangement might not allow sufficient time for the requisite amount of something to turn up
where it will be our lot to combat with the teeming soil
said my aunt madam he replied missus micawber and myself are deeply sensible of the very considerate kindness of our friends and patrons what i wish is to be perfectly business like and perfectly punctual
turning over as we are about to turn over an entirely new leaf and falling back as we are now in the act of falling back for a spring of no common magnitude it is important to my sense of self respect
besides being an example to my son that these arrangements should be concluded as between man and man i don't know that mister micawber attached any meaning to this last phrase
i believe we are originally indebted to the jews who appear to me to have had a devilish deal too much to do with them ever since because they are negotiable but if a bond or any other description of security would be preferred
i should be happy to execute any such instrument as between man and man my aunt observed that in a case where both parties were willing to agree to anything
for meeting the destiny to which we are now understood to be self devoted i beg to report them my eldest daughter attends at five every morning in a neighbouring establishment to acquire the process if process it may be called
of milking cows my younger children are instructed to observe as closely as circumstances will permit the habits of the pigs and poultry maintained in the poorer parts of this city
a pursuit from which they have on two occasions been brought home within an inch of being run over i have myself directed some attention during the past week to the art of baking
and my son wilkins has issued forth with a walking stick and driven cattle when permitted by the rugged hirelings who had them in charge to render any voluntary service in that direction
which i regret to say for the credit of our nature was not often he being generally warned with imprecations to desist all very right indeed said my aunt encouragingly
missus micawber has been busy too i have no doubt my dear madam returned missus micawber with her business like air i am free to confess that i have not been actively engaged in pursuits immediately connected with cultivation or with stock
though well aware that both will claim my attention on a foreign shore such opportunities as i have been enabled to alienate from my domestic duties i have devoted to corresponding at some length with my family
when the lion should lie down with the lamb and my family be on terms with mister micawber i said i thought so too this at least is the light my dear mister copperfield pursued missus micawber
that there are members of my family who have been apprehensive that mister micawber would solicit them for their names i do not mean to be conferred in baptism upon our children but to be inscribed on bills of exchange and negotiated in the money market
the look of penetration with which missus micawber announced this discovery as if no one had ever thought of it before seemed rather to astonish my aunt who abruptly replied well ma'am upon the whole
which in my opinion is exceedingly important mister micawber's abilities peculiarly requiring space it seems to me that my family should signalize the occasion by coming forward what i could wish to see
mister micawber might have an opportunity of developing his views
and in detail unmitigated ruffians micawber said missus micawber shaking her head no you have never understood them and they have never understood you mister micawber coughed
in short with a parting shove of their cold shoulders and that upon the whole i would rather leave england with such impetus as i possess than derive any acceleration of it from that quarter at the same time my dear
if they should condescend to reply to your communications which our joint experience renders most improbable far be it from me to be a barrier to your wishes the matter being thus amicably settled
mister micawber gave missus micawber his arm and glancing at the heap of books and papers lying before traddles on the table said they would leave us to ourselves which they ceremoniously did my dear copperfield said traddles
leaning back in his chair when they were gone and looking at me with an affection that made his eyes red and his hair all kinds of shapes i don't make any excuse for troubling you with business because i know you are deeply interested in it and it may divert your thoughts
my dear boy i hope you are not worn out i am quite myself said i after a pause we have more cause to think of my aunt than of anyone you know how much she has done surely surely answered traddles who can forget it
but even that is not all said i during the last fortnight some new trouble has vexed her and she has been in and out of london every day several times she has gone out early and been absent until evening
you know what her consideration for others is
for himself he is a most untiring man when he works for other people i never saw such a fellow if he always goes on in the same way he must be virtually about two hundred years old at present
the heat into which he has been continually putting himself and the distracted and impetuous manner in which he has been diving day and night among papers and books to say nothing of the immense number of letters he has written me between this house
and mister wickfield's and often across the table when he has been sitting opposite and might much more easily have spoken is quite extraordinary letters cried my aunt i believe he dreams in letters
there's mister dick too said traddles has been doing wonders
whom he kept in such charge as i never saw exceeded he began to devote himself to mister wickfield and really his anxiety to be of use in the investigations we have been making
in extracting and copying and fetching and carrying have been quite stimulating to us dick is a very remarkable man exclaimed my aunt and i always said he was trot you know it
i am happy to say miss wickfield pursued traddles at once with great delicacy and with great earnestness that in your absence mister wickfield has considerably improved
and attention on particular points of business has recovered itself very much and he has been able to assist us in making some things clear that we should have found very difficult indeed if not hopeless without him
but what i have to do is to come to results which are short enough not to gossip on all the hopeful circumstances i have observed or i shall never have done his natural manner and agreeable simplicity made it transparent
that he said this to put us in good heart and to enable agnes to hear her father mentioned with greater confidence
now let me see said traddles looking among the papers on the table having counted our funds and reduced to order a great mass of unintentional confusion in the first place and of wilful confusion and falsification in the second
we take it to be clear that mister wickfield might now wind up his business and his agency trust and exhibit no deficiency or defalcation whatever oh thank heaven cried agnes fervently but said traddles
it would be best to consider whether he might not retain his agency of the estate to which he has so long been receiver his friends might advise him you know now he is free you yourself miss wickfield copperfield i
i have considered it trotwood said agnes looking to me and i feel that it ought not to be and must not be even on the recommendation of a friend to whom i am so grateful and owe so much i will not say that i recommend it
observed traddles i think it right to suggest it no more i am happy to hear you say so answered agnes steadily for it gives me hope almost assurance that we think alike dear mister traddles and dear trotwood
papa once free with honour what could i wish for i have always aspired if i could have released him from the toils in which he was held to render back some little portion of the love and care i owe him
to him it has been for years the utmost height of my hopes to take our future on myself will be the next great happiness the next to his release from all trust and responsibility that i can know
have you thought how agnes often i am not afraid dear trotwood i am certain of success so many people know me here and think kindly of me that i am certain don't mistrust me
our wants are not many if i rent the dear old house and keep a school i shall be useful and happy the calm fervour of her cheerful voice brought back so vividly first the dear old house itself
and then my solitary home that my heart was too full for speech traddles pretended for a little while to be busily looking among the papers next miss trotwood said traddles that property of yours
well sir sighed my aunt all i have got to say about it is that if it's gone i can bear it and if it's not gone i shall be glad to get it back
it was originally i think eight thousand pounds consols said traddles right replied my aunt i can't account for more than five said traddles with an air of perplexity
my dear and the other two i have by me when i lost the rest i thought it wise to say nothing about that sum but to keep it secretly for a rainy day i wanted to see how you would come out of the trial trot
and you came out nobly persevering self reliant self denying so did dick don't speak to me for i find my nerves a little shaken
mister wickfield being so weak and helpless in his hands as to pay you afterwards several sums of interest on a pretended principal which he knew did not exist made himself unhappily a party to the fraud
and at last took the blame upon himself added my aunt and wrote me a mad letter charging himself with robbery and wrong unheard of
upon which i paid him a visit early one morning called for a candle burnt the letter and told him if he ever could right me and himself to do it and if he couldn't to keep his own counsel for his daughter's sake
if anybody speaks to me i'll leave the house we all remained quiet agnes covering her face well my dear friend said my aunt after a pause and you have really extorted the money back from him
a most remarkable circumstance is that i really don't think he grasped this sum even so much for the gratification of his avarice which was inordinate as in the hatred he felt for copperfield
he said he would even have spent as much to baulk or injure copperfield ha said my aunt knitting her brows thoughtfully and glancing at agnes and what's become of him i don't know
he left here said traddles with his mother who had been clamouring and beseeching and disclosing the whole time they went away by one of the london night coaches and i know no more about him except that his malevolence to me at parting was audacious
he seemed to consider himself hardly less indebted to me than to mister micawber which i consider as i told him quite a compliment do you suppose he has any money traddles i asked
oh dear yes i should think so he replied shaking his head seriously
he must have pocketed a good deal in one way or other but i think you would find copperfield if you had an opportunity of observing his course that money would never keep that man out of mischief he is such an incarnate hypocrite
he will always magnify every object in the way and consequently will hate and suspect everybody that comes in the most innocent manner between him and it so the crooked courses will become crookeder
at any moment for the least reason or for none it's only necessary to consider his history here said traddles to know that he's a monster of meanness said my aunt really i don't know about that
once more give mister micawber high praise but for his having been so patient and persevering for so long a time we never could have hoped to do anything worth speaking of and i think we ought to consider that mister micawber did right for right's sake
two points in making this lawless adjustment for it's perfectly lawless from beginning to end of a difficult affair
mister micawber will be constantly arrested or taken in execution then he must be constantly set free again and taken out of execution said my aunt what's the amount altogether
why mister micawber has entered the transactions he calls them transactions with great form in a book rejoined traddles smiling and he makes the amount a hundred and three pounds five
now what shall we give him that sum included said my aunt agnes my dear you and i can talk about division of it afterwards what should it be five hundred pounds upon this traddles and i both struck in at once
we both recommended a small sum in money and the payment without stipulation to mister micawber
we proposed that the family should have their passage and their outfit and a hundred pounds and that mister micawber's arrangement for the repayment of the advances should be gravely entered into
as it might be wholesome for him to suppose himself under that responsibility to this i added the suggestion that i should give some explanation of his character and history to mister peggotty who i knew could be relied on
and that to mister peggotty should be quietly entrusted the discretion of advancing another hundred i further proposed to
that the principals themselves did so shortly afterwards with perfect good will and harmony seeing that traddles now glanced anxiously at my aunt again i reminded him of the second and last point
to which he had adverted you and your aunt will excuse me copperfield if i touch upon a painful theme as i greatly fear i shall said traddles hesitating but i think it necessary to bring it to your recollection
and that if he could do us or any of us any injury or annoyance no doubt he would my aunt remained quiet until again some stray tears found their way to her cheeks
you are quite right she said it was very thoughtful to mention it can i or copperfield do anything asked traddles gently nothing said my aunt i thank you many times
well mister and missus micawber said my aunt when they entered we have been discussing your emigration with many apologies to you for keeping you out of the room so long and i'll tell you what arrangements we propose
these she explained to the unbounded satisfaction of the family children and all being then present and so much to the awakening of mister micawber's punctual habits in the opening stage of all bill transactions
for within five minutes he returned in the custody of a sheriff s officer informing us in a flood of tears that all was lost we being quite prepared for this event which was of course a proceeding
could impart in full completeness to his shining face to see him at work on the stamps with the relish of an artist touching them like pictures looking at them sideways taking weighty notes of dates and amounts in his pocket book
and contemplating them when finished with a high sense of their precious value was a sight indeed now the best thing you can do sir if you'll allow me to advise you said my aunt after silently observing him
is to abjure that occupation for evermore madam replied mister micawber it is my intention to register such a vow on the virgin page of the future missus micawber will attest it i trust
this closed the proceedings of the evening we were weary with sorrow and fatigue and my aunt and i were to return to london on the morrow it was arranged that the micawbers should follow us
after effecting a sale of their goods to a broker that mister wickfield's affairs should be brought to a settlement with all convenient speed under the direction of traddles and that agnes should also come to london pending those arrangements
we passed the night at the old house which freed from the presence of the heeps seemed purged of a disease and i lay in my old room like a shipwrecked wanderer come home
indeed i do aunt if there ever was a time when i felt unwilling that you should have a sorrow or anxiety which i could not share it is now you have had sorrow enough child said my aunt affectionately
asked my aunt of course at nine said she i'll tell you then my dear at nine accordingly we went out in a little chariot and drove to london
we drove a long way through the streets until we came to one of the large hospitals standing hard by the building was a plain hearse the driver recognized my aunt and in obedience to a motion of her hand at the window
drove slowly off we following you understand it now trot said my aunt he is gone did he die in the hospital yes she sat immovable beside me
but again i saw the stray tears on her face he was there once before said my aunt presently he was ailing a long time a shattered broken man these many years when he knew his state in this last illness
said i my aunt nodded no one can harm him now she said it was a vain threat we drove away out of town to the churchyard at hornsey better here than in the streets said my aunt he was born here
we alighted and followed the plain coffin to a corner i remember well where the service was read consigning it to the dust six and thirty years ago this day my dear said my aunt as we walked back to the chariot
i was married god forgive us all we took our seats in silence and so she sat beside me for a long time holding my hand at length she suddenly burst into tears and said
her nerves were a little shaken she said or she would not have given way to it god forgive us all so we rode back to her little cottage at highgate where we found the following short note which had arrived by that morning's post
my course is run bless you bless you some future traveller visiting from motives of curiosity not unmingled let us hope with sympathy
the place of confinement allotted to debtors in this city may and i trust will ponder as he traces on its wall
the obscure initials w m p s i re open this to say that our common friend mister thomas traddles who has not yet left us and is looking extremely well
the pleasant aromas of coffee and sausages were mingling in the air when guardy lud woke up and looked about the old fashioned room with a sense of satisfaction the very pictures on the walls rested him they reminded him so much of the rooms in his boyhood home
he had a feeling that old fashioned things were best and in spite of the fact that he owned a house most different from this one himself and knew that his wife would not for a minute have tolerated any old fashioned things about
but his wife was not so minded and that ended it but it rolled a great burden from his shoulders to feel that he might leave them in such capable hands they had a rollicking time at breakfast for guardy lud was delighted with the crisp brown sausages
fried potatoes and buckwheats with real maple syrup and he laughed and ate and told stories with the children and kept the old dining room walls ringing with joy as they had not resounded within the memory of julia cloud then suddenly the door opened
and a glance at the kind strong face of the white haired man gave her courage ellen could not really spoil their plans with him there he felt that the arrangement was good and with him to back her she felt she could stand out against any arguments her sister might bring forth
so she rose with a natural ease and introduced her my sister missus robinson mister luddington and ellen stiffly and still disapprovingly acknowledged the introduction i won't interrupt she said disagreeably
i'm just going up to look over some of my mother's things and she turned to the back stairway and went up closing the door behind her mister luddington gazed after her a second and then taking his glasses off and wiping them energetically he remarked
well well bless my soul it must be getting late we've had such a good time i didn't realize those certainly were good buckwheats miss cloud i shan't forget them very soon
and he cast an anxious glance toward the stair door again julia cloud smiled understandingly and ushered them into the little parlor ablaze with fall sunshine its windows wreathed about with crimsoning woodbine
and as she caught the glow and glint from the window she remembered the gray evening when she had looked out across into her future as she supposed it would be how beautiful and wonderful that the gray had changed to glow
as she sat down to enter into the contract that was to bind her to a new and wonderful life with great responsibilities and large possibilities her heart accustomed to look upward sent a whisper of thanksgiving heavenward
the details did not take long after all for mister luddington was a keen business man and he had gone over the whole proposition and had the plan in writing for her to sign telling just what were her duties and responsibilities with regard to his wards
and i declare i never laid eyes on a woman that i thought could fill the part better julia cloud was quite overwhelmed but the matter of the salary troubled her i think it should not be a matter of money she demurred i would rather do it for love you know
love's all right said the old man smiling but this thing has got to be on a business basis or the terms of the will will not allow me to agree to it you see what you are going to undertake means work and it means sticking to it
and you deserve pay for it and we're not going to accept several of the best years out of your life for nothing besides you've got to feel free to give up the job if it proves too burdensome for you and you to dismiss me if i do not prove capable for the position suggested julia cloud
lifting meek and honest eyes to meet his gaze well well well i can see there won't be any need of that sputtered the old gentleman pleasantly but however that is this is the contract i've made out and i'm quite satisfied so are the children
are you willing to sign it of course there's a clause in there about reasonable notice if there is dissatisfaction on either side that lets you out at any time you get tired of it only give me a chance to look after these youngsters properly
julia cloud took the pen eagerly tremblingly a sense of wonder in her pounding heart and signed her name just as ellen's heavy footsteps could be heard pounding down the back stairs
and then threw open the parlor door in the nick of time to save her aunt ellen from seeming to be deserted ellen robinson appeared on the scene just in time to witness the hearty hand shake that guardy lud gave julia cloud as he picked up the papers and went up stairs for his suitcase
while allison went after the car to take him to the train is that man married because if he isn't i don't think it's respectable for you to go and live near him declared ellen in a penetrating voice to the intense distress of julia cloud who was happily hurrying the dishes from the breakfast table
but leslie came to the rescue oh indeed aunt ellen he's very much married altogether too much married for comfort he would be a dear if it wasn't for his silly little old bossy wife but he doesn't intend to live anywhere near us his home is off in california
and he's going back next week he's only waiting to see us settled somewhere before he goes back so you needn't worry about aunt jewel's morals we'll take good care of her but isn't he a dear he was my grandfather leslie's best friend
julia cloud bade mister luddington good by standing on her own front steps and then waited a moment looking off toward the hills which had shut in her vision all her life the two young people had rushed down to the car and were pulling their guardian joyously inside
they seemed to do everything joyously like two young creatures let out of prison into the sunshine julia cloud smiled at the thought of them but her soul was not watching them just then she was looking off to the hills that had been her strength all the years through so many trials
across the road behind her parlor curtains missus perkins was keeping lookout and remarking to a neighbor who had run in yes i thought as much there's always a man in the case when a woman acts queer now doesn't that beat all do you suppose he's a long lost lover or something
well i wonder what her mother would think julia cloud went slowly back to the dining room where ellen was seated on the couch waiting like a visitor julia's smile was utterly lost on her glum countenance which resembled an embattled tower under siege
well she said as julia began to gather up more dishes from the breakfast table i suppose you think you've done something smart now don't you getting that old snob here and fixing things all up without consulting any of your relatives really ellen
this has all been so sudden that i had no opportunity said julia gently but it did not seem likely that you would object for you suggested yourself that i rent the house and you said you did not want me to stay here alone this seemed quite providential
providential sniffed ellen providential to take you away from your own home and your own people and send you out into a world where nobody really cares for you and where all they want of you is to make a drudge of you you call that providential do you
and try to save you from yourself and offer you a good home where you will be cared for all the rest of your days right among your own where mother would have wanted to see you you will probably get high headed and say i am interfering with your rights but i can't help it i've got to speak
to hang yourself without doing everything i can to stop it my own sister why ellen dear said julia cloud eagerly sitting down beside her sister you don't understand it isn't in the least that way i'm sorry i had to spring it on you so suddenly
and give you such a wrong impression you know i couldn't think of coming to live on you and herbert it was kind of you to suggest it and i am grateful and all that but i know how it would be to have some one else even a sister come into the home and i couldn't think of it
i have always resolved that i would never be dependent on my relatives while i had my health ellen sat up bristling and yet you are willing to go away to some strange place where nobody knows you and slave for a couple of little snobs o ellen said julia pleadingly
i'm just going to be a sort of mother to them and you oughtn't to call them snobs they are your own brother's children own brother's children nothing sneered ellen he's been away so many years he was just like a stranger when he came back the last time
and as for the children they are just like his stuck up wife and her family yet you'll leave the children that were born and raised close beside you and go and slave for them mother fiddlesticks you'll slave all right i know you
in six weeks you'll be a drudge for them the way you've been all your life i know how it is and you may not believe it but i have feelings for my sister and i don't like to see her put upon ellen fumbled for her handkerchief and managed a comely tear or two that quite touched julia's heart
affection between them even when ellen was a child had been quite one sided for ellen had always been a selfish spoiled little thing and julia had looked in vain for any signs of tenderness now her heart warmed toward her younger sister in this long delayed thoughtfulness
and her tone grew gentler that's dear of you ellen and i appreciate it but i haven't been able to make you understand yet i see i'm not to be a worker nor even a housekeeper i'm to be just a sort of mother or aunt if you please
although i'm sure one servant will be all that i shall want in a little household like that but mister luddington quite insisted there should be servants and that no work of any sort should fall upon me he said that as their nearest relative i was to be in the position of mother and guardian to them
and to preside over their home that's ridiculous put in ellen why don't they go to college and board like any other reasonable young folks if they must go to college at all i think it's all nonsense for em to go what do they do it for they've got money
they've got enough now to get along that girl thinks she's too smart to live i call her impudent for my part they want a home said julia waiving the subject of higher education and they have chosen me and i mean to do my best
there was a quiet finality in her tone that impressed her sister she looked at her angrily well if you will you will i suppose nobody can stop you but i see just what will come of it you'll fool away a little while there
and find out how mistaken you were and then you'll come back to herbert to be taken care of and you don't realize how offended herbert is going to be by your actions and how he'll feel about letting you come back after you have gone away in such high feather you haven't anything to speak of to support yourself of course
get through their college and get married or something they won't want you then julia arose and went to the window to get calmed she was more angry than she had been for years the thought of herbert's having to take care of her ever was intolerable
but she was able to hold her tongue until she could get her eyes on those hills out of the window i will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help that had been the verse which she had read from her little bible before leaving her room in the early morning
and she was grappling it close to her heart for she had known it would be a hard day ellen was watching her silently almost she thought she had made an impression perhaps this was the time to repeat herbert's threat herbert feels she began
where lay the paper she and mister luddington had just signed and a copy of which he had taken with him she returned to her astonished sister with the paper in her hand perhaps it would be just as well for you to read this she said with dignity
there was silence in the dining room while ellen read julia moving on quiet feet about the table putting things to rights she had finished her part of the argument she was resolutely putting out of her mind the things her sister had just said and refusing altogether to think of herbert
she knew in her heart just how herbert had looked when he had said those things even to the snarl at the corner of his nose she knew too that ellen had probably not reported the message even so disagreeably as the original and she knew that it would be better to forget
the proof of the pudding is in the eating and you needn't tell me that any man in his senses will pay all that salary merely for a chaperon as he calls it if he does he's a fool that's all i've got to say but i suppose nothing short of getting caught in a trap will make you see it
so i better save my breath i'm sure i hope you won't go to the poorhouse through your stubbornness i've done all i could to keep you from it and it's pretty hard to have my only sister leave me so soo oo on after mother's death
well ellen said julia cloud looking at her speculatively i'm sure i never dreamed you cared about having me away from here you've never shown much interest in being with me but i'm sorry if you feel it that way
and i'm sure i'll write to you and try to do little things for the children often now that i shall have something to do with but her kindly feeling was cut short by ellen interrupting her
they all slept very late the next morning being utterly worn out from the unaccustomed work
it was strange how good even shredded wheat biscuit and milk can taste when one has been working hard and has a young appetite although leslie and allison had been known to scorn all cereals still there were cookies and wonderful apples from the big tree in the back yard for dessert
when are those men coming back to finish up suddenly demanded leslie poising a glass of milk and a cooky in one hand and taking a great bite from her apple not till to morrow said julia cloud looking around the empty kitchen speculatively
we ought to have left the kitchen till last she added with a troubled look you crazy children didn't you know we had to eat i told that man not to take any of those things on the kitchen table
that they were to stay down until the very last thing and now he has taken the table even i went up stairs to see if i could get at things and i find he has put them away at the back
i'm afraid we shall have to get some things out again i don't see how we can get along not a bit of it cloudy said leslie giving a spring and perching herself on the drain board of the sink where she sat swinging her dainty little pumps as nonchalantly as if she were sitting on a velvet sofa
see here's my plan i woke up early and thought it all out let's see consulting her wee wrist watch it's nine o'clock that isn't bad now we'll work till twelve that's long enough for to day because you got too tired yesterday
and besides we've got some other things to attend to then we'll hustle into the car and get to town and do some shopping ready for our trip that will rest you we'll get lunch at a tea room and shop all the afternoon we'll go to a hotel for dinner and stay all night
then in the morning we can get up early have our breakfast and drive back here in time before the men come now isn't that perfectly spick and span for a plan leslie but dear that would cost a lot and besides it isn't in the least necessary
cost has nothing to do with it look and leslie flourished a handful of bills see what guardy lud gave me and allison has another just like it
to make things easy on the way after he leaves us and goes back to california we're in your charge i know but just now you're in ours you dear unselfish darling and we're going to run you oh we're going to run you to beat the band laughed leslie
and jumped down from her perch to hug and squeeze the breath out of julia cloud but child dear said that good woman when she could get her breath to speak you mustn't begin in that extravagant way
but they put their hands over her lips and laughed away her protests until she had to give up for laughing with them well then she said at last when they had subsided from a regular rough house frolic for all the world as if they were children we'll have to get to work in good earnest
only it doesn't seem right to let you work so hard when you are visiting me visiting nothing declared allison we're having the time of our lives i haven't been in a place where i could do as i pleased since i was eight years old this is real work and i like it come now
don't let's waste any time what can i do first wouldn't you like to have me take down all the pictures on the second floor stack them in the attic and sweep down the walls the way we did down here yesterday
yes said their aunt with an affectionate homage in her eyes for this dear capable boy who was so eager over everything as if it were his own
no i won't take any of those books they'll need to be dusted and put in boxes there are a lot of boxes in the cellar and there's a pile of papers to use for lining the boxes
let the books go till to morrow allison went whistling up stairs and began taking down the pictures but anybody could see by the set of his shoulders that he meant to get the books out of the way too before noon
everything is tied up and labelled i don't think we need to disturb it the men can move it up as it is but we need to get the rest of the bed clothes out on the line for an airing before i pack them away in the chest up stairs you might do that
so leslie went back and forth carrying blankets and quilts and hanging them on the line till missus perkins had to come over to see what was going on she came with a cup in her hand to ask for some baking powder and julia cloud gave her the whole box
no you needn't return it she said smiling i shall not need it i've rented the house and am going away for a while missus perkins was so astonished that she actually went home without finding out where julia cloud was going and had to come back to see whether there was anything she could do to help
the rooms had assumed that cleared up ready look that rests the tired worker just to look around and see what has been accomplished with a conviction that she was being quite a child to run away this way when there was still a lot to be done
the car was already at the door and she felt almost guilty as she locked the door and went down the path but the beauty of the day intoxicated her at once and she forgot immediately everything but the joy of riding out into the world
leslie was a bit quiet as they glided down the road out of town and kept eyeing her aunt silently at last as julia cloud was calling attention to a wonderful red woodbine that had twined itself about an old dead tree and was setting the roadside ablaze with splendor
leslie caught her eye what is it dear does something trouble you is anything wrong with me asked julia cloud putting up a prospecting hand to her hair and hat leslie's cheeks went rosy red o cloudy dear said leslie i was just wondering
but i'm afraid to say it maybe it will make you feel bad not a bit deary what is it well then cloudy do you think grandmother would care very much if you didn't wear black
i don't mean any disrespect to grandmother but oh you would look so sweet in gray gray and lavender and soft pink or just gray now for a while are you very mad at me for saying it julia cloud reached over and patted the young hand that lay near her on the seat
why no dear i'm not mad and i don't care for black myself i don't believe in wearing black for the people who have left us and gone to heaven it seems to me white would be a great deal better but i put on these things to please ellen she thought it would be showing great disrespect to mother
if i didn't and rather than argue about it i did as she wanted me to but i don't intend to darken the place around me by dressing in mourning child and i'm glad you don't want me to i like bright happy things and besides leslie dear your grandmother was a bright happy woman herself once when she was young
oh i'm so glad sighed leslie that makes the day just perfect i think i'll wait until i get away to change however said julia cloud thoughtfully it would just annoy ellen to do it now and might make such people as missus perkins say disagreeable things
and somehow julia cloud felt as if she was entering into a new world allison seemed to know by intuition just where to find the right kind of tea room he ushered them into the place and found a table in a secluded nook
with a fountain playing nearby over ferns and ivy climbing over a mimic pergola
there were little round tables with high backed chairs that seemed to shut them off in a corner by themselves this is nice he sighed we're a real family now aren't we and he looked over at julia cloud with that fine homage
oh but my dear you mustn't order all that a sandwich is all i need just a tongue sandwich you must not begin by being extravagant this is my party cloudy this goes under the head of expenses if you can't find enough you like among what i order
but you've been feeding us out of the cooky jar and i guess i'll get the finest i can find to pay you back i told you this was my time when we get settled you can order things but now i'm going to see that you get enough to eat while you're working so hard
leslie's eyes danced with her dimples as julia cloud appealed to her to stop this extravagance that's all right cloudy i heard guardy lud tell al not to spare any expense to make things comfortable for you while you were moving
so julia cloud settled down to the pleasure of a new and delicious combination of foods and thoroughly enjoyed it all now said leslie as the meal drew to a close we must get to work it's half past two and the stores close at half past five
i've a lot of shopping to do how about you cloudy i must buy a trunk said julia cloud thoughtfully and a hand bag and some gloves i ought to get a new warm coat but that will do later
leslie eyed her thoughtfully and raised one brow intensively at her brother as she rose from the table allison landed them at a big department store and guided his aunt to the trunk department with instructions to stay there until he and leslie came back
then they went off with great glee and many whisperings it is a curious thing how easily and quickly young people can shop provided they have plenty of money and no older person by to hamper them allison and leslie were back within the time they had set
looking very meek and satisfied leslie carried a small package which she laid in julia cloud's lap you said you needed a hand bag she said and i came on a place where they were having a sale i thought this was a peach so i bought it
if you don't like it we can give it to aunt ellen or some one julia cloud's cheeks grew pink with pleasure and she felt like a very young happy child as she opened the parcel to find a lovely gray suede hand bag with silver clasp and fittings containing quite a little outfit
of toilet articles and brushes in neat compact form she caught her breath with delight as she touched the soft white leather lining and noticed the perfection and finish of the whole it seemed fit for a queen yet was plain and quiet enough on the outside for a dove to carry
and could hardly refrain from throwing her arms about the children right there in the store but she stopped in time and let her eyes do the caressing as she said with a tremble in her low sweet voice o you dear children how you are going to spoil me
i see i must get settled quickly so that i shall have the power to restrain you they rollicked forth then and bought several things a big steamer rug for the car a pair of long gray mocha gloves to match the hand bag a silk umbrella
perhaps you'd rather go to the hotel and lie down i suppose you are maybe worn out
who had been fairly fed on movies why how did it happen don't they have moving pictures in your town yes they have them now though only a year or so ago
besides i suppose i should have been considered crazy if i had gone me an oldish woman if there had been children to take it would have been different i suppose it is a childish desire but i always loved pictures
if this keeps on i won't have dignity enough left to chaperon you properly oh but cloudy dear that's just why we want you because you know how to be young and play with us clamored both of them together then after a good dinner they went up to their rooms and there was julia cloud's shining new trunk
that had to be looked over and there on the floor beside it stood two packages big boxes both of them this must be a mistake said julia cloud looking at them curiously allison you better call the boy and have him take them away to the right room
julia cloud was bending over the long pasteboard box on the floor and finding her name on that too it's very strange she said her cheeks beginning to grow pink like those of a child on her first christmas morning i suppose it's some more of your extravagant capers i don't know what i shall do with you
but her eager fingers untied the string while leslie and allison executed little silent dances around the room and tried to stifle their mirth the cover fell off at last and the tissue paper blew up in a great fluff
and out of it rolled a beautiful long soft thick gray cloak of finest texture and silken lining with a great puffy collar and cuffs of deep soft silver gray fox
over the box and floor and then the two children caught it up and enveloped her in it buttoning it down the front and turning the collar around her ears it's yours cloudy to keep you warm on the journey cried leslie dancing around and clapping her hands
doesn't she look lovely in it allison oh isn't she dear and leslie caught her and whirled her around the room then allison brought the big square box and demanded that it be opened and out of it came a small gray hat in soft silky beaver
with a close gray feather curled quietly about it that settled down on julia cloud's lovely white hair as if it had been made for her you don't mind do you cloudy dear you don't think i'm officious or impertinent begged leslie anxiously
it was allison's idea to get the hat to match the coat and it was such a dear we couldn't help taking it
but long after the children were asleep julia cloud lay awake and thought it out god had been good to her and was leading her into green pastures beside quiet waters but there were things he was expecting of her and was she going to be able to fulfil them
chapter thirty nine colonel selby had just come to washington and taken lodgings in georgetown his business was to get pay for some cotton that was destroyed during the war
there were many others in washington on the same errand some of them with claims as difficult to establish as his a concert of action was necessary
and he was not therefore at all surprised to receive the note from a lady asking him to call at senator dilworthy's at a little after three on wednesday he rang the bell of the senator's residence
it was a handsome mansion on the square opposite the president's house the owner must be a man of great wealth the colonel thought perhaps who knows said he with a smile
he may have got some of my cotton in exchange for salt and quinine after the capture of new orleans as this thought passed through his mind he was looking at the remarkable figure of the hero of new orleans
holding itself by main strength from sliding off the back of the rearing bronze horse and lifting its hat in the manner of one who acknowledges the playing of that martial air see the conquering hero comes gad said the colonel to himself
but they'd have to tie him on laura was in the drawing room she heard the bell she heard the steps in the hall and the emphatic thud of the supporting cane
she had risen from her chair and was leaning against the piano pressing her left hand against the violent beating of her heart the door opened and the colonel entered standing in the full light of the opposite window
laura was more in the shadow and stood for an instant long enough for the colonel to make the inward observation that she was a magnificent woman she then advanced a step colonel selby is it not
the colonel staggered back caught himself by a chair and turned towards her a look of terror laura my god yes your wife oh no it can't be
how came you here i thought you were you thought i was dead you thought you were rid of me not so long as you live colonel selby not so long as you live
laura in her passion was hurried on to say no man had ever accused colonel selby of cowardice but he was a coward before this woman may be he was not the man he once was
where was his coolness where was his sneering imperturbable manner
if he had only been forewarned
that he must gain time there was danger in laura's tone there was something frightful in her calmness her steady eyes seemed to devour him you have ruined my life she said
and i was so young so ignorant and loved you so
a soiled cast off you might better have killed me then then i should not have hated you laura said the colonel nerving himself but still pale and speaking appealingly don't say that
reproach me i deserve it i was a scoundrel i was everything monstrous but your beauty made me crazy you are right i was a brute in leaving you as i did
but what could i do i was married and and your wife still lives asked laura bending a little forward in her eagerness the colonel noticed the action and he almost said no
but he thought of the folly of attempting concealment yes she is here what little color had wandered back into laura's face forsook it again
her heart stood still her strength seemed going from her limbs her last hope was gone the room swam before her for a moment and the colonel stepped towards her but she waved him back
as hot anger again coursed through her veins and said and you dare come with her here and tell me of it here and mock me with it and you think i will have it george you think i will let you live with that woman
you think i am as powerless as that day i fell dead at your feet she raged now she was in a tempest of excitement and she advanced towards him with a threatening mien she would kill me if she could
thought the colonel but he thought at the same moment how beautiful she is he had recovered his head now she was lovely when he knew her then a simple country girl now she was dazzling
in the fullness of ripe womanhood a superb creature with all the fascination that a woman of the world has for such a man as colonel selby nothing of this was lost on him he stepped quickly to her
laura stop think suppose i loved you yet suppose i hated my fate what can i do i am broken by the war i have lost everything almost
i had as lief be dead and done with it the colonel spoke with a low remembered voice that thrilled through laura he was looking into her eyes as he had looked in those old days
he was wounded he had been punished her strength forsook her with her rage and she sank upon a chair sobbing oh my god i thought i hated him
the colonel knelt beside her he took her hand and she let him keep it she looked down into his face with a pitiable tenderness and said in a weak voice
the colonel vowed and protested he kissed her hand and her lips he swore his false soul into perdition she wanted love this woman
was not her love for george selby deeper than any other woman's could be had she not a right to him did he not belong to her by virtue of her overmastering passion his wife
she was not his wife except by the law she could not be even with the law she could have no right to stand between two souls that were one it was an infamous condition in society that george should be tied to her
laura thought this believed it because she desired to believe it
the requirements of her own nature she may have heard doubtless she had similar theories that were prevalent at that day theories of the tyranny of marriage and of the freedom of marriage
she had even heard women lecturers say that marriage should only continue so long as it pleased either party to it for a year or a month or a day she had not given much heed to this
but she saw its justice now in a dash of revealing desire it must be right god would not have permitted her to love george selby as she did and him to love her if it was right for society to raise up a barrier between them
he belonged to her had he not confessed it himself not even the religious atmosphere of senator dilworthy's house had been sufficient to instill into laura that deep christian principle
which had been somehow omitted in her training indeed in that very house had she not heard women prominent before the country and besieging congress utter sentiments that fully justified the course she was marking out for herself
they were seated now side by side talking with more calmness laura was happy or thought she was
and is at the moment recognized as fleeting and perilous and indulged tremblingly she loved she was loved that is happiness certainly
and the black past and the troubled present and the uncertain future could not snatch that from her what did they say as they sat there what nothings do people usually say in such circumstances
even if they are three score and ten it was enough for laura to hear his voice and be near him it was enough for him to be near her and avoid committing himself as much as he could
enough for him was the present also had there not always been some way out of such scrapes and yet laura could not be quite content without prying into tomorrow
how could the colonel manage to free himself from his wife would it be long could he not go into some state where it would not take much time he could not say exactly that they must think of
that they must talk over and so on did this seem like a damnable plot to laura against the life maybe of a sister a woman like herself probably not
it was right that this man should be hers and there were some obstacles in the way that was all
to those who commit them when one has broken the tenth commandment the others are not of much account was it unnatural therefore that when george selby departed laura should watch him from the window
with an almost joyful heart as he went down the sunny square i shall see him to morrow she said and the next day and the next he is mine now damn the woman
said the colonel as he picked his way down the steps or he added as his thoughts took a new turn
portland bill an obstinate north wind blew without ceasing over the mainland of europe and yet more roughly over england during all the month of december sixteen eighty nine
and all the month of january sixteen ninety
which caused that winter to be noted as memorable to the poor on the margin of the old bible in the presbyterian chapel of the nonjurors in london
thanks to the lasting qualities of the old monarchical parchment employed in official registers long lists of poor persons found dead of famine and cold are still legible in many local repositories
particularly in the archives of the liberty of the clink in the borough of southwark of pie powder court which signifies dusty feet court
and in those of whitechapel court held in the village of stepney by the bailiff of the lord of the manor the thames was frozen over a thing which does not happen once in a century
coaches rolled over the frozen river and a fair was held with booths bear baiting and bull baiting an ox was roasted whole on the ice this thick ice lasted two months
the hard year sixteen ninety surpassed in severity even the famous winters at the beginning of the seventeenth century
the same who was in his quality of apothecary to king james honoured by the city of london with a bust and a pedestal one evening towards the close of one of the most bitter days of the month of january sixteen ninety
the most dangerous of all which line the bay during the continuance of certain winds and consequently the most lonely convenient by reason of its very danger for ships in hiding a little vessel almost touching the cliff
we are wrong in saying the night falls we should say the night rises for it is from the earth that obscurity comes it was already night at the bottom of the cliff it was still day at top
any one approaching the vessel's moorings would have recognized a biscayan hooker the sun concealed all day by the mist had just set
there was beginning to be felt that deep and sombrous melancholy which might be called
with no wind from the sea the water of the creek was calm this was especially in winter a lucky exception almost all the portland creeks have sand bars
and in heavy weather the sea becomes very rough and to pass in safety much skill and practice are necessary these little ports ports more in appearance than fact are of small advantage
they are hazardous to enter fearful to leave on this evening for a wonder there was no danger the biscay hooker is of an ancient model now fallen into disuse
this kind of hooker which has done service even in the navy was stoutly built in its hull a boat in size a ship in strength it figured in the armada
thus the great griffin bearing a captain's flag and commanded by lopez de medina measured six hundred and fifty good tons and carried forty guns but the merchant and contraband hookers were very feeble specimens
sea folk held them at their true value and esteemed the model a very sorry one the rigging of the hooker was made of hemp sometimes with wire inside
which was probably intended as a means however unscientific
the lightness of this rigging did not exclude the use of heavy tackle
the helm was very long which gives the advantage of a long arm of leverage but the disadvantage of a small arc of effort two wheels in two pulleys at the end of the rudder corrected this defect
and compensated to some extent for the loss of strength the compass was well housed in a case perfectly square and well balanced by its two copper frames placed horizontally one in the other
on little bolts as in cardan's lamps there was science and cunning in the construction of the hooker but it was ignorant science and barbarous cunning the hooker was primitive just like the praam and the canoe
and like all vessels born of the instinct of the pirate and fisherman it had remarkable sea qualities it was equally well suited to landlocked and to open waters
its system of sails complicated in stays and very peculiar allowed of its navigating trimly in the close bays of asturias which are little more than enclosed basins as pasages for instance
the hooker is among vessels what the wagtail is among birds one of the smallest and one of the boldest the wagtail perching on a reed scarcely bends it and flying away crosses the ocean
these biscay hookers even to the poorest were gilt and painted tattooing is part of the genius of those charming people savages to some degree the sublime colouring of their mountains
variegated by snows and meadows reveals to them the rugged spell which ornament possesses in itself they are poverty stricken and magnificent they put coats of arms on their cottages
they have huge asses which they bedizen with bells and huge oxen on which they put head dresses of feathers their coaches which you can hear grinding the wheels two leagues off are illuminated
carved and hung with ribbons a cobbler has a bas relief on his door it is only saint crispin and an old shoe but it is in stone they trim their leathern jackets with lace
they do not mend their rags but they embroider them vivacity profound and superb the basques are like the greeks children of the sun
their thresholds and their windows teem with faces fair and fresh laughing under garlands of maize a joyous and proud serenity shines out in their ingenious arts in their trades in their customs
in the dress of their maidens in their songs the mountain that colossal ruin is all aglow in biscay
is full of idylls biscay is
fontarabia with storms with clouds with spray flying over the capes with the rages of the waves and the winds with terror with uproar mingle boat women crowned with roses
he who has seen the basque country wishes to see it again it is
two harvests a year villages resonant and gay a stately poverty all sunday the sound of guitars dancing castanets love making houses clean and bright
storks in the belfries let us return to portland that rugged mountain in the sea the peninsula of portland looked at geometrically
presents the appearance of a bird's head of which the bill is turned towards the ocean the back of the head towards weymouth the isthmus is its neck portland
greatly to the sacrifice of its wildness exists now but for trade the coasts of portland were discovered by quarrymen and plasterers towards the middle of the seventeenth century since that period
what is called roman cement has been made of the portland stone a useful industry enriching the district and disfiguring the bay two hundred years ago these coasts were eaten away as a cliff
to day as a quarry the pick bites meanly the wave grandly hence a diminution of beauty to the magnificent ravages of the ocean
have succeeded the measured strokes of men these measured strokes have worked away the creek where the biscay hooker was moored to find any vestige of the little anchorage now destroyed
towards the point beyond folly pier and dirdle pier beyond wakeham even between the place called church hope and the place called southwell the creek
walled in on all sides by precipices higher than its width was minute by minute becoming more overshadowed by evening
it was like a growth of darkness at the bottom of a well the opening of the creek seaward a narrow passage traced on the almost night black interior a pallid rift where the waves were moving
placed the vessel in communication with the land dark figures were crossing and recrossing each other on this tottering gangway and in the shadow some people were embarking
it was less cold in the creek than out at sea thanks to the screen of rock rising over the north of the basin which did not however prevent the people from shivering they were hurrying
certain indentations in their clothes were visible and showed that they belonged to the class called in england the ragged the twisting of the pathway could be distinguished vaguely in the relief of the cliff
a girl who lets her stay lace hang down trailing over the back of an armchair describes without being conscious of it most of the paths of cliffs and mountains the pathway of this creek
full of knots and angles almost perpendicular and better adapted for goats than men terminated on the platform where the plank was placed the pathways of cliffs ordinarily imply a not very inviting declivity
they offer themselves less as a road than as a fall they sink rather than incline this one probably some ramification of a road on the plain above was disagreeable to look at so vertical was it
from underneath you saw it gain by zigzag the higher layer of the cliff where it passed out through deep passages on to the high plateau by a cutting in the rock and the passengers for whom the vessel was waiting in the creek
must have come by this path excepting the movement of embarkation which was being made in the creek a movement visibly scared and uneasy all around was solitude no step no noise
no breath was heard at the other side of the roads at the entrance of ringstead bay you could just perceive a flotilla of shark fishing boats which were evidently out of their reckoning
these polar boats had been driven from danish into english waters by the whims of the sea northerly winds play these tricks on fishermen they had just taken refuge in the anchorage of portland
a sign of bad weather expected and danger out at sea they were engaged in casting anchor the chief boat placed in front after the old manner of norwegian flotillas
all her rigging standing out in black above the white level of the sea and in front might be perceived the hook iron loaded with all kinds of hooks and harpoons destined for the greenland shark the dogfish
and the spinous shark as well as the nets to pick up the sunfish except a few other craft all swept into the same corner the eye met nothing living on the vast horizon of portland
not a house not a ship the coast in those days was not inhabited and the roads at that season were not safe whatever may have been the appearance of the weather
the beings who were going to sail away in the biscayan urca pressed on the hour of departure all the same they formed a busy and confused group in rapid movement on the shore
to distinguish one from another was difficult impossible to tell whether they were old or young the indistinctness of evening intermixed and blurred them
they were sketches in the night there were eight of them and there were seemingly among them one or two women hard to recognize under the rags and tatters in which the group was attired
clothes which were no longer man's or woman's rags have no sex a smaller shadow flitting to and fro among the larger ones indicated either a dwarf or a child
kate on leaving her carriage directed the driver to go back to the pines to await mister britton's return and bring him immediately to the office she then unlocked the door to the room which had been darrell's office and which opened directly upon the street
and she and her companion entered and seated themselves in the darkness the room next adjoining was walcott's private office and beyond that was mister underwood's private office the two latter rooms being separated by a small entrance
they had waited but a few moments when mister underwood's carriage stopped before this entrance and an instant later kate heard her father's voice directing the coachman to call for him in about an hour as the key turned in the lock she heard walcott's voice also
the two men entered and went at once into mister underwood's private office mister underwood immediately proceeded to business in his usual abrupt fashion mister walcott there is no use dallying or beating about the bush
i want this partnership terminated at once there's no use in an honest man and a thief trying to do business together and this interview to night is to find the shortest way of dissolving the partnership
i think that can be very easily and quickly done mister underwood walcott replied kate who had stationed herself in the entrance where she had a view of both men saw the cruel leer that accompanied walcott's words
the gleam of the weapon now partially concealed by the folds of her skirt with noiseless cat like step she approached kate and touched her arm you will not shoot you will not kill him
she breathed rather than whispered kate's only reply was to lay her finger on her lips never removing her eyes from walcott's face but even then in her absorption she noted a peculiar quality in those scarcely audible tones
of the wholesale robbery the plans for which walcott had so nearly perfected he knew absolutely nothing as walcott listened the sneer on his face deepened
you seem to have gone to a vast amount of labor for nothing he remarked as mister underwood concluded i could have given you that much information off hand you have not lived up to your part of the contract
and i see no reason why i should be expected to fulfil mine you promised me your daughter in marriage and then simply because she saw fit we will leave my daughter's name out of this controversy sir mister underwood interposed sternly
were it not for the fact that your name has been publicly associated with hers i would prosecute you for the scoundrel and black leg that you are but for the sake of your daughter's name you intend to deal leniently with me walcott sneered
supposing we come at once to the point of dissolving our partnership it cannot be done any too quickly for me may i inquire on what terms you propose to settle
mister underwood went briefly over the terms which he had outlined on a sheet of paper before him on his desk walcott seated eight or ten feet distant listened his dark face paling with anger
before he had covered half the space however a voice rang through the room with startling clearness not a step farther or you are a dead man
he remained motionless and the hand just withdrawn from his coat disclosed to view a tiny glittering stiletto kate's only anxious thought was for her father who too bewildered to move or speak
i am all right she cried brightly look after papa first then we will attend to this creature with the revolver still levelled at walcott kate slowly advanced towards him give me that weapon she demanded
he gave a sinister smile but before she had taken another step her companion sprang into the room with a piercing cry and intercepted her no no senorita she exclaimed do not touch it mother of god it is poisoned
a single scratch means death at sight of her walcott's face grew livid you fiend you she devil he hissed this is your doing is it and he burst into a torrent of curses and imprecations
be silent mister britton ordered sternly and kate accompanied the command with an ominous click of her revolver
as she extended her hand she tauntingly held her wrist close to the tiny point scarcely larger than a good sized pin life and freedom are precious senor she said in low mocking tones
as she took the weapon from him and handed it to mister britton who laid it carefully on a table near by and then proceeded to search walcott's clothing saying
to the stiletto already placed upon the table were added another of larger size two loaded revolvers several packages of valuable securities taken from the vaults of the firm that afternoon
and a nearly complete set of duplicate keys to the safes and deposit boxes of the offices mister britton then relieved kate congratulating her warmly and stationed himself near walcott who glowered like a wild beast that
and she saved me from worse than death in preventing the carrying out of the farce of an illegal marriage with that villain by giving me a glimpse of his real character before it was too late
the change that passed over mister underwood's countenance during kate's words was fearful to see
and there was something in his voice that no one present had ever heard there before illegal papa because this woman is his lawful wife and kate gave a brief explanation of the situation is that so he appealed to the woman
his tones strangely quiet yes senor i have the papers to prove it do you admit it he demanded of walcott with a glance which made the latter quail while his hand sought one of the loaded revolvers lying on the table
we were married years ago but i did not know the woman was living i swear i did not i supposed she was dead until the day she came to me how about the past year you have known all this time that she was living
david old friend calm yourself he exclaimed don't be rash or foolish let the law take its course the law interposed mister underwood fiercely
and the principal witness against that man his own wife do you suppose for a moment i'll have my daughter's name dragged through such mire no by god i'll blow the dog's brains out with my own hand first
a fierce struggle ensued for a moment between the two men which ended in john britton's disarming his friend kate meanwhile keeping walcott at bay as he sought in the momentary confusion to effect an escape
once calmed mister underwood notwithstanding mister britton's protestations sullenly refused to prosecute walcott telephoning for an attorney who was an old time and trusted friend
he had an agreement drawn and signed whereby upon the repayment of the funds belonging to him after deducting an amount therefrom sufficient to replace what he had misappropriated he was to leave the country altogether
you have escaped this time were mister underwood's parting words but remember if you ever again seek to injure me or mine no power on earth can save you and i'll not go into the courts either
as kate and her strange companion parted the former inquired why did you ask me not to shoot him you surely cannot love him love him she exclaimed softly no but i feared you would kill him
his time has not come yet senorita but when it does this must be the hand she lifted her own right hand with a significant movement as she said this and glided out into the darkness and was gone ere kate could recall her
you think that do you observed the bibliomaniac well i don't agree with you i for one am sick and tired of politics and it will be a great relief to me when it is all over
returned the idiot do you mean to say that a presidential campaign does not keep your nerve centres in a constant state of pleasurable titillation why to me it is what a bag full of nuts must be to a squirrel
i fairly gloat over these quadrennial political campaigns of ours they are to me among the most exhilarating institutions of modern life they satisfy all one's zest for warfare
without the distressing shedding of blood which attends real war and regarded from the standpoint of humor i know of nothing that to the eye of an ordinarily keen observer is more provocative of good honest wholesome mirth
that modern civilization so called has produced a couple of men are put up for the most dignified office known to the world both are gentlemen by birth and education men of honor
men who you would think would scorn baseness as they hate poison and then what happens for three weary months the followers of each attack the character and intelligence of the other
when a man who is nominated for the presidency in june or july can emerge in november unscathed in spite of the minute scrutiny to which himself and his record and the record of his sisters and his cousins
who spent his life looking for an honest man would have to admit every four years that he could spot him instantly by merely coming to this country and taking his choice from among the several candidates
you must admit however said the bibliomaniac that a man with an honorable name must find it unpleasant to have such outrageous stories told of him not a bit of it laughed the idiot
he put out the eyes of a maiden aunt with a red hot poker and stabbed a negro cook in the back with a skewer because she would not permit him to put rat poison in his grandfather's coffee
you know perfectly well that that story has been put forth for the purpose of turning the maiden aunt negro and grandfather votes against him you know well enough that he either never did what is charged against him
or at least that the story is greatly exaggerated he may have stuck a pin into the cook and played some boyish trick upon some of his relatives but the story on the face of it is untrue and therefore harmless
similarly with the democratic candidate when the daily flim flam asserts that he believes that the working man is entitled to four cents a day for sixteen hours work
and has repeatedly avowed that bread and water is the proper food for motormen everybody with common sense realizes at once that even the flim flam doesn't believe the story it hurts no one therefore
and provokes a great deal of innocent mirth you don't yourself believe that last yarn about the prohibition candidate do you i haven't heard any yarn about him said the bibliomaniac that he is the owner of a brewery up in rochester
and backs fifteen saloons and a pool room in new york said the idiot of course i don't said the bibliomaniac who does nobody said the idiot and therefore the story doesn't hurt the man's reputation a bit
or interfere with his chances of election in the least take that other story published in a new york newspaper that on the tenth of last august thompson bondifeller's yacht was seen anchored for six hours off tom watson's farm
it's preposterous on the face of it said mister bib well that's the way the thing works said the idiot and that's why i think there's a lot of bully good fun to be had out of a political campaign
unimaginative people and that would be death to progress no people can progress that lacks imagination politics is an emery wheel that keeps our wits polished well
that's the strangest argument of all he said the very idea of a man who deliberately chooses public life as the sphere of his activities seeking to hide behind his private life is preposterous
the fellow who does that mister bib wants to lead a double life and that is reprehensible the man who offers himself to the people hasn't any business to tie a string to any part of him
if jim jones wants to be president of the united states the people who are asked to put him there
ought to be warned beforehand you wouldn't yourself rent a furnished residence to a man whose children were known to have built bonfires in the parlor of their last known home would you i think not smiled the bibliomaniac
then you cannot complain if uncle sam is equally solicitous about the personal paraphernalia of the man who asks to occupy his little cottage on the potomac said the idiot
so it happens that when a man runs for the presidency the persons who intrude upon his private life as you put it are conferring a real service upon their fellow citizens when i hear from an authentic source that
mister so and so the candidate of the thisorthatic party for the presidency is married to an estimable lady who refers to all frenchmen as parricides because she believes they have come from paris
i have a right to consider whether or not i wish to vote to place such a lady at the head of my official table at white house banquets where she is likely sooner or later to encounter the french ambassador
a man's wife is his better half and his children are a good part of the remainder and what they do or don't do becomes a matter of legitimate public concern as a matter of fact a public man
can have no private life then you approve of these stories of candidates cousins the prattling anecdotes of their grandchildren these paragraphs narrating the doings of their uncles in law and all that sneered the bibliomaniac
certainly i do said the idiot when i hear that judge torkin's grandson aged four has come out for his grandfather's opponent i am delighted and give the judge credit for the independent spirit which heredity accounts for
when it is told to me that tom watson's uncle is going to vote for tom because he knows tom doesn't believe what he says i am almost inclined to vote for him as the uncle of his country when i hear that debs's son aged three
i feel that possibly there is a family average there that may be struck to the advantage of the country say mister idiot put in the poet at this point who are you going to vote for anyhow
don't ask me laughed the idiot i don't know yet i admire all the candidates personally very much but what are your politics republican or democratic asked the lawyer oh that's different said the idiot
a weekor two had passed when one day oliver called his brother on the phone have you or alice any engagement this evening he asked i want to bring a friend around to dinner who is it inquired montague
nobody you have heard of said oliver but i want you to meet him you will think he's rather queer but i will explain to you afterwards tell alice to take my word for him montague delivered the message and at seven o'clock they went downstairs
in the reception room they met oliver and his friend and it was all that montague could do to repress a look of consternation the name of the personage was mister gamble
he was a little man a trifle over five feet high and so fat that one wondered how he could get about alone his chin and neck were a series of rolls of fat his face was round like a full moon and out of it
looked two little eyes like those of a pig it was only after studying them for a while that one discovered that they twinkled shrewdly mister gamble was altogether the vulgarest looking personage that alice montague had ever met
he put out a fat little hand to her and she touched it gingerly and then gazed at oliver and his brother in helpless dismay good evening good evening he began volubly
mister gamble comes from pittsburg interposed oliver indeed said montague striving to make conversation are you in business there no i am out of business said mister gamble with a smile
made my pile so to speak and got out i want to see the world a bit before i get too old the waiter came to take their orders in the meantime montague darted an indignant glance at his brother who sat and smiled serenely
then montague caught alice's eye and he could almost hear her saying to him what in the world am i going to talk about but it proved not very difficult to talk with the gentleman from pittsburg he appeared to know all the gossip of the metropolis
and he cheerfully supplied the topics of conversation he had been to palm beach and hot springs during the winter and told about what he had seen there he was going to newport in the summer and he talked about the prospects there
if he had the slightest suspicion of the fact that all his conversation was not supremely interesting to montague and his cousin he gave no hint of it after he had disposed of the elaborate dinner which oliver ordered
mister gamble proposed that they visit one of the theatres he had a box all ready it seemed and oliver accepted for alice before montague could say a word for her he spoke for himself however he had important work to do and must be excused
he went upstairs and shook off his annoyance and plunged into his work sometime after midnight when he had finished he went out for a breath of fresh air and as he returned he found oliver and his friend standing in the lobby of the hotel
the steel man you mean asked montague no i never met him we were talking about him said the other poor chap it really was hard luck you know it wasn't his fault did you ever hear the true story no said montague
it began in paris some newspaper woman tried to blackmail him and he had her put in jail for three months and when she got out again then the papers at home began to get stories about poor ingham's cutting up
and the public went wild and they made him resign just imagine it gamble chuckled so violently that he was seized by a coughing spell and had to signal for a glass of water
they've got a new scandal on their hands now said oliver they're a lively crowd the steel fellows laughed the other they want to make davidson resign too but he'll fight them he knows too much you should hear his story
i imagine it's not a very savoury one said montague for lack of something to say it's too bad said the other earnestly i have talked to them sometimes but it don't do any good i remember davidson one night
jim says he a fellow gets a whole lot of money and he buys him everything he wants until at last he buys a woman and then his trouble begins if you're buying pictures there's an end to it you get your walls covered sooner or later
but you never can satisfy a woman and mister gamble shook his head too bad too bad he repeated were you in the steel business yourself asked montague politely no no oil was my line
i've been fighting the trust and last year they bought me out and now i'm seeing the world mister gamble relapsed into thought again i never went in for that sort of thing myself he said meditatively i am a married man i am
and one woman is enough for me is your family in new york asked montague in an effort to change the subject no no they live in pittsburg was the answer i've got four daughters all in college
they're stunning girls i tell you i'd like you to meet them mister montague i should be pleased said montague writhing inwardly
montague saw him clamber laboriously into his automobile and then he turned to his brother
what mean asked oliver innocently that man exclaimed the other why i thought you would like to meet him said oliver he is an interesting chap i am in no mood for fooling said his brother angrily
she met him through a cousin of hers a naval officer he has been living in brooklyn this winter he knows all the navy people what is it anyway demanded montague impatiently is it some business affair that you are interested in
no no said oliver smiling cheerfully purely social he wants to be introduced about you know are you going to put him into society by any chance asked the other sarcastically
you are warm as the children say laughed his brother montague stared at him oliver you don't mean it he said that fellow in society
but his wife and his daughters exclaimed the other oh that's not it the family stays in pittsburg it's only himself this time all the same oliver added after a pause
my god but i'm tired of hearing about their accomplishments but do you mean to tell me the other protested that your friends will stand for a man like that some of them will
he's got barrels of money you know and he understands the situation perfectly he won't make many mistakes
that's all very well said the other but you have no right to inflict such a man upon alice oh stuff said oliver she'll meet him at newport this summer anyway
how could i introduce him anywhere else if i wasn't willing to introduce him here he won't hurt alice he gave her a good time this evening and i wager she'll like him before he gets through he's really a good natured chap
the chief trouble with him is that he gets confidential montague relapsed into silence and oliver changed the subject it seems too bad about lucy he said is there nothing we can do about it
nothing said the other she is simply ruining herself said oliver i've been trying to get reggie mann to have her introduced to missus devon but he says he wouldn't dare to take the risk no i presume not said montague
it's a shame said oliver i thought missus billy alden would ask her to newport this summer but now i don't believe she'll have a thing to do with her lucy will find she knows nobody except stanley ryder and his crowd
they say he's making barrels of money said oliver then he added longingly my god i wish i had a trust company to play with why a trust company particularly asked the other it's the easiest graft that's going said oliver
you've noticed their advertisements i suppose i have noticed them said montague he is adding something over a million a month i hear it sounds very attractive said the other and added drily
i suppose ryder feels as if he owned it all he might just as well own it was the reply if i were going into wall street to make money i'd rather have the control of fifty millions than the absolute ownership of ten
by the way oliver remarked after a moment the prentices have asked alice up to newport alice seems to be quite taken with that young chap curtiss he comes around a good deal said montague he seems a very decent fellow
no doubt said the other but he hasn't enough money to take care of a girl like alice
when levin and stepan arkadyevitch reached the peasant's hut where levin always used to stay veslovsky was already there he was sitting in the middle of the hut clinging with both hands to the bench from which he was being pulled by a soldier
the brother of the peasant's wife
i've only just come
just fancy they gave me drink fed me such bread it was exquisite
and the vodka i never tasted any better and they would not take a penny for anything and they kept saying
what should they take anything for they were entertaining you to be sure do you suppose they keep vodka for sale said the soldier succeeding at last in pulling the soaked boot off the blackened stocking
in spite of the dirtiness of the hut which was all muddied by their boots and the filthy dogs licking themselves clean and the smell of marsh mud and powder that filled the room and the absence of knives and forks
the party drank their tea and ate their supper with a relish only known to sportsmen washed and clean they went into a hay barn swept ready for them where the coachman had been making up beds for the gentlemen
though it was dusk not one of them wanted to go to sleep after wavering among reminiscences and anecdotes of guns of dogs and of former shooting parties the conversation rested on a topic that interested all of them
after vassenka had several times over expressed his appreciation of this delightful sleeping place among the fragrant hay this delightful broken cart he supposed it to be broken because the shafts had been taken out
of the good nature of the peasants that had treated him to vodka of the dogs who lay at the feet of their respective masters oblonsky began telling them of a delightful shooting party at malthus's where he had stayed the previous summer
malthus was a well known capitalist who had made his money by speculation in railway shares stepan arkadyevitch described what grouse moors this malthus had bought in the tver province
and how they were preserved and of the carriages and dogcarts in which the shooting party had been driven and the luncheon pavilion that had been rigged up at the marsh i don't understand you said levin sitting up in the hay
how is it such people don't disgust you i can understand a lunch with lafitte is all very pleasant but don't you dislike just that very sumptuousness all these people
get their money in a way that gains them the contempt of everyone they don't care for their contempt and then they use their dishonest gains to buy off the contempt they have deserved
perfectly true chimed in vassenka veslovsky perfectly oblonsky of course goes out of bonhomie but other people say well oblonsky stays with them not a bit of it
levin could hear that oblonsky was smiling as he spoke i simply don't consider him more dishonest than any other wealthy merchant or nobleman they've all made their money alike by their work and their intelligence
oh by what work do you call it work to get hold of concessions and speculate with them of course it's work work in this sense that if it were not for him and others like him there would have been no railways
but that's not work like the work of a peasant or a learned profession granted
but of course you think the railways useless no that's another question i am prepared to admit that they're useful but all profit that is out of proportion to the labor expended is dishonest
but who is to define what is proportionate making profit by dishonest means by trickery said levin conscious that he could not draw a distinct line between honesty and dishonesty
such as banking for instance he went on it's an evil the amassing of huge fortunes without labor just the same thing as with the spirit monopolies it's only the form that's changed
and banking companies that too is profit without work yes that may all be very true and clever lie down krak stepan arkadyevitch called to his dog
he was obviously convinced of the correctness of his position and so talked serenely and without haste but you have not drawn the line between honest and dishonest work that i receive a bigger salary than my chief clerk
though he knows more about the work than i do that's dishonest i suppose i can't say well but i can tell you your receiving some five thousand let's say for your work on the land
while our host the peasant here however hard he works can never get more than fifty roubles is just as dishonest as my earning more than my chief clerk and malthus getting more than a station master
no quite the contrary i see that society takes up a sort of antagonistic attitude to these people which is utterly baseless and i fancy there's envy at the bottom of it
no that's unfair said veslovsky how could envy come in there is something not nice about that sort of business you say levin went on that it's unjust for me to receive five thousand while the peasant has fifty
that's true it is unfair and i feel it but it really is why is it we spend our time riding drinking shooting doing nothing while they are forever at work said vassenka veslovsky
obviously for the first time in his life reflecting on the question and consequently considering it with perfect sincerity yes you feel it but you don't give him your property said stepan arkadyevitch
intentionally as it seemed provoking levin there had arisen of late something like a secret antagonism between the two brothers in law as though since they had married sisters a kind of rivalry had sprung up between them
as to which was ordering his life best and now this hostility showed itself in the conversation as it began to take a personal note i don't give it away because no one demands that from me and if i wanted to
give it to this peasant he would not refuse it yes but how am i to give it up am i to go to him and make a deed of conveyance
i don't know but if you are convinced that you have no right i'm not at all convinced on the contrary i feel i have no right to give it up that i have duties both to the land and to my family
no excuse me but if you consider this inequality is unjust why is it you don't act accordingly well i do act negatively on that idea
so far as not trying to increase the difference of position existing between him and me no excuse me that's a paradox yes there's something of a sophistry about that veslovsky agreed
ah our host so you're not asleep yet he said to the peasant who came into the barn opening the creaking door how is it you're not asleep
i thought our gentlemen would be asleep but i heard them chattering i want to get a hook from here she won't bite he added stepping cautiously with his bare feet and where are you going to sleep
we are going out for the night with the beasts ah what a night said veslovsky looking out at the edge of the hut and the unharnessed wagonette that could be seen in the faint light of the evening glow
in the great frame of the open doors but listen there are women's voices singing and on my word not badly too who's that singing my friend that's the maids from hard by here
let's go let's have a walk we shan't go to sleep you know oblonsky come along if one could only do both lie here and go answered oblonsky stretching it's capital lying here
well i shall go by myself said veslovsky getting up eagerly and putting on his shoes and stockings good bye gentlemen if it's fun i'll fetch you you've treated me to some good sport and i won't forget you
he really is a capital fellow isn't he said stepan arkadyevitch when veslovsky had gone out and the peasant had closed the door after him yes capital answered levin still thinking of the subject of their conversation just before
it seemed to him that he had clearly expressed his thoughts and feelings to the best of his capacity and yet both of them straightforward men and not fools had said with one voice that he was comforting himself with sophistries this disconcerted him
it's just this my dear boy one must do one of two things either admit that the existing order of society is just and then stick up for one's rights in it
or acknowledge that you are enjoying unjust privileges as i do and then enjoy them and be satisfied no if it were unjust you could not enjoy these advantages and be satisfied at least i could not
the great thing for me is to feel that i'm not to blame what do you say why not go after all said stepan arkadyevitch evidently weary of the strain of thought we shan't go to sleep you know come let's go
levin did not answer what they had said in the conversation that he acted justly only in a negative sense absorbed his thoughts can it be that it's only possible to be just negatively he was asking himself
how strong the smell of the fresh hay is though said stepan arkadyevitch getting up there's not a chance of sleeping vassenka has been getting up some fun there do you hear the laughing and his voice hadn't we better go come along
no i'm not coming answered levin surely that's not a matter of principle too said stepan arkadyevitch smiling as he felt about in the dark for his cap it's not a matter of principle
but why should i go but do you know you are preparing trouble for yourself said stepan arkadyevitch finding his cap and getting up how so do you suppose i don't see the line you've taken up with your wife
i heard how it's a question of the greatest consequence whether or not you're to be away for a couple of days shooting that's all very well as an idyllic episode but for your whole life that won't answer a man must be independent
he has his masculine interests a man has to be manly said oblonsky opening the door in what way to go running after servant girls said levin why not if it amuses him
it won't do my wife any harm and it'll amuse me the great thing is to respect the sanctity of the home there should be nothing in the home but don't tie your own hands
perhaps so said levin dryly and he turned on his side tomorrow early i want to go shooting and i won't wake anyone and shall set off at daybreak
i've made such a discovery charmante a perfect gretchen and i've already made friends with her really exceedingly pretty he declared in a tone of approval as though she had been made pretty entirely on his account
and he was expressing his satisfaction with the entertainment that had been provided for him levin pretended to be asleep while oblonsky putting on his slippers and lighting a cigar walked out of the barn and soon their voices were lost
for a long while levin could not get to sleep he heard the horses munching hay then he heard the peasant and his elder boy getting ready for the night and going off for the night watch with the beasts
then he heard the soldier arranging his bed on the other side of the barn with his nephew the younger son of their peasant host he heard the boy in his shrill little voice telling his uncle what he thought about the dogs
who seemed to him huge and terrible creatures and asking what the dogs were going to hunt next day and the soldier in a husky sleepy voice telling him the sportsmen were going in the morning to the marsh and would shoot with their guns
and then to check the boy's questions he said go to sleep vaska go to sleep or you'll catch it and soon after he began snoring himself and everything was still he could only hear the snort of the horses
and the guttural cry of a snipe is it really only negative he repeated to himself well what of it it's not my fault and he began thinking about the next day tomorrow i'll go out early
and i'll make a point of keeping cool there are lots of snipe and there are grouse too when i come back there'll be the note from kitty yes stiva may be right i'm not manly with her i'm tied to her apron strings
well it can't be helped negative again half asleep he heard the laughter and mirthful talk of veslovsky and stepan arkadyevitch for an instant he opened his eyes the moon was up and in the open doorway
brightly lighted up by the moonlight they were standing talking stepan arkadyevitch was saying something of the freshness of one girl comparing her to a freshly peeled nut
and veslovsky with his infectious laugh was repeating some words probably said to him by a peasant ah you do your best to get round her
sviazhsky was the marshal of his district he was five years older than levin and had long been married his sister in law a young girl levin liked very much lived in his house
and levin knew that sviazhsky and his wife would have greatly liked to marry the girl to him he knew this with certainty as so called eligible young men always know it
and he knew too that although he wanted to get married and although by every token this very attractive girl would make an excellent wife he could no more have married her even if he had not been in love with kitty shtcherbatskaya than he could have flown up to the sky
levin had immediately thought of this
and so he would go all the same besides at the bottom of his heart he had a desire to try himself put himself to the test in regard to this girl the sviazhskys home life was exceedingly pleasant and sviazhsky himself
the best type of man taking part in local affairs that levin knew was very interesting to him sviazhsky was one of those people always a source of wonder to levin whose convictions very logical though never original go one way by themselves
while their life exceedingly definite and firm in its direction goes its way quite apart and almost always in direct contradiction to their convictions sviazhsky was an extremely advanced man he despised the nobility
and believed the mass of the nobility to be secretly in favor of serfdom and only concealing their views from cowardice he regarded russia as a ruined country rather after the style of turkey and the government of russia as so bad
that he never permitted himself to criticize its doings seriously and yet he was a functionary of that government and a model marshal of nobility and when he drove about he always wore the cockade of office and the cap with the red band
he considered human life only tolerable abroad and went abroad to stay at every opportunity and at the same time he carried on a complex and improved system of agriculture in russia
and with extreme interest followed everything and knew everything that was being done in russia he considered the russian peasant as occupying a stage of development intermediate between the ape and the man and at the same time in the local assemblies
no one was readier to shake hands with the peasants and listen to their opinion he believed neither in god nor the devil but was much concerned about the question of the improvement of the clergy and the maintenance of their revenues and took special trouble to keep up the church in his village
on the woman question he was on the side of the extreme advocates of complete liberty for women and especially their right to labor but he lived with his wife on such terms that their affectionate childless home life was the admiration of everyone
and arranged his wife's life so that she did nothing and could do nothing but share her husband's efforts that her time should pass as happily and as agreeably as possible if it had not been a characteristic of levin's to put the most favorable interpretation on people
sviazhsky's character would have presented no doubt or difficulty to him he would have said to himself a fool or a knave and everything would have seemed clear but he could not say a fool because sviazhsky was unmistakably clever
and moreover a highly cultivated man who was exceptionally modest over his culture there was not a subject he knew nothing of but he did not display his knowledge except when he was compelled to do so still less could levin say that he was a knave
as sviazhsky was unmistakably an honest good hearted sensible man who worked good humoredly keenly and perseveringly at his work he was held in high honor by everyone about him and certainly he had never consciously done
levin tried to understand him and could not understand him and looked at him and his life as at a living enigma levin and he were very friendly and so levin used to venture to sound sviazhsky to try to get at the very foundation of his view of life
but it was always in vain every time levin tried to penetrate beyond the outer chambers of sviazhsky's mind which were hospitably open to all he noticed that sviazhsky was slightly disconcerted faint signs of alarm were visible in his eyes
as though he were afraid levin would understand him and he would give him a kindly good humored repulse just now since his disenchantment with farming
so pleased with themselves and everyone else and their well ordered home had always a cheering effect on levin he felt a longing now that he was so dissatisfied with his own life to get at that secret in sviazhsky that gave him such clearness
definiteness and good courage in life moreover levin knew that at sviazhsky's he should meet the landowners of the neighborhood and it was particularly interesting for him just now to hear and take part in those rural conversations concerning crops
laborers wages and so on which he was aware are conventionally regarded as something very low
the marsh was dry and there were no grouse at all he walked about the whole day and only brought back three birds but to make up for that he brought back as he always did from shooting an excellent appetite excellent spirits
and while out shooting when he seemed to be thinking of nothing at all suddenly the old man and his family kept coming back to his mind and the impression of them seemed to claim not merely his attention
two landowners who had come about some business connected with a wardship were of the party and the interesting conversation levin had been looking forward to sprang up levin was sitting beside his hostess at the tea table
and was obliged to keep up a conversation with her and her sister who was sitting opposite him madame sviazhskaya was a round faced fair haired rather short woman all smiles and dimples levin tried through her
to get a solution of the weighty enigma her husband presented to his mind but he had not complete freedom of ideas because he was in an agony of embarrassment this agony of embarrassment was due to the fact that the sister in law was sitting opposite to him in a dress
specially put on as he fancied for his benefit cut particularly open in the shape of a trapeze on her white bosom this quadrangular opening in spite of the bosom's being very white or just because it was very white
deprived levin of the full use of his faculties he imagined probably mistakenly that this low necked bodice had been made on his account and felt that he had no right to look at it and tried not to look at it
but he felt that he was to blame for the very fact of the low necked bodice having been made it seemed to levin that he had deceived someone that he ought to explain something but that to explain it was impossible
and for that reason he was continually blushing was ill at ease and awkward his awkwardness infected the pretty sister in law too but their hostess appeared not to observe this and kept purposely drawing her into the conversation
you say she said pursuing the subject that had been started that my husband cannot be interested in what's russian it's quite the contrary he is always in cheerful spirits abroad but not as he is here here he feels in his proper place
and he has the faculty of interesting himself in everything oh you've not been to see our school have you i've seen it the little house covered with ivy isn't it yes that's nastia's work she said indicating her sister
you teach in it yourself asked levin trying to look above the open neck but feeling that wherever he looked in that direction he should see it yes i used to teach in it myself and do teach still
but we have a first rate schoolmistress now and we've started gymnastic exercises no thank you i won't have any more tea said levin and conscious of doing a rude thing but incapable of continuing the conversation
he got up blushing i hear a very interesting conversation he added and walked to the other end of the table where sviazhsky was sitting with the two gentlemen of the neighborhood sviazhsky was sitting sideways with one elbow on the table
and a cup in one hand while with the other hand he gathered up his beard held it to his nose and let it drop again as though he were smelling it his brilliant black eyes were looking straight at the excited country gentleman with gray whiskers and apparently he derived amusement from his remarks
the gentleman was complaining of the peasants it was evident to levin that sviazhsky knew an answer to this gentleman's complaints which would at once demolish his whole contention but that in his position he could not give utterance to this answer and listened not without pleasure
to the landowner's comic speeches the gentleman with the gray whiskers was obviously an inveterate adherent of serfdom and a devoted agriculturist who had lived all his life in the country
that instead of spending his whole income he had laid by an annual sum for the better provision of his children and of his wife if she survived him he now wished it more than ever had he done his duty in that respect
lydia need not have been indebted to her uncle for whatever of honour or credit could now be purchased for her the satisfaction of prevailing on one of the most worthless young men in great britain to be her husband might then have rested in its proper place
he was seriously concerned that a cause of so little advantage to anyone should be forwarded at the sole expense of his brother in law
as soon as he should be of age and the widow and younger children would by that means be provided for
and missus bennet for many years after lydia's birth had been certain that he would this event had at last been despaired of but it was then too late to be saving missus bennet had no turn for economy
and her husband's love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their income five thousand pounds was settled by marriage articles on missus bennet and the children but in what proportions it should be divided amongst the latter depended on the will of the parents
this was one point with regard to lydia at least which was now to be settled and mister bennet could have no hesitation in acceding to the proposal before him in terms of grateful acknowledgment for the kindness of his brother though expressed most concisely
he then delivered on paper his perfect approbation of all that was done
what with her board and pocket allowance and the continual presents in money which passed to her through her mother's hands lydia's expenses had been very little within that sum
when the first transports of rage which had produced his activity in seeking her were over
his letter was soon dispatched for though dilatory in undertaking business
he begged to know further particulars of what he was indebted to his brother but was too angry with lydia to send any message to her the good news spread quickly through the house and with proportionate speed through the neighbourhood it was borne in the latter with decent philosophy
lost but a little of their spirit in this change of circumstances because with such an husband her misery was considered certain
but on this happy day she again took her seat at the head of her table and in spirits oppressively high
the marriage of a daughter which had been the first object of her wishes since jane was sixteen was now on the point of accomplishment and her thoughts and her words ran wholly on those attendants of elegant nuptials fine muslins new carriages and servants
into one house in this neighbourhood they shall never have admittance i will not encourage the impudence of either by receiving them at longbourn a long dispute followed this declaration but mister bennet was firm it soon led to another
and missus bennet found with amazement and horror that her husband would not advance a guinea to buy clothes for his daughter he protested that she should receive from him no mark of affection whatever on the occasion missus bennet could hardly comprehend it
exceeded all she could believe possible
than to any sense of shame at her eloping and living with wickham a fortnight before they took place
been led to make mister darcy acquainted with their fears for her sister for since her marriage would so shortly give the proper termination to the elopement
she had no fear of its spreading farther through his means
not however from any fear of disadvantage from it individually to herself for at any rate there seemed a gulf impassable between them
she repented though she hardly knew of what she became jealous of his esteem when she could no longer hope to be benefited by it she wanted to hear of him when there seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence
could he know that the proposals which she had proudly spurned only four months ago would now have been most gladly and gratefully received he was as generous she doubted not as the most generous of his sex but while he was mortal there must be a triumph
she began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who in disposition and talents would most suit her his understanding and temper though unlike her own would have answered all her wishes
but no such happy marriage could now teach the admiring multitude what connubial felicity really was
how wickham and lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence she could not imagine but how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue she could easily conjecture
mister gardiner soon wrote again to his brother to mister bennet's acknowledgments he briefly replied with assurance of his eagerness to promote the welfare of any of his family
the principal purport of his letter was to inform them that mister wickham had resolved on quitting the militia it was greatly my wish that he should do so he added as soon as his marriage was fixed on
both on his account and my niece's it is mister wickham's intention to go into the regulars and among his former friends there are still some who are able and willing to assist him in the army he has the promise of an ensigncy in general regiment
i have written to colonel forster to inform him of our present arrangements and to request that he will satisfy the various creditors of mister wickham in and near brighton
for which i have pledged myself and will you give yourself the trouble of carrying similar assurances to his creditors in meryton of whom i shall subjoin a list according to his information he has given in all his debts i hope at least he has not deceived us
haggerston has our directions and all will be completed in a week they will then join his regiment unless they are first invited to longbourn and i understand from missus gardiner that my niece is very desirous of seeing you all before she leaves the south
she is well and begs to be dutifully remembered to you and your mother yours et cetera e gardiner mister bennet and his daughters saw all the advantages of wickham's removal from the shire
and there are several of the young men too that she likes very much the officers may not be so pleasant in general regiment his daughter's request for such it might be considered of being admitted into her family again before she set off for the north
their sister's wedding day arrived and jane and elizabeth felt for her probably more than she felt for herself the carriage was sent to meet them at and they were to return in it by dinner time their arrival was dreaded by the elder miss bennets and jane more especially
gave her hand with an affectionate smile to wickham who followed his lady and wished them both joy with an alacrity which shewed no doubt of their happiness their reception from mister bennet to whom they then turned was not quite so cordial his countenance rather gained in austerity
she turned from sister to sister demanding their congratulations and when at length they all sat down looked eagerly round the room
wickham was not at all more distressed than herself but his manners were always so pleasing that had his character and his marriage been exactly what they ought his smiles and his easy address
there was no want of discourse the bride and her mother could neither of them talk fast enough and wickham who happened to sit near elizabeth began inquiring after his acquaintance in that neighbourhood
they seemed each of them to have the happiest memories in the world nothing of the past was recollected with pain and lydia led voluntarily to subjects which her sisters would not have alluded to for the world only think of its being three months she cried
oh mamma do the people hereabouts know i am married to day i was afraid they might not and we overtook william goulding in his curricle
they must all go to brighton that is the place to get husbands what a pity it is mamma we did not all go very true and if i had my will we should but my dear lydia i don't at all like your going such a way off must it be so
i shall like it of all things
we shall be at newcastle all the winter and i dare say there will be some balls and i will take care to get good partners for them all i should like it beyond anything said her mother
mister wickham had received his commission before he left london and he was to join his regiment at the end of a fortnight no one but missus bennet regretted that their stay would be so short and she made the most of the time by visiting about with her daughter and having very frequent parties at home
i think there cannot be too little said on the subject la
my uncle and aunt and i were to go together and the others were to meet us at the church well monday morning came and i was in such a fuss i was so afraid you know that something would happen to put it off
and there was my aunt
though i was there a fortnight not one party or scheme or anything
the little theatre was open well and so just as the carriage came to the door my
for my uncle was to give me away and if we were beyond the hour we could not be married all day but luckily he came back again in ten minutes time and then we all set out
mister darcy repeated elizabeth
i promised them so faithfully what will wickham say it was to be such a secret if it was to be secret said jane say not another word on the subject you may depend upon my seeking no further oh certainly said elizabeth
but to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible or at least it was impossible not to try for information
what my curiosity must be to know how a person unconnected with any of us and comparatively speaking a stranger to our family should have been amongst you at such a time pray write instantly and let me understand it
and my dear aunt if you do not tell me in an honourable manner i shall certainly be reduced to tricks and stratagems to find it out jane's delicate sense of honour would not allow her to speak to elizabeth privately of what lydia had let fall elizabeth was glad of it
it is when the days are long and the sun beats hot on the pavement and everything shouts to him how splendid it is out in the country that he begins to grow restless
had not had to stand the test of sunshine at present the weather being cold and dismal he was almost entirely contented now that he had got into the swing of his work the days passed very quickly and with his life after office hours he had no fault to find at all
his life was very regular
that was at ten o'clock from ten to eleven he would potter there was nothing going on at that time in his department
who had generally some fresh grievance against the ring wearing bristow to air from eleven to half past twelve he would put in a little gentle work lunch
could be spun out from half past twelve to two more work from two till half past three from half past three till half past four tea in the tearoom with a novel
either a little more work or more pottering according to whether there was any work to do or not it was by no means an unpleasant mode of spending a late january day then there was no doubt that it was an interesting little community that of the new asiatic bank
the place was full of quaint characters there was west who had been requested to leave haileybury owing to his habit of borrowing horses and attending meets in the neighbourhood
he went about his duties in a costume which suggested the sportsman of the comic papers there was also hignett who added to the meagre salary allowed him by the bank by singing comic songs at the minor music halls
he confided to mike his intention of leaving the bank as soon as he had made a name and taking seriously to the business he told him that he had knocked them at the bedford the week before and in support of the statement showed him a cutting from the era in which the writer said that
mike wished him luck and there was raymond who dabbled in journalism and was the author of straight talks to housewives in trifles under the pseudonym of lady gussie wragge
who believed that the earth was flat and addressed meetings on the subject in hyde park on sundays and many others
mike found himself by degrees growing quite attached to the new asiatic bank one morning early in february
the head of the cash department was as a rule mildly cheerful on arrival and apt excessively mike thought though he always listened with polite interest to relate the most recent sayings and doings of his snub nosed son edward
no action of this young prodigy was withheld from mike he had heard on different occasions
now happily reconciled to ada with an ingenious verbal catch
there was a curiously grey tired look on his face mike could not make it out
mister waller's face had the unreasonable effect on him of making him feel shy and awkward
the happy thought struck him of consulting psmith it was his hour for pottering
where he found the old etonian eyeing with disfavour a new satin tie which bristow was wearing that morning for the first time
psmith rose mike led the way to a quiet corner of the telegrams department i tell you comrade jackson said psmith i am hard pressed the fight is beginning to be too much for me
i succeeded yesterday in inducing the man bristow to abandon that rainbow waistcoat of his today i enter the building blythe and buoyant worn of course from the long struggle but seeing with aching eyes the dawn of another better era
he's got the hump about something he's sitting there looking absolutely fed up with things i hope there's nothing up he's not a bad sort it would be rot if anything rotten's happened psmith began to display a gentle interest
he murmured musingly i had almost forgotten that comrade waller's misfortunes cannot but be trivial compared with mine but possibly it will be as well to ascertain their nature i will reel round and make inquiries good man said mike
waller was up all night he oughtn't to be here at all today he doesn't know what he's doing half the time he's absolutely fagged out look here you'd better nip back and do as much of the work as you can i shouldn't talk to him much if i were you buck along mike went
and to realize that his blunt speech was largely due to shyness in spite of his prejudice against edward
and the cashier putting on his coat and hat passed silently out through the swing doors he walked listlessly he was evidently tired out mike shut his ledger with a vicious bang and went across to find psmith he was glad the day was over
concerning a cheque things never happen quite as one expects them to mike came to the office next morning prepared for a repetition of the previous day he was amazed to find the cashier not merely cheerful but even exuberantly cheerful
edward it appeared had rallied in the afternoon
he greeted customers with bright remarks on the weather and snappy views on the leading events of the day the former tinged with optimism the latter full of a gentle spirit of toleration
if one could only find it altogether the cloud had lifted from the cash department all was joy jollity and song the attitude of comrade waller said psmith
is reassuring i may now think of my own troubles comrade bristow has blown into the office today in patent leather boots with white kid uppers as i believe the technical term is add to that the fact that he is still wearing the satin tie the waistcoat and the ring
and you will understand why i have definitely decided this morning to abandon all hope of his reform
my time from now onward is his he shall have the full educative value of my exclusive attention i give comrade bristow up made straight for the corner flag you understand he added as mister rossiter emerged from his lair
and centred and sandy turnbull headed a beautiful goal
most of the goals towards which the average man strives struck him as too unambitious for the prodigy
he never wished to hear the name again we do not claim originality for the statement that things never happen quite as one expects them to we repeat it now because of its profound truth the edward's pneumonia episode having ended satisfactorily
or rather being apparently certain to end satisfactorily for the invalid though out of danger was still in bed
for these he was prepared what he did not expect was any big calamity at the beginning of the day there were no signs of it the sky was blue and free from all suggestions of approaching thunderbolts
mister waller still chirpy had nothing but good news of edward mike went for his morning stroll round the office feeling that things had settled down and had made up their mind to run smoothly when he got back barely half an hour later the storm had burst
jackson he said mike came forward do you remember he spoke slowly and with an effort
sir john morrison's signature yes it came in the morning rather late mike remembered the cheque perfectly well owing to the amount it was the only three figure cheque which had come across the counter during the day
he recollected the man who had presented it a tallish man with a beard
why he said it was a forgery muttered mister waller sitting down heavily mike could not take it in all at once he was stunned
all he could understand was that a far worse thing had happened than anything he could have imagined a forgery he said a forgery and a clumsy one
oh it's hard i should have seen it on any other day but that i could not have missed it they showed me the cheque in there just now i could not believe that i had passed it i don't remember doing it my mind was far away i don't remember the cheque or anything about it
yet there it is once more mike was tongue tied for the life of him he could not think of anything to say
but he could find nothing that would not sound horribly stilted and cold he sat silent sir john is in there
he is furious mister bickersdyke too they are both furious i shall be dismissed i shall lose my place i shall be dismissed he was talking more to himself than to mike it was dreadful to see him sitting there all limp and broken
i shall lose my place mister bickersdyke has wanted to get rid of me for a long time he never liked me i shall be dismissed what can i do i'm an old man
nobody will take an old man like me his voice died away there was a silence mike sat staring miserably in front of him then quite suddenly an idea came to him
the whole pressure of the atmosphere seemed to lift he saw a way out it was a curious crooked way but at that moment it stretched clear and broad before him he felt lighthearted and excited as if he were watching the development of some interesting play at the theatre he got up
smiling the cashier did not notice the movement somebody had come in to cash a cheque and he was working mechanically
and went in the manager was in his chair at the big table opposite him
the situation was tickling him mister waller has told me he began i have already seen mister waller i know he told me about the cheque i came to explain explain yes
he didn't cash it at all i don't understand you mister jackson i was at the counter when it was brought in said mike i cashed it
psmith makes inquiries psmith as was his habit of a morning when the fierce rush of his commercial duties had abated somewhat was leaning gracefully against his desk
focusing his attention with some reluctance upon this blot on the horizon he discovered that the exploiter of rainbow waistcoats and satin ties was addressing him i say smithy said bristow he spoke in rather an awed voice
i regret to see you still flaunt if it is one tithe as painful as that you have my sympathy jerk it out comrade bristow
he's getting it hot on the carpet you wish to indicate said psmith that there is some slight disturbance some passing breeze between comrades jackson and bickersdyke bristow chuckled breeze
blooming hurricane more like it i was in bick's room just now with a letter to sign and i tell you the fur was flying all over the bally shop
we all have our hobbies said psmith jackson wasn't saying much he jolly well hadn't a chance old bick was shooting it out fourteen to the dozen i have been privileged said psmith to hear comrade bickersdyke speak both in his sanctum and in public
what exactly was the cause of the turmoil i couldn't wait to hear i was too jolly glad to get away old bick looked at me as if he could eat me
which i jolly well did he had started jawing jackson again before i was out of the room while applauding his hustle said psmith i fear that i must take official notice of this comrade jackson is essentially a sensitive plant highly strung
neurotic i cannot have his nervous system jolted and disorganized in this manner and his value as a confidential secretary and adviser impaired even though it be only temporarily i must look into this i will go and see if the orgy is concluded
but if i find as i suspect that he has wronged comrade jackson i shall be forced to speak sharply to him mike had left the scene of battle by the time psmith reached the cash department
it embraces a hundred degrees of meaning mike had expected sentence of dismissal and he had got it so far he had nothing to complain of
he had thundered at mike as if mike had been his majesty's government or the encroaching alien or something of that sort and that kind of thing is a little overwhelming at short range mike's head was still spinning it continued to spin
but he never lost sight of the fact round which it revolved
and for the first time he began to wonder what they would say about this at home up till now the matter had seemed entirely a personal one
again what could he do by way of earning a living he did not know much about the city and its ways but he knew enough to understand that summary dismissal from a bank is not the best recommendation one can put forward in applying for another job
look here smith he said i want to speak to you i'm in a bit of a hole
but my absence will not spell irretrievable ruin as it would at a period of greater commercial activity comrades rossiter and bristow have studied my methods they know how i like things to be done they are fully competent to conduct the business of the department in my absence
let us as you say scud forth we will go to a mecca why so called i do not know nor indeed do i ever hope to know there we may obtain at a price a passable cup of coffee and you shall tell me your painful story
tell me all he listened gravely while mike related the incidents which had led up to his confession and the results of the same at the conclusion of the narrative he sipped his coffee in silence for a moment
you begin in a small way by breaking school rules to extract comrade jellicoe perhaps the supremest of all the blitherers i have ever met from a hole if you had stopped there all might have been well but the thing once started fascinated you
you must drop it comrade jackson when you were free and without ties it did not so much matter
the thing must stop your secretarial duties must be paramount nothing must be allowed to interfere with them yes the thing must stop before it goes too far it seems to me said mike that it has gone too far i've got the sack
psmith stirred his coffee before replying
but all is not yet lost you must recollect that comrade bickersdyke spoke in the heat of the moment that generous temperament was stirred to its depths he did not pick his words but calm will succeed storm and we may be able to do something yet
comrade b had to lay it on regardless of expense in america as possibly you are aware there is a regular post of mistake clerk whose duty it is to receive in the neck anything that happens to be coming along when customers make complaints he is hauled into the presence of the foaming customer
applies for a rise of salary now possibly in your case in my case interrupted mike there was none of that rot bickersdyke wasn't putting it on he meant every word
how do these ideas get about i yield to nobody in my respect for our manager i may have had occasion from time to time to correct him in some trifling matter
no i prefer to think that comrade bickersdyke regards me as his friend and well wisher and will lend a courteous ear to any proposal i see fit to make i hope shortly to be able to prove this to you
look here smith said mike earnestly for goodness sake don't go playing the goat there's no earthly need for you to get lugged into this business don't you worry about me i shall be all right i think said psmith that you will
the leisure class lives by the industrial community rather than in it its relations to industry are of a pecuniary rather than an industrial kind admission to the class is gained by exercise of the pecuniary aptitudes
aptitudes for acquisition rather than for serviceability there is therefore a continued selective sifting of the human material that makes up the leisure class and this selection proceeds on the ground of fitness for pecuniary pursuits
but the scheme of life of the class is in large part a heritage from the past and embodies much of the habits and ideals of the earlier barbarian period this archaic barbarian scheme of life imposes itself also on the lower orders
with more or less mitigation in its turn the scheme of life of conventions acts selectively and by education to shape the human material and its action runs chiefly in the direction of conserving traits habits and ideals
that belong to the early barbarian age the age of prowess and predatory life the most immediate and unequivocal expression of that archaic human nature which characterizes man in the predatory stage is the fighting propensity proper
in cases where the predatory activity is a collective one this propensity is frequently called the martial spirit or latterly patriotism it needs no insistence to find assent to the proposition
that in the countries of civilized europe the hereditary leisure class is endowed with this martial spirit in a higher degree than the middle classes indeed the leisure class claims the distinction as a matter of pride and no doubt with some grounds
war is honorable and warlike prowess is eminently honorific in the eyes of the generality of men and this admiration of warlike prowess is itself the best voucher of a predatory temperament in the admirer of war the enthusiasm for war
and the predatory temper of which it is the index prevail in the largest measure among the upper classes especially among the hereditary leisure class moreover the ostensible serious occupation of the upper class is that of government which
in point of origin and developmental content is also a predatory occupation the only class which could at all dispute with the hereditary leisure class the honor of an habitual bellicose frame of mind is that of the lower class delinquents
in ordinary times the large body of the industrial classes is relatively apathetic touching warlike interests when unexcited this body of the common people which makes up the effective force of the industrial community
is rather averse to any other than a defensive fight indeed it responds a little tardily even to a provocation which makes for an attitude of defense in the more civilized communities or rather in the communities which have reached an advanced industrial development
the spirit of warlike aggression may be said to be obsolescent among the common people this does not say that there is not an appreciable number of individuals among the industrial classes in whom the martial spirit asserts itself obtrusively
nor does it say that the body of the people may not be fired with martial ardor for a time under the stimulus of some special provocation such as is seen in operation today in more than one of the countries of europe
and except for those individuals who are endowed with an archaic temperament of the predatory type together with the similarly endowed body of individuals among the higher and the lowest classes the inertness of the mass of any modern civilized community in this respect
is probably so great as would make war impracticable except against actual invasion the habits and aptitudes of the common run of men make for an unfolding of activity in other less picturesque directions than that of war
this class difference in temperament may be due in part to a difference in the inheritance of acquired traits in the several classes but it seems also in some measure to correspond with a difference in ethnic derivation
the class difference is in this respect visibly less in those countries whose population is relatively homogeneous ethnically than in the countries where there is a broader divergence between the ethnic elements that make up the several classes of the community
in the same connection it may be noted that the later accessions to the leisure class in the latter countries in a general way show less of the martial spirit than contemporary representatives of the aristocracy of the ancient line
and owe their emergence into the leisure class to the exercise of traits and propensities which are not to be classed as prowess in the ancient sense apart from warlike activity proper the institution of the duel is also an expression of the same superior readiness for combat
and the duel is a leisure class institution the duel is in substance a more or less deliberate resort to a fight as a final settlement of a difference of opinion in civilized communities it prevails as a normal phenomenon only where there is an hereditary leisure class
and almost exclusively among that class the exceptions are one military and naval officers who are ordinarily members of the leisure class and who are at the same time specially trained to predatory habits of mind and two the lower class delinquents
who are by inheritance or training or both of a similarly predatory disposition and habit it is only the high bred gentleman and the rowdy that normally resort to blows as the universal solvent of differences of opinion
the plain man will ordinarily fight only when excessive momentary irritation or alcoholic exaltation act to inhibit the more complex habits of response to the stimuli that make for provocation he is then thrown back upon the simpler
shades off into the obligatory unprovoked private fight as a social obligation due to one's good repute as a leisure class usage of this kind we have particularly that bizarre survival of bellicose chivalry the german student duel
in the lower or spurious leisure class of the delinquents there is in all countries a similar though less formal social obligation incumbent on the rowdy to assert his manhood in unprovoked combat with his fellows and spreading through all grades of society
a similar usage prevails among the boys of the community the boy usually knows to nicety from day to day how he and his associates grade in respect of relative fighting capacity and in the community of boys there is ordinarily
no secure basis of reputability for any one who by exception will not or can not fight on invitation all this applies especially to boys above a certain somewhat vague limit of maturity
the child's temperament does not commonly answer to this description during infancy and the years of close tutelage when the child still habitually seeks contact with its mother at every turn of its daily life
during this earlier period there is little aggression and little propensity for antagonism the transition from this peaceable temper to the predaceous and in extreme cases malignant mischievousness of the boy is a gradual one and it is accomplished with more completeness
covering a larger range of the individual's aptitudes in some cases than in others in the earlier stage of his growth the child whether boy or girl shows less of initiative and aggressive self assertion and less of an inclination to isolate himself
and his interests from the domestic group in which he lives and he shows more of sensitiveness to rebuke bashfulness timidity and the need of friendly human contact in the common run of cases this early temperament passes
by a gradual but somewhat rapid obsolescence of the infantile features into the temperament of the boy proper though there are also cases where the predaceous futures of boy life do not emerge at all or at the most emerge in but a slight and obscure degree
in girls the transition to the predaceous stage is seldom accomplished with the same degree of completeness as in boys and in a relatively large proportion of cases it is scarcely undergone at all in such cases the transition from infancy to adolescence
and in the cases where it occurs the predaceous and isolating attitude during the interval is commonly less accentuated in the male child the predaceous interval is ordinarily fairly well marked and lasts for some time but it is commonly terminated
if at all with the attainment of maturity this last statement may need very material qualification the cases are by no means rare in which the transition from the boyish to the adult temperament is not made
understanding by the adult temperament the average temperament of those adult individuals in modern industrial life who have some serviceability for the purposes of the collective life process and who may therefore be said to make up the effective average
of the industrial community the ethnic composition of the european populations varies
while in others this ethnic element is found chiefly among the hereditary leisure class the fighting habit seems to prevail to a less extent among the working class boys in the latter class of populations than among the boys of the upper classes
or among those of the populations first named if this generalization as to the temperament of the boy among the working classes should be found true on a fuller and closer scrutiny of the field it would add force to the view that the bellicose temperament
is in some appreciable degree a race characteristic it appears to enter more largely into the make up of the dominant upper class ethnic type the dolicho blond of the european countries than into the subservient
lower class types of man which are conceived to constitute the body of the population of the same communities the case of the boy may seem not to bear seriously on the question of the relative endowment of prowess with which the several classes of society are gifted
but it is at least of some value as going to show that this fighting impulse belongs to a more archaic temperament than that possessed by the average adult man of the industrious classes in this as in many other features of child life the child reproduces
temporarily and in miniature some of the earlier phases of the development of adult man under this interpretation the boy's predilection for exploit and for isolation of his own interest is to be taken as a transient reversion to the human nature
the predatory culture proper in this respect as in much else the leisure class and the delinquent class character shows a persistence into adult life of traits that are normal to childhood and youth
and that are likewise normal or habitual to the earlier stages of culture unless the difference is traceable entirely to a fundamental difference between persistent ethnic types the traits that distinguish the swaggering delinquent and the punctilious gentleman of leisure from the common crowd are
in some measure marks of an arrested spiritual development they mark an immature phase as compared with the stage of development attained by the average of the adults in the modern industrial community and it will appear presently
that the puerile spiritual make up of these representatives of the upper and the lowest social strata shows itself also in the presence of other archaic traits than this proclivity to ferocious exploit and isolation
as if to leave no doubt about the essential immaturity of the fighting temperament we have bridging the interval between legitimate boyhood and adult manhood the aimless and playful but more or less systematic and elaborate
disturbances of the peace in vogue among schoolboys of a slightly higher age in the common run of cases these disturbances are confined to the period of adolescence they recur with decreasing frequency and acuteness as youth merges into adult life
and so they reproduce in a general way in the life of the individual the sequence by which the group has passed from the predatory to a more settled habit of life
in an appreciable number of cases the spiritual growth of the individual comes to a close before he emerges from this puerile phase in these cases the fighting temper persists through life those individuals who in spiritual development eventually reach man's estate
therefore ordinarily pass through a temporary archaic phase corresponding to the permanent spiritual level of the fighting and sporting men different individuals will of course achieve spiritual maturity and sobriety in this respect in different degrees
this arrested spiritual development may express itself not only in a direct participation by adults in youthful exploits of ferocity but also indirectly in aiding and abetting disturbances of this kind on the part of younger persons
it thereby furthers the formation of habits of ferocity which may persist in the later life of the growing generation and so retard any movement in the direction of a more peaceable effective temperament on the part of the community
if a person so endowed with a proclivity for exploits is in a position to guide the development of habits in the adolescent members of the community the influence which he exerts in the direction of conservation and reversion to prowess may be very considerable
this is the significance for instance of the fostering care latterly bestowed by many clergymen
and similar pseudo military organizations the same is true of the encouragement given to the growth of college spirit college athletics and the like in the higher institutions of learning these manifestations of the predatory temperament are all to be classed under the head of exploit
partly activities deliberately entered upon with a view to gaining repute for prowess sports of all kinds are of the same general character including prize fights bull fights athletics shooting angling yachting and games of skill
even where the element of destructive physical efficiency is not an obtrusive feature sports shade off from the basis of hostile combat through skill to cunning and chicanery without its being possible to draw a line at any point
from the manner with which the latournelles entered the chalet a stranger would readily have guessed that they came there every evening ah you are here already said the notary perceiving the young banker gobenheim a connection of gobenheim keller
the head of the great banking house in paris this young man with a livid face a blonde of the type with black eyes whose immovable glance has an indescribable fascination sober in speech as in conduct dressed in black lean as a consumptive
but nevertheless vigorously framed visited the family of his former master and the house of his cashier less from affection than from self interest here they played whist at two sous a point a dress coat was not required
he accepted no refreshment except eau sucree and consequently had no civilities to return this apparent devotion to the mignon family allowed it to be supposed that gobenheim had a heart it also released him from the necessity of going into the society of havre
and incurring useless expenses thus upsetting the orderly economy of his domestic life this disciple of the golden calf went to bed at half past ten o'clock and got up at five in the morning moreover being perfectly sure of latournelle's and butscha's discretion
he could talk over difficult business matters obtain the advice of the notary gratis and get an inkling of the real truth of the gossip of the street this stolid gold glutton the epithet is butscha's belonged by nature to the class of substances which chemistry terms absorbents
where the kellers had placed him to learn the principles of maritime commerce no one at the chalet had ever asked him to do the smallest thing no matter what
the young fellow looked at modeste precisely as he would have looked at a cheap lithograph he's one of the pistons of the big engine called commerce said poor butscha whose clever mind made itself felt occasionally by such little sayings timidly jerked out
the four latournelles bowed with the most respectful deference to an old lady dressed in black velvet who did not rise from the armchair in which she was seated for the reason that both eyes were covered with the yellow film produced by cataract
carefully curled and well arranged upon her head became the cold white face which resembled that of some burgomaster's wife painted by hals or mirevelt the extreme neatness of her dress the velvet boots the lace collar the shawl evenly folded and put on
all bore testimony to the solicitous care which modeste bestowed upon her mother when silence was as the notary had predicted restored in the pretty salon modeste sitting beside her mother for whom she was embroidering a kerchief
became for an instant the centre of observation this curiosity barely veiled by the commonplace salutations and inquiries of the visitors would have revealed even to an indifferent person the existence of the domestic plot to which modeste was expected to fall a victim but gobenheim
more than indifferent noticed nothing and proceeded to light the candles on the card table the behavior of dumay made the whole scene terrifying to butscha to the latournelles and above all to madame dumay who knew her husband to be capable of firing a pistol at modeste's lover
as coolly as though he were a mad dog after dinner that day the cashier had gone to walk followed by two magnificent pyrenees hounds whom he suspected of betraying him and therefore left in charge of a farmer
on his return just before the arrival of the latournelles he had taken his pistols from his bed's head and placed them on the chimney piece concealing this action from modeste the young girl took no notice whatever of these preparations singular as they were
though short thick set pockmarked and speaking always in a low voice as if listening to himself this breton a former lieutenant in the guard showed the evidence of such resolution such sang froid on his face that throughout life even in the army
no one had ever ventured to trifle with him his little eyes of a calm blue were like bits of steel his ways the look on his face his speech his carriage were all in keeping with the short name of dumay his physical strength well known to every one
put him above all danger of attack he was able to kill a man with a blow of his fist and had performed that feat at bautzen where he found himself unarmed face to face with a saxon at the rear of his company at the present moment the usually firm yet gentle expression of the man's face
had risen to a sort of tragic sublimity his lips were pale as the rest of his face indicating a tumult within him mastered by his breton will a slight sweat which every one noticed and guessed to be cold
which involved to his mind sentiments of honor and loyalty of far greater importance than mere social laws and his present conduct proceeded from one of those compacts which in case disaster came of it could be judged only in a higher court than one of earth
the majority of dramas lie really in the ideas which we make to ourselves about things events which seem to us dramatic are nothing more than subjects which our souls convert into tragedy or comedy according to the bent of our characters madame latournelle and madame dumay
who were appointed to watch modeste had a certain assumed stiffness of demeanor and a quiver in their voices which the suspected party did not notice so absorbed was she in her embroidery modeste laid each thread of cotton with a precision that would have made an ordinary workwoman desperate
her face expressed the pleasure she took in the smooth petals of the flower she was working
restrained his emotion trying to find means to approach modeste and whisper a word of warning in her ear
whose blindness always made her silent was even paler than usual showing plainly that she was aware of the test to which her daughter was about to be subjected perhaps at the last moment she revolted from the stratagem necessary as it might seem to her hence her silence she was weeping inwardly
exupere the spring of the trap was wholly ignorant of the piece in which he was to play a part gobenheim by reason of his character remained in a state of indifference equal to that displayed by modeste
this contrast between the ignorance of some and the palpitating interest of others would have seemed quite poetic nowadays romance writers arrange such effects
in this instance as you will see nature social nature which is a second nature within nature amused herself by making truth more interesting than fiction just as mountain torrents describe curves which are beyond the skill of painters to convey
and accomplish giant deeds in displacing or smoothing stones which are the wonder of architects and sculptors it was eight o'clock at that season twilight was still shedding its last gleams there was not a cloud in the sky the balmy air caressed the earth
the flowers gave forth their fragrance the steps of pedestrians turning homeward sounded along the gravelly road the sea shone like a mirror and there was so little wind that the wax candles upon the card tables sent up a steady flame although the windows were wide open
this salon this evening this dwelling what a frame for the portrait of the young girl whom these persons were now studying with the profound attention of a painter in presence of the margharita doni one of the glories of the pitti palace modeste blossom enclosed
like that of catullus was she worth all these precautions you have seen the cage behold the bird just twenty years of age slender and delicate as the sirens which english designers invent for their books of beauty modeste was like her mother before her
the captivating embodiment of a grace too little understood in france where we choose to call it sentimentality but which among german women is the poetry of the heart coming to the surface of the being and spending itself in affectations if the owner is silly
in divine charms of manner if she is spirituelle and intelligent remarkable for her pale golden hair modeste belonged to the type of woman called perhaps in memory of eve the celestial blonde whose satiny skin is like a silk paper applied to the flesh
shuddering at the winter of a cold look expanding in the sunshine of a loving glance teaching the hand to be jealous of the eye beneath her hair which was soft and feathery and worn in many curls the brow which might have been traced by a compass so pure was its modelling
shone forth discreet calm to placidity and yet luminous with thought when and where could another be found so transparently clear or more exquisitely smooth it seemed like a pearl to have its orient the eyes of a blue verging on gray and limpid as the eyes of a child
had all the mischief all the innocence of childhood and they harmonized well with the arch of the eyebrows faintly indicated by lines like those made with a brush on chinese faces this candor of the soul was still further evidenced around the eyes in their corners
and about the temples by pearly tints threaded with blue the special privilege of these delicate complexions the face whose oval raphael so often gave to his madonnas was remarkable for the sober and virginal tone of the cheeks soft as a bengal rose
upon which the long lashes of the diaphanous eyelids cast shadows that were mingled with light the throat bending as she worked too delicate perhaps and of milky whiteness recalled those vanishing lines that leonardo loved a few little blemishes here and there
like the patches of the eighteenth century proved that modeste was indeed a child of earth and not a creation dreamed of in italy by the angelic school her lips delicate yet full were slightly mocking and somewhat sensuous the waist which was supple and yet not fragile
had no terrors for maternity like those of girls who seek beauty by the fatal pressure of a corset steel and dimity and lacings defined but did not create the serpentine lines of the elegant figure graceful as that of a young poplar swaying in the wind
a pearl gray dress with crimson trimmings made with a long waist modestly outlined the bust and covered the shoulders still rather thin
where it joined the shoulders from the aspect of the young girl's face at once ethereal and intelligent where the delicacy of a greek nose with its rosy nostrils and firm modelling marked something positive and defined where the poetry enthroned upon an almost mystic brow
seemed belied at times by the pleasure loving expression of the mouth where candor claimed the depths profound and varied of the eye and disputed them with a spirit of irony that was trained and educated from all these signs an observer would have felt that this young girl
with the keen alert ear that waked at every sound with a nostril open to catch the fragrance of the celestial flower of the ideal was destined to be the battle ground of a struggle between the poesies of the dawn and the labors of the day between fancy and reality
come here young man seeing them together in the corner of the salon she supposed they were talking of some commission in paris then she looked at the friends who surrounded her as if surprised by their silence and exclaimed in her natural manner why are you not playing
with a glance at the green table which the imposing madame latournelle called the altar yes let us play said dumay having sent off exupere sit there butscha said madame latournelle
and her daughter by the whole width of the table
it was done as the king said and by and by aben hassen the fool lay in the prison smarting and sore with the whipping he had had then he began again to think of the talisman of solomon
tell me said he to the talisman
bear thy punishment thou fool said the talisman
in the meantime bear thy punishment perhaps it will cure thee of thy folly only do not call upon zadok the king of the demons in this thy trouble
the young man smote his hand upon his head what a fool i am said he not to have thought to call upon zadok before this then he called aloud
in an instant there sounded a rumble as of thunder the floor swayed and rocked beneath the young man's feet
i have come said zadok and first let me cure thy smarts o master he removed the cloths from the young man's back
instantly the pain and smarting ceased and the merchant's son had perfect ease now said zadok what is thy bidding tell me said aben hassen the fool
whence comes all the wealth that you have brought me the king has commanded me to tell him
had me beaten with fifty lashes i bring the treasure said zadok from the treasure house of the ancient kings of egypt
and he not desiring it himself hid it in the earth so that no one might find it and where is this treasure house o zadok said the young man it is in the city of the queen of the black isles said the king of the demons
there thy father lived in a palace of such magnificence as thou hast never dreamed of it was i that brought him thence to this place with one vessel of gold money and one vessel of silver money
it was you who brought him here did you say zadok then tell me can you take me from here to the city of the queen of the black isles whence you brought him yes said zadok with ease
then said the young man i command you to take me thither instantly
i obey said zadok he stamped his foot upon the ground in an instant the walls of the prison split asunder and the sky was above them the demon leaped from the earth carrying the young man by the girdle
and flew through the air so swiftly that the stars appeared to slide away behind them in a moment he set the young man again upon the ground and aben hassen the fool found himself at the end of what appeared to be a vast and splendid garden
it was here that i saw thy father seal it so that no one but the master of zadok may enter thou mayst go in any time it may please thee for it is thine i would enter into it now said aben hassen the fool
thou shalt enter said zadok he stooped and with his finger point he drew a circle upon the ground where they stood then he stamped with his heel upon the circle
instantly the earth opened and there appeared a flight of marble steps leading downward into the earth
at the bottom of the steps there was a door of adamant upon the door were these words in letters as black as ink
oh fool fool
within here shalt thou find death there was a key of brass in the door
the young man entered after him aben hassen the fool found himself in a vast vaulted room lit by the light of a single carbuncle set in the centre of the dome above
and filled to the brim with money such as he had found in the brazen vessel in the garden the young man could not believe what he saw with his own eyes oh marvel of marvels he cried little wonder
this said he is nothing come with me he led him from this room to another
in the middle of the floor was a basin such as aben hassen the fool had seen in the other room beyond only this was filled with gold
and the gold was like that he had found in the garden when the young man saw this vast and amazing wealth he stood speechless and breathless with wonder the demon zadok laughed this said he is great but it is little
he took the young man by the hand and led him into a third room vaulted as the other two had been
he was like a man turned drunk with wonder he had to lean against the wall behind him for the sight made him dizzy in the middle of the room was such as basin as he had seen in the two other rooms only it was filled with jewels
around the wall and facing the basin from all sides stood six golden statues
three of them were statues of the kings and three of them were statues of the queens who had gathered together all this vast and measureless wealth of ancient egypt
but where it should have stood was a great arched door of adamant the door was tightly shut and there was neither lock nor key to it upon the door were written these words in letters of flame
behold beyond this door is that alone which shall satisfy all thy desires tell me zadok said the young man after he had filled his soul with all the other wonders that surrounded him
tell me what is there that lies beyond that door that i am forbidden to tell thee o master said the king of the demons of the earth then open the door for me said the young man
for i cannot open it for myself as there is neither lock nor key to it that also i am forbidden to do said zadok i wish that i knew what was there said the young man the demon laughed
some time said he thou mayest find for thyself come let us leave here and go to the palace which thy father built years ago and which he left behind him when he quitted this place for the place in which thou knewest him
he led the way and the young man followed they passed through the vaulted rooms and out through the door of adamant and zadok locked it behind them and gave the key to the young man all this is thine now he said
i give it to thee as i gave it to thy father i have shown thee how to enter and thou mayst go in whenever it pleases thee to do so they ascended the steps and so reached the garden above then zadok struck his heel upon the ground
he led the young man from the spot until they had come to a wide avenue that led to the palace beyond here i leave thee said the demon but if ever thou hast need of me call and i will come
thereupon he vanished like a flash leaving the young man standing like one in a dream he saw before him a garden of such splendor and magnificence as he had never dreamed of even in his wildest fancy
there were seven fountains as clear as crystal that shot high into the air and fell back into basins of alabaster
as light as day upon either side of the avenue stood a row of black slaves clad in garments of white silk
each held a flaming torch of sandal wood behind the slaves stood a double row of armed men and behind them a great crowd of other slaves and attendants dressed each as magnificently as a prince blazing and flaming
with innumerable jewels and ornaments of gold but of all these things the young man thought nothing and saw nothing for at the end of the marble avenue there arose a palace the like of which was not in the four quarters of the earth
a palace of marble and gold and carmine and ultramarine rising into the purple starry sky and shining in the moonlight like a vision of paradise the palace was illuminated from top to bottom
the windows shone like crystal and from it came sounds of music and rejoicing when the crowd that stood waiting saw the young man appear they shouted welcome welcome to the master who has come again
to aben hassen the fool the young man walked up the avenue of marble to the palace surrounded by the armed attendants in their dresses of jewels and gold and preceded by dancing girls as beautiful as
who danced and sung before him he was dizzy with joy all all this he exulted belongs to me
for seven months he lived a life of joy and delight surrounded by crowds of courtiers as though they were a king
nor had he any fear of an end coming to it for he knew that his treasure was inexhaustible he made friends with the princes and nobles of the land from far and wide people came to visit him
and the renown of his magnificence filled all the world when men would praise any one they would say he is as rich or as magnificent or as generous as aben hassen the fool
so for seven months he lived a life of joy and delight then one morning he awakened and found everything changed to grief and mourning where the day before had been laughter to day was crying
to day was lamentation all the city was shrouded in gloom and everywhere was weeping and crying seven black slaves stood on guard near aben hassen the fool as he lay upon his couch
what means all this sorrow said he to one of the slaves instantly all the slaves began howling and beating their heads and he to whom the young man had spoken fell down with his face in the dust
and lay there twisting and writhing like a worm he has asked the question howled the slaves he has asked the question are you mad cried the young man what is the matter with you
bearing in her hands a jewelled basin of gold filled with rose water and a fine linen napkin for the young man to wash and dry his hands upon tell me said the young man what means all this sorrow and lamentation
instantly the beautiful slave dropped the golden basin upon the stone floor and began shrieking and tearing her clothes he has asked the question she screamed he has asked the question
the young man began to grow frightened he arose from his couch and with uneven steps went out into the anteroom there he found his chamberlain waiting for him with a crowd of attendants and courtiers
tell me said aben hassen the fool why are you all so sorrowful instantly they who stood waiting began crying and tearing their clothes and beating their hands as for the chamberlain he was a reverend old man
what he cried art thou not contented with all thou hast and with all that we do for thee without asking the forbidden question thereupon he tore his cap from his head and flung it upon the ground
and began beating himself violently upon the head with great outcrying aben hassen the fool not knowing what to think or what was to happen ran back into the bedroom again
i think everybody in this place has gone mad said he nevertheless if i do not find out what it all means i shall go mad myself then he bethought himself for the first time since he came to that land
of the talisman of solomon tell me o talisman said he why all these people weep and wail so continuously rest content said the talisman of solomon with knowing that which concerns thine own self
and seek not to find an answer that will be to thine own undoing be thou also further advised do not question the demon zadok fool that i am said the young man stamping his foot
when if i had but thought of zadok at first he would have told me all then he called aloud zadok zadok zadok instantly the ground shook beneath his feet
and there stood zadok as black as ink and with eyes that shone like fire tell me said the young man i command thee to tell me o zadok why are the people all gone mad this morning and why do they weep and wail
and why do they go crazy when i do but ask them why they are so afflicted i will tell thee said zadok seven and thirty years ago there was a queen over this land the most beautiful that ever was seen
thy father who was the wisest and most cunning magician in the world turned her into stone
no one since that time has been permitted to enter the palace it is forbidden for any one even to ask a question concerning it but every year on the day on which the queen was turned to stone the whole land mourns with weeping and wailing
and now thou knowest all what you tell me said the young man passes wonder but tell me further o zadok
nothing is easier said zadok then said the young man i command you to take me to where she is so that i may see her with mine own eyes i hear and obey said the demon
he seized the young man by the girdle and in an instant flew away with him to a hanging garden that lay before the queen's palace thou art the first man said zadok who has seen
what thou art about to see for seven and thirty years come i will show thee a queen the most beautiful that the eyes of man ever looked upon he led the way and the young man followed filled with wonder and astonishment
not a sound was to be heard not a thing moved but silence hung like a veil between the earth and the sky following the demon the young man ascended a flight of steps and so entered the vestibule of the palace
there stood guards in armor of brass and silver and gold but they were without life they were all of stone as white as alabaster thence they passed through room after room and apartment after apartment
crowded with courtiers and nobles and lords in their robes of office magnificent beyond fancying but each silent and motionless each a stone as white as alabaster
at last they entered an apartment in the very centre of the palace there sat seven and forty female attendants around a couch of purple and gold each of the seven and forty was beautiful beyond what the young man
could have believed possible and each was clad in a garment of silk as white as snow embroidered with threads of silver and studded with glistening diamonds but each sat silent and motionless
each was a stone as white as alabaster upon the couch in the centre of the apartment reclined a queen with a crown of gold upon her head
she was cold and dead of stone as white as marble the young man approached and looked into her face and when he looked his breath became faint and his heart grew soft within him like wax in a flame of fire
he sighed he melted the tears burst from his eyes and ran down his cheeks
what have you done to show me this wonder of beauty and love alas that i have seen her for the world is nothing to me now
that she were flesh and blood instead of cold stone
i command you to tell me was she once really alive as i am alive and did my father truly turn her to stone as she lies here she was really alive as thou art alive
and he did truly transform her to this stone said zadok and tell me said the young man can she never become alive again she can become alive and it lies with you to make her alive said the demon
listen o master thy father possessed a wand half of silver and half of gold whatsoever he touched with silver became converted to stone
it became alive even if it were a dead stone tell me zadok cried the young man i command you to tell me where is that wand of silver and gold i have it with me said zadok
then give it to me i command you to give it to me i hear and obey said zadok he drew from his girdle a wand half of gold and half of silver as he spoke and gave it to the young man
thou mayst go now zadok said the young man trembling with eagerness zadok laughed and vanished the young man stood for a while looking down at the beautiful figure of alabaster
then he touched the lips with the golden tip of the wand in an instant there came a marvellous change he saw the stone melt and begin to grow flexible and soft he saw it become warm
and the cheeks and lips grow red with life meantime a murmur had begun to rise all through the palace it grew louder and louder it became a shout the figure of the queen that had been stone opened its eyes
who are you it said aben hassen the fool fell upon his knees i am he who was sent to bring you to life he said my father turned you to cold stone and i
i have brought you back to warm life again the queen smiled her teeth sparkled like pearls
he grew suddenly dizzy the world swam before his eyes for seven days nothing was heard in the town but rejoicing and joy the young man lived in a golden cloud of delight and to think said he
called the wise all this happiness this ecstasy that is now mine
tell me beloved said the queen upon the morning of the seventh day
tell me is it now thine as it was once his yes said the young man it is now all mine as it was once all his
yes said the young man and ten thousand times more than i say then as you love me i beg one boon on you
and which we are to enjoy together the young man was drunk with happiness thou shalt see it all said he then for the first time the talisman spoke without being questioned fool it cried wilt thou not be advised
be silent said the young man six times vile thing you would have betrayed me six times you would have deprived me of joys that should have been mine and each was greater than that which went before
now said he to the queen i will show you our treasure he called aloud
i command you said the young man to carry the queen and myself to the garden where my treasure lies hidden zadok laughed aloud i hear thee and obey thee master said he he seized the queen and the young man by the girdle
and in an instant transported them to the garden and to the treasure house thou art where thou commandest to be said the demon the young man immediately drew a circle upon the ground with his finger tip he struck his heel upon the circle
the young man descended the steps with the queen behind him and behind them both came the demon zadok the young man opened the door of adamant and entered the first of the vaulted rooms
when the queen saw the huge basin full of silver treasure her cheeks and her forehead flushed as red as fire they went into the next room and when the queen saw the basin of gold her face turned as white as ashes
they went into the third room and when the queen saw the basin of jewels
her face turned as blue as lead and her eyes shone green like a snake's are you content asked the young man the queen looked about her
and whereon were engraved these words behold beyond this door is that alone which shall satisfy all thy desires no cried she what is it that lies behind yon door
i do not know said the young man then open the door and let me see what lies within i cannot open the door said he how can i open the door seeing that there is no lock nor key to it
or leave me forever they had both forgotten that the demon zadok was there then the young man bethought himself of the talisman of solomon tell me o talisman said he how shall i open yonder door oh wretched one
for thy doom is near do not push the door open for it is not locked the young man struck his head with his clinched fist what a fool am i he cried will i never learn wisdom
here have i been coming to this place seven months and have never yet thought to try whether yonder door was locked or not open the door cried the queen they went forward together the young man pushed the door with his hand
it opened swiftly and silently and they entered within was a narrow room as red as blood a flaming lamp hung from the ceiling above the young man stood as though turned to stone
for there stood a gigantic black demon with a napkin wrapped around his loins and a scimitar in his right hand the blade of which gleamed like lightning in the flame of the lamp before him lay a basket filled with sawdust
when the queen saw what she saw she screamed in a loud voice thou hast found it thou hast found it thou hast found what alone can satisfy all thy desires strike o slave
he saw a whirl and a flash and then he knew nothing the black had struck the blade had fallen and the head of aben hassen the fool rolled into the basket of sawdust that stood waiting for it
aye aye said saint george and so it should end
thus should the heads of all the like be chopped off from their shoulders is there not some one here to tell us a fair story about a saint for the matter of that said the lad who fiddled when the jew was in the bramble bush
for the matter of that i know a very good story that begins about a saint and a hazel nut say you so said saint george well let us have it but stay friend thou hast no ale in thy pot
wilt thou not let me pay for having it filled that said the lad who fiddled when the jew was in the bramble bush may be as you please sir knight and to tell the truth i will be mightily glad for a drop to moisten my throat withal
but said fortunatus you have not told us what the story is to be about
why we didn't know colenso was on the line until buller fought a battle here that's how it is with all these way stations now everybody's talking about them we never took no notice to them
and colenso a scattered gathering of a dozen shattered houses of battered brick
that one was not sure he was on the right road until he saw from the car window the armored train still lying on the embankment the graves beside it and the donga into which winston churchill pulled and carried the wounded
and as the train bumped and halted before the blue and white enamel sign that marks colenso station the places which have made that spot familiar and momentous
that the plain on the left was where colonel long had lost his artillery and three officers gained the victoria cross and that the swift muddy stream in which the iron railroad bridge lay humped and sprawling was the tugela river
six hours before at frere station the station master had awakened us to say that ladysmith would be relieved at any moment this had but just come over the wire it was official
to celebrate the imminent event he found i fear an unsympathetic audience the train was carrying philanthropic gentlemen in charge of stores of champagne and marmalade for the besieged city
and there were officers too who wanted a look in and who had been kept waiting at cape town for commissions gladdening the guests of the mount nelson hotel the while with their new khaki and gaiters and there were tommies who wanted relief of ladysmith on the claps of their medals
as they had seen relief of lucknow on the medals of the chelsea pensioners and there was a correspondent who had journeyed fifteen thousand miles to see ladysmith relieved and who was apparently going to miss that sight after five weeks of travel by a margin of five hours we all growled that's good
i am afraid the good news is too premature we all said hopefully we were afraid it was
that night at pietermaritzburg the officers at the hotel were in mess jackets the officers wives in dinner gowns
like men who had lost their way and silhouetted black against the red sunrise countless horsemen scouting ahead of our train
creeping in advance of ours and the red sun which showed our silent escort appearing suddenly against the sky line on a ridge or galloping toward us through the dew to order us
one hour after sunrise the train drew up at colenso
the hammering of the boer pom poms and the maxims and colt automatics spanking the air we smiled at each other guiltily we were on time it was most evident that ladysmith had not been relieved
this was the twelfth day of a battle that buller's column was waging against the boers and their mountain ranges or disarranges as some one described them without having gained more than three miles of hostile territory
he had tried to force his way through them six times and had been repulsed six times and now he was to try it again no map nor photograph nor written description can give an idea of the country which lay between buller and his goal it was an eruption of high hills
linked together at every point without order or sequence in most countries mountains and hills follow some natural law the cordilleras can be traced from the amazon river to guatemala city they make the water shed of two continents
the great divide forms the backbone of the states but these natal hills have no lineal descent they are illegitimate children of no line abandoned broadcast over the country with no family likeness and no home they stand alone or shoulder to shoulder
they never appear the same some run to a sharp point some stretch out forming a table land others are gigantic ant hills
in a ride of half a mile every hill completely loses its original aspect and character they hide each other or disguise each other each can be enfiladed by the other and not one gives up the secret of its strategic value
until its crest has been carried by the bayonet to add to this confusion the river tugela has selected the hills around ladysmith as occupying the country through which it will endeavor to throw off its pursuers it darts through them as though striving to escape
it doubles on its tracks it sinks out of sight between them and in the open plain rises to the dignity of water falls it runs uphill and remains motionless on an incline and on the level ground
twists and turns so frequently that when one says he has crossed the tugela he means he has crossed it once at a drift once at the wrecked railroad bridge and once over a pontoon
at two hundred yards a man in khaki is indistinguishable from the rocks around him indeed the khaki is the english soldier's sole protection it saves him in spite of himself for he apparently cannot learn to advance under cover
and a sky line is the one place where he selects to stand erect and stretch his weary limbs i have come to within a hundred yards of a hill before i saw that scattered among its red and yellow bowlders
into this maze and confusion of nature's fortifications buller's column has been twisting and turning marching and countermarching capturing one position after another to find it was enfiladed from many hills and abandoning it only to retake it a week later
the greater part of the column has abandoned its tents and is bivouacking in the open it is a wonderful and impressive sight at the first view an army in being when it is spread out as it is in the tugela basin back of the hills seems a hopelessly and irrevocably entangled mob
an army in the field is not regiments of armed men marching with a gun on shoulder or crouching behind trenches that is the least even if it seems the most important part of it before one reaches the firing line he must pass villages of men
who are feeding mending repairing and burying the men at the front it is these latter that make the mob of gypsies which is apparently without head or order or organization
their camp fires rising to the sky at night like the reflection of great search lights by day they swarmed across the plain like hundreds of moving circus vans in every direction with as little obvious intention as herds of buffalo
but each had his appointed work and each was utterly indifferent to the battle going forward a mile away hundreds of teams of sixteen oxen each crawled like great black water snakes across the drifts the kaffir drivers naked and black
lashing them with whips as long as lariats shrieking beseeching and howling and falling upon the oxen's horns to drag them into place mules from spain and texas loaded with ammunition kicked and plunged
more oxen drew more soberly the great naval guns which lurched as though in a heavy sea throwing the blue jackets who hung upon the drag ropes from one high side of the trail to the other across the plain and making toward the trail
wagons loaded with fodder with rations with camp equipment with tents and cooking stoves crowded each other as closely as cable cars on broadway scattered among them were fixed lines of tethered horses rows of dog tents camps of kaffirs
hospital stations with the red cross waving from the nearest and highest tree dripping water carts with as many spigots as the regiment had companies
howitzer guns guided by as many ropes as a may pole crowded past these to the trail or gave way to the ambulances filled with men half dressed and bound in the zinc blue bandages that made the color detestable forever after
troops of the irregular horse gallop through this multitude with a jangling of spurs and sling belts
it is only when the figure on the stretcher lies under a blanket that the tumult and push and sweltering mass comes to a quick pause while the dead man's comrade stands at attention and the officer raises his fingers to his helmet
then the mass surges on again with cracking of whips and shouts and imprecations
is within easy distance of the shells those from their own guns pass over them with a shrill crescendo those from the enemy burst among them at rare intervals or sink impotently in the soft soil and a dozen tommies rush to dig them out as keepsakes
up at the front brown and yellow regiments are lying crouched behind brown and yellow rocks and stones as far as you can see the hills are sown with them with a glass you distinguish them against the sky line of every hill for over three miles away
sometimes the men rise and fire and there is a feverish flutter of musketry sometimes they lie motionless for hours while the guns make the ways straight any one who has seen epsom downs on a derby day with its thousands of vans and tents and lines of horses and moving mobs
with the intoxication of a great event the winning of a horse race here where men are killed every hour and no one of them knows when his turn may come the fact that most impresses you is their indifference to it all
what strikes you most is the bored air of the tommies the undivided interest of the engineers in the construction of a pontoon bridge the solicitude of the medical staff over the long lines of wounded
the rage of the naked kaffirs at their lumbering steers the fact that every one is intent on something anything but the battle
a shell passes over them like the shaking of many telegraph wires and neither officer nor tommy raises his head to watch it strike they are tired in body and in mind with cramped limbs and aching eyes they have had twelve nights and twelve days of battle
and it has lost its power to amuse when the sergeants call the companies together they are eager enough anything is better than lying still looking up at the sunny inscrutable hills or down into the plain crawling with black oxen
among the group of staff officers some one has lost a cigar holder it has slipped from between his fingers and with the vindictiveness of inanimate things has slid and jumped under a pile of rocks
the interest of all around is instantly centred on the lost cigar holder the tommies begin to roll the rocks away
they are as keen as terriers after a rat
over their heads not twenty feet above the shells chase each other fiercely but the officers have become accustomed to shells a search for a lost cigar holder which is going on under their very eyes is of greater interest and when at last a tommy pounces upon it with a laugh of triumph
the officers look their disappointment and with a sigh of resignation pick up their field glasses it is all a question of familiarity on broadway if a building is going up where there is a chance of a loose brick falling on some one's head the contractor puts up red signs marked danger
and you dodge over to the other side but if you had been in battle for twelve days as have the soldiers of buller's column passing shells would interest you no more than do passing cable cars after twelve days you would forget that shells are dangerous even as you forget when crossing broadway
that cable cars can kill and mangle up on the highest hill seated among the highest rocks are general buller and his staff the hill is all of rocks sharp brown rocks as clearly cut as foundation stones
upon itself all of the sun's heat this little jagged point of blistering rocks holds the forces that press the button which sets the struggling mass below and the thousands of men upon the surrounding hills in motion
it is the conning tower of the relief column only unlike a conning tower it offers no protection no seclusion no peace to day commanding generals under the new conditions which this war has developed
do not charge up hills waving flashing swords
the swords have been left at the base or coated deep with mud so that they shall not flash and with this column every one under the rank of general carries a rifle on purpose to disguise the fact that he is entitled to carry a sword
the kopje is the central station of the system from its uncomfortable eminence the commanding general watches the developments of his attack and directs it by heliograph and ragged bits of bunting a sweating dirty tommy turns his back on a hill a mile away
and slaps the air with his signal flag another tommy with the front visor of his helmet cocked over the back of his neck watches an answering bit of bunting through a glass the bit of bunting a mile away flashes impatiently
once to the right and once to the left and the tommy with the glass says they understand sir
folds his flag and curls up against a hot rock and instantly sleeps stuck on the crest twenty feet from where general buller is seated are two iron rods like those in the putting green of a golf course they mark the line of direction which a shell must take in order to seek out the enemy
back of the kopje where they cannot see the enemy where they cannot even see the hill upon which he is intrenched are the howitzers their duty is to aim at the iron rods and vary their aim to either side of them as they are directed to do by an officer on the crest
those three yards are as safe a margin as a hundred their confidence is that of the lady in spangles at a music hall who permits her husband in buckskin to shoot apples from the top of her head
from the other direction come the shells of the boers seeking out the hidden howitzers they pass somewhat higher crashing into the base of the kopje sometimes killing sometimes digging their own ignominious graves the staff regard them with the same indifference
one of them tears the overcoat upon which colonel stuart wortley is seated another destroys his diary his men lying at his feet among the red rocks observe this with wide eyes but he does not shift his position his answer is that his men cannot shift theirs
have added so much to the lists of killed and wounded and to the prestige of the men
hurt the prestige of the men by whom the attack was ordered the result of this attack was peculiarly disastrous it was made at night and as soon as it developed the boers retreated to the trenches on the crest of the hill and threw men around the sides
to bring a cross fire to bear on the englishmen in the morning the inniskillings found they had lost four hundred men and ten out of their fifteen officers the other regiments lost as heavily the following tuesday which was the anniversary of majuba hill
three brigades instead of a regiment were told off to take this same railway hill or pieter's as it was later called on the flank and with it to capture two others on the same day nineteen years before the english had lost majuba hill and their hope was to take these three from the boers
for the one they had lost and open the way to bulwana mountain which was the last bar that held them back from ladysmith the first two of the three hills they wanted were shoulder to shoulder
this last was the highest and in order that the attack should be successful it was necessary to seize it first the hills stretched for three miles they were about one thousand two hundred yards high
for three hours a single line of men slipped and stumbled forward along the muddy bank of the river and for three hours the artillery crashed spluttered and stabbed at the three hills above them scattering the rocks and bursting over and behind the boer trenches on the crest
as is their custom the boers remained invisible and made no reply and though we knew they were there it seemed inconceivable that anything human could live under such a bombardment of shot bullets and shrapnel a hundred yards distant on our right
the navy guns were firing lyddite that burst with a thick yellow smoke on the other side colt automatics were put put put ing a stream of bullets the field guns and the howitzers were playing from a hill half a mile behind us
and scattered among the rocks about us and for two miles on either hand the infantry in reserve were firing off ammunition at any part of the three hills they happened to dislike
which sounded like the clicking of many mowing machines on a hot summer's day tore the air with such hideous noises that one's skull ached from the concussion and one could only be heard by shouting but more impressive by far than this hot chorus of mighty thunder and petty hammering
was the roar of the wind which was driven down into the valley beneath and which swept up again in enormous waves of sound it roared like a wild hurricane at sea the illusion was so complete that you expected by looking down to see the tugela lashing at her banks
tossing the spray hundreds of feet in air and battling with her sides of rock it was like the roar of niagara in a gale and yet when you did look below not a leaf was stirring and the tugela was slipping forward flat and sluggish and in peace
the long procession of yellow figures was still advancing along the bottom of the valley toward the right when on the crest of the farthermost hill fourteen of them appeared suddenly and ran forward and sprang into the trenches
perched against the blue sky on the highest and most distant of the three hills they looked terribly lonely and insufficient and they ran about this way and that as though they were very much surprised to find themselves where they were
then they settled down into the boer trench from our side of it and began firing their officer as his habit is standing up behind them the hill they had taken had evidently been abandoned to them by the enemy
but they disappeared so suddenly into the trench that we knew they were not enjoying their new position
just as the others had done looking for cover
and it was with a distinct sense of relief and of freedom from further responsibility
and become part of the yellow stones about them then a very wonderful movement began to agitate the men upon the two remaining hills they began to creep up them as you have seen seaweed rise with the tide and envelop a rock
they moved in regiments but each man was as distinct as is a letter of the alphabet in each word on this page black with letters we began to follow the fortunes of individual letters it was a most selfish and cowardly occupation
for you knew you were in no greater danger than you would be in looking through the glasses of a mutoscope the battle unrolled before you like a panorama the guns on our side of the valley had ceased
the hurricane in the depths below had instantly spent itself and the birds and insects had again begun to fill our hill with drowsy twitter and song but on the other half the men were wrapping the base of the hill in khaki which rose higher and higher
growing looser and less tightly wrapt as it spun upward halfway to the crest there was a broad open space of green grass and above that a yellow bank of earth which supported the track of the railroad this green space spurted with tiny geysers of yellow dust
where the bullets came from or who sent them we could not see but the loose ends of the bandage of khaki were stretching across this green space and the yellow spurts of dust rose all around them the men crossed this fire zone warily looking to one side or the other as the bullets struck the earth heavily
like drops of rain before a shower the men had their heads and shoulders bent as though they thought a roof was about to fall on them some ran from rock to rock seeking cover properly others scampered toward the safe vantage ground behind the railroad embankment others advanced leisurely like men playing golf
the silence after the hurricane of sounds was painful we could not hear even the boer rifles the men moved like figures in a dream without firing a shot they seemed each to be acting on his own account without unison or organization
as i have said you ceased considering the scattered whole and became intent on the adventures of individuals these fell so suddenly that you waited with great anxiety to learn whether they had dropped to dodge a bullet or whether one had found them
the men came at last from every side and from out of every ridge and dried up waterway open spaces which had been green a moment before were suddenly dyed yellow with them where a company had been clinging to the railroad embankment there stood one regiment holding it and another sweeping over it
save a high bulging rampart of unprotected and open ground and then suddenly coming from the earth itself apparently
he was fully fifteen yards in advance of all the rest entirely unsupported and alone and he had evidently planned it so for he took off his helmet and waved it and stuck it on his rifle and waved it again and then suddenly clapped it on his head and threw his gun to his shoulder
he stood so pointing down into the trench and it seemed as though we could hear him calling upon the boers behind it to surrender a few minutes later the last of the three hills was mounted by the west yorks who were mistaken by their own artillery for boers
and fired upon both by the boers and by their own shrapnel and lyddite four men were wounded and to save themselves a line of them stood up at full length on the trench and cheered and waved at the artillery
the boers continued to fire upon them with rifles for over two hours but it was only a demonstration to cover the retreat of the greater number and at daybreak the hills were in complete and peaceful possession of the english
these hills were a part of the same railway hill which four nights before the inniskillings and a composite regiment had attempted to take by a frontal attack with the loss of six hundred men among whom were three colonels
and all the duchess's damsels and duennas gathered round him waiting in profound silence to hear what he would say it was the duchess however who spoke first saying
i should be glad if the senor governor would relieve me of certain doubts i have rising out of the history of the great don quixote that is now in print one is inasmuch as worthy sancho never saw dulcinea
i mean the lady dulcinea del toboso
how did he dare to invent the answer and all that about finding her sifting wheat the whole story being a deception and falsehood and so much to the prejudice of the peerless dulcinea's good name
a thing that is not at all becoming the character and fidelity of a good squire at these words sancho without uttering one in reply got up from his chair and with noiseless steps
with his body bent and his finger on his lips went all round the room lifting up the hangings and this done he came back to his seat and said now senora
but for all that really and beyond all question
well then as this is clear to my mind i can venture to make him believe things that have neither head nor tail like that affair of the answer to the letter and that other
of six or eight days ago which is not yet in history that is to say the affair of the enchantment of my lady dulcinea for i made him believe she is enchanted
and then resuming the duchess said in consequence of what worthy sancho has told me a doubt starts up in my mind and there comes a kind of whisper to my ear that says
if don quixote be mad crazy and cracked and sancho panza his squire knows it and notwithstanding serves and follows him and goes trusting to his empty promises there can be no doubt he must be still madder
know how to govern others by god senora said sancho but that doubt comes timely but your grace may say it out and speak plainly
or as you like for i know what you say is true and if i were wise i should have left my master long ago but this was my fate this was my bad luck i can't help it i must follow him
except the pickaxe and shovel and if your highness does not like to give me the government you promised god made me without it and maybe your not giving it to me will be all the better for my conscience for fool as i am
i know the proverb to her hurt the ant got wings and it may be that sancho the squire will get to heaven sooner than sancho the governor
and by night all cats are grey and a hard case enough his who hasn't broken his fast at two in the afternoon and there's no stomach a hand's breadth bigger than another
and the same can be filled with straw or hay as the saying is and the little birds of the field have god for their purveyor and caterer and
and when we quit this world and are put underground the prince travels by as narrow a path as the journeyman and the pope's body does not take up more feet of earth than the sacristan's
and i say once more if your ladyship does not like to give me the island because i'm a fool like a wise man i will take care to give myself no trouble about it i have heard say that behind the cross there's the devil
and that all that glitters is not gold and that from among the oxen and the ploughs and the yokes wamba the husbandman was taken to be made king of spain and from among brocades
why there's a ballad that says they put king rodrigo alive into a tomb full of toads and adders and lizards and that two days afterwards the king in a plaintive feeble voice
they gnaw me now they gnaw me now there where i most did sin and according to that the gentleman has good reason to say he would rather be a labouring man than a king if vermin are to eat him
the duchess could not help laughing at the simplicity of her duenna or wondering at the language and proverbs of sancho to whom she said worthy sancho knows very well
that when once a knight has made a promise he strives to keep it though it should cost him his life my lord and husband the duke though not one of the errant sort is none the less a knight for that reason
and will keep his word about the promised island in spite of the envy and malice of the world
for when he least expects it he will find himself seated on the throne of his island and seat of dignity and will take possession of his government
the charge i give him is to be careful how he governs his vassals bearing in mind that they are all loyal and well born
there's no need of charging me to do that for i'm kind hearted by nature and full of compassion for the poor there's no stealing the loaf from him who kneads and bakes and by my faith it won't do to throw false dice with me
because with me the good will have support and protection and the bad neither footing nor access and it seems to me that in governments to make a beginning is everything
i'll take kindly to the work and know more about it than the field labour i have been brought up to you are right sancho said the duchess for no one is born ready taught
persecute don quixote for in truth and earnest i know from good authority that the coarse country wench who jumped up on the ass was and is dulcinea del toboso and that worthy sancho though he fancies himself the deceiver
is the one that is deceived and that there is no more reason to doubt the truth of this than of anything else we never saw senor sancho panza must know that we too have enchanters here
that are well disposed to us and tell us what goes on in the world plainly and distinctly without subterfuge or deception and believe me sancho that agile country lass was and is dulcinea del toboso
all that's very possible said sancho panza and now i'm willing to believe what my master says about what he saw in the cave of montesinos
in the very same dress and apparel that i said i had seen her in when i enchanted her all to please myself it must be all exactly the other way as your ladyship says
because it is impossible to suppose that out of my poor wit such a cunning trick could be concocted in a moment
so out of all reason but senora your excellence must not therefore think me ill disposed for a dolt like me is not bound to see into the thoughts and plots of those vile enchanters
i invented all that to escape my master's scolding and not with any intention of hurting him
what has been said already touching that adventure and having heard it the duchess said from this occurrence it may be inferred that as the great don quixote says he saw
and i'm not going to pick a quarrel with my master's enemies who seem to be many and spiteful the truth is that the one i saw was a country wench and i set her down to be a country wench
and if that was dulcinea it must not be laid at my door nor should i be called to answer for it or take the consequences but they must go nagging at me at every step
as if sancho was nobody at all and not that same sancho panza that's now going all over the world in books so samson carrasco told me and he's at any rate one that's a bachelor of
and then i have a good character and as i have heard my master say a good name is better than great riches let them only stick me into this government and they'll see wonders
in fact to speak in his own style under a bad cloak there's often a good drinker
i never yet drank out of wickedness from thirst i have very likely for i have nothing of the hypocrite in me i drink when i'm inclined or if i'm not inclined when they offer it to me
so as not to look either strait laced or ill bred for when a friend drinks one's health what heart can be so hard as not to return it but if i put on my shoes i don't dirty them besides
squires to knights errant mostly drink water for they are always wandering among woods forests and meadows mountains and crags without a drop of wine to be had if they gave their eyes for it
and we will talk by and by at greater length and settle how he may soon go and stick himself into the government as he says sancho once more kissed the duchess's hand and entreated her to let good care be taken of his dapple
for he was the light of his eyes what is dapple said the duchess my ass said sancho which not to mention him by that name i'm accustomed to call dapple
i begged this lady duenna here to take care of him when i came into the castle and she got as angry as if i had said she was ugly or old though it ought to be more natural and proper for duennas to feed asses than to ornament chambers
he would have exalted them higher than the horns of the moon that will do said the duchess no more of this hush dona rodriguez and let senor panza rest easy
for neither he nor i are worthy to rest a moment in the apple of your highness's eye and i'd as soon stab myself as consent to it for though my master says that in civilities it is better
to lose by a card too many than a card too few when it comes to civilities to asses we must mind what we are about and keep within due bounds
i have seen more than two asses go to governments and for me to take mine with me would be nothing new sancho's words made the duchess laugh again and gave her fresh amusement
and entirely in knight errantry style and in that same style they practised several upon him so much in keeping and so clever that they form the best adventures this great history contains
chapter thirty four which relates how they learned the way in which they were to disenchant the peerless dulcinea del toboso
and more bent than ever upon the plan they had of practising some jokes upon them that should have the look and appearance of adventures they took as their basis of action what don quixote had already told them about the cave of montesinos
in order to play him a famous one but what the duchess marvelled at above all was that sancho's simplicity could be so great as to make him believe as absolute truth that dulcinea had been enchanted
when it was he himself who had been the enchanter and trickster in the business having therefore instructed their servants in everything they were to do six days afterwards they took him out to hunt
but don quixote declined to put his on saying that he must soon return to the hard pursuit of arms and could not carry wardrobes or stores with him sancho however took what they gave him meaning to sell it the first opportunity
the appointed day having arrived
and mounted on his dapple for he would not give him up though they offered him a horse he placed himself in the midst of the troop of huntsmen the duchess came out splendidly attired and don quixote in pure courtesy and politeness
held the rein of her palfrey though the duke wanted not to allow him and at last they reached a wood that lay between two high mountains where after occupying various posts ambushes and paths and distributing the party in different positions
the hunt began with great noise shouting and hallooing so that between the baying of the hounds and the blowing of the horns they could not hear one another the duchess dismounted and with a sharp boar spear in her hand
posted herself where she knew the wild boars were in the habit of passing the duke and don quixote likewise dismounted and placed themselves one at each side of her
when they saw a huge boar closely pressed by the hounds and followed by the huntsmen making towards them grinding his teeth and tusks and scattering foam from his mouth as soon as he saw him don quixote bracing his shield on his arm
gave way and caught in his fall by a broken limb of the oak he hung suspended in the air unable to reach the ground finding himself in this position and that the green coat was beginning to tear
and reflecting that if the fierce animal came that way he might be able to get at him
that all who heard him and did not see him felt sure he must be in the teeth of some wild beast in the end
without seeing dapple or dapple without seeing sancho panza such was their attachment and loyalty one to the other don quixote went over and unhooked sancho who as soon as he found himself on the ground
looked at the rent in his huntingcoat and was grieved to the heart for he thought he had got a patrimonial estate in that suit meanwhile they had slung the mighty boar across the back of a mule
and having covered it with sprigs of rosemary and branches of myrtle they bore it away as the spoils of victory to some large field tents
in such grand and sumptuous style that it was easy to see the rank and magnificence of those who had provided it sancho as he showed the rents in his torn suit to the duchess observed
if we had been hunting hares or after small birds my coat would have been safe from being in the plight it's in i don't know what pleasure one can find in lying in wait for an animal that may take your life with his tusk if he gets at you
i recollect having heard an old ballad sung that says by bears be thou devoured as erst was famous favila
in it extreme cold and intolerable heat have to be borne indolence and sleep are despised the bodily powers are invigorated the limbs of him who engages in it are made supple and in a word
it is a pursuit which may be followed without injury to anyone and with enjoyment to many and the best of it is it is not for everybody as field sports of other sorts are except hawking
which also is only for kings and great lords reconsider your opinion therefore sancho and when you are governor take to hunting and you will find the good of it nay said sancho
it would be a nice thing if after people had been at the trouble of coming to look for him on business the governor were to be away in the forest enjoying himself
for these huntings don't suit my condition or agree with my conscience god grant it may turn out so said the duke
from saying to doing be that as it may said sancho pledges don't distress a good payer and he whom god helps does better than he who gets up early and
it's the tripes that carry the feet and not the feet the tripes i mean to say that if god gives me help and i do my duty honestly no doubt i'll govern better than a gerfalcon nay
let them only put a finger in my mouth and they'll see whether i can bite or not
when will the day come as i have often said to thee when i shall hear thee make one single coherent rational remark without proverbs pray your highnesses leave this fool alone for he will grind your souls between
not to say two but two thousand proverbs
and as much to the purpose as may god grant as much health to him or to me if i want to listen to them sancho panza's proverbs said the duchess
though more in number than the greek commander's are not therefore less to be esteemed for the conciseness of the maxims
for my own part i can say they give me more pleasure than others that may be better brought in and more seasonably introduced in pleasant conversation of this sort they passed out of the tent into the wood
and the day was spent in visiting some of the posts and hiding places and then night closed in not however as brilliantly or tranquilly as might have been expected at the season for it was then midsummer
but bringing with it a kind of haze that greatly aided the project of the duke and duchess and thus as night began to fall and a little after twilight set in suddenly the whole wood on all four sides seemed to be on fire
and shortly after here there on all sides a vast number of trumpets and other military instruments were heard as if several troops of cavalry were passing through the wood
the blaze of the fire and the noise of the warlike instruments almost blinded the eyes and deafened the ears of those that stood by and indeed of all who were in the wood then there were heard repeated lelilies
the duke was astounded the duchess amazed don quixote wondering
and indeed even they who were aware of the cause were frightened
and a postillion in the guise of a demon passed in front of them blowing in lieu of a bugle a huge hollow horn that gave out a horrible hoarse note ho there brother courier cried the duke
who are you where are you going what troops are these that seem to be passing through the wood to which the courier replied in a harsh discordant voice i am the devil i am in search of don quixote of la mancha
those who are coming this way are six troops of enchanters who are bringing on a triumphal car the peerless dulcinea del toboso she comes under enchantment together with the gallant frenchman montesinos
said the duke you would have known the said knight don quixote of la mancha for you have him here before you
i never observed it for my mind is occupied with so many different things that i was forgetting the main thing i came about this demon must be an honest fellow and a good christian said sancho
for if he wasn't he wouldn't swear by god and his conscience i feel sure now there must be good souls even in hell itself without dismounting the demon then turned to don quixote and said
the unfortunate but valiant knight montesinos sends me to thee the knight of the lions would that i saw thee in their claws bidding me tell thee to wait for him wherever i may find thee
as he brings with him her whom they call dulcinea del toboso that he may show thee what is needful in order to disenchant her and as i came for no more i need stay no longer
demons of my sort be with thee and good angels with these gentles and so saying he blew his huge horn turned about and went off without waiting for a reply from anyone
they all felt fresh wonder but particularly sancho and don quixote sancho to see how in defiance of the truth they would have it that dulcinea was enchanted
and as he was deep in these cogitations the duke said to him do you mean to wait senor don quixote why not replied he
fearless and firm though all hell should come to attack me well then if i see another devil or hear another horn like the last i'll wait here as much as in flanders said sancho
just as those fiery exhalations from the earth that look like shooting stars to our eyes flit through the heavens a frightful noise too was heard like that made by the solid wheels the ox carts usually have
there came a further disturbance to increase the tumult for now it seemed as if in truth on all four sides of the wood four encounters or battles were going on at the same time
in one quarter resounded the dull noise of a terrible cannonade in another numberless muskets were being discharged the shouts of the combatants sounded almost close at hand and farther away
it was drawn by four plodding oxen all covered with black housings on each horn they had fixed a large lighted wax taper
on which sat a venerable old man with a beard whiter than the very snow and so long that it fell below his waist he was dressed in a long robe of black buckram for as the cart was thickly set with a multitude of candles
and standing up said in a loud voice i am the sage lirgandeo and without another word the cart then passed on behind it came another of the same form
with another aged man enthroned who stopping the cart said in a voice no less solemn than that of the first i am the sage alquife the great friend of urganda
the unknown and passed on then another cart came by at the same pace but the occupant of the throne was not old like the others but a man stalwart and robust
and of a forbidding countenance who as he came up said in a voice far hoarser and more devilish
and soon after they heard another not noise but sound of sweet harmonious music of which sancho was very glad taking it to be a good sign and said he to the duchess
from whom he did not stir a step or for a single instant senora where there's music there can't be mischief nor where there are lights and it is bright said the duchess to which sancho replied
fire gives light and it's bright where there are bonfires as we see by those that are all round us and perhaps may burn us but music is a sign of mirth and merrymaking
chapter seven wherein freckles wins honor and finds a footprint on the trail round eyed freckles watched the bird woman and the angel drive away after they were from sight and he was safely hidden among the branches of a small tree
nor said good bye considering what they had been through they never would come again his heart sank until he had palpitation in his wading boots stretching the length of the limb he thought deeply
though he was not thinking of black jack or wessner would the bird woman and the angel come again no other woman whom he ever had known would but did they resemble any other women he ever had known
he thought of the bird woman's unruffled face and the angel's revolver practice and presently he was not so sure that they would not return what were the people in the big world like his knowledge was so very limited
there had been people at the home who exchanged a stilted perfunctory kindness for their salaries the visitors who called on receiving days he had divided into three classes the psalm singing kind who came with a tear in the eye
in exactly the same spirit in which they pitched biscuits to the monkeys at the zoo and for the same reason to see how they would take them and be amused by what they would do and the third class whom he considered real people
they had things worth while to be proud of and they had met him as a son and brother with them he could for the only time in his life forget the lost hand that every day tortured him with a new pang what kind of people were they
he failed to decide because he never had known others similar to them but how he loved them in the world where he was going soon were the majority like them or were they of the hypocrite and bun throwing classes
he had forgotten the excitement of the morning and the passing of time when distant voices aroused him and he gently lifted his head nearer and nearer they came and as the heavy wagons rumbled down the east trail
he could hear them plainly the gang were shouting themselves hoarse for the limberlost guard freckles did not feel that he deserved it he would have given much to be able to go to the men and explain but to mc lean only could he tell his story
at the sight of freckles the men threw up their hats and cheered mc lean shook hands with him warmly but big duncan gathered him into his arms and hugged him as a bear and choked over a few words of praise
the gang drove in and finished felling the tree mc lean was angry beyond measure at this attempt on his property for in their haste to fell the tree the thieves had cut too high and wasted a foot and a half of valuable timber
when the last wagon rolled away mc lean sat on the stump and freckles told the story he was aching to tell the boss scarcely could believe his senses also he was much disappointed
i have been almost praying all the way over freckles he said that you would have some evidence by which we could arrest those fellows and get them out of our way but this will never do we can't mix up those women in it
they have helped you save me the tree and my wager as well going across the country as she does the bird woman never could be expected to testify against them no indeed nor the angel either sir said freckles the angel
she is a beautiful young girl and she appears to be utterly free from the least particle of false pride or foolishness i do not understand why her father risks such a jewel in this place he's daring it because she is a jewel sir said freckles eagerly
why she's trusting a rattlesnake to rattle before it strikes her and of course she thinks she can trust mankind as well the man isn't made who wouldn't lay down the life of him for her she doesn't need any care
and clipping all around the heads and heels of them and i'm damned sir if i believe she'd cared a rap if she'd hit i never saw much shooting but if that wasn't the nearest to miss i ever want to see scared the life near out of me body with the fear that she'd drop one of them
now will they come back asked mc lean of course said freckles they're not going to be taking that you could stake your life on it they'll be coming back at least black jack will wessner may not have the pluck
unless he is half drunk then he'd be a terror and the next time freckles hesitated what it will be a question of who shoots first and straightest
jack has been shooting twenty years to your one and it stands to reason that you are no match for him who of the gang would you like best to have with you no one sir said freckles emphatically next time is where i run
i won't try to fight them alone i'll just be getting wind of them and then make tracks for you i'll need to come like lightning and duncan has no extra horse so i'm thinking you'd best get me one or perhaps a wheel would be better
i used to do extra work for the home doctor and he would let me take his bicycle to ride around the place and at times the head nurse would loan me his for an hour a wheel would cost less and be faster than a horse and would take less care
i believe if you are going to town soon you had best pick up any kind of an old one at some second hand store for if i'm ever called to use it in a hurry there won't be the handlebars left after crossing the corduroy yes said mc lean
if the bird woman was going to give up the little chicken series he would yield to the second guard solely for the sake of her work and the presence of the angel in the limberlost he did not propose to have a second man
unless it were absolutely necessary for he had been alone so long that he loved the solitude his chickens and flowers the thought of having a stranger to all his ways come and meddle with his arrangements
frighten his pets pull his flowers and interrupt him when he wanted to study so annoyed him that he was blinded to his real need for help with mc lean it was a case of letting his sober better judgment be overridden by the boy he was growing so to love
that he could not endure to oppose him and to have freckles keep his trust and win alone meant more than any money the boss might lose the following morning mc lean brought the wheel and freckles took it to the trail to test it
it was new chainless with as little as possible to catch in hurried riding and in every way the best of its kind freckles went skimming around the trail on it on a preliminary trip
in the excitement of yesterday all of them had forgotten it he went and picked it up oh so carefully gazing at it with hungry eyes but touching it only to carry it to his case where he hung it on the shining handlebar of the new wheel
and locked it among his treasures then he went to the trail with a new expression on his face and a strange throbbing in his heart he was not in the least afraid of anything that morning he felt he was the veriest daniel
but all his lions seemed weak and harmless what black jack's next move would be he could not imagine but that there would be a move of some kind was certain the big bully was not a man to give up his purpose
or to have the hat swept from his head with a bullet and bear it meekly moreover wessner would cling to his revenge with a dutchman's singleness of mind freckles tried to think connectedly
she had stepped in one mucky spot and left a sharp impression the afternoon sun had baked it hard and the horses hoofs had not obliterated any part of it as they had in so many places freckles stood fascinated gazing at it
he measured it lovingly with his eye he would not have ventured a caress on her hat any more than on her person but this was different surely a footprint on a trail might belong to anyone who found and wanted it
with his feet and baked hard with the sun almost all the way when he came to the bark he veered far to one side and smiled at it in passing suddenly he was off the wheel kneeling beside it he removed his hat carefully lifted the bark
and gazed lovingly at the imprint i wonder what she was going to say of me voice he whispered she never got it said but from the face of her i believe she was liking it fairly well perhaps she was going to say that
that's what they all thought at the home well if it is i'll just shut me eyes think of me little room the face of her watching and the heart of her beating and i'll raise them damn them if singing will do it i'll raise them from the benches
chapter seventeen the gift of hiding private emotion and keeping up appearances before strangers is not as many suppose entirely a product of our modern civilization
centuries before we were born or thought of there was a widely press agented boy in sparta who even went so far as to let a fox gnaw his tender young stomach without permitting the discomfort inseparable from such a proceeding to interfere
with either his facial expression or his flow of small talk historians have handed it down that even in the later stages of the meal the polite lad continued to be the life and soul of the party
but while this feat may be said to have established a record never subsequently lowered there is no doubt that almost every day in modern times men and women are performing similar and scarcely less impressive miracles of self restraint
of all the qualities which belong exclusively to man and are not shared by the lower animals this surely is the one which marks him off most sharply from the beasts of the field animals care nothing about keeping up appearances
observe bertram the bull when things are not going just as he could wish he stamps he snorts he paws the ground he throws back his head and bellows he is upset and he doesn't care who knows it
instances could be readily multiplied deposit a charge of shot in some outlying section of thomas the tiger and note the effect irritate wilfred the wasp or stand behind maud the mule and prod her with a pin
that not one of them failed to come through the ordeal with success the general public as represented by the uncles cousins and aunts who had descended on the place to help lord belpher celebrate his coming of age had not a notion
when he tackled him in the garden on the subject of intemperance for uncle francis like thousands of others had taken it for granted on reading the report of the encounter with the policeman and percy's subsequent arrest
and that there was hope for him after all provided that he fought the impulse he little knew that but for the conventions which frown on the practice of murdering bishops percy would gladly have strangled him with his bare hands
and jumped upon the remains lord belpher's case inasmuch as he took himself extremely seriously and was not one of those who can extract humour even from their own misfortunes was perhaps the hardest which comes under our notice
but so thickly did it bristle with obstacles and dangers that it might have been a mile of no man's land twice since the occasion when the discovery of lord marshmoreton at the cottage
had caused her to abandon her purpose of going in and explaining everything to george had she attempted to make the journey and each time some trifling maddening accident had brought about failure once just as she was starting
her aunt augusta had insisted on joining her for what she described as a nice long walk and the second time when she was within a bare hundred yards of her objective some sort of a cousin popped out from nowhere and forced his loathsome company on her
foiled in this fashion she had fallen back in desperation on her second line of attack she had written a note to george explaining the whole situation in good clear phrases and begging him as a man of proved chivalry
to help her it had taken up much of one afternoon this note for it was not easy to write and it had resulted in nothing she had given it to albert to deliver and albert had returned empty handed
no answer but there must be an answer
stoutly maintained the black souled boy who had destroyed the letter within two minutes after it had been handed to him he had not even bothered to read it a deep dangerous dastardly stripling this who fought to win
and only to win the ticket marked r byng was in his pocket and in his ruthless heart a firm resolve that r byng and no other should have the benefit of his assistance maud could not understand it
that is to say she resolutely kept herself from accepting the only explanation of the episode that seemed possible in black and white she had asked george to go to london and see geoffrey and arrange for the passage
through himself as a sort of clearing house of letters between geoffrey and herself she had felt from the first that such a request should be made by her in person and not through the medium of writing but surely it was incredible that a man like george
who had been through so much for her and whose only reason for being in the neighbourhood was to help her could have coldly refused without even a word and yet what else was she to think now more than ever she felt alone in a hostile world
yet to her guests she was bright and entertaining not one of them had a suspicion that her life was not one of pure sunshine albert i am happy to say was thoroughly miserable
the little brute was suffering torments he was showering anonymous advice to the lovelorn on reggie byng excellent stuff culled from the pages of weekly papers of which there was a pile in the housekeeper's room the property of a sentimental lady's maid
but for all the effect they appeared to exercise on their recipient they might have been blank pages the choicest quotations from the works of such established writers as aunt charlotte of forget me not
reggie positively avoided maud's society and this after reading doctor cupid's invaluable tip about seeking her company on all occasions and the dictum of aunt charlotte to the effect that
so far from rendering himself indispensable to maud by constant little attentions reggie to the disgust of his backer and supporter seemed to spend most of his time with alice faraday on three separate occasions
had albert been revolted by the sight of his protege in close association with the faraday girl once in a boat on the lake and twice in his grey car it was enough to break a boy's heart and it completely spoiled albert's appetite
stray gay snatches of melodies popular in the eighties hear him now as he toils he has a long garden implement in his hand and he is sending up the death rate in slug circles with a devastating rapidity
and the boom is a death knell as it rings softly out on the pleasant spring air another stout slug has made the great change it is peculiar this gaiety it gives one to think
chapter five george awoke next morning with a misty sense that somehow the world had changed as the last remnants of sleep left him he was aware of a vague excitement then he sat up in bed with a jerk
he had remembered that he was in love there was no doubt about it a curious happiness pervaded his entire being he felt young and active everything was emphatically for the best in this best of all possible worlds
he beamed at himself in the mirror it had come at last the real thing george had never been in love before not really in love
and with dozens whom he had only seen in the distance but ripening years had mellowed his taste and robbed him of that fine romantic catholicity during the last five years women had found him more or less cold
it was the nature of his profession that had largely brought about this cooling of the emotions to a man who like george has worked year in and year out at the composition of musical comedies woman
comes to lose many of those attractive qualities which ensnare the ordinary male to george of late years
as a sex was her disposition to kick for five years he had been wandering in a world of women many of them beautiful all of them superficially attractive
some had kicked about their musical numbers some about their love scenes some had grumbled about their exit lines others about the lines of their second act frocks they had kicked in a myriad differing ways
as something to be dodged tactfully if possible but if not possible by open flight for years he had dreaded to be left alone with a woman and had developed a habit of gliding swiftly away
when he saw one bearing down on him the psychological effect of such a state of things is not difficult to realize take a man of naturally quixotic temperament a man of chivalrous instincts and a feeling for romance
and cut him off for five years from the exercise of those qualities and you get an accumulated store of foolishness only comparable to an escape of gas in a sealed room or a cellarful of dynamite a flicker of a match
up in the air in a million pieces had gone the prudence and self restraint of a lifetime and here he was as desperately in love as any troubadour of the middle ages
it was not till he had finished shaving and was testing the temperature of his bath with a shrinking toe that the realization came over him in a wave that
even in the midst of his optimism george could not deny that these facts might reasonably be considered in the nature of obstacles he went back into his bedroom
this thing wanted thinking over he was not depressed only a little thoughtful his faith in his luck sustained him he was he realized
in the position of a man who has made a supreme drive from the tee and finds his ball near the green but in a cuppy lie he had gained much it now remained for him to push his success to the happy conclusion
would stamp him a feeble adventurer a fellow could not expect luck to do everything for him he must supplement its assistance with his own efforts what had he to go on well nothing much
if it came to that except the knowledge that she lived some two hours by train out of london and that her journey started from waterloo station what would sherlock holmes have done concentrated thought supplied no answer to the question
and it was at this point that the cheery optimism with which he had begun the day left george and gave place to a grey gloom a dreadful phrase
george could not see how it could possibly turn out any other way he dressed moodily and left the room to go down to breakfast breakfast would at least alleviate this sinking feeling which was unmanning him
and he could think more briskly after a cup or two of coffee he opened the door on a mat outside lay a letter the handwriting was feminine it was also in pencil and strange to him he opened the envelope
dear mister bevan it began with a sudden leap of the heart he looked at the signature the letter was signed the girl in the cab
for i remembered that i was wearing a nice brooch and stopped on the way to the station to pawn it thank you ever so much again for all your wonderful kindness yours the girl in the cab george read the note twice on the way down to the breakfast room
and three times more during the meal then having committed its contents to memory down to the last comma he gave himself up to glowing thoughts what a girl he had never in his life before met a woman who could write a letter without a postscript
the resource of her to think of pawning that brooch the sweetness of her to bother to send him a note more than ever before was he convinced that he had met his ideal and more than ever before was he determined
it narrowed the thing down absurdly there were only about three counties in which she could possibly live and a man must be a poor fellow who is incapable of searching through a few small counties for the girl he loves especially a man with luck like his
luck is a goddess not to be coerced and forcibly wooed by those who seek her favours from such masterful spirits she turns away but it happens sometimes that
if we put our hand in hers with the humble trust of a little child she will have pity on us and not fail us in our hour of need on george hopefully watching for something to turn up she smiled almost immediately
it was george's practice when he lunched alone to relieve the tedium of the meal with the assistance of reading matter in the shape of one or more of the evening papers today sitting down to a solitary repast at the piccadilly grill room
he had brought with him an early edition of the evening news and one of the first items which met his eye was the following embodied in a column on one of the inner pages devoted to humorous comments in prose and verse on the happenings of the day
this particular happening the writer had apparently considered worthy of being dignified by rhyme it was headed the peer and the policeman
these stirring happenings occurred the hour tis said and no one doubts was half past two or thereabouts the day was fair the sky was blue and everything was peaceful too when suddenly a well dressed gent
engaged in heated argument and roundly to abuse began another well dressed gentleman his suede gloved fist he raised on high to dot the other in the eye who knows what horrors might have been
had there not come upon the scene old london city's favourite son policeman c
the mere remembrance of the tale has made our ink turn deadly pale let us be brief some demon sent stark madness on the well dressed gent he gave the constable a punch just where the latter kept his lunch
the constable said well well well and marched him to a dungeon cell at vine street station out it came lord belpher was the culprit's name but british justice is severe alike on pauper and on peer
induced lord b to feel remorse and learn he mustn't punch the force george's mutton chop congealed on the plate untouched the french fried potatoes cooled off unnoticed
this was no time for food rightly indeed had he relied upon his luck it had stood by him nobly with this clue all was over except getting to the nearest free library and consulting burke's peerage
he paid his bill and left the restaurant ten minutes later he was drinking in the pregnant information that belpher was the family name of the earl of marshmoreton and that the present earl had one son percy wilbraham marsh
george watched london vanish behind him
untutored man is but a wisp in the wind our civilisation is still in a middle stage scarcely beast in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct scarcely human in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason
on the tiger no responsibility rests we see him aligned by nature with the forces of life he is born into their keeping and without thought he is protected we see man far removed from the lairs of the jungles
his innate instincts dulled by too near an approach to free will his free will not sufficiently developed to replace his instincts and afford him perfect guidance he is becoming too wise to hearken always to instincts and desires
he is still too weak to always prevail against them as a beast the forces of life aligned him with them as a man he has not yet wholly learned to align himself with the forces in this intermediate stage he wavers
neither drawn in harmony with nature by his instincts nor yet wisely putting himself into harmony by his own free will he is even as a wisp in the wind moved by every breath of passion
acting now by his will and now by his instincts erring with one only to retrieve by the other falling by one only to rise by the other a creature of incalculable variability
we have the consolation of knowing that evolution is ever in action that the ideal is a light that cannot fail he will not forever balance thus between good and evil when this jangle of free will and instinct shall have been adjusted
man will no longer vary the needle of understanding will yet point steadfast and unwavering to the distant pole of truth in carrie as in how many of our worldlings do they not
instinct and reason desire and understanding were at war for the mastery she followed whither her craving led she was as yet more drawn than she drew
the only indication of his thoughts came in the form of a little clicking sound made by his tongue the sound some people make when they wish to urge on a horse where do you suppose she's gone to said minnie thoroughly aroused i don't know
a touch of cynicism lighting his eye now she has gone and done it minnie moved her head in a puzzled way oh oh she said she doesn't know what she has done
what can you do minnie's womanly nature was higher than this she figured the possibilities in such cases oh she said at last poor sister carrie
at the time of this particular conversation which occurred at five a m that little soldier of fortune was sleeping a rather troubled sleep in her new room alone carrie's new state was remarkable in that she saw possibilities in it
she was no sensualist longing to drowse sleepily in the lap of luxury she turned about troubled by her daring glad of her release wondering whether she would get something to do wondering what drouet would do
that worthy had his future fixed for him beyond a peradventure he could not help what he was going to do he could not see clearly enough to wish to do differently he was drawn by his innate desire to act the old pursuing part
he would need to delight himself with carrie as surely as he would need to eat his heavy breakfast he might suffer the least rudimentary twinge of conscience in whatever he did and in just so far he was evil and sinning
but whatever twinges of conscience he might have would be rudimentary
come on out to breakfast you want to get your other clothes to day carrie looked at him with the hue of shifting thought in her large eyes i wish i could get something to do she said you'll get that all right said drouet what's the use worrying right now
get yourself fixed up see the city i won't hurt you i know you won't she remarked half truthfully got on the new shoes haven't you stick em out george they look fine put on your jacket carrie obeyed
say that fits like a t don't it he remarked feeling the set of it at the waist and eyeing it from a few paces with real pleasure what you need now is a new skirt let's go to breakfast carrie put on her hat
here she said taking them out of the bureau drawer now come on he said
was swept away it went this way on every occasion drouet did not leave her much alone she had time for some lone wanderings but mostly he filled her hours with sight seeing
at carson pirie's he bought her a nice skirt and shirt waist with his money she purchased the little necessaries of toilet until at last she looked quite another maiden the mirror convinced her of a few things which she had long believed
they went to see the mikado one evening an opera which was hilariously popular at that time before going they made off for the windsor dining room which was in dearborn street a considerable distance from carrie's room
it was blowing up cold and out of her window carrie could see the western sky still pink with the fading light
she paused and wrung her little hands what's the matter said drouet oh i don't know she said her lip trembling he sensed something and slipped his arm over her shoulder patting her arm
she turned to slip on her jacket better wear that boa about your throat to night they walked north on wabash to adams street and then west the lights in the stores were already shining out in gushes of golden hue
the arc lights were sputtering overhead and high up were the lighted windows of the tall office buildings the chill wind whipped in and out in gusty breaths homeward bound the six o'clock throng bumped and jostled
light overcoats were turned up about the ears hats were pulled down little shop girls went fluttering by in pairs and fours chattering laughing it was a spectacle of warm blooded humanity suddenly a pair of eyes met carrie's in recognition
they were looking out from a group of poorly dressed girls their clothes were faded and loose hanging their jackets old their general make up shabby carrie recognised the glance and the girl she was one of those who worked at the machines in the shoe factory
the latter looked not quite sure and then turned her head and looked carrie felt as if some great tide had rolled between them the old dress and the old machine came back she actually started
you must be thinking he said they dined and went to the theatre
she had vain imaginings about place and power about far off lands and magnificent people when it was over the clatter of coaches and the throng of fine ladies made her stare
wait a minute said drouet holding her back in the showy foyer where ladies and gentlemen were moving in a social crush skirts rustling lace covered heads nodding white teeth showing through parted lips let's see
sixty seven the coach caller was saying his voice lifted in a sort of euphonious cry sixty seven isn't it fine said carrie great said drouet
he was as much affected by this show of finery and gayety as she he pressed her arm warmly once she looked up her even teeth glistening through her smiling lips her eyes alight as they were moving out he whispered down to her
you look lovely they were right where the coach caller was swinging open a coach door and ushering in two ladies you stick to me and we'll have a coach laughed drouet carrie scarcely heard her head was so full of the swirl of life
they stopped in at a restaurant for a little after theatre lunch just a shade of a thought of the hour entered carrie's head but there was no household law to govern her now if any habits ever had time to fix upon her they would have operated here
habits are peculiar things they will drive the really non religious mind out of bed to say prayers that are only a custom and not a devotion the victim of habit when he has neglected the thing which it was his custom to do
feels a little scratching in the brain a little irritating something which comes of being out of the rut and imagines it to be the prick of conscience the still small voice that is urging him ever to righteousness
if the digression is unusual enough the drag of habit will be heavy enough to cause the unreasoning victim to return and perform the perfunctory thing now bless me says such a mind i have done my duty
when as a matter of fact it has merely done its old unbreakable trick once again carrie had no excellent home principles fixed upon her if she had she would have been more consciously distressed
now the lunch went off with considerable warmth under the influence of the varied occurrences the fine invisible passion which was emanating from drouet the food the still unusual luxury she relaxed and heard with open ears
she was again the victim of the city's hypnotic influence well said drouet at last we had better be going they had been dawdling over the dishes and their eyes had frequently met
carrie could not help but feel the vibration of force which followed which indeed was his gaze he had a way of touching her hand in explanation as if to impress a fact upon her he touched it now as he spoke of going
they arose and went out into the street the down town section was now bare save for a few whistling strollers a few owl cars a few open resorts whose windows were still bright out wabash avenue they strolled
drouet still pouring forth his volume of small information he had carrie's arm in his and held it closely as he explained once in a while after some witticism he would look down and his eyes would meet hers
at last they came to the steps and carrie stood up on the first one her head now coming even with his own he took her hand and held it genially he looked steadily at her as she glanced about warmly musing
at about that hour minnie was soundly sleeping after a long evening of troubled thought she had her elbow in an awkward position under her side the muscles so held irritated a few nerves
and now a vague scene floated in on the drowsy mind she fancied she and carrie were somewhere beside an old coal mine she could see the tall runway and the heap of earth and coal cast out there was a deep pit
into which they were looking they could see the curious wet stones far down where the wall disappeared in vague shadows an old basket used for descending was hanging there fastened by a worn rope let's get in said carrie
oh no said minnie yes come on said carrie she began to pull the basket over and now in spite of all protest she had swung over and was going down carrie she called carrie come back
they looked about and now the thing was sinking and minnie heard the low sip of the encroaching water come on carrie she called but carrie was reaching farther out
carrie she called carrie but her own voice sounded far away and the strange waters were blurring everything she came away suffering as though she had lost something she was more inexpressibly sad
it was this way through many shifts of the tired brain those curious phantoms of the spirit slipping in blurring strange scenes
the last one made her cry out for carrie was slipping away somewhere over a rock and her fingers had let loose and she had seen her falling minnie what's the matter here wake up said hanson disturbed and shaking her by the shoulder
wha what's the matter said minnie drowsily wake up he said and turn over you're talking in your sleep a week or so later drouet strolled into fitzgerald and moy's spruce in dress and manner
hello charley said hurstwood looking out from his office door drouet strolled over and looked in upon the manager at his desk
haven't seen much of you this trip said hurstwood well i've been busy said drouet they talked some few minutes on general topics say said drouet as if struck by a sudden idea i want you to come out some evening out where inquired hurstwood
out to my house of course said drouet smiling hurstwood looked up quizzically the least suggestion of a smile hovering about his lips he studied the face of drouet in his wise way and then with the demeanour of a gentleman said certainly
glad to we'll have a nice game of euchre
convention's own tinder box the eye that is green hurstwood's residence on the north side near lincoln park was a brick building of a very popular type then
a three story affair with the first floor sunk a very little below the level of the street it had a large bay window bulging out from the second floor and was graced in front by a small grassy plot twenty five feet wide and ten feet deep
there was also a small rear yard walled in by the fences of the neighbours and holding a stable where he kept his horse and trap the ten rooms of the house were occupied by himself his wife julia and his son and daughter
and jessica there were besides these a maid servant represented from time to time by girls of various extraction for missus hurstwood was not always easy to please george i let mary go yesterday
was not an unfrequent salutation at the dinner table all right was his only reply he had long since wearied of discussing the rancorous subject a lovely home atmosphere is one of the flowers of the world
than which there is nothing more tender nothing more delicate nothing more calculated to make strong and just the natures cradled and nourished within it those who have never experienced such a beneficent influence
will not understand wherefore the tear springs glistening to the eyelids at some strange breath in lovely music the mystic chords which bind and thrill the heart of the nation they will never know hurstwood's residence could scarcely be said to be infused with this home spirit
it lacked that toleration and regard without which the home is nothing there was fine furniture arranged as soothingly as the artistic perception of the occupants warranted there were soft rugs rich upholstered chairs and divans a grand piano
a marble carving of some unknown venus by some unknown artist and a number of small bronzes gathered from heaven knows where but generally sold by the large furniture houses along with everything else
each mary shortly after she arrived something of what the art of the thing required he was not garrulous by any means on the contrary there was a fine reserve in his manner toward the entire domestic economy of his life
which was all that is comprehended by the popular term gentlemanly he would not argue he would not talk freely in his manner was something of the dogmatist what he could not correct he would ignore
there was a tendency in him to walk away from the impossible thing there was a time when he had been considerably enamoured of his jessica especially when he was younger and more confined in his success now however
in her seventeenth year jessica had developed a certain amount of reserve and independence which was not inviting to the richest form of parental devotion she was in the high school and had notions of life which were decidedly those of a patrician
she liked nice clothes and urged for them constantly thoughts of love and elegant individual establishments were running in her head she met girls at the high school whose parents were truly rich
and whose fathers had standing locally as partners or owners of solid businesses these girls gave themselves the airs befitting the thriving domestic establishments from whence they issued they were the only ones of the school about whom jessica concerned herself
with a large real estate firm he contributed nothing for the domestic expenses of the family but was thought to be saving his money to invest in real estate he had some ability considerable vanity
and a love of pleasure that had not as yet infringed upon his duties whatever they were he came in and went out pursuing his own plans and fancies addressing a few words to his mother occasionally relating some little incident to his father
but for the most part confining himself to those generalities with which most conversation concerns itself he was not laying bare his desires for any one to see he did not find any one in the house who particularly cared to see
and has been more or less chagrined at the evidences of superior capability in this direction elsewhere her knowledge of life extended to that little conventional round of society of which she was not but longed to be a member
she was not without realisation already that this thing was impossible
for her daughter she hoped better things through jessica she might rise a little
of pointing proudly even hurstwood was doing well enough and she was anxious that his small real estate adventures should prosper his property holdings as yet were rather small but his income was pleasing and his position with fitzgerald and moy was fixed
the atmosphere which such personalities would create must be apparent to all it worked out in a thousand little conversations all of which were of the same calibre
what's going on up there queried missus hurstwood eddie fahrway's got a new steam launch and he wants me to come up and see how it works how much did it cost him asked his mother oh over two thousand dollars he says it's a dandy
old fahrway must be making money put in hurstwood he is i guess jack told me they were shipping vega cura to australia now said they sent a whole box to cape town last week just think of that said missus hurstwood and only four years ago
are we going to mc vickar's monday questioned missus hurstwood without rising yes he said indifferently they went on dining while he went upstairs for his hat and coat presently the door clicked i guess papa's gone said jessica
the latter's school news was of a particular stripe they're going to give a performance in the lyceum upstairs she reported one day and i'm going to be in it are you said her mother yes and i'll have to have a new dress some of the nicest girls in the school are going to be in it
miss palmer is going to take the part of portia is she said missus hurstwood they've got that martha griswold in it again she thinks she can act her family doesn't amount to anything does it said missus hurstwood sympathetically they haven't anything have they
no returned jessica they're poor as church mice she distinguished very carefully between the young boys of the school many of whom were attracted by her beauty
evening that herbert crane tried to make friends with me who is he my dear inquired missus hurstwood oh no one said jessica pursing her pretty lips he's just a student there he hasn't anything
the soap manufacturer walked home with her missus hurstwood was on the third floor sitting in a rocking chair reading and happened to look out at the time who was that with you jessica she inquired as jessica came upstairs it's mister blyford mamma
she replied is it said missus hurstwood yes and he wants me to stroll over into the park with him explained jessica a little flushed with running up the stairs all right my dear said missus hurstwood don't be gone long
as the two went down the street she glanced interestedly out of the window it was a most satisfactory spectacle indeed most satisfactory in this atmosphere hurstwood had moved for a number of years not thinking deeply concerning it
pleased at times by some show of finery which supposedly made for dignity and social distinction the life of the resort which he managed was his life there he spent most of his time when he went home evenings the house looked nice
with rare exceptions the meals were acceptable being the kind that an ordinary servant can arrange in part he was interested in the talk of his son and daughter who always looked well the vanity of missus hurstwood caused her to keep her person rather showily arrayed
but to hurstwood this was much better than plainness there was no love lost between them there was no great feeling of dissatisfaction her opinion on any subject was not startling they did not talk enough together to come to the argument of any one point
in the accepted and popular phrase she had her ideas and he had his once in a while he would meet a woman whose youth sprightliness and humour would make his wife seem rather deficient by contrast but the temporary dissatisfaction
which such an encounter might arouse would be counterbalanced by his social position and a certain matter of policy he could not complicate his home life because it might affect his relations with his employers they wanted no scandals
a man to hold his position must have a dignified manner a clean record a respectable home anchorage therefore he was circumspect in all he did and whenever he appeared in the public ways in the afternoon or on sunday
it was with his wife and sometimes his children he would visit the local resorts or those near by in wisconsin and spend a few stiff polished days strolling about conventional places doing conventional things he knew the need of it
when some one of the many middle class individuals whom he knew who had money would get into trouble he would shake his head it didn't do to talk about those things if it came up for discussion among such friends as with him passed for close
it was all right to do it all men do those things but why wasn't he careful a man can't be too careful he lost sympathy for the man that made a mistake and was found out on this account he still devoted some time to showing his wife about
during the last year or two the expenses of the family seemed a large thing jessica wanted fine clothes and missus hurstwood not to be outshone by her daughter also frequently enlivened her apparel hurstwood had said nothing in the past but one day he murmured
jessica must have a new dress this month said missus hurstwood one morning hurstwood was arraying himself in one of his perfection vests before the glass at the time i thought she just bought one he said that was just something for evening wear returned his wife complacently
it seems to me returned hurstwood that she's spending a good deal for dresses of late well she's going out more concluded his wife but the tone of his voice impressed her as containing something she had not heard there before
hurstwood had been invited nobody knows us down there said one a gentleman whose face was a slight improvement over gross ignorance and sensuality he always wore a silk hat of most imposing proportions we can have a good time
you want to come along george the next day hurstwood announced his intention to his wife i'm going away julia he said for a few days where she asked looking up to philadelphia on business
she looked at him consciously expecting something else i'll have to leave you behind this time all right she replied but he could see that she was thinking that it was a curious thing before he went
she asked him a few more questions and that irritated him he began to feel that she was a disagreeable attachment on this trip he enjoyed himself thoroughly and when it was over he was sorry to get back he was not willingly a prevaricator
such an atmosphere could hardly come under the category of home life it ran along by force of habit by force of conventional opinion
another change for some time tom made progress toward health and was able to read a good part of the day
he was fond of music and fonder still of criticism upon anything
when he had done with joseph or when he did not want him mary was always ready to give the latter a lesson and had he been a less gifted man than he was he could not have failed to make progress with such a teacher
not to say no woman could have failed to be pleased at the thorough painstaking with which he followed the slightest of her hints and the delight his flushed face would reveal when she praised the success he had achieved
for the period of quiescence as to production which followed the initiation of more orderly study was after all but of short duration and the return tide of musical utterance was stronger than ever
mary's delight was great when first he brought her one of his compositions very fairly written out after which others followed with a rapidity that astonished her they enabled her also to understand the man better and better
for to have a thing to brood over which we are capable of understanding must be more to us than even the master's playing of it
by which alone the soul most glorious in gladness or any other the stupidest of souls can live to the first he brought her she contrived to put a poor little faulty accompaniment and when she played his air to him so accompanied
his delight was touching and not a little amusing plainly he thought the accompaniment a triumph of human faculty and beyond anything he could ever develop never pupil was more humble never pupil more obedient
thinking nothing of himself or of anything he had done or could do his path was open to the swiftest and highest growth it matters little where a man may be at this moment the point is whether he is growing
the next point will be whether he is growing at the ratio given him
what the gift of such an instructor was to joseph my reader may be requested to imagine
he was like a man seated on the grass outside the heavenly gate from which slow opening every evening as the sun went down came an angel to teach and teach until he too should be fit to enter in an hour would arrive when she would no longer have to come out to him where he sat
under such an influence all that was gentlest and sweetest in his nature might well develop with rapidity and every accidental roughness and in him there was no other by swift degrees vanish from both speech and manners
the angels do not want tailors to make their clothes their habits come out of themselves but we are often too hard upon our fellows for many of those in the higher ranks of life no no i mean of society
of such a nobility good lord deliver us from all envy as to falling in love with a lady like mary such a thing was as far from jasper's consciousness as if she had been a duchess she belonged to another world from his
a world which his world worshiped waiting he might miss her even to death her absence might for him darken the universe as if the sun had withdrawn his brightness
but who thinks of falling in love with the sun or dreams of climbing nearer to his radiance the day will one day come or what of the long promised kingdom of heaven when a woman instead of spending anxious thought on the adornment of her own outward person will seek with might the adornment of the inward soul of another and will make that her crown of rejoicing
outgoing love to build spiritual houses like saint paul a higher art than any of man's invention o my brother what were it not for thee to have a hand in making thy brother beautiful be not indignant my reader
not for a moment did i imagine thee capable of such a mean calling it is left to a certain school of weak enthusiasts who believe that such growth such embellishment such creation is all god cares about
there soon came a change however and the lessons ceased altogether tom had come down to his old quarters and in the arrogance of convalescence had presumed on his imagined strength and so caught cold
an alarming relapse was the consequence and there was no more playing
for now his condition began to draw to a change of which for some time none of them had even thought the patient had seemed so certainly recovering the cold settled on his lungs and he sank rapidly
joseph whose violin was useless now was not the less in attendance every evening when his work was over he came knocking gently at the door of the parlor and never left until tom was settled for the night
the most silently helpful undemonstrative being he was that doctor could desire to wait upon patient when it was his turn to watch he never closed an eye but at daybreak for it was now spring
would rouse mary and go off straight to his work nor taste food until the hour for the mid day meal arrived tom speedily became aware that his days were numbered phrase of unbelief for are they not numbered from the beginning
are our hairs numbered and our days forgotten till death gives a hint to the doctor he was sorry for his past life and thoroughly ashamed of much of it
saying in all honesty he would rather die than fall for one solitary week into the old ways not that he wished to die for with the confidence of youth he did not believe he could fall into the old ways again
for my part i think he was taken away to have a little more of that care and nursing which neither his mother nor his wife had been woman enough to give the great baby after all he had not been one of the worst of babies
is it strange that one so used to bad company and bad ways should have so altered in so short a time and without any great struggle
the assurance of death at the door and a wholesome shame of things that are past may i think lead up to such a swift change even in a much worse man than tom
for there is the life itself all surrounding and ever pressing in upon the human soul wherever that soul will afford a chink of entrance and tom had not yet sealed up all his doors when he lay there dead
for what excuse could we have for foolish lamentation if we did not speak of the loved as lying dead
nor did the firefly spare its dole of homage to the memory of one of its gayest writers indeed all about its office had loved him each after his faculty even the boy cried when he heard he was gone for to him too he had always given a kind word coming and going
a certain little runnel of verse flowed no more through the pages of the firefly and in a month there was not the shadow of tom upon his age but the print of him was deep in the heart of letty and not shallow in the affection of mary
nor were such as these insignificant records for any one to leave behind him as records go happy was he to have left behind him any love especially such a love as letty bore him for what is the loudest praise of posterity to the quietest love of one's own generation
for his mother her memory was mostly in her temper she had never understood her wayward child just because she had given him her waywardness
when she heard of his death she howled and cursed her fate and the woman meaning poor letty
but what was mary to do now with letty she was little more than a baby yet not silly from youth but young from silliness children must learn to walk but not by being turned out alone in cheapside
for ten persons will repent of a sin for one who will confess it i do not mean to the priest that may be an easy matter but to the only one who has a claim to the confession
namely the person wronged yet such confession is in truth far more needful to the wronger than to the wronged it is a small thing to be wronged but a horrible thing to wrong the letter contained a poverty stricken expression of sympathy
i mean he made far greater demand for justice upon other people than upon himself and was much more indignant at any shortcoming of theirs which crossed any desire or purpose of his than he was anxious in his own person to fulfill justice when that fulfillment in its turn would cross any wish he cherished
badly as he had himself behaved to mary he was now furious with his wife for having treated her so heartlessly that she could not return to her service
for he began to think she might be one to depend upon and to desire her alliance in the matter of ousting sepia from the confidence of his wife however indifferent a woman may be to the opinion of her husband he can nevertheless in general manage to make her uncomfortable enough if he chooses
and mister redmain did choose now in the event of her opposition to his wishes when he set himself to do a thing he hated defeat even more than he loved success the moment mary was out of the study he walked into his wife's boudoir and shut the door behind him
his presence there was enough to make her angry but she took no notice of it i understand missus redmain he began that you wish to bring the fate of sodom upon the house
you'll hear worse before long if you keep on at this rate my language is not so bad as your actions if you don't have that girl back and in double quick time too i shall know how to make you you have taught me to believe you capable of anything
then i need not ask you whether i married you to please you or to please myself you need not you can best answer that question yourself then we understand each other
we do not mister redmain and if this occurs again i shall go to durnmelling she spoke with a vague idea that he also stood in some awe of the father and mother whose dread however well she hid it she would never while she lived succeed in shaking off
they know better which side their bread is buttered hesper started up in a rage
oh don't he cried in a tone of pretended alarm his pleasure was great for he had succeeded in stinging the impenetrable
using cabs then you had better get into the habit for i swear to you madam if you don't fetch that girl home within the week i will next monday discharge your coachman and send every horse in the stable to tattersall's good morning
she had no doubt he would do as he said
just enjoy selling her horses but she could not at once give in i say could not because hers was the weak will that can hardly bring itself to do what it knows it must and is continually mistaken for the strong will
that defies and endures she had a week to think about it and she would see during the interval he took care not once to refer to his threat for that would but weaken the impression of it he knew
she knocked at his door and being admitted bade him good morning but with no very gracious air as indeed he would have been the last to expect we have had a sermon on the forgiveness of injuries mister redmain she said
by jove interrupted her husband it would have been more to the purpose if i or poor mary marston had had it for i swear you put our souls in peril
besides she lost her temper and talked about forgiving me when i was in despair about my ring and what pray was your foolish ring compared to the girl's character a foolish ring indeed yes
not where there is no heart in the reader hesper's face flushed but she did her best not to lose her temper not that it would have been any great loss if she had for there is as much difference in the values of tempers as in those who lose them
she said nothing and her husband resumed so you came to forgive me he said and marston she answered
that is if the terms of it are to my mind i will make no terms marston may return when she pleases you must write and ask her
of course mister redmain it would hardly be suitable that you should ask her you must write so as to make it possible to accept your offer
you are not a man must be fair even to his wife i will show you the letter i write if you please she had to show him half a score ere he was satisfied
at length one was dispatched received and answered mary would not return she had lost all hope of being of any true service to missus redmain and she knew that with tom and letty
missus redmain carried the letter with ill concealed triumph to her husband nor did he conceal his annoyance you must have behaved to her very cruelly he said
and there was i he said to himself for the first time in my life actually beginning to fancy i had perhaps thrown salt upon the tail of that rare bird an honest woman
perhaps that will be taken into the account one day
but mary lay awake at night and thought of many things she might have said and done better when she was with hesper and would gladly have given herself another chance but she could no longer flatter herself she would ever be of any real good to her
equal to her own demands upon herself
the sapphire one morning as mary sat at her piano mewks was shown into the room he brought the request from his master that she would go to him he wanted particularly to see her she did not much like it
neither did she hesitate she was shown into the room mister redmain called his study which communicated by a dressing room with his bedroom he was seated evidently waiting for her ah miss marston
he said i have a piece of good news for you so good that i thought i should like to give it you myself you are very kind sir mary answered there he went on holding out what she saw at once was the lost ring i am so glad
i do not know sir did you search it no sir i offered to help missus redmain to look for the ring but she said it was no use who found it sir i will tell you who found it if you will tell me who put it there
i don't know what you mean sir it must have been there all the time that's the point again missus redmain swears it was not and could not have been there when she looked for it it is not like a small thing you see there is something mysterious about it
he looked hard at mary now mary had very much admired the ring as any one must who had an eye for stones and had often looked at it into the heart of it almost loving it and while they were talking now she kept gazing at it
when mister redmain ended she stood silent in her silence her attention concentrated itself upon the sapphire she stood long looking closely at it
moving it about a little and changing the direction of the light and while her gaze was on the ring mister redmain's gaze was on her watching her with equal attention at last with a sigh as if she waked from a reverie she laid the ring on the table
but mister redmain still stared in her face now what is it you've got in your head he said at last
come out with it hardly think sir answered mary i was only plaguing myself between my recollection of the stone and the actual look of it it is so annoying to find what seemed a clear recollection prove a deceitful one
it may appear a presumptuous thing to say but my recollection seems of a finer color while she spoke she had again taken the ring and was looking at it mister redmain snatched it from her hand
the devil he cried you haven't the face to hint that the stone has been changed mary laughed such a thing never came into my head sir but now that you have put it there i could almost believe it go along with you
pulling the bell hard that done he began to examine the ring intently as mary had been doing and did not speak a word mewks came show miss marston out said his master and tell my coachman to bring the hansom round directly
and another quite new one besides he was acquainted with many people of many different sorts and had been to jewelers and pawnbrokers gamblers and lodging house keepers and had learned some things to his purpose once more mary received from him a summons
and once more considerably against her liking obeyed she was less disinclined to go this time however for she felt not a little curious about the ring i want you to come back to the house he said abruptly the moment she entered his room
even since the ring was found so long a time had passed that she never expected to hear from the house again but tom was now so much better and letty so much like her former self that if missus redmain had asked her she might perhaps have consented
mister redmain she answered you must see that i can not do so at your desire oh rubbish humbug he returned with annoyance don't
go to missus perkin i won't take a refusal i can not do it mister redmain said mary the thing is impossible and she turned to leave the room stop stop cried mister redmain and jumped from his chair to prevent her
he would not have succeeded had not mewks met her in the doorway full in the face she had to draw back to avoid him and the man perceiving at once how things were closed the door the moment he entered and stood with his back against it he's in the drawing room sir said mewks
a scarcely perceptible sign of question was made by the master and answered in kind by the man show him here directly said mister redmain then turning to mary go out that way miss marston if you will go he said and pointed to the dressing room
mary without a suspicion obeyed but just as she discovered that the door into the bedroom beyond was locked she heard the door behind her locked also she turned and knocked stay where you are said mister redmain in a low but imperative voice
i can not let you out till this gentleman is gone you must hear what passes i want you for a witness bewildered and annoyed mary stood motionless in the middle of the room and presently heard a man whose voice seemed not quite strange to her greet mister redmain like an old friend
the latter made a slight apology for having sent for him to his study claiming the privilege he said of an invalid who could not for a time have the pleasure of meeting him either at the club or at his wife's parties
but here mary all at once came to herself and was aware that she was in quite a false position she withdrew therefore to the farthest corner sat down closed her ears with the palms of her hands and waited
as he spoke she rose to her feet her countenance illumined both with righteous anger and the tender shine of prayer her look went to what he had of a heart and the slightest possible color rose to his face gone a step too far damn it he murmured to himself
i have not heard a word mister redmain she said with indignation oh you needn't trouble yourself he returned i meant you to hear it all what did i put you there for but to get your oath to what i drew from the fellow
a fine thing if your pretended squeamishness ruin my plot what do you think of yourself hey but i don't believe it he looked at her keenly expecting a response but mary made him none for some moments he regarded her curiously then turned away into the study saying
i will now relate what passed while mary sat deaf in the corner mister redmain asked his visitor what he would have as if although it was quite early he must as a matter of course stand in need of refreshment
he made choice of brandy and soda water and the bell was rung
a good deal of conversation followed about a disputed point in a late game of cards at one of the clubs the talk then veered in another direction that of personal adventure so guided by mister redmain he told extravagant stories about himself and his doings in particular various
ruses by which he had contrived to lay his hands on money and whatever he told his guest capped narrating trick upon trick to which on different occasions he had had recourse
at last mister redmain told how he had once got money out of a lady i do not believe there was a word of truth in it but it was capped by the other with a narrative that seemed specially pleasing to the listener in the midst of a burst of laughter he rose and rang the bell
count galofta thought it was to order something more in the way of refreshment and was not a little surprised when he heard his host desire the man to request the favor of miss yolland's presence but the count had not studied non expression in vain
and had brought it to a degree of perfection not easily disturbed casting a glance at him as he gave the message mister redmain could read nothing but this was in itself suspicious to him and justly
for the man ought to have been surprised at such a close to the conversation they had been having sepia had been told that galofta was in the study and therefore received the summons thither a thing that had never happened before with the greater alarm
she made consequently what preparation she could against surprise thoroughly capable of managing her features her anxiety was sufficient nevertheless to deprive her of power over her complexion and she entered the room with the pallor peculiar to the dark skinned
having greeted the count with the greatest composure she turned to mister redmain with question in her eyes count galofta said mister redmain in reply
has just been telling me a curious story of how a certain rascal got possession of a valuable jewel from a lady with whom he pretended to be in love and i thought the opportunity a good one for showing you a strange discovery i have made with regard to the sapphire missus redmain missed for so long
very odd tricks are played with gems such gems that is as are of value enough to make it worth a rogue's while so saying he took the ring from one drawer and from another a bottle from which he poured something into a crystal cup then he took a file
and looking at galofta in whose well drilled features he believed he read something that was not mere curiosity said i am going to show you something very curious
mister redmain filed away heedless then with the help of a pair of pincers freed the stone and held it up in his hand you see this he said a splendid sapphire answered count galofta taking it in his fingers
but as mister redmain saw not looking at it closely i have always heard it called a splendid stone said sepia whose complexion though not her features passed through several changes while all this was going on she was anxious
nor did her inquisitor fail to surprise the uneasy glances she threw furtively though involuntarily in the face of the count who never once looked in hers tolerably sure of himself he was not sure of her
that ring when i bought it the stone of it said mister redmain was a star sapphire and worth seven hundred pounds now the whole affair is worth about ten as he spoke he threw the stone into the cup let it lie a few moments and took it out again
there he said holding out the thin part on the tip of a finger that is a slice of sapphire and there holding out the rest of the seeming stone that is glass what a shame cried sepia
of course said the count you will prosecute the jeweler i will not prosecute the jeweler answered mister redmain but i have taken some trouble to find out who changed the stones
when he turned the count was gone as he had expected and sepia stood with eyes full of anger and fear her face was set and colorless and strange to look upon very odd ain't it
said mister redmain and opening the door of his dressing room called out miss marston when he turned sepia too was gone i would not have my reader take sepia for an accomplice in the robbery even mister redmain did not believe that
he had before discovered that about the time when the ring disappeared the count had had losses and was supposed unable to meet them but had suddenly showed himself again flush of money and from that time had had an extraordinary run of luck
he wore a new hat and was clean shaved except his upper lip presently a man came out of the mews in a scotch cap and a full beard what had become of him mister redmain did not care
he had no desire to punish him it was enough he had found him out proved his suspicion correct and obtained evidence against sepia he did not at once make up his mind how he would act on this last
clover blossom in a quiet pleasant meadow beneath a summer sky where green old trees their branches waved and winds went singing by
where a little brook went rippling so musically low and passing clouds cast shadows on the waving grass below where low sweet notes of brooding birds stole out on the fragrant air
and golden sunlight shone undimmed on all most fresh and fair there bloomed a lovely sisterhood of happy little flowers together in this pleasant home through quiet summer hours
no rude hand came to gather them no chilling winds to blight warm sunbeams smiled on them by day and soft dews fell at night so here along the brook side beneath the green old trees
by butterfly bird and bee they little knew that in this dark form lay the beauty they yet may see then let me lie in the deep green moss and weave my little tomb and
till spring's first flowers come
and the daisy turned aside little houstonia scornfully laughed as she danced on her slender stem while the cowslip bent to the rippling waves and whispered the tale to them
then a sweet soft voice called out from far come hither poor worm to me the sun lies warm in this quiet spot and i'll share my home with thee
the wondering flowers looked up to see who had offered the worm a home
whose fluttering leaves seemed beckoning him to come it dwelt in a sunny little nook where cool winds rustled by and murmuring bees and butterflies came on the flower's breast to lie
down through the leaves the sunlight stole and seemed to linger there as if it loved to brighten the home of one so sweet and fair its rosy face smiled kindly down as the friendless worm drew near
and its low voice softly whispering said poor thing thou art welcome here close at my side in the soft green moss thou wilt find a quiet bed where thou canst softly sleep till spring
with my leaves above thee spread i pity and love thee friendless worm though thou art not graceful or fair for many a dark unlovely form hath a kind heart dwelling there
deep in its quiet mossy bed sheltered from sun and shower the grateful worm spun its winter tomb in the shadow of the flower and clover guarded well its rest till autumn's leaves were sere
till all her sister flowers were gone and her winter sleep drew near then her withered leaves were softly spread o'er the sleeping worm below ere the faithful little flower lay
beneath the winter snow spring came again and the flowers rose from their quiet winter graves and gayly danced on their slender stems and sang with the rippling waves
softly the warm winds kissed their cheeks brightly the sunbeams fell as one by one they came again in their summer homes to dwell and little clover bloomed once more
and patiently watched by the mossy bed for the worm still slumbered there then her sister flowers scornfully cried as they waved in the summer air the ugly worm was friendless and poor
little clover why shouldst thou care then watch no more nor dwell alone away from thy sister flowers
and spend with us these pleasant summer hours we pity thee foolish little flower to trust what the false worm said
for he lies in the green moss dead but little clover still watched on alone in her sunny home she did not doubt the poor worm's truth and trusted he would come
clover thy watch was vain he only sought a shelter here and never will come again and the unkind flowers danced for joy when they saw him thus depart
for the love of a beautiful butterfly is dear to a flower's heart they feared he would stay in clover's home and her tender care repay so they danced for joy when at last he rose and silently flew away
then little clover bowed her head while her soft tears fell like dew for her gentle heart was grieved to find that her sisters words were true and the insect she had watched so long
when helpless poor and lone thankless for all her faithful care on his golden wings had flown but as she drooped in silent grief she heard little daisy cry
o sisters look i see him now afar in the sunny sky he is floating back from cloud land now borne by the fragrant air spread wide your leaves that he may choose the flower he deems most fair
and spread her white leaves wide while daisy whispered her joy and hope as she stood by her gay friends side violet peeped from the tall green ferns and lifted her soft blue eye
to watch the glittering form that shone afar in the summer sky they thought no more of the ugly worm who once had wakened their scorn but looked and longed for the butterfly now
as the soft wind bore him on nearer and nearer the bright form came and fairer the blossoms grew each welcomed him in her sweetest tones each offered her honey and dew
but in vain did they beckon and smile and call and wider their leaves unclose the glittering form still floated on by violet daisy and rose
lightly it flew to the pleasant home of the flower most truly fair on clover's breast he softly lit and folded his bright wings there dear flower the butterfly whispered low
long hast thou waited for me now i am come and my grateful love shall brighten thy home for thee thou hast loved and cared for me when alone hast watched o'er me long and well
and now will i strive to show the thanks
sunbeam and breeze shall come to thee and the coolest dews that fall whate'er a flower can wish is thine for thou art worthy all and the home thou shared with the friendless worm
the butterfly's home shall be and thou shalt find dear faithful flower a loving friend in me then through the long bright summer hours through sunshine and through shower
together in their happy home dwelt butterfly and flower
gathering round little sunbeam as she ceased to place a garland in her hair and praise her song now said the queen call hither moon light and summer wind for they have seen many pleasant things in their long wanderings
and will gladly tell us them most joyfully will we do our best dear queen said the elves as they folded their wings beside her now summer wind said moonlight till your turn comes
sweetbreads with mushrooms lay half a dozen sweetbreads in cold water for twelve hours changing the water several times then boil them five minutes drop into cold water
pepper cayenne and a little mace stew until tender serve with a mushroom sauce made as follows take a small bottle of mushrooms or one dozen fresh mushrooms
sliced and boil them five minutes in water and lime juice drain and place in a stew pan with two ounces of butter one ounce of flour and a pint of well seasoned stock or gravy
rub into a paste the yolks of six hard boiled eggs half the white of one egg chopped one tablespoonful of butter one teaspoonful of flour three whole cloves
salt pepper cayenne and mace place the terrapin into a stewpan with a glass of sherry or madeira and the prepared paste cook slowly for twenty minutes
stew gently fifteen minutes stirring once or twice if then tender add one teaspoonful cornstarch rubbed into one ounce of butter let it cook two minutes
take from the fire and stir in the yolks of six eggs beaten well with one half cup of cream place this mixture where it will keep hot without cooking
garnish with mushrooms and truffles calves head en tortue simmer a calves head for two hours tie the brains in a cloth put them in the saucepan with the head
and three hard boiled eggs sliced cook thirty minutes thicken the sauce with flour rubbed into butter and serve with the calves head chops a la reine
trim twelve lamb chops very closely and fry lightly in six ounces of butter remove them and in the same butter place two onions sliced
four green peppers minced one can of mushrooms minced and two stalks of celery chopped salt pepper cayenne and the juice of a lime
cook until these ingredients are soft stir in six ounces of flour then add two cups of milk and cook until the mixture is thick and smooth
dust a plate with cracker crumbs and on this place a spoonful of the fried mixture place a chop on top of this cover it with another spoonful of the mixture
and dust with cracker crumbs repeat with each chop and when cold roll each in beaten egg and cracker crumbs and fry a light brown
cut into inch pieces and fry in four ounces of butter with two onions a little garlic two green peppers and some mushrooms chopped fine seasoning all with salt pepper
cayenne and a little mace stir in four ounces of flour and add boiling milk
put in the calves feet and mix all well together then remove from the fire and beat in the yolks of two eggs which have been mixed with the juice of a lime and a tablespoonful of water
pour the whole into a buttered pan and set aside to cool when cold cut into slices brush with egg and bread crumbs and fry in butter until a light brown
puree of chestnuts with chops boil chestnuts in salted water for twenty minutes shell them season with salt and pepper add a piece of butter and wet with milk
mash through a colander and heap lightly on a platter arranging broiled chops around the puree lamb chops a la nesselrode
trim carefully one dozen young lamb chops fry in butter three tablespoonfuls of marrow
then add a glass of sherry and stir it well before adding also a cup of rice four cups of stock several sweet chili peppers chopped and some salt
pour it out in a pan to the thickness of half an inch and let cool then with a biscuit cutter cut it into rounds about the size of a chop on each one of these rounds place a chop
and cover the top with bechamel sauce when cold dip in egg and bread crumbs and fry a light brown
one ounce of butter browned with one ounce of flour to this add half a glass of sherry some finely chopped truffles one cup and a half of stock salt and pepper
and cook for ten minutes add the juice of a lime take from the fire and stir in the well beaten yolks of two eggs devil chops
serve the remaining sauce over them in a very hot dish lamb cutlets duchesse fry one dozen lamb chops in butter and set aside to cool
and a little mace cook this gently for ten minutes and add a cup of milk thickened with flour and butter the juice of a lemon and one teaspoonful of sugar cook a few minutes
and fry in butter to a light brown serve with green peas in the center of the dish lamb cutlets a la condi lard lamb cutlets with strips of truffle
anchovy and gherkin make a dressing of bread crumbs mushrooms capers chives
pepper salt and butter put this on each side of the cutlets and cover with crepinette broil or fry to a light brown
serve with a browned veal gravy and sliced lemon eggs with tomatoes fry in two ounces of butter two small dry onions and two green peppers chopped
add half a dozen tomatoes peeled and cut up salt and pepper simmer fifteen minutes add the corn cut from half a dozen ears and cook fifteen minutes longer
pour the mixture into a baking dish and break over it six eggs place in the oven until set macaroni a la rossini
mixed with a little good sauce espagnole fill the dish and on the top layer put truffles place in the oven a few minutes and serve with grated parmesan cheese on a separate dish
timbale of macaroni for twelve persons boil one half pound of macaroni in water for five minutes cut in inch length pieces
and simmer for twenty minutes in one quart of milk being careful that it does not boil season with salt pepper mace and cayenne add one cup of cream stir until very smooth
add the beaten yolks of eight eggs and one can of mushrooms sliced stir well and then add the macaroni with one pound of sweetbreads cut in small pieces and two dozen eastern oysters
very little enthusiasm was felt on the subject and indeed when one thinks of the tasteless gummy mess which is so often put before the family this lack of enthusiasm is not strange however rice properly prepared
proves quite a formidable rival of the beloved potato and there are endless ways of preparing it
very few know how to cook just plain boiled rice many know that there is a way of preparing it so that when done it will be a fluffy mass of separate grains but they have no idea how to go about making it look like this
the process is very simple always use the unpolished rice rice with a creamy tinge is better than rice with a pearly white tinge and the long grain is better than the short
plain boiled rice for every cup of rice have about eight cups of water do not add the rice until the water is boiling briskly
then throw in the rice and give it an occasional stir until the water begins to boil again after that it need not be stirred cook until a grain feels soft when rubbed between the thumb and finger then turn into a colander
drain off the water and pour over the rice several cups of cold water drain that off too and place the rice where it can have moist heat for a while before serving
and place it over a pan of boiling water or a steamer may be used for keeping it warm or a double boiler by this method every grain is separate rice served with curry is always prepared in this way
it may be served in place of potatoes with meat and may also be used as a basis for many inexpensive and attractive dishes just as macaroni and spaghetti are
there is one objection however to rice prepared in this way a good deal of the nutritive value is lost down the sink drain in india this is not the case for every ounce of rice water is there carefully saved
it is used in various ways usually it is fed to the babies and weaker children often it is given to ducks and fowl to fatten them and sometimes it is put into the curry pot
there is another method of preparing rice which is almost as satisfactory and by which all the nutrition is retained that is by cooking it in a regular rice boiler put just enough water over the rice to well cover it
after the water in the lower vessel has boiled a while if the rice seems a little dry add more water cook until the rice is soft then turn the fire very low so that the water in the lower vessel does not boil
baby's pesh pash this is the first solid food that babies of english or american parents in india are allowed take about a quarter of a pound of lean mutton
shred it finely and return to the broth cook a tablespoonful of rice in this broth and shredded mutton cook slowly and let every grain swell to its utmost
babies cry for it and the doctors pronounce it harmless it is also very good for the convalescent
pullao pullao is the most festive dish in india it stands for all that roast turkey does in this country at weddings feasts and holidays it is the chief dish
among the hindustani christians it is the christmas dinner sometimes it is served with rivers of hot curry flowing over it but often it is eaten without the curry
put a little bag of mixed spices such as are used in making pickles on to cook with the fowl while the fowl is cooking take about a pound of rice and fry it with a few sliced onions and a little butter or crisco
when the chicken is nearly done add the fried rice and onions to the chicken and chicken broth put all in a rice boiler if you have it and cook slowly until the rice is done retain the spices
if rice boiler is used there should be at least two inches of broth above the mixture if you have no rice boiler but must boil it on the stove more broth will be required
in the latter case do not cook until it becomes soggy cook until the broth is absorbed then steam while the rice is cooking fry a few more onions with a handful of almonds and raisins
beef or mutton pullao very delicious pullao may be made from the cheapest cuts of beef and mutton get about two pounds of beef or mutton cut in bits cook until it is very tender
boil with this a little bag of mixed spices and two onions unless the meat has a good deal of fat use crisco or oil two cups of rice will be the right amount to use with two pounds of meat
use the same method that is used in making chicken pullao fresh cocoanut is always delicious strewn over pullao and if curry is used with it have cocoanut in the curry
spanish rice fry three onions six tomatoes two peppers or pimentos together
in another pan fry a cup of rice in a very little oil or crisco after the rice has browned a little add the two together turn into a rice boiler or steamer and cook until rice is tender
in that case fry the onions and peppers and rice together then add the cheese and tomatoes
pea pullao take two cups of cold boiled rice
pour over the mixture a half cupful of milk or cream add a tablespoonful of butter or crisco and cook in a rice boiler or steamer until the peas are nicely done a few bay leaves and black pepper grains
take a cup of rice
a ten cent tin of baker's cocoanut does very nicely if one doesn't care to prepare the fresh cocoanut boil the rice and cocoanut together being sure to add to the water the cocoanut milk
there should be about three inches of liquid above the rice color the liquid yellow with a little turmeric add salt six cloves two cardamon seeds and twelve pepper berries
cook in a rice boiler or steamer until done
a very nice way of making hash is to use rice instead of potatoes take cold meat and gravy and stew together with onion when the onion is nearly done add to the broth the rice
a quarter as much uncooked rice as there is meat is a good proportion cook all together until rice is thoroughly done be sure and have plenty of liquid to start with
left over pullao or kidgeri or meat and rice hash make fine cutlets mold roll in crumbs and fry in the usual way
cook until the sugar melts and begins to bubble then quickly add two cups of boiling water
or better still in a rice boiler until rice is thoroughly cooked it can hardly be cooked too much remove from the fire pour over all a half ounce of rose water and stir well
press in plates and sprinkle well with minced almonds
when cold cut into squares and serve like fudge this is a very satisfactory little sweetmeat when one wants a foreign dish
tried to damage the airship eh asked mister sharp i wish i'd caught them at it the scoundrels but perhaps you handled them as well as i could have done i guess so assented tom i must see if they did cut any of the wires but the young inventor and his chum had acted too quickly
and then was sent in various directions to the no small delight of a large crowd that gathered in the meadow back of the swift property for it only required the sight of the airship looming its bulk above the fence and buildings to attract a throng
it is safe to say this time however that andy foger and his cronies were not in the audience they were probably too busy removing the soot and red paint
he evinced no great astonishment in fact he seemed to be thinking deeply and on some subject not connected with aeronautics tom noticed the abstraction of his father and shook his head clearly the aged inventor was not his usual self as for ned newton
his delight knew no bounds at first he was a bit apprehensive as the big ship went higher and higher and swung about but he soon lost his fear and enjoyed the experience as much as did tom the young inventor was busy helping mister sharp manage the machinery
rudders planes and motor a flight of several miles was made and tom was wishing they might pay another visit to the rocksmond seminary but mister sharp after completing several evolutions designed to test the steering qualities of the craft put back home
we'll land in the meadow and try rising by the planes alone he said in this evolution it was deemed best for mister swift and ned to alight as there was no telling just how the craft would behave tom's father was very willing to get out
the men boys several girls and women made a living lane through this shot the craft and then when sufficient momentum had been obtained tom at a command from the aeronaut pulled the lever of the elevation rudder
up into the air shot the nose of the red cloud as the wind struck the slanting surface of the planes and a moment later it was sailing high above the heads of the throng that's the stuff cried mister sharp it works as well that way as it does with the gas
higher and higher it went and then coming to a level keel the craft was sent here and there darting about like a bird and going about in huge circles start the gas machine and we'll come to rest in the air said the balloonist and tom did so
as the powerful vapor filled the container the ship acquired a buoyancy and there was no need of going at high speed in order to sustain it the propellers were stopped and the red cloud floated two thousand feet in the air
only a little distance below some fleecy white masses from which she took her name the demonstration was a great success the gas was again allowed to escape the propellers set in motion and purely as an aeroplane the ship was again sent forward
by means of the planes and rudders a perfect landing was made in the meadow a short distance from where the start had been made the crowd cheered the plucky youth and mister sharp now i'm ready to go on a long trip any time you are tom said the aeronaut that night
he could not understand his father's conduct work was started the next day on fitting up the car or cabin of the airship so that several persons could live eat and sleep in it for two weeks if necessary
the third day after this task had been commenced the mail brought an unusual communication to tom and mister sharp it was from an aero club of blakeville a city distant about a hundred miles
prizes were to be given and the inventors of the red cloud the achievements of which the committee of arrangements had heard were invited to compete shall we go in for it tom asked the balloonist i'm willing if you are then let's do it
we'll see how our craft shows up alongside of others i know something of this club it is all right but the carnival is likely to be a small one once i gave a balloon exhibition for them
well we'll have a try at it won't do us any harm to win a prize then for a long trip as it was not necessary to have the car or cabin completely fitted up in order to compete for the prize
work in that direction was suspended for the time being and more attention was paid to the engine the planes and rudders some changes were made and a week later the red cloud departed for blakeville as the rules of the contest required three passengers
ned newton was taken along mister swift having arranged with the bank president so that the lad could have a few days off
having been delayed on the trip by a broken cog wheel which was mended in mid air as the three navigators approached they saw a small machine flying around the grounds look cried ned excitedly what a small airship
that's a monoplane declared tom who was getting to be quite an expert yes the same kind that was used to cross the english channel interjected mister sharp they're too uncertain for my purposes though they are all right under certain conditions
hardly had he spoken than a puff of wind caused the daring manipulator of the monoplane to swerve to one side he had to make a quick descent so rapid was it in fact that the tips of one of his planes was smashed
it'll take him a day to repair that commented the aeronaut dryly the red cloud created a sensation as she slowly settled down
tom's craft was easily the best one at the carnival so far though the managers said other machines were on the way the exhibition opened the next day but no flights were to be attempted until the day following two more crafts arrived a large triplane
and a dirigible balloon there were many visitors to the ground and tom ned and mister sharp were kept busy answering questions put by those who crowded into their tent toward the close of the day a fussy little frenchman entered
and making his way to where tom stood asked air you ze ownair of zis machine one of them replied the lad ha
zen i challenge you to a race i have a monoplane zat is ze swiftest evaire
and farther zan you shall we take him up mister sharp asked tom we'll race with him after we get through with the club entries decided the aeronaut but not for money it's against my principles and i don't believe your father would like it
racing for prizes is a different thing well we will devote ze money to charity conceded the frenchman this was a different matter and one to which mister sharp did not object
so it was arranged that a trial should take place after the regular affairs that night was spent in getting the red cloud in shape for the contests of the next day she was groomed until every wire was taut and every cog lever and valve working perfectly
ned newton helped all he could so much has appeared in the newspapers of the races at blakeville that i will not devote much space here to them suffice it to say that the red cloud easily distanced the big dirigible from which much was expected
it was a closer contest with the large triplane but tom's airship won and was given the prize a fine silver cup as the carnival was a small one no other craft in a class with the red cloud had been entered
so tom and mister sharp had to be content with the one race they won there were other contests among monoplanes and biplanes and the little frenchman won two races
as he alighted from his monoplane while an assistant filled the gasolene tank i will in circles go around you up and down
and presto i am back at ze starting place before you have begun zen charity shall be ze richair all right wait and see said tom easily but though he showed much confidence he asked mister sharp in private just before the impromptu contest
do you think we can beat him well said the aeronaut shrugging his shoulders you can't tell much about the air his machine certainly goes very fast but too much wind will be the undoing of him while it will only help us and i think he added
that we're going to get a breeze it was arranged that the red cloud would start from the ground without the use of the gas so as to make the machines more even at the signal off they started the motors making a great racket
the aeronaut nodded grimly and turned more gasolene into the twenty cylindered engine like a flash the red cloud darted forward but the frenchman also increased his speed and did actually at first circle around the bigger machine
for his affair was much lighter but when he tried to repeat that feat he found that he was being left behind that's the stuff we're winning yelled tom ned joining in the shout then came a puff of wind
the monoplane had to descend for it was in danger of turning turtle still the navigator was not going to give up he flew along at a lower level then mister sharp opened up the red cloud's engine at full speed
mister sharp said nothing but with a queer smile on his face he sent the airship down toward the earth a moment later he was directly under the monoplane then quickly rising
he fairly caught the frenchman's machine on top of a square platform of the gas container the bicycle wheels of the monoplane resting on the flat surface and so swiftly did the red cloud fly along that it carried the monoplane with it
winning of course by a large margin ha a trick i race you to morrow and again to morrow cried the beaten frenchman as he alighted no thanks answered tom we've had enough i guess charity will be satisfied
chapter seven andy tries a trick without loss of time the young inventor and the aeronaut began to repair the damage done to the red cloud by colliding with the tower the most important part to reconstruct was the propeller
and mister sharp decided to make two instead of one in order to have an extra one in case of future accidents tom's task was to arrange the mechanism so that hereafter the rudder could not become jammed and so prevent the airship from steering properly
this the lad accomplished by a simple but effective device which when the balloonist saw it caused him to compliment tom that's worth patenting he declared i advise you to take out papers on that it seems such a simple thing answered the youth
and i don't see much use of spending the money for a patent airships aren't likely to be so numerous that i could make anything off that patent you take my advice insisted mister sharp airships are going to be used more in the future than you have any idea of you get that device patented
the young inventor spent many minutes calling to mind the memory of a certain fair face and i think i need not mention any names to indicate whose face it was she promised to go for a ride with me mused the lad i hope she doesn't back out
but i'll want to learn more about managing the ship before i venture with her in it it won't do to have any accidents then there's ned newton too i must take him for a skim in the clouds guess i'll invite him over some afternoon
i don't know answered the lad he seems much engrossed in something it's unusual too for he most generally tells me what he is engaged upon however i guess he will say something about it when he gets ready
he might be nervous and while the ship is new
i can't give them my attention and look after the running of the machinery i was going to propose bringing a friend of mine over to see us make the trip to morrow went on the young inventor ned newton you know him he'd like a ride oh i guess ned's all right
finally consented to go with his chum he got a half holiday from the bank and shortly after dinner went to tom's house come on out in the shed and take a look at the red cloud proposed the young inventor
the big shed was deserted when the lads entered and went to the loft where they were on a level with the big red aluminum tank tom began with a description of the machinery and ned followed him with interest
now we'll go down into the car or cabin continued the young navigator of the air and i'll show you what we do when we're touring amid the clouds as they started to descend the flight of steps from the loft platform a noise on the ground below attracted their attention
guess that's mister sharp coming said ned tom leaned over and looked down an instant later he grasped the arm of his chum
take a look whispered the young inventor andy foger exclaimed ned peering over the railing yes and sam snedecker and pete bailey are with him they sneaked in when i left the door open wonder what they want
up to some mischief i'll wager commented ned hark they're talking the two lads on the loft listened intently though the cronies on the ground below them did not speak loudly their voices came plainly to the listeners
let's poke a hole in their gas bag proposed sam that will make them think they're not so smart as they pretend naw we can't do that answered andy why not declared pete because the bag's away up in the top part of the shed
you're afraid sneered sam i am not i'll punch your face if you say that again besides the thing that holds the gas is made of aluminum and we can't make a hole in it unless we take an axe and that makes too much noise
take out your knives and saw away at the wires hurry too or they may catch us you're caught now whispered ned to tom come on down and give em a trouncing tom hesitated
he looked quickly about the loft and then a smile replaced the frown of righteous anger on his face i have a better way he said what is it see that pile of dirt and he pointed to some refuse that had been swept up from the floor of the loft
ned nodded it consists of a lot of shavings sawdust and what's more a lot of soot and lampblack that we used in mixing some paint we'll sweep the whole pile down on their heads and make them wish they'd stayed away from this place
good exclaimed ned chuckling give me a broom there's another one for you the two lads in the loft peered down the red headed squint eyed bully and his chums had their knives out and were about to cut some of the important guy wires
when at a signal from tom ned with a sweep of his broom sent a big pile of the dirt sawdust and lampblack down upon the heads of the conspirators the young inventor did the same thing and for an instant the lower part of the shed
looked as if a dirtstorm had taken place there the pile of refuse went straight down on the heads of the trio and as they were looking up
they received considerable of it in their faces in an instant the white countenances of the lads were changed to black as black as the burnt cork performers in a minstrel show then came a series of howls wow who did that
i'm blinded the shed is falling down run fellows run screamed andy there's been an explosion we'll be killed at that moment the big doors of the shed were thrown open and mister sharp came in
he started back in astonishment at the sight of the three grotesque figures
and their clothes covered with sawdust and shavings
oh wait i you spluttered the bully almost speechless with rage sam and pete were wildly trying to wipe the stuff from their faces but only made matters worse they were so startled that they did not know enough to run out of the opened doors
running to the end of the loft tom stood for an instant over the trio of lads who were threatening and imploring by turns here's another souvenir of your visit shouted the young inventor as he dashed the bucket of red paint down on the conspirators
this completed the work of the dirt and soot and a few seconds later each face looking like a stage indian's ready for the war path the trio dashed out they shed shavings sawdust and lampblack at every step
and from their clothes and hands and faces dripped the carmine paint better have your pictures taken cried ned peering from an upper window yes and send us one added tom joining his chum andy looked up at them he dug a mass of red paint from his left ear
removed a mass of soot from his right cheek and shaking his fist which was alternately striped red and black cried out in a rage i'll get even with you yet tom swift you only got what was coming to you retorted the young inventor
and accompanied by his companions he made a bee line for the rear gate in the fence and darted across the meadow
by jingo said the idiot as he wearily took his place at the breakfast table the other morning but i'm just regularly tuckered out late hours again asked the lawyer not a late hour returned the idiot matter of fact
i went to bed last night at half after seven and never waked until nine this morning in spite of all that sleep and rest i feel now as if i'd been put through a threshing machine every bone in my body from the funny to the medulla aches like all possessed
and my joints creak like a new pair of shoes on a school boy in church they are so stiff oh well said the doctor what of it the pace that kills is bound to have some symptoms preliminary to dissolution
if you like other young men of the age burn the candle at both ends and in the middle what can you expect you push nature into a corner and then growl like all possessed because she rebels not i retorted the idiot
mister pedagog and the poet and mister bib may lead the strenuous life but as for mine the simple life is the thing i'm not striving after the unattainable i'm not wasting my physical substance in riotous living the cold and clammy touch of dissipation
is not writing letters of burning condemnation proceedings on my brow excesses in any form are utterly unknown to me and from one end of the subway to the other you won't find another man of my age who in general takes better care of himself
i am as watchful of my own needs as though i were a baby and my own nurse at one and the same time no mother could watch over her offspring more tenderly than i watch over me and well then what in thunder is the matter with you cried the lawyer irritated
if this is all true why on earth are you proclaiming yourself as a physical wreck there must be some cause for your condition there is said the idiot meekly i went christmas shopping yesterday without having previously trained for it and this is the result
i sometimes wonder doctor that you gentlemen who have the public health more or less in your hands don't take the initiative and stave off nervous prostration and other ills attendant upon a run down physical condition instead of waiting for a fully developed case
and trying to cure it after the fact the ounce of prevention idea ought to be incorporated it seems to me into the materia medica what would you have us do move mountains demanded the doctor
i'm not afraid to tackle almost any kind of fever known to medical science but the shopping fever well it is incurable
and more especially a woman there isn't anything that i know of can get it out of the system i grant you that it is as much of a disease as scarlet typhoid or any other but the mind has not yet been discovered that can find a remedy for it short of abject poverty
and even that has been known to fail that's true enough said the idiot
that nowadays we look upon as mere trifles because people can be put physically into such a condition that they are practically immune to their ravages maybe so but if people will shop they are going to be knocked out by it
i don't see that we doctors can do anything to mitigate the evil effects of the consequences ab initio
and build you up again but the ounce of prevention for shopping troubles is as easily attainable as a ton of radium to a man with eight cents and a cancelled postage stamp in his pocket said the doctor nonsense doctor you're only fooling said the idiot
a college president might as well say that boys will play football and that there's nothing they can do to stave off the inevitable consequences of playing the game to one who isn't prepared for it you know as well as anybody else that from november fifteenth to december twenty fourth
every year an epidemic of shopping is going to break out in our midst
thanks to our habit of leaving everything to the last minute you know that the men and women in your care unless they have properly trained for the exigencies of the epidemic period will be prostrated physically and nervously racked in bone and body aching from tip to toe
their energy exhausted and their spines as limp as a rag and yet you claim you can do nothing what would we think of a football trainer who would try thus to account for the condition of his eleven at the end of a season we'd bounce him that's what
perhaps that gigantic intellect of yours has something to suggest sneered the doctor certainly quoth the idiot i dreamed it all out in my sleep last night i dreamed that you and i together had started a series of establishments all over the country
to eradicate the shopping evil laughed the doctor a sort of keeley cure for shopping inebriates nay nay retorted the idiot the shopping inebriate is too much of a factor in our commercial prosperity to make such a thing as that popular
just think of what a boon it would be for a lot of delicate women for instance who know that along about christmas time they must hie them forth to the department stores
there to be crushed and mauled and pulled and hauled until there is scarcely anything left to them to feel that they could come to our shopnasium and there be trained for the ordeal which they cannot escape very nice said the doctor but how on earth can you train them that's what i'd like to know
how why how on earth do you train a football team except by practice demanded the idiot it wouldn't take a very ingenious mind to figure out a game called shopping that would be governed by rules similar to those of football
take a couple of bargain counters for the goals place one at one end of the shopnasium and one at the other then let sixty women start from number one and try to get to number two across the field through another body of sixty women bent on getting to the other one and vice versa
you could teach em all the arts of the rush line defence running around the ends breaking through the middle and all that at first the scrimmage would be pretty hard on the beginners but with a month's practice they'd get hardened to it and by christmas time there isn't a bargain counter in the country
they couldn't reach without more than ordinary fatigue an interesting feature of the game would be to have automatic cars and automobiles and cabs running to and fro across the field all the time so that they would become absolute masters of the art of dodging similar vehicles
when they encounter them in real life as they surely must when the holiday season is in full blast and they are compelled by the demands of the hour to go out into the world the women couldn't stand it said the doctor they might as well be knocked out at the real thing as in the imitation
they wouldn't be knocked out if you gave them preliminary individual exercise with punching bags dummies for tackle practice and other things the football player uses to make himself tough and irresistible but you can't reason with shopping as you do with football suggested the lawyer
think of the glory of winning a goal which sustains the football player through the toughest of fights the knowledge that the nation will ring with its plaudits of his gallant achievement is half the backing of your quarter back that's all right said the idiot
but the make up of the average woman is such that what pursuit of fame does for the gladiator the chase after a bargain does for a woman i have known women so worn and weary that they couldn't get up for breakfast who had a lion's strength an hour later
at a monday marked down sale of laundry soap and yeats's poems what the goal is to the man the bargain is to the woman so on the question of incentive to action mister brief the sexes are about even
i really think doctor there's a chance here for you and me to make a fortune doctor capsule's shopnasium opened every september for the training and development of expert shoppers in all branches of shopnastics
under the medical direction of yourself and my business management would be a winner moreover it would furnish a business opening for all those football players our colleges are turning out for as our institution grew and we established branches of it all over the country we should of course
have to have managers in every city and who better to teach all these things than the expert footballist of the hour oh well said the doctor perhaps it isn't such a bad thing after all but i don't think i care to go into it
very well said the idiot that being the case i will modify my suggestion somewhat and send the idea to president taylor of vassar and other heads of women's colleges
who will soon graduate into the larger institution of matrimony that is the only way i can see for us to build up a woman of the future
in the purchase of a cake of soap to send to one's grandmother at christmas
as i came back to myself i glanced at sola who had witnessed this encounter and i was surprised to note a strange expression upon her usually expressionless countenance what her thoughts were i did not know for as yet i had learned but little of the martian tongue
enough only to suffice for my daily needs as i reached the doorway of our building a strange surprise awaited me a warrior approached bearing the arms ornaments and full accouterments of his kind these he presented to me with a few unintelligible words
and a bearing at once respectful and menacing later sola with the aid of several of the other women remodeled the trappings to fit my lesser proportions and after they completed the work i went about garbed in all the panoply of war
from then on sola instructed me in the mysteries of the various weapons and with the martian young i spent several hours each day practicing upon the plaza
i was not yet proficient with all the weapons but my great familiarity with similar earthly weapons made me an unusually apt pupil and i progressed in a very satisfactory manner the training of myself and the young martians was conducted solely by the women
but are also the artisans who produce every manufactured article wrought by the green martians they make the powder the cartridges the firearms in fact everything of value is produced by the females in time of actual warfare they form a part of the reserves
and when the necessity arises fight with even greater intelligence and ferocity than the men the men are trained in the higher branches of the art of war in strategy and the maneuvering of large bodies of troops
they make the laws as they are needed a new law for each emergency they are unfettered by precedent in the administration of justice customs have been handed down by ages of repetition
they have no lawyers i did not see the prisoner again for several days subsequent to our first encounter and then only to catch a fleeting glimpse of her as she was being conducted to the great audience chamber where i had had my first meeting with lorquas ptomel
i could not but note the unnecessary harshness and brutality with which her guards treated her so different from the almost maternal kindliness which sola manifested toward me and the respectful attitude of the few green martians who took the trouble to notice me at all
i had observed on the two occasions when i had seen her that the prisoner exchanged words with her guards and this convinced me that they spoke
with this added incentive i nearly drove sola distracted by my importunities to hasten on my education and within a few more days i had mastered the martian tongue sufficiently well to enable me to carry on a passable conversation
and to fully understand practically all that i heard at this time our sleeping quarters were occupied by three or four females and a couple of the recently hatched young beside sola and her youthful ward myself and woola the hound
after they had retired for the night it was customary for the adults to carry on a desultory conversation for a short time before lapsing into sleep and now that i could understand their language i was always a keen listener although i never proffered any remarks myself
on the night following the prisoner's visit to the audience chamber the conversation finally fell upon this subject and i was all ears on the instant i had feared to question sola relative to the beautiful captive
as i could not but recall the strange expression i had noted upon her face after my first encounter with the prisoner that it denoted jealousy i could not say and yet judging all things by mundane standards as i still did
i felt it safer to affect indifference in the matter until i learned more surely sola's attitude toward the object of my solicitude sarkoja
had been present at the audience as one of the captive's guards and it was toward her the question turned when asked one of the women will we enjoy the death throes of the red one or does lorquas ptomel jed intend holding her for ransom
and exhibit her last agonies at the great games before tal hajus replied sarkoja what will be the manner of her going out inquired sola she is very small and very beautiful i had hoped that they would hold her for ransom
sarkoja and the other women grunted angrily at this evidence of weakness on the part of sola it is sad sola that you were not born a million years ago snapped sarkoja when all the hollows of the land were filled with water
and the peoples were as soft as the stuff they sailed upon in our day we have progressed to a point where such sentiments mark weakness and atavism it will not be well for you to permit tars tarkas to learn that you hold such degenerate sentiments
as i doubt that he would care to entrust such as you with the grave responsibilities of maternity i see nothing wrong with my expression of interest in this red woman retorted sola she has never harmed us nor would she should we have fallen into her hands
it is only the men of her kind who war upon us and i have ever thought that their attitude toward us is but the reflection of ours toward them they live at peace with all their fellows except when duty calls upon them to make war while we are at peace with none
forever warring among our own kind as well as upon the red men and even in our own communities the individuals fight amongst themselves oh it is one continual awful period of bloodshed from the time we break the shell until we gladly embrace the bosom of the river of mystery
the dark and ancient iss which carries us to an unknown but at least no more frightful and terrible existence fortunate indeed is he who meets his end in an early death say what you please to tars tarkas
he can mete out no worse fate to me than a continuation of the horrible existence we are forced to lead in this life this wild outbreak on the part of sola so greatly surprised and shocked the other women that after a few words of general reprimand
they all lapsed into silence and were soon asleep one thing the episode had accomplished was to assure me of sola's friendliness toward the poor girl and also to convince me that i had been extremely fortunate in falling into her hands rather than those of some of the other females
i knew that she was fond of me and now that i had discovered that she hated cruelty and barbarity i was confident that i could depend upon her to aid me and the girl captive to escape provided of course that such a thing was within the range of possibilities
i did not even know that there were any better conditions to escape to but i was more than willing to take my chances among people fashioned after my own mold rather than to remain longer among the hideous and bloodthirsty green men of mars
but where to go and how was as much of a puzzle to me as the age old search for the spring of eternal life has been to earthly men since the beginning of time i decided that at the first opportunity i would take sola into my confidence and openly ask her to aid me
chapter eight a fair captive from the sky the third day after the incubator ceremony we set forth toward home but scarcely had the head of the procession debouched into the open ground before the city
than orders were given for an immediate and hasty return as though trained for years in this particular evolution the green martians melted like mist into the spacious doorways of the nearby buildings until in less than three minutes
the entire cavalcade of chariots mastodons and mounted warriors was nowhere to be seen sola and i had entered a building upon the front of the city in fact the same one in which i had had my encounter with the apes and wishing to see what had caused the sudden retreat
i mounted to an upper floor and peered from the window out over the valley and the hills beyond and there i saw the cause of their sudden scurrying to cover a huge craft long low and gray painted swung slowly over the crest of the nearest hill
each carried a strange banner swung from stem to stern above the upper works and upon the prow of each was painted some odd device that gleamed in the sunlight and showed plainly even at the distance at which we were from the vessels
i could see figures crowding the forward decks and upper works of the air craft whether they had discovered us or simply were looking at the deserted city i could not say but in any event they received a rude reception for suddenly and without warning
the green martian warriors fired a terrific volley from the windows of the buildings facing the little valley across which the great ships were so peacefully advancing instantly the scene changed as by magic
the foremost vessel swung broadside toward us and bringing her guns into play returned our fire at the same time moving parallel to our front for a short distance and then turning back with the evident intention of completing a great circle which would bring her up to position once more opposite our firing line
the other vessels followed in her wake each one opening upon us as she swung into position our own fire never diminished and i doubt if twenty five per cent of our shots went wild
while the banners and upper works dissolved in spurts of flame as the irresistible projectiles of our warriors mowed through them the fire from the vessels was most ineffectual owing as i afterward learned
to the unexpected suddenness of the first volley which caught the ship's crews entirely unprepared and the sighting apparatus of the guns unprotected from the deadly aim of our warriors
for example a proportion of them always the best marksmen direct their fire entirely upon the wireless finding and sighting apparatus of the big guns of an attacking naval force another detail attends to the smaller guns in the same way
upon the upper works and upon the steering gear and propellers twenty minutes after the first volley the great fleet swung trailing off in the direction from which it had first appeared several of the craft were limping perceptibly
and seemed but barely under the control of their depleted crews their fire had ceased entirely and all their energies seemed focused upon escape our warriors then rushed up to the roofs of the buildings which we occupied
and followed the retreating armada with a continuous fusillade of deadly fire one by one however the ships managed to dip below the crests of the outlying hills until only one barely moving craft was in sight
this had received the brunt of our fire and seemed to be entirely unmanned as not a moving figure was visible upon her decks slowly she swung from her course
instantly the warriors ceased firing
and far from being in a position to inflict harm upon us she could not even control herself sufficiently to escape as she neared the city the warriors rushed out upon the plain to meet her
but it was evident that she still was too high for them to hope to reach her decks from my vantage point in the window i could see the bodies of her crew strewn about although i could not make out what manner of creatures they might be
not a sign of life was manifest upon her as she drifted slowly with the light breeze in a southeasterly direction she was drifting some fifty feet above the ground
or of reinforcements it soon became evident that she would strike the face of the buildings about a mile south of our position and as i watched the progress of the chase i saw a number of warriors gallop ahead dismount and enter the building she seemed destined to touch
as the craft neared the building and just before she struck the martian warriors swarmed upon her from the windows and with their great spears eased the shock of the collision
and in a few moments they had thrown out grappling hooks and the big boat was being hauled to ground by their fellows below after making her fast they swarmed the sides and searched the vessel from stem to stern
i could see them examining the dead sailors evidently for signs of life and presently a party of them appeared from below dragging a little figure among them the creature was considerably less than half as tall as the green martian warriors
and from my balcony i could see that it walked erect upon two legs and surmised that it was some new and strange martian monstrosity with which i had not as yet become acquainted they removed their prisoner to the ground
and then commenced a systematic rifling of the vessel this operation required several hours during which time a number of the chariots were requisitioned to transport the loot which consisted in arms ammunition silks furs jewels strangely carved stone vessels
and a quantity of solid foods and liquids including many casks of water the first i had seen since my advent upon mars
after the last load had been removed the warriors made lines fast to the craft and towed her far out into the valley in a southwesterly direction a few of them then boarded her and were busily engaged in what appeared from my distant position
as the emptying of the contents of various carboys upon the dead bodies of the sailors and over the decks and works of the vessel this operation concluded they hastily clambered over her sides sliding down the guy ropes to the ground
the last warrior to leave the deck turned and threw something back upon the vessel waiting an instant to note the outcome of his act as a faint spurt of flame rose from the point where the missile struck he swung over the side and was quickly upon the ground
and the great warship lightened by the removal of the loot soared majestically into the air her decks and upper works a mass of roaring flames slowly she drifted to the southeast rising higher and higher as the flames ate away her wooden parts
and diminished the weight upon her ascending to the roof of the building i watched her for hours until finally she was lost in the dim vistas of the distance the sight was awe inspiring in the extreme as one contemplated this mighty floating funeral pyre
drifting unguided and unmanned through the lonely wastes of the martian heavens a derelict of death and destruction typifying the life story of these strange and ferocious creatures into whose unfriendly hands fate had carried it
much depressed and to me unaccountably so i slowly descended to the street the scene i had witnessed seemed to mark the defeat and annihilation of the forces of a kindred people
rather than the routing by our green warriors of a horde of similar though unfriendly creatures i could not fathom the seeming hallucination nor could i free myself from it but somewhere in the innermost recesses of my soul i felt a strange yearning toward these unknown foemen
and a mighty hope surged through me that the fleet would return and demand a reckoning from the green warriors who had so ruthlessly and wantonly attacked it close at my heel in his now accustomed place followed woola the hound
and as i emerged upon the street sola rushed up to me as though i had been the object of some search on her part the cavalcade was returning to the plaza the homeward march having been given up for that day nor in fact was it recommenced for more than a week
owing to the fear of a return attack by the air craft lorquas ptomel was too astute an old warrior to be caught upon the open plains with a caravan of chariots and children and so we remained at the deserted city until the danger seemed passed
as sola and i entered the plaza a sight met my eyes which filled my whole being with a great surge of mingled hope fear exultation and depression and yet most dominant was a subtle sense of relief and happiness
and the sight which met my eyes was that of a slender girlish figure similar in every detail to the earthly women of my past life she did not see me at first but just as she was disappearing through the portal of the building which was to be her prison she turned
and her eyes met mine her face was oval and beautiful in the extreme her every feature was finely chiseled and exquisite her eyes large and lustrous and her head surmounted by a mass of coal black waving hair
her skin was of a light reddish copper color against which the crimson glow of her cheeks and the ruby of her beautifully molded lips shone with a strangely enhancing effect she was as destitute of clothes as the green martians who accompanied her
indeed save for her highly wrought ornaments she was entirely naked nor could any apparel have enhanced the beauty of her perfect and symmetrical figure as her gaze rested on me her eyes opened wide in astonishment and she made a little sign with her free hand
a sign which i did not of course understand just a moment we gazed upon each other and then the look of hope and renewed courage which had glorified her face as she discovered me faded into one of utter dejection mingled with loathing and contempt
i realized i had not answered her signal and ignorant as i was of martian customs i intuitively felt that she had made an appeal for succor and protection which my unfortunate ignorance had prevented me from answering
a sense of delicious dreaminess overcame me my muscles relaxed and i was on the point of giving way to my desire to sleep when the sound of approaching horses reached my ears
i attempted to spring to my feet but was horrified to discover that my muscles refused to respond to my will i was now thoroughly awake but as unable to move a muscle as though turned to stone it was then for the first time
that i noticed a slight vapor filling the cave it was extremely tenuous and only noticeable against the opening which led to daylight there also came to my nostrils a faintly pungent odor and i could only assume that i had been overcome by some poisonous gas
but why i should retain my mental faculties and yet be unable to move i could not fathom i lay facing the opening of the cave and where i could see the short stretch of trail which lay between the cave and the turn of the cliff around which the trail led
the noise of the approaching horses had ceased and i judged the indians were creeping stealthily upon me along the little ledge which led to my living tomb i remember that i hoped they would make short work of me
as i did not particularly relish the thought of the innumerable things they might do to me if the spirit prompted them i had not long to wait before a stealthy sound apprised me of their nearness and then a war bonneted paint streaked face was thrust cautiously around the shoulder of the cliff
and savage eyes looked into mine that he could see me in the dim light of the cave i was sure for the early morning sun was falling full upon me through the opening the fellow instead of approaching merely stood and stared
his eyes bulging and his jaw dropped and then another savage face appeared and a third and fourth and fifth craning their necks over the shoulders of their fellows whom they could not pass upon the narrow ledge
each face was the picture of awe and fear but for what reason i did not know nor did i learn until ten years later that there were still other braves behind those who regarded me was apparent from the fact that the leaders passed back whispered word to those behind them
suddenly a low but distinct moaning sound issued from the recesses of the cave behind me and as it reached the ears of the indians they turned and fled in terror panic stricken so frantic were their efforts to escape from the unseen thing behind me
that one of the braves was hurled headlong from the cliff to the rocks below their wild cries echoed in the canyon for a short time and then all was still once more the sound which had frightened them was not repeated
but it had been sufficient as it was to start me speculating on the possible horror which lurked in the shadows at my back fear is a relative term and so i can only measure my feelings at that time by what i had experienced in previous positions of danger and by those that i have passed through since
but i can say without shame that if the sensations i endured during the next few minutes were fear then may god help the coward for cowardice is of a surety its own punishment to be held paralyzed
with one's back toward some horrible and unknown danger from the very sound of which the ferocious apache warriors turn in wild stampede as a flock of sheep would madly flee from a pack of wolves seems to me the last word in fearsome predicaments
for a man who had ever been used to fighting for his life with all the energy of a powerful physique several times i thought i heard faint sounds behind me as of somebody moving cautiously but eventually even these ceased
and i was left to the contemplation of my position without interruption i could but vaguely conjecture the cause of my paralysis and my only hope lay in that it might pass off as suddenly as it had fallen upon me
late in the afternoon my horse which had been standing with dragging rein before the cave started slowly down the trail evidently in search of food and water and i was left alone with my mysterious unknown companion and the dead body of my friend
which lay just within my range of vision upon the ledge where i had placed it in the early morning from then until possibly midnight all was silence the silence of the dead then suddenly the awful moan of the morning broke upon my startled ears
and there came again from the black shadows the sound of a moving thing and a faint rustling as of dead leaves the shock to my already overstrained nervous system was terrible in the extreme and with a superhuman effort i strove to break my awful bonds
it was an effort of the mind of the will of the nerves not muscular for i could not move even so much as my little finger but none the less mighty for all that and then something gave there was a momentary feeling of nausea
facing my unknown foe and then the moonlight flooded the cave
with the eyes staring toward the open ledge and the hands resting limply upon the ground i looked first at my lifeless clay there upon the floor of the cave and then down at myself in utter bewilderment for there i lay clothed
and yet here i stood but naked as at the minute of my birth the transition had been so sudden and so unexpected that it left me for a moment forgetful of aught else than my strange metamorphosis my first thought was
is this then death have i indeed passed over forever into that other life but i could not well believe this as i could feel my heart pounding against my ribs from the exertion of my efforts to release myself from the anaesthesis which had held me
my breath was coming in quick short gasps cold sweat stood out from every pore of my body and the ancient experiment of pinching revealed the fact that i was anything other than a wraith
i had no desire to face the unseen thing which menaced me my revolvers were strapped to my lifeless body which for some unfathomable reason i could not bring myself to touch my carbine was in its boot strapped to my saddle
and as my horse had wandered off i was left without means of defense my only alternative seemed to lie in flight
in the darkness of the cave and to my distorted imagination to be creeping stealthily upon me unable longer to resist the temptation to escape this horrible place i leaped quickly through the opening into the starlight of a clear arizona night
the crisp fresh mountain air outside the cave acted as an immediate tonic and i felt new life and new courage coursing through me pausing upon the brink of the ledge i upbraided myself for what now seemed to me wholly unwarranted apprehension
i reasoned with myself that i had lain helpless for many hours within the cave
convinced me that the noises i had heard must have resulted from purely natural and harmless causes
i decided to investigate but first i lifted my head to fill my lungs with the pure invigorating night air of the mountains as i did so i saw stretching far below me the beautiful vista of rocky gorge and level cacti studded flat
wrought by the moonlight into a miracle of soft splendor and wondrous enchantment few western wonders are more inspiring than the beauties of an arizona moonlit landscape the silvered mountains in the distance
the strange lights and shadows upon hog back and arroyo and the grotesque details of the stiff yet beautiful cacti form a picture at once enchanting and inspiring as though one were catching for the first time a glimpse of some dead and forgotten world
so different is it from the aspect of any other spot upon our earth as i stood thus meditating i turned my gaze from the landscape to the heavens where the myriad stars formed a gorgeous and fitting canopy for the wonders of the earthly scene
my attention was quickly riveted by a large red star close to the distant horizon as i gazed upon it i felt a spell of overpowering fascination it was mars the god of war
as i gazed at it on that far gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable void to lure me to it to draw me as the lodestone attracts a particle of iron my longing was beyond the power of opposition
i closed my eyes stretched out my arms toward the god of my vocation and felt myself drawn with the suddenness of thought through the trackless immensity of space
without it the cruelties of god would strain faith to the breaking point but outside the fold it is gradually falling into decay
such men of science as george w crile and jacques loeb have dealt it staggering blows and among laymen of inquiring mind it seems to be giving way to an apologetic sort of determinism
a determinism one may say tempered by defective observation the late mark twain in his secret heart was such a determinist in his what is man
you will find him at his farewells to libertarianism the vast majority of our acts he argues are determined but there remains a residuum of free choices
here we stand free of compulsion and face a pair or more of alternatives and are free to go this way or that a pillow for free will to fall upon
but one loaded with disconcerting brickbats where the occupants of this last trench of libertarianism err is in their assumption that the pulls of their antagonistic impulses are exactly equal
that the individual is absolutely free to choose which one he will yield to such freedom in practise is never encountered when an individual confronts alternatives
it is not alone his volition that chooses between them but also his environment his inherited prejudices his race his color his condition of servitude
i may kiss a girl or i may not kiss her but surely it would be absurd to say that i am in any true sense a free agent in the matter
the world has even put my helplessness into a proverb it says that my decision and act depend upon the time the place and even to some extent upon the girl
examples might be multiplied ad infinitum i can scarcely remember performing a wholly voluntary act my whole life as i look back upon it
seems to be a long series of inexplicable accidents not only quite unavoidable but even quite unintelligible
its history is the history of the reactions of my personality to my environment of my behavior before external stimuli i have been no more responsible for that personality
than i have been for that environment to say that i can change the former by a voluntary effort is as ridiculous as to say that i can modify the curvature of the lenses of my eyes i know
because i have often tried to change it and always failed nevertheless it has changed i am not the same man i was in the last century
but the gratifying improvements so plainly visible are surely not to be credited to me all of them came from without or from unplumbable and uncontrollable depths within
the more the matter is examined the more the residuum of free will shrinks and shrinks until in the end it is almost impossible to find it
a great many men of course looking at themselves see it as something very large they slap their chests and call themselves free agents and demand that god reward them for their virtue
but these fellows are simply idiotic egoists devoid of a critical sense they mistake the acts of god for their own acts of such sort are the coxcombs who boast about wooing and winning their wives
they are brothers to the fox who boasted that he had made the hounds run the throwing overboard of free will is commonly denounced on the ground that it subverts morality and makes of religion a mocking
such pious objections of course are foreign to logic but nevertheless it may be well to give a glance to this one it is based upon the fallacious hypothesis that the determinist escapes
or hopes to escape the consequences of his acts nothing could be more untrue consequences follow acts just as relentlessly if the latter be involuntary as if they be voluntary
if i rob a bank of my free choice or in response to some unfathomable inner necessity it is all one i will go to the same jail
conscripts in war are killed just as often as volunteers men who are tracked down and shanghaied by their wives have just as hard a time of it
as men who walk fatuously into the trap by formally proposing even on the ghostly side determinism does not do much damage to theology
it is no harder to believe that a man will be damned for his involuntary acts than it is to believe that he will be damned for his voluntary acts for even the supposition that he is wholly free
does not dispose of the massive fact that god made him as he is
to deny this is to flout omnipotence a crime at which as i have often said i balk but here
i begin to fear that i wade too far into the hot waters of the sacred sciences and that i had better retire before i lose my hide this prudent retirement is purely deterministic
i do not ascribe it to my own sagacity i ascribe it wholly to that singular kindness which fate always shows me if i were free i'd probably keep on and then regret it afterward
all great religions in order to escape absurdity have to admit a dilution of agnosticism it is only the savage whether of the african bush or the american gospel tent
who pretends to know the will and intent of god exactly and completely for who hath known the mind of the lord asked paul of the romans how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out
it is the glory of god said solomon to conceal a thing clouds and darkness said david are around him no man said the preacher can find out the work of god the difference between religions
the philosophy of doubt is far more comforting than that of hope the doubter escapes the worst penalty of the man of hope he is never disappointed and hence never indignant
the inexplicable and irremediable may interest him but they do not enrage him or i may add fool him
this immunity is worth all the dubious assurances ever foisted upon man it is pragmatically impregnable moreover it makes for tolerance and sympathy
the doubter does not hate his opponents he sympathizes with them in the end he may even come to sympathize with god
the old idea of fatherhood here submerges in a new idea of brotherhood god too is beset by limitations difficulties broken hopes
is it disconcerting to think of him thus well is it any the less disconcerting to think of him as able to ease and answer and yet failing but he that doubteth
at once the penalty of doubt and its proof excuse and genesis
a salient objection to the prevailing religious ceremonial lies in the attitudes of abasement that it enforces upon the faithful a man would be thought a slimy and knavish fellow
if he approached any human judge or potentate in the manner provided for approaching the lord god it is an etiquette that involves loss of self respect and hence
it cannot be pleasing to its object for one cannot think of the lord god as sacrificing decent feelings to mere vanity this notion of abasement
like most of the other ideas that are general in the world is obviously the invention of small and ignoble men it is the pollution of theology by the sklavmoral
ritual is to religion what the music of an opera is to the libretto ostensibly a means of interpretation but actually a means of concealment
the presbyterians made the mistake of keeping the doctrine of infant damnation in plain words as enlightenment grew in the world intelligence and prudery revolted against it
and so it had to be abandoned had it been set to music it would have survived uncomprehended unsuspected and unchallenged
poi cristiani i have spoken of the possibility that god too may suffer from a finite intelligence and so know the bitter sting of disappointment and defeat
here i yielded something to politeness the thing is not only possible but obvious like man god is deceived by appearances and probabilities
he makes calculations that do not work out he falls into specious assumptions for example he assumed that adam and eve would obey the law in the garden again
he assumed that the appalling lesson of the flood would make men better yet again he assumed that men would always put religion in first place among their concerns
that it would be eternally possible to reach and influence them through it this last assumption was the most erroneous of them all the truth is that the generality of men
when we encounter one who still does so he seems eccentric almost feeble minded or more commonly a rogue who has been deluded by his own hypocrisy
even men who are professionally religious and who thus have far more incentive to stick to religion than the rest of us nearly always throw it overboard at the first serious temptation
during the past four years for example christianity has been in combat with patriotism all over christendom which has prevailed how many gentlemen of god
have actually chosen christ
on again the ostensible object of the reformation which lately reached its fourth centenary was to purge the church of imbecilities that object was accomplished
the church shook them off but imbecilities make an irresistible appeal to man he inevitably tries to preserve them by cloaking them with religious sanctions the result is protestantism
theology the notion that theology is a dull subject is one of the strangest delusions of a stupid and uncritical age
the truth is that some of the most engrossing books ever written in the world are full of it for example the gospel according to saint luke for example nietzsche's der antichrist
for example mark twain's what is man saint augustine's confessions haeckel's the riddle of the universe and huxley's essays how indeed could a thing be dull
that has sent hundreds of thousands of men the very best and the very worst of the race to the gallows and the stake and made and broken dynasties
and inspired the greatest of human hopes and enterprises and embroiled whole continents in war no theology is not a soporific the reason it so often seems so
is that its public exposition has chiefly fallen in these later days into the hands of a sect of intellectual castrati who begin by mistaking it for a sub department of etiquette
and then proceed to anoint it with butter rose water and talcum powder whenever a first rate intellect tackles it as in the case of huxley or in that of leo
it at once takes on all the sinister fascination it had in luther's day
do i let the poor suffer and consign them as old friedrich used to say to statistics and the devil well
herbert spencer's objection to swearing of which so much has been made by moralists was not an objection to its sinfulness but an objection to its charm in brief
he feared comfort satisfaction joy
good eating good drinking dancing tobacco poker poetry the theatre personal adornment philandering adultery
he was insanely suspicious of everything that threatened to interfere with his work even when that work halted him by the sheer agony of its monotony and it became necessary for him to find recreation
he sought out some recreation that was as unattractive as possible in the hope that it would quickly drive him back to work again having to choose between methods of locomotion on his holidays
he chose going afoot the most laborious and least satisfying available brought to bay by his human need for a woman he directed his fancy toward george eliot
probably the most unappetizing woman of his race and time drawn irresistibly to music he avoided the fifth symphony
and joined a crowd of old maids singing part songs around a cottage piano john tyndall saw clearly the effect of all this and protested against it saying he'd be a much nicer fellow if he had a good swear now and then
if he let go now and then
but what tyndall overlooked was the fact that the meagreness of his recreations was the very element that attracted spencer to them
that he would not live long enough to complete his work he regarded all joy as a temptation a corruption a sin of scarlet he was a true ascetic
he could sacrifice all things of the present for one thing of the future all things real for one thing ideal
lying stands on a different plane from all other moral offenses not because it is intrinsically more heinous or less heinous but simply because it is the only one that may be accurately measured
forgetting unwitting error which has nothing to do with morals a statement is either true or not true this is a simple distinction and relatively easy to establish but when one comes to other derelictions
the thing grows more complicated the line between stealing and not stealing is beautifully vague whether or not one has crossed it is not determined by the objective act but by such delicate things as motive and purpose
so again with assault sex offenses and even murder there may be surrounding circumstances which greatly condition the moral quality of the actual act but lying is specific exact scientific
its capacity for precise determination indeed makes its presence or non presence the only accurate gauge of other immoral acts murder for example
is nowhere regarded as immoral save it involve some repudiation of a social compact of a tacit promise to refrain from it in brief some deceit some perfidy some lie one may kill freely
when the pact is formally broken as in war one may kill equally freely when it is broken by the victim as in an assault by a highwayman but one may not kill so long as it is not broken
and one may not break it to clear the way some form of lie is at the bottom of all other recognized crimes from seduction to embezzlement curiously enough
this master immorality of them all is not prohibited by the ten commandments nor is it penalized in its pure form by the code of any civilized nation only savages have laws against lying
it is the misfortune of humanity that its history is chiefly written by third rate men the first rate man seldom has any impulse to record and philosophise his impulse is to act
life to him is an adventure not a syllogism or an autopsy thus the writing of history is left to college professors moralists theorists dunder heads
few historians great or small have shown any capacity for the affairs they presume to describe and interpret gibbon was an inglorious failure as a member of parliament
that he was exiled from athens for twenty years and finally assassinated flavius josephus serving as governor of galilee lost the whole province to the romans and had to flee for his life momssen
elected to the prussian landtag flirted with the socialists how much better we would understand the habits and nature of man if there were more historians like julius caesar or even like niccolo machiavelli
remembering the sharp and devastating character of their rough notes think what marvelous histories bismarck washington and frederick the great might have written such men are privy to the facts
the usual historians have to depend on deductions rumors guesses again such men know how to tell the truth however unpleasant
they are wholly free of that puerile moral obsession which marks the professor but they so seldom tell it well perhaps some of them have and their penalty is that they are damned and forgotten
a civilized man's worst curse is social obligation the most unpleasant act imaginable is to go to a dinner party one could get far better food
taking one day with another at childs or even in a pennsylvania railroad dining car one could find far more amusing society in a bar room or a bordello or even at the y m c a
no hostess in christendom ever arranged a dinner party of any pretensions without including at least one intensely disagreeable person a vain and vapid girl a hideous woman a follower of baseball
a stock broker a veteran of some war or other a gabbler of politics and one is enough to do the business
eugenics the error of the eugenists lies in the assumption that a physically healthy man is the best fitted to survive this is true of rats and the pediculae
in these higher animals one looks for more subtle qualities chiefly of the spirit
over which eugenists raise such a pother are surely not the worst curses that mankind has to bear some of the greatest men in history have had them whole nations have had them and survived the truth about them
is that save in relatively rare cases they do very little damage the horror in which they are held is chiefly a moral horror and its roots lie in the assumption that they cannot be contracted without sin
nothing could be more false many great moralists have suffered from them the gods are always up to such sardonic waggeries moreover only one of them is actually inheritable
and that one is transmitted relatively seldom but among psychic characters one finds that practically all are inheritable for example stupidity credulity avarice pecksniffery
lack of imagination hatred of beauty meanness poltroonry petty brutality smallness of soul i here present of course the puritan complex there flashes up the image of the good man
consider him well if you had to choose a sire for a first rate son would you choose a consumptive jew with the fires of eternity in his eyes or an iowa right thinker with his hold full of bibles and breakfast food
what humor could be wilder than that of life itself franz schubert on his deathbed read the complete works of j fenimore cooper
and wore a celluloid collar richard wagner made a living during four lean years arranging italian opera arias for the cornet
war seems inordinately cruel and wasteful and yet it must be plain on reflection that the natural evolutionary process is quite as cruel and even more wasteful
man's chief efforts in times of peace are devoted to making that process less violent and sanguinary civilization indeed may be defined as a constructive criticism of nature and huxley even called it a conspiracy against nature
man tries to remedy what must inevitably seem the mistakes and to check what must inevitably seem the wanton cruelty of the creator in war man abandons these efforts and so becomes more jovian
mister edward garnett has recently collected his prefaces to the novels and stories of turgenev and refashioned them into a book in praise of the genius of the most charming of russian authors i am afraid the word charming has lost so much of its stamp and brightness with use
but we apply it to turgenev in its fullest sense we call him charming as pater called athens charming he is one of those authors whose books we love because they reveal a personality sensitive affectionate pitiful
there are some persons who when they come into a room immediately make us feel happier turgenev seems to come into the room in his books with just such a welcome presence that is why i wish mister garnett had made his book a biographical as well as a critical study
he quotes turgenev as saying all my life is in my books still there are a great many facts recorded about him in the letters and reminiscences of those who knew him and he was known in half the countries of europe out of which we can construct a portrait
one finds in the life of sir charles dilke for instance that dilke considered turgenev in the front rank as a conversationalist this opinion interested one all the more because one had come to think of turgenev as something of a shy giant
i remember too reading in some french book a description of turgenev as a strange figure in the literary circles of paris a large figure with a curious chastity of mind who seemed bewildered by some of the barbarous jests of civilized men of genius
there are indeed as i have said plenty of suggestions for a portrait of turgenev quite apart from his novels mister garnett refers to some of them in two excellent biographical chapters
to his contemporaries and rivals as when he introduced the work of tolstoy to a french editor listen
here is copy for your paper of an absolutely first rate kind
the master for he is a real master is almost unknown in france but i assure you on my soul and conscience that i do not consider myself worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoes the letter he addressed to tolstoy from his death bed
urging him to return from propaganda to literature is famous but it is a thing to which one always returns fondly as an example of the noble disinterestedness of a great man of letters i cannot recover turgenev wrote
that is out of the question i am writing to you specially to say how glad i am to be your contemporary and to express my last and sincere request my friend return to literary activity that gift came to you whence comes all the rest
ah how happy i should be if i could think my request would have an effect on you
it is wearisome even to repeat it all my friend great writer of our russian land listen to my request i can write no more i am tired one sometimes wonders how tolstoy and dostoevsky could ever have quarrelled with a friend
of so beautiful a character as turgenev
they were both men of action in literature militant and by nature propagandist and probably turgenev was as impatient with the faults of their strength as they were with the faults of his weakness he was a man whom it was possible to disgust
though he was zola's friend he complained that l'assommoir left a bad taste in the mouth similarly he discovered something almost sadistic in the manner in which dostoevsky let his imagination dwell on scenes of cruelty and horror
and he was as strongly repelled by dostoevsky's shrieking pan slavism as by his sensationalism among horrors one can guess exactly the frame of mind he was in when in the course of an argument with dostoevsky he said you see i consider myself a german
this has been quoted against turgenev as though he meant it literally and as though it were a confession of denationalization his words were more subtle than that in their irony what they meant was simply if to be a russian is to be a bigot
like most of you pan slav enthusiasts then i am no russian but a european has he not put the whole gospel of nationalism in half a dozen sentences in rudin he refused however to adopt along with his nationalism the narrowness with which it has been too often associated
he had that sense of truth which always upsets the orthodox this sense of truth applied to the portraiture of his contemporaries was felt like an insult in those circles of mixed idealism and make believe the circles of the political partisans a great artist may be a member
of a political party but in his art he cannot become a political partisan without ceasing to be an artist in his novels turgenev regarded it as his life work to portray russia truthfully not to paint and powder
and prettify it for show purposes and the result was an outburst of fury on the part of those who were asked to look at themselves as real people
when fathers and children was published in eighteen sixty two
i received congratulations he wrote almost caresses from people of the opposite camp from enemies this confused me wounded me but my conscience did not reproach me
i knew very well i had carried out honestly the type i had sketched carried it out not only without prejudice but positively with sympathy this is bound to be the fate of every artist who takes his political party or his church
or any other propagandist group to which he belongs as his subject he is a painter not a vindicator and he is compelled to exhibit numerous crooked features and faults in such a way as to wound the vanity of his friends and delight the malice of his enemies
artistic truth is as different from propagandist truth as daylight from limelight and the artist will always be hated by the propagandist as worse than an enemy a treacherous friend turgenev deliberately accepted as his life work
a course which could only lead to the miseries of being misunderstood when one thinks of the long years of denunciation and hatred he endured for the sake of his art one cannot but regard him as one of the heroic figures of the nineteenth century
he has mister garnett tells us been accused of timidity and cowardice by uncompromising radicals and revolutionaries in an access of self reproach he once declared that his character was comprised in one word
he showed neither timidity nor cowardice however in his devotion to truth his first and last advice to young writers mister garnett declares was you need truth remorseless truth as regards your own sensations
and if turgenev was remorseless in nothing else he was remorseless in this truth as regards both his own sensations and the sensations of his contemporaries
he seems if we may judge from a sentence he wrote about fathers and children to have regarded himself almost as the first realist it was a new method he said as well as a new type i introduced that of realizing instead of idealizing
his claim has at least this truth in it he was the first artist to apply the realistic method to a world seething with ideas and with political and philosophical unrest
his adoption of the realistic method however was the result of necessity no less than of choice he simply did not know how to work otherwise as he said he had not the sort of imagination that can invent men and women easily he had always to draw from the life
i ought to confess he once wrote that i never attempted to create a type without having not an idea but a living person in whom the various elements were harmonized together to work from
i have always needed some groundwork on which i could tread firmly when one has praised turgenev however for the beauty of his character and the beautiful truth of his art one remembers that he too was human and therefore less than perfect
his chief failing was perhaps that of all the great artists he was the most lacking in exuberance that is why he began to be scorned in a world which rated exuberance higher than beauty or love or pity
the world before the war was afraid above all things of losing vitality and so it turned to contortionists of genius such as dostoevsky or lesser contortionists like some of the futurists for fear restfulness should lead to death
it would be foolish i know to pretend to sum up dostoevsky as a contortionist but he has that element in him mister conrad suggests a certain vice of misshapenness in dostoevsky when he praises the characters of turgenev in comparison with his
all his creations fortunate or unfortunate oppressed and oppressors he says in his fine tribute to turgenev in mister garnett's book are human beings not strange beasts in a menagerie
or damned souls knocking themselves about in the stuffy darkness of mystical contradictions that is well said on the other hand it is only right to remember that if turgenev's characters are human beings
he understood the hamlet in man almost too well from rudin to the young revolutionist in virgin soil who makes such a mess of his propaganda among the peasantry how many of his characters are as remarkable for their weakness as their unsuccess
turgenev was probably conscious of this pessimism of imagination in regard to his fellow man at least his russian fellow man in on the eve when he wished to create a central character that would act as an appeal to his countrymen to
conquer their sluggishness their weakness and apathy as mister garnett puts it he had to choose a bulgarian not a russian for his hero mister garnett holds that the characterization of insarov the bulgarian in on the eve is a failure
and puts this down to the fact that turgenev drew him not from life but from hearsay i think mister garnett is wrong i have known the counterpart of insarov among the members of at least one subject nation and the portrait seems to me to be essentially true and alive
luckily if turgenev could not put his trust in russian men he believed with all his heart in the courage and goodness of russian women he was one of the first great novelists to endow his women with independence of soul
with the majority of novelists women are sexual or sentimental accidents with turgenev women are equal human beings saviours of men and saviours of the world
virgin soil becomes a book of hope instead of despair as the triumphant figure of marianna the young girl of the revolution conquers the imagination turgenev as a creator of noble women ranks with browning and meredith
his realism was not in the last analysis a realism of disparagement but a realism of affection his farewell words mister garnett tells us were live and love others
it is the custom when praising a russian writer to do so at the expense of all other russian writers it is as though most of us were monotheists in our devotion to authors and could not endure to see any respect paid to the rivals of the god of the moment
and so one year tolstoy is laid prone as dagon and another year turgenev and no doubt the day will come when dostoevsky will fall from his huge eminence perhaps the luckiest of all the russian authors in this respect is tchehov
he is so obviously not a god he does not deliver messages to us from the mountain top like tolstoy or reveal himself beautifully in sunset and star like turgenev or announce himself now in the hurricane and now in the thunderstorm like dostoevsky
he is a man and a medical doctor he pays professional visits we may define his genius more exactly by saying that his is a general practice there has i think never been so wonderful an examination of common people in literature
as in the short stories of tchehov his world is thronged with the average man and the average woman other writers have also put ordinary people into books they have written plays longer than hamlet and novels longer than don quixote about ordinary people
they have piled such a heap of details on the ordinary man's back as almost to squash him out of existence in the result the reader as well as the ordinary man has a sense of oppression he begins to long for the restoration of the big subject to literature
henry james complained of the littleness of the subject in madame bovary he regarded it as one of the miracles of art that so great a book should have been written about so small a woman tom jones on the other hand is a portrait of a common man of the size of which few people complain
but then tom jones is a comedy and we enjoy the continual relief of laughter it is the tragic realists for whom the common man is a theme so perilous in its temptations to dullness at the same time he is a theme that they were bound to treat
he is himself indeed the sole source and subject of tragic realism in literature were it not for the oppression of his futile and philoprogenitive presence imaginative writers would be poets and romancers
is how to portray ordinary people in such a way that they will become better company than they are in life
he sees for one thing that no man is uninteresting when he is seen as a person stumbling towards some goal just as no man is uninteresting when his hat is blown off and he has to scuttle after it down the street there is bound to be a break in the meanest life
he does not run sympathy as a stunt like so many popular novelists he sympathizes merely in the sense that he understands in his heart as well as in his brain
he has the most unbiassed attitude i think of any author in the world mister edward garnett in his introduction to missus garnett's translation of tchehov's tales speaks admirably of his profundity of acceptation
there is no writer who is less inclined to use italics in his record of human life perhaps mister garnett goes too far when he says that tchehov stands close to all his characters watching them quietly and registering their circumstances
and feelings with such finality that to pass judgment on them appears supererogatory tchehov's judgment is at times clear enough as clear as if it followed a summing up from the bench
but the portrait itself is the judgment his humour makes him tolerant
his attitude to a large part of life might be described as one of good natured disgust in one of the newly translated stories
it is a sensitive man's picture of a woman who was even more greedy than beautiful this thirst for personal success makes people cold and ariadne was cold to me to nature and to music
tchehov extends towards her so little charity that he makes her run away to italy with a bourgeois who had a neck like goose skin and a big adam's apple and who as he talked breathed hard breathing straight in my face and smelling of boiled beef
as the more sensitive lover who supplanted the bourgeois looks back her incessant gluttony is
she would sleep every day till two or three o'clock she had her coffee and lunch in bed at dinner she would eat soup lobster fish meat asparagus game and after she had gone to bed i used to bring up something for instance roast beef
and she would eat it with a melancholy careworn expression and if she waked in the night she would eat apples or oranges the story it is only fair to say is given in the words of a lover dissatisfied with lust
and the judgment may therefore be regarded as the lover's rather than as tchehov's tchehov sets down the judgment however in a mood of acute perceptiveness of everything that is jarring and vulgar in sexual vanity
ariadne's desire to please is never permitted to please us as say beatrix esmond's is her will to fascinate does not fascinate
she waked up every morning with the one thought of pleasing it was the aim and object of her life if i told her that in such a house in such a street there lived a man who was not attracted by her it would have caused her real suffering
she wanted every day to enchant to captivate to drive men crazy the fact that i was in her power and reduced to a complete nonentity before her charms gave her the same sort of satisfaction that victors used to get in tournaments
she had an extraordinary opinion of her own charms she imagined that if somewhere in some great assembly men could have seen how beautifully she was made and the colour of her skin she would have vanquished all italy the whole world
her talk of her figure of her skin offended me and observing this she would when she was angry say all sorts of vulgar things taunting me a few strokes of cruelty are added to the portrait even at a good humoured moment
she could always insult a servant or kill an insect without a pang she liked bull fights liked to read about murders and was angry when prisoners were acquitted as one reads ariadne one feels that those who say the artist is not a judge are in error
what he must avoid becoming is a prosecuting perhaps even a defending counsel egoism seems to be the quality which offends tchehov most he is no more in love with it when it masquerades as virtue than when it parades as vice
an artist's story a beautiful sad story which might almost have been written by turgenev contains a fine critical portrait of a woman absorbed in the egoism of good works
she is always looking after the poor serving on committees full of enthusiasm for nursing and education she lacks only that charity of the heart which loves human beings not because they are poor but because they are human beings
she is by nature a boss she bosses her mother and her younger sister and when the artist falls in love with the latter the stronger will of the woman of high principles immediately separates lovers so frivolous that they had never sat on a committee in their lives
when the evening after the artist confesses his love he waits for the girl to come to him in the garden of her house he waits in vain he goes into the house to look for her but does not find her
god sent a crow she said in a loud emphatic voice probably dictating
a piece of cheese who's there she called suddenly hearing my steps it's i
is ekaterina pavlovna in the garden no she went away with my sister this morning to our aunt in the province of penza and in the winter they will probably go abroad she added after a pause god sent the crow
a piece of cheese have you written it i went into the hall and stared vacantly at the pond and the village and the sound reached me of a piece of cheese god sent the crow a piece of cheese and i went back by the way i had come here for the first time
first from the yard into the garden past the house then into the avenue of lime trees at this point i was overtaken by a small boy who gave me a note i told my sister everything and she insisted on my parting from you i read
i could not wound her by disobeying god will give you happiness forgive me if only you knew how bitterly my mother and i are crying the people who cannot wound others those are the people whose sharp pangs we feel in our breasts as we read the stories of tchehov
the people who wound it is they whom he paints or rather as mister garnett suggests etches with such felicitous and untiring irony but though he often makes his people beautiful in their sorrow
he more often than not sets their sad figures against a common and ugly background
crumpled bed clothes pillows thrown about boots clothes a big filthy slop pail filled with soap suds in which cigarette ends were swimming and the litter on the floor all seemed as though purposely jumbled together in one confusion
and if the surroundings are no more beautiful than those in which a great part of the human race lives neither are the people more beautiful than ordinary people in the trousseau the poor thin girl who spends her life making a trousseau for a marriage that will never take place becomes ridiculous
as she flushes at the entrance of a stranger into her mother's house her long nose which was slightly pitted with small pox turned red first
i do not know if a blush of this sort is possible but the thought of it is distressing
is not half bad to look at but she is ludicrous even when most unselfish and adoring especially when she rubs with eau de cologne her little thin yellow faced coughing husband with the curls combed forward on his forehead and wraps him
in her warm shawls to an accompaniment of endearments you're such a sweet pet she used to say with perfect sincerity stroking his hair you're such a pretty dear thus sympathy and disgust live in a curious harmony in tchehov's stories
and as he seldom allows disgust entirely to drive out sympathy in himself he seldom allows it to do so in his readers either his world may be full of unswept rooms and unwashed men and women
there is no other author who gives so little offence as he shows us offensive things and people he is a writer who desires above all things to see what men and women are really like to extenuate nothing and to set down naught in malice
as a result he is a pessimist but a pessimist who is black without being bitter i know no writer who leaves one with the same vision of men and women as lost sheep we are now apparently to have a complete edition of the tales of tchehov in english from missus garnett
it will deserve a place both for the author's and the translator's sake beside her turgenev and dostoevsky in lifelikeness and graciousness her work as a translator always reaches a high level
for two days the young monk held on paddling and floating rapidly down the nile stream leaving city after city to right and left with longing eyes and looking back to one villa after another till the reaches of the banks hid them from his sight
with many a yearning to know what sort of places those gay buildings and gardens would look like on a nearer view and what sort of life the thousands led who crowded the busy quays and walked and drove in an endless stream along the great highroads which ran along either bank
he carefully avoided every boat that passed him from the gilded barge of the wealthy landlord or merchant to the tiny raft buoyed up with empty jars which was floating down to be sold at some market in the delta here and there he met and hailed a crew of monks
drawing their nets in a quiet bay or passing along the great watery highway from monastery to monastery but all the news he received from them was that the canal of alexandria was still several days journey below him it seemed endless that monotonous vista of the two high clay banks
with their sluices and water wheels their knots of palms and date trees endless seemed that wearisome succession of bars of sand and banks of mud every one like the one before it every one dotted with the same line of logs and stones strewn along the water's edge
which turned out as he approached them to be basking crocodiles and sleeping pelicans his eye wearied with the continual confinement and want of distance longed for the boundless expanse of the desert for the jagged outlines of those far off hills
which he had watched from boyhood rising mysteriously at morn out of the eastern sky and melting mysteriously into it again at even beyond which dwelt a whole world of wonders elephants and dragons satyrs and anthropophagi ay
tired and melancholy his mind returned inward to prey on itself and the last words of arsenius rose again and again to his thoughts was his call of the spirit or of the flesh how should he test that problem he wished to seethe world
that might be carnal true but he wished to convert the world was not that spiritual was he not going on a noble errand thirsting for toil for saintship for martyrdom itself if it would but come and cut the gordian knot of all temptations
and save him for he dimly felt that it would save him a whole sea of trouble in getting safe and triumphant out of that world into which he had not yet entered and his heart shrank back from the untried homeless wilderness before him but no
the die was cast and he must down and onward whether in obedience to the spirit or the flesh oh for one hour of the quiet of that dear laura and the old familiar faces at last
a sudden turn of the bank brought him in sight of a gaudily painted barge oil board of which armed men in uncouth and foreign dresses were chasing with barbaric shouts some large object in the water in the bows stood a man of gigantic stature
brandishing a harpoon in his right hand and in his left holding the line of a second the head of which was fixed in the huge purple sides of a hippopotamus who foamed and wallowed a few yards down the stream an old grizzled warrior at the stern
with a rudder in either hand kept the boat's head continually towards the monster in spite of its sudden and frantic wheelings and when it dashed madly across the stream
all was activity and excitement and it was no wonder if philammon's curiosity had tempted him to drift down almost abreast of the barge ere he descried peeping from under a decorated awning in the afterpart some dozen pairs of languishing black eyes
turned alternately to the game and to himself the serpents chattering and smiling with pretty little shrieks and shaking of glossy curls and gold necklaces and fluttering of muslin dresses within a dozen yards of him blushing scarlet
he knew not why he seized his paddle and tried to back out of the snare but somehow his very efforts to escape those sparkling eyes diverted his attention from everything else the hippopotamus had caught sight of him and furious with pain
rushed straight at the unoffending canoe the harpoon line became entangled round his body
he and his frail bark were overturned and the monster with his huge white tusks gaping wide close on him as he struggled in the stream luckily philammon contrary to the wont of monks was a bather and swam like a water fowl
fear he had never known death from childhood had been to him as to the other inmates of the laura a contemplation too perpetual to have any paralysing terror in it even then when life seemed just about to open on him anew but the monk was a man
and a young one and had no intention of dying tamely or unavenged
drawn the short knife which was his only weapon and diving suddenly avoided the monster's rush and attacked him from behind with stabs
the barbarians shouted with delight the hippopotamus turned furiously against his new assailant crushing alas the empty canoe to fragments with a single snap of his enormous jaws but the turn was fatal to him
the barge was close upon him and as he presented his broad side to the blow the sinewy arm of the giant drove a harpoon through his heart and with one convulsive shudder the huge blue mass turned over on its side and floated dead poor philammon
he alone was silent amid the yells of triumph sorrowfully he swam round and round his little paper wreck it would not have floated a mouse wistfully
half minded to strike out for them and escape and thought of the crocodiles and paddled round again and thought of the basilisk eyes he might escape the crocodiles but who could escape women and he struck out valiantly for shore
when he was brought to a sudden stop by finding the stem of the barge close on him a noose thrown over him by some friendly barbarian and himself hauled on board amid the laughter praise astonishment and grumbling of the good natured crew
to avail himself at once of their help and could not conceive the cause of his reluctance philammon gazed with wonder on his strange hosts their pale complexions globular heads and faces high cheek bones tall and sturdy figures
their red beards and yellow hair knotted fantastically above the head their awkward dresses half roman or egyptian and half of foreign fur soiled and stained in many a storm and fight but tastelessly bedizened with classic jewels
brooches and roman coins strung like necklaces only the steersman who had come forward to wonder at the hippopotamus and to help in dragging the unwieldy brute on board seemed to keep genuine and unornamented the costume of his race the white linen leggings
the bears' fur cloak the only ornaments of which were the fangs and claws of the beast itself and a fringe of grizzled tufts which looked but too like human hair the language which they spoke was utterly unintelligible to philammon
though it need not be so to us a well grown lad and a brave one wulf the son of ovida said the giant to the old hero of the bearskin cloak and understands wearing skins in this furnace mouth of a climate rather better than you do
i keep to the dress of my forefathers amalric the amal what did to sack rome in may do to find asgard in
in a sort of mongrel mixture of the roman military and civil dress his neck wreathed with a dozen gold chains and every finger sparkling with jewels turned away with an impatient sneer
you had better ask the fellow how far it is thither wulf took him quietly at his word and addressed a question to the young monk which he could only answer by a shake of the head ask him in greek man greek is a slave's tongue make a slave talk to him in it not me
here some of you girls
you understand this fellow's talk ask him how far it is to asgard you must ask me more civilly my rough hero replied a soft voice from underneath the awning beauty must be sued and not commanded
come then my olive tree my gazelle my lotus flower my what was the last nonsense you taught me
asgard the awning was raised and lying luxuriously on a soft mattress fanned with peacock's feathers and glittering with rubies and topazes appeared such a vision as philammon had never seen before
a woman of some two and twenty summers formed in the most voluptuous mould of grecian beauty whose complexion showed every violet vein through its veil of luscious brown her little bare feet as they dimpled the cushions were more perfect than aphrodite's
softer than a swan's bosom every swell of her bust and arms showed through the thin gauze robe while her lower limbs were wrapped in a shawl of orange silk embroidered with wreaths of shells and roses her dark hair lay carefully spread out upon the pillow
in a thousand ringlets entwined with gold and jewels her languishing eyes blazed like diamonds from a cavern under eyelids darkened and deepened with black antimony her lips pouted of themselves by habit or by nature into a perpetual kiss
slowly she raised one little lazy hand slowly the ripe lips opened and in most pure and melodious attic she lisped her huge lover's question to the monk and repeated it before the boy could shake off the spell and answer asgard
the beauty looked at the giant for further instructions the city of the immortal gods
the city of god is in heaven said philammon to the interpreter turning his head away from those gleaming luscious searching glances his answer was received with a general laugh by all except the leader who shrugged his shoulders
it may as well be up in the skies as up the nile we shall be just as likely i believe to reach it by flying as by rowing up this big ditch ask him where the river comes from pelagia pelagia obeyed and thereon followed a confusion worse confounded
composed of all the impossible wonders of that mythic fairyland with which philammon had gorged himself from boyhood in his walks with the old monks and of the equally trustworthy traditions which the goths had picked up at alexandria
there was nothing which that river did not do it rose in the caucasus where was the caucasus he did not know in paradise in indian aethiopia
where were they he did not know nobody knew it ran for a hundred and fifty days journey through deserts where nothing but flying serpents and satyrs lived and the very lions manes were burnt off by the heat
quoth smid the son of troll armourer to the party
said wulf it turned to the east for a hundred days journey more all round arabia and india among forests full of elephants and dog headed women better and better smid growled wulf approvingly
fresh beef cheap there prince wulf eh quoth smid i must look over the arrow heads to the mountains of the hyperboreans where there was eternal night and the air was full of feathers
that is one third of it came from thence and another third came from the southern ocean over the moon mountains where no one had ever been and the remaining third from the country where the phoenix lived and nobody knew where that was and then there were the cataracts
and the inundations and and and above the cataracts nothing but sand hills and ruins as full of devils as they could hold and as for asgard no one had ever heard of it till every face grew longer and longer
and at last the giant smote his hand upon his knee and swore a great oath that asgard might rot till the twilight of the gods before he went a step farther up the nile curse the monk growled wulf how should such a poor beast know anything about the matter
asked smid oh the monks know everything said pelagia they go hundreds and thousands of miles up the river and cross the deserts among fiends and monsters where any one else would be eaten up or go mad at once
ah the dear holy men it's all by the sign of the blessed cross exclaimed all the girls together devoutly crossing themselves while two or three of the most enthusiastic were half minded to go forward and kneel to philammon for his blessing but hesitated
their gothic lovers being heathenishly stupid and prudish on such points why should he not know as well as the prefect well said smid i believe that prefect's quill driver was humbugging us when he said asgard was only ten days sail up
why asked wulf i never give any reasons what's the use of being an amal
i say the governor looked like a liar and i say this monk looks like an honest fellow and i choose to believe him and there is an end of it don't look so cross at me prince wulf i'm sure it's not my fault i could only say what the monk told me
whispered poor pelagia who looks cross at you my queen roared the amal
answered pelagia who lived in hourly fear of thunderstorms
i shall do as i threatened and run away with prince wulf if you are not good don't you see that the whole crew are expecting you to make them an oration whereupon the amal rose see you here wulf the son of ovida and warriors all
if we want wealth we shan't find it among the sand hills if we want women we shall find nothing prettier than these among dragons and devils don't look angry wulf you have no mind to marry one of those dog headed girls the monk talked of have you well then
we have money and women and if we want sport it's better sport killing men than killing beasts so we had better go where we shall find most of that game
as for fame and all that though i've had enough there's plenty to be got anywhere along the shores of that mediterranean let's burn and plunder alexandria forty of us goths might kill down all these donkey riders in two days
don't answer wulf i knew he was humbugging us all along
let's go back send over for any of the tribes send to spain for those vandals they have had enough of adolf by now curse him i'll warrant them get together an army and take constantinople i'll be augustus
you and smid here the two caesars and we'll make the monk the chief of the eunuchs eh anything you like for a quiet life
ask your girls my heroes and i'll ask mine women are all prophetesses every one of them when they are not harlots growled wulf to himself i will go to the world's end with you my king sighed pelagia
but alexandria is certainly pleasanter than this old wulf sprang up fiercely enough hear me amalric the amal son of odin and heroes all
the sons of the aesir what was the bond between your fathers and mine was it not that we should move and move southward and southward ever till we came back to asgard the city where odin dwells for ever and gave into his hands the kingdom of all the earth
and did we not keep our oath have we not held to the amals
have we not been true men to you son of the aesir no man ever saw wulf the son of ovida fail friend or foe then why does his friend fail him why does his friend fail himself
if the bison bull lie down and wallow what will the herd do for a leader if the king wolf lose the scent how will the pack hold it
who will sing it to the heroes sing it yourself if you choose pelagia sings quite well enough for me in an instant the cunning beauty caught at the hint and poured forth a soft low sleepy song loose the sail rest the oar float away down
fleeting and gliding by tower and town life is so short at best snatch while thou canst thy rest sleeping by me can you answer that wulf shouted a dozen voices
did not alaric the king love it well did i not sing it before him in the palace of the caesars till he swore for all the christian that he was to go southward in search of the holy city and when he went to valhalla and the ships were wrecked off sicily and adolf the balth
turned back like a lazy hound and married the daughter of the romans whom odin hates and went northward again to gaul
till you swore to follow the amal through fire and water until we found the hall of odin and received the mead cup from his own hand hear it again warriors of the goths not that song roared the amal stopping his ears with both his hands
will you drive us blood mad again just as we are settling down into our sober senses and finding out what our lives were given us for
on to asgard wolves of the goths shouted another and a babel of voices arose haven't we been fighting and marching these seven years haven't we drunk blood enough to satisfy odin ten times over if he wants us lot him come himself and lead us
let us get our winds again before we start afresh wulf the prince is like his name and never tires he has a winter wolf's legs under him that is no reason why we should have haven't you heard what the monk says
we'll stop his old wives tales for him and then settle for ourselves said smid and springing from the thwart where he had been sitting he caught up a bill with one hand and seized philammon's throat with the other
for the first time in his life philammon felt a hostile gripe upon him and a new sensation rushed through every nerve as he grappled with the warrior clutched with his left hand the up lifted wrist and with his right the girdle and commenced without any definite aim
a fierce struggle which strange to say as it went on grew absolutely pleasant the women shrieked to their lovers to part the combatants but in vain not for worlds a very fair match and a very fair fight
that's right my smid don't use the knife they will be overboard in a moment
there was no doubt of it and in another moment philammon would have wrenched the bill out of his opponent's hand when to the utter astonishment of the onlookers he suddenly loosed his hold shook himself free by one powerful wrench and quietly retreated to his seat
the onlookers were struck dumb with astonishment they had taken for granted that he would as a matter of course have used his right of splitting his vanquished opponent's skull an event which they would of course have deeply deplored
carving him into the blood eagle
smid rose with a bill in his hand and looked round him perhaps to see what was expected of him he half lifted his weapon to strike philammon seated looked him calmly in the face the old warrior's eye caught the bank
which was now receding rapidly past them and when he saw that they were really floating downwards again without an effort to stem the stream he put away his bill and sat himself down deliberately in his place astonishing the onlookers quite as much as philammon had done
five minutes good fighting and no one killed
and therewith he rushed on poor philammon he spoke the heart of the crew the sleeping wolf in them had been awakened by the struggle and blood they would have and not frantically like celts or egyptians but with the cool humorous cruelty of the teuton
they rose altogether and turning philammon over on his back deliberated by what death he should die philammon quietly submitted if submission have anything to do with that state of mind in which sheer astonishment and novelty have broken up all the custom of man's nature
till the strangest deeds and sufferings are taken as matters of course his sudden escape from the laura the new world of thought and action
the new companions with whom he had fallen in had driven him utterly from his moorings and now anything and everything might happen to him he who had promised never to look upon woman found himself by circumstances over which he had no control
amid a boatful of the most objectionable species of that most objectionable genus and the utterly worst having happened everything else which happened must be better than the worst for the rest he had gone forth to see the world
and this was one of the ways of it so he made up his mind to see it and be filled with the fruit of his own devices and he would have been certainly filled with the same in five minutes more in some shape too ugly to be mentioned but
as even sinful women have hearts in them pelagia shrieked out
the warriors are free men my darling and know what is proper and what can the life of such a brute be to you
before he could stop her pelagia had sprung from her cushions and thrown herself into the midst of the laughing ring of wild beasts spare him spare him for my sake shrieked she
in an instant she had torn off her shawl and thrown it over philammon and as she stood with all the outlines of her beautiful limbs revealed through the thin robe of spangled gauze let the man who dares touch him beneath that shawl though it be a saffron one
the goths drew back for pelagia herself they had as little respect as the rest of the world had but for a moment she was not the messalina of alexandria but a woman and true to the old woman worshipping instinct
they looked one and all at her flashing eyes full of noble pity and indignation as well as of mere woman's terror and drew back and whispered together whether the good spirit or the evil one would conquer seemed for a moment doubtful
when pelagia felt a heavy hand on her shoulder and turning saw wulf the son of ovida go back pretty woman men i claim the boy smid give him to me
give him us prince wulf we have not seen blood for many a day
the boy is mine and a brave boy he has upset a warrior fairly this day and spared him and we will make a warrior of him in return and he lifted up the prostrate monk you are my man now do you like fighting philammon
not understanding the language in which he was addressed could only shake his head though if he had known what its import was he could hardly in honesty have said no he shakes his head he does not like it
i had killed kings when you were shooting frogs cried smid listen to me my sons a coward grips sharply at first and loosens his hand after a while because his blood is soon hot and soon cold a brave man's grip
the longer he holds because the spirit of odin comes upon him i watched the boy's hands on my threat and he will make a man and i will make him one however we may as well make him useful at once so give him an oar well answered his new protector
the quicker we go the better and as the men settled themselves again to their oars one was put into philammon's hand which he managed with such strength and skill that his late tormentors who in spite of an occasional inclination to robbery and murder
were thoroughly good natured honest fellows
and then went forward as many of them as were not rowing
pawing him over from tusks to tail
the three gentlemen took the road to picardy a road so well known to them
if mousqueton were with us observed athos on reaching the spot where they had had a dispute with the paviers how he would tremble at passing this
by my faith twould be excusable in him to tremble replied aramis for even i feel a shudder at the recollection hold just above that tree is the little spot where i thought i was killed
it was soon time for grimaud to recall the past arriving before the inn at which his master and himself had made such an enormous repast
showing him the airhole of the cellar sausages
for this juvenile escapade of his appeared to be as amusing as if some one had related it of another person at last after traveling two days and a night
favored by magnificent weather
let us separate to avoid suspicion i know an inn little frequented but of which the host is entirely devoted to me i will go there where i expect to find letters and you go to the first tavern in the town
to l'epee du grand henri for instance refresh yourselves and in two hours be upon the jetty our boat is waiting for us there the matter being thus decided the two friends found about two hundred paces further
and desired them on no account to exchange a word with any one it is needless to say that this caution concerned blaisois alone long enough since it had been a useless one to grimaud
from their dress covered with dust and from a certain easy manner by means of which a man accustomed to travel is always recognizable the two friends excited the attention of a few promenaders
there was more especially one upon whom their arrival had produced a decided impression this man whom they had noticed from the first for the same reason they had themselves been remarked by others
was walking in a listless way up and down the jetty from the moment he perceived them he did not cease to look at them and seemed to burn with the wish to speak to them on reaching the jetty
and ready rigged as if waiting to start that is doubtless our boat said athos yes replied aramis and the sloop out there making ready to sail must be that which is to take us to our destination
now continued he if only de winter does not keep us waiting it is not at all amusing here there is not a single woman passing hush said athos we are overheard in truth
the walker who during the observations of the two friends had passed and repassed behind them several times stopped at the name of de winter but as his face betrayed no emotion at mention of this name it might have been by chance he stood so still
gentlemen said the man who was young and pale bowing with ease and courtesy pardon my curiosity but i see you come from paris
we come from paris yes replied athos with the same courtesy what is there we can do for you sir said the young man will you be so good as to tell me if it be true that cardinal mazarin is no longer minister
that is a strange question said aramis he is and he is not replied athos that is to say he is dismissed by one half of france but by intrigues and promises he makes the other half sustain him
you will perceive that this may last a long time however sir said the stranger he has neither fled nor is in prison no sir not at this moment at least
and you replied to him with that notion nothing warranted me to answer him otherwise he was polite to me and i was so to him but if he be a spy
who would have closed the ports on bare suspicion it matters not you were wrong to reply to him as you did continued aramis following with his eyes the young man now vanishing behind the cliffs
a quarrel asked athos and since when have you become afraid of a quarrel i am always afraid of a quarrel when i am expected at any place and when such a quarrel might possibly prevent my reaching it
you will call me the most timorous of visionaries but
and never of the heart yes it is one of milady's bastards you laugh aramis from habit that is all i swear to you i like no better than yourself to meet that viper in my path ah
and that is that our grooms should not keep us waiting no said athos i see them about twenty paces behind my lord i recognize grimaud by his long legs and his determined slouch tony carries our muskets
for it was evident that he was thinking of other things as he listened to his friend and moved toward de winter what ails our friend said aramis he resembles one of dante's damned whose neck apollyon has dislocated
and who are ever looking at their heels what the devil makes him glower thus behind him when de winter perceived them in his turn he advanced toward them with surprising rapidity what is the matter my lord
in a low tone to aramis they had reached the ladder which led to the boat de winter made the grooms who carried the arms and the porters with the luggage descend first and was about to follow them at this moment
and hastening his steps as if to reach the other side of the port scarcely twenty steps from the place of embarking he fancied in the darkness that he recognized the young man who had questioned him
without losing sight of the young man the latter to make a short cut had appeared on a sluice he certainly bodes us no good said athos but let us embark once out at sea let him come
she was obliged to pass between the point of the jetty surmounted by a beacon just lighted and a rock which jutted out they saw him in the distance climbing the rock in order to look down upon the boat as it passed
de winter turned and followed the direction of aramis's finger the beacon bathed with light the little strait through which they were about to pass and the rock where the young man stood with bare head and crossed arms
it is he exclaimed de winter seizing the arm of athos it is he i thought i recognized him and i was not mistaken whom do you mean asked aramis milady's son replied athos the monk exclaimed grimaud
i the son of milady i the monk i the secretary and friend of cromwell i know you now both you and your companions in that boat sat three men unquestionably brave
whose courage no man would have dared dispute nevertheless at that voice that accent and those gestures they felt a chill access of terror cramp their veins as for grimaud his hair stood on end and drops of sweat ran down his brow
alas yes murmured de winter then wait said aramis and with the terrible coolness which on important occasions he showed he took one of the muskets from tony
the mother was a wretch
yes but the son has done us no harm grimaud who had risen to watch the effect of the shot fell back hopeless wringing his hands the young man burst into a laugh
i know you even better now his mocking laugh and threatening words passed over their heads carried by the breeze until lost in the depths of the horizon aramis shuddered be calm exclaimed athos for heaven's sake have we ceased to be men
when shall we land in england he asked but de winter seemed not to hear his words and made no reply
perhaps there is yet time see if he is still in the same place
hold your tongue replied aramis you would make me weep if such a thing were possible at this moment they were hailed by a voice from the sloop and a few seconds later men servants and baggage were aboard
the captain was only waiting for his passengers hardly had they put foot on deck ere her head was turned towards hastings where they were to disembark at this instant the three friends turned in spite of themselves a last look on the rock
upon the menacing figure which pursued them and now stood out with a distinctness still then a voice reached them once more sending this threat
the beggar of saint eustache d'artagnan had calculated that in not going at once to the palais royal he would give comminges time to arrive before him
and consequently to make the cardinal acquainted with the eminent services which he d'artagnan and his friend had rendered to the queen's party in the morning they were indeed admirably received by mazarin
who paid them numerous compliments and announced that they were more than half on their way to obtain what they desired namely d'artagnan his captaincy porthos his barony d'artagnan would have preferred money in hand to all that fine talk
for he knew well that to mazarin it was easy to promise and hard to perform but though he held the cardinal's promises as of little worth he affected to be completely satisfied for he was unwilling to discourage porthos
whilst the two friends were with the cardinal the queen sent for him mazarin thinking that it would be the means of increasing the zeal of his two defenders if he procured them personal thanks from the queen
motioned them to follow him d'artagnan and porthos pointed to their dusty and torn dresses but the cardinal shook his head those costumes he said are of more worth than most of those which you will see on the backs of the queen's courtiers
comminges was near the queen who was questioning him upon the details of his expedition and every one was listening to his account when d'artagnan and porthos were perceived at the door behind the cardinal
ah madame said comminges hastening to d'artagnan here is one who can tell you better than myself for he was my protector without him i should probably at this moment be a dead fish in the nets at saint cloud
for it was a question of nothing less than throwing me into the river speak d'artagnan speak d'artagnan had been a hundred times in the same room with the queen since he had become lieutenant of the musketeers but her majesty had never once spoken to him
and that i shall only be happy the day i lose it for you i know that sir i have known that said the queen a long time therefore i am delighted to be able thus publicly to mark my gratitude and my esteem
permit me madame said d'artagnan to reserve a portion for my friend like myself he laid an emphasis on these words an ancient musketeer of the company of treville he
his name asked the queen in the regiment said d'artagnan he is called porthos the queen started but his true name
a cry of surprise ran through the royal assemblage although the coadjutor had preached that same morning it was well known that he leaned much to the side of the fronde and mazarin in requesting the archbishop of paris to make his nephew preach
had evidently had the intention of administering to monsieur de retz one of those italian kicks he so much enjoyed giving the fact was
although almost engaged to the leaders of the fronde he had not gone so far but that retreat was possible should the court offer him the advantages for which he was ambitious and to which the coadjutorship was but a stepping stone
monsieur de retz wished to become archbishop in his uncle's place and cardinal like mazarin and the popular party could with difficulty accord him favors so entirely royal he therefore hastened to the palace
to congratulate the queen on the battle of lens determined beforehand to act with or against the court as his congratulations were well or ill received the coadjutor possessed perhaps as much wit
as all those put together who were assembled at the court to laugh at him his speech therefore was so well turned that in spite of the great wish felt by the courtiers to laugh they could find no point on which to vent their ridicule
the only one which could be caught at by the jokers anne turned around and directed a glance toward her favorites which announced that she delivered up the coadjutor to their tender mercies immediately the wits of the court plunged into satire
the fool of the court exclaimed that the queen was very happy to have the succor of religion at such a moment this caused a universal burst of laughter
said that he did not know how any fear could be entertained for a moment when the court had to defend itself against the parliament and the citizens of paris his holiness the coadjutor who by a signal could raise an army of curates church porters
remained calm and stern the queen at last asked him if he had anything to add to the fine discourse he had just made to her yes madame replied the coadjutor i have to beg you to reflect twice
you will remember that man who has just gone out will you not yes my lord he replied then turning toward porthos the devil said he this has a bad look i dislike these quarrels among men of the church
gondy withdrew distributing benedictions on his way and finding a malicious satisfaction in causing the adherents of his foes to prostrate themselves at his feet oh he murmured as he left the threshold of the palace
ungrateful court faithless court cowardly court i will teach you how to laugh to morrow but in another manner but whilst they were indulging in extravagant joy at the palais royal to increase the hilarity of the queen
mazarin a man of sense and whose fear moreover gave him foresight lost no time in making idle and dangerous jokes he went out after the coadjutor settled his account locked up his gold
my dear monsieur louvieres said the coadjutor believe me i am truly concerned for the misfortune which has happened to you is that true and do you speak seriously asked louvieres from the depth of my heart said gondy
oh let us speak frankly continued louvieres and act in a straightforward manner thirty thousand crowns in alms is not given as you have done for the last six months out of pure christian charity that would be too grand
you are ambitious it is natural you are a man of genius and you know your worth as for me i hate the court and have but one desire at this moment vengeance give us the clergy and the people of whom you can dispose
and i will bring you the citizens and the parliament with these four elements paris is ours in a week and believe me monsieur coadjutor the court will give from fear what it will not give from good will
for it to be welcome to you now never mind said the coadjutor you must be well aware that this requires reflection and how many hours of reflection do you ask twelve hours sir is it too long
it is now noon at midnight i will be at your house if i should not be in wait for me good at midnight my lord at midnight my dear monsieur louvieres
when once more alone gondy sent to summon all the curates with whom he had any connection to his house two hours later
gondy related to them the insults he had received at the palais royal
and repeat often and loudly so that all may know it that the misfortunes of france are caused by mazarin her lover and her destroyer begin this work to day this instant even and in three days i shall expect the result
for the rest if any one of you have further or better counsel to expound i will listen to him with the greatest pleasure three curates remained those of saint merri saint sulpice
the others withdrew you think then that you can help me more efficaciously than your brothers said gondy we hope so answered the curates let us hear monsieur de saint merri
who has great influence upon the commerce of his quarter what is his name
and as i am his wife's confessor if she knows where he is i shall know it too very well sir find this man and when you have found him bring him to me we will be with you at six o'clock my lord
and may god assist you and you sir continued gondy turning to the curate of saint sulpice i my lord said the latter i know a man who has rendered great services to a very popular prince and who would make an excellent leader of revolt
him i can place at your disposal it is count de rochefort i know him also but unfortunately he is not in paris my lord he has been for three days at the rue cassette and wherefore has he not
bring him here at eight o'clock sir and may heaven bless you as i bless you and now tis your turn said the coadjutor turning to the last that remained have you anything as good to offer me as the two gentlemen who have left us better my lord
think what a solemn engagement you are making one has offered a wealthy shopkeeper the other a count you are going then to offer a prince are you i offer you a beggar my lord ah ah said gondy reflecting
you are right sir some one who could raise the legion of paupers who choke up the crossings of paris some one who would know how to cry aloud to them that all france might hear it that it is mazarin who has reduced them to poverty
and you say that he has a great influence over his compeers are you aware my lord that mendacity is an organized body a kind of association of those who have nothing against those who have everything an association
in which every one takes his share one that elects a leader yes i have heard it said replied the coadjutor well the man whom i offer you is a general syndic and what do you know of him
nothing my lord except that he is tormented with remorse what makes you think so on the twenty eighth of every month he makes me say a mass for the repose of the soul of one who died a violent death
but i do not think it is his right one and think you that we should find him at this hour at his post certainly let us go and see your beggar sir and if he is such as you describe him you are right
it will be you who have discovered the true treasure gondy dressed himself as an officer put on a felt cap with a red feather hung on a long sword buckled spurs to his boots wrapped himself in an ample cloak and followed the curate
the coadjutor and his companion passed through all the streets lying between the archbishopric and the saint eustache church watching carefully to ascertain the popular feeling the people were in an excited mood but
like a swarm of frightened bees seemed not to know at what point to concentrate and it was very evident that if leaders of the people were not provided all this agitation would pass off in idle buzzing
on arriving at the rue des prouvaires the curate pointed toward the square before the church stop he said there he is at his post gondy looked at the spot indicated and perceived a beggar seated in a chair
and leaning against one of the moldings a little basin was near him and he held a holy water brush in his hand is it by permission that he remains there asked gondy no my lord these places are bought
i believe this man paid his predecessor a hundred pistoles for his the rascal is rich then some of those men sometimes die worth twenty thousand and twenty five and thirty thousand francs and sometimes more
the latter and the coadjutor touched the brush with the tips of their fingers and made the sign of the cross the coadjutor threw a piece of money into the hat which was on the ground maillard began the curate
this gentleman and i have come to talk with you a little with me said the mendicant it is a great honor for a poor distributor of holy water there was an ironical tone in his voice which he could not quite disguise
the mendicant shook his head these are melancholy doings your reverence which always fall again upon the poor as to what is said everybody is discontented everybody complains but everybody
means nobody explain yourself my good friend said the coadjutor i mean that all these cries all these complaints these curses produce nothing but storms and flashes and that is all
but the lightning will not strike until there is a hand to guide it my friend said gondy you seem to be a clever and a thoughtful man are you disposed to take a part in a little civil war should we have one and put at the command of the leader
should we find one your personal influence and the influence you have acquired over your comrades yes sir provided this war were approved of by the church and would advance the end i wish to attain i mean the remission of my sins
the war will not only be approved of but directed by the church as for the remission of your sins we have the archbishop of paris who has the very greatest power at the court of rome and even the coadjutor
who possesses some plenary indulgences we will recommend you to him consider maillard said the curate that i have recommended you to this gentleman who is a powerful lord and that i have made myself responsible for you
that you have always been very kind to me and therefore i in my turn will be serviceable to you
good unemployed but active souls brawlers capable of bringing down the walls of the palais royal by crying down with mazarin as fell those at jericho i think said the beggar i can undertake things more difficult
and more important than that ah ah said gondy you will undertake then some night to throw up some ten barricades i will undertake to throw up fifty and when the day comes to defend them
i'faith exclaimed gondy you speak with a certainty that gives me pleasure
i answer for him said the curate here is a bag containing five hundred pistoles in gold make all your arrangements and tell me where i shall be able to find you this evening at ten o'clock
it must be on some elevated place whence a given signal may be seen in every part of paris
he will let you into the rooms in his tower said the curate capital answered the mendicant then said the coadjutor this evening at ten o'clock and if i am pleased with you another bag of five hundred pistoles will be at your disposal
the eyes of the mendicant dashed with cupidity but he quickly suppressed his emotion this evening sir he replied
chapter five vague flashes on the horizon little by little and in the course of time all this opposition subsided
and towards eighteen twenty one the moment arrived when the word monsieur le maire
he put an end to differences he prevented lawsuits he reconciled enemies every one took him for the judge and with good reason it seemed as though he had for a soul the book of the natural law it was like an epidemic of veneration
which in the course of six or seven years gradually took possession of the whole district one single man in the town in the arrondissement absolutely escaped this contagion and whatever father madeleine did
remained his opponent as though a sort of incorruptible and imperturbable instinct kept him on the alert and uneasy it seems in fact
though pure and upright like all instincts which creates antipathies and sympathies which fatally separates one nature from another nature which does not hesitate which feels no disquiet
infallible imperious intractable stubborn to all counsels of the intelligence and to all the dissolvents of reason and which in whatever manner destinies are arranged secretly warns the man dog of the presence of the man cat
and the man fox of the presence of the man lion
calm affectionate surrounded by the blessings of all a man of lofty stature clad in an iron gray frock coat armed with a heavy cane and wearing a battered hat turned round abruptly behind him and followed him with his eyes until he disappeared
with folded arms and a slow shake of the head and his upper lip raised in company with his lower to his nose a sort of significant grimace which might be translated by what is that man after all
i certainly have seen him somewhere in any case i am not his dupe this person grave with a gravity which was almost menacing was one of those men who
even when only seen by a rapid glimpse arrest the spectator's attention his name was javert and he belonged to the police
he had not seen madeleine's beginnings javert owed the post which he occupied to the protection of
then prefect of police at paris
the fortune of the great manufacturer was already made and father madeleine had become monsieur madeleine certain police officers have a peculiar physiognomy which is complicated with an air of baseness mingled with an air of authority
minus the baseness it is our conviction that if souls were visible to the eyes we should be able to see distinctly that strange thing that each one individual of the human race corresponds to some one of the species of the animal creation
and we could easily recognize this truth hardly perceived by the thinker that from the oyster to the eagle from the pig to the tiger all animals exist in man and that each one of them is in a man
that is to say the possibility of education social education when well done can always draw from a soul of whatever sort it may be the utility which it contains this be it said
is of course from the restricted point of view of the terrestrial life which is apparent and without prejudging the profound question of the anterior or ulterior personality of the beings which are not man the visible i
having made this reservation let us pass on now if the reader will admit for a moment with us that in every man there is one of the animal species of creation
which is killed by the mother because otherwise as he grew up he would devour the other little ones give to this dog son of a wolf a human face and the result will be javert javert had been born in prison of a fortune teller
and he despaired of ever re entering it he observed that society unpardoningly excludes two classes of men those who attack it and those who guard it he had no choice except between these two classes
at the same time he was conscious of an indescribable foundation of rigidity regularity and probity complicated with an inexpressible hatred for the race of bohemians whence he was sprung he entered the police
he succeeded there at forty years of age he was an inspector during his youth he had been employed in the convict establishments of the south before proceeding further
human face which we have just applied to javert the human face of javert consisted of a flat nose with two deep nostrils towards which enormous whiskers ascended on his cheeks
but his gums and around his nose there formed a flattened and savage fold as on the muzzle of a wild beast javert serious was a watchdog
as for the rest he had very little skull and a great deal of jaw his hair concealed his forehead and fell over his eyebrows between his eyes there was a permanent central frown like an imprint of wrath his gaze was obscure
his mouth pursed up and terrible his air that of ferocious command this man was composed of two very simple and two very good sentiments comparatively but he rendered them almost bad by dint of exaggerating them
respect for authority hatred of rebellion and in his eyes murder robbery all crimes are only forms of rebellion he enveloped in a blind and profound faith every one who had a function in the state
from the prime minister to the rural policeman he covered with scorn aversion and disgust every one who had once crossed the legal threshold of evil he was absolute and admitted no exceptions on the one hand he said
the functionary can make no mistake the magistrate is never the wrong on the other hand he said these men are irremediably lost nothing good can come from them
he fully shared the opinion of those extreme minds which attribute to human law i know not what power of making or if the reader will have it so of authenticating demons and who place a styx at the base of society
he was stoical serious austere a melancholy dreamer humble and haughty like fanatics his glance was like a gimlet cold and piercing his whole life hung on these two words watchfulness
and supervision he had introduced a straight line into what is the most crooked thing in the world he possessed the conscience of his usefulness the religion of his functions and he was a spy as other men are priests
woe to the man who fell into his hands he would have arrested his own father if the latter had escaped from the galleys and would have denounced his mother if she had broken her ban and he would have done it with that sort of inward satisfaction which is conferred by virtue
and withal a life of privation isolation abnegation chastity with never a diversion it was implacable duty the police understood as the spartans understood sparta a pitiless lying in wait
a ferocious honesty a marble informer brutus in vidocq javert's whole person was expressive of the man who spies and who withdraws himself from observation
would not have failed to declare that javert was a symbol his brow was not visible it disappeared beneath his hat his eyes were not visible since they were lost under his eyebrows his chin was not visible
his hands were not visible they were drawn up in his sleeves and his cane was not visible he carried it under his coat but when the occasion presented itself there was suddenly seen to emerge from all this shadow as from an ambuscade
this caused him to be not wholly illiterate this could be recognized by some emphasis in his speech as we have said he had no vices when he was pleased with himself he permitted himself a pinch of snuff
an eye full of suspicion and conjecture
all the anterior traces which father madeleine might have left elsewhere he seemed to know and he sometimes said in covert words that some one had gleaned certain information in a certain district about a family which had disappeared
once he chanced to say as he was talking to himself i think i have him then he remained pensive for three days and uttered not a word it seemed that the thread which he thought he held had broken moreover
and this furnishes the necessary corrective for the too absolute sense which certain words might present there can be nothing really infallible in a human creature and the peculiarity of instinct is that it can become confused thrown off the track and defeated
one day nevertheless
his coat was carefully buttoned he was very pale and he trembled slightly
the man who stood there appeared so calm that they did not understand at first they asked themselves whether he had indeed uttered that cry they could not believe that that tranquil man had been the one to give that terrible outcry
this indecision only lasted a few seconds even before the president and the district attorney could utter a word before the ushers and the gendarmes could make a gesture
had advanced towards the witnesses cochepaille brevet and chenildieu do you not recognize me said he all three remained speechless and indicated by a sign of the head that they did not know him
cochepaille who was intimidated made a military salute
not a mouth breathed the first commotion of astonishment had been followed by a silence like that of the grave those within the hall experienced that sort of religious terror which seizes the masses when something grand has been done
in the meantime the face of the president was stamped with sympathy and sadness he had exchanged a rapid sign with the district attorney and a few low toned words with the assistant judges he addressed the public
the very strange and unexpected incident which disturbs the audience inspires us like yourselves only with a sentiment which it is unnecessary for us to express
he interrupted him in accents full of suavity and authority these are the words which he uttered here they are literally as they were written down immediately after the trial by one of the witnesses to this scene
and as they now ring in the ears of those who heard them nearly forty years ago i thank you mister district attorney but i am not mad you shall see you were on the point of committing a great error release this man
i am fulfilling a duty i am that miserable criminal i am the only one here who sees the matter clearly and i am telling you the truth god who is on high looks down on what i am doing at this moment and that suffices
in short there are many things which i cannot tell i will not narrate the story of my life to you you will hear it one of these days i robbed monseigneur the bishop it is true it is true that i robbed little gervais
they were right in telling you that jean valjean was a very vicious wretch perhaps it was not altogether his fault listen honorable judges a man who has been so greatly humbled as i have has neither any remonstrances to make to providence
nor any advice to give to society but you see the infamy from which i have tried to escape is an injurious thing the galleys make the convict what he is reflect upon that if you please
before going to the galleys i was a poor peasant with very little intelligence a sort of idiot the galleys wrought a change in me i was stupid i became vicious i was a block of wood i became a firebrand
later on indulgence and kindness saved me as severity had ruined me but pardon me you cannot understand what i am saying you will find at my house among the ashes in the fireplace
the forty sou piece which i stole seven years ago from little gervais i have nothing farther to add take me good god the district attorney shakes his head
you do not believe me that is distressing do not at least condemn this man what these men do not recognize me i wish javert were here he would recognize me
nothing can reproduce the sombre and kindly melancholy of tone which accompanied these words he turned to the three convicts and said well i recognize you do you remember brevet he paused
chenildieu you who conferred on yourself the name of jenie dieu your whole right shoulder bears a deep burn because you one day laid your shoulder against the chafing dish full of coals in order to efface the three letters t f p
all eyes were focused on him and on his bare arm a gendarme held a light close to it there was the date
the unhappy man turned to the spectators and the judges with a smile which still rends the hearts of all who saw it whenever they think of it it was a smile of triumph
you see plainly he said that i am jean valjean in that chamber there were no longer either judges accusers nor gendarmes there was nothing but staring eyes and sympathizing hearts
no one recalled any longer the part that each might be called upon to play the district attorney forgot he was there for the purpose of prosecuting the president that he was there to preside the counsel for the defence that he was there to defend
it was a striking circumstance that no question was put that no authority intervened the peculiarity of sublime spectacles is that they capture all souls and turn witnesses into spectators no one probably
could have explained what he felt no one probably said to himself that he was witnessing the splendid outburst of a grand light all felt themselves inwardly dazzled it was evident that they had jean valjean before their eyes
that was clear the appearance of this man had sufficed to suffuse with light that matter which had been so obscure but a moment previously without any further explanation the whole crowd as by a sort of electric revelation
understood instantly and at a single glance the simple and magnificent history of a man who was delivering himself up so that another man might not be condemned in his stead the details the hesitations little possible oppositions
i shall withdraw since you do not arrest me i have many things to do the district attorney knows who i am he knows whither i am going he can have me arrested when he likes he directed his steps towards the door
it was never known who opened the door but it is certain that he found the door open when he reached it on arriving there he turned round and said i am at your command mister district attorney then he addressed the audience all of you
that at the single word he was a convict nearly every one deserted him in less than two hours all the good that he had done had been forgotten and he was nothing but a convict from the galleys
all day long conversations like the following were to be heard in all quarters of the town you don't know he was a liberated convict who the mayor
yes really his name was not madeleine at all he had a frightful name bejean bojean boujean ah good god he has been arrested arrested in prison in the city prison
while waiting to be transferred until he is transferred he is to be transferred where is he to be taken he will be tried at the assizes for a highway robbery which he committed long ago well i suspected as much
that man was too good too perfect too affected he refused the cross he bestowed sous on all the little scamps he came across
evil history back of all that the drawing rooms particularly abounded in remarks of this nature one old lady a subscriber to the drapeau blanc
made the following remark the depth of which it is impossible to fathom i am not sorry it will be a lesson to the bonapartists
only three or four persons in all the town remained faithful to his memory the old portress who had served him was among the number on the evening of that day the worthy old woman was sitting in her lodge
and absorbed in sad reflections the factory had been closed all day the carriage gate was bolted the street was deserted there was no one in the house but the two nuns
and the flat candlestick which he used every evening to go up to his quarters then she hung the key on the nail whence he was accustomed to take it and set the candlestick on one side as though she was expecting him then she sat down again on her chair
at that moment the small window in the lodge opened a hand passed through seized the key and the candlestick and lighted the taper at the candle which was burning there the portress raised her eyes
and stood there with gaping mouth and a shriek which she confined to her throat she knew that hand that arm the sleeve of that coat
it was several seconds before she could speak she had a seizure as she said herself when she related the adventure afterwards
she cried at last i thought you were she stopped the conclusion of her sentence would have been lacking in respect towards the beginning jean valjean was still monsieur le maire to her he finished her thought
in prison said he i was there i broke a bar of one of the windows i let myself drop from the top of a roof and here i am i am going up to my room go and find sister simplice for me
she is with that poor woman no doubt the old woman obeyed in all haste he gave her no orders he was quite sure that she would guard him better than he should guard himself
no one ever found out how he had managed to get into the courtyard without opening the big gates he had and always carried about him a pass key which opened a little side door but he must have been searched and his latch key must have been taken from him
this point was never explained he ascended the staircase leading to his chamber on arriving at the top he left his candle on the top step of his stairs opened his door with very little noise went and closed his window and his shutters by feeling
and the forty sou piece which had been blackened by the fire he took a sheet of paper on which he wrote these are the two tips of my iron shod cudgel and the forty sou piece stolen from little gervais
in the strips of linen thus prepared he wrapped the two silver candlesticks he betrayed neither haste nor agitation and while he was wrapping up the bishop's candlesticks he nibbled at a piece of black bread
come in said he it was sister simplice she was pale her eyes were red the candle which she carried trembled in her hand the peculiar feature of the violences of destiny is
jean valjean had just finished writing a few lines on a paper which he handed to the nun saying sister
the paper was not folded she cast a glance upon it you can read it said he she read
he will be so good as to pay out of it the expenses of my trial and of the funeral of the woman who died yesterday the rest is for the poor the sister tried to speak but she only managed
to stammer a few inarticulate sounds she succeeded in saying however does not monsieur le maire desire to take a last look at that poor unhappy woman no said he
i am pursued it would only end in their arresting me in that room and that would disturb her he had hardly finished when a loud noise became audible on the staircase they heard a tumult of ascending footsteps
and the old portress saying in her loudest and most piercing tones my good sir
nor all the evening and that i have not even left the door a man responded
they recognized javert's voice the chamber was so arranged that the door in opening masked the corner of the wall on the right jean valjean blew out the light and placed himself in this angle sister simplice fell on her knees near the table
the door opened javert entered the whispers of many men and the protestations of the portress were audible in the corridor the nun did not raise her eyes she was praying the candle was on the chimney piece
javert caught sight of the nun and halted in amazement it will be remembered that the fundamental point in javert his element the very air he breathed was veneration for all authority this was impregnable
and admitted of neither objection nor restriction in his eyes of course the ecclesiastical authority was the chief of all he was religious superficial and correct on this point as on all others in his eyes a priest was a mind
who never makes a mistake a nun was a creature who never sins they were souls walled in from this world with a single door which never opened except to allow the truth to pass through on perceiving the sister
his first movement was to retire but there was also another duty which bound him and impelled him imperiously in the opposite direction his second movement was to remain and to venture on at least one question
this was sister simplice who had never told a lie in her life javert knew it and held her in special veneration in consequence sister said he are you alone in this room
a terrible moment ensued during which the poor portress felt as though she should faint the sister raised her eyes and answered yes then resumed javert you will excuse me if i persist it is my duty
you have not seen a certain person a man this evening he has escaped we are in search of him that jean valjean you have not seen him the sister replied no she lied
o sainted maid you left this world many years ago you have rejoined your sisters the virgins and your brothers the angels in the light may this lie be counted to your credit in paradise the sister's affirmation was for javert
so decisive a thing that he did not even observe the singularity of that candle which had but just been extinguished and which was still smoking on the table an hour later a man marching amid trees and mists
that man was jean valjean it has been established by the testimony of two or three carters who met him that he was carrying a bundle that he was dressed in a blouse where had he obtained that blouse no one ever found out
but an aged workman had died in the infirmary of the factory a few days before leaving behind him nothing but his blouse perhaps that was the one one last word about fantine we all have a mother
the earth fantine was given back to that mother
in reserving as much money as possible from what jean valjean had left for the poor who was concerned after all a convict and a woman of the town that is why he had a very simple funeral for fantine
god knows where to find the soul again fantine was laid in the shade among the first bones that came to hand she was subjected to the promiscuousness of ashes she was thrown into the public grave
chapter nineteen oh what a feeble fort's a woman's heart betrayed by nature and besieged by art fane's love in the dark
dear child what shall i do without you sighed miss stanhope clasping elsie in her arms and holding her in a long tender embrace for the time of parting had come horace
will you bring her to see me again yes aunt if she wants to come but don't ask me to leave her again well if you can't stay with me or trust her yourself let mister vanilla come and stand guard over us both
i'd be happy sir at any time when you can make it convenient for me to see you here with horace and the child or without them thank you miss stanhope and mother and i would be delighted to see you at ion
come elsie we must go the carriage is waiting and the train nearly due said mister dinsmore good bye aunt wealthy daughter put down your veil egerton was at the depot
but could get neither a word with elsie nor so much as a sight of her face her veil was not once lifted and her father never left her side for a moment mister travilla bought the tickets and simon attended to the checking of the baggage
then the train came thundering up and the fair girl was hurried into it mister travilla on one side and her father on the other effectually preventing any near approach to her person on the part of the baffled and disappointed fortune hunter
he walked back to his boarding house cursing his ill luck and messrs dinsmore and travilla and gave notice to his landlady that his room would become vacant the next morning as the train sped onward
again elsie laid her head down upon her father's shoulder and wept silently behind her veil her feelings had been wrought up to a high pitch of excitement in the struggle to be perfectly submissive and obedient
and now the overstrained nerves claimed this relief and love's young dream the first and sweetest was over and gone she could never hope to see again the man she still fondly imagined to be good and noble
and with a heart full of deep passionate love for her her father understood and sympathized with it all he passed his arm about her waist drew her closer to him
and taking her hand in his held it in a warm loving clasp how it soothed and comforted her she could never be very wretched while thus tenderly loved and cherished and arrived at her journey's end
as at the recovery of a long lost precious treasure you shall never go away again said the little fellow hugging her tight when a boy has only one sister he can't spare her to other folks can he papa
no son answered mister dinsmore patting his rosy cheek and softly stroking elsie's hair and it is just the same with a man who has but one daughter you don't look bright and merry as you did when you went away
said the child bending a gaze of keen loving scrutiny upon the sweet face paler sadder and more heavy eyed than he had ever seen it before sister is tired with her journey said mamma tenderly we won't tease her to night
yes papa and then she'll be all right to morrow won't she but mamma i wasn't teasing her not a bit was i elsie and if anybody's been making her sorry i'll kill him cause she's my sister
and i've got to take care of her but suppose papa was the one who had made her sorry what then asked mister dinsmore but you wouldn't papa said the boy shaking his head with an incredulous smile
you love her too much a great deal you'd never make her sorry unless she'd be naughty and she's never one bit naughty always minds you and mamma the minute you speak that's true my son
i do love her far too well ever to grieve her if it can be helped she shall never know a pang a father's love and care can save her from and again his hand rested caressingly on elsie's head
she caught it in both of hers and laying her cheek lovingly against it looked up at him with tears trembling in her eyes i know it papa she murmured
i know you love your foolish little daughter very dearly almost as dearly as she loves you almost darling if there were any gauge by which to measure love i know not whose would be found the greatest
mister dinsmore and his father in law had taken adjoining cottages for the summer and though the season was so nearly over that the hotels and boarding houses were but thinly populated and would soon close
the two families intended remaining another month so this was in some sort a home coming to elsie after tea the allisons flocked in to bid her welcome all seemed glad of her coming
richard harold and sophy especially so they were full of plans for giving her pleasure and crowding the greatest possible amount of enjoyment into the four or five weeks of their expected sojourn on the island
it will be moonlight next week said sophy and we'll have some delightful drives and walks along the beach the sea does look so lovely by moonlight
you'll go in with us to morrow won't you elsie no said mister dinsmore speaking for his daughter she must be here two or three days before she goes into the water it will be altogether better for her health
you get in the air enough of the salt water for the first few days he said your system should become used to that before you take more yes that is what some of the doctors here and the oldest inhabitants tell us remarked mister allison
and i believe it is the better plan and in the meantime we can take some rides and drives down to diamond beach over to the light house and elsewhere said edward allison his brother richard adding and do a little fishing and boating
mister dinsmore was watching his daughter she was making an effort to be interested in the conversation but looking worn weary and sad you are greatly fatigued my child he said
we will excuse you and let you retire at once she was very glad to avail herself of the permission rose followed her to her room a pleasant breezy apartment opening on a veranda
and looking out upon the sea whose dark waves here and there tipped with foam could be dimly seen rolling and tossing beneath the light of the stars and of a young moon that hung like a golden crescent just above the horizon
elsie walked to the window and looked out how i love the sea she said sighing but mamma to night it makes me think of a text
it is not so bad as that i hope dear said rose folding her tenderly in her arms think how we all love you especially your father i don't know how we could any of us do without you darling
i can't tell you how sadly we have missed you this summer mamma i do feel it to be very very sweet to be so loved and cared for i could not tell you how dear you and my little brother are to me and as for papa
sometimes i am more than half afraid i make an idol of him and yet oh mamma she murmured hiding her face in rose's bosom why is it that i can no longer be in love with the loves that so fully satisfied me
thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee
often yielding to her craving to her own terrible undoing be patient darling and try to trust both your heavenly and your earthly father you know that no trial can come to you without your heavenly father's will
and that he means this for your good look to him and he will help you to bear it and send relief in his own good time and way you know he tells us it is through much tribulation we enter the kingdom of god
and that whom the lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth if ye be without chastisements whereof all are partakers then are ye bastards and no sons
ah yes mamma better the hardest of earthly trials than to be left out of the number of his adopted children and this seems to be really my only one while my cup of blessings is full to overflowing
i fear i am very wicked to feel so sad let us sit down on this couch while we talk you are too tired to stand said rose drawing her away from the window to a softly cushioned lounge i do not think you can help grieving darling
though i agree with you that it is your duty to try to be cheerful as well as patient and submissive and i trust you will find it easier as the days and weeks move on you are very young and have plenty of time to wait indeed if all had gone right
you know your papa would not have allowed you to marry for several years yet you know all mamma yes dear papa told me for you know you are my darling daughter too and i have a very deep interest in all that concerns you
a tender caress accompanied the words and was returned with equal ardor thank you best and kindest of mothers i should never want anything kept from you your father tells me you have behaved beautifully
though you evidently felt it very hard to be separated so entirely and at once fr yes mamma and elsie's lip quivered and her eyes filled and oh i can't believe he is the wicked man papa thinks him
from the first he seemed to be a perfect gentleman educated polished and refined and afterward he became at least so i thought from the conversations we had together truly converted and a very earnest devoted christian
but he believes you have been deceived in the man's character and don't you think daughter that he is wiser than yourself and more capable of finding out the truth about the matter i know papa is far wiser than i
but oh my heart will not believe what they say of of him she cried with sudden almost passionate vehemence well dear that is perfectly natural but try to be entirely submissive to your father
and wait patiently and hopefully too she added with a smile for if mister egerton is really good no doubt it will be proved in time and then your father will at once remove his interdict and if you are mistaken
you will one day discover it and feel thankful indeed to your papa for taking just the course he has there he is now elsie said with a start as mister dinsmore's step was heard without and chloe opened the door in answer to his rap
what elsie disobeying orders and mamma conniving at it he exclaimed in a tone that might mean either jest or serious reproof did i not bid you go to bed at once my daughter
i thought it was only permission papa not command she answered lifting her eyes to his face and moving to make room for him by her side and mamma has been saying such sweet comforting things to me has she darling
bless her for it i know you need comfort my poor little pet he said taking the offered seat and passing his arm round her waist but you need rest too and ought not to stay up any longer
but surely papa knows i cannot go to bed without my good night kiss when he is in the same house with me she said winding her arms about his neck and didn't like to take it before folks well that was right
but take it now there good night now mamma and i will run away and you must get into bed with all speed no mistake about the command this time and disobedience if ventured on will have to be punished he said with playful tenderness
the dear child my heart aches for her he remarked to his wife as they went out together and i find it almost impossible yet to forgive either that scoundrel jackson or my brother arthur
you have no lingering doubts as to the identity and utter unworthiness of the man not one and if i could only convince elsie of his true character she would detest him as thoroughly as i do
if he had his deserts he would be in the state's prison and to think of his daring to approach my child and even aspire to her hand elsie lay all night in a profound slumber
and awoke at an early hour the next morning feeling greatly refreshed and invigorated the gentle murmur of old ocean came pleasantly to her ear and sweetly in her mind arose the thought of him whom even the winds and the sea obey
of his never failing love to her and of the many great and precious promises of his word she remembered how he had said your father knoweth that ye have need of all these things
and content to bear the cross he had sent her
she rose to begin the new day more cheerful and hopeful than she had been since learning her father's decision in regard to egerton throwing on a dressing gown over her night dress
she sat down before the open window with her bible in her hand she still loved as of old to spend the first hour of the day in the study of its pages and in communion with him whose word it is
chloe was just putting the finishing touches to her young lady's toilet when little horace came running down the hall and rapping on elsie's door called out sister papa says put on a short dress and your walking shoes
and come take a stroll on the beach with us before breakfast yes tell papa i will i'll be down in five minutes she came down looking sweet and fresh as the morning a smile on the full red lips
and a faint tinge of rose color on the cheeks that had been so pale the night before ah you are something like yourself again said rose greeting her with a motherly caress as they met in the lower hall
how nice it is to have you at home once more thank you mamma i am very glad to be here and i had such a good restful sleep how well you look and feel too i am thankful to be able to say
but there your father is calling to you from the sitting room elsie hastened to obey the summons and found him seated at his writing desk come here daughter he said and tell me if you obeyed orders last night yes papa i did
i am writing a few lines to aunt wealthy to tell her of our safe arrival have you any message to send and laying down his pen he drew her to his knee only my love papa and
and that she must not be anxious about me as she said that she should that i am very safe and happy in the hands of my heavenly father and those of the kind earthly one he has given me she added in a whisper
putting her arms about his neck and looking in his face with eyes brimful of filial tenderness and love that is right my darling he said and you shall never want for love while your father lives
how it rejoices my heart to see you looking so bright and well this morning i feat i have not been yielding you the cheerful obedience i ought papa she murmured with tears in her eyes
but i am resolved to try to do so in future and have been asking help where i know it is to be obtained i have no fault to find with you on that score my dear child he said tenderly
but if you can be cheerful it will be for your own happiness as well as ours she kept her promise faithfully and had her reward in much real enjoyment of the many pleasures provided for her
mister and missus dinsmore were still youthful in their feelings and joined with great zest in the sports of the young people going with them in all their excursions taking an active part in all their pastimes
and contriving so many fresh entertainments that during those few weeks life seemed like one long gala day mister travilla was with them most of the time he had tarried behind in philadelphia as mister dinsmore and his daughter passed through
but followed them to cape island a few days later the whole party left the shore about the last of september the allisons returning to their city residence mister travilla to his southern home
and the dinsmores travelling through pennsylvania and new york from one romantic and picturesque spot to another finishing up with two or three weeks in philadelphia during which rose and elsie were much occupied with their fall and winter shopping
he found arthur nearly recovered and at once asked a full explanation of the affair of tom jackson alias bromly egerton his designs upon elsie and arthur's participation in them i know nothing about it
was the sullen rejoinder you certainly were acquainted with tom jackson and how but through you could he have gained any knowledge of elsie and her whereabouts i don't deny that i've had some dealings with jackson but your egerton i know nothing of whatever
you may as well speak the truth sir it will be much better for you in the end said mister dinsmore sternly his eyes flashing with indignant anger
and you may as well remember that it isn't elsie you are dealing with i'm not afraid of you perhaps not but you may well fear him who has said a lying tongue is but for a moment
how do you reconcile such an assertion as you have just made with the fact of your having that letter in your possession i say it's a cowardly piece of business for you to give the lie to a fellow that hasn't the strength to knock you down for it
you would hardly attempt that if you were in perfect health arthur i would you have not answered my question about the letter i wrote it myself
a likely story it is in a very different hand from yours i can adopt that hand on occasion as i'll prove to your satisfaction he opened his desk
wrote a sentence on a scrap of paper and handed it to mister dinsmore the chirography was precisely that of the letter while slowly convalescing arthur had prepared for this expected interview with horace
by spending many a solitary hour in laboriously teaching himself to imitate jackson's ordinary hand in which most of the letters he had received from him were written the sentence he had first penned was
i did it merely for my own amusement and to hoax wal i don't believe a word of it said mister dinsmore looking sternly at him arthur you had better be frank and open with me
you will gain nothing by denying the hand you have had in this disgraceful business you can hardly suppose me credulous enough to believe an assertion so perfectly absurd as this i have no doubt that you sent that villain to lansdale to try his arts upon elsie
and for that you are richly deserving of my anger and of any punishment it might be in my power to deal out to you it has been no easy matter for me to forgive the suffering you have caused my child arthur
but i came here to day with kind feelings and intentions i hoped to find you penitent and ready to forsake your evil courses and in that case intended to help you to pay off your debts and begin anew
without paining father with the knowledge that his confidence in you has been again so shamefully abused but i must say that your persistent denial of your complicity with that scoundrel jackson does not look much like contrition or intended amendment
arthur listened in sullen silence though his rapidly changing color showed that he felt the cutting rebuke keenly at one time he had resolved to confess everything throw himself upon the mercy of his father and brother
and begin to lead an honest upright life but a threatening letter received that morning from jackson had led him to change his purpose and determine to close his lips for a time mister dinsmore paused for a reply but none came
walter looked at arthur in surprise come art speak why don't you he said horace don't look so stern and angry i know he means to turn over a new leaf for he told me so and you will help him won't you
muttered arthur angrily
replied mister dinsmore but arthur i give you one more chance and for our father's sake i hope you will avail yourself of it if you go on as you have for the last three or four years
you will bring down his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave i presume you have put yourself in jackson's power but if you will now make a full and free confession to me and promise amendment
i will help you to get rid of the rascal's claims upon you and start afresh will you do it no you've called me a liar and what's the use of my telling you anything
did not care to trouble himself with what pencroft was saying herbert shared in some degree the sailor's feelings as to the reporter he simply replied upon my word pencroft it's perfectly indifferent to me
the engineer was to them a microcosm a compound of every science a possessor of all human knowledge it was better to be with cyrus in a desert island than without him in the most flourishing town in the united states
with him they could want nothing with him they would never despair if these brave men had been told that a volcanic eruption would destroy the land that this land would be engulfed in the depths of the pacific
they would have imperturbably replied cyrus is here while in the palanquin however the engineer had again relapsed into unconsciousness which the jolting to which he had been subjected during his journey had brought on
so that they could not now appeal to his ingenuity the supper must necessarily be very meager in fact all the grouse flesh had been consumed and there no longer existed any means of cooking more game
besides the couroucous which had been reserved had disappeared they must consider what was to be done first of all cyrus harding was carried into the central passage there they managed to arrange for him a couch of sea weed
which still remained almost dry the deep sleep which had overpowered him would no doubt be more beneficial to him than any nourishment night had closed in and the temperature which had modified when the wind shifted to the northwest
again became extremely cold also the sea having destroyed the partitions which pencroft had put up in certain places in the passages the chimneys on account of the draughts had become scarcely habitable
the engineer's condition would therefore have been bad enough if his companions had not carefully covered him with their coats and waistcoats supper this evening was of course composed of the inevitable lithodomes
it is used in parts of the east very considerably by the natives never mind said the sailor the captain will help us soon meanwhile the cold became very severe and unhappily
they had no means of defending themselves from it the sailor extremely vexed tried in all sorts of ways to procure fire
as those which are emitted from flint when struck in the same manner the experiment therefore did not succeed pencroft although he had no confidence in the proceeding then tried rubbing two pieces of dry wood together as savages do
let them say what they will he exclaimed i could sooner light my arms by rubbing them against each other the sailor was wrong to despise the proceeding savages often kindle wood by means of rapid rubbing
and besides there is the knack following the usual expression and it is probable that pencroft had not the knack pencroft's ill humor did not last long herbert had taken the bits of wood which he had turned down
and was exerting himself to rub them the hardy sailor could not restrain a burst of laughter on seeing the efforts of the lad to succeed where he had failed rub my boy rub said he i am rubbing replied herbert laughing
while top slept at his master's feet next day the twenty eighth of march when the engineer awoke about eight in the morning he saw his companions around him watching his sleep and as on the day before his first words were
island or continent this was his uppermost thought well replied pencroft
you don't know yet but we shall know rejoined pencroft when you have guided us into the country i think i am able to try it replied the engineer who without much effort rose and stood upright that's capital cried the sailor
i feel dreadfully weak replied harding give me something to eat my friends and it will soon go off you have fire haven't you this question was not immediately replied to but in a few seconds
alas we have no fire said pencroft or rather captain we have it no longer and the sailor recounted all that had passed the day before he amused the engineer by the history of the single match
then his abortive attempt to procure fire in the savages way we shall consider replied the engineer and if we do not find some substance similar to tinder well asked the sailor
well we will make matches chemicals chemicals it is not more difficult than that cried the reporter striking the sailor on the shoulder the latter did not think it so simple but he did not protest
all went out the weather had become very fine the sun was rising from the sea's horizon and touched with golden spangles the prismatic rugosities of the huge precipice
having thrown a rapid glance around him the engineer seated himself on a block of stone herbert offered him a few handfuls of shell fish and sargassum saying
thanks my boy replied harding it will do for this morning at least he ate the wretched food with appetite and washed it down with a little fresh water drawn from the river in an immense shell
his companions looked at him without speaking then feeling somewhat refreshed cyrus harding crossed his arms and said so my friends you do not know yet whether fate has thrown us on an island or on a continent
no captain replied the boy we shall know to morrow said the engineer till then there is nothing to be done yes replied pencroft what fire said the sailor who also had a fixed idea
to the summit to morrow and then we shall see if this land is an island or a continent till then i repeat there is nothing to be done yes fire said the obstinate sailor again
but he will make us a fire replied gideon spilett only have a little patience pencroft the seaman looked at spilett in a way which seemed to say if it depended upon you to do it we wouldn't taste roast meat very soon but he was silent
meanwhile captain harding had made no reply he appeared to be very little troubled by the question of fire for a few minutes he remained absorbed in thought then again speaking my friends said he
our situation is perhaps deplorable but at any rate it is very plain either we are on a continent and then at the expense of greater or less fatigue we shall reach some inhabited place or
we are on an island in the latter case
asked gideon spilett whereabouts do you think cyrus this storm has thrown us i cannot say exactly replied the engineer but i presume it is some land in the pacific in fact when we left richmond the wind was blowing from the northeast
the gulf of mexico mexico itself in its narrow part then a part of the pacific ocean i cannot estimate the distance traversed by the balloon at less than six to seven thousand miles
we shall not know what we have to rely on until we have first made the ascent of the mountain replied the engineer but to morrow captain asked herbert shall you be in a state to bear the fatigue of the ascent i hope so replied the engineer
provided you and pencroft my boy show yourselves quick and clever hunters captain said the sailor since you are speaking of game if on my return i was as certain of roasting it as i am of bringing it back
bring it back all the same pencroft replied harding it was then agreed that the engineer and the reporter were to pass the day at the chimneys so as to examine the shore and the upper plateau
were to return to the forest renew their store of wood and lay violent hands on every creature feathered or hairy which might come within their reach they set out accordingly about ten o'clock in the morning
pencroft murmuring aside if on my return i find a fire at the house i shall believe that the thunder itself came to light it all three climbed the bank and arrived at the angle made by the river the sailor stopping
we can come back and collect our wood this agreed to
after having torn three sticks from the trunk of a young fir followed top who was bounding about among the long grass this time the hunters instead of following the course of the river plunged straight into the heart of the forest
belonging for the most part to the pine family in certain places less crowded growing in clumps these pines exhibited considerable dimensions and appeared to indicate by their development
that the country was situated in a higher latitude than the engineer had supposed glades bristling with stumps worn away by time were covered with dry wood which formed an inexhaustible store of fuel then
the glade passed the underwood thickened again and became almost impenetrable it was difficult enough to find the way among the groups of trees without any beaten track so the sailor from time to time
running under the branches only roused birds which could not be approached even the couroucous were invisible and it was probable that the sailor would be obliged to return to the marshy part of the forest
in which he had so happily performed his grouse fishing
if this is all the game which you promised to bring back to my master it won't need a large fire to roast it have patience replied the sailor it isn't the game which will be wanting on our return have you not confidence in captain harding
meanwhile the sun had not reached the highest point in its course above the horizon the exploration therefore continued and was usefully marked by a discovery which herbert made of a tree whose fruit was edible
this was the stone pine which produces an excellent almond very much esteemed in the temperate regions of america and europe
and herbert described them to his companions who feasted on them come said pencroft sea weed by way of bread raw mussels for meat and almonds for dessert that's certainly a good dinner for those
barking with top's barking were mingled curious gruntings
but rather how they were to get hold of it the hunters had scarcely entered the bushes when they saw top engaged in a struggle with an animal which he was holding by the ear
nearly two feet and a half long
was just going to fell the pig when the latter tearing itself from top's teeth by which it was only held by the tip of its ear uttered a vigorous grunt rushed upon herbert almost overthrew him and disappeared in the wood
the rascal cried pencroft all three directly darted after top but at the moment when they joined him the animal had disappeared under the waters of a large pond shaded by venerable pines
motionless top plunged into the water but the capybara hidden at the bottom of the pond did not appear let us wait said the boy for he will soon come to the surface to breathe won't he drown
which the dog was looking for beneath the water herbert was not mistaken in a few minutes the animal appeared on the surface of the water top was upon it in a bound and kept it from plunging again an instant later the capybara dragged to the bank
was killed by a blow from neb's stick
who was always ready with this cry of triumph give me but a good fire and this pig shall be gnawed to the bones
and judging by the height of the sun that it was about two o'clock he gave the signal to return top's instinct was useful to the hunters who thanks to the intelligent animal were enabled to discover the road by which they had come
half an hour later they arrived at the river pencroft soon made a raft of wood as he had done before though if there was no fire it would be a useless task and the raft following the current they returned towards the chimneys
the convalescence of the young invalid was regularly progressing
were here always in fear of some shot from the convicts there on the contrary in the middle of that impregnable and inaccessible cliff they would have nothing to fear and any attack on their persons would certainly fail
but were not uneasy on that account the courageous negro well entrenched in the depths of granite house would not allow himself to be surprised top had not been sent again to him
they were to act against the pirates was thoroughly discussed on the twenty ninth of november by cyrus harding gideon spilett and pencroft at a moment when herbert was asleep and could not hear them my friends said the reporter
but is he equal to five asked the engineer i will join pencroft said the reporter and both of us well armed and accompanied by top my dear spilett and you pencroft answered harding
is there not occasion to fear on the contrary that they are sure to fire the first shot well captain cried pencroft a bullet does not always reach its mark that which struck herbert did not miss pencroft
replied the engineer besides observe that if both of you left the corral i should remain here alone to defend it do you imagine that the convicts will not see you leave it that they will not allow you to enter the forest
and that they will not attack it during your absence knowing that there is no one here but a wounded boy and a man you are right captain replied pencroft his chest swelling with sullen anger you are right
and it is best to stay here until we can leave it together cyrus harding's reasoning was unanswerable and his companions understood it well if only ayrton was still one of us
said gideon spilett poor fellow his return to social life will have been but of short duration if he is dead added pencroft in a peculiar tone do you hope then pencroft
that the villains have spared him asked gideon spilett yes if they had any interest in doing so what you suppose that ayrton finding his old companions forgetting all that he owes us who knows answered the sailor
who did not hazard this shameful supposition without hesitating pencroft said harding taking the sailor's arm that is a wicked idea of yours and you will distress me much if you persist in speaking thus
and i have never felt so excited as i do now be patient pencroft replied the engineer how long will it be my dear spilett before you think herbert may be carried to granite house
for any imprudence might involve terrible consequences but his convalescence is progressing and if he continues to gain strength in eight days from now well we shall see eight days
that would put off the return to granite house until the first days of december
be followed by extensive agricultural labors interrupted only by the projected expedition through the island it can therefore be well understood how injurious this seclusion in the corral must have been to the colonists
but if they were compelled to bow before necessity they did not do so without impatience once or twice the reporter ventured out into the road and made the tour of the palisade top accompanied him and gideon spilett
his gun cocked was ready for any emergency he met with no misadventure and found no suspicious traces his dog would have warned him of any danger and as top did not bark
gideon spilett who had ventured a quarter of a mile into the woods towards the south of the mountain remarked that top scented something the dog had no longer his unconcerned manner he went backwards and forwards ferreting
and drew out a rag it was a piece of cloth stained and torn which spilett immediately brought back to the corral there it was examined by the colonists who found that it was a fragment of ayrton's waistcoat
the convicts have dragged him away in spite of himself do you still doubt his honesty no captain answered the sailor and i repented of my suspicion a long time ago
therefore perhaps he is still living perhaps indeed replied the engineer who remained thoughtful this was a hope to which ayrton's companions could still hold indeed they had before believed that
surprised in the corral ayrton had fallen by a bullet as herbert had fallen but if the convicts had not killed him at first if they had brought him living to another part of the island might it not be admitted
but that they had conceived the impossible hope of bringing back ayrton to themselves he would have been very useful to them if they had been able to make him turn traitor this incident was therefore
favorably interpreted at the corral and it no longer appeared impossible that they should find ayrton again on his side if he was only a prisoner ayrton would no doubt do all he could to escape
from the hands of the villains and this would be a powerful aid to the settlers at any rate observed gideon spilett if happily ayrton did manage to escape he would go directly to granite house
for he could not know of the attempted assassination of which herbert has been a victim and consequently would never think of our being imprisoned in the corral oh i wish that he was there at granite house cried pencroft
one idea occupied his mind to leave the corral and when he believed he could bear removal to granite house he was sure his strength would return more quickly in his room with the air and sight of the sea
several times he pressed gideon spilett but the latter fearing with good reason that herbert's wounds half healed might reopen on the way did not give the order to start however
harding pencroft and spilett seized their guns and ran out of the house top at the foot of the palisade was jumping barking but it was with pleasure not anger some one is coming yes it is not an enemy
or ayrton these words had hardly been exchanged between the engineer and his two companions when a body leaped over the palisade and fell on the ground inside the corral
then replied the engineer he must have some note on him pencroft rushed up to the orang
the despair of harding and his companions may be imagined when they read these words friday six o'clock in the morning plateau invaded by convicts
they gazed at each other without uttering a word then they re entered the house what were they to do the convicts on prospect heights that was disaster devastation
ruin herbert on seeing the engineer the reporter and pencroft re enter guessed that their situation was aggravated and when he saw jup he no longer doubted that some misfortune menaced granite house
there would have been two guns less for defense if an attack was made on the road would they not on the contrary by employing the cart leave every arm free
the engineer and pencroft each armed with a double barreled gun and gideon spilett carrying his rifle had nothing to do but start are you comfortable herbert asked the engineer ah captain
don't be uneasy i shall not die on the road while speaking thus it could be seen that the poor boy had called up all his energy and by the energy of a powerful will had collected his failing strength
the engineer felt his heart sink painfully he still hesitated to give the signal for departure but that would have driven herbert to despair killed him perhaps forward
who knew when to be silent ran in advance the cart came out the gate was reclosed and the onager led by pencroft advanced at a slow pace certainly
it would have been safer to have taken a different road than that which led straight from the corral to granite house but the cart would have met with great difficulties in moving under the trees it was necessary therefore to follow this way
although it was well known to the convicts cyrus harding and gideon spilett walked one on each side of the cart ready to answer to any attack however
it was not probable that the convicts would have yet left the plateau of prospect heights neb's note had evidently been written and sent as soon as the convicts had shown themselves there now this note was dated six o'clock in the morning and the active orang
accustomed to come frequently to the corral had taken scarcely three quarters of an hour to cross the five miles which separated it from granite house they would therefore be safe at that time and if there was any occasion for firing
it would probably not be until they were in the neighborhood of granite house however the colonists kept a strict watch
the latter armed with his club sometimes in front sometimes beating the wood at the sides of the road signalized no danger the cart advanced slowly under pencroft's guidance it had left the corral at half past seven
an hour after four out of the five miles had been cleared without any incident having occurred the road was as deserted as all that part of the jacamar wood which lay between the mercy and the lake
cyrus harding expected to find it in its place supposing that the convicts would have crossed it and that after having passed one of the streams which enclosed the plateau they would have taken the precaution to lower it again
so as to keep open a retreat at length an opening in the trees allowed the sea horizon to be seen but the cart continued its progress for not one of its defenders thought of abandoning it
at that moment pencroft stopped the onager and in a hoarse voice oh the villains he exclaimed and he pointed to a thick smoke rising from the mill the sheds and the buildings at the poultry yard
his companions uttered a shout he heard and ran to meet them the convicts had left the plateau nearly half an hour before having devastated it and mister herbert
gideon spilett returned to the cart
in her hands the reel was turning and the copper shafts they clattered and the silver comb resounded as the maiden wove the fabric and with silver interwove it vainamoinen old and steadfast thundered on upon his journey
when he heard the shuttle whizzing high above his head he heard it thereupon his head he lifted and he gazed aloft to heaven and beheld a glorious rainbow on the arch the maiden seated as she wove a golden fabric
as the silver comb resounded
stayed his horse upon the instant and he raised his voice and speaking in such words as these addressed her come into my sledge o maiden in the sledge beside me seat thee
then the maiden made him answer and in words like these responded wherefore should the maiden join you in the sledge beside you seated
therefore should the maiden join me in the sledge beside me seat her bread of honey to prepare me and the best of beer to brew me singing blithely on the benches gaily talking at the window
yesterday in time of evening as the sun was slowly sinking in the bush a bird was singing and i heard the fieldfare trilling singing of the whims of maidens
tell me o thou little fieldfare sing thou that my ears may hear it whether it indeed is better whether thou hast heard tis better for a girl in father's dwelling or in household of a husband
but a maiden's lot is brighter and the frost makes cold the iron yet the new bride's lot is colder in her father's house a maiden lives like strawberry in the garden but a bride in house of husband
lives like house dog tightly fettered to a slave comes rarely pleasure to a wedded damsel never
answered in the words which follow song of birds is idle chatter and the throstle's merely chirping as a child a daughter's treated but a maid must needs be married come into my sledge o maiden in the sledge beside me seat thee
as a man i will esteem you and as hero will regard you if you can split up a horsehair with a blunt and pointless knife blade and an egg in knots you tie me yet no knot is seen upon it
with a knife completely pointless and an egg in knots he twisted yet no knot was seen upon it then again he asked the maiden in the sledge to sit beside him but the maid gave crafty answer i perchance at length may join you
vainamoinen old and steadfast did not find the task a hard one from the stone the rind he severed and a pile of ice he hewed her but no splinters scattered from it nor the smallest fragment loosened
no i will not yet go with you if a boat you cannot carve me from the splinters of my spindle from the fragments of my shuttle and shall launch the boat in water push it out upon the billows but no knee shall press against it
none in any land or country under all the vault of heaven like myself can build a vessel or so deftly can construct it
fixed a hundred planks together on a mount of steel he built it built it on the rocks of iron
toiling at the work unresting working thus one day a second on the third day likewise working but the rocks his axe blade touched not
lempo turned the edge against him and an evil stroke delivered on the rocks the axe blade glinted on the hill the blade rang loudly from the rock the axe rebounded in the flesh the steel was buried
from the wound the blood flowed freely bursting forth in streaming torrents
he the oldest of magicians uttered words like those which follow and expressed himself in this wise o thou evil axe ferocious
match thyself against a fir tree or to fall upon a birch tree tis my flesh that thou hast wounded and my veins thou hast divided then his magic spells he uttered and himself began to speak them
and to close the gaping edges of the great wound from the iron by the blue edge deeply bitten but the blood gushed forth in torrents rushing like a foaming river
which was not completely flooded by the overflowing bloodstream which came rushing forth in torrents
but he could not check the bleeding nor restrain it in the slightest and the pain he felt oppressed him and the greatest trouble seized him
and upon the seat he sat him
and the horse sped quickly onward rocked the sledge the way grew shorter and they quickly reached a village where the path in three divided
is there no one in this household who can cure the wounds of iron who can soothe the hero's anguish and can heal the wound that pains him on the floor a child was playing by the stove a boy was sitting and he answered him in this wise
who can soothe the hero's anguish to the rock can fix it firmly and can heal the wound that pains him such may dwell in other houses drive away to other houses
and the sledge went rattling onward
to the midmost of the houses and he asked upon the threshold and beseeching at the window
who can stanch the blood when flowing and can check the rushing bloodstream
at the hospital the out patients were sitting in the dark narrow little corridor waiting to be seen by the doctor the nurses and the attendants tramping with their boots over the brick floors ran by them gaunt looking patients in dressing gowns passed
dead bodies and vessels full of filth were carried by the children were crying and there was a cold draught
to feverish consumptive and impressionable patients but what could be done in the consulting room he was met by his assistant sergey sergeyitch a fat little man with a plump well washed shaven face with soft smooth manners
wearing a new loosely cut suit and looking more like a senator than a medical assistant he had an immense practice in the town wore a white tie and considered himself more proficient than the doctor who had no practice
and wreaths of dried cornflowers sergey sergeyitch was religious and liked solemnity and decorum the ikon had been put up at his expense
at his instructions some one of the patients read the hymns of praise in the consulting room on sundays and after the reading sergey sergeyitch himself went through the wards with a censer and burned incense
lost in thought and asking questions mechanically sergey sergeyitch sat down too rubbing his hands and from time to time putting in his word we suffer pain and poverty he would say
because we do not pray to the merciful god as we should yes
he had long ago given up doing so and the sight of blood upset him when he had to open a child's mouth in order to look at its throat and the child cried and tried to defend itself with its little hands
the noise in his ears made his head go round and brought tears to his eyes he would make haste to prescribe a drug and motion to the woman to take the child away he was soon wearied by the timidity of the patients and their incoherence
by the proximity of the pious sergey sergeyitch by the portraits on the walls and by his own questions which he had asked over and over again for twenty years and he would go away after seeing five or six patients
the rest would be seen by his assistant in his absence with the agreeable thought that thank god he had no private practice now and that no one would interrupt him
he liked best of all works on history and philosophy the only medical publication to which he subscribed was the doctor of which he always read the last pages first he would always go on reading for several hours without a break and without being weary
he did not read as rapidly and impulsively as ivan dmitritch had done in the past but slowly and with concentration often pausing over a passage which he liked or did not find intelligible
near the books there always stood a decanter of vodka and a salted cucumber or a pickled apple lay beside it not on a plate but on the baize table cloth every half hour he would pour himself out a glass of vodka
and drink it without taking his eyes off the book then without looking at it he would feel for the cucumber and bite off a bit at three o'clock he would go cautiously to the kitchen door cough and say
after his dinner a rather poor and untidily served one
the clock would strike four then five and still he would be walking up and down thinking occasionally the kitchen door would creak and the red and sleepy face of daryushka would appear
no it's not time yet he would answer i'll wait a little i'll wait a little towards the evening the postmaster mihail averyanitch the only man in town whose society did not bore andrey yefimitch would come in
mihail averyanitch had once been a very rich landowner and had served in the calvary but had come to ruin and was forced by poverty to take a job in the post office late in life he had a hale and hearty appearance luxuriant grey whiskers
the manners of a well bred man and a loud pleasant voice he was good natured and emotional but hot tempered when anyone in the post office made a protest expressed disagreement or even began to argue mihail averyanitch would turn crimson
shake all over and shout in a voice of thunder hold your tongue so that the post office had long enjoyed the reputation of an institution which it was terrible to visit mihail averyanitch liked and respected andrey yefimitch
for his culture and the loftiness of his soul he treated the other inhabitants of the town superciliously as though they were his subordinates here i am he would say going in to andrey yefimitch good evening my dear fellow
i'll be bound you are getting sick of me aren't you on the contrary i am delighted said the doctor i am always glad to see you the friends would sit on the sofa in the study and for some time would smoke in silence
daryushka what about the beer andrey yefimitch would say they would drink their first bottle still in silence the doctor brooding and mihail averyanitch with a gay and animated face like a man who has something very interesting to tell
the doctor was always the one to begin the conversation what a pity he would say quietly and slowly not looking his friend in the face he never looked anyone in the face what a great pity it is that there are no people in our town
who are capable of carrying on intelligent and interesting conversation or care to do so it is an immense privation for us even the educated class do not rise above vulgarity the level of their development i assure you
is not a bit higher than that of the lower orders perfectly true i agree you know of course the doctor went on quietly and deliberately that everything in this world is insignificant and uninteresting
except the higher spiritual manifestations of the human mind intellect draws a sharp line between the animals and man suggests the divinity of the latter and to some extent even takes the place of the immortality which does not exist
consequently the intellect is the only possible source of enjoyment we see and hear of no trace of intellect about us so we are deprived of enjoyment we have books it is true
if you will allow me to make a not quite apt comparison books are the printed score while talk is the singing perfectly true a silence would follow daryushka would come out of the kitchen
and with an expression of blank dejection would stand in the doorway to listen with her face propped on her fist
mihail averyanitch would sigh to expect intelligence of this generation and he would describe how wholesome entertaining and interesting life had been in the past how intelligent the educated class in russia used to be
and what lofty ideas it had of honour and friendship how they used to lend money without an iou and it was thought a disgrace not to give a helping hand to a comrade in need and what campaigns what adventures what skirmishes what comrades what women
and the caucasus what a marvellous country the wife of a battalion commander a queer woman used to put on an officer's uniform and drive off into the mountains in the evening alone without a guide
it was said that she had a love affair with some princeling in the native village queen of heaven holy mother daryushka would sigh and how we drank and how we ate and what desperate liberals we were
i often dream of intellectual people and conversation with them he said suddenly interrupting mihail averyanitch my father gave me an excellent education but under the influence of the ideas of the sixties made me become a doctor
i believe if i had not obeyed him then by now i should have been in the very centre of the intellectual movement most likely i should have become a member of some university of course intellect too is transient and not eternal
but you know why i cherish a partiality for it life is a vexatious trap when a thinking man reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness he cannot help feeling that he is in a trap from which there is no escape
he knocks and it is not opened to him death comes to him also without his choice and so just as in prison men held together by common misfortune feel more at ease when they are together so one does not notice the trap in life
when people with a bent for analysis and generalization meet together and pass their time in the interchange of proud and free ideas in that sense the intellect is the source of an enjoyment nothing can replace perfectly true
not looking his friend in the face
quietly and with pauses talking about intellectual people and conversation with them and mihail averyanitch would listen attentively and agree perfectly true and you do not believe in the immortality of the soul he would ask suddenly
no honoured mihail averyanitch i do not believe it and have no grounds for believing it i must own i doubt it too and yet i have a feeling as though i should never die oh i think to myself old fogey it is time you were dead
but there is a little voice in my soul says don't believe it you won't die soon after nine o'clock mihail averyanitch would go away
chapter ten it was the third week in august summer was dying as a london summer dies in days of feverish sunlight and breathless languor
it was in the streets with their sultry pallor in the parks and squares where the dust lay like a grey blight on every green thing everywhere the glare accentuated this toneless melancholy
it was the symbol of the decadence following the brilliant efflorescence of the season the exhaustion after that supreme effort of society to amuse itself this lassitude is felt most by those who have shared least in the amusement
the workers who must stay behind in the great workshop
langley wyndham had reasons for congratulating himself that everybody was out of town and that he was left to himself in his rooms in dover street for one thing it gave him opportunity for cultivating miss craven's acquaintance
for another he had now a luxurious leisure in which to polish up the proofs of his last novel and to arrange his ideas for its successor compared with this great work all former efforts would seem to the taste they had created as so much literary trifling
hitherto he had been merely trying his instrument running his fingers over the keys in his easy professional way but these preliminary flourishes gave no idea of the constructive harmonies to follow
and now on a dull evening some three weeks after audrey's dinner party he was alone in his study smoking as he leaned back in his easy chair in one of those dreamy moods which with him meant fiction in the making
the tobacco smoke curling round his head the pythian fumes of his inspiration the study was curiously suggestive of its owner's inconsistencies with its silk cushions oriental rugs and velvet draperies
its lining of books and writing table heaped with manuscripts and proofs it witnessed to his impartial love of luxury and hard work it told other secrets too the cigar case on the table beside him
the initials l w worked with gold thread in a raised monogram two or three photographs of pretty women were stuck by their corners behind the big looking glass over the fireplace together with invitation cards frivolous little notes and ball programmes
on the other the one nearest wyndham's chair an empty frame of solid silver the photograph and the frame represented the friendship and the love of his life to night he had left his proofs untouched on the writing table
and had settled himself comfortably to his pipe with the voluptuous satisfaction of a man who has put off a disagreeable duty he felt that delicious turmoil of ideas which with him accompanied the building up of a story round its central character
not that he yet understood that character wyndham had his intuitions but he was not the man to trust them as such it was his habit to verify them by a subsequent logic
his literary conscience allowed nothing to take the place of the experimental method the careful observation and arranging of minute facts intimate analytical study from the life no action was too small no emotion too insignificant
for his uncompromising realism he had applied the same method to his own experience whatever came in his way the tragedy or comedy of his daily life his moods of passion and apathy the aspirations of his better moments
all underwent the same disintegrating process he had the power of standing aloof from himself of arresting the flight of his own sensations and criticising his own actions as a disinterested spectator
thus he made no experiment on others that he had not first tried on his own person if any man ever understood himself that man was langley wyndham he was by no means vain of this distinction on the contrary he would have said
that as a man's inner consciousness is the only thing he has any direct knowledge of he must be a fool if he can live with himself the closest of all human relations for thirty five years without understanding his own character
and the little he knew of individuals had not tended to raise his opinion of women in general consequently he drew them all as he saw them from the outside the best sort with a certain delicacy and clearness of outline
the result of unerring eyesight and the gift of style the worst sort with an incisive almost brutal touch that suggested the black lines bitten out by some powerful acid his work took because of its coarser qualities
the accentuated bitterness the startling irony the vigorous characteristic phrase those black strokes were not introduced to throw up the grey wash or pencilled shading wyndham's cynicism was no mere literary affectation
it was engrained in his very nature he had gone through many phases of disillusionment including disgust at his own success before that brief crisis of feeling which ended in his engagement to miss fraser
then for the first time in his life a woman's nature had been given to him to know it was a glorious opportunity for the born analyst and for the first time in his life he let an opportunity go he loved alison fraser
and he found that love made understanding impossible he never wanted to understand her the relentless passion for analysis was absorbed in a comprehensive enthusiasm which embraced the whole of alison and took no count of the parts
even with a view to reconstruction
for a whole year the student of the earthly and the visible lived on the substance of things unseen on faith in the goodness of alison fraser
which made her give up wyndham as miss gladys armstrong had guessed or as she would have put it diagnosed a detail of wyndham's past life had come to miss fraser's knowledge as these details always come through a well meaning friend
flattering the egoism inherent even in the very good because she was weak and he was irresistibly strong she cut herself from him deliberately open eyed and with one stroke
she had just sufficient strength for the sudden breaking off of their engagement none for explanation and none alas to save her from regretting her act of supererogatory virtue wyndham gave no sign of suffering
he simply sank back into himself and became the man he had been before plus his experience of feeling and minus the ingenuousness of his self knowledge he took instead to self mystification
therefore all women were unworthy except for purely literary purposes he had done with the sex he became if anything more intently more remorselessly analytical more absolutely the student of human nature
he lived now in and for his work he struck out into new paths he was tired of his neutral washes and striking effects in black and white
novels were lying in his head ten deep he had whole note books full of germs and embryos all neatly arranged in their separate pigeon holes in some he had jotted down a name and a date or a word which stood for a whole train of ideas
in others he had recorded some illustration as it occurred to him or a single sentence stood flanked by a dozen variants wyndham being a careful worker and sensitive to niceties of language to night he was supremely happy
he saw his way to a lovely little bit of psychological realism all that had been hitherto wanting to this particular development of his art had been the woman in audrey craven he had found the indispensable thing
intimacy without love or even as he understood the word friendship she was the type he had long desired the feminine creature artless in perpetual artifice for ever revealing herself in a succession of disguises
he was beginning to adjust his latest impressions to his earlier idea of her he recalled the evening when he had first seen her the hot crowded drawing room the heavy atmosphere the dull faces coming and going
and the figure of audrey flashing through it all she had irritated him then for he had not yet classified her he had tried not to think of her she dogged his thoughts with most unmaidenly insistence
her image lay in wait for him at every cross road of association it was something vivid yet elusive protean yet persistent he recalled that other evening of her dinner party their first recognised meeting her whole person which at first sight had impressed him
with its emphatic individuality now struck him as characterless and conventional and yet what was she like she was like a chameleon no she wasn't
she was like an opal all sparkle when you move it and at rest dull most undeniably dull no that wasn't it exactly she was a looking glass for other people's personalities he hated the horrid word and apologised to himself for using it
formless and colourless
after a moment's satisfaction with this last fancy he became aware that he was being made the fool of metaphor that was not his way to find out what lay at the bottom of this shifting personality
what elemental thoughts and feelings if any the real audrey was composed of to see for himself the play of circumstances on her plastic nature
and know what reaction it was capable of in a word to experimentalise in cold blood on the living nerve and brain tissue was his plan of work for the year eighteen ninety six making a mental note of several of the above phrases for future use
wyndham knocked the ashes out of his pipe and went to bed
chapter thirty two the next thing as i sat in my study in the twilight of that same day the door was hurriedly opened and judy entered she looked about the room with a quick glance to see that we were alone then caught my hand in both of hers
and burst out crying why judy i said what is the matter but the sobs would not allow her to answer i was too frightened to put any more questions and so stood silent my chest feeling like an empty tomb that waited for death to fill it
at length with a strong effort she checked the succession of her sobs and spoke they are killing auntie she looks like a ghost already said the child again bursting into tears tell me judy what can i do for her you must find out mister walton
if you loved her as much as i do you would find out what to do but she will not let me do anything for her yes she will she says you promised to help her some day did she send you then no she did not send me
then how what what can i do oh you exact people you must have everything square and in print before you move if it had been me now wouldn't i have been off like a shot do get your hat mister walton
we will talk about that as we go said judy authoritatively in a moment more we were in the open air it was a still night with an odour of damp earth and a hint of green buds in it a pale half moon hung in the sky
now and then hidden by the clouds that swept across it for there was wind in the heavens though upon earth all was still i offered judy my arm but she took my hand and we walked on without a word till we had got through the village and out upon the road
is she ill she is as white as a sheet and will not leave her room grannie must have frightened her dreadfully everybody is frightened at her but me and i begin to be frightened too and what will become of auntie then but what can her mother do to her
i don't know i think it is her determination to have her own way that makes auntie afraid she will get it somehow and she says now she will rather die than marry captain everard then there is no one allowed to wait on her but sarah
and i know the very sight of her is enough to turn auntie sick almost what has become of jane i don't know i haven't seen her all day and the servants are whispering together more than usual
else i should almost fancy she was starving herself to death to keep clear of that captain everard is he still at the hall yes but i don't think it is altogether his fault grannie won't let him go i don't believe he knows how determined auntie is not to marry him
i daresay he would not care much more than grannie whether she was willing or not so long as she married him
they will be at dinner the captain and grannie i will leave you there and tell auntie that you want to see her but judy don't you want to see her mister walton yes i do more than you can think then i will tell her so
but will she come to me i don't know we have to find that out very well i leave myself in your hands i was now perfectly collected all my dubitation and distress were gone for i had something to do
but was utterly without weapons and there was a danger of her conduct and then of her mind giving way at last
in respect of this i prayed heartily that i might help her judy and i scarcely spoke to each other from the moment we entered the gate till i found myself at a side door which i had never observed till now it was fastened and judy told me to wait till she went in and opened it
the moon was now quite obscured and i was under no apprehension of discovery while i stood there i could not help thinking of doctor duncan's story and reflecting that the daughter was now returning the kindness shown to the mother
i had not to wait long before the door opened behind me noiselessly and i stepped into the dark house judy took me by the hand and led me along a passage and then up a stair into the little drawing room there was no light
she led me to a seat at the farther end and opening a door close beside me left me in the dark there i sat so long that i fell into a fit of musing broken ever by startled expectation castle after castle i built up
castle after castle fell to pieces in my hands still she did not come at length i got so restless and excited that only the darkness kept me from starting up and pacing the room still she did not come and partly from weakness partly from hope deferred
i found myself beginning to tremble all over nor could i control myself as the trembling increased i grew alarmed lest i should become unable to carry out all that might be necessary suddenly from out of the dark a hand settled on my arm
i looked up and could just see the whiteness of a face before i could speak a voice said brokenly in a half whisper will you save me mister walton but you're trembling you are ill
i will get you something and she moved to go but i held her all my trembling was gone in a moment her words so careful of me even in her deep misery went to my heart and gave me strength the suppressed feelings of many months rushed to my lips
i am selfishness itself to speak to you thus now to take advantage of your misery to make you listen to mine but at least it will make you sure that if all i am all i have will save you but i am saved already she interposed if you love me
for i love you and for some moments there were no words to speak i stood holding her hand conscious only of god and her at last i said there is no time now but for action nor do i see anything but to go with me at once
will you come home to my sister or i will take you wherever you please i will go with you anywhere you think best only take me away put on your bonnet then and a warm cloak and we will settle all about it as we go
she had scarcely left the room when missus oldcastle came to the door no lights here she said sarah bring candles and tell captain everard when he will join us to come to the octagon room where can that little judy be
i must take her in hand i had been in great perplexity how to let her know that i was there for to announce yourself to a lady by a voice out of the darkness of her boudoir or to wait for candles to discover you where she thought she was quite alone
neither is a pleasant way of presenting yourself to her consciousness but i was helped out of the beginning into the middle of my difficulties once more by that blessed little judy i did not know she was in the room till i heard her voice
nor do i yet know how much she had heard of the conversation between her aunt and myself for although i sometimes see her look roguish even now that she is a middle aged woman with many children when anything is said which might be supposed to have a possible reference to that night
here i am grannie said her voice but i won't be taken in hand by you or any one else i tell you that so mind and mister walton is here too and aunt ethelwyn is going out with him for a long walk
i mean what i say and miss judy speaks the truth fell together from her lips and mine mister walton began missus oldcastle indignantly
here judy interrupted her i beg your pardon grannie
but missus oldcastle went on unheeding and to be sitting in my room in the dark too that couldn't be helped grannie here comes sarah with candles sarah said missus oldcastle ask captain everard to be kind enough to step this way
yes ma'am answered sarah with an untranslatable look at me as she set down the candles we could now see each other knowing words to be but idle breath i would not complicate matters by speech but stood silent regarding missus oldcastle
she on her part did not flinch but returned my look with one both haughty and contemptuous in a few moments captain everard entered bowed slightly
whereupon she spoke but to me mister walton she said will you explain to captain everard to what we owe the unexpected pleasure of a visit from you captain everard has no claim to any explanation from me
to you missus oldcastle i would have answered had you asked me that i was waiting for miss oldcastle pray inform miss oldcastle judy that mister walton insists upon seeing her at once that is quite unnecessary miss oldcastle will be here presently
i said missus oldcastle turned slightly livid with wrath she was always white as i have said the change i can describe only by the word i have used indicating a bluish darkening of the whiteness she walked towards the door beside me
i stepped between her and it pardon me missus oldcastle that is the way to miss oldcastle's room i am here to protect her without saying a word she turned and looked at captain everard he advanced with a long stride of determination
but ere he reached me the door behind me opened and miss oldcastle appeared in her bonnet and shawl
seeing how things were the moment she entered she put her hand on my arm and stood fronting the enemy with me judy was on my right her eyes flashing and her cheek as red as a peony
miss oldcastle go to your room instantly i command you said her mother and she approached as if to remove her hand from my arm i put my other arm between her and her daughter no missus oldcastle i said
allow me to remark said captain everard with attempted nonchalance
and gave a look of dramatic appeal to missus oldcastle at least said that lady do not disgrace yourself ethelwyn by leaving the house in this unaccountable manner at night and on foot if you will leave the protection of your mother's roof wait at least till tomorrow
people will talk to your prejudice and mister walton's too ethelwyn smiled she was now as collected as i was seeming to have cast off all her weakness my heart was uplifted more than i can say
she knew her mother too well to be caught by the change in her tone i had not hitherto interrupted her once when she took the answer upon herself for she was not one to be checked when she chose to speak but now she answered nothing only looked at me and i understood her of course
they will hardly have time to do so i trust before it will be out of their power it rests with miss oldcastle herself to say when that shall be
missus oldcastle's demeanour changed utterly the form of her visage was altered she made a spring at her daughter and seized her by the arm then i forbid it she screamed and i will be obeyed i stand on my rights go to your room you minx
there is no law human or divine to prevent her from marrying whom she will how old are you ethelwyn i thought it better to seem even cooler than i was twenty seven answered miss oldcastle
is it possible you can be so foolish missus oldcastle as to think you have the slightest hold on your daughter's freedom let her arm go but she kept her grasp you hurt me mother said miss oldcastle hurt you you smooth faced hypocrite
i will hurt you then but i took missus oldcastle's arm in my hand and she let go her hold how dare you touch a woman she said
here captain everard stepped forward saying the riot act ought to be read i think it is time for the military to interfere well put captain everard i said our side will disperse if you will only leave room for us to go
possibly i may have something to say in the matter say on this lady has jilted me have you ethelwyn i have not then captain everard you lie you dare to tell me so and he strode a pace nearer
it needs no daring i know you too well and so does another who trusted you and found you false as hell you presume on your cloth but he said lifting his hand you may strike me presuming on my cloth i answered and i will not return your blow
insult me as you will and i will bear it call me coward and i will say nothing but lay one hand on me to prevent me from doing my duty and i knock you down or find you more of a man than i take you for
i do not like brawling where one cannot fight you shall hear from me before long mister walton no captain everard i shall not hear from you you know you dare not write to me i know that of you which even on the code of the duellist
would justify any gentleman in refusing to meet you stand out of my way i advanced with miss oldcastle on my arm he drew back and we left the room as we reached the door judy bounded after us threw her arms round her aunt's neck
then round mine kissing us both and returned to her place on the sofa missus oldcastle gave a scream and sunk fainting on a chair
miss oldcastle would have returned but i would not permit her no i said she will be better without you judy ring the bell for sarah
you have married a beggar after all and that you'll both know before long thy money perish with thee i said and repented the moment i had said it it sounded like an imprecation and i know i had no correspondent feeling
for after all she was the mother of my ethelwyn but the allusion to money made me so indignant that the words burst from me ere i could consider their import the cool wind greeted us like the breath of god
but we had not gone many paces from the house when miss oldcastle began to tremble violently and could scarcely get along with all the help i could give her nor for the space of six weeks did one word pass between us about the painful occurrences of that evening
to saint albans town we came roman albanus hence the name whose shrine commemorates the faith which led him to a martyr's death
next day the motor flying fast through newark tuxford retford passed
through kirkby lonsdale on we drove the weary rain clouds still above until at last at windermere we felt our final port was near thence the lake with wooded beach stretches far as eye can reach
then amid a weary waste on to penrith town we raced
but where the sitter where oh where
and saw the wondrous vale beneath the lovely valley of monteith
it sometimes spouts and sometimes drops but never never never stops
the clouds concealed it from our sight but it was comforting to say that over there ben nevis lay finally we made the land at fort william's sloping strand and in our car away we went along that lasting monument
the good broad causeway which was made by king george's general wade he built a splendid road no doubt
through a country all alive with memories of forty five the noble clans once gathered here where now are only grouse and deer alas that men and crops and herds should ever yield their place to birds
and that the splendid highland race be swept aside to give more space for forests where the deer may stray for some rich owner far away
tower and moat of which unrivalled shakespeare wrote where once macbeth the schemer deep slew royal duncan in his sleep
passing first culloden's plain where the tombstones of the slain loom above the purple heather
camerons from wild mamore mac donalds from the irish shore
menzies malcolms from the islands
where the noble clansmen sleep
not a thought to break our leisure drifting on from sussex hedges up through yorkshire's fells and ledges past the deserts and morasses of the dreary border passes
judy's news perhaps my reader may be sufficiently interested in the person who having once begun to tell his story may possibly have allowed his feelings in concert with the comfortable confidence afforded by the mask of namelessness
to run away with his pen and so have babbled of himself more than he ought may be sufficiently interested i say in my mental condition to cast a speculative thought upon the state of my mind during my illness with regard to miss oldcastle
i did not suffer quite so much as some would have suffered during such an illness but i have reason to fear that when i was light headed from fever which was a not uncommon occurrence especially in the early mornings during the worst of my illness
when missus pearson had to sit up with me and sometimes an old woman of the village who was generally called in upon such occasions i may have talked a good deal of nonsense about miss oldcastle
and which no one seeming to care about them but myself i was left to wander through at my own lonely will would i could see with the waking eye such a grandeur of gothic arches and long drawn aisles
as then arose upon my sick sense within was a labyrinth of passages in the walls and long sounding corridors and sudden galleries whence i looked down into the great church aching with silence
through these i was ever wandering ever discovering new rooms new galleries new marvels of architecture ever disappointed and ever dissatisfied because i knew that in one room somewhere in the forgotten mysteries of the pile
sat ethelwyn reading never lifting those sea blue eyes of hers from the great volume on her knee reading every word slowly turning leaf after leaf knew that she would sit there reading till
rise and walk slowly away and leave the glorious ruin dead to me as it had so long been to every one else knew that if i did not find her before that terrible last page was read i should never find her at all
but have to go wandering alone all my life through those dreary galleries and corridors with one hope only left that i might yet before i died find the palace chamber far apart
and see the read and forsaken volume lying on the floor where she had left it and the chair beside it upon which she had sat so long waiting for some one in vain and perhaps to words spoken under these impressions may partly be attributed the fact
i was yet left anxious and thoughtful there was no one from whom i could ask any information about the family at the hall so that i was just driven to the best thing to try to cast my care upon him who cared for my care
how often do we look upon god as our last and feeblest resource we go to him because we have nowhere else to go and then we learn that the storms of life have driven us not upon the rocks but into the desired haven
that we have been compelled as to the last remaining so to the best the only the central help the causing cause of all the helps
one day when having considerably recovered from my second attack i was sitting reading in my study who should be announced but my friend judy
exclaimed the impulsive girl taking my hand in both of hers and sitting down beside me i haven't had a chance of coming to see you before though we've always managed i mean auntie and i to hear about you i would have come to nurse you but it was no use thinking of it
i smiled as i thanked her ah you think because i'm such a tom boy that i couldn't nurse you i only wish i had had a chance of letting you see i am so sorry for you but i'm nearly well now judy and i have been taken good care of
by that frumpy old thing missus pearson and missus pearson is a very kind woman and an excellent nurse i said but she would not heed me and that awful old witch mother goose she was enough to give you bad dreams all night she sat by you
well grannie is gracious to everybody but auntie why isn't she gracious to auntie i don't know i only guess is your visitor gone yes long ago do you know i think grannie wants auntie to marry him
and auntie doesn't quite like it but he's very nice he's so funny he ll be back again soon i daresay i don't quite like him not so well as you by a whole half mister walton i wish you would marry auntie but that would never do
she walks like a cat i am sure she is bad did you ever think judy what an awful thing it is to be bad if you did i think you would be so sorry for her you could not hate her at the same time
how is mister stoddart then not well at all he was taken ill before you and has been in bed and by the fireside ever since auntie doesn't know what to do with him he is so out of spirits if to morrow is fine i shall go and see him
thank you i believe that's just what auntie wanted he won't like it at first i daresay but he'll come to and you'll do him good you do everybody good you come near i wish that were true judy i fear it is not
but presently her eyes grew clearer and i could see the slow film of a tear gathering mister walton she said i have been trying not to be selfish you have done me that much good
i am very glad judy don't forget who can do you all good there is one who can not only show you what is right but can make you able to do and be what is right you don't know how much you have got to learn yet judy
but there is that one teacher ever ready to teach if you will only ask him judy did not answer but sat looking fixedly at the carpet she was thinking though i saw who has played the organ judy since your uncle was taken ill i asked at length
and i did feel very ready to murmur like a spoilt child that had not had his way think of her there and me here then i said to myself at last it must have been she that played i know that my redeemer liveth
that last time i was in church and instead of thanking god for that here i am murmuring that he did not give me more and this child has just been telling me that i have taught her to try not to be selfish certainly i should be ashamed of myself
when was your uncle taken ill i don't exactly remember but you will come and see him to morrow and then we shall see you too for we are always out and in of his room just now i will come if doctor duncan will let me
perhaps he will take me in his carriage no no don't you come with him uncle can't bear doctors he never was ill in his life before
he had made him ill i wish i could send the carriage for you but i can't you know never mind judy i shall manage somehow what is the name of the gentleman who was staying with you don't you know captain george everard
he would change his name to oldcastle you know what a foolish pain like a spear thrust they sent through me those words spoken in such a taken for granted way he's a relation on grannie's side mostly i believe
but i never could understand the explanation what makes it harder is that all the husbands and wives in our family for a hundred and fifty years have been more or less of cousins or half cousins or second or third cousins
captain everard has what grandmamma calls a neat little property of his own from his mother
for he is only a third son one of a class grannie does not in general feel very friendly to i assure you mister walton but his second brother is dead and the eldest something the worse for the wear as grannie says
oh but you know that doesn't matter returned judy with bitterness what will grannie care for that it's nothing to anybody but auntie and she must get used to it nobody makes anything of her
it was only after she had gone that i thought how astounding it would have been to me to hear a girl of her age show such an acquaintance with worldliness and scheming had i not been personally so much concerned about one of the objects of her remarks
and if only it should turn out that she had likewise inherited her mother's firmness she might render the best possible service to her aunt against the oppression of her wilful mother how were you able to get here to day i asked as she rose to go
grannie is in london and the wolf is with her auntie wouldn't leave uncle they have been a good deal in london of late have they not yes they say it's about money of auntie's but i don't understand
chapter seven the sea and its shores
the mantle of rock waste creeping down slopes is washed to the sea by streams together with the material which the streams have worn from their beds and that dissolved by underground waters
or leave it for streams to transport to the same goal all deposits made on the land such as the flood plains of rivers the silts of lake beds dune sands and sheets of glacial drift
mark but pauses in the process which is to bring all the materials of the land now above sea level to rest upon the ocean bed
as an agent of destruction and we must first take up its work in erosion before we consider how it transports and deposits the waste of the land sea erosion the sea cliff and the rock bench
on many coasts the land fronts the ocean in a line of cliffs to the edge of the cliffs there lead down valleys and ridges carved by running water which if extended
more or less thickly veneered with sand and shingle at low tide its inner margin is laid bare but at high tide it is covered wholly and the sea washes the base of the cliffs a notch of which the sea cliff
and the rock bench are the two sides has been cut along the shore waves
with its inner margin slightly above low tide shows that it has been cut by some agent which acts like a horizontal saw set at about sea level this agent is clearly the surface agitation of the water
on the coast of scotland the force of the blows struck by the waves of the heaviest storms has sometimes exceeded three tons to the square foot but even a calm sea constantly chafes the shore
else they would have little effect on cliffs of solid rock storm waves arm themselves with the sand and gravel the cobbles and even the large bowlders which lie at the base of the cliff and beat against it with these hammers
until the talus fallen from the cliff is gradually built up beneath the sea to the level at which the waves drag bottom upon it and break
running water sweeps fragments of various sizes along its channels holding them with a loose hand glacial ice grinds the stones of its ground moraine against the underlying rock
weathering of sea cliffs the sea cliff furnishes the weapons for its own destruction they are broken from it not only by the wave but also by the weather indeed
the sea cliff weathers more rapidly as a rule than do rock ledges inland it is abundantly wet with spray along its base the ground water of the neighboring land finds its natural outlet in springs which under mine it
moreover it is unprotected by any shield of talus fragments of rock as they fall from its face are battered to pieces by the waves and swept out to sea the cliff is thus left exposed to the attack of the weather
and its retreat would be comparatively rapid for this reason alone sea cliffs seldom overhang but commonly as in figure one hundred thirty four slope seaward
showing that the upper portion has retreated at a more rapid rate than has the base which do you infer is on the whole the more destructive agent weathering or the wave draw a section of a sea cliff cut in well jointed rocks
whose joints dip toward the land draw a diagram of a sea cliff where the joints dip toward the sea sea caves the wave does not merely batter the face of the cliff
like a skillful quarryman it inserts wedges in all natural fissures such as joints and uses explosive forces as a wave flaps against a crevice it compresses the air within with the sudden stroke
as it falls back the air as suddenly expands on lighthouses heavily barred doors have been burst outward by the explosive force of the air within
as it was released from pressure when a partial vacuum was formed by the refluence of the wave where a crevice is filled with water the entire force of the blow of the wave is transmitted by hydraulic pressure to the sides of the fissure
thus storm waves little by little pry and suck the rock loose and in this way and by the blows which they strike with the stones of the beach they quarry out about a joint or wherever the rock may be weak a recess known as a sea cave
provided that the rock above is coherent enough to form a roof otherwise an open chasm results blowholes and sea arches
as a sea cave is drilled back into the rock it may encounter a joint or crevice opened to the surface by percolating water the shock of the waves soon enlarges this to a blowhole which one may find on the breezy upland
perhaps a hundred yards and more back from the cliff's edge in quiet weather the blowhole is a deep well in storm it plays a fountain as the waves drive through the long tunnel below and spout their spray high in air in successive jets
as the roof of the cave thus breaks down in the rear there may remain in front for a while a sea arch similar to the natural bridges of land caverns stacks and wave cut islands
as the sea drives its tunnels and open drifts into the cliff it breaks through behind the intervening portions and leaves them isolated as stacks much as monuments are detached from inland escarpments by the weather
and as the sea cliff retreats these remnant masses may be left behind as rocky islets thus the rock bench is often set with stacks islets in all stages of destruction and sunken reefs
all wrecks of the land testifying to its retreat before the incessant attack of the waves coves where zones of soft or closely jointed rock outcrop along a shore
or where minor water courses conic down to the sea and aid in erosion the shore is worn back in curved reentrants called coves while the more resistant rocks on either hand are left projecting as headlands
after coves are cut back a short distance by the waves the headlands come to protect them as with breakwaters and prevent their indefinite retreat the shore takes a curve of equilibrium
the rate at which a shore recedes depends on several factors in soft or incoherent rocks exposed to violent storms the retreat is so rapid as to be easily measured the coast of yorkshire england
the sandy south shore of martha's vineyard wears back three feet a year but hard rocks retreat so slowly that their recession has seldom been measured by the records of history
shore drift bowlder and pebble beaches about as fast as formed the waste of the sea cliff is swept both along the shore and out to sea
the road of waste along shore is the beach we may also define the beach as the exposed edge of the sheet of sediment formed by the carriage of land waste out to sea
at the foot of sea cliffs where the waves are pounding hardest one commonly finds the rock bench strewn on its inner margin with large stones dislodged by the waves and by the weather
made of pebbles well rounded by the wear which they have suffered such beaches form a mill whose raw material is constantly supplied by the cliff the breakers of storms set it in motion to a depth of several feet
grinding the pebbles together with a clatter to be heard above the roar of the surf in such a rock crusher the life of a pebble is short where ships have stranded on our atlantic coast with cargoes of hard burned brick or of coal
at no great distance from their source therefore pebble beaches give place to beaches of sand which occupy the more sheltered reaches of the shore sand beaches
the angular sand grains of various minerals into which pebbles are broken by the waves are ground together under the beating surf and rounded and those of the softer minerals are crushed to powder
the process however is a slow one and if we study these sand grains under a lens we may be surprised to see that though their corners and edges have been blunted they are yet far from the spherical form of the pebbles from which they were derived
the grains are small and in water they have lost about half their weiglit in air the blows which they strike one another are therefore weak besides each grain of sand of the wet beach is protected by a cushion of water from the blows of its neighbors
give a rough measure of the distance in space and time which they have traveled from their source the sand of many beaches derived from the rocks of adjacent cliffs or brought in by torrential streams from neighboring highlands
is dark with grains of a number of minerals softer than quartz the white sand of other beaches as those of the east coast of florida is almost wholly composed of quartz grains
how shore drift migrates it is under the action of waves and currents that shore drift migrates slowly along a coast where waves strike a coast obliquely
they drive the waste before them little by little along the shore thus on a north south coast where the predominant storms are from the northeast there will be a migration of shore drift southwards
all shores are swept also by currents produced by winds and tides these are usually far too gentle to transport of themselves the coarse materials of which beaches are made
the current carries them a step forward on their way the current cannot lift and the wave cannot carry but together the two transport the waste along the shore the road of shore drift is therefore the zone
of the breaking waves the bay head beach as the waste derived from the wear of waves and that brought in by streams is trailed along a coast it assumes under varying conditions a number of distinct forms
when swept into the head of a sheltered bay it constitutes the bay head beach by the highest storm waves the beach is often built higher than the ground immediately behind it and forms a dam
inclosing a shallow pond or marsh the bay bar as the stream of shore drift reaches the mouth of a bay of some size it often occurs
that instead of turning in it sets directly across toward the opposite headland the waste is carried out from shore into the deeper waters of the bay mouth where it is no longer supported by the breaking waves and sinks to the bottom
the dump is gradually built to the surface as a stubby spur pointing across the bay and as it reaches the zone of wave action current and wave can now combine to carry shore drift along it
depositing their load continually at the point of the spur an embankment is thus constructed in much the same manner as a railway fill which while it is building serves as a roadway along which the dirt from an adjacent cut is carted
to be dumped at the end when the embankment is completed it bridges the bay with a highway along which shore drift now moves without interruption and becomes a bay bar incomplete bay bars
under certain conditions the sea cannot carry out its intention to bridge a bay rivers discharging in bays demand open way to the ocean strong tidal currents
also are able to keep open channels scoured by their ebb and flow in such cases the most that land waste can do is to build spits and shoals narrowing and shoaling the channel as much as possible
sand reefs on low coasts where shallow water extends some distance out the highway of shore drift lies along a low narrow ridge
termed the sand reef separated from the land by a narrow stretch of shallow water called the lagoon at intervals the reef is held open by inlets gaps through which the tide flows and ebbs
and by which the water of streams finds way to the sea no finer example of this kind of shore line is to be found in the world than the coast of texas from near the mouth of the rio grande a
draws its even curve for a hundred miles to corpus christi pass and the reefs are but seldom interrupted by inlets as far north as galveston harbor on this coast the tides are variable and exceptionally weak
being less than one foot in height while the amount of waste swept along the shore is large the lagoon is extremely shallow and much of it is a mud flat too shoal for even small boats
on the coast of new jersey strong tides are able to keep open inlets at intervals of from two to twenty miles in spite of a heavy alongshore drift sand reefs are formed where the water is so shallow near shore
where storm waves first drag bottom they erode and deepen the sea floor and sweep in sediment as far as the line where they break here where they lose their force they drop their load and beat up the ridge which is known as the sand reef when it reaches the surface
shores of elevation and depression our studies have already brought to our notice two distinct forms of strand lines one the high rocky coast cut back to cliffs by the attack of the waves
and the other the low sandy coast where the waves break usually upon the sand reef to understand the origin of these two types we must know that the meeting place of sea and land is determined primarily by movements of the earth's crust
where a coast land emerges the shore line moves seaward where it is being submerged the shore line advances on the land shores of elevation the retreat of the sea
either because of a local uplift of the land or for any other reason such as the lowering of any portion of ocean bottom lays bare the inner margin of the sea floor
subaqueous plain gently shelving from the land since the new shore line is drawn across this even surface it is simple and regular
and is bordered on the one side by shallow water gradually deepening seaward and on the other by low land composed of material which has not yet thoroughly consolidated to firm rock
a sand reef is soon beaten up by the waves and for some time conditions will favor its growth the loss of sand driven into the lagoon beyond and of that ground to powder by the surf and carried out to sea
and especially by the drag of sediments to the reef by the waves as they deepen the sea floor on its seaward side meanwhile the lagoon gradually fills with waste from the reef and from the land
and becomes a meadow soldering the sand reef to the mainland while the lagoon has been filling the waves have been so deepening the sea floor off the sand reef
vigorously they now wear it back and driving the shore line across the lagoon or meadow cut a line of low cliffs on the mainland such a shore is that of gascony in southwestern france
and the vigorous and unimpeded attack by the sea upon the mainland indicate the stage of maturity
much waste is brought in by rivers the maturity of such a coast may be long delayed the waste from the land keeps the sea shallow offshore and constantly renews the sand reef the energy of the waves is consumed in handling shore drift
and no energy is left for an effective attack upon the land indeed with an excessive amount of waste brought down by streams the land may be built out and encroach temporarily upon the sea and not until long denudation has lowered the land
and thus decreased the amount of waste from it may the waves be able to cut through the sand reef and thus the coast reach maturity shores of depression
where a coastal region is undergoing submergence the shore line moves landward the horizontal plane of the sea now intersects an old land surface roughened by subaerial denudation
the shore line is irregular and indented in proportion to the relief of the land and the amount of the submergence which the land has suffered it follows up partially submerged valleys forming bays
and bends round the divides leaving them to project as promontories and peninsulas the outlines of shores of depression are as varied as are the forms of the land partially submerged we give a few typical illustrations
the characteristics of the coast of maine are due chiefly to the fact that a mountainous region of hard rocks once worn to a peneplain and after a subsequent elevation deeply dissected by north south valleys has subsided
the depression amounting on its southern margin to as much as six hundred feet below sea level drowned valleys penetrate the land in long narrow bays and rugged divides project in long narrow land arms
prolonged seaward by islands representing the high portions of their extremities of this exceedingly ragged shore there are said to be two thousand miles from the new brunswick boundary as far west as portland
and the waste with which their floors were strewn is now in part laid bare as clay plains about the bay heads and in narrow selvages about the peninsulas and islands the coast of dalmatia
on the adriatic sea is characterized by long land arms and chains of long and narrow islands all parallel to the trend of the coast a region of parallel mountain ranges has been depressed
hudson bay and the north the baltic and the yellow seas are examples where the sinking of the land has brought the sea in over low plains of large extent thus deeply indenting the continental out line
the rise of a few hundred feet would restore these submerged plains to the land the cycle of shores of depression
in its infantile stage the outline of a shore of depression depends almost wholly on the previous relief of the land and but little on erosion by the sea sea cliffs and narrow benches appear
where headlands and outlying islands have been nipped by the waves as yet little shore waste has been formed the coast of maine is an example of this stage in early youth all promontories have been strongly cliffed
and under a vigorous attack of the sea the shore of open bays may be cut back also sea stacks and rocky islets caves and coves make the shore minutely ragged the irregularity of the coast due to depression
is for a while increased by differential wave wear on harder and softer rocks the rock bench is still narrow shore waste though being produced in large amounts is for the most part swept into deeper water and buried out of sight
examples of this stage are the east coast of scotland and the california coast near san francisco later youth is characterized by a large accumulation of shore waste
the rock bench has been cut back so that it now furnishes a good roadway for shore drift the stream of alongshore drift grows larger and larger filling the heads of the smaller bays with beaches building spits and hooks
and tying islands with sand bars to the mainland it bridges the larger bays with bay bars while their length is being reduced as their inclosing promontories are cut back by the waves
the bays into which they empty by these steps a coast gradually advances to maturity the stage when the irregularities due to depression have been effaced when outlying islands formed by subsidence have been planed away
and when the shore line has been driven back behind the former bay heads the sea now attacks the land most effectively along a continuous and fairly straight line of cliffs
although the first effect of wave wear was to increase the irregularities of the shore it sooner or later rectifies it making it simple and smooth northwestern france may be cited as an upland plain dissected and depressed
whose coast has reached maturity in the old age of coasts the rock bench is cut back so far that the waves can no longer exert their full effect upon the shore
their energy is dissipated in moving shore drift hither and thither and in abrading the bench when they drag bottom upon it little by little the bench is deepened by tidal currents and the drag of waves
and sweep it out to sea plains of marine abrasion
the sea is sawing its edges to wave base i e the lowest limit of the wave's effective wear the widened rock bench forms when uplifted a plain of marine abrasion
compared with subaerial denudation marine abrasion is a comparatively feeble agent at the rate of five feet per century a higher rate than obtains on the youthful rocky coast of britain
it would require more than ten million years to pare a strip one hundred miles wide from the margin of a continent a time sufficient at the rate at which the mississippi valley is now being worn away
for subaerial denudation to lower the lands of the globe to the level of the sea slow submergence favors the cutting of a wide rock bench the water continually deepens upon the bench
storm waves can therefore always ride in to the base of the cliffs and attack them with full force shore waste cannot impede the onset of the waves for it is continually washed out in deeper water
below wave base basal congolmerates as the sea marches across the land during a slow submergence the platform is covered with sheets of sea laid sediments
lowest of these is a conglomerate the bowlder and pebble beach widened indefinitely by the retreat of the cliffs at whose base it was formed and preserved by the finer deposits laid upon it
in the constantly deepening water as the land subsides such basal conglomerates are not uncommon among the ancient rocks of the land and we may know them by their rounded pebbles and larger stones
life clear running water filled the ditch but the bottom was dull black powdery mud it lay inches deep layer upon layer of one tiny particle upon another
and so loose and light that a thick opaque smoke like column ascended at the slightest touch a monster with the throat and teeth of a crocodile a flat treacherous forehead
that cut its way inland from the level depths of the great lake the entire monster measured scarcely a finger's length
the upspringing water plants veiled her body and drew waving shadows over her round slender tail when the sun was shining she liked to stay here among the bottom vegetation and imitate a drifting piece of reed
she simply was a piece of reed even the sharp eyed heron which had dropped down unnoticed about a dozen yards off and was now noiselessly with slow cautious steps wading nearer and nearer
took her at the first glance for a stick all the ditch water life of a summer day was pulsating around the young pike water spiders went up for air and came down with it between their hind legs
to moor their silvery diving bells beneath the whorls of the water moss one boat bug after another with a shining air bubble on its belly to act as a swimming bag and for oars a pair of long legs sticking far out at the sides
darted with great spurts through the water or rose and sank with the speed of a balloon the young pike peered upwards and saw in the shelter of a tuft of rushes a collection of black boat shaped whirligigs
showing like dots against the shining surface the little water beetles lay and dozed but all at once a sudden storm seemed to descend upon them and they scattered precipitately whirling away in wider and wider circles
only to congregate again just as suddenly like a flock of sheep the young pike disappeared from the heron's view in a cloud of mud and glided off to some distance
finally coming to anchor on a wide submerged plain in a broad creek
whose yellow flowers gleamed out from among the clusters of green heart shaped leaves there was never any peace around her when one animal was on its way down another would be on its way up
and the bed of ooze beneath her was in incessant motion sticks moved to right and left hairy balls lay and rolled over one another there was a twisting and turning of larvae in all directions
the active water beetles were dredging incessantly releasing leaves and stalks which slowly and weirdly rose to the surface air bubbles too were set free and ascended quickly with a rotary motion
here two large tiger beetles were fighting with a poor water bug
and tore its head from its body it must have been almost a pleasure to find oneself so neatly despatched everything tortured and killed down here some indeed even devoured themselves
and anything resting for but a minute was taken for carrion the big horse leech had wound its rhythmically serpentine way through the water it was tired now and had just stretched itself out for a moment's rest
when the supposed pieces of stick upon which it lay seized it and voracious heads with sharp jaws attacked its flesh it was within an ace of being made captive for ever
she saw that to devour others and to avoid being devoured oneself was the end and aim of life for a long time she remained quite still
only an undulating movement of the dorsal fin and the malicious glitter of the eyes revealing her vitality slowly she opened and closed her small wide mouth and let the oxidizing water flow over her blood red gills
it was not long before she had forgotten her recent peril and once more became filled with the cruel passion of the hunter from the shadow of the marsh marigolds she darted under the newly unfolded leaf of a water lily
this was a very favourite lurking place she could lie there with her back right up against the under surface of the leaf and her snout on the very border of its shadow ready to strike
the silvery flash of small fish twinkled around her and myriads of tiny shining crustaceans whisked about so close to her nose that at any moment she could have snapped them up by the score into her voracious mouth
it was especially things that moved that had a magic attraction for grim from the time when but twelve to fifteen days old she had consumed the contents of her yolksac and opened her large voracious mouth
everything that flickered twisted and moved all that sought to escape aroused her irresistible desire in the innermost depths of her being there was an over mastering need expressing itself in an insatiableness
a conviction that she could never have enough and a fear that others would clear the waters of all that was eatable an insane greed animated her and even when she had eaten so much that she could eat no more
she kept swimming about with spoil in her mouth on the other hand anything at rest and quiet possessed little attraction for her
that she could take at any time meanwhile the keen eyed heron wading up to its breast in the water comes softly and silently trawling through the ditch
sedately it goes about its business stalking along with slow measured steps
the gulls dash upon it from behind with a hiss it curves its neck and turns the foil upwards snapping and biting at its tormentors an irritating little flock of gulls may go on thus for a long time
and when at last screaming and mocking they take their departure they have spoilt many a chance and wasted many precious minutes of the big silent patient fisher's time the gulls once gone
the heron applies itself with redoubled zeal to its business from various attacking positions its beak darts down into the water but often without result and it has to go farther afield then at last it captures a little eel
it is not easy however to swallow the wriggling captive the eel twists and refuses to be swallowed so the bird has to reduce its liveliness by rolling up and down in its sharp edged beak then it glides down
this time too fortune is disposed to favour the young pike the heron coming up behind her cautiously bends its neck over the drifting piece of reed it sees there is something suspicious about it but thinks it is mistaken
and is about to take another step forward when only half way it pauses with its foot in the air and the next moment the blow falls grim only once moved her tail then she was seized
something hard and sharp and strong held her fast and she passed head foremost down into a warm narrow channel there was a fearful crush of fish in the channel and much elbowing with fins and twisting of tails
something behind her was pushing but the throng in front blocked the way she could get no farther and yet she glided on very slowly the thick slimy water in the channel bore the living muddy tangle that surrounded her along
she felt the corners of her mouth rub against the sides of the channel she could scarcely breathe in the meantime the heron was flying homewards to its young carrying grim and the rest of the catch
out on the lake lay a boat in which a man sat fishing experience told the bird it was a fisherman but here the bird was wrong the man had a gun in the boat
and as the bird sailed upwards a shot was fired which compelled it to relinquish a part of its booty in order to escape more quickly grim was among the fortunate ones suddenly the crush in the long dark channel grew less
and the sluggish stream of mud that was bearing her along changed its course a little later the stream gathered furious pace and carried her with it she saw light and felt space round her she was able to move her fins
she had time to notice how suffocatingly dry the other world was it seemed to draw out her entrails and all her efforts to right herself were in vain then she regained her native element water covered her gills
grim was a year old when her scales began to grow in her early youth when she could only eat small creatures she had lived exclusively upon water insects and larvae
but from now onwards she had no respect for any flesh but that which clothed her own ribs she attacked any fish that was not big enough to swallow her and devoured bleak and small roach with peculiar satisfaction
now she took her revenge on the voracious small fry that had offended her when she was still in an embryo state she had not been hatched artificially or come into the world in a wooden box with running water passing through it
no the whole thing had taken place in the most natural manner in the flickering sunshine of a march day her mother surrounded by three equally ardent wooers
had spawned and the eggs had dropped and attached themselves to some tufts of grass at the edge of the lake the very next day however little fish had begun to gather about those tufts one day more and there were swarms of them
eagerly they searched the tufts and devoured all the eggs they could find and so thoroughly did they go about their business that of the thousands upon thousands of the mother's eggs only two that had fallen into the heart of a grass stalk were left
out of one of these grim had come the sun had looked after her hatched her out and taught her to seize whatever came in her way now she was avenging the injuries to her tribe
she possessed a remarkable power of placing herself and knew how to choose her position so as to disappear as it were in the water the stalks of the reeds threw their shadows across her body in all directions
water grass and drifting duck weed veiled her the silly roach and other restless little fish flitted about her sometimes so close to her mouth that she could feel the waves made by their tail fins some would almost run right into her
but when they saw her then how the water flashed with starry gleams and how quickly they all made off she liked best to hide where the water lilies floated in islands of green for there the treacherous shadows her best friends
fell clearly through the water absorbed her as it were and made capture easy for her if she found herself discovered she would retreat with as little haste as possible for that sort of thing aroused too much attention
and created widespread disturbance in the fishy world if she lay on the surface for instance and suspected that she was being watched from above she became as it were more and more indistinct and one with the dark water
letting herself sink imperceptibly at the same time beginning to work all her fins in ample folds they softly crept round the long stick that her body now resembled fringed and veiled it and bore it away
and just as she knew how to place herself so did she know how to move cautiously and discreetly formerly she had measured only a finger's length and now she was already about a foot long
her voraciousness had increased in a corresponding degree she could eat every hour of the day she would fill herself right up to the neck and even have half a fish sticking out beyond
it was quite a common sight to see a little flapping fish tail for which her digestive organs had not room as yet sticking out of her mouth like a lively tongue she would swim about delightedly sucking it as a boy would suck a stick of candy
one day she was gliding slowly through a clump of rushes as lifeless and dead as any stick her eyes seemed to be on stalks and spied eagerly round but her body exhibited the least possible movement and eagerness
she turned but even then holding herself stiff and playing her new part of a drifting stick in a masterly manner as she did so she discovered her brother as promising a specimen of a young pike as herself
with all the distinguishing marks of the race although cold blooded she was of a fiery temperament and as she was also hungry she stared greedily and with cannibal feelings at the apparition
her appetite grew in immeasurable units of time the food was at hand it stared her in the face she forgot relationship and resemblance
and bending in the middle so that head and tail met she seized her brother with a lightning movement he was quite as big as she struggled until he was unable to move a fin but the stroke was successful
her teeth were doubled and as they grew they were sharpened by the continual suction of the water through the gills it was as if she understood their value too
for she would often take up her position on the bottom and stir up grains of fine hard sand thus improving the grinding process considerably it was mostly in the half light that she now went hunting
in the early dawn or at dusk her sharp eyes could see in the dark like those of the owl and the cat when the shadows lengthened and the red glow from the sky spread over the water
she felt how favourable her surroundings were and she became one with the power in her mighty nature but in the daytime she lay peacefully drowsing the creek in which she lived had low lying banks
among the short thick grass orchids and marsh marigolds bloomed side by side and the ragged robin unfolded its frayed deep pink flowers upon a stiff dark brown stalk
that always had a mass of frothy wetness about its head farther out the muddy water and horsetails began and beyond them the tall waving reeds
which stretched away in great clumps as far as it was possible for them to reach the bottom where they left off the round stalked olive green bog rushes began wading farther and farther out
until in midstream they gathered in low clumps and groves inhabited by an abundant insect life beautiful butterflies danced their bridal dance out there
some bright yellow with black borders others with the sunset glow upon their wings dragon flies and water nymphs by the score refracted the sun's rays as they turned with a flash of all the colours of the rainbow
black whirligigs lay in clusters and slept and on the india rubber like leaves of the water lily flies and wasps crawled about dry shop and refreshed themselves with the water
in the still early morning the reeds sigh and tremble the little yellowish grey sedge warbler comes out suddenly from its hiding place seizes the largest of the butterflies by the body and as suddenly disappears again
a little later it begins its soft little sawing song which blends so well with the perpetual monotonous whispering of the reeds grim down among the vegetation only faintly catches the subdued tones
she is occupied with an event that is developing with great rapidity a moth has fallen suddenly into the clear water it tries to rise but cannot so darts rapidly across the surface of the water
dragging its tawny wings behind it it puts forth its greatest speed making in a straight line for the shore but the whirligigs have seen the shipwreck and dart out on their water ski to tear the thing to pieces
they advance with the speed of a torpedo boat and in peculiar spiral windings a wedge shaped furrow stands out from the bow of each little pirate and a tiny cascade in his wake
the poor moth becomes wetter and wetter and less and less of his body remains visible as he exerts himself to reach the safety of the reeds where he can climb up into a horse tail and escape just as a cat climbs into a tree to escape from a dog
unfortunately he does not succeed he is in a sinking condition and one of the whirligigs fastens voraciously upon his hind quarters the successful captor however is given no peace in which to devour his prey
he has to let it go and seize it and let it go again and now a little fish a bleak begins to take a part in the play the fluttering chase continues noiselessly across the surface of the water and urged on by the whirligigs above and the bleak beneath
the moth approaches the reeds with muscles relaxed and dorsal fin laid flat grim lies motionless at its edge whence again and again she catches a glimpse of the little silvery fish
its delicate body is fat outside and in plump and well nourished and to the eyes of the fratricide is an irresistible temptation making her hunger creep out to the very tips of her teeth
while her eyes greedily watch the movements of the nimble little fish flash follows flash each bigger and brighter than the other grim feels the excitement and ecstasy of the spoiler rush over her
all that immediately precedes possession of the spoil and delights in the sensation she begins to change from her stick like attitude and imperceptibly to bend in the middle the plump little fish is too much engrossed in its moth hunt
unconcernedly it lets its back display a vivid bright green lake hue while with its silvery belly it reflects all the rainbow colours of the water another couple of seconds and the prey is near
then grim makes her first real leap it is successful ever since she was the length of a darning needle she had dreamt of this leap dreamt that it would be successful
the sedge warbler in the reedy island heard the splash and the closing snap of the jaws they closed with such firmness that the bird could feel as it were the helpless sigh of the victim
and the grateful satisfaction of the promising young pirate she was the tiger of the water she would take her prey by cunning and by craft and by treacherous attack
she was seldom able to swim straight up to her food how could she chase the nimble antelopes of the lake when timid and easily startled they were grazing on the plains of the deep waters
they discovered her before she got near them and could begin her leap huge herds were there for her pleasure she had no need to exert herself but could choose her quarry in ease and comfort
the larger its size and the greater the hunger and lust for murder that she felt within her the more violence and energy did she put into the leap but just as the falcon may miss its aim so might she and it made her ashamed
like any other beast of prey she did not repeat the leap but only hastened away but when her prey was struggling in her hundred toothed jaws and slapping her on the mouth with its quivering tail fin
then slowly and with a peculiar lingering enjoyment she straightened herself out from her bent leaping posture if she was hungry she immediately swallowed her captive but if not she was fond like the cat
of playing with her victim swimming about with it in her mouth twisting and turning it over and chewing it for hours before she could make up her mind to swallow it she ate
it is impossible to do justice to the tender solicitude with which he made all the arrangements for the journey wherever they halted they found preparations for their reception and so admirably had everything been concerted
that miss temple at length found herself in the eternal city with almost as little fatigue as she had reached the tuscan villa the palace of lord montfort was in the most distinguished quarter of the city
and situate in the midst of vast gardens full of walls of laurel
they arrived at twilight and the shadowy hour lent even additional space to the huge halls and galleries yet in the suite of rooms intended for mister temple and his daughter every source of comfort seemed to have been collected
the marble floors were covered with indian mats and carpets the windows were well secured from the air which might have proved fatal to an invalid while every species of chair and couch and sofa
courted the languid or capricious form of miss temple and she was even favoured with an english stove and guarded by an indian screen the apartments were supplied with every book which it could have been supposed might amuse her
there were guitars of the city and of florence and even an english piano a library of the choicest music and all the materials of art
the air of elegance and cheerful comfort that pervaded these apartments so unusual in this land the bright blaze of the fire
which attends an arrival at a strange place at a late hour
presented to them the servant who was to assume the management of their little household and then reminding them of their mutual promises that they were to be entirely their own masters and not trouble themselves about him any more than if they were at pisa
he shook them both by the hand and bade them good night it must be confessed that the acquaintance of lord montfort had afforded consolation to henrietta temple it was impossible to be insensible to the sympathy and solicitude
of one so highly gifted and so very amiable nor should it be denied that this homage from one of his distinguished rank was entirely without its charm to find ourselves when deceived and deserted
unexpectedly an object of regard and consideration will bring balm to most bosoms but to attract in such a situation the friendship of an individual whose deferential notice under any circumstances must be flattering
and to be admired by one whom all admire these are accidents of fortune which few could venture to despise and henrietta had now few opportunities to brood over the past
she saw before her all that she had long read of all that she had long mused over her mind became each day more serene and harmonious as she gazed on these ideal creations and dwelt on their beautiful repose
her companion too exerted every art to prevent these amusements from degenerating into fatiguing expeditions the vatican was open to lord montfort when it was open to none others short visits
where their entrance always made the sculptor's eyes sparkle at dinner there was always some distinguished guest whom henrietta wished to see and as she thoroughly understood the language and spoke it with fluency and grace
she was tempted to enter into conversations where all seemed delighted that she played her part sometimes indeed henrietta would fly to her chamber to sigh but suddenly the palace resounded with tones of the finest harmony
or the human voice with its most felicitous skill stole upon her from the distant galleries although lord montfort was not himself a musician
and his voice could not pour forth those fatal sounds that had ravished her soul from the lips of ferdinand armine he was well acquainted with the magic of music and while he hated a formal concert
the most eminent performers were often at hand in his palace to contribute at the fitting moment to the delight of his guests who could withstand the soft influence of a life so elegant and serene
the sunshine of her smile burst forth once more it would have been impossible for an indifferent person not to perceive that lord montfort witnessed these changes with feelings of no slight emotion
was not aware that lord montfort's demeanour to her differed in any degree from what it was at pisa she had never been alone with him in her life
but then she spoke more to everybody and lord montfort certainly seemed to think of nothing but her pleasure and convenience and comfort but he did and said everything so quietly that all this kindness and solicitude
appeared to be the habitual impulse of his generous nature he certainly was more intimate much more intimate than during the first week of their acquaintance but scarcely more kind for she remembered he had arranged her sofa the very first day they met
one day a discussion rose about italian society between mister temple and his host his lordship was a great admirer of the domestic character and private life of the italians
he maintained that there was no existing people who more completely fulfilled the social duties than this much scandalised nation respecting whom so many silly prejudices are entertained by the english whose travelling fellow countrymen by the bye
but that tainted circle that must exist in all capitals you have no idea he said turning to henrietta what amiable and accomplished people are the better order of italians
i wish you would let me light up this dark house some night and give you an italian party i should like it very much said mister temple whenever henrietta did not enter her negative lord montfort always implied her assent
and it was resolved that the italian party should be given all the best families in rome were present and not a single english person there were some perhaps whom lord montfort might have wished to invite
but miss temple had chanced to express a wish that no english might be there and he instantly acted upon her suggestion the palace was magnificently illuminated
henrietta had scarcely seen before its splendid treasures of art lord montfort in answer to her curiosity had always playfully depreciated them and said that they must be left for rainy days
the most splendid pictures and long rows of graceful or solemn statues were suddenly revealed to her rooms and galleries were opened that had never been observed before on all sides cabinets of vases
groups of imperial busts rare bronzes and vivid masses of tesselated pavement over all these choice and beautiful objects a clear yet soft light was diffused
and henrietta never recollected a spectacle more complete and effective these rooms and galleries were soon filled with guests and henrietta could not be insensible to the graceful and engaging dignity
with which lord montfort received the roman world of fashion that constraint which at first she had attributed to reserve but which of late she had ascribed to modesty now entirely quitted him frank
i would not ask this favour of you unless i thought you would be pleased henrietta could not refuse his request lord montfort presented her and her father to the princess the most agreeable and important person in rome
and having now provided for their immediate amusement he had time to attend to his guests in general an admirable concert now in some degree hushed the general conversation the voices of the most beautiful women in rome
when the music ceased the guests wandered about the galleries and at length the principal saloons were filled with dancers lord montfort approached miss temple there is one room in the palace you have never yet visited he said
my tribune tis open to night for the first time henrietta accepted his proffered arm and how do you like the princess he said as they walked along it is agreeable to live in a country where your guests amuse themselves
at the end of the principal gallery henrietta perceived an open door which admitted them into a small octagon chamber of ionic architecture the walls were not hung with pictures
and one work of art alone solicited their attention elevated on a pedestal of porphyry surrounded by a rail of bronze arrows of the lightest workmanship was that statue of diana which they had so much admired at pisa
the cheek by an ancient process the secret of which has been recently regained at rome was tinted with a delicate glow do you approve of it said lord montfort to the admiring henrietta
which contains some rather painful explanations the reader will not perhaps be much surprised that the marquis of montfort soon became the declared admirer of miss temple he made the important declaration
after a very different fashion from the unhappy ferdinand armine he made it to the lady's father long persuaded that miss temple's illness had its origin in the mind and believing that in that case
the indisposition of the young lady had probably arisen from one cause or another in the disappointment of her affections lord montfort resolved to spare her feelings unprepared the pain of a personal appeal
he did not conceal from mister temple the conviction that impelled him to the course which he had thought proper to pursue and this delicate conduct relieved mister temple greatly from the unavoidable embarrassment of his position
mister temple contented himself with communicating to lord montfort that his daughter had indeed entered into an engagement with one who was not worthy of her affections and that the moment her father had been convinced of the character of the individual
he had quitted england with his daughter he expressed his unqualified approbation of the overture of lord montfort to whom he was indeed sincerely attached and which gratified all those worldly feelings
from which mister temple was naturally not exempt in such an alliance mister temple recognised the only mode by which his daughter's complete recovery could be secured lord montfort in himself
he was young handsome amiable accomplished sincere and exceedingly clever while at the same time as mister temple was well aware his great position would insure that reasonable gratification of vanity
from which none are free which is a fertile source of happiness and which would at all times
to cloud the retrospect of his daughter it was mister temple who exerting all the arts of his abandoned profession now indulging in intimations and now in panegyric conveying to his daughter with admirable skill
how much the intimate acquaintance with lord montfort contributed to his happiness gradually fanning the feeling of gratitude to so kind a friend which already had been excited in his daughter's heart into one of zealous regard
and finally seizing his opportunity with practised felicity it was mister temple who had at length ventured to communicate to his daughter the overture which had been confided to him henrietta shook her head
you really take a wrong an impracticable view of affairs lord montfort must be the best judge of what will contribute to his own happiness lord montfort is acting under a delusion replied miss temple
if he knew all that had occurred he would shrink from blending his life with mine lord montfort knows everything said the father that is everything he should know indeed said miss temple
i wonder he does not look upon me with contempt
he loves you henrietta said her father ah love love love name not love to me no lord montfort cannot love me it is not love that he feels
exclaimed henrietta i respect i admire him i might have loved him but it is too late my beloved daughter oh do not say so for my sake do not say so
lord montfort possesses every quality which can contribute to the happiness of woman a man so rarely gifted i never met there is not a woman in the world however exalted her rank however admirable her beauty
believe me he is indeed worthy of you i am not worthy of him said henrietta in a melancholy voice ah henrietta who is like you exclaimed the fond and excited father
leave me with him a few moments alone mister temple retired a faint blush rose to the cheek of her visitor when he perceived that miss temple was alone he seated himself at her side but he was unusually constrained
my dear lord montfort said miss temple calmly i have to speak upon a painful subject but i have undergone so much suffering that i shall not shrink from this papa has informed me this morning
that you have been pleased to pay me the highest compliment that a man can pay a woman i wish to thank you for it i wish to acknowledge it in terms the strongest and the warmest i can use i am sensible of the honour
and i am happy how different is the world to me from what it was before i knew you ah why will you disturb this life of consolation why will you call me back to recollections that i would fain banish why
dearest miss temple said lord montfort do not reproach me you make me wretched remember dear lady that i have not sought this conversation that if i were presumptuous in my plans and hopes
i at least took precautions that i should be the only sufferer by their nonfulfilment best and most generous of men i would not for the world be unkind to you pardon my distracted words
but you know all has papa told you all it is my wish it is not mine replied lord montfort i wish not to penetrate your sorrows but only to soothe them
oh if we had but met earlier said henrietta temple if we had but known each other a year ago when i was not worthy of you but more worthy of you but now with health shattered
the lightness of my spirit vanished the freshness of my feelings gone no my kind friend my dear and gentle friend my affection for you is too sincere to accede to your request and a year hence
lord montfort will thank me for my denial i scarcely dare to speak said lord montfort in a low tone as if suppressing his emotion if i were to express my feelings i might agitate you
i will not then venture to reply to what you have urged to tell you i think you the most beautiful and engaging being that ever breathed or how i dote upon your pensive spirit and can sit for hours together gazing on the language of those dark eyes
o miss temple to me you never could have been more beautiful more fascinating alas i may not even breathe my love i am unfortunate and yet sweet lady
pardon this agitation i have occasioned you try to love me yet endure at least my presence and let me continue to cherish that intimacy that has thrown over my existence a charm so inexpressible
a tumbler of the old marcobrunner david and a slice of the game pie before i say one word about what we owe to that angel upstairs off with the wine my dear boy you look as pale as death
with those words mister engelman lit his pipe and waited in silence until the good eating and drinking had done their good work now carry your mind back to last night he began
but poor keller's illness made that impossible
to ask particularly in what form the illness declared itself
do the doctors understand what is the matter with him she asked i told her that one of the doctors was evidently puzzled and that the other had acknowledged
i naturally asked what she meant i wish i could give her explanation david in her own delightful words
it came in substance to this some person in her husband's employment at the university of wurzburg had been attacked by a malady presenting exactly the same symptoms
from which mister keller was suffering the medical men had been just as much at a loss what to do as our medical men alone among them doctor fontaine understood the case
of course you asked her for the prescription i said i begin to understand it now no david you don't understand it yet i certainly asked her for the prescription
no such thing was known to be in existence she reminded me that her husband had made up the medicine himself but she remembered that the results had exceeded his anticipations
and that only a part of the remedy had been used the bottle might still perhaps be found at wurzburg
there is a christian woman david if ever there was one yet after the manner in which poor keller had treated her she was as eager to help him as if he had been her dearest friend
why should you distress yourself mamma she said tell me what the bottle is like and let me try if i can find it no it was quite enough for madame fontaine
that there was an act of mercy to be done at any sacrifice of her own feelings she was prepared to do it i interrupted him again eager to hear the end
and she found the bottle i said she found the bottle mister engelman resumed i can show it to you if you like she has herself requested me to keep it under lock and key
so long as it is wanted in this house he opened an old cabinet
and took out a long narrow bottle of dark blue glass in form it was quaintly and remarkably unlike any modern bottle that i had ever seen the glass stopper was carefully secured by a piece of leather
but examining the surface of the glass carefully i found certain faintly marked stains which suggested that the label might have been removed and that some traces of the paste or gum by which it had been secured
had not been completely washed away i held the bottle up to the light and found that it was still nearly half full mister engelman forbade me to remove the stopper it was very important he said
that no air should be admitted to the bottle except when there was an actual necessity for administering the remedy i took it away with me the same night he went on
and a wretched state of mind i was in between my anxiety to give the medicine to poor dear keller immediately and my fear of taking such a serious responsibility entirely on myself
madame fontaine always just in her views said you had better wait and consult the doctors she made but one condition the generous creature relating to herself
if the remedy is tried she said i must ask you to give it a fair chance by permitting me to act as nurse the treatment of the patient when he begins to feel the benefit of the medicine
is of serious importance i know this from my husband's instructions and it is due to his memory to say nothing of what is due to mister keller that i should be at the bedside
that i joyfully accepted the offered help so the night passed the next morning soon after you fell asleep the doctors came you may imagine what they thought of poor keller
i could not feel absolutely sure of the new medicine and with time of such terrible importance and london so far off i was really afraid to miss a post
i was far from blaming him and i said so in his place i should have done what he did we arranged that i should write to fritz by that night's mail
on the chance that my announcement of the better news might reach him before he left london my letter despatched mister engelman continued i begged both the doctors to speak with me before they went away in my private room
there i told them in the plainest words i could find exactly what i have told you doctor dormann behaved like a gentleman he said let me see the lady
and speak to her myself before the new remedy is tried as for the other what do you think he did walked out of the house the old brute
and declined any further attendance on the patient and who do you think followed him out of the house david
and that stranger a handsome lady was an aggravation of the wrong which mother barbara had contemplated when she threatened us with the alternative of leaving the house well mister engelman resumed
the medicine kept its own secret all the ingredients but two set analysis at defiance in the meantime we gave the first dose
but for you we might never have known madame fontaine the door opened as he spoke and i found myself confronted by a second surprise minna came in wearing a cook's apron
and asked if her mother had rung for her yet under the widow's instructions she was preparing the peculiar vegetable diet which had been prescribed by doctor fontaine as part of the cure
actually established as inmates under the same roof with mister keller what would fritz think when he knew of it what would mister keller say when he recognized his nurse and when he heard that she had saved his life
and the bird much offended spread his wings and flew away but the following day he came back again and said to the second girl wilt thou wed me farmer's daughter indeed i will not answered she an ugly brute is the hoodie
and the hoodie was more angry than before and went away in a rage however
and thought that he might be more lucky the third time so back he went to the old place wilt thou wed me farmer's daughter he said to the youngest indeed i will wed thee a pretty creature is the hoodie answered she
and on the morrow they were married i have something to ask thee said the hoodie when they were far away in his own house wouldst thou rather i should be a hoodie by day and a man by night or a man by day and a hoodie by night
the girl was surprised at his words for she did not know that he could be anything but a hoodie at all times still she said nothing of this and only replied i would rather thou wert a man by day and a hoodie by night and so he was
and a handsomer man or a more beautiful hoodie never was seen the girl loved them both and never wished for things to be different by and bye they had a son and very pleased they both were
but in the night soft music was heard stealing close towards the house and every man slept and the mother slept also when they woke again it was morning and the baby was gone high and low they looked for it
but nowhere could they find it and the farmer who had come to see his daughter was greatly grieved as he feared it might be thought that he had stolen it because he did not want the hoodie for a son in law
the next year the hoodie's wife had another son and this time a watch was set at every door but it was no use in vain they determined that come what might they would not close their eyes
at the first note of music they all fell asleep and when the farmer arrived in the morning to see his grandson he found them all weeping for while they had slept the baby had vanished well the next year it all happened again
and the hoodie's wife was so unhappy that her husband resolved to take her away to another house he had and her sisters with her for company so they set out in a coach which was big enough to hold them and had not gone very far when the hoodie suddenly said
you are sure you have not forgotten anything
and the man became a hoodie again and flew away the two sisters returned home but the wife followed the hoodie sometimes she would see him on a hill top and then would hasten after him hoping to catch him
but by the time she had got to the top of the hill he would be in the valley on the other side when night came and she was tired she looked about for some place to rest and glad she was to see a little house full of light straight in front of her
and gave her a soft bed to lie on and the hoodie's wife lay down and so tired was she that it seemed to her but a moment before the sun rose and she awoke again from hill to hill she went after the hoodie
and sometimes she saw him on the top but when she got to the top he had flown into the valley and when she reached the valley he was on the top of another hill and so it happened till night came round again
then she looked round for some place to rest in and she beheld a little house of light before her and fast she hurried towards it at the door stood a little boy and her heart was filled with pleasure at the sight of him
she did not know why after that a woman bade her enter and set food before her and gave her a soft bed to lie in and when the sun rose she got up and left the house in search of the hoodie
this day everything befell as on the two other days but when she reached the small house the woman bade her keep awake and if the hoodie flew into the room to try to seize him
but the wife had walked far and was very tired and strive as she would she fell sound asleep many hours she slept and the hoodie entered through a window and let fall a ring on her hand
the girl awoke with a start and leant forward to grasp him but he was already flying off and she only seized a feather from his wing and when dawn came she got up and told the woman he has gone over the hill of poison said she
and there you cannot follow him without horse shoes on your hands and feet but i will help you put on this suit of men's clothes and go down this road till you come to the smithy and there you can learn to make horse shoes for yourself
so hard did she work that in a few days she was able to make the horse shoes early one morning she set out for the hill of poison on her hands and feet she went but even with the horse shoes on she had to be very careful not to stumble
and everyone meant to be there except the stranger who had come over the hill of poison everyone that is but the cook who was to make the bridal supper greatly he loved races and sore was his heart to think that one should be run without his seeing it
so when he beheld a woman whom he did not know coming along the street hope sprang up in him will you cook the wedding feast in place of me he said and i will pay you well when i return from the race gladly she agreed
and cooked the feast in a kitchen that looked into the great hall where the company were to eat it after that she watched the seat where the bridegroom was sitting
she dropped the ring and the feather into it and set if herself before him with the first spoonful he took up the ring and a thrill ran through him in the second he beheld the feather and rose from his chair who has cooked this feast asked he
and the real cook who had come back from the race was brought before him he may be the cook but he did not cook this feast said the bridegroom and then inquiry was made and the girl was summoned to the great hall that is my married wife he declared
and no one else will i have and at that very moment the spells fell off him and never more would he be a hoodie happy indeed were they to be together again and little did they mind that the hill of poison took long to cross
for she had to go some way forwards and then throw the horse shoes back for him to put on still at last they were over and they went back the way she had come and stopped at the three houses in order to take their little sons to their own home
for it was summer and everyone rose early and rested from twelve to three as they do in hot countries he had dressed himself in cool white clothes and was passing through the hall on his way to the council chamber
when a number of young nobles suddenly appeared before him and one amongst them stepped forward and spoke sire this morning we were all playing tennis in the court the prince and this gentleman with the rest
so that the blood ran from his mouth and nose we were all so horrified at the sight that we should most likely have killed the man then and there for daring to lay hands on the prince
had not his grandfather the duke stepped between and commanded us to lay the affair before you the king had listened attentively to the story and when it was ended he said i suppose the prince had no arms with him or else he would have used them
but when he saw the blood pouring from his face he went to a corner of the court and began to cry which was the strangest thing of all on hearing this the king walked to the window and stood for a few minutes with his back to the room
where the company of young men remained silent then he came back his face white and stern i tell you he said and it is the solemn truth that i would rather you had told me that the prince was dead though he is my only son
than know that he would suffer such an injury without attempting to avenge it as for the gentleman who struck him he will be brought before my judges and will plead his own cause but i hardly think he can escape death after having assaulted the heir to the crown
and in fifteen days he would be brought to trial before the highest judges in the land the young man left the king's presence surrounded by soldiers and accompanied by many of his friends for he was a great favourite
by their advice he spent the fourteen days that remained to him going about to seek counsel from wise men of all sorts as to how he might escape death but no one could help him
for none could find any excuse for the blow he had given to the prince the fourteenth night had come and in despair the prisoner went out to take his last walk through the city he wandered on hardly knowing where he went
and his face was so white and desperate that none of his companions dared speak to him the sad little procession had passed some hours in this manner when near the gate of a monastery an old woman appeared round a corner
and how you are seeking if in any wise you can save your life but there is none that can answer that question save only i myself if you will promise to do all i ask at her words the prisoner felt as if a load had all at once been rolled off him
it is so hard to leave the world and go out into the darkness you will not need to do that answered the old woman you have only got to marry me and you will soon be free marry you exclaimed he but but i am not yet twenty and you
why you must be a hundred at least oh no it is quite impossible he spoke without thinking but the flash of anger which darted from her eyes made him feel uncomfortable however all she said was as you like since you reject me let the crows have you
and hurried away down the street left to himself the full horror of his coming death rushed upon the young man and he understood that he had thrown away his sole chance of life well if he must he must he said to himself
who by this time could scarcely be seen even in the moonlight who would have believed a woman past ninety could walk with such speed it seemed more like flying but at length breathless and exhausted he reached her side and gasped out
we have no time to lose follow me at once
before him the old woman bade the prisoner swear that she should be his wife and this he did in the presence of witnesses then begging the priest and the guards to leave them alone for a little she told the young man what he was to do
when the next morning he was brought before the king and the judges the hall was full to overflowing when the prisoner entered it and all marvelled at the brightness of his face the king inquired if he had any excuse to plead for the high treason he had committed
by striking the heir to the throne and if so to be quick in setting it forth with a low bow the youth made answer in a clear voice o my lord and gracious king and you nobles and wise men of the land
i leave my cause without fear in your hands knowing that you will listen and judge rightly and that you will suffer me to speak to the end before you give judgment for four years you o king had been married to the queen and yet had no children
and adopted in secret the baby of a poor quarryman sending a messenger to tell you that you had a son no one suspected the truth except a priest to whom the queen confessed the truth and in a few weeks she fell ill and died
but go on with your story one day shortly after the death of the queen continued the young man your highness was hunting and outstripped all your attendants while chasing the deer you were in a part of the country which you did not know
so seeing an orchard all pink and white with apple blossoms and a girl tossing a ball in one corner
but when she turned to answer you you were so struck with her beauty that all else fled from your mind again and again you rode back to see her and at length persuaded her to marry you she only thought you a poor knight and agreed that as you wished it
the marriage should be kept secret after the ceremony you gave her three rings and a charm with a cross on it and then put her in a cottage in the forest thinking to hide the matter securely for some months you visited the cottage every week
but a rebellion broke out in a distant part of the kingdom and called for your presence when next you rode up to the cottage it was empty and none could inform you whither your bride had gone that sire i can now tell you
and the young man paused and looked at the king who coloured deeply she went back to her father the old duke once your chamberlain and the cross on her breast revealed at once who you were fierce was his anger when he heard his daughter's tale
by and bye i was born and was brought up by my grandfather in one of his great houses here are the rings you gave to my mother and here is the cross and these will prove if i am your son or not
as he spoke the young man laid the jewels at the feet of the king and the nobles and the judges pressed round to examine them the king alone did not move from his seat for he had forgotten the hall of justice and all about him
and saw only the apple orchard as it was twenty years ago and the beautiful girl playing at ball a sudden silence round him made him look up and he found the eyes of the assembly fixed on him it is true
it is he who is my son and not the other he said with an effort and let every man present swear to acknowledge him as king after my death therefore one by one they all knelt before him and took the oath
and a message was sent to the false prince forbidding him ever again to appear at court though a handsome pension was granted him at last the ceremony was over and the king signing to his newly found son to follow him
rose and went into another room tell me how you knew all that he said throwing himself into a carved chair filled with crimson cushions and the prince told of his meeting with the old woman who had brought him the jewels from his mother
and how he had sworn before a priest to marry her though he did not want to do it on account of the difference in their ages and besides he would rather receive a bride chosen by the king himself but the king frowned and answered sharply
it took some time to discover the whereabouts of the old woman but at length it was accomplished and when she arrived at the palace with the equerry she was received with royal honours as became the bride of the prince
but they were more amazed still at the lightness of her step as she skipped up the steps to the great door before which the king was standing with the prince at his side if they both felt a shock at the appearance of the aged lady they did not show it
and the king with a grave bow took her band and led her to the chapel where a bishop was waiting to perform the marriage ceremony
for the next few weeks little was seen of the prince who spent all his days in hunting and trying to forget the old wife at home as for the princess no one troubled himself about her and she passed the days alone in her apartments
creeping softly to the door he peeped through it and beheld her lying quietly with a crown of gold and pearls upon her head her wrinkles all gone and her face which was whiter than the snow as fresh as that of a girl of fourteen
could that really be his wife that beautiful beautiful creature the prince was still gazing in surprise when the lady opened her eyes and smiled at him yes i really am your wife she said as if she had guessed his thoughts
the king of granada is my father and i was born in the palace which overlooks the plain of the vega i was only a few months old when a wicked fairy who had a spite against my parents cast a spell over me
bending my back and wrinkling my skin till i looked as if i was a hundred years old and making me such an object of disgust to everyone
she was the only person who cared about me and we lived together in this city on a small pension allowed me by the king when i was about three an old man arrived at our house and begged my nurse to let him come in and rest as he could walk no longer
she saw that he was very ill so put him to bed and took such care of him that by and bye he was as strong as ever in gratitude for her goodness to him he told her that he was a wizard
to this he replied that as my misfortune resulted from a spell this was rather difficult but he would do his best and at any rate he could promise that before my fifteenth birthday
as you may suppose this was not easy as my ugliness was such that no one would look at me a second time my nurse and i were almost in despair as my fifteenth birthday was drawing near and i had never so much as spoken to a man
at last we received a visit from the wizard who told us what had happened at court and your story bidding me to put myself in your way when you had lost all hope and offer to save you if you would consent to marry me
the next day danglars was again hungry certainly the air of that dungeon was very provocative of appetite the prisoner expected that he would be at no expense that day for like an economical man
he had concealed half of his fowl and a piece of the bread in the corner of his cell but he had no sooner eaten than he felt thirsty he had forgotten that he struggled against his thirst till his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth
then no longer able to resist he called out the sentinel opened the door it was a new face he thought it would be better to transact business with his old acquaintance so he sent for peppino
and while he smiled as he attempted to regard the affair as a joke he felt his temples get moist with perspiration come my friend said danglars seeing that he made no impression on peppino you will not refuse me a glass of wine
here let me see him certainly and the next moment luigi vampa appeared before danglars you sent for me he said to the prisoner
yes your excellency what then
if you deprive me of that take away my life also we are forbidden to shed your blood and by whom are you forbidden by him we obey you do then obey some one yes a chief
come said danglars will you take a million no two millions three four come four i will give them to you on condition that you let me go
why do you offer me four million for what is worth five million this is a kind of usury banker that i do not understand take all then take all i tell you and kill me
come come calm yourself you will excite your blood and that would produce an appetite it would require a million a day to satisfy be more economical but when i have no more money left to pay you
asked the infuriated danglars then you must suffer hunger suffer hunger said danglars becoming pale most likely replied vampa coolly
no and yet you will let me perish with hunger ah that is a different thing well then wretches cried danglars i will defy your infamous calculations
i would rather die at once you may torture torment kill me but you shall not have my signature again as your excellency pleases said vampa as he left the cell danglars raving threw himself on the goat skin who could these men be
who was the invisible chief what could be his intentions towards him and why when every one else was allowed to be ransomed might he not also be
but to die for the first time in his life danglars contemplated death with a mixture of dread and desire the time had come when the implacable spectre which exists in the mind of every human creature
arrested his attention and called out with every pulsation of his heart thou shalt die danglars resembled a timid animal excited in the chase
first it flies then despairs and at last by the very force of desperation sometimes succeeds in eluding its pursuers danglars meditated an escape but the walls were solid rock
a man was sitting reading at the only outlet to the cell and behind that man shapes armed with guns continually passed his resolution not to sign lasted two days after which he offered a million for some food
they sent him a magnificent supper and took his million from this time the prisoner resolved to suffer no longer but to have everything he wanted at the end of twelve days after having made a splendid dinner
he reckoned his accounts and found that he had only fifty thousand francs left then a strange reaction took place
and sooner than give them up he resolved to enter again upon a life of privation he was deluded by the hopefulness that is a premonition of madness he who for so long a time had forgotten god began to think that miracles were possible
and finally he prayed that this sum might be preserved to him and as he prayed he wept three days passed thus during which his prayers were frequent if not heartfelt
sometimes he was delirious and fancied he saw an old man stretched on a pallet he also was dying of hunger on the fourth he was no longer a man but a living corpse
he offered him one thousand francs for a mouthful of bread but peppino did not answer on the fifth day he dragged himself to the door of the cell are you not a christian he said falling on his knees
do you wish to assassinate a man who in the eyes of heaven is a brother oh my former friends my former friends he murmured and fell with his face to the ground then rising in despair he exclaimed the chief the chief
here i am said vampa instantly appearing what do you want take my last gold muttered danglars holding out his pocket book and let me live here i ask no more for liberty i only ask to live then you suffer a great deal
of what must i repent stammered danglars of the evil you have done said the voice
then i forgive you said the man dropping his cloak and advancing to the light the count of monte cristo said danglars more pale from terror than he had been just before from hunger and misery you are mistaken
i am not the count of monte cristo then who are you i am he whom you sold and dishonored i am he whose betrothed you prostituted i am he upon whom you trampled that you might raise yourself to fortune
i am he whose father you condemned to die of hunger i am he whom you also condemned to starvation and who yet forgives you because he hopes to be forgiven
danglars uttered a cry and fell prostrate rise said the count your life is safe the same good fortune has not happened to your accomplices one is mad
keep the fifty thousand francs you have left i give them to you the five million you stole from the hospitals has been restored to them by an unknown hand and now eat and drink i will entertain you to night vampa
when this man is satisfied let him be free danglars remained prostrate while the count withdrew when he raised his head he saw disappearing down the passage nothing but a shadow before which the bandits bowed
he remained there all night not knowing where he was when daylight dawned
he was thirsty and dragged himself towards it
three sillies adapted by joseph jacobs once upon a time there was a farmer and his wife who had one daughter and she was courted by a gentleman
every evening he used to come and see her and stop to supper at the farmhouse and the daughter used to be sent down
so one evening she had gone down to draw the beer and she happened to look up
beams it must have been there a long long time but somehow or other she had never noticed it before and she began a thinking and she thought it was very dangerous to have that mallet there
for she said to herself suppose him and me was to be married and we was to have a son and he was to grow up to be a man and come down into the cellar to draw the beer like as i'm doing now
and the mallet was to fall on his head and kill him what a dreadful thing it would be and she put down the candle and the jug and sat herself down and began a crying
well they began to wonder upstairs how it was that she was so long drawing the beer and her mother went down to see after her and she found her sitting on the settle crying and the beer running over the floor
why whatever is the matter said her mother oh mother says she look at that horrid mallet suppose we was to be married and was to have a son and he was to grow up
and was to come down to the cellar to draw the beer and the mallet was to fall on his head and kill him what a dreadful thing it would be dear dear what a dreadful thing it would be
and she sat her down beside the daughter and started crying too then after a bit the father began to wonder that they didn't come back and he went down into the cellar to look after them himself and there they
whatever is the matter says he why says the mother look at that horrid mallet just suppose if our daughter and her sweetheart was to be married and was to have a son and he was to grow up
and was to come down into the cellar to draw the beer and the mallet was to fall on his head and kill him what a dreadful thing it would be dear dear dear so it would said the father
now the gentleman got tired of stopping up in the kitchen by himself and at last he went down into the cellar too to see what they were after and there they three sat crying side by side
and the beer running all over the floor and he ran straight and turned the tap then he said whatever are you three doing sitting there crying
oh says the father look at that horrid mallet suppose you and our daughter was to be married and was to have a son and he was to grow up and was to come down into the cellar to draw the beer
and the mallet was to fall on his head and kill him and then they all started crying worse than before but the gentleman burst out laughing
and then he said i've traveled many miles and i never met three such big sillies as you three before and now i shall start out on my travels again
bigger sillies than you three then i'll come back and marry your daughter so he wished them good by and started off on his travels and left them all crying because the girl had lost her sweetheart
well he set out and he traveled a long way and at last he came to a woman's cottage that had some grass growing on the roof and the woman was trying to get her cow to go up
a ladder to the grass and the poor thing durst not go so the gentleman asked the woman what she was doing why lookye she said look at all that beautiful grass
to eat it she'll be quite safe for i shall tie a string round her neck
as i go about the house so she can't fall off without my knowing it oh you poor silly said the gentleman you should cut the grass and throw it down to the cow but the woman thought
it was easier to get the cow up the ladder than to get the grass down so she pushed her and coaxed her and got her up and tied a string round her neck and passed it down the chimney
tumbled off the roof and hung by the string tied round her neck and it strangled her and the weight of the
well that was one big silly and the gentleman went on and on and he went to an inn to stop the night and they
and they got very friendly together but in the morning when they were
the gentleman was surprised to see the other hang his trousers on the knobs of the chest of drawers and run across the room and try to jump into them
and couldn't manage it and the gentleman wondered whatever he was doing it for at last he stopped and wiped his face with his handkerchief oh dear he says i do think trousers are the most awkwardest
i can't think who could have invented such things it takes me the best part of an hour to get into mine every morning and i get so hot how do you manage yours so the gentleman burst out laughing
and showed him how to put them on and he was very much obliged to him
so that was another big silly
and they had rakes and brooms and pitchforks reaching into the pond and the gentleman asked what was the matter why they say matter enough
so the gentleman burst out laughing and told them
but they wouldn't listen to him and abused him shamefully and he got away as quick as he could so there were a whole lot of sillies bigger than the three sillies at home so the gentleman turned back home again
the husband who was to mind the house by george webbe dasent once on a time there was a man so surly and cross he never thought his wife did anything right in the house so one evening
in haymaking time he came home scolding and swearing and showing his teeth and making a dust dear love don't be so angry there's a good man said his goody to morrow let's change our work i'll go out with the mowers
and mow and you shall mind the house at home yes the husband thought that would do very well he was quite willing he said
and went out into the hayfield with the mowers and began to mow but the man was to mind the house and do the work at home first of all he wanted to churn the butter but when he had churned a while he got
thirsty and went down to the cellar to tap a barrel of ale so just when he had knocked in the bung and was putting the tap into the cask he heard overhead the pig come into the kitchen
then off he ran up the cellar steps with the tap in his hand as fast as he could to look after the pig lest it should upset the churn but when he got up and saw the pig had already knocked the churn over
and stood there routing and grunting amongst the cream which was running all over the floor he got so wild with rage that he quite forgot the ale barrel and ran at the pig as hard as he could
he caught it too just as it ran out of doors and gave it such a kick
on the spot then all at once he remembered he had the tap in his hand but when he got down to the cellar every drop of ale had run out of the cask then he went into the dairy and found enough cream left to fill the churn again
and so he began to churn for butter they must have at dinner when he had churned a bit he remembered that their milking cow was still shut up in the stable and hadn't
though the sun was high then all at once he thought twas too far to take her down to the meadow so he'd just get her up on the housetop for the house you must know was thatched with sods
and a fine crop of grass was growing there now their house lay close up against a steep down and he thought if he laid a plank across to the thatch at the back he'd easily get the cow up
but still he couldn't leave the churn for there was his little babe crawling about on the floor and if i leave it he thought the child is sure to upset it so he took the churn on his back
and went out with it but then he thought he'd better first water the cow before he turned her out on the thatch so he took up a bucket to draw water out of the well
now it was near dinner time and he hadn't even got the butter yet so he thought he'd best boil the porridge and filled the pot with water and hung it over the fire when he had done that
he thought the cow might perhaps fall off the thatch and break her legs or her neck so he got up on the house to tie her up one end of the rope he made fast to the cow's neck
and the other he slipped down the chimney and tied round his own thigh and he had to make
and he had still to grind the oatmeal so he began to grind away but while he was hard at it down fell the cow off the housetop
by the rope there he stuck fast and as for the cow she hung half way down the wall swinging between heaven and earth for she could neither get down nor up and now the goody
had waited seven lengths and seven breadths for her husband to come and call them home to dinner but never a call they had at last she thought she'd waited long enough and went home
the musicians of bremen by wilhelm and jakob grimm a certain man had a donkey that had served him faithfully for many long years
but whose strength was so far gone that at last he was quite unfit for work so his master began to consider how much he could make of the donkey's skin but the beast perceiving that no good wind was blowing
ran away along the road to bremen there thought he i can be town musician when he had run some way he found a hound lying by the roadside yawning like one who was very tired
ah replied the hound because every day i grow older and weaker i cannot go any more to the hunt and my master has well nigh beaten me to death so that i took to flight and now
i do not know how to earn my bread well do you know said the ass i am going to bremen to be town musician there
and take a share in the music i will play on the lute and you shall beat the kettledrums the dog was satisfied and off they set presently they came to a cat
sitting in the middle of the path with a face like three rainy days now then old shaver what has crossed you
how can one be merry when one's neck has been pinched like mine answered the cat because i am growing old and my teeth are all worn to stumps and because i would
rather sit by the fire and spin than run after mice my mistress wanted to drown me and so i ran away but now good advice is dear and i do not know what to do go with us to bremen
you understand nocturnal music so you can be town musician the cat consented
the three vagabonds soon came near a farmyard where upon the barn door the cock was sitting crowing with all his might you crow
said the ass what do you do that for
but because grand guests are coming for the sunday the housewife has no pity and has told the cook maid to make me into soup for the morrow and this evening my head will be cut off
now i am crowing with a full throat as long as i can ah but you red comb replied the ass rather come away with us we are going to bremen to find there something better than death
you have a good voice and if we make music together it will have full play the cock consented to this plan and so all four traveled on together they could not however reach bremen
in one day and at evening they came into a forest where they meant to pass the night the ass and the dog laid themselves down under a large tree the cat and the cock climbed up into the branches
but the latter flew right to the top where he was most safe before he went to sleep he looked all round the four quarters
so calling his companions he said they were not far from a house for he saw a light the ass said if it is so we had better get up and go farther for the pasturage here is very bad
and the dog continued yes indeed a couple of bones with some meat on would be very acceptable so they made haste toward the spot where the light was and which shone now brighter and brighter
until they came to a well lighted robber's cottage the ass as the biggest went to the window and peeped in what do you see gray horse asked the cock
a table laid out with savory meats and drinks with robbers sitting around enjoying themselves that would be the right sort of thing for us said the cock
yes yes i wish we were there replied the ass then these animals took counsel together how they should contrive to drive away the robbers and at last they thought of a way
the hound got on his back
climbed up upon the dog and lastly the cock flew up and perched upon the head of the cat when this was accomplished at a given signal they commenced together to perform their music
the ass brayed the dog barked the cat mewed and the cock crew and they made such a tremendous noise and so loud that the panes of the window were shivered terrified
and fled off into the forest so the four companions immediately sat down at the table and quickly ate up all that was left as if they had been fasting for six weeks as soon as they had finished they extinguished
the light and each sought for himself a sleeping place according to his nature and custom the ass laid himself down upon some straw the hound behind the door the cat upon the hearth
near the warm ashes and the cock flew up on a beam which ran across the room weary with their long walk they soon went to sleep at midnight the robbers perceived from their retreat that no
light was burning in their house and all appeared quiet so the captain said we need not have been frightened into fits and calling one of the band he sent him forward to reconnoiter the messenger finding
all still went into the kitchen to strike a light and taking the glistening fiery eyes of the cat for live coals he held a lucifer match to them expecting it to take fire but the cat not understanding the joke
flew in his face spitting and scratching which dreadfully frightened him so that he made for the back door but the dog who laid there sprang up and bit his leg and as he limped upon the straw
where the ass was stretched out it gave him a powerful kick with its hind foot this was not all for the cock awaking at the noise clapped his wings and cried from the beam cock a doodle doo cock a doodle do
then the robber ran back as well as he could to his captain and said ah my master there dwells a horrible witch in the house who spat on me and scratched my face with her long nails
and then before the door stands a man with a knife who chopped at my leg and in the yard there lies a black monster who beat me with a great wooden club
who called out bring the knave up do so i ran away as fast as i could after this the robbers dared not again go near their house
but everything prospered so well with the four town musicians of bremen that they did not forsake their situation
mad indeed would i be to expect it in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence yet mad am i not and very surely do i not dream but tomorrow i die and today i would unburthen my soul
my immediate purpose is to place before the world plainly succinctly and without comment a series of mere household events in their consequences these events have terrified have tortured have destroyed me
yet i will not attempt to expound them to me they presented little but horror to many they will seem less terrible than baroques hereafter perhaps some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the commonplace
some intellect more calm more logical and far less excitable than my own which will perceive in the circumstances i detail with awe nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects
from my infancy i was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition my tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions
this peculiarity of character grew with my growth and in my manhood i derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure to those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog
which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere man
observing my partiality for domestic pets she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind we had birds gold fish a fine dog rabbits a small monkey and a cat
this latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal entirely black and sagacious to an astonishing degree in speaking of his intelligence my wife who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition
made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise not that she was ever serious upon this point and i mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens just now to be remembered pluto
this was the cat's name was my favourite pet and playmate i alone fed him and he attended me wherever i went about the house it was even with difficulty that i could prevent him from following me through the streets
our friendship lasted in this manner for several years during which my general temperament and character through the instrumentality of the fiend intemperance had i blush to confess it experienced a radical alteration for the worse
i grew day by day more moody more irritable more regardless of the feelings of others i suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife at length i even offered her personal violence
my pets of course were made to feel the change in my disposition i not only neglected but ill used them for pluto however i still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him
as i made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits the monkey or even the dog when by accident or through affection they came in my way but my disease grew upon me for what disease is like alcohol
and at length even pluto who was now becoming old and consequently somewhat peevish even pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper one night returning home much intoxicated from one of my haunts about town
i fancied that the cat avoided my presence i seized him when in his fright at my violence he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth the fury of a demon instantly possessed me i knew myself no longer
my original soul seemed at once to take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish malevolence gin nurtured thrilled every fiber of my frame i took from my waistcoat pocket a penknife opened it
grasped the poor beast by the throat and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket i blush i burn i shudder while i pen the damnable atrocity when reason returned with the morning
i experienced a sentiment half of horror half of remorse for the crime of which i had been guilty but it was at best a feeble and equivocal feeling and the soul remained untouched
i again plunged into excess and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed in the meantime the cat slowly recovered the socket of the lost eye presented it is true a frightful appearance
but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain he went about the house as usual but as might be expected fled in extreme terror at my approach i had so much of my old heart left as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature
yet i am not more sure that my soul lives than i am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart one of the indivisible primary faculties or sentiments which gave direction to the character of man
who has not a hundred times found himself committing a vile or a silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not have we not a perpetual inclination in the teeth of our best judgment to violate that which is law
merely because we understand it to be such this spirit of perverseness i say came to my final overthrow it was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself to offer violence to its own nature
to do wrong for the wrong's sake only that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury i had inflicted upon the unoffending brute one morning in cool blood i slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree
hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes and with the bitterest remorse at my heart hung it because i knew it had loved me and because i felt it had given me no reason of offence
a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it if such a thing were possible even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the most merciful and most terrible god on the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done
i was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire the curtains of my bed were in flames the whole house was blazing it was with great difficulty that my wife a servant and myself made our escape from the conflagration
this exception was found in a compartment wall not very thick which stood about the middle of the house and against which had rested the head of my bed the plastering had here in great measure resisted the action of the fire
a fact which i attributed to its having recently spread about this wall a dense crowd were collected and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention the words strange
singular and other similar expressions excited my curiosity
cat the impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous there was a rope about the animal's neck when i first beheld this apparition for i could scarcely regard it as less my wonder and my terror were extreme
but at length reflection came to my aid the cat i remembered had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house upon the alarm of fire this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd
by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown through an open window into my chamber this had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep
the falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly spread plaster the lime of which with the flames and the ammonia from the carcass had then accomplished the portraiture as i saw it
for months i could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat and during this period there came back into my spirit a half sentiment that seemed but was not remorse i went so far as to regret the loss of the animal
and to look about me among the vile haunts which i now habitually frequented for another pet of the same species and of somewhat similar appearance with which to supply its place
one night as i sat half stupefied in a den of more than infamy my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of gin or of rum
which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment i had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes and what now caused me surprise was the fact that i had not sooner perceived the object thereupon
i approached it and touched it with my hand it was a black cat a very large one fully as large as pluto and closely resembling him in every respect but one
pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body but this cat had a large although indefinite splotch of white covering nearly the whole region of the breast
the singing mouse peeped out from the hollow orbit of the white skull which lies upon the table next to the volume of shakespeare it reached down a tiny pink paw and touched a leaf of the brave red rose which every day lies before the skull
it plucked the leaf which made a buckler for its small throbbing breast it spoke the rose is bold and red said the singing mouse blood is red a skull is white
the rose and the skull love one another they understand we do not understand as i sat by the skull i saw a dream of the past go by it was as you see it now
and he who thinks must weep he leaves the ship and the iron rail and his road is narrower and slower for he travels now by wheels of wood he sees the valleys and his smile has more of peace
his trail becomes narrower yet he goes by saddle and the mountains hem him in but now he smiles the more now he must leave even the saddle and the trail is dim and hard see
the trail is gone here where no foot has trod where the mountains close about where the trees whisper he sits and looks about him do you see the red rose on his breast
always the rose is there do you see him look up at the mountains about him at the trees do you see him lay his head upon the earth do you still see his smile the smile which is weary and yet not afraid
do you hear him sigh and what is this he whispers here at the end of the long and narrowing way
ah what does this man mean who whispers to himself in riddles look it is the time of war there is music the blood stings the heart leaps the eye flames
the soul exults flickering of light on steel the flash of servant forces used to slay the reverberant growl of engines made for death the passing of men in cloth and men in blankets
the tramp of hurrying hoofs the falling of men who die can you see this can you catch the horror the exultation the joy of this i say they come they go they run their race
and it is all here are those who ride against those who slay do you know this one who rides at the head smiling swinging his sword well and smiling all the time
it is he who said in the mountains that riddle of the end and the beginning who knew that to the heart of nature we must come for either the end or the beginning of this our life do you see upon his breast the red rose
i think he rides to battle with the rose knowing what fate will come you know of this biting whistle in the air this small thing that smites unseen
hark i hear the singing of this unseen thing see he of the rose is bitten he has fallen ay ay he was so brave and strong his horse has gone he is alone
the grass here was so green it is red the rose upon his breast is red his face is white but still the smile is there and now it is calmer and more sweet though still he whispers
i know not if it be the end or the beginning he is alone with nature again the heavens weep for him the grasses and leaves begin with busy fingers to cover him up the earth pillows him
he sleeps it is all it is done it is the way of life
the grass the rose now since he cherished the rose so well see the rose will not leave him out of the dust it rises it grows it blooms against his lips it presses it is the beginning
he loved he thought he knew he is not dead he is with nature it is but the beginning let the rose press against his lips in an eternal pure caress there is no end
wondering at these words i scarce could tell when the singing mouse went away leaving me staring at the barren walls and at the white skull by my hand for a moment it nearly seemed to me the hollow eyes had light and spoke to me
for a moment almost it seemed to me that the rose stirred deep down among its petals
it set in motion many shadows which had their home in the corners of the walls and bade them cease their sullenness and come forth to dance in the riot of the hour and so each shadow found its partner in a ray of firelight and there they danced
they crossed the grinning skull of the gray wolf they softened the eyes of the antelope's head and made dark lines behind the long tined antlers of the elk and of the deer
they brought forth to view in alternate eclipse and definition the great grim bear's head which hung above the mantel every trophy gathered in years of the chase once perhaps prized now perhaps forgotten
was brought into evidence nor could one escape noting each one and giving to each for this one night more the story which belonged to it i sat and looked upon them all and so there passed a panorama of the years
there thought i is the stag which once fell far in the pine woods of the north this antelope takes me back to the hard white plains these huge antlers could grow only amid the forests of the rockies that wolf
how many of the hounds he mangled i remember and the giant bear it was a good fight he made perhaps dangerous had the old rifle there been less sure yes yes of course i could recall each incident
the mouth must have been dry with the ardor of the chase at those times but now but why does the heart leap to night do the veins fill with the rush of the blood tumultuous in the joy of stimulus or danger
which unknown to me had come and placed itself upon the table i know and it climbed upon my arm which lay across the table
the fire shone fair upon its little form so that in silhouette its outline was delicate and keen as an image cut from the fiery heart of a noble opal stone and what is it that you know i asked maker of dreams tell me what you know to night
the singing mouse balanced and moved itself in harmony with the beat of the fire's rays i looked at it so closely that a dream came upon my eyes so that the voice of the singing mouse sounded far away and faint
though it was still clear and resonant in its own peculiar way and very fine and sweet i will tell you which trophy you most prize it said i will show you your iliad of the chase do you not remember
and so i gazed where the singing mouse pointed quite beyond the dusty walls and there i saw as it had said i heard not the thunder of the hoofs of buffalo nor the faint crack of the twig beneath the panther's foot
i saw not the lurching gallop of the long jawed wolf nor the high elastic bounding of the deer the level swinging speed of the antelope the slinking of the lynx the crashing flight of the wapiti
no it was none of these that came to mind nor did the mountains nor the plains nor the wilderness of the pines but when the singing mouse whispered do you see i murmured in reply i see it all again
i saw the small low hills well covered with short oaks and hazel bushes which rolled on away from the village far out almost to the delectable mountains which are well known to be upon the edge of the world
through these low hills a winding road led on a road whose end no man had ever reached but which went to places where no doubt many wonders were
for so a wise man once had said his words harkened to with awe this was a pleasant road lined with brave sumacs with bushes of the wild blackberry
and with small hazel trees which soon would offer fruit for the regular harvest of the fall this same to be spread for drying on the woodshed roof it was perhaps wise curiosity as to the crop of nuts which had brought thus far from home these two figures
an enormous distance perhaps at least a mile beyond what heretofore had been the utmost limit of their wanderings it was not perhaps safe to venture so far there were known to be strange creatures in these woods
one knew not what it was therefore well that the younger boy should clasp tightly the hand of the older him who bore with such confidence the bow and arrows
along this mysterious road through this wild and unknown wilderness so far from any habitation of mankind the zeal of the explorer held them fast they scarce dared fare farther on but yet would not turn back
the noises of the woods thrilled them the sudden clanging note of the jay near by caused them to stop heart in mouth for the moment strange rustlings in the leaves made them cross the road and step more quickly
yet the cawing of a crow across the woods seemed friendly and a small brown bird which hopped ahead along the road was intimate and kind and thus touched the founts of bravery in the two venturous hearts certainly they would go on
it was no matter about the sun this was the valley of ajalon perhaps of which one had heard in the class at sabbath school and surely this was a good droning yellow bodied bee
where did the bees go to when they rose up straight into the air and this little mouse what became of it in winter and ah what was that that awful burst of sound
clutch closer little brother though both be pale how should either of you yet know the thunderous flight of the wild grouse this great bird which whirled away through the brown leaves of the oaks
father must be asked about this tremendous startling bird meantime the heart having begun to beat again let the two adventurers press yet a little farther on and so with fears and tremblings with doubts and joys
through briers and flowers through hindrances and recompenses along this crooked winding unknown road which led on out into the unknown they wandered
what is it this sound approaching coming directly toward the road surely it must be the footfall of some large animal this cadenced rustling on the leaves it comes it will cross near
there it has turned it is near the road look there it is a great animal half the length of one's arm with bushy long red tail arched high for easier running its grayish coat showing in the bars of sunlight
its eyes bright and black and keen had it not been said there were wild animals in these woods each heart now thumped hard with the surging blood it bore
fear vanished at the sight of the quarry and the only thought remaining was that of battle and of victory well for the animal that it ran ill for it that it ran down the road and not back into the cover
but ho the creature rallies recovers it gathers its forces it flies pursuit then but pursuit apparently useless for the animal has found refuge deep in this hollow stump beyond the reach of longest mortal arm
rustle now ye leaves and threaten now all ye boughs with menacings
no longer can ye strike terror into these two souls small though they be the heart of the hunter has now been born for each fear and defeat are known no longer in the compass of their thoughts follow follow follow
so spake the good old savagery of the natural man better for this creature had it never disturbed these two with its footfalls approaching among the leaves out of its refuge now must it come yea though one lost a thousand suppers that night
and though a thousand stones lay waiting in the dark along the road to hurt bare unprotected toes the sun forgot its part and sank red though reluctant beyond the delectable mountains thou moon this is ajalon
be kindly for by moonlight one still may labor and here is labor to be done every blade in the barlow knives is broken the hole in the stump yields not to slashings nor to attempts to pry it open
the prey is still unreached what is to be done the elder hunter bethinks him of a solution for this problem the broken blade will do to gnaw off this bough and it will serve to make a split in the end of it
and if one be fortunate and if this split bestride the tail of the concealed animal and if the stick be twisted i've got him cried this philosopher for his eureka and then there was twisting and pulling and scratching and squeaking
and bitten fingers and tears but after all was over there lay the squirrel vanquished at the feet of these young barbarians who had wandered out from home into the unknown lands of earth cruel barbarians thoughtless relentless
marched up into the dooryard bearing on a pole between them their quarry well suspended by the gambrels my boys i feared that you were lost exclaims the tearful mother who stands waiting in the door
but the silent father standing back of her in the glow of the lamplight sees what the pole is bearing and in his eye there is a smile after that motherly reproach fatherly inquiry plenteous bread and milk
many eager explanations and much descriptive narrative simultaneously uttered by two mouths eager both to eat and to talk i see it all i said to the singing mouse it all comes back again
no chase was ever or will ever be so great as this one back there near the delectable mountains in those days gone by those incomparable days of youth
the blue sea tossing away to infinity and his steward's cheerful face at his bedside bathroom steward says if you are ready sir he can arrange for your bath now the man announced philip sprang out of bed and reached for his bond street dressing gown
i'll bring you a cup of tea when you get back sir the steward continued the bathrooms are exactly opposite the sting of the salt water seemed to complete his new found light heartedness philip dressed and shaved whistling softly all the time to himself
he even found a queer sort of interest in examining his stock of ties and other garments the memory of elizabeth dalstan's words was still in his brain they had become the text of his life this he told himself was his birthday
the envelope of the letter he opened with a little more compunction it was written on the printed notepaper of the douglas romilly shoe company and was of no great length dear mister romilly
i understood that you would return to the factory this evening for a few minutes before taking the train to liverpool there were one or two matters upon which i should like some further information but as time is short i am writing to you at the waldorf hotel at new york
wishing you every success on the other side and a safe return i am your obedient servant j l potts there is not the slightest doubt philip said to himself as he tore both communications into pieces and watched them flutter away downwards
that i am on my way to new york if only one knew what had become of that poor half starved art master he went down to breakfast and afterwards strolled aimlessly about the deck
his sense of enjoyment was so extraordinarily keen that he found it hard to settle down to any of the usual light occupations of idle travellers he was content to stand by the rail and gaze across the sea a new wonder to him
or to lie about in his steamer chair and listen with half closed eyes
his mind turned by chance to one of those stories of which he had spoken a sudden new vigour of thought seemed to rend it inside out almost in those first few seconds
the wretched surroundings the odoriferous food the thick crockery the smoke palled vista of roofs and chimneys the genius of a stevenson would have become dwarfed in such surroundings a phrase a happy idea suddenly caught his fancy
he itched for a pencil and paper then he looked up to find the one thing wanting elizabeth dalstan followed by a maid carrying rugs and cushions had paused smiling by his side
now for the next few minutes you must please devote yourself to making me comfortable put everything down phoebe mister romilly will look after me for a moment he paused before proceeding to his task i want to look at you he confessed
remember i have only seen you under the electric lights of the saloon or in that queer violet gloom of last night why you have quite light hair and i thought it was dark she laughed good humouredly and turned slowly around here i am she announced
as a matter of fact she went on pensively i am rather proud of my figure a little journalist who had annoyed me and to whom i was rude once called it ample
the critics who love me and they most of them love me because i am so exceptionally polite to them and tell them exactly what to say about every new play allude to my physique as grecian but your eyes he exclaimed last night i thought they were grey
this morning why surely they are brown you see that is all according to the light she confided if any one does try to write a description of me they generally evade the point by calling them browny grey
and now if you please i want to be made exceedingly comfortable i want you to find the deck steward and see that i have some beef tea as quickly as possible i want my box of cigarettes on one side and my vanity case on the other and i should like to listen to the plot of your play
and the story itself was unhappiness so necessary after all they suddenly seemed to crumble away into insignificance these men and women of his creation in their place he could almost fancy a race of larger beings
a more extensive canvas a more splendid a riper and richer vocabulary nothing that i have ever done he sighed is worth talking to you about but if you are going to be my friend well
if you are going to be my friend he went on with almost inspired conviction i shall write something different one can rebuild she murmured one can sometimes use the old pieces life and chess are both like that
would you help me i wonder he asked impulsively she looked away from him out across the steamer rail she seemed to be measuring with her eyes the roll of the ship as it rose and fell in the trough of the sea you are a strange person she said
tell me are you in the habit of becoming suddenly dependent upon people not i he assured her if i were to tell you how my last ten years have been spent you would not believe me you couldn't
i have never been in business he answered quickly my name is romilly but i am not romilly the manufacturer for the last eight years i have lived in a garret in london teaching false art in a third rate school some of the time
doing penny a line journalistic work when i got the chance clerk for a month or two in a brewer's office and sacked for incapacity those are a few of the real threads in my life at the present moment then she observed you are an impostor
exactly he admitted and i should probably have been repenting it by now but for your words last night she smiled at him and the sun shone once more it wasn't an ordinary smile at all it was just as though she were letting him into the light of her understanding
had stooped down to understand and was telling him that all was well he drew his chair a little closer to hers we are all more or less impostors she said does any one i wonder go about the world telling everybody what they really are how they really live
do not weary me with explanations i like what you have told me
will it be better for you now i shall land in new york he told her with at least a thousand pounds that is about as much as i have spent in ten years there is the possibility of other money concerning that well i can't make up my mind
the thousand pounds of course is stolen so i gathered she remarked
i think she said that you must have been very miserable above all things now whatever you may have done for your liberty don't be fainthearted if you are in trouble or danger you must come to me you promise if i may
he assented fervently now i must hear the play as it stood in your thoughts when you wrote it she insisted i have a fancy that it will sound a little gloomy am i right he laughed of course you are how could i write in any other way except through the darkened spectacles
however there's a way out of altering it i mean i feel flashes of it already listen the story expanded with relation he no longer felt confined to its established lines every now and then he paused to tell her that this or that was new
i was looking everywhere for a pal
sure you won't join us lawton daren't was the laconic answer from the man whom he had addressed by the bye mister raymond greene went on let me make you two acquainted this is mister douglas romilly an english boot manufacturer
it simply means that i am taking seven days holiday philip explained gaily seven days during which i have passed my word to myself to neither talk business nor think business your very good health mister raymond greene he went on drinking his cocktail with relish
if we meet on the other side mister lawton we'll compare notes as much as you like that's all right sir the other agreed i don't know as you're not right we americans do hang round our businesses and that's a fact
still there's a little matter of lasts i should like to have a word or two with you about some time
merle shirley overacts appalled i wondered who it was who had to cover up one crime committed another who had struck down an innocent man to save a guilty neck
kennedy hurried to the side of the physician and i followed
his mouth seemed dry and i should say he suffered from a quick prostration there seemed to be a complete loss of power to swallow or speak the pupils were dilated as though from paralysis of the eyes both pharynx and larynx were affected
there was respiration paralysis it seemed also as though the cranial nerves were partially paralyzed
kennedy nodded that fits in with a theory i have i thought quickly then inquired could it be the snake venom again no kennedy replied shaking his head
there's a difference in the symptoms and there is no mark on any exposed part of the body as near as i could see in a superficial examination he turned to the physician could you give me blood smears and some of the stomach contents at once
twice now some one has been stricken down before the very eyes of the actors this thing has gone too far to trifle with or delay a moment the doctor hurried off toward the dressing room anxious to help kennedy
and as excited i thought as any of us next kennedy faced me did you watch the people at all walter i i was too upset by the suddenness of it i stammered
all seemed to have suspicion of some one else and there was a general constraint as though even the innocent feared to do or say something that might look or sound incriminating i turned all were now watching every move we made
though just yet none ventured to follow us it was as though they felt that to do so was like crossing a dead line i wondered which one of them might be looking at us with inward trepidation or perhaps satisfaction if there had been any chance to remove anything incriminating
kennedy strode over toward the ill fated set mackay and i at his heels as we moved across the floor i noticed that everyone clustered as close as he dared afraid seemingly of any action which might hinder the investigation
yet unwilling to miss any detail of kennedy's method in contrast with the clamor and racket of less than a half hour previously there was now a deathlike stillness beneath the arched ground glass roof the heat was more oppressive than ever before
in the faces and expressions of the awed witnesses of death's swift hand there was horror and a growing fear no one spoke except in whispers when anybody moved it was on tiptoe cautiously
of the people we wished to study phelps caught our eyes the first dejected crushed utterly discouraged he was slouched down in a chair just at the edge of the supposed banquet hall i had no doubt of the nature of his thoughts
there was probably only the most perfunctory sympathy for the stricken director without question his mind ran to dollars the dollar angle to this tragedy was that the death of werner was simply another step in the wrecking of manton pictures
kennedy i saw hardly gave him a passing glance manton we observed near the door with the possible exception of millard he seemed about the least concerned
the two scenario writer and producer had counterfeited the melodrama of life so often in their productions that even the second sinister chapter in this film mystery failed to penetrate their sang froid inwardly they may have felt as deeply as any of the rest
but both maintained their outward composure on manton's shoulders was the responsibility for the picture i could see that he was nervous irritable yet as various employees approached for their instructions in this emergency he never lost his grasp of affairs
in the vibrant quiet of this studio chamber still under the shadow of tragedy we witnessed as cold blooded a bit of business generalship as has ever come to my knowledge we overheard because manton's voice carried across to us in the stillness
kauf the name i remembered as that of the technical or art director under werner responsible for the sets of the black terror yes mister manton kauf was a slim stoop shouldered man
you know the people and how they work and you have sets lined up how would you like to finish the direction but but
dead he stammered of course manton's voice rose slightly if werner wasn't dead i wouldn't need another director at a moment's notice some one has to complete the black terror
good i'll double your salary including all this week
to night kauf's eyes went wide then he started to flush well to morrow then we simply can't lay off a day kauf all all right sir
literally actually werner's body could not be cold even the police the medical examiner had not had sufficient time to make the trip out for their investigation yet the director's successor had been appointed and told to hurry the production
i glanced at phelps he raised his head slowly his expression lifting at the thought that production was to continue without interruption in another moment however there was a change in his face his eyes sought manton and hardened his mouth tightened
hate a deep unreasoning hate settled into his features kennedy pausing just long enough to observe the promoter's appointment of kauf to werner's position continued on toward the set
now as i looked about i saw that jack gordon was missing as well as marilyn loring presumably they had gone to their dressing rooms all the other actors and actresses were waiting
suddenly kennedy stopped and i grasped that it was the peculiar actions of merle shirley which had halted him the heavy man was the only one of the company actually in the fabricated banquet hall itself
clinging to him still were the grim flowing robes of the black terror as though he were some old fashioned tragedian he was pacing up and down hands behind his back head bowed eyes on the floor
kennedy pushed forward did you lose something mister shirley no the heavy man straightened as he drew himself up in his sinister garb i thought again of the cheap actors of a day when moving pictures had yet to pre empt the field of the lurid melodrama
i have kept a careful watch so that nothing might be disturbed do you suspect anyone kennedy asked shirley glanced away and we knew he was lying no not definitely who has been in the set since i left with the doctor
shirley wanted to make it clear no one has had any opportunity to hide or move or take or change a thing because i have been right here all the time i see thanks and
kennedy seemed genuinely apologetic if you don't mind i would prefer to make my investigation alone shirley turned on his heel and made for his dressing room
i gathered from the look of disgust on millard's face that he wanted to get shirley out of the set before kennedy should observe the heavy man's odd reaction to the tragedy
while i had never seen millard and shirley together so as to establish in mind the state of their feelings toward each other this would seem to indicate that they were friendly certainly shirley was making a fool of himself enid acted i guessed so as to prevent millard's interference
probably with the idea that millard in some fashion might bring suspicion upon himself it struck me that enid had a wholesome respect for kennedy at any rate millard watched the little scene between kennedy and shirley with a quizzical expression
as shirley left he shrugged his shoulders then he gave enid's cheeks a playful pinch each and started out after the heavy man in leisurely fashion just about the same moment kennedy called me to his side walter he pleaded in a low voice
will you hurry out to the dressing room where the doctor and i took werner and get the blood smears and sample of the stomach contents i don't want to leave this because we must work fast and get all the data we need before the police arrive
with perhaps a hundred people to question they'll be apt to make a fine mess of everything this is an outlying precinct where we'll draw the amateurs you know
this corridor was familiar here kennedy and i had waited for marilyn loring and had witnessed the scene between shirley and herself now i did not even remember the location of her room at last on a chance i tried a door softly
from within came whispered voices of deep intensity about to close it quickly i realized suddenly that i recognized the speakers in spite of the whispers it was marilyn and shirley they were together
now i recollected the figured chintz which covered the wall and was to be seen through the crack made by the open door it was her room they had not heard my hand on the knob nor the catch did not know that anyone could eavesdrop
i had to no i advised you to act at once i couldn't i can't even now all right her tone became bitter go ahead your own way but you must count the cost
you may lose me again merle shirley how do you mean her answer in the faintest of whispers staggered me
philip romilly found himself alone at last with the things which he had craved darkness solitude the rushing of the salt wind the sense of open spaces
on the other the sheltered side of the steamer long lines of passengers were stretched in wicker chairs smoking and drinking their coffee but where he was no one came save an occasional promenader
for a brief escape from the thrall of memories which during the last few hours had become charged with undreamed of horrors and there was to be no peace
in the shadowy darkness which rested upon the white churned sea flying past him he saw again with horrible distinctness the face the figure of the man who
with a desperate and passionate hatred he saw the broken photograph the glass splintered into a thousand pieces he saw the man himself choking sinking down beneath the black waters
heard the stifled cry from his palsied lips saw the slow dawning agony of death in his distorted features some one was playing a mandolin down in the second class he heard the feet of a dancer upon the deck the little murmur of applause
well after all this was life it was a rebuke of fate to his own illogical and useless vapourings men died every second whilst women danced and no one who knew life had any care save for the measure of their own days
some freakish thought pleaded stridently his own justification his mind travelled back down the gloomy avenues of his past along those last aching years of grinding and undeserved poverty
he remembered his upbringing his widowed mother a woman used to every luxury struggling to make both ends meet in a suburban street in a hired cottage filled with hired furniture
he remembered his schooldays devoid of pocket money unable to join in the sports of others slaving with melancholy perseverance for a scholarship to lighten his mother's burden always there was the same ghastly crushing penuriousness
the struggle to make a living before his schooldays were well over
the scanty food he had eaten the narrow driving ways of poverty culminating in his mother's death and his own fear he at the age of nineteen years lest the money for her funeral should not be forthcoming
if there were any hell surely he had lived in it this other whose flames mocked him now could be no worse sin crime he remembered the words of the girl who during these latter years had represented to him what there might have been of light in life
he remembered and it seemed to him that he could meet that ghostly image which had risen from the black waters without shrinking almost contemptuously fate had mocked him long enough it was time indeed that he helped himself
he swung away from the solitude to the other side of the steamer paused in a sheltered spot while he lit a cigarette and paced up and down the more frequented ways a soft voice from an invisible mass of furs and rugs called to him
i think he has just been told that there is a rival cinema producer on board and he is trying to run him to ground philip settled himself without hesitation in the vacant place one is forced to envy mister raymond greene he sighed
what about your own she asked him but you are a manufacturer are you not somehow or other that surprises me and me he acknowledged frankly
young or old he answered
she turned in her chair a little more towards him against the background of empty spaces the pale softness of her face seemed to gain a new attractiveness well that depends she said reflectively upon what these new things might be which you desire
then i should say that new york is the one place in the world she told him you are speaking of yourself yes you have ambitions i am sure she continued tell me are they literary
i would like to call them so
he shook his head no they are where i shall never see them again never see them again she repeated puzzled i mean that i have left them at home i have left them there perhaps to a certain extent deliberately he went on
you see the idea is still with me i think that i shall rewrite them when i have settled down in america i fancy that i shall find myself in an atmosphere more conducive to the sort of work i want to do i would rather not be handicapped by the ghosts of my old failures
there were one or two slumbering forms but most were empty there were no promenaders in sight
she asked her voice still very low why i left the saloon a little abruptly this evening why he demanded because she went on i could see the effect which mister raymond greene's story had upon you because i also was in that train
and i have better eyesight than mister greene you were one of the two men who were walking along the towpath well he muttered you have nothing to tell me nothing she waited for a moment
she remarked if i cannot tell you the truth he promised i am not going to tell you a lie but apart from that i admit nothing i do not even admit that it was i whom you saw she laid her hand upon his
the touch of her fingers was wonderful cool and soft and somehow reassuring he felt a sense of relaxation felt the strain of living suddenly grow less you know she said
all my friends tell me that i am a restful person you are living at high pressure are you not try and forget it fate makes queer uses of all of us sometimes she sends her noblest sons down into the shadows
and pitchforks her outcasts into the high places of life those do best who learn to control themselves to live and think for the best go on talking to me he begged
is it your voice i wonder that is so soothing or just what you say she smiled reassuringly you are glad because you have found a friend she told him and a friend who even if she does not understand does not wish to understand
do you see i wish i felt that i deserved it he groaned she laughed almost gaily what a sorting up there would be of our places in life she declared if we all had just what we deserved now give me your arm i want to walk a little
at the far end of the ship she clung to him once or twice as the wind came booming over the freshening waves she weighed and measured his criticisms of the plays they spoke of and in the main approved of them
when at last she stopped outside the companionway and bade him good night the deck was almost deserted they were near one of the electric lights and he saw her face more distinctly than he had seen it at all realised more adequately its wonderful charm
she gave him her hand a woman's soft and delicate fingers yet clasping his with an almost virile strength and friendliness she left him with just that feeling about her that she was expansive in her heart her sympathies
even her brain and peculiar gifts of apprehension she left him too with a curious sense of restfulness
and had found a sorely needed guardian he abandoned without a second thought his intention of going to the smoking room and sitting up late
it was about eleven o'clock the sun shone somewhat to the left and behind him and brightly lit up the enormous panorama which rising like an amphitheater extended before him in the clear rarefied atmosphere
from above on the left bisecting that amphitheater
passing through a village with a white church some five hundred paces in front of the knoll and below it this was borodino below the village the road crossed the river by a bridge and winding down and up rose higher and higher to the village of valuevo
visible about four miles away where napoleon was then stationed beyond valuevo the road disappeared into a yellowing forest on the horizon far in the distance in that birch and fir forest to the right of the road
here and there over the whole of that blue expanse to right and left of the forest and the road smoking campfires could be seen and indefinite masses of troops ours and the enemy's
was broken and hilly between the hollows the villages of bezubova and zakharino showed in the distance on the left the ground was more level there were fields of grain and the smoking ruins of semenovsk
which had been burned down could be seen all that pierre saw was so indefinite that neither the left nor the right side of the field fully satisfied his expectations nowhere could he see the battlefield he had expected to find
but only fields meadows troops woods the smoke of campfires villages mounds and streams and try as he would he could descry no military position in this place which teemed with life
nor could he even distinguish our troops from the enemy's i must ask someone who knows he thought and addressed an officer who was looking with curiosity at his huge unmilitary figure may i ask you said pierre
what village that is in front burdino isn't it said the officer turning to his companion borodino the other corrected him the officer evidently glad of an opportunity for a talk moved up to pierre
are those our men there pierre inquired yes and there further on are the french said the officer there they are there you can see them where where asked pierre one can see them with the naked eye why there
the officer pointed with his hand to the smoke visible on the left beyond the river and the same stern and serious expression that pierre had noticed on many of the faces he had met came into his face ah those are the french and over there
pierre pointed to a knoll on the left near which some troops could be seen those are ours ah ours and there pierre pointed to another knoll in the distance with a big tree on it
near a village that lay in a hollow where also some campfires were smoking and something black was visible that's his again said the officer it was the shevardino redoubt it was ours yesterday but now it is his then how about our position
our position replied the officer with a smile of satisfaction i can tell you quite clearly because i constructed nearly all our entrenchments there you see there's our center at borodino just there
that's where one crosses the kolocha you see down there where the rows of hay are lying in the hollow there's the bridge that's our center our right flank is over there he pointed sharply to the right far away in the broken ground
that's where the moskva river is and we have thrown up three redoubts there very strong ones the left flank here the officer paused well you see that's difficult to explain yesterday our left flank was there at shevardino you see
where the oak is but now we have withdrawn our left wing now it is over there do you see that village and the smoke that's semenovsk yes there he pointed to raevski's knoll but the battle will hardly be there
his having moved his troops there is only a ruse he will probably pass round to the right of the moskva but wherever it may be many a man will be missing tomorrow he remarked
an elderly sergeant who had approached the officer while he was giving these explanations had waited in silence for him to finish speaking but at this point evidently not liking the officer's remark interrupted him
gabions must be sent for
as though he understood that one might think of how many men would be missing tomorrow but ought not to speak of it well send number three company again the officer replied hurriedly and you are you one of the doctors
no i've come on my own answered pierre and he went down the hill again passing the militiamen oh those damned fellows muttered the officer who followed him holding his nose as he ran past the men at work there they are
they'll be here in a minute voices were suddenly heard saying
began running forward along the road a church procession was coming up the hill from borodino first along the dusty road came the infantry in ranks bareheaded and with arms reversed from behind them came the sound of church singing
soldiers and militiamen ran bareheaded past pierre toward the procession they are bringing her our protectress the iberian mother of god someone cried the smolensk mother of god another corrected him
the militiamen both those who had been in the village and those who had been at work on the battery threw down their spades and ran to meet the church procession following the battalion that marched along the dusty road came priests in their vestments one little old man
in a hood with attendants and singers behind them soldiers and officers bore a large dark faced icon with an embossed metal cover
behind before and on both sides crowds of militiamen with bared heads walked ran and bowed to the ground at the summit of the hill they stopped with the icon the men who had been holding it up by the linen bands attached to it
were relieved by others the chanters relit their censers and service began the hot rays of the sun beat down vertically and a fresh soft wind played with the hair of the bared heads and with the ribbons decorating the icon
the singing did not sound loud under the open sky an immense crowd of bareheaded officers soldiers and militiamen surrounded the icon behind the priest and a chanter stood the notabilities on a spot reserved for them
a bald general with a saint george's cross on his neck stood just behind the priest's back and without crossing himself he was evidently a german patiently awaited the end of the service which he considered it necessary to hear to the end
probably to arouse the patriotism of the russian people another general stood in a martial pose crossing himself by shaking his hand in front of his chest while looking about him
standing among the crowd of peasants pierre recognized several acquaintances among these notables but did not look at them his whole attention was absorbed in watching the serious expression on the faces of the crowd of soldiers
and militiamen who were all gazing eagerly at the icon as soon as the tired chanters who were singing the service for the twentieth time that day
save from calamity thy servants o mother of god and the priest and deacon chimed in for to thee under god we all flee as to an inviolable bulwark and protection
there again kindled in all those faces the same expression of consciousness of the solemnity of the impending moment that pierre had seen on the faces at the foot of the hill
and heads were bowed more frequently and hair tossed back and sighs and the sound men made as they crossed themselves were heard the crowd round the icon suddenly parted and pressed against pierre someone
a very important personage judging by the haste with which way was made for him was approaching the icon it was kutuzov who had been riding round the position and on his way back to tatarinova
had stopped where the service was being held pierre recognized him at once by his peculiar figure which distinguished him from everybody else with a long overcoat on his exceedingly stout round shouldered body
with uncovered white head and puffy face showing the white ball of the eye he had lost kutuzov
he crossed himself with an accustomed movement bent till he touched the ground with his hand and bowed his white head with a deep sigh behind kutuzov was bennigsen and the suite despite the presence of the commander in chief
who attracted the attention of all the superior officers the militiamen and soldiers continued their prayers without looking at him when the service was over kutuzov stepped up to the icon sank heavily to his knees bowed to the ground
and for a long time tried vainly to rise but could not do so on account of his weakness and weight his white head twitched with the effort at last he rose
and again bowed till he touched the ground with his hand
they differed from them in speech dress and disposition they were called steppe peasants the old prince used to approve of them for their endurance at work when they came to bald hills to help with the harvest or to dig ponds and ditches
but he disliked them for their boorishness prince andrew's last stay at bogucharovo when he introduced hospitals and schools
but had on the contrary strengthened in them the traits of character the old prince called boorishness various obscure rumors were always current among them at one time a rumor that they would all be enrolled as cossacks
at another of a new religion to which they were all to be converted
in connection with which it was rumored that freedom had been granted them but the landowners had stopped it then of peter fedorovich's return to the throne in seven years time when everything would be made free and so simple that there would be no restrictions
rumors of the war with bonaparte and his invasion were connected in their minds with the same sort of vague notions of antichrist the end of the world and pure freedom in the vicinity of bogucharovo were large villages belonging to the crown
or to owners whose serfs paid quitrent and could work where they pleased there were very few resident landlords in the neighborhood and also very few domestic or literate serfs
and in the lives of the peasantry of those parts the mysterious undercurrents in the life of the russian people the causes and meaning of which are so baffling to contemporaries were more clearly and strongly noticeable than among others
one instance which had occurred some twenty years before was a movement among the peasants to emigrate to some unknown warm rivers hundreds of peasants among them the bogucharovo folk
suddenly began selling their cattle and moving in whole families toward the southeast as birds migrate to somewhere beyond the sea so these men with their wives and children streamed to the southeast to parts where none of them had ever been
they set off in caravans bought their freedom one by one or ran away and drove or walked toward the warm rivers many of them were punished some sent to siberia many died of cold and hunger on the road many returned of their own accord
and the movement died down of itself just as it had sprung up without apparent reason but such undercurrents still existed among the people and gathered new forces ready to manifest themselves
just as strangely unexpectedly and at the same time simply naturally and forcibly now in eighteen twelve to anyone living in close touch with these people it was apparent that these undercurrents were acting strongly and nearing an eruption
noticed an agitation among the peasants and that contrary to what was happening in the bald hills district where
the peasants in the steppe region round bogucharovo were it was rumored in touch with the french received leaflets from them that passed from hand to hand and did not migrate he learned from domestic serfs loyal to him
that the peasant karp who possessed great influence in the village commune and had recently been away driving a government transport had returned with news that the cossacks were destroying deserted villages but that the french did not harm them
that on the previous day another peasant had even brought from the village of visloukhovo which was occupied by the french a proclamation by a french general that no harm would be done to the inhabitants and if they remained they would be paid for anything taken from them
as proof of this the peasant had brought from visloukhovo a hundred rubles in notes he did not know that they were false paid to him in advance for hay more important still
yet there was no time to waste on the fifteenth the day of the old prince's death the marshal had insisted on princess mary's leaving at once as it was becoming dangerous he had told her that after the sixteenth
he could not be responsible for what might happen on the evening of the day the old prince died the marshal went away promising to return next day for the funeral but this he was unable to do
for he received tidings that the french had unexpectedly advanced and had barely time to remove his own family and valuables from his estate for some thirty years bogucharovo had been managed by the village elder dron
whom the old prince called by the diminutive dronushka dron was one of those physically and mentally vigorous peasants who grow big beards as soon as they are of age and go on unchanged till they are sixty or seventy
without a gray hair or the loss of a tooth as straight and strong at sixty as at thirty soon after the migration to the warm rivers in which he had taken part like the rest dron was made village elder and overseer of bogucharovo
and had since filled that post irreproachably for twenty three years the peasants feared him more than they did their master the masters both the old prince and the young and the steward respected him and jestingly called him the minister
during the whole time of his service dron had never been drunk or ill never after sleepless nights or the hardest tasks had he shown the least fatigue and though he could not read he had never
forgotten a single money account or the number of quarters of flour in any of the endless cartloads he sold for the prince nor a single shock of the whole corn crop on any single acre of the bogucharovo fields
sent for his dron on the day of the prince's funeral and told him to have twelve horses got ready for the princess carriages and eighteen carts for the things to be removed from bogucharovo though the peasants paid quitrent
for there were two hundred and thirty households at work in bogucharovo and the peasants were well to do but on hearing the order dron lowered his eyes and remained silent
alpatych named certain peasants he knew from whom he told him to take the carts dron replied that the horses of these peasants were away carting
had no horses available some horses were carting for the government others were too weak and others had died for want of fodder it seemed that no horses could be had even for the carriages much less for the carting
possessing in the highest degree the faculty of divining the needs and instincts of those he dealt with having glanced at dron he at once understood that his answers did not express his personal views but the general mood of the bogucharovo commune
by which the elder had already been carried away but he also knew that dron who had acquired property and was hated by the commune must be hesitating between the two camps the masters and the serfs
he noticed this hesitation in dron's look and therefore frowned and moved closer up to him now just listen dronushka said he don't talk nonsense to me
his excellency prince andrew himself gave me orders to move all the people away and not leave them with the enemy and there is an order from the tsar about it too anyone who stays is a traitor to the tsar do you hear
i hear dron answered without lifting his eyes
eh dron it will turn out badly he said shaking his head the power is in your hands dron rejoined sadly eh dron drop it
i can see through you and three yards into the ground under you he continued gazing at the floor in front of dron dron was disconcerted
again lowered his eyes you drop this nonsense and tell the people to get ready to leave their homes and go to moscow
and don't go to any meeting yourself do you hear dron suddenly fell on his knees
stop that cried alpatych sternly i see through you and three yards under you he repeated knowing that his skill in beekeeping his knowledge of the right time to sow the oats and the fact that he had been able to retain the old prince's favor for twenty years
and that the power of seeing three yards under a man is considered an attribute of wizards dron got up and was about to say something but alpatych interrupted him what is it you have got into your heads eh what are you thinking of eh
what am i to do with the people said dron they're quite beside themselves i have already told them told them i dare say
are they drinking he asked abruptly
well then listen i'll go to the police officer and you tell them so and that they must stop this and the carts must be got ready i understand alpatych did not insist further
he had managed people for a long time and knew that the chief way to make them obey is to show no suspicion that they can possibly disobey having wrung a submissive i understand from dron alpatych contented himself with that though he not only doubted
the carts would not be forthcoming and so it was for when evening came no carts had been provided in the village outside the drink shop another meeting was being held which decided that the horses should be driven out into the woods
and the carts should not be provided without saying anything of this to the princess alpatych had his own belongings taken out of the carts which had arrived from bald hills
as it is the power of exchanging that gives occasion to the division of labour so the extent of this division must always be limited by the extent of that power or in other words by the extent of the market
when the market is very small no person can have any encouragement to dedicate himself entirely to one employment for want of the power to exchange all that surplus part of the produce of his own labour which is over and above his own consumption
for such parts of the produce of other men's labour as he has occasion for there are some sorts of industry even of the lowest kind which can be carried on nowhere but in a great town a porter for example can find employment and subsistence in no other place
a village is by much too narrow a sphere for him even an ordinary market town is scarce large enough to afford him constant occupation in the lone houses and very small villages which are scattered about in so desert a country as the highlands of scotland
every farmer must be butcher baker and brewer for his own family in such situations we can scarce expect to find even a smith a carpenter or a mason within less than twenty miles of another of the same trade
the scattered families that live at eight or ten miles distance from the nearest of them must learn to perform themselves a great number of little pieces of work for which in more populous countries they would call in the assistance of those workmen
a country carpenter deals in every sort of work that is made of wood a country smith in every sort of work that is made of iron the former is not only a carpenter but a joiner a cabinet maker and even a carver in wood as well as a wheel wright a plough wright a cart and waggon maker
the employments of the latter are still more various it is impossible there should be such a trade as even that of a nailer in the remote and inland parts of the highlands of scotland
such a workman at the rate of a thousand nails a day and three hundred working days in the year will make three hundred thousand nails in the year but in such a situation it would be impossible to dispose of one thousand that is of one day's work in the year
and it is frequently not till a long time after that those improvements extend themselves to the inland parts of the country a broad wheeled waggon attended by two men and drawn by eight horses in about six weeks time carries and brings back between london and edinburgh
near four ton weight of goods in about the same time a ship navigated by six or eight men and sailing between the ports of london and leith frequently carries and brings back two hundred ton weight of goods
six or eight men therefore by the help of water carriage can carry and bring back in the same time the same quantity of goods between london and edinburgh as fifty broad wheeled waggons attended by a hundred men and drawn by four hundred horses
upon two hundred tons of goods therefore carried by the cheapest land carriage from london to edinburgh there must be charged the maintenance of a hundred men for three weeks and both the maintenance and what is nearly equal to maintenance the wear and tear of four hundred horses
as well as of fifty great waggons whereas upon the same quantity of goods carried by water there is to be charged only the maintenance of six or eight men and the wear and tear of a ship of two hundred tons burthen together with the value of the superior risk
or the difference of the insurance between land and water carriage were there no other communication between those two places therefore but by land carriage as no goods could be transported from the one to the other except such whose price was very considerable in proportion to their weight
they could carry on but a small part of that commerce which at present subsists between them and consequently could give but a small part of that encouragement which they at present mutually afford to each other's industry
there could be little or no commerce of any kind between the distant parts of the world what goods could bear the expense of land carriage between london and calcutta
since such therefore are the advantages of water carriage it is natural that the first improvements of art and industry should be made where this conveniency opens the whole world for a market to the produce of every sort of labour
and consequently their improvement must always be posterior to the improvement of that country in our north american colonies the plantations have constantly followed either the sea coast or the banks of the navigable rivers
and have scarce anywhere extended themselves to any considerable distance from both the nations that according to the best authenticated history appear to have been first civilized were those that dwelt round the coast of the mediterranean sea
that sea by far the greatest inlet that is known in the world having no tides nor consequently any waves except such as are caused by the wind only was by the smoothness of its surface as well as by the multitude of its islands and the proximity of its neighbouring shores
extremely favourable to the infant navigation of the world when from their ignorance of the compass men were afraid to quit the view of the coast and from the imperfection of the art of ship building to abandon themselves to the boisterous waves of the ocean
to pass beyond the pillars of hercules that is to sail out of the straits of gibraltar was in the ancient world long considered as a most wonderful and dangerous exploit of navigation
upper egypt extends itself nowhere above a few miles from the nile and in lower egypt that great river breaks itself into many different canals which with the assistance of a little art seem to have afforded a communication by water carriage
the extent and easiness of this inland navigation was probably one of the principal causes of the early improvement of egypt the improvements in agriculture and manufactures
in the east indies and in some of the eastern provinces of china though the great extent of this antiquity is not authenticated by any histories of whose authority we in this part of the world are well assured
a multitude of canals and by communicating with one another afford an inland navigation much more extensive than that either of the nile or the ganges or perhaps than both of them put together it is remarkable that neither the ancient egyptians nor the indians
nor the chinese encouraged foreign commerce but seem all to have derived their great opulence from this inland navigation all the inland parts of africa and all that part of asia which lies any considerable way north of the euxine and caspian seas
the ancient scythia the modern tartary and siberia seem in all ages of the world to have been in the same barbarous and uncivilized state in which we find them at present
the sea of tartary is the frozen ocean which admits of no navigation and though some of the greatest rivers in the world run through that country they are at too great a distance from one another to carry commerce and communication through the greater part of it
there are in africa none of those great inlets such as the baltic and adriatic seas in europe the mediterranean and euxine seas in both europe and asia and the gulfs of arabia persia india bengal and siam in asia
to carry maritime commerce into the interior parts of that great continent and the great rivers of africa are at too great a distance from one another to give occasion to any considerable inland navigation the commerce besides which any nation can carry on by means of a river
of drawbacks merchants and manufacturers are not contented with the monopoly of the home market but desire likewise the most extensive foreign sale for their goods
such encouragements do not tend to turn towards any particular employment a greater share of the capital of the country than what would go to that employment of its own accord but only to hinder the duty from driving away any part of that share to other employments
what it is in most cases advantageous to preserve the natural division and distribution of labour in the society the same thing may be said of the drawbacks upon the re exportation of foreign goods imported
which in great britain generally amount to by much the largest part of the duty upon importation by the second of the rules annexed to the act of parliament which imposed what is now called the old subsidy every merchant whether english or alien
was allowed to draw back half that duty upon exportation the english merchant provided the exportation took place within twelve months the alien provided it took place within nine months
wines currants and wrought silks were the only goods which did not fall within this rule
wholly drawn back upon exportation this general rule however is liable to a great number of exceptions and the doctrine of drawbacks has become a much less simple matter than it was at their first institution
upon the exportation of some foreign goods of which it was expected that the importation would greatly exceed what was necessary for the home consumption the whole duties are drawn back without retaining even half the old subsidy
to facilitate the great exportation which was necessary in order to rid us of the rest the whole duties were drawn back provided the exportation took place within three years we still have though not altogether yet very nearly
the monopoly of the sugars of our west indian islands if sugars are exported within a year therefore all the duties upon importation are drawn back and if exported within three years
all the duties except half the old subsidy which still continues to be retained upon the exportation of the greater part of goods though the importation of sugar exceeds a good deal what is necessary for the home consumption
the excess is inconsiderable in comparison of what it used to be in tobacco some goods the particular objects of the jealousy of our own manufacturers are prohibited to be imported for home consumption they may however upon paying certain duties
and are afraid lest some part of these goods should be stolen out of the warehouse and thus come into competition with their own it is under these regulations only that we can import wrought silks french cambrics and lawns
calicoes painted printed stained or dyed et cetera we are unwilling even to be the carriers of french goods and choose rather to forego a profit to ourselves than to suffer those whom we consider as our enemies to make any profit by our means
not only half the old subsidy but the second twenty five per cent is retained upon the exportation of all french goods by the fourth of the rules annexed to the old subsidy
and it seems at that time to have been the object of the legislature to give somewhat more than ordinary encouragement to the carrying trade in wine several of the other duties too which were imposed either at the same time or subsequent to the old subsidy
what is called the additional duty the new subsidy the one third and two thirds subsidies the impost sixteen ninety two the tonnage on wine were allowed to be wholly drawn back upon exportation
all those duties however except the additional duty and impost sixteen ninety two being paid down in ready money upon importation the interest of so large a sum occasioned an expense
in seventeen sixty three and in seventeen seventy eight were allowed to be drawn back upon exportation the two imposts of five per cent imposed in seventeen seventy nine and seventeen eighty one upon all the former duties of customs
being allowed to be wholly drawn back upon the exportation of all other goods were likewise allowed to be drawn back upon that of wine the last duty that has been particularly imposed upon wine that of seventeen eighty is allowed to be wholly drawn back
an indulgence which when so many heavy duties are retained most probably could never occasion the exportation of a single ton of wine these rules took place with regard to all places of lawful exportation except the british colonies in america
in a country of so extensive a coast as our north american and west indian colonies where our authority was always so very slender and where the inhabitants were allowed to carry out in their own ships their non enumerated commodities
at first to all parts of europe and afterwards to all parts of europe south of cape finisterre it is not very probable that this monopoly could ever be much respected
madeira wine not being an european commodity could be imported directly into america and the west indies countries which in all their non enumerated commodities enjoyed a free trade to the island of madeira
these circumstances had probably introduced that general taste for madeira wine which our officers found established in all our colonies at the commencement of the war which began in seventeen fifty five and which they brought back with them to the mother country
was probably too short to admit of any considerable change in the customs of those countries the same act which in the drawbacks upon all wines except french wines thus favoured the colonies so much more than other countries
in those upon the greater part of other commodities favoured them much less upon the exportation of the greater part of commodities to other countries half the old subsidy was drawn back
but this law enacted that no part of that duty should be drawn back upon the exportation to the colonies of any commodities of the growth or manufacture either of europe or the east indies except wines white calicoes and muslins
drawbacks were perhaps originally granted for the encouragement of the carrying trade which as the freight of the ship is frequently paid by foreigners in money was supposed to be peculiarly fitted for bringing gold and silver into the country
such drawbacks cannot force into this trade a greater share of the capital of the country than what would have gone to it of its own accord had there been no duties upon importation they only prevent its being excluded altogether by those duties
the carrying trade though it deserves no preference ought not to be precluded but to be left free like all other trades it is a necessary resource to those capitals which cannot find employment either in the agriculture
or in the manufactures of the country either in its home trade or in its foreign trade of consumption the revenue of the customs instead of suffering profits from such drawbacks by that part of the duty which is retained
if the whole duties had been retained the foreign goods upon which they are paid could seldom have been exported nor consequently imported for want of a market the duties therefore of which a part is retained would never have been paid
these reasons seem sufficiently to justify drawbacks and would justify them though the whole duties whether upon the produce of domestic industry or upon foreign goods were always drawn back upon exportation
the revenue of excise would in this case indeed suffer a little and that of the customs a good deal more but the natural balance of industry the natural division and distribution of labour which is always more or less disturbed by such duties
would be more nearly re established by such a regulation these reasons however will justify drawbacks only upon exporting goods to those countries which are altogether foreign and independent not to those in which our merchants and manufacturers
enjoy a monopoly a drawback for example upon the exportation of european goods to our american colonies will not always occasion a greater exportation than what would have taken place without it
by means of the monopoly which our merchants and manufacturers enjoy there the same quantity might frequently perhaps be sent thither though the whole duties were retained the drawback therefore may frequently be pure loss to the revenue of excise and customs
without altering the state of the trade or rendering it in any respect more extensive how far such drawbacks can be justified as a proper encouragement to the industry of our colonies
or how far it is advantageous to the mother country that they should be exempted from taxes which are paid by all the rest of their fellow subjects will appear hereafter when i come to treat of colonies
drawbacks however it must always be understood are useful only in those cases in which the goods for the exportation of which they are given are really exported to some foreign country and not clandestinely re imported into our own
the great commerce of every civilized society is that carried on between the inhabitants of the town and those of the country it consists in the exchange of rude for manufactured produce either immediately or by the intervention of money
or of some sort of paper which represents money the country supplies the town with the means of subsistence and the materials of manufacture the town repays this supply by sending back a part of the manufactured produce to the inhabitants of the country
the town in which there neither is nor can be any reproduction of substances may very properly be said to gain its whole wealth and subsistence from the country we must not however upon this account imagine that the gain of the town is the loss of the country
the gains of both are mutual and reciprocal and the division of labour is in this as in all other cases advantageous to all the different persons employed in the various occupations into which it is subdivided
the inhabitants of the country purchase of the town a greater quantity of manufactured goods with the produce of a much smaller quantity of their own labour than they must have employed had they attempted to prepare them themselves
the town affords a market for the surplus produce of the country or what is over and above the maintenance of the cultivators and it is there that the inhabitants of the country exchange it for something else which is in demand among them the greater the number and revenue of the inhabitants of the town
the more extensive is the market which it affords to those of the country and the more extensive that market it is always the more advantageous to a great number the corn which grows within a mile of the town sells there for the same price with that which comes from twenty miles distance
but the price of the latter must generally not only pay the expense of raising it and bringing it to market but afford too the ordinary profits of agriculture to the farmer
the proprietors and cultivators of the country therefore which lies in the neighbourhood of the town over and above the ordinary profits of agriculture gain in the price of what they sell the whole value of the carriage of the like produce that is brought from more distant parts
and they save besides the whole value of this carriage in the price of what they buy compare the cultivation of the lands in the neighbourhood of any considerable town with that of those which lie at some distance from it
among all the absurd speculations that have been propagated concerning the balance of trade it has never been pretended that either the country loses by its commerce with the town or the town by that with the country which maintains it
as subsistence is in the nature of things prior to conveniency and luxury so the industry which procures the former must necessarily be prior to that which ministers to the latter
the cultivation and improvement of the country therefore which affords subsistence must necessarily be prior to the increase of the town which furnishes only the means of conveniency and luxury
the town indeed may not always derive its whole subsistence from the country in its neighbourhood or even from the territory to which it belongs but from very distant countries and this though it forms no exception from the general rule
has occasioned considerable variations in the progress of opulence in different ages and nations that order of things which necessity imposes in general though not in every particular country is in every particular country promoted by the natural inclinations of man
if human institutions had never thwarted those natural inclinations the towns could nowhere have increased beyond what the improvement and cultivation of the territory in which they were situated could support till such time at least as the whole of that territory was completely cultivated and improved
upon equal or nearly equal profits most men will choose to employ their capitals rather in the improvement and cultivation of land than either in manufactures or in foreign trade the man who employs his capital in land has it more under his view and command
the capital of the landlord on the contrary which is fixed in the improvement of his land seems to be as well secured as the nature of human affairs can admit of the beauty of the country besides the pleasure of a country life the tranquillity of mind which it promises
he seems to retain a predilection for this primitive employment without the assistance of some artificers indeed the cultivation of land cannot be carried on but with great inconveniency and continual interruption smiths carpenters
like that of the farmer necessarily tied down to a precise spot they naturally settle in the neighbourhood of one another and thus form a small town or village the butcher the brewer and the baker soon join them together with many other artificers and retailers
necessary or useful for supplying their occasional wants and who contribute still further to augment the town the inhabitants of the town and those of the country are mutually the servants of one another the town is a continual fair or market
to which the inhabitants of the country resort in order to exchange their rude for manufactured produce it is this commerce which supplies the inhabitants of the town both with the materials of their work and the means of their subsistence
the quantity of the finished work which they sell to the inhabitants of the country necessarily regulates the quantity of the materials and provisions which they buy neither their employment nor subsistence therefore can augment but in proportion to the augmentation of the demand from the country for finished work
and this demand can augment only in proportion to the extension of improvement and cultivation had human institutions therefore never disturbed the natural course of things the progressive wealth and increase of the towns would in every political society be consequential
and in proportion to the improvement and cultivation of the territory of country in our north american colonies where uncultivated land is still to be had upon easy terms no manufactures for distant sale have ever yet been established in any of their towns
when an artificer has acquired a little more stock than is necessary for carrying on his own business in supplying the neighbouring country he does not in north america attempt to establish with it a manufacture for more distant sale
but employs it in the purchase and improvement of uncultivated land from artificer he becomes planter and neither the large wages nor the easy subsistence which that country affords to artificers can bribe him rather to work for other people than for himself
he feels that an artificer is the servant of his customers from whom he derives his subsistence but that a planter who cultivates his own land and derives his necessary subsistence from the labour of his own family is really a master and independent of all the world
in countries on the contrary where there is either no uncultivated land or none that can be had upon easy terms every artificer who has acquired more stock than he can employ in the occasional jobs of the neighbourhood endeavours to prepare work for more distant sale
the smith erects some sort of iron the weaver some sort of linen or woollen manufactory those different manufactures come in process of time to be gradually subdivided and thereby improved and refined in a great variety of ways which may easily be conceived
and which it is therefore unnecessary to explain any farther in seeking for employment to a capital manufactures are upon equal or nearly equal profits naturally preferred to foreign commerce for the same reason that agriculture is naturally preferred to manufactures
or that for which there is no demand at home must be sent abroad in order to be exchanged for something for which there is some demand at home but whether the capital which carries this surplus produce abroad be a foreign or a domestic one is of very little importance
if the society has not acquired sufficient capital both to cultivate all its lands and to manufacture in the completest manner the whole of its rude produce
though the greater part of its exportation trade be carried on by foreigners the progress of our north american and west indian colonies would have been much less rapid had no capital but what belonged to themselves been employed in exporting their surplus produce
according to the natural course of things therefore the greater part of the capital of every growing society is first directed to agriculture afterwards to manufactures and last of all to foreign commerce
this order of things is so very natural that in every society that had any territory it has always i believe been in some degree observed some of their lands must have been cultivated before any considerable towns could be established
and some sort of coarse industry of the manufacturing kind must have been carried on in those towns before they could well think of employing themselves in foreign commerce
chapter two abraham lincoln's father and mother while thomas lincoln was living with a farmer and doing odd jobs of carpentering he met nancy hanks a tall slender woman with dark skin dark brown hair
and small deep set gray eyes she had a full forehead a sharp angular face and a sad expression yet her disposition was generally cheerful for her backwoods advantages she was considered well educated
she read well and could write too it is stated that nancy hanks taught thomas lincoln to write his own name thomas was twenty eight and nancy twenty three when their wedding day came christopher columbus graham when almost one hundred years old
gave the following description of the marriage feast of the lincoln bride and groom i am one of the two living men who can prove that abraham lincoln or linkhorn as the family was miscalled was born in lawful wedlock
for i saw thomas lincoln marry nancy hanks on the twelfth day of june eighteen o six i was hunting roots for my medicine and just went to the wedding to get a good supper and got it tom lincoln was a carpenter
and a good one for those days when a cabin was built mainly with the ax and not a nail or a bolt or hinge in it only leathers and pins to the doors and no glass except in watches and spectacles and bottles
tom had the best set of tools in what was then and is now washington county jesse head the good methodist minister that married them was also a carpenter or cabinet maker by trade and as he was then a neighbor they were good friends
while you pin me down to facts i will say that i saw nancy hanks lincoln at her wedding a fresh looking girl i should say over twenty tom was a respectable mechanic and could choose and she was treated with respect
i was at the infare too given by john h parrott her guardian and only girls with money had guardians appointed by the court we had bear meat venison wild turkey and ducks eggs wild and tame
so common that you could buy them at two bits a bushel maple sugar swung on a string to bite off for coffee syrup in big gourds peach and honey a sheep that the two families barbecued whole over coals of wood burned in a pit
and covered with green boughs to keep the juices in our table was of the puncheons cut from solid logs and the next day they were the floor of the new cabin thomas lincoln took his bride to live in a little log cabin in a kentucky settlement
not a village or hardly a hamlet called elizabethtown he evidently thought this place would be less lonesome for his wife while he was away hunting and carpentering than the lonely farm he had purchased in hardin county about fourteen miles away
there was so little carpentering or cabinet making to do that he could make a better living by farming or hunting thomas was very fond of shooting and as he was a fine marksman he could provide game for the table and other things which are considered luxuries to day
such as furs and skins needed for the primitive wearing apparel of the pioneers a daughter was born to the young couple at elizabethtown whom they named sarah dennis hanks a cousin of nancy
lived near the lincolns in the early days of their married life and gave missus eleanor atkinson this description of their early life together looks didn't count them days nohow it was stren'th an work an daredevil
an a spindlin feller had to stay in the settlemints the clearin's hadn't no use fur him tom was strong
lots o them kind o fellers in arly days druther hunt and fish an i reckon they had their use they killed off the varmints an made it safe fur other fellers to go into the woods with an ax
when nancy married tom he was workin in a carpenter shop it wasn't tom's fault he couldn't make a livin by his trade thar was sca'cely any money in that kentry
it was mighty ornery land but it was the best tom could git when he hadn't much to trade fur it pore we was all pore them days but the lincolns was porer than anybody
choppin trees an grubbin roots an splittin rails an huntin an trappin didn't leave tom no time it was all he could do to git his fambly enough to eat and to kiver em
nancy was turrible ashamed o the way they lived but she knowed tom was doin his best an she wa'n't the pesterin kind she was purty as a pictur an smart as you'd find em anywhere she could read an write
the hankses was some smarter'n the lincolns tom thought a heap o nancy an he was as good to her as he knowed how
an he could lick a bully if he had to he jist couldn't git ahead somehow nancy's boy baby evidently elizabethtown failed to furnish thomas lincoln a living wage from carpentering
for he moved with his young wife and his baby girl to a farm on nolen creek fourteen miles away the chief attraction of the so called farm was a fine spring of water bubbling up in the shade of a small grove
from this spring the place came to be known as rock spring farm it was a barren spot and the cabin on it was a rude and primitive sort of home for a carpenter and joiner to occupy it contained but a single room
with only one window and one door there was a wide fireplace in the big chimney which was built outside but that rude hut became the home of the greatest american abraham lincoln was born to poverty and privation
but he was never a pauper his hardships were those of many other pioneers the wealthiest of whom suffered greater privations than the poorest laboring man has to endure to day after his nomination to the presidency
a mile or a mile and a half from where hodgen's mill now is my parents being dead and my memory not serving i know no means of identifying the precise locality
the exact spot was identified after his death and the house was found standing many years later the logs were removed to chicago for the world's columbian exposition in eighteen ninety three
and the cabin was reconstructed and exhibited there and elsewhere in the united states the materials were taken back to their original site and a fine marble structure now encloses the precious relics of the birthplace of the first american
as lowell calls lincoln in his great commemoration ode cousin dennis hanks gives the following quaint description of nancy's boy baby as reported by missus eleanor atkinson in her little book on lincoln's boyhood
nancy's got a boy baby mother got flustered an hurried up er work to go over to look after the little feller but i didn't have nothin to wait fur so i cut an run the hull two mile to see my new cousin
you bet i was tickled to death babies wasn't as common as blackberries in the woods o kaintucky mother come over an washed him an put a yaller flannel petticoat on him an cooked some dried berries with wild honey fur nancy
an slicked things up an went home an that's all the nuss'n either of em got
an slep by the fireplace that night so's i could see the little feller when he cried an tom had to get up an tend to him nancy let me hold him purty soon folks often ask me if abe was a good lookin baby
well now he looked just like any other baby at fust like red cherry pulp squeezed dry an he didn't improve none as he growed older abe never was much fur looks
i ricollect how tom joked about abe's long legs when he was toddlin round the cabin he growed out o his clothes faster'n nancy could make em but he was mighty good comp'ny solemn as a papoose but interested in everything
an he always did have fits o cuttin up i've seen him when he was a little feller settin on a stool starin at a visitor
if he told us what he was laughin at half the time we couldn't see no joke abe never give nancy no trouble after he could walk excep to keep him in clothes
an abe was right out in the woods about as soon's he was weaned fishin in the creek settin traps fur rabbits an muskrats goin on coon hunts with tom an me an the dogs
follerin up bees to find bee trees an drappin corn fur his pappy mighty interestin life fur a boy but thar was a good many chances he wouldn't live to grow up
there had been a patter of rain the night before which had kept the leaves awake talking to each other till nearly morning but by dawn the small winds had blown brisk little puffs and whisked the heavens clear and bright with their tiny wings
as you have seen susan clear away the cobwebs in your mamma's parlour and so now there were only left a thousand blinking burning water drops hanging like convex mirrors at the end of each leaf and miss katy admired herself in each one
certainly i am a pretty creature she said to herself and when the gallant colonel said something about being dazzled by her beauty she only tossed her head and took it as quite a matter of course the fact is my dear colonel
and you must help me to make out the lists my dear you make me the happiest of katy dids now said miss katy did drawing an azalea leaf towards her let us see whom shall we have the fireflies of course
everybody wants them they are so brilliant a little unsteady to be sure but quite in the higher circles yes we must have the fireflies echoed the colonel well then and the butterflies and the moths
now there's a trouble there's such an everlasting tribe of those moths and if you invite dull people they're always sure all to come every one of them still if you have the butterflies you can't leave out the moths
i'm sure said miss katy
half a dewdrop and a little bit of the nicest part of a rose leaf i assure you often last me for a day but we are forgetting our list let's see the fireflies butterflies moths the bees must come i suppose
the bees are a worthy family said the colonel worthy enough but dreadfully humdrum said miss katy they never talk about anything but honey and housekeeping still they are a class of people one cannot neglect
well then there are the bumble bees oh i dote on them general bumble is one of the most dashing brilliant fellows of the day i think he is shockingly corpulent said colonel katy did
not at all pleased to hear him praised don't you i don't know but he is a little stout said miss katy but so distinguished and elegant in his manners something quite martial and breezy about him
well if you invite the bumble bees you must have the hornets those spiteful hornets i detest them nevertheless dear miss katy one does not like to offend the hornets no one can't
there are those five misses hornet dreadful old maids as full of spite as they can live you may be sure they will every one come and be looking about to make spiteful remarks put down the hornets though
how about the mosquitoes said the colonel those horrid mosquitoes they are dreadfully plebeian can't one cut them well dear miss katy said the colonel
if you ask my candid opinion as a friend i should say not there's young mosquito who graduated last year has gone into literature and is connected with some of our leading papers and they say he carries the sharpest pen of all the writers
it won't do to offend him and so i suppose we must have his old aunts and all six of his sisters and all his dreadfully common relations it is a pity said the colonel but one must pay one's tax to society
just at this moment the conference was interrupted by a visitor miss keziah cricket
who came in with her work bag on her arm to ask a subscription for a poor family of ants who had just had their house hoed up in clearing the garden walks how stupid of them said katy
it affects my nerves terribly well i'm sure i haven't anything to give mamma said yesterday she was sure she didn't know how our bills were to be paid and there's my green satin with point lace yet to come home
and miss katy did shrugged her shoulders and affected to be very busy with colonel katy did
little miss cricket perceived how the case stood and so hopped briskly off without giving herself even time to be offended
it was hardly worth while to ask her pray shall you invite the crickets said colonel katy did who i
certainly the locusts of course a very old and distinguished family and the grasshoppers are pretty well and ought to be asked
i thought they were nice respectable people oh perfectly nice and respectable
don't you see oh said the colonel that's it is it excuse me but i have been living in france where these distinctions are wholly unknown and i have not yet got myself in the train of fashionable ideas here
well then let me teach you said miss katy you know we republicans go for no distinctions except those created by nature herself and we found our rank upon colour
because that is clearly a thing that none has any hand in but our maker you see yes
aristocratic distinction but then we are liberal we associate with the moths who are gray with the butterflies who are blue and gold coloured with the grasshoppers yellow and brown and society would become dreadfully mixed
if it were not fortunately ordered that the crickets are black as jet the fact is that a class to be looked down upon is necessary to all elegant society and if the crickets were not black we could not keep them down because as everybody knows
they are often a great deal cleverer than we are they have a vast talent for music and dancing they are very quick at learning and would be getting to the very top of the ladder if we once allowed them to climb but their being black is a convenience because as long as we are green
and they black we have a superiority that can never be taken from us don't you see now oh yes i see exactly said the colonel now that keziah cricket who just came in here is quite a musician
and her old father plays the violin beautifully by the way we might engage him for our orchestra and so miss katy's ball came off and the performers kept it up from sundown till daybreak so that it seemed as if every leaf in the forest were alive
the katy dids and the mosquitoes and the locusts and a full orchestra of crickets made the air perfectly vibrate insomuch that old parson too whit who was preaching a thursday evening lecture to a very small audience
announced to his hearers that he should certainly write a discourse against dancing for the next weekly occasion the good doctor was even with his word in the matter and gave out some very sonorous discourses
without in the least stopping the round of gaieties kept up by these dissipated katy dids which ran on night after night till the celebrated jack frost epidemic which occurred somewhere about the first of september poor miss katy with her flimsy green satin and point lace
was one of the first victims and fell from the bough in company with a sad shower of last year's leaves the worthy cricket family however avoided jack frost by emigrating in time to the chimney corner of a nice little cottage that had been built in the wood that summer
and her brothers and sisters found a warm and welcome home and when the storm howled without and lashed the poor naked trees the crickets on the warm hearth would chirp out cheery welcome to papa as he came in from the snowy path
abraham lincoln's forefathers lincoln's grandfather for whom he was named abraham was a distant cousin to daniel boone the boones and the lincolns had intermarried for generations
the lincolns were of good old english stock when he was president abraham lincoln who had never given much attention to the family pedigree said that the history of his family was well described by a single line in gray's elegy
the short and simple annals of the poor yet grandfather abraham was wealthy for his day he accompanied boone from virginia to kentucky and lost his life there
he had sacrificed part of his property to the pioneer spirit within him and with the killing of their father his family lost the rest they were land poor in the wilderness of the dark and bloody ground the meaning of the indian name
grandfather lincoln had built a solid log cabin and cleared a field or two around it near the falls of the ohio about where louisville now stands but in the summer of seventeen eighty four the tragic day dawned upon the lincolns
he was rich for them times as he had property worth seventeen thousand dollars but mister boone he told father he could make a good deal more by trappin and tradin with the injuns for valuable pelts or fur skins
you know dan'l boone he had lived among the injuns he was a sure shot with the rifle so's he could beat the redskins at their own game
they was about ready to make him chief he pretended all the while as how he'd like that when he got away from em he was such a good fellow that them injuns admired his shrewdness and they let him do about what he pleased so he thought they'd let father alone
well your grandfather was a quaker you see and believed in treatin them red devils well like william penn done you know he was a man for peace and quiet and everything was goin smooth with the tribes of what we called the beargrass country
till one day when he and my brothers mordecai
a few years younger was out in the clearin with the oxen haulin logs down to the crick i went along too but i didn't help much for i was only six young as i was i remember what happened that day like it was only yesterday
then i heard the crack of a rifle and i saw a puff of smoke floatin out o the bushes injuns gasps mord and starts on the run for the house to get his gun josiah he starts right off in the opposite direction to the beargrass fort
we called it a fort but it was nothin but a stockade the way we boys scattered was like a brood o young turkeys or pa'tridges strikin for cover when the old one is shot i knowed i'd ought to run too but i didn't want to leave my father layin there on the ground
a big injun come out o the brush with a big knife in his hand i knowed what he was goin to do skelp my father i braced up to im to keep im away an he jist laffed at me i never think what the devil looks like
without seein that red demon with his snaky black eyes grinnin at me tom lincoln chased by indians he picked me up like i was a baby an set me on the sawlog
an was turnin back to skelp father when biff another gun crack and mister big indian he drops jist like your grandfather did only he wriggles and squirms around bitin the dust like a big snake for all the world
an peekin out through a crack he sees that injun takin hold o me waitin till the ol demon turns away so's not to hit me mord he aims at a silver dangler on mister injun's breast and makes him drop in his tracks like i said
then i hears the most blood curdlin yells and a lot o red devils jump out o the bushes an come for me brandishin their tomahawks an skelpin knives it was like hell broke loose they had been watchin an of course twas all right to kill father
but when mord killed one o their bucks that made a big difference i had sense enough left to run for the house with them injuns after me seemed like i couldn't run half as fast as usual but i must a made purty good time from what mord an mother said afterward
an mord fetches him down like he did the fellow that was goin to skelp father that made the others mad an they took after me but mord he drops the head one jist when he's goin to hit me but all i knowed at the time was that them red devils was a chasin me
and i'd got to leg it for dear life when i gits near enough to the house i hears mother and mord hollerin to make me run faster and go to the door for mother had it open jist wide enough to reach out an snatch me in
when the third injun was stoopin to grab me but mord makes him bite the dust like the others my but wasn't them injuns mad some of em sneaked around behind the house they had to give mord's gun a wide berth to git there
but he could only protect the front and was a settin fire to our cabin to smoke us out or roast us alive jist when the soldiers come with josiah from the fort and saved our lives then the injuns made emselves scurce but they druv off the oxen and all our other stock
mord lincoln indian fighter that was the breaking up of our family none of us boys was old enough to take father's place an mother she was afraid to live there alone accordin to the laws o virginia
kentucky belonged to virginia then the oldest son got all the proputty so mord he gets it all he was welcome to it too for he was the only one of us that could take care of it mord he wasn't satisfied with killin a few injuns that day to revenge father's death
like they wuz good an bad white men he said i might jist as well say good devil as good injun he says the only good injun's the dead injun well the settlers must a greed with mord
for they made him sheriff o the county he was sech a good shot too an they lected him to the legislatur after kentucky come in as a state he stood high in the county folks didn't mind his shootin an injun or two more or less
when he got the chancet they all looked on redskins like they was catamounts an other pesky varmints your grandmother lincoln an josiah an me moved over into washington county
that an t'other thing till i picked up carpenterin o joseph hanks a cousin o mine an there i met his sister nancy an that's how she come to be your mother
little is known today of mordecai lincoln and there would be less interest in poor thomas if he had not become the father of abraham lincoln the sixteenth president of the united states
mordecai lincoln was a joker and humorist one who knew him well said of him he was a man of great drollery and it would almost make you laugh to look at him i never saw but one other man whose quiet droll look excited in me the disposition to laugh
and that was artemus ward mordecai was quite a story teller and in this abe resembled his uncle mord as we called him he was an honest man as tender hearted as a woman and to the last degree charitable and benevolent
abe lincoln had a very high opinion of his uncle and on one occasion remarked i have often said that uncle mord had run off with all the talents of the family in a letter about his family history just before he was nominated for the presidency
abraham lincoln wrote my parents were both born in virginia of undistinguished families second families perhaps i should say my mother was of a family of the name of hanks my paternal grandfather abraham lincoln
emigrated from rockingham county virginia to kentucky about seventeen eighty one or two where a year or two later he was killed by indians not in battle but by stealth when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest
the two girls listened to louise with expressions of mingled wonder and amusement while she confided to them her first suspicions that captain wegg had been murdered
and then the bits of information she had gathered to strengthen the surmise and assure her she was justified in her efforts to untangle the web of mystery you see my dears she explained impressively
as the three lounged upon the grass in the shade of the right wing of the house there is a very interesting story about these people that ought to guide us directly to a solution of the puzzle a roving sea captain marries a girl of good family in spite of the opposition of her relatives
his boatswain a confidential servant marries the girl's maid the next thing we know is that a great trouble causes them to flee doubtless some crime committed by the captain it may have been robbery
here the weggs make no friends but the wife cries her eyes out until she dies miserably leaving a son to the tender mercies of a wicked father so fearful is he of discovery that he will not allow the boy to go to school but tries to educate him himself
mark me well girls a nemesis was on the track of this wicked sinner after many years the man captain wegg had wronged or stolen from or something discovered his enemy's hiding place he promptly killed the captain and probably recovered the money for it's gone
old thompson ethel's grandfather happened to be present the murderer also took his money and oh louise that isn't reasonable objected beth who had been following the story carefully why not
beth is right said patsy stoutly but old thompson lost his money at the same time you know at least his money could never be found afterward
and when he found him he demanded a restitution of his money threatening to send the criminal to jail that would be very natural wouldn't it well captain wegg had spent a good deal of the money and couldn't pay it all back so ethel's grandfather being his friend
offered to makeup the balance himself rather than see his friend go to prison that accounts for the disappearance of all the money if that is so observed patsy i don't see why the man having got his money back should murder one and knock the other on the head
is that after the money was paid over they got into a quarrel then the avenger lost his temper and committed the murders this talk about an avenger is all guess work asserted beth calmly i don't believe the facts point to an avenger at all but the old crime
the great trouble oh we'll allow all that returned beth and i don't say that an avenger wouldn't be the nicest person to exact retribution from the wicked captain but avengers don't always turn up in real life when they ought to girls
so we mustn't be too sure that one turned up in this case
well some one else might know he had money and that ethel's grandfather had money too was the reply suppose the robbery and murder had nothing to do with the old crime at all but that the murderer knew this to be a deserted place where he could make a good haul without being discovered
louise reflected a moment this country is almost a wilderness she mused aloud and few strangers ever come here besides a stranger would not know positively that these two men had money
if we abandon the idea of an avenger and follow beth's clue then the murderer is still right here in millville and unsuspected by any of his neighbors oh louise with startled glances over their shoulders
i feel that some angel of retribution has guided us to this lonely farmhouse and put the idea into my head to discover and expose a dreadful crime succotash cried patsy irrelevantly you're romancing this minute louise
the way you figure things out i wouldn't be surprised if you accused me or uncle john any time during the next half hour adopting your last supposition for the sake of argument i'm interested to know what inhabitant of sleepy old millville you suspect
don't get flighty patricia admonished beth this is a serious matter and louise is in earnest if we're going to help her we mustn't talk rubbish now it isn't a bad suggestion that we ought to look nearer home for the key to this mystery there's old hucks
hucks to be sure no one knew so well as he the money affairs of the two men who were robbed i'm ashamed of you said patsy and the man's smile is a mask exclaimed louise oh no protested patsy
but he's poor urged patsy in defense of the old man he hasn't a penny in the world
they'd have to go to the poorhouse that is no argument at all said louise calmly if we consider the fact that old hucks may be a miser and have a craving for money without any desire to spend it
then we are pretty close to a reason why he should bide his time and then murder his old master to obtain the riches he coveted mind you i don't say hucks is guilty but it is our duty to consider this phase of the question
if you allow your personal feelings to influence you returned louise i too sincerely hope that thomas is innocent but we are not justified in acquitting him until we have made a careful investigation and watched his actions
i'm quite sure he's connected with the mystery in some way said beth it will do no harm to watch old hucks as louise suggests and you might try to pump him patsy and see if you can get him to talk of the murder
thomas and i are good friends and i'd feel like a traitor to try to get him to confess a murder if he is innocent you have done no harm said her eldest cousin and if he is guilty you don't want him for your friend
he likes you dear added beth and perhaps he will tell you frankly all we want to know there's another person though louise who might tell us something who is that the little man with the golf ball eyes mc nutt
now there's some sense in suspecting him exclaimed patsy we know he's a robber already and a man who is clever enough to sell uncle john three lives of the saints would stick at nothing i'm sure he hasn't enough courage to commit a great crime observed beth
how much are you accustomed to receive uncle john had asked nothing tall sir since cap'n wegg died was the reply we was glad enough to have a home nora an me thout spectin wages and there was no one here for you to serve mused uncle john
but in captain wegg's day how much did he give you
an i ast him fer little money because my needs were little well the conditions are now different remarked uncle john carelessly and while you are in my employ you shall have your wages regularly will ten dollars a week be satisfactory oh sir
and five for nora you are too good sir i i never mind thomas if you want more at any time let me know it was then as the old man took the fifteen dollars extended to him that beth noted a flash in the mild blue eyes
and a trembling of the horny hands hucks was very glad to get the money there was little doubt of that she spoke of this incident to louise and the following morning they tested the man again
all three girls being present beth tendered old hucks two dollars saying it was intended as a slight mark of her appreciation of his attention thomas demurred at first but on being urged took the money with the same eager gesture he had before displayed
this generosity so amazed him that tears stood in his eyes as he tried to thank them all
he concealed the offerings with a stealthy motion as if ashamed of his weakness in accepting them and then hurried away to his work well said louise when they were alone is thomas a miser or not
he clutched the money almost as if he loved it observed beth in a musing and slightly regretful tone but think how poor he has been pleaded patsy and how destitute both he and nora are yet can we blame him for being glad to earn something substantial at last
somehow that did not seem to explain fully the old man's behavior and the girl who had championed him sighed and then gave a sudden shiver as she remembered the awful suspicion that had fallen upon this strange individual if the proof must be accepted that hucks had miserly instincts
chapter ten the mystery deepens ethel thompson came over the next day as she had promised and the sweet faced gentle school mistress won the hearts of uncle john's three nieces without an effort
together the four laughing light hearted maids wandered through the pines where the little school ma'am showed them many pretty nooks and mossy banks that the others had not yet discovered by following an unsuspected path
they cut across the wooded hills to the waterfall where little bill creek made a plunge of twenty feet into a rocky basin below in spite of the bubbles the water here showed clear as crystal and the girls admiringly christened it the champagne cup
they shed their shoes and stockings and waded in the pool enjoying the sport with shrieks of merry laughter more because they were happy than that there was anything to laugh at afterward
and the afternoon was devoted to rest under the shady pines that grew beside the house it was now when they felt thoroughly acquainted and at ease in one another's society that the girls indulged in talks concerning events in their past
for the purpose of choosing from among them one to inherit her vast estates it seemed no source of regret to any of them that a boy kenneth forbes had finally succeeded to aunt jane's property
and this may be explained by the fact that uncle john had at that interesting juncture appeared to take charge of the nieces it was quite evident that the eccentric but kindly old fellow had succeeded in making these three girls as happy as their dispositions would allow them to be
after the most interesting phases of their personal history had been discussed the nieces began perhaps unconsciously to draw from ethel her own story it was simple enough and derived its interest mainly from the fact that it concerned their new friend
her parents had both passed away while she was young and ethel had always lived with her father's father big will thompson a man reputed very well to do for this section and an energetic farmer from his youth
old will had always been accused of being unsociable and considering himself above the neighboring farmers and it was true that bob west the implement dealer was his only associate before captain wegg arrived
a casual acquaintance with the millville people might easily explain this with the advent of the weggs however a strong friendship seemed to spring up between the retired sea captain and the bluff erratic old farmer
which lasted until the fatal day when one died and the other became a paralytic and a maniac we have always thought said ethel that the shock of the captain's death unsettled my grandfather's mind
they had been sitting quietly in captain wegg's room one evening as they were accustomed to do when there was a sudden fall and a cry thomas ran in at once and found grandfather raving over the captain's dead body
the old seaman had heart disease it seems and had often declared he would die suddenly it was a great blow to us all but especially to joe her voice softened at this last remark and patsy exclaimed impulsively tell us about joe wegg
did you like him yes said ethel simply we were naturally thrown much together in our childhood and became staunch friends grandpa often took me with him on his visits to the weggs and sometimes but not often the captain would bring joe to see us
he was a quiet thoughtful boy much like his mother i imagine but for some reason he had conceived an intense dislike for his father and an open hatred for this part of the country where he was born aside from these morbid notions
that joe sobbed for days because he could not have the same advantages he used to tell me wonderful stories of what he would accomplish if he could only get out into the world when he implored his father to let him go away
captain wegg used to assure joe that he would some day be rich and there was no need of his preparing himself for either a business or a profession but that did not satisfy joe's ambition as you may imagine and
when the end came scarcely a dollar of money could be found among the captain's possessions and no other property than this farm so it is evident he deceived his son for some selfish purpose
and then he went to new york and i lost all further trace of him what do you suppose became of captain wegg's money asked louise i've no idea it is a singular thing that most of my grandfather's savings disappeared at the same time
why it's really a romance cried patsy who had listened eagerly
for the sole available witness of that fatal night's tragedy when one strong man died and another was driven mad was thomas hucks the old servitor was also in a position to know much of the causes leading up to the catastrophe
he having been the confidential retainer of captain wegg for many years hucks must speak
there was doubtless good reason why the old man had remained silent for three years her plan was to win his confidence interest him in joe's welfare and then the truth must come out
the frankly related story of ethel had supplied louise with the motive for the crime for that a crime had been committed she was now doubly sure captain wegg had money old will thompson had money both were well to do men
in a retired country district where there were no banks it was reasonable to suppose they kept large sums of money on hand and the knowledge of this fact had tempted some one to a dreadful deed
captain wegg had been killed and old thompson perhaps injured by a blow upon the head from which he had never recovered any suspicion the fair young detective may have entertained that thompson himself had killed his friend
louise had originally undertaken her investigation through curiosity and a desire to amuse herself by unveiling the mystery now she began to reflect that she was an instrument of justice
sunday afternoon the girl took blind nora for a long drive through the country taking pains to explain to her all the points of interest they came to and delighting the old woman with her bright chatter
louise had been kind to nora from the beginning and her soft sympathetic voice had quite won the poor creature's heart on the way home in the delightful summer twilight the girl dexterously
led the conversation toward nora's past history was thomas a sailor when you married him she asked yes miss he were bos'n on cap'n wegg's schooner the lively kate an i were livin with miss mary as come to be missus wegg arterward
oh i see and were you blind then nora no miss i went blind arter our great trouble come to us trouble
then she said i'd better not mention it i guess
an when i gets cryin an nervous he knows i've been thinkin bout the old trouble louise was disappointed but changed the subject adroitly and miss mary who was afterward missus wegg did you love her nora indeed i did child
i see did she love captain wegg nat'rally sense she married of him an fit all her fambily to do it an the cap'n were thet proud o her thet he thought the world lay in her sweet eyes oh
i had an idea he didn't treat her well remarked the girl soberly that's wrong declared nora promptly arter the trouble come fer it come to the weggs as well as to tom an me the cap'n sort o lost heart to see his mary cry day arter day an never be comforted
an that made it a gloomy house an no mistake do you mean after you moved here to the farm yes deary i hear captain wegg was very fond of ethel's grandfather continued louise trying to find an opening to penetrate old nora's reserve
they was good friends always was the brief reply did they ever quarrel nora never that i knows of and what do you suppose became of their money asked the girl i don't know child air we gettin near home we are quite near now
i wish you would open your heart to me and tell me about that great trouble nora i might be able to comfort you in some way the blind woman shook her head there's no comfort but in forgettin she said an the way to forgit ain't to talk about it
the unsatisfactory result of this conversation did not discourage louise although she was sorry to meet with no better success gradually she was learning the inside history of the weggs when she discovered what that
great trouble had been she would secure an important clue in the mystery she was sure nora might some time be induced to speak more freely and it was possible she might get the desired information from old hucks she would try anyway
a dozen theories might be constructed to account for this great trouble the one that louise finally favored was that captain wegg had been guilty of some crime on the high seas in which his boatswain old hucks was likewise implicated
they were obliged to abandon the sea and fly to some out of the way corner inland where they could be safely hidden and their whereabouts never discovered it was the knowledge of this crime she conjectured that had ruined sweet missus wegg's life and made her weep
day after day until her guilty husband became surly and silent and unsociable louise now began to cultivate thomas but her progress was slow patsy seemed to be the old man's favorite
and for some reason he became glum and uncommunicative whenever louise was around
chapter sixteen into training for mary ellen bertram told a friend afterwards that he never knew the meaning of the word chaos until he had seen the strata during the weeks immediately following the laying away of his old servant
it was indeed a chaos as none knew better than did bertram's wife poor billy sorry indeed were these days for billy and as if to make her cup of woe full to overflowing there were sister kate's epistolary i told you so
plenty of it but billy stung beyond all endurance and fairly radiating hurt pride and dogged determination disdained all assistance and with head held high declared she was getting along very well very well indeed
and this was the way she got along first came nora nora was a blue eyed black haired irish girl the sixth that the despairing billy had interviewed on that fateful morning when bertram had summoned her to his aid
nora stayed two days during her reign the entire strata echoed to banged doors dropped china and slammed furniture at her departure the henshaws possessions were less by four cups
and to olga's departure for the room was indeed a treasure house the treasure having gathered unto itself other treasures following olga came a period of what bertram called one night stands
so frequently were the dramatis personae below stairs changed gretchen drank christine knew only four words of english salt good by no and yes and billy found need occasionally of using other words
bridget was neatness itself but she had no conception of the value of time her meals were always from thirty to sixty minutes late and half cooked at that vera sang when she wasn't whistling and as she was generally off the key
but it did not take her long to discover just how much and how little her mistress really knew of practical housekeeping matters and things were very different then mary ellen became argumentative impertinent and domineering
that even william asked billy one day whether mary ellen or billy herself were the mistress of the strata and bertram with mock humility inquired how soon mary ellen would be wanting the house
billy in weary despair submitted to this bullying for almost a week then in a sudden accession of outraged dignity that left mary ellen gasping with surprise she told the girl to go
and thus the days passed the maids came and the maids went and to billy each one seemed a little worse than the one before nowhere was there comfort rest or peacefulness the nights were a torture of apprehension
and the days an even greater torture of fulfilment noise confusion meals poorly cooked and worse served dust disorder and uncertainty and this was home billy told herself bitterly
no wonder that bertram telephoned more and more frequently that he had met a friend and was dining in town no wonder that william pushed back his plate almost every meal with his food scarcely touched
and then wandered about the house with that hungry homesick homeless look that nearly broke her heart no wonder indeed and so it had come it was true aunt hannah and kate and the talk to young wives were right
she had not been fit to marry bertram she had not been fit to marry anybody her honeymoon was not only waning but going into a total eclipse had not bertram already declared that if she would tend to her husband and her home a little more
she descended to the kitchen and told the then reigning tormentor that her wages would be paid until the end of the week but that her services would be immediately dispensed with billy was well aware now that housekeeping was a matter of more than muffins and date puffs
at least she could serve more palatable meals than the most of those that had appeared lately and at least she could try to make a home that would not drive bertram to club dinners and uncle william to hungry wanderings from room to room
meanwhile all the time she could be learning and in due course she would reach that shining goal of housekeeping efficiency short of which according to aunt hannah and the talk to young wives no woman need hope for a waneless honeymoon
so chaotic and erratic had been the household service and so quietly did billy slip into her new role that it was not until the second meal after the maid's departure that the master of the house discovered what had happened
but i mean our real lady in the kitchen great scott billy how long are you going to stand this billy tossed her head airily though she shook in her shoes billy had been dreading this moment i'm not standing it
she's gone responded billy cheerfully resuming her seat uncle william sha'n't i give you some more pudding gone so soon groaned bertram as william passed his plate with a smiling nod
at something in billy's face a quick suspicion came into his own billy you don't mean that you you yes she nodded brightly that's just what i mean i'm the next one nonsense exploded bertram wrathfully
oh come billy we've been all over this before you know i can't have it yes you can you've got to have it retorted billy still with that disarming airy cheerfulness besides twon't be half so bad as you think wasn't that a good pudding to night didn't you both come back for more
well i made it puddings ejaculated bertram with an impatient gesture billy as i've said before it takes something besides puddings to run this house yes i know it does dimpled billy and i've got missus durgin for that part
she's coming twice a week and more if i need her why dearie you don't know anything about how comfortable you're going to be i'll leave it to uncle william if but uncle william had gone silently he had slipped from his chair and disappeared
uncle william it might be mentioned in passing had never quite forgotten aunt hannah's fateful call with its dire revelations concerning a certain unwanted superfluous third party husband's brother
remembering this there were times when he thought absence was both safest and best this was one of the times but billy dear still argued bertram irritably how can you you don't know how you've had no experience
billy threw back her shoulders an ominous light came to her eyes she was no longer airily playful that's exactly it bertram i don't know how but i'm going to learn i haven't had experience but i'm going to get it
until she found out how little her mistress knew then well you know what it was then do you think i'd let that thing happen to me again no sir i'm going into training for my next mary ellen
he had read all the available magazines looked up his connections twice in the railway guide and even gazed for an hour out of the window but there were only woods and farms to be seen scarcely a bill board and no automobiles
he dropped his cigar wearily into the spittoon by his chair in the club car and relapsed into lethargy with dull iteration he ran over the plans for the deal in prairie land that he hoped to put through to morrow
he thought of his wife and hoped that his telegram would be telephoned over to the runkles so that she might meet him at the station with the clean shirt he had asked for afterwards he cut his nails yawned loudly and was just going to sleep when they stopped at joline and a boy came in with papers
cargan turned first as usual to the stock market reports there were only two items of interest since he had left the tape montana pacific had gone off a little more
but two hundred shares of benningham common had sold at seventeen a drop of ten points his eye caught an explanatory note the dividend on the preferred had been cut the surplus was heavily reduced his mind searching rapidly over their business
fixed upon two marginal accounts jim smith's and waldron's in each case the collateral deposited had already been insufficient drawing out his note book he swiftly figured that old gambler smith's always on the edge he reflected
we can hold him a little longer gotta sell waldron out must have made a thousand dollars out of that account first and last too bad a momentary sense of waldron's calamity swept over him but quickly evaporated business is business
he thought and remembered with a little angry satisfaction anita waldron's coming out dance and how the runkles who were invited kept talking about it all winter old waldron won't be so darn particular next year
as the train pulled into his home town he hurried out upon the station platform and saw with pride and pleasure that his wife was just stepping out of the runkles motor looking about to see who might be there to note the company she was keeping
his eye fell on a tall and stooping gentleman with a trimmed beard and eyeglasses who was searching with weary eyes the train windows but even while he frowned at the recognition his wife had seized him by the shoulder caroling
hello jimmy give me a kiss dear and take your old shirt she was a graceful woman stiffened by an obvious corset and faintly powdered a long yellow feather dangled from her orange hat big pearls were set in her ears and her shoe buckles glittered as she walked
he kissed her admiringly say martha you look great he chuckled
the train was starting indeed he had just time to dash up the steps of his car good bye dear she caroled
hummed the brakeman and slammed down the swinging floor of the vestibule cargan was already balancing himself along the corridor of the club car a lurch of the train swung him heavily out among the chairs to save himself he caught a shoulder and dropped into a seat
it was waldron they shook hands as if nothing were in the air and then compared watches to see if the train were on time this done waldron took off his glasses swung them on their black cord and began to polish them nervously
blinking with short sighted eyes into the space that hurried past the car windows cargan offered him a cigar but he put it aside quickly no thank you no thank you well they cut the dividend he looked at cargan with a wan smile
what'll i do cargan they told me i'd find you on the train and i thought i'd ask your advice cargan was relieved sell mister waldron he answered earnestly sell right off that brogan crowd's runnin the company now
and they're no good sell quick waldron looked at him in doubt how much do i lose he asked feebly bout six thousand' against his will cargan made the tone apologetic
the old man blinked rapidly then conquered his pride with punctilious care he unbuttoned his gray cutaway took out a wallet from under the button of the society of colonial wars drew forth a sheet of note paper and with a pencil inscribed a broad o
there's my collateral mister cargan he said whimsically he was so helpless and so elegant in his helplessness that the bully awoke in cargan with an effort he broke through the nervous deference with which waldron always inspired him and spoke roughly
we don't do business without either collateral or cash waldron the gentleman put his wallet back hurriedly as if some one had laughed at it and cast a quick hurt look at his broker you haven't been thinking of selling me out
after all the business i've given you cargan nodded incredulity horror resolve passed over waldron's face you cannot it's impossible he said firmly
the assertion in his tone was irritating what's goin to stop us cargan asked coolly shoved his hands into his pockets and puffed clouds from his cigar different worlds of imagination revolved in the two men's minds
and of his father the governor and of the family pride sudden poverty was as bad as disgrace i didn't mean it that way he answered hurriedly i'm in temporary difficulties my house is mortgaged i've borrowed money from my wife and other places
it isn't just the money a gush of emotion reddened his face
it's impossible it's out of the question for me to break now but cargan was remembering how he lost his job in the department store and couldn't pay the rent when he was kicked out nobody said it was impossible nobody said it was impossible when they went into the top of a tenement
the contrast made him bitter but it was the thought that he had never felt it to be impossible the inescapable inferiority always forced upon him in the presence of waldron which roused his temper business is business mister waldron he said curtly
they were rattling through coal sheds and grain elevators at the edge of a town waldron got up stiffly and carefully brushed the cinders from his coat this is bloomfield i think he said coldly i'm meeting my family here
mister cargan there are considerations above business his voice failed a little this is a matter of life and death cargan had heard that bluff before
i mean he faltered that i may not be able to stand up under it and then his voice resumed its desperate certainty i mean sir that what you propose is impossible i mean that
ab so lute ly you cannot sell me out he bowed and felt his way down the corridor i can't can't i cargan flung after him
sell out waldron at noon to morrow unless five thousand collateral something'll drop for you old boy he growled addressed the telegram to his partner and gave it to the porter
outside cargan heard a burst of merry voices and saw waldron hurried away by two laughing girls to an automobile waiting with a trunk strapped behind it missus waldron followed she was a stiff woman a little faded quietly dressed
her face was troubled and when they reached the motor she caught her husband's elbow gently as if to ask him something but he merely nodded and turned her glance toward cargan's window she bowed and smiled very sweetly in his direction
and cargan smiled sourly in return then the children hustled the old folks into the tonneau and they were off just as the train started cargan felt hardly used
business is business that's the thing for him to remember it's impossible nevertheless in self defense he began to calculate what it might have cost to carry the account until the appalling magnitude of the risk shut off the discussion
the darned old self confident aristocrat he murmured working himself up into a fury thinks he can bluff me but he'll find out what's impossible believe me then he dispelled his irritation by a cocktail and hurried into the diner
he snored in his berth while the train ran out farther and farther upon the great kansas plain slept while signs of culture disappeared one by one and arose in the midst of an endless unfamiliar world of grass
when he sat down in the diner for his morning meal the great wheel of the horizon rimmed round his little train without a notch on the perfect circle over night the outer world had changed but he was absorbed in fitting his choices into a sixty cent breakfast
the train stopped quickly and firmly and lay dead upon the prairie eccentrics or hot box said the man who jumped off the step beside him nothing much else goes wrong with an engine nowadays what is it bill
two hours anyway cargan flung his cigarette on the ground i'll miss my connection at hay junction he protested i've gotta be in hamden this afternoon walk then
there was no house in sight no road nothing but the dead train the new land of endless shimmering prairies and beyond the ditch a single horseman looking curiously at the long cars and the faces strained against the glass of the windows
say you cargan called can you get an auto anywhere here
then shook its dusty head or a team it shook its head again or a horse cargan hesitated he had never ridden a horse a sudden gleaming idea shot across the man's solemn features
he slid off his pony and led him nearer the ditch
well if you'll make it five plunks and give me your ticket you can take this horse an i'll go round by train say do you want to cargan was tempted
what'll i do with my suit case gimme it to take for you i guess it ain't worth more'n my horse
they helped him on and pointed out the dim line of telephone poles which marked a road a mile beyond
plover swung up before him with melancholy cries a soft haze rose from the plains they grew more vast more endless
in the north a white cloud mass piled itself up and up until it seemed as if it might topple over upon the flat world beneath he had never before looked at the country except as real estate never seen the plains
and a curious new sense of the bigness of the earth oppressed him he felt very small and very mean the humiliation of his spirits was a novel feeling and an unpleasant one he tried to hum it away
just wait till i strike broadway and watch me with the girls for i'm the man that invented it the hair that always curls his harsh voice in the stillness was ridiculous even to him but when he stopped singing
the silence flowed over him as a stream that had been held back the sky was enormous he was only a speck on the vast floor as he plodded on and on and on through the dust he began to grow dizzy from the glare and the heat
he could not collect his thoughts for business a curious sense of weakened identity perplexed him and his head was full of drifting pictures waldron's face among them that face lingered he saw him looking vaguely out of the car window
saying that he couldn't stand up under it that it was impossible he wondered if it was a bluff after all the face faded away leaving a dull pity behind it a struggling remorse
cargan shifted uneasily in his saddle and tried to think of business but instead of business queer childish ideas began floating in and out of his mind accompanied by words remembered from sundays in his boyhood he was alone with god
god saw into his heart a little nervous shiver ran over him and when he checked it with a laugh there followed a wave of superstitious emotion
a low wave of the prairies had hidden from him a little house and barn standing crudely new against the sky in the distance tiny figures were moving behind the buildings and a dust cloud rose from the highway in front
cargan suddenly became conscious of his appearance his serge suit his straw hat his awkward seat in the saddle the loneliness of the plains had shaken his usual self assurance maybe they'll think i stole this horse guess i'll go round
he said aloud he jerked his steed from the road into the grass and urged him into a trot instantly he found himself beaten and jolted like a ship in a tempest he lost a stirrup he slipped sidewise on the saddle
then in a panicky fright he began to shout and saw at the bit frightened by the voice and the thunder of hoofs a chaparral cock darted from beneath the horse's nose it was enough to make the beast swerve then toss his head
and in a panic madder than his rider's break into a run and dash unrestrainably onward cargan numb with fright leaned over his neck and wound his hands in the mane the speed sickened him the flat earth swung beneath
the sky swam dizzily he dared not pull on the reins he could only hold on grimly and shut his eyes once he slipped and screaming saw for an instant a blur of grass before he could pull himself back to safety
and then the speed increased the sweaty shoulders labored beneath him and his senses whirled he did not note how far they ran but at last came a slower motion a gallop and then a trot
weak from exhaustion he was bumped from the saddle and found himself clutching and kicking with both arms around his horse's neck flinging himself outward he rolled over on the soft ground and lay groaning on the prairie
the well trained horse stopped and began to graze he too was quivering with fatigue but his fright was over the sun was burning near the zenith the world again was empty and this time there was no road cargan was lost
when he recovered a little he caught the horse and too shaken to mount him limped on leading him by the bridle in what direction he did not know pangs of hunger and faintness assailed him
the awful loneliness chilled him through in spite of the blaze of heat and light he remembered stories of men who had wandered on the prairie round and round in an endless circle until they had gone crazy and blown out their brains
a profound pity for himself stirred him never had he so felt the need of humanity of human aid he would have given a hundred dollars to be walking up main street with the boys calling to him from rooney's cigar store
just in front a little calf stumbled to its feet and ran toward them mooing piteously it too was lost cargan stroked its nostrils and a sympathy for all suffering things flowed through his heart
he thought with a shudder of waldron pacing somewhere like himself alone lost helpless his pride gone in his awakened imagination he saw him wandering nearer and nearer the fatal act
he'll shoot himself i ought to done something he whispered with a sudden rush of unfamiliar emotion and all the sentiment in his nature heaved and struggled to the light a cow lowed somewhere beyond them
his horse pricked up his ears and the calf ambled off in the direction of the sound cargan limped after hurriedly leading his horse a hundred yards brought them to the edge of a slight bowl in the plains with a little moisture around which pewees were flying
and his heart leaped to see beside it a tiny house of unpainted boards wires stretched from one window along the depression which led westward until they disappeared in the endless horizon and as he paused to survey a sharp bell rang
hello is that annie came faintly across the silence he looked at his watch and saw that it was only eleven i'll talk to casey about waldron he said guiltily relief for his escape
and still more the hush of that enormous plain the solemnity of the great and shining sky filled him with high and noble thoughts say is hamden near here he asked of a slim woman in a gingham dress who appeared at the door
she nodded and say can i use your telephone she hesitated looking him over then motioned him incuriously to the stool behind the pine table solitude seemed to have made her unready of speech
he called cargan and casey then waited fidgeting silence invaded the little kitchen the clock ticked in a hush the chickens droned in whispers the woman herself worked over the stove
with slow fingers moving the kettles gently cargan and casey were busy he fumed for an instant then gave his own home number it's jim he said and heard his wife's carol of surprise he could see her tiptoeing at their telephone
and the thought of their little sitting room and the kids playing behind her warmed his blood i got run away with on the plains but i'm all right her frightened ejaculation thrilled him with loving pride
martha he called quickly
tell him right away i'll explain to morrow the connection roared and failed he hung up the instrument the quiet room the gently moving woman the immensity without rushed back on his sight exhilarated clear hearted
looking heaven in the face he asked the necessary questions mounted his horse and pushed onward hamden was already a blotch upon the horizon say it's great to get into a big country he murmured lifted his bare head to the free air
and in a curious exaltation of mind rode on dreamily he noticed the flowers in the coarse grass watched the wild doves flying with their quick strong wing beats
and swung his eye joyfully around the blue horizons that receded until one felt the curve and pitch of the world the mood lasted until cargan reached the first straggling houses of the village street
so that he entered upon the rutty highway between dirt sidewalks with regret as one whose holiday was ending he scarcely noticed the loiterers who stared at him or thought of his streaked face his trousers split at the knee his hat lost on the wild ride
but as he plodded onward the atmosphere of town had its effect his eye began to take note of the size of the shops glittering under their false fronts the new houses behind rows of stiff young trees the number and make of automobiles
his subconsciousness grasped the financial level of hamden although his thoughts were still in the wide spaces of the plains a boy ran out from the side walk to sell him a paper he stuck it in his side pocket and suddenly began to feel like a man of this world again
say sonny he called who sells land in this burg dubell john dubell thanks he went more and more slowly a drug store
blazing with marble and onyx in the afternoon sun made cargan's dry throat wrinkle with thirst he pulled his horse toward that side of the street there was a row of customers along the soda water counter and through the open windows came scraps of conversation
two boys were teasing each other about a girl a group of men were talking auctions options prices real estate he drank their talk in greedily with a pang of homesickness and a rush of returning common sense dismounting stiffly
he tied his horse and stood for an instant on the cement pavement feeling his dirt and tatters wondering if they would throw him out for a bum then he slid inside the door and ordered a chocolate soda the clerk was reading the paper while he juggled the milk shakes
cargan carefully concealing his torn trousers climbed a stool and began to look back upon the vagaries of the day with sullen wonder he brushed furtively at the caked dust on his legs remembering irritably the elegance of waldron whom he had saved
in the mirror of the soda fountain he saw himself torn dirty shrinking and the sight filled him with disgust and anger he felt as ridiculous as when he had come out with a glass too much from the stoneham bar and tripped over the steps of the main entrance
gimme a cigar he called to the boy at the magazine counter bit off the end lit it and began to think business the clerk swirling a cataract of milk from glass to glass revealed the inner sheet of the paper propped before him
cargan read beneath his arm the full page advertisement of a land sale the land sale he had come through all this tomfoolery to reach his eyes bulged as he saw that they were going to throw a thousand acres on the market good gosh he gulped inwardly what a chance
it was a sure thing for the man with the money the last of his fine sentiments evaporated except for waldron he could have scooped it all in but now four hundred was all he dared touch and perhaps not that
raging against his softness back there on the plains which seemed a hardly recognizable world he ground his teeth and coughed and choked over his soda soft headed donkey the reaction was complete
and spread and spread he looked furtively at the clock over the clerk's head and saw that it was only half past two with guilty deliberation he rose and walked slowly toward the door of the telephone booth keeping back from full consciousness just what he was about to do
then he slammed himself within and shouted casey's address to the operator as he waited his wrath mounted what in heck was the matter with me anyway he smoked furiously in the stifling box go ahead said the operator
and at the word hey there casey he yelled at the dim voice on the wires i've gotta have five thousand quick sell that benningham common yes waldron's at the name his anger broke loose the old high brow tried to bluff me what
the connection failed and left him gasping what sold it he told you to no i dunno anything about a court decision up fifteen points on a merger
he gulped down the sudden reversal and felt for words say tell him he licked his lips
i'm sure glad the wires roared again and cargan putting down the receiver grinned shamefacedly into the dirty mirror but gradually a sense of conscious virtue began to trickle pleasantly through his veins
i'm sure glad he repeated more vigorously carryin him to day was what did it a vision of missus waldron's happy face rose to bless him the exhilaration of the morning coursed back into his heart
with a comfortable feeling of good business about it he felt better and better from somewhere a saying floated into his head doing good unto others is the only happiness by heck that's true he commented aloud
and sat smoking peacefully his mind aglow with pleasant thoughts the bell whirred raucously he saw that he had forgotten to replace the receiver and putting it to his ear caught casey's voice again
montana pacific's off two points more
allow a pound of logwood to each pound of goods that are to be dyed soak it over night in soft water then boil it an hour and strain the water in which it is boiled
for each pound of logwood dissolve an ounce of blue vitriol in lukewarm water sufficient to wet the goods dip the goods in when saturated with it turn the whole into the logwood dye if the goods are cotton set the vessel on the fire
and let the goods boil ten or fifteen minutes stirring them constantly to prevent their spotting silk and woollen goods should not be boiled in the dye stuff but it should be kept at a scalding heat for twenty minutes drain the goods without wringing
and hang them in a dry shady place where they will have the air when dry set the color by put them into scalding hot water that has salt in it in the proportion of a tea cup full to three gallons of the water let the goods remain in it till cold
then hang them where they will dry they should not be wrung boiling hot suds is the best thing to set the color of black silk let it remain in it till cold soaking black dyed goods in sour milk is also good to set the color
green and blue dye for silks and woollens for green dye take a pound of oil of vitriol and turn it upon half an ounce of spanish indigo that has been reduced to a fine powder stir them well together
as the soap will ruin the dye to dye a pale color put to each quart of soft warm water that is to be used for the dye ten drops of the above composition if you wish a deep color more will be necessary
and let them remain in it till of a good color the dye stuff should be kept warm
to keep the vitriol from injuring the texture of the cloth if you wish for a lively bright green mix a little of the above composition with yellow dye
to dye a buff color boil equal parts of arnotto and common potash in soft clear water when dissolved take it from the fire when cool put in the goods which should previously be washed free from spots and color
set them on a moderate fire where they will keep hot till the goods are of the shade you wish to dye salmon and orange color tie arnotto in a bag and soak it in warm soft soap suds till it becomes soft
so that you can squeeze enough of it through the bag to make the suds a deep yellow put in the articles which should be clean and free from color
stir them while boiling to keep them from spotting this dye will make a salmon or orange color according to the strength of it and the time the goods remain in drain them out of the dye and dry them quick in the shade when dry wash them in soft soap suds
goods dyed in this manner should never be rinsed in clear water peach leaves fustic and saffron all make a good straw or lemon color according to the strength of the dye they should be steeped in soft fair water
red dyes madder makes a good durable red but not a brilliant color to make a dye of it allow for half a pound of it three ounces of alum and one of cream of tartar and six gallons of water
this proportion of ingredients will make sufficient dye for six or seven pounds of goods heat half of the water scalding hot in a clean brass kettle then put in the alum and cream of tartar
and let it dissolve when the water boils stir the alum and tartar up in it put in the goods and let them boil a couple of hours then rinse them in fair water empty the kettle and put in three gallons of water and the madder
rub it fine in the water then put in the goods and set them where they will keep scalding hot for an hour without boiling stir them constantly when they have been scalding an hour increase the fire till they boil let them boil five minutes
put them in a brass kettle with sufficient fair water to cover your goods set it where it will boil briskly for several minutes then put in the goods which should be washed clean and rinsed in fair water when the goods have boiled half an hour
empty out the alum and tartar water put fresh water in the kettle and for each pound of goods to be dyed put in an ounce of cochineal powdered fine set the kettle on the fire
and let the water boil fifteen or twenty minutes then put in sufficient cold water to make it lukewarm put in the goods and boil them an hour and a quarter take them out without wringing and dry them in a shady place the blossoms of the balm of gilead
steeped with fair water in a vessel then strained will dye silk a pretty red color the silk should be washed clean and free from color then rinsed in fair water and boiled in the strained dye with a small piece of alum
to dye a fine delicate pink use a carmine saucer the directions for dyeing come with the saucers
it is too expensive a dye for bulky goods but for faded fancy shawls and ribbons it is quite worth the while to use it as it gives a beautiful shade of pink
slate colored dye to make a good dark slate color boil sugar loaf paper with vinegar in an iron utensil put in alum to set the color tea grounds set with copperas makes a good slate color to produce a light slate color
boil white maple bark in clear water with a little alum the bark should be boiled in a brass utensil the dye for slate color should be strained before the goods are put into it they should be boiled in it and then hung where they will drain and dry
cold soap heat twenty six pounds of strained grease when melted mix it with four pailsful of lye made of twenty pounds of white potash let the whole stand in the sun stirring it frequently in the course of a week
fill the barrel with weak lye this method of making soap is much easier than to make a lye of your ashes while it is as cheap if you sell your ashes to the soap boiler
dissolve twenty weight of white potash in three pailsful of water heat twenty pounds of strained grease then mix it with the dissolved potash and boil them together till the whole becomes a thick jelly which is ascertained
separate it from the lye and heat it over a slow fire let it boil a quarter of an hour then take it from the fire if you wish to have it a yellow color put in a little palm oil and turn it out into wooden vessels when cold
windsor and castile soap
once upon a time there lived a king and queen they had three sons two of them with their wits about them but the third a simpleton now the king had a deer park in which were quantities of wild animals of different kinds
into that park there used to come a huge beast norka was its name and do fearful mischief devouring some of the animals every night the king did all he could but he was unable to destroy it
but before he reached the park he went into a traktir or tavern and there he spent the whole night in revelry when he came to his senses it was too late the day had already dawned he felt himself disgraced in the eyes of his father
but there was no help for it the next day the second son went and did just the same their father scolded them both soundly and there was an end of it well on the third day the youngest son undertook the task they all laughed him to scorn
because he was so stupid feeling sure he wouldn't do anything but he took his arms and went straight into the park and sat down on the grass in such a position that the moment he went asleep his weapons would prick him and he would awake
presently the midnight hour sounded the earth began to shake and the norka came rushing up and burst right through the fence into the park so huge was it the prince pulled himself together leapt to his feet crossed himself
and went straight at the beast it fled back and the prince ran after it but he soon saw that he couldn't catch it on foot so he hastened to the stable laid his hands on the best horse there and set off in pursuit
presently he came up with the beast and they began a fight they fought and fought the prince gave the beast three wounds at last they were both utterly exhausted so they lay down to take a short rest
but the moment the prince closed his eyes up jumped the beast and took to flight the prince's horse awoke him up
and set off again in pursuit caught up the beast and again began fighting with it again the prince gave the beast three wounds and then he and the beast lay down again to rest thereupon away fled the beast as before the prince caught it up
and again gave it three wounds but all of a sudden just as the prince began chasing it for the fourth time the beast fled to a great white stone tilted it up and escaped into the other world crying out to the prince
then only will you overcome me when you enter here the prince went home told his father all that had happened and asked him to have a leather rope plaited long enough to reach to the other world his father ordered this to be done
when the rope was made the prince called for his brothers and he and they having taken servants with them and everything that was needed for a whole year set out for the place where the beast had disappeared under the stone
when they got there they built a palace on the spot and lived in it for some time but when everything was ready the youngest brother said to the others now brothers who is going to lift this stone neither of them could so much as stir it
but as soon as he touched it away it flew to a distance though it was ever so big big as a hill and when he had flung the stone aside he spoke a second time to his brothers saying who is going into the other world to overcome the norka
neither of them offered to do so then he laughed at them for being such cowards and said well brothers farewell lower me into the other world and don't go away from here but as soon as the cord is jerked pull it up
and it said to him hail prince ivan long have i awaited thee he mounted the horse and rode on rode and rode until he saw standing before him a palace made of copper he entered the courtyard tied up his horse
and went indoors in one of the rooms a dinner was laid out he sat down and dined and then went into a bedroom there he found a bed on which he lay down to rest presently there came in a lady
more beautiful than can be imagined anywhere but in a fairy tale who said thou who art in my house name thyself if thou art an old man thou shalt be my father if a middle aged man my brother
but if a young man thou shalt be my husband dear and if thou art a woman
thou shalt be my grandmother if middle aged my mother and if a girl thou shalt be my own sister thereupon he came forth and when she saw him she was delighted with him and said
wherefore o prince ivan my husband dear shalt thou be wherefore hast thou come hither then he told her all that had happened and she said that beast which thou wishest to overcome is my brother
and then the prince took leave of her and went on to the second sister the one who lived in the silver palace and with her also he stayed awhile she told him that her brother norka was then at her youngest sister's
and she gave him a sword of steel and a draught of the water of strength and she told him to cut off her brother's head at a single stroke and when he had heard these things he went his way and when the prince came to the blue sea he looked
there slept the norka on a stone in the middle of the sea and when it snored the water was agitated for seven miles around the prince crossed himself went up to it and smote it on the head with his sword the head jumped off saying the while
with the intention of taking them out into the upper world for they all loved him and would not be separated from him each of them turned her palace into an egg for they were all enchantresses and they taught him how to turn the eggs into palaces and back again
and they handed over the eggs to him and then they all went to the place from which they had to be hoisted into the upper world and when they came to where the rope was the prince took hold of it and made the maidens fast to it
and his brothers began to haul it up and when they had hauled it up and had set eyes on the wondrous maidens they went aside and said let's lower the rope pull our brother part of the way up and then cut the rope
and then gave it a pull his brothers hoisted the stone to a great height and then cut the rope down fell the stone and broke in pieces
he went up to a tree in order to take shelter under it and on that tree he saw some young birds which were being thoroughly drenched so he took off his coat and covered them over with it and he himself sat down under the tree presently
there came flying a bird such a big one that the light was blotted out by it it had been dark there before but now it became darker still now this was the mother of those small birds which the prince had covered up
and when the bird had come flying up she perceived that her little ones were covered over
who has wrapped up my nestlings and presently seeing the prince she added didst thou do that thanks in return ask of me anything thou desirest
i will do anything for thee then carry me into the other world he replied make me a large vessel with a partition in the middle she said catch all sorts of game
so thoroughly had he altered in appearance that nobody would have suspected him of being a prince having entered into the service of this master the prince began to ask what was going on in that country and his master replied
our two princes for the third one has disappeared have brought away brides from the other world and want to marry them but those brides refuse for they insist on having all their wedding clothes made for them first
go to the king master and tell him that you will provide everything that's in your line however can i undertake to make clothes of that sort i work for quite common folks says his master go along master
he went home and the prince said to him now then
midnight sounded the prince arose went out of the city into the fields took out of his pocket the eggs which the maidens had given him and as they had taught him turned them into three palaces
into each of these he entered took the maidens robes went out again turned the palaces back into eggs and went home and when he got there he hung up the robes on the wall and lay down to sleep
when the princesses saw that the clothes were those which had been theirs in the other world they guessed that prince ivan was in this world so they exchanged glances with each other but they held their peace and the master
having handed over the clothes went home but he no longer found his dear journeyman there for the prince had gone to a shoemaker's and him too he sent to work for the king and in the same way he went the round of all the artificers
inasmuch as through him they were enriched by the king by the time the princely workman had gone the round of all the artificers the princesses had received what they had asked for all their clothes were just like what they had been in the other world
she caught sight of the ring which she had given to the prince in the other world and her sisters rings too for it really was he
relief measures inaugurated in california disturbed conditions because of mexican war generous subscriptions three parties organize first relief under racine tucker
second relief under reed and greenwood and relay camp under woodworth first relief party crosses snow belt and reaches donner lake
the kindness and sympathy shown mister eddy by the good people in the neighborhood of the richey and johnson ranches encouraged his efforts in behalf of his fellow sufferers in the mountains
while the early sunlight of january nineteenth was flooding his room with cheer and warmth he dictated a letter to mister john sinclair
living near sutter's fort in which he stated as briefly as possible the conditions and perils surrounding the snow bound travellers and begged him to use every means in his power toward their immediate rescue bear river was running high
then he rolled his trousers above the knee
he saw no white faces until he reached sinclair's where the letter created a painful interest and won ready promises of help it was dark when he reached sutter's fort nevertheless from house to house he spread the startling report
who had already twice sent supplies first by stanton and again by mc cutchen and reed in their unsuccessful attempt to cross the mountains
while captain kerns at sutter's fort was sending messengers to different points and missus sinclair
her husband despatched an open letter to the people of san francisco describing the arrival
known to human nature some of the listeners had parted from members of the donner party at the little sandy when its prospects appeared so bright and the misfortunes which had since befallen the party seemed incredible
women left the room sobbing and men called those passing in from the street to join the knots of earnest talkers all were ready and willing to do but alas the obstacles which had prevented mister reed getting men for the mountain work
as soon as they reached the country and were still on duty in the southern part of the province and the non enlisted were deemed necessary for the protection of the colonies of american women and children encamped on the soil of the enemy moreover
but as yet had obtained nothing
of the united states navy and mister richardson united states collector each subscribed fifty dollars to the cause on his own account as a result of these appeals
in addition to a generous subscription offered their launch
to transport the expedition to feather river and mister john fuller volunteered to pilot the launch it was decided to fit out an expedition
soon thereafter old trapper greenwood appeared in san francisco asking for assistance in fitting out a following to go to the mountains with himself and mc cutchen mister george yount and others
and the men he should select to cross the mountains greenwood urged that he should have ten or twelve men on whom he could rely after reaching deep snow these he said
he could secure if he had the ready money to make advances and to procure the necessary warm clothing and blankets he had crossed the sierras before
when the snow lay deep on the summit and now proposed to drive over horses and kill them at the camps as provisions for the sufferers if this scheme should fail he and his sons with others
would get food to the camp on snowshoes thornton says the governor general of california after due form and trusting to the generosity and humanity of the government which he represented
appropriated four hundred dollars on government account toward outfitting this relief party furthermore
the crews of the savannah and the sloop warren and the marines in garrison at san francisco increased the relief fund to thirteen hundred dollars messrs mellus and howard tendered their launch to carry the party up the bay
to sonoma and captain sutter proffered his launch sacramento for river use it was now settled that the reed greenwood party should go to johnson's ranch by way of sonoma and napa and woodworth
with his men and supplies including clothing for the destitute should go by boat to sutter's landing there procure pack animals buy beef cattle and hurry on to the snow belt establish a relay camp slaughter the cattle
and render all possible aid toward the immediate rescue of the snow bound
to hasten recruits for service captain sutter
to each man who would get food through to the snow bound camps
driving pack animals well laden with warm clothing blankets and food supplies left the fort at sunrise on the morning of february the first and on the third reached johnson's ranch
where they joined messrs tucker johnson richey and others who being anxious to assist in the good work had killed and were fire drying beef to take up the mountains here two days were spent making pack saddles driving in horses
and getting supplies in shape indians were kept at the handmill grinding wheat part of the flour was sacked and part converted into bread by the women in the vicinity on the morning of the fifth of february
rode to johnson's ranch and all things being ready he appointed racine tucker captain of the company and in touching words commended the heroic work of its members and bade them godspeed on their errand of mercy
when ready to mount he shook hands with each man and recorded the names in a note book as follows
john rhodes daniel rhodes
d richey james curtis
george tucker adolph brenheim
their route to the snow belt lay through sections of country which had become so soft and oozy that the horses often sank in mire flank deep and the streams were so swollen that progress was alarmingly slow on the second day
they were driven into camp early by heavy rains which drenched clothing blankets and even the provisions carefully stored under the saddles and leather saddle covers this caused a delay of thirty six hours
for everything had to be sun or fire dried before the party could resume travel upon reaching mule springs the party found the snow from three to four feet deep and contrary to expectations saw that it would be impossible to proceed farther with the horses
after they should cease to be of use at mule springs the party built a brush store house for the extra supplies and appointed george tucker and william coon camp keepers
ten men started on their toilsome march to bear valley where they arrived on the thirteenth and at once began searching for the abandoned wagon and provisions which reed and mc cutchen had cached the previous autumn
after their fruitless attempt to scale the mountains the wagon was found under snow ten feet in depth but its supplies had been destroyed by wild beasts warned by this catastrophe
the first relief decided to preserve its supplies for the return trip by hanging them in parcels from ropes
the ten kept together courageously
and adolph brenheim gave up and turned back mister tucker fearing that others might become disheartened and do likewise guaranteed each man who would persevere to the end five dollars per diem
dating from the time the party entered the snow the remaining seven pushed ahead and on the eighteenth
the moon stared at the princess and the princess stared at the moon but the moon had the best of it and the princess began to cry and now the question was between the moon and the cottage the princess thought she knew the worst of the moon
and she knew nothing at all about the cottage therefore she would stay with the moon strange was it not that she should have been so long with the wise woman and yet know nothing about that cottage as for the moon she did not by any means know the worst of her
or even that if she were to fall asleep where she could find her the old witch would certainly do her best to twist her face but she had scarcely sat a moment longer before she was assailed by all sorts of fresh fears
first of all the soft wind blowing gently through the dry stalks of the heather and its thousands of little bells raised a sweet rustling which the princess took for the hissing of serpents for you know
she had been naughty for so long that she could not in a great many things tell the good from the bad then nobody could deny that there all round about the heath like a ring of darkness lay the gloomy fir wood and the princess knew what it was full of
and every now and then she thought she heard the howling of its wolves and hyenas and who could tell but some of them might break from their covert and sweep like a shadow across the heath
indeed it was not once nor twice that for a moment she was fully persuaded she saw a great beast coming leaping and bounding through the moonlight to have her all to himself she did not know that not a single evil creature dared set foot on that heath
or that if one should do so it would that instant wither up and cease if an army of them had rushed to invade it it would have melted away on the edge of it and ceased like a dying wave
she even imagined that the moon was slowly coming nearer and nearer down the sky to take her and freeze her to death in her arms the wise woman too she felt sure although her cottage looked asleep was watching her at some little window
in this however she would have been quite right if she had only imagined enough namely that the wise woman was watching over her from the little window but after all somehow the thought of the wise woman was less frightful than that of any of her other terrors
and at length she began to wonder whether it might not turn out that she was no ogress but only a rude ill bred tyrannical yet on the whole not altogether ill meaning person hardly had the possibility arisen in her mind before she was on her feet
if the woman was any thing short of an ogress her cottage must be better than that horrible loneliness with nothing in all the world but a stare and even an ogress had at least the shape and look of a human being
but to her surprise she came only to another back for no door was to be seen she tried the farther end but still no door she must have passed it as she ran but no neither in gable nor in side was any to be found
a cottage without a door she rushed at it in a rage and kicked at the wall with her feet but the wall was hard as iron and hurt her sadly through her gay silken slippers
which came up to the walls of the cottage on every side and roared and screamed with rage suddenly however she remembered how her screaming had brought the horde of wolves and hyenas about her in the forest and ceasing at once lay still
gazing yet again at the moon and then came the thought of her parents in the palace at home in her mind's eye she saw her mother sitting at her embroidery with the tears dropping upon it and her father staring into the fire
as if he were looking for her in its glowing caverns it is true that if they had both been in tears by her side because of her naughtiness she would not have cared a straw but now her own forlorn condition
somehow helped her to understand their grief at having lost her and not only a great longing to be back in her comfortable home but a feeble flutter of genuine love for her parents awoke in her heart as well and she burst into real tears
soft mournful tears very different from those of rage and disappointment to which she was so much used and another very remarkable thing
she began to wish to see the wise woman again the idea of her being an ogress vanished utterly and she thought of her only as one to take her in from the moon and the loneliness and the terrors of the forest haunted heath
and hide her in a cottage with not even a door for the horrid wolves to howl against but the old woman as the princess called her not knowing that her real name was the wise woman had told her that she must knock at the door
how was she to do that when there was no door but again she bethought herself that if she could not do all she was told she could at least do a part of it if she could not knock at the door she could at least knock say on the wall
for there was nothing else to knock upon and perhaps the old woman would hear her and lift her in by some window thereupon she rose at once to her feet and picking up a stone began to knock on the wall with it a loud noise was the result
and she found she was knocking on the very door itself for a moment she feared the old woman would be offended but the next there came a voice saying who is there the princess answered
please old woman i did not mean to knock so loud to this there came no reply then the princess knocked again this time with her knuckles and the voice came again saying who is there and the princess answered
rosamond then a second time there was silence but the princess soon ventured to knock a third time what do you want said the voice oh please let me in said the princess the moon will keep staring at me
and i hear the wolves in the wood then the door opened and the princess entered she looked all around but saw nothing of the wise woman it was a single bare little room with a white deal table
and a few old wooden chairs a fire of fir wood on the hearth the smoke of which smelt sweet and a patch of thick growing heath in one corner
she felt no little satisfaction as she shut the door and looked around her and what with the sufferings and terrors she had left outside the new kind of tears she had shed the love she had begun to feel for her parents and the trust she had begun to place in the wise woman
it seemed to her as if her soul had grown larger of a sudden and she had left the days of her childishness and naughtiness far behind her people are so ready to think themselves changed when it is only their mood that is changed
those who are good tempered because it is a fine day will be ill tempered when it rains their selves are just the same both days only in the one case the fine weather has got into them in the other the rainy
rosamond as she sat warming herself by the glow of the peat fire turning over in her mind all that had passed and feeling how pleasant the change in her feelings was began by degrees to think how very good she had grown
and how very good she was to have grown good and how extremely good she must always have been that she was able to grow so very good as she now felt she had grown and she became so absorbed in her self admiration
as never to notice either that the fire was dying or that a heap of fir cones lay in a corner near it suddenly a great wind came roaring down the chimney and scattered the ashes about the floor a tremendous rain followed
the moon was swallowed up and there was darkness all about her then a flash of lightning followed by a peal of thunder so terrified the princess that she cried aloud for the old woman but there came no answer to her cry
then in her terror the princess grew angry and saying to herself she must be somewhere in the place else who was there to open the door to me
began to shout and yell and call the wise woman all the bad names she had been in the habit of throwing at her nurses but there came not a single sound in reply
though that would surely have been reasonable on the contrary she thought she had a perfect right to be angry for was she not most desperately ill used and a princess too but the wind howled on and the rain kept pouring down the chimney
and every now and then the lightning burst out and the thunder rushed after it as if the great lumbering sound could ever think to catch up with the swift light at length the princess had again grown so angry frightened and miserable all together
that she jumped up and hurried about the cottage with outstretched arms trying to find the wise woman but being in a bad temper always makes people stupid and presently she struck her forehead such a blow against something
she thought herself it felt like the old woman's cloak that she fell back not on the floor though but on the patch of heather which felt as soft and pleasant as any bed in the palace there worn out with weeping and rage she soon fell fast asleep
she dreamed that she was the old cold woman up in the sky with no home and no friends and no nothing at all not even a pocket wandering wandering forever over a desert of blue sand
never to get to anywhere and never to lie down or die it was no use stopping to look about her for what had she to do but forever look about her as she went on and on and on never seeing any thing and never expecting to see any thing
the only shadow of a hope she had was that she might by slow degrees grow thinner and thinner until at last she wore away to nothing at all only alas she could not detect the least sign that she had yet begun to grow thinner
the hopelessness grew at length so unendurable that she woke with a start seeing the face of the wise woman bending over her she threw her arms around her neck and held up her mouth to be kissed
this indiscretion so uncharacteristic was due to the agitation of a surprised moment for duke's experience had inclined him to a peaceful pessimism and he had no ambition for hazardous undertakings of any sort
he was given to musing but not to avoidable action and he seemed habitually to hope for something which he was pretty sure would not happen even in his sleep this gave him an air of wistfulness
thus being asleep in a nook behind the metal refuse can when the strange cat ventured to ascend the steps of the porch his appearance was so unwarlike that the cat felt encouraged to extend its field of reconnaissance
for the cook had been careless and the backbone of a three pound whitefish lay at the foot of the refuse can this cat was for a cat needlessly tall powerful independent and masculine once long ago
he had been a roly poly pepper and salt kitten he had a home in those days and a name gipsy which he abundantly justified he was precocious in dissipation
long before his adolescence his lack of domesticity was ominous and he had formed bad companionships meanwhile he grew so rangy and developed such length and power of leg and such traits of character
that the father of the little girl who owned him was almost convincing when he declared that the young cat was half broncho and half malay pirate though in the light of gipsy's later career this seems bitterly unfair to even the lowest orders of bronchos and malay pirates
no gipsy was not the pet for a little girl the rosy hearthstone and sheltered rug were too circumspect for him surrounded by the comforts of middle class respectability
and profoundly oppressed even in his youth by the puritan ideals of the household he sometimes experienced a sense of suffocation he wanted free air and he wanted free life he wanted the lights the lights and the music
he abandoned the bourgeoisie irrevocably he went forth in a may twilight carrying the evening beefsteak with him and joined the underworld his extraordinary size his daring
and his utter lack of sympathy soon made him the leader and at the same time the terror of all the loose lived cats in a wide neighbourhood he contracted no friendships and had no confidants he seldom slept in the same place twice in succession
and though he was wanted by the police he was not found in appearance he did not lack distinction of an ominous sort the slow rhythmic perfectly controlled mechanism of his tail as he impressively walked abroad was incomparably sinister
this stately and dangerous walk of his his long vibrant whiskers his scars his yellow eye so ice cold so fire hot haughty as the eye of satan gave him the deadly air of a mousquetaire duellist
his soul was in that walk and in that eye it could be read the soul of a bravo of fortune living on his wits and his valour asking no favours and granting no quarter intolerant proud sullen
yet watchful and constantly planning purely a militarist believing in slaughter as in a religion and confident that art science poetry and the good of the world were happily advanced thereby
gipsy had become though technically not a wildcat undoubtedly the most untamed cat at large in the civilized world such in brief was the terrifying creature which now elongated its neck
and over the top step of the porch bent a calculating scrutiny upon the wistful and slumberous duke the scrutiny was searching but not prolonged gipsy muttered contemptuously to himself oh sheol
i'm not afraid o that and he approached the fishbone his padded feet making no noise upon the boards it was a desirable fishbone large with a considerable portion of the fish's tail still attached to it
it was about a foot from duke's nose and the little dog's dreams began to be troubled by his olfactory nerve this faithful sentinel on guard even while duke slept signalled that alarums and excursions by parties unknown were taking place
and suggested that attention might well be paid duke
what that eye beheld was monstrous here was a strange experience the horrific vision in the midst of things so accustomed sunshine fell sweetly upon porch and backyard
yonder was the familiar stable and from its interior came the busy hum of a carpenter shop established that morning by duke's young master in association with samuel williams and herman here close by were the quiet refuse can
and the wonted brooms and mops leaning against the latticed wall at the end of the porch and there by the foot of the steps was the stone slab of the cistern with the iron cover displaced and lying beside the round opening where the carpenters had left it not half an hour ago
after lowering a stick of wood into the water to season it all about duke were these usual and reassuring environs of his daily life and yet it was his fate to behold right in the midst of them and in ghastly juxtaposition to his face
a thing of nightmare and lunacy gipsy had seized the fishbone by the middle out from one side of his head and mingling with his whiskers projected the long spiked spine of the big fish down from the other side of that ferocious head dangled the fish's tail
and from above the remarkable effect thus produced shot the intolerable glare of two yellow eyes to the gaze of duke still blurred by slumber this monstrosity was all of one piece the bone seemed a living part of it
there was no magnifying glass between him and this spined and spiky face indeed duke was not in a position to think the matter over quietly if he had been able to do that he would have said to himself
we have here an animal of most peculiar and unattractive appearance though upon examination it seems to be only a cat stealing a fishbone nevertheless as the thief is large beyond all my recollection of cats
and has an unpleasant stare i will leave this spot at once on the contrary duke was so electrified by his horrid awakening that he completely lost his presence of mind in the very instant of his first eye's opening
the other eye and his mouth behaved similarly the latter loosing upon the quiet air one shriek of mental agony before the little dog scrambled to his feet and gave further employment to his voice in a frenzy of profanity
it rose to a wail and rose and rose again till it screamed like a small siren it was gipsy's war cry and at the sound of it duke became a frothing maniac
he made a convulsive frontal attack upon the hobgoblin and the massacre began never releasing the fishbone for an instant gipsy laid back his ears in a chilling way beginning to shrink into himself like a concertina
but rising amidships so high that he appeared to be giving an imitation of that peaceful beast the dromedary such was not his purpose however for having attained his greatest possible altitude he partially sat down
and elevated his right arm after the manner of a semaphore this semaphore arm remained rigid for a second threatening then it vibrated with inconceivable rapidity feinting but it was the treacherous left that did the work
seemingly this left gave duke three lightning little pats upon the right ear but the change in his voice indicated that these were no love taps he yelled help and bloody murder never had such a shattering uproar all vocal
broken out upon a peaceful afternoon gipsy possessed a vocabulary for cat swearing certainly second to none out of italy and probably equal to the best there while duke remembered and uttered things he had not thought of for years
the hum of the carpenter shop ceased and sam williams appeared in the stable doorway he stared insanely my gorry he shouted duke's havin a fight with the biggest cat you ever saw in your life c'mon
his feet were already in motion toward the battlefield with penrod and herman hurrying in his wake onward they sped and duke was encouraged by the sight and sound of these reinforcements
to increase his own outrageous clamours and to press home his attack but he was ill advised this time it was the right arm of the semaphore that dipped and duke's honest nose was but too conscious of what happened in consequence
a lump of dirt struck the refuse can with violence and gipsy beheld the advance of overwhelming forces they rushed upon him from two directions cutting off the steps of the porch
undaunted the formidable cat raked duke's nose again somewhat more lingeringly and prepared to depart with his fishbone he had little fear for himself because he was inclined to think that unhampered he could whip anything on earth
still things seemed to be growing rather warm and he saw nothing to prevent his leaving and though he could laugh in the face of so unequal an antagonist as duke
or able to do himself full justice unless he could perform that feline operation inaccurately known as spitting to his notion this was an absolute essential to combat
but as all cats of the slightest pretensions to technique perfectly understand it can neither be well done nor produce the best effects unless the mouth be opened to its utmost capacity
so as to expose the beginnings of the alimentary canal down which at least that is the intention of the threat the opposing party will soon be passing and gipsy could not open his mouth without relinquishing his fishbone
therefore on small accounts he decided to leave the field to his enemies and to carry the fishbone elsewhere he took two giant leaps the first landed him upon the edge of the porch
there without an instant's pause he gathered his fur sheathed muscles concentrated himself into one big steel spring and launched himself superbly into space he made a stirring picture however brief
as he left the solid porch behind him and sailed upward on an ascending curve into the sunlit air his head was proudly up he was the incarnation of menacing power and of self confidence
it is possible that the white fish's spinal column and flopping tail had interfered with his vision and in launching himself he may have mistaken the dark round opening of the cistern for its dark round cover
the expense of raising troops of building and equipping fleets and all other expenses in any wise connected with military arrangements and operations but these are not the only objects to which the jurisdiction of the union in respect to revenue
must necessarily be empowered to extend it must embrace a provision for the support of the national civil list for the payment of the national debts contracted or that may be contracted and in general
for all those matters which will call for disbursements out of the national treasury the conclusion is that there must be interwoven in the frame of the government a general power of taxation in one shape or another money is with propriety
considered as the vital principle of the body politic as that which sustains its life and motion and enables it to perform its most essential functions a complete power therefore to procure a regular and adequate supply of it
as far as the resources of the community will permit may be regarded as an indispensable ingredient in every constitution from a deficiency in this particular one of two evils must ensue
either the people must be subjected to continual plunder as a substitute for a more eligible mode of supplying the public wants or the government must sink into a fatal atrophy and in a short course of time perish
in the ottoman or turkish empire the sovereign though in other respects absolute master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects has no right to impose a new tax the consequence is that he permits the bashaws or governors of provinces
to pillage the people without mercy and in turn squeezes out of them the sums of which he stands in need to satisfy his own exigencies and those of the state in america from a like cause
the government of the union has gradually dwindled into a state of decay approaching nearly to annihilation who can doubt that the happiness of the people in both countries would be promoted by competent authorities in the proper hands
to provide the revenues which the necessities of the public might require the present confederation feeble as it is intended to repose in the united states an unlimited power of providing for the pecuniary wants of the union
but proceeding upon an erroneous principle it has been done in such a manner as entirely to have frustrated the intention congress by the articles which compose that compact as has already been stated
to the service of the united states
are in every constitutional sense obligatory upon the states these have no right to question the propriety of the demand no discretion beyond that of devising the ways and means of furnishing the sums demanded
but though this be strictly and truly the case though the assumption of such a right would be an infringement of the articles of union though it may seldom or never have been avowedly claimed yet in practice
it has been constantly exercised and would continue to be so as long as the revenues of the confederacy should remain dependent on the intermediate agency of its members what the consequences of this system have been
and has been amply unfolded in different parts of these inquiries it is this which has chiefly contributed to reduce us to a situation which affords ample cause both of mortification to ourselves
and of triumph to our enemies what remedy can there be for this situation but in a change of the system which has produced it in a change of the fallacious and delusive system of quotas and requisitions
what substitute can there be imagined for this ignis fatuus in finance but that of permitting the national government to raise its own revenues by the ordinary methods of taxation authorized in every well ordered constitution of civil government
ingenious men may declaim with plausibility on any subject but no human ingenuity can point out any other expedient to rescue us from the inconveniences and embarrassments naturally resulting from defective supplies of the public treasury
the more intelligent adversaries of the new constitution admit the force of this reasoning but they qualify their admission by a distinction between what they call internal and external taxation the former
they would reserve to the state governments the latter which they explain into commercial imposts or rather duties on imported articles they declare themselves willing to concede to the federal head
this distinction however would violate the maxim of good sense and sound policy which dictates that every power ought to be in proportion to its object and would still leave the general government in a kind of tutelage to the state governments
inconsistent with every idea of vigor or efficiency who can pretend that commercial imposts are or would be alone equal to the present and future exigencies of the union
taking into the account the existing debt foreign and domestic upon any plan of extinguishment which a man moderately impressed with the importance of public justice and public credit could approve
in addition to the establishments which all parties will acknowledge to be necessary we could not reasonably flatter ourselves that this resource alone upon the most improved scale would even suffice for its present necessities
its future necessities admit not of calculation or limitation and upon the principle more than once adverted to the power of making provision for them as they arise ought to be equally unconfined
i believe it may be regarded as a position warranted by the history of mankind that in the usual progress of things the necessities of a nation in every stage of its existence will be found at least equal to its resources
to say that deficiencies may be provided for by requisitions upon the states is on the one hand to acknowledge that this system cannot be depended upon and on the other hand to depend upon it for every thing beyond a certain limit
those who have carefully attended to its vices and deformities as they have been exhibited by experience or delineated in the course of these papers must feel invincible repugnancy to trusting the national interests in any degree to its operation
its inevitable tendency whenever it is brought into activity must be to enfeeble the union and sow the seeds of discord and contention between the federal head and its members and between the members themselves
can it be expected that the deficiencies would be better supplied in this mode than the total wants of the union have heretofore been supplied in the same mode
they will have proportionably less means to answer the demand if the opinions of those who contend for the distinction which has been mentioned were to be received as evidence of truth one would be led to conclude that there was some known point in the economy of national affairs
at which it would be safe to stop and to say thus far the ends of public happiness will be promoted by supplying the wants of government and all beyond this is unworthy of our care or anxiety
how is it possible that a government half supplied and always necessitous can fulfill the purposes of its institution can provide for the security advance the prosperity or support the reputation of the commonwealth
how can it ever possess either energy or stability dignity or credit confidence at home or respectability abroad how can its administration be any thing else than a succession of expedients temporizing
impotent disgraceful how will it be able to avoid a frequent sacrifice of its engagements to immediate necessity how can it undertake or execute any liberal or enlarged plans of public good
let us attend to what would be the effects of this situation in the very first war in which we should happen to be engaged we will presume for argument's sake that the revenue arising from the impost duties answers the purposes of a provision for the public debt
and of a peace establishment for the union thus circumstanced a war breaks out what would be the probable conduct of the government in such an emergency taught by experience that proper dependence could not be placed on the success of requisitions
unable by its own authority to lay hold of fresh resources and urged by considerations of national danger would it not be driven to the expedient of diverting the funds already appropriated from their proper objects to the defense of the state
it is not easy to see how a step of this kind could be avoided and if it should be taken it is evident that it would prove the destruction of public credit at the very moment that it was becoming essential to the public safety
to imagine that at such a crisis credit might be dispensed with would be the extreme of infatuation in the modern system of war nations the most wealthy are obliged to have recourse to large loans
a country so little opulent as ours must feel this necessity in a much stronger degree but who would lend to a government that prefaced its overtures for borrowing
by an act which demonstrated that no reliance could be placed on the steadiness of its measures for paying the loans it might be able to procure would be as limited in their extent as burdensome in their conditions
they would be made upon the same principles that usurers commonly lend to bankrupt and fraudulent debtors with a sparing hand and at enormous premiums it may perhaps be imagined that from the scantiness of the resources of the country
the necessity of diverting the established funds in the case supposed would exist though the national government should possess an unrestrained power of taxation but two considerations will serve to quiet all apprehension on this head one is
that we are sure the resources of the community in their full extent will be brought into activity for the benefit of the union the other is that whatever deficiences there may be can without difficulty be supplied by loans
the power of creating new funds upon new objects of taxation by its own authority would enable the national government to borrow as far as its necessities might require foreigners as well as the citizens of america
could then reasonably repose confidence in its engagements but to depend upon a government that must itself depend upon thirteen other governments for the means of fulfilling its contracts when once its situation is clearly understood
would require a degree of credulity not often to be met with in the pecuniary transactions of mankind and little reconcilable with the usual sharp sightedness of avarice reflections of this kind may have trifling weight with men who hope to see realized in america
the halcyon scenes of the poetic or fabulous age but to those who believe we are likely to experience a common portion of the vicissitudes and calamities which have fallen to the lot of other nations they must appear entitled to serious attention
such men must behold the actual situation of their country with painful solicitude and deprecate the evils which ambition or revenge might
commands the assent of the mind where it produces not this effect it must proceed either from some defect or disorder in the organs of perception or from the influence of some strong interest or passion or prejudice
of this nature are the maxims in geometry that the whole is greater than its part things equal to the same are equal to one another two straight lines cannot enclose a space
and all right angles are equal to each other of the same nature are these other maxims in ethics and politics that there cannot be an effect without a cause that the means ought to be proportioned to the end
that every power ought to be commensurate with its object that there ought to be no limitation of a power destined to effect a purpose which is itself incapable of limitation and there are other truths in the two latter sciences which
if they cannot pretend to rank in the class of axioms are yet such direct inferences from them and so obvious in themselves and so agreeable to the natural and unsophisticated dictates of common sense that they challenge the assent of a sound and unbiased mind
with a degree of force and conviction almost equally irresistible the objects of geometrical inquiry are so entirely abstracted from those pursuits which stir up and put in motion the unruly passions of the human heart
that mankind without difficulty adopt not only the more simple theorems of the science but even those abstruse paradoxes which however they may appear susceptible of demonstration
are at variance with the natural conceptions which the mind without the aid of philosophy would be led to entertain upon the subject the infinite divisibility of matter or in other words the infinite divisibility of a finite thing
is a point agreed among geometricians though not less incomprehensible to common sense than any of those mysteries in religion against which the batteries of infidelity have been so industriously leveled but in the sciences of morals and politics
men are found far less tractable to a certain degree it is right and useful that this should be the case caution and investigation are a necessary armor against error and imposition but this untractableness may be carried too far
and may degenerate into obstinacy perverseness or disingenuity though it cannot be pretended that the principles of moral and political knowledge have in general the same degree of certainty with those of the mathematics
yet they have much better claims in this respect than to judge from the conduct of men in particular situations we should be disposed to allow them the obscurity is much oftener in the passions and prejudices of the reasoner than in the subject
men upon too many occasions do not give their own understandings fair play but yielding to some untoward bias they entangle themselves in words and confound themselves in subtleties
how else could it happen if we admit the objectors to be sincere in their opposition that positions so clear as those which manifest the necessity of a general power of taxation in the government of the union should have to encounter any adversaries among men of discernment
though these positions have been elsewhere fully stated they will perhaps not be improperly recapitulated in this place as introductory to an examination of what may have been offered by way of objection to them they are in substance as follows
a government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible free from every other control
but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people as the duties of superintending the national defense and of securing the public peace against foreign or domestic violence involve a provision for casualties and dangers
to which no possible limits can be assigned the power of making that provision ought to know no other bounds than the exigencies of the nation and the resources of the community
as revenue is the essential engine by which the means of answering the national exigencies must be procured the power of procuring that article in its full extent must necessarily be comprehended in that of providing for those exigencies
as theory and practice conspire to prove that the power of procuring revenue is unavailing when exercised over the states in their collective capacities the federal government must of necessity be invested with an unqualified power of taxation in the ordinary modes
did not experience evince the contrary it would be natural to conclude that the propriety of a general power of taxation in the national government might safely be permitted to rest on the evidence of these propositions
unassisted by any additional arguments or illustrations but we find in fact that the antagonists of the proposed constitution so far from acquiescing in their justness or truth
it may therefore be satisfactory to analyze the arguments with which they combat it those of them which have been most labored with that view seem in substance to amount to this it is not true
because the exigencies of the union may not be susceptible of limitation that its power of laying taxes ought to be unconfined revenue is as requisite to the purposes of the local administrations as to those of the union
and the former are at least of equal importance with the latter to the happiness of the people it is therefore as necessary that the state governments should be able to command the means of supplying their wants
as that the national government should possess the like faculty in respect to the wants of the union but an indefinite power of taxation in the latter might and probably would in time deprive the former of the means of providing for their own necessities
and would subject them entirely to the mercy of the national legislature as the laws of the union are to become the supreme law of the land as it is to have power to pass all laws that may be necessary for carrying into execution the authorities with which it is proposed to vest it
the national government might at any time abolish the taxes imposed for state objects upon the pretense of an interference with its own it might allege a necessity of doing this in order to give efficacy to the national revenues
and thus all the resources of taxation might by degrees become the subjects of federal monopoly to the entire exclusion and destruction of the state governments
this mode of reasoning appears sometimes to turn upon the supposition of usurpation in the national government at other times it seems to be designed only as a deduction from the constitutional operation of its intended powers it is only in the latter light
that it can be admitted to have any pretensions to fairness the moment we launch into conjectures about the usurpations of the federal government we get into an unfathomable abyss and fairly put ourselves out of the reach of all reasoning
imagination may range at pleasure till it gets bewildered amidst the labyrinths of an enchanted castle and knows not on which side to turn to extricate itself from the perplexities into which it has so rashly adventured
whatever may be the limits or modifications of the powers of the union it is easy to imagine an endless train of possible dangers and by indulging an excess of jealousy and timidity
we may bring ourselves to a state of absolute scepticism and irresolution i repeat here what i have observed in substance in another place that all observations founded upon the danger of usurpation
ought to be referred to the composition and structure of the government not to the nature or extent of its powers the state governments by their original constitutions are invested with complete sovereignty
in what does our security consist against usurpation from that quarter doubtless in the manner of their formation and in a due dependence of those who are to administer them upon the people
if the proposed construction of the federal government be found upon an impartial examination of it to be such as to afford to a proper extent the same species of security all apprehensions on the score of usurpation ought to be discarded
it should not be forgotten that a disposition in the state governments to encroach upon the rights of the union is quite as probable as a disposition in the union to encroach upon the rights of the state governments what side would be likely to prevail in such a conflict
must depend on the means which the contending parties could employ toward insuring success as in republics strength is always on the side of the people and as there are weighty reasons to induce a belief that the state governments will commonly possess most influence over them
the natural conclusion is that such contests will be most apt to end to the disadvantage of the union and that there is greater probability of encroachments by the members upon the federal head than by the federal head upon the members
but it is evident that all conjectures of this kind must be extremely vague and fallible and that it is by far the safest course to lay them altogether aside and to confine our attention wholly to the nature and extent of the powers
as they are delineated in the constitution every thing beyond this must be left to the prudence and firmness of the people who as they will hold the scales in their own hands
it is to be hoped will always take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the general and the state governments upon this ground which is evidently the true one
at the birth of society instincts existed needful to the animal and having a certain glorious impetuosity about them which prompted common action and speech and a public morality and men were led to construct myths that might seem to justify this co operation
paternal authority could easily suggest one symbol for social loyalty the chief probably a venerable and imperious personage could be called a father and obeyed as a natural master
his command might by convention be regarded as an expression of the common voice just as the father's will is by nature the representative of his children's interests
again the members of each community were distinguished from their enemies by many a sign and custom these signs and customs might also become a graphic symbol for the common life both these cases suggest how easily a symbol takes the place of its object and becomes an idol
if the symbol happens to be a man there are natural human sentiments awakened by him and whatever respect his character or gifts may inspire whatever charm there may be in his person whatever graciousness he may add to his official favours or commands increase immensely his personal ascendency
a king has a great opportunity to make himself loved this scope given to private inclination is what to ordinary fancy makes royalty enviable few envy its impersonal power and historic weight
yet if a king were nothing but a man surrounded by flatterers who was cheered when he drove abroad there would be little stability in monarchy a king is really the state's hinge and centre of gravity the point where all private and party ambitions meet and in a sense are neutralised
it is not easy for factions to overturn him for every other force in the state will instinctively support him against faction
his elevation above everyone the identity of his sober interests with those of the state at large is calculated to make him the people's natural representative his word has therefore a genuine authority and his ascendency not being invidious is able to secure internal peace even when not enlightened enough to insure prosperity or to avoid foreign wars
accordingly whenever a monarchy is at all representative time has an irresistible tendency to increase its prestige the king is felt to be the guardian as well as the symbol of all public greatness meantime a double dislocation is possible here patriotism may be wholly identified with personal loyalty to the sovereign
while the sovereign himself instead of making public interests his own may direct his policy so as to satisfy his private passions the first confusion leads to a conflict between tradition and reason the second to the ruin of either the state or the monarchy in a word
the feudal system offers perhaps the best illustration of a patriotism wholly submerged in loyalty the sense of mutual obligation and service was very clear in this case the vassal in swearing fealty knew perfectly well what sort of a bargain he was striking
a feudal government while it lasted was accordingly highly responsive and responsible if false to its calling it could be readily disowned for it is easy to break an oath and to make new military associations especially where territorial units are small and their links accidental
but this personal conscious and jealous subordination of man to man constituted a government of insignificant scope
military functions were alone considered and the rest was allowed to shift for itself feudalism could have been possible only in a barbarous age when the arts existed on sufferance and lived on by little tentative resurrections
the feudal lord was a genuine representative of a very small part of his vassal's interests
this slight bond sufficed however to give him a great prestige and to stimulate in him all the habits and virtues of a responsible master so that in england where vestiges of feudalism abound to this day
a highly concentrated monarchy presents the exactly opposite phenomenon here subordination is involuntary and mutual responsibility largely unconscious on the other hand the scope of representation is very wide and the monarch may well embody the whole life of the nation
a great court with officers of state and a standing army is sensitive to nothing so much as to general appearances and general results the invisible forces of industry morality and personal ambition that really sustain the state are not studied or fomented by such a government
so that when these resources begin to fail the ensuing catastrophes are a mystery to everybody the king and his ministers never cease wondering how they can be so constantly unfortunate
so long however as the nation's vital force is unspent and taxes and soldiers are available in plenty a great monarchy tends to turn those resources to notable results the arts and sciences are encouraged by the patronage of men of breeding and affairs
they are disciplined into a certain firmness and amplitude which artists and scholars if left to themselves are commonly incapable of life is refined religion itself unless fanaticism be too hopelessly in the ascendant is co ordinated with other public interests and compelled to serve mankind
a liberal life is made possible the imagination is stimulated and set free by that same brilliant concentration of all human energies which defeats practical liberty at the same time luxury and all manner of conceits are part and parcel of such a courtly civilisation
and its best products are the first to be lost so that very likely the dumb forces of society hunger conscience and malice will not do any great harm when they destroy those treacherous institutions which after giving the spirit a momentary expression had become an offence to both spirit and flesh
where no suitable persons are found to embody the state's unity other symbols have to be chosen
may serve this symbolic purpose a trivial emblem which no thinking man can substitute for the thing signified is not so great an advantage as at first sight it might seem for in the first place men are often thoughtless and adore words and symbols with a terrible earnestness
while on the other hand an abstract token because of its natural insipidity
prince michael of the electorate of valleluna sat on his favourite bench in the park the coolness of the september night quickened the life in him like a rare tonic wine the benches were not filled for park loungers with their stagnant blood
are prompt to detect and fly home from the crispness of early autumn the moon was just clearing the roofs of the range of dwellings that bounded the quadrangle on the east children laughed and played about the fine sprayed fountain
in the shadowed spots fauns and hamadryads wooed unconscious of the gaze of mortal eyes a hand organ philomel by the grace of our stage carpenter fancy fluted and droned in a side street around the enchanted boundaries of the little park
street cars spat and mewed and the stilted trains roared like tigers and lions prowling for a place to enter and above the trees shone the great round shining face of an illuminated clock in the tower of an antique public building
prince michael's shoes were wrecked far beyond the skill of the carefullest cobbler the ragman would have declined any negotiations concerning his clothes
the two weeks stubble on his face was grey and brown and red and greenish yellow as if it had been made up from individual contributions from the chorus of a musical comedy no man existed who had money enough to wear so bad a hat as his
prince michael sat on his favourite bench and smiled it was a diverting thought to him that he was wealthy enough to buy every one of those close ranged bulky window lit mansions that faced him if he chose
in this proud city of manhattan and scarcely have entered upon the bulk of his holdings
he could have sat at table with reigning sovereigns the social world the world of art the fellowship of the elect adulation imitation the homage of the fairest honours from the highest praise from the wisest flattery esteem credit pleasure
of the electorate of valleluna whenever he might choose to take it but his choice was to sit in rags and dinginess on a bench in a park for he had tasted of the fruit of the tree of life and finding it bitter in his mouth
had stepped out of eden for a time to seek distraction close to the unarmoured beating heart of the world these thoughts strayed dreamily through the mind of prince michael as he smiled under the stubble of his polychromatic beard lounging thus
clad as the poorest of mendicants in the parks he loved to study humanity he found in altruism more pleasure than his riches his station and all the grosser sweets of life had given him
it was his chief solace and satisfaction to alleviate individual distress to confer favours upon worthy ones who had need of succour
bestowed however with wisdom and judiciousness and as prince michael's eye rested upon the glowing face of the great clock in the tower
big thoughts were the prince's and it was always with a shake of his head that he considered the subjugation of the world to the arbitrary measures of time the comings and goings of people in hurry and dread controlled by the little metal moving hands of a clock always made him sad
by and by came a young man in evening clothes and sat upon the third bench from the prince for half an hour he smoked cigars with nervous haste and then he fell to watching the face of the illuminated clock above the trees
his perturbation was evident and the prince noted in sorrow that its cause was connected in some manner with the slowly moving hands of the timepiece his highness arose and went to the young man's bench i beg your pardon for addressing you he said
but i perceive that you are disturbed in mind if it may serve to mitigate the liberty i have taken i will add that i am prince michael heir to the throne of the electorate of valleluna i appear incognito of course as you may gather from my appearance
it is a fancy of mine to render aid to others whom i think worthy of it perhaps the matter that seems to distress you is one that would more readily yield to our mutual efforts the young man looked up brightly at the prince
brightly but the perpendicular line of perplexity between his brows was not smoothed away he laughed and even then it did not but he accepted the momentary diversion glad to meet you prince he said good humouredly yes i'd say you were incog all right
prince michael sat at the young man's side he was often rebuffed but never offensively his courteous manner and words forbade that clocks said the prince are shackles on the feet of mankind i have observed you looking persistently at that clock
its face is that of a tyrant its numbers are false as those on a lottery ticket its hands are those of a bunco steerer who makes an appointment with you to your ruin
let me entreat you to throw off its humiliating bonds and to cease to order your affairs by that insensate monitor of brass and steel i don't usually said the young man i carry a watch except when i've got my radiant rags on
i know human nature as i do the trees and grass said the prince with earnest dignity i am a master of philosophy a graduate in art and i hold the purse of a fortunatus there are few mortal misfortunes that i cannot alleviate or overcome
i have read your countenance and found in it honesty and nobility as well as distress i beg of you to accept my advice or aid do not belie the intelligence i see in your face by judging from my appearance of my ability to defeat your troubles
the young man glanced at the clock again and frowned darkly when his gaze strayed from the glowing horologue of time it rested intently upon a four story red brick house in the row of dwellings opposite to where he sat the shades were drawn and the lights in many rooms shone dimly through them
ten minutes to nine exclaimed the young man with an impatient gesture of despair he turned his back upon the house and took a rapid step or two in a contrary direction remain commanded prince michael
in so potent a voice that the disturbed one wheeled around with a somewhat chagrined laugh i'll give her the ten minutes and then i'm off he muttered and then aloud to the prince i'll join you in confounding all clocks my friend and throw in women too sit down said the prince calmly
i do not accept your addition women are the natural enemies of clocks
if you will so far confide in me i would ask you to relate to me your story the young man threw himself upon the bench with a reckless laugh your royal highness i will he said in tones of mock deference do you see yonder house the one with three upper windows lighted
well at six o'clock i stood in that house with the young lady i am that is i was engaged to i had been doing wrong my dear prince i had been a naughty boy and she had heard of it i wanted to be forgiven of course
we are always wanting women to forgive us aren't we prince i want time to think it over said she there is one thing certain i will either fully forgive you or i will never see your face again there will be no half way business at half past eight she said
at exactly half past eight you may be watching the middle upper window of the top floor if i decide to forgive i will hang out of that window a white silk scarf you will know by that that all is as was before and you may come to me
if you see no scarf you may consider that everything between us is ended forever that concluded the young man bitterly
the time for the signal to appear has passed twenty three minutes ago do you wonder that i am a little disturbed my prince of rags and whiskers let me repeat to you said prince michael in his even well modulated tones that women are the natural enemies of clocks
never on your principality exclaimed the young man hopelessly you don't know marian of course she's always on time to the minute that was the first thing about her that attracted me
the jig's up i'll try jack's ranch awhile and top off with the klondike and whiskey good night er er prince prince michael smiled his enigmatic gentle comprehending smile and caught the coat sleeve of the other
the brilliant light in the prince's eyes was softening to a dreamier cloudy translucence wait he said solemnly till the clock strikes i have wealth and power and knowledge above most men but when the clock strikes i am afraid stay by me until then
this woman shall be yours you have the word of the hereditary prince of valleluna on the day of your marriage i will give you one hundred thousand dollars and a palace on the hudson but there must be no clocks in that palace they measure our follies and limit our pleasures do you agree to that
of course said the young man cheerfully they're a nuisance anyway always ticking and striking and getting you late for dinner he glanced again at the clock in the tower the hands stood at three minutes to nine i think said prince michael that i will sleep a little the day has been fatiguing
he stretched himself upon a bench with the manner of one who had slept thus before you will find me in this park on any evening when the weather is suitable said the prince sleepily come to me when your marriage day is set and i will give you a cheque for the money thanks your highness said the young man seriously
it doesn't look as if i would need that palace on the hudson but i appreciate your offer just the same prince michael sank into deep slumber his battered hat rolled from the bench to the ground
the young man lifted it placed it over the frowsy face and moved one of the grotesquely relaxed limbs into a more comfortable position poor devil he said
the young man sighed again turned his face for one last look at the house of his relinquished hopes and cried aloud profane words of holy rapture
by came a citizen rotund comfortable home hurrying unknowing of the delights of waving silken scarfs on the borders of dimly lit parks will you oblige me with the time sir asked the young man
and the citizen shrewdly conjecturing his watch to be safe dragged it out and announced twenty nine and a half minutes past eight sir and then from habit he glanced at the clock in the tower and made further oration by george that clock's half an hour fast
this watch of mine never varies a but the citizen was talking to vacancy he turned and saw his hearer a fast receding black shadow flying in the direction of a house with three lighted upper windows
and in the morning came along two policemen on their way to the beats they owned the park was deserted save for one dilapidated figure that sprawled asleep on a bench they stopped and gazed upon it it's dopy mike said one he hits the pipe every night
park bum for twenty years on his last legs i guess the other policeman stooped and looked at something crumpled and crisp in the hand of the sleeper
the love philtre of ikey schoenstein the blue light drug store is downtown between the bowery and first avenue where the distance between the two streets is the shortest the blue light does not consider that pharmacy is a thing of bric a brac scent and ice cream soda
if you ask it for pain killer it will not give you a bonbon the blue light scorns the labour saving arts of modern pharmacy it macerates its opium and percolates its own laudanum and paregoric
to this day pills are made behind its tall prescription desk pills rolled out on its own pill tile divided with a spatula rolled with the finger and thumb dusted with calcined magnesia and delivered in little round pasteboard pill boxes
the store is on a corner about which coveys of ragged plumed hilarious children play and become candidates for the cough drops and soothing syrups that wait for them inside ikey schoenstein was the night clerk of the blue light and the friend of his customers
there as it should be the druggist is a counsellor a confessor an adviser an able and willing missionary and mentor whose learning is respected whose occult wisdom is venerated and whose medicine is often poured
ikey roomed and breakfasted at missus riddle's two squares away missus riddle had a daughter named rosy the circumlocution has been in vain you must have guessed it ikey adored rosy
she tinctured all his thoughts she was the compound extract of all that was chemically pure and officinal the dispensatory contained nothing equal to her but ikey was timid and his hopes remained insoluble in the menstruum of his backwardness and fears
calmly conscious of special knowledge and worth outside he was a weak kneed purblind motorman cursed rambler with ill fitting clothes stained with chemicals and smelling of socotrine aloes and valerianate of ammonia
the fly in ikey's ointment thrice welcome pat trope was chunk mc gowan mister mc gowan was also striving to catch the bright smiles tossed about by rosy but he was no outfielder as ikey was he picked them off the bat
at the same time he was ikey's friend and customer and often dropped in at the blue light drug store to have a bruise painted with iodine or get a cut rubber plastered after a pleasant evening spent along the bowery
one afternoon mc gowan drifted in in his silent easy way and sat comely smooth faced hard indomitable good natured upon a stool ikey said he when his friend had fetched his mortar and sat opposite grinding gum benzoin to a powder
get busy with your ear it's drugs for me if you've got the line i need ikey scanned the countenance of mister mc gowan for the usual evidences of conflict but found none
mister mc gowan smiled not them he said not any dagoes but you've located the diagnosis all right enough it's under my coat near the ribs say ikey
ikey's left forefinger was doubled over the edge of the mortar holding it steady he gave it a wild rap with the pestle but felt it not meanwhile mister mc gowan's smile faded to a look of perplexed gloom
one day she says she will the same evenin she says nixy we've agreed on to night and rosy's stuck to the affirmative this time for two whole days but it's five hours yet till the time
you said you wanted drugs remarked ikey mister mc gowan looked ill at ease and harassed a condition opposed to his usual line of demeanour he made a patent medicine almanac into a roll and fitted it with unprofitable carefulness about his finger
i wouldn't have this double handicap make a false start to night for a million he said
i don't see then yet said ikey shortly what makes it that you talk of drugs or what i can be doing about it old man riddle don't like me a little bit went on the uneasy suitor bent upon marshalling his arguments
for a week he hasn't let rosy step outside the door with me if it wasn't for losin a boarder they'd have bounced me long ago i'm makin twenty dollars a week and she'll never regret flyin the coop with chunk mc gowan you will excuse me chunk said ikey
i must make a prescription that is to be called for soon say said mc gowan looking up suddenly say ikey ain't there a drug of some kind
ikey's lip beneath his nose curled with the scorn of superior enlightenment but before he could answer mc gowan continued tim lacy told me he got some once from a croaker uptown and fed em to his girl in soda water
he was ace high and everybody else looked like thirty cents to her they was married in less than two weeks strong and simple was chunk mc gowan a better reader of men than ikey was could have seen that his tough frame was strung upon fine wires
like a good general who was about to invade the enemy's territory he was seeking to guard every point against possible failure
it might brace her up and keep her from reneging on the proposition to skip i guess she don't need a mule team to drag her away but women are better at coaching than they are at running bases
when is this foolishness of running away to be happening asked ikey nine o'clock said mister mc gowan supper's at seven at eight rosy goes to bed with a headache at nine old parvenzano lets me through to his back yard where there's a board off riddle's fence next door
we've got to make it early on the preacher's account it's all dead easy if rosy don't balk when the flag drops can you fix me one of them powders ikey ikey schoenstein rubbed his nose slowly chunk said he
it is of drugs of that nature that pharmaceutists must have much carefulness to you alone of my acquaintance would i intrust a powder like that but for you i shall make it and you shall see how it makes rosy to think of you ikey went behind the prescription desk
there he crushed to a powder two soluble tablets each containing a quarter of a grain of morphia to them he added a little sugar of milk to increase the bulk
taken by an adult this powder would insure several hours of heavy slumber without danger to the sleeper this he handed to chunk mc gowan telling him to administer it in a liquid if possible and received the hearty thanks of the backyard lochinvar
the subtlety of ikey's action becomes apparent upon recital of his subsequent move he sent a messenger for mister riddle and disclosed the plans of mister mc gowan for eloping with rosy mister riddle was a stout man
much obliged he said briefly to ikey the lazy irish loafer my own room's just above rosy's i'll just go up there myself after supper and load the shot gun and wait if he comes in my back yard he'll go away in a ambulance instead of a bridal chaise
with rosy held in the clutches of morpheus for a many hours deep slumber and the bloodthirsty parent waiting armed and forewarned ikey felt that his rival was close indeed upon discomfiture
as he expressed it one must not court sorrow and he hinted to the young man that they desired to be alone rickie went back to the silts he was only there a few days
as soon as term opened he returned to cambridge for which he longed passionately the journey thither was now familiar to him and he took pleasure in each landmark the fair valley of tewin water the cutting into hitchin where the train traverses the chalk
baldock church royston with its promise of downs were nothing in themselves but dear as stages in the pilgrimage towards the abode of peace on the platform he met friends they had all had pleasant vacations it was a happy world
the atmosphere alters cambridge according to her custom welcomed her sons with open drains pettycury was up so was trinity street and navvies peeped out of king's parade
here it was gas there electric light but everywhere something and always a smell it was also the day that the wheels fell off the station tram and rickie who was naturally inside was among the passengers who
sustained no injury but a shock and had as hearty a laugh over the mishap afterwards as any one tilliard fled into a hansom cursing himself for having tried to do the thing cheaply
hornblower also swept past yelling derisively with his luggage neatly piled above his head let's get out and walk muttered ansell but rickie was succouring a distressed female missus aberdeen
oh missus aberdeen i never saw you i am so glad to see you i am so very glad missus aberdeen was cold she did not like being spoken to outside the college and was also distrait about her basket
hitherto no genteel eye had even seen inside it but in the collision its little calico veil fell off and there was revealed nothing the basket was empty and never would hold anything illegal all the same she was distrait
and we shall meet later sir i dessy was all the greeting rickie got from her now what kind of a life has missus aberdeen he exclaimed as he and ansell pursued the station road here these bedders come and make us comfortable
we owe an enormous amount to them their wages are absurd and we know nothing about them off they go to barnwell and then their lives are hidden i just know that missus aberdeen has a husband but that's all she never will talk about him
now i do so want to fill in her life i see one half of it what's the other half she may have a real jolly house in good taste with a little garden and books and pictures or again she mayn't but in any case one ought to know
i know she'd dislike it but she oughtn't to dislike after all bedders are to blame for the present lamentable state of things just as much as gentlefolk she ought to want me to come she ought to introduce me to her husband
they had reached the corner of hills road ansell spoke for the first time he said ugh drains yes a spiritual cesspool rickie laughed i expected it from your letter the one you never answered
but i refuse to accompany you i refuse to believe that every human being is a moving wonder of supreme interest and tragedy and beauty which was what the letter in question amounted to
you had just come from sawston and were apparently carried away by the fact that miss pembroke had the usual amount of arms and legs rickie was silent he had told his friend how he felt but not what had happened
ansell could discuss love and death admirably but somehow he would not understand lovers or a dying man and in the letter there had been scant allusion to these concrete facts would cambridge understand them either
on evolution on catullus they dealt with so much and they had experienced so little was it possible he would ever come to think cambridge narrow in his short life rickie had known two sudden deaths and that is enough to disarrange any placid outlook on the world
he knew once for all that we are all of us bubbles on an extremely rough sea into this sea humanity has built as it were some little breakwaters scientific knowledge civilized restraint so that the bubbles do not break so frequently or so soon
it is the first big building that the incoming visitor sees oh here come the colleges cries the protestant parent and then learns that it was built by a papist who made a fortune out of movable eyes for dolls built out of doll's eyes to contain idols
that at all events is the legend and the joke it watches over the apostate city taller by many a yard than anything within and asserting however wildly that here is eternity stability and bubbles unbreakable upon a windless sea
then the tram arrived the slow stuffy tram that plies every twenty minutes between the unknown and the marketplace and took them past the desecrated grounds of downing past addenbrookes hospital girt like a venetian palace with a mantling canal
past the fitz william towering upon immense substructions like any roman temple right up to the gates of one's own college which looked like nothing else in the world the porters were glad to see them but wished it had been a hansom
our luggage explained rickie comes in the hotel omnibus if you would kindly pay a shilling for mine ansell turned aside to some large lighted windows the abode of a hospitable don and from other windows there floated familiar voices
and the familiar mistakes in a beethoven sonata the college though small was civilized and proud of its civilization it was not sufficient glory to be a blue there nor an additional glory to get drunk
many a maiden lady who had read that cambridge men were sad dogs was surprised and perhaps a little disappointed at the reasonable life which greeted her miss appleblossom in particular had had a tremendous shock
it is so she exclaimed afterwards it is just as i say and what's more i wouldn't have it otherwise
the direction of the swim was determined a little by the genius of the place for places have a genius though the less we talk about it the better and a good deal by the tutors and resident fellows
who treated with rare dexterity the products that came up yearly from the public schools they taught the perky boy that he was not everything and the limp boy that he might be something they even welcomed those boys who were neither limp nor perky but odd
but rickie turned to none of these friends for just then he loved his rooms better than any person they were all he really possessed in the world the only place he could call his own
with a sigh of joy he entered the perishable home that was his for a couple of years there was a beautiful fire and the kettle boiled at once he made tea on the hearth rug and ate the biscuits which missus aberdeen had brought for him up from anderson's
gentlemen she said must learn to give and take he sighed again and again like one who had escaped from danger with his head on the fender and all his limbs relaxed
he felt almost as safe as he felt once when his mother killed a ghost in the passage by carrying him through it in her arms there was no ghost now he was frightened at reality he was frightened at the splendours and horrors of the world
last night he saw her with the eyes of blake a virgin widow tall veiled consecrated with her hands stretched out against an everlasting wind why should she write her letters were not for the likes of him nor to be read in rooms like his
we are not leaving sawston she wrote i saw how selfish it was of me to risk spoiling herbert's career i shall get used to any place now that he is gone nothing of that sort can matter
every one has been most kind but you have comforted me most though you did not mean to i cannot think how you did it or understood so much i still think of you as a little boy with a lame leg i know you will let me say this
but in them was one chink revealing one star and through this the smoke escaped into the light of stars innumerable then but then the vision failed and the voice of science whispered that all smoke remains on earth in the form of smuts
and is troublesome to missus aberdeen i am jolly unpractical he mused and what is the point of it when real things are so wonderful who wants visions in a world that has agnes and gerald he turned on the electric light and pulled open the table drawer
and the action took place on saint john's eve off the coast of sicily a party of tourists land on one of the islands suddenly the boatmen become uneasy and say that the island is not generally there
pooh volcanic says the leading tourist
the island begins to rock and so do the minds of its visitors they start and quarrel and jabber fingers burst up through the sand black fingers of sea devils the island tilts the tourists go mad but just before the catastrophe one man
other muscles other minds are pulling the island to its subterranean home through the advancing wall of waters he sees no grisly faces no ghastly medieval limbs but but what nonsense when real things are so wonderful what is the point of pretending
and so rickie deflected his enthusiasms hitherto they had played on gods and heroes on the infinite and the impossible on virtue and beauty and strength
meanwhile he was a husband perhaps his union should have been emphasized before the crown of life had been attained the vague yearnings the misread impulses had found accomplishment at last
but as the term passed he knew that behind the yearning there remained a yearning behind the drawn veil a veil that he could not draw his wedding had been no mighty landmark he would often wonder whether such and such a speech or incident came after it or before
since that meeting in the soho restaurant there had been so much to do clothes to buy presents to thank for a brief visit to a training college a honeymoon as brief in such a bustle what spiritual union could take place
surely the dust would settle soon in italy at easter he might perceive the infinities of love but love had shown him its infinities already neither by marriage nor by any other device can men insure themselves a vision
and rickie's had been granted him three years before when he had seen his wife and a dead man clasped in each other's arms she was never to be so real to him again she ran about the house looking handsomer than ever
but today one said it is like the country arm in arm they strolled in the side garden stopping at times to notice the crocuses or to wonder when the daffodils would flower suddenly he tightened his pressure and said darling
why don't you still wear ear rings ear rings she laughed my taste has improved perhaps so after all they never mentioned gerald's name but he hoped it was still dear to her he did not want her to forget the greatest moment in her life
his love desired not ownership but confidence and to a love so pure it does not seem terrible to come second he valued emotion not for itself but because it is the only final path to intimacy
she ever robust and practical always discouraged him she was not cold she would willingly embrace him but she hated being upset and would laugh or thrust him off when his voice grew serious in this she reminded him of his mother
did she bless his union so different to her own did she love his wife he tried to speak of her to agnes but again she was reluctant and perhaps it was this aversion to acknowledge the dead
a rifle corps was to be formed she hoped that the boys would have proper uniforms instead of shooting in their old clothes as mister jackson had suggested there was tewson could nothing be done about him he would slink away from the other prefects and go with boys of his own age
there was lloyd he would not learn the school anthem saying that it hurt his throat and above all there was varden who to rickie's bewilderment was now a member of dunwood house he had to go somewhere said agnes lucky for his mother that we had a vacancy
she had taken the boy out of charity and without a thought of being unconstitutional but in had come this officious limpet and upset the headmaster and she was scolded
and missus varden was scolded and mister jackson was scolded and the boy was scolded and placed with mister pembroke whom she revered less than any man in the world naturally enough she considered it a further attempt of the authorities to snub the day boys
for whose advantage the school had been founded she and missus jackson discussed the subject at their tea parties and the latter lady was sure that no good no good of any kind would come to dunwood house from such ill gotten plunder
we say let them talk persisted rickie but i never did like letting people talk we are right and they are wrong but i wish the thing could have been done more quietly the headmaster does get so excited he has given a gang of foolish people their opportunity
i don't like being branded as the day boy's foe when i think how much i would have given to be a day boy myself my father found me a nuisance and put me through the mill and i can never forget it particularly the evenings
there's very little bullying here said agnes there was very little bullying at my school there was simply the atmosphere of unkindness which no discipline can dispel it's not what people do to you but what they mean that hurts i don't understand
if a man hits you by accident or play but just a little tap when you know it comes from hatred is too terrible boys do hate each other i remember it and see it again
all i know is there's very little bullying here you see the notion of good fellowship develops late you can just see its beginning here among the prefects up at cambridge it flourishes amazingly that's why i pity people who don't go up to cambridge
not because a university is smart but because those are the magic years and with luck you see up there what you couldn't see before and mayn't ever see again aren't these the magic years the lady demanded he laughed and hit at her
i'm getting somewhat involved but hear me o agnes for i am practical
long may they flourish but i do not approve of the boarding house system it isn't an inevitable adjunct
silence madam don't betray me to herbert or i'll give us the sack but seriously what is the good of throwing boys so much together isn't it building their lives on a wrong basis they don't understand each other i wish they did but they don't
they don't realize that human beings are simply marvellous when they do the whole of life changes and you get the true thing but don't pretend you've got it before you have
patriotism and esprit de corps are all very well but masters a little forget that they must grow from sentiment they cannot create one cannot cannot cannot i never cared a straw for england until i cared for englishmen
and boys can't love the school when they hate each other ladies and gentlemen i will now conclude my address and most of it is copied out of mister ansell the truth is he was suddenly ashamed
cambridge and all that it meant had stood before him passionately clear and beside it stood his mother and the sweet family life which nurses up a boy until he can salute his equals he was ashamed for he remembered his new resolution
to work without criticizing to throw himself vigorously into the machine not to mind if he was pinched now and then by the elaborate wheels mister ansell cried his wife laughing somewhat shrilly aha now i understand
it's just the kind of thing poor mister ansell would say well i'm brutal i believe it does varden good to have his ears pulled now and then and i don't care whether they pull them in play or not boys ought to rough it or they never grow up into men and your mother would have agreed with me
oh yes and you're all wrong about patriotism it can can create a sentiment she was unusually precise and had followed his thoughts with an attention that was also unusual he wondered whether she was not right and regretted that she proceeded to say
for rickie suffered from the primal curse which is not as the authorized version suggests the knowledge of good and evil but the knowledge of good and evil then stick to the dunwood house set i do and shall
again he was ashamed why would he see the other side of things he rebuked his soul not unsuccessfully and then they returned to the subject of varden i'm certain he suffers said he for she would do nothing but laugh
each boy who passes pulls his ears very funny no doubt but every day they stick out more and get redder and this afternoon when he didn't know he was being watched he was holding his head and moaning i hate the look about his eyes i hate the whole boy
nasty weedy thing well i'm a nasty weedy thing if it comes to that no you aren't she cried kissing him but he led her back to the subject could nothing be suggested
he drew up some new rules alterations in the times of going to bed and so on the effect of which would be to provide fewer opportunities for the pulling of varden's ears the rules were submitted to herbert who sympathized with weakliness more than did his sister
for several weeks after my sleigh ride we heard nothing from the shimerdas my sore throat kept me indoors and grandmother had a cold which made the housework heavy for her when sunday came she was glad to have a day of rest
they seem awful scared of cold and stick in that hole in the bank like badgers all but the crazy boy jake put in he never wears the coat krajiek says he's turrible strong and can stand anything i guess rabbits must be getting scarce in this locality
ambrosch come along by the cornfield yesterday where i was at work and showed me three prairie dogs he'd shot he asked me if they was good to eat i spit and made a face and took on to scare him but he just looked like he was smarter'n me and put em back in his sack and walked off
grandmother looked up in alarm and spoke to grandfather josiah you don't suppose krajiek would let them poor creatures eat prairie dogs do you
hamper basket in the kitchen now jake grandmother was saying if you can find that old rooster that got his comb froze just give his neck a twist and we'll take him along
i've come strange to a new country myself but i never forgot hens are a good thing to have no matter what you don't have just as you say mam said jake but i hate to think of krajiek getting a leg of that old rooster
he tramped out through the long cellar and dropped the heavy door behind him after breakfast grandmother and jake and i bundled ourselves up and climbed into the cold front wagon seat as we approached the shimerdas we heard the frosty whine of the pump
and saw antonia her head tied up and her cotton dress blown about her throwing all her weight on the pump handle as it went up and down she heard our wagon looked back over her shoulder and catching up her pail of water started at a run for the hole in the bank
we went slowly up the icy path toward the door sunk in the drawside blue puffs of smoke came from the stovepipe that stuck out through the grass and snow but the wind whisked them roughly away missus shimerda opened the door before we knocked and seized grandmother's hand
she did not say how do as usual but at once began to cry talking very fast in her own language pointing to her feet which were tied up in rags and looking about accusingly at every one the old man was sitting on a stump behind the stove
crouching over as if he were trying to hide from us yulka was on the floor at his feet her kitten in her lap she peeped out at me and smiled but glancing up at her mother hid again
the crazy boy lay under the only window stretched on a gunnysack stuffed with straw as soon as we entered he threw a grainsack over the crack at the bottom of the door the air in the cave was stifling and it was very dark too a lighted lantern hung over the stove threw out a feeble yellow glimmer
missus shimerda snatched off the covers of two barrels behind the door and made us look into them in one there were some potatoes that had been frozen and were rotting in the other was a little pile of flour grandmother murmured something in embarrassment but the bohemian woman laughed scornfully
a kind of whinny laugh and catching up an empty coffee pot from the shelf shook it at us with a look positively vindictive grandmother went on talking in her polite virginia way not admitting their stark need or her own remissness
until jake arrived with the hamper as if in direct answer to missus shimerda's reproaches then the poor woman broke down she dropped on the floor beside her crazy son hid her face on her knees and sat crying bitterly
tony left her corner reluctantly i had never seen her crushed like this before
she is so sad she whispered as she wiped her wet hands on her skirt and took the things grandmother handed her the crazy boy seeing the food began to make soft gurgling noises and stroked his stomach jake came in again this time with a sack of potatoes grandmother looked about in perplexity
how did your potatoes get frozen we get from mister bushy at the post office what he throw out we got no potatoes missus burden tony admitted mournfully when jake went out marek crawled along the floor and stuffed up the door crack again
then quietly as a shadow mister shimerda came out from behind the stove
when i got up on one of the stools and peered into it i saw some quilts and a pile of straw the old man held the lantern yulka he said in a low despairing voice yulka my antonia grandmother drew back
you mean they sleep in there your girls he bowed his head
sure enough where would you sleep dear i don't doubt you're warm there
mister shimerda made grandmother sit down on the only chair and pointed his wife to a stool beside her
he talked in a low tone and his daughter translated he wanted us to know that they were not beggars in the old country he made good wages and his family were respected there he left bohemia with more than a thousand dollars in savings after their passage money was paid
he had in some way lost on exchange in new york and the railway fare to nebraska was more than they had expected by the time they paid krajiek for the land and bought his horses and oxen and some old farm machinery they had very little money left
he wished grandmother to know however that he still had some money if they could get through until spring came they would buy a cow and chickens and plant a garden and would then do very well
ambrosch and antonia were both old enough to work in the fields and they were willing to work but the snow and the bitter weather had disheartened them all antonia explained that her father meant to build a new house for them in the spring
he and ambrosch had already split the logs for it but the logs were all buried in the snow along the creek where they had been felled while grandmother encouraged and gave them advice i sat down on the floor with yulka and let her show me her kitten
marek slid cautiously toward us and began to exhibit his webbed fingers i knew he wanted to make his queer noises for me to bark like a dog or whinny like a horse but he did not dare in the presence of his elders
marek was always trying to be agreeable poor fellow as if he had it on his mind that he must make up for his deficiencies missus shimerda grew more calm and reasonable before our visit was over and while antonia translated put in a word now and then on her own account
the woman had a quick ear and caught up phrases whenever she heard english spoken as we rose to go she opened her wooden chest and brought out a bag made of bed ticking about as long as a flour sack and half as wide stuffed full of something
at sight of it the crazy boy began to smack his lips when missus shimerda opened the bag and stirred the contents with her hand it gave out a salty earthy smell very pungent even among the other odors of that cave she measured a teacup full tied it up in a bit of sacking
and presented it ceremoniously to grandmother for cook she announced little now be very much when cook spreading out her hands as if to indicate that the pint would swell to a gallon
where's a body to begin with these people they're wanting in everything and most of all in horse sense nobody can give em that i guess jimmy here is about as able to take over a homestead as they are do you reckon that boy ambrosch has any real push in him
it was full of little brown chips that looked like the shavings of some root they were as light as feathers and the most noticeable thing about them was their penetrating earthy odor we could not determine whether they were animal or vegetable they might be dried meat from some queer beast jim
i never forgot the strange taste
ornithology on a cotton plantation on one of my first jaunts into the suburbs of tallahassee i noticed not far from the road a bit of swamp shallow pools with muddy borders and flats
it was a likely spot for waders and would be worth a visit to reach it indeed i must cross a planted field surrounded by a lofty barbed wire fence and placarded against trespassers but there was no one in sight
or no one who looked at all like a land owner and besides it could hardly be accounted a trespass defined by blackstone as an unwarranted entry on another's soil to step carefully over the cotton rows on so legitimate an errand
ordinarily i call myself a simple bird gazer an amateur a field naturalist if you will but on occasions like the present i assume with myself that is all the rights and titles of an ornithologist proper
a man of science strictly so called in the interest of science then i climbed the fence and picked my way across the field true enough about the edges of the water were two or three solitary sandpipers
and at least half a dozen of the smaller yellowlegs two additions to my florida list not to speak of a little blue heron and a green heron the latter in most uncommonly green plumage it was well i had interpreted the placard a little generously
the letter killeth is a pretty good text in emergencies of this kind so i said to myself the herons meanwhile had taken french leave but the smaller birds were less suspicious i watched them at my leisure and left them still feeding
two days later i was there again but it must be acknowledged that this time i tarried in the road till a man on horseback had disappeared round the next turn it would have been manlier without doubt to pay no attention to him
and for better or worse prudence carried the day with me finding nothing new though the sandpipers and yellowlegs were still present with a very handsome little blue heron and plenty of blackbirds i took the road again and went further
and an hour or two afterward on getting back to the same place was overtaken again by the horseman he pulled up his horse and bade me good afternoon would i lend him my opera glass which happened to be in my hand at the moment
i should like to see how my house looks from here he said and he pointed across the field to a house on the hill some distance beyond ah said i glad to set myself right by a piece of frankness that under the circumstances could hardly work to my disadvantage
then it is your land on which i have been trespassing how so he asked with a smile and i explained that i had been across his cotton field a little while before that is no trespass he answered
so the reader will perceive that i had been quite correct in my understanding of the law and when i went on to explain my object in visiting his cane swamp for such it was he said
he assured me that i was welcome to visit it as often as i wished he himself was very fond of natural history and often regretted that he had not given time to it in his youth as it was he protected the birds on his plantation and the place was full of them
i should find his woods interesting he felt sure florida was extremely rich in birds he believed there were some that had never been classified we have orioles here he added and so far at any rate he was right i had seen perhaps twenty that day
orchard orioles that is and one sat in a tree before us at the moment his whole manner was most kindly and hospitable as was that of every tallahassean with whom i had occasion to speak
and i told him with sincere gratitude that i should certainly avail myself of his courtesy and stroll through his woods i approached them two mornings afterward from the opposite side where finding no other place of entrance
i climbed a six barred tightly locked gate feeling all the while like a thief and a robber in front of a deserted cabin then i had only to cross a grassy field in which meadow larks were singing and i was in the woods
i wandered through them without finding anything more unusual or interesting than summer tanagers and yellow throated warblers which were in song there as they were in every such place and after a while came out into a pleasant glade
from which different parts of the plantation could be seen and through which ran a plantation road here was a wooden fence a most unusual thing and i lost no time in mounting it to rest and look about me
it is one of the marks of a true yankee i suspect to like such a perch my own weakness in that direction is a frequent subject of mirth with chance fellow travelers the attitude is comfortable and conducive to meditation
and now that i was seated and at my ease i felt that this was one of the new england luxuries which almost without knowing it i had missed ever since i left home of my meditations on this particular occasion i remember nothing but that is no sign they were valueless
as it is no sign that yesterday's dinner did me no good because i have forgotten what it was in the latter case indeed and perhaps in the former as well it would seem more reasonable to draw an exactly opposite inference but quibbles apart one thing i do remember
i sat for some time on the fence in the shade of a tree with an eye upon the cane swamp and an ear open for bird voices yes and it comes to me at this moment that here i heard the first and only bull frog that i heard anywhere in florida
it was like a voice from home and belonged with the fence other frogs i had heard in other places one chorus brought me out of bed in daytona in the evening after a succession of february dog day showers
what is that noise outside i inquired of the landlady as i hastened downstairs that said she with a look of amusement that's frogs it may be i thought but i followed the sounds till they led me in the darkness to the edge of a swamp
no doubt the creatures were frogs but of some kind new to me with voices more lugubrious and homesick than i should have supposed could possibly belong to any batrachian a week or two later in the new smyrna flat woods
i heard in the distance a sound which i took for the grunting of pigs i made a note of it mentally as a cheerful token indicative of a probable scarcity of rattlesnakes but by and by as i drew nearer the truth of the matter began to break upon me
a man was approaching and when we met i asked him what was making that noise yonder frogs he said at another time in the flat woods of port orange i hope i am not taxing my reader's credulity too far or making myself out a man of too imaginative an ear
i heard the bleating of sheep busy with other things i did not stop to reflect that it was impossible there should be sheep in that quarter and the occurrence had quite passed out of my mind when one day a cracker talking about frogs happened to say
that without question was what i had heard in the flat woods but this frog in the sugar cane swamp
ever and ever so many years ago in sonorous bass that could be heard a quarter of a mile away used to call from reuben loud's pond pull him in pull him in or sometimes the inconsistent amphibian jug o rum jug o rum
i dismounted from my perch at last and was sauntering idly along the path idleness like this is often the best of ornithological industry when suddenly i had a vision before me in the leafy top of an oak sapling
sat a blue grosbeak i knew him on the instant but i could see only his head and neck the rest of his body being hidden by the leaves it was a moment of feverish excitement here was a new bird a bird about which i had felt fifteen years of curiosity
and more than that a bird which here and now was quite unexpected since it was not included in either of the two florida lists that i had brought with me from home for perhaps five seconds i had my opera glass on the blue head and the thick set dark bill
with its lighter colored under mandible then i heard the clatter of a horse's hoofs and lifted my eyes my friend the owner of the plantation was coming down the road at a gallop straight upon me if i was to see the grosbeak and make sure of him
it must be done at once i moved to bring him fully into view and he flew into the thick of a pine tree out of sight
would pass me with a nod the case was still far from hopeless a bright thought came to me i ran from the path with a great show of eager absorption leveled my glass upon the pine tree and stood fixed
alas he had too much courtesy to pass his own guest without speaking still after the birds he said as he checked his horse i responded as i hope without any symptom of annoyance then of course he wished to know what i was looking at
and i told him that a blue grosbeak had just flown into that pine tree and that i was most distressingly anxious to see more of him he looked at the pine tree i can't see him he said no more could i it wasn't a blue jay was it he asked
and then we talked of one thing and another i have no idea what till he rode away to another part of the plantation where a gang of women were at work by this time the grosbeak had disappeared utterly
possibly he had gone to a bit of wood on the opposite side of the cane swamp i scaled a barbed wire fence and made in that direction but to no purpose the grosbeak was gone for good probably i should never see another
could the planter have read my thoughts just then he would perhaps have been angry with himself and pretty certainly he would have been angry with me that a yankee should accept his hospitality and then load him with curses and call him all manner of names
how should he know that i was so insane a hobbyist as to care more for the sight of a new bird than for all the laws and customs of ordinary politeness as my feelings cooled i saw that i was stepping over hills or rows of some strange looking plants
just out of the ground peanuts i guessed but to make sure i called to a colored woman who was hoeing not far off what are these pinders she answered i knew she meant peanuts otherwise ground peas and goobers
and now that i once more have a dictionary at my elbow i learn that the word like goober is or is supposed to be of african origin i was preparing to surmount the barbed wire fence again
when the planter returned and halted for another chat it was evident that he took a genuine and amiable interest in my researches there were a great many kinds of sparrows in that country he said and also of woodpeckers he knew the ivory bill
but like other tallahasseans he thought i should have to go into lafayette county all florida people say la fay ette to find it that bird calling now is a bee bird
the last remark was of interest for its bearing upon a point about which i had felt some curiosity and i may say some skepticism as i had seen many loggerhead shrikes but had observed no indication that other birds feared them or held any grudge against them
as he rode off he called my attention to a great blue heron just then flying over the swamp they are very shy he said then from further away he shouted once more to ask if i heard the mocking bird singing yonder
pointing with his whip in the direction of the singer for some time longer i hung about the glade vainly hoping that the grosbeak would again favor my eyes then i crossed more planted fields
climbing more barbed wire fences and stopping on the way to enjoy the sweetly quaint music of a little chorus of white crowned sparrows and skirted once more the muddy shore of the cane swamp where the yellowlegs and sandpipers were still feeding
that brought me to the road from which i had made my entry to the place some days before but being still unable to forego a splendid possibility i recrossed the plantation tarried again in the glade sat again on the wooden fence if that grosbeak only would show himself
and thence went on picking a few heads of handsome buffalo clover the first i had ever seen and some sprays of penstemon till i came again to the six barred gate and the quincy road at that point as i now remember the air was full of vultures
carrion crows a hundred or more soaring over the fields in some fit of gregariousness along the road were white crowned and white throated sparrows it was the twelfth of april orchard orioles thrashers summer tanagers
cardinal grosbeaks mocking birds kingbirds logger heads yellow throated vireos and sundry others but not the blue grosbeak which would have been worth them all once back at the hotel
i opened my coues's key to refresh my memory as to the exact appearance of that bird feathers around base of bill black said the book i had not noticed that but no matter the bird was a blue grosbeak
for the sufficient reason that it could not be anything else a black line between the almost black beak and the dark blue head would be inconspicuous at the best and quite naturally would escape a glimpse so hasty as mine had been and yet
while i reasoned in this way i foresaw plainly enough that as time passed doubt would get the better of assurance as it always does and i should never be certain that i had not been the victim of some illusion at best
for whose kindness i was unfeignedly thankful and whose pardon i most sincerely beg if i seem to have been a bit too free in this rehearsal of the story
the worry and the imprecations were wasted after all as heaven be thanked they so often are for within two or three days i saw other blue grosbeaks and heard them sing
it is one of the most conveniently accessible of those points of interest with which guide books so anxiously and with so much propriety concern themselves what a tourist prays for is something to see
if i had ever been a tourist in boston no doubt i should before now have surveyed the world from the top of the bunker hill monument in tallahassee at all events i went to the murat estate in fact i went more than once
but i remember especially my first visit which had a livelier sentimental interest than the others because i was then under the agreeable delusion that the prince himself had lived there the guide book told me so
vouchsafing also the information that after building the house he interested himself actively in local affairs became a naturalized citizen and served successively as postmaster alderman and mayor a model immigrant surely
though it is rather the way of immigrants perhaps not to refuse political responsibilities naturally i remembered these things as i stood in front of the big house a story and a half cottage amid the flowering shrubs
here lived once the son of the king of naples himself a prince and worthy son of a worthy sire alderman and then mayor of the city of tallahassee thus did an uncompromising democrat pay court to the shades of royalty
while a mocking bird sang from a fringe bush by the gate and an oriole flew madly from tree to tree in pursuit of a fair creature of the reluctant sex the inconsistency if such it was was quickly punished for alas
when i spoke of my morning's pilgrimage to an old resident of the town he told me that murat never lived in the house nor anywhere else in tallahassee and of course was never its postmaster alderman or mayor the princess he said
built the house after her husband's death and lived there a widow i appealed to the guide book my informant sneered politely and brought me a still older tallahassean
whose venerable name i am sorry to have forgotten and that indisputable citizen confirmed all that his neighbor had said for once the guide book compiler must have been misinformed the question happily was one of no great consequence
if the prince had never lived in the house the princess had and she by all accounts and i make certain her husband would have said the same was the worthier person of the two and even if neither of them had lived there if my sentiment had been all wasted but there was no question of tears
the place itself was sightly the house was old and the way thither a pleasant one first down the hill in a zigzag course to the vicinity of the railway station then by a winding country road through the valley past a few negro cabins and up the slope
on the farther side prince murat or no prince murat i should love to travel that road to day instead of sitting before a massachusetts fire with the ground deep under snow and the air full of thirty or forty degrees of frost
in the front yard of one of the cabins opposite the car wheel foundry and near the station as i now remember a middle aged negress was cutting up an oak log she swung the axe with vigor and precision and the chips flew but i could not help saying
you ought to make the man do that she answered on the instant i would she said if i had a man to make i'm sure you would i thought her tongue was as sharp as her axe ought i to have ventured a word in her behalf i wonder
when a man of her own color and a pretty near neighbor told me with admirable naivete the story of his bereavement and his hopes his wife had died a year before he said and so far though he had not let the grass grow under his feet he had found no one to take her place
he still meant to do so if he could he was only seventy four years old and it was not good for a man to be alone he seemed a gentle spirit and i withheld all mention of the stalwart and manless wood cutter i hope he went farther and fared better
so youthful as he was surely there was no occasion for haste when i had skirted a cotton field the crop just out of the ground and a bit of wood on the right and a swamp with a splendid display of white water lilies on the left and had begun to ascend the gentle slope
i met a man of considerably more than seventy four years can you tell me just where the murat place is i inquired he grinned broadly and thought he could he was one of the old murat servants as his father had been before him i was borned on to him
he said speaking of the prince murat was a gentleman sah that was a statement which it seemed impossible for him to repeat often enough he spoke from a slave's point of view murat was a good master the old man had heard him say that he kept servants for the like of the thing
he didn't abuse them he never was for barbarizing a poor colored person at all whipping oh yes he didn't miss your fault no sah he didn't miss your fault but his servants never were ironed he didn't believe in barbarousment
the old man was thankful to be free but to his mind emancipation had not made everything heavenly the younger set of negroes my people was his word were on the wrong road they had sold their birthright
though exactly what he meant by that remark i did not gather they ain't got no sense he declared and what sense they has got don't do em no good i told him finally that i was from the north oh i knows it he exclaimed i knows it
and he beamed with delight how did he know i inquired oh i knows it i can see it in you
you's a perfect gentleman sah he was too old to be quarreled with and i swallowed the compliment i tore myself away or he might have run on till night about his old master and mistress the division of the estate an abusive overseer
he was a perfect dog sah and sundry other things he had lived a long time and had nothing to do now but to recall the past and tell it over so it will be with us if we live so long may we find once in a while a patient listener
this patriarch's unfavorable opinion as to the prospects of the colored people was shared by my hopeful young widower before mentioned who expressed himself quite as emphatically he was brought up among white people
he said and believed that the salvation of the blacks lay in their recognition of white supremacy but he was less perspicacious than the older man he was one of the very few persons whom i met at the south who did not recognize me at sight as a yankee
are you a legislator man he asked at the end of our talk the legislature was in session on the hill but perhaps after all he only meant to flatter me if i am long on the way it is because as i love always to have it
the going and coming were the better part of the pilgrimage the estate itself is beautifully situated with far away horizons but it has fallen into great neglect while the house almost in ruins and occupied by colored people is to northern eyes
hardly more than a larger cabin it put me in mind of the question of a western gentleman
he had come to florida against his will
and was looking at everything through very blue spectacles have you seen any of those fine old country mansions he asked about which we read so often in descriptions of southern life he had been on the lookout for them he averred ever since he left home
and had yet to find the first one and from his tone it was evident that he thought the southern idea of a fine old mansion must be different from his the murat house certainly was never a palace except as love may have made it so
but it was old people had lived in it and died in it those who once owned it whose name and memory still clung to it were now in narrower houses and it was easy for the visitor for one visitor at least to fall into pensive meditation
i strolled about the grounds stood between the last year's cotton rows while a carolina wren poured out his soul from an oleander bush near by admired the confidence of a pair of shrikes who had made a nest in a honeysuckle vine in the front yard
listened to the sweet music of mocking birds cardinals and orchard orioles watched the martins circling above the trees thought of the princess and smiled at the black children who thrust their heads out of the windows of her big house and then with a sprig of honeysuckle for a keepsake
i started slowly homeward the sun by this time was straight overhead but my umbrella saved me from absolute discomfort while birds furnished here and there an agreeable diversion
i recall in particular some white crowned sparrows the first ones i had seen in florida at a bend in the road opposite the water lily swamp while i was cooling myself in the shade of a friendly pine tree
enjoying at the same time a fence overrun with cherokee roses a man and his little boy came along in a wagon the man seemed really disappointed when i told him that i was going into town instead of coming from it it was pretty warm weather for walking
and he had meant to offer me a lift he was a scandinavian who had been for some years in florida he owned a good farm not far from the murat estate
but he thought a man wasn't any better off for owning too much land he talked of his crops his children the climate and so on all in a cheerful strain pleasant to hear if the pessimists are right which may i be kept from believing
the optimists are certainly more comfortable to live with though it be only for ten minutes under a roadside shade tree when i reached the street car track at the foot of the hill the one car which plies back and forth through the city was in its place with the driver beside it
but no mules are you going to start directly i asked yes sah he answered and then looking toward the stable he shouted in a peremptory voice do about there do about
yes sah that's it tain't everybody that wants to be hurried up so we tells em do about
as i saw more of him i ain't de boss but i's got right smart to say
chapter five a mysterious man
he remained prostrate in the dust and tom observing him thought perhaps the bully might have been seriously injured but a little later andy cautiously raised his head and inquired in a frightened voice is it is it gone
is what gone asked tom grimly at the sound of his voice andy looked up was that you tom swift he demanded did you knock me off my wheel my monoplane and i together did
was the reply or rather we didn't it was the nervous reaction caused by your fright and the knowledge that you had done wrong that made you jump over the handlebars that's the scientific explanation you you did it
stammered andy getting to his feet he wasn't hurt much tom thought have it your own way resumed our hero did you think it was a hob goblin in a chariot of fire after you andy huh never mind what i thought
i'll have you arrested for this will you delighted as the boys say hop in my airship and i'll take you right into town
for breaking the propeller of the butterfly and slashing her wings i've mended her up however so she goes better than ever and i can take you to the police station in jig time want to come andy this was too much for the bully
he knew that tom would have a clear case against him and he did not dare answer instead he shuffled over to where his wheel lay picked it up and rode slowly off good riddance murmured tom
he looked about and saw that he was near a house in the rear of which was a good sized barn guess i'll ask if i can leave the butterfly there he murmured and ringing the doorbell he was greeted by a man
i'll pay you if you'll let me store my machine in the barn a little while until i go into the city and return spoke the lad indeed you're welcome to leave it there without pay was the answer
i'm interested in airships and i'll consider it a favor if you'll let me look yours over while it's here tom readily agreed and a few minutes later he had caught a trolley going into the city he was soon in one of the largest jewelry stores of chester
the young inventor added as he saw the clerk looking rather doubtfully at him for tom had on a rough suit which he always donned when he flew in his monoplane
a gem expert said the clerk please be seated the young man disappeared into a private office with the stones and tom waited he wondered if he was going to have his trouble for his pains
presently two elderly gentlemen came from the little room on the glass door of which appeared the word diamonds who brought these stones in asked one of the men evidently the proprietor from the deference paid him by the clerk
the latter motioned to tom will you kindly step inside here requested the elderly man when the door was closed
queried the proprietor of the place tom noticed at once that the word diamonds was not used i wanted to find out if they were of any value he said are they diamonds would you mind stating where you got them
asked the other of the two men is that necessary inquired the lad i came by them in a legitimate manner if that's what you mean and i can satisfy you on that point
oh it isn't that the proprietor hastened to assure him but these are diamonds of such a peculiar kind so perfect and without a flaw that i wondered from what part of the world they came then they are diamonds
asked tom eagerly the finest i have ever tested declared the other man evidently mister porter the gem expert they are a joy to look at mister roberts he went on turning to the proprietor
the other in a rough state do you care to state where these diamonds came from asked mister roberts looking critically at tom i had rather not answered the lad it is enough for me to know that they are diamonds
how much is your charge nothing was the unexpected answer we are very glad to have had the opportunity of seeing such stones is there any chance of getting any more perhaps
answered tom as he accepted the gems which the expert held out to him then might we speak for a supply went on mister roberts eagerly we will pay you the full market price what is the value of these stones asked
tom mister roberts looked at his gem expert it is difficult to say
they are so far superior to the usual run of diamonds that i feel justified in saying that the cut one would bring fifteen hundred dollars anywhere in fact i would offer that for it the other is larger though what it would lose in cutting would be hard to say
i should say it was worth two thousand dollars as it is now thirty five hundred dollars for these two stones exclaimed tom they are worth every cent of it declared mister roberts
do you want to sell tom shook his head he could scarcely believe the good news mister jenks had told the truth now the young inventor could go with him to seek the diamond makers can you get any more of these
went on mister roberts i think so that is i don't know i am going to try answered the lad then if you succeed i wish you would sell us some fairly begged the proprietor of the store
thinking of many things and wondering how best to start in his airship red cloud for the mysterious phantom mountain tom hurried back to where he had left the monoplane wheeled it out and was soon soaring through the air toward shopton
i think i'll go with mister jenks he decided as he prepared for a landing in the open space near his aeroplane shed it will be a risky trip perhaps but i've taken risks before
when mister jenks comes to night i'll tell him i'll help him to get his rights and discover the secret of the diamond makers as tom was wheeling the butterfly into the shed eradicate came out to help him dere's a gen'man here to see yo massa tom
he hasn't been around in some time no massa tom it ain't him i knows dat blessin man good an proper
no sah it ain't massa damon de gen'man's in de airship shed waitin fo you in the airship shed no strangers are allowed in there rad
an he wouldn't come out when i told him an your pa an mister jackson ain't home i'll see about this exclaimed tom striding to the large shed where the red cloud was kept as he entered it he saw a man looking over the wonderful craft did you want to see me
no i don't replied tom sharply for he did not like the looks of the man i was told that you did was the rather surprising answer who told you the man looked all around the shed before replying as if fearful of being overheard
then stepping close to tom he whispered mister jenks told me mister jenks tom could not conceal his astonishment yes mister barcoe jenks but i did not come here to merely ask you for employment
tom swift considered a few minutes on the face of it the proposition appealed to him he had been home some time now after his adventures on earthquake island and he was beginning to long for more excitement
the search for the mysterious mountain and the cave of the diamond makers might offer a new field for him but there came to him a certain distrust of mister jenks i don't like to doubt your word began tom slowly
but you know mister jenks that some of the greatest chemists have tried in vain to make diamonds or at best they have made only tiny ones to think that any man or set of men made real diamonds as large as the ones you have doesn't seem well and tom hesitated
you mean you can hardly believe me asked mister jenks i guess that's it assented tom i don't blame you a bit exclaimed the odd man in fact i didn't believe it when they told me they could make diamonds
but they proved it to me i'm ready now to prove it to you i'll tell you what i'll do here's this one stone cut ready for setting here's another uncut and mister jenks drew from his pocket what looked like a piece of crystal
take them to any jeweler he resumed to the one in whose place i saw you to night i'll abide by the verdict you get and i'll come here to morrow night and hear what you have to say why do you come at night
for the reason that the diamond makers are on my trail as long as i remained quiet after their shabby treatment of me and did not try to discover their secret they were all right
but after i realized that i had been cheated out of my rights and when i began to make an investigation with a view to discovering their secret whereabouts i received mysterious and anonymous warnings to stop but i did not
i came east and tried to get help to discover the cave of the diamond makers but i was unsuccessful i needed an airship as i said and no person who could operate one would agree to go with me on the quest again
i received a warning to drop all search for the diamond makers but i persisted and about a week ago i found i was being shadowed shadowed by whom asked tom by a man i never remember seeing but who i have no doubt
however i decided to come here and i did it seemed almost providential that my first view of you was in a jewelry shop looking at diamonds i took it as a good omen now it remains with you may i call here to morrow night and get your answer
tom swift made up his mind quickly after all it would be easy enough to find out if the diamonds were real if they were he could then decide whether or not to go with mister jenks on the mysterious quest so he answered i'll consider the matter mister jenks
i'll meet you here to morrow night in the meanwhile for my own satisfaction i'll let an expert look at these stones get the greatest diamond expert in the world and he'll pronounce them perfect predicted the odd man now i'll bid you goodnight and be going
i'll be here at this time to morrow as mister jenks turned aside there was a movement among the trees in the orchard and a shadowy figure was seen hurrying away who's that asked the diamond man in a hoarse whisper
did you see that tom swift some one was here listening to what i said perhaps it was the man who has been shadowing me i think not i guess it was eradicate sampson a colored man who does work for us said tom is that you rad he called
was the reply and the colored man came from the direction of the stable
i had a dream dat some coon were tryin t steal him an it sort ob sturbed me laik if it wasn't your man it was some one else said mister jenks decidedly we'll have a look exclaimed tom
here rad come over and scurry among those trees we just saw some one sneaking around i'll sure do dat cried the colored man mebby it were somebody arter boomerang i'll find em i don't believe it was any one after the mule murmured mister jenks
i'll be here to morrow night tom and i hope your answer will be favorable tom did not sleep well the remainder of the night for his fitful slumbers were disturbed by dreams of enormous caves filled with diamonds with dark shadowy figures trying to put him into a red hot steel box
and the young inventor wished to get the opinion of some other jeweler than mister track at least at first though if this one proves to be a good gem i'll have mister track set it in a brooch and give it to mary for her birthday decided the young inventor
guess i'll take a run over to chester in the butterfly and see what one of the jewelers there has to say in addition to his big airship red cloud tom owned a small swift monoplane which he called butterfly
but the monoplane had been repaired and andy had left town not having returned since telling his father that he was going off on a little business trip which he often did in his aeroplane tom with the aid of mister jackson the engineer wheeled the butterfly out of its shed
rising about a thousand feet and circling about several times to test the wind currents tom headed his craft toward chester a city about fifty miles from shopton in his pocket snugly tucked away were the two stones mister jenks had given him
i'll just drop down outside of the city he reasoned for too much of a crowd gathers when i land in the street besides i might frighten horses and then too it's hard to get a good start from the street i'll leave it in some barn until i want to go back
tom sent his craft down in order to pick out a safe place for a landing he was then over the suburbs of the city and was following the line of a straight country road looks like a good place there he murmured i'll shut off the motor and vol plane down
as he got nearer to the ground he saw the figure of a lad riding a bicycle along the country highway something about the figure struck tom as being familiar and he recognized the cyclist a moment later it's andy foger said tom in a whisper
i wondered where he had been keeping himself since he damaged the butterfly evidently he doesn't dare venture back to shopton well here's where i give him a scare tom's monoplane was making no more noise now than a soaring bird
he was gliding swiftly toward the earth and with the plan in his mind of administering some sort of punishment to the bully he aimed the machine directly at him nearer and nearer shot the monoplane as quietly as a sheet of paper might fall
andy pedaled on never looking up nor behind him a moment later as tom threw up his headplanes to make his landing more easy and just as he swooped down at one side of the cyclist our hero let out a most alarming yell right into andy's ear
now i've got you he shouted i'll teach you to slash my aeroplane come with me andy gave one look at the white bird like apparatus that had flown up beside him so noiselessly and being too frightened to recognize tom's voice
must have thought that he had been overtaken by some supernatural visitor andy gave a yell like an indian about to do a stage scalping act and fairly dived over the handlebars of his bicycle sprawling in a heap on the dusty road
chapter three a strange story well mister jenks began tom when he had descended to the garden and greeted the man who had acted so strangely on earthquake island this is rather an odd time for a visit
because there are enemies on my track if they thought i was seeking aid to discover the secret of phantom mountain my life might pay the forfeit are you in earnest mister jenks i certainly am
oh i don't mind being awakened answered tom good naturedly but i will be frank with you mister jenks i hardly can believe what you have stated to me several times that you know how diamonds can be made i can prove it to you
that if you do hear it you will be so fascinated by it that i am sure you will want to cast your lot in with mine and aid me to get my rights and solve the mystery and i also want to warn you that if you do there is a certain amount of danger connected with it
i'm used to danger answered tom quietly let me hear your story but first explain how you came to come here and why you acted so strangely at the jewelry store willingly
i tried to attract your attention at the store because i saw that you were going to buy a diamond and i didn't want you to why not because i want to present you with a beautiful stone that will answer your purpose as well or better than
i hope no one was made to suffer for what may have been my imprudence no the lad whom mister track caught was let go but how did you happen to come to shopton to see you
i got your address from the owner of the yacht resolute i knew that if there was one person who could aid me to recover my rights it would be you tom swift will you help me will you come with me to discover the secret of phantom mountain
if we go it will have to be in an airship for in no other way i think can we come upon the place as it is closely guarded will you come i will pay you well perhaps i had better hear your story said the young inventor
but first let me suggest that we move farther away from the house my father or mister jackson or the housekeeper may hear us talking and it may disturb them come with me to my private shop and tom led the way to a small building where he did experimental work
he unlocked the door with a key he carried turned on the lights which were run by a storage battery and motioned mister jenks to a seat now i'll hear your story said tom i'll make it as short as possible went on the queer man
i was touched by the man's appearance and gave him some money he asked for my card saying he would repay me some day i gave it to him little thinking i would hear from the man again but i did
he called at my apartments about a week later saying he had secured work as an expert setter of diamonds and wanted to repay me i did not want to take his money but the fact that such a sorry looking specimen of manhood as he had been when i aided him was an expert handler of gems interested me
i talked with the man and he made a curious statement this man who gave his name as enos folwell said he knew a place where diamonds could be made partly in a scientific manner and partly by the forces of nature
i laughed at him but he told me so many details that i began to believe him he said he and some other friends of his who were diamond cutters had a plant in the midst of the rocky mountains where they had succeeded in making several small
but very perfect diamonds they had come to the end of their rope though so to speak because they could not afford to buy the materials needed folwell said that he and his companions had temporarily separated
they had all agreed to go out into civilization and work for enough funds to enable them to go on with their diamond making i hardly knew whether to believe the man or not but he offered proof he had several small but very perfect diamonds with him
and he gave them to me to have tested in any way i desired i promised to look into the matter and as i was quite wealthy as in fact i am now and if i found that the stones he gave me were real i said i might invest some money in the plant were the diamonds good
asked tom who was beginning to be interested they were stones of the first water though small an expert gem merchant to whom i took them said he had never seen any diamonds like them and he wanted to know where i got them
of course i did not tell him to make a long story short i saw folwell again told him to communicate with his companions and to tell them that i would agree to supply the cash needed if i could share in the diamond making to this they agreed
but the exact location is a mystery that is why i need your help you will soon understand the reason well as i said myself folwell and the others who were not exactly prepossessing sort of men started west
when we got to a small town called indian ridge near leadville colorado the men insisted that i must now proceed in secret and consent to be blindfolded as they were not yet ready to reveal the secret of the place where they made the diamonds
i did not want to agree to this but they insisted and i gave in foolishly perhaps at any rate i was blindfolded one night placed in a wagon and we drove off into the mountains
after traveling for some distance i was led still blindfolded up a steep trail when the bandage was taken off my eyes i saw that i was in a large cave the men were with me and they apologized for the necessity that caused them to blindfold me
they said they were ready to proceed with the making of diamonds but i must promise not to seek to discover the secret until they gave me permission nor was i to attempt to leave the cave i had to agree next they demanded that i give them a large sum
which i had promised when they showed me conclusively that they could make diamonds i refused to do this until i had seen some of the precious stones and they agreed that this was fair but said i would have to wait a few days well i waited
i was taken into a small chamber of the cave and there saw quite a complicated apparatus part of it was a great steel box with a lever on it we will let you make some diamonds for yourself folwell said to me
and he directed me to pull the lever of the box at a certain signal the signal came just as a terrific crash of thunder shook the very mountain inside of which we were the box of steel got red hot and when it cooled off it was opened
and was given a handful of white stones were they diamonds asked tom eagerly mister jenks held out one hand in the palm glittered a large stone ostensibly a diamond
in the rays of the moon it showed all the colors of the rainbow a beautiful gem that is one of the stones i made or rather that i supposed i had made went on mister jenks it is one of several i have
that was my undoing how as soon as the men got the cash they had no further use for me the next i remember is eating a rude meal while we discussed the future of making diamonds
i knew nothing more until i found myself back in the small hotel at indian ridge whence i had gone some time previous with the men to the cave in the mountain what happened asked tom much surprised by the unexpected outcome of the affair
i had been tricked that was all as soon as the men had my money they had no further use for me they did not want me to learn the secret of their diamond making and they drugged me carried me away from the cave and left me in the hotel didn't you try to find the cave again
i did but without avail i spent some time in the rockies but no one could tell where phantom mountain was in fact few had heard of it and i was nearly lost searching for it i came back east determined to get even
i had given the men a very large sum of money and in exchange they had given me several diamonds probably the stones are worth nearly as much as the money i invested but i was cheated for i was promised an equal share in the profits these were denied me
and i was tricked i determined to be revenged or at least to discover the secret of making diamonds it is my right i agree with you spoke tom
but up to the time i met you on earthquake island i could form no plan for discovering phantom mountain and learning the secret of the diamond makers went on mister jenks
as you doubtless saw when we were on the island but i knew i needed an airship in which to fly over the mountains and pick out the location of the cave where the diamonds are made but how can you locate it if you were blindfolded when you were taken there mister jenks
i forgot to tell you that on our journey into the mountains and just before i was carried into the cave i managed to raise one corner of the bandage i caught a glimpse of a very peculiarly shaped cliff it is like a great head
standing out in bold relief against the moonlight when i saw it that head of rock is near the cave it may be the landmark by which we can locate phantom mountain perhaps admitted the young inventor what i want to know is this
went on mister jenks will you go with me on this quest go in your airship to discover the secret of the diamond makers if you will i will share with you whatever diamonds we can discover or make besides paying all expenses
will you go tom swift the young inventor did not know what to answer how far was mister jenks to be trusted were the stones he had real diamonds was his story fantastical as it sounded true
i intended it for you anyhow for what you did for me on earthquake island take it and and give it to the person for whom you were about to purchase a diamond to night
he informed them that there was nothing to debate they were confronted with an accomplished fact which they must accept so nikkolon made a speech telling them at what a great moment in adityan history they stood and concluded by saying
i take it that it is the unanimous will of this convocation that the sovereignty of the galactic emperor be acknowledged
do here proclaim our loyal allegiance to his imperial majesty rodrik the third any dissent then it is ordered so recorded then he had to make another speech
to inform the representatives of his new sovereign of the fact prince trevannion in the name of the emperor delivered the well worn words of welcome and
and the imperial proconsul obray count erskyll was crowned erskyll's charge d'affaires sharll ernanday produced the scroll of the imperial constitution and erskyll began to read
section one the universality of the empire the absolute powers of the emperor the rules of succession the emperor also to be planetary king of odin section two
every planetary government to be sovereign in its own internal affairs only one sovereign government upon any planet or within normal space travel distance all hyperspace ships and all nuclear weapons
no planetary government shall make war enter into any alliance tax regulate or restrain interstellar trade or communication every sapient being shall be equally protected
then he came to article six he cleared his throat raised his voice and read there shall be no chattel slavery or serfdom anywhere in the empire no sapient being of any race whatsoever
shall be the property of any being but himself the convocation chamber was silent like a bomb with a defective fuse for all of thirty seconds
like a tropical cloudburst on a prefab hut olvir nikkolon's mouth was working as he shouted unheard he pressed another of the row of buttons on the arm of his chair out of the screen speaker a voice
as loud by actual sound meter test as an anti vehicle gun thundered silence into the shocked stillness which it produced he spoke
like a schoolmaster who has returned to find his room in an uproar lord nikkolon what is this nonsense you are chairman of the presidium
you tricked us nikkolon accused you didn't tell us about that article when we voted why our whole society is based on slavery other voices joined in that's all right for you people you have robots
maybe you don't know it but there are twenty million slaves on this planet look you can't free slaves that's ridiculous a slave's a slave who'll do the work and who would they belong to they'd have to belong to somebody
what i want to know rovard javasan made himself heard is how are you going to free them there was an ancient word originating in one of the lost languages of pre atomic terra
it meant the basic fundamental question
of course obray count erskyll planetary proconsul of aditya didn't realize that he didn't even know what javasan meant just free them commodore vann shatrak couldn't see much of a problem either he would have answered
just free them and then shoot down the first two or three thousand who took it seriously jurgen prince trevannion had no intention whatever of attempting to answer the sixtifor my dear lord javasan
that is the problem of the adityan mastership they are your slaves we have neither the intention nor the right to free them but let me remind you that slavery is specifically prohibited by the imperial constitution
a few looked apprehensively at the ceiling as though expecting the hellburners and planet busters and nega matter bombs at any moment then one of the members among the benches rose we don't know how we are going to do it prince trevannion he said
will do it since this is the empire law but you will have to tell us how well the first thing will have to be an act of convocation outlawing the ownership of one being by another
that need not be too immediate then i would suggest that you set up some agency to handle all the details and as soon as you have enacted the abolition of slavery which should be this afternoon
i hope for the last time that we discuss matters directly without intermediaries we don't want any more slaves pardon freedmen coming aboard to talk for you as happened yesterday obray count erskyll was unhappy about it
to fix a broken mouse trap line commodore vann shatrak was also worried he was wondering how long it would take for pyairr ravney to make useful troops out of the newly surrendered slave soldiers
and where he was going to find contragravity to shift them expeditiously from trouble spot to trouble spot erskyll thought he was anticipating resistance on the part of the masters and for once he approved the use of force
beginning with the pre dinner cocktails and continuing through the meal by the time they retired for coffee and brandy to the parlor where the conference was to be held the lords ex masters were almost friendly we've enacted the emancipation act
olvir nikkolon who was ex officio chairman of the committee reported every slave on the planet must be free before the opening of the next midyear feasts and when will that be aditya he knew had a three hundred and fifty eight day year
even if the midyear feasts were just past they were giving themselves very little time in about a hundred and fifty days nikkolon said good heavens erskyll began indignantly
and you have twenty million slaves to deal with if you start at this moment and work continuously you'll have a little under a second apiece for each slave the lords master looked dismayed so he was happy to observe
rovard javasan assured him that's your management isn't it sesar servile affairs yes we have complete data on every slave on the planet
javasan said i must say they are much disturbed well reassure them as soon as you're back at the citadel he told them tell them that while they are now free they need not leave you unless they so desire that you will provide for them as before
you mean we can keep our chief slaves somebody cried yes of course chief freedmen you'll have to call them now you'll have to pay them a salary you mean give them money
ranal valdry the lord provost marshal demanded incredulously pay our own slaves you idiot somebody told him they aren't our slaves any more that's the whole point of this discussion
the unit was the star piece the stelly when he asked to see some of it they were indignant nobody carried money wasn't masterly a master never even touched the stuff that was what slaves were for
he wanted to know how it was secured and they didn't know what he meant and when he tried to explain their incomprehension deepened it seemed that the mastership issued money to finance itself
and individual masters issued money on their personal credit and it was handled through the mastership banks that's fedrig daffysan's management he isn't here rovard javasan said i can't explain it myself
it's getting awful rough walking said dorothy as they trudged along button bright gave a deep sigh and said he was hungry indeed all were hungry and thirsty too for they had eaten nothing but the apples since breakfast
so their steps lagged and they grew silent and weary at last they slowly passed over the crest of a barren hill and saw before them a line of green trees with a strip of grass at their feet
an agreeable fragrance was wafted toward them our travelers hot and tired ran forward on beholding this refreshing sight and were not long in coming to the trees here they found a spring of pure bubbling water
around which the grass was full of wild strawberry plants their pretty red berries ripe and ready to eat some of the trees bore yellow oranges and some russet pears
so the hungry adventurers suddenly found themselves provided with plenty to eat and to drink they lost no time in picking the biggest strawberries and ripest oranges and soon had feasted to their hearts content
walking beyond the line of trees they saw before them a fearful dismal desert everywhere gray sand at the edge of this awful waste
and the letters made these words all persons are warned not to venture upon this desert for the deadly sands will turn any living flesh to dust in an instant
beyond this barrier is the land of oz but no one can reach that beautiful country because of these destroying sands oh said dorothy when the shaggy man had read the sign aloud
i've seen this desert before and it's true no one can live who tries to walk upon the sands then we musn't try it answered the shaggy man thoughtfully
i wish father would come for me sighed the pretty rainbow's daughter i would take you all to live upon the rainbow where you could dance along its rays from morning till night without a care or worry of any sort
but i suppose father's too busy just now to search the world for me don't want to dance said button bright sitting down wearily upon the soft grass it's very good of you polly said dorothy
but there are other things that would suit me better than dancing on rainbows i'm fraid they'd be kind of soft an squashy under foot anyhow although they're so pretty to look at this didn't help to solve the problem
just as if he could not tell either what to do button bright got a stick and began to dig in the earth and the others watched him for a while in deep thought finally the shaggy man said
it's nearly evening now so we may as well sleep in this pretty place and get rested perhaps by morning we can decide what is best to be done there was little chance to make beds for the children
long after the others were asleep however the shaggy man sat in the starlight by the spring gazing thoughtfully into its bubbling waters suddenly he smiled and nodded to himself
as if he had found a good thought after which he too laid himself down under a tree and was soon lost in slumber in the bright morning sunshine as they ate of the strawberries and sweet juicy pears dorothy said
polly can you do any magic no dear answered polychrome shaking her dainty head you ought to know some magic being the rainbow's daughter continued dorothy earnestly
replied polychrome what i'd like said dorothy is to find some way to cross the desert to the land of oz and its emerald city i've crossed it already you know more than once first a cyclone carried my house over
and some silver shoes brought me back again in half a second then ozma took me over on her magic carpet and the nome king's magic belt took me home that time
and we can't spect a cyclone to happen along and take us to the emerald city now no indeed returned polly with a shudder i hate cyclones anyway
said the little kansas girl i'm sure i can't and i'm sure button bright can't and the only magic the shaggy man has is the love magnet which won't help us much don't be too sure of that my dear
spoke the shaggy man a smile on his donkey face i may not be able to do magic myself but i can call to us a powerful friend who loves me because i own the love magnet
and this friend surely will be able to help us who is your friend asked dorothy
what can johnny do anything answered the shaggy man with confidence ask him to come she exclaimed eagerly the shaggy man took the love magnet from his pocket and unwrapped the paper that surrounded it
holding the charm in the palm of his hand he looked at it steadily and said these words dear johnny dooit come to me i need you bad as bad can be
well here i am said a cheery little voice but you shouldn't say you need me bad cause i'm always always good at this they quickly whirled around to find a funny little man sitting on a big copper chest
puffing smoke from a long pipe his hair was grey his whiskers were grey and these whiskers were so long that he had wound the ends of them around his waist and tied them in a hard knot underneath the leather apron
that reached from his chin nearly to his feet and which was soiled and scratched as if it had been used a long time his nose was broad and stuck up a little
and dorothy thought johnny dooit looked as if he had done a lot of hard work in his lifetime good morning johnny said the shaggy man thank you for coming to me so quickly i never waste time said the newcomer promptly
but what's happened to you where did you get that donkey head really i wouldn't have known you at all shaggy man if i hadn't looked at your feet the shaggy man introduced johnny dooit to dorothy and toto and button bright and the rainbow's daughter
and told him the story of their adventures adding that they were anxious now to reach the emerald city in the land of oz where dorothy had friends who would take care of them and send them safe home again but
said he we find that we can't cross this desert which turns all living flesh that touches it into dust so i have asked you to come and help us johnny dooit puffed his pipe
you must ride he said briskly what in asked the shaggy man in a sand boat which has runners like a sled and sails like a ship the wind will blow you swiftly across the desert
and the sand cannot touch your flesh to turn it into dust good cried dorothy clapping her hands delightedly that was the way the magic carpet took us across we didn't have to touch the horrid sand at all
asked the shaggy man looking all around him i'll make you one said johnny dooit as he spoke
he knocked the ashes from his pipe and put it in his pocket then he unlocked the copper chest and lifted the lid and dorothy saw it was full of shining tools of all sorts and shapes johnny dooit moved quickly now
so quickly that they were astonished at the work he was able to accomplish he had in his chest a tool for everything he wanted to do and these must have been magic tools because they did their work so fast and so well
the man hummed a little song as he worked and dorothy tried to listen to it she thought the words were something like these
whatever johnny dooit was singing he was certainly doing things and they all stood by and watched him in amazement he seized an axe and in a couple of chops felled a tree
next he took a saw and in a few minutes sawed the tree trunk into broad long boards he then nailed the boards together into the shape of a boat about twelve feet long and four feet wide
he cut from another tree a long slender pole which when trimmed of its branches and fastened upright in the center of the boat served as a mast
arranging it so it could be raised or lowered upon the mast dorothy fairly gasped with wonder to see the thing grow so speedily before her eyes and both button bright and polly looked on with the same absorbed interest
it ought to be painted said johnny dooit tossing his tools back into the chest for that would make it look prettier but though i can paint it for you in three seconds it would take an hour to dry and that's a waste of time
we don't care how it looks said the shaggy man if only it will take us across the desert it will do that declared johnny dooit all you need worry about is tipping over did you ever sail a ship
though he did indeed deserve to be more than despised he moaned at first billy did not speak or even vouchsafe a glance in his direction very quietly she went about her preparations for a simple meal
paying apparently no more attention to bertram
but that her ears were only seemingly and not really deaf was shown very clearly a little later when at a particularly abject wail on the part of the babbling shadow at her heels billy choked into a little gasp
half laughter half sob it was all over then bertram had her in his arms in a twinkling while to the floor clattered and rolled a knife and a half peeled baked potato naturally after that
there could be no more dignified silences on the part of the injured wife there were instead half smiles tears sobs a tremulous telling of pete's going and his messages
followed by a tearful listening to bertram's story of the torture he had endured at the hands of miss winthrop bessie bailey and an empty dinnerless house and thus in one corner of the kitchen some time later
the half peeled cold baked potato still at their feet torn between his craving for food and his desire not to interfere with any possible peace making william was obviously hesitating what to do when billy glanced up and saw him
with not a thing to eat yet they all got dinner then together with many a sigh and quick coming tear as everywhere they met some sad reminder of the gentle old hands that would never again minister to their comfort
it was a silent meal and little after all was eaten though brave attempts at cheerfulness and naturalness were made by all three
bertram especially talked and tried to make sure that the shadow on billy's face was at least not the one his own conduct had brought there for you do you surely do forgive me don't you he begged
as he followed her into the kitchen after the sorry meal was over why yes dear yes sighed billy trying to smile and you'll forget there was no answer billy and you'll forget bertram's voice was insistent reproachful
billy changed color and bit her lip she looked plainly distressed billy cried the man still more reproachfully but bertram i can't forget quite yet faltered billy
bertram frowned for a minute he looked as if he were about to take up the matter seriously and argue it with her but the next moment he smiled and tossed his head with jaunty playfulness bertram to tell the truth
and manlike he was very ardently longing for the old easy going friendliness with all unpleasantness banished to oblivion oh but you'll have to forget he claimed with cheery insistence for you've promised to forgive me
and one can't forgive without forgetting so there he finished with a smilingly determined now everything is just as it was before air billy made no response
if you would tend to your husband and your home a little more and go gallivanting off with calderwell and arkwright and alice greggory a little less it seemed now that always for evermore they would ring in her ears
always for evermore they would burn deeper and deeper into her soul and not once in all bertram's apologies had he referred to them those words he had uttered he had not said he did not mean them
when billy went up stairs that night she ran across her talk to young wives in her desk with a half stifled cry she thrust it far back out of sight i hate you i hate you
she whispered fiercely well i've brushed' and now see what i've got for it later however after bertram was asleep billy crept out of bed and got the book under the carefully shaded lamp in the adjoining room
eliza spent only about half of each day at the strata this much to her distress left many of the household tasks for her young mistress to perform billy however attacked each new duty with a feverish eagerness
that seemed to make the performance of it very like some glad penance done for past misdeeds and when on the day after they had laid the old servant in his last resting place
and would need her care billy promptly told eliza to stay as long as was necessary that they could get along all right without her but billy what are we going to do bertram demanded when he heard the news we must have somebody
i'm going to do it nonsense as if you could scoffed bertram billy lifted her chin couldn't i indeed she retorted do you realize young man how much i've done the last three days
how about those muffins you had this morning for breakfast and that cake last night
than that date puff yesterday noon bertram laughed and shrugged his shoulders my dear love i'm not questioning your ability to do it he soothed quickly still he added with a whimsical smile
as he noted the rebellious gleam coming into his young wife's eyes you'd know you couldn't do it if you'd just stop to think there's the carletons coming to dinner monday and my studio tea to morrow to say nothing of the symphony and the opera
and the concerts you'd lose because you were too dead tired to go to them you know how it was with that concert yesterday afternoon which alice greggory wanted you to go to with her i didn't want to go choked billy under her breath
writing stammered billy still half under her breath of course you haven't triumphed bertram you've been too dead tired and that's just what i say billy you can't do it all yourself but i want to
bertram however was not hearing it evidently indeed he seemed never to have heard it much less to have spoken it tend to things he laughed lightly well you'll have enough to do to tend to the maid i fancy
anyhow we're going to have one i'll just step into one of those what do you call em intelligence offices on my way down and send one up he finished as he gave his wife a good by kiss
an hour later billy struggling with the broom and the drawing room carpet was called to the telephone
billy for heaven's sake take pity on me won't you put on your duds and come and engage your maid yourself why bertram what's the matter matter holy smoke well i've been to three of those intelligence offices
i've cheerfully divulged all our family secrets promised every other half hour out
billy will you come maybe you can do something with them i'm sure you can why of course i'll come chirped billy where shall i meet you bertram gave the street and number good i'll be there promised billy as she hung up the receiver
quite forgetting the broom in the middle of the drawing room floor billy tripped up stairs to change her dress
in a dramatic not in a narrative form with incidents arousing pity and fear wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions
and by the kinds separately i mean that some portions are worked out with verse only and others in
and in the second melody and diction these two being the means of their imitation here by diction i mean merely this the composition of the verses and by melody what is too completely understood to require explanation
since it is from these that we ascribe certain qualities to their actions there are in the natural order of things therefore two causes character and thought
of their actions and consequently of their success or failure in their lives now the action that which was done is represented in the play by the fable or plot the fable
characters diction thought spectacle and melody two of them arising from the means one from the manner and three from the objects of the dramatic imitation
and there is nothing else besides these six of these its formative elements
not a few of the dramatists have made due use as every play one may say admits of spectacle character fable diction melody and thought
the most important of the six is the combination of the incidents of the story tragedy is essentially an imitation not of persons but of action and life of happiness and misery
that we are happy or the reverse in a play accordingly they do not act in order to portray the characters they include the characters for the sake of the action
the tragedies of most of the moderns are characterless a defect common among poets of all kinds and with its counterpart in painting
polygnotus for whereas the latter is strong in character the work of zeuxis is devoid of it and again one may string together a series of characteristic speeches of the utmost finish as regards diction and thought
and yet fail to produce the true tragic effect but one will have much better success with a tragedy which however inferior in these respects has a plot a combination of incidents in it
with the construction of a story and the same may be said of nearly all the early dramatists we maintain therefore that the first essential the life and soul so to speak of tragedy is the plot
and that the characters come second compare the parallel in painting where the most beautiful colours laid on without order will not give one the same pleasure as a simple black and white sketch of a portrait
we maintain that tragedy is primarily an imitation of action and that it is mainly for the sake of the action that it imitates the personal agents third comes the element of thought
or what is appropriate to the occasion
for the older poets make their personages discourse like statesmen and the moderns like rhetoricians
where that is not obvious hence there is no room for character in a speech on a purely indifferent subject thought on the other hand is shown in all they say when proving or disproving some particular point
though an attraction is the least artistic of all the parts and has least to do with the art of poetry the tragic effect is quite possible without a public performance and actors
costumier than the poet
an end is that which is naturally after something itself either as its necessary or usual consequent and with nothing else after it and a middle that which is by nature after one thing
and has also another after it a well constructed plot therefore cannot either begin or end at any point one likes beginning and end in it must be of the forms just described
again to be beautiful a living creature and every whole made up of parts must not only present a certain order in its arrangement of parts but also be of a certain definite magnitude
beauty is a matter of size and order and therefore impossible either one in a very minute creature since our perception becomes indistinct as it approaches instantaneity or two
a size to be taken in by the eye so a story or plot must be of some length but of a length to be taken in by the memory as for the limit of its length so far as that is relative to public performances and spectators
the limit however set by the actual nature of the thing is this the longer the story consistently with its being comprehensible as a whole the finer it is by reason of its magnitude as a rough general formula
a length which allows of the hero passing by a series of probable or necessary stages from misfortune to happiness or from happiness to misfortune may suffice as a limit for the magnitude of the story
the unity of a plot does not consist as some suppose in its having one man as its subject an infinity of things befall that one man some of which it is impossible to reduce to unity
the story also of heracles must be one story homer however evidently understood this point quite well whether by art or instinct just in the same way as he excels the rest in every other respect
in writing an odyssey he did not make the poem cover all that ever befell his hero it befell him for instance to get wounded on parnassus and also to feign madness at the time of the call to arms
but the two incidents had no probable or necessary connexion with one another instead of doing that he took an action with a unity of the kind we are describing as the subject of the odyssey as also of the iliad
with its several incidents so closely connected that the transposal or withdrawal
thou must know that a certain widow fair young independent and rich and above all free and easy fell in love with a sturdy strapping young lay brother his superior came to know of it
and one day said to the worthy widow by way of brotherly remonstrance i am surprised senora and not without good reason that a woman of such high standing so fair and so rich as you are
should have fallen in love with such a mean low stupid fellow as so and so when in this house there are so many masters graduates and divinity students from among whom you might choose as if they were a lot of pears saying this one i'll take
that i won't take but she replied to him with great sprightliness and candour my dear sir you are very much mistaken and your ideas are very old fashioned if you think that i have made a bad choice in so and so
as the most exalted princess on earth it is not to be supposed that all those poets who sang the praises of ladies under the fancy names they give them had any such mistresses
nothing of the kind they only invent them for the most part to furnish a subject for their verses and that they may pass for lovers or for men valiant enough to be so
and so it suffices me to think and believe that the good aldonza lorenzo is fair and virtuous and as to her pedigree it is very little matter for no one will examine into it for the purpose of conferring any order upon her
and i for my part reckon her the most exalted princess in the world for thou shouldst know sancho if thou dost not know that two things alone beyond all others are incentives to love and these are great beauty and a good name
and these two things are to be found in dulcinea in the highest degree for in beauty no one equals her and in good name few approach her and to put the whole thing in a nutshell i persuade myself that all i say is as i say
neither more nor less and i picture her in my imagination as i would have her to be as well in beauty as in condition helen approaches her not nor does lucretia come up to her
nor any other of the famous women of times past greek barbarian or latin and let each say what he will for if in this i am taken to task by the ignorant i shall not be censured by the critical
i say that your worship is entirely right said sancho and that i am an ass but i know not how the name of ass came into my mouth for a rope
is not to be mentioned in the house of him who has been hanged but now for the letter and then god be with you i am off don quixote took out the note book and retiring to one side very deliberately began to write the letter
sovereign and exalted lady the pierced by the point of absence the wounded to the heart's core sends thee sweetest dulcinea del toboso
the health that he himself enjoys not if thy beauty despises me if thy worth is not for me if thy scorn is my affliction though i be sufficiently long suffering hardly shall i endure this anxiety which
if it be thy pleasure to give me relief i am thine if not do as may be pleasing to thee for by ending my life i shall satisfy thy cruelty and my desire
thine till death the knight of the rueful countenance by the life of my father said sancho when he heard the letter
to this effect mistress niece by this first of ass colts please pay to sancho panza my squire three of the five i left at home in your charge said three ass colts to be paid and delivered for the same
that will do said sancho now let your worship sign it there is no need to sign it said don quixote but merely to put my flourish which is the same as a signature and enough for three asses or even three hundred
and i promise thee thou wilt not tell of as many as i mean to perform for the love of god master mine said sancho
but if it is your worship's pleasure that i should see some insanities do them in your clothes short ones and such as come readiest to hand for i myself want nothing of the sort and as i have said it will be a saving of time for my return
which will be with the news your worship desires and deserves if not let the lady dulcinea look to it if she does not answer reasonably
her ladyship had best not drive me to say it for by god i will speak out and let off everything cheap even if it doesn't sell i am pretty good at that she little knows me faith
if she knew me she'd be in awe of me in faith sancho said don quixote to all appearance thou art no sounder in thy wits than i
i am not so mad answered sancho but i am more peppery but apart from all this what has your worship to eat until i come back will you sally out on the road like cardenio to force it from the shepherds
let not that anxiety trouble thee replied don quixote for even if i had it i should not eat anything but the herbs and the fruits which this meadow and these trees may yield me the beauty of this business of mine lies in not eating
observe the landmarks well said don quixote for i will try not to go far from this neighbourhood and i will even take care to mount the highest of these rocks to see if i can discover thee returning
however not to miss me and lose thyself the best plan will be to cut some branches of the broom that is so abundant about here and as thou goest to lay them at intervals until thou hast come out upon the plain
these will serve thee after the fashion of the clue in the labyrinth of theseus as marks and signs for finding me on thy return so i will said sancho panza and having
cut some he asked his master's blessing and not without many tears on both sides took his leave of him
have as much care as of his own person he set out for the plain strewing at intervals the branches of broom as his master had recommended him and so he went his way though don quixote still entreated him to see him
in order to be able to swear without a weight on my conscience that i had seen you do mad things it would be well for me to see if it were only one though in your worship's remaining here i have seen a very great one
did i not tell thee so said don quixote wait sancho and i will do them in the saying of a credo and pulling off his breeches in all haste he stripped himself to his skin and his shirt and then
without more ado he cut a couple of gambados in the air and a couple of somersaults heels over head
and felt easy and satisfied in his mind that he could swear he had left his master mad and so we will leave him to follow his road until his return
at the time when he is constructing his plots and engaged on the diction in which they are worked out the poet should remember one to put the actual scenes as far as possible before his eyes
in this way seeing everything with the vividness of an eye witness as it were he will devise what is appropriate and be least likely to overlook incongruities this is shown by what was censured in
as far as may be too the poet should even act his story with the very gestures of his personages given the same natural qualifications he who feels the emotions to be described will be the most convincing
before proceeding to lengthen it out by the insertion of episodes the following will show how the universal element in iphigenia for instance may be viewed a certain maiden
having been offered in sacrifice and spirited away from her sacrificers into another land where the custom was to sacrifice all strangers to the goddess she was made there the priestess of this rite
long after that the brother of the priestess happened to come the fact however of the oracle having for a certain reason bidden him go thither and his object in going are outside the plot of the play
on his coming he was arrested and about to be sacrificed when he revealed who he was
so i too am doomed to be sacrificed as my sister was and the disclosure led to his salvation this done the next thing after the proper names have been fixed as a basis for the story
is to work in episodes or accessory incidents one must mind however that the episodes are appropriate like the fit of madness in orestes which led to his arrest and the purifying which brought about his salvation
a certain man has been abroad many years poseidon is ever on the watch for him and he is all alone matters at home too have come to this that his substance is being wasted
and his son's death plotted by suitors to his wife then he arrives there himself after his grievous sufferings reveals himself and falls on his enemies and the end is his salvation and their death
this being all that is proper to the odyssey everything else in it is episode
certain also of those within the play forming the complication and the rest the denouement by complication i mean all from the beginning of the story to the point just before the change in the hero's fortunes by
or not the same as another to do so on the ground before all else of their plot
denouement yet there are many dramatists who after a good complication fail in the denouement but it is necessary for both points of construction to be always duly mastered
the fourth constituent is that of spectacle exemplified in the
the poet's aim then should be to combine every element of interest if possible or else the more important and the major part of them this is now especially necessary owing to the unfair criticism to which the poet is subjected in these days
one should also remember what has been said more than once and not write a tragedy on an epic body of incident
by attempting to dramatize for instance the entire story of the iliad in the epic owing to its scale every part is treated at proper length with a drama however on the same story the result is very disappointing
either fail utterly or have but ill success on the stage
yet in their peripeties as also in their simple plots the poets i mean show wonderful skill in aiming at the kind of effect they desire a tragic situation that arouses the human feeling in one like the clever villain
the turns given to the language when spoken
whether the poet knows these things or not his art as a poet is never seriously criticized on that account
which protagoras has criticized as being a command where a prayer was meant since to bid one do or not do he tells us is a command
the letter or ultimate element the syllable the conjunction the article the noun the verb the case and the speech one
indivisible sounds are uttered by the brutes also but no one of these is a letter in our sense of the term these elementary sounds are either vowels semivowels or mutes
a vowel is a letter having an audible sound without the addition of another letter
the letters differ in various ways as produced by different conformations or in different regions of the mouth as aspirated not aspirated or sometimes one and sometimes the other
as long short or of variable quantity and further as having an acute grave or intermediate accent the details of these matters we must leave to the metricians
with an a the various forms of the syllable also belong to the theory of metre three a conjunction is a
a non significant sound which when one significant sound is formable out of several neither hinders nor aids the union and which if the speech
it is to be remembered that in a compound we do not think of the parts as having a significance also by themselves in the name theodorus for instance the doron means nothing to us
or white does not imply when walks and has walked involve in addition to the idea of walking that of time present or time past seven
a case of a noun or verb is when the word means of or to a thing and so forth
of this last kind eight a speech is a composite significant sound some of the parts of which have a certain significance by themselves
it may be observed that a speech is not always made up of noun and verb it may be without a verb like the definition of man but it will always have some part with a certain significance by itself in the speech
cleon walks cleon is an instance of such a part a speech is said to be one in two ways either as signifying one thing or as a union of several speeches made into one by conjunction
of a significant and a non significant part
or of two significant parts it is possible also to have triple quadruple or higher compounds like most of our amplified names
and the like whatever its structure a noun must always be either one the ordinary word for the thing or two a strange word or three a metaphor
though not in reference to the same people sigunos for instance is an ordinary word in cyprus and a strange word with us
that from species to genus in truly ten thousand good deeds has ulysses wrought where ten thousand which is a particular large number is put in place of the generic a large number
d to the third c for one may then metaphorically put b in lieu of d and d in lieu of b now and then too they qualify
b plus c or to take another instance
c so is evening b to day a one will accordingly describe evening b as the old age of the day d plus a or by the
empedoclean equivalent and old age d as the evening or sunset of life b plus c
all that they will be metaphorically described in just the same way thus to cast forth seed
sunlight a as sowing d to the seed corn c hence the expression in the poet sowing around a god created flame d plus a
there is also another form of qualified metaphor having given the thing the alien name one may by a negative addition deny of it one of the attributes naturally associated with its new name
an instance of this would be to call the shield
poleos peleiadeo for peleidon it is said to be curtailed when it has lost a part
p s or in the two compounds of this last p s and x are masculines all ending in the invariably long vowels
h and o and in a among the vowels that may be long are feminines so that there is an equal number of masculine and feminine
and need not be counted there is no noun however ending in a mute or in either of the two short vowels e and o only three
end in i and five in t
chapter thirty four the whip hand spargo almost irritable from desire to get at close grips with the objects of his long journey shook off breton's hand with a growl of resentment
and how on earth can i waste time guessing he exclaimed who is he breton laughed softly steady spargo steady he said it's myerst the safe deposit man myerst
spargo started as if something had bitten him myerst he almost shouted myerst good lord why did i never think of him myerst then i don't know why you should have thought of him said breton but
he's there spargo took a step towards the cottage breton pulled him back wait he said we've got to discuss this i'd better tell you what they're doing what are they doing then demanded spargo impatiently
well answered breton they're going through a quantity of papers the two old gentlemen look very ill and very miserable myerst is evidently laying down the law to them in some fashion or other i've formed a notion spargo
what notion myerst is in possession of whatever secret they have and he's followed them down here to blackmail them that's my notion spargo thought awhile pacing up and down the river bank
i daresay you're right he said now what's to be done breton too considered matters i wish he said at last i wish we could get in there and overhear what's going on
but that's impossible i know that cottage the only thing we can do is this we must catch myerst unawares he's here for no good look here
and reaching round to his hip pocket breton drew out a browning revolver and wagged it in his hand with a smile that's a useful thing to have spargo he remarked i slipped it into my pocket the other day wondering why on earth i did it
now it'll come in handy for anything we know myerst may be armed well said spargo come up to the cottage if things turn out as i think they will myerst when he's got what he wants will be off
now you shall get where i did just now behind that bush and i'll station myself in the doorway you can report to me and when myerst comes out i'll cover him come on spargo it's beginning to get light already
breton cautiously led the way along the river bank making use of such cover as the willows and alders afforded together he and spargo made their way to the front of the cottage arrived at the door
breton posted himself in the porch motioning to spargo to creep in behind the bushes and to look through the window and spargo noiselessly followed his directions and slightly parting the branches which concealed him looked in through the uncurtained glass
the interior into which he looked was rough and comfortless in the extreme there were the bare accessories of a moorland cottage rough chairs and tables plastered walls a fishing rod or two piled in a corner some food set out on a side table
at the table in the middle of the floor the three men sat cardlestone's face was in the shadow myerst had his back to the window old elphick bending over the table was laboriously writing with shaking fingers
and spargo twisted his head round to his companion elphick he said is writing a cheque myerst has another cheque in his hand be ready when he gets that second cheque i guess he'll be off breton smiled grimly and nodded
a moment later spargo whispered again look out breton he's coming breton drew back into the angle of the porch spargo quitted his protecting bush and took the other angle the door opened
and they heard myerst's voice threatening commanding in tone now remember all i've said and don't you forget i've the whip hand of both of you the whip hand
then myerst turned and stepped out into the grey light to find himself confronted by an athletic young man who held the muzzle of an ugly revolver within two inches of the bridge of his nose and in a remarkably firm and steady grip
another glance showed him the figure of a second business like looking young man at his side whose attitude showed a desire to grapple with him good morning mister myerst said breton with cold and ironic politeness
we are glad to meet you so unexpectedly and i must trouble you to put up your hands quick myerst made one hurried movement of his right hand towards his hip but a sudden growl from breton made him shift it just as quickly above his head
whither the left followed it breton laughed softly that's wise mister myerst he said keeping his revolver steadily pointed at his prisoner's nose discretion will certainly be the better part of your valour on this occasion spargo
may i trouble you to see what mister myerst carries in his pockets go through them carefully not for papers or documents just now we can leave that matter we've plenty of time see if he's got a weapon of any sort on him spargo
that's the important thing considering that spargo had never gone through the experience of searching a man before he made sharp and creditable work of seeing what the prisoner carried
and he forthwith drew out and exhibited a revolver while myerst finding his tongue cursed them both heartily and with profusion excellent said breton laughing again sure he's got nothing else on him that's dangerous spargo
all right now mister myerst right about face walk into the cottage hands up and remember there are two revolvers behind your back march myerst obeyed this peremptory order with more curses
the three walked into the cottage breton kept his eye on his captive spargo gave a glance at the two old men cardlestone white and shaking was lying back in his chair elphick
scarcely less alarmed had risen and was coming forward with trembling limbs wait a moment said breton soothingly don't alarm yourself we'll deal with mister myerst here first now myerst my man
sit down in that chair it's the heaviest the place affords into it now spargo you see that coil of rope there tie myerst up hand and foot to that chair and tie him well all the knots to be double spargo and behind him
myerst suddenly laughed you damned young bully he exclaimed if you put a rope round me you're only putting ropes round the necks of these two old villains mark that my fine fellows we'll see about that later answered breton
he kept myerst covered while spargo made play with the rope don't be afraid of hurting him spargo he said tie him well and strong he won't shift that chair in a hurry
spargo spliced his man to the chair in a fashion that would have done credit to a sailor he left myerst literally unable to move either hand or foot and myerst cursed him from crown to heel for his pains
that'll do said breton at last he dropped his revolver into his pocket and turned to the two old men elphick averted his eyes and sank into a chair in the darkest corner of the room
guardian continued breton don't be frightened and don't you be frightened either mister cardlestone there's nothing to be afraid of just yet whatever there may be later on it seems to me that mister spargo and i came just in time
now guardian what was this fellow after old elphick lifted his head and shook it he was plainly on the verge of tears as for cardlestone it was evident that his nerve was completely gone
and breton pointed spargo to an old corner cupboard spargo he said i'm pretty sure you'll find whisky in there give them both a stiff dose they've broken up now guardian he continued
when spargo had carried out this order what was he after shall i suggest it was it blackmail cardlestone began to whimper elphick nodded his head yes
yes he muttered blackmail that was it blackmail he he got money papers from us they're on him breton turned on the captive with a look of contempt i thought as much mister myerst he said
spargo let's see what he has on him spargo began to search the prisoner's pockets he laid out everything on the table as he found it it was plain that myerst had contemplated some sort of flight or a long long journey
there was a quantity of loose gold a number of bank notes of the more easily negotiated denominations various foreign securities realizable in paris
and there was an open cheque signed by cardlestone for ten thousand pounds and another with elphick's name at the foot also open for half that amount breton examined all these matters as spargo handed them out
he turned to old elphick guardian he said
what hold has he on you old cardlestone began to whimper afresh elphick turned a troubled face on his ward he he threatened to accuse us of the murder of marbury he faltered
we we didn't see that we had a chance what does he know of the murder of marbury and of you in connection with it demanded breton come tell me the truth now he's been investigating so he says answered elphick
he lives in that house in middle temple lane you know in the top floor rooms above cardlestone's and and he says he's the fullest evidence against cardlestone and against me as an accessory after the fact and it's a lie
asked breton a lie answered elphick of course it's a lie but he's so clever that that that you don't know how you could prove it otherwise said breton ah
and so this fellow lives over mister cardlestone there does he that may account for a good many things now we must have the police here he sat down at the table and drew the writing materials to him look here spargo he continued
i'm going to write a note to the superintendent of police at hawes there's a farm half a mile from here where i can get a man to ride down to hawes with the note now if you want to send a wire to the watchman draft it out and he'll take it with him
elphick began to move in his corner must the police come he said must the police must come answered breton firmly go ahead with your wire spargo while i write this note
three quarters of an hour later when breton came back from the farm he sat down at elphick's side and laid his hand on the old man's now guardian he said quietly
it was a tired and homesick little girl that mister merrithew helped out of the coach and led up the steps of his house about a fortnight after our story opens the journey from montreal had been long and lonely
the parting from her parents hard and the thought of meeting the unknown relatives had weighed upon her mind and helped to make her unusually subdued but when the door of the big brick house
which had been named by the neighbours when it was the only brick house on the street and the largest one in town opened and her aunt's motherly arms closed around her while marjorie's rosy laughing face and jackie's fair cherubic one beamed on her in greeting
her spirits began to revive the greeting was so warm and kind and the joy at her coming so genuine that her fatigue seemed turned as by magic to a pleasant restfulness
and her homesickness was lost in this bright home atmosphere missus merrithew took the little newcomer to her room had her trunks settled conveniently and then left her to prepare for the late tea which was waiting for them all
when dora was ready she sat down in the little armchair that stood near a table piled with books and looked about her contentedly there was an air of solid comfort and cosiness about this house that rested her
this room which her aunt had told her was just opposite marjorie's was all furnished in the softest shades of brown and blue her favourite colours the carpet was brown with a very small spray of blue here and there
the wallpaper was lighter almost creamy brown with a dainty harebell pattern and the curtains had a rich brown background with various persian stripes
the bed to her great delight had a top piece and a canopy of blue flowered chintz and the little dressing table was draped to match it just over the side of the bed was a book shelf quite empty
while she sat and looked about in admiration the door was pushed gently open and a plump maltese kitten came in gazed at her doubtfully a moment and then climbed on her lap
then marjorie's bright face appeared at the door and may i come in she asked oh please do dora cried kitty has made friends with me already
and i think that must be a good omen marjorie laughed as she patted the little bunch of blue gray fur in dora's lap jackie has made friends with you already she said
and i think that is a better omen still he told mother he thought you were the beautifulest girl he ever saw dora's eyes opened wide with astonishment
let alone beautifulest what a dear boy jack must be
and marjorie obeying one of her sudden impulses threw her arms around dora's neck and gave her a cousinly hug you and i will be friends too she said i knew it as soon as i looked at you
dora's dark brown eyes looked gravely into marjorie's blue ones she seemed to be taking the proposition very seriously
i have always wished for a real friend or a twin sister she said thoughtfully the twin sister is an impossibility and i have never before seen a girl that i wanted for a great great friend
but you ah yes you are like my father and besides we are cousins and that makes us understand each other let us be friends
she held out her hand with a little gesture which reminded marjorie that this pale dark haired cousin was the descendant of many french grandes dames she clasped the slender hand with her own plump fingers
and shook it heartily so in girlish romance and sudden resolution the little maids sealed a compact which was never broken and began a friendship which lasted and grew in beauty and strength all through their lives
at the breakfast table the next morning there was a merry discussion as to what should be done first to amuse dora jackie who had invited her to sit beside him and beamed at her approvingly over his porridge and cream
suggested a walk to his favourite candy store and the purchase of some sticks of pure chocolate marjorie proposed a picnic at old government house
this was approved of but postponed for a day or two to allow for preparations and invitations mister merrithew said let us go shooting bears
but even jackie did not second this astounding proposition as usual it was mother who offered the most feasible plan suppose this morning she said you just help dora unpack
and make her thoroughly at home in the house and garden then this afternoon perhaps your father will take you for a walk and show dora the house where missus ewing lived and any other interesting places
that would do for to day wouldn't it then day after to morrow we could have the picnic and for the next week i have a magnificent idea but i want to talk it over with your father
and she nodded and smiled at that gentleman in a way which made him almost as curious as the children that's the way with mother marjorie said to dora after breakfast she never ends things up
there is always another lovely plan just ahead no matter how many you know about already and mister merrithew who overheard the remark thought that perhaps this was part of the secret of his wife's unfailing youthfulness
both in looks and spirits the walk that afternoon was one which dora always remembered mister merrithew had as jackie said the splendidest way of splaining things
and found something of interest to relate about almost every street of the little city they went through the beautiful cathedral and he told them how it had been built through the earnest efforts of the well known and venerated bishop medley
who was afterward metropolitan of canada then they wandered down the street along the river and saw the double house where missus ewing
as they are in england lived for a time
rika dom which means river house and had written in many of her letters of the beautiful river on which it looked and the gnarled old willows on the bank just in front of her windows these willows she had often sketched
and dora carried away a spray of the pale gray green leaves in memory of her favourite story writer it was one of dora's ambitions kept secret hitherto but now confided to marjorie to write stories
something like missus ewing's they saw too the picturesque cottage in which a certain quaint old lady had attained to the ripe age of a hundred and six years a record of which fredericton was justly proud
this venerable dame had been addicted to the unlimited eating of apples and her motto she was not a grammatical old lady had been according to tradition apples never hurts nobody
they spent some time in the legislative library where was enshrined a treasure in the shape of a magnificent copy of audubon's books of birds then in the departmental buildings near by
there was a small but well arranged museum of stuffed birds and beasts all canadian and most of them from new brunswick there were other things too to see and many anecdotes to hear
so that it was a somewhat tired though happy and hungry party which trudged home just in time for tea and such a tea suited to hearty outdoor appetites born of the good canadian air
there were fresh eggs made into a white and golden omelette by missus merrithew's own hands for even debby who had cooked for the family all their lives owned that an omelette like missus merrithew's she could not manage
no sir not if i was to cook day and night there was golden honey in the comb there was johnny cake hot and yellow and melting in your mouth
strawberry jam that tasted almost as good as the fresh fruit itself ginger cake dark and rich and spicy milk that was almost cream for the children and steaming fragrant coffee for their elders
it is rather nice to get good and hungry jackie gravely observed that is if you have plenty in the house to eat
i think life would be very dull without meals these philosophical remarks rather astonished dora who was not yet accustomed to the contrast between jack's sage reflections and his tender years
just now they seemed especially funny because he was almost falling asleep while he talked when missus merrithew saw him nodding she rang and the nurse who like debby was a family institution
came in and carried him off in her stalwart arms to his little white bed when his mother stole up a little later to give him a final good night kiss she heard susan singing and paused at the door to listen
now the day is over was ended and then a drowsy voice murmured now susan my very favourite song
chapter twenty nine the social side of edison the title of this chapter might imply that there is an unsocial side to edison in a sense this is true
is likely to realize his utter insignificance and be sent away without accomplishing his object but generally speaking edison is easy tolerance itself
to make any demands on his time man is a social animal and that describes edison but it does not describe accurately the inventor asking to be let alone edison never sought society
but society has never ceased to seek him and to day as ever the pressure upon him to give up his work and receive honors meet distinguished people or attend public functions is intense
only two or three years ago a flattering invitation came from one of the great english universities to receive a degree but at that moment he was deep in experiments on his new storage battery and nothing could budge him
he would not drop the work and while highly appreciative of the proposed honor let it go by rather than quit for a week or two the stern drudgery of probing for the fact and the truth whether one approves or not it is at least admirable stoicism
of which the world has too little a similar instance is that of a visit paid to the laboratory by some one bringing a gold medal from a foreign society
at last edison was overpersuaded and all dirty and perspiring as he was received the medal rather than cause the visitor to come again on one occasion receiving a medal in new york edison forgot it on the ferry boat and left it behind him
a few years ago when edison had received the albert medal of the royal society of arts one of the present authors called at the laboratory to see it nobody knew where it was hours passed before it could be found
and when at last the accompanying letter was produced it had an office date stamp right over the signature of the royal president a visitor to the laboratory with one of these medallic awards asked edison if he had any others oh yes he said i have a couple of quarts more up at the house
all this sounds like lack of appreciation but it is anything else than that while in paris in eighteen eighty nine he wore the decoration of the legion of honor whenever occasion required
but at all other times turned the badge under his lapel because he hated to have fellow americans think he was showing off and any one who knows edison will bear testimony to his utter absence of ostentation
there will be found at glenmont many other signal tokens of esteem and good will a beautiful cigar case from the late tsar of russia bronzes from the government of japan steel trophies from krupp
when the experiments with the light were going on at menlo park sarah bernhardt came to america one evening robert l cutting of new york brought her out to see the light she was a terrific rubberneck
she jumped all over the machinery and i had one man especially to guard her dress she wanted to know everything she would speak in french and cutting would translate into english she stayed there about an hour and a half bernhardt gave me two pictures painted by herself
which she sent me from paris reference has already been made to the callers upon edison and to give simply the names of persons of distinction would fill many pages of this record some were mere consumers of time
others were gladly welcomed like lord kelvin the greatest physicist of the last century with whom edison was always in friendly communication the first time i saw lord kelvin
thereby taking advantage of the rapidity of electricity to perform operations on my local wire i got it to work very nicely when sir william thomson kelvin came in the room
he was introduced to me and had a number of friends with him he said what have you here i told him briefly what it was he then turned around and to my great surprise explained the whole thing to his friends
quite a different exhibition was given two weeks later by another well known englishman also an electrician who came in with his friends and i was trying for two hours to explain it to him and failed after the introduction of the electric light
edison was more than ever in demand socially but he shunned functions like the plague not only because of the serious interference with work but because of his deafness some dinners he had to attend but a man who ate little and heard less
could derive practically no pleasure from them george washington childs was very anxious i should go down to philadelphia to dine with him i seldom went to dinners he insisted i should go that a special car would leave new york
it was for me to meet mister joseph chamberlain we had the private car of mister roberts president of the pennsylvania railroad we had one of those celebrated dinners that only mister childs could give and i heard speeches from charles francis adams and different people
when i came back to the depot mister roberts was there and insisted on carrying my satchel for me i never could understand that among the more distinguished visitors of the electric lighting period was president diaz with whom edison became quite intimate
president diaz of mexico visited this country with missus diaz a highly educated and beautiful woman she spoke very good english they both took a deep interest in all they saw i don't know how it ever came about
but i seemed to be delegated to show them around i took them to railroad buildings electric light plants fire departments and showed them a great variety of things it lasted two days of another visit edison says
sitting bull and fifteen sioux indians came to washington to see the great father and then to new york and went to the goerck street works we could make some very good pyrotechnics there so we determined to give the indians a scare but it didn't work
we had an arc there of a most terrifying character but they never moved a muscle another episode at goerck street did not find the visitors quite so stoical
in testing dynamos at goerck street we had a long flat belt running parallel with the floor about four inches above it and travelling four thousand feet a minute one day one of the directors brought in three or four ladies to the works to see the new electric light system
and a little flat piece of leather came out and the ladies fainted a very interesting period on the social side was the visit paid by edison and his family to europe in eighteen eighty nine
when he had made a splendid exhibit of his inventions and apparatus at the great paris centennial exposition of that year to the extreme delight of the french who welcomed him with open arms
so that the crowned heads were conspicuous by their absence it was not of course by way of theatrical antithesis that edison appeared in paris at such a time but the contrast was none the less striking and effective
it was felt that after all that which the great exposition exemplified at its best the triumph of genius over matter over ignorance over superstition met with its due recognition when edison came to participate
and to felicitate a noble nation that could show so much in the victories of civilization and the arts despite its long trials and its long struggle for liberty it is no exaggeration to say that edison was greeted with the enthusiastic homage of the whole french people
they could find no praise warm enough for the man who had organized the echoes and tamed the lightning and whose career was so picturesque with eventful and romantic development
covered several thousand square feet in the vast machinery hall and was centred around a huge edison lamp built of myriads of smaller lamps of the ordinary size
several instruments were provided and every day all day long while the exposition lasted queues of eager visitors from every quarter of the globe were waiting to hear the little machine talk and sing and reproduce their own voices
never before was such a collection of the languages of the world made it was the first linguistic concourse since babel times we must let edison tell the story of some of his experiences
i made a personal exhibit covering about an acre as i had no intention of offering to sell anything i was showing and was pushing no companies the whole exhibition was made for honor and without any hope of profit
but the paris newspapers came around and wanted pay for notices of it which we promptly refused
the president of france lent me his private box
it seems there is a little hole on the stage with a hood over it in which the prompter sits when opera is given in this instance it was not occupied and i was given the position in the prompter's seat and saw the whole ballet at close range
the city of paris gave me a dinner at the new hotel de ville which was also lighted with the edison system they had a very fine installation of machinery as i could not understand or speak a word of french
i went to see our minister mister whitelaw reid and got him to send a deputy to answer for me which he did with my grateful thanks then the telephone company gave me a dinner and the engineers of france
and i attended the dinner celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of photography then they sent to reid my decoration and they tried to put a sash on me but i could not stand for that my wife had me wear the little red button but when i saw americans coming
in this was a piano when my wife and i arrived at the top we found that gounod the composer was there we stayed a couple of hours and gounod sang and played for us we spent a day at meudon
an old palace given by the government to jansen the astronomer he occupied three rooms and there were three hundred he had the grand dining room for his laboratory he showed me a gyroscope he had got up
which made the incredible number of four thousand revolutions in a second a modification of this was afterward used on the french atlantic lines for making an artificial horizon to take observations for position at sea
and i went and had quite a chat with him i saw a large number of persons being inoculated and also the whole modus operandi which was very interesting
his father was with him he had been bitten in the face and was taking the treatment i said to pasteur will he live no said he
edison has no opinion to offer as an expert on art but has his own standard of taste
and i attended the luxembourg with modern masters which i enjoyed greatly to my mind the old masters are not art and i suspect that many others are of the same opinion and that their value is in their scarcity
and in the variety of men with lots of money somewhat akin to this is a shrewd comment on one feature of the exposition i spent several days in the exposition at paris i remember going to the exhibit of the kimberley diamond mines
and they kindly permitted me to take diamonds from some of the blue earth which they were washing by machinery to exhibit the mine operations i found several beautiful diamonds but they seemed a little light weight to me when i was picking them out they were diamonds for exhibition purposes
probably glass this did not altogether complete the european trip of eighteen eighty nine for edison wished to see helmholtz after leaving paris we went to berlin the french papers then came out and attacked me because i went to germany
when i started from berlin on the trip i began to tell american stories siemens was very fond of these stories and would laugh immensely at them and could see the points and the humor by his imagination but helmholtz could not see one of them
siemens would quickly in german explain the point but helmholtz could not see it although he understood english which siemens could speak still the explanations were made in german
at heidelberg my assistant mister wangemann an accomplished german american showed the phonograph before the association then came the trip from the continent to england of which this will certainly pass as a graphic picture
when i crossed over to england i had heard a good deal about the terrors of the english channel as regards seasickness i had been over the ocean three times and did not know what seasickness was so far as i was concerned myself
i was told that while a man might not get seasick on the ocean if he met a good storm on the channel it would do for him when we arrived at calais to cross over everybody made for the restaurant i did not care about eating
i walked out and tried to find the boat going along the dock i saw two small smokestacks sticking up and looking down saw a little boat where is the steamer that goes across the channel this is the boat
and it certainly looked awful tough outside i said to the man will that boat live in that sea oh yes he said but we've had a bad storm so i made up my mind that perhaps i would get sick this time
the managing director of the english railroad owning this line was forbes who heard i was coming over and placed the private saloon at my disposal the moment my family got in the room with the french lady's maid and the rest
they commenced to get sick so i felt pretty sure i was in for it we started out of the little inlet and got into the channel and that boat went in seventeen directions simultaneously i waited awhile to see what was going to occur and then went into the smoking compartment
nobody was there by and by the fun began sounds of all kinds and varieties were heard in every direction they were all sick there must have been one hundred people aboard
i asked one of the waiters concerning the boat itself and was taken to see the engineer and went down to look at the engines and saw the captain but i kept mostly in the smoking room
and every time they saw that they would go away and begin again the english channel is a holy terror all right but it didn't affect me i must be out of balance while in paris edison had met sir john pender the english cable king
i think he must have lived among a lot of people who were very solemn because i went out riding with him in the bois de boulogne and started in to tell him american stories although he was a scotchman he laughed immoderately
so i went there and spent two or three days telling him stories
and they insisted i should give them some expression of my views while i gave them my opinion it was reluctantly i did not want to do so i thought that commercially the thing was too ambitious that ferranti's ideas were too big just then
and he was no small man incidentally it may be noted here that during the same year eighteen eighty nine the various manufacturing edison lighting interests in america were brought together
and consolidated in the edison general electric company with a capital of no less than twelve million dollars on an eight per cent dividend basis
represented much more than that sum and made a splendid outlet for the product of the factories a few years later came the consolidation with the thomson houston interests in the general electric company which under the brilliant and vigorous management of president c a coffin
has become one of the greatest manufacturing institutions of the country with an output of apparatus reaching toward seventy five million dollars annually the net result of both financial operations was however
was that it separated him from his old friend and ally bergmann who on selling out saw a great future for himself in germany went there and realized it edison has always had an amused admiration for bergmann
and his social side is often made evident by his love of telling stories about those days of struggle some of the stories were told for this volume bergmann came to work for me as a boy says edison he started in on stock quotation printers
as he was a rapid workman and paid no attention to the clock i took a fancy to him and gave him piece work he contrived so many little tools to cheapen the work that he made lots of money
i even helped him get up tools until it occurred to me that this was too rapid a process of getting rid of my money as i hadn't the heart to cut the price when it was originally fair after a year or so
bergmann got enough money to start a small shop in wooster street new york and it was at this shop that the first phonographs were made for sale
finally came the electric light a dynamo was installed in bergmann's shop to permit him to test the various small devices which he was then making for the system he rented power from a jew who owned the building
power was supplied from a fifty horse power engine to other tenants on the several floors soon after the introduction of the big dynamo machine the landlord appeared in the shop and insisted that bergmann was using more power than he was paying for
and said that lately the belt on the engine was slipping and squealing bergmann maintained that he must be mistaken the landlord kept going among his tenants and finally discovered the dynamo
bergmann gave him a withering look of scorn and said come here and i will show you throwing off the belt and disconnecting the wires he spun the armature around by hand there said bergmann you see it's not here that you must look for your loss
he did not know that that machine when the wires were connected could stop his engine soon after the business had grown so large that e h johnson and i went in as partners
and bergmann rented an immense factory building at the corner of avenue b and east seventeenth street new york six stories high and covering a quarter of a block
over fifteen hundred men were finally employed this shop was very successful both scientifically and financially bergmann was a man of great executive ability and carried economy of manufacture to the limit
one need not wonder at edison's reminiscent remark that in any trade any of my boys made with bergmann he always got the best of them no matter what it was one time there was to be a convention of the managers of edison illuminating companies at chicago
i had gotten them immune to it bergmann had won all the money and when the porter came in and said chicago
but perhaps this further story is a better indication of developed humor and shrewdness a man by the name of epstein had been in the habit of buying brass chips and trimmings from the lathes and in some way bergmann found out that he had been cheated
epstein went up to several boxes piled full of chips and so heavy that he could not lift even one end of a box now mister bergmann said epstein how much for the lot
no amount of argument would apparently change bergmann's determination to sell by the pound but finally epstein got up to two hundred fifty dollars for the lot and bergmann appearing as if disgusted accepted and made him count out the money then he said
well epstein good bye i've got to go down to wall street epstein and his assistant then attempted to lift the boxes to carry them out but couldn't and then discovered that calculations as to quantity had been thrown out because the boxes had all been screwed down to the floor
and mostly filled with boards with a veneer of brass chips
as he was such a smart business man and the scheme was so ingenious one day as a joke i filled three or four sheets of foolscap paper with a jumble of figures and told bergmann they were calculations showing the great loss of power from blowing the factory whistle
and never after that would he permit the whistle to blow another glimpse of the social side is afforded in the following little series of pen pictures of the same place and time i had my laboratory at the top of the bergmann works after moving from menlo park
the building was six stories high my father came there when he was eighty years of age the old man had powerful lungs in fact when i was examined by the mutual life insurance company in eighteen seventy three
brings to mind another instance of shrewdness mentioned by edison with regard to his newsboy days being asked whether he did not get imposed upon with bad bank bills he replied that he subscribed to a bank note detector
and consulted it closely whenever a note of any size fell into his hands he was then less than fourteen years old the conversations with edison that elicited these stories brought out some details as to peril that attends experimentation
when i started at menlo i had an electric furnace for welding rare metals that i did not know about very clearly i was in the dark room where i had a lot of chloride of sulphur a very corrosive liquid
i did not know that it would decompose by water i poured in a beakerful of water and the whole thing exploded and threw a lot of it into my eyes i ran to the hydrant leaned over backward opened my eyes
i had used ammonia and bromine i did not know it at the time but i had made bromide of nitrogen i put the large bulk of it in three filters and after it had been washed and all the water had come through the filter
i opened the three filters and laid them on a hot steam plate to dry with the stuff while i and mister sadler one of my assistants were working near it there was a sudden flash of light and a very smart explosion i said to sadler what is that
i grabbed the whole thing and threw it in the sink and poured water on it i saved a little of it and found it was a terrific explosive the reason why those little preliminary explosions took place was that a little had spattered out on the edge of the filter paper
and had dried first and exploded had the main body exploded there would have been nothing left of the laboratory i was working in at another time i had a briquetting machine for briquetting iron ore
within an inch of my nose and went clear through a two inch plank that was within an inch of your life as they say in my experimental plant for concentrating iron ore in the northern part of new jersey we had a vertical drier
so i and the vice president of the company mister mallory crowded through the manhole to see why the ore would not come down after we got in the ore did come down and there were fourteen tons of it above us
the men outside knew we were in there and they had a great time digging us out and getting air to us such incidents brought out in narration the fact that many of the men working with him had been less fortunate
particularly those who had experimented with the roentgen x ray whose ravages like those of leprosy were responsible for the mutilation and death of at least one expert assistant in the early days of work on the incandescent lamp
also there was considerable trouble with mercury i had a series of vacuum pumps worked by mercury and used for exhausting experimental incandescent lamps the main pipe which was full of mercury was about seven and one half feet from the floor
along the length of the pipe were outlets to which thick rubber tubing was connected each tube to a pump one day while experimenting with the mercury pump my assistant an awkward country lad from a farm on staten island
who had adenoids in his nose and breathed through his mouth which was always wide open was looking up at this pipe at a small leak of mercury when the rubber tube came off and probably two pounds of mercury went into his mouth and down his throat and got through his system somehow
in a short time he became salivated and his teeth got loose he went home and shortly his mother appeared at the laboratory with a horsewhip which she proposed to use on the proprietor i was fortunately absent and she was mollified somehow by my other assistants
but it did no good in this case when the first lamp works were started at menlo park one of my experiments seemed to show that hot mercury gave a better vacuum in the lamp than cold mercury i thereupon started to heat it
soon all the men got salivated and things looked serious but i found that in the mirror factories where mercury was used extensively the french government made the giving of iodide of potassium compulsory to prevent salivation
it will have been gathered that edison has owed his special immunity from occupational diseases not only to luck but to unusual powers of endurance and a strong physique inherited no doubt from his father
mister mallory mentions a little fact that bears on this exceptional quality of bodily powers
the army had been very fearful and weak kneed when it first entered the blue country but perceiving that the boolooroo and his people were afraid of them and had locked themselves up in the city the pinkies grew bolder and longed to make an attack
one of them in his curiosity to examine the blue city got a little too near the wall and a blue soldier throw his cord and weight at him the cord didn't wind around the pinkie as he was too far off but the weight hit him in the eye
and made him howl lustily as he trotted back to his comrades at full speed after this experience the invaders were careful to keep a safe distance from the wall the boolooroo having made all preparations to receive the enemy
was annoyed because they held back he was himself so nervous and excited that he became desperate and after an hour of tedious waiting during which time he pranced around impatiently he decided to attack the hated pinkies and rid the country of them
their dreadful color makes me hysterical he said to his soldiers so if i am to have any peace of mind we must charge the foe and drive them back into the fog bank
and to morrow we will have a jolly time patching them don't be afraid those pink creatures have no blue blood in their veins and they'll run like rabbits when they see us coming then he ordered the gate thrown open and immediately the blueskins poured out into the open plain
and began to run toward the pinkies the boolooroo went out too but he kept well behind his people remembering the sharp sticks with which the enemy were armed
the pinkies did not run like rabbits but formed a solid line and knelt down with their long sharp sticks pointed directly toward the blueskins the other ends being set firmly upon the ground
of course the blueskins couldn't run against these sharp points so they halted a few feet away and began to swing their cord and weights but the pinkies were too close together to be caught in this manner and now by command of cap'n bill they suddenly rose to their feet
and began jabbing their sticks at the foe the blueskins hesitated until a few got pricked and began to yell with terror when the whole of the boolooroo's attacking party turned and ran back to the gate their ruler reaching it first of all the pinkies tried to chase them
but their round fat legs were no match for the long thin legs of the blueskins who quickly gained the gate and shut themselves up in the city again it is evident panted the boolooroo
facing his defeated soldiers wrathfully that you are a pack of cowards
i merely ran back to the city to get a drink of water for i was thirsty declared the boolooroo so did we so did we cried the soldiers eagerly we were all thirsty your high and mighty spry and flighty majesty remarked the captain respectfully
it occurs to me that the weapons of the pinkies are superior to our own what we need in order to oppose them successfully is a number of sharp sticks which are longer than their own true true exclaimed the boolooroo enthusiastically
get to work at once and make yourselves long sharp sticks and then we will attack the enemy again so the soldiers and citizens all set to work preparing long sharp sticks and while they were doing this rosalie the witch had a vision
in which she saw exactly what was going on inside the city wall queen trot and cap'n bill and button bright saw the vision too for they were all in the tent together and the sight made them anxious what can be done asked the girl
i have one magic charm said rosalie thoughtfully that will save our army but i am allowed to work only one magic charm every three days not oftener and perhaps i'll need the magic for other things
strikes me ma'am returned the sailor that what we need most on this expedition is to capture the blueskins if we don't we'll need plenty of magic to help us back to the pink country but if we do we can take care of ourselves without magic
very well replied rosalie i will take your advice cap'n and enchant the weapons of the pinkies she then went out and had all the pinkies come before her one by one and she enchanted their sharp sticks
by muttering some cabalistic words and making queer passes with her hands over the weapons now she said to them you will be powerful enough to defeat the blueskins whatever they may do the pinkies were overjoyed at this promise
and it made them very brave indeed since they now believed they would surely be victorious when the boolooroo's people were armed with long thin lances of bluewood all sharpened to fine points at one end
their sticks were twice as long as those of the pinkies and the boolooroo chuckled with glee to think what fun they would have in punching holes in the round fat bodies of his enemies out from the gate they marched very boldly and pressed on to attack the pinkies
who were drawn up in line of battle to receive them with cap'n bill at their head when the opposing forces came together however and the blueskins pushed their points against the pinkies the weapons which had been enchanted by rosalie began to whirl in swift circles
so swift that the eye could scarcely follow the motion the result was that the lances of the boolooroo's people could not touch the pinkies but were thrust aside with violence and either broken in two or sent hurling through the air in all directions
finding themselves so suddenly disarmed the amazed blueskins turned about and ran again while cap'n bill greatly excited by his victory shouted to his followers to pursue the enemy and hobbled after them as fast as he could make his wooden leg go
swinging his sharp stick as he advanced the blues were in such a frightened confused mass that they got in one another's way and could not make very good progress on the retreat so the old sailor soon caught up with them and began jabbing at the crowd with his stick
unfortunately the pinkies had not followed their commander being for the moment dazed by their success so that cap'n bill was all alone among the blueskins when he stepped his wooden leg into a hole in the ground and tumbled full length
his sharp stick flying from his hand and pricking the boolooroo in the leg as it fell at this the ruler of the blues stopped short in his flight to yell with terror but seeing that only the sailorman was pursuing them
and that this solitary foe had tumbled flat upon the ground he issued a command and several of his people fell upon poor cap'n bill seized him in their long arms and carried him struggling into the city where he was fast bound
then a panic fell upon the pinkies at the loss of their leader and trot and button bright called out in vain for them to rescue cap'n bill by the time the army recovered their wits and prepared to obey it was too late
and although trot ran with them in her eagerness to save her friend the gate was found to be fast barred and she knew it was impossible for them to force an entrance into the city so she went sorrowfully back to the camp followed by the pinkies
and asked rosalie what could be done i'm sure i do not know replied the witch i cannot use another magic charm until three days have expired but if they do not harm cap'n bill during that time
three days is a long time remarked trot dismally the boolooroo may decide to patch him at once added button bright with equal sadness for he too mourned the sailor's loss it can't be helped replied rosalie i am not a fairy my dears
but merely a witch and so my magic powers are limited we can only hope that the boolooroo won't patch cap'n bill for three days when night settled down upon the camp of the pinkies where many tents had now been pitched all the invaders were filled with gloom
the band tried to enliven them by playing the dead march but it was not a success the pinkies were despondent in spite of the fact that they had repulsed the attack of the blues for as yet they had not succeeded in gaining the city or finding the magic umbrella
and the blue dusk of this dread country which was so different from their own land of sunsets made them all very nervous they saw the moon rise for the first time in their lives and its cold silvery radiance made them shudder and prevented them from going to sleep
trot tried to interest them by telling them that on the earth the people had both the sun and the moon and loved them both but nevertheless it is certain that had not the terrible fog bank stood between them and the pink land
she was so worried over cap'n bill she went back to the tent where rosalie and button bright were sitting in the moonlight and asked the witch if there was no way in which she could secretly get into the city of the blues and search for her friend
rosalie thought it over for some time and then replied we can make a rope ladder that will enable you to climb to the top of the wall and then you can lower it to the other side and descend into the city but if anyone should see you
you would be captured i'll risk that said the child excited at the prospect of gaining the side of cap'n bill in this adventurous way please make the rope ladder at once rosalie so the witch took some ropes and knotted together a ladder
long enough to reach to the top of the wall when it was finished the three rosalie trot and button bright stole out into the moonlight and crept unobserved into the shadow of the wall the blueskins were not keeping a very close watch
as they were confident the pinkies could not get into the city the hardest part of rosalie's task was to toss up one end of the rope ladder until it would catch on some projection on top of the wall there were few such projections
but after creeping along the wall for a distance they saw the end of a broken flagstaff near the top edge the witch tossed up the ladder trying to catch it upon this point and on the seventh attempt she succeeded good cried trot
now i can climb up don't you want me to go with you asked button bright a little wistfully no said the girl you must stay to lead the army and if you can think of a way you must try to rescue us
perhaps i'll be able to save cap'n bill myself but if i don't it's all up to you button bright i'll do my best he promised and here keep my polly till i come back added trot giving him the bird i can't take it with me
for it would be a bother an if it tried to spout po'try i'd be discovered in a jiffy as the beautiful witch kissed the little girl good bye she slipped upon her finger a curious ring at once button bright exclaimed why where has she gone
i'm right here said trot's voice by his side can't you see me no replied the boy mystified rosalie laughed it's a magic ring i've loaned you my dear said she and as long as you wear it you will be invisible to all eyes
those of blueskins and pinkies alike i'm going to let you wear this wonderful ring for it will save you from being discovered by your enemies if at any time you wish to be seen take the ring from your finger but as long as you wear it no one can see you
not even earth people oh thank you cried trot that will be fine i see you have another ring on your hand said rosalie and i perceive it is enchanted in some way where did you get it
the queen of the mermaids gave it to me answered trot but sky island is so far away from the sea that the ring won't do me any good while i'm here it's only to call the mermaids to me if i need them and they can't swim in the sky you see
rosalie smiled and kissed her again be brave my dear she said and i am sure you will be able to find cap'n bill without getting in danger yourself but be careful not to let any blueskin touch you
keep out of their way and you will be perfectly safe don't lose the ring for you must give it back to me when you return it is one of my witchcraft treasures and i need it in my business then trot climbed the ladder
although neither button bright nor rosalie could see her do so
she pulled up the knotted ropes and began to search for a place to let it down on the other side a little way off she found a bluestone seat near to the inner edge and attaching the ladder to this she easily descended it and found herself in the blue city
a guard was pacing up and down near her but as he could not see the girl he of course paid no attention to her so after marking the place where the ladder hung that she might know how to reach it again
a blue gloom hung over the city which was scarcely relieved by a few bluish wavering lights here and there but trot knew the general direction in which the palace lay and she decided to go there first
she believed the boolooroo would surely keep so important a prisoner as cap'n bill locked up in his own palace once or twice the little girl lost her way for the streets were very puzzling to one not accustomed to them
but finally she sighted the great palace and went up to the entrance there she found a double guard posted they were sitting on a bench outside the doorway and both stood up as she approached we thought we heard footsteps said one
jimfred jonesjinks and fredjim jinksjones who had been talking together quite cheerfully it was the first time the girl had seen them together and she marveled at the queer patching that had so strongly united them yet so thoroughly separated them
you see remarked jimfred as they seated themselves again upon the bench the boolooroo has ordered the patching to take place to morrow morning after breakfast the old earth man is to be patched to poor tiggle instead of ghip ghisizzle
who has in some way managed to escape from the room of the great knife no one knows how but tiggle and tiggle won't tell we're sorry for anyone who has to be patched replied fredjim in a reflective tone
for although it didn't hurt us as much as we expected it's a terrible mix up to be in until we become used to our strange combination you and we are about alike now jimfred although we were so different before
not so said jimfred we are really more intelligent than you are for the left side of our brain was always the keenest before we were patched that may be admitted fredjim
for we have a right arm too and it is pretty strong we will test it suggested the other by all pulling upon one end of this bench with our right arms
while they were tussling at the bench dragging it first here and then there in the trial of strength trot opened the door of the palace and walked in it was pretty dark in the hall
and only a few dim blue lights showed at intervals down the long corridors as the girl walked through these passages she could hear snores of various degrees coming from behind some of the closed doors
and knew that all the regular inmates of the place were sound asleep so she mounted to the upper floor and thinking she would be likely to find cap'n bill in the room of the great knife she went there and tried the door it was locked
but the key had been left on the outside she waited until the sentry who was pacing the corridor had his back toward her and then she turned the key and slipped within softly closing the door behind her
and trot didn't know how to make a light after a moment's thought she began feeling her way to the window stumbling over objects as she went every time she made a noise some one groaned and that made the child uneasy
at last she found a window and managed to open the shutters and let the moonlight in
in the center stood the great knife which the boolooroo used to split people in two when he patched them and at one side was a dark form huddled upon the floor and securely bound trot hastened to this form and knelt beside it
but was disappointed to find it was only tiggle the man stirred a little and rolled against trot's knee when she at once became visible to him oh it's the earth child said he are you condemned to be patched too little one
no answered trot tell me where cap'n bill is i can't said tiggle the boolooroo has hidden him until to morrow morning when he's to be patched to me ghip ghisizzle was to have been my mate but ghip escaped
being carried away by the six snubnosed princesses why she asked one of them means to marry him explained tiggle oh that's worse than being patched cried trot much worse said tiggle with a groan
but now an idea occurred to the girl would you like to escape she asked the captive i would indeed said he if i get you out of the palace can you hide yourself so that you won't be found certainly he declared
i know a house where i can hide so snugly that all the boolooroo's soldiers cannot find me all right said trot i'll do it for when you're gone the boolooroo will have no one to patch cap'n bill to he may find some one else suggested the prisoner
but it will take him time to do that and time is all i want answered the child even while she spoke trot was busy with the knots in the cords and presently she had unbound tiggle who soon got upon his feet
now i'll go to one end of the passage and make a noise said she and when the guard runs to see what it is you must run the other way outside the palace jimfred and fredjim are on guard
but if you tip over the bench they are seated on you can easily escape them i'll do that all right promised the delighted tiggle you've made a friend of me little girl and if ever i can help you i'll do it with pleasure then trot started for the door
and tiggle could no longer see her because she was not now touching him the man was much surprised at her disappearance but listened carefully and when he heard the girl make a noise at one end of the corridor he opened the door and ran in the opposite direction as he had been told to do
of course the guard could not discover what made the noise and trot ran little risk as she was careful not to let him touch her when tiggle had safely escaped the little girl wandered through the palace in search of cap'n bill
but soon decided such a quest in the dark was likely to fail and she must wait until morning she was tired too and thought she would find a vacant room of which there were many in the big palace and go to sleep until daylight
she remembered there was a comfortable vacant room just opposite the suite of the six snubnosed princesses so she stole softly up to it and tried the door it was locked but the key was outside
as the blueskins seldom took a door key away from its place so she turned the key opened the door and walked in now this was the chamber in which ghip ghisizzle had been confined by the princesses
but his legs left free the boolooroo in his search had failed to discover what had become of ghip ghisizzle but the poor man had been worried every minute for fear his retreat would be discovered or that the terrible princesses would come for him and nag him until he went crazy
there was one window in his room and the prisoner had managed to push open the sash with his knees looking out he found that a few feet below the window was the broad wall that ran all around the palace gardens a little way to the right
the wall joined the wall of the city being on the same level with it ghip ghisizzle had been thinking deeply upon this discovery and he decided that if anyone entered his room he would get through the window leap down upon the wall and try in this way to escape
it would be a dangerous leap for as his arms were bound he might topple off the wall into the garden but he resolved to take this chance therefore when trot rattled at the door of his room ghip ghisizzle ran and seated himself upon the window sill
dangling his long legs over the edge when she finally opened the door he slipped off and let himself fall to the wall where he doubled up in a heap the next minute however he had scrambled to his feet and was running swiftly along the garden wall
trot finding the window open came and looked out and she saw the majordomo's tall form hastening along the top of the wall the guards saw him too outlined against the sky in the moonlight and they began yelling at him to stop
but ghip ghisizzle kept right on until he reached the city wall when he began to follow that more guards were yelling now running along the foot of the wall to keep the fugitive in sight and people began to pour out of the houses and join in the chase
poor ghip realized that if he kept on the wall he would merely circle the city and finally be caught if he leaped down into the city he would be seized at once just then he came opposite the camp of the pinkies
and decided to trust himself to the mercies of his earth friends rather than be made a prisoner by his own people who would obey the commands of their detested but greatly feared boolooroo so suddenly he gave a mighty leap
and came down into the field outside the city again he fell in a heap and rolled over and over for it was a high wall and the jump a dangerous one but finally he recovered and got upon his feet delighted to find he had broken none of his bones
some of the blueskins had by now opened a gate and out rushed a crowd to capture the fugitive but ghip ghisizzle made straight for the camp of the pinkies and his pursuers did not dare follow him far in that direction they soon gave up the chase and returned to the city
a dressing case and a despatch box the same despatch box whose contents he had so carefully studied at the winchester hotel upon the night of the murder in the grove the day after his arrival was sunday
and all that day the banker occupied himself in reading a morocco bound manuscript volume which he took from the despatch box there was a black fog upon this november day and the atmosphere out of doors was cold and bleak but the room in which henry dunbar sat looked the very picture of comfort and elegance
henry dunbar sat by the fire smoking and drinking and reading the manuscript volume he only paused now and then to take pencil notes of its contents in a little memorandum book which he carried in the breast pocket of his coat it was not till seven o'clock
when the liveried servant who waited upon him came to inform him that his dinner was served in an adjoining chamber that mister dunbar rose from his seat and put away the book in the despatch box he laid down the volume on the table while he replaced other papers in the box and it fell open at the first page
on that first page was written in henry dunbar's bold legible hand journal of my life in india
this was the book the banker had been studying all that winter's day at twelve o'clock the next day he ordered a brougham and was driven to the banking house in saint gundolph lane this was the first time that henry dunbar had visited the house in saint gundolph lane since his return from india
they knew that as a young man henry dunbar had contracted the tastes and habits of an aristocrat and that if he had afterwards developed into a clever and successful man of business
that after becoming possessor of the united fortunes of his father and his uncle henry dunbar should keep aloof from a place that had always been obnoxious to him the business had gone on without him very well during his absence and it went on without him now
for his place in india had been assumed by a very clever man who for twenty years had acted as cashier in the calcutta house it may be that the banker had an unpleasant recollection of his last visit to saint gundolph lane
upon the day when the existence of the forged bills was discovered by percival and hugh dunbar all the width of thirty five years between the present hour and that day might not be wide enough to separate the memory of the past from the thoughts which were busy this morning in the mind of henry dunbar be it as it might
and his face had a stern fixed look like a man who has nerved himself to meet some crisis which he knows is near at hand there was a stoppage upon ludgate hill great wooden barricades and mountains of uprooted paving stones
amidst which sturdy navigators disported themselves with spades and pickaxes
and under the grim black walls of dreadful newgate the vehicle travelled very slowly for the traffic was concentrated in this quarter by reason of the stoppage on ludgate hill
the corners of his mouth twitched nervously as he got out of the carriage before the mahogany doors of the banking house in saint gundolph lane
but he drew a long breath and held his head proudly erect as he pushed open the doors and went in never since the day of the discovery of the forged bills had that man entered the banking house
but before he arrived at the door leading from the public offices to the back of the house he was stopped by a gentlemanly looking man who came forward from a desk in some shadowy region and intercepted the stranger this man was clement austin the cashier
do you wish to see mister balderby sir he asked yes i have an appointment with him at one o'clock my name is dunbar the cashier bowed and opened the door
the banker passed across the threshold which he had not crossed for five and thirty years until to day but as mister dunbar went towards the familiar parlour at the back of the banking house he stopped for a minute and looked at the cashier
clement austin was scarcely less pale than henry dunbar himself he had heard of the banker's intended visit to saint gundolph lane and had looked forward with strange anxiety to a meeting with the man whom margaret wilmot declared to be the murderer of her father now that the meeting had come to pass
he looked at henry dunbar with an earnest scrutinizing gaze as if he would fain have discovered the secret of the man's guilt or innocence in his countenance the banker's face was pale and grave and stern
but clement austin knew that for henry dunbar there were very humiliating and unpleasant circumstances connected with the offices in saint gundolph lane and it was scarcely to be expected that a man would come smiling into a place out of which he had gone five and thirty years before
a disgraced and degraded creature for a few moments the two men paused in the passage between the public offices and the private parlour looking at each other the banker's gaze never flinched during that encounter
it is taken as a strong proof of a man's innocence that he should look you full in the face with a steadfast gaze when you look at him with suspicion plainly visible in your eyes but would he not be the poorest villain if he shirked that encounter of glances when he knows full surely that he is in that moment put to the test
it is rather innocence whose eyelids drop when you peer too closely into its eyes for innocence is appalled by the stern accusing glances which it is unprepared to meet
guilt stares you boldly in the face for guilt is hardened and defiant and has this one grand superiority over innocence that it is prepared for the worst clement austin opened the door of mister balderby's parlour mister dunbar went in unannounced
the cashier closed the parlour door and returned to his desk in the public office the junior partner was sitting at an office table near the fire writing but he rose as the banker entered the room and went forward to meet him you are very punctual mister dunbar he said
yes i am generally punctual the two men shook hands and mister balderby wheeled forward a morocco covered arm chair for his senior partner and then took his seat opposite to him with only the small office table between them
it may seem late in the day to bid you welcome to the bank mister dunbar said the junior partner but i do so nevertheless most heartily
which was like the sound of a false coin when it falls dead upon a counter and proclaims itself spurious henry dunbar did not return his partner's greeting he was looking round the room and remembering the day upon which he had last seen it
even the turkey carpet was in the very stage of dusky dinginess that had distinguished the carpet on which henry dunbar had stood five and thirty years before
mister balderby said after a pause i have made arrangements to assure our being undisturbed so long as you may remain here if you wish to make any investigation of the affairs of the house i mister dunbar waved his hand with a deprecatory air
nothing is farther from my thoughts than any such design he said no mister balderby i have only been a man of business because all chance of another career which i infinitely preferred was closed upon me five and thirty years ago
i am quite content to be a sleeping partner in the house of dunbar dunbar and balderby for ten years prior to my father's death he took no active part in the business the house got on very well without his aid it will get on equally well without mine
i am a rich man but i don't exactly know how rich i am and i want to realize rather a large sum of money mister balderby bowed but his eyebrows went up a little as if he found it impossible to control some slight evidence of his surprise
previous to my daughter's marriage i settled upon her the house in portland place and the yorkshire property
and as sir philip jocelyn is a rich man she will perhaps be one of the wealthiest women in england so far so good neither laura nor her husband will have any reason for dissatisfaction but this is not quite enough mister balderby i am not a demonstrative man
and i have never made any great fuss about my love for my daughter but i do love her nevertheless mister dunbar spoke very slowly here and stopped once or twice to pass his handkerchief across his forehead as he had done in the hotel at winchester
he continued when we take it into our heads to do them at all i want to give my daughter a diamond necklace as a wedding present and i want it to be such as an eastern prince or a rothschild might offer to his only child you understand oh perfectly
answered mister balderby i shall be most happy to be of any use to you in the matter all i want is a large sum of money at my command i may go rather recklessly to work and make a large investment in this necklace it will be something for lady jocelyn to bequeath to her children
i did in concurrence with mister lovell precisely lovell wrote me a letter to that effect my father kept two accounts here i believe a deposit and a drawing account he did
and those two accounts have gone on since my return in the same manner as during his lifetime precisely
he rarely spent as much as that sometimes he spent less than half the balance of this income and his double share in the profits of the business went to the credit of his deposit account and various sums have been withdrawn from time to time and duly invested under his order
clement austin appeared five minutes afterwards carrying two ponderous morocco bound volumes mister balderby opened both ledgers and placed them before his senior partner henry dunbar looked at the deposit account
then his chest heaved and he drew a long breath
his fingers trembled a little as he did so and he dropped his hand suddenly upon the ledger there's fifty thousand in india stock mister balderby answered as indifferently as if fifty thousand pounds more or less was scarcely worth speaking of
and there's five and twenty in railway debentures great western most of the remainder is floating in exchequer bills then you can realize the exchequer bills mister balderby winced as if some one had trodden upon one of his corns
it's rather a large amount of capital to withdraw from the business he said rubbing his chin thoughtfully i suppose the bank can afford it mister dunbar exclaimed with a tone of surprise oh yes the bank can afford it well enough
our calls are sometimes heavy lord yarsfield a very old customer talks of buying an estate in wales he may come down upon us at any moment for a very stiff sum of money however the capital is yours mister dunbar and you've a right to dispose of it as you please
the exchequer bills shall be realized immediately good and if you can dispose of the railway bonds to advantage you may do so you think of spending i think of reinvesting the money
i have an offer of an estate north of the metropolis which i think will realize cent per cent a few years hence but that is an after consideration
i shall buy the diamonds myself direct from the merchant importers you will hold yourself ready after wednesday we'll say to cash some very heavy cheques on my account certainly mister dunbar then i think that is really all i have to say
i shall be happy to see you at the clarendon if you will dine with me any evening that you are disengaged there was very little heartiness in the tone of this invitation and mister balderby perfectly understood that it was only a formula which mister dunbar felt himself called upon to go through
the junior partner murmured his acknowledgment of henry dunbar's politeness and then the two men talked together for a few minutes on indifferent subjects five minutes afterwards mister dunbar rose to leave the room
between the end of the passage and the outer doors of the bank henry dunbar saw the figure of a woman sitting near one of the desks and talking to clement austin the banker stopped suddenly and went back to the parlour he looked about him a little absently as he re entered the room
i don't remember seeing one in your hand ah then i suppose i was mistaken he still lingered in the parlour putting on his gloves very slowly and looking out of the window into the dismal backyard where there was a dingy little wooden door set deep in the stone wall
while the banker loitered near the window clement austin came into the room to show some document to the junior partner henry dunbar turned round as the cashier was about to leave the parlour i saw a woman just now talking to you in the office
that's not very business like is it mister austin who is the woman she is a young lady sir a young lady yes sir what brings her here the cashier hesitated for a moment before he replied
she wishes to see you mister dunbar he said after that brief pause what is her name who who is she her name is wilmot margaret wilmot
i know no such person answered the banker haughtily but looking nervously at the half opened door as he spoke shut that door sir he said impatiently to the cashier the draught from the passage is strong enough to cut a man in two who is this margaret wilmot
the daughter of that unfortunate man joseph wilmot who was cruelly murdered at winchester answered the cashier very gravely he looked henry dunbar full in the face as he spoke
the banker returned his look as unflinchingly as he had done before and spoke in a hard unfaltering voice as he answered tell this person margaret wilmot
that i refuse to see her to day as i refused to see her in portland place and as i refused to see her at winchester he said deliberately tell her that i shall always refuse to see her
i have suffered enough already on account of that hideous business at winchester and i shall most resolutely defend myself from any further persecution this young person can have no possible motive for wishing to see me if she is poor and wants money of me i am ready and willing to assist her
i have already offered to do so i can do no more but if she is in distress she is not in distress mister dunbar interrupted clement austin she has friends who love her well enough to shield her from that indeed
and you are one of those friends i suppose mister austin i am prove your friendship then by teaching margaret wilmot that she has a friend and not an enemy in me if you are as i suspect from your manner something more than a friend
if you love her and she returns your love marry her and she shall have a dowry that no gentleman's wife need be ashamed to bring to her husband there was no anger no impatience in the banker's voice now but a tone of deep feeling clement austin locked at him
henry dunbar saw the look and it seemed as if he endeavoured to answer it you have no need to be surprised that i shrink from seeing margaret wilmot he said cannot you understand that my nerves may be none of the strongest and that i cannot endure the idea of an interview with this girl who
no doubt by her persistent pursuit of me suspects me of her father's murder i am an old man and i have been thirty five years in india my health is shattered and i have a horror of all tragic scenes
i have not yet recovered from the shock of that horrible business at winchester go and tell margaret wilmot this tell her that i will be her true friend if she will accept that friendship but that i will not see her until she has learned to think better of me
there was something very straightforward very simple in all this for a time at least clement austin's mind wavered margaret was perhaps wrong after all and henry dunbar might be an innocent man
it was clement who had informed margaret of mister dunbar's expected presence here upon this day and it was on the strength of that information that the girl had come to saint gundolph lane
no sooner had the door of the parlour closed upon the cashier than henry dunbar turned abruptly to his junior partner there is a door leading from the yard into a court that connects saint gundolph lane with another lane at the back he said is there not
he pointed to the dark little yard outside the window as he spoke yes there is a door i believe is it locked no it is seldom locked till four o'clock the clerks use it sometimes when they go in and out
henry dunbar opened it went out into the court and closed the door behind him
chapter twenty nine going away at one o'clock on the appointed thursday morning mister dunbar presented himself in the diamond merchant's office henry dunbar was not alone
he had called in saint gundolph lane and asked mister balderby to go with him to inspect the diamonds he had bought for his daughter the junior partner opened his eyes to the widest extent as the brilliants were displayed before him and declared that big senior's generosity was something more than princely
but perhaps mister balderby did not feel so entirely delighted two or three hours afterwards when mister isaac hartgold presented himself before the counter in saint gundolph lane
henry dunbar walked away from the neighbourhood of holborn with his coat buttoned tightly across his broad chest and nearly eighty thousand pounds worth of property hidden away in his breast pockets he did not go straight back to the clarendon but pierced his way across smithfield
and into a busy smoky street where he stopped by and by at a dingy looking currier's shop
at another shop he bought some large needles half a dozen skeins of stout waxed thread a pair of large scissors a couple of strong steel buckles and a tailor's thimble when he had made these purchases he hailed the first empty cab that passed him and went back to his hotel
he dined drank the best part of a bottle of burgundy and then ordered a cup of strong tea to be taken to his dressing room he had fires in his bedroom and dressing room every night to night he retired very early dismissed the servant who attended upon him
and locked the door of the outer room the only door communicating with the corridor of the hotel he drank a cup of tea
but he was not going to write he pushed aside the writing materials and took his purchases of the afternoon from his pocket he spread the chamois leather out upon the table and cut the skins into two long strips about a foot broad
the other end he left open when he had completed the two sides and the end that was closed he took four or five little canvas bags from his pocket
every one of these canvas bags was full of loose diamonds a thrill of rapture ran through the banker's veins as he plunged his fingers in amongst the glittering stones he filled his hands with the bright gems and let them run from one hand to the other like streams of liquid light then
then he put the chamois leather belt under his pillow and went to bed
two or three days afterwards mister dunbar could find no design that suited him and the man returned to london without having received an order and without having even seen the brilliants which the banker had bought tell your employer that i will retain two or three of these designs
mister dunbar said selecting the drawings as he spoke and if upon consideration i find that one of them will suit me i will communicate with your establishment if not i shall take the diamonds to paris and get them made up there
the jeweller ventured to suggest the inferiority of parisian workmanship as compared with that of a first rate english establishment but mister dunbar did not condescend to pay any attention to the young man's remonstrance
good morning major vernon had returned to the rose and crown at lisford the deed which transferred to him the possession of woodbine cottage was speedily executed and he took up his abode there his establishment was composed of the old housekeeper who had waited on the deceased admiral
and a young man of all work who was nephew to the housekeeper and who had also been in the service of the late owner of the cottage from his new abode mister vernon was able to keep a tolerably sharp look out upon the two great houses in his neighbourhood maudesley abbey and jocelyn's rock
country people know everything about their neighbours and missus manders the housekeeper had means of communication with both the abbey and the rock for she had a niece who was under housemaid in the service of henry dunbar
from her he heard that a jeweller's assistant had been to maudesley and had submitted a portfolio of designs to the millionaire which they do say missus manders continued
throne never set eyes on but mister dunbar is rare and difficult to please it seems for the young man from the jeweller's he says to missus grumbleton at the western lodge he says your master is not easy to satisfy ma'am he says
from which missus grumbleton gathers that he had not took a order from mister dunbar major vernon whistled softly to himself when missus manders retired after having imparted this piece of information
you're a clever fellow dear friend he muttered as he lighted his cigar you're a stupendous fellow dear boy but your friend can see through less transparent blinds than this diamond business
it's neat to say the least of it and you've my best wishes dear boy but you must pay for them you must pay for them henry dunbar
the next day was sunday a cold wintry sunday for the snow had been falling all through the last three days and nights and lay deep on the ground hiding the low thatched roofs and making feathery festoons about the leafless branches until lisford looked like a village upon the top of a twelfth cake
while the sabbath bells were ringing in the frosty atmosphere major vernon opened the low white gate of his pleasant little garden and went out upon the high road but not towards the church major vernon was not going to church on this bright winter's morning he went the other way
tramping through the snow towards the eastern gate of maudesley park he went in by the low iron gate for there was a bridle path by this part of the park that very bridle path by which philip jocelyn had ridden to lisford so often in the autumn weather
major vernon struck across this path following the tracks of late footsteps in the deep snow and thus took the nearest way to the abbey
you need'nt trouble yourself i know my way the major opened the door leading to mister dunbar's apartments and walked without ceremony into the tapestried chamber where he found the banker sitting near a table upon which a silver coffee service a dresden cup and saucer
and two or three covered dishes gave evidence that mister dunbar had been breakfasting cold meats raised pies and other comestibles were laid out upon the carved oak sideboard
the major paused upon the threshold of the chamber and gravely contemplated his friend it's comfortable he exclaimed to say the least of it it's very comfortable dear boy
the dear boy did not look particularly pleased as he lifted his eyes to his visitor's face i thought you were in london he said which shows how very little you trouble yourself about the concerns of your neighbours answered major vernon
for if you had condescended to inquire about the movements of your humble friend you would have been told that he had bought a comfortable little property in the neighbourhood and settled down to do the respectable country gentleman for the remainder of his natural life
always supposing that the liberality of his honoured friend enables him to do the thing decently do you mean to say that you have bought property in this neighbourhood
and you mean to settle in warwickshire
he did not leave maudesley abbey until he had succeeded in the object of his visit and he carried away in his pocket book cheques to the amount of two thousand five hundred pounds i flatter myself i was just in the nick of time the major thought as he walked back to woodbine cottage
he means a bolt and the money i've had to day is the last i shall ever receive from that quarter almost immediately after major vernon's departure henry dunbar rang the bell for the servant who acted as his valet whenever he required the services of one which was not often
i shall start for paris to night jeffreys he said to this man i want to see what the french jewellers can do before i trust lady jocelyn's necklace into the hands of english workmen i'm not well and i want change of air and scene so i shall start for paris to night
pack a small portmanteau with everything that's indispensable but pack nothing unnecessary am i to go with you sir the man asked henry dunbar looked at his watch and seemed to reflect upon this question some moments before he answered
there's an express from the north stops at rugby at six o'clock sir
i could do that answered the banker it's only three o'clock
no i won't take you to paris with me you can follow me in a day or two with some more things yes sir there was no such thing as bustle and confusion in a household organized like that of mister dunbar the valet packed his master's portmanteau and dressing case
there were lamps here and there but they only made separate splotches of light in the dusky atmosphere henry dunbar walked slowly up and down the platform
mister dunbar he said mister dunbar the banker turned sharply round and recognized arthur lovell ah my dear lovell is that you you quite startled me are you going by the next train i was so anxious to see you
why so because there's some one here who very much wishes to see you quite an old friend of yours he says who do you think it is i don't know i can't guess i've so many old friends i can't see any one lovell i'm very ill
he is a friend of my father's and he has been very kind to me
he talked a great deal about you when my father told him that you'd settled at maudesley and would have driven over to see you if he could have managed to spare the time without losing his train you'll see him wont you where is he here in the station in the waiting room
he has been visiting in warwickshire and he lunched with my father en passant he is going to derby and he's waiting for the down train to take him on to the main line you'll come and see him yes i shall be very glad i henry dunbar stopped suddenly with his hand upon his side
the bell had been ringing while lovell and the banker had stood upon the platform talking the train came into the station at this moment i shan't be able to see lord herriston to night mister dunbar said hurriedly i must go by this train or i shall lose a day good bye lovell
make my best compliments to herriston tell him i have been very ill good bye your portmanteau's in the carriage sir
henry dunbar got into the carriage
is this my train lovell he asked
the descent of the fraser river american traders were not slow to follow up the discovery of robert gray on the pacific
had ceded louisiana to france and france by way of checkmating british advance in north america had sold louisiana to the united states for fifteen million dollars
certainly from new orleans to the missouri did it also include from the missouri to gray's river the columbia the united states had sent meriwether lewis and william clark overland from the missouri to the columbia
ostensibly on a scientific expedition but in reality to lay claim to the new territory for the united states this brings the exploration of the pacific down to eighteen o six take a look at the map
mackenzie had crossed overland from the peace river to bella coola
a third larger than germany between mackenzie's trail westward and lewis and clark's trail to the mouth of the columbia in eighteen o five simon fraser
who as a child had come from the united states to canada with his widowed mother in the loyalist migration and now in his thirtieth year was a partner in the north west company of montreal had crossed the rockies by way of the peace river
he had followed mackenzie's trail over the terrible nine mile carrying place and had built there a fur post rocky mountain portage he had ascended that same parsnip river which mackenzie had found so appalling
and during the winter of eighteen o six m'dougall had crossed the heavily drifted carrying place and descended the bad river as far as the south fork of the fraser which all traders at that time mistook for the upper reaches of gray's columbia
and if he did not actually behold the beautiful alpine tarns since known as fraser lake and stuart lake he was at least the first white man to hear of them in may of eighteen o six
after sending the year's furs from rocky mountain portage east to fort chipewyan simon fraser set out to explore this inland empire concerning which m'dougall had reported john stuart accompanied fraser as lieutenant
they crossed from the head waters of the parsnip to the south fork of the fraser
towards the end of july the carriers camped on stuart lake were amazed to see advancing across the waters with rhythmic gallop of paddles two enormous birch canoes
they thought the white men in smoking were emitting spirits with each breath when the traders offered soap to the squaws the women at once began to devour it
history does not record whether the women became as addicted to soap as the men to the fragrant weed active trading with the indians began at once the lake was named stuart in honour of fraser's companion
and the ground was cleared for a palisaded fort which when erected they named fort saint james the scene was enchanting the lake wound for a distance of fifty miles amid the foot hills of the mighty forested mountains
it was four or five miles wide and was gemmed with green islets and all round appearing through the clouds in jagged outline were the opal summits of the snowy peaks
no wonder the two scotsmen named the new inland empire new caledonia after their native land it will be remembered that m'dougall had heard of another mountain tarn this was forty miles south of stuart lake
at the headwaters of the nechaco the north fork of the fraser stuart went overland south to spy out the southern lake and his report was of such an entrancing region heavily forested with an abundance of game and fish
again a fort was erected and named fort fraser making three forts in the interior of new caledonia fraser had sent a request to the directors of the north west company to be permitted
to fit out an expedition down the great river which he thought was the columbia and in the spring of eighteen o seven two canoes under jules quesnel were sent out with goods
quesnel arrived at fort saint james in the autumn bringing from the east the alarming word that lewis and clark had gone overland and taken possession of all the territory between the missouri and the mouth of the columbia
no time was to be lost by fraser in establishing a claim to the region to the west of the rockies between the peace and the columbia fraser went down the river and strengthened british possession by building a fourth fort
fort george at the mouth of the nechaco this was to be the starting point of the expedition to the pacific
we resolved to venture down i ordered the five best men of the crews into a canoe lightly loaded and in a moment it was under way after passing the first cascade she lost her head and was drawn into an eddy
where she was whirled about in suspense whether to sink or swim however she took a turn from this vortex flying from one danger to another
the whirlpool forced her against a low rock upon this the men scrambled out saving their lives
to continue by water would be certain destruction during this distressing scene we were on shore looking on but the situation rendered our approach perilous the bank was high and steep
we had to plunge our daggers into the ground to avoid sliding into the river we cut steps fastened a line to the front of the canoe and hauled it up our lives hung upon a thread as one false step might have hurled us into eternity
however we cleared the bank before dark the men had to ascend the immense hills with heavy loads on their backs indians warned the white men to desist from their undertaking
better they advised go overland eastward to a great peaceful river and descend that to the sea fraser of course did not know that the peaceful river they spoke of was really the columbia he thought the river he was following
was the columbia with the help of indians the canoes were pulled up hill and horses were hired from them to carry the provisions overland below this portage as they continued the descent
appearing at first to bar the passage ahead this was bar rock beyond it several minor rapids were passed without difficulty and then they came upon a series of great whirlpools which seemed impassable
but the men unloaded the canoes and
undertaking' ran them down the rapids with light ballast they then came back overland for the packs this task says fraser was as dangerous as going by water
the men passed and repassed a declivity on loose stones and gravel which constantly gave way under foot one man who lost the path got in a most intricate and perilous position
with a large package on his back he got so wedged amid the rocks that he could move neither forward nor backward nor yet unload himself i crawled not without great risk to his assistance
and saved his life by cutting his pack so that it dropped back in the river on this carrying place which was two miles long our shoes became shattered for several days after this
the advance was by a succession of rapids and portages
and swept violently between two overhanging precipices the water which rolls down this passage in tumultuous waves and with great velocity had a frightful appearance
however it being absolutely impossible to carry canoes by land all hands without hesitation embarked on the mercy of the awful tide once on the water the die was cast
and the difficulty consisted in keeping the canoes clear of the precipice on one side and clear of the gulfs formed by the waves on the other thus skimming along as fast as lightning the crews cool and determined
followed each other in awful silence and when we arrived at the end we stood gazing at each other in silent congratulation on our narrow escape from total destruction after breathing a little we continued our course to the point
where the indians camped the natives here warned fraser that it would be madness to go forward at the same time they furnished him with a guide
the same evening the party reached the place described by fraser as a continual series of cascades cut by rocks and bounded by precipices
an examination of the river for some distance below convinced fraser that it was impossible of navigation and he decided to make the remainder of the journey on foot after building a scaffold on which the canoes and some provisions were placed
and covered with underbrush and moss the party on june eleventh began their tramp down the river bank each man carried on his back a ninety pound pack supported by a strap across the forehead
again and again on the journey indians confronted fraser with hostile show of weapons but the intrepid trader disarmed hostility by gifts
the indians declared that the sea lay only ten sleeps distant one of the chiefs said that he had himself seen white men who were great tyees because
clapping his hands to his hips and strutting about with an air of vast importance the indians told fraser of another great river that came in from the east and joined this one some distance below he had passed the site of the present
farther down european articles were seen among the indians it was the fishing season and the tribes had assembled in great hordes here the river was navigable and three wooden dug outs were obtained from the natives for the descent to the sea
the voyageurs again embarked and swept down the narrow bends of the turbulent floods at what are now lytton yale and hope there were passes where the river was such a raging torrent
there were places where fraser's voyageurs had to climb precipices by means of frail ladders
when the river turned sharply west fraser could not help noticing that the indians became more violently hostile far south could be seen the opal dome of mount baker named by vancouver after one of his lieutenants
what troubled fraser most was the fact that the river lay many miles north of the known latitude of the columbia
possibly be the columbia the tide rose and fell in the river the indian guide begged the white men not to go on he was afraid he said of the indians of the sea coast the river channel divided
natives along the shore began singing war songs and beating the war drum then they circled out threateningly round the white men's boats signs were seen of the sea ahead
but the indians were howling like wolves and brandishing war clubs and fraser concluded
this river is therefore not the columbia he declared if i had been convinced of this when i left my canoes i would certainly have returned the return journey was fraught with danger always one man stood guard
while the others slept and again and again the little party was surrounded by ferociously hostile bands between apprehension of the dangers of the wild trail of the fraser canyons and fear of hostile natives the men became so panic stricken
through the mountains fraser reasoned and remonstrated and finally threatened after so much heroism he would not permit cowardly desertion then he forced each voyageur to swear on the cross
i do solemnly swear that i will sooner perish than forsake in distress any of our crew during the present voyage with renewed self respect they then paddled off singing voyageurs songs to keep up their courage
imagine for a moment the scene the turbid mad waters of the fraser hemmed in between rock walls carving a living way through the adamant banks from which red savages threw down rocks
wherever the wild current drove the dug out inshore and tossed by the waves a chip like craft containing nineteen ragged men singing like schoolboys once away from the coastal tribes however
the white men were aided by the inland carriers they found the canoes and supplies in perfect condition and unmolested
strange that the spaniards should look on complaisantly while english traders from china meares and hanna and barkley and douglas were taking possession of nootka the answer came unexpectedly
just as the bostonnais were sailing out for a last run up the coast there glided into nootka sound a proud ship all sails set twenty cannon pointed spanish colours spread to the breeze
the captain of this vessel don joseph martinez took a look at the english fortifications and another at the americans the americans were enemies of england therefore the pompous don treated them royally
presented them with spices and wines and allowed them to depart unmolested when the americans returned from the run up coast they found the english fort dismantled a spanish fort erected on hog island at the entrance of the sound
and douglas's ship the companion of meares's vessel held captive by the spaniard gray and kendrick now exchanged ships and sailed for china to dispose of their cargoes of furs and receive in exchange cargoes of tea for boston
the whole city of boston welcomed the columbia home in the autumn of seventeen ninety
in june seventeen ninety one gray was out again on the columbia this time he went as far north as the portland canal past the queen charlotte islands where he met kendrick on the lady washington
the quarrel at nootka between the english and the spaniards was still going on so this autumn the two bostonnais anchored for the winter
a place later to be made famous by tragedy south of nootka here they built a stockaded fur post for themselves which they named fort defence during the winter they built and launched a little coasting schooner the adventure
up at nootka the spaniard gonzales de haro had replaced martinez and his countrymen quimper and elisa were daily exploring on the east side of vancouver island
amid much firing of muskets and drinking of wine quimper took solemn possession of all this territory for spain
he sailed away for monterey while elisa remained at nootka gray knew that three english vessels which had come from china for furs colnett's argonaut douglas's
had been seized by the spanish at nootka though the fact had not been trumpeted to the world the spanish said that their pilots had explored these coasts as early as seventeen seventy five at least three years before cook's landing at nootka
the columbia had been beached and dismantled loop holes punctured the palisades of the fort and cannon were above the gates sentinels kept constant guard
the fort could not be defended against such a number of enemies for there were not twenty men within the walls gray hastily got the columbia ready for sea
if the bostonnais would go ashore to trade gray slapped the old rascal across the face the indian was over the side at a plunge and the marauders were seen no more in spite of the difficulties and dangers it presented
disappointment it was the spring of seventeen ninety two the spaniard elisa of nootka had for a year kept his pilot narvaez
charting north east past the harbour of victoria through haro strait following very much the same channel that steamers follow to day as they ply between victoria and vancouver east of a high island
where holiday folk now have their summer camps pilot narvaez came on the estuary of a great river which he called boca de florida blanca
it was a new river with wonderful purple water the purple of river silt blending with ocean blue the banks were wooded to the very water's edge with huge girthed and mossed trees
such as we to day see in stanley park vancouver the river swept down behind a deep harbour with forested heights between river mouth and roadstead
as if nature had purposely interposed to guard this harbour against the deposit of silt borne down by the mighty stream to day a boulevard rises from the land locked harbour and goes over the heights to the river mouth like the arc of a bow
the finest residences of the canadian pacific coast stand there and the river is lined with mile upon mile of lumber yards and saw mills
had found what are now known as burrard inlet vancouver city point grey shaughnessy heights and the fraser river the crew were presently all ill of scurvy possibly because of the unsanitary
crowding and the schooner almost falling to pieces came crawling back to nootka the poor mexicans were utterly unaware that they had discovered a gateway for northern empire narvaez himself lay almost unconscious in his berth
elisa sent them all home to mexico on furlough and on hearing their report the viceroy of mexico ordered out two ships the sutil and the mexicana don galiano and don valdes in command to follow up the charting
of the coast northward from vancouver island to the russian settlements small ringing of bells no blaring of trumpets at all prayers a plenty but little ammunition and less food
when bering set out he had the power of the whole russian empire behind him
but when the poor mexican peons set out they had nothing behind them but the branding iron or slavery in the mines if they failed yet they sang as they sailed their rickety death traps and they laughed as they rowed and when the tide rip caught them
they sank without a cry to any but the virgin look at a map of the west coast of the pacific from the horn to sitka first were the spaniards at every harbour gate and yet to day of all their deep sea findings on that coast
but if actual accomplishments count these pilots with their ragged peon crews half bloods of aztec woman and spanish adventurer deserve higher rank in the roll of pacific coast exploration
than history has yet accorded them england it may be believed did not calmly submit to seeing the ships and forts of her traders seized at nootka it was not that england cared for the value of three vessels engaged in foreign trade
but she was mistress of the seas and had been since the destruction of the armada and as mistress of the seas she could not tolerate as much as the seizure of a fishing smack
for some time there were mutterings of war but at length diplomacy prevailed england demanded among other things the restoration of the buildings and the land and full reparation for all losses
spain decided to submit and accordingly the nootka convention was signed by the two powers in october seventeen ninety two ships the discovery and the chatham were then fitted out by the british admiralty
who had been on the pacific with cook it was april seventeen ninety two when vancouver came up abreast of cape disappointment was it chance or fate
and england might have made good her claim to the territory which is now oregon and washington and idaho vancouver's ships were gliding into the strait of juan de fuca
when they met a square hulled trim little trader under the flag of the united states it was the columbia commanded by robert gray the american told an astounding story
vancouver refused to credit the news yet there was the ship's log there were the details landmarks soundings anchorages for twenty miles up the columbia from its mouth gray had indeed been up the river and had crossed the bar
and come out on the pacific again vancouver now headed his ships inland and proceeded to explore puget sound never before had white men's boats cruised the waters of that spider shaped sea
every inlet of the tortuous coasts was penetrated and surveyed to make certain that no passage to the north east lay through these waters in june the explorers passed up the strait of georgia
what would have proved an important discovery the mouth of the fraser river some distance north of burrard inlet
which the viceroy of mexico had sent out the sutil and the mexicana commanded respectively by don galiano and don valdes from them vancouver learned that don quadra the spanish representative
was awaiting him at nootka prepared to restore the forts and property
the spanish frigates fairly bristled with cannon an english officer dressed in regimentals marched to the spanish fort and presented captain vancouver's compliments to don quadra spanish cannon thundered a welcome that shook the hills
and english guns made answer a curious fashion
don quadra breakfasted captain vancouver
and maquinna lord of the wilds attended the feast dressed indian fashion but when the spanish don and the english officer took breath from flow of compliments and wine they did not seem to arrive anywhere in their negotiations
vancouver held that spain must relinquish the site of meares's fort and the territory surrounding it and port cox
according to vancouver but little more than one hundred yards in extent any way no understanding could be arrived at and quadra at the end of september took his departure for monterey leaving vancouver to follow a few days later
vancouver was anxious to be off on further exploration he was eager to verify the existence of the river which gray had reported he spent most of october exploring this river explorers in that day as in this
were not fair judges of each other's feats vancouver took possession of the columbia river region for england setting down in his narrative
had ever entered this river before it does not appear that mister gray either saw or was ever within five leagues of the entrance vancouver then visited the presidio at san francisco and thence proceeded to monterey
where quadra awaited him his lieutenant broughton who had been in charge of the boats that explored the columbia here left him and accompanied quadra to san blas whence he went overland to the atlantic and sailed for england bearing dispatches to the government
vancouver spent yet another year on the north pacific corroborating his first year's charting and proving
sir henry baskerville our breakfast table was cleared early and holmes waited in his dressing gown for the promised interview
our clients were punctual to their appointment for the clock had just struck ten when doctor mortimer was shown up followed by the young baronet the latter was a small alert
dark eyed man about thirty years of age very sturdily built with thick black eyebrows and a strong pugnacious face he wore a ruddy tinted tweed suit
and yet there was something in his steady eye and the quiet assurance of his bearing which indicated the gentleman this is sir henry baskerville said doctor mortimer why yes said he
and the strange thing is mister sherlock holmes that if my friend here had not proposed coming round to you this morning i should have come on my own account
pray take a seat sir henry
only a joke as like as not it was this letter if you can call it a letter which reached me this morning he laid an envelope upon the table and we all bent over it
the address sir henry baskerville northumberland hotel was printed in rough characters the post mark charing cross and the date of posting the preceding evening
no one could have known we only decided after i met doctor mortimer but doctor mortimer
there was no possible indication that we intended to go to this hotel hum someone seems to be very deeply interested in your movements
out of the envelope he took a half sheet of foolscap paper folded into four this he opened and spread flat upon the table
across the middle of it a single sentence had been formed by the expedient of pasting printed words upon it it ran as you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor
was printed in ink now said sir henry baskerville perhaps you will tell me mister holmes what in thunder is the meaning of that and who it is that takes so much interest in my affairs
what do you make of it doctor mortimer you must allow that there is nothing supernatural about this at any rate
no sir but it might very well come from someone who was convinced that the business is supernatural what business asked sir henry sharply
it seems to me that all you gentlemen know a great deal more than i do about my own affairs you shall share our knowledge before you leave this room sir henry i promise you that said sherlock holmes
we will confine ourselves for the present with your permission to this very interesting document which must have been put together and posted yesterday evening have you yesterday's times watson
might i trouble you for it the inside page please with the leading articles he glanced swiftly over it running his eyes up and down the columns capital article this on free trade permit me to give you an extract from it
but it stands to reason that such legislation must in the long run keep away wealth from the country diminish the value of our imports and lower the general conditions of life in this island
what do you think of that watson cried holmes in high glee rubbing his hands together with satisfaction don't you think that is an admirable sentiment
doctor mortimer looked at holmes with an air of professional interest and sir henry baskerville turned a pair of puzzled dark eyes upon me i don't know much about the tariff and things of that kind said he
but it seems to me we've got a bit off the trail so far as that note is concerned on the contrary i think we are particularly hot upon the trail sir henry watson here knows more about my methods than you do
but i fear that even he has not quite grasped the significance of this sentence no i confess that i see no connection and yet my dear watson
there is so very close a connection that the one is extracted out of the other you your your life reason value keep away from the don't you see now whence these words have been taken
if any possible doubt remained it is settled by the fact that keep away and from the are cut out in one piece well now so it is
really mister holmes this exceeds anything which i could have imagined said doctor mortimer gazing at my friend in amazement i could understand anyone saying that the words were from a newspaper
but that you should name which and add that it came from the leading article is really one of the most remarkable things which i have ever known how did you do it
the differences are obvious the supra orbital crest the facial angle the maxillary curve the but this is my special hobby and the differences are equally obvious there is as much difference to my eyes between the leaded bourgeois
type of a times article and the slovenly print of an evening half penny paper as there could be between your negro and your esquimau the detection of types is one of the most elementary branches of knowledge to the special expert in crime
though i confess that once when i was very young i confused the leeds mercury with the western morning news but a times leader is entirely distinctive
as it was done yesterday the strong probability was that we should find the words in yesterday's issue so far as i can follow you then mister holmes said sir henry baskerville
someone cut out this message with a scissors nail scissors said holmes you can see that it was a very short bladed scissors since the cutter had to take two snips over keep away that
is so someone then cut out the message with a pair of short bladed scissors pasted it with paste gum said holmes
because he could not find it in print
why of course that would explain it have you read anything else in this message mister holmes there are one or two indications and yet the utmost pains have been taken to remove all clues
the address you observe is printed in rough characters but the times is a paper which is seldom found in any hands but those of the highly educated we may take it therefore that the letter was composed by an educated man who wished to pose as an uneducated one
and his effort to conceal his own writing suggests that that writing might be known or come to be known by you again you will observe that the words are not gummed on in an accurate line
life for example is quite out of its proper place that may point to carelessness or it may point to agitation and hurry upon the part of the cutter on the whole i incline to the latter view since the matter was evidently important
and it is unlikely that the composer of such a letter would be careless if he were in a hurry it opens up the interesting question why he should be in a hurry
did the composer fear an interruption and from whom we are coming now rather into the region of guesswork said doctor mortimer
and choose the most likely it is the scientific use of the imagination but we have always some material basis on which to start our speculation now you would call it a guess no doubt but i am almost certain that this address has been written in a hotel
can you say that if you examine it carefully you will see that both the pen and the ink have given the writer trouble the pen has spluttered twice in a single word and has run dry three times in a short address
showing that there was very little ink in the bottle now a private pen or ink bottle is seldom allowed to be in such a state and the combination of the two must be quite rare
but you know the hotel ink and the hotel pen where it is rare to get anything else yes i have very little hesitation in saying that could we examine the waste paper baskets of the hotels around charing cross
until we found the remains of the mutilated times leader we could lay our hands straight upon the person who sent this singular message halloa halloa what's this
nothing said he throwing it down it is a blank half sheet of paper without even a water mark upon it i think we have drawn as much as we can from this curious letter and now sir henry
has anything else of interest happened to you since you have been in london why
i think not you have not observed anyone follow or watch you
why in thunder should anyone follow or watch me we are coming to that you have nothing else to report to us before we go into this matter
depends upon what you think worth reporting i think anything out of the ordinary routine of life well worth reporting sir henry smiled
i don't know much of british life yet for i have spent nearly all my time in the states and in canada but i hope that to lose one of your boots is not part of the ordinary routine of life over here
you have lost one of your boots my dear sir cried doctor mortimer it is only mislaid you will find it when you return to the hotel what is the use of troubling mister holmes with trifles of
this kind well he asked me for anything outside the ordinary routine exactly said holmes however foolish the incident may seem you have lost one of your boots you say
well mislaid it anyhow i put them both outside my door last night and there was only one in the morning i could get no sense out of the chap who cleans them the worst of it is that i
only bought the pair last night in the strand and i have never had them on if you have never worn them why did you put them out to be cleaned
that was why i put them out then i understand that on your arrival in london yesterday you went out at once and bought a pair of boots i did a good deal of shopping doctor mortimer here went round with me
you see if i am to be squire down there i must dress the part and it may be that i have got a little careless in my ways out west
among other things i bought these brown boots gave six dollars for them and had one stolen before ever i had them on my feet it seems a singularly useless thing to steal said sherlock holmes
i confess that i share doctor mortimer's belief that it will not be long before the missing boot is found and now gentlemen said the baronet with decision
it seems to me that i have spoken quite enough about the little that i know it is time that you kept your promise and gave me a full account of what we are all driving at
your request is a very reasonable one holmes answered doctor mortimer i think you could not do better than to tell your story as you told it to us thus encouraged our scientific friend
drew his papers from his pocket and presented the whole case as he had done upon the morning before sir henry baskerville listened with the deepest attention and with an occasional exclamation of surprise
said he when the long narrative was finished of course i've heard of the hound ever since i was in the nursery it's the pet story of the family though i never thought of taking it seriously before but
as to my uncle's death well it all seems boiling up in my head and i can't get it clear yet you don't seem quite to have made up your mind whether it's a case for a policeman or a clergyman precisely
and now there's this affair of the letter to me at the hotel i suppose that fits into its place
said doctor mortimer and also said holmes that someone is not ill disposed towards you since they warn you of danger or it may be that they wish for their own purposes to scare me away
well of course that is possible also i am very much indebted to you doctor mortimer for introducing me to a problem which presents several interesting alternatives
but the practical point which we now have to decide sir henry is whether it is or is not advisable for you to go to baskerville hall
there seems to be danger
well that is what we have to find out whichever it is my answer is fixed
and you may take that to be my final answer his dark brows knitted and his face flushed to a dusky red as he spoke
it was evident that the fiery temper of the baskervilles was not extinct in this their last representative meanwhile said he i have hardly had time to think over all that you have told me
it's a big thing for a man to have to understand and to decide at one sitting i should like to have a quiet hour by myself to make up my mind now look here mister holmes it's half past eleven now
suppose you and your friend doctor watson come round and lunch with us at two i'll be able to tell you more clearly then how this thing strikes me
perfectly
i'd prefer to walk for this affair has flurried me rather i'll join you in a walk with pleasure said his companion then we meet again at two o'clock au revoir and good morning
and the bang of the front door in an instant holmes had changed from the languid dreamer to the man of action your hat and boots watson quick not a moment to lose he rushed into his room in his dressing gown and was back again in a few seconds in a frock coat
we hurried together down the stairs and into the street doctor mortimer and baskerville were still visible about two hundred yards ahead of us in the direction of oxford street shall i run on and stop them
not for the world my dear watson i am perfectly satisfied with your company if you will tolerate mine our friends are wise for it is certainly a very fine morning for a walk
he quickened his pace until we had decreased the distance which divided us by about half then still keeping a hundred yards behind we followed into oxford street
once our friends stopped and stared into a shop window upon which holmes did the same an instant afterwards he gave a little cry of satisfaction and
following the direction of his eager eyes i saw that a hansom cab with a man inside which had halted on the other side of the street was now proceeding slowly onward again there's our man watson
come along we'll have a good look at him if we can do no more at that instant i was aware of a bushy black beard and a pair of piercing eyes turned upon us through the side window of the cab
and the cab flew madly off down regent street holmes looked eagerly round for another but no empty one was in sight
but the start was too great and already the cab was out of sight there now said holmes bitterly as he emerged panting and white with vexation from the tide of vehicles
was ever such bad luck and such bad management too watson
who was the man i have not an idea a spy
since he has been in town how else could it be known so quickly that it was the northumberland hotel which he had chosen
you may have observed that i twice strolled over to the window while doctor mortimer was reading his legend yes i remember i was looking out for loiterers in the street but i saw none
we are dealing with a clever man watson this matter cuts very deep and though i have not finally made up my mind whether it is a benevolent or a malevolent agency which is in touch with us i am conscious always of power and design
when our friends left i at once followed them in the hopes of marking down their invisible attendant so wily was he that he had not trusted himself upon foot
but he had availed himself of a cab so that he could loiter behind or dash past them and so escape their notice his method had the additional advantage that if they were to take a cab he was all ready to follow them
it has however one obvious disadvantage it puts him in the power of the cabman exactly what a pity we did not get the number
my dear watson clumsy as i have been you surely do not seriously imagine that i neglected to get the number
but that is no use to us for the moment
on observing the cab i should have instantly turned and walked in the other direction i should then at my leisure have hired a second cab and followed the first at a respectful distance
or better still have driven to the northumberland hotel and waited there when our unknown had followed baskerville home we should have had the opportunity of playing his own game upon himself and seeing where he made for
as it is by an indiscreet eagerness which was taken advantage of with extraordinary quickness and energy by our opponent we have betrayed ourselves and lost our man
we had been sauntering slowly down regent street during this conversation and doctor mortimer with his companion had long vanished in front of us
the shadow has departed and will not return we must see what further cards we have in our hands and play them with decision could you swear to that man's face within the cab i could swear only to the beard
and so could i from which i gather that in all probability it was a false one a clever man upon so delicate an errand has no use for a beard save to conceal his features come in here watson
he turned into one of the district messenger offices where he was warmly greeted by the manager ah wilson i see you have not forgotten the little case in which i had the good fortune to help you no sir
indeed i have not you saved my good name and perhaps my life
yes sir he is still with us could you ring him up thank you and i should be glad to have change of this five pound note a lad of fourteen with a bright keen face
had obeyed the summons of the manager he stood now gazing with great reverence at the famous detective let me have the hotel directory said holmes thank you now cartwright
there are the names of twenty three hotels here all in the immediate neighbourhood of charing cross do you see yes sir you will visit each of these in turn yes sir
you will begin in each case by giving the outside porter one shilling here are twenty three shillings yes sir you will tell him that you want to see the waste paper of yesterday you will say
that an important telegram has miscarried and that you are looking for it you understand yes sir
you could easily recognize it could you not yes sir
here are twenty three shillings
the odds are enormously against your finding it there are ten shillings over in case of emergencies let me have a report by wire at baker street before evening
chapter ten a successor some of the reverend frank milvey's brethren had found themselves exceedingly uncomfortable in their minds because they were required to bury the dead too hopefully
but the reverend frank inclining to the belief that they were required to do one or two other things say out of nine and thirty calculated to trouble their consciences rather more if they would think as much about them
held his peace indeed the reverend frank milvey was a forbearing man who noticed many sad warps and blights in the vineyard wherein he worked and did not profess that they made him savagely wise
he only learned that the more he himself knew in his little limited human way the better he could distantly imagine what omniscience might know
wherefore if the reverend frank had had to read the words that troubled some of his brethren and profitably touched innumerable hearts in a worse case than johnny's he would have done so out of the pity and humility of his soul
reading them over johnny he thought of his own six children but not of his poverty and read them with dimmed eyes and very seriously did he and his bright little wife who had been listening
look down into the small grave and walk home arm in arm there was grief in the aristocratic house and there was joy in the bower mister wegg argued if an orphan were wanted
was he not an orphan himself and could a better be desired and why go beating about brentford bushes seeking orphans forsooth who had established no claims upon you and made no sacrifices for you
when here was an orphan ready to your hand who had given up in your cause miss elizabeth master george aunt jane and uncle parker mister wegg chuckled consequently when he heard the tidings
on the genuine leg remaining to him john rokesmith's manner towards missus boffin at this time was more the manner of a young man towards a mother than that of a secretary towards his employer's wife
it had always been marked by a subdued affectionate deference that seemed to have sprung up on the very day of his engagement whatever was odd in her dress or her ways had seemed to have no oddity for him
he had sometimes borne a quietly amused face in her company but still it had seemed as if the pleasure her genial temper and radiant nature yielded him could have been quite as naturally expressed in a tear as in a smile
the completeness of his sympathy with her fancy for having a little john harmon to protect and rear he had shown in every act and word and now that the kind fancy was disappointed
he treated it with a manly tenderness and respect for which she could hardly thank him enough but i do thank you mister rokesmith said missus boffin and i thank you most kindly you love children
i hope everybody does they ought said missus boffin but we don't all of us do what we ought do us john rokesmith replied some among us supply the short comings of the rest
you have loved children well mister boffin has told me not a bit better than he has but that's his way he puts all the good upon me you speak rather sadly mister rokesmith do i
it sounds to me so were you one of many children he shook his head an only child no there was another dead long ago father or mother alive
dead and the rest of your relations
i never heard of any at this point of the dialogue bella came in with a light step she paused at the door a moment hesitating whether to remain or retire
perplexed by finding that she was not observed now don't mind an old lady's talk said missus boffin but tell me are you quite sure mister rokesmith that you have never had a disappointment in love
quite sure why do you ask me why for this reason sometimes you have a kind of kept down manner with you which is not like your age you can't be thirty i am not yet thirty
deeming it high time to make her presence known bella coughed here to attract attention begged pardon and said she would go fearing that she interrupted some matter of business
no don't go rejoined missus boffin because we are coming to business instead of having begun it and you belong to it as much now my dear bella as i do but i want my noddy to consult with us
rokesmith departed on that errand and presently returned accompanied by mister boffin at his jog trot bella felt a little vague trepidation as to the subject matter of this same consultation
until missus boffin announced it
and drawing her arm through bella's and noddy you sit here and mister rokesmith you sit there now you see what i want to talk about is this mister and missus milvey have sent me the kindest note possible
which mister rokesmith just now read to me out aloud for i ain't good at handwritings offering to find me another little child to name and educate and bring up well this has set me thinking
it mayn't be so easy to start her but once started she's a ingein this has set me thinking i say repeated missus boffin cordially beaming under the influence of her husband's compliment
and i have thought two things first of all that i have grown timid of reviving john harmon's name it's an unfortunate name and i fancy i should reproach myself if i gave it
to another dear child and it proved again unlucky now whether said mister boffin gravely propounding a case for his secretary's opinion whether one might call that a superstition
it is a matter of feeling with missus boffin said rokesmith gently the name has always been unfortunate it has now this new unfortunate association connected with it the name has died out why revive it
might i ask miss wilfer what she thinks it has not been a fortunate name for me said bella colouring
but that is not the point in my thoughts as we had given the name to the poor child and as the poor child took so lovingly to me i think i should feel jealous of calling another child by it
i think i should feel as if the name had become endeared to me and i had no right to use it so and that's your opinion remarked mister boffin observant of the secretary's face and again addressing him
i say again it is a matter of feeling returned the secretary
and pretty now give us your opinion noddy said missus boffin my opinion old lady returned the golden dustman is your opinion then said missus boffin
we agree not to revive john harmon's name but to let it rest in the grave it is as mister rokesmith says a matter of feeling but lor how many matters are matters of feeling
well and so i come to the second thing i have thought of you must know bella my dear and mister rokesmith that when i first named to my husband my thoughts of adopting a little orphan boy in remembrance of john harmon
i further named to my husband that it was comforting to think that how the poor boy would be benefited by john's own money and protected from john's own forlornness hear hear cried mister boffin so she did
ancoar no not ancoar noddy my dear returned missus boffin because i am going to say something else i meant that i am sure as much as i still mean it
but this little death has made me ask myself the question seriously whether i wasn't too bent upon pleasing myself else why did i seek out so much for a pretty child and a child quite to my liking
wanting to do good why not do it for its own sake and put my tastes and likings by perhaps said bella and perhaps she said it with some little sensitiveness arising
out of those old curious relations of hers towards the murdered man perhaps in reviving the name you would not have liked to give it to a less interesting child than the original he interested you very much
well my dear returned missus boffin giving her a squeeze it's kind of you to find that reason out and i hope it may have been so and indeed to a certain extent i believe it was so but i am afraid not to the whole extent
however that don't come in question now because we have done with the name laid it up as a remembrance suggested bella musingly much better said my dear laid it up as a remembrance well then i have been thinking
but a creature to be helped for its own sake not pretty then said bella no returned missus boffin stoutly nor prepossessing then said bella
no returned missus boffin not necessarily so that's as it may happen a well disposed boy comes in my way who may be even a little wanting in such advantages for getting on in life
but is honest and industrious and requires a helping hand and deserves it if i am very much in earnest and quite determined to be unselfish let me take care of him
here the footman whose feelings had been hurt on the former occasion appeared and crossing to rokesmith apologetically announced the objectionable sloppy the four members of council looked at one another and paused
shall he be brought here ma'am asked rokesmith yes said missus boffin whereupon the footman disappeared reappeared presenting sloppy and retired much disgusted
on which the tailor had received personal directions from rokesmith to expend the utmost cunning of his art with a view to the concealment of the cohering and sustaining buttons
shining and winking and gleaming and twinkling out of a hundred of those eyes of bright metal at the dazzled spectators the artistic taste of some unknown hatter
had furnished him with a hatband of wholesale capacity which was fluted behind from the crown of his hat to the brim and terminated in a black bunch from which the imagination shrunk discomfited and the reason revolted
some special powers with which his legs were endowed had already hitched up his glossy trousers at the ankles and bagged them at the knees
while similar gifts in his arms had raised his coat sleeves from his wrists and accumulated them at his elbows thus set forth
and a yawning gulf at his waistband sloppy stood confessed and how is betty my good fellow missus boffin asked him thankee mum said sloppy
meat one beer two vegetables three and which was four why pudding he was four here sloppy threw his head back opened his mouth wide and laughed rapturously
how are the two poor little minders asked missus boffin striking right out mum and coming round beautiful
sloppy yes mum come forward sloppy should you like to dine here every day
o mum sloppy's feelings obliged him to squeeze his hat and contract one leg at the knee yes and should you like to be always taken care of here if you were industrious and deserving
oh mum but there's missus higden said sloppy checking himself in his raptures drawing back and shaking his head with very serious meaning there's missus higden missus higden goes before all
none can ever be better friends to me than missus higden's been and she must be turned for must missus higden where would missus higden be if she warn't turned for
at the mere thought of missus higden in this inconceivable affliction mister sloppy's countenance became pale and manifested the most distressful emotions you are as right as right can be sloppy said missus boffin
and far be it from me to tell you otherwise it shall be seen to if betty higden can be turned for all the same you shall come here and be taken care of for life and be made able to keep her in other ways than the turning
even as to that mum answered the ecstatic sloppy the turning might be done in the night don't you see i could be here in the day and turn in the night i don't want no sleep i don't
or even if i any ways should want a wink or two added sloppy after a moment's apologetic reflection i could take em turning i've took em turning many a time and enjoyed em wonderful on the grateful impulse of the moment
mister sloppy kissed missus boffin's hand and then detaching himself from that good creature that he might have room enough for his feelings threw back his head opened his mouth wide and uttered a dismal howl
it was creditable to his tenderness of heart but suggested that he might on occasion give some offence to the neighbours
book the third a long lane chapter one lodgers in queer street it was a foggy day in london and the fog was heavy and dark
animate london with smarting eyes and irritated lungs was blinking wheezing and choking inanimate london was a sooty spectre divided in purpose between being visible and invisible
and so being wholly neither gaslights flared in the shops with a haggard and unblest air as knowing themselves to be night creatures that had no business abroad under the sun while the sun itself
when it was for a few moments dimly indicated through circling eddies of fog
and were collapsing flat and cold even in the surrounding country it was a foggy day but there the fog was grey whereas in london it was at about the boundary line dark yellow
and a little within it brown and then browner and then browner until at the heart of the city which call saint mary axe it was rusty black from any point of the high ridge of land northward
it might have been discerned that the loftiest buildings made an occasional struggle to get their heads above the foggy sea and especially that the great dome of saint paul's seemed to die hard but this was not perceivable in the streets at their feet
where the whole metropolis was a heap of vapour charged with muffled sound of wheels and enfolding a gigantic catarrh at nine o'clock on such a morning
riah went into the fog and was lost to the eyes of saint mary axe but the eyes of this history can follow him westward by cornhill cheapside fleet street and the strand to piccadilly and the albany
thither he went at his grave and measured pace staff in hand skirt at heel and more than one head turning to look back at his venerable figure already lost in the mist
supposed it to be some ordinary figure indistinctly seen which fancy and the fog had worked into that passing likeness arrived at the house in which his master's chambers were on the second floor
riah proceeded up the stairs and paused at fascination fledgeby's door making free with neither bell nor knocker he struck upon the door with the top of his staff and having listened sat down on the threshold
it was characteristic of his habitual submission that he sat down on the raw dark staircase as many of his ancestors had probably sat down in dungeons taking what befell him as it might befall
after a time when he had grown so cold as to be fain to blow upon his fingers he arose and knocked with his staff again and listened again and again sat down to wait
thrice he repeated these actions before his listening ears were greeted by the voice of fledgeby calling from his bed hold your row i'll come and open the door directly
but in lieu of coming directly he fell into a sweet sleep for some quarter of an hour more during which added interval riah sat upon the stairs and waited with perfect patience at length the door stood open
and mister fledgeby's retreating drapery plunged into bed again following it at a respectful distance riah passed into the bed chamber where a fire had been sometime lighted and was burning briskly
why what time of night do you mean to call it inquired fledgeby turning away beneath the clothes and presenting a comfortable rampart of shoulder to the chilled figure of the old man
the deuce it is then it must be precious foggy very foggy sir and raw then chill and bitter said riah drawing out a handkerchief
and wiping the moisture from his beard and long grey hair as he stood on the verge of the rug with his eyes on the acceptable fire with a plunge of enjoyment fledgeby settled himself afresh
any snow or sleet or slush or anything of that sort he asked no sir no not quite so bad as that the streets are pretty clean you needn't brag about it returned fledgeby
but you're always bragging about something got the books there they are here sir all right i'll turn the general subject over in my mind for a minute or two and while i'm about it you can empty your bag and get ready for me
with another comfortable plunge mister fledgeby fell asleep again the old man having obeyed his directions sat down on the edge of a chair and folding his hands before him gradually yielded to the influence of the warmth and dozed
he was roused by mister fledgeby's appearing erect at the foot of the bed in turkish slippers rose coloured turkish trousers got cheap from somebody who had cheated some other somebody out of them and a gown and cap to correspond
with a bottomless chair a lantern and a bunch of matches now old un cried fascination in his light raillery what dodgery are you up to next sitting there with your eyes shut you ain't asleep
catch a weasel at it and catch a jew
not you returned fledgeby with a cunning look a telling move with a good many i dare say but it won't put me off my guard not a bad notion though if you want to look indifferent in driving a bargain
oh you are a dodger the old man shook his head gently repudiating the imputation and suppressed a sigh and moved to the table at which mister fledgeby was now pouring out for himself
now said fledgeby fork out your balance in hand and prove by figures how you make it out
riah obeyed and then taking a bag from his breast and referring to the sum in the accounts for which they made him responsible told it out upon the table fledgeby told it again with great care and rang every sovereign
i suppose he said taking one up to eye it closely you haven't been lightening any of these but it's a trade of your people's you know you understand what sweating a pound means don't you
much as you do sir returned the old man with his hands under opposite cuffs of his loose sleeves as he stood at the table deferentially observant of the master's face may i take the liberty to say something
with the character which it is your policy that i should bear i don't find it worth my while to cut things so fine as to go into the inquiry fascination coolly answered not in justice
bother justice said fledgeby not in generosity jews and generosity said fledgeby that's a good connexion bring out your vouchers and don't talk jerusalem palaver
the vouchers were produced and for the next half hour mister fledgeby concentrated his sublime attention on them they and the accounts were all found correct and the books and the papers resumed their places in the bag
next said fledgeby concerning that bill broking branch of the business the branch i like best what queer bills are to be bought and at what prices you have got your list of what's in the market
sir a long list replied riah taking out a pocket book and selecting from its contents a folded paper which being unfolded became a sheet of foolscap covered with close writing
whew whistled fledgeby as he took it in his hand queer street is full of lodgers just at present these are to be disposed of in parcels are they in parcels as set forth returned the old man looking over his master's shoulder
or the lump half the lump will be waste paper one knows beforehand said fledgeby can you get it at waste paper price that's the question riah shook his head
and fledgeby cast his small eyes down the list they presently began to twinkle and he no sooner became conscious of their twinkling than he looked up over his shoulder at the grave face above him and moved to the chimney piece
making a desk of it he stood there with his back to the old man warming his knees perusing the list at his leisure and often returning to some lines of it as though they were particularly interesting
he took none that could be detected but aware of his employer's suspicions stood with his eyes on the ground mister fledgeby was thus amiably engaged when a step was heard at the outer door
hark that's your doing you pump of israel said fledgeby you can't have shut it
are you anywhere here fledgeby to which fledgeby after cautioning riah in a low voice to take his cue as it should be given him replied here i am and opened his bedroom door come in said fledgeby
that i am trying to make terms for an unfortunate friend with in a matter of some dishonoured bills
king edwin therefore with all the nobility of the nation and a large number of the common sort received the faith and the washing of holy regeneration
with his consent and favour preached the word of god in that country
during which days from morning till night he did nothing else but instruct the people resorting from all villages and places in christ's saving word
so that like the samaritans of old he seemed at the same time to serve christ and the gods whom he served before
delivering all that province according to the inner signification of his name from long iniquity and unhappiness and bringing it to the faith and works of righteousness and the gifts of everlasting happiness
he ended his days there in peace
the roof of which has either fallen through long neglect or been thrown down by enemies but the walls are still to be seen standing and every year miraculous cures are wrought in that place for the benefit of those who have faith to seek them
wheresoever the dominion of king edwin extended that as is still proverbially said a woman with her new born babe might walk throughout the island from sea to sea without receiving any harm
he caused stakes to be fixed with copper drinking vessels hanging on them for the refreshment of travellers nor durst any man touch them for any other purpose than that for which they were designed either through the great dread they had of the king
or for the affection which they bore him his dignity was so great throughout his dominions that not only were his banners borne before him in battle but even in time of peace when he rode about his cities townships or provinces
when he learned that the nation of the northumbrians with their king had been by the preaching of paulinus converted to the faith and confession of christ
he sent the pall to the said paulinus and with it letters of exhortation to king edwin with fatherly love inflaming his zeal to the end that he and his people should persist in belief of the truth which they had received
to his most noble son and excellent lord edwin king of the angles bishop honorius servant of the servants of god greeting
the wholeheartedness of your christian majesty in the worship of your creator is so inflamed with the fire of faith that it shines out far and wide and being reported throughout the world brings forth plentiful fruits of your labours
for the terms of your kingship you know to be this that taught by orthodox preaching the knowledge of your king and creator you believe and worship god and as far as man is able pay him the sincere devotion of your mind
and therefore most excellent son we exhort you with such fatherly love as is meet to labour to preserve this gift in every way by earnest striving and constant prayer in that the divine mercy has vouchsafed to call you to his grace
to the end that he who has been pleased to deliver you from all errors and bring you to the knowledge of his name in this present world may likewise prepare a place for you in the heavenly country
employing yourself therefore in reading frequently the works of my lord gregory your evangelist of apostolic memory
keep before your eyes that love of his doctrine which he zealously bestowed for the sake of your souls that his prayers may exalt your kingdom and people
and a letter wherein he ordains the same that he had before ordained in his epistle to king edwin to wit that when either the archbishop of canterbury or of york shall depart this life the survivor being of the same degree
shall have power to ordain another bishop in the room of him that is departed that it might not be necessary always to undertake the toilsome journey to rome at so great a distance by sea and land to ordain an archbishop
which letter we have also thought fit to insert in this our history
and placed in the utmost borders of the earth wiser than all the ancient and modern churches of christ throughout the world
to our most beloved and most holy tomianus columbanus cromanus dinnaus and baithanus bishops
and we have also learnt that the poison of the pelagian heresy again springs up among you we therefore exhort you that you put away from your thoughts all such venomous and superstitious wickedness
for you cannot be ignorant how that execrable heresy has been condemned for it has not only been abolished these two hundred years but it is also daily condemned by us and buried under our perpetual ban
and we exhort you not to rake up the ashes of those whose weapons have been burnt for who would not detest that insolent and impious assertion that man can live without sin of his own free will and not through the grace of god
a great battle being fought in the plain that is called haethfelth
chiefly because one of the chiefs by whom it was carried on was a pagan and the other a barbarian more cruel than a pagan
for penda with all the nation of the mercians was an idolater and a stranger to the name of christ but caedwalla though he professed and called himself a christian
was so barbarous in his disposition and manner of living that he did not even spare women and innocent children but with bestial cruelty put all alike to death by torture and overran all their country in his fury for a long time
intending to cut off all the race of the english within the borders of britain nor did he pay any respect to the christian religion which had sprung up among them it being to this day the custom of the britons to despise the faith and religion of the english
and to have no part with them in anything any more than with pagans
he wrote jointly with his fellow bishops a hortatory epistle entreating and conjuring them to keep the unity of peace and catholic observance with the church of christ spread throughout the world
and it was our lot to come into this island which is called britain before we knew them
by which he endeavoured to confirm them in catholic unity
as likewise to king ethelbert and the english nation this pope was boniface the fourth after the blessed gregory bishop of the city of rome he obtained for the church of christ from the emperor phocas the gift of the temple at rome called by the ancients
ethelbert king of kent having most gloriously governed his temporal kingdom fifty six years entered into the eternal joys of the kingdom of heaven
the third as has been said was ethelbert king of kent the fourth was redwald king of the east angles who even in the life time of ethelbert had been acquiring the leadership for his own race
the fifth was edwin king of the northumbrian nation that is of those who live in the district to the north of the river humber his power was greater
and for the most part subdued and made tributary the nations of the picts and scots who occupy the northern parts of britain
without the scourge of divine severity in chastisement and correction for he was troubled with frequent fits of madness and possessed by an unclean spirit
the storm of this disturbance was increased by the death of sabert king of the east saxons who departing to the heavenly kingdom left three sons still pagans to inherit his temporal crown
they immediately began openly to give themselves up to idolatry which during their father's lifetime they had seemed somewhat to abandon and they granted free licence to their subjects to serve idols and when they saw the bishop
whilst celebrating mass in the church give the eucharist to the people filled as they were with folly and ignorance they said to him as is commonly reported
and which you still continue to give to the people in the church to whom he answered if you will be washed in that font of salvation in which your father was washed you may also partake of the holy bread of which he partook
but if you despise the laver of life you can in no wise receive the bread of life they replied we will not enter into that font because we know that we do not stand in need of it and yet we will be refreshed by that bread
and being often earnestly admonished by him that this could by no means be done nor would any one be admitted to partake of the sacred oblation without the holy cleansing at last they said filled with rage
if you will not comply with us in so small a matter as that which we require you shall not stay in our province
wherein having laid himself to rest after he had with tears poured forth many prayers to god for the state of the church he fell asleep in the dead of night the blessed chief of the apostles appeared to him
and scourging him grievously a long time asked of him with apostolic severity why he was forsaking the flock which he had committed to him or to what shepherd he was leaving by his flight christ's sheep that were in the midst of wolves
hast thou he said forgotten my example who for the sake of those little ones whom christ commended to me in token of his affection underwent at the hands of infidels and enemies of christ
bonds stripes imprisonment afflictions and lastly death itself even the death of the cross that i might at last be crowned with him laurentius the servant of christ
went to the king as soon as morning broke and laying aside his garment showed the scars of the stripes which he had received the king astonished asked who had presumed to inflict such stripes on so great a man
and when he heard that for the sake of his salvation the bishop had suffered these cruel blows at the hands of the apostle of christ he was greatly afraid
and abjuring the worship of idols and renouncing his unlawful marriage he received the faith of christ and being baptized promoted and supported the interests of the church to the utmost of his power
they came back one year after their departure and justus returned to the city of rochester where he had before presided but the people of london would not receive bishop mellitus choosing rather to be under their idolatrous high priests
for king eadbald had not so much authority in the kingdom as his father
in short that i may give one instance of his power from which the rest may be inferred it happened once that the city of canterbury being set on fire through carelessness was in danger of being consumed by the spreading conflagration
water was thrown on the fire in vain a considerable part of the city was already destroyed and the fierce flames were advancing towards the bishop's abode
when he trusting in god where human help failed ordered himself to be carried towards the raging masses of fire which were spreading on every side
the bishop being carried thither by his servants weak as he was set about averting by prayer the danger which the strong hands of active men had not been able to overcome with all their exertions
immediately the wind which blowing from the south had spread the conflagration throughout the city veered to the north and thus prevented the destruction of those places that had been exposed to its full violence
then it ceased entirely and there was a calm while the flames likewise sank and were extinguished
and because the man of god burned with the fire of divine love and was wont to drive away the storms of the powers of the air by his frequent prayers and at his bidding from doing harm to himself or his people it was meet that he should be allowed to prevail over the winds and flames of this world and to obtain that they should not injure him or his
of which licence this is the form boniface to his most beloved brother justus
opening the hearts of the nations to receive the wondrous mystery of your preaching
for he has blessed with a rich reward your eminence's acceptable course by the support of his loving kindness granting a plentiful increase to your labours in the faithful management of the talents committed to you
you have awaited with praiseworthy patience the redemption of that nation and that they might profit by your merits salvation has been bestowed on them
therefore firmly confiding in the long suffering of the divine clemency we believe that through the ministry of your preaching there will ensue most full salvation not only of the nations subject to him but also of their neighbours
to the end that as it is written the recompense of a perfect work may be conferred on you by the lord the rewarder of all the just and that the universal confession of all nations having received the mystery of the christian faith may declare that in truth their sound is gone out into all the earth
giving you authority to use it only in the celebration of the sacred mysteries granting to you likewise to ordain bishops when there shall be occasion through the lord's mercy that so the gospel of christ by the preaching of many
may be spread abroad in all the nations that are not yet converted
you must therefore endeavour my brother to preserve with unblemished sincerity of mind that which you have received through the kindness of the apostolic see bearing in mind what it is that is represented by the honourable vestment which you have obtained to be borne on your shoulders
and imploring the divine mercy study to show yourself such that you may present before the tribunal of the supreme judge that is to come the rewards of the favour granted to you not with guiltiness but with the benefit of souls
god preserve you in safety most dear brother
and how paulinus coming to preach the gospel first converted his daughter and others to the mysteries of the faith of christ
he received the answer that it was not lawful to give a christian maiden in marriage to a pagan husband lest the faith and the mysteries of the heavenly king should be profaned by her union with a king that was altogether a stranger to the worship of the true god
this answer being brought to edwin by his messengers he promised that he would in no manner act in opposition to the christian faith which the maiden professed but would give leave to her and all that went with her men and women bishops and clergy to follow their faith and worship after the custom of the christians
nor did he refuse to accept that religion himself if being examined by wise men it should be found more holy and more worthy of god
so the maiden was promised and sent to edwin and in accordance with the agreement paulinus a man beloved of god was ordained bishop to go with her and by daily exhortations and celebrating the heavenly mysteries to confirm her and her company lest they should be corrupted by intercourse with the pagans
and so came to king edwin with the aforesaid maiden as an attendant on their union in the flesh but his mind was wholly bent upon calling the nation to which he was sent to the knowledge of truth according to the words of the apostle
but if haply he might to convert some of the pagans to the grace of the faith by his preaching
he had a two edged dagger dipped in poison to the end that if the wound inflicted by the weapon did not avail to kill the king it might be aided by the deadly venom
whilst unfolding in cunning words his pretended embassy he started up on a sudden and unsheathing the dagger under his garment assaulted the king
when lilla the king's most devoted servant saw this having no buckler at hand to protect the king from death he at once interposed his own body to receive the blow
but the enemy struck home with such force that he wounded the king through the body of the slaughtered thegn being then attacked on all sides with swords in the confusion he also slew impiously with his dagger another of the thegns whose name was forthhere
the king in the presence of bishop paulinus gave thanks to his gods for the birth of his daughter and the bishop on his part began to give thanks to christ and to tell the king that by his prayers to him he had obtained that the queen should bring forth the child in safety
and without grievous pain the king delighted with his words promised that if god would grant him life and victory over the king by whom the murderer who had wounded him had been sent he would renounce his idols and serve christ
and as a pledge that he would perform his promise he delivered up that same daughter to bishop paulinus to be consecrated to christ
and engaging in war either slew or received in surrender all those of whom he learned that they had conspired to murder him so he returned victorious into his own country
but he would not immediately and unadvisedly embrace the mysteries of the christian faith though he no longer worshipped idols ever since he made the promise that he would serve christ
but first took heed earnestly to be instructed at leisure by the venerable paulinus in the knowledge of faith and to confer with such as he knew to be the wisest of his chief men inquiring what they thought was fittest to be done in that case
chapter eleven a mysterious disappearance a woman was sitting in a low room engaged in knitting her feet were stretched out toward a small fire that smouldered in an open hearth she wore a simple calico gown
neat and well fitting and her face bore traces of much beauty that time and care had been unable wholly to efface suddenly she paused in her work her head turned slightly to one side to listen
is this missus rogers asked beth looking at the woman curiously the woman's eyes were closed but the lashes fell in graceful dark curves over her withered cheeks the girl wondered how she had been able to know her visitors sex so accurately
my affliction renders me helpless as you may see we are very comfortable i assure you missus rogers said beth we have come to ask if you have heard anything of your daughter not a word as yet miss de graf
but lucy has been gone so long now that i realize it will be difficult to find her if indeed the poor girl has not is not her voice broke oh you don't fear that do you missus rogers asked beth quickly
i fear anything everything wailed the poor creature the tears streaming from between her closed lids my darling was frantic with grief and she couldn't bear the humiliation and disgrace of her position will told you didn't he
yes of course but it wasn't so bad missus rogers it wasn't a desperate condition by any means with poor tom in prison for years and just for trying to help her tom isn't in prison you know any more said beth quietly
he has been released released when last evening his fault has been forgiven and he is now free the woman sat silent for a time then she asked you have done this mister forbes
why miss de graf and i assisted perhaps the young man is not really bad and tom's a fine boy she cried with eagerness he's honest and true mister forbes he is indeed
she must have been said the mother sadly lucy was a sensible girl and until this thing happened she was as bright and cheerful as the day is long but she is very sensitive
she inherited that from me i think and tom's action drove her distracted at first she raved and rambled incoherently and will and i feared brain fever would set in
then she disappeared in the night without leaving a word or message for us which was unlike her and we've never heard a word of her since the the river has a strange fascination for people in that condition at times in my life
it has almost drawn me into its depths and i am not mad i have never been mad let us hope for the best missus rogers said beth somehow i have an idea this trouble will all turn out well in the end
you have been so kind to us my dear that i feel you ought to know i shall be glad to know whatever you care to tell me said beth simply i am the wife of a poor farmer began the woman speaking softly and with some hesitation
found some one he loved better and carelessly discarded me
in my girlhood i was especially susceptible to any slight and this young man's heartless action made it impossible for me to remain at home and face the humiliation he had thrust upon me my father was a hard man
i thought it best to wear out the remainder of my existence in the seclusion of a farm house i put all the past behind me and told will rogers i would marry him and be a faithful wife but that my heart was dead he accepted me on that condition
will was devoted to her and the baby wakened in me all the old passionate capacity to love lucy drew will and me a little closer together but he never recovered his youthful ambition he was a disappointed man
and went from bad to worse i don't say will hasn't always been tender and true to me and absolutely devoted to lucy but he lost all hope of being loved as he loved me and the disappointment broke him down
he became an old man early in life and his lack of energy kept us very poor i used to take in sewing before the accident to my eyes and that helped a good deal to pay expenses
but now i am helpless and my husband devotes all his time to me although i beg him to work the farm and try to earn some money i wouldn't have minded the poverty
i have had to bear so much in my life that i could even bear my child's death but to have her disappear and not know what has become of her whether she is living miserably or lying at the bottom of the river
both perceived that there was but one way they could assist missus rogers and that was to discover what had become of her child was lucy like you or did she resemble her father asked beth she is
she was very like me when i was young replied the woman there is a photograph of her on the wall there between the windows but it was taken five years ago when she was a child now she is she was eighteen and a well developed young woman
i've been looking at the picture said kenneth and you mustn't think of her as dead missus rogers said beth pleadingly i'm sure she is alive and that we shall find her we're going right to work and everything possible shall be done to trace your daughter
don't worry please be as cheerful as you can and leave the search to us the woman sighed will believes she is alive too she said he can't sleep or rest till he finds her for my husband loves her as well as i do
but sometimes i feel it's wicked to hope she is alive i know what she suffers for i suffered myself and life isn't worth living when despair and disappointment fills it i cannot see why lucy shouldn't yet be happy protested beth
replied kenneth you mister forbes yes i'm not afraid of a boy who became a criminal to save the girl he loved but all the world knows of his crime she exclaimed the world forgets these things sooner than you suppose he answered
so now nothing remains but to find your girl and we'll try to do that i assure you missus rogers was crying softly by this time but it was from joy and relief when they left her she promised to be as cheerful as possible and to look on the bright side of life
i can't thank you she said so i won't try you must know how grateful we are to you as beth and kenneth drove back to elmhurst
it's so good of you ken to take tom gates into your employ said the girl pressing her cousin's arm and i'm sure he'll be true and grateful i really need him beth said the boy
there is getting to be too much correspondence for mister watson to attend to and i ought to relieve him of many other details it's a good arrangement and i'm glad i thought of it they had almost reached elmhurst when they met the honorable erastus hopkins driving along the road
the three daughters were all handsome but particularly the youngest indeed she was so very beautiful that in her childhood every one called her the little beauty and being still the same when she was grown up
and spoke with pride to those they thought below them they gave themselves a thousand airs and would not visit other merchants daughters nor would they indeed be seen with any but persons of quality they went every day to balls plays and public walks
or other useful employments as it was well known that these young ladies would have large fortunes
but the two eldest always answered that for their parts they had no thoughts of marrying any one below a duke or an earl at least beauty had quite as many offers as her sisters but she always answered with the greatest civility
the merchant suddenly lost all his fortune and had nothing left but a small cottage in the country upon this he said to his daughters while the tears ran down his cheeks all the time my children
she used to amuse herself with reading playing on her music or singing while she spun but her two sisters were at a loss what to do to pass the time away they had their breakfast in bed and did not rise till ten o'clock then they commonly walked out
but always found themselves very soon tired
and grieve for the loss of their carriage and fine clothes and say to each other what a mean spirited poor stupid creature our young sister is to be so content with our low way of life but their father thought in quite another way
that one of the richest ships which he thought was lost had just come into port this news made the two eldest sisters almost mad with joy for they thought they should now leave the cottage and have all their finery again
when they found that their father must take a journey to the ship the two eldest begged he would not fail to bring them back some new gowns caps rings and all sorts of trinkets but beauty asked for nothing for she thought in herself
i should be glad if you would bring me a rose for we have none in our garden now beauty did not indeed wish for a rose nor any thing else but she only said this that she might not affront her sisters
for else they would have said she wanted her father to praise her for not asking him for any thing the merchant took his leave of them and set out on his journey but when he got to the ship some persons went to law with him about the cargo and after a deal of trouble
and was very much surprised that he did not see a single person or creature in any of the yards his horse had followed him and finding a stable with the door open went into it at once
and here the poor beast being nearly starved helped himself to a good meal of oats and hay his master then tied him up and walked towards the house which he entered but still without seeing a living creature
he went on to a large hall where he found a good fire and a table covered with some very nice dishes and only one plate with a knife and fork as the snow and rain had wetted him to the skin he went up to the fire to dry himself i hope said he
the master of the house or his servants will excuse me for to be sure it will not be long now before i see them he waited a good time but still nobody came
he sat till the clock struck twelve but did not see a single creature he now took courage and began to think of looking a little more about him
in which there was a fine bed and as he was quite weak and tired he shut the door
was ten o'clock in the morning before he thought of getting up when he was amazed to see a handsome new suit of clothes laid ready for him instead of his own which he had spoiled to be sure said he to himself this place belongs to some good fairy
indeed my good fairy said the merchant aloud i am vastly obliged to you for your kind care of me he then made a hearty breakfast took his hat and was going to the stable to pay his horse a visit
but as he passed under one of the arbours which was loaded with roses he thought of what beauty had asked him to bring back to her and so he took a bunch of roses to carry home at the same moment he heard a most shocking noise
and saw such a frightful beast coming towards him that he was ready to drop with fear ungrateful man said the beast in a terrible voice i have saved your life by letting you into my palace
but you shall make amends for your fault with your life you shall die in a quarter of an hour the merchant fell on his knees to the beast and clasping his hands said my lord i humbly beg your pardon i did not think it would offend you to gather a rose for one of my daughters
now i will pardon you if one of them will agree to come and die instead of you go and if your daughters should refuse promise me that you yourself will return in three months the tender hearted merchant had no thought of letting any one of his daughters die instead of him
but he knew that if he seemed to accept the beast's terms he should at least have the pleasure of seeing them once again so he gave the beast his promise
as soon as he liked but said the beast i do not wish you to go back empty handed go to the room you slept in and you will find a chest there fill it with just what you like best
the horse took a path across the forest of his own accord and in a few hours they reached the merchant's house his children came running round him as he got off his horse but the merchant instead of kissing them with joy could not help crying as he looked at them
the two eldest sisters now began to shed tears and to lay the blame upon beauty who they said would be the cause of her father's death see said they what happens from the pride of the little wretch
i will give myself up to him and think myself happy in being able at once to save his life and prove my love for the best of fathers no sister said the three brothers you shall not die we will go in search for this monster and either he or we will perish
do not hope to kill him said the merchant for his power is far too great for you to be able to do any such thing i am charmed with the kindness of beauty but i will not suffer her life to be lost i myself am old and cannot expect to live much longer
because everybody loved her the merchant was so grieved at the thoughts of losing his child that he never once thought of the chest filled with gold but at night to his great surprise he found it standing by his bedside
that she loved them for all they had used her so ill and forgave them with all her heart when the three months were past the merchant and beauty got ready to set out for the palace of the beast upon this
the two sisters rubbed their eyes with an onion to make believe they shed a great many tears but both the merchant and his sons cried in earnest there was only beauty who did not for she thought that this would only make the matter worse
they reached the palace in a very few hours and the horse without bidding went into the same stable as before the merchant and beauty walked towards the large hall where they found a table covered with every dainty and two plates laid ready
the merchant had very little appetite but beauty that she might the better hide her grief placed herself at the table and helped her father she then began herself to eat and thought all the time that to be sure the beast had a mind to fatten her
before he eat her up as he had got such good cheer for her when they had done their supper they heard a great noise and the good old man began to bid his poor child farewell for he knew it was the beast coming to them
when beauty first saw his frightful form she could not help being afraid but she tried to hide her fear as much as she could the beast asked her if she had come quite of her own accord and though she was now still more afraid than before
you are a good girl and i think myself very much obliged to you he then turned towards her father and said to him good man you may leave the palace to morrow morning and take care never to come back to it again
good night beauty good night beast said she and then the monster went out of the room ah my dear child said the merchant kissing his daughter i am half dead already
at the thoughts of leaving you with this dreadful beast you had better go back and let me stay in your place no said beauty boldly i will never agree to that you must go home to morrow morning
they then wished each other good night and went to bed both of them thinking they should not be able to close their eyes but as soon as ever they had laid down they fell into a deep sleep and did not wake till morning beauty dreamed that a lady came up to her who said
but though it gave him some comfort he could not take leave of his darling child without shedding many tears when the merchant got out of sight beauty sat down in the large hall and began to cry also yet she had a great deal of courage
than all the rest was a large library filled with books a harpsichord and many other pieces of music the beast takes care i shall not be at a loss how to amuse myself said she
she then thought that it was not likely such things would have been got ready for her if she had but one day to live and began to hope all would not turn out so bad as she and her father had feared she opened the library
and saw these verses written in letters of gold on the back of one of the books beauteous lady dry your tears here's no cause for sighs or fears command as freely as you may
but just then by chance she cast her eyes on a looking glass that stood near her and in the glass she saw her home and her father riding up to the cottage in the deepest sorrow her sisters came out to meet him but for all they tried to look sorry
it was easy to see that in their hearts they were very glad in a short time all this picture went away out of the glass but beauty began to think that the beast was very kind to her and that she had no need to be afraid of him
she heard the noise of the beast and could not help trembling with fear beauty said he will you give me leave to see you sup that is as you please answered she very much afraid
not in the least said the beast you alone command in this place if you should not like my company you need only to say so and i will leave you that moment but tell me beauty do you not think me very ugly
why yes said she for i cannot tell a story but then i think you are very good you are right replied the beast
and be sure you do not want for any thing for all you see is yours and i shall be vastly grieved if you are not happy you are very kind said beauty i must needs own that i think very well of your good nature
and i am better pleased with you in that form though it is so ugly than with those who carry wicked hearts under the form of a man if i had any sense said the beast i would thank you for what you have said but i am too stupid to say any thing that would give you pleasure
beauty ate her supper with a very good appetite and almost lost all her dread of the monster but she was ready to sink with fright when he said to her beauty will you be my wife for a few minutes she was not able to speak a word
for she was afraid of putting him in a passion by refusing at length she said no beast the beast made no reply but sighed deeply and went away when beauty found herself alone she began to feel pity for the poor beast
dear said she what a sad thing it is that he should be so very frightful since he is so good tempered beauty lived three months in this palace very well pleased the beast came to see her every night
and talked with her while she supped and though what he said was not very clever yet as she saw in him every day some new mark of his goodness so instead of dreading the time of his coming she was always looking at her watch
but i must tell you plainly that i do not think it will ever happen i shall always be your friend so try to let that make you easy i must needs do so then said the beast for i know well enough how frightful i am
and your poor beast shall die of sorrow no said beauty crying i love you too well to be the cause of your death i promise to return in a week
so that my father is left all alone let me stay a week with him you shall find yourself with him to morrow morning replied the beast but mind do not forget your promise when you wish to return
you have nothing to do but to put your ring on a table when you go to bed good bye beauty the beast then sighed as he said these words and beauty went to bed very sorry to see him so much grieved when she awoke in the morning
she found herself in her father's cottage she rung a bell that was at her bedside and a servant entered but as soon as she saw beauty the woman gave a loud shriek upon which the merchant ran up stairs and when he beheld his daughter he was ready to die of joy
he ran to the bedside and kissed her a hundred times at last beauty began to remember that she had brought no clothes with her to put on but the servant told her she had just found in the next room a large chest full of dresses trimmed all over with gold
while beauty was dressing herself a servant brought word to her that her sisters were come with their husbands to pay her a visit they both lived unhappily with the gentlemen they had married the husband of the eldest was very handsome but was so very proud of this
that he thought of nothing else from morning till night and did not attend to the beauty of his wife the second had married a man of great learning but he made no use of it only to torment and affront all his friends and his wife more than any of them
and then he will be so angry that perhaps he will eat her up in a moment that is well thought of answered the other but to do this we must seem very kind to her they then made up their minds to be so
and went to join her in the cottage where they showed her so much false love that beauty could not help crying for joy when the week was ended the two sisters began to pretend so much grief at the thoughts of her leaving them that she agreed to stay a week more
and that the beast lay dying on a grass plot and with his last breath put her in mind of her promise and laid his death to her keeping away from him beauty awoke in a great fright and burst into tears
am not i wicked said she to behave so ill to a beast who has shown me so much kindness why will i not marry him i am sure i should be more happy with him than my sisters are with their husbands
he shall not be wretched any longer on my account for i should do nothing but blame myself all the rest of my life she then rose put her ring on the table got into bed again and soon fell asleep in the morning
she with joy found herself in the palace of the beast she dressed herself very finely that she might please him the better and thought she had never known a day pass away so slow at last the clock struck nine
but the beast did not come beauty then thought to be sure she had been the cause of his death in earnest she ran from room to room all over the palace calling out his name but still she saw nothing of him
after looking for him a long time she thought of her dream and ran directly towards the grass plot and there she found the poor beast lying senseless and seeming dead she threw herself upon his body
you shall live to be my husband from this moment i offer to marry you and will be only yours oh i thought i felt only friendship for you but the pain i now feel shows me that i could not live without seeing you the moment beauty had spoken these words
yet beauty took no notice of all this but watched over her dear beast with the greatest tenderness but now she was all at once amazed to see at her feet instead of her poor beast the handsomest prince that ever was seen
for i am he a wicked fairy had condemned me to keep the form of a beast till a beautiful young lady should agree to marry me and ordered me on pain of death not to show that i had any sense you alone dearest beauty
have kindly judged of me by the goodness of my heart and in return i offer you my hand and my crown though i know the reward is much less than what i owe you beauty in the most pleasing surprise helped the prince to rise
receive the reward of the choice you have made you have chosen goodness of heart rather than sense and beauty therefore you deserve to find them all three joined in the same person you are going to be a great queen
and shall be fixed at the gates of your sister's palace and i will not pass any worse sentence on you than to see her happy you will never appear in your own persons again till you are fully cured of your faults
and straightway they ceased from such words and gave unwearying labour to the oar and quickly they passed by the swiftly flowing river rhebas and the peak of colone
and beneath the breeze the ropes and all the tackling quivered as they sped onward
and beneath it smooth rocks ever washed by the sea stand rooted firm and round them the wave rolls and thunders loud but above wide spreading plane trees grow on the topmost point
from here an icy breath unceasingly issuing from the chill recess ever forms a glistening rime which melts again beneath the midday sun and never does silence hold that grim headland
but there is a continual murmur from the sounding sea and the leaves that quiver in the winds from the cave
and a hollow ravine brings it down from above
and he made his own the tribes of the bithynians and their land as far as the mouth of rhebas and the peak of colone
paphlagonians of pelops yielded just as they were
nevertheless by your hands have they paid the penalty
such as he was when he went to war and round his head a fair helm with four peaks gleamed with its blood red crest and again he entered the vast gloom
thence it spreads inland over a hilly country straight forward wherefrom its streams go winding on and they roll on this way and that ever more
and here is the plain of doeas
and near them dwell the tibareni rich in sheep beyond the genetaean headland of zeus lord of hospitality
and the people themselves take their name from them after passing them ye must beach your ship upon a smooth island when ye have driven away with all manner of skill the ravening birds which in countless numbers haunt the desert island
but what need is there that i should sin yet again declaring everything to the end by my prophetic art and beyond the island and opposite mainland dwell the philyres and above the philyres are the macrones
for the rocks were again parting asunder
who hurried him to the baptismal fount and so saved him from sharing the lot of his father though he retained many marks of his unearthly origin at this time vortigern reigned in britain
he was a usurper who had caused the death of his sovereign moines and driven the two brothers of the late king whose names were uther and pendragon into banishment vortigern
who lived in constant fear of the return of the rightful heirs of the kingdom began to erect a strong tower for defence the edifice when brought by the workmen to a certain height three times fell to the ground without any apparent cause
the king consulted his astrologers on this wonderful event and learned from them that it would be necessary to bathe the corner stone of the foundation with the blood of a child born without a mortal father
in search of such an infant vortigern sent his messengers all over the kingdom and they by accident discovered merlin whose lineage seemed to point him out as the individual wanted they took him to the king but merlin
young as he was explained to the king the absurdity of attempting to rescue the fabric by such means for he told him the true cause of the instability of the tower was its being placed over the den of two immense dragons
whose combats shook the earth above them the king ordered his workmen to dig beneath the tower and when they had done so they discovered two enormous serpents the one white as milk the other red as fire
the multitude looked on with amazement till the serpents slowly rising from their den and expanding their enormous folds began the combat when every one fled in terror except merlin
who stood by clapping his hands and cheering on the conflict the red dragon was slain and the white one gliding through a cleft in the rock disappeared these animals typified as merlin afterwards explained
the invasion of uther and pendragon the rightful princes who soon after landed with a great army vortigern was defeated and afterwards burned alive in the castle he had taken such pains to construct
on the death of vortigern pendragon ascended the throne merlin became his chief adviser and often assisted the king by his magical arts merlin who knew the range of all their arts
had built the king his havens ships and halls vivian among other endowments he had the power of transforming himself into any shape he pleased at one time he appeared as a dwarf
at others as a damsel a page or even a greyhound or a stag this faculty he often employed for the service of the king and sometimes also for the diversion of the court and the sovereign
merlin continued to be a favorite counsellor through the reigns of pendragon uther and arthur and at last disappeared from view and was no more found among men
through the treachery of his mistress viviane the fairy which happened in this wise merlin having become enamoured of the fair viviane the lady of the lake was weak enough to impart to her various important secrets of his art
being impelled by fatal destiny of which he was at the same time fully aware the lady however was not content with his devotion unbounded as it seems to have been
but cast about the romance tells us how she might detain him for evermore and one day addressed him in these terms sir i would that we should make a fair place and a suitable
so contrived by art and by cunning that it might never be undone and that you and i should be there in joy and solace my lady said merlin i will do all this
and i will do it and then it will be more to my mind i grant you this said merlin then he began to devise and the damsel put it all in writing and when he had devised the whole
then had the damsel full great joy and showed him greater semblance of love than she had ever before made and they sojourned together a long while
at length it fell out that as they were going one day hand in hand through the forest of breceliande they found a bush of white thorn which was laden with flowers and they seated themselves under the shade of this white thorn
upon the green grass and merlin laid his head upon the damsel's lap and fell asleep then the damsel rose and made a ring with her wimple round the bush and round merlin and began her enchantments such as he himself had taught her
and nine times she made the ring and nine times she made the enchantment and then she went and sat down by him and placed his head again upon her lap and a sleep fell upon merlin more like death
then vivian rose and from her brown locked head the wimple throws and takes it in her hand and waves it over the blossomed thorn tree and her sleeping lover
nine times she waved the fluttering wimple round and made a little plot of magic ground
it seemed to him that he was enclosed in the strongest tower in the world and laid upon a fair bed
my lady you have deceived me unless you abide with me for no one hath power to unmake this tower but you alone
and in this she held her covenant with him and merlin never went out of that tower where his mistress viviane had enclosed him but she entered and went out again when she listed
after this event merlin was never more known to hold converse with any mortal but viviane except on one occasion arthur having for some time missed him from his court
who met with a very unpleasant adventure while engaged in this quest
when suddenly he heard the voice of one groaning on his right hand and looking that way he could see nothing save a kind of smoke which seemed like air and through which he could not pass
by what misadventure he was imprisoned there ah sir he added you will never see me more and that grieves me but i cannot remedy it i shall never more speak to you nor to any other person save only my mistress
but do thou hasten to king arthur and charge him from me to undertake without delay the quest of the sacred graal the knight is already born and has received knighthood at his hands
assuring him that he should speedily be disenchanted and he predicted to him
but it is chiefly on great occasions and at a period subsequent to his death or magical disappearance in the romantic poems of italy and in spenser merlin is chiefly represented as a magical artist
spenser represents him as the artificer of the impenetrable shield and other armor of prince arthur
and of a mirror in which a damsel viewed her lover's shade the fountain of love in the orlando innamorata is described as his work and in the poem of ariosto
we are told of a hall adorned with prophetic paintings which demons had executed in a single night under the direction of merlin the following legend is from spenser's faery queene book three
or caermarthen in wales merlin's tower and the imprisoned fiends forthwith themselves
that none might them bewray
they took their way there the wise merlin whylome wont they say
low underneath the ground
that of no living wight he mote be found whenso he counselled with his sprights encompassed round and if thou ever happen that same way to travel go to see that dreadful place it is a hideous hollow cave they say
but dare not thou i charge in any case to enter into that same baleful bower for fear the cruel fiends should thee unwares devour but standing high aloft low lay thine ear
and there such ghastly noise of iron chains and brazen cauldrons thou shalt rumbling hear which thousand sprites with long enduring pains do toss that it will stun thy feeble brains
and oftentimes loud strokes and ringing sounds from under that deep rock most horribly rebounds the cause some say is this a little while before that merlin died
he did intend a brazen wall in compas to compile about caermerdin and did it commend unto these sprites to bring to perfect end during which work the lady of the lake
whom long he loved for him in haste did send who thereby forced his workmen to forsake them bound till his return their labor not to slack
in the mean time through that false lady's train he was surprised and buried under beare he ever to his work returned again nathless those fiends may not their work forbear so greatly his commandement they fear
but there do toil and travail day and night until that brazen wall they up do rear for merlin had in magic more insight than ever him before or after living wight footnote buried under beare
here adeimantus interposed a question how would you answer socrates said he if a person were to say that you are making these people miserable and that they are the cause of their own unhappiness
the city in fact belongs to them but they are none the better for it whereas other men acquire lands and build large and handsome houses and have everything handsome about them offering sacrifices to the gods on their own account
and practising hospitality moreover as you were saying just now they have gold and silver and all that is usual among the favourites of fortune but our poor citizens are no better than mercenaries who are quartered in the city
and are always mounting guard yes i said and you may add that they are only fed and not paid in addition to their food like other men and therefore they cannot if they would take a journey of pleasure
they have no money to spend on a mistress or any other luxurious fancy which as the world goes is thought to be happiness and many other accusations of the same nature might be added but
you mean to ask i said what will be our answer yes if we proceed along the old path my belief i said is that we shall find the answer and our answer will be that
even as they are our guardians may very likely be the happiest of men but that our aim in founding the state was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class but the greatest happiness of the whole
we thought that in a state which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice and in the ill ordered state injustice and having found them
we might then decide which of the two is the happier at present i take it we are fashioning the happy state not piecemeal or with a view of making a few happy citizens but as a whole
and by and by we will proceed to view the opposite kind of state suppose that we were painting a statue and some one came up to us and said
whether by giving this and the other features their due proportion we make the whole beautiful and so i say to you do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness which will make them anything but guardians
while their wheel is conveniently at hand and working at pottery only as much as they like in this way we might make every class happy and then as you imagine the whole state would be happy
but do not put this idea into our heads for if we listen to you the husbandman will be no longer a husbandman the potter will cease to be a potter
and no one will have the character of any distinct class in the state now this is not of much consequence where the corruption of society
we mean our guardians to be true saviours and not the destroyers of the state whereas our opponent is thinking of peasants at a festival who are enjoying a life of revelry not of citizens who are doing their duty to the state
but if so we mean different things and he is speaking of something which is not a state and therefore we must consider whether in appointing our guardians we would look to their greatest happiness individually
or whether this principle of happiness does not rather reside in the state as a whole but if the latter be the truth then the guardians and auxiliaries and all others equally with them
i think that you are quite right i wonder whether you will agree with another remark which occurs to me what may that be there seem to be two causes of the deterioration of the arts what are they
wealth i said and poverty how do they act the process is as follows when a potter becomes rich will he think you any longer take the same pains with his art
certainly not he will grow more and more indolent and careless very true and the result will be that he becomes a worse potter yes he greatly deteriorates but on the other hand
if he has no money and cannot provide himself with tools or instruments he will not work equally well himself nor will he teach his sons or apprentices to work equally well certainly not
workmen and their work are equally liable to degenerate that is evident here then is a discovery of new evils i said against which the guardians will have to watch
or they will creep into the city unobserved what evils wealth i said and poverty the one is the parent of luxury and indolence and the other of meanness and viciousness
and both of discontent that is very true he replied but still i should like to know socrates how our city will be able to go to war especially against an enemy who is rich and powerful if deprived of the sinews of war
there would certainly be a difficulty i replied in going to war with one such enemy but there is no difficulty where there are two of them how so he asked in the first place i said
if we have to fight our side will be trained warriors fighting against an army of rich men that is true he said and do you not suppose adeimantus that a single boxer
who was perfect in his art would easily be a match for two stout and well to do gentlemen who were not boxers hardly if they came upon him at once what now i said if he were able to run away
and then turn and strike at the one who first came up and supposing he were to do this several times under the heat of a scorching sun might he not being an expert overturn more than one stout personage
certainly he said there would be nothing wonderful in that and yet rich men probably have a greater superiority in the science and practise of boxing than they have in military qualities
likely enough then we may assume that our athletes will be able to fight with two or three times their own number i agree with you for i think you right
what is the truth silver and gold we neither have nor are permitted to have but you may do you therefore come and help us in war and take the spoils of the other city
who on hearing these words would choose to fight against lean wiry dogs rather than with the dogs on their side against fat and tender sheep that is not likely
and yet there might be a danger to the poor state if the wealth of many states were to be gathered into one but how simple of you to use the term state at all of any but our own why so
you ought to speak of other states in the plural number not one of them is a city but many cities as they say in the game for indeed any city however small is in fact divided into two
one the city of the poor the other of the rich these are at war with one another and in either there are many smaller divisions and you would be altogether beside the mark if you treated them all as a single state
but if you deal with them as many and give the wealth or power or persons of the one to the others you will always have a great many friends and not many enemies and your state
while the wise order which has now been prescribed continues to prevail in her will be the greatest of states i do not mean to say in reputation or appearance but in deed and truth
though she number not more than a thousand defenders a single state which is her equal you will hardly find either among hellenes or barbarians though many that appear to be as great and many times greater
that is most true he said and what i said will be the best limit for our rulers to fix when they are considering the size of the state and the amount of territory which they are to include and beyond which they will not go
what limit would you propose i would allow the state to increase so far as is consistent with unity that i think is the proper limit very good he said
here then i said is another order which will have to be conveyed to our guardians let our city be accounted neither large nor small but one and self sufficing
the offspring of the lower classes when naturally superior the intention was that in the case of the citizens generally each individual should be put to the use for which nature intended him one to one work
and then every man would do his own business and be one and not many and so the whole city would be one and not many yes he said that is not so difficult
the regulations which we are prescribing my good adeimantus are not as might be supposed a number of great principles but trifles all if care be taken as the saying is of the one great thing
a thing however which i would rather call not great but sufficient for our purpose what may that be he asked education i said and nurture
if our citizens are well educated and grow into sensible men they will easily see their way through all these as well as other matters which i omit such for example as marriage the possession of women and the procreation of children
that will be the best way of settling them also i said the state if once started well moves with accumulating force like a wheel
for good nurture and education implant good constitutions and these good constitutions taking root in a good education improve more and more and this improvement affects the breed in man as in other animals
very possibly he said then to sum up this is the point to which above all the attention of our rulers should be directed that music and gymnastic be preserved in their original form and no innovation made
they must do their utmost to maintain them intact and when any one says that mankind most regard the newest song which the singers have they will be afraid that he may be praising not new songs but a new kind of song
he says that when modes of music change the fundamental laws of the state always change with them yes said adeimantus and you may add my suffrage to damon's and your own then i said
our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in music yes he said the lawlessness of which you speak too easily steals in yes i replied
in the form of amusement and at first sight it appears harmless why yes he said and there is no harm were it not that little by little this spirit of licence finding a home imperceptibly penetrates into manners and customs
whence issuing with greater force it invades contracts between man and man and from contracts goes on to laws and constitutions
in utter recklessness ending at last socrates by an overthrow of all rights private as well as public is that true i said that is my belief he replied then as i was saying
our youth should be trained from the first in a stricter system for if amusements become lawless and the youths themselves become lawless they can never grow up into well conducted and virtuous citizens very true he said
and when they have made a good beginning in play and by the help of music have gained the habit of good order then this habit of order in a manner
how unlike the lawless play of the others will accompany them in all their actions and be a principle of growth to them and if there be any fallen places in the state will raise them up again very true he said
thus educated they will invent for themselves any lesser rules which their predecessors have altogether neglected what do you mean i mean such things as these when the young are to be silent before their elders
how they are to show respect to them by standing and making them sit what honour is due to parents what garments or shoes are to be worn the mode of dressing the hair deportment and manners in general you would agree with me yes
but there is i think small wisdom in legislating about such matters i doubt if it is ever done nor are any precise written enactments about them likely to be lasting impossible it would seem adeimantus
will determine his future life does not like always attract like to be sure until some one rare and grand result is reached which may be good and may be the reverse of good that is not to be denied
and for this reason i said i shall not attempt to legislate further about them
chapter twelve the baleful sacrifice i resolved to go on no more sacred hunts i was sickened at the horrible cruelty the needless slaughter the mad self sacrifice which distinguished them
i was overwhelmed with horror at the merciless destruction of brave comrades whose wounds so gallantly received should have been enough to inspire pity even in a heart of stone the gentleness the incessant kindness
the matchless generosity of these people seemed all a mockery what availed it all when the same hand that heaped favors upon me the guest could deal death without compunction upon friends and relatives
it seemed quite possible for the kohen to kill his own child or cut the throat of his wife if the humor seized him and how long could i hope to be spared among a people who had this insane thirst for blood
some more joms had passed and the light season had almost ended the sun had been sinking lower and lower the time had at last come when only a portion of his disk would be visible for a little while above the hills
and then he would be seen no more for six months of our time this was the dark season and as i had already learned its advent was always hailed with joy and celebrated with solemn services for the dark season freed them from their long confinement
permitted them to go abroad to travel by sea and land to carry on their great works to indulge in all their most important labors and favorite amusements the kohen asked me to be present at the great festival
and i gladly consented there seemed to be nothing in this that could be repellent as i was anxious to witness some of their purely religious ceremonies i wished to go when i told almah she looked sad but said nothing
i wondered at this and asked her if she was going she informed me that she would have to go whereupon i assured her that this was an additional reason why i should go i went with almah
but i prevailed upon her to sit down and she did so the scene was upon the semicircular terrace in front of the cavern and we were seated upon a stone platform beside the chief portal a vast crowd was gathered in front
before us arose the half pyramid of which i have already spoken the light was faint it came from the disk of the sun which was partly visible over the icy crest of the distant mountains far away the sea was visible
rising high over the tops of the trees while overhead the brighter stars were plainly discernible the kohen ascended the pyramid and others followed at the base there was a crowd of men
with emaciated forms and faces and coarse squalid attire who looked like the most abject paupers and seemed the lowest in the land as the kohen reached the summit there arose a strange sound
a mournful plaintive chant which seemed to be sung chiefly by the paupers at the base of the pyramid the words of this chant i could not make out but the melancholy strain affected me in spite of myself
there was no particular tune and nothing like harmony but the effect of so many voices uniting in this strain was very powerful and altogether indescribable in the midst of this i saw the crowd parting asunder
so as to make way for something and through the passage thus formed i saw a number of youths in long robes who advanced to the pyramid singing as they went then they ascended the steps two by two still singing
and at length reached the summit where they arranged themselves in order there were thirty of them and they arranged themselves in three rows of ten each and as they stood they never ceased to sing
while the paupers below joined in the strain and now the sun was almost hidden and there was only the faintest line from the upper edge of his disk perceptible over the icy mountain tops the light was a softened twilight glow
it was to be the last sight of the sun for six months and this was the spectacle upon which he threw his parting beam so the sun passed away and then there came the beginning of the long dark season at first however
there was rather twilight than darkness and this twilight continued long all this only served to heighten the effect of this striking scene and as the light faded away i looked with increasing curiosity
upon the group at the top of the pyramid almah was silent i half turned and said something to her about the beauty of the view she said nothing but looked at me with such an expression that i was filled with amazement
i saw in her face something like a dreadful anticipation something that spoke of coming evil the feeling was communicated to me and i turned my eyes back to the group on the pyramid with vague fears in my soul
those fears were but too well founded for now the dread ceremony began the kohen drew his knife and placed himself at the head of the stone table one of the youths came forward stepped upon it
and lay down on his back with his head toward the kohen the mournful chant still went on then the kohen raised his knife and plunged it into the heart of the youth i sat for a moment rooted to the spot
then a groan burst from me in spite of myself almah caught my hands in hers which were as cold as ice be firm she said or we are both lost be firm atam or
i must go said i and i tried to rise don't move she said for your life we are lost if you move keep still restrain yourself shut your eyes i tried to do so but could not
there was a horrible fascination about the scene which forced me to look and see all the kohen took the victim and drawing it from the altar threw it over the precipice to the ground beneath then a loud shout burst forth from the great crowd
sibgu sibgin ranenu hodu lecosck which means sacrifice the victims rejoice give thanks to darkness then another of the youths went forward amid the singing
and laid himself down to meet the same fate and again the corpse was flung from the top of the pyramid and again the shout arose all the others came forward in the same manner oh horrible horrible
thrice horrible spectacle i do not remember how i endured it i sat there with almah trying to restrain myself as she had entreated me more for her sake than for my own a prey to every feeling of horror
anguish and despair how it all ended i do not know nor do i know how i got away from the place for i only remember coming back to my senses in the lighted grotto with almah bending anxiously over me
after this there remained a dark mystery and an ever present horror i found myself among a people who were at once the gentlest of the human race and the most blood thirsty the kindest and the most cruel
this mild amiable and self sacrificing kohen how was it possible that he should transform himself to a fiend incarnate and for me and for almah what possible hope could there be
what fate might they have in reserve for us of what avail was all this profound respect this incessant desire to please this attention to our slightest wish this comfort and luxury and splendor
this freedom of speech and action was it anything better than a mockery might it not be the shallow kindness of the priest to the victim reserved for the sacrifice was it after all in any degree better than the kindness
of the cannibal savages on those drear outer shores who received us with such hospitality but only that they might destroy us at last might they not all belong to the same race dwelling as they did in caverns shunning the sunlight
and blending kindness with cruelty it was an awful thought yet i had one consolation almah was with me and so long as she was spared to me i could endure this life i tried for her sake to resist the feelings that were coming over me
she felt as i did and this despair of soul might wreck her young life if there were no alleviation and so i sought to alleviate her distress and to banish her sadness the songs of these people had much impressed me
and one day as i talked about this with almah she brought forth a musical instrument of peculiar shape which was not unlike a guitar though the shape was square and there were a dozen strings upon this she played
an idea now occurred to me to have an instrument made according to my own plans which should be nothing less than a violin almah was delighted at the proposal and at once found a very clever workman who under my direction
succeeded in producing one which served my purpose well i was a good violinist and in this i was able to find solace for myself and for almah for many a long hour the first time that i played was memorable
as the tones floated through the air they caught the ears of those outside and soon great numbers came into the apartment listening in amazement and in rapt attention even the painful light was disregarded in the pleasure of this most novel sensation
and i perceived that if the sense of sight was deficient among them that of hearing was sufficiently acute i played many times and sometimes sang from among the songs of different nations but those which these people liked best
were the irish and scottish melodies those matchless strains created by the genius of the celtic race and handed down from immemorial ages through long generations in these there was nothing artificial nothing transient
they were the utterance of the human heart and in them there was that touch of nature which makes all men kin these were the immortal passions which shall never cease to affect the soul of man and which had power even here
the strains of love of sadness and of pathos were sweet and enticing to this gentle race for in their mild manners and their outburst of cruelty they seemed to be not unlike the very race which had created this music
since the celt is at once gentle and blood thirsty i played tara bonnie doon the last rose of summer the land of the leal auld lang syne
they stood entranced listening with all their souls they seemed to hunger and thirst after this music and the strains of the inspired celtic race seemed to come to them like the revelation of the glory of heaven then i played more lively airs
some i played a second time singing the words they seemed eager to have the same one played often at last a grisly thought came to me it was that they would learn these sweet strains and put their own words to them
so as to use them at the awful sacrifices after that i would play no more it is a land of tender love and remorseless cruelty music is all powerful to awaken the one but powerless to abate the other
sadness whether from bereavement or disappointment or misfortune of any kind may linger on through life in my case however the milder and more enduring feeling of sadness had no sufficient cause for existence
the sights which i had seen inspired horror and horror only but when the first rush of this feeling had passed there came a reaction calmness followed and then all the circumstances of my life here conspired to perpetuate that calm
i had light and luxury and amusements around me there were thousands of faces all greeting me with cordial affection and thousands of hands all ready to perform my slightest wish above all there was almah everything combined to make her most dear to me
my life had been such that i never before had seen anyone whom i loved and here almah was the one congenial associate in a whole world of aliens she was beautiful and gentle and sympathetic and i loved her dearly even before i understood what my feelings were
one day i learned all and found that she was more precious to me than all the world it was one jom when she did not make her appearance as usual on asking after her i learned that she was ill at this intelligence there came over me a feeling of sickening anxiety and fear almah ill
what if it should prove serious could i endure life here without her sweet companionship of what value was life without her and as i asked myself these questions i learned that almah had become dearer to me than life itself and that in her was all the sunshine of my existence
while she was absent life was nothing all its value all its light its flavor its beauty were gone i felt utterly crushed i forgot all else save her illness and all that i had endured seemed as nothing when compared with this
it seemed to be the one subject of interest beside which all others were forgotten the kohen was absorbed in her case all the physicians of the city were more or less engaged in her behalf and there came forward as volunteers every woman in the place who had any knowledge of sick duties
i was somewhat perplexed however at their manner they were certainly agitated and intensely interested yet not exactly sad indeed from what i heard it seemed as though this strange people regarded sickness as rather a blessing than otherwise
this however did not interfere in the slightest degree with the most intense interest in her and the most assiduous attention the kohen in particular was devoted to her he was absent minded silent and full of care
on the whole i felt more than ever puzzled and less able than ever to understand these people i loved them yet loathed them for the kohen i had at once affection and horror
he looked like an anxious father full of tenderest love for a sick child full also of delicate sympathy with me and yet i knew all the time that he was quite capable of plunging the sacrificial knife in almah's heart and of eating her afterward but my own thoughts were all of almah
i learned how dear she was with her the brightness of life had passed without her existence would be intolerable her sweet voice her tender and gracious manner her soft touch her tender affectionate smile
her mournful yet trustful look oh heavens would all these be mine no more i could not endure the thought at first i wandered about seeking rest and finding none and at length i sat in my own room and passed the time in listening
in questioning the attendants in wondering what i should do if she should be taken from me at length on one blessed jom the kohen came to me with a bright smile our darling almah is better said he eat i beseech you she is very dear to all of us
but now all danger is past the physicians say that she will soon be well there were tears in his eyes as he spoke it may have been caused by the bright light but i attributed this to his loving heart and i forgot that he was a cannibal
i took his hands in mine and pressed them in deep emotion he looked at me with a sweet and gentle smile i see it all said he in a low voice you love her atam or i pressed his hands harder but said nothing indeed i could not trust myself to speak
i knew it said he it is but natural you are both of a different race from us you are both much alike and in full sympathy with one another this draws you together when i first saw you i thought that you would be a fit companion for her here
that you would lessen her gloom and that she would be pleasant to you i found out soon that i was right and i felt glad for you at once showed the fullest sympathy with one another never till you came was almah happy with us but since you have come she has been a different being
and there has been a joyousness in her manner that i never saw before you have made her forget how to weep and as for yourself i hope she has made your life in this strange land seem less painful atam or at all this i was so full of amazement that i could not say one word
pardon me continued he if i have said anything that may seem like an intrusion upon your secret and most sacred feelings
i could not have said it had it not been for the deep affection i feel for almah and for you and for the reason that i am just now more moved than usual and have less control over my feelings saying this he pressed my hand and left me
it was not the custom here to shake hands but with his usual amiability he had adopted my custom and used it as naturally as though he had been to the manner born i was encouraged now the mild kohen came often to cheer me he talked much about almah
about her sweet and gracious disposition the love that all felt for her the deep and intense interest which her illness had aroused in all this he seemed more like a man of my own race than before
and in his eager desire for her recovery he failed to exhibit that love for death which was his nature so it seemed
yet this desire for her recovery did not arise out of any lack of love for death its true cause i was to learn afterward and i was to know that if he desired almah's recovery now it was only that she might live long enough to encounter death in a more terrific form
but just then all this was unknown and i judged him by myself at last i learned that she was much better and would be out on the following jom this intelligence filled me with a fever of eager anticipation so great that i could think of nothing else
sleep was impossible i could only wait and try as best i might to quell my impatience at last the time came i sat waiting the curtain was drawn aside i sprang up and hurrying toward her i caught her in my arms and wept for joy
ah me how pale she looked she bore still the marks of her illness she seemed deeply embarrassed and agitated at the fervor of my greeting while i instead of apologizing or trying to excuse myself only grew more agitated still
oh almah i cried i should have died if you had not come back to me oh almah i love you better than life and i never knew how dearly i loved you till i thought that i had lost you oh forgive me but i must tell you and don't weep darling
she was weeping as i spoke she said nothing but twined her arms around my neck and wept on my breast after this we had much to say that we had never mentioned before
i cannot tell the sweet words that she said to me but i now learned that she had loved me from the first when i came to her in her loneliness when she was homesick and heartsick and i came a kindred nature of a race more like her own
and she saw in me the only one of all around her whom it was possible not to detest and therefore she loved me we had many things to say to one another and long exchanges of confidence to make
she now for the first time told me all the sorrow that she had endured in her captivity sorrow which she had kept silent and shut up deep within her breast at first her life here had been so terrible that it had brought her down nearly to death
after this she had sunk into dull despair she had grown familiar with horrors and lived in a state of unnatural calm from this my arrival had roused her
the display of feeling on my part had brought back all her old self and roused anew all those feelings which in her had become dormant the darkness the bloodshed the sacrifices all these affected me as they had once affected her i had the same fear of death which she had
then said almah i felt the full meaning of all that lies before us what do you mean by that i asked anxiously you speak as though there were something yet worse than what has already been yet nothing can possibly be worse
we have seen the worst let us now try to shake off these grisly thoughts and be happy with one another your strength will soon be back and while we have one another we can be happy even in this gloom ah me said almah it would be better now to die
i could die happy now since i know that you love me death said i do not talk of it do not mention that word it is more abhorrent than ever no almah let us live and love let us hope let us fly
impossible said she in a mournful voice we cannot fly there is no hope we must face the future and make up our minds to bear our fate fate i repeated looking at her in wonder and in deep concern
what do you mean by our fate is there anything more which you know and which i have not heard you have heard nothing said she slowly and all that you have seen and heard is as nothing compared with what lies before us for you and for me there is a fate
inconceivable abhorrent tremendous a fate of which i dare not speak or even think and from which there is no escape whatever as almah said this she looked at me with an expression in which terror and anguish were striving with love
her cheeks which shortly before had flushed rosy red in sweet confusion were now pallid her lips ashen
i looked at her in wonder and could not say a word oh atam or said she i am afraid of death almah said i why will you speak of death what is this fate which you fear so much
you and i are singled out i have been reserved for years until one should be found who might be joined with me you came i saw it all at once i have known it dreaded it tried to fight against it but it was of no use
oh atam or our love means death for the very fact that you love me and i love you seals our doom our doom what doom the sacrifice exclaimed almah with another shudder in her voice and look there was a terrible meaning which i could not fail to take
i understood it now and my blood curdled in my veins almah clung to me despairingly do not leave me she cried do not leave me i have no one but you the sacrifice the sacrifice
it is our doom the great sacrifice at the end of the dark season it is at the amir we must go there to meet our doom the amir i asked what is that
oh she cried you will not understand the sacrifice is but a part it is but the beginning
think of that which comes after
now the full meaning flashed upon me and i saw it all
oh horror horror horror oh hideous abomination and deed without a name i could not speak i caught her in my arms and we both wept passionately the happiness of our love was now darkened by this tremendous cloud that lowered before us
the shock of this discovery was overpowering and some time elapsed before i could rally from it though almah's love was sweet beyond expression
and though as the time passed i saw that every jom she regained more and more of her former health and strength still i could not forget what had been revealed
we were happy with one another yet our happiness was clouded and amid the brightness of our love there was ever present the dread spectre of our appalling doom these feelings however grew fainter
hope is ever ready to arise and i began to think that these people though given to evil ways were after all kind hearted and might listen to entreaty above all there was the kohen so benevolent so self denying so amiable so sympathetic
i could not forget all that he had said during almah's illness and it seemed more than probable that an appeal to his better nature might not be without effect i said as much to almah the kohen said she why he can do nothing
why not he is the chief man here and ought to have great influence you don't understand said she with a sigh the kohen is the lowest and least influential man in the city why who are influential if he is not i asked the paupers said almah
the paupers i exclaimed in amazement yes said almah here among these people the paupers form the most honored influential and envied portion of the community
chapter four the fall of the provisional government wednesday november seventh i rose very late the noon cannon boomed from peter paul as i went down the nevsky it was a raw chill day
in front of the state bank some soldiers with fixed bayonets were standing at the closed gates what side do you belong to i asked the government no more government one answered with a grin
and there seemed even less uneasiness among the street crowds than there had been the day before a whole crop of new appeals against insurrection had blossomed out on the walls during the night to the peasants to the soldiers at the front to the workmen of petrograd
composed of members of the central and ward dumas and representatives of the following revolutionary democratic organizations
the only newspaper which seemed on sale
land the leading article was signed zinoviev lenin's companion in hiding it began every soldier every worker every real socialist
every honest democrat realises that there are only two alternatives to the present situation either the power will remain in the hands of the bourgeois landlord crew
and this will mean every kind of repression for the workers soldiers and peasants continuation of the war inevitable hunger and death or
the power will be transferred to the hands of the revolutionary workers soldiers and peasants and in that case it will mean a complete abolition of landlord tyranny immediate check of the capitalists immediate proposal of a just peace
he shrugged his shoulders in a tired manner and replied tchort znayet the devil knows well perhaps the bolsheviki can seize the power but they won't be able to hold it more than three days they haven't the men to run a government
walking up and down or muttering together the sailors wouldn't let them leave suddenly came the sharp crack of a rifle outside followed by a scattered burst of firing i ran out something unusual was going on around the marinsky palace
where the council of the russian republic met diagonally across the wide square was drawn a line of soldiers rifles ready staring at the hotel roof provacatzia shot at us snapped one while another went running toward the door
at the western corner of the palace lay a big armoured car with a red flag flying from it newly lettered in red paint s r s d soviet rabotchikh soldatskikh deputatov
all the guns trained toward saint isaac's a barricade had been heaped up across the mouth of novaya ulitza boxes barrels an old bed spring a wagon a pile of lumber barred the end of the moika quay
they will come from that direction pointing toward the admiralty who will that i couldn't tell you brother he answered and spat before the door of the palace was a crowd of soldiers and sailors
no more council i says run along home now there was laughter by waving assorted papers i managed to get around to the door of the press gallery there an enormous smiling sailor stopped me
and when i showed my pass just said if you were saint michael himself comrade you couldn't pass here through the glass of the door i made out the distorted face and gesticulating arms of a french correspondent locked in
around in front stood a little grey moustached man in the uniform of a general the centre of a knot of soldiers he was very red in the face i am general alexeyev he cried
as your superior officer and as a member of the council of the republic i demand to be allowed to pass the guard scratched his head looking uneasily out of the corner of his eye
he beckoned to an approaching officer who grew very agitated when he saw who it was and saluted before he realised what he was doing vashe vuisokoprevoskhoditelstvo your high excellency he stammered in the manner of the old regime access to the palace
full of arrested members of the provisional government peters lettish member of the military revolutionary committee came hurrying across the square i thought you bagged all those gentlemen last night said i pointing to them
he answered with the expression of a disappointed small boy the damn fools let most of them go again before we made up our minds down the voskressensky prospect a great mass of sailors were drawn up
and behind them came marching soldiers as far as the eye could reach we went toward the winter palace by way of the admiralteisky all the entrances to the palace square were closed by sentries
and a cordon of troops stretched clear across the western end besieged by an uneasy throng of citizens except for far away soldiers who seemed to be carrying wood out of the palace courtyard and piling it in front of the main gateway
everything was quiet we couldn't make out whether the sentries were pro government or pro soviet our papers from smolny had no effect however
so we approached another part of the line with an important air and showed our american passports saying official business and shouldered through at the door of the palace the same old shveitzari
and do you know there wasn't enough gasoline for his automobile we had to send to the english hospital and borrow some are the ministers here they are meeting in some room i don't know where are the bolsheviki coming
of course certainly they are coming i expect a telephone call every minute to say that they are coming but we are ready we have yunkers in the front of the palace through that door there can we go in there no
why is the door locked to keep the soldiers in he answered
we unlocked the door just inside a couple of soldiers stood on guard but they said nothing
on both sides of the parquetted floor lay rows of dirty mattresses and blankets upon which occasional soldiers were stretched out everywhere was a litter of cigarette butts bits of bread cloth and
one had a bottle of white burgundy evidently filched from the cellars of the palace they looked at us with astonishment as we marched past through room after room
the place was all a huge barrack and evidently had been for weeks from the look of the floor and walls machine guns were mounted on window sills rifles stacked between the mattresses
i am stabs capitan vladimir artzibashev absolutely at your service it did not seem to occur to him that there was anything unusual in four strangers one a woman
wandering through the defences of an army awaiting attack he began to complain of the state of russia not only these bolsheviki he said but the fine traditions of the russian army are broken down
look around you these are all students in the officers training schools but are they gentlemen kerensky opened the officers schools to the ranks to any soldier who could pass an examination
will you please go to your consul and make arrangements i will give you my address in spite of our protestations he wrote it on a piece of paper and seemed to feel better at once i have it still
being harangued by a tall energetic looking officer i recognised as stankievitch chief military commissar of the provisional government after a few minutes two of the companies shouldered arms with a clash
barked three sharp shouts and went swinging off across the square disappearing through the red arch into the quiet city they are going to capture the telephone exchange said some one
but now they didn't want to be officers any more because officers were very unpopular they didn't seem to know what to do as a matter of fact and it was plain that they were not happy but soon they began to boast
they do not dare to fight they are cowards but if we should be overpowered well every man keeps one bullet for himself at this point there was a burst of rifle fire not far off out on the square
all the people began to run falling flat on their faces and the izvoshtchiki standing on the corners galloped in every direction inside all was uproar soldiers running here and there grabbing up guns rifle belts and shouting
one of them supported by two comrades it was getting late when we left the palace the sentries in the square had all disappeared the great semi circle of government buildings seemed deserted
he said when we came out on the morskaya again it was quite dark except for one flickering street light on the corner of the nevsky under this stood a big armored automobile
with racing engine and oil smoke pouring out of it a small boy had climbed up the side of the thing and was looking down the barrel of a machine gun soldiers and sailors stood around evidently waiting for something
we walked back up to the red arch where a knot of soldiers was gathered staring at the brightly lighted winter palace and talking in loud tones no comrades one was saying how can we shoot at them
the women's battalion is in there they will say we have fired on russian women as we reached the nevsky again another armoured car came around the corner and a man poked his head out of the turret top come on
he yelled let's go on through and attack the driver of the other car came over and shouted so as to be heard above the roaring engine the committee says to wait they have got artillery behind the wood piles in there
life going on as usual we had tickets to the ballet at the marinsky theatre all theatres were open but it was too exciting out of doors in the darkness we stumbled over lumber piles barricading the police bridge
men in various uniforms were coming and going in an aimless way and doing a great deal of talking up the nevsky the whole city seemed to be out promenading
on every corner immense crowds were massed around a core of hot discussion pickets of a dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets lounged at the street crossings red faced old men in rich fur coats shook their fists at them
smartly dressed women screamed epithets the soldiers argued feebly with embarrassed grins armoured cars went up and down the street named after the first tsars oleg rurik svietoslav
and daubed with huge red letters r s d r p rossiskaya partia thirteen at
and was immediately stormed by frantic people offering a rouble five roubles ten roubles tearing at each other like animals it was rabotchi soldat announcing the victory of the proletarian revolution
the liberation of the bolsheviki still in prison
the massive facade of smolny blazed with lights as we drove up and from every street converged upon it streams of hurrying shapes dim in the gloom
the canvas covers had been taken off the four rapid fire guns on each side of the doorway and the ammunition belts hung snakelike from their breeches a dun herd of armoured cars
there was an atmosphere of recklessness a crowd came pouring down the staircase workers in black blouses and round black fur hats many of them with guns slung over their shoulders
and bulging portfolios under their arms the extraordinary meeting of the petrograd soviet was over i stopped kameniev a quick moving little man with a wide vivacious face set close to his shoulders
it will suppress immediately the great landed property and transfer the land to the peasants it will establish workmen's control over production and distribution of manufactured products and will set up a general control over the banks which it will transform into a state monopoly
allies of the poor peasants will assure complete revolutionary order indispensable to the victory of socialism
you consider it won then he lifted his shoulders there is much to do horribly much it is just beginning on the landing i met riazanov
vice president of the trade unions looking black and biting his grey beard
all russia he waved his hand distractedly and ran off riazanov and kameniev had both opposed the insurrection and felt the lash of lenin's terrible tongue
it had been a momentous session in the name of the military revolutionary committee trotzky had declared that the provisional government no longer existed
the characteristic of bourgeois governments he said is to deceive the people we the soviets of workers soldiers and peasants deputies
are going to try an experiment unique in history
this day we have paid our debt to the international proletariat and struck a terrible blow at the war a terrible body blow at all the imperialists and particularly at wilhelm the executioner
then trotzky that telegrams had been sent to the front announcing the victorious insurrection but no reply had come troops were said to be marching against petrograd a delegation must be sent to tell them the truth
cries you are anticipating the will of the all russian congress of soviets trotzky coldly the will of the all russian congress of soviets
has been anticipated by the rising of the petrograd workers and soldiers so we came into the great meeting hall pushing through the clamorous mob at the door in the rows of seats under the white chandeliers
the ringing of the chairman's bell there was no heat in the hall but the stifling heat of unwashed human bodies a foul blue cloud of cigarette smoke rose from the mass and hung in the thick air
occasionally some one in authority mounted the tribune and asked the comrades not to smoke then everybody smokers and all took up the cry
he was reeling from three nights sleepless work on the military revolutionary committee on the platform sat the leaders of the old tsay ee kah for the last time dominating the turbulent soviets which they had ruled from the first days
kerensky flying to the front through country towns all doubtfully heaving up tcheidze the old eagle who had contemptuously retired to his own georgian mountains there to sicken with consumption and
also mortally stricken who nevertheless would return and pour out his beautiful eloquence for a lost cause gotz sat there dan lieber bogdanov broido fillipovsky
holding in its hands the threads of insurrection and striking with a long arm
broken by the scuffling and disputing of the people at the door we have the power in our hands he began sadly stopped for a moment and then went on in a low voice comrades
the congress of soviets in meeting in such unusual circumstances and in such an extraordinary moment that you will understand why the tsay ee kah considers it unnecessary to address you with a political speech
this will become much clearer to you if you will recollect that i am a member of the tsay ee kah and that at this very moment our party comrades are in the winter palace under bombardment
the election of the presidium took place amid stir and moving about avanessov announced that by agreement of the bolsheviki left socialist revolutionaries and mensheviki internationalists
it was decided to base the presidium upon proportionality several mensheviki leaped to their feet protesting a bearded soldier shouted at them
seven socialist revolutionaries three mensheviki and one internationalist gorky's group hendelmann for the right and centre socialist revolutionaries said that they refused to take part in the presidium
the same from kintchuk for the mensheviki and from the mensheviki internationalists that until the verification of certain circumstances they too could not enter the presidium scattering applause and hoots one voice
renegades you call yourselves socialists a representative of the ukrainean delegates demanded and received a place
organisation of power second war and peace and third the constituent assembly lozovsky rising announced that upon agreement of the bureau of all factions it was proposed to hear and discuss the report of the petrograd soviet
and finally to pass to the order of the day but suddenly a new sound made itself heard deeper than the tumult of the crowd persistent disquieting the dull shock of guns
people looked anxiously toward the clouded windows and a sort of fever came over them martov demanding the floor croaked hoarsely the civil war is beginning comrades
the first question must be a peaceful settlement of the crisis on principle and from a political standpoint we must urgently discuss a means of averting civil war
our brothers are being shot down in the streets at this moment when before the opening of the congress of soviets the question of power is being settled by means of a military plot
is the question of power and this question is already being settled by force of arms in the streets we must create a power which will be recognised by the whole democracy
the possibility of a peaceful outcome lies in the formation of a united democratic authority we must elect a delegation to negotiate with the other socialist parties and organisation
and it is being settled behind our backs before the congress opens blows are being struck against the winter palace and it is by such blows that the nails are being driven into the coffin of the political party which has risked such an adventure uproar
followed him gharra while we are here discussing propositions of peace there is a battle on in the streets the socialist revolutionaries and the mensheviki refuse to be involved in what is happening
and call upon all public forces to resist the attempt to capture the power kutchin delegate of the twelfth army and representative of the troudoviki i was sent here only for information and i am returning at once to the front
where all the army committees consider that the taking of power by the soviets only three weeks before the constituent assembly is a stab in the back of the army and a crime against the people shouts of lie you lie
when he could be heard again let's make an end of this adventure in petrograd
as he went down the aisle in the midst of a deafening noise people surged in upon him threatening then khintchuk an officer with a long brown goatee speaking suavely and persuasively
i speak for the delegates from the front the army is imperfectly represented in this congress and furthermore the army does not consider the congress of soviets necessary at this time only three weeks before the opening of the constituent
shouts and stamping always growing more violent the army does not consider that the congress of soviets has the necessary authority soldiers began to stand up all over the hall who are you speaking for what do you represent
they cried the central executive committee of the soviet of the fifth army the second f regiment the first n regiment the third s rifles when were you elected you represent the officers not the soldiers
what do the soldiers say about it jeers and hoots we the front group
the place to fight is out on the streets immense bawling outcry you speak for the staff not for the army i appeal to all reasonable soldiers to leave this congress
which would find support in all strata of society he could not proceed for several minutes raising his voice to a shout he read the menshevik declaration
because the bolsheviki have made a military conspiracy with the aid of the petrograd soviet without consulting the other factions and parties we find it impossible to remain in the congress and therefore withdraw
hendelman for the socialist revolutionaries could be heard protesting against the bombardment of the winter palace we are opposed to this kind of anarchy scarcely had he stepped down than a young lean faced soldier
with flashing eyes leaped to the platform and dramatically lifted his hand comrades he cried and there was a hush my familia name is peterson
i speak for the second lettish rifles you have heard the statements of two representatives of the army committees these statements would have some value
our committee refused to call a meeting of the representatives of the masses until the end of september so that the reactionaries could elect their own false delegates to this congress i tell you now
the lettish soldiers have many times said no more resolutions no more talk
the power must be in our hands let these impostor delegates leave the congress the army is not with them the hall rocked with cheering in the first moments of the session
stunned by the rapidity of events startled by the sound of cannon the delegates had hesitated for an hour hammer blow after hammer blow had fallen from that tribune welding them together but beating them down
did they stand then alone was russia rising against them was it true that the army was marching on petrograd then this clear eyed young soldier had spoken
there was this morning in his personal appearance something tardy and irresolute he was occupied with the preparations for raoul's departure and was seeking to gain time in the first place
he himself furbished a sword which he drew from its perfumed leather sheath he examined it to see if its hilt was well guarded and if the blade was firmly attached to the hilt then he placed at the bottom of the valise belonging to the young man
a small bag of louis called olivain the lackey who had followed him from blois and made him pack the valise under his own eyes watchful to see that everything should be put in which might be useful to a young man entering on his first campaign
penetrated into the room through the window the curtains of which raoul had neglected to close on the previous evening he was still sleeping his head gracefully reposing on his arm
he looked long on this young man whose smiling mouth and half closed eyes bespoke soft dreams and lightest slumber as if his guardian angel watched over him with solicitude and affection
so fresh his own youth seemed to reappear bringing with it all those savoury remembrances which are like perfumes more than thoughts between the past and the present was an ineffable abyss
but imagination has the wings of an angel of light and travels safely through or over the seas where we have been almost shipwrecked the darkness in which our illusions are lost the precipice whence our happiness has been hurled and swallowed up
he remembered that all the first part of his life had been embittered by a woman and he thought with alarm of the influence love might assume over so fine and at the same time so vigorous an organization as that of raoul
in recalling all he had been through he foresaw all that raoul might suffer and the expression of the deep and tender compassion which throbbed in his heart was pictured in the moist eye with which he gazed on the young man
at this moment raoul awoke without a cloud on his face without weariness or lassitude
and perhaps he comprehended all that passed in the heart of the man who was awaiting his awakening as a lover awaits the awakening of his mistress for his glance in return had all the tenderness of love you are there sir
he said respectfully yes raoul replied the count and you did not awaken me i wished to leave you still to enjoy some moments of sleep my child you must be fatigued from yesterday oh sir how good you are
how do you feel this morning he inquired perfectly well quite rested sir you are still growing athos continued with that charming and paternal interest felt by a grown man for a youth oh sir i beg your pardon exclaimed raoul
ashamed of so much attention in an instant i shall be dressed athos then called olivain
the horses are waiting and i was asleep cried raoul whilst you sir you had the kindness to attend to all these details truly sir you overwhelm me with benefits
oh sir god knows how much i love revere you
no indeed sir answered raoul
joy shone in raoul's eyes and he leaped lightly to his saddle
after speaking in a low voice to the lackey who instead of following them immediately returned to their rooms raoul delighted at the count's companionship perceived or affected to perceive nothing of this byplay
they set out passing over the pont neuf
then called l'abreuvoir pepin
take care raoul i have already often told you of this you must not forget it for it is a great defect in a rider see your horse is tired already he froths at the mouth whilst mine looks as if he had only just left the stable
you hold the bit too tight and so make his mouth hard so that you will not be able to make him manoeuvre quickly the safety of a cavalier often depends on the prompt obedience of his horse
whilst he admired the delicate tenderness with which it was bestowed
which is that in firing off your pistol you hold your arm too far outstretched this tension lessens the accuracy of the aim so in twelve times you thrice missed the mark which you sir struck twelve times answered raoul smiling
because i bent my arm and rested my hand on my elbow so do you understand what i mean yes sir i have fired since in that manner and have been quite successful what a cold wind resumed athos a wintry blast
he who fires the first shot rarely hits his man for he fires with the apprehension of being disarmed before an armed foe then whilst he fires make your horse rear
that manoeuvre has saved my life several times i shall do so if only in gratitude
are not those fellows poachers they have arrested yonder
then another important thing raoul should you be wounded in a battle and fall from your horse if you have any strength left disentangle yourself from the line that your regiment has formed otherwise it may be driven back
we are judges of wounds we old soldiers athos added smiling thank you sir answered the young man much moved they arrived that very moment at the gate of the town guarded by two sentinels here comes a young gentleman said one of them
who seems as if he were going to join the army
by his manner sir and his age he's the second to day has a young man such as i am gone through this morning then asked raoul faith yes with a haughty presence a fine equipage such as the son of a noble house would have
alas he cannot make me forget what i shall have lost thus talking they traversed the streets full of people on account of the fete and arrived opposite the old cathedral where first mass was going on
olivain take care of our horses and give me my sword the two gentlemen then went into the church
a love as tender as that of a lover for his mistress dwells undoubtedly in some paternal hearts toward a son
who bowed and proceeded toward the basement come raoul he said let us follow this man the verger opened the iron grating that guarded the royal tombs and stood on the topmost step
and just below this lamp there was laid wrapped in a flowing mantle of violet velvet
a catafalque resting on trestles of oak the young man prepared for this scene by the state of his own feelings which were mournful and by the majesty of the cathedral which he had passed through descended in a slow and solemn manner
before these mortal spoils of the last king who was not to be placed by the side of his forefathers until his successor should take his place there and who appeared to abide on that spot that he might thus address human pride
so sure to be exalted by the glories of a throne dust of the earth here i await thee there was profound silence
and pointing to the coffin this temporary sepulture is he said that of a man who was of feeble mind yet one whose reign was full of great events
because over this king watched the spirit of another man even as this lamp keeps vigil over this coffin and illumines it he whose intellect was thus supreme raoul was the actual sovereign the other
nothing but a phantom to whom he lent a soul and yet so powerful is majesty amongst us this man has not even the honor of a tomb at the feet of him in whose service his life was worn away remember raoul this
if richelieu made the king by comparison seem small he made royalty great the palace of the louvre contains two things the king who must die and royalty which never dies
and i even i opposed the designs of the great man who held the destinies of france within the hollow of his hand raoul learn how to distinguish the king from royalty the king is but a man
royalty is the gift of god whenever you hesitate as to whom you ought to serve abandon the exterior the material appearance for the invisible principle for the invisible principle is everything
i seem to read your future destiny as through a cloud it will be happier i think than ours has been different in your fate from us you will have a king without a minister whom you may serve love respect
should the king prove a tyrant for power begets tyranny serve love respect royalty that divine right that celestial spark which makes this dust still powerful and holy so that we
gentlemen nevertheless of rank and condition are as nothing in comparison with the cold corpse there extended i shall adore god sir said raoul respect royalty and ever serve the king and if death be my lot
yours is a noble nature he said here is your sword raoul bent his knee to the ground it was worn by my father a loyal gentleman
when the hilt was in my hand and the sheath at my side should your hand still be too weak to use this sword raoul so much the better you will have the more time to learn to draw it only when it ought to be used sir replied raoul
i owe you everything and yet this sword is the most precious gift you have yet made me i will wear it i swear to you as a grateful man should do tis well arise vicomte embrace me
raoul arose and threw himself with emotion into the count's arms adieu faltered the count who felt his heart die away within him adieu and think of me
should any harm befall me your name will be the last name that i shall utter the remembrance of you my last thought
showing the servant raoul's shoulder belt tighten the buckle of the sword it falls too low you will accompany monsieur le vicomte till grimaud rejoins you you know raoul grimaud is an old and zealous servant he will follow you yes sir answered raoul
now to horse that i may see you depart raoul obeyed adieu raoul said the count adieu my dearest boy adieu sir adieu my beloved protector
he dared not trust himself to speak and raoul went away his head uncovered athos remained motionless looking after him until he turned the corner of the street then the count threw the bridle of his horse into the hands of a peasant
remounted the steps went into the cathedral there to kneel down in the darkest corner
in the position of porthos d'artagnan would have been perfectly happy and to make porthos contented there was wanting what five letters to put before his three names a tiny coronet to paint upon the panels of his carriage
i shall pass all my life thought d'artagnan in seeking for a man who is really contented with his lot whilst making this reflection chance seemed as it were to give him the lie direct when porthos had left him to give some orders
he saw mousqueton approaching the face of the steward despite one slight shade of care light as a summer cloud seemed a physiognomy of absolute felicity here is what i am looking for thought d'artagnan
but alas the poor fellow does not know the purpose for which i am here he then made a sign for mousqueton to come to him sir said the servant i have a favour to ask you speak out my friend i am afraid to do so
perhaps you will think sir that prosperity has spoiled me art thou happy friend asked d'artagnan as happy as possible
since i have had the honor of being my lord's steward i have taken the last name as more dignified and calculated to make my inferiors respect me you sir know how necessary subordination is in any large establishment of servants d'artagnan smiled
porthos wanted to lengthen out his names mousqueton to cut his short well my dear mouston he said rest satisfied i will call thee mouston and if it makes thee happy i will not tutoyer you any longer
oh cried mousqueton reddening with joy if you do me sir such honor i shall be grateful all my life it is too much to ask alas thought d'artagnan it is very little to offset the unexpected tribulations i am bringing to this poor devil
who has so warmly welcomed me will monsieur remain long with us asked mousqueton with a serene and glowing countenance i go to morrow my friend replied d'artagnan ah monsieur said mousqueton then you have come here only to awaken our regrets
had his object and reward but poor mousqueton whose only wish was to be called mouston was it not cruel to snatch him from the delightful state of peace and plenty in which he was he was thinking of these matters when porthos summoned him to dinner what
to dinner said d'artagnan what time is it then eh why it is after one o'clock your home is a paradise porthos one takes no note of time i follow you though i am not hungry come if one can't always eat one can always drink
d'artagnan who as a gascon was inclined to sobriety
but he did his best to keep up with his host meanwhile his misgivings in regard to mousqueton recurred to his mind and with greater force because mousqueton though he did not himself wait on the table which would have been beneath him in his new position appeared at the door from time to time
by the quality of the wine he directed to be served therefore when at dessert upon a sign from d'artagnan porthos had sent away his servants and the two friends were alone porthos said d'artagnan who will attend you in your campaigns
why replied porthos mouston of course this was a blow to d'artagnan he could already see the intendant's beaming smile change to a contortion of grief but he said mouston is not so young as he was my dear fellow besides he has grown fat
and perhaps has lost his fitness for active service that may be true replied porthos but i am used to him and besides he wouldn't be willing to let me go without him he loves me so much oh blind self love thought d'artagnan and you asked porthos
planchet yes i have found him again
what is he then with his sixteen hundred francs you remember the sixteen hundred francs he earned at the siege of la rochelle
he has set up a little shop in the rue des lombards and is now a confectioner ah he is a confectioner in the rue des lombards
well said porthos if any one had told you in the old times that the day would come when planchet would rescue rochefort and that you would protect him in it i should not have believed him but men are changed by events there is nothing truer than that said porthos
but what does not change or changes for the better is wine
zounds my weapons what weapons my military weapons yes my lord at any rate i think so make sure of it and if they want it have them burnished up which is my best cavalry horse vulcan and the best hack
polish up or make some one else polish my arms then take pistols with thee and a hunting knife are we then going to travel my lord asked mousqueton rather uneasy something better still mouston an expedition sir asked the steward whose roses began to change into lilies
we are going to return to the service mouston replied porthos still trying to restore his mustache to the military curl it had long lost into the service the king's service mousqueton trembled even his fat smooth cheeks shook as he spoke
and he looked at d'artagnan with an air of reproach he staggered and his voice was almost choked yes and no we shall serve in a campaign seek out all sorts of adventures return in short to our former life these last words fell on mousqueton like a thunderbolt
it was those very terrible old days that made the present so excessively delightful and the blow was so great he rushed out overcome and forgot to shut the door the two friends remained alone to speak of the future and to build castles in the air
showed to porthos a blue ribbon and a ducal mantle they were in fact asleep on the table when the servants came to light them to their bed mousqueton was however somewhat consoled by d'artagnan who the next day told him that in all probability
war would always be carried on in the heart of paris and within reach of the chateau du vallon
and of pierrefonds which was between compiegne and villars cotterets but formerly it appears began mousqueton timidly oh said d'artagnan we don't now make war as we did formerly to day it's a sort of diplomatic arrangement ask planchet
mousqueton inquired therefore the state of the case of his old friend who confirmed the statement of d'artagnan but he added in this war prisoners stand a chance of being hung the deuce they do said mousqueton i think i should like the siege of rochelle better than this war then
porthos meantime asked d'artagnan to give him his instructions how to proceed on his journey four days replied his friend are necessary to reach blois one day to rest there three or four days to return to paris set out therefore in a week with your suite
and go to the hotel de la chevrette rue tiquetonne and there await me that's agreed said porthos as to myself i shall go around to see athos for though i don't think his aid worth much one must with one's friends observe all due politeness said d'artagnan
that devil porthos is a man of prodigious strength still if athos joins us
they proceeded silently to the centre of the place but as at this very moment the moon had just emerged from behind a cloud they thought they might be observed if they remained on that spot and therefore regained the shade of the lime trees
gentlemen he said our presence here is the best proof of former friendship not one of us has failed the others at this rendezvous not one has therefore to reproach himself hear me count replied d'artagnan
instead of making compliments to each other let us explain our conduct to each other like men of right and honest hearts i wish for nothing more have you any cause of complaint against me or monsieur d'herblay if so speak out
when i saw you at your chateau at bragelonne
you say strange things said aramis you came seeking me to make to me certain proposals but did you make them no you sounded me nothing more very well what did i say to you
well why should not we too belong to a party you had your secret and we had ours we didn't exchange them so much the better it proves that we know how to keep our secrets i do not reproach you monsieur said d'artagnan
tis only because monsieur de la fere has spoken of friendship that i question your conduct
i consider it worthy conduct of a pupil of jesuits on seeing d'artagnan rise porthos rose also these four men were therefore all standing at the same time with a menacing aspect opposite to each other upon hearing d'artagnan's reply
d'artagnan he said you are here to night still infuriated by yesterday's adventure i believed your heart noble enough to enable a friendship of twenty years to overcome an affront of a quarter of an hour come do you really think you have anything to say against me
say it then if i am in fault i will avow the error the grave and harmonious tones of that beloved voice seemed to have still its ancient influence whilst that of aramis which had become harsh and tuneless in his moments of ill humor
irritated him he answered therefore i think monsieur le comte that you had something to communicate to me at your chateau of bragelonne and that gentleman
however because i was prudent you must not take me for a fool
and those whom he receives with a wooden ladder i could have spoken out what are you meddling with cried aramis pale with anger suspecting that d'artagnan had acted as a spy on him and had seen him with madame de longueville
and he added turning to porthos here's a gentleman who's of the same opinion as myself porthos who had not spoken one word answered merely by a word and a gesture
aramis started back and drew his d'artagnan bent forward ready either to attack or to stand on his defense
extended his hand with the air of supreme command which characterized him alone drew out his sword and the scabbard at the same time broke the blade in the sheath on his knee and threw the pieces to his right then turning to aramis
these proceedings made d'artagnan and porthos draw back d'artagnan did not draw his sword porthos put his back into the sheath never exclaimed athos raising his right hand to heaven never
and who in the darkness of this night heareth us never shall my sword cross yours never my eye express a glance of anger
we lived together we loved we hated together we shed we mingled our blood together and too probably i may still add that there may be yet a bond between us closer even than that of friendship
to four men who compelled such a man as richelieu to act as we pleased what is such or such a prince to us who fixed the diadem upon a great queen's head
now hate me if you can but for my own part i shall ever even if you do hate me retain esteem and friendship for you i repeat my words aramis and then if you desire it and if they desire it let us separate forever from our old friends
there was a solemn though momentary silence which was broken by aramis i swear he said with a calm brow and kindly glance but in a voice still trembling with recent emotion i swear that i no longer bear animosity to those who were once my friends
oh no no do not go away exclaimed d'artagnan impelled by one of those irresistible impulses which showed the nobility of his nature the native brightness of his character i swear that i would give the last drop of my blood and the last fragment of my limbs
of such a man as you aramis
and as for me said porthos i swear nothing but i'm choked forsooth if i were obliged to fight against you
for i never loved any one but you in the wide world and honest porthos burst into tears as he embraced athos my friends said athos this is what i expected from such hearts as yours yes i have said it and i now repeat it
our destinies are irrevocably united although we now pursue divergent roads i respect your convictions and whilst we fight for opposite sides let us remain friends
and let us retain as our battle standard
be it so cried aramis cardinalists or frondeurs what matters it let us meet again as capital seconds in a duel devoted friends in business merry companions in our ancient pleasures
let us put our swords into our left hands and shake hands with the right
you speak charmingly said porthos and are the first of men added d'artagnan you excel us all athos smiled with ineffable pleasure tis then all settled gentlemen your hands
are we not pretty good christians
we should be so on this occasion if only to be faithful to our oath said aramis ah i'm ready to do what you will cried porthos even to swear by mahomet devil take me if i've ever been so happy as at this moment
and he wiped his eyes still moist has not one of you a cross asked athos aramis smiled and drew from his vest a cross of diamonds which was hung around his neck by a chain of pearls here is one he said
swear on this cross which in spite of its magnificent material is still a cross
then place in the freezer to harden and serve
english chicken salad mix one cup of cold chicken cut fine with one cup of chopped celery one cup of cooked chestnuts chopped and two green peppers cut fine season with salt and pepper put on crisp lettuce leaves in the salad bowl
lay in a large stew pan and cover with hot water add one sliced onion two sliced green peppers and two tomatoes one red pepper and two sprigs of parsley let stew slowly until tender
then fry thin slices of egg plant and add to the stew serve hot
irish apple pudding pare and slice apples and lay them in a buttered pie dish sprinkle with brown sugar
indian rice boil one cup of rice in chicken broth add a pinch of curry powder and season to taste with salt and pepper
then let all cook slowly until the broth is entirely absorbed by the rice serve very hot
hungarian chicken soup boil a large chicken in three quarts of water season with salt sage and pepper add one onion chopped and cook until tender remove the chicken and chop it fine
yorkshire pudding beat three eggs with a pinch of salt add one pint of milk and two third of a cup of flour stir until smooth then pour into a well greased pan and bake until done serve with english roast beef and pour over the gravy
portugal salad slice two cucumbers two tomatoes one onion and two green peppers then sprinkle with one chopped clove of garlic salt and pepper and cover with some thin slices of bread pour over all a cup of vinegar
and press dry add two ounces of butter mixed with three ounces of sugar and three ounces of chocolate add the yolks of six eggs well beaten and flavor with a teaspoonful of vanilla
bake in a quick oven and serve at once
prepare circular pieces of buttered toast then mix one cup of chopped fish with three sweet pickles minced fine and two tablespoonfuls of madras chutney moisten with two tablespoonfuls of hollandaise sauce
sprinkle with three tablespoonfuls of grated parmesan cheese let bake for five minutes and serve
french strawberry pudding dip enough macaroons in wine to line the pudding dish cover with sweetened strawberries
chop cold veal mix with some sweetbread and mushrooms chopped season with salt pepper and lemon juice add a sprig of parsley and a little onion chopped fine mix with a beaten egg and bread crumbs
sprinkle with nutmeg form into croquettes dip in beaten egg and fine bread crumbs and fry in deep hot lard serve hot with a cream sauce
german cheese pie line a pie plate with a rich pie dough
two eggs a pinch of salt and a few currants mix well fill the pie sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon and bake until light brown serve hot or cold
chop cooked veal with some onion parsley thyme and one clove of garlic season with salt pepper and nutmeg add some chopped ham lemon juice and two eggs mix with bread crumbs and melted butter
rub with butter and beaten egg place a paper over the top and let bake in a moderate oven serve with tomato sauce
hungarian noodle pudding boil finely cut noodles in salted water drain
sugar cinnamon and grated lemon peel to taste add the beaten whites line the pudding dish with a rich pie paste fill with the noodles and pour over some melted butter bake until brown serve hot with lemon sauce
season and let stew with two sliced onions two carrots and one potato cut into dice pieces when nearly done add one cup of sauerkraut two tablespoonfuls of sorrel
let cook until tender and serve on a platter with cooked rice
madras curried apples peel and core four sour apples and cut into rings then sprinkle with curry powder and let fry until tender add a few thinly cut shallots cover and let simmer until done
serve on a platter with boiled rice and pour over a curry sauce
irish batter cakes beat the yolks of four eggs add a pinch of salt one tablespoonful of melted butter one small cup of milk and sifted flour enough to make a smooth batter beat well add the whites of eggs beaten stiff
then spread with jam and serve hot
spanish baked eggs poach eggs as soft as possible butter a baking dish add a layer of bread crumbs and grated cheese place the eggs on the crumbs sprinkle with salt pepper grated cheese and chopped parsley
cover with bread crumbs and pour over some cream sauce let bake in a hot oven until brown on top serve with toast
scotch stewed onions boil one dozen small onions and four leeks in salted water until tender drain heat two tablespoonfuls of butter stir in one tablespoonful of flour until smooth but not brown
season highly with pepper and salt to taste add the onions let boil up and serve
and fry in hot grease with one sliced onion remove from the fire mix well with bread crumbs
two eggs salt black pepper and cayenne refill the cabbage put on the outside leaves cover the top with leaves put in a baking pan sprinkle with bits of butter
let bake until brown serve hot
dutch veal stew season three pounds of veal with salt pepper and lemon juice
add the veal cover and let brown a few minutes then add two carrots and one onion sliced thin some thyme and mace pour over one cup of hot water cover and let cook slowly until tender
thicken with flour mixed with a half cup of milk add chopped parsley season to taste and serve with baked potatoes
french baked apple dumplings peel and core apples sprinkle well with sugar then mix some cold boiled rice with one egg a pinch of salt sugar and cinnamon flour enough to make a dough cover the apples with the dough
put in a well buttered baking dish with two tablespoonfuls of butter
bavarian fried brains clean and boil the brains in salted water add one onion sliced let cook ten minutes remove the brains and mash up well with one tablespoonful of butter some bread crumbs and parsley chopped salt and pepper to taste
add two eggs mix together and fry in deep hot lard by the tablespoonful until brown serve with tomato sauce
spread the pudding with jelly and cover with the beaten whites set in the oven to brown
vienna cherry cake make a rich biscuit dough roll out then put on a well buttered baking tin stone black cherries sprinkle the dough with flour and cover with the cherries sprinkle with sugar and let bake until done
then cover with a sweetened egg custard and bake until brown serve cold
set in the oven to bake long enough to heat the egg and serve at once
bavarian apple pie line a deep pie dish with rich pie paste let bake and fill with chopped apples raisins and chopped nuts sugar and a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg then cover with cake crumbs and let bake until done
beat three whites of eggs with pulverized sugar flavor with lemon and spread over the pudding set in the oven a few minutes to brown on top
russian fried sweetbreads clean and season the sweetbreads with salt and pepper and sprinkle with lemon juice and chopped parsley roll in fine bread crumbs and fry in hot lard fry some eggs and put on a platter with the sweetbreads and serve with tomato sauce
polish apple dumpling peel and core the apples and fill the space with currants sprinkle with sugar cinnamon and grated lemon peel and cover each apple with a rich pie paste lay on a well buttered pie dish
and let bake until done serve with wine sauce
boil a beef tongue until tender skin and slice thin heat two tablespoonfuls of butter add one chopped onion and two cloves of garlic minced fine stir in one tablespoonful of flour until brown add a little water
lemon juice salt and pepper to taste let boil add the sliced tongue
simmer ten minutes serve with baked macaroni
german prune pudding cook one pound of prunes in a large saucepan with sliced lemon a piece of stick cinnamon and brown sugar
press out dry add three eggs one quarter teaspoonful each of cinnamon cloves and allspice add flour sifted with a teaspoonful of baking powder
place in the centre of the prunes cover with brown sugar and a tablespoonful of molasses and put in the oven to bake until done serve hot or cold
swiss pot roast season a breast of veal with salt pepper and ginger heat a cupful of dripping lay the meat in the stew pan with the dripping one onion some celery seed carroway seed a few peppercorns and parsley
cover and let stew slowly until nearly done
serve with baked potatoes
mushrooms a la bordelaise drain one can of mushrooms chop six shallots very fine and saute in one tablespoonful of butter add the chopped mushrooms sprinkle with salt pepper some chopped parsley and one minced bay leaf
serve hot on slices of french toast
add two green peppers sliced thin one onion chopped and an herb bouquet
scotch omelet boil young tender leeks in salted water let drain chop to a fine mince and fry in hot butter add six well beaten eggs sprinkle with salt and pepper and fold into an omelet and serve on a hot dish
add a pinch of sugar and let them fry in hot rendered butter until a golden brown sprinkle with pulverized sugar and cinnamon and serve hot with coffee
bombay broiled kidney clean sheep's kidneys and cut into thin slices sprinkle with salt cayenne pepper and grated lemon peel then dip in beaten egg and fine bread crumbs and broil on a hot greased gridiron
serve on buttered toast spread with curry paste
german prune kuchen boil some prunes until tender remove the kernels and mash the prunes well mix with sugar cinnamon and lemon juice to taste make a rich biscuit dough roll out and place on a well buttered baking pan
fill with the prunes and let bake until done serve cold
french roast with carrots lard a round of beef with slices of bacon and put in a large saucepan cover and let brown a few minutes add sliced onion and boiling water to cover let cook slowly until tender
then scrape six carrots and cut thin add two sliced onions two cloves of garlic and let cook until tender thicken with butter and flour season highly with salt pepper and parsley add to the meat and let all cook together a half hour and serve hot
spanish fried chicken cut a fat hen into pieces at the joints and boil until tender season and fry with one onion and two green peppers chopped fine add one cup of tomato sauce salt and pepper to taste
serve the chicken on a platter with boiled rice
hungarian bread pudding chop a half cup of suet
add one cup of chopped apples
sprinkle with cinnamon nutmeg and grated lemon peel then mix with the yolks of four eggs and the whites beaten stiff put in a well buttered pudding dish and let bake until done serve hot with wine sauce
swedish baked turnips peel small tender turnips heat one tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan place the turnips in whole sprinkle with salt and pepper add a tablespoonful of sugar pour over a cup of water cover
and let cook for one hour until tender but not broken thicken the sauce with flour and milk add a little water and set in the oven a half hour covered with paper then serve
belgian baked bananas skin fine bananas and lay them whole in a baking dish sprinkle with sugar and grated lemon peel
let bake in a quick oven put the bananas in a glass dish and pour over the sauce let get cold and serve
japanese rice boil one cup of rice add three chopped shallots one teaspoonful of soy and salt to taste place on a platter cover with chopped hard boiled eggs sprinkle with salt paprica and chopped parsley
then work in one pound of sifted flour with two teaspoonfuls of baking powder make a loaf a half inch thick and bake in a moderate oven until done
english meat loaf chop cooked veal and boiled ham place in a well greased mold alternate layers of veal ham and hard boiled eggs sprinkle with pepper mace and chopped parsley moisten with beef stock and let bake in the oven
serve cold sliced very thin garnished with watercress
jewish purim cakes
and the grated peel of a half lemon add enough sifted flour with one teaspoonful of baking powder to make a soft biscuit dough put on a well floured baking board roll out a half inch thick cut into triangles and drop in a kettle of hot rendered butter
fry until a golden brown then mix some powdered sugar with a little milk and flavor with vanilla spread on the top
swiss pie make a rich pie dough line a buttered pie dish with the dough then slice three onions very thin and let cook in hot butter until tender add a pinch of salt fill the pie with the onions
cover the top with cream and let bake in a moderate oven until done serve hot or cold
french apple fritters peel and slice large apples sprinkle with sugar and lemon juice and make a rich egg batter sweeten to taste and flavor with two tablespoonfuls of orange flower water
lay the sliced apples in the batter and fry in deep hot lard to a golden brown serve with wine sauce
jewish purim torte line a well buttered baking dish with a rich pie paste
add the whites beaten stiff then fill with the mixture and let bake until done
add the whites beaten to a stiff froth put in a buttered pudding mold and let boil until done serve with brandy sauce
german stewed brains clean the brains heat one tablespoonful of drippings in a pan add the brains one sliced onion some parsley salt and pepper let stew fifteen minutes thicken the sauce with butter and flour let boil up
serve hot with spinach and sprinkle all with chopped hard boiled eggs
scotch cream muffins sift one pint of flour with one teaspoonful of baking powder beat three yolks of eggs with a pinch of salt add one pint of cream and one tablespoonful of melted butter stir in the flour
add the whites beaten to a stiff froth beat all well together
and bake in a quick oven for twenty minutes
make a rich pie dough line a large pie dish with the paste and bake take three ounces of almonds and pound to a paste add three tablespoonfuls of pulverized sugar
and the yolks of two eggs well beaten with one tablespoonful of rum add the beaten whites fill the pie and bake in a moderate oven
polish stewed beans break string beans into pieces and let boil in salted water until tender then heat one tablespoonful of butter stir in one tablespoonful of flour until brown add the water in which the beans were cooked a half cup of vinegar one tablespoonful of brown sugar
then stir in a half cup of milk with a piece of yeast dissolved in the milk and a teaspoonful of sugar beat all up well with one pint of milk let raise over night
cut with a biscuit cutter rub with melted butter lay in a buttered baking pan let raise one hour then bake in a hot oven twenty minutes
let boil up once and add the potatoes to the sauce let all get very hot and serve
jewish dumplings soak six crackers in water then press dry fry one chopped onion in butter and pour over the crackers add three eggs and chopped parsley sprinkle with salt pepper and nutmeg
mix all with some cracker meal until you can form into balls and boil in salted water until done serve hot with melted butter poured over them and garnish with parsley
italian soup chop some cabbage and let fry in two tablespoonfuls of butter
and one clove of garlic chopped with a half small onion
cut small rounds of toasted bread scoop out some of the centre fill with the mixture and cover with a curry sauce sprinkle with fine bread crumbs and let bake in the oven a few minutes serve hot
austrian braised tongue boil a large fresh beef tongue in salted water until tender remove the tongue and lard it with thin strips of bacon sprinkle with paprica lay in a baking pan add one onion sliced thin and one cup of the water in which the tongue was cooked
russian omelet chop two shallots with a little parsley and cook in hot water add two tablespoonfuls of caviare and a teaspoonful of lemon juice season to taste beat four eggs with one tablespoonful of cream salt and pepper
and fry in an omelet pan with hot butter until done put the mixture in the centre turn in the ends and serve at once
madras potato curry cut boiled potatoes into thin slices then fry one chopped onion in two tablespoonfuls of butter add three ounces of grated cocoanut one teaspoonful of curry powder and one cup of milk salt and cayenne pepper to taste
let boil up add the sliced potatoes and a sprig of parsley chopped let simmer a few minutes and serve hot
swiss baked eggs melt one ounce of butter in a baking pan
break in six eggs sprinkle with salt and pepper pour over four tablespoonfuls of cream sprinkle with grated swiss cheese and let bake in the oven to a delicate brown serve hot
jewish stewed shad clean and cut a shad into large slices sprinkle with salt pepper and ginger put on to boil with one sliced onion one bay leaf a few cloves two sprigs of parsley
when done remove the fish to a platter
one tablespoonful of brown sugar and a pinch of cinnamon let boil until done and pour over the fish garnish with sliced lemon and sprigs of parsley and serve cold
bombay spinach boil the spinach in salted water until tender drain and chop fine fry one chopped onion in two tablespoonfuls of butter add the chopped spinach a pinch of pepper and curry powder cover and let simmer five minutes
serve on a platter with stewed prawns and garnish with croutons
spanish fricasseed shrimps heat two tablespoonfuls of butter add one onion chopped and two cups of tomatoes let fry then stir in one tablespoonful of flour
let boil add one quart of shrimps salt pepper and parsley let all cook twenty minutes stir in the yolk of an egg remove from the fire put some boiled rice on a platter add the shrimps and pour over the sauce serve very hot
irish baked potatoes peel and boil potatoes in salted water until tender drain and mash with a lump of butter put in a well buttered baking dish a layer of the potatoes and a layer of fried bread crumbs until dish is full
russian stewed chicken cut a fat chicken into pieces at the joints and let stew well seasoned with salt and pepper then add some small whole onions some cauliflower mushrooms and one cup of french peas
let all cook until tender then serve hot on a large platter
dutch baked mackerel place the mackerel in a baking dish sprinkle with pepper and chopped parsley cover with fried bread crumbs and bits of butter and moisten with cream then bake until brown on top and serve hot with stewed potatoes
polish roast mutton season a leg of mutton with salt pepper and a pinch of cloves lay in a baking pan with one sliced onion two celery roots three cloves of garlic and two carrots cut fine one bay leaf a sprig of thyme and a few peppercorns
pour over one cup of vinegar and one cup of hot water dredge with flour and let bake in a hot oven baste often with the sauce in the pan until nearly done then add one pint of sour cream and let bake until done thicken with flour boil up and pour over the roast
add four yolks of eggs a pinch of salt and nutmeg
one tablespoonful of citron and candied orange peel chopped fine add the whites beaten stiff and bake in small well buttered cake tins until done then cover with a thin icing
oriental stewed prawns clean and pick three dozen prawns
add the prawns one chopped onion salt pepper and one teaspoonful of curry powder add one pint of stock and let simmer half an hour until tender serve on a border of boiled rice
season a round steak with salt black pepper and paprica dredge with flour and let fry in hot lard on both sides until brown then add some sliced onions and moisten well with tomato sauce cover and let simmer half an hour
berlin herring salad soak the herring over night remove the milch and mash fine cut off the head skin and bone chop the herring add chopped apples pickles potatoes olives and capers
put in the salad bowl then add the yolk of a hard boiled egg to the mashed milch mustard
german lentil soup to one gallon of soup stock add one quart of lentils let boil until lentils are soft with one sliced onion then add some small sausages let boil five minutes
french spiced venison rub the venison with salt pepper vinegar cloves and allspice then put in a baking pan pour over a cup of melted butter add one onion sliced some thyme parsley
the juice of a lemon and a cup of hot water let bake covered in a hot oven baste often with the sauce when nearly done sprinkle with flour add a glass of sherry and let brown serve with celery and currant jelly
and two tablespoonfuls of white wine salt and pepper to taste let simmer five minutes and serve hot on slices of toast
vienna noodle pudding boil some fine noodles in salted water for ten minutes let drain beat the yolks of five eggs with one cup of pulverized sugar and mix with the noodles
and the whites of the eggs beaten to a froth put in a well buttered pudding dish and bake until brown serve hot with lemon sauce
dutch sweet potato puff peel and boil three sweet potatoes in salted water until tender then mash well with three beaten yolks of eggs one cup of milk three tablespoonfuls of butter
beat the whites with a pinch of salt to a stiff froth add to the potatoes and put in a well buttered baking dish and bake serve hot
spaghetti italian
drain heat one tablespoonful of butter
russian beet soup boil five medium sized beets until tender then chop and add to a highly seasoned chicken broth add the juice of one lemon some cinnamon and nutmeg let boil fifteen minutes then add one glass of red wine
mixed with a teaspoonful of brown sugar let boil a few minutes longer and serve with fried croutons
mix with one egg and form into balls roll in flour and fry in deep hot lard until brown serve hot with tomato sauce
baden stewed lentils boil one quart of lentils until tender then heat two tablespoonfuls of butter add one chopped onion and stir in one tablespoonful of flour until brown add some cold water mixed with vinegar
let boil and pour the sauce over the lentils season with salt and pepper and serve with small boiled sausages sprinkle the top with bread crumbs fried in butter until brown
duck aux champignons clean and season a pair of wild ducks and cut into pieces at the joints heat two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan add the ducks one large onion chopped fine two cloves of garlic and one herb bouquet chopped
hungarian beef stew cut beef into small pieces heat some dripping in a saucepan add the meat salt and black pepper
then add three potatoes cut into dice pieces one onion sliced thin one cup of hot water
chapter twenty six reviving old memories of the trail the sight of sweetwater river twenty miles out from south pass revived many pleasant memories and some that were sad
i could remember the sparkling clear water the green skirt of undergrowth along the banks and the restful camps as we trudged along up the stream so many years ago and now i saw the same channel the same hills
but where were the camp fires where was the herd of gaunt cattle where the sound of the din of bells the hallooing for lost children or the little groups off on the hillside to bury the dead all were gone
an oppressive silence prevailed as we drove to the river and pitched our camp within a few feet of the bank
there the trail is to be seen miles and miles ahead worn bare and deep with but one narrow track where there used to be a dozen and with the beaten path that vegetation has not yet recovered from the scourge of passing hoofs and tires of wagons years ago
as in eighteen fifty two when the summit was passed i felt that my task was much more than half done though half the distance was scarcely compassed on june thirtieth at about ten o'clock
we encountered a large number of big flies that ran the cattle nearly wild i stood on the wagon tongue for miles to reach them with the whipstock the cattle were so excited that we did not stop at noon but drove on
by half past two we camped at a farmhouse the split rock post office the first we had found in a hundred miles of travel since leaving pacific springs the devil's gate a few miles distant is one of the two best known landmarks on the trail
here as at split rock the mountain seems to have been split apart leaving an opening a few rods wide through which the sweetwater river pours in a veritable torrent
the river first approaches to within a few hundred feet of the gap then suddenly curves away from it and after winding through the valley for half a mile or so a quarter of a mile away it takes a straight shoot and makes the plunge through the canyon
those who have had the impression that the emigrants drove their teams through this gap are mistaken for it's a feat no mortal man has done or can do any more than he could drive up the falls of the niagara this year on my nineteen o six trip
i did clamber through on the left bank over boulders head high under shelving rocks i ate some ripe gooseberries from the bushes growing on the border of the river
we groped our way among the inscriptions to find some of them nearly obliterated and many legible only in part we walked all the way around the stone nearly a mile the huge rock is of irregular shape and it is more than a hundred feet high
the walls being so precipitous that ascent to the top is possible in only two places unfortunately we could not find fremont's inscription of this inscription fremont writes in his journal of the year eighteen forty two
august twenty third yesterday evening we reached our encampment at rock independence where i took some astronomical observations
i engraved on this rock of the far west a symbol of the christian faith among the thickly inscribed names i made on the hard granite the impression of a large cross it stands amidst the names of many who have long since found their way to the grave
and for whom the huge rock is a giant gravestone on independence day nineteen o six we left independence rock our noon stop was on fish creek eleven miles away the next night we camped on the north platte river
fifty four years before i had left the old stream about fifteen miles below here on my way to the west next day while nooning several miles out from casper we heard the whistle of a locomotive it
was the first we had heard for nearly three hundred miles
i left the wagon and walked to casper ahead of the team to select a camping ground secure feed and get the mail a special meeting of the commercial club of casper was held that evening and i laid the matter of building a monument before the members
they resolved to build one opened the subscription at once and appointed a committee to carry the work forward since then a monument twenty five feet high has been erected at a cost of fifteen hundred dollars
glen rock is a small village but the ladies there met and resolved they would have as nice a monument as casper's one enthusiastic lady said we will inscribe it ourselves if no stonecutter can be had
at douglas also an earnest well organized effort to erect the monument was well in hand before we drove out of town as we journeyed on down the platte we passed thrifty ranches and thriving little towns
it was haying time and the mowers were busy cutting alfalfa the hay was being stacked generous ranchers invited us to help ourselves to their garden stuff all along the way was a spirit of good cheer and hearty welcome
until we reached the old fort no place name was so constantly in the minds of the emigrants as that of fort laramie here in fifty two we eagerly looked for letters that never came perhaps our friends and relatives had not written
perhaps they had written but the letters were lost or sidetracked somewhere in the states as for hearing from home for that we had to wait patiently until the long journey should end then a missive might reach us by way of the isthmus
or maybe by sailing vessel around cape horn there is no vestige of the old traders camp or the first united states fort left the new fort not a fort but an encampment covers a space of thirty or forty acres
with all sorts of buildings and ruins one of the old barracks three hundred feet long was in good preservation in nineteen o six being utilized by the owner joseph wilde for a store post office hotel and residence
the guard house with its grim iron door
rich fields of grain and hay and beets cover the valley great sugar factories railroads business blocks and fine homes tell of the prosperity that has leaped out of the parched plains we trailed across
it still looms up as of old on the south side of the river about eight hundred feet above the trail the origin of the name scott's bluff is not definitely known tradition says a trapper named scott
while returning to the states was robbed and stripped by the indians he crawled to these bluffs and there famished his bones were afterwards found and buried these quoted words were written by a passing emigrant on the spot
june eleventh eighteen fifty two
and was abandoned by his traveling companions after having crawled almost forty miles he finally died near the bluff that bears his name this occurred prior to eighteen thirty from the bluff we drove as directly as possible
to a historic grave two miles out from the town and on the railroad right of way in this grave lies a pioneer mother who died august fifteenth eighteen fifty two nearly six weeks after i had passed over the ground
some thoughtful friend had marked her grave by standing a wagon tire upright in it but for this the grave like thousands and thousands of others
the tire bore this simple inscription rebecca winters aged fifty years the hoofs of stock tramped the sunken grave and trod it into dust but the arch of the tire remained to defy the strength of thoughtless hands that would have removed it
finally the railroad surveyors came along they might have run the track over the lonely grave but for the thoughtfulness of the man who wielded the compass he changed the line
and the grave was protected and enclosed the railroad officials did more
and rises coneshaped for two hundred feet to the base of the spire like rock the chimney that rests upon it and rises a full hundred feet more a local story runs that an army officer trained a cannon on this spire
shot off about thirty feet from the top and for this was court martialed and dishonorably discharged from the army i could get no definite confirmation of the story
it seems incredible that an intelligent man would do such an act and if he did it he deserved severe punishment it is saddening to think of the many places where equally stupid things have been done to natural wonders
coming through idaho i had noticed that at soda springs the hand of the vandal had been at work
chapter twenty seven a bit of bad luck old oregon trail monument expedition brady island nebraska august ninth nineteen o six
yesterday morning twist ate his breakfast as usual and showed no signs of sickness until we were on the road two or three miles when he began to put his tongue out and his breathing became heavy but he leaned on the yoke more heavily than usual and determined to pull the whole load
i finally stopped put him on the off side gave him the long end of the yoke and tied his head back with the halter strap to the chain but to no purpose
i finally unyoked gave him a quart of lard a gill of vinegar and a handful of sugar but all to no purpose
such is the record in my journal of this noble animal's death i think he died from eating some poisonous plant when we started
had wallowed in the snows of the blue mountains followed the tortuous rocky canyon of burnt river and gone through the deep sands of the snake this ox had gained one hundred thirty seven pounds
he would keep his end of the yoke a little ahead
there are pronounced individualities in animals as well as in men i might have said virtues too and why not if an animal always does his duty and is faithful and industrious why not recognize this character
even if he is nothing but an ox to understand the achievements of this ox it is necessary to know the burden that he carried
had wooden axles and wide track and carried an average load of eight hundred pounds along with an unbroken four year old steer a natural born shirk
and he was in better working trim just before he died than when the trip began and yet am i sure that at some points i did not abuse him what about coming up out of little canyon or rather up the steep rocky steps of stones like stairs when i used the goad
and he pulled a shoe off his feet was i merciful then or did i exact more than i ought i can see him yet in my mind on his knees holding the wagon from rolling into the canyon till the wheel could be blocked and the brakes set
then when bidden to start the load he did not flinch
again i hired a horse team to haul the wagon to lexington at lexington i thought the loss of the ox could be repaired by buying a pair of heavy cows and breaking them in to work so i purchased two out of a band of two hundred cattle
why yes of course they will work i said in reply to a bystander's question
we will soon have a team i declared with all the confidence in the world only we can't go very far in a day with a raw team especially in this hot weather but one cow would not go at all we could neither lead her nor drive her
put her in the yoke and she would stand stock still just like a stubborn mule hitch the yoke by a strong rope behind the wagon with a horse team to pull and she would brace her feet and actually slide along but would not lift a foot
won't you take her back and give me another i asked the seller yes i will give you that red cow one i had rejected as unfit but not one of the others what is this cow worth to you thirty dollars
so i dropped ten dollars having paid forty for the first cow besides i had lost the better part of a day and experienced a good deal of vexation if i could only have had twist back again the fact gradually became apparent that the loss of that fine ox was almost irreparable
i could not get track of an ox anywhere nor even of a steer large enough to mate the dave ox besides dave always was a fool twist would watch my every motion and mind by the wave of the hand but dave never minded anything except to shirk hard work
twist seemed to love his work and would go freely all day it was brought home to me more forcibly than ever that in the loss of the twist ox i had almost lost the whole team when i drove out from lexington behind a hired horse team that day
it may easily be guessed that the pride of anticipated success died out and deep discouragement seized upon me i had two yokes one a heavy ox yoke the other a light cow's yoke but the cow i thought
could not be worked alongside the ox in the ox yoke nor the ox with the cow in the cow yoke i was without a team but with a double encumbrance yes the ox has passed for in all nebraska i was unable to find even one yoke
i trudged along sometimes behind the led cattle wondering in my mind whether or not i had been foolish to undertake this expedition to perpetuate the memory of the old oregon trail had i not been rebuffed at the first by a number of business men
who pushed the subject aside with i have no time to look into it hadn't i been compelled to pass several towns
to mark the trail and keep alive the memory of the pioneers moreover i recalled the enthusiastic reception in so many places the outpouring of contributions from thousands of school children the willing hands of the people that built these monuments
and the more than twenty thousand people attending the dedication ceremonies these heartening recollections made me forget the loss of twist the recalcitrant cow
or leisurely crossed our track and at times obstructed our way and herds of antelope watched from vantage points but now the buffalo and antelope have disappeared the indian likewise is gone
instead of the parched plain of eighteen fifty two with its fierce clouds of dust rolling up the valley and engulfing whole trains we saw a landscape of smiling fruitful fields inviting groves of trees and contented homes from grand island i went to fremont nebraska
to head the procession in the semi centennial celebration in honor of the founding of that city in the procession i worked the ox and cow together from fremont i went on to lincoln
all the while i was searching for an ox or a steer large enough to mate the dave ox but without avail finally after looking over a thousand head of cattle in the stockyards of omaha i found a five year old steer dandy which i broke in on the way to indianapolis
this ox proved to be very satisfactory he never kicked or hooked and was always in good humor dave and dandy made good team mates as dumb as an ox is a very common expression dating back as far as my memory goes
in fact the ox is not so dumb as a casual observer might think dave and dandy knew me as far as they could see sometimes when i went to them in the morning dave would lift his head bow his neck stretch out his body and perhaps extend a foot as if to say
good morning to you glad to see you dandy was driven on the streets of a hundred cities and towns and i never knew him to be at a loss to find his way to the stable or watering trough once he had been there and was started on a return trip
the brothers cheeryble make various declarations for themselves and others tim linkinwater makes a declaration for himself some weeks had passed and the first shock of these events had subsided
madeline had been removed frank had been absent and nicholas and kate had begun to try in good earnest to stifle their own regrets and to live for each other and for their mother who poor lady
when there came one evening per favour of mister linkinwater an invitation from the brothers to dinner on the next day but one comprehending not only missus nickleby kate and nicholas but little miss la creevy who was most particularly mentioned
now my dears said missus nickleby when they had rendered becoming honour to the bidding and tim had taken his departure what does this mean what do you mean mother asked nicholas smiling
i say my dear rejoined that lady with a face of unfathomable mystery what does this invitation to dinner mean what is its intention and object i conclude it means
that on such a day we are to eat and drink in their house and that its intent and object is to confer pleasure upon us said nicholas and that's all you conclude it is my dear i have not yet arrived at anything deeper mother
then i'll just tell you one thing said missus nickleby you'll find yourself a little surprised that's all you may depend upon it that this means something besides dinner tea and supper perhaps suggested nicholas
i wouldn't be absurd my dear if i were you replied missus nickleby in a lofty manner because it's not by any means becoming and doesn't suit you at all
that the mister cheerybles don't ask us to dinner with all this ceremony for nothing never mind wait and see you won't believe anything i say of course it's much better to wait a great deal better it's satisfactory to all parties
and there can be no disputing all i say is remember what i say now and when i say i said so don't say i didn't with this stipulation missus nickleby who was troubled night and day
with a vision of a hot messenger tearing up to the door to announce that nicholas had been taken into partnership quitted that branch of the subject and entered upon a new one it's a very extraordinary thing she said a most extraordinary thing
that they should have invited miss la creevy it quite astonishes me upon my word it does of course it's very pleasant that she should be invited very pleasant and i have no doubt that she'll conduct herself extremely well she always does
it's very gratifying to think that we should have been the means of introducing her into such society and i'm quite glad of it quite rejoiced for she certainly is an exceedingly well behaved and good natured little person
i could wish that some friend would mention to her how very badly she has her cap trimmed and what very preposterous bows those are but of course that's impossible and if she likes to make a fright of herself
no doubt she has a perfect right to do so we never see ourselves never do and never did and i suppose we never shall this moral reflection reminding her of the necessity of being peculiarly smart on the occasion
so as to counterbalance miss la creevy and be herself an effectual set off and atonement led missus nickleby into a consultation with her daughter relative to certain ribbons gloves and trimmings which being a complicated question and one of paramount importance
soon routed the previous one and put it to flight the great day arriving the good lady put herself under kate's hands an hour or so after breakfast and dressing by easy stages completed her toilette in sufficient time to allow of her daughter's making hers
which was very simple and not very long though so satisfactory that she had never appeared more charming or looked more lovely miss la creevy too arrived with two bandboxes whereof the bottoms fell out as they were handed from the coach and something in a newspaper
which a gentleman had sat upon coming down and which was obliged to be ironed again before it was fit for service at last everybody was dressed including nicholas who had come home to fetch them and they went away in a coach sent by the brothers for the purpose
missus nickleby wondering very much what they would have for dinner and cross examining nicholas as to the extent of his discoveries in the morning whether he had smelt anything cooking at all like turtle and if not what he had smelt and diversifying the conversation
with reminiscences of dinners to which she had gone some twenty years ago concerning which she particularised not only the dishes but the guests in whom her hearers did not feel a very absorbing interest
as not one of them had ever chanced to hear their names before the old butler received them with profound respect and many smiles and ushered them into the drawing room where they were received by the brothers with so much cordiality and kindness
that missus nickleby was quite in a flutter and had scarcely presence of mind enough even to patronise miss la creevy kate was still more affected by the reception for knowing that the brothers were acquainted with all that had passed between her and frank
she felt her position a most delicate and trying one and was trembling on the arm of nicholas when mister charles took her in his and led her to another part of the room have you seen madeline my dear he said since she left your house
ah said the old man patting her on the head and speaking as affectionately as if she had been his favourite child poor dear what do you think of this brother ned madeline has only written to her once only once ned
oh sad sad very sad said ned the brothers interchanged a glance and looking at kate for a little time without speaking shook hands and nodded as if they were congratulating each other on something very delightful
well well said brother charles go into that room my dear that door yonder and see if there's not a letter for you from her i think there's one upon the table you needn't hurry back my love if there is
for we don't dine just yet and there's plenty of time plenty of time kate retired as she was directed brother charles having followed her graceful figure with his eyes turned to missus nickleby and said
we took the liberty of naming one hour before the real dinner time ma'am because we had a little business to speak about which would occupy the interval ned my dear fellow will you mention what we agreed upon mister nickleby sir have the goodness to follow me
without any further explanation missus nickleby miss la creevy and brother ned were left alone together and nicholas followed brother charles into his private room where to his great astonishment he encountered frank whom he supposed to be abroad
young men said mister cheeryble shake hands i need no bidding to do that said nicholas extending his nor i rejoined frank as he clasped it heartily
the old gentleman thought that two handsomer or finer young fellows could scarcely stand side by side than those on whom he looked with so much pleasure suffering his eyes to rest upon them for a short time in silence
he said while he seated himself at his desk i wish to see you friends close and firm friends and if i thought you otherwise i should hesitate in what i am about to say frank look here mister nickleby will you come on the other side
the young men stepped up on either hand of brother charles who produced a paper from his desk and unfolded it this he said is a copy of the will of madeline's maternal grandfather bequeathing her the sum of twelve thousand pounds
payable either upon her coming of age or marrying it would appear that this gentleman angry with her his only relation because she would not put herself under his protection and detach herself from the society of her father in compliance with his repeated overtures
made a will leaving this property which was all he possessed to a charitable institution he would seem to have repented this determination however for three weeks afterwards and in the same month he executed this
by some fraud it was abstracted immediately after his decease and the other the only will found was proved and administered friendly negotiations which have only just now terminated have been proceeding since this instrument came into our hands
and as there is no doubt of its authenticity and the witnesses have been discovered after some trouble the money has been refunded madeline has therefore obtained her right and is or will be when either of the contingencies which i have mentioned has arisen
mistress of this fortune you understand me frank replied in the affirmative nicholas who could not trust himself to speak lest his voice should be heard to falter bowed his head now frank said the old gentleman
you were the immediate means of recovering this deed the fortune is but a small one but we love madeline and such as it is we would rather see you allied to her with that than to any other girl we know who has three times the money
will you become a suitor to her for her hand no sir i interested myself in the recovery of that instrument believing that her hand was already pledged to one who has a thousand times the claims upon her gratitude and if i mistake not upon her heart
that i or any other man can ever urge in this it seems i judged hastily as you always do sir cried brother charles utterly forgetting his assumed dignity as you always do
how dare you think frank that we would have you marry for money when youth beauty and every amiable virtue and excellence were to be had for love how dared you frank go and make love to mister nickleby's sister without telling us first what you meant to do
and letting us speak for you i hardly dared to hope you hardly dared to hope then so much the greater reason for having our assistance mister nickleby sir frank although he judged hastily judged for once correctly
madeline's heart is occupied give me your hand sir it is occupied by you and worthily and naturally this fortune is destined to be yours but you have a greater fortune in her sir than you would have in money were it forty times told
chapter fifty eight in which one scene of this history is closed dividing the distance into two days journey in order that his charge might sustain the less exhaustion and fatigue from travelling so far
nicholas at the end of the second day from their leaving home found himself within a very few miles of the spot where the happiest years of his life had been passed and which while it filled his mind with pleasant and peaceful thoughts
brought back many painful and vivid recollections of the circumstances in which he and his had wandered forth from their old home cast upon the rough world and the mercy of strangers it needed no such reflections as those which the memory of old days
and wanderings among scenes where our childhood has been passed usually awaken in the most insensible minds to soften the heart of nicholas and render him more than usually mindful of his drooping friend by night and day
at all times and seasons always watchful attentive and solicitous and never varying in the discharge of his self imposed duty to one so friendless and helpless as he whose sands of life were now fast running out
and dwindling rapidly away he was ever at his side he never left him to encourage and animate him administer to his wants support and cheer him to the utmost of his power was now his constant and unceasing occupation
they procured a humble lodging in a small farmhouse surrounded by meadows where nicholas had often revelled when a child with a troop of merry schoolfellows and here they took up their rest at first smike was strong enough to walk about
yielding to this fancy and pleased to find that its indulgence beguiled the sick boy of many tedious hours and never failed to afford him matter for thought and conversation afterwards nicholas made such spots the scenes of their daily rambles
driving him from place to place in a little pony chair and supporting him on his arm while they walked slowly among these old haunts or lingered in the sunlight to take long parting looks of those which were most quiet and beautiful
it was on such occasions as these that nicholas yielding almost unconsciously to the interest of old associations would point out some tree that he had climbed a hundred times to peep at the young birds in their nest
and the branch from which he used to shout to little kate who stood below terrified at the height he had gained and yet urging him higher still by the intensity of her admiration there was the old house too which they would pass every day
looking up at the tiny window through which the sun used to stream in and wake him on the summer mornings they were all summer mornings then and climbing up the garden wall and looking over nicholas could see the very rose bush which had come a present to kate from some little lover
and she had planted with her own hands there were the hedgerows where the brother and sister had so often gathered wild flowers together and the green fields and shady paths where they had so often strayed there was not a lane or brook or copse or cottage near
with which some childish event was not entwined and back it came upon the mind as events of childhood do nothing in itself perhaps a word a laugh a look some slight distress a passing thought or fear
and yet more strongly and distinctly marked and better remembered than the hardest trials or severest sorrows of a year ago one of these expeditions led them through the churchyard where was his father's grave
even here said nicholas softly we used to loiter before we knew what death was and when we little thought whose ashes would rest beneath and wondering at the silence sit down to rest and speak below our breath
once kate was lost and after an hour of fruitless search they found her fast asleep under that tree which shades my father's grave he was very fond of her and said when he took her up in his arms still sleeping
that whenever he died he would wish to be buried where his dear little child had laid her head you see his wish was not forgotten nothing more passed at the time but that night as nicholas sat beside his bed
smike started from what had seemed to be a slumber and laying his hand in his prayed as the tears coursed down his face that he would make him one solemn promise what is that said nicholas kindly
if i can redeem it or hope to do so you know i will i am sure you will was the reply promise me that when i die i shall be buried near as near as they can make my grave to the tree we saw today
nicholas gave the promise he had few words to give it in but they were solemn and earnest his poor friend kept his hand in his and turned as if to sleep but there were stifled sobs
and the hand was pressed more than once or twice or thrice before he sank to rest and slowly loosed his hold in a fortnight's time he became too ill to move about once or twice nicholas drove him out
propped up with pillows but the motion of the chaise was painful to him and brought on fits of fainting which in his weakened state were dangerous there was an old couch in the house which was his favourite resting place by day and when the sun shone
and the weather was warm nicholas had this wheeled into a little orchard which was close at hand and his charge being well wrapped up and carried out to it they used to sit there sometimes for hours together it was on one of these occasions that a circumstance took place
which nicholas at the time thoroughly believed to be the mere delusion of an imagination affected by disease but which he had afterwards too good reason to know was of real and actual occurrence
he had brought smike out in his arms poor fellow a child might have carried him then to see the sunset and having arranged his couch had taken his seat beside it he had been watching the whole of the night before
and being greatly fatigued both in mind and body gradually fell asleep he could not have closed his eyes five minutes when he was awakened by a scream and starting up in that kind of terror which affects a person suddenly roused
saw to his great astonishment that his charge had struggled into a sitting posture and with eyes almost starting from their sockets cold dew standing on his forehead and in a fit of trembling which quite convulsed his frame
was calling to him for help good heaven what is this said nicholas bending over him be calm you have been dreaming no no no cried smike clinging to him hold me tight don't let me go
behind the tree nicholas followed his eyes which were directed to some distance behind the chair from which he himself had just risen
as he strove to compose him nothing else indeed i know better i saw as plain as i see now was the answer oh say you'll keep me with you swear you won't leave me for an instant do i ever leave you returned nicholas
lie down again there you see i'm here now tell me what was it do you remember said smike in a low voice and glancing fearfully round
do you remember my telling you of the man who first took me to the school yes surely i raised my eyes just now towards that tree that one with the thick trunk and there with his eyes fixed on me he stood
granting for an instant that it's likely he is alive and wandering about a lonely place like this so far removed from the public road do you think that at this distance of time you could possibly know that man again anywhere
in any dress returned smike but just now he stood leaning upon his stick and looking at me exactly as i told you i remembered him he was dusty with walking and poorly dressed i think his clothes were ragged but directly i saw him
the wet night his face when he left me the parlour i was left in and the people that were there all seemed to come back together when he knew i saw him he looked frightened for he started and shrunk away i have thought of him by day and dreamt of him by night
he looked in my sleep when i was quite a little child and has looked in my sleep ever since as he did just now nicholas endeavoured by every persuasion and argument he could think of to convince the terrified creature that his imagination had deceived him
and that this close resemblance between the creation of his dreams and the man he supposed he had seen was but a proof of it but all in vain when he could persuade him to remain for a few moments in the care of the people to whom the house belonged
he instituted a strict inquiry whether any stranger had been seen and searched himself behind the tree and through the orchard and upon the land immediately adjoining and in every place near where it was possible for a man to lie concealed but all in vain
satisfied that he was right in his original conjecture he applied himself to calming the fears of smike which after some time he partially succeeded in doing though not in removing the impression upon his mind
for he still declared again and again in the most solemn and fervid manner that he had positively seen what he had described and that nothing could ever remove his conviction of its reality and now
nicholas began to see that hope was gone and that upon the partner of his poverty and the sharer of his better fortune the world was closing fast there was little pain little uneasiness but there was no rallying no effort
no struggle for life he was worn and wasted to the last degree his voice had sunk so low that he could scarce be heard to speak nature was thoroughly exhausted and he had lain him down to die
on a fine mild autumn day when all was tranquil and at peace when the soft sweet air crept in at the open window of the quiet room and not a sound was heard but the gentle rustling of the leaves
nicholas sat in his old place by the bedside and knew that the time was nearly come so very still it was that every now and then he bent down his ear to listen for the breathing of him who lay asleep
as if to assure himself that life was still there and that he had not fallen into that deep slumber from which on earth there is no waking while he was thus employed the closed eyes opened and on the pale face there came a placid smile
that's well said nicholas the sleep has done you good i have had such pleasant dreams was the answer such pleasant happy dreams of what said nicholas the dying boy turned towards him
and putting his arm about his neck made answer i shall soon be there after a short silence he spoke again i am not afraid to die he said i am quite contented
i almost think that if i could rise from this bed quite well i would not wish to do so now you have so often told me we shall meet again so very often lately and now i feel the truth of that so strongly that i can even bear to part from you
the trembling voice and tearful eye and the closer grasp of the arm which accompanied these latter words showed how they filled the speaker's heart nor were there wanting indications of how deeply they had touched the heart of him to whom they were addressed
you say well returned nicholas at length and comfort me very much dear fellow let me hear you say you are happy if you can i must tell you something first i should not have a secret from you
you would not blame me at a time like this i know i blame you exclaimed nicholas i am sure you would not you asked me why i was so changed and and sat so much alone shall i tell you why
not if it pains you said nicholas i only asked that i might make you happier if i could i know i felt that at the time he drew his friend closer to him you will forgive me i could not help it
it broke my heart to see i know he loves her dearly oh who could find that out so soon as i the words which followed were feebly and faintly uttered and broken by long pauses
but from them nicholas learnt for the first time that the dying boy with all the ardour of a nature concentrated on one absorbing hopeless secret passion loved his sister kate he had procured a lock of her hair
which hung at his breast folded in one or two slight ribbons she had worn he prayed that when he was dead nicholas would take it off so that no eyes but his might see it and that when he was laid in his coffin and about to be placed in the earth
he would hang it round his neck again that it might rest with him in the grave upon his knees nicholas gave him this pledge
and kissed each other on the cheek now he murmured i am happy he fell into a light slumber and waking smiled as before then spoke of beautiful gardens which he said stretched out before him
and were filled with figures of men women and many children all with light upon their faces then whispered that it was eden
and by the way they met with a knight that was sent from morgan le fay unto king arthur and this knight had a fair horn harnessed with gold and the horn had such a virtue that there might no lady nor gentlewoman drink of that horn but if she were true to her husband
and if she were false she should spill all the drink and if she were true to her lord she might drink peaceable
or else choose thou to die for it for i tell thee plainly
and if she be true to him he shall prove her so the knight went his way unto king mark and brought him that rich horn and said that sir lamorak sent it him
then the king made queen isoud to drink thereof and an hundred ladies and there were but four ladies of all those that drank clean alas said king mark this is a great despite
and sware a great oath that she should be burnt and the other ladies then the barons gathered them together and said plainly they would not have those ladies burnt
for an horn made by sorcery that came from as false a sorceress and witch as then was living for that horn did never good but caused strife and debate and always in her days she had been an enemy to all true lovers
so there were many knights made their avow an ever they met with morgan le fay that they would show her short courtesy also sir tristram was passing wroth that sir lamorak sent that horn unto king mark
and therefore he thought to quite sir lamorak then sir tristram used daily and nightly to go to queen isoud when he might and ever sir andred his cousin watched him night and day for to take him with la beale isoud
then sir andred gat unto him twelve knights and at midnight he set upon sir tristram secretly and suddenly and there sir tristram was taken naked
and then was he bound hand and foot and so was he kept until day and then by the assent of king mark and of sir andred and of some of the barons sir tristram was led unto a chapel that stood upon the sea rocks
there for to take his judgment and so he was led bounden with forty knights and when sir tristram saw that there was none other boot but needs that he must die then said he fair lords
remember what i have done for the country of cornwall and in what jeopardy i have been in for the weal of you all for when i fought for the truage of cornwall with sir marhaus the good knight i was promised for to be better rewarded
when ye all refused to take the battle therefore as ye be good gentle knights see me not thus shamefully to die
with thine avaunting for all thy boast thou shalt die this day o andred andred said sir tristram thou shouldst be my kinsman and now thou art to me full unfriendly but an there were no more but thou and i
thou wouldst not put me to death no said sir andred and therewith he drew his sword and would have slain him when sir tristram saw him make such countenance he looked upon both his hands
that were fast bounden unto two knights and suddenly he pulled them both to him and unwrast his hands and then he leapt unto his cousin sir andred and wrested his sword out of his hands then he smote sir andred that he fell to the earth
and so sir tristram fought till that he had killed ten knights so then sir tristram gat the chapel and kept it mightily then the cry was great and the people drew fast unto sir andred mo than an hundred
when sir tristram saw the people draw unto him he remembered he was naked and sperd fast the chapel door and brake the bars of a window
and on the rocks they found him and with towels they pulled him up and then sir tristram asked them where was la beale isoud for he weened she had been had away of andred's people sir said gouvernail she is put in a lazar cote
alas said sir tristram this is a full ungoodly place for such a fair lady and if i may she shall not be long there and so he took his men and went thereas was la beale isoud and fetched her away and brought her into a forest to a fair manor
and sir tristram there abode with her so the good knight bade his men go from him for at this time i may not help you so they departed all save gouvernail and so upon a day sir tristram yede into the forest for to disport him and then it happened
and there came a man that sir tristram aforehand had slain his brother and when this man had found him he shot him through the shoulder with an arrow and sir tristram leapt up and killed that man and in the meantime it was told king mark
how sir tristram and la beale isoud were in that same manor and as soon as ever he might thither he came with many knights to slay sir tristram and when he came there he found him gone and there he took la beale isoud home with him
and then sir tristram took great sorrow and endured with great pain long time for the arrow that he was hurt withal was envenomed then by the mean of la beale isoud she told a lady that was cousin unto dame bragwaine
and she came to sir tristram and told him that he might not be whole by no means for thy lady la beale isoud may not help thee therefore she biddeth you haste into brittany to king howel and there ye shall find his daughter
and she shall help thee then sir tristram and gouvernail gat them shipping and so sailed into brittany and when king howel wist that it was sir tristram he was full glad of him sir he said
i am come into this country to have help of your daughter for it is told me
and so he yede unto sir tristram and prayed him in his wars to help him for my son sir kehydius may not go into the field sir said sir tristram i will go to the field and do what i may
then sir tristram issued out of the town with such fellowship as he might make and did such deeds that all brittany spake of him and then at the last by great might and force he slew the earl grip with his own hands
and more than an hundred knights he slew that day and then sir tristram was received worshipfully with procession then king howel embraced him in his arms and said sir tristram all my kingdom i will resign to thee
god defend said sir tristram for i am beholden unto you for your daughter's sake to do for you then by the great means of king howel and kehydius his son by great proffers
almost he had forsaken la beale isoud and so upon a time sir tristram agreed to wed isoud la blanche mains and at the last they were wedded and solemnly held their marriage and so when they were abed both
and then he took such a thought suddenly that he was all dismayed and other cheer made he none but with clipping and kissing as for other fleshly lusts sir tristram never thought nor had ado with her such mention maketh the french book
and he came over the sea into england and then he came into the court of king arthur and there he met with sir launcelot du lake and told him of the marriage of sir tristram then said sir launcelot
that so noble a knight as sir tristram is
there i heard sir launcelot speak of you great shame and that ye be a false knight to your lady
that he will be your mortal enemy in every place where he may meet you that me repenteth said tristram for of all knights i loved to be in his fellowship so sir tristram made great moan
complaining her of the untruth of sir tristram and how he had wedded the king's daughter of brittany
for she should have joy after sorrow for sir tristram was so noble a knight called that by crafts of sorcery ladies would make such noble men to wed them
it shall be thus that he shall hate her and love you better than ever he did to fore so leave we sir tristram in brittany and speak we of sir lamorak de galis that as he sailed his ship fell on a rock and perished all
and the lord of that isle hight sir nabon le noire a great mighty giant and this sir nabon hated all the knights of king arthur's
and these fishers told sir lamorak all the guise of sir nabon how there came never knight of king arthur's but he destroyed him and at the last battle that he did was slain sir nanowne le petite the which he put to a shameful death in despite of king arthur
for he was drawn limb meal that forthinketh me said sir lamorak for that knight's death for he was my cousin and if i were at mine ease as well as ever i was i would revenge his death peace said the fishers
and make here no words for or ever ye depart from hence sir nabon must know that ye have been here
sir said segwarides i know you for sir tristram de liones the man in the world that i have most cause to hate because ye departed the love between me and my wife but as for that said sir segwarides
i will never hate a noble knight for a light lady and therefore i pray you be my friend and i will be yours unto my power for wit ye well ye are hard bestead in this valley and we shall have enough to do either of us to succour other
and then sir segwarides brought sir tristram to a lady thereby that was born in cornwall and she told him all the perils of that valley and how there came never knight there but he were taken prisoner or slain wit you well fair lady said sir tristram
that by the grace of god shall deliver this woful isle of servage so sir tristram was well eased then one told him there was a knight of king arthur's that was wrecked on the rocks what is his name said sir tristram
we wot not said the fishers but he keepeth it no counsel but that he is a knight of king arthur's and by the mighty lord of this isle he setteth nought i pray you said sir tristram an ye may bring him hither that i may see him
and as soon as sir tristram saw him he smiled upon him and knew him well but he knew not sir tristram fair sir said sir tristram meseemeth by your cheer ye have been diseased but late and also methinketh i should know you heretofore
i will well said sir lamorak that ye have seen me and met with me fair sir said sir tristram tell me your name upon a covenant i will tell you said sir lamorak that is that ye will tell me whether ye be lord of this island or no
i am not he nor i hold not of him i am his foe as well as ye be and so shall i be found or i depart out of this isle well said sir lamorak since ye have said so largely unto me my name is sir lamorak de galis
son unto king pellinore forsooth i trow well said sir tristram for an ye said other i know the contrary what are ye said sir lamorak that knoweth me i am sir tristram de liones ah sir
remember ye not of the fall ye did give me once and after ye refused me to fight on foot that was not for fear i had of you said sir tristram but me shamed at that time to have more ado with you for meseemed ye had enough
so would i do for i had liefer strife and debate fell in king mark's court rather than arthur's court for the honour of both courts be not alike as to that said sir tristram i know well but that that was done it was for despite of me
therefore said sir tristram ye shall leave all your malice and so will i
upon this giant sir nabon le noire that is lord of this island to destroy him
chapter twenty five kitty hung up her hat and coat she did not pat her hair or tuck in the loose ends before the mirror a custom as invariable as sunrise the coat tree stood at the right of the single window
was in the shadow of some actual if unknown danger and cutty wanted her out of town for a few days burlingame had intended sending kitty out of town on an assignment during easter week
an exchange of telegrams that morning had closed the gap in time well you might say good morning i beg your pardon burly in newspaper offices you belong at once or you never belong and to belong
is to have your name sheared to as few syllables as possible you are formal only to the city editor the managing editor and the auditor what's the matter i've been set in the middle of a fairy story said kitty
and i'm wondering if it's worth the trouble to try to find a way out a knight of the round table a prince of chivalry what would you say if you saw one in spats and a black derby why answered burlingame
i suppose i'd consider july first as the best thing that could happen to me kitty laughed and that was what he wanted what had that old rogue been doing now offering kitty his eighteen story office building it's odd isn't it
that i shouldn't possess a little histrionic ability you'd think it would be in my blood to act it is kitty only not to mimic you're an actress but the big dramatist writes your business for you
now i've got some fairly good news for you an assignment work what is it i am going to send you on a visit to the most charming movie queen in the business she is going to return to broadway this autumn
so she will be quite as interested in you as you are in her i want you to note her ways how she amuses herself eats exercises i want you to note the contents of her beautiful home
you will take a camera and get half a dozen good pictures and a page yarn for easter sunday stay as long as she wants you to but who burlingame jerked his thumb toward a photograph on the wall oh
this will be the most scrumptious event in my life i'm wild about her but i haven't any clothes burlingame waved his hands i knew i'd hear that yodel eve didn't have anything to speak of but she travelled a lot
truth is kitty you'd better dress in monotones she might wake up to the fact that you're a mighty pretty young woman and suddenly become temperamental she has a husband round the lot somewhere make him think his wife is a lucky woman here's all the dope
introduction expenses and tickets train leaves at two fifty run along home and pack remember i want a page yarn no flapdoodle or mush straight stuff she doesn't need any advertising
if you go at it right you two will react upon each other as a tonic kitty realized that this little junket was the very thing she needed open spaces long walks in which to think out her problem she hurried home and spent the morning packing
having been advised by cutty over the wire am i being followed any more not that we know of still you never can tell what's your destination kitty told him
i'll take care of your grips and camera i'll follow on your heels anybody would consider that karlov was after me instead of hawksley bernini smiled miss conover the moment karlov puts his hands on you
the whole game goes blooey that's the plain fact there is death in this game these madmen expect to blow up the united states on may first we are easing them along because we want the top men in our net
but if karlov takes it into his head to get you and succeeds he'll have a stranglehold on the whole local service because we'd have to make great concessions to free you why wasn't i told this at the start
we did not care to frighten you i'm not frightened said kitty nope but we wish to the lord you were miss conover
another fragment karlov's agent sought his chief and found him in the cellar of the old house sinisterly engaged the wall bench was littered with paraphernalia well known to certain chemists
had the new york bomb squad known of the existence of this den the short hair on their necks would have risen well greeted karlov moodily i have found the man in the dress suit
karlov dry washed his hands we'll send him one of the samples if we fail in regard to the girl you say she arrives daily at the newspaper office about nine and leaves between five and six
professor ryan late physical instructor at one of the aviation camps stood hawksley in front of him and ran his hard hands over the young man's body
her expression skeptical nothin the matter with you bo but the crack on the conk right o agreed hawksley lemme see your hands humph soft now stand on that threshold that's it
step lively but began miss frances in protest this was cruelty i'm the doctor miss interrupted ryan crisply if he falls down he goes t bed an you stay
if he makes it he follows my instructions when hawksley returned to the starting line the walls rocked there were two or three blinding stabs of pain but he faced this unusual irishman with never a hint of the torture
a wild longing to be gone from this kindly prison to get away from the thought of the girl all right said ryan now toddle back t bed bed yep
goin t give you a rub that'll start all your machinery workin docilely hawksley obeyed he wasn't going to let them know but that bed was going to be tolerably welcome well said miss frances i don't see how he did it
i do said the ex pugilist i told him to either he was a false alarm or he'd attempt the job even if he fell down the hull thing is this make a guy wanta get well an he'll get well
if he's got any pride dig it up go after em he hasn't lost any blood no serious body wound a crack on the conk it mighta killed him it didn't he didn't wabble an fall down so my dope is right
you've handled men she said with reluctant admiration
millions of em an each guy different believe me make em wanta cutty attended his conferences he learned immediately that he was booked to sail the first week in may
his itinerary began at piraeus in greece and might end in vladivostok but they detained him in washington overtime because he was a fount of information the departments found it necessary to draw upon constantly
the political and commercial aspects of the polyglot peoples what they wanted what they expected what they needed racial enmities the bugaboo of the undesirable alien was no longer bothering official heads in washington
stringent immigration laws were in the making what they wanted to know was an american's point of view based upon long and intimate associations washington reminded him of nothing so much as a big sheep dog
the hazardous day was over the wolves had been driven off and the sheep into the fold and now the valiant guardian was turning round and round and round preparatory to lying down to sleep for washington would go to sleep again
naturally often it occurred to him what a remarkable piece of machinery the human brain was he could dig up all this dry information with the precise accuracy of an economist all the while his actual thoughts upon kitty
his nights were nightmares and all this unhappiness because he had been touched with the lust for loot fundamentally this catastrophe could be laid to the drums of jeopardy the alluring possibility of finding those
damnable green stones the unsuspected kink in his moral rectitude had tumbled him into this pit had not kitty pronounced the name stefani gregor in his mind always linked with the emeralds
kitty coming to him in tears opening her young heart to him and discovering all its loneliness
the temptation would not be so keen to cheat her marry her and then tell her this dogged his thoughts like a murderer's deed terrible in the watches of the night marry her and then tell her
cheat her break her heart and break his own fifty two never before had he thought old his splendid health and vigorous mentality were the results of thinking young
but now he heard the avalanche stirring the whispering slither of the first pebbles he would grow old swiftly thunderously kitty's youth would shore up the debacle suspend it indefinitely
marry her cheat her and stay young green stones accursed kitty's days were pleasant enough but her nights were sieges
one evening someone put elman's rendition of schubert's ave maria on the phonograph long after it was over she sat motionless in her chair echoes the tschaikowsky waltz
she got up suddenly excused herself and went to her room six days and her problem was still unsolved something in her she could not define it she could not reach it
it defied analysis something then
and living on his money there was a touch of horror in the suggestion it was tearing her to pieces this hidden repellence and yet this occult objection was so utterly absurd
if he died and left her a legacy she would accept it gratefully enough cutty's plan was only a method of circumventing this indefinite wait comforts the good things of life amusements
simply by nodding her head why not it wasn't as if cutty was asking her to be his wife he wasn't just wanted to dodge convention and give her freedom and happiness he was only giving her a mite out of his income
because he had loved her mother because but for an accident of chance she kitty might have been his daughter why then this persistent and unaccountable revulsion why should she hesitate
the ancient female fear of the trap that could not be it for a more honourable a more lovable man did not walk the earth brave strong handsome whimsical why
and still this mysterious repellence romance she was not surrendering her right to that what was a year out of her life if afterward she would be in comfortable circumstances free to love where she willed
she wasn't cheating herself or cutty she was cheating convention a flimsy thing at best windows we carry our troubles to our windows through windows we see the stars
we cannot visualize god but we can see his stars pinned to the immeasurable spaces so kitty sought her window and added her question to the countless millions forlornly wandering about up there
it was upon an evening in spain but with nothing which that word evokes for us in the north for it was merely a lessening of the light without dews without mists and without skies that i came up a stony valley
and saw against the random line of the plateau at its head the dome of a church the road i travelled was but faintly marked
there were but a few stagnant pools the shape of the dome was italian and it should have stood in an italian landscape drier indeed than that to which northerners are accustomed
but still surrounded by trees and with a distance that could render things lightly blue instead of that this large building stood in the complete waste which i have already described at such length
as i approached the building i saw that there gathered round it a village or rather a group of dependent houses for the church was so much larger than anything in the place and the material of which the church itself and the habitations were built was so similar
the flat old tiled roofs all mixed under the advance of darkness into so united a body that one would have said as was perhaps historically the truth that the church was not built for the needs of the place
but that the borough had grown round the shrine and had served for little save to house its servants when the long ascent was ended and the crest reached where the head of the valley merged into the upper plain i passed into the narrow first lanes
it was now quite dark the darkness had come suddenly and to make all things consonant there was no moon and there were not any stars clouds had risen of an even and menacing sort and one could see no heaven
here and there lights began to show in the houses but most people were in the street talking loudly from their doorsteps to each other they watched me as i came along because i was a foreigner and i went down till i reached the central market place
wondering how i should tell the best place for sleep but long before my choice could be made my thoughts were turned in another direction by finding myself at a turn of the irregular paving right in front of a vast facade
in the presence of so wonderful a thing i forgot the object of my journey and the immediate care of the moment and i went through the great doors that opened on the place these were carved
and by the little that lingered of the light and the glimmer of the electric light on the neighbouring wall for there is electric light everywhere in spain but it is often of a red heat i could perceive that these doors were wonderfully carved
the two districts differ altogether save in the human character of those who inhabit them the one is pastoral full of deep meadows and perpetual woods of minerals and of coal for modern energy
in the spanish temper has killed the grotesque both districts have been mingled in history yet it is not the spaniard who has invigorated the delta of the rhine and the high country to the south of it nor the walloons and the flemings
who have taught the spaniards but each of these highly separated peoples resembles the other when it comes to the outward expression of the soul why i cannot tell within there is not a complete darkness
but a series of lights showing against the silence of the blackness of the nave and in the middle of the nave like a great funeral thing was the choir which these spanish churches have preserved an intact tradition from the origins of the christian faith
go to the earliest of the basilicas in rome and you will see that sacred enclosure standing in the middle of the edifice and taking up a certain proportion of the whole
but here in spain the earliest forms of christian externals crystallized as it were they were thrust like an insult or a challenge against the asiatic as the reconquest of the desolated province proceeded
shutting out the people from the priests and from the mysteries as they had been shut out when the whole system was organized for defence against an inimical society around the silence of the place was not complete
nor as i have said was the darkness at the far end of the choir behind the high altar was the light of many candles and there were people murmuring or whispering though not at prayers
an evening rite but as i did not know the latin for benediction i called it alternately benedictio which is english and salus which is french he said twice si si which
whether it were italian or french or local i understood by the nodding of his head
very heavily gilded and very old indeed the pattern of the carving was barbaric and i think it must have dated from that turn of the dark into the middle ages when so much of our christian work resembled the work of savages
spirals and hideous heads and serpents and other things by this i was already enormously impressed and by a little group of people around of whom perhaps half were children
when the young priest to whom i had spoken approached and calling a well dressed man of the middle class who stood by and who had i suppose some local prominence
cut off from the body leaning somewhat sideways and changed in a terrible manner from the expression of living men
by the violence of his death to those inexperienced in the practice of such worship there might be more excuse for the novel impression which this sight suddenly produced upon me our race from its very beginning
nay all the races of men have preserved the fleshly memorials of those to whom sanctity attached and i have seen such relics in many parts of europe almost as commonplaces
but for some reason my emotions upon that evening were of a different kind the length of the way for i was miles and miles southwards over this desert waste the ignorance of the language which surrounded me
the inhuman outline hour after hour under the glare of the sun or in the inhospitable darkness of this hard iberian land the sternness of the faces the violent richness
and the magnitude of the architecture about me and my knowledge of the trials through which the province had passed put me in this presence into a mood very different i think from that which pilgrimage is calculated to arouse
i wondered as i looked at that face whether he had fallen in protest against the mohammedans or as have so many in a spanish endurance of torture martyred by pagans in the pacific seas
as i write what occasion it was that made this head so great they said but a few prayers all familiar to me in the latin tongue then the our father and some few others which have always been recited in the vernacular
but what an intonation had i not heard that chant often enough in my life to catch its meaning i had never heard it set to such a tune it was harsh it was full of battle and the supplication in it throbbed with present and physical agony
had i cared less for the human beings about me so much suffering so much national tradition of suffering would have revolted as it did indeed appal me
and the children's voices were very high then the priest shut the doors and locked them and a boy came and blew the candles out one by one and i went out into the market place fuller than ever of spain
romance is perhaps the highest point of human expression except indeed religion to which it is closely allied romance resembles religion especially in this
both romance and religion see everything as it were foreshortened they see everything in an abrupt and fantastic perspective coming to an apex it is the whole essence of perspective that it comes to a point
similarly religion comes to a point to the point thus religion is always insisting on the shortness of human life but it does not insist on the shortness of human life as the pessimists insist on it
pessimism insists on the shortness of human life in order to show that life is valueless religion insists on the shortness of human life in order to show that life is frightfully valuable is almost horribly valuable
pessimism says that life is so short that it gives nobody a chance religion says that life is so short that it gives everybody his final chance in the first case
the word brevity means futility in the second case opportunity but the case is even stronger than this religion shortens everything religion shortens even eternity
since we have nothing to compare it with religion prefers to think of it as quick for religion the flowers shoot up suddenly like rockets for religion the mountains are lifted up suddenly like waves
those who quote that fine passage which says that in god's sight a thousand years are as yesterday that is passed as a watch in the night do not realise the full force of the meaning
romance is a shortening and sharpening of the human difficulty where you and i have to vote against a man or write rather feebly against a man or sign illegible petitions against a man romance does for him
what we should really like to see done it knocks him down it shortens the slow process of historical justice all romances consist of three characters other characters may be introduced
as far as the romance is concerned they are bushes that wave rather excitedly they are posts that stand up with a certain pride they are correctly painted rocks that frown very correctly but they are all
landscape they are all a background in every pure romance there are three living and moving characters for the sake of argument they may be called saint george and the dragon and the princess
in every romance there must be the twin elements of loving and fighting in every romance there must be the three characters there must be the princess who is a thing to be loved there must be the dragon
who is a thing to be fought and there must be saint george who is a thing that both loves and fights there have been many symptoms of cynicism and decay in our modern civilisation
but of all the signs of modern feebleness of lack of grasp on morals as they actually must be there has been none quite so silly or so dangerous as this that the philosophers of to day
have started to divide loving from fighting and to put them into opposite camps there could be no worse sign than that a man
can be found to say that we should go in for fighting instead of loving
even tolstoi can be found to tell us
instead of fighting the two things imply each other they implied each other in the old romance and in the old religion which were the two permanent things of humanity you cannot love a thing
without wanting to fight for it you cannot fight without something to fight for to love a thing without wishing to fight for it is not love at all it is lust it may be an airy philosophical and disinterested lust
it may be so to speak a virgin lust but it is lust because it is wholly self indulgent and invites no attack on the other hand fighting for a thing without loving it is not even fighting
it can only be called a kind of horse play that is occasionally fatal wherever human nature is human and unspoilt by any special sophistry there exists this natural kinship between war and wooing
he knows that loving the world is the same thing as fighting the world it was at the very moment when he offered to like everybody he also offered to hit everybody to almost every man that can be called a man
this especial moment of the romantic culmination has come in the first resort the man wished to live a romance in the second resort in the last and worst resort he was content to write one
now there is a certain moment when this element enters independently into the life of dickens there is a particular time when we can see him suddenly realise that he wants to write a romance
and nothing else in reading his letters in appreciating his character this point emerges clearly enough he was full of the afterglow of his marriage he was still young and psychologically ignorant
or go off on something different altogether this crucial point in his life is marked by nicholas nickleby it must be remembered that before this issue of nicholas nickleby his work successful as it was
had not been such as to dedicate him seriously or irrevocably to the writing of novels he had already written three books and at least two of them are classed among the novels under his name
but if we look at the actual origin and formation of these books we see that they came from another source and were really designed upon another plan the three books were of course
and oliver twist it is i suppose sufficiently well understood that
as their name implies only sketches but surely it is quite equally clear that the pickwick papers are as their name implies merely papers nor is the case at all different in spirit and essence when we come to oliver twist
he cannot pay less attention to it than the author did but in fact the case lies far deeper oliver twist is so much apart from the ordinary track of dickens it is so gloomy
it is so much all in one atmosphere that it can best be considered as an exception or a solitary excursus in his work perhaps it can best be considered as the extension of one of his old sketches
where he saw fagin we are still in the realm of sketches and sketchiness the pickwick papers may be called an extension of one of his bright sketches oliver twist may be called an extension of one of his gloomy ones
had he continued along this line all his books might very well have been note books it would be very easy to split up all his subsequent books into scraps and episodes such as those which make up
of the old curiosity shop he might have merely written short stories called the glorious apollos missus quilp's tea party missus jarley's waxwork the little servant and the death of a dwarf martin chuzzlewit
we might have lost that steady love of a seminal and growing romance which grew on him steadily as the years advanced and which gave us towards the end some of his greatest triumphs all his books
it is true all the time and it is particularly useful at this season of the year to men in cities to all repetitive men to the men that read these words what is more true as it is and useful as it is
no amount of hammering at people seems to get this theme into their practice
in their summers and this true and useful theme is the theme of little freedoms and discoveries
when you want to get your glimpse of fairyland now how does one get loose and away when a man says to himself that he must have a holiday he means that he must see quite new things that are also old
he desires to open that door which stood wide like a window in childhood and is now shut fast but where are the new things that are also the old paradoxical fellows who deserve drowning
tell one that they are at our very doors well that is true of the eager mind but the mind is no longer eager when it is in need of a holiday and you can get at the new things that are also the old by way of drugs
but drugs are a poor sort of holiday fabric if you have stored up your memory well with much experience you can get these things from your memory but only in a pale sort of way
it always sounds like a mockery for a man who has travelled to a great many places as i have to advise his fellows to travel abroad
yet it is really a much easier thing than men bound to the desk and the workshop understand britain is but one great port and its inward seas are narrow and the fares are ridiculously low
if you are a young man you can go almost anywhere for almost anything sitting up by night on deck and not expecting too much courtesy but of course if you shirk the sea you are a prisoner
well then supposing you abroad or even in some other part of this highly varied kingdom in which you live and supposing you to have reached some chosen place by some common road
what i desire to dilate upon here is the truth which every little excursion of business or of leisure and precious few of leisure makes me more certain of every day that just a little way off the road is fairyland
it was exactly three days ago that i had occasion to go down the railway line that is the most frequented in europe i was on business not leisure but in the business i had two days leisure
and i did what i would advise all other men to do in such a circumstance i took a train to nowhere fixing my starting point thus i first looked at the map and saw where nearest to me was a quadrilateral bare of railways
for the man who is seeking another world then i fixed at random upon one little roadside station upon the main line
broad daylight that is
i got out and began my westward march at once there crowded upon me any number of unexpected and entertaining things the first thing i found was a street which was used by horses as well as by men
and yet was made up of broad steps it was a sort of stair case going up a hill at the top of it i found a woman leading a child by the hand i asked her the name of the steps she told me
they were called the steps of saint john a quarter of a mile further down the narrow lane i saw to my astonishment an enormous castle ruined and open to the sky there are many such ruins famous in europe
but of this one i had never even heard i went lonely under the evening and looked at its main gate
carved and the motto in french henceforward which word made me think a great deal but resolved no problem in my mind i went on again westward
as the darkness fell and saw what i had not seen before though my reading had told me of its existence a long line of trees marking a ridge on the horizon which line was the border of that ancient road the roman soldiers built
leading from the west into amiens along that road thought i saint martin rode before he became a monk and while he was yet a soldier and was serving under julian the apostate
along that road he came to the west gate of amiens and there cut his cloak in two and gave the half of it to a beggar the memory of saint martin's deed entertained me for some miles of my way and i remembered how when i was a child
whether for a beggar or for anybody else not that i thought charity ridiculous god forbid but that a coat seemed to me a thing you could not cut in two with any profit to the user of either half
you might cut it in latitude and turn it into an eton jacket and a kilt neither of much use to a gallo roman beggar or you might cut it in meridian and leave but one sleeve mere folly
i saw a great owl flying before me against the sky different from the owls of home i saw jupiter shining above a cloud and venus shining below one the long light lingered in the north above the english sea
the road where i came upon it made a level crossing and there was a hut there and a woman living in it who kept the level crossing and warned the passers by she told me no more trains or rather little trams would pass that night
but that three miles further on i should come to a place called the mills of the vidame
in feudal times so the name gave me a renewed pleasure but it was now near midnight and when i came to this village i remembered how in similar night walks i had sometimes been refused lodging
when i got among the few houses all was dark i found however in the darkness two young men each bearing an enormous curled trumpet of the kind which the french call
so i asked them where the inn was
this she did lest the young men with hunting horns should demand a commission her heart however was better than her mouth and she put me up but she charged me tenpence for my room counting coffee in the morning which was i am sure more than her usual rate
next day i took the little steam tram away from the place and went on vaguely whither it should please god to take me until the plateau changed and the light railway fell into a charming valley
and seeing a town rooted therein i got out and paid my fare and visited the town in this town i went to church as it was early morning you must excuse the foible
and coming out of church i had an argument with a working man upon the matter of religion in which argument as i believe i was the victor
it was miles and miles across and the trees were higher than anything i have seen outside of california it was an enchanted wood the sun shone down through a hundred feet of silence by little rounds between the leaves
and there was silence everywhere in this wood i sojourned all day long making slowly westward till in the very midst of it i found a troubled man he was a man of middle age short intelligent fat and weary
he said to me have you noticed any special mark upon the trees a white mark of the number ninety no said i are there any wild boars in this forest yes he answered a few but not of use
i am looking for trees marked in white with the number ninety i have paid a price for them and i cannot find them i saluted him and went on my way
and charged one very moderately indeed i have retained its name by this time i was completely lost and in the heart of fairyland when suddenly i remembered that everyone that strikes root in fairyland loses something
at the least his love and at the worst his soul and that it is a perilous business to linger there so i asked them in that hotel how they worked it when they wanted to go west into the great towns
it took me as heaven ordained to a common great railway and that common great railway took me through the night
which i have known since i could speak and before
she remained there as a member of the household for thirty years and from the length of her faithful service and the attachment and respect which she inspired is deserving of mention
and yet never grudged a little extra trouble to provide them with such small treats
as tabby expected to be informed of all the family concerns and yet had grown so deaf that what was repeated to her became known to whoever might be in or about the house to obviate this publication of what it might be desirable to keep secret
in the days when the pack horses went through once a week with their tinkling bells and gay worsted adornment carrying the produce of the country from keighley over the hills to colne and burnley what is more
and when all the wool spinning was done by hand in the farm houses round it wur the factories as had driven em away she said no doubt she had many a tale to tell of by gone days of the country side old ways of living
former inhabitants decayed gentry who had melted away and whose places knew them no more family tragedies and dark superstitious dooms and in telling these things
without the least consciousness that there might ever be anything requiring to be softened down would give at full length the bare and simple details miss branwell instructed the children at regular hours in all she could teach
making her bed chamber into their schoolroom their father was in the habit of relating to them any public news in which he felt an interest and from the opinions of his strong and independent mind they would gather much food for thought
but i do not know whether he gave them any direct instruction charlotte's deep thoughtful spirit
the tender responsibility which rested upon her with reference to her remaining sisters she was only eighteen months older than emily but emily and anne were simply companions and playmates while charlotte was motherly friend and guardian to both
and this loving assumption of duties beyond her years made her feel considerably older than she really was patrick branwell their only brother was a boy of remarkable promise and in some ways
of extraordinary precocity of talent mister bronte's friends advised him to send his son to school but remembering both the strength of will of his own youth and his mode of employing it he believed that patrick was better at home
as he had taught others before so patrick or as his family called him branwell remained at haworth working hard for some hours a day with his father but
when the time of the latter was taken up with his parochial duties the boy was thrown into chance companionship with the lads of the village for youth will to youth and boys will to boys still
he was associated in many of his sisters plays and amusements these were mostly of a sedentary and intellectual nature i have had a curious packet confided to me containing an immense amount of manuscript
in an inconceivably small space tales dramas poems romances written principally by charlotte in a hand which it is almost impossible to decipher without the aid of a magnifying glass no description
will give so good an idea of the extreme minuteness of the writing as the annexed facsimile of a page among these papers there is a list of her works which i copy as a curious proof how early the rage for literary composition had seized upon her
catalogue of my books with the period of their completion up to august third eighteen thirty two romantic tales in one volume viz the twelve adventurers and the adventures in ireland april second
eighteen twenty nine the search after happiness a tale august first eighteen twenty nine leisure hours a tale and two fragments july sixth eighteen twenty nine
the adventures of edward de crack a tale february second eighteen thirty the adventures of ernest alembert a tale may twenty sixth eighteen thirty
an interesting incident in the lives of some of the most eminent persons of the age a tale june tenth eighteen thirty tales of the islanders in four volumes
an account of their origin two
school rebellion two the strange incident in the duke of wellington's life three tale to his sons four the marquis of douro and lord charles wellesley's tale
to his little king and queen completed december second eighteen twenty nine
the duke of wellington's adventure in the cavern two the duke of wellington and the little king's and queen's visit to the horse guards completed may eighth eighteen thirty
the three old washer women of strathfieldsaye two lord c wellesley's tale to his brother completed july thirtieth eighteen thirty characters of great men of the present age december seventeenth
a true story two causes of the war three a song four conversations five a true story continued six the spirit of cawdor seven
interior of a pothouse a poem eight the glass town a song nine the silver cup a tale ten the table and vase in the desert a song eleven
conversations twelve scene on the great bridge thirteen
fourteen scene in my tun a tale fifteen an american tale sixteen lines written on seeing the garden of a genius seventeen the lay of the glass town
eighteen the swiss artist a tale nineteen lines on the transfer of this magazine twenty
twenty one chief genii in council twenty two harvest in spain twenty three the swiss artists continued twenty four conversations the poetaster
a drama in two volumes july twelfth eighteen thirty a book of rhymes finished december seventeenth eighteen twenty nine contents
the beauty of nature two a short poem three meditations while journeying in a canadian forest four
five on seeing the ruins of the tower of babel six a thing of fourteen lines seven lines written on the bank of a river one fine summer evening eight spring
a song nine autumn a song miscellaneous poems finished may thirtieth eighteen thirty contents
the churchyard two description of the duke of wellington's palace on the pleasant banks of the lusiva this article is a small prose tale or incident three pleasure four
the evening walk a poem june twenty third eighteen thirty making in the whole twenty two volumes
eighteen thirty as each volume contains from sixty to a hundred pages and the size of the page lithographed is rather less than the average the amount of the whole seems very great if we remember
that it was all written in about fifteen months so much for the quantity the quality strikes me as of singular merit for a girl of thirteen or fourteen both as a specimen of her prose style at this time
in eighteen thirty one she was a quiet thoughtful girl of nearly fifteen years of age very small in figure stunted was the word she applied to herself but as her limbs and head were in just proportion to the slight fragile body
no word in ever so slight a degree suggestive of deformity could properly be applied to her with soft thick brown hair and peculiar eyes of which i find it difficult to give a description as they appeared to me in her later life
they were large and well shaped their colour a reddish brown but if the iris was closely examined it appeared to be composed of a great variety of tints the usual expression was of quiet listening intelligence
but now and then on some just occasion for vivid interest or wholesome indignation a light would shine out as if some spiritual lamp had been kindled which glowed behind those expressive orbs i never saw the like in any other human creature
as for the rest of her features they were plain large and ill set but unless you began to catalogue them you were hardly aware of the fact for the eyes and power of the countenance over balanced every physical defect
the crooked mouth and the large nose were forgotten and the whole face arrested the attention and presently attracted all those whom she herself would have cared to attract her hands and feet were the smallest i ever saw
when one of the former was placed in mine it was like the soft touch of a bird in the middle of my palm the delicate long fingers had a peculiar fineness of sensation which was one reason why all her handiwork of whatever kind writing sewing knitting
she was remarkably neat in her whole personal attire but she was dainty as to the fit of her shoes and gloves i can well imagine that the grave serious composure which when i knew her
gave her face the dignity of an old venetian portrait was no acquisition of later years but dated from that early age when she found herself in the position of an elder sister to motherless children
but in a girl only just entered on her teens such an expression would be called to use a country phrase old fashioned and in eighteen thirty one the period of which i now write we must think of her as a little
set antiquated girl very quiet in manners and very quaint in dress for besides the influence exerted by her father's ideas concerning the simplicity of attire befitting the wife and daughters of a country clergyman
her aunt on whom the duty of dressing her nieces principally devolved
in january eighteen thirty one charlotte was sent to school again this time she went as a pupil to miss w who lived at roe head a cheerful roomy country house standing a little apart in a field
on the right of the road from leeds to huddersfield three tiers of old fashioned semicircular bow windows run from basement to roof and look down upon a long green slope of pasture land
ending in the pleasant woods of kirklees sir george armitage's park although roe head and haworth are not twenty miles apart the aspect of the country is as totally dissimilar as if they enjoyed a different climate
the soft curving and heaving landscape round the former gives a stranger the idea of cheerful airiness on the heights and of sunny warmth
there is the park of kirklees full of sunny glades speckled with black shadows of immemorial yew trees the grey pile of building formerly a house of professed ladies
the mouldering stone in the depth of the wood under which robin hood is said to lie close outside the park
which strew the high road from leeds to huddersfield and form the centres round which future villages gather such are the contrasts of modes of living and of times and seasons brought before the traveller on the great roads that traverse the west riding
in no other part of england i fancy are the centuries brought into such close strange contact as in the district in which roe head is situated
lie the remains of howley hall now the property of lord cardigan
near to it is lady anne's well lady anne according to tradition having been worried and eaten by wolves as she sat at the well to which the indigo dyed factory people from birstall and batley woollen mills
would formerly repair on palm sunday when the waters possess remarkable medicinal efficacy
at six o'clock on the morning of that day all round the lands held by the farmer who lives in the remains of howley hall are stone houses of to day occupied by the people who are making their living and their fortunes
by the woollen mills that encroach upon and shoulder out the proprietors of the ancient halls these are to be seen in every direction picturesque many gabled with heavy stone carvings of coats of arms for heraldic ornament
belonging to decayed families from whose ancestral lands field after field has been shorn away by the urgency of rich manufacturers pressing hard upon necessity
it stands in a pasture field about a quarter of a mile from the high road it is but that distance from the busy whirr of the steam engines employed in the woollen mills at birstall and if you walk to it from birstall station
about meal time you encounter strings of mill hands blue with woollen dye and cranching in hungry haste over the cinder paths bordering the high road turning off from this to the right
you ascend through an old pasture field and enter
a walk haunted by the ghost of a certain captain batt the reprobate proprietor of an old hall close by in the days of the stuarts from the bloody lane overshadowed by trees
you come into the field in which oakwell hall is situated it is known in the neighbourhood to be the place described as field head shirley's residence the enclosure in front half court half garden the panelled hall
with the gallery opening into the bed chambers running round the barbarous peach coloured drawing room the bright look out through the garden door upon the grassy lawns and terraces behind where the soft hued pigeons still love to coo
and strut in the sun are described in shirley the scenery of that fiction lies close around the real events which suggested it took place in the immediate neighbourhood
they show a bloody footprint in a bed chamber of oakwell hall and tell a story connected with it and with the lane by which the house is approached captain batt was believed to be far away
his family was at oakwell when in the dusk one winter evening he came stalking along the lane and through the hall and up the stairs into his own room where he vanished he had been killed in a duel in london
that very same afternoon of december ninth sixteen eighty four the stones of the hall formed part of the more ancient vicarage which an ancestor of captain batt's had seized in the troublous times for property
which succeeded the reformation this henry batt possessed himself of houses and money without scruple and at last stole the great bell of birstall church for which sacrilegious theft
a fine was imposed on the land and has to be paid by the owner of the hall to this day but the oakwell property passed out of the hands of the batts at the beginning of the last century
the fourteen names are given doubtless mighty men of yore but among them all sir fletcher norton attorney general and major general birch were the only ones
with which i had any association in eighteen fifty five passing on from oakwell there lie houses right and left which were well known to miss bronte when she lived at roe head
as the hospitable homes of some of her school fellows lanes branch off for three or four miles to heaths and commons on the higher ground which formed pleasant walks on holidays
with the pleasant look out i have described was the drawing room the other was the schoolroom the dining room was on one side of the door and faced the road
was sometimes heard by the listeners at the foot of the second flight of stairs the kind motherly nature of miss w and the small number of the girls made the establishment more like a private family than a school moreover
she was a native of the district immediately surrounding roe head as were the majority of her pupils most likely charlotte bronte in coming from haworth came the greatest distance of all
two other dear friends the rose and jessie yorke of shirley lived still nearer two or three came from huddersfield one or two from leeds i shall now quote from a valuable letter which i have received from mary
one of these early friends distinct and graphic in expression as becomes a cherished associate of charlotte bronte's the time referred to is her first appearance at roe head on january nineteenth eighteen thirty one
i first saw her coming out of a covered cart in very old fashioned clothes and looking very cold and miserable
when she appeared in the schoolroom her dress was changed but just as old she looked a little old woman so short sighted that she always appeared to be seeking something and moving her head from side to side to catch a sight of it
she was very shy and nervous and spoke with a strong irish accent
and when she was told to hold her head up up went the book after it still close to her nose so that it was not possible to help laughing
another of the girls recalls her first sight of charlotte on the day she came standing by the schoolroom window looking out on the snowy landscape and crying while all the rest were at play e was younger than she
and her tender heart was touched by the apparently desolate condition in which she found the oddly dressed odd looking little girl that winter morning
managed to win confidence and was allowed to give sympathy to quote again from mary's letter we thought her very ignorant for she had never learnt grammar at all and very little geography
this account of her partial ignorance is confirmed by her other school fellows but miss w was a lady of remarkable intelligence and of delicate tender sympathy
she gave a proof of this in her first treatment of charlotte the little girl was well read but not well grounded miss w took her aside and told her
with such a girl it would be better to place her in the first class and allow her to make up by private study in those branches where she was deficient she would confound us by knowing things that were out of our range altogether
she was acquainted with most of the short pieces of poetry that we had to learn by heart
the poems they were taken from and sometimes repeat a page or two and tell us the plot she had a habit of writing in italics printing characters and said she had learnt it by writing in their magazine they brought out a magazine once a month
she told us a tale out of it no one wrote in it and no one read it but herself her brother and two sisters she promised to show me some of these magazines but retracted it afterwards and would never be persuaded to do so
in our play hours she sate or stood still with a book if possible some of us once urged her to be on our side in a game at ball she said she had never played and could not play we made her try
she replied you did me a great deal of good polly so don't repent of it she used to draw much better and more quickly
nearly all of which have been passed among strange scenes in a new continent at the antipodes we used to be furious politicians as one could hardly help being in eighteen thirty two she knew the names of the two ministries
and the one that succeeded and passed the reform bill she worshipped the duke of wellington but said that sir robert peel was not to be trusted he did not act from principle like the rest but from expediency i
being of the furious radical party told her how could any of them trust one another they were all of them rascals
referring to his actions which i could not contradict as i knew nothing about him she said she had taken interest in politics ever since she was five years old she did not get her opinions from her father that is not directly
in illustration of the truth of this i may give an extract from a letter to her brother written from roe head may seventeenth eighteen thirty two lately i had begun to think
i am extremely glad that aunt has consented to take in fraser's magazine for though i know from your description of its general contents it will be rather uninteresting when compared with blackwood still
there would be no possibility of borrowing a work of that description from a circulating library i hope with you that the present delightful weather may contribute to the perfect restoration of our dear papa's health
and it was maria and elizabeth i was eager for her to go on and when she said there was no more i said but go on make it out i know you can
she wished she had not dreamed
they were changed they had forgotten what they used to care for they were very fashionably dressed
she said sadly yes i know we are some one at school said she was always talking about clever people johnson
now you don't know the meaning of clever sheridan might be clever yes sheridan was clever scamps often are but johnson hadn't a spark of cleverality in him no one appreciated the opinion
we had a rage for practicality and laughed all poetry to scorn neither she nor we had any idea but that our opinions were the opinions of all the sensible people in the world
at least chose to begin it once her idea of self improvement ruled her even at school it was to cultivate her tastes she always said there was enough of hard practicality
and that the thing most needed was to soften and refine our minds she picked up every scrap of information concerning painting sculpture
what i have heard of her school days from other sources confirms the accuracy of the details in this remarkable letter she was an indefatigable student constantly reading and learning with a strong conviction
by the awkwardness in all games occasioned by her shortness of sight yet in spite of these unsociable habits she was a great favourite with her school fellows
monsters of all sorts swarm suddenly upon the earth comets blaze in the sky eclipses frighten nature meteors fall in rain while mermaids and sirens beguile
and sea serpents engulf every passing ship and terrible cataclysms beset humanity but the strange event which i shall here relate came alone unsupported without companions into a hostile world
and for that very reason claimed little of the general attention of mankind for the sudden changing of missus tebrick into a vixen is an established fact which we may attempt to account for as we will
certainly it is in the explanation of the fact and the reconciling of it with our general notions that we shall find most difficulty and not in accepting for true a story which is so fully proved
and that not by one witness but by a dozen all respectable and with no possibility of collusion between them but here i will confine myself to an exact narrative of the event and all that followed on it
yet i would not dissuade any of my readers from attempting an explanation of this seeming miracle because up till now none has been found which is entirely satisfactory
the gradual extension of hair all over the body the slow change of the whole anatomy by a process of growth though it would have been monstrous would not have been so difficult to reconcile to our ordinary conceptions
particularly had it happened in a young child but here we have something very different a grown lady is changed straightway into a fox there is no explaining that away by any natural philosophy
the materialism of our age will not help us here it is indeed a miracle something from outside our world altogether
an event which we would willingly accept if we were to meet it invested with the authority of divine revelation in the scriptures but which we are not prepared to encounter almost in our time happening in oxfordshire amongst our neighbours
the only things which go any way towards an explanation of it are but guesswork and i give them more because i would not conceal anything than because i think they are of any worth missus tebrick's maiden name was certainly fox
they were an ancient family and have had their seat at tangley hall time out of mind it is also true that there was a half tame fox once upon a time chained up at tangley hall in the inner yard
and i have heard many speculative wiseacres in the public houses turn that to great account though they could not but admit that there was never one there in miss silvia's time at first i was inclined to think that silvia fox
having once hunted when she was a child of ten and having been blooded might furnish more of an explanation it seems she took great fright or disgust at it and vomited after it was done
but now i do not see that it has much bearing on the miracle itself even though we know that after that she always spoke of the poor foxes
when a hunt was stirring and never rode to hounds till after her marriage when her husband persuaded her to it she was married in the year eighteen seventy nine to mister richard tebrick after a short courtship
near stokoe oxon one point indeed i have not been able to ascertain and that is how they first became acquainted tangley hall is over thirty miles from stokoe and is extremely remote
indeed to this day there is no proper road to it which is all the more remarkable
as it is the principal and indeed the only manor house for several miles round whether it was from a chance meeting on the roads or less romantic but more probable by mister tebrick becoming acquainted with her uncle
a minor canon at oxford and thence being invited by him to visit tangley hall it is impossible to say but however they became acquainted the marriage was a very happy one the bride was in her twenty third year
she was small with remarkably small hands and feet it is perhaps worth noting that there was nothing at all foxy or vixenish in her appearance on the contrary she was a more than ordinarily beautiful and agreeable woman
her eyes were of a clear hazel but exceptionally brilliant her hair dark with a shade of red in it her skin brownish with a few dark freckles and little moles
in manner she was reserved almost to shyness but perfectly self possessed and perfectly well bred she had been strictly brought up by a woman of excellent principles and considerable attainments
who died a year or so before the marriage and owing to the circumstance that her mother had been dead many years and her father bedridden and not altogether rational for a little while before his death they had few visitors but her uncle
he often stopped with them a month or two at a stretch particularly in winter as he was fond of shooting snipe which are plentiful in the valley there that she did not grow up a country hoyden is to be explained by the strictness of her governess
and the influence of her uncle but perhaps living in so wild a place gave her some disposition to wildness even in spite of her religious upbringing her old nurse said miss silvia was always a little wild at heart
though if this was true it was never seen by anyone else except her husband on one of the first days of the year eighteen eighty in the early afternoon
they were still at this time like lovers in their behaviour and were always together while they were walking they heard the hounds and later the huntsman's horn in the distance mister tebrick had persuaded her to hunt on boxing day
but with great difficulty and she had not enjoyed it though of hacking she was fond enough hearing the hunt mister tebrick quickened his pace so as to reach the edge of the copse where they might get a good view of the hounds if they came that way
his wife hung back and he holding her hand began almost to drag her before they gained the edge of the copse she suddenly snatched her hand away from his very violently and cried out so that he instantly turned his head
where his wife had been the moment before was a small fox of a very bright red it looked at him very beseechingly advanced towards him a pace or two
and he saw at once that his wife was looking at him from the animal's eyes you may well think if he were aghast and so maybe was his lady at finding herself in that shape so they did nothing for nearly half an hour but stare at each other
he bewildered she asking him with her eyes as if indeed she spoke to him what am i now become have pity on me husband have pity on me for i am your wife
so that with his gazing on her and knowing her well even in such a shape
but sat down on the ground and sobbed for a great while but between his sobs kissing her quite as if she had been a woman and not caring in his grief that he was kissing a fox on the muzzle they sat thus till it was getting near dusk
when he recollected himself and the next thing was that he must somehow hide her and then bring her home he waited till it was quite dark that he might the better bring her into her own house without being seen and buttoned her inside his topcoat
nay even in his passion tearing open his waistcoat and his shirt that she might lie the closer to his heart for when we are overcome with the greatest sorrow we act not like men or women
but like children whose comfort in all their troubles is to press themselves against their mother's breast or if she be not there to hold each other tight in one another's arms when it was dark he brought her in with infinite precautions
having got her into the house the next thing he thought of was to hide her from the servants he carried her to the bedroom in his arms and then went downstairs again mister tebrick had three servants living in the house the cook
the parlour maid and an old woman who had been his wife's nurse besides these women there was a groom or a gardener whichever you choose to call him who was a single man and so lived out lodging with a labouring family about half a mile away
mister tebrick going downstairs pitched upon the parlour maid janet says he missus tebrick and i have had some bad news and missus tebrick was called away instantly to london and left this afternoon
and i am staying to night to put our affairs in order we are shutting up the house and i must give you and missus brant a month's wages and ask you to leave to morrow morning at seven o'clock we shall probably go away to the continent
and i do not know when we shall come back please tell the others and now get me my tea and bring it into my study on a tray janet said nothing for she was a shy girl particularly before gentlemen
but when she entered the kitchen mister tebrick heard a sudden burst of conversation with many exclamations from the cook when she came back with his tea mister tebrick said i shall not require you upstairs
pack your own things and tell james to have the waggonette ready for you by seven o'clock to morrow morning to take you to the station i am busy now but i will see you again before you go when she had gone mister tebrick took the tray upstairs
for the first moment he thought the room was empty and his vixen got away for he could see no sign of her anywhere but after a moment he saw something stirring in a corner of the room and then behold she came forth dragging her dressing gown
into which she had somehow struggled this must surely have been a comical sight but poor mister tebrick was altogether too distressed then or at any time afterwards to divert himself at such ludicrous scenes
he only called to her softly silvia silvia what do you do there and then in a moment saw for himself what she would be at and began once more to blame himself heartily
because he had not guessed that his wife would not like to go naked notwithstanding the shape she was in nothing would satisfy him then till he had clothed her suitably bringing her dresses from the wardrobe for her to choose
but as might have been expected they were too big for her now but at last he picked out a little dressing jacket that she was fond of wearing sometimes in the mornings it was made of a flowered silk trimmed with lace
while he tied the ribands his poor lady thanked him with gentle looks and not without some modesty and confusion he propped her up in an armchair with some cushions and they took tea together
she very delicately drinking from a saucer and taking bread and butter from his hands all this showed him or so he thought that his wife was still herself there was so little wildness in her demeanour and so much delicacy and decency
especially in her not wishing to run naked that he was very much comforted and began to fancy they could be happy enough if they could escape the world and live always alone from this too sanguine dream he was aroused
and all as he knew because there was a fox within doors and they would kill it he started up now calling to the gardener that he would come down to the dogs himself to quiet them and bade the man go indoors again and leave it to him
all this he said in a dry compelling kind of voice which made the fellow do as he was bid though it was against his will for he was curious mister tebrick went downstairs and taking his gun from the rack loaded it
and went out into the yard now there were two dogs one a handsome irish setter that was his wife's dog she had brought it with her from tangley hall on her marriage the other
was an old fox terrier called nelly that he had had ten years or more
the setter jumping up and down at the end of his chain in a frenzy and nelly shivering wagging her tail and looking first at her master and then at the house door where she could smell the fox right enough
there was a bright moon so that mister tebrick could see the dogs as clearly as could be first he shot his wife's setter dead and then looked about him for nelly to give her the other barrel but he could see her nowhere
the bitch was clean gone till looking to see how she had broken her chain he found her lying hid in the back of her kennel but that trick did not save her for mister tebrick after trying to pull her out by her chain and finding it useless she would not come
thrust the muzzle of his gun into the kennel pressed it into her body and so shot her afterwards striking a match he looked in at her to make certain she was dead then leaving the dogs as they were chained up
mister tebrick went indoors again and found the gardener who had not yet gone home gave him a month's wages in lieu of notice and told him he had a job for him yet to bury the two dogs and that he should do it that same night
but by all this going on with so much strangeness and authority on his part as it seemed to them the servants were much troubled hearing the shots while he was out in the yard his wife's old nurse or nanny
ran up to the bedroom though she had no business there and so opening the door saw the poor fox dressed in my lady's little jacket lying back in the cushions and in such a reverie of woe that she heard nothing old nanny
though she was not expecting to find her mistress there having been told that she was gone that afternoon to london knew her instantly and cried out oh my poor precious oh poor miss silvia
what dreadful change is this then seeing her mistress start and look at her she cried out but never fear my darling it will all come right your old nanny knows you it will all come right in the end
and kept her eyes turned away so as not to meet the foxy slit ones of her mistress for that was too much for her so she hurried out soon fearing to be found there by mister tebrick
and who knows perhaps shot like the dogs for knowing the secret mister tebrick had all this time gone about paying off his servants and shooting his dogs as if he were in a dream
it was a pleasant morning in london with as clear a sky as is ever permitted to that great city cassandra had placed her little son in the middle of a huge bed which nearly filled the small room she had been given in a hotel
recommended to her by betty towers as one where nice ladies travelling alone could stop the child was dressed in a fresh white coat and cassandra had much ado to keep him clean
she heaped him about with pillows and bedclothing to make a nest for him and gave him a spoon and a drinking cup for entertainment
and lace curtains that obscured the one high narrow window of her room she had tried to put them one side that she might look out when she awoke but she could see only chimney pots and grimy irregularly tiled roofs
a narrow opening at the top of the window let in a little air still she felt smothered and tried to raise the lower sash but could not move it she thought of the books she had read about great cities
and how some people had to live in places like this always and her heart filled with a large pity for them here only a small triangle of blue sky could be seen not a tree not a bit of earth
and in the small room all those heavy furnishings closed around her dark red stuffy and greasy with london smoke she could not touch them without blackening her hands nor let her baby sit on the floor
for the dirt he wiped up on his clothing as he rolled and kicked about the room seemed to sway and tip as the ship had done and there was a continuous sound as of thunder a strange undercurrent that seemed to her strained nerves
like the moaning of the lost souls of all the ages who had lived and toiled and smothered in this monstrous and terrible city ah she must get out of it she must hurry hurry and find david he would be glad to see his little son
he would take him in his arms he would hold them both to his heart she would see him smile again and look in his eyes and all this foreboding would cease and the woful sounds die out of the air and become only the natural roar of the activities and traffic of a great city
she must get used to all this and not expect to find all the world like her own sunny mountains the bishop's careful little wife had tried to explain to her how to meet her new experiences she was to go nowhere alone
without taking a cab and never start out on foot carrying her baby in her arms as she might do at home she had given her written instructions how to conduct herself under all ordinary circumstances at her hotel or on the street
how to ring for a servant order her meals or call a cab now standing before her mirror cassandra essayed to arrange her hair as she had seen other young women wear theirs but she thought the new way looked untidy
david would not mind if she did not do her hair as others did he would be so glad to see her and his little son ah the comfort of that little son she leaned over the bed
half dressed as she was and murmured pretty cooing phrases kissing and cuddling him to contented laughter betty towers had procured clothing for her a modest supply
using her own good taste and not disguising cassandra's natural grace and dignity by a too close adherence to the prevailing mode there were a blue travelling gown and jacket and a toque of the same color with a white wing a soft clinging black silk
made with girlish simplicity which admirably became her and a wide flexible brimmed hat with a single heavy plume taken from betty's own hat of the last winter cassandra stood a long moment before the two gowns
she desired to don the silk but betty had told her always to wear the blue in the morning so at last she obeyed her kind adviser while waiting with her baby in her arms for the hotel boy to call her cab she observed another lady young
and graceful enter a cab and a maid following her wearing a pretty cap and carrying a child eager for david's sake to draw no adverse comment upon herself she took note of everything
ought she then to arrive attended by a maid carrying her baby but david would know she did not need one bringing him his little son in her own arms what would he care for anything more so the address was given the cabman
and they were rattled away over the rough paving a long lonely ride through the wonderful city so many miles of houses and splendid buildings of gardens and monuments strangely the people of vanity fair leaped out of the book she had read
the soldiers the guardsmen the liveried lackeys the errand boys all were there and the ladies in fine carriages there were the nursemaids the babies the beggars the ragged urchins and the venders of the street
with their raucous cries rending the air her brain whirled and a new feeling to which she had hitherto been blessedly a stranger crept over her a feeling of fear as the great two story coaches and trams thundered by
she clasped her baby closer until he looked up in her face with round eyed wonder and put up his lip in pitiful protest she soothed and comforted him until her panic passed
and when at last they stopped before a great house built in on either side by other houses with wide steps of stone descending directly upon the street she had regained a measure of composure she was assured by the cabman
and should he wait oh yes wait cried cassandra what if david were not there and of course he might be out then they were swallowed up in the dark interior
she was admitted to a hall that seemed to her empty and vast by a little old man in livery for a moment bewildered she could hardly understand what he was saying to her er ladyship's at er country ome and the ouse closed
although dazed and baffled cassandra betrayed no sign of the tumult within and the little old man stood before her hesitating his curiosity piqued into a determination to discover her business and identity
her gravity and silence gave her a poise and dignity that allayed suspicion but he and his old wife liked diversion and a spice of gossip lightened the monotony of their lives so he waited
no it was not the house it was again she waited not knowing how to introduce her husband's name a mystery a visitor at this hour and seemingly a lady
yet with a baby in her arms and alone and not to see the house again he coughed behind his hand
yes i'm a stranger she caught at the word seized by an inward terror of the small eyes fixed curiously on her she intuitively shrank from betraying her identity and the old servant had told her what she needed to know
of course her husband was his lordship over here i am from america and i would like to see the gallery she must do so to give a pretext for having come to visit an empty house
before the old servant but a great lump filled her throat and tears were burning
a chill struck to her bones as they passed through the vast closed rooms
yes a many do come ere especially hartists to see this gallery
we'll let in a little more light a vandyke and worth it's weight in gold cassandra watched him cross the floor his short bow legs reflected grotesquely in its shining surface as he walked
then turned and gazed again at the life size half length portrait of a young man with sunny hair like david's and warm brown eyes
who has just come into the title ma'm and
for im to look so like being as e belonged to the younger branch who aven't eld the title for four generations but come to dress im in velvet and gold lace and the likeness would be nigh as perfect as if e ad stood for it
the little man coughed his deprecatory cough and essayed to lead her on but she was seeing visions and did not heed him when at last she turned her gray eyes had deepened
and a clearly defined spot of delicate red burned on one pale cheek she drew a deep breath and looked down the length of the long gallery everything was being impressed upon her mind as upon sensitized paper
she followed slowly in the old man's wake never opening her lips until they had made the circuit and were again standing before the portrait of the fair haired youth
the old servant was saying
england was too slow for im young men aren't like old ones
persons of the dialogue socrates ion socrates welcome ion are you from your native city of ephesus ion no socrates
but from epidaurus where i attended the festival of asclepius socrates and do the epidaurians have contests of rhapsodes at the festival ion o yes and of all sorts of musical performers
socrates and were you one of the competitors and did you succeed ion i obtained the first prize of all socrates socrates well done
for you have always to wear fine clothes and to look as beautiful as you can is a part of your art then again you are obliged
who is the best and most divine of them and to understand him and not merely learn his words by rote is a thing greatly to be envied
ought to interpret the mind of the poet to his hearers but how can he interpret him well unless he knows what he means all this is greatly to be envied ion very true socrates
interpretation has certainly been the most laborious part of my art and i believe myself able to speak about homer better than any man and that neither metrodorus of lampsacus
i am glad to hear you say so ion i see that you will not refuse to acquaint me with them ion certainly socrates and you really ought to hear how exquisitely i render homer
does your art extend to hesiod and archilochus or to homer only ion to homer only
i can interpret them equally well socrates where they agree socrates but what about matters in which they do not agree for example about divination
clearly socrates but how did you come to have this skill about homer only
and the generations of gods and heroes are not these the themes of which homer sings ion very true socrates socrates and do not the other poets sing of the same
ion yes socrates but not in the same way as homer socrates what in a worse way ion yes in a far worse socrates and homer in a better way
ion he is incomparably better socrates and yet surely my dear friend ion in a discussion about arithmetic where many people are speaking
and one speaks better than the rest there is somebody who can judge which of them is the good speaker ion yes socrates
ion yes socrates well and in discussions about the wholesomeness of food when many persons are speaking and one speaks better than the rest
will he who recognizes the better speaker
or the same ion clearly the same socrates and who is he and what is his name ion the physician socrates and speaking generally
in all discussions in which the subject is the same and many men are speaking will not he who knows the good know the bad speaker also for if he does not know the bad
neither will he know the good when the same topic is being discussed ion true socrates is not the same person skilful in both ion yes
socrates and you say that homer and the other poets
speak of the same things although not in the same way but the one speaks well and the other not so well ion yes and i am right in saying so socrates
and if you knew the good speaker you would also know the inferior speakers to be inferior ion that is true socrates then my dear friend
can i be mistaken in saying that ion is equally skilled in homer and in other poets since he himself acknowledges that the same person will be a good judge
of all those who speak of the same things and that almost all poets do speak of the same things ion why then socrates do i lose attention and go to sleep
and have absolutely no ideas of the least value when any one speaks of any other poet but when homer is mentioned i wake up at once and am all attention and have plenty to say socrates
other poets for poetry is a whole ion yes socrates and when any one acquires any other art as a whole the same may be said of them
would you like me to explain my meaning ion ion yes indeed socrates i very much wish that you would for i love to hear you wise men talk socrates o that we were wise ion
and that you could truly call us so but you rhapsodes and actors and the poets whose verses you sing are wise whereas i am a common man who only speak the truth for consider
a thing which any man might say that when a man has acquired a knowledge of a whole art the enquiry into good and bad is one and the same let us consider this matter
is not the art of painting a whole ion yes socrates and there are and have been many painters good and bad ion yes socrates
and did you ever know any one who was skilful in pointing out the excellences and defects of polygnotus the son of aglaophon but incapable of criticizing other painters
and when the work of any other painter was produced went to sleep and was at a loss and had no ideas but when he had to give his opinion about polygnotus or whoever the painter might be and about him only
woke up and was attentive and had plenty to say ion no indeed i have never known such a person socrates or
who was skilful in expounding the merits of daedalus the son of metion or of epeius the son of panopeus or of theodorus the samian or of any individual sculptor
but when the works of sculptors in general were produced was at a loss and went to sleep and had nothing to say ion no indeed no more than the other socrates
or thamyras or orpheus or phemius
but was at a loss when he came to speak of ion of ephesus and had no notion of his merits or defects ion i cannot deny what you say socrates
and the world agrees with me in thinking
and i will proceed to explain to you what i imagine to be the reason of this the gift which you possess of speaking excellently about homer is not an art but
as i was just saying an inspiration there is a divinity moving you like that contained in the stone which euripides calls a magnet but which is commonly known as the stone of heraclea
suspended from one another so as to form quite a long chain and all of them derive their power of suspension from the original stone in like manner
the muse first of all inspires men herself and from these inspired persons a chain of other persons is suspended who take the inspiration for all good poets
epic as well as lyric compose their beautiful poems not by art but because they are inspired and possessed and as the corybantian revellers when they dance are not in their right mind
like bacchic maidens who draw milk and honey from the rivers when they are under the influence of dionysus but not when they are in their right mind and the soul of the lyric poet does the same
as they themselves say for they tell us that they bring songs from honeyed fountains culling them out of the gardens and dells of the muses
winging their way from flower to flower and this is true for the poet is a light and winged and holy thing and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired
they are simply inspired to utter that to which the muse impels them and that only and when inspired
and he who is good at one is not good at any other kind of verse for not by art does the poet sing but by power divine had he learned by rules of art
he would have known how to speak
and uses them as his ministers as he also uses diviners and holy prophets in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves
who utter these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness but that god himself is the speaker
he is conversing with us and tynnichus the chalcidian affords a striking instance of what i am saying
but the famous paean which is in every one's mouth one of the finest poems ever written simply an invention of the muses as he himself says for in this way
and that the poets are only the interpreters of the gods by whom they are severally possessed was not this the lesson which the god intended to teach when by the mouth
of the worst of poets he sang the best of songs am i not right ion ion yes indeed socrates i feel that you are for your words touch my soul
and i am persuaded that good poets by a divine inspiration interpret the things of the gods to us socrates and you rhapsodists
are the interpreters of the poets ion there again you are right socrates then you are the interpreters of interpreters ion precisely socrates
i wish you would frankly tell me ion what i am going to ask of you when you produce the greatest effect upon the audience in the recitation of some striking passage such as the apparition of odysseus
leaping forth on the floor recognized by the suitors and casting his arrows at his feet or the description of achilles rushing at hector or the sorrows of andromache hecuba or priam
are you in your right mind are you not carried out of yourself and does not your soul in an ecstasy seem to be among the persons or places of which you are speaking
whether they are in ithaca or in troy or whatever may be the scene of the poem ion that proof strikes home to me socrates for i must frankly confess that at the tale of pity
my eyes are filled with tears and when i speak of horrors my hair stands on end and my heart throbs socrates well ion and what are we to say of a man
who at a sacrifice or festival when he is dressed in holiday attire and has golden crowns upon his head of which nobody has robbed him appears weeping or panic stricken
in the presence of more than twenty thousand friendly faces when there is no one despoiling or wronging him is he in his right mind or is he not ion no indeed socrates
i must say that strictly speaking he is not in his right mind socrates and are you aware that you produce similar effects on most of the spectators ion only too well
for i look down upon them from the stage and behold the various emotions of pity wonder sternness stamped upon their countenances when i am speaking and i am obliged
do you know that the spectator is the last of the rings which as i am saying receive the power of the original magnet from one another the rhapsode like yourself
and the actor are intermediate links and the poet himself is the first of them through all these the god sways the souls of men in any direction which he pleases
at the side of the rings which hang down from the muse and every poet has some muse from whom he is suspended and by whom he is said to be possessed which is nearly the same thing
for he is taken hold of and from these first rings which are the poets depend others some deriving their inspiration from orpheus
but the greater number are possessed and held by homer of whom ion you are one and are possessed by homer and when any one repeats the words of another poet you go to sleep
and know not what to say but when any one recites a strain of homer you wake up in a moment and your soul leaps within you and you have plenty to say for not by art
or knowledge about homer do you say what you say but by divine inspiration and by possession just as the corybantian revellers too have a quick perception of that strain
only which is appropriated to the god by whom they are possessed and have plenty of dances and words for that but take no heed of any other and you ion when the name of homer is mentioned
have plenty to say and have nothing to say of others you ask why is this the answer is that you praise homer not by art but by divine inspiration
ion that is good socrates and yet i doubt whether you will ever have eloquence enough to persuade me that i praise homer only when i am mad and possessed and if you could hear me speak of him
not surely about every part ion there is no part socrates about which i do not speak well of that i can assure you socrates
the ion is the shortest or nearly the shortest of all the writings which bear the name of plato and is not authenticated by any early external testimony
consists entirely in the contrast between the irony of socrates and the transparent vanity and childlike enthusiasm of the rhapsode ion the theme of the dialogue may possibly have been suggested
by the passage of xenophon's memorabilia in which the rhapsodists are described by euthydemus as very precise about the exact words of homer but very idiotic themselves
he has been exhibiting in epidaurus at the festival of asclepius and is intending to exhibit at the festival of the panathenaea socrates admires and envies the rhapsode's art
for he is always well dressed and in good company in the company of good poets and of homer who is the prince of them in the course of conversation the admission is elicited from ion
and archilochus he brightens up and is wide awake when homer is being recited but is apt to go to sleep at the recitations of any other poet and yet surely he who knows the superior ought to know the inferior also
the argument is at last brought home to the mind of ion who asks how this contradiction is to be solved the solution given by socrates is as follows
but is an inspired person who derives a mysterious power from the poet and the poet in like manner is inspired by the god the poets and their interpreters
from him are suspended other poets there is also a chain of rhapsodes and actors who also hang from the muses but are let down at the side and the last
ring of all is the spectator the poet is the inspired interpreter of the god and this is the reason why some poets like homer are restricted to a single theme
or like tynnichus are famous for a single poem
is the inspired interpreter of the poet and for a similar reason some rhapsodes like ion are the interpreters of single poets
ion is delighted at the notion of being inspired and acknowledges that he is beside himself when he is performing his
ion is confident that socrates would never think him mad if he could only hear his embellishments of homer socrates asks whether he can speak well about everything in homer yes indeed he can
what about things of which he has no knowledge ion answers that he can interpret anything in homer but rejoins socrates when homer speaks of the arts
ion is compelled to admit that every man will judge of his own particular art better than the rhapsode he still maintains however
that he understands the art of the general as well as any one then why in this city of athens in which men of merit are always being sought after
at once appointed a general ion replies that he is a foreigner and the athenians and spartans will not appoint a foreigner to be their general no that is not the real reason there are many examples to the contrary
but ion has long been playing tricks with the argument like proteus he transforms himself into a variety of shapes
is a mixture of jest and earnest in which no definite result is obtained but some socratic or platonic truths are allowed dimly to appear
the elements of a true theory of poetry are contained in the notion that the poet is inspired genius is often said to be unconscious or spontaneous or a gift of nature
that genius is akin to madness is a popular aphorism of modern times the greatest strength is observed to have an element of limitation sense or passion
the concentration of the mind on a single object or on a single aspect of human nature overpowers the orderly perception of the whole yet the feelings too
bring truths home to the minds of many who in the way of reason would be incapable of understanding them reflections of this kind may have been passing before plato's mind
when he describes the poet as inspired or when as in the apology he speaks of poets as the worst critics of their own writings anybody taken at random from the crowd
is a better interpreter of them than they are of themselves they are sacred persons winged and holy things who have a touch of madness in their composition phaedr
and should be treated with every sort of respect republic but not allowed to live in a well ordered state like the statesmen in the meno they have a divine instinct
in the protagoras the ancient poets are recognized by protagoras himself as the original sophists and this family resemblance may be traced in the ion
belongs to the realm of imitation and of opinion he professes to have all knowledge which is derived by him from homer just as the sophist professes to have all wisdom
his great memory contrasts with his inability to follow the steps of the argument and in his highest moments of inspiration he has an eye to his own gains
the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry which in the republic leads to their final separation is already working in the mind of plato and is embodied by him
in the contrast between socrates and ion yet here as in the republic socrates shows a sympathy with the poetic nature
also the manner in which ion is affected by his own recitations affords a lively illustration of the power which in the republic
socrates attributes to dramatic performances over the mind of the performer his allusion to his embellishments of homer in which he declares himself to have surpassed
metrodorus of lampsacus and stesimbrotus of thasos seems to show that like them he belonged to the allegorical school of interpreters
once upon a time there lived a poor woman who had only one child and he was a little boy called hassebu when he ceased to be a baby and his mother thought it was time for him to learn to read
she sent him to school and after he had done with school he was put into a shop to learn how to make clothes and did not learn and he was put to do silversmith's work and did not learn
and whatsoever he was taught he did not learn it his mother never wished him to do anything he did not like so she said well stay at home my son and he stayed at home eating and sleeping
one day the boy said to his mother what was my father's business he was a very learned doctor answered she where then are his books asked hassebu many days have passed
and i have thought nothing of them but look inside and see if they are there so hassebu looked and saw they were eaten by insects all but one book which he took away and read he was sitting at home one morning
poring over the medicine book when some neighbours came by and said to his mother give us this boy that we may go together to cut wood for wood cutting was their trade and they loaded several donkeys with the wood and sold it in the town
and his mother answered very well to morrow i will buy him a donkey and you can all go together so the donkey was bought and the neighbours came and they worked hard all day and in the evening
they brought the wood back into the town and sold it for a good sum of money and for six days they went and did the like but on the seventh it rained and the wood cutters ran and hid in the rocks all but hassebu
and he called to his companions and said come here and listen the ground seems hollow knock again cried they and he knocked and listened let us dig said the boy and they dug
and found a large pit like a well filled with honey up to the brim this is better than firewood said they it will bring us more money and as you have found it hassebu it is you who must go inside
and we will take it to the town and sell it and will divide the money with you the following day each man brought every bowl and vessel he could find at home and hassebu filled them all with honey
that it seemed as if it must be right in the middle of the earth seeing this the men said to hassebu we will put a rope under your arms and let you down
and when you have done we will lower the rope again and you shall make it fast and we will draw you up very well answered the boy
your son was caught by a lion and carried off into the forest and we tried to follow him but could not then they arose and went into the town and told his mother as they had agreed and she wept much
and made her mourning for many months and when the men were dividing the money one said let us send a little to our friend's mother and they sent some to her and every day one took her rice and one oil one took her meat
and one took her cloth every day it did not take long for hassebu to find out that his companions had left him to die in the pit but he had a brave heart and hoped that he might be able to find a way out for himself
so he at once began to explore the pit and found it ran back a long way underground and by night he slept and by day he took a little of the honey he had gathered and ate it and so many days passed by
one morning while he was sitting on a rock having his breakfast a large scorpion dropped down at his feet and he took a stone and killed it fearing it would sting him then suddenly
the thought darted into his head this scorpion must have come from somewhere perhaps there is a hole i will go and look for it and he felt all round the walls of the pit till he found a very little hole in the roof of the pit
with a tiny glimmer of light at the far end of it then his heart felt glad and he took out his knife and dug and dug till the little hole became a big one and he could wriggle himself through and when he had got outside
there was a sound of people coming through the courtyard and the measured tramp of soldiers this was the king of the snakes coming in state to his palace they entered the hall
but all stopped in surprise at finding a man lying on the king's own bed the soldiers wished to kill him at once but the king said leave him alone put me on a chair and the soldiers
who were carrying him knelt on the floor and he slid from their shoulders on to a chair when he was comfortably seated
and bade them wake the stranger gently and they woke him and he sat up and saw many snakes all round him and one of them very beautiful decked in royal robes who are you asked hassebu
i am the king of the snakes was the reply and this is my palace
and where you come from my name is hassebu but whence i come i know not nor whither i go then stay for a little with me said the king and he bade his soldiers bring water from the spring
so he said to the king of the snakes send me home i pray but the king of the snakes answered when you go home you will do me evil i will do you no evil replied hassebu send me home i pray
but the king said i know it if i send you home you will come back and kill me i dare not do it but hassebu begged so hard that at last the king said swear that when you get home
you will not go to bathe where many people are gathered and hassebu swore and the king ordered his soldiers to take hassebu in sight of his native city then he went straight to his mother's house
and the heart of his mother was glad now the sultan of the city was very ill and all the wise men said that the only thing to cure him was the flesh of the king of the snakes and that the only man who could get it
and did not go near the baths then came a morning so hot he could hardly breathe and he forgot all about it the moment he had slipped off his robe he was taken before the vizir who said to him
lead us to the place where the king of the snakes lives i do not know it answered he but the vizir did not believe him and had him bound and beaten till his back was all torn then hassebu cried
who has beaten you like this asked the king it was the vizir replied hassebu then i am already dead said the king sadly but you must carry me there yourself so hassebu carried him
and on the way the king said when i arrive i shall be killed and my flesh will be cooked but take some of the water that i am boiled in and put it in a bottle and lay it on one side
the vizir will tell you to drink it but be careful not to do so then take some more of the water and drink it and you will become a great physician and the third supply you will give to the sultan
did you drink what i gave you you must answer i did and this is for you and he will drink it and die and your soul will rest and they went their way into the town
and all happened as the king of the snakes had said and the sultan loved hassebu who became a great physician and cured many sick people but he was always sorry for the poor king of the snakes
long long ago there was born to a roman knight and his wife maja a little boy called virgilius while he was still quite little his father died and the kinsmen
instead of being a help and protection to the child and his mother robbed them of their lands and money and the widow fearing that they might take the boy's life also sent him away to spain that he might study in the great university of toledo
virgilius was fond of books and pored over them all day long but one afternoon when the boys were given a holiday he took a long walk and found himself in a place where he had never been before
in front of him was a cave and as no boy ever sees a cave without entering it he went in the cave was so deep that it seemed to virgilius as if it must run far into the heart of the mountain
and he thought he would like to see if it came out anywhere on the other side for some time he walked on in pitch darkness but he went steadily on and by and by a glimmer of light shot across the floor and he heard a voice calling
answered the voice do you mark upon the ground where you are standing a slide or bolt i do replied virgilius then said the voice
but who are you asked virgilius who never did anything in a hurry
said the voice shut up here till
but it took some time for when at last he stood upon the ground he proved to be about three times as large as virgilius himself and coal black besides why
you can't have been as big as that when you were in the hole cried virgilius but i was replied the spirit i don't believe it answered virgilius
said the spirit and after turning and twisting and curling himself up
then virgilius drew the bolt
he left the cave for the next few weeks virgilius hardly ate or slept so busy was he in learning the magic the books contained but at the end of that time a messenger from his mother arrived in toledo
begging him to come at once to rome as she had been ill and could look after their affairs no longer though sorry to leave toledo where he was much thought of as showing promise of great learning virgilius would willingly have set out at once
but there were many things he had first to see to so he entrusted to the messenger four pack horses laden with precious things and a white palfrey on which she was to ride out every day then he set about his own preparations
and followed by a large train of scholars he at length started for rome from which he had been absent twelve years his mother welcomed him back with tears in her eyes and his poor kinsmen pressed round him
and everyone who owned land was bound to present himself before the emperor like the rest virgilius went to court and demanded justice from the emperor against the men who had robbed him but as these were kinsmen to the emperor he gained nothing
as the emperor told him he would think over the matter for the next four years and then give judgment this reply naturally did not satisfy virgilius and turning on his heel he went back to his own home and gathering in his harvest
he stored it up in his various houses when the enemies of virgilius heard of this they assembled together and laid siege to his castle but virgilius was a match for them coming forth from the castle
so as to meet them face to face he cast a spell over them of such power that they could not move and then bade them defiance after which he lifted the spell and the invading army slunk back to rome
and reported what virgilius had said to the emperor now the emperor was accustomed to have his lightest word obeyed almost before it was uttered and he hardly knew how to believe his ears but he got together another army
and marched straight off to the castle but directly they took up their position virgilius girded them about with a great river so that they could neither move hand nor foot then hailing the emperor he offered him peace and asked for his friendship
so virgilius whose patience was exhausted feasted his own followers in the presence of the starving host who could not stir hand or foot things seemed getting desperate when a magician arrived in the camp
and offered to sell his services to the emperor his proposals were gladly accepted and in a moment the whole of the garrison sank down as if they were dead and virgilius himself had much ado to keep awake
he did not know how to fight the magician but with a great effort struggled to open his black book which told him what spells to use in an instant all his foes seemed turned to stone
all day they stayed there like flies upon the wall but during the night virgilius stole softly to the emperor and offered him his freedom as long as he would do him justice the emperor
who by this time was thoroughly frightened said he would agree to anything virgilius desired so virgilius took off his spells and after feasting the army and bestowing on every man a gift bade them return to rome
and more than that he built a square tower for the emperor and in each corner all that was said in that quarter of the city might be heard while if you stood in the centre every whisper throughout rome would reach your ears
having settled his affairs with the emperor and his enemies virgilius had time to think of other things and his first act was to fall in love
and her face fairer than any in rome but she only mocked virgilius and was always playing tricks upon him to this end she bade him one day come to visit her in the tower where she lived promising to let down a basket
to draw him up as far as the roof virgilius was enchanted at this quite unexpected favour and stepped with glee into the basket it was drawn up very slowly and by and by
came altogether to a standstill while from above
rogue of a sorcerer there shalt thou hang and there he hung over the market place which was soon thronged with people who made fun of him till he was mad with rage at last the emperor hearing of his plight
and virgilius went home vowing vengeance the next morning every fire in rome went out
this was a very serious matter the emperor guessing that this was the work of virgilius besought him to break the spell then virgilius ordered a scaffold to be erected in the market place
in a single white garment and further he bade every one to snatch fire from the maiden and to suffer no neighbour to kindle it and when the maiden appeared clad in her white smock
till every hearth in rome was alight and then she was suffered to go where she would but the emperor was wroth at the vengeance of virgilius and threw him into prison vowing that he should be put to death and when everything was ready
he was led out to the viminal hill where he was to die he went quietly with his guards but the day was hot and on reaching his place of execution he begged for some water a pail was brought
and he crying emperor all hail seek for me in sicily jumped headlong into the pail and vanished from their sight for some time
we hear no more of virgilius or how he made his peace with the emperor but the next event in his history was his being sent for to the palace to give the emperor advice
which was the most famous public building in the city he set up statues representing the gods worshipped by every nation subject to rome and in the middle stood the god of rome herself
each of the conquered gods held in its hand a bell and if there was even a thought of treason in any of the countries its god turned its back upon the god of rome and rang its bell furiously
and the senators came hurrying to see who was rebelling against the majesty of the empire then they made ready their armies and marched against the foe
now there was a country which had long felt bitter jealousy of rome and was anxious for some way of bringing about its destruction so the people chose three men who could be trusted and loading them with money
sent them to rome bidding them to pretend that they were diviners of dreams no sooner had the messengers reached the city than they stole out at night and buried a pot of gold far down in the earth
and let down another into the bed of the tiber just where a bridge spans the river next day they went to the senate house where the laws were made and bowing low they said oh noble lords
last night we dreamed that beneath the foot of a hill there lies buried a pot of gold have we your leave to dig for it and leave having been given the messengers took workmen
and dug up the gold and made merry with it a few days later the diviners again appeared before the senate and said oh noble lords grant us leave to seek out another treasure which has been revealed to us in a dream
a week or two passed by and once more they appeared in the senate house o noble lords said they last night in a vision we beheld twelve casks of gold lying under the foundation stone of the capitol
on which stands the statue of the preservation of rome now seeing that by your goodness we have been greatly enriched by our former dreams we wish in gratitude to bestow this third treasure on you
for your own profit so give us workers and we will begin to dig without delay and receiving permission they began to dig and when the messengers had almost undermined the capitol
they stole away as secretly as they had come and next morning the stone gave way and the sacred statue fell on its face and was broken and the senators knew that their greed had been their ruin
from that day things went from bad to worse and every morning crowds presented themselves before the emperor complaining of the robberies murders and other crimes that were committed nightly in the streets
the emperor desiring nothing so much as the safety of his subjects took counsel with virgilius how this violence could be put down virgilius thought hard for a long time and then he spoke great prince said he
cause a copper horse and rider to be made and stationed in front of the capitol then make a proclamation that at ten o'clock a bell will toll and every man is to enter his house and not leave it again
the emperor did as virgilius advised but thieves and murderers laughed at the horse and went about their misdeeds as usual but at the last stroke of the bell
and by daylight men counted over two hundred corpses that it had trodden down the rest of the thieves and there were still many remaining instead of being frightened into honesty as virgilius had hoped
prepared rope ladders with hooks to them and when they heard the sound of the horse's hoofs they stuck their ladders into the walls and climbed up above the reach of the horse and its rider
then the emperor commanded two copper dogs to be made that would run after the horse and when the thieves hanging from the walls mocked and jeered at virgilius and the emperor the dogs leaped high after them
who ruled over the province of babylon and indeed she was said to be the most beautiful princess in the world virgilius like the rest listened to the stories that were told of her
and fell so violently in love with all he heard that he built a bridge in the air which stretched all the way between rome and babylon he then passed over it to visit the princess
gave him welcome and after some conversation became in her turn anxious to see the distant country where this stranger lived and he promised that he would carry her there himself
without wetting the soles of his feet the princess spent some days in the palace of virgilius looking at wonders of which she had never dreamed though she declined to accept the presents
he longed to heap on her the hours passed as if they were minutes till the princess said that she could be no longer absent from her father
then virgilius conducted her himself over the airy bridge and laid her gently down on her own bed where she was found next morning by her father
and presented the cup to virgilius who directly he had drunk fell into a deep sleep then the sultan ordered his guards to bind him and left him there till the following day
directly the sultan was up he summoned his lords and nobles into his great hall and commanded that the cords which bound virgilius should be taken off and the prisoner brought before him the moment he appeared
the sultan's passion broke forth and he accused his captive of the crime of conveying the princess into distant lands without his leave virgilius replied that if he had taken her away
and the princess fell on her knees and begged she might die with him you are out in your reckoning sir sultan said virgilius whose patience was at an end and he cast a spell over the sultan and his lords
so that they believed that the great river of babylon was flowing through the hall and that they must swim for their lives so leaving them to plunge and leap like frogs and fishes virgilius took the princess in his arms
and carried her over the airy bridge back to rome now virgilius did not think that either his palace or even rome itself was good enough to contain such a pearl as the princess so he built her a city
whose foundations stood upon eggs buried far away down in the depths of the sea and in the city was a square tower and on the roof of the tower was a rod of iron
and on the bottle he placed an egg and from the egg there hung chained an apple which hangs there to this day and when the egg shakes the city quakes and when the egg shall be broken
and the city virgilius filled full of wonders
gold we sprang from our stools gold we wheeled in the furrow fired with the faith of fools fearless unfound unfitted far from the night and the cold
heard we the clarion summons followed the master lure gold men from the sands of the sunland men from the woods of the west men from the farms and the cities
into the northland we pressed graybeards and striplings and women good men and bad men and bold leaving our homes and our loved ones crying exultantly gold
never was seen such an army pitiful futile unfit never was seen such a spirit manifold courage and grit never has been such a cohort under one banner unrolled
the spectral shores flitted past us and every whirl of the screw hurled us nearer to fortune and ever we planned what we'd do do with the gold when we got it
big shiny nuggets like plums there in the sand of the river gouging it out with our thumbs and one man wanted a castle another a racing stud
a third would cruise in a palace yacht like a red necked prince of blood and so we dreamed and we vaunted millionaires to a man leaping to wealth in our visions long ere the trail
we joined the weltering mass clamoring over their outfits waiting to climb the pass we tightened our girths and our pack straps we linked on the human chain struggling up to the summit
where every step was a pain gone was the joy of our faces grim and haggard and pale the heedless mirth of the shipboard was changed to the care of the trail we flung ourselves in the struggle
step by step to the summit in the bale of the winter days floundering deep in the sump holes stumbling out again crying with cold and weakness
klondike or bust rang the slogan every man for his own oh how we flogged the horses staggering skin and bone oh how we cursed their weakness
anguish they could not tell breaking their hearts in our passion lashing them on till they fell for grub meant gold to our thinking and all that could walk must pack the sheep for the shambles stumbled
each with a load on its back and even the swine were burdened and grunted and squealed and rolled and men went mad in the moment huskily clamoring gold
oh we were brutes and devils goaded by lust and fear our eyes were strained to the summit the weaklings dropped to the rear falling in heaps by the trail side
but the gaps closed up in an instant and heedless the chain went on never will i forget it there on the mountain face antlike men with their burdens clinging in icy space
cruel and callous and cold cursing blaspheming reviling
gold thus toiled we the army of fortune in hunger and hope and despair till glacier mountain and forest vanished and radiantly fair
there at our feet lay lake bennett and down to its welcome we ran the trail of the land was over the trail of the water
never has been such a fleet a packing case for a bottom a mackinaw for a sheet shapeless grotesque lopsided flimsy makeshift and crude each man after his fashion
each man worked like a demon as prow to rudder we raced the winds of the wild cried hurry the voice of the waters haste we hated those driving before us
we dreaded those pressing behind we cursed the slow current that bore us we prayed to the god of the wind spring and the hillsides flourished vivid in jewelled green
stake ere the best be gone the greed of the gold possessed us pity and love were forgot covetous visions obsessed us brother with brother fought partner with partner wrangled
sinister savage and baleful boding us hate and harm
there on that iron shore many a heart was broken straining at sweep and oar we roused lake marsh with a chorus we drifted many a mile there was the canyon before us
above us the cavernous gloom around us swift twisting and turning the black sullen walls of a tomb we spun like a chip in a mill race our hearts hammered under the test then oh
the relief on each chill face we soared into sunlight and rest hand sought for hand on the instant cried we our troubles are o'er then like a rumble of thunder
staggers and rears at the shock leaps like a terrified monster writhes in its fury and pain then with the crash of a demon springs to the onset again
dared we that ravening terror heard we its din in our ears called on the gods of our fathers juggled forlorn with our fears sank to our waists in its fury
tossed to the sky like a fleece then when our dread was the greatest crashed into safety and peace but what of the others that followed losing their boats by the score
well could we see them and hear them strung down that desolate shore what of the poor souls that perished little of them shall be said on to the golden valley
pause not to bury the dead then there were days of drifting breezes soft as a sigh night trailed her robe of jewels over the floor of the sky
the moonlit stream was a python silver sinuous vast
well it was done at last there were the tents of dawson there the scar of the slide
fires fringed the mouth of bonanza sunset gilded the dome the test of the trail was over
when unto them in the long long night came the man who had no name bearing his prize of a black fox pelt out of the wild he came his cheeks were blanched as the flume head foam
when the brown spring freshets flow deep in their dark sin calcined pits were his sombre eyes aglow they knew him far for the fitful man who spat forth blood on the snow
there's nought in the world so fine such fullness of fur as black as the night such lustre such size such shine it's life to a one lunged man like me
it's london it's women it's wine the moose hides called it the devil fox and swore that no man could kill that he who hunted it soon or late must surely suffer some ill
by gun or by trap whatever the hap i swore i would capture it by star and by star afield and afar i hunted and would not quit for the devil fox it was swift and sly
it sniffed and ran from the ptarmigan i had poisoned to excess unharmed it sped from my wrathful lead twas as if i shot by guess yet it came by night in the stark moonlight
to mock at my weariness i tracked it up where the mountains hunch like the vertebrae of the world i tracked it down to the death still pits where the avalanche is hurled
where the carded clouds are curled from the vastitudes where the world protrudes through clouds like seas up shoaled i held its track till it led me back to the land i had left of old
the land i had looted many moons i was weary and sick and cold i was sick soul sick of the futile chase and there and then i swore the foul fiend fox might scathless go
for i would hunt no more
it stood by my cabin door a rifle raised in the wraith like gloom and a vengeful shot that sped a howl that would thrill a cream faced corpse and the demon fox lay dead
yet there was never a sign of wound and never a drop he bled so that was the end of the great black fox and here is the prize i've won and now for a drink to cheer me up
for things were done in the midnight sun that no tongue will ever tell and men there be who walk earth free but whose names are writ in hell are writ in flames with the guilty names
of fournier and labelle put not your trust in a poke of dust would ye sleep the sleep of sin for there be those who would rob your clothes ere yet the dawn comes in
and a prize likewise in a woman's eyes is a peerless black fox skin put your faith in the mountain cat if you lie within his lair trust the fangs of the mother wolf
and the claws of the lead ripped bear but oh of the wiles and the gold tooth smiles of a dance hall wench beware wherefore it was beyond all laws that lusts of man restrain
a man drank deep and sank to sleep never to wake again and the yukon swallowed through a hole
from the roof nigh to the floor and sleek it seemed and soft it gleamed and the woman stroked it o'er and the man stood by with a brooding eye and gnashed his teeth and swore
when thieves and thugs fall out and fight there's fell arrears to pay and soon or late sin meets its fate and so it fell one day that claw fingered kitty and windy ike
fanged up like dogs at bay the skin is mine all mine she cried i did the deed alone
the fruit of sin this black fox skin
she slipped away as still he lay she clutched the wondrous fur her pulses beat her foot was fleet her fear was as a spur she laughed with glee she did not see him rise and follow her
the bluffs uprear and grimly peer far over dawson town they see its lights a blaze o nights and harshly they look down they mock the plan and plot of man with grim ironic frown
the trail was steep twas at the time when swiftly sinks the snow all honey combed the river ice was rotting down below the river chafed beneath its rind with many a mighty throe
she made no moan her heart was stone she read his smiling face and like a dream flashed all her life's dark horror and disgrace
through snow and timber fall
hard harried sore distrest the old grandmother moon crept out from her cloud quilted nest the aged mountains mocked at him in their primeval rest grim shadows diapered the snow
the air was strangely mild the valley's girth was dumb with mirth the laughter of the wild the still sardonic laughter of an ogre o'er a child
it groaned like one in pain and yawning chasms opened wide and closed and yawned again and sheets of silver heaved on high until they split in twain
from out the road house by the trail they saw a man afar make for the narrow river reach where the swift cross currents are where frail and worn the ice is torn
and the angry waters jar but they did not see him crash and sink into the icy flow they did not see him clinging there gripped by the undertow clawing with bleeding finger nails
they found a note beside the hole where he had stumbled in here met his fate by evil luck a man who lived in sin and to the one who loves me least i leave this black fox skin
and strange it is for though they searched the river all around no trace or sign of black fox skin was ever after found
whenever wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die whether he die in the light o day or under the peak faced moon in cabin or dance hall camp or dive mucklucks or patent shoon
on velvet tundra or virgin peak by glacier drift or draw in muskeg hollow or canyon gloom by avalanche fang or claw by battle murder or sudden wealth
by pestilence hooch or lead i swore on the book i would follow and look till i found my tombless dead for bill was a dainty kind of cuss and his mind was mighty sot
so i promised him and he paid the price in good cheechako coin which the same i blowed in that very night down in the tenderloin then i painted a three foot slab of pine
and i hung it up on my cabin wall
years passed away and at last one day came a squaw with a story strange of a long deserted line of traps way back of the bighorn range of a little hut by the great divide
and a white man stiff and still lying there by his lonesome self and i figured it must be bill so i thought of the contract i'd made with him and i took down from the shelf the swell black box with the silver plate
he'd picked out for hisself and i packed it full of grub and hooch and i slung it on the sleigh then i harnessed up my team of dogs
you know what it's like in the yukon wild when it's sixty nine below when the ice worms wriggle their purple heads through the crust of the pale blue snow when the pine trees crack
of a bit of steel burns like a red hot spit when the mercury is a frozen ball and the frost fiend stalks to kill well it was just like that that day when i set out to look for bill
oh the awful hush that seemed to crush me down on every hand as i blundered blind with a trail to find through that blank and bitter land half dazed half crazed in the winter wild
with its grim heart breaking woes and the ruthless strife for a grip on life that only the sourdough knows north by the compass north i pressed river and peak and plain
river and plain and mighty peak and who could stand unawed as their summits blazed he could stand undazed at the foot of the throne of god
north aye north through a land accurst shunned by the scouring brutes and all i heard was my own harsh word and the whine of the malamutes till at last i came to a cabin squat
built in the side of a hill and i burst in the door and there on the floor frozen to death lay bill ice white ice like a winding sheet sheathing each smoke grimed wall
ice gleaming over all sparkling ice on the dead man's chest glittering ice in his hair ice on his fingers ice in his heart ice in his glassy stare
hard as a log and trussed like a frog with his arms and legs outspread i gazed at the coffin i'd brought for him
bill liked his joke but still goldarn his eyes a man had ought to consider his mates in the way he goes and dies have you ever stood in an arctic hut in the shadow of the pole
you may try all day but you'll never jam me in i'm not a man of the quitting kind but i never felt so blue as i sat there gazing at that stiff and studying what i'd do
but it didn't seem no good his arms and legs stuck out like pegs
till at last i said it ain't no use he's froze too hard to thaw he's obstinate and he won't lie straight so i guess i got to saw so i sawed off poor bill's arms and legs
and i laid him snug and straight in the little coffin he picked hisself with the dinky silver plate and i came nigh near to shedding a tear as i nailed him safely down then i stowed him away
i tried to refine that neighbor of mine honest to god i did i grieved for his fate and early and late i watched over him like a kid i gave him excuse i bore his abuse in every way that i could
i swore to prevail i camped on his trail i plotted and planned for his good by day and by night i strove in men's sight to gather him into the fold with precept and prayer with hope and despair
and all summer through with a rancor that grew he would pass me and never would speak then a shuddery breath like the coming of death crept down from the peaks far away the water was still the twilight was chill
the sky was a tatter of gray swift came the big cold and opal and gold the lights of the witches arose the frost tyrant clinched and the valley was cinched by the stark and cadaverous snows
the trees were like lace where the star beams could chase each leaf was a jewel agleam the soft white hush lapped the northland and wrapped us round in a crystalline dream
so still i could hear quite loud in my ear the swish of the pinions of time so bright i could see as plain as could be the wings of god's angels ashine as i read in the book
i would oftentimes look to that cabin just over the creek ah me it was sad and evil and bad two neighbors who never would speak i knew that full well like a devil in hell
he was hatching out early and late a system to bear through the frost spangled air the warm crimson waves of his hate
but i knew over there in his lonely despair he was plotting me terrible ill i knew that he nursed a malice accurst like the blast of a winnowing flame i pleaded aloud for a shield for a shroud
oh god then calamity came mad if i'm mad then you too are mad but it's all in the point of view if you'd looked at them things gallivantin on wings all purple and green and blue
if you'd noticed them twist as they mounted and hissed like scorpions dim in the dark if you'd seen them rebound with a horrible sound and spitefully spitting a spark if you'd watched it with dread
as it hissed by your bed that thing with the feelers that crawls you'd have settled the brute that attempted to shoot electricity into your walls oh some they were blue and they slithered right through
they were silent and squashy and round and some they were green they were wriggly and lean
my blood seemed to freeze i fell on my knees my face was a white splash of dread oh the green and the blue they were gruesome to view but the worst of them all were the red
they came through the door they came through the floor they came through the moss creviced logs they were savage and dire they were whiskered with fire they bickered like malamute dogs
they gulped down the green and the blue i crinkled with fear whene'er they drew near and nearer and nearer they drew and then came the crown of horror's grim crown the monster so loathsomely red
each eye was a pin that shot out and in as squidlike it oozed to my bed so softly it crept with feelers that swept and quivered like fine copper wire
its belly was white with a sulphurous light
oh so weak but i thrilled at its shriek as wildly it fled in the night and deathlike i lay till the dawn of the day was ever so welcome the light i loaded my gun at the rise of the sun
to his cabin so softly i slunk my neighbor was there in the frost freighted air all wrapped in a robe in his bunk it muffled his moans it outlined his bones as feebly he twisted about
his gums were so black and his lips seemed to crack and his teeth all were loosening out twas a death's head that peered through the tangle of beard twas a face i will never forget sunk eyes full of woe and they troubled me so
with their pleadings and anguish and yet as i rested my gaze in a misty amaze on the scurvy degenerate wreck i thought of the things with the dragon fly wings
he gave out a cry that was faint as a sigh like a perishing malamute and he says unto me i'm converted says he for christ's sake peter don't shoot
they're taking me out with an escort about and under a sergeant's care i am humbled indeed for i'm cuffed to a swede that thinks he's a millionaire
lily had exacted a promise from her mother before her illness and during the period of her convalescence often referred to it reminding her mother that that promise had been made and must be kept
lily was to be told the day on which crosbie was to be married it had come to the knowledge of them all that the marriage was to take place in february but this was not sufficient for lily she must know the day and as the time drew nearer
the marriage of crosbie and alexandrina was spoken of much more frequently at the small house it was not a subject which missus dale or bell would have chosen for conversation but lily would refer to it
she would begin by doing so almost in a drolling strain alluding to herself as a forlorn damsel in a play book and then she would go on to speak of his interests as a matter which was still of great moment to her
but in the course of such talking she would too often break down showing by some sad word or melancholy tone how great was the burden on her heart missus dale and bell would willingly have avoided the subject
but lily would not have it avoided for them it was a very difficult matter on which to speak in her hearing it was not permitted to them to say a word of abuse against crosbie as to whom they thought that no word of condemnation could be sufficiently severe
and they were forced to listen to such excuses for his conduct as lily chose to manufacture never daring to point out how vain those excuses were indeed in those days lily reigned as a queen at the small house
ill usage and illness together falling into her hands had given her such power that none of the other women were able to withstand it nothing was said about it but it was understood by them all jane and the cook included
the day was named soon enough and the tidings came down to allington on the fourteenth of february crosbie was to be made a happy man this was not known to the dales till the twelfth and they would willingly have spared the knowledge then
but there was perhaps at the bottom of them a feeling that as the family intended to leave the small house at the end of march it would be well to let the squire know that there was no enmity in their hearts against him nothing more had been said about their moving
with bell during these visits he never alluded to the matter she was the chief sinner in that she had refused to marry her cousin and had declined even to listen to rational counsel upon the matter but the squire felt
that he could not discuss the subject with her seeing that he had been specially informed by missus dale that his interference would not be permitted and then he was perhaps aware that if he did discuss the subject with bell he would not gain much by such discussion
their conversation therefore generally fell upon crosbie and the tone in which he was mentioned in the great house was very different from that assumed in lily's presence
he'll be a wretched man said the squire when he told bell of the day that had been fixed i don't want him to be wretched said bell but i can hardly think that he can act as he has done without being punished he will be a wretched man
he gets no fortune with her and she will expect everything that fortune can give i believe too that she is older than he is i cannot understand it upon my word i cannot understand how a man can be such a knave and such a fool give my love to lily
such a frost as breaks the water pipes and binds the ground to the hardness of granite lily queen as she was had not yet been allowed to go back to her own chamber but occupied the larger bed in her mother's room her mother sleeping on a smaller one
why should their hearts be cold oh mamma that is a terrible thing to say why should their hearts be cold i hope it may not be so of course you do of course we all hope it he was not cold hearted at any rate
a man is not cold hearted because he does not know himself mamma i want you to wish for their happiness missus dale was silent for a minute or two before she answered this but then she did answer it
you must be very careful in wrapping yourself as you go downstairs said bell who stood by the tray on which she had brought up the toast and tea the cold is what you would call awful i should call it jolly said lily if i could get up and go out
i know what your foot means when it goes in that way and you shan't do it come here bell and let me teach you christianity i'm a fine sort of teacher am i not and i did not quite mean that i wish i could learn it from some one said bell
there are circumstances in which what we call christianity seems to me to be hardly possible when your foot goes in that way it is a very unchristian foot and you ought to keep it still it means anger against him
because he discovered before it was too late that he would not be happy that is that he and i would not be happy together if we were married don't scrutinize my foot too closely lily
that i gave myself up to him all at once without giving him a chance of thinking of it in a week or two it was done who could expect that such an engagement should be lasting and why not that is nonsense lily
but we will not talk about it ah but i want to talk about it it was as i have said and if so you shouldn't hate him because he did the only thing which he honestly could do when he found out his mistake
and then she remembered that that other lady might at this very moment possess the name which she had once been so proud to think that she would bear herself bell she said stopping her other speech suddenly at what o'clock do people get married in london
oh at all manner of hours any time before twelve they will be fashionable and will be married late you don't think she's missus crosbie yet then lady alexandrina crosbie said bell shuddering yes
of course i forgot i should so like to see her i feel such an interest about her i wonder what coloured hair she has i suppose she is a sort of juno of a woman very tall and handsome i'm sure she has not got a pug nose like me
only of course it's not possible to be godmother to his first child oh lily i should don't you hear me say that i know it's not possible i'm not going up to london to ask her
i should never have done for that kind of thing should i there is nothing i despise so much as what you call that kind of thing do you i don't after all think how much work they do he used to tell me of that
they have all the governing in their hands and get very little money for doing it worse luck for the country the country seems to do pretty well but you're a radical bell my belief is you wouldn't be a lady if you could help it
i'd sooner be an honest woman and so you are my own dear dearest honest bell and the fairest lady that i know if i were a man bell you are just the girl that i should worship but you are not a man so it's no good
but you mustn't let your foot go astray in that way you mustn't indeed somebody said that whatever is is right and i declare i believe it i'm sometimes inclined to think that whatever is is wrong
it's only half past ten yet i shouldn't be at all surprised if it's over over what a word that is a thing like that is over and then all the world cannot put it back again what if he should be unhappy after all
he must take his chance said bell thinking within her own mind that that chance would be a very bad one of course he must take his chance well i'll get up now
he has made that lady his wife i hope god will bless them and i pray that they may be happy as she spoke these words there was an unwonted solemnity in her tone which startled missus dale and bell
i also will hope so said missus dale and now lily will it not be well that you should turn your mind away from the subject and endeavour to think of other things but i can't mamma it is so easy to say that
but people can't choose their own thoughts they can usually direct them as they will if they make the effort but i can't make the effort indeed i don't know why i should it seems natural to me to think about him
and i don't suppose it can be very wrong when you have had so deep an interest in a person you can't drop him all of a sudden then there was again silence and after a while lily took up her novel
i think i'll read pilgrim's progress again
or paul and virginia said lily but i believe i'll have pilgrim's progress i never can understand it but i rather think that makes it nicer i hate books i can't understand said bell i like a book to be clear as running water
so that the whole meaning may be seen at once the quick seeing of the meaning must depend a little on the reader must it not said missus dale the reader mustn't be a fool of course said bell but then so many readers are fools said lily
and yet they get something out of their reading missus crump is always poring over the revelations and nearly knows them by heart i don't think she could interpret a single image but she has a hazy misty idea of the truth that's why she likes it
the personages are always in their tantrums and go on as though they were mad mamma do you know where they're going for the honeymoon no my dear he used to talk to me about going to the lakes
and then there was another pause during which bell observed that her mother's face became clouded with anxiety but i won't think of it any more continued lily i will fix my mind to something and then she got up from her chair
of course it would not my darling and i'm going to be well again now immediately let me see i was told to read carlyle's history of the french revolution and i think i'll begin now it was crosbie who had told her to read the book
as both bell and missus dale were well aware
jane shall fetch it if you really want it said missus dale bell shall get it when she goes up in the afternoon will you bell and i'll try to get on with this stuff in the meantime then again she sat with her eyes fixed upon the pages of the book
i'll tell you what mamma you may have some comfort in this that when to day's gone by i shan't make a fuss about any other day nobody thinks that you are making a fuss lily yes but i am isn't it odd bell
that it should take place on valentine's day
i used to think so often of the letter that i should get from him on this day when he would tell me that i was his valentine well he's got another valen tine now so much she said with articulate voice
and then she broke down bursting out into convulsive sobs and crying in her mother's arms as though she would break her heart and yet her heart was not broken and she was still strong in that resolve which she had made that her grief should not overpower her
and she struggled grievously to get the better of the hysterical attack which had overpowered her i won't be regarded as ill used not as specially ill used but i am your darling your own darling only i wish you'd beat me and thump me when i'm such a fool instead of pitying me
said bell because if we are ill he won't have such a terrible distance to come that will be a comfort for him i should think said bell very demurely in the evening the first volume of the french revolution had been procured
and lily stuck to her reading with laudable perseverance till at eight her mother insisted on her going to bed queen as she was i don't believe a bit you know that the king was such a bad man as that she said i do said bell
ah that's because you're a radical i never will believe that kings are so much worse than other people as for charles the first he was about the best man in history this was an old subject of dispute but lily on the present occasion was allowed her own way
and after dinner missus dale went through the gardens up to the other house with a written note in her hand in that note she had told lady julia with many protestations of gratitude
that lily was unable to go out so soon after her illness and that she herself was obliged to stay with lily she explained also that the business of moving was in hand and that therefore she could not herself accept the invitation
as he repeated the words over and over again there was an eagerness in his voice that filled missus dale's heart with tenderness towards him the truth is said missus dale she could not go there to meet john eames
the very reasons which should make us induce her to go there if we can perhaps i had better tell you all lord de guest has taken him by the hand and wishes him to marry he has promised to settle on him an income which will make him comfortable for life
that is very generous and i am delighted to hear it for john's sake and they have promoted him at his office ah then he will do well he will do very well he is private secretary now to their head man
and mary so that she lily should not be empty handed if this marriage can be arranged i have undertaken to settle a hundred a year on her on her and her children if she will accept him now you know it all i did not mean to tell you
but it is as well that you should have the means of judging that other man was a villain this man is honest would it not be well that she should learn to like him she always did like him i thought before that other fellow came down here among us
it would be a healing of wounds most desirable and salutary an arrangement advantageous to them all a destiny for lily most devoutly to be desired if only it were possible
missus dale firmly believed that if her daughter could be made to accept john eames as her second lover in a year or two all would be well crosbie would then be forgotten or thought of without regret and lily would become the mistress of a happy home
but there are positions which cannot be reached though there be no physical or material objection in the way it is the view which the mind takes of a thing which creates the sorrow that arises from it if the heart were always malleable and the feelings could be controlled
who would permit himself to be tormented by any of the reverses which affection meets death would create no sorrow ingratitude would lose its sting and the betrayal of love would do no injury beyond that which it might entail upon worldly circumstances
six months pleaded the squire it will take years not months said missus dale and she will lose all her youth yes
but it is done and we cannot now go back she loves him yet as dearly as she ever loved him then the squire muttered certain words below his breath ejaculations against crosbie which were hardly voluntary
but even as involuntary ejaculations were very improper missus dale heard them and was not offended either by their impropriety or their warmth but you can understand she said that she cannot bring herself to go there
the squire struck the table with his fist and repeated his ejaculations if he could only have known how very disagreeable lady alexandrina was making herself his spirit might perhaps have been less vehemently disturbed
those who offend us are generally punished for the offence they give but we so frequently miss the satisfaction of knowing that we are avenged
it is arranged apparently that the injurer shall be punished but that the person injured shall not gratify his desire for vengeance and will you go to guestwick yourself asked missus dale i will take the note said the squire
and will let you know to morrow the earl has behaved so kindly that every possible consideration is due to him i had better tell him the whole truth and go or stay as he may wish i don't see the good of going what am i to do at guestwick manor
missus dale got up to leave him but she could not go without saying some word of gratitude for all that he had attempted to do for them she well knew what he meant by the curing of difficulties he had intended to signify that
she felt half ashamed of what she was doing almost acknowledging to herself that she should have borne with his sternness in return for the benefits he had done to her daughters had she not feared their reproaches she would even now have given way
i do not know what i ought to say to you for your kindness say nothing either for my kindness or unkindness
striving to think good and not evil these were kind loving words showing in themselves a spirit of love and forbearance but they were spoken in a harsh unsympathizing voice and the speaker as he uttered them looked gloomily at the fire
the way from the lawn into the house through the drawing room window was not as yet open and it was necessary to go round by the kitchen garden on to the road and thence in by the front door or else to pass through the back door and into the house by the kitchen
there was a smile upon lily's face as she lifted up her finger as if in caution and no one looking at her would have supposed that she was herself in trouble mamma she said pointing to the drawing room door and speaking almost in a whisper
you must not go in there come into the parlour who's there where's bell and missus dale went into the parlour as she was bidden but who is there she repeated he's there who is he
oh mamma don't be a goose doctor crofts is there of course he's been nearly an hour i wonder how he is managing for there is nothing on earth to sit upon but the old lump of a carpet the room is strewed about with crockery and bell is such a figure
she has got on your old checked apron and when he came in she was rolling up the fire irons in brown paper i don't suppose she was ever in such a mess before there's one thing certain he can't kiss her hand it's you are the goose lily
but he's in there certainly unless he has gone out through the window or up the chimney what made you leave them he met me here in the passage and spoke to me ever so seriously come in i said and see bell packing the pokers and tongs
i will go in he said but don't come with me he was ever so serious and i'm sure he had been thinking of it all the way along and why should he not be serious oh no of course he ought to be serious but are you not glad mamma
i am so glad we shall live alone together you and i but she will be so close to us my belief is that he'll stay there for ever unless somebody does something i have been so tired of waiting and looking out for you perhaps he's helping her to pack the things
don't you think we might go in or would it be ill natured lily don't be in too great a hurry to say anything you may be mistaken you know and there's many a slip between the cup and the lip yes mamma there is said lily
putting her hand inside her mother's arm that's true enough oh my darling forgive me said the mother suddenly remembering that the use of the old proverb at the present moment had been almost cruel do not mind it said lily
it does not hurt me it does me good that is to say when there is nobody by except yourself but with god's help there shall be no slip here and she shall be happy it is all the difference between one thing done in a hurry
but they'll remain there for ever if we don't go in come mamma you open the door then missus dale did open the door giving some little premonitory notice with the handle so that the couple inside might be warned of approaching footsteps
crofts had not escaped either through the window or up the chimney but was seated in the middle of the room on an empty box just opposite to bell who was seated upon the lump of carpeting bell still wore the checked apron as described by her sister
missus dale said the doctor bell has consented that it shall be so if you will consent there is but little doubt of that said missus dale we shall not be rich began the doctor i hate to be rich said bell
considering the nature of it that a young lady acknowledged to be of great beauty and known to be of good birth had on the occasion been asked and given in marriage was carried on after a somewhat humdrum fashion and in a manner that must be called commonplace
how different had it been when crosbie had made his offer lily for the time had been raised to a pinnacle a pinnacle which might be dangerous but which was at any rate lofty with what a pretty speech had crosbie been greeted
how it had been felt by all concerned that the fortunes of the small house were in the ascendant felt indeed with some trepidation but still with much inward triumph how great had been the occasion forcing lily almost to lose herself in wonderment at what had occurred
there was no great occasion now and no wonderment no one unless it was crofts felt very triumphant but they were all very happy and were sure that there was safety in their happiness
it was but the other day that one of them had been thrown rudely to the ground through the treachery of a lover but yet none of them feared treachery from this lover bell was as sure of her lot in life as though she were already being taken home to her modest house in guestwick
but bell was not seated next to her lover
she had been in no wise ashamed of her love and had shown it constantly by some little caressing motion of her hand leaning on his arm looking into his face as though she were continually desirous of some palpable assurance of his presence
it was not so at all with bell she was happy in loving and in being loved but she required no overt testimonies of affection i do not think it would have made her unhappy if some sudden need had required that crofts should go to india and back before they were married
the thing was settled and that was enough for her but on the other hand when he spoke of the expediency of an immediate marriage she raised no difficulty as her mother was about to go into a new residence
it might be as well that that residence should be fitted to the wants of two persons instead of three so they talked about chairs and tables carpets and kitchens in a most unromantic homely useful manner
there was therefore a question of buying new furniture for a house in guestwick
in the first month or two they were to live in lodgings and their goods were to be stored in some friendly warehouse under such circumstances would it not be well
that bell's marriage should be so arranged that the lodging question might not be in any degree complicated by her necessities this was the last suggestion made by doctor crofts induced no doubt by the great encouragement he had received
that would be hardly possible said missus dale it only wants three weeks and with the house in such a condition james is joking said bell i was not joking at all said the doctor
why not send for mister boyce and carry her off at once on a pillion behind you said lily it's just the sort of thing for primitive people to do like you and bell all the same bell i do wish you could have been married from this house
i shall always call you dame commonplace when you're married said lily then they had tea and after tea doctor crofts got on his horse and rode back to guestwick now may i talk about him said lily as soon as the door was closed behind his back
no you may not as if i hadn't known it all along and wasn't it hard to bear that you should have scolded me with such pertinacious austerity
i don't remember the austerity said missus dale nor yet lily's silence said bell but it's all settled now said lily and i'm downright happy i never felt more satisfaction never bell nor did i said her mother
dorothy and richard
it was the middle of autumn and had rained all day through the lozenge panes of the wide oriel window the world appeared in the slowly gathering dusk not a little dismal
bordering the little lawn or the honeysuckle covering the wide porch from which the slow rain dropped ceaselessly upon the pebble paving below could not give steepy slopes hedge divided into small fields
some green and dotted with red cattle others crowded with shocks of bedraggled and drooping corn which looked suffering and patient the room to which the window having this prospect belonged was large and low
sat gazing sadly into the flames which shone rosy through the thin hands spread out before them at the opposite corner of the great low arched chimney sat a lady past the prime of life but still beautiful
though the beauty was all but merged in the loveliness that rises from the heart to the face of such as have taken the greatest step in life that is as the old proverb says the step out of doors
she was plainly yet rather richly dressed in garments of an old fashioned and well preserved look her hair was cut short above her forehead and frizzed out in bunches of little curls on each side
so quietly did they rest on the face of the old man who was plainly a clergyman it was a small pale thin delicately and symmetrically formed face yet not the less a strong one
and force in the closed lips while a good conscience looked clear out of the grey eyes they had been talking about the fast gathering tide of opinion which
had already begun to beat so furiously against the moles and ramparts of church and kingdom the execution of lord strafford was news that had not yet begun to hiss the speaker it is indeed an evil time
said the old man the world has seldom seen its like but tell me master herbert said the lady why comes it in this our day for our sins or for the sins of our fathers
returned her guest i meddle not like some that should be wiser with the calling of the prophet it is enough for me to know that ever and again the pride of man will gather
overfed of rains burst the banks that confine it whether they be the laws of the land or the ordinances of the church usurping on the fruitful meadows the hope of life for man and beast alas he went on
with a new suggestion from the image he had been using if the beginning of strife be as the letting out of water what shall be the end of that strife whose beginning is the letting out of blood think you then good sir that thus it has always been
that such times of fierce ungodly tempest must ever follow upon seasons of peace and comfort even as your cousin of holy memory in his verses concerning the church militant writes thus also sin and darkness follow still
the church and sun with all their power and skill truly it seems so but i thank god the days of my pilgrimage are nearly numbered to judge by the tokens the wise man gives us
and could imagine no abatement in the steady rain pour we shall leave behind us strong hearts and sound heads too said mister herbert and i bethink me there will be none stronger or sounder than those of your young cousins
my late pupils of whom i hear brave things from oxford and in whose affection my spirit constantly rejoices you will be glad to hear such good news of your relatives dorothy said the lady addressing her daughter
but you know i have never seen them or heard of them except from master herbert who has indeed often spoke rare things of them mistress dorothy will still know the reason why said the clergyman smiling
and the two resumed their conversation but the girl rose and turning again to the window stood for a moment rapt in the transfiguration passing upon the world the vault of grey was utterly shattered
was shaking the jewels from their feathery tops the sunflowers and hollyhocks no longer cowered under the tyranny of the rain but bowed beneath the weight of the gems that adorned them a flame burned as upon an altar
on the top of every tree and the very pools that lay on the distant road had their message of light to give to the hopeless earth as she gazed another hue than that of the sunset yet rosy too gradually flushed the face of the maiden
she turned suddenly from the window and left the room shaking a shower of diamonds from the honeysuckle as she passed out through the porch upon the gravel walk possibly her elders found her departure a relief for although they took no notice of it
like the rooms within those shuttered windows the inhabited wing she had left looked like the dwelling of a yeoman farming his own land
for generations it had been slowly descending in the scale of worldly account
was larger than their means could match with correspondent outlay such however was the character of lady vaughan that although she mingled little with the great families in the neighbourhood she was so much respected
and of the famous doctor donne strongly attached to the english church and recoiling with disgust from the practices of the puritans as much perhaps from refinement of taste as abhorrence of schism he had never yet fallen into such a passion for episcopacy
as to feel any cordiality towards the schemes of the archbishop to those who knew him his silence concerning it was a louder protest against the policy of laud than the fiercest denunciations of the puritans
once only had he been heard to utter himself unguardedly in respect of the primate and that was amongst friends and after the second glass permitted of his cousin george tut laud me no laud he said
a skipping bishop is worse than a skipping king once also he had been overheard murmuring to himself by way of consolement bishops pass the church remains he had been a great friend of the late sir ringwood
and although the distance from his parish was too great to be travelled often he seldom let a year go by without paying a visit to his friend's widow and daughter turning her back on the cenotaph of their former greatness
dorothy dived into a long pleached alley careless of the drip from overhead and hurrying through it came to a circular patch of thin grass rounded by a lofty hedge of yew trees in the midst of which
stood what had once been a sun dial it mattered little however that only the stump of a gnomon was left seeing the hedge around it had grown to such a height in relation to the diameter of the circle that it was only for a very brief hour or so
god and man must combine for salvation from sin and the same word here and elsewhere translated remission seems to be employed in the new testament for the share of either in the great deliverance
but first let me say something concerning the word here and everywhere translated repentance i would not even suggest a mistranslation but the idea intended by the word has been so misunderstood
and therefore mistaught that it requires some consideration of the word itself to get at a right recognition of the moral fact it represents the greek word then of which the word repentance is the accepted synonym
and fundamentally the accurate rendering is made up of two words the conjoint meaning of which is a change of mind or thought there is in it no intent of or hint at sorrow or shame
or any other of the mental conditions that not unfrequently accompanying repentance have been taken for essential parts of it sometimes for its very essence here the last of the prophets
or the evangelist who records his doings qualifies the word as if he held it insufficient in itself to convey the baptist's meaning
kaerusson baptisma metauoias eis aphesin amartion a
one form at least of god's sending away of sins neither do i say that the taking of the phrase to mean repentance for the remission of sins namely repentance in order to obtain the pardon of god involves any inconsistency
that reaches to the sending away or abjurement of sins i do not think a change of mind unto the remission or pardon of sin would be nearly so logical a phrase as
a change of mind unto the dismission of sinning the revised version refuses the word for and chooses unto though it retains remission which word now conveys no meaning except the forgiveness of god
with the difference of meaning that comes from the differing sources of the action both god and man send away sins but in the one case god sends away the sins of the man and in the other
the man sends away his own sins i do not enter into the question whether god's aphesis may or may not mean as well the sending of his sins out of a man as the pardon of them
whether it may not sometimes mean dismission and sometimes remission i am sure the one deed cannot be separated from the other that the phrase here intends repentance unto the ceasing from sin
the giving up of what is wrong i will try to show at least probable in the first place the user of the phrase either defines the change of mind he means as one that has for its object the pardon of god
or as one that reaches to a new life the latter seems to me the more natural interpretation by far the kind and scope of the repentance or change
and not any end to be gained by it appears intended the change must be one of will and conduct a radical change of life on the part of the man he must repent that is change his mind
the more direct the fuller of meaning the more logical next in saint matthew's gospel the baptist's buttressing argument or imminent motive for the change he is pressing upon the people is
that the kingdom of heaven is at hand because the king of heaven is coming you must give up your sinning the same argument for immediate action
make straight in the desert a highway for our god the only true the only possible preparation for the coming lord is to cease from doing evil and begin to do well to send away sin
they must cleanse not the streets of their cities not their houses or their garments or even their persons but their hearts and their doings
it is true the baptist did not see that the kingdom coming was not of this world but of the higher world in the hearts of men it is true that his faith failed him in his imprisonment because he heard of no martial movement on the part of the lord
no assertion of his sovereignty no convincing show of his power but he did see plainly that righteousness was essential to the kingdom of heaven that he did not yet perceive that righteousness is the kingdom of heaven
that he did not see that the lord was already initiating his kingdom by sending away sin out of the hearts of his people is not wonderful the lord's answer to his fore runner's message of doubt
was to send his messenger back an eye witness of what he was doing so to wake or clarify in him the perception that his kingdom was not of this world that he dealt with other means
to another end than john had yet recognized as his mission or object for obedient love in the heart of the poorest he healed or persuaded was his kingdom come again observe that
when the pharisees came to john he said to them bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance is not this the same as repent unto the sending away of your sins note also that
when the multitudes came to the prophet and all with the classes most obnoxious to the rest the publicans and the soldiers asked what he would have them do thus plainly recognizing that something was required of them
they could not rid themselves of their sins but they could set about sending them away they could quarrel with them and proceed to turn them out of the house
the lord was on his way to do his part in their final banishment those who had repented to the sending away of their sins he would baptize with a holy power to send them away indeed the operant will to get rid of them
would be baptized with a fire that should burn them up when a man breaks with his sins then the wind of the lord's fan will blow them away the fire of the lord's heart will consume them i think then
he has no desire after what it offers him as redemption the god it gives him news of is not one to whom he would draw nearer but when such a man comes to see that the very god must be his life
then his will immediately sides with his conscience he begins to try to be and first thing toward being to rid himself of what is antagonistic to all being namely wrong
but few as yet are those who take up their part who respond to the call of god who will to be who put forth a divine effort after real existence
that his liberty be your life and you free men that he may enter clear the house for him send away the bad things out of it depart from evil and do good
do it be it great or small for indeed in this region there is no great or small be content with your wages said the baptist to the soldiers to many people now the word would be
rule your temper or be courteous to all or let each hold the other better than himself or
on which we stand we must cast far from us our evil thing that blocks the way of his chariot wheels if we do not never will those wheels roll through our streets
for the kingdom of heaven is near some of us i cannot say all for i do not know who have already repented who have long ago begun to send away our sins need fresh repentance every day
how many times a day god only knows we are so ready to get upon some path that seems to run parallel with the narrow way and then take no note of its divergence
what is there for us when we discover that we are out of the way but to bethink ourselves and turn by those who need no repentance the lord may have meant such as had repented perfectly
betwixt the self importance of the overweening yokels and the inventive faculties of tom fool all the evening one standing in any open spot of the castle might have heard now on the one now on the other side
renewed bursts of merriment ripple the air but as the still autumn night crept on the intervals between grew longer and longer until at length all sounds ceased and silence took up her ancient reign
in a time when such ludifications were not yet considered unsuitable to the dignity of the highest position than any other member of his household had through it all showed a countenance in which although eyes lips
and voice shared in the laughter there yet lurked a thoughtful doubt concerning the result for he knew that in some shape or other and that certainly not the true one the affair would be spread over the country
where now prejudice against the catholics was strong and dangerous in proportion to the unreason of those who cherished it now also it was becoming pretty plain that except the king yielded every prerogative
and became the puppet which the mingled pride and apprehension of the parliament would have him their differences must ere long be referred to the arbitration of the sword in which case there was no shadow of doubt in the mind of the earl
as to the part befitting a peer of the realm the king was a protestant but no less the king and not this man but his parents had sinned in forsaking the church of which sin their offspring had now to bear the penalty
reaping the whirlwind sprung from the stormy seeds by them sown for what were the puritans but the lawfully begotten children of the so called reformation whose spirit they inherited and in whose footsteps they so closely followed
fail or speed in any result so long as his castle held together it should stand for the king faithful catholic as he was the brave old man was english to the backbone and there was no time to lose
this visit of search let it have originated how it might and be as despicable in itself as it was ludicrous in its result showed but too clearly how strong the current of popular feeling was setting against all the mounds of social distinction
and not kingly prerogative alone what preparations might be needful must be prudent that same night then long after the rest of the household had retired three men took advantage of a fine half moon
to make a circuit of the castle first along the counterscarp of the moat and next along all accessible portions of the walls and battlements they halted often and with much observation of the defences held earnest talk together
the only person in the castle who had gone to neither window nor door to delight himself with the discomfiture of the parliamentary commissioners they entered the long picture gallery faintly lighted from its large windows to the court
but chiefly from the oriel which formed the northern end of it where they now sat down the earl being for the second time that night weary behind them was a long dim line of portraits
broken only by the great chimney piece supported by human figures all of carved stone and before them nearly as dim was the moon massed landscape a lovely view of the woodland pasture
and red tilth to the northward of the castle they sat silent for a while and the younger said
it is late for you to be out of bed nature is mortal thou sayest well nature is mortal my son but therein lies the comfort it cannot last
it were hard to say whether of the two houses stands the more in need of the hand of the maker were it not for villanous saltpetre my lord the castle would hold out well enough
i fear said his son wishing to change the subject this part where we now are is the most liable to hurt from artillery yes
with your lordship's good counsel to guide us you shall lack nothing herbert that either counsel or purse of mine may reach unto i thank your lordship for much depends upon both
and so i fear will his majesty find if it conies to the worst a brief pause followed thinkest thou not herbert said the earl slowly and thoughtfully it ill suits that a subject should have
and to spare and his liege go begging my father is pleased to say so i am but evil pleased to say so bethink thee son what man can be pleased to part with his money
i must be rich for him thou wilt not accuse me herbert after i am gone to the rest that i wasted thy substance lad so long as you still keep wherewithal to give
have bosomed no secrets i will to bed we must go the round again to morrow with the sun to hold as a candle the next day the same party made a similar circuit three times
whether a thing is lying under the shadow of another or casting one of its own after this came a review of the outer fortifications if indeed they were worthy of the name enclosing the gardens the old tilting yard
now used as a bowling green the home farmyard and other such outlying portions under the stewardship of sir ralph blackstone and the governorship of charles somerset the earl's youngest son it was here that the most was wanted
and the next few days were chiefly spent in surveying these works and drawing plans for their extension strengthening and connection especially about the stables armourer's shop and smithy
where the building of new defences was almost immediately set on foot a thorough examination of the machinery of the various portcullises and drawbridges followed
then came an inspection of the ordnance from cannons down to drakes through a gradation of names as uncouth to our ears and as unknown to the artillery descended from them as many of the christian names of the puritans are
to their descendants of the present day at length to conclude the inspection lord herbert and the master of the armoury held consultation with the head armourer and the mighty accumulation of weapons of all sorts was passed under the most rigid scrutiny
many of them were sent to the forge and others carried to the ground floor of the keep presently things began to look busy in a quiet way about the place men were at work blasting the rocks in a quarry not far off
whence laden carts went creeping to the castle but this was oftener in the night some of them drove into the paved court for here and there a buttress was wanted inside and of the battlements not a few were weather beaten and out of repair
these the earl would have let alone on the ground that they were no longer more than ornamental and therefore had better be repaired after the siege if such should befall for the big guns would knock them about like cards but caspar reminded him
when struck was a more than counterbalancing danger the stock of provisions began to increase the dry larder which lay under the court between the kitchen and buttery was by degrees filled with gammons and flitches of bacon
well dried and smoked wheat barley oats and pease were stored in the granary and potatoes in a pit dug in the orchard strange faces in the guard room caused wonderings and questions amongst the women
the undulating and silent well and rippling rivulet and evening gloom now deepening the dark shades for speech assuming held commune with him as if he and it were all that was
shelley's alastor i awoke one morning with the usual perplexity of mind which accompanies the return of consciousness as i lay and looked through the eastern window of my room
a faint streak of peach colour dividing a cloud that just rose above the low swell of the horizon announced the approach of the sun as my thoughts which a deep and apparently dreamless sleep had dissolved began again
to assume crystalline forms the strange events of the foregoing night presented themselves anew to my wondering consciousness the day before had been my one and twentieth birthday among other ceremonies investing me with my legal rights
the keys of an old secretary in which my father had kept his private papers had been delivered up to me as soon as i was left alone i ordered lights in the chamber where the secretary stood the first lights that had been there for many a year
for since my father's death the room had been left undisturbed but as if the darkness had been too long an inmate to be easily expelled and had dyed with blackness the walls to which bat like it had clung
these tapers served but ill to light up the gloomy hangings and seemed to throw yet darker shadows into the hollows of the deep wrought cornice all the further portions of the room lay shrouded in a mystery
whose deepest folds were gathered around the dark oak cabinet which i now approached with a strange mingling of reverence and curiosity perhaps like a geologist i was about to turn up to the light some of the buried strata
of the human world with its fossil remains charred by passion and petrified by tears perhaps i was to learn how my father whose personal history was unknown to me had woven his web of story how he had found the world
and how the world had left him perhaps i was to find only the records of lands and moneys how gotten and how secured coming down from strange men and through troublous times to me who knew little or nothing of them all
drew near it a heavy high backed chair and sat down before a multitude of little drawers and slides and pigeon holes but the door of a little cupboard in the centre especially attracted my interest as if there lay the secret of this long hidden world
the outer ones reaching to the back of the desk i concluded that there must be some accessible space behind and found indeed that they were formed in a separate framework which admitted of the whole being pulled out in one piece behind
i pressed this repeatedly and hard with the point of an old tool that was lying near till at length it yielded inwards and the little slide flying up suddenly disclosed a chamber empty
except that in one corner lay a little heap of withered rose leaves whose long lived scent had long since departed and in another a small packet of papers tied with a bit of ribbon
almost fearing to touch them they witnessed so mutely to the law of oblivion i leaned back in my chair and regarded them for a moment when suddenly there stood on the threshold of the little chamber as though she had just emerged from its depth
a tiny woman form as perfect in shape as if she had been a small greek statuette roused to life and motion her dress was of a kind that could never grow old fashioned because it was simply natural
a robe plaited in a band around the neck and confined by a belt about the waist descended to her feet it was only afterwards however that i took notice of her dress although my surprise was by no means of so overpowering a degree
as such an apparition might naturally be expected to excite seeing however as i suppose some astonishment in my countenance she came forward within a yard of me and said in a voice that strangely recalled a sensation of twilight
that is always the way with you men you believe nothing the first time and it is foolish enough to let mere repetition convince you of what you consider in itself unbelievable i am not going to argue with you however but to grant you a wish
here i could not help interrupting her with the foolish speech of which however i had no cause to repent how can such a very little creature as you grant or refuse anything
i suppose your six foot lordship does not feel altogether insignificant though to others you do look small beside your old uncle ralph who rises above you a great half foot at least but size is of so little consequence with old me
and drawn towards her by an attraction irresistible as incomprehensible i suppose i stretched out my arms towards her for she drew back a step or two and said foolish boy if you could touch me i should hurt you
besides i was two hundred and thirty seven years old last midsummer eve and a man must not fall in love with his grandmother you know but you are not my grandmother said i how do you know that she retorted
i dare say you know something of your great grandfathers a good deal further back than that but you know very little about your great grandmothers on either side now to the point
she was when she had finished she said as she closed the book is there a fairy country brother you replied with a sigh i suppose there is if one could find the way into it
i did but i meant something quite different from what you seem to think never mind what i seem to think you shall find the way into fairy land to morrow now look in my eyes eagerly i did so
they filled me with an unknown longing i remembered somehow that my mother died when i was a baby i looked deeper and deeper till they spread around me like seas and i sank in their waters i forgot all the rest till i found myself at the window
whose gloomy curtains were withdrawn and where i stood gazing on a whole heaven of stars small and sparkling in the moonlight below lay a sea still as death and hoary in the moon sweeping into bays and around capes
and islands away away i knew not whither alas it was no sea but a low bog burnished by the moon surely there is such a sea somewhere said i to myself
a low sweet voice beside me replied in fairy land anodos i turned but saw no one i closed the secretary and went to my own room and to bed
man doth usurp all space stares thee in rock bush river in the face never thine eyes behold a tree tis no sea thou seest in the sea tis but a disguised humanity
to avoid thy fellow vain thy plan all that interests a man is man henry sutton the trees which were far apart where i entered
closed rapidly as i advanced so that ere long their crowded stems barred the sunlight out forming as it were a thick grating between me and the east i seemed to be advancing towards a second midnight
in the midst of the intervening twilight however before i entered what appeared to be the darkest portion of the forest i saw a country maiden coming towards me from its very depths she did not seem to observe me for she was apparently intent upon a bunch of wild flowers
which she carried in her hand i could hardly see her face for though she came direct towards me she never looked up but when we met instead of passing she turned and walked alongside of me for a few yards still keeping her face downwards
trust the oak said she trust the oak and the elm and the great beech take care of the birch for though she is honest she is too young not to be changeable but shun the ash and the alder for the ash is an ogre
walking still with the same unchanging gait i could not conjecture what she meant but satisfied myself with thinking
when there was need to make use of her warning and that the occasion would reveal the admonition i concluded from the flowers that she carried that the forest could not be everywhere so dense as it appeared from where i was now walking and i was right in this conclusion
for soon i came to a more open part and by and by crossed a wide grassy glade on which were several circles of brighter green but even here i was struck with the utter stillness no bird sang no insect hummed
not a living creature crossed my way yet somehow the whole environment seemed only asleep and to wear even in sleep an air of expectation the trees seemed all to have an expression of conscious mystery as if they said to themselves
we could an if we would they had all a meaning look about them then i remembered that night is the fairies day and the moon their sun and i thought everything sleeps and dreams now when the night comes it will be different
at the same time i being a man and a child of the day felt some anxiety as to how i should fare among the elves and other children of the night who wake when mortals dream and find their common life
in those wondrous hours that flow noiselessly over the moveless death like forms of men and women and children lying strewn and parted beneath the weight of the heavy waves of night which flow on and beat them down and hold them drowned and senseless
until the ebbtide comes and the waves sink away back into the ocean of the dark but i took courage and went on soon however i became again anxious though from another cause i had eaten nothing that day
and for an hour past had been feeling the want of food so i grew afraid lest i should find nothing to meet my human necessities in this strange place but once more i comforted myself with hope and went on
before noon i fancied i saw a thin blue smoke rising amongst the stems of larger trees in front of me and soon i came to an open spot of ground in which stood a little cottage so built that the stems of four great trees formed its corners
while their branches met and intertwined over its roof heaping a great cloud of leaves over it up towards the heavens i wondered at finding a human dwelling in this neighbourhood and yet it did not look altogether human
though sufficiently so to encourage me to expect to find some sort of food seeing no door i went round to the other side and there i found one wide open a woman sat beside it preparing some vegetables for dinner this was homely and comforting
as i came near she looked up and seeing me showed no surprise but bent her head again over her work and said in a low tone did you see my daughter i believe i did said i can you give me something to eat for i am very hungry
for the ash is watching us having said this she rose and led the way into the cottage which i now saw was built of the stems of small trees set closely together and was furnished with rough chairs and tables from which even the bark had not been removed
as soon as she had shut the door and set a chair you have fairy blood in you said she looking hard at me how do you know that you could not have got so far into this wood if it were not so
i think i see it what do you see oh never mind i may be mistaken in that but how then do you come to live here because i too have fairy blood in me here i in my turn looked hard at her and thought i could perceive
notwithstanding the coarseness of her features and especially the heaviness of her eyebrows a something unusual i could hardly call it grace and yet it was an expression that strangely contrasted with the form of her features i noticed too that her hands were delicately formed
i should be ill she continued if i did not live on the borders of the fairies country and now and then eat of their food and i see by your eyes that you are not quite free of the same need
she rose and looked out of the little window my eyes followed her but as the window was too small to allow anything to be seen from where i was sitting i rose and looked over her shoulder i had just time to see across the open space on the edge of the denser forest
in general said she recovering her composure there is no danger in the daytime for then he is sound asleep but there is something unusual going on in the woods there must be some solemnity among the fairies to night
for all the trees are restless and although they cannot come awake they see and hear in their sleep but what danger is to be dreaded from him instead of answering the question she went again to the window and looked out
saying she feared the fairies would be interrupted by foul weather for a storm was brewing in the west and the sooner it grows dark the sooner the ash will be awake added she i asked her how she knew that there was any unusual excitement in the woods
she replied besides the look of the trees the dog there is unhappy and the eyes and ears of the white rabbit are redder than usual and he frisks about as if he expected some fun if the cat were at home she would have her back up
said the woman but what of the ash tree said i returning once more to the subject here however the young woman whom i had met in the morning entered a smile passed between the mother and daughter
and then the latter began to help her mother in little household duties i should like to stay here till the evening i said and then go on my journey if you will allow me you are welcome to do as you please only it might be better to stay all night than risk the dangers of the wood then
nay that i do not know i replied but i wish to see all that is to be seen and therefore i should like to start just at sundown you are a bold youth if you have any idea of what you are daring but a rash one if you know nothing about it and excuse me
you do not seem very well informed about the country and its manners however no one comes here but for some reason either known to himself or to those who have charge of him
accordingly i sat down and feeling rather tired and disinclined for further talk i asked leave to look at the old book which still screened the window the woman brought it to me directly
but not before taking another look towards the forest and then drawing a white blind over the window i sat down opposite to it by the table on which i laid the great old volume and read it contained many wondrous tales of fairy land and olden times
and the knights of king arthur's table i read on and on till the shades of the afternoon began to deepen for in the midst of the forest it gloomed earlier than in the open country at length i came to this passage
here it chanced that upon their quest sir galahad and sir percivale rencountered in the depths of a great forest now sir galahad was dight all in harness of silver clear and shining the which is a delight to look upon
but full hasty to tarnish and withouten the labour of a ready squire uneath to be kept fair and clean and yet withouten squire or page sir galahad's armour shone like the moon and he rode a great white mare whose bases and other housings were black
but all besprent with fair lilys of silver sheen whereas sir percivale bestrode a red horse with a tawny mane and tail whose trappings were all to smirched with mud and mire and his armour was wondrous rosty to behold
ne could he by any art furbish it again so that as the sun in his going down shone twixt the bare trunks of the trees full upon the knights twain the one did seem all shining with light and the other all to glow with ruddy fire
so that it was much wider across the fingers than across the undivided part of the hand passed slowly over the little blind and then as slowly returned in the opposite direction he is almost awake mother and greedier than usual to night
for you do not know how soon something may happen to oblige us to be in the forest after nightfall but you are in the forest said i how is it that you are safe here he dares not come nearer than he is now she replied
for any of those four oaks at the corners of our cottage would tear him to pieces they are our friends but he stands there and makes awful faces at us sometimes and stretches out his long arms and fingers and tries to kill us with fright
but we shall soon see whether you can discern the fairies in my little garden and that will be some guide to us are the trees fairies too as well as the flowers i asked they are of the same race she replied
though those you call fairies in your country are chiefly the young children of the flower fairies they are very fond of having fun with the thick people as they call you for like most children they like fun better than anything else why do you have flowers so near you then
do they not annoy you oh no they are very amusing with their mimicries of grown people and mock solemnities sometimes they will act a whole play through before my eyes with perfect composure and assurance for they are not afraid of me
only as soon as they have done they burst into peals of tiny laughter as if it was such a joke to have been serious over anything these i speak of however are the fairies of the garden
and very little of manners now and then however they are compelled to envy the grace and simplicity of the natural flowers do they live in the flowers i said i cannot tell she replied
sometimes they disappear altogether even from me though i know they are near they seem to die always with the flowers they resemble and by whose names they are called but whether they return to life with the fresh flowers or whether it be new flowers new fairies i cannot tell
they have as many sorts of dispositions as men and women while their moods are yet more variable twenty different expressions will cross their little faces in half a minute i often amuse myself with watching them
if i speak to one he or she looks up in my face as if i were not worth heeding gives a little laugh and runs away here the woman started as if suddenly recollecting herself and said in a low voice to her daughter make haste go and watch him and see in what direction he goes
that the flowers die because the fairies go away not that the fairies disappear because the flowers die the flowers seem a sort of houses for them or outer bodies which they can put on or off when they please
just as you could form some idea of the nature of a man from the kind of house he built if he followed his own taste so you could without seeing the fairies tell what any one of them is like by looking at the flower till you feel that you understand it for just what the flower says to you
yet you would see a strange resemblance almost oneness between the flower and the fairy
whether all the flowers have fairies i cannot determine any more than i can be sure whether all men and women have souls the woman and i continued the conversation for a few minutes longer
i was much interested by the information she gave me and astonished at the language in which she was able to convey it it seemed that intercourse with the fairies was no bad education in itself but now the daughter returned with the news
that the ash had just gone away in a south westerly direction and as my course seemed to lie eastward she hoped i should be in no danger of meeting him if i departed at once i looked out of the little window and there stood the ash tree to my eyes the same as before
but i believed that they knew better than i did and prepared to go i pulled out my purse but to my dismay there was nothing in it the woman with a smile begged me not to trouble myself for money was not of the slightest use there
for nothing offended them so much they would think she added that you were making game of them and that is their peculiar privilege with regard to us
from the cups or bells of tall flowers as from balconies some looked down on the masses below now bursting with laughter now grave as owls but even in their deepest solemnity seeming only to be waiting for the arrival of the next laugh
some were launched on a little marshy stream at the bottom in boats chosen from the heaps of last year's leaves that lay about curled and withered these soon sank with them whereupon they swam ashore and got others
those who took fresh rose leaves for their boats floated the longest but for these they had to fight for the fairy of the rose tree complained bitterly that they were stealing her clothes and defended her property bravely you can't wear half you've got said some
never you mind i don't choose you to have them they are my property all for the good of the community said one and ran off with a great hollow leaf but the rose fairy sprang after him what a beauty she was only too like a drawing room young lady
knocked him heels over head as he ran and recovered her great red leaf but in the meantime twenty had hurried off in different directions with others just as good
sent a perfect pink snowstorm of petals from her tree leaping from branch to branch and stamping and shaking and pulling at last after another good cry she chose the biggest she could find and ran away laughing to launch her boat amongst the rest
sister snowdrop died before we were born
what is snow never tried do not know who told you about her little primrose there cannot do without her oh so sweetly fair never fear she will come primrose dear is she dumb
she'll come by and by you will never see her she went home to dies till the new year snowdrop tis no good to invite her primrose is very rude i will bite her oh you naughty pocket
look she drops her head she deserved it rocket and she was nearly dead to your hammock off with you and swing alone no one will laugh with you no not one now let us moan
now she is done that was the duty now for the fun and with a wild laugh they sprang away most of them towards the cottage during the latter part of the song talk they had formed themselves into a funeral procession two of them bearing poor primrose
who had been expelled from the company by common consent went sulkily away towards her hammock for she was the fairy of the calceolaria and looked rather wicked when she reached its stem she stopped and looked round i could not help speaking to her for i stood near her i said pocket
the furious cat was held fast and they proceeded to pick the sparks out of her with thorns and pins which they handled like harpoons indeed there were more instruments at work about her than there could have been sparks in her one little fellow who held on hard by the tip of the tail
with his feet planted on the ground at an angle of forty five degrees helping to keep her fast administered a continuous flow of admonitions to pussy now pussy be patient you know quite well it is all for your good you cannot be comfortable with all those sparks in you
and indeed i am charitably disposed to believe here he became very pompous that they are the cause of all your bad temper so we must have them all out every one else we shall be reduced to the painful necessity of cutting your claws and pulling out your eye teeth
quiet pussy quiet but with a perfect hurricane of feline curses the poor animal broke loose and dashed across the garden and through the hedge faster than even the fairies could follow never mind never mind we shall find her again
hooray and off they set after some new mischief but i will not linger to enlarge on the amusing display of these frolicsome creatures their manners and habits are now so well known to the world having been so often described by eyewitnesses
i cannot help wishing however that my readers could see them for themselves
a little chubby round eyed child with such innocent trust in his look even the most mischievous of the fairies would not tease him although he did not belong to their set at all but was quite a little country bumpkin
he wandered about alone and looked at everything with his hands in his little pockets and a white night cap on the darling
and satan stood a while as mute confounded what to say what to reply confuted and convinced of his weak arguing and fallacious drift at length collecting all his serpent wiles
with soothing words renewed him thus accosts
what best to say canst say to do canst do thy actions to thy words accord thy words to thy large heart give utterance due
should kings and nations from thy mouth consult thy counsel would be as the oracle urim and thummim those oraculous gems on aaron's breast or tongue of seers old infallible or
wert thou sought to deeds that might require the array of war thy skill of conduct would be such that all the world could not sustain thy prowess or subsist in battle
affecting private life or more obscure in savage wilderness wherefore deprive all earth her wonder at thy acts thyself the fame and glory glory the reward
that sole excites to high attempts the flame of most erected spirits
who all pleasures else despise all treasures and all gain esteem as dross
the son of macedonian philip had ere these won asia and the throne of cyrus held at his dispose young scipio had brought down the carthaginian pride
yet years and to ripe years judgment mature quench not the thirst of glory but augment great julius whom now all the world admires
wept that he had lived so long ingloroious
to whom our saviour calmly thus replied thou neither dost persuade me to seek wealth for empire's sake nor empire to affect for glory's sake by all thy argument
for what is glory but the blaze of fame the people's praise if always praise unmixed and what the people but a herd confused
and well weighed scarce worth the praise they praise and they admire they know not what and know not whom but as one leads the other and what delight to be by such extolled
to live upon their tongues and be their talk of whom to be dispraised were no small praise
the intelligent among them and the wise are few and glory scarce of few is raised
and divulges him through heaven to all his angels who with true applause recount his praises thus he did to job when to extend his fame through heaven and earth
he asked thee hast thou seen my servant job famous he was in heaven on earth less known where glory is false glory attributed to things not glorious
to overrun large countries and in field great battles win great cities by assault what do these worthies but rob and spoil burn slaughter and enslave peaceable nations neighbouring or remote
made captive yet deserving freedom more than those their conquerors
great benefactors of mankind deliverers worshipped with temple priest and sacrifice one is the son of jove of mars the other till conqueror death discover them scarce men
rowling in brutish vices and deformed violent or shameful death their due reward but if there be in glory aught of good
by patience temperance i mention still him whom thy wrongs with saintly patience borne made famous in a land and times obscure who names not now with honour patient job poor socrates who next more memorable
by what he taught and suffered for so doing for truth's sake suffering death unjust lives now equal in fame to proudest conquerors
if young african for fame his wasted country freed from punic rage the deed becomes unpraised the man at least and loses though but verbal his reward
shall i seek glory then as vain men seek oft not deserved i seek not mine but his who sent me and thereby witness whence i am
to whom the tempter murmuring thus replied think not so slight of glory therein least resembling thy great father
nor content in heaven by all his angels glorified requires glory from men
wise or unwise no difference no exemption above all sacrifice or hallowed gift glory he requires and glory he receives
and reason since his word all things produced though chiefly not for glory as prime end but to shew forth his goodness
of whom what could he less expect than glory and benediction that is thanks the slightest easiest readiest recompense from them who could return him nothing else and not returning that
dishonour obloquy hard recompense unsuitable return for so much good so much beneficience but why should man seek glory who of his own hath nothing and to whom nothing belongs but condemnation ignominy
and shame who for so many benefits received turned recreant to god ingrate and false and so of all true good himself despoiled yet sacrilegious
of right belongs yet so much bounty is in god such grace that who advances his glory not their own them he himself to glory will advance so spake the son of god and here again
satan had not to answer but stood struck with guilt of his own sin for he himself insatiable of glory had lost all yet of another plea bethought him soon
of glory as thou wilt said he so deem
but to a kingdom thou art born ordained to sit upon thy father david's throne by mother's side thy father
judaea now and all the promised land reduced a province under roman yoke obeys tiberius nor is always ruled with temperate sway
so did not machabeus he indeed retired unto the desert but with arms
and david's throne usurped
let move thee zeal and duty zeal and duty are not slow but on occasion's forelock watchful wait they themselves rather are occasion best zeal of thy father's house
duty to free thy country from her heathen servitude so shalt thou best fulfil best verify the prophets old who sung thy endless reign the happier reign the sooner it begins rein then
answer thus returned all things are best fulfilled in their due time and time there is for all things truth hath said if of my reign prophetic writ hath told that it shall never end
so when begin the father in his purpose hath decreed he in whose hand all times and seasons rowl what if he hath decreed that i shall first be tried in humble state
and violence suffering abstaining quietly expecting without distrust or doubt that he may know what i can suffer how obey who best can suffer best can do best reign who first well hath obeyed
just trial ere i merit my exaltation without change or end but what concerns it thee when i begin my everlasting kingdom why art thou solicitous
and my promotion will be thy destruction to whom the tempter inly racked replied let that come when it comes all hope is lost of my reception into grace what worse
if there be worse the expectation more of worse torments me than the feeling can i would be at the worst
if i then to the worst that can be haste why move thy feet so slow to what is best happiest both to thyself and all the world that thou who worthiest art shouldst be their king
perhaps thou linger'st in deep thoughts detained of the enterprise so hazardous and high no wonder
consider thy life hath yet been private most part spent at home
and what thence couldst thou observe the world thou hast not seen much less her glory empires and monarchs and their radiant courts best school of best experience quickest in sight in all things
that to greatest actions lead the wisest
as he who seeking asses found a kingdom irresolute unhardy unadventrous
but i will bring thee where thou soon shalt quit those rudiments and see before thine eyes the monarchies of the earth their pomp and state sufficient introduction to inform thee of thyself so apt in regal arts and regal mysteries
him then he took the son of god up to a mountain high it was a mountain at whose verdant feet a spacious plain outstretched in circuit wide lay pleasant from his side two rivers flowed the one winding the other straight
and left between fair champaign
then meeting joined their tribute to the sea fertil of corn the glebe of oil and wine
and so large the prospect was that here and there was room for barren desert
to this high mountain top the tempter brought our saviour and new train of words began
here thou behold'st assyria
thence on as far as indus east euphrates west and oft beyond to south the persian bay and inaccessible the arabian drouth here nineveh of length within her wall several days journey built by ninus old
the seat and seat of salmanassar whose success israel in long captivity still mourns
and all thy father david's house led captive and jerusalem laid waste till cyrus set them free persepolis his city there thou seest and bactra there
whose incursions wild have wasted sogdiana to her aid he marches now in haste see though from far his thousands in what martial equipage they issue forth steel bows and shafts their arms of equal dread in flight or in pursuit
all horsemen in which fight they most excel see how in warlike muster they appear in rhombs and wedges and half moons and wings he looked
in mail their horses clad yet fleet and strong prauncing their riders bore the flower and choice of many provinces from bound to bound from arachosia from candaor east
and dark iberian dales from atropatia
to balsara's haven he saw them in their forms of battle ranged how quick they wheeled and flying behind them shot
and overcame by flight the field all iron cast a gleaming brown
chariots or elephants indorsed with towers of archers
and axes armed to lay hills plain fell woods or valleys fill
with bridges rivers proud as with a yoke mules after these camels and dromedaries and waggons fraught with utensils of war such forces met not nor so wide a camp when agrican
with all his northern powers besieged albracea as romances tell the city of gallaphrone
his daughter sought by many prowest knights both paynim and the peers of charlemane such and so numerous was their chivalry at sight whereof the fiend yet more presumed and to our saviour thus his words renewed
to what end i have brought thee hither
thy kingdom though foretold by prophet or by angel unless thou endeavour as thy father david did thou never shalt obtain
without means used what it predicts revokes but say thou wert possessed of david's throne by free consent of all none opposite samaritan or jew
therefore one of these thou must make sure thy own the parthian first by my advice as nearer and of late found able by invasion to annoy thy country and captive lead away her kings
maugre the roman it shall be my task to render thee the parthian at dispose
that which alone can truly reinstall thee in david's royal seat his true successor deliverance of thy brethren those ten tribes whose offspring in his territory yet serve in habor
the sons of jacob two of joseph lost thus long from israel serving as of old their fathers in the land of egypt served
nor till then thou on the throne of david in full glory
to whom our saviour answered thus unmoved much ostentation vain of fleshly arm and fragile arms much instrument of war long in preparing soon to nothing brought
before mine eyes thou hast set
plausible to the world to me worth naught means i must use thou say'st prediction else will unpredict and fail me of the throne my time i told thee and that
time for thee were better farthest off is not yet come when that comes think not thou to find me slack on my part aught endeavouring
argument of human weakness rather than of strength
those ten tribes i must deliver if i mean to reign david's true heir and his full sceptre sway to just extent over all israel's sons but whence to thee this zeal
where was it then for israel or for david or his throne when thou stood'st up his tempter to the pride of numbering israel
the same that now to me as for those captive tribes themselves were they who wrought their own captivity fell off from god to worship calves the deities of egypt
and all the idolatries of heathen round besides their other worse than heathenish crimes
but so died impenitent and left a race behind like to themselves distinguishable scarce from gentiles but by circumcision vain and god with idols in their worship joined
should i of these the liberty regard who freed as to their ancient patrimony unhumbled unrepentant unreformed headlong would follow
no let them serve their enemies who serve idols with god yet he at length
remembering abraham by some wondrous call may bring them back repentant and sincere and at their passing cleave the assyrian flood while to their native land with joy they haste
as the red sea and jordan once he cleft when to the promised land their fathers passed
and to the fiend made answer meet that made void all his wiles
the twelfth chapter
polynesia then slipped out at the back of the tree and flew across to the prison she found gub gub poking his nose through the bars of the window
trying to sniff the cooking smells that came from the palace kitchen she told the pig to bring the doctor to the window because she wanted to speak to him so gub gub went and woke the doctor
who was taking a nap listen whispered the parrot when john dolittle's face appeared prince bumpo is coming here to night to see you
to turn him white but be sure to make him promise you first that he will open the prison door and find a ship for you to cross the sea in this is all very well said the doctor
but it isn't so easy to turn a black man white you speak as though he were a dress to be re dyed it's not so simple shall the leopard change his spots or the ethiopian his skin
you know i don't know anything about that said polynesia impatiently but you must
you've got plenty of medicines left in the bag he'll do anything for you if you change his color it is your only chance to get out of prison well
i suppose it might be possible said the doctor let me see and he went over to his medicine bag murmuring something about liberated chlorine on animal pigment
spread thick well that night prince bumpo came secretly to the doctor in prison and said to him white man i am an unhappy prince years ago
i went in search of the sleeping beauty whom i had read of in a book and having traveled through the world many days i at last found her
to awaken her as the book said i should tis true indeed that she awoke but when she saw my face she cried out oh he's black and she ran away and wouldn't marry me
but went to sleep again somewhere else so i came back full of sadness to my father's kingdom
so i come to you for help if you will turn me white so that i may go back to the sleeping beauty i will give you half my kingdom and anything besides you ask prince bumpo
said the doctor looking thoughtfully at the bottles in his medicine bag supposing i made your hair a nice blonde color would not that do instead to make you happy no said bumpo
i must be a white prince you know it is very hard to change the color of a prince said the doctor one of the hardest things a magician can do
said the doctor quickly well i will do what i can for you you will have to be very patient though you know with some medicines you can never be very sure i might have to try two or three times
well that's all right now come over here by the light oh but before i do anything you must first go down to the beach and get a ship ready with food in it to take me across the sea
do not speak a word of this to any one and when i have done as you ask you must let me and all my animals out of prison promise by the crown of jolliginki
so the prince promised and went away to get a ship ready at the seashore when he came back and said that it was done the doctor asked dab dab
to bring a basin then he mixed a lot of medicines in the basin and told bumpo to dip his face in it the prince leaned down and put his face in
right up to the ears he held it there a long time so long that the doctor seemed to get dreadfully anxious and fidgety standing first on one leg and then on the other
looking at all the bottles he had used for the mixture and reading the labels on them again and again a strong smell filled the prison like the smell of brown paper burning at last
the prince lifted his face up out of the basin breathing very hard and all the animals cried out in surprise for the prince's face had turned as white as snow
but the doctor asked him not to make so much noise about it and when he had closed his medicine bag in a hurry he told him to open the prison door
bumpo begged that he might keep the looking glass as it was the only one in the kingdom of jolliginki and he wanted to look at himself all day long but the doctor said
he needed it to shave with then the prince taking a bunch of copper keys from his pocket undid the great double locks and the doctor with all his animals
ran as fast as they could down to the seashore while bumpo leaned against the wall of the empty dungeon smiling after them happily his big face shining like polished ivory in the light of the moon
when they came to the beach they saw polynesia and chee chee waiting for them on the rocks near the ship i feel sorry about bumpo said the doctor
most likely he will be as black as ever when he wakes up in the morning that's one reason why i didn't like to leave the mirror with him but then again he might stay white i had never used that mixture before
to tell the truth i was surprised myself that it worked so well but i had to do something didn't i i couldn't possibly scrub the king's kitchen for the rest of my life it was such a dirty kitchen
his father who had us locked up it wasn't bumpo's fault i wonder if i ought to go back and apologize oh well
and who knows he may stay white after all the sleeping beauty would never have him even if he did said dab dab he looked better the way he was i thought but he'd never be anything but ugly
no matter what color he was made still he had a good heart said the doctor romantic of course but a good heart after all handsome is as handsome does
i don't believe the poor booby found the sleeping beauty at all said jip the dog most likely he kissed some farmer's fat wife who was taking a snooze under an apple tree
can't blame her for getting scared i wonder who he'll go and kiss this time silly business then the pushmi pullyu the white mouse gub gub dab dab
jip and the owl too too went on to the ship with the doctor but chee chee polynesia and the crocodile stayed behind because africa was their proper home
the land where they were born and when the doctor stood upon the boat he looked over the side across the water and then he remembered
the wide wide sea looked terribly big and lonesome in the moonlight and he began to wonder if they would lose their way when they passed out of sight of land
but even while he was wondering they heard a strange whispering noise high in the air coming through the night and the animals all stopped saying good by and listened
the noise grew louder and bigger it seemed to be coming nearer to them a sound like the autumn wind blowing through the leaves of a poplar tree or a great
they all looked up and there streaming across the face of the moon
that for a little they covered the whole moon so it could not shine and the sea grew dark and black like when a storm cloud passes over the sun
and presently all these birds came down close skimming over the water and the land and the night sky was left clear above and the moon shone as before
no sound but this great rustling of feathers which grew greater now than ever when they began to settle on the sands along the ropes of the ship
anywhere and everywhere except the trees the doctor could see that they had blue wings and white breasts and very short feathered legs
as soon as they had all found a place to sit suddenly there was no noise left anywhere all was quiet all was still and in the silent moonlight
i had no idea that we had been in africa so long it will be nearly summer when we get home for these are the swallows going back swallows i thank you for waiting for us
it is very thoughtful of you now we need not be afraid that we will lose our way upon the sea pull up the anchor and set the sail when the ship moved out upon the water
those who stayed behind chee chee polynesia and the crocodile grew terribly sad for never in their lives had they known any one they liked so well as doctor john dolittle
they still stood there upon the rocks
by the edge of the river they stopped and said farewell this took a long time because all those thousands of monkeys wanted to shake john dolittle by the hand
afterwards when the doctor and his pets were going on alone polynesia said we must tread softly and talk low as we go through the land of the jolliginki
if the king should hear us he will send his soldiers to catch us again for i am sure he is still very angry over the trick i played on him what i am wondering
said the doctor is where we are going to get another boat to go home in oh well perhaps we'll find one lying about on the beach that nobody is using never lift your foot
and while he was away the doctor and the rest of the animals
got lost in the deep woods they wandered around and around but could not find their way down to the seashore chee chee when he could not see them anywhere was terribly upset
he climbed high trees and looked out from the top branches to try and see the doctor's high hat he waved and shouted he called to all the animals by name but it was no use
they seemed to have disappeared altogether indeed they had lost their way very badly they had strayed a long way off the path and the jungle
was so thick with bushes and creepers and vines that sometimes they could hardly move at all and the doctor had to take out his pocket knife and cut his way along
they stumbled into wet boggy places they got all tangled up in thick convolvulus runners they scratched themselves on thorns and twice they nearly
lost the medicine bag in the under brush there seemed no end to their troubles and nowhere could they come upon a path at last
getting their clothes torn and their faces covered with mud they walked right into the king's back garden by mistake the king's men came running up at once and caught them
but polynesia flew into a tree in the garden without anybody seeing her and hid herself
so you are caught again this time you shall not escape take them all back to prison and put double locks on the door
shall scrub my kitchen floor for the rest of his life so the doctor and his pets were led back to prison and locked up and the doctor was told that in the morning
he must begin scrubbing the kitchen floor they were all very unhappy this is a great nuisance said the doctor
that poor sailor will think i've stolen his ship if i don't get home soon i wonder if those hinges are loose but the door was very strong and firmly locked
there seemed no chance of getting out then gub gub began to cry again all this time polynesia was still sitting in the tree in the palace garden
she was saying nothing and blinking her eyes this was always a very bad sign with polynesia whenever she said nothing and blinked her eyes
it meant that somebody had been making trouble and she was thinking out some way to put things right people who made trouble for polynesia or her friends
were nearly always sorry for it afterwards presently she spied chee chee swinging through the trees still looking for the doctor when chee chee saw her he came into her tree
and asked her what had become of him the doctor and all the animals have been caught by the king's men and locked up again whispered polynesia we lost our way in the jungle
and blundered into the palace garden by mistake but couldn't you guide them asked chee chee and he began to scold the parrot for letting them get lost while he was away looking for the cocoanuts
it was all that stupid pig's fault said polynesia he would keep running off the path hunting for ginger roots and i was kept so busy
catching him and bringing him back that i turned to the left instead of the right when we reached the swamp sh look there's prince bumpo coming into the garden he must not see us
don't move whatever you do and there sure enough was prince bumpo the king's son opening the garden gate he carried a book of fairy tales under his arm
he came strolling down the gravel walk humming a sad song till he reached a stone seat right under the tree where the parrot and the monkey were hiding then he lay down on the seat
and began reading the fairy stories to himself chee chee and polynesia watched him keeping very quiet and still
the king's son laid the book down and sighed a weary sigh if i were only a white prince said he with a dreamy far away look in his eyes then the parrot
talking in a small high voice like a little girl said aloud bumpo some one might turn thee into a white prince perchance the king's son
started up off the seat and looked all around what is this i hear he cried methought the sweet music of a fairy's silver voice
rang from yonder bower strange worthy prince said polynesia keeping very still so bumpo couldn't see her thou sayest winged
the queen of the fairies that speak to thee i am hiding in a rose bud oh tell me fairy queen cried bumpo clasping his hands in joy
there lies a famous wizard john dolittle by name many things he knows of medicine and magic and mighty deeds has he performed
go to him brave bumpo secretly when the sun has set and behold thou shalt be made the whitest prince that ever won fair lady
i have said enough
farewell farewell cried the prince a thousand thanks good tripsitinka and he sat down on the seat again with a smile upon his face
this coast is the seashore of the great desert it is a wild lonely place all sand and stones and it was here that the barbary pirates lived these pirates a bad lot of men
used to wait for sailors to be shipwrecked on their shores and often if they saw a boat passing they would come out in their fast sailing ships and chase it when they caught a boat
like this at sea they would steal everything on it and after they had taken the people off they would sink the ship and sail back to barbary singing songs and feeling proud of the mischief they had done
then they used to make the people they had caught write home to their friends for money and if the friends sent no money the pirates often threw the people into the sea
now one sunshiny day the doctor and dab dab were walking up and down on the ship for exercise a nice fresh wind was blowing the boat along and everybody was happy
i have a feeling it isn't a friendly ship i am afraid there is more trouble coming to us jip who was lying near taking a nap in the sun began to growl and talk in his sleep
i suppose he is said dab dab all dogs can smell in their sleep but what is he smelling asked the doctor there is no roast beef cooking on our ship no
said dab dab the roast beef must be on that other ship over there but that's ten miles away said the doctor he couldn't smell that far surely oh yes he could said dab dab
you ask him then jip still fast asleep began to growl again and his lip curled up angrily showing his clean white teeth i smell bad men
he growled the worst men i ever smelt i smell trouble i smell a fight six bad scoundrels fighting against one brave man i want to help him
woof oo woof then he barked loud and woke himself up with a surprised look on his face see cried dab dab that boat is nearer now
you can count its three big sails all red whoever it is they are coming after us i wonder who they are they are bad sailors said jip and their ship is very swift
and fetch me all the sails you see the dog hurried downstairs and dragged up every sail he could find but even when all these were put up on the masts to catch the wind
the boat did not go nearly as fast as the pirates' which kept coming on behind closer and closer this is a poor ship the prince gave us said gub gub the pig
the slowest he could find i should think might as well try to win a race in a soup tureen as hope to get away from them
in a swift ship and what should he do about it when the swallows heard this they all came down on to the doctor's ship and they told him to unravel some pieces of long rope
and make them into a lot of thin strings as quickly as he could then the ends of these strings were tied on to the front of the ship and the swallows took hold of the strings with their feet
and flew off pulling the boat along and although swallows are not very strong when only one or two are by themselves it is different when there are a great lot of them together
and there tied to the doctor's ship were a thousand strings and two thousand swallows were pulling on each string all terribly swift fliers
and in a moment the doctor found himself traveling so fast he had to hold his hat on with both hands for he felt as though the ship itself
and all the animals on the ship began to laugh and dance about in the rushing air for when they looked back at the pirates ship they could see that it was growing smaller now instead of bigger
were the inventors of automatic machines to be ranged according to the excellence of their devices for producing sound artistic torture
it should rather however be said the inventor of the particular form of man trap of which this found in the keeper's out house was a specimen for there were other shapes and other sizes instruments which if placed in a row beside one of the type disinterred by tim
would have worn the subordinate aspect of the bears wild boars or wolves in a travelling menagerie as compared with the leading lion or tiger in short though many varieties had been in use during those centuries which we are accustomed to look back upon
as the true and only period of merry england in the rural districts more especially and onward down to the third decade of the nineteenth century this model had borne the palm and had been most usually followed when the orchards and estates required new ones
there had been the toothless variety used by the softer hearted landlords quite contemptible in their clemency the jaws of these resembled the jaws of an old woman to whom time has left nothing but gums there were also the intermediate or half toothed sorts
probably devised by the middle natured squires or those under the influence of their wives two inches of mercy two inches of cruelty two inches of mere nip two inches of probe and so on
but only crushed the bone the sight of one of these gins when set produced a vivid impression that it was endowed with life it exhibited the combined aspects of a shark a crocodile and a scorpion each tooth
was in the form of a tapering spine two and a quarter inches long which when the jaws were closed stood in alternation from this side and from that when they were open the two halves formed a complete circle between two and three feet in diameter
the plate or treading place in the midst being about a foot square while from beneath extended in opposite directions the soul of the apparatus the pair of springs each one being of a stiffness to render necessary a lever
or the whole weight of the body when forcing it down there were men at this time still living at hintock who remembered when the gin and others like it were in use tim tangs's great uncle had endured a night of six hours in this very trap which lamed him for life
and afterwards coming back that way forgetful of what he had done walked into it himself the wound brought on lockjaw of which he died this event occurred during the thirties and by the year eighteen forty
the use of such implements was well nigh discontinued in the neighborhood
they by no means disappeared and in almost every village one could be found in some nook or corner as readily as this was found by tim it had indeed been a fearful amusement of tim and other hintock lads especially
those who had a dim sense of becoming renowned poachers when they reached their prime to drag out this trap from its hiding set it and throw it with billets of wood which were penetrated by the teeth to the depth of near an inch
as soon as he had examined the trap and found that the hinges and springs were still perfect he shouldered it without more ado and returned with his burden to his own garden passing on through the hedge to the path immediately outside the boundary
here by the help of a stout stake he set the trap and laid it carefully behind a bush while he went forward to reconnoitre as has been stated nobody passed this way for days together sometimes but there was just a possibility
that some other pedestrian than the one in request might arrive and it behooved tim to be careful as to the identity of his victim going about a hundred yards along the rising ground to the right he reached a ridge whereon a large and thick holly grew
beyond this for some distance the wood was more open and the course which fitzpiers must pursue to reach the point if he came to night was visible a long way forward for some time there was no sign of him or of anybody
out of the dim mid distance between the masses of brushwood on either hand and it enlarged and tim could hear the brushing of feet over the tufts of sour grass the airy gait revealed fitzpiers even before his exact outline could be seen
tim tangs turned about and ran down the opposite side of the hill till he was again at the head of his own garden it was the work of a few moments to drag out the man trap very gently that the plate might not be disturbed sufficiently to throw it to a space between a pair of young oaks
grew apart upward forming a v shaped opening between and being backed up by bushes left this as the only course for a foot passenger in it he laid the trap with the same gentleness of handling
locked the chain round one of the trees and finally slid back the guard which was placed to keep the gin from accidentally catching the arms of him who set it or to use the local and better word toiled it
having completed these arrangements tim sprang through the adjoining hedge of his father's garden ran down the path and softly entered the house obedient to his order suke had gone to bed and as soon as he had bolted the door
his object seemed to be to undress as soon as possible before however he had completed the operation a long cry resounded without penetrating but indescribable what's that
said suke starting up in bed sounds as if somebody had caught a hare in his gin
how be you going to wake at half past three else
tim stealthily opened the window and listened above the low harmonies produced by the instrumentation of the various species of trees around the premises he could hear the twitching of a chain from the spot whereon he had set the man trap
but further human sound there was none tim was puzzled
but if one why not more he soon ceased to essay an answer for hintock was dead to him already in half a dozen hours he would be out of its precincts for life on his way to the antipodes
there was no getting over that and ought she any longer to keep him at a distance his suave deference to her lightest whim on the question of his comings and goings when as her lawful husband he might show a little independence
was a trait in his character as unexpected as it was engaging if she had been his empress and he her thrall he could not have exhibited a more sensitive care to avoid intruding upon her against her will
reading it slowly through she became quite appalled at her recent off handedness when she rediscovered what awfully solemn promises she had made him at those
not so very long ago she became lost in long ponderings
might be bound by vows made without at the time a full recognition of their force that particular sentence beginning whom god hath joined together was a staggerer for a gentlewoman of strong devotional sentiment
she wondered whether god really did join them together before she had done deliberating the time of her engagement drew near and she went out of the house almost at the moment that tim tangs retired to his own
the position of things at that critical juncture was briefly as follows
of the upper end of tangs's garden fitzpiers was still advancing having now nearly reached the summit of the wood clothed ridge the path being the actual one which further on passed between the two young oaks
was arising a condition which he had not divined the emergence of grace as aforesaid from the upper corner of her father's garden with the view of meeting tim's intended victim midway between husband and wife was the diabolical trap silent
open ready
the very restraint that he was obliged to exercise upon himself so as not to kill the delicate bud of returning confidence fed his flame he walked so much more rapidly than grace that if they continued advancing as they had begun
he would reach the trap a good half minute before she could reach the same spot but here a new circumstance came in to escape the unpleasantness of being watched or listened to by lurkers naturally curious by reason of their strained relations they had arranged
that their meeting for to night should be at the holm tree on the ridge above named so soon accordingly
he stood still to await her he had not paused under the prickly foliage more than two minutes when he thought he heard a scream from the other side of the ridge fitzpiers wondered what it could mean but such wind as there was just now blew in an adverse direction
and his mood was light he set down the origin of the sound to one of the superstitious freaks or frolicsome scrimmages between sweethearts that still survived in hintock from old english times and waited on where he stood till ten minutes had passed
feeling then a little uneasy his mind reverted to the scream and he went forward over the summit and down the embowered incline
fitzpiers stumbled and all but fell stretching down his hand to ascertain the obstruction
and iron work that conveyed absolutely no explanatory idea to his mind at all it was but the work of a moment to strike a match and then he saw a sight which congealed his blood the man trap was thrown
and between its jaws was part of a woman's clothing a patterned silk skirt
skewering its tissue in a score of places he immediately recognized the skirt as that of one of his wife's gowns the gown that she had worn when she met him on the very last occasion
fitzpiers had often studied the effect of these instruments when examining the collection at hintock house and the conception instantly flashed through him that grace had been caught taken out mangled by some chance passer and carried home
some of her clothes being left behind in the difficulty of getting her free the shock of this conviction
was so great that he cried out like one in corporal agony and in his misery
of all the degrees and qualities of punishment that fitzpiers had undergone since his sins against grace first began not any even approximated in intensity to this oh my own my darling oh cruel heaven it is too much this
he cried writhing and rocking himself over the sorry accessaries of her he deplored the voice of his distress was sufficiently loud to be audible to any one who might have been there to hear it
right and left of the narrow pass between the oaks were dense bushes and now from behind these a female figure glided whose appearance even in the gloom was though graceful in outline noticeably strange
she was in white up to the waist and figured above she was in short grace his wife lacking the portion of her dress which the gin retained don't be grieved about me don't dear edgar she exclaimed rushing up and bending over him i am not hurt a bit
i was coming on to find you after i had released myself but i heard footsteps and i hid away
and i did not know who the person might be fitzpiers had sprung to his feet and his next act was no less unpremeditated by him than it was irresistible by her and would have been so by any woman not of amazonian strength
you are not dead you are not hurt thank god thank god he said almost sobbing in his delight and relief from the horror of his apprehension grace my wife my love how is this what has happened i was coming on to you she said
i was trying to be as punctual as possible
fortunately for myself just when i had passed between these trees i felt something clutch at my dress from behind with a noise and the next moment i was pulled backward by it and fell to the ground i screamed with terror thinking it was a man lying down there to murder me
but the next moment i discovered it was iron and that my clothes were caught in a trap i pulled this way and that but the thing would not let go
and i did not know what to do i did not want to alarm my father or anybody as i wished nobody to know of these meetings with you so i could think of no other plan than slipping off my skirt
but when i had just freed myself by leaving the dress behind i heard steps and not being sure it was you i did not like to be seen in such a pickle so i hid away
or yours if you had got here first said she beginning to realize the whole ghastliness of the possibility oh edgar
and we should be thankful indeed he continued to press his face to hers you are mine mine again now she gently owned that she supposed she was i heard what you said when you thought i was injured she went on shyly
and i know that a man who could suffer as you were suffering must have a tender regard for me but how does this awful thing come here
and it was not until grace said if i could only get my skirt out nobody would know anything about it that he bestirred himself
across the jaws a billet which they dragged from a faggot near at hand and it was then possible to extract the silk mouthful from the monster's bite creased and pierced with many holes but not torn fitzpiers assisted her to put it on again
and when her customary contours were thus restored they walked on together grace taking his arm
she made no further attempt at reserve i would ask you to come into the house she said but my meetings with you
and i should like to prepare him never mind dearest i could not very well have accepted the invitation i shall never live here again as much for your sake as for mine i have news to tell you on this very point but my alarm had put it out of my head
i have bought a practice or rather a partnership
my poor old great aunt died about eight months ago and left me enough to do this i have taken a little furnished house for a time till we can get one of our own he described the place and the surroundings and the view from the windows and grace became much interested
but why are you not there now she said because i cannot tear myself away from here till i have your promise now darling you will accompany me there will you not to night has settled that grace's tremblings
had gone off and she did not say nay they went on together
till she noticed they were in an encircled glade in the densest part of the wood
shone almost vertically it was an exceptionally soft balmy evening for the time of year which was just that transient period in the may month when beech trees have suddenly unfolded large limp young leaves
boughs bearing such leaves hung low around and completely enclosed them so that it was as if they were in a great green vase which had moss for its bottom and leaf sides the clouds having been packed in the west that evening
so as to retain the departing glare a long while the hour had seemed much earlier than it was but suddenly the question of time occurred to her
as they walked he examined his watch by the aid of the now strong moonlight by the gods i think i have lost my train said fitzpiers
then do you hasten on edgar i am not in the least afraid i recognize now the part of the wood we are in and i can find my way back quite easily i'll tell my father that we have made it up i wish i had not kept our meetings so private
he is getting old and irritable that was why i did not good by but as i must stay at the earl of wessex to night for i cannot possibly catch the train i think it would be safer for you to let me take care of you
he will surely guess somebody has seen me for certain
but that newly done up place the earl of wessex
briefly put doctor the case is this said adam adams
if he should breathe of it a powder strong enough to kill a person
when it would make that person sick and give him cramps perhaps and kill him yes the old doctor rubbed his hands in thought that is a subject for speculation
certain cyanide compounds might be powerful enough to do so under certain conditions any real dry powder would choke a person if he got a big dose of it i heard of a boy who came near dying as the result of breathing in a quantity of extra dry licorice powder
something truly dangerous but i know of nothing but hold the doctor clapped his hands together yes yes that would do it that and that only what i had a sample of it given to me some six months ago
a rare growth found only in the western part of the country by many chinamen
and whenever they come near one they utter a prayer for deliverance from its evils if you sleep near the yamlang bush it will make you very sick and that powder
but on contact with the air quickly changed to brownish white and lost itself it was so fine evaporated you can call it that if you wish it was intense i held it at arms length yet it made me sick and i had cramps for over an hour afterwards
it would have killed you if you had placed it to your mouth or nose not the slightest doubt of it may i ask where you got the stuff it was imported into this country by a drug firm merely as a curiosity they put it up in tiny vials
and i gave them no credit for doing it what was the name of the firm i would not tell everybody but i know i can trust you to keep a secret the firm was alexander and company of rochester
who stand very high in the trade i buy many things from them from time to time and their traveling man a mister ostrello gave me the powder when he called he told me how the firm had experimented on a dog and an ox
both died in less than two minutes and each with cramps but after death neither animal showed the least trace of the poison wasn't this ostrello afraid to handle the stuff
he said he was a bit used to it i told him i didn't want to get used to it
no i prefer to smoke thanks just the same i am interested in this yamlang as you call it where can i get the stuff no more of it can be had i rather think they got afraid of it wait i'll get the vial it was in
perhaps there is a whiff left in it thanks but do you think i want to die queried the detective and gave a laugh when the empty vial was produced he opened it and took a short sniff then he drew his breath in sharply
a faint odor was perceptible the same odor he had detected in the carpet on the upper hallway of the langmore mansion
yes but not very well i don't think it will affect me much i trust not my dear adams we cannot afford to lose you now what is it all about another case that's all i don't feel like talking about it just yet
i'll give you the particulars some other time and have i helped you i think you have of course there are other powders and there is chloroform i think we have struck a clue in this but i must be going what so soon
and then the detective had to fairly tear himself from the doctor and the house they were old friends and had worked on many a case together once back in his office adam adams smiled grimly to himself
you were seen around the place at the time of the murder by cephas carboy you left the bit of paper in the library you quarrelled at one time with mister langmore and also quarrelled with your mother the murder was committed by means of that deadly chinese powder
and you are one of the few persons in this country who knew of the heathenish compound if you are innocent i rather reckon you have a heap of explanations to make there were two callers who took an hour of the detective's time and then he prepared to return to sidham
to learn if possible more concerning tom ostrello and if anybody besides cephas carboy had seen him around that vicinity on the morning of the tragedy letty i may not be back to night he remarked as he came out into the general office
all right uncle adam what shall i tell mister capes tell him that that bond matter must wait he'll have to get those numbers if he possibly can the other record was destroyed as adam adams spoke
he drew closer to the desk at which his assistant was sitting
where did this come from letty he questioned
alexander and company wholesale druggists
yes uncle adam i met him last winter at missus dally's reception he is a traveling salesman for this house
he wants me to go to the theatre with him and i expect to go missus dally says he is a very nice young man we we have been out a number of times and the girl blushed again i know some parties connected with that firm what's the young man's name letty
mister tom ostrello indeed and he has invited you to go to the theatre with him yes then you know him uncle adam i didn't dream of that don't you think he is is rather nice evidently you think so
and he thought a good deal of his protegee and her welfare i i do uncle adam he treats me so nicely i i don't you approve of him she went on hastily searching his face for the smile that usually rested there when he spoke to her
i guess it must be a dozen times all told i i wanted to speak of this before but i well i couldn't bring it around i hope you'll approve uncle adam approve of your going out with him yes and and
the girl hesitated again then she arose and buried her face on his shoulder oh don't you understand uncle adam letty he is very nice i know you'll like him when you get to really know him
of course he hasn't much money but i don't care for that you always said money didn't count for so much anyway that it was character and he's got that hum for the life of him adam adams could not speak
he felt himself growing hot and cold by turns he caught the girl closer never had he loved his friend's daughter so much as now i hoped you would approve she went on shyly
course i didn't want to leave you you've been so very good to me since papa and mamma died but but tom doesn't seem to want to wait he has asked me twice now and and i don't know how i am going to put him off
but he said he would be back some time to day i want you to meet him she paused isn't it all right uncle adam he did not answer and she gazed at him curiously then the look in his face made her draw back slowly and uncertainly
at that moment he felt that the occupation of a detective was the most detestable in the world you
the weight of evidence the next witness called was missus morse who told briefly how she had been placed in charge of the upper part of the langmore mansion shortly after the tragedy and how she had been watching margaret
she said the girl had had only a few visitors mentioning raymond case and a stranger from new york who was the stranger asked coroner busby a mister adams he's either a lawyer or a detective oh
i brought mister adams to see miss langmore put in raymond wasn't that all right certainly certainly answered the coroner hastily i have kept the best watch on miss langmore that i could went on the woman
you told me to do it has miss langmore had anything to say about her father she seems to be very sorry that he is dead what did she say about missus langmore she does not seem to care much about her stepmother
as she spoke the woman held up a small bottle it was marked chloroform and was empty anything else with the empty bottle i found the half of a big silk handkerchief it was wrapped around the bottle and had miss langmore's monogram in the corner
i went on hunting around the house and i found the other half of the handkerchief in a dark corner of the upper hallway not far from where missus langmore's body was found at this announcement there was a buzz of excitement
all present looked at the witness and then at margaret the girl had thrown aside her veil once more and was standing up with a face as pale as death itself i i may i speak she faltered yes
i bought that chloroform a month ago and used it to put a sick canary and a sick parrot out of their misery mary billings saw me chloroform the parrot when did you do the chloroforming about a week ago on the parrot
no stammered the servant girl but if she says she did she did she added stoutly now missus morse did you find anything else of value i did not but missus gaspard
who was in charge downstairs did very well you may step down missus gaspard and the other woman came forward to face the coroner and his jury and was sworn missus morse says you found something of importance what was it
it was this mister busby and the woman held out a sheet of note paper i came across it on the stairs leading to miss langmore's room shall i read it and as the coroner nodded the woman read as follows
and i shall not put up with it any longer as the woman finished reading she handed the paper to the coroner ahem missus gaspard do you know who wrote this note asked the latter the handwriting is exactly like mister langmore's
i have compared the two and so have missus morse and mister pickerell the schoolmaster again all eyes were bent upon margaret she had again arisen and was swaying from side to side my father never
never sent me never wrote such a note she gasped and then sank back and would have fallen had not raymond supported her a glass of water quick cried the young man and it was handed to him and also a bottle of smelling salts
in a moment more margaret revived take me away she moaned i am sorry
it's an outrage exclaimed raymond his eyes flashing you are all against her and you are going to prove her guilty if you possibly can the whole proceedings is a farce silence young man or i'll have you removed by an officer
i do not know what interest you have
i am engaged to this young lady i know she is innocent it is preposterous to imagine that she would kill her own father they loved each other too much yes but this note piped in missus gaspard she was a strong believer in margaret's guilt
i know nothing about that it may be a forgery i know miss langmore is innocent to merely say a thing does not prove it came from the coroner we want facts nothing else and we are bound to have em
he began to warm up also i'm here to do my duty regardless of you or anybody else i ain't going to shield anybody rich or poor high or low known or unknown now you sit down and let the inquest proceed
and raymond sat down but with a great and growing bitterness filling his heart he looked at margaret and saw that she was trembling from head to foot there was an awkward pause missus gaspard
did mister pickerell say he thought mister langmore had written this note questioned the coroner he said the two handwritings were exactly alike here is a letter written and signed by mister langmore you can compare the two if you wish the letter was passed over
and not only the coroner but also his jury looked at both documents carefully pretty much the same thing whispered one man exactly the same added another and the rest nodded the coroner looked around the courtroom and then at the jury
have any of you any questions to ask he queried of the men if not we'll take a brief recess until doctor bardon returns one after another the jurors shook their heads whatever the coroner did was sufficient for them
coroner busby had picked men he knew would agree with him the recess had lasted but a few minutes when doctor bardon reappeared his face wore a knowing look that was almost triumphant you will please take the stand again doctor was the request
i wish to ask you if a person could be smothered by chloroform certainly
could have been smothered in that way possibly yes although i did not see any traces would there have been traces yes and no it would depend on circumstances hum
now about the diamond ring belonging to miss langmore which i gave you a short while ago to examine have you ahem examined it i have and so has doctor soper we used a magnifying glass and made several tests
did you find anything unusual we did in the first place two of the prongs which hold the diamond in place are bent out and up in such a fashion that each forms a sharp point we next looked under the stone and found there a substance
which both of us are convinced is a bit of dried up blood you are sure it is blood yes i can illustrate it scientifically if you desire it will not be necessary just now when you say blood do you mean human blood
what we found under the stone very well miss langmore you may have the ring back it was passed out and raymond took it and slipped it back on margaret's hand which was cold and nerveless the girl was sitting as motionless as a marble statue
then the jurors filed out into a side room the door to which was tightly closed is is it over faltered margaret wha what will they do next we must wait for the finding of the jury margaret
at this direct question the young man gave an inward groan i don't know he answered in an unnatural voice we must hope for the best in less than an hour it was announced that the jury had arrived at a verdict
we have was the unanimous answer who will speak for you mister blackwell our foreman very well ahem mister blackwell what is the verdict mister blackwell a well known citizen of the town stood up
a hundred theories were afloat all centering on the one object to find the murderer find him or her and swing him or her to the nearest tree was the verdict of many
the law is all well enough but this dastardly crime demands an object lesson coroner jack busby who was a dealer in horses had never had a murder case before
he realized his importance as he ran hither and thither to arrange for the inquest he felt that his own little office was altogether too small for the occasion and so arranged to bring off the affair in the general courtroom the place was soon crowded with people
and another crowd gathered outside the hour for opening the inquest was at hand and the majority of the witnesses were present the coroner short fat and bald headed looked around anxiously and then turned to the chief of police who was near at hand
i don't see miss langmore
yes but ahem you are ahem responsible she'll be here coroner don't worry you have had her properly guarded yes
i reckon she's coming now and the chief of police nodded towards a side door of the courtroom there was a slight commotion and margaret entered escorted by raymond case and followed by one of the women and the policeman
wouldn't think a girl like that could do such an awful thing humph
told me well coroner busby will git to the bottom of it putty quick he told lem hansom
if he's as slick at tryin folks as he is in a hoss dicker returned an old farmer who had made a trade of steeds which had proved unprofitable for him margaret was shown to a chair and sat down with raymond beside her the young man was plainly nervous
yet he did what he could to comfort his companion courage margaret he whispered it is bound to come out right in the end i can scarcely see a friendly face she faltered taking a shy look around they all think i am
she could not finish but had to bite her lip to keep the tears from flowing the coroner mounted the platform and rapped on a desk with his knuckles the ahem courtroom will come to order he called out gazing around on all sides
there was a final buzz and then the place became quiet broken only by the ticking of a big round clock on the wall we are gathered here ahem to inquire into the mysterious deaths of mister and missus barry langmore
went on the coroner that's so an we want plain facts put in an old farmer sitting well up front silence cried the coroner we must have silence
all right jack replied the farmer i won't say another word silence we cannot go on if there is not silence ahem ahem miss langmore margaret arose and bowed slightly
but clear voice everything was coroner busby's answer pausing for a moment to collect her thoughts she plunged into the recital her tale being merely a repetition of that given to adam adams
when she came to tell how her father had been found her voice broke and it was fully a minute before she could go on when she had finished the courtroom was as still as a tomb
now sounding louder than ever is that all asked the coroner after a painful pause yes sir they say miss langmore that you were not on good terms with your stepmother who says so it is an
ahem a common rumor
it is true sir answered margaret after another pause during which the eyes of all in the courtroom were fixed upon the girl it is said that you had violent quarrels pursued the coroner
not at all queried coroner busby elevating his eyes in surprise either real or affected we held different opinions upon certain questions but we did not quarrel hum the coroner mused for a moment that is all for the present he added
can i do anything get you some water no nothing she answered and dropped a veil over her face the next witness called was mary billings the domestic employed at the langmore mansion and who had been about the place at the time of the tragedy
she proved to be a round faced irish girl not particularly bright and now all but terror stricken as soon as she was sworn in she burst into tears sure as there is a heavin above me oi didn't do that murder
so oi didn't she moaned nobody said you did answered the coroner dryly while a general smile went around the courtroom then why did yez bring me here i dunno
it was with difficulty that she was quieted and made to tell what she knew where were you from ten o'clock to twelve of the morning of the tragedy was the first question put to her oi was in the kitchen an down to the barn yer honor
were you in the kitchen first
cl'anin the silverware peelin the praties shellin the beans cleanin the lamps fixin the ahem
yis sur while you were in the house did you leave the kitchen only to go to the ciller fer a scuttle o coal did you see or hear anything unusual going on while you were in the kitchen
the irish girl scratched her head and shrugged her shoulders oi heard a lot av things yer honor what were they oi heard missus langmore walkin around upstairs
an oi heard miss margaret walkin around too then oi heard missus langmore call to miss margaret did miss margaret answer oi dunno if she did oi didn't hear her
what else thin oi heard the front dure slam did you see anybody come in or go out sure an oi did not
atwixt tin an eliven o'clock did you hear anything after the slamming of the front door oi did not fer oi wint down to the barn directly afterwards how long did you remain down at the barn
till miss margaret came scr'amin from the house she cries mary oh mary me father me father an staggers around loike she was goin to fall an oi run up to her an hild her up poor dear
ahem now er you remained in the barn until you heard her cry out did you hear or see anything from the barn while you were down there well to tell the truth sur oi didn't notice anythin at the toime bein that
interested in me pet chickens sur
oi think somebody ran past the barn aisy loike you didn't see anybody no sur as oi said before thim leghorns that pat callahan gave me we'll ahem drop the leghorns
after you heard the strange noise how long was it before you heard miss langmore scream perhaps quarter av an hour sur oi didn't look to the clock and she fainted in your arms
she scr'ams me father me father mary he is murdered go to the library an thin she wint over in me arms loike a stone poor dear poor dear and the domestic began to weep afresh what did you do then
sure phat could oi do
an thin missus bardon an her son alfred the docthor came over what happened next we all wint in the house
fer some medicine from the medicine closet in the upper hall we kim on missus langmore's body also dead an i got that scared oi turned an flew down the back stairs an out av the house loike the divil was afther me
there was a general laugh throughout the courtroom at which the coroner rapped loudly on the desk silence such ahem conduct at an inquest is not to be allowed if this happens again i shall clear the courtroom
thet's right jack make em behave themselves came from the old farmer in front this is serious business this is what was done with the body of missus langmore continued the coroner to the servant girl the docther said
to lave it till you came missus langmore was quite dead yis
it made the docther sick to work over the corpse
there was the mister and missus
but miss jennie married an moved away she's travelin now they tell me then miss margaret was the only child home yis sur didn't missus langmore have two sons yis but they niver lived there
an that's all was miss margaret on good terms with missus langmore she was not missus langmore was a a vixin always afther findin fault an oi wasn't on good terms wid her meself ah
then you quarreled also oh no sur oi knew me place so oi did an did me wurruk an said nothin if it hadn't been fer miss margaret o i d a lift me job long ago
when did they quarrel last at this question the domestic pursed up her lips and looked at margaret oi have nothin to say about that she answered coldly this reply was a surprise to all including raymond
you must answer he said
a twilight tea party it was late when grace and sylvia awoke the following morning but they were down stairs before the boys appeared missus hayes greeted them smilingly
but she said that flora was not well and that mammy would take her breakfast to her up stairs after breakfast you must go up and stay with her a little while said missus hayes why flora was never ill in her life declared ralph what's the matter
so that she feels lame and tired and i thought a few hours in bed would be the best thing for her explained missus hayes mammy doesn't seem to know just how it happened she concluded
grace had tried best to convince sylvia that she had really dreamed lady caroline but sylvia insisted that a figure in a wide plumed hat and a trailing gown had really stepped out of the closet
after breakfast mammy came to tell the visitors that flora was ready to see them but jus for a little while she added as she opened the door of flora's chamber
flora was bolstered up in bed and had on a dainty dressing gown of pink muslin tied with white ribbons but there was a bandage about her right wrist and a soft strip of cotton was bound about her head
then i guess grace will believe this is a haunted house said flora a little triumphantly i didn't see it said grace and truly i believe sylvia just dreamed it flora sat up in bed suddenly
sylvia did not dream it i know she saw it she declared
but i didn't and grace laughed good naturedly but flora turned her face from them and began to cry after my being hurt and she sobbed but stopped quickly sylvia and grace looked at each other in amazement
it's because she is ill and she's disappointed because you didn't see lady caroline sylvia whispered in a moment flora looked up with a little smile i am so silly she said you must forgive me
and had seen certain things which made her quite ready to own that flora might be right but she was rather serious and silent for the rest of the visit before they left flora's room flora asked sylvia not to tell anyone that she had seen a ghost
you see the boys would laugh and no one but me really believes the house is haunted she explained of course sylvia promised but she was puzzled by flora's request
it was decided that ralph and philip should ride back to charleston that afternoon when uncle chris drove the little visitors home and that flora should stay at the plantation with her mother for a day or two sylvia had enjoyed her visit
sylvia i'm coming over to night i've got something to tell you grace said as the two friends stood for a moment at sylvia's gate after they had thanked uncle chris and said good bye to sylvia's brothers
grace was so serious that sylvia wondered what it could be
no i'll tell you after supper grace responded and ran on to her own home
they had just finished supper when grace appeared and the two little girls went up to sylvia's room
grace looked all about the room and then closed the door not seeing a little figure crouching in a shadowy corner i wouldn't want anybody else to hear it's about the ghost she whispered i know all about it
and a long blue skirt one of her mother's they weren't there yesterday for the door was open just as it was to day well what of that asked sylvia oh sylvia can't you see grace asked impatiently
flora dressed up in her mother's things and then came up the stairs to our room she was determined to make us think she had a truly ghost in her house then when you called out she got frightened and stumbled on the stairs
you know we heard someone fall and cry out of course it was flora nobody seems to know how she got hurt
i don't think it was fair she said slowly of course it wasn't fair i wouldn't have believed that a charleston girl would do such a mean trick declared grace of course as we were her company we can't let her know that we have found her out
perhaps she meant to tell us anyway suggested sylvia hopefully i'm sure she did she thought it would make us laugh well then why didn't she asked grace sylvia's face clouded she could not answer this question
but she was sure that flora had not meant to frighten or really deceive them and she wanted to defend her absent friend well grace we know flora wouldn't do anything mean and you see she got hurt
i know one thing sylvia you wouldn't do anything mean if you are a yankee grace declared warmly what's that noise she added quickly the room was shadowy in the gathering twilight and the two little girls had been sitting near the window
before sylvia could speak she heard the little wailing cry which estralla always gave when in trouble and then don't be skeered missy
oh estralla you haven't broken my dolls what were you up here for anyway and sylvia quite forgot all her plans to rescue estralla as she ran toward her the doll ladies as the little darky girl had always called sylvia's two china dolls
which sat in two small chairs in front of a doll's table in one corner of the room were both sprawling on the floor their chairs upset and the little table with its tiny tea set overturned grace lit the candles on sylvia's bureau
while sylvia picked up her treasured dolls molly and polly which her grandmother fulton had sent her on her last birthday i wuz up here jest a sittin an a lookin at em missy wailed estralla i never layed hand on em
i spec now i'll get whipped
finding that molly and polly had not been hurt by their fall and that none of the little dishes were broken you ought to tell her mother to whip her she's no business up here said grace don't grace sylvia exclaimed we don't get whipped every time we make a mistake
and estralla hasn't anything of her own just think your uncle robert can sell her away from her own mother
no she said you shall not be sold now don't look so frightened we will have a tea party for molly and polly and you shall wait on them run down and ask your mother to give us some little cakes estralla was off in an instant and while she was away
sylvia and grace spread the little table brought cushions from the window seats and advised molly and polly to forgive the disturbance when missus fulton came up stairs a little later to tell grace that her black mammy had come to take her home she found three very happy little girls
sylvia and grace were being entertained at tea by misses molly and polly while estralla with shining eyes and a wide smile carried tiny cups and little cakes to the guests and chuckled delightedly over the clever things which
sylvia and grace declared molly and polly had said
perhaps flora will own up grace said as the two girls followed missus fulton down the stairs anyway you are mighty fair about it and you're good to that stupid little darky
oh estralla isn't stupid not a bit replied sylvia laughingly estralla who was carefully putting the little table in order
it was a very sober little darky who came up to sylvia's room the next morning she set down the pitcher of water and moved silently toward the door what's the matter estralla sylvia called
for usually estralla was all smiles and had a good deal to say estralla shook her head nuffin missy i knowed you couldn't do nuffin bout it my mammy says how nobody can
wait estralla what do you mean exclaimed sylvia sitting up in bed
my mammy was over to massa waite's house las night and
and sylvia was out of bed in a second standing close beside the little colored girl i dunno missy sylvia i spec dar ain't nuffin you kin do but you has been mighty good to me estralla replied
it's mighty hard to go off and leave my mammy an never see you all no more missy sylvia
estralla if you were earning wages for mister robert waite would he let you stay here sylvia asked eagerly
missy i'se a gwine to run off an hide myself til the yankee soldiers comes and sets us free said estralla you can't do that but don't be frightened estralla i have thought of something i will hire you yes i will
you can do whatever you please with it was what grandmother fulton had said sylvia had thought that she would ask her mother to buy her a watch with the money but she did not remember that now she knew that more than anything she would rather keep estralla safe
twenty dollars was a good deal of money she reflected if the northern soldiers would only come quickly and set the slaves free but even if they did not come for a long time the money would surely pay mister waite wages for estralla so that he would not insist on selling her
estralla's face had brightened instantly at sylvia's promise and when sylvia explained that she had money of her very own and even opened her writing desk and showed estralla the shining gold pieces the little darky's fears vanished
she was as sure that all would be well now as she had been frightened and despondent when she entered the room shall i tell my mammy she asked eagerly yes sylvia responded i know my mother will let me
because grandma said i could do as i pleased with the money and i please to pay it to mister waite
an i'll allers go whar yo goes like missy flora hayes mammy does why yes i suppose you will agreed sylvia sylvia had meant to tell her mother and father of her plan about estralla at breakfast time
but her father was just leaving the dining room when she came in are you going to ask your little friends to go out in the butterfly this afternoon he asked
i'll ask them right away after breakfast before they start for school sylvia promised eagerly
especially as her mother had decided that lessons would not begin until the following week it had seemed to missus fulton that her little daughter was tired and not as well as usual and she was glad that the sailing expedition would take her out for a long afternoon on the water
sylvia ate her breakfast hurriedly and ran upstairs for her cape and hat
oh it will be all right
and i'll keep on to mister robert waite's and have it all settled this morning sylvia replied putting on her pretty new hat you may come too she added
questioned estralla earnestly i think i will take the money sylvia said not answering estralla's question then mister waite will be sure that i can pay him
missus fulton saw sylvia closely followed by estralla running across the garden toward the house where grace waite lived poor little darky what will she do when sylvia goes north she thought
for mister fulton had told her that very morning that he was sure south carolina would secede from the union and then northern men would no longer be welcome in charleston that meant of course that the fultons would have to return to boston if that were possible
but all communication with northern states might be prevented it was no wonder that mister and missus fulton were anxious and worried
grace was ready to start for school when sylvia and estralla arrived and her mother gave her consent at once for her to go sailing in the afternoon the christmas holidays will soon be here so a half day out of school will not matter missus waite said smilingly
and gave grace a note for miss patten i'll walk to flora's with you said grace now sylvia own up that you think charleston is nicer than boston
and here it is warm and pleasant you couldn't go sailing if you were in boston to day she added laughingly
but i could go sleighing responded sylvia as they came in sight of flora's home they both exclaimed in surprise why they are all going away
and there is philip on horseback the carriage had turned on to the street and even as grace spoke a curve in the road hid it from view philip evidently giving some directions to the negroes who were loading trunks and boxes into a cart
rode down the driveway just as grace and sylvia reached the entrance he greeted them smilingly and stopped his horse to speak with them it was all planned for us to go to the plantation before flora got home last night he explained father thought it was best for the family to be out of the city
and there may be trouble but the palmetto flag will soon float over fort sumter he added smilingly and with a touch of his cap and a smiling good bye he rode off sylvia was sorry that flora was going away
but that philip should want the palmetto flag to take the place of the stars and stripes over fort sumter seemed a much greater misfortune when he knows it stands for slavery she thought wondering if he had entirely forgotten about dinkie
i'll have to run or i'll be late for school declared grace i'll be all ready when you call and with a gay good bye she was off down the street leaving sylvia and estralla standing alone near the high wall which enclosed the garden of the hayes house massa robert waite
and the two girls turned down the street leading to the house of estralla's master sylvia went up the flight of stone steps which led to mister waite's door a little fearfully a tall good natured colored man opened the door and asked her errand
and then led the way across the wide hall and rapped at a door a little white missy to see you massa robert he said and in a moment sylvia found herself standing before a smiling gentleman
whose red face and white whiskers made her think of the pictures of santa claus won't you be seated young lady he said very politely waving his hand toward a low cushioned chair and bowing as if i were really grown up thought sylvia
yes sir said sylvia meekly wondering whether she would ever dare tell him her errand there was a little silence and then mister waite took a seat near his little visitor and said let me see
is not your name in a song then to sylvia let us sing he hummed beating time with his right hand oh yes i was named for that song and if you please mister waite
if you please sir she is aunt connie's little girl and she lives with us and i like her and i thought began sylvia but mister waite raised his hand and she stopped suddenly
see quite right but if she is living in your house she is not costing me a penny for board so i am indebted to you well well i must see that whatever you wish is carried out
and i am delighted to have you take her off my hands
and mister waite smiled and bowed and seemed exactly like santa claus i'm ever so much obliged said sylvia i like estralla do you yes well and i hope you will come again miss sylvia
i am greatly pleased to have made your acquaintance and the polite gentleman escorted her to the door where he bade her good bye with such an elegant bow that sylvia nearly fell backward in her effort to make as low a curtsey as seemed necessary
estralla had hidden herself behind some shrubbery and joined sylvia at the gate would he hire me out missy she asked eagerly my no answered sylvia and before she could explain the generosity of estralla's owner
the little darky was wailing and sobbing i knowed i'd be sold i knowed it keep still estralla mister waite says i may have you without paying him just as long as i live in his house he said you were to be my maid oh estralla
he was just as kind and polite as if i had been a grown up young lady said sylvia with enthusiasm yas'm i reckons he would hafter be
i'se mighty glad he gives me to you missy i reckon my mammy's gwine to be glad and estralla quite forgetting that there was such a thing as trouble in the world danced along beside her new mistress
sylvia hurried home eager to tell her mother of her wonderful new friend and of flora's departure to the plantation missus fulton listened in surprise but when sylvia finished her story of mister waite's kindness
declaring that he was just like santa claus she did not reprove her for going on such an errand without permission but agreed with her little daughter that mister robert waite was a very kind and generous gentleman
aunt connie was as delighted as it was possible for a mother to be who knows that her youngest child is safe under the same roof with herself she tried to thank sylvia for protecting estralla but sylvia was too happy over her success to listen to her
chapter fifteen where is sylvia the butterfly was all ready and waiting for its passengers when grace and sylvia followed by the smiling and delighted estralla
who was carrying sylvia's cape and trying to act as much like a rale grown up lady's maid as possible came down to the long wharf although it was december there was little to remind anyone of winter the air was soft and clear
the sun shone brightly and only a little westerly breeze ruffled the blue waters of the harbor negroes were at work on the wharf loading bales of cotton on a big ship they were singing as they worked
mister fulton came to meet them and helped them on board the boat as the butterfly made its way out into the channel the little girls looked back at the long water front where lay many vessels from far off ports in the distance they could see the spire of saint philip's
one of the historic churches of charleston and everywhere fluttered the palmetto flag sylvia sat in the stern beside her father and very soon the tiller was in her hand and she was shaping the boat's course toward the forts
grace watched her admiringly i believe you could steer in the dark she declared of course she could if she had a compass and was familiar with the stars said mister fulton
and he called grace's attention to the compass fastened securely near sylvia's seat and explained the rules of navigation is that the way the big ships know how to find their harbors asked grace when mister fulton told her of the stars and how the pilots set their course
yes and if sylvia understood how to steer by the compass she could steer the butterfly as well at night as she can now sylvia looked at the compass with a new interest she was sure that navigation would be a much more interesting study than grammar
there had been many changes at fort moultrie since sylvia's last visit a deep ditch had been dug between the fort and the sand bars and many workmen were busy in strengthening the defences and sylvia and grace wondered why so many soldiers were stationed along the parapet
captain carleton seemed very glad to welcome them and sent a soldier to escort the girls to the officers quarters while mister fulton went in search of major anderson sylvia wondered if she would have a chance to tell missus carleton that she had safely delivered the message
missus carleton was in her pleasant sitting room and declared that she had been wishing for company and held up some strips of red and white bunting i am making a new flag for fort sumter she said perhaps you will help me sew on the stars one for each state you know
is there one for south carolina asked grace as missus carleton found two small thimbles which she said she had used when she was no older than sylvia and showed the girls how to sew the white stars securely on the blue
and now found herself near the landing place so that when missus carleton made the girls a cup of hot chocolate and looked about to give estralla her share the little colored girl was not to be seen i'll call her said sylvia and ran out on the veranda
no response came to her calls so she went down the steps and along the walk which led to the sand bars past the houses and barracks on sullivan's island no one was in sight whom she could ask if estralla had passed that way
she climbed a small sand hill covered with stunted little trees and looked about but could see no trace of the little darky it had not occurred to sylvia that estralla would go back to the fort
estralla estralla and sure that if she was within hearing estralla would instantly appear as sylvia climbed over the sandy slope she saw here and there a small green vine with glossy leaves and a tiny yellow blossom
almost forgetting her search for estralla and finally deciding that it was time to go back to missus carleton probably estralla is there before this and they will be looking for me she thought and climbed another sandy slope expecting to see the houses and barracks directly in front of her
but she found herself facing the open sea
and she would soon be in sight of some familiar place
it was rather difficult walking her feet slipped in the sand and after a little sylvia decided not to follow the shore but to climb back over the sand hills a cold wind was now blowing from the water
and she was glad of the shelter of the stunted trees and decided to rest for a little while of course i can't be lost because i know exactly where i am this is sullivan island and the fort is right over there i mustn't rest but a minute for my father said we would start home early she thought
the december day drew to a close and dusky shadows crept over the island once or twice sylvia's wanderings had brought her back to the shore but not until the darkness began to gather did she really understand that she was lost
feeling almost sure that like herself estralla must be wandering about lost in the sand hills it was nearly dark before she gave up trying to find her way to the fort and shivering and half afraid
crawled under the scraggly branches of some stunted trees on a sheltered slope my father will come and find me i know he will she said aloud almost ready to cry i'll wait here and keep calling estralla so he will hear me
a few moments after sylvia started to find estralla missus carleton had been called to a neighbor's house tell sylvia i won't be gone long she had said to grace grace did not mind being alone until sylvia returned
she helped herself to the rich creamy chocolate and the little frosted cakes and then curled up on a broad couch near the window with a book full of wonderful pictures the pictures were of a tall man on horseback and a short fat man on a donkey
the adventures of don quixote was the title of the book and after grace began to read she entirely forgot sylvia estralla and missus carleton and not until mister fulton came into the room an hour later did she lift her eyes from the book
all ready to start said mister fulton and it will be dusk before we reach home where is sylvia oh exclaimed grace looking up in surprise hasn't she come back with estralla missus carleton has just gone to the next house
well put on your things and run after them that's a good girl said mister fulton why here is estralla now he added as the little colored girl appeared at the door tell miss sylvia to come down to the landing i'll meet you there
and he hurried away thinking his little daughter was safe with missus carleton
in a sunny corner of the veranda for the last hour where is sylvia echoed missus carleton who came in at that moment has she gone to the boat
perhaps she has mister fulton said for us to come right to the landing said grace her thoughts still full of the faithful sancho panza of whom she had been reading i will go to the wharf with you it was too bad to leave you
i must see sylvia before she goes perhaps i may not be permitted to have visitors much longer said missus carleton and she and grace left the pleasant room and followed closely by estralla made their way over the bridge to the landing place
where is sylvia asked mister fulton looking at his watch we really ought to have started an hour ago for a moment the little group looked at each other in silence then with a sudden cry estralla darted off
missus carleton hurriedly explained sylvia's starting off to find estralla and her own departure she blamed herself that she had permitted sylvia to go out alone she must be somewhere about the fort declared captain carleton
oh yes agreed mister fulton but we had best lose no time in finding her while captain carleton questioned the soldiers mister fulton and missus carleton and grace hastened back to the officers quarters
and a thorough search for the little girl was begun at once no one gave a thought to estralla
francis had hoped to see his cousins before he met them at the party but when he called at peggy walker's he found that they were out taking their customary long walk so he met them in missus rennie's drawing room for the first time
certainly the two girls in mourning were not the plainest looking in the room neither sister was beautiful but elsie was very nearly so and her recent suffering had thrown more intensity into her expression
and made her look more lovely than ever
and he grieved to see the traces of weariness of care and he even thought of tears on the face which to him was the most interesting in the world he shook hands with her warmly and looked inquiringly in her face
and then drew her into a quiet corner in a window seat where they could talk without being much observed elsie did not sit beside them but left them to their own conversation assured that she would hear all that she cared to know by and by
yet she was not neglected for miss rennie had taken a great fancy to her and was determined if possible to get her partners at missus rennie's parties there never was any scarcity of gentlemen
for they had an extensive family connection and mister rennie was a kind and hospitable man who had a large acquaintance in the city miss rennie had judged hardly of jane's personal appearance at first sight
but she thought elsie a most elegant and interesting creature we have written so often and so fully to each other
said jane smiling we have written so much to each other that we have all the more to say jane said her cousin i never get a letter from you without its making me wish to talk over it with you you have no news however i suppose
no news said jane i wrote to you of elsie's last bitter disappointment it was a cruel letter she felt it all the more because she says it is all true but really francis
i think her poetry did not deserve it she has never mentioned her verses since
it seems impossible to get up the classes that i hoped for i think i must take to missus dunn's and the dressmaking for we cannot go on as we are doing ah jane my cup of prosperity has very many bitter drops in it
and mine of adversity has much that is salutary and even sweet in it do not think me so very unhappy if any one had told me beforehand of these months that i have passed since my uncle's death i should have thought them absolutely intolerable
but there is no human lot without its mitigations and ameliorations god tempers the wind to the shorn lamb i am not happy perhaps but i am not miserable i have not to live with people whom i despise
for there never was a more estimable woman than peggy walker or more promising children than her nephews and nieces you cannot fancy what interest i feel in tom and how i am ambitious for him he will make a figure in the world
and i will help him to do so we women have no career for ourselves and we must find room for ambition somewhere
for you are proving yourself the good master the conscientious steward of the bounties of providence that i hoped you would be
i know i look sad but do not fancy me always in this mood if you saw me in the evenings with tom and nancy and jamie and jessie and willie you would see how cheerful i can be
here i am reminded too painfully of what i have lost there i feel that i have gained somewhat
by making the best of your very hard lot every lot has its best side said jane and it is only by looking steadily at it that one can obtain courage to bear the worst
i see this in visiting the very poor people whom i wrote to you about some people are querulous in comparative comfort others have the most astonishing powers of cheerful endurance
i have learned upon how very little the human soul can be kept in working order from a poor rheumatic and bed ridden old woman who is so grateful for the use of one hand while she is helpless otherwise
and who has had a very bad husband and several very careless and cold hearted children but she has one son who comes to see her regularly once every three months and brings her the scanty pittance on which she subsists
since you say that you have more to give they interested you very much particularly those in france very much indeed all the more as i acquired the language i wrote to you that i met with clemence de vericourt now madame lenoir
is she handsome asked jane no
asked jane french society is more accessible than it is here but i met with a french gentleman in a cafe who had known my father and who recognized my name who introduced me to a good many very pleasant salons
and to madame lenoir's among others arnauld is dead he fell in algeria his sister speaks of him with the tenderest affection is she happily married
after all her mother's solicitude it would be hard if she too were sacrificed so far as i can see she appears to be happy the husband is of suitable years and good character not so brilliant as his wife
that french women are superior to their so called lords and masters it is strange to me who have been always so shy and so shut out from society to be introduced or rather plunged into so much of it
a man with no relations who recognized his existence and who is conscious of the doubtfulness of his birth as i was
than i ever was indeed said jane i thought it would have pleased you to be acknowledged you should see if the world does not that if one party has juggled the other into a marriage without any love on either side
but does not make the birth a whit more respectable i had a mother who did not care for me and a father who did his duty as he fancied by me but who disliked me and they appear to have hated one another you extorted respect and regard from your father
and my father's never was anything but self love and self will but whatever our birth may be we are all god's children and equal in his eyes in that respect at least did madame lenoir speak to you of her mother
for my father's sake i saw madame de vericourt's portrait too she was prettier than her daughter at least in repose but neither of them were at all like my ideal for i forgot the french class of face and embodied my fancy portraits
in an english type you enjoyed french society then very much indeed the art of conversing these french people carry to great perfection it is not frivolous though it is light and sparkling
it is still less argumentative but it has the knack of bringing out different opinions and different views of them we pity the french for their want of political liberty but the social freedom they enjoy is some compensation
and the careful observation of the condition and prospect of the small proprietors so numerous in france and flanders the contrast between the french small landowner and the english agricultural labourer is very great
nothing has struck me as so pathetic as the condition of the english farm labourer so hopeless so cheerless our scottish peasants have more education more energy and are more disposed to emigrate
but the small proprietors of france and flanders will tell another story for they will give a higher price for land than the capitalist and make it pay the astonishing industry of the flemish farmers in reclaiming the worst soil of europe
and making it produce the most abundant crops shows me the fallacy of our insular notions on that head i cannot but regret the decrease of the yeomanry class in great britain and the accumulation of large estates in few hands
at the back of the black hill as it is called i would divide it into allotments among the most industrious and energetic of my farm labourers and show them the method pursued by the flemish farmers
he will convert it into a desert give him a perpetuity of a rock he will change it into a garden your uncle did not think it would pay to reclaim that piece of land i will try if our peasants have not the stuff in them to make the most of the land
what an excellent idea said jane i knew you would sympathize with this plan and with another which i have also in my head to build new cottages for all the agricultural labourers on the estate
it is shameful that while the proprietors houses and the farmers houses have been enlarged and improved so much during the last century the cottage of the hind and the cotter should still be of the same miserable description
and too generally done by the enclosed beds which are not right things in a sanitary point of view the money value of the rent is increased too
than a century back i have got plans for the cottages which i wanted you to look at this morning i think they will do you
she was brought up in one of those cottages you speak of and will know all their deficiencies it will set a good example to the neighbourhood said jane and after all
by building a new wing and adding a conservatory in the place of your modest little greenhouse every one knows i have come to the estate with money in hand instead of encumbrances to clear off as so many proprietors have
so they can think of my spending it in nothing but in increasing my own comfort or importance another reason for my trying these experiments and improvements is to see if we cannot keep some of our best people in scotland our picked men
and many of our picked women emigrate to america and australia the recent emigration to australia since the gold diggings were discovered has been enormous
i confess that if i were in their place i should do the same but let my experiment succeed it may be imitated whether it is imitated or not
i will watch the result with the greatest interest
said francis it is not fair that the commonages should be enclosed to enlarge great estates the waste lands should belong to the nation and be given to the class that needs them most and that could perhaps make most of them said jane
has she none of the alleviations that you are so good as to make the very most of asked francis
lost her relish for both she has felt that her estimate of her powers has been too great and now it is far too humble for myself i think just as highly of my own abilities and acquirements as ever i did
i am sorry that your minister has left his church for i hoped to become acquainted with him and he looked so cheerful that i thought he might do elsie good this new clergyman does not strike me as being so genial or kindly
though i certainly like his sermons and his devotional services very much it is certainly not the least of the blessings of my adversity that i have learned to place myself in god's hands and to feel that he will do all things well for me
can you not place your sister in the same care asked francis
elsie is so weary of her life sometimes it is difficult to give her courage this is grave conversation for a dancing party but you do not see the incongruity if we cannot carry our religion into our amusements
and into our business it will not be of much use to us the sound of a well known voice arrested jane's attention it was that of william dalzell who was shaking hands with mister missus and miss rennie very cordially and then
in an embarrassed manner doing the same with elsie how did our friends get acquainted with mister dalzell said jane when they were visiting me at cross hall we had a gathering of the neighbouring families and missus rennie did the honours for me
mister dalzell with his mother and two young lady cousins were of the party i thought the county people would have held themselves aloof from the more plebeian society of an edinburgh banker
but he at least has condescended to accept missus rennie's invitation to her own house the exclusiveness of classes and sects and cliques is extremely amusing to me but i am engaged to dance this dance with miss rennie
so you must excuse me as francis went up to claim miss rennie's hand a gentleman was in the act of asking it
see my card but as you are a stranger in edinburgh you will be obliged to me for introducing you to his cousin one of the sweetest girls in the world
miss rennie walked across the room leaving william dalzell and the stranger together but she presently returned with the assurance that miss wilson was disengaged and would be happy to be introduced to mister dalzell
miss wilson was ward of missus rennie's as jane had heard a west indian heiress somewhat stupid and very much impressed with her own wealth and importance miss rennie had a pitying sort of liking for her
though sometimes laura's airs were too much for her and they would not speak to each other for a week at a time she had just left school having made all the progress which money without natural ability or any of the usual incentives
with much more animation than was usual with her now said miss rennie i have done my best for mister dalzell i must attend to my other stranger before i fulfil my engagement to you mister hogarth and i hope you will excuse me
when it is to get a partner for alice miss melville i suppose does not care about dancing she is so dreadfully matter of fact i know you have been talking politics or something as bad in that corner all this evening
chapter three elsie's situation it was not mere fancy on jane's part that elsie was ill and unhappy
she had magnanimously made up her mind to go to work with industry and spirit and missus dunn was perfectly satisfied with her but she missed jane's society far more than her sister could miss hers
jane was constantly employed in occupations that demanded intelligence and thought she had access to books she went to theatres and places of public amusement even more than she cared for
she had the society of mister phillips constantly and that of mister brandon and several other australians who were either retired on a competency or home on a visit very frequently and she certainly thought them generally pleasant and intelligent
and more agreeable company than the provincial people in and about swinton their frank acknowledgment of the early struggles which they had had with fortune the hearty manner in which they enjoyed the prosperity they had earned
mister phillips had become acquainted with several people from other colonies than victoria partly on board ship and partly from other introductions a curious and ignorant suspicion that somehow all australians
have a sort of convict origin made it more difficult at that time for them than for retired indians to get into general society there was no nice distinction drawn between the different colonies between new south wales and victoria
or south australia and tasmania in those days a slight savour of botany bay was supposed to hang about them all but they formed a pleasant little clique of their own less exclusive than most cliques
and generally disposed to hold up each one his own particular colony as preferable to the others
but as compared with the other colonies it ought to bear the palm elsie felt the want of this intelligence and this variety of character that jane described to her so minutely in her frequent letters
and regretted that she could write nothing interesting in return when she came home after a long day's work she thought she ought to try to keep up a little of her sister's discipline with the lowries and went over their lessons with them
tom used to bring to her the most puzzling questions which she thought she ought to be able to answer and made great efforts to do so but instead of the intellectual work refreshing her after the sedentary needlework
she felt all the more exhausted by it as for her poetry she appeared to be unable to write a line and though she sometimes could read an old book she seemed quite unfit to pay attention to anything new
she missed the long walks she had daily taken in jane's pleasant company it was not far from peggy's house to missus dunn's place of business and it was a very monotonous walk the white regular houses all of one size and height
with their thousands of windows exactly on the same model seemed always staring her out of countenance and made her feel depressed even in the early morning she felt the keen piercing east winds of an edinburgh spring as she had never done at cross hall
and the continued poor living and the hurried meals began to tell upon a constitution naturally much less robust than jane's so that she began to look pale and thin and coughed a good deal and lost her appetite
with all these drawbacks she improved so much in taste and skill that missus dunn raised her wages or salary as she genteelly called it and put her at the head of the department in which she so much excelled
so that she could not bear to give up her contribution to the little fund that jane was putting into the savings bank miss rennie had persuaded her mamma to try missus dunn's establishment and had told that lady that it was all on miss elsie melville's account
so she often saw her and laura wilson there and made bonnets for both of them with her own hands and the chalmerses and jardines had also come to see how elsie got on and other people from the neighbourhood of swinton
elsie would rather not have had dealings with so many old acquaintances but missus dunn thought it was a just reward for her kindness that she had this increase of custom one day
about four months after she had been engaged in this business miss rennie and miss wilson came in with most important looking faces while miss wilson was busied turning over the fashion books her friend whispered to elsie
it is really a case laura is engaged to mister dalzell your old friend and neighbour and she is going to give one of her wedding orders here missus dunn should be greatly obliged to you for we never
would have come to the house but for you but this marriage amuses me a good deal i'm sure your sister was fifty times too good for him and laura and he will just suit each other he is very much attached to her fortune
and she will have it settled upon herself at least papa will see that is done as tightly as she could wish and laura has a sharp eye to number one i can assure you
missus dalzell has been to see us and been so gracious after all what better luck could she look for than to be married for her money with such a temper as she has too he certainly is handsome but for my part
i would rather have a man who is downright ugly than one who grins and bows like william dalzell i will be quite glad when this affair is over lovers are very tiresome when one does not quite believe in the love
well laura dear have you made up your mind about the dresses continued miss rennie in a louder voice
i must keep to my own department oh laura wants your taste to help us to decide you know better what suits than mademoiselle said miss rennie but i am going to be busy here said elsie who never felt much disposed to wait on miss wilson
and at this time less than ever and she turned to an elderly lady of a very pleasing countenance who with a pretty girl of thirteen entered the showroom at that moment oh miss thomson said miss rennie shaking hands with the new comer how do you do
are you in edinburgh just now you must come to see mamma
who has been doing so well at school and been such a good girl altogether that i must needs give her a new frock for a party she is invited to next week and get it fashionably made too no doubt this is not the dressmaking room miss melville is the milliner
looking very kindly on the girl miss melville can take my order i suppose you are the sister of the young lady who called on me some time ago yes ma'am said elsie i can see a very slight likeness
i was very glad to hear such good accounts of your sister getting a situation with some rich colonial people in london and i hear too that you are a remarkably good hand in your own line so i have come to ask you to make me a cap and a bonnet
that will keep on my head and that is what i cannot get the fashionable milliner i have employed so long to make me this year back i can make to please peggy walker said elsie smiling but you will wish for more style
a compromise between fashion and comfort with a decided leaning towards comfort said miss thomson are you still living with peggy walker an admirable woman she is and one whom i have the greatest respect for but does she take good care of you
you look thin and ill i am not very well but peggy is everything that is kind and careful i have missed my sister sadly i hope however to see her soon
for missus phillips has been so good as to ask me to spend a few weeks in london and missus dunn is going to spare me well i am glad to hear it said miss thomson for it seems to me you want a change and a rest
your cousin is making great alterations at cross hall alterations for the better said elsie he told us about them well i'm not clear about the allotments but the cottages i do most highly approve of
as near as may be the allendale cot houses are very old and i will never consent to have my workpeople as badly lodged as they have been if i asked for five hundred pounds to add to the farmhouse i would get it at once
for i am a good tenant but my landlord demurred at such an expenditure for cot houses i think i will carry my point however you know said miss rennie to miss thomson of the new neighbour you are likely to get at moss tower
that poor girl melville looks ill
i must look in on peggy walker
said miss thomson as they moved into mademoiselle's department and gave orders about grace's frock while miss wilson looked over dresses made and unmade and received hints and suggestions from any quarter she could
elsie wished that she could be out of the establishment before miss wilson's wedding order came to it so she was very glad when after a longer day than usual
in which she had exercised her utmost skill for miss thomson's behoof and certainly pleased herself with her work she returned home and found mister brandon sitting talking in his usual cheerful way
to peggy and the old man doctor phillips had wished that elsie should join her sister before she left derbyshire and spend a week or so at his house for he had been so delighted with jane that he had a desire to become acquainted with elsie also
so that mister brandon had come sooner than he had intended and proposed an early departure elsie looked so glad so very glad to see him expressed herself so grateful to him for all the trouble he was taking for her
i was walking in central park with avery knight the great new york burglar highwayman and murderer but my dear knight said i it sounds incredible
you have undoubtedly performed some of the most wonderful feats in your profession known to modern crime you have committed some marvellous deeds under the very noses of the police
you can run down and actually bring me face to face with the detective assigned to apprehend you i must beg leave to express my doubts remember you are in new york
avery knight smiled indulgently you pique my professional pride doctor he said in a nettled tone i will convince you
about twelve yards in advance of us a prosperous looking citizen was rounding a clump of bushes where the walk curved knight suddenly drew a revolver and shot the man in the back his victim fell and lay without moving
the great murderer went up to him leisurely and took from his clothes his money watch and a valuable ring and cravat pin he then rejoined me smiling calmly and we continued our walk
ten steps and we met a policeman running toward the spot where the shot had been fired avery knight stopped him i have just killed a man he announced seriously and robbed him of his possessions
what you have done i said argumentatively as knight and i walked on was easy but when you come to the task of hunting down the detective that they send upon your trail you will find that you have undertaken a difficult feat
perhaps so said knight lightly i will admit that my success depends in a degree upon the sort of man they start after me if it should be an ordinary plain clothes man i might fail to gain a sight of him
if they honor me by giving the case to some one of their celebrated sleuths i do not fear to match my cunning and powers of induction against his on the next afternoon knight entered my office with a satisfied look on his keen countenance
how goes the mysterious murder i asked as usual said knight smilingly
they have three witnesses who saw the shooting and gave a description of me the case has been placed in the hands of shamrock jolnes the famous detective
i waited at my address until two thinking he might call there i laughed tauntingly
i had a better opinion of your shrewdness knight during the three hours and a half that you waited he has got out of your ken he is after you on true induction theories now
i will undertake to break that record to morrow i will take you to shamrock jolnes i will unmask him before you and prove to you that it is not an impossibility for an officer of the law and a manslayer to stand face to face in your city
do it said i and you'll have the sincere thanks of the police department on the next day knight called for me in a cab i've been on one or two false scents doctor he admitted
i know something of detectives methods and i followed out a few of them expecting to find jolnes at the other end
then again i looked for the detective at the columbia university
but i could not find a trace of him nor will you i said emphatically not by ordinary methods said knight
i might walk up and down broadway for a month without success but you have aroused my pride doctor and if i fail to show you shamrock jolnes this day i promise you i will never kill or rob in your city again
nonsense man i replied when our burglars walk into our houses and politely demand thousands of dollars worth of jewels and then dine and bang the piano an hour or two before leaving
how do you a mere murderer expect to come in contact with the detective that is looking for you avery knight sat lost in thought for a while at length he looked up brightly doc said he i have it
but the vehicle set out at a smart pace up broadway turning presently into fifth avenue and proceeding northward again
it was with a rapidly beating heart that i accompanied this wonderful and gifted assassin whose analytical genius and superb self confidence had prompted him to make me the tremendous promise of bringing me into the presence of a murderer and the new york detective in pursuit of him simultaneously
even yet i could not believe it possible are you sure that you are not being led into some trap i asked
and a couple of dozen cops my dear doctor said knight a little stiffly i would remind you that i am no gambler
the cab stopped before one of the handsomest residences on the avenue walking up and down in front of the house was a man with long red whiskers with a detective's badge showing on the lapel of his coat
now and then the man would remove his whiskers to wipe his face and then i would recognize at once the well known features of the great new york detective jolnes was keeping a sharp watch upon the doors and windows of the house
well doctor said knight unable to repress a note of triumph in his voice have you seen it is wonderful wonderful
i could not help exclaiming as our cab started on its return trip but how did you do it by what process of induction my dear doctor interrupted the great murderer the inductive theory is what the detectives use my process is more modern
i call it the saltatorial theory without bothering with the tedious mental phenomena necessary to the solution of a mystery from slight clues i jump at once to a conclusion i will explain to you the method i employed in this case
in the first place i argued that as the crime was committed in new york city in broad daylight in a public place and under peculiarly atrocious circumstances and that as the most skilful sleuth available was let loose upon the case
the perpetrator would never be discovered do you not think my postulation justified by precedent
now let me describe myself to you i am tall with a black beard and i hate publicity i have no money to speak of i do not like oatmeal and it is the one ambition of my life to die rich
i am of a cold and heartless disposition i do not care for my fellowmen and i never give a cent to beggars or charity now my dear doctor that is the true description of myself
you laughed at me because you said that detectives and murderers never met in new york i have demonstrated to you that the theory is possible but how did you do it i asked again
therefore he must necessarily set to work and trail a short man with a white beard who likes to be in the papers who is very wealthy is fond of oatmeal wants to die poor
and is of an extremely generous and philanthropic disposition when thus far is reached the mind hesitates no longer i conveyed you at once to the spot where shamrock jolnes was piping off andrew carnegie's residence
misfortune generally as i have above explained is considered more or less criminal but it admits of classification and a court is assigned to each of the main heads under which it can be supposed to fall
not very long after i had reached the capital i strolled into the personal bereavement court and was much both interested and pained by listening to the trial of a man who was accused of having just lost a wife to whom he had been tenderly attached and who had left him with three little children
who deposed to the fact that the couple had been devoted to one another and the prisoner repeatedly wept as incidents were put in evidence that reminded him of the irreparable nature of the loss he had sustained
the jury returned a verdict of guilty after very little deliberation but recommended the prisoner to mercy on the ground that he had but recently insured his wife's life for a considerable sum
and might be deemed lucky inasmuch as he had received the money without demur from the insurance company though he had only paid two premiums i have just said that the jury found the prisoner guilty when the judge passed sentence
was extenuated to a degree that roused the indignation of the court we shall have said the judge these crude and subversionary books from time to time until it is recognised as an axiom of morality
that luck is the only fit object of human veneration how far a man has any right to be more lucky and hence more venerable than his neighbours
nature attaches a severe penalty to such offences and human law must emphasise the decrees of nature but for the recommendation of the jury i should have given you six months hard labour i will however commute your sentence to one of three months
with the option of a fine of twenty five per cent of the money you have received from the insurance company the prisoner thanked the judge and said that as he had no one to look after his children if he was sent to prison he would embrace the option mercifully permitted him by his lordship
and pay the sum he had named he was then removed from the dock the next case was that of a youth barely arrived at man's estate who was charged with having been swindled out of large property during his minority by his guardian
who was also one of his nearest relations his father had been long dead and it was for this reason that his offence came on for trial in the personal bereavement court
and without independent professional advice if by such indiscretions they outrage the moral sense of their friends they must expect to suffer accordingly he then ordered the prisoner to apologise to his guardian
and i am deviating from chronological order in giving it here but i had perhaps better do so in order that i may exhaust this subject before proceeding to others moreover i should never come to an end were i to keep to a strictly narrative form
and detail the infinite absurdities with which i daily came in contact the prisoner was placed in the dock and the jury were sworn much as in europe almost all our own modes of procedure were reproduced
even to the requiring the prisoner to plead guilty or not guilty he pleaded not guilty and the case proceeded the evidence for the prosecution was very strong but i must do the court the justice to observe that the trial was absolutely impartial
and that he hoped thus to obtain it on more advantageous terms if this could have been shown to be the case
the view however was one which could not be reasonably sustained in spite of all the ingenuity and eloquence of one of the most celebrated advocates of the country the case was only too clear
and it was astonishing that he had not been tried and convicted long previously his coughing was incessant during the whole trial
the summing up of the judge was admirable he dwelt upon every point that could be construed in favour of the prisoner but as he proceeded it became clear that the evidence was too convincing to admit of doubt
and there was but one opinion in the court as to the impending verdict when the jury retired from the box they were absent for about ten minutes and on their return the foreman pronounced the prisoner guilty
and after an impartial trial before a jury of your countrymen
against the justice of the verdict i can say nothing the evidence against you was conclusive and it only remains for me to pass such a sentence upon you as shall satisfy the ends of the law that sentence must be a very severe one
it pains me much to see one who is yet so young and whose prospects in life were otherwise so excellent brought to this distressing condition by a constitution which i can only regard as radically vicious
but yours is no case for compassion this is not your first offence you have led a career of crime and have only profited by the leniency shown you upon past occasions
you were convicted of aggravated bronchitis last year and i find that though you are now only twenty three years old you have been imprisoned on no less than fourteen occasions for illnesses of a more or less hateful character
excuses such as these are the ordinary refuge of the criminal but they cannot for one moment be listened to by the ear of justice i am not here to enter upon curious metaphysical questions as to the origin of this or that
questions to which there would be no end were their introduction once tolerated and which would result in throwing the only guilt on the tissues of the primordial cell or on the elementary gases
namely are you wicked or not this has been decided in the affirmative neither can i hesitate for a single moment to say that it has been decided justly you are a bad and dangerous person
and stand branded in the eyes of your fellow countrymen with one of the most heinous known offences it is not my business to justify the law the law may in some cases have its inevitable hardships
neither can it be permitted that you should have the chance of corrupting unborn beings who might hereafter pester you the unborn must not be allowed to come near you and this not so much for their protection for they are our natural enemies as for our own
for since they will not be utterly gainsaid it must be seen to that they shall be quartered upon those who are least likely to corrupt them but independently of this consideration and independently of the physical guilt which attaches itself to a
crime so great as yours there is yet another reason why we should be unable to show you mercy even if we were inclined to do so i refer to the existence of a class of men who lie hidden among us and who are called physicians
were the severity of the law or the current feeling of the country to be relaxed never so slightly these abandoned persons
would become frequent visitors in every household their organisation and their intimate acquaintance with all family secrets would give them a power both social and political which nothing could resist the head of the household would become subordinate to the family doctor
who would interfere between man and wife between master and servant
and have all that we hold precious at their mercy a time of universal dephysicalisation would ensue medicine vendors of all kinds would abound in our streets and advertise in all our newspapers there is one remedy for this and one only
it is that which the laws of this country have long received and acted upon and consists in the sternest repression of all diseases whatsoever as soon as their existence is made manifest to the eye of the law
but i will enlarge no further upon things that are themselves so obvious you may say that it is not your fault the answer is ready enough at hand and it amounts to this that if you had been born of healthy and well to do parents and been well taken care of when you were a child
whether your being in a consumption is your fault or no it is a fault in you and it is my duty to see that against such faults as this the commonwealth shall be protected you may say that it is your misfortune to be criminal
i answer that it is your crime to be unfortunate lastly i should point out that even though the jury had acquitted you a supposition that i cannot seriously entertain
i should have felt it my duty to inflict a sentence hardly less severe than that which i must pass at present for the more you had been found guiltless of the crime imputed to you the more you would have been found guilty of one hardly less heinous i mean the crime of having been
maligned unjustly i do not hesitate therefore to sentence you to imprisonment with hard labour for the rest of your miserable existence during that period i would earnestly entreat you to repent of the wrongs you have done already
and to entirely reform the constitution of your whole body i entertain but little hope that you will pay attention to my advice you are already far too abandoned did it rest with myself i should add nothing in mitigation of the sentence which i have passed
until the pleasure of the court be further known when the sentence was concluded the prisoner acknowledged in a few scarcely audible words that he was justly punished and that he had had a fair trial
he was then removed to the prison from which he was never to return there was a second attempt at applause when the judge had finished speaking but as before it was at once repressed
there was no show of any violence against him if one may except a little hooting from the bystanders when he was being removed in the prisoners van
i could never think that their professed religion was more than skin deep but they had another which they carried with them into all their actions and although no one from the outside of things would suspect it to have any existence at all
now i suspected that their professed faith had no great hold upon them firstly because i often heard the priests complain of the prevailing indifference and they would hardly have done so without reason
secondly because of the show which was made for there was none of this about the worship of the goddess ydgrun in whom they really did believe thirdly because though the priests were constantly abusing ydgrun as being the great enemy of the gods
than these very persons who were often priests of ydgrun rather than of their own deities neither am i by any means sure that these were not the best of the priests
ydgrun certainly occupied a very anomalous position she was held to be both omnipresent and omnipotent but she was not an elevated conception and was sometimes both cruel and absurd
even her most devoted worshippers were a little ashamed of her and served her more with heart and in deed than with their tongues theirs was no lip service on the contrary
and who kept hundreds of thousands in those paths which make life tolerably happy who would never have been kept there otherwise and over whom a higher and more spiritual ideal would have had no power
i greatly doubt whether the erewhonians are yet prepared for any better religion
i would have set about converting them at all hazards had i seen the remotest prospect of success i could hardly contemplate the displacement of ydgrun as the great central object of their regard without admitting that it would be attended with frightful consequences
in fact were i a mere philosopher i should say that the gradual raising of the popular conception of ydgrun would be the greatest spiritual boon which could be conferred upon them and that nothing could effect this except example
they were gentlemen in the full sense of the word and what has one not said in saying this they seldom spoke of ydgrun or even alluded to her
in such cases they would override her with due self reliance and the goddess seldom punished them for they are brave and ydgrun is not
generally possessed of its rudiments was one great reason for the reverence paid to the hypothetical language itself being inured from youth to exercises and athletics of all sorts and living fearlessly under the eye of their peers
they keep their opinions however greatly to themselves inasmuch as most of their countrymen feel strongly about the gods and they hold it wrong to give pain unless for some greater good than seems likely to arise from their plain speaking
on the other hand surely those whose own minds are clear about any given matter even though it be only that there is little certainty should go so far towards imparting that clearness to others as to say openly what they think
i own therefore that on this one point i disapproved of the practice even of the highest ydgrunites and objected to it all the more because i knew that i should find my own future task more easy if the high ydgrunites
had already undermined the belief which is supposed to prevail at present in other respects they were more like the best class of englishmen than any whom i have seen in other countries
i should have liked to have persuaded half a dozen of them to come over to england and go upon the stage for they had most of them a keen sense of humour and a taste for acting they would be of great use to us
the example of a real gentleman is if i may say so without profanity the best of all gospels such a man upon the stage becomes a potent humanising influence an ideal which all may look upon for a shilling
i always liked and admired these men and although i could not help deeply regretting their certain ultimate perdition for they had no sense of a hereafter and their only religion was that of self respect and consideration for other people
i did try sometimes being impelled to do so by a strong sense of duty and by my deep regret that so much that was admirable should be doomed to ages if not eternity of torture
but the words stuck in my throat as soon as i began whether a professional missionary might have a better chance i know not such persons must doubtless know more about the science of conversion
for myself i could only be thankful that i was in the right path and was obliged to let others take their chance as yet if the plan fails by which i propose to convert them myself
taking then their religious opinions as a whole i must own that the erewhonians are superstitious on account of the views which they hold of their professed gods and their entirely anomalous and inexplicable worship of ydgrun
a worship at once the most powerful yet most devoid of formalism that i ever met with but in practice things worked better than might have been expected and the conflicting claims of ydgrun and the gods
were arranged by unwritten compromises for the most part in ydgrun's favour which in ninety nine cases out of a hundred were very well understood
whenever i so much as hinted at this i found that i was on dangerous ground they would never have it returning constantly to the assertion that ages ago the divinities were frequently seen
a good example and an enlightened regard to one's own welfare being able to keep men straight in my hurry forgetting things which i ought to have remembered i answered that if a person could not be kept straight by these things
neither would he be so by that of the gods whom he had not seen at one time indeed i came upon a small but growing sect who believed after a fashion in the immortality of the soul and the resurrection from the dead
they taught that those who had been born with feeble and diseased bodies and had passed their lives in ailing would be tortured eternally hereafter but that those who had been born strong and healthy and handsome would be rewarded for ever and ever
on the score that their doctrine was based upon no sort of foundation also that it was immoral in its tendency
it would lead people to cheapen this present life making it appear to be an affair of only secondary importance that it would thus distract men's minds from the perfecting of this world's economy and was an impatient cutting so to speak of the gordian knot of life's problems
whereby some people might gain present satisfaction to themselves at the cost of infinite damage to others that the doctrine tended to encourage the poor in their improvidence and in a debasing acquiescence in ills which they might well remedy
that the rewards were illusory and the result after all of luck whose empire should be bounded by the grave that its terrors were enervating and unjust
to all which i could only say that the thing had been actually known to happen and that there were several well authenticated instances of people having died and come to life again instances which no man in his senses could doubt
poet ascribes to him and your poet probably knew this perfectly well if a man cuts his throat he is at bay and thinks of nothing but escape no matter whither provided he can shuffle off his present no
to quote your poet that makes calamity of so long a life is the consideration that though calamity may live long the sufferer may live longer still
a mile and a half it may be two miles southeast of bethlehem there is a plain separated from the town by an intervening swell of the mountain besides being well sheltered from the north winds
the vale was covered with a growth of sycamore dwarf oak and pine trees while in the glens and ravines adjoining there were thickets of olive and mulberry all at this season of the year invaluable for the support of sheep goats and cattle of which the wandering flocks consisted
at the side farthest from the town close under a bluff there was an extensive marah or sheepcot ages old in some long forgotten foray the building had been unroofed and almost demolished the enclosure attached to it remained intact however
and that was of more importance to the shepherds who drove their charges thither than the house itself the stone wall around the lot was high as a man's head yet not so high but that sometimes a panther or a lion hungering from the wilderness leaped boldly in
on the inner side of the wall and as an additional security against the constant danger a hedge of the rhamnus had been planted
seeking fresh walks for their flocks led them up to this plain and from early morning the groves had been made ring with calls and the blows of axes the bleating of sheep and goats the tinkling of bells the lowing of cattle and the barking of dogs
when the sun went down they led the way to the marah and by nightfall had everything safe in the field then they kindled a fire down by the gate partook of their humble supper and sat down to rest and talk leaving one on watch
there were six of these men omitting the watchman and afterwhile they assembled in a group near the fire some sitting some lying prone
as they went bareheaded habitually their hair stood out in thick coarse sunburnt shocks their beard covered their throats and fell in mats down the breast mantles of the skin of kids and lambs with the fleece on wrapped them from neck to knee
leaving the arms exposed broad belts girthed the rude garments to their waists their sandals were of the coarsest quality from their right shoulders hung scrips containing food and selected stones for slings with which they were armed
on the ground near each one lay his crook a symbol of his calling and a weapon of offence such were the shepherds of judea in appearance rough and savage as the gaunt dogs sitting with them around the blaze in fact simple minded tender hearted
at birth it became his charge his to keep all its days to help over the floods to carry down the hollows to name and train it was to be his companion his object of thought and interest the subject of his will
it was to enliven and share his wanderings in its defense he might be called on to face the lion or robber to die the great events such as blotted out nations and changed the mastery of the world
as was her habit in those days rome did not wait for people slow to inquire about her she came to them over the hills along which he was leading his lagging herd or in the fastnesses in which he was hiding them
not unfrequently the shepherd was startled by the blare of trumpets and peering out beheld a cohort sometimes a legion in march and when the glittering crests were gone and the excitement incident to the intrusion over he bent himself to evolve the meaning of the eagles and gilded globes of the soldiery and the charm of a life so the opposite of his own yet these men rude and simple as they were had a knowledge and a wisdom of their own
when the sheliach read the text none listened to the interpreter with more absolute faith and none took away with them more of the elder's sermon or gave it more thought afterwards
in a verse of the shema they found all the learning and all the law of their simple lives that their lord was one god and that they must love him with all their souls and they loved him and such was their wisdom surpassing that of kings
while they talked and before the first watch was over one by one the shepherds went to sleep each lying where he had sat the night like most nights of the winter season in the hill country was clear crisp and sparkling with stars
there was no wind the atmosphere seemed never so pure and the stillness was more than silence it was a holy hush a warning that heaven was stooping low to whisper some good thing to the listening earth
by the gate hugging his mantle close the watchman walked at times he stopped attracted by a stir among the sleeping herds or by a jackal's cry off on the mountain side the midnight was slow coming to him but at last it came
his task was done now for the dreamless sleep with which labor blesses its wearied children he moved towards the fire but paused a light was breaking around him soft and white like the moon's he waited breathlessly
the light deepened things before invisible came to view he saw the whole field and all it sheltered a chill sharper than that of the frosty air a chill of fear smote him
he looked up the stars were gone the light was dropping as from a window in the sky as he looked it became a splendor then in terror he cried awake awake up sprang the dogs and howling ran away
the herds rushed together bewildered the men clambered to their feet weapons in hand what is it they asked in one voice see cried the watchman the sky is on fire
suddenly the light became intolerably bright and they covered their eyes and dropped upon their knees then as their souls shrank with fear they fell upon their faces blind and fainting and would have died had not a voice said to them fear not
and they listened fear not for behold i bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people the voice in sweetness and soothing more than human and low and clear penetrated all their being and filled them with assurance
they rose upon their knees and looking worshipfully beheld in the centre of a great glory the appearance of a man clad in a robe intensely white
above its shoulders towered the tops of wings shining and folded a star over its forehead glowed with steady lustre brilliant as hesperus its hands were stretched towards them in blessing its face was serene and divinely beautiful
directly the angel continued for unto you is born this day in the city of david a savior which is christ the lord again there was a rest while the words sank into their minds
ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger the herald spoke not again his good tidings were told yet he stayed awhile suddenly the light of which he seemed the centre
turned roseate and began to tremble then up far as the men could see there was flashing of white wings and coming and going of radiant forms and voices as of a multitude chanting in unison
glory to god in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men not once the praise but many times
then the herald raised his eyes as seeking approval of one far off his wings stirred and spread slowly and majestically on their upper side white as snow
when they were expanded many cubits beyond his stature he arose lightly and without effort floated out of view taking the light up with him long after he was gone down from the sky fell the refrain in measure mellowed by distance
glory to god in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men when the shepherds came fully to their senses they stared at each other stupidly until one of them said it was gabriel the lord's messenger unto men none answered
christ the lord is born said he not so then another recovered his voice and replied that is what he said and did he not also say in the city of david which is our bethlehem yonder and that we should find him a babe in swaddling clothes
and lying in a manger the first speaker gazed into the fire thoughtfully but at length said like one possessed of a sudden resolve there is but one place in bethlehem where there are mangers but one and that is in the cave near the old khan
brethren let us go see this thing which has come to pass the priests and doctors have been a long time looking for the christ now he is born and the lord has given us a sign by which to know him let us go up and worship him but the flocks
the lord will take care of them let us make haste then they all arose and left the marah around the mountain and through the town they passed and came to the gate of the khan where there was a man on watch what would you have he asked
we have seen and heard great things to night they replied well we too have seen great things but heard nothing what did you hear let us go down to the cave in the enclosure that we may be sure then we will tell you all
come with us and see for yourself it is a fool's errand no the christ is born the christ how do you know let us go and see first the man laughed scornfully the christ indeed
how are you to know him he was born this night and is now lying in a manger so we were told and there is but one place in bethlehem with mangers the cave yes come with us
i give you peace the watchman said to joseph and the beth dagonite here are people looking for a child born this night whom they are to know by finding him in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger
the child is here they were led to one of the mangers and there the child was the lantern was brought and the shepherds stood by mute the little one made no sign it was as others just born where is the mother asked the watchman
one of the women took the baby and went to mary lying near and put it in her arms then the bystanders collected about the two it is the christ said a shepherd at last
the christ they all repeated falling upon their knees in worship one of them repeated several times over it is the lord and his glory is above the earth and heaven and the simple men never doubting kissed the hem of the mother's robe
and with joyful faces departed in the khan to all the people aroused and pressing about them they told their story and through the town and all the way back to the marah they chanted the refrain of the angels
after having transferred his captives to the charge of lord mar wallace went alone to the chamber of montgomery to see whether the state of his wounds would allow him to march on the morrow while he was yet there an invitation arrived from the countess of mar
requesting his presence at an entertainment which by her husband's consent she meant to give that night at snawdoun to the southron lords before their departure for england i fear you dare not expend your strength on this party inquired wallace turning to montgomery
certainly not returned he but i shall see you amidst your noble friends at some future period when the peace your arms must win is established between the two nations i shall then revisit scotland and openly declare my friendship for sir william wallace
as these are your sentiments replied wallace i shall hope that you will unite your influence with that of the brave earl of gloucester to persuade your king to stop this bloodshed for it is no vain boast to declare that he may bury scotland beneath her slaughtered sons
but they never will again consent to acknowledge any right in an usurper sanguinary have been the instruments of my sovereign's rule in scotland replied montgomery but such cruelty is foreign to his gallant heart and without offending that high souled patriotism
which would make me revere its possessor were he the lowliest man in your legions allow me noblest of scots to plead one word in vindication of him to whom my allegiance is pledged had he come hither conducted by war alone what would edward have been worse than any other conqueror
i believe i never should have seen you in arms against scotland but i will remove them by a simple answer all the princes whom you speak of excepting bruce of annandale did assent to the newly offered claim of edward on scotland but who amongst them
had any probable chance for the throne but bruce or baliol such ready acquiescence was meant to create them one bruce conscious of his inherent rights rejected the iniquitous demand of edward baliol accorded with it and was made king
swore to the falsehood others remained gloomily silent and the bravest of them retired to the highlands where they dwell amongst their mountains till the cries of scotland called them again to fight her battles
thus did edward establish himself as the liege lord of this kingdom and whether the oppresion which followed were his or his agents immediate acts it matters not for he made them his own by his after conduct
when remonstrances were sent to london he neither punished nor reprimanded the delinquents but marched an armed force into our country to compel us to be trampled on it was not an alexander nor a charlemagne coming in his strength to subdue ancient enemies or to aggrandize his name
by vanquishing nations far remote with whom he could have no affinity terrible as such ambition was it is innocence to what edward has done he came in the first instance to scotland as a friend the nation committed its dearest interests to his virtue
they put their hands into his and he bound them in shackles was this honor was this the right of conquest the cheek of alexander would have blushed deep as his tyrian robe and the face of charlemagne turned pale as the lilies
at the bare suspicion of being capable of such a deed no lord montgomery it is not our conqueror we are opposing it is a traitor who under the mask of friendship has attempted to usurp our rights destroy our liberties and make a desert of our once happy country
this is the true statement of the case and though i wish not to make a subject outrage his sovereign yet truth demands of you to say to edward that to withdraw his pretensions from this exhausted country is the restitution we may justly claim is all that we wish
scotland will discharge itself upon the valleys of england and there compel them to share the fate in which we may be doomed to perish i will think of this discourse returned montgomery when i am far distant and rely on it noble wallace that i will assert the privilege of my birth
and counsel my king as becomes an honest man highly would he estimate such counsel cried wallace had he virtue to feel that he who will be just to his sovereign's enemies must be of an honor that will bind him with double fidelity to his king
such proof give your sovereign and if he have one spark of that greatness of mind which you say he possesses though he may not adopt your advice he must respect the adviser
as wallace pressed the hand of his new friend to leave him to repose a messenger entered from lord mar to request the regent's presence in his closet he found him with lord de warenne the latter presented him with another dispatch from the prince of wales
it was to say that news had reached him of wallace's design to attack the castles garrisoned by england on the eastern coast should this information prove true he the prince declared that as a punishment for such increasing audacity
he would put lord douglas into closer confinement and while the southron fleets would inevitably baffle wallace's attempts the moment the exchange of prisoners was completed on the borders an army from england should enter scotland and ravage it with fire and sword
but thomas earl of lancaster the king's nephew is come from abroad with a numerous army he is to conduct the scottish prisoners to the borders and then to fall upon scotland with all his strength
i shall accompany you myself to the scottish borders and there made my reply de warenne who did indeed look for this answer replied i anticipated that such would be your determination and i have to regret that the wild counsels which surround my prince precipitate him into conduct
which must draw much blood on both sides before his royal father's presence can regain what he has lost ah my lord replied wallace is it to be nothing but war have you now a stronghold of any force in all the highlands is not the greater part of the lowlands free
and before this day month not a rood of land in scotland is likely to hold a southron soldier
why then this unreceding determination to invade us not a blade of grass would i disturb on the other side of the cheviot if we might have peace let edward yield to that and though he has pierced us with many wounds we will yet forgive him de warenne shook his head
i know my king too well to expect pacific measures he may die with the sword in his hand but he will never grant an hour's repose to this country till it submits to his scepter then replied wallace the sword must be the portion of him and his
ruthless tyrant if the blood of abel called for vengeance on his murderer what must be the vials of wrath which are reserved for thee a flush overspread the face of de warenne at this apostrophe and forcing a smile
i revere your principle sir william wallace but it is too sublime to be mine nay nor would it be politic for one who holds his possessions in england by the right of conquest to question the virtue of the deed
by the sword my ancestors gained their estates and with the sword i have no objection to extend my territories
though his amiable nature made him gracious in the midst of hostility and his good dispositions would not allow him to act disgracefull in any concern yet duty to god seemed a poet's flight to him
i have frequently heard it asserted by white people and can truly say from my own experience
with their families is when their children are young
few mothers perhaps have had less trouble with their children during their minority than myself in general my children were friendly to each other and it was very seldom that i knew them to have the least difference or quarrel
for my son thomas from some cause unknown to me from the time he was a small lad always called his brother john a witch which was the cause as they grew towards manhood of frequent and severe quarrels between them
after thomas and john arrived to manhood in addition to the former charge john got two wives
although polygamy was tolerated in our tribe thomas considered it a violation of good and wholesome rules in society
that ought to be the happy result of matrimony and chastity consequently he frequently reprimanded john by telling him that his conduct was beneath the dignity and inconsistent with the principles of good indians
indecent and unbecoming a gentleman and as he never could reconcile himself to it he was frequently almost constantly when they were together talking to him on the same subject
john always resented such reprimand and reproof with a great degree of passion though they never quarrelled unless thomas was intoxicated in his fits of drunkenness thomas seemed to lose all his natural reason
and to conduct like a wild or crazy man without regard to relatives decency or propriety at such times he often threatened to take my life for having raised a witch as he called john
for a number of years their difficulties and consequent unhappiness continued and rather increased continually exciting in my breast the most fearful apprehensions and greatest anxiety for their safety
and to be friendly told them the consequences of their continuing to cherish so much malignity and malice that it would end in their destruction the disgrace of their families and bring me down to the grave
no one can conceive of the constant trouble that i daily endured on their account on the account of my two oldest sons whom i loved equally and with all the feelings and affection of a tender mother stimulated by an anxious concern for their fate
parents mothers especially will love their children though ever so unkind and disobedient their eyes of compassion of real sentimental affection will be involuntarily extended after them in their greatest excesses of iniquity
i know that such exercises are frequently unavailing but notwithstanding their ultimate failure it still remains true and ever will that the love of a parent for a disobedient child
so long as a hope of its reformation is capable of stimulating a disappointed breast my advice and expostulations with my sons were abortive and year after year their disaffection for each other increased
at length thomas came to my house on the first day of july eighteen eleven in my absence somewhat intoxicated where he found john with whom he immediately commenced a quarrel on their old subjects of difference
john's anger became desperate he caught thomas by the hair of his head dragged him out at the door and there killed him by a blow which he gave him on the head with his tomahawk i returned soon after and found my son lifeless at the door
on the spot where he was killed no one can judge of my feelings on seeing this mournful spectacle and what greatly added to my distress was the fact that he had fallen by the murderous hand of his brother i felt my situation unsupportable
having passed through various scenes of trouble of the most cruel and trying kind i had hoped to spend my few remaining days in quietude and to die in peace surrounded by my family this fatal event however seemed to be a stream of woe
poured into my cup of afflictions filling it even to overflowing and blasting all my prospects as soon as i had recovered a little from the shock which i felt at the sight of my departed son
and some of my neighbors had come in to assist in taking care of the corpse i hired shanks an indian to go to buffalo
to our friends at that place and request the chiefs to hold a council and dispose of john as they should think proper shanks set out on his errand immediately and john fearing that he should be apprehended and punished for the crime he had committed
the chiefs soon assembled in council on the trial of john and after having seriously examined the matter according to their laws justified his conduct and acquitted him
they considered thomas to have been the first transgressor and that for the abuses which he had offered he had merited from john the treatment that he had received john on learning the decision of the council returned to his family
thomas except when intoxicated which was not frequent was a kind and tender child willing to assist me in my labor
his natural abilities were said to be of a superior cast and he soared above the trifling subjects of revenge
he was manly in his deportment courageous and active and commanded respect though he appeared well pleased with peace
and when he returned brought one white man a prisoner whom he had taken with his own hands
it so happened that as he was looking out for his enemies he discovered two men boiling sap in the woods he watched them unperceived till dark when he advanced with a noiseless step to where they were standing
caught one of them before they were apprized of danger and conducted him to the camp he was well treated while a prisoner and redeemed at the close of the war
thomas was anxious to go with me but as i have before observed the chiefs would not suffer him to leave them on the account of his courage and skill in war expecting that they should need his assistance he was a great counsellor and a chief when quite young
and in the last capacity went two or three times to philadelphia to assist in making treaties with the people of the states thomas had four wives by whom he had eight children jacob jemison his second son by his last wife
who is at this time twenty seven or twenty eight years of age went to dartmouth college in the spring of eighteen sixteen for the purpose of receiving a good education
where it was said that he was an industrious scholar and made great proficiency in the study of the different branches to which he attended having spent two years at that institution he returned in the winter of eighteen eighteen
and is now at buffalo where i have understood that he contemplates commencing the study of medicine as a profession